Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Film & TV’ Category

Amy Hempel–“The Orphan Lamb” (Harper’s, September 2010)

Posted in Amy Hempel, Arcade Fire, Flash Fiction, Harper's, The Daily Show, Yuck! on August 17, 2010| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: ARCADE FIRE on THE DAILY SHOW: “Ready to Start” & “Month of May” (2010).

My friend Lar recent wrote a scathing review of Arcade Fire’s new album.  I haven’t heard it at all, so I can’t talk about it.  However, these two songs are from the new disc.

I have to say on first listen neither one wowed me the way their earlier tracks did.  However, as I’ve mentioned in a previous post, their live show is really incredibly energetic and fun (even confined to the small set of The Daily Show).

This was especially evident with the second song, which opens with a megaphone and features lots of screaming.  The live set up includes two drummers and two violins. They are truly a band to behold onstage.

We’ll just have to see about The Suburbs though.

[READ: August 15, 2010] “The Orphan Lamb”

I was pretty turned off by the opening paragraph of this story (a rather over-the-top gruesome account of bloodletting).  But since the whole story is only three paragraphs, I decided to proceed.

And I’m glad I did.  The second paragraph gives a nice twist to the bloodletting of the first, adding a huge dose of humanity. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Robert Coover–“The War Between Sylvania and Freedonia” (Harper’s, July 2010)

Posted in Canadian Music, Duck Soup, Harper's, Marx Brothers, Rheostatics, Robert Coover, Short Story, War, tagged on August 3, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS–Bathurst Street Theatre Toronto ON October 7 1994 (1994).

I have been listening to a bunch of the Rheostatics live downloads as of late.

This is one of the first concerts they have available on the Rheostatics Live website (there’s a 1991 show as well).  But what’s especially nice about this one is that it was broadcast (and taped) on the radio, so the sound quality is quite good.

The show is from just before the release of Introducing Happiness, so the band is trying out some of those tracks.

I’ve never seen the band live (and of course, now I never will) but these recordings show how much fun they had live.  They were never afraid to experiment or to make jokes in their chatty sections (original drummer Dave Clark was also a lunatic–it often seemed like he wasn’t taking things seriously at all, and yet he never missed a beat).

The shows from 1996 & 1997 also showcase a lot of these songs too, but having the crisp recording of the radio (and the reasonably short set) makes this a good place to start if you want to hear some Rheostatics live.  Some of those other early shows are recorded in the audience, so the fidelity isn’t always 100%.

All of the shows are available at the Rhesoatics Live site (thanks all contributors).  This show is available here.

[READ: July 27, 2010] “The War Between Sylvania and Freedonia”

Your enjoyment of this story depend a lot on whether or not you have watched (and enjoyed) the Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup.  The reason is that this is a retelling of Duck Soup–sort of from the perspective of the mayor of Sylvania and sort of from an impartial observer who is on the side of Sylvania, or more specifically, anti-Firefly.

What Coover does is simply present the audacity and insanity of Groucho’s character, Rufus T. Firefly, as if it were a historical account.  Any reasonable person could see what a terrible mayor he would make.  And this accounts for the amusement in the story. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Skylaire Alfvegren–“Grokking Rush” (The Believer, July/August 2010)

Posted in Alex Lifeson, Books about music, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Geddy Lee, Neil Peart, Rush, Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage, Skylaire Alfvegren on August 1, 2010| 4 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK:  RUSH-“La Villa Strangiato” (from Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage) (2010).

In the bonus features of the DVD for Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage, we see (in addition to some awesome live footage of Rush in 1974 with original drummer John Rutsey) a fantastic live clip of Rush playing “La Villa Strangiato,” one of the best instrumentals around.

The camera angle focuses mainly on Alex Lifeson.  And man does he rock!

It’s common knowledge, even among Rush haters, that Geddy Lee and Neil Peart are (or at least were) always at the top of the list of “Best” bassist and drummer respectively.  And yup, they are pretty amazing.  But this has always left Alex in the shadows.

Admittedly, there are thousands of great, amazing, ear melting guitarists.  And, typically, the bassist and drummer are kind of dull, so it makes sense that Alex’s playing is in the shadows of the other two.  But I fear that he is often labelled as just not very good.

This video should totally prove that suggestion incorrect.  He plays quickly and with amazing accuracy, in a multitude of styles.

And speaking of the movie, I always wondered if their families minded that Alex and Geddy changed their names for the band (it’s never addressed in the film). It seems like a weird thing to have done circa 1974 in Canada, although Kiss did the same thing at the time in New York (removing the Jewishness of their names).  I just love the name Živojinović, and it’s a shame it’s not better known.  (Huh, although Wikipedia tells me that Lifeson is a sort of literal translation of Živojinović.  Who knew?)

[READ: July 29, 2010] “Grokking Rush”

Since Rush has been everywhere lately, I figured I’d mention this recent article in The Believer.  There’s nothing terribly new in the article.  In fact, it seems like something of an introduction to the uninitiated, giving a basic history of the band and their lyrical themes.

The only thing I didn’t know, which is teased out in the subtitle, was that so many academic papers have been written about the band. Dissertation titles include “Permanent Changes: Rush, Musicians’ Rock, and the Progressive Post-Counter-Culture” and “Grand Designs: A Musical, Social and Ethnographic Study of Rush.”  They have also been written about in The Journal of American and Comparative Cultures and Popular Music and Society.  And, they are the only band ever to be cited in the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Tosh.0 (2009-)

Posted in Daniel Tosh, Funny (ha ha), Humiliation, Short Films, TiVo, Tosh.0, TV 2010, Violence, Yuck! on July 31, 2010| 4 Comments »

Our friend Paula (no not that Paula, another Paula) told Sarah about this show.  And they were able to watch an episode together at a conference.  When Sarah came home, we TiVo’d a bunch of episode and we have probably not stopped laughing since.

The premise of Tosh.0 is very simple: Tosh, the host, shows clips that were posted on YouTube and then he makes fun of them.  The clips are certainly lowest common denominator (dumb people doing dumb things), and frankly, it’s not really much of a step above America’s Funniest Home Videos. However, Tosh (real name Daniel Tosh) is a snappy, witty and brutal humorist.  He says things that you only think of about the clips, and then goes one step further to say things that you can’t believe he would say out loud.

In fact, Sarah and I have often wondered if the show isn’t racist. Of course, it is.  And it’s also completely sexist.  Tosh makes many jokes about women’s inability to do things, but they are such patently ridiculous stereotypes that Sarah for one has never been offended by them.  So, we assume that people of the mocked races (which includes whites, lest we forget) are not offended either (or at least they have a good enough sense of humor to be in the audience). (more…)

Read Full Post »

90,000

Posted in Alex Stone, Craig Ferguson, David Foster Wallace, David Goldberg, Dropkick Murphys, Edmonton Folk Festival, Evan Goldberg, Flight of the Conchords, Futurama, Gordon Korman, Gordon Lightfoot, Jeff Kinney, Jens Lekman, Kurt Vonnegut, Late Late Show, McSweeney's, Paul F. Tompkins, Pearl Jam, Pierdomenico Baccalario, Pseudonymous Bosch, Seth Rogen, Sonic Youth, Swedish Music, The Airborne Toxic Event, The Decemberists, The Flaming Lips on July 27, 2010| Leave a Comment »

On July 25, I reached 90,000 hits.
It took me seven months to get from 60,000 (Dec 25, 2009) to 90,000.
It took me nine months to get my first 30,000 hits.

There are some obvious contributing factors to this improvement (not the least of which is links from referrers that make absolutely no sense whatsoever (and which are pretty clearly spam, but hey, numbers are numbers, right?)  But the most obvious is the huge outcry at the failure of Scholastic to continue publishing the Ulysses Moore series.

If you Google “Ulysses Moore” I am the first post (after the official Scholastic site, Amazon, and fantasticfiction).  I have received so many comments from people who are frustrated that the can’t finish the series. It is amazing that so many voices are ignored.  As you can see, this series has garnered me 4020 views.

At 60,000 views I posted some theories as to why I thought these posts were so successful.  Since very little has changed (mostly just a little shuffle of the top ten), I won’t bother repeating that.  But, there is one post (see the bottom, hee hee) which has absolutely skyrocketed in just a few short months.

1. 4020 views posted April 25, 2009 [was #1 at 60,000: 1663 views]
Pierdomenico Baccalario–Ulysses Moore series Books 1-4
SOUNDTRACK: PEARL JAM-Vitalogy (more…)

Read Full Post »

Periodical: Smithsonian

Posted in Animals, Art, Bob Dylan, Books about writers, Christo, Essays, Gilmore Girls, Harper Lee, History, James Gurney, Mark Twain, Milton Glasser, Smithsonian on July 25, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Our family visited Washington DC and went to a few museums.  We talked about subscribing to Smithsonian magazine (and getting a membership to the museums), but we put it off.  Then I received an offer in the mail to subscribe to the magazine and get a membership all for $12.  So we did.  And I’m thrilled with the magazine.

I recall subscribing to this magazine many years ago (turns out it was about fifteen years ago) as I distinctly remember reading, savoring and the keeping the September 1995 issue which featured a cover about James Gurney’s Dinotopia.  The cover is still blazed in my memory (even if I can’t find a better picture than this online).

As with many things, I find that as an adult (and a dad) I enjoy this sort of magazine a lot more than I did as a recent college grad.  It was also fascinating to learn in the new 40th anniversary issue that the magazine started not long after I was born.  It’s like we grew up together (but I ignored it for years). (more…)

Read Full Post »

Tom Bissell–“Cinema Crudité: The mysterious appeal of the post-camp cult film” (Harper’s, August 2010)

Posted in David Cross, Entertainment Weekly, Essays, Eurovision, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Harper's, MST3K, Paul Rudd, Safura, Sex, The Room, Tom Bissell, Yuck! on July 22, 2010| 3 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: SAFURA-“Drip Drop” (2010)

Azerbaijan came in 5th in this year’s Eurovision contest.  And they did it with this monstrosity of a song by Safura.  She sounds like so many pop chanteuses, pulling out all the stops on high notes, vibrato and even a fascinatingly accented English.

But just as I’m about to dismiss this song out of hand, she throws in this weird chorus of pizzicato “drip drops.”  Even they are not very compelling, but the juxtaposition of these two parts of the song are surprising enough to make the song interesting.

But I think that’s enough Eurovision for me.  And I didn’t even make it to the song by Latvia with the lines: “I’ve asked my Uncle Joe/But he can’t speak/Why does the wind still blow?/And blood still leaks?/So many questions now/With no reply/What for do people live until they die?/  Only Mr God knows why/But his phone today is out of range”

[READ: July 19, 2010] “Cinema Crudité”

This article is about cult films, although it focuses a lot on a film that I’ll never watch called The Room.  I had heard about the film in Entertainment Weekly a month or so ago.  They joked about its status as a midnight film that all manner of celebrities swear by: David Cross, Paul Rudd, Jonah Hill etc.

This article goes into much greater depth than the EW piece did about what the film is actually like.  The author really points out all of its flaws and incongruities and everything else about the film that is awful.  And then he says that he’s watched it at least 20 times and couldn’t wait to interview the auteur behind it.

The article is great, by the way, Bissell did an excellent job. But I still don’t want to watch the film. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage (2010)

Posted in Alex Lifeson, Canadian Music, Christopher Hitchens, Concept Albums, Fantasy, Funny (ha ha), Geddy Lee, Hockey Night in Canada, Les Claypool, Neil Peart, Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage, South Park, William Faulkner on July 11, 2010| Leave a Comment »

[WATCHED: July 11, 2010] Beyond the Lighted Stage

I had heard about this film around the time that I read .  I was pretty excited about it, and then evidently everyone I know went to the TriBeCa Film Festival and saw it (except me).  And then everyone saw it on VH1 (except me), so I bought the DVD instead.

This film is really fantastic.  Obviously, it helps if you’re a Rush fan, but Geddy and Alex in particular are funny and interesting (even if they think they are boring).  And the film is expertly edited.  They cover 40 years of Rush’s history in 90 minutes.  This leads to a rather cursory look at their history, so the film doesn’t get mired in details, but there are tidbits of fun for die-hards. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Party Down cancelled

Posted in Party Down on July 1, 2010| Leave a Comment »

I have personally caused the demise of many awesome shows.  But never has the turnover been so immediate.  I learned about and watched on TiVo the first two seasons of Party Down approximately 17 days ago.  And today I learned that the show’s third season (which just finished and which I have not yet seen) is to be its last. My powers have increased manifold!

Here’s the (more or less) official link. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Geek Monthly Magazine has folded

Posted in Geek Monthly, Kick-Ass, The Big Bang Theory on June 26, 2010| 4 Comments »

This magazine will self destruct

I recently realized that I had not received an issue of Geek Monthly for a while.  I assumed my subscription had lapsed (it does that).  But when I went to their web site,well, let’s just say don’t bother.

The folding has been confirmed by Blog Magazine.  And I’m embarrassed to see that they folded in January.  Really?  It took me 6 months to notice?  Well, even though I adored the magazine, I always took it to be more sporadic than its monthly title suggested. (more…)

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »