May 29, 2007
FIVE GOLDEN LINKS
1. Further proof that Kobe Bryant is a bad person and a virus to whover is around him.
I loathe this man. I don't know if it's just classic case of a (young) man gaining the world but losing his soul, or if it can simply be boiled down to a bad person acting badly. Either way, he is the most detestable superstar of my lifetime, and this in an age of Mike Tyson, all the dopers in baseball, and Barry Bonds. There is no one I like watching lose more, and this article gives me hope that he will continue to lose (because his childish antics keep the Lakers from adding top talent), thus proving my point.
2. A great article from The Oxford American on Paul Newman and the cracker persona he adopted for the many Southern-backdrop movies he was in.
Carson uses Newman as a vehicle to discuss Southern movies. Newman starred in THE LONG HOT SUMMER, CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH, COOL HAND LUKE, HUD, and a few other sweat-soaked, ham-tastics classics. Actors love to play Southerners, because it means they roll their consonants and fan themselves with a paper hat. Recently, Sean Penn did considerable damage to his reputation with an interpretation of Huey Long that was somewhere in between a retarded teenager and a drunken high school football coach. But butchering Southern accents and personas is a filmic tradition that goes back a long way, and its ugliness is portrayed in performances as diverse as Nick Nolte in PRINCE OF TIDES, Rod Steiger in IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, Keanu Reeves in THE DEVILS ADVOCATE, Karl Malden in BABY DOLL, and Kevin Costner in too many performances to name (In some sort of acting hell, Costner will be pushing a boulder up and down a hill for all his accent crimes.)
The best Southern accents in movie history are almost unnoticeable. Burt Reynolds, a real Southerner whom I have long admitted my hideous man-love for, never plays it up any more than he needs to. Jon Voight, despite being from Yonkers, puts on a naturally affected drawl that must be calculated but somehow doesn't seem so. In THE GREAT SANTINI and COOKIE'S FORTUNE, the directors rely on well-drawn character, and not several well-placed "Ya'll"s.
I'm not sure who has the worst Southern accent. This is a topic for discussion.
But the Carson article is interesting for a many reasons, but loses points for Carson's arrogant criticism of COOL HAND LUKE. If you watch it today, COOL HAND LUKE doesn't date at all, mostly because it plays on timeless themes and features brilliant performances.
3. A very funny Jim Carrey/Will Ferrell SNL skit. Carrey plays a life-guard for a hot tub. He's at his ACE VENTURE-era best, showing the kind of unpretentious wackiness we haven't really seen since THE TRUMAN SHOW convinced him he should pepper every comic performance with a lot of pathos and affectations; it's like his career has become a commentary on itself. His post-TRUMAN comic best is BRUCE ALMIGHTY, but only in portions. Many scenes could be played by any of the reigning romcom dorks, whether it be Ben Affleck or Demi Moore's husband.
But in this episode of SNL, Carrey was blowing me away. Another skit, that I couldn't find, had him punctuating every sentence with "I'll See You In Hell." Then, the skit closes with Carrey hanging out in Hell, and happy to see everyone.
4. My friend Ann Brainerd gave me a good article about dealing with panhandlers from a Biblical perspective. This has become a real issue for me. I've decided that I need to construct an ethos for panhandlers. In the past, I've been very inconsistent - I'll either give them money so they'll leave me alone, or I'll say I don't have money even if I do, or I'll just tell them no. On good days, when my schedule isn't pressing, I'll buy them a sandwich, but this often serves only to make me feel good about myself and get "random act of kindness" points.
The problem is that I am, apparently, Prime Rib for panhandlers. I have seen them zero in on me at gas stations when there are twenty other people around. I don't completely understand this psychology, but I'm sure there is a strategy for unscrupulous beggars who lie to get whatever they need. A conversation with these sad people only opens up more lies, and more commitment. This, of course, sours us to those who actually do need help - because often the liars are more convincing that the truly needy.
I don't think this essay answers any of my big questions, but it does help fuel my ever-expanding world view on the subject. It is such a complex issue, and one that I rarely consider. Any thoughts?
