'Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music'

Ray Charles and Paul Newman are a pair of guys that when they passed away, I had an influx of people tell me how big a genius each guy was in their own medium.

Before their deaths? Crickets. Nobody was touting Ray Charles before he died. The guy's heart stops beating and suddenly he's everyone's favorite all-time musician.

Charles is just OK. He had his moments. "Modern Sounds," however, isn't one of them. First, he bastardizes the Everly Brothers' "Bye Bye Love," ends it by butchering Hank Williams' "Hey Good Lookin'" and then records a watered-down, commercial pop album in between.

Charles biggest accomplishment toward selling records was dying. It came right when the film with Jamie Foxx was about to be released and his "Genius Loves Company" album was yet to be released, but would be soon. Few have benefited as much with death as Charles and that list famously included Tupac Shukar, who's tripled his discography after getting shot to death.

What many people didn't know, chose to forget or ignore is that Charles was kind of an asshole. A womanizer who had 12 children with 10 different women. Sounds like a swell guy. If he was an athlete, he'd be demonized.

'Repeater'

In the early 1990s, the landscape of rock music changed forever.

No, Nirvana didn't jam a wooden stake into the heart of hair metal. It was Fugazi. Two years before Nirvana and Co. (and just one year after Skid Row was released) , Ian MacKaye's Fugazi got together and recorded an album to be released in early 1990 letting everyone know that they were living a soulless and bankrupt existence.

Sebastian Bach was too rich to care and Kurt Cobain cared entirely too much, starting shooting up heroin and blew his face off.

'Appetite for Destruction'

Probably the best debut album in history. The Beatles or Rolling Stones didn't have first albums like this. Of course, Guns n' Roses didn't have the middle and end quite like The Beatles or Stones. Details.

I didn't need to listen to this album to talk about it. I've listened to it, perhaps, 200 times. Listened to it today, 23 years after it was released, and despite its association with 1980s hair metal, it's sounds fresh. Like it could've been released last week. It sounds that good.

What I find most interesting while listening to it as an adult is that it's overall message and voice is entirely different from most rock albums.

Instead of creating some mold for how people should feel when they're partying, falling in love, breaking up, getting drunk or feeling angry, Axl Rose and Co. tear down the veil and almost literally tell you how they feel. You and I are insignificant to the Guns. It's all about them.

Most of the songs, if not all, are in first person. Axl Rose didn't create a model or rock personality to show you what loves feels like. He just tells you.

Guns n' Roses wanted to tell you what it was like being Guns n' Roses. And it's so easy.

'Terms of Endearment'

I read somewhere on the DVD case that this film was a "romantic comedy" and since Debra Winger annoys the pants off of me and Jack Nicholson wasn't going to chase her around an abandoned hotel with an ax, I was resolute in assuming I'd be bored to tears.

Instead, Jeff Daniels steals the show and Winger ends up dying. Now, I want to know what the person thinks about life who said this was a romantic comedy. Far from it. It's depressing as hell. It makes everything seem so small including Nicholson and Shirley MacLaine's romance. It's trivial when you're leaving three kids behind because of cancer.

I found the story development very much lacking. Like, I didn't fully understand when I was supposed to accept and eventually take to MacLaine's character being a total bitch. At some point, I was supposed to learn this is acceptable behavior from your mother. It has to be a mother-daughter thing.

Two, Jack Nicholson looked about as into this movie as Mr. Ed was into getting jabbed in the ass with a cattle prod for an half hour 30 times a season.

The most odd plot twist (that has nothing to do with nothing) is the John Lithgow character. He's a banker, who bails out Winger's character with some grocery money. He can't get laid, she's underappreciated, so they pool their disappointments in life into an affair, which I'm sure was as boring as affairs come. Then, Winger's character packs everything up to move to Nebraska, the affair ends and we see hide nor hair of Lithgow for the rest of the film.

Finally, I never understood the dynamic between Winger's character and that of her film husband, Jeff Daniels. He's a twerp, but an educated twerp, who continually cheats on his wife and is not too concerned with getting caught or talking up a co-ed with his infant strapped to his chest.

Clearly, he's a piece of shit. Even he admits to it. So why is Winger going all around the country following the guy when he doesn't care too much about marriage or being a father, so much that he merely lays down with little fight when the kids go to granny MacLaine.

And who's interested in a swimming pool that you've actually already swam in when you're at your mother's wake?

'Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme'

I think this is a straight-up war protest record.

I realize it has overt protest elements like "Canticle" and "7 O'Clock News/Silent Night."

But I think it's truly a protest record for all the other songs. Mostly because they're all about longer, something you didn't really find in a lot of folk rock.

Note: There's a difference between songs about love lost and songs about longing. Love lost refers to having something that's lost that, in theory, can be found again. Longing is the stomach-turning desire that can not be sated with anything other than the desired object.

"Scarborough Fair" is about longing. "Homeward Bound" is longing. "For Emily ..." is longing. "Puzzle" is longing.

No, they're not all about girls. Or necessarily about a girl, but maybe the idea of girls. In Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket, the drill sergeant in boot camp refers to "Mary Jane Rottencrotch" as a catch-all name for the girl that the soldiers were "finger banging" at home. It's this "Mary Jane" character that I imagine going through a soldier's brain as they're trying to sleep in the mud and rain in a Vietnam jungle.

Simon and Garfunkel are selling Mary Jane Rottencrotch and the idea that you may be dodging napalm and bullets now, but there's still a chance that you'll be held again, that you'll sleep in your childhood bedroom again and that you'll see a pretty girl again, imagine her naked and forget about her 10 minutes later.

They weren't selling protest or marches, just longing.

'That's The Way Of The World'

I think the musical genre that is detetriorated the most over the past 30 years is R&B. Just think back to the 1950s through Motown and the 1960s. Consider funk and R&B groups like Earth, Wind and Fire, Marvin Gaye and Al Green of the 1970s.

I think the decline has several components.

