I’ve found that writing these blurbs is a mix between using hyperbole, complicated words, and proving that you are, basically, a crank who hates everything good and did not read the book you are reviewing.

Here goes:

From American Literature:

“Andrew Black’s unconventional reading of THE FEDERALIST PAPERS challenges traditional paradigms of deliberative rhetoric. Black’s effort to uncover an unseen narrative project that combines the discursive with the literary and technical innovations of its day offers a new rubric for those wishing to study the rhetoric of colonial America. In his reconstitution of the Federalist project, Black rehabilitates the founders from readings strictly political or theoretical, and liberates them from pre-defined limits. It is a bold project, undertaken with grace, perspicuity, and humility.”

From Political Theory

“Remarkable that a doctoral thesis both broadens and enlivens discursive debates and allows for a recategorization of familiar terms. What Black does is more remarkable because he does not appear to have set out to do it: a vertical reading where previously only horizontal analyses needed apply. It is shaking the dust off some stodgy old criticism, and reviving a text that should have been brought to life long before. Black’s energy and dedication to this project reminds us that theory doesn’t have to be combined to the abstract, and allows us to rethink the Enlightenment on terms at once organic and uniquely traditional.”

From Philosophy and Rhetoric

“Habermasians everywhere will be up and arms by this infiltration by one of their own. Black recognizes public sphere debates while putting his own unique spin on them – reading the public sphere through its literature rather than the traditional reactionary methodology. In doing so, he has (perhaps unintentionally) inspired a new generation of scholars to reimagine political texts based on orthodoxy rather than hegemony (a move that’s no so much bold as confoundingly original). By resisting linguistic trends and reading a revered text at once within and outside of the terms of its own reverence, Black shows us why the Federalists and their long-ignored papers deserve canonical acclaim and critical focus.”

From Rhetoric Review:

“Black’s new critical take on THE FEDERALIST PAPERS is less a textual analysis than a discursive manifesto and a line drawn in theoretical sands. By arguing across traditions and critical fields, he challenges the Pocockian legacy of theoretical vocabularies and argues for a legacy of civic rhetoric that at once dismisses spheroidal thinking and understands its theoretical legacy and primacy. What makes for an at-times schizophrenic read (it was originally conceived as a Masters thesis) finds Black the critic, reader, and historian making fascinating claims substantiated by his belief in the validity of his project.”

From The New Republic:

“When Black argues that THE FEDERALIST PAPERS must be read by students of literature, he opens up colonial debates to new eyes. An articulate rethinking of age-old deliberation, students of American Literature will benefit from Black’s successful claim for addition to a long-closed anthology, one that paradoxically argues the fictional Publius as the key rhetorician of his time.”

From Law and Literature:

“I didn’t much care for the book (because I didn’t read it), but I did enjoy the author’s picture on the book jacket. Yamahama! What a hunk! Move over Slavov Zizek, you’ve got some competition for ‘Best Looking Cultural Theorist’.”

Here goes:

The very title INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE suggests finality, and the movie did much to confirm that the Indy movies were a trilogy, nothing more. As such, they did not outlive their welcome, but gave us three superior entertainments thankfully bereft of the tedious mythology of the trilogies of PIRATES, MATRIX, and the STAR WARS prequel. Maybe you were interested in all the post-colonial intrigue of PIRATES, but I just wanted to see Johnny Depp play the guitar solo for "Brown Sugar."

On a side note, the PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN movies should have taken the Indy films, and not the Star Wars films, as their template. (Anyone who thinks that the 2nd and 3rd PIRATES movies are not pretty direct ripoffs of that franchise is in that crucial 4 to 8 year old demographic that George Lucas decided to write for). Instead of getting trapped in a goofy mythology and recurring villains both a) boring and b) kind of boring, why not just have each movie be a series of adventures involving the three “good guys” – Depp, Bloom, Knightley. Not that the result would be one the level of the Indy films, but it would have been a whole lot better than that overblown, headache-inducing storyline that was mainly an excuse for filming Johnny Depp’s Keith Richards imitation.

Making a cogent point as they often do, The AV Club says:

"Expectations are extremely high for a film that reunites the kings of the summer blockbuster, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, with a beloved character. If it sucks, it might be discouraging enough to put audiences off blockbusters forever. It's not like all of Indy's adventures have worked out that well, either. Temple Of Doom continues to fail to improve with the passing of time, and the last time Lucas tried to revive a long-dormant, fervently appreciated film franchise, we all know what happened."

First, I totally disagree that TEMPLE OF DOOM is mediocre. Rather, it's awesome. Indy can't fight the Nazis in every movie, and voo-doo baddies straight out of GUNGA DIN make for some pretty cool adversaries. Of all the three movies, TEMPLE has the most wall-to-wall action and is probably the funniest of the bunch, thanks to an underrated performance by future Speilberg wife Kate Capshaw, who recalls Ava Gardner and Claudette Colbert. Also, it's clearly the darkest of the three, which takes Indy as a "Treasure Hunter" to interesting new places.

