Shangri-La Plaza (Nick Castle 1990)

About three years ago on the a_film_by list, Mike Grost mentioned a TV pilot musical called Shangri-La Pizza. It was apparently shown only once one godforsaken night in 1990 on CBS. Mike was lucky enough to catch it. And his site was long the only site on the internet that mentioned the thing.

Well, that's because Mike, bless him, got the name wrong (and you really can't blame him - he was taking down credit info as the show was being broadcast!). It's Shangri-La PLAZA and in our era of immediate gratification, you can now relive that fateful night in 1990 on youtube as the entire episode is there in three parts. Here's part one:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhOa_i12GtY

After watching it twice now, it's clear that we didn't need Nirvana to sweep away Shangri-La Plaza (and Cop Rock in the same year no less!). Apparently, TV execs took the enormous success of MTV-style danceicals of the 1980s as an excuse to greenlight these spontaneous outbursts of song. But by 1980, such outbursts were long since verboten (despite very occasional successes here and there) and Shangri-La Plaza goes Cop Rock one better by featuring very little spoken dialogue. That is, it's almost sung through which ups the ante for a nation already turned off by such musical expression.

So it's no shock that it never got past the pilot stage. Still, loving the musical as I do, I just gotta give Shangri-La Plaza the hug it so desperately needs. I love the main theme, the "Donut Hole" song, and I mourn the fact that we'll never get to hear the blond skater/surfer dude sing.

It was directed by Nick Castle whose odd career seems indicative of the type of floundering (profitable or not) that he would not have had to do in the classical Hollywood era. He played Michael Myers in Halloween and dipped his toes in quasi-musicals such as Tap and August Rush. Also, watch for a young Savion Glover.

If I had to be mean about any of it, I'd say that the apparently requisite dual focus heterosexual narrative of the musical is not resuscitated here by tweaking the formal into a triple focus heterosexual narrative (two brothers after the same woman). In fact, it's forced and awkward to watch. And trust me - you don't have to be gay to come to that conclusion. In the end, then, it's a measure of the dead end of the musical in the 1980s and 1990s, the impoverished bank of stories to tell via music. But that in itself is a perverse kind of pleasure anyway. Enjoy!

Roswell

I'm surprised a trip to Roswell didn't happen earlier seeing as how Stuart's a conspiracy nut. But I was recently invited to fill out a panel at a conference in Albuquerque. And given that Roswell is only three hours away, we made a vacation of it.

We spent very little time in Albuquerque so I don't have much to report beyond that we ran into a lot of tough guys. And the mountains outside the city were absolutely gorgeous.

I told a conferencer I was heading to Roswell and he responded that he'd be reluctant to visit because he imagined his stay would be an imposition. Having felt like a pestilence-bringing imperialist during my two loooong days at Niagara Falls, I know how he feels. Somehow, I escaped this feeling in Roswell probably because we spent a lot of time just sleeping. That is, this was one of those real vacations where you simply veg rather than rush to cram in as many memories as possible.

Not that there was much to cram. The sight of the UFO crash (and if you're wondering what that phrase is doing here, brush up on the event here) is off-limits. And besides, the crashed happened near Roswell (wonder what town is pissed losing all the tourist dough). So you go to Roswell for The International UFO Museum and Research Center which, like the museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, strives to present an even-keeled assessment of the situation (with an obvious lean towards "the truth is out there and the U.S. govt. is hoarding it"). However, if you're not inclined to wade through the word-heavy exhibits with the diligence they require, you can breeze through the entire thing in an hour tops. Which means that either you or the person you accompany must be a UFO/conspiracy freak to get something out of it.

And actually, as a mere tagalong, I did get something out of it. Below is a placard listing some reasons why the U.S. govt. would want to keep UFO information under wraps. Nos. 3-5 seem particularly sound to me.















Here are some of the showier attractions.








































And some cool art work.












































































And some props used for a TV movie about the crash.









































After the museum, there's really not much else to do. There was a haunted house thang that I am too adult (i.e. even more scared than a child) to patronize. And countless memorabilia shops that, as with Graceland, start to blend into one another very quickly.

One shop, though, had a nifty little Spacewalk, a short glow-in-the-dark exhibit that cost two bucks and provided a mildly trippy divergence for about three minutes, maybe four. I told Stuart to get the hell out of the way in the last pic but it turned out to be kinda spooky. Ooooh.












































































Around town, there is no poverty of attempts to exploit the UFO connection. Aliens are welcome at Arby's, says a sign advertising Beef & Cheddar prices. Keep your junk at Alien Storage. An accountant sprinkled his office windows with those beach ball green aliens you can buy at the state fair.

