Monthly Archives: March 2017

Billy, How Did You Do it?

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Billy & Cameron. Photo By Neal Preston

We lost the great Billy Wilder 15 years ago today. I thought it would be great to remember him with this 2005 Sight & Sound piece that Cameron wrote. It’s new to The Uncool and we hope you seek out a Wilder film to watch tonight!

Billy, how did you do it?

‘Elizabethtown’ director Cameron Crowe pays tribute to Billy Wilder

 The first Billy Wilder movie to ever grace my family’s living room was Some Like It Hot. I was too small to catch all the subtext of those cross-dressing musicians, but this much was clear: something was going on inside that movie. A subversive sense of humour was at play, and those big laughs rocked our house. Later, someone pointed out that the same man made Sunset Blvd., another movie we all watched together as a family. Both were late-night ‘movies of the week’ on TV. The magic was palpable, even on that small screen.

I decided to become a film-maker to protect a script I’d written called Say Anything… A number of other directors had passed on it, and the script was about to fall into the hands of someone who cared a lot less about it than me. Wilder, a journalist who became a director for similar reasons, was one of the first masters I turned to in preparing to direct. Most writer-directors seeking inspiration eventually go to Wilder. I worked through his pictures one by one. His work was like a drug – character-rich stories filled with laughs and story turns so deft you could get a body rush sitting in the theatre. Eventually, I got to The Apartment, sadly after my father had passed away. Halfway through, it was already my favourite. When I heard the last line of the movie, “shut up and deal”, I realised where one of my dad’s favourite phrases had come from.

Part of the great fun of being a fan of Billy Wilder is that your favourite Wilder pictures change over the years. For me, sometimes it’s Love in the Afternoon; other times it’s A Foreign Affair; but usually I return to The Apartment. The characters, the score, the melancholy and the perfection of the script and performances… It’s hard to top. though the fizzy comic wallop of Some Like It Hot sure gives it a run for its money.

In my experience of interviewing him, Wilder usually chose Some Like It Hot or The Apartment as his personal favourite. His reasons he said, were mostly script-based. He just loved the structure and the successful collaborations with his writing partner Izzy Diamond. He often mentioned the ‘cracked mirror’ scene in The Apartment as one of his favourite moments in any of his films He explained that these pictures and Sunset Blvd. “just worked”. Of his audience favourites, the only one that seemed to displease him was Irma la Douce. As for his favourite actors, he always mentioned Lemmon and Matthau and, with an extra twinkle, Charles Laughton.

Double Indemnity survives because of its masterful victory of tone and performance and direction. For a still young director, it was a work of sly bravura. And Wilder’s favourite element – the inner ‘love story’ between Fred MacMurray and Edward G. Robinson – gives the movie its freshness and a dark kick. Many try for this tone; few get there.Wilder used to say that a masterful comic actor like Cary Grant would forever be beaten at the Oscars by a less talented, furrow-browed serious actor with a “physical ailment of some kind”. It was his way, I think, of waving the flag for what he felt to be a far more difficult exercise – comedy. He was a great fan of modem pictures that had a certain graceful comic perfection, like the Japanese film Shall We Dance?. He also loved the deep-tissue satire of American Beauty. As for his own legacy, Wilder sometimes scoffed, “Why would anyone care about me?” But, in fact, he’d noticed the parade of younger film-makers who cited him and made a point of telling me it genuinely surprised and touched him. “A lot’?” “A little,” he’d answer with a trademark flick of his eyebrow that indicated the opposite might also be true.

As Wilder once said of Audrey Hepburn, “there is only one”. But his lessons to other modern directors are clear: protect your script and your characters; observe the values of script structure… Take a look at the work of Wilder’s own heroes, from Ernst Lubitsch to William Wyler, and then go out there with a camera and tell your stories with glee and a ferocious lack of false sentimentality. But most of all, “don’t bore them”.

Courtesy of Sight & Sound – Cameron Crowe – October, 2005

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Mar 27, 2017

Pearl Jam – State of Love and Trust/Breath 7″

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As we inch closer to the Singles Deluxe Edition Soundtrack, A Pearl Jam 7″ will be released on April 22nd as part of this year’s Record Store Day to celebrate.  The double A side vinyl will be limited to 5000 copies. We’d like to be the first to share both the front and back covers.

 

 

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Mar 23, 2017

Singles/Almost Famous Double Feature!

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The (always great) Prince Charles Cinema in London, England is showing a 35mm double feature of Singles and Almost Famous on Monday, March 20th. More info and tickets can be purchased on their official site. Give us a shout and send us some pics if you’re able to attend.

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Mar 17, 2017

Joe Walsh and Barnstorm Review

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Joe Walsh photo by Henry Diltz

Cameron did a rare concert review for Rolling Stone in the summer of 1973. It’s brand new to The Uncool. Enjoy!

Joe Walsh and Barnstorm
Winterland
July 7th, 1973

Several hours before showtime, Joe Walsh sat in nervous anticipation on the edge of his motel room bed. “I am so excited about tonight,” he blurted. “I just want to go out there and . . . kill ’em.”

When Joe Walsh bowed out as the guitarist-vocalist and focal point of the James Gang last year, the impression given by his fellow band members was that Joe was off to Colorado to become thoroughly immersed in the “get-my-head=together-and-make-my-solo-album” syndrome.

Truth was that Walsh knew exactly where his head was, and it wasn’t with the James Gang. Tired of the trio’s shoddy compromises that he was forced to comply with. Joe left to record Barnstorm, a masterful, if fairly low-keyed solo LP. The ethereal tunes then out of his system, he promptly returned to the high-powered style that was his trademark. To celebrate the occasion, he formed his own band, also called Barnstorm, and went on to record an album of mainstream rock & roll. The LP, The Smoker You  Drink, The Player You Get, is Joe Walsh’s finest work to date if only for the band’s perfectly offsetting musicianship.

And this brings us to Barnstorm’s recent appearance at Winterland as show-opener for the Doobie Brothers and the New Riders of the Purple Sage. Given no sound-check and all of 45 minutes to perform, the group wasted no time in overpowering what normally would have been a still-milling sold-out crowd of 5000.

Playing material mainly from the Smoker LP, the band was able to dart in several directions without straying far from the common denominator of rock & roll. Several of the tunes were laced with improvised interplay between Rock Grace’s piano and Walsh’s guitar, while Tom Stevenson’s synthesizer belched gushes of wind and drummer Joe Vitali guided the interludes to their climactic peaks. Summoning images of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, the stream-of-conscious musicianship bordered at times on jazz without alienating a crowd that had come to be rocked.

Two vintage James Gang tunes, “Tend My Garden” with bassist Kenny Pacerelli on harmonies, and “The Bomber,” actually a medley of “Closet Queen” and Vince Guaraldi’s “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,” far surpassed their original versions and earned bales of applause from the audience. But it was the new single, “Rocky Mountain Way,” that whipped them into a frenzy.

A standing ovation brought Barnstorm back for “Funk 49.” Needless to say, Walsh’s guitar wailed and his voice soared. The set had been flawlessly paced.

Pete Townshend has said many times that Joe Walsh was his favorite contemporary guitarist. Let us just say that Townsend saved face that evening. Walsh did kill ’em.

Courtesy of Rolling Stone #141 – Cameron Crowe – August 16, 1973

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Mar 15, 2017

Happy Birthday to Mr. James Taylor!

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Photo by Timothy White

Photo by Timothy White

James celebrated his birthday yesterday and he is still going strong. He’s been on the road touring for the past few years with his latest album, Before This World. He’s wrapping that tour up in South America, but will back on the road this Summer with Bonnie Raitt in the US. Let’s jump back in our time machine to Cameron’s 1976 story from the L.A. Times.

James Taylor: Just a Homebody Who Finds No Warmth in the Spotlight

The young man edged closer and stared for a moment to make sure the lanky figure in the corner of the restaurant was indeed James Taylor. The man then tore a soiled bandage from his own forehead and began shrieking that Taylor had just miraculously healed him.Within seconds, the other customers in the restaurant were gawking at the shy singer-songwriter. Taylor sighed quietly and buried his head in his hands. All he had wanted was a burger.

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Mar 13, 2017

Dan Patrick: Looking Back on Jerry Maguire

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Cameron called into the Dan Patrick Show last Friday to discuss Jerry Maguire one last time as we wrap up the 20th Anniversary. You can watch it unfold above.

 

 

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Mar 6, 2017

David Crosby: Remember My Name-Out Now on DVD/Blu-ray & Digital!


  • Almost Famous- Paramount+
  • Aloha- Starz, DirecTV
  • David Crosby- Starz, DirecTV
  • E-Town- FUBO
  • Fast Times- TUBI
  • Jerry Maguire- Netflix
  • Say Anything...- FUBO,Paramount+,MGM+
  • Singles- Vudu
  • Vanilla Sky- Prime Video,Pluto TV
  • We Bought A Zoo- Disney+