We’ll admit that we’ve always had a soft spot in our heart for Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. In the mid-1980s, when we had a full head of hair (and were in elementary school), one of our prized possessions was a dubbed audiotape copy of their “Born In The USA” album. We’ve never really been much for the title track of that album, but some of the deeper cuts from that tape – “Darlington County,” “Workin’ On The Highway,” “Bobby Jean,” and “I’m On Fire” – can still be counted among our favorite songs to date.
Well, Bruce and the band (whose ranks currently include guitarists Stevie Van Zandt, Nils Lofgren, and Patti Scialfa, bassist Garry Tallent, keyboardists Danny Federici and Roy Bittan, violinist Soozie Tyrell, drummer Max Weinberg, and saxophonist Clarence Clemons) are about to come out with a new album. Called “Magic,” it’ll be available in early October.
The first single, “Radio Nowhere,” debuted this week (it’s available as a free download on I-Tunes until next Tuesday, as well as here), and while we might be biased, it’s one of the most interesting songs we’ve heard in awhile – a wall of aggressive guitars accompanied by an aggravated-sounding Springsteen growling. It’s a relatively brief track – just over 3 minutes – with a centerpiece saxophone solo from Clemons front and center. It’s extremely interesting and worth a listen.
For those of you in the Capital Region, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will be touring this fall – on November 15, they will be appearing at the Times Union Center in Albany. Tickets go on sale September 8. We’re hoping to be there, naturally.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Thursday, August 30, 2007
(Overrated) Movies That Provide Iconic Imagery That Define Generations
Have you ever watched one those “decade in review” shows? You know the type: generally found on basic cable, they offer comedians and television personalities of all types sniping at cultural touchstones from years past with the benefit of perspective and a deft comic touch. Anyway, have you noticed that, even within these irreverent shows, there are a few sacred cows – movies that are revered as being super-important signifiers of their time?
Well, those movies suck, and here’s a decade-by-decade breakdown of these so-called “important” films and why they’re actually terrible.
1950s: “Rebel Without A Cause.” Nicolas Ray’s film is emblematic of the explosion in teenage culture that came in the 1950s. “Blackboard Jungle” will forever be known as the movie that introduced rock-n-roll music to a mass audience, but “Rebel Without A Cause” will stand as the zenith of 50s-era teenage iconography because of its introduction of James Dean as a troubled bad-boy. What is overlooked, however, is the fact that Dean simply isn’t all that good in this film – his moment of rage (the famous line “you’re tearing me apart”) is terribly emoted, and Dean’s other setting – that of studied cool – seems to conceal the possibly-blasphemous notion that he’s not that good of an actor. My verdict: this movie is only legendary because of Dean’s infamous car-accident death, which gave more credence to his performance than anything that actually occurred on celluloid.
1960s: “Easy Rider.” In the famous coda of this 1969 film, which has long been held as emblematic of the counterculture and the shift in values that occurred with the continued insurgency of youth culture, Peter Fonda’s Captain America character says, “We blew it.” He couldn’t be more right. Filmmaker/star Dennis Hopper created a film with some magnificent imagery – the famed shot of the lead characters riding their motorcycles through the American West, for example. However, the movie has extreme difficulty in maintaining any type of consistent narrative structure; its use of jump-cuts (especially during the Mardi Gras scenes) may have been revolutionary (and anticipated a legion of faux-artistic music videos in later decades), but subvert the viewer’s best efforts to stay with the film. This may be a film best viewed with, um, chemical interference; without it, it doesn’t really hold up. They blew it.
1970s: “Saturday Night Fever.” This movie is 119 minutes long, and feels like a much longer film. The imagery it presents – that of strutting disco king Tony Manero (John Travolta) – serves as shorthand for the 1970s, largely because it presents a number of dance-oriented scenes centered around the feel-good, gotta-dance “me” decade. The dance scenes are good; however, Norman Wexler’s patented ultra-realistic dialogue (also present in films like “Serpico” and “Joe”) falls flat when whiningly delivered by John Travolta and his cronies, who come off as anti-heroes that simply aren’t worth rooting for. “Saturday Night Fever” was an excellent music video, but it’s a terrible, grating movie.
1980s: “The Breakfast Club.” People of a certain age absolutely worship this film – why, I don’t know. This might be John Hughes’s worst movie (and this is a man who brought the world “Baby’s Day Out.” The heavy-handed grouping of character archetypes – the nerd, the jock, the princess, et al – doesn’t flow particularly well as a movie. It’s a group of dramatic monologues, loosely combined. While some of the actors are capable in this movie (Molly Ringwald looks absolutely at ease here), many of the portrayals in this film suffer from inane overacting (I’m looking at you, Judd Nelson – his Bender may be the worst-acted character of the entire decade, for God’s sake) or are underwhelming, barely-there sketches (Ally Sheedy). To paraphrase William Shakespeare and Robert Downey, Jr, this film is a lot of “sound and fury,” signifying “less than zero.”
1990s: (tie) “Fargo” and “Being John Malkovich.” While I actually really liked both of these movies, and have seen them each several times, they’ve come to emblemize a different kind of filmmaking excess: the overindulgence in character quirkiness in a film. Frances McDormand’s pregnant Midwestern police officer may have been a revolutionary role at the time, but how many films tried to piggyback on this eccentricity without a compensatory amount of plot? (The answer: a lot, with varying degrees of success, from the terrible “Drop Dead Gorgeous”.) “Being John Malkovich” was a movie that suffered from chronic underacting – while I enjoy the work of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and director Spike Jonze a great deal, I think that they could have done a lot better with the conceit behind this film, which supposes that there’s a portal into the brain of a prominent character actor. This film introduces several fascinating characters, but doesn’t do a tremendously good job of grounding them in anything resembling reality. As someone who has dabbled in acting in the past, I applaud the effort to create fascinating, distinguished characters – however, they can simply not carry a movie by themselves. These movies are emblematic of that late-90s desire to be grittier and more “real,” but instead serve as reminders of what happens when quirks overcome plot as a dominant feature of a film.
