we're buddies. we're real good buddies.

Secession in/Visions of Astropolis 2011

2011-12-18T17:56:00.005-06:00

Pure

Joy

Final Fantasy XIII (PS3, 2010)

2010-07-02T22:43:00.003-05:00

Graphics: STUNNING. If you have an HD and a current-gen console, find a way to at least play *some* of it. Look at that screenshot! The blur between game-engine cutscenes and pre-renders is unnoticeable to me, unless I'm really looking for it.

Gameplay: I'm 8 hours in, and it turns out there is real merit to the apoplexy from the "OMG this isn't Final Fantasy" crowd. The game does, in fact, lead off with what's essentially an extended movie/tutorial with some gameplay in it. You have no choice but to see the story the way the developers want you to see it, from cutscene to straight-line run through an area with some fighting to the next cutscene. No map, no towns, no control over who's in your party (or even which one of the party you control), and no leveling up beyond a certain point - the game's enemies are visible when walking, and finite; plus, the game locks your more powerful abilities away until you beat the next boss.

What's weird is they'll tell you how to do something, then guide you through doing it, and it's tough to even know if you're going to need to remember it again. Quick example: kid jumps into a huge robot, Anakin-style, so he can go stomping all over the guys you've been fighting like a Colossus. A tutorial pops up saying, "OK, here's how you go about stomping and punching these guys." (Plus some other ridiculous thing about how the robot only has enough energy for three mega-punches, but the player can find energy for more punches by...knocking over a fence to proceed to the next area. What? I mean, why even place a limit on the number of punches? Or, why not have the robot regain energy by, I don't know, RECHARGING somewhere? Does running into a fence give it some kind of Kool-Aid Man, "OHHH YEEEAH!" adrenaline rush?)

So anyway, yeah. The player guides the kid in the robot down a line, at the end of which the robot trips over a step in the path and breaks. Well. I just read a two-minute tutorial for three minutes of gameplay. Is the kid going to Anakin it up in more robots later, or was that it? Is this more or less important than the how-to-fight-Eidolons tutorial, which was just as long?

(Also, Hope just said that word aloud. "Eye-DOH-luhns"? Seriously? In my head it was always "EYE-duh-lawns." I like my pronunciation more.)

Not to knock the Eidolon fights. They're some of the only moments of challenge in this whole introduction section. It's pretty cool to finally figure out how not to die in the first fifteen seconds of a fight. And - to find a positive to the JRPG-on-rails approach - it's precisely because the game isn't letting me grind my way past a boss that forces me to learn, and derive satisfaction from, strategy rather than just dogged persistence.

Characters: a bunch of 21-year-olds acting like they're 40 and carrying the weight of the world. Reminds me of FFX where i read in some bio that Auron, the grizzled Badass Longcoat, was the ripe old age of 35. The series knows what it's about, at least.

Speaking of TV Tropes, 8 hours in, I'm trying to decide if Hope is a Jerkass Woobie or a Break the Cutie.

They all look stupendously fabulous. Lightning is female Cloud, but more badass -- i.e., more belts and buckles. She also walks around on what appear to be femurs with a layer of skin wrapped around them. Vanille *really* needs a sandwich. Sazh isn't as "jive" as i was afraid he would be -- and I just found out his English voice actor was in Crank, which is totally sweet.

Story: Too early to tell if it's good. In true Scooby-Doo fashion they split the gang up and have you follow multiple plot threads, and they commit the cardinal sin of dropping you in medias res into a completely alien world with byzantine politics, conflicts, and weird made-up words. L'Cie? Fal'Cie? Cocoon? Pulse? To quote Rory, "The who and the what now?"

I think it's straight-up wrong to have to depend on the Star Wars title crawls that scroll while the game boots up to tell me what's going on. The developers relegated all the backstory that would allow you to make sense of those first 3 hours to the "datalog" in the menu, which is just a cheap and easy way to avoid weaving exposition into the action proper skillfully. This is why stories will have someone with no clue what's going on somewhere nearby, so they can have stuff explained to them (and the audience) without it being, like, the genius detective alone in his office talking out the thought process behind his amazing deductions.

Despite all my whining, you can tell loads of people put their heart and soul into this thing, and it's so pretty I can't just dismiss it out of hand. But I'm still waiting for it to, like, let me play it; in the meantime I'm just along for the ride.

More thoughts to come, or not.

And people said Japanese people are apathetic! NOT! Protests against U.S. Bases in Okinawa

2010-05-04T00:55:00.001-05:00

Reclaiming the phrase "Tea Party!" Okinawans are taxed in many ways by the U.S. military bases- they foot half of the bill for the bases and have to suffer with violence, military personnel getting away with crimes as vicious as rape and hit and run murder, societal and environmental destruction, helicopters dropping out of the sky onto their elementary schools and universities then to be covered up by military take overs of their institutions to clean up the evidence, et cetera. All the while, the are the poorest prefecture in all of Japan, and Tokyo and Washington, D.C. have ignored 65 years of Okinawan democratic efforts to get rid of the bases on their land, claiming that the bases are necessary for the Okinawan economy and to protect Japan.Talk about being taxed without representation!

The link (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xoYlL6WQZY) will take you to Footage of Open-Air Tea Party, Rally, and Demonstration on April 25th in Kyoto. You can also watch below.This action was in solidarity with the prefecture-wide rally against U.S. bases in Okinawa and particularly the relocation of bases to Henoko. 90-100,000 people participated in the rally in Okinawa (side by side with 39 mayors out of 41 total mayors in Okinawa) and 400 participated in Kyoto. The action was organized by Kyoto Action (http://kyoto-action.jugem.jp) and videotaped by me:)

XYZR_KX, Jack Tung, etc. -- Minotaur Mini-Tour

2010-03-28T15:03:00.003-05:00

Talk about a great rock show. How about two in one night!!

The San Francisco swing of the Minotaur Mini-Tour brought XYZR_KX, Jack Tung, and a bunch of other bands and mini-bands to the mini-venue Giant Robot and Retox. (Jon, if you has pix, this is a good place to upload them.) Clearly, all in attendance at the in-store performance at Giant Robot were very impressed. Babies were dancing, people were buying merch and it was a great rock show. Jon did not sing, but let his fingertips do the dancing on his chaos pad, Behringer mixer, and MacBook. After a video gamey anthem, sampling Baseball Stars 2, Jon succumbed to the pop demon and bobbed the crowd atop cresting waves of Daft riddims. The 7-beat loops were lucky charms, the seething underbelly beats a world beneath.

At Retox, a basement outfitted to look like an industrial airplane fuselage, Jon did sing, quietly, in his way, and welcomed all the comers to a night of technological expertise, sweet melodies, flying fingers, and loudness. Inquiring crowd members asked, did Jon sample all of those bits and pieces, or did he record them himself, as this author suggested?

Next, Jack Tung blowed up the mic without singing a word. Exposing his hip hips to the crowd while working away on his loop-de-hoops and non-hoopde-loops, twiddling knobs and pressing buttons, he also used his head, spitting out cracked, fractured chits of rhythm in 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,11 1/2, and 12, with some 14 to boot. The music laid out proofs heretofore unimaginable. "How much of that did he improvise?" asked my friend Ryan, incredulous at the intricacy of the designs. "None," I answered, confident that Jack's tongue anticipated each and every lick.

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (PSP, 2008)

2010-02-19T20:33:00.004-06:00

Stardate 070210

I guess I was going to write something about this back in February? And instead I left it totally blank. To quote the Commodore, "That, as they say, is that. [click]"

Oh yeah, this picture reminded me. Genesis's supposedly awe-inspiring poem was garbage and it pissed me off to have to keep hearing him say lines from it while he attacked Zack.

Also, the DMW was kind of cool, but also kind of annoying. Also also wik, all these kids were talking about how they cried at the end. I laughed. Mostly because I had the hilarious version of Zack's death from FF7 in my head, where two Shinra dudes just push him to the ground and pump him full of lead. Like, no sad music, 5x the number of necessary bullets, shooting his PS1-pixelated corpse. Way to go out like a punk there, buddy.

I sold my copy off so I have no way of developing a further opinion. I would like to commemorate how I would leave the mission where Zack fights like 300 slugs on the beach running on my PSP while I went and did something else, then come back a half hour later to see what the DMW Santa Claus brought me. Zack had Regen going so only the DMW attacks would kill dudes. The game got wise and stopped giving me much of anything after a while.

Final Fantasy VII (PC, 1997)

2010-02-06T05:29:00.002-06:00

Two reasons I dusted off this golden oldie:

1) I wanted to play, and am currently playing, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII on the PSP. Crisis Core is a prequel to the big one and I knew there would be all kinds of references to the original that would be lost on me unless I refreshed my memory by playing it again.
2) At the Distant Worlds concert last month, the audience went nuts when the FF7 intro song started at the beginning of the second half, after politely clapping through several songs from FF8, 9, and 10 through the first half. Something about this game, that I did not understand when I first played it around 2001, compels all manner of devotion to this story and these characters, and I wanted to see if I could suss out what that was.

The graphics have not aged well. When it came out on the PS1 it was enough of a leap from sprites to polygons that people were all like "omg," but subsequent advances have led to the character models being denigrated as "Popeye-like," and they are. But it's a sign of the continuing love of FF7 that fan-made mods to the main .exe file on the PC version allow an intrepid and patient player to update the display resolution for high-definition monitors, as well as swap out the junky character models and profile pictures for more realistic shapes and updated pics from the Advent Children movie. Similarly, the even more computer-savvy PC player can replace the MIDI files with the original PS1 sound files - after all, what is "One Winged Angel" without an ominous Latin choir proclaiming "SE-PHI-ROTH!!" All this work, plus various patches and hacks to make playable on current versions of Windows a buggy, decade-old game.

I'm sort of savvy, but not that savvy. And really I just wanted the short blast of nostalgia, not the "ultimate" FF7 experience. So I did the minimum necessary to get FF7 working on my XP former studio computer, now enjoying a bittersweet and occasionally spyware-beset senescence, fired up a hacked god save file (all characters maxed out, all super items in inventory, etc. etc.), and got to blitzing through the thing.

I may have put the kibosh on my own goals for this reliving by giving myself the god save. It's probable that, my aversion to challenge and game-overs in RPG gaming notwithstanding, the psychological process of effort and time investment is part of what lends impact and meaning to a longform game story experience. Their struggle did not become my struggle, and the severe disconnect between the story segments where I would watch my guys flail around running from enemies and the battles where they would annihilate everyone in one turn was too comical to ignore and took me very much out of the experience.

Shopping Cart Hero 2

2010-01-31T01:42:00.006-06:00

Supermarket sweep, meet MXC.

It took me around 400 rolls down the hill to master both the Monkey-in-hot-air balloon and the Giant Worm. In the process, Britt and I accomplished triple spins, distances beyond 1000, height over 1500, and many shuttle taps. Of course, first we had to die as many ways possible. If I keep it up, I'll break off the arrow key on my keyboard a la GTA2.

The simplicity of the game at first glance is deceptive. Stick figures give way to beautiful pirouettes, graceful baseball bat dumpster flips, and perfectly executed front and back Superman shopping cart holds. I haven't seen anyone have this much fun in a cart since that time in the strip mall parking lot before a Monster Pete show. You can get extra points easily with the tricks and flips with multiple people in the cart. I haven't played the iPhone format but I imagine it's similarly addicting.

The game could be improved with better record keeping, including max distance and height statistics. OK, back to TetrisFriends.

Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter (PS2, 2003)

2010-01-30T16:35:00.001-06:00

(I finished this game several months ago and just now discovered that I never finished - or wrote, really - anything about it. Here's some shizzle jotting.)

This is an RPG that thinks outside the box, for better and worse. I typically have a serious aversion to dying in an RPG - I take it very personally on some level. Maybe it speaks to some sort of empathy or identification I feel with the characters I'm playing as, or maybe I'm just averse to even temporary setbacks or down moments in a game where I'd rather imagine myself on an inexorable upward trajectory toward mastery over everything the game could throw at me.

(I should say as a caveat that I only feel this way when I play an RPG. If I were playing Mario, for instance, I'd think nothing of dying as many times as I had lives as long as I got through a level, and I certainly wouldn't expect myself to clear a game without losing a life. Something about seeing that "GAME OVER" screen in an RPG, though, tells me I just failed at things I think of myself as somewhat good at: resource management, upkeep and maintenance, preparing adequately for tough situations.)

I am also, I have discovered, a story player where RPGs are concerned. I typically ignore the "% complete" display should a game attempt to taunt me with its not saying 100%, and I would rather hit up walkthroughs than scour every town looking for the one NPC who I need to talk to to get some door to open halfway across the world. And if I'm underleveled facing a tough boss but there's a sidequest that will get me an overpowered weapon to take him out so I don't have to grind, you'd best believe I'm going to go and complete that sidequest, walkthrough-assisted, so I can beat the boss and get the next bit of story. And once I've seen the canon ending, I don't play the game again or engage much in post-game challenges. Those are where the game reveals itself to be a bunch of numbers and dice-rolling and lose the plot completely. Not having it.

Dragon Quarter has very little use for either of these attitudes toward gaming. First, the game expects you to die, repeatedly, before you can level up enough to get through even the first part of the game. (Your experience and some items carry over each time you restart.) Second, additional bits and pieces of the story are revealed to you only after dying and restarting several times. Third, the game uses extremely rare items to limit how often you can save. There's a temporary save every time you quit, but you lose it when you load it. Fourth, and what pushes this game into the crazy/innovative area is the ultimate-kill attack: you can use it to beat any boss with only a few hits, but use it too often and the game is over. Like, you have to restart the game, over.

As I'm sure a reader can infer, I tend to see games as games, not challenges, so I was reduced around the halfway point to tiptoeing through each successive dungeon clinging to a walkthrough for dear life. The walkthroughs tell you where you need to be in the ultimate-kill meter and how much of it you need to use up with each boss. And I still had to backtrack (gahh!!! breaking the fourth wall!!) to get the meter back from a few boss fights that I squandered ultimate-kill points on.

Regardless, actually finishing games is something I've become very sure that I do, and I did "beat" the game, though it brought only the accomplishment of barely surviving an ordeal rather than mastering and savoring a great experience.

(Speaking of not savoring an experience, a quick note on the A/V. Post-apocalyptic underground steampunk environment leads to 1) soundtrack having some bad-ass electronic-orchestral hybrid music, but 2) an aggravatingly claustrophobic series of low-ceiling passageways and corridors that contributes to the unpleasantness.)

The Princess and the Frog // Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy (1996) // District 9

2010-01-19T01:01:00.000-06:00

Q: What do these three movies have in common?

A: Human to non-human animal transformations.

OK, Brain Candy doesn't really have that, but people do go comatose. Pretty close. The real answer is that I saw them all this weekend.

The Disney film returns to the company's hand-drawn animation roots. It feels like Jungle Book, touring the swamp and New Orleans. There's a cute alligator playing the trumpet, snakes that act like dogs, and voodoo galore. The music, going from jazz to zydeco to gospel and back, was decent. Dancing too. Say what you want about voodoo religion having a bad stereotype, I don't care. Because the voodoo priest in this film, the bad guy, was really badass. He's a total pimp. His shadow even kicks ass. Of course, the film retreads stereotypes about princesses marrying to make everything OK. But my real gripe is that the hot princess was a frog for most of the film, even though she made a pretty sexy frog.

Brain Candy was the midnight movie, part of the SF Sketchfest, a comedy festival. The crowd was rowdy, and I kind of resent paying $12 for a midnight movie, but at least there was parking. I noticed that the recurring scene where all the gay guys come spilling out of a door, implying there was lots of illicit gay sex going on behind the door, was ripped off by There's Something About Mary (when Ben Stiller stumbles over the naked guy at the rest stop). I like the message, that it's OK to be depressed sometimes.

District 9 was a little disappointing. Sure, plenty of people got liquidated by alien weaponry, and the POV cameras made it feel like a video game, and there were alien prostitutes, but.... wait a second, this movie was awesome! The cliches were jumping off the screen -- using 'live' television coverage as exposition as well as for dramatic tension, and setting up an obvious sequel by telling the protagonist he'd be saved 3 years after the movie ends -- but at least there's no everything-is-back-to-normal ending. The South Africa setting threw me off, as I wasn't sure whether the quarantined aliens represented Apartheid-era blacks or the more contemporary and obvious Palestinian metaphor. For some reason, though, South African whites (Afrikaners) make really good mercenaries. See Blood Diamond and The Constant Gardener. They're just convincing. Something about history, maybe, I dunno.

It Might Get Loud (2008)

2010-01-04T15:13:00.002-06:00

I was excited going into this, and underwhelmed coming out. But I am amused that the publicity for this film emphasizes director Davis Guggenheim's last movie, An Inconvenient Truth. Because if there's one thing where the subject matter overlaps like no other, it's environmental warnings and guitar wankery.

Tough to say who this is for. You couldn't pick three much more different guitarists than Jimmy Page, U2's Edge, and Jack White. I appreciate all of their contributions on different levels, though technique-wise Page could wipe the floor with the other two with plenty of jet-engine-imitating facial expressions to spare. If you're already a rock music fan you probably already know the significance of the places they visit to pad out the runtime: Headley Grange for Zep, where IV was recorded- seeing the room where the Levee Breaks drums were recorded is pretty sweet- and U2's high school, where the band met. White doesn't have that legendary lore attached to his backstory (will he ever? the verdict is out), so his sections make do with a lot of old/lo-fi fetishism, all "Son House was standing in a room stomping and singing, it's my favorite record, technology sucks."

I kind of wish there had been some kind of fireworks between White and Edge at the "summit" where the three sit in a fake living room on a soundstage and learn each other's songs, instead of the litany of poker faces we're treated to. "Yes, yes, show me again how to play Seven Nation Army. That one's tough." (Quotation marks indicating, in this case, something no one actually said, but the level of emotional honesty and willingness to debate is about on that level.)

It seems clear that Guggenheim was hoping for *some* kind of discussion of differences in approach or values to emerge by bringing these three guys together- the technique master, the technology wizard, and the feeling-over-complexity, back-to-basics advocate- but his subjects aren't willing to oblige. If I remember the press material correctly, he made sure the three never met before taping the meeting. And it feels like that, like total strangers feeling each other out and scared to do or say anything stupid...which is the total opposite of what music, and artistry in general, is about.

It's like some kind of host-less music talk show, three guests just biding their time until they can take off. A more interesting approach would have been a round-robin covers thing, where for instance, Page would learn Sunday Bloody Sunday, Edge would learn Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground, and White would learn In My Time of Dying, and then we could compare how the song retains or changes its shape in the hands of another artist. Then they'd have something to talk about. As it is, it's like they're practicing for a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame show and are trying to decide what songs to play, in a uniquely passive-aggressive musician way. "Hey how about that one of yours. That one's cool, let's try it." [originator plays song and other two half-ass their way through it] "Yeah, that one's cool...Oh, how about this one instead?"

