Sha-zam! It's The Great Gomer Pyle Giveaway!

Are you a big fan of the classic '60s sitcom Gomer Pyle? Well, here's your chance to win a copy of a 24-DVD box set of Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.: The Complete Series,  which was released last month. All you have to do is write a few sentences about your favorite episode. I want the collection to go to a real fan, so I need some details about a particular ep that proves you really love the show and would really appreciate having the whole series.

The factory-sealed box contains all five seasons (150 episodes) of the iconic comedy that starred Jim Nabors as a hapless Marine Corps private who constantly irritates his immediate superior, Sergeant Carter (Frank Sutton). The show occupies a place in folksy old school pop culture that a lot of folks grew up with, or couldn't avoid because it was from a time when there was only three channels.

Bonus Features include audio intros by Nabors on Select Episodes, audio commentaries by Nabors and actor/comic Ronnie Schell on select episodes, the pilot episode “Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.” from The Andy Griffith Show, a clip from The Lucy Show episode “Lucy Gets Caught In The Draft” in which Nabor made an in character cameo, and a clip from Nabor's variety show The Jim Nabors Hour.

Also included: Jim Nabors' 1972 appearance on The David Frost Show, which is surely as historic and earth shaking as the Frost/Nixon interviews.

Yes, it's quite an extensive collection of Gomer Pyle goodies that should go to a good home. So get to it! Write about an episode and it could be yours.

Send your brief appraisals of your favorite GP ep to: 

boopbloop7@gmail.com

Deadline for entries is May 5th.

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The Who’s Original Managers Get Their Rock Doc Due

  

Opening today exclusively in the Triangle area at the Raleigh Grande:

LAMBERT & STAMP

(Dir. James D. Cooper, 2014)

This fascinating documentary focusing on the original managers of The Who arrives in a timely fashion to Raleigh as the iconic British rock band just played a show in town at the PNC Center earlier this week. 

I was among the thousands at the sports arena to see the remaining founding members, singer Roger Daltrey and guitarist/songwriter Pete Townshend, joined by a tight backing band including Ringo’s son Zak Starkey on drums, bash out over 20 of their classics for their “The Who Hits 50!” tour. The Who was an obsession of my youth so songs like “I Can’t Explain,” “Baba O’Riley,” and “I Can See For Miles” (among many, many others) are in my blood. Despite their advancing age and some flubs here and there, The Two, as many fans call them, really brought it.

Over the years there’s been countless docs, books, interviews, and profiles in major music magazines that have told and retold the history of The Who, but a crucial part of their back story, the intracacies of their origin story if you will, usually gets glossed over.

And that’s the story of how Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp, two best friend aspiring filmmakers who, despite no management experience, managed, mentored, and helped make famous four blokes who, when they discovered them, went by the name The High Numbers.

Lambert, the son of acclaimed classical composer Constant Lambert, died in 1981, but the 70-year old, still dapper Stamp sat down for extensive interviews for first-time documentarian James D. Cooper, relaying anecdotes about the duo’s schemes and dreams that involved making a movie about a pop band that would establish them as first class filmmakers.

After months of searching through candidates they thought were “too clean,” Lambert and Stamp came across the High Numbers at a small London club in the summer of 1964, and were immediately taken by them. Then Lambert and Stamp’s plan to make a film was put on the back burner as they became the band’s managers and went about reshaping their image. This included changing their name to The Who, billed on posters with the tagline: “Maximum R & B.”

Flashy black and white footage, some of the first ever shot of The Who, capture the Mod movement in full swing, while fleeting bits of live shows display how the band’s abrasive energy connected with their small but growing audience. However, one not well versed in the British rock legends, could be forgiven for watching much of this and thinking that the Who’s entire early act consisted of making loud feedbacky noise then smashing their instruments.

Daltrey and Townshend are on hand to give insights from the band’s side, particularly Pete, always a great interview subject, who passionately speaks about long-gone Who members, bassist John Entwistle (“he was a fuckin’ genius!”) and drummer Keith Moon (“he wasn’t a drummer…he did something else”), and laments about overhearing that the two were considering leaving The Who to form Led Zeppelin with Jimmy Page (“I felt like a real outsider”).

