With Ben Lyons, Suddenly Rex Reed Doesn’t Seem So Dependably Awful
Other than the Luxor in Vegas, this is the BEST PYRAMID EVER!
Ben Lyons, the new co-host of “At the Movies,” rose up from that bastion of fine entertainment journalism, the E! Network, to inherit the televisual seat formerly occupied by Roger Ebert. The new regime does not sit well with professional critics, many of whom view the son of Jeffrey Lyons as being endemic of the general decline of film criticism.
This LA Times story not only chronicles the growing “hate storm” surrounding Lyons, but the perilous situation many critics now find themselves in as major dailies thin their ranks and studios pride themselves on releasing “critic-proof” summer movies of the “Wild Hogs” variety.
Christmas-ish Video of the Day: Andy Kaufman, “That’s Where Your Heartaches Begin”
This is one of Andy’s performances from the 1979 Johnny Cash Christmas Special, and it’s just a reminder that, among other things, he was the best Elvis Presley impersonator of all time.
Either/Or, Episode 13: Christmas Edition
In Either/Or, we take two people in similar pursuits, and you choose between them. It can be based on any criteria: professional ability, personality, intellectual prowess, physical pulchritude, or who you’d want backing you up in a knife fight. It really doesn’t matter: just choose Either/Or.
Either The Grinch:
Or Heat Mizer:
Either Elizabeth Banks in “Fred Claus”:
Or Zooey Deschanel in “Elf”:
U2 Announces Album Title and Release Date
Generally, Friday is the day where they release news they don’t want in the marketplace of ideas, but this certainly sets up the expectation game nicely: U2 announced it will release its 12th studio disc, titled No Line on the Horizon, on March 3 in the U.S. and Canada.
According to Billboard magazine, No Line on the Horizon features production work by all the right names in the U2 canon: Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois and Steve Lillywhite. As Pitchfork noted, will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas is not on the production list as previously speculated, which will be great source of relief for those fearing an incandescent, stadium-filling ballad version of “My Humps.”
Random 10 for December 18, 2008
1. CSS, "Move." Perfectly pleasant electro, but where the hell is the edge? With the first disc, I felt like I was listening to something I shouldn't be, but now CSS is safe and mild. Tired of being interesting?
2. Air vs. The Moog Cookbook, “Kelly Watch the Stars.”
3. Dalek, “Paragraphs Relentless.”
4. Rebirth Brass Band, “Just the Two of Us.”
5. Kate Bush, “Cloudbusting.” Someday I’ll do my list of the best music videos of all time. After 23 years, this one is still near the top, mainly because it has one of the strongest narrative components of any music video I’ve seen and, like the song, was based on the life and arrest of Wilhelm Reich, the odd-duck inventor of “orgone accumulators” and “cloudbusters.”
6. Electric Light Orchestra, “Mr. Blue Sky.”
7. Ella Fitzgerald, “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.”
8. The Killers, “Neon Tiger.”
9. Miles Davis, “Flamenco Sketches.”
10. Lily Allen, “The Fear.” It’s Not Me, It’s You is released on Feb. 10 domestically, though I’m certainly hoping for an advance copy to make January an uncharacteristically boffo month for media and take the sting off the post-Christmas stream of horror films and music too embarrassing to release during the holiday season.
Video of the Day: Run-DMC, “Christmas in Hollis”
Another Staticblog Holiday Classic ™. Because nothing says Christmas like an ill reindeer.
Music Review: The Knux “Remind Me in 3 Days…” (Interscope)
Rating: 90
The last time hip-hop and rock got too close they made ugly babies with names like Limp Bizkit and Korn, but the Los Angeles-by-way-of New Orleans duo the Knux has learned from those decade-old mistakes.
Brothers Krispy Kream and Rah Al Millio draw from smarter influences on “Remind Me in 3 Days…,” gene-splicing the psychedelic rap of the Native Tongues movement onto Silver Lake indie rock and winding up with oodles of groovy, brainy hipster-hop.
“Fire (Put it In the Air)” establishes the Knux’ modus operandi, updating Dr. Dre’s G-funk with live wah-wah guitars and upscale West Coast vibes — the musical equivalent to opening a Pinkberry franchise in South Central. Krispy and Rah fill the open spaces with Strokes-style guitars on “Cappuccino” and “Daddy’s Little Girl,” which packs more doo-wop/hip-hop than Sean Kingston ever dreamt of in his philosophy.
The Knux goes overly puerile on some tracks — “Playboys” rocks hard but its misogyny is too dumb for its own good — but the heady combination of melody and message on “The True” makes up for the bum moves. Such supple genre-twisting and cool-school style makes “Remind Me in 3 Days…” Los Angeles’ best amends for foisting Shwayze on the rest of the world.
Video of the Day: “A Charlie Brown ‘Hey Ya’”
Not a new thing, but a Staticblog Holiday Classic ™.
Von Iva Backs Up Zooey Deschanel in “Yes Man”
Bethany native Jillian Iva, far right, and her Von Iva bandmates flank Zooey Deschanel, second from left, in “Yes Man.”
Singer Jillian Iva of the San Francisco-based electro-rock trio Von Iva thought that getting a cool display at one of the most popular record stores in Los Angeles would spike CD sales. Then, as a bonus, the Bethany native and her bandmates ended up in the new Jim Carrey movie, “Yes Man,” backing up Zooey Deschanel.
Iva and her bandmates, keyboardist Becky “Bex” Kupersmith and drummer Kelly Harris, show up in “Yes Man” as three-quarters of the indie-rock band Munchausen By Proxy, led by free-spirited rocker Renee Allison (Deschanel). It all came together because of some great product placement that caught the right person’s attention.
“The music supervisor, Jonathan Karp, who’s worked on all the Judd Apatow movies — I’m just name-dropping that because I love those movies, ‘Pineapple Express’ and all that — he went to a record store in Hollywood, Amoeba Music, and a friend of ours who worked there put us on the endcap display,” Iva said. “He (Karp) saw the album cover, caught his eye, and he listened to it and realized we would be perfect for what he and Peyton, the director, were envisioning for the movie with Zooey.”
Iva, who attended Putnam City West High School but moved to California when she was 16 (“I was a little too big for my britches in Oklahoma — my poor mother,” she said), said that Von Iva had nearly 100 percent creative control over their songs, with Deschanel contributing some lyrics. But that autonomy did not extend to wardrobe.
“You wouldn’t see me in a chicken costume or a yellow vinyl dress to save my life,” she said. “But the costume designer was hilarious. I was like, ‘You’re mocking us, aren’t you? You hate me. What did I do to you?’ And he cracking up and was like, ‘Trust me — it’s going to translate so great on film, it’s just going to be ridiculous.’”
Also, Iva said she was hoping for a better name for the band, mainly since Munchausen By Proxy sounds like an obtuse punk-metal disaster, but none of Von Iva’s ideas received legal clearance.
“I think the one we really wanted was Yaz Hands,” Iva said, referring to the classic early ‘80s synth duo, Yaz. “We even had keytars with hands coming out from them — we had the graphic and everything. One I wanted that was pretty funny, tongue-in-cheek, was Not Bad. “Like, ‘Hello everybody, we’re Not Bad.’”
Fortunately for Von Iva, the trio gets plenty of face time in “Yes Man,” and the movie seems to get the aesthetic of Los Angeles’ indie-rock scene better than most mainstream films might have achieved. Still, Iva has not seen the band’s big-screen debut.
“We’re going to wait, let it marinate and see what happens, and be shocked when we see it,” she said. “Hopefully a good kind of shocked.”
Obit Mag’s Top 10 Death Songs
Today, Obit Magazine published its Top 10 songs about death, and before I get into the ever-popular tradition of second-guessing lists, let’s have it:
1. Don McLean, “American Pie.”
2. Queen, “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
3. Dixie Chicks, “Top of the World.”
4. Eric Clapton, “Tears in Heaven.”
5. Elton John, “Candle in the Wind.”
6. Bruce Springsteen, “Streets of Philadelphia.”
7. Porter Wagoner, “Green Green Grass of Home.”
8. Coldplay, “42.”
9. Johnny Cash, “We’ll Meet Again.”
10. Randy Newman, “Harps and Angels.”
So, neither The Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows” or “Within You, Without You” made the list, nor did Bauhaus’ “Bela Lugosi’s Dead,” nor did Ralph Stanley’s (or Camper Van Beethoven’s) “O Death,” nor did Radiohead’s “Airbag,” nor did Blue Freakin’ Oyster Cult’s “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper,” for death’s sake.
What else is missing? Grim Reaper’s “See You In Hell”? What else?
