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June 03, 2007
A QUICK ONE, WHILE HE'S AWAY
Just a few quick things on my (apparently) "superhip" blog:
- My BFF David Ozier gave me Bishop Allen's CD CHARM SCHOOL. BISHOP ALLEN's frontman was the engaging lead in MUTUAL APPRECIATION. I really like it. It's kind of like a bastard up-pop-child of Elephant 6, and I don't even know what that means. I've listened to it twice in the last few days, and it's got that catchy, weird, allusion-filled hyperactivity-fueled quirk. At its best, it reminds me a lot of ELF POWER and OF MONTREAL, and most everyone knows how I feel about those two. It's intriguing how many references to the Bible this album has.
- I also bought Loudon Wainwright III's new album written for and inspired by KNOCKED UP (which I'm going to see tonight, Lord willing). The album is called STRANGE WEIRDOS. When I'm having a pissy day, Loudon calms me down. Highly Recommended.
Top 5 LWIII songs:
1) YOUR MOTHER AND ME
2) SO DAMN HAPPY
3) LULLABY
4) NOCTURNAL STUMBLEBUTT
5) DREAMING
- David Stern gets bailed out once again. The prospect of an unwatchable NBA Finals is remedied into . . . well . . . an unwatchable NBA Finals that just so happens to feature the league's most hyped star. Even with Lebron playing the best basketball of his life, both teams play ugly. I predict within two games we'll hear either the Cleveland players complaining about being mugged by Bruce Bowen, or the San Antonio players bitching that Lebron gets all the calls.
- I have been really disappointed by the movies I missed in the theater last Fall and Spring. I already panned PAN'S LABYRINTH (that use of repetition is something I learned as a critic at the MSU Newspaper; don't try it at home); I also was bored by APOCALYPTO and THE GOOD GERMAN.
I will chalk my general disinterest in APOCALYPTO up to the fact that I was distracted, and I watched it on my TV. But I have some criticisms regarding Mel's three mixed passions: on one hand he's obsessed with using the Mayan civilization as a vehicle for bloody masculine rites of initiation, but he also wants to infuse it with a polemical about why civilizations fall. On top of all this is an attempt to draw murky parallels with modern culture through the dialogue, humor, and macho posturing. One of those aspects might have been interesting, but all three together are at war against each other, and the result is confusing when the screen is not filled with action.
But THE GOOD GERMAN was just a huge mess of homage, post WWII politics (yawn), and empty stylistics. I appreciate that Steven Soderbergh refuses to make the same movie twice (except for of course his OCEAN movies), but the detective mechanics of the plot were dull, and the writers and director assumed an invested passion for the characters that I just didn't have. Once Tobey Maguire goes out of the picture, the film loses whatever little momentum it had.
| By Andytown | 02:38 PM
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