Tweenbots to take over the world with cuteness

Tweenbots, the brainchild of ITP graduate student Kacie Kinzer, is probably the cutest thesis project I've ever seen. Or maybe the only cute thesis project I've ever seen. The lil' cardboard robots are completely human-dependant, can only mosey in one direction at a constant (and hilariously slow) speed, and have a final goal in mind (printed on a white flag sticking out of the robots square butt). Kacie let one of them loose in Greenwich Village's Washington Square Park and over the course of forty minutes close to thirty different people intervened, lending a helping hand whenever he got lost, stuck under a bench, or just plain loopy. I particularly love the quote from some guy talking directly to our interpid little Tweenbot: "You can’t go that way, it’s toward the road.” He then proceeded to turn the little guy back the way he had come. Oh, the amazing ability of humans to anthropomorphize any tiny thing with a big smile and googly eyes.

If the video doesn't make you smile (while showing how great a lot of New Yorkers are) then you yourself might be some sort of robot - though probably not half as cute as a Tweenbot.



Check out the entire site below:

www.tweenbots.com

listen to this

On March 3rd, Brooklyn-based The Antlers released Hospice, a full two years after their previous full-length album. Self-produced, it’s as good as anything I’ve heard all year (yes, better than Animal Collective), and well worth the wait. I’ve been playing it frequently and fully, as it should be listened. The record is completely realized over ten tracks, which unspool to tell the story of a home-care professional who falls in love with a troubled patient. A meditation on death, attempted suicide, hospital machinery, and ghosts (along with other uppers), these types of downtrodden topics could have easily fallen into an emo-shovelled trench with no hope of getting out. But they don't. Silberman, 22, The Antlers’ frontman, has a vocals style that ranges wildly. He can pull the falsettos of Jeff Buckley, with the sincerity of Wayne Coyne. This, along with the ambient background underlying his lyrics, help make the album play more like fleshed-out novel. The lyrics are haunting, and poetically so (the liner notes are particularly insightful - www.antlersmusic.com/linernotes.pdf). “Bear” and “Two” are probably the standout tracks for me, and I think it’s because they’re a bit more uplifting, at least in their arrangement (even though their subject is so foreboding): “You had a new dream/ And it was just like nightmare/ You were just a little kid/ And they cut your hair/Then they stuck you machines/ You came so close to dying/ They should have listened/ They thought that you were lying/ Daddy was an asshole/ he fucked you up/ Built the gears in your head/ Now he greases them up/ And no one paid attention when you just stopped eating/ 87 pounds! and this all bears repeating.”

It’s powerful, moving stuff, and well worth your time.

The album, in its entirety, is streaming below:

How to Scar a Poor Kid for Life (number 5)

[the Uruk-hai's the least of your problems, kiddo]

5. The Black Hole (1979)

This little masterpiece came out before I was born, but still managed to spread its dark, dark, tentacles throughout my nubile mind. To this day I haven’t been able to gather the strength necessary to re-watch the damn thing. As a SPACE.com article asked, twenty-five years after its original released date: “Does Disney’s ‘The Black Hole’ Still Suck?” I can’t imagine how not.

There’s not a whole lot to say about this Disney crap-fest except that it might be the oddest movie in the studio’s entire, monumental library. From what I can remember (and it’s not much – I must have been five at the time), it’s something of a hybrid between Star Wars and Time Bandits…if both were on a shit-ton of acid. Someone involved (or maybe everyone involved) must have had a raging hard-on for robots because I recall unnecessary reveal after unnecessary reveal where humans are robots, robots are humans, and all these robots chase after everyone else like a pack of dogs in heat. The real monster, sans the robots, is Maximilian Schell, who plays Dr. Reinhart, effectively making Darth Vader look like your grandma. He’s terrifying. I don’t really remember his master plans, but he lives alone on some massive ship orbiting a black hole (hence that creative title), obsessed with reaching the other side in some sort of misguided attempt at attaining immortality. Not really sure who gets paid to write this. Extremely dark, and as I remember it, confusing, the movie was bleak, in that whole “oh-shit-we’re-leaving-the-70’s-and starting-the-depressing-80’s” way. The tagline, “A Journey That Begins Where Everything Ends”, doesn’t even make any fucking sense.

In a lot of ways this movie falls into the same category as Time Bandits (number 8 on my list), which is that it was marketed towards kids, but really shouldn’t have been. It’s just one major pile of unmitigated and unintelligible creepiness. Between this and Terminator 2, the eighties only really convinced me of one thing: stay the fuck away from robots. And consider becoming a neo-luddite.

Quote of the Day

From Roberto Bollaño's posthumous, five-part masterpiece, the lyrical and haunting 2666:

"Then Boris Yeltsin looked at Amalfitano with curiousity, as if it were Amalfitano who had invaded his dream, not the other way around. And he said: listen carefully to what I have to say, comrade. I'm going to explain what the third leg of the human table is. I'm going to tell you. And then leave me alone. Life is demand and supply, or supply and demand, that's what it all boils down to, but that's no way to live. A third leg is needed to keep the table from permanently collapsing into the garbage pit of the world. So take note. This is the equation: supply + demand + magic. And what is magic? Magic is epic and it's also sex and Dionysian mists and play. And then Yeltsin sat on the crater of the latrine and showed Amalfitano the fingers he was missing and talked about his childhood and about the Urals and Siberia and about a white tiger that roamed the infinite snowy spaces. And the he took a flask of vodka out of his suit pocket and said:
"I think it's time for a little drink.""

(2008, Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

David Costabile, stop stalking me

Or maybe I'm stalking you. Whichever it is, I feel like I've seen you everywhere lately. I first met you (or so I was led to believe) on Flight of the Conchords where you play Doug, Mel's silent, push-over of a husband. You were quiet— Mel’s constant shadow – and I barely noticed you. But as you huddled under the basement stairs of your Queens brownstown (at Mel’s request), beneath that solitary light bulb, you became something more: a character I noticed.

Then came Season 2 of Damages, and in walked Detective Rick Meeser (originally introduced in Season 1 as the illustrious 'Bearded Man'), the psychotic ring-leader of a gun-for-hire service. You were the creepiest thing on the show for a few episodes, until Darrel Hammond came in and really icked it up a notch (who would've thought that the guy who impersonates John McCain could also be one of the creepiest, ChapStick using weirdoes to hit the small screen in a long, long time?)

[holy shit Darrell Hammond]



You're cold-blooded here Dave, I gotta’ say, and I don't think I like it. Ordering Tim Olyphant to murder Rose Byrne (attorney Ellen Parsons)? Have you ever seen Rose Byrne? Do you know how cute she is? Why would you want to kill her, Dave? Lemme show you a picture...here's one...


And she’s Australian! Yeah, I’m glad you reconsidered too.

So with that behind us, lets discuss your T-Mobile commercial, which, if I may say Dave, is also a pretty creepy (I’m hoping you don’t get typecast as 'hey I need a creepy guy actor' like my man Zeljko Ivanek – mad respect by the way Zeljko). I keep getting distracted seeing you play a little girl’s dad when I’ve just watched you as a methodical, double-crossing scum-bag on Damages. So this is just the gist of the commercial mind you, but I’m pretty sure that your daughter is trying to set you up with her friend’s grandma. It’s all a little strange, but I guess the idea is that you would put the old lady in your FabFive and meet her for a martini at her nursing home. Pretty sweet. I fugured at this point in your career commercial work would be below you Dave, but then I saw the thing 1,000 fucking times in a week and realized the kind of coin you must be raking in on residual checks. So I’m not judging.

Then I looked you up on IMDB, because really, I had no idea what the hell your name was. And you BLEW MY MIND Dave. The newspaper guy from The Wire! You just skyrocketed in my book. Literally flew off the page. Now, whenever I see that terrible, terrible T-Mobile commercial, I’ll shout out: “That’s David Costabile! Doug from Flight of the Conchords, the newspaper guy from The Wire, and ‘Bearded Man’ from Damages, and he is my hero.” And I’ll let it out with pride.

Welcome back Spike Jonze, it's been too long.

From the visuals and the animatronics, to the David Eggars screenplay, all the way down to the Arcade Fire song, this trailer is pretty much pitch-perfect.



Jonze's last movie was the great Adaptation, way back in 2002 (!). There have been some rumblings that the studio was unhappy with the tone of film and made Jonze re-cut and re-shoot much of this 80 million + film, which is always a bad sign. Lets hope they didn't tinker too much.

Quote of the Day

From Steve Baer, prominent American inventor and solar designer:

"You don't need to know that much
you just need to go ahead
and try and it out.
But then you have to do
other things."

How to scar a poor kid for life (Numbers 7 and 6)

[ I feel your pain little buddy ]

7. The X-Files (death by dude coming out of a toilet episode)


My older brother has seven years on me. I guess then that my childhood subjection to adult-themed television can be seen as somewhat natural. I do, however, think that watching The X-Files as a nine-year old was probably, in retrospect, a bad call. The X-Files was one of the first shows to perfect the monster-of-the-week (MOW) plot device, and to this day it still manages to get a rise out of people (aka me). And yes, I’m looking at you episode with the house full of inbred, genetically mutated hicks, who have sex with their mother (who, fyi, lives on trolley underneath a bed) and gruesomely murder unsuspecting passer-bys. In this case, the episode of special note is Squeeze (sorry murdering inbreeds, you come in a close second). The premise is simple. Tooms (our illustrious MOW) is somehow able to stretch and contort his body. He resides in cave, where he hibernates between killings (surrounded by his own bile), and every once and a while he’ll go out, do some creepy stretching, and murder people. For good measure he also steals their livers and eats them (who doesn't love some good human foie gras every once in a while?). Pretty terrifying. Especially mortifying is a scene where the motherfucker (in this case, Tooms) comes up out of a toilet with his stretchy-hand and long, gangly fingers, and kills a dude. THROUGH A TOILET. WHEN THE GUY WAS TRYING TO TAKE A DUMP. I was nine. I already didn’t like toilets all that much. Fuck you X-Files.


6. Terminator 2: Terminating Little Kids Ability to Sleep Peacefully


Dear Dad,

Thanks for ignoring Mom when she said it was probably a bad idea to take an eight-year old to an R-rated movie. I really appreciate it. You know what else I really appreciated? The scene where the TX-1000 poses as John Connor’s foster mom and proceeds to stab John’s foster dad (with a liquid-metal sword-hand no less!) through a carton of milk, piercing the dude’s throat, and popping out the top of his bald head. Totally cool.

“Your foster parents are dead” - Arnold Schwarzenegger, Captain Obvious

Why the fuck do you think I never drank straight from the carton? I’ll give you one hint, and it has nothing to do with anything my parents ever told me.

Zac and Miri Make a Porno wasn't all that funny, but...

...Justin Long managed to steal the entire movie with four minutes of screen time. Crazy how that works sometimes.

Watch the entire scene here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lL2F6mw9pk

Good job Apple Guy! One more step on the path of redemption for Herbie: Fully Loaded (which, incidentally, sounds like a porno).

Quote of the Day

Alan Moore (author of Watchmen and V for Vendetta), on creativity:

"To me, all creativity is magic. Ideas start out in the empty void of your head – and they end up as a material thing, like a book you can hold in your hand. That is the magical process. It's an alchemical thing. Yes, we do get the gold out of it but that's not the most important thing. It's the work itself. That's the reward. That's better than money."