For one, Gaye being shot by his old man, Prince and Michael Jackson getting creepy, and Whitney Houston getting hooked to crack. Two huge factors. Gaye probably keeps writing and performing really good music through the 1980s replacing the utterly uninspiring Luther Vandross as panty-dropper No. 1.

Houston's decline doomed the genre largely as she was the queen bee and primed for another decade of dominance as shown in nailing the "Star-Spangled Banner" at the Super Bowl in the 1990s. Bobby Brown and drugs happened and now she's a ghost.

There was a brief eclipse of quality R&B with Boys II Men and TLC in the mid-1990s, but even after releasing two of the biggest albums of the decade, even they had a shelf life.

There will never be R&B groups quite like EW&F again because R&B artists are very, very disposable. There are good singers everywhere and many of them are good looking. Stick them in a studio, drop some silly beat and synth behind them, autocorrect the vocals and you'll sell a million albums to people who don't know any better, or, worse, don't care.

EW&F wrote and played their songs. Their beauty was in their instrumentation and Phillip Bailey came in with those silky smooth vocals, it was over real instrumentation that actually meant something. In the end, you can replicate John Legend, but never EW&F.

'In a Silent Way'

Miles Davis' music melts. It's sound comes out of the speakers and it melts into what you're doing at the moment and that's it. It becomes part of the city soundscape, the hum of the cars on the road, the hum of the air conditioner, the crackle of the television set or just the sound of the Earth moving.

All of this is happening and Davis is happening with it. It's perfect music. It's Davis -- a trumpeter -- writing songs where the rhythym section and guitar go on for eight minutes before he even breaths and blows a note into his instrument.

Once the notes began to waft through the air, it's all over. It's part of life. Might as well be the birds singing or the crickets chirping. It's like the perfect score to a movie that you come out saying, "I enjoyed the music more than I enjoyed the experience."

With Davis, you enjoy listening more than you enjoy the experience of living, working and sleeping. This was released a decade after his more important works, but Davis showed that he's more relevent as days pass.

'Who Killed ... The Zutons?'

I own this album. I've listened to it twice before I broke it out this last week. Since, I've listened to it about six times.

I don't quite remember getting this album. I would doubt it's a gift. Chances are, I read a good review of the album, considered it and probably purchased it at a large box store (probably Target as I was living across the street from one in 2004) for an insanely low price so I took a big chance at the high school dance.

I remember giving it the initial listen and was completely put off by the first song (one I still think is their weakest) that I never really gave the album much of a shot.

Listening to it now, it's good. I wouldn't know how to describe. At times it's new wavey. The first song still reminds me of some 1960s surf music. Otherwise, it's a pretty straight forward album and almost country-ish with the steel guitar added late on the album. I can hear their clear 1980s influence, but there's something else in there. Maybe some 1960s British music.

'Something/Anything?'

I am convinced that Todd Rundgren is probably one of the top five cockiest musical artists that has ever lived.

I have no actual proof of this. But, as they say, the proof is in the pudding.

Take his 1972 opus "Something/Anything?" for example. One of my favorite all-time albums.

It's a double album. If you've think you've written enough songs to fill four whole vinyl LPs, then you're cocky. Even the Beatles couldn't work that out (the White album has some turds).

Two, he plays every instrument, does every vocal on three-fourths of the record. He produces everything. One one level, the guy's very talented and motivated to get his vision out to the public. Or he just doesn't trust anyone else to record the songs write so he does it himself.

On either disc 1 or 2, he has the "little game" where he makes random studio noise in some kind of bullshit guessing game that only he really cares about, although he knows the noises by heart because he sits in his own studio all day and produces double albums of rock and pop songs. He assumes we, the listeners, do not know anything about noise, recording or the like so he plays for us random noises for no apparent other than to be fucking cute.

He took over for Ric Ocasek with The New Cars. That takes nerve.

On the inside sleeve of the "Something/Anything?" LP, there's a photo of Rundgren inside a hotel room or his apparent, standing on a table, guitar strapped around him, instruments and record equipment strewn about and he's got his arms outstretched in a Christ pose, peace signs hanging out on both sides of him. A clear asshole photo.

But I still love him because he's a white boy with a black artist's soul.

'The Red Shoes'

One of the best films I've seen in a long time. Or in a while and definitely one of the top 10 or so I've seen of the 350 films I've seen during this little excursion.

For one, three cheers for Technicolor. However they decided to use color in film at the made an awesome choice in this regard because the color makes the film -- from the dance setting, Moira Shearer's vivacious red hair and, of course, the shoes. It's well-everythinged. Directed. Acted. Written.

I'm not a patron of the ballet, but I very well could be. I have a hell of a lot of respect for dancers, choreographers and directors because it takes a lot of vision and work to make that work right. Especially the dancing. The gruelling practices and years of work to get to a level of performance a vast majority of people can not understand. I loved all the dance scenes in the film.

Finally, I want to throw a bone to the British. In two of three posts, I've remarked upon two British movies, both of which were made in the 1940s. I could very well be wrong, but this appears to be the peak in British filmmaking (so to speak), during a time when Nazi bombers were making nightly runs over London or when they were simply trying to rebuild. "The Red Shoes" will not be the last reviewed upon on this blog from 1940s England.

'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'

More punctuation!

If you really want to get a good feel for this film, just look at Elizabeth Taylor's snarl on the cover of the DVD. Like she was going to pounce on Richard Burton's torso and rip his trachea out with her teeth. Her breath stinking of brandy, her hair flailing, her speech slurred as she spits while trying to pronounce her words. George (Burton ... Taylor's real-life husband, so some of that venom might have been real) didn't stand a chance. And he didn't. That's kinda why he's so angry: Because no matter how much smarter he was, no matter how many books he read or wrote, he was always going to be the one with his trachea dangling like a limp spaghetti noodle out of Taylor's teeth.

By far, this is the most tense film I've ever seen. It makes you cringe from the very beginning to the very end as you try to navigate your way through the constant bickering to get to what makes these people tick ... or keeps them from killing each other.

