inglourious basterds review

Inglourious Basterds continues my streak of recent Quentin Tarantino films that do very little for me. I review it in the latest Consumables column, and I also say a few words about Funny People, Amreeka, Lorna's Silence, Humpday and Steely Dan's recent live show.

moby - pale horses

I'm going to be writing a piece about Moby's recent Wait for Me in the next couple weeks. To get me in the mood, I pulled up this video. This is beautiful stuff.

'extract' movie review

I thought Mike Judge's Office Space was funny but sloppy. I thought Idiocracy was a brilliant idea that was terribly executed. So what do I make of his new film, Extract? My review is up at Screen International.

x games 3d: the movie

If ever a film demanded an exclamation mark in its name, it's X Games 3D: The Movie. The filmmakers left it out, sadly, but don't worry: There's an abundance of "awesomeness" in this extreme-sports documentary. In fact, it's so unrelentingly "awesome" that I got pretty sleepy during it. My review is up at The Village Voice.

quentin tarantino's favorite films since 1992

It's funny: An hour ago, I was sitting here thinking about why I'm having a hard time caring about Ingloriuous Basterds, the forthcoming film from Quentin Tarantino. I've missed a few screenings, and competing screenings this week will keep me from seeing it before Friday's release. But I didn't find myself being all that upset about that fact.

You see, I'm clearly in the "scolding third-grade teachers" camp that Glenn Kenny talks about when he describes some of QT's critics as folks who insist that Tarantino would be a great filmmaker if he didn't make, y'know, the films that he makes. There's no point in responding to that until I see Inglorious Basterds, but I will say that I was sitting here feeling quite surly about all things QT -- and then I stumbled upon the below clip, which reminded me of what I do love about the man.

Beyond the individual selections Tarantino makes for his Top 20 Movies Since 1992, what I appreciate is that his tastes reveal a real enthusiasm and insight. I understand that these are largely pithy comments he dispenses, but it's worth pointing out that he does something that we film critics don't always remember to do: He relates to a viewer's passion for film without talking down to the viewer.

When it comes to the actual list, well, it's entirely across the board, as you'd expect. I think he's absolutely right in what he says about Unbreakable and Dogville. I wish he had explained why Anything Else isn't just underrated but great. (And now I'm wondering if he's checked out Woody Allen's really underrated gem, Cassandra's Dream.) I think Battle Royale is terrible, but I can completely understand why he loves it. Most people who are gaga about Dazed and Confused are smitten with it for precisely the reasons Tarantino lays out. He articulated my conflicted feelings about The Matrix, and he actually made me reconsider Speed. That's a lot of intelligent, thought-provoking criticism in a short amount of time.

Now, the question has to be asked: If he wasn't Tarantino, would I care this much about his list? Probably not. But this six-minute clip made me very happy. And, I have to admit, it got me into a better mindset about seeing Inglorious Basterds.



Bonus: If you're interested in Tarantino's ballot for the Sight & Sound film poll from 2002, it can be found here.

coldplay - life in technicolor ii

This is not the most novel of novel concepts -- puppets in videos have been with us since Genesis's "Land of Confusion" and the Grateful Dead's "Touch of Grey." But I do find this Coldplay clip deeply amusing.

roger ebert on 'district 9'

Roger Ebert sums up my feelings precisely about District 9:

“District 9” does a lot of things right, including giving us aliens to remind us not everyone who comes in a spaceship need be angelic, octopod or stainless steel. They are certainly alien, all right. It is also a seamless merger of the mockumentary and special effects (the aliens are CGI). And there’s a harsh parable here about the alienation and treatment of refugees.

But the third act is disappointing, involving standard shoot-out action. [...] Despite its creativity, the movie remains space opera and avoids the higher realms of science-fiction.

Most critics love the movie. As I said in my review, this is a genuinely thoughtful and upsetting film that eventually becomes a shoot-'em-up. That means it's not at the level of 28 Days Later or even (and I know I'm getting myself in trouble here) Cloverfield, which at least stayed tonally consistent throughout.

If you haven't seen the short film that inspired District 9, called Alive in Joburg, you should -- a lot of what makes the feature film great can be found there. And I have to say that the moments that don't work as well in District 9 are nowhere in sight.

pet shop boys - rent

John Hughes died yesterday, so consequently the radio has been full of '80s songs from his movies. They're all perfectly fine (albeit dated) tunes, but as a whole they represent the shallow, dopey, melodramatic excesses of the era -- which I know will be heresy to those who came of age during that time. But, listen, I did come of age during that time, and hearing those songs makes me cringe. For me, they're iconic songs, but they're not, y'know, good songs. So as a remedy, how about some smart '80s music that flaunted its shallow surfaces while slowly revealing its emotion and wit underneath? Yes, it's time for some Pet Shop Boys.

a perfect getaway

If you want a solid B-movie thriller, may I suggest David Twohy's A Perfect Getaway? My hunch is that I liked it more than most critics, but it's a sturdy little contraption that worked for me. My review is at The Village Voice.

Rob Tannenbaum on Steely Dan

Rob Tannenbaum, my editor at Blender, "gets" Steely Dan in a way that I hope is accessible to people who are sure that they hate Steely Dan. (Lord knows I've tried and failed to convert people to this duo's genius.) In his Vulture review of their recent New York show:

Fagen and Becker’s songs are populated by putzes and shlubs, unreliable narrators who only think they’re having the times of their lives; these are filthy stories, lushly told. In a Jimmy Buffet or Kenny Chesney song, alcohol consumption symbolizes fun and community. For Steely Dan, it’s an augury of disaster, coming shortly after the last guitar solo has faded out.

Yes, that's exactly right. Steely Dan, Randy Newman and Fountains of Wayne are the holy trinity of ironic pop songwriters who dissect the dark underside of "let the good times roll" with deceptively happy music.

By the way, I'm counting down the days until I get to see Steely Dan's Gaucho show here in Los Angeles near the end of the month. I hope Fagen gets over his cold by then.

who will save nbc? the behind the music guy

Somehow, I had never known this about Jeff Gaspin, the new No. 2 at NBC:

In March 1997, Gaspin wondered, "Whatever happened to Milli Vanilli?" The 1980s pop music duo had been disgraced after it was revealed that they had been lip-syncing songs from their Grammy-winning album. Over lunch one day with producer Gay Rosenthal, Gaspin pitched his idea for a series about the rise and fall of pop idols. Rosenthal had with her a copy of People magazine that featured a story about rapper MC Hammer and how he had squandered $33 million. That also would make a great episode, they thought.

The idea evolved into VH1's breakout hit show "Behind the Music," which launched with episodes on Vanilli and Hammer and ran for nine years.

