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May 2007
Fest-killing weather
It’s the rare Memorial Day weekend in Central Texas that’s had rain all three days, a fact not lost on organizers of the Country Thunder USA country music festival that proved closer to Woodstock ‘69 in mud and misery.
Mario Tarradell, the Dallas Morning News pop/country music critic, blogged from the four-day event near Ennis, whose superlatives all headed in the wrong direction: three of four night concerts cancelled, an audience roughly one-tenth of the 100,000 predicted a month ago, more than 100 RVs bogged down in the mud.
If you were there and would like to share, feel free to post here.
Heat and tornadoes usually come to mind when people talk about the extremes of Texas weather, but it’s been rain that’s the festival killer in these parts. A similarly rainy weekend some years ago proved the kiss of death for the up-to-then long-running Brazos River Festival, a key fundraiser for the Historic Waco Foundation; the BRF never recovered from that lost weekend and eventually the HWF pulled the plug. I remember talking with veteran Westfest organizer Tommy Muska several years back about that festival’s history; though the Labor Day weekend event’s best known for brutally hot weather, it was a weekend of torrential rains that almost spelled its demise.
Rain has also hit various Cinco de Mayo fiestas and a Waco Cultural Arts Festival (which evolved from the Open Door Arts Festival) or two over the years, costing revenue and momentum for sponsoring organizations.
Although rains like we saw this past weekend are the exception, not the norm, they cause organizers to pause before creating an outdoor festival; one can buy event insurance to cover the losses incurred in a rainout, but it’s a huge bite out of a budget. Still, as a veteran Texan musician who’s played more than his share of outdoor festivals commented to me, “In Texas, you never want to say you hope it doesn’t rain.”
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“Star Wars” - the memories
INTERACTIVE
This weekend marks the 30th anniversary of Star Wars, one of the most influential films of the 20th century (among other things, it married the template of the summer blockbuster, started by Jaws two years earlier, to a special-effects driven story, and it reintroduced film-going audiences to the emotional power of an orchestral soundtrack).
My favorite Star Wars film still is the second one released (No. 5 on George Lucas’ six-film master), The Empire Strikes Back, but like many Baby Boomers, I have a soft spot in my heart for the original.
In that spirit, I invite anyone to share their favorite Star Wars memory.
I have two: The scene in which Hans Solo shifts his Millenium Falcon into hyperspace to the collective gasp of the audience (including me, who got sucked totally into the story at that point) and, two, the enormous lines that films 1, 2 and 3 (or 4,5 and 6) had at the box office in those pre-multiplex days.
What’s your Star Wars memory?
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A spoiled film future?
I confess I was a little bothered by this story in Entertainment Weekly that attributed the enormous box-office grosses of Spider-Man 3 in part to a marketing campaign that, more or less, gave away much of the movie’s plot and scenes to fans on the Internet.
Is this the wave of the future? It’s bad enough that film trailers sometimes tip you off to a movie’s finale or key plot point, but the thought that studios will start seeing spoilers as a good thing mildly depresses me.
I try hard to avoid giving away endings and key surprises when I review films, which is some of my reviews seem vague in certain parts. They are, intentionally. I love to be jolted by a character or plot heading off in an unforeseen direction and don’t want to spoil that small thrill for the movie fans in my readership.
Yet some readers want exactly that. I was talking with a Pirates of the Caribbean fan the other day who wanted to know about No. 3, specifically how two of the characters end up. “But that would be giving away the movie,” I chided and, to the fan’s mild disappointment, declined to do so.
My standard reviewing procedure, in fact, is to stay away from a lot of the detailed stories/advertising about a film, its production and celebrity news just so I come into a film somewhat fresh, like many moviegoers. That, apparently, is the opposite approach from some of my readers and colleagues, who devour everything they can on a movie before actually seeing it.
I don’t know. Maybe my approach to film and theater is narrative-driven rather than visual-driven, in which advance knowledge of a scene might help its appreciation, but I don’t get this.
What about you? Does knowing more or less about a movie before seeing it affect your enjoyment of it? Should I give away more endings? Are you one of those who wants to find out the end to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows without reading it? (And if so, don’t you dare spoil that for me.)
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The “Pirates” wave approacheth
Got the list of movies playing this Friday at Wallace Jewel and Starplex Galaxy multiplexes: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End on five screens at each, Shrek the Third and Spider-Man 3 at four screens apiece, also at each.
