renaissance man
Musicians:
Stevie - vocs, keys
Mike Sembello – guitar
Marlo Henderson – guitar
Reggie McBride – bass
Ollie Brown – drums
Deniece Williams – vocals
Lani Groves – vocals
Shirley Brewer – vocals
Watch the video here. Rather annoyingly I can’t link directly to this particular video.
I’m a big fan of Wallace & Gromit. And we’ve been waiting a long, long, long time, for a new instalment. Almost 20 years, in fact. Since Curse of the Were Rabbit.
The death of Wallace, or rather Peter Sallis, obviously posed a problem. But it’s a problem Aardman & co. overcame, via Ben Whitehead, who does a pretty decent Sallis style vocal.
Peter Kay reprises (and enlarges upon) his Were-Rabbit role, as the flat-footed copper, McKintosh, and Philomena Cunk (Diane Morgan) is TV reporter Onya Doorstep.
One of the many wonderful things about Wallace and Gromit, from inception right up to Curse of The Were Rabbit, is its quaint and, very importantly, imperfect Englishness. These are things the Chicken Run movies lost almost entirely.
This is by far the slickest production of all the W&G productions. But it’s certainly not the best. The spirit that informed all their adventures, up to this point, just about survives. But only just!
Most W&G stuff I can and do merrily watch and re-watch. This one? Hmmm… not so sure. We shall see, I guess. All their other adventures are, in my view, Great. This is merely okay.
Any road, as they used to say in some parts up north, I’m back in bed – and it’s only 7.30 pm – glistening to this:
PS – I just read that Aardman face a clay shortage! Their supplier went bust. And it’s not your ordinary high street plasticine. Read about that here.
Well, preparing and eating Xmas dinner was good. Lifted the spirits. Doing stuff turns out to be a good tonic for gloomy torpor. Who knew!?
Chester’s still confined to quarters, whilst his most recent wound – which got infected this time – heals. He seems much better/happier. The puncture marks have healed, and the swelling around the wound is going down.
The food was delicious. The duck wasn’t too dry at all. In fact, she was succulent. Poss thanks to a whole quartered orange stuffed inside?
The roast ‘taters came out top trumps, n’ all. As did the gravy. The latter made with the water from boiling the spuds, and the juices from the duck. Mmmm!
I’ve imbibed a couple of bottles o’ Shipyard ale. Teresa had a glass of alcohol free mulled wine.
It’s now time for the post-prandial feet up. And also to open some pressies…
Got some bangin’ Xmas choons on…
Some time later, we had a little helping of Xmas pud with double cream. So rich! And opened a load of pressies.
We watched a good chunk of Carry On Matron, which I interrupted in order to take a nice hot bath. Lovely!
And now, Teresa’s talking to her folks – Jean (mum) and Ruth (sister) – and I’ve come upstairs, to bed. It’s 5 pm…
Well, it’s Xmas Day. And, just like any other day, all I want to do is sleep.
Teresa made us a lovely breakfast. And we watched a couple of Wallace and Gromit films, in bed. I kept drifting in and out of sleep.
Sleep… such blissful oblivion! Now I’m dressed and downstairs. Chester is sat nearby. And all I want to do? Sleep.
However, I watched a video on roasting potatoes, and making a rosemary and sea salt seasoning. I guess I’ll crack on wi’ ‘at, shortly.
The duck needs to be made ready to roast, as well…
Some folk will know why this tickles me. You could say, re Nap’s Boney-parts, n’ all, that this is a French tickler. Although, of course, da Boneroo was Corsican.
Boney, the Coming Man? Course he can…
Anyway, on that note. Time to read a bit about this Coming Man. And then off to sleep, to rise ‘pon Chrimble Day.
What a guy! The only Dr Who I can bear to watch. And an interesting human being.
Ah, the Xmas tradition that is watching Die Hard.
I discovered that this blockbuster, which has gone on to be preserved in the Library of Congress – deemed as being culturally significant! – had a long and troubled genesis.
Based on a dream that became a book, that became a screenplay, Bruce Willis was initially resisted as a casting choice, and then assumed to be a liability, upon release.
Movie execs, eh!? Where do they get off!?
Okay, so it’s Xmas Eve, and we’re back home, after an afternoon at mum’s, watching Die Hard. What silly fun!
This film was initially pitched as Rambo in an office block, of the Towering Inferno variety. And it’s easy to see why. I won’t synopsise the film here. That’s been done to death elsewhere.
There are, of course, some fairly ludicrous moments. Well, truth be told, the entire film is nothing but a constant sequence of ludicrous moments. But I s’pose – not that it really matters or ‘signifies’ in any way – I want to enumerate a few.
Some are just those ordinary everyday generic movie tropes, such as the one whereby an ordinary Joe (or Roy/John, in this case) bests a whole mob of supposedly elite-villains, whilst also making everyone from local law enforcement to the FBI look like flat-footed clowns.
Others are more to do with the mechanics or physics of reality, such as the iconic lift-shaft sequence, or his ‘gun taped to back’ routine. Both of these, and many others, involve our willing suspension of disbelief, and feed into that perennially popular fantasy of the lone maverick taking on the world, and winning.
As has been written about copiously elsewhere, Die Hard also addresses many other subjects, some more overtly than others.
One of the many minor themes in this movie, has to do with wealth: we have the hi-tech location – with echoes of the Death Star, in that it’s unfinished – Takagi’s shiny suit, Holly’s Rolex watch, Ellis snorting coke, and Gruber’s grubby little robbery, all undone by an ‘umble copper.
McClain manages to shed gallons of blood without losing consciousness. Impressive!
The issue of race is handled in an interesting way. Some of it consciously so. Some in the unstated ways that leak out of cultural norms. But returning to the fantasy of unbridled masculinity, Sgt. Al Powell, desk-jockey Cop, gets his manhood/Mojo back, by blasting the reanimated zombie of Karl to Hell, with his handgun.
What could be more American than that!
As already alluded to above, the film has an interesting history. Starting out as a dream, becoming a book – Nothing Lasts Forever – and so forth.
It’s also interesting to see how the film was made. From script, to storyboarding, to models, sets, and so on.
In putting this post together I learned that director John McTiernan wound up serving about a year (well, ten months) in prison, over… well, read about it here, if inclined.
Had a lovely Xmas Eve gathering at Mum’s this afternoon. Delish’ buffet style lunch, exchange of pressies, and nice relaxed chit-chat, drinks, and snack-a-doodles…
A very pleasant time was had! I hope folks like our gifts!?
Chester’s gone and gotten himself bitten again. And a nasty one this time. Last time, only a few weeks ago, we cleaned up a wound and it didn’t fester. This time it got infected and swollen. Yuk!
Teresa took him to the vets. Last time, when the wound was clean/healing, they didn’t charge. This time, with meds, etc, it’s costing £111!
Dad very kindly gave Teresa and I some money this Xmas. I’m getting the two above CDs with my money.
Facebook has gone from being mildly annoying to super annoying. How/why? By literally flooding my feed with crap.
I strongly suspect that most or perhaps even all of this ‘content’ is AI-generated. It has me seriously wanting to just bin Facebook.
I include these four example to show the level of overkill. I’ve gone from being distracted by crap that might just be of interest or related to me, inasmuch as it might be posted by folk I know. To drowning in crap that has deck all to do with me or my genuine interests, and has been ‘curated’ via dodgy eavesdropping and algorithms.
The ‘virtual’ postmodernist world is becoming ever more real and ever more repugnant. I must somehow disconnect. But how do so, and yet retain the positive connections social media facilitates?
Meanwhile the toxic legacies of Toryland Britain persist, even under the Labour Govt.