Monday is the 70th birthday of movie critic Roger Ebert, who was born June 18, 1942. Roger Ebert helped make many of us more thoughtful in our movie viewing with his outstanding TV reviews with Gene Siskel and Richard Roeper, his newspaper reviews, his online reviews, and his books. I could list numerous great movies I discovered because of him, which is a great gift he gave to me. Although he has battled health issues in recent years, we have been fortunate that he has continued to actively help shape how we think about movies.
This last week, Henry Hill — the inspiration for Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas (1990) as well as the movie My Blue Heaven (1990), passed away. So it seems an appropriate time to look back on Siskel and Ebert’s perceptive take on Goodfellas when they first saw the film, before it had become the iconic classic that it is today.
Thanks for the reviews Mr. Ebert, and we look forward to many more. What is your favorite review by Roger Ebert? Leave your two cents in the comments.
On June 16 in 1903, Henry Ford signed the papers incorporating Ford Motor Company. A month later, the first Ford car was manufactured in Detroit. But it would not be until later when the company really began doing well, following the 1908 introduction of the Model T and the 1913 creation of an assembly line allowing mass production.
The automobile is intertwined with American history as well as with popular culture, as there are numerous songs about the highway and cars. Some popular songs are specific about the vehicles, such as Janis Joplin’s desire for a Mercedes Benz, Don McLean’s Chevy at the levy, and Prince’s Little Red Corvette.
Ford Motor Company products appear in songs too. In the video below, Marc Cohn sings about Ford’s Thunderbird car in “Silver Thunderbird.”
The title of the song “Silver Thunderbird” focuses on the car, which began manufacturing in 1955 and ended its run in 2005. But the lyrics of the song address Cohn’s childhood memories of how his father loved his car. “Great big fins and painted steel;/ Man it looked just like the batmobile,/ With my old man behind the wheel.”
“Silver Thunderbird” captures what a car can mean to a family. And I can relate, having grown up with parents who for some reason thought it was important to be loyal to one car company.
“Silver Thunderbird” is from Marc Cohn’s self-titled album from 1991 that also included the hit, “Walking in Memphis.” “Silver Thunderbird” later was covered by Jo Dee Mesina.
The most famous song about a Ford car is also one of the greatest car songs ever. “Mustang Sally” was written by Mack Rice and immortalized by Wilson Pickett in 1966.
The song, which asks Sally to slow her Mustang down, is not quite as wholesome as Cohn’s song about the Thunderbird. But the difference in song themes matches the different reputations of the two cars. Check out this amazing live Wilson Pickett performance.
Although nobody can surpass Pickett’s version, there are a number of good covers of “Mustang Sally.” For example, in the excellent rise-and-fall-of-an-Irish-soul-band movie The Commitments (1991), the band’s performance of the song is one of the highlights of the film, which came out the same year as Cohn’s song about the Thunderbird.
The movie scene with The Commitments performing the song is no longer available on YouTube. But here is one of the group’s live performances, featuring lead singer Andrew Strong.
In honor of Flag Day, we take a look at a touching story from World War II. On a recent CBS Sunday Morning and CBS Evening News, Steve Hartman’s On the Road series followed a mystery of what happened to fighter pilot Billie Harris, who disappeared during World War II. On July 17, 1944, 1st Lt. Harris went on a mission over Nazi-occupied northern France and he never returned.
Harris’s widow, Peggy Harris of Vernon, Texas, never received official word about what happened to her husband. At one point, she was told he was missing, then that he was coming home, and then that he was dead and buried one place, and then that he was buried somewhere else. Peggy, who had married Billie just six weeks before he went off to war, began asking questions.
Through the decades, she continued looking for answers. Finally, Billie’s cousin found the answer in Billie’s military records. You may see part one of the story, “They Don’t Forget” below.
And here is part two of the story:
I got something in my eye near the end, around the point where we find out that there is a street in a town in France named after Billie. But it is worth watching the whole story.
What do you think of the story of Billie Harris? Leave your two cents in the comments.
On Monday, former Cincinnati Red reliever Pedro Borbon passed away from cancer in Texas at the age of 65. Borbon, who was born in the Dominican Republic, was an important part of the Big Red Machine teams that won world champions in 1975 and 1976. He pitched in more games than any other Major League Baseball pitcher during the period of 1970-1978. He holds the record for most pitching appearances in a Reds uniform and is in the Reds Hall of Fame.
Growing up in southern Ohio in the 1970s, I was a big fan of the colorful Borbon on my Cincinnati Reds. Most baseball fans discover the sport as kids, and there is nothing like discovering the sport as your team is becoming one of the all-time greats. The Reds manager Sparky Anderson earned the nickname “Captain Hook” for pulling his starting pitchers so much in those days, and one of the reasons he could do so with confidence was because he had Borbon in the bullpen. During Borbon’s Reds’ career, he played in 20 post-season games with an ERA of 2.55.
Borbon had another claim to fame in that he was mentioned in the movie Airplane! (1980). In the film, Ted Striker (played by Robert Hays) is trying to concentrate while hearing voices in his head, including a public address announcer saying “Pinch hitting for Pedro Borbon . . . Manny Mota.” From what I can tell, although Borbon had some short stints on a few other teams like the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals, he never played on the same team as record-breaking pinch-hitter Manny Mota. The writers probably chose the Manny Mota reference because Mota was well-known as a pinch hitter, but I have not seen an explanation for why the writers chose Borbon among all the Major League pitchers. Perhaps they chose him because he was well-known, or because he was good, or maybe because he was a colorful character. Among other antics, during on-field brawls he used his teeth on a Mets hat and on Pirates player Daryl Patterson (who then had to get a tetanus shot).
Borbon’s son recently noted that his father often talked about the movie reference: “A lot of people remember him by that. He liked that.” At Borbon’s request, there is not going to be a memorial service in Texas. But I hope he does not mind that I thank him for the memories he gave me by playing the Airplane! clip that he liked. RIP.
It is hard to believe that it has been that long, but on June 11, 1982, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) first appeared in movie theaters. The film, directed by a 34-year-old Steven Spielberg and written by screenwriter Melissa Mathison, told the story of the children who found the little alien far away from home.
Reportedly, Spielberg drew on his own lonely experience as a child of divorce in telling the story. The movie featured excellent performances by child actors Henry Thomas, Robert MacNaughton, and Drew Barrymore.
One cannot dispute the classic status of E.T., although for some odd reason it only has a low 65% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes, perhaps due to over-exposure through the years? Still, it has a stellar 98% critics rating.
Did you know that the original idea for the film was to have a family terrorized by an alien? Also, at one point Spielberg planned a sequel to E.T. with E.T. rescuing the family from other aliens.
Check out the video below for some trivia about the classic film.
In honor of the 30th anniversary of the film, one writer noted similarities between Spielberg’s Poltergeist (1982) and E.T. Also, in celebration of the anniversary, a new specially remastered Blu-ray version of E.T.was released. It might be something to phone home about. Why do you think the film has such a low audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes? What is your favorite scene in E.T.? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Monday is the 70th birthday of movie critic Roger Ebert, who was born June 18, 1942. Roger Ebert helped make many of us more thoughtful in our movie viewing with his outstanding TV reviews with Gene Siskel and Richard Roeper, his newspaper reviews, his online reviews, and his books. I could list numerous great movies I discovered because of him, which is a great gift he gave to me. Although he has battled health issues in recent years, we have been fortunate that he has continued to actively help shape how we think about movies.
