35 Burst results for "Keaton"
Filmspotting
"keaton" Discussed on Filmspotting
"Going to be able to do it, but also is buster actually going to be able to pull this off his Buster Keaton going to be able to pull this off. And of course he does. Well, the timing of it is just incredible, right? And of course it probably was Keaton. I mean, I didn't research the particulars of this stunt, but he didn't ever really use a stunt double. So that had to be Keaton, hanging from that line, and I think that is what struck me about our hospitality is rightfully so. We think of Keaton as a comedian first, but man, even in those shorts, we watched, he's a stuntman. Almost just as much as he is a comedian. I mean, those gags in those shorts were physically grueling, even if they mostly caused laughs, what we get here is a lot of physically grueling work that causes gasps, as you just attested to. And it's just a good reminder that he had those talents as well. Now, coming off directly off the heels of those four shorts, I was struck as well by the level of melodrama compared to the level of comedy. I think we probably get more straight drama than laughs in this film and maybe because based on purely that prologue you mentioned, which is intensely dramatic. And goes on for quite a while before we even see buster. So this is really interesting to me in that his stuntman prowess is on display and is incredible. When he straddling those two separating train cars, right? When he's flailing down the river in earlier scenes. And of course, the waterfall sequence you just mentioned. This is really more of a straight up adventure than it is any sort of comedy we've seen before. And if there was anything that made me, I don't know, we might differ a little bit in the, I think you said sophistication, the sophistication of the early attempt to meld those two elements to meld melodrama and slapstick comedy because it's kind of old at this point that someone has to choose between chaplain or Keaton. Obviously you don't have to. You can love them both. As I do, but I think our hospitality was a little bit instructive of how chaplain at least at this point had a better feel for how to merge those two qualities, those two tones together because our hospitality isn't quite I didn't find it to be quite as seamless in terms of moving from the straight adventure narrative into the stuff that was really lovely like the bit about when he gets into that train car at the beginning and he's wearing this top hat, right? And he gets into the train car, the ceiling is low, so there's no room for his top hat. He's sitting next to Natalie talmage's character at this point. So he feels a little awkward and he just does a little bit with his hat. A little bit of physical comedy ends up in the great grace note of him choosing the shorter pork pie hat that we come to know. Buster Keaton is wearing, and that's his solution, which is just a great bit. And it made me think, you know, what would our hospitality have looked like if it had played a straight fire all the way through? And it would have been perhaps a little bit more of a piece. But then again, we would have missed out on some of the more adventurous stuff, which is incredible. So yeah, you shouldn't really have to choose. It's just for me more a matter of how we move from one to the other. Yeah, and I think that's fair to an extent. I was definitely going to say that you're right. If we'd gotten the straight farce, then we would miss out on not only some of these amazing sequences. But I think we would miss out on what makes buster buster. And what separates him from his contemporaries, including Charlie Chaplin as you mentioned. And I still see the sophistication in terms of the narrative. When you think about the sweep of this entire story. And whether or not we maybe get much of a character arc or development with the Keaton character himself, Willie, you do see it in other ways, though, like the moment at the end, where the feud is finally put to rest, and it's this great scene where Joe Roberts, who we saw throughout those shorts and who I think I read somewhere died like three weeks after this movie came out. So his final performance and what a great final scene to watch, where he is the patriarch of Virginia, the love interest, he finally puts aside this feud and we get the call back to the sign about loving thy neighbor like yourself. And it's not just hollow because we actually remember from that prologue how he felt in that moment and what he was actually going to do that he really truly wanted to put the feud aside and that sign had true meaning to him. And so when he sees it again at the end, we buy that moment. We buy it emotionally that he's going to actually conclude it because he can tap into that emotion, even if it was decades ago. But when I talk about sophistication too, I really am thinking about the technique. I'm thinking about the craft and I'm thinking about not just the stunts and the scale of that waterfall moment and the whole river sequence, but leading up to that. The gag on the rocks where he's attached to one of the brothers trying to kill him and the way they fall down onto the rocks and down onto the water. Think about the intricacy of staging that and also the fear that would have been part of at least some of it. And the way they fall into the water and how real that truly feels, how dangerous that really feels. But then those train scenes as well are pretty remarkable Josh when you think about how stationary the camera is in most of those shorts in most early silent comedies and then now here we are in 1923 and he's got he's got a train on a parallel track doing these incredible moving, you know, literal tracking shots. Yes. You know? It really is pretty remarkable. And impressive to watch. Yeah. It's just outrageous to think about what was actually achieved in terms of the mechanics of each of these major sequences. And I keep coming back to the comedy bits that he gets in as well, including the extended sequence where he Willie McKay has managed to stay at their house and he's trying to stay overnight because they have this rule that while we can't kill him while he's in our home. That would be rude, right? And so all of the ways that his character manages to extend his stay. They want to bid him goodbye so that they could go outside and kill him and he goes through all these machinations to stay in. So it is this continual balance of the melodrama and the comedy bits like that. I think for me, I could see a little bit more of Keaton sort of, it goes back to like who is this Keaton character, you know? Who is this guy that he embodies, that he gives us in almost every one of his appearances, even in those shorts, we could get a sense like, we feel like we're watching the same guy. Essentially, right? And he's this guy who somehow finds himself in the midst of chaos, doesn't freak out, manages through extreme physical feats to keep his head on. And stay alive. And that is sort of different. I feel like then the guy we occasionally get in our hospitality, which is fine. You want, you want to act or a performer to be able to change. And The Rock scene, the cliff scene you describe, is like Keaton has changed into Indiana Jones. It's that sophisticated, as you sat and that well.
Filmspotting
"keaton" Discussed on Filmspotting
"Is a great one in cops. And it is, in addition to the one you mentioned, where at this point, he has haphazardly unwittingly tossed that bomb after lighting his cigarette, right? He uses the fuse to light his cigarette, doesn't realize what it is, just tosses it and it explodes in the midst of this policeman parade. So the rest of the short 60, a hundred policemen are chasing him. And at one point, he goes up a ladder, that's against a wall that ends. It's like, you know, ends about maybe 12 feet up. And so the ladder starts to tip and you get a teeter totter gag. So he's trying to balance it. Cops find him, grab the ladder at one end, pull it down, cops on the other end of the wall, can't see the others, so they grab the other end and it's kind of this ongoing teeter totter thing, which I think is just fantastic. But did cops strike you as kind of dark? I mean, maybe it's obvious we're talking about bombs being thrown at police and it's all played for a comic effect, but wow, the more and more Keaton circled around this city, being chased by an increasing number of uniformed policemen. Maybe I'm just looking this through looking at this through political 2022 eyes, but I wonder if there's a little commentary here about the overzealousness of law enforcement and how yes there's a guy who as far as they know is like a prime suspect that needs to be captured, but just the fact that we're getting a hundred policemen increasingly irate chasing after him did make me kind of see it that way and it kind of ends on a dark note too in terms of what actually happens to our hero who, you know, in the other features makes it out, okay, pretty much okay by the end, not so much here. Yeah, I think that sense of exploring the exploited and thumbing his nose at authority is something we see from Keaton in some of these films and we'll probably see more of throughout this marathon. I go back to one week and the scarecrow for my other favorite gag candidates. We've already seen at one point where buster has walked through a room and opened a door that if this place was constructed properly, should take him into another room. And of course, it just takes him head over heels into the grass. He falls basically down because there's nothing there to catch him. And so we've seen that, which means we know that when that door gets opened again by another character that they're going to go right out onto the grass just like buster does. And I think that there's something to that as well that that math being done by the audience when we know something's coming because it's been set up before. Even in cops, it's really close together, but you mentioned the bomb. The way that's handled where I think the order is we see someone on a rooftop holding a bomb, like they're about to throw it. And we see buster in the front of his carriage, trying to light a cigarette and have nothing to light it with. And so you know, before buster does, that what's going to happen next is that bomb's going to land there and he's going to use it to light his cigarette. So I like that moment in one week. And I also really like the moment where at the end, he's trying to drag the car, he's trying to drag the house with his car across the lot to where he should park his house. And the rope breaks. So he tries to nail it. He nails his car seat to the house, and he's going to drive and pull it like he's toeing it. And of course, we don't think this is going to work, but what we don't expect is exactly what happens, which is the top part of the car stays attached. At the bottom, rolls away. And it's actually a repeat in a way of a gag earlier in the film, right? Day one of building the house, where he's doing some sawing of a board. On top. And he puts the nail in and then he tries to cut a piece and actually, in that instance, he successfully cuts it, but goes down with the board. Can I just say one of the reasons I love one week so much, I think, is because my handyman skills are very similar to Buster Keaton's. I just assumed, I mean, a nail, you just nail something in and that's solves everything, right? And no, not quite everything is a disaster. I would never have been able to put that house together either. Yeah, who knows? He may read directions better than I do. We'll never know because the boxes got switched on him, right? That's true. The other one I was going to mention was just from the scarecrow. Where he runs around the top of the ruined house. Oh, but how about the dog? The dog chasing him. Every part of that is just insanely brilliant. Blue dog, the dog. The dog changing direction and going after him and you see the big gaps and you think, well, they'll never be able to cross those, and of course they glide right over them. That was so inspired. And what about that moment with the scarecrow? As well, where he acts like the scarecrow is being chased. It's really good. And he puts on the clothes and he poses just like a scarecrow and fools them for a little bit anyway. That kind of physicality, even though I suppose it's a little ironic that he's actually being still in that moment, but he's so perfectly replicating how a scarecrow looks that it is believable and it's no different than in some of these other films that we watched where he's acting like a horse. He's acting like an orangutan. He is acting in a very machine like way. A lot of times, that's where Keaton's physicality really comes through. So I want to give a word of encouragement to anyone who's listening and has not yet committed to watching some of these or wants to play along with the marathon. I don't know why you'd be listening now, maybe it's only those people have already bought in, but really I have found these to be incredibly stress relieving. And maybe.
Filmspotting
"keaton" Discussed on Filmspotting
"But in this case, he had mentioned Keaton himself that he only really did that because the line in the playhouse where a Keaton character says something like, well, this Keaton guy sure seems to do at all was actually a jab at another director from the time who loved to list himself as everything in the credits. And so he listed a co director just so that it wouldn't look hypocritical. Like he was giving himself all the credit for making this film. But yeah, I saw it as more of a fantasy where, oh, he now gets to play out all of these roles. And you're right, that sequence where he's the composer. And then in each part of the pit, I think there's three versions of Keaton on each side doing the playing. And then we get that trick photography of that duet dance with himself that's perfectly in sync and really fun to watch. And I was also thinking while watching this, you were thinking about the Muppets, probably this will be the last time, maybe it won't, but it could be the last time we mentioned, I don't know. Coming to America or the nutty professor movies aren't those the movies that Eddie Murphy remake, Josh, that a professor. But this is a precursor to all of that. This is Keaton playing like 20 different roles. Some of them he looks like Buster Keaton, but in other cases he's playing men, he's playing women. He's playing young characters. He's playing old characters. This really is inventive. I think a little bit more beyond the trick photography. It's more inventive in all the different ways we get to see Keaton play with character. Yeah. And probably a good point to mention that this is also an instance of Keaton in blackface or employing blackface in one of his shorts. And Dana, in her book, really delves into sort of the tradition of that. And how Keaton would have encountered it in his vaudeville days as a kid. And other stars African American stars of the time who were working on the stage and then eventually in screen. So that's another really great sort of side channel that Dana goes down in her book that I would recommend why people should pick that up. But yeah, I think this one is, there is so much going on and that adds to the anxiousness too. Just this activity and the fact that it is all emanating from this one performer. Now you mentioned Eddie Klein. I think the credits here are Edward F Klein. Actually, credited as co writer and co director on all four of these shorts, which is which is really interesting. And you know, we often think at least the first time I started thinking of Keaton, I thought of a more just as a star. And it wasn't until I started actually watching some of this stuff and realizing how much of a hand he had in it, but also at least for the shorts that we're considering today had a key collaborator incline as a co writer and co director. We have talked about all of the shorts so far except really cops and maybe a way to get in to cops would be for me to ask you if you had a favorite gag throughout these four films. One particular standout moment in terms of the comedy. And cops has a contender for me, even though it's relatively subtle, or it's relatively common in terms of this type of gag, we see in Keaton's work. We see in these four films, it's really the start of cops, where he is interacting with a rich man, and I don't remember the exact sequence, but I think it's a series of three kind of little tricks that happen with this guy where he fools him and kind of ends up with his wallet, and then he ends up giving the wallet back, but he's got his cash, and then the guy wants his cash back, and he gets in a cab, but the next thing you know, buster's the one who's actually gotten in the cab and taken his seat. In all three instances, he has managed to get the upper hand on the guy. And that repetition of the gag. The constant surprise of it just when you think you've gotten the joke and then buster adds a second part and then he adds a third part on top of it that was one of the standout ones for me. Yeah, it's really good and ties into really the first third of cops, which is mostly about the way money and possessions can be easy come, easy go, 'cause after that sequence, buster gets tricked, right? A guy tricks him into giving that money away to buy this furniture, which doesn't even belong to that guy, belongs to this family who's moving and has put it out on the sidewalk. So yeah, it's this kind of rotating gag where he is the instigator in some ways, but then becomes the victim, just a few seconds later. Maybe my favorite gag would probably go back to one week and it is the train smashing the house at the very end. I mean, again, it goes just back to the river a scale of it..
Filmspotting
"keaton" Discussed on Filmspotting
"Will cover Keaton's best known features, some of the titles you've already heard, like steamboat Bill junior, Sherlock junior, the general. But we are starting by taking a look at a few of his shorts all four of them made between 1920 and 1923, a very productive period that saw Keaton write direct and star in over 20 short films. In her book, Dana puts these films in the context of a hugely destabilizing time in American and world history. So it's only a couple of years removed from the end of World War I and a global influenza epidemic which killed tens of millions worldwide and hundreds of thousands in the U.S.. The passage in 1918 and 1919 of the 18th and 19th amendments, the first of those amendments initiated the prohibition era, the second gave women the right to vote. Dana also puts Keaton in the company of other lost generation artists who helped to define the era so she discusses F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, Hemingway, Bessie Smith, and Martha Graham, and touches also on international artists like Luis bunuel and Bertolt Brecht. Dana makes the case that these artists Keaton made work that reflects an era of pervasive anxiety and a desire to remake and reinvent a broken world from the ground up. Invention Adam probably a good place to start with Keaton. After starting on the vaudeville circuit as a child performer with his family and following a three year apprenticeship with the early silent movie star Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle, Keaton started to make his own films. The four shorts we watched for this week, again, this is just a small percentage of the films he made in his first three years as an independent artist. They contain an astounding degree of comic invention stunts, camera trickery, set design, action, honestly, it was almost like, how are you wasting these ideas? This is how it seems to me, from a 2022 mindset. How are you wasting these ideas on a short, you know, obviously shorts were the thing then. But that's how it felt watching some of these. A quick run through of the four titles and then we'll jump into our responses to them one week from 1920 and I'll note here that all four of these shorts are what are called two reelers, so about 20 minutes total, ten minutes per reel. It was the typical length of silent comedies of the era in this one Keaton and sybil Seeley are newlyweds whose effort to start a life together is sabotaged by her expo. The theme of marriage or the plot point of marriage runs through all of these shots. I think this is the only one though where they actually start married as opposed to him seeking a woman's hand in marriage. The scarecrow from 1920 has buster competing for the attention of a farmer's daughter. He shares a one room house with Joe Roberts who appears in multiple of these shorts. He gets chased by a dog and yes, he does pretend to be a scarecrow. There's the playhouse from 1921 where Keaton has let's say a very malkovich malkovich malkovich dream and then does wreak havoc finally cops from 1922 where Keaton is mistaken for a terrorist bomber. I'm not going to ask you to rank the movies in terms of how much you enjoyed them, but I am curious, Josh, whether you had a clear favorite among the bunch and maybe if you had a clear least favorite. And if somewhere in the distinction between the two, we find what appeals to you most about Keaton. I did have a clear favorite and it was one week and I liked all of these to be perfectly clear about it. But I think it goes back to what I was just saying about the ambition and the level of stunts that are in these films. For me one week had the largest ones, whether it's the home, itself, that they build. So the conceit is essentially these newlyweds, get a gift from this uncle, where it's a build your own home kit. And they get a lot, a property, and they spend this week putting this mega Ikea concept together. And so you have this massive set that during a storm spins around has so many moving pieces itself. And then you also have, we're going to be spoiling these. I mean, these are a hundred year old films. So I think it's okay to spoil these. But you have that climactic moment where the train where they've decided to move this house to a different lot. And they go over these railroad tracks. First, they think it's going to get hit. Great gag. It's the train on the other line, so it passes by, and then while they're not watching, the train comes by on the line that it is on, and smashes it. I mean, just the scale of these set pieces is astounding to me and some of these other shorts have impressive, impressively scaled set pieces as well. But for me, one week had the biggest and the best of those, and it also had a strong emotional through line for me in the relationship of this married couple. And it had some smart satire, I think, about not only how marriage was envisioned at the time. But how I think it's still considered to be in American society today is just this easy thing that once you achieve, you've just figured it all out and it's happily ever after, right? And the very concept, the very structure of this film sends that up. Marriage is not something you buy in a box and put together according to the instructions and you're good to go. It's a little more difficult than that. And it's also very romantic. It starts really sour, sour, I think, is a word that is used at one point to describe romance in a very early intertidal, and you have that sign on the back of the couple's cars. They leave the church good luck. You'll need it. But what happens at the end? After their house is dashed to smithereens this couple, cybil Celia again, with Keaton, who have been very persistent and committed throughout all the mishaps that have happened, they just kind of clasp hands and walk along down the track together, and they're going to keep working at it. Even though their house has been smashed to smithereens. So that's a lot on one week. We can get to some of the others..
Fresh Air
"keaton" Discussed on Fresh Air
"Made. But the stuntman did every stunt. I mean, this is not the modern Hollywood star always saying I do my stunts. This is actually somebody making sure to place the camera at a far enough away angle that you can really verify that it's his body, they're doing all of those dangerous things at once. He was also his film's editor. So at this very early stage, when film was just sort of defining what it was, all of those different those divisions of labor had not calcified in the way that they do now. And I think to him made complete sense that he would be in the cutting room, putting his film together himself instead of instead of farming it out to an editor. So when you see a silent Buster Keaton film, you know, one of the ones made between 1920 and 1928 or so, you really are seeing something that came entirely out of his brain no matter who's being credited as director on screen. Dana Stevens is the film critic for slate. Her new book is cameraman. Buster Keaton, the dawn of cinema and the invention of the 20th century. She'll be back to talk more after this short break and rock critic can Tucker will review Neil Young's new album barn, which he thinks is the best Neil Young album in quite a while. I'm Dave Davies, and this is fresh air weekend. This message comes from NPR sponsor, future, a new workout experience that pairs you one on one with a fitness coach who will map out a custom plan to meet your goals all through the future app, your coach will check in with you via text and FaceTime, and is available at any time to answer questions, fine tune your workouts and celebrate your progress. To learn more and get started with 50% off your first three months, visit try future dot com slash NPR. We're speaking with slate film critic Dana Stevens, who's written a new book about Buster Keaton. Keaton directed and starred in a series of silent movies in the 1920s. His physical comedy made audiences laugh, but his films are regarded by historians as influential works in American cinema and culture. Steven's book is cameraman, Buster Keaton, the dawn of cinema, and the invention of the 20th century. You know, he was an innovator in filmmaking. And there are a couple of films that reflect this. One of them is a film called Sherlock junior and in particular a scene where he plays a guy who's a projectionist in the theater who falls asleep and then dreams of entering the movie. Tell us what he does here. Oh yeah, this is wonderful. I mean, this is a great starter Buster Keaton if you've never seen any of his movies because it really is nice and short, it's about an hour long and it really shows all the things that he could do, both with his body and with the camera. So yeah, the conceit that he had, which actually his longtime cinematographer was the one who dreamed up is why don't you play a projectionist who falls asleep in dreams his way into a movie. And it was because of the technical challenge of wanting to make that happen. You know, to see someone climb into a movie and become a part of it, that he was fascinated enough to do the film. And he loved to talk about the technique of how they actually did this, what they did was they created a stage set and lid it was wonderful cinematographer, Elgin Leslie, who we worked with for many years. Lit this stage set in a sort of flat way so that it would look like the screen of a movie to trick the eye of the viewer and then we just see him climbing in from the stage. But at that moment, of course, the Keaton character finds himself inside a movie and not sort of able to adjust to the world of being in a movie, and there's an incredible editing gag where the Buster Keaton on the screen finds himself into space. The movie within a movie then cuts to a completely different space like at one point a lion's cage with a lion in it. And suddenly he's in that space, right? So he sort of trapped in this loop of editing and that's a wonderful joke in the middle of the movie. It's an amazing effect for a movie made in the 1920s. It looks like the guy actually walks into the movie and enters it, which today people will check out, you can do that. But it's a remarkable that he did it in those early years. Yeah, he loved to brag about the fact that that always tricked people later in life and interviews he would say, I've seen that with many an audience and nobody can ever figure out how it was done. And he said that all the other cinematographers at the time would go to see Sherlock junior to try to figure out how the climbing into the screen thing had been done. It's interesting he was not a man of a lot of pretense, was he? I mean, he didn't think of himself as when people would call him a genius in an artist. He didn't like that, did he? No, it's something fascinating to read when you read interviews with him is that he loved to talk about technique. Like I say how he accomplished certain effects and things like that. He liked to tell stories about his childhood. He was not resistant to speaking to interviewers, but he was not introspective or self analytical at all. And he, in fact, was resistant to the idea that his work meant anything other than trying to make people laugh. And if he was called a genius or an artist or anything like that, I think tended to really withdraw and start to mistrust the person who had said that, he went. What would you say? Yeah, you can't be a genius and slap shoes in a pork pie hat or something like that. Yeah, exactly. The silent era came to an end at with the 20s, essentially, as a lot of things in the United States were changing, including the film industry. And that was when Buster Keaton lost his independence and signed a contract with the studio MGM where, you know, it was a big corporate machine and he had roles that was all written and this production schedules were defined and he kind of had to do what he was told. This didn't suit him well did it. No, I mean, this is a very painful part of the book to research and the movies that he made at that point are painful to watch. And even more painful in a ways that they were successful. You know, every talkie that he made at MGM that he regarded as the worst turkeys he'd ever turned out and that nobody watches now really unless your researching the dark years of Buster Keaton were all moneymakers for him. And part of that was that MGM had a strong marketing arm and he had a big name and people just went to see the new Buster Keaton movie because it was there. But tastes were also changing in the early days of sound. And sound comedies very few of early sound comedies make us laugh now. But the things that made people laugh when sound was new, often had to do with just the novelty of hearing people speaking and hearing music and having sound incorporated into the film going experience in the first place. You write that to see him in talkies is to witness the extinguishing of a singular artist's creative spark and the erosion of his professional confidence. Why were these movies so bad? I mean, people went to see them and could you give us a think of an example? I mean, it's possible that the film I was talking about then was what no beer, which is maybe his very most painful film to watch at MGM because it was toward the end. It was in fact the last film he made with him as their star comedian, and by that time he really was deep into depression, alcoholism, you know, he just had a very painful divorce. He was just an absolutely chaotic and miserable time of his life and it a 100% shows up on screen and it's just awful to see him seeming so miserable, especially because this character that he'd always played, which, as you said, was a resourceful, plucky, you know, someone who was put upon by the world and always getting out of disaster situations, but who had a lot of resources to do so kind of inner resources. Spunk and gumption. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, right. And during this period at MGM, somehow his passivity, the passivity of his character, that kind of essential, quiet that he always had a silent films, gets misinterpreted as masochism almost. And MGM movies really involve a lot of things that hark back to the joke Keaton, Buster Keaton, and that they're violent, but not in that they're funny. So there's a lot of scenes of him kind of being manhandled by bigger characters being thrown around, having no power. He doesn't get the girl anymore. He's kind of the outcast almost, or, you know, he's sort of the loser and some of these movies. And it doesn't suit his character at all. It doesn't suit his sense of humor. And I feel like at MGM, they just never really figured out who he was. They couldn't figure out what kind of vehicles to buy for him, what kind of material to put him in. And or the simple fact that there are some performers that if you give them their freedom, they'll do all sorts of incredible things. And if you take away their freedom, they're an animal in a cage. And that, I think, is how he felt and how he seemed in his films while he was at MGM. So his drinking, which had already been, you know, something that ran in the family, his father was an alcoholic, his mother seems to have drunk almost every day, like the sat and played cards and drank bourbon every day. And he came from that culture, but it really intensified after his marriage started to fall apart after his job satisfaction went to down to zero and during those miserable years. As a result, he was fired from MGM by Louis B Mayer in 1933 and had a couple of years really on the skids, where he had a lot of trouble finding work. He did not have his drinking under control at one point he married his sobriety nurse, the woman who had been hired to look after him and make sure he didn't get drunk, and they spent a couple of seemingly miserable years together. And that was a very dark time in his life. Although I do try to make the point in my book that that was not the end for buster and to kind of shake your head and say it's too bad that he went off the rails and then just write him off is a complete underestimation of the drive that he had to entertain and to continue to work. And the need to work because he had to support his entire family of origin as he did his whole life. So he, you know, he had after his divorce from his first wife, he had a two year marriage to mace Griffin, who was this nurse helping with his sobriety. And then in 1940, I believe he married Eleanor Norris, who was a contract, dancer at MGM. This was a more mature relationship. Made him happier, and he found found a place in the business, didn't he? What did he do? Yeah. I mean, this is what I mean about Keaton really managing to turn his life around in a way that I think often doesn't get appreciated in storytelling about his life. So over the course of the 1940s he was behind the scenes at MGM as a gag writer and had success there, but it wasn't really visible to audiences, but toward the end of the 40s and the early 50s he started to get bit parts in big movies. He's in sunset boulevard. He has a little bit part in that. He's in a musical with Judy Garland, where he has a small part. But not so much movies as TV really interested him. And just as always, he was always wanting to do the latest thing. He was in vaudeville at the height of vaudeville. He was in silent film at the height of silent the silent film era. And he really broke into television very early and found a lot of success there in all different kinds of roles. I mean, everything from having his own sort of sitcom at one point, appearing on the Donna Reed show and lots of other sitcoms. The Twilight Zone candid camera. I mean, there's just very little early TV that Keaton did not get in on in one way or another. You mentioned viewing his stuff on YouTube. It's remarkable, as I was preparing for for our conversation, how many of his films are on YouTube for free in this beautifully restored print? These beautifully restored prints. What would you recommend to somebody who wants to a beginner who wants to develop an appreciation for Buster Keaton? Oh, that's a great question. Yes, it is important to know that almost all these movies are streaming and most of them are streaming for free because they're in the public domain. So definitely just explore on your own. But I would say for the short 20 minute film, watch one week, which I think is one of his all time masterpieces and one of the great American comedies is sort of a romantic comedy let's put it that way, but with lots of slapstick from 1920 cops is another short that you just can't go wrong with it's incredibly crowd pleasing and full of just astonishing physical stunts. And then getting into the features. I mean, it really depends on your taste, but I would say that my two probably my two favorite Buster Keaton movies, maybe not the most famous, maybe not his favorites of his own, would be Sherlock junior, which is from 1924, and the key image from this one, if you've seen it, maybe in clip reels is of him climbing into a movie screen and joining what's happening on screen. Essentially inserting himself into a movie in progress. And steamboat Bill junior, which was his last independent movie, and it's just a really beautifully accomplished movie. And a sad one to watch in that you realize that he was just hitting his stride, the height of his powers, and that was when his independence was just about to be taken away. He died in 1966 of lung cancer. Was he a happy man then? You know, I think he was, actually, the last chapter of my book opens with this speculation is sort of how much professional disappointment did Keaton feel at the end of his life. We know he was personally happy. That seems really, really evident from just all of the stories of his relationship with Eleanor and what she said about him after he died when she became a big guardian of his legacy. And personally, I think there's no question that he found contentment, which is wonderful in itself. Professionally, it's another of those black boxes because he never stopped getting work, you know, after he got back to work after that dark time we talked about. He never stopped wanting to work or being curious about trying new things. But he also never got to direct a movie again. You know, he never got to be the lead of a movie again. He never got to devise comedy of the kind that only he could devise. And there must have been somewhere deep buried inside some regret about having had such a wonderful flight of creativity for so many years and then having to work in a more constrained way. But when asked about it, he always said, I couldn't have had a lucky or happier life. You know, he was not a complainer and I think he was pretty satisfied with the three score and ten that he got on earth. Well, Dana Stevens, thank you so much for speaking with us. It was an absolute delight. Thank you, Dave. Dana Stevens is the film critic for slate. Her new book is cameraman. Buster Keaton, the dawn of cinema and the invention of the 20th century. Neil Young's new album is called barn. And that's where it was recorded in an old barn on young's property in the Colorado Rockies. It was cut in about ten days with young's longtime band crazy horse. Musicians young has performed with off and on for more than half a century. Rock critic Ken Tucker says barn is the best Neil Young album in quite a while..
