Anthony Is Right

Blogspot no more?

2010-08-03T20:10:00.003-04:00

I'll just be updating the Tumblr, at least for a while.

Survival Of The Dead (2010)

2010-06-07T10:06:00.001-04:00

Review at Tiny Mix Tapes.

Best Worst Movie (2009)

2010-05-17T01:09:00.001-04:00

Review At Tiny Mix Tapes.

Exit Through The Gift Shop (2010)

2010-05-07T00:28:00.011-04:00

What kind of transgressive anarchist bitches about less-talented copycats? Though most critics profess admiration for Banksy's directorial debut, Exit Through The Gift Shop, the film ultimately seems as embarrassing and mystique-destroying a venture as Metallica: Some Kind Of Monster. Exit initially consists of footage shot by Thierry Guetta, an obsessive filmographer who followed street artists like Invader and Shepard Fiery as they plastered and spray-painted their insignias throughout urban areas. Eventually serving as a lookout for the enigmatic antihero Banksy himself, Guetta is commissioned to make a doc from his massive archive. After he turns in an incoherent montage, Banksy relives Guetta of his responsibilities (and tapes), flippantly advising him to become an artist himself. Mass-producing a stream of derivative works and using quotes from his artist pals to stir hype, the former accomplice quickly makes a mint as Mister Brainwash, disgusting the old guard of street art.

While it's easy to be skeptical of the movie's veracity, I have to believe the film is mostly honest, if only because of how petty Banksy makes himself look. Attempting to paint Guetta as both a fool and a huckster, the copyright-infringing, unrepentant vandal proves rather protective of his own brand. You'd think someone who painted cracks in the West Bank wall would enjoy his faithful accomplice bilking LA's impressionable out of a million dollars in a week, but Guetta's success has Banksy and Fiery stuttering in dismay, the former even saying he no longer suggests friends make their own art. Though Banksy hints at comprehending the irony (whining Guetta "didn't follow the rules" while admitting "there aren't supposed to any rules"), their professional jealousy shows how much these art-terrorists hold their hip cachet and market value sacred (why show celebs at Banksy's showing and idiot trendoids at Guetta's otherwise?). By suggesting their financial success is merited by years of hard work, they reduce the political implications of street art to "paying dues." (It's also worth noting that while Banksy uses Guetta's own footage to out him as a charlatan, Guetta has never revealed his former friend's true identity).

As with Some Kind Of Monster, the pathetic truths revealed certainly don't make the film any less fascinating or entertaining. But where Metallica simply funded their own humiliation, Banksy (assuming the film is not a hoax) crafted his own while lashing out at an associate too naive to realize he wasn't as remarkable an artist. That so few seem to be realize what he's doing makes the aftertaste even more sour.

After-Life (2010)

2010-04-15T12:00:00.000-04:00

Review at Tiny Mix Tapes.

Browning Version (1951)

2010-04-14T22:32:00.009-04:00

Ben Mankiewicz cracked this movie could be called Living Poets Society or Don't Lean On Me or Why Did I Expect To Learn Anything From A Ben Mankiewicz Intro on TCM, due to its supposed irreverence towards its lead compared to most films about tragic teachers. This ignores that The Browning Version still ends with rapturous applause and small, symbolic gestures of admiration towards the deposed educator in question. Though Crocker-Harris is a mediocre, unliked teacher, he sees the nobility in the profession and is hailed for it.

What's truly striking is that, unlike most films about broken spirits, there's no railing at the institutions that break them. We're shown the crimes committed against him by his indifferent peers and resentful wife - and the filmmakers never pretend these aren't crimes - but we aren't treated to any tantrums or finger-waving on the part of Crocker-Harris himself. Forced to confront his tragic situation, he's disappointed only in himself, realizing his own complicity in his soul-death before finding dignity in genuine, self-pitiless regret. I don't want to dismiss the valid, serious criticisms of social structures that drives the usual self-righteous fury in most works of this type, but to see a character accept any accountability is remarkably rare - maybe Nurse Ratched's story would have been more enlightening than McMurphy's.

Leaves Of Grass (2010)

2010-04-06T22:43:00.002-04:00

Review at Tiny Mix Tapes.

Adam Resurrected (2009)

2010-03-10T22:53:00.005-05:00

The only people who've reviewed this movie without bringing up The Day The Clown Cried are presumably people who've never heard of The Day The Clown Cried. The story - crazed holocaust survivor finds redemption by restoring the well-being of others - screams "Oscar bait," and Jeff Goldblum's camera-owning performance certainly could have been a Crazy Heart "comeback," especially considering his sudden descent to obscurity following The Lost World (which I'd assume was intentional if he wasn't currently on a Law & Order spin-off). Thankfully (at least for me and you), director Paul Schrader doesn't do uplift. Lots of mercifully unexplained magical realism and schmaltz-cutting perversity that never feels like weirdness for weirdness' sake; when Schrader's inscrutable, he's truly inscrutable. And at this point I've accepted he'll never outgrow closing narration.

Shutter Island (2010)

2010-02-21T07:12:00.001-05:00

Review at Tiny Mix Tapes.

Happy Tears (2010)

2010-02-21T07:11:00.002-05:00

Review at Tiny Mix Tapes.

The Decade Wrap-Up That Wasn't

2010-02-01T15:17:00.005-05:00

For the last few months of 2009, the staff at Anthony Is Right were planning a major decade-wrap up, celebrating 100 Artists Who Released More Than 20 Songs In The 2000s That I'm Bothering To Keep On My iPod with a Trouser Press-style summation of their work over the last decade. Pre-production was mighty nifty, but these ambitions were scuttled by a non-crippling but totally annoying ear infection that lasted well over a month, soon followed by an obnoxious cold that lingers on today. Combined with moving plans, wedding plans, work and nitrome.com, you should be able to see why it didn't happen.

Thankfully, my buddy Keith Harris (who probably shouldn't write more and move back to NY, but I wouldn't stop him if he did), is doing a very different, but possibly even more awesome decade overview on his revived Useful Noise blog. This space should get more active as soon as sinuses permit - at least until that damned wedding - but I feel like the oh-those-aughties train has passed. So go ride his, if you're not already.

P.S., please check out One Star Music, a tumblr I'm curating of YouTubes from albums that received one star or less in a published music guide. If I'm doing it for my health, it hasn't been working.

Nine

2010-01-24T21:52:00.001-05:00

Review at Tiny Mix Tapes.

Everybody's Fine

2009-12-08T18:20:00.002-05:00

Review at Tiny Mix Tapes.

Recent Movies I Did Not Love

2009-12-06T00:33:00.009-05:00

In order of descending tolerability.

A Serious Man
"You goys with your suburban suffering movies, I'll tell you suburban suffering..."

Law Abiding Citizen
A white, working class black-ops strategist decides the American judicial system is corrupt, forcing an African-American careerist to pay witness his diabolical deathtraps - Saw as a teabagger's fantasy.

The Box
If you don't want your Twilight Zone story bloated with elaborate sci-fi explanations, retro kitsch and someone walking through a magic portal, don't hire Richard Kelly to adapt it.

2012
Lavishly portrays the apocalyptic endpoint of the "Too Big To Fail" philosophy with resignation rather than outrage, and still expects you to care whether John Cusack gets back with his ex.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox
The stop-motion animation keeps Wes Anderson from falling back on slo-mo, if nothing else.

Zombieland
The on-screen text, celebrity meta and interminable faux-Michael Cera narration suggest a zombie movie for teenagers too cool for zombie movies, but not too cool for Diablo Cody.

Antichrist

Where The Wild Things Are
A child acts out lesser Beckett with his stuffed animals.

Armored
Script so threadbare, direction so workmanlike, lead so wan, quality supporting cast so wasted that I left with fifteen minutes to go, knowing the Wikipedia entry would resolve the plot just as thrillingly.

The Men Who Stare At Goats

2009-11-11T13:33:00.002-05:00

Review at Tiny Mix Tapes.

House Of The Devil

2009-11-06T17:38:00.002-05:00

Review at Tiny Mix Tapes.

The Boondock Saints II: All Saints' Day

2009-11-01T16:19:00.001-05:00

Review at Tiny Mix Tapes.

(Untitled)

2009-10-25T12:45:00.001-04:00

Review at Tiny Mix Tapes.

Bronson

2009-10-14T23:49:00.001-04:00

Review at Tiny Mix Tapes.

I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell

2009-09-28T22:28:00.002-04:00

Review at Tiny Mix Tapes.

Big Fan

2009-09-24T13:58:00.005-04:00

Rather than detail why I loved a Taxi Driver for fanboys starring Patton Oswalt and climaxing on Passyunk Avenue (the appeal seems pretty obvious to me, cartoonish supporting cast aside), I'd rather bring up a subject I haven't seen acknowledged in any reviews. So...

SUBTEXTUAL SPOILER ALERT!!!!

Is there any reason to believe that Oswalt's character is not gay? It's announced he's a compulsive masturbator, but he never shows the slightest interest in the opposite sex (the ladies at the strip club don't even make him blink). He sleeps under a crotch-centric poster of his favorite footballer, and has slo-mo visions of the sweat-dripping jock when he sleeps. A resolute Catholic, he denies any interest in the kind of life his married siblings have, and seems happy to spend his nights with his henpecking mother. The film even peaks with Oswalt locking a gay-baiting Eagles fan ("Giants fans suck my balls!") in a men's room and blowing a load (of sorts) on him. I'm glad the film never makes it overt - it would have reduced the scope - but writer/director Robert Siegel would have thrown a small cop to heteronormative behavior if he didn't want us to see it.

Humpday

2009-09-18T15:02:00.000-04:00

In the mumblecore hit of 2009, Mark Duplass, the evasive boyfriend who resents his girlfriend and free-spirit brother in the 2005 mumblecore hit The Puffy Chair, plays an evasive husband who resents his wife and free-spirit college buddy (somebody give this guy a series on HBO). Determined to prove their eternal bohemianism, the guys decide to tape themselves fucking for The Stranger's erotic film festival, despite (or rather, because of) their heterosexuality. That the pair refuse to abandon their drunken whim the morning after conceiving it should make perfect sense to Kevin Smith and hopefully no one else.

A tape of two bros navigating the basics of physical affection could make a great skit, but the hour that precedes it in Humpday is to Hollywood comedy what Henry Rollins' "spoken word" is to stand-up: a sloppy simulacrum that expects a cookie for avoiding crass pay-offs. But when your material is this silly, there's no point in leaving them out. Even Kevin Smith knows that.

Stupid Horror Movie Round-Up

2009-09-17T23:06:00.022-04:00

The crazy pills come fast and easy in Sorority Row - wouldn't it be a better prank to let the freaked-out "murderer" of Audrina Partridge call the cops than leave him alone with the body after telling him to dismember it? - but the characters' baffling life choices are of a piece with the bitchy performances (I don't know if even Leighton Meester could shrug off a rising body count as easily as the unfortunately named Leah Pipes does here), campy dialogue and silly death sequences. While I wouldn't say the film was inspired, it did deliver the prerequisites of the slasher genre with a modicum of wit and self-awareness. Also, boobs.

Aside from a regrettable moment of T&Quease, none of this can be said for The Collector, which glumly trudges through an even more absurd concept. If your M.O. was to break into houses and tie up the residents before slicing them to death, would you bother setting up elaborate booby traps in the empty rooms of the house? What's the point of nailing razorblade-lined planks of wood to the windows if those inside have little chance of reaching for them? Why tape kitchen knifes to the chandelier if you're going to blow the place up before the police can admire the handiwork? If a desperate thief-by-necessity (played by an exceptionally drab TV named Josh Stewart - watch out for this airsuck) hadn't wandered into The Collector's dastardly game, no one would have been around to play it. Without Saw's dimwitted morality plays to justify the dour tone, the film feels like a grisly, joyless homage to Home Alone (a comparison point I'm embarrassed not to have thought up myself - thanks, Leila).

While The Collector takes little pleasure in its sadism (and why make a horror film if you're not going to?), it at least delivers the prerequisites of the slasher genre with a modicum of imagination and minimal fuss. We aren't repeatedly graced with the sight of the director's wife wandering around with a white horse and shit, as we are in Halloween II (thanks for the opening dream dictionary definition, Rob Zombie, lest we assume Michael Myers just has a thing for ponies). The 44-year-old fanboy's returns have diminished to little more than a stream of facial traumas, the sound of Scout Taylor-Compton whimpering (never mind who she is, it won't come up again), a brief Deadwood reunion, less than thrilling cameos from Margot Kidder and Howard Hesseman, and interminable chatter more Diablo Cody than John Carpenter. If I have to struggle to remember anything Malcolm McDowell said or did in your movie, your last name probably shouldn't be Zombie.

Funny People

2009-09-02T21:15:00.006-04:00

I thought it would be like taxes, but watching this was more like having an unusually awkward visit from an old friend. You're glad to see them and wouldn't have missed it for the world, but you have to wonder if everything's alright. Are they drinking too much? Is everything all right at home? Why were they talking about that ex the whole time? Was that self-deprecation or self-pity? Who knows? I wanted to say something, but had no idea how.

As weird as it was for Judd Apatow to cast his wife and kids as an opportunity lost while chasing success, these quirks might just be due to his chucklebuddies not knowing how to critique wanna-be James L Brooks. Maybe no one ever suggested a rewrite where the emotional focus was on the nice guy trying to make it in comedy rather than an embittered movie star of questionable talent. Sure, it might have meant cutting his family out of the film (not like Leslie Mann needs his help to get work at this point), but Adam Sandler might have gotten that "he can act!" Oscar nom if his lumpy Jack Nicholson kept to the background while Seth Rogen and Aubrey Plaza took the romantic spotlight. Why spend months beefing your cast's stand-up chops if the movie isn't really going to be about stand-up?

The muted reaction to the movie might be beneficial, as he's neither being pushed to chase that Oscar or told to make with a new Cannonball Run or get out of Hollywood. With his dayjob as The Biggest Producer In Comedy keeping him busy, hopefully he'll craft his next dramedy a little more astutely. Or, considering the value of an astutely crafted dramedy, he'll just stop directing movies.

The Headless Woman

2009-09-01T07:30:00.012-04:00

I assumed at first that the upper-class Argentinian dentist in Lucrecia Martel's The Headless Woman was suffering from severe brain damage following a small car accident, only no one cared about her enough to notice. Neat premise, but do we need to watch her smile with false serenity and hang up on people for a full 90 minutes to get it?

Once her conversation skills returned, it became clear she was simply concerned that the dead dog we saw lying in the street was actually a lower class orphan, or maybe she hit a dog and an orphan, and did she really stay in that hotel the night after and how do we really know anything and do we really need to watch her smile with false serenity for a full 90 minutes to get that the rich are detached from consequence and experience? Imagine Michael Haneke's Cache if you took out the MacGuffins and left those menacingly banal shots of someone silently making left turns.

Inglourious Basterds

2009-08-30T18:05:00.008-04:00

Chronological displacement probably wouldn't have helped Basterds - conversations detailing upcoming action sequences won't seem any less redundant if you've already seen the sequences - but it might have made the film less of a slow clomp towards obvious, unmemorable pay-offs. I'd need to see Death Proof again to tell which recent Tarantino effort enjoyed less. In both cases, he relies on charismatic performers to make do with his waning knack for dialogue (can't say I heard a new Royale With Cheese in either), but Proof's languid masturbation may have more verve than this thin epic (only 16 scenes!) when it's not preceded by jolt-o-ramas from less indulgent directors.

If it wasn't for Kill Bill's swordplay, it'd be tempting to suggest Tarantino never had the knack for grand kineticism he's shown for smaller scale violence (from Bill's split-screen to this film's slo-mo, Tarantino makes a shitty DePalma, too). While I understand the cultural catharsis this historically inaccurate revenge fantasy provides for the chosen, I expect to get more from the violent paybacks in Robert Rodriguez's upcoming historically inaccurate revenge fantasy Machete. Had Rodriguez run this, you know that shot of Samm Levine screaming with a machine gun would have made the final cut. Fuck a literary-themed card game! This is supposed to be a historically inaccurate revenge fantasy!

Damningly symbolic of these neglected opportunities is a Mike Myers cameo less rewarding than his turn as Steve Rubell in the historically inaccurate revenge fantasy 54. In an ILX thread comparing QT to the Coens, I claimed I couldn't imagine the former ever wallowing in the miserabilism you expect from aging auteurs. I'm glad I can't see him using a genre piece to ask what it all means, but self-amusement alone won't keep his crackerjack edge from dulling. Maybe it's more noteworthy when a mix of Roger Corman and Eric Rohmer doesn't suck.

G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra

2009-08-26T20:29:00.003-04:00

All that kept this from being a totally enjoyable live-action cartoon was the constant reminder that Marlon Wayans should be shot screaming into the sun.

World's Greatest Dad

2009-08-24T16:32:00.003-04:00

Review at Tiny Mix Tapes.

District 9

2009-08-23T13:23:00.009-04:00

With an A+ ad campaign rocketing the film into the sci-fi nerd canon, it's tempting to dump on District 9 a lot more than I normally would a modestly budgeted foreign directorial debut with no stars and great special effects. Then again, much of what's wrong with the film can be chalked up to its makers' awareness of the American marketplace. Based on Alive In Joburg, a short mock-documentary about aliens arriving in '80s South Africa, where they're forced to live with the black population, District 9 keeps the location and time while removing all references to the nation's racist policies. There isn't even an aside suggesting the aliens helped make the transition from apartheid easier - after all, how many in the theater would even know what apartheid is?

The rushed sum-up of the first 20 years of alien interaction offers plenty of other "refrigerator moments" (Hitchcock's term for specious details you don't realize until think about the movie at home). How can aliens and humans understand each other while never ever speaking the same language? How could humans know so little about the creatures' goals, history, etc after so long a time? Are we really to believe the population of 1,000,000+ aliens are a bunch of clueless, scavenging bottom-feeders except for a solitary scientist with a cute kid and a spaceship in his basement? And if you spray an alien with gasoline, do they start turning human?

Had the movie maintained its faux-documentary origins, many of the issues could be written off as the ignorance of the documentarians (how would they know how just how few of the aliens were behind an uprising?). But the film gradually abandons the POV shots and security cameras, shifting into standard action movie omniscience. It's possible they could have worked tender family moments, tearful phone calls and a Defiant Ones climax successfully into a faux-doc, but why risk the device distancing audiences by asking them to think and accept ambiguity? Better to use the talking heads and "found footage" as 21st century pepper for a rewrite of Alien Nation.

A Perfect Getaway

2009-08-17T19:59:00.005-04:00

The first movie in memory where unconvincing performances are actually in service of a plot twist that might not have redeemed having to watch such awful acting even if the switcheroo wasn't completely absurd. And just when the audience can least believe what he's selling, David "Chronicler Of Riddick" Twohy throws in a wipefest complete with three-way split-screen. Since the rest of the film goes without such editing trickery, he must not have known how else to establish three people running after each other. It couldn't have been for dramatic effect.

Thirst

2009-08-08T18:49:00.011-04:00

After his overwrought "Vengeance Trilogy" (Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, Lady Vengeance), Park Chan-Wook directed I'm A Cyborg, But That's OK, a 2006 romantic comedy set in an insane asylum that has yet to be released in the US. I have no idea if it's any good, but I'm guessing it would have helped prepare the audience for Thirst, which giggles where his previous films wept, even as it wallows in bloodletting, sexual dysfunction and Catholic guilt.

A monk (Song Kang-Ho of The Host and Memories Of Murder, who has shown crazy range for a leading actor) martyrs himself for science only to be accidentally resurrected by a transfusion of vampire blood (its origin is never explained). While refusing to kill - he slurps on the IV tube of a comatose patient for sustenance - his moral code is shaken enough to let him get freaky with the downtrodded wife of a sickly perv he went to school with. The sex is good, but he can't get over his guilt and she's manipulative - issues only complicated by his condition.

The film is wearingly episodic - how could a synthesis of Scorsese at his most sniggering and DePalma at his most perverse not be? - but I love that Chan-Wook embraces the silliness of the supernatural while giving the melodrama its due. In an age of self-serious genre epics, his nasty kicks suggests awareness and vitality, his set-ups playfully masterful. It's hard to complain Chan-Wook included too many of them when you want to see what he'll do next.

Paper Heart

2009-08-07T18:32:00.006-04:00

Review at Tiny Mix Tapes.

Five More Movies From 2009 Seen In 2009

2009-07-27T09:45:00.003-04:00

The Hurt Locker is my new Favorite Film Of 2009, proving that a "celebrated art film" can engage me more than a "masterpiece of craft" like Drag Me To Hell (of course, that I'm calling a war thriller by the director of Point Break an "art film" says a lot about movies today). Sitting nervously through each tense, masterfully composed set-piece (yes, a film shot with hand-helds can feature composition!), I wondered if Kathryn Bigelow would eventually pull out In The Valley Of Elah's tattered American flags or the auteur-addled fury of Redacted. But where those films obsessed over crimes hidden in the name of wartime patriotism, The Hurt Locker finds plenty of madness and horror - as well as heroism - in war itself. And when it finally trades near-death experiences for the cereal aisle, the focus remains on soldiers and their reality, not the rest of us. As familiar as some of the observations and archetypes are, Bigelow makes them haunt.

Due to my monaural hearing, experiencing war has never been an option, let alone a threat. But with my impeding nuptuals, The Hangover struck close to the bone. While I'm more than a little burnt on the "perils of slumming, i.e. psychotic ethnics" strain of American comedy, this successfully exploited my desire for some obnoxious male camraderie before the Big Day. I'm thinking bowling.

The sci-fi psychodrama Moon could be titled Too Many Sam Rockwells! except you can never have too many Sam Rockwells. The closing voice-over suggests there may have actually been some kind of pointed message or metaphor to the hero's dilemma - something about corporations treating us like gristle, mabye? - but I enjoyed it as a b-movie no one bothered to put a serial killer in. Kevin Spacey's emoticon-loving HAL is nowhere as insufferable as you'd assume.

Dead Snow isn't so much the arrival of the next Sam Raimi, as the appearance of a Sam Raimi fan in Norway. The zombies are Nazis mostly for aesthetic purposes (those coats!) and for all the attention the filmmakers probably gave the international marketplace, I doubt any set piece or performance will make the whimsical gore canon. But hey, Nazi zombies.

I won't give away the novelty about the villain in Orphan, even though I guessed it from the trailer. Ok, I will. The child playing the Orphan is actually playing a 30-something serial killer with Andy Milonakis' hormone condition. I'm spoiling because a) the producers - who include Leonardo DiCaprio! - hired a 12 year old to play an adult serial killer that regularly traumatizes a deaf child - WHY, LEO? WHY? - and b) this knowledge shouldn't affect whether you find the movie entertaining as shameless trash. As in the superior Joshua (with Sam Rockwell!), Vera Farmiga plays the troubled mother of the Bad Seed. Unlike Flightplan and The Skeleton Key, Peter Sarsgaard doesn't signify his evil at the climax by turning around slowly and squinting. It's a shame - a real twist would have been that Papa Sarsgaard knowingly adopted an adult for some wife-offing, faux-Humbert Humbert shenanigans. Who else could have bought her all those blacklight markers for her secretly psychotic drawings?

The First Ten Films From 2009 I Saw In 2009

2009-06-24T22:22:00.004-04:00

All these films (described in descending order of enthusiasm) deserve individual reviews as much as The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three, by far the least worthwhile of the bunch, but I'm playing catch-up.

If Drag Me To Hell winds up my favorite film of 2009, I'll only be disappointed because I'm going to make a point to see celebrated art films this year - might as well take advantage of living in NYC and see some Spout bait - and it would be nice if at least one could engage me more than a masterpiece of craft. Sam Raimi has just as much gruesome fun here as he did with the Evil Deads, his decade of Spider-manning adding polish with no expense to his wit or imagination. That this movie can be so nasty while PG-13 (anything can fly in and out of people's mouths as long as it's not related to sex, apparently) is arguably more impressive than a making a great gore flick on a shoestring budget. A third viewing in central PA following two in NYC was a little heartbreaking, as the smaller theater played the film at a very low volume, drastically reducing its impact. If you're waiting for DVD, make sure you play it loud.

Observe And Report stands out from other goofball-hero comedies just by acknowledging how disturbed the lead is. Imagine an Adam Sandler film where pills are popped, therapists are consulted and we're never asked to find him cute. Remove the Apatowian atmosphere (not that I'd want to lose an improvised stand-off between Seth Rogen and Aziz Ansari) and you're basically left with Taxi Driver. Refreshingly, writer/director Jody Hill seems totally aware. I Love You, Man's gender twist on rom-com cliche is a smaller breakthrough, but equally welcome. Now that we've nakedly addressed the value of (and humor in) platonic male friendship - something I have more than enough experience with to appreciate - maybe the Apatow mafia can make a comedy about something else.

Proof I'm as great a catch as Paul Rudd in I Love You, Man - maybe even the wry-yet-sensitive Justin Long in Drag Me To Hell - is that I've taken my fiancee to see not only Up (my first Pixar since Toy Story) but Every Little Step, a frikkin documentary about A Frikkin Chorus Frikkin Line. Both were a little confused and a lot sweet.

When a film is as redundant as X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the value is in the details. Yes, the token black character dies early and says "damn," but the token black character is a teleporting Will.I.Am in a cowboy hat and the "damn" comes with Hugh Jackman battling a man in a fat suit that would make Mike Myers weep with envy. Jackman and Liev Schrieber do wonders as fierce, emotionally conflicted forest creatures and two characters - including Ryan Reynolds in fine jerk form - practice gunkata. To complain would be churlish.

Obsessed is similarly heroic trash, with the supporting cast and crew never seeming bored, embarrassed or even cheeky as they go through the stalker-drama motions. With this bed of professionalism to bounce upon, Beyonce is free to sass and kick ass without ever removing her heels. My Bloody Valentine is slightly less expert in its audience pleasing obviousness - I blame the lack of Jerry O'Connell - but a solid good time even without the novelty of 3D (I need to pay more attention to signs posted in the lobby).

Know1ng is anything but obvious, and if you're as crazy as Roger Ebert, I can't blame you for preferring it to everything else here. The first two thirds are a fairly successful homage to M. Night Shyamalan, with Nic Cage comforting a sensitive child while dealing with enigmatic, supernatural forces seemingly linked to the defining traumas of his life. Then sci-fi and religiosity are forced to fuck by gunpoint, providing us with an apocalyptic climax not dreamt of even in Shyamalan's philosophy. Say what you will about the quality of his films, but Cage has shown a commendable devotion to getting the weirdest shit imaginable up there on the screen, to the point that I'm shocked he had nothing to do with making The Butterfly Effect. Even something as seemingly banal as National Treasure actually concerns the glory of Freemasonry. Respect - and a permanent place on freakier Netflix queues - is due.

Watchmen is also mandatory viewing for movie pervs, and not only if you're familiar with the book. By making few alterations other than to streamline/underline the plot and up the sex and violence - courageously refusing to tamper with the cartoonish dialogue and multiple blue penises that probably aren't why this made Time's Top 100 Books Of All Time - Zack Snyder has created a tone-deaf epic about the midlife crises and global ramifications of magical men in tights. That this happened in 2009 feels incredibly appropriate, and if it keeps just one previously curious adult from ever investigating the world of superhero comics, it was worth the millions, the legal wranglings and the decades of pre-production that went into its creation.

The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three

2009-06-19T20:22:00.011-04:00

The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three had every flaw I read it did and then some. Tony Scott fills the film with blurry second-unit footage, time-displaying text (familiar from the five grating minutes I caught of his Spy Game) and wanton, sudden zoom-ins. Badass isn't derived from the New York setting, it's smeared on the screen in post. John Travolta's performance is more petulant than menacing ("lick my bunghole?" really?) and the plot is nonsensical. (If you were going to manufacture and exploit a stock market plummet by hijacking a subway car - questionable enough - would you hold the gun yourself? Wouldn't you watch from some faraway island and let professionals take care of the dirty work?) Worthlessly busier than the workmanlike original or the '98 TV remake with Edward James Olmos I can't believe I've actually seen, Pelham is very much the audience-insulting piece of shit critics have advertised.

But I didn't hate it. Scott's usual grotesquerie is reined in by the PG-13 rating (edit: turns out it's rated R, and after Drag Me To Hell I'm genuinely surprised - unless shooting deaths are flat-out verboten it must be over Travolta's language), and simple caper movies can take a lot of abuse. The cast helps, too; though Denzel Washington, James Gandolfini and John Turturro fail to make fully-formed characters out of their roles, the script gives them just enough room to show some of their natural charm and avoid the shrill cartoons or CSI-style sleepwalking this kind of story invites. Travolta even gets dangerously close to his old charisma with a colorful anecdote about watching a dog crap in Iceland (seriously, that's his highlight). I can't recommend the movie to anyone, but I can't rail against it. Shit usually smells worse and I walked away clean.

--

Side note: has Travolta had it together for a movie since Battlefield Earth? I remember him being somewhat likable (for what it was worth) in Domestic Disturbance, but I haven't seen anything else he's done this decade. His career has gone in waves, but he may be beyond the pale.

Blurbing My Life Away

2009-06-05T08:18:00.004-04:00

Hypothetically, someone reading my tumblr could be disappointed that it's short on opinions of new media and long on videos of reprehensible men like Spencer Pratt and Jay Leno. If this person exists (aw), they should check out The Singles Jukebox - if they don't already - as I'll now be contributing blurbs. Remember when this blog was full of blurbs? I still bathe in two-star DVDs, I just haven't been telling you about them.

There are a shit-ton of 2009 movies I definitely plan to write about on this blog, as well as pretentiously titled essays like "On Spoilers" I should eventually bring to life. I'll be linking to them on the tumblr, so feel free to check that alone if the silence here frustrates you. Otherwise, look to the skies.

I give up. Kinda.

2009-05-13T22:13:00.003-04:00

I still plan to write longish blog posts about various pertinent and impertinent subjects here (I do! Really!), but I've decided random youtube inanity and such looks a little too random and inane here. Instead, I'll post such things on a Tumblr, where it looks prettier. But - SERIOUSLY - I could write some mamajama of a post here tomorrow. I AM NOT KIDDING. Now that I have a separate outlet for internet media jive, maybe this blog will reblossom (or just blossom, your call) into an outlet for the kind of heady, ruminative prose that seems so refreshing in this era of twitters, SEOs and Lady GaGas. Stranger things have happened! Something to do now that Idol's almost over.

If you are looking for unheralded quality longform bloggery, check out Mind Your Own Goddamn Business, by my childhood friend Trey. It's funnier than all that big city shit (including mine), and it's straight outta Greeley, CO. I haven't seen this guy since the summer of 1991, and he's apparently aged like fine wine.

My Brain Is Melting

2009-05-09T21:46:00.003-04:00

Found out about Yooouuutuuube from Alex. Here's a few I came up with.

The first thing that came to mind.

Even more beautiful than the original video.

It's like a magic eye painting!

Not for the easily seasick.

Hell.

Evil Cowards Hype Continues Here

2009-05-05T12:31:00.006-04:00

Caught Electric Six at Maxwell's last night - don't know if they had the percussion stand last time they were in the area but Dick Valentine plays extra percussion on instrumental breaks now. It's a shame I won't be able to see them tonight at the Bowery Ballroom, as Evil Cowards, the Dick Valentine spin-off I wasn't aware of until the merch person sold me their CD, is opening. It's a synth-pop duo with back-up dancers. Ohhhh yeah.

According to their bio, Evil Cowards will be playing a bunch of shows this summer. They better, or I will cry.

Eminem, "3 AM"

2009-05-04T14:14:00.007-04:00

You know what would have been really scary, Eminem? If you were wearing clown make-up.

ich bin mclovin

2009-05-01T22:36:00.002-04:00

Type "German Trailer" into YouTube along with the name of a movie. Fun!

(Possibly less fun if you speak the language, but still.)

Other 2008 Films I Was Excited To See In February (And Have Since)

2009-04-29T20:39:00.009-04:00

Favorite to least.

Quarantine
The 28 Days Later Project, starring Emily Rose and the dude from Hostel. So entertaining that I'm not actually sure the original foreign film would be better! Can't remember when everyone took stupid pills (which always happens in thrillers so the movie doesn't end with someone hiding until its safe), so it couldn't have been that annoying when they did.

In Bruges
We really need to stop making our smartest, most inventive and most colorful comedies about hit men. There has to be a way to make one without shooting everybody in the head. There has to.

Funny Games
Exactly like the original, which I wanted to see again. Now prepared for his cold-hearted didacticism, I appreciate Michael Haneke films for their Hitchcock times Kubrick craft. He's a reliable source of cheap thrills, not unlike John Carpenter. How ironic!

Lakeview Terrace
Not quite absurd enough to do for race what The Wicker Man did for sex, but I hope Neil LaBute keeps trying.

Paranoid Park
An hour-long after school special about a disenfranchised closet case and a half-hour of slow-motion shots of teen boys on skateboards, seamlessly combined by someone who's done this all before.

August
Josh Hartnett tries so hard.

First Sunday
Katt Williams doesn't need good lines to be funny, but, apparently, Tracy Morgan does.

Rachel Getting Married

2009-04-29T19:20:00.004-04:00

It's funny to hear people talk about Rachel Getting Married as Jonathan Demme's comeback: I might have enjoyed the film a lot more if I wasn't familiar with his work. Neil Young, Robyn Hitchcock, Sister Carol and that cross-eyed dude could have come off as inspired quirk rather than self-parody. I might have even credited the wedding's cultural mishmash (like Janeane Garofalo watching Speed, I kept waiting for an Eskimo with a spear) to the underwritten characters ("a bunch of virtuous, good-hearted people who will manage to work out all of their problems, live happily ever after, and vote for Obama," Village Voice), rather than the director. But with no explanation provided, I had blame the film's multi-culti madness on Demme, whose tastes I know more about than Rachel's.

If I wasn't familiar with Melvin And Howard and Married To The Mob, it might not depress me that the director uses cinema verite to cloak the Lifetime melodrama in Jenny Lumet's script - don't give away the shocking family trauma, viewers, or your friends may not enjoy piecing together the clues! My disappointment with Demme is what keeps me from pondering quality performances like Debra Winger's detached mom (even more impressive when you know how easily she can seduce an audience) and instead grumbling about how she's used for a cheap "fight the real enemy," Ordinary People climax. It's hard to accept how dishonest and lazy he can be when ostensibly set free.

Back soon.

2009-04-23T16:11:00.000-04:00

This belongs in a museum.

2009-02-20T11:20:00.004-05:00

As you may have guessed, forces both pleasant and otherwise are keeping me from updating this blog as regularly as I'd like. Someday soon I hope to spontaneously restart posting with unbridled enthusiasm, clockwork regularity and improved grammar. Until then, please enjoy this decanter from Michael Jackson's upcoming auction, starting at $1,000-2,000.

What's he going to serve Jesus Juice out of now?

Top 20 Movies Released In 2008 That I've Seen (Out Of 35)

2009-02-05T20:10:00.003-05:00

Harold & Kumar: Escape From Guantanamo Bay
Teeth
Tropic Thunder
The Dark Knight
Iron Man
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Doomsday
The Signal
Postal
Pineapple Express
What We Do Is Secret
Burn After Reading
Milk
The Strangers
The Ruins
The Foot Fist Way
Hamlet 2
The Spirit
Cloverfield
Rambo

20 Movies From 2008 I Haven't Seen But Can Imagine Being Better Than Rambo, Most Anticipated To Least

Lakeview Terrace
Quarantine
Happy-Go-Lucky
Paranoid Park
Funny Games
The Wrestler
Rachel Getting Married
Wendy And Lucy
Seven Pounds
August
Transporter 3
Frozen River
Hancock
Wanted
Speed Racer
In Bruges
First Sunday
Che
Flight Of The Red Balloon
Synedoche, NY

We look at each other in the eye, and it's no use.

2009-02-01T18:36:00.009-05:00

Payday
If you thought Walk The Line pussied out on hard living, see this movie. The only real problem I had with it was the ending: just about all of Maury Dann's real-life Outlaw counterparts made it to their sixties and beyond. You couldn't have expected the filmmakers to guess that in '73, though. Or that Rip Torn would outlive them.

Paths Of Glory
It's startling and touching to see Stanley Kubrick wrestling with man's inhumanity to man after watching his later films, which quickly devolved from sardonic giggles over the subject to droll resignation. His treatment of horror is already unflinching and almost sadistic (the climax is practically politicized torture porn), but he hadn't settled on the "man is beast" thesis that underlines the last thirty years of his work. It shouldn't surprise that Kirk Douglas' speeches and the commoner-pitying coda don't quite soothe. They didn't soothe Kubrick either.

The Craft
It's hard to tell what the moral is of this teen witch melodrama. Is it wrong to take revenge on violent assholes? Does absolute power only corrupt those with class resentments? Despite the vague Gump subtext, the movie's still worth it for Fairuza Balk (her day will come) and Skeet Ulrich, whose dimbulb Depp has never been better utilized.

The Tao Of Steve
A life of tragically little sexual conquest has left me with a soft-spot for burlesque cocksmen, from Greg Dulli to LL Cool J to Henry Miller. Which is why I forgive myself for not being revolted by a sitcom indie about a lardass hook-up guru starring Donal Logue.

Breathless
I'll take it on faith that there may have been a time when Hollywood did not give time to the young, stylish and amoral - and I can believe that the French got there first. I almost even buy that it was fresh to hear characters blathering "all women..."/"all men..." generalizations. But I won't pretend that this movie's influence on American cinema hasn't made everything but its Frenchiness incredibly familiar.

The Big Chill
Now-familiar white boomers dance to then-familiar black music and discuss how weird it is that they all grew up to be rich despite their ideals. I'm guessing the John Sayles version is significantly less devoted to telling boomers that they're still lovable.

The Mother, The Whore And The Robot Maid.

2009-01-25T12:30:00.005-05:00

Another evocation of Kanye's fascinating dilemma.

You can never have too much sugar.

2009-01-23T19:55:00.007-05:00

Hud
A young man must decide whether to idolize his rakish uncle determined to succeed or his moral grandfather determined to suffer. When Gramps questions the honor of selling his otherwise worthless land to an oil company, you can't blame the country for choosing Hud.

The Perfect Storm
A group of likable actors go on a suicidal fishing mission - Armageddon on the ocean. Mary Elisabeth Mastrantonio, Karen Allen and Diane Lane do a lot of yelling. Not sure why Mark Wahlberg let Lane use that Boston accent in front of him.

The Abyss
James Cameron is the missing link between Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay, and he should be proud that he's not George Lucas. Sure knows how to make a three hour movie feel like two.

Definitely, Maybe
Van Wilder Ryan Reynolds is not the white Will Smith. Sweetiepie Abigail Breslin is not precocious. Isla Fisher is not Nicole Kidman, but sure sounds like her when half-heartedly attempting an American accent. Why was this a wide-release film advertised in theaters before Enchanted when it's identical to the countless blah dramedies that go straight to DVD each year? Maybe someone thinks Ryan Reynolds is the white Will Smith.

Michael
The movie coasted to $100 million off of John Travolta's charm, a quality praised even in negative reviews of the movie. Failing to notice it myself, I was instead entertained by the sound of William...Hurt? and AAAndie McDAOowul falling in love over Randy Newman's twerpy, arbitrary motifs - my favorite being the fretless bass and synth-reggae that accompanies the sight of Travolta in boxers.

MIA On Her Oscar Nomination

2009-01-23T17:31:00.002-05:00

Thank you to all the people who are supporting us and the making of a real story of a slumdog millionaire…maybe I can afford to book Dave Chappelle at the baby shower now.

She knows Edgar Bronfman, Jr. is her fiancee's father, right?

This happened.

2009-01-22T19:19:00.004-05:00

For Suri.

Did the kid still have his glasses on?

2009-01-20T17:38:00.006-05:00

From imdb:

A teenage movie fan has been stabbed following a New York screening of gruesome horror movie My Bloody Valentine 3-D.

An unnamed 16-year-old boy reportedly refused to leave the Long Island, New York theatre after the film had finished on Sunday night and began fighting with security guard Ricardo Singh, 24.

The youngster was stabbed during the tussle and admitted to Winthrop University Hospital, where he received treatment for his injuries and was subsequently released.

Singh was arrested, charged with second-degree assault and is set to be arraigned on Tuesday.

I just love that the security guard pulled a knife out, not the teenager refusing to leave the theater. Can we still blame this on horror movies?

My Bloody Valentine Is Not In 3-D At Every Theater

2009-01-20T01:03:00.012-05:00

MAKE SURE YOU CHECK BEFORE YOU RUN TO THE TICKET MACHINE.

Shockingly, the movie was entertaining enough without the special effect - we actually stayed till the end! With all due to respect to the middle aged little person flung into the ceiling by a pick axe, the greatest sight was the green wool-knit sweater Tom Atkins (Halloween III: Season Of The Witch) wears in his climactic scene. Badass is all well and good, but retired sheriffs like to stay warm. If Clint Eastwood wears something similar in Gran Torino, I might actually watch it.

I'm tempted to see this again, assuming it's somewhere that's showing it in 3-D. It was going to be my first experience of the sort since Captain Eo! You have no idea how psyched I was. Damn cheapskates repressing advances in cinematic technology.

RIP Ricardo

2009-01-14T17:58:00.002-05:00

This remains awesome.

Did you know he was married to the same woman, Georgiana Young, for 63 years, until her death in '07? I would kill to read their love letters. You know they're florid.

Holidays are over, and hopefully so's my cold, so expect regular posting to resume.

"Run" Fun

2008-12-30T20:42:00.006-05:00

Two visual interpretations of Gnarls Barkley's "Run" I prefer to the actual video. One from the band, and one from a fan.

(The 2nd chorus is clumsily lengthened to no positive effect in this clip, but I still enjoy it a lot)

You’ve been lied to, it’s already inside you

2008-12-26T10:49:00.013-05:00

My Top 50 Singles Of 2008

#1) Gnarls Barkley, "Run"
Between an inevitable backlash (something I would have been happy to join in after the excessive accolades for St. Elsewhere) and a video that played the track off like "Hey Ya!, pt. II," my favorite single of 2008 by a country mile never really had a chance. Andre hid the fact that he was turning off his heart with a nonsense chorus and some cute come-ons in the coda. Cee-Lo sweats out images of global and self destruction while Dangermouse sucks all the complacency out of Mark Ronson's breakbeat-soul, placing a ball of confusion behind Cee-Lo like the boulder from Raiders Of The Lost Ark.

It's closer in spirit to Electric Six's "Rock'n'Roll Evacuation" than any pop smash, even if it sounds like an easy one. Too propulsive for dancing, but it's not meant to make you move from side to side. In 1968, it was "people...come together!" Today, it's an attack, it's falling from the sky, it's a bomb, it's a hurricane, it's a virus, it's an addiction, it's airborne, it's an economic meltdown, it's calling from inside the house, it's "people...RUN!"

#2) Fall Out Boy feat. John Mayer, "Beat It!"
Am I saying that emo boys can't do better than commit to trashy pop-metal and apply their melismatic passion to an '80s camp classic? Probably. Am I saying that singles don't come any greater? In 2008 - almost. I even love when the band slows down to watch John Mayer fuck a donkey.

If you don't know I'll make it very clear

2008-12-24T20:18:00.012-05:00

#3) The Hives, "T.H.E.H.I.V.E.S."
Despite appearing in more than its fair share of ads, the 2007 jock-jam "Tick Tick Boom" failed to make a dent on any chart - maybe the video should have been set in a sports arena instead of an art museum. Corporate enthusiasm apparently waned to the point that I only know "T.H.E.H.I.V.E.S." was a single because Wikipedia told me. This is a crime - Pharrell and the Swedes crafted a crossover theme song that could have been their "Miss You," their "Rapture," their real one-hit. Maybe some charitable trailer producer will overlook the self-aggrandizement and exploit the beat.

#4) Julian Casablancas, Santogold & Pharrell Williams, "My Drive-Thru"
Not sure the Strokes or Santogold gave Converse any noticeable cachet, but this sure was worthwhile for the artists. Whether it was the guarantee of moolah or the novelty of working with a Neptune, Casablancas reaches for unprecedented effects as a singer, his energy almost startling after the decay suggested by First Impressions Of Earth's sluggish howling. Santogold has never sounded more assuredly pop, with her "we all want to dance" beating Nelly Furtado at her own game.

Pharrell keeps the groove eccentric without succumbing to his NERDish insularity, and assumes a supporting role more graciously than I knew he could. He says making the jingle was "completely refreshing" and it sounds like it. When I say I hope it's a sign of things to come, I'm not talking about an increase in corporate commissions for hipsters.

She screamed so loud, until she was laughing

2008-12-23T23:01:00.006-05:00

#5) CSS, "Rat Is Dead (Rage)"
Kim-rock lives, or at least unexpectedly redeemed what was otherwise the most disappointing sophomore slump in indie-dance history. I'm still waiting on an explanation for why the band of 2006 now only sounds inspired when they ape 1994, but I'll settle for a follow-up that expands on the idea.

#6) Coldplay, "Viva La Vida"
Imagining what it's like to be George W. Bush, pretending to be the Arcade Fire. With so many bands sounding like (and fantasizing about being) Coldplay, this is a remarkable evolution.

Look what I can do with my feet

2008-12-22T08:40:00.004-05:00

#7) Chris Brown, "Forever"
This song is not a Doublemint ad. Brown was recording one when Polow Da Don's Wonder-esque keyb-harmonica inspired him to free associate visionary gibberish about love, dancing and "moving at the speed of light into eternity" on the corporate dollar (I refuse to believe that even Chris Brown could write "We've only got one night...to dance forever" on paper...or I dunno, his Blackberry). Proof positive that these zombie children of the damned don't see commercial considerations as any kind of artistic impediment.

#8) Nine Inch Nails, "Discipline"
Ironies abound as Trent drops his most commercial jam yet after saying goodbye to the majors. Lyrical message: he can't survive without your stern guidance. Musical message: Trent didn't become an INXS fan for Jimmy Iovine's sake. Only question: is he saying "I need your discipline...Jewwww!" in the coda? Is this alt-rock's "They Don't Care About Us" or is he reaching out (returning?) to the faith?

I won't let you let me down so easily

2008-12-21T18:38:00.002-05:00

#9) Hot Chip, "Ready For The Floor"
Any well-crafted homage to "Batdance" and Philippe Decouflé is going to enamor me to the song it promotes, but this was my favorite Hot Chip track before I saw the video. Equally playful and sentimental, a dash of clarity away from irresistible.

#10) Death Cab For Cutie, "I Will Possess Your Heart"
It took a long time for me to stop calling him Ben Gelding, but increasing exposure to their increasing hookcraft got me to overcome my fear of an emo Garfunkel. Now I credit his poise and sanity for helping them avoid REM's gigantism as they energize for arenas and Radiohead's abstraction as they expand their sound. This eight-minute career high makes similar feats like "Moby Octopad" and "Paranoid Android" sound respectively schleppy and obtuse. Too assured for indie - call it "post-pop-rock," maybe.

Dirty like sex that's on the ground

2008-12-20T19:18:00.004-05:00

#11) Kevin Rudolf feat. Lil' Wayne, "Let It Rock"
Timbaland Presents: Shock Value + Dick Valentine ("Because when I arrive, I, I bring the fire!") = OMFG. Lil' Wayne sounds as excited by this as I am; if you know of a recent track on which he's this bouncy (no slurring at all! even gives an encore!), please alert me immediately. If you need a reason to get the past radio cheese (snob), read the verses as anti-Christianist protest ("I see your dirty face hide behind your collar...now the son's disgraced"). Timely!

#12) Hercules & Love Affair, "Blind"
In which disco redeems a diva. Antony, please don't return to the darkness. Remain in light.

One look in the mirror and I'm tickled pink

2008-12-19T18:31:00.004-05:00

#13) Weezer, "Pork And Beans"
The A&R man said "I don't hear a single," so River bitches about it over Blue Album overdrive just to prove he can hit the mark whenever he wants to. Too bad the A&R man didn't say "I don't hear an album." Did I say Beyonce made the best video? Sorry, Weezer made the best video.

#14) Miley Cyrus, "See You Again"
The first Disney-pop track I know of to hang around the Top 20, and it's easy to see why. '80s melodrama made more human and no less bombastic by a teen too quirky to be consumed by the factory. "My best friend Leslie said 'Oh, she's just being Miley'" is a fillip equal to the "Thank you" on Prince's "Take Me With U." Not that she's Prince - who made four singles from his soundtrack score even higher. Then again, her adolescent work may well be better than that of Champagne.

Yeah, I'll miss the boredom and the freedom and the time spent alone

2008-12-18T19:58:00.011-05:00

#15) MGMT, "Time To Pretend"
Caveat: only recently realized I've been listening to the version on their self-released EP, where the scenester will-to-power is made ironic by soft vocals and a tinny beat. The obnoxiousness of the remake dulls the effect, so I linked to the '05 track instead of the '08 single (this may explain why I Just Don't Get "Electric Feel" or anything else off their album). Had I noticed earlier, I would have pulled this song from this list, but whatevs - I caveated it.

#16) Gnarls Barkley, "Going On"
Girl, Cee-Lo is a free bird. If you want to roll with him you're going to have to give up all worldly possessions, meditate, build a spaceship, move to LA, kill yourself, get crazy high, whatever heaven he's advocating. They sure make it sound like the place to be.

Change my number, switch my cards up

2008-12-17T08:58:00.002-05:00

#17) Trina, "I'm Single Again"
Angry, defiant, hurt, cynical, dismissive, confused, contemptuous, flip, nostalgic, frank, hysterical, resentful, so over it. Moments as withering and humiliatingly self-aware as the rebuke "You fell in love with my ass, King Magazine, you fell in love with my ass" are reminscent of the best Kanye West and shame the "vulnerability" of his worst. Almost makes me wish this was an answer track.