He also was a big advocate of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy over at Bravo. I don't watch enough TV to have a right to be smug about its limitations, but none of these revelations about him surprise me. In an era when reality television is becoming more and more important for the major networks, this is the sort of guy who acquires the perception of having the Midas touch.

atm machines, crime, and the lily burk killing

Maybe I'm missing something here, but in the light of Lily Burk's tragic killing, this suggestion from a letter-writer to the Los Angeles Times makes a lot of sense:

To help future victims forced by criminals to withdraw funds from ATM machines, I call on banks to offer the option of a customized emergency personal identification number linked to debit and credit cards. These would allow cash to be withdrawn but would also trigger a silent alarm.

Evie Tole
Rancho Cucamonga

warren zevon - keep me in your heart

Funny People opens today. I'll have my review up in a little while -- sorry, I've been busy with other work -- but since the movie includes this song, I had to throw it up on the site in the meantime. Just a beautiful tune.

(I will say that I think Funny People is better than most people do, and it's certainly Judd Apatow's best film.)

district 9

I was in love with District 9 after its first act. Then, the rest of the film happened. I explain what goes wrong in my review at Screen International.

memories of lacma's wonderful weekend film program

I'm still getting over the news, announced yesterday, that the Los Angeles County Museum of Art will be discontinuing its weekend film series. Frankly, the only news that would have been worse would be LACMA deciding to do away with the Bing Theater altogether.

Some of my favorite moviegoing memories of the last 10-12 years are in that theater. Off the top of my head ...

• Having the entire theater to myself for one whole day last summer when I reviewed the restored seven-hour version of Sergei Bondarchuk's War and Peace for L.A. Weekly. I got to live out some last-man-on-Earth fantasies that day.
• Catching a double feature of Safe and the Bob Flanagan documentary Sick in the late '90s. During Safe, there was a weird buzzing going on -- was it the print? the speakers? -- that only added to that film's hypnotic hold on the viewer.
• Seeing Robert Altman's Short Cuts for the umpteenth time and being convinced that this might be the greatest Los Angeles film ever.
• Watching Jeanne Dielman for the first time this past April and being convinced that this might be one of the greatest films ever.
• Sitting a row in front of Chris Parnell a few weeks later for Carlos Reygadas' Silent Light. The film's flaws aside, this is the sort of movie whose power simply cannot be duplicated on DVD. It's not that you need to be sitting by Parnell, but you need strangers around you, all silently soaking in the same images as you are at the exact same time.
• Finally getting my wish to show my wife Edward Yang's Yi Yi last October. Again, it's a movie you have to see in a theater the first time.
• Discovering 1946's The Murderers Are Among Us, the opening-night selection of LACMA's "Two Germanys" film series from this past winter. My wife just had a feeling it was worth seeing, so we went. She was right.
  
• The Preston Sturges retrospective of the late '90s. From the sold-out audience's reaction to The Lady Eve, you'd swear the film was just as fresh and relevant as it ever was.
• Being baffled by Don't Look Now on my initial viewing.
• Seeing Sleeping Beauty again for the first time in forever.
• Wishing I wasn't so exhausted while trying to absorb Robert Altman's Vincent and Theo.
• Getting lost all over again with McCabe & Mrs. Miller.

I know I'm forgetting some, but I'll just stop right there. I didn't go every week or every month, but I liked knowing that LACMA's film program was there. Now it's gone. I wonder what it's like to have hobbies and passions that aren't constantly undermined by financial woes and fickle audience tastes. Must be nice.

radiohead - sail to the moon

This week was my niece's 7th birthday. For whatever reason, this song always makes me think of her -- I think it's the line "Maybe you'll/be President/But know right from wrong." If my memory is correct, Hail to the Thief was recorded around the time Yorke had his first child, and the album's concerns seem to be coming in part from the perspective of a parent worrying about the future of a planet he's leaving behind for his offspring.

Anyway, those are my impressions of "Sail to the Moon." Here's a superb live version ...

american cowslip

American Cowslip is the type of movie for people who think slightly over-the-hill actors camping it up as small-town local yokels is hysterical. My review is at L.A. Weekly.

karina longworth on antichrist

She's one of the few film critics I really agree with on Lars von Trier's Antichrist:

You can put me on the “pro” side on Antichrist, although I’m not without my reservations. I’m certainly not offended by it, nor do I think other members of my gender necessarily should be. (Before I saw the film, a male journalist told me, in a way that suggested it was beyond opinion, that “no woman” could possible feel positively about it; this statement of “fact” strikes me as more sexist than anything Von Trier actually put on screen.) [...] Antichrist frustrates attempts to dismiss Von Trier for somehow not knowing what he’s doing.

There are big problems with Antichrist, which I think Longworth nails pretty well. But the sheer confidence and skill put into the endeavor are impossible to deny. And as she notes, he's a filmmaker who knows what he's doing -- even if you have issues with his methods and attitudes (and lord knows he opens the door to such complaints), there is no doubt that he's expertly saying what he wants to say.

I'll post my own review closer to the film's release in October.

paris, je t'aime

Paris, je t'aime, the charming 2007 omnibus film set in the City of Light, will be making a return appearance this weekend at the New Beverly. I explain why it's worth a second look at L.A. Weekly.

the ugly truth - the review

She thinks he's uptight, he thinks she's a prude -- it's The Ugly Truth! My review is up at Screen International.

white stripes - blue orchid

I'm thinking about my favorite songs of this decade. This is one of them.

Vinessa Shaw Remembers Stanley Kubrick and 'Eyes Wide Shut'

Great piece over at Movieline -- today is the 10th anniversary of the release of Eyes Wide Shut, and to mark the occasion, S.T. Vanairsdale interviewed actress Vinessa Shaw, who played the prostitute Domino in the film. The whole thing is worth reading, but here's a quote I liked in response to the potential frustration for an actor in doing take after take after take:

It could have been frustrating for another actor, or even me at another time in my life. But because this was the first movie I’d done as an adult — I’d really just done kids movies before this — it was my first real movie where I felt, “Wow, there’s such a process behind this.” A development of character and letting the scene happen rather than forcing it to happen — that’s what Stanley taught me about while we were making this movie. Honestly, at that point I wasn’t sure I wanted to act anymore because I hadn’t seen that kind of magic. What would really happen if you slowed everything down? Every moment, or the planning of every scene? The writing, or the rewriting? I felt like I was finally understanding what movies were about. If you let something unfold, it could be very magical, like an athlete getting into the zone. I felt like after doing it multiple times, I was in this zone that was very different than me remembering my mark or remembering my line. It just became this organic moment. I think that usually only happens with actors who do theater, perhaps. Or who do a Kubrick movie. It was a very special world that could have driven a lot of people mad.

She was only 21 when she worked on Eyes Wide Shut. She hasn't come close to being part of a project quite as special since, although I thought she was great in the superb Two Lovers.

Neko Case - 'Middle Cyclone' Review

Neko Case continues her North American tour with a stop in Detroit on July 22. To honor the occasion, I discuss her latest album, Middle Cyclone, for the Detroit Metro Times. The piece starts like this:

Neko Case wasn't made for these times, but if it's any consolation to her, she probably wouldn't have fit in well in any era.

The rest is here.

on the emotionally powerful taking chance

Two key quotes in a February interview with L.A. Weekly's Scott Foundas from the filmmakers behind Taking Chance:

From Lieutenant Colonel Michael Strobl, whose memoir inspired the film:

“To me, this is not a movie about Iraq,” Strobl says, “this is a movie about America.”

From director Ross Katz, who wrote the screenplay with Strobl:

“I remember one particular night after reading [Strobl's memoir],” Katz says, “I turned on CNN and yet another roadside bomb had ripped through yet another Baghdad market, and I sat there and I didn’t feel anything. I was extremely angry with myself, because I thought, intellectually I know how tragic this is, but I don’t feel anything, because for years I have been seeing this 24-hour news/cyber/cell-phone footage. I walked out on the street and life was just normal. I thought, there’s a parent who just got a knock on the door, and why does everything look the same? It just didn’t add up to me, and so that was kind of my leaping-off point.”

Taking Chance, which premiered at Sundance before airing on HBO in February, tells the true story of Strobl's journey in 2004 to escort the body of Lance Corporal Chance Phelps, who was killed while stationed in Iraq, to his family.

The film spends most of its short running time revealing the detail-by-detail process that goes in to preparing a dead soldier's body, and the story's emotional restraint (highlighted by a terrifically understated performance from Kevin Bacon) makes the journey both illuminating and almost unbearably poignant.

No speeches, no showy passages, no grand summations -- Taking Chance may be a little too small-screen in its execution, but its formal modesty belies the deep veins of emotion that are pulsing underneath. As Strobl correctly states, this isn't about Iraq -- it's about America and, perhaps more specifically, how difficult a time we have grappling with death. Plus, the movie's clear-eyed respect for the country's military communities -- the small towns where service is passed down from generation to generation and is as ingrained into the fabric of society as the Friday night football game and the senior prom -- is a thing of beauty. All the movie asks is that you feel, and by resisting the story's inherently manipulative elements, Taking Chance accomplishes its mission. It's not an "Iraq War movie," but that's part of the reason it's so terrific.

randy newman - i love l.a.

Since I nominated Randy Newman's "I Love L.A." as the definitive Los Angeles song earlier this week, I thought I'd track down the video. Everything I said earlier about the song goes double for the video, plus it's part of that honorable subgenre of videos made in the early '80s by established artists whose attitude toward MTV seemed to be, "These video things are completely stupid, but screw it, if it'll get some stupid kids to buy our album, let's make one."

By the way, for those who haven't been to Los Angeles in a while, the Disneyland sign looks a little different now.

the dead weather - horehound review

Another day, another new side project for Jack White. This time it's the Dead Weather, which is a collaboration between him and the Kills' Alison Mosshart. The Kills always sounded like a meaner, filthier White Stripes, so this team-up makes a lot of sense. I review the band's debut album, Horehound, at About.

who wrote the definitive song about los angeles?

From an interview between Tom Waits and Beck:

Tom Waits: Not every town gets their song. Actually, Sinatra tried to do a song about Los Angeles. It was really lame. Really lame. It embarrassed the s*** out of me.

Beck Hansen: That was in the 80's right?

TW: "LA, You're a Lady." It was one of those lame, awful... Maybe it's the rhyme or the rhythm of the name Los Angeles.

BH: Yeah I don't think anyone has written a definitive LA song.

TW: Maybe it's the rhyme or the rhythm of the name Los Angeles.

BH: Yeah, I don't think you can...

TW: But Chicago or St Louis, such cool sounding names. New Orleans. So many songs about New Orleans.

Without thinking about it more than three seconds, I'd pick Randy Newman's "I Love L.A." The satire, the bad-'80s quality of the production -- it still feels absolutely right in its depiction of this town. But maybe I'm forgetting a better choice.

dj jazzy jeff and the fresh prince - summertime

Happy Fourth, everyone. Here's a version of summer that never, ever happened to me. But it sounds pretty great, right?

kambakkht ishq review

Kambakkht Ishq is a Bollywood romantic comedy set in the world of Hollywood stuntmen and, er, Santa Monica surgeons. It involves a real Don Juan type who encounters the one beautiful woman who is immune to his charms. The movie is all singing-and-dancing fluff from there, but it's really, really fun fluff. My review is at L.A. Weekly.

the king of comedy

This is a newish feature called Blind Spots that I do occasionally on this blog. It'll give me a chance to write about movies or albums or whatever that I missed during their initial run. I'll write them in the style of Consumables and, ideally, this exercise of going back will help me fill in some gaps. I'll write these whenever the spirit moves me.

The King of Comedy
How can you tell that I'm not a dyed-in-the-wool Martin Scorsese fan? The King of Comedy and The Last Waltz are my two favorite movies of his. It's not that I'm opposed to the four Scorsese films everybody else holds up as his masterpieces -- Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas -- but none of them fully works for me. (Their men-are-men pathos can get a little thick for my taste.) Hence, The Last Waltz and The King of Comedy, which are certainly centered around men as well but aren't quite so enthralled with masculinity that it dominates the proceedings. The Last Waltz pops up enough on cable that I feel pretty confident of its greatness, but I haven't seen The King of Comedy in probably 15 years. So I re-watched it, curious how it would hold up...

There's nothing like that uncomfortable feeling of knowing that you initially overrated a movie, but, then again, uncomfortable feelings are this movie's reason for being. There are few films that work so hard to make you actively hate all its characters, particularly its thoroughly unpleasant protagonist: Rupert Pupkin (played by Robert De Niro). But where Taxi Driver (another Scorsese film about a loser driven to take matters into his own hands) always felt like a glorification of nihilism, The King of Comedy seems to know full well that these people (even Jerry Lewis's popular talk-shot host) are all miserable wretches you don't want to emulate. And as opposed to another '70s film I find overrated, Network, The King of Comedy continually grounds its satire of television and celebrity in reality -- frankly, I'd be amazed if some lunatic hasn't tried copying this film's kidnapping ploy to get him- or herself on TV.

Still, this movie isn't as perfect as I remembered. De Niro's string of self-loathing performances with Scorsese continues here, and it's hard at points not to wonder what awful thing he did in his personal life that inspired such a willingness to berate himself in front of the camera. With that said, though, he is playing a character who's an acquired taste, and you have to credit the actor for not worrying about making us love him deep down. Plus, I'd forgotten how well De Niro performs Rupert's big monologue -- you believe that this slimy creep really has some (but not all) of the tools to become a stand-up comedian, if only he could learn to self-edit a little.

Sandra Bernhard in the best of circumstances is a dicey proposition, and a little of her goes a long way here. But Jerry Lewis really is fantastic -- without overdoing it, he conveys the sense of a man who got what he wanted in life and is depressed to realize how unfulfilling a realized dream is. He's only slightly less completely miserable than everybody else in the movie.

And then there's the ending. I'm in the camp that believes that everything after Rupert's arrest at the bar is a fantasy -- it has to be, right? No, in fact it doesn't have to be, which is one of the movie's great strengths -- it makes the case that lowlife freaks become famous all the time for the weirdest of reasons. Just about nothing in Network feels believable in 2009, but The King of Comedy still feels ahead of the curve.

the hurt locker, and the los angeles film festival

I'm not due for another Consumables column for about a week, but I've seen so much good stuff lately that I decided to publish the new one now. I review The Hurt Locker, The Girl From Monaco and Soul Power, but the real highlights are the three movies included in the Los Angeles Film Festival's "Films That Got Away" series: Musica Nocturna, United Red Army and especially The Silence Before Bach.

wilco (the album) review

Because it leaked online so long ago -- and then the band streamed the album on their website for a little while in response -- it seems weird to think that Wilco (The Album) isn't officially commercially available until this Tuesday. (For a lot of people, it's an album they've already consumed and fully absorbed by this point.) Nonetheless, my review is now up at About. As you'll see from my write-up, I'm not afraid of dad-rock.

manohla dargis on the silence before bach

Like a lot of people in last night's audience at the Billy Wilder Theater, I had my mind blown by The Silence Before Bach, which screened as part of the Los Angeles Film Festival's "Films That Got Away" series. It's an extraordinary movie. I'll have my review in my next Consumables column, but for now, here's Manohla Dargis in The New York Times:

Edward Said once wrote of Bach’s counterpoint: “The listener is aware of a remarkable complexity but never a laborious or academic one. Its authority is absolute. For both listener and performer, the result is an aesthetic pleasure based equally on immediate accessibility and the greatest technical prowess.” I didn’t find “The Silence Before Bach” immediately accessible, though this is far from a complaint. The film demands engagement and a kind of surrender, a willingness to enter into a work shaped by correlation, metaphor and metonymy, by beautiful images and fragments of ideas, a work that locates the music in the twitching of a dog’s ears, in the curve of a woman’s belly, a child’s song and an adult’s reverie. Like the music it celebrates, this is a film made in glory of the world.

I, too, needed to meet the movie halfway, but once I did, it was an overwhelming experience.

wilco - you never know

A song off Wilco's forthcoming album, Wilco (The Album). Between Iran and Michael Jackson, this is one of the few things to make me feel better this week.

remembering michael jackson ...

Reflecting on Michael Jackson's death, I thought back to a piece I wrote in 2003 about the ABC documentary Living With Michael Jackson, which was quite a tabloid sensation at the time. Looking at it again, I'm struck by how much it sums up how I feel about the artist, especially this passage near the end:

Near the beginning of Living with Michael Jackson, [British journalist Martin] Bashir asks him about some of those famous dance steps. After admitting to shyness, Jackson eventually acquiesces and performs a few moves. It's absolutely startling; they're still perfect and precise. It's as if 20 years have melted away and we're all back in the happy '80s. Jackson probably wishes the same thing; he seems so at peace during this brief flicker of magnificence. When art is your release, it allows you to escape the tedious crap of normal life -- insecurities, doubts, loneliness. But when that outlet dries up, when that level of adoration goes away, you're just stuck with yourself, trying somehow to bring it all back.

Sadly, he never got that chance. There are plenty of reasons to criticize Michael Jackson for some of the things he allegedly did. But like I said at the time, even though everybody wants me to hate him, I mostly just feel sorry for him.

public enemies review

I know that some people are less enthused about Public Enemies, but I think it's Michael Mann's best film since The Insider. My review is up at Screen International.

Anthony Harvey Talks About Working With Stanley Kubrick on 'Dr. Strangelove'

Glenn Kenny's interview with editor Anthony Harvey focuses on the famous pie-fight scene we never got to see from Dr. Strangelove, but this tidbit caught my eye:

Working with Kubrick overall was remarkable. I just learned a hell of a lot. As an example he always thought if an actor is giving a brilliant performance, don't cut to the other actors but keep going on the same performance. And leave it to the viewer to imagine the other person's reaction. The more simple it is, the better—which I thought was tremendous. I think you can over-edit things and you lose momentum rather than gain it.

Wait till he sees Revenge of the Fallen.

chris brown, perez hilton, will.i.am and me

It occurs to me that three of the biggest celebrity news stories of the week involve people I interviewed for Blender: Chris Brown, Perez Hilton, and Will.I.Am. I suppose I should offer some juicy, behind-the-scenes commentary on what these individuals were like in person. Sorry, that's not my style -- I'll let the published interviews speak for themselves.

transformers: revenge of the fallen review

Remember when Michael Bay made good movies? That's a serious question, one I try my best to ponder while reviewing Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in Consumables. Also, I spotlight Up, Seraphine, Whatever Works, Cheri, and Moon.

indie rock alphabet book

Truly magnificent.

eels interview

It's been six years since I last interviewed E, the brilliant singer-songwriter who leads the L.A. indie-rock collective Eels. On their occasion of the release of their latest album, Hombre Lobo, I spoke with E about writing as a fictional character, the lack of sex in indie rock, and the right reason to make a polka album. I thank him for his time.

eels - in my dreams

If all goes well, I'm interviewing this guy right now. (No, not Letterman.)

los angeles film festival

The Los Angeles Film Festival kicks off this evening. As always, L.A. Weekly is all over the festival, offering dozens of capsule reviews and longer pieces on special sidebar presentations. You can read my reviews of Branson, Harmony and Me, Turistas, and Zero Bridge here.

superstar (or is that super star?) review

Iranian filmmaker Tahmineh Milani's latest movie, Superstar (also written as Super Star), concerns the exploits of an arrogant celebrity actor who learns important life lessons from a young girl who claims to be his long-lost daughter. My review is at L.A. Weekly.

the musical history of los angeles

I put together a piece for the June issue of the Los Angeles Times magazine that was a musical map of our fair city. It didn't make the print edition, but it's online currently. The piece ended up being organized by year, and I should advise that some events have been placed in the incorrect year, but the article does give a sense of the breadth of musical styles and legends that have made an impact on Los Angeles and its cultural landscape.

the proposal

Here's my review for The Proposal. I thought Ryan Reynolds was especially good in it, though I wish I wish I wish the film wasn't nearly as predictable as it is.

I should also point out that my wife and my mom both liked it much more than I did. With this movie, you may want to take their word for it over mine.

game 5: lakers 99, magic 86

I've been pessimistic about this team's chances all season -- in retrospect, I think the experience of losing to the Celtics in last year's Finals really stuck with me. Apparently, it stayed with the Lakers as well -- again and again, they talked about that humiliating elimination loss that occurred June 17, 2008. They remembered and they didn't let it happen again.

Kobe and Derek have their fourth championships, all of which were won on their opponents' court -- that's killer instinct.

Being a pessimist means you get a little bit of consolation in being able to tell other people "I told you so" when things go bad. But tonight, I'm very happy to report that my more-optimistic friends were right all along about this team. They told me so.

Update: You know how I said the Lakers never won a championship on their home court? Forget that -- they won the 2000 crown at Staples. Duh.

the temptations - just my imagination

My parents are in town, so this one's for my dad -- my thanks to him for turning me onto it.

game 4: lakers 99, magic 91

Life got in the way tonight -- I only saw the last quarter and overtime, and even then it was only in little bits and pieces. But I will say this. Derek Fisher is a guy I've always loved. Watching him go through a slump for most of this year's playoffs has been really depressing. But he's played great in the Finals -- and from what I gathered from tonight, he was the difference maker. I could not be happier.

albert brooks' real life at the cinefamily

In 1979, writer-director Albert Brooks made his feature debut with a very funny comedy about reality television. It was called Real Life. Thirty years later, it plays like a documentary about the way we live today. Comedian Bob Odenkirk will be hosting a special screening of the film this Friday at the Cinefamily. I explain all the ways Real Life was prescient in L.A. Weekly.

game 3: magic 108, lakers 104

I actually thought the Lakers were dead meat about halfway through the third quarter, so give them a lot of credit for fighting back the way they did. I'm not sure what to say about Kobe. He didn't have a great fourth quarter -- it happens.

I do think it's crucial that they win Game 4, though. The Magic played at a very high level tonight and still only barely won -- I think it's fair to say that the momentum still favors Los Angeles at this point. But that will change if the Magic even the series Thursday night.

On a side note, does anyone actually watch the halftime analysis? Have those four morons made a single interesting point yet?

game 2: lakers 101, magic 96

The Lakers deserved to lose tonight.

Of course, both teams did. It was just a sloppy game -- lots of bad calls, cruddy shooting, a real lack of flow throughout. It was one of those games that if your team wins, you're mostly just relieved -- and if they don't win, you have a thousand reasons to moan about what could have been.

Magic fans will spend every second between now and Tuesday's Game 3 thinking about The Miss. Courtney Lee makes that layup at the end of regulation, and we're having a whole different conversation. That's the most obvious lament for the Magic faithful, but I also think Orlando's inability to get Lamar Odom to foul out will be missed in all the post-game analysis. Andrew Bynum was doing very little, and if Odom had picked up his sixth foul in the fourth quarter, I think the Lakers would have been in big trouble. Instead, Odom iced the game with those free throws at the end.

Laker fans will probably walk away with this thought: Kobe Bryant didn't play all that great, Orlando started shooting like they can, our team as a whole didn't have an inspired outing, but we still won. That's all true, but they almost didn't pull it out. Some games you win, some games you lose, and some games fall into the weird nether region were, really, it could have gone either way. Game 2 was one of those. We were just lucky it bounced our way. And that Lee missed that shot.

Bill Withers - "Hope She'll Be Happier"

I saw Soul Power this week, the forthcoming documentary about the epic 1974 R&B concert that was mounted in conjunction with the Muhammad Ali-George Foreman "Rumble in the Jungle" title bout in Zaire. The James Brown stuff is amazing in the movie, not a big surprise, but another clear highlight is Bill Withers doing a pretty stunning acoustic version of "Hope She'll Be Happier."

I tried to find anything remotely comparable online, and this is the closest I got. The strings might be a bit much, but the emotion comes through all the same.

game 1: lakers 100, magic 75

Game 1 of the NBA Finals played out like a best-case scenario for the Lakers. The Magic, who live or die by their three-point shooting, couldn't hit a thing, and the Lakers, whose toughness has been questioned in these playoffs, were locked and loaded pretty early on, grabbing offensive rebounds and hustling like crazy. Bottom line, the Lakers looked like killers tonight.

In Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, the Cleveland Cavaliers were blowing out the Magic early, but they let Orlando hang around, and the Magic came back to beat them. I think that made the difference in the entire series -- it proved to the Magic that they could hang with the big boys (without home-court advantage, even). That didn't happen tonight. The Magic had the lead after the first quarter, but once their shooters went cold (and stayed cold), it was over.

What will be really interesting for Sunday's Game 2 is whether the two teams will go back to their normal selves. I don't put it past the Lakers to take their foot off the gas again -- they've done that a few too many times this playoffs -- and I expect Orlando to shoot better. (There's no way they can shoot worse, right?) I went into this series picking the Lakers in 7. Despite the Lakers' dominant performance tonight, I still think there's a long way to go.

corked!

Corked! is yet another indie mockumentary aspiring to Christopher Guest-ian levels of comedy gold. This one's about a bunch of eccentric characters who work and live in California's wine country. It has its moments, but not enough of them. My review is at L.A. Weekly.

francis ford coppola doesn't want critics calling him pretentious

In an interview with Movieline's Kyle Buchanan, Francis Ford Coppola talks about how he deals with criticism:

What I look for with critics is more that they’re going to write about something I did and I’m gonna read it and not make those mistakes again, I’m gonna learn something from it. Often, though, they don’t do that: they say, “It’s a muddled mess.” “It’s pretentious.” I can’t learn a lot from someone saying “It’s pretentious.”

(I'm sure most people will be more interested in the part of this interview where Coppola says there should have only been one Godfather film.)

dave matthews band - big whiskey and the groogrux king

Like it or not, the new DMB record, Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King, is very much a traditional DMB record, despite the fact that a lot of the songs reference the untimely passing of band member LeRoi Moore. Ornate arrangements, tasteful melodies, vaguely philosophical musings in the lyrics -- you know what to expect, people. My review is at About.

eels - hombre lobo

The new album from Eels, Hombre Lobo, is a minor work. I don't mean to suggest that it's bad or disappointing, but while it's reliably melodic and well-crafted, it rarely surprised me. (The one truly out-of-the-box moment is the strong first single, "Fresh Blood.") My review is up at About.

albert brooks blows your mind -- in 3-d!

