Paul Levinson's Blog: Levinson at Large, page 74

The Lip-Synching Scene in David Lynch's Blue Velvet as a Touchstone Transcendent Moment

David Lynch is 76 years old today -- happy birthday! That made me think about my favorite scene in all of David Lynch's great work, and, for that matter, probably in any movie I've ever scene: Dean Stockwell lip synching Roy Orbison's "In Dreams" in Blue Velvet back in 1986, with Dennis Hopper doing a fine job as that deeply sick guy, who tries to join in the lip-synching, but whose demons won't allow him the succor of dreams.

That scene also represents what I think of as a nexus in popular culture, with several different careers revived and propelled in that one scene. Dean Stockwell had been a moderately important star, playing angry and sensitive young men, in the 1950s and 1960s. Lynch had begun using him in Dune in 1984, but his performance in that Blue Velvet lip synching was incandescent and brought him to everyone's attention, including the people who cast him in a co-starring role in Quantum Leap. Blue Velvet had nothing to do with science fiction, but that Roy Orbison moment would forever and anon and make Stockwell a science fiction icon.

Meanwhile, Orbison's career, which also had been flagging, suddenly skyrocketed in the next few years. His voice in The Traveling Wilburys was one of the most prominent parts of their signature sound, and made them the best supergroup ever, surpassing Crosby, Still, and Nash, the previous holders of that position, in my humble opinion. Orbison's solo 1989 "You Got It" was also at least a minor masterpiece. And here I always mention Anne Reburn (and her clones)' cover of "You Got It" as a high water mark of music video production.

Science fiction and rock music have been my life's two cultural passions. Blue Velvet the movie was neither, but it gave rebirth to careers and soaring performances in both, but made David Lynch an enduring hero well before Twin Peaks and all the rest.

The Kid in the Video Store - science fiction about the 1988

Roy Orbison and Friends, A Black and White Night concert

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Published on January 20, 2022 15:22

Podcast Review of Ray Donovan: The Movie

Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 237, in which I review Ray Donovan: The Movie on Showtime.

written blog post review of Ray Donovan: The Movie, with links to reviews of all episodes in the previous seven seasons.

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Published on January 18, 2022 16:36

Review of Grzegorz Kwiatkowski's "Crops": Slaughter and Sunlight

I don't often review poetry on this blog. The last -- and, in fact, the only -- time I did was Andrew McLuhan's Written Matter last February. But, once again, words without music, or with music entirely in the head, call.

Grzegorz Kwiatkowski's Crops is a very short book with some very deep reflections about one of the tragedies of our modern world and longer than that. Kwiatkowski is a Polish poet and musician, and this book of poetry traces his confrontation and struggle to understand the Holocaust that took so many innocent lives of Jews and others in his country.

The poems are not easy to read, and they should not be. They're replete with bones and body parts, memories and excuses for what happened, a lot more than a moment of sheer depravity that gripped the world. And all the more relevant because of what's going on in our world today.

But I wouldn't be calling your attention to these poems if there was not also some hope in this grim accounting, leaking through and glimmering through the edges. Kwiatkowski concludes one of poems with "someone has written on the nearby wall: innocent sunsets". In the context of the poem, the "innocent sunsets" are an evasion of history and responsibility. But, for me, anything that has anything to do with sunsets is also a recognition of hope for the future. I know that I always feel good when I see a sunset. And that's why, more than fifty years ago, I wrote the lyrics to Looking for Sunsets (In the Early Morning).

And, indeed, all the poetry of Crops is a plea for understanding and hence a statement of hope and an evidence of healing. If someone in Poland today can write such poems, there's hope for our humanity.

===

Hear Grzegorz Kwiatkowski read some of his poetry via Zoom here.

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Published on January 17, 2022 13:15

Ray Donovan: The Movie: Just Deserts, Real and Imaginary

Well, I really enjoyed Ray Donovan: The Movie, even though I guessed the ending about halfway in the 1 hour and 41 minute film.

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

What I guessed, as soon as Bridget started driving up to Boston, was that she was going to kill Mick, and Ray was going to take the rap. That was a completely logical and even satisfying development.

Meanwhile, it was good to see exactly how Mick ended going to jail for so long, for most of his adult life. Ray framing him, not for something that Ray did, but for something someone else did, not to get that guy off the hook, but to get Mick out of his life. That puts Mick in a completely different light.

It was also satisfying to see how Mick, with all of his flaws, still very much loved his son, up until the very end. That was one complex family brought to us over the seasons and in this finale movie. Bunch ended up with the best deal -- maybe a chance to set things right with Teresa and their child. Terry wound up with very sad deal: having a big delicious dinner he prepared with an imaginary family -- his family, but all in his head.

I guess they all had luck, those who survived, by the very fact that they did survive. I have no idea what growing up in Boston was really like -- I grew up in the Bronx -- but, yeah, it sure wasn't easy for these people. It left permanent scars of the soul, and they played out over these many seasons and this powerful finale which I'm glad Showtime allowed after cutting off the last season in the wrong place.

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Published on January 14, 2022 19:39

Playhouse Presents: Snodgrass: A Disturbing and Beautiful Beatles Alternate History

My just-published Beatles alternate history story, It's Real Life, is getting some good response. Over in the Steve Hoffman Music Forums, someone (Wildest cat from Montana) recommended that I see a short 2013 movie Snodgrass -- actually a 24-minute episode of a British series of standalone dramas, Playhouse Presents, that ran from 2010-2015.

It's disturbing -- as it should be -- with its story of John Lennon alive in 1991 in Birmingham, England, on the edge of poverty, having left The Beatles in 1962 over an argument which Lennon lost about wanting to do "Love Me Do" rather than "How Do You Do It" (written by Mitch Murray, and in our reality a hit for Gerry and the Pacemakers, after George Martin decided to release "Love Me Do" for the Beatles instead of their recording of Murray's song). It's disturbing, because it's so good to see Lennon alive, replete with his sardonic outlook, even though he missed out being with The Beatles, who became only a middling band in this story (also sad).

But it's beautiful, because it also poses the question: which is better: to live a fabulously and profoundly important life, cut brutally short by assassination, or live longer in a state of perpetual sarcasm and frustration and poverty. I'd probably say the latter, because where there's life there's hope, and a chance to succeed. Without giving away the very ending of the short movie, I'd say that's what the movie is saying, too.

See it for yourself, and see what you think. I'll also say: good job by Ian Hart as the 51-year-old Lennon, and the movie is an adaptation of a story of the same name by Ian R. MacLeod, published in 1992.

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Published on January 14, 2022 16:14

Podcast Review of Station Eleven 1.10

Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 236, in which I review the finale of Station Eleven on HBO Max.

Podcast reviews of Station Eleven episodes one to three ...episodes four and five... episodes six and seven... episodes eight and nine

Written blog post review of Station Eleven 1.10

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Published on January 13, 2022 18:12

Station Eleven Finale: Hope and Plaudits

What a glorious, hopeful finale to the masterful television series known as Station Eleven. An ending so uplifting, in a story of humanity beset by a virus that kills 99% of the population, that it can serve as beacon of hope, a map to a better world, in our own world, also beset by a deadly virus, but far less lethal than the deadly flu in Station Eleven.

There were so many wonderful parts of this finale. Kirsten and Jeevan hugging near the end. If that wasn't satisfying to the soul on the deepest level, I don't know what is. Tyler aka the Prophet telling his mother to join him. Even the passing around of the book that is Station Eleven -- the illustrated book within the illustrious watercolor television series -- well, that was inspiring, too.

The performance of Hamlet was great, too, especially Tyler as Hamlet not stabbing Clark as Claudius with the knife. That knife, of course, hadn't done Tyler any real harm when Kirsten stabbed him with it, so maybe he knew that in some sense it just was a symbolic knife not a real cutting edge at all, except that it cut to the emotional core.

