Your Friday Video Link: 2023 Good News

 

For the first edition of Your Friday Video Link for 2024, we have a look back at 2023.   

Specifically good news you may have missed in 2023.  

You're In Trouble With the Justice League?

You're in trouble with the Justice League! 

Or no, wait! 

Not, urine trouble with the Justice League! 

Wonder Woman explains the urinals at Justice League HQ! 

Champion of the Little Guy Vs. the Little Guy

A  few weeks ago, Donald Trump derided recent gains in the stock market has only making the rich richer.

Oh, look at Li'l Donnie, that old populist people pleasing person.

Of course when his shadow was darkening the White House, he couldn't brag enough about when the stock market was doing great and he made it happen and yadda yadda yadda.

He also predicted the stock market would crash under Joe Biden and since it didn't, well, he's gotta say something, don't he?

It goes hand in hand with his appeal to his broad base of non-college educated supporters that he (and only he) is some kind of champion for the little guy.  

Except we've got 4 years of Donald Trump doing the exact opposite.

Over his four years in the White House, here are some things that Donald ("looking out for the little guy") Trump did or triedto do to make things easier for companies ("the big guys"):  

• to hide workers’ injuries, 
• to avoid paying low-wage employees overtime
• to take a slice of their tips
• to misclassify them as “independent contractors"
• to prevent unionizing and bargaining collectively. 
• increase line speeds in poultry plants where workers already suffer high rates of injuries
• allow restaurants to pay servers a sub-minimum wage for doing non-tipped work

The very people who come out in their red MAGA hats and cheer Trump on at his circle jerk rallies are the very people who Trump sought to hurt in his first term in office and likely would do more of if he gets into office again. 

These stooges do not realize that they are in support of someone who does not support their self interests.   

I think the title of the below comic book (thanks to Mike Sterling for the image) needs to be reversed: Cthulhu Vs. the Three Stooges.   

Tuesday TV Touchbase: Gravity Falls and Other Random TV Things

Last week when I wrote about the TV shows I watched in 2023, I forgot to mention I watched season 2 of Loki. Let me remedy that.

In 2023, I watched season 2 of Loki.

There! I hope we can all move on.

Last week I mentioned I DID watch season 1 of Lucky Hank but wasn't sure I would watch season 2. AMC has made that decision for me by not renewing Lucky Hank for season 2.  Well, that's helpful. 

Look I'm all for Bob Odenkirk being on TV but a little Hank Devereaux and his whiny self absorption goes a long way. By the end of season 1, Hank finally realizes much of the fuckery in his life is self-inflicted. Instead of trying to make a TV series out of it, the story of Hank Devereaux perhaps would've made a better single movie, the sort of thing Wes Anderson would direct. 

While he was home for the holidays, our son Dean introduced us to Gravity Falls, an animated Disney series that ran a over a decade ago. For a Disney series, it is surprisingly subversive. Yeah there's fun goofy stuff for the kids but there are a lot of jokes and themes flying over their heads. Or maybe not. Kids can be unexpectedly insightful.  

Created by Alex Hirsch, Gravity Falls follows twin siblings Dipper  (Jason Ritter) and Mabel Pines (Kristen Schaal) to Gravity Falls, Oregon to spend the summer with their great-uncle (or "Grunkle") Stan (voiced by Hirsch) where they help him run the "Mystery Shack", a tourist trap Stan owns. 

Dipper and Mabel also deal with the weird shit happening in Gravity Falls. All manner of paranormal stuff is going on in and around this town. Monsters, robot monsters, zombies, gnomes, time travellers and sinister conspiracies. All the strange stuff from Supernatural, X-Files and Doctor Who are all happening in this tiny town. It seems only Dipper and Mabel seem to be aware of it or the residents of Gravity Falls are just used to this sort of weirdness and are oblivious to it.  

As I said, Gravity Falls is surprisingly subversive for a Disney series and Alex Hirsch didn't get to make his animated project his way without a fight.  Below is a video clip recounting Alex's battles with the Disney Standards and Practices department.

