Movies I watched last week, from favorite to least.


The missing link between John Hughes and Kevin Smith, for whatever that's worth to you.


Serious lead isn't really Marky's forte - he needs an ensemble cast to bully and bounce off of - but even if he can't singlehandledly make an overlong slo-mo action flick with confused attempts at political commentary satisfy, he survives it.


I'm guessing Herman Meville told it better, but Crispin Glover.


Walter Hill on the way up, Ryan O'Neal on the way down. Bruce Dern as the median.


Why do so many counterculture comedies just feel like logy Mel Brooks?


Self-important melodrama full of good actors who'd rather be anywhere else and Robert Redford. There's a decadent house party where the herky-jerk dancing devolves into a mock shoot-out between the cartoonish, boozing over-thirties, though. Dug that.


"Fuck the traps, I watched Saw for the doll!"

Maybe I'm just grateful to see the Hives in a follow-up video to a #1 single, but I'd rate "Throw It On Me" as the best video of the mo'. Very honorable mentions: Eve doing Missy better than Gwen or Fergie, Ne-Yo debating sending his ex a letter (not a myspace message!) before calling her at a PAY PHONE (dude is old school!), Lil' Mama giving me hope for the future, The White Stripes making eyes at each other over novelty solos, Enrique Iglesias overcoming some meta bullshit with wounded passion and his beautiful beatiful face, Shop Boyz redeeming a lame rewrite of Trick Daddy's "Let's Go," QOTSA rocking in the face of death by sexy, R. Kelly and Usher getting played, Timberlake staring into your vagina as reward for putting up with four minutes of his screensaver, Maroon 5 humping their instruments as Adam Levine stares us down in a sexy airport, Linkin Park taking on the weight of the world while rocking out in the desert with a lot of gear, and The Plain White T's singing an acoustic ballad to a girlfriend in NY named, duh, Leila.

These children are now old enough to be VH1 dating show contestants. Probably too old.

Top Five People I'd Rather See Get a VH1 Dating Show Than Bret Michaels

5. Liza Minelli. Given 50 men, let's see if she STILL winds up a beard!

4. David Lee Roth. Dude is like Ozzy, Flav and Bret Michaels put together. Reality TV gold. All his talk radio failure proved is that he needs an editor, and VH1's got the best. The opening credits can recreate the boardwalk sequence from "California Girls." Hell, make it the theme song!

3. Britney Spears. 50 skeevy men fight for the hand of the world's most famous single mother! Too famous for this kind of shamefulness, you say? Don't forget, she's already HAD a reality show. Within five years, she'll have divorced again and be ready to accept her role as a has-been. Actually, judging by her current desperation, make it three.

2. Tim Gunn. The problem with a gay-themed dating game is how quickly it could turn into the man-on-man orgy middle America isn't ready for. But not with Tim Gunn around! Gunn claims he's been resigned to singlehood ever since he was jilted by a philanderous lover in the '80s. The '80s! Sounds like VH1 needs to stage an intervention! Can they, with the help of 50 dashing, intelligent and fashionable men...Make It Work?

1. Morrissey. One of the few celebrities I can think of where the dating pool could be co-ed. At the end of each episode, the remaining contestants would be given gladioli and told "I think you understand me." The tears! The screaming! The bicycle rides! The potential for bi-curious heartbreak! "Morrissey, I saw Shauna making out with Lance." "Lance...you've lied about your interest in me..." "no, Morrissey, no..." "I am...repulsed by your treachery. You don't understand me, Lance. Please leave." "MORRISSEY!!!! MORRISSEY, NOOOOOO!!!!" Security goons pull Lance away as Morrissey turns from the miserable affair, his face awash in sadness. But eventually, one lucky man or woman will get to hear "There Is A Light That Will Never Go Out" sung by candlelight. And if no one understands him, there's always next season.

DVDs I watched last week, from favorite to least.


