Tag: Rolling Stones

The Big Chill Released in 1983

In 1983, Columbia Pictures released “The Big Chill,” a film featuring an ensemble of great young actors (including a rising star cut out of the movie) as characters looking back on the 1960s with nostalgia, loss, and wonderful music.

Big Chill Soundtrack

On September 28, 1983, Columbia Pictures released The Big Chill. The film, directed by Lawrence Kasdan, featured baby boomer college friends reuniting around fifteen years after school for the funeral of a friend who committed suicide. The film perfectly encompassed the baby-boomer anxiety about selling out in life and a loss of innocence.

And of course, there was the humor.  And the movie featured the great soundtrack with such performers as Marvin Gaye, Creedance Clearwater Revival, and Aretha Franklin.

The move taught me an important lesson that had little to do with the lost idealism or the friendship of the characters. I learned how great it can be not to know anything about a movie before you see it.

When I was in college, I went to a shopping mall with friends and we decided to see a movie. As we debated what to see, none of us had yet seen any advertisements for The Big Chill. I only knew that my sister had seen it and liked it, but I had no idea about the story or the actors.

Well, we decided to see The Big Chill based on my sister’s vague recommendation. By the time the movie got to the scene with the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” I was hooked.

For the time period, with MTV only about two years old, the movie seemed like something new and refreshing, using rock music to explore the 1980s nostalgia for the 1960s. I do not know if I would have loved the movie so much had I known what to expect. So I learned the best way to see a movie is without expectations. Now, before I see a movie I try to learn only as much as I need in order to decide whether or not I want to see it.

Thus, in case you have not seen the The Big Chill, I will not say much more about the plot. Many have fond memories of the movie, which had a great ensemble cast of Tom Berenger, Glenn Close, Jeff Goldblum, William Hurt, Kevin Kline, Mary Kay Place, Meg Tilly, and JoBeth Williams.

Much later, we would read that the dead friend Alex, who we never see in the film, was originally played by a young Kevin Costner.  In this reunion video, you may hear more about a deleted flashback scene featuring Costner.

Critics are somewhat divided on the film.  I understand how looking back at the movie through today’s lens, one may see too many clichés.

But for the time, seeing the movie through my own innocence, it helped connect me a tiny bit to thinking about how I might one day look back on my own life. And today, I find myself older than the characters in the film looking back nostalgically at where I was when I first saw The Big Chill during my own college years.

What is your favorite scene in The Big Chill? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Saturday Night Live’s Farewell to Kristen Wiig (video)

    Kristen Wiig Saturday Night Live farewell

    Although there had been speculation that Kristen Wiig would be leaving Saturday Night Live at the end of this season, up until last night’s season finale, there had been no official announcement. Watching the episode, one might have noticed that there were a number of sketches where Wiig performed some of her regular characters. But it was not until the very end, when host Mick Jagger addressed a graduating class and noted one very special person was going off to be a nun, where viewers slowly began to realize that the payoff was not a big laugh but an emotional goodbye to a beloved cast member. Check it out. [Update May 2015: Unfortunately, the official NBC video that was posted here is no longer available, so below is a video about the Wiig farewell.]

    Especially when Lorne Michaels came on for a brief dance, we knew it was a goodbye. There are rumors that Andy Samberg and Jason Sudeikis may be leaving the show too, but those are just rumors at this point (although perhaps Samberg’s goodbye was a sequel to “Lazy Sunday”).

    As for Wiig, the music of “She’s a Rainbow” and “Ruby Tuesday” were quite appropriate. How cool is it to get sent off with Rolling Stones songs with Mick Jagger right there? The show has big shoes to fill now that we no longer will see Wiig every Saturday night like we have for the last seven years. But considering Wiig’s big hit with Bridesmaids and that she has a number of projects in the works, we still will be seeing a lot of her. So, it is not goodbye, it is “see you later.”

    What was your favorite Kristen Wiig Saturday Night Live character? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Howlin’ Wolf on Shindig! on May 20, 1965

    Howlin' Wolf Shindig In the thirteenth Oxford American Annual Southern Music issue, author Peter Guralnick wrote an excellent essay about Howlin’ Wolf, “What is the Soul of Man?” In the essay, Gualnick, who has written definitive biographies of great artists such as Elvis Presley and Sam Cooke, recounts how the greatest moment on television for him was Howlin’ Wolf’s appearance on Shindig! taped on May 20, 1965.

    On that Thursday night, The Rolling Stones were the headliners on the show, and Wolf for some reason was listed on the show under the name “Chester Burnett,” as his given name was Chester Arthur Burnett. But when he took the stage and began his first hit, “How Many More Years,” the 6’3″ Wolf made it so “[e]very moment was larger than life.”

    In this clip from the show, the Stones talk of their admiration for Howlin’ Wolf. Then Wolf took the stage and wiggled and leapt, as Guralink described, “with The Stones sitting at his feet, as if not just the stage but the entire world would shake.”

    According to the website The 60s at 50, the May 20th taped show appeared on ABC on May 26, 1965.

    What do you think of Howlin’ Wolf’s performance? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Buck Owens: Don’t Judge a Man’s Music By His Overalls

    Buck Owens Hee Haw On March 25 in 2006, Buck Owens, who was born Alvis Edgar Owens Jr., passed away. When I was a kid, I thought Buck Owens was just a goofy guy who wore his overalls backwards and joked around on Hee Haw with Roy Clark. But as I grew up and learned more about classic country music, I discovered that Owens was a legend who made great music with his band, The Buckaroos.

