Things I am okay with as of Thursday, March 6: Tuna tartare, Pau Gasol’s ability to clean up on the offensive glass, and Cambodian psych-pop, specifically LA’s Dengue Fever.
MP3: Dengue Fever-”Seeing Hands”
What’s that you say? ODB? He’s been been dead for five years? A minor technicality. Rest assured, I will be at ODB’s birthday/tribute tonight. Apparently, RZA, Gza and roughly half the Wu will be in attendance. Also, there will be a birthday cake. I like birthday cake. Only fascists, pinkos and low-level insurance salesmen do not like birthday cake. The event is at the 740 Club on 8th and Broadway in Downtown. It promises to be a potentially very very entertaining affair. You should come if you’re into that sort of thing. If not, expect a report sometime next week. Hopefully, the RZA will bring out the Gravediggaz and they can all conduct a seance.
Download:
MP3: Ol’ Dirty Bastard-”Snakes”
Ian Cohen used to blog here. He usually writes here. Periodically, he drops knowledge on us here at the Passion of the Weiss. Neither he nor I are related to Sally Shapiro. We think.
Sally Shapiro’s name might fool you into thinking that this is a singer-songwriter album from Cherry Hill’s most renowned ear, nose and throat. In actuality, it’s an italo disco record and for all I know, it might be the italo disco “Discovery” or “Music Has The Right To Children.“ In other words, the “it’s ok to like this” representative of its techno subgenre.
Problem is, I’ll never be able to figure it out because being loaded off cocaine isn’t just the key to enjoying “Disco Romance”- it’s pretty much the admission ticket. And really, I can’t think of too many other places it’d be appropriate to listen to this thing outside of a club, but I can’t imagine too many clubs that would play this. Let’s be real, this is just more “I’m the producer’s girlfriend” vocalizing and beats that would probably be state of the art in 1977. A lot of people seem to be riding for the cause of “Disco Romance,” none of whom strike me as the “all night coke orgy this Tuesday type. But if you’re a hipster with a bunch of graphics you need to design, why not…Fuck yeah!” this is your record.
Until I become that person , this is my front-runner for the inaugural “Drum’s Not Dead” Award for “critically acclaimed album you will never play in front of other people.” Seriously…next time you’re driving to pick up one of your friends, play “Disco Romance.” Does that person, a) get out immediately or b) stay in for the sole purpose of laughing at your sorry ass for trying in vain to like this? If the answer is “no” for both, this is not the kind of person you want as a friend.
Download:
MP3: Sally Shapiro-”I’ll Be By Your Side”
MP3: Sally Shapiro-”Find My Soul”
Wow, that was some rainy, miserable, football. I’d rather have watched Dwight Schrute give a power-point presentation on the merits of Dunder-Mifflin paper, than have to sit through that thing again. Hell, I’d rather watch an episode of CBS flagship 2 and 1/2 men than spend 2 and a half hours wondering how much the Bears’ quarterback got mocked for having the last name, “Gross-man” at 9 years old.
Basically, if you weren’t from Indianapolis or Chicago, (okay, maybe just Indianapolis) this was one of the most dull and listless spectacles in recent memory. Yeah, yeah, it proved that Peyton Manning can finally win a Super Bowl. He also has the personality of a bowl of grape nuts, dull, flavorless but surprisingly efficient. Not exactly the stuff of Joe Namath or even Bret Farv….ruh. Y’know you’re suffering when one of the key media backstories of the game is how quiet Marvin Harrison is. Fantastic, news segments devoted to the fact that the star wide receiver is a mute.
I guess Prince doing the Super Bowl was okay. Although, next time maybe someone could pass NFL headquarters the memo that this isn’t the year 1985. Prince isn’t edgy. My grandmother likes Prince (and Benny Goodman). The most interesting side story behind the game was the fact that the Bears’ coach is named Lovie Smith. What the fuck is he, a care bear? A character on Gilligan’s Island? If I were named Lovie Smith, I would change my name to Nails. Something tough. Mean. Maybe if the Bears were coached by a man named Nails Smith they would’ve won (or at least limited Gross-man to like, 14 turnovers).
He Even Looks Like a Nails Smith
Don’t even get me started on the commercials. Maybe I’m not 12 years old anymore but I could’ve sworn that the commercials used to be funny. Now they’re just weird for the sake of being weird. Like that Snickers commercial where the two mechanics were making out? What the fuck was that and why am I supposed to find that funny? Like two grease monkeys swapping spit will make me yearn for a delicious peanut and caramel treat. (Unless of course, it was a commentary on Karl Rove’s deepest darkest fears behind legalizing gay marriage, in which case, it’s genius.)
Congratulations to the city of Indianapolis. If I were in Indianapolis I’m sure I’d be pretty stoked right about now. I suppose they’ve suffered long enough in Super Bowl purgatory (inevitably, God’s punishment for having produced Dan Quayle). But it does mark a new low in NFL history, that the quarterback of a Super Bowl winning team is named after a soap opera-novel about the lives of three lonely and repressed women.
Oh well. Another year, another Super Bowl. This one, stunningly more unspectacular than the last. And as much as I rue the appallingly bad alchemy of football, advertising and bland broadcasting, the irony is, of course, that I’ll tune in again next year, like everybody else. Why? Because I’m a sucker for any holiday that involves beer, chips, pizza and guacamole. Even if Dwight Schrute probably can play quarterback better than Gross….man.
Continuing my epic Stylus series of Cinematic Comparisons that no one asked for, my essay contrasting Revenge of the Nerds and National Lampoon’s Animal House is now up for your reading pleasure. Please peruse it and make me feel whole.
Needless to say, the decision was tough to make, but I’m proud of the way the column turned out, if nothing else because any article that has the categories of best party, best gratuitous use of nudity and best use of marijuana is something I can stand behind. And if you missed it the first time, here’s my first Vs. column, where I compare Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Back to the Future.
Bluto Blutarsky Commands You to Check Out These Other Links
I Am Fuel You Are Friends has some MP3’s of new Brit export, Amy Winehouse whose album Back in Black is much much better than I ever would’ve expected. As Ian Cohen so eloquently put it, “I usually don’t fuck with white girl R&B, but a good way to counter that is to: a) be a raging alcoholic and b) like Ghostface.”
Alex Blagg, who was formerly one of the Net’s finest bloggers before high-tailing it to the more lucrative pastures of Best Week Ever, has compiled The Best of his Best Year Ever. As you might expect, they are all very very funny.
Oh Word has the “5 Songs to Smoke To That Your Weeded Ass Forgot”
Skeet on Mischa’s Best Films of 06/ The Thighs Wide Shut Version
Okay, as I said yesterday, enough’s enough, not like the no-talent metal hair band from the 80’s, but enough’s enough meaning no more new lists. However, as for today, I’m going to try to fight off a terrible cold picked up in San Francisco where I saw My Morning Jacket twice at the Fillmore. More on this tomorrow, but let me just say right now if you haven’t seen MMJ live, I highly highly encourage you to do so. Here are their tour dates. You will not be disappointed. In the meantime, if you’re into that sort of thing, feel free to go back to any of the 8 trillion End of Year lists, I’ve written over the past month. The MP3 links are still active, so download till your heart’s content. Until tomorrow. Tallyho.
*10 Most Slept-On Albums
*The 7 Albums That Nearly Aren’t As Bad as You’ve Heard
*A Dozen Poorly Written Haiku’s About 2006’s Most Overrated Albums
*10 Best Hip Hop Albums
*A Behind the Scenes Look at The Thought Process Behind the 5 Worst Albums
Who in their right mind would buy a product called Henry’s Grandma’s Homemade Sweet Catsup? That sounds like the most digusting thing I’ve ever heard. At any rate, I need a day off to catch up on everything and to let my brain cool off from all this self-indulgent list-making. If you haven’t checked out my earlier lists, please feel free to return to them, read them once more and tell me once and for all how shitty my haiku skills are. Seriously, if you people wanted to read real haikus I should hope that this would not be the place you’d go looking.
