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March 02, 2008

A few things of note:

1. BEACH HOUSE is coming to the Hi Tone tomorrow night. I will be there.

2. This miniseries of John Adams is coming on HBO,. I hope it's good, and I hope they didn't just say, "With this cast, how can it fail? Roll it!" Rufus Sewell is playing Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison's name is nowhere in sight. I'm betting if the diminutive Mr. Madison shows up at all in this film, it will be standing behind Thomas Jefferson glaring disapprovingly at Adams. In the latest of my Thesis research, I've found that in the days preceding the convention, Madison and Jefferson wrote terse letters concerned that Adams was horse-trading with the public to secure his own high place in government.

But Sewell as Hamilton . . . isn't Sewell mainly playing aristocratic jackass/psychopaths now? Cuz that's what Adams thought he was (maybe not the psychopath, but pretty much all the founders accused him of wanting to pave paradise and put up a parking lot). So we may be getting the Hamilton picture through the subjective lens of Adams and pro-Adams biographers.

While in the FED PAPERS Hamilton kind of comes across as the guy who always shows up unannounced with your really cool best friend (Madison), he's still a remarkable figure who aristocratic leanings and urban focus played an important role in developing the America of the early 19th Century. He was also a genius, plain and simple, moreso than Madison, who was one hell of a statesman and a writer. From Hamilton's writing, you gather that he's incapable of simplifying his thoughts any more than he's doing, whereas Madison gives you one exquisite political metaphor after another.

Still it's a great cast, and will be the last thing I'll watch before dropping HBO. Unless CONCHORDS starts back up.

3. Good stuff on the AV Club:

Interview with Daniel Johnston

Books vs. Movie: Upton Sinclair's OIL and THERE WILL BE BLOOD. Written by Tasha Robinson, who is one of the most insightful, well-read, unpretentious, and unfickle critics working. I love her stuff, and I love this feature.

4. We just passed the ten year anniversary of Neutral Milk Hotel's defining album. Yes, you missed the ticker tape parade. But this article from SLATE commemorates it and is helpful in summarizing all the Jeff Mangum myths. I do like that the writer chooses not to categorize AEROPLANE as mere quirkacana, but sees it as a real, jarring masterpiece.

5. I'm in the middle of watching THE DARJEELING LIMITED again and I love it just as much as I did in the theaters. In fact, I laughed even more. Originally, I was thinking that Anderson's sense of funny dialogue was getting lost in his magnificently weird set-pieces. But all that changed when Owen Wilson accidentally calls Adrien Brody "Rubby."

But here's the thing: I have no idea whether this is a great movie or not. I'm starting to add Anderson to a select group of people/entities - Bruce Springsteen, Nick Hornby, SEINFELD - who I just cannot just objectively. I am completely uncritical in my adoration of Anderson. I love the scene where Brody stares at an extremely poisonous snake and says, "How much?" But most might find this piece to be a bit of goofiness usually reserved for Pee-Wee's playhouse and his neurotic talking furniture.

I even loved LIFE AQUATIC: I thought it was a great representation of the type of oddball communities that come together on these aimlessly motivated tasks, and the kind of celebrity that Bill Murray's Steve Zissou represents. I thought Noah Baumbauch brought a nice sense of sardonic lyricism to it, and that Seu Jorge's Bowie covers rocked my freaking freak off. The action scenes were at once funny and surprisingly exciting.

So I need to hear from some non-Anderson acolytes. If you saw the movie, please weigh in.

I'd like to hear some opinions of others who, unlike me, don't want to kidnap Anderson and keep him in my basement.

| By Andytown | 10:31 AM

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Posted by: andytown at March 3, 2008 10:55 PM

Posted by: Harvey at March 5, 2008 02:51 PM

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