It honestly took me a couple of minutes to fully realize that that was the great Elizabeth Taylor. I assume they forced her to gain weight because she looked completely different. Granted, she was a lady who would wear a little heft very well, but she was three years removed from portraying Cleopatra in one of her hottest roles.

An angry movie that kinda makes you want to go hug someone ... and not drink for about two months.

'I Know Where I'm Going!'

There's not nearly enough films with ending punctuation. Or there's too much. It's hard to determine.

Aside from the exclamation point, this movie is ruined in three different ways:

1. The most interesting characters -- the falconer and the lady with all dogs -- are barely in the film and yet I care 150 percent more about them than any of the other characters in the movie. They should've scraped the entire movie and did another movie called "My Bird Can Take Your Dog?!"

2. That idiotic theme song. Even in England in the 1940s, what were they thinking?

3. When it turns out that the lady we were supposed to come to love over the 88 minutes of the film turned out to be a total bitch and almost got at least three people killed all because she had decided to marry some rich old guy, but found out too late that rich guys coming in younger packages. What a gold-digging slut! And we're supposed to like her?

'Boston'

I first remember hearing "More Than a Feeling" when I was 14 years old. At the time, was learning to "drive" meaning my grandfather would let me hightail it through my family's back pastures in his pick-up truck going 90 mph. Of course, this was 1994. Eighteen years after the album was released.

It was a perfectly good song to me and "Boston" the album is equally as crisp and layered as any album ever recorded.

My other association with the album was my sophomore year of high school. In our theatre arts class, we were assigned to create a radio show with songs, advertisements, scripts and the whole nine yards.

My friends and I chose a classic rock format and each picked a song. I chose "Foreplay/Long Time." Guess who was not getting tons of girlfriends in high school! The guy who enjoys listening to "Foreplay/Long Time" as a 15-year-old boy.

'Pet Sounds'

The Beach Boys' magnum opus is interesting because Brian Wilson admitted that it was The Beatles' "Rubber Soul" that inspired them to make the album.

What's interesting is that Wilson like, more than anything, the idea that an album can be considered as a whole piece and not just a collection of songs. From the very first note of the first song on side A to the final note on side B, it all connected.

For the next several years, Wilson would be challenged by The Beatles and vice versa. Ironically, although the two groups were "rivals" in that they were releasing pop records at the same time, the bands were so very different. Listen to the Beach Boys, even their early stuff, and it's a hodgepodge of instrumentation. Early recordings include harpsichords. This isn't guitar rock. The bass lines are sporadic and almost percussive.

Unlike The Beatles on the whole, The Beach Boys used their rich harmonies and strength from head to toe with the layers of vocals. That was their instrument more than any drums or guitar. the songs off "Pet Sounds" seem like a bitch to do live.

Despite the sophistication, it's Wilson's true "teenage symphony to God," the title he gave the ill-fated masterpiece, "Smile." It's about breaking up. Getting together. Breaking up again. Being alienated and finding one's place in the world.

Also, if you read about famed producer Phil Spector, you know how much Wilson adored the Wall of Sound creator and this admiration is evident. Spector would've been an ideal choice for the Beach Boys had the opportunity presented itself. The connection is stronger when you consider that both the Beach Boys and Spector used The Wrecking Crew, the famous set of sessions musicians featuring Hal Blaine, Carol Kaye, Glen Campbell, Dr. John and Leon Russell.

Why the two heavyweights never got together is a mystery, but probably has to do with Wilson running around shirtless in a fireman's helmet and turning his house into a sandbox.

'The Beatles'

Deep thoughts:

1. My friend Garrison borrowed all of my Beatles albums in order to really delve deep into their catalog. After listening to the White Album, he quickly touted the George Harrison tune "Long, Long, Long." A deep cut buried on the second disc. One I'd always ignored. Since, I've learned to appreciate it much, much more.

2. This is by far the worst produced-engineered album by the Fab Four. It was also probably the one album that all four Beatles played together the least one. Ringo Starr apparently "quit" midway through. John Lennon was strung out on Yoko Ono and drugs. Paul McCartney was kinda trying to get it together, but came off looking like an asshole while the three connected as the guys not really wanting to do it anymore. I tend to think this is why it's so poorly mixed. Notice "Long, Long, Long," the guitar solo on "Helter Skelter" or the total mix on "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey." Horrible.

3. I received the White Album on CD on my 14th birthday. Probably due to it being a double album, it was tough to get the $40 together for one album. That same birthday I received my first guitar amplifier and a Beatles tablature book.

4. The White Album interests me because it's one of the few which contains a whole separate album of songs that could not have been placed on any other Beatles album. For example, "Helter Skelter" never would've fit on "Let It Be" or "Magical Mystery Tour." "... Me and My Monkey," "Piggies," "I'm So Tired," "Why Don't We Do It On The Road?," "Wild Honey Pie," "While My Guitar ..." and "Bungalow Bill" all are White Album songs and only White Album songs. On the other hand, "Honey Pie" would've fit perfectly on "Sgt. Pepper ...", "Dear Prudence" on "Revolver" or "Mother Nature's Son" on "Rubber Soul."

5. The White Album's collection of song is really fascinating. There's a wink to the 1940s ("Honey Pie"), avant garde ("Revolution No. 9"), a nod to the Beach Boys ("Back in the USSR"), jaunty piano rock about a dog ("Martha, My Dear"), two stories ("Bungalow Bill," "Rocky Racoon"), a Jamaican tune ("Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da"), metal ("Helter Skelter"), lo-fi ("Long, Long, Long"), the blues ("Yer Blues") and the second most popular birthday song ever ("Birthday").

6. Have you really listened to "Revolution No. 9?" I'd highly suggest playing it at 12. It's quite the feat.

7. There's always been debate about the double album decision. George Martin hated it. Harrison is quoted as saying there was too much ego and that it helped clear out the backlog of songs. Ringo thought it should've been two albums. Paul said it was fine as is. Of course, if I were bass player for the Beatles, I would've let it slide too.

