Music Du Jour: Brook Benton’s “Hotel Happiness”

Posted on May 6, 2014 by Paleo Retiree

Paleo Retiree writes:

From 1965 on Hollywood A Go Go, here’s an elegant, unforced yet sexy, very masculine groove that I really adore. First, check out the suit Brook Benton is wearing, as well as how he wears it. It’s understated yet unquestionably snazzy, with just a hint of decadent boldness in the eloquently chosen tie and the perfectly folded-and-tucked handkerchief. Everything about Brook’s visuals — from haircut to moustache to wristwatch — fits so beautifully in place that I find myself thinking that maybe it sometimes really can be said that the cuffs and the shoes make the man. (A wise woman friend once said to me, “Men will drive five miles out of their way to watch a woman take her clothes off. Women are more interested in how a man wears a suit.”) I love Brook Benton’s huge personality too. It isn’t cartoon-ified and made external in the modern way; in fact, it’s mostly held in check. But watch his easy command as he stands, swings and sings. He may not be the world’s most graceful guy, but there’s zippo that’s awkward, forced or anxious about his presence, and his ability to fill the room with gusts of feeling and sound … his warm, friendly smile promising wicked delights … his expressive genius with his pointing finger … Watching this clip, you’re in no doubt that Brook Benton knows where the best party in town is being thrown, and that, so long as we’re in his company, we’ll all be welcome there.

Fair to say that traditional grownup masculinity isn’t about what most young men seem to specialize in these days, venting and cultivating passive/aggressive self-expression? Instead, it’s about the possession of two things: 1) a juicy inner life and 2) a lot of control over those feelings, desires and energies. OK, maybe also 3) a sense of perspective about life-things and 4) an enormous (but not obnoxious) sense of fun and mischief. Judging from this clip, it seems to me fair to conceive of Brook Benton as Cary Grant reincarnated as an R&B soulman. Bonus attraction: Check out the band’s bass player. He isn’t even pretending to play his instrument; he’s doing some really stylish and snakey dancing instead. He may qualify as the coolest guy in the room.

Micro-rant: Since the ’60s drug culture established trippiness and intensity as dominant entertainment values, popular culture has lost too much touch with an entertainment value that I really adore: Easygoingness, flirtiness, inconsequentiality, suaveness. Hey, world (and especially entertainment-biz execs): Entertainment conceived of as a fun date rather than a mind-altering wipeout may be relatively lowkey but it can convey a whole different, and equally worthwhile, experience of transport.

Note to self: make up a list of entertainments from recent decades that did a good job of foregrounding easygoingness. Any suggestions from co-bloggers and/or visitors?

Related

  • Our interview with Hollywood A Go Go’s chief dancer De De Mollner, the beautiful blonde who’s dancing in front of Brook in this clip, is a treasure, if I do say so myself. Find out from De De what the pop music world of the early and mid ’60s was really like.
  • There’s lots more Hollywood A Go Go (and topflight go-go dancing) to be enjoyed here.
  • Wikipedia’s entry on Brook Benton is very informative. Interesting to learn that, like so many soul and R&B greats, he started out singing in church. (His father was a Methodist minister.) He was a prolific and successful songwriter as well as a performer. Most of Brook’s other tracks on YouTube are slowish romantic ballads — they’re great for what they are but I confess that I like a little more swing in my pop music than Brook generally delivers.
  • So far as casual-yet-grownup entertainments go: I’m a huge fan of such masters of finger-snapping, confident ease as Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole and Bobby Darin. Look at the relaxed way those guys tease and joke, and stand in FUCKIN’ AWE of the way they wear their suits. George Clooney, eat your heart out.
  • I’m a ferocious partisan of the Bob Hope/Bing Crosby “Road” movies too.
Posted in Music | Tagged , | 2 Comments

“300: Rise of an Empire”

Posted on May 5, 2014 by Sax von Stroheim

Sax von Stroheim writes:

I went to see 300: Rise of an Empire the other day, because it’s the only movie playing right now that seems important enough to get me out of the house. Everything else can wait for Netflix.

It has close to zero in the way of traditional movie values: pacing, rhythm, storytelling, and character development all thrown out the window in favor of a formal exercise in using CGI to wildly juxtapose incommensurate scales. Big Men and Tiny Ships, or Big Ships and Even Bigger Ships, or Crazy Giant Waves and Tiny Men on Tiny Ships.

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Half of the movie looks like this

In that sense, it felt much more animated – much more like a cartoon – than Zack Snyder’s original 300 movie. There, Snyder took Frank Miller’s 2D illustrations and gave them a sculpted, 3D feel; but the sequel, directed by Noam Murro, is much less tied to the idea of trying to represent 3D space and more about warping the image in any-and-every way possible for expressionistic effect.

It’s all grounded by a fierce performance by the great Eva Green. Lena Headey is also very good, but I kept waiting for her to move closer to center stage – really she’s just a “Very Special Guest”. This is Eva’s show.

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Eva Green is in charge of this movie

I liked it! I found the movie visually/formally engaging throughout. I guess it’s a good thing that it doesn’t have the tongue-in-cheek-or-is-it? jingoism of the first movie, but it also lacked that movie’s straightforward narrative drive: it jumped around at beginning, with several false starts, and never fell into a groove. The main male characters/actors are all pretty dull. I think they’re dull on purpose, but dull is dull.

It reminded me a lot of Tarsem Singh’s Immortals, which plays with scale in a similar way, but which I found a lot more enjoyable on a storytelling level: even though the story in Immortals is goofy and hacky and ripped right out of the Joseph Campbell playbook, it satisfied in a way that this one didn’t.

Immortals, an underrated, goofy, sword-and-sandal-and-superhero movie

Immortals, an underrated, goofy, sword-and-sandal-and-superhero movie

As I was leaving the theater I couldn’t help but get a little depressed that Eva Green and Lena Headey don’t seem to be able to get involved in many (any?) movies worthy of their talents.

Related

  • I’m surprised that we don’t seem to have any blogposts about Eva Green here, but there’s a very cool conversation about The Dreamers, a Bertolucci movie starring Eva, on Ye Olde 2Blowhards Website.
  • Immortals used to be on Netflix Watch Instant, but it isn’t there anymore. Maybe it will come back, but for now it’s available for streaming rental on Amazon (and probably some other places). I think it’s worth the $3 if you’re at all interested in contemporary fx-driven movie: it’s weirder than almost all of the more mainstream hits in the genre (i.e., the Marvel superhero movies, the children of The Matrix, etc.), and is even sexy (albeit in a very goofy way).
  • I think the original 300 is one of the most important post-Matrix blockbusters. Audiences were genuinely excited about it, and since it wasn’t about already known and loved characters (like the Batman movies), the excitement seemed pure to me and not something dredged up by marketing hacks. Hey, here’s a great 2Blowhards piece on 300.
Posted in Movies, Performers | Tagged , , , | 9 Comments

“OSS 117: Lost In Rio”

Posted on May 5, 2014 by Fabrizio del Wrongo

Fabrizio del Wrongo writes:

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This second in the “OSS 117” series of spy spoofs is so glancing in its approach that its surreality sneaks up on you. Certain bits — a riverbank interlude involving the spit-roasting of a rubber crocodile, a hippie beach party with homoerotic overtones — are as casually off-kilter as anything in Woody Allen’s “Bananas.”

The plot centers on French intelligence agent 117, played by Jean Dujardin, who travels to ’60s Rio to meet with a former Nazi named Von Zimmel. The French government wants 117 to bribe Von Zimmel and thereby prevent him from releasing the names of wartime collaborators. (The list is so extensive that its dissemination risks implicating large swathes of the French ruling class.) When 117 arrives in Brazil he discovers that Mossad is after Von Zimmel too; they want to try him for crimes against humanity. 117 is shocked. How, he wonders, can the Israelis hope to sneak up on the Nazi when he’s sure to recognize them by their noses? Besides, shouldn’t Jews and Nazis be striving for reconciliation? Much of the humor in “Lost In Rio” pivots on 117’s blithely anachronistic attitudes regarding race, women, and politics. This may be reason enough to recommend it. What’s the last movie to have fun with Nazis?

Director Michael Hazanavicius and cinematographer Guillaume Schiffman give the picture a bright, clean look that evokes both the techno-optimism of the Atomic Age and the candied decadence of ’60s commercialism. You can sense the world tilting out of one era and sliding into the next. (The production design is by Maamar Ech-Cheikh.) Though the series seems inspired by Austin Powers, it’s free of the crassness and aggressiveness of the Myers films. Instead, Hazanavicius finds inspiration in the tonic coolness of the secret-agent archetype. Though he’s making a spoof, he takes the spirit of the spy film seriously — enough to make 117 a figure of considerable dash and charm, despite his chronic cluelessness.

Hazanavicius has the right actor in Dujardin. A nimble performer whose face is like a Rorschach of various matinée idols, the actor combines bravado with a self-awareness that makes him seem as though he’s constantly taking stock of himself. (The juxtaposition of Dujardin’s awareness and 117’s denseness is largely responsible for the movie’s winking sense of knowingness.) And Dujardin is a wonderful comic focal point: He draws you into every gag with an ease that’s like a kind of grace. It’s a grace you can feel throughout the performance. When 117 attends a costume ball disguised as Robin Hood, the actor is the image of Douglas Fairbanks, not just physically, but spiritually, symbolically. You understand at that point why Hazanavicius and Dujardin made “The Artist.” The gag-strung-on-gag structure of “Lost In Rio” sags after a while. Dujardin keeps it off the ground. 

Related

  • The movie and its predecessor, “OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies,” are available on Netflix Instant.
  • Here’s the movie’s trailer:
Posted in Movies, Performers | Tagged , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

The Last Honest Meal

Posted on May 5, 2014 by Eddie Pensier

Eddie Pensier writes:

If you’re the type of diner who judges restaurants by hygiene and cleanliness, this sign in the window of Dinastia China might give you pause.

