Top Famous Love Songs and Music

Genre: Television: SeriesRating: NRRelease Date: 27-JAN-2009Media Type: DVD

Sealed with a kitsch, The Love Boat cruised into its second season as one of television's top 20 shows and guiltiest of pleasures. Leaving uncharted waters to edgier shows of the day, The Love Boat was pure escapist entertainment. Each of these 13 episodes steers a tried and true course through three stories; one involving the crew members, another played for laughs, and the other more dramatic, but with a reassuring finish that allowed everyone to disembark with hope of a happy-ever-after. Each episode, too, is a minor miracle of casting with a star-studded roster ranging from seasoned Hollywood veterans to fresh faces just finding their sea legs. Vincent Price is featured in a Halloween episode as the Amazing Alonzo, who almost makes his fiancée (Joan Blondell) disappear for real when he keeps their engagement a secret from admiring female passengers. June Allyson stars as a woman losing her eyesight, with Van Johnson as her over-protective husband. Robert Reed is a man who witnessed a shooting but is afraid to testify, with Toni Tennille as a woman with a personal stake in the case. And Jill Whelan is introduced as Vicki, the young daughter of Capt. Stubing's lost love. On the lighter side, we have Billy Crystal as a shy young man by day, masked kissing bandit by night, Soupy Sales and Jo Anne Worley, as a buttoned-up boss and his adoring secretary who awaken after a drunken party in the honeymoon suite, and John Astin as a hermit who maroons Captain Stubing (Gavin McLeod) and company on his deserted island. The Love Boat isn't Shakespeare, but the writers must have brushed up on classic films to pay homage to the Marx Brothers' A Night at the Opera stateroom scene (ship's engineer Larry Storch's large Italian family is smuggled aboard so he can celebrate Thanksgiving with him) and Ninotchka (Loretta Switt stars as a humorless Russian who gets an extreme makeover). In these tumultuous times, The Love Boat remains the quintessential "Stop the World" series that allows viewers too forget their troubles. So when goofball Gopher (Fred Grandy) dons women's clothing to protect cruise director Julie (Lauren Tewes) from an overeager passenger (Red Buttons), your blissful smile is The Love Boat's "sweetest reward." --Donald Liebenson

No Description Available.Genre: Popular MusicMedia Format: Compact DiskRating: Release Date: 27-JUL-2004

Josh Groban fans who caught the singer's 2004 Closer tour would no doubt take note of Lucia Micarelli, who was the violinist and concertmaster for Groban. Like her boss, who also is executive producer of Music From A Farther Room, Micarelli is a young, attractive, and talented player who has the classical training, but who is also enchanted with pop music. Also like her boss, her strain of classical crossover works thanks to tasteful accompaniment, in this case from arranger/composer Paul Schwartz. The smartly chosen program of material comes from such varied catalogs as David Bowie and Rogers and Hart. Micarelli's playing is emotional without being overreaching, assertive when called upon, and nuanced. When she does go over-the-top pop on Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," it's brief but fun; when she navigates Piazzolla's "Oblivion" she draws upon the song's passion more than its technical requisites. This is a debut with likeable pizzazz, coming in a genre not often enough known for it. -- Tad Hendrickson

The "Golden Age" referred to here spans The Jazz Singer and the advent of the talkies to the death throes of the old studio system in the 1960s. So vast was the era's musical landscape that even this 42-track, double-disc anthology can't encompass all its peaks. Not surprisingly, the bulk of this collection originated with the Tiffany's of the screen musical, M-G-M, a body of work whose riches here encompass both pop-cultural bedrock ("Over the Rainbow," "Singin' in the Rain," "There's No Business Like Show Business," etc.) and some less familiar, if equally delightful star turns: Clark Gable gamely "Puttin' On the Ritz"; the sassy, 1948 original of "The Lady Is a Tramp" by Lena Horne; and a loopy duet of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" by Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalban. Fred Astaire's elegant, epochal reign at RKO and M-G-M is represented by "Night and Day," "Let's Face the Music and Dance," and three others, while Metro mainstays Gene Kelly and Judy Garland share equal time and billing. It's not perfect--Cagney's "Yankee Doodle Boy" and/or some Sinatra seem more logical choices than the odd "bonus" duet of Casablanca's "As Time Goes By" and "Lara's Theme" from Dr. Zhivago that close out disc one--but it's a stunning, surprisingly comprehensive primer on the Hollywood film musical nonetheless. --Jerry McCulley