Fresh Air
"keaton" Discussed on Fresh Air
"You want to engage your time well, it's a terrible movie. And the Keaton's new Keaton and his last wife Eleanor who you mentioned, who agreed to sell the rights to his life in order, essentially, to be able to buy a home and have a nice place for them to retire to and grow old and they both hated the movie and were very embarrassed by its existence, but it came at a time when Hollywood biopics were all the rage. There were a lot of Hollywood biopics, particularly about stars that had gone on this kids that were selling in that period in the late 50s. And so they let his life be really heavily fictionalized and put into this terrible melodrama with Donald O'Connor, who's not horribly cast as a young Buster Keaton, but no, that movie will neither teach you anything about his life nor entertain you. So I say skip it. But what's an important paycheck for him about him to get the home that he and his wife lived in for many years? Very important. Yeah. In these years, the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, were his silent films, remembered, appreciated. Could anybody see them? Not during the beginning of that period you're talking about. The 1940s and the 30s, especially were just not a good time for silent film or silent film preservation. Nobody was thinking about those films. They were being left to Mulder and vaults are just simply thrown away to make room for other movies. And it really wasn't until the late 40s and specifically because of an article that appeared in life by the film critic James Agee that was all about silent cinema and rediscovering it and Buster Keaton was a big part of it. And also just the fact that he was still around, doing TV, starting to get attention again. So very slowly throughout the late 50s and early 60s, they started to be more interest. And right around the time he died, and it's great that he got on a little bit of it enough to experience it. There was a revival of his movies. They started to be found and restored. And he got to go to the Venice Film Festival and get a standing ovation and start to realize that he was going to be this lasting figure in film history, which only a few years before he probably would have thought, no, no, I'll be forgotten. You mentioned viewing his stuff on YouTube. It's remarkable, as I was preparing for for our conversation, how many of his films are on YouTube for free in this beautifully restored print? These beautifully restored prints. What would you recommend to somebody who wants to a beginner who wants to develop an appreciation for Buster Keaton? Oh, that's a great question. Yes, it is important to know that almost all these movies are streaming and most of them are streaming for free because they're in the public domain. So definitely just explore on your own. But I would say for the short 20 minute film, watch one week, which I think is one of his all time masterpieces and one of the great American comedies is sort of a romantic comedy let's put it that way, but with lots of slapstick from 1920, cops is another short that you just can't go wrong with it's incredibly crowd pleasing and full of just astonishing physical stunts. And then getting into the features..
Fresh Air
"keaton" Discussed on Fresh Air
"It's really pretty remarkable. The crew had a hard time watching, didn't they? Oh, yes, this is a part of the legend of the filming of that steamboat Bill junior House collapses that the cameraman had to look away and that the director was off praying. I think the director did actually confirm years later that he was in fact often in his tent in his office praying that the stunt would go off. That people were fainting on the sidelines because it really was the most dangerous stunt he'd ever undertaken. You know, something that if he had been a fraction of binge off, could have questioned. The silent era came to an end with the 20s, essentially, as a lot of things in the United States were changing, including the film industry. And that was when Buster Keaton lost his independence and signed a contract with the studio MGM where, you know, it was a big corporate machine and he had roles that was all written and production schedules were defined and he kind of had to do what he was told. This didn't suit him well, did it? No, I mean, this is a very painful part of the book to research and the movies that he made at that point are painful to watch. And even more painful in ways that they were successful. You know, every talkie that he made at MGM that he regarded as the worst turkeys he'd ever turned out and that nobody watches now really unless you're researching the dark years of Buster Keaton, were all moneymakers for him. And part of that was that MGM had a strong marketing arm and he had a big name and people just went to see the new Buster Keaton movie because it was there. But tastes were also changing in the early days of sound. And sound comedies, very few of early sound comedies make us laugh now. But the things that made people laugh when sound was new, often had to do with just the novelty of hearing people speaking and hearing music and having sound incorporated into the film going experience in the first place. You write that to see him in talkies is to witness the extinguishing of a singular artists creative spark and the erosion of his professional confidence. Why were these movies so bad? I mean, people went to see them and could you give us a think of an example? I mean, it's possible that the film I was talking about then was what no beer, which is maybe his very most painful film to watch at MGM because it was toward the end. It was in fact the last film he made with him as their star comedian, and by that time he really was deep into depression, alcoholism, you know, he just had a very painful divorce. He was just an absolutely chaotic and miserable time of his life and it a 100% shows up on screen and it's just awful to see him seeming so miserable, especially because this character that he had always played, which as you said was a resourceful, plucky, someone who was put upon by the world and always getting out of disaster situations, but who had a lot of resources to do so kind of inner resources. Spunk and gumption. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, right. And during this period of MGM, somehow his passivity, the passivity of his character, that kind of essential, quiet that he always had a silent films, gets misinterpreted as masochism almost. And those MGM movies really involve a lot of things that hark back to the joke Keaton, Buster Keaton, and that they're violent, but not in that they're funny..
Fresh Air
"keaton" Discussed on Fresh Air
"Yeah, and at one point, one of the guys in the audience, who is, of course, Buster Keaton looks at the program and says, it looks like this Buster Keaton guys the whole show. It's a lovely touch. That's right, yeah, his name is every name in the program. And in fact, there he was poking fun in a way at credit hogs, you know, at people in show business that always insisted on taking every credit, because even though he was pretty much doing everything behind the scenes on his movies, he would very often credit them to other directors and not himself. Another film that people talk about is being innovative was Sherlock junior and in particular a scene where he plays a guy who's a projectionist in the theater who falls asleep and then dreams of entering the movie. Tell us what he does here. Oh yeah, this is wonderful. I mean, this is a great starter Buster Keaton if you've never seen any of his movies because it really is nice and short. It's about an hour long and it really shows all the things that he could do, both with his body and with the camera. So yeah, the conceit that he had, which actually his longtime cinematographer was the one who dreamed up is why don't you play a projectionist who falls asleep in dreams his way into a movie. And it was because of the technical challenge of wanting to make that happen. You know, to see someone climb into a movie and become a part of it, that he was fascinated enough to do the film. And he loved to talk about the technique of how they actually did this, what they did was they created a stage set and lid it was wonderful cinematographer, Elgin Leslie, who we worked with for many years. Lit this stage set in a sort of flat way so that it would look like the screen of a movie to trick the eye of the viewer and then we just see him climbing in from the stage. But at that moment, of course, the Keaton character finds himself inside a movie and not sort of able to adjust to the world of being in a movie and there's this incredible editing gag where the Buster Keaton on the screen finds himself in his face. The movie within a movie then cuts to a completely different space like at one point a lion's cage with a lion in it. And suddenly he's in that space, right? So he's sort of trapped in this loop of editing. And that's a wonderful joke in the middle of the movie..
Fresh Air
"keaton" Discussed on Fresh Air
"Kind of a rough and tumble act. Tell us about it. What do we know about this act that he did with his parents? I mean, this was a really fascinating part of the book to research, because, of course, there's no record of this act. Film existed at the time that they were doing the three keatons slapstick act, but the act was never filmed, just like most fragile acts of the time were never recorded on film. And so it's only through buster's way of telling stories about it and contemporary reviews of people who saw it at the time and really just the lore that was passed down about it that anybody knows what that act was. But as you sort of hear in his very laconic explanation of it there, what the act essentially was was this act about a child sassing his father. It was about the father son relationship, and Joe Keaton buster's dad would play the role of this loving father who was going to teach the audience about parenting, but it was all kind of an ironic joke because behind him, you would see buster doing some kind of mischief on the stage where he was preparing to attack his father in some way. And then this would all resolve in his father learning about the deception and hurling buster into the backdrop into the wings into the audience or the orchestra pit occasionally. It really was known as one of the most violent acts in vaudeville. And that was what people loved about it. That was, along with the great acrobat, the tricks that the buster could do, there was just the danger that something might happen to this small child who seemed to be indestructible. And so one of the things I wanted to trace was how you really see that exact same dynamic happening in every Buster Keaton movie. It's almost as if the sensation that he wants to evoke in his audiences. How could he do that and live? But be laughing at the same time as they're gasping over the danger. Right. The dead would be talking while buster is behind them. There'd be a basketball on a rope that he would be spinning in a circle getting closer and closer to his dad's head. And then what his dad would toss him explain the suitcase handle sewn into buster's code. That's a lovely little guy. Yes, that's nice. That was something when he was smaller. The basketball actually was something that evolved later in their act to investor was too big to throw. In the teenage buster had to figure out some way to torment his father, and that act with the basketball also gets brought up in some movies later. But yes, when he was a very small child, his mother sowed a suitcase handle into the back of his costume, his little performing jacket so that his father could more easily grasp him and hurl him into whatever solid object he felt like throwing him at. Right. Did critics take notice of the kid the young Keaton as the act developed? Absolutely..
Fresh Air
"keaton" Discussed on Fresh Air
"This is fresh air. I'm Dave Davies and today for cherry gross. If you know the name Buster Keaton, you probably think of him as a guy in old black and white silent movies known for slapstick and sight gags. It's true he had a gift for physical comedy, but that doesn't begin to describe his talent or his influence. In the 1920s, Keaton starred in and directed a string of silent films that are cited by a long list of great American filmmakers as inspirations. Orson Welles to name one called Keaton a supreme artist and said his film the general is one of the greatest of all time. 7 of Keaton's silent films are on the National Film Registry. Apart from his influence on American cinema, Keaton's story is a fascinating one. Born in the 19th century and vaudeville star by the age of 5, his life took some hard turns after his burst of creativity in the 20s. He felt from stardom and battled alcoholism, then regained his footing and had a long career in show business as a writer and performer. Our guest Dana Stevens is a veteran film critic who's written a new book about Keaton, Stevens is the film critic for slate and co host of its long running podcast called culture gab fest. She is also written for The New York Times The Washington Post, the Atlantic and other publications. Her new book is cameraman. Buster Keaton, the dawn of cinema and the invention of the 20th century. The Dana Stevens welcome to fresh air. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to talk. I have become a Buster Keaton fan, in part because of the director of our program, Roberto has been sending me videos of his stuff for years. And they make me laugh out loud. But I'm guessing a lot of our audience has never seen a silent film beginning to end. It kind of don't know this world. Let me just begin by asking you why you think he's an important figure in the story of American cinema. I mean, not just in American cinema, but as this book is sort of trying to pull out the camera in order to talk about of American history, I would say his films, first of all, as you said very well in your introduction, have just become these monuments of world cinema and often now when there's these crowd sourced lists of the greatest films of all time where critics from around the world contribute their titles, he will be the only silent filmmaker, not always, sometimes it's chaplain pulling just ahead of him, but one of the two of them will often be the only silent filmmaker that makes it into that top ten or top 25 or whatever it is. So silent cinema, it still plays a very small role on the periphery of the imagination, even of big xenophiles. You know when film critics, I think. And it's understandable why. So many of those movies are lost forever. You know, something like 75 to 80% of silent films that were ever made are now gone because they were not valued by the generations that came right after. And we're just essentially discarded after they made the rounds and were shown. And silent film really fell into a period of decades where it was just simply not a concern. Not coming to anyone's attention and not being preserved or promulgated in any way. And that's been changing slowly in the decades basically since Keaton's death in the 60 70s, 80s onward. But I feel like his legacy is something that's really just a beautiful and important part of American history. You know, not just American film history, but American history and the history of American art. Right..