5. I have turned a number of people on to FILMSPOTTING, the only Podcast I listen to regularly. I love this show (movie-reviews and more) and look forward to it every week, even though I rarely go to the movies any more. Last week, they read an entire email of mine on the air (I'm "Andrew" Black). Basically, I was taking to task co-host Sam "Van" Hallgren over his petty, contrarian review of DOUBLE INDEMNITY, one of the handful or so of Masterpieces that I would take with me to a desert island. You can hear me (or at least Adam Kempenaar reading my passionate response) here - Just skip ahead to about 28:40 on the clock. (You can right click the link to d/l it into ITunes; or just go to about of the bar on the screen that comes up)
Sam was just plain wrong about this one, and it further aligns me with Adam Kempenaar, officially my favorite critic. His rapport with Sam is what makes the show fun but I'd follow Adam even if he got his own show, blog, or website. He has a great respect for classic movies and a frustration with modern excesses, but mostly what you gather is that he's not a film snob, and he just flat out loves movies. The worst criticism I can give critics is that it's apparently that they love reviewing movies, but hate movies. Owen Glieberman and David Edelstein are two of the worst of these: their prose is catty, their damning assessments shallow. Often their reviews only serve to prove that they can pick apart the logic of a story and thus prove it unworthy. While Adam is not giving five-star reviews to everything he sees, his comments often make me decide whether or not I'm going to go to the movie theater.
Posted by Andytown at 06:12 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
May 26, 2007
TWO MOVIES I REALLY LOVED
I read about Andrew Bujalski in Chuck Klosterman's monthly column for Esquire (which I always read at the newstand, rather than buy that smut*). But Klosterman claimed that Bujalski was carrying on a noble project started by Richard Linklater with SLACKER - slacker cinema, movies built on conversations as opposed to gimmick, a well-conceived DIY aesthetic. It was intriguing, and, in the age of Netflix, very available. So in the last week, I've watched both of Bujalski's films, FUNNY HA HA and MUTUAL APPRECIATION.
And they are both awesome.
I'm sure I'm wrong about this, but FUNNY HA HA looks like it was made for less than 1000 dollars. The locations are probably the principle crew's apartments/hangouts. The actors are all complete unknowns and yet every single performance is winning. Much has and will be said about Bujalski's ability to write dialogue (though the dialogue seem totally improvised, it's actually scripted), but I think what's more impressive is his ability to get these performances. The plot of FUNNY HA HA is surface romcom/post-college burnout material: a recent college graduate struggles with romance and her professional direction. It's REALITY BITES, which was a truly awful movie that has somehow been romanticized as a generational classic. But the way Bujalski handles the familiarity without melodrama, contrivance, or falling back on every stereotype every created is remarkable - it's more than remarkable; it suggests an untapped potential for talented writer/directors without a big wallet.
MUTUAL APPRECIATION is a similar story - it's a love triangle in which everyone in the triangle gets along, and everyone wants to talk about their feelings, and the problems that come with that. The protagonist is a prog-rocker who doesn't think he's a prog-rocker (his music reminds me of Elf Power**), who struggles with making ends meet and being in a meaningful relationship. There are numerous meandering subplots, including a guy being asked to participate in some kind of VAGINA MONOLOGUES pastiche, that are all interesting and funny.
That's the thing about these movies that makes me able to recommend them to everyone: they're funny. They're true. The characters are likeable without becoming the sitcom-esque stylings of Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. The dialogue is artfully written without being forced. Everyone exists in a real world that real people are familiar with. While the characters are not asexual, the director is not interested in gussying things up with pointless erotic scenes.
MUTUAL APPRECIATION is being called the better, more fully realized of the two (and it was great), but I think I liked FUNNY HA HA better, mainly because of the beautiful, star-calibre performance of the lead Kate Dollenmayer. But the actor who steals the show in both movies is the director Bujalski - as a hopeless romantic nerd in FUNNY HA HA and as a neurotic intellectual in MUTUAL APPRECIATION. Usually when directors cast themselves in their films, its a sign of pretension and arrogance. But Bujalski is a gifted comic actor who could easily cross over into mainstream movies. I could easily see him (and his M.A. star Justin Rice) as a surrogate Woody Allen.
