Diving headlong into the extended holiday weekend, I thought it would be best to kick things off with a star-spangled Retro Movie Moment.

Why?

Because I’m a “Yankee Doodle Dandy.”

James Cagney stars as the ultimate patriotic showman George M. Cohan in this Oscar-winning musical from 1942.

Cohan was the legendary performer, writer and producer of turn-of-the-last-century Broadway who gave us scores of hit songs including “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” “It’s a Grand Old Flag,” “Give My Regards to Broadway” and “Over There.” His music reflects the unstoppable spirit and patriotism exhibited in the U.S. at the dawn of the American Century.

If you are only familiar with Cagney as the quintessential tough guy and gangster in classic movies such as “Public Enemy,” “Angels with Dirty Faces” and “White Heat,” you might be surprised to learn that Cagney was actually one of the best and most underused song-and-dance men in Hollywood. Cagney said “Yankee Doodle Dandy” was the favorite movie of his career–not because he won an Oscar for Best Actor but because it was one of his rare opportunities to dance and sing on film.

Cagney does an excellent job recreating Cohan’s exuberance and determination to succeed and entertain through the peeks and valleys of Cohan’s career.

The movie also stars Joan Leslie, Walter Huston (who was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor award) and Eddie Foy Jr., who played his own father–Cohan’s rival for being the king of Broadway during that time period.

The choice of director for this film also might surprise some people. Before this film, Michael Curtiz was best known for his hit Errol Flynn swashbucklers “Captain Blood,” “The Adventures of Robin Hood” and “The Sea Hawk.” He also worked with Cagney in the classic “Angels with Dirty Faces.” He wasn’t generally known for his musicals.

What is remarkable to me is that Curtiz not only directed “Yankee Doodle Dandy” in 1942, he also directed the oh-so slightly more famous “Casablanca“! Both movies earned Best Picture and Director nods for two years running because “Casablanca” wasn’t released until January 1943. Curtiz only won for “Casablanca,” but that shouldn’t diminish the fact “Yankee Doodle Dandy” was and is still one of the most energizing musicals on film–loaded with great character development in addition to stunning singing and dancing.

So before you head out to the big fireworks shows this Independence Day, you might want to check out “Yankee Doodle Dandy” for a patriotic booster shot. Who knows, you might just be surprised by how many of the songs you hear during the fireworks display that were made famous by the great George M. Cohan.

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Boys and girls, even I don’t know where to start on this one, or even what to call it.

Slasher farce? Minimalist Slasher Absurdism? I laughed. I jumped. I kinda wanted to tear my hair out in some scenes.

Whatever it is, kiddies, “Murder Loves Killers Too” is one of a kind!

Set in the mountains near Big Bear Lake, Calif. (even though the license plates say they are in Colorado), “Murder Loves Killers Too” starts with a preamble, kinda like the classic “A Christmas Carol.”

The narrator waxes poetic about horny young adults going into the woods to party and die. (It is an unexpected and dry narration, but it is funny.)

Exit narrator. Enter the 5 dwarves (not real dwarves…just hang in there a sec): Gearhead, Screamy, Dopey (think 4.20, baby), Topless and Bugs.

Within one minute, I know who I–me, personally–want to kill. Screamy. All she does is scream. If she’s happy she screams. If she’s bored she screams. If she’s scared she screams. If she’s screaming she screams. She has virtually no speaking lines. She needs to die! She needs a slow, graphic death. On my list of movie characters I would pay to kill, she’s not too far behind Jar Jar Binks from the Star Wars prequels.

Back to the movie. The 5 dwarves’ car breaks down not far from the remote mountain cabin they’ve rented for the weekend. Oddly, there’s a car parked in the driveway. Without really bothering to see if anyone is home in this isolated location, they commence partying.

Soon Screamy decides she needs to go for a jog. It is a random decision she pays for with her life! Yay! Unfortunately you really don’t see her tortured or killed.

Unknown by Dopey that his girlfriend is being killed, Dopey decides to go for a run, too. As if most munchie-eating college-age stoners are total health nuts. Like Screamy, he doesn’t get far. At least we see him hung on a meat hook and disemboweled.

The party continues for the remaining three. In the course of 3 or 4 hours they go from passing out drunk to stone sober.

Bugs, a hottie pro bartender, has an urge to find nocturnal bugs. She grabs a magnifying glass and a flash light-leaving Topless and Gearhead to have sex and be butchered.