Another Billy Ray thriller about a mediocre staffer (Ryan Phillipe) who ostensibly proves his worth by revealing that his more successful, more fascinating antagonist (Chris Cooper) is living a whopper of a lie. And like Shattered Glass, it's so aggressively factual that the DVD includes a commentary track with the real-life hero (who looks greener than Phillipe!) and a corroborative news segment. As it concerns the FBI rather than The New Republic, Ray gets to incorporate gunplay and races against time. Not only is Cooper's performance unsurprisingly more layered than Hayden Christiansen's was, Phillipe (who has carved a niche as a well-intentioned lightweight with this, Crash and Flags Of Our Fathers) makes for a better hero than Peter Saarsgard, despite the marital strife cliches.


Nick Nolte's chiseled sheriff of few words eventually has a showdown with childhood friend/romantic rival/drug kingpin Cash Bailey, who understandably refers to himself in the third person and is played by Powers Motherfucking Boothe. Additional gunfire for director Walter Hill's Peckinpah tribute is made possible by an elite cast of B-movie veterans, including Michael Ironside, William Forsythe, Tiny Lister and Lamar from Revenge Of The Nerds. Hollow, but I'm not complaining.


A casually pathetic French millionaire tells a cabin car of polite countrymen about his obsession with a manipulative virgin. Pretty thin compared to Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie.


Peter Weir used the outback as an ominous mystical/natural threat in Picnic At Hanging Rock. Here he uses Aborigines, which is a lot more offensive whether or not he thinks white Australia deserves what it gets. Richard Chamberlain, playing a visionary attorney, doesn't help.

I haven't seen David Milch's John From Cincinnati yet, but after wasting a weekend watching Season 3 of Deadwood I won't be in any rush. Even by Season 2 I was basically watching it as a soap, indifferent to its artistic merit as long as the characters I was emotionally invested in were flung about dramatically. But thanks to the startling number of uninteresting individuals thrust into the mix, most of the cast is only given one or two Emmy moments over the entire season. The Doc is reduced to coughing fits and Sol Star gets a minute or two of teary time with Trixie near the end in exchange for episode after episode of nodding at angry people. Sometimes you'd just get a second long shot of a character to remind you they're still alive.

Instead of focusing on characters fans already know, we get a completely worthless season-long subplot involving Brian Cox and a troupe of actors (as if this show really needed more empty theatricality), countless scenes with a blustering racist who won't shut up until he's rendered comatose by a horse, Wyatt Earp and his brother (just so I could scream "THAT'S WHO HE IS! I THOUGHT IT WAS NATHAN FILLION!" when my housemate asked if the guy from Queer As Folk has shown up yet), some unfunny British dude who looks just like the Russian dude, the painful return of Stephen "My Voice Is My Passport, Verify Me" Toblowsky and dozens of anonymous no-goodniks working for evil Gerald McRaney. And while Major Dad does an OK job as George Hearst, his presence can't help but demote the show to CBS quality rather than HBO. If they'd wrapped up his belabored drama half way through, maybe we could have seen more of Cy Tolliver seething with impotent rage and Al Swearingen remembering he's supposed to be a bad guy. The bloat was annoying enough over a weekend, but I can't imagine what it must have been like to turn on HBO week after week and find out how little the plot had progressed. Its cancellation feels like a mercy killing, as Milch would have undoubtedly found a shark for the townsfolk to jump in Season 4.

According to the bonus features on every season, Milch writes his episodes laying on the floor with several pillows, surrounded by writers, assistants and other cronies. A stenographer takes down his every word, which he then edits off of a giant TV screen. While that is totally fucking awesome, when the pottymouth Shakespeare got painfully ornate (in some episodes it feels like everyone's as desperately florid as E.B. Farnum), I couldn't help but think of this dude literally resting on his laurels, beaming with pride at the words on the monitor before him. Lacking much to distract me, I pictured that a lot.

Leila thought someone on John From Cincinnati had my last name, but it turned out one of the leads is named "Mitch Yost." Close enough for me to check it out someday, though.

DVDs I watched this week, from favorite to least.


Despite unforgettable moments of brilliance, I haven't seen a movie under 90 minutes that felt this long since A Night At The Roxbury. The bracketing story's excruciating, with whimpering feebs pondering the metaphorical ramifications of multiple interpretations of a crime until you have no desire to do so yourself. Judging by its absence from the fourth and most powerful sequence, it's possible the score's earlier obnoxiousness was meant to be satirical. Toshiro Mifune's great, but you already knew that.


