Category: Reviews

The Simpsons: Season 18, Episode 3 – “Please Homer, Don’t Hammer ‘Em”

please homer dont ahammer em

LOL total: 6 (but three of them were butt jokes)

Episode three of season 18 continues the latter-day saints period of The Simpsons. It is still not up to classic ranking, but it is definitely funny, and definitely not a disappointment to watch.

Tonight’s episode centered around two stories: Marge finds out she is quite the handyman, but apparently the entire town of Springfield is so sexist no one will allow her to work. Also, Bart finds out that Principal Skinner is deathly allergic to peanuts and in Bart-like fashion begins tormenting Skinner with a peanut-on-a-stick.

The episode starts with the Simpson clan shopping in a ramshackle mall that no one goes to anymore (since somebody shot the Mayor’s dad). This allows for some nice bits with Bart inside a terribly outdated arcade (with an Asteroids clone, and a Remington Steele game, all of which look suspiciously like the games Bart used to play in the early episodes of the show) and Homer eating decades-old gummy bears, which have all congealed together.

Homer buys a Time-Life set of carpentry books which he promptly forgets and never uses. Marge picks them up after a piece of floorboard comes up and breaks the bedroom nightstand. Turns out she is quite skilled with a hammer and nail and quickly begins building all sorts of stuff.

Unfortunately, everyone who answers her ad for a carpenter quickly laughs at her for being female. Now maybe this was typical Simpson satire knocking society for screwed-up gender roles, but it felt like plain old sexism to me.

Marge gets the idea to put Homer’s name on the company and when he lands jobs she’ll secretly do the work. The funniest bits of the show come from Marge brainstorming how she could put the typical construction worker in the ad (lazy, fat, and showing plenty of butt-crack) and realizes Homer is the perfect model from seeing his fat crack in bed.

Yeah, butt jokes are what got me through tonight.

I’m not offended by much. The Simpsons have certainly skewered plenty of sacred cows, and I’ve laughed through most of them. They’ve jabbed most major religions, politicians, celebrities, and all sorts of social norms and I’ve seen the humor behind the satire. But here it just seemed overdone, or maybe that’s because it was un-funny. Had the jokes been right on, then this paragraph wouldn’t have been written.

Both stories, now that you mention it were rather weak. Bart learns of Skinner’s peanut weakness after the students are ordered to leave all nut-related items at home. A wee chat with Groundskeeper Willie turns up the offended allergic is Skinner. Bart applies peanut to stick and begins making Skinner do everything he says (eating garbage, stuffing firecrackers down his pants, etc).

Funny, Homer’s butt makes me laugh, but Bart’s juvenile jokes left me flat.

Marge eventually gets miffed at Homer taking all the glory that she makes him redo an old roller coaster by himself. Of course, he screws up and when his ego takes him on a ride over his death-trap of a roller coaster, he finally admits it is Marge who is the construction genius.

Skinner finds out Bart has an allergic reaction to shrimp and they engage in a shrimp-on-a-stick/peanut-on-a-stick battle royale ending in both being soaked in a giant tub of Chinese peanut shrimp gumbo.

The stories really were lame. The sexism failed to be the least bit funny (ok, Kent Brockman telling Homer that he would tear down the gazebo and build a coffin to his manhood if Marge actually built it and then challenging Homer to a topless wrestling was actually pretty funny, but still) and Skinner being allergic to peanuts so suddenly felt like lazy writing. However, they still nailed some good, if admittedly juvenile, jokes. It didn’t feel like penance watching the show, which is more than I can say for most of last season. And at least there were comprehendible stories to follow instead of a series of nonsequiturs.

I laughed heartily, out loud even. And that’s enough for me….anymore.

Unfortunately due to football, the next original episode won’t air until November 05. In an unfortunate, and annoying tradition, that episode will be the Halloween special, a week after the holiday.

Bootleg Country: William Shatner – 1977

William Shatner
??/??/77
Hofstra University
Hempstead, NY

I first learned of bootleg trading through the now-defunct Grateful Dead Usenet group rec.music.gdead. It is no surprise then when I say that the majority of the music I collected was of the Dead and Dead related bands. Once in a while I would find a list with something a little more unusual, say Pink Floyd or Lynard Skynard on a list, but it was usually just one show from such a band and it was an unusual sight.

Whenever I would see these “odd” shows I would scramble to trade for them. Partially because I thought they were so rare and would make good trade bait, and partially because I was interested to hear what these other bands sounded like.

It wasn’t until years later, with the availability of broadband internet and the usability of bit torrent that I realized that these oddities were much more available than I thought. Moving out of jam band circles enlightened me to another world.

By far the oddest bootleg in my collection is this 1977 recording of William Shatner performance. It is part stand up, part dramatic performance, and part audience participation and completely weird.

The performance is some 8 years after the original Star Trek television series was canceled and a couple of years before the first movie came out, yet it is obvious that Shatner is performing before a group of Trekkers.

The show begins with Shatner reading a poem entitled “Earthbound” about a fanciful young man who is abducted by aliens for a time. It is very theatrical with spacey sound effects and Shatner reciting in his best Shakespearean voice.

