Remember Meat Loaf? A beefy rocker with a mane who in the '70's performed the hit “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” with Karla DeVito. With his hands on her ass, the girl sings “Will you love me forever?,” he sings “Let me sleep on it. I'll give you an answer in the morning.” And in the background a sports announcer's voice calls out their every move. The excitement of that drama was recalled at the premiere of an excellent new documentary “Meat Loaf: In Search of Paradise” directed by Bruce David Klein last night at the IFC Center, just a few blocks west of the Bottom Line in the village where Meat Loaf was a headliner in my youth. With a follow-up album to his hugely successful “Bat Out of Hell,” (selling more than the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper according to the film) Meat Loaf at 59 is still a dynamite performer, and the movie follows him and his band through the rigors of missed flights and lost luggage in a world tour starting in Canada. Only this time the girl is singer Aspen Miller, a brunette who seems too young to Meat Loaf critics, making the lovers look like a grandpa in a sweaty and unwanted grope with a teenager. In the process of sleaze control, the film shows Meat Loaf fitted for a wig so he can return to his youthful look as a parody of himself in those heady '70's. Doesn't anybody get, this is theater, asks the film. Overriding all, of course, is the music: a highlight is Dennis Quaid joining Meat in “Gloria,” Meat Loaf himself doing “I'd Do Anything For Love.” Melvin Van Peeples and Debby Harry attended the opening, as did Jerry Della Femina and Judy Licht. The topic of the day came up and Jerry shared that he did not think Eliot Spitzer should have lost his career, his marriage yes, but not his career. Meat Loaf, I might add, now 60, never looked better.
Meantime further evoking the '70's, on Tuesday May Pang celebrated the publication of her photographs of John Lennon, taken during an 18 month period from 1973 to 1975 when the two were living together while the Beatle took a break from Yoko Ono. Cynthia Lennon, John's first wife, joined the packed crowd at the Cutting Room. Pang had encouraged John to reunite with his son Julian from that first marriage: pictures of father and son abound in this slim yet significant addition to the vast body of Beatles literature. “Instamatic Karma” features Pang's anecdotes and photographs of John relaxing and enjoying friends Mick Jagger, Paul and Linda McCartney, Ringo, Bowie, the much missed Keith Moon of The Who, and the still vivacious May Pang.
Regina Weinreich
Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura
This Rolling Stones' concert film, "Shine a Light", directed by Martin Scorsese made me feel, how shall I put it, not so bad about ageing. Something about Mick Jagger jumping about the stage, his six pack intact, his act a fine-tuned workout. Drummer Charlie Watts has gone completely gray and Keith Richards has facial crevices to rival the Grand Canyon. Still, the archival footage of this iconic band going back to their beginnings made me feel less, those were the days, and more, the time is now, especially seeing Jagger in fantastic duets: “Live With Me” with Christina Aguilera, “Loving Cup” with Jack White, and “Champagne and Reefer” with Buddy Guy. Early on in this engaging film you see legendary documentary filmmaker Albert Maysles milling about, one of the 18 cameramen shooting backstage footage at the Beacon Theater to make “Shine a Light.” Albert had directed the Stones in “Gimme Shelter” (1970). I interviewed Albert for Andy Plesser's Beet.Tv last month at a show of his photography at the Steven Kasher Gallery:
