Arrivederci, Maestro!

The brilliant film composer Ennio Morricone has left us with an extraordinary array of music and memories that will live on forever. His work has always filled my heart, soul and imagination with wonder since I first heard him in my formative years and continues to do so to this very day in the process of writing my most recent novel.

Here is an excerpt from my first book IN THE DARK: A LIFE AND TIMES IN A MOVIE THEATER, recalling how the Maestro's music has followed me my entire life, even when I moved here to Portland, Oregon.

The first movie soundtrack album I ever bought was THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY. I’d play it incessantly and discovered the inspirational qualities of music while I wrote my stories as a kid. Many a time, that familiar strangulated cry from the main theme blasted out of the stereo speakers in my bedroom. I often wondered if anyone in my neighborhood thought someone was being murdered in our house. Later, I compiled several tracks from this and other soundtracks to create a mix tape that I used for atmospheric purposes at a western theme park called Pollardville Ghost Town. I was the entertainment director for a couple of years there as well as a cowboy stunt player in the various skits we performed on the town’s main street. (I even wore the poncho I bought ten years before in Tijuana after I’d seen GBU)

Recently, I was in downtown Portland, Oregon waiting for a light rail train nearby what is now known as Providence Park, the stadium home of the Portland Timbers and Thorns soccer teams.. It was near five o’clock on a Friday and I was fatigued by a particularly grueling week. Like everyone else, I just wanted to go home. Music, very familiar music at that, caught my ear. This was a melody so esoteric and personal to me that I began to feel as though I were imagining it, scoring my daily life like music sometimes does. 

But no, it was indeed Ennio Morricone’s music from GBU. The exact track on the soundtrack is entitled “The Strong” and its melancholy tones echoed throughout the streets of Portland. It was coming from the stadium across the street from where I was standing. I walked to the curb and just stared at the ballpark when another cut called “The Ecstasy of Gold” began. In the film, it plays when Tuco (Eli Wallach) discovers Sad Hill Cemetery and searches for the grave holding the buried treasure he seeks.

It was then that I discovered my own treasure. I smiled from ear to ear as I heard the magnificence of Morricone enrich my soul and an actual tear came to my eye in recognition. It was right then that I found that I wasn’t alone in the world. Some one had the chutzpah to play Ennio goddamn Morricone for a sound check at a baseball stadium and that person was just as big of a freak as me. When you’re an eccentric weirdo, you never know when you’re going to run across a kindred spirit.

One final word, Maestro Morricone.

Bravo!

ChernFest 2016: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Some day, either before I kick or even after, I want my very own film festival. (Of course, if I'm dead, it would really ruin the experience for me) It could bear my name, which of course would be an honor unless, of course, I named it myself. (I am nothing if not self-serving) But I can also rock out the self-deprecation like nobody's business which explains away my other suggestion, the Some Dunce Film Festival. But since it's my birthday and this is the date I designate for my this fauxtival o' mine, I decided to settle on the more self-reverential ChernFest. Yeah, it's all about the Self. (But truth to tell, Some Dunce is better and probably more accurate)
 ChernFest will obviously center on my favorite films of all time, but the feature attraction of the very first cinematic celebration has to be what I consider the King of the Hill. Here, in an excerpt from my book In the Dark: A Life and Times in a Movie Theater, is my take on Sergio Leone's masterpiece, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

Sergio Leone used his camera like the baton of the maestro he was, conducting his grandiose shoot-‘em-up horse operas with a robust flair of an outrageous master with a lust for life. Never was this more evident than in his masterpiece The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, the last of his Dollars trilogy, which were akin to Wagner’s Ring Cycle on horseback. This became the epic film of my youth. Never before had I seen the western set in such a bold canvas as the Civil War. When I tasted this spicy mesh of fact and fiction, stirred together in a cinematic bowl of rich minestrone, my palate was changed forever for it made me want to sample more complex flavors that existed in thecinematic world, which I soon did.

