Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes

Year 18, Day 222 - 8/10/26 - Movie #5,399 - SQC DOC BLOCK FILM #38

BEFORE: Well, I've fallen behind with posting again, because two jobs. I'm not complaining, because it's good to be busy, being busy means I might make a little more money this month, and I've just GOT to make a credit card payment mid-month. There are shifts to be had in April, because the theater is down a few house managers and the NY Liberty is in town, but September is a bit of a question mark - the Liberty will be on the road but also at the college there will be orientation shifts, all the various departments use the theater for welcome lectures for incoming students, oddly this means there could be a giant ostrich statue in my future. It's a long story that I can't tell here. But I love it when orientation rolls around, it means I get more shifts. Last night I worked a meeting of Manhattan Democrats voting to nominate candidates for state Supreme Court - no film, no presentation except they needed the large theater to hold a big public crowd, plus candidates, plus delegates, plus organizers and such. I was in charge of maintaining order during check-in, and trying to keep a crowd from rushing in once the rain started, that was NOT easy. 

After tonight, just 12 documentaries left, and 13 states to profile, because one day my "Get to Know a State" feature was devoted to Washington, DC which is, it turns out, not a state. So I've got to deal with having an extra state left over, but I think I have a plan. Tonight's state is NOT where Elizabeth Taylor is from, because she was born in the U.K., but her parents were an art dealer and an actress, originally from Arkansas City in KANSAS. So sure, it's a bit of a stretch, she's got dual US + UK citizenship, but her roots go back to KANSAS, there you go. 

Date admitted to the U.S.: January 29, 1961

Claim to fame: as my t-shirt map says, it's "Where Dorothy's Not Anymore"

Nickname: "The Sunflower State" or "The Wheat State" or "America's Heartland"

State Motto: Ad astra per Aspera, which is Latin for "We couldn't choose just one Nickname" 

State Flower: wild native sunflower

State Bird: Western meadowlark

State Fish: Channel catfish

State Animal: American buffalo

State Reptile: Ornate box turtle

State Amphibian: Barred tiger salamander

State Mineral: Galena

State Fruit: Sandhill plum

State Tree: Cottonwood

Notable Sports Teams: This is where I always get confused, because there are two Kansas Citys, and one is in Missouri. Really, if Kansas City is in Missouri, then Missouri City should be in Kansas. So yeah, there are the Chiefs in the NFL and the Royals in the MLB, but I think they both play in Missouri, they just have fans in Kansas. There are mens and womens soccer teams that play in Kansas, but who cares about soccer? At the college level there are the Jayhawks and the Wildcats, but I'm not familiar. 

Fun Facts: Most of modern Kansas came to the U.S. via the Louisiana Purchase, but there's a small part in the Southwest that was part of Spain, Mexico and the Republic of Texas at different times. The Santa Fe Trail ran right through it for years, but in 1827 Fort Leavenworth became the first permanent settlement of Americans who didn't want to travel any further, and said, "You know what, I'm tired, this is fine."  Kansas banned all alcoholic beverages in 1881, well in advance of Prohibition, and then suffered the damage of the Dust Bowl in the 1930's and I have to believe there's a connection there. Karma's a bitch, so if you wanted a "dry state", you'd better be ready for one. 

I have NOT been to Kansas, but perhaps if I can wrangle a BBQ Crawl through Missouri, maybe we can take a pass through Kansas as well. Because why not, and I don't want to have to wait until I'm retired to get the RV and drive through all the states I haven't been to yet, God willing. So I'm holding again at 24 states visited, out of 38 profiled. 

I'm also sending out another posthumous Birthday SHOUT-out to Eddie Fisher, born August 10, 1928. He died in 2010, and of course he was married to both Debbie Reynolds and Elizabeth Taylor and Connie Stevens at different times, he was the father of Eddie Fisher and Todd Fisher with Reynolds, and then Joely Fisher and her sister with Stevens. Carrie Fisher once explained her very complicated family of step-siblings, but she needed a whiteboard to do it. 

Elizabeth Taylor and I think 10 other people carry over from "Film Geek", including Debbie Reynolds.

THE PLOT: Newly discovered interviews with Elizabeth Taylor and access to the star's personal archive reveal the complex inner life and vulnerability of the groundbreaking icon. 

AFTER: There are connections all over my chain this year, "Film Geek" just might have been the epicenter - like I only needed ONE person to carry over from "Film Geek", and I got 10. Thank God that film used archive footage from 1970's films, with stars who were seen in the Roger Corman films, and also footage from classic films, allowing me to transition to a few films about older Hollywood people, stars from the 1950's and 1960's, of course some people had very long careers, and Dennis Hopper has managed to be in the last THREE films, since he was in "Giant" and "Easy Rider" and of course "Apocalypse Now", and also the David Lynch film "Blue Velvet", with a clip seen in "Roy Orbison Forever". I mean, it's hardly a record and he's not going to win the year, but six appearances for a man who died in 2010 is a darn good showing. John Belushi has 8 so far, though, and Johnny Carson has 9, just saying. 

So I see connections to a lot of films I watched in the last 40 or so days - some of these people were last seen in the Bob Mackie doc or the Paul Anka one, or the one about Eddie Murphy. But thematically, I'm seeing the connection to the doc about Pamela Anderson, another person who seems to get married at the drop of a hat, and really, wasn't she, in her own way, kind of like the Elizabeth Taylor of the 1990's? Sure, Liz Taylor never put on a skimpy red bathing suit and went running in slow motion down a beach, but they're both really the marrying kind, eternal optimists who must have convinced themselves each time that it's really going to stick this kind, THIS is the one that's going to last. Look, I know I haven't had much luck with actors/rock musicians, but something's different about THIS actor/rock musician. Why are they all such duds? I know it simply can't be ME who's the problematic one, that would be un-possible. 

I don't want to oversimplify things, for sure, because there are perhaps other complex issues at work, starting of course with fame and living in the public eye - the word "paparazzi" was allegedly first used as the name for groups of photographers trying to get photos of Liz Taylor cheating on her current husband - and then there are parenting or co-parenting stress problems, substance abuse and tales of domestic violence, as well as disillusionment caused by finding out the person you married has faults themself, or they're not really the person you thought they were. Or, you know, you've changed, you've both changed, and you want different things now than you did three years ago, that's bound to happen, so sure, don't work on the problems or try to fix them, it's best to just wipe the slate clean and try again for the fourth, fifth or sixth time. Hope springs eternal, after all. 

Since Liz Taylor started out as a child star, like following in Judy Garland's footsteps, I see a lot of similarities in their backstories, Judy had "The Wizard of Oz" and Liz had a "Lassie" movie and "National Velvet", but they both became part of the studio system and the studio controlled what they wore, when they went to school and ultimately who they dated, or at least who they got photographed with and pretended to date. And they both preferred the company of gay men, either consciously or unconsciously. Judy married a few gay men, and of course whether they were gay all along or she drove them to it is a topic for some debate. Liz Taylor hung out with Roddy McDowall and Montgomery Clift because she felt safer around them, and I think we probably all know why. So here in these "lost" tapes she claims to have been a virgin when she got married the first time, to Conrad "Nicky" Hilton at the age of 18. They went on a honeymoon cruise and while we don't have all the details, apparently she was extremely terrified about sleeping with him. Sure, men all say they want to marry virgins, but they don't really consider the logistics of all that. Anyway, she claimed he was a heavy drinker, abusive and caused her to have a miscarriage, so thank you, NEXT!

Next she married an older actor, Michael Wilding, and she was looking more for friendship, while he was looking to advance his career by marrying her. They had two sons, so I guess they worked something out, for a while anyway. His career was on the skids, though, and gossip magazines said he had strippers come to their home while she was away. NEXT! She married Mike Todd, the producer of the blockbuster hit "Around the World in 80 Days", and here she called him the love of her life, but he died in a plane crash just a year after they wed, and in her grief she turned to Eddie Fisher, the husband of her friend, Debbie Reynolds. Well, we know how all THAT turned out, Eddie left Debbie for Liz and eventually Liz left Eddie for Richard Burton. When you spend three years-plus filming "Cleopatra" with someone, you run the risk of falling for them, because you're away from home and spending more time with your co-stars than with your spouse. It's understandable, I guess. 

Liz and Dick made 11 films together while married, and co-parenting their kids and other people's kids and whatnot, and sure, it seemed like they had it all worked out, they even got divorced in 1974 and re-married in 1975, but then that second marriage only lasted a year. At that point I'm guessing they didn't know which way was up, like was the divorce a mistake or was the whole relationship a mistake, or were they just not the same people they were 11 years before? It's all too complicated to try and unravel, so this doc just presents us with the dates and hopes that we can all figure it out from what Liz said during these reel-to-reel recorded interviews. 