The director was rightfully demoted to Zucker Bros. scriptwork for years after this, but Thomas Haden Church, Rob Lowe and screenwriter James Gunn (who should give the material a Buffy-style TV revisioning if he ever finds the time) earn every raise in public profile that followed this film. Plus: Gunn and future wife Jenna Fischer's on-screen meet-cute!


Skating spills, Candid Camera, gay fetish porn, parent abuse.


It doesn't take long to realize that Idi Amin is a magnetic megalomaniac despot, so a feature-length documentary about him should show us a little more than that.


Christopher Walken (reminding us that he's not entirely beholden to camp) and Leonardo DiCaprio (well cast as a manchild) hold their own against clumsy cartoons Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and John Williams. Unfortunately, the movie continues long after Walken dies.


Halfway through the movie, a retired gangster returns to London to discover his brother committed suicide. 2/3rds through, when he discovers his brother had been raped the night before, he decides to get revenge in the last quarter. Clive Owen doesn't even buy a shave and a trenchcoat until the last ten minutes. The title promises a bit more than all this.


Contains action scenes almost devoid of lighting, arbitrary and incessant use of splitscreen, casualty-free military battles worthy of a G.I. Joe episode and an inscrutable psychedelic climax. Everyone involved in the post-production must have been wearing stretchy, purple Bad Idea Jeans.

SoulDecision, tragically ahead of their time

Questions inspired by recent #1 singles:

Would SoulDecision be as successful as Maroon 5 if they came out today?

What about the Afghan Whigs?

Why does Rihanna sound even more like Alanis Morrissette than Avril Lavigne does?

Why doesn't this similarity bother people? It bothers me.

Why hasn't R. Kelly sued Akon over the hook for "Don't Matter"?

Seriously, how can anybody listen to the chorus of "Don't Matter" and not hear "Ignition (Remix)"?

Will I ever remember anything about Timbaland's "Give It To Me"?

Does anyone actually like "Give It To Me"?

How come nobody's revisiting Zapp when so many R&B tracks today incorporate vocoder?


How long will it take T-Pain to acknowledge the debt with a cover?

Leila, who liked Knocked Up even more than I did, found a great response to Dana Stevens' Slate article about the film, which has being bugging me all day. Being a Brian DePalma fan, I'm used to seeing directors with genuine affection for women being called out as clueless saps and/or misogynists even though they create female characters who are more than some political/romantic ideal or mere proof that the male lead is straight. Has Stevens not seen your average American comedy? If Judd Apatow doesn't "get women," what male comedic director in America does?! Also, why would anyone think Jonah Hill's character showed more "depth of humor and humanity" than Leslie Mann's? Because he made more putdowns? All the men are portrayed as selfish, immature snark machines or bitter adults who secretly pine for their slacker past. If someone's going to complain about the limits of one gender's presentation in a film, it might be a good idea to look at the flip.

I found the film slightly overlong, and I hope Apatow finds a theme other than the modern American man's painful transition into adulthood before he gets insufferably sentimental. But crap like the Slate article makes me want to pretend Judd Apatow isn't just a TV dude smart enough to bring warmth to crude observational improv without turning it into treacle. Because that gift is impressive enough.

Films I watched this week, from favorite to least.


A trio of juvenile delinquents try to steal the wrong family's car, their misadventure climaxing in one hell of a Rammstein concert (a second climax, involving the angry and wounded rather than fire, is less dramatic). Bruce Willis does great "haunted cop." Surprisingly grand opening credits.


An FBI agent living on a houseboat is forced out of retirement by a serial killer who feels a "connection" to him. The obviousness doesn't become offensive until the dimly lit shoot-out, because director Clint Eastwood is old school. Don Siegel old school. While only one woman in the film has a sexual relationship with actor Clint Eastwood, all appear to love him. Jeff Daniels plays the harmonica.


Faye Dunaway successfully makes herself ugly, an impressive feat for the star of Bonnie & Clyde and The Thomas Crown Affair. Leaving an adult out of a will is treated as a more unforgivable crime than beating the shit out of a child. It's possible the frustrated, mentally ill single mother would be less sympathetic than her victims if anyone else in the film could act. I'd recommend watching the film with John Waters' commentary track whether or not you've seen it beforehand. You won't miss much dialogue.


