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Archive for the ‘Film & TV’ Category

Amy Poehler–Yes Please (2014) [audiobook 2014–Amy Poehler]

Posted in Amy Poehler, Audiobooks, Funny (ha ha), Parenting, Parks and Recreation, Patrick Stewart, Saturday Night Live, Seth Meyers, Upright Citizens Brigade on April 11, 2015| 1 Comment »

[LISTENED TO: March 29, 2015] Yes Please

amyI typically don’t read memoirs.  I don’t really care that much about celebrities to bother with most of them. I do like author and comedian memoirs, however, because they’re usually well written and/or funny accordingly.  I have recently been on a big Amy Poehler kick because of the end of Parks and Recreation, so I was really exited when this (finally) came in at the library.

If you have read the book, note that the audio book is chock full of things that are not in the book.  She talks a lot about the “studio” she is recording in (she says she built it).  She and Seth Meyers seem to have a fun improv banter going on (which I assume is not in the book).  And the final chapter was read live in front of a UCB audience.  To my ear this chapter is the funniest thing in the book, probably because it is the least formal sounding and the audience really enjoys it.  On the other hand, after having looked through the book in the store the other day, I see that the book is chock full of things (mostly pictures) that are not in the audiobook.  So choose wisely.

The audio book is read by Poehler, which is pretty cool.  She has help from Carol Burnett and Kathleen Turner (although I don’t think either one says more than a few lines) and Patrick Stewart who recites her poetry and epigrams.  Seth Meyers gets a chapter and Amy’s parents chime in a few times.  But here’s the thing, evidently her Leslie Knope character is almost Poehler’s talking voice, but not quite.  There is something disconcerting about listening to her sound not exactly as you are familiar with her sounding.  I think she talks a little more slowly and deliberately (which makes sense for an audio book) than Leslie does.  So that actually took some getting used to.

Here’s the other thing.  This book is not all that funny.  And it is not really meant to be all funny.  I mean, there are funny parts sure, but it’s not a laugh a minute story.  Poehler gets into some serious issues (a lengthy chapter about apologizing to a disabled girl whom she inadvertently offended on national TV, visiting a third world country, and various other dangers of growing up and being a parent).  Poehler sprinkles these humor but they are quite serious. (more…)

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Mark Mothersbaugh–Myopia (Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, CO) (October 30-April 26, 2015)

Posted in Booji Man, Denver, CO, Devo, Geddy Lee, Mark Mothersbaugh, Pee Wee's Playhouse, The Lego Movie, The Life Aquatic, Wes Anderson on April 10, 2015| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: April 2, 2015] Myopia.

myopiaI grew up with Devo in the background.  But I honestly never really gave them a lot of thought.  The biggest surprise for me was back in the late 80s when in a radio interview Geddy Lee said that he liked Devo quite a lot (the caller said that he saw him wearing an “Oh No It’s Devo” pin).  I have a couple albums, and I knew all about “de-evolution” but it kind of ended there.  I also knew that Mark Mothersbaugh had become the defacto composer for all the great contemporary films.  But I had no idea the extent of his creativity.

When we were visiting relatives in Denver, Sarah’s brother took us to MCA Denver for Mothersbaugh’s show Myopia.  I could have looked at the exhibits for hours (although the kids weren’t that exited by the whole thing).  The entire museum was devoted to Mothersbaugh.  There was a live video in the basement.  And as you progressed up the levels, the chronology of Mothersbaugh’s vision unfolded. (more…)

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Shumon Basar, Douglas Coupland, Hans Ulrich Obrist–The Age of Earthquakes: A Guide to the Extreme Present (2015)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Courtney Barnett, Douglas Coupland, Financial Times, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Michael Stipe, Shumon Basar, Star Wars, Technology, The Future, The Guardian on April 4, 2015| Leave a Comment »

ageSOUNDTRACK: COURTNEY BARNETT-Live at SXSW, (March 21, 2015).

cbsxswI enjoyed Barnett’s single “Avant Gardener” a lot.  Then I got a little sick of it (I love WXPN, but man they can overplay a song).  And yet I still like Barnett’s wordplay and her sense of melody.

I was really psyched to hear how noisy her latest single “Pedestrian at Best” was.  When she played the NPR SXSW showcase, a night in which she played exclusively songs from her then unreleased new album, I did not expect her to be so rocking.

But she really embraces the noise.  The sharpest, clearest sound in this show is Dave Mudie’s ever present snare drum–a cracking sound that keeps the beat and the song steady while Courtney thrashes away on her guitar and Bones Sloane’s low bass thuds along.

The set is short, and Barnett seems genuinely delighted at the size of the crowd.  They run through 8 of the songs of the new album, and they sound great.

  • “Elevator Operator” a great opener, familiar sounding but new.
  • “Pedestrian at Best” noisy and rocking–she has a ton of fun with this.
  • “An Illustration of Loneliness (Sleepless in New York)” is a bit mellower
  • “Depreston” a slow song with great lyrics.
  • “Nobody Really Cares If You Don’t Go to the Party” a bratty fast rocker with Barnett slurring her lyrics in a fun way.
  • “Aqua Profunda!” a song about swimming in Melbourne.  2 minutes long which she describes as “stupid.”
  • “Dead Fox” super catchy and poppy.
  • “Kim’s Caravan” closes this short show with a long song.  It starts slow and moody, But Barnett starts wailing on her guitar by the end.

It’s kind of a shame that the show is only 36 minutes, but it’s a great way to get in, play some great songs and get out leaving us wanting more.  I hope the full length rocks as much as this show does.

You can watch her whole set at NPR.

[READ: March 20, 2015] The Age of Earthquakes

I saw this book at work and could tell just from the typeface that it was a Douglas Coupland book (he is that much of a brand).  I was a little thrown off by the other names on the book as I’ve never heard of them, but it is clearly a Coupland production, even if he is alphabetically second.

I’m not even sure what the other two authors contribute (or who they are), as the book is so clearly Couplandy.  Of course, having said that, the majority of the book is pithy aphorisms about the age of technology and the future.  So truly any one could have said them.

There is something kind of staid and conventional about Coupland writing about the craziness of the future and all that.  He’s been doing it for decades now.  But I found this book enjoyable.  Not mind blowing (although some ideas are pretty fascinating), not life changing, but enjoyable. (more…)

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Spencers: Theatre of Illusion (RVCC Arts, Branchburg, NJ, March 28, 2015)

Posted in Branchburg, NJ, C., Illusion, Muse, RVCC Arts, Spencers: Theatre of Illusion, T., The Lost Boys on March 29, 2015| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: March 28, 2015] Spencers: Theatre of Illusion

Back in October of 2012 we saw Spencers: Theatre of Illusion.  I saw that they were coming around again, and even though we had seen the show, I remember enjoying it and thought it would be fun to see them again since the kids were a little older now.

I also assumed that the show would be different.  I mean, it had been nearly 2 and a half years.  Sadly, many of the magic acts were exactly the same.  But on the positive side, they were still pretty awesome, and there was a bunch of new material as well.

In my previous write up I said that the pacing was too slow.  I’m sure it wasn’t faster but it didn’t feel slow this time.  That may have been the audience–the room was full of super excited kids and there was plenty of laughter and applause–it worked very well with his leisurely storytelling style (I may have also been anxious last time since our kids were younger and I wanted them to be excited all the way though).

He started off , like last time, by doing a seemingly easy but very cool illusion of tearing today’s newspaper in half. He made some jokes about the paper and then proceeded to rip it up and then reunite the whole page.   It’s pretty cool. (more…)

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Carla Rodríguez and Rosa Colón–Soda Pop Comics (2007-present)

Posted in Carla Rodríguez, 魔法少女になり隊, Food, Funky Web Sites, Graphic Novel, Mahousyoujo-ni-naritai, Puerto Rico, Rosa Colón, Vampires, Veronica Mars, Zombies on March 28, 2015| Leave a Comment »

soda_logoSOUNDTRACK: 魔法少女になり隊 [MAHOUSYOUJO-NI-NARITAI]-“Re-bi-te-to (floating magic)” (2014).

bandMahousyoujo-ni-naritai (which translates roughly as I Want to be a Magical Girl) are, no surprise, from Japan.  And, since I am talking about them, they must be pretty unconventional.  Their bio explains: “Formed in 2014 as a five-piece commercial and creative team, this genre-less band travels the world to not only to have the vocalist become a magical girl, but also to entertain audiences wherever they go.”

This song begins with some skittery dancey noises.  It quickly (12 seconds) turns into a raging rocker (with the same skittery bits).  By 37 seconds the female singers (auto tuned) begins singing a verse and by 48 seconds, the song turns into thrash metal as a guy with scary growly vocals take a verse.  By 1 minute the chorus enters with a sweetly poppy super fast vocal line by the female singer.  And by 1:15 the whole business repeats.  At around 2 minutes there a new section, a bridge, that is somewhat calmer, and the music even fades out into a kind of pop heavy metal guitar solo, before returning to the chorus.  By 2:30 the growly vocal guy sings backing vocals under the poppy chorus.  And the last 30 seconds is a high energy instrumental version of everything you just heard.

I am exhausted listening to it, and can’t even imagine what it looks like live.

The band have an EP out.  I can’t find this song anywhere online except this NPR site.  But here’s a live video of another song (which isn’t quite as insane, but is still pretty nuts).

Enjoy!

[READ: March 26, 2015] Soda Pop Comics

I deal mostly with books from Latin American countries.  Which means most of the books I see are in Spanish or Portuguese.  And while I’d love to say that I read all of the cool books that come by in those languages, I can’t read either language well enough to enjoy anything.  But once in a while I get some books from these countries in English.  Sadly most of them are about human rights or crop rotation.  But this week I received a pile of comic books from Puerto Rico that were in English!  Better yet, they were published by a small press.  And better better yet their slogan is “Comics made by girls for everyone.”

Soda Pop Comics is a small comic book publishing company created by Carla Rodríguez and Rosa Colón.  And on the inside of their first issue they say “We did not make this new ‘Comic Company’ in order to fill the void left by Veronica Mars…”  They created it “in order to motivate more girls into making and publishing their own comics.”

They have a website http://sodapopcomicspr.com, where you can get all of the comics listed below as well as some cute crafts like magnets and plushies with mustaches.

There appear to be 15 comics available at their store.  I was lucky enough to read three of them (and to get 4 of their mini-mini bundles). (more…)

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Rivka Galchen–new movies (Harper’s, March 2015)

Posted in Canadian Music, Dave Bidini music, Downton Abbey, Entertainment Weekly, Film & TV, Harper's, Michael Bond, Paddington, Rheostatics, Rivka Galchen, tagged on March 11, 2015| Leave a Comment »

harp marchSOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Harbourfront Toronto, Canada Day (July 1, 2000).

harbourThis recording comes from an outdoor venue in honor of Canada Day.

As I understand it, the band was asked to write a new song for the Canada Day celebration and they came up with “When Monkeys Comes.”  It opens with a kind of disco version of “Also Sprach Zarathustra” and then morphs into a jamming Rheos song.  It doesn’t sound awesome on this mix (although the rest of the disc does), so it’s hard to get a real sense of what’s happening.  It feels a little meandering.  And since it doesn’t really appear anywhere else (except for an upcoming show), it’s hard to really parse it.

This show is interesting in that the band doesn’t talk very much–usually they’re very chatty.  Dave Bidini says that since their set is short (barely over an hour), they didn’t want to talk to much, so it’s all about the music.  They play the first seven songs without saying a word in between songs.  Also interesting is that those first seven songs are all new–not yet recorded for the Night of the Shooting Stars album.

There is a drum machine or at least a lot of electronic drumming on a couple of songs, which I believe are supplied by Michael Phillip Wojewoda, erstwhile extra member of the band for years, and official drummer in a few months.

After playing the new songs, the band does play some older songs.

They are still doing songs from Harmelodia (“I Fab Thee” and “Song of the Garden”) and this crowd, which I assume is all ages, is probably a good place for them.  They also play “The Ballad of Wendel Clark” which is super fun (and not played that often).  There’s some great versions of “Stolen Car” and “Self Serve Gas Station.”

It’s a good set (with good sound quality), especially if you like NotSS.

[READ: March 6, 2015] new movies

I rarely talk about movie or movie reviews here.  But since I like Galchen, and I’ve mentioned most of her writings so far, it seemed like a worthwhile inclusion.  And she’s talking about Paddingon, a movie I’d like to see

What I liked about Galchen’s review was that it’s not so much about the movie (which she likes and says is silly and smart and witty and pretty) as it is about the story of Paddington.

I don’t know the plot of the movie (or the books, actually, although I do know the premise of who Paddington is), but it sounds like a fun farce, with Hugh Bonneville (Mr Crawley on Downton Abbey) dressing as a cleaning lady to aid Paddington on “an essential fact-finding mission.”

But Galchen talks about how the movie (like the book by Michael Bond) pays attention to money (the cost of marmalade for instance) and to the African-Caribbean immigration to London in the 1950s.  Paddington is from darkest Peru (evidently Bond was going to have him be from Darkest Africa but there are no bears there).  And its this immigrant story which the movie focuses on.

Galchen also talks about how characters like Paddington (or Curious George or Pinocchio) are stand ins for children. But if they were actual children in the stories we would be repelled by them.

It turns out that Galchen has visited darkest Peru on a research mission.   They were checking fecal samples of the native chickens–looking for antibiotics.  They also conducted a kind of socioeconomic census of the region, which was, of course, ridiculous as none of the natives had much of anything.  Although she notes that the most common name for boys was Israel and the most common among girls was LadyDi.

This article didn’t make me want to see the movie any more than I do (because I am looking forward to it already), but it was certainly an interesting perspective and certainly one I wouldn’t be reading in Entertainment Weekly.

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Cory Doctorow–Information Doesn’t Want to be Free: Laws for the Internet Age (2014)

Posted in Amanda Palmer, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Cory Doctorow, Crash Test Dummies, Law, Luke Doucet, McSweeney's, Neil Gaiman, Rheostatics, Short Books, Stompin' Tom Connors, Technology, Threats, Veal, Whitehorse, Wil Wheaton, tagged on March 8, 2015| Leave a Comment »

information_cover_FINAL_webSOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Vertigo, Victoria British Columbia, (January 21, 2000).

21Jan2000I recently learned that the Rheostatics Live website has added dozens of new (old) shows.  It has been almost exactly a year since I last did a tour of some of these live shows, so it was time to move into 2000 (with one new show added since I last looked).

As of 2000, the band is still touring the Harmelodia album, and the set has a lot of songs from that album.  I recently relistened to the album (something I don’t listen to all that much).  I was surprised to hear how many songs had narration–which pretty much precludes them from playing them live.  So that explains why they focus on just a few songs live.

Lucky’s notes for this show state: The Rheos were on a short west-coast swing and they played in Whistler the night before this show. In fact, the inspiration for ‘Satan Is The Whistler’ (from their following album) came from this trip, as Martin remarked something along the lines of ‘They are a bunch of Fascists in Whistler!’.

This is a really good set.  The sound quality is excellent and the band is in very good form.  There’s some great harmonies on “Loving Arms” and Martin really rocks the guitar on “I Fab Thee.”  “Junction Foil Ball” sounds awesome here–a good breakdown in the middle.  And it’s a rare sighting of “Oneilly’s Strange Dream” and a replay of “Good Canadian.”

It’s always fun when the band is feeling chatty.  In this show they joke about the Crash Test Dummies and even sing, “Superman never made any money saving the world from Crash Test Dummies.”  They also have fun with “My First Rock Show” with talk of blood on the seats.

The band has some technical failures, and they play a Stompin’ Tom song (“Bud the Spud”) while they get fixed.  But it doesn’t mess them up as they play a killer version of “Stolen Car” with a great solo.

Luke Doucet (now of Whitehorse, then of opening act Veal) plays during “Legal Age Life” and the band jokes about the Vealostatics.

The whole show ran for nearly two hours.  It’s a great set and the first of two nights at Vertigo.

[READ: February 10, 2015] Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free

This short book is Doctorow’s plea for Copyright common sense, Net Neutrality and internet freedoms (among other things).  Of course Net Neutrality just passed–hurrah!– which makes this book less urgent but no less spot on and worth remembering while going forward.

Doctorow starts each section by stating his three laws:

  • “Anytime someone puts a lock on something you own, against your wishes, and doesn’t give you the key, they’re not doing it for your benefit.”
  • “Fame Won’t Make You Rich, But Yo Can’t Get Paid Without It”  (or as Tim O’Reilly said “The problem for most artists isn’t piracy, it’s obscurity.”)
  • “Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free, People Do.”

(more…)

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Malachai Nicolle & Ethan Nicolle–Axe Cop: Volume 4: President of the World (2013)

Posted in Animation Domination High Def, Axe Cop, Children's Books, Death, Enormodome, Ethan Nicolle, Graphic Novel, Malachai Nicolle, Tiny Desk Concert, Tiny Desk Contest, Violence, Yuck!, Zombies on March 2, 2015| Leave a Comment »

axe4SOUNDTRACK: ENORMODOME-“I’m Gonna Love You” (Tiny Desk Contest Runner-Up 2015).

enormodomeLast week, a Tiny Desk Contest winner was announced. This week, All Songs Considered posted ten runners up that they especially liked.  And I want to draw extra attention to a couple of them.

I know very little about these bands, so I don’t know if they are on the trend (opposite of yesterday) of two guys playing really loud music.  And man, they rock the office.  Sometimes a gimmick makes you want to watch a video, but the song has to be good for you to watch it more than once.

This video was filmed in the office of the Mayor of Flagstaff–what a good sport!  I love that they have his employees coming around and working as usual while these two guys are making an unholy racket.

I’ve been very impressed with most of the two person bands who really make a very full sound.  And this one is no exception.  I was sure there were more than two guys playing along.  And their voices gel nicely.  The only weak spot is during the solo, when the rest of the  guitars drop out so it’s a little too spare.  But aside from that the song is a great rocker.  I like the simple blues riff, but I really like the way the middle section (before the solo) messes with that riff somewhat–it’s very cool.

[READ: February 22, 2015] Axe Cop Volume 4

axechopLike Volume 2, Axe Cop Volume 4 is a full length story.  This one pushes the idea that came up in a previous book that Axe Cop is President of the World.  For the writing of this book Malachai was 8 years old.  It was at this point that I started to wonder how different the stories of an 8-year-old would be from those of a 5-year-old.  Since my son is nine, I know that he understands the logic of storytelling a bit more and he even understands the internal logic of stories, so I assumed that Malachai’s stories would be more linear and less surreal.

And of course, the nature of a big graphic novel like this is that it must be linear and coherent.

I liked that the book opened with something we hadn’t seen before–Axe Cop is having a recurring nightmare about a talking gorilla.

But then we get down to business.  As president, Axe Cop is going to live in the Gold House in the real Washington (not DC). But his real business comes down to one question–since he got rid of all the bad guys, the people want to know if they will ever come back.  Axe Cop talks to God (!) and is told that they will come back in 1 million years, but until then it is time for peace in the world. (more…)

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Malachai Nicolle & Ethan Nicolle–Axe Cop: Volume 3 (2012)

Posted in Advice, Axe Cop, Children's Books, Chronicles of Narnia, Death, Ethan Nicolle, Graphic Novel, Malachai Nicolle, Michael J. Nelson, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Nick Offerman, Spirits of the Red City, Tiny Desk Concert, Tiny Desk Contest, Vampires, Violence, Yuck!, Zombies on March 1, 2015| Leave a Comment »

axe3SOUNDTRACK: SPIRITS OF THE RED CITY-“Halfway Poem” (Tiny Desk Contest Runner-Up 2015).

spiirtdLast week, a Tiny Desk Contest winner was announced. This week, All Songs Considered posted ten runners up that they especially liked.  And I want to draw extra attention to a couple of them.

I know very little about these bands, but I assume that this folkie collective uses this kind of instrumentation all the time, although I have to suggest that two upright basses and a viola seems excessive.  The beginning of this video shows an early aborted attempt with different instruments (accordion, banjo, flute, drum and ukulele), so that sounds promising–and honestly the overload of large strings doesn’t sound bad at all in the final product.

It’s interesting that bands with lots of members are a kind of trend–it’s so impractical.  And yet when done well, it’s quite lovely.  And when these seven folks starts singing along near the end of the song it’s really pretty.

The story of this video is also interesting.  They had planned to film their video outside.  But on the day of their video shoot it was 33 degrees below zero (in Minnesota).  They have some brief footage at the beginning and then the video switches to them inside a quite cozy cabin.

It’s hard to tell from just this one song what kind of folk collective Spirits of the Red City is, but I enjoyed this song quite a bit.

[READ: February 20, 2015] Axe Cop Volume 3

Axe Cop Volume 3 returns to the format of Volume 1 (the one I liked better) with a mix of shorter comics and the return of Ask Axe Cop!

The first comic we see features the return of Bat Warthog Man and features the practical science of Chemist M (whom Axe Cop buys for ten dollars). It also has a chihuahua who was a soldier that was turned into a chihuahua when the soldier’s dog bit him (Malachai’s understanding of how transformations work makes me hope he never gets bitten by anything).  The dog can turn back into a man “only when I am not ready to fight…which is almost never.”  There’ also a hilarious scene where Axe Cop is inside the imagination of a mouse which is in color and is “full of unicorns and cheese.”

The Ask Axe Cops are more intense in these later variations, like the one that asks if he ever got in trouble (he got in trouble with his mom when he chopped the head off a rabbit who was not following rabbit rules).  We also see the introduction of head trash–a place where all the heads that axe cop has removed are disposed.  There’s dating advice (very sound); a jumping competition and a hilarious bit about Halloween (where he gets 1,051 candies to share with his friends, but the bad guys have poisoned 1,040 pieces of it.  There is also Axe Cop’s strangely violent generosity on Thanksgiving (yipes).  (more…)

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Malachai Nicolle & Ethan Nicolle–Axe Cop: Volume 2: Bad Guy Earth (2011)

Posted in Axe Cop, Children's Books, Death, Ethan Nicolle, Graphic Novel, Malachai Nicolle, Reina Del Cid, Tiny Desk Concert, Tiny Desk Contest, Violence, Yuck!, Zombies on February 28, 2015| Leave a Comment »

axe2SOUNDTRACK: REINA DEL CID-“The Cooling” (Tiny Desk Contest Runner-Up 2015).

coolingLast week, a Tiny Desk Contest winner was announced. This week, All Songs Considered posted ten runners up that they especially liked.  And I want to draw extra attention to a couple of them.

I know very little about these bands, so I don’t know if this is Reina del Cid’s normal band or what.  But I love the sound of this orchestral chamber pop.  There are plenty of chamber pop bands, but there’s something about the melody of this song that works so perfectly with the strings.

There are seven people in the video (Reina is the singer).  I love the way the song starts out with some pizzicato guitar and slowly building violin strings.  I also love the starts and stops that the song has–very dramatic.  And it all works so well with Reina’s voice which doesn’t soar or hit super high notes, rather it is just powerful and strong and very pretty (even when she does an occasional mmm mmm).

When the song builds to its climax, the violins switch to pizzicato and the drums grow louder.  It’s quite lovely and I’d like to hear more from her (them).  I gather that the new album is coming out in May!

[READ: February 19, 2015] Axe Cop Volume 2

I enjoyed Axe Cop Volume 1 so much I couldn’t wait to jump into Volume 2.  But something was different.

This book was made for Dark Horse as a three issue arc.  It’s in color and it’s all one long story.  Ethan is super proud of it, and I think he should be, it’s pretty impressive that he and his brother (now aged 6) were able to come up with such a huge story.

But I found that like the longer stories in volume 1, I got a little bored by the end of this book.  Indeed, I let Clark read the first book (it was placed in the YA book section, but I figured if it was written by a  5-year-old, my nine-year old could read it).  He liked the first book but only gave this one a few pages before he gave up.  He likes Ask Axe Cop best too. (more…)

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