The music once again, in Hamlet and throughout the episode, was just superb. I've never heard a better performance of "Midnight Train to Georgia," even from Gladys Knight and the Pips. Georgia, the state that has become a symbol and a beacon, to use those words again, in our own democracy in our off-screen world.

Big plaudits to Dan Romer for the music. Accolades to the brilliant acting of Mackenzie Davis as Kirsten and Matilda Lawler as her younger self and Himesh Patel as Jeevan at all ages. In fact, every scene was boosted to admirable heights by the performances of everyone.

Station Eleven has redefined the presentation and staging of a post-apocalyptic story . It will take its place alongside of A Canticle for Leibowitz (I read the novel but haven't seen the adaption) as a standard-bearer of portraying humanity on and after the very brink. Kudos to Emily St. John Mandel for writing the novel (which I haven't yet read) on which the series is based and Patrick Somerville for bringing the series to life.

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Published on January 13, 2022 17:21

Needle in a Timestack: Find It

For some reason, I just saw something about Needle In A Timestack earlier this evening. It's been streaming on something called Amazon Instant Video -- apparently since the end of this past October -- and it costs 99 cents to see. It will be on Amazon Prime Video, presumably for free, on January 28. Now, ordinarily I'd wait the two weeks and see it on Prime Video. Readers of my reviews will know I'm a cheapskate. But, by my reckoning, not only does time wait for no one, neither does time travel, or at least time travel narratives should not be obliged to wait. That, and the fact that the movie is based on a story by Robert Silverberg (which I haven't read), a great writer whom I not only admire but know fairly well, tipped the balance.

And I'm glad it did. Needle in a Timestack is a thoughtful, high intellect movie, very much in the Philip K. Dick tradition. Time can not only be traveled through via "jaunting" (a term made famous by Alfred Bester for teleportation in The Stars My Destination back in the 1950s), but at least one person can cause "phases" in time that can change everything in big or small ways, depending upon who gets caught up in the phasing.

Into this set-up we find Nick (superbly played by Leslie Odom, Jr.) in a less than totally happy marriage, with no kids and a cat rather than the dog he feels he'd like to have as a pet. Part of his problem is he's pretty sure his wife Janine (well played by Cynthia Erivo) is still in love with her first husband and Nick's old friend Tommy (Orlando Bloom, always good to see). I'm going to abstain from spoilers here, so the only thing more I'll say about the plot is Nick via shifting and jaunting goes through a variety of realities until ... [see the movie].

I will say that I always have the greatest respect for time travel stories that stick to the logic and necessities of the presented structure of time and time travel. Needle in a Timestack does that quite well. For example, if someone is caught up in a "phase" shift, there's no reason that phasee will recall elements of the first timeline not present in the second. Further, an organization that purports to be able to save memories via photos and videos from one timeline to another is bound to be not very effective, if not an outright fraud.

Another appealing aspect of this movie is the way it portrays a slightly into the future time. These backgrounds provide a nice physical context for what is also a superior love story. Given time, I'll predict that Needle in a Timestack (directed by John Ridley) will take its place along with Time Traveler's Wife as a very memorable time travel romance.

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Published on January 12, 2022 23:19

"It's Real Life": New Alternate History Story, FREE

Here's a new story, started a while ago, finished the other day under the inspiration of Peter Jackson's splendid The Beatles: Gat Back movie. Read it for FREE, any time: "It's Real Life" -- an alternate history tale about The Beatles.

Here's a video from two years and a half years ago, where I read the very beginning of "It's Real Life" at Readercon, a science fiction convention in Braintree, MA

Here are my reviews of Peter Jackson's The Beatles: Get Back

Here is a letter I wrote and had published in The Village Voice in defense of Paul McCartney: "A Vote for McCartney"

More Freebies: stories, articles, books, music

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Published on January 11, 2022 23:17