The streetlights are alien.















The sidewalks are alien.















The soda machines are alien.















Even the failed restaurants are alien.















In sum, an peculiar, slightly lame vacation. Megatons better than Niagara Falls, though.

Stuart got hideously ill the morning we left (tons of alien infestation jokes so far from friends; but no govt. infestation jokes yet). So I sped him back to Austin during which time I noticed this sign: Melodrama at Granny's Opera House. I know Christine Gledhill, Linda WIlliams, et al. consider melodrama to be the central mode of western media. But this sign advertised melodrama as a genre. Which suggests that Granny's Opera House might not exist anymore. Sadly, the puking gentleman in the back seat prevented further exploration.

Carly Hennessy on Idol!!

Holy democracies! Check out this front page post on Allmusic yesterday identifying Idol hopeful Carly Smithson as the Carly Hennessy, star of that notorious Wall Street Journal piece about how MCA spent almost $2.2 million on Hennessy and her album Ultimate High only to watch it sell 378 copies (as of the time the piece was written). Gawd - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!'s homegrown debut feels like Rumours in comparison.

Naturally, she was dropped which brought her to Idol Season 5. But she couldn't participate in Hollywood Hell Week due to visa problems (she's a Dublin native). Now she's married (hence the Smithson) and with all obstacles removed, she made it through easily to Hollywood this season.

It'd be convenient to dump the entirety of your reality TV disillusion on Carly's beleaguered profile. But she's hardly the first vortex the biz has thrown toilet bowls of cash into. Check out this New Yorker piece on the meticulous coiffing of Cherie whose 2004 self-titled debut on Lava probably moved 379 units. And she's not the only Idol contestant on even just this season to have enjoyed (so to speak) major label support of some sort. Check out the guilty lined up here at Votefortheworst.com.

Still, it begs the obvious question of whether or not Idol can sustain its Preston Sturges-like tension, prompting one wag here to suggest the show should be retitled American Exposure. We want a poor schmuck like Dick Powell in Christmas in July or season five finalist Kevin Covais to get their shot at The American Dream. But will we thrill to Carly's rise knowing someone/thing has already spent $2.2 million on her? How many of us can boast of such expenditures?

Then again, how many of us can boast of making $50,000 a year? (Do I hear $20,000?) How many of us can boast of holding a high-level position at our place of employment? The latter scenario, of course, was where Dick Powell found himself in Christmas in July and together with Ellen Drew's climactic speech which gets him the job, it resulted in one of the greatest comedies of the classical Hollywood era. But it probably wouldn't make for gripping reality tv. Still, whatever drama we'll feel this season on Idol will depend on not only how we define The American Dream but where exactly we place the contestants on the path towards it. So we have to ask ourselves how we know that the dream has been realized. But we also have to determine from how far back the contestants are starting.

Me, I'm willing to entertain the notion that Carly possesses some of the unluckiness of the poor schmuck because I know that however we conceive of The American Dream, it's never one immovable endpoint. Like an agitated muscle, it pulsates and can disappear completely over time if not overnight. That's why we marvel at the peaks and valleys in the careers of a Neil Young or an Elvis. Or a Jennifer Hudson. They lay out The American Dream as if on a graph and define the absolute limits of its representation.

So let Carly have her sixteenth minute. If she rides it far enough, she'll be telling us more about ourselves than anything else.

Liza digs Maroon 5!

Liza was just on Nightline doing some sort of "Famous People Pick 5 Songs They Dig" spot (is this a regular feature?). Anyhoo, she picks Aznavour, "Maybe This Time," Raitt fille, and..."This Love" by Maroon 5! She says Maroon 1 Adam Levine combines jazz with rock. Is that why the song snakes its way around your inner music matrix? She would know. Jazz with rock, huh?

Ananda Shankar on Idol???

Did anyone else notice Ananda Shankar's raga-funk version of "Jumpin' Jack Flash" providing the background for our introduction to the sparkly, non-victorious, soon-to-be-actressing Alexis Cohen?