The film proposes that, in dreams, each image is a cryptic clue related to a specific event (i.e. a wheel represents a "revolver," an angel means the incident occured at "Gabriel Valley"). We see Gregory Peck's dream, designed by Salvador Dali, for significantly less time than it is discussed by two Eastern European analysts. Ingrid Bergman is repeatedly chastised by her elders for either being frigid or possessed by lust, but her feminine intuition about Peck's basic goodness is proved correct. Bergman and Peck crouching anxiously in front of a backdrop fails to pass for a nerve-wracking ski sequence. The camera shoots itself between the eyes at one point, and I'm surprised I've never seen that in a film before.


A poorly kept nuclear plant owned by homicidal sociopaths turns Jack Lemmon and Jane Fonda into nervous wrecks while Michael Douglas fumes and slap his hands against surfaces. I know Wilford Brimley gets emotional at the end, but I can't remember seeing his mouth appear from under his moustache. There are several races against time.


Nothing like a Scandanavian film about a crisis of faith.

A spiritual update of '77 Lindsey Buckingham that sounds like a synthesis of NIN and N'Sync. Possibly my single of the year.



Joel's "Hilary Duff has turned me into an a emosogynist asshole" trip gets tiring over the entirety of Good Morning Revival (I'll review the album on here eventually, which might actually be worthwhile if this single resurrects the album's sales - and if God wears Hot Topic, it should), but in short bursts like this, I'll play along, dancing with tears in my eyes.

Someday soon, I hope to have a consistent internet signal again. When that happens, I hope to be updating this page a lot. But for now, here's a Top Ten Of What I've Heard From 2007 So Far.

1. LCD Soundsystem, Sounds Of Silver
2. Modest Mouse, We Were Already Dead When The Ship Sank
3. !!!, Myth Takes
4. Arcade Fire, Neon Bible
5. Marnie Stern, In Advance Of The Broken Arm
6. Nine Inch Nails, Year Zero
7. Clinic, Visitations
8. Fratellis, Costello Music
9. Low, Drums And Guns
10. The Stooges, The Weirdness

Put the Brakes' Beatific Visions at #6 if we're including belated US releases of 2006 albums. But we may not be, if we're following the rules.

Back when my internet service is back.

WHO'S GONNA RESET THE BONE??!!
(Why the hell do I like Neon Bible, pt. 2)

I'm not under the impression that "Ocean Of Noise" is about abortion, but when Quiverin' Win follows "who here among us still believes in choice?" with a solemn, echo-chambered "NOT I," I can't help but hear it as one of those Slow Train Coming* lines in the sand that liberal music fans live in fear of. What if they WERE announcing their moral certitude that abortion was murder? It wouldn't really clash with their prosaic language, fashion sense and fetishization of childhood. This threat overshadows and saps all climactic energy from the song's "gonna work it out" coda, their basic triteness revealed by a minor fillip. And since my politics are basically "chop that child in half," would I still enjoy it if I knew that pro-life proselytism was the band's intent? Am I just getting off on the perversity of the moment? Do people think about this when they sing along?

--
*Speaking of Dylan references, the Voice has removed one.

Why the hell do I like Neon Bible, pt. 1

Are you ready for a few posts about why the Arcade Fire's Neon Bible is currently "my second favorite album of the year*"? I'm not sure I am either, but I've been thinking about the issue long enough that it's going to happen. I looked online to see what exactly Win Butler is singing about in hopes that it would either strengthen my convictions or knock it down a notch. But while the lyric sheet wasn't at all impressive, it had little effect on my appreciation. Maybe the muffled mediocrity is a good thing? It gives their BAR** enough ambiguity to let me appreciate it as mere college rock crossover beauty; their goal isn't clear aside from cathartic nervous crescendos. The SNL performance didn't grab me - just some quaker kids in a Waterboys cover band ("The Big Music!") with less endearing stage shtick then they had on Conan in 2004 - but on CD the songs take shape.