Her sixth husband was Senator John Warner, a Republican from Virginia. They were together five years, but Taylor found she didn't really enjoy the life of a politician's wife, spending time in Washington, DC instead of Hollywood. Yeah, who could have seen THAT one coming? And then her seventh husband isn't mentioned here at all, that construction worker she met in rehab. Well, he was sort of semi-famous for a while, but he had OCD and she had hip operations and back problems, and I don't know, I guess there was a lot to unpack, maybe it was just a co-dependency thing, they only made it five years. After some bouts with pneumonia and skin cancer and a diagnosis of congestive heart failure in 2004, she kind of devoted the rest of her time to AIDS charities and AIDS research, due to her friendship with Rock Hudson. That was a really positive way for her to spend her last few years, it seems she finally learned that she didn't need to be married to be complete, and she could accomplish great things on her own. 

Directed by Nanette Burnstein (director of "The Kid Stays in the Picture" and "Going the Distance")

Also starring Elizabeth Cuzzupoli, Rob Gill,

with archive footage of Don Adams (last seen in "Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!"), Carroll Baker (last seen in "Giant"), Yul Brynner (last seen in "Being Eddie"), Richard Burton (last seen in "Marvin Hamlisch: What He Did for Love"), Cantinflas (last seen in "Around the World in 80 Days"), Cher (last seen in "Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion"), Marilyn Monroe (ditto), Montgomery Clift (last seen in "Frank Sinatra: One More for the Road"), Perry Como (last seen in "Dionne Warwick: Don't Make Me Over"), Doris Day (last seen in "Sigourney Weaver, the Most Iconic Action Heroine"), Rock Hudson (ditto), James Dean (last seen in "Landscape with Invisible Hand"), Dominick Dunne (last seen in "Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold"), Eddie Fisher (last seen in "The Automat"), George Hamilton (also carrying over from "Film Geek"), Charlton Heston (ditto), Dennis Hopper (ditto), Gene Kelly (ditto), Roddy McDowall (ditto), Ricardo Montalban (ditto), Paul Newman (ditto), David Niven (ditto), Donald O'Connor (ditto), Debbie Reynolds (ditto), Rex Harrison (last seen in "Cleopatra"), Laurence Harvey (last seen in "F for Fake"), Katharine Hepburn (also last seen in "Being Eddie"), Mickey Rooney (ditto), Conrad Hilton Jr., Bob Hope (last seen in "Cheech & Chong's Last Movie"), Burl Ives (last seen in "Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed"), Angela Lansbury (last seen in "Starring Dick Van Dyke"), Peter Lawford (last seen in "Paul Anka: His Way"), Rouben Mamoulian, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Tim Mendelson, Edward R. Murrow (last seen in "Rather"), George Segal (last seen in "Being Mary Tyler Moore"), Jane Seymour (last seen in "Austenland"), Simone Signoret (last seen in "Jane Fonda in Five Acts"), Tom Snyder (also last seen in "Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!"), Mike Wallace (ditto), George Stevens, Francis Taylor, Robert Taylor (last seen in "The Real Charlie Chaplin"), Sara Taylor, Michael Todd Jr., John Warner (last seen in "Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything"), Michael Wilding (last seen in "Stage Fright"), Stevie Wonder (also last seen in "Being Eddie"),

and the voices of Doris Brynner, John Heyman, Samuel Marx, Tim Mendelson, Marion Rosenberg

RATING: 6 out of 10 unnecessary shots of a reel-to-reel tape recorder (I mean, jeesh, we GET IT already!)

Film Geek

Year 18, Day 221 - 8/9/26 - Movie #5,398 - SQC DOC BLOCK FILM #37

BEFORE: All right, now I've stepped in it - this film is going to take me DAYS to figure out who exactly appears, all told. I've already fallen behind because I worked on Saturday night at one job and Sunday morning at the other, with just maybe three hours of sleep in between. I don't set my schedule, not the hours anyway, that's perhaps something I should really work on by getting a better job, or a couple of better jobs. To be continued - but I'm going to go ahead with posting review and I'll figure out all the appearances later, I'll work on it a bit at a time and then update the post throughout the week, most likely. 

I went ahead and linked up all of the remaining movies with the remaining U.S. states for my "Get to Know a State" feature. So this is the LAST link-up, not the last post, I've got 12 more to go, but since this film has so much footage and so many actors in that footage, I figured I could link it to just about anywhere. The last state left after I linked everything else happened to be VERMONT, so now all I have to do is find a connection to this film. No problem, there's footage here from "The Sound of Music" and I know that when the Von Trapp family made it to America, they settled in Vermont, and I know this because the family ran a hotel there, plus a brewery. Another connection is that there's footage here of Treat Williams from "Prince of the City", and he lived his last few decades in Vermont, before he died in a motorcycle crash in 2023. Anyway, tonight's state is VERMONT: 

Date admitted to the U.S.: March 4, 1791 (14th state)

Claim to fame: IDK, maple syrup? Lake Champlain? It's all a bit vague.

Nickname: The Green Mountain State

State Motto: "Stella quarta decima fulgeat" or May the fourteenth star shine bright, and take that, thirteenth star!

State Flower: Red Clover

State Bird: Hermit thrush

State Fish: Brook trout

State Mammal: Morgan horse

State Insect: Western honey bee

State Mushroom: Bear's head tooth mushroom

State Gemstone: Grossular garnet

State Food: Apple pie

State Tree: Sugar maple

Notable Sports Teams: Few and far between. There's college teams like the U. of Vermont Catamounts, and a collegiate baseball team called the Vermont Lake Monsters, but that's about it, except for a lot of skiing. 

Fun Facts: Lake Champlain has 80 islands and a bunch of lighthouses, and connects to both the Erie Canal and the St. Lawrence Seaway. Allegedly there's a Nessie-like sea monster there named "Champy" but reports are sketchy at best. Bridges across the lake connect New York and Vermont, which is probably great for tourism from New Yorkers who want to go skiing. For a while, thanks to President Clinton, Champlain was designated to be the sixth "Great Lake" but the people in the Midwest rallied and revolted and that status was rescinded. Unless you really really dig maple syrup, the lake area seems to be the most happening thing about Vermont. Women were allowed to vote in Vermont way before it became the law nationwide, so I guess that's cool. 

I've almost certainly been to Vermont, I want to say it was a ski trip in 1997 or 1998, but of course I don't ski. I also grew up in New England, so probably at least passed through Vermont at some point. I'm going to say I've been, and that raises me to 24 states visited out of 37. I'm almost certainly going to pass 50%.

Dennis Hopper (et. al.) carries over from "Roger Corman: The Pope of Pop Cinema".

There's just GOT to be a Birthday SHOUT-out I can deliver today, there's a cast of like 200-plus people in the archive footage here - a quick check on the IMDB and sure, OK, of course, it's a posthumous one, though. SHOUT-out to Robert Shaw, born August 9, 1927.

THE PLOT: A filmmaker explores his movie obsession and his father's influence through film clips and personal archives, seeking to understand his cinematic roots.

AFTER: Sure, this is technically a movie, but it's a movie made up of a bunch of other movies, over 200 films in total, ones that Richard Shepard watched when he really got into movies as a teenager in the late 1970's and the early 1980's. Some were good, some were bad, some were foreign dramas and others were cheap horror films, but collectively they instilled a love of movies - and of New York City movie theaters, good ones and bad ones and dangerous ones. He works in the film business now, so really it's an examination of what he saw that made him want to go into filmmaking. Of course I feel a kinship with him, we didn't follow the exact same path, but you know, we saw a lot of the same movies and we felt a similar call to get into film school, then get out there are work on making movies so we could just somehow be closer, be on the INSIDE of movies and not just a spectator in the theater seats. 

What Shepard and I have in common, we got our minds blown by "Star Wars" in May 1977 and nothing was ever quite the same after that. We both felt the need to read books about the making of certain movies, (I read George Lucas's autobiography and he read Coppola's) and we both found our way to NYU film school, the alma mater of filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and Spike Lee - Shepard doesn't mention Spike, but when I went to NYU he'd graduated a year or two before, and he was all the teachers could talk about. Shepard and I both enjoyed going to see movies with our parents, and then at some point we broke out on our own and went to films with friends from school, or even alone. Because movies are another drug, you get that hit of dopamine from them and you simply want more, and bigger and louder next time. We also oddly both have stories about waiting in line for autographs from James "Scotty" Doohan of "Star Trek" fame. 

Where we differ is that Shepard is three years older than I am, so he was much closer to college age when "Raiders of the Lost Ark" came out and I hadn't yet caught the idea that I could somehow make a career out of movies, I was still having fun, and I never made home movies as a teen, unlike Shepard and Spielberg and Lucas. I was focused on academics, always got good grades in school, plus studied two foreign languages and had time for both orchestra AND chorus, and then when the SAT came along I aced it, plus I took as many advanced placement classes as I could, so as a result I don't think I had ANY trouble getting into college, and I even had enough AP credits to skip a whole year of college. What people couldn't understand at the time was how I could be so good at math and English and biology and still want to make movies. Umm, duh, because that looks like so much fun? I worked hard to succeed in high school so that I could do whatever I wanted in college, and I wanted to be the next Lucas or Spielberg, but what I lacked was talent and motivation. 

