An evening pause: The closing song and credits from one of the greatest musicals every put on film, The Music Man (1962).
It reminds us that there is always magic in the air, if only we look for it.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
An evening pause: What I want to know is this: How did he get the baby to work on cue?
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
This past weekend movie-goers finally got to see the world premiere of First Man, a movie based on the biography with the same title telling the life story of Neil Armstrong, the first man to step onto the surface of another world.
Prior to the movie’s release there was some controversy when Ryan Gosling, the actor playing Armstrong, said that they had left out the scene on the Moon when the astronauts planted the American Flag because their goal was to highlight Armstrong’s personal story as well as the global nature of the achievement.
Star Ryan Gosling, who plays Armstrong, defended director Damien Chazelle’s decision to omit the star-spangled moment when asked about it in Venice. “I think this was widely regarded in the end as a human achievement [and] that’s how we chose to view it, ” Gosling said per the Telegraph. “I also think Neil was extremely humble, as were many of these astronauts, and time and time again he deferred the focus from himself to the 400,000 people who made the mission possible.”
The Canadian actor added that based on his own interviews with Armstrong’s family and friends, he doesn’t believe the pioneering astronaut considered himself an American hero. “I don’t think that Neil viewed himself as an American hero,” Gosling said. From my interviews with his family and people that knew him, it was quite the opposite. And we wanted the film to reflect Neil.” [emphasis mine]
Many on the right including myself, strongly criticized this statement. The movies director, Damien Chazelle, immediately responded, saying he was not trying to devalue the importance of the American achievement but to focus instead on telling Neil Armstrong’s personal story. “My goal with this movie was to share with audiences the unseen, unknown aspects of America’s mission to the moon — particularly Neil Armstrong’s personal saga and what he may have been thinking and feeling during those famous few hours.”
I decided I had been unfair to criticize the film without seeing it, and decided I would make a rare trip to a movie theater as soon as it was released to see it and then review it.
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An evening pause: I haven’t posted this band since 2011. Time to do it again. The sound is the from the studio recording, sync’d to this stage performance. I’d rather have seen the live version, but I suspect the sound quality was so poor this is a better choice.
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
An evening pause: Make sure you stick around to hear her comments after the song.
Hat tip Wayne DeVette.
An evening pause: The title actually has nothing to do with the skit. Think bad television commercials.
Hat tip Phill Oltmann.
An evening pause: Performed live at the 2012 Telluride Bluegrass Festival, demonstrating that there really is a link between baroque music and American bluegrass. The fiddlers who came to early America had been trained to play this kind of music.
Hat tip Danae.
An evening pause: Hat tip Edward Thelen, who quite correctly notes, “Such an upbeat performance for such a downbeat title.”
An evening pause: Performed live in 1963 on the television show Hootenanny, at the very beginning of their career.
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
An evening pause: DeMayo does not sing the anthem, but interprets it using American Sign language. I am posting this now, in defiance of the new NFL season, with its spoiled million dollar football players spitting on this country and its freedoms that made them rich.
Stay with it. If you watch closely you will begin to understand the sign language, and the power of the song’s words will then start to hit you, in a new way.
Hat tip Wayne DeVette.
An evening pause: From a James Agee poem:
Sure on this shining night
Of star made shadows round,
Kindness must watch for me
This side the ground.
The late year lies down the north.
All is healed, all is health.
High summer holds the earth.
Hearts all whole.
Sure on this shining night I weep for wonder wand’ring far alone
Of shadows on the stars.
Hat tip Danae.
An evening pause: This does not go in exactly the direction you think it will.
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
An evening pause: Rzeznik is from a band called the Goo Goo Dolls, for those who follow such things.
Hat tip Wayne DeVette.
An evening pause: From the 1964 Blake Edwards film, The Pink Panther. Written by Mancini with the actor Peter Sellers specifically in mind.
Hat tip Danae.
An evening pause: A simple love song, as performed at Woodstock, August 1969. The moment in time is significant.
Go–
And beat your crazy heads against the sky.
Try–
And see beyond the houses and your eyes.
It’s okay to shoot the Moon.
On this day, September 11th, it is worthwhile taking this glimpse at what the American dream stood for, and still stands for — gentle love and allowing each person to follow their dreams to do wonderful things — versus those other extremist ideologies that brook no dissent and have killed thousands, on this day as well as before and after.
An evening pause: In watching this passionate 1999 performance of this anti-war song, I couldn’t help thinking that the only zombies present were the audience and the singers, locked into simplistic 1960s messages without thought. Nonetheless, it is a great performance and song.
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
