ABOUT THE MUSIC
I watched a documentary a while back on The Independent Film Channel in which a bunch of Hollywood hacks were congratulating themselves on all the progress they have made in bringing sex and nudity to the big screen and for their role in lifting the American psyche out of the dark ages and giving movie goers a taste of the forbidden fruit that everybody was so hungry for. Those smug American directors who worship at the altar of such foreign luminaries as Traufont, Visconti, Fellini, Rossellini and Bergman, to name a few, are so busy patting themselves on the back for their achievements, they fail to realize they have only got the job half finished. They presume that by showing us a bunch of tits and pubes that we are enlightened beyond all imagination. I contend that until the guys get into the act, the job is only half done. Where are all the dicks? All we get, with a few exceptions, i.e. Harvey Keitel, Bruce Willis (briefly) Ewan McGregor or Colin Ferrell to name a few, are bare buns, and cute though they may be, the equation is just not complete until both men and women are shown with complete frontal nudity. It just doesn’t make sense for the female actor to cavort around completely nude while her male counterpart is draped in a sheet or some such cover in maidenly modesty.
Also, I take exception to Hollywood’s notion that watching explicit sex scenes in movies is necessary to the plot and that we are somehow more informed by having witnessed it. Informed of what, I wonder? News flash! People have been fornicating since Adam and Eve got it on in that infamous garden some eons ago. We don’t need an instructional video to show us how it’s done. Oh, but wait! It’s not instructional you say? Its entertainment? Well, that’s a whole different argument. Being entertained is purely subjective and every person has a right to his own idea of entertainment. If a person gets turned on by watching seemingly endless and often excruciatingly boring sex scenes in an otherwise good movie, who am I to say they are wrong? As far as being entertained by sex on screen, I just don’t get it. The presumption that by showing a couple in bed grunting and sweating and rolling around in simulated ecstasy until climax, we have just been exposed to "ART", is to my mind idiotic. I concede that while watching an explicit sex scene play out with all the attendant audio that goes with it might be entertaining to one person, others hold the view that watching an intelligent, sophisticated movie without all the sexual content is very satisfying. No movie – and I mean NOT ONE – has ever been made better by including explicit sex scenes.
I saw more than my share of porn movies back when you could rent XXX movies from the back room at the video store on VHS and there was no pretence to plot or denouement in those flicks. But people rented those movies for one reason only and I don’t think it was exactly for their entertainment value. Well, maybe entertainment of a sort. At least in the XXXs, the actors were actually screwing so there was no pretence and I guess there is some merit in that honesty. Those films didn’t pretend to be "ART" simply because the sex was explicit. Plus, in those films you got to see lots of phalluses. No hypocrisy there!
I myself get more of a turn-on from watching Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor and Debbie Reynolds dance the night away than I would should they be engaged in an all night ménage a trois. Nor would I have enjoyed watching Bogart and Bergman wrestling around naked in the classic "Casablanca". Did they have sex? Without a doubt. Who cares? The fact of it is unnecessary to the plot. Until the sexual revolution in the 60s, couples were not even allowed to be shown on screen in the same bed. Were we deprived intellectually and artistically because of this? I think not. Was "Now Voyager" any less artfully done because we were not subjected to watching Paul Henried and Bette Davis humping their way across the Atlantic Ocean down to Rio? I shudder to think of what that bunch of Hollywierd assholes would do to the making of "Boom Town" in which Clark Gable and Heddy Lamar carry on an illicit love affair, or "To Catch a Thief" in which Cary Grant and Grace Kelly, of course, screwed up a storm in that hotel room. In "All About Eve", there is ample opportunity to exploit the implied sex between both Bette Davis and Gary Merrill and Anne Baxter and George Sanders. And imagine how that bunch would have butchered "High Noon" by ignoring the real drama in the film and emphasizing the sexual relationship between Gary Cooper and Katy Jurado, thereby ravaging it in the name of "ART". Let us hope they never get the idea they can "improve" these classics and remake them with a whole new cast.
I have never seen a movie (and I’ve seen hundreds) in which the story was improved by a lengthy, agonizing on-screen orgasmic sexual encounter. I have never felt anything I did in the bedroom was entertainment (except, hopefully, to my partner) any more than I consider watching say Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Marisa Tomei in "Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead" or Anthony LaPalia and Rachael Blake in "Lantana" to name just a couple, in the prolonged sex scenes contained in those movies as entertainment. Both are good movies, by the way. But I wonder if they would not have been improved by eliminating the agonizingly interminable sex?