8. There's an inordinate amount of acoustic songs on the album. This is due to many of the songs being written while meditating in India. Not like they could haul a Hammond organ along with them.

9. "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" always made me tense as a teenager listening to it with an adult because I just assumed it was about sex.

10. Thirty songs made it to the final cut. There were about 12 other songs developed. Half of which made it onto solo records. The other half on "Abbey Road" and "Let It Be." I guess there was little else to do in India.

'Raising Hell'

At one point or another, hip-hop and rap artists were going to get paid. It was only a matter of time before white America got its talons into the genre and made it a multi-billion dollar industry.

It was going to happen eventually. But it happened with Run-DMC's "Raising Hell."

It's one of the few albums in history that's probably more regarded as being popular as much as it is a good album. There is a difference. A group's best work isn't always their most popular work. Leave it to white people to get really great hip-hop wrong. Still, without it going triple platinum and teaming up with supergroup Aerosmith put the entire genre on the map. It made it matter.

Jay-Z, Russell Simmons, Suge Knight and all the other moguls in the industry were going to exist anyway, but, as it stands, they can accredit all of their fame and fortune to three dudes where leather jackets, Adidas and dorky glasses.

'Horses'

What a load of crap.

Music fans perpetually hear about certain albums that "changed" things and set forth some kind of movement or force that we always seem to relate two a generation in the future. You don't listen to, say, "Horses," but you probably enjoy a dozen or so bands that were influenced by "Horses."

All "Horses" out is a series of disjointed "punk" songs about nothing amid a bunch of screams, wails and caterwauling from Patti Smith, an apparent intellectual take on rock 'n' roll. Intellectual, my ass.

Ernest Hemingway's more punk. Thelonious Monk's more punk. That's not intellectual or some kind of statement. It's noise and unpleasant noise at that. There is a definite difference between this and an abstract painting because at the most basic, academic level a painting is still beautiful. Colors still evoke even the most primary of emotions.

"Horses" is a gnashing of teeth and a fight against writing a good song and sharing it with the world.

'Imagine'

The Beatles -- John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr -- arguably had two peaks to their musical careers in terms of creativity and output.

One peak was in the mid-1960s. The other peak was the early-1970s. When they weren't really playing music together anymore.

Harrison released "All Things Must Pass." McCartney had "McCartney," "Ram" and "Band on the Run." Lennon had "Plastic Ono Band" and "Imagine."

Six fantastic albums and six fantastic "further readings" for any Beatles fan or for someone who hasn't discovered them yet.

"Imagine" may be my least favorite of these albums. "Jealous Guy" a fantastic song, one of Lennon's best. The rest of the album ... well, it's as if he wasn't really trying. I realize the song "Imagine" is highly regarded and is very beautiful. Maybe one or two of the others are solid. The rest of the time he's trying to "say" or "prove" something. Lennon's like a basketball playing forcing shots despite being very well guarded.

Most disappointing is "How Do You Sleep?" an apparent reaction by Lennon to supposed jabs by McCartney on "Ram." If McCartney was throwing punches, it was very well veiled. Lennon wasn't so slick.

Later, Lennon kinda backed off the song saying it was more about himself than Paul. It's sad not because Lennon wrote the song about who we perceive to be a good guy in McCartney, but because Lennon truly loved his friend and in some fit he wrote this song, recorded it and released it. Maybe Lennon never regretted it, but it still probably hurt both guys as their fire for each other probably never waned, but it had to change on some level after the Beatles broke up.

I think Lennon was hurt and desperate when he recorded this album. I think the album cover says a lot: A songwriter in despair trying to make some kind of change on either a global or personal level and not being able to make it out of the fog.

'It Happened One Night'

I can't imagine there being a more disrespected film among the people involved at the time.

Myrna Loy and Constance Bennett turned down the role of "Ellie." Robert Montgomery turned down the "Peter" role. Of course, other actors and actresses turning down scripts isn't that big ofa deal.

But apparently Claudette Colbert hated the film so much that she didn't even attend the Academy Awards. Clark Gable alleged grumbled through the production.

Meanwhile, it turned out to be the first film to win the Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director and Screenplay Academy Awards. Realizing she was going to win, Loy apparently showed up to the awards show late in her travelling clothes.

Five years later, Gable and Colbert rprised their hated roles for a radio adaptation. Maybe doing screwball comedies wasn't so bad after all.

'Gold'

Ryan Adams has done better albums. Many people like Gold. I don't know why. I don't know how you don't listen to Heartbreaker, Jacksonville City Lights or Cold Roses and don't like them much better.

Truth is, Gold is as much of a pop record as Adams is going to get and, frankly, some of those songs ain't pop songs. Some are downright beautiful.

Mostly I think people assume it's some homage to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks -- what with the American flag (upside down) and the "New York New York" song, which is about a girl. But that's OK. It holds some value as a post-9/11 album despite Yankee Hotel Foxtrot being much better.

What drives me bananas about Ryan Adams is that he's so too cool for school. With his pants that fit just so, the way he pulls off any T-shirt, his hair that looks like it tries too hard without trying at all, the blue eyes, the way he doesn't have to look at the camera. I guess he can't help any of this bullshit. You put all that into a pot then consider him writing those songs and it drives you crazy.

I'd give my left kidney just to be able to pull off the T-shirts.

'Raiders of the Lost Ark'

How many films can be largely recognized by much of the free world by just one word?

Mention "Raiders" to just about anyone in the United States and that person will know exactly what you're talking about. "Empire" and "Jedi" probably get the same knowing reaction.

The fact of the matter is, I've watched a ton of high-toned, big-budget, well-acted, well-directed movies in my day, many of them trying to "say something" or "mean something" on some secondary level.

That's fine and all, but Raiders of the Lost Ark might be the greatest film ever made.