Final Fantasy X (PS2, 2001)

2010-01-02T23:48:00.004-06:00

(Howdy RGB. It's a new decade and I'm ringing in the year by keeping the ol' girl running.)

Don't let that iconic picture of a sartorially challenged beach bum standing in the ocean with a hundred-pound sword fool you, and fight that urge to rip out your eardrums so you can't hear yourself scream when he speaks. Get ready to suffer some bad voices and a clunky early-00s control scheme, because despite its flaws, this one is really great.

The clock has just turned on making this game nine years old instead of a mere eight. I'm currently a little sour on the whole experience as I'm at the very end and the difficulty hits an inflection point right at the final dungeon. While I understand the motivation for the game suddenly becoming pretty hard right at the moment the majority of the sidequests become available, if almost all the game is going to be such a walk in the park, it really throws me when out of nowhere they expect you to grind and explore the crap out of every last corner.

Up to that point I had been enjoying the game more as an extended interactive movie than a grindfest, and I was unhappily forced to switch gears just to see the end. By the time I was actually ready to take the final boss down, I had lost the narrative thread. It's certainly a credit to the game's hold on me that I stuck with it through to the bitter end...which in my case judging by the play clock, consumed a full 1/5 or so of my total play time. (I was somewhere around 64 hours when I hit the last save point and lost, and at a robust 81:16 when I came back with the goods.)

Incidentally, DQ8 suffered from the same thing. I'm too easily swayed by what the NPCs are telling me to do, in games and IRL, but when all anyone I find in the game wants to talk to me about is beating that final boss, it's hard for me to remember that I'm trying to collect some monsters on a mountain I went through 15 hours ago so some guy will give me this item that I combine with another item to open two seals to get the best summon. Or worse, they're still talking to me about beating the guy after I already beat him! I mean, come on. Next time don't set your world up so that winning the game means the immediate end of all possible enemy encounters. Actually that would be pretty great, a game where you go through all this trouble and then you beat it and playing after the "end," people are all mad at you because they expected you to solve all their problems.

I enjoyed some of the mini-games (the Cloisters of Trials were very Myst/Ico-esque, a huge plus in my book, except they should have taken a cue from those games and cut out the aggravating music) and hated others (Blitzball...just so, you know, wtf). There are a few moments where an ambitious or at least interesting attempt to change up the gameplay falls flat, due mostly to not giving the player any clue how to proceed. I.e., don't just stick me in a room with randomly generating icicles and spheres and a number in the corner of the screen and expect me to know what to do. If this was Wario Ware, maybe; but again, the game to this point has been all but holding my hand showing me how to play it, and in that context it just seems cheap to go another route without warning, rather than "challenging" or "difficult." More to the point, the execution of that room in terms of presentation is so bad and out-of-the-blue that it feels like a half-finished demo screen or a beta version of a future final version.

And how hard would it have been to include navigating the world via airship? I get that the maps are 3D-rendered rather than the 2D overworld maps of previous games, but I would take the fade-out/in to switch between the two over what the game gives you--a button saying "board airship" at save points and a list of locations on the airship's nav screen. Not once do you see the airship move outside of the cutscenes, and you never get to control it. I might as well be teleporting to places in Spira from another dimension, or Tidus's mom's house, given how poorly this mechanic integrates the airship with the map. There's no sense of "let me explore this world!" when you get the airship, which is a classic FF moment in games where you can navigate the world map. Instead it's "let me teleport to this save spot so I can run backward trying to remember where this place I have to get to was."

So that's all the sucky stuff. And Tidus being a complete tool until he grows a pair, which still doesn't make his voice any less whiny. And not being able to move the camera, which I'm sure was an innovation a few years down the road, but which would make doing things like finding treasure chests or, say, avoiding randomly generating icicles much easier.

What's good? The characters, story, and world. The music (hearing "To Zanarkand" at the Distant Worlds concert last month, scored to the FMV of Yuna performing the sending at Kilika, prompted me to get this game from a friend, finally overcoming my nigh-irreparable Tidus turnoff). The battle system and sphere-grid leveling system. Some of the visuals, particularly if you're a generation or more behind like I am. As far as landmark PS2 RPGs go, I still prefer DQ8 because there's a bit of uncanny valley to the faces in FFX and inconsistency between how they look in the in-game cutscenes vs. the FMVs (Tidus gets bony and Wakka gets jaw-y), plus I prefer the old-school-cartoon feel and music of DQ8 overall.

Basically, there is more than valid reason to love this game. I focused on my gripes because it's not perfect. But I was surprised at how good it was. Despite its flaws I think it's better than VII. Eat that, Eight Winged Angel!

PS YouTube is so great. Watching an FFX-2 walkthrough as I write this so I don't have to actually play it. It's like a surreal alternate-reality FFX, or like a bunch of random junk that should have just been optional material after the end of FFX. "How much can we undermine the mood of the visuals from the first game with wildly inappropriate music? Funk, anyone?" And this is coming from someone who doesn't mind J-pop, but as a soundtrack to a slog up a barren rocky mountainside it's just off. And, still the faux airship.

The Hurt Locker / Gunner Palace

2009-10-18T16:56:00.003-05:00

Most Iraq war movies focus on how dishonest the push to war was, or how hopeless the fight is. Hurt Locker assumes both, then dismisses them through a protagonist addicted to war and its adrenaline-inducing chaos. The movie is hard to watch if you actually consider the cost of supporting people like him, with its minimal ROI, and as displayed in embedded documentary Gunner Palace, about a squad living out of one of Uday Hussein's palaces just after the "victory" in the war in Iraq, around 2003. But Hurt Locker is easy to get pulled into, if you've ever enjoyed an episode of GI Joe.

The main character is a bomb, or IED, defuser. He's old school, doing such gallant acts as throwing off his communication devices and forgoing use of the bomb robot; if you can imagine an action hero star who prefers analog life (see Die Hard) you'll get my drift. So this flawed hero ignores his family, rides his men, and never gets hurt. Nearly everyone else does. How is he such a superman?

We never really find out. He's Daniel Craig style tormented, ripped--diesel, and not afraid to fight. I guess he's the ideal soldier. So he saves a few lives, places too much emphasis on his relationship with a young local boy, to compensate for failing with his family at home, I guess, and the rest of the characters falter and pray for home. He's not cruel, as one of the higher ranking officers in the film is, preferring to let an insurgent die than receive medical care. He's just addicted to war.

So it goes. Hurt Locker dares you to dream of a world where war is sport, and just as meaningless. Go team USA!

Gunner Palace, on the other hand, is more comfortable dwelling in the silent moments, after the enthusiasm wears off, and soldiers are left with only their weak explanations and vivid memories.

The only hint of Locker's addiction to war found in the doc Gunner Palace is when a young soldier exclaims his joy for being in Iraq. From a small town, natch, the young man says that at his age, about 19, he can say he's been in war, with combat experience. How many people can say that? he asks. The expression of enthusiasm on his face proves that the need still exists to prove your manhood or see the world through war. I wonder whether any alternatives can capture the imagination in such a romantic way. That said, there's nothing too romantic about all the raps--literally, mostly African-American soldiers spitting rhymes next to their Humvees, while beat-keepers smack their hands on the hood--that Gunner Palace prominently features. I liked those.

Zombieland 2009

2009-10-01T08:32:00.000-05:00

Because it opens tomorrow and I saw a sneakpeek last week I'll clue you in.
I'm not much for zombie movies. They usually have more plot holes than Swiss cheese has plot, but I went for free and I liked what I saw I'm not even going to mention spoiler alert here. Everyone survives, almost.
I think everyone gives decent performances and has some good comedic timing.
It worth a look see. More like an essay than a narrative, which lends to it's almost Michael Cera charm.

Really though I just wrote this to try writing from my phone as referrenced by this automatic signature.…

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Jon & Carly, or was it Carly & Jon @ SubT 08/26/09

2009-08-27T22:06:00.004-05:00

So I was among the intimates invited to bear witness to an awesome display of indie rock duo prowess.
These two cats can play any intimate setting I host anytime. They shamelessly self-promoted how hard they rocked by referencing the very sweat they left on stage. Carly rocks some heart achingly good lyrics while Jon plays some sweet (if not sweat inducing) acoustic.
By far the most fun I had was hearing the direct influence of Xyzr_kx on some pro-quality iPod action. You can tell it's pro because of the case, to paraphrase Jon from Jon & Carly (or Carly & Jon.... depends on who brought more people).
The beats that came out really tie their style together, well... not to say I didn't enjoy the acoustic + bass duo in their own rite. What happens though when it goes electric + acoustic/standup bass? I'm curious. I want to see that. I'd pay double to see that up in the house—even my own house. Sure why not.
They're not moody, but they play with feeling; they're artistic without being overly self-indulgent. Frankly I wonder if hipsters get confused about whether they should go or not, though in my humblest of opinion, you should at least try'm out to say, "Yeah, I tried 'em, 'n' they're not too shabby. They play some tracks and we have a drink and it's great night out. They're super accessible for being pretty good. We chatted. Pretty sweet."

Okami (PS2, 2006)

2009-07-27T02:56:00.005-05:00

[next-morning edit: other people nailed it much better than i did.]

I've been playing this on and off ever since I finally put down DQ8, really, and just managed to get up my need-for-weekend-accomplishment drive up enough to see it through to the bitter end. Just under 40 hours of playtime logged, though it was actually probably 80% of that due to my occasionally walking away to do other stuff (since the game was so compelling I couldn't be bothered to play it for months at a time).

It must be my age showing, but I really didn't get into this game. It was long and easy and too cutesy, with a lot of the gameplay taken up by drudgery like wandering around a massive world map and sitting through cutscenes that 1) have some random irritating Peanuts-style "wa wa wa" going on instead of actual voice acting, and 2) you can't hit X through to speed up. Then I hop on reviews and boards and all these kids are telling the world it's the best game of the year, the best game on the PS2, this and that. Clover Studio, the developers, certainly adhered to the "more is more" school in terms of plot, sidequests, items, and which I find myself revolting against as I get older. Maybe it's also that I had just logged some outrageous hours doing sidequests in a game that felt much more familiar to me and

No, no, there are definitely things about this game that even though I'm pushing 30 and clearly impatient, are just not great game design. To wit:
- required random battles. Like, you're in a dungeon, and they've established that you can see the enemies as kind of ambulatory floor rugs of different colors that chase you if you get near them. And that's fine, I figure I'll just speed up and get around them and I won't have to fight anyone, and what's the point of fighting anyway because the only way to gain points toward upgrading health and brush capacity is by doing stuff like feeding animals and engaging in horticulture. All you gain from fighting is money and, if you're good at fighting, a self-esteem boost based on how fast you were at killing or how much damage you inflicted, the award for which is more money. (More on that point in a second.) Since the bosses are so easy you can just walk all over them with the right techniques, I'd prefer to not bother fighting and just enjoy solving the puzzles (some of which are very good) and take a SotC-like approach to beating bosses, treating them as puzzles as well. Given this setup, random encounters are nothing but wastes of time. But STILL, in dungeons, you walk through the very linear path from point A to point B, and out of nowhere the fight music starts and some punks ambush you. And they're not even hard and you get like 5000 yen to add to the 200000 yen you already have because you don't need to spend it on anything to progress in the game. It's ridiculous. Either randomize the encounters, or don't.
- Another thing about time and damage evaluation after every battle. I know I'm a terrible action gamer, but do I really need to be reminded of that every single time I fight something by having you show me some pitiful saplings instead of the full-grown or bursting-with-red-life-energy tree I'd have gotten if I was any good? I know most gamers like their achievements and their stats, but in all seriousness, it sucks to have all the other characters thank me profusely for defeating the bad guy, and tell me I'm their hero the SUN GOD AMATERASU who did what NO MERE MORTAL could do, and then a second later have the game tell me that actually, this particular sun god kinda blew chunks and gets no bonus yen. Adding insult to injury, the "you win the fight" music tag is exactly the same whether you do really well or terribly, so it takes on a sarcastic/insulting tone in the contrast between this triumphant sound and your weak, crumbling excuse for plant life.
- ending straight out of Earthbound. I done played that everyone-you-met-during-the-quest-joins-in-prayer-to-give-you-the-strength-to-beat-the-final-boss thing in '94! (though this game being about Celestial Beings and such, it might be more applicable...but really, there's no churches or prayer before they rip off Earthbound for the ending, just a bunch of cartoony cavorting.)
- Japanese mythology and classic presentation vs. juvenile humor and poor taste. I was just not able to go back and forth from based-on-actual ancient legends of gods and demons to pipsqueak sidekicks mouthing off like a prepubescent and slobbering over every moderately attractive female. In retrospect, I should have known what I was in for when Issun your "clever" miniature companion started blatantly ogling the woodland sprite goddess Sakuya, and when later female characters' watermelon-breasts get a smash zoom and the same sound effect as when the Eagle Man said "I've got something for youuuu" and laid his egg, traumatizing those poor women.

By the endgame, I was consulting the walkthrough willy-nilly and using bombs from the inventory everywhere I could rather than using any brush techniques. I found myself reduced to that "let's just get this over with" mentality that is the nadir of the solo gaming experience. (I will say that getting unapologetically schooled by someone half your age sucks a lot more, but that only applies in a multiplayer environment.) My need to see how it all ended had less to do with being particularly enthralled with the story and more to do with justifying the investment I had already made getting to that point, essentially throwing good time after bad. But it's over and I haven't learned anything, except that if I was 37 hours into a game and had to re-fight 5 bosses, some of them for the THIRD TIME, I'd do it just to see what random plot "twist" they can shoehorn onto mysterious reappearing characters to justify their periodic intrusion on the storyline. (a. he's...YOUR FATHER b. he's...THE VILLAIN c. he's...THE SAVIOR)

To gank The Hudsucker Proxy, "It's for kids!" -- specifically, 12-year-old boys. Which is cool, I was a 12-year-old boy once, and I blew innumerable hours on games I thought were awesome and inspiring at the time, but if I played them now I'm sure I'd find them corny and cliched and not funny. By comparison, DQ8 was nothing but cliches, but the production value was a whole other level and just that was enough to make me love it. Me and this game just met too late.

Despite all of the above, as I write this I'm thinking back over the months it took me to finish it and remembering puzzles, dungeons, and whole passages of the game that I found very enjoyable. I think there were at least two too many fake-out "final" bosses - where you're all geared up for the end and you think you did it, but then suddenly it's not over and the game contrives a way for you to go to some new area to fight the even bigger REAL boss - and I didn't care enough where the story was going to slog through more bad cutscenes and crappy random battles.

But yeah, Okami is the hula hoop of the PS2. I believe I have written myself out of my insomnia and will now publish these thoughts in their current unfinished, rambling, in-jokey, sleep-deprived state. Artsy.

GPS knows better - Mio Digiwalker C230

2009-06-07T21:58:00.004-05:00

My brother and his wife gave me the Mio C230 Digiwalker a couple years ago as a present. I left it in the box, thinking I would sell it.

"I don't need that," I thought to myself. "I know this city."

However, I whipped it out recently. I thought it would be fun and perhaps helpful, especially with my girlfriend in the car to navigate while I drive.

Boy was I right. The small, rectangular box, less than an inch thick, is fairly simple. It has only two buttons, the standby button and an On/Off switch we never use. It took Britt a few times out and about to get the hang of it, with touch-screen typing and menu options and a couple of different views, one called "cockpit" and the other more of a map overview, I believe.

The gadget has gotten us into, and out of trouble. One memorable moment came as I drove in daytime out toward Britt's school about a month ago. Britt was fumbling with the thing, and I heard all kinds of noises coming out of it. She was sounding frustrated, but I was driving through the busy streets of the Richmond and couldn't help her much.

This thing is broken, Britt said as I drove on. I more or less knew the route, but still enjoy hearing the directions the Mio gives. Britt usually enjoys playing with it as well. But the "view" was messed up, Britt said. Usually in the cockpit view, the land is black, with a red line showing our projected route and a blue line for the streets, or something like that. Now, though, the land was beige, with black lines on screen.

Pretty soon we figured out the problem. It was the first time we had used the device during daytime, when it switches to a brighter mode. Tee-hee.

We haven't got a good nickname for the Mio but tried out Magellan and Sir Francis Drake. It's usually accurate with directions, though sometimes it tells me to turn where turns aren't allowed. It also can lead me to some troubled neighborhoods. Recently, we used it to get from the Dogpatch area of San Francisco, an up and coming spot near the new ballpark, to Keith's house in the Mission. Mio guided us right up and over the dodgy part of Potrero Hill, the projects where OJ Simpson grew up. There were some characters out on that Friday night, but we weren't hassled. Could I have sued its makers if I were?

The voice is an older female, and mangles some pronunciation, especially Spanish street names. "Arguello" sounds more like arugula. "Gough" sounds like nguoi. It cries "route recalculation," a mouthful, every time I get off track. That happens often. Britt says I'm just trying to piss off the machine. Maybe.

Despite the Mio's simplistic worldview, and constant nagging, it takes me places I would never otherwise go. For this objective, technological naivete, I enjoy my Mio.

old country buffet in joliet

2009-06-06T21:11:00.006-05:00

the staff of OCB has this to look forward to when they exit the establishment. wicked.

OCB was OCB, except this was special for the realization of a long-time dream of ian's: the creation of fried ice cream from a taco shell with softserve and brown sugar. and hot fudge.

the above slide goes into deep detail in case further exploration of this unique treat is required. here's a step-by-step howto for the project:
1. go to ocb
2. get a taco shell, soft serve, brown sugar, and hot fudge
3. combine as shown
4. ???
5. profit...emotionally.

the other most notable thing about the trip was that the orange chicken and chicken strips looked more like popcorn chicken variants or even little balls of breading and flavor. we conjectured that OCB had no chicken at that time. I'm the type to go scrounging the bottom of the Popeye's box for crispy goodness, so i didn't mind.

Mental... or M backwards e/backwards ntal

2009-05-29T21:18:00.004-05:00

Ummmm.
I read a preview of this show that said it was bad.
It was pretty bad.
I worry though that by posting this bad review of a bad TV show might cause people to fall into the trap of following that trail that says, "No it's bad don't go this way." But then the innocent ends up thinking she can turn back at any moment. No. Not the case.
It raises questions like: Who are the inmates and who are the asylum keepers?
Who could have guessed that the main House-like new sheriff/doctor in town could have a deep seeded secret he's keeping from his colleagues?
Of course, why not drop a cancer plot point in because it's hospital and cancer changes lives? Was that a spoiler? No.
It was indicative of explaining everything away in the first episode so that we can get down to the nitty gritty of writing crazy people in normal situations and normal people in crazy situations and put the sexual tension over that which makes great TV.
Wrong.
As the kids say, "As the kids say, 'fail.'"
I like this post:
Viewing a TV death in 4 acts
And while we're at it...
In defense of distraction
Both come reposted from Arts & Letters Daily. They were far more valuable than the TV skull atrocity I watched. Just made that phrase up. I'll leave it to the pundits to decide what it means.

