These nachos are reviewed due to deceptive advertising which claims that the nachos cost slightly less than half of one dollar. This is true only if one purchases a ridiculously priced beverage. The nachos, $1.19, look terrible, and a chemical analysis finds no cheese at all with the unevenly distributed ground beef, flattened fried beans, and bright orange flavor sauce, with a smear of fat white sour cream. There were also upwards of three tomato pieces and four scallion bits. A customer can separately request sauce packets in "Mild," "Hot," or "Fire." For the purposes of this review, "Hot" will be assumed. Sadly, the nachos taste pretty decent. They don't compare favorably to the solid Del Taco nachos or the sublime Green Burrito platter, but I had hoped to dish out a worse review.

Rating: B- (Packaged in cardboard)

Topics: fast food, taco bell

Would someone please tell me if this is supposed to be funny or not? Are we supposed to take Elizabeth Shue seriously when she tries to act sultry? Are we ever supposed to take Woody Harrelson seriously? Are we supposed to accept lines like "You do take risks, don't you?" seriously?

Oh, this has to be a comedy. Some sort of parody of neo-film noir. A very very subtle parody.

Please?

Rating: C- (If I were certain it was a parody, it would probably get a C+)

Topics: movies

Love & Rockets: Post Modernity on Planet Zero

This is my favorite Godzilla film, although the portrayal of classic mad genius arch-villain Dr. Mafune makes The Terror of Mechagodzilla (not to be confused with Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla) a near second. Legendary American B-movie film star Nick Adam's heroic portrayal of a human astronaut torn between his love of an alien robot woman and his duty to his country is sheer genius. His performance can be summed up in these words: "In defense of the Earth, we're gonna fight to the last man - baby!!" The alien androids are at their best in this film, complete with rubber DEVO-esque bodysuits and a proto-postmodern ideal of emotionless efficiency. But this stoicism is only a thin veil for the blurring of man and machine that lies at the heart of the film's romantic story of human and "Robot Machine" in love....a love that in the end is fated for ultimate tragedy. This film preceded Blade-Runner by about 20 years and yet it has the very same central themes that made Ridley Scott's film legendary. For true lovers of classy kitsch, this film is perhaps one of the finest films ever made.

Rating: A+ (So bad it's good)

Topics: movies

The Revenge of Dr. Mafune: Godzilla's Fall from Eden

The Terror of Mechagodzilla marked the end of the original Godzilla series, brought to a halt by Toho due to poor box office results. This was caused in large part by films such as Godzilla's Revenge, and Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster. The highlight of this film is Akihiko Hirata's portrayal of Dr. Mafune, a manifestation of the classic Mad Scientist archetype ala Dr. Frankenstein. Driven from society by his tamperings into the forbidden arts, Dr. Mafune becomes embittered and swears revenge on a world that does not understand him. It is very interesting that this is the last of the original series, as it marked the return of Inoshiro Honda, the original director of Godzilla, King of Monsters, and with him several themes that were central to the Godzilla myth. Most important among these were the concept of fringe science as the forbidden blasphemy, the fatal sin that marks the fall from Eden and was repronounced in our era by the invention of the Atomic Bomb (which can be said to have created the Godzilla concept in the Japanese mentality via Hiroshima and Nagasaki). Godzilla has become a primeval force of nature (see especially Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster) who is avenging against man's transgressions against the power of creation.

Rating: B (It's a B movie)

Topics: movies

Take The Cult, throw in some Blue Cheer, Failure and Kyuss. What do you get? Two former members of Fu Manchu who slather a percussive assault of harmonics and atmosphere spread thick to tantalize your taste for altered states of reality.

Opening track, "To The Center," lays the foundation with fuzzed-out distortion, Eddie Glass' high-pitched, chorused vocals, and lyrics alluding to flying through space, or something...The next copupla tracks are pretty standard, riff-heavy rockers that include some interesting Rhodes grooves and hand clapping choruses. By track 5, "Freedom," assuming you've followed Nebula's recipe for enlightened listening,you should be in the right state to appreciate the most Desert Rock/Kyuss-like track on the album. Consistent musical and lyrical themes are pretty much standard on the album as a whole: "Freedom," is no exception, and succeeds in delivering a creative, melodic rocker, complete with Sitar, that you wouldn't be embarrassed playing at full volume, in your 81 Camaro, on a mild summer's day. Nebula seem to discover different ways of being "under the influence," though, and it's not until the last 2 tracks that "To the Center" really picks up again. When it does, the last two tracks, "Between Time" and "You mean Nothing" rock out with a vengeance, and leave you waiting for their next release. Overall, great production, and a heck of a lot of fun to listen to.

Rating: B (Stoner Rock)

Topics: albums

Beautiful CD. Great to see this guy release a full length. For fans of GOOD D n' B, this one will satisfy: flying through azure skys...Lots of flutes, strong dub influence, presents music as textured topography, layered and sweeping

Now, if only the DJs in America would kick the pipe and throw down music as decent as this, then maybe D'n B would start to get respect from the domestic techno community.

If you ever enjoyed intelligent techno back in the day, ie 1992-1995, from the likes of Vapourspace, Speedy J, Orbital, and most of the releases on Intellinet and Telepathic, this CD belongs in your collection. This is one of the most atmospheric and creative releases to date.

Rating: A+ (Beautiful D n' B)

Topics: albums

AMERICAN SICKO

Movie Real, Sick

It ain't American Misanthrope. Bret Easton Ellis's book and Mary Harron's film (from a script by Harron, Guinevere Turner, and an uncredited Ellis himself) vary wildly on the implicit/explicit scale but not much in intent or tone, though it would be fairly difficult for any live-action film, by the merits of its actors being alive and pumping blood, to approach the utter flatness of the characters on the page (Maybe the effect could be achieved by computer animation, rendering the characters alike and lifeless [or alive and likeless], as in the Starship Troopers cartoon show [weekday mornings, local listings]).

There are a number of ways to read the book. For example, it can be read shrieking, or running in circles. If you remain stationary and make it through, though, you are ostensibly given the option of deciding whether Patrick Bateman engages in the various horrific acts or whether it's all in his cranium. I suppose you can feel free to make this decision, to the same extent that you can puzzle over whether the events in Speed really take place or are in Keanu's head.

The choice is technically sort of yours, then, to read American Psycho (book or movie) as a pretty decent satire or a really dull psychological study of a mind teetering dangerously blah blah blah. The latter pretty much negates itself: if it's all in his mind, he's not really dangerous anyway. Even if you figure a guy with such heavy stuff in his head must be dangerous, there's no real change in thickness to anything 'probably-real' at any point, and you can't establish any more threatening definite dialogue (dialogue with a response in a non-murderous or hallucinatory scene) than "I don't think I can control myself" and "I don't want to hurt you," and if you can show me an affluent white male of 27 years old who never said "I don't want to hurt you" to a woman, I'll eat him.

Be wary, then, of critics who claim that none of it really happens, as if that opinion is validated as fact just because they realized it's possible. If it's imaginary, then it's about just one weak person. One TV critic says Bateman is "too weak to kill"; this is the strongest argument offered by this doctoral candidate for psychology. Maybe he's too weak not to kill.

Bateman says to a girl, "You are a [expletive] ugly [expletive] and I want to stab you to death and play around in your blood." She doesn't hear him. (Given time and a captive audience, there's a fascinating argue that she hears but doesn't respond, but we'll leave this out in the interest of brevity) She doesn't hear him because he doesn't really say it? Weak! She doesn't hear him because she's not really listening? Better, and much more foreboding. Also: She doesn't hear him because the bar [/culture] has created a constant deafening racket, with little chance for personal interaction? Nah, that'd be satire...and so heavy-handed!

The worse call is that Bateman is just a vain jerk, which doesn't say much about anything. (Not much call these days for a withering social critique of vain jerks.) The better call is that instead of vanity with no point, Bateman has a special kind of necessary vanity, very much required for a man who presents nothing else and can thus act as a man without a center (or "a soul"). The thing that scares the critics off, makes them...

Read the rest of the review!

Rating: A-

Topics: movies

Those who are brave enough to risk Jack-In-The-Boxs twice-a-decade major food poisoning special events may be familiar with the Two Tacos, a weird American duo, seemingly sold only in pairs, of spiceless but unique food items for the bargain taco hunter. Perhaps Del Taco, secure in the knowledge that its tacos top those of Taco Bell, felt the heat, for their Del Shredder can only be a phenomenon created to out-America these Jack-In-The-Box... things.

The chief trait of the Jack-In-The-Box taco is sealant. The shell is not crispy, but a thin chewy tortilla sealed together with the grease of the meat, that orange ground-beef grease popularized by school cafeterias and perfected by Taco Bell.