I don’t think that there’s really a definitive film for this decade yet – and there is still a solid ¼ of a decade to determine this. But it bears thinking – what will provide the iconic filmic images of this decade? Will it be one of the “Frat Pack” comedies of the last few years? Will it be “Borat” or something similar? Who knows! That said, I promise this – once this decade is defined, I’ll find something that’s very wrong with the film that defines it.
Well, those movies suck, and here’s a decade-by-decade breakdown of these so-called “important” films and why they’re actually terrible.
1950s: “Rebel Without A Cause.” Nicolas Ray’s film is emblematic of the explosion in teenage culture that came in the 1950s. “Blackboard Jungle” will forever be known as the movie that introduced rock-n-roll music to a mass audience, but “Rebel Without A Cause” will stand as the zenith of 50s-era teenage iconography because of its introduction of James Dean as a troubled bad-boy. What is overlooked, however, is the fact that Dean simply isn’t all that good in this film – his moment of rage (the famous line “you’re tearing me apart”) is terribly emoted, and Dean’s other setting – that of studied cool – seems to conceal the possibly-blasphemous notion that he’s not that good of an actor. My verdict: this movie is only legendary because of Dean’s infamous car-accident death, which gave more credence to his performance than anything that actually occurred on celluloid.
1960s: “Easy Rider.” In the famous coda of this 1969 film, which has long been held as emblematic of the counterculture and the shift in values that occurred with the continued insurgency of youth culture, Peter Fonda’s Captain America character says, “We blew it.” He couldn’t be more right. Filmmaker/star Dennis Hopper created a film with some magnificent imagery – the famed shot of the lead characters riding their motorcycles through the American West, for example. However, the movie has extreme difficulty in maintaining any type of consistent narrative structure; its use of jump-cuts (especially during the Mardi Gras scenes) may have been revolutionary (and anticipated a legion of faux-artistic music videos in later decades), but subvert the viewer’s best efforts to stay with the film. This may be a film best viewed with, um, chemical interference; without it, it doesn’t really hold up. They blew it.
1970s: “Saturday Night Fever.” This movie is 119 minutes long, and feels like a much longer film. The imagery it presents – that of strutting disco king Tony Manero (John Travolta) – serves as shorthand for the 1970s, largely because it presents a number of dance-oriented scenes centered around the feel-good, gotta-dance “me” decade. The dance scenes are good; however, Norman Wexler’s patented ultra-realistic dialogue (also present in films like “Serpico” and “Joe”) falls flat when whiningly delivered by John Travolta and his cronies, who come off as anti-heroes that simply aren’t worth rooting for. “Saturday Night Fever” was an excellent music video, but it’s a terrible, grating movie.
1980s: “The Breakfast Club.” People of a certain age absolutely worship this film – why, I don’t know. This might be John Hughes’s worst movie (and this is a man who brought the world “Baby’s Day Out.” The heavy-handed grouping of character archetypes – the nerd, the jock, the princess, et al – doesn’t flow particularly well as a movie. It’s a group of dramatic monologues, loosely combined. While some of the actors are capable in this movie (Molly Ringwald looks absolutely at ease here), many of the portrayals in this film suffer from inane overacting (I’m looking at you, Judd Nelson – his Bender may be the worst-acted character of the entire decade, for God’s sake) or are underwhelming, barely-there sketches (Ally Sheedy). To paraphrase William Shakespeare and Robert Downey, Jr, this film is a lot of “sound and fury,” signifying “less than zero.”
1990s: (tie) “Fargo” and “Being John Malkovich.” While I actually really liked both of these movies, and have seen them each several times, they’ve come to emblemize a different kind of filmmaking excess: the overindulgence in character quirkiness in a film. Frances McDormand’s pregnant Midwestern police officer may have been a revolutionary role at the time, but how many films tried to piggyback on this eccentricity without a compensatory amount of plot? (The answer: a lot, with varying degrees of success, from the terrible “Drop Dead Gorgeous”.) “Being John Malkovich” was a movie that suffered from chronic underacting – while I enjoy the work of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and director Spike Jonze a great deal, I think that they could have done a lot better with the conceit behind this film, which supposes that there’s a portal into the brain of a prominent character actor. This film introduces several fascinating characters, but doesn’t do a tremendously good job of grounding them in anything resembling reality. As someone who has dabbled in acting in the past, I applaud the effort to create fascinating, distinguished characters – however, they can simply not carry a movie by themselves. These movies are emblematic of that late-90s desire to be grittier and more “real,” but instead serve as reminders of what happens when quirks overcome plot as a dominant feature of a film.
I don’t think that there’s really a definitive film for this decade yet – and there is still a solid ¼ of a decade to determine this. But it bears thinking – what will provide the iconic filmic images of this decade? Will it be one of the “Frat Pack” comedies of the last few years? Will it be “Borat” or something similar? Who knows! That said, I promise this – once this decade is defined, I’ll find something that’s very wrong with the film that defines it.
Forthcoming: "3:10 To Yuma"
From the moment that mankind developed a technique for creating moving images on strips of celluloid, it seems as though there have been actors dressing up in the legendary garb of the cowboys of the Old West in films.
There is no doubt that the era in which the Old West was explored and settled was a compelling time – a lawless age, where justice was questionable (at best) and men relied on their own personal moral compasses to define their character. It’s unquestionably rich – the sheer context of the time serves as a morally ambiguous character in and of itself. When you add the act of mythmaking that comes with creating a motion picture, you add so much more – for actors, it’s a chance to dirty up a little bit, ride horses, and generally play along with a childhood fantasy come to life. I mean, who wouldn’t want to act in a Western – to wear boots with spurs, and kick in the swinging door of a frontier saloon?
As an actor, being in a Western provides one with the chance to follow in the footsteps of iconic cowboy actors like John Wayne (whose turn in, among dozens of other Westerns, “Rio Bravo” cemented his status as a definitively moral voice of law and order in the West) and Clint Eastwood (whose roles in several 1960s “Spaghetti Westerns” – collaborations with the great Sergio Leone – practically single-handedly redefined the genre). Many have jumped at the chance; whether it’s Michael J. Fox as the time-traveling Marty McFly in “Back To The Future Part III,” or Leonardo DiCaprio as a teenaged gunslinger in “The Quick and the Dead,” the annals of movie history are filled with characters who have partaken of the legend of the Old West.
Since the heyday of the aforementioned “Spaghetti Western” in the 1960s, it seems as though every generation of actors has gone back to the well every few years and explored the Old West. In the later 1960s and early 1970s, it was the era of the so-called Acid Western, where counterculture-influenced actors like Dennis Hopper and Robert Redford fused their ideals with Old West sensibilities to create morality plays. In the 1980s, Westerns were essentially laughed at; films like “Silverado” played up the comic sensibilities inherent in the clichés of the genre. 1990s-vintage westerns like “Dead Man,” and most notably, “Unforgiven,” played up the moral ambiguity of the times – the biggest battles in these Westerns often occurred within the hearts of the heroes and anti-heroes that dotted the barren landscapes of the bleak, unsettled territories of the Old West.
Well, it seems like we’re upon another era of Westerns. This fall sees the release of two new Westerns to multiplexes. Later this fall, Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck star in “The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford,” which looks interesting. The Coen brothers, famed for quirky, independent-minded movies like “The Big Lebowski” and “Raising Arizona,” will put their postmodern imprimatur on Cormac McCarthy’s modern-day Western “No Country For Old Men” later in the year. First to screens, though, is the Russell Crowe and Christian Bale-starring “3:10 To Yuma,” based on an Elmore Leonard short story (and a expanded remake of a 1957 Glenn Ford Western). I caught a preview of this movie last night.
With little new ground to explore in the realm of the Western, “3:10 To Yuma” settles for being an amalgam of previous movies; it combines the moral ambiguity and personal dilemmas of more recent films like “Unforgiven” with the thrilling, “shoot-em-up” mentality of John Wayne-era pictures, with a miniscule infusion of humor and the gritty, gory realism of most modern violent films. It’s an interesting combination; unfortunately, it doesn’t particularly succeed.
The movie is headlined by tremendous actors; Russell Crowe and Christian Bale enter the first frame of film in “3:10 To Yuma” with phenomenal pedigrees – I mean, one’s the Gladiator, and the other’s managed to create iconic characters from Batman to (Patrick) Bateman. Unfortunately, they’re playing characters who don’t feel particularly well-formed. Bale is Dan Evans, the “good guy” of the movie, driven to do the right thing. Unfortunately, and I’m not sure whether this is the fault of Bale or director James Mangold, the audience never really comes to understand Evans’s motivations for doing the “right thing.” (There’s a bit towards the end where Evans reveals his hand; by then, though, it’s too little, too late.) As Evans, Bale is asked to be both inherently good and morally ambiguous – it’s ambitious, but never really succeeds. As “bad guy” Ben Wade, Russell Crowe is faced with a similar task – to be inherently bad and morally ambiguous. He comes closer to succeeding than Bale does, due largely to his unfettered charisma – the camera obviously loves Crowe, and he unflinchingly loves it back, which does add an interesting aspect to his murderous, duplicitous Wade. However, because “3:10 To Yuma” is in essence a “traditional” Western – it retains the story from a good-guy versus bad-guy story – it suffers a bit from having the bad guy be a more magnetic presence. Both Bale and Crowe suffer a bit for their character’s voices (both lead actors are foreign-born, and as such, have to obscure their natural accents) – they sound less like distinctive portrayals and more like whispery Clint Eastwood imitators, which is sadly unfortunate.
The supporting characters add an interesting dimension to this film; most notably, Ben Foster (previously known for his teenaged roles, including a part in the disastrously unfunny Dave Barry-scripted “Big Trouble” and a role in the third “X-Men” movie) is an absolute revelation as the psychotically unhinged Charlie Prince. You can’t take your eyes off him when he’s on-screen in this movie. Young Logan Lerman, playing Evans’s conflicted, stubborn 14-year-old son, also scores major points for his unflinching performance. Peter Fonda, Dallas Roberts, Vinessa Shaw, Gretchen Mol, and Alan Tudyk also provide solid, if unspectacular, support.
“3:10 To Yuma” is an interesting attempt at reinvigorating the Western genre for the first decade of the new century, but ultimately, it’s a noble failure because it offers nothing new and instead piggybacks too much on clichés from movies of the past. It will be interesting to see if the remainder of the year’s Westerns continue this trend or breathe new air into this type of film.
[“3:10 To Yuma” arrives in theatres on September 7. It will be showing in sneak previews across the country this weekend; check your local listings.]
There is no doubt that the era in which the Old West was explored and settled was a compelling time – a lawless age, where justice was questionable (at best) and men relied on their own personal moral compasses to define their character. It’s unquestionably rich – the sheer context of the time serves as a morally ambiguous character in and of itself. When you add the act of mythmaking that comes with creating a motion picture, you add so much more – for actors, it’s a chance to dirty up a little bit, ride horses, and generally play along with a childhood fantasy come to life. I mean, who wouldn’t want to act in a Western – to wear boots with spurs, and kick in the swinging door of a frontier saloon?