Savage Republic

2009-05-19T15:54:00.004-05:00

this band is pretty good, mm-kay (dig the giant HTML page, v old school, black background). all this talk of throbbing gristle makes me want to throw them in the mix. I have the Jamahiriya album, which is "acid surf" at its finest according to the lone Amazon review. The stuff runs on and drones, almost, with mucho reverb and tribal chanting, but it's actually good, too. Kind of an earthy industrial feel. Evidently they've had reunion tours. Per Wikipedia, Jamahirya was Omar Kaddafi's word for his "state of the masses" in Libya. well, whatever.

Star Trek, you know, the new one (2009)

2009-05-08T18:16:00.002-05:00

Yes, a bit early for a Star Trek review, but we saw a preview last night. Going in I did not realize that this was going to be a reboot of The Original Series, and right up till the end, I thought that they were going to clear up the discrepancies with the original series with some time traveling sleight of hand. I suppose they managed to explain the reboot in a fairly creative way; it's pretty "meta" for a film to actually address the fact that it's rewriting the story of its source material. I won't say any more for the risk of excessive spoilage.

One early highlight was the inclusion of an Indian guy in Starfleet. Have you ever noticed that there are no South Asians or Chinese people in Starfleet, despite those groups making up a large portion of the world's population? Beyond that, the beginning of the film is dominated by action sequences, and after a brief lull, the action takes hold again right up until the end. This was the biggest disappointment of the film for me, the oddness of watching a Star Trek film that had way more action than many Star Wars movies. There was nothing wrong with the action in itself, it's well directed and the special effects are good. Yes there are tons of holes in the physics the screen writers deployed, read Ebert's review for a lot more on that. But the real problem is that all the action doesn't leave a lot of room for the moral dilemmas and clash of ideologies that always animated the best conflicts in Star Trek. Sometimes this more cerebral content ends up as admittedly little more than window dressing, but it still contributes to the unique flavor of the Star Trek universe, just like mystic mumbo-jumbo is essential to Star Wars.

You'd be right to point out I shouldn't be surprised that this repackaging of Star Trek aims in a more marketable direction that's amenable to an action filled, high gloss finish. The good news is that it does a pretty good job of transporting familiar characters into a different kind of setting. For me, the performance that was key in evoking that classic TOS feel was Karl Urban as Bones. Part of the fun is seeing the characters as they were as younger people, and hilariously young Bones is just as crabby and crotchety as is his older self. Most other performances are adequate to good. Spock is probably the most important role, and he's quite a bit different than in TOS, but that tension is definitely part of what's driving the story. Ultimately Zachary Quinto gives an interesting performance in a movie that doesn't permit too much subtlety. On the other hand, Simon Pegg is overly jokey as Scotty, a character whose comic appeal was based more on a mild stuffiness than buffoonery. And his accent here is entirely too authentic; that's what you get for hiring a British guy.

The treatment of Uhura's character shows both how far our culture has come in adopting the ideals of feminism since the time of TOS in that she is a much more three dimensional, assertive character here, as opposed to being little more than an extra for most of the series; and how incomplete the realization of feminist ideals has been, because in many ways Uhura remains a sex object, though certainly a less passive one.

So, a good Summer movie. Terminator still bears my hopes for a totally awesome action blockbuster, but this could be the beginning of an interesting series.

Anything Else (2003) / The Front (1976) / Vicky Christina Barcelona (2008)

2009-04-30T13:51:00.006-05:00

In response to Ian's heartfelt search for a different comedy, I propose Woody Allen films. I've seen three lately, The Front, Vicky Christina Barcelona and Anything Else. To be honest, The Front wasn't an Allen film, because he starred in but didn't direct.

Christina Ricci, co-star in Anything Else, gets me going in that good way. To quote Jason Biggs, Ricci's boyfriend in the film, or maybe it was Biggs' then-girlfriend who said it, she's got an offbeat sexual energy. But her whole aura is offset in this movie pretty quickly by her outright craziness, like a nightmare in Brooklyn kind of torture-your-boyfriend nutiness. She tries to set Biggs's character up with different women, depriving him of sex while encouraging him to sleep around, and lets her mom move into the living room of their apartment. The film's set in Queens or thereabouts, with a bunch of brown stone houses, I think.

Not to be outdone, the crazy girlfriend in Vicky Xtina (Penelope Cruz) wields a gun and rummages through other peoples' luggage. She got the Best Supporting Actress award but doesn't appear in the film until about halfway through. We were misled, hoping for another Volver (my gf is a huge P. and Suri Cruz fan. We own Vanilla Sky). Javier Bardem rules in this film, making out with pretty much everyone worth kissing in the thing, yet still retaining some integrity as an artist.

So what's with Allen and crazy women? Who knows.

No watch checks in either of those films, although I did watch Anything Else on two consecutive nights, about half each time. The dialogue is good, with Biggs doing his best Woody Allen. Allen himself co-stars as a paranoid best buddy/mentor. It made me miss having a crazy mentor like I did at my last job.

So these are different comedies, not gross-out, wittier, perhaps snootier, than the Apatowian stuff. Anything Else gets a little slow or tries a little too hard, with split screens at one point showing the zany action in three different situations at once. It's definitely old style.

The Front, meanwhile, tried way too hard. It was based on the Hollywood blacklist, but set in New York, where some TV was filmed/aired live back in the 50s, evidently. The actors were real blacklisted types, except Allen I guess. I feel like everyone took it a little too seriously to be funny. There is a great Allen moment at the end though, where he sticks it to his WASP-y persecutors. He avoids answering their questions, without taking the 5th, and mumbles his way into an indictment of the communist witchhunt. Take that G-men!

I Love You, Man (2009)

2009-04-28T19:53:00.005-05:00

You know, I think I've reached critical mass with this group of actors, the Apatow people that is. It seems like they are in every comedy coming out these days. Because not only do they have their stuff, but they also work with people from The State. And if it's not them, then it's Will Ferrell and his group, also known as the Frat Pack. And it's getting to the point that they all seems the same. It's sorta like eating a lot of leftovers: sure it was good when you first had it and it was fresh, but then you have it later in the week, and then again, and eventually you just get satiated and want something new. Well I want something new in the comedic movies I see. The sad part is I don't even think the writer or director (John Hamburg) of this movie is related to those groups, but just having these people cast makes it seem so.

This movie is about a realty agent, Peter (Paul Rudd), who has no guy friends because he has always focused on relationships with women. So now he needs to find a best man for his wedding to Zooey (Rashida Jones). After a series of bad bromance meet and greets, Peter just about gives up. Enter Sydney (Jason Segel) who meets Peter at one of his open houses. They begin to hang out and so begins the story about their friendship. Peter and Sydney's friendship has an Odd Couple dynamic too it, with Peter being the straight man. But Peter isn't consistent as the straight man, so it's not really that funny compared to classic combos like Martin and Lewis, Lemmon and Matthau, or even Randall and Klugman.

I'm not gonna lie though, the movie made me laugh. The best part, for me, being a speech made by Sydney at the wedding shower. It was the only Part I remember laughing out loud at. Also humorous was Andy Samberg's take on being a gay guy. He's not the stereotypical flaming homosexual, and it's a refreshing take on the average gay male without being preachy in the "gay people are no different than everyone else" sorta way. Sure the movie is evenly sprinkled with funny observational humor, with a minor dabbing of gross out humor, but it's not really strong throughout. Overall, it's not as funny as I wanted it to be. I didn't look at my watch once, but that's not a real indication of the disappointment I had watching. And sure Rashida Jones and Jaime Pressly are pretty, but they weren't in any gratuitous bikini or naked scenes, actually no woman was now that I think about it. And that's a minus too. I recommend rental or torrent for this one.

I guess what I really need is to watch a completely different comedy. Frat Pack, Apatow, Broken Lizard, The State, Farrelly Brothers... I grow tired of them all. I think I'm also satiated by my guilty pleasure comedies, things by the Wayans Brothers; there's only such of Terry Crews one can take. I always said it would be a cold day in hell before I watched anything whose title is preceded by the phrase "Tyler Perry's..." or the general format of "_______ Movie", but I just may have to to break up the monotony of current comedic movies. Actually, that's probably going too far.

Throbbing Gristle: bullet list of annoyances and reliefs, undistinguished

2009-04-26T22:53:00.004-05:00

- just the soundtrack? no songs? wait, one set is the soundtrack and the other set is the songs, with an opener? but each set is the same price so concertgoers including yours truly think you mean you're doing both sets at both shows? cue "price is right" fail here.

- OTOH, as chris was quick to point out, the soundtrack and film were great. all y'all in the other cities who don't get to see it are SUCKAZ. also, you really don't get to see such an enthusiastic reception for something so out...or see something so out at all...much anymore.

- throbbing gristle, seeing as they make completely maladroit music, manage to attract completely maladroit people with no concept of concert etiquette to their shows. To wit:
1) the guy in front of us who was old enough to be my dad making sad hand puppets and rabbit ears at the heads of people he didn't know. a sad, sad, sad, sad, sad attempt at establishing some social bond? (maybe the bond of some crustpunk's fist with his face)
2) a different guy in front of us who was old enough to be my dad who TOOK PICTURES EVERY THREE SECONDS DURING A 54-MINUTE FILM. wtf. and also, did not turn off EITHER the camera's redeye light OR its FAKE shutter sound, so EVERY THREE SECONDS we all got to see a red light mix with the projection and then a "ch-click" from a tinny stupid digital camera POS. WTF!!!
3) tall dudes barging into the miniscule open space i left in front of me so i wouldn't have someone's ass in my face and trying to look around them. well, this happens at every show, not just throbbing gristle. that's why i should wear boosters from here on out.

- despite what you may infer about my opinions of old people after the previous entry, i don't have anything against old people as a group. i WILL stoop to any level to denigrate idiots who have no concern for the quality of the concert experience of the people around them. especially older people who should know better, instead of proving that 1) the kids have a better grasp on social mores than the old-timers, and 2) old people are clueless about technology.

- there were probably much more flagrant violations of social norms at the 10p show. i wouldn't know because i turned in early.

- hoping to see some kind of old-reunion-band version of this, but alas, no luck:

Fast & Furious (2009)

2009-04-22T19:24:00.009-05:00

Not to be confused with The Fast and the Furious, Fast & Furious is the sequel that many fans, and by that I mean an unfathomable US$70 million+ opening weekend worth fan base, waited nearly 10 years for. It brings back the entire original cast: Vin "we almost got rid of his movie career" Diesel, Paul "Keanu Lite" Walker, the sexy (and probably very high maintenance) Jordana Brewster and Michelle Rodriguez. I didn't say anything about Michelle Rodriguez because she may try to find and kill me in her drunken rage.

Back to the review, the in the time line of this fast and furious universe, this movie takes place after 2 Fast 2 Furious and before The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift. So Brian (Paul Walker) is still a cop, Dom (Vin Diesel) is still on the lam, and the girls are alive somewhere doing something or other. This movie changes that, thus creating the driving force of the film. That pun was not intended, I just noticed it. The story goes that Brian and Dom, being on opposite sides of the law, now kinda team up for a common goal, sorta.

The opening is probably the best part of the movie as far as creative car scenes go. The race sequence later on in the film seemed too video game like, but I did get a laugh out of what happened when the GPS directions weren't adhered to. Any owner of a GPS unit who often misses turns would know what I'm talking about. And those types of scenes, along with the ricers and muscle cars included in them, are the main reason to watch the film. That and some skankily dressed girls. Though I did get pleasure from the fact that Koreans played whiney two-bit punks since they obviously aren't cut out to be masterminds.

If you're looking for a deep plot, go elsewhere. If you want brilliant acting, go elsewhere. If you want a touching love story, go elsewhere. If you want mindless entertainment and lose a few brain cells, here you go. I checked my watch once, which is pretty good, but maybe that's because I was too brain dead to want to be aware of time. I'd much rather recommend you attend a evening at Hot Import Nights (Or at least a Friday night at the White Caste at 4 Corners in Downers Grove) instead of watching this movie because then you'd get to see the cars and skanky ho's up close. It's not a good movie. And it didn't have memorable quotes like the original, for example:

Dom: You nevah had me.

or

Brian: Hey man, he was in my face
Dom: I'm in your face.

But hey, what do I know about movies that deserve sequels? Diesel has already signed on for Fa5t 'n' Furiou5.

Prog Metal Roundup

2009-04-09T15:25:00.002-05:00

Metal gets real complicated. It's probably because drama is an essential quality of metal that so many bands tend to draw their songs out to epic lengths and even link them together with often hilariously fantastical story lines.

Mastodon's new album Crack the Skye has long songs and a story line, though I wouldn't necessarily say it's hilarious. This album is the major label debut of a band that has done really well on independent labels, and it's dead serious. I'm just not entirely sure what it's so serious about. Astral projection is definitely in there, and Rasputin. Maybe the bizarre story line is just a justification for the totally awesome album art depicting spirit warriors and ghost bears you can see above. And that's just fine with me.

Mastodon can definitely play them some metal. Their level of musicianship seems to be very high, but they are still comfortable laying down some thick ass power chords when it's called for. They sound better screaming than singing, but they're sufficiently passionate to pull off the more melodic bits. I think the best attribute of Crack the Skye is that although long, the songs don't stray too far into the outer limits. There's one song that has a weird psych bridge, but they don't get nuts and put weird psych bridges into every song. They do it once, and satisfied with a mind melting interlude well crafted, they call it a day and flesh the other songs out with other little touches.

This was probably the key to keeping this album down to a relatively trim fifty minutes. There's no fat present, no forgettable acoustic ditties that fall between the big rocking tracks, just keepers. At the same time, the tracks all sound layered and huge (this album was produced by the guy who did all the Pearl Jam album from Vs to when they got completely forgettable) with really tasty metal guitar tones. Well done.

Hammers of Misfortune are a very different band, and a lot harder to pigeonhole than Mastodon. Mastodon are rockers at heart, but the Hammers are quite a bit more ambitious while working with significantly less resources. Their new(ish) double album Fields/Church of Broken Glass is a two-in-one concept album, two different albums recorded and released at one time, mostly because of constraints on recording budget, or so I gather. Fields is apparently some kind of historical meditation on conflict between aristocracy and peasantry, while Church seems to be about post-industrial decay.

The Hammers have a very different sound than Mastodon. Though I'm not a metal expert, it's sounds somewhere between power metal (no distortion pedals allowed, just over-driven amps) and seventies prog rock ala Yes. When everything is working right, it sounds pretty good, but I can't help but feel that it would have benefited from a better recording. Given that the sound is pretty live (not a lot of overdubs) the individual instruments aren't always captured clearly enough to lend the songs the necessary weight, or to put it another way, rocking-ness.

Another issue is the singing. The mastermind and songwriter of Hammers doesn't do the singing, he farms it out to dude(ette)s who have fairly impressive chops. But the result sounds pretty theatrical, which is not something that I'm very used to in metal. People love Ozzy so much because he sang about Iron Man like some dude he knew. He didn't let the fact that he was singing about a science fiction hero who saved the human race in the future throw him off his game or block up his passion, he may as well have been singing about an alcoholic panhandler that he passed on the street every day. You definitely don't get that kind of personal commitment to the subject matter on these records, the singing is a little more in the realm of show tunes. Everything is telegraphed and really clearly enunciated. But there are plenty of good tunes and interesting images here if it sounds like your kind of thing.

Burt's Place in Morton Grove

2009-04-03T14:12:00.004-05:00

I went here last night with some Collective kids because of Anthony Bourdain:

A few things Bourdain didn't go over (but I knew in advance thanks to Yelp):
- Burt and Sharon run a TIGHT ship. As in, if you don't call ahead and reserve both your time AND your order, they will get very flustered and you stand a good chance of not only being turned away, but also getting scolded.
- Following on from the previous point, be sure to show up on time.
- No serving yourself this pizza. Sharon puts it down at ANOTHER table and serves you slices herself. Want another one? You're gonna wait.

It was a rainy and blustery trip out to the MG whereupon I parked myself in front of this:

That crumbling gazebo just right of the restaurant proper is indescribable. Approaching Saw territory. And if you thought Burt's Place looked intimidating from the outside...

Okay so this doesn't look so elitist-club-ariffic from the picture, but what if I told you you were looking at fully 1/2 of the dining space in the establishment?

Bourdain didn't just call out Burt and Sharon for the shoot either; they pretty much do this coming-out-and-shooting-the-breeze thing with every customer in the place, often unpredictably. And since they demand that you call ahead, they know the first name of at least one person at every table, and don't hesitate to use that name every time they come back to you. They also don't hesitate to razz you for such transgressions as having party members show up late ("this pizza is really good when it's warm") or changing party size ("maybe next time you'll learn how to count").

I've enumerated all the amusing/bemusing aspects of the experience so far. The pizza, nevertheless, is super terrific - moments-out-of-the-oven fresh, not drowning in cheese (and thus made to be enjoyed by the lactose-intolerant), dough from heaven. If you ever wanted to be in an episode of Seinfeld (you know which one I'm talking about) right here in Chicago, you know where to go.

Role Models (2008)

2009-03-30T17:02:00.003-05:00

This film written by David Wain, most likely known for his work on The State, follows the story of two energy drink sales reps, Danny and Wheeler (Paul Rudd and Stiffler respectively) who get in trouble with the law and have to do community service in the form of being Big Brothers to a couple of kids. And over the course of wacky antics, they learn some sorta lesson about themselves or something.

Wheeler is paired up with Ronnie, a rambunctious black kid who has a history of getting his big brothers to quit. He's funny when he hits Wheeler and says controversial things. The most annoying part of his character is his mom because she's just an annoying mom and kinda symbolizes to me what's wrong with lots of parents today. But that can also be said for Augie's (McLovin's) parents. Augie is Danny's little brother and he is into live-action role-playing (hereafter referred to as LARPing). To me this was the most entertaining part of the movie because LARPing is just funny. I could go on a long tangent on how I researched what LARPing is, but I'll only say that if you have free time, read some of the About and Rules in NERO Chicago's website. I was highly amused.

In any case, the movie has lots of cameos from members of The State, which surprised me because I originally mistaken in thinking this was an Apatow film. Acting was serviceable, but lets be honest in saying no one is trying to win an academy award here. The music was not very memorable to me outside of of few KISS songs. The costumes were great thanks to LARPers, but as for the rest of the production value, it wasn't not too spectacular. The overall story was kinda touching, I guess; it mostly was funny because I wasn't expecting much from it. I did zero watch checks and recommend it to people who just want some good clean laughs.

Sicko (2007)

2009-03-16T02:47:00.002-05:00

We finally watched this Michael Moore documentary. I used to be a huge Moore fan, in high school, and still appreciate his stabs at the powers that be in the country, even though he's now one of them. He gives average Americans a mic and airtime, and though he exploits them from time to time, they more or less give themselves to the camera. If they didn't want to be manipulated a bit, they wouldn't have signed on to make the film.

