Tag Archives: George Lucas

Clap for the Wolfman

14 April 2024 By in Music Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Robert “Bob” Weston Smith, born in New York in 1938 recreated himself as Wolfman Jack while working as a DJ at a country music radio station in Shreveport Louisianna in 1962.

Looking for something different, where he could make big money, he headed to Mexico to broadcast on the 250,000-watt monster: XERF. The station was so strong that it could reach most of the continental U.S.

He initially went down to Mexico to work as a DJ but when he arrived, allegedly, he found that the radio station was in receivership, and he eventually gained control. In 1970 the Mexican government took control of XERF, and the Wolfman was out of a job.

In 1972 he bounced back co-hosting NBC’s late night music series; “The Midnight Special.” In 1973 George Lucas, a fan of his radio programs, offered him a part, as himself, in the hit classic film “American Graffiti.” Shortly after the success of the film, with his fame in the stratosphere, he began to distribute “The Wolfman Jack Radio Show”, eventually reaching over 2000 stations in 53 countries. He appeared in 87 TV shows and films and was the subject of at least five records including the “The Guess Who’s-Clap for the Wolfman.”

On July 1, 1995, Wolfman Jack died of a heart attack at his home in Belvidere, North Carolina, but “The Wolfman Jack Radio Show” is still on the air, every night, somewhere in the world.

Source: https://bighits981.com/on-air/wolfman-jack

The Last of the Old Guard

26 March 2018 By in Movies Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Star Wars: The Last Jedi  M Star 2017

Theaters:  December 2017

Streaming:  March 2018

Rated:  PG-13

Runtime:  152 minutes

Genre:  Action – Fantasy – Science Fiction

els:  6.0/10

IMDB:  7.4/10

Amazon:  3.5/5 stars

Rotten Tomatoes Critics:  8.1/10

Rotten Tomatoes Audience:  3.0/5

Metacritic Metascore:  85/100

Metacritic User Score:  4.5/10

Awards:  NA

Directed by:  Rian Johnson

Written by:  Rian Johnson (screenplay), George Lucas (characters)

Music by:  John Williams

Cast:  Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Andy Serkis, Benicio del Toro

Film Locations:  Bolivia, Croatia, England, Ireland

Budget:  $200,000,000

Worldwide Box Office:  $1,322,000,00

Resistance forces are fleeing their home base while the First Order fleet prepares to destroy them.  Attempting to buy some time for the evacuation, the Resistance attacks and destroys a First Order dreadnought, aka battleship, allowing the rest of the evacuation forces to escape into hyperspace. The Resistance, after their jump, believing they had bought themselves some time, soon learn that their enemy can track them through hyperspace, leaving them with but a few hours to bring about a miracle or perish.

Meanwhile Rey (Ridley) travels to Luke’s (Hamill) planet for some badly needed lessons in light sabre use, force projection, and dark side avoidance. Luke has other ideas.

Rian Johnson, writer and director of the original, exciting, thought-provoking, and well received Looper movie, takes his turn in the revolving Star Wars franchise door, by writing and directing The Last Jedi.  He succeeds in producing warm milk.  Not horrible, but he definitely is not going down in the annuals of great Star Wars directors and writers.  Then again George Lucas couldn’t direct a golf cart to the first tee either. Johnson brings together some of the elements of a great space opera; breath-taking special and visual effects, great acting, and a wonderful score but the story is just a tedious collection snippets strung together to produce a very long movie. Ok, some of the snippets are quite good such as DJ’s (del Toro) bit pieces of breaking in and out of places that he shouldn’t be able to break in and out of.

This movie is the last that will contain elements of the old guard.  Harrison Ford killed himself off in VII, Carrie Fisher passed away, and Hamill, he can act–who knew, will not be returning for IX, so Johnson spends an inordinate amount of time on character development of all the new faces. It’s all so unnecessary, mostly immaterial and boring.  The development of the players can be spread out over the life of the franchise, no need to force-feed the audience the entire buffet in one sitting.

In the end this is a fair movie; there just wasn’t enough story to hold you for 2 hours and 32 minutes.