I'm a twentysomething white male with ambitions to be a professional film critic and generally spend my days getting paid to watch movies and write about it. I try not to think too hard about how I want to build my life around talking about other people's creations and not mine. A compulsive reader and stubborn cineaste, I take an often contrary stance to my more fundamentalist peers and upbringing by celebrating the pursuit of the good, and the Good, in life, love, art and film. If you watched enough episodes of a few TV shows ("The Hungry and the Hunted," "The Cut Man Cometh," "The Body," "The Zeppo," "Waiting in the Wings," "Out of Gas," "April is the Cruelest Month," "20 Hours in America," "Colonial Day," "An Echolls Family Christmas," and "Look Who's Stalking," for starters), you would understand me completely, and you'd also realize that much of my worldview and philosophical insights are heavily influenced by fictional works/programs, and many of the good things I've said in my life are just a regurgitation of someone else's imaginings. I guess I was made to be a film critic.
I discovered this last night and got an unapologetically geeky rush (click the image for a larger view):
The folks over at Watch "Veronica Mars" used a blurb from my obit of the show as a pull quote at the top of their home page. Thanks to whoever did that, and you should know I'm doing a piece about the show next month over at Pajiba as part of the ongoing guide we're calling "The Best 15 Seasons of the Past 20 Years."
The Sis, after a protracted silence brought on by disdain for her job and a newfound penchant for margaritas, has decided to return to the blogging world. This is good news for all of us. Why? An example:
"Dewey is always dirty and sweaty, his butt crack is always showing, and I can always tell when he's been in a room based on its odor. But at least he's always polite."
That's right.
Also, I would probably have failed Richard's test. I would've grabbed the knife, the comic book, and the baseball glove.
After the movie, I could not get this song out of my head:
My buddy Collins recently burned me an album he downloaded (in a probably less than legal manner) of a Counting Crows concert recorded during their first tour, still a couple months away from the release of August and Everything After. It's a fun performance with surprisingly good sound quality, and the set list is notable for the fact that it doesn't include "Mr. Jones" but does feature a cover of Van Morrison's "Caravan" as well as solid renditions of "Marjorie" and "Open All Night," the latter of which has yet to see official release.
But what strikes me most is how the songs from August and Everything take on a new life when hearing them across the span of 15 years. Frontman Adam Duritz is still riffing on his own melodies so much that you sympathize with the bandmates tasked with singing harmony, but he's also more in control than he would be on later live outings, probably because he wanted to give the audience as good an idea as possible of what the songs would actually sound like when the album came out. As such, he's more lyrically clear than you'd expect to hear on a live recording, and I find myself only now learning a few snatches of lines I thought I learned when I was in high school.
The best example of this is on "Time and Time Again," a plaintive song that immediately follows "Anna Begins" on the studio album, the one-two punch of which is guaranteed to unmake you. It's been years since I looked at the liner notes to read the lyrics, and over that time my brain has filled in gaps caused by Duritz's occasionally hectic phrasing. For this reason, whenever I heard the chorus of "Time and Time Again," I always thought he was singing, "Time and time again / I can't believe myself / and I can't believe nobody else," compressing the "believe" into something like "b'lieve" in his emotional frenzy. And that word works; it gives the song an air of disillusionment and goes nicely with the sense of loss and possible betrayal seen in the rest of the lyrics. (The guy definitely has a theme.) But that's not at all right. He's actually singing, "Time and time again / I can't please myself / And I can't please nobody else." And this makes the song whole worlds sadder. He's no longer singing about losing someone and feeling adrift; he's taking the burden on himself, realizing with a sinking feeling that he's partly or completely to blame for what's happened. He can't make himself happy, or anyone else, but he still howls, "When are you coming home, sweet angel?" I thought I knew the song, and I almost did. But this one's better.
The Lonesome Cowboys
Demons of Consequence
Pinprick Sainthood
Bob Downey and the Iron Men
The Lapsed Protestants
Pony Boy and the Outsiders
The Real Hatfields
• Blame It on Gravity, the latest Old 97's album, is more than just another fantastic record: It's an energetic, emotionally mature fusion of everything they've ever done, from country to rock to pop, a gorgeous tapestry held together by the thread of frontman Rhett Miller's yearning lyrics.
• The 97's have always been a country band at heart, and that's what they remain, but they've also never been content to be "just" a country band, which is why they've so successfully spread their reach into rock and pop. Their debut, 1994's Hitchhike to Rhome, was a raw, deeply country affair, evidenced by everything from the heartbroken shuffle of "Dancing With Tears" to the cover of Merle Haggard's "Mama Tried" and the rendition of Cindy Walker's "Miss Molly." But 1997's Too Far to Care was a crunchy country-rock record, bookended by "Timebomb" and "Four Leaf Clover." The band moved on to poppier sounds with Fight Songs (1999) and Satellite Rides (2001), letting the honky-tonk of "Crash on the Barrelhead" butt against the sunnier "Nineteen," or the bar blast of "Am I Too Late" ride comfortably next to the pop brilliance of "Rollerskate Skinny."
