June 2012
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May 2012
17 posts
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My Week in Movies #20
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116) Berlin Alexanderplatz (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1980) Sat, May 12 - Mon, May 14 / NYC Library DVD
This has been the year of tackling long films, hasn’t it? Berlin Alexanderplatz is the longest yet - 15 hours! - and would have really been hard going if I didn’t like Fassbinder so much. Even so, I suspect he was primarily interested in the first 13 hours as backstory for...
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My Week in Movies #19
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109) Céline and Julie Go Boating (Jacques Rivette, 1974) Sun, May 6 / Film Forum, NYC
I’d been wanting to see this for years - it’s not available on DVD in the USA, though maybe this theatrical run means there’s a Criterion around the corner? Maybe I’d built it up too much, but I didn’t experience the cinematic rapture I was expecting. It’s the kind...
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#musicdiaryproject Day 7
It’s over!
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finished that episode of Sound Opinions. clips from Wilson Pickett’s “634-5789,” Alabama Shakes’ “Hang Loose,” Gillian Welch’s “Hard Times,” Peter Sellers’s “A Hard Day’s Night,” Roy Orbison’s “Only the Lonely” (Black & White Night version) and The Jam’s “All...
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#musicdiaryproject Day 6
Almost through!
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They Might Be Giants - “Dog on Fire” (The Daily Show theme)
Wire - “Kidney Bongos” (via tumblr)
matinee show of The Avengers (score by Alan Silvestri). afterwards lunch in K-town. hoped for K-pop but our restaurant played no music at all. on the walk home started a new episode of Sound Opinions, which included clips from the Ramones’...
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#musicdiaryproject Day 5
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Before jury duty:
clearing out old starred Google Reader videos: Jack White - “Sixteen Saltines” and “Freedom at 21” (live on Die Harald Schmidt Show) (via Pitchfork) THEESatistaction - “QueenS” (via Crying All the Way to the Chip Shop)
After jury duty (dismissed before lunch!):
Parks and Recreation theme and the Mouse Rat song
Television - Marquee...
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#musicdiaryproject Day 4
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Before jury duty:
Hulu: a version of Spandau Ballet’s “True” in an ad (have no idea if the original is buried under the bad karaoke) They Might Be Giants - “Dog on Fire” (The Daily Show theme) Cheap Trick - “Baby Mumbles” (The Colbert Report theme) Spencer and Antfood - “Trek” in an ad (I learned this after googling for...
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#musicdiaryproject Day 3
Before work:
They Might Be Giants - “Dog on Fire” (The Daily Show theme) cover version of The Shirelles’ “Mama Said” in an ad (2x) Cheap Trick - “Baby Mumbles” (The Colbert Report theme) Spencer & Antfood - “Trek” in an ad that same cover of “Mama Said” again
Lunch break:
a few clips from Late Night with Jimmy Fallon: The...
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#musicdiaryproject Day 2
Now with extra tedium!
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Finished the Sound Opinions ep I was listening to yesterday, started an episode of The Flophouse (which has a theme tune!), then watched The Daily Show (They Might Be Giants’ version of “Dog on Fire”!) and The Colbert Report (also has a theme tune!).
Listened to The Byrds’ Turn! Turn! Turn! LP to psych myself up for writing about the title...
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#musicdiaryproject Day 1
Stayed at home doing research and reading The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer. Meanwhile listened to the following via my laptop:
David Bowie - “Heroes” David Bowie - Lodger David Bowie - Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) Morton Subotnick - Silver Apples of the Moon Television - Adventure Santigold - Master of My Make-Believe Chromatics - Kill for Love
While doing internet...
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My Weeks in Movies #17 & 18
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095) Great Expectations (Brian Kirk, 2011) Sun, Apr 22 / PBS Online
Fairly humdrum recap of the book’s plot line made interesting only by bizarre makeup/lighting choices. Gillian Anderson’s Miss Havisham is neither anchored enough to be moving nor OTT enough to be camp.
096) Eames: The Architect & The Painter (Jason Cohn & Bill Jersey, 2011) Sun, Apr 22 / Netflix...
April 2012
12 posts
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My Week in Movies #16
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088) Take Shelter (Jeff Nichols, 2011) Sun, Apr 15 / Redbox DVD
OK, the thing I want to talk about most is the ending, but at the same time I don’t want to give anything away. I’ll just say that, like The Gamebelow, there’s more than one way of looking at the end, and that it doesn’t necessarily conflict with how you choose to read the rest of the movie....
“Mr. Helm’s drumming valued space over showiness. He gave his drums a muffled,...”
– Jon Pareles, “Levon Helm, drummer in the Band, dies at 71” (via semipoplife)
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My Week in Movies #15
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085) Histoire(s) du cinéma (Jean-Luc Godard, 1988-1998) Sun, Apr 8 & Tues, Apr 10 / NYC Library DVD
I watched about 20 minutes of this about a month ago in an installation at MoMA. And now having sat through the full four-and-a-half hours of it, I think a 20-minute segment at a museum is the best possible circumstance to see it in. Though the eight segments have nominally different...
Staff Discussion: Artists Snubbed by the Rock &... →
ajobo:
In which I make my case thus for the Monkees in the Rock Hall:
Long-shunned because of their less-than-organic genesis, pseudo-assembly-line production and slapstick television show, the Monkees are basically Rock Hall kryptonite. There is rarely a Rock Hall wishlist that doesn’t have them at the top; they’ve been bandied about as a prime choice by everyone from critics to scholars to...
“Deschanel filed for divorce from husband Death Cab, throwing him over for Cutie...”
– Zooey Deschanel Says No Kids | ABC News - Yahoo! News
I am very amused by the errors in this ABC News story.
(via perpetua)
Clicked this. A popup told me about a new feature that helps people have conversations: email.
(via katherinestasaph)
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The Seven Best Things Jarvis Cocker, Probably The... →
I heard these words with my very own ears! And lo, it was amazing.
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My Week in Movies #14
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078) An American in Paris (Vincente Minnelli, 1951) Sun, Apr 1 / Symphony Space, NYC
Somehow I’ve seen this several times, but I wouldn’t rank it among my very favorite musicals. I respect its ambition, though, and it is lots of fun, gorgeous to look at and has a great Gershwin score.
079) Paris: The Luminous Years (Perry Miller Adato, 2010) Sun, Apr 1 / Symphony Space,...
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My Week(s) in Movies #12 & 13
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071) The Killer Elite (Sam Peckinpah, 1975) Mon, Mar 19 / Netflix DVD
Rule of thumb for Sam Peckinpah: Western setting = great, contemporary setting = not. The Killer Elite is the latter. Points of interest: James Caan and Robert Duvall’s chemistry in the early scenes; cross-cut editing by Monte Hellman and Peckinpah regular Tony de Zarraga.
072) Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence...
March 2012
15 posts
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pinstripehourglass asked: Do you think we'll ever see another 1 on No Hard Chords? There's lots of crap out there, obviously, but what could possibly contend with "Mr. Custer"? Even "Disco Duck" is at least danceable.
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My Week in Movies #11
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067) 50/50 (Jonathan Levine, 2011) Sun, Mar 11 / Redbox DVD
Surprisingly sweet-natured, even if its characters are drawn a little too black and white (Joseph Gordon-Levitt = Good Guy; Bryce Dallas Howard = Heartless Floozy).
068) The Debt (John Madden, 2010) Sun, Mar 11 / Redbox DVD
A Nazi-revenge thriller handled like a particularly dour episode of PBS Masterpiece Contemporary.
069)...
areasofmyexpertise:
A little update everyone. I just ate a bunch of calories. Going to use some to live, and store the rest as fat. More later.
microphoneheartbeats:
Wondering what it says about me that I’m conditioned to find most of the achey vocals and pain in midtempo blue-eyed ‘soul’ balladry (i.e. 21) as mawkish, insincere or boring, but the same vocals in a house and/or disco context and my brain just screams OH THE PAIN! OH THE FEELINGS! I UNDERSTAND NOW!
Because dancing through the pain is more poignant than wallowing in it?
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My Week in Movies #10
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065) Drive, He Said (Jack Nicholson, 1971) Thurs, Mar 8 / Netflix DVD
Based on its reputation, I was expecting either a minor lost masterpiece or a fascinating mess. Instead, it’s just boring. (I would have said pretentious, too, but it doesn’t even try hard enough for that.)
066) Man of Marble (Andrzej Wajda, 1977) Fri, Mar 10 / NYC Library DVD
Uses the format of Citizen...
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““Ironically,” Mothersbaugh continued, “kids that are in grade school are more...”
– Mathew Klickstein, “Mark Mothersbaugh on Rugrats” (via semipoplife)
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My Week in Movies #9
060) Lorna’s Silence (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, 2008) Sun, Feb 26 / IFC Center, NYC
Finally! This was what I was looking for from the Dardennes. Lorna’s by far their best character yet, and her problems aren’t just caused by her own stupidity/lack of a conscience. A surprisingly strange ending.
061) American Graffiti (George Lucas, 1973) Tues, Feb 28 / Netflix DVD
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February 2012
13 posts
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My Week in Movies #8
051) The Turin Horse (Béla Tarr, 2011) Sun, Feb 19 / Film Society of Lincoln Center, NYC
Supposedly the last film by Béla Tarr (for him, for forever; for me, for the immediate future). Tarr also claims that this is the only one of his films that isn’t a comedy. Which seems ludicrous at first: I certainly don’t remember busting a gut during the 16 hours or so of the other Tarr films...
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My Week in Movies #7
046)The Messenger (Oren Moverman, 2009) Sun, Feb 12 / Netflix Watch Instantly
A promising concept — a drama about a team assigned to notify families who’ve lost soldiers in combat — played by rote. A reminder that weighty themes don’t always make for weighty films.
047) The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (Fred Schepisi, 1978) Mon, Feb 13 / Netflix Watch Instantly
The...
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My Week in Movies #6
041) The Son (Luc & Jean-Pierre Dardenne, 2002) Sun, Feb 5 / IFC Center, NYC
The best of the Dardenne brothers films so far, mainly because there’s some hope that things might turn out all right, rather than a steady march to a depressing end.
042) Melvin and Howard (Jonathan Demme, 1980) Sun, Feb 5 / Netflix DVD
The type of film that would typically settle for being a...