Being a fan I had to post something and I just love these webcam sessions from season 2 extras.

Dope. Chris Cole and P. Rod go at it, horse style, at Battle at the Berrics 2.

Awards season is almost here.

In some ways, the inanity of it all gets you.

A whole year full of movies and indie producers and pushers expect you to pay attention for just about a span of one month.

Is the Academy to blame? Sometimes. They certainly do pick shitty movies to win their awards from time to time (Read: Crash, Slumdog Millionaire) but in honest and in earnest, it would seem, they’ve attempted a feat of getting people to see-slash-consider more movies throughout the year by expanding their roster of “Best Picture” nominees to 10. This means that good movies from the summer that might be partially forgotten by the time academy season rolls around (Read: The Hurt Locker) might actually not only be in contention for an Oscar, but with a potential split between Oscar-hogging movies, might actually sneak in and win an award.

It’s exciting, in a way. But still, the fact remains: unless you are unemployed, down on friends and are hell-bent on depleting whatever savings you might have left on going to a theater to sit in seats where you’re lucky if what you just stepped on was gum, you haven’t seen most of the movies worthy of consideration in this small time.

Who could possibly have such an insane bent, such an aversion to daylight, anti-social behavior and participation in murky, unsavory activities?

If you guessed one of the vampires from that new-fucking Vampire-hyphen-Werewolf movie that made a lot of money while maintaining Mormon value overtones, you probably guessed incorrectly: I’m a jew.

Anyway, here are the films.

***

I’ve been a fan of Andersonian melodrama ever since Rushmore, which appealed to the stifled low-performing nerd in me, and The Royal Tenenbaums, which still stands for me as Anderson’s masterpiece. I discovered Bottle Rocket afterwards and deemed it a worthy debut, if not overly affected by the Reservoir Dogs fever of the day. I panned the last two films he’s made, justly as it would seem the community has vindicated those choices (though mob-rule doesn’t always speak right). The Life Aquatic seemed to airy to me, too focused on style, too obsessive about Anderson’s own love of his wacky compositions: too concentrated on the quirkyness of his story as opposed to the story itself. The Darjeeling Limited suffered from the same sort of flaw, an attempted homage to Indian cinema that was all about Whitey, as brashly colonial and ignorant of its surroundings, as the Brit-influenced train of the film’s title. In short, Anderson had drank his own Kool-Aid, embraced his own narcissistic qualities, sometimes abetted by fellow hep-cats Noah Baumbach and Jason Schwartzman. The Fantastic Mr. Fox offered him a way out of that narcissism, a chance to create a movie of pure imagination without branding it as a “Wes Anderson” movie in a way that drew attention to itself. Like Tim Burton, he could lose himself in animation every so often to rejuvenate his sense of the possible. I admit worry when I saw Meryl Streep and George Clooney heading up the cast for Fox, but they were fine in the film and I shouldn’t have worried about Streep particularly, an actress capable of disappearing when the part calls for it, like she did in Mamma Mia!. The movie itself felt fun and mostly sly and glib and occasionally triumphant as a movie about a fox (or a Roald Dahl book) should. But what it wasn’t was great. Like Where The Wild Things Are (the superior of the two, by a bit), Fox suffers from some poor music choices, rock and brit-invasion stuff, that Anderson peps in. There’s also some stuff about karate that feels tacked in, a weird character called Kristofferson and a bumbling subservient (like Pagoda or the kid whose mom Max wants to bang in Rushmore). In short, Anderson has made Fantastic Mr. Fox into a Wes Anderson movie, to its detriment. Every element is composed and planned: wacky, but only ever in the exact way Anderson intended it to be. There is no joy of discovery to be had as we had meeting the Things in Wild Things, nor are their ways to think about the way that memory evolves, like the best animated film of they year, Up!. Instead, we get what we planned for, what we paid for, nothing more. Anderson would be a better filmmaker if he took more risks and let a wacky world evolve from his characters organically, even a little bit. Instead he’s only a good-kind of children’s storyteller:

The one who tells the children what he wants to tell them and not what they want to hear.

***

The Messenger feels like the exact sort of movie I wouldn’t see in an off-year. An “American indie” with its street-cred from Oren Moverman (I’m Not There, Jesus’ Son), it tackles “difficult” “contemporary” “issues” with some hottie Shia LeBoeuf wannabe and a fat Samantha Morton. And what I described is essentially just accurate. But those missing The Messenger will miss the best performance of the year so far and one of the most sympathetic portrayals of a man left behind by history I’ve ever seen. Sgt. Stone, as portrayed by Woody Harrelson, is a veteran of Desert Storm, “the first Gulf War” who speaks admiring of Kuwaiti prostitutes as he tilts back in forth between nights of pretty bartenders and messy alcoholic binges. He is required by his duty, as he’s assumed, to inform the relatives of men killed in action that their child is gone, a task he is both perfect for and which destroys him utterly. A soldier, a “POG” as Ben Foster accuses him of being in the film, who is a victim not of gun-fire or PTSD, but of the Army’s machismo: that he joined to be a hero, but never got the chance. Instead he crawls with envy, hatred, sympathy and distance as he coldly approaches the designated Next-of-Kin. He is the most complciated non-warrior I’ve seen in cinema and it’s Mr. Harrelson’s performance (and to a lesser degree, Mr. Moverman’s writing) that has created him. If the only the movie was aboout Mr. Harrelson’s Sgt. Stone as opposed to the over-acting Mr. Foster’s wounded private and his relationship with a terribly miscast Samantha Morton. Still, to see Harrelson act in such a movie and such a way, is something retro in a good way, a call back to when good actors worked in hack jobs for money in the sort of films that got made because they were on schedule to be made and for little other reason.

***

I almost feel like side-stepping the controversy around Precious. In all honestly, I don’t feel qualified to speak about it. Perhaps I’ll just put it my two cents and then just bow out. As I might have noted before, Lee Daniels, the director of the film, had what amounted to a monstrous portrait of himself and his movie in The New York Times (“The Audactiy of Precious”) which seemed to be entirely justified in its villainy of him. It depicted him as an opportunistic joker, accosting Helen Mirren when she broke her shoe in the sidewalk and looking at his watch hand to see how long/hard a European audience would clap for an “authentic” portrayal of “American black folks”. In short, it seemed like exploitation and those often guilty of such things (Oprah, Tyler Perry) joined in with endorsements, making it seem all the more true.

All of this seemed to be at odds with the film I saw, which while melodramatic and over-the-top, seemed to strenuously avoid exploitation and condescension to its obvious target protagonist. Terrible thing are heaped upon Precious–two unasked-for children, thrown TVs, sexual-abuse from all sides and AIDS just for starters–but in a seemingly non-forced way, she just never gives up. As a protagonist, her strongest resemblance is to Jake LaMotta of Raging Bull, whose only real obstacle was his own lack of character and intelligence, but is the only other leading character I can remember with such believable tenacity. Precious doesn’t give up because she realizes her own strength, because she is able to accept and experience everything that happens to her. Because she sees and is articulate. Obviously, she is a symbol that transcends race and position, a metaphor for the need of self-expression and transcending obstacles and boundaries.

How it does it without feeling exploitative? I couldn’t tell you. Except there seems to be humor and reality in Precious’s classroom and none of her desires seem absurd. The actress Gabourney Sidibe portraying her plays it easy and never assumes an “acting” stance.

Honestly, I’m befuddled. I don’t know how to reconcile the Daniels I read about with his film. But as it is is going now, he could be the first gay or black person to win best director or best picture. Hollywood does love that sort of story.

***

What can I say? Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans?

Well.

It was fun.

As my friend Rob-Mostly-Gotten-Back-His-Beardo pointed out, like its predecessor (in whatever way), it was a well-done B-movie with an ace leading performance. Is Harvey Keitel a better actor than Nicholas Cage? I would say yes, or at leas the’s more to my tastes, though Cage is often excellent and here especially.

Cage has a devotion in BL:POCNO that verges on the insane, something that Werner Herzog is, well, perfectly poised to understand. All I can really say is good job Edward R. Pressman. I’m sure a million fucking people told you were absolutely bonkers to make a sequel to an indie NC-17 B-movie wihere a nun gets raped and devirginized by a crucifix, also with none of the same cast. But somehow–SOMEHOW–you got a pretty perfect combination here of wacky actors and wacky directors, all using their style in good harmony with the script. In short, you made a good movie.

