BENNETT PLACE : SECTION NINETY TWO

stuff

NAME THAT MOVIE!

Seems like it's time for you to quit your jobs & start taking a closer look at some of the fine films this culture has to offer.
God bless Sean, Peyton, and Dan The Movieman for submitting all correct frames - even if that meant leaving gaps here and there.

Here are the answers:
EASY
Spotlight
Unbreakable
The Wolf of Wall Street
Ed Wood
The Fugitive

FAIR
Kill Bill Vol. 2
The Muppets Take Manhattan
The Invisible Man
Bonnie and Clyde
After Hours

DIFFIUCLT
Equinox
Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives
Paris, Texas
Short Cuts
No Country For Old Men

And here's the new stuff - this is a blues riff in 'B.' Watch me for the changes, and try to keep up.

EASY

FAIR

DIFFICULT

SOUNDS OF THE SEASON - Winter

Music is seasonal; I'm not the first to establish this approach - Vivaldi nailed that down 300 years ago. But what actually marries these pieces to a specific time of year is as subjective and abstract as the art form itself: there's no right or wrong, and sometimes no rhyme or reason.

Winter is the most challenging playlist to compile - probably because this time of year can be so divisive in its simultaneous beauty and brutality.
What I'm drawn to is stuff that compliments my environment, as opposed to being contrary to it. The soundtrack should serve the story as much as the other way around.
For one reason or another, here are 10 of my go-to albums that get me through the darkness.

- Paul

Blue Joni Mitchell (1971)
Acoustic dots & dashes sound as much like falling snow as Joni's falsetto meanderings. Her depictions of bohemian lifestyles and complicated romances paint varying concepts of intimacy and self-involvement - good stuff for tryin' to keep warm.
The album also boasts a Christmas song ("River") and even her ode to warm weather ("California") plays out more like long-distance yearning.

In Through the Out Door Led Zeppelin (1979)
For a band saturated in high blood pressure boogie and growling humidity, this - their final album - feels less bombastic and more melancholic in places (even when they're in your face).
There's a newfound sincerity in stuff like "In the Evening" and "I'm Gonna Crawl" that was always just-about-absent from everything that came before. In other words, they matured from "Whole Lotta Love" to "All My Love."

INLAND EMPIRE (Soundtrack) Various Artists (2006)
Nothing says 'bleak' like some sorta inter-dimensional Polish winter nighttime.
It's an eclectic mosaic of sounds that is uniformly unsettling (or, if you're like me, comforting): long intervals of spooky drones, ominous strings, and lonely piano notes are interrupted by splashes of pop music (Beck, Little Eva), jazz (Dave Brubeck), and whatever genre you put Penderecki under.
The real standouts are Lynch's "Ghost of Love" and Chrysta Bell's "Polish Poem" - both add extra chills as you're sitting in your car waiting for the heat to kick on.

Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards Tom Waits (2006)
Spanning three albums and two decades, a marathon of Tom is exactly the smoky, boozy, gravely shades of blue, brown, and gray you'd expect: political commentary ("Road to Peace"), strip club anthems ("LowDown"), psychedelic r&b ("Dog Door"), and disjointed anecdotes ("The Pontiac") all barely amount to just one coffin nail to keep under your hat for luck.

My Generation The Who (1965)
Alone in your room with some brandy & uppers, protected from the harsh elements of the season and ensconced in the harsh reality of existence is how to indulge in Maximum R&B, and these four mods deliver it via "Out in the Street," "The Kids Are Alright," "The Good's Gone," et al.
Smash some stuff.

News of the World Queen (1977)
If you've ever seen the music videos for "We Will Rock You" or "Spread Your Wings," you'll always feel a bit of bitter cold in your shoes whenever you hear them.
Stuff like "Sheer Heart Attack" and "Fight From the Inside" gratify your punk/metal adolescent despair, while "My Melancholy Blues" gratifies your regular, everyday despair.

Spirit In the Room Tom Jones (2012)
If the dreary grayness is your focus of the solstice, then you could do worse than this assortment of bluesy covers from sexiest lounge singer from Vegas to South Wales.
His versions of "Tower of Song" and "Bad as Me" don't embellish much from the originals, but his trademark swagger & grumble do dispense some doom on "Soul of a Man" and "Just Dropped In."

Demolition Girlschool (1980)
If your winters consist of as much snow as we get here in the northeastern U.S., you may be aware that navigating a vehicle is like roaming a frozen tundra in some post-apocalyptic, Mad Max-esque terrain. In this event, you need a soundtrack to give you confidence in the road warrior that you are.
Behold, "Midnight Ride," "Race With the Devil," and especially "Breakdown" will give you the guitar-rock energy you need to get where you're going, or die trying.

Fleetwood Mac Fleetwood Mac (1975)
Need a break from Rumours? Give this lighter but equally good singer/songwriter orgy a spin. The SoCal sound they became best known for once the new lineup was established hadn't entirely parted the clouds yet here, and while tracks like "World Turning" and "Monday Morning" are sunny, it's a cold sunshine. Actually, that applies to the whole album - just ask Rhiannon.

The Long Run Eagles (1979)
Another decidedly warm-weather band, though this - their sorta final album - is full of less laid back moods and more sinister tones like "The Disco Strangler" and "Those Shoes." More than that is if you've ever spent a cold night in a dive bar or pool hall, you should already know all the words to "Heartache Tonight."

TRASH STASH : issue 013

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BENNETT INVENTORY : That Moment

3 Ninjas -- In the 90s, basketball solves everything

"Crosses Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Home Alone!"
Not quite. Actually, that's pretty unfair to Ninja Turtles and Home Alone.
In this ultra-low budget, dreamed-up-over-a-weekend ripoff attempt at relevant family entertainment, three white preteen boys learn how to be ninjas from their Asian grandfather (?) and end up having to put their skills to use against a trio of Bill-&-Ted-like henchmen and a ponytailed crime boss straight out of a Baywatch episode. Oh yeah, and it comes in handy against school bullies -- but without the use of violence, because that's not the ninja way.
The reason we here at the site often call attention to this movie and actually watch it from time to time isn't because it's a quality film - it's not; it's needlessly convoluted with dumb dialogue, laughably choreographed fight scenes, and unlikable characters (particularly the 3 young ninjas). The way it does succeed as an art form is how effortlessly (or is it accidentally?) it embraces its time & place. Without a lotta cerebral nonsense and big budget fireworks to distract the mind & eye, we're left with a near-documentary of white suburban 1990s. Stylized for sure, but even the stylization is something that can never be duplicated (at least without free falling into parody). And perhaps no moment in this movie illustrates this more than a scene in which a couple of our heroes challenge some grade school dickheads to a game of basketball to win back the honor of a female classmate. (Just putting these words in that particular order makes me wanna do some Dew & play DK Country). How it plays out is as if Nike, Adidas, Gatorade, and Slim-Jims got together to sell us a vibe via sunshine, guitar riffs, and phat beats. It's so viscerally spot-on that it eclipses any kinda campy nostalgia you're thinking of and (very) surprisingly is just a great moment of cinema.

- Paul