Jelly-Town!

Sister, I need wine for color in my skin and darkness for my eyes

2008-05-17T21:20:16Z

Can you identify the color of this horse?

The correct answer is dee-you-enn, DUN. That's a nice-sounding syllable right about now.

As a good Wisconsin-bred boy, I know the proper way to celebrate reaching a tough goal. Sure, a bottle of wine might be nice, but my friendly neighborhood sommelier is miles and miles away so I don't have a ready opportunity to ask him if the following vintage is good:

We've got a baseball trip kicking off in two weeks time, so maybe he can enlighten me then. Anyone wanting to engage in some additional research before that point can do so (or you can electronically visit the individual who initially brought this particular potent potable to my attention).

Finally, happy birthday, whiskeyson!

Five for Friday, Clunker edition

2008-05-16T12:42:06Z

This week's topic was suggested by loveinabasement. Now that I think about, she was centrally responsible for the inverse topic when we used it months ago. Is she angling for some sort of Five for Friday co-executive producer gig or something? Hmmm.

As always, please play along...

Five Songs You Dislike From Artists You Generally Like

1. The Clash, "Rock the Casbah." "Shareef don't like it." Me neither. I will testify to the greatness of London Calling with tedious tenacity, but few songs set me on edge like this lunkheaded rocker. Naturally, it was their biggest U.S. hit by far, their only song to crack the top ten. As Too Much Joy once sang, "Every great band should be shot before they make their Combat Rock."

2. Too Much Joy, "The Kids Don't Understand." Of course, those wisenheimers are just lucky they never gained enough notoriety to inspire someone else to sing "Every greatish band should be shot before they make their Finally." It's not as snappy of a phrase anyway. I remember getting my hands on this advance single at the commercial radio station (where it had about as much chance of getting on the air as the newest Debbie Gibson) and feeling my enthusiasm slowly deflate as I listened to this gloppy mess.

3. R.E.M., "Bad Day." A hollow, bland song that sounds like the discarded rough draft of "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" before they figured out that infusing it with frenetic energy was the answer. It was disappointing enough that the band was pulling the lame trick of adding a new song to a "best of" compilation, but then this was the best they could do? I'll stick with all the original albums, thanks.

4. Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians, "The Yip Song." Courtesy of the invaluable online resource for Robyn Hitchcock fanatics, The Asking Tree, these are the opening lyrics to "The Yip Song": "Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip/Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip/Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip/Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip." There's redundant and then there's redundant. This song is redundant.

5. The Replacements, "Gary's Got a Boner." Yes, Let It Be is an amazing step forward for the Minneapolis foursome and for Paul Westerberg as a songwriter. And yes, one of the things I love most about The Mats is the willful messiness of their records, the cackling self-sabotage of placing the screeching joke of "Mr. Whirly" right next to the tender longing of "Within Your Reach". Still, couldn't this juvenile business have been relegated to a b-side?

Sometimes flashing lights seem soulful in the window, you may have seen them circle me at night

2008-05-16T01:46:06Z

Venus (Roger Michell, 2006). The shabby container of Peter O'Toole's eighth and probably final Academy Award nominated performance. If the memory of the brilliant thespian's concillatory honorary Oscar were a little staler, the voting body may very well have given a trophy to this middling effort. The aged O'Toole, withering and wobbly, in effect plays a version of himself. He's a actor of some renowned who's rapidly approaching the point where the mortal coil will be in his rearview, dealing with the dejection of being typecast as a corpse and the struggles of an elderly body conflicting with his undiminished appetite for women and booze. There's really no movie here, just an excuse to drag O'Toole through bland scenes with his acting compatriots, his ex-wife and a bratty young woman whom he mentors while mooning over her with lascivious attention. Michell's direction is as pedestrian as it's always been. The couple of brief scenes between O'Toole and Vanessa Redgrave are the only ones that raise any interest, not because they're compelling in the context of the film, but simply due to the cinematic footnote of watching two old masters casually ushering an era of great British acting to a close.

Assault on Precinct 13 (John Carpenter, 1976). Carpenter's career has been in such a state of unsightly disaster for so long that it's easy to overlook the value of his earlier work, when he was a splendid gut-level filmmaker. This is Carpenter's western--essentially a remake of Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo--disguised as a gritty police drama, all the better to satisfy mid-70's audiences and keep the budget in check. Carpenter keeps things lean and flinty. The story involves a largely empty police precinct building against a barrage of bullets from an especially well-armed gang. A ragtag group of civil servants and inmates try to defend themselves. That's basically it, and that's all you really need. Carpenter's script is smart, funny and just a little mean when it needs to be. Most of the acting betrays its loose, low-budget production but there is one terrific supporting performance from Greater Flint Afro American Hall of Famer Tony Burton (best known as Rocky Balboa's corner-man) who brings just the right mix of comic exasperation and indignation to his role.

