Pretentious Music

Home for the Holidays

2010-12-13T10:55:00.019-05:00

This past weekend I ended up going to two holiday parties and separately watching both parts of the John Hughes/Chris Columbus latch-key kid manifesto known as Home Alone. Having not watched either film since I was a child, I had actually forgotten just how much I loved these movies. When the films were released in the Christmases of 1990 and 1992, I doubt my 6-year-old self had any greater joy in the world than seeing Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern getting ruthlessly maimed by the precocious wise-cracking Macaulay Culkin. It's actually pretty clear watching them now why the first one was the third highest-grossing film of all time at its release, and was possibly the greatest cinematic event to children of my generation. It's a remarkably well-made film with a kick-ass soundtrack that succeeds in taking one of the most ridiculous premises of all time and almost making it seem plausible. So much so in fact, that my friends and I would go into my garage and piece together random stuff to try and come up with booby traps we could lay in case an intruder ever entered my house, which in hindsight, would most certainly have all failed against any motivated adult criminal.

So as a responsible adult now, I feel like it's my duty to go through and see what other lessons are to be learned from these films. This is what I learned. . .

1) Peter and Kate McCallister are terrible terrible parents

The fact that they unwittingly abandoned their son while rushing to catch an international flight might be chalked up to simple bad luck, but the fact that they did it two years in a row borders on criminal negligence. I'm frankly surprised that the police that the McCallisters plead their story to in the sequel don't immediately call child protective services. I could write a 9/11-style report on the levels of systemic parental failings that had to occur to allow the plots of these films to happen. Ignoring the fact that they punish their children for mundane sibling bickering by putting them in solitary confinement in the attic, they then neglect to even wake them up in the morning, they fail to notice his absence in the airport shuttle or the security line at the airport, and don't bother to double check that all their children have boarded before selfishly making their way to their luxurious first class seats, as they also apparently despise their children so much that they buy first class plane tickets for themselves while completely segregating their children in coach. As a result they can't even verify the absence of one of their kids until they're halfway across the Atlantic.

So how did the film convince my 6-year-old self that the parents in it are not the neglectful monsters that they are? First, John Heard and Catherine O'Hara are both so ridiculously likable that they seem incapable of being anything other than kind and well-meaning (they secretly love their kids - they just need two years of botched vacations to make them realize it!). Secondly, the film makes it seem like the McCallister family is so large and unwieldy that mistakes like this are just bound to happen. Never mind the fact that all of their other children are complete assholes. In actuality, the McCallister clan is comprised of two sets of parents with 4 or 5 kids each (something I strangely never picked up on when I watched these films as a child). Supervising children can be tough, but I've watched enough "Jon and Kate Plus 8" to know that even the most incompetent of parents can keep track of five fucking kids. And lastly, it totally relies on the incompetence of all of the service employees that Kevin deals with, who fail to notice how insane it is that a 10-year-old child is flying, buying groceries, riding in cabs, going up to the observation deck of the World Trade Center, and checking into hotels completely without supervision. Sure, it's easy enough to be fooled by the charms of a precocious, well-spoken child with a plausible back story, but the only character who even remotely tries to intervene is Tim Curry's cartoonishly evil hotel concierge.

2) Large Irish-Catholic families are a logistical nightmare

The McCallisters hardly seem able to get their children in one place long enough to eat dinner, let alone get them all on the same trans-Atlantic flight. The McCallister house is so unruly in fact, that in the opening of the film they fail to notice the suspicious-looking man standing in the foyer of their home doing a terrible job impersonating a Chicago police officer while he cases the joint for a robbery. If there's a better case for the use of birth control, I'd like to see it.

3) American Airlines sucks

For as much product placement as there is in these two films for the airline, you'd think somebody would have noticed how badly the airline and its staff come off. They completely ignore the standard airline practice of making sure that all minors are either accompanied by their guardians or are escorted by airline staff. They're also totally unable to help a distraught mother find a single open seat on any flight going from the sixth busiest airport in the world to the third (which incidentally happens to be that airline's hub). The only thing that can be said about American Airlines is that the Mrs. McCallister is so happy with her service that she apparently doesn't even bother looking into flights from other airlines.

4) Sadistic physical abuse and torture are okay when somebody is trying to break into your house or a toy store for which you have a mild attachment, and are preferable to contacting law enforcement

By Warner Bros-style cartoon violence standards, none of the cruelties that Kevin McCallister sets against the Wet Bandits are anything particularly egregious. However, in a world where people don't collapse into a pancake and pop up like an accordion when hit with a heavy objects, the pain that he inflicts on the home invaders is nothing short of psychotic (and their ability to endure it is inhuman). Of the traps that Kevin sets for Marv and Harry, the most painful would probably include: being shot in the genitals with an air rifle; having your scalp incinerated by a blow torch; stepping on broken glass and rusty nails with bare feet; and blunt force trauma from countless paint cans, bricks, and lead pipes. Assuming that any person could survive that level of abuse, the joy that Kevin takes in it is truly perverse. Really, how much different would it be for him to chain the two of them to pipes and tell them to saw off their own legs or strap them in a chair and start drilling their teeth. Though I suppose they probably deserve it for continuing to try and break into a house that they know is occupied by this remorseless Rambo child, rather than seeking the medical attention that they both desperately need.

5) Frightening, vagrantly-looking loners are actually just kind, misunderstood souls who will save you when the people you've been torturing all night have you trapped

Kevin is initially terrified by his bearded snow shoveling neighbor, just as he is by the creepy Irish pigeon lady he meets in Central Park in the second film. But he soon learns not to judge these people by their appearance. He learns that the snow shovel man is just giving him threatening looks because he's sad and misses his estranged son, and that the derelict bird lady of Carnegie Hall is actually not a vile pitri dish of contagious disease, and that she doesn't suffer from severe mental illness. Contrary to every episode of "Law & Order: SVU" I've ever seen, reclusive strangers that are inexplicably friendly to small children are generally just watching out for them until their parents get back.

Actually I think this video pretty well sums up my feelings on these movies. . .

Blogging The Oscars

2010-03-07T20:44:00.006-05:00

8:30 - NPH musical numbers always deliver

8:40 - Joke about Christoph Waltz hunting Jews - cut to Ethan Coen

8:42 - Clooney faking (?) being mad about jokes at his expense

8:50 - Christoph Waltz gives surprisingly earnest speech. Mak

9:08 - Crazy Heart Song wins. Is T Bone Burnett high? Where's Woody Harrelson?

9:20 - Hurt Locker writer gives moving speech that makes me feel bad for rooting for Quentin Tarantino.

9:30 - Is any part of Molly Ringwald's face still organic?

9:40 - John Hughes montage showcases many great films, none of which were ever noninated for Academy Awards. Too little too late.

9:45 - Cadre of John Hughes actors reads like a cautionary tale for how not to age gracefully

9:50 - Ben Stiller presents makeup award dressed in Na'Vi makeup. Funniest thing Ben Stiller has done since Zoolander

9:55 - Is it just me or is the queueing off music weirdly sad?

10:00 - Precious writer might be drunk. . . or on ludes. Either way good job getting him off the stage before he falls over.

10:25 - Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner introduce horror montage. Are they aware that Twilight isn't actually a horror film?

10:32 - Hurt Locker winning sound awards is my Oscar pool Waterloo

10:39 - James Taylor sings Beatles song to death montage. RIP John Hughes, David Carradine, Dom Deluis. Wait, what's MJ doing in this thing?

10:49 - Interpretive dance medley includes pop-and-lock routine to atonal Hurt Locker score.

11:06 - The Cove wins best documentary. In case you're curious, the guy accepting this award IS the Indian guy from Short Circuit.

11:15 - On my 5th bright blue Avatar-themed cocktail. . . and I think I'm pretty much checked out. This thing needs to end soon.

11:32 - The Dude wins. Starting to get the feeling that Jeff Bridges is never actually acting.

11:49 - Sandra Bullock reprises her last night's Razzy award win. Continues to blur line between these two awards.

11:55 - Kathryn Bigelow wins victory for female Hollywood directors everywhere. All three of them.

11:58 - Hurt Locker closes the deal. Now all Avatar has to show for its achievements is its legions of worldwide fans and record-setting grosses.

Pre-Gaming the Oscars

2010-03-06T19:08:00.010-05:00

Though I've more or less ignored my blog for the last year, this years Oscars are so ridiculous, I'd be a chump not to write a post on them. From everything I've read about the ceremony, it will be nothing short of the most shameless exercise in least-common-denominator pandering you've ever seen. 2 hosts. 10 Best Picture nominees. Preferential ballots. No lame Melissa Etheridge songs. I'm just shocked they didn't ask Larry the Cable Guy to host.

Of course, with that said, I am mostly (mostly) pretty happy about the nominees and predicted front-runners. So here goes with the prognosticating. . .

Best Picture

Cynical Prediction: Avatar
Idealistic Prediction: Inglourious Basterds

Although The Hurt Locker is probably more likely to upset Avatar in this one, I'm much more entertained by the possibility of Basterds stealing Cameron's thunder, and the preferential ballot system completely leaves open the possibility of something whacky like that happening. Though with that said, you'd have trouble making the argument that Avatar isn't the greatest cinematic achievement in the last decade at least. You know, for whatever that's worth.

Best Director

Cynical Prediction: James Cameron for Avatar
Idealistic Prediction: Kathryn Bigelow for Hurt Locker

At this point a Best Director seems like a inadequate award to give Cameron anymore (he's clearly just holding out for a lifetime achievement award anyway). Might as well give it to someone that'll actually appreciate it. Also this is clearly one of those situations where the award is meant to compensate for earlier achievements that were overlooked.

Best Actor

Cynical Prediction: Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart
Idealistic Prediction: Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart

Speaking of earlier works being overlooked, I enjoy how Jeff Bridges can just play the Dude in a serious film and it's instant Oscar bait.

Best Actress

Cynical Prediction: Sandra Bullock for The Blind Side

Idealistic Prediction: Anybody but Sandra Bullock

I'm still not positive that I didn't accidentally watch a bad lifetime TV movie when I thought I was watching The Blind Side, but the fact that Sandra Bullock is even nominated for this award is proof that women cannot get a fair break in Hollywood. May I remind you that Sandra Bullock also starred in this film last year.

Best Supporting Actor

Cynical Prediction: Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds

Idealistic Prediction: Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds

Not sure how Tarantino made a film about the joys of killing and torturing Nazis with the most likable and entertaining Nazi Jew hunter ever filmed, but I think he owes a pretty serious debt to Waltz.

Best Supporting Actress

Cynical Prediction: Mo'Nique for Preciousbasedonthenovelpushbysapphire
Idealistic Prediction: Mo'Nique for Preciousbasedonthenovelpushbysapphire

If there was a better portrayal of a child-abusing, welfare-scamming deadbeat mom this year, I'd like to see it.

Best Original Screenplay

Cynical Prediction: The Hurt Locker
Idealistic Prediction: Inglourious Basterds

While Hurt Locker is a poignant and ridiculously suspenseful look at the vagaries of modern guerilla warfare, Inglourious Bastards finds a poetic way to kill Hitler in three separate and distinct ways. Advantage Basterds.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Cynical Prediction: Preciousbasedonthenovelpushbysapphire
Idealistic Prediction: Up In the Air

From all the Oscar predictions I've bee reading, it seems like I'm the only person in America that still thinks Up In the Air is as good as it was when I saw it, and the script is damn near pristine. Though to be fair Preciousbasedonthenovelpushbysapphire was a good deal better than I was expecting it to be.

Best Cinematography

Cynical Prediction: Avatar
Idealistic Prediction: Avatar

Avatar stands as the first film I've ever seen to take 3D photography from the level of gimmick to the level of artistry (I mean, how good is the 3D rack focus on the water droplet in the first scene?). Case closed.

Best Editing

Cynical Prediction: The Hurt Locker
Idealistic Prediction: Avatar

Not gonna lie. Hurt Locker is a bit of an editor's wet dream. But the sheer thought of an editor having to pull together anything as staggering as Avatar and tell that story as well as they did is mind-boggling.

Best Art Direction

Cynical Prediction: Nine
Idealistic Prediction: Avatar

I wouldn't be surprised if Nine won this one, just because it's the kind of film where half of the Academy voters probably worked on the film (and frankly this is a movie that doesn't have much else going for it other than the art direction). But Avatar stands as the only film that successfully created a world so immersive that it's literally making kids depressed that they can't live there. Advantage Avatar.

Best Costume Design

Cynical Prediction: Coco Before Chanel
Idealistic Prediction: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Surprisingly I've actually seen the majority of these films. And while I will readily admit that Coco Before Chanel is a damn near perfect film for and about costume design, I'd really just like to see Terry Gilliam get some love one of these days.

Best Original Score

Cynical Prediction: Avatar
Idealistic Prediction: Up

I'm gleefully surprised that Up appears to actually be the front-runner for this one. Though wouldn't be surprised to see Avatar do a full sweep.

Best Song

Cynical Prediction: "The Weary Kind" from Crazy Heart
Idealistic Prediction: "The Weary Kind" from Crazy Heart

I hardly thought that this was the best song in the film, but it's definitely the best of the field here. This also makes me disappointed that they're not performing the songs this year. A Jeff Bridges/Colin Ferrel country duet always brightens my evening.

Best Makeup

Cynical Prediction: Star Trek

Idealistic Prediction: Star Trek

It's a pretty weak field this year (since the best makeup work these days seems to be done in computers) but I wouldn't mind seeing Star Trek walk away with something.

Best Sound Mixing

Cynical Prediction: Avatar
Idealistic Prediction: Avatar

Ordinarily these sound awards just seem arbitrary to people without extensive training in audio engineering, but c'mon. . .

Best Sound Editing

Cynical Prediction: Avatar
Idealistic Prediction: Avatar

See above.

Best Animated Film

Cynical Prediction: Up
Idealistic Prediction: Up

Alright. I admit it. Even I am getting bored with Pixar winning this every time. Though until somebody makes anything better, that's just the way it's gotta be.

Best Foreign Language Film

Cynical Prediction: The White Ribbon

Idealistic Prediction: Something not about German guilt and anxiety.

As usual, this field is almost entirely composed of films that I couldn't find a theater to see if I wanted to (and naturally I've seen none of them). But the synopsis of this film reads like a perfect storm of qualifications for a foreign film Oscar,

Best Documentary

Cynical Prediction: The Cove
Idealistic Prediction: One of the ones that was too obscure for me to have seen

I've only seen two of the films nominated in this category, and both essentially amount to cinematic versions of rants you might hear from an unkempt grad student at Phish concert. With that said, The Cove was by far the superior of the two, and actually succeeded in giving me information that I didn't already know and making me feel guilty about having enjoyed Sea World as a child. Advantage Cove.

Pilot Season '09

2009-10-26T10:14:00.003-05:00

It's a little past due, but I've decided to return from my lengthy blogging hiatus to once again take inventory of all of the new crap that the networks are unleashing on the world of primetime TV. So, after many painful hours of sifting through my DVR, these are the unfortunate results. . .

NBC

Community

I generally believe that the main problem with films and shows centered around college is that they're far too reverential towards the whole experience. When, in fact, college life tends to be mostly very pointless and pathetic. So the idea of a comedy mocking the foibles of a group of fuck-ups and losers attending community college is almost too easy, but this show definitely makes the most of it. As he illustrated with The Soup, Joel McHale can pretty much make smug wisecracks about anything and make it funny, and I was glad to see John Oliver in this show, proving that The Daily Show is insufficient to contain his hilarious Britishness. Hell, even Chevy Chase scores some decent laughs. I have no idea how the writers of this show plan to plausibly keep this cast of characters together for an entire season (let alone multiple seasons), but I'll definitely keep watching.

Projected lifespan: 2 seasons

Trauma

This is apparently a show about the life and struggles of emergency medics in San Francisco, but mostly it's just an excuse for over-the-top Final Destination-style car pile-ups and helicopter crashes that play out like some kind of morbid Rube Goldberg contraption. But as entertaining as this clearly is, I really don't care enough about the characters in this show keep watching for the other 40 minutes. Based purely on what I imagine the effects budget must be, I can't imagine enough people are gonna watch this to keep it on the air.

Expected lifespan: half a season

Mercy

Following the dramas of a group of young nurses in a Jersey hospital, this show is even more boring and underwhelming than it sounds. The closest thing to a "star" this show boasts is the (as always) somewhat irritating Michelle Trachtenber, and considering I wouldn't have heard of it if I hadn't been actively searching my program listings for new shows, I'm really surprised this show hasn't been 86ed already.

Projected lifespan: half a season

CBS

NCIS: Los Angeles

Considering I don't think I've ever watched a full episode of the original NCIS, it's probably improper of me to judge this latest incarnation. But for a show that tries so hard to fill every minute with edge-of-your-seat suspense and action, I was surprisingly bored. As far as I can tell the show pretty much amounts to a high-tech version of Starsky & Hutch, with computer geeks instead of pimps. Utilizing the same oversized, needlessly-flashy touch-screen technology that CNN uses to pretend that county-by-county election results are exciting, the crack team of O'Donnell, Cool J, and Co. provide a compelling example military spending out of control, and like the original series, raise alarming questions about the jurisdiction of the US Navy over things that seemingly have nothing to do with sea or the military.

Projected lifespan: these shows will never die

Accidentally on Purpose

For those that enjoyed the film Knocked Up, but would rather watch it as a formulaic three-camera CBS sitcom, this is the show for you. And for those that found Katherine Heigl's staggering wit and comic timing distracting from the narrative of Knocked Up, you can instead watch Jenna Elfman in the same role.

Projected lifespan: half a season

The Good Wife

Not quite the Lifetime TV movie pity-fest I was expecting, this show is basically just a legal procedural about the wife of a state's attorney who gets disgraced in some sort of vaguely hinted-at sex/corruption scandal. It's not bad as a legal drama, though the show seems to really overstate the extent to which the public gives a shit about the indiscretions of state's attorneys. Also, as of the writing of this post, this show is currently the second highest-rated program to premier this Fall (sadly NCIS:LA is number one). I'm as confused as you are.

Projected lifespan: 3 seasons

ABC

Modern Family

Since I think the last time ABC had any reasonably popular half-hour sitcoms was in the old glory days of TGIF, maybe it's best for ABC to just give it up. They're never going to come up with anything as funny as The Office or 30 Rock, and they're never gonna compete with CBS's Monday-night mediocrity-fest. With that said, Modern Family is by far the best part of their Wednesday-night block of vaguely edgy family sitcoms (it's a three-way tie for the worst - see below). Ed O'Neill plays his usual curmudgeonly self, which I always enjoy, and the rest of the cast is decent, but most of the jokes are just too predictable and mundane to warrant anything more than a mild chuckle. So while I maintain hope that this could potentially be a decent show, I'm not holding my breath.

Projected lifespan: 1 season

Cougartown

In spite of the incredibly low bar that I set for this show, it was actually far worse than I expected. Firstly, the title is somewhat misleading. It's not so much about cougars as it is about MILFs, and I think the distinction is important. Whereas I might find a show following the bar-hopping exploits of a group of sexually aggressive fortysomething single women played by, let's say, Jane Seymour and Kim Kattrell, somewhat amusing; what we get instead is a series of awkward situations where a divorced mom, played by Courney Cox, perpetually embarrasses herself and her teenage son in a series of misguided attempts to have sex with men who are much closer to her son's age than her own. You know how shows like The Office and Arrested Development are really uncomfortable to watch, but that's what makes them funny? This is nothing like that.

Projected lifespan: half a season

The Middle

For a show that's very explicitly about a middle-class family in middle-America struggling with their own mediocrity, this show is decidedly sub-par. As much as I enjoy watching Neil Flynn play a surly blue-collar asshole in any capacity, I really just couldn't find anything redeemable in this show. It became depressingly clear how little creativity went into this effort when, at the episode's conclusion, the show started playing the Jimmy Eat World song of the same title. Which reminds me, I seem to recall a much better program with a very similar premise and an equally similar title.

Projected lifespan: 6 episodes

Hank

I'm not really sure why Kelsey Grammar can't just be content to retire on his Cheers/Frasier/Simpsons royalties, but as long as there's a role on TV for a high-brow egomaniac in a world of dilettantes, he's gonna keep taking the paychecks. To be fair, Back to You, his short-lived series from two years was actually half way decent as a sort of generic workplace sitcom. By contrast this show is pretty much unwatchable by any standard. I don't think I would have caught that any of the lines in this show were supposed to be jokes if it weren't for the laugh track. To Kelsey Grammar's credit, he does appear to be trying very hard for these nonexistent laughs.

Projected lifespan: this hasn't been cancelled yet?

Flashforward

While I'm glad that J.J. Abrams appears to be staying true to his promise to bring Lost to a conclusion by the end of the next season, it is clear that there is a certain appetite for mindfuck sci-fi dramas that will remain unsatisfied without anything else to take its place. And since both Fringe and Heroes have thus far disappointed in this regard, I'm really pushing for this show to be good. Based on the pilot, i t does indeed seem like a better candidate than either of the above, but I'm still not totally sold. So far the character's fall far short of the awesomeness quotient of a Sayeed or Hurley or Locke, though I do admit that the security camera footage with a stadium full of passed out spectators and one creepy guy walking around them was pretty disturbing.

Projected lifespan: 2 seasons

Eastwick

Though it's equally as unlikely a product of a John Updike novel as the film that shares its source, I was actually pleasantly surprised with this show. Granted it's pretty much just a supernatural version of Desperate Housewives, down to the bouncy musical score and storybook voiceover narration, but it's at least well-made for what it is, and, while the guy they have playing the devil in the show is no Jack Nicholson, he's at least an adequate substitute.

Projected lifespan: 2 seasons

Melrose Place

A couple years back Erin got a free copy of the first season of the original Melrose Place on DVD. So out of curiosity, we decided to at least watch the pilot. Despite my expectations to the contrary it turned out to be surprisingly watchable, if only for the ridiculous 90s posturing of the whole thing. In contrast to the usual Aaron Spelling formula of wealthy, attractive people playing out the drama of their relationship troubles, Melrose at least starts out earnestly portraying the day-to-day struggles (and pool parties) of aspiring 20-something professionals in a stylish LA apartment building. As an added twist this re-boot version includes a Sunset Boulevard-style murder mystery (which they kindly solve for us in the first episode). And while the idea of post-grads with entry-level salaries actually affording this place continues to strain credulity, just as it did in the original, it's still vastly superior to last year's worthless re-boot of 90210. The only obvious strike against this show is Ashlee Simpson-Wentz's nagging presence as the naive transplant trying to make her way in the big city. The writers had the good sense to limit her to a handful of lines in the first episode, but unfortunately I get the sense that this might change as the series progresses.
Projected lifespan: 3 seasons

Vampire Diaries

It's really difficult to convey everything that's wrong with this show in a mere blog entry, not least of which is the fact that it's essentially a s ub-par version of a much more popular tween vampire drama that I'm not really that fond of to begin with. But despite its obvious bandwagoning and originality deficiencies, the series is just lame. The premise is ridiculous, even by paranormal teen soap opera standards, and the lead actress is far too normal-looking to pass for an angsty orphan with an inexplicable attraction to brooding undead boys in eyeliner. Also it's worth noting that the title of the series refers to both the main girl character's obnoxious voice-over diary entries as well as the aforementioned brooding vampire boy's journal entries, which merely serve as a reminder of how much worse the book series of this must be.
Projected lifespan: 2 seasons

The Beautiful Life: TBL

It's pretty obvious the train of though that led CW execs to think that this show would be a good idea (it's like Next Top Model meets Gossip Girl - what could go wrong?). It's less clear what made anybody think that Kentucky Fried Chicken and Total Request Live provide an ideal template for fashion-forward television titling, and it's worth noting that the title is not simply The Beautiful Life abbreviated TBL, but rather the incomprehensibly dumb and redundant combination of the two. As for the show itself, it's pretty much what you would expect from a CW soap opera about fashion models in New York starring Mischa Barton. To the show's credit, the creators at least found the one idea for a show where the talent deficiencies of the actors actually improves the authenticity of their performances. Not surprisingly, this show has already been axed.

Projected lifespan: DOA

FOX

Glee

Technically the pilot for this show premiered last spring, in a strategy that would seem novel if it weren't so ridiculous that nobody came up with it decades ago. As networks are slowly realizing that most good shows canceled before most of their potential fans get around to seeing an episode, and "appointment TV" now means whatever people are actually willing to save on their DVRs or watch on Hulu, Fox has become determined to make sure this one doesn't die without a fight. The show is a long way off from the High School Musical version of Freaks and Geeks that it aspires to, but, to its credit, it actually has a lot going for it: show-stopping song-and-dance numbers, underdogs triumphing over adversity, inappropriate sexual comedy, quirky Petra Haden-inspired a-capella musical score. Jane Lynch is well-used as the testosterone-pumped coach of the cheerleading squad whose desperate attempts to eliminate the already beleaguered and ostracized glee club are entertaining, if somewhat confusing (does she have the same animosity towards the chess club and the debate team?). The comedy is a little hit-or-miss and the tone of the show tends to veer wildly from over-the-top farce one scene to uber-earnest reflective musical montage the next (like a marginally less gay high school version Scrubs), but it's ultimately a pretty solid piece of entertainment.
Projected lifespan: 3 seasons

Brothers

It's a semi-autobiographical sitcom, starring ex-Giant defensive end Michael Strahan, about a retired football player coming home to live with his family, with about the same comic sensibility as Fox sports color commentary. That's about all I can say about this show. If this sounds appealing to you, you will not be disappointed. If not. . .
Projected lifespan: 1 season

The Cleveland Show

Considering Family Guy ran through most of its good ideas in the first two seasons, it's clear from watching this that Seth Mcfarlane doesn't even have a bottom of the barrel to scrape. Also, I'm not sure why they decided to base a show around a character whose primary characteristic is a comic lack of personality, especially since the writers of Family Guy have already come up with a much better idea for a spinoff.

Projected lifespan: 2 seasons

White Elephant Blogathon: The Tenth Victim

2009-03-31T11:30:00.014-05:00

I'd like to first thank Rufus and Ben over at Lucid Screening for inviting me to participate in their Third Annual White Elephant Blogathon. I couldn't pass up an opportunity to write about second-rate movies, and if nothing else I'm hoping it'll help motivate me to get back in the habit or writing on this thing regularly.

For those that are unfamiliar with the rules of this event, the idea is simple: everybody submits the title of a terrible movie, the titles are thrown into a hat, and each person is assigned one of these cinematic failures to watch and review. I, for the record, submitted 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain (the last and presumably worst of the franchise, IMDB rating = 2.1). In return I got Elio Petri's 1965 cult classic sci-fi exploitation flick, The 10th Victim (IMDB rating = 6.8). It's like going to your office's Secret Santa gift exchange with a Hickory Farms cheese log and getting an iPod. I can't help but feel a little guilty. Of course, this is not to suggest that The 10th Victim is a great film, or even a good film, but it's at least something that I don't feel dumber for having watched. On the bad movie spectrum with patronizingly stupid action movies and frat comedies on one end and unwatchably bizarre art films on the other, The 10th Victim falls squarely on the latter. It's the kind of film that art students will claim is one of their favorites while secretly wishing they were watching Beerfest every time they actually watch it. When I showed the movie to Erin, she recalled it being a favorite of the now defuct East Village dive Rififi to put on a big screen for hipsters to watch as they dance to eighties synth pop and drown away the misery of their own jaded indifference to the world. And like all good hipster obsessions, it's a film that's much cooler in theory than it is in practice.

The premise of The 10th Victim is unquestionably awesome. Set in a future where all mankind's aggression is chanelled into a legally sanctioned cat-and-mouse game in which participants are alternately assigned to be either the hunter or the victim and each tries to kill the other in front of a television camera in hopes of cashing in on product endorsement deals, the film is sort of like an Italian art deco version of The Running Man with a smaller budget and less professional wrestler cameos. The film opens with a go-go dancing Ursula Andress (post-Dr No, pre-Casino Royale) eighty-sixing her intended hunter with a pair of guns improbably hidden in the cups of her bra. And it's pretty much all downhill from there. Following this victory, she gets dispatched to Rome to hunt her next victim, played by none other than Marcello Mastrioanni (who, according to the rules of the game, would actually be her 5th victim, but never mind). The film mostly consists of Andress awkwardly trying to seduce Mastrioanni and convince him to go to the Roman temple that her television crew is waiting at. Ultimately the film ends up being more of a romantic comedy than action movie. Mastioanni's character, who has just gone through the six-year process of getting an annulment and divorcing his first wife, spends most of the film beating off the advances of both Andress and a woman who is supposed to be his mistress (but that he apparently hates). Predictably Mastrioanni and Andress eventually fall in love and the film digresses into some sort of weird allegory about the disintigration of marriage in modern society. The film is loaded with what I assume is poignant social commentary that would make sense to me if I lived in Italy in 1965, but probably just amounts to the pretentious, drug-addled musings of the director. The acting in the film runs the gamut from bad to awful, with the exception of Mastioanni, who essentially plays the same cool-middle-aged-guy-in-existential-crisis that he does in 8 1/2 (which, let's be honest, I'm really never gonna get tired of seeing). The organ-infused bossa nova soundtrack is definitely awesome, though the slick modern design of the film often crosses the line between cool and creepy, as exemplified by the robotic pet dog that is ostensibly Mastroianni's only true companion in spite of its being the most terrifying thing this side of a Herbie Hancock video.

This film certainly deserves it's place in the pantheon of schlocky B sci-fi movies alongside Barbarella and Plan 9. Though I will say I was a bit disappointed in the overall amount of sex and violence in the thing. For an exploitation flick I could have done with a few more over-the-top gun fights and obligatory T&A, but I do have to give the film credit for combining the two so well as it does with two simple guns and a bra.

Blogging the Oscars

2009-02-22T20:32:00.011-05:00

8:31 - Budget musical number, surprisingly funny.

8:34 - Craigslist dancers. Amazing.

8:36 - Even the writers of the show seem confused as to why The Reader was nominated for anything

8:41 - Past supporting actress winners step forward to present award like at the end of Predator 2. . . Too obscure?

8:46 - I appreciate Goldie Hawn's rack as much as the next guy, but I think those things probably need to be retired.

8:53 - I'm hoping all of the unfunny jokes in the Tina Fey/Steve Martin screenwriting bit are Steve Martin's fault.

8:58 - Political grandstanding at Oscars for first time in history.

9:07 - Wall*E wins!

9:10 - For purposes of animated short category, Academy graciously pretends that Pixar was not eligible for this category.

9:11 - "Domo arigato Mr. Roboto." Thank you very much stereotypical Japanese animator.

9:23 - Grandiose period piece that nobody saw or liked wins for costume design

9:44 - Janusz Kaminski chills with a very baked James Franco and Seth Rogen. Legendary.

9:46 - Consumate method actor James Franco clearly still high from Pineapple Express bit botches pronunciation of film he gives award to. How adorable.

9:47 - I usually lose the Oscar pool on the the short awards (since lord know I never actually watch any of them), but luckily this year I did my homework and read that Spielzeugland is about the holocaust, so I totally nailed it. . . Like gangbusters.

9:53 - The clear winner of tonight's ceremony. Boobs.

10:08 - Heath Ledger wins award for playing badass homicidal terrorist. Not gonna lie, I'm getting a little misty here.

10:13 - Hollywood rescinds blackballing to allow Bill Maher a pulpit to present documentary awards and trash religion.

10:42 - To atone for last fifteen years of terrible film work Eddie Murphy gives Jerry Lewis humanitarian award.

10:57 - Wow, Peter Gabriel is looking surprisingly fit. . . and black.

11:12 - RIP: Paul Newman, Sydney Pollack, Michael Crichton, Isaac Hayes

11:20 - David Fincher looks pissed. Was he as disappointed with Banjamin Button as I was?

11:32 - Kate Winslet wins victory for illiterate Nazis everywhere.

11:35 - Alright Kate Winslet, I do love you, but let's wrap it up.

11:44 - Mickey Rourke loses. I call shenanigans.

11:55 - Slumdog sweeps. I wanna watch Trainspotting.

3rd Annual Oscar Pre-game Extravaganza

2009-02-22T11:29:00.008-05:00

The past year was a surprisingly good one for film, but it's hard to tell looking at this year's slate of Oscar nominations. 2008 was a year of great Summer blockbusters and mediocre prestige pics, and, as expected, the Academy made the mistake of choosing the latter over the former. Here are my unfortunate predictions. . .

Best Picture

Cynical Prediction: Slumdog Millionaire
Idealistic Prediction: Wall*E or Dark Knight

It's no surprise that Slumdog is the heavy favorite in this category, but I can't for the life of me figure out how it's schmaltzy feel-good heroics puts it above the fray of any summer popcorn flick that were shut out in this category. I also can't figure out who cared enough about The Reader and Benjamin Button (other than the producers of said films) enough to get them nominations, while passing up the chance to give nominations (and maybe a win) to two films that were great cinematic achievements in their own right, and universally loved by both critics and the public. Good job Academy. Way to vote your way to irrelevance.

Best Director

Cynical Prediction: Danny Boyle for Slumdog Millionaire
Idealistic Prediction: Danny Boyle for Slumdog Millionaire

Though Slumdog is hardly my favorite Danny Boyle movie, I do love his films and will be quite happy to see him win.

Best Actor

Cynical Prediction: Sean Penn for Milk
Idealistic Prediction: Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler

It's hard to tell how much of Mickey Rourke's performance can really be qualified as "acting", but I don't know how you can't love him for it. I do think Frank Langella deserves an honorable mention here though and am a little pissed that he's not being giving serious consideration here for playing the most adorable Richard Nixon of all time.

Best Actress

Cynical Prediction: Kate Winslet The Reader
Idealistic Prediction: Kate Winslet The Reader

There's maybe a slight chance that Meryl Streep could win this award, and it wouldn't be undeserved, but I'm pretty sure Kate Winslet is going to have a nervous breakdown if she doesn't get it this time around. I'm also in favor of anything that cynically proves Ricky Gervais right.

Best Supporting Actor

Cynical Prediction: Heath Ledger for Dark Knight
Idealistic Prediction: Heath Ledger for Dark Knight

Probably Heath Ledger is going to win this just out of respect and guilt on the part of the voters, but I don't think you can make much of an argument for anyone else in this category anyway. I'm just hoping that after Javier Bardem's win last year, that this will start the tradition of this award going exclusively to psychotic serial murderer characters.

Best Supporting Actress

Cynical Prediction: Penelope Cruz for Vicky Christina Barcelona
Idealistic Prediction: Viola Davis for Doubt

As much as I secretly wish Marissa Tomei would win this award for playing a spot-on Jersey Girl stripper, she's already won an Oscar for doing pretty much the same thing. Also, for Viola Davis's ten minutes of screen-time in Doubt she pretty much shows up and completely owns Meryl Streep. If that doesn't deserve an Oscar, I don't know what does.

Best Original Screenplay

Cynical Prediction: Milk
Idealistic Prediction: Wall*E or Frozen River

This was actually sort of a tough one for me, and I still can't decide. I mean, unquestionably I think Pixar deserves some credit for having, above all else, some of the best written films of all time. But Frozen River was probably one of the most intense thrillers I've seen in a long time. Also, since this is the only award where the Academy sees fit to recognize Sundance-type independent films, it would be nice to see a film with genuine indie cred win.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Cynical Prediction: Slumdog Millionaire
Idealistic Prediction: Frost/Nixon

There was a lot that was great about Slumdog Millionaire, but I don't think the screenplay's modern rehash of a Dickensian romance novel really deserves an award. Compare that to the political-docudrama-as-underdog-sports-movie scipt of Frost/Nixon. No contest.

Best Cinematography

Cynical Prediction: Slumdog Millionaire
Idealistic Prediction: Slumdog Millionaire

The photography in Danny Boyle movies is always amazing. This is no exception. Though I think it would have shown some balls on the part of the Academy to nominate Wall*E for this category.

Best Editing

Cynical Prediction: Slumdog Millionaire
Idealistic Prediction: Slumdog Millionaire

This movie is pretty much an editor's wet dream. I can't imagine it not winning.

Best Art Direction

Cynical Prediction: The Curious Case of Benjamin Bratt
Idealistic Prediction: The Dark Knight

Probably if David Fincher gave two shits about the screenplay instead of spending all his time on the VFX and art direction, this might have been a decent film. So I'm sure that if this film gets any awards, it'll be here.

Best Costume Design

Cynical Prediction: The Curious Case of Benjamin Bratt
Idealistic Prediction: Milk

As usual, this award comes down to which period drama has the gayest, most ornate outfits. Ironically I thought Milk was by far least gay and most tastefully understated film in this category. Plus I sort of wish I actually owned some of James Franco's outfits from this movie.

Best Original Score

Cynical Prediction: Slumdog Millionaire
Idealistic Prediction: Milk

As much as I enjoy the Bollywood musical stylings of A.R. Rahman, I just want Danny Elfman to win an award, and this is probably his best shot.

Best Song

Cynical Prediction: songs from Slumdog Millionaire
Idealistic Prediction: "Down to Earth" from Wall*E

Really Springsteen's song from The Wrestler should be the clear winner in this category, but the Academy seemed to think it better to only have three nominations than to even nominate it. So with that said, I'd just like Wall*E to win in one of the categories that it actually wasn't snubbed.

Best Makeup

Cynical Prediction: The Curious Case of Benjamin Bratt
Idealistic Prediction: Dark Knight

Is it just me or was the aging makeup in Benjamin Button not that convincing. Whereas both the Two-Face and Joker makeup in Dark Knight is both powerfully disturbing and 100 percent convincing.

Best Sound

Cynical Prediction: Dark Knight
Idealistic Prediction: Wall*E

The sound awards are always the biggest crapshoot, and seemingly completely arbitrary unless you're a sound designer. But since the first 45 minutes of Wall*E has pretty much no dialogue and I love it anyway, I'm sort of partial.

Best Sound Editing

Cynical Prediction: Dark Knight
Idealistic Prediction: Wall*E

See above.

Best Animated Film

Cynical Prediction: Wall*E
Idealistic Prediction: Wall*E

Though I was pleasantly surprised with Kung Fu Panda, it's still not much of a contest.

Best Foreign Language Film

Cynical Prediction: Waltz With Bashir
Idealistic Prediction: Waltz With Bashir

Not gonna lie. I still haven't seen any of these. But pretty much anybody I've met that's seen Waltz With Bashir has said it's pretty amazing.

Best Documentary

Cynical Prediction: Man On Wire
Idealistic Prediction: Man On Wire

I've only seen two of these, but they were both awesome. And as much as I enjoy Werner Herzog's ridiculous voiceover, Man On Wire is definitely the better film.

Grammys = meh

2009-02-09T12:17:00.009-05:00

As usual, I skipped last night's live broadcast of the Grammys and instead opted for a variety of highlights and recaps. There were a few things that I probably would have liked to have seen live, like M.I.A. performing (while 9 months pregnant) a song about violently mugging western tourists to a crowd of mostly middle-aged liberal intellectuals, or like Radiohead replacing their whole rhythm section with the USC marching band, which, judging from the smirk on Thom Yorke's face served no purpose other than to prove in spectacular fashion how much better they are than all of the artists that have beaten them over the years in the major categories (and no, "Best Alternative Album" does not qualify as a major category any more than "Best Regional Mexican Album" does).

Much like last year's surprise victory from Herbie Hancock, this year's major awards sweep came from left field for anybody who isn't either a huge fan of American roots music played by British people or a Barnes & Noble member who still wears earrings despite being over 40 and a dude (Harrison Ford, I'm looking in your direction). In the interest of objectivity I listened to a few songs from Robert Plant/Allison Krauss album that took home "Album of the Year", including the song that won "Record of the Year", and found them to all be extremely tasteful (in a boring, underwhelming sort of way) but mostly just very unremarkable. At the very least the album was released on a proper independent label (which is about as far outside the box as the Recording Academy is willing to go). I thought Adele winning best new artist the year after Amy Winehouse to be a bit redundant, but could hardly come up with a compelling argument for any of the other nominees in the category. The only awards that seemed even halfway legit were the ones in the fringe categories. Despite my utter indifference to his work, Lil Wayne probably deserved to sweep the hip-hop categories for having the remarkable ability to actually move records (though I assume the voting in these categories is based entirely on the voting members going to their kids' ipods and voting for whatever shows up in their 'recently played' list). And Radiohead's win in the "Alternative Album" category was appreciated in spite of the fact that the album was actually released two years ago (for those of us with a computers and an internet connection anyway).

Of course, my gut reaction is outrage and disgust over the lack of prescience reflected by these awards, but I'm going to declare that the Grammys have now reached a new level of irrelevence somewhere between the daytime Emmys and the Spike TV Video Game Awards. They give out awards that reflect neither the tastes of critics nor the music-buying public. They are now so pointless that they barely register as a side-note to news of Chris Brown's arrest, and by no means the other way around.

Pretentious Music 2008

2009-01-17T16:54:00.013-05:00

As usual, I've procrastinated writing this post for so long that it really doesn't matter at this point, but after taking the first month of 2009 to digest the musical offerings of the previous year and pretending like I was actually paying attention to current trends, I've decided to begrudgingly put together my list of my favorite songs and albums of 2008.

Now I say begrudgingly because I really didn't feel like there was much in the way of current music that qualified as "relevant" or "listenable", which I realize is the thing people say when they become too busy or old to give a shit what the folks at Pitchfork are fawning over this week, but I really think that this year it's just a statement of fact. And maybe it's because reading the business section of any newspaper in the last year was pretty much like watching the last 15 minutes of The Empire Strikes Back every day, or maybe it's because 2008 was the fist year in recent memory that American democracy (ironically) didn't seem like a miserable failure, but it's become increasingly difficult to argue for the importance of my own legally questionable mp3 collection. Nevertheless, here goes. . .

ALBUMS:

Drive-By Truckers - Brighter Than Creation's Dark

While most bands these days seem to struggle to put out two singles and half an hour of filler every three years, these guys have been filling up the full 80 minutes of their albums with quality material at least every two years for the past decade - and this album is my favorite so far. They've toned down the redneckiness of their sound slightly, but kept the gritty slice-of-life stories of people on the margins of the American South. Like their previous albums, the depressing nature of their subject matter would make their music pretty much unlistenable if their their hooks weren't so good and their lyrics weren't so damn clever.

King Khan and the Shrines - The Supreme Genius of. . .

This is a band that sounds too cool as a concept (a pudgy Canadian-born South Asian man that dresses in loin-cloths and belts out pitch-perfect sixies garage rock) to actually work. But it does. Brilliantly. And even though this album is technically more of a compilation than a real album, considering how criminally difficult it is to actually get a hold of any of their real albums, I'm gonna have to count it.

Titus Andronicus - The Airing of Grievances

Like the indie-rock equivilent of Jerry Stiller screaming "serenity now!", this album is one hell of a cathartic Seinfeld reference (barely edging out Wale's Mixtape About Nothing as the best musical Seinfeld reference of the year). And dispite the absurdly pretentious band name, the music is remarkably earnest, and includes enough shoe-gazey fuzz to warm my indie rock snob heart.

Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend

It's a little hard to believe that this album actually came out last year, considering the critical backlash to Vampire Weekend had begun before this album had even hit shelves last January, But hype and counter-hype aside, this still stands as one of the funnest and catchiest albums that I've heard in a while, and unlike most of the otherwise good music I listened to this year, I didn't forget about it two seconds after the songs ended.

David Byrne & Brian Eno - Everything That Happens Will Happen Today

Maybe it's because these guys were too geeky to ever really be cool in the first place or because David Byrne started writing songs about nostalgia and aging when he was in his twenties, but these are two of only a handful of musicians that can still put out records into their fifties (or sixties in the case of Eno) and not seem like total wash-ups.

SONGS:

Drive-By Truckers - Self Destructive Zones

My favorite DBT songs are the ones where they play the role of some kind of grizzled Southern history prof and give you a witty folk history of music or politics or both, and this song is no exception. The hook kicks ass and it's about as good of a history of the last twenty years of rock music as you're ever going to hear. Plus, I'm a big fan of the term "goings on".

Goldfrapp - A&E

It's probably a testament to Alison Goldfrapp's ability as a producer that she can write a song that basically sounds like something out of an episode of Dawson's Creek that snobbish music bloggers can still fawn over.

Air France - Collapsing At Your Doorstep

I predict that in two years Kanye West will run out of Japanese and French culture to rip off, and he'll have to start turning to Swedes for fodder, and he will sample this song, and it will be awesome.

Lykke Li - Breaking It Up

Even though Lykke Li seems like the kind of obnoxious hipster girl I'd probably want to smack the stupid skinny headband off of if I met her in real life, she really does have a remarkable voice. Did I mention I'm a sucker for minimalist Swedish pop music. What can I say?

The Walkmen - In the New Year

In contrast to the themes of that Saturn commercial that gave the Walkmen their first big break, it would seem that the band has actually grown up a bit since their first album, making records that seem more appropriate for a dinner party at a Park Slope brownstone rather than my pot smoke-filled dorm room at NYU. Thankfully Walter Martin still has the warbling vocal style of a raging alcoholic, but it seems that he's at least switched from 40s of high life to pinot noir.

Hullabalooza: Day 3

2008-08-17T12:21:00.009-05:00

"I thought I had an Appetite for Destruction. But all I really wanted was a club sandwich."

3:30 - Perry Farrell feat. Paul Green's School of Rock All-Stars & Slash

We started off the last day of the festival right. For some reason Claire had elected to receive text message spam from the festival, which mostly served to inform us about worthless product promotions, but did let us know that this afternoon the greatest guitarist of the hair metal era is going to be performing on the kids stage with the most effeminate lead singer of the alternative rock era. The set only lasted about 20 minutes and they played all covers. Perry and Slash did their best (which is to say, very little) to tone down their rock star ways. If you look closely in these pictures, Slash has a cigarette in his mouth for the entire show, and Perry would go over to the side of the stage between songs to have a glass of champagne. Perry would also introduce each of the songs for the children in a tone that was really more patronizing that child-friendly (like, before playing "Jane Says", he would remark, "this is a song about a girl that's very confused"). But even when it was clear that they were just phoning in the performance, they still rocked pretty hard, so I can't really complain.

4:00 - Chromeo

After we left the kids' stage, we walked by the neighboring stage where Black Kids were playing. Claire and I had both heard their single and thought they might be fun. We were mistaken. They sucked. So we went over to the next stage to see Chromeo, who were pumping out the good-time party jams without any of the Black Kids' bullshit hipster posturing. And I believe science has proven definitively that nothing gets a party going like a fat Puerto Rican guy on a vocoder.

5:00 - Saul Williams

Saul Williams is a bit of an aberration in the world of hip-hop. He's a rapper (of sorts) who started out as a poet, and borrows as much of his style from industrial rock as he does from hip-hop (and is indeed produced by Trent Reznor). He could write lyrical circles around Jay-Z, Lil' Wayne, or pretty much any commercial rapper in the game. He writes about empowerment and unity without soundin naive, and can get angry without seeming militant. His set was certainly one of the highlights of the festival, coming out looking like an afro-centric version of Aladdin Sane-era Bowie, with his band dressed up like something out of an early-seventies Funkadelic lineup. He assaulted his audience with a barrage of break beats, guitar noise, and angry slam poetry. He also brought his 12-year-old daughter on stage as his only backup singer, and she was totally adorable.

6:15 - Gnarls Barkley

On my way to the next stage, I happened to catch the end of Blues Traveler's set and see enough to lament the tragedy of John Popper staving off death by losing hundreds of pounds and at the same time, lose all of his stage presence (though their cover of "I Want You to Want Me" sounded surprisingly good).

Dangermouse and Cee-lo arrived on stage dressed in tweed jackets and bow ties like a pair of stuffy boarding school teachers, with their band of students in khakis and maroon sweater vests. And while I'm always a strong supporter of bands in uniform, I was expecting a higher level of pageantry from the Gnarls guys. They put on a decent enough show, playing though most of their most recent album (which is pretty much just a more fine-tuned, less-inspired version of their debut). I'm far enough removed from the summer of '06 that I was able to enjoy "Crazy" without feeling suffocated by its overexposure, but certainly the highlight of their set was a cover of Radiohead's "Reckoner" that was easily on par with the version that Radiohead had played themselves two nights previous. Following the song Cee-lo made a bashful appeal for Thom Yorke's approval, which seemed completely unnecessary, but was certainly endearing.

8:30 - Kanye West

Throughout the entire festival, rumors had been floating around that the Junior Senator from Illinois might be making an appearance sometime during the festival, possibly along fellow hometown heroes Wilco, or otherwise Kanye, and while Claire and I were staking out our spot for Kanye, it was all anybody was talking about. Of course, anybody following the news could see that it would me a monumental blunder for Obama to have appeared at a rock festival, given the recent attacks from the McCain camp on his celebrity status. And anyway, there's only room on Kanye West's stage for one oversized ego, which was very well represented. I was somewhat disappointed in his stage show, given how elaborate his set has been for his current tour and how elaborate Radiohead's light show was the night before. So with a stripped-down version on his full set, we had to settle for a mind-blowing light show clearly lifted from Daft Punk's show here last year. I'm still not sure if I would have been more impressed with Nine Inch Nails' set on the other end of the park, but I was still pleasantly surprised with Kanye's performance. For a brilliant producer that rarely ever gets any credit as an MC, Kanye totally owned that stage for the hour and a half that he was on. Of course, he was well supported by his arsenal of smoke machines and flood lights that kept the level of drama high and sent anybody with epilepsy straight to the hospital. Midway through the set, he went into a self-indulgent rant about his own place in history and the importance of progress in art, which would be easy to slag off as the crass narcissism of a man with a god complex, but it's hard to think of anybody else in hip-hop with as much appreciation for genuine creativity (even if he's often co-opting more than he is creating). Later he went to the side of the stage to take a breather while his band jammed on an abbreviated version of "Don't Stop Believing", and you could see him on the monitor smiling, not a smirk of self-satisfaction, but of a giddy child living out his dreams.

