Out of Focus

It’s that of the month again when my friend Lily and I have put together another (hopefully) interesting and diverse lineup of interviews over at Gothamist. We start this week with comedy producer Jeff Singer. Jeff produces Eating It, a weekly comedy show every Monday night at Luna Lounge. (Luna is, of course, co-owned by one of our first interviews from back in August, Rob Sacher.) Jeff has been working in comedy for quite a while, first as an agent and manager, and then segueing into producing. He was the talent producer for Comedy Central’s (unfortunately) recently cancelled Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn, and considering how funny the comics were on that show, he was obviously good at the job. For us, he provides some really interesting insight into the current comedy scene.

If you’ve never been to Eating It, you’ve got two more chances to check-out the show before the end of 2004: tonight and next Monday. The lineups for each look fun, and while I can’t go tonight, I’m definitely hoping to check-out Todd Barry and friends next week. Meanwhile, check-out Jeff’s interview. He certainly doesn’t “eat it.”

Saturday night at Bowery Ballroom I had the extreme pleasure of seeing Ted Leo perform for the first time. It wasn’t until earlier this year that I even discovered Leo’s music, and ever since I’ve been a huge fan. But three previous times when I knew he was playing, I wasn’t able to go. So I was very excited for Saturday, and when my friend and I left the show at the end, all I could do was kick myself for not getting to those earlier shows and swear never to miss another one.

I don’t go to that many shows, but rarely have I seen anyone throw as much energy into his performance as Leo does his. Spinal Tap has nothing on him, but based on the volume of the night, he must use their amps. In fact, I was amazed that I was amazed because it’s not like those same skills aren’t apparent on the recordings. But seeing him actually play live, the speed and expression of his playing is remarkable. And the songs, every one of them, are just fantastic. His 90 minutes of power punk pop flew by in what seemed like less than half-an-hour, and when we stepped out onto Delancey Street at about 1:45 AM, we were more awake than when going in earlier.

The only thing I just didn’t get: I’ve seen Ultragrrrl and Karen Plus One complain about how NYC audiences just stand and watch bands without moving. At all. Now I am no big dancer by any means. Nor am I any good. I’m sure that when I’m bouncing or tapping my leg or shaking my head, I look like a real ass. Especially when you consider that one is standing in the middle of a bunch of people and the line between dancing to the music and creating a mosh pit can become a very thin one. But during this show last night, I was truly amazed. I mean, how does one stand and listen to the heavy and fast rhythms coming from Leo on stage and not movie at all? I mean, not even sway, or tap, or bob a head. Even a subtle nod. No physical reaction whatsoever? How is it possible? I mean, it was loud – very loud – and you can feel the vibrations. They should make you move a little bit involuntarily. I’m not suggesting that everybody should be flailing about, but nothing? No feeling the music at all? Every show is different, and I’ve been to plenty of shows, even ones I liked, where I haven’t been moved to move, but at Ted Leo? Especially watching him stagger around while playing.

If you read the indie music blogs, I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. If you don’t because you’re more of a movie/TV type, you should definitely check-out Leo’s music. (Recently, after playing Shake the Sheets to death, I’ve become readdicted to The Tyranny of Distance.)

Sorry, but I couldn’t get over it. For some reason, it was just a bit shocking. Anyway, my musical trilogy of greatness concludes Tuesday night at Hammerstein with the Pixies. I can’t wait.

The promotion has been going on for a couple weeks already. Harvey is doing his best to get Marty that director’s Oscar. Leo took over half a Friday’s Dateline NBC. CNN and Miramax have partnered for their own promotional push (which is interesting considering that this translates to Time Warner and Disney making nice-nice). And starting tonight, the great Martin Scorsese himself gets into the act with a special appearance on IFC’s Dinner for Five that was taped a few months ago at the Lake Placid Film Festival. Then on Tuesday, my favorite channel TCM premiere’s a new entry in Richard Schickel’s great series of documentaries focusing on directors talking about their own careers: Scorsese on Scorsese.