I also had stable parents, and Shepard had a very shady father, who was into antiques dealing and gambling and possibly also loansharking, he had several aliases and fake IDs, what exactly he was up to is really anybody's guess - while my parents were steadfast churchgoers, my Mom was a music teacher and my father was a truck driver, and both had the same jobs for a very long time. They managed to put two kids through NYU, which was another reason I was glad to graduate after three years, so they didn't have to pay for four. (I had some scholarship money as a National Merit Scholar, which I think came in a roundabout way from my PSAT score, I mean I really aced that thing. But that didn't go too far with NYU tuition being what it was.)

The question here is, can you tell a coherent story about a teenager's life JUST by using clips from the movies he watched, plus a few home movies and personal photos?  Well, no, of course not, except maybe also yes? It's tough because Shepard's narration is a bit all over the place, there's no solid through-line because he goes off on so many tangents, like instead of telling little stories it's all one BIG story that changes and pulses and mentions this movie and then THAT one, oh, and here's one more thing about "Willy Wonka" that I want to say. I think I might be a little more interested if somebody didn't make this about their own life but instead tried to tell a real narrative story just using clips from other films, that would really be something. Like could you take five films that all starred Jeff Bridges and edit the scenes together so they made something completely new and original that wasn't in essence any of those five films, like could you use those five to make a sixth?  

Of course, that's not what "Film Geek" is - like there's a montage of people from different movies entering stores, when Richard is talking about going to various stores with film labs and pulling the "You ruined my movie, how about a free roll of film" scam. And there's a montage of people from different movies all answering the telephone, sure it's a fun guessing game to try and identify where each clip came from, but that wears thin after a while, doesn't it?  I don't know if I could be friends with fellow Film Geek Shepard because I feel like I would never get a word in edgewise. And some of the stories, like how his mother dragged him to a store to meet Paul Newman, don't really go anywhere in the end. OK, so one time at sleepaway camp the counselors ran a prison break movie on a rainy day, and the kids got to see some woman's naked ass, then they stopped the movie. Umm, sure, great story, please never tell it again because there's no point to it. 

The vast majority of those NYC movie theaters are no longer in business, I'm pretty sure - hell, even the theater I worked at in 1989 as an usher has been torn down, and nothing's been built in its place. It's a whole new scene now, really, but I'm working in a movie theater now which used to be like one of the grand theaters with a big balcony, but it's owned and run by an arts college now, and the balcony was turned into a second, smaller theater so we can host festivals and events of all sizes, as long as they don't want more than two screens. 

My own experiences with movies followed a similar, but also different arc - for a time all of the movies that I was allowed to watch were Disney animated films, plus "Mary Poppins" and "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang". Then my mother allowed me to watch "The Sound of Music", her favorite film of all time, and she tried to get me to watch all of the other Rodgers and Hammerstein films, too, but I wasn't interested in "Oklahoma" and "Carousel" and all that. But on the weekends I had my "Creature Feature" movies on TV, the Roger Corman/Edgar Allan Poe films, plus everything that had Godzilla, Mothra and/or Rodan in it. Like Shepard I'd seen the older version of "King Kong" and then my grandfather brought me to my first PG-rated movie, which was the "King Kong" remake of 1976. My mother nearly had a heart attack because I'd seen a film that wasn't recommended by the Catholic diocese newspaper, The Pilot. Then "Star Wars" was the game-changer, of course. With my Dad I also watched all of the Abbott & Costello films on Sunday afternoons, and if there was a Hitchcock film like "The Birds" or "Vertigo" running, I was allowed to see that, and my mother pointed out where Hitchcock appeared in all of his movies. I think I was really into "The Twilight Zone" on TV, and from there it wasn't a large leap to Hitchcock movies. Anything scarier, like "The Exorcist" or "Halloween" or "The Shining", fuggedaboutit.

I mean, I can go on and on like Shepard did, about all the movies I've ever seen - but that's what the BLOG is for, right? I mean, you're already soaking in it. And I've got my own personal list of all the famous people I've met or seen at the theater, I don't really go around bragging about all of that. Just kidding, I totally do. Like in the last five years, I've encountered a HUGE list of celebrities appearing at the screenings, to do Q&A's or pose on the red carpet or whatever. Just to name a few - Kathleen Turner, Robert De Niro, Pierce Brosnan, Whoopi Goldberg, Judd Apatow, the casts of "Hamnet", "The Naked Gun", the latest "Karate Kid" movie, "Glass Onion", Guillermo del Toro, both Duplass brothers, Darren Aronofsky, Paul Thomas Anderson, most recently Nicole Kidman, the list goes on and on, during a big festival like Tribeca it's really the place to be. Add that to the actors I've worked with over the years and everyone I've seen at Comic-Cons on both coasts, and my life list is pretty extensive. It's good to have the list because I'm starting to forget things, like who I saw at Sundance back in 1998 and 2001, but come on, that was a long time ago and before the age of digital photos even. 

Anyway, this is one of those films full of archive footage, which makes it a massive, massive portal for me - like I could have gone ANYWHERE from here, I could have dropped this film in anywhere in the chain, just about, or used it to connect two parts of the chain that otherwise would not have been able to be connected. But I think I'm not really using it for that purpose, I didn't need to, which is almost a damn shame. Instead it really just means that everyone I'm tracking for mentioning at the end of the year is getting one more appearance, so really, almost everyone's tally just increases, everyone moves up a notch, and if everyone scores, then really the points don't matter. So yeah, I'm going to track everyone's new tally, but it's going to take a really LONG time, at least I'll be up to 5 am listing the "last seen in" credits below. Thankfully I don't have to work at either job tomorrow, as a true Film Geek I can just stay at home and spend hours updating the IMDB, because that's what we do. 

There are thousands of film geeks out there, working in the film industry or dreaming about doing so, going to film festivals or running film festivals, watching movie marathons at home or out in public, it doesn't matter. Or just talking about the new DC or Marvel movie for hours on end, which is a socially acceptable thing to do now. Proud to be one of the film geeks of NYC.

Directed by Richard Shepard (director of "Dom Hemingway")

Also starring Richard Shepard

with archive footage of Bud Abbott (last seen in "The Automat"), Lou Costello (ditto), Jack Albertson (last seen in "Remembering Gene Wilder"), Karen Allen (last seen in "If These Walls Could Sing"), Nancy Allen (last seen in "De Palma"), Keith Gordon (ditto), Julie Andrews (last seen in "Starring Dick Van Dyke"), Fred Astaire (last seen in "Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion"), James Caan (ditto), Judy Garland (ditto), Lauren Bacall (last seen in "Being Eddie"), Marlon Brando (ditto), Charles Bronson (ditto), Mel Gibson (ditto), Martin Balsam (last seen in "Catch-22"), Belinda Bauer (last seen in "Flashdance"), Ingrid Bergman (last seen in "Whatever It Takes"), Sandra Bernhard (last seen in "Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story"), Linda Blair (last seen in "Scream"), Humphrey Bogart (last seen in "John Candy: I Like Me"), Mel Brooks (ditto), Michael Caine (ditto), Charlie Chaplin (ditto), Roger Ebert (ditto), Ray Bolger (last seen in "Sid & Judy"), Michael Bollner, David Bowie (last seen in "Flipside"), Peter Boyle (last seen in "Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!"), Marty Feldman (ditto), Teri Garr (ditto), Jeff Bridges (last heard in "Travelin' Band: Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall"), Adrien Brody (last seen in "Bullet Head"), James Brolin (last seen in "Pee-Wee as Himself"), Shelley Duvall (ditto), Albert Brooks (last seen in "Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story"), Richard Dreyfuss (ditto), Lorraine Gary (ditto), Pierce Brosnan (last seen in ABBA: Super Troupe"), Bryan Brown (last seen in "The Light Between Oceans"), Phil Brown, Logan Browning, Nicolas Cage (last seen in "Renfield"), Truman Capote (last seen in "Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything"), John Cazale (last seen in "The Conversation"), Frederic Forrest (ditto), Richard Chamberlain (last seen in "Being Mary Tyler Moore"), Dennis Christopher (last seen in "Breaking Away"), Jill Clayburgh (last seen in "Fools Rush In"), Julie Dawn Cole, Francis Ford Coppola (also carrying over from "Roger Corman: The Pope of Pop Cinema"), Angie Dickinson (ditto), Joseph Cotten (last seen in "They'll Love Me When I'm Dead"), Ben Cross (last seen in "A Bridge Too Far"), Scatman Crothers (last seen in "Stay Hungry"), Tony Curtis (last seen in "Pamela: A Love Story"), Anthony Daniels (last heard in "Star Wars; The Mandalorian and Grogu"), Daniel Day-Lewis (last seen in "Music by John Williams"), Alec Guinness (ditto), Catherine Deneuve (last seen in "The Kid Stays in the Picture"), Errol Flynn (ditto), Robert De Niro (last seen in "I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not"), Nora Denney, Matt Dillon (last seen in "Brats"), James Doohan (last seen in "Boomerang"), Keir Dullea (last seen in "Infinitely Polar Bear"), Faye Dunaway (last seen in "Valerie"), Dominique Dunne (last seen in "Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold"), Griffin Dunne (last seen in "Caught Stealing"), Robert Duvall (last seen in "Faye"), Hector Elizondo (last seen in "Georgia Rule"), Denholm Elliott (last seen in "An Accidental Studio"), Peter Falk (last seen in "Blake Edwards: A Love Story in 24 Frames"), America Ferrera (last seen in "It's a Disaster"), Albert Finney (last seen in "The Gathering Storm"), Carrie Fisher (last seen in "Cat Person"), Harrison Ford (ditto), Richard Gere (last seen in "Bob Fosse: It's Showtime!"), John Gielgud (last seen in "Shining Through"), Cary Grant (last seen in "Sigourney Weaver, the Most Iconic Action Heroine"), Lorne Greene (last seen in "Earthquake"), Sydney Greenstreet (last seen in "Casablanca"), Andre Gregory (last seen in "The Bonfire of the Vanities"), 

