Full Title: Rear Window Director: Alfred Hitchcock Year: 1954 Comments This is arguably the greatest offering from the Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock. Hitch’s 1954 classic more than holds up and is perhaps just as suspenseful now as fifty-six years ago. Briefly, the plot concerns the dull day to day life of Jeff (James Stewart) a wheel chair bound photographer as he has nothing left to do but satisfy his carnal base needs through spying (via binoculars) on his neighbours. As the movie progresses, we sympathize with Jeff because we have, ourselves, become voyeurs just like him as the film is through his point of view. The suspense kicks in further when Jeff stumbles upon a murder from one of his neighbours. The rest of the film is Jeff trying to convince everyone else that a murder took place and the killer should be brought to justice. Only Hitchcock can take this story and make it as thrilling as it is. Fuck Disturbia (2006)! In other words, if you haven’t already, watch this film, it’s amazing; not as good as Psycho (1960), but what is?
>Grade: A
Band: Cum Stain Release: 6/2010 Label: Burger Records
1. “Bachelor’s Life” – A+ 2. “Broke My Dick” – A
3. “No Hearts/Big Mean Maniac” – A- 4. “Just A Kid” – A+ 5. “Vicdumb” – A- 6. “Slip It Off Slip It In” – A- 7. “Smoker” – B+
8. “I Want It Now” – A
9. SuckHer4U” – A
10. “Jack Shack” – A
11. “Cum Stain” – A+
Comments: Just when I thought I heard the ‘last of the libertines’ so to speak, I hear this. Cum Stain. Whether the composers of Cum Stain realized it or not, they boldly described bachelor life from start to finish. Literally. When push comes to shove, the narrator is just another “cum stain on your rug.” This man is a heavy drinker, a heavy smoker, and a passionate lover. Except, he doesn’t actually love you or want to. Well, he wants to, but he figures that’s just a waste of time. He just wants to do it and get it over with. On “Bachelor’s Life” we learn a little bit about the dude. Every hour he “masturbates” and “just sits around and watch cartoons.” On a more positive note, he stocks whiskey and rum. “Broke My Dick” is pretty self-explanatory, but the narrator offers an alternative like none other: “slap you in the face while it’s limp.” Might as well do something, right? In a proto-hardcore punk, let me tell you what’s up kind of way, the narrator reiterates on “No Hearts/Big Mean Maniac” that he has no heart and that he is a maniac. The guy is straight nuts. Fuck, he even invented his own fetish: throwing manure in the faces of grade school children. So, just a quick recap. The dude is in his 20s, but he’s purely “just a kid.” He exemplifies that word, but puts an added spin on in it. I’m not really sure what he’s going for on “Vicdumb.” It seems like he is necessarily stating the obvious. Anything anyone does to you makes you a mere vicdumb. Perhaps the “dumb” instead of “tum” allows him to get away with whatever he wants. You’re the dumb-ass, not me for screwing you and then leaving. Vicdumb. “Slip It Off/Slip It In” is probably the maniac’s fantasies after a long day at the beach. Oh yeah, and everything you learned about smoking is all a bunch of shit. Smoking is for winners and the more the better. Another thing: impulse control? This guy has none and doesn’t care. If you can’t give him what he wants (as he says on the apropos “I Want It Now”), then he’ll go find it. Peace! It seems as if maybe there was a possibility for a relationship at one time (“SuckHer4U”), but he just couldn’t commit to anything more than casual. “Jack Shack” tells of a ride down to a “Gentleman’s Spa” where no (sleazy truck driver) knows your name. I must say, this is one of the best stories I’ve ever heard. The lyrics aren’t genius or intricate in any regard, but the narrative comes across very clearly. The music is incredibly lo-fi garage pop (similar to Nobunny circa Love Visions). It makes you think, too. Is this your average single guy with a job or an unemployed psychopath who has never had any women in his life?
Full Title: Thank You For Smoking Director: Jason Reitman Year: 2005 Comments: This is a great piece of satire from Reitman and crew that neither endorses nor condemns Tobacco, but rather pokes fun at all the propaganda and hullabaloo that surrounds the topic. I really appreaciate this story for not selling its audience short and instead showing anti-tobacco politicians as villians (within this context) for basically exploiting the issue of smoking to enhance their own political careers. And by that same token, the character of Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart) is one of my favorites in all of cinema, as he is a great, three dimensional figure with both negative and redeeming qualities. Overall, a very funny and sharp look at an ongoing debate in America.
