#this is an all time classic which I had sadly forgotten
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Y'all, how do I be normal about hollow knight.
Anyways, here's the unofficial 4th installment of that series I started a while ago where I throw together a bunch of random hk theories into one post... this time ordered to make mildly more sense!
So the context here is this:
My friend came up with a cool oc and I was immediately obsessed with the idea. I explained everything relevant... err-- mostly relevant, anyways-- but I extrapolated on a few points here.
It got kinda bloated because I tried to tie-in some of my random tangents. The rest... are just gonna be at the end, lmao.
...
Basically, there are Gods in Hallownest. They mostly fall under the category of "Higher Beings", though not all Higher Beings are gods.
All of these gods are Gods specifically because they use dreams as their life force, which is directly tied to how powerful their influence can be.
The mother of Greenpath, Unn, is the epitome of a good-ol' classic Hollowknight god.
She IS Greenpath. The plantlife came from her and is likely a direct conduit of her power (greenpath lore tablet). The Mosskin Tribe themselves are her dream-children-- they either literally spawned from her or were merely formed in her image.
And now remember, the entirety of greenpath and queen's gardens were her domain. That's like 1/6th of Hallownest.
She was The Shit. And then, for reasons untold, she went to sleep. Though it's hard to pin down when it started, it's implied her slumber predated the Dreamers; Quirrel's dreamnail dialogue mentions her, likely as a memory from the times he was Monomon's apprentice, and even then she was just "something revered" sleeping in the waters.
Which is to say, when Mr Columbus waltzed in to pave roads through their lands (and when his wife laid claim to a decent chunk to be her personal playground), they likely didn't meet much resistance. From Unn herself, anyways. Which makes it all the more shocking that they didn't smite her image completely when her domain was so throughly invaded and remolded to PK's satisfaction.
He had, in his grasp, an entire tribe of people that followed *a different God than himself,* aka the worst thing you can be in the eyes of another God. People are dreams, and dreams are power. More worshippers= more power. If you're a God, you HAVE to actively be thought about by many people to survive. A forgotten God is a dead God. (This exact conflict was, in no small part, the beginning of the series of dominoes that led to Hallownest's downfall, albiet with a different God.)
That Unn herself was left relatively alone, despite this, is likely because Unn/the Mosskin Tribe gave juuust enough to avoid conflict while also keeping their "dream" distinct from PK's (meaning: continue to worship Unn and not PK). I can only imagine he allowed this because if he didn't, both Unn and her people would simply cease to be; the Mosskin needed Unn, and Unn needed them. That, and he was probably pretty busy dealing with the aforementioned other God that was... decidedly less submissive.
Either way, WL took Unn's land and pushed out her followers, inadvertently (or possibly purposefully) greatly diminishing Unn's power and influence. (It's possible this was the event that knocked her out, and she was merely too weak to oppose two entire Higher Beings to begin with.)
The other important character of note is Fierce Dryya. She was one of the Five Great Knights, and WL's personal guard.
After WL birthed and subsequently killed her children, she isolated herself in the depths of her Gardens, presumably "well-protected" from the fate the rest of the world faced.
There, Dryya held her last stand before a swarm of infected mantis Traitors who sought to remove WL from their territory. Sadly, WL doesn't even know she's dead, even though you have to step over her corpse to enter WL's cocoon.
It's hard to think about, but theres an equal chance that she fought off the Traitors for good... and that her death was entirely in vain. She is found next to the mound of Traitor corpses she undoubtly killed, but in the end, she died as well.
Implying that, before breathing her last, she managed to terrify them enough to never come back..
Or that she was just eventually worn down and killed, and the Traitors simply gave up when they couldn't get through WL's own protection.
....Which is to say the time between Dryya's death and events of the game is almost completely unknown!
...
Things I just couldn't fit in:
1, The name greenpath is just because PK put a bunch of roads in it, really. It likely had a different name before Mr Columbus came along.
2, Btw I wondered if there were any actual children in hk. Turns out, yeah, most bugs can propogate (lol), but the only ones referenced in the game that are not directly from a God are openly NOT worshiping ANY God. I'm talking the Mantis tribe, the Spider tribe, the Flukes, the mushroom clan, and weirdly enough, a specific spirit called Joni whose whole thing was being a heretic-- aka not only Not a worshiper of PK, but actively outcast and perhaps outlawed by PK's people.
*I'm disregarding Millybug. They're implied to be childish, but that's all we know.
Other notable characters that were at least a child at one point are Hornet, who was the child of Herrah and PK, and the Vessels, the product of the WL and PK. Grimmchild doesn't count as its not an actual bug, but a vessel created by the Nightmare Heart. The PK's Vessels are unique because they were originally independent, living creatures.
3, This talk about gods and such made me think about what happens after the game. Unn isn't dead, just actively dying because Miss Rad keeps stealing all her followers. She barely has enough energy to be like "hey kid, take this thing and remember me plz."
With both Miss Rad and PK gone, there's nothing stopping Unn's revival. Like, imagine Hallownest getting repopulated by the remaining tribes, returned to their natural glory. The only place left untouched being the city and the abyss-- forever monument to the horrors that nearly killed them all.
4, It just occurred to me that most of the real Godly gods in the game get cop-outs in the pantheons so you can't fight them. White lady just kinda peaced out, Unn's on the respirator, PK is fully snapped out of existence, the Lifeblood entity is chilling out in the basement, and... well I guess you are the void king by then so it's a bit of a moot point. NKG, THK, and Miss Rad are the only ones that're ready to throw down. Good for them!
5, The story of Isma is perplexing. It's implied the grove she died in is the source of the weird acid ravaging Hallownest, though it's unknown how or why. The wiki presumes this only affects the lower regions of the world, but I personally haven't found whatever supports this*. There's pipework lining the broken elevator pass between Ogrim and the Grove, of which is literally glowing with acid, so...
*there is one spirit in the Spirit Glade that mentions acid as a biological defense mechanism, so acid does exist in some capacity outside of this weird angry stuff.
Besides that, her dreamnail dialogue is "there's no time." Seriously? That's the most cliffhanger-y quote of the bunch, I can so clearly imagine team cherry being like "have fun! No we will not elaborate lol" before they spike the ball into our court.
In any case, while down this rabbit hole I have come to terms with the fact that Ogrim is still the best character in the game. He's literally the "I lie to myself :)" guy. All his friends are dead or missing. His lover drowned in 10 feet of acid. His idol the King was sent to superhell. Everyone else is a shambling husk. But he's still out here like "hey again, I realized you're not dead! Sorry about that, everyone else is so I got confused. Oh you saw my gf after pulling the lever that lowers the 10 feet of acid in her grove? Yeah she's super cool. Yeah no I can't go see her even though she's literally right over there, I got my, uh... oath. Haha. Good luck!"
6, While reading about Essence, it occurred to me that when you dreamnail a spirit, you don't actually kill them. You merely collect them. When the seer speaks to you about how much essence you have, she mentions she sees memories peering back at her. (1200 essence dialogue)
Most clearly don't want to be collected. They are at their final resting place, and desire to stay there, whether they're aware of their current state or not.
...buuut technically, TECHNICALLY, you aren't actually harming the spirits you dreamnail and can totally collect em' all to chill with you instead of lingering, listlessly, forever. You're just kinda rude for it. Also, none of the other spirits can tell what happened to them, so just dreamnail Revek too! He'll be fiiiine. :D right?
7, What really messes with my understanding of the timeline is WL's whole physical situation with what the blindness and such. She's the Higher Being, but within such a relatively short span of time, she has aged to the point of her body breaking down? More importantly, she's not immortal?? There are no mentions of the queen ever having any physical ailments, publically or privately, until you see it for yourself. Meaning that the worst of it happened after the Vessels were born and THK began their training. Perhaps the matter with the Vessels took more of a physical toll than originally assumed?
If we're assuming the pair hooked up after PK turned tiny, then you have to wonder just how old she was at the time. Judging by the rate at which she's aging now, she was likely pretty young. Frankly, I doubt it'd change much either way. She'd have that matter-of-fact, gung-ho demeanor at any age.
This is also why I specified that not all Higher Beings are bona-fide Gods. WL doesn't need the dreams of others, and judging by the weaver's seal she uses to protect her mind, doesn't want others to dream of her. And yet the Godseeker recognizes her as... something. (Third encounter)
So at least she's not just a really old tree. But she's also not a God like PK. She's a weird, third thing.
8, but I'm not letting go of her weird orb cocoon thing. What's that about?? What is it made of? Was it constructed by others and she was sealed within? Or did she somehow create it herself? The architecture seems to imply it's inorganic, but how did she get in there, then?
To top off the weirdness, there's the conveniently ghost-sized hole in the center of her carved face. So I'm leaning more towards "exaggerated metaphor for entering WL's mind" or "easy-to-read entry point for players to go to visit WL that isn't literally there in canon" and not "there's a big glowing hole in this literal rock that inexplicably leads to a tunnel* that then leads to a room very obviously bigger than what's seen from the outside."
There's no way, dude.
I'm leaning more towards there being a large structure she could walk into, that was then barricaded to fully seal her within. The knight, being so small, managed to get their way in through some sort of tunnel.
But then something happened to the plan and the outside of the structure turned into whatever Ari thought that orb was supposed to be.
*Although, I do like the interpretation that the tunnel is actually Ghost slowly making their way through her roots to meet her.
#hollow knight#thonking abt hollowknight#blabbing.txt#SIGHS. y'all. To make this coherent was a struggle#It still barely hangs on to the original topic#I didn't know where to add this but it's also possible PK didn't kill Unn just because#He didn't wanna? Like. I don't think he was bloodthirsty#Just territorial#But he was at the time actively trying to kill someone. So#Who's to say the truce between Unn and PK would've been the same without miss rad?#Also also also hey. what was that about a cracktheory about Monomon possibly being a higher being again#It's been so long since I've read a good ol fashion hk fic venturing into worldbuilding with some basic character chatter thrown on top
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More Tezuka & Forgotten 1960's Anime
That's Princess Knight, Tezuka's original gender fluid protagonist from the 1967 animated series (based on his manga). Even the title was confusing as the character was known as PRINCE Knight through the episodes!
I thought I'd follow up my Amazing 3/Wonder 3 post with some of my experiences watching some of the classic anime of the day.
I was born in England, but spent a lot of my childhood, and teens in Melbourne Australia. The one advantage of this (and yes, for me it was the only one :) is that there were FOUR TV channels in Australia compared with just two in England. Plus, Australian TV started at 6AM in the morning, whereas British TV didn't actually start broadcasting until late afternoon!
All this early morning airtime meant that there was a need for product, and to my delight Australia happily filled it with any Japanese animated (and some live action) series it could get a hold of. I didn't care at all about the animation back then: It was the designs and storylines that really stood out. My favourites were the Tezuka shows...Astro Boy, Amazing 3, Princess Knight, Kimba The White Lion...but there were others from different studios that had their merits. One was Prince Planet. Look at these designs...
There is a great blog here about the series and another one from a fan perspective here that tells of the zaniness that ran through the series.
Prince Planet's villains were great, especially the Loki-esque Warlock (He of the crooked smile, first pic above).
Another was Space Ace...
Again, the designs were unlike anything I had seen at the time.
There were others: Marine Boy, Speed Racer, Gigantor - all dubbed into shouty American voices that always seemed to have the emphasis on the wrong parts of the sentence :D
Sadly the one we didn't get to see was Tezuka's original Dororo (1969) which was based on his amazing manga. Again, it contained a gender fluid titular character amongst other themes. The complete manga is widely available now, and I really recommend it. Personally I avoid any subsequent newer versions of this classic.
I'll be honest: Even though a lot of it is technically brilliant, I'm not really inspired by too much animation these days, and CGI just leaves me cold. I am though, being energized by looking back at some of my original inspirations and trying to incorporate some of this in my current project.
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HI LINDSEY. for the fic writer ask you posted- 4 5 6 & 7 <333
olivia heyyyyy thanks for your ask :))))
4. How many WIPs do you have right now?
luckily I’ve recently organized my google drive folders, otherwise I would have no idea. I have 3 that I would consider WIPs and not abandoned. one of these is basically complete and will be posted next month for sure, since it’s part of the big bang event on the mcwexler server! (will the other 2 WIPs also become abandoned??? probably lmao)
5. What’s a fic idea you’ve had that you will never write?
I wanted to do a fic about kim and her relationship with owning a car (because I imagine getting/having her own car early on in her life was a big deal). I don’t think this idea is developed enough to write about it… so not gonna happen. there are probably a lot ideas that I’ve forgotten and will therefore never write :’)
6. Are there any fics from others you reread all the time?
I feel like I’m still pretty new to the better call saul fandom, so I don’t have a ton of die hard re-reads yet, other than ofc A Controlled Burn series which I’ve read a couple times and I plan to re-read 86 years eventually :D
for game of thrones, I still re-read the (sadly incomplete) A Man for All Seasons once a year because it’s the best and it changed my life
for the x files, I’ve re-read a few times this fic where scully has her deleted-scene-boyfriend through s1/s2 because I’m a sucker for baby MSR. I’m spacing the name of it right now, unfortunately, but it’s a fandom classic
7. How many ideas for fics do you have right now?
ignoring the 3 WIPs, I think I have two additional ideas for fics. one where j&k end up being roomies during the mailroom era. and a crackish one where saul goes to a margaritaville during a vacation and it reminds him of florida/kim 😩
ur also welcome to ask me things anytime ily ✨✨✨
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FAQ
To start, what is this?
With so many polls and brackets going around now, some of the classic ships that formed the basis of wlw shipping have been sadly underrepresented. This bracket is an attempt to fix that! It focuses on both the early ships that shaped and defined fandom, as well as some forgotten gems from over the years. And there are some more recent ships mixed in for a little variety!
There’s no bracket or ships yet, why do you have an FAQ?
Well, mostly to get things written down and ready before things get started. There are still a few things that need to happen before the bracket listing can be posted, and then all the polls have to be made and ready to post. Once all that’s done, the rest of this will make a lot more sense, promise!
Why isn’t my ship included?
Limiting the ships to 64 was incredibly difficult, and the result of multiple discussions across multiple days. We were limited by some early decisions we made, as well as trying to keep the number to 64! So if your ship isn’t included, know it was probably a difficult decision.
So what ships did you try to include?
The first priority was older ships. Anything from the last 5 years or so had to meet several other criteria to be included. From there the goal was to keep it to one ship per fandom, to get as many fandoms represented as we could. Then, in keeping with the ‘forgotten gems’ theme, the ships were narrowed down within their fandoms. While an attempt was made to make sure every ship involved had at least a fighting chance for round one, priority didn’t necessarily go to the largest ship in a fandom. Second or even third largest ships could find themselves ahead of the big ones, just to shine some light on the ships that get pushed aside more often than others.
You keep mentioning criteria, what kind of criteria did you use?
Ships in this bracket must be sapphic, for starters. While non-binary identities are so important to see represented on screen and in ships, we didn’t want to risk any chance of non-binary characters being misgendered by being included. So only female identifying characters were included. Second, a priority was put on ships with at least 300 fics on AO3, or similar sized fandom presence. That wasn’t a disqualifier, but it was a good test of whether they’d have a chance against some of the other ships. Third, as tough as it was, we stuck to live action shows and not animated. And last main consideration was that the ship itself didn’t date from the last 5 years. That got bent a few times for a couple ships, but for the most part very recent ships and fandoms were left off this time.
Okay but this ship is a classic/my favorite and it didn’t make the list.
Not every ship could! Going up a bracket size would mean 128 ships, and that would be way too many to do. Some absolutely deserving ships got left out just because of room, and trust me when I say the discussions on which ships to go with were fierce before a final list was settled on. And of course, as with any group project, there was definitely a bit of selection bias that went into the decisions. While trying to keep things fair and include as many fandoms as possible, the ships chosen did come from a limited group of people. Some fandoms probably got left out just because no one in the group watched that show, or remembered it while the list was being made. I forgot one of my own favorite ships until the bracket was already set! So who knows? Maybe there’ll be a season 2 with an entirely different cast and crew.
What’s the schedule for this bracket look like?
In a perfect world, the polls would run for 5 days, Friday to Wednesday, and then have 2 days to get the next bracket ready to go. Since Tumblr is our favorite hellsite, that doesn’t work. So polls will run for 1 week (at least for the first two brackets) and probably still have those two days of down time in between to prepare for the next bracket. Once we get to later brackets, depending on participation that might move to the one day per bracket to make things go a little faster. We’ll have to see when we get there!
Who’s responsible for all the graphics?
Okay so maybe this one isn’t frequently asked, but it should be. @mitski put in a ton of work on making sure all the graphics needed were great, and this whole thing would look nowhere near as nice without her.
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FearOfMu21c #16
Estelle ft Kanye West - American Boy
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Released - March 31, 2008
Highest UK chart position - #1
Spotify streams to date - 656,960,976
American Boy is an example of something that my illness completely obliterated for me. Apparently so huge that it was unavoidable for years on commercial radio, I had literally never even heard it once until a People’s Pop Poll (which it won handily) a couple of years ago. It does sound somehow familiar but I think that’s more to do with how it references a very specific kind of soul tune which has popped up time and again since the 60s (elements of Free by Deniece Williams definitely spring to mind, maybe a touch of Stevie’s I Was Made To Love Her too). Or it might just be that it manages to tap into the extremely lucrative “I’ve heard that before!” bracket in a way that runs on its own merits. Tbh I don’t really know.
Whatever it is, there’s an effortless cool about American Boy. The electronic stabs in the chorus feel very modern but moodwise it’s the best kind of summer soul classic, all shimmering guitars and warm, laid back vibes. Alternating between street charm and a more delicate vulnerability, Estelle’s vocal is a fantastic turn in itself but sadly we cannot talk about this song without talking about Kanye. I remember during that poll someone saying that this felt like the last time we heard from the old Kanye before he entered his cantankerous and grumpy phase. Given how completely beyond the pale he’s now gone, this song feels like a return to a more innocent time where his arrogance still felt reasonably good natured and the spectre of his future conduct can be forgotten, at least for a little while.
And tho I’d be happy to be able to gloss over his contribution, Kanye’s starpower is a big part of what carries the song. So much of its greatness is tied up in the contrast between Estelle’s earthier mood and Kanye’s more glittery sense of himself that, in all honesty, I can’t believe that it would work nearly so well with anyone else in his place. So on balance I think it’s the right thing to give a nod to this deeply flawed colossus here, even if that’s partly because the idea of giving him a full selection still leaves me with a very bad taste in the mouth.
#Youtube#FearOfMu21c#Estelle#Kanye West#Kanye#00s music#American Boy#50 favourite singles#RnB#Rap#Soul
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nah cause i've been having immortal mc thoughts and brain rot lately and it's amazing
immortal mc just doesn't give a fuck for their safety anymore, sure it hurts to die but like they know they'll be ok?
and they've lived through like everything known to mankind and have seen things that they joke about now
it's like
Immortal Mc; We are so gonna laugh about this in the future!
Some Rando Human; UH NO I DONT THINK I WILL?!? THIS IS FUCKING TRAUMATIZING-
Immortal Mc, shrugging; Eh, you'll get used to it, my man.
Some Rando Human; What the fuuuuuuck-
and they will take all dares of all kinds
you dare them to drink this random drink that Solomon made? ok
you dare them to eat this random mushroom that Barbartos found? why the fuck knot
you dare them to stick a fork in the outlet? sure they've done it before
and the list. goes. on.
Mammon; I dare you too-
Lucifer, covering Mammon's mouth; Mc is not allowed to do dares
Mammon, looking confused; why not?
Lucifer, eyes empty as if he's seen something he wishes to forget; They have no sense of safety for their well-being and are willing to do anything
Immortal Mc in the back, hearing the conversation; Lol fucking pussy
Mc has been in multiple wars and knows how to fight don't even try them
adding to the fact they're immortal?? ya no you'll loose lmao
they have had to change their name every 90-100 years tho, which makes them confused about who they are at some points
so the brothers do have to kind of remind them every once in a while who they are and where they are
they don't even remember their original birth name which kinda makes them sad
and due to living for so long, they have forgotten multiple of their lives, with the few exceptions of extra special people they remember
but they do have like, multiple published books about their adventures
this kinda helps them remember everything so they keep writing down memories with the brothers, planning to make it another book in the human realm to share (and remember-)
its also kinda cool cause they got to bring all their books (which is a to btw) to Devildom and let Satan read them, and Lucifer if he wants
and they read them like a bedtime story to Belphie and Beel <3
Immortal Mc; -And that is the end of that book!
Belphie; Can you re-read the war part? I find it interesting Immortal Mc; Which part of the War? All of it or just the torture part?
Belphie, smiling sleepily as he cuddles into Mcs lap; The torture part pls
Lucifer, hearing the conversation; . . .God they terrify me-
yes, Lucifer is terrified of immortal Mc cause they say and joke about traumatic events so easily and it's just. . .scary-
that is all I have for tonight sadly 😔
But I will come with more brain rot soon >:)
-Brain rot anon maybe?
Woooooooooo!!!
I love these! A classic chaos gremlin MC is always a good time.
Also MC and Belphie in this sense, also terrify me, lol. You're not alone Luci
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BIG GEORGE FOREMAN (2023)
Starring Khris Davis, Jasmine Mathews, John Magaro, Sullivan Jones, Lawrence Gilliard Jr., Sonja Sohn, Forest Whitaker, Shein Mompremier, John Magaro, Matthew Glave, Sam Trammell, Erica Tazel, Jasmine Mathews, Al Sapienza, Judd Lormand, Deion Smith, Ryan Reinike, Billy Slaughter, Eric Hanson, Deneen Tyler and Miles Doleac.
Screenplay by Frank Baldwin & George Tillman Jr.
Directed by George Tillman Jr.
Distributed by Sony Pictures Classics. 133 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Nowadays, George Foreman is thought of mostly as a sweet and slightly goofy reality TV guy. (Also as the guy who named five of his sons George, and one daughter Georgetta.) However, he was a pioneer in sport; the only person ever to win the heavyweight boxing championship twice, over 20 years apart. (And this was back when winning the heavyweight boxing championship actually meant something.)
Of course, even the two championships showed very different incarnations of Big George. In 1972, when he first shocked Smoking Joe Frazier to win the belt, he was a stud – a fit, trim, angry man with a punch which could stop a bull. However, his upward momentum was halted a couple of years later by Muhammed Ali, who cemented his own comeback by taking the championship away from Foreman.
By the time he made his unlikely comeback in the 1990s, Foreman was a completely changed man. He had found religion, becoming a minister. He had all of his earnings embezzled and had worked hard to get his financial house back in order. He hadn’t fought – or even trained – for over a decade. He was aging, a bit overweight, out of shape, and had lost much of his anger, replacing it with faith and hope. And he was no longer so serious and grim, showing an offbeat and slightly silly sense of humor. But he still had that killer punch.
Khris Davis, who plays the boxer in this biopic, told me recently that he didn’t know Foreman’s story before getting the role. In fact, he was barely aware of the boxer at all. “I didn't know much about him, except for the fact that he was the hurdle that Ali had to get over…,” Davis said. “… And I knew him as the grill guy from the commercial.”
So, since you have to be well into your 40s to not think of George Foreman as a grill huckster, maybe it is time to give another look at his legacy. The film Big George Foreman does an uneven, but fairly decent job at reclaiming his importance in boxing.
It sometimes takes its subject way too seriously, as can be gleaned by just reading the entire verbose and overhyped official title of the film: Big George Foreman: The Miraculous Story of the Once and Future Heavyweight Champion of the World. (Future Heavyweight Champion? Unless he’s planning on another comeback attempt in his 70s or 80s, that isn’t going to happen.)
The film also does tend to get a bit too heavy on religion in the second half. I mean, I had honestly forgotten that Foreman had become a minister. I’m glad he found peace in his faith. It is definitely an important part of the man’s story. However, eventually Big George Foreman tends to get a little bit preachy during these sections.
Sadly, the film also tends to neuter the lighthearted, funny man he became on TV and in interviews in his later years. (Check out the totally surreal travel reality series Better Late Than Never he did with William Shatner, Terry Bradshaw and Henry Winkler like five to ten years ago.)
And hell, the George Foreman Grill is only mentioned in passing a few times in the film.
That said, when Big George Foreman is focusing on the man’s life and his boxing career, it is rather fascinating sports bio and does a good job of arguing that Foreman was one of the icons of the sweet science. “I think if Ali hadn't been there, we'd be calling George Foreman the greatest fighter of all time,” Davis told me.
The early years, from childhood through the miliary, the Olympics, and his early years as a pro, his cheating first marriage and his financial implosion are pretty fascinating stuff. As is his eventual late-in-life comeback.
Khris Davis does an impressive job as the champ throughout most of his life (Austin Davis Jones plays him as a teen). In fact, Davis went above and beyond to put on significant weight and basically becoming nearly unrecognizable to play Big George in his later years, much like Robert De Niro’s transformation as Jake LaMotta from young man to old in Raging Bull. Forest Whitaker as his trainer and Sonja Sohn as George’s religious mom also do amazing work here.
Let’s face it, George Foreman had such a fascinating life there is no way this film could not be interesting. Big George Foreman doesn’t punch out of its class, like its inspiration did, but it’s a very watchable, if slightly pedestrian, sports bio.
Jay S. Jacobs
Copyright ©2023 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: April 28, 2023.
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Should You Watch The Anime? (An Intro Post)
Should You Trust My Thoughts on Anime?
I figure if I’m going to be publishing my thoughts on anime, you may as well get to know some of my likes and dislikes to see if you vibe with said thoughts. Or, I guess if you don’t vibe with me, you can use my reviews to avoid the shows I do like. XD
I’m still working on a definitive Top 10 Anime list, but I’ll be honest… I may never have that list done as new shows are coming out all the time. So instead I’ll list out a few of my favorite anime in different genres to give you an idea of what I like.
Heads up that I’m a bit on the older side, plus I got into anime when I was fairly young. That means there will be shows here from a good span of decades!
Magical Girl: Sailor Moon
It’s a nostalgic pick as this was my first real anime, but it still holds up even today.
Sports: Free!
I tend to like my sports anime 80% character interaction, 20% sports.
Mecha: Neon Genesis Evangelion
A classic for a reason. I get something new from it on every rewatch.
Sci-Fi: Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
Deep psychological stuff mixed with cool technology in an amazingly put together show.
Isekai: Re: Zero
It’s a good and actually unique isekai with more depth than I expect from the genre.
Shoujo: Fruits Basket (2001)
Yes, I like the original better. It’s got a great mix of funny moments and tragic angst.
Shounen: Jujutsu Kaisen
This show takes the best parts of other shounen shows and puts it all together in one package.
BL: World’s Greatest First Love
Is it problematic? Yes. But I’m invested in the couples and how they will end up.
Horny: Interspecies Reviewers
Surprisingly deep world building and well animated kinky stuff? Sign me up.
???: Samurai Flamenco
I love everything about this anime. It defies genre.
Do I Hate Any Anime?
There is a redeeming feature or lesson learned from every anime I’ve watched, so you won’t see me list any hated shows here. There are certainly some anime I’ve watched that make me think I really could have spent my time better doing anything else, though. >.<
If I get bored or don’t love a show, I will not be afraid to mention that. I’m not being sponsored by anyone, so there’s no need to curb my own opinion.
My History With Anime
I’m putting this part last because you may not care about when/how I got into anime. And that’s A-Ok with me. But if you are curious, here you go.
As a very small child I was exposed to shows like Voltron, but I didn’t know it was anime at the time. Then Sailor Moon started airing on broadcast television (I didn’t have cable TV growing up), and I got absolutely obsessed.
In a perfect storm, the internet started becoming easily accessible around the same time, so I hopped online to get more Sailor Moon in my life. In doing this, I started seeing links to other recommended “anime” - which I pronounced as Anne-Nyme at the time.
Between Blockbuster, Suncoast Video, and the local comic shop (which no longer exists, sadly), I dove into the world of anime. I sank my teeth into things like the Dirty Pair movies, Ranma 1/2, Record of Lodoss War, and even pre-ordered each VHS of Neon Genesis Evangelion as it was coming out. $25.01 for each tape with 2 episodes on it (dubbed, since it was cheaper and I only had my allowance to work with). I was dedicated to the hobby.
I never stopped liking anime from that point on. I ended up leading two anime clubs (high school and college), and I still host a group of friends every week to come over and watch anime.
I'll post a link to my MAL, but it's not complete. I've seen too many shows and have forgotten some along the way. I'm concentrating more on shows I've actually completed on the MAL and probably won't mess with trying to find all the stuff I watched decades ago.
And that about wraps things up for the intro. I've been watching 10-15 shows a season lately (plus whatever we watch in anime club), so I have a lot to talk about. Let me help you figure out if you should watch the anime!
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🍧🎵💐
🍧 SHAVED ICE - do they still have any objects from their childhood? what significance does it have to them? what would their reaction be if they lost it?
Plum: Loads of things, stuffed toys, books, photos, most of which are at home in Alola with her family. She has a couple of photos from her 10th birthday that seem to mean a lot to her, her family perhaps could have been more present while she was growing up, but they were both there with her on that day, a day she was gifted her first ever pokemon parter missy as a little dratini. She’s framed them, they currently hang in her Dotaku apartment. Should she lose them she’d probably cry a little but knows its just a thing, the memory remains.
Grey: Grey kept his dads jacket, and still uses it from time to time. Use to be so big on him but now he cant do the zip up. He doesn’t say it, but he likes to have it around still, and sometimes wears it to go visit his family. In all honesty it fits peach better now days, but thats ok, he just likes seeing it. If it were to finally be lost or broken, he’d try to repair it, or if that is impossible, he’d sulk for a few days. He may have to go home and steal another jacket, but nothing compares, that one had significance.
Peach: She’s got a family ring, not that she tells anyone thats what it is. On rare occasion is used to gain entry to underground locations. No one questions her if she’s got that. She use to never wear it, but as she’s aged, it’s crept into her collection, snuck on her hands with several other rings to make it less obvious, mixed and matched. It’s not easy to tell wether she likes or hates it, but if she was to lose it, she’d be very conflicted. Its not a good memory receiving it, but it also kind of was? Bitter sweet. One of the first and only moments her mother seemed not disappointed with her, sadly she was disappointed with herself…or proud for persevering? It’s a messy memory.
🎵 MUSIC NOTE - what is their playlist like? their favourite artists? do you associate a particular song with them?
Plum: All over the place. She loves a lot of up beat pop, RnB, but also thrives on anything with a brass section. The sort to have three playlists for moods, no more, no less. Sad, happy, running. (I associate Plum with: MEUTE - You & Me)
Grey: his family is large so he’s perfected the art of making a playlist to suit all ages. For this reason he’s wise to a lot of older songs and bands that perhaps got forgotten by the younger crowd. This doesn’t make his taste old school, he’s very adaptable. Knows what to play at any given moment to get a party going. His personal taste a wide and varied, appreciating almost all genres for one reason or another. A sucker for classic rock though. (I associate Grey with: Jank Setup - Prince Of Something)
Peach: anything with a filthy bass line, or that slaps hard. Never has sad songs on. Her lack of connection to music is apparent, having not had much music in her home as a child or teenager. She’s not very knowledgable on it as a topic, but over the years with Grey has learnt to enjoy it, and even found songs she actually enjoys, will never put a song on if asked. (I associate Peach with: YONAKA - Seize The Power)
💐 BOUQUET - create a bouqet for them! what do those flowers mean? are any of the flowers their particular favourite?
Plum: Classic romantic, red roses, gypsophila, maybe flamboyant white lilies. BUT! She’s from the tropics, and Peach will especially pick up on this, often favouring Bird of Paradise or Heliconia, palms and broad leaves, a bit more fancy than your average Johto garden can produce. However her favourite is Plumeria. Unrivalled in scent, she gets all nostalgic when she smells them.
Grey: Loves greens, whites and grasses. He’s the sort to revel in ferns, loves them. Fond of a Chrysanthemum, loves a wax flower. He’s big on textures, so the fancy seed heads from some species also get a lot of love from him.
Peach: impossible to pick a single fav, she’s forever asked this question and it keeps her up at night. In her heart of hearts she knows its Forget-Me-Nots, though why she can’t remember, ironically. Her choices are always humble. Wildflower, big blousy daisys that you see growing on the side of roads, knapweed, cornflower, ragwort, buttercups, all the stuff you see pop up through cracks in the concrete. Defiant. Sure fancy is nice, but it doesn’t beat a bunch picked by someone you love who thought of you while out on a walk. Nothing compares.
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Extract:
Independent bookselling times are hard, though and Rais is unsure if the shop, established in 1974 – and that has endured almost five turbulent decades – can withstand the current challenges from the Taliban.
“Very few are buying books now,” he says sadly. One of the consequences of the Taliban takeover has been a mass exodus of intellectuals and others who were part of the book-buying demographic when UK and US forces were in situ in Afghanistan.
“I will keep the bookshop open as long as possible, maybe the Taliban will ban it or destroy it,” he shrugs.
Rais has lived through different rules in Afghanistan and was twice imprisoned during the Soviet era, first in 1979 for a year, and then again a year and a half after his release. He says he experienced torture and mistreatment while he was in jail, including sleep deprivation and being forced to live in freezing conditions.
...
Rais’s bookshop is believed to have the largest collection of books about Afghanistan, expressing a variety of different views of historical events, all under one roof. Along with textbooks for students in areas such as medicine, engineering and languages are many rare books that Rais has found safe hiding places for in case his shop is targeted.
“I have secure places in Iran and Pakistan for some of the books,” he says.
He speaks six languages and says regretfully that he has forgotten a seventh that he was previously able to speak – Russian.
After obtaining a master’s degree in civil engineering at Kabul University, he thought it would not be possible to make a living out of engineering and decided to try to turn his love of books, which he had developed as a teenager, into a business.
Along with his enormous and diverse collection of Afghan books he loves classics including works by Tolstoy, Balzac and Hemingway, and his favourite, the 13th-century Persian poet Rumi. “I loved reading Shakespeare’s Othello in Persian,” he says.
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CRAFFEY: Death of the Working-Class Supercars
Last week, after 19 years in production, the very last of the Chrysler/Dodge LX platform muscle cars rolled off the assembly line in Brampton, Ontario. After almost 4.4 million cars built, the legacy left by the automotive legends built on this platform will be felt for decades and generations to come. For car fans, the reasons to mourn the loss of these legends are obvious, but what their demise signals for working-class empowerment, freedom, and upward mobility, should concern all Americans.
So we’re all clear, the cars I’m talking about here are the mobster-looking Chrysler 300C, the muscle-wagon Dodge Magnum (which was made from 2005 to 2008), the badass Dodge Charger sedan, and perhaps the best modern interpretation of a classic retro car, the iconic Dodge Challenger. It’s not an overstatement to say that these vehicles changed the automotive landscape of this country, creating a whole new movement of diehard enthusiasts, and with it, these cars became part of our culture, our politics, and indeed our lives. When such automotive giants pass on to that big assembly line in the sky, I think it’s important to pour a quart of 5W-20 motor oil out in celebration of what they meant to so many of us. Sadly, they are not the only icons going away over the next year or two due to government regulations. More on that later…
I am admittedly biased in my affection for these cars. I have now owned six of these cars since 2006: five Chrysler 300C’s with the legendary Hemi V8 (a 2006, a 2008, a 2009, a 2011, and a 2015) and one 2016 Dodge Challenger SRT. I’m grateful to still own the 2015 Chrysler 300C Platinum and the 2016 Dodge Challenger SRT, and will proudly drive them as long as I am alive or as long as the government allows us to, whichever comes first. My dad fell in love with my Challenger the moment I took delivery at the dealership, so much so that he decided to order his own 2016 Dodge Challenger R/T Scat Pack 392 a few weeks later, which he still owns to this day. It’s definitely a special experience going to car shows together in our matching Mopars. My older brother even joined the “club” getting a 2016 Dodge Charger AWD Police Pursuit. The Hemi gene clearly runs strong in this family!
Chrysler 300C
Enter the Chrysler 300C, which entered production in 2004 as a 2005 model. Developed with help and parts sharing from Chrysler’s corporate partner at the time, Mercedes, the 300C had a thoroughly modern platform and fully independent suspension, rear-wheel drive, a 340 horsepower V8 engine, and one of the coolest, almost concept-looking designs ever to come out of Detroit. There are a few memorable automotive launches in history. The Mustang is one, the VW Beetle is another, and then there was the home run that was the Chrysler 300.
But what was most important was how it was received by the American car lover, and with them, it was a runaway hit. Chrysler couldn’t build them fast enough, selling more than twice as many as originally planned in their first two years, and it became not just a phenomenon in America, but also in Canada, Europe, Australia, and the Middle East. For the first time in decades, or perhaps ever, a person of middle-class means could afford a car with a similar performance, features, and gravitas that was previously only afforded to those with the means to purchase a BMW or Mercedes. Suddenly, the rest of the Big 3, Europe, Japan, and South Korea were scrambling to offer affordable rear-wheel-drive, V8 options to compete with the success of the 300, and for a window in time, rear-wheel-drive V8 cars became mainstream again! By sales and by heart though, the American “forgotten man” had already found his car, and it was a Chrysler!
These cars had become such a phenomenon that they spurred on several successful iterations on the same platform with available V8s, including the Dodge Magnum station wagon, the Dodge Charger sedan, and the retro-styled Dodge Challenger coupe. What made each of these cars successful is that the styling, interior, and feel of each was very different from the others so they didn’t negatively impact each other’s sales, and that they all unabashedly, proudly, and brashly, showcased chiseled, American muscle. But just as the models multiplied, the political and economic world began to change.
When the economy collapsed in 2008, the political Left came into power and quickly united around the concept that “green energy” was the way out of America’s economic quagmire and would also save the environment. It wasn’t and still isn’t. Remember the Obama Administration poured billions into failed “green” ventures like Soyndra during that era, and now the same thing is happening again under the Biden Administration with solar, and wind power, and subsidies for the unsold electric vehicles that are piling up on dealer lots. As presidential candidate Obama in 2008, he traded in his Chrysler 300 for a sad Ford Escape Hybrid. Car folk the world over yawned at this obvious display of virtue-signaling, and it was becoming clear that the rest of the political Left was now coming for the internal combustion engine, especially anything with a V8.
Hellcat
However -- and I really love this part -- in 2015, Dodge sensed there was still enough rebellion and independence left in the American spirit, that they decided to give a flying middle finger to that sentiment in the form of a loud, 707 horsepower, supercharged, Hellcat Hemi V8. To put those numbers in perspective, the Hellcat made the Charger the most powerful production sedan you could buy, at any price, anywhere in the world, yet it cost just under $60K. It produced numbers and fanfare on par with elite supercars, yet was also attainable for many middle-class and upper-middle-class car aficionados. To get a coupe on par with the Challenger Hellcat, you had to look at top-end Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and other exotics that cost $250K or more. In its final 2023 iteration, the Challenger Hellcat 170 became the world's fastest production car in history, doing a 0-60 in 1.66 seconds and a quarter-mile time of 8.9 seconds.
The Hellcats completely redefined the definition of what “powerful” was, and like the 300 before them, they became the leading automotive and cultural icons of their era. Most importantly, they enabled the forgotten man to be able to own and enjoy cars as special and powerful as their far wealthier neighbors. The sound, the timeless design, and the sales reflected this seachange, with the Dodge Challenger consistently outselling the Ford Mustang in recent years, coinciding with its repositioning as being more of a sports car than a true muscle car like the Challenger. But of course, this automotive love affair did not sit well with the wealthy elite who seem to believe this sort of power and passion should only be reserved for them, while the rest of us are relegated to driving a far more “responsible” Prius or a fully-electric vehicle.
As late as 2020, there were plans for a next generation of Dodge Charger and Challenger, and 300, with internal combustion V8s and rear wheel drive. Clearly, the boys at Dodge were banking on a different election outcome that year, but no one was prepared for just how extreme the fuel economy and “green” mandates of the Biden Administration would be. Once it became clear how aggressive this administration would be, the 2025 and beyond regulations appear to have forced Stellantis, the current owner of Dodge and Chrysler, to scrap those plans and go all in on fully electric and possibly downsized internal combustion/hybrid options for their muscle cars. It's not an overstatement to say the general consensus among current Chrysler/Dodge owners varies from depression to outrage. The cars that we love, these special beasts that made owning that pinup poster fantasy finally attainable, are once again being taken from us, not because of sales or the free market, but because the “government knows best."
Goodbye to V8 Engines?
Perhaps you aren’t a particular fan of these LX cars, and you think their demise is just an outlier. Well, for Chevrolet Camaro fans, the last V8 Camaro also just rolled off the assembly line. The last year for the Ram truck before it loses a V8 option is 2024, and the same for the Dodge Durango, Jeep Grand Cherokee, and Jeep Grand Wagoneer. On the slightly more expensive side, V8s have been removed from the Mercedes C63 and E63, and the Toyota Land Cruiser; 2024 will be the last year for any Jaguar with a V8. Lastly, the phenomenal Cadillac CT5 V-Blackwing, with its supercharged 6.2 liter V8, will be the last performance V8 that Cadillac ever offers, or at least, so they say. My guess is that 2025 will be the last year for these majestic sedans.
Meanwhile, EVs are not selling at all as originally predicted and why wouldn’t they? People do not like being told what to buy, much less being forced into it. Ford and many others have cut their sales projections in half and dealers are having to sell these vehicles at a loss just to move them as it costs much more to make an electric car than an equivalent gas-powered vehicle. As a result, I predict over the coming years that more than a few long-time automakers will go out of business trying to adhere to EV government regulations by spending billions of dollars to transition their platforms and infrastructure to this new technology, only to have the market decide they still prefer some sort of gas-powered option over full-EV. Meanwhile, the “old-school” Dodge Charger, Challenger, and 300 were still selling in near-record numbers right up to the end and were highly profitable for both the dealers and Stellantis. In their absence, sales are already starting to decline at Stellantis, leading to cuts in marketing and other areas, putting its future at risk.
So yes, the loss of these cars is individually significant, but what it reflects on a larger macro level is even far more impactful; the death of American working-class empowerment, their attainable dreams, and their freedom to live their life how THEY see fit. It’s not just our cars this administration and like-minded Progressives have been taking away. It’s our gas stoves, it’s our lawnmowers, and it's our ability to even water our lawns. It’s gas leaf-blowers, and single-family zoning, and on and on. It may start with taking our V8s, but it will almost certainly end in a far darker place unless the dominant political climate changes, pun intended.
Matthew Craffey of Los Angeles has a bachelor’s degree in political science from California Lutheran University and is a board member of Log Cabin Republicans.
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A Definitive Ranking Of Every Incarnation Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Seven years ago I was so butt-hurt by an Uproxx article that I wrote a response with my own TMNT incarnation ranking. Was I right to do it? Absolutely. Do I regret it? Not at all. I stand by that ranking and where the TMNT property was in 2017. Read it here.
What HAS happened though is multiple versions (incarnations) of our beloved turtles have been rolled out in the past 7 years and I think it's time to re-rank them. This will be similar to the reposts common in this blog, as it will have a lot of old content, but it will be a full-on refresher with a brand-new definitive ranking. Here we go!
17. Saban’s Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation
The Next Mutation is the worst. While technically a hit TV show, TNM is a reimagining of the Turtles in a similar style to the hyper-popular Power Rangers of the time; and created by that same production house. It was too goofy, too Japanese, and pandered to a completely different audience. Any charm or goodwill the original show still had was flushed right down the drain after the launch of The Next Mutation; not to mention the introduction of the cringe-worthy Venus, the fifth Turtle. The Next Mutation is best forgotten, but sadly never will be.
16. Japanese OVA - Mutant Turtles: Superman Legend
Not included in the original list because I didn't think it was a substantial enough incarnation to include, Superman Legend is a gem if you like weird 90s anime. If you don't, skip it. When I say skip it, I mean it. It doesn't feel like a Ninja Turtles story and while styled after the Fred Wolf TV show, it drips of cheesy anime tropes and is, at times, hard to watch. I include it here as almost a warning against possibly watching it.
15. Konami’s Video Games
At the time, Konami’s video games seemed awesome. The arcade games and the classic NES games gave children exactly what they wanted, a way to control their favorite turtles and fight the foot. In actuality, the original arcade games were built as quarter-eating button mashers. There was little nuance to the games themselves and the home console releases were either bad (that first NES) or were trying to recreate a game on a platform for which it wasn't designed (TMNT II, Manhattan Project, Turtles in Time, etc.). If you wipe off the thick film of nostalgia, it's easy to see these games really aren’t that good.
14. Platinum Dunes’ Movie (Series)
The two Platinum Dunes movies have a style to them, and it's best we leave that style in the 2010s. Everything from the Incredible Hulk looking over-design of the characters, to the disasters of plots, there is very little to like about what Michael Bay’s production company did to our beloved Turtles. The films have some decent action and comedy, but a lot of the creative directions taken leave the heart of the Turtles unrecognizable. Out of the Shadows was better than the first film and did a good job capturing the feel of the original cartoon, but it still committed a lot of the same sins, despite being the "right kind of dumb".
13. Fred Wolf’s Original 1987 Animated Show
It’s funny how the most popular of all the incarnations is also one of the worst. The original cartoon is a victim of its era. The animation is bad, the plots are silly and sometimes nonsensical, and many episodes are just thinly veiled advertisements for the mega-successful accompanying toy line. Still, there’s a charm to that old show that made it popular for a reason. Presented as the figurehead of late 80s cartoons that it is, it might be a masterpiece. Presented in a vacuum, apart from the craze, that old show can be unwatchable. This incarnation is another victim of nostalgia and is probably best experienced through t-shirts and merchandise, not through actual experience.
12. Image’s Vol. 3 Comics
Die-hard Turtles fans love to point at Image’s short-lived run of comics after Mirage’s first hiatus as being “Amazing”. “Volume 3″ to which it is referred, was planned as a continuation of Mirage’s colorized Vol. 2. Sadly, it followed many of the tropes of late 90s comic books. It was more violent than its predecessors and even went as far as having two of the TMNT get deformed. Donny becomes a cyborg and Raph’s face gets disfigured. At the time it was a fresh take on the characters and seen as bold and unpredictable. Because of this, it should hold a legit chunk of respect, but in practicality, it wasn’t great.
11. Batman Vs. TMNT Crossover Comics and Movie
This is, by far, the hardest incarnation to rank. It's not bad, and in most ways it's great. However, taking a generic version of the TMNT and planting them in a story beside The Dark Knight creates an un-winnable situation. Character development must be spread across two universes and cannot be too in-depth, because you can't stray too far from the core essence of either property. Fans love this version of the Turtles and I don't blame them. It boils the 4 brothers down to their core traits and, through solid writing, creates an entertaining romp that plays into both properties' tropes. Where the Batman/TMNT crossover succeeds in entertainment value, it completely fails in compelling story-telling.
10. Archie’s TMNT: Adventures Comics
More comics from the 90s! Archie’s TMNT Adventures was less an Archie production and more a shadow Mirage title that was created mostly in-house under the eyes of Eastman and Laird. Its origin as a spin-off of the TV show made for a unique niche. Many of the stories and characters resonate to this day and If I were listing my favorite TMNT comic artists, Chris Allen would be in my top three. One of the title’s strengths was the secondary characters. Verminator-X, Armaggon, Ninjara, the Mighty Mutanimals, and Cuddly the Cowlick, are all great additions to the greater mythology of the series and many of them have returned in other media. As much fun as these were to read 30 years ago, a distinct lack of character development in the TMNT, and a heavy handed environmental agenda being pushed make these hard to read today. Those Future Turtles are the bomb though…
9. TMNT: Mutant Mayhem
I have thought long and hard about where Seth Rogan's take on the TMNT belongs in the pantheon of turtle stories. From an entertainment standpoint, it's fantastic. The film is incredibly funny and breathes fresh energy into tried and true character archetypes. Does it represent the legacy of TMNT as a franchise? I don't know. We've been promised a lot more of this incarnation, so our questions will likely get answered as series staples like Shredder and The Foot get introduced, but as it stands, Mutant Meyham is a fantastic anomaly ripe for exploration.
8. New Line’s Original Movie Trilogy
America’s love for the original movie trilogy is justified. They captured a moment in American Pop Culture that was unique and somewhat bizarre. On the surface, a lot of the dialog can be cheesy and eye-roll-inducing, but that’s what the 90′s were. Looking back at them, the only one that holds up as a GREAT movie is the first one. The effort put into bringing the comics to life, while dabbling in the silliness of the cartoon, is visible. There’s more emotion in that first movie than most would care to admit. I’m not going to call it a masterpiece or anything, Actually, I am gonna call TMNT 1990 a masterpiece. The second two movies are what keep this incarnation from being higher on the list. The Secret of the Ooze is embarrassing and TMNT III is boring at best. The care that went into the first film just wasn’t there the second and third times around.
7. “TMNT” Animated Movie
The Turtle’s franchise timeline can be divided into 3 phases; Phase 1: Eastman and Laird, Phase 2: Laird only, and Phase 3: Nickelodeon. The “TMNT” animated movie was released during Phase 2, and because of that, it has Peter Laird’s influence all over it. During his solo time with the Turtles, Laird had very specific ideas about what he wanted to do with the characters and what stories he wanted to be told. Not goofy, not over-the-top, not too dark, and maintaining the series’ comedic overtones, TMNT is a weird movie that feels like a release that fell out of another dimension. Despite its plot being the most non-TMNT-ish story ever told, there is still a handful of scenes that are quite wonderful. The epic fight scene between Leo and Raph at the close of Act 2 is worth the price of admission. TMNT is a beautiful film that has a charm unique unto itself and it’s really a shame a sequel was never made.
6. Rise of the TMNT
I'm sure putting Rise in the #6 spot can be seen as a bold move, but I stand behind it completely. Rise is possibly the most controversial version of the Turtles to date. Odd, and unnecessary changes to the lore and characters turned a lot of fans off of the project before it even launched. Taking a more comedic and short-attention-spaned approach to TMNT storytelling alienated many viewers, which means Rise lives on its own little island. Fans of Rise, LOVE IT, with good reason. It's hilarious, irreverent, sharp and stunning. By taking enough influence from anime to make the show look great, but not enough to make the show look ridiculous, Rise succeeds at looking better than ALL of its predecessors. Narratively, it takes some time to get to the significant story beats, but considering most TMNT stories aren't interested in telling a long-form story, Rise's approach to slow-drip-plot, is masterful. The Rise movie is a fantastic exclamation point on a series the creators knew was already dead. I almost understand why someone wouldn't like Rise of the TMNT, but it's hard for me to think someone gave it a fair shake and still didn't see the brilliance of its bizarre take on the TMNT.
5. Nickelodeon’s 2012 Animated Show
After the Viacom acquisition, the impending TMNT cartoon show was an uncomfortable unknown. How closely would it stick to the lore? Would it go off the rails and break the series? Would it be too kiddy for a classic fan to enjoy? All worries were washed away when the show debuted in the Fall of 2012. Featuring the most fully realized version of the 4 turtles to date, Nick’s show was a breath of fresh air. There’s a spark to its dialog and it’s obvious the creators were proud to be working on TMNT. It's hard not to chuckle at least once or twice during every episode and unlike most kid shows, it's easy to care about the over-arching story. The changes made to the base origin and characters can be confusing, but each one has been interesting in its own way. As my good buddy Jeff often says about, it's a beautiful melting pot of everything TMNT. If you haven’t checked it out yet, Nick’s TMNT reboot is more than worth a watch.
4. IDW’s TMNT Comics
The first real content to come from the post-Nickelodeon buyout was the IDW-licensed comic line. Not only did they immediately start frantically reprinting the old Mirage books, but they also launched a new ongoing title set in its own TMNT continuity. Without a doubt, this run has been the most exciting thing to happen to TMNT comics since…let’s say Mirage’s Vol.1. By taking a brand new origin and mixing old characters with new characters, Eastman and Waltz have found a way to re-tell a lot of TMNT history without telling any of the exact same stories we already know. My only real complaint about the book is that its a little too obvious that Nickelodeon has placed certain story restrictions on them. I.E. The Turtles don’t ever kill anyone, and death as a whole is kept to a minimum. Consequently, the book sometimes lacks the teeth of the original Mirage book.
3. The Last Ronin
After 9 years of a fantastic ongoing TMNT comic, IDW decided to stretch its legs and pull an idea out of the Eastman and Laird idea archive. The Last Ronin, is a stand-alone TMNT tale originally outlined by both co-creators Eastman and Laird. It's dark, violent, somber and bold. TLR is easily the best TMNT comic to hit the market since 1992's City at War, and it deserves the same reverence. Truth be told, outside of the original conception of the series, Peter Laird had little to do with its story. The volume was such a success, a teaser was written into the last book that introduced a new generation of Turtles into the fold. This birthed the Ronin-verse. As silly as that may sound, the transition to a new quartet of Turtles has been healthy and fun. The Last Ronin 2 starts later this year and I have no worries that the new TMNT will be built with respect to the originals. That's a feat in and of itself.
2. 4Kids’ 2003 Animated Show
The 4Kids Animated show was produced during the Peter Laird years and with a few exceptions it’s a love letter to fans of the Mirage comics. Unlike the original show, which took the loose concept of Ninja Turtles and built its own little silly world, the 4Kids show took many of its stories directly from the comics and carried a tone closer to that comic's run. Sure some things had to be changed because it was still a kid’s show, but the entire run feels like it's what Laird wanted to do the first time around, but not having complete control got in the way. The best part is that it has aged remarkably well. Despite all episodes being 4:3 SD, the characters and stories still pop to this day. Which, in the end, is just a reflection of how good the source material is.
1. Mirage’s Original Comic Series
Of course, #1 had to go to the Mirage run. Sure, a lot of things can be said about how disjointed the entire experience is, and how bad some of the guest contributors were during the height of the TMNT fad in the early 90′s, but at its core, the Mirage run represented so many different things. It was the start of what would become one of the most successful creator-owned franchises in American history. Mirage was built from nothing (hence the name), and ended up taking over the world on the strength of the characters they created. Vol. 1 of the comics was an instrumental piece of content in the indy comic boom of the 80s and was a flagship, “creators have rights” book. The canonical stories from Vols 1, 2 and 4 are the turtles at their most honest and raw. Eastman and more-so Laird weren’t afraid of taking chances and even the stories that didn’t pan-out HAD to be respected. So, what incarnation is the absolute best? It's the Mirage comics, without a doubt, by a wide margin. Say all the good things you can imagine about the other incarnations on this list, but none of them are "Capital I" Important. Sure, they were great, charming and even dabbled in amazing, but Mirage rewrote the rulebook, and that’s something that will never be usurped.
Cheers!
Addendum: The following incarnations were omitted because they didn’t make a significant contribution to the greater TMNT story.
All TMNT Manga, The TMNT Comic Strip, The Action Figures (they aren’t being included because they are just an extension of the shows and movies, but they kinda had a life of their own), Coming Out of Our Shells Live Tour, Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, The 4kids Based Dreamwave Comics, Later TMNT Video Games (Konami, Ubisoft, and Activision Published), The many other crossover comic book series out there.
#tmnt#ninja turtles#teenage mutant ninja turtles#idw#nickelodeon#nick#mirage#Kevin Eastman#Peter Laird#eastman and laird#saban#uproxx#4kids#imagi#new line#archie comics#image comics#creator owned#platinum dunes#fred wolf#michael bay#rise of the tmnt#tmnt mutant mayhem#the last ronin
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Barbadian genius Sir Lloyd Erskine Sandiford: truly an iconic figure in his own life time, is dead!
By Stanley Collymore
You always were, still are and
will forever be an irrefutably
phenomenal inspiration in
the lives of all Barbadians irrespective
of the generation, that they belong to;
and also crucially significantly, those
still unborn. A distinct, exceptionally
outstandingly fulfilled life, that very
certainly on your part, was clearly
lived to the fullest; in significantly
quite obviously, advantageously
too, likewise very constructively
distinctively simply shaping the
future and actually the careers
of plainly, multiple generations
of thoroughly indebted Bajans;
as we adoringly call ourselves.
Mortals we all are and Death
is inevitable, although our
Barbadian culture and
upbringing do positively, encourage us
to very welcomingly embrace it as and
when it inevitably comes, and crucially
in no way, intelligently fear it; as Death
so discernibly is not the definitive end.
And you Sir are the classic archetypal
embodiment of this lovely philosophy
of ours and, as such, those of us who
are still here quite uncompromisingly
salute and obviously, wholeheartedly
honour the phenomenal perspicacity
with which you've clearly remarkably
conducted your exceptionally styled
honourably lived, and rewarding life.
Consequently, we who remain will
undoubtedly miss you for sure
while absolutely confident
nevertheless, that your very esteemed
presence - eight decades plus among
us and similarly what most irrefutably
quite superbly conscionably, similarly
empathetically and very committedly
stood for, will constantly remain very
deeply ingrained; forever rapturously
treasured and enduringly so lovingly
in the hearts, minds, and recurrently
permanent reminiscences naturally,
of every Citizen - of our meritocracy
motivated, evident politically stable
democracy; crucially well-educated
and an unequivocally plain-spoken,
intrepid independent Bajan Nation!
(C) Stanley V. Collymore
27 June 2023.
Author's Remarks:
On the 26 June 2023 Barbadians both at home and throughout our global Diaspora learnt sadly of the death of one of our most iconic and progressive political leaders who died that day.
Sir Lloyd Erskine Sandiford: a veritably outstanding educationalist, politician and the 4th Prime Minister of our truly beloved homeland hugely transformed Barbados into the exceptionally quite outstanding society that it is today; not only in terms of education and health with Barbados at the very top of these globally, but equally our country's political maturity and stability, in tandem with the precepts of Meritocracy, Equality and Democracy for all Barbadians regardless of where they live or were born, as the late notable USA Congresswoman: Shirley Chisholm, who was of Barbadian heritage and had her formative education in Barbados always proudly recounted.
I knew Sir Lloyd Erskine Sandiford personally as we were members of the same political party the Barbados Democratic Labour Party (DLP); and he will be sorely missed. Hence this tribute to him!
I also wish to express my sincerest condolences to Sir Lloyd Erskine Sandiford's widow, Lady Angelita Sandiford an outstanding Bajan in her own right as a psychologist and educationalist and their three children. My thoughts are with you. And to all my fellow Bajans I know how you feel as I feel the same.
Sir Lloyd Erskine Sandiford 24 March 1937 - 26 June 2023. Age 86 years. You'll never be forgotten! The Barbados Government and Parliament quite expectedly and highly commendably have confirmed that Sir Lloyd Erskine Sandiford, our former Prime Minister will have a State Funeral.
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You know why I always talked about you having brown eyes?
Cause it was the most beautiful and mesmerizing thing for me. And I could still get my heart beating rapidly while thinking about those eyes. Which shined brightly in the sun. I never realized until that day that you had brown eyes.
Those eyes were ready to open me up as an open book. Those eyes were able to read me through my soul which is why I couldn't stare at you. As if you could read through me that I might have fallen for you... like the crush has changed into love ever since the last ramadan.
Liittle did that Farin knew that it was the moment she was falling deeper than ever..
I happily failed the test but that day I was having a rush of butterflies in my stomach which lasted for days... Even when I was trying to give up on you saying I'll never get you,, those days of remembering those eyes and getting jealous of the future girl you will get.. nuisance but the jealousy was working on its peak thinking that someone else might be the one to get those beautiful eyes and smile and that perfection of yours will belong to them... that's when I became greedy. I wanted to have all of you for me... I wish I wasn't that stupid to rush things... I wish that these jealousy could have been erased,, I wished ..
The time you were searching for uber I kept stealing your glimpses. I never thought that it would be the last time...
They said loving a writer meant being a character of one of their book. And maybe just like those classical writers explaining the cheeks of the beautiful female characters as an apple started to make sense for me. And I happen to behave like them admiring every bits of you while acting like I don't care.
How ethereal it was to see you under the tree and those few drops of shining sun setting on your hands.. manly and handsome.... I wish I could explain it the way I have seen... Like the writers... I wish I had learned more words to describe you perfectly.. I wished so many things...
Those heavenly fine Adam apples and that heavenly neck as if you were really a fictional character. I happen to look at the mole on your neck. Perfectly fine hair you kept nagging about it getting dirty. But how I wish you could see yourself the way I have seen.
Great I had definitely fallen deeper for you!!
Sadly I could care less about those features cause for the time being I started feeling like I'll be doomed if I ever get to be hugged by you. I was not sexualizing you. But I only wanted to be loved by you. I wanted to be greedy for you..
How crazy I was, wasn't I? Maybe all those fangirling moments all those fictional characters started laughing at me saying see you thought people like us doesn't exist but in real it does... And now look what are you doing...
You were the sweet boy I could never had.. I knew my fate and that's when it gets real... Like the saying reality is the harsh truth... I knew I could never have you. Neither can I be totally yours... But that time I started praying for you to become mine... I cried .. I prayed...
those months I unknowingly fell more deeper for you... as if through the months since our 3rd and 4th meet I was only falling deeper than ever...
Just the same as the airports which have seen more kissing, longing stories then the halls of a marriage/church/ mosques/ mandir does.. I loved you when you had already left.. I'm sorry that I failed...
Luckily I was able to meet you. But I failed to keep you. More than this I failed to make you falling deeper for me.
And those last two months when you were doing right I failed...
The thing you are afraid of happening will happen became true and I failed to prove my loyalty to you...
I could explain everything to you but I had forgotten what I had told you before cause none of these actually mattered.. I knew my intentions which was totally stupid but I didn't knew that things could be go like this...
I told you every secrets of mine except my mental family traumas... And look those secrets were now breaking the house I have been making for so long...
All the other guys I have met before fell for me... And I thought that this guy would be the best to make you jealous... At least better than those guys who had proposed me... I'm really dumb... Ik and so I'm repenting ...
I only wish for you to understand me after all this... I know I am dumb... But I wish you had known too... So now I'm wishing for you to understand me even if it's too late I only wish for you to understand that what I have been through...
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Bobby Colomby and John Scheinfeld
Explain What the Hell Happened to Blood, Sweat and Tears
by Jay S. Jacobs
“What goes up, must come down.” That line is not just the opening salvo of 1960s and 1970s hitmakers Blood, Sweat and Tears’ classic smash hit single “Spinning Wheel,” but it also is sadly a pretty accurate description of the band’s career. However, it was more than just a spinning wheel that got to go ‘round which pulled the group down from the heights of stardom.
The story is much more complicated than that. It is a sordid tale of political intrigue, blackmail, communism, consumerism, Richard Nixon, hippies, immigration, oppression, fighting, Abbie Hoffman, extremism, the generation gap, Cold War posturing, dealing with The Man, far-right fanaticism and an early example of what would later come to be called “cancel culture.”
It is a story that has barely been told in the 50 years since the band’s glory days, but the whole amazing story is brought out into the light by documentarian John Scheinfeld in his latest film, What the Hell Happened to Blood, Sweat and Tears?
Scheinfeld has specialized in films which are pieces of musical excavation, taking deep dives into forgotten (or underexplored) pop music sagas such as The US vs. John Lennon, Chasing ‘Trane, Herb Alpert Is, and Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talking About Him?).
Helping Scheinfeld to dig up the truth was Blood, Sweat and Tears founder (and former drummer) Bobby Colomby. While Colomby is no longer anchoring the backbeat on the skins for the current incarnation of the band, he still is in charge of the group as well as working as a producer.
Colomby put the band together in Greenwich Village about the time of the summer of Love. Their first album – Child Is the Father of Man – had lead vocals by Al Kooper. The record was well-respected but did not do particularly well or spawn any hit singles. Colomby felt that Kooper, while a brilliant instrumentalist and producer, was not really a good enough singer to lead the band. When he broached the subject to Kooper, he quit rather than give up vocals.
He was replaced by Canadian singer David Clayton-Thomas, who helmed the band’s self-titled second album, which exploded Blood, Sweat and Tears onto the radio and the record charts. That album spawned three huge hit singles – a cover of an obscure Brenda Holloway single “You Make Me So Very Happy,” signer Clayton-Thomas’ composition “Spinning Wheel” and a cover of Laura Nyro’s “And When I Die.” Interestingly, all three singles peaked at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, being held out of the top spot by such classics as The Fifth Dimension’s “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In,” Zager & Evans’ “In the Year 2525” and The Beatles’ “Something” and “Come Together.” (The Beatles songs were a two-sided single.)
However, their time at the very top of the charts pretty much came to an end after a disastrous tour of Communist Bloc countries which was set up “as a diplomatic exchange” by the US State Department. What was never told is that the band was strong-armed into doing those shows by the government, which was threatening to deport lead singer Clayton-Thomas, a Canadian citizen.
Therefore this stridently non-political (though most of the members tended to be left leaning) group of musicians became pawns in a political game that they really had no interest in playing. They were vilified by both the left and the right.
The band has continued on over the years with multiple line up changes, because like the song says, “And when I die and when I'm gone, there'll be one child born in this world to carry on, carry on.” However, while they had some periodic hits after the infamous Iron Curtain tour – like “Hi-De-Ho” and “Lucretia McEvil” – the band never again reached the rarified air of the eponymous album’s pop culture dominance.
Blood, Sweat and Tears are much too innovative and talented a band to be confined to the dustbin of history. Hopefully What the Hell Happened to Blood, Sweat and Tears? will help to return the spotlight to a woefully undervalued body of work and an envelope-pushing musical act. That would make us so very happy.
Soon after the release of the film, we chatted on Zoom with Colomby and Scheinfeld to get the true story of What the Hell Happened to Blood, Sweat and Tears?
The story that this film exposes what led to the downfall of Blood, Sweat and Tears has been pretty unknown for all these decades. John, how did you find out about what happened and decide it would make a good film?
John Scheinfeld: It’s all Bobby Colomby’s fault. We met a few years ago. He had seen my Chasing ‘Trane film and wanted to meet, so we had lunch. That was about six years ago and that was that. Then about two months before COVID hit, he called out of the blue. He said, “I’ve got a story I want to tell you, let’s go to lunch.”
Bobby Colomby: I said COVID is coming! (laughs) No, I didn’t.
Why did you think it was time to get this story out?
Bobby Colomby: I didn’t think that. I hadn't thought about it, honestly. But 50 years, life goes on you. You're in the present. You're thinking of what you're going to do tomorrow, not harping on yesterday. I was pretty much not thinking about it until my friend Rupert Perry, who was an executive at EMI for years, and a wonderful man. I was having dinner with him. He used to play drums. He said, “Why did you stop playing?” He just goes through my history, you know? I just said, “Well, on top of everything else, I kept the band together. I kept changing people. We had this eastern European [tour]…” I just mentioned it. Then I said, “Yeah, there was actually a film crew. [An] independent company heard about it, and they wanted to join us and State Department.” He's going what? He's flipping out. I'm not even that excited, but [Rupert] is flipping out. He has a friend that ran Thorn-EMI films. He said, “Find this film, because it exists somewhere.” I said, “Well, the company was called National General. Then I think they sold it to Filmways. I don't know. His friend goes to Paramount and goes to Warner Brothers and can't find anything. There was no mention of it at all. So that was the end of it.
But eventually you thought of contacting John about the story?
Bobby Colomby: Then I see Chasing ‘Trane. I'm a jazz fan. I was wondering how are you going to do anything on Coltrane? He's mysterious. The guy didn't do a whole lot of interviews, There’s not a lot of footage of him other than with Miles [Davis]. I'm thinking, “Boy, that'll be interesting to see how he does this.“ Then we end up having lunch. I'm just talking to him about stuff. I was just reminded, “Oh, that's right. You make films. Well, speaking of films…” I was just reenergized over the concept by my friend Rupert, and I brought it up.
John Scheinfeld: We went to lunch, and I told him how much I loved the band. I literally said, “What the hell happened to Blood, Sweat and Tears? Here you guys were, one of the hottest bands going, and then you weren’t. What happened?” He said, “That’s the story I’m going to tell you.” And that’s the story we told in the film.
Bobby Colomby: He said, “I was really a fan of Blood, Sweat and Tears. What the hell happened to Blood, Sweat and Tears?” I start explaining the story again. Then when I said, “And there is film somewhere on it,” his hair caught fire. [He said,] “I got to find this.”
John Scheinfeld: I saw in this, Jay, elements of a multi-layered story that really is more of a political thriller than it is a music documentary. We have elements of espionage. We have Vietnam. We have Nixon and Kissinger in the White House. We have film smuggling. We secret police in three communist countries. And I think at the heart of it, what really interested me the most was I felt there were some Shakespearean overtones here. A group of nine innocent guys who did something they had to do to save themselves, but in doing that they killed themselves. That to me is a fascinating story.
Blood Sweat and Tears were so unique musically, even for back then. What is it about their sound that you feel really made them stand out?
Bobby Colomby: First of all, the actual configuration of the band is the four horns. And they're not used in unison. They're not all playing the same notes, which a lot of bands do. In a lot of R&B music, when they had horns, they were almost like another rhythm guitar. (hums the sound). That kind of thing. (continues humming) That’s what they would do.
John Scheinfeld: I think what made Blood, Sweat and Tears so unique was the innovative sound that they created. They brought in elements of jazz. They brought in elements of rock. They brought in elements of blues. They brought in elements of classical. The combination of that at that time was very unique. I think that’s what accounts for the fact that the second album they put out, which is the first one with David Clayton-Thomas as the lead singer, at that time and for some years, was one of the biggest selling albums ever. They had three top ten singles off of that. They really influenced a lot of other bands, like Chicago, and Ides of March, and some of the others. But I think it was that sound that made them so unusual and really made them stand out.
Bobby Colomby: I'm a jazz fan. I have two older brothers. One was 16 years older; one was 17 years older than me. The oldest was a trumpet player, self-taught. Really good jazz player, who was really good friends with Miles Davis. My other brother managed Thelonious Monk for 14 years. So, I had Bach and Beethoven in my living room growing up. The only music I ever heard was jazz. I could never understand why everyone wasn't loving jazz, (laughs) because it was such a unique style of musical expression, smart and spontaneous. For me, it was exciting. Pop music was just not all that inventive. You knew what the next chord was going to be. It was rarely a surprise. Then there were lyrics that were not Johnny Mandel.
So how did the band come together?
Bobby Colomby: I started hanging around in the West Village. I was going to graduate school down there. I met Steve Katz, funny, nice guy. He was in a band that was about to break up [The Blues Project]. He and Al Kooper were in the band together and they couldn't stand each other. Al left first and then Steve left. I was hanging around playing in the village. I'm a self-taught drummer that never really fell in love with my drumming. I just thought I could do it, because if you played jazz, you got to be able to play. (laughs) I'm not comparing myself to Shakespeare in any way, but he really had a grasp of the English language. You have to have some understanding and some technique to play drums in the jazz idiom. Al Kooper heard me play and asked if I would join him for a fundraiser… for him. He wanted to leave America. He wanted to be a producer in England. He didn't have the money. He said, “Would you do this with me?” I said, “Why don’t you get Steve to play it?” “He won't do it. I hate him.” I said, “Don't be an idiot. Let me ask him.” I asked Steve. “Oh, he'll never want [me].” I said just do it. Play as a quartet. We played over the weekend at the Cafe Au Go-Go on Bleecker Street. He didn't raise any money.
Oh well….
Bobby Colomby: I was pursuing the concept of a band that would have jazz players, who were most of my friends, musicians who could play jazz. And some of the pop guys because they're my friends. We wanted to put them all in a room and see what happens. I said to Steve, “Why don't you call Al and see if we can have some of those songs that we played with him?” Because I liked them. That would be a good start for the band that I was going to put together with Steve. Steve called Al. Then Steve called me back and said, “Oh, good news.” I said, great. Al said we can have the songs. Fantastic. I'm ready to hang up the phone. “Wait, he wants to be in the band.” Uh oh. “And he wants to be the singer.” Uh oh. The uh oh was mistimed because Al is brilliant as a hustler. He knows how to get things done. He always has a big picture. He got us a record deal. I never would have done that in a million years. He gets us a record deal.
Wow.
Bobby Colomby: Then he kind of takes over the band. He's the band leader. He's doing everything. I was a little hesitant because I didn't think his singing was great. Especially in that world, if you want to be on the radio, which is how you had success, I didn't think his voice would really translate to the radio. Plus, he was a little bit on the fragile side. I watched a great producer, John Simon, on the first album, he had to get the punch in on the syllable sometimes to get him to sing so it was actually recordable. I saw that, I don't know how we're going to do this. Then I find out that he does a song, and he doesn't even include the rest of the band, just a string quartet. I'm starting to realize he's not a band member, this is a springboard for him. No problem because he's already got us a record deal and things are going. Then I called a meeting with Steve of the band and just said, “Al we have to get a singer. I'm not going to kick you out of the band, but we have to get a singer.” He said, “I'm the singer or I leave.” They voted him out.
Once David Clayton-Thomas came, you guys suddenly are all over the radio with things like “Spinning Wheel,” “You Make Me So Very Happy” and “And When I Die.” What was it like to be part of the band at that point when everything was just blowing up?
Bobby Colomby: That's a great question, because the answer is not what you think it's going to be. You don't know it. You don't know you're successful. You really don't have any idea what's going on. You're in the center of a hurricane and it's very still, everything else is going on, but you're just doing your thing. At this point, I'm the bandleader, so I have to organize a lot of stuff. I'm working with Clive Davis, who was wonderful to us. He believed in us. He believed in Al, also. He hired Al as an A&R guy. He kept us afloat.
John Scheinfeld: The interesting thing is there were nine guys in that version of the band. They stayed together from mid-1968 until late-1971. I think the success they had was a great surprise to them. I think they never thought they were going to be a major hit band.
Bobby Colomby: Once we heard David, at an audition, it was pretty obvious that you aren’t going to find a lot of voices like that. [David] was a band member. He was the hardest working guy. He was so professional. It was actually a pleasure because he knew this was his shot. He wasn't going to jump ship the second we had success. He was a lot of fun, except he's Canadian. Nothing wrong with being Canadian, most of the Canadians I know are wonderful people, certainly. Except someone from the government at that time [started keeping an eye on him.]
John Scheinfeld: Steve Katz tells a great story in the film about how he was looking at the charts one day and the self-titled album ended up and number 16. He thought, “Wow, this is great. We’ve got a hit record.” Then he called back into the woman that he knew there the next week and said, “So, where are we this week?” She said, “Well, I can’t find you.” He was, well, all right, we made it to 16. That’s pretty good. Then she called him back and said, “I didn’t think to look at number one.” (laughs) So I think to all of them, the success was a surprise, but a welcome surprise.
Blood Sweat and Tears had an awful lot of players in a single band, Obviously you couldn’t speak to everyone, but you got to speak to a good number of the guys who were in the band.
John Scheinfeld: We were able to talk to five of the band members. Two had passed away in the last five or six years. Two felt they really didn’t have enough to say, so that’s why we didn’t talk to them. But the five that we did talk to are David Clayton-Thomas, Steve Katz, Bobby Colomby, Jim Fielder and Freddie Lipsius, all of whom had very unique perspectives and very unique ways of speaking. You love that as a filmmaker because it really keeps things very fresh and alive when you’re watching the film.
As has been mentioned, most people don’t know the whole Iron Curtain tour story. Obviously, I don’t want you to tell everything, but could you just tease a little of the story for us?
John Scheinfeld: Absolutely. In 1970, Blood, Sweat and Tears became the first American rock band to perform behind the Iron Curtain. The Iron Curtain, for some of your younger readers, was in the days when there was a Cold War going on between Russia and the United States. There was a demarcation line in Europe. If you were to the East of that, you were communist and under the sway of Russia. If you were on the other side of that, you were free and democratic.
Bobby Colomby: This is 1969-1970. This is when there's a war raging in Vietnam. There's a Nixon administration, which is dodgy at best. If you were under 30, most kids were against the war. Against Nixon. As we were. Not as a group. It wasn't anything we planned. But if someone put a mic on their chin and said, “What do you think?” we're all going to feel the same way. Steve was a little more outspoken. For him was like an outfit. “This looks good on me. I think I'm going to be radical.” He didn't go out and march. He didn't do anything extraordinary, but he believed, and he was more outspoken about it than anyone else. But we all had the same exact sentiment.
John Scheinfeld: Very few Americans had gone behind the Iron Curtain, much less a rock band. So this was, on one hand, a very exciting opportunity for Blood, Sweat and Tears. Why they did it is part of the mystery that we had to solve in this film.
Bobby Colomby: I guess a right winger, some senator, someone investigated David, the Canadian. Like “who the hell is this guy think he is telling us what to do in Vietnam?” Or “who does he think he is? He's against our President.” They found he had a jail record in Canada. And a green card… you have to have this green card today. It still exists. If you want to play in the United States and you're an alien, that's how you do it. You have to be certified or whatever. They revoked his green card. So we have the number one album, but we can't play in the United States anymore.
John Scheinfeld: There were elements of blackmail involved, pressure and government policy, and a number of other things that we detail in the film. They had to do this tour. It was not by choice.
Bobby Colomby: We had hired a manager. He was a devious guy. Either the State Department went to him, or he went to the State Department – which is a little left of Nixon, by the way. They weren't all in on him. They said, “Well, if you if you're having a problem with a green card, I think we know how to get it back. We're trying to get a relationship with some of the satellite countries behind the iron curtain that were controlled by Russia.” At the time the USSR.
John Scheinfeld: They went to three communist countries, Yugoslavia, Romania, and Poland. They did a number of concerts over a three-week period in cities within those countries. It's hard for us today, Jay, to understand just what life was like in those countries and what they encountered when they went there. Today, there are people who praise Putin and like the way he does things. What our band members found is that it is no picnic living under a dictator. It is no picnic living in a repressive society, where you can't say what you want to say. You can't read what you want to read. You're under surveillance. They can lock you up for no reason whatsoever. That's what they were walking into. It was a real eye-opening experience for them.
Bobby Colomby: To various degrees, each one of these countries that we had visited – Yugoslavia, Romania and Poland – had different levels of pressure from Russia. The worst was obviously Romania. When you see the movie, you'll see. It was an amazing thing. We knew that we had no choice. We knew we had to do this tour, or we were going to lose our singer right in the middle of our success. So, we did it.
John Scheinfeld: Each of the three countries had their own particular form of communism, so the experience in each of those countries was a little different. We talked about that in the film. Where they really had some issues was in Romania, which was the most repressive of the three countries. There was a near riot at one of their concerts. We talked about what happened there and the consequences of that riot.
Bobby Colomby: Obviously [we] couldn't announce it, couldn't tell anyone. But when the marquee says US State Department sponsored tour, that means the Abbie Hoffmans of the world who make their money and their fame by being extremists on the left side, they went, “Perfect. Let's go after the number one band and call them pigs and traitors.” That's what they did. We were squeezed from both ends. The right and the left just killed us. And we couldn't say anything.
John Scheinfeld: The real issue was when they came home. We detail that in the film, that they found themselves in the crosshairs of a polarized America. The country at that time was just as divided as we are now. The specifics were a little different, but left and right, red and blue, all of that existed then. They found themselves squeezed by both sides, which is what made their situation so unusual. Today, you're either criticized from the left or the right. They were criticized and hammered by both, and it really affected their entire career trajectory.
Bobby Colomby: Imagine you're about to get on a plane. If someone says to you, “so what do you think about your country, the United States?” You say, “We got to get out of the swamp Vietnam.” “Nixon should get out of office. He's untrustworthy.” Etc., etc.” You'd have all these things, right? Then you go over there, and you're up against communism. You see it face to face. Your reaction almost immediately is this is not a solution. This is not going to work. So the Abbie Hoffmans and the extreme leftists are out of their mind. They have no idea. Abbie Hoffman never actually picketed in Romania, never went to these places. (laughs)
John Scheinfeld: You know what it is, Jay – and you see it, because you cover so much pop culture. Movies, TV shows, music, books, whatever it is – they have a moment. That moment is where everything is just working great. You get great reviews. You're in demand for this. People want to see this. Everybody's talking about you. Everybody thinks you're great. That's where Blood, Sweat and Tears were. They were being elevated and they're famous and all of that. But as you know, just one little thing can throw that moment off. What happened to Blood, Sweat and Tears when they came back from this tour, it wasn't a little thing. It was a big thing. And the moment was gone. They continued to record. They continued to perform. But things weren't the same.
Bobby Colomby: I had a call from a woman from The New York Post. I used to love The Post. I used to read it on the subway. It was easy to read, great sports section. In the afternoon, it had the latest. I enjoyed the post. I was excited, because she called me at home after our tour and said, “Hey, I want to talk about the tour.” Oh, great. I said, “Do you have any kind of a travel budget? Because if you do, going there's really cheap. It is not expensive at all. If you go and come back, we can have a comprehensive interview because then you'll see what I saw.” She goes, “That's a great idea. Thank you.” Hangs up. Next day, there's a complete article in The Post about an interview she did with me that never happened.
It is pointed out in the film that despite being in the middle of the 1960s and early 1970s, Blood Sweat and Tears were not an overly political band.
Bobby Colomby: Not at all.
Steve was sort of political in the film. You said certain things that were a little political, but that might have been in hindsight. Mostly you guys were left leaning, but you're a musician, so you didn't really care about that stuff.
Bobby Colomby: You summed it up. That's exactly right.
Do you think that had the band known more about politics it could have missed some of the problems? Or do you think that the band were just sort of in the middle of a no-win thing?
John Scheinfeld: It's easy to look back at 1970 and what they encountered and do so through the prism of 2023, where PR people are everywhere. There's spin. There's spending. People are careful about what they say and all of that. That wasn't around in 1970. These guys were – and I admire them for it – they were all under 30. Like most young people at that time, they were against the Vietnam War. They were against what Nixon was doing with regard to the war and some other things. They weren't terribly out of step.
Bobby Colomby: The thing that has to be clear, if someone has said to us, “we got to talk to you, if you do this, it could screw up your career. Anyone over 30 will turn on you, because you know, because you're coming back and you're saying that you know communism is bad. How dare you say communism is bad. Nixon is terrible, you know?” If we knew all this, and someone said, “if you go on this tour, you're going to get slammed.” Or you lose your lead singer. (laughs) That's what people keep missing. Or you lose your lead singer. We're not about to lose our lead singer. So if this is the option, we have to take it. We can't announce it. The State Department made it a rallying cry. It got out of hand. It should have been a very quiet tour and we came back. That was the end of it, you know? Then he gets his green card back.
John Scheinfeld: It's this political rat's nest – as David Clayton-Thomas called it – that they ran into. I have to admire that they were just honest and candid and direct about what they saw over in those communist countries. And they got nailed for it. It was the media and the establishment that are really to blame here, not the fact that they should have done this, or they should have handled it this way.
Things, if possible, are even more polarized now than they were then. For example, watching that you were seeing echoes of the whole thing going on with Putin now and the Ukraine…
Bobby Colomby: Exactly the same. The only difference is today, there is extreme polarization, but it's horizontal. The right going to extremes and the left going to extremes. Back then was vertical. Over 30, under 30. That's the way it shook out back then.
John Scheinfeld: There are a lot of parallels that will resonate with people today. The obvious ones are the divide between left and right, red and blue, east and west. But also, I think the consequences of cancel culture. They didn't have a term for it back in 1970, but Blood, Sweat and Tears was an early victim of that. To look at that and say that's wrong, that is just wrong. When we were in editing, our historian Tim Naftali – who's one of the two CNN presidential historians, so he knows a lot – he was really talking about various aspects of this story and putting a lot of historical events in perspective. He did talk a little bit about how, when the government of Czechoslovakia tried to become more free and more democratic, the Russians couldn't handle that. So they rolled in and invaded with their tanks and forcefully put people back under the repression of the government. We couldn't help but think of Russian tanks rolling into Ukraine when we saw that footage.
What do you think the story can tell the current generation? Sort of as a cautionary tale?
Bobby Colomby: Yeah, that's exactly it. You answered your own question. It's a cautionary tale.
John Scheinfeld: History repeats itself. What's the old saying? If you don't learn from the lessons of history, you're doomed to repeat them. I think audiences today can learn a lot from what happened to Blood, Sweat, and Tears.
Bobby Colomby: This film is hardly a documentary of a band. It's not a music documentary. It's a moment in time for the band. It's a political thriller. It's a feature film. It's non-fiction, and the actors happen to be the participants.
John Scheinfeld: This is a cracking good story. It's like a great spy story that you could find in a spy novel or a spy film. I think people who are going to come to see our film will be really entertained. There's a lot of twists and turns in it, and a lot of fascinating voices in it. What we've really heard from a lot of people along the way – we've been in theaters since the end of March – it is the kind of film that stays with you. You talk about it. You talk about it with your friends as to what you saw. Some people have said, I got to come back and see it again, because there's so much stuff of interest in it.
There was 65 hours’ worth of film done on the tour. Basically, no one knows where anything is other than about an hour’s worth of footage, what was used in this film. Do you think the rest of it is in some giant government warehouse, like at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark? Do you think it will show up or do you think it's lost for good?
John Scheinfeld: Well, you've identified two of my nightmares, Jay. Again, for your readers, Blood, Sweat and Tears took a documentary film crew along with them before this Iron Curtain tour. It was an independent production company that was hired. They shot 65 hours of material. They recorded all of their concerts on eight-track. Not the eight-tracks that people had in their cars, but eight-track studio machines. They came back to LA with the idea of making a documentary for theaters because Blood, Sweat and Tears was that big. That's when more problems started with this footage.
Bobby Colomby: He got very lucky. He found a guy named Donn Cambern. I remember him from the tour. He was the director of that independent film that was being shot of our tour. He just wanted to shoot a full-length feature of a famous band playing in some interesting places. We also played in Western Europe on that same tour, but the crew was really there to follow us through Eastern Europe, because it was unprecedented at the time that an American pop band would be playing there.
John Scheinfeld: What we learned was that the State Department had seen a rough cut of a two-and-a-half-hour version of this film. They had problems with it. We detail what those problems were. Ultimately, the State Department had the final say as to what this film was going to be, and this film never came out. The production company went bankrupt at the end of 1970. The post-production house that physically had all the materials where they were doing all the editing, went bankrupt in 1971.
Bobby Colomby: John found Donn. Donn is one of the nicest men, I remember. He still was. He was already 90 years old [when the documentary was made], and it was [during] COVID, so it was hard to get him. Finally when it lifted enough so he could leave his facility, he came. I think his interviews were the most important in this entire film.
John Scheinfeld: So here we are 50-some years later, trying to pick up a cold case of where this stuff is. We check every independent film storage facility here in LA and in New York. We checked government facilities. There was no paper trail on any of this. What we've had to do is piece together, from what the band members remembered, what people on the tour remembered, and then we found we were able to get access to declassified State Department documents. We talk about in the film what we think happened to it.
Yes, that is covered.
John Scheinfeld: But to answer your question, my two nightmares are: 1) yes, the government put it in the Raiders of the Lost Ark warehouse. It will never ever be seen again. Or 2) I'm going to be out on the road – where I have been for the last couple of weeks promoting the film and doing Q&A's after some of the screenings – and somebody's going to come up to me after one of these Q&A's and say, “Why didn't you call me? I have it all in my garage.” (laughs) But I honestly think it's gone. What we did find was a pristine print of a cut that they did for TV. That was only an hour. That didn't get aired either. It was just sitting in this vault since 1971.
What was surprising is even for the stuff that was going to be in the TV documentary, they did show a lot of things. Although the State Department wanted to keep everything upbeat, it did show a lot of the oppression behind the Iron Curtain. Were you surprised to find that that was still in there?
John Scheinfeld: I was delighted that it was in there because it enabled us to properly tell the story. In those 60 minutes, we found almost everything we needed to tell the story, although we would have liked more, of course. But I think the answer is I wasn't really surprised that it was in there, because this thing never got released. I think because that stuff was in there, finally the State Department just said no, we can't put this out, no matter how you cut it.
The music sounded great, too, which is a little bit surprising, just because it's that old, and the footage had disappeared for a long time. Were you surprised by the quality of the music? You guys are releasing a soundtrack album with music from the tour. Were you involved in that, or is that something that Bobby handled himself?
John Scheinfeld: I was involved in some aspects of it. One of the things Jay that I like most about my job is the detective work. We find stuff. (laughs) Like we found that one hour of the film, we were looking for the recordings made during those Iron Curtain concerts. Their record label Columbia Records – which is now Sony Music – didn't have them. They weren't involved with this tour. I mean, we tried it, but I didn't think they really would have that stuff. Band members didn't have it, didn't know where it was. We tracked down engineers who were recording that stuff. They didn't know where it was. It all had been delivered to the documentary production company.
Bobby Colomby: When you deal with anyone that's had a history of making documentary films, they're better than detectives. They find stuff, man. It's really pretty amazing. Certain laws have changed, like the Freedom of Information Act and things like that. You're actually able to go in and get a lot of what was once top-secret information or confidential. Now you can get it. He's relentless. His team is relentless. They found tons. He found something in my house I didn't know I had, climbing up the ladder and finding tapes. He said, “What is this?” I said, “I have no idea.” It was actually the audio of the press conference after we came back from Eastern Europe.
John Scheinfeld: I had this researcher, Kathleen, who's very sweet and extremely persistent. She tracked down the family of the associate producer of the film crew for the documentary that never got made. He had died in 2018, but he had a storage unit. The family donated the contents of the storage unit to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences here in Los Angeles. They sat there for three years. Nobody inventoried the collection. Nobody knew what was there. This was just sitting on a couple of shelves somewhere. So Kathleen kept being very persistent. And finally a wonderful archivist named Warren went down there. Lo and behold, there were five of these eight track recordings made of those concerts.
I was surprised at how good the band performances from the tour sounded, because those tapes had been lost for a long time.
Bobby Colomby: Jay, my victory in this project, ultimately, hopefully, will be people that will say that was a great band. It was no secret why they were successful. They didn't sneak into a number one spot. I think we affected music generally. So many musicians have told me over the course of my career how much that meant to them, and how they learned their instrument when they heard what we did. I'm a fan of an arranger/composer named Vince Mendoza. I think he's brilliant. He's a contemporary, and he's just unbelievably talented. He told me the other day, by accident, he said, “Well, I learned a lot. Because in high school I had to write the horn parts out to ‘Lucretia McEvil,’” which is one of our songs. Then he picked up the trumpet and he just wanted to play like Lewis Soloff, our trumpet player, and his solo on “Lucretia McEvil.” That's how he learned to play trumpet. This is my favorite arranger/composer. He learned because of my band. That's quite something, actually.
John Scheinfeld: Across those five [tapes] were all but two songs that they performed on the tour. Why this guy kept those five, I don't know. We got [shows] 3,4,7,9 and 18. At one time, there were 18 of them. Why he didn't save all 18, or what happened to the other ones, we don't know. But we had them transferred to digital. Then we went into Capitol Records, the studio where Frank Sinatra and a lot of other famous artists have recorded. Bobby and this wonderful engineer, Allen Sides, took the original eight-tracks and mixed them. It really sounds like they were recorded yesterday. They were so clear and sharp. The band was so good. Some of the band members have said to me that BS&T was better live than on record. They were really good on record, so that should tell you something. They were just at the height of their powers here. These performances just will blast you out of your seat, they're so good.
Well, what was it like putting together the soundtrack album? I know that John told me that you guys had tapes of five of the 18 shows.
Bobby Colomby: Mainly, I would say 90% was one concert. That was in Poland. In the movie, David correctly remembers that was a moment in time that the audience was amazing. The venue was fantastic. The sound was great. We hit the stage and for us, it was like a huge exhale. After having been in Romania – again, see the movie, you'll see what happened. We played our asses off in that concert. There's no overdubbing. There's no fixing of anything. I mean, that was the concert. We just mixed it into stereo and 5.1 for the film or DVD.
What was it like hearing what you played again after fifty years of these tapes being lost?
Bobby Colomby: This is sort of a confession. I have said this before. It's not humble brag, I really wasn't a big fan of my drumming. I think if you go to any musician and say you're really great, they're going to tell you who their influences are, who their idols are, and say, “Well, if you, you know, if you want to hear great, you should check them out.” If you go to Eric Clapton, he'll tell you the greatest in the world, “Try Albert King, if you have a minute.” I was just not a big fan of my drumming. While I'm mixing, I get this out-of-body experience that I'm starting to feel like I'm a surgeon. While I'm at the control board and I'm doing the mixing with Allen Sides, I'm really an engineer. We're friends. We've done a lot of stuff together. We're just sitting there doing stuff. All of a sudden, I feel like a surgeon, and like another doctor in the middle of the surgery taps me on the shoulder and says, “Hey, Doc, by the way, that patient, this is you 50 years ago.’ I'm realizing I'm actually doing something that's neat. Play. 50 years ago. I hadn't thought of it. I haven't played since 1975, or something. It was the first time I liked my drumming. I would go and hear that kid. He's good.
What was it like just seeing yourself 50 years ago, and the old the old film footage?
Bobby Colomby: I don't obsess about, as they say, my own stuff. There's so much to do moving forward that involves other people that are wonderful musicians that I can help. That's really my emphasis.
John, you mentioned one of the great things about your job is you're able to do detective work. You've done a lot of really very terrific musicians over the years. Of course, Coltrane and John Lennon and Herb Alpert. My particular favorite of your subjects is Harry Nilsson. I wrote books about Tom Waits and Tori Amos like 15-20 years ago, and at that time – before you did your documentary – I was trying to convince my agent that I should do a book on Harry Nilsson. He said, “I don’t think that enough people know about him to make it worthwhile.” I was going, yeah, but he's got such a fascinating story. But, anyway, how do you decide who you’re going to cover? What do you look for in a musician’s story that makes you want to bring it to the screen?
John Scheinfeld: Great question. It's really two things. The first one is: What is the story? Is it just this happened, this happened, this happened, this happened, this happened, and you're tracking a career? That's one kind of a story, and I've done a few like that. But I'm much more interested in a story that has a lot of layers to it, and a lot of different directions to it. That will take you off on the side trips of really fascinating things. Because these lead characters are so fascinating, complicated, and complex. Harry is one of the most complicated, complex musicians you possibly could have. Sweet, gentle, talented, and totally crazy and self-destructive. I'm looking for those layers that make a story worthy of being up on a big screen, as opposed to doing just like a one-hour Behind the Music kind of doc that they used to do on VH1. So always how layered is the story.
Yes, that is important.
John Scheinfeld: Then I'm also looking at, do we have the audio-visual assets with which to tell this story? Blood, Sweat and Tears was much more of a challenge, as we discussed, because the film and sound had disappeared. But Harry had a life that was very well documented by himself, by his family, by the label. The only thing we didn't really have with Harry was he rarely did TV. He did two programs, and a guest appearance. We had that footage to work with. So the challenge there was how to bring his life to life without having a lot of clips to us.
Right…
John Scheinfeld: Coltrane [was] very similar, in that he never did any TV interviews. Only did a handful of radio interviews and the sound was not good enough to use. But I wanted him to have a presence in the film. Happily, he had done a lot of print interviews over the years with magazines and newspapers. So I took his words from those interviews, and I peppered them throughout the film. Not narration but helping move the story along or giving us an insider's look at what he might have been thinking or feeling at a particular time. Then I decided I wanted a movie star to read those words. Long story short, we got Denzel Washington to speak the words of Coltrane. That was fun.
I can imagine.
John Scheinfeld: Easiest one in this regard, was The US vs. John Lennon. John and Yoko were packrats. They saved everything. Yoko has this wonderful archive on the lower west side of New York. Once I proved myself, they allowed me to go into that archive. We were able to get access to a lot of material which did show up in the final film. That's generally what it is. I think I'm really attracted to the story, but it's got to be also a story about an artist for whom I have some passion. If you're going to spend a year, a year and a half making a documentary, you better love your subject, or I don't think the work is going to be as good.
Blood, Sweat and Tears have had a lot of changes over the years. I mean, even before their heyday, there was the Al Kooper period. Over the years since then, they've had lots of players come and go. In fact, they're still going today. Bobby is still involved, although he doesn't play. Do you think that the film will help new generations to discover the group and perhaps remind the older fans what the group is all about and what was so good about them?
John Scheinfeld: I absolutely hope so. In this film, you see just how great this band was. [People don’t] know all these albums. After the self-titled album, there was BS&T 3, BS&T 4. That's really when the band began to fracture. At the end of ‘71, David Clayton-Thomas and two other guys left. In 1973 another three guys left. Bobby soldiered on for a few years and then he left. And then no more albums. David continued on with the band. It was David Clayton Thomas and Blood, Sweat and Tears or some version of that. They toured all over until about 2004, when he stepped back.
Bobby Colomby: I honestly hope so. I have no financial interest in [the film]. But I hope it gets a lot of exposure, because I think people will go “they were good.” That type of music inspires musicians. Not mechanical stuff. Not like computer generated stuff. Then you just want to do the same thing on your computer. It doesn't necessarily make you want to play an instrument. It doesn't sound dated to me. Well, then again, you're asking me, it's the wrong guy. (laughs)
John Scheinfeld: Ever since there has been a traveling version of Blood, Sweat, and Tears. They play small performing arts centers, and clubs, and casino theaters, and those sorts of things. Bobby is fond of saying that they're better than that original band. Can't really speak to that, but they're very good. So good that for the dramatic, original score of this film… those are the moments where we're telling the story, but Blood, Sweat and Tears isn't performing or we’re not using an album track. It's just music to give you the flavor and the texture of a particular dramatic moment, whether it's a drama, thriller, poignant, scary, whimsical, whatever the flavor is. I persuaded Bobby to co-write that original score and we had it performed by the current Blood, Sweat and Tears band. So it kind of comes full circle here.
Yes, it does.
John Scheinfeld: But as you rightly mentioned, after 1973, there was a there were a lot of musicians – like 170-some – that have come through the ranks of Blood, Sweat, and Tears. Our story is very much confined to the second iteration of the band, the nine guys that had the self-titled [album] and then BS&T 3 and 4. We don't really concern ourselves with what happened before or after. Because we're really doing a moment in time, not a history of the band.
Not only were you a subject and a participant in the film, but you also scored the movie. I don't think I've ever done that before. How did that come about? What was that like?
Bobby Colomby: That's strange. John is a persistent little bugger. He was on my case. He said, “I want you to score it.” I produce music. I can arrange music. And I can write [songs]. But I don't notate physically. I can’t read or write music. I'm illiterate in that department. I know the instrumentation. I can describe the sound I'm looking for. I can sing melodies. I could sing the notes of the chord I'm looking for, but I can’t play it. Throughout my career as a producer, I've always had someone in the room that I relate to, that I can talk with and say, “In this section, here's I'm looking for. Something that does this or something that does that.” So I just said, “I can't do it, John. There are so many great composers.” (laughs) He was smart because I didn't charge anything. I think that was probably what was behind it all.
John Scheinfeld: When I do a film about an iconic musician, I try to have only that musician’s music in the film. For US vs. John Lennon, it was only John Lennon songs. Even in the dramatic portions, we stripped his voice off and we used the backing tracks. It was all his music. Same with Harry. Same with Coltrane, although, no vocals, so we had a great wide range of music. In this one we did have all these dramatic moments. I just felt I wanted it all to be Blood, Sweat and Tears music or in the style of. Who better to compose that music than the co-founder of the band and the guy who became the leader of the band?
Bobby Colomby: He was saying, “Look, you're the guy that came up with the concept of this band. I want that same kind of musicality for the score.” I tried to get out over and over.
John Scheinfeld: He was like, “No, I don't want to do that.” Bobby come on, you got to do it. “Nah…”
Bobby Colomby: Finally I just said, “I have a friend that I've been working with. He can read me really well.” I would sit with him. There's a thing you do in the film biz… (laughs) like I have any clue what that is all about. It's called spotting. That is, when you sit with a director and you're a composer, he shows you the moments in the film when he wants music. He'll say, “Listen, right here, the bad guy gets killed, but don't hint. Don’t do that, but I need this.” They guide you to some degree.
John Scheinfeld: He finally agreed to do it. Then for like the next three weeks, he was trying to get out of it. “Maybe you need to find somebody else.” I think as he says about me, I was just a pain in the ass and persuaded him to do it.
Bobby Colomby: John just showed me where he wanted the music. The beginning, or the invasion of the Russians into Czechoslovakia. I'm a [Sergei] Prokofiev fan. He's my favorite of all the classical composers. He's a very modern composer. I would sit with my friend, Dave Mann, who is a wonderful sax player, but he's great with synthesizers. He's great with Pro Tools and all that stuff. I just said, “Okay, here's what I need. I need this like Prokofiev kind of. Bassoon, I want an oboe against it. I want this melody. I would go through it. He’d take it to a much higher level than I could imagine. He was great. I give him way more credit than I would take for it. If someone called me, “Hey, you did that? Would you want to do my film?” I'd say let me find out if Dave's available.
John Scheinfeld: Your readers will discover just what a great score it is when they come to see the film.
Bobby Colomby: Actually, it turned out to be a tremendous amount of fun. The real kicker of this is I use the current day version of Blood, Sweat and Tears to play on it. They're so much better than we were. (laughs) It’s actually funny. When we were in the studio, there were some guys in the band that weren't wonderful and some guys that were fabulous. The not so wonderful guys brought down the fabulous guys in the recording because it wasn't all digital back then. You actually had to play it. It wasn't cut and paste. You had to go for it. It took a minute. These guys go in and thank you, that was take one and that's all we need. Let's do that. Now let's go to this section. Okay, thank you. That was take one, that's all we need. They were fantastic. The drummer is like 1,000 times better than I ever was.
Just as a fan, what are some of Blood, Sweat and Tears’ greatest moments musically as far as you're concerned?
John Scheinfeld: For me? Well, it's interesting as the film has gotten out in theaters, and we've gotten a lot of great press on it, what we find in the questions – whether it's from media, or from people at the Q&A's – is that there are some people out there who are Blood, Sweat and Tears fans, but they're really devout Al Kooper Blood, Sweat and Tears fans. That first album Child is Father to the Man. Or they love the self-titled and the other albums because they think David Clayton-Thomas is one of the great voices of rock'n'roll of that era.
That is true.
John Scheinfeld: I don't think I have to choose. I like both of them. I love that first album. I love the self-titled album. I think “I Can't Quit Her” and “I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know” from the first album are just terrific. I love their rendition of Harry Nilsson's “Without Her,” it’s bossa nova and it's terrific. I don't think there's a bad song and the self-titled. I can listen to that start to finish anytime and be totally enthralled by it. 3 and 4 are a little different. Love “Hi-De-Ho,” great song. “Lucretia McEvil,” great song. “Go Down Gamblin’,” great song.
It was.
John Scheinfeld: I think when we talk about What the Hell Happened to Blood, Sweat and Tears is coming back from this tour and what they encountered and found themselves embroiled in exacerbated personality conflicts that were in the band. Sometimes in a group that stuff gets papered over when success is there, but when more difficult times come, it really emphasizes that some wanted to play more jazz and some wanted to play more rock. Some didn't like this song. Some didn't like that song. You end up compromising. I think we see that in some of the later albums where the material is not as strong as that self-titled album. People begin to think, as Bobby says, that this band is in trouble, and I got to start thinking about what my future is going to be. That's when I talk about the moment was not the same, I think not only personally, but musically. I don't think they ever equaled that second set, self-titled album.
I agree, although I like you said, I do agree that there were some really great songs on the later albums.
John Scheinfeld: I will say I never really liked Jerry Fisher, the singer they replaced David with. There were a couple of nice songs. “Down In the Flood” is a nice song. “Roller Coaster” is a nice song. I did think when David came back to the band in ‘75, and they put out this album, New City, I thought that was a pretty good album, pretty strong. The problem was that the musical tastes in the world had changed by then. Disco was coming in. I think the moment had passed for this kind of horn-based rock.
I was surprised when I was looking into this to find out – which I shouldn't be because there are lots of bands that should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that aren't – but Blood, Sweat and Tears is not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Do you think that hopefully maybe getting the word out about them for that might rectify that overlook as well?
John Scheinfeld: I hope so. I think it's a well-deserved honor. Some of the people that they're taking into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame now aren't even rock and roll. I'm not quite sure why they're there.
Bobby Colomby: It's not surprising to me. Because there were gatekeepers, like the Jann Wenners and the Jon Landaus. They never played a note, really. I've never been inspired by anything they've done. Telling me you're not good enough. You haven't affected music. You're not cool enough. That's a badge of honor at this point.
I think that Blood, Sweat and Tears was plenty cool.
John Scheinfeld: Here you have a band that had a really innovative approach to rock and roll by incorporating the horns and the rock and the jazz elements. They were so innovative. They influenced many horn bands that followed, or bands that incorporated horns that followed. I think that's very worthy of being in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
When is the movie going to be opening nationwide? Or is it spreading from town to town?
John Scheinfeld: We are nationwide at the moment. We opened in New York on the 24th of March we opened in LA and the 31st. Then we've been going wider. We're now in over 80 theaters in 40 markets across the country. That number is growing every day. It's one of these things where theater owners see how it's doing in other theaters, or they see the great press or hear podcasts like yours. They are like, “Oh, we got to look into that.” And then the “Oh, that's good.” So they've been adding us, which is really, really great. For your readers, if they go to our film website, which is BSTdoc.com and in the upper right hand corner, they click on watch, every theater showing us is listed there.
I'm in Philadelphia, so I'm sure that if it hasn't come here yet, which I don't believe it has, I'm sure it will be sometime soon.
John Scheinfeld: Yes, I think so. Then, as you mentioned before, we have a soundtrack coming out in two parts. On CD and digitally are all of the live tracks that appear in our film that were recorded during the Iron Curtain tour. Those are the ones that Bobby and Alan Sides mixed. They're fantastic. They're just great. Then the original score that Bobby did with David Mann, a great musician, will be available digitally. That's Omnivore Recordings. You can either find information about that on the film website or on the Omnivore website.
Copyright ©2023 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: April 18, 2023.
Photos #1 & 2 © 2023 Jay S. Jacobs/PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved.
Photos # 3 – 8 © 1969-2023. Courtesy of Abramorama. All rights reserved.
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Budget isn’t everything. High Time we realized that.
I'm going to stop Mr. Cameron, right there when he goes on to say how his Avatar: The Way of Water could ever be profitable. Not out of disrespect—far from it—but because of a very particular belief that I’ve had since I was about 6 years old, thanks to both mum and dad. So, sure, call me “44 years worth of old fashioned,” but I kind of internalized that for a movie to be profitable, it has to tell a GREAT story. First and foremost.
After all that's what drives people to the theaters and what keeps people buy hardcopies or downloadable file—or keep renting either format; yes, there still are places where you can rent démodé vhs, laser discs, dvds & blu ray physical media.
Because let’s face it: all the #CGI craftsmanship or the most breathtaking photography in the world isn't going to do squat for a lame story—have several such sad cases. Also, many really tepid movies have been blockbusters only because what appears on the IMAX screens around the world—Transformer movies, I’m frowning at almost all of you. Bumblebee, you’re not in such hot water, but we’ll talk later, young ‘bot. Go to your parking spot. Now.
The thing is I believe It's time to stop this rather sad trend of assessing "masterpieces" based on the size of budget and boxoffice alone.
A true blockbuster and for several years the highest grossing movie of all time, the first Avatar movie was a very passable flick about the tried and true "Gone Native" trope as well as the "Depoilers of The Land" reflection about corporate greed, both subthemes of your regular (anti)Colonization thinkpiece.
Truth be told, not much thinking was required to decode the movie’s message. A thing that made “hardcore movie critics and goers” label it as chidlish, all because of the animation and the obvious “white hat, black hat” depictions of the characters.
Now that isn't a bad thing. Even if there were plenty of critiques about the continued "white saviorism" (valid if a tad strained argument) plot, as well as other minor details that know-it-all-yet-done-nothing-yets love to cherrypick in order to blast at the next hyped movie into some sort of oblivion, the movie worked and technically, it excelled.
But in Avatar’s case, sadly, these griping people kind of won because, for nearly a decade, Avatar was recognized as a technical achievement and the “big earner,” yet it remained largely forgotten by the wider audience who usually go :”oh, yeah! It looked pretty, but the story was predictable/too simple/the usual/whathaveyou.” This, from people who really love movies; why, some of them study, write and make these for a living.
Yep. Avatar, the grossest earner in history for a solid 8 years (8 years filled with high-budget movies taking advantage of the audiences spells of ‘franchise-frenzy” moviegoing) remained barely above water in terms of audience awareness.
That, in itself, is an unfortunate result and, some might say, a factual proof of Budha’s idea of impermanence... and a failure as a movie. Even for a record breaking one.
So, how do we can we come up with another wat to measure a movies relevance in the industry’s annals and audience’s lives?
The questions I consider necessary to make a fair assessment, are:
Can a movie be a true masterpiece when it remains barely remembered by a large sector of the moviegoing & streaming audiences?
Is a low budget movie with a great story, enough profits to label it a financial success, but one that was done with a low budget, somehow undeserving of the “masterpiece” or “classic” labels? In this particular instance, let’s think about, say, Shawn of the Dead, Attack on the Block, Predestination or Primer. Or my beloved Tetsuo, even, which certainly redefined body-horror in Japanese ホラー映画 or “horāeiga.” All of them are fondly (or not so fondly) remembered and came up with something new or different to further nuture the movie industry.
How is success measured outside of the profitability bubble Hollywood keeps imposing on the whole industry?
I certainly don’t have a definitive answer for any of these questions, but I believe it is time we, as an audience, start paying more attention to all those lower budget movies that get lost in all the hype, and to get directors and producers to talk about other ways to assess how good their movies are without resorting to its profitability as the major milestone for measuring it.
After all, let us remember Blade was considered as underperforming at the boxoffice on its first three weeks, and this was the impression at the time until DVD sales and rentals numbers were factored in, that these made it into a true earner. Even Wesley Snipes once was quoted on film and press about how this willingness the people had to watch against the movies they had dissed while it was n its theatrical run, was what made Blade into something profitable. So much so—lifetime gross USD $82.348.319 on a USD $45 million budget, it got Guillermo Del Toro involved in the “now very famous if not overly fantastic yet definitely fun to watch” Blade II—lifetime gross USD $155,010,032 on a USD $54 million budget, which topped the first one as the highest profit maker of the three.
The moral may be: don’t be too greedy when trying to mark a movie as “profitable.”
Just because Cameron wants it to go all the way to the “billion dollar on opening week” club to consider his movie is actually making some profit, while the whole Blade 3-movie franchise is far from reaching the USD 1 billion landmark and every single one of them is more talked about than Avatar, should give a time for pause.
I’ll say it again: all of the Balde movies were profitable by earning nearly or a bit over double their assigned budget (Blade and Blade: Trinity) while Balde 2 made nearly 3 timex its assigned budget. None of them are close to half of Avatar’s opening weekend numbers. Yet, all of them are more talked about, even the very bad third one, than Cameron’s CGI marvel with the rather simple yet passable story.
Surely, there’s other ways to assess how good a movie is and can perform than short-term profitability.
I don’t know. To me, it’s like marking yourself for the slaughter just before the real bloodletting begins.
Not very smart. You catch my drift?
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