Klosterman's melancholy point was that the marketability of these movies create a lose/lose situation: "popular" audiences will ignore them and critics will call them pretentious. This is, unfortunately, probably true. If not for the curiosity peaked by Klosterman's encomium, the failed screenwriter in me would have rolled my eyes at films so intentionally devoid of narrative momentum and all the things I've been taught make a movie a movie. While the text-messaging teens who are really excited about PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN are probably never to going to the shrine of Bujalski, I think there is an audience for this rare, unique, entertaining genre.
So this is not a "I liked it but nobody else probably will" or a rallying cry for film snobs to unite around the latest piece of esoteria. Rent these movies and put Bujalski on your radar. This is the most excited I've been about a director in a long time.
* - You can get the article here. This is good news because now I will never even have to read Esquire at the newstand for Klosterman's articles; thus I will never have to read the latest list by "whatever lawyerly babe is on LAW & ORDER this month" explaining all my misconceptions about women.
Here's the best line from Klosterman's article - something that I wish I could have articulated:
"Viewed superficially, none of this should be important. But here's why it is: All these characters are mumbling about morality. And it's a specific kind of morality. It's "onset morality." The people in Bujalski's films are actively constructing their ethics. These are people who are beyond college but unprepared for life. As such, their ideals and principles are still up for grabs. Certainly, Bujalski is not the first artist who's tried to examine this experience. It's more that he just seems to be the right person to be doing so at the moment that is Now."
** - Apparently, Justin Rice (the star of MUTUAL APPRECIATION) is in a band called Bishop Allen. Anyone know anything about them?
Posted by Andytown at 09:14 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
May 24, 2007
JOY DIVISION BIOPIC
I first encountered Joy Division as a reaction to all my friends who were into The Cure, a band who has the kind of cult that I feel like I should be a part of, but somehow am not. I met Joy Division with passing interest at first, listening to a borrowed CD and shrugging. I'd never heard anything like it, and at the time that wasn't a good thing. In the mid to late 90s, my music tastes were very meat and potatoes: I was always very interested in whatever Weezer was doing, I lived in a steady rotation of Talking Heads CDs, I became obsessive about Bob Dylan, and I listened to a lot of Soundtracks. Ian Curtis' voice, needless to say, wasn't what I was looking for as the type of a pop-messiah figure to break down the boundaries that stood between me and liking such a sound. Even though I liked the New Order connection, as I had always somehow linked them with the Talking Heads, I found JD to be a weird looking guy moaning incoherently into a microphone. I didn't understand the punk ethos, or the New Wave movement, and it wasn't until 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE that I got Joy Division.
Which is, I suppose, kind of dorky. It's lame to have your musical awakening at 25, when most right-minded people have it at 17. At 17, I really really liked the Gin Blossoms and the Eagles. Kill me.
But it happened, and after my fourth viewing (in as many weeks) of 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE, I had downloaded every song Joy Division ever made. I listened to it constantly. It made me look outside the mainstream, and its a journey I've enjoyed - beginning with Joy Division, I also discovered Television. I became at once repulsed and fascinated with Iggy Pop. I began to formulate my pop music world view.
So, needless to say, I find this Joy Division Biopic CONTROL very troubling. For me, the Ian Curtis document that matters will be 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE - a film that's more interested in placing him in a context and a scene than establishing him as a pop icon. The first rumors about the project had Edward Norton involved. I love vintage Norton, but the last five years have been pretty harsh on the indie posterboy. Since 25TH HOUR, he has been in one high-profile dud after another, often giving boring, uninspired performances. Norton as Curtis sounded like an opportunity for Norton to put the story in his shadow, for an Ed Norton performance as opposed to an Ian Curtis memorial. Since then, the famed Music Video director Anton Corbijn has picked up the project. It's his feature-length directorial debut - which means two things: it's a pet project and it has the potential to be a two hour narrative-free music video, complete with static shots and endless thirty second montages set to JD songs.
