A Tribute to Tom Lehrer

Before Steve Martin or Richard Pryor, before George Carlin, before Bob Newhart and yes even before Lenny Bruce, there was Tom Lehrer. Lehrer began releasing comedy albums all the way back in 1953, even before the concept of the comedy album had really been established. But Tom wasn't your ordinary stand up comic - he was something so unique that quite frankly no one like him has ever appeared on the stage since.

Tom Lehrer was a comedian, a musician, a mathematician and even possibly a spy (for us) - but beyond all of that he was a wit the likes of which only appears once in a generation. The closest analogue we can think of today might be Steve Colbert - although Steve's songs don't quite compare to Tom's.

Tom Lehrer, the inventor of the Comedy album

Tom Lehrer went to Harvard, studied mathematics, worked at Los Alamos and later taught math at several universities. He ended his singing / comedy career in the early 1970's - rumor has it due to Henry Kissinger winning the Nobel peace prize. Another rumor states that Ricardo Montalban attacked him at a performance in San Francisco due to his "Vatican Song." It is clear that his comedy influenced all generations of comedians since but none has ever managed to reproduce the intellectualism and savvy he demonstrated.

This song really benefits from the visual aid...

Tom is still with us and lives in his retirement in beautiful Santa Cruz, CA (one of our favorite places) - he even taught at the University of California Santa Cruz - a combination of Math and Musical Theater (not in the same class of course). His last lecture concerned the nature of infinity - that's a hell of a way to make an exist.

One of the more biting satires of the Cold War

We will leave you with several more of Tom's ballads...

The elements song

Oedipus Rex

In Old Mexico

A fierce dig at the South during Segregation

Send the Marines...

Copyright 2013, Raving Reviews 

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Homeland Insecurity

To say the United States has lived in a cocoon of paranoid over-reaction for the past decade or so is perhaps an understatement. What 9/11 really seemed to accomplish more than anything was to give credence and deference to media-fueled mass hysteria. There was no logic or reason to how this country reacted to that tragedy. On the one hand we launched several ill-considered wars which when combined now represent the longest conflict in American history. But that wasn't all; we also managed to gut the constitution in what now seems almost a whim (the very rushed Patriot Act). This is all the more remarkable given that throughout the entire Cold War when the world was a heartbeat away from total nuclear destruction, we somehow managed to preserve, protect and even cherish our freedoms.

Homeland Security came into existence two years after 9/11

The latest headlines can attest to the fact that we're doing more spying now than we ever have before - even more than during the Cold War. People don't seem to question the motives or rationale behind this unprecedented level of paranoia - but they should. Let's put this into perspective; every year more than 10x as many Americans die from gunshot wounds (self inflicted or otherwise) as did during 9/11. Put another way, in one year more Americans will die from guns here at home than died in both the entire Afghan and Iraq wars combined.

Like I said, there's no logic to what's been going on here - its more or less crazy...

Season 3 has taken Homeland in new directions

Crazy, like say, Claire Danes' character in Homeland. Homeland is a Showtime series which is in its 3rd season now. Up until this season it was something we only watched while traveling - where hotels only had Showtime and Showtime kept rerunning these episodes over and over again so you really couldn't miss it. We didn't like it during season one or two and part of the reason was the principle of the thing. It seemed like a combination of the most paranoid theme of the Cold War (The Manchurian Candidate) combined with all the worst aspects of the god-awful Fox series, 24. It was about as much fun to watch as getting the Rapiscan at airport security.

But then something changed this year. The show shifted from its terrorist paranoia to a deeper focus on the Intelligence Community in general and began highlighting many of the secondary characters. More than that, though - the plot began to focus more and more on Carrie Matheson's (Danes) inability to separate mental illness from intelligence practice. This has proven much more entertaining on many levels. It allows the show to poke criticism at itself and the larger sense of national paranoia while still shifting more towards a traditional spy thriller format. Another key aspect to this season's success was the decision to put Brody (Damien Lewis - you remember him, he played the straight-laced hero Captain Winters in HBO's Band of Brothers) on the back burner. Brody in this series, is the Manchurian Candidate and quite frankly he didn't play role so well anyway. We've had two movie versions of the Manchurian Candidate and in the first one Frank Sinatra (who wasn't the candidate) was the star and in the second Denzel Washington was (although Liev Shrieber playing the candidate did a good job).

Danes, Lewis, Baccarin and Patinkin

Lewis, while a competent actor, doesn't have great range and when he does try to break out of his normal character he comes across as though he is struggling a bit. Claire Danes on the other is perfectly convincing as both a desperate agent needing to be heard and as a stark raving looney - she's got range.

Rounding out the cast this year are Mandy Patinkin, Morena Baccarin and F. Murray Abraham (yes, that guy from the Mozart movie - Salieri). All of these folks are simply stellar; Mandy Patinkin is one of the best character actors in the business and Morena helped make Firefly the classic that it's become. All in all, Homeland seems to have done a very effective job of reinventing itself this season - becoming a much more reasonable drama.

The question is; will the U.S. do the same? (and someday emerge from this collective paranoia)



Copyright 2013, Raving Reviews

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Snow White & the Seven Bullfighters

Once every decade or so you find a movie that changes the way you view cinema and so utterly delights you that adjectives fail to adequately describe the experience. Not too long ago - this happened to us. We had literally stumbled upon the film - we had heard nothing about it. It showed up in one of the more obscured categories on our cable provider's pay per view section and we had no idea what it was about until we watched the preview (thankfully they had one) and we became quite intrigued.

The most original we've ever seen, period.

The film is Blancanieves - which is Spanish for "Snow White." It is both a work of art and a labor of love from Spanish director Pablo Berger. If you haven't heard of him, it's because this is one thing he's ever really done - but we have to say, it's enough to have established him as one of the unique visionaries in modern cinema. Which is all the more ironic, given that he essentially made a silent film.

The heart & soul of the movie is newcomer, Macarena García

While Macarena steals the show, the entire cast is outstanding; from the long-suffering Father, to the evil step-mother (Maribel Verdu), to the grandmother and of course let's not forget the seven bullfighting dwarves. Like the original tale, this story is pure fantasy - however it takes place in turn of the (19th) century Spain. After watching this, you'll have a hard time remembering the original brothers Grimm version of Snow White as Bergman's retelling is ultimately more human and touching than the old children's fable ever could be. And it accomplishes all of this without color and without audible dialog. Amazing...

There are some folks who will be put off by one or both of those factors. Although keep in mind that movie audiences fell in love with film as a storytelling medium in precisely these terms. There must have been something to it even then and as this movie demonstrates, there still is.

In this scene, young Blancanieves dances with her grandmother, but it proves fatal

This movie re-imagines who snow white is and all of the other characters as well and gives a unique glimpse into the culture of Spain and the practice of bullfighting. It is remarkable how much texture black and white film can bring out. Most color films are afraid to use shadow and do all they can to wash them out through excessive use of lighting - this film shows how much power shadows in cinema can bring.

The story is incredible, the images on the screen mesmerizing and the sounds of Spain captivating as a the background theme reflects the mood of each scene (just like in the old days of silent cinema) and the acting is simply superb. This movie rates a 10 out 10 in our opinion...



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