It's well written, the direction isn't bad, it's funny, tons of action and adventure, it has Nazis, it's a period piece, it has the handsome leading man, the very underrated cute female lead, it involves a mystery, it's historical and religious. It's why Dan Brown makes millions of dollars writing books.

Sure, Raiders doesn't mean anything. It doesn't represent post-Cold War America or preach about global warming. It doesn't make you think anything past what's happening in the film. What it teaches us, if anything, is that the good guy always wins.

I would like to add that there's been two films that affected my future career: Raiders (archeology) and Twister (meteorology).

'Tootsie'

Checklist to see whether you're watching a semi-comedic film from the 1980s:

1. Cornball hair. Check.

2. Uber-dated clothing. Check.

3. Reoccurring theme music that sounds as if it were created for a sitcom. Check.

4. Ridiculous plot. Check.

5. Female lead plays offended despite in her heart of hearts she's actually somewhat entertained and somehow honored by the high jinks of the male lead forcing the female lead to forgive the male lead despite ultimate betrayal within a matter of a monologue. Check.

6. Crossdressing. Check.

7. Male lead is a total cad and gets away with it. Check.

8. Dabney Coleman. Check.

9. Pop song with lyrics. Written for film. Includes name of "female" lead. Played in film. Check.

10. Over a "hey! everything's fun!" montage. Check.

Friends. Tootsie is as pure of a 1980s film as you get.

'Carrie'

Sissy Spacek is dangerously attractive in that in two of her more seductive films -- Carrie and Badlands -- she plays a set of teenagers.

The rub being Spacek was well into her 20s when she made both films and despite her very girlish face and skin, all of her features are that of a 20-year-old woman. Therefore, men lust. Over a 20 year old playing a 15 year old. Does that make me a pedophile. Doesn't anyone else see my point here?

Here's my helpful hint toward being high school: Don't fuck with anyone. For good or for bad. Don't pick on kids, don't fight, don't get stressed, don't get revenge. And don't try to help people.

There couldn't be a more ephemeral time in one's life than the four years you go in high school and there's not another four years that will royally fuck you up. I doesn't mean anything and, yet, for that time, nothing could be mean more.

Just imagine having to telekinetically drive a handful of knives into your mother. Now that'll force you to seek out therapy.

'The Fly'

Can you imagine a 19-year-old Geena Davis or Jeff Goldblum dreaming about becoming a big star in Hollywood, doing important films much in the vein of their idols like Paul Newman, Meryl Streep, Faye Dunaway, Martin Sheen or Robert DeNiro?

All the money they'd make and all the Academy Award after parties they'd attend sipping champagne, wearing expensive tuxedos and dresses.

All the admirers they'd have sending them letters or screaming at them during filming or on the red carpet.

All of the their peers dying to work with them on the latest hit film. All the Hollywood hunks and Beverly Hills socialites dying to make love to you and become a trophy for the great American dream of superstardom.

Then sometime in 1985, they did The Fly where Davis watches Goldblum turn into a giant, acid-spitting fly burn the arm and leg off John Getz. Not exactly how that vision goes.

'Shake Your Money Maker'

A very underrated record. A very, very solid record.

And one of the best debut albums of all time? Maybe not, but it has to be in the talks.

I often like to compared one love of my life (music, films, books) to the other love of my life (sports). In sports, there are Halls of Fame for every major sport and, hell, every minor sport.

A building that commemorates the advancements and legends of that sport.

For the major Halls, there's certain criteria that's generally regarded as being the baseline for acceptance. For example, in professional baseball, 500 home runs or 300 wins typically will get you into the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

Many players, however, tend to fall somewhere in the middle -- the gray purgatory where some good careers go unnoticed and other good careers get an eventual nod from the Hall of Fame voters, typically writers.

Would the Black Crowes make the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame?

Their debut was as good as any in the history of rock and roll. Shake Your Money Maker had five singles and about 10 really, really good songs. It made money, had a number of radio hits and is ultimately so accessible on just about every level at a time (1991-92) when rock music was largely unpopular.

Nirvana and the Seattle scene was about to explode. The Los Angeles metal scene was dying. No one was doing what the Black Crowes were doing. Basic rock/blues/R&B. Chris Robinson was a good lead singer -- kind of the skinny, poor man's Mick Jagger with swagger full of piss and vinegar.

Rich Robinson was a great guitarist. Unafraid to pull off a bluesy, raunchy solo.

All of this laid down over a blanket of bass and organ/piano. Unlike anything that was popular at that moment and probably not popular since Lynyrd Skynyrd. And Lynyrd Skynyrd wishes they would've made an album like Shake Your Money Maker.

The Black Crowes would never quite find that success again. In fact, they never did. Amorica was good. Everything else waned.

But for a brief moment, no rock band shined brighter than the Black Crowes. Still, probably not enough credentials for the Hall of Fame. The Bill Walton of rock bands.

'The Exorcist'

The most disappointing aspect of this film isn't that it isn't that scary (I get that in 1973, it was probably terrifying ... but we've evolved), but the vulgar language of "the devil."

As we know, 12-year-old Regan MacNeil -- a super sweet daughter of an actress living in Washington, D.C. -- is possessed by "the devil" or, we assume, Satan. As he is "the devil." I don't think Satan has been referred to as "a devil." Assuming that lesser demons are considered devils.

When you think of devil and Satan, you think of them as the same being.

As the possession progresses, her physical body deteriorates and the explosions of anger and anguish by the possessing devil escalate as does the devil's language.

From the regular cuss words -- like fuck -- to penetrating the girl's vagina with a crucifix indicating that someone (the mom, the girl?) some let Jesus -- the sweet, clean Messiah -- "fuck" her.

Am I offended as a Bible-thumping, conservative American who cut his teeth on the pews and pulpits of the Judeo-Christian platform and culture?

No. It's a silly film aimed at scaring the shit out of parents into disallowing kids from goofing with Ouija boards.

I am offended that they paint the devil -- or Satan -- to be a violent, ill-tempered, vulgar and distasteful being.