I think France in particular gets a sweetheart treatment. The public demonstrations he fondly parades, no pun intended, across the screen don't show the race rioting that's occurred from those not so well treated by the national systems, including unions.

Taking 9/11 victims to Cuba for healthcare is a symbolic victory for the non-unionized volunteers who served at Ground Zero. I doubt many of the NYPD/firefighting unions have put up much of a fight for the volunteers, but hey -- the whole scene of them getting top quality care is really warm and necessary in the polemical film.

Obviously, someone in those foreign countries is paying for health care. Just because it comes out of taxes doesn't make it free. I wonder what the bureaucratic and administrative (billing, etc.) costs or savings are when there's a single payer, like the government. It must save a lot of resources when they don't have to track down delinquent and late-paying patients, like myself.

Shimotsuma monogatari (2004)

2009-03-14T01:39:00.010-05:00

[English Title = Kamikaze Girls]

This movie, based on a light novel and comic in Japan, both of which I haven't read, is about a girl named Momoko (Kyoko Fukada) who grows up in a small town in Japan. She is into sweet lolita (not to be confused with gothic lolita) fashion characterized by cute elaborate dresses even though the town she lives in all buys their clothes from a Wal-Mart type megastore. She comes from a heritage of a Yakuza (japanese mafia) father and alcoholic mother. When she was a kid, her mom left to marry another guy but she chose to live with her dad. He made money selling bootleg Versace clothing and eventually got busted so the two move in with his mother in the small town of Shimotsuma.

Momoka then tried to make some money to support her dress buying habit by trying to sell the leftover bootleg clothing online. This is how she meets Ichiko (Anna Tsuchiya), a member of a local all girl biker gang. Since she's in a biker gang, she dresses like a yankii (the Japanese term for a thug) and has bad manners. The movie follows the unlikely friendship of these two opposite personalities. Ichiko has Momoko embroider a tribute to the gang leader onto her gang jacket and it turns out Momoko is pretty awesome at it. This leads to Momoko getting a job embroidering dresses at the stor she gets all her sweet lolita dresses from. Though it also leads to her having to decide whether to finish the job or help her friend Ichiko.

Ultimately, this is a chick movie but it's done it such a stylized way that it's not too sappy and sentimental way. The film is full of vivid colors and some trippy hallucinations and animation inserts. The music very fitting with good opening and closing songs by pop-rock artist Tommy February6 and varying soothing to upbeat to guitar riff filled background music provided by Yoko Kano, famous for providing music to mecha (giant robot) anime. For someone not knowledgeable about Japanese culture, this is a nice look into a fashion trends among other cultural aspects. I think the acting is done well enough, I man I could see Momoko as a princess and Ichiko being believable punk. They also did a good job of showing how their friendship developed. I don't think this movie is for everyone. It's probably for girls, people into Japanese culture, or people just looking for something different from the norm. I did 0 watch checks, most likely because I was captivated by the colors in the movie and I had to read subtitles the whole time. This is not a love story in any way, I just used the improbable hook-up tag referring to their seemingly mis-matched friendship.

Mother 3 (2006)

2009-03-02T11:25:00.004-06:00

If this picture doesn't make you want to play Mother 3, none of my words will either.

Continuing my pursuit of "next-level" video games, I found a way to get my hands on this one and give it a go. This game was released in Japan in 2006 for the Game Boy Advance. The story of its coming to be is almost as good as the game's plot. It's a sequel to Earthbound (Mother 2 in Japan), a SNES game that saw release in the US but meager sales (and which I think I can safely credit for turning my cousin into an RPG-head like me). This title was in development for N64 as Earthbound, and spent five years in development for the Nintendo 64 DD drive that never came out, before finally being cancelled along with the peripheral in 2000. Three years later, Nintendo asked the developer, Shigesato Itoi, if he wanted to take another crack at the game for the Game Boy Advance. Three years after that, the game drew near.

Eager Earthbound fans waited for the announcement of an English release that never came, then took matters into their own hands and created a fan translation, an increasingly common occurrence for games that have a small but very dedicated fanbase outside Japan. Not knowing Japanese, I played the translation.

It's pretty short for an RPG; unlike DQ8 which as in my previous post I mentioned took 200,000 hours, I finished this one in just over 20. (As an aside, I wonder if they couldn't make viewing the game clock optional. It's an unavoidable sinking feeling that I get when I see I've put in almost three days of work hours on a piece of entertainment. Maybe this calls for better time management instead.)

It's also better than Earthbound, by a lot.

Those little musical notes you see in the battle screen are one of the keys to Mother 3's fantabulousness. There's a hidden rhythm game built into every battle, where if you start your attack and time it with the beat of the music, you can score up to 16-hit combos and make grinding/leveling MUCH less of an issue to getting the story. But there are an insane amount of battle songs (~20 each with 2-3 variations) and as you get further into the game, there are changeups or stops in the beat that will throw you off, so you really have to pay attention (or settle for 4-hit combos as I did). I think I only had to grind once in the middle for about a half hour, and even then I overshot the mark and made the next boss too easy.

The second awesome gameplay mechanic is the rolling HP meter. Say you have 100 HP and the enemy smacks you for 110 HP damage. In another game, you'd just keel over dead. In Mother 3, your meter goes into a countdown toward 0 HP. This leaves you a (very short) time to select a heal item or cure spell to rescue yourself from death. The rolling means battles can get frantic in an instant, with lots of A-button pushing to flip through everyone's actions so you can get to the healing before the character dies. There were moments in the boss battles near the end where all four of my guys' meters were either going up from being healed near death, or going down toward death. It was a flurry of numbers that heightened the excitement beyond a standard RPG where you can spend hours thinking about your next turn.

Also, while Earthbound looked goofy for the sake of being goofy (tweaking many of the prevailing RPG conventions of the first few generations of gaming), Mother 3 takes the same pixellated children's-story approach but destroys your heart with a tragedy of loss, exploitation, and commercialization. Not BSing here, that's what it's about. And yes, it manages to do that AND still be tons of fun.

SPOILER LINK ALERT: The end might leave you scratching your head, but this interview with developer Itoi sheds light on what he believes it means.

I've discovered a site that shares many of my sensibilities regarding "pushing" the video game format beyond its kid-centric origins to more of an art form. They published this list of the "best" games of all time, and unlike many junky Internet lists, I actually agree with most of it...except Secret of Evermore over Secret of Mana, no frickin' way.

Steve Winwood - "Higher Love" (1986)

2009-02-21T16:17:00.000-06:00

Jon just gave me an LP, Steve Winwood's Back in the High Life. It's great. This music triggers a lot of memories for me, mostly the neighbor's pool on summer nights, staying in hotels on vacation, and watching music videos on cable in someone's basement. This is the kind of music that instantly strikes you as sounding "eighties." It was made in 1986, which i believe was the most "eighties" year of the eighties. In support of this thesis, i have compiled a truncated list of movies and records that came out in 1986:

Movies - Blue Velvet, Crocodile Dundee, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Short Circuit, Top Gun

Music - Big Black's Atomizer, a terrible Cheap Trick album The Doctor, Bad Brains's I Against I, Master of Puppets, Reign in Blood, Slippery When Wet, Peter Gabriel's So, Graceland, PIL's Album

The most striking thing about this album is how great it sounds. Take the first song, which you will surely recognize, "Higher Love." This makes me wistful for the days of analogue recording. It starts off with a pretty spare drum intro (and in full 80s style features live and programmed drums as well as extra percussion) that establishes the wonderfully spacious sound of the recording. It's really like entering an aurally defined open, reverberant room... it's hard to explain why this is so cool, but much like My Bloody Valentine, there is a physical aspect to the sound that draws you into it in a way that's altogether different from the appeal of rhythms and words.

Once the song gets going there are plenty of layers of instrumentation, and I should add that the bass sounds particularly amazing. Great bass is definitely one of the areas in which vinyl cannot be beaten. The lyrics are pretty astounding, embracing fully first world privilege in a way that now seems so emblematic of the 80s. On the one hand, there are the obligatory reference to the state of things: "Things look so bad everywhere/In this whole world, what is fair?" Just about the level of awareness of the global situation evinced in "Do They Know It's Christmas?"

But what's the real vibe of this song? There's a totally triumphant feeling here, that we've achieved such a marvel of material comforts that all that remains is direct and unmediated communion with God Itself. You know, a Higher Love. Morning in America. Maybe the dude from the video will take that super hot girl to some unspecified exotic local and help out some locals, gaining a deep spiritual understanding in the process, and perhaps birthing world music as well. If Peter Gabriel hadn't done it, it just might have been Steve Winwood.

Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King (2004)

2009-02-12T08:46:00.001-06:00

This is an RPG for the PS2. I got it for $6.67 at Gamestop (a $10 game but part of a "Buy 2 Get 1 Free" deal and the other two games were also $10...so $20/3). Looking at the play clock as I wrap up the alternate ending, I see upwards of 110 hours. Even allowing for about 10 hours of occasions where I left the system on if I had to walk away in the middle of a dungeon and couldn't save, I'm still faced with the fact that I spent 100 hours playing this game.

There are two ways to process that number:

1) OMGWTFBBQ I am a nerd. I grew up on NES and SNES RPGs (Final Fantasy/Dragon Warrior and countless derivatives thereof), but the highest play clock I can remember was Final Fantasy VI (or III as it was called at the time), which was somewhere near 50 and was only not 35-40 because I had to grind at the end to get through the final boss Kefka, that cackling punk. I remember that leveling up process as mind-numbingly boring, though I didn't have years of mind-numbing "real" work in an office as a frame of reference then like I do now.

Still, that's just half the amount of time I put into Dragon Quest VIII. I must be regressing into my childhood, right? Who has that kind of time to play video games? Aren't they for kids?

2) Using a metric, say, dollar per hour of entertainment, and comparing to another form of leisure activity. $6.67/100 = $.07/hour of entertainment. By contrast, $10 for a 2-hour night at the movies is $5/hour of entertainment. That's over 70 times as expensive.

Undoubtedly there are also negative repercussions to consider in terms of sheer timesuck and social negligence when I choose to disappear into the world of a videogame. The purely financial/"quant" argument doesn't take into account the spread of those 100 hours, which were concentrated entirely in the space of a month rather than dispersed over a much longer period, as watching 50 movies would be. And I can't deny that by the end I had turned into an addict, flipping on the PS2 almost before I had even got my jacket off at the end of the day, staying up odd hours to find out where the story went next or scouring FAQs and forums filled with unpunctuated tween jibber-jabber about where this or that extremely rare item was.

But any amount of solipsism, psychoanalyzing, or guilt I feel about my time investment won't take away from how awesome this game is. The story is stock Dragon Quest, swords-and-sorcery-and-fair-maidens fantasy stuff, and if you've never been a fan of the old-school JRPG game engine, it strictly adheres to the formula - no Active Time Battle or anything like that to try and force some time-critical "excitement" into battles. (Some of the aforementioned 10 extra play-clock hours where I walked away were in the middle of a battle, and it was amusing to come back and see the enemies just as I left them, still breathing heavily and doing their little dances waiting for me to attack.) But I think originality is overrated, and it's all in the presentation, as they say, and holy crap the presentation!

It's like taking the reins of your favorite 2D animated movie, but in 3D. I think that's the most succinct way to put it - playing a movie. The character/map/dungeon designs are classic: where many games strain so hard to ape reality in their graphics that they take on a creepy quality and magnify the distance between the game and real life, DQ8 embraces its cartoon fantasy roots. The soundtrack was recorded by a REAL symphonic orchestra and the voice acting is across-the-board TREMENDOUS good. As I'm typing this a playthrough of Final Fantasy X is on in the background via YouTube, and it's insane how much bad voice acting destroys my enthusiasm and exposes all the cliches and flaws behind the game right away - by which I really mean, I will never finish Metal Gear Solid 3 because David Hayter's growling as Solid Snake is atrocious. Okay, I might finish it, but I'll have my hands to my ears all the way.

(From what I gather DQ purists are not fans of much of what I mentioned above. The original Japanese version of DQ8 has (of course) Japanese voices, but also MIDI music, and I actually read some comment (I know, first mistake) saying that dudeman preferred the MIDI to the symphonic because the mix was "clearer." Yeah, clearer, and lifeless. Many of the NPCs in towns will say different things to you depending on whether it's day or night, but the night music was MIDI and I was so turned off by it that I didn't bother talking to people at night unless I had to.)

The depth of the characters is astounding, and I envision hundreds of man-hours being put into the script. You can talk to your three companions at any moment on the map, and depending on where you are and what you're doing, they almost always have something different to say, and it's very often right along the lines of what you're thinking. The game really comes alive and gives you the feeling of an actual adventure with companions and not fountains of exposition and motivation.

I haven't even begun to touch on the mini-games (a monster team and arena, a casino) and sidequests that are actually fun, and besides which were excuses to prolong the experience, but I'm running out of enthusiasm gas. I found a random clip that doesn't give much away and shows what the "everyday" experience of the game is like, so if this looks appealing, imagine what it would be like with REALLY GOOD characters and writing, and I will have successfully conveyed how great it is.

Milk (2008)

2009-02-07T18:53:00.004-06:00

This film was pretty sweet and so was my viewing experience. We saw Milk in a new Sundance theater. They renovated a midsized theater complex near the revitalized Japantown/Fillmore district, added a wine bar, and don't take your tickets, EVOR! You can walk in (I did for Sex in the City) and take a seat. I guess the upshot is people buy their specific seats (like a ballgame, etc.) and can kick you out of theirs, but if the theater's not full, you can watch free. Also, you can bring wine to your seat and the seats are huge and comfy, & the theaters small. So it was worth the $3 amenities fee per ticket.

Or maybe I'm just happy because the film was inspiring. I guess you can get something done when you cut your pony tail and put on a suit. They didn't give good explanation of the "Twinkie Defense," the sensationalized excuse for Dan White's short prison sentence. It was actually just evidence of his bipolarity, the real reason he got off relatively easy.

Also, the Asian character was fairly one sided, something I believe Angry Asian Man complained about when they were casting for the role. The Times of Harvey Milk has more real footage, and better interviews.

Monty Python's Spamalot

2009-02-03T12:04:00.002-06:00

I must say that I was a bit skeptical of the quality of a touring performance of the acclaimed musical based on the acclaimed movie based on the legend of Arthur (all three bases noted as "loosely"). At one time in my brief existence on the this planet, I was a student of musical theatre. From that I gained appreciation for most of the production— lights and video and explosions of confetti; moving set pieces and bedazzled codpieces. All in all it can be handily described as "Fun."
The best jokes were the ones of topical Blow-goi-oh-vich nature inserted into the various French and Knights Who Say Ni tauntings. And I could appreciate the numbers and dances that referenced Fiddler, Cabaret, Phantom, Les Mis etc. Considering it was m'lady's first musical experience ever, some of those parodies may have been lost on her, though they were still amusing and she had fun.
And as much as I love parody and satire, I don't think I need a musical of the Meaning of Life, Life of Brian, or Flying Circus. In Spamalot, much of the dialog was lifted and the story was patched together to conveniently explain the enrollment of the knights in the round table, but they were leading me astray. I wholly expected certain Holy Grail elements that never materialized. It would have been spectacular to have a Black Beast of Arrgh!, but understandably did not appear. While I don't understand why I didn't get the shrill sound effect when The Ni Knights dictate the procurement of aaaaaa..... SHRUBBERY! (TREENNGG!)
Missing.
But for the lame missing parts, it was fun.
Richard Chamberlain, whose career spans something like 50 yrs, played Arthur. very. very. slowly.
Some of his dance numbers looked like group activities from a retirement home... without the daily servings of prunes.
Constipated bastards.

The Wrestler (2008)

2009-01-20T08:17:00.001-06:00

Watched this last Friday up in E-Town after hanging out at the Borders for upwards of 90 minutes. It was good. Quite formulaic, but 1) real good acting elevates the material, and 2) as this review mentions, your average wrestling match is pretty formulaic too (even the PPV ones), but that doesn't stop you from getting into it.

Also, much handheld photography where steadicam would have been an acceptable alternative, but I understand the choice. Randy "Ram" Robinson probably couldn't afford a steadicam operator anyway.

Followed immediately by going home and watching the post-Earth Battlestar, it made for a very depressing evening. And then it was the coldest weekend evar to boot. Winter blues anyone?

DMBPedals Metal Zone MT-2 Mod

2009-01-18T18:22:00.002-06:00

Thought I would put up a plug for these guys as they took my Metal Zone and turned it from a 15-year-old's pedal to a grown man's pedal. There are other companies out there that mod the same pedal for more money (I say this having taken advantage of dmb's half-off post-xmas sale), and possibly you end up with more switches on it or something, but I'm here to tell you this is a really good mod, end of sentence.

Marley and Me (2008)

2009-01-12T02:22:00.005-06:00

Who let the dog out? And why can't we control it?

The latest meeting of We Heart Owen took place at the AMC 1000 in San Francisco. Britt, Pete and Keith sat through this popular holiday holdout dram-com.

Many cried by the time the film ended. It wasn't the sunny flick I signed up for. Aniston (spoiler) loses a baby, her job, and her dog. The ladies next to me were balling by the time the final montage broke out. For an Owen Wilson film, this was kind of a downer. Not even the Marley highlight reel during the start of the credits lightened the mood.

The story was better than I expected, a true one about a newspaper columnist (remember those?) back in the days they made money, I guess. Looks like a nice job for a Medill grad.

I thought dog people would love it automatically, but Keith didn't.

The Labrador puppies scene killed. Women swooned. They made a joke about a Labradoodle.

So let us know if you'd like a We Heart Owen button. There are stunning new designs posted on the Facebook page's Photos section. Owen's a bona fide leading man now, which feels kinda strange, like watching your dad cry. He's all growed up. Good for him. Anyways, it looks like he'll get back in form for the Night at the Museum sequel. YeeehaW!

13: Fear is Real (2009)

2009-01-08T12:16:00.002-06:00

I apologize but I couldn't resist. I want to respect the idea of a reality show that tests contestants breaking points and allows for people to be voted off, but it's been done. It's called C-Span. The instant it started, m'lady commented, "Isn't that the cabin from Evil Dead?"
It very well could be.
SPOILER ALERT:
Executive Producer--->Sam Raimi.
I'm not sure if that's a plus for the show or a minus for Raimi.
With all the flash and polished editing effects, I have trouble buying into this show as a "reality" much like any other "reality" show. How can anyone be scared when they're being filmed by people holding cameras? The IR and Nightvision stuff is kinda neat if you like that voyeuristic "I'm watching attractive people get scared" type o' thing.
I wanted the show to work. And I think it could if it had a confederate or two that could stage a death. Morbid, and moderately illegal I know, but considering how many different silence clauses and contracts participants sign, I don't think it's impossible.
I leave with this:
You know it's going to be crap when people are afraid of a modulated voice synthesizer... even if it is added in post.

Cinematic Titanic: Dr. Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks - Live Dec. 20th '08

2008-12-30T12:47:00.002-06:00

Because I'm likely at work still I will be brief.
If you ever thought that MST3K was the greatest thing in the world to air on TV, then you would have been happy to be part of the audience at the Lakeshore Theatre.
Timely comedic references (read contemporary as well as "good timing") mixed with a horrible mutant of a plot made for a fun evening.
Mr. Boone Harris of Elk Grove Village nearly wet his pants and went blind with his giggling school-girl laughter,—it was just the warm up act of TV's/DVD's Frank Conniff performing his tune "Convoluted Man"— drawing the curious stares from neighboring theatre patrons.
Granted it was not an insightful look into the creative process of smart-assery that made MST3K sub-popular, but it was still fun. More cherished was when Boone conveyed my question to creator Joel Hodgson, who along with castmates stayed to sign and chat with anyone willing to wait in line.
And in response to the question about "TV Wheel," they own the rights but who knows if it will come out. At least you can catch a glimpse of it on youtube if you look hard and don't tell too many folks.
P.S. Later that night we watch the DVD of Cinematic Titanic's "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians," which some may remember as an MST3K episode, and still other may remember as one of Pia Zadora's first film roles. It's a no frills DVD that delivers funny. I highly recommend it for rainy days on the couch (read the darkness of my youth).

Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

2008-12-14T09:38:00.003-06:00

Long-overdue viewing of this thanks to Netflix instant viewing (it's my new TV-on-DVD for killing weekends). (Mild spoiler alert although I remember TV Guide and such used this point in their one-line summary) Between this and Milk, I think I've satisfied my quota of the gay experience in the '70s. The crowd that gathers outside the bank is one of the most realistic I've ever seen - so many movies just have a bunch of innocent, speechless onlookers, that seeing a crowd cheering Sonny on (to the consternation of the police), and then making fun of him after his homosexuality is revealed, turns the crowd into an embodiment of the turmoil and confusion of the period.

Also, I've now seen the complete cinematic output of John Cazale, and can now call myself a '70s aficionado.

Au Revoir Les Enfants (1987)

2008-12-06T05:35:00.003-06:00

You're better off going in cold about this movie. Mostly I'm saying that because I was.

Facts relevant to your viewing experience:

- it's French and subtitled

- it's good

Not that you *need* to be and a quick Google search will bring up any number of plot points (including the ubiquitous Wikispoiler) but for once all I'd heard about this was "it's good and you should watch it sometime," so I did, and it was very enlightening to come into a movie *not* knowing the first hour and a half from the trailer plotwise. Actually discovering, "Oh, *that's* where they are and what they're doing" on my own, and deciding for myself how to feel about the events onscreen, instead of consuming all manner of ancillary reviews and forum opinions before going in so all I can think of is *their* attitude toward it. Funk dat.

No affiliation here, but feel like plugging theauteurs.com because it's in beta and has free old foreign films (free until they take it out of beta, assumedly). That's where I saw this.

Changeling (2008)

2008-11-29T23:46:00.007-06:00

Clint Eastwood directed, wrote the music for, and bathes daily with this film. Its title comes from European folklore. A changeling is the offspring of a fairy, troll, elf or other legendary creature that has been secretly left in the place of a human child, says Wikipedia.

Here, the corrupt, murderous 1920s LA Police Dept. substitutes an abandoned boy for a mother's missing kid, hoping to make some good news headlines. But Rev. Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich), a pastor who spends his time poking things up the police department's butt, and mother Christine Collins (Jolie) won't have it.

I'm so cynical when I see Malkovich's face -- he's a die-hard right-winger, evidenced in the ode to himself, Being John Malkovich, with its pathetic left wing animal rights activists who dream of being him -- that I read it into his characters. But he plays this one pretty straight. His pastor is a lover of the finer things, and speaks over and past the distraught single mother (Angelina Jolie), but still manages to support and even save her.

I felt like this film would not have been so good if it wasn't true. And that kind of makes it bad. Like a screenwriter could have thrown in some child rape to make the bad guy worse ("You want to make my day, punk?") and then implicated the bad cops or maybe the docs that locked Collins in the psych ward. Also, Jolie has like no breasts. What happened in Tomb Raider that didn't happen here?

Various Artists - Special Brew (1996)

2008-11-07T16:10:00.004-06:00

I found a copy of this for $2 last weekend during an insane journey to four Half-Price Books stores in one day in the Chicagoland area. (Half Price, which I hadn't been to before, is one of those places where if really good stuff doesn't get seen by the right people within about a month's time, it ends up in clearance racks...Nah, who am I kidding; "nobody listens to techno" and it would have sat there forever if I hadn't bought it.)

Finding and hearing this again just a few months before my 10-year high school reunion is very apropos, as it was seminal for me in terms of my introduction to electronic music. (Basically it was this, The Saint soundtrack, and the Wipeout XL soundtrack. Too bad the core products those CDs were hawking stunk so much butt.) The artist list reads like a who's who of the '90s heyday of triphop and big beat, and features a sequence of tracks (Prodigy remixing Method Man through Underdog remixng Massive Attack) that outlined a decade's worth of musical interests for me and, I'm sure, all of the other couple of thousand (maybe?) people who heard it. I'm kind of bummed out that the scene got so overtaken by male posturing, both in terms of dnb going dark and nerds declaring the idea of a follow-able beat passe. We're due for a revival people.

Heat (1995)

2008-10-27T14:56:00.003-05:00

Still amazing, which I don't think anyone here will dispute. Found this essay on it that argues that the film is *really* about the increasing devotion to the workplace in 1990s America, and how many professionals have come to see work as an escape from a turbulent home life, rather than the other way around. This is a far superior angle on the film than "OMG DeNiro/Pacino!" or "great-looking gangster movie" or even "cops and robbers aren't so different after all."

Now I just have to watch Michael Mann's commentary and then have my head turned around about it again.

Dawn of the Dead (1978)

2008-10-26T21:56:00.004-05:00

TOUCHING.

GROSS.

ENGROSSING.

FUN.

There's lots of gratuitous gore in this zombie flick. Chris tipped me off to it. THANKS. My local video store has two copies. Seeing as their versions of Vertigo and The Birds got destroyed from too many viewings, that's probably a good policy.

So yes, it takes place in a mall in suburbia, where the zombies look frighteningly like normal shoppers. Add guns, a motorcycle gang, black-white buddy action, and a helpless female learning to fly a helicopter. Mix for a slightly overlong viewing time, and presto, my favorite zombie flick yet. I've still got to see Night of the Living Dead (available here free), the first in George Romero's pentalogy of Dead films.

I don't feel this movie pillories suburban life all that much. The main characters spend most of their time protecting, enjoying, and living in a mall, and only (spoiler alert) leave because they're chased by the undead. Other than the end, it looked pretty fun. The mall has a massive gun store, and the pregnant lady drinks and smokes the whole time. HOT. Eventually she even learns how to shoot.

The media appears vital in this film, yet, not very connected. There's not any reporting - all the scenes on the TV take place in one studio, as a give-and-take between scientists and unseen angry mobs. There's actually intellectualizing and punditry, which leads to a plea for rationality in response to the crisis. It's so different from your average newscast during a disaster, which focuses on getting what scant details can be found and reporting straight from the scene. I think movies generally stereotype the media as overly dramatic or irrational, though, so it was nice to hear a logical voice from the tele.

volcano! - Paperwork (2008)

2008-09-26T09:56:00.008-05:00

Some in the RGB circle have had this album longer than others. I myself have been in possession for about a month. It's nice when a release can hold your attention for that long, given today's infinite availability of everything ever recorded, being recorded, and about to be recorded. It's even better when it turns out to be one of those albums that defines a moment in your life and that you'll be able to listen to a long time from now after having been away from it for a while, and have that period come back to you in a ripple of memory. (This recently happened to me with Bloc Party's Silent Alarm, which I hadn't heard since my days of killing time on the Evanston-Chicago public transportation commute by listening to 2004-era hip indie music. Now I need to put that CD back in the box it came from so it doesn't become one of those discs that lives with me everywhere and I get super tired of it, like Siamese Dream.)

Lots of pontificating so far in this review and no indication of arriving at a critical evaluation of the music. That's okay, pointless blathering about Paperwork puts me in pretty good company -- and by "good," I mean "read by more than my 10 pop-culture friends."

While I think Beautiful Seizure had more immediately accessible individual tracks (hey there, "Fire Fire" and "Apple Or A Gun"!), it also swung heavily between high and low points. That was probably volcano!'s intent, but given my music listening habits the end result is usually skipping the harder-to-parse tracks to get to the HITS before I have to go do some other stuff. Paperwork has no shortage of those -- in fact, the band jumps from hook to memorable hook as much as a pop-noise-dance band prone to sudden tempo and mood swings possibly could. And, if you're of the right mindset, those jarring moments become their own hooks too.

Takeaway from this review is...I haven't found an album this enjoyable to listen to straight-through in at least a couple of years. Quite the commendable accomplishment.

I eagerly await the lyrics that are rumored to be going up on their new website, but bonus points to whoever can tell me what "Slow Jam" is about before they do, besides Chris who I demanded the secret from, rather than do my own critical listening. Video below. Does With really say "Where'd you get those shades, Robocop?" in the context of a patronizing Western attitude toward globalization, or is that just wishful thinking?

volcano! doing some music stuff at the Hideout last month. this font is big.

In Bruges (2008)

2008-09-17T21:44:00.002-05:00

Colin Farrell plays self-pitying without going overboard, Brendan Gleeson is great as usual, and Ralph Fiennes does a fantastic job of unleashing his inner unbridled id. This is the kind of movie I wanted to make when I was younger and full of Tarantino-fueled gangland fantasies...hitmen wandering around a scenic urban landscape talking trash to kill the time.

The melodramatic version would have been made by Wong Kar-Wai and involved choppy cinematography, melancholy inner-thought closeups and lots of rain. But In Bruges plays it with whimsically brash Irish charm, Farrell's character somewhat wantonly tossing insults at Americans, little persons, and anything else that crosses his path. Some may find it too clever by half (particularly during a bit of negotiating near the climax), but I found myself guessing all the way to the end, an increasingly rare occurrence and therefore one I value highly.

Way Down in Soma

2008-09-15T20:24:00.001-05:00

the penny dreadfuls, dustonius maximus, the obsessors at Beale Street Bar, Thurs. Sept. 11

Cheap live entertainment in San Francisco is hard to find without either a giant wait or no parking. For its well priced offerings and generous cocktails alone, the Beale Street Bar in SOMA demands attention. But its architecture too draws your eye. Surrounded by shiny, tall, buildings, the squat two-story structure with patios all around reminds me of the SF MOMA. Not one but two staircases, one of them circular, make their way to the rooftop stage.

The show cost $5. It was worth every dreadful penny. The Penny Dreadfuls opened with their mix of rock'n'roll, emo, punk and pirate tunes. They were very energetic. The vocalist Brian, who my girlfriend says is "pretty hot," is a journalism major at the Univ. of Nevada-Reno. The band hails from the "biggest little city in the world." Some say they're too emo, but I think they don't whine too much. They spin pretty catchy, energetic anthems.

Next up was Dustonius Maximus, presumably named for lead songwriter Dustin. The new band plays largely instrumental, jazzy, rockish, ska-ish songs. Kincaid (sp?) fronted with a lyrical trumpet, alternating between bluesy and jazzy and high and low. He actually smiled a lot, too. He and sax player Dan did a nice backing vocals job on one song, a rootsy Jamaican/Chris Murray/Jack Johnson type chill out island riddim, ska/rocksteady thing. The most fun, though, was the closing cover of Tom Waits' "Down in the Hole." Dustin's low voice easily slips into the gravely garble of Waits, and the arrangement was respectfully playful. Dustin actually lives not far from the crooner, in Petaluma, Calif.

The punk Obsessors closed the show. Ducky my pal played drums, cutely per Brittany. The lead singer got in the crowd's face, and the guitar section - one gorgeous white Keytar played by an equally gorgeous woman (think Lisa from weird science, the TV show), and a straight-out-of-the-80s rocker dude with long hair and a white Flying V - backed her up with brass knuckles. The link between new wave and punk never sounded so good.

Why the new Nick Cave album is awesome

2008-09-07T13:57:00.003-05:00

I've realized something about Nick Cave: as he puts out new albums, i keep getting more interested in his new ones, and less interested in his old ones. I don't know if that says more about me or him, but it's pretty great. After all, can you imagine saying the same thing of a band like The Pixies? This became especially true when he released No More Shall We Part a few years ago. It seemed like a big stride past his preceding albums; he started replacing gloomy love ballads with gloomy doom-laden stories and incorporating the feel of rock 'n roll in place of post-punk gothy-ness.

That's what his new one Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! is all about. Most songs are built on taut beats that might remind you a little of krautrock and The Stooges at the same time. Drawing from his other recent project, Grinderman, there's plenty of rawkus guitars and spacey loops on top of the drums, but the focus remains the vocals. The best things going here is Nick's gift for ambiguous, creepy, even weird little stories that nevertheless are compelling.

If you're a lapsed Nick Cave fan, this might be one to check out. The songs are strong, the sounds are cool, and his band, as ever plays with impressive control and plenty of snarl.

Backstreet Boys @ Ravinia

2008-08-24T23:47:00.003-05:00

some observations:
1) bad.
2) actual preteens at the show! like it was 1998 all over again. they even squealed at the boys as they came out of the tour bus. people running all over the fairground like Total Ravinia Live.
3) impossible to see the show over the railing, we could only get a glimpse of them on the big screen over the stage (not common at Ravinia, or am i wrong?).
4) BSB think they're relevant and played a bunch of stuff from their new album and bad solo projects no one wanted to hear. that's always an awful thing to do.
5) but hey, IWITW! and i'll never break your heart! and cheesy live-band interpretations of songs that worked much better in late-'90s fluff dance-pop arrangements! at least, i think there was a band. i couldn't see the stage.

Dark Knight - short redux (possible spoilers)

2008-08-10T10:21:00.003-05:00

I agree with Jon, summer is too nice for opinions, but just right for studying South Asian languages and going to Japan. Act accordingly.

However, I will say this about Dark Knight, that it really made it easy to enjoy police torture.

What makes it OK for Batman to beat up the Joker in a police interrogation room? The ticking bomb, right? We've heard that one before.

This seems kinda reminiscent of the TV show 24... we all know the government is effed up, so we want to imagine that there's someone beyond the government to protect us, from the "bad guys." This good guy has to have a firm moral compass, but must also not have compunctions about using any means necessary to protect our embattled society.

Looks good when it's Christian Bale, but what you get in real life is Jon Burge.

Sorry, that was a bummer. Other than the police torture and sometimes crummy editing, I actually really enjoyed Dark Knight. I'm going to try to see Pineapple Express tonight, hopefully i will feel less conflicted about that one.

Matmos @ Lakeshore Theater, 2008-07-27

2008-07-28T10:38:00.003-05:00

Good. Messed with my paradigm of a "show" a bit because each piece was at least 7-10 minutes long, and there were only 4 of them. But MC Schmidt talked for a while about how he used to watch a lot of pr0n growing up and then they played this awesome piece that was like a pr0n soundtrack that simulated a wiggy VHS tape with random pitchshifting / detuning. And then they did "Supreme Balloon" and it was a totally different show for a half hour.

summer's too nice for opinions

2008-07-26T09:29:00.002-05:00

here's some recent ones though:

Dark Knight - Joker references for years to come. Why so serious? See it.

X-Files - NOT terrible if you've grown with the characters. What, you want them to be flirting with each other after (spoiler from the series!) they had to give up their child for adoption to protect him? You crazy. I just hope there's still a chance for the threequel that wraps up the invasion when the world actually ends, according to the Mayans.

Coldplay (7/22/08 United Center) - Did you know the other guys in Coldplay sing? They could totally be R.E.M. if they raised the faceless ones' profiles.

Wanted - Reminded me of the value of watching popcorn movies with big boisterous crowds. More fun.

Dawen Wang - My man, he's started playing out a lot and I've seen him a couple of times. He be good.

REM @ United Center, 6/7/08

2008-06-07T00:10:00.003-05:00

Openers:
The National - couldn't hear him, but good.
Modest Mouse - couldn't hear him, not good.

REM - Awesome. Songs I can't really believe they played:

Pilgrimage
Let Me In (acoustic, gathered around a piano off to one side of the stage, Stipe's back to the audience - picture above is them doing that, and it also shows you how far back we were, mrf)
Find The River
Pretty Persuasion on a whim during the encore (described as a "change of plan")

Oh and Johnny Marr joined them for "Fall On Me."

A lot of Around the Sun, which I should have known going in and gotten ready for. I also didn't recognize "The Great Beyond" at all until the chorus. And I call myself a fan. I don't think I'm going to get a month's worth of sore throat (sole honor for that still goes to Daft Punk @ Lolla), but it definitely feels raw.

Other observation is that REM fans are the most sedate / cerebral out there. They had a video-camera backdrop that blew up BMS' faces, which was helpful, but occasionally they would turn the cameras on the crowd, and you could not imagine an arena full of people less excited to see themselves on TV. Most of them had that polite "when is this going to be over" look that you get when you have to say something nice to a videographer at a wedding. Also, I was in the nosebleed seats and a lot of us felt no inclination to stand for any of it, not even the ovation. Dudes couldn't see us anyway.

Lots of old tour shirts (all the way back to Murmur), lots of irritating other artists represented via shirt (Bright Eyes, er...North Face) and one awesome gray-haired man with an Effigies tee. I wanted to go up and ask if he was there, but I don't know how he would have reacted.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Cristal Skull (2008) and Sex & the City (2008)

2008-06-02T14:50:00.009-05:00

[Incredulous] "You're named after the dog?"

I could say the real "aha" moment in this installment of I. Jones comes early on, when the aforementioned hero jumps into a lead-lined refrigerator to survive a nuclear blast. "So they really did unfreeze him for this movie," I would tell myself as he struggles out of the battered fridge.

But that's too easy. The fun of the film is in making Jones into a family man. I suppose that's like the last one, putting him in the "son" role, but it works. The lead woman is light, as is the kid, and pretty much everyone, gophers, attack monkeys, aliens and commies included. It keeps a sense of humor and doesn't go on too long, like the other film I saw last weekend, Sex & the City.

Yeah, Sex is stuffed with references and undeveloped characters, so watch the series first. Or don't, and don't. But it is generally a good time and more dramatically interesting than, say, the giant jungle car battle scene in I. Jones.

So go for the killer ants in Jones and the killer fashion in Sex, and stay for the laughs. Or go for a walk instead.

SPOILER ALERT Both of these films end in white weddings, er, weddings of whites.