But I agree that the fate of the blockbuster is in Indy's rapidly withering hands. Other than the first three STAR WARS, there is not a more revered group of movies than than the Indy films - for us, they gave us the opportunity to watch the brains, brawn, and roguish charisma of a true movie star put in impossible situations where we rooted for him to get out. RAIDERS is Speilberg at his finest: fast, suspenseful, full of a lot of interesting scenery, and possessing all that childlike wonder always associated with him.

And I think America may have a falling out with Speilberg if it fails. If IRON MAN, starring that box-office superstar Robert Downey Jr, can make 100 million bucks in early May, that shows the movie-going public still hasn't satiated their desire to see crap digitally blowing up*. The Blockbuster is safe. Speilberg, on the other hand, has seen diminishing returns recently. No one is clamoring over WAR OF THE WORLDS, and MUNICH was fascinating but flawed. Other than possibly CATCH ME IF YOU CAN, it's been since 1998 and PRIVATE RYAN that Speilberg rocked the popcorn/projector world. And who knows . . . kids who are graduating high school this year were just being born when CRUSADE was hitting theaters. Have they followed these movies as closely as I did when they were coming out?

I hope it is good. I hope it is as good as the first three. But like everyone else, I'm a little skeptical.

* - On this point, the Hater has an interesting point:

Mark Burnett, the show’s producer, said that he thinks the MTV Movie Awards are “the most relevant movie award show in America today.” And who knows more about cultural relevancy than the creator of My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad? Burnett also added:

This show honors the movies that millions of young Americans go to see.”

Unfortunately there’s already an award for that, Mark. It’s called money. Young Americans have already honored those movies with the millions of dollars that they spent to go see them. It’s not as if young people are a reclusive minority whose voice goes largely unheard by the entertainment industry. Who do you think they made Disturbia for? Why else would there be an Alien Vs. Predator: Requiem?

Apparently, they have been making albums for years. In the years since Guns n' Roses stopped making music, Def Leppard has put out two gold albums and one that went platinum in Canada (which is hilarious). They had a retrospective go gold and an album of glam rock covers. Wicked.

In that transcendentally stupid yet chronically necessary debate, the Lep gives one obvious answer to "Is it better to burn out or fade away?"

It has been twenty-one years since, as an eleven year, I owned the Lep's HYSTERIA and it rocked my world, expanded my horizons, made me like really crappy music. I'd like to listen to HYSTERIA again soon - "Pour Some Sugar On Me" was a pretty rocking song.

Or was it?

This type of populist spirit is what got huckleberries like Jimmy Carter elected. The grassroots theory of upbringing is a wonderful fallacy - it assumes that poor people grow up out of the dirt and thus are noble savages in their thinking. Just as Matlock used his home-town ways rather than his big-city lawyerin', these rubes and donikers who grewed up on the farm just have a better idea of life than you big city folks. Populism always finds itself as the rich man championing the working man for some political purpose, and therefore I never trust it. Pandering to the poor is a time-honored tradition because there are always more poor than rich, and the nice thing about an egalitarian system is that, as Atticus said, the vote of the lowest farmer counts just as much as Rockefeller.

I don't think its fair to accuse Hillary of being a rich girl, but it is ironic that a earthiness, the lack of which is a severe strike against her, is the same thing that good her husband elected. I think Obama's polish works against him: he's smoother than the spot on my car where I spilled a whole bottle of turtle wax. Do either of them really care about the poor? Beyond a political platform and a vote-grabbing strategy? Who knows. That platform/strategy will get legislation passed, and often the wrong kind.

But the article is interesting because of Orwell's characteristic leftist attack of the left. In ANIMAL FARM and 1984, he lays into Bourgeois culture with, respectively, broad and sophisticated allegory. But this passage from THE ROAD TO WIGAN PIER is pretty effective:

"As with the Christian religion," he writes, "the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents." Then he wheels out the heavy rhetorical artillery. The typical socialist, according to Orwell, "is either a youthful snob-Bolshevik who in five years time will quite probably have made a wealthy marriage and been converted to Roman Catholicism, or, still more typically, a prim little man with a white-collar job, usually a secret teetotaler, and often with vegetarian leanings … with a social position he has no intention of forfeiting. … One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words 'Socialism' and 'Communism' draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, 'Nature Cure' quack, pacifist and feminist in England."

Its a pretty prescient attack on the LA fundraiser crowd. And it made me think of this recently endorsement of Obama by Tom Hanks:

Hanks, who has always seemed like a pretty great guy, disparages his status as a member of the "radical chic." He makes fun of the celebrity endorsement at the same time as he gives it. This self-effacing move will be effective, no doubt, but it only hints at the problem at the core: the people who support socialistic welfare programs are the ones whose income can suffer its blows. At the end of the day, liberalism is hip, and conservatism isn't, and attacking the hipness is a way of devaluing the altruism.

This may not make any sense but I'm going to publish it anyway.

