Pophistory: music, movies, history, and life.
CineFix remembers the days when we had 8-bit video games and were happy to have them. Below, they imagine what the 1994 movie The Shawshank Redemption would be like were it one of those games. Check out this piece of 8-bit cinema.
Leave your quarter in the comments.
(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)
[Updated September 16, 2015.] Two of the more interesting acts on this season’s America’s Got Talent involved guys putting things in their mouths: the “professional regurgitator” Stevie Starr and the guy with the firecracker in his mouth, Wayne Hoffman. Both performers showed some magic talent that kept the audience gasping for different reasons.
During his audition, Stevie Starr showed how he could swallow things and then . . . regurgitate them. Starr started with some numbered coins, showing his ability to regurgitate on command. He ended with something pretty amazing involving sugar. Howie Mandel, Mel B, Heidi Klum, and Howard Stern all voted for him to go on to the next round. Is he really swallowing those things or is it a trick?
Seeing Starr’s talent, you might wonder why you have never seen him before this appearance. Well, if you lived outside the United States, you might have seen him earlier. He appeared on the 2010 season of Britain’s Got Talent, making it to the semi-finals. And, before coming to the American version of the show, he also had appeared on the Czech and Slovak version, the German version, the Italian version, and the French version of the Got Talent series.
Even if nobody told the judges about Starr’s previous performances, at least one of the judges should not have been too surprised. Howard Stern had Starr on his radio show back in the late 1980s, as show in this video. Anyway, we will have to see if Americans embrace regurgitating as much as those other countries.
As we have noted before, unlike some shows like American Idol, there are no rules preventing someone with a previous career from appearing on America’s Got Talent. So, contestants like Starr can get second (or third. . .) chances like this one. It is pretty cool that America’s Got Talent gives people a new chance, but I think it would be more interesting if the show were more open about telling us the full backstory of contestants.
Another highlight in the first round of auditions was Wayne Hoffman, a magician/mentalist who did a pretty amazing stunt with firecrackers in his mouth. I have no idea how Hoffman was able to avoid exploding his mouth, but his act was fun to watch.
Like Starr, Hoffman has been around awhile. For example, he has a career using his skills in giving motivational speeches. He was featured on NBC’s TV show Phenomenon, and like Starr, appeared on Howard Stern’s show. In 2012, Hoffman published a book motivational book entitled Mind Candy
With Hoffman also advancing on America’s Got Talent, it appeared we would be seeing much more of both these guys. [See updates below.]
Wayne Hoffman August 2015 Update: Wayne Hoffman, for unknown reasons, mysteriously disappeared from America’s Got Talent and did not appear in the Judge Cuts round. His Twitter account and Facebook page does not tell us whether he had to leave for some reason or quit the competition on his own. The America’s Got Talent Wiki provides no insight either. On June 30, 2015, though, he opened his own show “Mind Candy” at the Trump Taj Mahal in Las Vegas, so it seems likely he decided to leave America’s Got Talent after some other options opened up.
The Regurgitator August 2015 Update: After advancing through the Judges Cuts round, Stevie “The Professional Regurgitator” Starr gained enough votes on August 26, 2015 after his performance at Radio City Music Hall to move to the Semi-Finals. In a video from August 25, 2015, he does something amazing with Heidi Klum’s ring and a lock. The trick was similar to one he had done on Britain’s Got Talent, which also confounded experts on how he does it. Some folks make a case for explaining the secret of how the Regurgitator does his act, but he is still a great performer.
The Regurgitator September 9, 2015 Update: This week, Stevie “The Professional Regurgitator” Starr advanced to the finals of America’s Got Talent. His performance that earned him a spot in the finals is where he impressed viewers with his ability to regurgitate smoke into soap bubbles.
The Regurgitator September 16, 2015 Update: In the finals, Stevie Starr showed that he can keep coming up with new ways to entertain us with his regurgitating. This time, he ramped things up by incorporating fire into his act. We will find out tonight whether he wins, and it is most likely going to come down to being between him and the inspiring and funny comedian with a stutter, Drew Lynch, who also has been great throughout the season.
Who is your favorite act on this season’s “AGT”? Leave your two cents in the comments.
(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)
Apparently even before most of us began recycling our garbage, Disney was recycling its animation. Of course, it makes sense when back in the old days animation took a long time. So, we see scenes from older Disney movies like Snow White (1937), The Jungle Book (1967), or Sleeping Beauty (1959) being reused in later movies like Robin Hood (1973) and Beauty and the Beast (1991).
This new video from Movie Munchies highlights some of the way that Walt Disney recycles animation. [2024 Update: Unfortunately, the video is not currently avaialable].
Leave your two cents in the comments.
(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)
In promoting the upcoming reissue of the classic 1971 album Sticky Fingers, The Rolling Stones have been releasing some alternate versions of some of the songs off the album. One of my favorite Rolling Stones songs has always been “Dead Flowers,” so I was excited to hear how the Stones had played with the sound before releasing the album.
The alternate version of “Dead Flowers” is below. Slate writes that this alternate take is “bluesier” than the country-tinged original, with Mick Jagger giving a “looser” delivery and Ian Stewart’s piano muted compared to the original. Check out this alternate take and see what you think..
.The reissue of Sticky Fingers comes out June 9. The Sticky Fingers
Which version of “Dead Flowers” do you like best? Leave your two cents in the comments.
(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)
The Nebraska unicameral legislature in 2015 voted to abolish the death penalty, following a number of states that have come to realize that capital punishment is ineffective and a waste of resources. Although Governor Pete Ricketts vetoed the action, the legislature overrode his veto, making Nebraska the eighteenth state (in addition to the District of Columbia) that does not sentence human beings to death. According to a recent book on the history of the death penalty,
One of the great songs about the death penalty is Bruce Springsteen’s “Nebraska,” which Springsteen based on Terrence Malick’s movie Badlands. And that movie was loosely based on the real-life case involving Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate.
The song, in the voice of the condemned, offers no straightforward judgement on the death penalty. Springsteen would address the topic again years later in his song “Dead Man Walking.”
But by taking the voice of the condemned man in “Nebraska,” Springsteen challenges the listener to find some humanity in the narrator. By the time the singer/condemned tries to explain why he did the horrific things he did, all he can come up with is “I guess there is just a meanness in this world.” Taken on its face, one might find little sympathy for the killer. But the way Springsteen sings the words, you believe that the condemned is not a personification of evil. Instead, he comes across as someone unable to understand the world because he has been on the other end of that meanness his whole life too.
Thus, it is not surprising that in the real world, Bruce Springsteen is opposed to capital punishment. Below, following an introduction about how the album Nebraska focuses on the downtrodden, Springsteen performs the song “Nebraska” on a 12-string guitar with harmonica from a benefit show in Los Angeles in November 1990.
The real Starkweather grew up with a birth defect and a speech impediment, and he was a slow learner. Nebraska executed Charles Starkweather in the electric chair, just like in Springsteen’s song. Starkweather died on June 25, 1959 at the age of 20.
The young teenaged girl who went with him on the murder spree did not die in his lap. She was eventually paroled in 1976 and lives in Michigan, which is the first state in the United States to abolish capital punishment.
Check out our posts on other songs about capital punishment.
Leave your two cents in the comments.
(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)