Hullabalooza: Day 2

2008-08-10T21:34:00.014-05:00

"I used to rock and roll all night and party every day. Then it was every other day... now I'm lucky to find half an hour a week in which to get funky. I've gotta get out of this rut and back into the groove."

After Radiohead's ridiculous performance the previous night (and having to stand in one place for 4 hours to get a decent spot for it), we decided to take it easy today. Luckily, it seemed like most of the bands we wanted to see were the least popular acts for their time slot, so we saw a ton of amazing bands and somehow never had to fight for a good spot spot to watch them.

3:30 - Devotchka

Last year, when Juno was released, and the Moldy Peaches were unexpectedly transformed into a household name (at least among teenage hipster girls), they also instantly became the world's most overrated band. This was remarkable, not because they don't write good songs (even though Beat Happening does that schtick much better), but because they're not really a great band (the music supervisors on Juno were smart to find the only 10 songs in their repertoire that don't sound embarrassingly awkward). Which is why I find it odd that the previous year, when Devotchka provided the soundtrack to that year's indie darling, Little Miss Sunshine, the exact opposite happened. Their involvement in the film allowed people to slag them off as "the Little Miss Sunshine band" and stop listening to them as soon as liking that film ceased to be cool. They occupy an odd musical niche of being too harsh and slavic for the Starbucks/Barnes&Noble set and too clean and professional-sounding for the Pitchfork crowd. So most of the Lollapalooza audience did themselves the disservice of seeing hipster wunderkinds MGMT instead, which allowed me to score a perfect spot to see one of the best performances of the weekend. They rocked out out on some of the most badass gypsy spaghetti western music you've ever heard, with singer Nick Urata shredding the guitar, bouzouki, and the theramin just as effortlessly as he belts out Spanish love ballads. I think I read somewhere that early in their career these guys used to do the music for Dita Von Teese's burlesque show, which seems like maybe a more appropriate setting than the Grant Park bandshell, but they pulled it off well, and strangely never looked out of place wearing a heavy tuxedo jackets and chugging red wine from the bottle in the mid-afternoon sun.

4:30 - Explosions in the Sky

With the afternoon sun at it's peak, we decided to just grab some beers and sit back on the lawn for this one. At first listen, Explosions in the Sky don't sound like a band of country-fried Texans that do soundtracks for high school football melodramas, but really I think it makes sense. They have a violent aversion to lyrics, melodies, and really anything that doesn't involve giant swells of wailing guitar fuzz. They're all about making the largest, most dramatic crescendos they can and challenging you to devour it like a 72 oz. sirloin. There's also no real breaks in their performance, so there's no way of telling where one song ends on another begins, which would have been pretty boring if I didn't feel like I was drinking the most epic pint of Bud Light that has ever been consumed.

5:30 - Okkervil River

I'm convinced that Okkervil River is actually just the bizarro version of Spoon. Both bands are from Austin, both clearly have an unhealthy obsession with Brian Wilson, and Will Shef kind of looks like an adolescent version of Britt Daniel. But in contrast to Spoon's sense of understatement and minimalism, Okkervil River seems intent on cutting open their carotid arteries and bleeding their hearts all over your speakers. And while sometimes their naked sentimentality is often a bit uncomfortable to listen to, you have to admire the sheer energy they exert in the process. When they went into "Our Life is Not a Movie" the crowd went wild, and the band milked it for everything it was worth.

6:30 - Broken Social Scene

After seeing Okkervil River spend the last hour losing half their body weight in sweat, I have to admit that I found Broken Social Scene a little boring. I've always considered BSS to be a bit overrated, which is not to say that I think they aren't a solid band. They are. But that's all they are. They're like Ayn Rand's Canadian indie rock nightmare, with so many members that it's almost impossible for any single member to stand out and do anything truly great. And indeed all of the members of the band that actually want to do anything interesting have to break away to do it. They opened with "Pacific Theme" which seemed to match the mood of the lazy, slightly overcast summer evening, but mostly just made me sleepy. The show got a little more lively when they invited Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan from Stars onto the stage, but really I think I would have rather just seen them play a set of Stars songs. When I finally realized there was no chance that Leslie Feist was going to be joining them, I decided this would be a good time for me to get a jug of wine and meet back up with Claire and Joe for Sharon Jones.

7:30 - Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings

Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings might be the least original musical group of all time, and indeed probably make the strongest possible case against artistic innovation. They pretty much don't acknowledge the the existence of any pop music made after 1975, with Jones strutting about the stage, calling directions to the band with the attitude and intensity of a coked-out James Brown, and the Dap Kings laying down the groove so tightly you'd sware they all thought the Godfather himself was gonna rise from the grave and give them a beating if they didn't land on the one. The showmanship was remarkable, and Jones even found some time in her hour of nonstop funk to belt out a couple gospel tunes with enough soul to rival Aretha. If not the best, this was certainly the most dancable performance of the festival.

8:30 - Wilco

I would personally like to thank whoever planned the festival and decided to schedule Wilco at the same time as Rage Against the Machine. Like a lightning rod for macho douchebags, RATM drew all the most obnoxious members of the crowd away from this end of the park, allowing me to enjoy Wilco in peace, and with a pretty decent view of the stage. The band came out wearing suits that looked like some kind of cheeky Takashi Murakami interpretation of Glen Cambell's wardrobe, which, it goes without saying, was awesome. The band ran through a good mix of songs spanning their entire discography (they even played a song off A.M.). I was a little surprised at how little they played from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, but the version of "Jesus, Etc." they played couldn't have complimented the glowing Chicago skyline more perfectly. I was also surprised that they played "Spiders", the 10-minute kraut-rock noise jam on A Ghost is Born, and I could go on about all the great songs I wish they had played, but really I was just mad that they had to get cut off after an hour and a half.

Hullabalooza: Day 1

2008-08-03T02:59:00.009-05:00

"My kids think you're the greatest, and thanks to your gloomy music, they've finally stopped dreaming of a future I can't possibly provide."

Let me start by apologizing for my recent lack of updates. Let me further apologize to anyone who I've unwittingly convinced to enjoy or otherwise look forward to posts on this blog. This was not my intention. As a result of having a job I no longer despise, I've found myself working longer hours and often in good enough spirits to actually leave my apartment and interact with the outside world. Also, I bought Rock Band for my Wii. . .

At any rate, I spent this past weekend in Chicago, hanging out with my sister and enjoying some of the best, greasiest food this country has to offer. While I was there I caught a Cubs game that was delayed by thunder storms and a tornado warning, and, more importantly, I spent three days watching the world's greatest mainstream-alternative rock acts find new and innovative ways of selling out. . .

3:00

Claire, Joe, and I entered Grant Park alongside Buckingham Fountain (also known as the Married With Children fountain) and got the luxurious cloth wristbands that they've introduced for this year's festival, which we would be wearing for the next three days. We were hoping to start our day off with hipster cheerleading squad known as The Go! Team in order to hype ourselves up for the weekend. Unfortunately we only made it for the tail end of their last song promptly turned around and headed to the other end of the park since none of us had any interest in seeing the poor-man's-Amy-Winehouse playing at the adjoining stage.

3:20 - The Kills

We instead decided to see the Kills, which was probably a mistake (and if I was paying closer attention to the schedule we totally would have gone to the kids stage to see Tiny Masters of Today). The Kills are, of course, a solid band, and I might even have a slight crush on Alison Mosshart, but they are not band that looks good in direct sunlight. They are a band whose entire existence is dependent on their seeming cool (in this case, literally). So when I can see sweat dripping onto the scarf that Jamie Hince in inexplicably wearing in the 90-degree Chicago heat from 40 feet back, the facade is ruined and I have to actually start paying attention to the music, which doesn't have near enough energy to sustain the festival-sized crowd they're playing to, nor is it earnest enough for me not to feel ridiculous that I'm standing behind third base of what is normally used as a baseball diamond. Luckily, they ended a few minutes early to beat a hasty retreat to the chic Soho loft from whence they came, giving us some time to get a spot for Gogol Bordello.

4:15 - Gogol Bordello

At first listen, Gogol Bordello seems like some sort of bad joke, as if Yakov Smirnoff had reinvented himself as the lead singer of a hardcore band. But as you keep listening, you realize that the singer's broken English and dropped articles are 100% serious, and his handlebar mustache is 100% awesome. It would probably be a gross over-simplification to say that they're a gypsy punk band in the way Flogging Molly is an Irish folk-punk band, but it's probably the best comparison I can come up with. And true to their gypsy heritage, they are a band without nationality. With a Ukrainian singer, two homeless Russian guys playing violin and accordian, an Ecuadoran percussionist/rapper, two half-Asian cheerleaders, and a giant Ethiopian bass player holding the ensemble together, the band is indeed a multi-cultural cluster-fuck of the highest order. If Joe Strumer were still alive, he'd probably throw away all his old records and listen to them exclusively. Needless to say, these guys are extremely entertaining and also a bit obnoxious. For the finale of the show the lead singer threw a metal bucket over his mic stand and played a drum solo on it that drove the crowd nuts. That's showmanship. . .

5:15

We probably would have tried to go to the neighboring stage to see Mates of State at this point, though it was becoming clear that we would have to fortify our position here if we wanted to have even a halfway decent spot for Radiohead. So we killed an hour, and luckily the next band was someone we wanted to see.

6:15 - Bloc Party

I tend to agree with Noel Gallagher's argument that Bloc Party is just a pretentious college band that becomes less and less appealing the farther removed you are from any sort of academic institution, or as Noel puts it, "indie shit." But they do have at least a couple of songs that make me wish I was in an warehouse club in Manchester popping ecstasy tablets like tic tacs, and I have to admit that I was pretty impressed that they don't use drum machines at all for their show (though I'm not ruling out the possibility that Matt Tong is a robot). Also when they started playing "Hellicopter" it was funny seeing all the frat guys, who had clearly played the song dozens of times on Guitar Hero, light up as they watched Kele Okereke's play it for real.

7:15

In preparation for Radiohead, and in order to kill an hour, we sent Joe out to get some wine. Our anticipation grew as stagehands began deploying Radiohead's massive lighting array and Claire, Joe, and I collectively downed two bottles of the Blackstone Winery's most mediocre riesling and pinot grigio out of plastic jugs.

8:15 - Radiohead

I've seen Radiohead once before. It was at Red Rocks in Denver, where the band ditched their entire stage set in favor of the natural ambiance of the amphitheater, and it was possibly the greatest show I've ever seen. This time around, they went completely overboard with their lighting and video setup, and, with a little help from the Bears training camp, who were setting off fireworks behind the stage, blew my mind all across the grounds of Grant Park.

For all their slow droning and odd rhythms it's easy to forget how much Radiohead just fucking rocks. I remember watching Radiohead's tour documentary Meeting People Is Easy, in which Thom Yorke spends about an hour whining about how depressed and lonely America makes him feel, and wanting nothing more than to smack him upside the head and tell him to man up. So it was refreshing to see the band quit with all the politics and melodrama and just have a good time. It made my 8th grade self happy that Radiohead has somehow become the most important rock band in the world (even if the signicance of that title has been somewhat diminished over the last decade), though it made me feel totally old when I looked around and saw the crowd of college kids singing along to all of the In Rainbows songs and then looking dumbfounded when the band kicked into anything off The Bends or OK Computer.

An open letter to Stephen Spielberg

2008-05-25T23:15:00.016-05:00

Dear Mr. Spielberg,

You've made a canon of films that stand up as some of the finest works in the history of cinema. You've redefined the expectations (for better or worse) of generations of filmmakers and moviegoers, and ensured that none of my time between Memorial Day and Labor Day will be spent in a movie theater watching some gay, artsy crap (I know, you're saving that for the Oscar season). You have more money than you can count, and a business empire that might actually rival your filmography. You had a good run there. We all had some laughs. But I saw Kingdom of the Crystal Skull this weekend, and it's clear to me that you've grown mad with power, and it's time to for you to be put out to pasture. . .

Exhibit A: The unnecessary sequels and special editions.

Maybe you' ve just been spending too much time around your friend Mr. Lucas, but this seems to be a problem that isn't going away. We looked the other way at two awful Jurassic Park sequels, but what's this I hear about another one in the works? I know that you have lots of new toys and gadgets that you wish you had when you were making movies that mattered. But, guess what? All of those movies that you made with those cheesy models and matte paintings still hold up. And War of the Worlds was shit. I don't know if that means you need to go back to using miniatures and optical mattes, but maybe it'll make you realize how bad of an idea it is to have a whole sequence of Shia LaBeouf swinging through the jungle on vines with a pack of monkeys when you see the whole thing rigged up in a studio. Like Mr. Lucas, you might think that you're introducing your stories to a whole new generation of moviegoers, but speaking from the standpoint of someone who was introduced to all your early films on home video and TV, as long as there are DVD players and parents who don't have time to raise their children themselves, your films will be watched and loved for generations to come. Not only does it destroy the cohesiveness of a film or series to interject material 20 years after the fact, it's more than a little patronizing to the people who grew up on your films to tell them that the essential experiences of their childhood were flawed and incomplete. So, just save your time, save your money, and work on putting all those classics on Blu-Ray with as little mediation as possible and we'll all pretend that ET was always a puppet and Indiana Jones never met aliens. Speaking of which. . .

Exhibit B: The aliens. What the fuck is up with all the aliens?

Now, don't get me wrong, I too had an unhealthy obsession with extraterrestrials when I was younger and fully appreciate the use of otherworldly beings as a means of exploring the meaning of human existence on Earth. I also realize that the use of aliens as a plot device is so lame that even daytime soaps avoid it like the plague. Here's a good rule of thumb, if the story of the film primarily involves aliens visiting or invading Earth, then you have full permission to geek out; but when the movie is about, I don't know, a mid-20th century archaeologist protecting biblical artifacts from fascist military leaders, it's probably best to play it safe and leave the big-eyed spacemen out. Which reminds me. . .

Exhibit C: The endings. Is it that fucking difficult to tactfully resolve a story?

I, like you, have the utmost respect for Stanley Kubrick as an artist and a filmmaker, and have often thought it would be a great tribute to the legendary master of understatement and subtlety to create an elaborate alternate ending sequence to A Clockwork Orange where aliens abduct Malcolm McDowell and show him the error of his ways, followed by a 10-minute shot (Kubrick loved long takes) of myself pissing on Kubrick's gravestone, but I think that would be somewhat redundant. While you're usually smart enough not to pen your own films, as a producer and director, you should really know better than to even sign off on any of this shit. You seem to think that the fantastical subject matter of your films gives you license to include situations that make genocidal aliens, genetically engineered dinosaurs, and self-aware robots seem totally plausible by comparison. I was totally ready to love your relentlessly dark interpretation of War of the Worlds until it ended in some fairy tale version of Boston, conveniently untouched by the swarms of bloodthirsty alien death machines that lay waste to the rest of the world, with Tom Cruise and his family miraculously all alive and intact. Which is not so different from the ridiculous coda to AI (see above), where a team of benevolent (but apparently very bored) aliens improbably arrive on Earth to give the lonely android boy the loving family he never had. Look dude. I get it. You still haven't gotten over your parents' divorce. But I don't want to pay 12 bucks a ticket to fund your 100 million-dollar therapy sessions.

So stop. Please stop. I know that legions of film critics, who are all just as deluded as you are, will continue praising all of these pathetic misfires, and small children will continue to marvel at all of the bright colors and CG fireworks, and I will long for the days when you didn't have your own studio, when you didn't have an army of visual effects artists, when you just had your ideas, and that was enough.

A little bit country. . .

2008-04-14T13:54:00.007-05:00

So far it seems that 2008 is shaping up to be a pretty decent for music. I've been enjoying the new Hot Chip and Devotchka albums immensely, and even though the Vampire Weekend CD seemed played out before it was even released, it's still a pretty solid record. Still though, my favorite album so far this year has to be Brighter Than Creation's Dark by Drive-By Truckers. The songs are catchy, the lyrics are clever, and it's just depressing enough to get me through the last stretch of winter. But for some reason, when I try to explain this to people they look at me like I'm joking or just being ironic, as if I'm one step away from telling them that I've started voting Republican and giving a shit about NASCAR.

Of course, Drive-By Truckers are officially more alt country than they are country, which is another way of saying that they actually sell records north of the Mason-Dixon Line, but I think in their case the designation doesn't really make sense. When bands like Uncle Tupelo started writing songs about the quiet dignity of Appalachian miners and mill-workers, they got categorized as "alt" country because apparently the only people in America that care about the plight of the Appalachian miners and mill-workers are rock critics and college students. Drive-By Truckers, on the other hand, are remarkable for playing music that borrows as much from traditionalist country as it does from early Skynard-era southern rock, while still writing lyrics that are consistently current and relevant. Their most recent album lacks the high-concept hard rock of their 2000 rock opera, Southers Rock Opera, or the lo-fi grittiness of 2004's The Dirty South, but it maintains most of their themes. Brighter Than Creation's Dark is comprised mostly of 3-minute song-as-character-studies about the frustrations of life on the margins of the American South, with subjects ranging from meth addicts to soldiers stuck in Iraq to a washed-up band begrudgingly playing the opening slot on tour with an equally washed-up headlining act.

Indeed, what has always made country music so popular (and why all you white-collar blue-bloods despise it) is that it panders to and even celebrates the least-common-denominator of American society. Country music speaks to the sadness and pathos of white America in a way that whiny rock ballads just can't. The old joke about what happens when you play a country song backwards (you get your house/dog/wife back - ha ha, very funny) is sort of true, but misses the point of what this music is really about. The fact is that at some point in your life you're gonna lose your house, your dog, your wife, or something equivalent. Country music is about the tragedy of life. It's not about sex and drugs, and rock star fantasies. It's about working for a living, getting shit on by the world, and drowning your blues away in a bottle of whiskey. It's about trying your best and still coming up short. In intellectual terns, it's a whole genre devoted to commiseration and catharsis.

So why is it that whenever I ask somebody to categorize the sort of music the listen to, it seems that the most common answer I seem to get is "everything but country," or "everything but rap," or "everything but rap or country." I mean, it's no mystery that the people I hang out with are a bunch of closet racists, so it probably makes sense that they wouldn't listen to a lot of hip-hop (even if their white guilt obligates them to pretend to), but what about country music is so unappealing to urbane, college-educated white folk? Every awful one hit-wonders of the eighties is retroactively transformed into a masterpiece for its tacky earnestness, and yet anything sung with a drawl and a twang is like hipster kryptonite. I mean, why is it that everyone at the bar lights up as soon as they hear "Don't Stop Believing" come on the jukebox but nobody knows the fucking words to "Friends In Low Places"?

Before I go any further, let me first point out that I'm NOT talking about Johnny Cash. I know you probably think that because you saw Walk the Line and you've got that one album where he does the Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode covers, that you have a healthy appreciation for country music. But really that's not much different from a stoner college kid that picks up a Bob Marley album and decides that it's okay to grow dreadlocks and wear a dumb-ass knit cap. Johnny Cash is a great artist, and undoubtedly one of the coolest motherfuckers to ever pick up a guitar, but I feel like people have this idea that Johnny Cash is somehow better than or different from the rest of country music. I mean, Hank Williams was infinitely more self-destructive, and Merle Haggard actually did most of the outlaw shit that everybody thinks Johnny Cash is so cool for just singing about. Johnny Cash just knew what made for a great country song and knew how to execute it without letting any high-minded Nashville production get in his way.

Now, anybody that's known me for a while probably knows that I haven't always held my current appreciation for twang and honky-tonk, and I still think that most of the country music that gets played on the radio is pretty awful (but certainly no worse than any of the other crap on the top 40). It probably helps that I live in a city where people don't actually listen to country (at least publicly), so I can freely dissociate the music from its typical listeners, who I tend to disagree with on pretty much every major social or political issue. But living in a place like New York has given me an appreciation for just how little people actually pay attention to the lyrics of the music they listen to. Rock music listeners (and indie rock fans in particular) seem to be so desperate for their music to be deep and meaningful that they're willing to disregard lyrics that are, at best, nonsensical, and, at worst, trite, melodramatic crap. Though metaphor has always been a strong part of country songwriting, it's always essential that any country song still works on the most literal possible level. Kenny Rogers might have been using gambling as a metaphor for life, but it's also possible that he was just talking to a guy on a train about how to screw his buddies out of their money next time poker night rolls around. Country is also the only genre (give or take hip-hop) where there's still a premium on wordplay. And while this has certainly led to numerous songwriting travesties ("Save a Horse / Ride a Cowbow" comes to mind most immediately), Roger Miller's "King of the Road" contains about as perfect a combination of wit, irony, self-deprecation, and understatement as anyone could have conceived, and Willie Nelson's "Sad Songs and Waltzes" is not only one of the funniest songs ever written (again, understatement is key), but also a modernist work on par with Fellini's 8 1/2 or Magritte's "This Is Not a Pipe". With all of his clever turns of phrase, you get the sense that if Willie Neson wasn't playing music (and maybe layed off the bong every now and then), he would have been the best copywriter on Madison Avenue.

Now, I'm not suggesting that anybody run out tomorrow and buy Toby Keith's Shock'n Y'all (though really there are much worse music purchases you can make), but for all of his ignorant right-wing jingoism, even Toby understands that a broken heart and a busted liver with just the right amount of lazy slide guitar droning in the background is a recipe for pop music gold that's scarcely been improved upon.

Wrong turn. . .

2008-03-05T04:40:00.020-05:00

In terms of it's pop cultural significance, my home town of Albuquerque, New Mexico, has very few and very odd claims to fame. For instance, Mike Judge was so inspired by the ineptitude of Albuquerque's public education system that he named the high school in Beavis and Butthead after our very own Highland High. For Nicholas Roeg's cult classic film The Man Who Fell to Earth, in which David Bowie plays a space alien sent to Earth on a mission to find a way to send water back to his dying planet, he chose to set the film in Albuquerque because of the surreal, otherworldly quality of the downtown and university area, as well as the state's notoriously lax labor laws. In addition to being the place where rapper/automobile enthusiast Xzibit spent most of his formative years, Albuquerque is also the birthplace of a bevy of B- and C-list actors including Freddie Prinz Jr., French Stewart, Annabeth Gish, and Neil Patrick Harris. However, the city is probably most famous for being the place where Bugs Bunny consistently makes wrong turns as he traverses the globe via his endless network of burrowed tunnels. And while this probably had less to do with the geography or culture of the city and more to do with the inherent humor of Mel Blanc making that "koykee" sound at the end, it always made sense to me that Albuquerque was always the stopping-off point and not the destination for the wascally wabbit.

Recently though, the city has found its own little pop cultural niche in a new show on AMC called Breaking Bad, set and shot on location almost entirely in Albuquerque. In the past year AMC has set about reinventing itself as a sort of cable version of HBO, and given how unequivocally awesome Mad Men is and how terrible HBO's recent crop of original series have been, it should maybe be the other way around. Breaking Bad is their second original series, which they wedge in between extended marathons of forgettable action movie of the 80s, and the show is, in most regards, just a darker, grittier, more macho version of Weeds, following the story of a high school chemistry teacher (played by the dad from Malcolm in the Middle) that decides to start selling crystal meth to support his family after he finds out he's been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. But whereas Weeds works from the idea that its titular drug is basically benign and primarily serves to illustrate the squareness and hypocrisy of the community's uptight, conservative residents, Breaking Bad goes to lengths to illustrate the most abject features of meth culture in Central New Mexico. The show feels a little gimmicky at times (I mean, how often can you use some clever chemistry trick make stuff blow up before it just becomes schtick), but it's surprisingly well done. It's edgy without being obnoxious, it's grim without being bleak, and Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul are like an original dark-comic, meth-cooking odd couple. But more than anything I just enjoy seeing my hometown rendered on-screen with such frightening accuracy.