I don't think Satan is like that at all. I think he's a classy, sensitive, well-spoken, articulate, scholarly and intelligent intellectual. More self-assured and arrogant than crude and vile.

He's the same being that went up to Jesus in the wilderness and simply tempted him using God's own words and scriptures. He didn't take a stone and bash Christ over the head.

'Moulin Rouge'

I own Moulin Rouge, the most recent adaptation centered around the famed Paris dance hall. I don't know why. I suspect that it was a gift.

I do remember watching it for the first time and not really liking it for the same reasons I don't like a lot of Baz Luhrmann's films: the editing is insane and the cuts make me nauseous. Plus, there are too many "Cheer Up, Charlie" moments.

Of course, I'm referring to the scene in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory where Charlie goes to visit his mother at work down and out because he probably wasn't going to get a golden ticket.

Unadvisably, the mother begins singing "Cheer Up, Charlie" with footage of the forlorn Charlie walking home. By far, it's the most fast forwarded scene in film history.

That's about 80 percent of the second half of Moulin Rouge: the "Like a Virgin" scene, the jealousy scene, the "Come What May" scene and everything else. Unwatchable and boring.

So why do I still own this film? I don't know. I'm prepared now to Half-Price back to the masses.

I assume it's because I like Ewan McGregor, the turn-of-the-century Paris is very intriguing to me and I don't mind the mashing together of the modern songs to the idiom of 1899 Paris.

Maybe it's a little gay. But I do love pop music and I think it holds a timeless signifigance because it's all about love, loss and partying (to put it simply). These are the same themes that music of that period extolled. Except Bernie Taupin wasn't writing them. Yet.

'Amelie'

By far, one of my favorite movies of the past decade or so. I love everything about it. The direction, cinematography (underrated), the characters, the actors playing those characters, the remarkable story, the nuances and subtleties.

I love the beginning credits, the closing credits. I love everything in between.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet has made 11 films in his career and only two since releasing Amelie in 2001, which includes the remarkable A Very Long Engagement.

There is no more of a talented guy in filmmaking today and this goes for whatever big-budget, box-office busting director that you want to throw out there. None.

It's said that imagination is needed for art. Sometimes I doubt very seriously that any modern filmmaker has any imagination whatsoever whereas Jeunet has more than enough for everyone.

This imagination and full capability of endearing a series of characters (even the mean ones) to the audience is quite the accomplishment. When Dominique Bretodeau is shown at the end of the film carving a freshly roasted chicken with his estranged grandson, it is impossible not to feel really happy. And what role does Bretodeau have in the film? A footnote. Five minutes of Amelie finding this childhood keepsake, returning it to him and then him having verbalize his epiphany at the bar counter.

He's a nothing character. Yet, all we wanted was for him to be as happy as you possibly can be.

This is Jeunet. I dare you to watch any of his films and not feel a groundswell of empathy for the protagonists in his stories. Not to be charmed by their quirks and personalities. Not to be completely reaffirmed by their actions and attitudes.

'Ten'

Even as a dumb teenager, I never quite understood why all these rock bands from the 1990s got lumped together with the "grunge" label.

I totally understand why Nirvana (and bands of their ilk) were given some label because the general public have never encountered a monster like them. Let's face it: Most Americans had never been so punk in their lives after purchasing Nevermind. People and critics didn't know how to define the sound, the look and the rage.

So they called it "grunge." OK.

So why were Soundgarden and Pearl Jam put in the same bucket? Both bands had two very distinct and different sounds. They sounded nothing like Nirvana or that "punk" sound.

Ten is probably the best album from the 1990s. It has an energy and voracity that doesn't exist in any other piece of art from that era. There's still an anger to it that you get with the Nirvanas of the world, but people "get it" in a way that they probably quite didn't get Nevermind or Bleach.

'Nosferatu: The Vampyre'

Not as good as F.W. Murnau's 1922 film, but still pretty good. Good in that it was made 50 years afterward and that filmmaking had become a quite bit more artistic.

I come back to the courtyard of the city in Werner Herzog's film. In about a half dozen shots, the courtyard is presented in this wide angle shot. Some with people marching and other time with people rejoicing that the "plague" is over. It's a beautiful red brick. Nothing fancy. But Herzog was pretty much in love with it for as much as he used it.

The Dracula myth is an appealing one in pop culture from the 1922 film through this one. Of course, it was always based on Bram Stoker's Dracula even up to Francis Ford Coppola's film.

Then a new generation took over and now we have Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Twilight series, all new stories divorced from the Dracula myth. However, the lesson is still the same: Love, desire and the inability to have neither.

Twilight's story is no different from Nosferatu or Bram Stoker's first imagining. Just newer, hokier.

'Tonight's the Night'

Just over the last two years I've come to absolutely love much of Neil Young's catalog, particularly his early stuff when he was more country than rock 'n' roll.

Tonight's the Night the moment I jump ship.

Record in 1975, it's a reaction to the deaths of Bruce Berry and Danny Whitten to drug overdoses. Apparently, Whitten, the Crazy Horse guitarist, was rehearsing with Young and Co. high as a kite. Young sent him back to Los Angeles because he wasn't capable of performing. Next thing Young knows, Whitten's found dead.

Ironically, Young was a pretty big druggie himself.

In the original liner notes of the vinyl LP, Young included this note: "I'm sorry. You don't know these people. This means nothing to you."

One of the problems I've always had with Young was that he thought he was much smarter than everyone and this includes his fans. My point: Young has a large fanbase, but he would've never been super famous because he doesn't relate to the generic person wanting a rock record. They'd rather by Slippery When Wet. Young was a snob.

The only way Tonight's the Night would mean nothing to a Young fan is if we'd never felt loss ourselves.

Otherwise, it's a messy, disorganized and sloppy album a far cry from early Young and aside from some gems on side B, it's a really shitty album.

'The Pier'

Twenty-eight minutes of still photographs in French telling the story of a post-apocalyptic Paris where survivors of World War III are living underground.