Patrick Hamilton: A Role Model for the Children

That is, if you’re looking for your children to be cripplingly depressed, fall in love with a prostitute, and die, early, from cirrhosis of the liver. Hamilton (1904-1962), probably best known as the playwright of Rope and Gaslight (which spawned the classic Hitchcock and Bergman movies), is slowly gaining recognition for his brand of fiction. His most celebrated novels, Hangover Square and the trilogy Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky, capture a particular societal niche in pre-World War II London. His characters, much like Hamilton, are alcoholics, depressed, odd, and social outcasts. Often, his narrators are unreliable, which adds a dreary, yet amusing vein of black humor throughout.

“The kiss of a wicked woman – the kiss of Sin… The sweet, brief, virginal kiss of Sin….It remained on his mouth like a touch of violets. There had never been such a kiss in the history of the world.”

His characters are heroically contradictory, in their thoughts and in their actions, and it is here where his novels become so heart wrenchingly honest. You realize, eventually, that the character is trying, at least mentally, to convince themselves of one thing but instinctually they'll do the exact opposite.

And they always lose.

The passage above, taken from The Midnight Bell (the first story in Twenty Thousand Streets), focuses on Bob, a pathetic barkeep with a peculiar world view. He falls in love with Jenny, a manipulative prostitute, who plays the dumb, forlorn fool for his entire savings.

““Well – I’m married.”
“Oh God,” said Bob.
There was a long silence. She put her hand out consolingly on to his. He was appalled by its white sweetness and beauty. He hoped people wouldn’t see. It didn’t look well – being tenderly consoled by a prostitute in a public place.””

A master of the paradoxical sentence, in this short passage, conflicting narratives come into play several times. Hamilton, whose father was bullying alcoholic, eventually succumbed to the disease as well (after a crippling car accident). Like Bob, he too fell in love with a prostitute, and like George, the dim-witted, split-personality protagonist from Hangover Square, he died at an early age, from cirrhosis of the liver. Hamilton’s prose is always touchingly sympathetic for his characters, the lowliest of the low. They are the perpetual drunks, the drug dealers, the street walkers and the homeless. They were his people, and he treated them as such. As Doris Lessing wrote for the Times in 1968, "Hamilton was a marvelous novelist who's grossly neglected." It’s hard to think of writer who treats the neglected with such welcoming, honest, and tender prose.

Denise Richards relinquishes "least believable scientist in the history of film" title to Megan Fox

Variety is reporting today that Megan "Transformers Hooker" Fox has signed to play Aspen Matthews in Michael Turner's Aspen, a comic that debuted in 1998, at the height of the 'big boobs and impossibly small waist' wave. Turner, who passed away last year after a long and arduous battle with cancer, will remain as executive producer. The comic centers around Aspen Matthews, an Olympic swimmer and marine biologist (?!?) invited to study at a top-secret
underwater science facility known as the DMD, built around the discovery of unknown undersea craft. Aspen soon finds that she's connected to the ship's owners, a race of malicious undersea dwellers. How the script plans on explaining the bright orange sheen to Ms. Fox's skin after months in a sea-floor laboratory, remains one of the films lingering mysteries. James Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment had previously been attached.

I'm impressed by two things; one, that Megan Fox has decided she can't act (good job, she can't), and has succumb to good, old-fashioned, boob and popcorn movies; and two, someone made the executive decision that Fox needs to be around water for an entire movie (preferably naked, or in a swimsuit) running around shooting things.

Finally, to Denise Richards, my congratulations. Christmas Jones, your ludicrous character from The World Is Not Enough, no longer retains the title of "Least Believable Scientist in the History of Film." Perhaps congratulations also are in order for Ms. Fox, the quasi-hooker cum tattoo parlor employee, who now possesses the illustrious crown.

Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest leaked three months early

The sad news today that Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest, the follow up to their widely acclaimed Yellow House (2006), has been leaked. It's a poor quality, transcode leak, which makes this all the more unfortunate. According to lead singer Ed Droste on his Twitter: "I'm trying to be zen about the album leaking because I'm "ok with it, but I'm bummer. And apparently it's a low quality rip. So now everyone will be judging it off a crappy rip. Sigh...Was hoping to make it to at least april. I'm cool with it just...so early!" So, so, early. The album was due to be released May 26th. Having just seen them perform with the Brooklyn Philharmonic on Friday, it's extremely disheartening to see this happen to such a talented quartet of guys.

Below I've linked a few songs from the Friday night show in Park Slope.

[encore, not with the philharmonic]

Quote of the Day

From Brooklyn-based Paul Auster, author of The New York Trilogy, one of my favorite novels of all time (though this quote is pulled out of his newest novel, Man in the Dark):

"At that point, Noriko finally breaks down and begins to cry, sobing into her hands as the floodgates open - this young woman who has suffered in silence for so long, this good woman who refuses to believe she's good, for only the good doubt their own goodness, which is what makes them good in the first place. The bad know they are good, but the good know nothing. They spend their lives forgiving others, but they can't forgive themselves."

- Man in the Dark (2008), Henry Holt Publishing

When an opening, sadly, trumps the film

On rare occasion I’ve found that opening sequences (be it title credits, a montage, or simply a set-up scene) can trump an entire film. Some argue that the same can be said about critically acclaimed films; the storming of Normandy in Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan; the single-camera, no-break tracking shot at the start of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights; or the wide-angle POV scene which begins Antonioni’s Blow Up. But these are universally loved films, respected as much for their palate prepping openings, as for what’s to come. In certain, less well-regarded films, a superbly executed opening sequence can have the sobering effect of raising hopes, only to have them knocked down as the film progresses.

Take, for example, Richard Kelly’s follow up to his cult classic Donnie Darko, Southland Tales. The film was universally panned at Cannes in late 2006, where Kelly claims he sent a three hour, unrefined cut, at behest of the studio. No matter how you had cut this movie, it would have been a failure. It probably could’ve been trimmed to a tighter, more intelligible film. As it stands, it’s an interesting disaster. The movie is a hodgepodge of ideas, clumsily thrown together, that fails to satisfy, and only mystifies. Nowhere is this more evident than in the casting (i.e. Sarah Michelle Gellar, The Rock, Mandy Moore, Christopher Lambert, and Jon Lovitz. Really?). The film is riddled with interesting ideas (a near-future dystopia, mega-corporations, an over-reaching Homeland Security), and had they been synthesized more concisely, or had Kelly edited himself more precisely (see The Assassination of Jesse James for another film that could’ve been great, but was sadly undermined by its Director’s arrogance), the film might have succeeded in some respects. Overall, Southland Tales was a disappointment. The below opening scene, which terrifyingly depicts a nuclear blast in suburban Texas, emphasises Kelly’s talent, and grandstands the entire misfire of a film.

In Zack Snyder’s (300, Watchmen) remake Dawn of the Dead, it’s a bit of different story. Here’s a movie that’s not trying to be great – it just wants to be a serviceable horror movie. It succeeds admirably, and in some respects, even manages to surpass Romero’s classic. The intro embedded below, cut by the same genius who gave us the title sequence to Fincher’s Se7en, uses Cash’s 'When the Man Comes Around' to terrific effect. It turns out to be a high point in a pretty damn good zombie flick.

The Battlefield Earth Drinking Game (or How to Kill Yourself Quickly)

Battlefield Earth, John Trovolta's 2004, quasi-Scientology misstep, is good for very few things. One reviewer claimed that it was only recently surpassed (by The Spririt) as the worst film of all time. It's good for laughing. It's good for crying, from laughing. And it's good for death by alcohol poisoning (if you're under the age of ten, I'd recommend Time Bandits, per my previous post, for the same desired effect).

The Battlefield Earth Drinking Game

Drink Every Time . . .

1. Someone is referred to as a "rat-brain" or "man-animal"
2. Someone talks about "leverage"
3. The Denver library is talked about or shown
4. Fort Knox is shown or talked about
5. "Piece O' Cake!"
6. Anyone fires a laser gun
7. Someone uses an accessory to breathe

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand ten minutes into the movie you're already dead. Congrats!

http://www.lazydork.com/movies/battlefieldearth.htm

Sneaky Frenchman Michel Gondry directs an episode of Flight of the Conchords

On Tuesday night I finally decided to polish off a two-day-old episode of Flight of Conchords, HBO's off-beat musical/comedy show. To my suprise, who do I see listed as director but Michel Gondry. Gondry lensed what I consider to be one of the best love stories ever put to celluloid, Eternal Sunshine Spotless Mind, having previously collaborated on music videos with Daft Punk, Bjork, the White Stripes and Radiohead. Like Fincher and Jonze, he paved the way for other, crapier, music video directors to break into features (I'm looking at you dude who directed Torque). I give dual credit for Spotless to Gondry and Kaufman, but Gondry's recent work, where he personally tends to the script, has been spotty at best (i.e. Be Kind, Rewind).

I assume, as was the case with J.J. Abrams and Joss Whedon directing episodes of The Office, that Gondry was a fan of the show, and asked if he could guest direct (I doubt a show like Conchords could meet his quote). The episode, 'Unnatural Love', was my favorite of the season, and definitely up there in the top three for the entire run. Gondry managed to incorporate his trademark surrealist imagery perfectly, with Bret and Jermaine using video controllers as their instruments. One of the music videos from the episode is embeded below.

How to scar a poor kid for life (Numbers 10-8)

This list started to bounce around my brain right after exiting a 3-D showing of Coraline, which I thought was excellent. It should not, however, been rated PG. This movie creeped me out. If I was a kid, and I saw this movie, I probably would've pissed my pants and then had one of those seizures like in The Ring. My face probably would've inverted. So I've attempted to point fingers. Starting at ten, and counting down, I'm going to name the top 10 movies or tv shows that messed me up as kid, either in atmosphere, general plot, or maybe just because of a certain scene. The order here is mostly arbitrary, but number one is there for a reason (and will be included in a subsequent post). I firmly believe most of these deserve to rot in hell. The rest just freaked me the fuck out, and in a lot of cases, still do. Most I only remember in bits and pieces (and occasionally, incorrectly), and when they come to me at all, it's in a haze - a jumble of faces and inappropriate situations that shouldn't have been shown to anyone in the age range of 3-10. Even now, the thought of a few of these make me shudder.

10. Millennium (1989)

I don't think I saw this movie in theaters. At least I hope not (I was four). Probably on HBO. I remember it had something to do with abducting people off airplanes and taking them to the future. There were weird hairstyles. Everyone looked like David Bowie. People smoked those weird cigarettes like something out of Watchmen. It was like Blade Runner, except it sucked. Kris Kristofferson, a Mulder-wannabe FAA agent, looked like a homeless person (does he ever not?). It succeeded in turning me off airplanes for a bit, since I thought they were being used to ferry me to a shitty future where there were robots with annoying accents, and everyone was about to die from timequakes (pretty sure this one didn't pick up an Academy Award for screenwriting).

9. Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988)

This one is included just because I remember loving cartoons (who didn't) around the time of its release. I also remember loving crossover live-action with cartoons. When Space Jams came out, it made my year. So who, exactly, decided that it would be a good idea to have cute little cartoons being killed off via a poisonous green liquid by the absolutely terrifying Christopher Lloyd (Judge Doom)? I mean, I found this guy freaky in Back to the Future, so having him hold some poor, hand-drawn bunny rabbit over his bubbling concoction of death played more like the end of Terminator 2 than an episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Also, Bob Hoskins should never play the likable guy. Bob Hoskins scares the shit out of me almost as much as Christopher Lloyd.

8. Time Bandits (1981)


Dear Terry Gilliam,

If anyone ever asks you to direct a kids movie again, please, please, jump out the nearest window. I can understand if you're looking to cause an increase in suicides for the 8-12 emo-kid demographic, but you literally only know how to make movies that depress, in brutal efficiency. You're currently batting a thousand at getting people to cut themselves after downing a handle of Jim Beam with a mixture of horse tranquilizers. So when you decided to go out and make the 'kids' movie Time Bandits, whose brilliant idea was it to have the parents of the kids die during the last five minutes after touching a devil toaster!?! Do you have any idea how fucked up this was for me? Here we have a group of kids going through a ton of terrible shit with midgets, and hanging cages, and weird looking sailing boats, and demonic figures, and when they finally get home, you BLOW THEIR PARENTS UP INTO A PIECE OF MOLTEN METAL. Maybe that's how they teach lessons to kids over on your side of the pond, but over here, we like our kids to use toasters for Pop Tarts and breakfast burritos, not as a weapon to blow their parents to shit.

Thanks.

[7-5 to follow]

The National, predictably, have an awesome celebrity playlist

It's well over a year old (I just found it), but includes some less known, yet nonetheless fantastic tracks from Beirut, New Order, Yo La Tengo, M. Ward, Broken Social Scene and others. The playlist really gives some good perspective on The National's musical influences (though I'm suprised not to see and Tom Waits or Nick Cave, but maybe that's just too obvious).

I would also highly recommend Dark Was the Night, a double cd compilation, featuring brand-new tracks or reissues, that came out yesterday benefitting AIDS relief. It includes many of the same bands (but throws in Bon Iver, Arcade Fire, and Andrew Bird to boot) and was produced by brothers Aaron and Bryce Dessner (of The National).

http://www.rhapsody.com/playlistcentral/playlistdetail?playlistId=ply.16460218


[Updated: Some wonderful soul just posted the new National song off of DWTK]

Governor Paterson can do no wrong

Well obviously he can, considering two days into office he admitted to a previous long-term cocaine addiction and several instances of infidelity (Huh? Really? Him?). But after reading The Economist this week, he actually had an amazingly prescient quote, and the Big P (I'm hoping that catches on, but I doubt it) has never really been one for words.

"Everyone with a shovel says they're shovel-ready."

[in response to President Obama's plan to put shovel-ready projects into action with the new $789.5 billion dollar stimulus package, $100 billion of which is dedicated solely to infrastructure projects]

[

Disclaimer: Fred Armisen's brutal impersonation on SNL might have impacted my newfound man-love for Mr. Paterson.]

Quote (and obsession) of the Day

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, a black and white, annual series, written by Canadian native Bryan Lee O’Mally and published by Oni Press, has gotten quite a bit of publicity of late. It’s for good reason. Edgar Wright, who brought Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead to the silver screen is attached to direct a script based off the graphic novels, and the cast seems to be lining up nicely (I think they’ve already begun principle). The books are a veritable kaleidoscope of genres. O’Mally has created a hybrid comedy/fantasy/alt-lit/rock graphic novel, that never quite manages to pigeon-hole itself. I’m currently on volume three, of the five released (I assume it should wrap up around seven, two years from now), but it’s still hard to describe the plot, let alone the overall feel. Might as well give it a try.

Scott Pilgrim, our titular hero, (who, (yay!) will be played by Mr. George Michael himself, Michael Cera) is a twenty three year-old wannabe rocker, who squats in an Ontario one-room apartment with his gay roommate. They also share one mattress. The plot oscillates from realistic, twenty-something dialogue, to epic, street-fighter-esq battles for the love of Ramona V. Flowers (Pilgrim’s current crush). Scott needs to battle all seven of her evil ex-boyfriends (who dated our fair Ramona from middle-school to present) to win her heart. In the second book, Pilgrim goes mano-a-mano with Lucas Lee (played by Chris Evans), who, as a famous movie star, is a lot like, um, Chris Evans. Yeah.

The books seem to jump all over the place, never taking themselves too seriously, but always managing to get a good chuckle, or at the very least, a smile. Given the times, I guess that’s all anyone can ask.

Below is a quote from the second book, which comes up on a video store monitor, when Scott, attempting to see what he’s up against, tries to rent all of Lucas Lee’s movies:

"Member: Scott W. Pilgrim
Blocked
Current Fines: $508.28
Notes: Returned “The Land Before Time IV” 36 weeks late. He claims that mice hid the video somewhere in his apartment. Also claims he rented it as a joke. Do not let him rent anything. He is scum. "

This movie’s going to be so epic.

A not so Frightened Rabbit

Last Monday night, I walked down a snow-filled Bleeker Street for another chance to see the Scottish, alt-folk band Frightened Rabbit, for the second time in as many weeks. The all-request, all-acoustic set, would be their swansong for the year-long tour promoting the oft praised Midnight Organ Fight. Literally, every song yelled out by the respectful crowd was played. At one point, frontman Scott Hutchinson said that he was expecting people to yell out Freebird, and that every time someone had done that, he was going to pull a song like Floating in the Forth. Of course then someone yelled out Freebird. Over the course of several hours, the band played close to eighty percent of their discography, and one and a half covers (Hutchinson played about a minute of The National's Fake Empire, before admitting he didn't know anymore of the words).

The intimate (yet unfortunately loud) venue of (Le) Poisson Rouge, allowed for a humorous, epic, and often disjointed show (they joked that they had never played Backwards Walk, one of their more sobering songs, on an already sobering album, as the lead in to a show - but "what the hell"). Hutchinson's vocals seemed a bit off compared to what I heard at Bowery Ballroom, but the show was a joy nonetheless. For what it's worth, I put Fight up there with the Fleet Foxes for album of the year, and when Hutchinson, as a joke, picked up the blank setlist as a 'souvenir', I was seriously considering grabbing for it.