The Wedding Banquet (Ang Lee, 1993). The second feature from the future Oscar-winner is a reasonably simple drama. It concerns a gay couple living in New York City who orchestrate a fake heterosexual marriage to help an immigrant friend stay in the country and appease one of the men's Taiwanese parents. Complications ensue. It all plays like an early film to be sure. In particular, the elegant lyricism that would become the hallmark of Lee's visual sense starting two films later isn't particular evident here. What is already present is the deep well of human feeling that Lee and his screenwriting collaborator James Schamus infuse into everything they do. The acting may be amateurish at time, but the delicacy of the emotional storytelling still comes through.

Scarecrow (Jerry Schatzberg, 1973). This is Al Pacino's follow-up to The Godfather (and the immediate predecessor to Serpico) and came around a year-and-a-half after Gene Hackman's breakthrough, Oscar-winning role in The French Connection. There's a shambling story about people existed on the battered edge of life, but the clear appeal is watching a couple of fiercely talented actors sparking off one another in their edgy, recklessly inventive prime. Hackman is a hothead, always ready to push back forcefully to make up for the way life has kicked him around. Pacino, on the other hand, counters his hardship with gentle clowning. It's thrilling to see these performers challenging themselves creatively with roles that feel very different than the well-established screen personae they'd respectively develop. Schatzberg's directing is appropriately loose and lucid. It could have used a little tighter script, perhaps, as the casual nature sometimes feels directionless. Watching Gene Hackman shout out a diner order of a bottle of beer and a chocolate donut was uniquely thrilling.

Apartment Zero (Martin Donovan, 1989). soul_shear recommended this one. It only took me eighteen years to follow up on that. I'll get to Dead Ringers one of these days. Besides providing further evidence that the late 80's and early 90's was not a good time to place an ad looking for a roommate (at least if you lived in the movies), it's a serviceable thriller with some fascinating elements that don't quite gel. Donovan's screenplay with David Koepp goes beyond the basic trappings of the set-up with intriguing digressions, such as an examination of the way distance and mistrust among neighbors can rapidly turn into dangerous paranoia (in a quick subplot that I'd wager came from Koepp, who's betrayed an inclination towards Twilight Zone flavored psychodramas in other films). Even in those stretches, somewhat awkward staging can undercut the potency. Colin Firth does some nice work in an early role (before he fell into the rut of interchangeable grumpy suitors), particularly conveying the warped, wounded vulnerability of his character.

I like beer, it makes me a jolly good fellow

2008-05-14T23:45:52Z

I now have three more very busy workdays and then most of the summer off.

As my pals in The Replacements might say, "Halle-fuckin-lujah."

Okay, it's not as bad as all that, but I sure could use me a ice-cold bottle of Milwaukee's finest beer come mid-afternoon on Saturday.

Sat down for a drink in her father's favourite chair

2008-05-13T21:05:53Z

Television programs have crossed over into comic book derivations many, many times. Often, the adaptation is completely logical, pulling a strong genre story into a form which is ideally suited to the fantastical imaginings that often fuel those narratives. Sometimes the source material seems less well-suited to adaptation. Occasionally, the television program was itself a sort of adaptation, making it hard to recollect that those old comics neglected in a battered longbox actually have some sort of network connection. In recent years, the TV-derived comics more often than not just seemed awkward.

These titles are intended to get fans outside of the horridly insular world of comic collecting to sample some sequential art storytelling. I'm not sure how effective that's been throughout the years, especially since the comic industry has transitioned from targeting young audiences to selling more and more copies to the same thirtysomething sad sacks who've been hopelessly devoted since the first time they mourned Jean Grey. Still, I know at least a couple people who've been cajoled into regularly contributing to the Dark Horse Comics ledger book since a certain show chose a unique means of creating its eighth season. Along those lines, poor studiesinsecret will probably have to suffer the den of iniquity of her local comic book store if a certain proposed series ever makes it past the printer.

And how many of my friends would be compelled to head to their local comic shop if the following was offered monthly?

I'd buy that comic right now if I could.

(That image was originally posted in a different place on the Interweb and I found it at yet another place.)

All your friends said come down, it'll never fly

2008-05-13T01:54:11Z

The next time a major metropolitan museum has an opening in one of their curatorial positions, I hope they consider TV's Judah Friedlander for the role.

He's clearly got an eye for it.

Oh, I guess fresh college graduate bellafantasia would be a good choice for that job, too. But if she's not interested, then definitely Judah.

I went shopping with a list from A to Z, everything I needed for a happy family

2008-05-12T01:03:56Z

Today I was directly involved in the purchase of the following items:

--One 20 pound bag of dog food
--Two wristwatches
--Twelve bottle of long-sought-after Belgian beer
--Three cheeses, including a Basque cheese
--One charitably-inclined candy bar.
--A pound (or so) of coffee beans.

This adds up to a pretty good day.

It's been a bloody stupid day, don't leave the light on, baby

2008-05-10T15:58:18Z

For some reason, this commercial--that also happens to be a wonderful bit of short filmmaking--popped into my head the other day.

I'm so glad YouTube exists.

Five for Friday, Arrivederci Rollins edition

2008-05-09T13:02:23Z

Sure, in recent days I've been so busy that all I could manage to post was a silly sliver of an image from an old Marvel house ad and a hastily snapped photo of a cozy dog, so you'd think this week's Five for Friday would be easily succinct and simple, wouldn't you? Oh no.