This trailer does not look promising. In fact, it looks pretty boring. As a trailer, its poorly edited and overlong, and it makes me think that the movie is full of a type of hyper-realism that dedicates itself too much to recreated every damn second of Ian Curtis' life with encyclopedic detail. There are also at least four or five scenes here that were also in 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE. That film was an ironic post-modern joyride riffing on biography, celebrity, the shaky marriage between business and music, and responsibility. This film looks like RAY as conceived by the director of Nirvana's HEART SHAPED BOX video. The argument will be made the Corbijn directed this awesome tribute for Curtis. But my argument against it will be this very conventional (albeit black and white) looking trailer.
-----
I don't think there are a lot of LOST fans that hang at Andytown, but last night's episode was bafflingly awesome. It had all the staples we've come to expect of great episodes, and it will have me very excited come Fall when the new season arrives. Anyone wants to start a spoiler-filled dialogue, go ahead, but I'll spare the rest of you.
Posted by Andytown at 06:52 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 23, 2007
DEAR ORPHEUM, YOU'RE LAME. SIGNED, ANDYTOWN.
Once again we have to face the arbitrary bullcrap-a-thon that is the ORPHEUM SUMMER MOVIE SERIES. Here's the dispatch for you non-Memphites:
The Orpheum is one of the oldest "movie palaces" in the country. It was built in the 20s and still maintains its original look. It's a cool, if cramped place to watch shows and movies - these days it mainly house concerts and Touring Shows of major hits. It would be AWESOME to watch old movies there, but the group who chooses the ORPHEUM SUMMER MOVIE SERIES obviously don't watch many movies or, if they do, they look to the AMC channel to educate them.
Here's the lineup
Friday, June 15 Breakfast at Tiffany's
Friday, June 29 Casablanca
Friday, July 6 Raiders of the Lost Ark
Sunday, July 8 The Sound of Music
Friday, July 13 Rocky Horror Picture Show
Sunday, July 15 The Color Purple
Friday, July 20 Goldfinger
Friday, July 27 Gone With the Wind
Saturday, July 28 The Godfather
Sunday, July 29 The Land Before Time
Friday, August 3 The Wizard of Oz
Sunday, August 5 The Ten Commandments
Thursday, August 9 Caddyshack
Friday, August 10 Phantom of the Opera (Silent)
There are five movies that belong here, none of them that I will see: GONE WITH THE WIND, THE SOUND OF MUSIC, THE GODFATHER, THE WIZARD OF OZ, and THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. These are films that deserve to be seen on the big screen.
The rest are lame, lame, lame. If I had to bet, CASABLANCA will be colorized. BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S does not have to be seen on the big screen. RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK is only 25 years old. THE COLOR PURPLE is not even the best of its type (as an adaptation, its unfaithful; as a movie, its flawed); THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW idea is misguided - this should be shown at the Summer Drive on or the Ridgeway Four. THE LAND BEFORE TIME? You have to pick a movie that kids can watch, and you have available the entire catalog of great animated films, and you pick the movie about kiddie dinosaurs? CADDYSHACK? I realize that they chose this for the laughter effect, but what does watching on the big screen add to watching Chevy Chase improvise or a Gopher puppet dance?
I wish they would just let me pick these movies. My lineup would look something like this:
Instead of BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S, I'd show THE APARTMENT. It's a much better example of the 60s realistic romance, and much much funnier.
I would show CASABLANCA . . . but in glorious monochrome.
Instead of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, I would show GUNGA DIN or THE FOUR FEATHERS - two excellent 30s actioneers, both probably unseen by a lot of audiences.
Instead of THE SOUND OF MUSIC, I would show AN AMERICAN IN PARIS. Because everyone has seen SINGIN IN THE RAIN already.
I wouldn't show THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW. I would show another crowd-pleaser that would translate well to this atmosphere: SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT.