Just to play catch-up, Mamet is one the top living playwrights. He wrote GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS, one of the best pieces of literature produced in the last 30 years. As a filmmaker, he attracts a niche market, and I am part of that niche. He makes movies about Con Artists (HEIST, THE SPANISH PRISONER, the transcendent HOUSE OF GAMES), Cops (HOMICIDE, SPARTAN) and he makes weird curios like THE WINSLOW BOY and STATE AND MAIN. Nobody does Dialogue like Mamet. A typical Mamet example is:

"That's the thing. You have to do the thing to do the other thing. That's why the thing is ****ing thing!"

"What about the guy from Madrid?"

"What does that have to do with the price of Gold? Huh, will you tell me that?"

REDBELT looks like some pretty typical twisty Mamet turf. Which is gravy for me. And it has the guy from INSIDE MAN and AMERICAN GANGSTER whose name I can't spell, but who is shaping up to be a big star. And the typical Mamet players: Joe Mantegna, Mamet's wife Rebecca Pidgeon, Ricky Jay.

Hope it comes to Memphis soon.

1. The Raconteurs are the new Big Star. HANDS is the best song Alex Chilton never sang, but should have. It’s got all the rising beats, love of pop music, love of women, that the best songs off NO. 1 RECORD have. Their first album, the awesometastic BROKEN BOY SOLDIERS, is at once a relic of the 70s and an iconoclastic mission statement. Their new album, the terrific CONSOLERS OF THE LONELY, continues in the tradition. The Big Star legacy, however, will probably never happen as long as Jack White has another band and the group that I like better is just a glorified side-project / supergroup. But this song rules:

2. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is my favorite actor. The three movies he put out in the tail end of 2007 are uneven, yet imbued by his impeccable, low-key brilliance. CHARLIE WILSONS WAR, while repugnant in its politics, Julia Roberts-ness, and revisionist history, offers Hoffman the opportunity to have a goofy haircut and be smarter than everyone else in the room. He and Tom Hanks are a jovial Mutt and Jeff combo – the former always has a runny nose and speaks under his breath, while the latter seems to be existing in some terminally imaginary press-conference. If nothing else, Hoffman’s performance is the best manufacturer of one-liners in recent memory.

BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOUR DEAD offers Hoffman the lead in something he normally plays second fiddle in; despite a sturdy cast of standouts like Ethan Hawke (who is terrible), Marisa Tomei, and Albert Finney, Hoffman’s lead characterization is the only reason to see this naturalistic rain-cloud of a story. Everyone is either miserable or about to be, and Hoffman at least has the good sense to be deserving of his fate. His early scenes with Hawke remind me of the moment in WAYNES WORLD 2 when Wayne asks that a bit actor can be replaced with a better actor, and Charlton Heston shows up – that Hoffman owns this movie is mainly because Sidney Lumet seems to be working with his periodic attempt at gravitas and tragedy that doesn’t suit his workmanlike style very much, and Hoffman goes for something much more earthy, less respectable, more bulked-up.

THE SAVAGES, the best of the bunch, tag-teams him with equally marvelous Laura Linney. In a game of “who can undermine the others façade of happiness,” Hoffman wins, only because he has least embodied his dying, senile father’s sense of enduring misery. A failed intellect, teacher, lover, son, brother, and care-giver, Hoffman’s Jon nonetheless maintains a certain dignity and arrogance that unravels in each scene only to be rebuilt again. When Hoffman talks about the grim facts of death, it’s a recognition of his own mortality and meaningless, and it both contrasts and makes necessary the false cheery optimism of his sister. Both Hoffman and Linney create characters who are lived-in, probably even moreso than their script deserves, but paradoxically, Hoffman is a joy every second that he’s on screen, even though he’s not.

3. Here’s an interesting article from The New York Review of Books about the Wikipedia ™.

As an occasional half-assed perpetuator of Wikifraud, my take is that the writer seems to waver between the Wiki being too high-brow and too low-brow. But isn’t that an adequate level of “brow” for something that can be edited by anybody who has access to the internet?

4. Chuck Klosterman has a typically interesting and preposterous analysis of the Hannah Montana phenomenon. Though several of my students like her, I knew nothing about her until I read this piece.

What’s the deal with this rumor I keep hearing about Hannah Montana being romantically linked with Morgan Freeman?

5. Here are a few arbitrary, unexplained ratings for things I’ve experienced recently:

A free trip to Graceland with an open bar and lots of Elvis swag: A+

THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY: C

SOUTHLAND TALES (the 20 minutes I watched): F

SWEENEY TODD: D

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (again): A

THE MIST, book: A

THE MIST, movie: C-

AMERICAN GANGSTER: D

Van Morrison, KEEP IT SIMPLE: B

Elf Power, IN A CAVE: B

Portishead, THIRD: C+

The Headlights, SOME RACING, SOME STOPPING: A

The last two episodes of LOST: A+

CHRIST THE TIGER, by Thomas Howard: A-

British Sea Power, live, at the Hi-Tone: B+

Prince's cover of CREEP, which is no longer available online: A

1) Those who like the "guy with a guitar" Bruce Springsteen on NEBRASKA, THE RIVER, DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN, THE GHOST OF TOM JOAD, and DEVILS & DUST

2) Those who like the New Jersey street band kitchen sink kaleidoscopic* stylings of Bruce Springsteen on BORN TO RUN, THE YOUNG, GREETINGS FROM ASBURY PARK, BORN IN THE USA, and, last year, MAGIC.

