Day: November 21, 2010
The Beat: Shuler crashes Pelosi’s Party
Congressman Heath Shuler continued to make local and national headlines last week in the wake of his losing bid against Nancy Pelosi to lead House Democrats. In other lingering election news, incumbent Elise Israel and newcomer Chase Hubbard survived a recount and are set to serve as Buncombe County Soil and Water Conservation district supervisors.
Cranky Hanke’s Screening Room: Are the Marx Brothers old hat?
The Marx Brothers—for those who don’t know—were a team of Jewish comics who made their way from vaudeville to the Broadway stage and from there to the movies. For our purposes, they were Groucho, Harpo, Chico and—for five movies anyway—Zeppo. According to rumor and most historians and critics, they are supposed to be funny. They counted George Bernard Shaw, T.S. Elliot and Salvador Dali among their fans (Dali even sent Harpo a harp strung with barbed wire). Many books—ranging from the fannish to the exceedlingly academic—have been written about them, starting with Alan Eyles’ The Marx Brothers: Their World of Comedy in 1966, which coincided with their disovery by a generation of moviegoers who were mostly born after the boys made their best films. But where are the Marx Brothers on today’s radar?
