Horror At Preston Castle

Oh, The Horror Of It All

By Preston Sinclair

'On April 12th 1950, a young inmate was beaten to death.'

     Lets's be clear. The only reason I rented this movie from Redbox was that my name was in the title.  Now that Halloween is here I realize that it wasn't as bad as I thought.  It made an earnest attempt to be scary, but failed. That doesn't necessarily make it a bad movie. Honestly, it scared my cat Donald more than it scared me, which isn't saying much since he's such a big scaredy-cat anyway.  He jumped off the couch and hid under the bed when one of the characters screamed for no apparent reason.
      This movie can't seem to get it's title straight because when I Google it I get results for 'A Haunting At Preston Castle'. Oooo...that sounds even scarier (not).
     One of the problems with this film is that it over shoots the bar of cult horror classic and misses the bar of original horror masterpiece by a long shot.  This places it firmly in the no mans land of 'meh, who cares?' It's a mash up of horror movies like 'Blair Witch Project', 'Paranormal Activity' and 'Drag Me To Hell'. These movies keep us wondering until the very last frame.  'Horror At Preston Castle' just makes us wish for the very last frame.
     We're expected to follow Danny (Jake White) to the depths of hell. Why?  Well because he's just so damn cute I guess. As it turns out, he's an unreliable docent and he leads each of his friends to their tragic end.
     When I was in college, a bunch of friends and I decided to take our sleeping bags to a local cemetery and camp out and tell ghost stories. That may sound creepy but at the time it was cool and kind of fun. That's what 'Horror At Preston Castle' is like. You may be better off watching original documentaries about the real Preston Castle on YouTube. The links are below.
      Happy Halloween! Bwahaha!

Resource Links:

Ghost Adventures

The Haunted Bay

  

Kellylee Evans And La Santa Cecilia In Concert

Jazzy Sexy Funny

By Preston Sinclair

Courtesy CPS

     Kellylee Evans and La Santa Cecilia performed in a fantastic double bill concert at SUNY Potsdam Crane School Of Music in Potsdam New York, presented by Community Performance Series.  It was a crisp Fall Saturday evening outside but things were heating up inside the acoustically awesome Helen M. Hosmer Concert Hall.

     Kellylee brought her own brand of jazz and Motown fusion to the stage first.  Her energy was infectious and she pulled out all the stops to engage the audience resulting in everyone quickly standing, dancing and singing along.

     Coincidentally, I had heard Kellylee's song 'My Name Is' on NPR radio on the way to work the week before. I was immediately lured in by her voice which reminded me of Nina Simone. The host mentioned that the Canadian singer song writer had won a 2011 Juno Award for Vocal Jazz Album of the Year, yet at this time I didn't even know I was going to see her in concert.  Soon after, a friend e-mailed me and invited me to the concert as his plus-one to which I eagerly agreed.

     

If you think jazz is all cool, dark and smokey, I'm here to say 'Nuh-uh.'  I'm telling you, you haven't heard Nina Simone's 'Feeling Good' sung this way. This song is a classic and get's sampled a lot and has become very commercial lately, but Kellylee makes it all her own. Another great surprise was her cover of Eminem's 'Lose Yourself'.  She was also backed up by an excellent keyboardist, drummer and bass player from New York City who brought the music to life.
     After a twenty minute intermission to change out instruments, the energetic Grammy winning (2014 for Best Latin Rock, Urban or Alternative) band La Santa Cecilia took over the stage. When lead singer La Marisoul bounced onto the stage wearing a yellow watermelon embroidered skirt we knew this was going to be fun.
     People who wanted to dance filled the aisles and the back row which allowed folks who wanted to sit, bounce in there seats and tap there toes to do so.  Regardless, the band's joyous sound and undeniable beat made it impossible to sit still for very long.

     La Santa Cecilia's love for all genres of music and pride in their heritage showed through on every song. Two standout songs were their heart felt cover of The Beatles 'Strawberry Fields', and the beautiful acoustic cover of the U2 song 'One'. Kudos also to the accordionist Jose 'Pepe' Carlos.  His soaring melodies brought a Latin European flavor to the songs which raised it to the class of World Music.
     La Santa Cecilia intelligently raised awareness of the immigration situation by sharing stories of their families, and their own frustrations with the system.  They brought the conversation to the table in a positive way with their music which engaged everyone.
     Alternative, independent and emerging are all words that describe all of the artists in this concert. It's impossible to divide Kellylee Evans and La Santa Cecilia into two different shows.  Each one complemented the other in a unique way that created an evening of entertainment that might not ever be duplicated.

