"It’s like my parents always told me: the internet should only be considered a trusted authority with regard to matters of grotesque pornography." --James Green Pea-ness
All your bass are belong to me.
I read Steve Martin's autobiography Born Standing Up earlier this month, and this excerpt quoted today on BoingBoing was probably my single favorite page in the entire book. As many of you know, I love to read/listen to comedians talking about craft, and those few paragraphs pretty much instantly helped me get a little more the appeal of Martin's stand-up, which had always left me a bit "wha--?" (In honor of comedy analysis, I will direct your attention to the "p-shaped pie" exchange in Picasso at the Lapin Agile. I couldn't figure out how to link directly to the monologue in question, but you can either search on "p-shaped pie" or scroll forward to page 45.)
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Friday, January 18, 2008
All Quick-Like
Yes, I discovered this outside my apartment building as I was on my way to work earlier this week. It gave me quite a shock--the kind of shock that can only truly be registered with the immediate involvement of my cameraphone. It's going to be a nutty year, kittens!
RIP, Bobby Fischer, you crazy-ass bastard.
"Musical theater just somehow got a whole lot gayer!"
"Unless he's using 'ironic' ironically, which is so meta it just blew the trucker cap off my mustache."
Top Ten Best Ever (via)
Eat shit and die, Doomsday. The RTA funding (fucking finally) went through.
In other local news, apparently it was first revealed way back in the fall, but I finally just saw the revised Chicago 2016 logo on the wilds of the city streets while I was out and about a few days ago. I think it's quite nice and worth noting.
Did you all watch the Tom Cruise video this week (via)? It's creepy, sure, but hardly unexpected. Gawker rightly points out that he's speechifying with "all the wide-eyed fervor that he brings to the promotion of a movie," but, rather than providing that "aha!" moment for me, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt the depth and vigor of his commitment to Scientology, it actually unseats it all a little bit for me. All his vague, repetitious rhetoric about helping people and "doing more" doesn't really sound devout, it sounds hollow, like he's giving the Scientologists the sound bites they want, the same way he'd give entertainment journo-parasites a few easily quotable words about how great it was to work with a certain director or actor. Obviously, this is all just performance, that's no shock. But, it makes me more curious about what it is in him (or perhaps isn't in him, alternately) that makes it so easy for him to hire his still considerable charisma out to these shadowy, monolithic entities. Is it something as predictable as the daddy issues that get rehashed in the controversial-to-exactly-no-one unauthorized biography that just came out? Is it just one more example of his shrewd business acumen, knowing how to hitch himself to the rocket power of the highest bidder? But, if that's the case, Hollywood is understandable, but why Scientology? Anyway. These are all ponderables to be pondered.
Baby Teeth!!!!!! In my brain, they're now having a sexy musical cage match with Bound Stems for the honor of being my fave-rave local band.
Monday, January 14, 2008
There Will Be Blood and At Least Two Rabbit References
There Will Be Blood quite possibly...maybe...redeemed the entire 2007 movie year for me in one two-and-a-half-hour chunk. No kidding.
As soon as NI and I stumbled out of the theater and into the hot, bright lights of the lobby and concession area, the first words out of my mouth were "now that was a movie!" Ohhh kittens, I must implore you to see this film at your earliest convenience. I was so wrapped up in being in love with it while I was watching it that I wasn't even taking proper mental notes so I'd be able to talk intelligently about it later. It's no exaggeration to say that DDL is the movie, but Anderson gives him the ballast to achieve escape velocity. What a match, what a marriage. Who ever would have anticipated it? The movie looks great, sounds great (particularly cruelly, given one of the main subplots), and feels great (yr bum will never know how long it's been sitting there, promise). A gorgeous feast. I can't wait to catch it again so I can really concentrate on it this time.
