Adjustment Bureau (2011) has engaging actors in Matt Damon and Emily Blunt, some cool uses of New York City landmarks, and an interesting plot idea from a short story by Philip K. Dick. From the previews, I expected an intelligent movie with something to say about life and free will, with a thoughtful twist on reality as in movies like Inception and The Matrix.
Instead, The Adjustment Bureau never reached very deep and is more of an action-romance movie, diverging from the interesting original Philip K. Dick story, “Adjustment Team.” I will not ruin the ending of the movie, but a darker ending inspired by film noir movies instead of the predictable conclusion might have made the movie more memorable. It is not a bad movie, and in some ways is like a light fantasy version of the Bourne movies on some level, so it is enjoyable. I just wanted more.
Did you like The Adjustment Bureau? Leave a comment.
I love Buddy Miller’s music, and I love Bill Frisell’s jazz guitar playing. So when I heard they were working together, along with guitarists Marc Ribot and Greg Leisz, and singers that included Patty Griffin and Julie Miller, it did not take me long to plop down my money for the CD, Majestic Silver Strings. I own all of Buddy Miller’s eight albums, and I admire his other work too. This new album, released earlier this month, continues his excellence.
In recent years, as Buddy Miller has worked on producing other artists and backing them up, he has not released as much of his own music as he otherwise might. But he continues to make great music, and this new album is no exception. Majestic Silver Strings differs from his other albums by adding a large number of guests and a more atmospheric sound from the excellent guitarists on board, but it is still great music. While some versions of the songs stay close to their country roots, other versions stray further from traditional country, such as the outstanding reworking of Roger Miller’s “Dang Me” by Chocolate Genius that gives the song new force and power over its humorous roots. The album is full of excellent music, no matter how you label it. But you will not hear this album on most commercial music radio stations, which generally ignore the great work done by both Miller and his wife, Julie Miller.
Majestic Silver Strings features covers of a number of classic country songs — such as “Cattle Call” and “Bury Me Not On the Lone Prairie” — as well as some originals. While there is an emphasis on the instrumentation, there are also excellent vocals by Buddy Miller along with Patty Griffin, Julie Miller, Shawn Colvin, Emmylou Harris, Lee Ann Womack, and Ann McCrary. Because of the number of guest artists, Majestic Silver Strings is in many ways more like a tribute album than a one-artist album. So like most tribute albums, there are a variety of sounds from song-to-song. Sometimes that works on albums and often it does not, but here the excellent musicians throughout make this album more cohesive than many other multi-artist albums. My favorite tracks on the album include Shawn Colvin singing “That’s the Way Love Goes” and Lee Ann Womack singing “Return to Me,” neither of which would sound out of place on the Grand Ole Opry stage or in a smoky jazz nightclub.
Conclusion? If you do not mind variety and a little jazz atmosphere mixed in with your music, you will most likely love Majestic Silver Strings. If you are looking for something that sticks closer to great traditional country sounds consistently throughout an album, you might want to start with one of Buddy Miller’s other albums, like the excellent Cruel Moon. You cannot go wrong either way.
Bonus Bill Frisell Video: If you are not familiar with Bill Frisell’s outstanding guitar work, while his home is in jazz, he often incorporates country music elements into his work. Additionally, he has covered songs by artists that include Bob Dylan and Madonna. Check out his take on the classic song “Shenandoah” from his Good Dog, Happy Man album.
Elizabeth Taylor passed away today at the age of 79. Her first movie I saw when I was a child was National Velvet, which is probably the first movie that many kids saw with her and is one of the great “horse” movies. One of the last movies I saw with her in it was Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, which features one of her best acting performances. In her later life, she did some of her greatest work for humanitarian causes such as Aids research, an issue she embraced before many others did.
Although she was known for her glamor and beauty, one of her greatest roles played against those strengths, as seen in this scene from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with Richard Burton. She gives a frightening performance that won her a second acting Oscar.
Although she will probably be more remembered for the above movies, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Cleopatra for different reasons, one movie that should not be overlooked is Giant, where she starred with Rock Hudson, James Dean, and young Dennis Hopper. While far from a perfect movie, there is a lot to love in the messy epic.
Although a CNN anchor just tried to describe Elizabeth Taylor as her day’s “Angelina Jolie,” it is not a very good comparison. For better or worse, stars were different back then. Either way, it is great that we still have her work to enjoy. Rest in peace.
What is your favorite Elizabeth Taylor movie or scene? Leave a comment.
The federal trial of Barry Bonds began in March 2022 in San Francisco. Part of the trial focused on Greg Anderson, who started being Bonds’s trainer in 2000 and who allegedly supplied Bonds with steroids and then refused to testify against Bonds. Like Pres. Bill Clinton before him, Bonds had legal troubles that centered not on his actions but on the issue of whether he lied about them. The case examined whether Bonds lied to a grand jury when he said that he thought the substances Anderson gave him were legal. (UPDATE: Following the trial, the jury did not reach a verdict on the perjury accounts but found Bonds guilty of obstruction of justice and he was sentenced to probation.)
Outside the legal debate about perjury, though, an ongoing debate continues about Bonds’s baseball legacy. One of his biggest defenders has been Giants fan and singer-songwriter Dan Bern. In addition to writing some articles about Bonds, Bern has written at least four songs about the slugger: “73,” “Asterisk Nation,” “Rincon,” and “Year By Year Home Run Totals Of The Great Barry Bonds.”