And what a mediocre shape it is! The humblest, least offensive BAR yet? Rock can't do better than that? Or rather, I get more joy out of that than almost anything else I've heard this year? Why doesn't harsh analysis make me play the album less?

--
*#1 being Sound Of Silver, in which a aging hipster realizes that being jaded about the scene is really about mortality, putting his post-techno Enoisms to better use.

**Benign Arena Rock - an ironic term for artists who seem to think their oversized pop music helps them Make The World A Better Place. Not just naughty, not just a self-adoring laser show, not a passive-agressive outpouring of psychedelic neuroses, not We Will Rock You, but Making The World A Better Place. Springsteen, U2, Green Day. You can not like their music, but you have to "appreciate where they're coming from." In principle, I think it's a way for artists to protect their ego trips from criticism and some serious False Idol bullshit. But I'm a liberal, well-meaning boy raised on the stuff.

I probably shouldn't mock a paper willing to pay me more than two dollars a word (I'll happily write again at that rate, guys), but I have to share the headline for the Village Voice review of Patti Smith's Twelve:

"Cheers (and Tears for Fears) for Patti's Own Biograph"

Note that Twelve is a covers album, not a 3CD retrospective. You'd think the Voice music section, at the very least, would still know its Dylan.

Not to beat a dead horse, but Lois and Clark get it on in Superman II AFTER she discovers that Clark is Superman. In Superman Returns we're to believe that Superman FUCKED Lois WITHOUT telling her that he's also Clark Kent. When he returns FIVE YEARS after disappearing without notice, he stands next to her wearing those identity-concealing glasses, wishing she knew how much he loved her. Couldn't he have brought it up when he was TAPPING THAT ASS?!


America's hero, worse than syphilis

You ignore details like the suits Clark must leave all over Metropolis whenever he strips down to his Superduds (does he leave his wallet behind, too?), or that Superman never expects Luthor to have some Kryptonite handy. Suspension of disbelief, yadda yadda. But the surprising amount of critics who praised Superman Returns for restoring his respectability must not have noticed that 2/3rds of the movie was babymama drama skeevier than Kevin Federline's wildest dreams.

Also, if Lois Lane's current flame Richard White believes that HE'S the babydaddy, we may assume that her relationship with the boss's nephew was already in progress when she got busted out with the supersperm. The Man of Steel is down with O.P.P.! How exactly does this film restore his mythic luster again? Do all the slo-mo shots of him watching earth from above really make up for this?

"The movie may not be a single-bound building-leaper but Bryan Singer reconfigures the daddy of all comic-book sagas into something knowing, witty, and even sensitive. - J. Hoberman

(As these last two posts should make evident, there's no reason to assume that rants on here will be at all topical. All that matters is that it's on my mind.)

Plot: Soon after having unprotected sex with his girlfriend, a man who suffers from severe multiple personality disorder disappears with no explanation. Upon his return five years later, he's horrified to discover that his former lover has a child and lives unmarried with her babydaddy. After a few days of spying on the family, he finally confronts her. She's understandably angry about his extended absence, and he explains that saying goodbye before his journey would have been "too hard." This is followed by a debate as to whether or not he's God's gift to mankind. While searching for the source of a catastrophic blackout (a subject which seems to only interest her - an unassigned journalist - and no government representatives), she brings her child with her while trespassing on a boat. They are discovered by the boat's owner, a middle-aged gigolo with dreams of mass-murder and real estate fraud. While rescuing her and her family, the troubled ex is rendered comatose by mineral poisoning. As he hovers near death, she whispers into his ear that he's the true father of her child. Revived by this revelation, he creeps into the child's room to tell the sleeping tot that his life will be hard, leaving through the window before the child awakens. As he departs, the woman asks him if she'll "see him around." He responds that he's "always around."

Running time: Two and a half hours.

Title: Superman Returns.

Most inexplicable casting choice: Kal Penn as Henchman #2, who gets fewer lines than The Ghost Of Marlon Brando (whose coherency and diction has not improved since death).

People praising B Tarantino over A+ Rodriguez REALLY PISS ME OFF!!!

Death Proof didn't even have the best road violence!



Eric Rohmer is trash, so maybe Tarantino's homage to his languid pace was intentional. But Planet Terror still had better dialogue!



So wtf? Shots of spinning records are better than shots of spinning guns or something? The Village Voice rightly points out that "the tradition [Tarantino is] elaborating on is the Tarantino Movie," only who the hell thought after Kill Bill that the Tarantino movie required further "elaboration"?!!? I'm not saying Death Proof was without its merits, but preferring it to Planet Terror means you walked into the wrong theatre. I'll take Tarantino screaming with a stake in one eye and a syringe in the other over Tarantino touching himself behind the camera while a group of women discuss the glory of Vanishing Point (actually, watching Mary Elizabeth Winstead eat bacon in a cheerleader outfit was some sort of fantasy fulfillment for me too).

Anyhow, Planet Terror rules and I can't wait till Harvey Weinstein does a King Solomon on Grindhouse so I can go see it a couple more times.

I'm visiting State College, and almost immediately upon arrival I was reminded how much I've missed radio. Current hits like Xtina's "Candyman" and Avril's "Girlfriend," songs I could find enough quibbles with to delete when they existed solely in the context of my windows media player, sound outstanding when driving around or getting a McLanahan's sub (which I called a hoagie while standing in line! Philly should be proud). I don't know if it's the size of the place, the emotional baggage of visiting my hometown, or the change in sound quality (I have no idea whether mp3 or radio is worse), but hearing married teen poppers use the Andrew Sisters and echo effects to praise penile girth and incoherently trash competition means a little more to me here.

I've considered putting the US top 40 on my ipod as a placebo, but I'll also have to throw on a bunch of earlier hits like "Pon De Replay," "I Don't Wanna Know" and "Semi-Charmed Life" to truly re-create the vibe of randomized pop cheese. As long as I can't get good reception in the city, it might be worth it. No ads, too!

Fred Durst's latest Myspace blog (3/16/07), saved for posterity in case he deletes this one like all the rest. :(

tour

i really want to do a limp bizkit tour. not just any tour. one that is monumental. a landmark event. i would love to do a tour with the ORIGINAL limp bizkit. john, sam, wes, me, and lethal. that's what i truly want. i miss touring SO FUCKING BAD. the feeling we have on stage as limp bizkit is like no other feeling i have ever had and no other feeling has been so rewarding. wouldn't that be fantastic? wouldn't it be a blessing? imagine that me and wes could work things out together and be a band again, friends again. fucking imagine that!! we had so many wonderful times. so many magically unforgettable moments. i am proud to say that i have learned so much from my mistakes and it has taken a long time to evolve to this place where i finally let myself be healed. without limp bizkit i would have never gotten here. without wes i wouldn't know what it is like to work with the best. without john i wouldn't know how to protect my family. without sam i wouldn't have ever learned to trust anyone. without lethal i would have never been house of pain and without house of pain i would be missing too much of my inspiration. the list goes on and on and on. i just want to say that limp bizkit is my life whether i am holding onto the past or pushing for the future. imagine how impossible i am to deal with. that alone fueled many of the fires. when i look back i can only study and learn. so here we are NOW. i want limp bizkit. always. that is what i want. i want it so bad. wouldn't that just be the absolute best? it is time!!!!!!!!!!!!! now!!!!!!!!!!!!! rock and roll is not rock and roll without the pain we experience along the way. today is another day. today can be the day. what if we could just let the drama go and rock the fuck out because we can and because that is what we do? i listent to all the limp albums all of the time and i get so mental and emotional. it tears my heart in half the same time it makes my adrenaline boil. i live it. we all live it. all of us. i want limp bizkit.

as for your madness on here....lighten the fuck up. or don't. either way you will always be heard and understood. we connect with all of you. you connect with all of us. we know you're pain. you must know ours. there is no right and there is no wrong, but there is limp bizkit. so don't you worry your precious little minds when there is silence. remember there is always a calm before any storm. put your energy into wanting the bizkit as bad as we do and something is bound to provide for us all.
have some faith. now turn it the fuck up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

love,
fred

Earlier today I realized that no potential celebrity death would make me sadder than Fred Durst's. The idea that he'd never blog or rap or direct a music video again is like a raincloud over my soul.