Back in the late spring when Boxer first came out, I remember waxing rhapsodic about the glories of "Green Gloves" and how nice it was to hear a love song about friendship (however subterraneously psycho the lyrics might actually be). Well, how did I ever content myself with one measly song on the theme when James Rabbit went ahead and made a whole freakin' album of love songs about friendship? It's called Coloratura and it's extraordinary. I can't really even link you anywhere describing the album (aside from maybe their MySpace page) because the only way you can get access to it is to send an e-mail to maestro Tyler Martin and actively, personally request a copy to be sent through the mail. Yes, that's right, the post. The album is so local, and so personal, so private, and yet so all-embracingly universal that it recalls nothing so much as the giddy, shocking intimacy of the first time I discovered what a LiveJournal was. "What? I can just read all this person's thoughts about everything? While I'm just sitting in my pajamas in my dorm room?" I've long been a notorious eavesdropper, and listening to the album, despite the fact that it's clearly been produced and put out there for public consumption, is like a pure hit of eavesdropper's heroin shot straight into my veins. You get so much of the shape of this guy's life and relationships and mental states--all the anxiety and over-analysis and panic and doubt, along with all the grace and quiet hope and thankfulness and hard work--in such a direct and honest way, however necessarily fictionalized it must be, that you feel like there's no way you should have such easy access to all this strangely familiar psychic detritus. But--and it's a big but--you just get the lumpy outline of it, underneath a huge, sparkly confetti-gun-blasted blanket of joy. I can't begin to describe how happy this album makes me. These kids are just belting it out at the tops of their lungs (I'm thinking esp. here of "My Choir," which has made me choke back sobs of glee on the train more than once now), and, really, it's just a privilege to be there, at that particular moment in space and time, to be able to hear it. (Major appreciation to Fluxblog, as always, for the heads-up.)
As long as we're going with drug metaphors, let's just say I wanna spread this video out on a mirror and fucking snort it (via). (Re: the via--it's nice to see the word "talented" used without undue ornament in there. The word doesn't get used in indie discourse much, for a lot of often quite valid reasons, but I think it's warranted here.)
I'd be lying if I said I haven't been waiting for this joke since I first started seeing promos for the movie. And yet? Still funny.
"How can you feel sane and healthy when you’re preoccupied with all of the possibilities presented by your massive stores of accumulated wealth? How can you be happy when the world is your stupid oyster? Plentitude doesn’t become us, crackers….Doesn’t it make simple sense that we should have a bone to pick with the establishment, that we should be thirsting for revolution? It’s about time we stopped reorganizing our walk-in closets and started fucking shit up!" --Rabbit Blog
As soon as NI and I stumbled out of the theater and into the hot, bright lights of the lobby and concession area, the first words out of my mouth were "now that was a movie!" Ohhh kittens, I must implore you to see this film at your earliest convenience. I was so wrapped up in being in love with it while I was watching it that I wasn't even taking proper mental notes so I'd be able to talk intelligently about it later. It's no exaggeration to say that DDL is the movie, but Anderson gives him the ballast to achieve escape velocity. What a match, what a marriage. Who ever would have anticipated it? The movie looks great, sounds great (particularly cruelly, given one of the main subplots), and feels great (yr bum will never know how long it's been sitting there, promise). A gorgeous feast. I can't wait to catch it again so I can really concentrate on it this time.
Back in the late spring when Boxer first came out, I remember waxing rhapsodic about the glories of "Green Gloves" and how nice it was to hear a love song about friendship (however subterraneously psycho the lyrics might actually be). Well, how did I ever content myself with one measly song on the theme when James Rabbit went ahead and made a whole freakin' album of love songs about friendship? It's called Coloratura and it's extraordinary. I can't really even link you anywhere describing the album (aside from maybe their MySpace page) because the only way you can get access to it is to send an e-mail to maestro Tyler Martin and actively, personally request a copy to be sent through the mail. Yes, that's right, the post. The album is so local, and so personal, so private, and yet so all-embracingly universal that it recalls nothing so much as the giddy, shocking intimacy of the first time I discovered what a LiveJournal was. "What? I can just read all this person's thoughts about everything? While I'm just sitting in my pajamas in my dorm room?" I've long been a notorious eavesdropper, and listening to the album, despite the fact that it's clearly been produced and put out there for public consumption, is like a pure hit of eavesdropper's heroin shot straight into my veins. You get so much of the shape of this guy's life and relationships and mental states--all the anxiety and over-analysis and panic and doubt, along with all the grace and quiet hope and thankfulness and hard work--in such a direct and honest way, however necessarily fictionalized it must be, that you feel like there's no way you should have such easy access to all this strangely familiar psychic detritus. But--and it's a big but--you just get the lumpy outline of it, underneath a huge, sparkly confetti-gun-blasted blanket of joy. I can't begin to describe how happy this album makes me. These kids are just belting it out at the tops of their lungs (I'm thinking esp. here of "My Choir," which has made me choke back sobs of glee on the train more than once now), and, really, it's just a privilege to be there, at that particular moment in space and time, to be able to hear it. (Major appreciation to Fluxblog, as always, for the heads-up.)
As long as we're going with drug metaphors, let's just say I wanna spread this video out on a mirror and fucking snort it (via). (Re: the via--it's nice to see the word "talented" used without undue ornament in there. The word doesn't get used in indie discourse much, for a lot of often quite valid reasons, but I think it's warranted here.)
I'd be lying if I said I haven't been waiting for this joke since I first started seeing promos for the movie. And yet? Still funny.
"How can you feel sane and healthy when you’re preoccupied with all of the possibilities presented by your massive stores of accumulated wealth? How can you be happy when the world is your stupid oyster? Plentitude doesn’t become us, crackers….Doesn’t it make simple sense that we should have a bone to pick with the establishment, that we should be thirsting for revolution? It’s about time we stopped reorganizing our walk-in closets and started fucking shit up!" --Rabbit Blog
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Michel Gondry @ the Apple Store
This isn't so much a post as it is a fan-girl gush. (People! When am I going to get my medical bracelet!) Prompted by Chicagoist, I headed to the Apple Store after work tonight to catch Michel Gondry basically shilling for his upcoming Be Kind Rewind (starring Mos Def and Jack Black, not these shoes). The line was down the block and around the corner by the time I got there, and I felt certain they'd cap attendance before I'd be able to squeak through the doors, but I was somewhat surprisingly able to make it in. Of course the place was totally jammed, though. I could barely even hear (much less see) from where I was standing way in the back, I got quickly overheated in my coat, my boots had no arch support, my messenger bag full of crap was weighing on my shoulders, blah blah blah. There were about fourteen times I was going to walk out in frustration and annoyance. But, my obsessive reverence knows no bounds, and I just couldn't bring myself to actively give up. I'm glad I didn't; the herd started thinning before long, and I wouldn't have wanted to miss the brilliance that was Gondry's own version of the trailer, starring himself in all the roles. (I'm sure it'll eventually end up on the DVD if it's not floating around on the intertubes somewhere already.) Not to mention that, after standing around for a while at the end of the event, watching him sign autographs and politely indulge all the rest of the beautiful dorked-out hipsters crowding him for a moment of attention, I was able to sneak my way over, shake his hand, and thank him for Eternal Sunshine. Never let it be said that my spazz-outs are not completely heartfelt and sincere, regardless of decibel level.
Plus! We're talking icing-on-cake here, people--I ran into and finally had a chance to have a nice long conversation with Kirstiecat, who took this beautiful portrait of the man.
Plus! We're talking icing-on-cake here, people--I ran into and finally had a chance to have a nice long conversation with Kirstiecat, who took this beautiful portrait of the man.
Sunday, January 06, 2008
A Few Notes on the '07 Movie Year
Happy new year, my kittens!
I had hoped to be able to cobble together some notes on the movies I saw in '07 like I did for '06, but I'm even less confident this go round in my ability to say anything remotely meaningful about any of them. For a number of reasons: I missed out on catching a bunch of flicks I think I probably would have liked while they were in theaters and just haven't gotten around to renting them yet (Zodiac most esp., though Away from Her also comes to mind; I heard surprisingly great things about In the Valley of Elah, and, shit, has Margot at the Wedding disappeared already?), I just haven't found time to see the current crop of requisite Oscar bait yet (No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Charlie Wilson's War, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), and over and above even those excuses, as I mentioned a little while back, I simply haven't been bowled over by much of anything recently. With all the blather about how great a year this has been for film, I really have to wonder where I've been these past twelve months. Or, am I letting the hype get to me against my better, more intuitive judgment? At any rate, I did have a chance to see a few things recently (though I've been unusually busy and unfortunately haven't had a chance to schedule any of the daylong binges at the theater I generally like to indulge in this time of year).