The Kids in the Hall: Live as We'll Ever Be at The Chicago Theatre 4/29/08

2008-05-31T21:33:00.003-05:00

The performance of the aging veteran Canadian sketch troupe was nearly irrelevant to my enjoyment of their live show. Don't get me wrong, it was great. It was solid. Their performance sets them further apart from SNL as far as cutting edge, tight knit, and frankly, good.
Let me give an example of the types of post-show conversations I engaged in:

Co-worker: So what did you do last night?
Rb: I went and saw Kids in the Hall downtown.
Cw: Oh what's that?
Rb: They're a sketch comedy troupe from Canada, but they've got all these guys that made it in really weird disparate ways (references to Talk Radio, Lilo & Stitch, Bug's Life, SNL).
Cw: Oh. Now sketch, how's that different than Second City or SNL?
(Punch Cw in face with elitist fist)
Cw: Right I understand. Did you get the memo about punching at work?
(cops arrive)

I understand that not everyone got cable in the early '90s. And, being one myself, some folks don't get Comedy Central now. But other folks are just dumb.
At any rate, fast or slow to literalize that idiom, almost every "rule" of comedy and maybe even production was totally validated by this show. It wasn't a teary moment like the end of Speed Racer, but it gave me hope that if I keep plugging away and doing what I've done and push the story/script I too can be successful, provided I get discovered in Canada by Lorne Michaels, and get money thrown at me by New Yorkers and the Canadian government, and provided I stay with it for the money even after my ensemble parts ways, and if I rehash my most famous and overdone characters.
Joking aside they left me in awe with how good simplicity can be and I will be happy to scratch them off my mental list entitled: See Them Before They Die.
In that way, they share a spot with B.B. King, Weird Al, The Presidents of the United States of America, and Violent Femmes.*

*Footnote: In most instances, folks make the list without me knowing they should have been on it until after they've been seen. Currently Neil Young is the top act not viewed yet.

Speed Racer (2008)

2008-05-31T20:32:00.005-05:00

Oh man. I will be the odd man out on this one, however I think that might be the charm or lure of Speed Racer. But I won't hate myself for really really enjoying this movie, and comments come what may.
It might be said that Hollywood has lost touch with how to tell a good story, and considering that most of the movie was shot in Germany, then it makes sense that this had the potential for a good story. The reason it has a good story though is not that it was produced in Germany but that maybe the Hollywood Machine found a niche market--- namely me.
I am a pop culture savvy late 20-something who fancies himself a weekend warrior who has tried sports ranging from Whirly Ball to Windsurfing--Table Tennis to Beer Pong. Most times though you will find me on my bike, on a pair of skis, or in (sudden major chord) a go-kart.
God please just keep reading, and it should make sense why I over looked all the slick graphic work to which I am generally opposed to hand crafted modeling.
I would never consider this to have been a remake, retelling, reiteration or redo. Naively I'm going to suspend my disbelief, as one must wholeheartedly do to enjoy the futurist perspective anyway, to say that this was an homage (glowing chorus of angles). Because each episode of the original was so formulaic and stretched to fit a 1/2 to 1 hour (some "To be continued..." episodes), one would think that there wasn't much to go on for 2+ hours of candy gloss mayhem. But Speed hits most of the points of the Racer Saga, with the specifics of the company Pops works for and his ring as a wrestling champ. I was the only one of the 7 people in the theatre who laughed because I have the episode on DVD where Pops has a flashback of his days mangling faces before taking on 5-8 thugs. Those little things made it that much more real.
Do I think the two beers I had between getting out of work and the start time of the movie made a difference? Yes. Because despite pre planning and eating a whole bag of popcorn (I splurged) I had to get up to let my water run 40 minutes in. Otherwise I may use my "get boozed first" designation.
Here's where I get sentimental.
===SPOILER(?)===
If by the end you don't feel for Speed and his family, you might not be human, or you have never tried to push yourself to do something at which you could fail. I put that warning in there despite the fact that I don't believe you can go to a movie about racing or competition without knowing that the protagonist will come out on top. Maybe it's my current life circumstances but by the end I got teary (not all out crying like when I saw Big Fish weeks after my grandfather died). Of course it might also have been that I went alone on a week night, but regardless. I couldn't help but think about all the racing movies I love and remember and recommend to the pantheon of which Speed Racer will be a part:
Downhill Racer 1969, Le Mans 1971, Wind 1992, and Without Limits 1998, and maybe Hidalgo 2004.
I will put one watch check in, not because I was wondering when it was over or when I could get a chance to piddle again, but because I wondered how were they going to fit a whole ralleye race in for the predictable big finish. I will also say that the kid who played young Speed was very mediocre compared to the kid that played Spridle. I suspended my disbelief that he was bad.

Iron Man (2008)

2008-05-13T11:46:00.005-05:00

I'll begin by saying that I never followed any comic character affiliated with The Avengers unless they interacted with the X-Men. So I really don't know too much about those characters, but that still is more than anyone in the general public would know regardless. So I guess that didn't make me have any expectations about this movie. And usually that's a good thing so I don't get hyped up and end up hating it.

This movie tells the origin of Iron Man in the current time in history. To me, that makes the tech involved a little more believable. But let's start at the characters, because I felt that's the strongest part of the movie. Robert Downey Jr. does an excellent job of making the audience like a character that is a genius, alcoholic lothario. I have not appreciated his acting this much since Weird Science. He delivers his one-liners with ease and really does look like Tony Stark from the comics. As for as his supporting cast goes, this is the first time I actually liked Paltrow's work, Jeff Bridges did excellent being bald, and Leslie Bibb was hot. Terrence Howard played Rhodey well, thus making me get over the fact that the role wasn't cast for a black actor with a more husky voice.

Now the suit itself is sexy. I'll even say the version 1.0 is; but it makes you wonder how his captors don't put a guard inside the room to monitor him as he assembles it. Anyway, the use of his robot buddies to make the Iron Man suit most are familiar with is actually able to hold my attention for reasons even outside the "wow, that's cool" factor. Staying true to the comic, the repulsors are the main form of attack. However unless i missed something, i dunno how an alloy used on satellites can withstand military projectiles. I mean, don't satellites get damaged a ton just with a little space garbage? Whatever.

Anyway, the final battle is not against a major supervillian (at least I dont think), but then again, I dunno who the archnemesis of Iron Man is. And even the battle itself isn't that spectacular. This movie is more about getting us to like the character of Tony Stark than showcase the battle abilities of the Iron Man suit. And I think Favreau did a good job of getting the audience to like Stark, thus ensuring people will go to a sequel. And there's bound to be a whole lotta of bad muthafuckers going to the sequel. I bet I'll be one of them.

Overall: 0 watch checks and recommend it for both non-comic book people and nerds.

Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (2008)

2008-04-27T23:37:00.013-05:00

The latest H&K gives George W. Bush a better treatment in the eyes of young Americans than Karl Rove ever could have dreamt up. He's a weed-smoking (read: fun-loving), empathetic, father-hating 'regular guy' who just wants to be left alone.

But that's okay. The movie was funny and dispenses with most references to reality early on. The movie spends most of its time dealing with stereotypes. It risks losing its plot, so a little refresher about halfway through clues you back in. I'm not used to the superfast cuts and dialogue, but maybe the ApatowIAN types will be hipper to it.

No watch checks. i can't believe people brought dates to that movie. the best scene by far is the Neil Patrick Harris-led trip to the whorehouse. NPH brands a hooker with his initials, then dies. H&K get emo with the ladies, two of whom TOTALLY MAKE OUT OMG. After the whole scene ended, it got an extra clap/wow moment from the mostly male audience I saw it with. And be sure to stay for the NPH extra feature after all the credits are through.

Self promotion: I interviewed John Cho. FUNNY.

Stars of the Lid - Lakeshore Theater, Chicago, 4/26/08

2008-04-27T01:44:00.004-05:00

I was really looking forward to this show so it pains me to come out of it with a negative opinion. Doubly painful since, according to one of the two members of the duo who served as indie-mumblicious emcee, they hadn't played Chicago in six years and his family (including his grandmother who had never seen him play!) was in the audience.

The place was packed. The two official guys in SotL played across from each other at opposite ends of the stage, with a string trio in the middle. One guy was on tabletop electronics and the other moved between that and guitar atmospheres. Lighting was provided by a video projection, not unlike many an Actually Records show I've attended.

They started around 11 and I drifted into sleep within ten minutes. After a bit of a nap I stayed up through the rest of the show and the encore. It was truly odd, that despite the material from their new album And Their Refinement Of The Decline having elements of melody (and other live instruments, such as trumpet), these were almost entirely forsaken for drone and the trio doing whole-note chord progressions. There was a lot less timbral variety as well - it more or less sounded like real strings playing on top of synthesized strings. I was perplexed that even the brief glimpses of melody that punctuate the otherwise monolithic drones were nowhere to be found, leaving the SotL live experience with dark shadows of faces, lights on music stands, and an Impressionist painting of a video as backdrop. If the aim was to engulf us in meticulous texture, the venue might have let the sonics down a bit, as parts of the roof rattled when the bass swelled and made me think of subs in a tricked-out car stereo.

I did like how the talking guy ended the encore song with a "Good" to himself before saying "Good night."

West 32nd (2008)

2008-04-20T01:08:00.002-05:00

Oh, I wanted to like this film. Michael Kang's first film 'The Motel' was unsatisfying but still promising, and the casting of John Cho and Grace Park certainly peaked my interest in this one. But lord, I just didn't find it compelling whatsoever. Reflecting on exactly why it didn't do it for me though, I realized that 90% of the reasons are what frustrate me about AsAm, and frankly, indie cinema in general...

1) All Mood, No Plot - 'West 32nd' looks great. There it is. The opening DePalma shot was well executed and definitely set up the impending mood of intrigue and urban menace quite well. And that's it. The story was without any foundation, the relationships between certain characters were completely unresolved and lord, the lapses in logic were just glaring.

*warning: spoilers*

For example, why exactly did Mike find it necessary to take out the owner of the Room Salon after Lila had warned him of Suki's testimony? Killing Suki I understand but how did the owners of the Salon affect his involvement in the initial crime to begin with? And why establish that there were security cameras in the facility and then have the gratuitous and hilariously cliched shot of Mike taking off his mask, in full view of pretty much everyone? And wouldn't the Korean mob be entirely pissed that one of their upstarts just decided to murder anyone who was in their way? Wouldn't that actually alarm them? Isn't hierarchal order an essential component to effective criminality?

*end spoilers*

But really, these were the thoughts going through my head *while* I was watching the film, which is never a good sign.

2) The Acting

Seriously now, was it just me or were none of the actors actually acting? Outside of the scene where John Cho has a gun pointed at his face, he did about as much emoting as Paul Walker in 'Into the Blue'. The greatest thing about watching outstanding acting is that you can actually feel the characters move through their development (ie anything Tony Leung is in) rather than having it telegraphed to you via

3) The Pedestrian Dialogue

I mean, really, it's always a bummer when everyone in a film basically speaks the same way. Outside of the comedic relief, you get such zingers as: 'I never should have trusted you.' or 'Stay out of Queens'.

4) Trying to be Ruthless but never going far enough.

How about we all stop trying to be post-modern and knowing about plot and get back to some ol Greek tragedy happenings like 'A Simple Plan'? Now, that film shook me up...

*spoilers again*

The ending. Come on now. Who gave a crap if Suki died? And that's what sent John into the cynical end of the pool? Please. It would have made more dramatic sense, in establishing the cold ending, if Lila had died, or something like that. Then, the weight would have been felt rather than telegraphed?

And how is that Mike didn't have a smatter of blood on him after he whipped Suki to death?

*end spoilers*

Sigh.

Pretty much, what was most glaring to me is that the character of Mike, who should've exploded off the screen (ie Gary Oldman in 'State of Grace') was pretty milquetoast and bleah.

I'm determined now to do something about this. Jon, I'll be bugging you soon so best be prepared to avoid my impending pitch at all costs.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)

2008-04-19T23:49:00.002-05:00

Saw this opening night. It's REALLY good Apatow-ian guy-friendly romantic comedy stuff, more unexpected laughs from realistic interactions between people. Lots of naked Jason Segel, you could make the case he wrote the movie to get himself naked in front of starlets.

My favorite parts: The show-scoring scene, and the Muppets Theme scene. Both short, but both perfect.

No watch checks. It's that fungood.

NPR:National Public Radio (2008)

2008-04-17T18:56:00.003-05:00

In the past week or few I've noticed that NPR has put a tremendous amount of attention into what I once thought to be contemporary culture.
I've heard at least two stories about Gnarls Barkley's new album. Both were on music related shows or segments, however that music seems inherently new. (yes a new album, but new not classical). Have I become NPR's demographic?
In a story about web networking sites— Facebook, MySpace, The Pizza Show—they discussed the challenge of commodification of such sites that are not inherently set up to sell anything. Such sites are meant for communicating with friends or making business connections. The simile they used was from South Park. SOUTH PARK!?
NPR is using The Underpants Gnomes to explain economic theory.
Step 1: Collect underpants.
Step 2: (Shoulders shrug)
Step 3: Profit.
Am I getting that old?
Are reporters getting that lazy that they have to resort to TV for making the news accessible to their audience?
Is that analogy really that good?
Yes. A conceded yes.

À l'intérieur (2007)

2008-04-16T04:15:00.002-05:00

All I can say about this right now, having just watched it, is that I'm going to be having horrible horrible nightmares.

Plot, in a nutshell: Pregnant woman is trapped in house with crazy woman who wants her baby.

I mean, holy hades, talk about a transgressive horror film. And holy blood and gore.

I actually feel traumatized.

Chalk it up there along with 'Calvaire' for sheer nihilism.

I mean, CHRIST, I don't think I've ever seen a more disturbing slasher film.

Having said all that, I would definitely recommend you rent it.

Ha!

Autechre / Massonix / Rob Hall @ Abbey Pub, 4.11.08

2008-04-12T20:51:00.003-05:00

Compendium of observations on the night:

- Rob Hall DJed before and after both Massonix and Autechre, lengthening the junk out of the night. Show started at 9, Autechre went on at 11:45.
- Surprisingly, there were women.
- The show sold out and was PACKED. We went to the second level to find a place to sit and ended up at a table on the front left, close enough to barely get a glimpse of the total lack of onstage activity (Rob Hall looking at his laptop). Nevertheless, mostly blocking our view of the stage were a trio of dudes who literally had their faces pressed up against the rail, STARING at the stage. Gear-spotting, we concluded. After about a half hour, one of them moved in his seat.
- Massonix (Graham Massey from 808 State) was NOT hot. It sounded like what might happen if I went through my Reason sessions directory and played all the 16-bar beats I hadn't made songs out of, then whanged on a guitar real loud, then opened another directory of sessions and played those. It was slightly better than that only because they sounded distinctly like Graham Massey's unfinished 808 State songs, which says something about how quickly you can identify some electronic artists by their choice of colors/timbres.
- Autechre appeared in their infamous total darkness and immediately destroyed for an hour. We stood in front of a subwoofer (*excellent* decision) and I felt like I was being given a sonic body shower.
- The gearspotting continued when I overheard someone ask his friend, "Are they using Tablet PCs?" given the distinct lack of visible laptop lids.
- There were beats! People were *dancing*! *Girls* were *dancing*! Not at all what I expected. The dark-haired one (I'm not sure who's Booth and who's Brown) was convulsing his head in time to the music! I don't think these guys are screwing around.
- I got stuck right behind this raver and a guy doing a robot-runningman-climber-pogo hybrid routine. A hilarious someone in front of me kept trying to take flash pictures of the duo and getting an outline of a shoulder. I think I'm in some of his photos.
- I hope a bootleg comes out of this show, although I wonder if it'll sound as good even off the soundboard, compared to lose-control-of-your-body in-your-face loud. Funny thing about this show compared to a rock show, we were able to listen to the whole thing without earplugs and come away without even temporary hearing impairment. I think all of the rocking was in the bowel range, and not the shriek range.

Roadhouse (1989)

2008-04-08T07:16:00.002-05:00

You have to admit it: Patrick Swayze is a great actor. I don't mean "great actor" like Inside the Actor's Studio great, a lot of those actors actually suck. I mean someone who can make what would be a totally non-descript studio movie and inject something intersting and unexpected into it. Patrick Swayze did that a number of times, not least in Roadhouse.

The plot of Roadhouse is classic Western: a new sheriff comes to town and has to take care of the amoral asshole who's put himself above the law. But rather than a frontier town, Roadhouse is set in a small southern town, and rather than being a sheriff, Swayze is the head bouncer at, you guessed it, a roadhouse.

There are no surprises in store for you (except perhaps for Patrick Swayze RIPPING A MAN'S THROAT OUT... whoops i gave it away) unless you've forgotten that back in the 80's action movies did what they did unapologetically. Nowadays you'll rarely see an action movie that doesn't make some kind of claim, however feeble, to relevancy by referencing world events or politics. And what's with all the PG-13 action movies? Jason Bourne, i'm looking at you. We're not wasting any time with that kinda stuff here. It's all violence, cursing, and ridiculously plastic blonde women frolicking naked with Swayze (also naked.) Times sure have changed, but it's nice to look back.

As i alluded to above, this could be a pretty awful experience if not for some good acting, not only by Swayze, but also Sam Elliott and Ben Gazara. And the roadhouse's band plays a string of classic rock covers that sound just about as good as the originals. Some ridiculous plotting and a kinda goofy final scene aside, this is one of the forgotten greats.

Man Push Cart (2005)

2008-04-07T00:07:00.005-05:00

A study in minimalism, much of this film takes place in the dark. At 3 in the morning, Ahmed, a former Pakistani rock star turned street cart coffee seller, pushes his cart to its Manhattan corner. He doesn't get back to Brooklyn til late.

The film's inspiration was Camus' "The Myth of Sisyphus", according to Roger Ebert, who friggin loved it. Man rolls rock up hill, it rolls down; repeat. The guy seems depressed. He lets a cute love interest fade away, then shoves his only chance to make it on the entertainment scene. He doesn't really try to do anything but see his kid, sell his food, and play a little music. But he might be on the right track, not letting a bunch of distractions get in the way.

Somehow, Ahmed speaks perfect English. It seems like he would have more opportunities with that skill, but the film paints a life with little time to find better work.

It reminded me of buying tea from a cart person in Manhattan when I interned at Spin magazine. I could've ended up in the movie -- it used hidden cameras. That helps explain how it was made cheaply. I can't see San Francisco allowing for much budget moviemaking without some subterfuge involved.

So anyway it's pretty good as a movie. Don't expect much to happen, and you won't be disappointed. There's also a Mac cameo. You wonder if Apple pays for those placements, which I see pretty much everywhere I look.

Inner City - Live at Hard Rock Cafe, Boston (2007)

2008-04-06T21:42:00.006-05:00

Guitar hero Marc Flury and one of his Boston bro's form Inner City, a drifty, dreamy rock music making spectacle. Click on their name above to enjoy their performance on the occasion of the release of the multiplayer video game Rock Band. Flury programs for Harmonix, the outfit that made Rock Band and its predecessor Guitar Hero 2. In both you get to pretend you're a rock star. In the former, you've got drums and bass and vocals added to the guitar playing experience. It's better.

