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All Of This

Star Wars Films, Ranked By Me
————————————————-
1. Empire
1a. Star Wars
[order doesn’t matter. I can’t quit either of them, and will always get sucked in if they’re on, they’re magnificent]
2. American Graffiti
3. Darth Maul Fight Scene / musical score
4. Star Wars Holiday Special
…………………………..
all others – maddening, hard pass, the seeds of decline were those damn Ewoks
5. Honorable Mention: Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire books were pretty great

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Shit

Ron Cobb, an underground political cartoonist, who happened to befriend a young Spielberg, and went on to design Star Wars Cantina creatures, the Back to the Future Car, the Nostromo (ask Makerbot), a time traveling DeLorean, and ET (Spielberg gave him a cut, and made him so rich he fucked off to Australia and was never heard from again), has died. His political cartoons were ridiculously prescient, and are sadly still timely. Comic above is from 1968!

View samples here.

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Sorry.

Beneath the mayhem and incompetence, this is a good song with a great hook in the chorus.  And the lyrics are as true as any.  According to Wikipedia, Terry Adams of NRBQ likened their melodies to Ornette Coleman.  I hear what he’s getting at.  The long melodic lines appear to meander, but then they resolve into a nutty coherence.  But I dunno that they remind me that much of Ornette Coleman.  Since none of you can throw a beer at me for being a pretentious ass (today, at least), I’ll go ahead and submit that their melodic lines remind me of Hector Berlioz.

Love ’em or hate ’em, the Shaggs are a genuine enigma, and those are always interesting.

If you happen to run across an original pressing (you won’t), snap it up.  They’e very rare and worth thousands.

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Laurel Canyon

I’ve only seen the first of these, as recommended to us by Fat Elvis once upon a time. It’s great. A friend recently hipped me to Echo in the Canyon, and I noticed that there’s ANOTHER one out too.

I’m nostalgic for California, now that it’s burning up and falling into the ocean. I loved my time there. I may watch all of these. Maybe someone will tell us that Laurel Canyon gave birth to punk.

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Worth the Attention?

Goat’s Head Soup, recently given the full-reissue shebang, has its moments, but in ’73 it was a disappointment coming on the heels of the super-human Beggars Banquet through Exile on Main Street run.  A recent review on Pitchfork sums up how I feel about it:

This would suggest Goats Head Soup’s true significance is that it marked the moment where a new Rolling Stones record ceased to be a game-changing cultural event, and more like a fresh pile of coal shoveled into the engine room to keep the show on the road.

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Fuck Fuckity Fuck Yeah

BRING IT.

The new season of The Mandalorian starts streaming Friday, October 30, only on Disney+.

The Mandalorian and the Child continue their journey, facing enemies and rallying allies as they make their way through a dangerous galaxy in the tumultuous era after the collapse of the Galactic Empire. “The Mandalorian” stars Pedro Pascal, Gina Carano, Carl Weathers and Giancarlo Esposito. Directors for the new season include Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rick Famuyiwa, Carl Weathers, Peyton Reed and Robert Rodriguez. Showrunner Jon Favreau serves as executive producer along with Dave Filoni, Kathleen Kennedy and Colin Wilson, with Karen Gilchrist serving as co-executive producer.

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Dooooon!

Not sure what the quota is for remakes (at least #4, I think) but this looks fun. I rarely watch 1983 Dune, because Lynch has such distaste for it, but I caught the first 30 minutes the other day, and thought those sequences were amazing.