As always, click to enlarge. For more Tom Tomorrow, Tom Toles, Calvin and Hobbes, Tony Auth, Peanuts, Pat Oliphant, and Zippy, click here, here, here, here, here, here, and here...
Madam Miaow writes the "yellowface" is alive and well in British theatre:
Imagine, if you will, a return to ye olden days of the almost complete absence of actors of colour from TV, when white entertainers blacked up and sang songs about their dear old mammy and grinning piccaninnies chowed down on watermelon. The Arcola (the c is hard, not soft, in case you wondered) gives us a sort of menstrual minstrel show for 21st century theatregoers getting to grips with sexual politics, while race issues pass right over someone's head...
Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here: Premium T. has been collecting flu puns. Citizen K. has aided and abetted. Whether you cringe or join in the fun, don't say you weren't warned...
She also took these amazing photos of her late neighbors' empty home. Empty, that is, in the corporeal sense, but still full in spirit...
The ironic First Lines above are from The Great Gatsby. They seem innocuous enough except that Fitzgerald never wrote anything innocuous in his life. As the novel brilliantly unfolds, it becomes clear that the people "without the advantages" are the Buchanans who gained the world and lost their souls, and even Gatsby, whose wealth couldn't buy him love or acceptance from an elite who didn't deserve him anyway...
Sunday Gospel Time: Vern "The Voice" Gosdin sings "Love Rolled The Stone Away":
As always, click to enlarge. For more Mike Keefe, Tom Tomorrow, Tom Toles, Pat Oliphant, Doonesbury. Ben Sargent, Mother Goose & Grimm, and Tony Auth, go here, here, here, here, here, here, and here...
Just A Song: Austin singer-songwriter Slaid Cleaves "Drinkin' Days" are over, but he's still trouble bound...
Sean, what are you waiting for? This is your chance to support the troops and show that water boarding isn't torture. Don't let us down. Sign the petition demanding that Sean Hannity put his money where his mouth is here...
As always, click to enlarge. For more Doonesbury, Pat Oliphant, Mother Goose & Grimm, Tom Toles, Zippy the Pinhead, Tony Auth, and Tom Tomorrow, go here, here, here, here, here, here, and here...
Unlike emigres from most other European countries, the Irish viewed leaving their homes as a form of exile, even amidst the starvation and disease of the Famine. In "Diamond Mountain" -- one of his best songs -- the Irish singer/songwriter Luka Bloom captures this sense of dislocation...
Opening Day at Fenway Park, Boston:
Ima Wizer reveals the Big Fat Idiot in all his malevolence and deceit:
Citizen K. can't wait to hear what the BFI makes of the rescue of the ship captain from the Somali pirates: Rushbo was on Obama's case about he so hilariously called "merchant marine organizers" all last week...
New Orleans (1947). D: Arthur Lubin. Arturo de Cordova, Dorothy Patrick, Richard Hagerman, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Woody Herman. By any definition a low-budget B movie with C-list Hollywood talent, New Orleans is nonetheless worth watching for the brilliant jazz performances of Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday and for its tentative (and possibly subversive) treatment of race and art. Set against the backstory of the closing of Storyville, New Orleans tells the story of gambler Nick Duquesne (Cordova) and the WASP-ish Miralee Smith (Patrick), a classical music singer who falls in love with Nick and with jazz, both to her mother's (Irene Rich) consternation.
The direction of the film plods until Armstrong and Holiday appear, at which point it perks up considerably. Holiday's performances of "Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans" and "Farewell to Storyville" are luminescent. There's an extraordinary sequence during which Armstrong introduces his band while prowling and slithering among them, the camera following and looking over his back the entire time.
At the same time, the film remains mired in 1940's attitudes toward race and music. Certainly, one must applaud it for Armstrong's and Holiday's performances and interesting scenes like the one in which Holiday takes Patrick slumming in Storyville. But jazz is finally acceptable only when Patrick, the white Woody Herman, and a classical musical orchestra perform "Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans" in a Carnegie Hall knockoff. It's only then that Miralee's mother relents in her opposition to the romance with Duquesne the gambler turned jazz promoter. Jazz has become safe, acceptable to the middle- and upper-classes, perhaps even reinforcing their staidness.
Much of this rises not from any particular ideology on the film's part, but from the producer's interpretation of what the film needed to present in order to make money. The film's presentation of Armstong's and Holiday's material is so superior that it's possible that the actual message is more subversive: We're giving you this white bread because we have to, but make no mistake about where the nutrition is. Thus, it's to New Orleans' credit that it provides plenty of actual jazz even while bowing to the pressures of profit. It's said that no one can serve God and Mammon, but New Orleans makes a worthy attempt...
The credits and opening scene of the film telegraph its dilemma. A chorale group sings "Do You Know What It Means" over the opening credits. Upon their completion, the camera immediately cuts to a Storyville afternoon graced by Armstrong's "West End Blues":
Sunday Gospel Brunch: It's not exactly gospel, but this performance of "Stand By Me" assembled by Playing For Change sure has the feeling:
As always, click to enlarge. For more Polly Jackson (a.k.a, Ima Wizer), Pat Oliphant, Tom Tomorrow, Tony Auth, Boondocks, Tom Toles, and Zippy the Pinghead, go here, here, here, here, here, and here...
Duplicity. D: Tony Gilroy. Clive Owen, Julia Roberts, Tom Wilkinson, Paul Giamatti. Industrial espionage as an attempted hybrid of John Le Carre and Ben Hecht. One-time spies and current lovers Owen and Roberts scheme to steal a secret cosmetic formula out from under the noses of rival CEOs Wilkinson and Giamatti. Despite Roberts' (who can do this kind of thing in her sleep) game effort and Giamatti's hilarious show-stealing performance, the film founders on a flat script that begs for better repartee. Moreover, the chemistry between a washed-out looking Owen and Roberts is off: She needs someone to run with, and he's a plodder to her thoroughbred. Plus, the twist at the end lacks credibility. On the other hand, the plot is appropriately complex, enough so to hold one's interest on a chilly, rainy Seattle afternoon. Overall, a nifty idea that could have and should have been better...
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