Instead of THE COLOR PURPLE, I would show PORGY AND BESS, LADY SINGS THE BLUES, or CABIN IN THE SKY.
Instead of showing GONE WITH THE WIND, which they show every year, I would show GIANT - a movie I've always wanted to see on the big screen.
Instead of (ugh) THE LAND BEFORE TIME, I'd show PINOCCHIO, the greatest animated movie ever made, or DUMBO, the second greatest animated movie ever made.
Instead of THE WIZARD OF OZ, which they show every year, I'd show 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY because it's the greatest movie ever made.
Instead of THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, I'd show LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, which is too big to comprehend on the small screen.
Instead of CADDYSHACK, I'd show BRINGING UP BABY. What do they have against screwball comedies?
Instead of PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, which is cool but kind of dated, I'd show a double bill of Chaplin's THE KID and Keaton's SHERLOCK JR.
There: it hits a lot of populist, crowd-pleasing notes but it isn't conventional. I think people would come see these movies, don't you?
As for the NBA Draft, yech. But what can you do? There's no conspiracy. A smaller (but more dedicated and established) market than Memphis won. All the teams that tanked their seasons - Milwaukee, Boston, and Memphis - lost out on the sweepstakes. My bet is that the Memphis Grizzlies will go the way of the Showboats, the Storm, the Pharoahs, the Mad Dogs, the Pros, and the original Grizzlies. Pretty soon, we will just have a big arena where Kid Rock can play.
Posted by Andytown at 10:46 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
May 21, 2007
HOW TO DO SOMETHING ILLEGAL
One of the most ridiculous things that I have an insufficient information about and yet still has put me into a fit of indignation at the apparent injustice . . . is that DVDs of great TV shows have trouble seeing the light of day because of issues involving the music used on the show. FREAKS AND GEEKS resolved this issue by buying up all the music; WKRP IN CINCINNATI went the other way by removing the music (strange for a show about a Top 40 FM Radio Station dependent on super hits of the 70s) but THE STATE and ED are still in limbo. Being on MTV, THE STATE featured a lot of mid-90s pop music staples, probably at the bequest of MTV. ED, on the other hand, pulled an O.C. before THE O.C. - often featuring up and coming artists on its soundtrack. This gave a lot of exposure to bands who people who normally watch Wednesday Night Television don't listen to, like the Old 97s, Clem Snide, and The Fountains of Wayne. Also, however, they used a lot of kitsch hits like "Electric Avenue" and "Danke Schoen" as gags, often funny. I'm guessing the use of Rolling Stones songs is keeping them tied up in all kinds of battles with various record companies.
ED remains one of my favorite TV shows of all time. LIKE the inferior but charming SCRUBS, the sentimental, lesson-learning potential of the show could be laid on pretty thick, but the characters were always funny and the absurd nature of the situations always brilliant. It never really "jumped the shark" - its viewership just never grew. ED had a dedicated group of funs who had trouble explaining the charms. Also, it was one of those shows that kept referring back to itself and its universe. If you weren't into it by Season 3, you weren't going to be into it. That it lasted four seasons is something of a miracle. That it has never gotten the DVD-package treatment it deserves is a travesty.
So here's how to do something illegal! BITTORRENT - the way to get okay-quality VHS rips of old TV shows. The quality is perfect, but they are entirely watchable. So far I've gotten two seasons of ED and season three is on the way.
Here's how it works:
1) Google the preceding, all-caps term.
2) Find a reliable looking website.
3) Download BITTORRENT and Install it.
4) Run it.
5) Now you're ready to get TV shows. It's easy.
6) Go to www.piratebay.com
7) Here's a bunch - the ethical quandry is up to you whether or not you want to download TV shows that are current out on DVD
8) Download by episode. (If you are going to D/L a whole season, which is possible, make sure you have at least 6 gigs free or you'll crash your hard drive.)
Now, if you want ED, you probably have to work a little harder. Google terms (together) like "ED," "SEASON ONE," and "CAVANAGH" and you will eventually be able to find it. Make sure you put quotes around the search terms. It's harder to get ED simply because of the name - it will probably pull up anything with the words ED in the title. But if you try enough google terms, you'll probably get it.