Due to their familiarity to American audiences, Lee Van Cleef, Eli Wallach and Clint Eastwood almost seem like astronauts stranded on a distant planet against the backdrop of Leone’s vision. It takes but an instant to realize that they are the great director’s boldest colors on this magnificent painting of his and they are unforgettable. Van Cleef had such a distinct presence on screen that it is difficult to believe and the shame of Hollywood that he was so unsung an actor and underutilized by producers. Wallach, in the role of Tuco as the credits state and “also known as The Rat” as Eastwood says in the film, is nothing short of fantastic. It is to his credit that he goes so far over the top in his portrayal without becoming obnoxious, not an easy task in a film not in one’s native tongue.

Then there’s Clint. He is so laid back that he appears to be slumming and allows his co-stars to outshine him. The majority of critics had already misdiagnosed his acting style as “wooden” at this point. They ignored the inherent cool he projected which became part of his signature style. But, it is evident that this is still his movie. One of the most poetic moments in GBU (Good, Bad, Ugly) occurs when the Man with No Name (or Blondie as Tuco calls him) tends to a dying young soldier near the end of the film. He allows the boy a drag off his cigar, a last smoke for comfort. Suddenly, there is a decency about this man that surfaces momentarily. While this small act of charity is fleeting, this Man with No Name more than earns the title of “The Good”.

The first movie soundtrack album I ever bought was GBU. I’d play it incessantly and discovered the inspirational qualities of music while I wrote my stories as a kid. Many a time, that familiar strangulated cry from the main theme blasted out of the stereo speakers in my bedroom. I often wondered if anyone in my neighborhood thought someone was being murdered in our house. Later, I compiled several tracks from this and other soundtracks to create a mix tape that I used for atmospheric purposes at a western theme park called Pollardville Ghost Town. I was the entertainment director for a couple of years there as well as a cowboy stunt player in the various skits we performed on the town’s main street. (I even wore the poncho I bought ten years before in Tijuana after I’d seen GBU)

One afternoon, I was in downtown Portland, Oregon waiting for a light rail train nearby what is now known as Province Park, the home stadium for the 2015 MLS champion Portland Timbers soccer team and other sporting events. It was near five o’clock on a Friday and I was fatigued by a particularly grueling work week. Like everyone else, I just wanted to go home. Music, very familiar music at that, caught my ear. This was a melody so esoteric and personal to me that I began to feel as though I were imagining it, scoring my daily life like music sometimes does.

But no, it was indeed Ennio Morricone’s music from GBU. The piece from the film soundtrack is entitled “The Strong” and its melancholy tones echoed throughout the streets of SW Portland. It was coming from the stadium across the street from where I was standing. I walked to the curb and just stared at the stadium when another cut called “The Ecstasy of Gold” began. In the film, it plays when Tuco (Wallach) discovers Sad Hill Cemetery and searches for the grave holding the buried treasure he seeks.

It was then that I discovered my own treasure. I smiled from ear to ear as I heard the magnificence of Morricone enrich my soul and an actual tear came to my eye in recognition. It was right then that I found that I wasn’t alone in the world. Some one had the chutzpah to play Ennio goddamn Morricone for a sound check at a sports arena and that person was just as big of a freak as me. When you’re an eccentric weirdo, you never know when you’re going to run across a kindred spirit.

I’ve always resisted making Top Ten All-Time Best Film lists. I dunno. Maybe it’s fear of commitment or something. What’s more likely is that I’d end up obsessing over the damn thing. “Oh no! I left off Megaforce!” It’s all relative anyway. Do I really know what’s the best? I can only state my own preferences. To tell you the truth, I didn’t actually come to terms with what my very favorite movie of all time was until just a few years ago. I had in my head it was either Citizen Kane or The Godfather Part II. But after I took in a screening of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (with restored footage) in 2003 at Portland’s Cinema 21, it all come home to me. I sat in that theater on a Saturday afternoon, bouncing up and down in my chair like I was 12 years old all over again. (Thank God I went alone) The film was as vibrant and spectacular as I had remembered and reminded me of the influence it has made on my life. Therefore, I can emphatically proclaim without any reservations whatsoever that The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

moved into the number one spot, making it my favorite film of all time. (Yeah, I know. Way to make a stand.)

                                                        
Happy birthday to me.


