Random 10 For August 26, 2008
1. Wire, “Kidney Bingos.” Wire spent most of the ’80s broken up, but returned in 1987 with The Ideal Copy and a follow-up EP in 1988, Kidney Bingos. No, it doesn’t make any natural sense at first, but the stream of consciousness list seems, along with the phrase “money spurs people on,” to constitute a cut-and-paste statement on consumer culture. It’s also extremely repetitive and catchy as hell.
2. Azure Ray, “Across the Ocean.”
3. Kunek, “Section 2.”
4. Bauhaus, “Ziggy Stardust.”
5. Goldfrapp, “A&E.” When Madonna adopted an icy electro-disco sound on her early to mid-’00s releases, she was dubbed “Oldfrapp” in the British press. Conversely, “A&E” sounds like Alison’s attempt to do a Madge ballad circa Ray of Light.
6. Ween, “Sweetheart in the Summer.”
7. Toby Young, “Ch. 4: How to Lose Friends and Alienate People.”
8. Os Mutantes, “Baby.”
9. Elvis Costello, “Shipbuilding.”
10. Dean and Britta, “Words You Used to Say.” Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot interview producer Tony Visconti, the legendary helmsman on classic records by Bowie and T.Rex, along with Dean and Britta’s current recordings, on the latest Sound Opinions.
Video of the Day: John Legend Performs New Song, “If You’re Out There,” at the DNC
Staticblog Afternoon Movie: “Arrested Development” Pilot
Starting today, Staticblog will serialize my favorite post-”Seinfeld” sit-com, “Arrested Development,” in running order. The teases concerning an “A.D.” film keep coming, with Jason Bateman appearing semi-regularly on “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” to stoke the fires, so here’s hoping.
“American Idol” Adds a Platinum Weird Judge
Kara DioGuardi
As Idolator noted this morning, this contains the distinct whiff of someone (or hell, an entire show) needing a “break” for “exhaustion.” Songwriter Kara DioGuardi, who was briefly in a wildly unsuccessful project with Dave Stewart called Platinum Weird (allegedly a recently unearthed Fleetwood Mac clone according to press releases, but sounding more like the most generic adult-contemporary music of 2006) will be the fourth judge.
Since I’m repeatedly forced to professionally care about “American Idol,” and the new regime at “A.I.” is claiming that a four-judge panel has always been in the cards, I’m wondering why such a clockwork machine took so long to implement its original plans. Paula needing a little “holiday”?
And seriously, while DioGuardi has placed a few songs on discs by Hilary Duff and “A.I.” alums Kelly Clarkson and Katherine McPhee, is this the level best they could do? I mean, how busy is notorious empty-ballad-purveyor Diane Warren these days, or the Diane Warren of the ’80s, Holly Knight? Or is Kara DioGuardi the Diane Warren/Holly Knight of the late-00s who once ineffectively masqueraded as the proto-Stevie Nicks of the early ’70s?
Video of the Day: Shad, “The Old Prince Still Lives At Home”
Completely synched with the indie ranks’ love of the old school, Shad’s latest takes a giant bite out of Will Smith. Love the low-budget breakdown at the end.
Random 10 for August 25, 2008
1. Kanye West feat. Adam Levine and Bernie Mac, “Heard ‘Em Say.” Featuring Bill Plympton animation is possibly the most extreme way for a mainstream hip-hop star to declare his independence. In typical MTV fashion — and this galls me since that network provided Plympton with his greatest forum, “Liquid Television” — the song was given short-shrift in rotation, possibly because of a recent ‘Ye rant, possibly because it was just too strange up against Akon’s then-latest Zapp ripoff. Bernie, R.I.P.
2. The Fratellis, “Henrietta.”
3. The Glands, “Breathe Out.”
4. Hot Chip, “One Pure Thought.” Made In the Dark featured considerably more dissonance than the previous two discs, but while I enjoyed “And I Was a Boy From School” and such, it was almost too club-mix-antiseptic. This, on the other hand begins with jangly guitars that sound lifted from the Black Kids album, then goes fully electro with another great pop melody from these odd ducks.
