From the Couch Hole: I Will Be Your Storm at Seas

Previously on FTCH, the oddity returned from beyond the grave on Sugar Hill. Shirley Temple gave us the genesis of the Daleks with Wednesday’s cereal. This week was the end of one of my favorite months of the year. With only a dozen trick-or-treaters, I miss a decade ago when we would see lots of little ones in costumes. A couple of days and we can get the election mess behind us, and we can focus on the important eating and football games of the rest of the month. This week a wild robot hopped on a lifeboat and said, “It’s alright. Baby’s coming back.” That Shaun of the Dead called in the hot fuzz to criticize the top album covers of all-time. Remember, at FTCH everyone was kung-fu fighting.

Pop Culture Ephemera

• The Wild Robot (2024) (Directed by Chris Sanders): “Suppose a task cannot be completed?” – Roz. I’ve had a complicated relationship with Dreamworks Animation films. They aren’t terrible. In fact, they are often funny at the time you see them. Franchises like Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, and How to Train Your Dragon don’t have the heart that I associate with the works of Pixar or Disney. I’m happy to report that this film is the exception to the rule. I don’t imagine that this starts a franchise, and the film is dripping with emotional connections. I don’t imagine anyone would confuse this with a Studio Ghibli release, but I would give you some latitude in that interpretation. Lupita Nyong’o is perfectly cast as the lead character, Roz. The easiest comparison is to The Iron Giant (1999), and it isn’t far off as the robot learns to work against its programming to adopt human emotions. The lesson of parenting is to turn off what you thought was your programming and trust what your inner voice tells you. That lesson doesn’t come without a few tears from the audience, so be prepared. We need more delicate stories like this.

Buy The Wild Robot paperback

• Only Murders in the Building – “Lifeboat” (2024) (S.4 E.8) (HULU): “While we’re waiting, we should probably do a recap” – Mabel. You name an episode after the 1944 Hitchcock film and even reference the film in the introduction, but then you don’t payoff the reference. I’m a little disappointed. The best use of the themes would have been to trap the cast in an apartment for the length of the episode. The episode follows the predictable pattern of ten-episode series these days. The eighth episode is information/backstory heavy before solving the mystery in the ninth episode. The fact that we have gotten to this point in the story and now it’s time to stop and give more origin stories of the Westies and their relationship with Dudenoff, that tells you that this is just a pause in the action. The failure inside of what has generally been a good season has been to create families that reflect the family formed by Mabel, Charles, and Oliver. The attempt didn’t work with the stars and it’s not effective with the Westies. Best pieces of the episodes are references to a “ding dong” surprise and the Tony Danza references. As a mystery, it’s good to put doubt in our minds right before “solving” the case. I’m not willing to throw away a good season just because this episode fails to deliver.

Eurythmics – Buy Be Yourself Tonight

• Eurythmics – “It’s Alright (Baby’s Coming Back)” (1985) (from Be Yourself Tonight): “And I’ll be your bridge, your flowering tree / You can still depend on me.” While this was never a big hit for the group, this 1985 single captured so much of what I appreciate about the band. It’s a soul song at heart with wonderful brass. It has beautiful vocals by Annie Lennox. It wraps all of that around Dave Stewart’s electronic foundation. The lyrical story of a lover who has been gone too long returning home is pretty straightforward. It’s a testament to two talented band members that compliment each other perfectly.

• Hot Fuzz (2007) (Directed by Edgar Wright): “But there is no way you can perpetrate that amount of carnage and mayhem and not incur a considerable amount of paperwork.” – Police Constable Angel. The second film in the Cornetto Trilogy combines the best action films and the spot-on satire of the writing of Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright. This film doesn’t feel 17 years old. It’s packed with gags, the film references are sometimes obtuse but satisfying, and there is an actually interesting police procedural plot that surrounds the comedy. In fact, if you were to find any fault in the film, it’s that the attention to making a good mystery actually distracts from the opportunity for more comedy. The chemistry between Pegg and Frost is off the charts. It’s not surprising that a love interest for Pegg was deleted from the script but most of the lines were given to Frost and they don’t strike the viewer as out of place. I can’t stress enough how much I love films where everyone is having fun.

Buy Shaun of the Dead / Hot Fuzz / The World’s End Trilogy Blu-ray

• Shaun of the Dead (2004) (Directed by Edgar Wright): “Take car. Go to Mum’s. Kill Phil – ‘Sorry.’ – grab Liz, go to the Winchester, have a nice cold pint, and wait for all of this to blow over. How’s that for a slice of fried gold?” – Shaun’s third plan. It is fried gold. Seeing this in theaters after 20 years, I’m reminded of just how well crafted this film is on almost every level. It’s not simply an homage to zombie films; it’s a damn good zombie film on its own. In the noise of all the zombie films of the past 20 years, not to mention the television shows, it’s hard to remember how groundbreaking this was at the time. It works so well as a zombie film parody because the story around the zombies is so well crafted. If you take out the threat of death from the zombies, you have all the conceits of a long-running sitcom. The troubled relationship, her exacerbated roommates, Shaun’s slacker roommate, and his overly aggressive roommate are all comfortable characters to fans of television shows. Then there’s his pub, The Winchester, that we only need to see once to understand all we need to know about Shaun. This latest viewing gave me an extra appreciation for the steadying influence of Shaun’s mother (Penelope Wilton) and her longtime boyfriend (Bill Nighy). Nighy gets the ultimate British line about why he won’t die from his zombie bite, “I ran it under the tap.” This is why I go see films in the theater that I saw 20 years ago, to relive that two-hour long smile that I had the first time.

Best of the Rest

• My first thought when reading Stephen King’s Fairy Tale (2022) was that this fantasy novel was tailor made for an adaptation but not a movie. By the time I finished it, I was convinced that animated would be the best way to handle this story. I’m comfortable that A24 handing it over to director Paul Greengrass as a 10-episode live-action series might also work. Greengrass is best known for his adaptations of the Bourne books into film. His understanding of pacing will be important to tell this story that has a complicated set of transitions between reality and the fantasy world.

Buy Fairy Tale paperback

• On the 50th anniversary of the publication of Carrie, Mike Flanagan and Stephen King are paired up for an 8 hour adaptation of the book. I was thinking recently on my reread that as good as the Brian De Palma version of the book was, that this property has potential for a larger adaptation that follows the course of the book a little closer. Flanagan’s version of The Life of Chuck has had good reviews. This work has potential to really play up the post-event, government-cover-up angles that are displayed in the book.

Buy Carrie paperback

• Entertainment Weekly (3/28/97): “Best Commercials of All-Time” #46 – Quisp & Quake: “There’s always time for a bowl of Quisp cereal.” These two Quaker Oats cereals are more famous for their Jay Ward (Rocky and Bullwinkle) animated ad campaigns than they are as enduring cereals. I happen to have a soft spot for Quisp as a tasty Cap’n Crunch relative (less crunchy but similar taste). These ads were still part of the Saturday Morning Cartoon scene when I was young and deserve a spot on the Best-Ads list.

Sunday Morning Tuneage Flashback

• On the Sunday Morning Tuneage from 5/17/2009, I was coming off a week of buyback and a 14-hour Saturday of Graduation with torrential downpours. It might be 15 years, but that day stands out in my memory of days working at UNT. My #17 Favorite Film of All-Time was The Thing (1982). This John Carpenter film is one that I occasionally think I over rate. Then I watch it again and realize that this is just right. Imagine that there was a year in my life when I watched The Exorcist (1973), Alien (1979) and The Thing (1982) all for the first time within months of each other. I have claimed that this is the best classic Universal Horror film of the 1980s. The Morricone score helps put this over the top. American Idol (Fox) and Survivor: Tocantins (CBS) were coming to an end and So You Think You Can Dance (Fox) was just starting my summer fun. A show named Glee (Fox) was debuting a first episode and then waiting until the fall for the second episode. I predicted failure for this interesting experiment (for a show that I ended up watching for a few seasons). My list for the week is one I still think about.
  • BEST ALBUM COVERS OF ALL-TIME (2009)
    • 10.  Nirvana – Nevermind (1991).
    • 9.  Miles Davis – Bitches Brew (1970).  Great colors.  Looks more like a painting from a museum.  I don’t even know how it relates to the title.
    • 8.  The Clash – London Calling (1979).  Has there ever been a more perfect illustration of punk rock than right before that guitar hits the stage?
    • 7. The Beatles – Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967).  Often called the best of all-time.  As much as I love it – I don’t even think it’s the best Beatles cover.
    • 6.  Supertramp – Breakfast in America (1979).  I love so much about this album.  But the best is the New York skyline made from kitchen utensils.
    • 5.  Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here (1975).  I remember seeing this at the Crossroads Mall for years before I finally bought it.
    • 4.  Public Enemy – Fear of a Black Planet (1990).  Looks like PE meets Star Wars and the best sci-fi movie ever!
    • 3.  The Police – Synchronicity (1993).  I love this design.  Maybe should be #1 but I can’t put it above the next two.
    • 2.  The Beatles – Revolver (1966).  Fascinated by the B&W collage of pictures and pencils.
    • 1.  Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass – Whipped Cream & Other Delights (1965).  Bought this in the early ’90s because of the cover.  Bought all of his other albums because of the music on this one.  So what if it’s shaving cream instead of whip cream – like the title, it’s delightful.
  • BEST ALBUM COVERS OF ALL-TIME (2024)
    • 10. Big Brother and the Holding Company – Cheap Thrills (1968). I was always confused by this R. Crumb cover when I would see it in the record store. It was really cool but didn’t give me an idea of the type of music inside. Once I knew R. Crumb, then I knew.
    • 9. Funkadelic – Maggot Brain (1971). Part of being on this list should be the iconic nature of the cover for those of us who spent hours a week in a record store. Turn this over to see the skull.
    • 8. Prince & The Revolution – Purple Rain (1984). There are lots of Prince choices, but a good album cover captures the artist and the time like this one.
    • 7. Miles Davis – Bitches Brew (1970). This surreal painting looks like the cover to a sci-fi paperback that I would pick up without reading the synopsis at a used bookstore.
    • 6. A Tribe Called Quest – The Low End Theory (1991). Speaking of being iconic of an era, this beautiful cover is illustrative of the sound that you’ll find on the album.
    • 5. Gorillaz – Demon Days (2005). This 2005 time for me was right at the end of the album-cover-art era. I love that this album helps end the times with a throwback to The Beatles’ Let It Be (1970).
    • 4. The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967). The most iconic and discussed album cover of all-time, bar none. It’s been dissected so often that it almost loses meaning to me. If there is a documentary on the shower scene from Psycho (1960), I’m sure I’m missing a documentary just on this album cover.
    • 3. The Clash – London Calling (1979). Rock and roll is on notice. This referential cover to the debut album by Elvis Presley signifies the end to one generation and the birth of another.
    • 2. The Beatles – Abbey Road (1969). The cover to Revolver (1966) is more artistic, but this simple shot of the group crossing a street has come to represent the group more than any other picture. No group name or album title on the cover is a testament to the power of the band in 1969.
    • 1. Joy Division – Unknown Pleasures (1979). The Clash are creating a new genre in punk rock in 1979. Joy Division is already splitting from the guitar-driven sound to a new electronic sound unlike anything we had heard up to that point. It would have been easy to pick the other iconic image from Dark Side of the Moon (1973). This image has overcome less contemporary exposure to become easily recognizable by even Disney parodies of the cover. This map of a pulsar is everything I love about art work and album covers.
  • This list is almost impossible. I could just put up my original list and not have any issues with it. I could create another Top Ten that has ten other albums not listed on either list and be happy with that. Even with a resurgence in vinyl sales, the album cover is still an endangered species. I can’t identify more than five album covers from the past three years. I sound like I’m yelling at clouds as I bemoan the lack of good album covers and movie posters, but that’s who you chose to read.

1974 in Review

• November – Captain Marvel #35 (Marvel): Cover artist – Ron Wilson. Art by Alfredo Alcala. Written by Steve Englehart. “How the (blank) did I get into this mess?” – Rick Jones. This is right before I started reading the book. Captain Marvel can only stay on Earth for three hours at a time. I loved these time-based problems.
• November 2 – In Korakuen Stadium in Japan, Hank Aaron and Sadaharu Oh participated in a Home Run Derby. Aaron won 10-9.
• November 2- 8 – TV Guide. Cover by Rick Meyerowitz. M*A*S*H (CBS) is going strong in Season Three. Before 1973, all home games for NFL teams were blacked out, even if they were sold out. That included the host city for each Super Bowl until Super Bowl VII. By 1974, the only blackouts occurred if the stadium was not at least 85% sold out before the game. There was never proof that blackouts helped or hindered attendance. The blackouts ended in 2014, although the rule is still on the books, it is approved to be suspended on a one-year basis every year.

What the Hell Did I Put in My Mouth?

“And I’ll be (your sharp intake of breath)
And I’ll be (your work I’ll take no rest)
And when the world falls to decline
I’ll be yours and you’ll be mine” – Eurythmics

Stay hard.

Shawn