Gene Hackman (also last seen in "Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!"), Dustin Hoffman (ditto), Jessica Lange (ditto), Jerry Lewis (ditto), Cleavon Little (ditto), Zero Mostel (ditto), Paul Newman (ditto), Peter O'Toole (ditto), Jack Haley (last seen in "Sid & Judy"), Bert Lahr (ditto), James Mason (ditto), Jackie Earle Haley (last seen in "A Nightmare on Elm Street" (2010)), Mark Hamill (also last seen in "Music by John Williams"), George Hamilton (last seen in "Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story"), Margaret Hamilton (last seen in "Mister Rogers: It's You I Like"), Tippi Hedren (last seen in "Citizen Ruth"), Levon Helm (last seen in "Shooter"), Justin Henry (last seen in "Kramer vs. Kramer"), Audrey Hepburn (last seen in "Diana Ross: Supreme Sensation"), Charlton Heston (also last seen in "Being Eddie"), Bruce Lee (ditto), Judd Hirsch (last seen in "The Fabelmans"), Alfred Hitchcock (also last seen in "Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story"), Hal Holbrook (last seen in "I Am Burt Reynolds"), William Hootkins (last seen in "Town & Country"), Edward Everett Horton (last seen in "Shall We Dance"), Sally Ann Howes (also last seen in "Starring Dick Van Dyke"), Groucho Marx (ditto), Mary Tyler Moore (ditto), William Hurt (last seen in "Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story"), David Prowse (ditto), John Huston (last seen in "Call Me Kate"), Fred MacMurray (ditto), Timothy Hutton (also last seen in "Brats"), Jill Ireland, Jeremy Irons (last seen in "Tom Hanks: The Nomad"), Jude Law (ditto), Carol Kane (also last seen in "Caught Stealing"), Boris Karloff (also carrying over from "Roger Corman: The Pope of Pop Cinema"), Jack Nicholson (ditto), Danny Kaye (last seen in "Groucho & Cavett"), Diane Keaton (also last seen in "Sigourney Weaver, the Most Iconic Action Heroine"), Gene Kelly (also last seen in "Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion"), Bernadette Peters (ditto), Stephen King (last seen in "Creepshow 2"), Roy Kinnear (last seen in "Taste the Blood of Dracula"), Terry Kinney (last seen in "Save the Last Dance"), Kevin Kline (also last seen in "John Candy: I Like Me"), Steve Martin (ditto), Richard Nixon (ditto), Richard Pryor (ditto), Kris Kristofferson (also last seen in "Pee-Wee as Himself"), Burt Lancaster (last seen in "Marvin Hamlisch: What He Did for Love"), Mark Linn-Baker (last seen in "How Do You Know"), Danny Lloyd, Peter Lorre (last seen in "Priscilla"), Peter MacNicol (last seen in "Child Star"), Karl Malden (last seen in "Billion Dollar Brain"), Walter Matthau (last seen in "Famous Nathan"), Roddy McDowall, Malcolm McDowell (last seen in "Thelma"), Elizabeth McGovern, Steve McQueen (last seen in "Faye"), Burgess Meredith (also last seen in "I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not"), Barry Miller (last seen in "Mr. Saturday Night"), Donna Pescow (ditto), Helen Mirren (last seen in "Golda"), Alfred Molina (last seen in "Love Is Strange"), Ricardo Montalban (last seen in "Casa Bonita Mi Amor!"), Roger Moore (last seen in "Jim Henson: Idea Man"), Frank Morgan (last seen in "Broadway Melody of 1940"), Cathy Moriarty (last seen in "The Double"), Elisabeth Moss (last seen in "The Square"), Michael Murphy (last seen in "Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story")

David Naughton (last seen in "An American Werewolf in London"), James Naughton (last seen in "For the Love of Spock"), Barry Nelson (last seen in "Room 237"), Denise Nickerson, Leonard Nimoy (last seen in "When We Went MAD!"), Ryan O'Neal (ditto), Christopher Reeve (ditto), David Niven (last seen in "Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind"), Donald O'Connor (last seen in "Babylon"), Tatum O'Neal (last seen in "McEnroe"), Heather O'Rourke, Peter Ostrum (also last seen in "Remembering Gene Wilder"), Al Pacino (last seen in "Knox Goes Away"), Sean Penn (last seen in "Madonna: Goddess of Pop"), Anthony Perkins (last seen in "Lorne"), Joe Pesci (also last seen in "Music by John Williams"), Sidney Poitier (also last seen in "Being Eddie"), Dennis Quaid (last seen in "Strays"), Charlotte Rampling (last seen in "The Wings of the Dove"), Basil Rathbone, Robert Redford (last seen in "The Discovery"), Debbie Reynolds (last seen in "Albert Brooks: Defending My Life"), Peter Riegert (last seen in "Dear Ms.: A Revolution in Print"), Jason Robards (last seen in "Being Mary Tyler Moore"), Robbie Robertson (last seen in "Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind"), Edward G. Robinson, Richard Roundtree (also last seen in "Thelma"),  

Roy Scheider (also last seen in "Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story"), Robert Shaw (ditto), Martin Scorsese (also carrying over from "Roger Corman: The Pope of Pop Cinema"), William Shatner (ditto), Sylvester Stallone (ditto), Peter Sellers (also last seen in "John Candy: I Like Me"), Meryl Streep (ditto), Sigourney Weaver (ditto), Orson Welles (ditto), Wallace Shawn (last seen in "The Double"), Martin Sheen (last seen in "The Luckiest Man in America"), Talia Shire (last seen in "Faye"), O.J. Simpson (also last seen in "Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything"), Gene Siskel (also last seen in "When We Went MAD!"), Diana Sowle (last seen in "Guarding Tess"), Harry Dean Stanton (also last seen in "Sigourney Weaver, the Most Iconic Action Heroine"), Barbara Stanwyck (last seen in "Meet John Doe"), Daniel Stern (also last seen in "Music by John Williams"), James Stewart (also last seen in "Being Eddie"), Elizabeth Taylor (ditto), Paul Stewart (also last seen in "They'll Love Me When I'm Dead"), Leonard Stone (last seen in "Soylent Green"), Jerry Stiller (also last seen in "Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!"), Gene Wilder (ditto), Donald Sutherland (last seen in "The Mechanic"), Buddy Swan, Mr. T (last seen in "Sly"), Burt Young (ditto),  Rod Taylor (last seen in "The V.I.P.s"), Paris Themmen, Maura Tierney (last seen in "The Iron Claw"), John Travolta (last seen in "Dear Ms.: A Revolution in Print"), Kathleen Turner (last seen in "Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary"), Dick Van Dyke ("last seen in "Starring Dick Van Dyke"), Robert Vaughn (also last seen in "Blake Edwards: A Love Story in 24 Frames"), Jon Voight (last seen in "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning"), Christopher Walken (last seen in "At Close Range"), Jack Warden (last seen in "The Champ"), Emily Watson (last seen in "Hamnet"), Carl Weathers (last seen in "Happy Gilmore 2"), Allison Williams (last seen in "Get Out"), Billy Dee Williams (last seen in "The Ladies Man"), JoBeth Williams (last seen in "The Big Year"), Treat Williams (last seen in "Second Act"), Debra Winger (last seen in "Eulogy"), Fay Wray, Sean Young (also last seen in "Cat Person")

RATING: 5 out of 10 members of the "Bad News Bears" team

Roger Corman: The Pope of Pop Cinema

Year 18, Day 220 - 8/8/26 - Movie #5,397 - SQC DOC BLOCK FILM #36

BEFORE: I've been contacted once again to write about my previous life, and once again, it's in conjunction with the release (next year) of an animated feature that I worked on, and once again, it's an essay that will appear in the "special features" booklet of added material for those who purchase the Deluxe Limited Edition. That's right, people will need to pay extra to hear what I remember about the making of that film. Right now I'm waiting to hear if what I submitted is any good, like my wife liked it and my producer friend liked it, but I'm not sure yet if it's exactly what the Blu-Ray releasing company wants. Maybe I'll hear, "Cool stories, bro, but we were hoping to hear more about the change in production processes that took place during the switchover to digital filmmaking, could you maybe write some more about THAT?" We'll see. 