Mark Levin
Brian Mudd: Joe Biden's Low Approval Among Young Voters Is a Generational Opportunity for Republicans
"If you go back and really take a look at the data he's been underwater with voters under the age of 34 since early June But you might imagine that the real falling out that's happened here of late That's been driven by the youngest voters These vaccine mandates I do think they play a meaningful role here You know vaccination rates are lowest wear Their lowest youngest And it stands to reason that those who've opted not to obtain a vaccine for their own health reasons and considerations up to now Don't take kindly to being threatened with their careers when they're just starting to make their way in the world And take care of their family grow a family And so what actually is happening here Is a generational opportunity It's a generational opportunity And it's a generational opportunity for Republicans if they get this right You know I'm the real life walking talking Alex B Keaton You know you take a look at the 80s and in loving Reagan was a thing It was a thing for millions in my generation He is the primary reason That those of us that were products of the 80s the gen xers tend to be more conservative than boomers or
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
"keaton" Discussed on Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
"Do this Which i think deep down is what i've always wanted to do. I love doing the late night. Show all the years twenty eight years of doing that show. I loved it. And then the minute i started doing this i thought why was to really talk to and And also you know how long it takes them to make me up. You've got sort of more darker irish. I've got i'm the i'm an invisible model of a human being you know you see the circulatory system lose not doing so. Yeah i love doing this as i say this to. This is not a day at work to sit here and talk to you for an hour and shoot the shit and compare. Notes is an absolute joy from me really is and so An an honor so The idea that this is also a gig is absurd to me and be a gig. It should just be something. I force people to do for my pleasure. Thank this is on the second one. I've done a think Marc maron right. This and i really like i do. I know i. I'm not just saying this to be nice but this is more fun. This is more interesting. Well first of all it depends on who you're sitting across from but but you. There's something easier about this. I can't put my finger on it. I thought when i heard doing this i thought oh. Yeah of course yeah. Of course this huge sigh of relief for you to go. I love this. Yeah yeah yeah. Yeah i'm i'm thinking to myself will okay no crush you. Yeah.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
"keaton" Discussed on Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
"Talking about yourself too much. Yeah and you do it yourself. Yeah the voices in you saying oh pretty fancy Yeah so we're yeah play batman. Yeah wow fuck you just this sound like my father. Yeah it's also it's that roll them has it. You're able to figure it out so well for yourself and it's been such a trap for other people like it's such a tricky thing Just a watch the documentary the other day about val kilmer and who i admire is obviously very talented guy but man that was That was a nightmare for him. Replacing you. And he loathed every second of and it's a similar suit and everything it's just it couldn't he couldn't find his way through it and he'll admit that and and it's been so painful for other people i wouldn't walk in after that nut regardless of who that was because you go now i got that burden. I'm just a guy who just wants to be he. He's a good actor in just was a guy who wanted to be good in something but somebody was laying all that stuff on man. I never wanna walk into that situation. And then i guess the the luxury i had was i. Oh yeah i know how to play it. And i don't know i think we're right. Tim and i and we just said let's go. Let's let's let's let's make it didn't have the burden of having to be compared to anybody else who you know short of You know the television version And that was kind of. Yeah no one went to the theater thinking yeah. What's his taken. Be on adam west. Much as i love adam western. I worked with adam. West friends that west but yeah no no no one. No time thought well wait a minute. How does this figure into the sixties tv. Show like bert word. We need a very heavy middle aged. Robin to help batman.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
"keaton" Discussed on Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
"Replace either. Guys funny awesome. Yeah and who am. I hadn't thought of it until they brought it up right. You probably thought no. I wanted to do some pretty good at it. Like to give it a and then they then. They did what they didn't you went. Oh jeez okay. What happens is everybody Stinking changes retroactively. So now. oh my god. Yeah right michael. Keaton batman actually the batman. And then they're always batmans after that. But you're in the firmament of like no you're the guy that brought it back defined what the with the action hero is. I wish more people would say. I gotta say at the time. Yeah it was absolutely stupid and michael keaton. Tim burton prove me absolutely wrong. But no one says that. No one's going to say that. I know and you know it's interesting because i i'm talking about because i went ended the flash. The and i almost have more of an appreciate well. I do have more of an appreciation of because it's become such a call -tural thing and then let's be honest. You have to add the corporate element to it. They just just the massive monetary part of all that not all the marbles and all the stuff you rant it's a franchise dizin. Yeah there's it's like exxon mobil deciding where to put an oil rig. Yeah really they. It's not as simple as we're gonna make in new hope batman and we're gonna make a new flash or we have a new idea for superman people are saying that this is billions of dollars billions upon billions. And so therefore you look at it and go. Okay is so much a thing that i have to not that happened yesterday. Slowly kinda come around. And i went. Yeah okay and otley. I appreciate more in some weird way i go. Wow this is really a thing. I mean not that. I didn't think it was. I knew it was risking. I knew we could failed terribly. And i was glad at work. I knew tim was a pioneer in this snub. But now that i do like how this is kind extraordinary that it is such a thing culturally that i now look at it differently in an in an odd way now. Not with more respect. Just take it a little more seriously. I think okay well it is. This is big. And i think pretty good at it. So don't be jerk. Don't don't just kind of not blow it off. Don't don't not take it serious. I of all. I don't know how to not take things too seriously. Sometimes but i look at it. Oddly differently now and and i. It's kind of hard to explain it. So when i went to do it. I really in some ways enjoyed it more because i kind of had nother perspective on it. Once you go to work you just show up. And what's the seen. How what do you think. When want to do here bob lush. Should i come in like that. Whatever you do all that. But i didn't expect that really not i expected to go. Yeah whatever. I'm just going to pick up chick i 'cause kind of incapable too afraid that all screw things up. If i the only reason i phone things in. I'm just afraid i'll screw up too much. I i think the time has to go by. I just now made my peace with my early career in. It's taken years and years and years to look back and go. Okay yeah you were targeting yet. Worked out well Good yeah i couldn't. I'd had no access to any of that in the nineties or even the early two thousands. I just couldn't access it but could be an irish thing too. Though by the way yeah could be thing like ambient. You're not so hot yachats. Oh god yeah yeah. Oh yeah oh definitely. Don't go talking about yourself too much. Yeah and you do it yourself. Yeah the voices in you saying oh pretty fancy Yeah so we're yeah.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
"keaton" Discussed on Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
"No see you. I have see and you on the show. You're like oh good to cut in real life. You'd be why about saw. And then you would never forget it and you would lose my number would tell you get this weird thing. We michael keaton love that you know. It's so funny is that you talked earlier about your arc and it really fascinates me because i don't know where you got the moxie to us. We're gonna talk about old language with balls. But you started out you more sophisticated. Likely exactly we start out and you establish yourself as comic actor and then and people don't know this now because your your role your performance was so i i chronic that at the time i remember when they said well we got a new guy is gonna play. The new batman is my key and people acted as if they adjust made a dog president. Yeah they acted like not that they had anything against you. They just saw this is no. He can't be. This is impossible. It's a complete impossibility. And now in a way. And i don't mean just in a way but you and working with tim burton you guys reimagined. What a superhero could be. And that's what the superheroes have been for the last three years. I've crazy but at the time man. Tim i mean we were all out on olympic. But you're right at that time when that happened in you have to credit him for tim. We went yeah. I don't know what do you think i said. Yeah i get it. What do you think. I think he's this guy. Don't you long discussion about who that guy release which was based on on on the dark night series that the changed everything and so at the time. I just remember thinking wait. I'm not even offended. Like what do you mean it was more of i. I can't believe people think about this. That much. honestly right what what would it matter anyway. Who's sitting around thinking about that. And then then. I sort of think you mean the fans who were up in arms about. How can this. Comic actor the play batman yes serious dark knight yeah And i remember at the time there being this huge disconnect with people and i live through something like that when i replace david letterman. Oh man i had the feeling of your response was. I didn't think people cared that much. I knew people cared. And i kind of agreed with them. My response was yeah. I don't think i should.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
"keaton" Discussed on Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
"Of shows that used to be yes. Thanks wardrobe by. Botany five hundred. And i'd always think i've gotta get a suit from botany five such a great observation because you're right that's right. That was considered. Botany five hundred sophisticated and clue and i never you know what that was but i just knew that but in the end of shows used to be very few credits and there used to be written by this is the person who played the neighbor and then it would say wardrobe for mr van. Die or for whatever show. You're watching and it would say you know. Remember botany five hundred always coming up and thinking i actually put it into a simpson's episode once that's i showed the end of a i wrote a simpsons script and at the end there's a little thing reports it says it says Wardrobe think by. Botany five hundred and i remember one of the writers at the simpsons. Who who's my boss at the time lewin like. Yeah putney five hundred total. That's honestly the then. We relate. Because i actually think that's cool for a little kid image credits coming down because that means your head is working on limited new. Always kind of feel like yeah. I'm i am part of my house or my group. But i'm not really like you and i to blow up that kind of wives an outsider or i never felt like there to some degree. I'll bet you felt like. I'm not quite instinct with everything quite out. Guess what oh office about and you're going to hear. This is happening right now in the studio a coffee brewing bienne for michael keaton. He can't connect because he locked. No no no. I'm not going to open the door. You have to try. And david. You have to figure out a way to get under the door with mr michael keaton's coffee and you have thirty seconds don't d- we should have made you have to bang your way. Did you heard glass breaking. It was unrelated. He was just robbing jewels. Store let's give them a lot. Yes let's just you just gotta coffee got here and you need some caffeine. So david hopping. My temporary assistant went running out and brought you back this starbucks coffee and they filled it up. As far as i mean if i had a photo camera i take a photo of it is completely right up to the rim. Yeah well let me put it this way. David's hands are bandaged. Does have third degree chemical burns from seriously. You're not going to be able to drink without spilling do you think the thinking is. Let's just give them a lot. Let's just this. The guy's much like the mentality of a lot of foods in a lot of food. And i have a brother who loves that idea. He loves the concept of. Look how much. I get all you can eat. Just fill that plate. I mean it's what they do at cheesecake factory. My god you okay. good. I'm gonna feel better. You did pretty well. How does he does the cup of coffee. I've ever seen and it's terrifying to what you try to drink it without. Would this gone down in your in. In the o'brien family across to the if your mom and heard this oh my god. My mother bad right was she was margaret dumont from the marx brothers movies. The reason i'm in comedy is my mother. There were six kids and our grandmother and my dad and dogs and parrots and she was always saying hell listening. No see here and that would always me wanna walk back. Like either groucho marx. Or harpo or one of the three stooges. That's your phone. Yeah this is really important. That's hilarious on biden. Just.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
"keaton" Discussed on Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
"Right. No i was coming up the street and i was. I don't know biker or on the sidewalk. And it was at time. And i thought i need to be respectful of everyone here. Get out of the way. And i see a person walking tall person and with another person who was pretty tall younger and i go while i'm just going to get to this point and i'm going to get out of their way and let them come through and be polite and get out the street in morale and then this person turned out to be you and i think your son yes. I'd mask on and you had masks on. I go and i didn't. I thought this is. This is really one of those weird things. Well was i just the dick. Because i made them move off. Am i have to cut off the conversation about that. I thought just keep running at Just keep running. And don't make this. I remember that and i was really offended. You should've said something i remember. I know my son said what was that. All about. And i said does michael keaton. Because he he felt that he felt it and Totally and and he was he was past tense. A big fan. But he's affected by in terms of schooling everything. I'm sure he probably is grades. Dropped off after an. They've opened his school up. He's allowed to go back. He never went back and it was all because he got dissed by michael. Keaton in cove intense situation. So now you know what it's like to be me. I know it is very much. I know exactly what i will say this. I i've gotten to know you a little bit and you've hung out at my house sometimes and hang around your house which is different than no one pete. No-one peers through a hedge. Like you got those is just on me but seriously. I have to tell you something that i didn't. I thought now if this doesn't work if it's not funny. It is uncomfortable. But one day i thought i heard as i was running my i thought by the way this way too much information now. They're a real people. Need to hear people need to hear. Exactly what our lives and i thought i heard your isn't what fits him. I know what i wanted to do. But what if it's not him or what if he doesn't and i was gonna say something like. Hey hey in. I was assuming there it. Stop there'd be uncovering silence right. And i'd say something like you know. Hey this is a nice.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
"keaton" Discussed on Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
"And i feel so happy about being here and being grinds friend the first part i feel a little stronger about but i feel okay about the second part the second part being being my friend. I part being happy that you're michael. Keaton think anybody would be thrilled to michael keaton and then the part about being connor. Bryant's france could compare to being. No what what does walk in. Lose some young. Hey there and welcome to conan. O'brien needs friend. I think we have a fantastic episode. Today i've really do. I agree no. I'm i'm serious. I'm very jazzed about This episode and the gas we have on today. So i don't wanna take too much time with my voice. I up front. i know. Usually we kill some time here. And sometimes if i loathe the guest i really go on and on. Have you ever noticed that. Oh yeah remember. We had joe the plumber on and you just went for fifty minutes. Yeah and i just read off the periodic table of elements and time. We had the my pillow guy on. And i didn't wanna talk to him and i thought it was a bad booking because he's clearly insane idea that but he also remember how surprising it was. The my pillow guy was a great guest. He was faster and politically in line and then he told the best stories about his times. It see how used to. I didn't know he built his own boats and and took them out into the north atlantic. Then that fight. He had with the sea serpent. What a fantastic guests. So that was on me. I regret and no free pillows. Can you believe that shit. They're filled with as best as i suspected to be. Yeah i guess when they tear down an old mill and they have to get really be a specis they just. He's stuffed into pillows now. Listen i don't know if that's actionable. Previous comment was meant as parody. Only and nuts had to be taken seriously the conan o'brien do not reflect macworld sonum of says. Cnn matt grow is a huge fan of my pillow and unknown trumper. Look that's on you the only guy no has a tweed maga- cap that you finally got me because that's how i actually dress. How are you matt. pretty good. Not too bad how are you. I'm good you know it's it's a different dynamic when stone is not here. Yeah yeah of course raising these twins. She sent me a picture of both of them wearing suspenders. What pants hyper zo. They're weeks old and they're wearing tiny little trousers with suspenders and they have comb overs and they look like they're sitting in an old folks and they're pissed about this new rock and roll music and i was howling and i was texting back and forth with their. I try not to call sonal. Because i'm always afraid that mitya's twins so what's maybe one of them just got to sleep or the other one just got to sleep or are they both just got to sleep and then the phone rings and it's me saying where's my coffee. She's busy taking care of all those grandparents that are taking care of the house. I didn't know that in their culture. You can have sixty grand. That's something that's something that can only happen if you're armenian. But she has sixty armenian grandparents and she has not held the child's either of the children herself yet yeah. Her family multiplies the opposite. Way to triples. They're like yeah. I remember that episode. Where kirk opens up a storage bin. Yea i'm sixty five armenian grandparents come falling out the trouble with armenian but anyway but yeah by this point. If she was on the podcast she would have probably ruled. Her is sonar Her horizon so forcefully. You can hear it on a podcast. Yeah here. I have to edit it out. You can actually hear the ocular jelly moving rapidly in its orbit's had access to the phrase ocular jelly. I don't think any human is unlocked that phrase before so that's really impressive. Ocular jelly so hard in the back of the head. He ocular jelly evacuated it space. Here's another word that i'm fascinated with another phrase yeah dynamic ad insertion. Oh you're learning about podcasting. yeah. I don't know anything about podcasting and then the other day And i'm very proud of the fact. That i i really am just a chip. They put in a spacecraft. But i'm inside going. Who and you are furiously. You're an expert at these things really. So you're you're you and your your team are expertly keeping us in orbit I think it was adam. Saks was talking. He said well yes. And of course now now that we have dynamic ad insertion and i said what and i guess. That's the way that you guys put. Ads into a podcast. I don't have anything to do with it. I think it's just as ridiculous..