My top tens of 2007

Albums

1. M.I.A.: Kala (Interscope)
2. Jewface (Reboot Stereophonic)
3. Dixon: RA.048 (Resident Advisor podcast)
4. Authenticite - The Sylliphone Years (Stern's Africa)
5. The Angelic Process: Weighing Souls With Sand (Profound Lore)
6. Jens Lekman: "Night Falls Over Kortedala" (Secretly Canadian)
7. Rufus Wainwright: Rufus Does Judy At Carnegie Hall (Geffen)
8. Rilo Kiley: Under The Blacklight (Warner Bros.)
9. Barr: Summary (5 Rue Christine)
10. Matthew Dear: Asa Breed (Ghostly International)

Singles

1. Owusu & Hannibal: "Lonnie's Secret" (Ubiquity)
2. Eve: "Tambourine" (Aftermath/Interscope)
3. Escort: "All Through The Night" (Escort)
4. Britney Spears: "Piece of Me" (Jive)
5. M.I.A.: "Boyz" (Interscope)
6. The Pierces: "Boring" (Lizard King)
7. Dude ‘N Nem: "Watch My Feet" (TVT)
8. Hannah Montana: "Nobody's Perfect" (Walt Disney)
9. Maroon 5: "Makes Me Wonder" (Octone/A&M)
10. UGK ft. OutKast: “Int'l Players Anthem (I Choose You)” (Jive)

I took out the two reissues for the Idolator poll and put in Burial and Fountains of Wayne.

My fave reissue of the year is both music and film - the 3-DVD Deluxe Edition of The Jazz Singer.

The Jazz Singer you know (or know of). But the real gems here are the Vitaphone shorts that make up Disc Three. Vitaphone was the sound-on-disc process used by Warner Bros. for sync sound features, e.g. The Jazz Singer. But the studio also produced short musical subjects, most of which remain the only filmic record we have of certain vaudeville artists.

What's so moving about watching these professional entertainers ham it up for the camera (complete with bows, curtains parting, direct address, etc.) is that they're performing for a medium that sped up their decline as a cultural force. And beyond (Baby) Rose Marie and Burns & Allen, very few of these particular performers managed success in film/TV. (You can see Al Jolson shake his tush in the extras on Disc One.) Even the revue format in which most of these shorts are locked fell to the wayside in film musicals by about 1933.

But if you think shtick if not corn is the lifeblood of pop, you'll find counless hours of entertainment here. There's oh so much to mention. Tons of great novelties. Tons of hot jazz. Tons of banjos (an entire girl orchestra of them, in fact). Tons of jokes. Tons of catchiness.

And itchiness. For blackface without the burnt cork, check out the dialects of [Gus] Van and [Joe] Schenck in "The Pennant Winning Battery of Songland" on such hits as "Hard To Get Gertie" and "She Knows Her Onions." Or Blossom Seeley and Bennie Fields, the latter of whom wrote a French coon song called "Marseillaise In The Cold, Cold Ground" (say it a few times out loud). And in case you had to be told, gay people existed back then, if only in caricature with Ethel Sinclair and Marge La Marr in "At The Seashore."

There's Dick Rich, a priss queen Paul Whiteman. There's Green's Twentieth Century Faydetts, another all-girl orchestra with a conductor in pants who dances. There's The Foy Family who tell a gruesome children's story in between violent tap dances. And even if you have low tolerance for shtick, you'll love Shaw & Lee in "The Beau Brummels." Two men in Derbys tell naughty, even nihilistic jokes with deadpan voices and poker faces and sing a jaw-dropping metasong which might be called "This Is Where The Chorus Ends." Very Emo Philips if not Neil Hamburger ("20 people fell from a 10 story window but no one was hurt." "How did that happen?" "They all died").

Disc Two contains a featurette and several shorts on film sound. For more info, check this review out.

DVD of the year.

Best film of the year: The Death of Mr. Lazarescu; Runner Up: Southland Tales
Worst film of the year: Once; Runner Up: No Country For Old Men

I bought a scanner!

Which means you'll be getting lots of pictures of Joan Crawford. Here's one of my faves from her useful how-to-be-Joan-Crawford book My Way of Life:




















And it's true, ya know. I'm always running around with last minute cleaning and underwear drying before a party and thus always frazzled and mad at Stuart while guests are arriving. One day I'll be able to greet my guests like so, Diet Pepsi in glass and all.

Puritans

Here's beleaguered UT American Studies PhD student Carly Kocurek on reading 200+ books for her comps:

"You know what I don't want to read about? Puritans."