Whether it's Heartland or Pepperland, it's still bad cinema
Friday, Nov. 04, 2005 at 2:20 p.m.
Here�s a sign that we can really use on our roads:
On another note, I still can�t find pants that fit.
I did a little shopping yesterday and on a whim tried on some jeans just to discover my usual problem: wide gaping waistband with tight thighs and bottom Somewhere along the way, though, I have been getting a pudgy tummy, which I am thoroughly unhappy about. It�s been taking a different shape since I�ve been working out and there�s definitely muscle under the rolls of flab, but it�s the rolls of flab you gotta get through. Anyway. They�ll go away if I keep working at them.
One of the movies over last weekend was the seminal Sgt. Pepper�s Lonely Hearts Club Band a feature starring Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees as Billy Shears and the Henderson boys (as mentioned in the song For the Benefit of Mr. Kite). It�s a decidedly kooky tale of Heartland�s prized instruments being stolen by Mean Mr. Mustard in an attempt to do the bidding of the Sun King, played by Alice Cooper, although he looks more like Frank Zappa than himself. Along the way, Billy gets mixed up with Lucy (and her backup singers, the Diamonds), eschewing his hometown girlfriend, Strawberry Fields (played by Sandy Farina, who hasn�t been seen in a film before or since. What happened to her?). Actually, the whole movie is done in Beatles songs with voice overs by Mr. Kite, the Mayor of Heartland, played by George Burns. George sings an execrable version of Fixing a Hole, well, chants, more like, along with two little girls and they run off screen doing a Conga Line � leave the little kids alone, you ancient freak. The ultimate evil in the movie, though, is the FVB, the Future Villain Band, played by . . . duhn duhn duhn. . . AEROSMITH! Singing Come Together, which is arguably the best song performance in the whole damn movie. Come on, Steven Tyler screeching John Lennon�s lyrics ranks right up there with the best song covers ever performed in a bad movie, along with Tina Turner singing Acid Queen and Eric Clapton singing Eyesight to the Blind in that wretched Ken Russell version of Tommy. Okay, fine, Elton John�s Pinball Wizard is up there too. However, you have not lived until you hear Earth Wind and Fire perform Got To Get You Into My Life as this odd jive R&B thing. Hubster, a major Beatles fan, didn�t even recognize it as a Beatles song, that�s how weird it was.
Getting back to the �plot�, the whole point of the FVB was to make money, as that�s what the music industry is all about, isn�t it? Sure. Listen to Hotel California again with that in mind. Anyhoo, Strawberry is killed as the neon money sign she�s shackled to falls when Billy Shears and Steven Tyler crash into it while grappling on top of a platform.
Wow, that sentence hurts. Okay. Aerosmith is singing on top of a high platform. Strawberry is chained to a neon money sign attached to the edge of the platform. Billy fights with Steven Tyler. They knock into the big neon money sign and it falls down and goes boom. With Strawberry still attached to it. She goes boom too. Or more like splat.
So there�s a big funeral with Billy singing a rather touching version of Golden Slumbers which breaks into Carry That Weight for the pallbearer�s procession. Follows is a melancholy version of Day in the Life and Billy�s about to commit suicide by jumping off a two-story building, EEK! Hey Billy, that might work if you went headfirst. The original Sgt. Pepper, who has been immortalized in a weather vane, suddenly spins into Billy Preston singing a great version of Get Back (a bit of trivia, Billy Preston played keyboards on studio recordings of that song. . .) � suddenly, Billy is saved, Strawberry comes back to life, and everyone gets sparkling white Sgt. Pepper uniforms! And la, happy ending that looks curiously like the photo on the album cover with Carol Channing and company, although Hitler and Mao are curiously absent. Supposedly Paul and George and Leif Garrett are there, though. Ish.
I would like for someone to explain to me why most of the soundtrack comes from the Abbey Road album, though.
I would also like for someone to explain to me why I have the soundtrack to this movie in my record collection.
Or why I still have a record collection.
And a turntable to play them on. Actually, I know the answer to that one. I bought a Technics turntable from a church sale for $1, and then spent $60 on a needle cartridge for it. Coupled with the fact that I have all those records, it�s like a Catch-22 � I have the records so I must have the turntable, and I have the turntable so I must the records.
I spin, therefore I jam. I�m gonna be taking my Prince Purple Rain record out this weekend, kids. Get down with your early 80�s madness, yo. Then get back up again, it�s all wrong.