Houston Public Media Local Newscasts
'The Great Gatsby,' 'Mrs. Dalloway' And Other 1925 Works Enter The Public Domain
"Today is public domain day. As of january first thousands of books movies songs and other material from nineteen twenty five are no longer under copyright protection including the great gatsby. Npr's neda ulaby has more besides the f. scott fitzgerald masterpiece books entering the public domain now. Include mrs dalloway by virginia woolf and classics by sinclair lewis franz kafka ernest hemingway and agatha christie so are other works from nineteen twenty five like buster. Keaton silent film go west and the songs week toward brown now community. Orchestras can play music in the public domain for free scholars will not have to get permission to study. This material and books on the public domain can appear online without charge all part of living cultural conversation that anyone can join netto lippi. Npr news both
Talking Tech
The Streaming Era Has Finally Arrived
"Well if you don't have a big tv now. I think it's time to go get one 'cause you're gonna be spending even more time in front of the tv in twenty twenty one. We're still in the pandemic who knows if it will ever end in everything's going to streaming as you've heard me talk about a lot of first run films going to streaming from warner brothers. They're putting seventeen films on. Hbo max next year now disney has a hundred new projects eighty of them are going to streaming a new version of pinocchio with tom. Hanks and peter pan with jude law. Skipping theaters going straight to disney plus. There's ten new star wars tv series. I mean there's so much out there. A lot of filmmakers don't like theater owners or even more upset but what's going on well. The studio's really always wanted a way to release their films. One to one bypassing the middle person and they finally found it with a pandemic warner says. This is a short one. Time fixed due to the pandemic but one analyst. I spoke to peter. Chatty doesn't see things changing in two thousand twenty two quote. The reality is the genius out of the bottle. And it's not going back. He told me so. People have been going to movies in theaters since the days of chaplin and keaton so why the media companies want them moving the streaming very simple recurring revenue monthly subscriptions really add up. Let's take a film like the original wonder woman shot in two thousand seventeen. It grossed eight hundred and twenty one million dollars at the box office. Subtract the production. The marketing costs and the split with theaters in the studio was left with a profit of about two hundred and fifty million dollars according to deadline so. Hbo max debuted in may fifteen dollars. Monthly currently has just over twelve million subscribers. So what would happen. If hbo were able to bring in say ten million new subscribers to see wonder woman nineteen eighty-four the new film and most of them stuck around. I'm not great at math. But i can tell you that works out to one hundred and fifty million dollars. That's less than the theatrical box office prophets but we're looking at just one month in two months studio. C three hundred million and four fifty and six hundred and on and on it goes but perhaps ten million subscribers is way too generous. The reality is it will be way way less. Maybe a million. Maybe half a million. Maybe two million. The studio won't come close to making streaming. What would have in a huge theatrical release but another analysts rich greenfield told variety that the studio will make less money for the greater good of building. Hbo max this is putting the long term future of the company ahead of prophets. Disney has already hiked the price by a dollar to disney plus effective in march. Two
South Florida's First News with Jimmy Cefalo
'The West Wing' enlists big names for its When We All Vote reunion special
"Thanks. I'm a big fan of Aaron Sorkin and tell us why This is a good time for me in television, because I like him so much. He absolutely if you didn't watch it yesterday, a cz, always with streaming. You can watch it at your leisure. But yesterday they dropped on HBO, Max. Ah, Special reunion of the West Wing cast is probably his most legendary TV show The West Wing and gathered almost everybody from the cast for Martin Sheen and Allison Janney and Rob Lowe and so forth. To recreate an episode from one of the early seasons as a theatrical staged event in an empty theater, But they filmed it like it was a play and it was in that shifted from scene to scene and it was really cleverly done, but also just reminded you how Wonderful that Siri's wass and how inspirational it was, even though it was about politics. So if the dueling if the dueling town halls and so you may be this would've last night, but it's still out there, but even more so today, Netflix drops another Aaron Sorkin project. Which he wrote and directed. It's called the Trial of the Chicago Seven, and it goes back to the sixties, when those counterculture figures Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin and Tom Hayden and Bobby Seale and others were put on trial for inciting the riots that disrupted the 1968 Democratic convention. It was a big media circus, and this film looks like it's got it all and including a terrific cast, including two Emmy winners from this season. Jeremy strong from succession and one of the stars of watchman job doing the team. They're playing two of the defendants. You also have frankly, Angela's The judge and Michael Keaton's in there. Sasha Baron Cohen's in there. Doing dramatic bit, and it just sounds like again. Aaron Sorkin is knows his way around a courtroom. If you remember his very first big hit was a few good men. So if you like Aaron Sorkin style you've got two choices was like a double whammy of Aaron Sorkin this week. Now? Yeah, I once interviewed Jerry Rubin, a za journalism student at Penn State, and he was in the Rolfing, which is when you beat yourself up physical. Just one strange cat, man. I got to say yes. I have a feeling that would be a fun one to watch. Yeah. Will be S O on Sunday. You got something? The
Jason and Alexis
Colin Farrell Is Unrecognizable as The Penguin in First Trailer for The Batman
"Unrecognizable as the Penguin in the upcoming Batman film. On Saturday, Warner Brothers debut the first trailer for the 2020 movie the Batman, Robert Patterson, but we will be taking on the iconic role as Batman. But in this Trailer fans got their first glimpse at Pharrell betraying the Penguin. And to be honest, it seems like fans are more interested in Colin's role as the Penguin. Then they are as Robertson's as Batman. And Danny DeVito. As you know. Previously starting the Penguin in 1992, Batman returned opposite of Michael. Rick. Keep Michael Keaton, which will be interesting to see how they play off of that. Pasveer
Ron St. Pierre
Batman Returns! Michael Keaton to Play Bruce Wayne in 'The Flash'
"Michael Keaton might be stepping back into the batsuit the actor is reportedly in early talks to return as Batman along side similar in Warner brothers full length film the flash Keaton first appeared of course is the caped crusader in Tim Burton's nineteen eighty nine Batman movie came back for Burton's Batman returns in nineteen ninety two but he defeats the role before Batman forever that's when Val Kilmer took over the
Jason Smith
Los Angeles - USC Football Welcomes Back Reggie Bush
"Congratulations the Reggie bush football coach may be over starting tomorrow USC can reestablish their ties with Reggie bush was been disassociated from the school since two thousand and ten and maybe now this last decade which is seen USC with a little bit but not quite when they establish themselves the dynasty from two thousand two thousand and ten maybe we'll just look back at these ten years for USC football like it's a that was Reggie bush curse he was disassociated they did when they went through eleven head coaches and still counting this is what it is now starting tomorrow everything will be great pushes back you can talk about the school could be with the school could do all of these things and U. S. he's gonna win the national championship in Keaton's Lois with the Heisman
Trivia With Budds
11 Trivia Questions on USA Crossword
"Guys. Today's episode is all about a USA crossword. Why give you letters and you try and come up with the answers? Just like you're doing crossword puzzle and before we do that. We have some questions for you from trivial pursuit. Here's a question from a movie in beetlejuice. What BOOK TURNS UP ON? Gina Davis Alex Alec Baldwin's coffee table after their untimely demise. What is named the book from Beetlejuice? That is called the handbook for the recently deceased. Handbook for the recently deceased love. That movie love that book. It's a very cool prop. You buy at places like hot topic and box lunch. They have purses and wallets and things of that cover. Your next question is about Michael. Keaton and David Letterman. Who's nineteen seventy eight variety? Show had a troop that included Michael Keaton and David Letterman. Who's nine hundred? Seventy eight variety show was that and that was Mary. Tyler Moore way back in the day. Mary Tyler Moore David Letterman Michael. Keaton working together. That's kind of fun and here is your last question. It's about music. What was the name of the male member of the carpenters? What was the first name of that member of the carpenters? That was Richard Richard Carpenter. I imagine there you go. Thank you guys for listening to this intro and get ready because we got eleven more. Usa themed questions common at you right about now here we go all right here. We go with the USA Crossword. We'll give you the amount of letters and the clue and you tell me or looking for all American and USA related things number one ten letters a famous building that blows up in Independence Day number one ten letters famous building that blows up in independence. Day that's number one number one number. Two six letters thirty third. Us President number two six letters the thirty third US president and number three on your list nine letters the capital of Iowa number three nine letters the capital of Iowa number four eight letters the most American desert Americans in quotes number four eight letters the most American desert question number five nine letters home state of springsteen number five nine letters home state of springsteen number six seven letters memorial setting for mlk juniors. I have a dream speech number six seven letters the memorial setting for mlk juniors. I have a dream speech and number seven six letters in Eureka California. You can see this. World's biggest tool in Eureka California. You can see this world's biggest tool questionable eight ten letters. America Ferrera. Is this Sitcom after five seasons. What is it after five seasons? What do you think an number nine four letters? The Police Department for Dangle Clementine and Garcia Police Department for Dangle Clinton and Garcia question number ten we have six letters and that's the MLB World Series Champs in two thousand fifteen number ten MLB world series champs in two thousand fifteen six letters and the bonus four two points twelve letters. I'm looking for the name of Hogan's entrance song name when he wrestles Hogan's entrance song name twelve letters those all your questions for USA Crossword. We'll be right back in just a second to see how you did. We are back with the answers to USA Crossword U. S. A. Let's see how you did number one. Ten letters famous building blows up Independence Day is of course the White House to five letter words for the ten letters in White House number. Two six letters the third. Us President Harry S. Truman Truman. Where the six letters we are looking for. Tru Number. Two number three nine letters capital of Iowa is de Moines Das Mo es es Des Moines number. Three number four. We had eight letters the most American desert looking for Apple Pie eight letters. Long Apple Pie number five nine letters home state of springsteen that's Bruce Springsteen and New Jersey nine letters New Jersey number six seven letters memorial setting for mlk juniors. I have a dream speech. That was the Lincoln Memorial Lincoln number seven six letters in Eureka California. You can see this world's biggest tool it is a hammer. The world's biggest hammer is in Eureka. California number eight ten letters. America Ferrera is leaving this Sitcom after five seasons. It's called superstore. You can drive by the storefront that they use for the exterior shots of the building on Barham Boulevard in Burbank. California right near where my first apartment was number nine four letters police department. Four Dangle Clementine Garcia. They brought back this show on. Qube. It's Reno for Reno nine one one. Those are characters on Reno nine one one number ten six letters. Mlb World Series Champs in two thousand fifteen. The royals Kansas city royals and the bone is twelve letters. Hogan's entrance song name is real American Hogan I am a real American in there. You guys all your questions for the USA themed Crossword Hope. He had fun playing along with today's quiz. We have one more question for you. It's called the question of the day. And it is what sea creature is associated with. Ross and Rachel's relationship on friends. Tweet me your answer at Ryan. Buds or email Ryan buds gmail.com to be eligible for a prize. Yesterday is questioned. The day was about the sparkling water brand from Coca Cola that was released in two thousand twenty and the answer is Ha- A. H. A. It's called a high and it's pretty damn good. I like the citrus citrus. Green tea one. It's green and yellow box. Looks like lemon lime? Go Try that. If you have not had the citrus Green tea and your Trivia team name of the day is come and get your gloves. Come and get your gloves. Thank you so much for playing trivia with me. Thanks for telling a friend about the show and we'll see you next time for more trivia with buds jeers
Parenting: Difficult Conversations
Kid-Friendly TV Show Recommendations
"I think it's important to clarify. We're doing these recommendations are for very little kids and everything that we are talking about all of the recommendations on this episode our TV and I think there are parents of very young children and people who give advice to parents have very young children who tend to obsess over screen time and how much screen time a toddler should have look. These are unusual times and the first thing that I want to say before I even start doling out recommendations is just to remember that you're doing the best you can. You're doing fine if you need to put your toddler in front of a TV or a tablet and that is what needs to happen for you to stay sane for you to get your work done then so be it. Your kid is going to be fine. Your kid has you. That's what's important wanted to get that out there. I will also go so far. As to say as a person who obsessed about this didn't obsess about it goes back and forth the important part of the best you can is the you can part so if you are stuck on the fact well. The best is only two hours. It's the best that you can do. Given your circumstances your doing great exactly so. My first recommendation is something that my parents put in front of me. When I was very small child back in the seventies which has been fairly recently rebooted for new generations the electric company. The Electric Company is a educational children's program in the seventies it featured such wonderful luminaries as Rita Moreno. It has an extraordinarily charming kids show. That is really focused on education. But does it in such a warm and inviting and pleasant way so the original seventies electric company you can stream it via Amazon? It does cost money. You can find pretty lengthy excerpts of it on Youtube floating around and you know a lot of us who grew up in the seventies. We'll have you know like individual favorite moments from the electric company. I just remember that that was something that my parents really love to have on and around because though it was geared very very much too little kids and they say online. They say that it's geared toward five to nine but I think you can really go younger than that. My parents didn't go nuts watching it now. They recently rebooted the electric company from two thousand nine to twenty eleven. Those three seasons you can stream for free at PBS DOT ORG and As an incentive for parents who listen to this show and have not checked out the rebooted electric company one of the CAST members is William Jackson Harper. Who Played Chidi on the good place incentive to watch the new electric company Occasional guest spots and occasional music composition from one Lin. Manuel Miranda. I'LL AL. Obviously we could go back and forth. Comparing the quality of the two there is no way to compare something. You were nostalgic for as a child with something that is trying to duplicate that magic but that is a marvelous piece of educational programming. That is still entertaining. And that is right up there with stuff like Mister Rogers neighborhood and sesame street and all sorts of wonderful stuff that you can find on PBS kids. Electric Company is just a gorgeous piece of that puzzle. And I don't think it gets as much recognition as it should get especially compared to some of those other classic pieces of programming love it. Excellent Pack Loved Electric Company Berry. What is your first recommendation? We in our family when my oldest was younger and I was pregnant with my second son. It was really imperative for me to be sitting down lying down pretending that I didn't have a child for like two or three hours a day but I also had already watched so much Daniel Tiger which is wonderful and other. Pbs Kids thing. That probably taught me a lot about parenting but I wanted something that I also really liked from the creators of Wallace and GROMIT. Shaun the sheep which I have so many I mean I literally have photographs of both my husband and my then three year old watching. Shaun the sheep and both laughing at exactly the same amount because it is genuinely funny. It is the first thing that I think our family all liked the same amount where we really all were engaged in it in the same way. I you know you're not pretending to love you