• All of which is to say that the 97's have always had that Texas country-rock sound as the core on which they build their pop and rock; it's the hub in the center of their wheel.
• But 2004's Drag It Up was a change in the band's sound, or more accurately, a change in the way they balanced their country and pop loyalties. Lead guitarist Ken Bethea — who contributed lead vocals for the first time on that album's "Coahuila" — said on the band's site that Too Far to Care was "made for big cars and air guitars," while Drag It Up was "better served by thinking and driving on Sunday afternoons in the middle of nowhere." And listening to the album, you get the feel that's something the band did a lot of when they were cooking it up. It wasn't that they decided to move away from Texas country or snappy pop; they simply said, "Why not do both?" The result was a blending of their previous sounds, something at once rawer and more advanced, opening with the more (for them) traditional beat of "Won't Be Home" but sliding through the minor howl of "Smokers" and the lonesome two-step of "Blinding Sheets of Rain" on its way to the ballad "Adelaide" and the poignant "No Mother." It was as if the band was saying: We will continue to do what we've always done, but we're going to do it differently.
• That's what makes Blame It on Gravity so wonderful. It's an energetic blend of the band's dual sounds, and the twin hearts of country and pop beat through every song. The ballad "Color of a Lonely Heart is Blue" has the kind of teardrops-in-the-sawdust vibe the band has been putting out since its early days, while "Here's to the Halcyon" is a rollicking take on the up-tempo boom-chicka-boom that Old 97's do like no one else. But there's also "This Beautiful Thing" and "Ride," poppier rock numbers that would be at home on Satellite Rides or one of frontman Rhett Miller's solo efforts. There's even "She Loves the Sunset," a tropical tune so startlingly different for the band but so perfectly done — the grace note Miller pops into the line "The sky is falling / but I fell long ago" gets me every ti,e — that it's not a wayward experiment but an example of the genre-pushing fun the band likes to have.
• Even more, Blame It on Gravity is the most geographically expansive record the band's ever made. Miller's lyrics have always expressed a kind of heartbroken wanderlust, whether it's being stranded in New York while your girl is back home ("Niteclub," "Broadway") or journeying into the unknown West ("Streets of Where I'm From," "W. Tx. Teardrops"). But the new album name-checks everything from the Tappan Zee to a host of Los Angeles landmarks. In fact, it's L.A. that receives the most detailed treatment. On "Ride," Miller sings, "There is a white hot sun and a big blue sky / from the 101 to the 405." It's as if the lyrics are finally catching up to the sonic displacement that happens when the band straddles the line between Texas country and pop that seems to come right out of the SoCal sunshine.
• The final track, "The One," is a kind of summation of everything the band has worked through. It's a peppy number in which Miller says he and the other guys are going to knock off a bank and drive off into the sunset, and the lyrics call out the rest of the band by name. When they finally take the money and run, Miller sings, "What's the rush, let's take the 1." Given the other references to Los Angeles highways, as well as the article in front of the highway number, it's likely that Miller's referring to the PCH, and the song's grinning demeanor and attitude of "Let's just amble up the highway" — not to mention Miller's ease about traffic congestion — would certainly fit the road. But when I hear the song, I can't help but think that Miller's also talking about Mopac. Instead of (literally) choosing one route or the other, the band has it both ways, marrying their influences and setting out on a path at once familiar and uncharted.
There haven't been any posts since the last recap because life and the real world have been all kinds of hellishly busy. Plus this one was written in a state of defiant fatigue, if that makes any sense. Anyway:
I mean, the guy used to just be conniving, but know it turns out he's got extensive weapons training. If I were on that island, I like to think I'd eventually side with Jack, but it would be interesting to hang out with Ben for a week or so and start some real trouble.
Tina Fey is pretty much what I'm looking for.
Logline: Follow two affable men in their 20s as they hang out with Ted Danson.
Plot: My friend and I just hang out with Ted Danson and his famous friends. The goal isn't to crash parties, but rather to just get some drinks and shoot the breeze. The episodes would be largely plotless, or at least, there wouldn't be any inherent drama greater than figuring out what I'm going to wear to any given social event, or whether we can use Ted's influence to get free stuff, like food or services. That's pretty much it.
Title: "Danson With the Stars"
Over at AngryJournalist, they've started selling T-shirts. It's admittedly a weird little endeavor, but I still find myself drawn to a couple of the designs.
I was in Memphis. I'd never been to Tennessee before, but I'd taken the trip from Abilene to Memphis in a weekend because my roommate's (soon-to-be-ex-) fiancee was from there, and he and I drove out for the weekend to hang out and drive around for no other reason than that we were young enough to make the 1,300-mile round trip in a three-day weekend.
It was Halloween, too, or a couple days before, which lent the downtown scene an air of considerable decadence and insanity, evidenced mainly by the fact that I was strolling down Beale looking for souvenirs when I passed a man who'd painted his body black and adorned himself with matching wings and horns. His intent was apparently to look like Satan or one of his lesser minions, and he pulled it off. I just kept looking for shot glasses.
But the best part of the night was our decision — our being me, my friend, his fiancee, and her friend, who was to be a bridesmaid — to visit a haunted hayfield. It's basically the same as a haunted house, only you pay a few bucks and wander through a maze with a group of other strangers while employees dressed as psychos occasionally jump out at you, wielding chainsaws and clad in blood-spattered masks and doing their best to make the young girls in the crowd lose it, at which they always succeeded. To prevent the evening from feeling too much like you had actually been exiled to a hellish limbo with no exit, the paths were clearly marked, and there were sporadic bits of metal catwalk that allowed you to climb up and see where to go and how close you were to the exit. Most of the employees — at least the ones not outfitted in masks — were young, normal-looking, generally attractive men and women.
While making our way through the maze, my friends and I wound up stuck behind a group of girls whose median age was maybe 13, which isn't a good time for anyone. I don't remember much of what they looked like beyond the broad stereotypical stuff that could at this point be guesswork: blonde, thin, probably some braces. But they stand out in my mind because they talked incessantly, and because they often talked about their newly burgeoning womanhood so loudly and weirdly graphically that I can only guess/hope/pray it was to catch the attention the older boys employed by the haunted hayfield company whose job it was to make sure everyone stayed safe. Specifically, I remember being on one of those short metal bridges with my friends, waiting for the girls to push on, when one of the girls said to the others, "Y'all, I've got menstrual cramps!" She pronounced "menstrual" like "minstruhl," her Southern tongue collapsing the dipthong and shattering the semi-spooky atmosphere. The boy nearby grinned a little but remained unfazed by this statement. My friends and I exchanged looks and laughed about it later, but at the moment we were too surprised to do anything but hate the girls a little and mainly feel sorry for them.
We eventually reached the end of the maze, and most of the rest of the evening passed without incident. My roommate and his girlfriend broke up a couple months later. I never saw the fiancee's friend again.
Understanding the Debt You Didn't Know You Signed Up For
Explaining Religion to Everyone Else
Coming to Grips With Your Poorly Chosen Major
Hanging Out With Women Who Won't Sleep With You, Ever, No Matter How Often You Hang Out or What Kind of On-Again-Off-Again Thing You Delude Yourself Into Thinking Exists: Practicum
Nailing Those Really Quick Green-Orange Jumps on the Hard Setting of "Rock Band"
Paying Your Dues: Economic Lessons in Why That Dream Job Won't Happen Until You're Too Old to Like It
Funny, smart, sad, good. Everything you'd expect. Plus it was filled with weird meta-coincidences, like Kristen Bell's character worrying about how her show's cancellation will affect her career transition into film, or the weirder happening that her character's show is a procedural called "Crime Scene," and Jason Segel did a few episodes of "CSI" as a man whose last name, Jansen, is shared by Mila Kunis' character in the film.
Anyway:
Also, here's a picture:
You are, as always, welcome.
With The Station Agent and The Visitor, writer-director Tom McCarthy is now 2 for 2. Because of this, I think we (as a nation) should reintroduce the phrase "McCarthyism" to mean anything relating to McCarthy's work or just a general support of his work. I'm a total raging McCarthyite.
Questions? Comments? Complaints?
Drop 'em in the mailbag.
"The critic is the only independent source of information. The rest is advertising."
— Pauline Kael
"Film lovers are sick people."
— Francois Truffaut
"I hope I strike a blow for chubby bald men everywhere. I hope they rise like an army."
— Paul Giamatti, quoted in the Los Angeles Times, 12/14/04
"Let others praise ancient times, I am glad I was born in these."
— Ovid
Remembering speechlessly we seek the great forgotten language, the lost lane-end into heaven, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door. Where? When?
O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again.
— Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe
Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.
— John Stuart Mill
We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forget.
— G.K. Chesterton
We were, for the briefest of moments, something greater than the sum of our uncertain parts; we were youth itself, in all its painful glory and sharp joy.
— Me, Fall 2003
Los Angeles, give me some of you! Los Angeles come to me the way I came to you, my feet over your streets, you pretty town I loved you so much, you sad flower in the sand, you pretty town.
— Ask the Dust, John Fante