    Along with Merle Haggard, Owens was one of the first to stand up against the slick Nashville music to help create and popularize a rock-influenced honky tonk music called “the Bakersfield sound” that influenced and continues to influence many great country artists like Brad Paisley. In the clip below, Owens and his long-time legendary guitarist Don Rich performed “Love’s Gonna Live Here” in 1966 on the Jimmy Dean Show.

    One of the artists touched by Owens is Dwight Yoakam. After Owens lost his friend and guitarist Don Rich in a motorcycle accident in 1974, Owens drifted out of the spotlight and eventually stopped recording music. In 1988, though, Dwight Yoakam helped bring Owens back to popularity when the two recorded a new version of Owens’s 1973 hit written by Homer Joy, “Streets of Bakersfield.”

    The collaboration between Yoakam and Owens on “Streets of Bakersfield” gave Owens his first number one song in sixteen years. I love this song.

    A Buck Owens biography portrayed Owens, who was married several times as sort of a jerk at times. But like he asks in “Streets of Bakersfield” about walking in another person’s shoes (or overalls), “[H]ow many of you that sit and judge me / Have ever walked the streets of Bakersfield?”

    Country musicians were not the only ones who recognized the talent of Buck Owens and the great Bakersfield sound. In “Far Away Eyes” from Some Girls (1978), the Rolling Stones described driving through Bakersfield on the country sounding song. Creedence Clearwater Revival mentioned Owens in “Lookin’ Out My Back Door” (“Dinosaur Victrola, Listenin’ to Buck Owens”) on Cosmos Factory (1970).

    Even more famously, in 1965 the Beatles covered one of Owens’s songs, “Act Naturally,” on Help! with Ringo Starr singing lead. Years later, Buck and Ringo joined their humor and musical skills to record a new version of “Act Naturally.”

    When Owens passed away in 2006, he was sleeping in his bed. Hours earlier he was not feeling well and considered canceling a performance until he heard some fans had traveled from Oregon to California to hear him. So he stood on stage at his Crystal Palace club and restaurant, singing one last time in Bakersfield.

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    This Week in Pop Culture Roundup (Post-Thanksgiving 2011 Edition)

    kermit the frog plush toy

    If you have been too busy pepper spraying shoppers trying to grab that toy you want, here are some of the pop culture stories from the week that you might have missed.

    ——— Music ———

    No Depression featured an interesting story about a recent encounter with Garth Hudson of The Band.

    No Depression also featured a nice review of Glen Campbell on his final tour.

    Chimesfreedom     sends our best wishes to The Bee Gees’ Robin Gibb, who is fighting liver cancer.

    The Rolling Stones are releasing an expanded reissue of Some Girls, including a song with John Fogerty.

    “Does this mean I can play whatever I want?” — Ozzy Osbourne on getting his own music channel on SiriusXM Radio.

    “What I do is more like a poke in the ribs than a kick in the face.” – Weird Al Yankovic in Chicago Tribune profile.

    Influential jazz drummer and bandleader Paul Motian passed away last week. RIP.

    “Cracklin’ Rosie, get on board!” Neil Diamond will tour this summer to support a greatest hits CD.

    If you are a fan of The Swell Season, check out this interview with Marketa Irglova about The Swell Season, the new documentary on the band, and her new solo CD.

    WhatCulture! has a review of William Shatner’s new CD, Seeking Major Tom. Below is Shatner’s version of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” with his face in the sky of this crazy official video.

    ——— Movies ———-

    “He’s an older Bruce Wayne; he’s not in a great state.” — Christopher Nolan revealing some information on the upcoming The Dark Night Rises, which begins eight years after the last Batman film. William Shatner Calling Major Tom

    Slate listed its top five bad movie songs.

    Scarlett Johansson will direct a film adaptation of a Truman Capote novella, Summer Crossing.

    A new Woody Allen documentary prompted several stories. One article on the film quoted director Robert Weide on Woody Allen: “He doesn’t think of himself as a great artist.’’ Meanwhile, Salon ranked Woody Allen’s 10 Greatest Films. Personally, I think it is a crime that the list does not include Crimes and Misdemeanors.

    Kermit the Frog went to the White House on Tuesday. Also, this past week saw country music day at the White House, which included Kris Kristofferson and Lyle Lovett.

    The Artist, a new silent film, opened this week to rave reviews.

    An international Laurel and Hardy appreciation society meets every week in California near the Hal Roach Studios.

    “The Muppets are sweet and subversive.” — Los Angeles Times review. In another Muppets-related story, Slate discussed “Mahna Mahna” and how music from an Italian soft-core film became the Muppets’ catchiest song.

    ——— Television ———

    Elizabeth Shue will become a regular on “CSI” starting in February, replacing Marg Helgenberger.

    CBS signed up Survivor for two more seasons with Jeff Probst as host and executive producer.

    Katy Perry will host Saturday Night Live on Dec. 10.

    ——— Other News ———

    Two former death row inmates whose convictions were each overturned after years on death row were married last week.

    Finally, the UC Davis Pepper Spray Cop is now a funny Internet meme. Follow this link if you wish to skip the article and go straight to some very funny photos of the Pepper Spray Cop in unique situations, showing the strength of using humor to fight the powers.


    What was your favorite pop culture story this week? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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