Throughout the show, he reads poetry, essays, and theatrical monologues to illustrate points he’s trying to make in his spoken word performance. In his verbal essay, he points towards man’s yearning to travel, explore and learn throughout time.

Shatner appears very well versed in history and philosophical matters, at least for the purpose of this performance.

Scattered throughout the theatrics, he answers questions from the audience which mostly deals with the series and rumors of the upcoming movie. It is particularly interesting to hear this information as the film is still in the very early stages of development (Leonard Nimoy has yet to even sign-on, though Shatner says it is simply a dispute over contracts.)

In these segments, Shatner also sounds nervous and unsure of himself. It is quite often he tosses off a quick line and follows it with a high pitched giggle making him sound like a schoolboy asking a girl to the prom. It seems peculiar that a well-worn actor of stage and screen would get nervous around an audience, but that may be the difference between performance and simply talking in front of a lot of people. In fact, the nervousness goes completely away when he recites his theatrical lines.

I would never be able to consider myself one of the Trek fold. I remember watching the original series as a boy in afternoon reruns. I was enthralled with the drama, the action, and the lady’s legs in those little skirts. On the school bus me and a friend would often draw the different versions of the Enterprise in the condensations forming on the window.

However when the Next Generation came out I watched some episodes with enthusiasm, but often I was distracted by other things and paid it no mind whatsoever. I’ve watched all of the movies, but have paid no mind to subsequent series. So while I would consider myself a fan, I am always humbled when I say such a thing for I know my fandom goes only so far.

This may be why when I listen to William Shatner wax poetic about mankind’s deepest desires to explore the unknown I have a mysterious smirk on my face instead of a mystified look of reverence.

The Office: Season 3, Episode 1 – “Gay Witch Hunt”

the office gay witch hunt

Originally written on September 22, 2006.

You’ll notice tonight that I’m covering some TV shows step by step. For a while, I’ve been thinking about doing TV coverage episode by episode.  In time it could be a really cool database.

I have been watching the first season of The Sopranos and have hand-written plot lines for each of them, yet I haven’t gotten around to blogging them out. Tonight I decided to scribble notes for The Office and My Name is Earl. As you can see I have managed to get them here. It was a little difficult to determine how much I wanted to say. A simple plotline synopsis seems a little boring, but an actual review of each episode likewise seems boring and monotonous.

Fans of a show know what works. There is not a good reason to continually point out which actor does a good job, or what is annoying about a program. That leaves the plot and the best jokes. So that is what I’ll attempt to do. Give a rundown of exactly what happened adding my little thoughts here and there. We’ll see if it works, or if I manage to continue with it.

I started watching The Office last season. The trouble was I never could remember when it came on, so I only caught it sporadically. Over the summer I managed to figure out the time slot and catch most of the season’s episodes. Before the season had ended I did see the season finale ending with Jim finally telling Pam of his love and kissing her as the credits rolled. All summer I’ve waited for tonight to see exactly what Pam is going to do.

And here we are.

Jim transferred to Stamford and we got a few quick looks into how things work in another office. Jim has been promoted, but we quickly see that none of the employees like him. They certainly don’t take to his practical jokes (he puts Ed Helms’s calculator in some Jello, and Helms promptly has a total freak out), or his mugging for the cameras.

I’m not sure how Stamford is going to work out. Ed Helms is a brilliant edition and could create some wonderful comic moments, and the rest of the cast seems okay. They at least seem somewhat more normal than the Scranton bunch, and watching Jim try to find acceptance there could be very funny indeed. However, the overall cast is already almost too large, and adding an entirely new office may prove to be way too much for the series to hold. It seems highly difficult to handle plot lines for both offices which may mean Jim gets regulated to quick gags, which would ruin the show.

Who knows though, maybe he’ll work something out with Pam and move back to Scranton.

Which brings us to that relationship. Part of what made The Office work was the relationship between Pam and Jim. They have a great deal of chemistry, and the awkwardness between their obvious feelings for each other and their inability to do anything about it brought a nice bit of drama to the otherwise outrageousness.

Pam broke off the marriage and the relationship with Roy, though they had to keep all the food, now frozen. Roy doles it out at lunchtime. He seems to have had a rough go with it but promises he’ll get her back.

So now Pam and Jim could feasibly get back together. But as everybody knows, the will they, or won’t they aspect of a relationship is always the best part (in television at least). Just as Sam and Diane or David and Maddie. I hope they don’t ever get together. I hope Pam feels too hurt over the breakup and we’re treated to many seasons of not knowing if they’ll hook-up.

The bulk of the show dealt with Michael offending and then outing Oscar. Michael somehow felt that calling everyone “faggie” was appropriate. Oscar complained of this and confided in Toby that he is gay. Toby chastised Michael for being insensitive.

Michael immediately blabs to everyone in the office about Oscar’s homosexuality and gets mixed reactions.

Kevin thinks it is hilarious, Angela that it is disgusting (she says she tried to watch Will and Grace but was repulsed by it), Dwight doesn’t believe it (he’s not wearing women’s clothes) and Michael remains as obnoxious as ever.

Michael and Dwight form a mission to find out who else is gay, but have no idea how to do it. Dwight searches gay porn for possible clues and calls up Jim about purchasing that gaydar he talked about previously.

As tensions rise Michael calls an office meeting where he manages to enrage Oscar even more by raising more homophobic gossip. Ever endearing Michael attempts to smooth it out by embracing Oscar and even gives him a quick kiss on the lips (ever the follower, Dwight then jumps up for a kiss on the cheek.)

Hilariously, the episode ends with Dwight receiving his very own gay-dar from Jim (it is a portable metal detector in reality.) He quickly finds Oscar and runs it over his body, pleased when it beeps at Oscar’s crotchal region (in reality the belt buckle), but shocked to discover when it beeps at his own.

The show is back and in fine form. There were many laugh-out-loud moments and a few of the awkward, I can’t believe Michael just did that moment as well. The two offices could create more moments of hilarity or could cause the plots to be diluted. The Jim/Pam relationship is in flux once again and I’m crossing my fingers it will remain as such.

My Name is Earl: Season 2, Episode 1 – “Very Bad Things”

my name is earl very bad things

Last year I only caught a couple of episodes of My Name is Earl. I enjoy Jason Lee in just about anything he does, but this show never really grabbed me. It had some funny bits, but the characters all seemed a little too dumb to be interesting and I kept myself busy with other things to watch much.

This summer, or as I like to call it, The Summer of TV Addiction, I began watching it regularly and now add it to my ever-growing selection of must-watch.

The season premiere starts with Earl deciding to scratch off Joy from his list. It seems he never agreed with her while they were married. In a series of flashbacks, we see Earl take sides with everybody but Joy including Randy (who grabs the potato chips with his toes) and a lobster (who squirted Joy while she was cutting it up.)

Earl finally takes Joy’s side by telling Darnell that he should throw Joy a surprise party even if she knows about it (thus ruining the surprise argues Darnell.)

Joy decides to buy a “disappearing” TV after watching Britney Spears and K-fed use one on their show.

Unfortunately, the TV is too big to fit inside the trailer and the store won’t take it back because there is gum inside the receipt. They attempt to watch the television outside in the yard, but the glare of the sun and motorcyclists keep them from it. After a rain the TV is completely ruined.

Joy again attempts to take the TV back. Declaring she is going to get her $3,000 back one way or another she steals a truck from the store.

Joy tries to sell the entire truck, not what’s in the truck mind you, to someone but he doesn’t buy due to the truck having the name of the store still written upon it. His friend, an Eastern European by the accent, says she’ll buy the truck, but when they arrive at Joy’s trailer, Darnell has landed the surprise birthday party a month early, scaring off the European.

Earl, still feeling generous, decides to help her unload the truck. They paint the name off the truck, then brilliantly decide to open the danged thing to see if the contents might be worth $3,000.

Oops, there is a man (a store employee) inside! After some thinking, they decide to order (in fake British accents no less) the man to blindfold himself and run out of the truck when they open the door. He obliges but crashes into a tree, knocking himself out.

Earl and Joy load him into the truck and drive off to a hospital. The truck runs out of gas along the way, and while Earl walks to get more fuel, Joy accidentally lets the man loose. She got hungry, you see, and opened the truck door looking for food. The man had taken off his clothes and stuffed them to look like he was unconscious, then whacked Joy on the head while she was looking at it.

Prompting the second-best line of the episode, “Son of a bitch he Ferris Bueller-ed me.”

Man, now in his underwear is caught by Joy and Earl and Randy, but Randy sticks the man in the front of the truck, instead of the back, prompting him to take off in the truck.

During the hot pursuit, Randy suggests they could cut out the man’s tongue so that he wouldn’t be able to tell anyone who he saw. Realizing that he could still draw them he suggests they cut off his fingers, prompting the best line of the show, “At least he’s thinking, he can’t help it if he’s not good at it.”

Earl decides he has helped Joy enough and lets the man escape. Joy is charged with stealing a truck and kidnapping and ends the episode in jail.

I read recently that the writers were going to focus more on the characters than on the list this season, and they seem to be off to a good start. Most of the episode had nothing to do with a list point, and in fact, the only item on the list “Take Joy’s Side” was done within a few minutes. Instead, the episode moved forward from the general concept of that item.

Joy got a lot of screen time and she ran with it. She’s always a funny character, but here she stole the best lines, played the best scenes and pretty much ruled the episode. It was a nice change of focus from the usual Earl/Randy relationship.

Anatomy of Hell (2004)

anatomy of hell dvd art

Originally written on September 20, 2006.

Nudity in the United States is an odd thing. We tend to love our nudity, yet are mostly ashamed of our love and try to hide it. Well we try to hide what we determine is actual nudity while plastering near nudity everywhere we can.

From TV to magazines to print ads, on beaches, sidewalks, and shopping malls, flesh reigns king. Skimpy bikinis, short skirts, and tight shirts are all acceptable, admired, and loved. Yet again, flash a nipple or pubic hair and there is an outcry from the same public that so adored the near nudity.

As a lad, I could often get my mother to allow me to watch the newest Arnold Schwarzenegger action flick filled with bloody battles, but as soon as a movie showed a bit of nudity and it was off to play Monopoly.

The nudity didn’t even have to be sexual. A girl walking out of a shower was reason enough to turn it off. Strangely we could often get away with a film full of innuendo or engaging in physical nuances that hid the nudity.

I don’t want to knock my mother too hard here, certainly, the culture she was raised in had a great deal to do with how she parented us. She tried her best to do the difficult job of guarding our television and movie viewing habits. A difficult job with no official rules to what is acceptable

It also must be said that we often baited her and pressured her constantly to allow us to watch the newest action flick while staying mostly mum about the nudity. As a kid, I didn’t mind complaining that it was just fake violence and wouldn’t affect me, but there was no way I was going to beg for boobies, no matter how much I secretly longed for them.

Funny how some 12 years after I’ve left home I’m still worried about what my mother will say having watched and reviewed a picture such as Anatomy of Hell.

The film starts with a warning which looks like the typical FBI copyright warning but which reminds the viewer that film is not real, but an illusion and informs us that the most intimate moments do not belong to the main actress, but a stand-in.

It then moves into two men involved in a little back alley oral action.

No kids, this isn’t going to be your typical night at the cinema.

The plot involves a woman (Amira Casar) on the verge – she is first seen in a nightclub where she promptly slits her wrists in the bathroom – and a young gay man (Rocco Siffredi) who rescues her from suicide.

The woman invites the man to her secluded home for four nights to “watch her where she is unwatchable.”

The film then concentrates on four nights of sexual exploration and philosophy.

It is not a film for the prudish, or squeamish, or for those looking to get their jollies off.

It is full of explicit nudity and sex, but also of graphic imagery that exposes both man and woman for everything that they are physically – from urinating to coitus to pulling out bloody tampons. It is anything but sexually stimulating.

It tries to do the same emotionally but is all too often obtuse with its imagery and symbolism.

In one scene the woman talks of her pubic hair and vulva as a newborn bird lying in its nest. The film cuts from a close-up of the woman’s nether regions to such a bird. The bird is then plucked from its nest by a young boy who sticks it in his pocket. Moments later blood on the shirt reveals the bird is dead and the boy then throws it to the ground and stomps the bird with his boot.

Not exactly subtle. But not exactly poignant either.

The dialogue is similarly robust. The man discusses disgustedly at the horridness of the female body while the woman remarks that all men despise women and if they could would murder them all.

There are lots of long, languid shots where the camera rests upon the couple laying in bed, or pouring a drink without music, sound, or dialogue. As if the image brings some meaning to its story.

If you look closely, beyond some of the more pompous turns of phrase, there is a deeper meaning to be found. Despite the hamfistedness, the director does have something to say.

There is a scene towards the end of the film after the couple parted ways where the man sits in a bar, angry at the previous night’s actions. Like many a man, he displays that anger by playing the braggart making like he devoured the poor woman and split her apart with his maleness, while it is he that has been torn down by those events.

No, Anatomy of Hell is not a film for everyone. Nor does it reach the lofty heights it aims for by breaking so many boundaries. Yet, for those willing to try, there is some truth to be gleaned, some treasure buried beneath its repulsiveness and pomp.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001)

harry potter and the sorcerers stone

This was originally written in September 2006.

Sometimes I suspect I am the only English speaker left who hasn’t read nor seen any of the Harry Potter series. A few years back I attended a midnight sale when one of the books first came out. I went for a good laugh with some friends who were completely hooked on the series.

The place was packed! Elbow to elbow they were all lined up to get the new book. It seemed very strange to me. I’ve attended my share of movie premiers which kind of makes sense, being the first to see a film and all, but they are only a few hours long. A book takes a couple of days to get through at least, and by the size of those Potter books I’d suspect a week or more of reading. Were these people then going to go home and read the book? Could they not have waited until tomorrow and made the purchase?

Scores of them were dressed up like Potter or, I guess other characters. It was like Halloween or a Star Trek convention. I went home mystified by the fandom.

In the years since most of my friends have become Potter fans and often chatter on about it. There are marketing goods, knock-offs, and even the odd religious book condemning Potter and his odious witchcraft. The little boy in the round glasses is everywhere.

I bought the books for my wife last Christmas, secretly thinking I’d read them too. Neither of us has cracked a page.

We borrowed the films from a friend a few months back but returned them having never seen a scene. At the time we thought we’d rather read the books before viewing the films. Last night while browsing Blockbuster we finally decided to rent the blasted thing and see what the fuss was all about.

I’ll start with all the problems I had with the film and there were a few.

I hated, detested, and loathed the large CG creatures. They looked fake, they moved like plastic dolls and they totally distracted me from what was going on in the story.

Perhaps the budget wasn’t up for it, or maybe the technical department wasn’t up for it, but to me, that’s a signal to go with the old-school puppet variety. Maybe it shows my age to say that, but my eyes can suspend their disbelief with a great puppet more than with  decent CG any day of the week.

The rest of the special effects were dandy. I totally believed the flying on broomsticks, the floating keys, and the like, but the three-headed dog, the giant ogre, and other larger-than-life CG characters totally irritated me. Like Jar Jar Binks only less vocal.

There were several moments in the plot that felt brushed over. For instance, there was a harsh rule mandated on the first day of school that all students were to stay out of the woods. Yet when Harry and his pals get detention they are forced to not only go into the woods but are left alone in them. Sure enough, Harry is almost killed. Not very practical on the school’s part, I’d say. I suspect this is explained a little better in the book, but if a big item like this can’t be understood by those who haven’t read then the filmmakers haven’t done their job.

The directing was fair. A few choices seemed to lack any real vision. The ball game is filmed almost entirely in close-ups with only a few long shots showing the overall action. For a game that is only partially explained I would have enjoyed trying to figure out how to play. But with the close-ups, all I could tell was that a few characters were carrying a ball, or Harry was searching for the little one.

For all the problems I had with the film, it was very enjoyable to watch. The acting was good and the characters interesting. It is always difficult for the first film in a series because there is so much background work that you have to do, and they pulled that aspect off well. I’m sure that if I was a few years younger it would sit on a shelf alongside Goonies, Gremlins and Indiana Jones.

I’m definitely looking forward to the sequels and reading the books.

Random Shuffle (09/18/06) – Van Morrison, Jerry Garcia, Ryan Adams, Seu Jorge, & Led Zeppelin

“Magic Time” – Van Morrison
From Magic Time

I can’t really remember when I first discovered Van Morrison him. I do remember having his first greatest hits album for ages and playing it like mad in college. The songs just shimmered and glowed like fresh magic. Eventually, I bought the second greatest hits album and was sunk because it stunk. Most of the songs are from a religious period if he had a religious period like Dylan. I don’t know, I’m not that steeped in Morrison mythology, but a lot of the songs seemed deeply religious, and boring.

In time I’ve come to love more and more of his songs. Is there a greater few minutes of music than “Tupelo Honey?”

I first heard his newest release, Magic Time on a bust tour of Southern Ireland. The bus driver was playing everything Irish including The Man, U2, and lots of traditional Celtic stuff. He played this album and at the time it sounded OK. It was a little slow and not filled with the type of songs you want to hear on a multi-day bus trip.

A friend bought the disk and I borrowed it and have since found it to be a late-era Morrison treasure. The songs are mostly soft, but they have that impassioned Van Morrison delivery, and the lyrics are sweet and kind and perfect for a romantic evening.

This song seems to hearken back to a time when Van was young and full of that magic vigor. It is deeply nostalgic and unapologetic about it. It has a nice little sweeping shuffle and feels like a sunny day picnic out in the countryside – neath a shade tree to keep the heat of the sun at bay.

In other words, just about perfect.

“Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” – Jerry Garcia
From Run for the Roses

Jerry Garcia’s studio albums are about like the Grateful Dead in the studio – mostly awful. That’s not actually all that fair since the Dead released several really great albums, and Jerry did a few good ones solo.

The problem, it seems to me, is that the Dead don’t know how to produce their own records. Live, in the moment, they can perform magic, but given time in the studio to record, listen, and record some more they underestimate their abilities and screw it up.

Garcia puts a little reggae influence into his version of this Dylan classic, but it doesn’t really help. Clocking in at over seven minutes, it just goes on and on without ever hitting a level that justifies the length. Oh, there is some very decent melodic Jerry guitar work in the middle, but it never manages to put me in the kind of zone I often reach during a live performance.

“Firecracker” – Ryan Adams
From 02/09/02

I believe this is Mr. Adams’ third time starring in a Random Shuffle, which may be a record, and certainly proves I have quite a bit of his music on my little computer. A very large portion of my RA collection (at least on my computer) is live. A while back I downloaded a big stinking chunk of a compilation and have yet to actually burn them to disk.

What I have heard of it, it is a bit of a mixed bag. Previously I’ve mentioned how I don’t like Adams’ tendency to write super slow, unmelodic tunes and that goes doubly so for his live material. But even the faster songs performed live, at least in this case, aren’t so great. I very much enjoy his more recent live outings with the Cardinals, but from what I’ve heard of his stuff a few years back, it is not so great. The band just isn’t as on as I like.

Take this instance, for example. “Firecracker” is a great little song. It is a nearly perfectly crafted pop-rock ditty. Live, the organ decides to go all speed metal on me and destroys the melody, Adams tries to keep up and does his best at being the big rock god lead man, but it doesn’t fit. What’s left is the remnants of a good song with a lot of energy, but without the tune that made the song great in the first place. (The video I’ve embedded above is not the version I wrote about, but I couldn’t find it anywhere).

“Rebel Rebel” – Seu Jorge
From The Life Aquatic Studio Sessions

Personally, I felt The Life Aquatic was Wes Anderson’s least interesting film. The action and the characters never quite gelled into a cohesive whole. What helped make it a good film, though, was Seu Jorges’ Spanish takes on David Bowie songs. I don’t think this particular song from the Aquatic Sessions is a David Bowie song, but what do I know I can only name a handful of Bowie songs. So this may or may not be a Bowie cover, but it most definitely is a nice, lulling little acoustic ballad. (Editor’s Note:  I have no idea why I didn’t think this song was originally written by David Bowie, obviously it was.)

While visiting my folks in Oklahoma this summer a commercial came on the TV and in the background was Seu Jorge’s version of “What a Wonderful World” which prompted my brother-in-law to scoff that Jorge was in way too many commercials. At the time I wondered what he meant, as I had only seen the one commercial.

In the weeks that followed I became more familiar with Jorge’s work and have noticed that an awful lot of commercials have used his songs. It is easy to see why. Many of his songs are interesting, unique, and different yet almost instantly accessible. They are on the opposite side of the spectrum from the vapid jingles that most commercials (and pop radio) play every day. Here’s to more commercials playing Seu Jorge and his ilk.

“Battle of Evermore” – Led Zeppelin
From Led Zeppelin IV

It may prove what an odd musical upbringing I had, but I first knew and loved this song through Heart and the version they recorded as The Love Mongers on the soundtrack to the movie Singles.

I still love that version.

I’m sure I was familiar with Led Zeppelin at that time. They were the titan of hard rock, and I certainly enjoyed heavy doses of hard rock. I was more in love with current bands like Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Nirvana, all of which, of course, have heavy influences from Led Zeppelin. But I didn’t own a Zeppelin album then.

Sometime later I rectified this and bought up most of the records. Led Zeppelin is a classic, of course, though I always preferred Led Zeppelin II.

Zeppelin always reminds me of an article I once read about Kurt Cobain, who later in life, was embarrassed that he had Led Zepplin posters on his wall when he was a young boy. They were too corporate, or not punk enough,  and that pointed to being a sell-out.

An easy enough opinion for a young man to have. I certainly went through periods of being embarrassed by the music I once loved. But these days, who has the time? I admit when I was a young boy I had posters of New Kids on the Block, and dug the boy band ditties. Although, I must secretly admit it had more to do with trying to be liked by my cousin and fitting in, than any true admiration of NKOBT.

Not long later, I ripped those same posters down and wondered how I could ever have liked those boys. But now it is a fun little piece of nostalgia, and I can actually go back and admire the hooks and harmonies. It is impossible to not smile when “Hanging Tough” hits the radio on the retro hour. I still do the hand motions too.

I’m no longer a Zeppelin fan. I think I outgrew the crunching guitars and the vulgar, science-fiction lyrics. But I have no shame in spending many hours watching The Song Remains the Same and being mesmerized by Jimmy Page playing the guitar like a violin.

Saw II (2005)

saw 2 poster

In my writing, there is often a conflict between the rational, intelligent critic, and the overly joyous fan-boy. There are many films, albums, and books that I enjoy that don’t stand up under critical observation. They are unoriginal, contain poor craftsmanship, and are quite often unintelligent and stupid, but for whatever reason, I enjoy them immensely. The difficulty lies in trying to review said material that criticizes its quality while still exuding the joy it can give while still maintaining my credibility.

This is doubly true for horror films. Perhaps more than any genre, horror cinema sets expectations very low in terms of overall cinematic quality. With few exceptions, horror films aren’t really very good and garner very little positive critical response.

For every Night of the Living Dead, there are a dozen Return of the Living Dead Part IIs. For every Dracula there exists countless Embrace of the Vampires. Gremlins spawn Ghoulies. And so on and so forth.

I can’t in any serious way recommend any of the Friday the 13th pictures, but when they come on the USA network you will always find me sitting in front of the TV anticipating the next gory move by Jason.

There is probably a secondary question in here about why I (and so many others) enjoy high-impact gore as much as we do. What is it about gushing blood and guts that excites me in some weird cinematic way? But that is more discussion than I have room for now.

I rented Saw II not because I expected it to be good, or a fine piece of cinema, for I expected it to be worse than the first one, and it rather stunk. Rather I rented the film because I wanted to see some inventive death traps, lots of gore, and plenty of blood even if to get there I had to wade through insipid acting, glaring plot holes, and a story that would make my grandma blush.

I got what I expected.

For those who missed the original or its sequel, Saw refers to Jigsaw a crazed serial killer who sets up elaborate games and traps to kill his victims. The games are often so intricate that they would take weeks to set up and involve so many improbable circumstances that they could only be produced in the movies.

In the first film, we are given absolutely no motivation for the killings. In the sequel, we are given a very basic, and rather insipid back story that is supposed to serve as reasons a person would create such elaborate murders.

Here, instead of random killings, Jigsaw has kidnapped several people and thrown them into a house, a house filled with traps and deadly games. Like in previous killings the players find a tape recorder whereupon Jigsaw tells them that the iron gates trapping them inside the house will not be released until two hours are up. However, a deadly gas is being loosed into the house which will kill them all in one hour. The only way to survive is to locate syringes located throughout the house which contain an antidote.

There are also several syringes in a large safe whose combination can be surmised once the players figure out what they have in common.

One of the players is the son of a police officer. The police officer, Eric Matthews (Donnie Walberg) manages to quite easily find Jigsaw in his lair and begins a stand-off with him to release his son, whom they can watch via closed circuit TV.

That’s way too much plot synopsis for a film that lives and dies by its gruesome traps. In the director’s commentary (yes I did listen to a few minutes of it before getting bored) it is noted that they created specific traps for each of the house players, but as the screenplay progressed their characters wound up doing more damage to each other than the traps. Thus we only see a few of the original death traps.

Herein lies a big problem for the film. The first one was effective (and I’ll use that term mildly) because of its creative use of death. The excitement was in the interesting use of gore and thrill. In the sequel, they try to create tension by making the characters go after each other a la Night of the Living Dead. But they can’t muster nearly that kind of tension. The few traps that we do see aren’t all that interesting either. The trailer for the movie shows one of the more interesting ones – a gun is bolted to a door which goes off whenever the characters use a key to open the door – and even that isn’t all that fantastic. Gore-ridden yes, but it is not exactly super original.

Again in the original, most of the traps entailed the player having to do something horrible to get out. Characters sawed their own legs off to get out of chains or dug through a corpse to get a key, but here most of the traps are pretty straightforward killers. Like the gun door, none of the characters knew it was a trap, there was no recording asking the character to do something to avoid getting shot in the head, it simply happened.

Perhaps asking a horror film to be intelligent, well acted, and actually scary is asking to much. Perhaps expecting the sequel to a mostly rotten gore-fest to be better than the original is expecting a miracle.

In the end, Saw II was a decent way to pass the time. No, there wasn’t anything to take away from the film, no revelations or interesting filmatic choices. But then again it isn’t meant to be. It made me squirm a little bit and be grossed out by the blood. And maybe that’s enough. Maybe

Bootleg Country: Paul Simon – Harare, Zimbabwe (02/14/87)

When I was an early teen, say 14, I got a little compact stereo for Christmas. It has a radio, a tape deck and a record player. As my parent’s record player had died many years prior I was very interested in this little device.

My mother, ever the child of the sixties, had an astounding record collection of great early rock and roll (I am sad to say it has since been lost in a flood.) The Beatles, Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Sonny and Cher, the Rascals, Beach Boys, Loving’ Spoonful, you name it if it was a hit in the 1960s she probably had it on vinyl.

This was also the point in my life when I began to take music seriously. Certainly, I had enjoyed music prior to this. I used to tape Casey Kasem’s Top 40 show every week as well as the local stations’ nightly top 10 requests. But I would often record over those tapes with whatever songs were new and popular. Music was something fluffy and fun, like candy that was to be enjoyed and discarded afterward.

Now with all of this great music at my fingertips, I began to really understand the depth and reach of what music could really be. For the first time, I began to really digest the poetry of Dylan, the guttural sex of the Stones, and the sheer brilliance of the Beatles. This was more than just throw-away pop music, it was important.

I spent many hours sitting inside my room, lying flat on my back in my bed devouring this new music. Most of these songs I had heard previously. Mother listened to Oldies radio and so much of what I was now listening to wasn’t new at all. I had heard all of Bob Dylan’s greatest hits separately many times over the years. Yet, as odd as it may sound, I had never put together that they were all his.

As much as I might now scoff at Greatest Hits albums, the 10 songs put together on Dylan’s version were life-changing to this little boy. I couldn’t believe one person had sung so much greatness.

It was Dylan and Simon and Garfunkel that made the biggest impression on me. Something about the sheer force of their songwriting knocked the breath out of me.

To this day I can remember listening to the “Boxer” late one night. As I had done many times before I turned off the lights and set the volume down low so as to allow the music to lull me asleep. Except I couldn’t sleep because my mind kept listening. I couldn’t stop, the song was too forceful to allow such a thing as sleep. The music, as it has done many a time since, kept me awake and begging for more.

02/14/87
Rutfaro Stadium
Harare, Zimbabwe

When I first started dating the girl who was to become my wife I gave her three CDs as a means to share my musical obsession. They weren’t necessarily my all-time favorite CDs, though they would certainly be high on the list, but albums I thought she would never have heard and that would shed some light into music that moved me.

Those albums were Willie Nelson’s Stardust, Nanci Griffith’s One Fair Summer Evening, and Paul Simon’s Graceland.

Graceland is an album of sheer joy to me. It is filled with great pop songcraft as well as a myriad of astounding vocals and rhythms from South Africa. It also helped bring about Americans listening to “World Music”.

This show is a song-by-song recreation of the album complete with a cacophony of South African musicians who provide their own myriad of sounds.

In fact, it is the African performances that make the bootleg worth listening to. Simon certainly performs with adequacy, but there is nothing here that really outshines the album. Part of the problem is that he only plays songs from Graceland. To be a really great performance, to me, you need to play songs spanning your entire career, not just one album.

Maybe Simon wanted to highlight only his newest album. Perhaps he wanted to showcase the African musicians and singers for the entire show. It seems to me this could have been done better by arranging a few older songs to include the singers. I can imagine an absolutely astounding African vocal arrangement of “April Come She Will” and a mesmerizing “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.” But for whatever reason, we don’t get any of that, just Graceland and several what I can only guess are African originals.

It is there that the disks shine. The South African performers create sounds with their voices and instruments that are out of this world (or at least out of this part of the world). It is mystifying.

Unfortunately, the mix of Simon and the South Africans is a little underwhelming. I have heard marvelous things about this tour, and I suspect had I been in the audience I would be saying similar marvelous things, but to these ears, the tape doesn’t hold up to the hype.

It is hard to point at anything particularly wrong with this set, but when I think of Paul Simon performing Graceland live in South Africa with performers from the area I get all goose pimply and when I listen to the disks, I keep waiting for something more.

It is a good set, with good music. It’s just that when compared to say the Grateful Dead circa 1977 or Dylan in the 60’s or Bela Fleck in any year, this set just doesn’t have that same magic.

Random Shuffle (09/11/06): Barenaked Ladies, Bruce Broughton, Alison Krauss, Everything But the Girl, & Eric Von Schmidt

“Brian Wilson” – The Barenaked Ladies
from Rock Spectacle

I’m a total sucker for pop culture references. Perhaps this is because I am not only a pop culture junkie, but often make references myself in everyday conversation. I suppose when artists make similar references it makes me feel like they are one of us, or rather more pertinently, I am like them. Perhaps I could be a cool rock star, or writer pleasing fans by adding in subtle references to pop culture.

Whatever the reason for my love, when I heard the Barenaked Ladies break-out hit “One Week” I immediately adored it. The fast-paced, rat-a-tat-tat references filled me with glee. Add to that a reference to Kurasawa and I was sold.

I didn’t actually buy the album the song was on but rather an album filled with their “hits” played live. It was here I formed the opinion that they are decent songwriters with a tendency to get overly sentimental and have some of the worst rhymes in pop music. And tend to rely too heavily on jokes rather than true songwriting.

“Brian Wilson” is one of their better numbers with a sly reference to the Beach Boys’ nervous breakdown. I can even forgive the drooling joke because it references Pavlov in a way that borders on genius. Yet again when you hit the chorus the music moves into juvenile playing. It is nothing more than some adequate players speeding it up. It’s like they hit rock star mode and know nothing more than to play faster without actually having any chops.

The album is like that. There are a handful of great songs that make me laugh and feel BNL could be a great freaking band, but then they slip into full obnoxious teenage writing. Oh well, we’ll always have “If I Had a $1,000,000”

“Theme to Silverado” – Bruce Broughton
from the Original Soundtrack

I’m periodically a total sucker for rousing movie scores. Sometimes I like to pretend that I am a classical music buff, but in all honesty, though I do enjoy some of the bigger pieces, I mostly relegate that stuff to background music. Though not classical music in any sense other than the lack of singers, movie scores seem stuck in the same genre to me.

Perhaps they are more rousing, or maybe because they are attached to images and words that I adore, they seem to take up more space in my musical collection.

Silverado is a very decent movie that tried to reinvent the western genre and serves more as a winking tribute to old-style westerns. The score is mostly forgettable but the main theme has a nice bit of oomph to it that perks up my lips most of the time.

“Oh Atlanta” – Alison Krauss and Union Station
from 06/24/01

Alison Krauss has a great country/bluegrass voice. It is a perky, beautiful thing. The Union Station likewise are all superior musicians. Sadly, I tend to like very few of their songs. There are just a few that make anything memorable or enjoyable after they are heard.

“Oh Atlanta” is one of the few. Maybe it is because I love the south, or that my wife is from Georgia but I’ve never met a song about the state I didn’t love. It helps that Krauss sings it with verve and that the lyrics involve coming back to Georgia, and that is a longing I understand.

I grew up in Oklahoma but spent four years getting a college degree in Alabama and I consider myself an adopted son of the South. I don’t think I could ever explain the feeling to someone who has never loved the South, but there is just something intoxicating about the land. The people seem nicer there, the tea sweeter, and the air filled with more life.

I hope to move back there someday, and I think I’ll play this song on my way.

“Love is Strange” – Everything But the Girl
from Spin Sampler

When I was in high school I subscribed to Spin magazine which I considered to be far superior to Rolling Stone. In those days, before Guccione Jr sold the rag, it was. It had a focus on “alternative” music which of course, at the time in the early 90s was all the rage. Like that music it made me feel like I was onto something different, something only a few understood. Never mind that millions of people bought Nirvana and Pearl Jam albums, the whole scene felt like it was for the few, the cool, and I wanted to be like that.

For subscribing, I received a sampler disk filled with all the hip alterna-songs of the moment.

Though I sported the long hair and the grungy flannel and the black t-shirts with Soundgarden and Dinosaur Jr on them, I was still a closet fan of the soft, acoustic love songs.

Don’t tell anybody.

This is a cover of the Dolly Parton number. It’s played with less danceability, but there is a softness to it that I find lilting. They repeat the lyrics twice, the second verse having a little “oh-whoa” rave-up between each line.

I was always fond of the lyrics “You’re sweet loving is better than a kiss/when you leave those kisses I will miss.” This seems to say that love is more than a physical attraction, and yet physical attraction is very much a component of romance. As a geeky teenager who had never had as much as a kiss, those words spoke to me.

I still love that song. I put it on a comp for my wife and we played it during the reception of our wedding.

“Wasn’t That a Mighty Storm” – Eric Von Schmidt
Troubadours Of The Folk Era, Volume One

I first heard this song on Nanci Griffith’s album Other Voices, Too in which she plays a very upbeat version with a who’s who of country/folk musicians. It is a great version that almost makes you forget the lyrics are about an awful, destructive, deadly storm.

This is the original (?) version and here it is much more of a dirge. Von Schmidt plays the guitar with a kind of deep, dark feel like it is the sea wall approaching. His voice adds menace to the song.

I dig the folk tradition of making songs out of tragedies. Horrible things happen and we make songs to sing around the campfire to it.