Up opens today in 3-D. Filmmakers have made major advancements in 3-D technology of late, but this trailer for Real Life from 1978 is still my favorite incorporation of the cinematic gimmick.

spike lee brought barack and michelle obama together

Director Spike Lee has mentioned this story before, but he brings it up again in connection with the 20th anniversary of the release of his seminal film, Do the Right Thing. The Los Angeles Times put together an oral history about the film's production history over the Memorial Day weekend, and Lee couldn't resist:

Spike Lee: There was a benefit for Barack Obama on Martha's Vineyard when he was running for the Senate. I didn't really know who he was. He came over and said, "You're responsible for me and my wife getting together." Then he told me how they saw "Do the Right Thing" on their first date, and then went to Baskin-Robbins for ice cream and talked about it.

Roger Guenveur Smith [actor]: We're actually responsible for a whole new era in American political achievement.

Lee: I think he is a very smart man, because if he had taken Michelle to see "Driving Miss Daisy," things would have turned out a whole lot different.

Driving Miss Daisy is, of course, the film that won the Best Picture Oscar that year.

terminator salvation and the girlfriend experience

In my latest Consumables column, I sheepishly defend Terminator Salvation and heap praise on The Girlfriend Experience. Plus, I discuss O'Horten, Jerichow, Easy Virtue and Kobe Doin' Work.

thinking about jay bennett, and wilco

If you haven't heard, former Wilco member Jay Bennett died on Sunday.

His untimely passing got me thinking about the band. I used to be a huge Wilco hater, especially around 2002 when the overrated Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was being hailed as some sort of visionary piece of music-making. Soon after the album's release, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, a documentary about YHF's making, was released, and I was pretty merciless in a review at the time. Looking back on it, I'm clearly responding more to the band's hype than the band itself, although I still think the documentary is too fawning and glossy. But this paragraph from my piece is interesting, in retrospect:

For a songwriter too often referred to as a poet in the press, [frontman Jeff] Tweedy doesn't make for an engaging film presence. Even his aloofness feels unremarkable. And the much-discussed fission between him and chief collaborator Bennett -- a man more than a little responsible for the deepening of Wilco's music over the years -- never really takes hold. What you have here are two strong personalities fighting over the future of a band, but [director Sam] Jones clearly favors Tweedy and therefore reduces Bennett to an easily discarded side character. The real story is far more fascinating: Bennett's assertions in the film that Tweedy is a little bit of an egomaniac, desperate to control the band, have been repeated by others in the past. But the film doesn't even consider the possibility. Tweedy (the hero) triumphs, and Bennett (the villain) is vanquished. No muss, no fuss, no drama, no gray area, no interest.

Of course, Bennett was supposedly a bit of a control-freak himself, so it's hardly as if Tweedy was the only guilty party. Still, re-reading this reminds me of how sympathetic I was to Bennett -- the film is fairly cruel to him. (I still recall how the audience laughed derisively at Bennett when, after he'd been kicked out of the group, he plays a solo show to a small smattering of fans at a tiny club -- what, was this some sort of karmic comeuppance for something he'd done?)

After a while, I got off my anti-Wilco kick -- Sky Blue Sky went a long way to helping in that regard. But with Bennett's passing, it brought back the fact that I still think Tweedy gets too much credit and Bennett not enough for the band's musical evolution.

the hangover

I don't think I've laughed more at a movie this year than while watching The Hangover, the new Todd Phillips comedy. I don't think it's quite as terrific as Wedding Crashers, but it's in the same ballpark -- my review is up at Screen International.

away we go: what other critics had to say

I already linked to my own review of Away We Go, the forthcoming Sam Mendes film. Let's take a look at what the other trades had to say -- and what I thought of what they thought.


Dennis Harvey of Variety:

Burt's a bit immature, and Verona, the grown-up of the couple, occasionally impatient (partly explained by the discomforts of advanced pregnancy). But the protags are essentially blank slates, despite the skill and charm Krasinski and Rudolph bring to the roles. It's their job simply to represent "normal" against so many illustrations of bad parenting, worse marriages and damaged adulthood. But given they're such harmlessly pleasant folk, why don't they have any non-messed-up friends?

Because that would un-stack the deck in a script that needs to paint them as two lonely souls in a hostile world. But in positing normal as special, the pic requires caricaturing almost everyone else.

While handled by resourceful actors, the foibles of the supporting characters are less funny than they are forced and unpleasant. Janney and Gyllenhaal in particular play figures venomously conceived.

I think Dennis is right about the caricaturing that goes on in some of the supporting roles. It's worse early on in the film, which doesn't make the road trip look all that promising for the viewer. But I do think Away We Go eventually eases up on the freak-show exhibits and starts getting into some honest emotions.

And while I agree about Janney, I thought Gyllenhaal was dead-on as the smug, more-enlightened-than-thou New Wave hippie. I've met these people, and she got it exactly right.

Michael Rechtshaffen of The Hollywood Reporter:

Obviously each destination offers a snapshot of the various challenges inherent in carving out the family unit one would like to create as opposed to the family into which one was born. But though it's nice to see Mendes take a looser, not quite so studied approach to his filmmaking, some stops along the way -- like a detour to visit Burt's suddenly single brother (Paul Schneider) -- feel dramatically off-course.

Production values have a nice, grassroots texture, including Ellen Kuras' cinematography and John Dunn's costume design, though musically the film could have packed a bit lighter where the extensive and occasionally intrusive acoustic song selection is concerned.

Michael's review hits on something important -- that while Away We Go represents a stylistic shift for Mendes, it's not that different from some of his other films when it comes to its study of domestic stability. I would say, however, that the couple's scenes with Schneider were some of my favorites, even if I didn't quite love the resolution to that sequence.

And I agree about Alexi Murdoch's score -- must every American mini-major independent film now come equipped with earnest acoustic-guitar doodlings?

guns n' roses - you could be mine

Happy Memorial Day weekend, people. Like a lot of you, I'll be checking out Terminator Salvation over the holiday. With that in mind, let's take it back to 1991 ....

away we go

Away We Go, from director Sam Mendes, is a bit of a departure for the filmmaker of American Beauty, Jarhead, and Revolutionary Road. It's a comedy-drama-road movie about a young unmarried couple expecting their first child and trying to figure out where to move to start their family.

My review in a nutshell:

Though burdened with an arch, overly clever temperament, the film remains resonant thanks to understated performances from stars John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph.

Rudolph especially is a revelation here -- she's a wonderfully naturalistic performer better known as a comedic actress from her years at Saturday Night Live.

The rest of the review is here.

dance flick

In 2000, my roommate at the time went to see Scary Movie, the spoof film from the Wayans brothers. He came back to our apartment with this threat: "If you go see that movie and you laugh even once, I'm moving out."

