These squares are having a great beach party but soon a giant squid will pull them into the sea and the REAL party can get started! Here are some strange summer songs from off the beaten path.
"Summer Cannibals" by Patti Smith, film by the legendary Robert Frank
"Summertime" by Janis Joplin--Cheap Thrills recording session. Janis never had the band she deserved, but she was a blues goddess.
"Summer Days" by Bob Dylan at Madison Square Garden. This worn-out riverboat gambler is as good as he's ever been, and that's saying a lot. His band is killer.
Summer is here, and that means dumb movies. Don't get me wrong, I love dumb movies. Nothing beats pushing aside the velvet drapes and settling into a broken chair with a barrel of soda and a 55 gallon drum of popcorn and opening a vein. Especially in the summertime. Winter is when the Oscar contenders parade before our eyes, the tepid period pieces, overwrought dramas, and literary adaptations, but summer screens are jammed with silly fun, chase scenes, crime, super heroes, bad sequels, cartoons, sci-fi epics, lightweight love stories, and giant toys. Not every movie can be "The Bicycle Thief," right?
"These few dollars you lose here today are going to buy you stories to tell your children and great-grandchildren. This could be one of the big moments in your life; don't make it your last!" -John Dillinger
My money's on this guy. Dillinger was a bank robber who said a few clever things and got riddled with bullets outside the Biograph theater. Hope I didn't spoil it for you. Read a book, for godsakes. Anyway, Johnny Depp is playing him in a new movie, and unlike Dillinger, Depp can do no wrong. In the box office, anyway. Dillinger's story has been made into several movies. Here's one of them. I could make some easy comments about crime movies and how they provide a catharsis for the viewer, but in the end enforce the social code. After providing vicarious thrills, the scofflaw dies in the last reel and order is restored.
Crime movies are essentially morality tales, and conservative in nature. In the old days these values were enforced by the Hays movie code, a set of industry guidelines controlling what went on the screen. A crook or a hussy MUST get punished; crime could NOT pay. Period. And there were detailed rules that had to be followed or the film couldn't be released. It wasn't until Bonnie and Clyde came out in the sixties that the crooks got away with it...no, actually they got riddled with bullets in the last reel, but they seemed to have some fun as endearing anti-heroes who wore their costumes well.
Bonnie and Clyde, 1967
They were glamorous and you rooted for them, and this caused quite a stir at the time. Their punishment wasn't swift and antiseptic but brutal and sadistic, the camera lingering on their bodies as they were shot in slow motion. Director Arthur Penn clearly sided with the outlaws, and the lawmen were portrayed as uptight authority figures, stingy obsessed jerks, reflecting the time the film was released in 1967.
The real Bonnie and Clyde weren't nearly as sexy, as you can see from this photograph. They look like, well, crooks. They had some style, sure, but they weren't exactly Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty. I wonder what tack the new Dillinger flick takes. What kind of crook do we deserve?
I read the news today, oh boy. Shaft singer Isaac Hayes died, funny man Bernie Mac died, too, a tourist at the Olympics was stabbed, and John Edwards had to put his political aspirations back in his pants.
Damn! Times like these, we all think of getting away. It's summertime, vacation time--even tireless workaholic Barack Obama went to Hawaii. What's that smell? Luau pork? No, that's a billion fat tourists baking in the sun. I've never had the desire to go to Hawaii, but I can see the attraction of finding a remote island and leaving this mad world behind. I'd prefer an island all to myself, but that's me. If you want to join the unimaginative hordes, this vintage cartoon travelogue might help you plan your trip to Blue Hawaii.
This is a big graduation weekend. Students and teachers are eyeballing summer like alley cats in a fish market. When I saw this movie in sixth grade, I thought high school was going to be like this. It wasn't. We could have used Lulu. Sure it's corny, but at the time I got a little choked up. I was eleven years old, for godsakes! These kids gave this poor teacher a hard time all year long, but he finally gets through to them. Then Lulu sings.
Set the Wayback Machine for the last day of school! You cleaned your locker, the bell rang, and you walked into three months of root beer Popsicles, riding bikes, playing paddle pool at Indian Park, listening to transistor radios ("home of the KISN Good Guys!"), and going to the movies! You'd pay your money (fifty cents for under twelve) , buy Flicks at the candy counter (a metallic cylinder of Hershey's-type kisses) and slip through heavy velvet drapes for a cheap-o kid exploitation Hollywood crapola movie like this. With any luck, the girl you had a crush on from school (remember her?) would be there with her girlfriends and you'd sit behind them and throw peanuts at them. Then you'd try to act cool. Your senses were wide open. You were lucky to be alive in the Golden Age of the Great American Experiment. Anyway, this movie would be playing.
