Bad Billy Bob
Umm… Billy Bob Thornton decides to jump in the Christian Bale/Joaquin Phoenix throw-down of who can be a bigger jackass.
– Chase
Video of the Day: The Thermals, “Now We Can See”
The Portland trio debuts the title track from their first disc with Kill Rock Stars.
Random 10 for April 6, 2009
Colin Munroe - Will I Stay feat. Wale - Rehearsal Footage
1. Colin Munroe, “Will I Stay.” A couple of months ago, I heard from Munroe’s people that his disc was coming out in April. Haven’t heard anything else, but for now, go download the mixtape Colin Munroe is the Unsung Hero at his MySpace. This video, by the way, is a rehearsal with the great underground rapper Wale, himself a fine practitioner of mixtapes.
2. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, “Everything With You.”
3. Anjali, “Kandivali Gulley.”
Good Days Bad Days (Official video)
4. Kaiser Chiefs, “Good Days Bad Days.” While the Kaisers came up in the shadow of the Arctic Monkeys, slow and steady is winning the race — they seem to be asserting themselves as the new-model Supergrass, making high-standard Brit-pop that floats just below the buzz level.
5. Rio en Medio, “Everyone Is Someone.”
6. Ra Ra Riot, “Too Too Too Fast.”
7. The Streets, “Fit But You Know It.”
8. Figurines, “Silver Ponds.”
9. Bat For Lashes, “Trophy.” Two Suns comes out tomorrow, at which time it will take a prized place on Podsie, with review to follow later this week.
10. Lupe Fiasco, “Kick, Push.”
Video of the Day: Phoenix, “Lisztomania”
The Parisian pop band performs a standout track from its new disc, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, on “Saturday Night Live.”
Static, Episode 8: Cplus
Interview
“If You Think I’m Crazy”
“Curious”
“Something So Naturally”
Music Review: Yeah Yeah Yeahs, “It’s Blitz!” (Interscope)
Rating: 81
After the jagged guttersnipe dance-punk of “Fever to Tell,” Yeah Yeah Yeahs fell into a holding pattern with its sophomore disc, 2006’s “Show Your Bones,” but “It’s Blitz!” is one of the most bracing stylistic turnarounds in recent memory. The deployment of synthetic sounds could have scuttled all that make the Yeah Yeah Yeahs great, but Karen O, Nick Zinner and Brian Chase wrote beautifully icy songs that sound like love among the robots that still rock with unhinged conviction.
The pulse-and-sweep of “Zero” results in the band’s best single to date. Karen O’s lyrics are still mostly impressionistic bursts of neuroses — it’s anyone’s guess what she means by “get your leather on,” but her singed emotions make listeners want to follow orders. Ditto for the more overtly electro-dancing “Heads Will Roll,” in which she declares “You are chrome”: it might not make immediate sense, but it sounds like a good thing.
In the past, ballads were not always YYYs strong suit, “Maps” notwithstanding, but the Celtic-flavored “Skeletons” is an epic corrective, and the straight disco of “Dragon Queen” shows real facility with funk. Co-produced by David Sitek of TV on the Radio and legendary post-punk producer Nick Launay, “It’s Blitz!” achieves that careful balance of being eminently listenable while jumping free of comfort zones. The soon-to-be classic album art says it all — Yeah Yeah Yeahs fearlessly broke a few eggs.
Movie Review: “Adventureland”
Rating: 68
“Adventureland” is hardly the wild ride it advertises, but Greg Mottola’s follow-up to “Superbad” is a smart coming-of-age story, staking out that awkward territory when, as Nick Lowe once sang, the main character is “half a boy and half a man.”
In 1987, James (Jesse Eisenberg) finishes his bachelor degree with a master plan: spend the summer hiking through Europe before moving to New York City for graduate school. Then his parents’ finances bottom out, leaving James without many prospects other than a summer job at Adventureland, a rundown amusement park outside Pittsburgh. It’s a dismal place full of peeling paint where co-workers like Joel (Martin Starr) and manager Bobby (Bill Hader) matter-of-factly explain how the games are rigged and how the rides could turn deadly.
