Merry Rockmas

If you're looking for a some rock on Christmas, do yourself a favor: Go to the Comedy Central Motherload on comedycentral.com and check out the Decemberists-Stephen Colbert showdown, Countdown to Guitarmaggedon. I still can't believe they got Elliot Spitzer and Henry Kissinger, much less Peter Frampton and Rick Nielson of Cheap Trick.

Other than that, I'm off to a well-deserved Christmas break in the Bahamas (the benefits of having a father who travels for work is the usage of miles at times like these). I shall return on the 28th.

Hipster watch

Pitchfork released their ever-important Top 50 Albums for 2006 today. Topping the list is a strange choice: Silent Shout by The Knife. I did some preliminary scouting, and saw that 14 people in the Chicago network of facebook list The Knife, a Swedish synth pop brother-sister duo, under favorite music as of 2:30 on December 19, 2006. I'll see how much that changes by the start of winter quarter.

Despite my despise of Pitchfork, 4 of my top 5 picks also make their list (Boys and Girls in America at #6, Be Your Own Pet at #21, I Am Not Afraid of You and Will Beat Your Ass at #23, The Obliterati at #33). Of course, my top pick, St. Elswhere by Gnarls Barkley, failed to make the list. Furthermore, neither "Crazy" nor "Gone Daddy Gone" made the Top 100 Tracks list ("Crazy" they said qualified for 2005), nor did my other favorite track of 2006, The Strokes' "You Only Live Once."

Only one critic put St. Elsewhere on their list at all, which seems odd, as some of the albums that made the list got lower ratings when they were originally reviewed. Also, Pitchfork's favorite ex-boyband wonder and declother of 40 year olds got the nod for best for "My Love." Blech.

Link of the day

In case you've missed it, (as I had previous to last night). Conan O'Brian has been running a segment in recent weeks that rivals the Walker, Texas Ranger lever. During a bit on football mascots, Conan introducted "The FSU Webcam Manatee," which prompted Conan to utter the phrase "hornymanatee.com" on the air. As a result, NBC was legally obligated to buy hornymanatee.com, which now has reached over 5 million hits, about a million unique viewers, and has gotten thousands of fan art, videos, poems, stories, and songs. The website has the videos from the show, as well as a live webcam of the manatee.

It was bound to happen

After 10 days, High Fidelity the musical is closing. Was there really any doubt?

Gibson's masochist tango

Moreso than the Scots, Jesus, or Mayans, Mel Gibson has consistently believed that the cruellest attacks are those on Mel Gibson. In a USA Today interview, Gibson said people are unfairly attacking his behavior, which produced the aphorism: "I've apologized, done the right thing, now get the hell over it." Well Mel, could it be possible that some people...just...don't like you? Could it be that some people realize you are batshit insane and deserve all the criticism you get? Or how you make a vaguely anti-Semitic movie and then accuse the Jews of being responsible for all the wars in the world? (which no one really believes was prompted by alcohol alone)?

In terms of Apocalypto, Gibson is pulling the same stunt he pulled for Passion of the Christ, where anyone who criticizes his movie is attacking Gibson personally. "To make it personal against me, that's a low blow." Could it be that maybe critics don't like you or your movie? In fact, many critics don't like you but do like your movie, but I think very few don't like the movie but like you, Mel.

His justification for the "personal" nature of the criticism is that Apocalypto is "less violent than Braveheart." Hmmm, sorry Mel. Amid all the pierced colons and decapitations, I forgot that no one was disembowled and quartered. My bad.

The Velvet Underground's hundred-thousand dollar album

I, for one, am quite fascinated by the story of the Velvet Underground acetate that was recently sold on eBay for $155,401. For one, the fact that it was acquired at a Montreal flea market for 75 cents onlu adds more mythology to the antique market. Also, the unorthodoxy of the auction—it probably would have sold for half as much at Christie's to predictable buyers—shows how different the eBay auction is. Only on eBay could an abnormally large Cheeto sell for tens of thousands of dollars, and only there could a Velvet Underground acetate, however rare, sell for six figures. There's no real appraisement of value on eBay other than popular consensus, and we have no idea why "mechadaddy," the username of the eBay buyer, would spend so much on the album. It adds a democratic nature to the auction process simply not seen on Travelling Antiques Road Show.

Apocalypto fake hype

Well, if Mel Gibson is the master of anything, it's manipulating hype to his advantage. Lately, all we've heard about Apocalypto is that it's been getting rave reviews, but critics are reluctant to praise a madman, causing Gibson to draw comparisons to Leni Riefenstahl. But is that really the case? Take a look at Apocalypto's rotten tomatoes page, and you'll see it's gotten roughly 65% good reviews. From the cream of the crop, that number drops to 59%. Furthermore, take a look at what some of the "good reviews" actually say. Amy Biancolli at the Houston Chronicle, in what is listed as a good review, says Gibson's judgment is "sorely lacking" and Slant says "Mel Gibson is sick, but his new film profits from his weakness." Instead of universal praise of a work of art by Gibson, Apocalypto seems to be getting mixed, unresolute reviews.

I have strongly maintained that no matter how extreme or sick the violence is, a movie cannot be based on the nature of violence alone. I criticize Kill Bill for making this mistake just as much as The Passion of the Christ. But with this film, Gibson seems to have secured his legacy as one of the most self-indulgent, sadomasochistic directors in film history. He makes Kubrick's work on A Clockwork Orange seem modest. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if the movie is a flop, as churches that bused people out to see The Passion won't want to see a bloody epic about savage Mayans. Box office predictors are estimating a total gross around $100 million, but I feel this may be a tad presumptuous.

Snakes on a Plane actually kinda lame

So on Friday, they showed Snakes on a Plane at Doc. I finally got to see it, and the crowd, just as I hoped was decidedly enthusiastic (wasted...?). But the movie, despite all the hype, was dissapointing. Not in the sense that it was bad, but that it wasn't bad enough. Once you got the snakes going crazy on the plane, it just turned into a mindless action movie no different from any other, except with snakes instead of car chases and explosions.

In fact, the most decidedly bad scene of the movie was the first one, before snakes were even insinuated. The actor playing mobster Eddie Kim gave an absolutely atrocious perfomance, there were more motorcycle wheelies than necessary at all, and when Eddie Kim beat a prosecutor with a baseball bat, the blood splattered beyond all normal level (it even rivaled Kill Bill in unnecessary bloodiness). I expected more of the same, but for the rest of the movie I didn't really notice how bad it was.

Add the lack of B-movie glory to the misguided judgment of fans desires and other marketing incompetancies, and this movie was probably the biggest disaster of 2006, and not in a "good" way.