know Mom Tiger or whatever you're not pretending to be like Mom Tiger. I'm really actually mom. Tigers really haunted me over the years but I will say that Shaun. The sheep is both adorable in terms of its slapsticky laps. But it also looks gorgeous. So if you're not familiar with Wallace and gromit they created these these beautiful claymation sort of handmade aesthetic from our animations and Wallace and gromit. I also highly recommend but it's more of a sophisticated storyline. What's Great About Shaun? The sheep is that they are sort of snack. -able basically it is a brilliant sheep named Sean and the adventures of him and his farmer and his friends and it is genuinely funny. They're all of these little references. That are incredibly sophisticated without going over the head of your little ones. There's a kind of buster Keaton ask quality to it and I can watch them all the time. I really truly do not get sick of Shaun the sheep and my kids who are now as we said six nine still really love them. It's about that and maybe the British bake off are the only things that the entire family can agree on. If you've missed out on it please go back and watch it and you may find yourself watching it even without your children and where we find it. You can find it in a myriad of places. It is on Amazon prime. It is on Netflix. The Shaun the sheep extended universe of both movies and also the Wallace and gromit from the same animation studio are in many streaming places so if you just search Shaun the sheep you will find a gorgeous claymation that will make you. Giggle is a great pick and man. My kids now are nine thousand nine hundred sixteen and at no point in their lives. Has there been more than like a small handful of things that everyone in the family can enjoy at the same level at the exact same time so when you find one of those the love that you experience as a parent for that piece of entertainment is intense. I feel you on this one in a big way. Very very nice excellent. Pick Berry Hartman Steven. You'RE GONNA give us your second pick and This is not surprise. Me Buddy well. This one is specific to one of my kids particularly my older kid my son. Jona when he was little he obsessed over a cartoon that I watched as a kid called the wacky races and the wacky races were a very short lived. Hanna barbera cartoon aired in late. Nineteen sixty eight and a little bit in early sixty nine and then has kind of lived on in reruns. There's a DVD set that has like the complete collection of the wacky races. Hanna barbera cartoons are pretty primitive. You're talking about children's TV in the late sixties. You have some kind of squeaky gender stuff. There's like one female racer penelope pitstop. Who's like more concerned with her makeup than with racing? It has that name is amazing. Insert pitstop into my middle name. Very pitstop hardiman stuff hardiman The thing is though there's something about the way. This particular cartoon was structured where each episode of the show all of these goofy characters. They were the same characters. The plot couldn't be simpler. They're racing and at the end of each episode. One of the racers wins. There's a bad guy racer named Dick Dastardly. And his side kick Mutley. Who has that famous? Little wheezy laugh and my son who was obsessed with numbers kind of obsessed a certain amount of scorekeeping managed to latch into it. Not only as a piece of like fun cartoony entertainment but kind of latched onto it as like a statistician almost and really got obsessed with it. Even though there were only seventeen episodes he just watched them over and over and over again. Now the wacky races have existed in a couple of different forms. There's a wacky racist game for the we. The kids also played. This is also like electric company is one that got rebooted and it got rebooted a few years ago and once again if you're obsessed with the nineteen sixty eight version you're gonNA watch the version from twenty seventeen or two thousand eighteen and roll your eyes because it's not the exact entertainment that you grew up with but you look at the voice cast on this rebooted wacky races. It's Tom Kenny WHO's TV. Spongebob Jill Talley who's also voiced from. Spongebob she's also from Mister. Show like Tom. Kenny and Billy West. Who was stimpy. He was fry in Futurama. You have some really lovable voice. Cast working with this show. So lucky races isn't necessarily the top of very many people's list as far as like high quality children's programming but it was really important in my house and really had this nice kind of cross generational appeal where I got to feel nostalgia watching it and my kids hooked into it in ways that even I never did
Environment: NPR
How The Coronavirus Pandemic Is Affecting Environment
"Since the pandemic hit air travel in the. Us is down ninety five percent the morning rush hour. Traffic report has become a necessary. Many of you are asking what impact all this is having on the environment. So Lauren summer is with us. She covers climate change for NPR. And it's good to have you back. Lauren Hi Ari. Let's start with a question that a lot of listeners have asked this one comes from Walker in Ames Iowa the oil consumption due to know car travel and almost no air travel must be much less. Is this lack of carbon dioxide production low enough to meet the goals of the Paris accord is more than enough just to remind listeners? The goals of the Paris accord that was to keep global temperatures from going up two degrees Celsius with an aim of less than one point five degrees Celsius What's the impact of this slowdown of the global economy? Lorne yes so as you might expect. It is having effect on global carbon emissions largely because demand for oil and coal has really fallen. And this is all over not just a US right. I mean so. Scientists are starting to put out studies projecting. What would this look like by the end of the year? If activity continues you know we all stay locked down a little bit and they're coming up with maybe an eight percent drop in carbon emissions For this year now okay. That would actually be unprecedented. I know it sounds like a small number. That's bigger than the drops during the last recession or World War Two But here's the thing that is about the level scientists save. The world needs to be cutting emissions every year until twenty thirty to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. That's you know that one point five degrees Celsius that you mentioned and I think scientists are also pointing out you know shutting down. The economy is not the way to kind of reach. Those long-term emission cuts right right. These bigger and missions changes like switch to renewable energy. Okay we got a lot of questions. Also about some of the short-term environmental impacts of the pandemic. This one comes from Lois in Raleigh North Carolina. This is the most beautiful spring filled with crystal clear low humidity days here in. North Carolina is having fewer cars on the road or the factories closed affect the weather brought about the global shut down factories. Might that be affecting the weather here. I've heard a lot of people wondering about this actually clearer. It is yes in a lot of cities it's gotten cleaner you know. People are driving less in some cities. I mean car. Traffic is down. Forty fifty percents. Planes are not flying either. So that's actually helped improve local air quality But it is very important to say. The weather plays a huge role in your local air pollution. So if it rains you know it clears the air and the spring typically is not like the summer. It's not our worst season for air pollution. Other places actually though haven't really seen much of a drop because there are things like factories and refineries that are still emitting and you know trucks are still on the roads. Goods are still being delivered to stores. Right I understand you've been talking with some scientists who are studying the effect of having so few cars on the road and the well. What are they trying to understand? Exactly yeah I mean. This is a particular interest in cities that have really problematic air and in those cities you know. They have to try to figure out. What can we change to improve air quality? I mean this is actually kind of just a real world test of that one. Scientists told me that you know this would be like if in Los Angeles for example. A third of the cars on the road were switched to all electric cars. Don't burn gasoline. They get electricity and in California. A lot of that comes from solar and renewable. So it's cleaner. We have one listener. Who wants to know whether this pandemic environmental damage? Here's Valerie in Arizona. We hear a lot about the air pollution being reduced but not much about the increase fiction styrofoam especially in food service. What about the possible? Negative effects on the environment from Corona virus. That's a good point. All these restaurants that have switched to delivery or takeout. That's a lot of plastic. Yeah I think people are seeing a lot more containers. People are also seeing masks and plastic gloves kind of thrown on the grounds. I think the pandemic is affecting our efforts to reduce plastic waste For Example California. Just put a sixty day pause on its plastic bag ban and that's out of concern for frontline workers right. They're the ones that are handling people's reusable grocery bags when they bring them into the store. Starbucks also is is not refilling those reusable coffee mugs for that same reason. It's about reducing exposure and are groups. You know they've been largely supportive of these temporary measures because people's lives are on the line but I think they're keeping a close eye to make sure that these are actually temporary measures. Right and these larger initiatives to reduce plastic waste kind of comeback at some point if you have a question for NPR's Lawrence Somerset to us at NPR dot org slash national conversation or on twitter use the HASHTAG NPR conversation and our next listener question comes from Laura Intel Keaton Alaska. What effect is this virus having on? Wildlife? I'm thinking of the fact that there's less people out and about and that means there's more room for wildlife I've seen some photos of a Lotta ducks resting in a parking lot while bores and sheep walking down the street. There's a lot of this on social media. Is it just that were home more? So we see the animals more or the animals actually coming out in places that they didn't ordinarily yeah. I mean that's hard to tell right. A lot of us are kind of just looking out the window. Maybe seeing things we didn't see before but some of it is a hoax. Right on social media you know. Maybe you saw those dolphins that were. They weren't actually there. Yeah I'm sorry about that but this they're actually real effects. Scientists are trying to study. You know I spoke to one wildlife rescue center in California. That said you know right now. It's seal and sea lion pumping season. You know every year some pups are concerned because of human interference like people or maybe dogs getting too close and so they're kind of that this year they merely a reprieve for them because some beaches are closed Another really good example is Wales. There's just less shipping traffic right now. And so. The oceans are less and wheels are very sensitive to sound. It's actually Something scientists after nine eleven because there was also a drop in shipping traffic and scientists could actually measure that stress hormones in right. Whales went down during that time period. Interesting we got a question about what's happening to environmental regulations during the pandemic Mike in Portland writes to the EPA suspended environmental rules so companies. Don't have to follow them any longer. Lauren Bizarre Policy Change while everyone was focused on the disease. Yeah in in March the EPA announced that it would not be finding companies if they failed to report their pollution data during the pandemic so an example of this might be that a refinery is reporting. It's air emissions to make sure that they're complying with Federal Clean Air Laws. The agency said that this needed to happen. Because the pandemic is making it harder for staff to collect the safety data and and do social distancing at the same time environmental groups really push back quite strongly. They felt this was too broad. It sent a message to industries. That maybe they would have the freedom to break environmental laws if no one was really checking during this time period just on our final moments so many of the changes were talking about depend on social distancing when the economy returns to something like normal are the gains. We've seen going to be reversed right so we all are starting to get back in our cars and fly. Go back to work industries ramping. Up You expect these of short-term Games are going to go away. I think there's some hope that the behavioral change though like maybe we'll all work from home it's possible. Npr Science correspondent Lawrence Summer. Thanks for answering these questions tonight. Thanks
Filmhaus
The Most Rewatchable Films Off All Time!
"I asked all of you to pick five of your most reliable movies even as I'm here now. I'm thinking of other movies that I would have put on my list to Adam do you want to kick us off with one of yours absolutely? My number five is more of a movie. Batman begins and for me. That's because it has a four x structure James Unconventional. It basically created the modern superhero movie. It was the one that I think we all wanted and they finally figured out how to make it. And there's really no downtime. There's a little bit once once. The Second Act ends Bruce's coming back from being a Ninja. There's a little bit of time but even then it just keeps going well. I think that's part of it too. It feels like the movies constantly restarting like. It doesn't lose the momentum that you got from the last thing. But if almost feels like buster scruggs like it's like and now a news story in this world you love except that it it still builds on the stakes of the previous one. So yeah you have the beginning and you have what you have him going going here. It's Ninja Studies. But then flashback of him as a kid. Yeah and then but then it goes then it goes all right now. He's back in Gothenburg. There's more to this than just him being Ninja. It's him in Gotha somewhere between forty five minutes. An hour between forty five minutes in an hour until he becomes Batman Which is the that is. The best way of doing every other version has been high and Michael Keaton. I'll be Batman today. I hope you enjoy the film kids and then it just there. It's interesting that you liked that because I feel like mostly my gripe with a lot of Origin movies is. Oh you're it's the wait to get to that point and you're like just have them be it already. I think is Batman begins it so well and it had not been done before other than you got taste of like in the animated series and. I think it was like fracturing. This is on the tip of everyone's talking about if you if you just did a few things man and then they'd knocked it out of the park and it was. It's so damn good. I think that that's like probably the one Batman movie other than the dark night but dark knight even a watch. Jerry the Was He the joker parts. But like Batman begins. I love from beginning to end. See I know. I've definitely seen dark knight more than I've Seen Batman begins. I saw dark knight three times in the theater rich but I understand the news. Twelve years ago cheaper. I understand the difference that you're expanding because they think dark knight is one coherent story. That is just snowballing. Whereas Batman begins is like like you know these restarts again and again and it's way easier to be like I'm just GonNa Throw Him Batman begins and watch it. Yeah and infielder and tear to your point at least taking awhile. I think probably because audiences were ready for this. It's more satisfying when you get to Batman instead of just getting right away like you learned to appreciate it like you go. Oh this journey because remember. There's a guy who worked at the time he's like why has Bam Entry Ninjas stupid as a 'cause he trains jerk compelling to watch as well a lot Lindsey one of the movies on your list. I actually knew this was one. Eight year your. He's talked about buying definitely easy to put a Christmas movie on like a Rewatch ables list of because you have the opportunity every year to have those feelings and this is my number one holiday. Christmas rewatch -able movie. I watch it every year. I made you guys all watch it and put it. I bought it on Amazon Prime. Tell me lousy with the movie watcher itself. Oh thank you you never said the movement. Sorry I have eyeballs. Oh a lot of lead up and then you're GONNA build fit. I thought it was building to James. Caan you're a big fan of and the actor who played the kid overall favorite movies. Now I love it so much. Because it's it's that feel-good movie I mean it's a holiday movie so that's like Bilton but it's just really funny Yeah Yeah it's a great holiday comedy. I I remember walking away from this movie and being like I like the two thirds of it and it's charming guy. That's and that's why we're lucky that we have a will. Ferrell holiday movie. That isn't Daddy's home. Two good that we have this they were GONNA call that. Daddy's homer Yeah L. Flake. I think you hit the nail on the head with Chris Movies They. They need to be engineered for that. Yeah because that's the sign of a good lasting. Chris movie like home alone. I've seen more times than I can say to. The it's Christmas story marathon. I was GONNA say as long as it's better than a Christmas story and kids have to grow up watching that anymore. Oh God yeah. So here's the I think the interesting thing about a Christmas movie is that it should be about more than just. Christmas is like hard about Christmas. But it's about way more than just Christmas. Yeah like family. You kinda reunited so it's it's a from a different time when you could. You could mock little people. Yeah well That man went on to be tearing Lancaster. And what have you done with your life me not a lot not a lot. James. You hit the nail on the head with twenty years. I've seen this movie a billion fucking times gladiator. Yeah Wow yeah well. It's because there are lots of obviously we could see the movie. Certain people were putting in and stuff like that but I was like. I was like well action movies. Sometimes there's an action movie that you can watch and of course there's dumb ones like you can put any dumb silly action. Movie that's digestible on there. But gladiators like an epic and I couldn't imagine watching an epic scale movie historical epic type movie like this over and over again but gladiator. I have like I remember. I was in a Latin class in high school and the teacher didn't care at all about teaching and would be like We're GONNA watch gladiator. Nice it's like we're gonNA teach you about gladiator classes and long enough to watch all gladiator. Come back the next time says. When do we stop and then you go? I think it was what he was fighting the goals. Which is like the first fifteen minutes of the movie go? Okay you'd start there wouldn't finish and then you'd you'd end up watching gladiator again and again. I watch gladiator in two different classes in high school. That's pretty good But yeah it's just like I just think it's so digestible when you think about some of the other movies in this genre it's like exodus gods and kings and like like these big scale historical drama pieces and stuff just didn't none of them. None of them are is fun is gladiator is in my opinion. It's a dense movie. It's also covers a lot of ground here. there's not a lot of misunderstandings two and half hours pilates two and a half hours but like kind of like we're saying about some of those other movies it like has several start. It's like okay. Well there's the beginning part of the movie Where he's he's soldier but then there's the part where he's training and then there's the part where he's leaving rebellion and like it so there's all these like restarts and stuff. Yeah I honest I still think this is one of walking penises best performances and I feel like it's a role that you would never see him again. Oh Yeah Russell. Crowe no keep Russell Crowe. I'll never liked this ever again. Heartthrob Sexy Action Lead Caesar Cut. I've never seen this movie. It's real good yeah. He didn't joy in a lot is like I'm going to say that a lot about some of the films early. It's okay I mean if you ever wondered we're doomed got his mask from. You should watch glad I will watch a lot of these movies. I'm sure but yeah no. I Love Gladiator. It's pretty it's weird because it was one of one best picture and like people in hindsight were like really gladiator. And I'm like yeah because it's just because it's like a popcorn action movie doesn't mean it doesn't deserve the acclaim. It