3) Those who don't like Bruce Springsteen.

I prefer 1, but am always up for the Boss to swing back with 2 - if DEVILS & DUST was brutally stark in its sympathetic populism, MAGIC was the kind of music the characters of that casualty-filled wasteland might entertain themselves with.

As for you 3 people. I don't get you and I don't want to get you.

But either way, you shouldn't be sad that Danny Federici, the keyboard player for the E Street band died. Say what you want about HUNGRY HEART, but it captures that "We may as well be dead, but we're sure as hell alive" spirit of the best upbeat Springsteen.

Since its raining in Memphis, here's more moisture for the wet blanket: About a month ago Anthony Minghella died. Minghella is not exactly David Lean, but he's certain not Michael Bay. In the last ten years, Minghella directed THE ENGLISH PATIENT, THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY, COLD MOUNTAIN, and BREAKING AND ENTERING - while the last was curiously boring and unwatchable, the first three are unapologetically epic in a way that most movies ever don't try or attempt and fail miserably. I remember being blown away by finding out that the script for PATIENT was only 90 pages long - the rest was atmosphere, sweeping shots, glances that say more than words.

I liked COLD MOUNTAIN, but it missed the modern classic status it seemed to be going for. The only vivid detail I can remember is that Jack White was in it, and at one point he played the banjo. But THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY is really masterful film - it may be the best Alfred Hitchcock movie that Alfred Hitchcock didn't make (suck it, Brian De Palma!) - it creates suspense and mystery around character and doesn't let those characters hide in the places they want to. I remember liking it in the movie theater, but last year I found a copy in the bargain bin at Target ($7.99!) and picked it up. I was blown away by the period details, the beauty of the scenery, the way Minghella photographs Jude Law so that he's at times angelic, at others demonic - exactly the twisted perspective that Matt Damon's Ripley shifts back and forth between.

But I recently got a little misty for Minghella because of his work in the occasionally excellent Jim Henson's THE STORYTELLER series. As a fifth grader, I caught an episode that Minghella wrote called "The Soldier and Death." I remembered the story for all of my young life, and would occasionally tell it around campfires. Minghella takes the mystery of a fable and turns it into a remarkably linear story - where each obstacle gives the hero an increasingly exciting new dilemma.

Minghella will be missed. I have the feeling he had another Oscar in him. His movies were big, spectacular, and unrelenting visual.

* - I have no idea how music can be "kaleidoscopic" but it sounds right.

(Which, if you haven't figured, is the equivalent of CNN for me: it's where I get my news)

The NME reports that Axl Rose has finally turned in Chinese Democracy to his label Geffen Records. Geffen confirmed they have the album, and the label is currently negotiating money and rights issues with Rose. The album so far has cost $13 million and been in the works for 14 years, which means Chinese Democracy is the same age as some A.V. Clubbers back when the Use Your Illusion albums came out in 1991. It is rumored that a Guns N' Roses reality TV show is set to be broadcast to coincide with the release of the album.

BOSS! Recently I watched an UNDER REVIEW documentary on the USE YOUR ILLUSION albums, which reinvigorated my love for the last great hair band of my lifetime. Of course, GNR is so much more, but they are also so much awesome.

This is not the first time I've chronicled the legacy that is CD's production. But the move to Geffen shows just what a wicked snowball-down-a-hill momentum this thing has - it doesn't matter if its good, it just has to exist.

I'll buy it.

By the way, I wonder what Tracii Guns is up to?

While you'll probably need to read the ridiculously expansive series of articles about him on the Wikipedia, I'll summarize as briefly as I can. Cave started out as an Aussie Punker with the noise band Birthday Party. Their albums are dissonant, kind of awesome, and ultimately unlistenable. While I like a few of their tracks (like "Zoo Music Girl"), I mostly turn it on when I need to fill the room with sound, which is rarely.

In 1984, and seriously on the smack, Cave disbanded The Birthday Party and formed the Bad Seeds. There are very few permanent member of the Seeds, but for Birthday Party-er Mick Harvey has been with Cave since the 70s. In '93, a move I think is pivotal, the Dirty Three's Warren Ellis signed on to be a member.

I think that a lot of serious Bad Seed fans will disagree with me, but I greatly prefer the more mellow, meditative, lyrical, gloriously pretentious, and brutally honest pairings with Ellis to the rougher, harder work that preceded it. Ellis is a weird genius - he and Cave recently composed the (awesome) score for that Brad Pitt JESSE JAMES movie. My favorite album of the Ellis-inspired Seeds (and one of my favorite albums ever) is one a lot of Cave nuts disparage, the transcendent spiritual question mark of a concept album, THE BOATMAN'S CALL.