That topped my guess earlier this month - I thought it’d be 4, 3 and 2, respectively - but I wasn’t that far off in my Multiplex Challenge. I incorrectly guessed that Blades of Glory and Captivity would still be playing - Captivity didn’t even open in Waco - but got eight of 10 screening at Starplex and all six movies at Wallace Jewel.
32 first-run screens and only 10 movies playing. No wonder the art/indy film audience in Waco has turned to DVD rentals and/or Netflix …
Pirates, incidentally, will open this Thursday with 8 p.m. screenings. Disney’s original game plan had intended midnight screenings, but when Spider-Man 3 broke the opening weekend box office records set by Pirates 2, well, the gauntlet was thrown.
Obviously, no one in the media is pointing this out - we’re horrid enablers of the Hollywood hype machine - but when you have opening weekends of various lengths (three days, four-day holiday weekends, four-and-a-little-more holiday weekends with Thursday night screenings thrown in), varying numbers of screens and ticket prices creeping up each year, there are too many variables to make valid comparisons.
The kicker, of course, is that box office results are always estimates compiled from calls made by/to theater operators, never the actual sum of the tickets sold. They’re usually close, but they’re still estimates. As if it matters …
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Friday Open Post
It’s Friday - your topic, your time, though judging from this week’s traffic, many of you have had opinions on the Dixie Chicks getting shut out at the Academy of Country Music awards and the Harry Potter poster and its “enhanced” Hermione.
Still, it’s a big entertainment universe out there. What do you think of Shrek the Third? Going to the massive Country Thunder festival next weekend near Waxahachie? Looking forward to Hank Thompson at the Bosque River Stage this month or REO Speedwagon at Zack & Jim’s Hog Creek Icehouse?
Feel free to share you thoughts here.
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Multiplex Challenge update
Dang! Two weeks left and I’m already out of my own challenge. Shrek the Third opens tomorrow on four screens each at Wallace Jewel 16 and Starplex Galaxy 16. That means eight screens between Shrek the Third and Spider-Man 3 - half of each multiplexes’ 16 screens.
An advance sheet for next Thursday’s screenings at Starplex Galaxy 16 shows even more of a pile-up with evening showings of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End on five screens, piggybacking on four Shrek screens and one Spider-Man 3 screen.
So far, so good. But - leaving today is Blades of Glory, the comedy I thought might skate to May’s end as a movie survivor. And Captivity, scheduled to open Friday according to Starplex’s Web site several weeks ago, is a no-show. Ouch - two down already.
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Light Crust Doughboys in town
That western swing/country/gospel music you’re hearing wafting from some Waco schools comes courtesy of the Light Crust Doughboys, who are doing demonstrations at Dean Highland Elementary, Hillcrest Professional Development School, Mountainview Elementary and Waco High School today, May 16, and Alta Vista Montessori Magnet School, Meadowbrook Elementary, Kendrick Elementary and University Middle School on Thursday, May 17.
Formed back in the 1930s with Bob Wills and Milton Brown, the two founders of western swing music, the Doughboys represent a considerable slice of Texas music history. There’s also a couple of Waco connections, too. Baylor University music history professor Jean Boyd wrote a 2003 book on the band, We’re the Light Crust Doughboys From Burrus Mill, published by the University of Texas Press. The band also recorded a CD, Songs for All God’s Children, last year as a fundraiser for the Methodist Children’s Home in Waco.
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No Dixie in this country
The Academy of Country Music held its annual awards ceremony last night in Las Vegas and it’s interesting to note how it differs from this year’s Grammy Awards: namely, no Dixie Chicks.
Whereas the Chicks took home five Grammys in February, including Best Song and Best Album as well as Best Country Album and Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group, there’s nary a mention of them in the ACM honors. No Best Album (Carrie Underwood’s Some Hearts won that). No Best Single or Song of the Year (George Strait’s “Give It Away”). No Best Vocal Group (Rascal Flatts).
The Grammys have never been any sort of bellwether for country music, but it seems pretty clear politics - and polarization - is speaking louder than the Chicks’ music in both industry camps. Guess it’s okay to stand up and proudly proclaim yourself a redneck woman unless that same defiant sense of independence leads you to criticize a standing Republican president …
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Sexing up Harry’s Hermione
As if the news of Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe performing a nude scene in a London stage production of “Equus” wasn’t enough, here’s the latest, albeit mild, controversy concerning the Potter films’ cast.
Seems that the image of Hermione (actress Emma Watson) in the poster for the upcoming Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was altered for the Web site used to promote an IMAX version of the film; some fans also noticed a similar alteration seen on the poster for the Swedish release (of course) of the film. The new Hermione has blonder hair and a bigger bust.
The changes pictured in the Daily Mail’s seem subtle, but noticeable once pointed out. There’s also this one from a Brazilian fan site (left hand side, middle image) that shows the more developed Hermione.
Yes, Harry’s characters are hitting puberty in the books and films, but, if the image alterations are deliberate, it’s a sad commentary that someone in film publicity feels a need to push Emma into Hollywood’s stereotypes of female beauty, namely blonde and busty. Hermione, please, a spell to make them stop?
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Friday Open Post
The weekly open thread for your comments on arts and entertainment here and beyond is ready for posting.
Comments on the story in today’s Trib about the spring slump in TV viewing? Looking forward to the May finales of most TV series or is Spider-Man 3 / Shrek the Third / Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End consuming your entertainment attention this month?
Tag on your opinion right here.
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“Science Friday” back on KWBU-FM
“Talk of the Nation: Science Friday” with Ira Flatow returns to Waco public radio station KWBU-FM today, May 11, after being off the air since January. Programming budget cuts at that time excised the daily afternoon talk show “Talk of the Nation” - an exemplar of how to do a national talkshow, in my opinion, providing more light than heat - and “Marketplace.”
Station manager Brodie Bashaw refigured KWBU’s programming budget to get the Friday science program back on and it airs from 1 to 3 p.m. today.
I’m a science maven - I started out at the University of Texas at Austin as a physics major - and find Flatow an excellent host. He explains complicated issue and theories without talking down to his audience. Science usually is a part of most news organizations’ coverage, but since most editors and reporters are generalists, that coverage sometimes lacks the context or qualifiers it needs for perspective. “Science Friday” provides that - and it’s interesting, too. I often took late lunch breaks on Fridays just to hear the program on my car radio. Good to see it back.
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Four new movies, five departing ones
According to the list of movies playing at Wallace Jewel and Starplex Galaxy multiplexes this Friday, four new movies debut (Georgia Rule, 28 Weeks Later, The Ex and Delta Farce) — while five leave (The Hoax, Perfect Stranger, The Condemned, In the Land of Women and Kickin It Old Skool).
Still on four screens: Spider-Man 3.
The carnage will start next week when Shrek the Third arrives and the theaters will have to make room for it …
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So Long, Texas, Hello - politics
Credit local musician Johnny Bradshaw for suspecting the time was right for songwriter Rita Jones’ somewhat humorous anti-illegal immigration song “So Long, Texas, Hello Mexico.” Through his pushing, Jones, her husband Mike and Bradshaw got the song recorded and released to various radio outlets and Internet sites last year.
It struck a chord with listeners peeved by illegal immigration, and how: The song has aired around the world since then and its Web site has tallied more than 140,000 hits.
The latest chapter in the single’s saga comes this month as Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul’s campaign has secured permission to use the song and will fly Bradshaw - who performs as “Johnny Tex” on the song - to a Republican candidates’ debate in South Carolina May 15. Campaign organizers also have hired Rita to write a campaign song for Paul.
With Congress and the Bush administration set to wrestle sometime this summer with the immigration issue, expect “So Long, Texas, Hello Mexico” to get even more exposure.
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Spider-Man 3 whips - well, something
No surprise that Spider-Man 3 did great box office this weekend, but, man, what numbers - $148 million opening weekend in the U.S., $375 globally. If interest remains high, the latest Spider-Man may actually earn back its supposed $300 million price tag (Remember the Titanic! must be the cry for Sony Studios).
The huge box office figures likely will arm the current wave of critic critics, who argue the disconnect between mainstream film reviewers’ critiques and box office popularity shows that critics “just don’t get it” (Cue angry fans of 300 here).
I say that’s an apples-vs.-oranges comparison. Critics measure quality by their admittedly subjective criteria (narrative, acting, photography, pacing, etc.); box office measures the success of a studio’s marketing campaign. Box office for weeks two and three of a movie’s release gives a better gauge of audience appeal as it’s word-of-mouth that supports business after opening weekend. Spider-Man 3’s $148 opening has more to do with a year-long, $100-million-plus advertising campaign built on film trailers, teasers, advance feature stories, Web sites, fan boy buzz and the like than what critics say or don’t say.
I tend to think of opening weekend box office figures like election turnout percentages in the former Soviet Union. Communist officials would crow about how turnouts of more than 90 percent of their voting population showed the people’s support of party candidates; in reality, turnout numbers told more about the government’s ability to control its population.
