Tom Hanks as Producer

The New York times ran a very interesting story today on Tom Hanks' budding career as a producer. I was not aware of the magnitude of this aspect of his career. For an actor who has not been in a good movie in nearly 5 years now, I thought he entering the tail end of his career. But as it turns out, his career as a producer is thriving. In addition to producing Neil Young: Heart of Gold and the recently realeased Ant Bully, Playtone, his production company, has a barrage of upcoming projects. Highlights include an HBO Mini Series on John Adams, a film about Afghanistan directed by Mike Nichols, and, perhaps most exciting to me, an adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are by Spike Jonze.

As ironic as it may seem, the article makes an interesting point that big-name actors who deal with the production side of films tend to make smaller, better movies. The most obvious example of late, of course, has been George Clooney's Good Night and Good Luck. Actors have money and fame, so their real challenge is to make quality films, which they certainly have the resources to make. While this is certainly not always the case (Adam Sandler's career as a producer is case in point), some established actors, particularly those less consumed with the celebrity phenomenon, turn to making less blockbuster orienteted films that place a higher emphasis on writing and acting. Granted, Playtone's two most successful films (Cast Away and My Big Fat Greek Wedding) are by no means artistic highlights of recent cinema, they certainly break from the conventional model from movies expecting to gross $300 million. It's not a new phenomenon, but it's nice to see there is a platform for more artistically minded films to come out of Hollywood.

Pitchfork: Too Hip for Its Own Good?

Probably the highlight of the past week in terms of new music was the first new album by the New York Dolls in over 30 years. One Day it Will Please Us to Remember Even This, featuring the surviving Dolls (vocalist David Johanson and rhythm guitarist Sylvain Sylvain) and a bunch of replacement players, has opened to mostly positive reviews and a autograph-signing at Tower Records in New York. Yet, despite the Dolls being one of the founders of punk, and hence, indie rock, Pitchfork decided to omit a review of the new Dolls album.

This is one of the more baffling things Pitchfork has done in a while, since it's reported on the reformation of the Dolls and the new album repeatedly in the recent past. Are they trying to make some kind of statement? The release has certainly been hyped enough and has been getting mainstream press attention (USA Today even reviewed it). Could indie culture have come to the point where punk, or at least proto-punk, is not cool enough anymore?

I don't know if the lack of review is a statement about Pitchfork or about indie culture in general, as both feed off each other. Nonetheless, Pitchfork has had a penchant for anti-punk statements lately, the most notable being their justification for the rather bizarre selection of David Bowie's Low as their Best Album of the 1970s:

Politically, Low is a singular and brutal indictment of the only thing Bowie's native England cared about in January 1977: punk rock. To a man who lived through Iggy and-- let's be honest-- designed Johnny Rotten, punk's brief lifespan and predominantly societal (rather than musical) impact were foregone conclusions. That Bowie could see past the flames to paint this horizon is irrefutable evidence of his solipsistic genius. Balancing process art, experimentalism and rock 'n' roll tradition, Low is Bowie unrefined, the most captivating effort from the decade's most-watched man. --Chris Ott

This statement, while likely to win over the tides of hipsters who read it, is highly inaccurate. Bowie never indicted punk rock, nor did he design Johnny Rotten. Punk was just breaking in 1977--how can a movement be a subject to a brutal indictment when the album hadn't even been created before it took off? For that matter, if Bowie had "lived through Iggy", why would he go on to produce two Iggy Pop solo albums later that year?

The problem is that Pitchfork can distort history all it wants, because no one will call them on it. The cool thing to do now is make fun of how pretentious and jaded Pitchfork is, yet have them determine what you listen to all the same. If that's the case, not reviewing the New York Dolls album will almost certainly cripple the album's success, despite the barrage of punk revival going on lately. One more point of note is that the New York Dolls' classic self-titled LP did not make Pitchfork's 100 Best of the '70s list. What's up with Pitchfork's Dolls hatin' as of late?