But it's no Inner City. The most magical part of the band's Hard Rock Cafe performance, other than asking the restaurant to turn down the house music, comes about 10- 1/2 minutes into the affair. Flurtron plugs in the video game's plastic guitar to play crazy mind-bending noises through his onstage and software set up. It's art imitating video games imitating art. 10,000 points.

Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts I-IV (2008)

2008-04-04T10:33:00.000-05:00

The first CD of this 4-disc set is available for free; the whole thing can be downloaded for $5. I went ahead and paid up in the interest of supporting new music distribution models, same as I did with In Rainbows; although Trent Reznor's sour grapes about Radiohead beating him to the punch are offputting at best, I won't count it against him.

The main reason I'm willing to cut him some slack is because I like this material so much...but I must admit to a heavy bias. Ghosts is clearly inspired by, and is a direct descendant of, Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Vol. II, which is ingrained into my subconscious as I use it to put myself to sleep in unfamiliar environments. The resemblance isn't surprising, as Aphex has contributed remixes to past NIN releases. The two also share a maverick sensibility and a fondness for exploiting the dichotomy between reflective melancholy and abrasive industrial timbres.

Ghosts echoes SAWII in every way, from its being a multi-disc release of instrumentals to the conceit of tracks titled only by accompanying pictures. However, while the Aphex Twin album, true to the genre stereotypes implied by its name, remains contemplative--i.e. beatless--as it shifts between moods of discontent, placidity, and dread, Ghosts is more immediate and driving, lurching from song to song with jarring non-transitions.

Accusations by fans of NIN's more accessible material that Ghosts amounts to a series of half-baked ideas for fully fleshed-out (pop) songs are understandable, but irrelevant. While "Closer," the big hit off 1994's The Downward Spiral, remains a case study in how abhorrent lyrical content can be sneaked into the mainstream by combining it with excellently catchy hooks, by and large Reznor's vocals in NIN only serve to bludgeon the listener with his comically nihilistic perspective, instead of leaving the music open to multiple interpretations. Ghosts' strength lies in its avoidance of those staid tropes.

Doomsday (2008)

2008-04-02T07:40:00.004-05:00

What if Scotland had a viral epidemic and none of the circus punks or medieval historical recreationists died? That is the question that Doomsday boldy sets out to answer. And also this one: what would Resident Evil be like if Mill Jovovich could pull her eye out and use it like a remote camera?

In the "hot chick mows down wave after wave of bad guys while showing little or no personality" genre, this movie has it all: decapitations, recapitations, explosions, cannibalism, the Fine Young Cannibals, car crashes, and more decapitations. Oh yeah, and Doctor Bashir from Deep Space Nine.

It starts out pretty poorly, in fact, with a cliche-ridden introduction showing Scotland consumed by this killer disease, followed by yet another cliched police operation sequence (the kind every cop movie in the 90's started with) introducing the tough-ass protagonist. Really things only start getting good once the movie stops doing everything you expect it to, and let's the crazyness blossom. Right around the time that the circus punk cannibals start rocking out to "Good Thing," actually. And you realize that there's no way the irony of cannibals listening to Cannibals is just coincidental.

It's a pretty wild ride from there, but most of the actors unfortunately lack the comic flair to really make the most of things. Unfortunately, once the movie really starts playing with your expectations and proves itself capable of giving you a nice jolt, it's almost too late. Things are set up for a sequel near the end, as expected, but it's unlikely that Doomsday will get another shot, given how poorly it seemed to do at the box office. A half worthy attempt that only brings the goods in the second half.

Overclocked by Cory Doctorow (2007)

2008-04-02T06:00:00.001-05:00

I previously reviewed one of the short stories from this, a compilation of them by Doctorow. I can't say that any of the other stories were as page-turningly gripping as that one, possibly because I didn't identify as immediately with sentient rowboats or tweener girls as with an overworked systems administrator. That being said, I also didn't find any of the stories hard to read or less than worth finishing. Of particular note is "After the Siege," very nearly as good as "Sysadmins," about said tweener girl who lives through a future-war version of the Siege of Leningrad. (The story was inspired by accounts from Doctorow's grandmother, who lived through the Siege.)

My only overriding gripe with the collection as a whole is that too many of the stories end on the happy side. With my most recent point of reference being the unremittingly dark Blindsight, I would have liked for some of these tales to end more grimly. But I can understand falling in love with characters, especially one based on your grandmother.

Ra Ra Riot (EP) (2007)

2008-03-26T12:10:00.003-05:00

I wouldn't normally find myself listening to an indie "buzz" band, but these kids are friends of Rory's sister so I discovered them organically and thus, authentically (in my head).

They played a show last night at the Double Door and I really appreciated the dynamic they brought to their performance. It genuinely seemed like they enjoyed playing together, and at any given moment the lyric that Wes, the frontman, was singing was also being mouthed by another player, enhancing the feeling of dedication they were giving to the show.

This group coherence sort of comes across on the EP, although overridingly the recording reminds me of a more uplifting Funeral-era Arcade Fire (dance-rock rhythm section plus strings). Wes isn't as SHAKING with emo-tion as Win Butler, which is a plus in my book.

And to Rory: Sting! That's who Wes sounds like. I didn't figure that out myself, some website mentioned it. But it's Police-era good Sting, not "Fields of Gold"/"Desert Rose" bad Sting.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008)

2008-03-23T21:36:00.004-05:00

Frumpy? Yes. Dowdy? You betcha. Needs a makeover? Like you wouldn't believe. Miss Pettigrew has a problem. And lucky for her, she's found just the people to fix it.

:Plot Outline:
Guinevere Pettigrew, a middle-aged London governess, finds herself unfairly dismissed from her job. An attempt to gain new employment catapults her into the glamorous world and dizzying social whirl of an American actress and singer, Delysia Lafosse.:

Meanwhile, WWII looms on the horizon, giving a bit more heft to the film than might appear in the previews. Unless they played up that part.

The music is pretty good, with live big band stuff out of the 40s. A touching number near the end, "If I Didn't Care," is originally by an all black band called The Ink Spots. I don't know whether to laugh or cry about their name, but they made decent song.

Vantage Point (2008)

2008-03-19T19:10:00.003-05:00

[submitted via online discussion with BrownEbert322]

BrownEbert322: btw
BrownEbert322: never see Vantage Point
BrownEbert322: ever
Jon: that bad, huh?
BrownEbert322: they make you live the same incident over
BrownEbert322: again and again
BrownEbert322: from different vantage points
Jon: hahahaa
BrownEbert322: but unlike Rashomon
BrownEbert322: there's nothing to be gleaned
BrownEbert322: from each new view
BrownEbert322: they all fit together
BrownEbert322: nicely
BrownEbert322: snugly
BrownEbert322: annoyingly
Jon: ah it sounds like an exercise in futility
BrownEbert322: and it's just an action movie with 7 scenes
BrownEbert322: that we see 7 times
BrownEbert322: from the views of 7 losers
BrownEbert322: I haven't seen Rashomon
BrownEbert322: but I thought
BrownEbert322: that with each person's "view"
BrownEbert322: the story was told differently
BrownEbert322: so you didn't know what was the truth
BrownEbert322: where reality and fiction merged or separated
Jon: yeah, that's rashomon in a nutshell
BrownEbert322: you've seen it?
Jon: contradictory accounts of the same incident, so no one knows what the truth is
Jon: yeah
BrownEbert322: see, now THAT"s interesting
BrownEbert322: and far more realistic
BrownEbert322: Vantage Point
BrownEbert322: is just "hey what would the movie be if we put the camera Heeeere"
BrownEbert322: "What if we had put it over Thurrrr"
Jon: hahaha
BrownEbert322: "Hey, let's intercut this crap!"
Jon: what an odd idea
BrownEbert322: yeah well the preview is the best part of the movie
BrownEbert322: made it look like it had substance
BrownEbert322: no sir
BrownEbert322: no
BrownEbert322: the end.

Blindsight (2006)

2008-03-14T14:56:00.005-05:00

(title of post links to free download)

In the middle of reading this book I was compelled to take a month-long break to take care of some life potpourri. It certainly hurt my enjoyment of the novel, since I stopped reading right when the action picked up, and for that month my lasting impression of the book was of a series of digressions into identity and sentience ("sentience" definitely being a word that distinguishes SF readers from those who frequent other genres), wrapped in a dark, dense, and convolutedly told first contact story.

It hits a really good mix of theory and action when they encounter the aliens at about the halfway point though, and picks up steam through to the end. I page-turned the last 100 or so pages (of a 300-page book).

This was up for a Hugo Award for 2007, and probably should have won on the strength of its commitment to rooting fantastic phenomena in at least somewhat plausible scientific theory (aside from the vampires, but c'mon, it's vampires!), and its willingness to pose an unpleasant question and follow it to its logical, bleak, conclusion. What the Hugo Winner, Rainbows End, had that Blindsight didn't was a preternaturally gifted preteen girl to act as a foil and soften the hero-hardass's heart. A good thing, IMHO.

Beaver Trilogy (1985)

2008-03-10T07:31:00.002-05:00

OK, it's not what you might be thinking. This is a unique trilogy in that the first film is basically a documentary, and the following ones are fictional recreations of it. I use documentary in a fairly loose sense as The Beaver Kid consists of film maker Trent Harris filming an entertainer-wannabe, "Groovin'" Gary from a small town in Idaho known as Beaver. He first sees him by chance in the parking lot of a local television station, where Gary immediately gravitates to the camera and begins doing celebrity impressions and generally hamming it up.

He fatefully notes that he does a great impression of Olivia Newton-John, but says he'd better not do it without his backup. Harris later gets a letter from Gary asking him to come to a talent show in Beaver where Gary will be making an appearance as Olivia Newton-Don. We next see Gary donning his make up and costume at a morticians (supposedly the only person in town who does make up.) As Harris films this process it's clear that Gary feels a little uncomfortable revealing his own enthusiasm for dressing up as a female pop star.

The talent show is predictably ameturish and it's obvious that Gary is more invested in what he's doing than he wants to admit. It's uncomfortable to watch, but it seems that Gary is pretty happy with how things turn out.

Although this "documentary" is entertaining, it wouldn't really stand out without the following films. It's a bit too haphazard to really work well, although that is also its strength in that it gives you an unexpected insight into an intersting person that you would otherwise never know anything about. The following films explore the character of Gary (who becomes Groovin' Larry) focusing on the tragic conflict between his aspirations and apparent proclivity for cross-dressing, and the reluctance of those around him to accept these things.

The first short stars Sean Penn. It's pretty satirical, showing Larry to be rather self absorbed and making the film maker himself out as a cynical exploiter. It's decent, but the gem here is the third movie The Orkly Kid starring Crispin Glover as Larry. It has the highest production values, and a more subtle and sympathetic portrait of Larry. Crispin Glover is definitely in his element, especially when he is in his "Olivia Neutron-Bomb" persona.

I don't think that the point of these movies is to try to accurately recreate Gary's story, but more to explore Gary's persona in an obviously fictionalized (at times ridiculous) way. The Orkly Kid really suceeds in particular, and alongside the documentary footage is an intersting example of how real life can become fiction.

By the way, if you want to watch this movie (I recommend you do!) you'll have to find a rental place that stocks underground and cult movies, i don't think there's an official vhs or dvd release of this. In Chicago you can get it from Odd Obsessions on Milwaukee in Wicker Park.

Flash Point (2008)

2008-02-28T12:19:00.005-06:00

Long-time Hong Kong action movie star Donnie Yen ("Hero") acts in and action-directs this soon to be released flick. (I got into a press screening during the SF Asian Film Fest.)

The action scenes are pretty tight with Mixed-Martial Arts (MMA) style fighting. There are a lot of holds and other moves where people are lying on the ground, using their legs to crush ribs and things. There's also traditional high-flying kung fu, as well as agitated boxing and the times when they use your clothes as a weapon against you. In a word, awesome.

The problems with the fairly short film are in the plot, which takes a while to unfold. Some comedic moments break it up, like a slow-mo shot of elderly bathers running from the beach into polluted waters, saying "We're going to die anyways," or something like that. The English subtitles were a bit strange at times and the cuts not the greatest, but maybe those will smooth out for the March 14 U.S. release.

But there were clearly things I did not pick up on, like the history of Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong and their gangs. I failed to realize the main couple were from mainland China. Basically, there was a bit too much talking, and I got confused who was who. Arguably, that's cuz I'm not a HK action aficionado.

Still I recommend it for any audience. It's a refreshing look at how to make an action movie without x-treme sex scenes, gadgets or Rambo but with a hardcore bit of ass-kicking.

Accepted (2006)

2008-02-25T02:13:00.008-06:00

I swear, if any of you read this site semi-regularly AND watched Seinfeld, you may come to a similar conclusion as me. There was an episode of Seinfeld where Elaine goes to the video store and gets all these art house movies based on one of the employee's recommendations. Then there's one employee who picks brainless movies such as Weekend at Bernie's. Well dear readers, that employee's name was Gene. Kind of funny since I feel, and AM, like the Gene of this site and review the most braindead movies. And here I'm back again with the movie Accepted.

This is a comedy in which a group of friends from high school don't get into college, for one reason or another, and so they start their own college. This premise is very reminiscent of Camp Nowhere (1994) in such that the kids have to build their own institution to allow their wacky antics to occur and they gotta hide that fact from their parents. SPOILER ALERT Needless to say, the parents find out; thus leading to the predictable conflict and reconciliation along with the assumption of more wacky that can occur after the credits roll SPOILER OVER

I'll say this, it was an entertaining movie and it did it's job of making me chuckle. Justin Long plays the mastermind behind this scheme and does an ok job carrying the movie, however this truly is an ensemble work. Jonah Hill is humorous as the witty/talkative friend, a roll that he's pretty much made into his usual typecast, albeit the his characters' book smarts differ in each iteration. But to me, the most entertaining character is Lewis Black because I just enjoy what he does and he pretty much does that in this movie, so it's not like he's really acting up a storm. He cracks wise, and that's all I want really.

Beyond the cliched humor that kept me entertained, I enjoyed the babes in this movie. And that's to be expected of course in a movie marketed to young adults and teens. There is no nudity in this film, but they provide just enough eye candy and innuendo to keep things honest. No watch checks on this one. However I don't recommend this unless you are really sure your brain is in the open and off position.

Rocket Science (2007)

2008-02-19T21:35:00.002-06:00

I was scared. I thought this movie might be like "Thumbsucker" or "Rushmore", even "Pumpkin", or some other quirky rip-off that just wouldn't be as funny or entertaining as one of those original, off the wall black comedies.

I liked Thumbsucker, couldn't get through Rushmore because I hate compulsive liars and found myself confused morally after watching Pumpkin.

Anyway, Rocket Science is well worth your time. Who doesn't need a dose of speech impediments, dysfunctional families, a weird Korean boy all wrapped up in a story about love, cruelty and the debate team?

I took my medicine and liked it.

When people say children are cruel, they don't really delve into that behavior. It's like hitting puberty transforms adolescents back to being babies, where all they know are their instincts. And let's face it: most of our instincts are based in evil. OK, you don't have to believe that fact, but I certainly do.

Peers start to convince them that the only way to survive is to be the meanest, scariest, most popular person in school and one does not achieve this by being kind and understanding.

Anyway, what I loved about this movie was the sincerity in everyone's not so perfect character. It was an open and honest story that gets up to the line of absurdity, but never crosses over it far enough to lose you.

Oxbow - The Narcotic Story (2007)

2008-02-17T10:20:00.004-06:00

I just made it through this whole album at this site. As one might expect, a transporting and unhealthily disturbing experience. Oxbow seem to be able to pull off totally creepy without batting an eye, but keeping it compelling and just this side of not-completely-offputting.

If I ever saw them live I would wonder how conciliatory a facial expression I would need to wear to avoid Eugene putting me in a headlock.

Withnail & I (1987)

2008-02-17T07:53:00.003-06:00

A big cult film in Britain but not as well known here. Like most cult films, it's got fans who can quote every single line, and also like most films I"m aware of as being cult films, I didn't quite get what made it so cult-y on first viewing. Then I went on Google and found everyone quoting every line.

What did appeal to me, though, was the depiction of bohemian starving-artist-alcohol-addict living at the end of the '60s, which reminded me of a much seedier version of post-collegiate bohemian living in the middle of the '00s. Not that I actually did it, but I know a lot of people who did, and it looked a lot like this, though Withnail and Marwood take it to hilarious lows.

It's pretty hard to say much about what's great about this movie without lapsing into quotes, but you can root around for all of that awesomeness. It's a very dark, British sort of humor.

Internal Revenue Service (2008)

2008-01-31T16:50:00.000-06:00

Oh man. The first review of a government entity! Not even worth putting verbs in the first two "sentences."
I have some unique tax implications for my 2007 return. For instance I have deductible interest for student loans. I also have some deductible interest for my 401(k). But what is really going to blow my refund out of the water (in a good explosive more cash in my pocket sort of way), is the $2000 bones I get to deduct for renting my Uhaul and moving to Chicago.
But have I really moved here?
Am I really eligible for all that cash back?
Sorta and probably!
It's tricky because the way the rules work depend on how much work you are going to get in the first year of living here. Luckily I've been hired for a project that will last 'til about September. Worst case scenario is that I don't meet that expecation and I have to return that cash.
But anyway here's the part you're all interested in...
Although I had two watch checks on my call to the IRS, in 15 minutes of waiting I finally got to chat with Mrs. Baker. I highly recommend her if you are in the central tax zone. She was super friendly and helped me answer my questions. Just make sure when you call you have a good idea of what you need to know and any pertinent receipts. Luckily I just rely on my asstute memory. Or is it astute: a-s-t-u-t-e. Yes. I think so. Yes.
Really my opinion of the tax code is that if you have a basic level of reading and arithmetic you can do your taxes and save some cash. Unless you have a home, kids, pending divorce, unearned income, or aren't in the bottom tax bracket, you should just do your own taxes. It only takes about an hour.
EDIT: I liken Mrs. Baker's customer service expertise to calling up the little old Bea Arthur lady in your condo of old people and asking for help with your W-2. I'm expecting her to send me rum-raisin oatmeal cookies in an IRS decorative tin (IRS Tin 3210(b)) any day now.

The Power of Nightmares Part II

2008-01-26T12:16:00.000-06:00

This is one of three in a BBC series that charts the rise of and similarities between radical Islamists and the neo-conservative political activists. It's presented clearly, chronologically, with fairly entertaining, if random video footage (b-roll) to supplement the interviews. One creepy scene had home video from a car driving around at night in DC in 1991, presumably during the US invasion of Iraq, part I. There was no real point but it was gripping footage, like something was about to blow up.

Anyhow, there are creepy similarities between the politics of fear used by the Islamists and the Neo-cons. Both end up basically hating the populace after their tactics fail. For example, the whole persecution of Bill Clinton for his supposed sex crimes, perjury, whitewater, etc. fit into the Neo-con (and by association, Islamist) agenda by trying to rid the world of a moderate. But in the end, no one really cared enough to impeach him.

The soundtrack is Eno, from Another Green World, which is pretty cool. Those Brits stick together I guess. No watch checks but I was a little tipsy so that.