One of the film’s musical highlights is footage of the young, lanky, slightly nervous Townshend playing a solo acoustic version of a new song, “Glittering Girl,” which would go on to be a beloved outtake from the 1967 album “The Who Sell Out,” in person for the adoring managers. “I do feel like they treated me differently,” Townshend recalls now about their relationship.

After The Who started hitting it big, Lambert and Stamp went on to manage Jimi Hendrix, Thunderclap Newman, Arthur Brown, and Golden Earring. But a falling out, seemingly fueled by booze and drugs, with Townshend over the sessions for “Who’s Next” in 1971 led to the band firing the pair in ‘75. Stamp seems still a bit upset about this, and that he didn’t get to direct TOMMY, the film version of The Who’s 1969 rock opera, when making a movie featuring the band was the whole idea in the first place.

Who biographer Richard Barnes, Daltrey’s second wife Heather, original Mod Irish Jack (considered to be the inspiration for The Who’s “Quadrophenia”), and actor Terence Stamp, Chris’ older brother, are also on hand to flesh out the film with sometimes witty, sometimes sad anecdotes about the bombastic band and their two eccentric managers.

Folks interested in the music scene of the ‘60s and ‘70s, and the mechanics of making a band in that era should enjoy LAMBERT & STAMP, but really it’s a doc that the millions of people that cheer and pump their fists to the band’s 50th Anniversary tour should really seek out. Both casual and hardcore fans alike owe it to themselves to learn about who really made The Who happen.

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TRUE STORY Is Oblivious To How Obvious It is

Opening today at both art houses and multiplexes:

TRUE STORY (Dir. Rupert, Goold, 2015)

Maybe the tag-line for this film should be “James Franco and Jonah Hill together again, but this time you won’t be laughing.”

In this adaptation of Michael Finkel’s 2006 bestseller “True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa,” Franco and Hill ditch the stoner shenanigans (and their stoner buddy ensemble) of their previous movie, THIS IS THE END, and play it dead serious.

Hill steps into the shoes of Finkel, who we first meet as a star New York Times reporter working on a story in Africa about the modern-day slave trade. In short order we are also introduced to Franco as fugitive Christian Longo on the lam in Cancún, Mexico using Finkel’s name as an alias.

Finkel is fired by the Times for fabricating large portions of his article, while Longo is apprehended by the FBI for the murder of his wife and three children in Oregon. After learning that Longo used his name, the disgraced and desperate Finkel arranges to meet with him in prison.

Longo, graced with Franco charm, tells Finkel that he’s a big fan, and before you know it, they’re collaborating on a book about the murders together. Longo agrees to give Finkel exclusive access on the condition that the journalist teaches the suspected killer how to write.

So it’s got a SHATTERED GLASS meets CAPOTE vibe, with Hill’s Finkel and Franco’s Longo developing a creepy relationship as Longo’s trial looms closer. It’s obvious that Longo is manipulating Finkel from their initial encounter, but the film trudges onward continuously trying to make a point that it had already made in the first 10 minutes.

That point is that these two guys are alike. They are both characters with deplorable moral ethics; every action they make can be seen as self serving. And, of course, they’re both using each other – we get it.

The rest of the cast seems to know this. Felicity Jones, as Finkel’s girlfriend Jill (the archetypal worrying woman on the side), even goes to confront Longo to tell him she’s got his number in one of the film’s most contrived scenes. Even if this really happened, and I bet it didn’t, it’s a horribly handled plot point that adds nothing. Well, except that it gives Jones something to do.

Scripted by first time filmmaker Rupert Goold and suspense scribe David Kajganich (THE INVASION, BLOOD CREEK), TRUE STORY has neither the depth nor thrills (or even attempts at thrills) required to be considered a psychological thriller. It’s more a tense drama with transparently artsy ambition.

The storytelling, whether true or not, gets pretty muddled and strained towards the end. I got annoyed at Finkel for falling for Longo’s shtick, which at times reminded me of Franco’s breakout Freaks and Geeks role, Daniel Desario, but with a brain.

This whole overly calculated, and bleedingly obvious, exercise will most likely be jokingly dismissed by Franco and Hill someday in another meta-minded project with their fellow graduates of Apatow University. Probably like this: “Remember when we did that TRUE STORY shit? We were all so serious ‘n shit? Remember that? Yeah, me either.”

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