Del Taco ground beef tends not to use the orange grease - how, then, to seal the taco properly? Perhaps they are buying the grease separately, for they crimp the taco and seal it tight.

It is the contents of the Del Shredder (~$1.29, contingent upon local advertised specials) that make J-I-t-Bs look Communist by comparison. Ground beef flavoring, chili powder, is vaguely Mexican - substitute a piece of Steak-Umm - That sauce has some residual heat if you eat enough packets - create a new sauce with the consistency and mildness of ketchup. Cheddar cheese, while not authentically Mexican, is used on the more Mexican dishes available, and so to set this new taco off, there can be only one type of cheese to fit the equation. Im not even going to say it.

Rating: D- (Tightly sealed)

Topics: fast food

Transcript from Dreamworks-organized focus group, immediately preceding the release (and subsequent commercial failure) of In Dreams:

Group Leader: So, you've all seen the movie. What would you change?

Unnamed Male: Well, I thought the daughter dying was a little much. Couldn't you tone it down a litte?

GL: Sure, sure. How about if we just send her off to college instead? That work for you?

UM: Yes, that's much better.

Unnamed Female: The movie was a little intense. All that frantic cutting. It was really scary and disturbing. It made me uncomfortable.

GL: Hmmm... It was supposed to be scary, but...

UF: It was just too much.

GL: All right. All right. What if we just inserted a good hour or so of Claire standing around with her eyes bugging out? Would that help?

UF: Oh, yes. That would be fine.

GL: Okay. Any other comments?

Unnamed Female 2: Well, if you want scary, you should insert some scenes where the door moves and you think it's going to be something scary, but it's really just the dog or the husband. Those are sooooo scary!

GL: Ummm... Okay. We'll add some of those.

UF2: And you should get rid of Robert Downey Jr.

GL: He's sort of important to the film.

UF2: Well, I don't like him.

GL: Fine. He's gone. Anything else?

Unnamed Male 2: Why did Annette Bening look so bad? I mean, didn't you have makeup people?

GL: I think they were trying to convey her inner decay.

UM2: Well, it's no fun to watch.

GL: Okay, we'll make sure she stays good looking throughout. Can her hair get kinda frizzy?

UM2: I suppose.

GL: Good. Any other changes?

UM: How about a red herring subplot that takes up the whole first act, but is discounted entirely by the advertising campaign?

UF: Yeah! That would be fun. And then I wouldn't feel bad about leaving to go get snacks!

...

Unfortunately, these notes reached the Dreamworks headquarters too late for these changes to be incorporated into In Dreams, leaving the execs no choice but to remake the film, now under the title What Lies Beneath. Clearly, the focus group paid off, as the remake has so far made nine times what the original did...

PS: I just realized the story for this film was by Sarah Kernochan who wrote and directed Strike (which is now entitled All I Wanna Do). Take your seven bucks and go rent yourself a double feature of this and In Dreams and you'll be much better off.

Rating: D- (Utterly horrid)

Topics: movies

What can be said say about the Cheesy Gordita Crunch that hasn't been said many times before? A strange child of the decent, very filling Double-Decker Taco and the Baja Gordita with an extra layer of cheese to provide a little taste and prevent any slipping. The name presents an immediate problem: there is very little crunch, as a decent application of sauce and heat robs the taco shell cushioned in the gordita of any actual crispness. The slight resistance provided by the softening shell, though, helps to cut the mushy feeling of the regular gordita entree and lend a little more substance to the experience. The layer of cheese - again, unlike the regular gordita - is melted by the heat, making it noticeably more appealing than the dry unmelted shavings on the regular dish and bringing out the flavor.

The Cheesy Gordita Crunch relies, otherwise, on the same staples as the simpler version: ground beef, lettuce, a couple of scallion bits, and the special sauce which, whatever its actual recipe, might be a child of sour cream and orange ground beef grease. It's a more enjoyable item than the straight Gordita, and fifty extra cents is a reasonable payoff, but one must question whether the sizeable increase in fat and calories is a concern.

Rating: C (Cheesy-G)

Topics: fast food, taco bell

I haven’t seen this much teen posterior since I rented the unrated Director’s Cut DVD of Roger Corman Presents a Luc Besson film: Porky’s IV: Avenging Angel.

