Tag Archives: Batman

Things I Think About While Listening to Jose Feliciano

16 Mar

It is a good night. We had a great meal with great conversation. Now, Jose Feliciano is on the turntable. The only problem is that it is cold outside. We made it through an entire Winter, and it had decided to get cold in the middle of March. It seems that Spring has not yet sprung.

Heck, Jose is singing “California Dreamin'” and is talking about a Winter’s day. I know how he feels. This is no time to be sitting in the house wearing a hoodie. Yet, that is what I am doing. I am also thinking that it is time for a stream of consciousness.

Let us start with Jose himself. He sings the theme to a terrible Western that could have been great. Mackenna’s Gold stars Gregory Peck, Omar Sharif and a bunch of other big stars.

It is about the search for gold. It is also about Julie Newmar swimming nude. According to movie lore, she was supposed to wear something in the scene, but she shocked everyone by doing it for real.

By the way, the theme sung by Jose Feliciano is “Old Turkey Buzzard.”

For those not up on their 1960s television, Julie Newmar plays Catwoman on Batman, the campy version that stars Adam West. A lot of cool people play villains on that show. Burgess Meredith plays the Penguin. Eli Wallach plays Mr. Freeze. Why do I mention those two? They are also in Mackenna’s Gold.

Did I mention that it is a terrible Western that could have been great? The real problems are the special effects. Man, they look terrible, and I imagine that they looked terrible when it first came out. They should have gone natural like Julie does in the skinny dipping scene.

Jose also sang the theme song for Chico and the Man, a 1970s television show about a cranky old man and a Chicano man in his 20s. It stars Jack Albertson and Freddy Prinze. It also stars Scatman Crothers.

Scatman appears in a ton of movies and television shows, but Friday Foster is one of my favorites. It stars the fantastic Pam Grier, but it also had Eartha Kitt. Does anyone know what other role features Eartha Kit? She plays Catwoman on the the campy 1960s Batman.

Julie Newmar and Eartha Kitt play the same character on the same television show. Lee Meriwether also plays that character in that version of the Caped Crusader, but that is another story for another time. We could let Barnaby Jones work his way through that mystery.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Out of the Dark

1 Jul

When my old laptop died, I had to get another one. There was no way I was going to know what to get, so I asked my nephew. Under his guidance, I bought a Mac, and it is a cool piece of machinery. It has all kinds of bells and whistles that I have no idea how to use. However, there is one thing that is mega-cool. The keyboard lights up.

That means I can work in the dark, and, as I have always said, I do some of my best work in the dark. Some people refer to my office as a cave because there is only a single bulb burning. More than once, a security person has stopped by because they thought I had left my door open by accident.

I have always liked the dark. Nights are better than days. Staying up late is better than getting up early. It could be the mystery of the dark that fascinates me. You cannot really tell everything that is going on. People do things differently in the dark than they do in the light. Simply, darkness is a favorite of mine.

Just think about all of the cool stuff that is associated with the dark.

The Dark Knight (Batman at his best.)

Dark Chocolate (Good stuff.)

It was a dark and stormy night. (Every book should begin this way.)

Cinemax After Dark (I got cable in my room way too soon.)

Darkman (Alright, this one is a little obscure. If you think Liam Neeson was a badass in Taken, then you should see him in this.)Darkman

Dark Shadows (Think of it as Phantom of the Soap Opera.)

Dark Night (A great song by The Blasters. Everyone should give it a listen.)

Dark Horse (Not the Katy Perry song. I am talking about that person who comes from nowhere to achieve greatness.)

The Dark Side of the Moon (Pink Floyd made what could be the greatest album of all time.)Dark Side

The Dark Tower (A series of books by Stephen King about Roland Deschain, the Gunslinger.)Dark Tower

On The Dark Side (A song from Eddie and the Cruisers that was actually performed by John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band.)

See, there are a lot of great things that come out of the dark.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Picture This – The Judith

8 Apr

Montana 2012 and Other Stuff 149

A few years ago, we men of the family took a trip to Montana. When we returned, I put together a series of posts about our adventures. I was just skimming through the pictures and came upon one that I took in Lewistown, Montana. The town sits at the geographic center of the state. In fact, the exact center is next to the indoor pool at the hotel we stayed in. There is some tile work in the floor marking the spot.

However, it was not the pool area that interested me. My nephew and I took a stroll down the main street and took some pictures along the way. This one is my favorite.

The Judith is a movie house that sits in the middle of downtown. I have no idea how old it is, but, as we stood in front of it, I could imagine people of years past standing in line to buy a ticket. They had no idea that there would be a time when movies would have special effects like those in The Dark Knight Rises.

The idea of a 21st Century movie playing in an old theater intrigued me. It was as if we were caught in some time warp that even Batman could not find his way out of.

The name of the theater was also intriguing. I assume it was named for the Judith River that flows nearby. In Jeremiah Johnson, Bear Claw tells Jeremiah that if he leaves pelts by the river, then steamboats will take them and leave gold coins behind. I have no idea if that is historically accurate. Something tells me that it is just a cool movie line. I do know that if Jeremiah Johnson had been playing, then I would have bought a ticket. It would have been the appropriate thing to do.

We walked into the lobby to see how it looked. It was small but had a concession stand with all of the right candy. We even thought about watching The Dark Knight Rises but decided to keep walking down the street.

Eventually, we came upon a McDonald’s. Where can you go in this country without that happening?

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Into the Sunset

1 Apr

It’s a cliché of the western movie genre. The hero has lived through some adventure, and, when it’s over, he gets on his horse and rides into the sunset. I have watched that scene dozens of times, and it fascinates me every time.

What happens when they disappear over the horizon? What happens after the “The End” placard covers the screen? Does the hero take time off before finding another adventure? Does he die of wounds suffered during the movie? Does he live happily ever after in some frontier town?

All of those questions go through my mind because I have to know the rest of the story. It doesn’t matter how bad the movie is. I still want to know what happens after the credits roll. However, something else goes through my mind, as well. The “into the sunset” scene isn’t always the same.

One of the greatest “into the sunset” scenes doesn’t even have a horse. In The Searchers, Ethan Edwards spends years attempting to rescue his niece from her Comanche captors. When he returns with her, everyone goes into the house except for him. He turns and walks into the desert as the door closes behind him.The Searchers

Where did Edwards go? Did he leave because most of his family was dead? Did he wander because there was no purpose in his life? All of the wars were over. Or, did he think back over the past years before turning around and coming back?

John Wayne walked away in The Searchers, but Clint Eastwood could be the king of “into the sunset” rides. In The Outlaw Josey Wales, he is bleeding as he rides away. Does he live? If so, then does he go back to the friends that he has gained throughout the movie? Or, does he disappear from history?

Sometimes, he completely disappears because we really don’t know what he is. In Pale Rider, Eastwood evaporates from the scene. Is he some kind of spirit or is he just a mysterious gunman?

Those were great, but my favorite Eastwood ending comes from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Blondie leaves Tuco with a noose around his neck and gold at his feet. After an impossible rifle shot to save Tuco, Blondie rides away to one of the greatest movie scores of all time.

A more recent western has an “into the sunset” scene at the end. The difference is the adventure that precedes it. In Cowboys and Aliens, James Bond defeats aliens with the help of Indiana Jones. Oh, Boyd Crowder helps out, too. This time the hero is truly a loner. His wife is dead. His alien love interest is dead. He is considered dead. Heck, the dog doesn’t even go with him. In this one, the hero probably went somewhere and cried.

The cool thing about “into the sunset” scenes is that they are no longer reserved for westerns only. Remember what happened at the end of The Dark Knight? He agrees to be the fall guy and live life as a villain. Then, he hops on his jacked out motorcycle and rides into a tunnel. There is no sunset, but there is a cool speech and some kind of light up ahead. I hope it’s not a train.The Dark Knight

Everybody knows what happened to him after that because we have sequels now. There should not have been a sequel to this one. Wondering what happened to Batman was a lot better than knowing that he faked his death and ended up with Catwoman.

Ok, so John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, James Bond and Batman all have had great scenes to end movies. However my favorite “into the sunset” scene comes from a movie that isn’t very good. At the end of Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man, Don Johnson, as Marlboro, goes back to his roots and enters a rodeo. At the same time, Mickey Rourke, as Harley, rides his motorcycle into the sunset with an 80s vixen on the back and Black Eyed Susan playing in the background.Harley Ending

Why is that my favorite? Because it’s the only one that seems like a happy ending. He’s not alone. He’s not wounded. And, there is no doubt that something good is going to happen further down the road.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,