Film, Beethoven, Flash Mobs and Perfect Dinner Parties

By Steve Evans

Someone once asked me at a dinner party...who I would invite to a dinner party and what I would serve. The latter answer is easy -- filet mignon grilled fast in brandy and minced shallots, lobster tails slathered in drawn butter and lemon zest, grilled asparagus, roasted new potatoes with rosemary and crushed garlic cloves, and grapefruit salad dressed with sea salt and extra virgin olive oil.  Napa Cabernet Sauvignon and New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc for the lobster. New York style cheesecake topped with ripe raspberries and port wine for dessert.

Then there would be cigars and cognac.

As for the guest list, that becomes problematic. Most of my heroes have left this plane of existence, but if we could resurrect them (and language was no barrier to our conversation), I would invite Jesus, Buddha, Aristotle, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, John Coltrane, Bill Evans (no relation), Cleopatra, Louise Brooks, Myrna Loy, Jean Renoir, Picasso, Neil Armstrong, Cary Grant, Stanley Kubrick, Henri Georges Clouzot, Jeanne Moreau, possibly Richard III, definitely Abraham Lincoln and Ingmar Bergman, Grace Kelly if she was free that night, and Jimi Hendrix, because he was always Stone Free. If there was still room at the table I would welcome Ed Wood Jr., Phil Tucker (who directed Robot Monster, one of the most sublime and yet still awful films I have seen), Victor Hugo and Joan of Arc, Ghandi (he would pass on the fillets of beef, no doubt), and James Agee, who may be the most under-appreciated writer of the 20th century.

I think I would ask Marilyn Monroe for a date that evening, not for the reasons you might think, but because I might be able to pierce her shell ( I am good like that) and perhaps understand the demons that drove her. Plus, I am confident that I could kick Jack Kennedy's (or Bobby''s) ass into the street.

And by the time we got around to the cigars and brandy, I would ask Beethoven to perform for us all.

Here, then, is the coda on my perfect dinner party...wandering outdoors we would all encounter the most wonderful thing I have seen since the dawn of the Internet.

Life is beautiful. I would do well to remember that. So would we all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbJcQYVtZMo

Cinema Uprising copyright © 2014. By Steve Evans. All rights reserved.

Kick Out the Jams

By Steve Evans

Variety and The Hollywood Reporter ran reports this week of two new musician biopics due out this year, one featuring Jimi Hendrix and another charting the life of that Godfather himself, James Brown. I look forward to both films, but worry the soul will be bled from the stories of these legendary musicians.

After watching Bob Dylan turn tricks during the recent Super Bowl commercials, I got to thinking that rock and roll has strayed so far from its mission that the mainstream barely gets annoyed by the sound any more. Jimmy Page sold Led Zeppelin's legacy to hawk Cadillacs. Pete Townshend has been pimping Who songs for years.

So it's time to get back to basics. If we're going to bankroll musician biopics, it's time to strip away all pretense and make some real noise. I say, it's time for a biopic on the MC5. This quintet outta Detroit made noise as pure and coarse, as uncommercial and beautiful and flat-out-in-your-damn-face as rock and roll is ever likely to be. They were ahead of their time 45 years ago. I'm not sure the rest of the world ever caught up. If anyone makes a film that does justice to their story, FBI investigations and all, it will be the best movie about rock and roll since the Maysles brothers shot Gimme Shelter.

I miss the MC5. A lot. Well, maybe not the white boy 'fros nor those garish 1970s fashions, but that raw sound remains ungodly and unequaled.



I've been living the ethos of this song for so long, I never woulda thought I'd outlive most of the guys in the band. So let's hear it for the story of the MC5, coming soon to blow minds at a multiplex near you. I can dream if I wanna. Gotta kick 'em out.

Cinema Uprising copyright © 2014 by Steve Evans. All rights reserved.