What to do in Oklahoma on Dec. 26, 2010
Today’s featured event:
Enjoy the final day of the Oklahoma River Holiday Cruises from 1 to 6 p.m. today at 701 S Lincoln Blvd. The cruises are part of the Downtown in December festivities. For more information, go to www.downtownindecember.com.
For more events, go to www.wimgo.com.
-BAM
Video: Merry Christmas from the Flaming Lips
Merry Christmas!
In honor of this joyous occasion, please enjoy these videos of The Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne and Steven Drozd performing the seasonal favorites “White Christmas” and “Silent Night.”
These videos were filmed in 2009 as part of my excellent colleague George Lang’s first Static Holiday Special.
Earlier this week, I shared with you George’s 2010 Static Holiday Special. This year, George assembled several great Oklahoma performers to paired them off for a series of Christmasy duets: Jabee and Dr. Pants on Run-DMC’s“Christmas in Hollis,” Daniel Walcher and Skating Polly on John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War is Over),” Matt and Joe Stansberry on “White Christmas,” Sherree Chamberlain and Brine Webb on “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,” K.C. Clifford and Jami Smith on “Draw Near,” and Cami Stinson, Cara Black and Jeremy Thomas on “Silent Night.”
To enjoy the 2010 Static Holiday Sessions, click here.
And don’t forget that The Flaming Lips are playing their New Year’s Eve Freakout #4 next weekend at Oklahoma City’s Cox Convention Center. For more information, go to www.coxconventioncenter.com.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
-BAM
What to do in Oklahoma on Dec. 25, 2010
Hosty Duo (The Oklahoman Archives)
Today’s featured event:
Merry Christmas! Feel the tidings of comfort and joy at the Hosty Duo’s Christmas Show at 9 p.m. Saturday at VZD’s, 4200 N Western. Information: 524-4203 or www.vzds.com.
For more information, go to www.wimgo.com.
-BAM
Video: Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne reads “Twas the Night Before Christmas”
Happy Christmas Eve! In honor of this wonderful day, check out this video of The Flaming Lips’ frontman Wayne Coyne reading Clement C. Moore’s classic poem “Twas the Night Before Christmas.”
The video was shot in 2009 as part of my excellent colleague George Lang’s first Static Holiday Special.
Earlier this week, I shared with you George’s 2010 Static Holiday Special. This year, George assembled several great Oklahoma performers to paired them off for a series of Christmasy duets: Jabee and Dr. Pants on Run-DMC’s“Christmas in Hollis,” Daniel Walcher and Skating Polly on John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War is Over),” Matt and Joe Stansberry on “White Christmas,” Sherree Chamberlain and Brine Webb on “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,” K.C. Clifford and Jami Smith on “Draw Near,” and Cami Stinson, Cara Black and Jeremy Thomas on “Silent Night.”
To enjoy the 2010 Static Holiday Sessions, click here.
And don’t forget that The Flaming Lips are playing their fourth annual New Year’s Eve Freakout next weekend at Oklahoma City’s Cox Convention Center. For more information, go to www.coxconventioncenter.com.
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!
-BAM
Best Bets for Dec. 24-26, 2010
Anna Graham takes a ride at Chesapeake Snow Tubing at the Bricktown Ballpark earlier this month. The snow tubing is part of Downtown in December. (Photo by John Clanton, The Oklahoman Archives)
Here is a list of some of the top events happening around Oklahoma this Christmas weekend. For more events, go to www.wimgo.com:
1. Take in the playful theatrics, breathtaking acrobatics and evocative music of Cirque du Soleil’s “Alegria” at 5 p.m. Saturday, and 1 and 5 p.m. Sunday at the Cox Convention Center Arena, One Myriad Gardens. Information: (800) 745-3000 or www.coxconventioncenter.com.
2. SHAWNEE — Laugh along as Tulsa comedian Rodney Carrington performs at 5 and 8 p.m. Sunday and 7 p.m. Monday at Firelake Grand Casino, 777 Grand Casino Blvd. Information: 964-7263 or www.firelakegrand.com.
3. Feel the tidings of comfort and joy at the Hosty Duo’s Christmas Show at 9 p.m. Saturday at VZD’s, 4200 N Western. Information: 524-4203 or www.vzds.com.