I can see why a lot of people really liked Atonement, but it just left me cold. I think part of it is that I'm finally beginning to realize that "redemptive power of fiction" movies kind of bug me; this is probably why I didn't much care for Pan's Labyrinth either. (CTLA, as my unofficial Boswell, I'll rely on you to remind me if I've conveniently forgotten anything out of this subgenre I actually do like.) McAvoy continues to impress me, though, and of course the mise-en-scene was utterly lovely. But, for the most part, it felt like the most spot-on example of Eddie Izzard's priceless "arranging matches" bit since the heyday of Merchant Ivory.
I had high hopes that Juno would be the feminist response to Superbad that I've been waiting for, but...it doesn't even manage to be a feminist response to Knocked Up (which needed the corrective less). It's...cute? I dunno. For all the excitement about Diablo Cody's writing style, a lot of the attitude felt flat--when it wasn't feeling forced, that is. I think the thing I liked most about it (aside from Cera, obvy) was Juno's relationship with the Jason Bateman character, mostly because, OMG, I have so been that girl (pregnancy to one side, of course) who didn't quite want to admit to herself that just hanging out and talking shit about music and movies with a married or otherwise committed guy can actually be really inappropriate in certain situations. Also, thumbs all the way up for Allison Janney.
I'm wholly unqualified to say absolutely anything meaningful about I'm Not There, but I'm glad I saw it nonetheless. It's a complete mess, of course, but it's a 100% worthy experiment and I gotta give credit where credit is due when directors are really swinging for the fences. Though, aside from perhaps Velvet Goldmine (which, for me, is really more about the yummy homoeroticism anyway), I don't really go in much for Haynes--I loved Rosenbaum's line in his review of I'm Not There that "Widely described as a tribute, it frequently comes across as a series of insults" and think it could apply equally well to Far from Heaven. (Also, RIP Rosenbaum's tenure as chief critic at the Reader.) For me, the film succeeds best when it's least insulting, and that's during the musical sequences: the paranoid nightmare of "Maggie's Farm," the almost painfully allegorical vaudevillian Old West funeral of "Goin' to Acapulco," and OMG the slightly creepy but not unmoving "Pressing On." A propos of which, jane dark's sugarhigh! is, as ever, correct in the assessment that Christian Bale is the best faux-Dylan of the bunch (yes, eclipsing even the lovely Ms. Blanchett). I'm sure there's a more sophisticated meaning in this than I'm able to parse, not being terribly well-versed in Dylanology, but I found it fascinating that Bale's "Jack Rollins" is the only Dylan who's allowed to age discernibly. (Time clearly elapses in the course of Heath Ledger and Charlotte Gainsbourg's subplot, but it's nowhere near as marked.) Anyway, blah. I can't say I wasn't bored at times, especially in the final stretches, especially during most of Gere's scenes, but it gets major points for ambition.
Sweeney Todd, on the other hand, gets a huge wet kiss for its absolute lack of ambition. Srsly. As a dyed-in-the-wool musical theater dork, I've found it kind of difficult to get behind the movie musical revival of the past few years mainly because most of them feel like they're trying too hard to be clever or sexy or contemporary or whatever. Sweeney Todd, though, just kind of gets in and gets the job done and gets out. Which I never would have thought Burton would be capable of at this point in his career. I don't think I've ever seen the show performed on stage, and I don't even know the score all that well, but as soon as I started hearing those weirdo Sondheim chord voicings, I felt all snug and warm and ready for the blood to flow. Depp's singing is competent but limited (I lost count of how many times he fell into the typical amateur's trap of putting a little scoop and a growl on a note in an effort to shoehorn some intensity in it; nice try, but not so much). Bonham Carter is competent and somewhat less limited; plus also, she's just got that look. Put a crazy dress and some crazy hair and some crazy makeup on that lady, and half the work is done right there. Helps of course to be reminded, as here, that she's still capable of putting that look into the service of her performance, rather than the other way around. The ingenues absolutely nail it to the wall with their fluty singing voices and swoony-moony-googly eyes; I forgot how much pleasure can be wrung out of the standard-issue earnest young lovers subplot when the roles are well cast and don't really try to carry too much of the weight of the piece. I know we're supposed to be disturbed by Judge Turpin's murderous inclinations and incestuous advances, but Rickman is almost too legitimately sexy to be creepy. In a different movie, that would probably have played as an interesting and vital shade of gray, but here I think it's just a slightly misfired consequence of the casting. It doesn't ruin the movie by any means, but I did kind of find myself distracted by it. And, going into the movie, I thought Baron Cohen would probably be the only thing I'd like about it, so, given how much I actually enjoyed myself throughout, his performance was just icing on the cake. I don't mean to rave about Sweeney Todd too much, but these days I'm just happy when I don't immediately forget about a film as soon as I leave the theater.