Also, this is a good place to introduce yourself to the show TOM GOES TO THE MAYOR. If you liked Mr. Show, you'll love this inventive kookiness - these guys are warped, and their show is not for those who hold anything sacred. If you enjoy it, you'll be joining me in saying "RATS OFF TO YA!" (pause for laughter)
Finally, to everyone who craps on Wilco - I disagree, and particularly with Ben's comment that Tweedy is unique because he hates all the women he's ever gone out with. My response is that since BEING THERE, Wilco rarely ventures into this territory, though every other band does this openly and unapologetically. When they do, on songs like I'M THE MAN WHO LOVES YOU, I'M ALWAYS IN LOVE, WALKEN, or LEAVE ME LIKE YOU FIND ME, his themes range from foolishly romantic to dangerously commital. His songs find him uncomfortable with himself, yet comfortable with confession - I don't understand how you can find his stuff anything but honest, even when there's a hint of anger in it.
And if Tweedy is a roundabout womanizer, he's good at hiding it: dude has been with the same woman since his Uncle Tupelo days, and he's got two kids. Apparently, he doesn't even drink or smoke. I think you can say a lot of true things about Tweedy: the trauma of his panic attacks often seeps into the content of his songs, his high ambitions sometimes miss the mark, he's kind of a butthole on stage, and his stocking-capped persona apparently hides the ego that comes out in tense studio sessions. But I don't think you can say that his songs have a mean streak in them, or that they have that tunnelvision focus on self-pity and revenge. I just don't get your point.
Last CD Bought: Attempted Mustache (Album 3) by Loudon Wainwright III
Last Book Bought: A HISTORY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY by Bertrand Russell and a book about the bestl managers in the history of baseball (used).
Coming from Netflix: APOCALYPTO and THE GOOD GERMAN
Next blogpost will be about: One of my new favorite movies, FUNNY HA HA
Really excited about: The Season Finale of LOST
Pages Completed/Required for my Final Paper: 1 out of 20 (actually 2, I haven't double-spaced it yet)
Posted by Andytown at 02:52 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
May 18, 2007
FIVE THOUGHTS
1. I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed DREAMGIRLS. I rented it mainly so I could dismiss its supposedly shameless hype, pop Divas, and caked-on-like-makeup glitz. The hype may have sunk the Dreamworks Oscar Boat, but the film itself is entertaining, fast-paced, captures the period without fuss or annoying hyperrealism and is full of great performances. About the only thing that didn't grab me, and that keeps it from being my favorite music of the last 40 years, was the music. There really are no memorable songs, just a lot of inferior Supremes knockoffs. But once you get past the fiction of the Dreamgirls' brilliance (a foundation that's easier to accept than the supposed hilarity of the show-in-show of STUDIO 60 ON THE SUNSET STRIP), director Bill Condon whisks things along nicely and we get a really compelling mix of character, the melodramatic machinations of the music industry, and the mythical backstories of superstars.
Everyone seemed ready to tell Jennifer Hudson to take her Oscar and go home, and at the time I was a little piffed that neither of the intense performances from BABEL beat the odds. But Hudson is a powerhouse - her big number is full of the kind of gut-wrenching bombast that something like MOULIN ROUGE tended to post-modernize, to suggest couldn't exist within any of the roosts of the current slackercynic-ruled audiences. Her character is tragic, big, and endearing, and the book and director are smart enough not to muddy things up too much by straying too far from the archetype. A movie like DREAMGIRLS is about giving the audience what they want, and it succeeds wildly. It certain did not deserve the snarky commentary from the back row audience that didn't even bother to show up.