James is a smart young man whose ideas and emotions spill out too easily — a trait that can be off-putting to people who aren’t as bright or don’t share the same wavelength. On his first day at Adventureland, James becomes fully amused by Em Lewin (Kristen Stewart of “Twilight”), a cool beauty who listens to the right music and radiates the intelligence James shares and the confidence he needs.
Thanks to dodgy parenting and daddy issues, Em grew up quickly and she’s carrying on with Connell (Ryan Reynolds), the quasi-hip, married repairman at the park. James, who stayed a virgin because he equates sex with love, falls in love quickly with Em, and while she returns his attention, life is complicated by hormones, bad decisions and the uncertain future.
“Adventureland” captures its time, place, music and mood with deadly accuracy, and the score by Yo La Tengo certainly helps. It was the pop-cultural moment when all the different factions of the newly dead new wave scene went to their own separate corners and stopped playing nice. The lightweights moved on to acid house or dance-pop groups like Expose, and the hardcore reveled in Replacements, Husker Du and anything that smacked of Lou Reed. That division is deeply felt in “Adventureland,” as if the main characters are just marking time, waiting for Kurt Cobain while “Rock Me Amadeus” repeats in the background.
The previews promise an enthusiastically profane second helping of “Superbad,” and there are just enough moments of nasty humor to fit into a misleading trailer. But “Adventureland” best resembles the final scenes of “Superbad,” when Seth and Evan get a glimpse of what awaits them in the fabulous world of adulthood. “Adventureland” is about that early ‘20s transition, when residual teen angst and heartbreak is compounded by the onset of real life.
Movie Review: “The Class”
Rating: 90
When documentaries stir the mind and soul, the best compliment is that they play like great drama, and of course the opposite is true: certain superb dramas that pitch toward uncommon realism are praised for playing like fly-on-the-wall docs.
“The Class” is a curious hybrid: a drama based on Francois Begaudeau’s non-fiction account of teaching in a multi-cultural Parisian middle school, with Begaudeau playing a version of himself. It’s mesmerizing because it often feels startlingly real, life-like as life itself.
Films such as “The Class” are so common they are practically a genre — from “To Sir With Love” to “Freedom Writers,” they’re all about idealistic teachers making a difference with underprivileged students. But director Laurent Cantet never makes it look like the formulaic melodrama in “Dangerous Minds” or “Lean On Me” was ever a choice. The teen actors talk and act like real teens in a slightly out-of-control classroom, not hardened prisoners. They are first-generation French — teenage children of immigrants who resent Francois for, as they see it, trying to force-feed them Western culture and behavior.
The film’s first act centers on Francois’ efforts to connect with students predisposed to ignoring him, and how he establishes bonds with some difficult pupils. These are problems that all the teachers face and discuss in the lounge, talking about their days with empathy and occasional resignation. When an immigration issue threatens the family of a gifted student, the teachers react with sadness and expression of hope, but the truth is that it is a common event and almost entirely out of their control.
“The Class” eventually focuses on the plight of one student, Souleymane (Franck Keita), whose defense of another student could result in deportation to Mali. But while this subplot sounds fairly conventional, it is viewed with an eye toward realism, and Francois is revealed to be anything but superhuman. From its hand-held camera work to its naturalistic performances, “The Class” is a work of distinction. It is clear-eyed look at school, which seems to have the same challenges in any country.
Video of the Day: Run-DMC, “King of Rock”
Run-DMC will be inducted tomorrow into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and today Staticblog honors them with the video that delivered a shock to my system and MTV’s when both our playlists were way too homogeneous. Now, they can get into the museum without bum-rushing it. Jason Mizell and Calvert DeForest, peace be with you.
Nerdage and Staticblog Get “Lost”: “Whatever Happened, Happened”
In what is likely to become a regular headache for Nerdage and Staticblog readers, Matthew Price and George Lang will spend the rest of this season and all of the next and final season discussing episodic plot points for our favorite head-scratcher of a weekly mystery. We’re not explaining anything for you apostate types who prefer to watch “Project Runway” or read books. It’s a sweeps stunt, blogosphere style, kind of like when Munch and Pembleton would spend an hour with Briscoe and Curtis over at Law & Order, then Jack McCoy and whoever Jack was “supervising” at the moment would go down to Baltimore and hang with Assistant State’s Attorney Danvers for some Homicide action.