They research time travel to somehow improve their current situation. The candidate is chosen thanks to a vivid memory of seeing a man die on a pier.

He goes into the past then the future. Eventually he's sent to his own past, the moment on the pier.

He's followed by a jailer. The memory on the pier was that of his own death. Zing!

You can take my word for it or just spend 28 minutes discovering it yourself.

'Sex, Lies and Videotape'

Couldn't take this film very seriously for a series of reasons:

1. Andie McDowell. For whatever reason, people, namely casting directors, thought she was appealing on some level and I can not see it. Like, I would understand if she were cute. Girls in movies don't need to be knockouts, but they also need not resemble a man.

2. James Spader's hair. So ridiculous that it looks fake. At times, I lose my place in the dialogue or story because I find myself staring at his hair. It's a remarkable train wreck.

3. It's an oddly constructed story. It drops you in these people's lives explaining what they can. Suddenly, Spader's renting an apartment and making videos. I kind of need some more foreplay before I go deep into something. If you know what I mean.

'The Graduate'

The quintessential film for the 1960s. I assume.

As a member of a latter generation that really shares no real characteristics with Benjamin, I don't know what life was like for him or why he was so scared to move forward. Or why it was so tough to move forward anyway and get your bearings later.

Benjamin, however, represents just about any and all young person in a similar set of circumstances. It was no different for Benjamin than it was for Lelaina in Reality Bites, the quintessential Generation X film about four friends trying to make their way in the 1990s following college.

It's always a time of desperation and fear because it's a crucial moment in our lives. How many lifelong stay-at-home mothers wish they had gone to college and a career instead of getting pregnant?

How many accountants wish they had followed their passion for sculpture or music? How many sculptors and musicians wish they'd done something a bit more realistic?

Benjamin and Lelaina were depressed and they didn't know if they'd ever be happy again (like Mrs. Robinson). Both did know they didn't want expensive cars and both knew they could only come close to happiness with their tumultuous relationships with Ethan Hawke and Katharine Ross.

So that would make Ben Stiller the Ann Bancroft for Generation X.

'O Brother, Where Art Thou?'

O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a potential top five most quotable film in the history of the medium.

It ran into several problems. First, it's a Coen brothers film which alienates about 65 percent of all people watching films. Coen brothers can make money and create great art, but this film among others may not get the wide appeal it deserves.

Secondly, and most damning, is that it's a film based on The Odyssey set in Despression-era Mississippi with a soundtrack full of bluegrass, roots, country and blues music that does not appeal to 90 percent of the country.

Maybe, over time, O Brother will get its just due and be quoted in drunken ramblings like movies before and after.

It's a fantastic film. Being a Coen brothers film, it's beautifully shot. The writing, great.

Plus, it includes a great performance from John Turturro, a good performance from Tim Blake Nelson and the only film in which George Clooney has even acted in. Add in fantastic peripheral jobs (Holly Hunter, Charles Durning, John Goodman, Stephen Root) and you've got an awesome movie.

Two other points:

1. A major theme is "answers." People throughout are seeking "answers" mainly due to the Depression that had taken its toll on an already-poor Mississippi. Everett mentions it when Delmar and Pete are baptized. Goodman's cyclops mentions it while explaining selling Bibles. Later, when Everett confronts his wife, she mentions that her daughters are looking to her for answers since their father was in prison.

2. Another reoccurring device are characters talking without thinking. While Everett is talking and Delmar is offering him gopher, a congregation of white-robed people walking to a pond for baptism. Clooney and Nelson are saying the lines, but their minds couldn't be further from that moment in time. It happens about a dozen times throughout the film.

'Giant'

One of the dates I had with the girl I would eventually married was to a Dallas movie theater that was screening Giant.

It was her favorite movie. I went along to go along. Came out of the theater completely enamored with the film.

I thought it was brilliant in every conceivable way. From the acting, cinematography, direction, set, story, plot and everything in between.

It was the first film that captured my interest in Texas filmmaking, particularly that were West Texas is the setting. West Texas, typically, is portrayed as this desolate, wild country, untouched by the human hand. From Giant to The Last Picture Show to Hud to No Country for Old Men.

The common thread between all these films is the stark beauty that runs through them all. Brilliant cinematography with the countryside taking the breath away from every person in the audience.

Giant goes so much further. It's an epic so it's allowed. It tackles World War II, racism, the oil-fication of the world, the death of the West, the role of women in the home. It has a near-divorce, an interracial marriage, a young marriage, alcoholism and a creepy old man trying to get in the knickers of a teenager. Nice!

Other notes: Elizabeth Taylor was 33 when Giant was released. She had the body of a 43 year old. Without seeing a ton of her early films, she's always had a very thick body. Maybe it's the wardrobe. Probably just her middle age body. Very odd considering most female stars considered "sexy" don't have bodies like Taylor.

My favorite part of Giant is the change in clothes and the Reata ranchhouse.

If I had an insane amount of money, I would purchase the giant painting in the Reata living room and the picture of the big bull in Bick's office.

Carroll Baker played Elizabeth Taylor's teenage daughter, Luz II. Baker was one year older than Taylor.

'Paul Simon'

Right now, my favorite album. Bought it at a record store about three months ago and didn't put it on the turntable up until a month ago.

Brilliant. Really haven't taken it off except for Genesis, The Monkees and Joni Mitchell.

Paul Simon is the exact reason why I really can't get behind Graceland and Hearts and Bones, two later albums that seem so distasteful, overproduced, overinstrumented and over ... everythinged.

Paul Simon is simple. A guitar, a man and his notebook with his confessional, personal lyrics that detailed parts of his life that you might not be able to get out of the guy even after four pints of beer. There's a reason Edie Brickell married him. Paul Simon is that reason.

'Monty Python and the Holy Grail'

Very, very fond memories of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Watched it over and over through junior high and high school.

Later, I housesat for some friends and had the first girl I ever had any feelings for over and we watched Holy Grail together. Great night for me.

