ANOTHER LIST
Boy, those editors at Rolling Stone must never sleep. Their latest list: The top 12 Rock Movies now available on DVD. They are:
1. This Is Spinal Tap - Great movie. And the amps all go up to 11.
2. A Hard Day's Night - The fab four and Paul's very clean grandfather.
3. Sid and Nancy - my favorite line: "Sid, what about the good-bye drugs?"
4. High Fidelity - A Springsteen cameo plus Jack Black.
5. Almost Famous Untitled: The Bootleg Cut - I love this movie.
6. Velvet Goldmine - shouldn't be on this list
7. Desperately Seeking Susan - Rosanna Arquette naked in the tub. 'Nuff said.
8. Hedwig and the Angry Inch - whatever happened to John Cameron Mitchell?
9. Rock 'n' Roll High School - P.J. Soles and the Ramones? Heaven!
10. 24 Hour Party People - "Genius. Poet. Twat." What a great poster tag line.
11. The Rose - Hello, world. May I introduce Ms. Bette Milder?
12. 8 Mile - Eminem wins an Oscar. Who'd a thunk?
Not a bad list. Movies I would have included: "Phantom of the Paradise," "The Last Waltz," "Tommy" and "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" - NOT!
GIVE THIS MAN A PRIZE
Gotta give thanks to a caller who only identified himself as "Mike from Miami." In the middle of quizzing radio host Rush Limbaugh about a recent congressional vote, Mike asked, "How do you equate hypocrisy and addiction, pill head?" Mike and I are still waiting for the answer.
REMEMBERING THE PAST
This past Halloween, a Maine high school student suffered severe burns when a fellow student set his Army sniper costume on fire. 14 year old Donald Awalt came to school in a costume made of leaves and grass. While at assembly, a student sitting behind him pulled out a lighter and said, "I wonder if this will burn." Hearing about this reminded me of the Halloween day in 1978 when, while visiting Matt during lunch at Plant, a young sophomore student foolishly came to school dressed as Mr. Peanut. Of course, he was immediately set upon and set on fire. The large styrofoam shell went up in flames in seconds, becoming almost napalm like. Pretty funny stuff. It would be indiscreet of me to mention this person's name, since he was well known by many here at the PCR. But his initials are C. A. Feel free to email me with your guesses.
MOVIE NOTES
Steve Martin has signed on to follow in the footsteps of the late, great Peter Sellers. Martin will play Inspector Jacques Clouseau in "Birth of the Pink Panther." Jackie Chan will play his manservant, Kato.
Richard Donner, who helmed the original, has replaced McG as director of the new "Superman" film. Studio sources say that next actor to be approached to play the man of steel will be Brendan Fraser.
Speaking of super heroes, Michael Caine will play Bruce Wayne's loyal butler, Alfred, in the new Batman feature.
Out of all of the teens that were featured in "Jaws 2," only one of them has really had a career. Keith Gordon appeared in such films as "All That Jazz," "Back to School," "Dressed to Kill" and "Christine." He also became a fine film director. Looking for help financing his next project, "Billy Dead," Gordon is selling 900,000 shares in the film at $8.75 each. You can become a mini-mogul and read excerpts from the script at billydeadmovie.com
MOVING ON
Dorothy Loudon, who won the 1977 Tony Award for her role in the musical, "Annie," died Saturday at the age of 70. Many years ago, while attending the Broadway flea market, I bought a copy of the "Annie" script. It's hand-written notations and ideas told me that it had belonged to someone in the cast. Many years later, I had the good fortune to meet Ms. Loudon and I asked her to sign the script, which she did, commenting, "You know, I don't even have a copy of this script." I offered her the copy I had, but she refused. Great lady!
I was going to report this last week, but at the time information was sketchy at best. Sadly, young actor Jonathan Brandis took his life on November 12. A friend discovered that Brandis had hung himself in his apartment. Paramedics were called but efforts to resuscitate Brandis proved useless. Brandis was best known for his work on television's "seaQuest DSV" and "Stephen King's IT." He also starred in "Neverending Story II," "Ladybugs" and "Sidekicks." He also appeared in Ang Lee's "Ride With The Devil." Mr. Brandis was 27.
Well, that's it for now. Have a safe and happy Holiday weekend! See ya!
"Mike's Rant" is ©2003 by Michael A. Smith. Webpage design and all graphics herein are creations of Nolan B. Canova. All contents of Nolan's Pop Culture Review are ©2003 by Nolan B. Canova.