Dan Bern’s Songs About Barry Bonds
My two favorites of these songs are “Rincon” and “Asterisk Nation.” “Rincon” is about a journey to a town to see where Bonds may or may not have a contact for buying steroids, or at least that is how I interpret the beautiful song.
“Rincon” paints the most complicated portrait of Bonds among Bern’s songs. It is a more personal story, more about the narrator than about Bonds, and its ambiguity also makes it one of Bern’s most human and best songs. Like all great songs, it is about something deeper than what you might hear upon the first listen.
“Asterisk Nation” is a much more pointed commentary, where Dan Bern tells us that if we want to point the finger at Bonds, then maybe we should also be pointing it at ourselves. “Asterisk doctors, Asterisk patients, Asterisk erections, Asterisk elections, Asterisk wars. . . Telling Asterisk truths to an Asterisk nation.” Don’t many of us take pills, caffeine, alcohol, medication, etc. to alter the way we exist? And, if so, is it so wrong that Bonds may have used a drug that was not illegal at the time to make him better at his job, like you having that afternoon cup of coffee?
Dan Bern’s song also evokes a new movie released just a few days before the trial of Barry Bonds begins. The movie Limitless (2011), starring Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro, is about a man who is given a drug that lets him use 100% of his mind. If you could take a drug that would give you super-human abilities, would you?
There is not a video for “Asterisk Nation” on YouTube. But you may listen to the song from a Dan Bern live performance from 2006 below.
Finally, Dan Bern’s “Year by Year Home Run Totals of Barry Bonds” is brilliant for how simple it is. The song recounts exactly what the title suggests, listing those home run totals. While the 73 home runs in 2001 does stand out, the list illustrates that Bonds was smashing a lot of home runs even before the era where we suspect he was using performance-enhancing drugs.
In the video below, Bern performs “Year by Year Home Run Totals of Barry Bonds” as a sing-a-long at a school. (His lesson to the kids is how they may use a song to help them remember pieces of information, like a list of numbers.)
Defending Barry Bonds?
I do not completely buy Dan Bern’s defense of Barry Bonds. One must wonder whether or not it is fair for some players to use steroids against the rules when there is a limited number of spots for major league baseball players. If some use steroids, other potential major league players may lose their jobs to cheaters. And is it fair if someone who holds a record does not get credit because someone else did not play by the rules?
Still, Dan Bern does make me see Barry Bonds in a different light. I now see Barry Bonds as a tragic human being. During his run at perhaps the greatest record in baseball, he must have anticipated for years the glory of the moment. Instead, as the time approached and left, he was treated like a pariah, perhaps partly deserved, perhaps partly not.
Then, when he wanted to continue playing after the 2007 season, no team would hire him when he was still playing great baseball. And why is he so hated while Lance Armstrong is so loved? I am sure racial biases are at work, but there are other complex factors too.
Sure Bonds did whatever he did for himself, but we all gained the entertainment, both from his incredible playing and from later having fun debating about steroids. Ever since he was a kid with a professional baseball-playing father, Bonds learned that society would pay him large amounts of money to run around on a field and hit a ball with a stick. If society is set up so we pay millions of dollars to people who play games, while social workers and teachers barely scrape by and other people are homeless, is it such a great sin by comparison that he took some medicine to play better? Is his sin worse than ours for creating such a society?
Barry Bonds was always there for our entertainment, and like the rest of us, he is a flawed human being. His steroids helped entertain you, and I received a topic for a blog post today. And we do not even have to suffer the health consequences from taking the drug.
While I enjoy discussing the morality issues involved because I love baseball and debates about morals, what it ultimately comes down to for me is one question: Who am I to judge him? And perhaps the most interesting part for me is wondering whether he has any regrets and whether or not he would do everything the same if starting all over again. Maybe some day we will get answers to these and other questions from him, but probably not for a long time, if ever.
I am going to try to cleanse my mind of thoughts about tainted baseball records by watching a video from the 1996 Home Run Derby before Barry Bonds allegedly started using steroids, back when we were all much more innocent. Man, he was good against. . . Mark McGuire.
What do you think of Barry Bonds? What should be done with his home run record? Leave a comment.
For our readers who are country music fans, Chimesfreedom notes that Ferlin Husky passed away Thursday at a Nashville-area hospital from congestive heart failure. He was 85. You may know some of his famous songs, “Gone”, “A Dear John letter,” and “Country Music is Here to Stay.” Depending on your age, you may remember some of his television and movie appearances.
But you may not know this information about him, which is from Husky’s website: “Born near Flat River, Missouri, in a town so small it was prone to be mistaken for a fly-speck by map makers, he left home for a hitch in the Merchant Marines and D-Day found him under forty-eight hours of continuous battle-fire during the invasion of Cherbourg. He was later awarded a citation as ‘Volunteer Gunner’ as a result of his action during the battle.”
I did not know that he was there at D-Day. Most of what I know about him is from his recording of this song, “Wings of a Dove,” which is a country music classic.
Here’s to you Ferlin. May you be flying on the wings of a snow-white dove.
What is your favorite Ferlin Husky song? Leave a comment.
Adjustment Bureau (2011) has engaging actors in Matt Damon and Emily Blunt, some cool uses of New York City landmarks, and an interesting plot idea from a short story by Philip K. Dick. From the previews, I expected an intelligent movie with something to say about life and free will, with a thoughtful twist on reality as in movies like Inception and The Matrix.