I’m clearly not the only blogger doing list-making this December, so if you’re bored in the office today, go over to some other sites and see what everyone else has to say:
* Largehearted Boy’s Favorite Albums of 2006 (also check out his comprehensive tally of End of the Year-lists)
* The Rawking Refuses to Stop’s Best Albums
*Aquarium Drunkard’s Best Albums
*Audio Deficit Disorder’s Top 20 Songs of ‘06 and Best Albums
*Yeti Don’t Dance’s Best Albums
*Nerd Litter’s Best Albums of the 2000s (feat. pieces from yours truly on Sunset Rubdown’s Shut Up I Am Dreaming, Aesop Rock’s Labor Days, and The White Stripes’ White Blood Cells.
The Departed is a throwback to a different era, a time when major studios seemed capable of turning out big budget films reliant on skillful storytelling, masterful restrained direction and bravura acting performances, rather than dazzling FX and various forms of spectacle. The Departed is that all-too-rare mainstream masterpiece, perhaps not on par with 70’s classics like Chinatown, Raging Bull, and The Godfather, but at the very least within spitting distance of its esteemed forebears. In The Departed, Martin Scorsese has produced his finest work since Goodfellas and a late period masterpiece that should nail down the Best Director Oscar that has eluded him for so long.
Despite this film’s glowing reviews, I came into this movie expecting very litle. It’s not that modern-day Hollywood is incapable of turning out decent fare, but these days most movies that hit higher artistic heights usually come from either independent production houses or art-house divisions of the big studios like Fox Searchlight and Warner Independent. At best, I was expecting a sleek and entertaining thriller on the level of Casino, probably Scorsese’s last good film (though Gangs of New York isn’t bad). But somehow, The Departed exceeded all my expectations and more.
I’m not going to run down the plot with you guys, as the film has already been favorably and capably reviewed by several bloggers, but in particular three things struck me as particularly masterful about the film. The first was the film’s over-arching theme of identity. Without hitting you over the head with the obvious truth that realities are malleable, the film manages to weave this concept through all of its plot threads. The way in which Scorsese and screenwriter William Monahan manage to do this is masterful and subtle and reminiscent of a good novel. Something all too rare in contemporary mainstream films. And it’s no surprise that this film was adapted from the Hong Kong classic, Internal Affairs. Nor was it any surprise that Monahan originally intended to be a novelist. The Departed clearly has greater ambitions than to be just another crooked cops/mob flick, and it manages to fulfill these lofty goals admirably.
Matt Damon: Making Ben Affleck Jealous Since 1999
Secondly, the screenwriting of the film was absolutely outstanding. Replete with red herrings and labyrinth-like plot twists, The Departed is a film that easily could’ve been impossible to follow. Yet despite its heavy plot sophistication, the movie never rambles and sustains the viewer’s attention. Additionally, the themes of corruption run deeper than your average cop gone bad film. One manages to root for both the protagonist and the antagonist simultaneously, one of the toughest tricks for any writer to do. In many regards, this film is the anti-Crash, a film that doesn’t need to rely on flimsy character development or cheap emotional manipulation. Insteed, Monahan succesfully creates nuanced affecting characters that actually hold up to analysis and leave a lingering impression in your head. Furthermore, Monahan understands how to toy with the viewer and build tension until it reaches a white feverish pitch. With this script, Monahan has catapuluted himself into the ranks of one of Hollywood’s finest writers and leaves one anxious to see what he’ll take on next.
Third, Martin Scorsese proved once again why he’s regarded as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. Not only is each shot beautifully framed, but Scorsese never lets a shot linger top long, instinctively knowing how to maximize each image to its fullest potential. In the city of Boston, Scorsese finds an ideal backdrop to let this tale of deception and corruption unfold. In many ways, the city itself serves as an additional character, as its alternately ancient and brand-new feel blends with the old world vs. new world realities that seem to clash in the film.
