'I Am A Fugitive From The Chain Gang' & 'The Life Of Emile Zola'

Paul Muni is quite the Hollywood hunk.

He made a total of 25 films and was nominated for Best Actor in five of them, including "I Am A Fugitive ..." and "Emile Zola." Ironically, he won portraying Louis Pasteur in between the two films. Muni was also one of six to receive a nomination in their first film, but the only one of the six to eventually win.

Muni, other than being ruggedly good looking, was quite the eccentric. Later in his life, his wife, Bella, took control of his career often making directors reshoot scenes that did not meet to her approval.

He also apparently went into rages if someone wore red, but would relax on set playing violin.

'A Hard Day's Night' & 'A Hard Day's Night'

Once upon a time, I was a gigantic Beatles fan. The oddity is that I was born in 1980, five months before John Lennon was murdered in New York City and 16 years before the Beatles flew to the United States after "I Want To Hold Your Hand" went No. 1.

It was only semi-unhealthy. Maybe I should've been fascinated and fanatical about a band that was releasing albums in the mid-1990s. However, I felt no real shame back then and not much has changed now that I'm a bit less concerned with being cool.

Back then, I wanted to be John Lennon. I wanted my hair like his, clothes like his, guitars like his, to talk like him, sing like him and write songs like him.

It wasn't just the music; I was like a 14-year-old in 1965. I was as obsessed with the personality and celebrity as I was the music. And I really loved the music.

That's why "A Hard Day's Night" the film was as important to me as "A Hard Day's Night" the album.

Funny thing, the songs I liked back then on this album aren't the songs I like now. In fact, it's the exact opposite. The songs I loved back then I skip now. Mostly because they're not overly sophisticated whereas the vocal harmonies on "If I Fell" are so completely impossible that I could never, ever imagine coming up with and then recording them without going crazy. "I Should Have Known Better" and "You Can't Do That" are two the Beatles' finest.

What's interesting listening to their early albums is that "Please, Please Me" and "With The Beatles" are faux R&B records, "A Hard Day's Night" is their first true rock record. "Can't Buy Me Love" is part Elvis Presley and part Little Richard. "Things We Said Today" is Roy Orbison. "I'll Cry Instead" is Carl Perkins.

For the first time, the Beatles were writing and making their own rock songs.

'Star Wars' & 'The Empire Strikes Back'

The Star Wars franchise has made, I'd assume, billions of dollars over the past 30 years off of merchandising, box office, DVD sales, re-releasing the original three films and then creating the three prequel episodes.

There are probably a billion reasons for this success.

I'd contend the major reason is the story.

People (myself included, obviously) watched thousands of hours of film and TV throughout their whole lives. For any number of reasons, they love film and TV for the action, romance, special effects, acting, writing, comedy, our obsession with celebrity, because we're bored or because watching movies is just fun.

Over the past 110 years, there's been millions of films released. The reason Star Wars is so phenomenally more popular than the rest is the story.

Say what you will about the writing, acting, editing and direction of George Lucas, but he is one hell of a storyteller and that, above all, makes Star Wars utterly and undeniably compelling.

The six films capture so much we love about life: good, evil, rebellion, the thrill of victory, agony of defeat, friendships, love, family, father/son, brother/sister, heroism, ego, underdogs, favorites.

And most of all, mythology and history. When Lucas released Star Wars in 1977, he already knew (or so we're told) the story 30 years in the past of these characters. When Luke Skywalker is asking about his father and Obi-Wan Kenobi is referencing the Clone Wars, that all meant something. It wasn't just filler to provide the illusion of a past, but it was an actual past not put onto the big screen until the 1990s.

It's a good story. Bratty teenager living among the flatlands of farming country on a God-forsaken planet yearns to leave in order to fight in the rebellion. He by some twisted and crazy destiny meets up with the father-figure he never had (Kenobi), two robots that'd change his life, his sister and a hilarious pilot/swashbuckler/smuggler with borderline ethics, who'd become like a brother.

The reason he knows little about his father is because he's part-robot, part-human known as Darth Vader, the great evil lord of space, who is dead set on conquering any and all free galaxies for this Emperor fellow. Upon learning his father is everything he's not and everything he hates, our hero fully adopts this religion/genetic condition known as the Force because it's A) his destiny and B) he's more like his father than he realizes.

We explore a thousand different planets, meet millions of odd and unusual characters amid a seemingly never-ending barrage of back-and-forth banter and biting remarks between a set of characters with their backs continually against the wall with death always at their door. Throw in cyrogenics, Yoda, walking carpets, Bobba Fett, the Millenium Falcon, Billy Dee, Leia's bikini, Porkins and swamp rats, and you've got a billion things that 99 percent of all filmdom don't have.

In the end, it's about redemption. And that's only the final three installments. In the first three, we battle awful acting and writing to learn how all that aforementioned stuff happened.

'Splendor in the Grass'

I would assume there's millions of dollars and millions of man hours discussing, planning and executing how a record, film or book is perceived by the public at large.

From advertising to reviews and trailers, those of us digesting all this shit are inundated with information and pretty pictures, which help form our opinions out art, good or bad.

I've assumed over the last 30 years that Splendor in the Grass was a sappy, boring love story, with the only redeeming quality being looking at the gorgeous Natalie Wood for two hours.

Alas, I was proven wrong. If the film was marketed to me (30 years after it was released ... so I'm sure the studio does not care about my opinion) as an antiestablishment commentary on provincial values, small-town ethos and the pre-Depression landscape of innocence, I would've watched it 10 years ago.

Which brings up the point of how much does the studio or producers get for me putting this on my Netflix and watching it? Surely they get something. Somebody gets that money. I would assume it's not particularly worth their time and money to put any effort in marketing movies to audiences whose parents were barely born when the movie came out.

I sincerely believe a lot of today's teenagers would dig Splendor in the Grass if they gave it a chance. Chances are, they won't.

'Live At Leeds'

I think the live album is an interesting concept especially when the live album is considered, arguably, one of a band's or performer's best albums. This is probably different in the early days of recording as some jazz and R&B artists may have only had live albums to go on or not many studio albums to even it out.

But The Who are a different animal. I don't particularly like them, but many consider them a great band responsible for some of the greatest rock and roll songs and albums in the history of the genre.
Yet, one of their best is an unevenly recorded live album with the bare minimum of hits released on the heels of their magnum opus, Tommy.

Live albums, generally, are for fans of the band. If you want the general gist of Paul McCartney, buy his greatest hits. If you're a fan, get Tripping the Live Fantastic. Marginal fans have little use for live albums.

Why do live albums have appeal? I think you get a sense of how they sound outside of the studio without the crutches of producers, multiple takes and multi-tracking. It's raw.

The Who are an interesting band to see this side of. Keith Moon is always excellent and brings it no matter what. But I find that doing these songs live is tougher for Pete Townshend who is responsible for all of the melodic contents of the band as there's no other guitarists, keyboards or anything outside of a bass guitar and drums.

His guitars on Live at Leeds are uneven and hurried. He's trying to do everything to paste together these riffs he constructed in the studio. Seems forced. That's probably why "Substitute" is the best track off the album.

Thumbs down for butchering "Summertime Blues."

'Woodstock'

I've never, ever been a fan of the general ethos, attitude and art of the hippie era that exploded on the United States in the late 1960s.

I personally consider this odd. I do love art. I generally like the 1960s. And I love music from the 1960s.

But as an avid fan of the greatest band in the history of music, The Beatles, I know as well as anyone that the Fab Four were not particularly involved in the hippie scene despite the fact that they were vegan, drug users, highly spiritual, long-haired tastemakers in the late-1960s, who held bed-ins for peace and wrote "All You Need Is Love."

However, they were so divorced from the whole scene. When Woodstock was organized, they were offered a spot but turned it down.

In fact, a lot of bands turned it down. In fact, other than Sly and the Family Stone, I have zero interest in the bands that played Woodstock.

However, I do not think it's a total coincidence that the Beatles, Stones, Bob Dylan, most R&B groups of the era and other big band of the day didn't play.

I'd like to think those bands/artists felt the same way I do about the hippie scene: That it's a bunch of spoiled, white, suburban college kids, who would've embraced fascism if it was antiestablishmentarian and involved ingesting copious amounts of drugs.

The hippie scene was bankrupt and I can't enjoy a documentary celebrating the vacancy of these people.

'Trainspotting'

One of my absolute favorite films. I'm going back and watching some old favorites as I'm taking a break on never-seen films and focusing on TV and watching the stupid DVDs I already own.

There are so many great performances and scenes. Ewan McGregor is phenomenal and probably should not have been in another film in his life to preserve his greatness as Mark Renton.

Robert Carlyle is simply breathtakingly tense and awe inspiring. It's hard to see him in other films or TV shows and not see him break a pint glass and stab a guy in the face.

Sick Boy and Renton at the park is great. The scene when Rent runs off with the cash is super cool. Spud singing the dirge after Tommy's funeral is beautiful.

Plus, it ain't bad at all seeing super sexy Kelly Macdonald naked.