Excerpts From A Cluttered Mind #1
Six Degrees To Kevin, an Interesting Fact about an Extremely Funny Election and some stuff I've been Watching and Reading.
And it’s a big welcome from space pilot, reluctant hero, but above all a man with an extremely poor grasp of the finer points of mathematical units, Mr Han Solo, to the first weekly newsletter from Talk About Pop Culture.
Every Thursday you will receive at least one Interesting Fact, Six Degrees To Kevin (See below), some recommendations about Books, Films, TV Shows, Comics and maybe other stuff too, as long as it comes under the heading of “Pop Culture” otherwise I would be breaking the law.
An Interesting Fact About Monty Python
Ever heard Monty Python : Live At Drury Lane?
If you’re familiar, you may recall that the Election Night sketch is a highlight, as the Silly Party and the Sensible Party fight it out.
Neil Innes is playing a candidate who is hoping to pick up some of the centrist vote but has not performed well in the final count. Eric Idle is interviewing him.
“Kevin Phillips Bong. You polled no votes at all. Not a sausage. Bugger all. Are you in any way disappointed with this result?”
“Not at all.”
And then the script demands a return to Eric. Except that…
What with this being the final night of the run, Neil decides to ad lib. He steps proudly to the front of the stage and then bursts into the famous tune from The Sound Of Music.
“I always say… Climb every mountain. Ford every stream. Follow every rainbow. Till you find your dream”
“A dream that will last - all the love you can give
All the days of your life - for as long as you live… (all together now!)
Climb Ev’ry Mountain…”
The crowd love it. They join in. John Cleese, playing the TV anchorman, nearly corpses and scolds the audience for joining in. They eventually get the sketch back on track. They decide to leave it in as it worked so well.
Months later, when the album is ready for release, and far too late in the day to even think about cutting the song, the record company receive a letter from the copyright holders to say that the use of that song will require a copyright fee of £90,000. Having no choice, they paid it.
I think it was worth it, on balance. But then, I didn’t have to pay for it.
This Week I Have Been Mostly…
Reading…
Death comes to us all. When he came to Mort, he offered him a job.
Mort by Terry Pratchett was my introduction to the Discworld series courtesy of my mate Kevin and it never gets old.
Death takes an apprentice, a skinny, willing but generally useless lad called Mort.
It turns out that Death is far from the scary, evil, monstrous being Mort had feared - he is definitely not evil.
An excellent place to start with the series if you’ve not an initiate as it marks the point where Pratchett gets really serious about being seriously funny. It didn’t hurt that it is also the first novel he wrote after finally giving up the day job and therefore being able to concentrate 100% on his books.
Watching…
See that girl in the smock with the binoculars? She’s been following us all week.
I’ve had a tangential relationship with Wes Anderson’s movies over the years, but a re-watch of his 2012 masterpiece Moonrise Kingdom has made me determined to remedy this and watch the bloody lot as soon as possible.
When you pair it with one of the films that inspired it, a Brit pic from 1970 called Melody, you’ve got a perfect double-bill of the much-underrated “pre-teenage kids fall in love and run away before being recaptured by the adults” genre.
It is interesting to watch the way each film unfolds, similar yet different, fun to spot the homages and intriguing to see the paths each film-maker took to the finale.
An immensely positive experience. And check out the Spotify playlist at the end for the best tunes from the soundtracks, artistically interspersed of course.
Watching…
Jedi Jude Law is menaced by a couple of huge Daleks.
Star Wars:Skeleton Crew on Disney+.
Three episodes in and me and the missus are loving every second. It’s basically The Goonies but in space.
There is a line about parsecs which I won’t spoil, but it does nod to Han Solo’s famous line in A New Hope about how the Millenium Falcon “did the Kessel Run in twelve parsecs”.
Any ageing sci-fi paperback nerd knows that a parsec is a unit of distance, not time.
That’s a bit like me saying “I ran a marathon in 26 miles, 385 yards” and expecting people to be impressed.
Six Degrees Of Separation to Kevin McCallister
I’m sure you know how this works. The thinking is that everybody is connected to everybody else by six steps, specifically that every actor is connected to Kevin Bacon by a maximum of six movies or shows they have appeared in.
To make it a little more interesting, I’m going to use a different Kevin each time, and maybe get you guys to choose our endpoint and starting point every week, with the added condition that all the steps between have to be good or at least interesting films, TV shows, tunes, plays, whatever.
Succulent!
I asked the missus to get the ball rolling with the first starting point, and for reasons of her own she suggested I start with this guy for the first newsletter, so bear with me.
Okay, that’s not a bear at all, that’s a wolf. THE Wolf in fact. From the unparalleled Christmas fantasy TV show The Tenth Kingdom, as portrayed by Scott Cohen.
Made in 2000, it doesn’t get repeated much these days. I looked for it on the Christmas schedules - nothing.
You would think that in an age where there are three or more dedicated channels showing nothing but Christmas films from November 1st, there would be room for this rather wonderful five-episode mini-series detailing the journey of an ordinary New York girl and her simple janitor father through the Fairytale kingdoms, with their only guide a randy wolf (above).
All the usual fairy story tropes are present and correct - people getting turned into animals, people getting turned to gold, trolls, wishes that go wrong, evil stepmothers, you get the picture - and all done with charm, wit and just knowingly enough.
It IS available on DVD and Blu-Ray and well worth it for the annual viewings the purchase will inevitably lead to.
You’re Dating My Teacher?
The first step in our journey towards Kevin McCallister is via Gilmore Girls, my favourite go-to Cosy Autumn Rewatch Show (or Fall Rewatch Show for all you Septics out there). The show features the lives and loves, ups and downs of single mum Lorelei Gilmore (Lauren Graham) and her daughter Rory (Alexis Bledel), together with their associated Friends and Relations in the small Connecticut town of Stars Hollow.
Scott Cohen plays Max Medina, Rory’s teacher at posh private prep school Chilton, who, probably against all the rules, becomes the first-season romantic interest of Rory’s mum.
Despite the smoking chemistry between the two (below), it didn’t last.
May you all find somebody who looks at you like Mr Medina looks at Lorelei…
Huff-puff. Huff-puff.
Santa Issues.
It is impossible to think of Lauren Graham without thinking of her and Billy Bob Thornton in the Coen Brothers’ black comedy Bad Santa,
Simply the best, and wrongest, Christmas movie ever to feature … well, if you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it.
“I’ve always had a thing for Santa Claus. In case you didn’t notice. It’s like some deep-seated childhood thing.”
Lester, have you been a bad boy?
Sticking with the Coen Brothers, their TV series based on their original film Fargo was a worthy successor to that rightly feted movie, thanks in no small part to the relationship in the first series between killer Lorne Malvo (Billy Bob Thornton) who tempts businessman Lester Nygaard (Martin Freeman) to murder his wife.
“We’re just shooting the shit here.”
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Martin Freeman and Ian Holm play young and old versions of Bilbo Baggins in the Lord Of The Rings prequel.
Ian Holm also played Frodo in the 1981 BBC radio adaptation of LOTR, with one William Nighy as Samwise. It’s well worth checking out.
You won’t get a ring gag out of me. It would be disrespectful.
Napoleon And Love
Ian Holm plays Napoleon in this rarely-seen ITV television series from 1974, with a really young Tim Curry as Napoleon’s stepson Eugene.
I mean seriously, we’re talking pre-Congo, pre- Muppet Treasure Island, even pre-Rocky Horror Picture Show here.
It’s the sort of show that would have been repeated ad nauseam if it had been on the BBC, but ITV used to have a pathological fear of repeats for some reason.
It is currently on Youtube if you are interested. If only for Tim’s moustache.
“It isn’t easy having a good time.”
Home Alone 2 : Lost In New York
And finally, Tim Curry plays Mr. Hector, the obsequious concierge at the hotel where Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) is holed up.
An incredibly far-fetched story but - you know what? When a film is this much fun you can forgive a certain stretching of believability in the name of comedy.
That said, this kid’s parents, though. He would have been taken away by Social Services well before the end of the film.
“DO bundle up. It’s awfully cold outside.”
And done. There you go.
All those are well worth a watch in my opinion.
Bit of a Christmassy theme in places I’m afraid, but since at the time of writing, me and the missus are still finishing off the mince pies and I just found a forgotten tin of Roses at the back of the cupboard, it may as well still be Christmas as far as I’m concerned.
If you have any suggestions as to the next starting point, or indeed the next Kevin then let me know.