4. Watch the Oklahoma City Thunder take on the Denver Nuggets at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Oklahoma City Arena, 100 W Reno. Information: (800) 745-3000 or www.thunder.nba.com.
5. Celebrate the season at the Devon Ice Rink, Chesapeake Snow Tubing, Wimgo Holidays on the Canal and the rest of the Downtown in December attractions. Information: www.downtownindecember.com.
-BAM
Justin Bieber, Rascal Flatts to do a duet
Rascal Flatts
Justin Bieber (AP file)
Country music band Rascal Flatts, which includes Picher-bred guitarist Joe Don Rooney, and teen pop sensation Justin Bieber are planning to do a duet.
CNN’s Marquee Blog reports that Rascal Flatts lead singer Gary LeVox told WSIX: “[Justin] asked us to do a duet with him on his next record. It’s actually a really good song!”
On Twitter, Bieber (@justinbieber) wrote “I love @RascalFlatts and Im honored that they are making music with me.”
-BAM
LOOkatOKC’s “People We Love”: Miranda Lambert
Miranda Lambert
Our entertainment guide LOOKatOKC has named its 2011 “People We Love,” honoring those who are making life in Oklahoma better than our parents and grandparents could have imagined. LOOK editor George Lang asked me to wax eloquently about why we love Oklahoma transplant and country music star Miranda Lambert. Other “People We Love” are Jabee, Ali Harter, Brian Hearn, Graham Colton, Sarah Vowell, Rand Elliott, Bryce Bandy, Desmond Mason and the organizers of The Girlie Show. To read more about the “People We Love,” go to http://lookatokc.newsok.com.
Country music firebrand Miranda Lambert has made good on her promise to be more than just the genre’s “Kerosene”-lighting “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.”
The Tishomingo resident staged her own “Revolution” with the late 2009 release of her third album, which revealed more of her soft side with the heartbroken ode “Dead Flowers,” the earnest ballad “Love Song” and especially the sentimental “The House That Built Me,” which she didn’t write but mirrored her own childhood hard times with surprising synchronicity. Sure, she was still the sharp-tongue, hot-tempered Texas-bred bombshell on songs like “Only Prettier,” “White Liar” and “Sin for a Sin,” but the “Revolution” album established her as a more rounded singer-songwriter.
If her growth as an artist didn’t make us love her even more, her wide-eyed, giddy-with-gratitude reaction to success would have. Lambert has ridden a white-hot streak through 2010: She scored her first two No. 1 hits with “White Liar” and “The House That Built Me,” earned three Academy of Country Music Awards and a fan-voted CMT Award. In spring, she embarked on her first headline tour playing bars; by fall, she was playing casinos and small arenas on her second trek as a headliner.
In November, she went into the Country Music Association Awards with a leading nine nominations, the most for any female artist in the 44-year history of the CMA Awards. She and fiance Blake Shelton – a fellow Tishomingo resident and country star who has made his own meteoric rise in the past year – dominated the CMAs, taking home five trophies between them.
Lambert’s “Revolution” promises to keep her orbiting to even greater career heights in 2011: She will vie for three golden gramophones at the Feb. 13 Grammy Awards. And her personal life is set to hit a big high point: She and Shelton, who got engaged in May after five years as country music sweethearts, are planning their wedding.
-BAM
Jeff Bridges caps Oscar-winning 2010 with roles in “Tron: Legacy,” “True Grit”
After winning his first Oscar in March, veteran actor Jeff Bridges is capping his 2010 with buzzworthy roles in "Tron: Legacy" and "True Grit." (Associated Press photo)
From Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman.
True star
Buzz surrounds “Tron,” “True Grit” star Jeff Bridges
Jeff Bridges abides.
After six decades in Hollywood, Bridges — who made his film debut as a mere babe alongside older brother Beau and mother Dorothy Dean Bridges in 1951’s “The Company She Keeps” — opened 2010 celebrating his first Oscar win for playing a washed-up boozed-ravaged country singer in “Crazy Heart.”