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That is, of course, the New York City Health Department Sanitation Inspection Grade. A “B” grade means that the establishment has received between 14-27 points of “violations”, as judged by the inspector. This could mean anything from failing to sanitize knives to harboring salmonella.

Continue reading →

Posted in Food and health, Personal reflections, Travel | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

Tango Du Jour

Posted on May 5, 2014 by Eddie Pensier

Eddie Pensier writes:

Libertad_Lamarque_Headshoot

Rumor has it that Libertad Lamarque (1908-2000) left her native Argentina to work in Mexico, after an on-set dispute with fellow actress Eva Duarte grew into a feud. After Duarte married  autocrat-to-be Juan Perón, the feud became an (unofficial) blacklisting, and her recordings and films became scarce in Argentina: indeed, she never worked there while the Peróns were in power.

She denied it (and so did Perón’s biographers) but in the long run it didn’t matter, because Evita died and Lamarque was eventually acknowledged as one of the great Latin singers of the twentieth century, and certainly one of the best tango singers ever. Her acting was average at best….she didn’t seem to be able to conjure up the true emotion that came to her so easily in song. She was charming to look at, no great beauty but with a vivacity that made you pay attention.

YouTube offers lots of Lamarque, including entire films of hers (mostly good for amusement and musical, rather than dramatic, value). As a taster, here she is singing “A Media Luz”. Enjoy.

Posted in History, Movies, Music, Performers | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Quote Du Jour: Virginia Postrel on Glamour

Posted on May 4, 2014 by Blowhard, Esq.

Blowhard, Esq. writes:

For theatrical grace, the audience must not know, or must be willing to overlook, the effort behind the effortlessness. Sprezzatura is an illusion. Even in the naturally gifted, it requires cultivation. “She’s disciplined,” said Humphrey Bogart of Audrey Hepburn, “like all of those ballet dames.” To turn Sean Connery’s natural physical grace into James Bond’s social polish, director Terence Young took the young actor to fine restaurants, taught him to evaluate wines, had his suits and shirts custom-tailored, and made Connery sleep in one of the new outfits so that Bond’s clothes would feel natural. Grace Kelly achieved her mellifluous voice only after rigorous coaching, which mellowed her vocal tones and eliminated her nasal Philadelphia accent. Cary Grant spent his youth training as an acrobat, acquiring control over his movements. He achieved his “effortless” appearance by measuring the collars of his shirts and the lapels of his custom-made suits, returning them to the tailor if they were a tiny bit off. “It takes 500 small details to add up to one favorable impression,” he said.

By depicting the practiced or choreographed as natural and spontaneous, glamour makes the ideal feel attainable and the observer feel transported and at ease. “Each time Fred Astaire won over the heart of a reluctant Ginger Rogers by sweeping her up in a flurry of pivots, dips, and syncopated time steps, audiences forgot (since the film never showed) how many shoes were bloodied in the studio to create the appearance of impromptu courtship,” writes the dance scholar Juliet McMains.

These movies don’t invite us to imagine ourselves as real-world dancers, struggling through difficult rehearsals to create a great performance. Instead, we project ourselves into an effortless celebration of courtship and love. Astaire and Rogers labored mightily to create those dances, but the characters they played did not.

Virginia Postrel, The Power of Glamour

Posted in Art, Performers | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Sunday Jazz Selection

Posted on May 4, 2014 by Fenster

Fenster writes:

Dizzy Gillespie, Man from Monterey

Posted in Music | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Movie Poster Du Jour: “My Life to Live”

Posted on May 3, 2014 by Fabrizio del Wrongo

Fabrizio del Wrongo writes:

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Related

  • I posted galleries of New Wave posters here, here, and here.
  • I showcased some U.S. arthouse posters here.
Posted in Commercial art, Movies | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Naked Lady of the Week: TheDiggityDank

Posted on May 2, 2014 by Blowhard, Esq.

Blowhard, Esq. writes:

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Although reddit may be a hotbed of PC nerdlingers, it’s also one of the web’s premiere sites for amateur porn. While there are forums (aka “subreddits”) to cater to every sexual taste and variation, /r/gonewild is probably the most popular and the user known as thediggitydank is one of its stars.

From BELLE DU JOUR to the recent CONCUSSION, the convention of the bored housewife who rejects conformity and grooves on her sexual libido has proven a potent archetype. Who hasn’t walked through the Target aisles and wondered about the fantasy life of the brunette MILF who just walked by in yoga pants? (I’m not the only one, right?) TheDiggityDank exploits this erotic milieu to great effect. The backdrop for most of her shoots is a drab suburban bedroom which contrasts with her sprightly and spirited personality. Her continued practice of obscuring her face, even though she’s practically revealed it, adds a frisson of naughtiness. No doubt the local PTA would be scandalized if they knew what one of its members was up to.

The gallery below the jump is NSFW, duh. Happy Friday.

Continue reading →

Posted in Photography, Sex | Tagged , , , , | 9 Comments

Linkage

Posted on May 2, 2014 by Paleo Retiree

Paleo Retiree writes:

Posted in Commercial art, Linkathons | Tagged , , | Leave a comment