Idolator and I have similar taste in blue-balled anthems

While my 2007 best of the year movie list will appear in the first Maroon of the quarter, I will not be submitting a music list this year. I have admittedly weird tastes, yes, but this year, my weird taste has been validated more in the press than in past years. For instance, my favorite song of the year, hands down, was "No Pussy Blues" by Grinderman, Nick Cave's latest project. This deadpan, 100% irony-free song is about just what is sounds like, one of the oldest rock standards. Yet, Grinderman's fantastic track displays Cave's maturity both as a musician and human being, and "No Pussy Blues displays the humor, bleakness, and catharsis that could only come with a perspective like Cave's on a subject normally meant for teenagers. I was pleasantly surprised when Pitchfork ranked it as high as #11, but now, Jess Harvall at Idolator, as always, one-ups her main rival by ranking "No Pussy Blues" #1B in Idolator's Top 40 list of awesomeness, a precursor to their critic-wide choice of albums and tracks. Not only that, but Jess explains her omission of P-fork's own #1 choice, LCD Soundsystem's "All My Friends". I couldn't have said it better myself, so here's her words:

LCD Soundsystem's "All My Friends," undoubtedly a great record, has found its way to the top of many year-end best-of lists thanks to (among other sentiments) its generally uplifting affirmation that you still might be able to find solace for the sucky parts of your life in platonic companionship well after those intense friendships of your teenage years. And who wouldn't find it easier to be seduced by a song with a smidge of hope for relationships getting richer with age? James Murphy's occasional notes of thirtysomething anxiousness about isolation are pure Hallmark compared to Cave and his song that seems to say friends don't mean shit when you're twenty years on from that and still scrounging desperately for one more lay, no better off than you were when you were 15, just as fixated on ass, and probably more likely to get it. So what's left to do but crack wise with a wink and all wit your tired ol' butt can muster after yet another flub and set it to the grimiest groove of the last 12 months? "No Pussy Blues" ain't earnest and it's pretty ugly, but if you value ribaldry and release more than most things, this is your tune.

The selection here once again confirm's Idolator's status as a critic and fan favorite. I imagine after the debacle with the Village Voice's Pazz and Jop poll last year, Idolator's poll will only get stronger.

Jon Spencer and Weird Al? I'm totally blogging that

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion is increasingly becoming one of my favorite bands of the '90s, and the discovery of this video may have sealed the deal. This is the music video for the single "Wail" off their hit 1996 album Now I Got Worry (and my favorite JSBX song). It's directed by none other than Weird Al Yankovic. Is this awesome? (y/n).

Enjoy!

Will Smith proves that Hannah Arendt and TMZ don't mix

As I have argued before, the fact that celebrities get blasted for making offensive comments so often is more of a product of our time than of those celebrities themselves. How fitting is it that Will Smith, arguably the least offensive rapper in the history of hip-hop, is getting lambasted for making offensive comments?

The exact quote is provided courtesy of CNN:

In a story published Saturday in the Daily Record, Smith was quoted saying: "Even Hitler didn't wake up going, 'let me do the most evil thing I can do today.' I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was 'good.' "

The quote was preceded by the writer's observation: "Remarkably, Will believes everyone is basically good."

Over the weekend, dozens of celebrity gossip Web sites posted articles about the comment, many saying that Smith believed that Hitler was a "good" person.

"It is an awful and disgusting lie," Smith said in a statement Monday provided by his publicist. "It speaks to the dangerous power of an ignorant person with a pen. I am incensed and infuriated to have to respond to such ludicrous misinterpretation."

"Adolf Hitler was a vile, heinous vicious killer responsible for one of the greatest acts of evil committed on this planet," read the statement.

Trained U of C scholars will identify Will Smith's argument here as the same as Hannah Arendt's famous banality of evil argument: that there was nothing inherently evil about Nazis or anything particular about Nazism, but by performing seemingly banal and earnest goals, unprecedented evil can be accomplished. It was a very controversial argument, to be sure, but I don't think gossip columnists were going for the Life of the Mind when they came up with headlines such as "Will Smith -- Hitler, Schmitler; He Wasn't That Bad" or "Smith: Hitler Was a Good Person."

