Video of the Day: Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, “Round and Round”
Shot earlier this year on Wayne Coyne’s iPhone while the two bands were touring together, “Round and Round” was edited by the locals at Delo Creative. Wayne jokes about the white puddle being donated breastmilk, but with him you can never quite be sure.
Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Round & Round from Delo Creative on Vimeo.
The pulsing graphical display really enhances the song’s hypnotic groove during the “round and around we go” parts. Trip-tastic. Head over to Nathan Poppe’s Flickr to see photos from Ariel Pink’s show at Opolis September 15th.
–carney
Video of the Day: SNL does TSA
In honor of Lang’s trip to Paris for the premiere of Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie’s latest flick, The Tourist, here’s the funniest take on the recent barrage of stories about our country’s very -ahem- handsy TSA agents. Watch out for Bill Hader’s eyebrows. Both prominent and creepy.
My name’s Matt and I’ll be with you all week.
–carney
Music Review: Kanye West, ““My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” (Roc-A-Fella)
Rating: 97
Nice people make nice music, but it takes a real freak to create a monster. Kanye West’s “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” is the album an artist makes when he’s given up on accepted notions of public discourse and pop music, fastens alligator clips to himself and throws the switch. “Stick around, some real feelings might surface,” West raps on “Blame Game,” a beautiful but brutal breakup song that could be his equivalent to Mike Nichols’ “Closer,” and real feelings are heard throughout “MBDTF,” floating like an oil slick on top of an ocean filled with the deepest sound in modern hip-hop.
What sets West apart is his willingness to dance on the unbalanced edge of his genre. His discovery of King Crimson was advertised with the “21st Century Schizoid Man” sample on “Power,” but then he doesn’t just borrow because the title is apropos of his current status in pop. West is appropriating from prog-rock the same way those bands quoted from classical music: West’s Vocoder solo at the end of “Runaway” serves as a canny simulation of a Robert Fripp guitar piece. But even when he’s not referencing music’s odd provinces, West is tearing down hip-hop and rebuilding it to fit his current emotional state, and nearly every track on “MBDTF” is a marvel of musical ambition and wrecked nerves.
The public relations nightmares of the past two years lurk throughout the album like malignancies, the tension building to such a degree on the Black Sabbath-biting “Hell of a Life” that he spends much of the last part just audibly catching his breath. The lyrics are self-lacerating, caustic and more profane than any of his four previous albums, but that is hardly surprising — when the president you supported calls you out in an interview, it’s been a tough year. But then when Gil-Scott Heron speaks on West’s behalf on the closing “Who Will Survive in America,” saying “All I want is a good home, and a wife, and children and some food to feed them every night,” perhaps West’s “Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” is someplace where the brilliant monster he just built can’t destroy its creator.
— Lang
Video of the Day: The Depreciation Guild, “Blue Lily”
The Brooklyn retro-shoegaze band sets its chiming beauty to animated imagery evocative of Ralph Bakshi.
– Lang
Movie Review: “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1″
Rating: 90
Imagine how unlikely it is that the seventh film in any series could be the best — most franchises plotz on the third outing. But as any longtime Harry Potter fan knows, the movies based on J.K. Rowling’s wizarding series were just getting going on round three, and “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1” is the knockout.
In a wrenching set of opening sequences, director David Yates sets the tone for the world Harry, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley inherit in “Deathly Hallows.” It is a foreboding place where Minister of Magic Rufus Scrimgeour (Bill Nighy) warns that the forces of good have faced “no greater threat” than the incursion of Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) and the Death Eaters. This is an environment where even the Dursleys, those most unsympathetic of all Muggles, can tug at emotions, and Hermione must make a tragic choice that leaves her, for all practical purposes, an orphan.
The plot structure for “Deathly Hallows” involves the search for six “horcruxes,” the talismans that hold parts of Voldemort’s soul. Just carrying one can elevate the holder’s anxiety to dangerous levels, a key source of mounting irritation for Ron (Rupert Grint), who is forced to confront the inevitable feelings of inferiority one must feel when Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) is the omnipresent hero. Hermione (Emma Watson) is stuck in the middle of all this, a source of strength for the trio but also the focal point for irrational tension as the three collect the horcruxes in preparation for the inevitable war with Voldemort.
This gives Watson an opportunity to display nine years’ worth of accumulated acting skill. The nonstop production of “Harry Potter” films has had a hothouse effect on all three of the principal actors’ emotive abilities, but Watson is the clear breakout. It’s all in her subtle responses to the ramped up conflict around them. Watson always played Hermione as written, with all the precocity required, but the sighing and eye-rolling of the first two films is long gone, replaced with genuine nuance. The “Harry Potter” series, strong as it has been thus far, will probably not be the high point of this 20-year-old’s career.
But Watson does not exactly leave Radcliffe and Grint in the dust. Both prove immensely capable of the emotional heavy lifting required in “Deathly Hallows, Part 1” and are surrounded by some of the finest talent in British cinema. Nighy, Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter (as the demonic Bellatrix Lestrange), Rhys Ifans and David Thewlis all distinguish themselves.
Still, the star of “Deathly Hallows, Part 1” is director Yates, who does far more than establish tension: He allows these characters to breathe. Unlike the earlier films, “Deathly Hallows” is mostly shot on location in the English countryside, creating the illusion that this magical realm truly exists in tandem with the real world. Yates’ sense of dynamics serves him well. Magic is not on constant display in “Deathly Hallows, Part 1,” so the results often look like a pastoral British independent film, but then when magic is required, it comes on with startling fury.
As for how the final book in Rowling’s series has been split, that is one bit of magic that should not be revealed. What keeps “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1” from being a perfect film is the serialized story curse, which means that no one who has ignored the previous films or novels should bother parachuting into “Deathly Hallows” without the basic understanding needed to enjoy it. So, it does not stand alone. But as the beginning of the end for one of the most beloved stories in young fiction, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1” is a piece of beautiful cinematic sorcery.
— Lang
Video of the Day: Lykke Li, “Get Some”
More of this please — previous Lykke Li seemed a little too Eurodancy, but this is good, dark and a little perverse. Like a modern Danielle Dax or something.
– Lang
Video of the Day: Chromeo, “Hot Mess”
Chromeo is forced to turn in their badges by the all-female sheriff’s office, but not before dry ice fills the headquarters and the boys enjoy a nice sauna and some water ballet.
– Lang
Video of the Day: Wolf Parade, “Yulia”
A cosmonaut in love suffers the risk of Soviet-era space technology as Yulia watches on CCCP television. Great video from “Expo 86.”
– Lang
Video of the Day: Tommy Wiseau, “The Room” (dubstep remix)
Oh, hi Mark. You ah tearin me apawt, Lisa!
– Lang
Photos: Skating Polly CD release show
Kelli Mayo, 10, and Peyton Suitor, 15, are Skating Polly. The duo from Edmond rocked Guestroom Records in Norman on Friday night.
The band’s debut album “Taking Over the World” was released at the show and it’s nothing short of a punk rock gem.
Keep your eyes on this band. By the time they hit high school, I wouldn’t be surprised if they are halfway around the world melting faces.
-Nathan Poppe