I think the opening monologue talked about the "myth" of Al Quadae and how it's pumped up by the media. That's probably true but the director Adam Curtis kind of gave it drive-by treatment. I'll go a-looking for the other two DVDs in the series. Rock.

Oh, and there wasn't a single woman interviewed in the hour and a half of dialogue. Probably those Islamists' fault for not recruiting more females, I gather. (sarcasm). Well maybe men did it all -- but not according to Charlie Wilson's War. Julia Roberts character had blood on her manicured hands.

El Orfanato (The Orphanage) 2007

2008-01-20T15:29:00.001-06:00

I don't know why I like to be scared, but I do.

I'm not into a lot of gore, zombies or straight up slasher movies. But anything with a psychological overtone perks a deep interest. Maybe it's because fear feels uncontrollable, and sometimes I like to unwind by squinching down into my seat, with my coat pulled up to the bottom of my eyes.

I read a review before seeing it that brought up the possibility that the things Laura (the main character) sees aren't real.

I never doubted her for a second.

At the heart of the story is a very sad, very twisted plot that bubbles to the surface as the movie unfolds.

The ending may ruin it for some of you. For me, it was a slight letdown, mostly because it changes the mood quickly, leaving you with very mixed feelings.

This is more than just a "horror" film. It's also about the family dynamic and what that might mean to each of us.

There Will Be Blood (2007)

2008-01-20T11:31:00.002-06:00

HOLY SHIT. I never quite understood the full extent of my sister's obsession with DDL (that's Daniel Day-Lewis, of course) until now. And believe me when i say that i just didn't think PT Anderson had it in him. I liked each of his film's a little less than the one before it, except for Punch Drunk Love which was far better than Magnolia. But nothing could have prepared me for the Soddom-and-Gomorrah-like wrath of god to be found in this movie.

The film is set in the wide-open-spaces of the American West but any familiarity you might feel from the big cinemascope vistas is soundly squashed by Johnny Greenwood's burning, alienating score (which is augmented, unexpectedly, with the final movement from Brahms's Violin Concerto.) That huge space is the perfect stage for DDL's portrayal of a man of staggering hunger to devour everything before him, and colossal disgust for the world and men.

There's not too much for me to tell you about the story, which unwinds slowly and let's DDL, in each scene, add a block to his swaying tower of insanity. One of the best parts is the opening, about ten minutes with no dialogue, just a man slowly boring into the earth in search of oil, thirsting for the earth's blood.

Hard Boiled (1992)

2008-01-13T07:15:00.001-06:00

I should put myself in more situations where I watch movies I think I know really well with people who've never seen it before. Sheri was totally all like "What's going on?" within three minutes, and it took me about an hour to remember how they actually ended up in the hospital shooting patients and stuff.

You know you're watching a HK gangster film because of the casual disregard for stuntmen's welfare. Throwing actual people off trailers onto cars and running into them with motorcycles. Also, just in general, they tend to have a lot more guys in group scenes than American movies do. Like at the warehouse takeover, there are like 50-70 guys there. I'm watching The Departed which is a remake of Infernal Affairs which I don't remember very well, except there was one standoff scene in a conference room with like 80 guys between the two factions. I don't think there's any standoff in The Departed with 80 guys. But I guess it's good in its own way. It's got Matt Damon in it, who according to every woman I am currently in contact with is like the hottest guy ever.

One of the best soundtracks of the '90s.

Atonement (2007)

2008-01-13T00:34:00.000-06:00

This is a real good weepy. The movie was a little hard to follow, as it jumped in time and between reality and make believe. Also they spoke with English accents, which I can't really understand. Keira was pretty good and James McAvoy makes me want to be a better man.

No watch checks, except when I got to my seat a half hour before the movie was supposed to start. I blame Dort for that. But we got good seats and she had a pretty good story to tell. She had gone to a funeral the day before of a man killed by Stanford hospital--they gave him chemo for cancer he didn't have. so with that cheery beginning, the place filled up and we watched a flick.

this is a good love story movie, and the war stuff is done tastefully. they mix in real clips from the Dunkirk evacuation of troops, of all the guys happy to be home. of course, some of them didn't make it, leaving the need for atonement of the sins others had committed against them. the soundtrack is like solo piano mostly, with some Cure songs mixed in. just kidding. but they did have cool interplay between the sounds and the music. for instance, a typewriter keystroke would repeat and turn into a rhythmic piece of music.

Charlie Wilson's War (2007)

2008-01-07T00:00:00.000-06:00

Five minutes of morality does not make up for a movie about how great the guy who armed the Afghans was. The real life Wilson took risks and made a name for himself both on and off the field. That makes for an exciting movie. But it does not tell a complete story. Turning the last few minutes into a plea for peace is a nice gesture but I think it was too subtle, especially compared with the rest of the film.

Hoffman was fantastic, even if I couldn't always hear what he said. No watch checks - I turned off my cell phone and don't own a watch, though, so it would have taken some effort. That assistant from Talladega Nights reprises her role as the level-headed advisor, but without the sex fiend waiting to get out thing, thank god. But good acting does a not a movie make.

I'm Not There (2007)

2008-01-06T14:55:00.000-06:00

Seeing Don't Look Back and No Direction Home is almost a prerequisite to seeing this film. A Dylan biography or two probably wouldn't have hurt me either (I've never read any). Dylanologists will find much to ponder here; casual moviegoers expecting a biopic like Ray or Walk the Line, not so much.

It's like a Slaughterhouse Five rendition of Dylan's story, not even really about his life but what people know of it. I liked it, but some audience members walked out. Those who got to the end, though, definitely found themselves unable to resist singing along to "Like A Rolling Stone."

Also, Richard Gere has really lost any sort of charisma or pull he may have once had with me. It might have just been his storyline, but he felt like a total squirm-inducing blank slate.

Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, 2007

2008-01-04T22:07:00.000-06:00

After nearly passing out and getting woozy, one of the few things that came to mind was how the American Red Cross missed a golden opportunity for cross promotion. Sweeny had a lot, check that A LOT of blood. There was so much spilled that the grace and artistry with which it's spilt (yeah conjugation!) reminded me of a champagne toast. My favorite is when someone opens the bottle with a saber, and it spews with rainbow arc.
The big "wher'd'it go?" was the title song usually sung by the chorus in the stage production. I miss it mostly because it is emblematic of Stephen Sondheim's disjointed modernity in lyric and score.
There are other "numbers," as B'way lingoists note, that fall in his style. One might be interested to know that Sondheim's big break came with the lyrics for Bernstein's West Side Story..
All that aside...
I think that movie is long. If only because it is a musical that wears me out. Other than that I liken the story to a cross between a Charles Dickens and Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus. I recommend checking out Julie Taymor's take from 1999.
By the way. Did you know it was a musical? For most of the ads that I saw, there was hardly a mention of a note of a hint of tune. We here in Elk Grove Village theorize that it's a marketing ploy to get more people in the door.
More singing from Alan Rickman please.

The Jane Austen Book Club (2007)

2008-01-03T11:31:00.000-06:00

I shit you not, I watched this film. But it was under the circumstance that it was the in-flight movie, so don't worry... my balls are still in place.

Now I don't claim to be any expert on Jane Austen novels, but I guess what this movie is about is how even those old chick books can be applied to relationships today to make a proper chick movie even though said chick movie doesn't blatantly copy the books. But even this chick movie is based of a chick book of the same title, so let that rattle in your brain.

We follow the story of a woman in the middle of a separation/divorce who is lulled by her yenta friends to create a book club to help her cope with it all. I reckon each member of the club is supposed to match some Jane Austen character, but that's beyond me. But the big twist to the club (OMG SPOILER ALERT!) is that among this estrogenfest, a guy is allowed into their book club thus creating some vehicle to the movie's conflict, or at least one of the conflicts of the movie.

So the relationships have closure at the end of the film, as for what that closure is, be it positive or negative, you gotta watch the movie, or read the book. I don't recommend this movie for anyone one who is not a fan of Austen because some of this stuff just went right over my head. But if you like Austen, chick flicks, and most likely if you have a vagina, you may like this movie. The only saving grace of this film for me is that it has Maggie Grace in it. So hot. And she plays a lesbian! And that's about it for that. Well, Maria Bello is hot too for an older lady. I had zero watch checks, but I did fall asleep for 5 minutes. I was on a plane, what do you want from me?

I Am Legend (2007)

2007-12-26T18:46:00.000-06:00

I wasn't planning on seeing the movie, but when you're hanging out in the Quad Cities over the weekend, your social options are rather slim.

Anyway, there was nothing else playing in the theater we went to plus we got our tickets for free. That being said, it wasn't such a bad movie.

Will Smith can hold a movie on his own, and with little human contact, I was still captivated by his day to day life.

Boat complained that the CG effects were pretty crappy when it came to the "infected folks", but amazing when it came to making NYC look desolate.

I had some internal conflicts about the end (which I won't give away) and would love to hear someone else's feedback if they've seen it.

There were some pretty anxiety ridden scenes, mostly because there was no music.

Anyway, it certainly wasn't the greatest movie ever, but I didn't feel like it was a waste of my time either.

National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007)

2007-12-23T10:20:00.000-06:00

Sequel to a Nick Cage movie that I surprisingly enjoyed, National Treasure 2 once again tried to make Cage the Indiana Jones of American History. This time the same team is back: Cage, comic relief guy and the epitome of hotness that is Diane Kruger; and they must find treasure. It's all they know.

This movie, I didn't find the clues leading to the treasure to be as interesting as the original movie. Nor was the bad guy as menacing as the one in the first one. Probably because Sean Bean has a foreign accent whereas Ed Harris is the launch commander of Apollo 13. And on a minor note, that may be kinda spoiler-ish, the fire lit in this movie is weaksauce compared to the fire that was lit in the first one when they found the treasure there.

I was entertained by this movie, don't get me wrong. But it just wasn't as suspenseful as the first one. Furthermore, I did check my watch once. And one thing that was messed up in the plot was the mentioning of Olmec indians. Just for your own reference, if by chance you do read this before watching it: keep in mind that the Olmec indians resided in southern Mexico. Thank you Lisa Simpson for making me want to wiki Olmecs.

Umm, I only slightly recommend this if you're looking to turn off your brain for a not so well made action thriller. But I highly recommend it if you just want to see Diane Kruger. She's got a great scene in the White House.

Juno (2007)

2007-12-15T23:21:00.001-06:00

Short, smart movie. Edges a little into cutesy (as opposed to "cute" which I'm all for) territory at the end, but it's full of really great one-liners and clever dialogue, which is more than a lot of movies give you. Also, you'd better like Moldy Peaches, cuz you're getting a film's worth of them/her.

The musical-taste discussion between Juno and Mark (Jason Bateman) felt like me now talking to me at 16. Iggy Pop and Mott the Hoople, pshaw. I remember my rave-loving ass borrowing Gang of Four's Entertainment! from the library and being like, "These beats aren't quantized enough, and where's the tremendous low end combined with ambient synth washes that characterize all the music I listen to?" Oh, nothing like slow expansion of musical horizons.

Beowulf 2007

2007-12-10T17:01:00.000-06:00

So despite the fact that I am homeless and looking for a job, I decided to pay the extra ransom for a digital 3D exhibition. Further I never looked at my watch although I found it to be a bit self-indulgent and shall we dare say "Hollywoody"? But if Hollywood does one thing well it's being Hollywood...-y?
Any way if you glance down the page and find my review of "Nightmare" then you will understand the different dimension that 3D brings to this production. Having been produced in 3D and with that in mind all along, this show really takes full advantage of it. There was only one moment where I found it distracting when the camera was situated hidden behind some rocks looking down on a stylized nude of Jolie.
Nudity aside I thought that the script hits most of the points one analyzes in 300 level English Lit classes— Strings of epithets which detail historical occurrences, pride & boasting, bawdity (new word). So to see that all portrayed was great fun.
I was bummed that there wasn't more Malkovich, but as a quintessential American actor, he does a great job as a Dane who killed his brothers. Ray Winstone also did well and I appreciated the daring performance of a nude Anthony Hopkins as Hrothgar.
Wait wait wait!
Nude, he's animated! Or is he? Or isn't he? I can't tell. I'm so confused. And why does an animated feature need stunt doubles? I did notice at least one sequence where the background was live ocean. The only other problem I saw was that some objects the characters held seemed to be without mass- floating only molecules above a lap or miraculously held aloft by a single arm. Even the strongest of arms can show that an object has mass. Maybe it will teach people that if they are going to shoot in digital 3D, then they should only use live animation. That's why I can't wait until Brendan Fraser's Journey to the Center of the Earth. And by can't wait, I mean can't wait to gouge my eyes out by the very dragon pillaging sword of the hand of the kinkiller Unferth.
Yours,
Defiler of Virgins Purveyor of Meade Pummeler of Maidenheads
Rba

She's the Man (2006)

2007-12-02T18:48:00.000-06:00

Not having any knowledge of the actors or even the movie was a nice way to go into this light teen flick. Amanda Bynes plays Viola, an avid soccer player whose team lacks enough players and therefore cancels their season. When her twin brother decides to play with his band in London rather than attend the first couple weeks of school at his elite boys' boarding academy, Viola takes his place and joins the boys' soccer team.

The acting is good. David Cross plays the high school principal, a bald, petty, in-the-dark and somewhat motivating authority figure. He has a nice hearty laugh when he says he was young "back when dinosaurs ruled the earth." Other good characters are the British soccer coach, a tough looking Vinny Jones (Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) and the hip, gay older friend (brother?) with big city, ethnic friends.

The plot is predictable - Viola gets into an awkward friendship with a guy who think's she's a guy, too; her brother comes back; she gets found out and all heck breaks loose in the big game. She eventually reveals herself and the game goes on.

The theme of growing up and boy/girl drama is pretty standard, but Bynes is talented and gave a good comic turn to the role. The film lacks the social class tension of Mean Girls; Drumline and I imagine Bend it Like Beckham have more racial commentary, not to mention better action sequences -- She's the Man is pretty heavily white washed and most of the soccer action is weak. (Coincidence?) I think the story is based on Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Why else would the main character be named Viola?

No watch checks, but I did leave the room for a couple minutes.

Hot Rod (2007)

2007-11-27T20:11:00.000-06:00

This movie is about a hilariously naive self-proclaimed stuntman who has to raise $50,000 to get his step dad a heart replacement so that he can kick his ass, and in doing so, prove himself a man. I wasn't sure that it'd bring this promising story home, but i think they pulled it off.

Ironically, given that the movie is about a never-say-die moron who never successfully pulls off a stunt, the film makers clearly knew their limits and weren't laughing too hard at their own jokes. The jokes are pretty much in Napoleon Dynamite territory with goofy physical comedy and quirky but lovable losers. It definitely doesn't have the immersive atmosphere of Napoleon Dynamite but it does have some surprisingly creative sequences that don't get beaten to death.

Another impressive thing about this movie is how well the supporting cast was chosen, including Ian McShane (the dude from Deadwood), Sissy Spacek, and that one guy from the party scene in All the Read Girls (i think his best line in this movie is about wanting to fist fight the sun and punch it in "it's stupid face.") I guess Lorne Michaels (producer) has been doing this stuff for decades, so he's probably learned some tricks of the trade. Come to think of it, Stuart Saves his Family was a pretty hilarious movie too. Maybe i should finally see that "Pat" movie.

This probably won't be the funniest movie of the year, but it's not trying to be more than it is, and that works out just fine. (Update: i watched this movie again and now i think it may be the funiest movie i see all year, assuming there's nothing as hilarious as Borat.)

No Country For Old Men (2007)

2007-11-25T18:15:00.000-06:00

I need to see more Coen brothers' films. I haven't seen Fargo or O Brother, Where Art Thou? and I think I probably should now.

NCFOD was just plain creepy. I had no idea what to expect, especially with the skeletal summary of "a man who finds a suitcase full of money is pursued by a number of individuals". Um, right...really sucks you in, doesn't it?

I think it's better that I didn't know what it was about, or who was in it besides Josh Brolin (wow, where did this guy come from?).

There is one particularly uncomfortable conversation in this movie that made me squirm so much, I felt kinda sorry for the stranger sitting next to me on my right. The 8 o'clock show sold out last night and I can see why.

I really don't want to give anything away by talking details here, but I think you should all see this movie and then we can discuss it at length.

When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth (2006)

2007-11-23T09:56:00.000-06:00

Read this novelette

I'm not usually a fast reader or one who finds it impossible to put a book down, but every once in a while the right story makes me stay up an hour later than I should seeing what happens next. I read this a few months ago, but since it's up in its entirety and it's really great, I thought y'all should check it out on this fine Thanksgiving weekend. Cory Doctorow frequents the geek podcasts I put on in the mornings as background noise, and he also writes real good.

This one's about the apocalypse as seen from the inside of a data center (one of those huge facilities with thousands of computers in rows and columns where "the Internet" happens).

The Cult of the Amateur 2007 by Andrew Keen

2007-11-17T23:41:00.000-06:00

This book reminds me of a quote from one of my favorite movies, Tombstone.

"It seems my hypocrisy knows no bounds."

The great failing of Andrew Keen in this book (maybe anytime else) is that Keen assumes that people are chained to their laptops and forced to watch user created content. His whole premise of the book is that Web 2.0, the next generation of interaction among users on the interwebs, is the global warming of culture. Man has gotten to the point where they have slowly, or rapidly if you side with Keen, begun to dismantle the hierarchy of culture: where have the cultural gatekeepers gone?

Wikipedia allows a 12th grader to have the same anonymous credential as a PhD biologist on the topic of giraffes. Anyone with a camera and an internet connection can entertain/dupe a bunch of people with a lonely girl and a web cam.

What Keen fails to assert in any argument before his last short chapter of "solutions," is that the keeper of culture is the person who chooses to engage it. I have to chose to look at anything I click on YouTube. I have to choose to chat or make friends on "my"space. If anything the failing of Keen's history on the dementia of Web 2.0, is it falls on educators, specifically and by my own bias the English Majors of America, to teach critical thinking. You don't have to be a professional critic to determine the value of a work, let alone whether or not it's credible.

Art is made by artists. Criticism is made by critics. But that street is one hand washing the other. Now Mr. Keen might say that I'm mixing metaphors. I say that I know I'm mixing metaphors and choose to despite the fact that might be looked upon by Keen as "amateurish." Is it amateurish when I'm credentialled by the state of Montana?

The other topic that Keen fails to address is that for an artist like me user created content is free marketing for me. If people choose to watch what I choose to post, they may at some point choose to pay me for the content they choose to look at. Yes Keen, I ended that sentence with a preposition because I know that if you take a latin lexicon and mix it with a German syntax, then yes, you can end a sentence with a preposition just like in German.

So if you want to get pompous I can be just as pompous as someone who looks like this:

Then yes I can be just as pompous.
My apologies to Mr. Keen, because as I type my drunk aunt is telling me how great and quirky my humor is. I wish I could have spent more time on it without distraction.