Tonight, Marty Brown sang Shania Twain’s “You’re Still the One” on America’s Got Talent. I thought it was a good choice to go with a band this time around on the large stage. The song is not one of my favorites, but the song selected by America’s Got Talent (not the performer) had the benefit that a lot of people know it.
Brown was a little choked up at the beginning of the song after seeing his father on the lead-in video and calling out a dedication to his father. But on watching the segment a second time, one may see Brown recovers pretty well. The judges were still tough on him, though mostly respectful. Howard Stern genuinely seemed to be rooting for Brown. Mel B mistakenly called Brown “Dave” and told the audience not to beat her up for it. But she showed less mercy for Brown, Tweeting a few minutes after the performance, “Ok.ok. I got his name wrong!! He blew it anyways, so what!!”
But it was Mel B who made the biggest mistake. Yeah, Brown’s voice faltered at the start of his song, but he showed something rare by giving the audience real emotion in a performance. The radio and Internet are full of Auto-Tune and perfect sounding meaningless lyrics.
What Brown did tonight was better than most “perfect” performances on these competition shows. With his heart on his sleeve, he showed how he felt after decades of struggle to finally be on stage in New York, thinking of his ailing father in Kentucky, his mom in the audience, and his wife dancing in her seat. The song’s words “looks like we made it” clearly had meaning for him at that moment. He gave real heart to the song, and that’s what we want out of our music. No matter what happens with the votes, Marty Brown is still the one.
[Update: For a post on Brown’s entire run on America’s Got Talent, check out our post on The Great AGT Rebirth of Marty Brown.] How did you vote on America’s Got Talent? Leave your two cents in the comments.
A new video from NextMovie compiled all of the references to movies that occurred during the first five seasons of The Simpsons. Some are more obvious than others (like the Lawrence of Arabia one), but the video helps you out by telling you the movies. 2016 Update: Unfortunately, that video is no longer available, but below is a similar compilation of movie references from the first two seasons. This video was created by Quiritare Cinema.
How many do you recognize? [Update, while the original posted video is no longer available, below is another video of Simpsons‘ movie parodies.]
What is your favorite Simpsons movie reference? Leave your two cents in the comments.
On Tuesday, Marty Brown will be performing before a live audience at Radio City Music Hall on America’s Got Talent. As his long-term fans and regular Chimesfreedom readers know, it is a great story for the country singer to be making a comeback. Two decades ago in 1992, Marty Brown was a young man with a dream traveling the country performing in a tour of Wal-Marts. Check out the young Marty Brown singing “Wildest Dreams” in the shoe section of the retail store in 1992.
Help make the wildest dreams of the Brown family come true Tuesday night by picking up the phone, logging onto the AGT website, and/or Tweeting your votes. To vote by phone, call the number they show on your screen for him. To vote by Internet, go here. To vote on Twitter, tweet using the hashtag #voteAGT followed by “Marty Brown.” You get one vote on Twitter but can vote up to ten times each on the phone and on the Internet (for each email address).
Voting begins 10:55 p.m. Tuesday, and the phone voting goes until 1 a.m. EST while the online and Twitter voting goes to 6:00 a.m. Wednesday. For more information and details on the voting times for your time zone, check out AGT’s website.
How will you vote? Leave your two cents in the comments.
One of the highlights of Saturday Night Live is seeing performers breaking character because they cannot control their laughter — as long as it does not happen too often. This video montage features cast members from various seasons — going back to the late 1970s — as they crack up. See if you can make it through without laughing. [2025 Update: While the original posted video is no longer available, below is another video of SNL cast members cracking up.]
The term for unscripted giggling is “corpsing,” referring to the fact that the worst time to laugh is when you are playing a corpse. For a discussion of when it is okay for SNL cast members to laugh and when it becomes annoying, check out Slate.
What is your favorite SNL moment where a performer started laughing? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Many commentators have noticed the parallels between Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Several parallels are intentional, but is one of the biggest similarities just a coincidence? Note that this post has spoilers for both Moby Dick and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
The Wrath of Khan (“TWOK“) mirrors the overrding theme of vengeance from Moby Dick. Just as Ahab is driven by his desire for vengeance against the white whale, TWOK focuses on Khan’s obsessive quest for vengeance against Captain Kirk (William Shatner). The movie writers’ intent is reinforced with Herman Melville’s book appearing in one scene and Khan quoting or paraphrasing from Moby Dickat points (“to the last I grapple with thee; from Hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee”). Finally, the ending of TWOK is almost identical to the ending of Moby Dick. But what is interesting is that, despite all of the intentional similarities, it appears that this major similarity about the two endings is entirely coincidental.