Does being in 1977 mean the fully grown Jack Shepherd gets to act like the 10-year-old spoiled son of a doctor he actually was at that time?
Nerdage: So, in 1977, Jack is the new Sawyer and Sawyer is the new Jack. Sawyer, the “leader” of the displaced-in-
time Losties asks Jack for something to save a kid’s life. Jack says, “What’s in it for me?” and blows Sawyer off. It’s not as charming on Jack as it was on Sawyer; in fact, Jack has become something of a tool. (I guess you can argue he’s trying to stop saving everybody, but, at the cost of becoming a jerk.)
Staticblog: It’s possible that he sees that the messiah market is just too crowded in 1977, what with Horace, LaSawyer and especially Richard Alpert holding most of the savior cards on the island. He also appears to think that his Hippocratic Oath is nullified by the fact that he’s now toiling in the janitorial arts. I agree that he’s being kind of a choda here, but he has to become that choda in order to achieve his inevitable redemption. Because redemption is what “Lost” is all about these days (Ajira Flight 316, anyone?)
Did Cuse/Lindelof just cop out on us with 12-year-old Ben Linus forgetting everything that happened, so he won’t remember in 27 years when he’s being tortured by the Iraqi Republican Guard veteran that he was shot by that guy back when “Night Fever” was a hit?
Nerdage: Richard can save Ben at the “loss of his innocence.” I’m assuming the smoke monster is involved? Man, I really would like to dig into who leads the Others, and why, and what does that mean? Given Richard saying he “doesn’t answer” to Ellie (Faraday’s mom, right?) or Charles in last night’s exchange, what exactly IS Richard’s position? How did Charles (Widmore, I presume) become leader of the Others, if that’s what Richard meant last night, and how did he lose it?
Staticblog: I actually think, at this point, that Richard Alpert could be Smokey the Sentient Vapor, and that we might see him morph into a trail of soot next week and heal The Boy Who Lived To Become He Who Must Not Be Named Henry Gale. I think Charles and Ellie got control of the island wrested from them by the resident god, Richard Alpert, and all this noise about “We’ve got to go back!” is because Charles and Ellie (Eloise Hawking) are doing battle with said eyeliner-wearing freak.
So, does this Time-Space Continuum business make any sense now, thanks to Hurley and Miles’ exposition-heavy give-and-take?
Nerdage: The Hugo-Miles conversation seemed in there to bring the viewers up to speed — why isn’t time travel in 
“Lost” working like “Back to the Future”?
Staticblog: I thought that was an odd scene — one of those rare moments when the Lindelcuse decided to hold our hands and empathize with our plight. So, in this case, Hugo and Miles are us, trying to determine whether anything they do in their new status as Dharmanian grunts makes any difference.
Was Kate just trying to get attention when she went superdramatic over the question of Aaron, or is she, true to her Shakespearean name, a shrew?
Nerdage: I guess we can read Kate’s earlier “never ask me what I did with Aaron” blah-blah as kind of overdramatic. “I left him with his grandma” doesn’t seem to be the kind of thing you can “never ask about,” but then Kate can be kind of a drama queen. That said, the Kate-Cassidy relationship was nicely played, and the explanation for Kate’s need to 
be a mother to Aaron worked for me, for the most part. Hey, a Kate episode I didn’t hate!
Staticblog: Seriously, Kate was freaking out because she handed off her pre-schooler to his grandmother? Happens all the time in my house, and I don’t go into a petulant frenzy. She’s a little more sympathetic these days, but I want to know what’s going on with all her flirting with Roger “Uncle Rico” Linus. He needs to watch his drunk self — Kate is supernaturally cute, but her ethics are deeply defective. If she ever makes it back to the real world, she probably has a bright future in Ponzi schemes and scamming the TARP.