#18) Pitbull feat. Lil' Jon, "Krazy"
Instead of the usual salacious (and always welcome) come-ons, Pitbull uses this stereotypical (and always welcome) Lil Jon crowd-filler to ponder the unponderables. "Kanye no style, J Lo no ass, Fifty no beef, Jay Z no cash...Iraq no war, U.S no Bush, Cuba no Castro, Atlanta no cush..." Having provided this mental gristle, he invites women of all races to go batshit on the dancefloor. Krazy like a fox.

You mean to me what I mean to you

2008-12-16T20:55:00.003-05:00

#19) Chris Brown, "With You"
It's going to be a sad day when Chris Brown's voice doesn't exude innocence - try to imagine a thirtysomething climaxing a campfire ballad with "baby, you're the best part of my day!" A love letter that rolls out every cliche imaginable and gets away with it, because it sounds like his first.

#20) Metro Station, "Shake It"
The elder siblings of two Hannah Montana stars conflate soaring flocks of seagulls with knicker-dropping knackness for a space age fuck song worthy of the young, sensitive and sexually active. Destined for hipster rediscovery on a flashback comp, assuming they still have those things fifteen years from now.

Sometimes I think what I need is a you intervention, yeah

2008-12-15T22:00:00.002-05:00

#21) Madonna feat. Timbaland & Justin Timberlake, "4 Minutes"
Imagine the Bee Gees singing back-up on "D'Ya Think I'm Sexy?" Sure, it would have detracted from the song's novelty ("4 Minutes"' lack of clarity - brand or otherwise - is probably why "Obaaama, uh!" having four years to save the world didn't become a meme), but the aural excess would have been too too too.

#22) MIA, "Paper Planes"
Yes, I heard it last year. And I knew it was a single, too. But 2008 is when it became a single for most, including me. Pitchfork praise couldn't get me past that KGB ref, a stereotypically stiff Letterman performance or rhyming "wireless" and "gas." Pineapple Express, that drunk guy on the subway quoting more than TI would and MIA getting her sandwich cart on a giant screen in Times Square did the trick.

I like the way you take advantage of every man you love

2008-12-14T19:45:00.007-05:00

#23) Lil' Mama feat. Chris Brown & T-Pain, "Shawty Get Loose (Remix)"
Her album spent too much time arguing why she should be Voice Of The Young People instead of earning the title with more tracks as fresh as "Lip Gloss" and this, the only reason the album actually got released. Only wish the remix included both her excised verse full of hair advice ("you wash, set, blow and then you wash, set, blow") and the T-Pain rap that replaced it (a gregarious glimpse of what he'll do after autotune). She's young enough that I hope she'll learn how to make her anguish as striking as her confidence. When she does, I'm sure the world will under-appreciate her as much as it does MC Lyte.

#24) Colby O'Donis feat. Akon, "What You Got"
Don't get me wrong, Kanye fans! I'm not saying unchecked misogyny doesn't have a place in pop music. I love to hear this douche tell cutie to stfu on this underappreciated teen pop jam. I even dig it when Akon advises him that, yes, women are selfish vipers and that Colby is wise to keep them at arm's length. I just think being a clueless jerkface benefits an "Under My Thumb" more than a Blood On The Tracks. Big points for casting Colby as a sales assistant at a women's clothing store in the video.

Let's both get undressed right here

2008-12-13T14:40:00.009-05:00

#25) Usher feat. Young Jeezy, "Love In This Club"
I regret not checking out Here I Stand until recently; it's as overbaked and overlong as I feared, but not boring. Where Kells overstates for amusement, Usher sounds like he doesn't realize his grandiosity has become surreal. The album holds up thanks to the tunes and pathology, but the highlight remains the sole megahit, whose final verse obliterates any assumption of metaphor in the chorus. Rather than downscale, I hope his next album takes Usher to Vegas.

#26) M83, "Graveyard Girl"
Laying on the adolescent identification after realizing there's no points for subtlety, shoegaze-synth auteur Anthony Gonzales might be my favorite panderer since Sugar Ray traded Cali metal clowning for Beach B-Boys. If Diablo Cody had John Hughes' work ethic, she'd already have written the teen romance whose soundtrack would take this b(r)and to #1 - this being the title track.

But I don't need a cent, 'cause shorty priceless

2008-12-12T09:00:00.003-05:00

#27) Lloyd feat. Lil' Wayne, "Girls All Around The World"
Apparently too effervescent for anyone to bother purchasing, or maybe there was one too many Wayne tracks around the month it was pushed. "For What It's Worth" was another airy summer jam that underwhelmed the marketplace - maybe this track will have the shelf life it deserves.

#28) Danity Kane, "Damaged"
I always think I'm overrating this track, that maybe it should switch places with Beyonce - something with a little more meat to it. So I'll just steal a slice of Frank Kogan's: "I'm genuinely thrilled by the way the Danitys' baroquely show-offy harmonies and polyphonies work in the supposedly slutty context. Quite beautiful, the harmony floating in blobs and then voices adding intricate little cries on the side." Tasty!

I wanna be with the one I know

2008-12-11T08:50:00.001-05:00

#29) Flo-Rida feat. Timbaland, "Elevator"
So is the elevator his penis? His heart? I have listened to this song so many times (Timbaland disco is the best autopilot ever) and I still haven't cracked this metaphor. I have a hard time believing he'll be able to pull off energetic pap-rap of such a high grade for more than one album, so enjoy it while it lasts or wait a few months for it to end.

#30) Miley Cyrus, "7 Things"
Synth string festooned punk pop - you'd think it was 2002 or something! Her inability to count only underscores the nutty enthusiasm (what is that accent? Hillbilly Avril?) that separates her from the Disney pack. Makes me wanna pull out The Young & The Hopeless and remember the dream.

How does it feel to be the shit and the urine?

2008-12-10T08:36:00.003-05:00

#31) T.I. feat. Jay-Z, Lil' Wayne & Kanye West, "Swagga Like Us"
Four probably past-prime rappers dominating the charts by default reaffirm their bragging rights over wheedly synths - I shouldn't even be able to remember this track. But the synths pay slightly slack tribute to early DMX, and the competition inspires West to rap with energy while Jay and Weezy briefly express casual confidence - all good looks. T.I. overprepares, remains the workaday hustler of bromides while doing so. Love the hook.

#32) Ne-Yo, "Closer"
I may have sickened on his Smokey-meets-Lloyd Dobler, but there's plenty of fun to be gained from his Michael Jackson. Not that his exclamations of fear don't sound like a genre exercise. Unless commercial considerations keep him from chasing his muse, I'm worried this gentleman will soon be defined by his masochistic concept of romantic respect.

Sitting in restaurants, thought we were so grown up

2008-12-09T19:15:00.007-05:00

#33) Lil' Wayne, "Lollipop"
I can't imagine why "A Milli" is the official Great Lil' Wayne Song Of 2008. I'd happily trade its - I dunno, purity? - for the licks and giggles on the most slavering slice of autotune I heard this year. And for those who think it's short on stream-of-consciousness puns, notice that "that pussy in my mouth got me lost for words" is a variation on "cat got your tongue." The chorus references two of Robert Christgau's favorite singles of 2005, which were probably two of your least. I was pretty into one of them.

#34) Kate Nash, "Merry Happy"
Plunking on her piano and multi-tracking her voice into absurdity until she's ok with being single again. Nash is of those faux-cockney, possibly upper-class female (it's always female) singers I hear I should be offended by on principle, but I'm not. I'd hate to have to toss every '90s alt-rock album from California for the same reason.

Feeling clumsy, about to fall

2008-12-08T19:25:00.006-05:00

#35) Hot Chip, "One Pure Thought"
Thought they were a clowny Beta Band at first, but they've evolved into a clowny New Order, which is a lot more rewarding. Once the groove gets underway, I'm nowhere as bothered by their received wisdom as they claim to be.

#36) Heidi Montag, "One More Drink"
Finally, a song that celebrates getting drunk enough to fuck! Can't say much for her other leaks (though I'll take "Fashion" over "Labels Or Love"), but this is the best unintentional Randy Newman song since John Mayer spoke for the trustafarians on "Waiting On The World To Change." And this one you can dance to.

What I deserve is a man that makes me, then takes me and delivers me to a destiny, to infinity and beyond

2008-12-07T14:08:00.014-05:00

#37) Beyonce, "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)"
Webbie's worst nightmare. And yes, music video is now at the point where a simple Fosse tribute is unquestionably the finest thing created all year.

#38) Hinder, "Use Me"
"She says she loves me, but I know she's a liar." "I bet she's wonderin' if I'm worth her while...But I ain't sweatin' cause I'm first on the speed dial." "I won't be a fool and fight it, she's gonna use me but I like it." This is a wise perspective for these whores to take on corporate sponsorship, and I appreciate the relish with which they've accepted their lot. Not up to "Whole Lotta Love" or "Any Way You Want It," but arguably equal to "Finish What You Started."

Don't ask for silverware, don't ask for nothing

2008-12-06T10:13:00.004-05:00

#39) Scarlett Johannsen, "Falling Down"
The thinking man's Pamela Anderson doesn't project or interpret as a singer any more than she does as an actress, which also means she can't kill a Tom Waits cover with thespian reverence. If I hear anything in the vocal, it's a bemused disbelief that she's singing drunk tank schmaltz over 4AD twinkle and the Dave Sitek Gospel Choir. But even if she's tabula rasa, the track's infinitely prettier than the original, on which an elderly Rowlf tries to pass a kidney stone.

#40) 2 Pistols feat. T-Pain, "She Got It"
Promises of sex and merchandise hooked around a T-Pain koan ("I know she got it cause she looking at me like she want it"). I prefer the Polow mix, which trades routine bombast for day spa swank.

Like your sex, but more love what you do

2008-12-05T08:03:00.002-05:00

#41) Plies feat. Ne-Yo, "Bust It Baby Part 2"
Snoop Dogg and Ice Cube fill their albums with tired gangsta bullshit so they can cred their way through AOL ads and PG movies. Plies must don a ski-mask and flash guns on his album cover so he can get away with sending skeezy valentine after skeezy valentine to radio. Between the brazenness of his details ("My favorite panties of yours...") and backdrops (Janet's "Come Back To Me"), they almost make me curious to hear his tired gangsta bullshit.

#42) Webbie feat. Lil' Boosie & Lil' Phat, "I.N.D.E.P.E.N.D.E.N.T."
"Man, I am so tired of gold diggers." "What I want is an independent woman that wants nothing from me but my dick." "Dude, we need to find ourselves some feminists!" "Oh shit, yeah!" "Hey, I know, let's go join NOW!" "Punch it in!"

Got me hypnotized, so mesmerized

2008-12-04T07:51:00.004-05:00

#43) Portishead, "Machine Gun"
808s & Heartbreak stripped of its assholery (yay) and Top 40 tricks (I'll live) by Beth Gibbons' wallpaper wail, which the dudes know just how to decorate. Naming the song after the drum pattern suggests they realize the inversion of focus.

#44) David Archuleta, "Crush"
OMG HOW COULD YOU PEOPLE VOTE FOR DAVID COOK? WTF!!! Did you really need another Daughtry???!! HE DOESN'T EVEN SHAVE!!! Archuleta looks like Fievel and sings like James Ingram!!! And you went for Oatmeal Goatee!!! Well LOL on you, our boy's found a pop persona: virgin Enrique!!!! Awww!!! Meanwhile, America's Idol (you suck, America) is like "BUHHHH PHHBBBTTT EYELINER GOATEE PHBBTTT." Why is he not wearing an Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat yet?? He SUUUUUCKS!!! ARCHULETA RULES!!!

I am an introvert, an excavator

2008-12-03T08:31:00.003-05:00

#45) Akon, "Right Now (Na Na Na)"
808s & Heartbreak stripped of its assholery (yay) and grating sound (I'll live) by Akon's consummate professionalism. Admittedly, his narrative doesn't lend itself to the easy thinkpiece, so it may hold less value for some.

#46) Santogold, "L.E.S. Artistes"
Fans are right to be annoyed by the lazy MIA comparisons - comparisons her label encouraged, as indie won't buy a veteran ska-popper with a Siouxsie streak on her own merits (I doubt the former A&R rep in question minded them, either). I don't have any more use for her shouting than I did Gwen Stefani's, and I bet Gwen would have taken "Lights Out"'s hook from Bubbling Under to my top 20. Tegan & Sara wouldn't have improved on this conflicted self-coronation, though. And the second half of this video is my favorite of the year.

Plus, you need a little ventilation

2008-12-02T08:10:00.005-05:00

#47) T-Pain feat. Lil' Wayne, "I Can't Believe It"
As Pain put it, "Teddy Riley can't do it better than Roger Troutman. I can't do it better than Teddy Riley. And can't nobody do it better than me." Which is why I can get past Lil' Wayne, who sounds like he's nodding off mid-mackdown on the subway.

#48) Katy Perry, "I Kissed A Girl"
Yes, Perry takes Jill Sobule's smug ode to self-discovery and turns it into girl-on-girl crime. I can only hope she was grossed out by Simon Rex's "then they grabbed my dick" rewrite, the chauvinist response her soulless attention-shrieking asked for. But I get a lot more pleasure out of this trashbeat burlesque ("you're my experimental game!") than the Lilith Fair woo-bait. If you think both songs suck, that's fine.

All your diction dripping with disdain

2008-12-01T08:15:00.006-05:00

#49) Eve feat. Robin Thicke, "Fantasy"
A charismatic rapper waxes erotic over a tight beat, an r&b singer cooing consent on the chorus. Sounds like an easy hit, so I guess they got the genders wrong - the cocksman is supposed to do the objectifying. Hip-hop no longer knows what to do with a pro-sex woman who's neither Queen Bitch nor a Pussycat Doll. Bet she sings on the track that finally gets the ever-more-wryly-titled Here I Am released.

#50) Vampire Weekend, "Oxford Comma"
You should listen to indie-pop's album of the year, if:

You get off on the cover of Crazy Rhythms more than the music.

You've wanted to molest Michael Cera since he was 16.

You can list every Walkmen album in order of preference.

You have no reservations about the work of Wes Anderson.

You would love the Police even if they lacked chops, musical and vocal.

"A-Punk" would shine on the second disc of an Outlandos d'Amour reissue, but "Oxford Comma" is the track that says they just needed another year or three in the oven before serving. If we're lucky (ok, if I am), sudden fame will stoke pop ambitions, lower Ezra Koenig's voice, raise his confidence past "lol music" refs and mold him into a more literate John Mayer. Maybe he'll even fire the drummer.

As rickrolling achieves "macarena"-like stature...

2008-11-28T01:32:00.004-05:00

A full commitment's what I'm thinking of. You wouldn't get this from any other guy. Unless Astley believes he's the only man on earth capable of fidelity, he's totally negging you.

We know The Game and we're gonna play it.

808s & Heartbreak.

2008-11-26T03:56:00.012-05:00

Believe me, I get why it's interesting. Kanye aiming for Portishead, for Bjork, for Thom Yorke. At the same time, he's aiming for Akon & T-Pain. Unabashed anguish from a megastar. It's interesting.

But it's also an insult to Portishead, Bjork and Thom Yorke. Hell, it's an insult to Akon & T-Pain. It's the unabashed anguish of an egomaniac who lost a girl he treated like shit. Not that he regrets treating her like shit - he just can't believe she left him. He's the greatest guy in the world! He's not sorry, he's confused. How could she be so heartless? "Will I ever love again?" "Life's just not fair." For all the dramatic distorted synths, this is a dark night of the soul worthy of Spencer Pratt. It's "Song Cry" Phil Collinsed & chopped. And I hated "Song Cry." I hate hearing guys say "when I cheated, it was different" with a straight face. I'm kinda shocked more people don't.

Not that anyone's really praising his lyrics. "He's always been an asshole." But he used to be an asshole with a sense of humor. He never really bothered to rhyme, but now he doesn't even bother to off-rhyme. He just spouts douchey nam-myoho-renge-kyos into a computer. When he does bless us with a novel noun, it's "why you gotta be so Dr. Evil?" And you're not allowed to laugh. He's in pain, and it's all her fault. Poor Kanye.

Sorry, but when I want distorted synth dystopia, I'll pop on Third or The Eraser. Beth and Thom can sing. On top that gift Kanye lacks, they also sound like they take more than two weeks to write and record an album. Their misery is abstracted - which is preferable to petty. I appreciate the beauty of what I'm hearing, not what a phenomenally shitty boyfriend Kanye must be. Their vague moans aren't for all, but the moping shouldn't offend anyone who'd sit through 808s & Heartbreak. I'm not so hard-up for this sound that I need to put up with a grating "okayyy, okayyy okayyyy, you need to stop it nowww, you need to stop it nowwwww."

If I want moody auto-pop, Akon's got this tearful yet pulsing hit called "Right Now (Na Na Na)." He even bothers to change a word or two on each line of the chorus. Maybe that proves he's not really sad like Kanye. Maybe it doesn't make people think about the depth of Akon's sadface the way 808s lets people think about the depth of Kanye's sadface. But why would you want to?

Read Scandalist!

2008-11-25T20:31:00.004-05:00

If you do, I promise to make more stuff like this.

YOU'RE DOG BUT YOU'RE CAT, YOU'RE THIN BUT YOU'RE FAT

2008-11-25T13:37:00.010-05:00

December 1-25, Top 50 Singles of 2008. Two songs a day. I'd be hard pressed to even make a list of my ten favorite albums this year, but there are a lot of songs I've got a lot to say about. Until then, I'm going to try and touch on a few songs and artists I dug that didn't make the list.

When it came to disco gibberish this year, Chris Brown won (dude could moon mindlessly over an ottoman if Ikea paid him to) and Brandon Flowers lost (dude's jingle would be called "A Man Named Otto"). Katy Perry's was neither transcendent nor helpless, just unabashedly craven. The reciting of opposites in the chorus is mind-numbing, but Kelly Clarkson should hire whoever gold-plated the musical hooks (edit: turns out she already has - you still got it, Max Martin and Dr. Luke). Plus it's fun to make up your own words: "You're land and you're sea, you're poop but you're pee. You're east and you're west, you're leg but you're breast."

When Smokey Sniffles

2008-11-23T08:27:00.005-05:00

I'm not done "giving it a chance," but I can't share the enthusiasm of everyone who loves Ne-Yo's Year Of The Gentleman (which seems to be everyone who's heard it). Maybe it's a sign of my own puerility, but the "callowness" Matos refers to humanized him on In My Own Words - a Nice Guy who also wanted to be Top Gun. Now he's beyond such earthly enthusiasms.

After the opening "Closer" establishes his sexual helplessness, he vapidly praises her infinite glories before revealing himself to be a model masochist: Are you cheating? Lie to me! Oooh, girl, nevermind. If you love him, go back to him! I don't know why you love me anyway! I'll smile, fade into the background, and nail myself to this cross, whimpering in falsetto for my sins. He even ruins the oft-quoted "calamari > pity parties" line by deciding to wet nurse the girl pining for her ex anyway. Quality songwriting aside (though some of the midi-synth flourishes are worthy of a video game about elves), his concept of a "gentleman" seems pretty damn sniveling.

Elizabeth Banks Is My Homegirl

2008-11-21T22:13:00.010-05:00

The last three movies I've seen in theaters - W., Zack & Miri Make A Porno and Role Models - have starred Elizabeth Banks. I'm almost tempted to avoid the cinema until the January release of The Uninvited, where she will get to play an evil stepmother instead of a sympathetic romantic interest. At the moment, I can't even think of any movies I urgently want to see that would interrupt this streak of Elizabeth Banks films. Oh, wait - I want to see The Spirit. Why wasn't she in that?

Zack & Miri benefits from following my least favorite comedy of the decade in the director's oeuvre. Unlike Clerks II, Zack & Miri has likable characters and unforced jokes. Even more amazing - it has extras! Kevin Smith is almost like a real movie director now! You'd almost believe that he's directed EIGHT movies!

From his fondness for musical montage to his pussy-ass emotional speeches (not to mention Jersey Girl), it's clear that Smith would love to be Cameron Crowe when he grows up. That he'll settle for 2nd rate Judd Apatow is both humble (he's got a bigger cult than Judd) and ambitious (Judd has a bigger commercial audience). Whatever - better Kevin Smith aping someone funny than Kevin Smith aping himself.

Role Models suffers from following my favorite comedy of the decade in the director's oeuvre. It's almost admirable that David Wain would adhere to mainstream comedy tenets after the boffo narrative-nihilism of Wet Hot American Summer and The Ten (without surrendering all intelligence like Michael Showalter's mewling The Baxter - starring Elizabeth Banks), but you can feel the tentativeness. Unwilling to wink and unwilling (or unable) to go for earnest affect, Wain relies on Paul Rudd to provide any and all emotional pull. Not wanting to come off like a sap, Wain decides not to come off at all. Even when the cast is swordfighting in Kiss make-up, the film seems respectfully removed from the action.

Wain, Rudd and Ken Marino (the dudes behind The Ten) were handed what must have been a brutally pro forma script and made it consistently amusing through a strong supporting cast, novel gags and an impressive use of profanity. Now that this experiment in mainstream entertainment has succeeded, I'm curious to see if they'll revert to State hijinks, keep polishing cliches or find some kind of middle ground, for better or worse.

All love slipped away...

2008-11-20T11:58:00.002-05:00

"Reviewing Chinese Democracy is not like reviewing music. It's more like reviewing a unicorn." - Chuck Klosterman, AV Club.

Axl is the unicorn, Chuck. Chinese Democracy is unicorn shit. And shit is shit.

AC/DC Shreds

2008-11-19T12:12:00.001-05:00

Thought all of these had been chased off YouTube. Happy to say I was wrong.

Dear god, no.

2008-11-14T15:23:00.002-05:00

From Variety:

Half Shell Entertainment has acquired screen rights to "Killing Yourself to Live," a memoir by rock journalist Chuck Klosterman about his experiences going on assignment to places where famous musicians have died.

...The book's tales center on locales ranging from the site where members of Lynyrd Skynyrd died in a plane crash to the place where Kurt Cobain committed suicide and Rhode Island's Station nightclub, where more than 100 fans died at a Great White concert when pyrotechnics caused a deadly fire.

The death sites serve as backdrop for the author to explore everything from the narcissism of pop culture to his own relationships with women in his life.

"The idea is to do a comedic road movie heavily based in rock 'n' roll," said Klosterman.

I think the casting choice is obvious.

WHOOPS

2008-11-12T20:56:00.007-05:00

Earlier today, I accidentally posted one of Andy's letters onto this blog. Apologies to anyone confused or frightened. Apologies to Andy, too - I didn't mean to take credit for his work.

Thank you, I'll be here all week.

2008-11-11T17:49:00.005-05:00

All Hip-Hop:

A Christmas classic will get a Hip-Hop makeover, thanks to a new Gap campaign featuring rapper Flo Rida and R&B vocalists Trey Songz and Janelle Monae. The international specialty retailer cited the appeal of Hip-Hop artists among brand marketers as motivation fro recruiting Songz and Flo Rida to write what it calls a “street-smart rendition” of “Jingle Bells” for its Merry Mix It campaign.

He's got the red velvet pants
Boots with the fur
Sleigh driven by tiny rein-durr
From the north po'
He hit the flo'
Santa said "ho, ho, ho, ho..."

Sadly, this isn't the first time I've done this.

holy shit, this was 16 years ago.

2008-11-05T01:44:00.005-05:00

miley cyrus was not even born when this happened.

Where is the big-ass MTV Obamarama party? Where is Barack's Fleetwood Mac? A hologram of Will.I.Am on CNN doesn't count.

(Edit: Morning Anthony remembered that all the jazz I'm referring to happened at the inauguration, not election night. The infant Miley was indeed alive for this. So the tone of this post should be giddy-who knows what insanity the music industry will cook up January 20th?).

This Was #12 On The Pazz & Jop Singles Poll

2008-11-04T07:55:00.004-05:00

And yet I can't believe anyone enjoyed listening to it.

Eminem, if that 3% possibility happens, I'm going to blame the lack of a "Mosh '08."

"Remember that time we were down in Atlantic City and the beach and all?" "We throwed down."

2008-10-29T11:45:00.004-04:00

I may have posted this before, but whatever. Young people today have no idea how big Bruce Willis' ego was in the late '80s. Watch for the first Temptation eye-roll at 0:50.

LIL' JON IS BACK TO SAVE HIP-HOP

2008-10-28T21:42:00.005-04:00

Ok, so Pitbull and Lil' Jon made a single last year, too. I kind of forgot to listen to it (making up for that now). Anyways, TVT is dead and Jon has a new deal now. The time is nigh for a Lil' Jon resurgence. Shit's gonna get manic, for a change. Just you watch.

What this is? Forgot? Now I must remind you!

2008-10-24T08:13:00.009-04:00

Due to my increasing detachment from the world of rockcrit (I still have plenty of rock crit friends, but I don't necessarily talk to them about new music or scour ILM or write any pro reviews these days), I sometimes forget that a lot of people think of me as the guy that inexplicably likes some godawful rock song/band/trend. It has been a while since I loved a recent hit that I knew (or could safely assume) my peers despised. Blame their increasing popism, my increasing rockism, our increasing age, new music's increasing assitude, whatever.

This is why I thank you, Kevin Rudolf feat. Lil' Wayne. Your cheeseball tribute to the second half of Timbaland Presents: Shock Value is just the reaffirmation of identity that I needed. This is the best faux-Electric Six song on the pop charts since "Paralyzer." Very failed crossover Armand Van Helden. Proof that the world wants their rap, techno and rock in one shameless blast. This is my scene and it's freaking me out!

I keep checking Wikipedia and such to see if the song is part of an ad campaign that would explain how this made the Top Ten when Lloyd feat. Lil' Wayne (which is respectably awesome) can't get anywhere. But I've yet to hear any reason for the success of "Let It Rock" other than that a lot of people are paying a dollar to download it. Which is awesome.

Planned Comments: "I'm melting. Oh, I'm melting. What a world."

2008-10-23T17:11:00.003-04:00

AP: John McCain's election night watch party might be missing John McCain. Instead of appearing before a throng of supporters at the Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix on the evening of Nov. 4, the Republican presidential nominee plans to deliver postelection remarks to a small group of reporters and guests on the hotel's lawn.

Joe Lieberman Thrown Under The Bus

2008-10-22T12:41:00.006-04:00

John McCain, discussing Sarah Palin on Don Imus this morning: "I think she's the most qualified of anyone recently who has run for vice president to tell you the truth... I'm frankly entertained at the elitist attitude toward a person who is a proven leader."

If we assume "recently" means the last decade, we can assume McCain ranks her qualifications above not just good buddy Senator Lieberman's, but Senator Joe Biden's, former Representative Dick Cheney's and former Senator John Edwards'. If that's the case, does that mean she's more qualified than Senator McCain?

I shouldn't be mocking what's obviously desperate overstatement, but it's too much fun.

What about Central PA, McCain?

2008-10-22T07:57:00.001-04:00

I cannot stop watching this clip.

Bush's Ego, Bush's Id

2008-10-21T20:15:00.004-04:00

Anthony Hopkins' Nixon was such an insect that the actual President looked like an ok guy when you saw his beaming face in the credits. If W. bothered to end with a shot of our current COC, we'd be reminded why the man is compared to Alfred E. Neuman and not Josh "Anthony's Top Ten Mancrushes" Brolin. Even Dick Cheney has reason to be flattered by Oliver Stone's softest political cartoon; sure the film has him delivering neocon slobber, but Richard Dreyfuss bothers to give the scumbucket some gravitas.

So why does the sap who stole two terms get more sympathy than the sap who resigned? Because, hawk or not, Dubya's a boomer. Bush ain't the only 62-year-old with daddy and drug dependency issues who achieved his ambitions despite tendencies for excess and simplification - I bet Stone has a hard time acknowledging his mistakes too.

Not only has age made Stone kind (like a successful av clubber bonding with the fat former quarterback at a high school reunion), but stylewise he's toned down his overstatement. Leila - a Stone neophyte - finds this hard to believe, but it's a sign of restraint that he saved the dream sequences for the end. An ironic fan of his flamboyancy, I was almost disappointed that the constant foreshadowing in the script isn't signaled by string stabs or conjoined with frenzied montage. But if you're not offended by the idea of quality actors making an oedipal play of the man we hope capsized the neocon dream but don't quite yet know for sure that he did - W. is easy to enjoy.

Those hungry for batshit political cinema are advised to check out An American Carol instead. You'll have to wait for DVD - me and my friend Harlan were the only people at a Sunday night screening two weeks ago - but it's worth it. Michael Moore is a great target for a cheap-shot pro like director David Zucker, and there are about seven minutes of jokes about him that would have been welcome in Scary Movie 5 (I especially enjoyed watching him bat away "fans" with an oar as he left Cuba). But even if you don't laugh at a twinkie stuck to a TV screen, you get the fascinating sight of Dennis Hopper shooting zombie ACLU lawyers and THE Bill O'Reilly standing in a urinal with an actor playing JFK and Kelsey Grammer's remarkably prissy General Patton.

Patton - the first ghost in this Dickens rewrite - takes up so much of the film's 80 minutes that "George Washington" only gets to read 30 seconds worth of one of Jon Voight's op-eds, and Trace Adkins' "Death" just growls before sending Moore to save a rally full of "real Americans" and history-spanning military ghosts from the evil Robert Davi.

That Zucker throws in a couple gay jokes at the expense of the military and Adkins shows his real cause (roffles for rabble), and the pandering behind the politics makes it even more disgusting. I doubt Zucker feels strongly about the glory of pop country, and I'm sure he knows "Christian extremists" would hijack planes if they didn't already have fighter jets. He's just carrying out the idea of a "right-wing comedy" to its tragic extreme. Comforted by his commercial chastisement, I can (knock on wood) enjoy it as a historical curio and wait patiently for Scary Movie 5.