Yokel teevee is very proud of itself to have wireless capabilities and satellites and compooters and dishes. It forgets the ability to broadcast live, and to broadcast live away from the studio, reaches to the days of the Hindenberg. It’s called a “remote feed.”
This morning all the channels have treated us to the landing of Air Force One at Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport. President George II was expected to spend most of the day in Benton County at private events with invited crowds. But thanks to technology or competition — and third, the real reason the news media covers the most trivial presidential activities, that something might happen — the three local channels had trucks, cameras and boom microphones camped on the runway.
It matched the enthusiasm the local studios have to show off their weather commentary abilities. As of late summer, expect the meekest rain showers to take 15 minutes of every prime time hour, miraculously not interrupting commercials. Teevee doesn’t cry wolf, it cries Storm.
The best part of live coverage of the tarmac? Listening to the dialogue between the correspondents on the runway with the newscasters in the studio.
The worst? Fear that I was missing Whoopi pull a Rosie and slap around Elizabeth on The View, before HRC (Hillary Rodham Clinton) took a seat.
That may be turned around. The discussion about what a great, big jet the president has might have soured everyone’s day. It’s blue!
The arrival of a state-of-the-art movie house is the bigger news. Among the usual cinematic selections for the Malco Razorback’s opening weekend was Across the Universe. A musical using only Beatles songs, tied into a plot tighter than that of many song-and-dance shows, was a perfect way to enjoy a wide screen with the best-available sound and projection equipment, on cushiony seats.
I nearly missed the show, about which I had read raves from The New York Times and Roger Ebert. The paper searched all its wire services and chose to publish a pan Friday from The Boston Globe. The guy hated the show so much I didn’t recognize it. But My Beloved did.
The sound coated our ears. The costume and set design matched the 1960s of our dreams. The performers were exactly right. Noted elsewhere were cameos of Bono and Salma Hayek, but hey, that’s Joe Cocker. Eddie Izzard had one campy song, befitting his music-hall talent.
The Izzard psychodelia might have been live-action Yellow Submarine, and many reviewers saw connections to the movie musical Moulin Rouge, but I’d point to the film version of Hair. This is for style but also for the choice of the creators of Across the Universe to set the show amid the turbulence of the Vietnam War and civil rights strife of the period. Rent a video of Hair and compare the draft-board numbers.
The appeal to kids is the unknown of this show. This movie — if I say, remember when music had melodies to hum and lyrics for the shower, I can hear Dad blasting the Beatles in favor of his Swing Generation’s take-home tunes and words — is directed toward the profitable demographic of young people, not codgers.
In the midst of the JohnPaulGeorgeRingo merriment, today’s teens and 20-somethings can watch Detroit race riots and police pummeling students at Columbia University along with foreign military excursions.
How different are the palm trees in Vietnam from those in Iraq? This may have crossed the creators’ minds. -30-