Bravo.

Are their problems? Of course there are problems! It’s a B-movie! I assume as in Entourage, Werner Herzog didn’t give Eva Mendes any direction because he thinks she sucks (and thus she does, a self-fulfilling prophecy). Also, the script is often questionable, verging on the fact that this “bad lieutenant” is particularly sanitized from Abel Ferrara’s mad-cap Catholic fuck-a-thon. He’s not actually that bad. He saves peoples’ lives at great risk to himself, he gets his criminals, he even gets his hooker girlfriend on the straight-and-low. He doesn’t murder anyone and there aren’t even the crazy-long shooting-up scenes from the first film. “Unorthodox and Probably Insane but Pretty Damn Effective Lieutenant” could have been the title of this movie, if not for space constraints.

In the end though, a simple question, one often asked to movie critics: Should you see this?

Answer: Of course! Where are else are you going to get crazy Nic Cage antics, Werner Herzog-induced fish-eye iguana-shots and a cackling performance by mid-level rapper Xzibit?

I bet my friend Jason Lee just creamed in his pants.

***

One last note.

I recently saw The Brother-Sister Plays over at the Public Theater with curly-gurl Christa (for the first one) and my sister (for all three). I was glad I found people to see them with, which was difficult even after Brantley compared the playwright to Eugene O’Neil and Sam Shepard in the same paragraph. As I expected, the comparison is not really true, or at the least, overstated. Both of those artists have an emotional connection in their dialogue that push pin-pricks and stabs into the audience’s mind. They are unafraid to grab at your thoughts and hold them against the wourld they are trying to show you, a twisted tableau out of their minds that you know, when translated, might echo back to you. Another obvious comparison to the playwright of these plays, Alvin McCraney, might be the non-naturalist Suzan Lori-Parks, who is also black and whose plays tackle with ebullient style “the issues” as they might be.

Mr. McCraney doesn’t have that skill yet. He’s only 29. But what he does have is storytelling ability, the ability to connect myth to reality and sprinkle in history and family too, in a way that might be attributed to his old master August Wilson, or probably more accurately, to another gay minority artist, Tony Kushner. Mr. Kushner is above all else an alchemist, spinning the many worries of Jews and men into concoctions that are often funny and outrageous and always broadly ambitious. If Mr.McCraney doesn’t dream on this scale yet, he’s on his way with The Brother/Sister Plays. The first play, The Red and Brown Water is the weakest, but still memorable, a tale of a young runner and the things she can’t escape. The second and third plays, The Brothers Size and Marcus involve family and the search for identity. All of them involve the issues of the world, the details of everyday life and the inter-connectedness of community.

To my peers, the plays are only 20 dollars a piece (40 for all three). They can be seen all on a Saturday, a Sunday or both as I did.

Theater is a throwback which stirs thoughts inside you. It may not always be as crafted as film. But unlike film it is immediate and cannot be denied.

Jason Lee não ficou muito tempo desempregado, depois do fim da série My Name Is Earl, o ator já foi contratado para uma nova série. Lee será o protagonista de Delta Blyes, série que a TNT está produzindo e que tem como produtor executivo George Clooney. 

Na história, o personagem principal Dwight Hendricks, mora ainda com sua mãe em Memphis. Durante o dia ele trabalha como um policial e à noite faz covers de Elvis Presley.

O episódio piloto terá roteiro de Liz M. Garcia e Joshua Harto e direção de Clark Johnson.

"East of Eden"

This is my new exhibition.

I’m going to say a few quick profound things about it which you can either read or skip, but people ask all the time what things mean, so this is my attempt to counter-act the impending questions.

I’ll begin by stating the obvious: I am using a title that John Steinbeck gave to a book he wrote, which was published in 1952, and which is a work of art that I admire ridiculously and helplessly.  Steinbeck in turn got it from the Bible.

But I don’t necessarily mean to make a direct reference to the Bible or even to Steinbeck’s book – although traces of it I know have lodged themselves deep into my anatomy, as they should.  Rather, I’m making a reference to the quiet and startling drama those words are heavy with in my opinion.

They give me the idea of something fatally misplaced by a few inches.  Transparently wrong, but maybe in such a gentle way that it can go unnoticed by millions of onlookers.

The imagery in this show is kind of hinged on that idea.  The work was mostly finished when I put the title on it, but as always, the right title explains a lot of things to myself about my work.

I think it’s safe to presume that “East of Eden” is a good match.  There’s probably someone out there who disagrees, but as R. Crumb said the other night, “You can’t please everyone.”

Below is all the info for you to get to the exhibition.  I hope you will make it.  You are excused if there is a major body of water in the way.

All the best,

Mercedes.

14 November to 19 December 2009

MERRY KARNOWSKY GALLERY

170 S. La Brea Ave.

Los Angeles, CA. 90036

Les Voyeurs #88 – Des Voyeurs dans l’avion

Diffusion le : jeudi 19 novembre 2009 à 18h sur Radio Grille Ouverte
vendredi 20 novembre 2009 à 18h sur Radio 16.
Rediffusion le samedi 21 novembre 2009 à 10h sur RGO.
En téléchargement pendant une semaine ici.
Et en écoute permanente là.

Actualité

Capitlism – A Love Story : Sortie au cinéma le 25 novembre 2009 du nouveau film de Michael Moore.
Spiderman 4 : Confirmation de la présence au casting de l’acteur Dylan Baker, interprétant le personnage du Dr Connors, devenant dans la BD le super-vilain Le Lézard.
Buffy, la tueuse de vampires : une web-série animée adaptant la 8ème saison des aventures en comics de la tueuse de vampires, va bientôt voir le jour, faisant donc suite à la 7ème saison de la série TV.
Delta Blues : la série créée en 2008 par Joshua Harto et produite par Georges Clooney à enfin trouvé son acteur principal en la personne de Jason Lee (le héros de “Earl”).
Prince of Persia – Les Sables du Temps :  Le prince de Perse doit combattre un Vizir rebelle désireux de s’emparer des Sables du Temps, un artefact conférant à son possesseur le contrôle du Temps. Adaptation cinéma de la célèbre licence de jeux vidéos. Réalisé par Mike Newell. Avec Jake Gyllenhaal. Sortie France 26 mai 2010. BA visible en VF pourrie ou VO HD.
L’actualité des Arcades : A l’origine ; L’Imaginarium du Dr Parnassus, Le Ruban Blanc (en VO), Away We Go, Micmacs à tire larigot, 2012, Twilight chapitre 2 : Tentation, Saw VI.
Les Beaux Gosses : Le beau coffret collector du film est disponible depuis le 12 novembre. Contient le film en édition collector 2DVD mais également le CD de la BO du film et surtout le “manuel pratique du puceau” !! Dépêchez-vous c’est pas cher !
L’actu du Sémaphore de Nîmes : L’Imaginarium du Dr Parnassus (en VO), mais aussi le film qui n’est plus à Alès et c’est dommage Panique au village !. Le Sémaphore organise également jusqu’au 26 janvier 2010 des projections des grands classiques du cinéma italien dont Affreux, sales et méchants, Les Monstres, Le Fanfaron, Hier aujourd’hui demain, L’Étranger. Plus de détails sur la programmation sur le site du cinéma ici => Sémaphore.

