CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States

There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
Profile continued . . .

ARCHIVES!
POLARITY 225

Monday, January 01, 2007

this entry brought to you by the yeah yeah yeahs, "dudley"


Troy About a third of the way through Troy, a modern retelling of Homer's The Illiad-- only with the gods themselves almost completely removed, leaving a story of humans warring for the petty reasons humans go to war-- I became very aware that I wasn't actually enjoying myself. It's not that the movie was terrible, but it didn't seem to be anything more than a seriously gorgeous cast doing their jobs while the movie itself seemed to just want to get on with it. Even the battle scenes seemed to be uninspired, just an enormous CGI army clashing with another enormous CGI army, and in a post Lord of the Rings world, that alone just doesn't cut it anymore. But it's as if director Wolfgang Peterson shot the last half of the movie first and spent all his energy there, but when shooting the first half, had already blown his enthusiasm and threw it together as quickly and with as little thought as possible; the final hour of Troy is legitimately good cinema. Brad Pitt starts to delve into the head of Achilles and decides exactly what this guy is other than jaded, rebellious badass, and comes up with unexpected self-conflict. This isn't Pitt's best performance, but the subtlety he commands over time with the character that wasn't necessarily on paper is captivating. Eric Bana has the unenviable task of playing the intensely earnest, doomed hero Hector, and when he initially comes off as one sided, it's hard to put much blame on him-- he's not so much playing a character as he is an archetype. But over time Bana finds motivation in the character beyond wanting to keep his country safe at all costs, and once he grasps that, you can't take your eyes off him; when he and Pitt are on the screen together, there is this gripping tension. But the best scene in the movie has King Priam, played by Peter O'Toole (who is marvelous here, in his all-too-brief role), on his knees, begs Achilles to allow his son a proper burial, and Achilles, moved, and realizing the folly of his arrogance, goes to Hector's body and weeps, saying "We will meet again my brother." It's the kind of scene that could've easily fallen into cringe-worthy melodrama, but is instead performed with such grace, dignity, and nuance, you'll be thinking of it for days after seeing the movie.

The Beatles, Love Giving the new Beatles record a thumbs up seems like the easiest recommendation in the world, and in some ways, obviously, it is. Really, no matter what way you package it, this is some of the best music ever made, and to suggest someone to go out and listen to it isn't very difficult. Basically I could've not even bothered to listen to it. But the thing is, upon my first listen with Love, I didn't really get it. I'm not intimately familiar with every song from The Beatles catalogue, so while I definitely enjoyed listening to lesser-known songs like "Because", "King Sun", and "Within You Without You", for the most part I thought, this is an excellent collection of Beatles music with interesting segues between the songs. But little things would crop up-- hey, did "Yesterday" always sound so close to "Blackbird"? Was that verse always in "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"? Did "Strawberry Fields" always sound like that? After a quick read of some articles on the Internet a new appreciation for the album came for how much hard work, dedication, and, well, love went into making this. It's not exactly a mash-up, and not quite as simple as a traditional remix. A demo version with a new string section in a few songs, the drums from "Tomorrow Never Knows" meshed into "Within You Without You", a line from "Hello, Goodbye" floating through "Glass Onion"; yet Love isn't just an audio collage meant to span the career of The Beatles, nor is it a lame attempt at reinventing The Beatles for the 21st century. It's actually meant to be the soundtrack to a stage show by Cirque De Soleil, and as such, it doesn't exactly tell a story, but it matches the ebb and flow of the score to a movie, which makes it more than a mere complimation of Beatles songs, such as 2000's collection of number 1 hits, yet calling it merely a souvenir soundtrack to a stage show seems to miss the point. It is instead a rethinking of Beatles music, taking once separate songs and putting them in a cohesive whole, giving you a whole new way of hearing it. But more than that, taking this collection of music that's been around for decades, giving it new life gives you a new way of actually thinking about the music itself, giving a new spin on old memories, opens up blossoms in your imagination that haven't been budged since the first time you heard it. If Love doesn't put you in a zenned-out, grinning, philosophical mood, that's alright too-- the songs themselves have never sounded this gorgeous, and if that's not a reason for a dedicated Beatles fan to put down money for the same music they own one more time, then I don't know what is. Still, what makes Love so special is how refreshing it is-- more than just a new coat of shine, Love is a remarkable experience in and of itself.

The new DVD player I've complained about my X-Box previously; basically, everything in the house that has been used as a DVD player, meaning a dedicated player, a PS2, have both died, and my X-Box has become a pain in the ass, randomly refusing to play brand new DVDs, giving headaches playing DVDs it's played before, and most recently, it's been stuttering. We were watching Superman and it just started stuttering-- you could watch the movie, but every three seconds or so there would be this half-second long pause; we kept waiting for it to clear up, but it did not, so we had to reboot the machine and hope for the best. That night I decided, screw it. We had a little bit of money, and the nearby grocery store was selling cheap DVD players for 20 bucks. I know it's going to break down on me in a month or two, but in the meantime, it's nice being able to actually play DVDs without any problem, and it's nice being able to play the DVDs it absolutely has never let us play, such as Edward Scissorhands.

The Coachella DVD When we were at Coachella, we bought a DVD, and when we came home, wouldn't you know it? Our X-Box refused to play the damned thing. So when we got the new DVD player, I was feverish to test the Coachella DVD on it, and sure enough, it booted right the fuck up. What I really thought was great about it was, besides the awesome performances (hooray for Bjork and Radiohead!) and the really good sound, what was great about it was the memories it brought back. None of the performers we saw were on the DVD-- we got it while we were there, so it had performances from 2005 and prior, yet the footage of all the on-site artwork (so that's what that giant stack of drums was for!) and the Coachella-goers philosophizing about music and chugging water had us grinning with enthusiastic memories. Dammit, I wanna go next year!