Over the holiday season, Andrea and I caught the CBS TV special Dick Van Dyke: 98 Years of Magic.  It's a opportunity for Dick Van Dyke to hear his eulogy while he's still alive and done up as a quasi Broadway production as various stars (some of whom neither I and quite possibly Dick Van Dyke have heard of) performed live song and dance routines from his movies such as Mary Poppins, Bye Bye Birdie and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. 

One performer I had heard of was Jason Alexander and I saw one reviewer online who didn't know why Jason was there. Beyond his role as George Costanza on Seinfield, Jason has a resume of song and dance roles on Broadway. He's who you get when you can't get Nathan Lane. ("Quick! Get me Nathan Lane or his lower cost hetero-normative equivalent!" And that's when Jason Alexander answers the call.) 

The man himself was enjoying the show, smiling broadly and singing along with the performers. Dick Van Dyke does look his 98 years but he still seems spry and alert. If God forbid I have to live to be 98, I wanna be like Dick and not moaning for the sweet release of death (like I do now at merely 60).   

There was a shout out to Dick's murder mystery TV series Diagnosis Murder which apparently ran for 178 episodes. With one murder per episode, that's....OH MY GOD! That's a LOT of dead people!

There were video tributes from celebrities who could not be there (or CBS wasn't willing to pay their fees for a live appearance) and my favorite was from Julie Andrews who said the following: "I don't get to see Dick as much as I like." 

I giggled when she said that and Andrea very wearily asked me, "What are you? 12?"  

Oh, c'mon! That was funny! 

OK, next week on the Tuesday TV Touchbase, I will turn the spotlight on Doom Patrol.  

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down in there, would ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here. 

A To Do List For 2024?

Hi there and welcome to I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You.

I am Dave-El and this is my blog.

The purpose of this blog was ostensibly for me to complain about shit that bothers me but you, dear reader, would otherwise find amusing.  

And sometimes it actually is that.

Mostly it's just about stuff I like that doesn't necessarily bother me. 

I like to watch TV and there is a weekly post about that. (A new Tuesday TV Touchbase will be up tomorrow.) 

I like to watch movies and there are posts about that. (Starting this weekend, there are two of those each week, Cinema Saturday and Cinema Sunday.) 

I like to read and I'll post about that. 

Since today is the first day of a new year (and I greet 2024 with some small degree of hope and large helping of dread), perhaps I need to do more with my life that watch TV shows and movies and read books and comic books. 

I am open to suggestions for new things to do in 2024.

How about this list?  

Well, all of that sounds interesting. 

If I do any of that, I'll write about here. 

Spoiler alert: I won't be doing any of that. 

Which is a shame. 

I really like the one about rushing into a store and demanding to know the date! 

That sounds like fun! 

Cinema Sunday: The Band Wagon

Welcome to Cinema Sunday and today is New Year's Eve and what a perfect day for a classic movie musical.  And we're looking at a classic regarded as one of the best MGM movie musicals.  

And with a pedigree of Fred Astaire and director Vincente Minnelli, well, it's to be expected.   

From 1953, it's The Band Wagon.  

Fred Astaire is Tony Hunter, a famous star of musical comedies on stage and on screen but that star has dimmed a bit after 3 years off.  

He returns to New York City to hear a pitch from his good friends, Lester and Lily Marton, who have written a stage show, a light musical comedy, that they think will be a perfect comeback for Tony.

Their script has caught the attention of Jeffrey Cordova, actor/writer/director/producer.  At the moment, he's starring in (AND directing) a new adaptation of Oedipus Rex that he wrote based on the original Greek story.

Cordova establishes his bonavides as a producer but securing the beautiful and talented ballerina Gabrielle "Gaby" Gerard (Cyd Charisse) to join the production. 

Cyd Charisses has legs that, as the saying goes, go all the way up.  

But can the dramatic Cordova really put on a comedy. Cordova makes the point it's all entertainment, be it comedy or tragedy, song and dance or romance. This leads to a big production number with Tony, Lester and Lily Morton as well as Jeff Cordova, "That's Entertainment!"

(Which is used A LOT in the compilation films That's Entertainment I, II and III which we covered here.)   

But getting Gaby for the show is the only thing he gets right. Otherwise, Cordova is a clueless about how musical comedies work.  