But I'm reminded of it today because most of the films I worked on never got major distribution, it's not that they were "B" pictures but it was more due to the fact that there's not much of a market in the U.S. for animated movies aimed at adults, it's largely thought of as a way to make movies for kids, but it doesn't HAVE to be that way, it's not like that in Europe or Japan. Most  attempts to make cartoons in the U.S. with adult themes never even get off the ground, because of the unwarranted fear that children will somehow be drawn to a cartoon and actually see an animated character drinking alcohol or smoking a cigarette or having sex, and that will be the moment that the world ends. But come on parent, your kids have to grow up and learn about the world at some point, wouldn't you rather they learn about sex via a cartoon porno, rather than a live-action porno? I'm kidding, because we have a thing in America called a ratings system, kids are not going to get into an "R"-rated movie, even a cartoon one. (Our work-around for this was to not have films reviewed by the ratings board at all, it turns out that entire process is voluntary.)

Anyway, my time spent working for the "Roger Corman" of animation will be well-documented one day, I just don't have the nerve to make that doc myself, but I have a feeling that the phone will ring one day, and it will be some enterprising filmmaker who wants the straight dope. I've got another film today that is NOT easily linking up with any particular U.S. state for my "Get to Know a State" feature, Corman was born near Detroit, but I've already profiled Michigan. And he made some films based on the work of Edgar Allan Poe, who was from Maryland, but I did that state, too.

But now I know what to do, just Google "Roger Corman" along with each of the five as-yet unassigned states, and take the best result. That leads me today to the filming location of TWO Roger Corman films that were shot back-to-back in 1960, "Ski Troop Attack" and "Beast from Haunted Cave", which were filmed in the Black Hills of...SOUTH DAKOTA! So there you go, not a bad connection. 

Date admitted to the U.S.: November 2, 1889 (either the 39th or 40th state, the Dakotas were a package deal and twinsies)

Claim to fame: Well, sure, Mount Rushmore. It's not like anyone's flocking to South Dakota to see the shooting location of "Beast from Haunted Cave".

Nickname: The Mount Rushmore State. See? I told you.

State Motto: Under God, the People Rule.

State Flower: American pasque flower

State Bird: Ring-necked pheasant

State Fish: Walleye

State Animal: Coyote

State Insect: Western honey bee. Come on, isn't it always?

State Grass: Western wheat grass 

State Fossil: Triceratops

State Mineral: Rose quartz

State Tree: Black hills spruce

Notable Sports Teams: The state sport is Rodeo, so unless there's a rodeo team, no dice. 

Fun Facts: Let's see, the Missouri River divides the state into two parts - nah, that's no fun. Dust Bowl, Great Depression, no, no. Custer found gold in the Black Hills, nah, who cares? Really, the most fun thing about the state is that Grover Cleveland shuffled up the statehood papers so nobody could ever tell which state was the 39th and which was the 40th. Hah hah, what a card, that Grover Cleveland, most people just go alphabetically and list North before South though. South Dakota clearly has "lesser Dakota syndrome", which explains why somebody was asked to carve President faces into a mountain, right? OK, so it's been 100 years, isn't anyone ever going to finish that damn sculpture? Every attempt to add more faces has never gained enough support, not for Kennedy or Reagan and (let's hope) Trump too.  

Ron Howard carries over from "John Candy: I Like Me" and I'm going to send out a rare DocBlock Birthday SHOUT-out to his "Happy Days" cast-mate, Don Most, born August 8, 1953. Jeez, it's been a while since I landed a birthday... And I have NOT been to South Dakota, so I'm holding at 23 states visited out of 36.

THE PLOT: The exploitation career of maverick producer Roger Corman, covering his heyday as a director, touching upon subjects that major studios wouldn't allow that appealed mainly to youth audiences at their local drive-ins. 

AFTER: Roger Corman made a lot of films, sure, as a producer he's got 490 credits on IMDB and 56 as a director, but were any of them, you know, GOOD? As I mentioned, as a kid I got into his Poe-based movies like "The Raven", "House of Usher", "The Black Cat" and "The Pit and the Pendulum". Oh, yeah, and "The Masque of the Red Death", I was probably reading collections of Edgar Allan at the same time, junior high school let's say, and the local Boston TV UHF station had Saturday programming called "Creature Feature", it was a big hit bit of programming in town, often with very crappy movies. "B" pictures, but also probably "C" and "D"-level. 

After that, Roger Corman and I kind of parted ways, and though I probably saw other films he produced, he didn't direct too many films after that. He was, however, very influential on the next wave of directors younger than him, giving jobs, assistance and advice to Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Peter Bogdanovich, among others. Joe Dante and Ron Howard also were "students" of his school of filmmaking, which I take to mean a very loose set of rules, not an actual classroom where they could go and study the craft of filmmaking. Ron Howard needed to learn from someone that time is money, and daylight only lasts so long, so right after one shot on a movie set is completed, you've got to go RIGHT into the next shot, call it out so the team of people can get working on whatever that requires. You don't stand around congratulating yourself until the entire film is in the can, so to speak. 

Roger Corman seemed to have more luck with people who wanted to remake his films, at least he made a lot of money from selling the remake rights to "Death Race 2000" (funny, I just watched the remake with Jason Statham earlier this movie year) and also "The Fast and the Furious", though I suspect that Corman's version doesn't look a thing like the films in the more recent franchise with that name. Funny, I heard that you can't copyright a title, like if I wanted to make a movie about tornado chasers and call it "Gone with the Wind", I could do that, but maybe the filmmakers just wanted to go above and beyond, and not risk getting sued by Roger Corman. 

I never saw "The Wild Angels", but since it's a biker movie with Peter Fonda, I get the feeling somebody just ripped Corman off and made "Easy Rider" and that was a much, much more successful motorcycle film, at least it meant something to the hippie generation, Corman just made a film about a biker gang, however, and I guess forgot that it should tap into the zeitgeist of the culture, too?  And Corman made the original "Little Shop of Horrors" film, which was a minor cult classic, but then after being a Broadway musical it was then a MUCH bigger hit when that musical was re-made as a film. And I guess that's why we got a new "Matilda" movie and also a new "Mean Girls" remake, they were both Broadway musicals in-between. I guess that was the secret sauce, Corman should have had "Sharktopus" turned into a stage musical, then somebody would have likely turned it into a better, more successful movie. 

Corman, of course, founded New World Pictures, and over the years many directors were in and out of working for that studio, and a lot of films got made, probably a lot of BAD films got made, but there became a market for all of them once people were standing in Blockbuster Video stores, desperate for entertainment when all of the copies of "My Cousin Vinny" were rented out. Ok, ok, we'll watch "Big Bad Mama II" instead, it's fine. But see if you can get "Sorority House Massacre" too, because the weekend's coming up. 

Yes, at some point New World made the switch-over from quality productions to quantity ones, films that were made on the cheap JUST to have something showing at the drive-ins next summer. As Ron Howard said here, sometimes the movies at the drive-ins were more interesting than the company, and other times you just wanted an excuse to fool around with your lover in the car (like, with everybody watching?) and that was way more exciting than the movie.  But hey, if the drive-in's playing "The Young Nurses" that could help your boyfriend get in the mood, just saying. 

I'm still glad somebody made this documentary before Roger Corman passed away in 2024, it's important to hear him talk about his filmmaking process, by way of explaining also WHY those films got made the way they did, if we didn't hear him talk about it future generations would be scratching their heads wondering what a "B-picture" was, whether there really was a man who had X-ray eyes, or a planet of prehistoric women. Corman talks here about doing his own research for a film called "The Trip" about using LSD, however using acid only made him very happy, and the film needed to have some conflict in it, so they had to invent some kind of down side to using drugs, otherwise the film would never pass the censors or the court of public opinion. 

It's not mentioned here in this documentary (which ran on Turner Classic Movies), but Corman's distribution company brought many foreign films to screen in American theaters, like the works of Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, Francois Truffaut and Kurosawa, among others. That's nothing to sneeze at, film fans can't become fans of films that they can't see, and for him to deliver those amazing films to American audiences, that's a mitzvah for sure. This film was only 52 minutes long, so you can't tell me there couldn't have been a mention of this, even if it made the film three minutes longer, who cares? 

The most expensive film Corman ever made was the "Star Wars" rip-off film, "Battle Beyond the Stars". It seems only fair for him to rip off George Lucas, when so many other filmmakers, Lucas's contemporaries, were ripping off Corman. Then it seems Corman sold New World Pictures to a group of lawyers in 1983 (that's not mentioned in this film either) and kind of cashed out, but stayed on as a consultant to the company (another cash grab, probably). But the whole affair ended up in a bunch of lawsuits, with each side claiming the other wasn't holding up their end of the deal, and as a result Corman didn't direct another film for a very long time, like seven years. Let's also remember that Corman was the first person to direct a film version of "The Fantastic Four" in 1994, and sure, it was terrible, from what I hear. It was made cheaply only to be able to retain the rights to the characters, and then it was so bad that Marvel paid him even more to never release it. Another case of somebody making a BETTER version of a Roger Corman film, years later, with him out of the picture. What the heck does THAT tell you? 

Directed by Bertrand Tessier

Also starring Roger Corman (last seen in "Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project"), Paul W.S. Anderson, Allan Arkush (last seen in "Rock 'n' Roll High School"), Peter Bogdanovich (last seen in "Blake Edwards: A Love Story in 24 Frames"), Gene Corman, Julie Corman, Joe Dante (last seen in "Eating Raoul")

with archive footage of Paul Bartel (also last seen in "Eating Raoul"), David Carradine (last seen in "Crank: High Voltage"), Francis Ford Coppola (last seen in "Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!"), Boris Karloff (ditto), Bruce Dern (last seen in "Old Dads"), Angie Dickinson (last seen in "Valerie"), Peter Fonda (last seen in "Cheech & Chong's Last Movie"), Jonathan Haze (last seen in "East of Eden"), Dennis Hopper (last seen in "I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not"), Jackie Joseph (last seen in "Gremlins 2: The New Batch"), Don Most (last seen in "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind"), Anson Williams (ditto), Jack Nicholson (also carrying over from "John Candy: I Like Me"), Tim O'Kelly, Gregory Peck (last seen in "Music by John Williams"), Vincent Price (last seen in "Wolfgang"), Shane Schoeppner, Martin Scorsese (last seen in "Sergio Leone: The Italian Who Invented America"), William Shatner (last seen in "When We Went MAD!"), Nancy Sinatra (last seen in "Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple"), Sylvester Stallone (last seen in "Pamela: A Love Story"), Jason Statham (last seen in "Death Race"), Mamie van Doren, Mary Woronov (last seen in "The Velvet Underground")

RATING: 5 out of 10 "Corman's Cult Classics" released on DVD in 2010.

John Candy: I Like Me

Year 18, Day 219 - 8/7/26 - Movie #5,396 - SQC DOC BLOCK FILM #35

BEFORE: Ryan Reynolds carries over from again from "I Am: Celine Dion". Yes, my Doc Block that was supposed to be all U.S.-themed has been invaded by Canadians. I mean, they're very FUNNY Canadians, for the most part, except for Celine Dion and Paul Anka, so I'm trying very hard to be OK with it. A bunch of people from around the Toronto area ended up on SNL, or producing SNL, or on SCTV, which also kind of aired on NBC late on Friday nights, and that's what I watched as a kid, SNL and SCTV. 

However, all these Canadians are quite problematic when it comes to assigning U.S. states to these documentaries. Canada, it turns out, is NOT part of the U.S. - not yet, anyway - so this is forcing me to be very creative when finding states to profile each night. But I looked up where 'Stripes" was filmed, and it turned out the army training scenes were shot in KENTUCKY, like in and around Fort Knox. So there you go, we know that John Candy spent some time there, so tonight's "Get to Know a State" state is KENTUCKY!

Date admitted to the U.S.: June 1, 1792 (15th state)

Claim to fame: I just said it, Fort Knox is there, OK I'll throw in the Kentucky Derby as well.

Nickname: The Bluegrass State. Sure, why not? 

State Motto: Either "United we stand, divided we fall" or "Deo gratiam habeamus". Your pick. 

State Flower: Goldenrod

State Bird: Cardinal

State Fish: Kentucky spotted bass

State Horse breed: Thoroughbred, because nobody likes a non-thorough horse. 

State Insect: Western honeybee

State Mushroom: Indigo milkcap

State Fossil: Mitch McConnell

State Dance: Clogging

State Tree: Tulip poplar

Notable Sports Teams: None that I'm aware of. Who has time for major league sports, what with all the horse racing and the clogging? Sure, there's triple-A baseball and college football, but who gives a shit about that? 

Fun Facts: Except for the excitement of that Kentucky Derby, there's no fun in Kentucky, I'll bet. That's why they need to make all that bourbon and moonshine. Do they even know that the Civil War ended? I'm not sure. They have both kinds of wild turkey, the animal kind and the alcohol kind. Mammoth Cave might be fun if you like that sort of thing, I can't do caves myself, there's that deep-seated fear that as soon as I go in, TODAY will be the day that the cave collapses, even it's been solid and non-collapsing for thousands of years. Mountain climbing, whitewater rafting, hiking, yeah those are not my idea of fun, either. 

Which is why I've never been to Kentucky - so I'm still holding at 23 states visited out of 35 now.

THE PLOT: Explores the life of iconic funnyman John Candy, who died of a heart attack in 1994 at age 43. 

AFTER: OK, so I had to work for just a few hours today, the health services group that rented the theater for their annual staff meeting suddenly decided the other day to rent the small theater in addition to the big theater, so I got called in just to oversee the team-building exercises in the small theater. Great, I SO LOVE corporate B.S. and team-building exercises and I don't consider them a waste of everyone's time AT ALL. But hey, it's a shift, and a short one at that - I can come in on a couple day's notice and pick up a few more hours. After the meeting they put out a bunch of food in the lobby from several prominent local food chains - Popeye's, Shake Shack, Insomnia Cookies. I was offered a chance to eat, but I didn't take much, because my wife was cooking dinner. If there's any of that food left in the staff fridge tomorrow, well, that's another story. 

I got off at 6 pm and headed home - only to encounter a real jerk on the subway who was using the elevator for a full-on moped, not a simple scooter or electric bike, which would be legal, he brought a full-size moped into the subway, which I'm pretty sure is illegal. His perception was that I did not back up enough to allow him to get his moped off the elevator, however I maintained that I DID back up, he had plenty of room to get his illegal vehicle off the elevator, however I was standing close by, as you do, because once he did get his moped out of the way, I needed to board the elevator before the doors closed. We exchanged words, obviously we disagreed about whether I backed up as requested, which I did, and he came back onto the elevator to try and have the last word, sticking his finger in my face and threatening to slap me. 

This guy was looking for a fight, no doubt, but I wasn't going to take the bait. Every time I've ever been in a fight it's ended badly. I just maintained that he was wrong, I did back up, and suddenly I was a "cracker" who had "white privilege" and I assure you, nothing could be further from the truth. Dude, I can show you my bank balance, trust me, there's no "privilege" to be found there. He left and still I had to yell at him again, my need to get in the last word was my downfall. He came BACK on the elevator again and slapped/punched me. I did not retaliate, I did not escalate, I just wanted him to go away at that point, thinking he'd won. I went straight to the police and filed a report, because he had bent my glasses, pushed them into my face and I was bleeding a bit. Look, I don't expect the police to track this guy down, most likely he'll go unprosecuted, hopefully he'll pick a fight very soon with someone who actually can punch back. 

Oh, I wanted to, but really, I'm a big guy who's no good in a fistfight, I know this from experience. Doing nothing when someone punches you is very, very tough to do, but even if I had punched back and somehow won the fight, how would THAT have looked? A big white guy beating up a smaller black guy, not a good look, in addition to being impossible. Let me use my "white privilege" to report him for assault and a hate crime, sure, elder abuse too, let's see how he likes that once the cops review the camera footage. 

I'm going to give this pacifist thing a try, it doesn't really sit well - but for all I know, this guy had a knife or a gun and if I'd escalated things, or taken his picture, or thrown his moped on to the subway tracks, who knows, maybe I never would have made it home, I could have been in jail or a hospital or a morgue. This is the best outcome I could have hoped for, no permanent damage and only my pride is sore. I have to think it's what John Candy would have done, taken the hit. Not Dewey Oxberger, but John Candy probably. 

Nobody here really had anything bad to say about John Candy, and really, that's a rarity. He was in a bunch of great movies, he had a wife and two kids, and he was really really funny. OK, so he had addictions of his own, probably, drinking and food, but nobody said anything about drugs, also he seemed to get depressed a bit, but who doesn't? He had a fear of dying early because his father died at the age of 35, but if anything that should have motivated him even more to get and stay healthy, which it didn't. Once John Belushi died he kind of figured his days were numbered, but I guess if I'm looking for any kind of positive spin he made it to age 43, while Belushi only made it to 33 and the same goes for Chris Farley. If he thought he wasn't going to make it to 35, he did get 8 years beyond that. I know, that's little consolation. 

But look at that track record - "Stripes", "Splash", "Spaceballs", "Uncle Buck", "Planes, Trains and Automobiles", supporting roles in "The Blues Brothers", "National Lampoon's Vacation", "Home Alone", "JFK", "The Great Outdoors", "Cool Runnings", "Brewster's Millions" and "Little Shop of Horrors". That's a phenomenal resume, but you can't take the good without the bad, of course there were missteps like "Nothing but Trouble", "Who's Harry Crumb?", "1941" and "Once Upon a Crime..."  And you know, "Canadian Bacon" isn't a terrible film, it was just a fiction film made by a documentarian, which just created a weird result. 

He was also in NINE John Hughes movies, I think that's more than Molly Ringwald even. At some point after he and Hughes crossed paths, there was a close friendship there and their families even went on vacations together, and not to Wallyworld. I think the montage of other films by John Hughes went on a little too long here, because some of those films didn't have John Candy in them, and that's really why we're here, but it's a minor quibble.  All that great work on SCTV, too, developing all those great recurring characters like Johnny LaRue and the Schmenge Brothers and Doctor Tongue and of course the mayor of Melonville, Tommy Shanks. 

Really, he was like the Chevy Chase of "SCTV", the first cast member to break out and appear in feature films. He couldn't really believe it when Steven Spielberg approached him and wanted to cast him in "1941", but when Spielberg comes and find you, you should probably go with him and do what he wants, even if he cheated his way into the industry. That brought John Candy into movies with Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi, and he was in "Stripes" with Bill Murray and "Vacation" with Chevy Chase, so for years he was SNL-cast adjacent, and it turned out to be a great thing, one that led him into bigger and bigger movies. And was there any bigger movie than "Splash" in 1984? Co-starring with Tom Hanks was also a very smart thing to do, and he did that twice, and also had great chemistry with Steve Martin in "Planes, Trains and Automobiles". 

He fulfilled his lifelong sports dream (he was cut from football after a knee injury) by becoming a co-owner of the Toronto Argonauts in the Canadian Football League, along with Wayne Gretzky and Bruce McNall. From the look of things this was more than just a side hustle for him, he really found himself involved in the operation of the team and celebrated when they won the Grey Cup in 1991, however, of course there was a downside, this doc suggests that flying all over with the team and spending so much time and effort to help run things, that this may have contributed to health problems in his final days. Did the CFL kill John Candy? It's not for me to say - maybe it was the stress of making "Wagons East", in addition to all the other stress factors in his life. 

Anyway, we're celebrating the life of John Candy tonight, it's inspiring that there can be funny and decent and well-meaning people in entertainment once in a while, that they don't all have terminal cases of "Artist Brain" after all. 

Directed by Colin Hanks (producer of "Say Hey, Willie Mays!")

Also starring Steve Aker, Andrew Alexander, Dan Aykroyd (last seen in "I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not"), Steve Martin (ditto), Bill Murray (ditto), Martin Short (ditto), Mel Brooks (last seen in "Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!"), Chris Candy, Jennifer Candy-Sullivan, Rose Candy, Chris Columbus (last seen in "Child Star"), Macaulay Culkin (ditto), Rita Davidson, Tom Davidson, Robin Duke (last seen in "Being Eddie"), Terry Enright, Ennio Gregoris, Tom Hanks (last seen in "Freaky Tales"), Pat Kelly, Don Lake (last heard in "Zootopia 2"), Eugene Levy (last seen in "Once Upon a Crime..."), Andrea Martin (last seen in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3"), Catherine McCartney, Conan O'Brien (last seen in "Starring Dick Van Dyke"), Catherine O'Hara (last seen in "Lorne"), Dave Thomas (ditto), Kelvin Pruenster, 

with archive footage of John Candy (also last seen in "Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!"), Matthew Broderick (ditto), Charlie Chaplin (ditto), Larry King (ditto), Rick Moranis (ditto), Bill Pullman (ditto), Orson Welles (ditto), Daphne Zuniga (ditto), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (last seen in "What's My Name: Muhammad Ali"), Karen Austin, Dana Barron (also last seen in "I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not"), John Belushi (ditto), Johnny Carson (ditto), Chevy Chase (ditto), Beverly D'Angelo (ditto), Anthony Michael Hall (ditto), Paul McCartney (ditto), Eddie Murphy (ditto), Richard Pryor (ditto), Gilda Radner (ditto), Jim Belushi (last heard in "Belushi"), Joe Flaherty (ditto), Harold Ramis (ditto), Milton Berle (last seen in "Cheech & Chong's Last Movie"), Humphrey Bogart (last seen in "Raise Hell: The Life and Times of Molly Ivins"), Valri Bromfield, Michael Caine (last seen in "Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story"), Evangeline Candy, Jim Candy, Sidney Candy, Dick Cavett (last seen in "Starring Dick Van Dyke"), Oliver Hardy (ditto), Stan Laurel (ditto), Carl Reiner (ditto), John Chancellor (last seen in "Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything"), Kevin Costner (last seen in "Draft Day"), Richard Crenna (last seen in "Sly"), John Diehl (last seen in "Armageddon Time"), Bob Dylan (last seen in "Roy Orbison Forever"), George Harrison (ditto), Ringo Starr (ditto), Roger Ebert (last seen in "When We Went MAD!"), Joe Piscopo (ditto), Steven Spielberg (ditto), Emilio Estevez (last seen in "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning"), Victor Garber (last seen in "Dark Waters"), Jackie Gleason (last seen in "Paul Anka: His Way"), Paul Gleason (last seen in "Brats"), John Hughes (ditto), Demi Moore (ditto), Judd Nelson (ditto), Molly Ringwald (ditto), Ally Sheedy (ditto), Ronny Graham (last seen in "The World's Greatest Lover"), Wayne Gretzky, Daryl Hall (last seen in "Devo"), John Oates (ditto), Brianna Hildebrand (last seen in "Deadpool & Wolverine"), Shioli Kutsuna (ditto), Gaby Hoffmann (last seen in "Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere"), Ron Howard (last seen in "Music by John Williams"), Ernie Hudson (last seen in "Sigourney Weaver, the Most Iconic Action Heroine"), Kevin Kline (ditto), Sigourney Weaver (ditto), Anjelica Huston (also last seen in "Child Star"), John F. Kennedy (last seen in "Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion"), Jack Nicholson (ditto), Meryl Streep (ditto), Joey Lawrence, John Lennon (last seen in "Stevie Nicks: Wild at Heart"), David Letterman (also last seen in "Raise Hell: The Life and Times of Molly Ivins"), Ray Liotta (last seen in "Fool's Paradise"), Shirley MacLaine (last seen in "Being Eddie"), Peter Sellers (ditto), Bruce McNall, Marilyn Suzanne Miller, Richard Nixon (last seen in "John McCain: For Whom the Bell Tolls"), Maureen O'Hara (last seen in "Jamaica Inn"), Warren Oates (last seen in "The Old Man & the Gun"), Sydney Pollack (last seen in "Made of Honor"), Judge Reinhold (last seen in "Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F"), Alan Ruck (last seen in "The Burial"), Betty Thomas, Terry Thomas (last seen in "How Sweet It Is!"), Tony Todd (last seen in "Candyman"), Steven Williams, and the voice of Seth McFarlane (also last seen in "Music by John Williams")

RATING: 7 out of 10 animated characters with John Candy's voice

I Am: Celine Dion

Year 18, Day 217 - 8/5/26 - Movie #5,395 - SQC DOC BLOCK FILM #34

BEFORE: I've been working both jobs this week, so I need sleep, I think I need to skip a day just to catch up again - I've got extra days to work with, so if I took a day off during the Doc Block it wouldn't be the worst thing, but I'd have one less day to work with when it comes time to connect the Doc Block to the Shock Block. We'll see, I'm only human and I need to rest often. 

Celine Dion is another Canuck who has invaded my attempt at a very U.S. themed documentary block, so, umm, what state can I link her to, what would make the most sense here? By now I know the drill, I'm going to Google her name along the names of those still-available states and go with the most relevant response. And today that turns out to be NORTH DAKOTA, because when she got back into touring in 2019 after a period of NOT touring, she announced her first-ever concert in Fargo, ND, to take place October 30, 2019 at the FargoDome. And hey, North Dakota is close to Canada, right? Close as I can get...So here we go with today's "Get to Know a State" feature: 

Date admitted to the U.S.: November 2, 1889 (39th or 40th state?)

Claim to fame: The northernmost of all the Dakotas, for sure, yeah, you betcha

Nickname: The Peace Garden State. Sounds nice but probably a bunch of BS

State Motto: Liberty and Union, Now and Forever, One and Inseparable. Great guys, but that's not going to fit on the license plates. 

State Flower: Wild prairie rose

State Bird: Western meadowlark

State Fish: Northern pike

State Fruit: Chokecherry

State Insect: Convergent lady beetle

State Grass: Western wheatgrass

State Fossil: Teredo petrified wood

State Dance: Square dance

State Tree: American elm

Notable Sports Teams: The state sport is curling, that should tell you all you need to know.

Fun Facts: Ugh, it's all Native American and fur-trading history stuff, isn't it? Like even the "Fargo" movie and all the seasons of the "Fargo" TV show all find a way to mostly take place in other cities, and I can't say I blame them. Well, the states annual murder and violent crime rates have regularly been the lowest in the country for decades, so even their CRIME is boring. Come on guys, let's turn that around, OK? Their most precious resources are soil and minerals, and that just makes me want to take a nap, right now. No lie, it is the LEAST visited state in the U.S., because it has no major tourist attractions - people are staying away in droves. All across the country, the response to "Where do you want to go on vacation, Honey" is always, "Well, anywhere but North Dakota!"

Ryan Reynolds carries over from "I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not". And I've never been to North Dakota, or does that go without saying? Holding at 23 states visited out of 34.

THE PLOT: A raw and honest behind-the-scenes look at the iconic superstar's struggle with Stiff Person Syndrome, a life-altering illness. 