Frightened Rabbit - The Modern Leper (Live @ (Le) Poisson Rouge) from Ray C. on Vimeo.

Since no one could afford Tom: Tuesdays….

…we decided to head to Chef Damon Wise’s Frugal Friday, held at Tom Colicchio’s Manhattan flagship, Craft. The three of us intelligently chose the opening night of the experiment (note the sarcasm). Everything on the small plate menu comes in at under ten bucks (some are better values than others), but the experience was pretty great. The place was absolutely packed by 6:30, with an hour and half wait time quoted at the door. I noticed three or four tables free by the front of the special events room (where Tom: Tuesdays and Frugal Fridays take place), so I wasn’t really sure what was going on. According to the maitre d’, patrons had been complaining about the cold air drifting in from the street. So I could either wait around for close to two hours, or keep my sweater on? I didn’t really see how this was such a hard choice for people. We were seated immediately (when we left, I noticed couples from earlier who had still yet to been seated).

Our waiter was as nice as they come. He was even friendly enough to give us an extra pizza (which were cooked to perfection), and a few free drinks to top it all off. We all loved the riccotta and black cabbage pizza (white), which really gave off a strong truffle vibe (thanks to Truffle Vinaigrette). We ended up ordering two. The menu also has a strong offal element, which seems to be a trend currently sweeping the city (The Spotted Pig, David Chang’s restaurants, among others), and we took advantage of it. I guess if it’s a recession (or depression) special, offal makes sense in the grand scheme of things. Of special note were the duck hearts in farro and saffron duck egg (which literally were three full duck hearts on a bed of faro, with the egg placed on top). My heart tasted gamey and had a forceful iron vibe, but surprisingly, I liked it. Or maybe I just like the fact that I ate a duck heart. At our table, the beef tartar, flat iron steak skewers (on some fantastic greenish, blue-cheese sauce), and black bass crudo were also big hits. The only real miss came from the salt cod fritters, which were mushy, and pungent.

Overall, we left full, and impressed, especially for an opening night. For all the food and drink, we spent only (relatively speaking) fifty bucks a person, which when departing a four star restaurant, was almost as refreshing as the food itself.

Holy. Crap.

What. The. Hell. This video blows my mind on so many different levels, and I can't stop watching, for whatever messed up reason. First off, these guys look like a cross between some rejected anime characters and the robots from A.I. Secondly, you're thinking they're going to sound something like N'Sync or the three riders from the hell (aka the Jonas Brothers), but it ends up closer to a cast-off from a Boyz II Men album, circa 1995. Thirdly, the video looks like it cost something, so some inane record exec is actually pushing for a Boy Band comeback with these guys. Finally, why in all that is holy are the girls in the front row wearing headphones when they're ALREADY AT A CONCERT. Kind of defeats the whole point of going to the concert. But then again, if these geniuses are at a Varsity Fanclub show in the first place (if you notice, one of the guys is name Jayk. With a Y), it probably makes some sense.

Quote of the Day

Today's quote comes from Alessandro Piperno's sprawling novel, The Worst Intentions, recently translated from Italian and published by Europa Editions (to which I currently have a strange, crack-like addiction). The quote below describes Beppo Sonnino, a Jewish-Italian who bares a striking resemblance to Mr. Bernard L. Madoff:

"Bepy was an ingenious and shameless flatterer, what in English is called a confidence man: that was how he snared you. His fawning wasn't sugary; it had something intrinsically masculine about it - he was like the enzyme produced by an overexcited body. He came to believe in the compliment he was about to make. How many times, in the presence of famously ugly women, did Grandpa dissolve in reckless eulogies: "My dear, I've rarely seen you look so splendid." That bold, affectionate tribute lavished with such conviction by the Prince of flatterers was enough to transform the unfortunate woman- at least once in her poor, faded existence - into Greta Garbo."

Just flows so nicely.

These are real men, doing real things

Or so says Robb Webb, the sardonic, pithy, and often off-topic narrator, in the opening titles to the limited (and legendary) IFC series, Fishing with John. The pseudo-documentary, which first aired in 1991, included only six episodes. They follow actor/musician John Lurie (the titular character) and a rotating cadre of ‘celebrity’ friends (including Willem Dafoe, Tom Waits, and Matt Dillon, among others) as each duo attempts to reel in fish at various exotic locales across the globe. The glaring problem is that no one really knows the first thing about fishing. John Lurie, we quickly realize, is rightfully notable more for his acting (Down By Law, Stranger Than Paradise) and multi-layered jazz ensemble (the Lounge Lizards), than his sterling personality. What you’re left with is six, single lensed, twenty minute episodes, whose pace often feel glacial (which often isn't a bad thing).

Here’s a taste of some representative dialogue between Lurie and director Jim Jarmusch as they begin their shark fishing trek off the coast of Montauk:

Jarmusch: “Maybe someone else should drive.”

Lurie: “There's nobody here but you and me.”

Jarmusch: “I’ll drive.”

Lurie: “Do you want to drive?”

Jarmusch: “No.”

While most of the episodes play out along similar lines of dialogue, there’s something innately charming about watching what essentially comes down to brilliantly edited home videos. There’s camaraderie between Lurie and his guests to be sure, but it’s the fleeting glimpses of honesty, emotional nuances, and deadpan humor, which elevate the show to cult status. Occasionally, Lurie and his guests’ interactions become almost painful. It’s like watching that one quiet couple at a restaurant, who just stare down at their plates the entire dinner, not speaking a word. It’s uncomfortable, but revealingly so. And just when you think you’re getting bored, the narrator will interject with a little gem like:

“The fishermen wake up excited to be alive. They hope for good weather and good luck. Both fisherman are covered with sores and boners.”

This is after a one night stay at a Motel 6.

In the final, two-part episode, Lurie travels with Dennis Hopper to Thailand. The men are in search of the elusive giant squid, which according to our unreliable narrator, is actually the one hunting them. Over the course of several days the pair manages to secure passage on various decrepit tug-boats, and John saves Dennis from a life threatening food allergy mishap. The scenery is breathtaking, but neither fisherman seem to notice. They never catch a single fish, and we don’t get so much of glimpse of our giant squid.

Fishing, it seems, never really was the point.





[The DVD containting all six episodes is currently released on Criterion, and includes creator commentary. All six (each in three parts) have been uploaded on YouTube. ]

You’re far from the top, Chef

Something struck me a few weeks ago, six episodes deep into this season of Bravo’s Top Chef. It wasn’t anything good. Yes, the show has become predictable; a head chef during Restaurant Wars got voted off (again), the new judge is a bald Simon Cowell rip-off, and the product placements are beyond out of control (this week make a soufflé out of EXXON gasoline! Yummy!). But above all I’ve found one glaring problem; the contestants just aren’t that good. True, I’m probably jaded, and I’ll admit to that right of the bat. I was lucky enough to have grown up in Manhattan, one of the culinary capitals of the world, and it’s the city I currently call home. I wholeheartedly take advantage of the metropolis’ culinary offerings. But the lack of talent among the Top Chef cast is especially depressing when you think about the kind of resumes floating around out there. It’s a fact compounded by the scores articles I’ve come across detailing the sorry state of employment for chefs recently graduated from some of the nation’s top culinary institutes. I’m talking about people who’ve gone to The Culinary Institute of America, are fluent in three languages, and have slaved away as line cooks in France and Italy. These are the poor saps being turned down for a gourmet hotdog cart position. Sadly, I’m not making this up.


So I’ve tried to think of why the contestants are so poor this year (and that’s not to say they wouldn’t blow my pants off in the kitchen), and I’ve come to a conclusion that’s probably wrong (but I’m going to spit it out anyways). Celebrity. These chefs want to play it safe. If they cook scallops four episodes in a row, because, hell, that’s what they can cook well, then screw it, they’re going to cook scallops (but hey ma, this scallop is chilled! Whoopee!). Anything to stay one more week in the public eye. In New York City there’s evidence that at least to an extent this strategy pays off. I can name off the top of my head at least three chefs (Maria, the Bitchy One, and the Australian dude – ok so maybe not name), who failed to crack the top five last season, that slid into cushy positions at some fairly high-profile city eateries (and what do you know, a publicist let it slip to Page Six!). Hey, if these guys can get there by lasting five or six episodes, then why can’t these guys? Who needs the talent to win? They just need to be seen. Don’t take my word on this season’s uninspired cooking, take Stephen Starr’s, last night’s guest judge, and restaurateur: “I don't know if there's anyone I would hire as an execute chef. A sous chef maybe [from eater.com].”


Sadly, I also don’t think the producers have thought enough about the style of cook they want to attract. Take for instance the culinary style of molecular gastronomy (a type of cooking where the chef becomes a sort of chef scientist). As the study of the physical and chemical processes that occur in cooking, the food created is often unique, playful, and occasionally a work of art (I would look to Wylie Dufresne’s wd-50, and Grant Achatz’s Alinea for good examples). I can think of several reasons why Top Chef has shied away from such contestants. One, they probably couldn’t win the ten minute, lets all try and make a Spam and Velveeta amuse-bouche (or amuse-douche, as I like to call it), and two, the kitchen would need a whole new slew of culinary instruments (not to mention a wide variety chemicals and atomic scales).


So instead of Marcel’s foams, or Richard’s smoker, we get a chef who makes a tomato and mozzarella salad. And wins.

Quote of the Day

Comes some unlikely advice from William Faulkner:

"...the best job that was ever offered to me was to become a landlord in a brothel. In my opinion it's the perfect milieu for an artist to work in."

Here, here.

Drastic Measures

Fringe and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles are both fairly new to the network scene. Fringe starts the back end of its first season tonight on FOX, and Connor, now well into its second season, starts up again next week. While they both fall comfortably under the science fiction banner, Fringe attempts a sort of quasi-science route, whereas Connor plays with temporal dilemmas and mommy issues (along with good, old fashioned, robot-fighting).
Both shows are usually crisply edited, well directed, nicely scored, and for the most part, well acted.

With Conner, I didn’t go in to the show expecting much. Terminator seemed like a failing franchise (this was before the buzz around Salvation, mind you), and save Lena Heady (as the titular character), there was no one in the cast or creative team to excite me. Fringe had big shoes to follow. As J.J. Abrams’ first hands-on show since LOST (I didn’t realize he wrote anymore either), a 10 million dollar pilot, Lance Reddick (The Wire), and the great John Noble, things were stacked in its favor. It also seemed like a rip-off of the X-files (a plus, in my book).

But then something strange happened. While I enjoyed Fringe from the start, Connor took time to build up the story. This, I expected. What I didn’t expect was that both lead characters, in both shows, would turn out to be massive anchors. In Fringe, the title goes to Anna Torv, the bland, vapid, and obnoxiously perfect Agent Dunham, whose acting is flatter than her hair. It’s an extremely disappointing performance, especially when you compare her character to Gillian Anderson’s Scully. While Jackson (the reluctant son) and Noble (the insane scientist) play off each other in some of the show’s more entertaining scenes, Torv’s are dull, and lack any emotional, or even comical, punch. She literally reminds me of a sack of potatoes in a pant suit.

For Connor, the character of infamous note here would be the savior of mankind, John Connor (played by Thomas Dekker, who you might remember as the no-name who bolted from Heroes right before they were about to out him). If this is indeed the leader of humanity then you might as well kill us all now, because we’re screwed. Dekker’s scenes are like nails on a chalkboard. You would think that someone with the task of saving civilization as we know it would have better things to do then steal his mom’s car to go see a girl. You’d be wrong. It’s funny, but when I heard Brian Austin Green (of 90210; also know as the Notorious B.A.G.) was joining the cast, I contemplated removing Connor from my DVR list. Instead, his character has turned into one of the more interesting, and it’s clear that as an actor, he’s working extremely hard to not come of off as a cheese-ball. In some ways I blame Connor’s writers more for Dekker’s predicament than the actor himself. Unfortunately they’ve already sullied the character to such a degree that there’s only one option. There’s no way anyone’s going to let this kid run an army, so....

KILL THEM BOTH. Neither show would suffer. In fact, for Heady, it would create some interesting and compelling storylines, and the timeline would be completely altered so that the show would no longer be tied to its strict canon. With Torv, who cares? Does anyone like this character? You could probably replace her with Mark Valley’s seemingly deceased character using some faux science mumbo-jumbo and no one would be the wiser. I guess Rupert Murdoch, Australian mogul, and, shocker, overlord of FOX, whose niece just happens to be – you guessed it – Anna Torv, might get a bit pissed, but isn’t it about time we end that sort of pervasive nepotistic Hollywood attitude?

See? Two birds with one stone.

Nick Cave + The Road = Legendary

Nick Cave (of Bad Seeds fame), has been tapped to score the film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road. The film, directed by John Hillcoat (who also lensed Cave's writing debut, The Proposition), and starring Viggo Mortensen, has been in film release purgatory ever since it was handed to Miramax.

The book is phenomenal, and follows a father and son (think Lone Wolf here) as they traipse across the burnt carcass of a post-apocalyptic America. It's dystopic, but believable. McCarthy's sentences are curt, yet brutal, and the novel is absolutely harrowing.

Cave, who scored The Proposition, and the equally underrated The Assassination of Jesse James, has a knack for under-produced but nonetheless haunting scores. I'm hoping he combines what he did on Jesse with something like the nails-on-chalkboard sounds that Johnny Greenwood accomplished on last year's There Will be Blood.

Below are a few of my favorites.

The Keys to NBC’s Kingdom

Well, actually, NBC doesn’t have much of a Kingdom anymore, so to speak. They’re more like a war-torn Kandahar. Come to think of it, I don’t even think they have a serviceable drama on-air. Heroes has turned into a walking punch-line (two of the top stars are looking to break their contracts), ER is done this year, Night Rider got a full season pick up (?!?!) and next year, the Monday through Thursday 10 PM block is going to be usurped by Jay Leno. Could this be the end of an era? It certainly looks like a possibility, especially with the quality dramas shifting more and more to pay and cable channels (Mad Men, Damages, and Breaking Bad, just to name a few).

I’ve recently come across a number of viral marketing posters for a new NBC show called Kings, and they’ve intrigued me enough to do some digging (the posters described a new government, complete with a butterfly logo, which I assume symbolizes said country). After some digging, I’m cautiously optimistic. The pilot to Kings is directed by Francis Lawrence (I Am Legend), a technically adequate filmmaker, who has a knack for directing Manhattan (which is a good thing, since it’s where the show is filmed). The stellar Ian McShane (who played the fabulously foul-mouthed Al Swearengen on HBO’s Deadwood) plays Silas, the king of a world not dissimilar to our own, but with some rather large tweaks. Shiloh (a city, which, from the previews, looks an awful lot like Manhattan), has been at war with a rival nation for years, and when the King’s son is rescued by David Sheppard (Christopher Egan), the David-and-Goliath tale begins. I’ve also read that Bryan Cox has been cast (for a four episode arc, as the rival country’s king), as well as Macaulay Culkin, so the show looks to be shaping up quite nicely. This sort of alternate timeline type story can contain a wealth of potential, and while doing my research I found myself thinking back to when I heard about LOST’s high concept before its initial airing (and look how well that turned out).

At least it’s a risk; something, that lately, NBC has taken very few of. I know serialized dramas are a tough sell, but I hope, in the end, that the gamble pays off.

Multiple Pulitzer Prize Winning Novelists Say the Darndest Things

Micheal Chabon. Oh how you confound me. After reading The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, The Adventures of Cavalier and Clay, and The Final Solution, I thought you might become one of my favorite authors. Your flowery, lavish, 19th-century language, angered yet intrigued me.

But then I read Gentlemen of the Road. I get that you’re delving into different genres (with The Yiddish Policemen’s Union it was speculative fiction), and here you’re doing it wholeheartedly, and clearly with a great deal of joy. I enjoyed the book quite a bit – a swashbuckling adventure, filled with sword fights, double crosses, and a good deal of humor. My only problem is the afterward, which reads like a good old fashioned smack in the face. I’m going to quote you directly here:

“And if you still think there’s something funny in the idea of Jews with swords, look at yourself, right now: sitting in your seat on a jet airplane, let’s say, in your un-earthly orange polyester and neoprene shoes, listening to digital music, crawling across the sky from Charlotte to Las Vegas, and hoping to lose yourself – your home, your certainties, the borders and barriers of your life – by means of a bundle of wood pulp, sewn and glued and stained with blobs of pigment and resin. People with Books. What, in 2007, could be more incongruous than that. It makes me want to laugh.”

The only thing I can think here is that Mr. Chabon is somehow embarrassed to be writing a genre novel. It’s something he discusses in detail in his book of essays (in regards to science fiction in general), and it constantly seems as if he's defending himself.

Why he feels the need, after two Pulitzers, astounds me. The paragraph I cited, which ends Gentlemen, is akin to a server at McDonald’s calling you a fat ass after you order a Big Mac.

I feel a little used.