You see, I have a pair of dear friends who are reaching a major accomplishment this Sunday. I wanted to be there, but that's a practical impossibility. Which leads me to this humble little space. And one quintet will not do. Respond to one or respond to all, but...

As always, please play along...

Congratulations, whitneyrhiannon!

Five Songs By Trios

1. Sleater-Kinney, "One Beat." Janet Weiss's sharp drum beats kick off the One Beat album, and then those distinctive guitars kick in followed by the intensely hiccuping vocals and you're back in the sonic safety of Sleater-Kinney. I miss this band.

2. Violent Femmes, "Kiss Off." "I hope you know this will go down on your permanent record."

3. R.E.M., "Living Well Is The Best Revenge." In retrospect, it seems more clear than ever that the band should have reconfigured and renamed themselves after the understandable and admirable departure of Bill Berry. Those albums made without him are so comparatively pallid that it's a shame to file them next to the earlier R.E.M. offerings in the music collection. After a long stretch of diminishing returns, Accelerate isn't exactly a return to form, but it's a solid record on its own terms. And on something like this song, all propulsive force and intense playing, it sounds like the record Peter Buck always wanted to make: the crunchy volume of Monster but the more genuine, pleasingly unpolished feel of New Adventures in Hi-Fi.

4. Yo La Tengo, "Cherry Chapstick." You can't get a much better song title than that. Accompanied by beautiful buzz, Ira throws out the alluring image "There's a girl with cherry chapstick on and nothing more" only to concede "And she seems this close/but not to me."

5. Hanson, "MMMBop." Ahem...
From 1997, this may be the last gasp of Top 40 radio as a dispenser of music that is purely jubilant, freshly freeing and unapologetically fun. When a number one hit could be simultaneously disposable and timeless, when a song could capture the summer by sounding the way a perfect day at the beach feels and nonsense lyrics could somehow seem more profound than the fiercest lines from a pointed protest song. It is, by any measure, a great song.

Congratulations,bellafantasia!

Five Songs About Friendship

1. Bruce Springsteen, "Bobby Jean" My initial inclination with The Boss involved a guy named Terry and one particular soft, infested summer, but this tribute to a soon-to-depart bandmate from that other Born album came to mind. There's something so direct about this song--"Now there ain't nobody nowhere nohow gonna ever understand me the way you did." And oh the places that departing bandmate would go.

2. Matthew Sweet, "Good Friend." The demo version of "Girlfriend", it's basically identical except "Girlfriend" is replaced by "Good Friend." There's something even more satisfying about this crunchy rocking ode to satisfying romance being centered on friendship.

3. Pulp, "Like a Friend." Well, sometimes the songs about friendship aren't going to have the nicest message. "You are the cut that makes me hide my face/You are the party that makes me feel my age." I fucking love this song.

4. They Might Be Giants, "Birdhouse in Your Soul." "I'm your only friend/I'm not your only friend/I'm your little glowing friend/But really I'm not actually your friend." That goofy nightlight should make up its mind.

5. Billy Bragg, "Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards." Sure, the lyrics are about mixing pop and politics and considerations of what the use is, but to me it's about a spring day during my freshman year of college when satchpaige and I walked back from class and belted out this song at the top of our lungs despite the fact that neither one of was exactly Syesha Mercado in the singin' department. Something about that moment represented the proud proclamation of friendship to me. It also probably helps explain why we were always inept at picking up girls together. In that respect, I guess the old "Freedom Rock" commercial represents friendship, too.

And finally, in an unprecedented Five for Friday move...

Since I know bellafantasia is not especially inclined to throwdown with the music lists, here's a different five that I think she might feel more comfortable with (if only because it will inevitably lead to thoughts of someone who has two thumbs and hates Todd Packer)

Five Television Series That Earned Your Total Devotion

1. Freaks and Geeks. Let me say right off the top that any perceived rules about "no repeats" in Five for Friday responses are officially lifted for this week, because I can't bear taking away this answer from silent_spring (or firthofforth or inquiet or slomack or caker_66 or....). This 18-episode masterwork from Paul Feig and Judd Apatow remains the one show I'm most likely to repeatedly revisit. The closing scene of the pilot episode is as beautifully put together as anything I've ever seen on TV.

2. The Sopranos. I stand by the "no repeats" proclamation, but I'm still going to leave the profane, Shakespearean western for others. Instead, I'll look to HBO and reuse that "as beautifully put together as anything I've ever seen on TV" phrase for the closing scene of the whole series. The ludicrous animosity towards David Chase is so far off the mark that I wonder how many of the devoted viewers of the mob drama actually understood the show.

3. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That devotion was admittedly strained the last couple of seasons, but all I had to do was rewatch "Hush" and my zealousness returned.

4. St. Elsewhere. In high school, this was the show that commanded my attention on a weekly basis and got my emotions wrapped up more tightly in fictional characters than I imagined possible. I haven't revisited it in years. I'm afraid it may be dated (especially as extended narrative television storytelling has advanced by leaps and bounds the last few years) so I think I'm content to stick with memories.