And, with memorability as a main criterion (or, a movie's ability to "stick with me," as I usually put it), I'd have to say one of my surprise favorites of the year, after Inland Empire, would be Into the Wild. The Holbrook performance, sure, of course, but I find myself thinking really fondly on the always-appealing sense of open-road freedom it celebrates and revels in, as well as the way it gets that elusive tone just right--the combination of "devil-may-care charisma and pernicious youthful idealism," to quote myself. (Barf.)
Quickly:
DS blogs--hurrah!
Dear Jesus, white girls is bitches who will not let me love them. O Jesus, King of Kings, please make the bitches appreciate my style. Amen.
Be sure to check out Kirstiecat's Best 2007 Music Photography set over on Flickr. Gorgeous, compelling shots from a photographer who's been nothing but a joy to track these past months.
I had hoped to be able to cobble together some notes on the movies I saw in '07 like I did for '06, but I'm even less confident this go round in my ability to say anything remotely meaningful about any of them. For a number of reasons: I missed out on catching a bunch of flicks I think I probably would have liked while they were in theaters and just haven't gotten around to renting them yet (Zodiac most esp., though Away from Her also comes to mind; I heard surprisingly great things about In the Valley of Elah, and, shit, has Margot at the Wedding disappeared already?), I just haven't found time to see the current crop of requisite Oscar bait yet (No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Charlie Wilson's War, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), and over and above even those excuses, as I mentioned a little while back, I simply haven't been bowled over by much of anything recently. With all the blather about how great a year this has been for film, I really have to wonder where I've been these past twelve months. Or, am I letting the hype get to me against my better, more intuitive judgment? At any rate, I did have a chance to see a few things recently (though I've been unusually busy and unfortunately haven't had a chance to schedule any of the daylong binges at the theater I generally like to indulge in this time of year).
I can see why a lot of people really liked Atonement, but it just left me cold. I think part of it is that I'm finally beginning to realize that "redemptive power of fiction" movies kind of bug me; this is probably why I didn't much care for Pan's Labyrinth either. (CTLA, as my unofficial Boswell, I'll rely on you to remind me if I've conveniently forgotten anything out of this subgenre I actually do like.) McAvoy continues to impress me, though, and of course the mise-en-scene was utterly lovely. But, for the most part, it felt like the most spot-on example of Eddie Izzard's priceless "arranging matches" bit since the heyday of Merchant Ivory.
I had high hopes that Juno would be the feminist response to Superbad that I've been waiting for, but...it doesn't even manage to be a feminist response to Knocked Up (which needed the corrective less). It's...cute? I dunno. For all the excitement about Diablo Cody's writing style, a lot of the attitude felt flat--when it wasn't feeling forced, that is. I think the thing I liked most about it (aside from Cera, obvy) was Juno's relationship with the Jason Bateman character, mostly because, OMG, I have so been that girl (pregnancy to one side, of course) who didn't quite want to admit to herself that just hanging out and talking shit about music and movies with a married or otherwise committed guy can actually be really inappropriate in certain situations. Also, thumbs all the way up for Allison Janney.
I'm wholly unqualified to say absolutely anything meaningful about I'm Not There, but I'm glad I saw it nonetheless. It's a complete mess, of course, but it's a 100% worthy experiment and I gotta give credit where credit is due when directors are really swinging for the fences. Though, aside from perhaps Velvet Goldmine (which, for me, is really more about the yummy homoeroticism anyway), I don't really go in much for Haynes--I loved Rosenbaum's line in his review of I'm Not There that "Widely described as a tribute, it frequently comes across as a series of insults" and think it could apply equally well to Far from Heaven. (Also, RIP Rosenbaum's tenure as chief critic at the Reader.) For me, the film succeeds best when it's least insulting, and that's during the musical sequences: the paranoid nightmare of "Maggie's Farm," the almost painfully allegorical vaudevillian Old West funeral of "Goin' to Acapulco," and OMG the slightly creepy but not unmoving "Pressing On." A propos of which, jane dark's sugarhigh! is, as ever, correct in the assessment that Christian Bale is the best faux-Dylan of the bunch (yes, eclipsing even the lovely Ms. Blanchett). I'm sure there's a more sophisticated meaning in this than I'm able to parse, not being terribly well-versed in Dylanology, but I found it fascinating that Bale's "Jack Rollins" is the only Dylan who's allowed to age discernibly. (Time clearly elapses in the course of Heath Ledger and Charlotte Gainsbourg's subplot, but it's nowhere near as marked.) Anyway, blah. I can't say I wasn't bored at times, especially in the final stretches, especially during most of Gere's scenes, but it gets major points for ambition.
Sweeney Todd, on the other hand, gets a huge wet kiss for its absolute lack of ambition. Srsly. As a dyed-in-the-wool musical theater dork, I've found it kind of difficult to get behind the movie musical revival of the past few years mainly because most of them feel like they're trying too hard to be clever or sexy or contemporary or whatever. Sweeney Todd, though, just kind of gets in and gets the job done and gets out. Which I never would have thought Burton would be capable of at this point in his career. I don't think I've ever seen the show performed on stage, and I don't even know the score all that well, but as soon as I started hearing those weirdo Sondheim chord voicings, I felt all snug and warm and ready for the blood to flow. Depp's singing is competent but limited (I lost count of how many times he fell into the typical amateur's trap of putting a little scoop and a growl on a note in an effort to shoehorn some intensity in it; nice try, but not so much). Bonham Carter is competent and somewhat less limited; plus also, she's just got that look. Put a crazy dress and some crazy hair and some crazy makeup on that lady, and half the work is done right there. Helps of course to be reminded, as here, that she's still capable of putting that look into the service of her performance, rather than the other way around. The ingenues absolutely nail it to the wall with their fluty singing voices and swoony-moony-googly eyes; I forgot how much pleasure can be wrung out of the standard-issue earnest young lovers subplot when the roles are well cast and don't really try to carry too much of the weight of the piece. I know we're supposed to be disturbed by Judge Turpin's murderous inclinations and incestuous advances, but Rickman is almost too legitimately sexy to be creepy. In a different movie, that would probably have played as an interesting and vital shade of gray, but here I think it's just a slightly misfired consequence of the casting. It doesn't ruin the movie by any means, but I did kind of find myself distracted by it. And, going into the movie, I thought Baron Cohen would probably be the only thing I'd like about it, so, given how much I actually enjoyed myself throughout, his performance was just icing on the cake. I don't mean to rave about Sweeney Todd too much, but these days I'm just happy when I don't immediately forget about a film as soon as I leave the theater.
And, with memorability as a main criterion (or, a movie's ability to "stick with me," as I usually put it), I'd have to say one of my surprise favorites of the year, after Inland Empire, would be Into the Wild. The Holbrook performance, sure, of course, but I find myself thinking really fondly on the always-appealing sense of open-road freedom it celebrates and revels in, as well as the way it gets that elusive tone just right--the combination of "devil-may-care charisma and pernicious youthful idealism," to quote myself. (Barf.)
Quickly:
DS blogs--hurrah!
Dear Jesus, white girls is bitches who will not let me love them. O Jesus, King of Kings, please make the bitches appreciate my style. Amen.
Be sure to check out Kirstiecat's Best 2007 Music Photography set over on Flickr. Gorgeous, compelling shots from a photographer who's been nothing but a joy to track these past months.
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