Our mad man is Big Stevie, a beefy giant who hacks people up with a range of weaponry spanning kitchen knives to pocket-size cordless drills. He’s deadly silent and has no pity. Four-fifths of the partiers are dead within the first half hour.

Bugs is more elusive, even if she won’t be missed by Mensa if she dies. Bugs is the only movie victim I’ve seen who after learning all of her friends are dead and has personally escaped to freedom and live a happy life instead decides to sneak back into the murder’s home.

Alrighty. Lemme regroup a bit:
Preamble=funny in an off-beat way
Murder Scenes=traditional slasher fair
Now…

Once recaptured after running back to the killer, Bugs is trussed up and dressed like Big Stevie’s yet-unseen wife and spritzed with the woman’s perfume. Bugs is then forced to wear his yet-unseen daughter’s glasses and given the girl’s math book.

“I have some sexual issues,” Big Stevie matter-of-factly announces, much like a parent having a serious conversation with a nearly grown child.

Big Stevie carries on a goofy-deranged one-sided conversation with Bugs. It’s rather funny and rather deranged.

“Yeah, I know you’ve pretty much got a situation on your hands,” he sympathizes.

Bugs is eventually imprisoned in the trunk of Big Stevie’s Honda, and Big Stevie goes home to his wife and daughter for the third and final act of this film now set in suburbia.

I won’t spoil the ending, but I did mention this film is deranged, right?

I’m still up in the air about this one. I think I like where they were taking this rather dry, absurdist farce of a slasher, but I’m not sure how well it works. It moves fast, but I might have made it a two-reeler. I don’t know.

One thing I am certain of, I loved the song used in the closing credits, “Naughty Mittens.” As demented as the movie, it is pretty sweet.

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Let’s talk for a moment about anime and music. A few anime series are almost more famous for the music than the visuals. Yes, I can hear you saying “Cowboy Bebop,” and yes, I agree. Yoko Kanno and The Seatbelts definitely brought awesomeness to that show–so much so that, hell yeah, I bought the soundtrack boxed set. “Neon Genesis Evangelion,” while not nearly as famous for the music as “Bebop,” had some beautiful pop, classical and chamber pieces to go along with giant EVAs ripping angels limb from bloody limb. “FLCL” had some crazy indie rock style courtesy of The Pillows.

“Samurai Champloo” beats ‘em all when it comes to mixing in the music, and it’s apparent at the opening credits when the vinyl starts spinnin’.

Shinichiro Watanabe’s hip-hop-chambara-road trip anime comes to us in a 4-DVD set collecting all 26 episodes, filled with vicious fights set to scratchy block rockin’ beats and poignant drama backed by chilled down-tempo trip-hop. In “Champloo” we’re introduced to an odd trio of companions. Fuu, a sweet but bumbling waitress, saves the lives of two battle-drunk swordsmen: the cerebral, centered Jin and the frothing wild child Mugen. In return for their rescue, she requests their help in order to find “the samurai who smells of sunflowers.”

Mugen and Jin’s hilariously competitive “friendship” always threatens to boil over into a fight while Fuu is always keeping them from killing each other–when she’s not getting the three of them into constant trouble. Well, okay, the other two excel at finding trouble, too. So off they go on a road trip across Edo-period Japan, and what a Japan it is. I guarantee you haven’t seen it quite like this. During their travels they enter an eating contest with disastrous results, face down warrior priests who dress as tengu and devote themselves to a “magical herb” (think Cheech and Chong) and challenge the pompous crew of an pre-Perry American trading vessel to the “new” sport of baseball. We see samurai who rap and beatbox, samurai sporting Adidas stripes and what appear to be Oakley shades, and one with an Elvis haircut. Mugen himself appears to be breakdancing when he fights.

It’s just one great mashup of culture, fashion and music–who cares about historical accuracy?

Okay, time to pray: I pray they never make a live-action remake of this anime. There’s just no way to equal the exaggerated slapstick, violence or flat-out weirdness the way it’s captured here. Sometimes sweet and funny, sometimes grisly and violent and always set to head-nodding nu-jazz hip-hop, “Champloo” stands as a truly absorbing series. The pacing of the series is brilliant, the compositions are beautiful and the characters are elegantly drawn.

Man, I wish they would do a feature-length film with these guys. I miss them. Okay, wait, prayer change: no live-action remake, just a big juicy “Champloo” anime movie. Amen.

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