October 2011 Reviews

These are
the reviews
and other
pieces I'm
working on
this month.



Amazon DVD: Smurfs Holiday Celebration, Bedlam - Season 1 [two-disc set], and Whitechapel - The Ripper Returns.

Amazon Theatricals: Lars Von Trier's Melancholia (with
Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg), Pedro Almodóvar's
The Skin I Live In, and The Rum Diary (with Johnny Depp).

Still playing (or yet to open): 50/50, Contagion,
Drive, The Help, Sarah's Key, Warrior, and Weekend.

Line Out: Les Bonnes Femmes - C'est Chic: French Girl Singers
of the 1960s (including Anna Karina), Cats & Dogs - Jacuzzi Boys vs. Superchunk, Why Bowie Is the Best, Running up That Hill: Kathryn Calder - Bright and Vivid, No Escaping the Seeds of Cabaret Voltaire, Cult Boyfriend: Jeffrey Lewis - A Turn in the Dream-Songs, Licensed to Ill: Psychic Ills - Hazed Dream, Her Name Is Earl: Shelby Earl - Burn the Boats, Wayne Coyne's Christmas Tip, Havin' a Ball with Marie Osmond, Pictures at an Exhibition, She Hit Me and I Was Glad: Anika Live, Nice and Sleazy: The Strange Boys - Live Music, New Sounds & Visions from AM & Lee, Wade in the Water: Seattle Music on PBS, Shit Hits the Fans in New Replacements Doc, We Are (Not) Invisible: Mannequin Men - Mannequin Men, They Hang Brightly...Again, Change Nothing II: Earshot Jazz, and The Pack a.d. - "Haunt You."

Video Librarian: Desperate Housewives - The Complete
Seventh Season [five-disc set], Bal, Carmel, Dum Maaro Dum,
Happy Endings - The Complete First Season [2-disc set], Grey's
Anatomy - The Complete Seventh Season [six-disc set], Little
Sparrows, Raising Hope - Season One [three-disc set], Rejoice
& Shout, Sleeping Beauty, Taylor Swift - Journey to Fearless.

Anna Karina in 1967's Anna image from Fouchtra!

Movie of the Month, Part 31: Bal (Honey)

I recently
reviewed
the follow-
ing DVD
for Video Librarian, and thought the results were worth sharing.

BAL (HONEY) [***1/2]
(Semih Kaplanoğlu, Turkey, 2010, 103 minutes)

In the conclusion to Semih Kaplanoğlu's Yusuf Trilogy (Yum-
urta and Süt), a farming family faces the end of their way of life.

Bal centers on future poet Yusuf Özbek (Bora Altas, excellent),
a diminutive six-year-old with a stammer and a jingling, Charlie
Chaplin-like walk who lives in a mountain village in northern Tur-
key where he enjoys a close relationship with his beekeeper fath-
er, Yakup (Erdal Besikçioglu), who teaches him about the region-
al flora, and a perfunctory one with his mother, Zehra (Tülin Öz-
en), who does more care-taking and housekeeping than socializ-
ing and teaching (the tinkling comes from the bells he wears).

Kaplanoğlu proceeds through Yusuf's days at school, where he
doesn't quite fit in, and at home, where he helps Yakup to collect
honey from the tall trees. Once, according to his father, Yusuf ate
too much at one time, and it made him dizzy. The writer/direct-
or divulges such details slowly and organically, concentrating
on quiet moments rather than exposition-heavy sequences.

Through this patient technique, he reveals that Yusuf has trouble
reading, that Yakup is an epileptic, and that the family is Muslim.

As the honey supply diminishes, Yakup has to travel farther
away, on his own, to collect the substance that provides for his
family, leaving his anxious wife and son to fend for themselv-
es. This dilemma fuels the film's primary source of tension.

Throughout, Kaplanoglu exhibits an excellent eye for com-
position, and Baris Özbicer’s cinematography brings out the
rich greens and browns of Yusuf’s surroundings. The scene
in which the moon's reflection pulsates in a bucket of water
is particularly magical. Bal won the top prize, the Golden
Bear, at 2010's Berlin Film Festival. Highly recommended.

Click here for Movie of the Month, Part 30: Dioses

Endnote: Slightly revised from the origin-
al text. Image of Bora Altas from indieWIRE.

