'Private Dancer'

Going to be real honest, I’m sure Tina Turner has a pretty strong audience base. No doubt you don’t sell the number of records as she’s done without having wide appeal. 

This is a pretty so-so pop record full of cliché 1980s including an abnormal number of guitar solos. 

That said, Turner is one of the few female musical artists that embraces her sex appeal along with an extremely strong personality that’s probably done more for the perception of females than any other artist outside of Lita Ford. Joking.

'Hot Shots II' & 'Heroes to Zeroes'

I wonder how many records The Beta Band sold when John Cusack’s character in High Fidelity uttered the line, “I will now sell five copies of The Three E.P.'s by The Beta Band?” Sub-question: Has any one unknown artist gotten a bigger boost than they did from that movie?

Discuss.

'Deep End'

Interesting that I knew Jane Asher as Paul McCartney’s girlfriend, who sometimes acted until you actually see her in films like Deep End or Alfie. Few times in life do you know someone for such a miniscule facet of their life. I think Macca missed the boat here: Asher is probably 50 percent more beautiful now than in the 1960s (she was 17 when she started dating The Beatles bass guitar player). 

Also, Deep End co-stars Diana Dors. She actually has about a seven-minute presence in the film although she gets third billing on all the credits. Dors was labeled as England’s answer to Marilyn Monroe. Blonde and voluptuous, she was extremely beautiful and was achingly similar to Monroe from her body type to her actual face. Age did little for Dors (she portrays a rich, horndog bath-goer in Deep End), which makes you wonder what would’ve happened to Monroe given 25 years. 

Per the end of the film, I'm still not sure how she was killed by the light, why it required such a dramatic turn and why the kid wasn't so keen on helping. 

'Time Regained'

Time Regained – set around Marcel Proust’s deathbed – co-stars Chiara Mastroianni, who is the daughter of Catherine Deneuve (also in Time Regained) and Marcello Mastroianni, who had worked with Time Regained director Raúl Ruiz three years earlier in Three Lives and Only One Death. Regrettably, she looks just like her father. 

This photo should show you why it’s regrettable. Any excuse to feature a photo of Deneuve in the 1960s.

'The Ear'

Filmed in 1970, The Ear did not receive a major release until 1989 after Soviet-rule in the Czech Republic ended and certain avenues for artistic expression were laxed. 

The Ear is often compared to the Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton white-knuckle ride, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Appropriately so considering both place unhappy couples in (often) stressful or terrifying situations (exacerbated by alcoholic females) that bring to the surface all of the pockmarks of their respective relationships as they teeter on out and out destruction.

The Ear follows a couple returning from a political/work party only to find that their house had been bugged by the Communists. The paranoia behind what’s been said and when drives the couple to lash out at each other only to sorta find each other again once on the brink of destruction and madness.

This is a tremendous film.

'Home Is Where The Music Is'

I took notice of Hugh Masekala recently while watching the documentary about the roots and production Paul Simon’s Graceland, Under African Skies. He toured in support of the album which was recorded in South Africa, where Simon used native musicians and singers despite the controversy of apparently condoning apartheid. 

He performed along with South African singer Miriam Makeba, who he married for two years in the mid-1960s. Aside from being a smooth jazz record, there are times when artists are significant beyond the sound of their horn or voice. Both Masekala and Makeba used the platform established by their talent to boldly represent other black South Afrikaners and oppose apartheid.

Although it’s different than what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or Nelson Mandela sacrificed in their own fights. Masekala and others – say, James Brown in the United States – also put up their careers as collateral. On certain levels, the fight for equality was Mandela and Dr. King’s jobs. Whereas Brown and Masekala could have stood on the sidelines and did jazz standards or songs about girls. Neither did and it’s a big reason their music exemplifies art’s impact on society.

Home Is Where the Music Is is a gentle smooth record released in 1972, 10 years since he'd been imprisoned on Robben Island, where he'd reside for another 10 years and 16 years before he'd be released for good. The album, I suspect, is nothing but a sort of declaration. And a salve for a scorned and angry people. Sometimes, you just don't have to yell to be heard.