Dance Flick, the latest Wayans spoof, opens today. I'll admit I laughed a decent amount. I won't go as far as saying that I recommend the movie, but it's not completely terrible. My review is at Screen International.

kids respond to yo la tengo's "little eyes"

If you've never seen this, you should check it out, especially if you love kids' drawings and/or the music of Yo La Tengo.

conan o'brien gives great life advice

From Lynn Hirschberg's fantastic New York Times Magazine profile, Conan O'Brien talks about the pressure to compete with Jay Leno and the weight of expectations as the new host of The Tonight Show:

“When I can’t sleep and it’s 3 in the morning, I’m not thinking about Jay. I’m thinking about all the things I want to do on the show. And I’m not thinking about how I’m going to change myself to fit a certain demographic. I just have to block that nonsense out. In entertainment, you have to stake out what you think is right, you have to put out that signal, make sure it’s pure and then do it and do it and do it and know that they will come. And if they don’t, you have to pack up your bags and say: ‘I enjoyed my time here. Sorry it didn’t work out.’ But the biggest mistake would be to alter my signal to make sure that I reach all these different people. Because then you’re lost.”

What comes through loud and clear in Hirschberg's piece is that O'Brien is just a great, genuine guy. I hope he kills in his new gig, even though he'll be running head-to-head with my beloved David Letterman.

night at the museum: battle of the smithsonian

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian is one of those rare sequels I prefer to the original. The first Night was pretty mediocre, but this new film has a secret weapon: Amy Adams. My review is up at Screen International.

the prodigy - invaders must die

The Prodigy just embarked on their first U.S. tour in forever. For Detroit's Metro Times, I review the dance-rock band's latest album, Invaders Must Die.

barack obama wants to play forward on your basketball team

Obama's speech at the University of Notre Dame today had more meaningful moments, of course, but I particularly enjoyed this section:

I also want to congratulate the class of 2009 for all your accomplishments. And since this is Notre Dame, I mean both in the classroom and in the competitive arena. We all know about this university’s proud and storied football team, but I also hear that Notre Dame holds the largest outdoor 5-on-5 basketball tournament in the world - Bookstore Basketball.

Now this excites me. I want to congratulate the winners of this year’s tournament, a team by the name of “Hallelujah Holla Back.” Well done. Though I have to say, I am personally disappointed that the “Barack O’Ballers” didn’t pull it out. Next year, if you need a 6’2” forward with a decent jumper, you know where I live.

I'm not the only Obama supporter who thinks he's at his weakest when he's trying to be funny. But this was nicely handled.

american teen

So, this is a new feature called Blind Spots that I'm going to be doing on this blog. It'll give me a chance to write about movies or albums or whatever that I missed during their initial run. I'll write them in the style of Consumables and, ideally, this exercise of going back will help me fill in some gaps. I'll write these whenever the spirit moves me.

American Teen
Here's a movie that worked on me despite itself. Documentary filmmaker Nanette Burstein (who co-directed the equally shallow The Kid Stays in the Picture) journeyed to an Indiana small town to follow a bunch of students over the course of their senior year. American Teen was the result, a deeply slick gloss of all the stereotypes we remember from our adolescence -- the jock, the bitchy popular girl, the cool artistic outsider. The narrative structure is everything you've come to hate from the proliferation of reality TV in the last decade -- every conflict has a resolution, every single second of real life is part of a story arc.

But, as I said, I have to admit that the film touched me. Perhaps not even realizing it, Burstein does her best work when showing her subjects' thought process when it comes to choosing a college. American Teen does a fine job illuminating that most crucial of early decisions in a person's life -- what a momentous decision at such a young age. And while Burstein doesn't tell me anything I don't know about adolescent boys, she seems to have gotten to the root of young women's insecurities. The charge against American Teen that the filmmaker's cameras inspired the students to act out is fair, but there is a benefit -- Burstein's young ladies really open up and seem comfortable around her.

Still, a movie like American Teen irritates me because it's yet another documentary that's more of a documentary-lite. There aren't really that many observations or insights to it -- but, it's, y'know, real life, so that means it's true.

all i care to say about lakers-rockets game 7

Sports Illustrated's Scott Howard-Cooper sums up this Sunday's game perfectly:

To not win a championship would be the Lakers falling short of their expectations and the expectations of many. To not so much as reach the conference finals when they had home-court advantage and a wounded team on the line would be a monumental setback. Sunday is for their legacy, not just for their playoff lives.

If you get beat by a better team, you may not like it, but you live with it. But if you get beat by a team that's not as good -- not even close, frankly -- then it suggests a real lack of character and mental toughness. And that I cannot stand.

yeah yeah yeahs - zero

Love this song -- love it, love it, love it. Here's Yeah Yeah Yeahs playing it on Saturday Night Live.



And here's the original video for the single.

night at the museum

So, this is a new feature called Blind Spots that I'm going to be doing on this blog. It'll give me a chance to write about movies or albums or whatever that I missed during their initial run. I'll write them in the style of Consumables and, ideally, this exercise of going back will help me fill in some gaps. I'll write these whenever the spirit moves me.

Night at the Museum
When this movie came out around Christmas 2006, the critical consensus was something like, "Eh, it's not bad." That's sorta how I feel about it, too -- if the filmmakers had spent just a little more time with the story, they might have really had something. Instead, it's yet another family comedy where too much of the humor comes from frantic action executed at high volumes. Of the cast, Robin Williams gives the best performance -- he dials down his excesses, and he's actually effectively poignant as Teddy Roosevelt. I haven't read the book that the film's based on, so I don't know if the big plot holes are the fault of author Milan Trenc or screenwriters Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon, but I would have given just about anything for the whole film just to be Ben Stiller's interactions with his onscreen son, Jake Cherry. Cherry doesn't act like your typical movie kid, thank god, and Stiller has a real sweetness in those scenes.

Still, this is just another divorced-father family film, although I'm happy there's no forced attempt to get him to reconcile with his former wife (Kim Raver) at the end to make everyone happy. And, yes, it's worth noting that Night at the Museum actually endorses the importance of knowing history -- not just the Civil War but, y'know, the whole world's. But what was most interesting was that the film's setup echoes our current financial crisis in an eerie way. Stiller needs to find a job -- any job -- as quickly as possible or he'll get evicted from his place. Meanwhile, his former wife's new husband, Paul Rudd, is a jerky Master of the Universe. Stiller refers to him as a stockbroker, but Raver corrects him -- he's a bond trader. If the movie came out now, Stiller would seem even more like the noble hero, while Rudd would be set up to inspire boos and hisses from the audience -- isn't he one of the creeps who got us into the mess we're in now?

brian williams loves jay-z

We learned today in an interview with Rolling Stone that NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams is a big indie-music geek. We also learned this:

Q: When you prepare your newscast, what do you listen to?