September 2011 Reviews

These are
the reviews
and other
pieces I'm
working on
this month.




Amazon DVDs: Bill Cunningham New York, The 5th Quarter (with Aidan Quinn), Henry's Crime (with Keanu Reeves), The Hour (with Ben Whishaw, Romola Garai, and Dominic
West) [two-disc set], Secret Diary of a Call Girl - The Final Season, and Parenthood - Season Two [five-disc set].

Amazon Theatricals: Steven Soderbergh's Contagion (with Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Jude Law) and Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive (with Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan).

Still playing (or yet to open): 50/50, Cave of Forgotten
Dreams, Circumstance, The Help, Sarah's Key, Warrior, Week-
end, Winnie the Pooh, X-Men - 1st Class, and The Yellow Sea.

Line Out: Queen - Sheer Heart Attack, the Fabulous
Three - The Best of the Fabulous Three, Gathering No Moss -
Merry Clayton, the Jacuzzi Boys - Glazin', I Thought I Heard
Her Calling My Name, Ty Segall Week, Northern Soul Man -
Melvin Davis, Paris - The Devil Made Me Do It, Totally
Wired, the Dum Dum Girls - Only in Dreams, Meg Baird -
Seasons on Earth, Pedro Costa & Jeanne Balibar, Thee
Oh Sees + David Shrigley = $$$, Sky Saxon Meets
Fred Flintstone, Dum Dum Girls - "Bedroom
Eyes," and Veronica Falls - Veronica Falls.
 

Seattle Film Blog: Brigitte et Brigette, Cold Souls, A Colt Is My Passport, Deep End, The Gang's All Here, Love Streams, The Pornographers, Tonite Let's All Make Love in London, and 

interviews with Alan Ball and Keith Fulton.

Video Librarian: The Arbor, Me Too, Parenthood - Season
Two [five-disc set], Running Wilde - Season One [two-disc set],
True Adolescents, Accidental Icon - The Real Gidget Story, A
Cinderella Story - Once upon a Song, Cougar Town - The Com-
plete Second Season [five-disc set], Gossip Girl - The Complete
Fourth Season [5-disc set], Ne Chien Range, Hung - The Com-
plete Second Season [two-disc set], and Life, Above All.

Endnote: Queen image from 8notes.com.

Movie of the Month, Part 30: Gods (Dioses)

I recently reviewed the
following DVD for Video
Librarian, and thought the
results were worth sharing.

GODS / Dioses [***]
(Josué Méndez, Peru, 2008, 91 minutes)

Gods presents a side of Peru not often seen in the United Stat-
es: the lives of the country's super-rich. The story starts off with
two seemingly unrelated narratives: a wary brother looks after
his flirtatious sister at a nightclub, while a lower-class woman so-
cializes with her upper-class fiancé's friends at a dinner party.

Mr. Augustín (Edgar Saba), as it transpires, is the father of Die-
go (Sergio Gjurinovic), a college student, and Andrea, a part-time
model. At one point, Augustín tells his son, "A woman who thinks
is a man." If his unsophisticated fiancée, Elisa (Maricielo Effio),
who shares their oceanfront compound just outside Lima, seems
nice enough, the kids are spoiled brats, and Diego also expresses
an unhealthy interest in Andrea, who finds out she's pregnant, but
has no idea who the father might be (suffice to say, it isn't Diego).

By the time she tells her father, it's too late for an abortion, so he
comes up with a plan designed to save the family's reputation.



Meanwhile, Elisa hangs out around the house, reading and talk-
ing to the help, whom most everyone else ignores unless some-
thing goes wrong or unless one of Diego's drunken friends is feel-
ing frisky (she also appears to come from a family of domestics).

If Elisa enjoys spending Augustín's money, she has little inter-
est in his shallow social circle, in which the men talk business
(and hot babes) and the women babble about more superficial
matters, not counting their hypocritical Bible study sessions.

Taking on the rich and clueless is like shooting fish in a barrel,
but director Josué Méndez isn't heartless, and it's hard not
to feel something for each of these characters. Plus, he incor-
porates a few maids in the action, including the patient Inés
(Magaly Solier), who serve as a sort of Greek chorus, rein-
forcing the Rules of the Game impression. Recommended.

Click here for Movie of the Month, Part 29: Little Red Riding Hood

Endnote: Slightly revised from the original text. (I didn't
select a movie for July.) Image from Global Film Initiative.

August 2011 Reviews

August
Reviews


These are
the reviews
and other
pieces I'm
working on
this month.




Amazon DVDs: Cougar Town - The Complete Second Season [three-disc set] Ken Loach's Kes - The Criterion Collection, and Broken Hill (with Timothy Hutton, Luke Arnold, & Alexa Vega).

Amazon Theatricals: The Devil's Double (with Dominic
Cooper and Ludivine Sagnier), Oliver Schmitz's Life, Above All,
The Help (with Emma Stone, Viola Davis, & Octavia Spencer),
50/50 (Jonathan Levine directs Joseph Gordon-Levitt and
Seth Rogen), and Warrior (with Tom Hardy and Nick Nolte).

Still playing (or yet to open): Beats, Rhymes & Life - The Trav-
els of a Tribe Called Quest, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Sarah's Key,
Weekend, Winnie the Pooh, X-Men - First Class, and The Yellow Sea.

Seattle Film Blog: When the site transitioned from Moveable Type to Blogspot, all the images disappeared, so I've been slowly, but surely re-adding them, re-formatting text, and fixing diacritical marks. The latest batch: Baby Doll and The Bridesmaid.

Still playing: Beginners, Page One - Inside NY Times, and Tabloid.

Line Out: AM & Shawn Lee's Celestial Electric, Widowspeak's
Widowspeak, Blank City, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains, Salesmanship in Rock, Loney Dear's Hall Music, Jack Oblivian's Rat City, and Keeping up with the Joneses (via Fiennes).

Video Librarian: Dear Lemon Lima, Deep Purple - Phoenix Ris-
ing [Blu-ray], Eastbound & Down - The Complete Second Sea-
son [two-disc set], The Names of Love, Riverdance - Live from
Beijing, Johnny Winter - Live at Rockpalast, Coexist, Crooked
Beauty, Eine Kleine Käserei (A Little Cheese Factory), Free-
dom Flyers of Tuskegee, The Invisible Frame, Miss Rep-
resentation, On the Edge, Louis Prima in Person! His
Wildest Performances, Sperm Donor X - A Differ-
ent Conception, Thy Will Be Done - A Tran-
sexual Woman's Journey through Fami-
ly and Faith, I Will Follow, and Lou.

Endnote: Image from Interview Magazine.

Ty Segall's Transcendent Panache

Ty Segall,
Goodbye
Bread,
Drag City


Some
music
heavily
indebted
to rock's past transcends its historical baggage with more panache than others.
--Dave Segal, The Stranger ("Platform Boots on the Beach")

If I say I love Goodbye Bread, and I do, then I'll give the
impression I think it's great, when it's closer to very good.

If I had never heard Melted, my favorite record of 2010, I
would probably be more forgiving, but Segall's previous effort
was such a thoroughly transcendent guitar-rock extravaganza
that there's no way he could possibly top it. And so he hasn't,
but it's still a Ty Segall production through and through.

***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Click here for my review of Melted.

***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

I fell for the Bay Area musician's signature sound on Melt-
ed, follow-up to 2009's Lemons, and it permeates Good-
bye Bread, starting with that Barrett meets Bolan voice.



If anything, he gives his finest vocal performance to date on the
title track, which combines a gentle croon with a lovely falsetto,
and yet he never recalls one of those super-sensitive indie-rock
guys like Iron & Wine's Sam Beam or Bon Iver's Justin Vernon.

Not that those gentleman "can't" sing, but Segall is coming from a
more ragged, raw-boned perspective; it's a whole different thing.

***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

She said she wants to buy a couch...she wants a comfortable home.
-- "Comfortable Home (A True Story)"

***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

And it has nothing to do with a lack of sensitivity on his part. Rath-
er, navel-gazing isn't part of Segall's arsenal, and that can lead to
a somewhat messier state of affairs. If Goodbye Bread packs
as much punch as Melted (I haven't heard Lemons), the hooks
aren't as sticky. And if Segall isn't in love, he's certainly got ro-
mance on his mind, which means it's also more introspective.