Crunch N' Munch I don't know if the commercials are still like this, but they had this advertising campaign years ago that went "Crunch N' Munch is love at first bite". I was at work-- you know, the new grocery store gig-- and I saw some Crunch N' Munch and I was like, when was the last time I had some? I bought a box, and goddammit-- I couldn't stop eating it!


THE BAD

The Pink Panther Considering this is the movie that kicked off both the venerable Pink Panther series as well as make Peter Sellers an international star, it's surprising how utterly boring it is. For the record, Sellers is funny, but his famous Clouseau character doesn't take center stage until the sequel, A Shot in the Dark. The Pink Panther instead focuses on David Niven-- who was intended to be the "star" when the movie came out, although why anyone thought this spectacularly uncharismatic slug could carry a whole movie is beyond me-- who plays the expert jewel thief, and the horribly convoluted plan of stealing the titular Pink Panther, a very rare diamond. Most of the movie is spent with dry actors speaking extremely dry dialogue to one another for extremely long periods of time while nothing of interest happens. Clouseau seems to be an afterthought, and while he always elicits a laugh every time he shows up on screen, his presence seems odd and tacked on-- it's as if the movie had no idea it wanted to be a comedy until the last minute. During the final act it finally realizes Sellers' genius and decides to catch up to him, with a hilariously mad-cap climax. Unfortunately, you probably won't make it to the good parts because you'll fall asleep long before you get there, presumably any time David Niven is on the screen for any length of time.

Scott Walker, The Drift When I say that The Drift is the worst album I've ever heard, this isn't exactly to be taken lightly-- I often listen to music I know I'm not going to like for the experience of listening to music I wouldn't otherwise want to listen to. But let me back up a bit. I didn't listen to Scott Walker's latest with the intent on listening to a bad album; it had been listed on a few "best of the year" lists I'd read, so I listened to it intending on hearing something different and, well, good. What I got instead was something else entirely. The Drift can barely be qualified as "music"; it is only classified as such because most of the sounds on it were made by actual instruments (albeit sometimes unconventional instruments), and most of it was orchestrated by a musician. However, you couldn't call the tracks that preside on the album "songs". The Drift is instead the music equivalent of David Lynch at his most horrific; think the most unnerving moments of Mulholland Drive or Lost Highway, all mashed together in an unrelenting 70 minute package. Listening to it is like the torture scene in A Clockwork Orange, except instead of Beethoven, it is set to a mash-up between Angelo Badalamenti at his most freaky, and the horrible, random ambience of the Silent Hill soundtrack (witness the agitated whirring, random organ stabs and disjointed drumming on "Jolson and Jones"). As such, it accomplishes what it sets out for-- this is seriously disturbing stuff that, at moments, is genuinely scary. Elsewhere there are haunting whispers, children screaming, shuffling footsteps, meat punching as percussion, and the whole time lead by Scott Walker's odd, nasal vibrato, as he sings about genocide, fascism, and Elvis' stillborn twin brother. Now, after a quick perusal of the Internet I understand that some people love Walker's voice; myself, I couldn't get over the sensation that his warbly lounge-singer-on-the-verge-of-suicide act was a joke, but as the album tortuously went on, I realized this is how he sings, and he serves as a unnerving, ghostly narrator for the whole grotesque show. Here is the thing: I get it. I honestly do. It's terribly, unnervingly, defiantly, singularly unique-- there's nothing else I've ever heard that even comes close to what Walker pulls off here. The problem is that "unique" doesn't get it anywhere. It is one thing to make mood music, but there is absolutely no point in time when I could ever be in the mood to listen to The Drift, this most tortuously beat-you-over-the-head-with-the-macabre pretentious drek, over any other single piece of music I've ever heard.

My work hours I honestly have no clue how anyone could want to work from midnight to 8 in the morning. I feel like all I do all day is work and then sleep-- with nothing else. I barely get to see my family, and it's just terrible. I need to get a new job.

Writing entries with my new work schedule It's hard as hell for me to get entries up with my new work schedule. For one thing, when I was working at MCI/Verizon, I kept a notebook with me at all times, so when I had ideas, I just wrote the whole entry right there. I would go on a roll and write three, four entries in one day, so if the next day came and I had no ideas, it was alright-- I already had a bunch stockpiled from the day before. But at my new job I'm up on my feet all day and can't have my notebook in front of me, so I carry a sheet of paper in my back pocket all day; I used to do this at Target, but I've gotten so used to the two years of the notebook being with me that I cannot remember how the hell I used to do it. Worse, when I wake up in the evening is the exact time when everyone wants to be on-line, and writing from the top of my head takes longer than copying out of a notebook. So in case you've been wondering why entries have been boring and infrequent lately, there's you reason. I haven't gotten back into the groove of writing on my page with this work schedule.

Hinder, "With the Lips of an Angel" Have you heard this piece-of-shit song with generic riffs and that god-awful gravelly voice? It's a hideous song made even worse by the fact that it couldn't be any more insincere. The fact that it's at the top of the rock charts right now shows that people can't tell the difference between "good" and "bad", or "sincere" and "faking it to sell more records".

Organic pet food I have a hard time understanding this "all organic" craze. Eating healthier is fine, but when I see something like organic fruit, I think, what the fuck? Is this fucking necessary? Do they pump steroids into strawberries ordinarily, is that why someone would need organic fruit? But the worst came today when I found all-organic cat food. Listen, my cat is like 15 years old, eats whatever the hell it is I feed him without complaining, and he couldn't possibly have a more illustrious coat and be healthier.
-----



with love from CRS @ 8:42 PM 

0 Comments:

Post a Comment