Resource Links:

KellyleeEvans.com News, info, social media

LaSantaCecilia.com Concert info, social media, great Halloween splash page!

SUNYPotsdam More info about the concert and The Community Performance Series

Charlie Puth's Marvin Gaye: Video review

Let's Get It On

"It's so subtle, I'm in trouble"

     This song is all over the radio. I hear it in my car, I hear it at work.  At first I thought it was just another Bruno Mars song.  Then I Googled the video and I was blown away by how much fun it is to watch.

     Charlie Puth has a great smile, killer dimples, and he totally sells this song.  The music has a great retro vibe. This video is smart and current and introduces a whole new generation to how much fun soul and doo-wop music can be without being sickly sweet.
      Meghan Trainor is great in this video and she and Charlie Puth play off each other well. She shows some real vocal chops in this song.  It was nice to hear her real voice.
     This video is so cool.  In this post Glee era it's great that we can have a conversation about girls kissing girls and boys kissing boys.  At the same time it's important to remember that bullying still goes on in high school.



       

Elle King's Ex's & Oh's: video review

Kisses and Hugs

'They always wanna come, but they never wanna leave.'

                Elle King

     I heard this song on the radio during the commute home and the first thing that struck me was the voice. There was something about Elle King's raspy sexy tired voice that drew me into the song like a siren.
   The story was somehow familiar. It reminded me of a friend's trials and tribulations with his ex's. They haunt him, and me to this day.  Of course, I was naturally curious to see the video when I got home.
  My first impression of this video was that it was directed by the Bad Idea Bears of Avenue Q. It was like the director said, 'Hey, let's make a video with half naked sexy guys wandering around in the desert! Yaaaaay!' It has a certain trailer trash je ne sais que about it that I like.
    Then I said to myself, 'No!' This is clearly a video about the objectification of men by women today. At first I thought guys got off on being objectified. The dudes were like, 'Look at me, I work out.' Then I realized they were in some discomfort during the scene in which the guys in red trunks were doing head stands. I like how average looking men are juxtaposed with the male models as if to say, 'Dude, chill, no one cares what you look like.'
    Sometimes you have to just sit back relax and enjoy the view. 

Marilyn Monroe Archives: Marilyn in Korea

 Jeepers Creepers

by

Preston Sinclair

“...the best thing that ever happened to me. I never felt like a star before in my heart. It was so wonderful to look down and see a fellow smiling at me.” 
      Marilyn Monroe

 

 

Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage Of The Flesh: Book Review

10

by Preston Sinclair

"I am a monster"

Tennessee Williams

     John Lahr's brilliant biography is full of insight and drama without being titillating. Williams' life was like a train wreck waiting to happen. We all know what happens at the end, but we don't know how it happens until we've read 'Mad Pilgrimage Of The Flesh'.
     Reading Lahr's narrative was like watching a staged reading. It was as if the significant players Audrey Wood, Elia Kazan, or Marie St. Just were all lined up on stage, dressed in black, waiting with their scripts in front of them to chime into the conversation at hand at the appropriate moment.
     This is no pithy breathless bio waiting for some producer to buy the rights and make it into a bio-pic. It's an intelligent round table discussion about Tennessee's life not unlike an episode of Charlie Rose where we get to talk about alcohol and sex.
     Let's be honest, Tennessee Williams was promiscuous when he was young.  That's a nice southern gentlemanly  way of saying he was a slut.  There's sometimes a misty foggy nostalgia about homosexuality during the pre-AIDS era.  All Tennessee had to worry about was crabs and the clap.  Yet, that was a dark time. People could be blackmailed or fired from their jobs for being gay.  He broached that subject most eloquently in 'Cat On A Hot Tin Roof'.
     Brick and Skipper's relationship was probably one of the first bromances portrayed on stage and it was Skipper who paid the ultimate price with his life.  Brick exclaims, 'One man has one great good true thing in his life. One great good thing which is true!—I had a friendship with Skipper.—You are naming it dirty!'  What straight guy would even say that? The first rule of a bromance is... never admit to having a bromance. 
     I'm no expert on relationships, but from what I gather here Tennessee was really bad at them. He was cruel to his lovers. He turned his significant others into paid assistants and treated them like trailer trash. None more so than Frank Merlo who he left to die of lung cancer while he went out to the bars to escape from the reality of his best friend's death.
     While the old adage 'write drunk edit sober' has long been attributed to Ernest Hemingway, he may never has said it. That's because it isn't true.  Sadly, Tennessee often wrote while he was under the influence of alcohol and prescription drugs and as a result depended of on the kindness of friends like Elia Kazan to fix his mistakes. His friends did what they could to help him until he betrayed them each in his own drug addled way.

