Classic Ross Amico

  • Outland A Space Western Film Discussion

    Outland A Space Western Film Discussion

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    Ross Amico
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    The badge. The shotguns. The swinging saloon doors. The righteous marshal, bound by duty and honor to stand alone against the anticipated arrival of armed assassins – the tension heightened by countdown clocks everywhere. Why, it’s “High Noon” in space!

    Roy and I discuss “Outland” (1981), Peter Hyams’ western transplant to one of Jupiter’s moons, with plenty of characteristic digressions – some of them predictable (as when Roy pauses to give entire synopses of classic-though-tangentially-related television shows) and some not so much so (almost anything out of my mouth). Digressions upon digressions. You know you’re in trouble when the first 20 minutes of the show is taken up by us palavering about westerns, spaghetti westerns, and the unscrupulous Italian film industry.

    The countdown clock may sputter to two hours, but don’t forsake us, oh my darlings. You can watch it if you care to, here:

    I’ll leave Roy to stand alone on Sunday night against the arrival of three special guests: Warren Friedrich (organizer) Robert Wood (author) and David Hirsch (author/columnist: Starlog Magazine). They’ll be talking “Space: 1999,” so I’ll be on the first coach out of there. More specifically, the topic will be Calgary: 1999, a celebration of the sci-fi cult television series starring Martin Landau, Barbara Bain, and Nick Tate. The convention will be held in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, April 28-May 1.

    Enjoy the exchange, opposite the Oscars, and share your questions and comments when they livestream on Facebook, YouTube, etc., on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner, at a special time, this Sunday evening at 7:00 EDT!

    https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner

    And don’t forget to change your clocks!

    More about Calgary: 1999 here:

    https://www.facebook.com/Space199950years

  • Bette Davis Hollywood Icon on Picture Perfect

    Bette Davis Hollywood Icon on Picture Perfect

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    Ross Amico
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    Fasten your seat belts – it’s going to be a bumpy night!

    This week on “Picture Perfect,” for Academy Awards weekend, the focus is on Bette Davis.

    A two-time Academy Award-winner, Davis was the first actor to receive ten nominations, five of them in consecutive years. She remains one of the most recognizable figures from Hollywood’s Golden Age.

    Enjoy an assortment of classic scores composed for her indelible films, including “Now, Voyager” (Max Steiner), “Mr. Skeffington” (Franz Waxman), “All About Eve” (Alfred Newman), and “The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex” (Erich Wolfgang Korngold).

    Davis’ wins came early – she received statuettes for “Dangerous” (1935) and “Jezebel” (1938) – but she turned in solid performances for pretty much her entire career. There is little about her style which doesn’t scream “ACTING!” So it seems only an appropriate choice for this Academy Awards weekend.

    It’s a grand throwback to an era when the big screen was filled by larger-than-life personalities. You can always bet on Bette, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, this Saturday evening at 6:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

  • Gandhi’s Decisions in New Princeton Concerto

    Gandhi’s Decisions in New Princeton Concerto

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    Ross Amico
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    I’ve been remiss in not mentioning the fact that this weekend will bring a world premiere to Princeton, courtesy of composer William Harvey and the Princeton Symphony Orchestra. Harvey will be the violin soloist in his new concerto, “Seven Decisions of Gandhi,” to be performed on two concerts at Richardson Auditorium this Saturday and Sunday.

    Long an admirer of Gandhi, whose nonviolent resistance movement helped end British rule in India, Harvey was intrigued by the fact that the influential reformer and revolutionary was also once a violinist. He muses, “Had Gandhi decided to stick with the violin, world history might be very different. This gave me the idea that a violin concerto about his life could be based on decisions that made him the international nonviolence icon he is today.”

    Dibyarka Chatterjee will accompany on the tabla, traditional Indian hand-drums, and Snehesh Nag will play the sitar. Sameer Patel will conduct.

    The work is dedicated Gandhi’s granddaughter, Ela, on the occasion of her 80th birthday.

    Also on the program will be Alexander Borodin’s “Polovtsian Dances” and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 “Pathétique.”

    The concerts will be held at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium on Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 4 p.m. A pre-concert talk will take place one hour before the Sunday performance. For tickets and information, visit princetonsymphony.org.

    More about William Harvey

    William Harvey

    Dibyarka Chatterjee

    https://dibyarka.com/

    Snehesh Nag

    https://www.viewcy.com/p/sneheshnag

    Sameer Patel

    https://sameer-patel.com/

    PHOTO: William Harvey and Dibyarka Chatterjee at last night’s PSO Soundtracks talk, “Instruments of the Indian Subcontinent,” at Princeton Public Library

  • Remembering Topol Fiddler on the Roof Legend

    Remembering Topol Fiddler on the Roof Legend

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    Ross Amico
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    2 responses

    In case you didn’t know, in the film version of “Fiddler on the Roof,” that’s Isaac Stern on the soundtrack, standing in for the titular musician. John Williams won his first Oscar for his adaptations and musical arrangements of the immortal songs of Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick. Zero Mostel created the role of Tevye, but for many the role was owned by Topol. With the acclaimed film version and numerous stage revivals, he was every bit as much Tevye as Yul was the King.

    In the past few years, there have been rumblings about a film remake. Why? No doubt some studio executive at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, musing as Tevye did…

    Topol died this morning at 87. R.I.P.

    Isaac Stern

    You can really hear John Williams’ influence here

    Do You Love Me?

    Tradition!

  • Outland Space Western with Sean Connery

    Outland Space Western with Sean Connery

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    Ross Amico
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    5 responses

    By the late 1970s, John Wayne was dead and the enduring genre of the American movie western was left a high-plains drifter.

    Sure, there were revisionist westerns and elegiac westerns and, from beyond our borders, spaghetti westerns and even acid westerns. But by and large, the great tradition of sundrenched morality tales, with white hats beating black hats to lay the cornerstones of justice and civilization, had run their course.

    Still, never underestimate the resonance of a good myth.

    In the wake of “Star Wars,” with its space cowboys, cantinas, and laser sidearms, shoot-‘em-ups and showdowns were increasingly cast on distant worlds, though all-too-frequently without the uncomplicated, “classic western” moral gravitas.

    A notable exception is “Outland” (1981), a gritty update of “High Noon,” transplanted to a mining colony on one of the moons of Jupiter. Sean Connery plays the upright marshal who, like Gary Cooper’s Will Kane, is left to stand alone against hired gunmen.

    Space truly is the final frontier, as Roy and I discuss “Outland” on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner. We’ll be looking for armchair deputies in the comments section, when we livestream on Facebook, YouTube, etc., this Friday evening at 7:30 EST!

    https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner

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