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Thursday, July 27

Live from Suburbia: The Alice Cooper Show

by Mike on Thu 27 Jul 2006 06:19 PM EDT

It was a sign of the times, for sure. Last Thursday night, Alice Cooper came to Dayton, Ohio. Back in his heyday, Alice surely would have played to a packed house at the area’s main venue of the day, Dayton’s Hara Arena. But the 2006 version of the Alice Cooper Show was performed at Fraze Pavillion in Kettering. Fraze is an open-air amphitheater in an almost posh suburban area. In fact, it’s right across the street from a duck pond and just a wee bit away from the local park and playground. The lead singer from the opening band even said that he had been advised to refrain from using profanity during their set because there was a retirement community nearby. I started to feel old when I thought about it — Imagine! Going to see the legendary Alice Cooper in the coziness of suburbia instead of in a smoke-filled club or a giant arena! The last time I felt old like this was when we saw Judas Priest in 2002 at Newport Music Hall in Columbus. Someone threatened to beat me up while we were on the floor and I was not so much worried about getting beaten as I was concerned about what my boss would say when I showed up at work the next day with all kinds of bruises and broken bones. Ah, the responsibilities that come with adulthood. But I digress...

Thomai was kind enough to get tickets to the show as part of my gift for our tenth wedding anniversary. She was also sporting enough to come along to the show! How cool is that? Alice and his band (wearing creepy white kabuki-like masks) took the stage just as it was getting dark. They blasted into "Wicked Young Man" before turning to some vintage Cooper fare. The next half-hour or so was a mix of old and newer material and it was all terrific stuff. I have to admit that I didn’t really expect Alice’s band to be that good, figuring a seasoned rocker like Alice might settle for some lackluster hired guns who would be more unlikely to steal the show. Man, was I ever wrong! The current incarnation of Alice Cooper’s touring band is a solid group of talented metal musicians and they really added a tremendous drive and edge to classic Cooper songs.

After plowing through songs like "Lost in America" (one of my favorites!), "Go to Hell" (another one of my favorites!), "I’m Eighteen" and "Billion Dollar Babies," the real Alice Cooper Show started. The theatrical part of the show was staged with all the antics and creepiness that one might expect from an Alice Cooper Show. Well, come to think of it, maybe everyone didn’t expect it...Quite a few parents brought their wee children (I’m talking four or five years old) to the show and I am sure they were not expecting to see Alice get beheaded by guillotine near the end of the show. They also might not have expected that a female dancer would then whirl and twirl around the stage with Alice’s severed head while the band played "I Love the Dead." Great, great stuff. Here’s to well-rounded preschoolers...

In all seriousness, this show was phenomenal! Seeing Alice perform "The Ballad of Dwight Fry" while wriggling out of a straight jacket was one of the best rock performances I have ever witnessed. The show was really captivating and really fun and for a little while I forgot just how damn old Alice is these days (he’s 58 now!). I also forgot that I am getting old for a little while as well...But by the end of the show, I was wondering if the kids were still awake (they were) and whether or not the ringing in my ears would subside by the time I got to work in the morning (it did).

Everything you have heard about an Alice Cooper Show is true. It’s ghoulish, frightening, and obnoxious...and it’s incredibly fun and entertaining. I’m glad I got to see it while Alice and I are still feeling young.

Two horns up! Waaay up!

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Saturday, July 22

Mughal-E-Azam

by Mike on Sat 22 Jul 2006 04:12 PM EDT

While I am slightly acquainted with some very basic material regarding the modern history and political environment in India, I have quite a bit to learn regarding Indian culture and I am certainly interested in knowing more. A couple of weeks ago, we visited a new Indian marketplace in the Dayton area and I checked out their selection of DVDs. I had never seen any Bollywood movies before, and I was very intrigued by their selection of films. I quickly settled on Mughal-E-Azam, which boasted a rather lofty claim on its front cover: "The Biggest Indian Film Ever."

The film is set in feudal India during the reign of Mughal Emperor Akbar. The tale chronicles the tragic romance of Akbar’s son, Prince Salim (played by Dilip Kumar), with the palace maid Anarkali (played by Madhubala) . It is a love story for sure, but it is filled with drama, intrigue and action. There is obviously much more to the story (there must be, because it runs close to 3 hours), but I certainly wouldn’t want to give away the ending to anyone who might be interested watching the film. I will say that the ending is bittersweet and when I shared my feelings on this with a friend from South Asia, he made this rather appropriate point: “There could not be a happy ending because how could a feudal despot accept a female slave as his son's wife?”

When the film was originally released in 1960, only 15% of the movie was in color. At one point, Director K. Asif had opted to shoot some reels in color after having filmed a good deal on black and white stock. He even went so far as to re-shoot certain black-and-white segments in color with the intent of ultimately filming the entire picture on color stock. But financial constraints and related pressures forced him to release the final product as a combination of black-and-white and color scenes. The 2005 re-release of Mughal-E-Azam has been digitally restored and colorized and although it is easy to discern the differences between the colorized scenes and the scenes that were originally filmed on color stock, this certainly does not diminish the viewing experience.
Madhubala

The film is a musical and I found most of the music to be quite enjoyable. My two favorite songs from the movie are Teri Mehfil Mein Kismat Aajmakar and Zindabad Zindabad. Although I don’t speak Urdu ( I have also read a description of the dialogue as "Persianized Urdu") the English subtitles and some subsequent correspondence with friends has given me a good understanding of the meaning of these songs. I am told that Teri Mehfil Mein Kismat Aajmakar is a song in a style called "Qawwali" and that the style is such that the words and poetry of the song are emphasized more than its rhythm and music.

The cinematography and effects for the film are very well done. In recent decades, special effects have improved exponentially from year to year, but the big battle scene in Mughal-E-Azam deserves credit as an early cinematic achievement on a grand scale. And of course, the scene in the Sheesh Mahal (Palace of Mirrors) is a scene that is beautifully shot and stands out as one of the most significant achievements of K. Asif in this particular work.

In discussing Mughal-E-Azam with some friends from South Asia, I have come to understand that they do not share my enthusiasm for this film. Of course, they have lived most of their lives with some degree of awareness of the film, as it is widely hailed as a "classic" throughout the region. For me, however, this film was an entirely new and exciting experience. When discussing aspects of poplar Greek culture with Greeks and Greek-Americans, I often find that certain things which are fascinating to me seem rather ordinary and substandard to them. I can certainly understand this. If someone from outside the US wrote to me singing the praises of American "classics" like Gone With the Wind and Titanic, I would probably be less than enthusiastic in my own assessments of these films.

Nevertheless, Mughal-E-Azam was an experience which was both exotic and enchanting for me. I am happy to have seen it and I gladly recommend the movie to others who are interested in Indian films.