Here is that album's powerful, prosaic, and weighty opening track, "Into My Arms."

Cave is many things: grime poet, allusionist, anachronistic troubadour badass, Aussie punk rocker obsessed with aborigines, novelist, screenwriter (he wrote the unusually grim and violent Revisionist Western THE PROPOSITION), blues freako, unapologetic misogynist, lovelorn contemplative, and street philosopher. He's the bastard child of Abelard and Dusty Springfield. He's impossible to pin down: 1996's MURDER BALLADS is as gruesome, unforgiving, and realistic as 2004's THE LYRE OF ORPHEUS is ambiguous, optimistic, and poetic.

This video of "Breathless" from ORPHEUS is a perfect example of how hard it is to pigeonhole Cave.

After ORPHEUS, the Bad Seeds took a four year hiatus. In the meantime, Cave, Ellis and two of the Bad Seeds strangely started their own side project: Grinderman and their self-titled album. I'm glad they did, because its more rocking than ORPHEUS and 2003's NOCTURAMA, and 2001's NO MORE SHALL WE PART. It featured one of my favorite songs of 2007, "Go Tell The Women."

This week brings his latest, DIG LAZARUS DIG! It's pretty great. This review from the AV Club sums up most of my feeling. I like the way he is described as having a "friction between muck and majesty" (but disagree that this album doesn't have a little of that, even without the piano.) Some of the songs on DIG have Cave's patented brilliance - "We Call Upon The Author," in particular, is typically informed with literary references and bawdy humor. And while it continues in the Grinderman vein of rockin' more than pontificatin', it still manages enough profundity to satisfy the pretentious part of me that thinks music is supposed to, you know, mean something.

With that, here's the title track:

ROBERT JOHNSON – THE COMPLETE RECORDINGS

According to every rock critic who ever lived and Eric Clapton, if aliens were attacking the planet, and the only way we could save it was by playing “Crossroads,” Robert Johnson is your man. Johnson’s story is so legendary it would probably be better if he and these twenty-three recordings never existed: born in the Mississippi Delta, traveling blues man, sold his soul to the devil, died when poisoned by strychnine-laced whiskey given to him by a jealous husband.

The hyperbole is pretty intense, but maybe deserved when you considered that all the Brit Invasion Blues guitarists modeled themselves after Johnson. In a typically overwrought passage from his (pretty great, actually) MYSTERY TRAIN, Greil Marcus writes, “When Johnson sang his darkest songs, terror was a fact, beauty only a glimmer, but that glimmer, and its dying away, lie beneath everything else, beneath all the images that hit home and make a home.” Like I said intense – the best thing he did for his legacy was die young.

So if I say I’m having a little trouble getting into his music, then it’s slightly my fault but probably more the problem of those who have promoted it. Yes, it’s neat to hear the original version of “Crossroads,” and there’s a definite “guy with a guitar singing about some woman who just walked out the door” quality to it. But as a legendary guitarist, I’m not seeing it, and this is probably because I know next to nothing about the guitar.

DESTROYER – TROUBLE IN DREAMS

It just came out and I just bought it yesterday. Didn’t even know it was coming it. As a fan of everything Dan Bejar has put out (his DESTROYER’S RUBIES was my favorite album of 2006, and his New Porno’s song MYRIAD HARBOR was my second favorite song of 2007). I’ve only listened TROUBLE once but already like it. It will not be a break through hit, but for me its candy.

MORRISEY and BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN – Their entire catalogs

God, I love Torrents!

I haven’t had a chance to listen to the Morrisey yet, but I had never really listened to Springsteen’s TUNNEL OF LOVE, the follow-up to the redunkulously successful BORN IN THE USA. It’s pretty great.

By the way, if anyone finds out either of these guys are strapped for cash, let me know, and I’ll apologize for stealing their music. I figure Boss is okay with it since I’ve bought every one of his CDs since the 90s.

BLONDIE – PARALLEL LINES

Rightfully one of the best New Wave albums; the best non-Talking Heads album to come out the late 70s CBGB’s. Debbie Harry was born to be a star. This album rocks.

SAM COOKE – THE MAN WHO INVENTED SOUL (4 DISC BOX SET)

Even though he’s mostly singing other people’s songs, he sings them better than they do. I know frak-all about soul and R&B, but it seems to me that nobody masters the “Happy Guy singing about being miserable” better than young Mr. Cooke.

Top 5 Sam Cooke songs

1. TROUBLE IN MIND
2. LONELY ISLAND
3. I GOT A RIGHT TO SING THE BLUES
4. NOBODY KNOWS YOU WHEN YOU ARE DOWN
5. GET YOURSELF ANOTHER FOOL

RANDY NEWMAN – RANDY NEWMAN CREATES SOMETHING, 12 SONGS, GUILTY: 30 YEARS OF RANDY NEWMAN

The last one I stole, because it’s out of print, and the first two I bought. More on Randy Newman later: I plan on reviewing SAIL AWAY, one of my favorite albums. His first album (CREATES) finds him with a little more instrumentation than normal and sounding a lot like Bob Dylan. 12 SONGS is justifiably awesome, and paves the way for his masterpiece, SAIL AWAY.