Rating: A- (Featuring "Girls with the butts" song)

Topics: advertisements

There is little doubt that Action was one of the best shows to be cancelled in the game-show fueled mass extermination of series that occurred in 1999, but if it did possess a flaw, it was a tendency towards overly broad humor. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the episode "Lights, Camera, Action," in which we get to see the production of the film Beverly Hills Gun Club. The one scene they spend the episode shooting is a weak parody of a typical Joel Silver film, but is so grossly over-the-top that it is hard to reconcile with the enthusiasm displayed for the script. While watching this episode, I said, "No one would possibly spend millions to make a film this unspeakably bad."

And then I saw Chill Factor.

The pitch for the film pretty much sums it up (48 Hours meets Speed). Johnny Depp (played by Skeet Ulrich) kidnaps Don "No Soul" Simmons (played by Cuba Gooding Jr) so they can be chased around by your usual Alan Rickman clone. Usually these sort of rip-offs have some vaguely interesting twist to them (Die Hard on a boat, Rio Bravo in New York, Hamlet in Africa with lions), but this one relies on the rather flimsy concept of Speed on an ice cream delivery truck. Flimsy.

Sadly, the filmmakers seemed convinced that this "high" concept would be enough to sustain the entire film. Who needs a script?

Fortunately, this film provides what should be the final, much-needed example of black/white buddy film homoeroticism for thousands of self-impressed film majors. This film should allow these poor students of the world to stretch what would otherwise be a mere term paper into a senior thesis, or, if they are lucky, a book.

Rating: D+ (Lower End of Mediocrity)

Topics: movies

For reasons I don't understand, not all people who write books for the old child/young adult category don't center around the sort of protagonists Daniel Pinkwater writes, which is to say, chubby, antisocial freaks. Do they really think good-looking, socially adept people between the ages of 9 and 13 are reading when not forced by teachers?

Of course not.

Fortunately, Daniel Pinkwater has the formula down. Introduce a portly smart kid who is ostracized by everyone else at school. He meets another, similarly ostracized, kid, and they go off and meet wacky characters and do wacky things. That's a book I wanted to read when I was in fourth grade, and it's a book I enjoy reading now.

Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars is possibly the best realization of this formula. Our husky reject, Leonard Neeble, moves to a hideous suburb from his pleasant old neighborhood in Hogboro. Everyone at the new school hates him, so he pretends to be an idiot so people will ignore him. He meets up with Alan Mendelsohn, who, after a few days at school, convinces half the school he is from Mars. Then they learn how to move things with their mind and how to visit other dimensions. You really have to read it to truly appreciate this novel.

Unless, of course, you were one of those people with a social life in junior high. I'm not sure what you would be doing on this website if you were, but I suppose it's possible.

Rating: A+ (Doesn't Get Any Better Than This)

Topics: books

I fail to understand the logic behind remaking well-known films. Take the recent remake of Diabolique, for instance. What is possibly to be gained by remaking a generally well-regarded film with an inferior cast, except possibly to fuel the director and producer's desire to commit hubris. Certainly, the filmgoing public is not served by these remakes as they are, almost without exception, far inferior to those films that inspired them.

For years, I had adopted an attitude that all remakes were, by their very nature, lousy; however, I recently came to the conclusion that the problem lies in filmmakers trying to remmake films that are already pretty good. Instead of remmaking a film by Hitchcock or Hawks, why not find a film with a somewhat interesting script that was horribly miscast, misdirected, and generally bungled in every instance possible.

Like, for instance, Bad Company.

The film starts with a massively overplotted script by the master of overplotted American spy novels, Ross Thomas. I suppose an argument could be made that Ross Thomas' fiction does not lend itself to film, as an average Thomas story consists of no less than 67% of the narrative devoted to people standing around discussing what they intend to do, rather than actually doing it. Still, in the right hands, this could be made into a film as interesting as the novels.

Sadly, Damian Harris does not possess these hands. I have a hard time passing judgement on Mr. Harris, as he did write and direct the notable film, The Rachel Papers. Nevertheless, he seems to have no idea how to handle this script. He gets uncomfortable with the concept of a man and woman talking, so instructs them to have sex while they carry on the conversation. Not a good sign.

