Daily Archives: February 4, 2007

Tammy Wynette: Greatest Hits Live

Blu-ray/DVD Reviews

The original grand dame of country music (with all apologies to Dolly Parton), Tammy Wynette dominated
genre charts in the late 1960s through the mid-’70s, racking up a
mind-boggling 17 #1 singles. Along with June Carter Cash, Loretta Lynn
and the aforementioned Parton, Wynette is probably one of only a
handful of classic country artists that even non-traditional fans of
her era knew and could enjoy, and thus helped pave the way for the
crossover, mega-commercial success of artists like Garth Brooks, Shania
Twain and The Dixie Chicks.

Recorded live at the Church St. Station Theatre in Florida — a venue where Johnny Cash once debuted “Ring of Fire” — this hour-long concert disc’s complete track listing is as follows: “Welcome to My World,” “Another Chance,” “Womanhood,” “Fairy Tales,” “When the Grass Grows Over Me,” “Til I Can Make It On My Own,” “Your Good Girls Go Bad,” “D-I-V-O-R-C-E,” “Stand By Your Man,” “Crying in the Rain” and a more spiritual-tinged medley of “Amazing Grace,” “I’ll Fly Away” and “I Saw the Light.” It’s a strong collection, to be sure, but notable as much for some of its exclusions as the songs that make the cut. I personally would have liked to have seen (and heard) “The Ways to Love a Man,” “Singing My Song” and the underrated “My Elusive Dreams” (her first chart-topper, from 1967) swapped in, probably for “Fairy Tales” and “Womanhood.”

These nitpicking details aside, this release is a fairly superb introduction to the bittersweet and reflective tones and tunes of Wynette, who passed away too soon in 1998, after years of health complications. The late-in-show medley is fantastic, and Wynette doesn’t shortchange crowd favorite “Stand By Your Man” — she still locates a genuine depth of feeling in the song that’s heartening and remarkable. Tammy Wynette: Greatest Hits Live comes with a 5.1 surround sound audio mix, and is presented on a region-free disc suitable for worldwide play. There are no DVD bonus features. B+ (Concert) C (Disc)

On Film Touts and Self-Mockery

Ephemera, Musings

Another tangential thought on film credits and touts — hitching a movie’s prospects to the pedigree of its writers, producers or director is certainly nothing new. It’s almost as old as the movie business itself. But making fun of the filmmakers’ prior credits in self-effacing, post-modern fashion is becoming seemingly the latest trend in movie marketing.

Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer helped kickstart the development last year, with Date Movie, which was billed as “from two of the six writers of Scary Movie.” This was a canny realization of the opening paragraphs of any number of hack critical savagings, and a preemptive strike against the same. It took the piss out of the pooh-poohing, in other words; the film went on to gross almost $50 million Stateside and another $35 million abroad. Follow-up Epic Movie — a scatalogical recapitulation of scenes from other recent genre films, plus random digs at Paris Hilton and a rip-off of Saturday Night Live‘s “Lazy Sunday” sketch thrown in for good measure — opened atop the box office at $18.6 million last week, auguring good things for this trend of promotional self-mockery.

March’s Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters, meanwhile, raises the bar even further. The trailer for the feature-length adaptation of the “Adult Swim” cartoon bills
itself as “from the first assistant director of the 2nd unit of Hellraiser
III: Hell on Earth.” It’s not bullshit, either. That would be co-writer-director Matt Maiellaro.

Scorsese Picks Up DGA Award

Awards

So Martin Scorsese picked up the Directors Guild of America’s Filmmaker of the Year award for The Departed last night, his first win after six previous nominations. Good news for his Academy Award chances, perhaps, since 51 out of the 57 winners since the prize was first handed out in 1949 have gone on to also collect the Oscar for Best Director. Walter Hill, meanwhile, won the award for Best Television Movie courtesy of Broken Trail, with Robert Duvall and Thomas Hayden Church.