Cordova thinks the Marton's play is a brilliant adaption of the legend of Faust. He swears to Tony and the Marton he gets what they're doing but he still pitches the play to financial backers as "a brilliant adaption of the legend of Faust".

And during rehearsals Cordova decimates the production with dark and sinister turns that totally eviscerates the whole "light musical comedy" concept the Martons pitched.  

Everyone is miserable. 

Especially Tony who is stuck in a play that's not the one he signed up for. And he's got problems with Gaby.

And Gaby is bugged by Tony. But their animosity is not driven by ego but by insecurity. Because Gaby is a classically trained ballerina, Tony feels his self taught hoofing will make him look bad next to her. And because Tony has such an easy free spirited style, Gaby feels her structured dancing training will make her look bad next to him.  

Eventually these two crazy "kids" will finally sit down and talk and find they have more in common than they thought and they will fall in love.

("Kids" as in Fred Astaire was 54 years old and Cyd Charrise was 23 years his junior.)  

While Tony and Gaby make their relationship work, the play is not working.  

Cordova just keeps piling on with more dark turns of the plot and has, of course, cast himself as the Devil. (Can't do a story about Faust without a Devil to bargain with.)

And the play makes its debut.

And it BOMBS! 

It's not the light musical comedy the Martons envisioned but it gets laughs but for all the wrong reasons. 

Tony takes control of the production and oversees making the show the light hearted musical comedy it was supposed to be. 

The show makes it's Broadway debut (sans Faust) and it's a smash success! Gaby and Tony kiss in front of everybody as we get a reprise of "That's Entertainment!"

The "It's That Person Who Was In That Thing" Department

• One of the play investors Jeff Cordova meets with is Aunt Harriet from Batman. Yep, that's Madge Blake.  
• Oscar Levant as Lester Marton co-starred with Gene Kelly in An American In Paris.
• And speaking of Kelly, Cyd Charisse appeared in Singin' in the Rain (1952) as the long-legged woman in the green sequined dress and Louise Brooks hair who vamps Gene Kelly in the "Broadway Melody" sequence

And on the subject of Gene Kelly, the"The Girl Hunt Ballet" is very evocative of Gene Kelly's more surreal dance sequences that tend to culminate his movies but he had nothing to do with this one.   

The role of Tony Hunter reflected Fred Astaire's real life status at the time. Astaire saw himself as moving away from the prolific schedule of his younger years and certain moving away from being a song and dance man. He had to be talked into starring in The Band Wagon.  

Over all, The Band Wagon deserves it's acclaim and is quite an enjoyable film. It has all the hallmarks of a classic musical but with a knowing awareness of the absurdities of the format.  

____________________________

NEXT WEEKEND: 

It's not one but two (TWO!) movie posts a weekend.

This weekend debuts Cinema Saturday which will focus on more recent films and serve as a companion piece to Cinema Sunday which will post about older classic movies. 

This Saturday, Cinema Saturday premieres with a write up about the new musical currently in theaters. Starring Timothée Chalamet, it's Wonka! 

Songs For Saturday: The Finale - Rachael Price and 10,000 Maniacs with Clannad, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova

 And today is the day, the last installment of Songs For Saturday.

Yeah, I stopped Songs For Saturday once before only to bring it back 2 months later.

But I mean it this time.

Kicking off our last playlist, here is Rachael Price with her cover of  Blind Faith's "Can't Find My Way Home".  

Next up is a favorite song of mine that I don't think I've ever posted to a Songs For Saturday. 

From the movie Once, here are Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova  with "Falling Slowly". 

Here's another song that is a long time favorite of mine that for some reason or another I don't believe I've ever shared on this forum. From Clannad, here is a haunting and somber melody called "The Theme to Harry's Game".

We'll finish off this post with a song that has made a lot of appearances on Songs For Saturday, "More Than This". Originally performed by Roxy Music, this is a live cover by 10,000 Maniacs.  

And that is a wrap on Songs For Saturday. 

Music is still very important to me and perhaps I will launch some new semi-regular feature on the blog to share my favorite music. 

But the weekly forum known as Songs For Saturday is at an end.

Next week, the blog will present not one but two weekend posts about movies with the beginning of Cinema Saturday joining up with Cinema Sunday.

Always remember to be good to one another and to always keep the music alive.