It has to be one of the top two or three funniest movies ever. The Pythons wedged their snarky, intelligent and biting humor into every second -- from the starting credits, an intermission and everything in between. From commenting on politics, religion, history, literature and folklore, the Pythons took aim wherever their gun pointed. It didn't matter. Irreverent and, yet, poignant. All in 88 short minutes.

How good is it? Watch it 20 times and try to narrow down your top 10 favorite moments? It'd drive you mad.

I will admit that if I were a dorky Python fan in 1975, going to the theater, watching this hilirious movie only to have it end so abruptly without any real conclusion, it would have been very, very frustrating and borderline maddening.

'A Nightmare on Elm Street'

Of all the horror flicks from the the 1980s, A Nightmare on Elm Street was the always the scariest.

In fact, a lot of these films were scary because the killers (Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhies, Michael Myers, et al.) always had a purpose: murder and revenge. Earlier films involved aliens (just looking for new real estate), zombies (they just didn't know any better) and vampires (they vanted to suck your blood). The new breed in the 1980s were just mean. Later, horror creatures would get all psychological and just plain spooky.

A Nightmare on Elm Street took things to a new level. With Jason and Michael, I always felt I could just keep on running. Avoid going up stairs or cornering yourself in and you'll be able to survive.

With Freddy, shit, you couldn't go to sleep. Luckily, the girl in the movie realized that he existed in the dreams and could be killed should he be dragged into real life. How the hell were you really supposed to find all of this out? How terrifying it'd be to absolutely have to go to sleep, but you realize that you can't? Freddy hunted and murdered on a plain that nobody knew anything about and you were helpless in Freddy's world. Because you were asleep. That creeped me out to no end as a kid.

'Body Heat'

Let me shoot you straight about Kathleen Turner: She is one of the top three or five hottest pieces of ass I've ever, ever seen.

Body Heat is her first feature film. Her breakout. And, boy, did she ever break out. She's breathtaking and I could only imagine being a young man when the film came out.

With all that said, it's not a very good movie. It's the typical film noir, Postman Rings Twice scenario where the woman wants out of the relationship -- one she entered just for money -- and hoodwinks some handsome young buck to do the murdering of the husband, who may be a dick, but he has as much right to breath as the next guy. Except, it's Kathleen Turner. She would've been able to keep Adolf Hitler from murdering people.

The sucker this time is the uber-handsome, yet balding, William Hurt, who is apparently a magnificent lover and up to the point where he's arrested, the luckiest son of a bitch in the world. Up until the whole jail thing. Hurt reminds me as much of a porn star as we can get in the legit Hollywood world. He just walks onto a set, kind of half-asses it and gets by thanks to his looks, animal magnetism and hot body. Think Ron Jeremy was too concern with his lines? Neither was Hurt.

'Selling England by the Pound'

Genesis, a prog-rock band!

Why didn't anyone tell me this?

When someone is born, the parents should receive an instruction booklet. The child should receive some kind of orientation like Austin Powers after he is thawed from cyrogenic freezing showing the Berlin Wall falling, the moon landing and Michael Jackson's Thriller.

Part of that early orientation should include letting everyone know that Genesis wasn't just the retarded band known for Abacab and "I Can't Dance." Otherwise, you'll end up like me listening to some nice Selling England by the Pound and basically discovering an entirely different band.

It's erratic, wandering and, at times, heavy. Filled with nonsensical 1970s rock lyrics (see: Steely Dan) and insane drumming. Even some young Phil Collins.

I just want to know what happened. Has anyone asked Collins this? How do you go from progressive rock and roll to the song about the guy drowning and the incredibly awful "I Can't Dance." It's not like the two choices are even close. Somehow Collins and the guy from Mike and the Mechanics bridged that gap.

Probably why Peter Gabriel left and never looked back.

'On the Waterfront'

If you want a pretty nice companion piece for Elia Kazan's "On the Waterfront," watch season 2 of "The Wire."

In the HBO crime drama, the series moves to the Baltimore docks where we discover how the drugs are reaching the gangs on the streets -- through the unionized longshoremen, who are too poor to really care and don't consider bring crates full of drugs or guns into the country because they're going to someone else's neighborhood.

White dock workers, black drug dealers, Greek drug lords. Quite the melting pot.

"On the Waterfront" is a brilliant account of the corruption and violence that plagued the docks, unions and the people running both.

I've never understand this slanted solidarity. These union guys keep their mouths shut and their eyes closes most of the time. Create any trouble and you don't get work. After a while, a group of these guys get together to maybe change things by going to the authorities.

It wasn't a fair lifestyle. And we only get one. Why waste it hoping you'll get a shitty job that doesn't play anything. Actually, it prob is OK if you don't have a mortgage, wife or kids. Still, most live in poverty working their asses off so the union can take their cut along with the American government.

However, someone stands up on his own, gets the crap beat out of him (remember, Terry wasn't a very good boxer. Just a contender.) While the rest of the union just stands there letting him take the whipping. Great guys. Unions sound awesome. Seem like they always have the group in mind when they make decisions. Yeah.

'Music' & 'Ray of Light'

These albums were released in the late-1990s and early-2000s. Around this time, Madonna -- one of the biggest pop stars in the history of pop stars -- decided to quit writing and performing hit pop singles.

Instead, she hooked up with a series of producers to do a bunch of club songs to appeal to a niche audience, who will all turn 22 at some point and then cease to like that over-produced, over-bassed crap.

Also, Madonna made the -- probably -- very wise move in targeting her music to the homosexual male. For one, it's all club dance music.

Two, all the lyrics are mysteriously told from the woman's point of view about the guy. So, there's a lot of "his," "he," "him" and the like. Making them perfect songs for the gay. Doesn't hurt that Madonna is the Gen X version of Barbara Streisand -- the gay man's sweetheart.

Frankly, these albums completley stink and you'll never convince me that there aren't some Beatles, Rolling Stones, Beethoven, Tears for Fears or Megadeth albums that aren't more important.