Key West Studio (c)

     Alcohol and drugs ultimately led to Tennessee's demise. There has been much disinformation about Tennessee's death due to the medical examiner's report.  Dr Elliot M Gross said Tennessee inhaled a bottle cap and died of asphyxiation and the press widely reported it.  I remember being confused about how this could happen myself at the time.   The fact of the matter is that he ate a bottle of Secanol pills and drank a bottle of wine. A deadly combination.  The bottle cap was found in his mouth, not in his throat. He could have scooped the cap up and accidentally tossed it into his mouth along with the pills in his drug addled delirium while the person he was paying to mind him stupidly left him alone.
     As a result, drug abuse and alcoholism awareness was set back another twenty years and we have lost many other talented people such as Scott Newman, River Phoenix, Heath Ledger, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and Robin Williams.    
     If you're already a fan of Tennessee Williams, then you'll consider yourself a student of his work after reading all 602 pages of 'Mad Pilgrimage Of The Flesh'. It makes you question everything which is exactly what Williams would want.

REFERENCES:

New York Times: Tennessee Williams' obituary.

  

The Bourne Legacy:Book vs Movie

The Bourne Stupidity

By Preston Sinclair

"I'm also Jason Bourne. That's something you should never forget."

  

     The film adaptation of Eric Van Lustbader's novel The Bourne Legacy leaves no legacy of which to be proud.  Robert Ludlum must be either turning over in his grave or else laughing right now.  Obviously, very few people have actually read Van Lustbader's literary re-boot of Ludlam's Bourne series. The disgusting thing is that the producers of this movie probably banked on that fact. 
     The copyright for the book is 2004 to the Estate Of Robert Ludlum. Obviously, the estate signed away their rights for a quick buck since the movie has nothing to do with the book.  We hear this all the time, 'the movie was nothing like the book'.  This begs the question. Why?
     The novel had several great elements that would have made an excellent film. Stepan Spalko was a nefarious villain. Khan was a formidable antagonist. The car chase through Washington DC would have been epic because of all the traffic circles, tunnels and bridges, although it would have been a logistical nightmare to produce.  A young Lauren Bacall type actress would have made the ultimate Annika, but I digress.
     No, something else is going on here. Something is rotten in Hollywood. It must have something to do with how movies get green lighted and made.  The screenplay by Tony and Dan Gilroy is ignorant and lazy. Meds? What meds? Who cares?  Did you not even read the book?  This is what happens when screenwriters are given cart blanch to write whatever they want in an adaptation of an original novel.  The Daily Mail

Screen capture courtesy Universal Pictures

     The ironic thing is that Jeremy Renner would  have made a great Jason Bourne if they had stuck to the original story. Bourne is a hot mess in Van Lestbader's rendition of the best selling trilogy.  He's not the amnesiac automaton killer he was in 'Identity'. In 'Legacy' Bourne is like a hurt lost and wounded bull in a china shop. He screws things up more than he helps, yet that's why we keep rooting for him.   While Renner struck that same emotional chord and seemed to be channeling Jason Bourne in the film version, it was as a character (Aaron Cross) that doesn't even exist in the Bourne "universe".  This whole "universe" concept is just another cheesy Hollywood excuse to ripoff the original writer.
      Matt Damon's Jason Bourne appears a couple of times as a photograph in the movie so that the audience will buy that Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) is aware of his presence.  It's supposed to be some kind of an a-ha moment, but there's no payoff for it. Damon saw where this franchise was going by The Bourne Ultimatum and bailed.  No one could blame him. Screen Rant interview
     Which was time more well spent? The 135 minutes watching the DVD, or the countless hours, minutes and seconds reading the book?  At the end of the day one must decide for one's self.

References:

IMDB

 

A Delicate Balance: Broadway Review 2015

An Indelicate Balance

by Preston Sinclair

"If you are not an alcoholic, you are beyond forgiveness."