5. Late Night with David Letterman. How I miss those low-budget, rough-and-tumble days.

It don't feel much like a home without a dog

2008-05-09T01:30:22Z

Things are crazy busy from now until the college's commencement ceremony next Saturday. So sometimes I just need a picture of a creature that's really got life figured out.

Gonna shake my pie, gonna bake my soul

2008-05-08T00:58:42Z

You know what's interesting about Daredevil's murderous arch-enemy Bullseye?

He's always ready for a pie fight.

When I go forwards you go backwards and somewhere we will meet

2008-05-07T00:04:58Z

I'm a bad voter. When it comes to the presidential primary, North Carolina initially seemed like it was going to be a complete afterthought with both of the major parties' scrappin' matches done and decided. I'd like to claim that's what kept it off my radar, but of course we've known for some time that the donkeys would still be duking it out. Instead, I'm a spouter of that standard lazy American doggerel of being too busy to pay attention to my local politics.

firthofforth did an amazing job of pouring through a "Voter's Guide" we received to figure out who should get our household's support when it came to elected positions like Commissioner of Insurance and Superintendent of Public Instruction only to discover upon her arrival at the polling place bright and early this morning that she'd neglected to sort through the candidates for Governor and U.S. Senate. Luckily, she called to warn me about the hole in her prep work and I waited until the drive home to give me some time for added research. Since we're not talking about races that are as hotly contested as that Barack-Hilary face-off, information was hard to come by. For many of the races, I inadvertently become a single-issue voter as the only contrasting information I could find involved the individual candidates stances on immigration, which hardly seems like the most important topic around here.

I also suspect this the first time since firthofforth and I have been going to same polling station that we voted for different presidential candidates. I guess we canceled each other out.

I'll have to be a better kid when it comes to voting prep in November.

The rich get rich and the poor they stay the same

2008-05-06T02:26:40Z

The Long of It, The Short of It
Circa 2000

The scheme behind this one should be apparent. I'd been stewing on this idea for some time before perching in front on the stereo to pull it together. This would be so much easier in the iTunes era, just for the relative ease in scanning the thousands of titles at my disposal.

SIDE ONE
THE GODFATHERS, "Just Because You're Not Paranoid Doesn't Mean To Say They're Not Going To Get You!"
In the most recent Five for Friday, the man who wears number 19 for the Cakers reminded me of this British band that had a minor hit in the late 1980's with a succinct cataloging of the rigors of life. Despite the relatively small splash they made, there was still a "best of" release, which is where I pulled this from.
BEULAH, "If We Can Land a Man on the Moon, Surely I Can Win Your Heart"
YO LA TENGO, "Ultra-Powerful Short Wave Radio Picks Up Music From Venus"
FLAMING LIPS, "Guy Who Got a Headache and Accidentally Saves The World"
The lyrics are fairly vague, but this song somehow always felt fully fleshed out to me. Like the saga of Yoshimi that eventually followed, it seems like a completely, weird short story.
LYLE LOVETT, "Ballad of the Snow Leopard and the Tanqueray Cowboy"
THE JUDYBATS, "Down in the Shacks Where the Satellite Dishes Grow"
AMERICAN MUSIC CLUB, "How Many Six Packs Does It Take To Screw In A Light?"
MANIC STREET PREACHERS, "If You Tolerate This, Your Children Will Be Next"
On the rare occasions that I invoke Manic Street Preachers in this slice of the Web, I inevitably feel like I'm pleading for forgiveness from ilikemusic for not liking them more.
THE MAGNETIC FIELDS, "The Sun Goes Down and the World Goes Dancing"
U2, "Tryin' To Throw Your Arms Around the World"
BUFFALO TOM, "Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, Get Your Adverbs Here"
I dislike grammar enough that despite an Bachelor of Arts in English and this song representing one of my favorite Schoolhouse Rock's, I'm still can't tell you what an adverb is with any authority. I love those old Saturday morning lessons-in-catchy-disguise and the idea of the covers record seemed somewhat inspired at the time. It wasn't a great CD to listen to all the way through, but it was nice to have around for mixes.
DUSTY SPRINGFIELD, "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself"
MASSIVE ATTACK WITH TRACEY THORN, "The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game"

SIDE TWO
DJ RAP, "Go"
DANCE HALL CRASHERS, "Go"
Ha ha, see what I did there?
NED'S ATOMIC DUSTBIN, "You"
R.E.M., "You"
Ha ha, see what I did there?
GREEN DAY, "She"
THE BREEDERS, "Hag"
VIOLENT FEMMES, "Fat"
CONCRETE BLONDE, "Sun"
GAY DAD, "Joy"
I recall pouring through the high stack of CMJ New Music Monthly compilation CD's, figuring that if I was going to make my song selections largely on the basis on the relative length of the song titles, I may as well find some stuff I wouldn't otherwise think to listen to. The name of this band is awful enough that I may have regularly bypassed them, but this song is damn catchy.
BEN FOLDS FIVE, "Army"
I probably should have tried to stick with two-letter and three-letter songs titles, but, as I recall, I really wanted to get this Ben Folds Five song on a tape. I was still several months away from a move to the south, so I didn't know that the reference to Chick-Fil-A was about an actual restaurant chain.
LIZ PHAIR, "Ride"
ANI DIFRANCO, "Itch"
BIG STAR, "Feel"
ELASTICA, "Blue"
THE REPLACEMENTS, "Otto"
Those were the days.

What would you kill to make a heart stand still?

2008-05-04T20:56:09Z

This may seem a strange assertion to make about an acclaimed actor who's been actively working in the business and has a fully deserved Oscar nomination to his credit, but I'll put it out there anyway. Playing brilliant, wealthy industrialist Tony Stark, the man who dons the armor to become the title superhero of Iron Man, Robert Downey, Jr. gives one of the best, most smartly focused performances I've ever seen from him. Downey has usually been most successful onscreen when he's been shrewdly cast: as the egotistical, womanizing actor in Two Girls and a Guy or as the burnout reporter enamored with his own blooming fame in David Fincher's Zodiac. In roles like these, Downey's fussiness as an actor becomes an asset. He's incapable or unwilling to let a small scene remain small, filling his performances with tics and business and restless mannerisms. It's acting as full-on performance. When this brand of manic extroversion worked for the character, then Downey seemed well-placed. Otherwise, he's a distraction.

Certainly, there are aspects of that approach that are well-suited for Tony Stark, a comic book character that was inspired by the inexhaustible audaciousness of Howard Hughes. Even then, Downey's familiar tricks are tempered. My temptation is to say that he's more relaxed than usual, but his most trying performances exhibit a distance and even disregard for the material at hand so that theory isn't quite right. Instead, I think he's more focused and committed, playing with his familiar style in a way that doesn't sacrifice the integrity of the character and adds gravity when the confidence gives way to fear, uncertainty, guilt.

Downey's acting is the key component to Iron Man's relative success as a film. Director Jon Favreau also merits accolades. His third big-screen directorial effort, following the kid-skewing Elf and Zathura, is nicely deft visually. He handles the big action set pieces with smooth skill, integrates the multiple effects shots nicely and balances the storytelling. It's to his credit that the development of the Iron Man armor is more than prelude. In fact, it's the film most consistently compelling element. Stark works out the details of this unlikely technology in sequences of with and ingenuity. Favreau, along with the quartet of credited screenwriters, manages to make the origin story into something more than mere prelude to the action. It's a vital, engaging piece of the storytelling.

The script has other problems more typical of summer superhero fare. There are multiple plot holes side-by-side with plot points of grinding obviousness. Despite the richness of the main character, the supporting roles are hollow and cliched, a problem accentuated by the presence of highly talented actors in those roles. Jeff Bridges' brimming humanity, Terrence Howard's potent charisma and Gwyneth Paltrow's whiplash intelligence are bleached away by the rote mechanics of their roles. They're interchangeable parts. A construction that's otherwise as sound and thrilling as this should be able to do better. As one of those underdrawn characters says, "Next time, baby."

I was underage in this funky bar and I stepped outside to smoke myself a J

2008-05-04T01:24:38Z

I just spent a ridiculously long time scouring the Interweb for images of the interior of Iron Man issue #39. Sometimes I think I really need a scanner. In this instance, it would have also been helpful to have a copy of Iron Man issue #39. All of this provides a pretty solid clue as to what movie will be reviewed in this cyberspace tomorrow.

Instead of posting that tonight, I'll indulge in my new standby for a content-light day: a random panel from "Playful Obsession"!

At least caker_66 will be happy with this entry.

Five for Friday, South On A Map edition

2008-05-02T12:31:36Z

There should be no shortage of songs for this topic.

As always, please play along...

Five Songs That Begin with the Letter S

1. The Smiths, "Stop Me if You Think You've Heard This One Before." It took me too long to warm to The Smiths (a redneck Wisconsin upbringing doesn't make one especially open to lush pop and emotional falsetto trilling). This is one of the songs that was an exception to my fearful aversion to Morrissey's metronome allure. Strange, given that it's absolutely awash in the all the qualities that usually provoked my dumb, kneejerk negative reactions.

2. Band of Horses, "St. Augustine." Such lovely, fragile drama.

3. Nick Lowe, "Shake And Pop." A couple weeks ago, I was discussing the Jesus of Cool reissue with whiskeyson and I noted my mounting suspicion that years ago when a choice was made between Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe about which one would be lionized and which would fade to footnote status the music cognoscenti backed the wrong horse. Continued spins of Jesus since have only cemented that view. This is a great song with sharp, simple, classic rock'n'roll construction and typically clever lyrics.

4. The Replacements, "Seen Your Video." Speaking of reissues, I wonder if silent_spring has caved in and bought these yet. A little more music industry grumpiness as tis crunchy rocker takes a glancing shot as the pervasive influence (at the time) of MTV and music videos. The music intro is terrifically long, so this commonly dragged out as a handy soundbed back at the college radio station.

5. Paula Abdul, "Straight Up." Oh, Paula, you daffy, loopy, addled disaster. At least your name is connected with one stupidly great chart-topping pop single. I know it was all downhill after MC Skat Cat dumped you.

I'm just so glad to be away from you that everything's a blur and I just smile

2008-05-01T17:15:43Z

America voted!...and National Smile Month, you are safe. Please head over to the couch.

Wait, that's not our format here.

Ahem...

Thirty-One Ways To Celebrate NATIONAL SMILE MONTH
(the first one is for you, studiesinsecret.)

1. Watch the best Angel episode ever.
2. Read a girl magazine.
3. Listen to an album.
4. Consider the album that never was (the solo version years later doesn't count).
5. Read a challenging book.
6. Watch a cartoon.
7. Get a tan.
8. Brush your teeth with some toothpaste made in China chock full of diethylene glycol.
9. Try out a new motto.
10. Check out some live music at the Nashville Blooming Festival.
11. Watch a movie by the finest director to hail from Waukesha, Wisconsin.
12. Read a hippie comic.
13. Read a comic about a pie-throwing cat.
14. Purchase a new vehicle.
15. Sign up your pet for a professional photo shoot.
16. Become a Quilting Angel.
17. Have a refreshing beverage.
18. Practice smoking just like daddy.
19. Enjoy one of Charlie Chaplin's most enduring creations.
20. Take initiative to enhance your learning when it comes to mathematics and science.
21. Take advice from a blue fellow, three apples tall.
22. Get your sneer on.
23. Take pleasure in seeing an ex cry.
24. Wear a sorta creepy t-shirt.
25. Head on off to Kentucky.
26. Groove on some classic jazz, daddy-o.
27. Groove at a jazz cafe in Vienna.
28. Add a nifty banner to your bedroom wall.
29. Think back to the release of Vanilla Sky.
30. Chow down on some San Francisco BBQ.
31. Do whatever.

She came from Greece, she had a thirst for knowledge

2008-04-30T23:05:04Z

Sometimes a film is filled with characters so consumed by their personal animosities that the film itself begins to feel angry, as if it will start barking complaints at the moviegoers about how they're sitting too close or munching their popcorn too loudly. In Smart People Dennis Quaid's literature professor character is angry about his deceased wife and any number of perceived slights from his academic institution, and his students are angry that he doesn't remember their names. Sarah Jessica Parker plays an emergency room physician he encounters after a bad fall from the top of a chain link fence, and she's angry about having to deal with him and other combative people. Ellen Page plays his daughter, angry that her S.A.T, preparation is disrupted by this medical emergency, and Ashton Holmes plays his son, who's angry for no discernible reason. Perhaps its just some mood-based invocation of the "when in Rome" principle. The only one who regards the world with any degree of sympathy is the ne'er-do-well adopted brother played by Thomas Haden Church.

That relentless cynicism is okay by me as long as it's accompanied by some inventive storytelling and depth of character. That's where Smart People is really lacking. Mark Poirier's script has a point of view, but little to express about it, and director Noam Murro films it with dutiful efficiency. There's a grim outlook and a narrative destination point where the mandates of character development insist somewhat on the outlook lightening. The process of getting there is haphazard and poorly thought out. Characters make choices with no compelling drive to do so. You can reasonably puzzle out Page's disgruntled exploration of the wilder parts of herself or Parker's circling of Quaid as a love interest, but the film doesn't provide much reason to believe in these developments. The film is barbed and clever, peppered with the intelligence that the title promises. It's also rarely believable or built upon recognizable emotions, which makes it feel empty.

And when you choose for it, you'll ooze for it, I'll say

2008-04-30T01:21:07Z

Once again, we return to the feature that inspired the gift purchase of a paid livejournal account in the first place: a poll. With the first of a month rapidly approaching, it's time to start considering the best ways to spend the thirty-one days of May in an appropriately celebratory manner. There are so many different options for the coming calendar page that I need to turn to you, faithful friends, to determine which commemorative month to, well, commemorate.

View Poll: Happy New Month for May

Happy voting! Whatever is in the lead on Thursday morning will be the focus of our efforts.

The fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift

2008-04-29T01:45:06Z

I have the Mac back. It's almost problematic how much I missed it.

These beautiful women arrayed for the night just like countesses, empresses, movie stars and queens

2008-04-27T23:52:23Z

Who Killed the Electric Car? (Chris Paine, 2006). Another example of bitter editorializing barely disguised as documentary filmmaking. Paine relays the truncated history of the General Motors EV1 and other competing efforts to create a viable electric car in the mid-1990's, largely in response to emissions regulations in the state of California. It's easy to get stirred up by the corporate indifference to innovation that the film depicts (especially when the other denizen of the screening room is a former big-three-automaker engineer who has her own tales from the front) and Paine is clearly content to just keep pushing those hot buttons, indicting every major component of the power structure including oil companies and the government. His assessment may very well be correct but the presentation is so one-sided that the film quickly becomes tiresome. Martin Sheen's overcooked narration doesn't help. He presents even the most mundane facts with an off-putting tone of outraged bafflement.

Blades of Glory (Josh Gordon and Will Speck, 2007). Or Will Ferrell In His Underpants IV: Ice Skating. Writing down that Chazz Michael Michaels favored Mane 'n Tail as a personal grooming product earned earned my Trivia team a meager ten points, making me wonder why I bothered with this 93 minutes of misery. I laughed exactly once at this film. It was a throwaway line delivered by Will Arnett. If I weren't well-versed on the U.S. version of The Office, Jenna Fischer's performance in this movie would convince me that she can't act at all.

The Hoax (Lasse Hallstrom, 2007). A few years ago, we procured several bound collections of old newsmagazines from the Orlando library, undoubtedly being discarded in favor of microfiche arrays that utilized less precious shelf space. While paging through some of the Newsweeks from the early 1970's, I stumbled across the story of Clifford Irving and his falsified autobiography of the reclusive Howard Hughes, fascinated by the major play the story got in those pages. Hallstrom's dramatizes Irving's ruse, almost succeeding by the sheer audaciousness of real events. When it focuses of the mechanics of the hoax and the delighted mischief of the co-conspirators, it achieves a nice energy. Then the backstories and psychological complications and messy romantic entanglements begin to swamp the film. Irving is played by Richard Gere, an actor who has limited range but delivers typically nice work as a charming huckster (the other part of Gere's range is "entitled dick"). Hallstrom, on the other hand, has now completely devolved from the elegant simplicity of films like Once Around and What's Eating Gilbert Grape to a style that is purely pedestrian.

For Your Consideration (Christopher Guest, 2006). I watched this primarily for Trivia purposes, too, but finding the film lackluster was very sad. Guest's splendid streak of semi-improvised wonders that began with Waiting for Guffman yields a complete clunker with this plodding send-up of the Hollywood awards season. Guest never nails the tone this time out as the broad jokes about addled publicists and pastrami-munching directors float in disharmony with the pathos of struggling actors who watch their fleeting shot at respectability fade to black. For the first time, Guest's troupe strains instead of soars.

Grindhouse (Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, 2007). It was hard work to see this one in its original release format. After circumstances conspired to keep us away from the three-hour-plus version last spring, the film tanked at the box office. After that, Rodriguez's Planet Terror and Tarantino's Death Proof were available separately on DVD and on cable, but the "double feature" version remained locked in the Weinstein warehouse, right around the same spot where that crated-up recovered ark resides, no doubt. Then Starz broke the embargo. I'm especially grateful because I'm quite certain I don't want to sit through Tarantino's film with an extra twenty-five minutes. It felt overlong at 90 minutes. The concept of recreating a trashy, old-school night at the movies with gore and sex and vengeance and cool, fast cars is entertaining enough, but the joke wears off before the huge number of reels have fully unspooled. Rodriguez's Planet Terror is the more successful of the pair, primarily because he has fully bought into the conceit and constructed a film that revels in the raw excesses of genre exploitation. The plot feels right, involving mutated, zombie-like creatures endless encroaching on a ragtag band of survivors holing up in a series of dives. Rodriguez further obliges with a raw, visceral approach to the visuals and an appropriately battered look to film stock. Like a lot of films of this ilk, it loses its appeal when it tries to offer an explanation for all the mayhem (and the mayhem starts to get too cartoonish). Tarantino, on the other hand, has simply made a Quentin Tarantino movie that borrows a standard road revenge plot. His character chatter on with stylized, hyper-verbose dialogue until he reaches his high-speed highway set pieces. Rodriguez used the grindhouse prompt as an inspiration. Tarantino used it as an excuse.

Who sees the windows freeze and hands around the keys

2008-04-27T02:43:36Z

"So I call the AAA and they send a guy, and they say the guy will be right out of course. And he shows up in this little yellow truck, empty! I thought he would have the jaws of life or some crane to pick my car up and shake the keys out through the air vents or something. And then he reaches behind the back seat of his truck and whips out this metal, uh slim jim, is what it's called....It took him about four minutes to break into my car....It was so fast it made me wonder why I bother locking the car in the first place. Who am I keeping out? Who can't get in without the keys? Me. I'm the only one."

--Jake Johannsen

Days like today are busy and stressful enough without me doing stupid things. Sigh.

Five for Friday, 4 8 15 16 23 42 edition

2008-04-25T12:22:35Z

MAC HELD HOSTAGE -- DAY FOUR!

While most of my files were saved before my laptop was shipped off to the downtown clinic of emergency hard drive transplant surgery, the hefty stockpile of music that was on it was understandably backed up be my workplace Computing Services department. The precious, precious iPod will ensure that I don't actually lose all those songs, but the situation does suggest a topic.

The movie quote that marks our lj-cut this week is just for you, silent_spring.

As always, please play along...

Five Lost Songs

1. Swamp Thing, "Trail of Bones." There were many discoveries to be made when I alit in the college radio station in the city of wonderful water. One of the bands that found its way to fairly regular inclusion in my many, many playlists was this clever outfit from downstate in Madison. I'm fairly sure that this song appeared only on a 45 and it is not anywhere in my personal collection (not that I currently have the required vinyl spinner to listen to it if it were nestled somewhere in my meager record crates). "You can't sell your winter coat when springtime comes around" is a perfect lyric for a Wisconsin band.

2. The Feelies, "Sooner or Later." I cracked open the CD case on Time for a Witness a few weeks ago only to discover exposed black plastic staring back at me. Where the actual CD is remains a mystery. Of course it is out of print.

3. Billy Bragg, "The Saturday Boy." Thankfully I found this one eventually. When I was in high school one of the local radio stations had a halfhearted stab at programming "alternative music" in the ghetto of Sunday night. I knew Billy Bragg was their featured artist for the night and I was confident this song was him when they played it (I wasn't yet familiar enough with the Bard of Barking that his melodic accent was immediately recognizable), but the DJ never backsold his music leaving me unsure about the title of the song. I never stumbled upon it at 90FM either, only finding it years later, immediately recognizing it as the gentle tale of schoolboy romance that caught my ear a decade before.

4. Three Dog Night, "Shambala." Remember that time Hurley found the old van on the island and he fixed it and drove it around the lush island greenery while "Shambala" played on the 8-track? That was awesome.
It is a pretty fantastic song and it's a great one to drive to. Well done, Lost.

5. The Clash, "Lost in the Supermarket." "I can no longer shop happily."

So easy to look at, so hard to define

2008-04-25T00:24:13Z

I don't want to get into a writing rut with comedy films featuring former Freaks and Geeks cast members as unlikely romantic leads but I can't help myself. Just as Seth Rogen's boorish teddy bear in Knocked Up was happily familiar for anyone who spent time rooting for Ken Miller, so too does Jason Segel's work in Forgetting Sarah Marshall have echoes of the finest eighteen episode series ever. His character doesn't especially resemble the much-loved Nick Andopolis but in that old role Segel established that his greatest strength as an actor is a vanity-free fearlessness. He could stand under-attired and forlorn in the hallway outside his lost girlfriend's bedroom, emote through misguided serenades or dominate a dance floor in ways that stripped him of his dignity and yet left him with an appealingly earnest sort of personal honor. That's a quality the producers of a How I Met Your Mother have clearly picked up on and that Segel himself knows how to exploit.

Segel is the sole credited writer of Sarah Marshall and he doesn't spare himself a bit, cooking up a role that has him getting dumped while standing naked (literally, emotionally, any way you can think of) before his celebrity girlfriend and then enduring the misery of encountering her and her new rock star paramour when he flees to Hawaii for vacation. Directed by Undeclared writer Nicholas Stoller, the film has the endearingly unkempt rhythms of the now familiar Apatow brand. While Judd Apatow's shadow is here, from the disarming sweetness amidst the willful crudities to the presence of stable members Jonah Hill and Paul Rudd (who will clearly never want for work again now that he's pals with Judd) it does feel very much like Segel's vision, albeit undoubtedly shaped by his regular boss's sensibilities. If there were any doubt, the inclusion of so many muppet/puppet elements would clearly close the case.

It is a nice romantic comedy and a brash laugher in equal measure. It is at its best when it's the former. Russell Brand's rocker character exemplifies this tonal split personality and nicely illustrates the marked difference in effectiveness. At times his role is overly cartoonish, preening through a phony music video or engaging in ludicrously sexualized calisthenics in a stage performance. When the character is simpler--a mix of pretension, arrogance and yet a certain friendliness--it's more genuine. The broader the film pushes, the weaker it is (the comedy surrounding a fanboy waiter played by Superbad's Jonah Hill is especially strained).

That's especially unfortunate because the film has some very interesting things to say when it is most grounded. The interplay between the characters is strong and real; Segel has clearly put some thought into how personal relationships bend and break. Kristen Bell has nice moments as the titular tv star and Mila Kunis from That 70's Show is shockingly good as the hotel employee who helps Segel's cuckolded hero rebuild his psyche. The film has a satisfying thematic arc with a fair appraisal of how a person gradually emerges from an unhappy spell and an enveloping relationship. The main character is literally stuck because of his relationship, defined only it's terms. An aspiring musician, he provides the incidental music for his girlfriend's police procedural television drama. He is her support, her background score. It's no great spoiler to note that he symbolically rediscovers his own musical voice by the end. For Segel's character, the process of forgetting Sarah Marshall leads intrinsically to remembering himself.

But I hate to beg like a dog for a bone but I'm busted

2008-04-24T01:58:53Z

MAC HELD HOSTAGE -- DAY TWO!

My Mac has a hardware problem. The hard drive is shot, which means it needs to go to the local Mac Store to get fixed (under warranty). Most likely this means I'll be without it for at least a week. Luckily the old Dell laptop that I traded away to firthofforth for a pack of gum and an old Hulk comic is temporarily available for my daily use. It is missing as many keys as a the average hockey player is missing teeth, but it works. Also, our Computing Services department was able to retrieve most of my valued data off of the laptop before sending it to the Apple Hospital, making caker_66's taunts about my lack of an external hard drive easier to take (just kidding sir...I know you're right).

So this space doesn't degenerate into nothing but whining about my busted laptop, I pledge that tomorrow I will finally get around to writing my review of the second movie we saw this past weekend. There. Now that I typed that, I have to do it.