$148 million - that’s some successful marketing.
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Free comic books on Saturday - in Waco, too
At least three Waco stores - Bankston Comics and Sports Cards, hastings and Golden’s Book Exchange - will give away free comic books to visitors tomorrow, May 5, as part of a national promotion to introduce new audiences to reading comics. Here’s a list of the titles distributed tomorrow
My comic book reading these days is sporadic - it stands in line with books, magazines, Internet surfing, TV watching and house chores - and perhaps it’s because of this increased competition for time that the industry feels a giveaway is necessary.
Still, it’s free.
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Friday Open Post
Time for our weekly open thread for posts about Waco entertainment and beyond.
Got your tickets for Spider-Man 3 this weekend? Recovering from the midnight screenings? Should mainstream movie critics take a break for the month with such critic-proof movies arriving in theaters?
Comments on stage action this weekend, from Waco Civic Theatre’s “Once Upon a Mattress” to Saturday night’s reading of “The Crash at Crush” at the Waco Hippodrome?
Comments on Don Imus’ intent to sue CBS for breach of contract in firing him? On rap producer’s Russell Simmons suggestion to put three epithets - the B, H and N words - off-limits in rap recordings (Dirty little secret: labels have been doing that for years in the versions they sell to/through Wal-Mart)?
Or is it all talk, talk, talk? …
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Last night’s “Grey’s,” “Ugly Betty”
Here’s the place to dish on last night’s “Ugly Betty” and “Grey’s Anatomy” episode.
I enjoyed “Betty,” though I don’t have much to talk about.
“Grey’s,” though …
I didn’t think I was going to watch the whole two-hour episode. But I got suckered in with the (sort-of) debut of the spinoff series starring Kate Walsh. Very clever show. I’m actually looking forward to it.
Back in Seattle, though, all was not well between Meredith and Derek and Meredith and her father. Dish here, but be prepared for spoilers…
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Seen Spidey yet?
Any of you avid Spider-Man fans catch the early showing today? What did you think? Tell us here.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Movies
Carl’s Multiplex Challenge - guess the movies left standing
Spider-Man 3 opens Friday with four screens apiece at both Wallace Jewel 16 and Starplex Galaxy 16. It’s the first of three mega-sequels debuting this May, which begs the question: how many screens will be left at May’s end not Spider-Man 3, Shrek the Third and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.
Each of those film likely will open on four screens, then shrink in following weeks; even so, three movies playing on at least three screens each means fewer screens for other movies.
Hence my challenge: Which movies will be playing Waco by the final weekend of May? Here’s my guess. Add yours and we’ll see who’s closest to the truth, with no prize but the recognition of our online readers. Movies don’t have to be at both multiplexes to qualify.
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (four screens), Shrek the Third (three), Spider-Man 3 (two), 28 Weeks Later (two), Bug (opens May 25), Captivity (opens May 18), The Ex, Delta Farce, Georgia Rule (all three opening May 11), Blades of Glory.
Notice, if this turns out this way, that only two movies playing this Friday, Spider-Man 3 and Blades of Glory, will survive the month.
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A Willie-less Fourth for Texas
Billboard magazine reports that for the first time in more than 30 years, Willie Nelson’s traditional Fourth of July Picnic will take place outside of Texas.
Instead, he, the Family and the Picnic will be at George, Washington (gee, wonder where they thought up that town name …)
No official word explaining the move, but it’s sort of sad to see a break in a Texas tradition.
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Waco videographers win at Houston Worldfest
Waco videographers Greg and Sherri Jurls of Hewitt-based Hero Video Productions nabbed a Platinum Remi Award in the Independent Video category in this year’s Worldfest film/video festival in Houston last weekend.
The two produced a DVD documentary last year on comic book/graphic novel artist David Mack, The Alchemy of Art: David Mack, and it’s garnered buzz at the comic conventions and film fests at which they’ve screened it.
Now it’s got a Remi …
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Groovy Award winners - Part 2
I let this slip through the cracks and my apologies, guys - Here’s the rest of the Groovy Awards winners from last month’s ceremony:
Instrumentalists of the Year - Dave Blanton, bass guitar; Steve Palousek, steel guitar; Wes Hardin, harmonica.
Original Band of the Year - Rusty Road
Best Performance at the Awards Show - Slickfist
The Music Association of Central Texas recognizes noteworthy bands, musicians and supporters of local music with its annual Groovy Awards. Congratulations to all.