A: Something quick that gets your energy up. The other night, I was listening to Jay-Z's "Dirt Off Your Shoulder." That was the last song I listened to before going on air. I was tempted to go on and say "Yeah, boy!" but I didn't. It was close.

Me, I prefer "99 Problems" off The Black Album. But just by a smidge. And I'm never tempted to say "Yeah, boy!" while listening to either track, much to the relief of all those around me.

not forgotten

Not Forgotten is a B-movie thriller starring Simon Baker as a nice guy with a Mysterious Past. That never ends well. My review is at L.A. Weekly.

the shins' james mercer knows that his band is for wussies

From the Los Angeles Times' interview with James Mercer of the Shins:

He knows fans will be waiting and that for others, the Shins will remain a symbol of the soft, contemplative side of indie rock, and therefore a target for contempt. Mercer understands.

"I remember being in high school," he says with a laugh, "and you had to draw those lines and define yourself. I don't think when I was in high school I would have been willing to admit that I liked the Shins. I was into TSOL and Black Flag. I probably would have listened to the Shins secretly in my bedroom."

As someone who was into Matthew Sweet, Public Enemy, R.E.M. and Nirvana in high school, I think I would have dug the Shins. I'm starting to look ahead to best-of-the-decade listmaking, and I have to say: I think Chutes Too Narrow is going to place very high on my album list.

kids say the darnedest things: summer movie edition

Every year around this time, Los Angeles Times writer Patrick Goldstein rounds up a bunch of teenagers to gauge their interest in different summer movie trailers. It may be rather unscientific and silly, but I do find myself looking forward to hearing the teens' reactions.

The best comment this year has to go to Jasmine Jafari, 15, who had the following reaction to the trailer for Drag Me to Hell:

The crazy old lady, who keeps saying 'You're going to burn in hell,' reminded me of one of those nutty Proposition 8 people. She was really scary.

Accurate indication of how the next generation feels about gay marriage? We'll have to wait and see.

green day - 21st century breakdown review

There are two camps: those who dismiss Green Day for selling out a long time ago and those who will love 21st Century Breakdown. Guess what camp I'm in?

star trek, star blech

Did I like Star Trek? Yeah, ultimately I did. But it's way overrated. I go into that in the latest Consumables -- I also review State of Play, Sugar, Tyson, Sin Nombre, Il Divo and Anvil!

tom waits - i don't wanna grow up

My favorite Tom Waits album? Probably Bone Machine. "I Don't Wanna Grow Up" is on it. Jim Jarmusch directed the video. In some ways, this is a precursor to The Limits of Control. Actually, it's not at all.

tony la russa reacts to the news of manny ramirez's suspension

From sportswriter Jimmy Golen's AP story:

St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa was talking to reporters before Thursday’s game against Pittsburgh when a clubhouse attendant stuck his head in and said: “Manny Ramirez, 50 games.”

La Russa’s first reaction: “You’re kidding me.”

Then he checked the schedule to see whether the Cardinals would be playing the Dodgers while Ramirez is out.

That's why we love La Russa.

the whatever works poster

Vulture premieres the poster for Whatever Works. Fun Quiz: Whose name do you not see in big letters on it?

dan deacon - bromst

Dan Deacon is one of 2009's most-hyped talents thanks to his recent album, Bromst. I try to get to the bottom of it over at Detroit's Metro Times.

the onion pulls out of los angeles

No, that headline isn't a joke. From Gawker:

An Onion staffer whispers to us that the humor publication has already laid off editorial and sales staff for its Los Angeles and San Francisco print editions, which will, said the staffer, cease publication.

Tomorrow's editions of The Onion are said to be the last ones for those markets.

Like a lot of people, I fell in love with The Onion online in college but slowly got tired of its repetitive formula. In the last few years, though, I've started picking it up around town and fell back in love with it. This news bums me out: what am I going to read now when I go to Swingers?

lucian piane (a.k.a. revolucian) speaks

Musician Lucian Piane is the mastermind behind the great "Bale Out," the dance remix of Christian Bale's on-set tirade during filming of Terminator Salvation. When he does his awesome viral remixes, he goes by RevoLucian, but in person Piane couldn't be a nicer, sweeter guy. I profiled him for L.A. Weekly. (Forgive the horribly mangled sentence in the first paragraph -- it happened after I sent in my piece.)

(Update: The interview no longer exists on the L.A. Weekly site, but you can find it here.) 

steven soderbergh nails the critic's dilemma

Steven Soderbergh, a rather smart fellow, articulating the problem critics face when trying to write at length about movies or any other kind of art...

On the one hand, in theory, if you write about movies you can go on the Internet and write a 5,000-word piece on something if you're so moved. The question is whether anybody will get to word 500 before they go, 'Oh Jesus, just tell me how many stars.' Culturally, that kind of question of whether there is a place for that kind of ruminative, complex criticism, that's an open question, and not just for cinema, for everything.

I'm, by nature, a letter-grader. When I started watching films as a kid, I would assign them a certain amount of stars. (When Entertainment Weekly came along, if memory serves, I switched to letter-grades.) I see the value in it, but I also think a writer's analysis is more important. That's one of the reasons why I like the format of Consumables -- I don't list my grade, so I have to try my best in the write-up to approximate my level of love or hate for the movie/album/TV show/single I'm covering. Which is what a critic is ultimately supposed to do, right?

judge judy vs. michele bachmann

The brilliant ladies of Jezebel have done it again.

the thermals - now we can see

Folks, I love the Thermals, and I particularly love their new album, Now We Can See. This is the title track.

rick ankiel on the cardinals' promising start

Rick Ankiel got the big hit in the ninth last night to beat the Washington Nationals. Afterward, he summed up St. Louis' season (to this point, anyway) pretty well:

“Last year, if we lost a lead late, it seemed like our bats were dead and we just didn’t come around,” Ankiel said. “It’s early, but as early as it is, it seems like the game is never over with this team. We’ve always got a chance to come back.”

I've noticed that, too. There's no reason to even start talking about this baseball season seriously yet -- it's not even May 15 -- but thus far in the National League, both the Cardinals and Dodgers have been adept at getting late-inning hits to win games. And that's part of the reason they're the top two teams in the NL right now -- although, again, it's only May 1.

wolverine vs. the limits of control

X-Men Origins: Wolverine is the big movie of the weekend, although for a different crop of moviegoers, Jim Jarmusch's The Limits of Control is the must-see flick. I review them both for Consumables, plus I discuss Every Little Step, Goodbye Solo and Rudo y Cursi.