Critical film review - Jesus Christ Superstar

Saturday, August 30, 2014Jesus Christ Superstar



August 7, 1973,  Universal   107 minutes



Full disclosure: I've been allergic to this opera even before seeing it on Bway (in its original 1971 production) and nothing since has ever drawn me to it. Not the Biblical fable of the "Son of God," not the dreary, bone-dry desert milieu; not the screechy score by Tim Rice & Andrew Lloyd-Webber. It remains one of the few shows I never bought on CD. And as for the movie, I crossed paths with it once, on cable back in 1975--when I was stuck at home in a hip-to-toe cast after dislocating my knee. Once was enuf. Until now, when I must put aside my longstanding bias to examine this undisputed phenomenon with fresh eyes.



JC Superstar was the first post-Follies, post-Golden Age musical on Bway--and it was a clear-cut demarcation point. The shows that immediately followed: Melvin Van Peebles' scorching Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death; Galt MacDermot's Two Gentlemen of Verona, Eve Merriam's urban revue, Inner City, the '50s rock parody, Grease, Micki Grant's Don't Bother Me I Can't Cope had scores unlike those heard on Bway (except for Hair) before the previous season. That's quite a radical shift.  It was so sudden and nearly uniform that it made the season's single traditional musical, Sugar, seem as dated as The Student Prince. Tho it was always intended for the stage, JC Superstar began life as a concept album; an experiment several tuners tried since the LP in the '50s (without subsequent productions) now a form that became popular (post Sgt. Pepper) in the late '60s, as rock reached for mainstream respect in its creative evolution. No more the carefree catalog of random pop songs that Elvis and the first rock generation produced; bands now aspired to symphonic fusion; grand pretentions, thematic albums; rock operas.





From this zeitgest petri dish grew a teenage Andrew Lloyd Webber; a musical prodigy from a family of musicians, who by age 15 had already set T.S. Eliot's Book of Cats to music (which he'd do again later for Cats). At 17 he began collaborating with a 20 year old Tim Rice. The duo secured a commission from an English boy's school, which over time expanded from a modest short program into a full-scale, two act, Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. For their next project they wavered between the Cuban Missle Crisis or Christ. Sophie's choice it wasn't. And tho it was surely the right commercial decision, I think the other would've been more interesting. The song "Superstar" was their starting point and gateway to the tone and style they'd adopt. This was an opera of Jesus for Now! (the late '60s) Full of casual anachronisms, contemporary vernacular; a hippie passion play. "Superstar" was recorded by British singer, Murray Head, and released as a single in Nov '69; long before the score was completed. The full two-disc album wasn't released until Sept '70. It promptly flopped in Britain--overshadowed by such then current British giants as The Beatles, The Stones, and The Who, whose own rock opera, Tommy--a loose take on the spiritual teachings of Meher Baba--was a huge sucess the year before (and an undeniable influence on Rice & Lloyd Webber) But the record took off in America, reaching #1 on the Billboard charts for several weeks. It became so popular that amateur concert versions started popping up all over--which virtually demanded the creation of a sanctioned, professional production. The first authorized concert was before a crowd of 13,000 in Pittsburgh in July '71--with two leads who would continue on to NY. Produced by record mogul, Robert Stigwood, Superstar opened on Bway in October. Reportedly, Harold Prince was angling to direct, but Stigwood objected, preferring experienced opera director, Frank Corsaro. When Corsaro was felled by an accident, Stigwood hired Tom O'Horgan--who saw this as another "phantasmagoria," much as his recent stage hit, Lenny. That this helmer was best known for Hair, surely fueled religious protests beyond those who objected to the opera itself. The outcry reached a peak as opening night neared--Stigwood couldn't have asked for better publicity.



Critical opinion was sharply divided (Walter Kerr liked the opera, but loathed the production--others felt just the opposite) In the end the opera proved durable, O'Horgan's vision left in the dust. Tho it was first and foremost a Bway musical--due to the album's greater popularity in America--it crossed the pond to London a year later, and with an entirely new staging (by Jim Sharman, who later directed The Rocky Horror Show) became the longest-running musical in West End history, playing thru 1980.



Surprisingly, the Bway edition was far less popular. After the initial brouhaha, the play was SRO for only four months. The Tony committee snubbed the show, as well as O'Horgan and the cast, except for Ben Vereen's Judas. Rice & Lloyd Webber's score was favored over that of Grease--which was nominated for Best Musical along with Two Gentlemen of Verona, Ain't Supposed to Die and the previous season's Follies (in another case of arbitrary and inconsistent Tony deadlines, which are set for mid-March one year, and late May another. (Traditionally, Bway seasons run from June thru May.) The show's scenic elements were acknowledged but lost all awards to Follies--which itself lost Best Musical to Two Gents--to unending outcry from some quarters. (Not this one.)



But before the opera even took to the stage, Hlwd director Norman Jewison was making inquiries about a film version of the album--what he later called "the first feature length music video"--a decade before MTV. Shortly after the show opened at the Mark Hellinger on Bway, Jewison's film of Fiddler on the Roof, premiered at the Rivoli--two houses within sight of each other. Fiddler would be his third Oscar nominated Best Pic. Now a proven handler of the film musical, Jewison convinced Stigwood he was the man to adapt Superstar for the screen. Stigwood set it up at Universal. But the film was to be lensed entirely in Israel, with a mostly Brisith crew. It was also the last movie ever shot in widescreen Todd AO. Filmed among desolate canyons, underground caves and Roman era ruins--



the scenery has an earthy authenticity captured by Brit cinematographer, Douglas Slocombe (who shot some early Ealing classics like Kind Hearts & Coronets and The Lavender Hill Mob, and later earned Oscar nods for Julia, Travels with My Aunt, and Raiders of the Lost Ark.--and who's still alive at age 101.) As with Fiddler, Jewison chose to go without Hlwd faces for the cast. Yvonne Elliman (Mary Magdalene) and Barry Dennen (Pontius Pilate) completed the trifecta from concept album to Bway to movie. Ted Neely was also in the Bway cast, but as chorus and understudy to Jeff Fenholt's Jesus--a role he later graduated to for the national tour. Carl Anderson was Judas in the first Pittsburgh concert and later tour but was passed over on Bway by O'Horgan in favor of Ben Vereen. But Jewison preferred Anderson--and Vereen went into Pippin. There was also advantage in having actors well-seasoned by the score, lipsynching thru dusty locations and 120 degree afternoons. Three of the film's dancers would later be among the original cast of A Chorus Line: Baayork Lee, Robert Lupone and Thommie Walsh.



But none of the leads, aside from Bway's Vereen, would ever achieve any fame beyond Superstar. And like Yul Brynner aging into his Siamese King, Neeley and Anderson would continue playing Jesus and Judas well into late middle age.



Tim Rice, whose lyrics were the opera's sole narrataive, took first stab at the screenplay, coming up short by his own admission. In talks with Jewison, another British scribe, Melvyn Bragg (who wrote Karel Reisz's Isadora, and Ken Russell's The Music Lovers), found a new approach for a film adaptation; tackling the show's modernity and anachronisms head-on by framing the film as a present day reinactment--a passion play performance sans audience; a mixture of the ancient and contemporary. A touring band bus brings a cast of hippies (or East Village actors) to a desolate spot of Israeli desert; complete with wooden cross strapped to the roof. We see them disembark in street clothes before the performance begins. From behind, a tunic is slipped on Neeley's back, his head framed by the sun as the title theme blares the start of the play. Rice's original impulse and narrative distinction is to tell the story of Jesus' final days from the perspective of Judas--whose very name is a synonym for betrayal. But to those not familiar with the fable, other than the vague outlines that permeate the ozone, it's confusing to follow what's going on here. Jesus comes off either haughty or moody. We don't know anything of his deeds other than he's being venerated by some, denounced by others--Jews and Romans alike. Yet he's dismissive of his own followers, condemning of the free market; paranoid of disloyalty--the instrument of his own doom. He's so misunderstood! Judas watches with resentment, like a band member seeing his frontman's fame go to this head. The rock band correlation is apt, for those not inclined to sacrilegious insult. A multi-racial cast allows black men to portray both zealot and betrayer without danger of racism. But with Caiaphas and Anas played as villainous Jews, protests and charges of antiseminism were unleashed, tho they were basically unwarranted. Jesus is cast, as he's always been by Hlwd studios (run by Jewish moguls) as a handsome, beatific, longhaired WASP. Ted Neeley falls squarely in this tradition adding a trace of surfer looks to his rock star cred. A change of tunic and he can step on stage at Fillmore East.



Given that he's the so-called King of Jews, why doesn't Jesus ever look Jewish? Can you imagine a Christ who looks like Mel Brooks, David Schwimmer or Seth Rogen?



American theater music, like opera, is an idiom that can toy with any historical period to no apparent dissonance. Not so with rock music, which set to any age prior to the atomic, painfully flaunts its anachronism, sometimes with sheer glee (as in Two Gents from Verona); sometimes as pure camp (as in Elton John's Aida) or, as with Superstar, in cheesy flagrance--which is what's most kept me off it. Listening to it now more carefully than I ever had before, I'll allow it has appealing, melodic moments. The show's hit ballad, "I Don't Know How to Love Him" (with its clunky lyric "In very many ways, he's just one more"--seriously, very many?) is admittedly pretty, but not really a knockout. So much of Lloyd-Webber's style--of which I'm familiar with from later works--is here already fully evident. As well as his fatal lack of editing; his deadly passages of recitative; and some of his worst heavy metal pawning. It doesn't help that there's nothing interesting in the score until "Everything's Alright," nearly 20 minutes in. And aside from some incredible geological formations there's not much to look at either. The first video--er, musical sequence that brings any energy into the picture is "Simon Zealotes," but that's in great measure for turning into a  desert  Hullabaloo -- the   dancers   going   full   tilt; more convincing in their zealotry for Michael Bennett than Jesus Christ. (The choreography is by Rob Iscove--a TV regular--who was seriously injured during the filming, falling off a 30 foot platform.) "Pilate's Dream" sounds like a song borrowed from Man of La Mancha--which in this case is almost welcome. The Hawaiian-born singer, Yvonne Elliman lays down her definitive "I Don't Know How to Love Him" in anguished, candlelit closeup. It's a nice respite from the hard-driven recitative--too often scream-sung in the rock tradition, and not the better for it. Prime example is Jesus's soliloquy, "Gethsemane," a melody heard post crucifixion as a lovely symphonic requiem (titled "John 19:41") simply hasn't the same grace when sung like David Lee Roth. There's a long slog thru the second half, the narrative severely lacking musicality.



"King Herod's Song," is a much needed change of pace, but it's the only levity in the entire show and bears a burden it cannot satisfy. As a bit of vaudeville it's woefully pedestrian--a rinky-dink tune set to witless words. And as led by Josh Mostel (Zero's son) it's no showpiece. "Could We Start Again, Please? (written on O'Horgan's suggestion--presumably to add some warmth into the tuneless second act) is another welcome break, shot spectaculalry on desolate rocky hilltops.



But the march to death is mostly a chore to the ear, enlivened (if that's the word) by the abruptly modern title song. Jesus isn't resurrected in this show, Judas is (which in itself is weird), flying in from above, garbed in late-Elvis fringe, to lead "Superstar," as some sort of Galilee-a-Go-Go, complete with faux Supremes and laser lights. The song doesn't finish as much as cross-cut into JC carrying the cross to his inevitable death. I don't get the idea behind the whole sequence; it's a rare false note in the use of anarchornisms. Jewison indulges them sparingly--and mostly effectively; Jesus flashing on his ultimate fate thru a montage of Christian iconography; Judas chased by a fleet of tanks; the priests on scaffolding at the ancient sites--these are clever, even thoughtful. I especially like the touch of the drugstore postcard rack in the Temple black market. As a music video, on its own, "Superstar" stands as one of the pic's few musical highlights, but as a rock show finale leading into crucifixion, it's as awful as the urban junkyard version in Godspell. But once the scene is played, Jewison returns the cast to the bus, a subtle nod to curtain call as they climb aboard, Carl Anderson last to gaze upon the hill as the bus pulls away. Ted Neeley is notably absent in both arrival and departure--as if to suggest Jesus too sacred to be human, let alone an actor. The credits (all at the end) roll entirely in silence.



But if the score isn't as horrible as I thought, neither is it any more interesting. Tim Rice's lyrics are best excused by his youth. It's not so much that they're banal and repetitive--which they are--but that they're utterly lacking in poetry. "Always hoped that I'd be an apostle/Knew that I would make it if I tried." "Prove to me that you're no fool/Walk across my swimming pool." They get worse attempting hipness:  "What's the buzz?/Tell me what's happening" "I couldn't cope/just couldn't cope;" "I never thought it would come to this/What's it all about?" (Alfie?)

Or just plain inarticulate:



     If you knew the path we were riding

     You'd understand it even less than I



What the hell does that even mean? The more I exam the text, the less I understand of Jesus's motives or his very characterization. Best we leave it at that, as I don't feel the need to delve into any deeper examination. I found the movie more interesting to watch with the commentary track from Jewison & Ted Neeley (from 2004). Unsurprisingly, they venerate the picture, but what comes across stronger is their affection for the memory of its making. Now that I can understand and respect. Neeley even has a meltdown by the end of the viewing, and tho it's partly in relation to the events of the story, it's clearly a deeper well of feeling for the communal adventure among the natural elements; the full immersive once-in-a-lifetime experience--an early Burning Man carnival. (Neeley would also meet his wife there, one of the corps of dancers) Given that plate of nostalgia, I'd probably love this also, beyond reason. But tho I don't really like the movie, that doesn't mean I don't recognize Jewison made about the best film possible given the material he had to work with.



I must also acknowledge that the work--the album, the opera, the movie--has a huge fan base above and beyond the usual musical theater acolytes; one for whom the fairy tales of Christianity hold sway. With the horrors perpetuated daily in the world today--which remain essentially unchanged thru all human history--I find it absurd to hold Jesus as the savior of mankind, and exploit his gruesome demise as an instrument of torture porn. Catholics have long layered pain and self-afflicition in with the rapture; it's the Agony they claim leads to Ecstasy (which Mel Gibson carried to new extremes in his Passion of the Christ.) Here we must endure no less than 39 lashes, while Lloyd-Webber whips our ears with a hard-rock crescendo. In the end it's all agony to me; as phony and manipulative as any super-hero franchise in today's comic book Hlwd--which come to think of it makes for cult followers as well. Jewison & Neeley end their commentary viewing deeply moved. Their feelings are tangible and illuminating; touching even. But for me, the film's seminal climax draws no particular emotion. Like Morales confesses in A Chorus Line, "I felt nothing." Show me Harold Hill's surrender and I'm a soggy mess. But I've seen what Hill has done, all the good he's wrought. What do we see of Jesus in Superstar? Just one sour complainer, chronic scowler and accuser, espousing carpe diem one moment, obsessing over his legacy the next. A far more affecting and coherent version of this story was made 15 years later by Martin Scorcese, with a more effective, less intrusive (instrumental) score by Peter Gabriel. Inevitably, The Last Temptation of Christ. brewed controversy as well, tho not for reducing the story to kitsch.



But Jesus was nowhere on my mind in 1973. While my San Jose State classmates were "directing" by drawing blocking diagrams for one act plays, or "writing" shoot-'em-up dramas that hadn't any sense of theatricality, I was writing, directing & producing a full-length revue, Cracked Ice, at my inspirational junior college, DeAnza. Once it was clear that SJS refused me credit, or that any of my so-called teachers had even an ounce of curiosity, I stopped going to classes. To no surprise my parents didn't take well to my flunking the whole semester. What surprised me was how I felt: liberated, unburdened and guilt-free in disconnecting from the tyranny of grades. SJS taught me nothing valuable about theater or anything I didn't already know, and recognizing that was only going to get me started sooner. With further school in doubt, I decided to just stay in New York after that summer's sojourn--contingent on finding employment; a plan my parents grudgingly accepted, even as they must've been equally glad to be rid of me, as I of them. But I was also going over to the enemy: Baba--father's imperial mother; whom they blamed for poisoning my mind with her damning opinions (mostly, of them). But I'd seen enuf over 20 years of living with these bizarre and secretive aliens to form my own (similar) views. Not that Baba wasn't crazy in her own, more lovable, way. She ruled the roost with a tyrannical hand over her legally-blind, feeble-minded sister, Vera and old Russian boarder, Pavel (the very model of Uncle Fester--oh to have had an iphone camera then!) Four rooms with kitchen & bath on the top floor of a decaying apartment block on Broadway & 141st. After three summers I'd gotten used to the smelly old Puerto-Rican/Russian neighborhood, which now became my sanctuary; my Ellis Island to Bway. Tho Baba and Bway had nothing to do with one another, it was my good fortune they were in the same vicinity. Otherwise, I could never have afforded to move to NY so soon. I was still being coddled; paying no rent, having few responsibilites, fed nightly meals.



My few months at Books Inc. in Palo Alto, gave me the résumé to walk into a bookstore at the newly built One Astor Plaza--the first modern high rise to invade Times Square; (on the site of the old Astor Hotel--which, alas, I never saw)--and talk myself into a full-time job. Exciting as it (briefly) was to work at Bway Ground Zero, my Pakistani bosses were needless tyrants, and by September I had enuf experience to graduate to Brentano's on Fifth Avenue--in the multi-leveled store's paperback cellar. Here I'd make my first Big City pals, and gather my wits over 18 months before finding my door into the theater. Armed with a similar résumé, my best bud Bill (who had stayed with me at Baba's the previous three summers) packed his Datsun and drove 'cross country to take over my job in Times Square. Simultaneoulsy, another of my DeAnza pals, Ken Sailor, came to taste the Big Apple. Baba found rooms for them both in the apartment of another Russian dowager directly across the street. Thus we three California boys experienced our first East Coast autumn and winter. Bill's car, which became a parking albatross was also an excuse to indulge in late night drives to a deserted Wall Street, in a midnight Times Square, or around Central Park, thru fall foliage or winter's snow. This was a lot more exciting than Cupertino or Canoga Park.



But above all else, living in NY gave me access to theater, film and culture on a scale that was breathtaking. Of course my first priority was attending my first Bway season from start to finish. And with the thrilling bonus of attending opening nights! Tho they, like the seasons, weren't what they used to be. My initial first-night--and the season's first musical, was Raisin--a perfectly respectable musicalization of the Lorraine Hansberry play, but one that never caught fire and over time hasn't stolen any thunder from the original play, which keeps coming back with a surprising regularity. A much sadder vehicle, Kaye Ballard as Molly (Goldberg), was a fast flop (my first--and neither bad or notorious enuf to brag about). Having seen Lerner & Loewe's resurrection of Gigi in its spring tryout in SF--where I was underwhelmed, I didn't bother to subject myself to further disappointment. Of course I had opening night tix for the revival of The Pajama Game--which on the eve of my 21st birthday, seemed a gift from the Gods. But it wasn't the sizzling production it needed to be, and rather anemically cast. The highlight that fall was Harold Prince's environmental playground production of Candide at BAM in Brooklyn. This rescued the show from cult oblivion, and even won a Tony for Hugh Wheeler's rewritten libretto--Lillian Hellman's into the dustbin. Another discovery was the pocket Equity Library Theater high up on West 103rd St.--which drew me to their Call Me Madam (on the basis of my affection for the movie). It was done with such joy and polish that we were drawn back for other shows over time, including what was surely the very first NY revival of Follies--done credibly well on a postage-stamp sized stage. Bill and I saw over 20 shows those first four months--Ken only joined on occasion. He came to see Peter Cook & Dudley Moore in Good Evening, and Neil Simon's Chekov comedy, The Good Doctor, where we saw Audrey Hepburn first-nighting it in the flesh--one of the few celebrity sightings that left me breathless. There was a stunning revival of Durrenmatt's The Visit, starring Rachel Roberts & John McMartin, directed by Harold Prince (while concurrently constructing his mousetrap Candide--cementing his office as my future target). On the other hand, perhaps the most affecting theatrical experience of all was Lanford Wilson's Hot l Baltimore at the Circle in the Square on Bleecker St. Much as I loved musicals, who said I was destined to write one? Maybe I was made to write plays like this instead.



Like most boys of a certain bent, we had our Divas. Babs, of course, in those early mega-movie years. Liza, not Judy (she was for the older crowd), Cass Eliot, and Grace Slick, our rock goddess. But the most accessible, and the most fun of all was Bette Midler. From her first appearance on Johnny Carson, Bill and I were in her pocket. We were in New York for her first Carnegie Hall concert in June of '72.



Now, as another 21st birthday present to me, Midler came to the Palace that December in what I know Bill will agree was the show she would never surpass. We were outside the Palace one dark, early evening when Miss M walked by, tiny and nearly invisbile under knit cap and heavy coat. But it was indeed she, who stopped to chat with a friend in our earshot. Hours later she would take command of that venerable stage like nobody's business. The curtain rose on the second half to a giant high heel shoe; the Harlette's chirping, Oz's "Optimistic Voices" ("You're out of the woods/You're out of the dark/You're out of the night") before Bette appeared on top the shoe's heel launching into "The Lullaby of Broadway." It was one of those moments you remember as losing your mind in euphoria. The very next month, Liza sold out two weeks at the Winter Garden in what I believe was her best show ever; staged entirely by Bob Fosse. (Portions of Bette's show were staged by Michael Bennett) Thru fresh eyes and youth, enthusiasm is easily accrued. I was too busy enjoying my freedom and life along the Rialto to notice it wasn't a "Golden Age" on Bway anymore.



But if the Fabulous Invalid was ailing, the American cinema--tho we didn't quite know it yet--was fomenting a Renaissance thru the ranks of new young turks: Coppola, Altman, Scorcese, DePalma, Bogdanovich, Mazursky, Allen, Spielberg, and someone named George Lucas--who came out of nowhere that summer with a slice of California nostalgia that cut so deep into my roots, I took it as an elegy for my youth. (Tho I still had a lot of growing up to do.) American Graffiti opened with little fanfare at the boutique Sutton theater on 57th St (which became one of my favorite houses) the same August week that Jesus Christ Superstar was unspooled at the Rivoli, just a month after the Bway edition closed. But the old Roadshow palace (which had last housed Man of La Mancha, as its final hard-ticket engagement) was no longer a viable venue for exclusive runs in a deteriorating Times Square, thus the film opened as well in Murray Hill and the Upper East Side. I shut it out of my radar immediately, but apparently it did well enuf to be the #8 grossing movie of 1973, eventually totaling $12,960,000 in rentals--not even half of Jewison's Fiddler, tho not exactly bad. Still it was an expensive project and Universal promoted it heavily at Oscar time. The studio had another costly investment and clear favorite (as well as ultimate winner) in The Sting, but it was another Universal release that stole whatever was left in the Academy pool: the made-on-a-shoestring American Graffiti--which was embraced by the public and industry alike, taking a surprise Best Pic nomination over Last Tango in Paris, Serpico, Paper Moon, Mean Streets and The Way We Were. That it also became one of the most profitable movies in Hlwd history is no surprise to me.  I paid at least half a dozen admissions. But Superstar never made a dime off of me.



Report Card:  Jesus Christ Superstar

Overall Film:  C

Stage Fidelity:  A (material) C (staging)

Songs from Bway: 24

Songs Cut from Bway: 2

New Songs:  1: "Then We Are Decided"

Standout Numbers: "Simon Zealotes"

   "Superstar" "Could We Start Again, Please?"

Casting: Heavy with show's veterans

Standout Cast: Carl Anderson, Baayork Lee

Cast from Bway: Yvonne Elliman, Ted Neeley,

     Barry Dennen. Bob Bingham (Caiaphas)

Direction:  Thoughtful, interesting, kitsch-free

Choreography:  Galilee-a-Go-Go

Scenic Design:  Nature, scaffolding on ruins

Costumes:  Mix of period & contemporary

Standout Locations: Take your pick

Titles: Plain end titles in silence

Oscar noms:  1 (scoring-Andre Previn)



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42 Year-Old Man Still Living With His Mum To Spend Today Courageously Berating People Online – The Shovel

42 Year-Old Man Still Living With His Mum To Spend Today Courageously Berating People Online – The Shovel



By The Shovel on May 5, 2014

Using
the avatar HardntheF-up23, 42 year-old unemployed man Peter Broomfield
will log on to his computer this morning to bravely tell people he
doesn’t know why their lives are not worth living.

Mr
Broomfield – who may not find the motivation to change out of his
pyjamas – will scour a range of forums and social networks, vigorously
and courageously pointing out people’s shortcomings.

Cleverly
avoiding human interaction by ordering delivery for lunch, he will then
spend the afternoon on a variety of internet forums, suggesting reasons
why people are not good at their jobs.

“Die worthless scum,” Mr Broomfield said when asked to comment.



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The Katering Show – WE QUIT SUGAR

Published on 10 Feb 2015

In an attempt to live forever, and become just like their Instagram idol, Sarah Wilson, McCartney and McLennan give up the sweet stuff; sugar. Please Note: This episode is booze, sugar, gluten, fructose, lactose and personality-free.

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Can We Admit That Jimmy Fallon Kind of Sucks? | The Daily Banter

Can We Admit That Jimmy Fallon Kind of Sucks? | The Daily Banter

Chez Pazienza on June 20, 2014

There isn’t a plane of existence where the name Jay Leno should be mentioned in the same
breath as the name Mark Twain. Unfortunately, despite this fact, it was
announced on Wednesday that Leno will be receiving the prestigious Mark Twain Prize for American Humor from the Kennedy Center this coming October. The honor represents the
highest award for comedy in the United States and effectively instills
upon Leno a credibility and place in American history that he most
certainly doesn’t deserve. True, with one noteworthy break, Leno helmed The Tonight Show for 22 years, but honestly when the hallowed history of Tonight
is mentioned, you often hear the names Allen, Parr, and of course
Carson, but nobody in his right mind would drop Leno in with that
company, regardless of his lengthy stewardship of the legendary
property. Well, I take that back — I guess the Kennedy Center people
would.

When NBC named Jimmy Fallon as the successor to Leno on The Tonight Show,
it was tough to argue that the network hadn’t made a smart choice.
Fallon was quirky but unthreatening, mildly clever without being the
least bit cerebral, and smart but not smug. He had a broad-based appeal
that would play perfectly at 11:35; the older crowd would think he was
cute and endearing — or at the very least harmless — while the younger
crowd would respond to his social media savvy. More importantly than any
of that, he was a bona fide company man, an earnest lapdog who would
ecstatically embrace the NBC way of shameless corporate synergy and cross-pollination. Want somebody who’ll interview the entire cast of the latest Universal film while the winner of Top Chef
cooks for them and Matt Lauer troubleshoots their Comcast cable issues?
Fallon’s your guy. Need somebody thoroughly beholden to the NBC system
to the point where his balls and soul are both held in a vault in Lorne
Michaels’s office and he’s guaranteed never to give you an ounce of
trouble? Bring on Jimmy.

Here’s the only problem: while his ratings have been everything NBC
could’ve wished for, Jimmy Fallon kind of sucks. As in, his take on The Tonight Show
is in some ways even worse than Leno’s. It’s not that Fallon doesn’t
occasionally do some funny bits, it’s that he’s so unfailingly benign
and so unwilling to ever make anyone — his guests, the audience, anyone
— the least bit uncomfortable that you feel like you need an insulin
shot from all the sugar that’s being pumped into your bloodstream during
his show. He certainly doesn’t need to be snarky or wry, that’s more
the torch Jimmy Kimmel is carrying forward, but Fallon and his writing
staff of apparent Thought Catalogers seem so thrilled to simply be there
that the occasional edge that could benefit an interview or a show beat
is never even considered. Believe it or not, the show suffers because
of this.

What’s more, Fallon not only attempts to avoid anything that might
cause a break in anyone’s fun, he willfully edits out serious moments if
they happen naturally. Recently, an article on Shailene Woodley claimed that during the actress’s appearance on Tonight to promote Divergent,
the show cut her answer to a question Fallon had asked about whether
she minded being compared to Jennifer Lawrence. Woodley’s answer was
no-nonsense and took to task Hollywood’s tendency to pit female stars
against each other. Fallon’s people apparently thought it harshed the
vibe or something because the exchange never saw the light of day.

Then just a couple of days ago came Chris Christie’s damn-near hallucinatory guest spot on Tonight in which he and Fallon did a sketch called “The Evolution of Dad Dancing” and Fallon thanked him for “standing in the ring and getting hit like that” by the press while sheepishly deflecting
the conversation away from the reason the press was “hitting” him:
because his administration almost certainly ordered part of the George
Washington Bridge closed to punish a political adversary. Fallon is
simply genetically incapable of asking a question that might get an
answer that isn’t 100% unicorns and rainbows. Even Leno was able to
slyly hammer Hugh Grant after the guy had been busted with a hooker.

Fallon’s sketches seem to aim largely at triggering the dopey
nostalgia receptors in the brain, with the amusement to be gleaned from
watching him and his guests dance, and sing, and rap Gen-X and
Millennial favorites apparently being a limitless commodity. He gets the
cast of Full House back together; he sings Ebony and Ivory with Terry Crews; and he of course pores over every possible hip-hop classic, either by lip-syncing, bringing out Justin Timberlake to do cheesy white-boy karaoke with the Roots, or editing Brian Williams intros into Baby Got Back. It’s not that it’s not funny or charming on occasion, it’s just that it’s not on occasion. It’s constant.
Fallon has one speed and only one speed: cloying and cutesy. He seeks
out maximum Facebook viral circulation and hits precisely the insipid
notes necessary to achieve that, turning The Tonight Show — one
of the most storied properties in media history — into broadcast
television’s answer to Upworthy. Fallon is a living, breathing hashtag.

Now certainly Fallon knows that the word broadcast is what
matters. He’s aiming for the broadest possible audience and maybe that’s
a laudable thing in an age where media saturation has removed the old
cultural touchstones we as a nation used to experience together. There
will never be another Johnny Carson precisely because there can’t
be — our media choices are too expansive and diverse now and it’s split
the audience into too many different subsets. But Fallon is trying to
use social media to connect all the dots out there and give Americans
something they can share in, even if they don’t share it in the
traditional way. The problem is that there’s no meat to Fallon and
that’s what’s needed to move his shtick beyond being just, well, shtick.
Guys like Carson weren’t just funny, they were insightful and
empathetic; they knew when to turn on the charm but also when to turn up
the class and even subtly go for the throat. They knew that there’s
more than one way to be entertaining. Fallon doesn’t seem to grasp that
yet — although admittedly there’s time for him.

As long as his ratings hold, The Tonight Show will be
Fallon’s for as long as he wants it. Hell, one day he may even be
honored by the Kennedy Center. At which point he’ll probably take the
stage and do a rap battle with the cast of Friends.

Prince Philip turns 93: Cringe at a memorable quote for every year of his life - Mirror Online

Prince Philip turns 93: Cringe at a memorable quote for every year of his life - Mirror Online

From the racist and the rude to the insensitive and
idiotic, the Duke of Edinburgh can be counted on to stun us with his one-liners

Prince Philip turns 93 on Tuesday so we have brought you 93 of his most cringe-worthy lines.

In those nine decades he's been a loyal companion to the Queen,
represented Britain around the world... and put his foot in it several
times.

From the racist and the rude to the insensitive and idiotic, the Duke of Edinburgh can be counted on to stun us with his one-liners.

Here are the most memorable of them...

1. After being told that Madonna was singing the Die Another Day theme in 2002: “Are we going to need ear plugs?”
   
2. To a car park attendant who didn’t recognise him in 1997, he snapped: “You bloody silly fool!”
3. To Simon Kelner, republican editor of The Independent, at Windsor Castle
   reception: “What are you doing here?” “I was invited, sir.” Philip:
   “Well, you didn’t have to come.”
4. To female sea cadet last year: “Do you work in a strip club?”
5. To ex-pats in Abu Dhabi last year: “Are you running away from something?”
6. After
   accepting a conservation award in Thailand in 1991: “Your country is
   one of the most notorious centres of trading in endangered species.”
7. At a project to protect turtle doves in Anguilla in 1965, he said: “Cats
   kill far more birds than men. Why don’t you have a slogan: ‘Kill a cat
   and save a bird?’”
8. To black politician Lord Taylor of Warwick, 1999: “And what exotic part of the world do you come from?”
   

   
   
   

   Racial insult: Lord Taylo

   
   

9. To the President of Nigeria, who was in national dress, in 2003: “You look like you’re ready for bed!”
10. His description of Beijing during a visit there in 1986: “Ghastly.”
11. At Hertfordshire University, 2003: “During the Blitz, a lot of shops had
    their windows blown in and put up notices saying, ‘More open than
    usual’. I now declare this place more open than usual.”
12. To deaf children by steel band, 2000: “Deaf? If you’re near there, no wonder you are deaf.”
13. To a tourist in Budapest in 1993: “You can’t have been here long, you haven’t got a pot belly.”
14. To a British trekker in Papua New Guinea, 1998: “You managed not to get eaten then?”
15. His verdict on Stoke-on-Trent, during a visit in 1997: “Ghastly.”
16. To Atul Patel at reception for influential Indians, 2009: “There’s a lot of your family in tonight.”
17. Peering at a fuse box in a Scottish factory, he said: “It looks as though it
    was put in by an Indian.” He later backtracked: “I meant to say
    cowboys.”
18. To Lockerbie residents after plane bombing, 1993:
    “People say after a fire it’s water damage that’s the worst. We’re still
    drying out Windsor Castle.”
    

    
    
    

    Wreckage: Lockerbie jet

    
    

19. In Canada in 1976: “We don’t come here for our health.”
20. In 1987: “I never see any home cooking – all I get is fancy stuff.”
21. To his wife the Queen after her coronation: “Where did you get the hat?”
22. Using Hitler’s title to address German chancellor Helmut Kohl in 1997, he called him: “Reichskanzler.”
23. In 1969: “We go into the red next year... I shall have to give up polo.”
24. At party in 2004: “Bugger the table plan, give me my dinner!”
25. To a woman solicitor, 1987: “I thought it was against the law for a woman to solicit.”
26. To a civil servant, 1970: “You’re just a silly little Whitehall twit: you don’t trust me and I don’t trust you.”
27. On the 1981 recession: “A few years ago, everybody was saying we must have
    more leisure, everyone’s working too much. Now everybody’s got more
    leisure time they’re complaining they’re unemployed. People don’t seem
    to make up their minds what they want.”
28. On the new £18million British Embassy in Berlin in 2000: “It’s a vast waste of space.”
29. After Dunblane massacre, 1996: “If a cricketer suddenly decided to go into a
    school and batter a lot of people to death with a cricket bat, are you
    going to ban cricket bats?”
    

    
    
    

    Massacre: Dunblane primary school
    

    
    

30. To the Aircraft Research Association in 2002: “If you travel as
    much as we do, you appreciate the improvements in aircraft design of
    less noise and more comfort – provided you don’t travel in something
    called economy class, which sounds ghastly.”
31. On stress  counselling for servicemen in 1995: “We didn’t have counsellors rushing
    around every time somebody let off a gun. You just got on with it!”
32. On Tom Jones, 1969: “It’s difficult to see how it’s possible to become
    immensely valuable by singing what are the most hideous songs.”
33. To the Scottish WI in 1961: “British women can’t cook.”
34. To then Paraguay dictator General Stroessner: “It’s a pleasure to be in a country that isn’t ruled by its people.”
35. To Cayman Islanders: “Aren’t most of you descended from pirates?
36. To Scottish driving instructor, 1995: “How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test?”
    

    
    
    

    Buckfast: Popular in Scotland
    

    
    

    
    
37. At a WF meeting in 1986: “If it has four legs and it’s not a
    chair, if it’s got two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane and if
    it swims and it’s not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it.”
38. In Kenya in 1984: “You ARE a woman, aren’t you?”
39. A VIP at a local airport asked HRH: “What was your flight, like, Your
    Royal Highness? Philip: “Have you ever flown in a plane?” VIP: “Oh yes,
    sir, many times.” “Well,” said Philip, “it was just like that.”
40. On Ethiopian art, 1965: “It looks like the kind of thing my daughter would bring back from school art lessons.”
41. To a fashion writer in 1993: “You’re not wearing mink knickers, are you?”
42. To Susan Edwards and her guide dog in 2002: “They have eating dogs for the anorexic now.”
43. When offered wine in Rome in 2000, he snapped: “I don’t care what kind it is, just get me a beer!”
44. In 1967: “I’d like to go to Russia very much – although the bastards murdered half my family.”
45. At City Hall in 2002: “If we could just stop the tourism, we could stop the congestion.”
46. On seeing a piezo-meter water gauge in Australia: “A pissometer?”
47. To matron of Caribbean hospital, 1966: “You have mosquitoes. I have the Press.”
    

    

    No fan of press: A younger Prince Phillip
    

    
    

48. At a Bangladeshi youth club in 2002:“So who’s on drugs here?... HE looks as if he’s on drugs.”
49. To a children’s band in Australia in 2002: “You were playing your instruments? Or do you have tape recorders under your seats?”
50. At Duke of Edinburgh Awards scheme, 2006. “Young people are the same as they always were. Just as ignorant.”
51. On how difficult it is in Britain to get rich: “What about Tom Jones? He’s made a million and he’s a bloody awful singer.”
52. To Elton John on his gold Aston Martin in 2001: “Oh, it’s you that owns that ghastly car, is it?”
53. At an engineering school closed so he could officially open it, 2005: “It
    doesn’t look like much work goes on at this university.”
54. To Aboriginal leader William Brin, Queensland, 2002: “Do you still throw spears at each other?”
55. At a Scottish fish farm: “Oh! You’re the people ruining the rivers.”
56. After a breakfast of bacon, eggs, smoked salmon, kedgeree, croissants and
    pain au chocolat – from Gallic chef Regis Crépy, 2002: “The French don’t
    know how to cook breakfast.”
57. To schoolboy who invited the Queen to Romford, Essex, 2003: “Ah, you’re the one who wrote the letter. So you can write then?
58. To multi-ethnic Britain’s Got Talent 2009 winners Diversity: “Are you all one family?”
    
59. To parents at a previously struggling Sheffield school, 2003:
    “Were you here in the bad old days? ... That’s why you can’t read and
    write then!”
60. To Andrew Adams, 13, in 1998: “You could do with losing a little bit of weight.”
61. When presented with a hamper of goods by US ambassador, 1999: “Where’s the Southern Comfort?”
62. To editor of downmarket tabloid: “Where are you from?” “The S*n, sir.” Philip: “Oh, no . . . one can’t tell from the outside.”
63. Turning down food, 2000: “No, I’d probably end up spitting it out over everybody.”
64. Asking Cate Blanchett to fix his DVD player because she worked “in the film
    industry”, 2008: “There’s a cord sticking out of the back. Might you
    tell me where it goes?”
65. “People think there’s a rigid class
    system here, but dukes have even been known to marry chorus girls. Some
    have even married Americans.” 2000.
66. After hearing President
    Obama had had breakfast with leaders of the UK, China and Russia, 2010:
    “Can you tell the difference between them?”
67. On students from Brunei, 1998: “I don’t know how they’re going to integrate in places like Glasgow and Sheffield.”
68. On Princess Anne, 1970: “If it doesn’t fart or eat hay, she isn’t interested.”
    

    
    
    

    Horseplay: Princess Ann

    
    

69. To wheelchair-bound nursing-home resident, 2002: “Do people trip over you?”
70. Discussing
    tartan with then-Scottish Tory leader Annabel Goldie last year: “That’s
    a nice tie... Do you have any knickers in that material?”
71. To a group of industrialists in 1961: “I’ve never been noticeably reticent
    about talking on subjects about which I know nothing.”
72. On a crocodile he shot in Gambia in 1957: “It’s not a very big one, but at least it’s dead and it took an awful lot of killing!”
73. On being made Chancellor of Edinburgh University in 1953: “Only a Scotsman can really survive a Scottish education.”
74. He hated the noise Concorde made flying over Buckingham Palace, and said
    in 2002: “I must be the only person in Britain glad to see the back of
    that plane.”
75. To a fashion designer, 2009: “Well, you didn’t design your beard too well, did you?”
76. To the General Dental Council in 1960: “Dontopedalogy is the science of
    opening your mouth and putting your foot in it, which I’ve practised for
    many years.”
77. On stroking a koala in 1992: “Oh no, I might catch some ghastly disease.”
78. On marriage in 1997: “You can take it from me the Queen has the quality of tolerance in abundance.”
79. To schoolchildren in blood-red uniforms, 1998: “It makes you all look like Dracula’s daughters!”
80. In 1988: “I don’t think a prostitute is more moral than a wife, but they are doing the same thing.”
    

    

    Happily married: Philip and Queen
    

    
    

    
    
81. To female Labour MPs in 2000: “So this is feminist corner then.”
82. On Nottingham Forest trophies in 1999: “I suppose I’d get in trouble if I were to melt them down.”
83. In 1956: “It’s my custom to say something flattering to begin with so I shall be excused if I put my foot in it later on.”
84. To a penniless student in 1998: “Why don’t you go and live in a hostel to save cash?”
85. On robots colliding, Science Museum, 2000: “They’re not mating are they?”
86. While stuck in a Heriot Watt University lift in 1958: “This could only happen in a technical college.”
87. To newsreader Michael Buerk, when told he knew about the Duke of
    Edinburgh’s Gold Awards, 2004: “That’s more than you know about anything
    else then.”
88. To a British student in China, 1986: “If you stay here much longer, you’ll go home with slitty eyes.”
89. To journalist Caroline Wyatt, who asked if the Queen was enjoying a Paris trip, 2006: “Damn fool question!”
90. On smoke alarms to a woman who lost two sons in a fire, 1998: “They’re a
    damn nuisance - I’ve got one in my bathroom and every time I run my bath
    the steam sets it off.”
91. To people at the Margaret Pyke Family Planning Centre in London in May: “At least you are all legitimate”.
92. “He told me I should lose the feet and put some wheels on my prosthetics as
    it would be easier to get around,” recalled Light Dragoons trooper
    Cayle Royce, who lost both legs in a blast in Afghanistan in 2012.
93. On the newly-married Duchess of York's quarters in 1986: “It looks like a tart's bedroom.”

Agro + Peter Russell Clarke - Bloopers: YouTube