Curiosity Daily
How Animals Get Color Without Pigment
"There's more than one way to make it color when humans one address. Something up with a splash of colour. We almost always rely on. Paints dyes or some other form of payments nature uses pigments too but after a few billion years of trial and error it also has another trick up its sleeve. It's called structural color. And it gets it's not from chemical properties but from physical shape so like. Have you ever wondered why humming birds have such vibrant colors? I mean they're not just bright they are iridescent. But if you took a hummingbird feather and grounded up into powder you wouldn't get that beautiful hugh that's because their color comes from the physical structure of the feathers specifically incredibly small pancake shaped structures. The colors we see are the result of light physically interacting with those stacks of Nanno skill flap. Jacks scientists have known for centuries that tiny structures? Were probably responsible for the IRIDESCENT Shimmer of peacock feathers and butterfly wings. And it's become clear over the last couple of decades that colorful micro and Nano scale structures give colored to living things across the natural world in everything from insects to fish to plants. Sort of backup. Pigments get their color because their molecules absorb certain wavelengths of light and reflect others structural colors on the other hand come from the physical properties of the material itself so in nature. These are usually something like cellulose. Collagen Keaton and Carrington. But if you look closely enough at the carapace of a beetle or at the berry like fruit of the herb paalea Camden Sada. Then you'll see a complex micro structure far more advanced than anything. Human engineers have ever designed. Take that herb polycondensation and it's metallic blue berries. While naturally occurring pigments tend to FADE OVER TIME. There are forty year old specimens of these berries. That haven't begun to fade but try to extract blue pigment from the fruit. And you'll get nothing. That's because the metallic blue comes from the wafer. Thin strands of cellulose are arranged in the berries. Cell walls the tiny threads are stacked in zillions of Helix Shapes and in arrangement that allows blue light to be reflected why Elat of other wavelengths passes through scientists are studying structural colors in nature to try to make some themselves in a field called synthetic photonics. In fact this field has given rise to technology. You probably know pretty well like Blu Ray but nature did it
American Innovations
Electronic Television: The Great Depression And The World's Fair
"It's nineteen thirty. The world is stuck in the early stages the great depression many Americans lift their spirits at the new moving picture shows in theaters and nickelodeon 's Buster Keaton Charlie Chaplin comedies. These films are often introduced with Mickey mouse cartoons or newsreels one newsreel in particular dazzles the audience with the promise of soon bringing these new moving picture shows into their very own homes presents. A backstage preview television the newest miracle of modern Electrical Engineering Mr penalty shown shown at the right is working on the image dissect to photoelectric camera. Tube of his own invention that distinguishes his system of television from others. It is said to be responsible for the most clearly defined television pictures placed in the second of this receiving system is a funnel shaped cattle due the round flat surface of its bulb becomes the picture screen in Studio Monitor. It does it as well. As in home receiving sense the image detector Tube and the Cathode Ray tube are the heart and brain system. Television Vilo Farnsworth's image to sector tube and camera system had finally brought the long anticipated picture radio into being station equipment. The electrons become radio impulses to broadcast and picked up by receiving sense where the routine is with us. The radio impulsive becoming points of light that appear on the screen as picture thirty pictures. I completed every second. These earliest television programming was live performance music and sound accompanied. The OBAMAS was action both visible and audible elements going on the air in perfect synchronization battling with the speed of light to amaze of tubes and equipment. The show leaves the station send the towers viewed by the television public and audience as yet small and comparatively ignorant of the research and experiment. That makes it possible rush to see and hear people many miles away watching this newsreel in the movie theater. The audience is intrigued but sceptical. The most fanciful dream of mankind is day startling reality destined to become the world's most popular science in one thousand nine thirty in San Francisco. Two years have passed since Filo funds worth with help from his wife. Pam Gardner and her brother cliff triumphantly showed off off a working prototype of electronic television. Violence picture was on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle under a headline that called him a genius is name was being being mentioned in newsreels magazines journals and the Associated Press but he hadn't yet found a manufacturer to partner with so financially files fortunes agents hadn't changed Penn gave birth to their first son. Filo T farnsworth third the previous year and a second son. Kenny would follow in nineteen thirty one but now a curious envelope in the days male brings a new possibility. You got a letter here. Filo says it's from New York I can't believe. RCA is offering one hundred thousand dollars for the image sector would. That's wonderful that exactly pam they want to own it outright i. It's not ideal but one hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money. Not compared to what television will eventually be worth. It's a mistake to cash in too soon like this. We have to keep the faith. I understand. Filo it's your invention that's Pammy. It's not it it never was. It's it's all of the great minds that have come before to make this possible. And it's you it's cliff. All of us were a team but they wanna buy our work and call it. There's it's just not fair. They can license it if they like. I've spent my entire life working towards this Pam. It's like it's like trying to sell one of our children. The Lord will provide Filo a a few weeks later. The farnsworth's receive another big opportunity with visit to the lab from United Artists. The Film Production Company was Silent Age Film Stars like Charlie the chaplain. Douglas Fairbanks D W Griffith and Mary. PICKFORD PICKFORD is especially enthusiastic. We just had to see this amazing new television system. We've heard so much about it. But when the time comes the image to sector won't cooperate Filo is rattled. I I'm sorry folks. This is humiliating million chaplain smiles. Don't sweat it. I've seen worse like Douglas's latest picture a few hours later. After the stars leave cliff finds the problem on a wire wasn't plugged in it. Was that simple Dan. How did I not see that Pam tries to reassure him? Mary Pickford was here. We were all a bit distracted. It did keep the faith Filo when a third opportunity knocks a few weeks later Filo is determined to answer the call this time. FILC who radio in Philadelphia. They they they want to license the Patents Fund our research. But it'll still be ours with some help Vilo at Phil Co so in Philadelphia moving from the bay area to the city of brotherly love. What do you think it sounds great? And so the Farnsworth family packed packed their bags with their belongings precious equipment and board a train to head across the country to Philadelphia Pennsylvania. His family counting on him. Kylo could only pray he was making the right decision.
The Takeaway
List of copyrighted works entering the public domain in 2020
"As the clock strikes midnight on new year's eve get this thousands of copyrighted works will finally entered the public domain and that includes books movies music all sorts of creative works that were first published in the U. S. in nineteen twenty four and if you're a little hazy on came out that year here's one the first movie adaptation of Peter Pan okay yeah we would have had a clip for that but that one was a silent film but also one of the things coming out this year blues legend of ma Rainey song CC right I'm enters the public domain it means it's no longer protected by copyright and the public can use and consume it without permission and at no cost and without the public domain we wouldn't have so much art that rests on the work of authors like Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare and these mass expirations used to happen every year in nineteen ninety eight though Congress passed the copyright term extension act it extended copyright protections for existing works for twenty years January first twenty nineteen so the first public domain dump since nineteen ninety eight for more on this host and you have a your recently spoke to Jennifer Jenkins a clinical professor of law and director of the center for the study of public domain at Duke University Jennifer thanks for joining me thanks so much for having me on the show tunes in so give us a couple of examples of maybe more of the popular works in the public domain and that some of our listeners might be familiar with well works from before copyright existed such as the works of Shakespeare the works of Mozart the works of Beethoven the works of Charles Dickens all of these are in the public domain and your listeners might be familiar with them because if you think think about the contributions of Shakespeare to our culture because Romeo and Juliet was in the public domain letter bursting was free to write West Side Story the movie's Gnomeo and Juliet and for me unless di did not have to get in touch with his errors and they were not subject to a veto and Shakespeare himself through in the public domain before him Romeo and Juliet you on Arthur Brooks the tragical history of Romeo and Juliet which in turn on all of its Pyramus and Thisbe and so your audience may be able to think of you know scores of works that drew on public domain material when something is not in the public domain what happens then because I understand that the song Happy Birthday was not in the public domain isn't that interesting it is now when something's not in the public domain that means that if you want to use the work you have to locate the copyright holder and you have to get permission from the copyright holder is welcome to say no are they can charge you a fair fee or they can charge you an exorbitant fee now this is a good thing copy rights are very important the public coming in as the yen to the gang of copyright protection so the design of the copyright system is there will be a term of copyright protection when you meet any of us you know enjoy exclusive rights over creative works then after a certain period of time that copyright expires in those works go into the public domain where anyone else is free to use and build upon them so there's some work entering the public domain and twenty twenty what might people be excited about what's coming into our public domain wonderful music so my favorite musical piece going to public domain is George Gershwin's Rhapsody in blue some literary works Thomas Mann's the magic mountain EM Forster's passage to India wonderful children's book a a Milne when we were very young there are also some wonderful silent films works featuring Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd silent film called Dante's inferno which itself to a public domain works Dante's divine comedy of course but also intermixing that with elements from Charles Dickens and the Christmas Carol so they're really great works going to the public domain next year and I know a lot of us are very excited about that so if
Three Wide No Cover
Kerrin McEvoy: Growing Up Jockey
"Said Van Tigers for you growing up in a racing family NGOs yeah it was grew up streaky value their little Bush town on the west coast of South Australia and gripe place to grow up it was pop leave dubbed the up the road hundred the road up the hill when he had some stables at the back of block horses there and anyways trying to be seeks right or ten depending on the locals wanted Ironhorse with him but it was great it was you know plenty of ponies for me Rawdon and dad was a jockey while I was a young child and then going to be heavy but submarine down to the Rice's a young Keaton running around collecting the bidding sleeps in tags six and always guys the jockeys and saying what color boots I had on what settles out and it was a passion was building from from an early age remember things little things when you're younger Dinesh Illinois big he's larger than life that all that China who was it for you that made you get nervous when you met him for the first time ties yeah Tolan I you know with with with David David as as he son obviously he was always falling behind and paid a highs and Michael Tiny was apprenticed to them by other Uncle Darren was apprenticed to them and then Tony ended up obviously being one of their former cy as a young kid it was always Colon high-seas is that and I always listening watching and whenever we went to town we Wanna pulp sources he had a few that rising ten I used to always love following around and watching the the highest amen highs horses and and the I was lucky enough to be apprenticed to them further down the road so you could always roy horses was it natural gas I wrote I'm GonNa lead well it I ju- Fourteen fifteen to become a junkie yeah I was that was always my choice enjoyed school and I could've stayed on and and enjoyed new twelve eleven and twelve ten Qaida didn't want it Algebra used to lose me over his maths was ah I was often the fairies we've maths but I used to enjoy school small little skull streaky by and It was I must admit there was more tom playing sports than probably and what but I was always going to be a jockey and and that was where did they could always rod you is natural out Mimea I draw you jump ahead of the gates actually my pony a job the guy here we used to have some old rusty berries stoves their streaky by Rice course which is better the town and that's track Ho Ho won one race meeting in the clubs do have their one meeting a year but jump a little out of the gates with some two year old it's in That was a good buzz and you know you you you never forget those alien is in plenty of jump shots and Charles Day on on the the Lindsay it young stirs but usually go over Lindsay Park as he must go hold of ice used to catch the bus over and and stated working long hours a higher on the apprentice waste all used to pick up more pack my pay packet it was double this the boys the boys used to be filthy but picking up pooing strapping a few of them on and enrolled in a few years and they don't forget one tree private jumped on the bus and Papa pick me up anyway yeah sorry it was coming home publishing to pick me up at Port Augusta because he is it at Port Augusta and anyway the bus from Adelaide to Port Augusta the the State Law and I go there about two thirty in the morning jumped off the Boston part was nowhere to be saying eating meat always on the yeah I was listening to it would have been twelve Oregon and and you're lucky on you where you're staying the jumped in a taxi had ten dollars me well anyway got dropped off with the great northern I till which is in Gusta knew what room staying in because of our decide they must have been a month before or