Lionel returns!

They just don’t make brilliant social commentators of the curmudgeon variety like they used to. Time was, you had guys on the radio like Henry Morgan and Jean Shepherd (who sounded warm and friendly, but his take on modern culture was always acidic) who could summarize the social scene in a few carefully chosen put-downs and do it with style. That, sadly, is a thing of the past — we now have the occasional comedian who will venture into that territory (Lewis Black is performer who comes the closest), but they are stand-ups first and foremost, and don’t have (or most likely want) a daily forum for their disquisitions on modern life. (And no, I’m not going to put Andy Rooney into the category that once contained leading lights like Morgan and Shepherd….)

There is one gentleman, though, who has taken on the mantle of smart social commentator with a cranky (or, as he puts it, “contrarian”) outlook. It is Lionel, the “logodaedalus and expert” radio host who was last heard on the late, lamented Air America (curse you for the Montel stunting, Mark Green!) and is beloved by NYCers for his stints on WABC and WOR. Lionel is unafraid to tackle literally any topic, from the loftiest of philosophical notions to The Real Housewives of New Jersey. He has now reappeared in two guises: on his own site, doing audio commentaries and writing blog entries; and as a commentator on the WPIX nightly news here in the NYC metro area.

I really can’t describe what it is that Lionel does — the man should speak for himself. So I’ve linked here to a bunch of his best recent commentaries on WPIX, as they are posted on YouTube, since that site allows for easy embedding. If you’re interested in the full range of the topics he’s covered, you can go to his page on the WPIX site, which offers every commentary he’s done thus far on PIX (I’d recommend the bit he did this past Monday on the issue of the “Wikileaks” about Afghanistan). They are tight little pieces that, like most good humor, hit the target and then vacate the premises quickly. Three minutes may seem like too little time to develop a thesis on television, but Lionel has the rhythm — and he most definitely has the vocabulary.

Perhaps it’s best to start out with the family reminiscence, a genre that Shepherd of course did to perfection. Here, Lionel offers us a reflection on funerals and wakes:



A kind of urban personal-madness piece that is done with good pacing, about a stolen wallet:



There can be no greater perfection than a man complaining about the insanity of the NYC subway system:



On a subject dear to Lionel’s heart, the life lessons one could learn by watching pro “wrasslin’”:



And just so you don’t think that politics and policy aren’t explored, a piece from last week on the latest airport outrage that will just become a regular ol’ part of life, the new “nude” full-body scanners:



I recommend Lionel’s writing (including his book, Everybody’s Crazy Except You and Me (and I’m Not So Sure About You)). He is currently blogging on a regular basis on his site, Lionel Media. The audio commentaries are good, with the ones that come in under 20-30 minutes being best. On a popular radio message board it had been noted that Lionel’s politics have changed over the years, from seemingly conservative to Libertarian to progressive and back to a centrist viewpoint. I can say without qualification that whether or not I agree with his take on a specific issue, he definitely holds my attention and, most thankfully of all, doesn’t insult my intelligence. I’d love to see him back inhabiting the radio landscape in NYC (god knows we need something besides the two good interview shows on NPR and the idiosyncratic folks of Pacifica). Here’s hoping these current endeavors last for a long time to come!

A Brooklynite Goes North: Deceased Artiste Maury Chaykin

I’m not trying to stay in a “locked groove” on the subject of character actors, but when one of the major players from the world of supporting folk Up North takes a powder, a short salute is in order. Maury Chaykin was one of those few performers whose presence in a film seemed to signal “this film was shot in Canada” for a lot of the Eighties, Nineties, and then the 2000s. He had sturdy supporting roles in both comedies and dramas, and was featured in Canadian films, American films shot in Canada, and American films both indie and mainstream (yes, even the dreaded Dances With Wolves and My Cousin Vinny benefitted from his character work).

For those regular moviegoers who are aware of character people, Chaykin was literally everywhere, so it was interesting to learn that at the time of his death he was only 61 years old. Born in Brooklyn, raised in NYC, and having graduated from the University of Buffalo, Chaykin moved to his mother’s native country of Canada as a young man, and the rest is character-person history: one of his first roles was in an episode of The King of Kensington with Al Waxman (another thoroughbred character guy whose name always, always signaled “Canadian funding”or, yes, “tax shelter”!) and one of his last performances was in a mockumentary fake-reality show spinoff of The Trailer Park Boys. Thus, while he could play many ethnicities and different sorts of individuals, he definitely was a proud Canuck, even when appearing in such mainstream American fare as Boston Legal and CSI.

I haven’t seen Chaykin’s best-regarded film, Whale Music, in which he plays a Brian Wilson-inspired character, and it unfortunately isn’t represented online. A lot of his work is indeed found in the obvious place; it seems that the bulk of the attention he got online was for his starring role as Nero Wolfe in A Nero Wolfe Mystery, which was on A&E from 2001-2002. Entire episodes of the show are up on YouTube, and fans have selected their fave moments like this one where the very staid “Stout detective” [pun=bad] gets angry:



A few interviews with Chaykin are online, including this one with he and Kid in the Hall Mark McKinney, about the dysfunctional family sitcom Less Than Kind, which McKinney produced and found Chaykin playing an angry dad. Possibly the best view of Chaykin (and a nice little insight into the mindset of a dedicated character actor) is in this mellower-than-mellow interview with a Canadian DJ type (very Seventies FM radio, extremely laidback), who interviews him about his work on Less Than Kind, his childhood and parents, his dual citizenship, his thoughts on L.A., and what it was like to be a character actor (and whether that term is an insult to a performer):



Some of Chaykin’s best work was done for one of the greatest Canadian filmmakers, Atom Egoyan, from The Adjuster to Adoration. Here he’s interviewed about his work with Egoyan on the latter:



Finally, two snippets of Chaykin’s work with Egoyan, the trailer for The Adjuster:



And the very, very American — note the corny-as-fuck narration and those distracting mag pullquotes — trailer for perhaps Egoyan’s best film, the extremely moving The Sweet Hereafter:

Udo-mania

Continuing on the thread of character actors introduced below, let me now celebrate the unique presence (and that’s what it’s all about, kats and kitties, screen presence) that is Udo Kier. Udo can be, by turns, the scariest and the campiest actor in a film, and that definitely calls for some celebration. So I offer you a clip uploaded by friend Paul Gallagher, a condensation of the oh-so-Eighties-looking sci-fi kitsch-a-thon that is The Invincible, directed in 1985 as Der Unbesiegbare by Gusztáv Hámos. Udo plays a kind of mega-camp Ming the Merciless here, and the faux video stylization is a bit overwhelming, to say the least:



I had long ago linked to what I considered one of the strangest meetings of Nina Hagen and another individual (check it out!), but I can truly say that there may be no finer pair of German eccentrics than the equally intense Nina and Udo:



And an interlude of Udo dancing, for no known reason (does he need one?):



And what set me off on this Udo-journey? Friend John Walsh sent me this wonderful clip of Udo being interviewed at the London Film and Comic Con in 2008. It was conducted by the French network Tele 7, but Udo speaks English, has had at least one drink (we see it in his hands at the outset), and requests that the cameraman follow him into the men’s room. Udo is one of a kind!



And since my initial blog entry on Udo was on the Funhouse blog which preceded this one (and is sadly defunct), I have to end this entry with the links I had included there to Udo's music videos (yes, you read that right). Here, in his Eighties syntho-pop prime is Udo with “Musik a Go Go”:



And quite possibly one of the most entertainingly crazy music vids I’ve ever seen, Udo’s “Der Adler.” He’s always watching us (or so he sez in this video), and we’re always watching him:

Grizzled Glory: Deceased Artiste James Gammon

I’ve sung the praises of great character actors on this blog before, so I have to note the death of James Gammon, who was both a good actor and a real presence onscreen. He had the look and the feel of a guy who’d seen a lotta life in his years, and thus even if the movies you watched him in were absolutely dreadful, he was 100% authentic.

His weatherbeaten looks ensured that he constantly got roles in Westerns, backwoods dramas, and family sagas, usually with an alcoholic character at the center of things. The guy worked steadily for five decades, and I should note that one of his first credits (after the always awesome Wild Wild West) was Captain Nice, the show that starred… Ann Prentiss (see entry below). Gammon did a LOT of work, and while I like his gruff-overdose in the brilliantly dopey Cabin Boy, the man had a serious reputation as a theater actor, having collected Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards, and being someone for whom Sam Shepard groomed roles.

To honor Gammon, I uploaded a short scene from the documentary This So-Called Disaster (2003), which shows Shepard directing a production of the play The Late Henry Moss in San Francisco in 2000. Gammon plays the title role, and proves himself equal to his movie-star colleagues Nick Nolte, Sean Penn, and Woody Harrelson. Check out Gammon’s voice and stage presence:

Sisterly Menace: Deceased Artiste Ann Prentiss

Sometimes an obit’s juiciest, strangest details are contained at the end. For instance, I was referred this week (by friend M. Faust) to the mini-bio/obit that is circulating around the Net for actress Ann Prentiss, who is best known for three things: being Paula Prentiss’s younger sister; being one of the female leads in Altman’s terrific California Split; and starring in the short-lived but well-remembered superhero sitcom Captain Nice.

She was born Ann Ragusa and had pretty regular TV work in the Sixties, plus bit parts in a few other films. What is most amazing about reading her bios and obits, though, is that she died on January 12th of this year in prison at the age of 69, serving a 19-year sentence for having solicited the murder of her father and her brother-in-law, Richard Benjamin. The conviction was also for “making terrorist threats, assault with a firearm, and battery.” I’m not sure which family member she battered, but this is quite a surprise, as Benjamin and Paula Prentiss have had one of Hollywood’s longer-lasting, quieter marriages over the past few decades. Ann was apparently not the shy, retiring type.

Ann P. is good in California Split (on the right), but she seemingly never quite clicked in Hollywood, perhaps because she looked and acted much like her older sister. I’ve liked Benjamin and Paula P. since my childhood viewings of He and She and Quark. His subsequent career as a director has been very spotty (some titles, after the entertaining My Favorite Year and Racing With the Moon: My Stepmother is an Alien, Mermaids, and Marci X); of course, no matter how really bad his movies have gotten, nobody deserves an armed assault on their ass.

This case certainly didn’t have the “sex appeal” of Lindsay Lohan serving a shortened sentence for a drunk-driving offense, but you’d think Ann’s arrest might’ve been given a little bit of tabloid press at some point. I guess the readers of the Enquirer and TMZ don’t remember The Stepford Wives or Goodbye, Columbus — never mind a critical hit/box-office flop like California Split….