2. On the other hand, PANS LABYRINTH did not strike me as a magical fairy tale that mixed fantasy with history and showed the interworkings between imagination and reality, but rather as a brutal, often masochistic episode of endurance and suffering. The fairy tale portion is dark, obstinately lacking in narrative drive (which is typical of a film with PAN's ambitions, but not for the classic fairy tales that the main characters loves, which operate on a dream logic that's implausibly compelling), and overtly allegorical. Obviously, enough people are clammering about its greatness that it can't be a failure, but I think it fails in becoming too much of a parable about belief, and a grim document about the evils of fascism, instead of a mystical tale of restoration and unusual heroism. The larger portion of the film focuses not on the precocious, endangered girl, but (distressingly) instead of her vile monster of a stepfather. I had heard in past reviews that Del Toro tries to "humanize" him, but he is an authoritative villain straight out of a Penny Dreadful, only complex in the creativity of his cruelty. I cringed through most of the movie: an entirely unpleasant experience. It is definitely not a movie I want to see again.
2.5 On the note of fairy tales, my eighth grade class put on a very "Shrekish" production for the lower school at Westminster. It went welll I'm proud of them. Three girls in the class actually wrote the thing, and while it primarily consisted of eighth grade humor (Sample Scene Direction: "Rapunzel breaks a nail and faints") and a heavy reliance on anachronism (Our Prince Charming delivered a rap that concluded with the line "Squeeze the Charmin' yall") and cheap props (the "Magic Mirror" was just "a guy holding a picture frame over his face, the play seemed to be enjoyed by all.
3. So the two best albums of the year are Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's SOME LOUD THUNDER and Arcade Fire's NEON BIBLE. At this point, saying that Wilco's SKY BLUE SKY belongs up there too seems contrarian, as the entire butthead music community is currently involved in a bout of fascist schoolmarmishness about how we should we perceived their latest effort. It's very clear that rather than try to please the culturati who had already conceived the stages of his career, Jeff Tweedy decided to a solid album with at least six laid-back, awesome songs.
I suppose the problem is that a lot of those folks in the back row decided to define Tweedy after YANKEE HOTEL FOXTROT: not just the album, but the inside-the-music storybook that transpired and gets exaggerated like a game of telephone. With YHF, the unpretentious, spotlight-eluding Tweedy jumped into an arena where everyone to decided to take ownership over his career and his supposed responsibility to the wicked-awesome monster he had created. And now that Tweedy has proved incapable of being categorized (and, unlike even a lot of great acts, including the two I just mentioned, doesn't WANT to be categorized), and this seems to piss a lot of the categorizers off. The result: a bad review of an otherwise great album.
4. I'm not a contrarian when I say I've given up on the NBA; rather, I'm joining a diverse, boundary-exploding camp who want to send David Stern to manage a Family Dollar store (badly). The Suns/Spurs debacle has ruined any chance of the NBA being at all watchable as June rolls around, and it is all a result of the league allowing rogues like Bruce Bowen to pull their cheap shots without any "Stern" consequence. If you read ESPN Page 2, you're not hearing anything new. Phoenix got screwed, and the ironic, kind of satisfying result is that the NBA will suffer through its lowest rated finals in years. There's enough bad hoodoo going around to turn off the casual fans, like me. Unless Lebron James can will the mediocre, ugly Cavs past the Pistons, we will have a repeat of the unwatchable Pistons-Spurs series from two years back.
I argue that I am the fan the NBA needs right now, and they are doing everything they can to make me hate them. Local fans will remain local fans, but the NBA has to have a core who don't go to the games, but passionately enjoy the most exciting players. I like having sports to care about in June - in short, I want to like the league, and they keep finding ways to disgust me. The Finals will more than likely showcase none of them, because the officiating is geared toward mechanical teams like the Spurs and Pistons that strongarm their way to success by skirting the line on every rule the NBA has.
5. So, yes, I've turned tail and made a triumphant return to blogging. Gone are the days of the awkward Blogger format. I'm a Wordpress guy, gang, and I'm representin' the hometown in the URL. I hope I'll be more consistent than my past efforts, but here they are if you wont them.
thegash.blogspot.com
Welcome back to Andytown! Come for the seasonal blintzes and (occasionally) temperate weather; stay for the blog.
Posted by Andytown at 10:14 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack