'One of the Great Recent Epic Romances'

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"It's an odd feeling, farewell. There is such envy in it. Men go off to be tested, for courage. And if we're tested at all, it's for patience, for doing without, for how well we can endure loneliness."

Karen Blixen (Meryl Streep)

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Long ago, it became a cliche to speak of Meryl Streep as a perennial Oscar nominee. She has been nominated 17 times for her acting. The first two were for Best Supporting Actress (she won for "Kramer vs. Kramer"), and she got a third Best Supporting Actress nomination in 2002 for "Adaptation." The remaining 14 were for Best Actress (she has won twice).

Many actresses have been nominated for Oscars multiple times. Streep's nomination for "Out of Africa," which premiered on this day in 1985, was her fourth for Best Actress. That seems like a lot of times, but it really isn't so unusual. Thirteen actresses have been nominated for Best Actress four times. Another 11 have been nominated five times each. It isn't until you get to a half dozen Best Actress nominations that you start getting into the rarefied air of Ingrid Bergman, Greer Garson, Katharine Hepburn ... and Meryl Streep.

Nevertheless, I want to say it was her performance in "Out of Africa" that was her breakthrough into that rarefied category of the truly great, legendary actresses whose bodies of work were supported by an appropriate number of Oscar nominations. Some people will tell you her breakthrough was her Oscar–winning performance in "Sophie's Choice," but that was only her second Best Actress nomination. So many actresses have been nominated twice that it really isn't a noteworthy achievement. Others will say it was her Oscar–nominated performance in "Silkwood," and I can understand that. It was very serious subject matter. I could go along with that as the turning point in Streep's career even though she didn't win.

But it almost seems preordained. The movies she has picked always seem to have Oscar Nomination scrawled on the script.

The truth about Meryl Streep, it seems to me, is that she is so versatile. The reason why she has been nominated so many times is because she immerses herself in her roles. I guess that leads to a variation on the chicken–or–the–egg questions: Is it because she selects the best movies that she is perceived to be so good, or are the movies great because she is in them?

Not all the movies in which she has participated and been nominated for her work have been nominated for Best Picture so you have to conclude from that that her success is her own, that she did not ride the success of obvious winners. After all, she won Best Actress for "The Iron Lady," turning in a great performance in a movie that was otherwise sleep inducing. Some of her movies have been nominated for Best Picture — and "Out of Africa" won — even though Streep did not. It is hard to make the argument that the movie did not deserve the recognition. Film critic Roger Ebert called it "one of the great recent epic romances."

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So did "Out of Africa" make Streep better? Or did Streep make "Out of Africa" better? In the words of Forrest Gump, maybe it has been a little of both.

I think it was the chemistry between Streep and her co–star Robert Redford, who wasn't even nominated. I think the chemistry between the stars of any love story has to be natural and believable. It isn't always, but when it's good, there is virtually no limit to how successful that movie can be.

In this case, it won the Oscar for Best Picture (and half a dozen other Oscars as well) and earned more than $128 million at the box office. That's pretty darn successful.

Redford is another one of those actors who frequently seemed to be in movies that really were among the best of a given year before his career began leaning more toward directing — but you can't really apply the same question to him that is applied to Streep. Although he's given several performances that were worthy of Oscar nominations, only one — his performance in "The Sting" — was rewarded with one. His only Oscar was for directing "Ordinary People."

I'm not a fan of romance movies, but I do like good stories, and "Out of Africa" was a good story with Oscar–winning direction from Sydney Pollack, screenplay by Kurt Luedtke that was adapted from an autobiography by Streep's character, John Barry's soaring score, David Watkin's sweeping cinematography and brilliant art direction and sound mixing.

It was a complete package.

'Agnes of God' Came Up Short

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"Smoking is an obsession with me. Maybe someday I'll become obsessed with something else and give up smoking."

Martha (Jane Fonda)

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Norman Jewison's "Agnes of God," which premiered on this date in 1985, was a difficult movie to watch — especially in the last 30 minutes. In fact, I have only seen it once. I've never been able to watch it a second time.

It was painful to watch Meg Tilly's tortured performance as a simple young woman manipulated and abused by the people in her life, much as it was painful five years earlier to watch "The Elephant Man" — yet both were ultimately rewarding. The only problem was you had to experience all that misery for the payoff to really ... pay off.

And "Agnes of God" never really paid off as handsomely as it should have. There were, I suppose, many reasons for that.

"Agnes of God" began as a stage play, and the film adaptation made little allowance for the shift to the big screen. "But that's just the beginning of this film's problems," observed Roger Ebert. "It considers, or pretends to consider, some of the most basic questions of human morality and treats them on the level of 'Nancy Drew and the Secret of the Old Convent.'"

Meg Tilly played Sister Agnes, a young nun who gives birth and allegedly kills the child, then faces manslaughter charges, which draws Jane Fonda, as a court–appointed psychiatrist, to the convent to examine Sister Agnes and her surroundings. Sister Agnes, you see, had no idea who the father might have been. She even had doubts that there had ever been a baby.

"It is never made quite clear what specific problem Sister Agnes suffers from," Ebert wrote, "but she clearly has parts on order."

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Still, it was Tilly's riveting performance enabled "Agnes of God" to rise above the mediocre in its pursuit of its objective — establishing that miracles do happen. The material may have produced, in Ebert's words, "a very badly confused movie. ..."

However, "(g)iven dialogue that sounds as if it were written to be read, given characters who consistently avoid asking the obvious questions, given a story that refuses to declare what it is about, [Anne] Bancroft, Fonda and Tilly use their craft to give the illusion that they know where they stand. It is service in a lost cause."

The acting really deserved to be recognized, and it was. It received three Oscar nominations. Two were for acting; the third was for Best Original Score.

Bancroft was nominated for Best Actress but lost to Geraldine Page. I thought Tilly really should have been nominated for Best Actress — not necessarily at the expense of Bancroft, who was great, as always — but she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress — and lost to Anjelica Huston.

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Fonda turned in her usual workmanlike performance and received no nomination. She had already won two Oscars, anyway.

Making the Case for the Short Story

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"The road to hell is paved with adverbs."

Stephen King

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I guess you could say I am a fan of Stephen King.

I haven't liked all of his books — full disclosure: I haven't read them all, not even close, but I've read enough to know that he's going to be good most of the time. As such, I figure he is worthy of my admiration.

I consider myself a writer, but I'm a slacker compared to King. Do you think he has written a lot of novels over the years? You're right. He has. Dozens of 'em. He's also written several collections of short stories, which is what "Skeleton Crew," which was published on this date in 1985, was — a collection of short stories. He has published about a dozen of those.

"Skeleton Crew" was his second collection of short stories. I prefer his early collections because they really are short stories. His later collections are more like a handful of novellas in a single volume. In that sense, I guess "Skeleton Crew" was a bit deceptive if you started reading without glancing at the Table of Contents. The first story truly was novella–like, but the rest really were short stories. There were roughly 20 stories in that book and a couple of poems; the poems were only a few pages long, and some of the stories weren't much longer than that.

Actually, that first story would have made the book worthwhile all by itself. I wasn't terribly impressed with the poems, but the legitimate short stories ranged from entertaining to astonishing.

I got interested in reading "Skeleton Crew" when I saw one of the short stories, "Gramma," dramatized on the second–generation Twilight Zone TV series in the '80s, but I suppose I was already predisposed to like the short story format. When I was in elementary school, I remember reading a series of short story collections that leaned heavily to the horror genre. Just the sort of thing a 9– or 10–year–old boy loves to read — you know, with plenty of zombies and such — and my buddies and I passed them around.

Those weren't single–author collections, though. In that respect, I guess they were more like anthologies, although not as voluminous as the ones I used to slog through in college.

As a writer, I found King's introduction to be the most satisfying I have read. It was a discussion of the art of writing, why writers write, that kind of thing. Near the end, he said he hoped the readers would enjoy the collection. "I suspect you won't like it as well as you would a novel," King wrote, "because most of you have forgotten the real pleasures of the short story.

"Reading a good long novel is, in many ways, like having a long and satisfying affair. ... A short story is a different thing altogether — a short story is like a quick kiss in the dark from a stranger. That is not, of course, the same thing as an affair or a marriage, but kisses can be sweet, and their very brevity forms their own attraction."

I hope "Skeleton Crew" reminded readers of "the real pleasures of the short story." It certainly reminded me, and it is a lesson that has stayed with me all these years.

In his introduction, King told readers that the collection spanned much of his life, from early in his writing career (the late '60s) to the time the collection was published. Trust me when I tell you there are treasures for every taste.

Each of the short stories is rewarding in its own way. People who avoid King because they aren't fans of the horror genre should read "The Reach," a charming tale about a great–grandmother who was born on an island off the coast of Maine and had been there her entire life. It's the kind of thing that King's fans share with non–King fans as evidence of his range as a storyteller.

Much of it, though, is the kind of King writing you've been conditioned to expect — although I would argue that he, like Alfred Hitchcock, is misunderstood. He doesn't write horror stories so much as he writes suspense stories, thrillers. That's a lot more difficult to achieve in the pages of a short story, and King did a great job of it in "Skeleton Crew."

If you read "Skeleton Crew," don't skip King's notes at the end. They're possibly the best observations on books and writing that I have read:

"Not everyone is interested in where short stories come from," King wrote, "and that is perfectly proper — you don't have to understand the internal combustion engine to drive a car, and you don't need to know the circumstances which surrounded the making of a story to get a bit of pleasure from it."

As I said earlier in this post, I am a writer. I like to think I'm a good writer — although I suppose that is a matter of opinion — but I don't think I am so good that I cannot learn from others, and King really is one of the best — if not the best — of his generation. So I enjoyed reading what he had to say about writing 30 years ago, realizing how successful he has been since he wrote those notes.

For King's part, he seemed almost apologetic — and appeared to encourage some readers to skip his notes altogether. "I've included a few notes here on a few of the stories — such things as I thought might interest the casual reader," he wrote. "But if you're even more casual than that, I assure you that you can close the book without a qualm — you won't be missing much."

With all due respect, yes, you will be missing much.

Fantasy Does Have Its Problems

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"I just met a wonderful new man. He's fictional but you can't have everything."

Cecilia (Mia Farrow)

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I guess nothing epitomizes the concept of movie escapism like the 1930s — when unemployment was high and nearly everyone was struggling. No wonder the people of that time wanted to escape.

Fantasy can be a blessing and a curse, I suppose. Perhaps it is nature's way of protecting us — mentally and emotionally — from things that could overwhelm us, and that makes it a force for good. But if fantasy is allowed too much freedom in our lives, it can be a destructive force. It's a fine line.

Woody Allen's "The Purple Rose of Cairo" premiered 30 years ago today, and I have concluded — after watching the movie several times since that day in 1985 — that it explored both of those concepts within the same character, Cecilia (Mia Farrow).

Apparently, film critic Roger Ebert and I agreed. "The movie is so cheerful and open that it took me a day or two, after I'd seen it, to realize how deeply Allen has reached this time," Ebert wrote. "If it is true, and I think it is, that most of the time we go to the movies in order to experience brief lives that are not our own, then Allen is demonstrating what a tricky self–deception we practice."

The audience learned early Cecilia's reasons for such self–deception. She was a waitress (which must have been a pretty grim existence in the Depression) and she was trapped in an apparently loveless and abusive marriage. She often went to the movies and sometimes saw the same movie several times. "She is a good candidate for the magic of the movies," Ebert wrote. "Up on the screen, sophisticated people have cocktails and plan trips down the Nile and are recognized by the doormen in nightclubs."

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As our story began, she was watching a fictitious movie of the same name about an archaeologist in Egypt who meets a Manhattan playwright and his companions, and they all return to the U.S. for a "madcap Manhattan weekend."

She went to the theater to see the movie several times. Finally, the archaeologist (Jeff Daniels) turned to look at the movie audience (but his eyes were focused on Cecilia) and said, "You must really love this picture" — and stepped off the screen into Cecilia's life. It was a fantasy come true. Well ...

"He is a genial, open–faced smoothie with all the right moves," Ebert wrote, "but he has a problem: He only knows what his character knows in the movie, and his experience is literally limited to what happens to his character in the plot. This can cause problems. He's great at talking sweetly to a woman and holding hands and kissing — but just when the crucial moment arrives, the movie fades out, and therefore, alas, so does he."

That could be endearingly naive — and infuriating at the same time. I suppose that is evidence of how well Daniels played the role. "The Purple Rose of Cairo" wasn't his first film — he had been in three others prior to that, and his breakthrough role, I guess, was in "Terms of Endearment," which led to his starring role in "The Purple Rose of Cairo."

So it wasn't the first time I had seen him. But his modest appearance in "Ragtime" escaped me at the time, although I did notice it on additional viewings — and, when I saw "The Purple Rose of Cairo," I only remembered his supporting role in "Terms of Endearment," but I can't say I paid much attention to him in that one. His role in "The Purple Rose of Cairo" was the one that put him on my movie radar.

Anyway, Tom the archaeologist did have his problems, being a fictional character, but Tom was the problem for Gil, the actor who portrayed him in the movie. Emboldened by the first Tom's departure from his celluloid cell, the Toms in copies of the movie all across the country were trying to liberate themselves as well, causing chaos in movie theaters from sea to shining sea.

So Gil embarked on a mission — he was going to New Jersey to look for that first Tom, who by that time was off on a night on the town with Cecilia.

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Gil wanted Tom to return to the movie — he was wrecking Gil's acting career — and he was willing to go to great lengths to achieve that objective, including convincing Cecilia that he was in love with her — and forcing her to choose between the fictional and seemingly perfect but limited Tom and the real and flawed but virtually unlimited Gil. And, as infatuated as Cecilia was with the make–believe world of the movies — and as abused as she had been by her husband (Danny Aiello) — she chose the real. She committed herself to it by breaking up with her husband.

But Gil hadn't committed himself to Cecilia — only to his career — and he had used her to get Tom to return to the movie. When that was accomplished, he hopped a plane for Hollywood, leaving Cecilia homeless, loveless and jobless. And, once more, she retreated to the fantasy world of the darkened movie theater.

That led to what may have been Ebert's most salient observation.

"[Allen] is interested in the conflicts involving who you want to be, and who other people want you to be," Ebert wrote. "'Stardust [Memories]' was about a celebrity whose fame prevented people from relating to anything but his image. 'Zelig,' the other side of the coin, was about a man whose anonymity was so profound that he could gain an identity only by absorbing one from the people around him. In 'Purple Rose,' the movie hero has the first problem, and the woman in the audience has the second, and when they get together, they still don't make one whole person, just two sad halves."

Many words leaped to mind when I saw that movie the first time — poignant, ironic, touching. They are still appropriate because "Purple Rose of Cairo," as creative as it was, was still an Everyman tale at its core, that tug–of–war within every human heart between what is and what we think should be. As such, the story is timeless. It remains relevant for succeeding generations.

Allen was nominated for the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay but lost to Earl Wallace for "Witness."

'The Breakfast Club' Was More Than Just a Comedy

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Brian (Anthony Michael Hall): Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us — in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain ...

Andrew (Emilio Estevez): ... and an athlete ...

Allison (Ally Sheedy): ... and a basket case ...

Claire (Molly Ringwald): ... a princess ...

John (Judd Nelson): ... and a criminal ...

Brian: Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club.

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"The Breakfast Club," which began playing on America's movie screens 30 years ago today, was better than most of the coming–of–age flicks I have seen — and more than just a comedy.

So often, "coming of age" seems to be code for "losing one's virginity" — or trying to lose one's virginity and failing miserably. Excuses for exploiting the young and the beautiful. (That seemed to be especially true of movies of the mid–1980s.)

That really does seem unfortunate to me because there are so many other aspects of the maturation process that do not involve sex — but do involve a voyage of self–discovery. And, to be fair, there have been some movies that have tried to tackle the topic of coming of age from a more cerebral perspective. Some succeeded. Some did not.

"The Breakfast Club" was one of the better ones.

The premise was that five students, each occupying a different rung on the ladder of high school popularity, were brought together to serve a day of detention on a Saturday. They didn't know each other when the day began, but they knew each other pretty well when the day was over.

This was an old tactic, critic Roger Ebert observed, given a new spin. "William Saroyan and Eugene O'Neill have been here before, but they used saloons and drunks. 'The Breakfast Club' uses a high school library and five teenage kids."

OK, it wasn't an original tactic. But the folks who put the movie together managed to attract an audience by casting five of the hottest young stars around at that time — Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy.

Once they had 'em in the theater, they could tell their story.

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With nearly all of the action taking place in that high school library, the dialogue became the most important part of the movie. "The Breakfast Club" was like a high school version of the United Nations, with each campus clique represented. Thirty years later, the labels are probably different — language, after all, defines each generation — but the types are universal.

Anyone who ever spent any time in high school is familiar with them. The athlete, the brain, the criminal, the prom queen, the misfit. The cast of "The Breakfast Club" seemed to accept the spots in the high school pecking order to which they had been assigned by life; when the movie began, the characters knew little about each other — and really did not want to know much about each other.

An hour and a half later (by moviegoer's time) they knew all about each other. They had bonded, each in his or her own way but learning in the process the things that they had in common.

The two girls bonded in ways their peers never would have been able to comprehend. The prom queen (Molly Ringwald) was applying makeup to the face of the misfit (Ally Sheedy).

"Why are you being so nice to me?" she asked with the wary suspicion of one who has been humiliated before.

"Because you're letting me," the prom queen replied, and one suspected that, in her experience, things like trust frequently came with strings attached. At the same time, the audience knew that Sheedy didn't trust people easily, that it was a pretty big deal for her to allow Ringwald to be that close.

But girls' agendas are always more complicated than boys'. For the boys in "The Breakfast Club," it was about making the grade. One was driven to get grades that were good enough to merit a full academic scholarship. Another was driven to get grades that were good enough that, combined with athletic skill, would merit an athletic scholarship. The third was driven, simply, to get grades that were good enough to get by.

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And, while there has always been and always will be a certain amount of macho posturing in male relationships, the boys managed to get past that on several occasions.

I don't think I ever expected that any of them would win acting awards, but I hoped that the movie might receive some recognition from Oscar. But it did not. That was in keeping, I suppose, with the Academy Awards' general — and long–standing — bias against comedies.

But there were many dramatic moments and dramatic lines in "The Breakfast Club." To dismiss it as a comedy is to do it a disservice.

When Worlds Collide

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"We're all very happy that you're going to live, John Book. We didn't know what we would do with you if you'd died."

Rachel (Kelly McGillis)

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"We're inside this story," declared film critic Roger Ebert when "Witness" premiered 30 years ago today.

That was an astute observation for, indeed, the viewer was inside the story — and for the reasons Ebert outlined. But I'll get back to that in a minute.

For me, what was fascinating was to study the clash between two worlds — the modern world and the (literally) horse–and–buggy world of the Amish — in what undoubtedly struck moviegoers of the time as a fairly common event, the murder of a man.

Maybe my fascination with the collision of those two worlds stems from my upbringing. My father was a religion professor.

Anyway, the movie began with a kind of glimpse of Amish life. The residents of the community gathered for the funeral of one of their own — the husband of a character, Rachel (Kelly McGillis), who would become prominent in the story. The Amish keep mostly to themselves in real life as they did in the movie, but there were times when they had to interact with modern people ("the English," the Amish called them). Rachel and her young son temporarily left their Amish home to visit her sister, taking the train.

The murderer and the victim were of the modern world, but the witness was a young Amish boy (Lukas Haas) who was in a bathroom stall in a Philadelphia station and saw what happened as he peeped through the slot between the stall door and the stall walls.

The two worlds were on a collision course.

The investigating officer was Harrison Ford, and he had to question the boy, who told him that two men had been involved in the murder, but he could only see one, a black man, which launched an investigation into all the known black criminals in the city. Ford subjected the boy to police lineups and photo albums, but no suspects could be identified — until he spotted a picture of Danny Glover, a respected narcotics officer, in a glass case at the police station.

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Glover was the one the boy had seen cutting a man's throat in the bathroom at the station.

Ford's character remembered that Glover had been in charge of a raid of some high–priced chemicals used in the production of speed — and that the chemicals had disappeared while in police custody. The obvious conclusion was that Glover had been involved in the disappearance, maybe even the ringleader, and was selling them. The killing had been done to protect the guilty.

He shared what he knew with his superior, then was ambushed by Glover in a parking garage. Ford's character realized that, since he had only told his superior what he knew, his superior must be corrupt as well and had tipped off Glover. Ford was wounded in the parking garage shootout.

At this point, the two worlds collided in full. Ford took McGillis and Haas back to their home and passed out shortly after their arrival, causing considerable angst among the villagers. No one was trained as a doctor, and Ford needed that kind of attention.

But he was a police officer, and he knew the routine. If he was taken to the hospital with a bullet wound, there would be a police investigation, and he would be found — and if he was found, the boy would be found, too.

That was a pretty persuasive argument for the Amish folks, who decided to give him shelter — and hoped he would recover. They had no idea what they would do if he died.

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So he stayed with the Amish and tried to blend in. He wore their clothes. He worked on their farms. He helped them raise houses and barns.

(And he and McGillis were falling in love. In defiance of social codes of conduct.)

Even so, his adversaries from Philadelphia managed to find him. It wasn't easy, considering that the Amish had no phones and literally thousands of people in that vicinity had the same surname as the boy and his mother. But they found him, and that led to a final showdown.

If you haven't seen it, I don't want to spoil the ending for you. I'll just get back to Ebert's observation about being "inside this story." I had seen the movie before I read Ebert's piece, and I knew exactly what he meant when I read that. Well, I thought I did.

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At the time, I thought he was speaking of the camera angles — which really do make a viewer feel like he/she is inside the story. Then, I thought perhaps it was a reference to Maurice Jarre's Oscar–nominated score, which did a brilliant job of summarizing the two ways of life.

(I'm a fan of Jarre's work, anyway. Even if I didn't particularly care for the movie, I always liked his music.)

But Ebert went on to speak of how all the elements of the movie worked so well together that they drew the viewer into the story. And that, ultimately, was my sensation. The camera angles, the score, the performances, the Oscar–winning screenplay and film editing, they all worked together to make an excellent movie.

Rocky Jumps the Shark

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Are you familiar with the phrase "jump the shark?"

It's become a TV cliche, but it was based, as most good cliches are, in a certain amount of truth. In this case, it was based on an episode from the Happy Days TV series — which began its existence as a nice, nostalgic look at growing up in the 1950s, but it ran out of material so, when the fifth season began in 1977, the familiar characters left their homes in Milwaukee and went to the West Coast, where Fonzie literally jumped over a shark while water skiing.

Many years later, the phrase "jump the shark" was first used to describe the point when a once–popular TV series is losing viewers and resorts to ludicrous story lines in a desperate attempt to revive interest.

In the case of Happy Days, it actually may have helped the show remain on the air for several more years, but, as I say, this phrase is almost always used to describe the rapid descent of a TV show. I think it could be used to describe some movies (and their numerous sequels) as well.

I'm thinking of one in particular — the "Rocky" film series, the fourth of which made its debut today.

Like everyone else, I cheered when Rocky Balboa, a "ham 'n' egger from South Philly," got his chance to fight for the title in the original movie back in the mid–1970s. It was make or break for Sylvester Stallone, much like Rocky's title shot, and it really paid off handsomely for him. I've heard that the film cost less than $1 million to make, and it earned back more than 100 times that at the box office. Rocky didn't win that fight so there was an obvious opportunity to cash in on the movie's popularity — with a rematch.

And, so, "Rocky II" came along a few years later to satisfy the audience's craving for more. All the stars were back, and Rocky got his rematch with Apollo. Obviously, moviegoers wouldn't sit still for seeing essentially the same story — in which Rocky comes close but doesn't win — in the sequel. This time, Rocky had to win.

And he did.

And, in the eyes of most viewers, that should have been the end of that particular film franchise. But it wasn't. Not by a long shot.

Part III came along a few years later. Rocky and Apollo had joined forces after Rocky's trainer died while Rocky was preparing for his bid to reclaim the title from the thug who took it from him, Clubber Lang (played by then–popular TV star Mr. T).

The film was astonishingly successful — and impressive (by second sequel standards) — but everyone I knew said this certainly must be the last installment in the series, the third and final chapter of the Rocky "trilogy."

But Rocky wasn't finished. Thus, it was on this day 25 years ago that the "Rocky" franchise officially jumped the shark, in my view.

It was in the midst of the Reagan administration, the Cold War, the anti–Soviet hysteria, and "Rocky" promoted the kind of feel–good political propaganda that was so prevalent in those days — that America and democracy were better than Russia and communism because one American could beat one Russian in an American movie about boxing.

I refused to contribute to the "Rocky IV" propaganda fest — out of principle. I did see the movie — eventually when it came to TV. I've never seen it on the big screen. At the time, it was virtually a point of pride.

In hindsight, though, that may have been hypocritical of me. Perhaps the "Rocky" franchise always specialized in exploiting the audience's emotions. It just wasn't always blatant about it.

If "Rocky IV" came off as calculating in its exploitation of U.S.–Soviet tensions, wasn't the first film in the series equally guilty of pushing all the right (and timely) emotional buttons with its theme of a perennial underdog getting a shot at the grand prize on the nation's Bicentennial?

And didn't the second film do much the same thing by rewarding viewers with a tangible victory instead of merely a moral one in the sequel? Surely it wasn't coincidental that Rocky, in the words of Perry Seibert of AllMovie.com, "stopped being one of the common men and became an icon" in that second film — released, as it was, in a year marked by a nuclear meltdown, gas lines and, eventually, the hostage crisis in Iran.

In 1979, Americans felt battered. "Rocky II" lifted their spirits and made them feel things were possible.

Certainly the third one did — with the one–time rivals, Rocky and Apollo, working together to put down the young and roguish (and aptly named) Clubber Lang.

From there, of course, we came to this day 25 years ago, when politics was introduced into the mix.

I wish I could say the "Rocky" series ended in 1985, but it didn't. There was a "Rocky V" in 1990. I never saw it, not even on TV, but I saw ads for it.

Rocky had been staggered in his fight with the Russian (a political metaphor, perhaps?) and was realizing, like many athletes, that his talents were leaving him as he aged so Rocky, reluctant to leave the sport entirely, ran a gym and promoted a young protege. He and the protege had a falling out, and Rocky disappeared from movie screens.

The series seemed to be over.

But then, in 2006 — 30 years after the original film was released — Rocky returned in "Rocky Balboa," I never saw it, but I have been told it was a pretty good movie. Maybe, but it sounded a little implausible to me.

Nevertheless, that was the fifth and supposedly final sequel.

I still think Rocky jumped the shark 25 years ago today.

We Built This City

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I come from a small family.

My mother was an only child, and my father had a sister who was six years older. Based on what I know of my aunt, she was something of a prodigy. I heard, for example, that she graduated from high school when she was about 16 and that she finished college before she was 20. Some time after that, she married a man who worked for General Electric, and she apparently devoted herself to her home and her three children.

My cousins were all older than I was, and, until I was about 10 or 11, they lived in the Netherlands. So I never saw them when I was a child.

They returned to the United States when I was about 12, but GE didn't send my uncle to Texas, where my grandmother still lived, or somewhere else in the South. Instead, GE sent them to Schenectady, N.Y. — more than 1,400 miles from Dallas and more than 1,100 miles from my hometown of Conway, Ark.

Even though we were finally on the same continent, it seemed to me that I might grow up without knowing that side of my family. But my parents were planning a trip to Vermont one summer to visit some old friends, and it was decided that we would stop in Schenectady and visit my aunt and uncle and the cousins while we were in that part of the country.

And so we did.

The youngest of my cousins was about five or six years older than I was so all three were around college age then. There were two boys and one girl. I think the girl was the youngest, and she may have still been in high school. I don't recall seeing the oldest — he may have been out of college by that time, might even have been married and living somewhere else.

But the middle son was there. As I recall, he had been away from home most of that summer and had just returned home. I even remember seeing his bags in the hallway. Maybe he had been taking summer classes at the college where he was enrolled. Anyway, our visit came during a period between the end of summer school and the beginning of the fall semester, and I remember my uncle teasing my cousin about missing the smell of cigarette smoke around the house while he was gone.

I have a memory of all of us sitting in my aunt's living room and talking, and I recall my aunt and uncle telling us that my cousin Cathy had just had her wisdom teeth extracted. That gave my father the opportunity to recall when my aunt had her wisdom teeth extracted. "She made sure we all knew about it," my father said.

Somewhere around that time, Cathy got up, excused herself and went to the back of the house, where her room was, and put a record on her turntable. And I could hear the familiar songs of Jefferson Airplane — "Somebody to Love," "Volunteers" and "White Rabbit," among others.

Those are the songs that I always associate with Jefferson Airplane. The group disbanded around the time of our visit to Schenectady and was soon replaced by Jefferson Starship, which later dropped the "Jefferson" part and just went by the name of Starship.

I always felt that was a corporate sellout, considering that Jefferson Airplane always seemed like the embodiment of the left–wing counterculture. Starship just seemed too commercial.

But when Jefferson Airplane crashed, Jefferson Starship rose from the ashes in its place. At first, there seemed to be little difference between the two. Grace Slick was still singing for the band, and it was churning out hits like "Miracles" and "Jane."

Initially, I suppose, I didn't realize just how commercial Starship really was. The parting of the ways, for me, came 25 years ago tomorrow, when Starship released "We Built This City."

I felt at the time that it was a perfectly horrid song — and that opinion was confirmed nearly 20 years later, when Blender magazine named it the worst song ever.

Now, that probably requires a disclaimer. Six years ago, Blender put together a list of what it called the 50 worst songs of all time, which was inspired by a VH1 special called "The 50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs ... Ever."

I'm sure you can think of at least one song — probably many more — that could fairly be said to be worse than "We Built This City." And that brings us to the catch.

In order to qualify for the list, the song had to be a hit at some point. It didn't have to reach #1 on the Billboard chart, but it had to be popular enough that it sold fairly well and got decent airplay.

Astonishingly, though, "We Built This City" actually did reach #1 on Billboard's chart about 2½ months after it was released as a single. So it qualified for inclusion in the list. People liked it. They really liked it. But I didn't.

The issues I have with "We Built This City" are too numerous to discuss here. But I've always been irritated by the lyrics. I guess I owe that to my training as a journalist and my experience as a copy editor. I can — and have — put up with a lot. But "We Built This City" was the straw that broke this camel's back.

Early in the song, for example, it refers to Italian radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi playing the mamba. Mamba is the name of the species and subspecies of a deadly snake. My guess is that the writer of the song, Bernie Taupin, meant mambo, which is a dance. Poetic license?

I guess I expected better from Taupin. He wrote so many of the really fine songs that made Elton John a star. But words have meaning, and, when a lyricist uses a word simply because it rhymes with something else and not because it has a relevant meaning, that's just wrong.

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Well, I suppose even the best song writers can come up with a clinker now and then.

Paul McCartney, for example, was half of the greatest song writing team in popular music history when he and John Lennon were composing songs for the Beatles. Then, after the Beatles broke up, McCartney went on to a very successful career as first the leader of the group Wings and then as a solo artist, writing several very good songs.

But he took his lumps from Blender — and justifiably so — for his collaboration with Stevie Wonder on the dreadful "Ebony and Ivory" and his participation in the Beatles' "Ob–La–Di, Ob–La–Da."

I don't have an argument with either of those selections, but I would include a third song, for which McCartney was responsible — "Let 'Em In," which was released 34 years ago.

It would be hard to beat the jejune quality of the chorus — "Someone's knocking on the door/Somebody's ringing the bell/Someone's knocking on the door/Somebody's ringing the bell/Do me a favor/Open the door/And let 'em in."

But I suppose it redeems itself, to a degree, by having lyrics that have some meaning — even if the meaning is an inside joke.

The song recites a list of names, which, as I learned later in my life, actually refer to real people. Well, most of them do:

• "Sister Suzy" was McCartney's first wife, Linda.


• "Brother John" is Linda's brother, John.


• "Martin Luther" has never been made clear, but it probably isn't a reference to Martin Luther King, as might seem obvious. More likely, I have been told, it is a reference to Lennon, who was called "Martin Luther Lennon" by McCartney and the Beatles.


• "Phil and Don" are the Everly Brothers.


• "Brother Michael" is McCartney's brother.


• "Auntie Jin" was McCartney's aunt.

And there is more. Later in the song, "Brother Michael" is replaced by "Uncle Ernie," which is a reference to the Who's Keith Moon, who played the character of Uncle Ernie in the film version of the Who's "Tommy."

"Auntie Jin" was replaced by "Uncle Ian" — whoever he is/was.

If Blender wants to come up with a revised list, I don't object to keeping "We Built This City" in the top spot. And most of the songs on the original list certainly deserved to be there.

But I wouldn't mind if "Let 'Em In" was in the Top 50.

Saving Lives

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Live Aid was Teddy Pendergrass' first public appearance since a
near–fatal car accident in 1982; he died of colon cancer in January.

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If you're old enough to remember it, Live Aid was 25 years ago today.

And if you are old enough to remember that day, you probably only need to be reminded of the actual date that it occurred. The event itself likely is vivid in your memory.

To briefly remind you, the event was put together by Bob Geldof to raise money for famine relief in Africa. I don't recall hearing what inspired Live Aid. I guess I always assumed that it was sort of a natural evolution that started with the Woodstock festival in 1969 and absorbed the charity aspect of the Concert for Bangladesh in 1971.

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They called it a "global jukebox" because concerts were held simultaneously in London and Philadelphia, with a lengthy list of performers at each location. And concerts in other places, like Australia and Germany, linked up as well, permitting people like B.B. King to participate.

And nearly half a billion people watched it worldwide.

Just about every popular performer of the day — and even some whose best days were probably behind them by then — participated.

More than 70,000 came to Wembley Stadium in London, where acts like Elvis Costello, Sting, Bryan Ferry, U2, Dire Straits, David Bowie, Paul McCartney, the Who, Queen and Elton John performed. Phil Collins also performed in London, then took the Concorde to Philadelphia's JFK Stadium and performed there as well. He also played drums for Eric Clapton and a reunion of Led Zeppelin.

There were nearly 100,000 people at JFK Stadium, and they were treated to Joan Baez, REO Speedwagon, the Beach Boys, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the Cars, Power Station, Hall and Oates, Mick Jagger and Bob Dylan, among others.

Reunions were the order of the day in Philadelphia. In addition to Led Zeppelin, Crosby Stills Nash & Young reunited, as did Black Sabbath.

And there were moments that were timely in 1985 but might need a little elaboration today.

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For example, when Madonna was about to sing "Love Makes the World Go Round," she noted the heat (mid–90s) but insisted that she wasn't going to take off her coat. "I ain't taking shit off today," she said, which was a reference to nude photos of her that had been taken several years earlier and had recently been published in Playboy and Penthouse.

Madonna was criticized by many for posing for the photos — even though she had posed at a time when she was unknown and needed the money such photo shoots could provide (meager though it was).

Anyway, as the temperature in Philadelphia soared to 95°, she pledged not to remove her coat and explained that "you might hold it against me 10 years from now" if she did.

With all the talent on those stages, it's hard to imagine that anyone wasn't there, but there were some who didn't participate, each for reasons of their own. Bruce Springsteen, who was one of the most popular performers of that time, didn't participate. Neither did Billy Joel, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, Huey Lewis and the News, Prince and Michael Jackson.

Jackson, it should be pointed out, did make his own contribution, composing "We Are the World" with Lionel Ritchie, which did its part to raise money for famine relief by selling more than 3 million copies.

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There seems to be no doubt that Live Aid was a turning point for some performers who were ready for the attention of more mainstream listeners.

U2, for example, had been around for a few years and had enjoyed some success by July 1985, but Live Aid really gave the band the exposure it needed. It virtually confirmed what Rolling Stone said in March — that U2 was the "band of the '80s ... the band that matters most, maybe even the only band that matters."

That was a pretty daring proclamation at a time when bands like R.E.M., Dire Straits and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were attracting a lot of attention.

But U2 surely was the only band that mattered to the woman who danced with Bono during U2's 12–minute version of "Bad" on that day.

Viewers around the world saw only that he was dancing with a young woman, but she revealed 20 years later that he actually saved her life. She was being crushed, and Bono saw it. He waved frantically for the ushers to do something, but they couldn't understand him so he leaped off the stage to take care of it himself.

Saving lives was, after all, what Live Aid was all about.

Great Scott!

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In hindsight, it seems like it was just downright impossible not to like "Back to the Future," which made its debut on America's movie screens 25 years ago today.

It was certainly timely, with the murderous Libyan terrorists intent upon reclaiming the stolen plutonium from Marty's sidekick, Doc Brown (who was memorably played by Christopher Lloyd) — and who played a pivotal role in telling the story.

And it was timeless, too, with its particular slant on the inevitable angst of the teen years. Each generation thinks it is unique in that department — but each generation is wrong. Nevertheless, each generation need its troubadours and story tellers, and director Robert Zemeckis was one of the best for those who came of age in the 1980s. (Personally, I think John Hughes was the best of that time, but Zemeckis, in spite of his apparent fondness for splashy film techniques and effects, deserves his share of recognition.)

In that sense, I guess it brought together two diverse movie audiences that almost never were attracted to the same movie — the angst–ridden teens and the geeky sci–fi fans, who might also be angst–ridden teens but were mostly written off by most in their teen world (not unlike the protagonists from "Revenge of the Nerds").

It was nostalgic for many viewers who actually remembered 1955 — and the groundbreaking rock 'n' roll that was being recorded around that time, yet it was up–to–date enough to incorporate a symbol of the more modern times — a DeLorean — to serve as the time machine.

And the cast was kind of a mix of the familiar and the unfamiliar. TV viewers (like me) who were fans of the TV series Taxi had seen Lloyd frequently as the perpetually stoned Rev. Jim who had a kind personality and a heart of gold. Thus, it probably wasn't much of a leap to accept him as the eccentric (yet personable) inventor, Doc Brown.

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Doc Brown: "Tell me, Future Boy, who's president of the United States in 1985?"

Marty: "Ronald Reagan."

Doc Brown: "Ronald Reagan? The actor? Then who's vice president? Jerry Lewis? I suppose Jane Wyman is the first lady? And Jack Benny is secretary of the Treasury!"

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Likewise, many in the audience had seen Michael J. Fox in his TV series, Family Ties, for the previous three years. I'm not sure if Marty McFly had a lot in common with Alex P. Keaton, but Fox was a sure draw. Family Ties had been intended to focus on the liberal parents, not the conservative children, but the viewing audience's positive response to Fox was so strong that he became the focus instead. His popularity never seemed to be about his character.

Their castmates, though not exactly newcomers, were hardly household names. Lea Thompson (who played Fox's mother) and Crispin Glover (who played his father) had been in a few movies prior to "Back to the Future." Thomas F. Wilson (who played Biff) was appearing in only his second film.

The initial draft of the film was done in 1981, and Zemeckis and co–writer Bob Gale began trying to find a studio for their project. But they soon encountered an odd dilemma — studios rejected it for not being sexual enough, then Disney rejected it because it wasn't in keeping with Disney's image to make a film about a mother who falls in love with her son.

Eventually, after Zemeckis enjoyed considerable success with "Romancing the Stone," Universal Pictures was persuaded to take on the project. And "Back to the Future" turned out to be a worthwhile investment. It was the highest–grossing film of 1985.

But on this day a quarter of a century ago, Zemeckis was worried that it would not succeed because Fox was unable to attend the premiere. He was fulfilling his contractual obligations to Family Ties and was busy with filming that was being done in London.

Looking back on it, of course, Zemeckis need not have worried. With a gross revenue of nearly $400 million, "Back to the Future" more than covered its $19 million budget.

Still, one must wonder what Lloyd and the rest of the cast must think of DirecTV's attempt to capitalize on the film's popularity a few years ago?

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I'll grant you, the product was certainly futuristic. It clearly wasn't available in 1955.

But, for that matter, it wasn't available in 1985, either. And that's where that bolt of lightning was going to send Marty McFly.

So didn't that compromise the logic of the commercial?