Dossier de la semaine : Des Voyeurs dans l’avion

La saga des “Airport”

Airport (1970) de Georges Seaton
Airport 75 (747 en péril – 1975) de Jack Smight
Airport 77 (Les Naufragés du 747 – 1977) de Jerry Jameson
Concorde : Airport 79 (Airport 80 Concorde – 1980) de David Lowell Rich

Les vols de l’extrême

L’Étoffe des Héros (The Right Stuff – 1983) de Phillip Kaufman
Des serpents dans l’avion (Snakes on a plane – 2006) de David R. Ellis
Des Zombies dans l’avion (Flight of the Living Dead : Outbreak on a plane – 2007) de Scott Thomas
Les Ailes de L’Enfer (Con-Air – 1997) de Simon West
Flight Plan (2004) de Robert Schwentke
Air Force One (1997) de Wolfgang Pertersen
Independence Day (1996) de Roland Emmerich
Die Hard 4 – retour en enfer (Die Hard 4.0 – 2007) de Len Wiseman

Les avions “cartoons” : les Z.A.Z. aux commandes

Les avions du futur

Furtif (Stealth – 2005) de Rob Cohen
D.A.R.Y.L. (1985) de Simon Wincer
Firefox, l’arme absolue (1982) de et avec Clint Eastwood

Coups de Cœur

Les Chevaliers du Ciel (2005) de Gérard Pirès
Aviator (2004) de Martin Scorsese

La bande originale de la semaine :

Papa Loves Manbo par Perry Como
Extrait de la bande originale du film Ocean’s Eleven (2001) de Steven Soderbergh

Chronique : La Carte Postale Sétoise

L’Enfer d’Henry-Georges Clouzot de Serge Bromberg et Ruxendra Medrea

Musique :
Who’s Driving Your Plane ? par The Rolling Stones

Extraits :
Airport 75 (747 en péril)
Des Serpents dans l’Avion
Firefox, l’arme absolue

Présentation : Cédric Cance, Erik Antolin, Jérôme Bauzon
Chronique : l’irremplaçable Jan Jouvert !
Technique : Jérémie Adrian

I’ve always liked Jason Lee. I first saw him in Kevin Smith’s Mallrats and have enjoyed pretty much everything he has done – Almost Famous, My Name is Earl was great. The whole scientology thing sucks as did Alvin and the Chipmunks but I still dig him.

Now it looks as if he is getting behind the camera to direct his first feature. It is called Get Back and it tells the story of two music-obsessed friends who time travel back to 1966 London, where one gets caught in a love triangle with John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

Sounds pretty cool and could be rather funny.

The article over on THR also mentions Lee’s new TV show. Called Delta Blues, from George Clooney and Grant Heslov’s Smokehouse Pictures and Warner Horizon, it centers on Dwight Hendricks (Lee), a Memphis police officer who lives with his mother and moonlights as an Elvis impersonator.

What do you think of those two projects?

I’m a NCIS fan. Because of that, I watched the NCIS and NCIS: Los Angles premieres. Anyway, when I watched the NCIS: Los Angles premiere, I immediately thought that the actress who plays Hetty Lange looked like Edna Mode, the character that created the uniforms for the Incredibles, in the movie The Incredibles. Personally, I just found it really freaky that they look so much alike. I would say that they based Edna Mode on Linda Hunt. Anyway, I just found it freaky.

VERDICT:
8/10 Ultimate Senior Projects

Not as amazing as I initially remember it being, but still a great movie.

Almost Famous is about William Miller, an unpopular, endearing, and sheltered High Schooler who really digs music. After finding out that he’s two years younger than he always thought he was, he pitches a story to Rolling Stone about doing a piece on the up-and-coming band Stillwater, Rolling Stone is all about it, so this once-lame kid packs up his shit and hits the road with what eventually becomes one of the biggest bands in the country. Needless to say, it ends up being one groovy effing trip.

The story here is loosely based on writer/director Cameron Crowe’s own life and times on his journey from High School nerd to R.S. editor to Oscar-winning screenwriter, and with that, I once again tip my hat to Mr. Crowe. The only other person I can think of that might top him for having one of the coolest lives of all-time, or at least the coolest teen years of all-time, is Frank Abagnale, Jr. from Catch Me If You Can (great movie), only, you know, without all the jail time and whatnot.

But before I go any further, we gotta talk about the soundtrack. I didn’t really appreciate it as much the first time I heard the music in this movie, nor did I fully appreciate the actual soundtrack I got for my birthday that same year, but now that I’ve had a good long time to discover Led Zeppelin, The Allman Brothers (both of whom are the bands Stillwater is based on – fun fact!), and every other seminal classic rock band that are as much a part of this movie as its story and characters, I finally see what I’ve been missing. Screw Rock Band and Guitar Hero, Almost Famous is a true education in some of the greatest music ever put to vinyl along with what it means to actually love music.

Come on, like you didn’t sing along to the “Tiny Dancer” scene.

I think the reason I connected so much with this movie when I first saw it back in High School was because I could connect with William Miller and good lord did I want to be him. Nine years later, William Miller’s life remains unreal, but I’ve unfortunately come to the realization that Patrick Fugit isn’t a very good actor. Doesn’t show a whole lot of emotion, doesn’t do a very good job of convincing anyone that he’s serious when he’s trying to be, and is actually at his best when he lets everyone else do the talking. Probably explains why he hasn’t really landed any significant roles since, but still, what an awesome life.

Not the biggest fan of Jason Lee either, but everyone else is awesome. Billy Crudup is great as Stillwater’s lead guitarist, and even though I’m not all that keen on his real-life antics, he’s one cool mofo here and he sure does look the part, too. Also really like that Crowe made the lead guitarist the main focus of the band, ’cause isn’t the lead guitarist always the coolest one?

“Unfortunately, yes,” replies Aiden the drummer.

There’s also some great cameos by Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rainn Wilson, Jimmy Fallon, Fairuza Balk (where the hell did she go?), and Anna Paquin (not exactly great, but hey, she’s an Oscar-winner, dammit!). And big shout-out to Frances McDormand’s hilarious turn as William’s outrageously overprotective mother. She should have won the Oscar for this one.

And lastly, there’s Kate Hudson as Penny Lane, the leader of Stillwater’s groupies – “The Band-Aids”. Among the many things people might remember this movie for, it continues to stand as the both the launching pad and single high point in Ms. Hudson’s unfortunate acting career. I don’t know if it’s a good idea to follow Cuba Gooding, Jr’s lead and keep to a strict diet of shitty role after shitty role after getting nominated for an Oscar, but maybe that’s just me. Still, Penny Lane is arguably the most interesting character in this whole movie and if Kate Hudson were to quit acting today, she’d go down in history for her performance here.

But I don’t know if it’s because I’ve seen this movie too many times or if it’s just because I knew what was coming, but the script isn’t as fantastic as it once was. The humor seems somewhat canned, so does the dialogue at times, and even though it’s better than any other script that was written in 2000, it didn’t have me grinning like an idiot like it used to. Not saying that Crowe didn’t deserve it, but some of the magic has been lost. But if you haven’t seen this movie before, completely disregard this paragraph, the magic was definitely there the first time around.

I’m just now realizing that I’ve used the word “great” a lot in this review, but the thing is that this movie reeks of it. I remember walking out of the theater the first time I saw this and announcing to the world that it was “MY FAVORITE MOVIE OF ALL-TIME!” I took that statement back a few hours later, but still, it was a big deal for me. Nonetheless, Almost Famous may very well be the best movie about music that I know of and even though it may have garnered a 9 out of 10 at another time in my life, it’ll always hold a place in my heart.

Now go out there and get that damn soundtrack.

I don’t know why I chose that title.

I’m not sure it even makes sense.

I was interviewed this morning. The interviewer was Austin, a handy/capable (not handi-capable) grip and actor from my short-film shoot. I was obliged to work on it, by the law of film-school-favors, wherein if he works on my film for free I am obliged to work on his. What he in turn needed me for was to ask me about life after film school for a documentary project he was doing on recent film alums for his documentary class, ironically the same one I had taken in the same semester he had taken it, with the same teacher.

It was raining, the sporadic, tantrum-style rain of recent New York City days–brief, in intense and varying spurts–and I huddled across the street on the bench in front of the old-fashioned coffee shop, after an early morning wake-up that consisted of leftover sitcoms and an over-dose of repetitive, concurrent video-gaming.

Austin was late by a couple minutes, but staring in to the faces of his crew was like looking in a funhouse mirror into all the ways you might be reflected. One of them was Israeli talking on the phone to his mom in Hebrew and comparing how our recently cut Jew-fros might have matched up had they been present. One of them was talking about an introductory film class disdainfully, since he was unsure he would be able to make a “serious” movie in it, as he said so with a “serious” face. A final one was ministerial, overseeing the others as he picked out restaurants around the street he might take his crew out to, in exchange for their willingness for a film-school school-project schlep.

“Was there any point when you realized that you weren’t going to have a job when you got out?”