Bridges, who turned 61 on Dec. 4, is closing the year much the same way, earning awards buzz for his turn as alcohol-addled, trigger-happy U.S. Marshall Reuben J. “Rooster” Cogburn in Joel and Ethan Coen’s adaptation of Charles Portis’ book, which already has been made into a 1969 film starring John Wayne.
He also is finishing the year at the top of the box office, with the long-awaited sequel “Tron: Legacy” debuting at No. 1 on the domestic box-office charts last weekend with $44 million. In the sci-fi actioner sequel, Bridges not only reprises his part as brilliant software engineer, the lead role from the 1982 computer-animated cult favorite “Tron,” but he also plays Flynn’s tyrannical computer program doppelganger Clu.
Unlike Flynn, who has been trapped inside the digital frontier he created, Clu hasn’t aged, so filmmakers used facial capture technology to make the avatar look like Bridges at age 35. When playing Clu, the actor wore a multitude of facial markers and four tiny helmet-mounted cameras; his facial movements were fed into a computer and used to control the expressions of his younger-looking digital head.
Advanced facial-capture technology allowed Jeff Bridges to look 35 years old to play the computer program Clu in "Tron: Legacy."
“That’s the fun of my job that I get to play all different kinds of guys. We did a reshoot for ‘Tron’ about a week after we completed ‘True Grit,’ and I had the same makeup guy, Thomas Nellen, on both,” Bridges said at a recent press conference for “True Grit” at the plush Four Seasons Hotel.
“So you know, going from Rooster — all the dust and the grime and the dirty teeth — to a few days later, back in the chair, him putting a hundred little black dots on my face to have motion-capture done, it was bizarre. But, you know, that’s the gig. That’s the fun of it.”
Born into a Hollywood family, Bridges has been relishing the fun of acting since childhood. After his movie debut, he was occasionally appeared as a youngster in his father Lloyd’s TV series “Sea Hunt”; Beau and their mother also guest-starred on the show. When he accepted the best actor Oscar for “Crazy Heart” back in March, he thanked his late parents for “turning me on to such a groovy profession.”
It didn’t take long for him to find success in the family business: He was just 22 when he earned his first Oscar nomination for best supporting actor playing a Texas high-school senior in a desolate West Texas town in 1971’s “The Last Picture Show.” He was nominated three more times — for his supporting role as Clint Eastwood’s irreverent sidekick in 1974’s “Thunderbolt and Lightfoot,” and for his lead turns as an enigmatic alien in 1984’s “Starman” and as president of the United States in 2000’s “The Contender” — before winning for “Crazy Heart.”
Jeff Bridges plays U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn in "True Grit."
Still, Bridges is probably best known for playing The Dude, a laidback slacker and avid bowler content to “abide” until he is caught up in a case of mistaken identity in the Coen brothers’ cult classic “The Big Lebowski.” For their version of “True Grit,” the Coens picked The Dude to take on the Duke’s most iconic role, the grizzled character which won Wayne his sole Oscar.
“I was curious why these guys wanted to make that movie again, and I think it was Ethan who … said, ‘No, we’re not making that movie. We’re making the book as if there wasn’t any other movie ever made kind of thing. We’re just referring to the book.’ And I wasn’t familiar with the book. He said, ‘Well, check that out and tell me what you think.’ And I read the book and then I saw what they were talking about because it’s such a wonderful book and it suited them so well,” Bridges said.
“And God, what a great character. You know, most Westerns have that strong silent type, and here’s this boorish … guy. So that was going to be a lot of fun I thought.”
He believes each scene in a film offers an opportunity to show a different facet of a character. He developed his portrayal of Rooster Cogburn the same way he would any other role, first poring over the script and book to examine what his character had to say and what the story’s other players said about the blustering marshal. He then worked closely with costume designer Mary Zophres. who also supervised his wardrobe on “The Big Lebowski.”
“The character starts to fall in place and as you dress it, you’re looking in the mirror, and there comes a time when the character starts to tell you what it wants. And you might prefer ‘Oh, this scarf looks nice, we’ll see,’ and the character says ‘pbtthhpt,’” he said with a raspberry. “And you say, ‘Oh, OK.’ … Sometimes you want to do something and it’s just not what the movie wants, and that’s a wonderful time when that happens.”
In the Western, headstrong teen Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) hires Rooster to bring her father’s killer to justice because she believes the gruff lawman has grit, a quality Bridges aspires to himself.
“True grit, I believe … is seeing one thing through to the end, you know? That’s a good thing. I aspire to that.”
-BAM
CD review: “True Grit” soundtrack
From Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman.
Soundtrack
Carter Burwell “True Grit Soundtrack” (Nonesuch Records)
Composer Carter Burwell sets headstrong heroine Mattie Ross’ biblical sense of right and wrong to evocative music with his score for Joel and Ethan Coen’s new film adaptation of “True Grit.”
Based on Charles Portis’ acclaimed 1968 novel, “True Grit” tells the story of indomitable 14-year-old Mattie (Hailee Steinfeld), who hires hard-drinking, gunslinging U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) to hunt down the coward who killed her father and bring him to Old Testament-style justice. The 1969 movie is best known for winning John Wayne his only Oscar, but Elmer Bernstein’s jaunty, big-as-the-plains score still looms large in the memories of Western film fans.
In keeping with the new film’s more faithful adherence to Charles Portis’ 1968 book, Burwell eschews musical heroics in favor gracefully simple arrangements drawn largely from old gospel songs like “Hold to God’s Unchanging Hand,” “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” and “The Glory-Land Way.”
Many of the 20 short original instrumentals on the soundtrack are based on Anthony J. Showalter and Elisha A. Hoffman’s 1887 hymn “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms,” which Burwell uses as Mattie’s theme and modifies to sound hopeful or ominous as the story requires. The film opens with a spare piano rendition that gives way to a lovely orchestral treatment.
Digital copies of the album include as a bonus track singer-songwriter Iris DeMent’s haunting vocal performance of “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms,” which plays over the film’s end credits. It’s a shame this spine-tingling version isn’t included on all copies of the soundtrack, along with the Johnny Cash cover of “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” prominently featured in the film’s marketing.
Under the Motion Picture Academy’s stringent rules, the “True Grit” score has been deemed not sufficiently original to qualify for Oscar consideration. But Burwell, who has worked with the Coens since their 1984 feature debut “Blood Simple,” makes music that ideally complements the classic story.
— BAM
CD review: Jimi Hendrix “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year” EP
From Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman.
Rock/seasonal
Jimi Hendrix “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year” EP (Legacy)
Classic rock fans looking to electrify their holiday playlists should delight in the late Jimi Hendrix’s rare but skimpy seasonal treat “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.”
Even classified as an EP, this posthumous release from the ‘60s guitar god comes up a bit short: It features only three tracks, the last one actually is an extended version of the first, and it clocks in just longer than 15 minutes.
But music fans who regard Hendrix’s iconic screaming-guitar interpretation of “The Star-Spangled Banner” as their favorite rendition of the National Anthem will trip out over the EP’s opener, a spirited but appropriately reverent instrumental mash-up of the holiday classics “Little Drummer Boy,” Silent Night” and “Auld Lang Syne.”
The Band of Gypsys — Hendrix, bassist Billy Cox and drummer Buddy Miles — recorded the medley around Christmas 1969 in the midst of extensive rehearsals for their highly anticipated shows at the Fillmore East in New York. While Miles keeps the “Little Drummer Boy’s” familiar beat, Hendrix’s acidy licks burn seamlessly through the well-known melodies in the pleasingly unpolished recording. In the spirit of seasonal extravagance, the nearly 7 ½-minute extended medley sparks with even more bluesy guitar flourishes.
The EP also includes the playful “Three Little Bears,” which Hendrix recorded with his Experience in May 1968 during sessions for “Electric Ladyland.” It was originally issued as part of the 1972 posthumous compilation “War Heroes” but has been unavailable in the United States for almost 25 years. While not really a Christmas song, the bright rarity, with Hendrix nearly laughing as he croons, seems sure to appeal to children.
The guitar great is unlikely to join the ranks of Christmas stalwarts like Gene Autry, Nat King Cole and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. But if David Bowie and the late Bing Crosby can turn their “Little Drummer Boy” duet into a strange seasonal staple, there’s no reason that Hendrix can’t plug in the timeworn carol.
— BAM