As noted in this post, I also hadn't noticed until Segall's latest
album and tour: at times, he looks and sounds a lot like Kurt
Cobain (and there's always been a John Lennon strain run-
ning through his music). Take "Comfortable Home," for in-
stance, which plays like a companion to Nirvana's "Breed,"
i.e. "We don't have to breed. We can plant a house, we can
build a tree. I don't even care. We could have all three."

***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

You could go and meet my Mom. We could sit there all day long.
-- "You Make the Sun Fry"

***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Just as Cobain dreamed about a cozy domestic situation, Se-
gall does the same. (May he have better luck in that regard.)

Some of the other lyrics can be pretty facile and/or nonsen-
sical, i.e. "We could eat the tasty pieces of the peaches on the
beaches"--been listening to the Stranglers much?--and "See
you next time on the Reading Rainbow," but what the heck.

Ty Segall isn't here to teach you how to live your life; he's
here to entertain. At that: He succeeds spectacularly.
 
Endnote: Ty Segall plays the Crocodile tonight, July 11,
with Idle Times. Doors open at 8pm. Image from L.A. Record.

CD Reviews: AM & Shawn Lee, Strong Killings, and Tasseomancy

AM & Shawn Lee, Celestial
Electric, Eighteenth Street
Lounge/Fontana [8/30/11]

Los Angeles-based vocalist AM and
London producer/beat-maker Shawn
Lee offer bossa nova-infused dance-
pop with bleeps, bloops, and airy synths. On the aptly titled Celestial Electric, man meets machine on the dance floor, like Eric Carmen (the Raspberries) fronting Kraftwerk in São Paulo.

At first, I wasn't feeling it, but the more I listened, the more I
found myself falling for this dexterous duo. Collectively, they've
worked and/or toured with Air, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Caeta-
no Veloso, St. Etienne, Money Mark, Phoenix, and Sigur Ros.



If you always wished that Melbourne's Cut Copy would funk
things up more, AM & Shawn Lee have fulfilled your desire.

Made with "cheapo Casio and Yamaha synthesizers," their de-
but includes a tribute to Dirty Harry ("Callahan") and a fuzz bass-
driven cover of 1974's "Jackie Blue," while Finders Keepers hon-
cho Andy Votel provided the liner notes and cover design.

 AM & Shawn Lee - Jackie Blue by AMSOUNDS

AM & Shawn Lee play live on KEXP at 9:30am on 9/13 prior to
their gig at the Sunset Tavern. Click here for my Line-Out review.

Strong Killings, self-titled, Don't Stop Believin' Records

Well, I'm all messed up, and I'm losing my shit,
Got a pounding in my head, and it just won't quit.
--Strong Killings, "Licked, Nicked"

Like a collaboration between Frank Zappa and Suicidal Ten-
dencies, Seattle trio Strong Killings offer smart-ass hard
rock with fast-paced instrumental passages punctuated by ad-
enoidal vocals and hip-hop touches. I like some of those styles
separately, but I'm less enthusiastic when they come together.

So, their first record may not be to my taste, but I admire the
striking packaging--detailed illustrations and hand-written lyr-
ics--plus it also features a guest vocal from Pearl "Dragon"
Nelson (Champagne Champagne) on "The Basement."

Tasseomancy, Ulalume, Out of this Spark [8/30/11]

I'm not normally into dramatic, drone-oriented folk, but
Tasseomancy are adept at what they do, and what might
not be for me, could be for you. I certainly respect their craft,
which revolves around close harmonies from sisters Sari (man-
dolin) and Romi Lightman (guitar) that dance atop delicate lay-
ers of organ, lap steel, autoharp, harpsichord, and french horn.

 Soft Feet (Heidi Mortenson's Gentle Dane Remüx)

Formerly known as Ghost Bees, Tasseomancy's second rec-
ord comes on like a cross between the Incredible String Band
(or latter-period Nurse with Wound) and Joanna Newsom--
but without the sharp edges (the press notes also cite Popol
Vuh and Julee Cruise). Bonus points for the abalone imagery
on the cover along with a foldout poster of a floral collage.

Click here for "Healthy Hands."

Endnote: For more information about AM & Shawn
Lee, please click here; for Strong Killings, here; and
for Tasseomancy, here. AM image from Austin2011.