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SO MUCH MOORE
ZANE LEWIS: Remember when they thought they could create all those new Waylon’s once some genius brought autotune to Nashville? And they all sucked live? Well, we haven’t seen Lewis live, but this feels like the real deal. A young ‘un raised on equal parts Waylon and Lynyrd Skynyrd, this is what outlaw music would sound like today if there was anyone in Nashville with the balls to make it instead of the non-stop sippy cup stuff that the faucet won’t stop dripping. A delightful neo-throwback to stuff like outlaw, hard country and hard core country rock, both young and jaded ears can hear this and once again be turned on to the potential real country has. Hot stuff.
(Slant)
DVD SUPPLEMENT
PARAMOUNT HOME VIDEO
MANNIX seas one: One of those great pieces of 60s tv history that you either love or hate. Once derided as the most violent show on the air, this long time Saturday night fixture kicked off with a jaunty Lalo Schrifrin theme and proceeded to follow the adventures of the toughest private dick this side of Mike Hammer. The long unseen first season finds him as a mere employee before striking out on his own in season two so you have the man against the system conflicts as an underpinning as he was a dinosaur even then facing the nascent computer age when shamusing was about to go high tech–even if with punch cards. A product of it’s time that has aged well, this is some special tough teck tv and we hope that this is a sign Paramount is going to stop selling split season collections of classic tv since this set has it all under one roof. Check it out.
ODD COUPLE seas 4: The penultimate season of this underrated classic comedy finds Felix and Oscar hanging with Hef and Wolfman Jack in the series most music driven season. Gearing up to the finale that would bring them Emmys and unemployment, this human version of Tom & Jerry (minus the dynamite sticks up the butts) manage to generate non-stop laughs with the most simple of premises. Of course, once you start adding to the premises with stuff like Felix shooting his ex-wife for Playboy, Jaye P. Morgan singing the Felix classic “Happy and Peppy and Bursting with Love”, Oscar squaring off against his real life wife, Brett Somers, Penny Marshall paying the rent long before she was thinking of even directing pictures and oy, vey!, do you have a laugh riot—all with the simplest of premises. If you can tear yourself away from “Seinfeld” and “Family Guy” and shake off any preconceived stigmas about Neil Simon material being too middle class, you’re sure to have a great time in spite of yourself. This classic series should be collected on your shelf like books.
WARNER HOME VIDEO
POPEYE THE SAILOR 1938-40 V. 2: Ah, the joys of a job that let me hang out the gone to Starbucks sign, fire up my laptop, grab a cup of coffee and while away a summer day sitting outside watching the second volume of classic Popeye. Not everything stands the test of time, but the Fleisher’s certainly had an eye to the future as these late 30s cartoons are still a mother today and must viewing for anyone that only knows the 60s and later Popeyes. As we meet the goons, the Jeep, see twisted versions of fairy tales and even an episode where the Popeye/Bluto rivalry gets turned on it’s head, if you think you can get away with throwing this disc in the player and not hitting ‘play all’, you are sadly mistaken. Animation that should be mentioned in the same breath as Iwerks and Jones, be prepared for a laugh riot of muttering, schnorring, absurd Dadaism and boatloads of grand stuff that just doesn’t exist today. The extras are tailor made to the geekiest of geeks and they are served with an open hand. No one except the curliest of curmudgeons will walk away from this package disappointed. Classic fun all the way around.
Volume 31/Number 218
June 5, 2008
MIDWEST RECORD
830 W. Route 22 #144
Lake Zurich, IL., 60047
CHRIS SPECTOR, Editor and Publisher
©2008 Midwest Record
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