CLEM SNIDE – SOFT SPOT

One of the AV Club Rock Critics said this was one of his favorites. It’s the only Clem album I’ve never owned. It’s pretty good, but I prefer their other albums.

NWA – STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON

Since I lost/had this stolen this in the Great CD Wallet Losing (and/or Stealing) of 2002, I figured I should own my all-time favorite rap album, and perhaps the only rap album I like unambiguously.

CAT POWER – JUKEBOX

Joyous. She’s my favorite weirdo chick singer, and she’s coming to Musicfest. Can’t wait.

VAMPIRE WEEKEND – VAMPIRE WEEKEND
I liked Paul Simon’s GRACELAND when it came out in 1984; why rerelease it now? Oh . . .

STEPHEN MALKMUS – REAL EMOTIONAL TRASH

My latest attempt at tracking with the solo career of Mr. Malkmus. Didn’t take.

BRITISH SEA POWER – DO YOU LIKE ROCK MUSIC?

Really great. I need to listen to it some more.

Last night was the first and last time I watched an episode of American Idol. This statement is and will be true. I have never watched it before, was unfamiliar with the format (though it was everything I predicted it to be), and will never watch it again. A friend was in town who wanted to see it, so I DVRed it and we watched it after dinner, while I graded papers and made prototypical sarcastic comments.

Here are the problems I had with American Idol™ before watching it:

1) It represents everything I hate about culture
2) It represents everything I hate about music
3) It represents everything I hate about style
4) It represents everything I hate about television
5) I was five feet from that Taylor Hicks dude at the Liberty Bowl and he seemed like a tool obsessed with his look and his celebrity.
6) It is a plastic model of plasticness watched by people who are either oblivious to its plasticity or in a state of hipster self-awareness about it.
7) I want to punch that Simon guy.

I have to say that I now have the same problems after watching it, along with these:

1) It is more plastic than I realized.
2) They do bad things with great songs (I had never considered this aspect before; for some damn reason, I honestly assumed they sang their own music); in this case, eleven amateur singers (and, I assume, their legions of handlers – who don’t get their own featurettes, another aspect of the plasticity) decided it would be a good idea to rearrange songs by one of the greatest bands ever. Lowlights: Eleanor Rigby and In My Life.*
3) There are now four people I want to punch, and one of them is a woman who once danced with MC Skat Cat.

But here is the real problem. For some reason, I assumed that the three extremely rich dorks who judge this thing used a lot of music lingo and showbiz jargon to judge these wannabes. Apparently, they do not – they make baseless criticisms and even more pointless praises. They should have no authority – two of whom have built pathetic but lucrative careers as talent judges, and the other who should be enjoying some distinct stage of being washed out and a lunatic – but they command a large stage.

Here is my imitation of their criticisms:

“You were off pitch at the beginning, and then you got better, but I wasn’t feeling it.”

Here are their praises:

“Girl, you so totally GOT it!”

When I grade my students’ papers, I try to avoid what we in academia (snicker) call “copia” – buzzwords for “good” or “bad” that often betray the fact that I may not have read their paper carefully. I try to make pointed, specific comments, because I want them to become better writers.

When these judges do their thing, it’s pure copia. There is nothing they, music professionals, can say that I couldn’t say. Their comments are random and arbitrary, yet I think there’s something more sinister going on: I believe all three are pawns of the network and the record company, promoting the amateur singers who are more TV friendly and marketable. We assume they know what they’re talking about, so we don’t expect to say anything thoughtful or insightful. Their subjective tastes are all that matter, yet they vocalize as though it has some objective authority. In a better culture, we would have disposed of this quickly and painlessly. Yet it lives, eats, consumes, vomits, reproduces, etc.

It has nothing to do with talent. It has everything to do with money.

It is, to use a word I haven’t used yet, plastic.

* By the way, voters (who, I am aware, don’t read this blog) – please vote for the dude who sang ACROSS THE UNIVERSE. I know that the dorks who judge this thing like it when amateur singers do creative things with songs they did not write, but that guy at least sang the song kind of like John Lennon did.
** This was hastily written and informed only by my own judgment. I'm sure it seems unoriginal, but I really have never read any criticism of the show before; in the past, I just rolled my eyes whenever I heard anyone talk about. If you have any great articles that expose this phenomenon for its plasticity, please send it to the Andytown.com direct office along with the URL and I will post it in 7-10 days. Andytown.com cannot respond to every email directly, but I'll put one of my interns on it.

If all this is too, I dunno plastic; here's thelegendary singer/songwriter I'm currently obsessed with.

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.