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Full Title: Pee Wee’s Big Adventure Director: Tim Burton Year: 1985 Comments: Write a mini movie review of Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. (In a classic Pee Wee Herman voice) MAYBE I WILL! Perhaps one of the zaniest and definitely funniest kids movies I have ever had the pleasure of seeing. Burton’s knack for odd, but enticing imagery is perfectly mixed with Paul Reuben’s eccentric performance as the bizarre man-child, Pee Wee, dedicated to only one thing in life: retrieving his beloved bike. And yes, Large Marge scared the shit outta me too as a child!
Grade: A
Full Title: American Psycho Director: Mary Harron Year: 2000 Comments: Shocking. Depraved. Gruesome. Sickening. Those are some adjectives you could use to describe this film. Or…. you could say….Hilarious. Comical. Witty. AP works on various levels and without a doubt is a film that sticks with you for its over the top, slam to your sensory approach. It’s twisted, gory, and for some downright offensive (as with Bret Easton Ellis’ novel, which it is based on). But, that’s the point. This is a story about high class, Wall Street scumfucks and in particular one snobbish, narcissistic man that is so devoid of human emotion he must lash out against society in the form of mass murder. AP takes that story and slices and dices it with black humor, radio friendly pop songs, and exaggerated performances- almost to the point of questioning the seriousness of what you are viewing. This is the kind of movie some folks hate for having an ambiguous message/purpose, but that’s precisely what I adore about it. Well, I’d love to stay and finish this review, but I have to return some video tapes.
Full Title: Machete Directors: Ethan Maniquis and Robert Rodriguez Year: 2010 Comments: When I grow up, I want to be MACHETE! (pronounced muh shet tay not muh shetty). As a big fan of the fake Machete trailer in Grindhouse (2007) as well as director Robert Rodriguez’s work in general, this film was near the top of my list of highly anticipated, Must Sees of Twenty-Ten, and fortunately my expectations were satisfied. The plot involves a badass Mexican named Machete (Danny Trejo), who is instructed to off a racist, anti-immigration propaganda spewing Senator (Robert De Niro) for $150,000. Machete, an illegal immigrant himself, needs the money and accepts. As he is about to fire, he is shot at and he soon realizes the whole assassination was a set up to boost sympathy votes for the Senator and his anti-immigration policies. Now, Machete is on the run and the target of everyone from Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agents (Jessica Alba) to covert businessmen (Jeff Fahey). Machete also features Steven Seagal (he actually does a decent job!) as an evil druglord/nemesis of Machete, Michelle Rodriguez (looking fabulous as usual) as Shé, the leader of an underground network to support illegal immigrants, Cheech Marin as a renegade reverend/brother of Machete, and Lindsey Lohan also makes a few appearances, some without her clothes! Which, brings me to my next point, Machete is filled to the brim with buckets of blood- decapitations, intestines ripped out and used as ropes, you know all that good old family fun. Plus plenty of nudity, sex and other lurid imagery. This Mexploitation flick delivers a dish best served cold; in other words it’s a straight up gruesome, guy-action movie of that wonderfully, black/absurdist humor tinged Rodriguez/Tarantino, trashy, Grindhouse revival variety. Pheww that was a mouthful… Machete never fails to excite and entertain its audience because like most Rodriguez flicks it contains over the top, stylized violence mixed with a solid story, memorable characters, and witty, distinctive dialogue, separating it from your run of the mill action pieces of shit. On a final note, I dig the germane content of the film- illegal immigration, in light of the recent Arizona fiasco, though I don’t think this is a movie with a deep political message haha. In any case, I hope to see a Machete II in the future!
Grade: B+/A-
Full Title: Going the Distance Director: Nanette Burstein Year: 2010 Comments: Typically, I am not a fan of “Romantic Comedies,” with very few exceptions and this is one of them. Though, I did not love this film, I think it is respectable and worthy of some accolades. It certainly has its own little charm in a mixture of affectionate, gentle raunchiness with a practical love story. In brief, the plot concerns Garett (Justin Long), a young idealist/worker for a record label, who has just ended a long relationship, finding himself falling into another relationship with Erin (Drew Barrymore), the (Summer) girl of his dreams. Just one problem Summer ends… and this means Erin must leave New York and return to San Francisco for work. The remainder of the film centers around the two struggling to maintain this long distance relationship while also feeling conflicted between choosing love or following their careers. Overall, this movie is quite funny, but it drags on and does not really bring anything new to the table; it is quite typical and even a bit cliched: young, off-beat, idealist couple cannot decide between what’s best for each other or what’s best for themselves. And having the guy work at a label and complain about how young, cool, bands are not getting noticed is pretty standard and/or expected. The dialouge is overly cheesy at times to boot. But, there is plenty of quality aspects to this flick to save it from being an average Romantic Comedy. As I stated before, the humor is fairly strong here, not the funniest by any means, but definitely offered me plenty of laugh out loud moments, particularly from Dan (Charlie Day), the wacky best friend of the main character, Garrett, who unto himself is a cliched character, but I’ll forgive it because the performance of Charlie Day is so hilarious that it works. Essentially, he plays a toned down version of his character Charlie on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Being a huge fan of that show and that character specifically, this gave me a little personal reason for liking this film more than perhaps I normally would. So, will this be a movie we remember years down the line? Highly doubt it, it is far from the brilliance of (500) Days of Summer (2009), but it is in a league higher than most “chick flicks” and certainly worthy of a KLYAM recommendation. If this is your kind of a bag, then why not?
Grade: B-, I kind of feel like I am being too easy here, but I think I will stay with this grade for now.
Artists: Those Darlins, Strange Boys, Gentlemen Jesse and His Men Location/Venue: T.T. the Bears, Cambridge, MA Date: Friday, September 17, 2010 Comments: Gentlemen Jesse: WOW! Being only casually familiar with this band, I was pleasantly surprised that I loved every second of their performance. I was as energetically into the music as I would be for most of my favorite bands that I see, and it seems like this same zeal was true for most attendees. Pretty solid for an opening band. I had seen Gentlemen a little while back, opening for the Black Lips. Now, I don’t know if it was me, but they struck my senses far far more this time around. It was just one song after another of great pop/rock numbers of the catchy/noisy variety, and it was quite loud, well I’ve seen louder, but the volume was really essential here. It just gave the music that extra ummph, so to speak… They played an excellent set and were without a doubt the best of the evening, which I totally did not expect, because I really dig the Boys and the Darlins. All in all, the hopes I wished for in my previous post were more than satisfied and I do plan on continuing my venture into these (WE FUN!) Atlanta Rockers’ discography.
Set: Highland Crawler
Kinda Up Tight
All I Need Tonight (Is You)
Butterfingers
Careful
Word Gets Around
What Did I Do?
Shivers
If I Can See You
Frostbite
Black Hole
Put Your Hands Together
The Strange Boys: The fun continues! With the Strange Boys there is this really delicate feel to their approach. In other words, these Boys can produce an invigorating, often loud and in your face, abrasive, punkified blues sound and yet maintain a very mellow, almost quiet tinge to their performance- a good comparison is Deerhunter, in this respect (not the music itself), which I had the privilege of seeing both of them open for Spoon about half a year ago. It’s like they can channel all this Black Lips esque garage chaos into an incredibly calm release. In terms of the actual sound, it was fantastic as before. In fact, I’d wager that they sound (much) better live than on record, which I enjoy. These guys are great performers and extremely proficient at their craft, particularly in the following jams- “Woe Is You and Me,” “A Walk On the Beach,” (Massive kudos for the gentle, but powerful pause between the soft opening chords and the louder “top of the mountain…” second half) “Should Have Shot Paul,” (classic opener), “Be Brave,” amongst others. Easily one of the better bands I have seen.
Those Darlins: These Darlins rock harder and better than most females one cares to name. Hours earlier, I was amongst a few fans in front of the stage. But, by showtime, the Darlins had garnered themselves a well-deserved, packed-sold out show. They displayed great shoWOMANship and crowd interaction including direct eye contact, going into the audience, and so forth. They rocked out with about an hour long set, which was good, but didn’t include as many of my favorites as I expected, oh well. They did however play such classics as “Who’s That Knockin’ At My Window?” (the opener), “Wild One,” “Red Light Love,” and their latest release, “Night Jogger.” They performed well, but the set was plagued by poor PA, which I don’t attribute to the band, as it seemed like they tried to fix this. Either way, this didn’t stop the band or the audience from having a good time. The show concluded with a really fun encore in “Funstix Party,” the B Side to their new “Night Jogger” 7″. Everyone came out for this number including Gentlemen and the Strange Boys as we all sang along to the raunchy, but catchy tune. With booze and saliva a flyin’ for a few moments it felt like Black Lips kind of craziness (to a much lesser extent).
Full Title The Wizard Of Oz Director(s): Victor Fleming, George Cukor, Mervyn LeRoy, King Vidor Year: 1939 Comments: This needs no introduction, the wonderful, coming of age, fantasy movie about discovering you need not look further than your backyard to find inspiration and/or happiness. I would argue this is amongst the top five or ten films to revolutionize cinema forever. Grade: A+
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Full Title: Spiderman 3 Director: Sam Raimi Year: 2007 Comments: This is definitely the weakest of the three Spidey flicks, but it isn’t terrible. It is still a good action packed, entertaining adventure. The story is interesting enough to follow through and the aciting is okay. The villians (Sandman and Venom) are decent characters, but neither generate the kind of hatred or terror one hopes to find in his Comic Book villians such as the antagonists in the previous two Spiderman movies (Green Goblin, Doc Ock, respectively). Overall, pretty average, worth seeing if you are a fan of Spiderman and/or this genre, if not, then you may or not dig this. The film fails to move beyond its basic plot and doesn’t bring anything new to the table. Grade: C+
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Full Title: Juno Director: Jason Reitman Year: 2007 Comments: I don’t care what people say about this movie, I love it! I know it has received overwhelming popularity and mostly positive reviews, but I truly think this is one of the best films of the past decade, or at least one of my favorites (# 2 for the 2000s) and it seems like that’s where people lose me. As a viewer and in general as a fan of any kind of art, one of the most vital qualities, if not the most vital quality is how memorable it is. And Junebug is chock full of lasting images, quotes, scenes, characters, and one of the most endearing soundtracks of all time. I am always glad to hear that people who normally would never listen to obscure music now know and love artists like Sonic Youth and Kimya Dawson because of this soundtrack. Speaking of Kimya, her songs (as the other artists’ music) fit astonishingly perfect in the film; as if they were made solely to be heard with this film, which of course none of them were, all having been recorded prior to director Jason Reitman contacting Kimya about collaborating. So yeah, this is highly KLYAM Recommended. Wizard! Grade: A+
Artist: Those Darlins and The Funstix Label: Oh Wow Dang
Side A: “Night Jogger”- Let me first say this is a tad bit more adventerous in sound for the Darlins, which is a good thing. If you’re big into their country sound (which I am) you may or may not dig this. I mean this still retains a lot of country elements, but it’s not as evident as their previous works. Either way, I’d like to see them expand into new territory. This song has a great groove and is almost modest in a sense; just like a layed back, slick, cool song, not too wild or attention grabbing and yet you can still dance to it. The vocals are what we have come to expect from the group and they are as solid as ever. Not my favorite from them, but it’s still a good song.
Grade: 8/10
Side B: “Funstix Party”- This is the better of the two songs: a rowdy, rockin and rollin, female King Khan BBQ number (lyrically anyway). This has a great blend of country-Darlins styled vocals with garage punk (I know I hate using the broad label too, but it really works here) production: jangely guitars, a nice little solo section, and pounding drums. It’s heavier than the A Side and in my opinion is much funner. I can picture this being a great song to mosh and sing along to live. The lyrics are humorous and licentious, which is always a pleasure- “I’ll bring the pussy you bring the dicks. FUNSTIX PARTY! FUNSTIX PARTY!” Now, that’s what I like to hear!
Grade: 9/10
Overall Grade: B+
Once again, Those Darlins will be playing in Boston at T.T. the Bears on Friday, September 17. I can’t wait! And if you are not in the Boston/New England area, then check around, since the Darlins are on tour right now and very well could be hitting up a club near you.
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Kids Like You & Me (KLYAM) 