In the Dark: A Life and Times in a Movie Theater is available on Kindle at Amazon.com and in paperback at Lulu.com This is the Special Edition too. It says so right on the book jacket.

Too Much of a Good Thing

TV ruins everything.

Everyone has a favorite movie, one that they’ve seen over and over again. Perhaps that experience initially presented itself when said film was first released in theaters. You liked it so much the first time, you had to see again, maybe even taking a friend this time. Then it was released on DVD or video. You just had to own a copy to view whenever you liked. Finally it hits the TV screen, first on cable where it’s repeated endlessly until it reaches its next incarnation on one of the networks, this time in an edited and truncated version with all the good parts cut out or altered in some such fashion. And after the same damn movie, sliced and diced and interrupted by endless commercial breaks…there you are, lapping it all up like a saucer of condensed milk to a hungry kitten.

TV programmers, much like their soulless counterparts in the radio industry, are unimaginative cretins. Therefore, since they don’t have a creative bone in their entire bodies collectively, they basically only offer the viewing public something that has worked before, either a variation of a proven product or the same exact thing. Therefore they will show it over and over and over again, which devalues any worth the original had in the process until it becomes just another goddamn nuisance. It’s playing it so completely safe that it is damaging. Constant repetition on the radio has ruined many a great song. The same thing is happening with movies on TV, especially since there are more channels than ever before. One would think that with the vast library of titles available at their disposal why they keep showing the same goddamn movies on what seems to be an endless loop.

For example, Groundhog Day has been played so often, almost on a daily basis, that it is becoming a parody of itself. I’m turning into Bill Murray. When the alarm wakes me up in the morning, I’m not awakened by Sonny and Cher singing I Got You, Babe, but by Bill Murray being awakened by Sonny and Cher singing I Got You, Babe.
The logical answer is to TURN THE FREAKIN’ CHANNEL, obviously. But honestly, we’re not strong people. We’re weak. If we come across a favorite movie while channel surfing, we can’t help but log a few minutes. Sometimes that leads to watching whatever is left of the whole damn thing. This is even true of edited films on local stations. I myself find it difficult to pass up Fargo, even though it’s been chopped up beyond recognition. Many of the swear words has been redubbed in very odd ways, such as when Steve Buscemi declares that he has, not “a fucking gun” but “a frozen gun”.

What’s going to happen is that many fine films are going to reach the Burn Out Factor with the audience. A movie you may love with all of your heart now will be shown so much that you will eventually not only begin to take it for granted, but pass it up altogether and finally growing to resent it, rolling your eyes and sighing in disdain when it is on for the fiftieth time that week.

Therefore I propose some tough love. I myself am resisting temptation by placing many of my favorites on a five-year moratorium. (Five may be a little severe, but I’ll give it a try). Among these titles are:

The aforementioned Groundhog Day
Silence of the Lambs-In one version or another, this has been shown more than Lucy and Ethel at the chocolate factory on I Love Lucy
A League of Their Own-What do you want from me? I like this movie. It’s sappy as hell and way too long, but it features one of Tom Hanks’ best performances, certainly his most quotable. “Ball players? I don’t have ball players! I have girls!”
Die Hard-How about showing this only during the holiday season like A Christmas Story ?
Pulp Fiction -Now that it has reached basic cable, there will be no stopping it.

Other movies that should go away just on general principle-Roxanne, Mrs. Doubtfire and Kindergarten Cop.

There are several more, but this is a good starting point for me. I watched the first half hour of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly last night before I went to bed and almost considered adding it to the list, even though it is my all-time favorite film. The thing is there are volumes of films that I have never seen and should. Viewing the same movies again and again cuts into that time, something that really is a precious commodity. Let’s face it. Life’s too short to keep repeating one’s self, even if it applies to something as trivial as watching our own entertainment. Isn’t the monotony of our daily lives enough to make us want to strive to add a little variety even now and then just to break up the seemingly endless drudgery a little so we don’t turn into a pack of mindless drooling zombies?

I’d love to elaborate a little further but I have to go. Friends is coming on. It’s the one where Rachel makes the trifle for Thanksgiving. I never get tired of that one.