I’ll admit it: I worship at the altar of Scorsese. Regardless of George A Girl and a Gun’s attempts to argue to the contrary (check out the 11/28/04 entry), Scorsese is almost indisputably the greatest American director still working today, by far the best to come of age in the 1970s and, maybe most importantly, the most learned and intelligent scholar on all things films. With that said, while I disagree with most of George’s comments in that post (and just so we’re clear, while I also take issue with one of his film noir comments, that’s reserved for another post, I think he continues to produce some of the most well-considered and intelligent film writing not only on the web but anywhere), I would be practicing blind fanaticism if I didn’t acknowledge that he no longer seems to be the same filmmaker he was a decade ago.

George makes a good point when he says Scorsese “started making bloated, expensive pictures with lousy stories which were expected to make money rather than make our spines tingle.” While I wouldn’t personally go that far, there definitely has been a shift post-Goodfellas to a more Hollywood stylized, higher-budget, hopefully more commercial filmmaking style. It’s an undeniable argument when considering movies such as Cape Fear, The Age of Innocence, Casino, Bringing Out the Dead and Gangs of New York (Kundun is a possible exception). However, Scorsese’s personality is still injected into each of these films, and to call any of them poor attempts at filmmaking is just silly. What we do find in this period of his work are a series of film that don’t rise to what we expect and hope from a Scorsese movie, Gangs of New York being the best example of this “disappointment.” Of course, Scorsese can’t seem to give anybody what they want. Gangs of New York gets criticized for simply being Goodfellas in the 19th century (which is actually an absurd comment), yet at the same time, everybody’s pissed that he hasn’t made another film as good as his 1990 mob epic.

Continue reading “THE AVIATOR COMMETH: IN DEFENSE OF SCORSESE”

I’m upset. On Tuesday I mentioned how much I wanted to get down to Film Forum this week in order to see (for the first time) Pickup on South Street and This Gun For Hire this week, but unfortunately my schedule didn’t permit me to get to either. While it’s always better to see these films projected, at least they’re on DVD so I can still catch-up on them, and so should you.

The “Essential Noir” series continues this weekend feature two double-bills with the sexiest (and therefore, in the world of noir most dangerous) and notorious femmes fatale in the history of the style. Today and tomorrow is a double feature of The Postman Always Rings Twice and The Lady From Shanghai.

If you’ve only seen the 1981 remake of Postman with Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange, for shame. The original film with John Garfield and Lana Turner is a far superior movie. Sure, the later film has some more graphic sex scenes (read: any!), but the innuendo and subtext inherent in the 1946 movie is far more interesting. The original Postman is one of the all-time great noirs and shouldn’t be missed.

Nor should The Lady From Shanghai, directed by and starring Orson Welles opposite an unusually blonde, but still stunningly gorgeous, Rita Hayworth. Shanghai definitely has its flaws, and as far as Welles’ noir films go, it doesn’t hold-up as well as his brilliant Touch of Evil 11 years later (which will screen next weekend), but Hayworth’s quintessential femme fatale is more than reason enough to see what is still an exceedingly fun murder mystery.

Sunday and Monday bring two more classics featuring dangerous women, including Hayworth’s best-known role and film, Gilda. Gilda follows the most traditional noir format: a down-on-his-luck guy (either a former criminal, insurance agent, detective, newspaper man, etc.) who doesn’t always make the right choices falls in love with some woman who already “belongs” to some rich guy or big crime boss. There’s usually a murder or at least the plotting of one, and often it’s the woman’s guy. Trouble ensues, usually for our anti-hero. In this film, Hayworth is the worst kind of trouble for Glenn Ford.

Showing alongside Gilda is one of my all-time favorite noirs, The Killers which is notable for being a fascinating expansion, and adaptation, of an Ernest Hemingway short story as well as being the feature acting debut of the great Burt Lancaster. The story is told primarily in flashback as insurance investigator Jim Reardon (played by the phenomenal noir vet and unfortunately all-but-forgotten Edmond O’Brien) tries to learn about the death of “The Swede” (Lancaster). Mixed up in all of this is the mysterious and drop-dead gorgeous Ava Gardner playing cold and maniacally brilliant Kitty Collins. If you’ve never seen Gardner (the woman who Frank Sinatra could never resist), try her here. Besides, you should see the real thing before you see the Kate Beckinsale imitation in The Aviator next week.