whatever anyway be offense jumped over the fence winner in the back comb the forest knocked on the window public the window Colombian jumping into bed he just said sorry I forgot you yeah standing might say that's good that's good deal all remember more thirst arm into the rice now they Mike Apprentice Jockeys rawd in a silks they rice day settle and callous and pine leather boots for the first tom but backing Modi altogether Yarra Glen for the first time and with the the tight end of the boots or sleep dose lead nearly fell off when I came out of the gates you I either Rice's was it a good experience it was but like you said it's very different to everything else it used to with with normal trek quick stuff I don't recall ever having the soup zone for a trial either but I rob is at Balaclava and pita highs at the time was was trying to Lindsay Park and I think he had about seventy in these maiden rice was made over thirty or forty eight hundred meters and y'all got The Roy on lovely little military military plume coat and reading a Bit hymies lovely coordinator perfect for Diana with free fi first royds get up well not didn't win didn't win but it was meant to nine and I well it was just a just a point yeah he he he fold them ran and got Moeen slowly and surely with with with many roads to come but it was a great Feast Day balaclava lovely be tracking and then after that back to streaky by in my first right after my ticket was heise's Yup and they went back and did six right once in the Bush Paul Lincoln and Gusta and great myself in Teddy Monahan won the we we drew the leading jockey for the Port Augusta or Leading Jockey Carl it must have been Well was that ninety six ninety seven season is a good experience by some rough ready oh well maybe I lean get your I m getting paid on the solid and the soy gained a joke kind of a must have been in Adelaide somewhere few hundred we'll see a couple of hundred Colonie who started in the back so you can you take ran the Bush then you come into the city at the Stri but Victoria was always beckoning you to get a to get a gig incoming raw quick as you could win it happen yeah will always back with the Heizo actually did a Bill Cameron savion over there it was where where I might stevie and he was a great influence on me from then on but ended up venturing up to back Lindsay Park when Paul and John Kerry Jose climbs for wearing back to Lindsey. Tony was this attorney said look you Muslim Sean Hill one so we headed over there minority and got there and to be truthful it was it was a bit of a real steep learning curve I wasn't ready I was still green and a break maurice descent you know it's a different back then it was it was totally different you know riding Adelaide and I don't need on short period of that here in town Movilla Cheltenham annoys attracts Victoria Park to go to cool I was actually behind the gates the other day and I I was thinking I remember my first of all right aww living under may just slow down the sawed their coffee can get pretty hectic and always always a grain little drain young kid at at a more animal Davison so it was the real steep learning curve and I was lucky to to stick it out through those tough lighter one and a half to two zero period more apprenticeship climbs time was was when I started to do well or who scared the Virginia's Eddie in the jockeys very Milwaukee Jesus Black Gray goal was always leading and ready it's but he was he was he was welcoming at the same time there was obviously a great orders getting around you know Greg Jaws was there Stephen King Br privileged obviously the Oh tactically good oh great horseman and you know back watching and learning of course to the best or could you know when did the penny dropped for it to be given an opportunity to Rodney got which we'll touch on it I mean Abbott Win on Brew You've won three of them but when did the penny dropped for you to Sira off belongs Saturday class said I rising starting to get full books and Rodney in Steichen group enlisted Rice's did you remember the Diet dropped in your lock brought nail below the the winter of ninety nine winter it doesn't sorry the winter ninety nine and then all the way through to the winner of two thousand and really started to make inroads and get some good support and Mike USA Climb and I remember writing a few a few trebles in town and it was winter months and the the big boys were away but as a young kid boring to get better you really grab a hold of that momentum and and use it to drive you forward and so it was it was a rough first year in Melbourne but then the second and third years is when it really started to to propel Gordon was lucky to start teaming up with some good China's even sort of the highest camp and Mark Martin even and Russell Cameron to those and John but money was instrumental in getting me young Ford that adequate right
Fred and Angi
Diane Keaton hasn't had a date in 35 years
"Compared to Diane Keaton she would people magazine was like all in her dating business and Diane Keaton revealed she hasn't had a date in thirty five years thirty five find it hard to believe she's an attractive older woman an attractive woman for thirty five years he's cool as hell she explains she hasn't been asked out she said let's just get this straight that that one's important I haven't been on a date in thirty five years when asked if she wanted to be asked out she says I have a lot of male friends but no dates so not wow
Popcorn with Peter Travers
Tony Awards Preview
"Hi, everybody. It's Peter Travers than welcome to our special popcorn Tony award show. Now, I've gotta say, before we get into the nominees about who will win and who should win. This is been the most amazing year in Broadway history. It has made over two billion dollars at the box office that never happened. And why is it? I think it's Hollywood heat everybody from TV from movies from us. It wants to be on Broadway. They wanna be on that stage. You got this year. Kylo Ren and driver on Broadway. You have Walter, white Bryan, Cranston, there, Jeff Daniels who played Harry done in too, dumb and dumber movies. They're all fighting to be best, dramatic actor, what kind of stuff is happening on Broadway. Well, let's start with the major categories, and I'm gonna start with best musical the nominees are ain't too, proud the life and times of the temptations Beetlejuice remember that movie Haiti's town, the prom, and Tootsie. You remember that movie too? Well. I think the winner is Haiti's town. It's a rigid. It's basically the myth of Orpheus ritzy, but it's got a score by a woman named Naess Mitchell who doesn't come from Broadway, at all and kind of revolutionizes it. So what would happen what could spoil the fun? There's a little musical called the prom. It's really it's totally original. It's about these bunch of Broadway veterans, and they're really hard bitten, and they're not getting any press, and they decide to go to Indiana and help, a lesbian high school student take her girlfriend to the prom. That's it. How good is it? It's really good. And in terms of the Hollywood connection, Ryan Murphy, went to see it fell in love with it, and he's making a movie of it. So how about that? Then we have best play the Ferryman choirboy, Gary a sequel to Titus andronicus. What the constitution means to me an ink. I'm telling you people, the Ferryman is got to be a movie soon. It's an Irish play. It's about the troubles, and in on a stage. We get to see an entire family deal with violence deal with their own feuds. We've got babies onstage. We've got live alive goose. We have everything there's nothing like I don't think there's any competition for it at all except there was a snub, the most successful play in Broadway history. That's not a musical is to kill among bird, and for some reason, the Tony nominee said, let's not nominated what I want. Answer on that one best revival of a play. Arthur, Miller's all my sons the boys in the band, burn this torch song and the Waverley gallery. I think Arthur Miller's all my sons which brought a net. Bending back to Broadway is a show that he wrote in one thousand nine hundred forty seven a bout a guy who was manufacturing airplane, parts and was to rush to do it. And so the planes crashed and killed pilots during the war. We live in the world of Boeing. Now, how timely could this be? So I think that's really up there. And I in terms of seeing a show that by playwright Arthur Miller who says, let's deal with the world we live in this one really, really did it then we have bible of musical. This is easy, because there's only two there's Oklahoma Rogers and Hammerstein Oklahoma and kiss me. Kate. Of course, they were both movies. We saw Oklahoma with Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones in the fifties. But kiss me, Kate is done in a traditional way. Kelli o'hara's in it, Oklahoma is directed by guide named Daniel fish who find darkness. We're Rogers and Hammerstein only found light. It's a revelation to watch this. It's not the Oklahoma you've ever remembered, and it sung in the kind of country western way, look, if you ever get to see this on Broadway or win a tours get there get there quick. Okay. Okay. Best actor in a musical. And so, we'll do alphabetically Brooks as Mantas in the prom, Derrick Baskin and ain't too, proud the life and times of the temptations Alex Brightman and Beetlejuice. Remember when Michael Keaton had their part, Damon down, oh in Rogers and Hammerstein, Oklahoma. And send Tino fun Tanna into okay? The favorite is Tino, Tanna who is playing the part that destined Hoffman immortalized in the movie in the nineteen eighties. But what Centeno Tanna doesn't remember him on TV in crazy ex girlfriend like I'm saying everybody's from TV, or he does so much more. He sings as a man sees a woman, he does physical comedy does everything but stand on his hat. And I say, you know, who's out there that can spoil the win for Santino Tanna. And my answer is no one because this is one of the great performances you'll ever see on a musical, comedy stage. He's the winner. Best actress in a play Benning in Arthur, Miller's all my sons, Laura, Donnelly, in the Ferryman. Elaine may in the Waverley gallery, Janet mcteer in Bernhardt hamlet, Laurie Metcalf in Hillary Clinton, and Heidi Shreck in what the constitution means to me. Okay. Elaine may doesn't win this Tony. You're going to hear from me. She's eighty seven years old. She's returned to Broadway. After decades to play the part of a woman fighting Alzheimer's, and everything is no perfect about what she's done. She started with Mike Nichols doing comedy. She was starring in movies of like the new leaf directed things like the heartbreak kid. She's just one of the best actors I've ever seen anywhere. And if she loses and, you know, I feel bad for an bending because if Elaine may wasn't here this year, I think she would be the winner, but come on. Attention must be paid people. And I also wanna talk about a snub how. How does Glenda Jackson who won the Tony last year for three women returned to Broadway as King Lear? We talk about the age of hashtag metoo and time's up Glenda. Jackson is playing king. Lear gets rave reviews and the Tony committee says we're not gonna nominate her now. No, we're paying attention. And we're gonna come back and get you our best actress in a musical. Stephanie, j block in the share show Caitlyn Kanoun in the prom Beth level, in the prom, Eva nobles, ADA in Haiti's town, and Kelley O'Hara and kiss me cake. Stephanie j block who is that theater veteran is playing share in a way that sometimes she's more share than share. You might think this is just an escapist show thing to know she finds the character of who she is share shows up at this show often does numbers with her, and pus share. There's who's a bigger Hollywood. Name who is coming to Broadway with the show about herself. It takes three actresses to play here. But Stephanie j block plays the central one. And she plays the hell out of it. So she has just got to win. I'm sorry, people. All right. Best featured actress in a play for new of Flanagan in the Ferryman seal, you keep. And Bolger into kill a Mockingbird. Christine Nelson, Gary a sequel to Titus andronicus Julie white and Gary sequel to Titus andronicus and Ruth Wilson and King Lear people if you see if you see to kill among bird, and you should seal, you Keenan Bolger is very controversial because she's playing scout scout in the book and in the movie remember is in eight or nine year old girl. A C Keenan Bolger is in her forties. And yet, what she finds in this character who grew up to be Harper who wrote this novel is the heart and soul of the peace. So I'm telling you people this, this has got to happen. See Keenan Bolger remember that name best featured actor in a play birdie Carville and ink, Robin to hasten boys in the band getting Glick into kill a monkey bird, Brandon your Ranna wits in burn this Benjamin Walker in Arthur Miller's. All my sons birdie, Carville in ink. Those of us, those of you who actually went to Broadway couple of years ago and saw of any kind of a musical where you were shocked at a man playing a woman, you saw birdie, Carville in Matilda, and he played this woman, this horrible headmistress, and now he's playing Rupert Murdoch. So every who in Hollywood, who in politics would anyone hasn't been in an Rupert Murdoch publication or paper and who hasn't been rolled over the coals in it that performance and in London when he played it in one and Olivia ward, he had to play it in front of Rupert Murdoch. It's just an incredible job. I wanna talk a little about the snubs in this category. The non nominees there isn't actor named Bengal Arghanab into Killa mugging bird who plays Tom Robinson. He is the black man who is on trial for raping a white woman, a crime never committed. And he's defended. By Jeff Daniels. Atticus Finch when Aaron Sorkin adapted Harper Lee's novel to the stage. He did it so that he could expand the role of the black characters as he did here. And again, the Tony committee, decided only to nominate the white actors from tequila, Mockingbird ignoring the two black actors who are just brilliant in their roles. You people you're going to get called on the carpet. You need to all right? Best featured actress in a musical, Lilli Cooper in Tootsie, amber, gray and Haiti's town Sarah, styles Tootsie, alley stroke, or in Rogers and Hammerstein Oklahoma and Mary, Testa in Rogers, and Hammerstein Oklahoma there, something totally remarkable that happened this year in stroke, and Oklahoma. This is a woman who when she was two years old was in an automobile crash, and was never able to walk again. And now on Broadway playing eight oh Anne who is like the sexual. Time bomb in Oklahoma, the one who sings, I can't say, no, the part went to Allie. Stroke, she plays it in a wheelchair and you would think that's inspiring enough. But when you watch her play at you, forget the wheelchair exists, and you're watching her take over the stage like Dolly Parton. She, it's just an amazing thing to watch and it works on so many levels. So I wanna be there when she wins that Tony, and I want to be standing up and applauding and going Bravo. She deserves all right. Best featured actor in a musical Andre shields in Haiti town and a groups Luccin. That's a good name into Patrick page in Haiti's town germy, pope in into proud the life and times of the temptations and Ephraim Sykes ain't too, proud the life and times of the temptations, the favorite, the one, I think will win is under the shields and Haiti's town. He's seventy three years old. He stands on that stage is the narrator in like a silver suit. In total control of body and every movement and pulls you in till you're memorized. Your mesmerizing you not take your eyes off of hundred shields. This is a veteran actor who needs to get this Tony. But what if he didn't who would go to there's a young actor named Jeremy pope who plays Eddie kendricks in the into proud the life and times of the temptations? And who does he's playing a difficult man. One of the most difficult of the temptations. But one of the most talented as well. He's also nominated this year as best actor in a in a play in choir, boy, this is to me, the brightest newcomer that you will see on the stage and you're going to see him everywhere, stage movies television. It's just the beginning. So if you get to see this, you're going to be able to tell your friends, I was there win. Okay. Best director of a play Rupert Gould for Inc. Sam Mendes for the Ferryman Bartlett. Fair for to kill a mocking bird Ivo von Hosver for network, and George C Wolfer Gary a sequel to Titus andronicus Sam Mendis in the Ferryman this play. Does a job on stage that equal to his first movie which was American Beauty, which you may remember won the best picture? Oscar and once Mendis the Oscar as best director.
Waddle & Silvy
Kilmer Val Kilmer, Robert Pattinson And Warner Brothers discussed on Waddle & Silvy
"That. Couple Warner Brothers has confirmed that Robert Pattinson is the new Batman in the next, Batman franchise robber, Pat, Patterson giving light. Yes. Twilight fame, so you guys like that. I mean. No. I do we just is this, the thing where you just once the Batman franchise ends. You just pick it up with a new Batman and you go from there again readings like they're doing. Not even that it's just okay. We're going to redo the story now. And give you a new Batman. He just doesn't fit the Bruce, Wayne Batman like no stereotype. You know what I mean? Like I wanna see, like what's his name? He just did the no did it. But I'm saying new new guy. He just did. He just did pardon my take with big cat. It was in the van with and we were talking about Sean McVeigh. No, no. I know the I know the good looking guy. Yeah. The good looking guy Stephen Shammy, Steve Shammy. That's steve. Can you name the love can you name the actors joins company? It was about man. Michael keaton. Abed pledges then Aflac was Batman, Bill? Kilmer Val Kilmer was Batman. Yes. And the one. That's pretty much most of the modern ones. Yeah. Christian bale was awesome the night series. No doubt I absolutely love love, but you have to admit even though that was that was that, that three Zaka front. Thank you. Danny Lynch, fine, who Shemi still would be