In the 1989 film Back to the Future II, Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) visited the future date of October 21, 2015. There are a number of ways for us to celebrate this date, including a new Blu-ray/DVD Back to the Future package and the movie’s brief return to movie theaters.
For more instant gratification, you may visit the “Back to the Future Day” Facebook page, and below you may see how the filmmakers envisioned Hill Valley would look in October 2015. I want my flying car.
Back to the Future II was directed by Robert Zemeckis and written by Bob Gale. On A.V. Club, Gale recently discussed the odd coincidence of the film predicting the Cubs winning the World Series in 2015 and this year the Cubs being in the playoffs. What item from the Back to the Future II segment set in October 2015 do you most wish were true? Leave your two cents in the comments.
It is always good news when there is a movie from Joel and Ethan Coen on the horizon. The brothers have just released the trailer for their upcoming film, Hail, Caesar! The new movie stars Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, Scarlett Johansson, Frances McDormand, Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill and Ralph Fiennes.
Hail, Caesar! is set during the latter years of Hollywood’s Golden Age, with Brolin trying to track down the kidnapped star (Clooney) of a movie called “Hail, Caesar!” With several stars from previous Coen movies and a kidnapping story, The Guardian has called the new movie an “extremely Coen-y comedy.” Check out the trailer below.
Hail, Caesar! hits theaters on February, 26 2016.
Will you go see Hail, Casar! Leave your two cents in the comments.
One of the recurring highlights of The Late Late Show with James Corden has been the joyful Carpool Karaoke segments, where a famous performer joins Corden for a drive around Los Angeles talking and singing along with the performer’s records. So far, the guests in Corden’s car have included Mariah Carey, Rod Stewart, Jennifer Hudson, Iggy Azalea, and Justin Bieber. One of my favorites is the segment that aired a few weeks ago with Stevie Wonder.
James Corden recently explained how the idea for Carpool Karaoke grew out of a sketch with Comic Relief in England, where he drove around with George Michael. He also noted that taking superstars out by themselves in a car helps them loosen up and show another side of themselves.
The Carpool Karoake segment with Stevie Wonder shows that Wonder can sing anywhere and that he has a great sense of humor. Also, you can see that Corden is genuinely touched when Wonder honors his request to call Corden’s wife and sing “I Just Called to Say I Love You” at around the 3:30 mark. Check it out.
Who is your favorite guest on Carpool Karaoke? Leave your two cents in the comments.
On a tribute show in honor of Kenny Rogers, one of the members of the First Edition described how Kenny Rogers and the First Edition came to record “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town” in 1969. It’s a story about how a classic recording came together through circumstances and time pressure.
“You Have 10 Minutes”
The band was in the studio and learned that they only had ten minutes left when the producer asked them if they had anything they could quickly record. The album needed one more song, so the producers just wanted a song to use as filler on the album.
Kenny Rogers replied that they knew a Mel Tillis song called “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town.” So the band played the song, and producers completed the recording with just a couple of takes. Rogers, who was in his early 30s, had a voice that captured an older man’s weariness at a frustrating relationship with his wife.
The completed song went on the album. And then it became a huge hit.
Themes in the Unusual Song
It is not surprising that the song became a hit because it is so unusual. The disturbing lyrics are sung by a disabled man fearful of his wife going to town for love. He pleads for her not to cheat on him while he is alive, reminding her he will be dead soon.
In addition to the sexual innuendo in the song, there is violence too, as the man’s injuries are from “that crazy Asian war.” And his begging and understanding turns to anger toward the end: “And if I could move I’d get my gun / And put her in the ground.” At the end, the wife is leaving and the singer prays for her to turn around.
In the hands of Kenny Rogers and the New Edition, there is something disturbing about the song. Outside of country music and hip-hop, you rarely hear similar dark themes in pop songs.
When listeners first heard the title of “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town,” many of them might have sensed something familiar, recalling the 1958 Johnny Cash hit about a mother begging her son to avoid violence called “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town.” The new song took the violence of the Cash song and added sexual anguish, reflecting the openness of the 1960s for discussing such topics.
Although “Ruby” is a traditional country song, this recording was loved by young people too. Perhaps they connected with the young band, or perhaps they saw an anti-war sentiment underlying the tale.