Additionally, Scorsese’s use of music in the film is masterful. From the first eerie and twisted strains of “Gimme Shelter,” to John Lennon’s “Well, Well, Well,” , to Nas’ “Thief’s Theme,” Scorsese grounds each scene and establishes a clear-cut tone and feel.
All in all, the film is probably the best movie you’ll see this year (though I won’t begrudge anyone for choosing the brilliant Idiocracy, which I saw a second time this weekend). The acting is flawless. The script alternately brilliant and hysterical. The direction outstanding. Whether you have the highest or the lowest expectations won’t matter, you’ll enjoy this film. Trust me, it’s damn near impossible not to.
Rating: A
Download from The Departed soundtrack:
The Rolling Stones: “Gimme Shelter” (left-click)
John Lennon: “Well, Well, Well” (left-click)
Fucking hipsters. You’ve done it again. Just when I think that I’ve got my pulse on the burgeoning hipster trends of this fine metropolis (beards, blazers, cheap plastic glasses, the ocasional Rollie Fingers mustache) you guys do something that to quote Bob Dylan, “blows my mind most bitterly.”
The other night, I was at the Serena Maneesh concert with non-other than blogger/pigskin pundit/Hollywood big-wig to be, Ian Cohen, analyzing the profoundly strange demographics of the show. The concert turned out to be a slight disappointment, especially compared to this March’s stellar Spaceland performance), so there was much time to scan the crowd. Accordingly, who knew that going to a Norweigian shoe-gazer/space rock show would draw such a motley array of freeks, geeks and the ocassional dweeb. (insert joke here). Yet out of this wack-pack, I unearthed the newest species of hipster. Yes, I discovered a hipster who had gone as far as to cultivate the Ron Jeremy look.
Now, the idea of hipsters cultivating the look of a famous person is nothing new. One only needs to turn to cinematic classic Fast Times at Ridgemont High to recall that there were at least four girls at Ridgemont cultivating the “Pat Benatar look.” But for the love of God, who would actively seek to look like Ron Jeremy. Apparently, the retard standing to the right of me at the show, clad in a ruffled floral dress shirt, red and white cowboy boots, 30 lbs. of excess flab and a dead rat splayed dead on his upper lip (I presume it was a mustache). It was too much to handle
The guy looked exactly like Jeremy and yet it clearly wasn’t Jeremy. It was eerie. Not Eeerie, like the ill-fated Fox television show, Eerie, Indiana, but more eerie as in, this guy is probably two drinks away from propositioning every girl in the bar with the line: “nice shoes wanna’ fuck.” Creepy.
On one hand, part of me wants to condemn this surely soon-to-be ubiquitous /hilarious trend, after all, Ron Jeremy looks like Ron Jeremy because he’s a trashy gluttonous porn star, not because he’s an upper middle class white kid with a trust fund and a 10-hour a week job as a graphic designer. However, on some level, I think it’s sort of awesome that people can be so desperate for an identity that they feel the need to grab onto a washed-up porn star whose “hedgehog,” nickname is easily the most appropriate alias since the Ol’ Dirty Bastard.
Well played, hipsters. Well played. But the buck must stop here. Please guys…no porn star ponytails. I just don’ t think I can handle it. My capacity for mockery might just short-circuit.
The Future of Hipsters: Behold The Ponytail!
The Round-Up
First things first….Gerard Vs. Bear is the best new blog on the Internet. Go there now and read his post about how upset he is that Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance shares the same name as Gerard the blogger.
Another music blog to check that just popped up on my horizon is Cigar Box Guitars. Any blog that mentions the Wu and the Decemberists in consecutive posts is A-okay in my book. Plus, check their interview with the producer Blockhead, one of the most underrated talents in music and the mastermind behind the best album you’ve never heard, The Party Fun Action Committee’s “Let’s Get Serious.”
Josh Levin’s outstanding Slate article taking down the wildly overrated Zach Braff might just contain the best line written on the Internet this year: “If Zach Braff is the voice of my generation, can’t someone please crush his larynx.”
Jam Bands.Com has an article about why so many Deadheads were/are Jewish. It fails to mention my theory: the only way for many Jews to minimize their anxiety/neuroses is by smoking weed. Marijuana might not be a gateway drug to harder drug use but it certainly leads to liking the Dead and Pink Floyd.
Last week, Stylus ran a very good feature on record shops in the United States. I handled the Los Angeles entries, Amoeba Records, Rockaway Records and my personal favorite, Echo Park’s Sea Level Records, where you may or may not see someone looking like Ron Jeremy.
For the last several days, I’ve been out of town, which means several things. First, I don’t have to deal with the maniacal dancers and naked nose hair clippers at the freak show otherwise known as the Hollywood Gold’s Gym. Two, I’ve been reminded of the fact that I don’t necessarily hate the beache, just the filthy Southern California ones. And third, I’ve been watching a lot of television.
Indeed, you may have noticed that I rarely mention any television programs on this blog. In fact, other than Colbert Report, The Daily Show and Entourage, I don’t watch anything else on the air. So it was pretty much news to me that Flavor Flav still had a show on the air. Sure, I’d heard about his turn on the Surreal Life, where he and Sly Stallone’s ex-wife got “hot and heavy,” to quote a certain Seinfeld episode. And I was reasonably aware that VH1 had given him a show called Flavor of Love. But little did I know, the aforementioned show would turn out to be a hit and would spawn a second season, which I had the misfortune of tuning into the other night.
Now I’ve never been a Public Enemy fan. I’m a little too young to have liked hip-hop during their heydey and I never really understood why a cracker like me would go out of his way to like a band like PE. After all, they never really struck me as liking white people all that much, and they especially didn’t seem to be all that Jew friendly. To be perfectly, honest, If I’m going to like a ragingly anti-semetic artist, you best believe it would be Voltaire.
Voltaire: You Should Hear His Song “Louis XIV is a Joke.” It’s Shall We Say, Saucy.
But on some level, I’d always respected Public Enemy. Their lyrics were intelligent if ill-informed, they inspired many of my favorite artists and their style was clearly original. However, after watching an episode of Flavor of Love, it’s safe to say that any goodwill they may have engendered in me was shot to pieces. Out of all the reality programs ever made, Flavor of Love might be the worst. Not only does Flavor Flav manage to ridicule himself in every scene (peep the Viking Hat if you don’t believe me), but the dialogue might be the most patently absurd. In the episode, I watched Flav proclaimed his undying love for a woman named “Boots.” Whether this was a play on the Shrek 2 character, Puss in Boots, remains uncertain.
Puss In Boots: Also the Name of a Forthcoming Movie Where Justin Timberlake Joins The Army
Either way, Flav is shocked when Boots tells him she won’t sleep with him until marriage (which triggers the love declaration). Meanwhile, the show’s directors try to play it off like Flav isn’t just trying to sleep with Boots and instead is looking for a deep soulful romance, while dressing up like Erik the Red. The bottom line is as disgusted as I was watching this show which seems to prove everything Idiocracy warns against, I was more disgusted with Flav’s lack of wit. How in God’s name could he talk about sleeping with a woman named Boots and not mention once mention H-Town’s epic song “Knockin’ The Boots.” C’mon Flav, where’s your sense of history?
H-Town: Presumably, Advertising A Safe Driving Campaign
At any rate, Flavor of Love aside, my “Please for the Love of God Go See Idiocracy Campaign” is picking up steam as Skeet on Mischa makes some outstanding points about the film and Mike Judge’s future in filmmaking. Not to mention, Crock Tock also turned in an excellent review of the film as well.
I’d write more but I’m in a Cambria Internet cafe that’s charging $3 for a half hour, offending my religious (read Jewish) sensibilities, so on that note, I must go. However, if you’re still bored and craving more of these so-called film reviews, I have a review up of The Protector, now up on Stylus. While it might not approach the genius of Idiocracy, The Protector was damned entertaining as well. If you like kung fu flicks, you won’t be disappointed by this one.
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