So Ringo Starr turned 170 yesterday, and marked it by babbling.

He said we should all initiate our afternoons with a global “peace and love” moment. He says it would be fab for folks from all over the world (which I presume includes gentle souls hiding in the mountains of Afghanistan), to say such things at noon everyday – by any form of communication you have at hand.

Here’s his announcement:

—–

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with this. It’s a nice sentiment from a semi-attractive grandmother.

Oh, I kid. Of course there’s something wrong with this. There’s everything wrong with this.

For that proclamation represents the reason why people die in this world.

They die because people listen to aging hippes like Ringo Starr. The idea that all the evil in the world will dissolve if we all chant peace and love is what enables evil in the world to flourish. (more…)

Forty years ago this week the cover photo for the “Abbey Road” album was taken, representing the final walk of the Beatles as a rock group.

Fourteen days later, on August 22nd, they posed together for a final promotional photo shoot, which was their last appearance together at any Beatles event. Although one more album was released (“Let it Be”), “Abbey Road” was the last album recorded by the band, which was already virtually dissolved as a unit. Yet the album was a great artistic and commercial success. The “Let it Be” album was intended to be released first, but the group did not think it ready. They moved on to record “Abbey Road” and released it on September 26th and October 1st, 1969, respectively, in the UK and the US. The cover photo, fittingly designed by Paul (as he was the only member who had a passion to keep the group together; even as he finally sued to end the partnership), depicts the band’s final crossing of “Abbey Road,” toward their studio home of the prior eight years. Ironically, even bizarrely, convicted murderer and “wall of sound” creator, Phil Specter, did the final mixing in 1970 of several songs on “Let it Be,” almost as an audition. He was not aware there would be no more Beatles, although he did some work for Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band. (more…)

“Year One” is one of those rare movies that can’t possibly be as bad as the trailer makes it look … but is. Actually it’s kinda worse. Sex jokes, gay jokes, incest jokes, lesbian jokes, poop jokes, urine jokes, bestiality jokes, no story, an episodic plot, fewer laughs and dialogue that’s mostly ad-libbed, makes extra sure of that.

Zed (Jack Black) and Oh (Michael Cera) play hunter-gatherer cavemen who don’t quite fit in with their small tribe. Both are clumsy, intensely disliked and in unrequited love with a couple of lovely cavewomen. After Zed breaks rule number one and tastes the forbidden fruit, he’s exiled. For some reason, Oh follows along and they set off on a series of tedious antics involving Biblical characters, the city of Sodom and whole lot of wondering as to what director Harold Ramis, the genius behind “Groundhog Day,” “Analyze This,” “Caddyshack” and “Vacation,” was thinking.

Judd Apatow is one of the producers, so that explains the overlong scenes full of unfunny, self-indulgent ad-libbing, but there’s practically no story. Like a foul-mouthed, sex-obsessed Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, the duo heads off on the Road to Interminable drifting from one “comedic” set up to the next riffing along the way in that annoying, hesitant-enhanced, post-modernspeak that passes for clever dialogue nowadays: “Yeah, I know, but … you know, if you were … because I could … and then we would – you know what, forget it.”

Beyond plodding, many of the individual scenes are also choppy. Scenes end abruptly as though what the makers had on film was so bad there was no other choice. The whole affair reeks of sloppy, laziness or plain old poor planning that couldn’t be salvaged in the editing room. (more…)