If you don’t live in New York or can’t get to Film Forum on Sunday or Monday, I highly suggest you Netflix (or whatever other rental method you might use) the DVD of The Killers. The Criterion Collection double disc set is absolutely phenomenal and features not just the 1946 Robert Siodmak version but also the 1964 Don Siegel-directed treatment of the same Hemingway story. The two movies have virtually nothing in common other than the basic set-up created by Hemingway’s short story. Another great feature on these discs is the 19 minute student short film directed by Russian master Andrei Tarkovsky in 1958. The Tarkovsky short is the only actual film that is a straightforward and completely faithful adaptation of Hemingway’s story.

Meanwhile, I’m not actually on the Film Forum payroll, in case you were wondering, but I’m so grateful for the brilliant programming there that I’ll shill for them anytime. And right now, it’s important to keep in mind that along with this great series, they have held over both Days of Being Wild and Notre Musique. Film noir, Wong Kar-Wai and Jean-Luc Godard all at the same theater? It’s enough to make any cinephile swoon.

Let’s just get this out of the way right up front. Blade:Trinity sucks. It more than sucks. It’s an absolute mess. We’re talking right up there with The Day After Tomorrow as Razzie favorites. I enjoyed the first film well enough. It was a fun vampire action movie. Blade II benefited from the presence of director Guillermo del Toro who brought a visual style along with an energy and capable enough storytelling skills to make an above-average-to-very-good film that maintained the feel of the comic book’s origins. I don’t love either film, but they’re both fun and entertaining diversions. But David S. Goyer, who wrote the scripts for all three films and directed this one, just turns the whole endeavor into a disaster. And no, I’m not overstating things: no matter how cynical I can often be, one of my friends who saw it with me last night basically worships Blade II. He considers it one of his all time favorite action films. And he didn’t like it either.

There are so many flaws in Blade:Trinity that even its greatest strengths manage to become its most profound weaknesses. First is the entire premise.

Continue reading “BLADE: BROUGHT TO YOU BY APPLE – WHEN YOU NEED TO KICK SOME VAMPIRE ASS, SOUNDTRACK YOURSELF WITH AN iPOD”

Just a few random thoughts before I have to be away from a computer for the rest of the day. (The Horror! The Horror!)

• I didn’t see this anywhere else, although maybe I just missed it, but while watching like 10 minutes of Monday Night Football on, well, Monday, during one of the bumpers either going to or coming from commercial, the music playing under the clips was “Little Dawn” by the great Ted Leo (from his latest album Shake the Sheets). I’ve become a huge Ted Leo fan this year, and am extremely excited for his show Saturday night at Bowery, but I sure as hell never expected to hear any of his songs on ABC football. Is this a signal of a potential breakout to the mainstream? One can hope.

• I’m totally going to get into this later (or maybe I’m just making false promises) but the only reason The Real Gilligan’s Island isn’t the worst reality show in history is because Fox once produced Forever Eden and ABC recently gave us The Benefactor. The Real Gilligan’s Island (it’s not even good enough to deserve a cute little abbreviation or acronym) isn’t even bad so much as pointless and utterly boring. Not that I expected much from it, but this is simply ridiculous. It’s one of the few TV shows that I actually felt ashamed watching, and because of it’s annoying format (and my stupid-ass desire to be thorough), I’ve actually watched it … more than once.

• Could this be a sign that Pixar might have it’s first not-the-greatest-animated-film-since-the-last-Pixar-film on its hands? Pixar Delays Its Next Film ‘Cars’ to 2006 . Cars is the last film in Pixar’s deal with Disney, and they claim that it’s just an attempt to move their films to a summer rather than holiday release schedule. Since they are releasing it in Summer 2006 the answer is probably, No, this movie will be just as good as the rest. However, if you saw The Incredibles (and if you haven’t what the hell is wrong with you? It’s fucking brilliant!), you probably also caught the teaser for Cars, and I don’t know, personally, I was underwhelmed. I mean, sure it looked kind of cool, but unlike all the trailers and teasers for previous Pixar films that I remember, Cars didn’t seem to have too much personality. Obviously, I’ll withhold judgment until, well, summer 2006 I suppose, and Pixar has earned the benefit of the doubt. AND switching to summer isn’t like taking the easy road or anything. Still, makes me pause and say, Hmmmm.

• Craig Ferguson as new host of the Late, Late Show on CBS? I say meh. He’s fine. Like Gawker, I would have preferred Michael Ian Black, but it’s not like I would have watched the show anyway, and I wasn’t crazy about any of the finalists. It will be interesting to see how much (if at all) they change the format and setting to better fit Ferguson and whether or not he really can compete with Conan.

• And speaking of late night, I just happened to flip on Last Call with Carson Daly the other night, and what the hell? Who’s brilliant (read: asinine, stupid, moronic) idea was it to suddenly put Carson behind a desk? And a cheesy, too-small, looks-like-it-was-bought-at-IKEA desk. One of the worst things about the old Later was when it stopped being a late-night, two people in two easy chairs chatfest and they added a desk. While Daly’s show has, since the beginning, been devoted to a more traditional late-night talk show format with multiple guests plus a musical act, why make it even more imitative. I know this seems like it may be a small thing, but it really isn’t. Maybe they’re just trying to prep his comfort level behind a desk in the hope that he will inherit 12:35 when Conan takes over The Tonight Show in a couple years, but this late-late night slot is really much better when it’s even more casual and it doesn’t look like every other late-night show. I thought Daly & Co. had done a reasonably good job creating a decent show for the time slot (again, not that I ever watched with any regularity), but seriously folks … get rid of the desk. Unless it’s there because guests don’t want to be in the same room with Carson if there’s not a physical barrier between them, in which case, you have an entirely different problem.

That will most likely do it for me today as I know have to go play tour guide for several hours and then will be off to see the latest big action movie starring Ryan Reynolds and Jessica Biel. Oh yeah … I guess that guy Wesley is in it too.

Lily and I are preparing another week of Gothamist interviews (which will start next Monday), and work has been abnormally extremely busy, so I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to write this week, but I absolutely want to keep plugging the magnificent “Essential Noir” series ongoing at Film Forum. Today and tomorrow feature a double bill of Kiss of Death and Pickup on South Street, two films starring the phenomenal (and sadly now mostly forgotten) Richard Widmark. If you’re not that familiar with director Sam Fuller (and especially if you happened to get to the recent reconstruction of The Big Red One), you’ll want to check out Pickup on South Street. Many consider this to be Fuller’s best film, chronologically falling right in the middle of his long career and at the peak of his talents. It’s also often recognized as one of the most typical early 50s noir, placing a heavy emphasis on the nation’s fear of communism at the time. I can’t comment too much because Pickup is one of the few films in this series that I always have managed to miss, but I will be sure to get there today or tomorrow.

Widmark was one of Hollywood’s biggest stars throughout the 50s and 60s, especially in the two most popular American genres of the time, noir and the western. His film debut was in Kiss of Death playing a giggling, psychopathic heavy who seeks revenge on Victor Mature for testifying against him. Widmarks’ performance remains one of the most interesting noir villains of the period, an attempt to portray a person so bad that he receives glee from his evildoings. My introduction to Widmark happened to also be with this film when the Walter Reade screened a whole series of the actor’s movies about three years ago. These two movies screening together are a perfect chance for you to introduce yourself to Widmark as well.

Thursday features two films from the earliest days of noir, really long before the style had even been categorized. In fact, most books and articles about the style consider John Huston’s classic The Maltese Falcon to be the very first film noir. It’s hard to argue otherwise, especially considering Humphrey Bogart’s iconic performance as detective anti-hero Sam Spade, straight from Dasheil Hammett’s phenomenal hard-boiled novel. If you’ve never seen The Maltese Falcon, this is a no brainer — get your ass down to Film Forum on Thursday. In fact, this movie wasn’t only the first noir, but it was also Huston’s directorial debut, and it’s one of the best first movies of all time.

Paired with The Maltese Falcon is This Gun For Hire starring Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake, not to mention a pre-Music Man Robert Preston. Based on a Graham Greene novel, this is another film long near the top of my “to see” list, so hopefully I’ll have more to say at a later date.

Friday starts a series of bills which make up the most famous and important of all noirs starting with two of the sexiest of femme fatales: Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice and Rita Hayworth in The Lady From Shanghai. Both are worth seeing (the Hall of Mirrors sequence in the latter film is particularly fantastic), and they play Friday and Saturday. I’ll write more later in the week.

Don’t expect too much from me today. I’m still recovering from an amazing GBV show last night. This was the first time I had ever seen them play, and since this is billed as their last show, and last night was the last of the last shows in New York, I guess I caught them just in time. And although I will most definitely be wrecked all day today, it was so worth it. I don’t know how it might rank among other GBV shows, but I can’t imagine there being a more energetic performance. And while GBV are known for playing longer than your average band: three hours!!!! And three hours that flew by in what seemed like 45 minutes. Nobody inside Irving Plaza last night wanted it to end, and even when it finally did somewhere around 1:15 AM, my friends and I were still so pumped from the show, we couldn’t even be sad that we would never see them again. (Of course, Robert Pollard is just moving on to a solo career, which GBV almost was already, and I’m sure he’ll always play these songs and get drunk, so it’s not completely really the end … not exactly.)

So even though I had great experiences watching both Turning Gate and Silmido at the Walter Reade’s South Korean film series, as well as a weekend of biopics with Ray and Kinsey, and I really want to talk about all of them, I’m just too wrecked right now. Maybe tomorrow.

I also plan to weigh in on the National Board of Review, and organization whose yearly awards are becoming as respectable (NOT) as the Golden Globes. A top 10 list including either Ray or Collateral is simply laughable. There were too many good movies this year for either of those mediocre works to be anywhere near a top 10 list, especially Ray. If you’re simply talking top 10 performances, I will gladly agree that Jamie Foxx deserves notice for both, films, but the movies themselves? Feh. They both have too many holes. And while I really liked Finding Neverland, I’m sorry, no. Just, no. Not even. It might crack a top 10 list, but the best?

All this, however, for another time. Besides, it’s Monday anyway. Chances are, you don’t expect anything coherent from me on Mondays. Or Tuesdays. Or Wednesdays. Or ….

Sunday may be Guided by Voices Day here in New York, in celebration of their “last ever” shows tonight, tomorrow and Sunday, but there’s a lot of special film programming occurring this weekend as well. Since I’m going to the Sunday show, I’ve got to figure out how to squeeze it all in.

• Closer is the only major new release this weekend, with Zhang Yimou’s follow-up to Hero, House of Flying Daggers, opening in New York and LA. I can’t wait to see both films, although Closer will be the more interesting experience for me because I actually saw the play by Patrick Marber. I remember really liking the play too. It had a phenomenal cast featuring Natasha Richardson, Anna Friel, Rupert Graves and Ciaran Hinds. And yet, I can’t remember one thing about it. I see the trailers for the new movie, and other than the fact that there are four characters, not one thing seems familiar. Yet I still remember leaving the theater those years ago and really enjoying it. How could something so supposedly enjoyable be so utterly unmemorable? Will the film trigger my memory? (Oh yes, fascinating stuff, I know.)

• If you’re going to be home on Sunday and have HBO, you might want to tune in at 9 PM forThe Life and Death of Peter Sellers. You must have seen the ads which show how thoroughly the always fantastic Geoffrey Rush at least physically transformed into the spitting image of the late, brilliant actor. Sellers had a notoriously fascinating, and troubled, life, posthumously gaining a public reputation for not exactly being the nicest man even while always being remembered as one of film history’s most talented and versatile actors, comic or otherwise. I’ve been hearing mixed things about this HBO original film. The choice of Stephen Hopkins as director is a bit curious to me. Hopkins managed to obtain some level of Hollywood success by being the consummate hack making just plain awful bastardized sequels like A Nightmare on Elm Street 5 and Predator 2 not to mention horrible action thrillers like Judgment Night and Blown Away. Somehow, even after making the abhorrent The Ghost and the Darkness, New Line Cinema gave him a shitload of money to make the big screen adaptation of Lost in Space, which while definitely not owning the title of worst old TV series adaptation ever, it’s damn close. Hopkins managed to redeem himself a bit by joining the creators of 24 and directing a large number of the Fox series’ episodes. 24 is a show built for Hopkins sensibilities. 24 takes plenty of leaps with story logic that are alternatingly annoying and thrilling. In quick-moving hour increments on a show which requires you to check all sense at the door, his style seems to work fine. He also directed the USA Network miniseries Traffic, a reconception of Steven Soderbergh’s Oscar-winning Traffic which itself was a remake of the British miniseries Traffik. (And anyone who has seen the British miniseries and still thinks Stephen Gaghan deserved that Oscar for basically changing a few names and locations deserves to have his/her head examined.) Anyway, the story of Sellers’ life and work is enough to make me DiVo it. I just hope that Hopkins has grown as a director more than I’ve seen so far.

  (PS: If you’re into biographies, you might also want to watch one of a more documentary feel when The History Channel airs its new examination of the life of one of the most important Americans who ever lived, Ben Franklin. The History Channel’s biographies are usuallly pretty entertaining in their own rights, so check-it-out this Sunday at 9 PM, with a perfectly DiVo-able replay at 1 AM in case you’re watching something else at 9, like The Life and Death of Peter Sellers or Desperate Housewives.)

• Check-out Filmbrain’s suggestions for the last week of the South Korean Film series at the Walter Reade. As a relative illiterate on most Asian cinema, his suggestions are helpful, and I’m definitely checking out Turning Gate tonight.

• I’m hoping to finally get back down to Film Forum to catch Days of Being Wild, but you certainly won’t go wrong also stopping by today or tomorrow for a double feature of John Huston’s classic noir The Asphalt Jungle or one of Stanley Kubrick’s earliest films, the recetrack heist drama The Killing, a phenomenal look at the last days of true film noir from the first days of one of history’s greatest filmmakers. While not one of Kubrick’s more famous films to the general public, it is one of his most influential to other filmmakers, especially those who have gone on to make their own heist pictures. The film’s nonlinear narrative was somewhat unique at the time even as now many filmmakers try to use similar storytelling techniques – and often fail.

  Sunday and Monday bring Otto Preminger’s fantastic Laura . A great murder mystery with a romantic drama twist, Laura is a great example of the most successful types of noir. A police detective falls in love with the “murder victim” he’s investigating. Yeah, that would pique my interest too. Check it out along with Phantom Lady.

• And don’t forget the Visconti series still ongoing at BAM.

• Finally, as I alluded to Wednesday, the awards season for movies is upon us. I’ve got a long way to go before I’ll be putting out any top 10 lists; probably not until mid-to-late January. But Finding Neverland winning the National Board of Review’s Best Film honor is slightly absurd. I really enjoyed the movie, but this has been an incredibly strong year for film, and I feel I can say that even without having seen many of the ones we want. When all is said and done, I don’t even know that it will make my list of top films. Between the NBR, the IFP Independent Spirit Awards, and the New York IFP Gotham Awards, award’s season is gearing up and we’re going to be hearing a lot about prospective “best film of the year” choices. I’ve been busy at work and haven’t had that much time the past couple years, so I’ll talk about this more probably after the weekend.

Have a good one, and if you can’t actually go to one of the GBV shows yourself, just head outside to a bench, pop on your iPod headphones and blast their music really loud while you drink a beer. Depending on what number beer you’re on, you may not even notice the difference!

“America’s new reality tops our news tonight.” And with those words, NBC’s evening newscast became The Nightly News with Brian Williams. Sure, he was really talking about more troops in Iraq to help prepare for the Jan. 30 “election,” as well as new appointments, and resignations, in the Bush administration. But this first line of the evening was a subtle reference as well to tonight’s official changing of the guard.

The news media, with NBC obviously leading the way, has been lauding Tom Brokaw for some time (I wrote my own thing yesterday), and you can bet your ass that try as they might, CBS won’t be able to attract the same universal positive accolades, including from outside their network, for Dan Rather when he gives up his anchor chair in March. And while no more than a few minutes at the end of either last night’s or tonight’s broadcast were dedicated to even discussing this passing of the baton, both men managed their parts in gracious and characteristic fashion. However, these brief moments also expressed how these two men, both consummate professionals, are different, and why I think Williams may have some trouble keeping Brokaw’s audience.

15.4 million people – more than any audience in the past eight years – tuned in to see Brokaw’s final broadcast, and what they witnessed was a perfect example of why the anchor has been so successful. There was, in fact, a pass-off; a moment when Williams acknowledged Brokaw’s importance and Brokaw basically said directly to Williams, Here’s the chair; I’m sure you’ll do great, and we’re all counting on you. It was a the end of a report regarding wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C. Williams was the reporter for the story, and to wrap-up, he said, “These young wounded vets might just be what some say is the emerging next greatest generation,” referencing the term Brokaw basically invented but has now become part of our national lexicon. Williams continued, “And with that, one last time, Tom, back to you.”

Brokaw’s response: “Thanks, Brian. Don’t go far because we have plans for you.”

Continue reading “THERE GOES THE TORCH: HELLO BRIAN”