The song that has been on my brain the most this week:
- “The Star-Spangled Banner,” live guitar rendition by Jimi Hendrix from Woodstock.
Amidst all the political craziness of an election year, this song always makes me stop and think about one of the greatest aspects about the US of A: freedom of expression, from voting for your favorite candidate or worshipping your faith to chattering on your blog or rocking away on a killer version of the National Anthem.
-BAM
From Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman. To hear an audio clip, click here.
Lead singer of Tulsa band Pillar bowled over by success
Just a decade after starting a band in college, Rob Beckley is witnessing his music reach Grammy- and Super Bowl-level success.
The lead singer of Tulsa-based Christian rock band Pillar has watched in amazement as the title track off the group’s fifth studio album, “For the Love of the Game,” has been played at the Super Bowl, on ESPN’s World Series show “Baseball Tonight” and on the sports network’s “College GameDay.”
This month brought the Grammy Awards, which the band attended after its fourth album, “The Reckoning,” was nominated for best rock or rap gospel album.
“My phone blew up the day they were playing it on ‘College GameDay,’ like my voicemail filled up in like five minutes. It was awesome. All my friends back home, they’re all like calling me … and I wasn’t even watching it. I have yet to ever hear one of our songs on TV, so that’s cool that everybody else gets to,” Beckley said in a recent phone interview from his Tulsa home, where he took a few months off before the band’s tour launched last week in Illinois.
Beckley and bassist Kalel (Michael Wittig) started Pillar in 1998, when they were students at Fort Hays State University in Kansas. Later, they added guitarist Noah Henson and drummer Lester Estelle, and the band inked a record deal with Christian rock label Flicker Records in 2000.
The band relocated to Tulsa about eight years ago, with Beckley and wife Linda buying their first home. Three of the members live in Tulsa; Estelle resides in Kansas City, Kan., where his family is based.
“This is where we call home; this is where we represent when we go out on the road,” Beckley said, who is raising his 1½-year-old son, Hudson, in Tulsa.
Pillar has crafted a driving rock sound with catchy lyrics and an alt-metal edge. The band won the title of best hard music album for “Above” at the 2001 Dove Awards, but its latest albums have brought more mainstream success.
“For the Love of the Game” was released Tuesday, but the buzz for it started building last fall, when the anthemic title track caught the attention of ESPN. While their music has been used briefly on SportsCenter and Fox Sports, the singer said the band has never received this level of exposure.
While Beckley is a sports fan, the song actually is an encouragement for people to give their all in their Christian faith. The inspiration for it comes from Paul’s words in I Corinthians 9:24 about treating the Christian life as a race for a prize.
But the singer said he doesn’t mind if people enjoy the song outside the Christian context.
“Obviously, exposure to your music in any way is good, because we want people to just get excited about the music. It’s like when you kind of dive in, I would hope that people would get something deeper out of … the music. And if it’s not that song, hopefully people buy the record and be inspired by other songs,” he said.
“I don’t have any regret if people want to use the song for other reasons, because that’s the beauty of music is one song can have a billion different meanings.”
In January, the band cut a deal for the song to be played inside University of Phoenix Stadium in Arizona during Super Bowl XLII. “For the Love of the Game” was played at halftime along with first-half highlights on the stadium’s big screen.
“You don’t expect these things to happen. It’s like we haven’t even played a show on our new record yet, you know, and it’s like we’re getting all these people playing our song all over,” he said.
The band also was taken aback when Grammy nominations were announced in December. The quartet was playing a show in Germany when it got word that its fourth disc, “The Reckoning,” was nominated for best rock or rap gospel album, an award that went to Ashley Cleveland for “Before the Daylight’s Shot.”
Since “The Reckoning” was released in October 2006, it fell at an odd spot in the Grammys cycle. By the time it was eligible, Pillar had already recorded “For the Love of the Game.”
“I’m not saying we wrote off the record in a negative way, but when we found out about the Grammy nomination, we had already in our minds moved on to the next record,” he said. “It was just one of those things that we were extremely thankful for, because you know, we worked really hard on that album.”
The nomination brought for the singer several memorable experiences, including meeting fellow Oklahoman Vince Gill and his wife, Amy Grant, at a Grammy nominees’ party in Nashville, Tenn.
“He was a big influence on me. I grew up on country music, and it was just weird to me, because in my mind, I’m sitting there and just all these Vince Gill songs are running through my mind, and he was like talking to me, and I’m not really hearing what he’s saying. … It was kind of surreal,” Beckley said.
He also was inspired by his encounter with a polka musician enthusing about his 21st Grammy nomination.
“It’s just an honor to be able to say Grammy-nominated. It’s like, honestly, who cares if you win. If you win, that’s just like icing on the cake, but for the rest of your career you at least get to say ‘Grammy-nominated,’” Beckley said.
-BAM
From Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman.
Pillar “For the Love of the Game” (Flicker Records)
Tulsa-based Christian rock band Pillar has been getting plenty of attention for its fifth studio album, “For the Love of the Game.” The rousing title track has been used on ESPN’s “Baseball Tonight” and “College GameDay” and was played during Super Bowl XLII.
Like much of Pillar’s music, the driving anthem works on two levels: as a head-banger sports theme and as an intense I Corinthians 9:24-inspired exhortation to live the Christian life to the fullest.
While “For the Love of the Game” is the album’s highlight, the other nine songs are solid modern rock tracks.
The band - singer Rob Beckley, bassist Kalel, guitarist Noah Henson and drummer Lester Estelle - hones a hard, metal edge on “Throwdown,” “Forever Starts Now” and “The Runaway.” But the group seems equally comfortable creating a high-energy sound reminiscent of ’80s arena rock on “Restless Youth” and “State of Emergency.”
In between, the quartet offers “Smiling Down,” a touching ballad from the point of view of a loved one looking down from heaven.
One of the most interesting tracks is “Turn It Up,” a tribute to Christian musicians ranging from Johnny Cash and Steven Curtis Chapman to TobyMac and Switchfoot.
-BAM
From Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman.
Taiwanese director Ang Lee’s World War II espionage drama, “Lust, Caution,” earned a rare NC-17 rating last year for its graphic sex scenes, but an R-rated version of the movie is available on DVD.
The film follows young Wong Chia Chi (radiant newcomer Wei Tang) as she transforms from shy college student to stop-at-nothing spy for the Chinese resistance.
In 1938, Wong, a university freshman, joins fellow student Kuang’s (Lee-Hom Wang) patriotic drama club. After she emerges as a star actress, he recruits her into an amateur plot to seduce and kill Mr. Yee (Tony Leung Chiu Wai), who is collaborating with the invading Japanese.
The plot fails, but four years later, Kuang tracks down Wong in Shanghai. The Japanese have occupied the country, Kuang has joined the real resistance, and Mr. Yee has gained power. Resistance leaders want Wong to again try to seduce Mr. Yee and set him up for assassination.
She adopts the fake identity of a worldly rich woman and joins Mrs. Yee’s (Joan Chen) inner circle of friends. She lures Mr. Yee into an affair but is taken aback at the emotional and sexual intensity of their relationship. As the assassination plot looms, Wong wrestles with conflicting feelings toward her new lover.
The sex scenes are quite explicit, even if they do fit the context of the story.
While the elegant film offers moments of intrigue and emotional resonance, at two hours and 35 minutes, it drags on too long to hold viewers in thrall.
Extra: Making-of featurette.
-BAM
Hear George Lang, Matthew Price and me give a rundown on the movies opening this weekend in this NewsOK podcast.
-BAM
From Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman.
‘Boleyn Girl’ takes historical soap opera to higher level of intrigue
“The Other Boleyn Girl” whips historical fact, speculation and pure fiction into a frothy frappe of political intrigue, sexual maneuvering and sibling rivalry.
The big-screen adaptation of Philippa Gregory’s historical novel has just enough class - a top-notch cast, lavish period costumes and beautiful scenery - to balance out the trash, namely the steamy love scenes and verbal cat fighting. But this bodice ripper still is more Nora Roberts novel than Merchant Ivory production.
After a glimpse of their idyllic childhood, the movie introduces the Boleyn sisters: older, cleverer Anne (Natalie Portman) and younger sweetie pie Mary (Scarlett Johansson). Mary is betrothed to marry a merchant (Benedict Cumberbatch) and live a simple life in the country.
But her uncle, the ambitious Duke of Norfolk (David Morrissey), brings big news to her wedding. As a royal adviser, he knows that King Henry VIII (Eric Bana) is tired of his older wife, Katherine of Aragon (Ana Torrent), who has failed to produce a male heir. The king is looking for a young mistress capable of giving him a son.
The sisters’ wimpy father, Thomas Boleyn (Mark Rylance), puts forth Anne as the ideal candidate, hoping to gain fortune and favor for his family.
But when the king visits Boleyn manor, Mary, not Anne, tickles his fancy. He orders Mary and her family to move to his castle so he can make the newlywed his side dish.
Despite protests from Mary and her wise mother, Lady Elizabeth (Kristin Scott Thomas), Mary’s husband agrees to prostitute his bride for his own shot at prestige.
Mary and Henry embark on a surprisingly passionate love affair, with the king treating her tenderly and trusting her forthrightness. While Mary is falling for the king, the jilted Anne begins an affair with a spoken-for nobleman, which gets her shipped to France as punishment.
Mary gets pregnant with Henry’s baby, but complications put her on bed rest. Worried that fickle Henry will forget the Boleyns while Mary gestates out of sight, the duke brings back Anne.
Anne seduces Henry so skillfully that by the time Mary gives birth to a son, the younger sister has become the other Boleyn girl.
But Anne refuses to sleep with Henry until he makes her queen, pushing him to break with the Catholic Church so he can divorce his wife. But once she wins the crown, Anne’s fortunes turn for the worse, and she seeks help from her sister.
Henry VIII’s revolving-door approach to matrimony deserves a soap opera treatment. Despite occasional stumbles over the British accents, Portman and Johansson give emotional weight to this tale of love, loyalty and women traded like cattle for heirs and wealth.
But the film cuts big corners trying to cram in so much history and speculation. Even for a casual history buff, having Henry’s historic break with Rome reduced to foreplay conversation induces cringes.
-BAM
Will Ferell’s name has been attached to a movie remake of the cult classic ’70s TV show “Land of the Lost” for a couple of years. But Universal has finally given it the green light, with production slated to start next month.
The Saturday morning TV series ran from 1974-77 and centered on a park ranger and his two kids who get thrown back in time to a land where dinosaurs, monkey-people and evil reptilian creatures called Sleestaks roamed. The show was produced by bizarro puppetmasters Sid and Marty Krofft, who also worked on such surrealistic shows as H.R. Pufnstuf, The Banana Splits Adventure Hour and The Brady Bunch Hour.
At a recent press conference for “Semi-Pro,” Ferrell talked about “Land of the Lost,” with his co-stars chiming in:
Will Ferrell: You know, everything is going to be kind of ramped up a little bit. The kitsch of the physical production of the TV show was kind of thrown out the window. The dinosaurs and everything are going to look very realistic, or as realistic as we think dinosaurs should look. But even like the Sleestaks and things like that, they are all going to be real creatures as opposed to in the show where you saw a guy with a costume and a zipper running up his back, you know.
Woody Harrelson: So, you will have the zipper or you won’t have the zipper?
Will Ferrell: You will not be able to see the zipper.
Woody Harrelson: CGI it?
Ferrell: What?
Harrelson: CGI it?
Will Ferrell: CGI it out. You think that’s a good decision?
Woody Harrelson: (laconically) I think that’s smart.
Ferrell: Thank you.
One of the reporters: You may want to CG the zipper in.
Will Ferrell: We might do that later in post if the audience misses the zipper.
-BAM
From Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman.
Will Ferrell’s wacky stunts net nothing but laughs in ‘Semi-Pro’
Will Ferrell and his merry band of acolytes again prove there’s nothing they won’t do for laughs in their latest sports comedy, “Semi-Pro.”
The 1970s-era basketball parody is the third movie in which Farrell has played a dim-bulb professional athlete, following racing vehicle “Talladega Nights” and skating comedy “Blades of Glory.” Still, “Semi-Pro” has enough crazy gags to make it surprisingly funny.
Ferrell stars as Jackie Moon, a soul/pop singer with a prodigious afro and one hit single, “Love Me Sexy.” He pours the money from his lone hit into an American Basketball Association franchise, the fictional Flint, Mich., Tropics. The flamboyant performer becomes the Tropics’ owner, coach, promoter and power-forward.
The team consists of other colorful characters, including egotistical star Clarence Withers (Andre Benjamin), naive country boy Twiggy Munson (Josh Braaten) and taciturn Lithuanian center Vakidis (Peter Cornell). Genial wimp Bobby Dee (Andy Richter) is Jackie’s best buddy and team manager. The smarmy and hilariously inappropriate Lou Redwood (Will Arnett) and Dick Pepperfield (Andrew Daly) work as the team commentators.
With a dearth of talent and coaching, the Tropics languish in last place. Despite Jackie’s wacky promotions, low attendance and team costs eat up his money.
When the ABA commissioner (David Koechner) announces that the league is merging with the National Basketball Association, Jackie believes his team’s salvation is at hand. But only the top four ABA teams will join the NBA.
Desperate to save the Tropics, Jackie trades for former NBA benchwarmer Monix (Woody Harrelson), an ill-behaved and unpredictable player who has been shuffled to the ABA despite his high basketball IQ.
Monix takes over the coaching duties, drawing up actual plays and getting the players in winning shape. Jackie schemes to draw in fans with even more outlandish promotions, which include staging a costumed musical, wrestling a bear and performing an Evel Knievel-style roller skate jump.
The movie simultaneously follows and skewers the conventions of sports comedy, just as it spoofs and pays homage to the ABA’s renegade style. The film benefits from its R rating, which allows Ferrell and gang to take their crazy sight and verbal stunts to the hilt.
“Semi-Pro” also surprises with the laughs it gets off the court, especially for an outrageous Russian roulette sequence. Jackie Earle Haley, coming off an Oscar nomination for “Little Children,” has fun in a small role as a stoner bugging Jackie for unpaid prize money. Rob Corddry makes a hilarious impression as Monix’s superfan who happens to be living with the player’s ex-girlfriend (Maura Tierney).
-BAM
From Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman. To hear an audio clip, click here.
Semi-serious Will Ferrell more than a good sport when it comes to making comedies
WESTWOOD, Calif. - Will Ferrell has skewered figure skating, mocked NASCAR and spoofed soccer dads in his blockbuster comedies.
In “Semi-Pro,” the former “Saturday Night Live” star takes on perhaps the most comically fertile sports territory of his film career: the flamboyant American Basketball Association of the 1970s. He plays pop/soul singer Jackie Moon, who funnels profits from his single hit song, “Love Me Sexy,” into buying the fictional Flint, Mich., Tropics. He becomes the struggling last-place team’s owner, coach, promoter and power forward.
When the ABA commissioner (David Koechner) announces that the league will fold and only the top four teams will be absorbed into the National Basketball Association, Moon plots to change his hapless squad’s fortunes.
Ferrell, 40, has become the king of sports comedies, playing a deranged soccer dad in “Kicking and Screaming” and quirky professional athletes in the racing vehicle “Talladega Nights” and the skating flick “Blades of Glory.”
“It’s a great framework to kind of do comedy in. You can parody the sport; in this movie, you can parody the era. And at the same time, you have a built-in arc that’s fun for the audience to watch this team of losers try to attain the lofty goal of fourth place,” he said in a recent news conference at the swank W Hotel.
