600 reviews and all is well
Jul 10 '08 (Updated Jul 13 '08)
The Bottom Line There are no deep thoughts to mark this milestone - just some observations on purely "cultural" matters.
After many trials and tribulations, I’ve finally reached the Epinions summit of 600 entries. Okay, I’m lying - I didn’t exactly put in much effort, as I haven’t really contributed much to the site in the past two years. I posted exactly 20 reviews including this one in the past 12 months, and that also includes the four parts of ~Room 426~ that I posted last summer.
The only excuse I have is the fact working at a community newspaper for two years makes you focus on things other than writing and rating “epinions.” I’m okay with that since I couldn’t imagine writing a review on every single media item I consume - it’s not that work has hindered my movie-watching. There’s all sorts of things I would have reviewed if I put in the effort.
Of course, the only downside is that I am more or less forgotten on Epinions. That’s just a fact of life. It’ s not like I was ever a big contributor to the community in the first place. I’m lucky to have more than 100 who trust me, regardless of how little I contribute.
If I did review everything I watched and listened to, I could have told you about all the jazz I’ve been listening to for the last year and a half. I really expressed little interest in the genre until the reopening of a formerly despondent independent record store in Charlottetown, PEI. The new owners decided to actually stock interesting material, and that included a jazz and blues section. The only jazz I really had any encounter with was a little bit of Miles Davis, and even smaller portions of Herbie Hancock, Sonny Rollins and a couple of others.
But once I began to go to Back Alley Disks more often, I saw all of these other jazz CDs from people I’ve never heard of: Art Blakey, Lee Morgan, Grant Green, Jimmy Smith, Alice Coltrane and so many others. In the meantime, I also bought some jazz CDs from Amazon and from other sources. My last big batch of CDs included Buddy Rich, Jack McDuff, Yusef Lateef, Johnny Hodges, Ahmad Jamal, Donald Byrd and Coleman Hawkins. Before I bought all of these jazz CDs, I assumed Miles Davis was one of “the best.” Now I know better - there’s so many other classic artists worthy of a listen. I hardly even pull out the Miles Davis CD.
I’ve watched so many movies in the past year or so I’ve never reviewed. I still go to the pawn shop and the flea market and other places to buy up cheap movies for no particular reason at all. Recently, I’ve also ordered some DVDs from First Run Features and Kino International. The First Run order included Border Cafe, the Iranian film I reviewed a week or so ago, but it also included two features from the East German DEFA film studio - The Rabbit is Me and Naked Among Wolves.
The films are fascinating, as with many films produced in the old Communist regimes - Naked Among Wolves was the first East German film dealing with concentration camps, and has some emotional resonance because one of the people in the camp is a child (the prisoners try to hide the child from the Nazi guards). The film is very much Communist propaganda, as most of the “good guys” are committed Communists.
The Rabbit is Me was made during a brief “thaw” when some criticisms of the Communist regime were allowed - the lead character has an affair with the judge who sent her brother to jail for “subversion” - until literally a few months later when the “thaw” films were suppressed by the Communist government.
Finally in my list of cultural pursuits is old-time radio programs. There are thousands of programs which still exist and are available on a number of websites dedicated to old time radio, although much of what I’ve been listening to is Jack Benny, Fred Allen and the Phil Harris-Alice Faye show.
One observation is that everyone seemed to be a lot more laid back in those days, including the major corporations who paid for the programs. These were the days when one sponsor carried the program, and in the comedy programs especially this often involved integrating the sponsor in the plot in increasingly comical ways. The primary purpose was more than likely a stealth commercial, but in listening to some of the programs, I’m astonished how much the writers got away with.
One particular Phil Harris-Alice Faye program (from 1947) has Phil getting a Christmas present from the sponsor, the F W Fitch shampoo company. The gift is a bust of the founder’s head, but neither Phil, his friend Frankie Remley or neighbour Julius have any idea what this thing is. For about two or three minutes all three characters describe this “very peculiar-looking” guy.
Once they figure it out, Phil and Frankie recoil in horror at having insulted the founder, but Julius takes the opportunity to hurl potshots at both the founder and the alleged quality of the product line. (“For a guy who sells shampoo, he has funny looking hair!” etc.) Some of the humour stings because this is all directed toward a real person and a real company, and the very company underwriting the program. Later sponsors Rexall and RCA Victor were also not immune to the jokes at their expense.
Some of the other comedy on the old radio programs was occasionally edgy, but in truth it was because certain topics weren’t as controversial then as they may be now. Every third or fourth joke on the Phil Harris-Alice Faye program seemed to be about either Phil’s or buddy Frankie Remley’s latent alcoholism. And the Jack Benny program had a few risqué bits, including one gag in which a couple of NBC switchboard operators deal with callers who commit suicide right there and then when they hear the awful news that Benny is indeed back on the radio for another season (it’s funnier than it sounds).
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
DavidMac
|
 - Top 500 |
|
Member: David Macdonald
Location: Prince Edward Island
Reviews written: 612
Trusted by: 109 members
About Me:
Alice, a story in nine parts, posted on Sept 24, 2008 - http://www.epinions.com/content_5241348228
|
|
|
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.