I actually find is personally offensive that the Jewish Defense League would release a statement saying that Will Smith "spits on the memory of every person murdered by the Nazis. His disgusting words stick a knife in the backs of every veteran who fought (and sometimes died) to save the world from the intentions of Adolf Hitler" without even reading the article. That sounds less like "defending" Jews and more like a witch hunt for anti-Semitism. At HuffPo, Earl Ofari Hutchinson noted that being African-American, Smith may be facing consequences of Louis Farrakhan's anti-Semitic and Hitler-sympathizing remarks 20 years ago. But seriously, of all the 80's rappers to attack because of Farrakhan, you're picking the Fresh Prince? I guess they're done going after rappers who said "Farrakhan's a prophet and I think you ought to listen to/ What he can say to you, what you ought to do."

This generation gets its Tennessee Williams, and his name is Tracy Letts

If you have any interest in theater whatsoever, step over your own mother to see August: Osage County on Broadway through March. In fact, after seeing the play, I may encourage you to go out of your way to step on your mother, then go see August: Osage County. The prospect of a 3-and-a-half-hour long legit black comedy about a crumbling American family may seem daunting, and it is, but then, so is King Lear.

I chose King Lear as an example intentionally. Both plays involve 3 daughters fighting over their father's territory, with a series of alternately complex and conniving roleplayers. August: Osage County just also happens to have a matriarch rivaled only by Amanda Wingate and Mary Tyrone in all of American drama, and a daughter as tragically flawed and betwixt in her responsibilities as a daughter, sister, and wife, as Antigone (throw in mother to the equation). Did I mention it's also the funniest play on Broadway in years?

You may remember that I had a certain exchange with Tracy Letts over the crossover between theater and hockey, but now I'm just gleefully excited to have communicated with the writer of the next great American-with-a-capital-A dramas. You know, in the Death of a Salesmen, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Fences kinda way? Yeah, you can add August: Osage County to that list.

I'm even more giddy that when I said to myself only Proof can compare in terms of American plays of the last decade, I realized I've had an association with the playwrights of both of those plays (though my connection to David Auburn is much stronger). Even though the audience was old, loud, and obnoxious before the show, by the first intermission they were buzzing like no other Broadway play I've been to since, well, Proof.

Last year, when Wicked was a surprise success in Chicago, I worried that it would New York-ize Chicago theater, and weaken the grassroots model that had defined Chicago theater. Now, I'm immensely excited about the prospect that August: Osage County may Chicago-ize New York theater. In fact, I haven't been this excited about New York theater in years. If you combine the creativity and diversity of Chicago theater with the budget and professionalism of New York theater, we may be on the cusp of a new Golden Age for American theater. Wouldn't that be something?

Jews take over British Christmas Charts: No word if the Israel Lobby is involved

In one of the weirdest stories I've encountered in awhile, apparently the British Christmas pop charts is being taking over by a Jewess. 17-year-old Lauren Rose, with her Britney-ized version of "Hava Nagila" is the odds-on favorite to top the British Christmas charts, according to the liberal Israel daily Haaretz (notice it's not called the "holidays chart" in England). In the music video, Rose clearly gets farpitzt:



Clearly this will soon be played at bat mitzvah near you, complete with grinding 13 year olds. If you think that sounds a bit ridiculous, clearly you have not been to a bat mitzvah lately.

Apparently, Replicants Do Age After All

Sometimes, between my almost maniacal fandom of The Minutemen and Hüsker Dü, along with Blade Runner and Repo Man being on the short list for Ethan's favorite movie consideration, I forget just how long ago the '80s were. I was four years old when they ended, and while I'm glad that Mötley Crüe and padded shoulders are no longer in fashion, some of my loves from this era do die hard.

For instance, I can now thank my former employer for ruining one of my favorite film fantasies memories of the 80's: Sean Young. She was hauntingly beautiful, both in her appearance and performance, as Rachael in Blade Runner. And then TMZ had to perform the old before/after trick:


Suddenly, my Hanukkah present lost a little of my interest.

Art Mirrors Life: Tracy Flick clashes with Beanie Campbell

It seems there's a feud involving the romantic comedy Four Christmases, starring Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn. Fitting with David Denby's analysis, it involves, a slovenly, slacker-type male and a fun-hating female who needs everything to be in order. The difference, in this case, is that those descriptions match the actors, and not the characters they play. According to the Daily News' Gatecrasher column, the feud between the stars of Four Christmases, a movie about a couple visiting their four divorced parents, is much more entertaining than the film itself.

Witherspoon, true to her character in Election, is a "one-shot perfectionist," while Vaughn, true to every non-psychotic character he's ever played, is "an ad-libber who wants to play around." I smell a sitcom!

The feuding hasn't gotten to the point where they would need to halt production, but apparently Vaughn "sometimes has this look on his face that he just wants to kill her!" This description by an unnamed source, clearly the beacon of all reliable journalism, is bound to produce a Psycho-referencing headline in some gossip rag. As for the Daily News itself, the headline merely references Witherspoon's Type A production company, but they still did a bang up job photoshopping two rather apt pictures together:

Way to stay professional, Daily News.

A.V. Club Picks The Worst Band Names of 2007

In one of my favorite annual features at this time of year: The A.V. Club asks the important question: Which makes better music, The Rape Ape or Yo Moma's Big Fat Booty Band? That's right, boys and girls, it's time for the The Worst Band Names of 2007, and here are my personal faves:
Da Bears (from San Diego)
The Absestos Tampons
Unicorn Dream Attack
Comanche Abortion
Dance Me Pregnant
Harmonica Lewinsky (a Scottish blues band)
Clusterfunk ("Purveyors of Soulful Groove")
Punk as a Doornail
General Patton & His Privates
Candygram for Mongo "Bio: 'If Cheap Trick were moderating a debate between Social Distortion and the Dropkick Murphys over which was better: internet vs. home video pornography - it would sound like Candygram For Mongo!'"
Fucking Orange
Gray Lines of Perfection (under the "Emoooooo" category)
Best Fwends ("Although they describe their sound as 'slightly better than terrible,' they nevertheless won Vice Magazine's "worst album of the month." Then all their gear was stolen. And now they're on this list. They can't catch a break!")
Coach Said Not To

The best part is the show lineups that produced a combination of the aforementioned bands. Here's the best:
Pink Reason + Psychedelic Horseshit, Expensive Shit: Beerland, 10pm

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Diddy: "Kenneth Tynan is my homeboy"

This makes me happy beyond belief. While looking where this blog ranks on google searches for "Kenneth Tynan" I come up with this gem from The Guardian circa 2005, in regards to Sean Puffy Combs' plan to buy 4 West End Theaters. Here's the best quote:

"Kenneth Tynan is my homeboy," he said yesterday. "He smoked the chronic, he liked getting freaky with bitches' asses, and I both entirely subscribe to his analysis of British theatre in He That Plays the King, and am endlessly impressed by his work at the National Theatre in the late 60s."

The mix of hip-hop meter and puro thesbo-speak is as beautiful as it comes. You don't get a mix of interests quite like this.

Cloverfield Clip---OMG!

JJ Abrams is a viral marketing genius. After announcing his Cloverfield project with a bang this summer, he's posted this incredible 5-minute clip and announced whoever gets the most clicks gets an exclusive preview screening in their city. This is just begging for everyone to post the clip on their site, and I'm no less gullible.

As someone who was in New York on 9/11, this video brings a chill to my spine. I know it's just a monster movie, but it touches on a lot of post-9/11 fears, as it's obviously meant to. Not even the sight of hipsters running for their lives in fear can make me crack a smile. There's also some smart media commentary: notice the insane number of camera phones that are whipped out quicker than tears when the Statute of Liberty head crashes onto Manhattan Island.

I'm pretty excited about this, and can't imagine this film won't be anything but a (pardon me) monster success.

American Theater Company gets the special Trib Treatment

The Trib had an excellent profile Sunday of what is arguably my favorite theater company in Chicago, the American Theater Company. Along with Timeline and the Hypocrites, the ATC is at the forefront of a new generation of Chicago theater, one that began in the late 90s and is growing at a pace the mirrors that of the Steppenwolf and the Victory Gardens 30 years ago. Two of best productions I've seen in Chicago both came from ATC: their 2005 production of Orpheus Descending at last season's particularly audacious production of Oklahoma! Damon Kiely was one of the better artistic directors in this city, and now he has stepped down to teach at DePaul. In his place comes PJ Paparelli, who had previously headed the Perseverance Theater Company in Juneau, Alaska.

Now if you're like me, you're initial thoughts were "Alaska?!?!" But in fact, he is incredibly qualified, and then some. As the face of theater in Alaska, he actually had a budget twice the size of ATC's current budget, and had a contact list that puts most thespians to shame. In fact, he held the premiere of the new show by the prides of UT, Greg Kotis and Mark Hollmann, creators of Urinetown, which is slated for the 2008-2009 season, and may be on the fast track to Broadway.

As if that's not enough, there are plans to open up a $4 million space in Logan Square. I was dumbfounded by what ATC was able to do with a show like Oklahoma! in their less-than-modest space, so I can only wait with eager anticipation what they'll be able to do with more resources in hand.

ATC is the only theater in Chicago that I've seen a show from each season since I've been a student at the U of C, and am looking forward to seeing one of their upcoming shows. It'll be interesting to see if Paparelli is as successful as Kielly, but so far, all signs are positive.

Freakonomics Documentary in the works: No word yet on whether "Freakonomist" will appear

So it's no secret that I'm a member of the Freakonomics cult. I'm also a huge fan of when Freakonomics apply to the arts world. Now, I hear of a proposition that has me practically salivating: a Freakonomics documentary.

Yes, as Stephen Dubner announced on his blog, Variety is reporting that a documentary based on the book Freakonomics is in the works. What's particularly striking is the format: an all-star collection of documentary filmmakers will each be making a short film on a chapter of the book. It's being produced by Seth Gordon, the man behind my favorite documentary of the year (The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters), along with Chad Troutwine (Paris je t’aime). Some of the names enlisted include Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me), Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing (Jesus Camp), Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room), Laura Poitras (My Country My Country), Eugene Jarecki (Why We Fight) and Jehane Noujaim (Control Room).

Ewing, along with Rachel Grady, are asking for people to email them on how Freakonomics have affected their lives. I imagine there are a lot of U of C students, econ majors or otherwise, who have been deeply impacted by the work and classes of one of our university's finest professors. So, all University of Chicago students out there, send your emails to Ewing and Grady at freakonomicsmovie (at) gmail (dot) com, and tell them what Freakonomics means to you.

(Photo courtesy of The Chicago Shady Dealer).

Leave Katherine Heigl Alone!

Katherine Heigl, star of Knocked Up and Grey's Anatomy, has been under a lot of slack lately for comments she made in the January 2008 issue of Vanity Fair. Although Knocked Up has turned her from semi-obscure TV star to one of Hollywood's most coveted female actors, Heigl criticized the movie for being sexist. The article is not online, but here's what according to The Boston Herald, Heigl was quoted as saying “It paints the women as shrews, as humorless and uptight, and it paints the men as lovable, goofy, fun-loving guys,” and that she was critical of the general portrayal of women.

Even though the article has yet to really make a dent, it's always getting scathing critiques online. In The Hater at the A.V. Club, Amelie Gilette really dug deep, arguing that since she has continued to take on sexist roles such as the upcoming 27 Dresses, and has a line of designer scrubs, she has no place criticizing anything as being sexist. Over at my former employer, Erik Davis notes that Knocked Up could equally be viewed as critical of men, and that frankly, Heigl's character makes some stupid decisions as well.

While I don't necessarily agree with Heigl, I have a serious problem with all the backlash against her. I tend to treat accusations of sexism more seriously than other accusations of prejudice, simply because people are more likely to shoot down any accusation of sexism as being the product of "feminazis," while less substantial arguments on race make national headlines. Secondly, as they were kind enough to point out at the Entertainment Weekly PopWatch, just because Heigl got publicity for the role doesn't mean she has to slavishly accept it for all it's worth. We don't have a problem with Alec Guinness hating Obi-Wan or the Beastie Boys hating "Girls," so why should we have a problem when Katherine Heigl brings up criticism of the role that seem relatively benign compared to the aforementioned examples? In this case, the cure has been worse than the disease.

The best commentary on the matter, however, has come straight from the horse's mouth: Judd Apatow, Katherine Heigl's "target," noted, "I think the characters are sexist at times, but it's really about immature people who are afraid of women and relationships and learn to grow up. If people say that the characters are sexist, I say, yeah, that's what I was going for in the first part of the movie, and then they change." Another quote from the smartest man in hollywood, "I've done a lot of interviews, and when you're promoting a movie, you talk for hours and hours and hours, and so it's very easy for something to be taken out of context. I'm just happy people are talking about Knocked Up six months after it came out."

While I'm less inclined to say she was misquoted, since she has also recently spoke out against Grey's Anatomy's too, I applaud Apatow yet again for treating the issue lightly and pragmatically.

Is Dewey Cox the next Spinal tap?

There are a ton of movies I really want to see this Oscar season, but few have me as excited as athe decidedly un-Oscar worthy film Walk Hard. There are more reasons for this to go right than for it to go wrong. It spoofs the music biopic at exactly the right time, gives John C. Reilly the starring feature he's deserved for over a decade now, and adds to the 2007 resume of the smartest man in Hollywood. It also features some ingenious casting decisions, such as Paul Rudd as John Lennon, Jason Schwartzmann as Ringo Starr, and, in a decision that's had me excited for months, Jack White as Elvis.

Well, tonight I will be one of the lucky few who not only enjoys a preview of the film, but gets to see the man, the legend, perform himself. John C. Reilly will be at the preview screening and performing after the concert as part of his brilliantly named Cox Across America tour. The fact that Reilly is performing in character leads me to believe we may see an ironic fictional musician become a reality once again, in the style of The Monkees, Hannah Montana, and perhaps most brilliantly, Spinal Tap:



No word yet on whether Cox's drummer will choke on someone else's vomit.

Wikipedia has great priorities

Here's an interested factoid from the subconscious of Web 2.0:

The Wikipedia page on Jenna Jameson has 120 references, many cited repeatedly, with annotated notes.

The Wikipedia page on Socrates, by comparison, has a total of 10 incomplete notes, and 8 references total.

Socrates is mortal indeeed.

The Gamespot Scandal and what it means for video game criticism

There's been a scary, deeply disturbing scandal in the video game press recently, and it's enough to make me less inclined trust a video game review again. The even more depressing thing is that it's afflicted a site which for years was one of the more credible video game reviewing websites out there. Two years ago, however, it was bought by CNET, and there have been complaints of business forces trying to influence editorial decisions since then. The complaints reached a fever pitch last week, however, when Jeff Gerstmann, an editor at the site who had been with Gamespot for over a decade, was fired without warning and escorted off the premises by security. The obvious reason for this is that he was fired after he gave a negative review to Eidos's Kane & Lynch, which had spent a significant amount advertising on the site to the point where it was the site's skin over the week. Furthermore, Gerstmann's video review was taken down from the Gamespot website. If you watch the video, you'll see it's a pretty standard negative review, nothing too snarky, and certainly not enough to warrant an impromptu firing.



This is an embarrassment for Eidos, CNET Media, and the video game press in general. The biggest knock on the video game press so far had been that it was a sucker to the industry, and influenced more than any other criticism field by the advertisers of whom they were supposed to be critical. This story is like the Tim Donaghy scandal in the NBA—everyone thinks the reviews are rigged, and now we're seeing confirmation of all our worst fears.

Maggie Green has an excellent survey of blog responses at Kotaku, the most poignant coming from Kevin Gifford Gamasutra on how the Internet made readers only care about the number attached to reviews. I'm usually weary of "the Internet has made critics redundant" type arguments, but I feel that argument certainly has more sway with video games, a field that has barely had 20 years history of criticism.

Still there's no way of justifying this fiasco, and I fear it's a black eye that will take video game criticism years to get over.