Austin came and the interview began. I sat on the same bench facing Austin trying to chose between playing my bravado to him or the camera, knowing my old teacher Sam Pollard would be seeing this and trying to figure out, somewhere in my head, how to make him laugh.

“You know, I’m optimistic.” I told Austin as he assumed the squinting stare of the nouveau-documentarian. “I’ve only been out of school for 6 months. It’s true I used to think that I would have a job when I got out of college, that the people who didn’t have jobs were losers. But I work somewhere I like, even if I don’t get paid and I’m part of something I believe in. Now you can talk to me in another six months when I’m unemployed and my film’s been rejected and I still don’t know what to do with my life. But I live my life in horizons and when this job ends I’ll have one. And I’ll try to find the next one from there.”

The questions continued, but I’m a bad/good interview and every time Austin gave me a question, it was another excuse for me to tell a story, to give a viewpoint. Talking for me, conversation, sometimes feels like a theater in which I can relive the best moments of my life, revive the confidence and energy that I’ve felt previously, or just even articulate and work out what’s in my head, like a shower or a good BM. In any case the kiddos looked on enraptured and I felt like I had a job well-done. I told them whatever success stories I could think of, from my friend Zach Weintraub who had shot a good feature for nothing on a digital-picture-camera, to my friend Chadd, whose star-studded-celebrity-event I was attending the next day. But as they left, I realized the stories I told them, I told myself and that it was time for a self-revival.

***

The truth is, denizens of Feitelogram: I haven’t been writing enough.

Or even more than that, more simply, I haven’t been doing.

When I met with Antonio Campos, he told me to make another short film. There’s nothing stopping me from doing that except for me and my own head. If I wrote something, I could gather friends, shoot on weekends, ask my parents for money probably and they’d probably shell out.

I could sit at home and finish a screenplay I haven’t touched in three weeks, or at least begin the process of beginning.

The truth is, having a job, an internship, some structure, has both stabilized me and squelched me.

Since I have structure to my life, times that I am busy for much of the week, I have less need to write, less emotional, desperate lashing (though I still seem to do much of that here). At the same time, I have less energy to write, less drive, since my job has made it so I can’t attend or even schedule my writer’s group, meaning that I’m not even around anyone who is writing.

In short, I need to work harder or smarter or both to carve out a niche for myself if I want to continue to be creative. When I think of the people who I told stories about to that film crew this morning, it was people that decide to do something, to only worry so much about how good it would be and just get it done. To be creative in the literal meaning of the word.

That’s what I need in my life and that’s where my blog comes in. Where y’all help.

As I once told Jason Lee, whose blogposts have now returned to a consistent diet of job hunting and Nicholas Cage film-blogging after a queasy experience as an Asian-food-deliveryman, blogging is writing, it’s working out your muscles, it’s keeping in shape. It’s a lifeline back to the world of your mind, the world it is easy to get out of touch with when you are forced to explore the questionable territory of your own value by a job or an internship.

It’s good just to keep it out, keep it going.

And if I’m posing, I’ll be damned if I ain’t posing here.

***

If there’s a reason if I gotta self-analyze that I chose this title for this post, it might be an unconscious need for Karaoke.

Much like my lapsed writer’s group, Karaoke has been something missing in my life as I face challenges to schedule it that I did not face in my grand summer of after-school unemployment. It’s become so distant that I often can’t even think of singing my own songs, like I once did, when I spent a whole couple afternoons listening to “Thunder Road” on repeat so I’d get the cadences right as to not embarass myself, which I’m sure I still did.

Instead I think of my friend Rob Returning-Beardo Malone and think of songs for him to do. As a gesture, when we went together, I’d often write his name down for a song I’d thought for him to do, something I had anxious anticipated. As I’ve written before, Rob has a crooner, eccentric-PA style that often goes well with campy songs sung un-ironically like “MacArthur Park” by Richard Harris or “Rich Girl” by Hall and Oates.

I feel like he could do a good rendition of “Highway to the Danger Zone” if he tried, but recently, while brushing my teeth, my Pandora Radio put on “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” by Green Day, an iconic song of 90s teen angst which seems anathema to Rob, but which I pondered what his spin would be like. Would he croon it, or go for a straight-up Billy Joe-impression? Or would he simply pass and give me a withering “come on, Bro-ham-amus!” kind of look? I couldn’t say honestly and I smiled through my brushing teeth.

“You know,” I told Austin playing this one to the camera. “Last night I had a friend invite me to see 2012 at midnight. And most people when they would do that, they’d do it with excitement or not at all, dismissing the movie, rightly, as trash. But my friends I made in film school can do it someway where it’s ironic and it’s genuine and it’s a fun time for both of it all at once.”

I paused.

“Doesn’t mean I fucking went, 2012 looks awful.” I said. “But if I hadn’t gone to film school, where would I have ever met people like that?”

This is a story. The story of the Baker 3 premiere.

So this was a few years back, right in the thick of my alcoholic haze… So if some of the details are a bit fuzzy, forgive me. But as I recall, Blair Alley called me up and said Steve Clare had rented a fucking limo bus to take everyone up to the premiere in Hollywood. This picture was taken at about 5 p.m. We are all only about 6 beers deep. God, It went down hill from here (or uphill depending on your perspective). We are at one of those “carpool” parking lots on the side of the freeway in North-county SD. Where no carpooling goes down. Only rape. That however, is beside the point. So we all take this bus up to LA… The ride up to the premiere was nuts (crack-head getting on the bus in LA, Smithers laying in the beer cooler, sooo many dice being tossed. Just general madness.) but it was NOTHING compared to the ride back. On the way back Slash climbed out of the bus’s back emergency exit and walked on the top of the bus and came back in the front one… Going 75 mph on the god damned freeway! By the time the bus was getting close to the raping-lot, it was covered in vomit, beer, blood, broken dice, lost money and shame. It was at this time that I got the brilliant idea to climb out of the emergency exit in the front of the bus. I was piss drunk, sitting indian style on the front of this 50 ton machine. I thought all was well because we were only going about 20 mph at this time. Little did I know, that lingering about 100 ft. in front of me there was a tree branch. A branch that in hindsight, was out for blood. The thing smashed me right in the forehead. Sending me into some sort of drunken barrel-roll… I got my footing right before I fell off the edge. When I say I got my footing I mean, I got one foot on the roof so I could jump off the moving bus instead of fall off it. Everyone was really confused by my incoherent ramblings about getting hit by a branch and jumping 12 feet off a bus… Cuz no one knew I was up there. But yeah. Hands down, best premiere experience ever. That is until Creature came along and busted an ecto-green load of awesome on everyones faces!

(Photo courtesy of Blair Alley, Inspiration courtesy of Cullen Poythress)

 NS KRUE / EGOMOB / GREENROOM

Actor/Skater Jason Lee will be hosting Mercedes Helwein’s opening this Saturday, November 14 at the Merry Karnowsky Gallery. Come and check it out!

170 S. La Brea Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90036

In 1994, writer/director Kevin Smith was heavily criticized by the Black Community for neglecting to include any Black People in his uproarious feature debut “Clerks“.

However, three years and two films later Mr. Smith not only put a Black Person in his 1997 film “Chasing Amy“, but he also made the character a homosexual because, as everyone knows, a Black Homosexual in a movie will automatically become a rich source of laughter 100% of the time.

And so, Kevin Smith gave his first Black Character a very hilarious 3 minute monologue that manages to encapsulate the Black Community’s views on how Black Characters are portrayed in comic books, graphic novels, TV and movies. And it even manages to include how much Black People are tired of hearing about Lando Calrissian (that was almost 30 years ago!).

This scene is easily the highlight of the entire film.

The Black Community has accepted this scene as a personal apology from Mr. Smith for neglecting them in his past films (he would later go on to work with Chris Rock and Craig Robinson).

However, he is not completely safe from being called a racist until he writes and/or directs a (good) film with a Black Person as the main character. This goes for pretty much every filmmaker with great examples like Steven Spielberg (“The Color Purple“) and Clint Eastwood (“Bird“, despite what Spike Lee says.).

A relação do skate com a música pop é mais longa do que parece. Em 1978, o Devo lançou o clipe de “Freedom of Choice”, que foi gravado em um skatepark e conta com alguns grandes skatistas da época. De lá pra cá, o skate tem sido cada vez mais requisitado por bandas e artistas alternativos, reforçando o culto do esporte.