AFTER: I have become a very cynical person, it's true, and whether this is from a combination of old age, experience, or the news over the last few years is perhaps a debatable point. We all went through COVID, with everyone stuck at home and weighing in on what to do about the pandemic situation, while only 1% of the people screaming about it were actually qualified to know what the hell they were talking about - and then THOSE people, like Dr. Fauci, are still somehow being held responsible for what they said that was wrong, or perceived to be wrong but still factually correct. Then we've got our lying SOS President, who has more difficulty NOT lying about things, so you know, he's just going to go with what's worked in the past, which is to claim that Rosie O'Donnell is a fat pig and John McCain is not a war hero and we've won the war that we just started, however the war also needs to continue and that is not a contradiction. And thousands, thousands of lies in-between. Then we've got people on social media who are living their best lives, like ALL the time so they can humblebrag about it and make the rest of us feel like we're commoners by comparison. Sure, you post your vacation photos, I get it, but then to be fair and give us the whole picture you should also post pictures from that weekend you didn't go anywhere, you just stayed in and made a fried bologna sandwich for lunch and doom-scrolled for six hours. 

There's a person posting on Instagram who's convinced that he's got the dirt on Guy Fieri, famous for his "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" show, where he travels the country in search of funky joints serving delicious and off-beat food that you really, really should check out if you find yourself in that city. Guy has parlayed that hosting gig into a solid job hosting THREE other Food Network shows, at least, and a mega-chain of his own restaurants across the country, which I will have to try sometime in the future - is his BBQ restaurant in Atlantic City still a thing? But now this internet researcher claims that Guy does NOT EAT the food from the diners and dives he visits, because we never see him swallow food on camera. He infers or implies, therefore, that Guy spits out the food off-camera. Look, there could be a dozen personal reasons and another dozen editing/artistic reasons why we never see this - it's unattractive to watch people swallow, it takes too long and interrupts the fast-paced editing of the show, it's time wasted watching him chew and swallow which could be devoted to him telling us more about the restaurant, which he can't do when his mouth is full. Or if he DOES spit out the food, and I'm not saying he does, I don't know, it could be due to an allergy or a personal preference, or he doesn't like the food (that contrary to the message of the show, that this joint is banging) or he has to visit four different restaurants in that city on that day, and if he really ate all that food, he would get full too quickly and also weigh 500 pounds eventually. My educated guess is that for time and artistic editing reasons, we just never see it. But once someone raises the question, now everything is suspect, and people with too much time on their hands are now watching the show more carefully than ever before, picking out clips where it LOOKS LIKE the food was still on the fork when it came out of his mouth. Therefore, I don't know, he's some kind of charlatan or criminal mastermind and he'll have to give back his Emmy or be replaced as the host of T.O.C. Why don't you people do something more worthwhile, like demand that Spielberg give back his Oscar for "Schindler's List" because he was never officially hired by Paramount, he just walked in and set up a fake office and began his directing career? 

Anyway, that brings me to Celine Dion and her diagnosis of Stiff People Syndrome, a rare and mysterious disease that affects up to one out of every 8 billion people in the world, in other words, maybe just her. There's no known cause, there are treatments which seem to help but ultimately no known cure, either, really I think more research needs to be done, but she claims it started with vocal spasms years ago, she simply couldn't hit some of the higher notes, and from there it just got worse and worse to the point where now if she gets too excited or works too hard her whole body would seize up and shut down, and so she's got a whole team of doctors and experts on hand to care for her when this happens - and she put her touring schedule on hold for about 10 years, which just happened to coincide with time spent watching her twin boys grow up between the ages of like 6 and 16. You know, when they're easy to deal with and haven't started rebelling yet. Also her husband died in 2016, and sure, I can see how that would be tough to deal with, probably anyone who went through the death of their spouse would have days where they didn't want to leave the mansion, complete with its outdoor boxing ring, pool area and indoor bowling alley and recording studio. 

I can't find it now, but I remember hearing some stand-up comedian make a joke about her condition, how she definitely DID NOT come up with this syndrome herself in order to get out of her contract for her Las Vegas residency which was set up by her husband/manager who was much older than her and possibly groomed her for a relationship while managing her career. No, of course not, that couldn't possibly be the case - but we find humor in sarcasm, and in every joke there is quite possibly an element of truth. So therefore I am definitely not saying that she for sure faked her illness, but I want to confirm that she's definitely for sure suffering from the condition known as "Artist Brain". Again, I'm not a doctor, but I happen to be one of the world's foremost experts on A.B. and it comes from my experiences dealing with film and TV directors, the kind who are very full of themselves, think they are very entitled and that the rules don't apply to them. And I keep seeing people who suffer from this condition again and again in these documentaries, they need to be the center of attention at all times, they have a succession of failed marriages (I know, who doesn't) and many of them have drug or alcohol problems as well. A side effect of A.B. is thinking that they're above getting addicted, they've got a handle on their addiction and also their career. No, they don't. 

Right or wrong, sick or not sick, Ms. Dion did start canceling and re-scheduling shows at some point, and this led to her greatest fear, that someone who paid hundreds to see her in concert, and had to get a refund, would see her out in public, like in a restaurant or something, having a nice time with her family, and approach her and be very upset with her. That's the fear, like I get it, I have stress dreams now where I'm serving ice cream to a long line of people and I can't quiet get the hang of making the ice cream look nice in the cone, or I can't get the lids on the soda cups, and also I may have forgotten to put on my pants. But you do you, Celine - that did lead to her being something of a shut-in, unable to leave the house - let's be real, she wasn't exactly going to go out grocery shopping herself, she's got staff for that. 

Let's also be real about this - fame is a drug, too - she talks about getting that feeling from performing on stage for a crowd of thousands, like really letting loose and feeling that power, and then she says it, once you feel that you can't wait to feel it again, like WHEN IS THE NEXT SHOW? That's an addict talking, and they will do anything to keep the supply coming - what she did when she could not perform at a high standard was say that she had a sore throat, or an ear infection, and now she says those were little lies told to deal with "Stiff Person Syndrome", or maybe just to kick the can down the road a little longer and stay famous for another year before retiring. There's no shame in retiring, she clearly has enough money to do that, only she doesn't want to - and that's not for our benefit, it's for hers. There are plenty of actors and actresses who retired and stopped making movies just because they got old, and they didn't want to be seen as old on screen. Jack Nicholson, Gene Hackman, Robert Duvall, they basically disappeared from sight at some point, as is their choice to do so - it's always a valid option when you have money.

The documentary also shows Dion dubbing lines for her appearance in the movie "Love Again", which I watched in February. Her character there, a semi-fictional version of herself, functioned as the "love expert" in the film. The main characters kept seeking her advice on how to handle their relationship problems, and yeah, I don't know. Again we have to wonder about the circumstances of how she got into a relationship with her manager, who again was much older than her, and how vulnerable as a person she might have been at the age of 21 or 24 or whatever. She got famous and she got three children and she certainly got rich, I'm just not sold on the idea of that being love, or the kind of love that would make her an expert on love. But I'm not going to speak directly about things that I do not know about first-hand, because then I would be part of the problem and not part of the solution. 

There's no question that she's talented, there's no question that she's famous and has zillions of fans, and that her albums and tours have been enormously popular and successful over the years. But like with any career, the question does eventually become, when is it time to call it quits? And will retirement be self-imposed, will it be the result of outside forces or changing tastes, or will it come due to age or an illness? I'm just kidding here, because the first one almost never happens, just look at Paul Anka and Mel Brooks and Dick Van Dyke and Roy Orbison and David Lynch and so money others. Nobody wants to quit, but we all do understand if you HAVE to quit. It's not failing if you just can't do it any more, and you go out on top. 

All that being said, I noticed during this documentary that Ms. Dion seemed very energetic when she took the film crew through a tour of the giant warehouse that stores every dress, every pair of shoes and every piece of every costume she's ever worn on stage. So, umm, where was her SPS that day when she spent the day walking around, opening boxes, digging through pairs of shoes that weren't even in her size? Sure, she's going to need to archive all of this someday, or somebody will, but if she's got four of each dress that she's never going to wear any more, why not donate some of those items? Or sell them or auction them and give the profits to charity? She was also RIGHT THERE with the vacuum when her son dropped some coconut husks on the TV room floor. I guess the Stiff Person Syndrome comes and goes, I'm just saying.  

The big confession here is that she has the disease - which is kind of backwards and non-PC because people shouldn't have to "confess" they have a disability, however this does mean that she lied about having those smaller illnesses when she was really covering up the larger illness. OK, so she lied then, but she's telling the truth now, got it. Come on, we all know that once you start lying and you get away with it, it's a slippery slope. Like I didn't keep my animation job for 31 years by admitting that I made mistakes, I kept my animation job for 31 years by covering up my mistakes, or by pointing out how they were NOT mistakes, it's what we all do. And we all call in sick from time to time, and sometimes we're really sick and sometimes we're not. So all I'm saying here is that I'm not sure she's really sick, or if she's telling another lie. I'm certainly not in a position to make that call - but I have every right to be cynical about it.

Directed by Irene Taylor

Also starring Celine Dion (last seen in "Paul Anka: His Way"), Eddy Angelil, Nelson Angelil, Terrill Lobo, Dave Platel, Denis Savage, 

with archive footage of Rene Angelil, Priyanka Chopra Jonas (last seen in "Love Again"), Sam Heughan (ditto), James Corden (last seen in "Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story"), Rick Dees (last seen in "Beatles '64"), Jimmy Fallon (also carrying over from "I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not"), John Farnham

RATING: 3 out of 10 video birthday messages (is Celine Dion on Cameo?)