Bowie was scheduled to sing a duet with Crosby of “The Little Drummer Boy.”

—–

The pair seemed an odd fit artistically, but commercially it made sense, at least in theory. Bowie was then seeking to somewhat mainstream his career, and the producers of Crosby’s special no doubt hoped that a young, ultra-hip performer like Bowie would bring in a demographic not normally inclined to tune in to a very old-fashioned holiday special.

But Bowie balked at the choice of songs; he thought “Little Drummer Boy” was wrong for him, and asked the producers if he could do something else.  So, as The Washington Post described the scene:

Just hours before he was supposed to go before the cameras, though, a team of composers and writers frantically retooled the song. They added another melody and new lyrics as a counterpoint to all those pah-rumpa-pum-pums and called it “Peace on Earth.” Bowie liked it. More important, Bowie sang it.

But before he sang it, the conventions of the form dictated that the two men, who barely knew each other (indeed, there is some dispute whether or not Crosby even knew who Bowie was), engage in some very canned, very stilted banter. And boy, did they ever succeed.

The segment begins with a doorbell ringing. Crosby answers the door and lets in David Bowie, who introduces himself and asks Bing, “You’re the one who sings, right?” Ouch. Crosby answers, ‘Well, right or wrong, I sing either way.” Bowie casually mentions that he, too, is a singer. Bing’s eyes light up: “Good! What kind of singing?”

The whole thing is so cheesy, so painful to watch, that when the piano at last heralds the beginning of the inevitable duet, one cringes at the train wreck about to ensue.

But then something very strange happens: There is no train wreck. The two men slip into perfect, haunting harmony. Bowie looks into the camera and sings his part with a sincere and restrained melancholy, Crosby buoying him softly with the staccato refrain pah-rumpa-pum-pum. It is, frankly, weird. It shouldn’t have worked at all. But it did, in true Christmas miracle fashion.

It was one of Crosby’s finest moments, and also one of his last; one month after recording the special, and one month before it aired, the 73 year-old crooner was dead.

The Crosby/Bowie duet remains one of the most memorable and surreal moments in television history. It is far and away my favorite Christmas song. I hope you like it, too.

Merry Christmas.

More MARVEL madness looms next summer, with a reboot of “Spider-Man,” possibly another “Wolverine” (if the sequel’s Japanese production can get back on track after this year’s tsunami temporarily derailed it), and of course, MARVEL’s piece de resistance, “The Avengers.”

The Avengers represents the apex of MARVEL’s long term strategy for its movie properties: Each character will have their own series, as well as make guest appearances in other character’s movies. And all will join forces in the Avengers’ own series, bringing Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Hulk, Black Widow, and others together as a team, just like in the comics.

One of the great joys of reading MARVEL comics has always been the shared universe these characters inhabit; seeing them team up or face off in each other’s books made for a thrilling reading experience. That MARVEL is trying to replicate this phenomenon in the movies is daring, to say the least, and maybe unprecedented.

Though not without risk. Comic titles come out once a month; movies every two or three years, making it much harder to sustain interest in long-term plot lines without boring the audience and sacrificing valuable screen-time that could otherwise service the story at hand. Some MARVEL movies have already suffered as a result – one of the criticisms leveled at “Iron Man 2″ was that it felt more like a two-hour trailer for “The Avengers” (then two years away) than a stand-alone Iron Man adventure.

There are signs that MARVEL has learned the lessons of that film, however: “Thor” had the mix just about right, with references to Iron Man, Hulk and the larger MARVEL universe scattered throughout the film, easily recognizable to fans, but unobtrusive enough to be safely ignored by someone who has missed those other films. The “Thor” after-credits scene nicely set up Captain America,without detracting from the thunder god’s solo adventure. Indeed, most casual move-goers left the theater as the credits rolled, leaving the Easter Egg for the fans who knew it was coming.

Personally, I love what MARVEL is doing, and hope they can make it work. The universe Stan Lee and his titanically-talented artist cohorts created in the 1960’s is a vast, multi-layered, and fun place to visit, on the page and on screen. Hopefully, MARVEL studios will re-acquire the rights to all its properties (currently Sony owns “Spider-Man” and FOX owns “X-Men”) so they, too, can be folded into this incredibly ambitious cinematic experiment.

Excelsior!

Years ago, a young woman sat across from me on a near-empty train. She looked like she had been crying. Pulling her sweatshirt sleeves down over her hands, she leaned her head against the window, a distant look on her swollen and scarlet countenance.

I was listening to the Ramones at the time, and took a chance. I moved over to the seat next to her and said hello. She seemed shocked by the abrupt intrusion, but very quickly recovered and managed to make some small talk with me. After a few moments, I offered my headphones:

“You wanna hear something?” I asked.

She took my measure for a long moment before, against what was surely her better judgment, slipping the headphones on. I pressed play and Cretin Hop poured into her head. After a second she put her hands over the phones, drawing the music further in. Beat on the Brat followed; she listened for a minute, then, mirabile dictu, her lips unfolded like tiny wings and a smile took flight on her face.

“I’ve never heard this,” she said, too loud.

“I know,” said I.

“Who is it?”

“The Ramones.”

“What are you, their agent?”

“More like an ambassador,” I smiled. I skipped ahead to the song I really wanted her to hear. “It’s gonna be OK,” Joey Ramone sang to her, “It’s gonna be alright….yeah, yeah, yeah.” I handed her the player, and – here is the amazing part – she turned the volume up. Her eyes closed, her head bobbed almost imperceptibly, a chewed and unpolished fingernail tapped ever-so-lightly the side of her leg.

—–

When the song was over, she took the headphones off and opened her mouth, as though about to ask me a question (Who the hell are you? would have been a good one). I noticed we had arrived at my stop, however, and so scooped up my player, bid her farewell, and skipped off the train just before the doors shut. Apparently it was her stop too, though she must not have noticed ’till it was too late – I turned to see her standing behind the closed doors, bag in hand, laughing, as the train pulled away.

A smile, a laugh. A temporary respite from the pangs of heartbreak. The wonder and beauty and joy of life crammed into two-minute bursts of electricity. This is the genius of the Ramones.

*****

Prior to 1974, few would have seen genius in the future Ramones. In fact, the original lineup included a mental patient (Joey spent time in psychiatric institutions), a right-winger (Johnny), and a dope addict and sometime prostitute (Dee Dee). All were misfits at best, delinquents at worst. And yet…

The Ramones are given a lot of credit (though not enough credit in England) for starting punk. But the band originally had no such revolutionary intent. Indeed, their aim was devolutionary, to return rock and roll to its roots, to strip it of the overindulgent impulses it had acquired by the 1970’s; the endless and tuneless solos, bloated production and ostentatious concerts that characterized so many bands in that era.

—–

The Ramones wanted to make the kind of rock they loved when they were growing up in the late ’50’s and ’60’s – short, melodic tunes, heavy on attitude and harmony, and -most importantly – FUN. The Ramones wanted rock and roll to be fun again.

By all accounts, it was at first hard to know what to make of these strange boys who could barely play their instruments, and who were prone to arguing with each other like ten-year olds on stage. Legendary music journalist Legs McNeil described the Ramones’ first performance in New York City in 1974: “They were all wearing these black leather jackets. And they counted off this song. And they started playing different songs, and it was just this wall of noise… They looked so striking. These guys were not hippies. This was something completely new.”

Indeed, and that is the irony at the heart of the Ramones – in trying to resurrect something old, they inadvertently created something entirely new. Viva la devolucion!

*****

Johnny Ramone has not been given nearly enough credit for the success of the band. Partly, I suspect, because of minimal contributions as songwriter. And then there is the tricky subject of his politics – a self-professed Republican, Johnny Ramone was a Nixon man in his youth; in retirement, he proclaimed “God bless President Bush” at the band’s induction ceremony to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

That Johnny’s politics were so at odds with those of band-mate Joey (a sucker for left-wing causes his whole life), to say nothing of the industry as a whole, no doubt contributed to Johnny’s strangely maligned reputation in Ramones lore. Yet the truth is – Johnny held that band together, often through sheer force of his will. Everyone involved with the Ramones saw Johnny as field marshal; when Dee Dee was strung out, Joey crippled by OCD, and Marky falling over drunk (all three regular occurrences), it was Johnny who made sure that studio time was booked, tour dates set, personnel hired. “Someone had to make those decisions,” Johnny dryly remarked in retirement.

—–

Joey was caretaker of the band’s image and legacy. He insisted they never stray too far from the simplicity of dress and sound that was the Ramones’ hallmark. When band members quit, or were fired, it was Johnny who insisted they could – must – go on. The Ramones’ mission, Johnny understood, was bigger than any one of them.

And then there is that guitar sound. Johnny single-handedly put paid the notion that expensive equipment or virtuoso talent are necessary to make rock and roll. Passion and will – that’s what Johnny brought, and it was more than enough. Critics scoffed that he only played three chords, maybe only knew three chords. Johnny’s response – what else do you need? He played the hell out of those chords, and did more with them than other bands did with all their jazz scales and sitars combined.

*****

Short and celebratory, Ramones songs don’t waste your time – they come on like the laugh of an old friend, sound somehow both comforting and thrilling. For those unacquainted with our friends, allow me to suggest the following gems as an introduction:

1) Blitzkrieg Bop – The perfect rock song, and therefore the perfect song, this was the opening shot in the punk revolution, the first track from the first album. Nothing was ever the same again. They’re forming in a straight line…

2) Danny Says – One of the great songs about being in a rock band, this track from the Phil Spector-produced “End of the Century” chronicles both the excitement (Joey hears one of his songs on the radio) and boredom (whiling away hours in a hotel room watching TV) of being on the road.

3) The KKK Took My Baby Away – Written by Joey after he had just lost his girlfriend (to Johnny, no less). His loss is our gain – funny, sweet, and sad, rock and roll, punk, and doo-wop all wrapped together, KKK is an eminently hummable slice of pop perfection.

4) It’s Gonna Be Alright – From the underrated “Mondo Bizarro,” this was the band’s response to critics who wondered if the departure of bass player and primary songwriter Dee Dee would be the end of the Ramones. The answer: Not a chance. “Got good feelings, about this year,” Joey sings, sounding better than he had in years. “All is very well, C.J. Is here,” he continues, introducing Dee Dee’s replacement. “It’s gonna be alright, it’s gonna be OK,” he roars in the chorus. The message – every ending is also a beginning. The Ramones live, and so does rock and roll.

5) What’s Your Game – Many people think the best pop music ends up on the radio. Then they hear (if they’re lucky) the Ramones. What’s Your Game, like all exquisitely wrought pop tunes, sounds familiar the first time you hear it. That it was never a Top 40 smash is a crime.

—–

6) I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend – Sweet and simple, Joey wears his heart completely on his sleeve in this lilting paean to first love. Hey little girl, I wanna be your boyfriend…

7) Cretin Hop – Go ahead, try not to dance. I dare you.

53rd & 3rd – The question is not: How could the Ramones write a song about male prostitution and murder? The question is: How could the Ramones write a song about male prostitution and murder that is so damn catchy?

*****

Last year the Ramones belatedly received a Grammy Award for “lifetime achievement.” That the industry chose to honor them only after three of the original four members had passed away surely counts as some sort of sick joke. When alive and in their prime, making some of the best popular music ever conceived, or later when they continued to plow around the world nearly year ‘round, keeping a performance schedule that would have killed bands half their age (the Ramones played an astonishing 2,300 shows in some 20 years), the music industry ignored them. Radio ignored them. Legs McNeil put it best when he asked: “Those songs were classic American pop songs. Why weren’t they played on the radio? Why weren’t they?”

The Ramones themselves wondered the same thing. Joey, for one, never gave up hope that the next record, the next single, the next tour would be the one that broke them into the mainstream. Widespread acceptance was always just around the corner for Joey. Johnny, with a classic conservative pessimism, realized very early that it wasn’t going to happen for them, that the best they could do would be to make a living (hence their brutal tour schedule).

Part of the problem was the band’s own lyrics. Frequent themes of mental illness; Nazi references that disturbed even the band’s most ardent supporters; flavors from ‘50’s horror comics and movies – all were guaranteed to spook Top 40 radio programmers.

But some of it wasn’t their fault at all. Tagged as the godfathers of punk, the Ramones suffered from the nasty reputation of the bands that followed and imitated them. The Sex Pistols spit on their audience, American programmers knew. The Sex Pistols are a punk band. The Ramones are a punk band. Therefore, the Ramones must spit on their audience. Better not book them. That the Ramones never displayed the anger and violence of their British contemporaries, that they were more interested in making party music than revolutionary music, was lost on the mainstream music press. The Ramones created punk, which soon became a cage that stifled them creatively and commercially.

*****

In the last decade, Joey and Johnny were lost to cancer and Dee Dee to drugs. The music, thankfully, cannot be taken from us so easily. Music, Joey, said, was his salvation. He wasn’t the only one. There’s me of course, and somewhere out there there’s a girl who, for a brief long-ago moment, found solace on a train from five strangers…

.four of them named Ramone.

MTV has recently announced the triumphant return of Beavis and Butt-head. Original series creator Mike Judge is on board to produce new episodes which will air on the one-time music network later this year.

As John Altschuler, head writer for the new series, explained to Rolling Stone, “In the years since Mike quit doing ‘Beavis and Butt-head’ he realized that there was a lot to make fun of.”  The pair will reportedly be the same Metal-loving, nacho-chomping numskulls they were back in the day (the last episode of the original series aired in 1997), but with a twist: instead of sitting on the couch and watching and pillorying music videos, they will now be sitting on the couch and taking aim at clips from YouTube and reality shows like “Jersey Shore.”

No doubt that modern pop culture (culture! Imagine I wrote that with a straight face) will provide much fodder for the un-dynamic duo, but I wonder…

Beavis and Butt-head seemed so much a product of their times, those gay ’90’s, when the Cold War ended with a whimper and the nation could afford a President with nothing better to do than chase interns around the Oval Office. Beavis and Butt-head both rode and propelled this peculiar, peace-dividend zeitgeist; Americans loved hanging out with these horny, semi-retarded boys, because really, what else did we have to do?

But the world is now a different, darker place. Since Beavis and Butt-head last left us, history returned with a vengeance — 9/11, the War on Terror, Iraq, Afghanistan, the financial meltdown, riots and unrest from Cairo to Athens to Wisconsin. When I first heard they were returning, I wasn’t sure the boys were right for this second decade of the 21st Century.  Though I’ve missed them terribly, I thought they might be too good for these ugly times.

But I’ve since come around. I can’t imagine two dudes with whom I would rather watch the decay of our republic. At the very least, it will be refreshing to spend time with someone with no knowledge or concern for the loss of freedom and prosperity going on all around us. Say what you want about Beavis and Butt-head, but at least they have their priorities straight – chicks and rock and roll.

And really, when you get right down to it, what else is there?

In the post-Zep era, however, something surprising happened. John Bonham passed away (God rest his smutty soul). John Paul Jones retreated largely to the background as arranger and producer for various artists. And Jimmy, well, Jimmy has had long stretches of inactivity, punctuated by mostly mediocre albums with mostly mediocre collaborators (some are upset by Jimmy’s recent visit to Cuba, but I submit that Coverdale and Page is by far the worse crime).

Plant, meanwhile, has had a profoundly diverse and prolific solo career. In the 1980’s he reigned the Top 40 charts with slick, well-crafted pop hits like Big Log and Tall Cool One. The 90’s saw his best and hardest-rocking solo album, “Fate of Nations,” as well as a briefly resurrected partnership with Page that produced two albums and several tours.

In the 2000’s, Plant went solo again, going smaller and deeper with intimate, intricate albums like “Mighty Rearranger” and “Dreamland.” Then in 2007 Plant surprised everyone by teaming up with bluegrass songbird Alison Krauss to produce an unlikely smash record – “Raising Sand” won five Grammy Awards, including Album and Record of the Year, and garnered Plant the best reviews of his career.

The pressure to make a follow up was enormous, and indeed plans were put in motion to again record with Krauss. About the same time, the three surviving Led Zeppelin played a one-off reunion concert in London’s ‘02 Arena in tribute to recently deceased and much beloved Atlantic Records co-founder Ahmet Ertegun; again the pressure to capitalize on the critical and artistic success of the concert (with Bonham’s son Jason taking over on drums) was white hot. Rumors swirled that a full-on Zep reformation was imminent.

But Plant refused to cash in, either with Krauss or Zeppelin. He chose instead to form a new band comprised of old-school Nashville pros, record a new album of reverb-drenched Americana, and hit the road – now in his sixth decade, Plant was starting all over again. The new album, like the new band, is called “Band of Joy.” And once again, Plant’s determination to defy of expectations has resulted in fantastic music for which he has earned lavish praise.

At a February 1st concert in Washington DC, Plant confounded the audience by stubbornly refusing to acknowledge whole decades of his career. His considerable 80’s corpus was represented by only two substantially reworked numbers, including a gorgeous “In the Mood.” Even the very recent “Raising Sand” songs were strangely overlooked. Instead, Plant and Co. concentrated largely on “Band of Joy” numbers, as well as some folk and bluegrass standards.

Fortunately, the new songs sounded luminous and vibrant; “House of Cards” and “Monkey” simmer to a slow burn, while “Harm’s Swift Way” and “Angel Dance” shimmer and shuffle respectively with a languid grace. Plant himself seemed thrilled to be in the company of such esteemed musicians, including Buddy Miller on guitar and Patty Griffin on backing vocals; proud to share the stage and spotlight with them. In short, he looked like a man having the time of his life.

Perhaps surprisingly, given his conflicted relationship with his former band, Zeppelin gems were scattered throughout the set; most were barely recognizable, their distinct Page riffs and Bonham rhythms having been stripped away. The results ranged from staggering success (a sweltering “Gallows Pole”) to unnecessary (a boogie woogie “Black Dog”) to downright sketchy (a hot-mess “Houses of the Holy”). “Tangerine” and “Ramble On,” both rarely played live by Led Zeppelin, translated particularly well to Plant’s current rustic aesthetic – both received some of the longest and loudest applause of the night.

It is probably a bitter sweet for Plant that Zeppelin songs will always be the crowd-pleasers in his show. But he seems at long last comfortable with that, so long as he can do those songs his way, on his terms, and so long as he can also make the music that matters to him now. And that, perhaps is the biggest difference between Plant and Page: Jimmy loves Led Zeppelin. Plant loves music.

That is all you need to know to understand their respective careers.

You may instead have been watching critically acclaimed, scripted dramas like Big Love, or award winning educational programming on Discovery or National Geographic. Hell, you may have been reading a book or spending quality time with loved ones. If so, you have been wasting your time.

—–

The premise of Wipeout is fiendishly simple: Everyday schlubs and schlubettes brave the “largest obstacle course in the world” – the last one standing wins $50,000. The course itself changes from week to week, but consistently features various moving apparatuses that don’t merely stand in the way of contestants, but actively seek out and pummel them before tossing them mercilessly into the icy water below. All this while sports broadcaster John Anderson and comedian John Henson deliver running, wise-ass commentary reminiscent of the two geezers from the old Muppet Show.

But a written description could never do justice to the genius of this show, which must be seen to be apprehended. Wipeout is gut-bustingly, laugh-out-loud funny. You will not believe some of the shots these poor bastards take to the head, stomach, and groin, risking humiliation and injury for our amusement. If you’re the squeamish sort, never fear: The course is said to be so padded that, no matter how brutal the wipeouts look on TV, there is virtually no chance for actual bodily harm. If true, that makes me feel a little better about the peals of Mr. Burns-like guffaws it draws out of me and a little less guilty about the warm fuzziness it brings to my otherwise exhausted and icy heart.

But I wonder: Some of these contestants get bent into all manner of shapes; shapes that were never meant to hold the human form. That they invariably get up, no matter how seemingly brutal their fall, to attack again the Big Balls, Fling Set, Crank Shaft, or whatever other obstacle lorded over them like a vindictive god is nothing short of a miracle – a hilarious, beautiful miracle.

So my advice is – enjoy Wipeout while you can. ‘Cause like Mom always told us, it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt. Wipeout is too much fun and too popular (ten million viewers tuned in to one recent episode) to escape the notice of lawyers and “safety” cry babies at some point, and they’ll ruin it just as surely as they ruined junior high dodge ball.

Trust me – get there before they do.

The problem, I decided, was two-fold. For one, I am a crank and a pessimist, and becoming more so with every passing hour it seems. And for another, we are living in era of chronic political, cultural, and creative decay of the kind that afflicts all empires in their twilight (Of course, I don’t have to tell you that the two are not unrelated, and that the latter is very much a proximate cause of the former).

So there we have it. I cannot give you a best of, because what I have seen this past year has been mostly dreck – occasionally tolerable dreck, but dreck just the same. So instead I shall give you the only honest list a pessimist can give, and that is my top letdowns of the year, the movies that were advertised as good, and should have been good…but weren’t. Shall we begin?

1) Iron Man 2: Oh boy, what a botched, senseless mess, made all the more unwatchable by the sublimity of the first outing of the franchise two years previous. The first Iron Man gave us – at last – a superhero fighting America’s enemies, blasting terrorists out of their Afghan caves with an archetypal American inventiveness. Robert Downey, Jr’s Tony Stark was part Batman, part Henry Ford – an American smart-ass cum bad-ass. Conflicted, sure, but a genius and wealthy and unashamed of both. On top of that, the film was sharply crafted, moved briskly, and contained fantastic performances by some great actors who took their movie very seriously, but still looked like they were having a blast.

It was so great, that when we were offered another helping, we salivated “Yes, please!” but instead were served an incomprehensible plot with a side of bad editing, and for dessert a villain who looked like he hadn’t read the script (he hadn’t). Everyone either gave the impression that they were trying too hard or couldn’t care less – often at the same time, which is quite a hat trick when you think about it.

Please, Marvel, and everyone making superhero movies – story, story, story.

2) Black Swan:  This movie, a coal-black tale about a ballerina’s descent into madness and murder by director Darren Aronofsky, seemed to have everything going for it. Visionary filmmaker? Check. Sky high reviews? Check. Two hot chicks making out? Check and check.

Black Swan has been compared to a lot of movies, especially Susperia, The Red Shoes, and Repulsion, all of them classics and all of them far superior to this tripe. Put it this way, the only thing Aronofsky seems interested in is filming Natalie Portman masturbate and engage in possible hallucinatory sapphism; he certainly ignores everything else. And while you may say fine, that is a noble goal in and of itself (then again, you may not), let me just say the the two young women are so emaciated that the scene contains all the eroticism of two broomsticks going at it. It is undoubtedly a sign of advancing years to watch such a scene and think “Someone get that poor girl a sandwich!” but, there you go.

So these are the two movies that disappointed me most this year. I’ll now say goodbye to you, my Big Hollywood readers, and wish you a very Happy New Year. I look forward to sharing my disappointments with you in 2011.

I know you’d be disappointed if I didn’t.

First, there was the departure of director Sam Raimi and his crew from the lucrative Spider-Man movie franchise. Raimi had helmed three episodes of the block-buster series that has earned an estimated $1 billion worldwide. And despite what many fans felt was a lack-luster third movie, there was never any doubt that Raimi – a Spider-Man fan from way back – perfectly translated to film the heart of the Spider-Man universe, which was always the character of Peter Parker and his relationships with the women in his life, especially Aunt May and long-time love Mary Jane.

Despite his spectacular success, however, Sony studios didn’t trust Raimi to make his movies the way he wanted, and reportedly made life so miserable for him that he walked. Instantly, the studio announced that they would be rebooting the franchise with a new director and crew, sending Peter Parker back to high school and re-casting the story with trendy young actors and promising (sigh) that the new Spidey will be delivered in 3D.

Great.

This lamentable focus on youth and style over story and character is not limited to Spider-Man, of course. Raimi’s first two Spidey films may have been shot in 2D, but the characters were so well written and acted that the story felt 3D. But never mind. Like everything else, the new Spidey must be targeted to teens and tweens, who don’t know from story and couldn’t care less about plot (witness the Twilight abominations).

Then, of course there is the disastrous Spider-Man musical currently stinking up Broadway, which features music by U2’s Bono and The Edge. When I first heard about this musical, I though, “Hmmm…I love Spider-Man; I love U2. That sounds like the worst fucking idea I’ve ever heard.”

And sure enough Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, which has been in the works for a decade and is on track to be the most expensive debacle in Broadway history, has been plagued with cost over-runs, script and cast problems, and a frightening number of safety issues which have seriously endangered the crew. The latest mishap involves stunt-man Christopher Tierney. According to MTV’s Splash Page,

“…something went wrong in Tierney’s preparation for a cable stunt that saw the actor plummet an approximate 20 feet to the ground from an onstage bridge. Tienery broke several ribs in the process and is still reportedly in serious condition at New York’s Bellevue Hospital.”

The show’s official opening has been put off countless times due to these and other problems, and is now scheduled to open in February (don’t hold your breath). Reports from those who have seen preview shows indicate that the stunts are magnificent when they work (they often don’t), but that the plot is an incoherent mess. The New York Post’s Michael Riedel reported on one advanced screening:

“Stunned audience members were left scratching their heads over the confusing plot — when they weren’t ducking for cover from falling equipment and dangling actors at the Foxwoods Theatre on West 42nd Street… At various points, overhead stage wires dropped on the audience, scenery appeared on stage missing pieces — and the show’s star was even left swaying helplessly over them midair during what was supposed to be the climatic end to the first act.”

To add insult to injury, the “original” songs composed by Bono and The Edge which I have heard sound like little more than retreads of any number of old U2 songs. I’m sure they got a nice fat check for raiding the U2 catalogue, though the enterprise further degraded the Irish quartet’s musical legacy, already sagging from overuse in political campaigns and movie trailers.

The whole thing makes me sick. So recently I cracked open a soft-bound collection of old Spider-Man comics written by Stan Lee himself and drawn by the great Steve Ditko. And damn, if those stories aren’t solid after all these years – lots of action, lots of heart, and surprisingly sophisticated story arcs. It reminded me of why I fell in love with Spidey in the first place.

One can only hope the executives at Sony and on Broadway will do the same.

But perhaps most unforgivable is that for a zombie show, “The Walking Dead” features a surprising dearth of zombies. Except for the first few action-packed episodes, most of the series seems to consist of people talking about what they’re going to do if the zombies find them.  
 
So why such gushing praise from the critics?  Liberals love zombies, because they terrorize in the aggregate and lack individual will, volition and character, and so lend themselves easily to being used as a metaphor for any sort of large scale environmental, economic, or military catastrophe.  This allows the film-maker to engage in “social commentary” (lucky us), which liberal artists love to make more than art and liberal critics love to praise more than critique.  George Romero pioneered this approach with “Night of the Living Dead,” which used zombies to cast a light on race relations, and “Dawn of the Dead,” which satirized America’s mall-culture commercialism, among others.  
 
And indeed, in “The Walking Dead,” the zombies could easily be substituted for a hurricane, nuclear war, etc., anything to throw a small group of people together in a desperate survival situation so the audience can watch them backstab each other, and the film-maker can make the point:

“It’s not the dead you have to worry about. It’s the living.”

I get it. Very clever.  But I already know that.  I don’t need a zombie show to tell me about man’s inhumanity to man. But I do need a zombie show to show me zombies’ inhumanity to man.
 
Is that too much to ask?

What a difference a new year makes.  Apparently, those rumors were true after all:  Variety is reporting that sources from Sony confirm that the production is on hold, perhaps indefinitely, and that a May 2011 release is now unlikely.

The reason?  It seems there are deep and perhaps intractable differences between Raimi and the studio regarding the quality of the latest script, the structure of the proposed plot, and even the choice of villain for this fourth outing.  Raimi is said to be keen on the Vulture, with John Malkovich to fill the bald baddie’s bird suit.  The studio, however, reportedly fears that the Vulture – an elderly character in the comics – is a poor choice of villain for a tent-pole, summer franchise film.  It’s unclear whom the studio would prefer, but clearly they are angling for more ‘hip’ than ‘hip replacement’ to bedevil Peter Parker’s alter ego.

It is true that Vulture is not exactly fresh – in fact, he dates back to Spidey’s early “golden-age” rogue’s gallery.  But that was also true of the Green Goblin, the villain in the first Spider-Man film, and Doc Ock, of the second.  Both of those villains seem just as ridiculous on paper as the Vulture.  Yet both were played by terrific character actors (Willem Dafie and Alfred Molina respectively) who infused them with genuine passion and pathos, and were fashioned into remarkably compelling film villains in Sam Raimi’s capable hands.  And is it any wonder?  After all, the mastermind behind the Evil Dead triliogy should know a thing or two about villains.

The first two Spider-Man films were, of course, box office and artistic triumphs.  But during the making of the third installment, something went wrong – the studio reportedly pressured Raimi to include a surplus of villains, one of which, the alien symbiont Venom, he was unfamiliar with and had little interest in.  The result?  Spider-Man 3 was an overstuffed mess, and widely reviled by critics and fans (I know it still made gobs of money, but it would have made a lot more had it been any good).

Sony had forgotten the winning formula for comic book movies:  Choose a talented director who excels in character and plot, chops usually developed toiling away for years on lower budget fare, and then let them do their job.  It is a formula that gave us Chris Nolan’s Batman, Brian Singer’s X-Men, and John Favreau’s Iron Man, critical and box office darlings all.

Sony ignored this formula at their detriment, and they are apparently hell-bent on repeating this mistake.  It reminds me of Congressional logic, which seems to go something like this:  Government messing things up?  Let’s have more government!  I suppose if there is one group likely to be even more dunder-headed than Congress, it would be Hollywood studio executives.

If Sony is wise, they would bring Sam Raimi into their plush offices, sit him down, offer him the beverage of his choice, and say, “Sam, you make awesome movies, and you’ve made us a shit load of money.  Tell us what you need to make another Spider-man, and you’ve got it.”  Of course, they won’t do that, anymore than Congress will get their snout out of our affairs.  

The result in both instances will be suitably, predictably, disastrous.

(Authors Note: Happy Birthday to Big Hollywood, and congratulations to Andrew Breitbart, our esteemed editor John Nolte, Alex Marlow, and all my fellow Big Hollywood contributors.  It is an honor and a blast to be in your company.)