Other Recordings of “Ruby”
Kenny Rogers and the First Edition were not the first to have a hit with “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town.” Two years earlier in 1967, Johnny Darrell had a hit country recording of the song.
Darrell’s version is sad without being as disturbing as the Kenny Rogers version. The author of the song, Mel Tillis, performed the song too.
But the Nimoy version is not the oddest recording of the song. For the weirdest version, check out the one by actor Walter Brennan.
Jon Bon Jovi recorded a different song with a similar title, apparently acknowledging the “Ruby” song with his title, “Janie, Don’t Take Your Love to Town.”
For another modern interpretation, check out a live performance of “Ruby” by The Killers. The band often perform the song and included it on their CD of rarities and B-sides, Sawdust.
What About the Other Side?
Finally, lost in the discussion of the song is the woman’s viewpoint. Geraldine Stevens, also known as Dodie Stevens, recorded an answer song in 1969. In her song, she takes the woman’s point of view, using the same music with the title, “Billy, I’ve Got to Go to Town.”
In the “Billy” song, Ruby tells her side of the story, explaining that her husband is still her man but bemoaning his jealousy. She does not explain why she has to go to town, though: “You’ve given all you had to give and now it’s up to me . . . Billy for God’s sake trust in me.”
Is she going to work? Prostituting herself to get money for them to live? We do not get an answer in this answer song.
All of the different versions of “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town” have their merits. But none of those recordings quite capture the unusual and disturbing nature of the song or reflect the turbulent era in which it was recorded in the way that Kenny Rogers and the First Edition did in those ten minutes when they rushed to fill an album.
One of the challenges for director Edward Zwick in Pawn Sacrifice (2015) is that he was making a movie about a board game where the main character is not very sympathetic. But Zwick lives up to the challenge, with the movie recounting chess genius Bobby Fischer’s rise to prominence and chess champion, while also showing Fischer’s struggles with paranoia and mental illness.
Pawn Sacrifice begins with a short scene of Fischer, played by Tobey Maguire, at the 1972 world championship against Russian Grandmaster Boris Spassky (Liev Schreiber). And then it takes us back to Fischer as a child with a growing fascination with chess. The movie then follows the chess prodigy as he rises to the championship stage, revealing Fischer’s mental problems and the importance of his game for Americans and Soviets during the Cold War era.
The movie does an excellent job telling the story of this piece of American history, while giving some insight into Fischer. For me, I wanted to know more about the man beneath the chess and the madness, but the movie instead focuses on the link between the latter two without much deviation from that path.
Similarly, even though Pawn Sacrifice follows the real-life history pretty well and does a good job at getting the story right, one also may gain insight from Liz Garbus’s excellent documentary Bobby Fischer Against the World (2011). That documentary retraces much of the same story using real footage.
Yet, a dramatized movie can take us places that a documentary cannot. And Pawn Sacrifice is at its best in the little moments, such as when Schreiber shows a human side of Spassky and when we see Fischer’s interactions with lawyer Paul Marshal (Michael Stuhlbarg) and a chess-playing priest friend Fr. Bill Lombardy (Peter Sarsgaard). It is these interactions that made the movie for me and made me wish for more about Marshal and Lombardy.
Ultimately, Pawn Sacrifice is an interesting and entertaining movie for anyone interested in the 1970s and the sad story of Bobby Fischer. Rotten Tomatoes gives Pawn Sacrifice a 72% critics rating and a 75% audience rating.
Bonus Bobby Fischer: If after seeing Pawn Sacrifice you are in the mood for another movie about chess, check out the excellent movie Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993), which is not about Fischer but another real-life childhood chess prodigy, Joshua Waitzkin. Finally, for another perspective on Bobby Fischer, check out this appearance with Bob Hope not long after Fischer won the world championship.
What did you think of Pawn Sacrifice? Leave your two cents in the comments.
One of the challenges for director Edward Zwick in Pawn Sacrifice (2015) is that he was making a movie about a board game where the main character is not very sympathetic. But Zwick lives up to the challenge, with the movie recounting chess genius Bobby Fischer’s rise to prominence and chess champion, while also showing Fischer’s struggles with paranoia and mental illness.