As an actor, being in a Western provides one with the chance to follow in the footsteps of iconic cowboy actors like John Wayne (whose turn in, among dozens of other Westerns, “Rio Bravo” cemented his status as a definitively moral voice of law and order in the West) and Clint Eastwood (whose roles in several 1960s “Spaghetti Westerns” – collaborations with the great Sergio Leone – practically single-handedly redefined the genre). Many have jumped at the chance; whether it’s Michael J. Fox as the time-traveling Marty McFly in “Back To The Future Part III,” or Leonardo DiCaprio as a teenaged gunslinger in “The Quick and the Dead,” the annals of movie history are filled with characters who have partaken of the legend of the Old West.
Since the heyday of the aforementioned “Spaghetti Western” in the 1960s, it seems as though every generation of actors has gone back to the well every few years and explored the Old West. In the later 1960s and early 1970s, it was the era of the so-called Acid Western, where counterculture-influenced actors like Dennis Hopper and Robert Redford fused their ideals with Old West sensibilities to create morality plays. In the 1980s, Westerns were essentially laughed at; films like “Silverado” played up the comic sensibilities inherent in the clichés of the genre. 1990s-vintage westerns like “Dead Man,” and most notably, “Unforgiven,” played up the moral ambiguity of the times – the biggest battles in these Westerns often occurred within the hearts of the heroes and anti-heroes that dotted the barren landscapes of the bleak, unsettled territories of the Old West.
Well, it seems like we’re upon another era of Westerns. This fall sees the release of two new Westerns to multiplexes. Later this fall, Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck star in “The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford,” which looks interesting. The Coen brothers, famed for quirky, independent-minded movies like “The Big Lebowski” and “Raising Arizona,” will put their postmodern imprimatur on Cormac McCarthy’s modern-day Western “No Country For Old Men” later in the year. First to screens, though, is the Russell Crowe and Christian Bale-starring “3:10 To Yuma,” based on an Elmore Leonard short story (and a expanded remake of a 1957 Glenn Ford Western). I caught a preview of this movie last night.
With little new ground to explore in the realm of the Western, “3:10 To Yuma” settles for being an amalgam of previous movies; it combines the moral ambiguity and personal dilemmas of more recent films like “Unforgiven” with the thrilling, “shoot-em-up” mentality of John Wayne-era pictures, with a miniscule infusion of humor and the gritty, gory realism of most modern violent films. It’s an interesting combination; unfortunately, it doesn’t particularly succeed.
The movie is headlined by tremendous actors; Russell Crowe and Christian Bale enter the first frame of film in “3:10 To Yuma” with phenomenal pedigrees – I mean, one’s the Gladiator, and the other’s managed to create iconic characters from Batman to (Patrick) Bateman. Unfortunately, they’re playing characters who don’t feel particularly well-formed. Bale is Dan Evans, the “good guy” of the movie, driven to do the right thing. Unfortunately, and I’m not sure whether this is the fault of Bale or director James Mangold, the audience never really comes to understand Evans’s motivations for doing the “right thing.” (There’s a bit towards the end where Evans reveals his hand; by then, though, it’s too little, too late.) As Evans, Bale is asked to be both inherently good and morally ambiguous – it’s ambitious, but never really succeeds. As “bad guy” Ben Wade, Russell Crowe is faced with a similar task – to be inherently bad and morally ambiguous. He comes closer to succeeding than Bale does, due largely to his unfettered charisma – the camera obviously loves Crowe, and he unflinchingly loves it back, which does add an interesting aspect to his murderous, duplicitous Wade. However, because “3:10 To Yuma” is in essence a “traditional” Western – it retains the story from a good-guy versus bad-guy story – it suffers a bit from having the bad guy be a more magnetic presence. Both Bale and Crowe suffer a bit for their character’s voices (both lead actors are foreign-born, and as such, have to obscure their natural accents) – they sound less like distinctive portrayals and more like whispery Clint Eastwood imitators, which is sadly unfortunate.
The supporting characters add an interesting dimension to this film; most notably, Ben Foster (previously known for his teenaged roles, including a part in the disastrously unfunny Dave Barry-scripted “Big Trouble” and a role in the third “X-Men” movie) is an absolute revelation as the psychotically unhinged Charlie Prince. You can’t take your eyes off him when he’s on-screen in this movie. Young Logan Lerman, playing Evans’s conflicted, stubborn 14-year-old son, also scores major points for his unflinching performance. Peter Fonda, Dallas Roberts, Vinessa Shaw, Gretchen Mol, and Alan Tudyk also provide solid, if unspectacular, support.
“3:10 To Yuma” is an interesting attempt at reinvigorating the Western genre for the first decade of the new century, but ultimately, it’s a noble failure because it offers nothing new and instead piggybacks too much on clichés from movies of the past. It will be interesting to see if the remainder of the year’s Westerns continue this trend or breathe new air into this type of film.
[“3:10 To Yuma” arrives in theatres on September 7. It will be showing in sneak previews across the country this weekend; check your local listings.]
Friday, August 24, 2007
Meandering Thoughts: Nickelback Is Terrible, And Here's Why
One of my favorite movies of the last twenty (or so) years is Richard Linklater’s 1993 ensemble opus “Dazed and Confused.” The movie (which you really should see if you haven’t already) is a meandering, multi-character excursion through life on the last day of school in a Texas town in 1976.
The movie is filled with memorable performances; among these is that of Sasha Jenson, who plays the affable Don Dawson. His is a supporting role, but it is quite memorable. As the football teammate and best friend of central character Randall “Pink” Floyd (Jason London), Jenson is a wonder to behold. As Dawson, he is a ball of lunatic energy and is so magnetic that it makes one wonder why his acting career never really took off beyond this movie.
There is a moment that Dawson has, though, that has made me understand a central truth about a major player in the entertainment industry. Let me explain the moment, though, before I go any further. In the scene that I’m thinking of, which comes early in the movie, Dawson is walking through the halls of the school building with Pink, discussing the anti-drug pledge (and subsequent moral dilemma) that sits at the center of the plot. As is habitual for the character, Dawson is animated and engaging and generally funny. Then, a weird thing happens – he is approached from the periphery by an unknown figure, and he rears back as though he’s going to hit this guy. The guy scampers away, never to be seen again, and Dawson just as quickly returns back to being animated, engaging, and hilarious. It’s a brief exchange – ten seconds at most – but it reminds viewers of an essential truth about people; one group’s gregarious soul might be another’s feared individual.