A seguir, cinco clipes que contam com aparições skatistas, destaque para Jason Lee no clipe do Sonic Youth!!!

blablablablablabla Kuala Lumpur blablablablabla Jason Lee blablablabla Condom.

There is nothing better than a good fucking stache.  Be it a porn-stache, cop-stache, dad-stache…they are all gold.  Here are my top ten staches in TV/Film*:

1. Emilio Estevez in Stakeout

2. Carl Weathers in Rocky II, III and IV

3. Bill Hader in Adventureland

4. The entire cast of Tombstone

5. Billy Burke in Twilight

6. Tom Skerritt in….anything

7. Christopher Hewett in Mr. Belvedere

8. Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction

9. Sam Snowman from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

10. Jason Lee in My Name is Earl

So, there you have it.  My Top Ten Staches. It’s like the world makes sense once again, huh??

*This list does not include the Masters of the Stache, Burt Reynolds and Tom Selleck cause that shit just ain’t fair.  Their staches are just on another plane.

LES meets UES in matrimony; image courtesy of gossipgirlinsider.com

So, I finally saw last week’s episode of Gossip Girl. For my money, there is nothing surprising about Sonic Youth performing “Starpower” and bassist/guitarist Kim Gordon marrying Rufus Humphrey and Lily van der Woodsen-Bass-etc. The reason, as I will outline chronologically below, is that flirtations with mainstream popular culture is completely in keeping with their career. This cameo isn’t an isolated incident. If anything this network-savvy band pioneered how indie does synergy.

March 1, 1988: Ciccone Youth, a side project formed in 1986 between the band and Minutemen bassist/co-founder Mike Watt releases The Whitey Album. In this configuration, they took part of their name from Madonna’s surname. They also covered some of her songs, including “Into the Groovey” and “Burnin’ Up.” For good measure, they also covered Robert Palmer’s “Addicted to Love.” Were they taking the piss or celebrating 80s blockbuster pop? Maybe both? You decide.

June 26, 1990: Goo is released on DGC, marking their major label debut. 

In 1991, the Goo video album is released, a clip accompanying each song on the album. Among them are “Mildred Pierce” which features Sofia Coppola dressed as Joan Crawford, who starred in the 1945 film noir of same name, “Disappearer,” which was directed by Todd Haynes, and a few clips directed by Tamra Davis, including “Dirty Boots” and “Kool Thing,” which also featured Public Enemy’s Chuck D.

September 17, 1991: Kim Gordon co-produces Pretty on the Inside, Hole’s debut album, released on Caroline, a subsidiary of Virgin.

July 21, 1992: Dirty is released. Two noteworthy music videos come along with it. Actor Jason Lee, then unknown, is featured as a tragic skateboarder in ”100%. The clip was co-directed by Davis and Spike Jonze, who just made some movie about kids and monsters based on a children’s book. Chloë Sevigny, once a Sassy intern, stars in “Sugar Kane,” which also showcases Marc Jacobs’ Perry Ellis grunge collection.

August 9, 1993: “Cannonball” is released as the lead single to The Breeders way-ruling Last Splash. Kim Gordon co-directs the music video with Jonze.

September 14, 1993: Judgment Night is released, along with a successful soundtrack from Epic that pairs alternative/metal acts with rap groups. Sonic Youth and Cypress Hill collaborate on ”I Love You Mary Jane.”

Cover to Judgment Night (Epic, 1993); image courtesy of brianorndorf.com

1994: Kim Gordon creates X-Girl with Daisy von Furth, a sister clothing line to Beastie Boys Mike D’s X-Large collection. I see DJ Tanner wear an X-Girl blue jumper on Full House and want one.

August 25, 1994: Sonic Youth contributes “Genetic” to the My So-Called Life soundtrack. Released on Atlantic, the compilation features other Juliana Hatfield, Afghan Whigs, Daniel Johnston, and (of course) Buffalo Tom, who every fan remembers played a show on Pike Street.

Track list to the My So-Called Life soundtrack (Atlantic, 1994); image courtesy of mscl.com

September 13, 1994: If I Were A Carpenter, a Carpenters tribute album, is released on A&M. An alternafest, acts like American Music Club, Shonen Knife, Babes and Toyland, and Matthew Sweet share time with SY, who cover “Superstar.” In late 2007, the song would make an appearance in the movie Juno.

Cover to If I Were a Carpenter (Rhino, 1994); image courtesy of whizzo.ca

October 27, 1995: CBS airs “The State’s 43rd Annual All-Star Halloween Special,” marking the MTV sketch comedy troupe’s network television debut. Sonic Youth is the musical guest. Few people watch (I am one of them), and CBS decides to pull the plug. 

May 19, 1996: Fox airs ”Homerpalooza,” The Simpsons‘ penultimate episode of its seventh season. In it, Homer goes on tour with Hullabalooza (re: Lollapalooza), taking canons to the gut to the bemusement of thousands of jaded slackers. Several acts made guests appearances, including Smashing Pumpkins, Cypress Hill, Peter Frampton, and Sonic Youth. The band also provides an “alternative” version to Danny Elfman’s iconic theme song, perhaps getting closer in tone to what creator Matt Groening had originally envisioned when suggesting that avant-jazz composer John Zorn write the show’s theme song. The song is later featured on Rhino’s Go Simpsonic With The Simpsons: Original Music From The Television Series compilation.

"I'm so disillusioned!"; image courtesy of taringa.net

June 5, 1996: James Mangold’s debut feature, Heavy, is released in the states. Moore composes the score.

June 1998: I watch the “Kool Thing” video at a Gadzooks in the Mall of America during a trip to Young Life camp in Minnesota.

July 13, 2001: Larry Clark’s Bully is released in theaters. Moore composes the score.

July 25, 2005: Gus Van Sant’s Last Days, the director’s take on Kurt Cobain’s final days, is released in the states. Gordon appears as a record executive based on Danny Goldberg trying to turn the main character’s life around. Moore also served as a music consultant.

May 2006: Former Pavement bassist Mark Ibold joins the band. This has nothing to do with matters of synergy or cross-promotion; I just happen to think he’s kinda cute. He was also featured in a comic strip, but the name escapes me. His catchphrase is something to the effect of “I’m Mark, the bassist from Pavement” but I’m butchering it. My friend Susan told me about it, so maybe she’ll share in the comments section.

Mark Ibold, perhaps around the time he was dating Oksana Baiul and before the Pavement reunion tour; image courtesy of amazon.com

May 9, 2006: Moore and Gordon appear with daughter Coco in “Partings,” the Gilmore Girls‘ season six finale. 

June 15, 2007: Pitchfork reports that SY will be contributing a track to a Starbucks compilation.

November 21, 2007: Todd Haynes’s I’m Not There is released. Gordon’s makes a cameo as folkie Carla Hendricks, who is based on Judy Collins. The casting furthers my suspicion that SY friend Todd Haynes must have been influenced by the band’s fandom of The Carpenters and preoccupation with Karen Carpenter’s tragic struggle with anorexia. They cover “Superstar.” He makes a biopic about Carpenter called Superstar. Coincidence?

September 8, 2008: Choosing not to renew their contract with Geffen, SY sign with indie stalwart Matador.

November 3, 2008: Moore and former Be Your Own Pet frontwoman Jemina Pearl cover The Ramones’ “Sheena Is a Punk Rocker” specifically for “There Might Be Blood,” a season two episode of Gossip Girl. 

February 16, 2009: Gordon debuts a clothing collection called Mirror/Dash for Urban Outfitters.

Is this bad? Hmm, maybe. I suppose it depends on your outlook. I’d say it’s no worse than The Flaming Lips performing on Beverly Hills, 90210 (although, maybe for it to be equal, Wayne Coyne would have to play a short-order cook at the Peach Pit). Beyond paying the bills and circulating their brand, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a fair amount of post-modern, art-school, post-Warholian why-the-hell-not? factoring into all of Sonic Youth’s above-ground forays. Or perhaps they (gasp!) like many of these texts and ventures. 

Perhaps the band knows that dabbling with the mainstream is tricky business. Maybe this explains why Moore (and, to a lesser extent Gordon and guitarist Lee Ranaldo, though not media-shy drummer Steve Shelley) cultivated an authoritative presence in recent music documentaries like Punk: Attitude, Kill Yr Idols, and I Need That Record! It may also have fueled a need for an outlet through which to channel more experimental projects, resulting in the band forming Sonic Youth Recordings in 1996, along with Shelley’s Smells Like label and Moore’s Ecstatic Peace label. In addition, Ranaldo has done a considerable amount of writing, creates installation projects with his wife Leah Singer, has an extensive solo career, and has performed improvisatory film scores as a member of Text of Light.

And, you know. The band is still really good. Even as folks mine their discography or weave them into above-ground mainstream corporate media culture enterprising, they’re still challenging themselves and making great music. Earlier this year, the band released The Eternal, their 16th album. Peaking at #18 on the Billboard charts, it also boasts a consistently great set of songs and a painting by late guitarist John Fahey for its cover. This blurring of art and commerce, for good or for bad, is in keeping with the band and their contributions to music culture.

Welcome, once again, to our weekly installment of fun finds on the internet.

This week, as every week, we serve up our links with a side of cheesecake.  Today’s selection is Nadine Velazquez who played everyone’s favorite exotic bouncer, Catalina, on My Name is Earl.  With this we bid a fond fairwell to Catalina, Earl and the rest of the denizens of Camden County.  Earl was just one of the victim’s of the Jay Leno experiment on NBC.  I’m still hoping karma nails Leno and Carson Daly is given that time slot.

Now, on to the links.

• It tastes like burning.
• Best.  Contest.  Ever.
• Speaking of cartoon characters.
• Lost and Zombies.
• Meet the best sports writer in America, according to John.
• And speaking of sportswriters, Malcom Gladwell (who is always necessary reading) on brain injuries in football.
• Jack Black promotes Brutal Legend as his character, Eddy Riggs.
• It’s been a TiVo bloodbath as of late. Here’s the only show currently on TV that
  John cannot miss.
• As seen on The Ocho.
• A fine TV blog at 411 mania.
• New Jack makes a visit to NWA Anarchy.
• The Balloon Boy saga recapped on Facebook, Fresh-Prince-Of-Bel-Air-style.
• I bet lists like this one is on here.
• He must have cleared out his couch cushions.
• Question 1 - Why are you famous?
• Has The Office lost a step?
• \m/
• In honor of this weekend's Allman Brothers concert.
• Pwned.
• Man up!
• Oh those wacky Japanese game shows.
• And finally, the Lizard King can STILL do anything.

William Miller, Stillwater, and the Band-Aids, on the road; image courtesy of redriverautographs.wordpress.com

All right, folks. I’m home with the sniffles, so let’s roll up our sleeves for this one. I recently re-watched my VHS copy and am ready to get into it. At length. Double-album style. Watching the movie on video means I didn’t listen to any DVD commentaries to formulate my thoughts. And while I have seen the Untitled version, my opinions will mostly be generated from the theatrical release version. Keep this in mind reading on, but feel free to mix it up in the comments section. 

Now, this is a movie that pushes and pulls me like few other. As I’ve grown older, depending on how I felt when I watched it, I waft somewhere between charitable introspection and vitriolic rejection, one time even going so far as drunkenly telling a friend who likes this movie to shut up (sorry, Leigh!).

I wasn’t always this way. When it first came out during my senior year of high school, I looooooooved it. I saw it with my best friend Jamie and a boy I would later regret dating. Jamie was the editor of the school newspaper. I made my extracurricular committment to choir, but wished I had room in my class schedule to write for The Clarion. I wanted to be William Miller, the fifteen-year-old journalist protagonist who fills in for director Cameron Crowe and his own (idealized?) experiences as a writer. Figuring I could catch up in college, I set my sights on UT’s journalism school. By graduation, I assumed I’d be working as a rock critic in New York City, perhaps following bands like Stillwater, the fictitious classic rock band based on The Allman Brothers Band that breaks (then promises to make) Miller’s career.

My hope of being a rock journalist was officially dashed the second time I was not hired as a writer for The Daily Texan’s entertainment section. After this rejection, 19-year-old me reasoned that these fat cats were shills for the man with terrible taste in music. I might have even phrased it that way at the time. From here, I officially cast my lot with college radio.

It’s important to bring up music journalism, not only to burn on it out of bitter feelings of rejection. When this movie originally came out, it was a dangerous time for print publications like Rolling Stone and Spin, much like the early 70s was a dangerous time for rock music. 1973, the year this movie takes place, was a harbinger of the bloated, corporate, cool-hunting enterprise the mainstream music industry would become. By 2000, it had completely transformed into a deregulated, conglomerate behemoth, peddling a handful of marketable, palatable, and safe talent that could sell ancillary products and jack up the retail prices on those ancillary products, which the compact disc had become. Music listeners, irritated by ever-higher CD prices, began downloading illegally in earnest. Sometimes they were met with arrests and lawsuits. Sometimes those lawsuits were filed by the popular musicians they idolized. As a result of these actions, and some truly stupid strategies the music industry has used to push units, people are more incredulous of the music industry than ever.

It’s important to bring in the Internet and the ubiquity of digital technology too, as online communication affected print journalism. Throughout the 2000s, publications scrambled to keep up circulation and readership. Some were bought and sold to other conglomerates. Some turned from monthlies to quarterlies. Some drastically changed their content and marketing campaigns (the saddest one for me was Spin, a high school favorite that was Rolling Stone’s cool, younger sibling; by the time I entered graduate school, it packaged itself as the hipster version of Us and lagged behind e-zines like Pitchfork and Tiny Mix Tapes in its coverage of new music). Some shilled out to reality TV (looking at you, Rolling Stone). Some simply folded.

Along with publications, staffs shrunk due to budget cuts. Some folks survived the fall-out. Rob Sheffield came into the field from the academy and penned a touching memoir. Eric Weisbard became part of the academy, currently an American Studies professor at the University of Alabama. Some folks, like Sarah Lewitinn and Chuck Klosterman, became cults of personality. But others didn’t fare as well. Sia Michel lost her position as Spin’s editor-and-chief, though was hired on to be The New York Times‘ pop music editor. At some places, an entertainment staff was whittled down to one person, if there was a department at all.

Sarah Lewitinn, aka Ultragrrrl; image courtesy of daylife.com

With the implosion of print-based music journalism came the advent of e-zines like Pitchfork and, of course, blogs. These folks, for good or for bad, may shape what criticism will look like in this century. I, for one, do see some good to blog culture (barring, you know, my recent public involvement with it). The principle assets I have found with it are its immediacy and DIY ethic. I couldn’t get a staff position at the Texan. I wasn’t financially able to take an internship. In short, traditional modes of ascension in the field weren’t available to me or many others. But blogging allows (some) writers to continue researching, hone their craft, and figure out just why they’re so interested in their subject of analysis.

Of course, there are hazards to blogging. Our collective attention span for new sounds has diminished. Furthermore, a considerable amount of misinformation gets reported. However, while I’m tempted to attribute this to a lack of fluency with journalistic principles of investigating, reporting, and fact-checking, I don’t know if it’s that simple. I’d hasten to point out that blogging and traditional journalism are both vulnerable to errors, unfair coverage, unequal time, and other ethical issues in the wake of the 24-hour news cycle.

In short, I watch this movie and think three things: 1) I don’t know if William Miller would be a journalist today, as the publications he would want to work at might not be able to hire him, 2) I do think he’d be a blogger, as the fan-critic and musician-journalist binaries in media culture have been considerably blurred since the early 70s, and 3) while this movie seems quaint in its depiction of a just-booming American music industry, it still seems completely relevant, maybe even more so than when the movie was originally released. 

So, you would think based on all of this fodder, I’d love this movie. But it’s not so simple and the movie itself is only partly at fault. A major issue I have with the movie isn’t so much to do with its gender politics as it is with the gender politics of its fanboys. I have heard too many fanboys talk about this movie with fervor, as if God touched Cameron Crowe’s camera. They’ll regale folks with abstruse bits of commentary from the Untitled version and quiz people on what songs like Stillwater’s “Love Thing” and “Fever Dog” are really about (I think love and kicking addiction, respectively). They are often humorless, especially if you point out any similarities they might have to Vic Munoz, the movie’s Led Zeppelin devotee. Oh, and they always love Led Zeppelin. Always.

But Alyx. Smelly zealot fanboys shouldn’t keep you from liking a movie, you say. The movie has a lot of good things going for it, you add. There’s even a lot of interesting female characters walking around, being smart and human and brave, you note. You might even say they’re more interesting than altruistic protagonist William Miller, you whisper emphatically. Fair points all. So, let’s do what Mary Kearney did when I watched this movie in her gender and rock undergrad class and run through the women and girls we meet in Miller’s coming-of-age story. Note that many of them are autonomous beings, free agents on the road:

1. The Band-Aids, especially one Penny Lane (played by Kate Hudson in what many argue is her only credible screen performance). They are not groupies and consider themselves fans who are autonomous, exercise sexual agency, and are not disposable, though some musicians have trouble seeing them the way they see themselves.

1A. While Penny Lane is clearly the Band-Aid leader, I’ve always loved Sapphire (played by Fairuza Balk). Label it blonde antipathy or brunette solidarity, but it’s hard not to love this rough, mischievous, funny, and wise lady. Can you imagine the stories she could tell? She intimates with William’s mother about his travels on the road and how she should be proud of her son from a hotel phone. She’s responsible for orchestrating the orgy that takes William’s (who she calls “Opie“) virginity. She’s also the one who delivers the hard truth about Penny and William to guitarist Russell Hammond. And she’s the one who insists that younger groupies take birth control, appreciate the music, and quit eating all the steak at crafts’ services.

Sapphire is epic; image courtesy of fairuza.com

2. Alice Wisdom, a deejay whose playlist Lester Bangs rudely rejects. Now I don’t like The Doors either, Lester, but that doesn’t mean you should shout over her opinions and discredit her taste in music. Unless you’re actually discrediting the radio station’s taste in music, in which case the deejay’s role becomes even more compromised. And this woman is already compromised by having the regulatory whiskey-throated voice that all female deejays seem required to have or emulate.
3. High school girls running for gym class. Stillwater bassist Larry Fellows perks up at the view from the tour bus; Penny Lane gives them the finger, glad that she’s playing hooky. That she’s not them.
4. Fans. Some of whom are Band-Aids or groupies, most of whom are regular girls and women with jobs and parents.
5. Band wives and girlfriends. They were there before the band got signed, are not often there for the shenanigans on the road, and probably won’t be there after the break-ups and divorces. 
6. A particularly shrill feminist stereotype of a Rolling Stone journalist billed as Alison the Fact Checker. Sadly, she probably has to be in order to be heard in staff meetings. Plus, wouldn’t you be pissy if you were trying to forge a career, were all-too-cognizant of sexism and misogyny, but also loved writing about popular music? This is a question I’ve always wanted to ask Ann Powers, Dream Hampton, and Lorraine Ali.

"How do you do it, Dream Hampton?"; image courtesy of thestartingfive.net

7. A singer-songwriter jamming with another singer-songwriter who appear to be modeled after Emmylou Harris and Gram Parsons. William sees them playing in a hotel room during his first visit at the Riot House.
8. William’s big sister, Anita. She has a turbulent relationship with her mother and leaves home to become a flight attendant, leaving her kid brother a haul of amazing records, including Joni Mitchell’s Blue. She even gives him some good advice about how to listen to The Who’s Tommy that seems to have a lasting impression.
9. And, of course, William’s awesome, anti-establishment, overprotective mother Elaine, who is a college professor in San Diego. She is also the family matriarch, and probably was even before her husband died. Besides Lester, Ms. Miller is one of the few rebels. They both hold the distinction of being the only people who recognizes that rock culture, and its attendant cheap thrills and promises, is just another corporate enterprise.

Anita and Elaine Miller clashing, with young William Miller looking on; image courtesy of rlslog.net

Now, now. The dudes are interesting too, you might say. And masculinity is a discursive minefield here. So let’s walk through it. Let’s make like the movie and use William Miller to do this.
1. Miller himself is a soft-eyed, feminine boy played by then-unknown Patrick Fugit. He is hopelessly in love with Penny, a girl who may be his age but is out of his depth and hopelessly in love with someone else.

William Miller and his quest for truth; image courtesy of blog.lib.umn.edu

2. Billy Crudup’s Russell Hammond is the talented, aloof, and cowardly lead guitarist for Stillwater. He’s technically better than his bandmates, and is quick to hover it over them. He takes William under his wing because he’s a fan, only to dismiss him when Bob Dylan makes an appearance at Max’s Kansas City. He also nearly ruins William’s journalistic integrity when his own credibility is on the line. He’s also in love with Penny, but more in love with becoming a rock star. He’s not so in love with his wife, Leslie. He loves himself more than anyone, and hates himself for it.
3. Stillwater lead singer Jeff Bebe (Jason Lee) feels differently toward Leslie. He also has considerable animosity toward Hammond, whose emergent fame and skill is threatening to eclipse him and the rest of the band.
4. Bassist Larry Fellows and drummer Ed Vallencourt round out the band. Fellows (played by singer-songwriter Mark Kozelek, who I named my cat after) seems only interested in barbeque and high school girls. Vallencourt (played by John Fedevich) is silent through most of the movie, until he announces that he’s gay during a traumatic airplane ride.
5. Dick Roswell (Noah Taylor) and Dennis Hope (Jimmy Fallon) manage the band. Fellows has been with them for most of their career. Hope convinces the band to cash in and sell out, most symbolically by trading their bus for a jet. They will regret this decision.
6. Jann Wenner and Ben Fong-Torres, Rolling Stone’s respective editor-and-chief and senior editor, who serve as William’s bosses. Note the Wenner is gay, though at this time in his career, he was married to a woman named Jane. They would go on to have three children before divorcing in 1995. I haven’t read anything on Wenner, but am fascinated to learn how he negotiated all of this. Note also that Fong-Torres is Chinese American and one of the few people of color in both the movie and perhaps the emerging mainstream rock music industry. Note also the “Torres” surname, which his father adopted, dropping “Fong,” in order to pose as a Mexican in order to be granted U.S. citizenship while Chester Arthur’s Chinese Exclusion Act was still on the books. The family later kept both surnames.

Stillwater, on the cover of Rolling Stone; image courtesy of jeffdurling.com

But William doesn’t really have much in common with Stillwater. He wants to be them, but is in actual fact a music geek. Two like-minded male characters empathize, and share a relationship that is at once classically masculine in its indexical organization of rock’s ephemera and, at the same time, feminine in their romantic, homoerotic obsessive fandom.
1. Lester Bangs, William’s mentor, played by the formidable Philip Seymour Hoffman, who is one of the main reasons I’ll be seeing Pirate Radio. Reportedly, his scenes were filmed while he had the flu. Bangs hates what rock journalism has become.

Lester Bangs imparting life lessons to William Miller; image courtesy of playground.chronicleblogs.com

2. Vic Munoz, played by longtime Apatow mainstay Jay Baruchel. He’s the Zeppelin fan who follows the band everywhere, clutches a marker frontman Robert Plant once held, and wears his “Have you seen the bridge?” t-shirt at all times.

I should point out, however, that the girls index too. Penny Lane may not want William to take notes during Stillwater concerts, but that doesn’t mean that she, her peers, or William’s sister Anita, can’t rattle off band line-ups, industry players, and song lyrics.  

And lest we forget that William actually forges strong relationships with his sister, his mother, and the Band-Aids. While Sapphire, Polexia, and the gang seduce William, they also believe in him, intimate secrets with him, and provide him support, though they sometimes treat him as a minion and less as an equal.

I should also point out, since I opined that Miller doesn’t have much in common with Stillwater, that he does have an interesting relationship with Hammond nonetheless. Miller, a kid brother with an older sister, doesn’t seem to have any male friends or role models before he takes Bangs’s assignment to cover Black Sabbath for Creem, a band for whom Stillwater is opening and launches Miller’s almost-too-good-to-be-true feature assignment for Rolling Stone.

I wouldn’t necessarily categorize Hammond as a friend or role model. Perhaps he’s better suited for an older brother position. At first, Miller looks up to Hammond, calling his guitar-playing “incendiary” and trying (largely in vain) to emulate his slingin’, ’stached bravado. But, despite a Band-Aid orgy (controlled by the women who believe that “Opie must die”), Miller clearly doesn’t have that kind of swagger. He also doesn’t seem to want it, seeing Hammond’s cowardice beneath it. He also recognizes the irony of such inauthentic displays of machismo and ego in a form supposedly as authentic, romantic, and pure as rock is supposed to be, and is quickly unbecoming. Perhaps he also notices the rigid gender roles and chauvinism that inform the supposed gains of free love and the sexual revolution. This hypocrisy, along with the band’s quick rejection of real fans for industry success and the promise of rock mythology, make Miller able to put Hammond and his band mates in their place during the climactic plane scene. His honesty and integrity also earns him their trust, especially Hammond’s, who finally grants him a real interview at the end of the movie.

As an aside, if Hammond is Miller’s imperfect older brother, he steps right into the role by sassing Ms. Miller when he first talks to her on the phone, immediately snapping into a “yes ma’am, no ma’am” routine when she admonishes his behavior and values.

Miller’s character also wins the respect of Penny Lane, even when she’s ignoring the icky realities of seeing yourself as a fan but being treated as a groupie, as disposable as a real Band-Aid.

Note that it doesn’t win Lane’s affections, at least not physically. She may be too hard for or scared of Miller’s feelings (which are announced, unfortunately, in a scene where Miller kisses Lane, who just overdosed on Quaaludes). She may not be ready for rejecting her own rock star mythology in order to be truly intimate with someone (though she suggests she might when she tells Miller that she came into this world as one Lady Goodman). Maybe doing so would make her the typical teen she (and William’s mother) see little value in becoming. Maybe not consummating this relationship suggests they have no interest in typical interactions with one another.

Yet Miller’s and Lane’s relationship, which seems built on male fantasy, is an issue I have with this movie. I don’t get what the fuss is about, frankly. I understand that Lane is pretty, savvy, and well-traveled, but don’t understand why Miller has such a crush on her, primarily because I don’t understand how loving a band’s music leads you toward doing their ironing backstage while the boy you love in the band can’t be bothered to love you back. More importantly, I don’t know who she really is. Maybe the self-mythology is part of what prevents me (and certainly Miller) from getting close. Maybe the challenge of trying to find out who the real Penny Lane is warrants enough of a fascinating exercise for Miller. And maybe it isn’t any of our business who Lane really is. But I sort of wonder if she’s perfectly matched with Hammond, a man who wants desperately to be the myth he’s created for himself. Maybe this suggests that both of them have something in common with Don Draper. Here’s one scene where I think Lane, alone after a concert, drops the masquerade (note that the scene follows Stillwater’s treacherous meeting with super-manager Hope).

Admittedly, perhaps my problem resides in Kate Hudson’s performance. Perhaps I want her not to channel her mother, herself a manic pixie dream girl of this era, so much. Perhaps I’m projecting Goldie Hawn’s presence and ignoring how Hudson is making this role her own. I do think Hudson does a good job balancing Lane’s contrasts and contradictions, perhaps a better job than Kirsten Dunst (who almost got this role, but was cast in Crowe’s Elizabethtown instead) would.

And I do think I’m being unfair in my dismissal of Kate Hudson and Penny Lane. Because I think my real problem, as it usually is with Crowe’s movies, is the director’s unfortunate habit of crutching on the magic of pop music. Admittedly, this might be a hard habit for a music geek director to break, but it has kept me from enjoying his other movies (including, yes, Say Anything). And it’s probably contradictory for a music fan not to like pop music playing such a pronounced role in Crowe’s work. To me, however, Crowe’s use of pop music suggests the necessity of delicate application. Because I hate how he uses Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” in one of the movie’s big reconciliatory moments, as its obvious that he is making the case for how pop music’s universality heals all psychic wounds. When Lane tells Miller that he is home, all I can think is “fucking duh.”

While I feel like the movie’s score adds to the treacle (especially during the scene when Miller runs with Lane’s departing plane), I do admire Cameron Crowe’s ongoing collaborations with wife and Heart guitarist Nancy Wilson. We’d do well to remember Wilson’s rock legend status, score work, and Crowe’s relationship with Wilson when making sexist assumptions about Sofia Coppola’s relationship with Phoenix’s Thomas Mars, who is working on her next movie, Somewhere. We might also like to keep it in mind when thinking about Karen O’s involvement in ex-boyfriend Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are.

Going back to Crowe’s unfortunate flirtations with the obvious for my closing remarks, he does make a few other points in this movie in highlighter yellow that I love anyway. So much so that I’ve shaped my life around them. In the interest of full disclosure, I will share them now, suggesting that sometimes flirtations with the obvious are essential and humane.

1) The introductory scene between Bangs and Miller, when Bangs talks about staying up all night, writing about music. Whether or not he was high on cough syrup and speed or the tomes he devoted to The Faces or John Coltrane were dribble didn’t matter. The objective, as William knows well, is ”just to fuckin’ write.” It’s an objective I know well too. It’s a key reason why I put this blog together in the first place, and I’m certainly not alone.
2) Lane has a great line as well, one that has stayed with me as I age. I’m a firm believer in the advice she gives Miller when she drives them to the Riot House: ”if you ever get lonely, you just go to the record store and visit your friends.” The comfort I have found in record stores cannot be overstated, and I only hope that, as I get older, at least a few of them don’t get completely mowed down to make way for more lucrative businesses. I might have to stay in a city that shares kinship with Austin to assure this, but I think it’s worth it. I’d rather live in a city that appreciates the cultural and communal value of record stores over a city that only sees value in their market returns.  

After all this, I believe Almost Famous to be an interesting and challenging movie at times marred by its idealism, sentimentality, and emphasis on one very lucky boy’s experience following around a band and writing down what happened. Thus, it’s a movie I keep coming back to, even if I don’t feel the need to replace the tape.

It’s been a long time since every minute of the waking day was taken up with watching flicks. Saturday was such a day. rather than write about them I’ll let them speak for themselves in all their poster glory. It’s better that way…….

They look pretty cool together I think, it was a fantastic day in.

Jason Lee – Download – Jay Diction – Back From My High Atus (Mixtape) | Bandcamp Preview

Shoutouts to Jason Lee. This tape is dope. My favorite tracks are of course, So Close and Detonation. Don’t pass on this download. Don’t have much to say except take a peek at 7dayweekend.com for more info. Dope Dope Dope Dope Dope tape. You skip on this? We’ll end you. B2P UP! (P.S. be on the lookout, more to come.)

Quase Famosos (Almost Famous)

2000
Direção: Cameron Crowe
122 minutos
Com Billy Crudup, Frances McDormand, Kate Hudson, Patrick Fugit, Jason Lee, Phillip Seymour Hoffman

Quase Famosos é uma verdadeira escola de rock. William Miller (Patrick Fugit) é um adolescente precoce que descobre a música e consegue uma entrevista para a Rolling Stone com a fictícia banda Stillwater, que é na verdade uma mistura de bandas como o Led Zepelin e o Lynyrd Skynyrd, que aparecem a todo momento na excelente trilha sonora do filme. O cenário musical dos anos 70 é propício a histórias incrivéis do rock’n'roll como essa. Com a nítida influência autobiográfica de Cameron Crowe, que saiu em 73 como integrante da equipe da lendária revista, e escreveu diversos artigos sobre uma das épocas mais facinantes da música com apenas 16 anos. Apesar de William ser super protegido pela mãe, consegue sair em turnê com o Stillwater, mas se vê divido pela amizade e admiração que nutre pelos membros da banda, as ‘verdades’ por trás dos palcos que presencia e também pelo amor platônico pela groupie Penny Lane (Kate Hudson). Os personagens são cativantes e o filme é um relato sincero e honesto sobre o verdadeiro significado da música para seus respectivos amantes. Com cenas memoráveis como quando toda a banda, acompanhado das groupies e do jornalista mirim cantam Tiny Dancer do Elton John em seu ônibus ou quando Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup) grita de cima de um telhado chapado de ácido que é um deus de ouro, é um filme praticamente obrigatório para quem um dia já sonhou estar nos palcos com todo o fervor dos velhos clichês que acompanharam o rock desde sua origem.

Trailer (em inglês)