Of course, the most lowly hack could have done a passable job had he been supported by somewhat sane casting choices. Thomas novels generally feature one of two general protagonist types. The first is the older, mind-bogglingly cynical, hard-boiled Agency vet. The other is the young turk, who is a ballsy upstart, but highly honorable and interested in the history and tradition of being a secret agent. This film contains both characters, casting Frank Langella in the former and Laurence Fishburne in the latter. Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. (I think I will avoid even mentioning Ellen Barkin -- I will merely state that her career has been a dismal spiral ever since Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai...)

So, why not option this script again (it's been 6 years -- i'm sure it's available by now) and do it right? Give it to John Dahl, maybe. Put Edward Norton in it. Can't go wrong (or, at least, not any more wrong).

Rating: D- (Begs to be Done Well)

Topics: movies

One last thing about the Blair Witch Project

One can’t help wondering if the people complaining about Blair Witch Project are the ones silly enough to have a few beers for courage and sit in the first five rows. Sit a reasonable distance from the screen and you’ll be fine. Ignore the backlash from the unreasonable waves of hype and you might actually like it.

BWP is very little to do with witches and witchcraft; its greatest strength may be its refusal to pin itself down to any single folklore beyond the townspeople’s crackpot grocery-store gossip. While this nicely lays the groundwork for some speculation about the conclusion, some of the best moments - the stick figures in the forest - are left alone without stuffing them into a specific set of Gremlinesque "Witchcraft Rules." For werewolf, a silver bullet, for mummy, a blowtorch, for vampire an order of scampi, but without adding a "From Dusk Till Dawn"* scene to review the steps for dealing with a witch, we can count out any chance of fighting and concentrate on the remaining options - which ain’t much: walk.

The escalating hysteria has nothing to do with any witch. While the low-budget 50s schlock that relied on zooming into the face of the victim wasn’t always terrifying, it had something going that Full Moon video doesn’t: knowledge that, while looking at something scary can be very unsettling ("In the Mouth of Madness"), looking at a rubber mask will often as not backfire (oh, let’s say "Blood Diner"). BWP is a rare creature among horror films, avoiding both of these possibilities by making creatures scarce and concentrating only on the victims, who can concentrate only on swirling concepts of myth and folklore.

This is what everybody’s so eager to talk about lately - unseen horror - but BWP is the only one to master the concept. Despite a small bit ofsuspense, the supposedly scary stuff in "Sixth Sense" is all seen. In "The Haunting" (1999), it’s all scene, and in "The Haunting" (1963), it might not even be there. In BWP, it’s unseen and very unknown, but the realization slowly dawns that it’s definitely something.

Haunting 99 played off Haunting 63 in this, the same way that failed Haunting 63: it sets itself up as psychological horror. Meaning it’s all an experiment to see if people in a scary house will drive themselves batty with fear or whether there is something in the house to do the job for them.

Yes, it’s very scary when you’re alone at home and hear a noise outside and don’t know what it is. Probably it’s much scarier when you know it’s not your imagination, but something coming to get you. It’s not knowing the specifics, not knowing how to stop it, that can get to you.

BWP delivers a few chilling moments - the figures, the stones, the climax - but don’t let those set the pace for you or you’ll miss the rest of the movie waiting for more such moments.

BWP doesn’t really need to be very scary. It’s at its best carefully pacing those few moments between stretches of dry quiet woods (no birds, no crickets, no chipmunks), as well contrasted as the weary day and tense, awake night. The stretches of day are not an exercise to create fear but a chance to study it: days as futile, shortening spans that become just a reprieve, not the safety of the sun’s rays but a lapse, a gasp that, in Harlan Ellison time-is-an-arrow terms, can do nothing but lead to night.

Heather, Mike and Josh are three kids in the woods whose situation is decreasingly likely, less plausible for them (but not for us**) and increasingly desperate - but the...

Read the rest of the review!

Rating: A- (Don&3039;t not believe the hype)

Topics: horror, movies

I've noticed a disturbing trend with my output here. Most of the films are horrible. Really horrible. And yet I sit through them, just so I can write a horrible review. However, the music reviews are overwhelmingly positive. Why is it that I am willing to sit through 100 minutes of visual pablum, but will stop listening to a subpar album within mere moments of determining just how bad it is? Something's clearly wrong.

So, in an order to correct this imbalance, here is a review of a pretty darn mediocre album. Now, in order to overcome my impulse to cease listening to a bad album, I selected an album that should have been one of the best of the year.

The 6ths, for those who don't know, is yet another project by Stephin Merritt, best known for his main project, The Magnetic Fields, which is one of the better pop bands operating today. However, Merritt prefers to have others sing his songs, and so was born the 6ths. The previous album, Wasps' Nest, contained brilliant pop songs sung by a variety of indie-rock superstars, such as Lou Barlow, Georgia Hubley, Dean Wareham, and Chris Knox. All in all a fine album.

Sadly, the follow-up is a significant departure from the last. Instead of attempting to produce a good album, they have decided to release a bad one. Really bad. A lot of the fault comes from the choice of guest singers. Some are selected along the same lines as the first (e.g, Clare Grogan, Bob Mould, Sally Timms), but most of the tracks are sung by Stephin Merritt's artistic twins (Momus, Marc Almond, Neil Hannon) or older artists that are well past their prime (Dominique A, Odetta, Melanie). This alone would make for a mediocre album, but the songwriting drops it down to utter trash. Merritt has always had a fondness for slow ballads, but here they sink down to Neil Diamond level (and not in a good "Sweet Caroline" way, but in an excreable "Turn On Your Heartlight" kind of way)

While the first album managed to overcome the "celebrity karaoke" feel that the concept lends itself to, this album feels like being trapped in a highly-recommended bar that can't mix a decent Tom Collins.

Rating: F (28.5%)

Topics: albums

I have more CDs than most folks would ever want or need. I buy more on a semi-weekly (or, more often, daily) basis. And, in some strange O. Henry twist of fate, my passion for music decreases with every purchase. I've lost my passion, my zeal, my je ne sais quoi. I've lost that damned naive desire to hear something NEW and EXCITING, to take a chance and try out something different. Instead, I find myself collecting CDs, completing discographies, listlessly wandering music racks like a zombie stuck in a remedial English class. At this rate, I'll be purchasing Top 40 CDs just for a change of pace. (And, you know, I DO hear a definite improvement in Britney Spears' newest song - she seems to be shaking off the shackles and clothing that typified her _Baby, One More Time_ phase, and...)

Um. Yeah.

So, in a desperate attempt to regain some of this lost passion, I'm going to write about a CD I purchased simply because of association and name-value. Lake of Dracula - even before I knew who was in the band, I thought, "Damn, that's a GREAT name for a band; like a long lost Hammer film." Images of bloody hands emerging from murky lagoons did the Sugar Plum Fairy dance in my sleeping little head. Indeed, as I look at the cover of this CD, such a hand is pictured on the cover.

Now, if the name of the band / album isn't enough to get your fangs throbbing, let's just say that two-thirds of this combo also did / do time in some of the more invigorating rock outfits available for (non-)popular consumption. On guitar is Walter Weasel, the brains & beat behind free-jazz terrorists The Flying Luttenbachers (and also a good-lookin' zombie-type in thick metallers Heatwave). Heather M, on the drums on this record, also beat the logs for the Scissor Girls, the closest an American band has come to approximating the chaos embodied by the Fall. And if that's not enough, you can find the pseudonymously-credited Al Johnson (the mewler / moaner that leads the broken-leg marching of US Maple) offering a few bon mots here and there. (I think that mention of KoKo Taylor is all his.)

If you know anything about the bands I just namedropped, you have a vague idea of what you're in for. (Did I mention that this was released on Skin Graft? Does that tighten the canvas any?) However, even if you think this will be another run-of-the-mill No-Wave excursion into polysyllabic yawping and Shaggs-like instrument-mangling, you'd be selling this Lake a bit short. What's contained on this disc is THE epitome of No-Wave polysyllabic instrument-mangling.

You have Walter Weasel beating his guitar the same way he beats the drums in the Luttenbachers - violently and thickly. You have Heather M simplifying the chuga-chuga rhythms of Moe Tucker, but with the volume knob stuck at 11, and with drumsticks the size of a wrestler's legs. And you have newcomer Marlon Magas, reading his high-school angst-ridden poetry upside-down and cut-up into confetti-sized pieces and mixed with Misfit lyrics and stupid missent e-mail scrawls (complete with punctuation miscues). You'll be hard pressed to find a vocalist that hawks up phlegm as well as he does. And to this, you add Jim O'Rourke's rogue streaks of inspiration behind the boards, adding some string interludes at the beginning of the album, letting the sound of a car alarm sneak onto the tape, slicing and dicing tape like a Benihana chef on speed, and (most importantly) knowing when to let things be. The grooves this combo...

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Rating: A+ (Primo BLKJKJLAAHKJHGJD!)

Topics: albums

Lately, I've been feeling more than a little unimpressed with pop music. I buy new albums from my favorite bands and respond with a resounding "eh." I try listening to new, much beloved (and hyped) bands (like, say, Death Cab for Cutie) and respond, once again, "eh."

So, the other day on a mailing list someone mentions falling in love with a song by Dear Nora. Never heard of them, but work is slow, so I download "Since You Went Away."

Damn.

I mean, we're not talking about anything new or groundbreaking. It comes as no surprise that they're from the Pacific Northwest (Portland, to be specific) and have that K Records-lofi vibe to them, but completely missing any sense of self-importance that has made that scene so hard to stomach in recent years. Nothing exciting in the arrangements -- guitar, bass, drums, female vox. Sonically, this band could have released 7"'s on Harriet and fit right in with early Vehicle Flips and Lotus Eaters without missing a beat.

But the songs are so darn charming. They manage to do the light, mid-90's indie pop without resorting to being overly twee (Tokidoki, Jumprope) or overly influenced by the Beach Boys and their ilk (Apples in Stereo).

Really, the only flaw is that the songs are just too short. Most songs clock in at 2 minutes or less, and with only 12 tracks, it's over too quickly.

To get started with Dear Nora, download Since You Went Away from Magic Marker Records now.

-- some more thoughts on Dear Nora a week later --

A day hasn't gone by when I haven't listened to this album, which is saying a lot. It comes with me everywhere. (Incidentally, a drive to the supermarket coincides perfectly with the playing of the first three tracks on the album. What timing!

I can already tell that this is going to be THE album I associate with Spring 2001.

Rating: A- (Would be higher, but the songs just aren't long enough)

Topics: albums

I'm hoping you all know what I'm talking about here. It looks just like a normal Home Depot ad (e.g., actors doing home improvment, selecting hardware with the help of smiling orange-smocked types), but then it cuts to a shot of Larry David standing in an empty room. Huh? Larry David? Doesn't he have enough money from creating Seinfeld that he doesn't need to do ads? Does the Home Depot Corporation really think that, first, a sufficient number of people will recognize Larry David and, secondly, that these people would be more inclined to go to the Home Depot because of Larry David's endorsement.

Let's say, for argument's sake, it is Larry David, not just a Larry David impersonator (which I certainly hope is a well-paying profession). Shouldn't there be some text on the screen that tells people who he is? If they're going to shell out the big bucks for a Larry David appearance, wouldn't they want to flaunt it? Is Larry David such a huge fan of Home Depot that he is doing unpaid, uncredited appearances for them?

And, just to make the whole thing even more perplexing, the shot is pretty quick, then returns to smiling, multi-ethic orange smock wearers. Blah blah blah. More of the same. Then the closing shot.

Ira Kaplan at the checkout counter.

Yes, Ira Kaplan. The guitarist and singer from Yo La Tengo at Home Depot.

Now, I know Yo La Tengo doesn't sell as well as Britney Spears, but Home Depot ads? I could see them selling a song for use in a Home Depot ad, but an actual appearance? Bizarre.

I like to think that there is someone at Home Depot who has decided to really fine tune their ad campaigns. Clearly, they are looking to appeal to 24-25 year old hipsters, and what better way to do it? Those who don't recognize Mssrs. David & Kaplan will still respond to the ad as well as they ever would, but those in the key demographic will get really excited and pay waaaay more attention than they ever would to a Home Depot ad. Brilliant.

Rating: A+ (If these people are not who they seem to be, then wouldn't be nearly so high)

Topics: advertisements

After watching Snow Day, my initial thought was "2000 must have been a bad year for movies, if I am seriously considering putting Snow Day on my top 10 list for the year."

But, really, that's not fair to Snow Day. This movie has a whole lot going for it. It was written and produced by Will McRobb and Chris Viscardi who were the creators of what might have been the best show on television, ever, The Adventures of Pete & Pete. It prominently features Chris Elliot and Damian Young (who played possibly my favorite character on Pete & Pete, Bus Driver Stu Benedict -- as well as his brilliant performance in Hal Hartley's Amateur)

A quick rundown of the plot, for those who haven't seen it. The movie is prefaced by a quick introduction. Town near Syracuse, NY (played by Alberta) has had an unseasonably warm winter. Then it snows. A lot. The film then breaks into four storylines.

Plot 1 - Hal (played by Mark Webber who was very good in Drive Me Crazy) has a crush on Miss Popular. He sets out with his tomboy friend (who is in love with him, of course, and is played by Sissy Spacek's daughter, apparently) to win over the popular girl. He realizes he should be with his friend instead.

Plot 2 - Hal's sister, Natalie, wants to keep the Snow Plow Man (Chris Elliot) from plowing the roads and preventing two snow days in a row. She's distraught, however, that her older brother would rather chase after a girl than help with this task.

Plot 3 - Hal's dad (Chevy Chase) is a weatherman who is losing ratings to a good looking moron who he tries to prove is a moron.

Plot 4 - Hal's workaholic mom has to stay home with their crazed younger brother and remembers that having a family is a good thing.

So, you can see we're not breaking any new ground with this movie. In fact, plots 1 + 2 are lifted pretty directly from old episodes of Pete & Pete, which really isn't a bad thing. In fact, the whole film feels sort of like a feature length episode of Pete & Pete. Even some of the actors in the movie look alarmingly like actors from the show.

Fortunately, this is McRobb and Viscardi's forte. They know how to do fun family stories that play like a slightly more upbeat John Hughes. If you can overlook the occasional fart joke (which I think you pretty much have to if you want to go to a Hollywood film made in the last 5 years), you'll probably end up liking this a lot more than you would think you would.

Rating: B+

Topics: movies

Forget DeVito. Why you wanna go and do that? I mean, I don't want to denigrate the guy's performance in Twins or anything, or the one in Get Shorty, but I'm seeing previews for Screwed, and if you've seen 'em you know what I mean, and then he shows up in Virgin Suicides, and I'm thinking, why does it have to be DeVito? His and Scott Glenn's token single-scene appearances in The Virgin Suicides are the loud mark of either someone's (studio's) desire to have bankable names to show in the previews, or those actors' desire a) to work on an adaptation of a very good book they 1) read or 2) heard about, or b) to work with a Coppola, either x) because Coppolas have a lot of pull in H'Wood, or y) because DeVito really had a good time working on Jack/The Rainmaker. It's distracting.

It's hard to know whether to extend this dismissal to James Woods and Kathleen Turner as the Lisbon parents, or not. Mad at DeVito's pointless presence, I started off mad at Woods and Turner too, at the casting director and the names you can get merely by being a Coppola, unless of course they'd been familiar with Sofia Coppola's oeuvre of 16mm B/W shorts about high school girls, shown with some frequency between features and Buick commercials on Bravo.

Either through acting or merely having enough screen time to cancel the novelty stigma (I can't tell which), they cease to be cameos and become, one way or another, performances. Dislike of studio practices becomes dislike of characters, a mild frustration at Woods' prematurely doddering, impactless Mr. Lisbon, hen-pecked but never quite put-upon as in the book, a man by his own admission powerless over his wife's command - but this film Lisbon {one cue too many from Jim Backus in Rebel Without A Cause never takes the responsibility to which he owns up in the book, neither for the financial upkeep of a large family or for the events. Woods conveys a man who goes slightly loopy - but here he is knocked for a loop by the circumstances, not by his role in the whole thing.

Mrs. Lisbon is tough. She needs to be a tyrant repressively, not oppressively, caring for the girls but unaware of which problems are significant and where they come from. Turner, ostensibly hired for her career of playing various types of toughness, seems uncertain of which applies here (V.I. Warshawski tough? Serial Mom tough? Body Heat tough?) and plays it blandly, tough without Serial Mom viciousness or Body Heat control.

Someone [LA Weekly] knocks Coppola for making the girls "all raving beauties" but this is off base. To read the book is to know the girls' raving beauty, with or without the very slight amount of physical description offered ("short, round-buttocked in denim..."), and to understand the book is to give in to its subjectivity with regard to the Lisbons, and maybe Coppola actually goes get the point, casting metaphorically. The beauty of the actresses [and it should be noted that hey, maybe there are some folks who think they're not all that attractive (maybe, in a supremely hypothetical aside to Coppola's utmost theoretical credit, the actresses are quite homely, and the LA Weekly and I just remember them as beautiful because of the movie!)] is a symbol for the beauty they would have even if they weren't so nice-looking. Maybe it's a young-male* attitude for me not to...

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Topics: movies