This has made me learn a little bit about Nickelback, naturally.
I’ll be very honest. I can’t stand Nickelback. Their music does nothing for me, and after several years in the limelight, I’ve come to understand that their music will do nothing for me - pretty much ever.
That said, there are people out there who love Nickelback. (I’m willing to wager that someone, somewhere will read the above paragraph and think to themselves, “not love Nickelback? That’s unpossible.” To that person, let me clarify something: I know that you like Nickelback. I don’t.) It’s okay to like Nickelback, I think. There’s an appeal to them; I suppose there’s an entire legion of people who enjoy having the soundtrack to their workday be indistinguishable from that of a strip club laden with C-section-scarred muffin-topped “nude models.” Good for them. It’s not for me.
I look at pictures of Nickelback (I won’t provide them here – use Google Image Search), and I see the clique of guys who used to threaten to beat me up in high school. They look like bullies. But, you know what? For that split-second in “Dazed and Confused,” viewers were given a glimpse of the otherwise-awesome Don Dawson as a bully. It makes looking at a band of nu-metal goons somewhat sympathetic; in thinking of Nickelback in these terms, it makes me understand that there’s an entire world that they represent which I’ll probably never have access to, in which these guys are magnetic, affable centres-of-attention.
So, perhaps Nickelback don’t – to paraphrase the great Brodie Bruce (of “Mallrats” fame) – “look like date rapists.” And maybe they are good guys, and probably aren’t the type to dose unsuspecting cheerleader-wannabes with Rohyphnol on their tour bus. I don’t know, and never will.
That doesn’t change the fact that they consistently churn out faceless, derivative metal music that makes goons like Creed look positively, radiantly charismatic in comparison. Nickelback’s music is a wholly unoriginal concoction of pre-watered down ingredients; it takes, as a starting point, Pearl Jam’s first two albums – which were, in and of themselves a combination of Doors, Led Zeppelin, and Black Sabbath – and strip away the charisma of Pearl Jam lead singer Eddie Vedder, replacing it with the aw-shucks blandness of Chad Kroeger. And yes, I’m saying that Nickelback sounds like Pearl Jam. And yes, I like Pearl Jam, but I don’t like Nickelback – and here’s why? Pearl Jam, even in their early, formative years, wore their influences on their sleeves – their music was influenced by acts ranging from the Beatles to the aforementioned Doors-Led Zeppelin-Black Sabbath trio, but they never overtly sounded like they were trying to be them. Instead, Pearl Jam sounded like they were a good band that took bits that they liked from those bands. Nickelback’s blandness can be attributed to the fact that they try to sound like the bands that they love. There’s a big difference, and credit is due to those who can see it.
Then, there are people who love Nickelback. People who tear up every time Chad Kroeger croaks “how the hell’d we wind up like this.” People who found their video for “If Everybody Cared” profound. People who vote incessantly for the band on VH1 countdown shows. These people exist. And you know what? That’s fine. I hope the dudes in 3 Doors Down are okay with you moving on, though.
The movie is filled with memorable performances; among these is that of Sasha Jenson, who plays the affable Don Dawson. His is a supporting role, but it is quite memorable. As the football teammate and best friend of central character Randall “Pink” Floyd (Jason London), Jenson is a wonder to behold. As Dawson, he is a ball of lunatic energy and is so magnetic that it makes one wonder why his acting career never really took off beyond this movie.
There is a moment that Dawson has, though, that has made me understand a central truth about a major player in the entertainment industry. Let me explain the moment, though, before I go any further. In the scene that I’m thinking of, which comes early in the movie, Dawson is walking through the halls of the school building with Pink, discussing the anti-drug pledge (and subsequent moral dilemma) that sits at the center of the plot. As is habitual for the character, Dawson is animated and engaging and generally funny. Then, a weird thing happens – he is approached from the periphery by an unknown figure, and he rears back as though he’s going to hit this guy. The guy scampers away, never to be seen again, and Dawson just as quickly returns back to being animated, engaging, and hilarious. It’s a brief exchange – ten seconds at most – but it reminds viewers of an essential truth about people; one group’s gregarious soul might be another’s feared individual.
This has made me learn a little bit about Nickelback, naturally.
I’ll be very honest. I can’t stand Nickelback. Their music does nothing for me, and after several years in the limelight, I’ve come to understand that their music will do nothing for me - pretty much ever.
That said, there are people out there who love Nickelback. (I’m willing to wager that someone, somewhere will read the above paragraph and think to themselves, “not love Nickelback? That’s unpossible.” To that person, let me clarify something: I know that you like Nickelback. I don’t.) It’s okay to like Nickelback, I think. There’s an appeal to them; I suppose there’s an entire legion of people who enjoy having the soundtrack to their workday be indistinguishable from that of a strip club laden with C-section-scarred muffin-topped “nude models.” Good for them. It’s not for me.
I look at pictures of Nickelback (I won’t provide them here – use Google Image Search), and I see the clique of guys who used to threaten to beat me up in high school. They look like bullies. But, you know what? For that split-second in “Dazed and Confused,” viewers were given a glimpse of the otherwise-awesome Don Dawson as a bully. It makes looking at a band of nu-metal goons somewhat sympathetic; in thinking of Nickelback in these terms, it makes me understand that there’s an entire world that they represent which I’ll probably never have access to, in which these guys are magnetic, affable centres-of-attention.
So, perhaps Nickelback don’t – to paraphrase the great Brodie Bruce (of “Mallrats” fame) – “look like date rapists.” And maybe they are good guys, and probably aren’t the type to dose unsuspecting cheerleader-wannabes with Rohyphnol on their tour bus. I don’t know, and never will.
That doesn’t change the fact that they consistently churn out faceless, derivative metal music that makes goons like Creed look positively, radiantly charismatic in comparison. Nickelback’s music is a wholly unoriginal concoction of pre-watered down ingredients; it takes, as a starting point, Pearl Jam’s first two albums – which were, in and of themselves a combination of Doors, Led Zeppelin, and Black Sabbath – and strip away the charisma of Pearl Jam lead singer Eddie Vedder, replacing it with the aw-shucks blandness of Chad Kroeger. And yes, I’m saying that Nickelback sounds like Pearl Jam. And yes, I like Pearl Jam, but I don’t like Nickelback – and here’s why? Pearl Jam, even in their early, formative years, wore their influences on their sleeves – their music was influenced by acts ranging from the Beatles to the aforementioned Doors-Led Zeppelin-Black Sabbath trio, but they never overtly sounded like they were trying to be them. Instead, Pearl Jam sounded like they were a good band that took bits that they liked from those bands. Nickelback’s blandness can be attributed to the fact that they try to sound like the bands that they love. There’s a big difference, and credit is due to those who can see it.
Then, there are people who love Nickelback. People who tear up every time Chad Kroeger croaks “how the hell’d we wind up like this.” People who found their video for “If Everybody Cared” profound. People who vote incessantly for the band on VH1 countdown shows. These people exist. And you know what? That’s fine. I hope the dudes in 3 Doors Down are okay with you moving on, though.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
The Yankees In Crisis, or, Why It's Okay For The Bronx Bombers To (Gasp) Not Make The Playoffs
What is a crisis?
Well, the Chinese character weiji, which has long been translated as the English word “crisis,” can be translated into two parts: wei, which means “danger” or “peril,” and ji, which has long been mistranslated as meaning “opportunity,” but actually translates as something more like “turning point.”
Based on that bit of information, it seems as though we could develop a basic description of a crisis as the danger that one faces at a turning point. Yes, it’s a simplification, but let’s go with it; and based on this simplification, I’m going to make a big, broad generalization about baseball: The Yankees are at a crisis point.
As of this morning, the Yankees currently sit in second place, six games back from the first-place Boston Red Sox in the race for the American League East division title. They also sit two and a half games behind the Seattle Mariners in the race for the American League Wild Card, which would give them a backdoor entry into the playoffs. This is neither a season-long high, nor a low, for the Yankees; they have been as far back as twelve games back from the Red Sox, and they have been in first-place in the Wild Card chase.
What makes this a crisis point for the Yankees (and yes, I’m well aware that my use of the word “crisis” in the terms of a baseball season trivializes true crises such as, say, Darfur, but hey, such are the foibles of language) is their current schedule and how they are responding to it. After having spent the better part of the month of July and beginning of August amassing an impressive record against a number of sub-par teams, and (for the first time all season) building up their confidence, the Yankees are now at the beginning of a stretch where they’re going to be playing the best teams in baseball (the American League West-leading Angels, as well as the aforementioned Red Sox and Mariners).
How’s it going so far? Not well. The Yankees lost their first two games of this stretch to the Angels; the first, a demoralizing extra-innings loss, and last night’s utter shellacking to the tune of 18-9 (including a sick 10 runs batted in from Angels outfielder Garret Anderson). Which begs the question – where do the Yankees go from here?
From my point of view, there’s three possible scenarios.
Scenario 1: The Yankees catch fire, buoyed by a motivation reminiscent of the way the Indians played in the original “Major League” movie (although, hopefully without having to strip away pieces of clothing from a cutout of their owner in the buff). Players who have been struggling this year (Mike Mussina, I’m looking at you) catch fire, and everybody contributes. The Yankees win the bulk of their games from here out, and take the division by a solid 3 games en route to their first championship in seven years.
Scenario 2: The Yankees play just over .500 ball through this gauntlet of good teams, and do especially well in their games against teams like Detroit and Seattle, which gives them a solid lead in the hunt for the Wild Card by mid-September. Some struggles continue, but none so terrible that they can’t be overcome by hot hitters – which the Yankees continue to have in spades. They make the playoffs, and by then, it’s anybody’s guess.
Scenario 3: Playing these good teams exposes the Yankees’ fatal flaws: an over-reliance on older, erratic pitching, bats that have been streaky all season, and the infusion of young talent that has boosted the Yankees over the past month fades. The Yankees finish out of the running for the playoffs.
This may sound weird, but you know what I’m rooting for? (And keep in mind that I’m a Yankees fan from the Bronx who has lived and died with their successes.) I’m kind of rooting for Scenario #3 here.
I don’t know if it’s possible for me to be a bigger fan of the Yankees’ youth movement. Joba Chamberlain, Phil Hughes, Shelley Duncan, Melky Cabrera, and Robinson Cano have all been extremely fun to watch. However, I can’t help but think that a playoff push might not be the best thing for them at this juncture in time. Young arms like Chamberlain and Hughes, who have never really seen an expanse of innings at the level that a major league regular season requires, are probably ill-prepared for the extensive workload that comes with the playoffs; this would be fine if these two weren’t so needed for such a run. However, they are. As a fan, if it comes between overworking these pitcher’s arms and having them flame out or getting them some rest and having them be major contributors for the next decade and beyond, I’ll take 10 years over 1 any day. As for Duncan, Cabrera, and Cano – well, it’s been extremely interesting watching these three turn into behind-the-scenes sparkplugs and on-field players this season; that said, I can’t help but think that part of the reason that they’ve become so prominent in this role is because of the Yankees’ current status as second-place residents. If they’re so motivated by this now, imagine how much stronger their motivation will be next year, after a year out of the playoffs? Failure can be extremely motivating.
Additionally, the brief successes of the youth movement this season should provide Yankees upper management with ample motivation to build around the youth of this team; why should the team spend money on established “stars” if they can get equal production and a bigger spark from younger, homegrown talent? Message boards are abuzz with the potential of young talent with names like Jose Tabata, Eric Duncan, Bronson Sardinha, Ian Kennedy, Alan Horne, and Andrew Brackman – why not work towards giving these kids a shot, while at the same time shedding the extraneous salaries of over-the-hill players? When the Yankees won their first World Championship of the 1990s, in 1996, it was with then-youthful players like Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada, Derek Jeter, and Bernie Williams at the helm. Most of them didn’t win in their first year, but instead built up a head of steam from the rougher years that preceded it.
The Yankees could benefit from a rougher year, I think. It’s all in how you look at the turning point that is at the crux of this particular crisis.
Well, the Chinese character weiji, which has long been translated as the English word “crisis,” can be translated into two parts: wei, which means “danger” or “peril,” and ji, which has long been mistranslated as meaning “opportunity,” but actually translates as something more like “turning point.”
Based on that bit of information, it seems as though we could develop a basic description of a crisis as the danger that one faces at a turning point. Yes, it’s a simplification, but let’s go with it; and based on this simplification, I’m going to make a big, broad generalization about baseball: The Yankees are at a crisis point.
As of this morning, the Yankees currently sit in second place, six games back from the first-place Boston Red Sox in the race for the American League East division title. They also sit two and a half games behind the Seattle Mariners in the race for the American League Wild Card, which would give them a backdoor entry into the playoffs. This is neither a season-long high, nor a low, for the Yankees; they have been as far back as twelve games back from the Red Sox, and they have been in first-place in the Wild Card chase.
What makes this a crisis point for the Yankees (and yes, I’m well aware that my use of the word “crisis” in the terms of a baseball season trivializes true crises such as, say, Darfur, but hey, such are the foibles of language) is their current schedule and how they are responding to it. After having spent the better part of the month of July and beginning of August amassing an impressive record against a number of sub-par teams, and (for the first time all season) building up their confidence, the Yankees are now at the beginning of a stretch where they’re going to be playing the best teams in baseball (the American League West-leading Angels, as well as the aforementioned Red Sox and Mariners).
How’s it going so far? Not well. The Yankees lost their first two games of this stretch to the Angels; the first, a demoralizing extra-innings loss, and last night’s utter shellacking to the tune of 18-9 (including a sick 10 runs batted in from Angels outfielder Garret Anderson). Which begs the question – where do the Yankees go from here?
From my point of view, there’s three possible scenarios.
Scenario 1: The Yankees catch fire, buoyed by a motivation reminiscent of the way the Indians played in the original “Major League” movie (although, hopefully without having to strip away pieces of clothing from a cutout of their owner in the buff). Players who have been struggling this year (Mike Mussina, I’m looking at you) catch fire, and everybody contributes. The Yankees win the bulk of their games from here out, and take the division by a solid 3 games en route to their first championship in seven years.
Scenario 2: The Yankees play just over .500 ball through this gauntlet of good teams, and do especially well in their games against teams like Detroit and Seattle, which gives them a solid lead in the hunt for the Wild Card by mid-September. Some struggles continue, but none so terrible that they can’t be overcome by hot hitters – which the Yankees continue to have in spades. They make the playoffs, and by then, it’s anybody’s guess.
Scenario 3: Playing these good teams exposes the Yankees’ fatal flaws: an over-reliance on older, erratic pitching, bats that have been streaky all season, and the infusion of young talent that has boosted the Yankees over the past month fades. The Yankees finish out of the running for the playoffs.
This may sound weird, but you know what I’m rooting for? (And keep in mind that I’m a Yankees fan from the Bronx who has lived and died with their successes.) I’m kind of rooting for Scenario #3 here.
I don’t know if it’s possible for me to be a bigger fan of the Yankees’ youth movement. Joba Chamberlain, Phil Hughes, Shelley Duncan, Melky Cabrera, and Robinson Cano have all been extremely fun to watch. However, I can’t help but think that a playoff push might not be the best thing for them at this juncture in time. Young arms like Chamberlain and Hughes, who have never really seen an expanse of innings at the level that a major league regular season requires, are probably ill-prepared for the extensive workload that comes with the playoffs; this would be fine if these two weren’t so needed for such a run. However, they are. As a fan, if it comes between overworking these pitcher’s arms and having them flame out or getting them some rest and having them be major contributors for the next decade and beyond, I’ll take 10 years over 1 any day. As for Duncan, Cabrera, and Cano – well, it’s been extremely interesting watching these three turn into behind-the-scenes sparkplugs and on-field players this season; that said, I can’t help but think that part of the reason that they’ve become so prominent in this role is because of the Yankees’ current status as second-place residents. If they’re so motivated by this now, imagine how much stronger their motivation will be next year, after a year out of the playoffs? Failure can be extremely motivating.
Additionally, the brief successes of the youth movement this season should provide Yankees upper management with ample motivation to build around the youth of this team; why should the team spend money on established “stars” if they can get equal production and a bigger spark from younger, homegrown talent? Message boards are abuzz with the potential of young talent with names like Jose Tabata, Eric Duncan, Bronson Sardinha, Ian Kennedy, Alan Horne, and Andrew Brackman – why not work towards giving these kids a shot, while at the same time shedding the extraneous salaries of over-the-hill players? When the Yankees won their first World Championship of the 1990s, in 1996, it was with then-youthful players like Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada, Derek Jeter, and Bernie Williams at the helm. Most of them didn’t win in their first year, but instead built up a head of steam from the rougher years that preceded it.
The Yankees could benefit from a rougher year, I think. It’s all in how you look at the turning point that is at the crux of this particular crisis.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Forthcoming: Movies We're Excited About
Thanks to the miracle of YouTube, we can point you towards some movie trailers that hint at good things to come...to a theater near you.
Be Kind Rewind (due January 2008)
Stars Jack Black and Mos Def as two video store clerks who inadvertently erase every tape in their store, and make up for it by creating their own versions of the films. Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Dave Chappelle's Block Party) directs.
Harold and Kumar 2 (due 2008)
John Cho and Kal Penn revisit their characters from the hilarious Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle. This could either be really bad, or really awesome. We're hoping for awesome.
Walk Hard (due December 2007)
John C. Reilly stars as Dewey Cox in this parody of musical biopics like Ray and Walk The Line, co-written by Judd Apatow (see my post on Superbad). Also stars Jenna Fischer (The Office), and features cameos from Jack White (of the White Stripes, as Elvis Presley) and Paul Rudd (from Anchorman and the 40 Year Old Virgin, as John Lennon).
Be Kind Rewind (due January 2008)
Stars Jack Black and Mos Def as two video store clerks who inadvertently erase every tape in their store, and make up for it by creating their own versions of the films. Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Dave Chappelle's Block Party) directs.
Harold and Kumar 2 (due 2008)
John Cho and Kal Penn revisit their characters from the hilarious Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle. This could either be really bad, or really awesome. We're hoping for awesome.
Walk Hard (due December 2007)
John C. Reilly stars as Dewey Cox in this parody of musical biopics like Ray and Walk The Line, co-written by Judd Apatow (see my post on Superbad). Also stars Jenna Fischer (The Office), and features cameos from Jack White (of the White Stripes, as Elvis Presley) and Paul Rudd (from Anchorman and the 40 Year Old Virgin, as John Lennon).
Saturday, August 18, 2007
The Playlist: August, 2007
Here's what we're listening to this week - songs that are providing our personal soundtrack as we skip merrily through our daily existence, as it were.
1. "This Time Tomorrow," The Kinks
- Growing up, my parents (my mom, especially), took great pains to expose us to the culture that influenced them. As a result, I grew up somewhat conversant in the music of the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Peter Paul & Mary, and Bob Dylan. One of the great pleasures of getting older (for me) has been discovering the music that existed on the periphery of my mom's tastes. The Kinks are one of those bands - every time I hear something that's new to my ears from them, I slap my head and think, "these guys are awesome." This song appears in the aforementioned trailer to "The Darjeeling Limited."
2. "I Wait For You," Yume Bitsu
- I'd never heard of this band before checking out this song, a seven-plus minute feedback-laden gem reminiscent of the best guitar work of My Bloody Valentine virtuoso Kevin Shields. Apparently, Yume Bitsu are from Portland. Their name means "dream beats" in Japanese, and this song is dreamy - in the sense of sleep-dreams, not in the sense of Bobby Sherman and Peter Tork. Very cinematic and sweeping. Check it out.
3. "Throw Your Arms Around Me," Luka Bloom
- Originally written by Australian songwriter Mark Seymour for his band Hunters and Collectors, and most notably covered by Pearl Jam, "Throw Your Arms Around Me" is that rarest of tunes - playful and genuine without being sappy. I'm partial to Luka Bloom's atmospheric take on the tune, which benefits from simple acoustic guitar work and the singer's rich, Irish brogue.
4. "The Underdog," Spoon
While I genuinely liked Spoon's last album (Kill The Moonlight), its bare-bones production made me wonder what the band would sound like with more fleshed-out production. This song is the answer - with booming drums, sighing background vocals, and a horn section, this is a veritable orchestra in comparison to the last album. Genuinely cool.
5. "Then She Appeared," XTC
Some music from the late 80s and early 90s sounds very dated. Not this. Those keening guitars at the beginning of the song let you know you are, as the Loving Spoonful once sang, "into something good." XTC lead singer Andy Partridge is notorious for his stagefright; fortunately, the care with which tracks like this were crafted let you know that the man took serious care in the studio. Lovely and amazing.
1. "This Time Tomorrow," The Kinks
- Growing up, my parents (my mom, especially), took great pains to expose us to the culture that influenced them. As a result, I grew up somewhat conversant in the music of the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Peter Paul & Mary, and Bob Dylan. One of the great pleasures of getting older (for me) has been discovering the music that existed on the periphery of my mom's tastes. The Kinks are one of those bands - every time I hear something that's new to my ears from them, I slap my head and think, "these guys are awesome." This song appears in the aforementioned trailer to "The Darjeeling Limited."
2. "I Wait For You," Yume Bitsu
- I'd never heard of this band before checking out this song, a seven-plus minute feedback-laden gem reminiscent of the best guitar work of My Bloody Valentine virtuoso Kevin Shields. Apparently, Yume Bitsu are from Portland. Their name means "dream beats" in Japanese, and this song is dreamy - in the sense of sleep-dreams, not in the sense of Bobby Sherman and Peter Tork. Very cinematic and sweeping. Check it out.
3. "Throw Your Arms Around Me," Luka Bloom
- Originally written by Australian songwriter Mark Seymour for his band Hunters and Collectors, and most notably covered by Pearl Jam, "Throw Your Arms Around Me" is that rarest of tunes - playful and genuine without being sappy. I'm partial to Luka Bloom's atmospheric take on the tune, which benefits from simple acoustic guitar work and the singer's rich, Irish brogue.
4. "The Underdog," Spoon
While I genuinely liked Spoon's last album (Kill The Moonlight), its bare-bones production made me wonder what the band would sound like with more fleshed-out production. This song is the answer - with booming drums, sighing background vocals, and a horn section, this is a veritable orchestra in comparison to the last album. Genuinely cool.
5. "Then She Appeared," XTC
Some music from the late 80s and early 90s sounds very dated. Not this. Those keening guitars at the beginning of the song let you know you are, as the Loving Spoonful once sang, "into something good." XTC lead singer Andy Partridge is notorious for his stagefright; fortunately, the care with which tracks like this were crafted let you know that the man took serious care in the studio. Lovely and amazing.
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