That was as serious as the answers got at the news conference, which also included Kent Alterman, the film’s director; Will Arnett, who co-stars as the Tropics’ razor-tongued team announcer; Andre Benjamin, who plays the team’s hotshot; and Woody Harrelson, coming off his role in the bleak Oscar winner “No Country for Old Men” to play a former NBA benchwarmer brought in to help the team.
With Ferrell as their ringleader, they never stopped cracking jokes as they fielded questions about topics such as the film’s wild ’70s fashions.
“They were pretty outrageous. You know, you don’t get a chance to kind of walk around in those clothes every day. Film is your chance to go back to that time,” said Benjamin, the boisterous group’s straight man. “The ’70s style, it is what it is … a lot of the stuff wouldn’t work right now.”
The musician-turned-actor said he didn’t keep his character’s trademark burgundy trench coat because “the material was hideous. It was in good shape, though.”
Ferrell, who previously parodied the ’70s in the quotable comedy “Anchorman,” said he felt at home in the costumes.
“Looking at a lot of the reference photos of the (ABA) league and the period, you know, it obviously looks funny, but it’s not that far from the truth. … I love the fact that it really is kind of historically accurate and humorous-looking all at the same time,” he said before launching into a gag about how he might adopt one aspect of the style.
“I might start wearing neckerchiefs now in my personal life. I think that’s a nice piece of accoutrement,” the straight-faced Ferrell said.
“It’s beautiful, man,” Arnett said.
“And it covers the neck,” Harrelson added.
“It does,” Ferrell said. “So, if you have any unsightly blemishes or a weird Adam’s apple.”
But he wasn’t a fan of the short shorts favored by ’70s hoopsters, which created some concerns on set.
“I think Andre and I had the shortest shorts, which a lot of our fellow teammates refused to wear,” Ferrell said.
“And they kept pulling them down,” Benjamin said. “Actually we had to do two weeks of basketball training, so I went ahead and got it over with, so I wore my shorts during the two weeks of practice …”
“That’s how dedicated Andre was,” Ferrell said.
“.So I wouldn’t be self-conscious the day of shooting. … (My character) Clarence didn’t care about the shorts, so you know, why should I?” Benjamin finished.
“I did have to wear a special pair of underwear, because when I went into a defensive stance, there was a potential for things to happen,” Ferrell said.
“And sometimes it did. Yeah, not pretty,” Alterman said.
For his directorial debut, Alterman had the unenviable task of riding herd on the merry comedians.
“We did have a lot of fun, but we were also doing a production, so there were times where we had to find that delicate balance point between having too much fun and getting irresponsible. But I think we did it pretty well,” he said.
“You’ve got 10 guys on a basketball court and about 1,800 extras, and every time he yelled cut, we’d want to just start shooting the ball around and running around and doing bits at the scoring table. So, yeah, it was tough,” Ferrell said.
Despite their hyperactive tendencies, Alterman said the actors were consummate professionals, able to find humor even when they weren’t on their A game.
“It’s safe to say that when you show up some days and you don’t feel great, and you’re surrounded by the other guys who are kind of having a good time, you usually end up feeding off it and you have a good time,” Arnett said.
“That’s what happened to me today,” Harrelson said.
Travel and accommodations provided by New Line Cinema.
-BAM
My pal and co-worker Heather Warlick and her band once again will perform at Oklahoma City’s most popular and fun rite of spring, the Festival of the Arts in downtown.
The festival will be April 22-27 at Festival Plaza, Stage Center and Myriad Botanical Gardens. As usual, it will include a huge lineup of visual artists, bands, performing artists, children’s activities and food booths.
The rock band Psycho Diva (that would be Heather) and the Couch Doctors will play for 45 minutes at 2 p.m. April 26 on the Water Stage near the botanical gardens and Crystal Bridge.
Make plans to grab an Indian taco, check out the art and rock with Heather and the guys.
For more information on the Festival of the Arts, go online to www.artscouncilokc.com.
For more on Psycho Diva and the Couch Doctors, go to www.couchdoctors.com.
-BAM