Ever since the onset of "enlightenment in American cinema", we’ve been subjected to every kind of human indignity, frailty, and cruelty that men could possibly think of to do to each other. While I do not subscribe to the belief that ignorance is bliss, neither do I believe we are better off for having had all the ugliness that Hollywood could possibly imagine shoved down our throats for so long nor that "ART" is served by it. I wonder what have I gained in personal grace by having seen Kate Winslet, Nicole Kidman, or Halle Berry nude? Even the "old ladies" are now baring their bosoms in movies. I can’t imagine that having seen Diane Keaton’s titties in the gawd-awful disaster of a film "Something’s Gotta’ Give" has left me any better off.
I guess in the opinion of the self-proclaimed cinematic elite, we’ve reached artistic nirvana in the movies, but are we really more culturally superior for having come this far? And has all that cultural advancement really improved our lives? But, the purpose of this dissertation is to take exception to the hypocrisy of those arrogant, Hollywood avant-garde directors who contend that art is somehow served by displaying coarse, raw realism on the screen. And to take exception to the fact that the guys get a pass on the nudity bit. All I want to say to the current bunch of Hollywood film makers, that until they start showing male frontal nudity as well as female nudity, "You’ve come a long way, baby", but you still have a long way to go. Not until the guys drop their drawers have we arrived at the summit. And not until the job is finished can the Hollywood honchos legitimately give themselves kudos for a job well done.
Oh, Look Out…
I get it. I really do. You fancy yourself a huge Beatles fan. You can sing along with every song in the catalog, except for those obscure, pre-Rubber Soul ones. You dutifully purchased all the post-breakup compilations; Past Masters (yes, both volumes), Live at the BBC, maybe a couple of the Anthology records (Free as a Bird, yeah, yeah, yeah!). You gave “1” to a favorite niece for Christmas, and you listened to the Love album with caution and trepidation, ready to heap scorn on the blasphemers who dared interfere with the primary arrangements. Then you marched yourself out to Vegas and wept through the Cirque du Soleil fantasia. And now, you find The Fabs at the top of the charts again, 40 years after the release of Let It Be, with their Re-mastered Mono and Stereo box sets. Is there really anything new here?
The collection comprises all 12 Beatles albums in stereo, with track listings and artwork as originally released in the UK. In addition, Past Masters Vol. I and II are now combined as one title, for a total of 16 titles over 14 discs including, Yellow Submarine. This will be the first time that the first four Beatles albums will be available in stereo in their entirety on compact disc.
Within each CD's packaging, booklets include detailed historical notes along with cool and informative recording notes. The mini-docs contain archival footage, rare photographs and never-before-heard studio chit-chat from The Beatles, along with current interviews with Paul, Ringo, George Martin and others.
A second boxed set has been created which, one supposes, is designed to appeal to collectors, but which is vital nonetheless. The Beatles in Mono gathers together all of the Beatles recordings that were mixed for a mono release. It contains10 of the albums with their original mono mixes, plus two more discs of mono masters. Additionally, the mono Help! and Rubber Soul discs also include the original 1965 stereo mixes, which have not been previously released on CD. These albums will be packaged in mini-vinyl CD replicas of the original sleeves with all original inserts and label designs. You’re not confused by any of this, because you’re a true Beatles fan, aren’t you?
In short, this is undeniably the most important post-breakup release of anything done under The Beatles name previously. Even if you’re not channeling the actual CD through Volcano cables and Eggleston Andra III speakers, there is no mistaking the difference between the re-masters and what has been available on CD up to now. Like most of you will do, I ripped the CDs to iTunes, dragged them to the iPod, plugged in to the Aux port in my car and cranked the volume to 11. According to the sound engineers at Apple Studios, these re-masters are as sonically close to the original master tapes as is technologically possible in 2009. Where analog hiss and other non-performance noise has been removed, other sounds were left intact, such as instrument squeaks and breathing. The quality of the sound is simply stunning, an unmistakable contrast to the tinny, shallow versions of the previously existing CD catalog.
Other surprises abound, such as the sub-sonic tone following the fade-out on A Day In The Life, audible only to dogs, which itself is followed by the infinite backwards loop of the boys’ voices, previously only heard on the UK version of the original Sgt. Pepper vinyl.
So, here’s what you do. You take 300 bucks, go to Border’s or something, and buy the stereo box set. Stick one of the CDs into your car’s player, and hear - in your case, for the first time - what all these wonderful songs are supposed to sound like. You won’t be disappointed. And no, you can’t borrow mine.