Agnes 

   
    This deftly staged production of Edward Albee's Pulitzer Prize winning play 'A Delicate Balance' was directed by Pam Mackinnon who also directed 'Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf' for which she won a Tony, and Drama Desk Award.
    I would be remiss if I didn't mention the great scenic design by Santo Loquasto. The Tiffany blue (which is a really hard color to duplicate by the way) walls were a soothing balm for the scalding verbal wounds inflicted. The faded mid century modern suburban glamor of the living room provided the perfect backdrop for the ensuing drama.
    As a member of a family dealing with addiction, I approached Albee's 'A Delicate Balance' with some trepidation. While sometimes rooting for Claire and her stubborn Irish willfulness, it also became clear that Tobias enabled her bad behavior. Claire (Lyndsay Duncan) occasionally deigned to put in an appearance in order to freshen her drink. When she did she ranted or raved about something or other, and then she slowly descended into the abyss from whence she came.
    As the play progressed,  I found myself relating to Agnes' calm cool collected demeanor.  Glenn Close was sublime as Agnes. She maintained a feline control over the whole situation and wasn't afraid to let her claws show.  At the beginning, she contemplates out loud her own fear of someday going insane to Tobias that set the tone for the entire play.
    

John Golden Theatre

I briefly met Glenn Close at the stage door. She was petite and demure in a pea coat and cap as she signed autographs in frigid weather on Presidents Day weekend. I'll never forget how she dashed to fetch the cover to her Sharpie pen which she dropped  just before she got into her limo.
     John Lithgow, who played Tobias, also appeared at the stage door.  He's tall and aristocratic in bearing. He was polite and patient, yet tired. As anyone would be after performing a nervous breakdown as deliciously as he did.  I found myself laughing during his confrontation with Harry (Bob Baliban) when I shouldn't have.  "I don't want you here. I don't love you! But by God... you stay!"  As all good theater should, it made me feel something. In this case, ashamed and embarrassed for laughing at someone else's pain because it felt like the truth.
     Bob Baliban was the next to come out as he was wheeling some kind of theatrical trunk to his waiting vehicle he said, "I'll be back in a minute to sign autographs...that's if anyone cares."   Baliban gave Harry a smartness and an edge which helped him hold his own against Tobias. Whatever Harry's phobia was, he wasn't afraid of Tobias and his family.  That's why he went there.  Just what was the plague that Harry and Edna brought with them? Global warming, nuclear war, Justin Bieber? Take your pick.
   

     Martha Plimpton and Claire Higgens burst onto the street and signed autographs together like a couple of party animals.  We could hear their raucus laughter as they came down the hallway.  Claire Higgens had a wild head of hair and Martha Plimpton looked like an excited school girl.  No one blamed blamed them for needing to blow off some steam.
    Martha Plimpton gave a glamor puss portrayal of Julia. There was no sense of playing it for laughs. She was also wonderful in Sondheim's 'Company' which I had previously seen at a big screen event at The Clayton Opera House.  There was the occasional sense that Julia was putting on airs, but when she came on stage with a gun in her hand you knew she meant business. 
   

     The movie version was dark and moody and I barely remember Edna as being a mousy demure character. Claire Higgens changed all that. We really believed that Edna slapped Julia in the face. Yes, it was a stage slap, but the look on Edna's face told us that she bitch slapped Julia, and hard. 
    There's a delicate balance in any family.  When addiction is involved there's nothing delicate about it. It's a balance held in place by brute force and sheer will of character.  Therein lies the irony and beauty of Albee's 'A Delicate Balance'.

PS: 'A Delicate Balance closed on Broadway February 22nd 2015

Reference Links:

Home page  for A Delicate Balance

 

 

 

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest

Ouch!

By Preston Sinclair

"That's when the hornet stung me."

  Ahead By A Century
     The Tragically hip.

    Anyone who has ever been stung by a hornet knows what it's like to read Larsson's 'The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest'.  It's painful.  
    Stieg Larsson's Scandinavian wit is as dry as unbuttered toast. The first third of this novel consists of boring meetings between idiotic bureaucrats rehashing the story for people who may not have read 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo'. I swear, all people do in Sweden is drink coffee and eat sandwiches. The problem was that Salander's injuries were so devastating that Larsson made the reader wait while she recuperated.
    The second third consists of sub plots that may help to develop characters such as Berger, yet they do little to move the story forward. Blomkvist is again distant and removed and even a silly love affair fail to pique the reader's interest. The only chemistry is between Salander and Blomkvist. Unfortunately, they are separated for almost the entire book and only interact on the internet.
    The strange denouement seems like it was written for a different novel. My favorite part of the story is when Niedermann finally rears his ugly head. He was such a great bogey man. In some ways he and Salander were a lot alike.
    Larsson eventually lets the reader inside Salander's head and we realize that it's not a fun place to be.  It's dark and scary. Salander finally shows her true colors.  The truth is that she was capable of many of the things for which the prosecution tried to accuse her. Yet, it's still not a crime to be human.