5. The Shins, “Black Wave.”
6. Ice Cube, “Steady Mobbin’.”
7. Paul Weller, “Song For Alice.”
8. Marvin Gaye, “I Want You.”
9. Public Enemy, “Night of the Living Baseheads.”
10. Gang of Four, “I Love a Man in Uniform.” Sharing the title (with Wire) of most important post-punk band of the late-70s and early ’80s, 1979’s Entertainment the template for early ’00s dance-punk. By 1982’s Songs of the Free, Jon King and Andy Gill were fully into the New Romantic phase, and while they looked and sounded a lot like most British pop at the time, their songs such as “Uniform” maintained a snide political message. As a bonus, some Yellow Magic Orchestra on the tail end of this clip.
Random 10 for Aug. 22, 2008
1. General Public, “I’ll Take You There”
2. Sun Volt, “Drown”
3. The Pretenders, “Thumbelina”
4. Bruce Springsteen, “Growin’ Up”
Another early Springsteen classic from his first record, way back in 1973: “I pushed B-52 and bombed ‘em with the blues / With my gear set stubborn on standing / Broke all the rules, strafed my old high school / Never once gave thought to landing / I hid in the clouded wrath of the crowd / But when they said “come down” I threw up ..” OK, so it’s not exactly ”Catcher in the Rye,” but it’s fun to sing along to.
5. Siouxsie & The Banshees, “Fireworks”
6. The Boomtown Rats, “Rat Trap”
Funny that this Boomtown Rats song would come up, since this 1978 single is probably the closest Bob Geldof and mates ever came to a Springsteen-styled tale of young, working-class dreamers.
7. Fugazi, “KYEO”
8. Hank Williams, “Why Don’t You Love Me?”
9.Porno for Pyros, “Pets”
Perry Farrell is hands-down one of rock all-time insufferably obnoxious characters (and that’s saying something), but occasionally the self-absorbed freak can crank out a winner. Here, Farrell’s onetime band, Porno for Pyros, performs one of those winners, “Pets,” at Woodstock 1994.
10. The Monkees, “Last Train to Clarksville”
– Chase
Movie Review: “The House Bunny”
Kat Dennings, Anna Faris, Katherine McPhee, Emma Stone and Rumer Willis in “The House Bunny.”
Rating: 56
“The House Bunny” is a proudly featherweight comedy that might have been completely intolerable, but this farce from the writing team behind “Legally Blonde” could be the vehicle that finally gives Anna Faris the Hollywood career she deserves. It could do for Faris what “Legally Blonde” did for Reece Witherspoon — providing a rung in her ladder to better things.
Faris plays Shelley Darlingson, an irrepressibly bubbly Playboy Bunny who went straight from a childhood in an orphanage to being the most popular girl in Hugh Hefner’s harem. She lives the good life in Hef’s mansion, dreaming of being picked to be the next centerfold, but the morning after her 27th birthday party, she receives a terse letter: she must move out immediately.
Shelley has no prospects and falls on hard times from the beginning, but after overhearing a conversation between three sorority sisters that sounded suspiciously like the repartee she enjoyed at Hef’s Grotto, she weasels her way into a job as house mother for the Zeta House. Naturally, the Zetas are the worst sorority on campus, packed with social misfits and facing extinction if they cannot ramp up their membership.
Thankfully, Shelley knows something about being aggressively social, and she helps the girls (led by Emma Stone, Rumer Willis, Kat Dennings and former “American Idol” runner-up Katherine McPhee) readjust their outlook and … presentation. But she must do so while fighting off a top sorority scheming to get the Zetas ousted for good so it can take over their house.
That list of actresses as misfits is a dead giveaway: “The House Bunny” suffers from “She’s All That” syndrome — they are all clearly beautiful under all that geek garb. The male love interests — Colin Hanks for Faris and the All-American Rejects’ Tyson Ritter for Stone — have fairly thankless jobs as sturdy but bland objects, but turnabout is fair play. And Hefner delivers one of the worst performances of the year — as himself. It’s as if director Fred Wolf tried his best to coax a performance out of the man and simply gave up.
But this is Faris’ show, and she’s pretty wonderful — a Goldie Hawn for the 21st century. Faris came to most people’s notice in the “Scary Movie” films, but it was her amazing cameo, widely believed to be a Cameron Diaz impersonation, in “Lost in Translation” that really proved her value as a comedic talent. “The House Bunny” is slight, fizzy and almost too dumb for its own good, but if Faris benefits, it has done its job.
— George Lang
Movie Review: “The Rocker”
Josh Gad, Teddy Geiger, Emma Stone and Rainn Wilson in “The Rocker.”
Rating: 57
“The Rocker” is an amiable music-business satire that rises and falls entirely on the appeal of Rainn Wilson, clocking out of “The Office” long enough to pound the skins as a past-his-prime drummer who finds an unlikely second shot at the spotlight.
Robert “Fish” Fishman (Wilson) nearly found fame in the late ‘80s, when he was the drummer for the pop-metal band Vesuvius, but got kicked out just as the group was ready for its close-up. He spent the next two decades working customer-service jobs while his old bandmates became Bon Jovi-level superstars.
A run-in with a co-worker causes Fish to lose his latest job, and he winds up living in his sister’s attic, where he overhears that the band his socially inept nephew Matt (Josh Gad) plays keyboards in needs a drummer. Fish quickly regains his taste for rocking, but his hair-metal flamboyance hardly meshes with the moody, “emo” sensibilities of Matt’s bandmates, Curtis (singer-songwriter Teddy Geiger) and Amelia (Emma Stone).
“The Rocker” fits dead-center in director Peter Cattaneo’s wheelhouse: the film’s theme of finding vindication through performance is not far removed from “The Full Monty” or “Lucky Break.” But unlike “Monty,” “The Rocker” is mostly a one-man show, hinging entirely on Wilson’s capacity for over-the-top dork moves and Will Ferrell-style nude gross-out humor.
But Wilson also delivers a nicely empathetic performance as Fish, a man confronted daily with his lost dreams. It’s hard not to feel his middle-aged pain as Fish faces a life of daily grinds when all he wanted to do was rock. “The Rocker” also taps into an all-too-real generational truth: pop culture has the shelf-life of bread, and the next batch of teenagers will relate to the last wave of rock ‘n’ roll about as well as they will to medieval minstrels.
It’s unfortunate that “The Rocker” lacks many fleshed-out characters beyond Fish — Geiger and Stone are appealing actors but hardly move beyond archetypes as Curtis and Amelia. And while our YouTube-infused world is referenced in “The Rocker,” it seems unlikely that at least two ruses committed by Vesuvius (featuring Will Arnett, Bradley Cooper and Fred Armisen) would not be caught early and often in this fully monitored culture.
But “The Rocker” is not designed to be anything beyond what it is: transient fun for the musically inclined. When taken at that level, it stays on rhythm and only misses a few beats.
— George Lang
Movie Review: “Bottle Shock”
Alan Rickman in “Bottle Shock”
Rating: 64
“Bottle Shock,” the true story of Napa Valley vintner Chateau Montelena’s victory over French wines in the 1976 Judgment in Paris competition, could be the oenophile equivalent to sports underdog movies, but this rich story’s earthy charms result in something far more full-bodied.
Lawyer Jim Barrett (Bill Pullman) bought Chateau Montelena in 1972, a time when the quality of Napa Valley wines was associated with Ernest & Julio Gallo’s jug varieties. By 1976, Barrett was scraping by, marginally assisted by slacker son Bo (Chris Pine), apprentice winemaster Gustavo (Freddy Rodriquez) and intern Sam (Rachael Taylor), who make sport of hustling barflies with Gustavo’s apparently infallible ability to name any wine by taste.
Chateau Montelena’s fortunes go on the line when British wine merchant Steven Spurrier (Alan Rickman, excellent as always), takes a challenge by his American patron (Dennis Farina) to stage a competition between an emerging emerging Napa Valley variety and established French vintages. The story progresses as Bo finds a sense of purpose, Gustavo and Bo tangle over Sam’s affections, and Barrett’s Chardonnay evolves into a wondrous wine, despite some chemistry quirks that almost doom the entire batch.
Director and co-writer Randall Miller (“Nobel Son”) gives “Bottle Shock” an appropriately sun-dappled mid-‘70s feel packed with Bad Company and Doobie Brothers songs and an abundant love of wine. Pine, who will play James T. Kirk in J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek” relaunch, distinguishes himself well as Bo, who went on to run Montelena in 1982. And Pullman, who rarely gets a lead role that displays his everyman gifts these days, is nicely convincing as a true believer who disciplines his son with boxing matches and who parlayed his determination into a game changer in the wine industry.
While “Sideways” was only peripherally about wine, “Bottle Shock” is a wine industry story with some drama and good humor thrown in to keep things rolling, and it’s not just nostalgic for the mid-‘70s — it captures a time when wine was more of a personal pursuit and far less corporate than it is today. Miller’s tale is not nearly as smart and beautifully executed as “Sideways,” but it is worth more than a cursory taste.
— George Lang
