Bloscar 2008!
Watch the Oscars with up-to-the-minute snark as Staticblog live-blogs the 80th Annual Academy Awards, beginning at 7 p.m. Sunday on this NewsOK.com station. Fortunately, this latest live blog will be committed by a semi-healthy and completely sentient blogger, not a pain-wracked wretch feebly swatting at keys from his bed.
Actually, this Staticblog live blog will be originating from an undisclosed remote location where I will have full access to a 52-inch plasma, delicious refreshments and special guest stars – that is, unless the host’s brood develops explosive flu symptoms. In that case, it will emanate from Casa Staticblog.
Music Review: The Ruby Suns, “Sea Lion” (Sub Pop) * * *
Ryan McPhun of The Ruby Suns is part of a rich tradition of basement auteurs, musicians who take Brian Wilson’s sandbox aesthetic as an article of faith. As such, The Ruby Suns’ “Sea Lion” is not exactly a band project. McPhun invited several of his friends down to his New Zealand underground studio to record a collection of psychedelic exotica, and the result is as intoxicating as a Scorpion drink at Trader Vic’s.
“Sea Lion” begins beautifully with “Blue Penguin,” a shambling mosaic of found sounds, rich South Pacific choir singing and cargo cult rhythms, and it blends nicely with the mariachi textures of “Oh Mojave” and the gorgeous Maori singing and drunk-sounding horns on “Tane Mahuta.” McPhun seems to be having great fun stitching together seemingly disparate cultures on “Sea Lion,” and his one-world aesthetic never sounds contrived or overly academic.
Having toured and played with The Brunettes, McPhun called in a favor from that band’s Heather Mansfield, who contributes honeyed vocals and clarinet to the disc’s most beautiful track, “Remember.” It is a Wilson tribute every bit as breathtaking as recent recordings by Panda Bear or the Besnard Lakes, and it works nicely with McPhun’s soaring “Phil Spector in Africa” pastiche, “Kenya Dig It.” “Sea Lion” is a world tour worth taking, and The Ruby Suns hit all the right ports of call.
Rihanna vs. Klaxons: “Umbrella,” Live at the Brit Awards
Proving that just about anything can be done with the song, Rihanna follows her Grammy mash-up with the Time’s “Jungle Love” by mashing “Umbrella” with the Klaxons’ “Golden Skans” at the Brit Awards. “Umbrella” is the Lego of pop songs — it always fits. Next up: Sousa marches.
David Fincher Plunges into “Black Hole”
David Fincher
According to Variety, David Fincher, who despite what Oscar says is responsible for one of the best films of 2007, Zodiac, has signed on to direct Black Hole, a film based on the Charles Burns graphic novel. Fincher takes over from Alexandre Aja, the French splatter guru known best for High Tension and the remake of The Hills Have Eyes. It will be scripted by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary, which should light up all your cinematic and graphic novel supergeek sensors.
This is emphatically not a remake of the Disney supercheese sci-fi film from 1979. Black Hole tells the story of a group of ’70s teenagers who contract a sexually transmitted disease variously known as “The Bug” or “The Teen Plague,” and begin developing physical mutations. Fincher’s definitely the guy for this one.
Random 10 for Feb. 19, 2008
1. St. Vincent, “The Apocalypse Song.” No word yet on whether Tulsa native Annie Clark will be part of the Polyphonic Spree horde when the choir arrives for the Norman Music Festival on April 26, but we can only hope. Marry Me just gets better with each listen, and it would be amazing if St. Vincent is a late addition to the line-up, which currently includes the Spree, The Octopus Project and British Sea Power. See wimgo for more.
2. Count Basie, “Lester Leaps In.”
3. The Shins, “Pink Bullets.”
4. Memphis, “I’ll Do Whatever You Want.”
5. Arctic Monkeys, “You Know That I’m No Good.” The Monkeys turn in a raw and un-sex-changed rendition of the Wino track, and it rocks unconditionally.
6. Air, “Sexy Boy.”
7. The Field, “Everday.”
8. Gary Numan, “Are Friends Electric?”
9. Faith No More, “We Care a Lot.” This was the first major belch from Faith No More, the lead single from 1987’s Introduce Yourself, though versions of the song had been floating around since 1985. This finds the Bay Area band in its pre-Mike Patton, post-Courtney Love stage with soon-to-be-fired Chuck Mosley as lead barker, and along with Ur Red Hot Chili Peppers, “We Care a Lot” was an early indicator that hip-hop and punk could co-exist and possibly even be artistically viable. But as we all know, that notion went south like Ulysses S. Grant.
10. Georgie James, “Look Me Up.”
DVD Review: “My Kid Could Paint That” * * *
Amir Bar-Lev’s “My Kid Could Paint That” chronicles the unsettling story of Marla Olmstead, who first rose to media prominence for her intricate abstract paintings when she was 3 years old. The Binghamton, N.Y. toddler became a sensation in art circles, selling paintings for thousands of dollars, until a February 2005 “60 Minutes” profile by Charlie Rose called into question whether Marla was the sole creator of the work.
This documentary moves into psychodrama after Rose’s piece, as greater criticism is brought to bear on Marla’s parents, Mark and Laura Olmstead, and questions persist as to whether the father “coached” or refined the girl’s art. Some attempts to capture Marla’s painting process result in good documents, while others show an average pre-schooler prone to typical distractions.
“My Kid Could Paint That” never reaches any solid conclusions about the veracity of Marla Olmstead’s work, but it raises questions about the nature and value of abstract art, the virtue of putting children in the spotlight and whether the “60 Minutes” piece constituted good journalism. The DVD includes a follow-up documentary on the aftershocks of the film, and the continuing debate over Marla’s talent. But the real power of “My Kid Could Paint That” comes from the sadness of seeing a sweet-natured, precocious little girl placed under extreme scrutiny. World-class painter or not, Marla Olmstead is a child, and parents with smart children will see “My Kid Could Paint That” as a cautionary tale about the outer limits of nurturing talent.
Swiss Time Was Running Out — It Seemed That We Would Lose the Race
Chase just sent me this link to a shamisen orchestra doing “Smoke on the Water.” This might be the best performance of this warhorse since some stupid with a flare gun burned the place to the ground.
Random 10 for Feb. 18, 2008
1. MGMT, “Electric Feel.” These gentlemen are currently touring Europe and have yet to schedule any domestic shows beyond Coachella, but I’m hoping that will change soon. “Electric Feel” is a personal fave rave right now, a raging slab of groovalicious psychedelic disco that, as I mentioned in my recent review, sounds a hell of a lot like one of Quincy Jones’ late-’70s productions for the Brothers Johnson (”Stomp,” “I’ll Be Good to You”), my favorite sophista-funk band of that period, except Dave Fridmann makes it all sound like someone spiked the drinks at Studio 54 with mescaline. Watch one version of MGMT’s interactive video for the song here. Be careful — the song is addictive.
2. Tim Finn, “Subway Dreaming.”
3. The Go! Team, “Ladyflash.”
4. The Starlight Mints, “Torts.”
5. Jay Ferguson, “Thunder Island.” Staticblog friend Chase and I talk about this one frequently as a kind of running joke — a relic from the halcyon days of yacht rock that was quite literally about hairy ’70s sex in vague tropical locales. It sounds like an uncleaned room at the Hotel California thanks in large part to Joe Walsh’s slide guitar, a noise that connotes Laurel Canyon decadence like almost nothing else. Ferguson went on to do soundtrack work, and these days, you hear him every week performing the theme to “The Office,” a piece of music that definitely does not inspire images of doing tequila body shots with Linda Ronstadt, Stevie Nicks and Joni Mitchell in 1977. Watch this clip of Ferguson in all his silk-scarfed freaky glory, and recoil in horror.
6. Nico, “These Days.”
7. Amy Winehouse, “Cherry.”
8. Sparks, “The Very Next Fight.”
9. The Pipettes, “Why Did You Stay?”
10. April March, “Laisse Tomber Les Filles.” April March is not actually French, but the California singer’s Francophone recordings perfectly capture the Serge Gainsbourg pop aesthetic — the nasty old man even wrote this one.
Movie Trailer: “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”
The new trailer for “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” was released today. See it here, and be reduced to fits of adolescent yelping.
DVD Review: “Midnight Express: 30th Anniversary Edition”
Still as visually arresting and harrowing as it was in 1978, Alan Parker’s “Midnight Express” is the nightmarish true story of Billy Hayes (the late Brad Davis), a young American whose attempt to smuggle hashish out of Turkey resulted in five harrowing years in an Istanbul prison. “Midnight Express” is a wrenching account of Hayes’ battle to win his freedom, escape persecution from guards and maintain his dwindling grasp on sanity.
As foreign prison epics go, “Midnight Express” makes “Papillon” seem like an island getaway. The cast, including Davis, Randy Quaid and John Hurt as smugglers doing time in horrific conditions, is first-rate, but Parker is responsible for the film’s innovative use of light and shadow. He, along with Ridley Scott, was among a small group of British directors who cut their teeth making cutting-edge TV commercials before taking their visual cues to the big screen. “Midnight Express” seems as if it was filmed a decade or two ahead of its time.
Three decades on, viewers still debate whether screenwriter Oliver Stone unfairly characterized the Turks in the film; everyone Hayes encounters who isn’t a Western prisoner or loved one is evil, incompetent or both. But while “Midnight Express” is hardly a love letter to Turkey, it is a cautionary tale about bad justice and worse luck, not a summary judgment on the character of a nation.
