Day: July 17, 2025

Is it really because of dropping revenues, or is it partly to do with Colbert being a Trump hater?

Connie Francis had a beautiful singing voice…smooth and silky pipes. She knew how to sell a song…she knew how to phrase and breathe just so.

But for the most part, her hit tunes ( “Who’s Sorry Now?”, “Where The Boys Are”, ““Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool”, “Where The Boys Are”) sounded square and swoony.

Born on 12.12.37 and reared by a conservative Italian family in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn and then Belleville, New Jersey, Francis never said, did or sang anything that sounded like anyone’s idea of “hip.”

In 1968 she actually recorded a theme song for Richard Nixon‘s presidential campaign. Not cool! Meanwhile her ex-boyfriend Bobby Darin was hanging out with Robert F. Kennedy during his ’68 primary campaigns.

But Francis popped out of that straightjacket one time, at least, when she recorded Howard Greenfield and Neil Sedaka‘s “Stupid Cupid” (’58), a plastic pop tune that sold pretty well. Because it was about a young woman confessing to being more or less powerless in the grip of sexual attraction.

The way she sang “and I like it fine” made it clear she was a scamp who really liked making out and whatnot. “I like it fine” meant that when the right guy came along, the blouse was soon unbuttoned.

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Besides ignoring the great Dolores Claiborne, what else was I doing in 1995? I’ll tell you what — I was watching all the other goody-goods.

HE’s top five films of ‘95 are Heat, Se7en, The Usual Suspects, Dolores Claiborne and Crimson Tide.

#6 through #10 are Swimming With Sharks, Leaving Las Vegas, To Die For, Before Sunrise and The Bridges of Madison County.

And then, in this approximate order: Leavibg Las Vegas, Get Shorty, Apollo 13, Living in Oblivion, Operation Dumbo Drop, The Brothers McMullen, Casino, Mighty Aphrodite, Sense and Sensibility, The American President, Toy Story, Nixon, Richard III, Dead Man Walking, Empire Records, The Basketball Diaries, Dangerous Minds, Clockers, Kids, Clueless, Beyond Rangoon. (31 films in all)

Braveheart won 1995’s Best Picture Oscar, but I can’t in all honesty call it one of my faves of that year. I haven’t re-watched it once in the 30 years that have elapsed.