Music To Your Eyes

Yours truly is now officially a full-fledged, bonafide, card-carrying (Vaccine card) member of WPIX-TV, or as we've called it in New York for more than 50 years, PIX 11's Documentary Club, a/k/a Watch With Dan, for its moderator, Daniel Mannanino, who also anchors the 7,8,9, and 10 AM hours of the PIX 11 Morning News. (Watch it on pix11.com, the PIX 11 News app, or, in the New York-New Jersey area on Hulu or YouTube TV.) I don't know how long it's going to last, because many are starting to return to work, but it's a fairly simple idea: Watch one (or both) of two documentary films chosen by Dan and his producer Katie Meyers, follow the special Zoom link, and get ready to talk about the pros and cons of the docs you have seen. I know what you're thinking, "It's one of those glorified contests,right?!?" Friends, the biggest prizes you can win from this club are knowledge of topics of which you may, or may not, have been aware, the courage to defend your beliefs before a group of friends, and, quite possibly, friendships that will last long after the world gets all the way back to normal. 

The first two documentaries chosen by PIX 11 that I have seen are SUMMER OF SOUL OR, HOW THE REVOLUTION NEARLY WASN'T TELEVISED (Hulu) and WOODSTOCK 99: PEACE, LOVE AND RAGE (HBO Max). SUMMER OF SOUL is about an event I never heard about until I saw the first trailer, the Harlem Cultural Festival of 1969. Like many kids of the era, I got my Top 40 music and the top stories about the artist in those pre-MTV days, from mainstream AM radio stations like 77 WABC, 57 WMCA, or the pre-Imus iteration (Google the I Man!) of 66 WNBC (now WFAN) , and neither the jocks nor the newsmen at the top and bottom of the hour said anything about the Harlem Cultural Festival which occurred the same weekend in 1969 as the original Woodstock Music Fair. Both mainstream artists such as the Fifth Dimension (who felt they had to do this festival to convince their African American brothers and sisters they weren't white), Stevie Wonder, and Nina Simone and countercultural figures such as Gil Scott-Heron were represented, and the festival secured a corporate sponsorship from Maxwell House Coffee, but none of the local television stations in the New York market , the largest and most demanding in the country, would carry it, and the original film had been stuck in a basement for 50 years, until it was unearthed by Amir (Questlove) Thompson, better known as the bandleader for THE TONIGHT SHOW STARRING JIMMY FALLON, who assembled a very entertaining, enriching, portrait of a unique time in American cultural history. Get ready to enjoy this beautiful film, but also know there are a lot of similarities between Black America of 1969 and the Black America of today, such as the glaring inequality, unemployment, and prejudice. Of the two docs, SUMMER OF SOUL is the most musical and, well, most soulful.

By contrast, WOODSTOCK 99 is more reminiscent of a good magazine article, examining developments both positive and negative without fear or favor. The original Woodstock 99 music festival, held on an Air Force base in Rome, NY, was intended to replicate the magic and joie de vivre of its pioneering namesake thirty years prior, but it drowned in a sea of violence, vandalism, sexism, misogyny, and all-around poor planning and production. Who are the villains of this piece, the promoters of the original 69 festival and its 94 follow-up, the kids who stole money from the ATMs, took Limp Biskit leader Fred Durst's call to "Break Stuff" literally and thought it was OK to use the N-word because rapper DMX had, or MTV, once the iconoclastic pioneering music television network, now a shameless promoter, using every opportunity to milk this train wreck, which, in the eyes of this reviewer, laid the cornerstone for the insurrection of January 6th? (The viewer may note graffiti that dropped the F-bomb on MTV and one of the concertgoers who also dropped it on one of the cameras that just HAPPENED to be there. He should have read the legally-required sign giving MTV the right to use voices and likenesses of concert attendants during live concerts as well as for promotional purposes.) I leave it for the reader to decide, but I WILL say that Jewel, Alanis Morrisette, the Backstreet Boys, and Rage Against The Machine also turn in memorable performances. Of note is Latina comic Rosie Perez responding to a bunch of male chauvinist pigs, and that's all I'm gonna say about THAT.

Some people may opine that the documentary died with David L. Wolper and Edward R. Murrow, but if these excellent productions, and the interest that has sprung up since the pandemic, the genre is very much alive and well, and these two are definitely worth a look, and listen. (Also of note, and on HBO Max, SMALLTOWN NEWS, the real-life story of an actual TV station, but still, it's great for fans of WKRP, MARY TYLER MOORE, NEWSRADIO, and even WAYNE'S WORLD.)

Steve out!

Viva Vivo!

 VIVO (PG for Language and Certain Thematic Elements) With the Talents Of Lin-Manuel Miranda,Ynairly Simo, Zoe Saldana, Juan de Marcos Gonzalez,Brian Tyree Henry, Gloria Estefan,Michael Rooker,Nicole Byer,Katie Lowes,Olivia Trujillo,Lidya Jewett,Christian Ochos,Gloria Calderon Kellett,Leslie David Baker,Paloma Morales,Danny Pino,Alex Lacamoire,Aaron LaPlante, and David Baida. Directed by Kirk DeMicco, Co-Director Brandon Jefferds. Screenplay by Kirk DeKicco and Quiara Alegria Hudes, Story by Quiara Alegria Hudes and Peter Barsocchini., Co-Producers, Daniel Chuba and John Clinton, Executive Producers Louis Koo Tin Lok , Laurence Mark and Lin-Manuel Miranda,Produced by Rich Moore,Lisa Stewart, and Michelle L.M. Wong, Original Music by Alex Lacamoire and Lin-Manuel Miranda, A Sony Pictures Animation Production for Netflix, Distributed by Columbia Pictures

A few blogs ago, I reported on the Nathan's Famous International Hot Dog Eating Contest, usually staged at the chain's founding outlet at the corner of Surf and Stillwell Avenues in historic Coney Island (Brooklyn,NY) but, this year, held due to unprecedented demand at Maimonidies Park in the same area,and I mentioned that not only was it named for a trailblazing hospital (that sent a lot of real life super heroes off to battle the original strains of COVID-19, but it was also named (whether they knew it or not) for the father of modern Torah study.

Last Sunday, this reporter returned to the Park (or, as he likes to call it, Rambam Park) to see the home-standing Cyclones score a brilliant upset victory against the visiting Hudson Valley Renegade (Good luck wearing a mask at all times, guys!) on Jewish Heratige Day, but he was pleasantly surprised to see an ad on the Jumbotron for VIVO, a beautifully animated, illustrated, and written love letter to pre-Castro Cuban culture from the mind of Lin-Manuel (HAMILTON, IN THE HEIGHTS, MOANA, HIS DARK MATERIALS) Miranda, who plays the title character, a kinkajou who belongs to Andres, (Juan deMarcos of the group Buena Vista Social Club) a percussionist who played in Miami in those glory days alongside Maria (an old-school cabaret queen played by the multi-talented Gloria Estefan), but never told her his true feelings. He writes her one last song, and tries flying to Miami to get it to her before it's too late, but, unfortunately for him, it is, and Vivo, who used to pass the hat to pay for Andres' living expenses, meets his niece Rosa (Zoe Saldana) and great niece Gabi (promising newcomer Ynairaly Simo) after sneaking into Gabi's backpack and following them to their home in Key West, FL. We find out that Gabi hates her girl scout troop but she loves music, rapping, and being that one in a million, which is also an appropriate term for VIVO. Without giving too much of the movie away, VIVO jumps off the screen (big and small) with a combination of CGI and hand-drawn animation, smart, contemporary humor, a chase scene equal, to, if not surpassing, the greatest live-action chases in movie history, and, of course, Lin-Manuel Miranda's lyrical gymnastics, tongue-in-cheek humor, an ability to segue from traditional Cuban music, and other manifestations of Latin music to hip-hop, and even "Love Picks You Up," a ballad seemingly intended for (and definitely intended to mock) lite FM stations.

Although I'm determined to get outside and go back to living life to the fullest, today's triple-digit real feel temperatures made it difficult, if not impossible. VIVO is the best lemonade you can make from the lemons today's world can hand you, and, no previous knowledge of Spanish is required. (Gracias, subtitulos, or, to put it another way, thank you,subtitles!) Since I found out about VIVO at a ballgame, I can safely say this is one movie that hits a home run!

Arriba!

Esteban