I've certainly watched enough episodes of Cops: In Albuquerque to know that the city has no shortage of ridiculous stories involving the meth trade, but I have to give the show's creators credit for never turning the city into a cartoon, like the fictitious community in Weeds, or making it seem like just some generic drug-addled Southwestern city. Though it's difficult to understate the poverty and dark underbelly of the city of Albuquerque and the state of New Mexico as a whole, it's not without its whitewashed suburbs, and everything in between. In addition to being the city where most of the mechanical components of our nation's nuclear stockpile were made, Albuquerque is also notably the city where Bill Gates chose to start Microsoft (who, like Bugs Bunny, felt no need to stick around). And what better metaphor for the duality of the city than a brilliant chemist coming together with an enterprising tweaker to cook batches ultra-pure crystal meth.

Still though, my favorite part of the show is the way it uses the minute details of the city that probably go unnoticed by anyone that didn't grow up there, but, at least for me, add a whole other level of humor to the show. Indeed one of the strongest memories I have of the city is the lower-middle-class 70s-era houses with washed-out color-schemes, shag carpeting, and wood paneling on the walls, like the houses that I grew up in, that Breaking Bad uses in much the same way Little Miss Sunshine (also set in Albuquerque) does, as a way of illustrating the stagnation and downward social mobility of the family. In the first episode of the show, when the main character is working at a car wash after school to make ends meet, it should just be sad and pathetic, but the fact that he's working at that one weird car wash on Eubank and Menaul with wood-chip siding that kind of looks like an airplane hangar actually makes it funny. Also, I don't think I've seen a more perfect once-scene description of the city of Albuquerque than a middle-aged white guy buying crystal meth out in front of the Dog House (mmmm. . . Dog House). Of course, the scene in one of the more recent episodes where the main character has sex with his wife in his car outside of his high school's science building (which is, in fact, the Eldorado High School science building, built during my freshman year there) is nothing short of surreal.

Who gives a fuck about an oxford comma?

2008-02-29T00:03:00.020-05:00

I remember it was last May sometime, and I was gorging myself on free mp3s from various indie music blogs, as I often do, when I stumbled across two songs on the Stereogum home page called "Oxford Comma" and "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" from an obscure band of ex-Columbia students called Vampire Weekend. Before I heard one note of the music, the first thing I noticed about this band was simply that their name is fucking terrible, and how could any decent, self-respecting band give themselves a name that bad. I mean, even if they were a second-rate local goth band, as the name clearly suggests, it would still be an awful name. But then I thought about it some more, and I figured a band with a name this awful had to have something else going for them to gain any kind of cred on a music elitist mainstay like Stereogum. So I gave it a listen. There was no doubt that this band was a bit unseasoned (the mp3s I downloaded had "Blue CD-R" listed as the album title), but I had to give it up to them. This was some seriously catchy shit.

Of course, classifying this band gets a little hairy. The band plays what essentially amounts to a hipstered-out version of the world-beat adult-contemporary that Paul Simon and Peter Gabriel made baby-boomers swoon over in the mid-80s. The singer, and principal song-writer for the band, Ezra Koenig, even inflects a faux-Afro-English patois in the same way Sting used to do on early Police records (but in a notably less obnoxious way). Though the bands use of afro-pop sounds and rhythms indicate an earnest appreciation and broad understanding of the genre, this is still the white man's blues. They're still primarily singing songs about the lives of prepped-out, over-privileged college students in the Northeast, and their lyrics are loaded with the kinds of references that speak to an obscene overabundance of multi-cultural exposure (though I do totally enjoy the Khyber Pass/Man Who Who Would Be King reference in "M79" - my favorite of their songs by far).

In a lot of ways they're exactly the kind of band critics love to buzz and blog about. Like Interpol and the Strokes before them, they've got a style that seems fresh and unique, but also catchy and familiar, and, more importantly, also very easy to break down into its component musical influences. On the other hand, they're a band that's distinctly uncool. There's no disaffected posturing, no vintage Italian leather boots, no hundred-dollar-haircuts. Even in their cover-photo for Spin they don't look like much more than four nerdy college kids that spent a little too much time digging through their parents closets and record collections. On some level, their style of music makes sense, blending the makeshift, DIY ethos of Third World pop music with the makeshift, DIY eithos of American indie rock. Vampire Weekend gives us the spirit of Paul Simon's Graceland without all the fancy, over-priced productions or cadre of multi-national studio musicians - which is to say, brought down to the level of the blogging and blog-reading public.

They've certainly come a long way way since I saw them last summer at a sparsely-populated free gig at East River Park, coming off a tour of house parties and holes-in-the-wall across the East Coast. While most of the songs on their just-released album were available as free mp3s or on an iTunes-released EP, they've definitely cleaned up their sound a bit, and probably gotten a little extra money money with which to hire a real studio engineer and insert the thumping bass and soaring string sections that were notably missing from their previous efforts. Aside from the obvious attention from bloggers, they made the cover of Spin this month, and their album is slated to debut at #17 on the Billboard chart next week. Hell, I even saw a little blurb on them the other day in OK! magazine (along with Goldfrapp and Hot Chip??). Which, if nothing else, just further serves to point out the slowness and inefficiency of the record industry and mainstream print media. So if record companies want to know why they're doomed to die a slow, painful death, buried in a mountain of unsold Herbie Hancock albums, it's because bands of scrappy college kids with awful names and mediocre lyrics are now doing a better job promoting themselves and giving the music-buying public what they want than any record company could possibly hope, and I couldn't be happier.

Blogging the Oscars

2008-02-25T01:12:00.011-05:00

8:35 - Jon Stewart nails opening monologue, gives writers credit that they clearly deserve.

8:39 - Jon Stewart makes Obama joke. In obligatory cutaway, Wesley Snipes mocks IRS with apparent freedom.

8:50 - First retrospective montage of the night starts funny, degenerates quickly into sappy Celine Dion-fueled crap.

8:54 - Anne Hathaway sucks the humor from the stage and confirms my worst fears for Get Smart movie.

8:58 - Ratatouille expectedly wins Animated Feature award. Brilliant wordsmith Brad Bird unexpectedly botches speech.

9:05 - For 68th year in a row, a bunch of nerds win FX award.

9:10 - Luigi from the Simpsons wins award for art direction.

9:22 - Javier Bardem wins, sounds like he's rallying troops in leftist Central American militia.

9:25 - Mock retrospective montages prove more compelling than real ones.

9:30 - My strategy of picking the silliest sounding title nets me live-action short award on my ballot.

9:35 - Seinfeld delivers intentionally (?) awful jokes as character from Bee Movie. I cry a tear for the Dreamworks animators that probably had to give up a weekend for this crap.

9:40 - Tilda Swinton wins for supporting actress, is replaced by an alien. Oh wait, she's just not wearing makeup.

9:49 - 4-minute-long PriceWaterHouseCoopers commercial fails to educate me about the Oscar voting process.

10:02 - Jonah Hill and Seth Rogen are disappointingly unfunny for first time in their careers.

10:11 - Marion Cotillard wins best actress. A beleaguered Julie Christie contemplates suicide. Oh, also Marion Cotillard is hot. Note to self: rent a movie with her where they don't have to ugly her up.

10:18 - Disney show-stopper totally gets owned by song from "Once".

10:35 - Nicole Kidman pesents honorary award, funds all African civil wars for next ten years with necklace.

10:37 - Robert Boyle montage fails to convince audience that art directors deserve same reverence for senile, rambling speeches as directors do.

10:52 - Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova win for best song. Nation of Ireland cries collective tears of joy. I join them.

11:02 - RIP Ingmar Bergman, Michelangelo Antoinini, Heath Ledger. Burn in hell, Jack Valenti.

11:13 - Lesbian movie wins for short documentary. Director totally not a lesbian.

11:23 - Jon Stewart makes joke about Harrison Ford sharing a name with a car dealership. Are the writers on strike again?

11:25 - Juno wins for screenplay. Diablo Cody brings shame to strippers everywhere by accepting award in outfit apparently from straight-to-video Flintstones sequel.

11:35 - Daniel Day-Lewis gets all poetic and shit.

11:44 - Coen Bros win for directing a profoundly bleak, blood-soaked thriller, are adorably gracious and humble.

11:46 - No Country wins best picture. Everything is right in the world. What is Cormac McCarthy so pissed about?

2nd Annual Oscar Pre-Game Extravaganza

2008-02-22T20:43:00.013-05:00

Sure, the economy may be in the shitter, the music industry is all but kaput, and the WGA strike has stripped me of countless hours of quality TV (which is the closest thing in my life to a sense of malaise), but 2008 seems to be shaping up to be a pretty good year. The Patriots lost the Super Bowl. All of the presidential candidates seem to be competent, reasonable people, with the front-runner being a bad-asssss black dude with policies and ideas to match his mad orating skillz. Plus, the list of Academy Awards nominees is (for once) populated almost exclusively by worthy films. I can't guarantee that I can maintain a solid level of humor under these odd circumstances, but at least until that stupid Crash TV show comes out, I'm gonna sit back and enjoy it.

Though it may not seem like it at first glance, 2007 was a remarkably good year for movies, and I'm glad to see the Academy actually celebrating it properly. Of course, it may seem ridiculous to point this out, since the Oscars are all selected by the industry itself, but it's amazing how often they get this shit wrong. I'm especially glad that the Hollywood establishment gave the highest number of nominations to two gruesome ruminations on the difficulty of life in West Texas and the merits of hating humanity. Also, considering that Pixar has put out the animation equivalent of the Sistine Chapel at least half a dozen times, I'm glad to see the Academy give them some love in categories where they can actually compete with the grown-ups.

NOTE: while I have not seen Atonement, I have taken the liberty of assuming that it's exactly like The English Patient in every way, and will treat it as such.

Best Picture

Cynical Prediction: Michael Clayton
Idealistic Prediction: No Country For Old Men

While it's difficult for Hollywood to pass up a chance to pat itself on the back for calling out nonexistent corporations for fictitious scandals, I would hope that they know enough to recognize that No Country is a fucking masterpiece.

Best Director

Cynical Prediction: The Coen Bros for No Country for Old Men
Idealistic Prediction: Julian Schnabel for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

I guess I'm sort of splitting hairs on this one. No matter who wins, there will be at least two worthy nominees getting screwed. Though the fact that Schnabel could potentially accept the award in his jammies tips the scales towards him in my eyes.

Best Actor

Cynical Prediction: Daniel Day-Lewis for There Will Be Blood
Idealistic Prediction: Daniel Day-Lewis for There Will Be Blood

In any other year, Johnny Depp might have been a shoo-in as Hollywood's most lovably vengeful misanthrope, but this year he should consider himself lucky the Golden Globes don't make musicals compete in the same category as real films.

Best Actress

Cynical Prediction: Julie Christie for Away From Her
Idealistic Prediction: Marion Cotillard for La Vie En Rose

It'll be interesting to see if the Academy can reconcile it's love for musical biopics with its apparent disdain for movies with subtitles.

Best Supporting Actor

Cynical Prediction: Javier Bardem for No Country For Old Men
Idealistic Prediction: Javier Bardem for No Country For Old Men

If I ever get brutally murdered with a cattle bolt, I just hope it's done with the dignity and professionalism of Bardem's character in this film.

Best Supporting Actress

Cynical Prediction: Tilda Swinton for Michael Clayton
Idealistic Prediction: Cate Blanchett for I'm Not There

I'm not sure if you've noticed, but it looks like the Academy has lost it's taste for heroic, likable, or otherwise sympathetic characters, so odds are looking good for Tilda, but as I mentioned earlier, they loves them some musical biopics.

Best Original Screenplay

Cynical Prediction: Juno
Idealistic Prediction: Ratatouille

This seems to be about the only category where the Academy is gonna give any love to quirky indie films, but they may find it a bit obvious to give the same award Little Miss Sunshine won last year to "this year's Little Miss Sunshine!" In any case, Brad Bird is a genius, and I suppose I'm just glad he's getting a nomination.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Cynical Prediction: No Country For Old Men
Idealistic Prediction: There Will Be Blood

The Coen's did a brilliant job adapting what was already a brilliant novel, but I think P.T. Anderson deserves some credit for taking a schlocky muckraking novel and making one of the best art films in recent memory.

Best Cinematography

Cynical Prediction: No Country For Old Men
Idealistic Prediction: There Will Be Blood

A category like this opens it up for a dark horse, like The English Patient or The Diving Bell and he Butterfly, but in all likelihood, it'll probably come down to who the Academy thinks did a better job photographing the Texas (or, in truth, New Mexico and California) desert. And as much as all of those wide shots in No Country make me homesick, the oil-fire scenes in TWBB are just ridiculous.

Best Editing

Cynical Prediction: No Country for Old Men
Idealistic Prediction: There Will Be Blood

Which do I love more, the claustrophobic long takes and surreal montages of TWBB, or the tense pacing and the pensive lack of resolution in No Country. Don't make me choose.

Best Art Direction

Cynical Prediction: The English Patient
Idealistic Prediction: Sweeney Todd

If it comes down to sweeping period drama versus cartoonishly over-the-top violence, you know which one I'm gonna go with.

Best Costume Design

Cynical Prediction: Sweeney Todd
Idealistic Prediction: La Vie En Rose

I'm in a gritty, real mood right now, so I'm gonna go with La Vie En Rose. But that doesn't mean I have any less appreciation for Burton's grim surrealism.

Best Original Score

Cynical Prediction: The English Patient
Idealistic Prediction: Ratatouille

For the record, this award should really go to Jonny Greenwood's unexpectedly brilliant and eclectic score for There Will Be Blood, but due to a technicality in Academy rules exempting scores that include previously written material, these are the choices we're left with. I pretty much want Ratatouille to win as many awards as it can, but I'll probably feel cheated no matter who wins this one.

Best Song

Cynical Prediction: something from Enchanted
Idealistic Prediction: "Falling Slowly" from Once

While I realize that this category is really sort of a relic from the time when Hollywood was pumping out musicals the same way they churn out bad horror films starring washed up ex-teen actors, I don't think that the one musical movie released in a given year should automatically dominate the nominations. I do strangely feel like "Pop Goes My Heart" from Music and Lyrics is an obvious snub in this category, but I can't imagine anyone seriously thinking that any of the songs from the mediocre simulacrum of a Disney soundtrack from Enchanted should trump the well-crafted, earnestly moving Irish folk-pop of Once.

Best Makeup

Cynical Prediction: Pirates of the Caribbean
Idealistic Prediction: La Vie En Rose

As humorous as I find it that Norbit joins Click in that prestigious group of fat-suit comedies that get a token nod in this category, I can't rationalize the fact that horror movie gore-makeup almost always gets shut out. I guess I'd prefer La Vie En Rose to win this, but basically I could care less.

Best Sound

Cynical Prediction: No Country For Old Men
Idealistic Prediction: Ratatouille

I'm not gonna argue that I know the first thing about sound recording, but I won't let get in the way of my overriding bias towards Pixar films.

Best Sound Editing

Cynical Prediction: No Country For Old Men
Idealistic Prediction: Ratatouille

Ditto.

Best Animated Film

Cynical Prediction: Ratatouille
Idealistic Prediction: Ratatouille

You may not have noticed, but I sort of enjoyed this movie.

Best Foreign Language Film

Cynical Prediction: The Counterfeiters
Idealistic Prediction: The Counterfeiters

Considering most of these movies haven't even been given a limited release in the US, I'm not gonna pretend like I know how this one's gonna swing. The Counterfeiters is the only one I've even remotely heard of, and seems like a pretty awesome premise, so I'll go with it.

Best Documentary

Cynical Prediction: No End In Sight
Idealistic Prediction: War Dance

I'm hoping that the Academy is as sick of Iraq/Afghanistan docs as I am, but it seems like redundant political commentary is the bread and butter of this category, so I'm not expecting much.

Pretentious Music 2007

2008-01-07T16:44:00.000-05:00

I remember reading this Robert Christgau article where he talks about how ridiculous it is that music critics are expected to do year-end "best" lists in the middle of December, because inevitably there's always something that comes out too late in the year or you don't hear until early the next year and ends up in this critical no-man's-land because of an arbitrary time stipulation. Malajube's Tromp L'Oleil was easily one of my favorite albums of last year, but it actually came out in 2006. The album I listened to the most last year was probably DeVotchKa's How It Ends, which came out in 2004. But if I let myself put any album from any time period that I happened to listen to a lot in the past year, that would just set a bad precedent. So, while it seems a little anti-climactic to be doing a best of '07 list in mid-January of 2008, I felt it best to at least give myself a chance to digest as much of the music of 2007 as possible before making any final decisions (and, let's be honest, poach from other people's "best of" lists to see if there's anything I missed). In tribute to Nick Hornby and my own short attention span, I've decided to limit this to the top 5 albums and top 5 singles. Enjoy.

ALBUMS. . .

I'd first like to point out that, contrary to belief of much of the music press, Radiohead did not put out the best album of 2007. For the zero pounds sterling I paid for In Rainbows, it is probably the best bargain of an album in 2007, and I would say they definitely put out the best albums of 1997 and 2000 respectively. But I've been paying nothing for CDs for years, and I'm not about to pat Radiohead on the back for being the first to realize that the current record company business model is a crock of shit and belongs on a shelf with my VHS collection, and I'm not gonna give them a plug for putting out an album of material that, at best, just sounds like better-than-average B-sides off OK Computer and Hail to the Theif. So I appreciate your efforts guys, but I'm not gonna give you top marks for second-rate work, especially when bands like the Arcade Fire and the Shins are all still bringing their A-game. (On a related note, I saw There Will Be Blood the other night, and Johnny Greenwood's score for that film is nothing short of amazing).

The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

In the world of independent music, the Arcade Fire are the closest equivalent we have to the New England Patriots. They're ridiculously overhyped and ambitious to the point of hubris. So you really want to hate them. The problem is, at the end of the day, if the Patriots can get that perfect season and win the Superbowl, everybody just has to sit down and accept that they really are just that fucking good. And when the Arcade Fire put out an album of material this well-produced and fully-realized, you just have to shut up and enjoy it.

The Shins - Wincing The Night Away

After the whole Garden State thing I was ready to just write the Shins off as just another quirky indie pop band that hipster guys use to put on mix CDs and prove how sensitive and tasteful they are. But even if the Shins won't change my life, I have to give it up to them with this one. "Turn On Me" is about as good a psychedelic pop song as anyone has ever written, and they still prove to me that music can be catchy and accessible, while still being intelligent and experimental. Plus I have to give any band from the Q the benefit of the doubt.

Jens Lekman - Night Falls Over Kortedala

Nordic countries seem to have all found different ways of musically coping with the blistering cold and months without sunlight. The Norwegians have channeled their frustration into extremely dark, yet melodic death metal; the nation of Iceland seems to have found some way of communicating with aliens; and the Swedes find comfort in simply making the catchiest, most saccharine pop music the world has ever known. Jens Lekman is no exception. His combination of overproduced string arrangements, embarrassingly earnest lyrics, and Stephen Merritt-style crooning, is like a big bowl of ice cream for my jaded, cynical hipster soul.

Lucky Soul - The Great Unwanted

The Pipettes might be more fun, and Bat For Lashes might be artier, but as British 1960s girl-group revival bands go, Lucky Soul is definitely the best. Between the lush production, sultry vocals, and botched English grammar, my only complaint is that Ali Howard isn't singing any of these songs about me.

Beirut - The Flying Cup Club

Maybe it's because Zach Condon and I both used to share a 505 area code (this is clearly not the first instance of this sort of bias on this list) or maybe it's because he succeeded in finding a way to make Balkan folk music seem cool in a way that my mother has tried and failed for years, so I'm willing to forgive Beirut their lazy, meandering song structures, because basically they're music makes me feel like I'm home.

SONGS. . .

Black Lips - "Cold Hands"

Despite always looking like one huge ad for Urban Outfitters (where you can, not surprisingly, also buy their CD), this is as close as I've heard anyone come to a perfect late-seventies pop-punk (or is it mid-sixties garage rock?) song as I've heard in a long time.

Kanye West - "Can't Tell Me Nothing"

I have to admit that it took Zach Galifianakis's over-the-top, yet strangely poingnant Bubba Sparxxx-esque video tribute to this song to properly appreciate it's greatness (in contrast to the overpriced snooze-fest of an "official" video that Hype Williams made for the song). I've always respected Kanye's ability to stay above the thuggish fray of mainstream hip-hop while still being unapologetically arrogant, so I was glad to hear him putting out a chest-pumping song where he's literally laughing at his critics. With that said, I still wish he would quit whining like a bitch every time a journalist puts a microphone in front of his face.

MGMT - "Time To Pretend"

Speaking of obnoxious self-involvement, it's easy to hate MGMT for indulging so readily in this whimsical rock star fantasy, but it's important to acknowledge that it's not just a song about getting rich, doing drugs, and marrying supermodels. It's really about the tragedy of the children left behind when you knock up the models, divorce them to find more models, and leave you children fatherless after choking on your own vomit. Did I mention that the guys from Ween love this band? Shocker.

Grinderman - "No Pussy Blues"

Nick Cave is one of the few musicians, like Tom Waits or Johnny Cash, that actually becomes cooler the older and more haggard he becomes. He also somehow manages to sound like a huge badass while singing about his total dearth of a sex life and comparing himself to celebrity French mimes.

Electrelane - "To The East"

This is one of those songs where the whole time you're listening to this girl sing about being sad and brokenhearted in a beautifully haunting voice that makes you just want find the guy who made her feel like this and kick him square in the balls for being such an idiot.

Have Yourself a Merry Muthaphukkin XMas

2007-12-24T15:19:00.000-05:00

Around this time of year it's pretty easy to get fed up and cynical about the suffocating prevalence of Christmas music in every house, business, church, mosque, synagogue, and public toilet you walk into, but even after all the years of having the same twenty or so Christmas songs drilled into my head, it's still impossible for me to deny that at least part of the reason for the enduring quality of this music is that some of them are just damn good songs. Plus, there's still something about the manipulative use of nostalgia and naive optimism in Christmas music that gets me every time. On the other hand, there's only so many times you can hear the dog barking version of "Jingle Bells" before you want to punch the Salvation Army Santa in the face. So I propose the following as new additions to the canon of Christmas standards.

Spinal Tap - Christmas With the Devil

While Twisted Sister's A Twisted Christmas might satisfy your desire for metal versions of earlier holiday classics, they really don't add anything original to the already saturated market of modern renditions of Christmas tunes (also, there's something more than a little bit disturbing about Dee Snider singing "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus"). Spinal Tap, on the other hand, half-ironically throw their hats into the ring with a totally original song that's not only truer to the spirit of heavy metal, but, given the amount of alcohol binging and and shameful hookups that happen at holiday parties around the country, it's probably closer to the actual experience of Christmas for most people than songs about virgin births and jovial sleigh rides.

The Ramones - Merry Christmas (I Don't Wanna Fight Tonight)

The Ramones made a 30-0year career out of writing the same song a couple hundred times with different lyrics, because, basically, that one song fucking rocks. So what could be better at Christmas than "Blitzkrieg Bop" with bells and holiday-themed lyrics. Also, the tongue-in-cheek portrayal of domestic violence in this video is awesome.

Eazy E - Merry Muthaphukkin XMas

Though significantly less popular than Run DMC's "Christmas In Hollis", Eazy E's holiday classic is by far the better Christmas-themed rap. The production by Dr. Dre and DJ Yella puts anything Jam Master Jay every did to shame, and really you can only sound so cool rapping about finding Santa's wallet at the park and returning it. I'll take E's Christmas traditions of getting high and having (presumably unprotected) sex over chicken and collard green's with DMC's family in Queens.

Eric Cartman - Swiss Colony Beef Log

I remember reading this slate.com article last year about how wasteful and inefficient gift-giving is for the economy, because when we get stuff for ourselves we generally get things we need or can use; whereas, when we get stuff for other people it's usually worthless crap. Christmas is the only time of year that you can see television commercials for the impulse-buy items in the checkout line at Walgreens, and it's the only time of year that smoked logs of meat and cheese seem like a viable meal option. This song, off South Park's Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics album, is perhaps the greatest tribute ever written to gluttony and excess of the holiday season.

Short Cuts vs. Crash: a Cinematic Smackdown in Three Parts

2007-11-05T12:23:00.001-05:00

Last night I couldn't sleep, and ended up watching all 187 minutes of Robert Altman's indie actor wet-dream Short Cuts on HBO. This is a film I've been meaning to see for years now, but as with most of the Altman oeuvre, I can never find the time or the patience to sit through three and a half hours of long takes and wide shots of five conversations going on at the same fucking time. Though in this case I'm glad I did.

While it's a pretty typical Altman film for the most part (ensemble cast, interconnected multi-thread story, and characters that walk that fine line between neurotic and straight-up crazy), it's also possibly one of the best nuggets of pop-culture trivia I've ever seen. I mean, the whole thing plays out like a time capsule of bad taste in the early nineties, from the oversized t-shirts and short shorts (on dudes) to the pastel-colored art-deco fish tanks and white-trash kids watching marathons of Captain Planet (by the way, if anybody ever asks me why people of my generation are so fucked-up, I'll just show them this and remind them that this what I had to grew up with). Plus, the cast is like an off-beat character-actor cluster-fuck the likes of which has still never been seen. Altman should have gotten the Oscar just for having the insight to cast Lily Tomlin as Lili Taylor's mom. . . and Tom Waits as her dad. . . and Robert Downey Jr. as her boyfriend. Though the whole time I was watching this movie I just couldn't stop thinking to myself: my god, Crash is a terrible fucking movie.

Of course, I know that Crash is a terrible fucking movie, but given that it won three Oscars (including best picture) and Short Cuts barely eked out the obligatory directing nod for Altman (one of the seven he didn't win), and that these are both ensemble films with byzantine narratives set in LA, I think it's worth doing a side-by side comparison three areas in which the films seem similar. . .

1) Sexually Inappropriate Cop Character

Matt Dillon has always had a knack for playing a slimeball that doesn't know how to keep his dick in his pants. His best performance as this type is probably in There's Something About Mary (where he ironically plays a private dick), though Crash fails to exploit this side of him by trying to make his character halfway sympathetic. He still likes to grope black chicks in front of their husbands, but he'll also pull them out of flaming wreckage to save their life if the situation calls for it. Tim Robbins aggressively adulterous motorcycle cop in Short Cuts, on the other hand, is sleazy to the core. As his political writings will attest, few people can play a self-absorbed douchebag as well as Tim Robbins. His character has no shame. He cheats on his wife and then unsuccessfully tries to cheat on the woman he's cheating on his wife with. He'll pull over a women in clown makeup on her way to a child's birthday party just to hit on her. The only redemption he gets in the end is when he decides that he actually wants to fuck his wife as well.

2) Popular Musicians cum Actors

This category is perhaps a bit unevenly stacked. I mean, it's a bit like asking the kids from Little Giants to play '84 Chicago Bears. Ludacis's street-smart loudmouth character in Crash gets so far trumped by Short Cuts powerhouse trifecta of Tom Waits, Lyle Lovett, and Huey Lewis that I could probably just declare it a TKO without much argument. Granted, Tom Waits basically just plays up his established musical persona the same way Luda does in Crash, but Huey Lewis peeing in a river on a camping trip and realizing that there's a dead body in the water is pretty much the definition of perfect dark comedy.

3) Violent Catharsis

While the car accident at the titular accident at the end of Crash is certainly well shot and acted, it still, like the rest of the film, just feels sort of manipulative. For all the dramatic weight that Paul Haggis thrusts onto Matt Dillon's character in this scene, you'd swear he was the second coming of Christ (if Jesus had a thing for ethnic girls). Paul Haggis wouldn't know understatement if it hit him in his bald, scientologist head. Altman, on the other hand, knows how to make a point without being completely patronizing to his audience, and knows not to linger on any one scene long enough that it feels like melodrama. Sort of like in Do The Right Thing when things get too tense and Samuel L. Jackson's radio DJ character pipes in, "I'm tired of these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane" (or something to that effect), the earthquake scene at the end of Short Cuts serves as a cold reminder to all the self-involved nut-jobs in the movie that they're not alone in the world. Never mind the fact the this film predicted the Northridge quake by at least a year.

I'm only disappointed that in 2006, when Crash was sweeping the Oscars and the Academy was giving him the "give it up old man" lifetime achievement award, Altman didn't get up on stage, bitch-slap Paul Haggis, and take his awards.

Pilot Season (Week 3)

2007-10-03T03:15:00.002-05:00

Pretty much all of the networks blew their loads last week. Luckily ABC was still holding back it's most eagerly anticipated/dreaded shows.

Carpoolers

It would probably be sufficient to say that this show is just indescribably bad and leave it at that, but I don't think that would do justice to how awful this show truly is. With misframed shots all over the place, editing that seemed like it was done be a hyperactive child on meth, and comic timing that's pretty much nonexistent, it's safe to say that this show sucks on every conceivable level. The mere fact that this is given a half-hour of air time on national network television should make us all ashamed to be Americans (though, to be fair, it was actually created by a Canadian). It also illustrates a key flaw in the current trend of one-camera no-laugh-track sitcoms, which I inexplicably feel the need to expound upon. . . At one point in the history of TV, pretty much all shows were done live in front of a studio audience, so comedians like Milton Berle and George Burns had to be funny to get laughs from the audience and remind the viewers at home just how funny they were. Then when video tape came along and people realized it was cheaper and easier to just record the whole thing, networks added a laugh track to keep this sense of liveness (or at least queue the humorless viewers in on where the jokes are). Then jaded TV audiences got fed up with the fakeness of the whole thing (ironically The Simpsons was probably the watershed in this department) and demanded that sitcoms feel more like the shitty reality shows that were putting the nails in the coffin of the sitcom format. This resulted in many brilliant shows (that mostly went unwatched) and brings us to the current state of affairs. So even if none of them are actually funny (which is generally the case), a show like Two and a Half Men or King of Queens still has to have actual coherent jokes for the laugh track to punctuate. Carpoolers has none of these restrictions. The show opens with a bunch of middle-aged dudes singing Air Supply on their way to work and I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be funny, uncomfortable, or just sad. I'm still not sure that this is actually meant to be a comedy except for the fact that it's apparently created by Bruce McColloch, who at one point might have qualified as my favorite of the Kids in the Hall (and now ranks well below Mark McKinney). Oh, also, in case you're keeping score, Jerry O'Connell's role in this makes for the second awful show of the season to feature a veteran cast member of Kangaroo Jack.

Cavemen

It's a show based on a car insurance ad about neanderthals living in modern times that get treated like black people. On paper, this is possibly the worst show ever created (give or take the one about the family of animatronic dinosaurs, or the one with the family that lives with Sasquatch, or the one where we're supposed to take Charlie Sheen seriously as a comic actor). In practice it's a pretty mediocre sitcom about about a bunch of fratty post-collegiate dudes wearing 15 pounds of makeup and hanging out in San Diego. The central joke of the commercials about the cavemen being constantly discriminated against is just as tired and lame in the show, but the characters and dialog are certainly no worse than an average episode of Entourage. The execs at ABC were smart to program it next to Carpoolers, which makes it seem like Seinfeld by comparison, but just let this be a lesson to you that the next time you think an ad campaign is really clever and witty its probably best to keep it to yourself.

Pushing Daisies

Hey, do you remember that show Wonderfalls? . . . No? . . . How bout Dead Like Me? . . . No? . . . Well, this was apparently created by the same guy who wrote those shows, and for all the money that ABC has spent plastering the entire City of New York with these posters, it should be the fucking Citizen Kane of quirky dark-comedic network dramas. It's also directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, whose work as a cinematographer (Big, Raising Arizona, When Harry Met Sally) includes some of the most memorable films of the 1980s, but whose latter work as a director (RV, Big Trouble, Wild Wild West) might be best described as unforgivable. The show isn't bad, per se. It's just trying too hard, and I'm too fucking old for fairy tales and candy-colored dream worlds. It's the sort of show that'll probably get canceled after half a season and pretentious college girls will buy the DVD to throw it on their dormroom shelves in between their copies of Amelie and The Life Aquatic and when people notice it they can say, "Oh my god, that show was so amazing - I can't believe nobody watched it."

Pilot Season (week 2)

2007-09-26T12:59:00.000-05:00

This is ostensibly the week when the networks pull out the "big guns." Prepare to be underwhelmed.

Journeyman

The premise for this show seems a bit confusing, so let's see if we can sum up what's going on. As far as I can tell the main character is the victim of some sort of bizarre cosmic prank, wherein he is sporadically flung back and forth through time and forced to listen to otherwise forgettable pop music of the era while trying to piece together a mystery that will allow him to do some sort of good deed (sort of like Quantum Leap without the sexual ambiguity). At one point his family and friends try to give him an intervention because they believe his sporadic absences and disheveled appearance is the result of a substance abuse problem (as any sane person would), and I half-expect Jesus to show up with a camera crew and inform him that he just got punk'd. Sadly, this does not happen.

Big Bang Theory

It's important for television executives to understand that geeks and nerds are not inherently likable or sympathetic characters. In the hands of a Josh Schwartz or Judd Apatow, they might be made to seem endearing or even kind of cool. Unfortunately, in the hands of Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady (who were previously responsible for two of the greatest atrocities perpetrated on primetime network TV) we're left with two characters that make even the nerdiest among us want to give them pink belly while hanging them from the flagpole by their underwear and stealing their lunch money.

Chuck

Hey, speaking of Josh Schwartz, he's got a second show out this season (which thankfully is nothing like the first). Much like Journeyman, the actual story here is just shy of coherent. Following in the vein of Hitchcock's Man Who Knew Too Much (though probably closer to Bill Murray's Man Who Knew Too Little) Chuck is a geeky slacker that works in the tech support department at a faux-Best Buy, and his old roommate from college (working as a spy) managed to steal all the data from some computer that has all of the nation's secrets just before getting killed and e-mailing all of this to Chuck. Through some kind of file encoding system that uses glitchy Tony Scott-style montages to transmit data directly to the user's brain, Chuck manages to get all of this in his head. When the government figures figures this out, the NSA and CIA, who are feuding/working together (?), send their most capable/emotionally vulnerable (?) female secret agent to capture/kill/enlist (?) him. If you can get past the ridiculous premise (which is something akin trying to convince yourself that Maggie Gyllenhaal is hot) it's actually kind of entertaining. Oh, and it has the guy from Candyman in it, which is a plus.

Bionic Woman

With a combination of hack writing, b-movie special effects, and a premise that seemed hokey in 1976, this is pretty much like a perfect storm of awful television. Not to mention the fact that all the actors sound like they're rehearsing for a second-rate community theater (with the exception of Miguel Ferrer, who should know better). I was considering writing a joke about Shazam! until I realized that the movie remake is already in the works, and God hates me.

DirtySexyMoney

While this show is actually halfway watchable, I've decided to boycott it for it's unspeakably awkward title, a fact that I will illustrate with the following hypothetical exchange:

"Hey, did you watch DirtySexyMoney last night."
"Yeah, I really liked Peter Krause is Six Feet Under, but he's way better in DirtySexyMoney."
"Totally. I mean, I never knew Billy Baldwin could act, but he's so awesome in DirtySexyMoney."
"Dude, can I borrow your TLC CD?"

Big Shots

Chalk up another show about rich people on the East Coast, and hand over some more licensing royalties to Peter, Bjorn, and John. The title of this show is apparently supposed to have some double-meaning involving golf swings, but aside from the obligatory montages of the lead actors playing the game I'm at a loss for what. As far as I can tell, it's pretty much just Entourage with corporate CEOs, which would be an interesting premise were it not for the fact that corporate CEOs are actually some of the least interesting people on the planet. Also, it's probably a bad sign that Christopher Titus plays the only character that's even halfway plausible as the head of a company.

Cane

In much the same way The Sopranos shows that guido Italians from North Jersey can be intelligent and emotionally complex, Cane shows that hard-assed Cuban immigrants can be boring and lame.

Reaper

I don't know why TV execs need to give shows titles that don't match their premise in the slightest (FYI, the show Moonlight is actually about Vampires, not Werewolves), because I had a joke all prepared about how Family Guy as well as the nascent Showtime series Dead Like Me had already used the premise of a schlub that has to take on the grim reaper's job and face the existential quandaries of life and death, and then I watch the show and it's pretty much just an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer directed by Kevin Smith. But aside from it's horribly misleading title, this is actually kind of an entertaining show. I am a little depressed by the fact that working retail at some nameless big-box store is the closest thing to a unifying American experience for people of my generation, but I guess TV writers can only write so many shows about dysfunctional rich people.

Pilot Season (Week 1)

2007-09-19T13:01:00.000-05:00

Thanks to the miracle of DVR and some sort of masochistic need for pop cultural inclusion I've taken it upon myself to watch as many network pilots as I can before they all get canceled to make way for this seasons new crop of talent search programs. These are the unfortunate results. . .

Kid Nation

I'm not sure how, but CBS has somehow managed to take elements of Children of the Corn, Lord of the Flies, and the Zimbardo Prison Experiment and turn it into one of the lamest shows on TV. I could not be more disappointed in this show. And more than anything, I just feel embarrassed for these children. I mean, the ability for consenting adults to make complete asses of themselves on national television is well within our rights as American citizens, but the girl dancing for nickels to buy a bicycle has to qualify as a human rights violation under some UN treaty. I did, however, appreciate that the show proves, once and for all, that children are every bit as dumb and gullible as they're given credit for (oh, take that, J.K. Rowling).

K*Ville

Remember episode of the Simpsons where they have the mock spinoff where Chief Wiggum becomes a P.I. in an absurdly characaturized version of New Orleans. This is pretty much the same show, only with a slightly less plausible story and more shaky, hand-held camera-work. As far as I can tell from this show, the only affect that the hurricane had on the people of New Orleans (oh, sorry - N'awlins) is that they now have to drink bourbon, eat gumbo, listen to jazz, and practice voodoo in slightly more run-down buildings. Seriously, it's as though a TV writer from LA walked into a Popeye's after watching something about Katrina on CNN and decided to make a show based on his experiences (and yes, that is the guy from Kangaroo Jack).

Gossip Girl

Snobby rich kids that attend elite prep schools and get straight-A's while doing nothing but shopping and going to parties. Check. Twentysomething actors playing high school-aged characters that drink, smoke, and have sex like people in their twenties. Check. And of course, it wouldn't be a Josh Schwartz show without the hottest indie music of eight months ago providing the soundtrack. But lest you think this is just the OC set in the Upper East Side, they've decided to give it a hip/edgy/cloying twist and use an anonymous gossip blogger (disappointingly voiced by Kristen Bell) as a narrator and plot crutch. I should probably appreciate that they're trying to make blogging hip, though the way they portray it is a little more like some oBnoXioUS TwELve-yEAr-olD-gIrL's mYSpAcE PagE than it is Wonkette, not to mention the less-than subtle "big brother" overtone to the whole show. The only halfway compelling character is the poor-man's-Joaquin-Phoenix date-rapist, who's brief speech on entitlement is both the most honest thing I've ever heard in a teen soap opera and the best reason I can think of to not watch this show.

Back To You

I'm not sure if I'm suffering from some form of premature dementia or if my standards have just been lowered by years of substandard CBS sitcoms, but I actually found this show funny. Don't get me wrong, everything about it is completely formulaic and predictable, but the jokes are generally pretty clever and sort of risque (even for an NBC show). It's no Newsradio, but it's about as good as we're gonna get without bringing Phil Hartman back from the grave. So, until science develops such technology, I guess I'll have to settle for it.

Karaoke a Go-Go

2007-09-10T13:26:00.000-05:00

This past Saturday, while bar-crawling the nonstop frat party that that is the Upper East Side, I managed to stumble into what looked something like a biker dive bar, but for some reason was doing karaoke (which is bizarre for several reasons, not least of which is the fact that karaoke never seems to take place on nights that people would otherwise want to be at a bar). But after seeing too many people try and fail with a machine that's designed to make even the most inept singers into pop stars, I've decided to write this helpful guide to maximize your karaoke experience (grouped by appropriate stereotype).

The MC
Aspires to be. . . Carson Daly.
Your coolness level probably ranks somewhere between a second-rate club DJ and a bad Jethro Tull tribute band. You should probably at least pretend like you're excited to be there just so I won't feel like a complete loser for enjoying myself, but the less exposition you give, the better. And remember that just because you can sing better than anyone else in the bar doesn't mean anyone actually wants to hear you. You're allowed to sing something to kick off the night and maybe if there's nobody else in the bar who wants to sing, but remember that the only thing more pathetic than somebody who thinks that singing into a suped-up VCR at a sparsely populated sports bar on a Tuesday night makes them a rock star is someone who denies them that joy for the sake of petty one-upsmanship. In fact, pretty much your only job is to make sure that the douchebag who sings all Dave Matthews b-sides isn't allowed to go up more than once.
Suggested singing. . . nothing, if you can avoid it.
Avoid. . . anything downbeat.

The Noob
Aspires to be. . . Bill Murray/Scarlett Johanson in Lost In Translation.
After spending most of the night mocking nearly everyone else who's gone up, you've finally achieved the necessary blood-alcohol level to come to the conclusion that you can do better. However, once you actually get the mic in your hand, you realize that there are at least two verses of this song that you're pretty sure you've never heard before in your life. Remember, just because you've heard the song a million times doesn't mean you actually know the lyrics, and don't assume that the monitor is gonna help you out.
Suggested singing. . . Billy Joel.
Avoid. . . Foreigner (seriously, that shit is hard - look up the lyrics to "Hot Blooded" if you don't believe me).

The Venerated Barfly
Aspires to be. . . Dean Martin.
You're probably the only person in the bar that would still be there on a Monday night even if they weren't having karaoke, so somehow you feel like it's your duty as a regular to at least go up and sing one song, and that song might be the same one you sang last week, but nobody seems to care.
Suggested singing. . . Frank Sinatra.
Avoid. . . anything recorded in the last 30 years.

Fat Middle-Aged Man In Hawaiian Shirt
Aspires to be. . . Neil Diamond
Your encyclopedic knowledge of pop lyrics along with a blissful lack of self awareness make you pretty much the ideal karaoke singer, and your unwavering conviction gives you a Meatloaf-esque charm that will overcome any and all shortcomings of your actual singing. Just don't hold back.
Suggested Singing. . . Huey Lewis.
Avoid. . . understatement.

Single White Female
Aspires to be. . . Kelly Clarkson
Like all things in life, karaoke poses an unfair double-standard to women - but really, you girls bring it on yourself. Those that do have genuine vocal talent seem to think I should be impressed by your pitch-perfect rendition of some obscure country ballad that bores me to tears and only serves to remind me of just how sad and pathetic this whole scene really is, and those of you who can't sing seem intent on subjecting the rest of us to your butchering of the shrillest, most high-pitched pop hits of the 80s. Just remember that there are other people in the bar besides that obnoxious little hen party you call your friends.
Suggested singing. . . something by a gay white man.
Avoid. . . anything I haven't heard of.

Black Guy
Aspires to be. . . R. Kelly minus the sexual indiscretion.
Unfortunately I've spent my life watching talented white pop singers getting shamefully upstaged by even more talented black pop singers, so my expectations are perhaps a bit unreasonable, but anything short greatness will be scoffed at. Lest you think this is unfair, just remember that you have the advantage of being able to show off your vocal abilities without anybody assuming you're gay, so why not take advantage of it.
Suggested singing. . . Lionel Richie.
Avoid. . . Marvin Gaye (some of us have girlfriends we'd like to keep)

Black Girl
Aspires to be. . . Lauren Hill
Since the expectations for your performance are pretty much impossibly high, you should probably sit down unless you can sing on par with Patti Labelle (or, at the very least, Chaka Khan). Though, if you can pull it off, there's nothing more I'd rather see than all the annoying white girls in the bar get owned.
Suggested Singing. . . Whitney Houston.
Avoid. . . being too smug about it.

Hot Fun In the Summertime

2007-08-13T11:14:00.000-05:00

Faced with the realization that the summer will be over in a couple of weeks and I might actually have to start paying for concerts, I decided to let my Netflix go unwatched for another week and see the two free concerts happening this weekend that seemed promising.

On Saturday afternoon I wandered over to East River Park, a quiet, out-of-the way strip of grass next to a bunch of Lower-East Side project towers at the base of the Williamsburg Bridge, to see Vampire Weekend. Though their name might suggest otherwise, Vampire Weekend is actually not a second-rate industrial goth band. They are, in fact, made up of four prepped-out Columbia grads playing afro-beat inspired indie pop, who currently seem to have a lot more hype than they do actual fans. Despite having not more than a three-song EP available only on vinyl and the iTunes store, they've already been written up in the Times and plugged on pretty much every major music blog, and I can certainly see why (and they're apparently hip enough for this show to warrant an appearance by former Pavement bassist Mark Ibold). They play what essentially amounts to a lo-fi version of Graceland-era Paul Simon, which is to say they're playing saccharine pop melodies to the same African rhythms and harmonies that your parents thought were cool for a couple of years in the mid-80s. This might seem sort of lame, and it is, but it's also refreshing to see a band of upper-middle class white kids from the Northeast that aren't afraid to shy away from the fact that they're upper-middle class white kids from the Northeast. They have a kind of wide-eyed earnestness that's really kind of charming, without the cloying preciousness that seems to plague the majority of indie pop bands. I also enjoyed seeing a band that was so obviously young and unseasoned. They botched a few notes here and there, and I'm pretty sure the bassist was playing out of the same 100-watt amp that I owned in high school, but I'll be damned if they weren't loving every minute of it. They even managed to amass a fairly sizable dancing section near the front of the stage (and I mean real dancing, not that fake head nodding crap that hipsters in this town seem to think passes for self-expression. . . What?. . . No. . . I mean, I wasn't dancing. . . I'm too cool for that).

The following day, after a night of heavy drinking at the world's-largest-frat-party-meets-Oktoberfest known as the Bohemian beer garden in Astoria, I managed to drag myself out to Brooklyn for the Ted Leo/Thermals show at McCarren Park Pool. I met up with my friend EJ, who lives around the block and is apparently a regular at these events. The first thing I noticed was the fact that most of the people there didn't really seem very interested in the music. There was definitely a sizable group crowded around the stage with their attention on the bands, but they were outnumbered by the hordes on either side of the pool, intent on finding every way possible to turn this dilapidated slab of concrete into a hipster Neverland. Flanking the stage on the right was the dodgeball tournament (I had apparently arrived too late for kickball) and on the left was a slip-n- slide as well as some sort of oversize water volleyball game. I wasn't feeling ballsy enough to have a go at any of the competitive sports, but I did take a trip down the slip-n-slide, which was infinitely better designed than the crappy yellow tarps of my youth, and felt pretty good after standing in the 90-degree heat for a few hours.

The Thermals had just got on when I got there, who I'm not a huge fan of, but seemed to put on a decent show. With most of their songs lasting no more than 2 minutes, I was surprised they managed to fill up an hour set, but somehow they did it. Though, as much as I love 2-minute punk rock songs, they seemed a bit repetitive after a while, and there's only so much of the whiny Ben Gibbard-style vocals that I can stand. They saved their best songs for the end of the set (along with a spot-on cover of "Big Dipper" - the whiniest of all Built to Spill songs), and managed to somewhat redeem themselves.

When Ted Leo came out, he opened with "Sons of Cain", a fist-pumper from his most recent LP that got the crowd pretty well energized. He played a few other songs from his new album, which I haven't really listened to but sounded pretty good. I luckily managed to hear most of my favorite songs off Shake the Sheets and The Tyranny of Distance. Sadly there was no "Since U Been Gone/Maps", but we were treated to a bizarre mashup of "Little Dawn" and "One More Time" (which was entertaining, but also a painful reminder of the insane Daft Punk show I missed last week). If nothing else, I have to give Ted Leo credit for being one hard working motherfucker. For a guy thats now well into his thirties, he still knows how to rock better than the majority of acts ten years his junior (also, his performance on the Human Giant marathon is possibly the best handling of an equipment malfunction that I've ever seen).

Unfortunately, I had to leave the show a little early to head back into the city to catch Theremin, a play at the NY Fringe Festival that Erin's friend Anna was in the original cast for and used to date the writer/lead actor of. The play tells the semi-true story of Leon Theremin, the Russian inventor responsible for the first electronic musical instrument that bares his name. To give the story a little twist, it's all told through the eyes of post-Beach Boys Brian Wilson, who is in an insane asylum trying to piece together the life of the instrument and its creator. Hats off to Ben Lewis and Duke Doyle (who you may remember for his two-second role as Kevin Bannister in High Fidelity), the co-writers and lead actors in the play, for successfully weaving together science, music, and history, and not making it seem at all boring or contrived. The play gets a little muddled at points (Brian Wilson was a nut-job, what do you expect), but the writing and acting are pretty amazing for a play that these guys initially put on when they were still at BU. Plus the live theremin playing kicks ass.

P4K 2K7

2007-07-19T13:02:00.000-05:00

This weekend I went to Chicago to visit my sister and bring some good old-fashioned East Coast elitism for the second annual hipster geek-off known as the Pitchfork Music Festival. If I were a true music snob and a better amateur journalist, I would have gone to all three days and given a more complete report, but with my current work schedule, all I could manage was the last day.

Here's the rundown. . .

2:15 (Menomena)

We make it in slightly later than I had hoped, and we all realize that we forgot to pull any cash out, so we hit up the mile-long ATM line. I hear Menomena in the distance, so I ditch Claire, Evan, and Joe (who seem strangely less concerned than I am to hear this band) to get in on some of the action. The band is in full form and it doesn't seem like I've missed much. They play through most of the tracks and Friend & Foe with surprising ease, rapidly jumping from one instrument to another and occasionally falling back on their laptop to reproduce the bands brand of densely-layered sound collage.

3:00 (Junior Boys)

I rejoin my party, who have finally made it to the front of the line at the ATM. We then proceed to wade into the crowd for Canadian electro-pop minimalists, Junior Boys. The band takes the stage with singer/guitarist/bass player Jeremy Greenspan taking point as his partner-in-crime Johnny Black takes the side of the stage, hiding behind a beard, sunglasses, and a full array of drum machines and keyboards that all indicate that he's much too fucking cool to be here. They also bring in some jobber on the drums to give a greater sense of "liveness" to the set and give Black's drum machines a break. Claire remarks that Greenspan, who is clad in a white polo shirt and jeans, and looks like he's probably going to try and catch a Cubs game after the set, seems much too pedestrian to be on this stage. I concur. The group effortlessly glides through their set, maintaining a hypnotic beat with gentle washes of noise and cold, distant vocals that recall Low-Life era New Order or a slightly less homoerotic Pet Shop Boys, and make me wish I was sipping martinis in a poorly lit Soho lounge now instead of having the sun beat down on me in a beer-soaked park in Central Chicago.

4:00 (Sea and Cake)

We head over to the other main stage to see The Sea and Cake, who I've only vaguely listened to, but who are from Chicago, so I feel obligated to see. After the cool, laid-back vibe of the Junior Boys, I need something with some energy. The Sea and Cake, sadly, do not come through. The band is generally classified as post-rock, which, as a genre, is really the kind of music that you can only listen to in college, when you're still stoned or naive enough to think that music should be more intelligent that it is affecting. So as much as I appreciate the band's experimental rhythm and chord structures, I can't help but being a little bored. So, after a few songs, we all head to the other side of the park for a breather and some shade.

4:30 (Four-Square)

In the portion of the street that has been sectioned off to contain the festival, some hipster kids are throwing down on a pickup game of four-square, so we sit down on a shady patch of grass and watch on with equal parts amusement and nostalgia. The game amasses a sizable following and the kids put down some tape, pull out a second ball, and expand their operation to allow for two games at once. If it hasn't happened already, I fully expect to see a four-square tournament at the next McCarren Pool event alongside the usual half-ironic hipster past-times of slip-n-slide and dodgeball. Evan's hangover from the previous night's drinking seems to be kicking in now and he passes out on the grass, so, like the good friend I am, I leave it to Claire and Joe to make sure he wakes up for Stephen Malkmus, while I head off to see some of Jamie Lidell's set, which I can hear starting in the distance.

5:15 (Jaime Lidell)

I've listened to the Canadian faux-soul singer/beatmaker's most recent album and found it quite enjoyable, but it definitely doesn't do justice to Lidell's live show. I expect him to bring at least some kind of band, but am happy to see him flying solo, clad in some sort of East-Asian robe, a head-dress made of metallic gold streamers, and thick, black-rimmed glasses. So I watch on, as he whips up some insane beats and loops vocal harmonies live on stage, while singing with the soul of a man of many more years and a considerably darker complexion.

5:45 (Flatstock Poster Convention)

I reconnect with my party, but before we get going, I make it a point to check out the area where they have the Flatstock poster convention going on, where I get to check out a ton of amazing posters to a bunch of great shows that I didn't attend. I really wished I wasn't broke, so I could have bought more, but I was quite satisfied with the kick-ass Lily Allen poster I bought.

6:00 (Stephen Malkmus)

Slacker-troubadour Stephen Malkmus (sans Jicks) takes the stage, and, in true slacker form, he seems a bit underprepared. Claire and Joe find his meandering song structures and lack of accompaniment boring, and head to the other stage to see old-school hip-hop revivalists the Cool Kids (who were, reportedly, very cool). Me and Evan find Malkmus's laid back demeanor and occasional slip-ups amusing and endearing, so we continue watching. He plays mostly what I assume is his solo material, since I don't recognize it, but as soon he kicks into the guitar intro to "Spit on a Stranger" I become giddy like a school girl. He's eventually joined by former Pavement pseudo-member Bob Nastanovich on drums, who does a lot to fill out the songs (despite the fact that they ostensibly didn't rehearse beforehand). The acoustic version of "Trigger Cut/Wounded Kite" is quite enjoyable, and Malkmus singing both the call and response parts on "In the Mouth of a Desert" has to be one of my personal highlights of the day.

7:00 (Of Montreal)

Of Montreal takes the stage, in what seems to be the most eagerly anticipated performance of the day. Since I saw them two months back, I pretty much know what to expect. Kevin Barnes is decked out in full glam regalia. Guitarist A.C. Forrester is wearing his usual ensemble of a silver robe, frayed pink angel wings, and 3D glasses, and might be my personal hero. The on-stage theatrics are (as always) indescribably weird, but pretty amazing as such, and the guys in wearing helmets and shoulder pads, throwing golden footballs into the audience are pleasant surprise. The audience, who seem to be mostly unfamiliar with Barnes's onstage antics, appear a bit shocked when he leaves the stage for a moment and comes out in a leather hat/bustier combo that would make the members of the Village People blush (showing considerable restraint, he does manage to leave his thong on for the duration of the show). They try out some new material that's decent, but essentially sounds like b-sides off Heimdalsgate, and the audience is treated to an unexpected encore of the band doing the Kinks' "All Day and All of the Night".

8:00 (New Pornographers)

In case it isn't obvious at this point, the nation of Canada is extremely well-represented today by bands that either come from north of the border or want to pretend that they do (since I apparently only see shows of Cannuck bands anymore). Closing out the festival's Canadian bloc, the New Pornographers take the stage and represent for good, old-fashioned, saccharine pop music, providing some comfort, and an anchor in this sea of eccentric art rockers. The band keeps it upbeat and anthemic, playing primarily tunes off Twin Cinema, as well as a few from the heretofore unreleased Challengers. The band sounds excellent, though I'm a bit disappointed to find that Neko Case couldn't make it. The girl they have bringing up the female vocals is quite adorable and sings well, but "Mass Romantic" just isn't the same without that signature Neko twang. Predictably, they close with "The Bleeding Heart Show" and send chills down the collective spine of the audience (and gives me the inexplicable urge to go back to school).

9:00 (Klaxons)

We are now faced with a bit of a conundrum. De La Soul or Klaxons? I suppose De La Soul are technically the headliners, but since Claire and Evan both have strong anglophile musical leanings, and me and Evan have both seen De La Soul before, we decide that the Klaxons is the better bet, and I do not regret that decision. They open with a few weak songs, but after they warm up (and down a few beers), these Urban Outfitters poster-boys rock the house. Following a day of intellectually-stimulating, excessively-tasteful art music, it felt good to see a group of bratty, drunken kids from across the pond bringing some loud, hissing dance punk with obnoxious rock-star posturing to match (even if most of their lyrics seem to involve one or more inane references to a postmodern literary figure). The chain-link fences on either side and Chicago street lights in the background only added to the ambiance, and provided an excellent conclusion to the day's festivities.

Cheers to the folks at Pitchfork for keeping it cheap, putting on a great show, and making music geekdom enjoyable and accessible for the masses. I just hope I can go for the full weekend next year.

Still OK. . .

2007-07-13T13:34:00.000-05:00

Before I leave tomorrow for Chicago to attend the music geek circle jerk known as the Pitchfork Music Festival, I'd like to wax nostalgic for a bit, since it's recently come to my attention that this month marks the 10th anniversary of the release of what is probably the most significant album for nerds of my generation, and arguably the last great rock album. While music critics have certainly written enough on OK Computer to fill volumes and consistently vault it to the top of numerous "best of" lists, I think it's probably worth going back and reevaluating it with some hindsight and a slightly more seasoned ear than I had when I first listened to it in eighth grade.

Historically speaking, 1997 was a pop cultural no man's land. Whatever energy the rise of indie rock and grunge had in the eighties and early nineties had long since sputtered out and mainstream hip-hop had become nothing short of a complete farce (or a heartbreaking tragedy, depending on who you ask). The pop culture void had not yet been filled by boy bands, pop punk, emo, and rap-metal, leaving room for all sorts of oddities, from Hanson to the Spice Girls to that bizarre two-week period when 1940s big band music was apparently hip. And yet I still remained a slave to modern rock radio. So (though it pains me to admit it) my favorite albums at the time were probably Everclear's Sparkle and Fade, and the self-titled albums by 311 and Collective Soul. Fortunately, "The Edge," our local modern rock station (and apparently the universal name for alterna-rock stations across the country), still had something resembling a spine, and played OK Computer's first single, "Paranoid Android" in light rotation (a fairly bold move for a structureless song with sporadic time signature changes, clocking in at well over six minutes). That Christmas, with "Karma Police" out as the somewhat more accessible follow-up single, I convinced my mom to get me the album for Christmas. Of course I didn't much know what the lyrics meant. I wasn't exactly sure what yuppies were, or why I was supposed to hate them, but I knew that the people making this music were much smarter than me and that I couldn't get it out of my head, which I seemed to believe entitled me to a smug sense of self-superiority that I apparently still carry with me.

Looking back on it now, I certainly don't believe OK Computer to be the flawless masterpiece I once did. The lyrics are often more whiny than they are ethereal, and the album's ironic send-ups of bourgeois conformity seem naive in their simplicity. Though it remains one of my all-time favorite songs, the lyrics of "Paranoid Android" read like the angsty adolescent poetry of an over-privileged child that's too smart for his own good, and Thom Yorke would probably cringe at the number of times I've listened to "No Surprises" (sans-irony) as a form of musical Zoloft to wind down or help me fall asleep. Casting my twentysomething hipster gaze on this album, it seems that the best songs are actually it's most abstract and difficult to pin down. The crescendo at the end of "Exit Music (For a Film)" still gives me the chills, and "Let Down," which I used to dismiss for the simple fact that it sounds like a conventional rock song, I can now accept for being brilliant as such.

Perhaps the greatest testament to this album is the breadth of bands that claim influence (or, in some cases, deny influence, despite the obvious similarity). Mainstream British rock acts from Muse to Travis to Coldplay are forever indebted to the Thom Yorke falsetto for making whining sound cool, while at the same time, ardent indie music critics will consistently include this album in their canon of all-time great albums, despite the fact that it was released on Capitol Records and played on both mainstream radio and MTV. The indie fascists at Pitchforkmedia still voted it the best album of the 1990s, and last week Stereogum celebrated the album's decennial by enlisting some of their favorite bands you've never heard of to do covers of each of the album's twelve songs.

I'm glad to know that, if nothing else, OK Computer will go down in history as one of those things, like Andy Warhol and Quentin Tarentino, that all college students of a certain age and disposition will discover and worship for a while, then move on to whatever flavor-of-the-week indie band CMJ is plugging at the time.

O Canada

2007-07-02T13:07:00.001-05:00

After years of musical atrocities committed against the United States, the nation of Canada is finally trying to make amends. Though it will certainly take decades for America to recover from the damage done by many years of enduring hit singles from Avril Livigne, Good Charlotte and Nickelback, there is hope for reconciliation. Celine Dion has been exiled to the deserts of Nevada, and, just this past weekend in Brooklyn, in observance of Canada Day, the Canadian Consulate put on a program of some of the best indie rock that Canada has to offer.

Unfortunately I had misjudged how long it would take to get to Prospect Park, so I had to kick myself for coming in at the end of Malajube's set (though I have no doubt that, had this not been an outdoor concert, they would certainly have blown the roof off that sucker). They're one of those bands that should really be much more popular in America than they are, but due to a combination of an almost unpronouncable name, an inability to speak English, and an inherent weirdness that seems to only exist north of the border (you'll notice in this picture that the lead singer is wearing the head-section of a monkey costume), they'll probably never achieve the popularity of their Anglophone peers. This is especially unfortunate, since they're easily one of the most energetic live bands I've ever seen. I guess I should just be happy I can see them without going through the bullshit I had to to get Arcade Fire tickets.

For those of you who don't know, Canada Day is like the Canadian version the 4th of July (which happens to fall on the 1st of July), except that, while we cowboy Americans celebrate the day we fought the British into submission and secured our full independence, the Canadians celebrates the day they asked the British Parliament really nicely and convinced them to grant Canada partial sovereignty. So, like most things Canadian, it's pretty much just a lamer, more wholesome version of it's American counterpart, which is about what I was expecting of the other two bands on this bill, but was happy to find was not the case.

I read an Esquire article a few months back claiming that Sam Roberts is possibly the "greatest rock'n'roll front-man working today." Like all good music criticism, this was a bit of an overstatement, though not entirely unfounded. The Sam Roberts band basically sounds like a more macho, less intelligent version of Wilco. I would have preferred to see them playing a smoke-filled bar in the deep south with a chicken wire-lined stage than at a Starbucks-sponsored outdoor concert in Brooklyn (the whole thing really just felt like I was watching a taping of Austin City Limits), though they definitely rocked.

Then finally, a square-looking old guy from the Canadian Consulate came out and gave a long spiel that nobody really paid attention to, and introduced the Stills. It seems as though the goal of whoever billed this show was to make each act seem progressively more familiar to the audience twentysomething hipsters and aging Park Slope parents that want to pretend that they're still twentysomething hipsters, going from full French-Canadian freak-out, to faux-Americana, to post-punk revivalism. And with their shaggy haircuts and jeans tight enough to ensure that no member of the band will be having children in the next decade, the band couldn't have been more at home. As soon as they went into "Still In Love Song" it was like instant nostalgia for hanging out at East Village dive bars circa two years ago. This was probably more like a homecoming than anything for the band who, to the best of my knowledge, were never popular in Canada until they came to New York and became the next Interpol (who, as far as I'm concerned, are still actually the next Strokes). Though, I must say, for a group of Canadians acting like New Yorkers that want to be British, they put on an excellent show.

Woke up this morning. . .

2007-06-11T10:11:00.000-05:00

Wait, what the fuck just happened? Where's the last shot? Did the cable just cut out? [rewind the DVR and play again] Nope. . . If I listen closely I hear the collective frustrated screams of ten million Sopranos fans, and above it all, the maniacal laughter David Chase.

If nothing else, I have to give Chase credit for succeding in giving us the least satisfying conclusion of any series in the history of TV (that includes any and all series cancelled midseason following the first of a two-part cliffhanger). Last week, Chase set up the Butch Cassidy/Scarface ending that many of the more low-brow fans of the show seemed to want, with full-scale mob war in effect and Tony laying himself to bed with an M-16 at his side. . . But Tony didn't go out in a blaze of glory. He didn't shoot anybody, and he didn't get shot. He got up the next morning and went back to business as usual. I was glad that, for the final episode, Tony reminded us how much of a badass he is by simply making some calls and showing that he's smarter and more resourceful than any of his enemies. The post-9/11 allegory here is almost too obvious for me to even mention it, but given the repeated references to Afghanistan and the military, I guess I have to. In last month's Rolling Stone Rob Sheffield pointed out that, "Tony Soprano began as a play on the Clinton era’s peace and prosperity, tapping into the nation’s dread of what was hiding under the surface, the fear that the bad guys might be coming back for revenge." This might explain why the last few seasons have been so sporadic their airing and so muddled in their plotting, but also why, despite the lack of coherence, I still love the show. The situations felt just like any other episode, which is to say, wholely believable and relatable.

It is worth pointing out that several long-running plotlines were actually resolved in these last two episodes, whether it seemed like it or not. It turns out that the story of The Sopranos is actually the story of Tony Soprano in therapy. We started the series with the hope that Tony would redeem himself through psychotherapy, and ended it with the cynical conclusion that Tony is an irredeemable sociopath. It was good to see, in the final episode, Tony forced to quit therapy and deal with life on his own terms. And, speaking of cynical conclusions, the kids seemed to finally grow up (in a sense). AJ finally stopped all his whining, but only after Tony gave him an cool, easy job and a BMW. And Meadow took the path of least resistance, finally giving up her high moral stance (or at least finding a different, less problematic high moral stance) and cashing in as a criminal defense lawyer. And Carmella is dynamic as ever (which is to say, not at all).

The Sopranos has always been a show about not giving easy answers and providing awkward solutions to awkward problems. Just like the idling SUV running over Phil Leotardo's bullet-pierced head, the series has always been more dark comic than tragic, which is where it diverges from any major film about the mafia. There is no grand story of the great rise to power and meteoric decline of the story's antihero. Just as The Godfather set out to prove that the mafia is just like any other capitalist enterprise in America, The Sopranos set out to prove that the life of a mafioso is just like the life of any other suburban schlub, set in North Jersey, the most pedestrian of all American landscapes. So I, for one, was happy to see the series end in a way that was both ambiguous and mundane (with a dash of tongue-in-cheek sentimentality thrown in for good measure). I was a little annoyed that David Chase taunted us with so many false build-ups and no action, but I was glad that there was no epic finale. I was glad to see Uncle Junior slowly rotting away in the mental hospital. I was glad to see Paulie still crassly hitting on girls a third his age at Bobby's wake. I was glad to see Tony bypass the Tony Bennett songs on the jukebox and settle on Journey. And I was glad to see Meadow finally park that fucking car.

Neighborhood #5 (Washington Heights)

2007-05-09T15:07:00.001-05:00

Ever since I received the Arcade Fire's debut LP Funeral as a Christmas gift in December of 2004, I've been fighting a losing battle to see the band in concert. After being too slow on the uptake to see their show (and duet with David Byrne) at Irving Plaza 2 years ago, then lacking the funds to buy tickets for their Summerstage show (and duet with David Bowie) that year, and the seemingly nonexistent tickets to the the Judson Memorial Church shows in March, I thought all hope was lost. But my vigilance (and lightning-fast Ticketmastering skillz) paid off on Tuesday with seats one of the best shows I've seen in recent memory.

Overhyped Brooklyn indie darlings the National opened with a set that was decent, but ultimately disappointing (or, as Christine and Merrill might say - unfortunate). If you haven't heard them, the National are basically an attempt to merge mumbly Springsteen-esque vocals with reverby hipster rock (like the Hold Steady if they drank less and did more coke). They played maybe two songs that the crowd actually got into and didn't make the singer seem like a total douche playing to a half-full theater of people filing in to see a much better band (on a side note, the drummer for this band is actually - or unfortunately - really good). If anything, that performance just made me that much more appreciative when the Arcade Fire came on.

As the lights dimmed the circular screens around the stage fired up with some genuinely creepy footage of a poorly dressed, overly made-up televangelist going on about Jesus or the rapture or whatever it is those people ramble about. Then the band came out and filled the stage (literally - its like a dozen people - they could form their own football team), opening with "Keep the Car Running" followed by the the contradictory, yet equally automotive-themed, "No Cars Go". Though they primarily stuck to material off Neon Bible, they did play most of the best songs off of Funeral (which surprisingly included both of the Regine Chassigne-sung tracks). Certainly one of the highlights of the show was Win Butler doing "My Body Is a Cage" with full pipe organ accompaniment, and if nothing else, this show made a fantastic case for public school music programs in Canada, with most of the members of the band shuffling from instrument to instrument between songs, and the two horn players effortlessly switching from trumpet to French horn to saxophone to tuba, sometimes in the same song. The United Palace Theater, an old vaudeville theater, way the fuck up on 175th street, thats been recently restored and being booked for concerts, was probably the perfect location for the band, both in terms of the acoustics and its intricately-detailed, gold-painted ornamentation. It was interesting to see a band that seems to rely so heavily on intimacy with their audience play to a theater thats at least twice the size of any venue they've played in past tours, though they compensated for this (and almost gave the security guards coronaries) when they kicked into "Wake Up" during the encore and invited the crowd to rush the stage. I was initially concerned that they were holding something back for their show at Radio City Music Hall the following night, but since David Bowie never made it on stage with the band, as everybody at the show expected, and the security was ejecting fans that tried to get any nearer to the stage than their seat, I'm gonna say that this was probably the best of the three NYC shows.

Schlockapalooza '07: A Summer Sequelabration

2007-05-07T12:01:00.000-05:00

After seeing Spiderman 3 this weekend and concluding that the $400 million spent on that film could likely have been better spent producing a dozen more straight-to-video American Pie sequels, I have decided that, before I completely turn off that part of my brain that governs reason, rational though, and plot continuity, I would go ahead and review some of the more highly anticipated movies coming out this summer (based on their trailers).

28 Weeks Later
So the franchise has been abandoned by its writer and director. . . and all of the original cast. . . At least it's got the drunk, incoherent guy from Trainspotting in it.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
In order to save the world from. . . something (honestly I never really figured out what the fuck was going on at the end of that second movie), all the Pirates of the world join forces for some sort of international man-on-man lovefest featuring Chow Yun-Fat and Keith Richards' exhumed corpse. Not surprisingly, there's at least an hour of unnecessarily drawn-out swordplay in this one too.

Evan Almighty
Much like the original story of God purging the sins of mankind by killing nearly everyone on Earth in a great flood, this movie looks hilarious.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
If it's anything like the Silver Surfer comic series, I'm not gonna be on near enough drugs to appreciate it. . . or to dull the pain of Jessica Alba delivering lines.

Shrek The Third
As Dreamworks continues to come up with excuses to subject me to another summer of bullshit product tie-ins, the two hours of inane scatological humor and jokes revolving around beloved storybook characters thrust into modern adult situations still remain funny and fresh. . . I'm just fucking with you. I hate these movies.

Live Free or Die Hard
It'll be like the first one where Bruce Willis has to take out an office building full of terrorists despite having shards of glass stuck in his feet, except instead of an office building its a retirement home, and instead of shards of glass he has a respirator and colonostopy bag.

Knocked Up
Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd provide further proof that they are truly the Abbot and Costello of their generation.

Ocean's Thirteen
Though not quite as enjoyable as The 13th Warrior, The Thirteenth Floor, Thirteen Days, Thir13een Ghosts, or Catherine Hardwicke's teen drama Thirteen, this movie continues to prove that Steven Soderbergh knows how to keep his friends gainfully employed.

Hairspray
A movie based on a musical that was originally adapted from a movie. How could it fail?

Ratatouille
What March of the Penguins and Happy Feet did for penguins, this film will do for sewer rats.

Transformers
Michael Bay brings together his passions for television commercials and blowing stuff up in this, the world's most expensive toy advertisement, and Orson Welles is resurrected to reprise his performance as Unicron from the original Transformers movie

Sleepytime at the Planetarium

2007-04-30T08:27:00.000-05:00

Last night I went to Webster Hall to Yo La Tengo. Although I've seen them once before, when they played at Battery Park two summers ago, this is the first time I've seen them do a full set at a proper venue. And, unlike that show, where they treated the 4th of July crowd to an upbeat, pop-heavy set and a kick-ass cover of "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker", they (for better or worse) pulled no punches and made no compromises in last night's set. Though they did play some of their poppier material, the bulk of the show was comprised of slow, dirgy ballads and no fewer than three extended noise jams.

Performing in front of a starry backdrop, they opened the show with the soporific "I Feel Like Going Home" - an excellent song, but both tonally and thematically, probably inappropriate as a way to kick off a concert. Erin compared the experience to when you go to the planetarium in elementary school and the combination of the teacher's monotone voice and the simulated night sky are pretty much guaranteed to put you to sleep no matter how strong your interest in astronomy. As the show went on they picked up the pace a bit but seemed to take some joy in generally keeping it on the soft side. They mostly played material from their new album, including "Pass the Hatchet, I Think I'm Goodkind", the 10-minute (primarily instrumental) noise jam that kicks off the record. They didn't play "Black Flowers" (my favorite song on the album), but they did do an awesome rendition of "Mr. Tough" (sans horn section) that got the crowd pretty lively (or at least as lively as a crowd of Yo La Tengo fans can be). For the most part the band skipped over its more "classic" material, playing almost nothing from I Can Hear The Heart Beating as One or And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out. They did play (a rather sloppy version of) "Sugarcube" but no "Autumn Sweater" or "Cherry Chapstick". Towards the end of the show they played an extended version "Big Day Coming", which I guess is like the meandering noise-rock equivalent of "Free Bird" for WFMU set (I remember them doing something similar when I saw them in Battery Park).

The echoey acoustics of Webster Hall were perfect for the band's reverb-heavy sound. It made all the squalls of noise that much noisier and made even the most subtle ambient sounds fill the room. I only stayed for the first encore, where they just started picking members of the audience at random and asking for requests, but it seemed like they could have kept going all night (and maybe they did). Though it certainly wasn't the most entertaining show they could have played, it was still nice to see these three middle-aged music geeks from Jersey have managed to make a career out of valuing good taste and eclecticism over being hip or trendy (or accessible), and still managing to pack clubs.

You Gotta Keep 'Em Separated

2007-04-20T08:33:00.000-05:00

The other day I was at the gym and happened to hear from one of the spinning classes a relic of a song from my younger days - "Come Out and Play" by the Offspring. On any other day I would have simply slipped into a nostalgic reverie over all the crappy alterna-rock I listened to in middle school and thought nothing of it, but with the ubiquitous news coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings still in my mind I couldn't help but notice that this song is actually a tongue-in-cheek song about public school gun violence ("the kids are strappin all the way to the classroom/getting weapons with the greatest of ease. . . hee-eeey, come out and play"). So either the spin instructor is giving the world's most tasteless tribute to the victims of the shootings. . . or he's a moron.

The Offspring have always been a band with a social conscience, covering issues as diverse as juvenile delinquency, unemployment, and white kids with racial identity problems (all timeless), but "Come Out and Play" stands out for being, on one hand, ahead of it's time and covering the issue of school gun violence before it reached the national agenda, but, on the other, seeming incredibly naive and dated. While gang violence is certainly still a problem, it's really remarkable that a couple of socially retarded suburbanites with delusions of grandeur have made that all seem irrelevant. So here's to the good 'ol days (as I like to call them) when the only people getting shot up in schools were minorities in the inner city.

Paul Rudd (feat. Of Montreal) @ Studio B

2007-04-15T17:22:00.000-05:00

Last night I trekked all the way out to Greenpoint to see psychedelic glam rockers Of Montreal blow the minds of a club of jaded hipsters with a set of their own material followed by an even more entertaining set as the world's greatest karaoke machine. As expected, they skipped over their earlier glee pop material (which wouldn't quite fit their MO at this point) in favor of their darker, more dancable recent material (I think I may have even seen a few members of the audience nodding their heads in a way that approaches actual dancing). Despite the coziness of the venue, the band still came with full theatrical force. I recognized most of the props from the "Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse" video and their performance on Conan the other night, and the show was worth the price of admission just to see what the mustached guy in the black body suit would come out with next. I also counted at least four costume changes from Kevin Barnes, including a 10-foot-tall robe that put him at about eye level with the stage lights (though he was kind enough to keep his pants on for the duration of the show).

Then, after a brief intermission, Michael Showalter came on as his character from Wet Hot American Summer to deliver a series of (intentionally) terrible jokes and MC for the karaoke portion of the show. The band blew through an eclectic mix of songs that varried anywhere from ABBA to the Pixies without breaking a sweat (of particular note was Kevin Barnes effortless shredding of the guitar solo on "Sweet Child O Mine"). At points I felt bad for the singers, like the awkward Asian kid that came up to sing the Kinks' "All Day and All of the Night" in full Ray Davies getup only to have his vocals killed by microphone problems. At other points I felt sorry for the band, as when these two obnoxious girls came up to sing "Blister In the Sun" (not a difficult song by any means) and completely fucked it up. Though, for the most part, I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of both the vocals and the performances. The guy who did "Moonage Daydream" dressed as Aquaman was truly inspired, and the "Rocks Off" guy was so spot-on in his Jagger impersonation that I wondered what the fuck the two of them were doing performing karaoke instead of, say, starting a band. Michael Showalter's performance of INXS's "Need You Tonight" (totally in character) was excellent, though by far the best performance of the night came when Paul Rudd came on stage with David Wain (of Stella/State/WHAS fame) to do a kick-ass rendition of "More Than a Feeling". Wain put up a good effort but was completely upstaged by Rudd, who confirmed my suspicions that he might, in fact, be the greatest comic actor of his generation.

(props to the folks at Stereogum for posting these videos.)

Trash Culture Snobbery

2007-04-10T21:17:00.000-05:00

Grindhouse. Posthumously coined genre term for the tawdry scuzzploitation films that flourished in sticky-floored adults-only movie houses before the advent of videos and the tidying up of Times Square.
-The Film Snob's Dictionary

After seeing Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's latest pet project, Grindhouse, this weekend I came to the conclusion that Tarentino is (for better or worse) a bona fide genius (which should in no way be construed as any kind of endorsement of his acting ability), and Rodriguez is (for better or worse) one of the most amazingly skilled hacks in the world.

Planet Terror, Rodriguez's contribution to the project, is an exploitation film in the truest sense. It's a whole story set up around one central gimmick (that being the M16 grafted to Rose McGowan's leg), and the gore and violence are gratuitous in the best possible way (not to mention enough T & A to make Larry Flint blush). Its sometimes difficult to tell whether the writing is being bad in the name of camp value or if he's just using the film as an excuse to indulge his own bad taste, but basically he succeeds (in the same way that Snakes on a Plane fails) by having so much style that you wonder why you even go to a movie expecting substance. It's also worth noting that, aside from writing, directing, editing, and shooting the film, Rodriguez also does the music, which is arguably better than the actual filmmaking (as tempting as it is, I'll spare you the "one-man band" pun).

Tarentino, on the other hand, spares with the tongue-in-cheek routine and makes a movie that actually stands up as a great film in it's own right. Like his previous work, he manages to distill his own quirky cinematic obsessions into something that's infinitely smarter and slicker than any of the films to which he's paying tribute. Owing a certain debt to Richard Linklater, the film consists primarily of its protagonists roaming around the city of Austin and making witty banter, but the dialogue is never tedious and the payoff is always worth it. And, in an unlikely twist, Tarentino makes all the sassy girl-talk sound surprisingly natural. Nevertheless, Tarantino still uses a male lead to manifest his apparent love-hate relationship with women. Since Tarentino apparently can't resist the urge to dredge up low-brow icons of the seventies and eighties and squeeze performances out of them that makes you wonder why they haven't been off doing Shakespeare for the last 20 years, he brings Kurt Russell in as the charmingly psychotic stunt driver that provides the centerpiece to the ensemble. And whereas Rodriguez relies on his slick digital effects (along with some wonderfully grotesque makeup and bladder effects) to carry his film, Tarantino goes the old-school route and delivers possibly the most suspenseful car chase ever filmed with nothing but muscle cars and mentally ill stunt drivers.

If you haven't seen this film yet (which, if the box office figures are any indicator, is probably the case) you should hurry up before the Weinsteins lose their spine and decide to split the two movies up and make you pay double to see both (which, mind you, would still be well worth it). And if you need any more incentive, the mock trailers that they insert before and in between the movies are just as awesomely ridiculous as the films themselves.

Isn't It Ironic?

2007-04-05T10:28:00.000-05:00

In case you haven't already seen Alanis Morissette's video for her cover version of the Black Eyed Peas' "My Humps", you should probably watch it right now, since it's probably the most ridiculous (and disturbing) video I've ever seen. If it's meant to be a joke, it's totally deadpan (give or take the laughter at the end, which may or may not have just been added by whoever posted it) and not really very funny. If it's supposed to be serious, what the hell is the point? Furthermore, why would Alanis Morrisette , a somewhat respectable recording artist, record a cover of the worst song ever recorded?

At first I thought it was some kind of lame statement about the exploitation of women in hip-hop culture or something like that, since Alanis does add a pathos that's (for better or worse) distinctly absent from the original. Unfortunately, the lyrics are so asinine that they basically force any interpretation into the realm of self-parody. So, given her experience doing sketch comedy, one might then assume that this is some kind of satire, which, as I mentioned above, would be completely redundant. The only way I can make sense of this video is as a gross misintermpretation of the concept of irony, which is apparently a recurring theme in her work (appropriately - or perhaps ironically - this video ends up being about as ironic as rain on your wedding day). So I've come to the conclusion that the reason that thinking about this song/video is giving me a headache is because there is, in fact, nodiscernible meaning behind it. It's pretty much the musical equivalent of a "Bong Hits for Jesus" banner whose bizarre combination of signifiers ultimately conveys nothing other than the astounding ability of pop singers (Alanis included) to pour their total conviction into terrible poetry.

The Ballad of Paulo and Nikki

2007-03-29T10:45:00.000-05:00

For those looking for a jump-the-shark moment for Lost, the most likely candidate probably comes from an episode early in the current season in which two characters named Paulo and Nikki show up out of the blue and ask to join Locke and company on one of their usual jungle reconnaissance excursions. One might assume that these characters had some greater purpose or hidden agenda, but with no back-story, no narrative function, and no real personality to speak of, these characters became the embodiment of the fears among the fans that the writers were quickly running out of ideas.

Since the beginning, the show has made nods to the fact that there are a few dozen survivors on the island and that the characters we know are basically just the popular clique within that group. The writers occasionally bring them into the fray as a convenient plot device (like the comically disposable Dr. Artzt of the first season), but primarily they function as the butt of a running joke within the series regarding their own worthlessness and ineffectuality. Last night's episode was apparently an attempt on the part of the writers to extend this joke to fill an entire episode

So was last night's episode some kind of clever meta-narrative about disposable side characters or was it just bullshit Geoge Lucas-style history revisionism? Was this actually a good episode, or just a sorry attempt by the writers to atone for their past mistakes?

Let's start with the story itself: Nikki is a second-rate B-television actress that weasels her way into the heart of some sleazy television producer named Henry Zuckerman (really? Zuckerman? Did they think Weinstein sounded too Jewy?); then Nikki teams up with Paulo, her Brazilian chef boyfriend, to kill Zuckerman and take 8 million dollars of diamonds that he had hidden in a Russian nesting doll (oh, he's such a Jew); on their way to America, they crash on the island with everyone else; while on the island, they lose the diamonds; Paulo finds the diamonds and doesn't tell Nikki; Nikki catches him with the diamonds and attacks him with a spider that conveniently paralyzes its victim and makes them appear dead without actually killing them; then Nikki gets bitten by same type of spider, allowing for the tragicomic live burial scene at the end.

My first problem with this story is simply that, after being stranded on an island for two months, there's no way anybody still gives a shit about a bag of diamonds. Maybe if one of them was holding out with a Snickers bar or one of those coconut radios from Gilligan's Island, this plot might seem slightly plausible. Then there's the fact that not only has this plot been done better by numerous feature films, it's actually been done better on earlier episodes of the show (I'm pretty sure the island is already well above its quota for sympathetic con-men and women at this point).

It's a slight disappointment to see Rodrigo Santoro (Paulo) get written off the show, since he actually does seem like a pretty decent actor, but watching Kiele Sanchez try to deliver a self-righteous betrayal speech is a bit like watching a class of preschoolers do monologues from Richard III.

While I do like the idea of flushing out the stories of peripheral characters (especially on a show that's ostensibly based on the idea that there is a reason or purpose behind everyone being on this island), what most annoyed me about this episode was that they could have used the story of these two to fill in the numerous plot holes in the previous seasons, but instead squandered it by showing us pointless flashbacks that mostly gave us information we already knew or assumed. So basically this episode just left me with the feeling that the writers were bitter that everyone hated their crappy new characters, so they tried to give them some depth and have them meet tragically morbid end so that the fans might feel guilty for wishing that the characters were off the show in the first place (luckily I don't).

Psycho killer, qu'est que c'est

2007-03-27T14:05:00.000-05:00

After weeks of having better things to do, I finally got around to seeing Zodiac this weekend. If you're expecting another Seven you'll be sorely disappointed, but Zodiac stands up as a pretty good film in it's own right. At over two and a half hours it's easy to criticize it for dragging and feeling too long, but, if anything, it feels incomplete (probably a result of the gaping holes in the facts of what actually happened). Though it starts out as a fairly standard police procedural, it digresses about halfway through the film into a Cold War paranoia picture a la The Conversation. And like The Conversation, the lack of actual resolution or fulfillment makes for a film that's ultimately more unsettling than it is affecting.

The film makes it abundantly clear why David Fincher has a reputation for being such a dick to work with (and why he's pretty much a god among filmmakers). There's no way this sort of clinical precision can possibly come from a reasonable person. The film opens with a tracking shot of a lively neighborhood street in San Francisco from the window of a passing car, and somehow Fincher manages to keep the camera completely stable and perfectly perpendicular with street, which, along with the snarling guitar lines of Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man" playing on the soundtrack, give it a surreal feeling, like some kind of obsessive-compulsive acid flashback. Instead of making the killer out to be some kind of immoral fiend that needs to be brought to justice, the identity and motives of the murderer become little more than a puzzle to be solved by the detectives and journalists working on the case, which is, of course, what makes the Zodiac killer such an interesting subject in the first place, while at the same time indicating a kind of cold indifference on the part of Fincher that puts him in a position that's eerily similar to that of the killer.

If nothing else, Zodiac is worth seeing just for the cast. Even though he only shows up for about half the film, Robert Downy Jr. is (of course) consistently entertaining as (surprise!) an eccentric, drug-addled journalist, and Mark Ruffalo adds some freshness to the usual veteran cop cliches. Between Donal Logue, Adam Goldberg, and Mr. Show's John Ennis, I count no less than three comedians playing completely serious characters and doing a pretty decent job at that.

Since this blog is ostensibly about music, I should also point out that the soundtrack to the film is also pretty awesome. Aside from "Hurdy Gurdy Man", which bookends the film and provides the perfect embodiment of the lost idealism theme that runs throughout, the snippets of other songs that crop up from the background are equally well-used. Lynn Anderson's "(I Never Promised You) A Rose Garden" seems almost comic in its foreshadowing of a woman (played by Say Anything's Ione Skye, for those that, like me, wonder what the hell ever happened to her) getting terrorized and kidnapped by the killer, and Miles Davis's cool jazz classic "Solar" has never sounded sleazier.

In case you see the movie and you're not creeped out enough, check out this spot that Fincher did for the American Cancer Society back in the eighties. . . ewwww.

Even Truthier in Person

2007-03-22T12:23:00.000-05:00

I hope everyone watched the Colbert Report last night, because if you didn't, you missed an excellent crowd cutaway featuring yours truly.

I got tickets through my work, so Erin and I went to the taping. We had VIP tickets, which apparently just means that you get to go in first (along with the other 50 "VIP" ticket holders) and that you're actually guaranteed a seat, so the whole ordeal was fairly painless, and without the feeling of cattle being hearded that I got that time I saw Jerry Springer.

The set is a vast improvement on the old Daily Show set that once occupied that space, where I saw a taping 4 years ago. The best part is all of the souviers that they've collected from past episodes, which includes the painting above the fireplace of Stephen recursively standing in front of a fireplace with another painting of himself, as well as an official Saginaw Spirit hockey jersey, and, more recently, Captain America's Shield. Sadly, we were a week late for the episode with Ben & Jerry where they apparently gave out free samples of "Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream" to the audience, as well as the follow-up episode, two nights ago, when Willie Nelson came on as the guest to defend his Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavor and is later joined by Stephen and former UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke for a rousing rendition of "On the Road Again". We were however lucky enough to be there on a day when the Daily Show was running late, so they let the audience watch Stephen do "the toss", in which Stephen links up with Jon Stewart at the end of the Daily Show (which is taped two blocks away) via sattelite, allowing us to see some humorous banter between them that doesn't go to air.

The comedian they had warming up the audience was actually really funny, and I would probably try to see him at the Comedy Cellar or something if I could remember his name (he accurately pointed out that he looks like a younger Mr. Burns, if anybody knows of any NYC comedians that fit that description, let me know). After he was done, Stephen came out to field questions from the audience, which he explained was his way of "humanizing" himself before he comes out as his "awful character". It was refreshing to see that, behind his character, he really is just an goofy, earnest guy having a good time pretending to be a preening narcissist. When they cut to the pre-taped "Better Know a District" segment (which was definitely one of the funiest of those segments I've seen) he was looking at the monitor the whole time, cracking up as hard as anyone in the audience.

The guest was a little disappointing (some unremarkable leftist author), though if you check out this clip of the interview, there's a crowd cutaway at the beginning where me and Erin are visible on the right side in the middle of the audience (if you look closely you can tell the exact moment where we're looking up at the monitors and figure out that they just cut to us - I look like a complete tool).

Band Madness

2007-03-19T17:30:00.000-05:00

As my NCAA bracket slowly disintegrates into a huge waste of ten dollars, it's recently come to my attention that single-elimination tournament-style bracketing is no longer just the province of athletes and sports fans. In the recently published book The Enlightened Bracketologist experts gives a single-elimination breakdown to subjects as diverse as game show catch phrases and conspiracy theories. I've even found that I can use the system as a way of simplifying otherwise impossible decisions in my life. For instance, if I want to decide what brand of breakfast cereal I want to buy, instead of just looking at the shelf at the store and making an ill-conceived snap-judgement, I can just put together a system of brackets, like so:

. . . and, after a mere 20 minutes of tabulation, I have insured that Cracklin Oat Bran is indeed the champion of all processed grain products. . . Oh fuck, I kind of do want some Lucky Charms. . . Damn.

This past week, the lovely people at Stereogum have alerted me to a parallel tournament to the NCAA that's a bit closer to my areas of interest. The Band Madness tournament pits pop musicians against one another (and possibly against themselves - i.e. the Beatles vs. Paul McCartney or Lou Reed vs. VU) and users log onto the site to vote for who they think should win in each matchup, allowing people to rack their brain over such troubling decisions as, which you find least irritating, Chicago or Ani DiFranco (duh, it's obviously Chicago). Of course, this hardly stands as any kind of authoritative survey of anything other than the tastes of (white, male) music geeks with an overabundance of free time. And just like all the retards that picked Notre Dame to win over Winthrop last week (myself included) this generally tends to prove that people will go for what they know over what's best (which is the only way I can rationalize My Chemical Romance beating out Ween). While I assume that the Beatles will win this just like they do every other arbitrary pop music poll, Nine Inch Nails apparently won this last year, so who knows? I'll obviously be pushing for Foreigner.

Bad Cover Version

2007-03-15T10:26:00.000-05:00

This week, Cracked.com put out their list of the 20 worst cover songs of all time, which is a fairly accurate, as those guys generally are.

20. "You Shook Me All Night Long" — Celine Dion and Anastasia
19. "Downtown Train" — Rod Stewart
18. "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" — Guns N Roses
17. "Demolition Man" — Manfred Mann
16. "American Pie" — Madonna
15. "My Generation" — Hilary Duff
14. "It's My Life" — No Doubt
13. "Video Killed The Radio Star" — The Presidents of the United States of America
12. "Walk this Way" — Macy Gray
11. "Another Brick in the Wall" — Korn
10. "I'm A Believer" — Smash Mouth
09. "Satisfaction" — Britney Spears
08. "Sweet Child O Mine" — Sheryl Crowe
07. "Big Yellow Taxi" — Counting Crows
06. "911 Is a Joke" — Duran Duran
05. "Anarchy in the UK" — Motley Crue
04. "Behind Blue Eyes" — Limp Bizkit
03. "Feel Like Making Love" — Kid Rock
02. "Dock of the Bay" — Michael Bolton
01. "And It Stoned Me" — Bob Dylan

I thought 311's cover of the Cure's "Lovesong" was a fairly obvious omission, though they cover most of the obvious choices pretty well. I had the good fortune not to have heard a lot of these songs before reading this list, but thanks to the wonder of the internet, I can now hear the Who get butchered by two different singers of different genders, each singing in their own crappy genre. Celine Dion doing AC/DC is every bit as shrill and painful as I imagined, and if they didn't have the streaming audio of it, I probably wouldn't beleive that Duran Duran actually did a Public Enemy cover (do they even have 911 in the UK?). Conversely, Kid Rock covering "Feel Like Making Love" doesn't really seem like much of a travesty considering the original song sounds like it was written by a middle-aged forklift driver as a tribute to his adolescent niece. I would probably put Aerosmith's cover of "Come Together" on the list if for no other reason than it sounds so redundantly similar to the original that I go into a mild rage every time I hear it on the radio and I'm struck with the shrill screeching of Steven Tyler instead of John Lennon. Or how about Lou Reed doing his solo version of "Sweet Jane" (sans VU) and turning it into a bad arena rock song. Although probably the cover song I most despise is Van Halen's cock rock bastardization of "You Really Got Me". With more autoerotic guitar fills than there are extraneous pieces of white tape on his dumb-ass guitar, Eddie Van Halen singlehandedly turns the jerky mod minimalism of the Kinks into a giant, flaming, overwrought sonic turd.

Found Sound

2007-03-11T10:16:00.000-05:00

In case you were distracted at the record store by the flashy cover art on the new Arcade Fire album (and why wouldn't you be) there were actually some other new releases worth noting last week. Air released a new album last week featuring tracks with Jarvis Cocker and Neil Hannon from the Divine Comedy, which would be worth noting if it weren't just a watered-down version of their previous albums (though, to be fair, I haven't really been on the Air bandwagon since Moon Safari). More impressive is the new album from Brazillian/British beatmeister Amon Tobin. The album is called The Foley Room and, as such, relies primarily on sound effects and ambient noise rather than synthesizers or music samples (like John Cage if he didn't hate his audience). Despite all the lofty conceits, he manages to keep it from sounding gimicky or forced. It actually feels surpsisingly similar to his previous albums, with sounds as distinctive as water dripping or an engine revving blending seamlessly into his usual mix of jazz-inspired jungle beats, which, like all of his music, maintains the sinister quality of a David Fincher movie. Definitely worth picking up.

In other recent musical acquisitions, I've been on an Of Montreal kick since I downloaded their new album, Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, which thankfully is every bit as weird, but not near as pretentious as its title suggests. Pitchfork says it's their "darkest and most experimental record to date," which is to say that it's still got sugary pop vocals - they're just putting them over noisy synth lines and drum-machine beats instead of the usual psychadelic guitar and piano (this is still definitely the same band that recorded The Gay Parade). I would say it's more melancholy than their previous work, but now that I go back and listen to some of their older twee-pop material, it's pretty apparent that Kevin Barnes has always been writing songs about how lonely and depressed he is. On this album he's just stopped trying to compensate for it.

Tank Johnson, eat your heart out.

2007-03-08T15:19:00.000-05:00

In case you haven't heard the story, apparently John Popper (that's the lead singer of Blues Traveler for those of you who didn't watched their Behind the Music like eight times) was pulled over in his SUV in Washington, where he (or his driver rather) was clocked going 111 mph down the interstate. Along with the predictable stash of weed, the police also discovered a hidden compartment containing a "modest" arsenal of small arms as well as sirens, emergency lights, night vision goggles, and a PA system.

According to him he was keeping all of this in his car in the event of some kind of catastrophic natural disaster. So if a tsunami hits eastern Washington state, food and water aren't necessary, but a pump-action shotgun is? Apparently one of the side-effects of stomach-stapling that they don't tell you is that it makes you a paranoid nut-job. Also is it just me or does the post-fat John Popper bare a striking resemblance to Dwight from The Office?

Neon Bible

2007-03-06T10:51:00.000-05:00

Today the Arcade Fire finally released their follow-up to the debut album and my favorite album since Radiohead was putting out music that mattered, Funeral, which is to say I've been listening to the album for the last three weeks and have just today had the ability to actually purchase it. Despite the fact that the band is far and away the most hyped band in the world right now, it's difficult to fault them for much. As a follow-up to my last post, the band recently became my heroes after they refused to license "Rebellion (Lies)" to douchebag extrordinaire (and scientologist, did I mention he's a scientologist) Paul Haggis for the pilot of The Black Donnelys. And, as much as I've come to expect luke-warm follow-ups to promising debut albums as of recently (Clap Your Hands Say Yeah anyone?), the new Arcade Fire record doesn't disappoint. There's perhaps no band that can match this degree of grandiosity with equal parts good taste (give or take the tendency of Win Butler's lyrics to err on the side of melodrama). For any other group, the idea of an album recorded almost entirely in a church, using a full-scale pipe organ, Hungarian orchestras, and military choirs might seem like pompous rock star bullshit, but luckily the members of the Arcade Fire are far too earnest (and unattractive) to qualify as rock stars. I just hope that this time around I can actually get a ticket to see them.

Seeing Double.

2007-02-28T12:40:00.001-05:00

Though the Academy somewhat made up for last year's travesty of an Awards show by at least giving every award to a defensible candidate, and in most cases actually giving it to the most deserving film, the world is still feeling the shockwaves of last year's Oscar fiasco. I'm referring of course to the triple Oscar victory for Paul Haggis's overwrought crapfest Crash. For those that are unfamiliar with Paul Haggis and his long tradition of hackneyed, melodramatic schlock, I'll give you a little primer. Haggis got his start writing genre television for shows like The Love Boat, Diff'rent Strokes and thirtysomething. Then he became a hero to middle-aged rednecks everywhere when he created Walker, Texas Ranger. His debut film Crash shocked critics everywhere by becoming perhaps the most widely panned film to ever win a Best Picture Oscar. He then tried his hand at doing quarter-life crisis film (a la Garden State) and put out Last Kiss (the fact that he's well into his 50s and still feels the need to make this sort of crap speaks volumes about the maturity level we're dealing with here).

The most recent fallout from Haggis's inexplicable success comes in the form of NBC's recent attempt to find a one-hour drama to bump Studio 60 out of it's time slot while they decide whether or not to axe it for good. The show is called The Black Donnelys and it's everything we've come to expect from the master dramatist, with its erraticly-behaving, one-dimensional characters (which is not to be confused for genuine depth or complexity), whole plot lines that manage to build and resolve themselves in less than three scenes, and redundant voice-over narration that wants you to believe that it's much wittier than it actually is. Though the most annoying feature of the show, for me, is the way it grossly misrepresents the City of New York. The show is ostensibly set in Hell's Kitchen, which contrary to it's title is now a fairly tame, heavily gentrified neighborhood, so the idea that Hell's Kitchen is affordable real estate to a family of working-class orphans is just absurd. It's a show that desperately wants to exist in the hard, gritty version of New York that Scorsese made famous in the 70s, but in the Disneyfied post-Giuliani New York just rings disingenuous. The Irish economy is booming, and Little Italy only exists as a tourist attraction at this point, so why does Paul Haggis insist on trying to make me care about a family of whiny, self-entitled brats still clinging to ethnic conflicts that sputtered out decades ago. I don't have the energy to explain all of the ways in which this is the most obnoxious show on television, but if you're interested, this review spells it out pretty well.

Blogging the Oscars

2007-02-26T09:21:00.000-05:00

8:30 - Errol Morris takes a break from his important work for Miller High Life to bring us the opening talking head montage.

8:37 - Ellen shows up in appropriately dykish maroon leisure suite, mentions something about celebrating all nominees, not just winners, in an apparent effort by the Academy to make winning their award even more meaningless.

8:41 - Obligatory cutaway to Jack Nicholson. No hair. Does he have cancer? Still has psychotic grin on his face. I guess he's probably okay.

8:50 - Maggie Gyllenhaal tries to convince me to care about science and technology awards. I take the opportunity to leave the room and get another drink.

8:54 - Will Ferrell and Jack Black musical number is funnier than any movie either of them has done in the past two years. I cry a little inside.

9:00 - Pan's Labyrinth wins for makeup, marking a victory for Mexican comic book geeks everywhere, defeat for Adam Sandler in a fat suit.

9:15 - Greg Kinnear and Steve Carrel ironically mock sound editors for being lame and boring. Sound editors accept award, give lame, boring speech.

9:25 - Alan Arkin beats Eddie Murphy, wins for what was definitely the funniest performance of the year, gives annoyingly self-serious speech, and I'm now losing my Oscar pool very badly.

9:23 - Dove introduces crappy homemade ad campaign, hoping to cash in on the underrepresented demographic of girls that aspire to be fat and dumpy-looking.

9:35 - Melissa Ethridge song sucks, makes me want to pollute something. Tell me again why Prince wasn't up for this award.

9:45 - Cutesy penguin movie wins and I lose all hope of winning the pool. Time for another drink.

9:53 - Departed wins for writing. Myself and my party of ex-film students feel smug sense of self-satisfaction after correcting the announcer who incorrectly refers to Infernal Affairs as a "Japanese" film. (Haha. . . it's from Hong Kong. . . stupid!)

10:15 - Children of Men loses award for cinematography. I don't even know why I'm still keeping tabs on this pool.

10:20 - Robert Downey Jr. makes a joke about his drug problem. The audience is noticably uncomfortable.

10:33 - I'm really itching to make fun of this silhouetted dance thing, but this Snakes On a Plane bit is just too good.

10:36 - Jennifer Hudson wins. Beyonce pretends to be happy for her, gives best performance of her career.

10:48 - Al Gore loses presidency on a technicality, wins award statuette.

10:50 - Ennio Morricone is honored with a lifetime achievement award, then disgraced by a performance of his music by a watered-down Canadian pop singer. Again, why was Prince not available?

11:07 - The writers of the show run out of steam and refer to Hugh Jackman as the "Volverine".

11:15 - Little Miss Sunshine wins for original screenplay. Eat it Babel.

11:24 - Beyoncee almost gives herself a coronary trying to outsing Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls medley.

11:30 - Crappy Melissa Etheridge song wins. This is bullshit.

11:38 - Michael Mann uses his years of experience directing action movies to put together a montage sequence on American history that's just as macho and angry as his films.

11:45 - Bruno Kirby, Don Knotts, Robert Altman, Scotty - RIP.

11:50 - Helen Mirren's rack accepts award for the Queen (note to self - add Caligula to Netflix queue).

12:00 - Pogues song in Cadillac ad doesn't make me want to buy an Escalade, does make me want a beer.

12:10 - Scorsese wins. The crowd goes wild. Cubs prepare for World Series victory.

12:14 - Diane Keaton pops three vallium before coming out to present best picture, makes the bald Jack Nicholson look stable and together.

12:15 - The Departed wins and I momentarily have faith in humanity.

Pregaming the Oscars

2007-02-24T11:14:00.000-05:00

Last night Erin and I went to Letters from Iwo Jima closing out our Oscar-movie watching marathon. It was reasonably well done, but mostly it was a generic, cliched war movie and the fact that its a sympathetic portrayal of Japanese soldiers directed by an old, white American is not enough to make it a brilliant film. So having now watched the bulk of nominated movies I'm gonna throw out my amateur predictions for tomorrow night. I'm too lazy to post all of the nominees, but if you're interested, you can see them here.

Best Picture
Idealistic Prediction: The Departed
Cynical Prediction: Babel
Luckily, The Departed is the frontrunner in this category, but since Babel is pretty much the same film as Crash but ten times better (which should not be construed as an endorsement of either film), I wouldn't be surprised if Alejandro González Iñárritu's international pity-fest walks away with this one.

Best Director
Idealistic Prediction: Martin Scorsese for The Departed
Cynical Prediction: Clint Eastwood for Letters from Iwo Jima
Though I fear it would be somewhat anticlimactic for Martin Scorsese to actually win this award (I mean, does he really want to accept an award from an organization that previously decided that Kevin Costner was a better filmmaker than he was?), he did direct the best movie of the last year and I would hope that the Academy is tired of kissing Clint Eastwood's bony, wrinkled ass. . . but maybe not.

Best Actor
Idealistic Prediction: Peter O'Toole for Venus
Cynical Prediction: Forrest Whitaker for The Last King of Scotland
(Disclamer: I somehow managed to not see any of the nominated movies in this category, but I'm not gonna let that stop me). Forrest is definitely favored in this category and probably deserves the award, but it would be refreshing to see someone who has been shut out numorous times only to be given a token lifetime achievement award actually win the real thing. Plus, I'm still bitter about that time I had to watch First Daughter on a plane.

Best Actress
Idealistic Prediction: Helen Mirren for The Queen
Cynical Prediction: Helen Mirren for The Queen
Helen Mirren will get this award, and she deserves it. Period.

Best Supporting Actor
Idealistic Prediction: Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine or Mark Wahlberg for The Departed
Cynical Prediction: Eddie Murphy for Dreamgirls
Alright, I get it. Eddie Murphy is talented. He can sing and dance and act and channel James Brown all in the same movie. But since I was born in 1984, all I can think of when somebody mentions his name is fat suits and a bad dance song with Rick James in the video. And I get that Alan Arkin and Mark Wahlberg both played completely one-dimensional characters, but you can't deny that they both completely own every scene they're in in their respective films.

Best Supporting Actress
Idealistic Prediction: Jennifer Hudson
Cynical Prediction: Jennifer Hudson
With one performance she singlehandedly proves that Beyoncee can't sing and that American Idol is a failure. No complaints here.

Best Original Screenplay
Idealistic Prediction: Little Miss Sunshine
Cynical Prediction: Babel
Did I mention that Babel is crap. Because it is. Little Miss Sunshine is a comedy that doesn't pander to frat guys or lonely, single women, and it's actually funny. When was the last time you could say that about a movie?

Best Adapted Screenplay
Idealistic Prediction: The Departed
Cynical Prediction: The Departed
Not that I wouldn't mind seeing Children of Men or Borat win this one, but The Departed succeded in taking one of the most ridiculous premises I've ever heard, and not only made it seem plausible, but turned it into one of the most hardcore gangster movies of all time.

Best Cinematography
Idealistic Prediction: Children of Men
Cynical Prediction: Children of Men
After being robbed of nominations Best Picture and Director, it'll be good to see this movie get some love, even if it's in a category that nobody in America is gonna give a shit about.

Best Editing
Idealistic Prediction: The Departed
Cynical Prediction: Babel
Just because a movie has four storylines and extended montage sequences in every other scene doesn't mean it's well edited, especially when it's at least 20 minutes too long.

Best Art Direction
Idealistic Prediction: Pan's Labrynth
Cynical Prediction: Dreamgirls
For the record, I think Children of Men should have been nominated and won for this award, but since it didn't, it should go the next best film by a Mexican with an overactive imagination.

Best Costume Design
Idealistic Prediction: Marie Antoinette
Cynical Prediction: Dreamgirls
There's pretty much no way that Dreamgirls isn't gonna win this award, but I'd like to point out that Marie Antoinette is the only costume period piece I've ever seen that actually makes light of the absudity of 19th century clothing.

Best Original Score
Idealistic Prediction: Babel
Cynical Prediction: Babel
Alright, I admit it. The music in Babel was pretty good.

Best Song
Idealistic Prediction: ??
Cynical Prediction: ??
Whatever. Prince wasn't nominated. And since all the good songs in Dreamgirls were apparently lifted from the stage musical (and thereby not elligible) I'm not even gonna pretend like I care who wins this one.

Best Makeup
Idealistic Prediction: Pan's Labrynth
Cynical Prediction: Pan's Labrynth
In case you're interested, there are only two other nominees for this award, and they are Click and Apocalypto. Since one is an Adam Sandler movie and the other is directed by the most vocal American anti-semite since Henry Ford, Pan's Labrynth pretty much wins by default.

Best Sound
Idealistic Prediction: Dreamgirls
Cynical Prediction: Dreamgirls
It was a two-and-a-half hour musical that I sat though and didn't hate. I guess it deserves some credit.

Best Sound Editing
Idealistic Prediction: Letters from Iwo Jima
Cynical Prediction: Flags of Our Fathers
Don't know. Don't care.

Best Animated Film
Idealistic Prediction: Cars
Cynical Prediction: Cars
Let's not kid ourselves here. Pixar could make a movie about the zany adventures of an anthropomorphic turd and it would still be better than anything that any other studio is doing.

Best Foreign Language Film
Idealistic Prediction: Pan's Labrynth
Cynical Prediction: Pan's Labrynth
It's good. Everybody loves it. It's gonna win.

Best Documentary
Idealistic Prediction: An Inconvenient Truth
Cynical Prediction: An Inconvenient Truth
Okay, I admit it. I didn't see any of the nominees for this one (even though I apparently own a copy of An Inconvenient Truth), but c'mon, Al Gore has had such bad luck with elections. Let's throw him a bone here.

Farewell to the OC. . . Bitch

2007-02-23T10:02:00.000-05:00

If you notice me wearing all black and burning incense in the next few days, don't be alarmed. I'm simply mourning the death of the best primetime soap opera of two years ago. Sure, the last two seasons of the OC didn't exactly reach the high bar set by the first two seasons (and what does, really?), spawning numerous pointless storylines and some of the lamest characters ever to be seen on primetime TV (Che, Johnny, Hercules). But remembering the OC for its latter-day sins would be like going to James Brown's wake and talking about how much of a junkie and wife-beater he was. So I want to remember the OC for the good times. . . like when Ryan fights Luke that first time. . . or when Ryan fights Luke that other time and they burn down the house. . . or when Ryan and Luke find out that Luke's dad is gay and then they both get in a fight with the kids from the other high school. . . or when Peter Gallagher uses the super-powers granted to him by his gigantic eyebrows to solve whatever problem the kids have created for themselves that week.

I know some of you are snickering, but I can assure you that my appreciation for the OC is 100% not ironic. In what could have easily been just another teen drama about the mundane troubles of the idle rich (which if Laguna Beach and The Real Housewives of Orange County are any indicator, would definitely be a more accurate portrayal of Newport Beach), ended up being a brilliant story of male-bonding between outsiders living within the community of vapid, materialistic snobs, giving hope to wise-cracking comic book geeks everywhere that they too can befriend a hot-headed, soft-spoken bruiser from the wrong side of the tracks and sleep with Rachel Bilson. Plus, I have to give the show credit for introducing a generation of tween-pop loving girls to something outside the world of top-40 radio, even if that alternative is Rooney and Death Cab for Cutie.

RIP OC.

Francophonic Spree

2007-02-19T10:06:00.000-05:00

Last Wednesday (that's Valentine's Day, for the record) when Erin and I came home to our apartment, we were greeted by a somewhat hostile letter from our building's management informing us that our superintendent will be visiting our apartment sometime in the near future to inspect it and make sure that we have sufficient carpeting, because the obnoxious frenchman that lives below us and seems to take joy in aggressively pounding on our floor (his ceiling) whenever we walk around our apartment at some time that isn't between the hours of 10am and 8pm, has apparently gotten fed up with our (though mostly our cat's) "excessively loud walking" and ratted us out to the super. Though I feel that this gives me every right to get on the French-hating bandwagon, I was persuaded to love the French again after going to Mercury Lounge to see French-Canadian indie pop sensation Malajube.

Let me first say that I thought their much underrated album Trompe L'Oeil was one of my favorites of last year, though I always thought their lack of English lyrics was just a novelty (like Christina Aguilera's Spanish album or Adam Sandler trying to make serious films), so I was pleasantly surprised to find that not only do they speak fluent French, but they speak pretty much no English (and by that I mean none). They opened the set with an extended instrumental jam, which might have alienated the audience had anybody actually been able to sing along to their songs with lyrics, then the singer greeted the audience in his thick French accent, "Hallo anglophones," followed by an incoherent string of words that were apparently supposed to be English. Then they kicked into "La Monogamie" with enough intensity to keep the hairs on the back of my neck raised for the better part of the night, and managed to keep that energy level going for most of the show. If nothing else, it was refreshing to see a band that actually looked like they were having a good time, especially after watching the uber-serious opening band, Snowden, whose over-earnest posturing would surely make Michael Stipe blush and, inexplicably, had a larger crowd than Malajube.

On a side note, I saw a bunch of movies this weekend as well. Children of Men was amazing - by far the most painstakingly constructed dystopian future I've ever seen in a film (the guy living in the cover art of Pink Floyd's Animals was a particularly nice touch). While I usually find the shaky, handheld camera technique hackneyed and nauseating (OC I'm looking in your direction), this movie pulled it off brilliantly, and the 5-minute-long single-shot sequences blew my fucking mind. This might not top The Departed as my favorite movie of the year, but it comes pretty damn close.

Dreamgirls was pretty much what I expected it to be. The story was too jumpy to really make it a cohesive film, but I found it a generally entertaining riff on the history of soul music. Jennifer Hudson is as good as she's hyped to be. Beyoncee is just as vaccuous and unremarkable as she is in real life. And Eddie Murphy is good enough to make me die a little every time I see a poster for one of his fat-suit movies.

I also saw Music & Lyrics (don't ask) this weekend, which was (expectedly) schmaltzy, but surprisingly enjoyable. Hugh Grant's dry self-deprication has apparently grown on me in the past few years and I managed to get through most of the movie without having the urge to beat Drew Barrymore over the head with a blunt object. Even the music was halfway decent (lest you think I've lost my credibility as a music snob, I'll remind you that the original music was done by power-pop guru Adam Schlessinger of Fountains of Wayne).

I still gotta make it through Babel, Letters From Iwo Jima, United 93 and Last King of Scotland by Sunday. Wish me luck.

If you thought 24 was funny. . .

2007-02-16T12:15:00.000-05:00

It's good to know that George Bush has fucked up badly enough that conservatives are allowed to pretend they're an oppressed minority again. After all, there's nothing more ridiculous than than feigned martyrdom. For further evidence of this I turn to Joel Surnow, the producer of action-drama-turned-right-wing-manifesto 24, who has apparently taken it upon himself to produce a conservative answer to The Daily Show for Fox News. Whereas The Daily Show and The Colbert Report get their laughs by lampooning the hypocrisy and sensationalism of mainstream cable news, The 1/2 Hour News Hour will try to get laughs by mocking. . . The Daily Show and The Colbert Report?

Hahahaha. . . see, it's funny because Barack Obama is popular. . . Wait, did he just make a Marion Barry joke? Also, is it just me or does the laughter in this clip sound suspiciously like the laugh track from an 80s sitcom (apparently the sound of forced laughter is timeless). Doesn't Fox News understand that angry white men watch their network precisely because they don't have a sense of humor. I guess that's what they're counting on.

If you're interested in seeing something that's actually funny, check out this clip from last week's Family Guy. I almost gave myself a hernia watching this.

Fuck Tha Police

2007-02-12T15:46:00.000-05:00

Last night the Recording Academy commenced the annual industry circle jerk known as the Grammy Awards, illustrating, yet again, why the Grammys are the only awards ceremony with less credibility than a Cable Aces. As usual, I tuned out, but after checking last night's winners I thought I'd give my own personal tribute to "Best New Artist" winners of years past:

Carrie Underwood, you're in good company.

Alright, Still

2007-02-11T11:30:00.000-05:00

Arctic Monkeys, it's time to pass your crown. The award for most overhyped UK pop sensation of 2007 goes to. . . [drum roll]. . . Lily Allen.

"But Jimmy," you say, "I was listening to Lily Allen back in September and she was just as overhyped back then." Unfortunately, thanks to the gross inefficiency of the US record industry, Lily didn't get a stateside release of her album until the end of January. So, now that they have the blessing of EMI, MTV can join the hype machine in the hopes that the same angsty tween girls that inexplicably put Lady Sovereign on the top of TRL will do the same for Lily.

Nevertheless, Alright Still was one of my favorite albums of the last year, and, after missing her show at the Hiro Ballroom last October, Erin and I wanted to check out her (abjectly titled) "MTV: Discover and Download" show at Webster Hall last night.

Here's a picture I took:

Here's a picture I wish I took:

Despite a chorus of overzealous girls behind us that felt the need to sing 20 decibles over PA and a woman standing in front of us that I have to assume is a point guard for the WNBA, I can't say I was disappointed with the show. Lily proved herself a somewhat unseasoned performer by not being able to stop herself from cracking up during a few numbers, which might have been offputting from any other singer, but in this case it was sort of endearing. Even towards the end of her set, when she was taking shots while puffing on a cigarette (which I might add did not stop her from hitting every note perfectly), she still couldn't stop me from thinking she was totally adorable. The set was a bit short, but she made up for it with some decent covers.

Pop and (very little) Jazz

2007-02-10T16:16:00.000-05:00

This week the Village Voice released their annual digest of year-end music polls known as the Pazz and Jop list (don't ask my why they even pretend to include jazz as an option - Ornette Coleman squeezes in at 21, but he's the only one in the top 100). The rundown of the top ten is as follows:

Bob Dylan - Modern Times
TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
Ghostface Killah - Fishscale
The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls In America
Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere
Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am Thats What I'm Not
Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury
Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
Joanna Newsom - Ys
Tom Waits - Orphans

The list is a fairly predictable (though eclectic) mix of overhyped indie rock, avante Hip-Hop, chick folk, and grizzled old men writing songs about being grizzled and old. With the exception of the Artic Monkeys (who I find so ridiculously overrated that I wondered if I didn't accidentally download the wrong album) I found the list fairly unobjectionable. I was glad to see my favorite album of the year, Yo La Tengo's I'm Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass in the top 20 along with Sonic Youth and Belle & Sebastian. Bob Dylan's place at the top along with Tom Waits at 10, and Bruce Springsteen at 19 makes me wonder whether rock critics will throw praise at any venerated musician that hasn't completely lost their spine (you'll notice that the Who don't make an appearance in the top 100).

While I thought Bob Dylan probably did make the most tasteful album of the last year, the album mostly succeeded in putting me to sleep (even if it did spawn my favorite music video of the last year), so I was disappointed to see him inch out TV on the Radio, who took a chance on a much more ambitious record. Let me also say that I was glad to see Gnarls Barkley in the top ten. Backlashers be damned, I still enjoy this album. Even though the single has worn a bit thin after the 3 millionth listen, I think I'd still rather listen to "Crazy" than "Hey Ya". Plus I have to give it up for any song that succeeds in uniting holier-than-thou hipsters with drunken club sluts (Thanks Gnarls).

Reppin the 505

2007-02-05T19:26:00.000-05:00

As the innaugural post on my semi-ironically titled pop culture blog, I shall begin by asking (myself) the question: why should I, a shipping clerk who dropped-out of/graduated college after only three years, add his own hackneyed voice to the cacaphonous glut of amateur journalism on the internet? Is it because I have something pertinent and meaningful to add to the general cultural discourse? Is it because the world is hungry for the opinions of another over-educated, underworked twentysomething with an interest in independent music? Is it because my crippling loneliness and isolation has forced my to turn to the only form of expression available to me in the soulless social vacuum of modern society? Or is it because I saw the blog that my friend Dan (aka Lionel McLure) started, and was moved his jockishly overcompetitive spirit to try and outdo him. . . The world may never know.

One thing is for certain though: the Bears lost the Super Bowl and now I'm bored (I guess that's two things). Of course, this year's football season was of particular importance to me because, up until this point, it's the only one I paid any attention to. So why, you might ask, does a guy who spent most of his life decrying the inherent worthlessness of sports suddenly turn into George Wendt's superfan character on SNL (minus the morbid obesity)? Well, after reluctantly agreeing to join the fantasy football league at my work, I ended up doing pretty well (I went undefeated and won the playoffs), and, much to my surprise, eventually found myself enjoying real football (oooh, take that 16-year-old self!). At the same time, I found in the Chicago Bears a team that I could root for without A) feeling like a fraud and B) resigning myself to a life of perpetual frustration (Giants, I'm looking in your direction). And even though they lost the big one, it was all worth it to see them crush the hopes of the beleaguered city of New Orleans and win the NFC championship. As a bonus, I also found out that Brian Urlacher, the monstrously-large-yet-neatly-groomed linebacker that makes up the core of the Chicago defense, played college ball in my home-of-homes, Albuquerque, New Mexico. This brings me to the subject of this entry: New Mexican expatriates that aren't a disgrace.

Up until recently, the only celebrities I knew to come from my home state are C-list actors like Freddie Prinz Jr. and French Stewart. To my knowledge the only halfway respectable celebrity to share a home town with me is Neil Patrick Harris (who only gets a pass because of his role in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle). So right now I want to give it up here for two bands, the Shins and Beirut, both comprised of New Mexican expats, that remind me that maybe I'm not doomed to a life of lameness and douchebaggery just because I'm from a state that the general public doesn't recognize as a part of the union.

I downloaded the new Shins album, Wincing the Night Away, last week and pretty much haven't been listening to anything else. While I was definitely part of the post-Garden State backlash against the Shins and I found their last album annoyingly preachy at points and not as catchy as their first, I decided to give this one a shot. Sadly the lyrics are still a bit esoteric for what is essentially a pop record (FYI: the word 'conundrum' should never find it's way into any pop song). Though luckily the band seems to have used that fat Garden State paycheck to buy some better weed, because they've jacked up psychedelia and added trippy instumental interludes into almost every song. So between the dense production and the catchy hooks you can almost ignore the feeling that the lyrics were the work of a 16-year-old girl submitting poetry to her high school literary magazine.

Unfortunately though, the Shins have effectively given up their NM citizenship (the last interview I read with them involved James Mercer explaining how excited he was to be buying a house and settling down in Portland) and probably don't even remember what green chile tastes like. The members of Beirut, on the other hand might still be young enough that some of them could live with their parents without being ridiculed, so even though they apparently live in New York, they still get plugged as being from "New Mexico by way of New York" (like me if I were to get plugged for anything). For those that aren't familiar with Beirut, they're definitely worth listening to if for no other reason than that they've pretty much invented their own bastard genre (though I'd give it another year before the Grammy's start giving out an award for Best Performance by a Slavic Folk-Rock Duo or Group). Their debut was good, but by all counts pretty rough. The recording is low-fi and the songs are mostly devoid of structure. I downloaded their new EP, Lon Gisland the other day, and so far I haven't been disappointed (I'm hoping that title is meant to point out that people from Long Island sound dumb when they speak, because they do). On this record, the songs sound more like songs and the production values are much improved, but they still keep their signature sound of brassy horns and ukulele strumming under deep, crooning vocals (hey, there's a thought - an indie rock vocalist that can sing lower than a choir boy!). The band is rumored to be working on a new album somewhere in northern NM. I'll be waiting. In the mean time, let's hope I have something else to say so that I can keep this blog going.