So tonight is the big show where Hollywood gives themselves awards for being wonderful. Absolute dog and pony show, etc. etc. etc., and every year they get it wrong. I have agreed with one Best Picture Winners since 1980: UNFORGIVEN in 1992. Other than that, the pic they picked was not my personal Best Pic of any given year. I could do a whole thing on Alternate Oscars for each year, and maybe I will. In the meantime, you can check this website for a guy who actually wrote a book doing this:

http://filmfanatic.org/reviews/wp-static/AlternateOscars.html

Just for the record, here are my best movies of each year since the new millenium

2000: GLADIATOR won, but CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON should have
2001: A BEAUTIFUL MIND won, but MEMENTO should have
2002: CHICAGO won, but 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE should have
2003: RETURN OF THE KING won, but CITY OF GOD should have
2004: MILLION DOLLAR BABY won, but ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND should have
2005: CRASH won, but BROKEN FLOWERS should have
2006: THE DEPARTED won, but CHILDREN OF MEN should have (Normally I would say BRICK, but it was more of a personal favorite than anything else).

That said, this may be the first second year I agree with them in 27 years.

Here's the categories (See an earlier post for the nominees) and here are my predictions and contentions. I'm pretty good at this, by the way; in college I predicted all but one award for the Mississippi State newspaper, and in 2005 I won 75 dollars betting on a combo of CRASH, George Clooney, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

Here's my big academy theory. The voters are by nature egalitarians: they want to share the wealth, and they want to see certain people on stage. They don't like to see one movie take home every single award. If they can, they'll give a consolation prize to a movie that won't win Best Picture, usually in the form of Best Screenplay or Best Supporting. I'm often right about this. Case in point: when BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN lost Best Picture, it won Screenplay and Director.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:

WHAT WILL WIN: THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY, Ronald Harwood

This was a tricky job. Adapting a book that was written entirely by a guy flickering his eyebrows. I haven't seen it, but this will be this film's token award.

WHAT SHOULD WIN: THERE WILL BE BLOOD, PTA

I disagree that the process of "adaptation" should play a role in this. PTA loosely adapted TWBB, and wrote the best screenplay of the year. The runners up are the Coens, who stuck as close to the original text NO COUNTRY as possible.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

WHAT WILL WIN AND SHOULD WIN: JUNO

This is a classic storybook Oscar moment. Former stripper, single-mom (or something like that) writes an indie hit. This is probably the safest bet of the bunch. And I agree: though I haven't seen LARS AND THE REAL GIRL or THE SAVAGES, I think JUNO's conviction for its characters is enough to overcome the films' flaws.

WHAT WASN'T NOMINATED BUT SHOULD WIN: THE DARJEELING LIMITED

BEST SONG

WHAT WILL AND SHOULD WIN: The song from ONCE

It will be cool to see them play it on stage.

Sadly, I didn't see any of the FOREIGN LANGUAGE films

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

WHO WILL WIN: Tilda Swinton, MICHAEL CLAYTON

WHAT SHOULD WIN: Cate Blanchett, I'M NOT THERE

Blanchett has won the award before, so she won't get it this time. Swinton will win even though she gives what I think is a thoroughly over-the-top performance*. Swinton plays every scene as though she is going to hyperventilate It will be the Academy's way of awarding the film, which will get shut out in every other category. Which is okay, I guess, because I like Swinton, but Blanchett was really remarkable in the movie. And I've saying this as someone who has never really liked her.

MY OTHER NOMINATIONS:
Jennifer Garner, JUNO
Catherine Keener, INTO THE WILD
Hope Davis, THE NINES
Leslie Mann, KNOCKED UP

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

WHAT WILL WIN AND SHOULD WIN: Javier Bardem

Bardem gave the year's most iconic performance, and it is a role that will sky-rocket him in an elite class of actors. In three years, he will be the equivalent of Russell Crowe. This is going to be close though, because Hal Holbrook is the kind of actor who might get a career achievement award, much like Alan Arkin did last year or James Coburn a few years before. So it could go either way. It's a strong group. I wouldn't be unhappy if Casey Affleck won.

By the way, nobody is really saying this, but I'm not totally sure that Bardem isn't the lead actor in that film.

MY OTHER NOMINEES:
Phillip Seymour Hoffman, CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR
Josh Brolin, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
Marcus Carl Franklin, I'M NOT THERE (my personal fave performance, but not as powerful as Bardem)
Paul Dano, THERE WILL BE BLOOD

BEST ACTRESS

WHAT WILL WIN: Julie Christie, AWAY FROM HER

WHAT SHOULD WIN: I don't know

I've only seen one of the performances (Ellen Page), and she will probably lose to the venerable Ms. Christie. The French woman from LA VIE EN ROSE could win as well. And Ellen Page has a shot, but she's young. Even though I haven't seen THE SAVAGES, i bet Laura Linney was great, and I'd love to see her win because I still think YOU CAN COUNT ON ME is the best female performance of the decade.

BEST ACTOR

WHAT WILL AND SHOULD WIN: Daniel Day-Lewis, THERE WILL BE BLOOD

It was the best performance I've seen in a film since . . . I can't remember, probably Nicolas Cage in ADAPTATION. It screams Oscar. George Clooney is the only one with a chance at the upset, but Johnny Depp is the dark horse. Tommy Lee Jones is just being nominated for having a fine year.

OTHER NOMINEES: (Not a very strong year for male leads, if you ask me)
Reece Thompson, ROCKET SCIENCE
Christian Bale, RESCUE DAWN
Adrien Brody, THE DARJEELING LIMITED
Kurt Russell, GRINDHOUSE

BEST DIRECTOR AND BEST PICTURE

WHAT WILL WIN: The Coen's for Best Director and THERE WILL BE BLOOD for Best Picture or vice-versa (probably the listed scenario)

WHAT SHOULD WIN: . . . eh I'm fine with either.

I think BLOOD should sweep the Oscars. It's a masterpiece. But I'm perfectly happy watching the Coen's get some award, any award, that they should have won for FARGO, BARTON FINK, and (probably) MILLERS CROSSING - all the best movies of their respective year.

So I pick one of the above scenarios. Whoever wins Best Director (I Think the Coens Will) will not find their film winning Best Picture. The other possible is that the Coens sweep both awards, cause I could also see PTA getting the screenplay award as a consolation prize and then the Coens taking the top two. I think the voters will want to reward both films, either of which would have won the statue last year. If I'm a betting man, I take BLOOD for Best Pic and the Coens for Best Director. The Academy has been doing this a lot (4 times in the last ten years), most recently when they gave CRASH Best Picture and Ang Lee best director.

MY RUNNERS-UP:
I'M NOT THERE
RESCUE DAWN
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
THE DARJEELING LIMITED

Best Director is kind of a dumb category, so I'll just say PTA deserves it and all the directors of the above films deserve nominations.

That's that! Happy watching!

(Typical question for comments: Shouldn't you be writing your thesis?)

(In case you care, here are last year's Top Ten - In retrospect, I would add BABEL, DREAMGIRLS, and LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA to that top 10 list)

* For the record, I just saw MICHAEL CLAYTON Friday and didn't see what all the fuss was about. To me it was just more lawyer crap. This one seemed to have a high on "ethics" (and was lauded for it; even though the ethics revolved around some kind of crazy things happening/high-tech assassins) but it also was big on "derivative plot points." I liked Tom Wilkinson in it, but overall it just didn't do anything for me. I know there are a lot of MC fans out there and I'd love to hear some arguments.

1. The Albuquerque conference was pretty bleh. I gave my paper on Neutral Milk Hotel. I did fine, I thought, but there was no relation between my paper and the other two (which were on, respectively, RPG Board Games and Reality TV). Albuquerque is kind of a boring city, and I’m frankly glad to get it over with. I did meet another NMH fanatic and we are talking about working on a larger project. We’ll see how that goes.

2. Ben Affleck is a good director. As much as I like to ridicule him (and much of that ridicule stands, he’s not good at playing intelligent characters), GONE BABY GONE has an innate sense of tone, style, suspense, and character. Unlike the last lauded Dennis Lehane adaptation, MYSTIC RIVER, GONE doesn’t drown us in pathos and overkill. Instead, Affleck gives us a taut, tight mystery whose characters are believable in their skill-sets. It has a good feel of Boston without giving us a sight-seeing tour.

2.5. ROCKET SCIENCE is an indie charmer. Directed by the guy who made SPELLBOUND, one of my favorite documentaries, it seems like it should be classic quirk-overdose. But it works because of the conviction of its young actors. The plot: A kid with a stuttering problem joins a debate team. That sounds like an analogue to THE KARATE KID, or (shudder) SAVE THE LAST DANCE, or those recent movies about bands at African-American colleges. But it avoids all those cliched high points and ends up leaving you high despite all its lows. Also, Eef Barzelay of Clem Snide does the soundtrack, which closes with my favorite Clem Snide song, I LOVE THE UNKNOWN.

3. British Sea Power’s new album, DO YOU LIKE ROCK MUSIC, is pretty dang awesome. But I’m three for three on their major releases. Also recently bought (long overdue): THE BASEMENT TAPES by Dylan and the Band. Amazing. I've listened to it about six times in the last week.

4. Have you seen the high five guys? It’s classic Will Ferrell-produced goofiness.

5. I saw ACROSS THE UNIVERSE. I went into it with a good attitude, because I liked director Julie Taymor’s TITUS – the most inventive and visual compelling Shakespeare adaptation ever (of his worst play, no less). What a disaster! The photogenic young stars are bland and uninteresting and the music doesn’t fit. It’s a pastiche of all kinds of 60s clichés alongside some weird musical numbers. It’s like RENT, but with Beatles songs. One highlight: Evan Rachel Wood singing LOVE ME DO. But many low-lights, including Bono singing I AM THE WALRUS (Ok, Bono, we get it – you’re a global icon.)

Coming soon: Me and JUNO