In the end of TWOK, after Spock dies, his body is sent off in a photon torpedo as his coffin. In one of the final scenes, we see that this “coffin” has landed on the planet where Genesis is bringing the planet back to life.
The test version of the film, though, omitted the final coffin-on-the-rejuvinating-planet scene. Various sources, including Wikipedia, explain that Leonard Nimoy had initially agreed to reprise his role as Mr. Spock in TWOK only because his character would finally be killed. But, as the filming was coming to a close, Nimoy had enjoyed the making of the movie so much, he wanted to allow for Spock’s return if they so chose. So, the scene of Spock mind melding with Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) was added, but the initial cut of the movie still ended in a way that appeared to make Spock’s death final. Only after test audiences reacted poorly to seeing the icon’s death did producer Harve Bennett add the final scene showing Spock’s coffin on the rejuvenating planet with Nimoy’s voiceover of the traditional Star Trek series opening monologue.
The director, Nicholas Myer objected to the changes but allowed them. According to his director’s commentary on the video, he believed it was cheating to change the finality of the death scene (and having no interest in a resurrection story, he declined an offer to direct Star Trek III: The Search for Spock). In the commentary, he explains that as the movie was being finalized, producers realized that they might want to continue the series. And so the movie has the ending we all know:
Other sources confirm the story about the changes to the ending of TWOK. The book Star Trek and Sacred Ground, by Jennifer E. Porter and Darcee L. McLaren, reports that the first versions of the film did not include the scenes with Spock’s coffin landing on the Genesis planet. (p. 155.) A 2010 Los Angeles Times article noted Nimoy’s response to seeing the coffin scene: ”I was caught by surprise by the ending…. I was sitting there watching it and the camera goes across some foliage, some mist — a little magical kind of look — and guess what, there’s the black tube … whoa, I think I’m going to get a call from Paramount.”
So why is it interesting that the final scene was an afterthought and not planned from the start? Because so much of the rest of the movie echoes Moby Dick, and in the classic novel, a coffin plays an important role. Aboard the novel’s ship the Pequod, the character Queequeg at one point thought he was dying and had a coffin built for him. At the end of the novel, the obsessed Ahab is killed by his obsession just as the obsessed Khan is effectively killed by his obsession Kirk. Then, the book’s narrator Ishmael survives because after the Pequod is destroyed, he uses the coffin as a life buoy, just as Spock is left with a coffin after the Enterprise is almost destroyed. As Ishmael is adrift after the ship’s destruction, he describes his discovery of a “black bubble” in the ocean:
“[T]he black bubble upward burst; and now, liberated by reason of its cunning spring, and owing to its great buoyancy, rising with great force, the coffin like-buoy shot lengthwise from the sea, fell over, and floated by my side. Buoyed up by that coffin, for almost one whole day and night, I floated on a soft and dirge-like main. The unharming sharks, they glided by as if with padlocks on their mouths; the savage sea-hawks sailed with sheathed beaks. On the second day, a sail drew near, nearer, and picked me up at last.”
[Update February 2015: The final coffin scene from the Gregory Peck movie does not seem to be on YouTube any longer, but below is a trailer for the movie.]
When I first saw The Wrath of Khan in the movie theater, because of the Moby Dick references, I thought the director intended to invoke Moby Dick again at the end. Just as the classic novel ended with Ishmael surviving in a scene with a coffin, I thought the producers’ message with the final coffin scene was designed to evoke Ishmael’s survival, revealing that Spock would live again. While they did intend to imply Spock might live again, it seems it was a coincidence that the way they did it once again invoked Moby Dick.
Were the similar endings a coincidence? What do you think? Leave a comment.
Bonus Moby Dick References: There are a couple of other parallels between Moby Dick and Star Trek outside The Wrath of Khan. Captain Picard, i.e., Patrick Stewart, starred in a TV version of Moby Dick and like Khan he quoted the book in a Star Trek movie, Star Trek: First Contact (1996).
, by Jennifer E. Porter and Darcee L. McLaren, reports that the first versions of the film did not include the scenes with Spock’s coffin landing on the Genesis planet. (p. 155.) A 2010