Follow Up

We've just added a fairly awesome new feature to Mahalo - Mahalo Follow. It even has a cool logo featuring dolphins or, if they are unavailable, porpoises.



What you do is, see, you install the Mahalo Follow add-on into your browser (if you're all using Firefox like good little nerds, this should be relatively simple). Then, Mahalo stalks you around the Internet like a creepy overweight mouthbreather with a new Facebook account. But, you know, in a good way. It checks out whatever you're searching for online and, if Mahalo has a search result for that topic, brings up our results in a sidebar.

So, let's say I'm looking up "Snorg Girl" in Google. (She's that cute girl who appears frequently in blog banner ads.)


Snorg Girl

So, let's say I'm looking up "Snorg Girl." Cause, in this hypothetical situation as in life, I'm kind of a sad little man. I would go to Google and do a search, and because Mahalo has a page about Alice the Snorg Girl, it pops up on the screen as well, allowing you to compare the Google and Mahalo results without ever leaving the page or clicking the mouse.



If Mahalo doesn't have any direct hits, like with Snorg Girl, but it does have some closely related links, they will appear in the sidebar. Much of the time, this feature works really well, as you can see in this search for popular liberal blog Firedoglake. We haven't gotten around to an FDL page yet, but check out the results that do come up...



No FDL, but you get results for Crooks and Liars, Daily Kos and Eschaton, three other popular left-leaning blogs. Still pretty cool and very on-target.

As we continue to add pages to the site (and we're clocking almost 150 a day presently), these results will become even more refined. As of now, we have around 9,000 total pages on Mahalo, so there are still some gaps. When Mahalo has no relevant results to share, the Follow plugin stays closed. Type in "Taxi Driver" (man, how did we miss that one?), "Crushed by Inertia" or "hardcore pornography," and you'll just get your normal full-page Google results.

Mistakes are possible but rare. Sometimes the program will get the wrong impression from a given page and show you some irrelevant results. This was a huge problem when we were first testing everything, but honestly, now that it's live, the developers seem to have figured out a solution. I tried just now for a full five minutes to stump the machine, to get some goofy, silly, totally wrong results to show all of you, and I couldn't make it happen. And I was typing in really weird, obscure shit - in other words, I was trying to make it fail, and couldn't.

If you just leave that sidebar open, it's like leaving Mahalo running, so it will run all your search terms through the system, and then you'll get some irrelevant results. But close the sidebar, and you can go right about your routine forgetting you even installed the thing.

I didn't even mention the best part yet. It has a browseable directory, so you can surf around Mahalo right in your Firefox browser. Sweet!

Anyway, I can't recommend this thing enough. If you have any doubts about whether or not to use Mahalo, give Follow a try for a week.

First Earthquake in a While...

but it was mild. There's always that split second after it's over when you think it's just going to keep going and turn into the Big One they used to talk about all the time and, like, shear away half the building...but that never happens. Was that all a myth or what?

Anyway, I turned on the TV right after the quake, to see if it was a really big one that was just far away, and instead I was delighted to see Internet sensation Tay Zonday performing live on Jimmy Kimmel! Awesome:



He says he hasn't listened to the John Mayer cover of his song. Face.

The War on Supernatural Apocalyptic Terror

I love this clip. Mad props to CK for the link.

Great Moments in Conservative Humor, or Why I Should Write for The American Prospect

Me, 2/11/07
Staunchly ideological, partisan kind of thinkers are rarely as funny as those who can see both sides of an issue. I don't always agree with moderates, but they're more funny. Great satire can be designed to convince an audience, but the best jokes are usually focused solely on being jokes as opposed to expressing a political viewpoint.

...

You'll never come up with something funny if you go in with that attitude. "I've got to find something some liberal has done to make fun of!" It's lame and predictable. First, find something FUNNY. If you need to do political comedy, then find something political that's FUNNY. Then talk about that, and your ideology should come through naturally. If you have any talent as a comic.

The American Prospect, 8/8/07

What the Konservetkult has failed to grasp through all this is that art is most successful when it is not put slavishly in the service of political ideology. To be sure, art and politics have commingled in the past, from Beethoven's symphonic tribute to Napoleon to Goya's graphic depictions of war, to South Park's barbed libertarian social satire. But lasting political art uses politics as its inspiration; in the Konservetkult's calculus, politics must always use art. Normal people look at a piece of art and ponder how it changes their view of the world, or how it deepens their appreciation for life. The right's culture critics look at art and ask, "How can this help us win?"

I really liked the article, but damn...how come I can barely eke out 200 readers a day if I'm this far ahead of the curve? Also, I was hating on Zach Braff for, like, 2 years before it was cool, and I first saw TV on the Radio right after the "Young Liars" EP first came out. Face.

The Bourne Ultimatum

You know, if Paul Greengrass could stop showing off for ten minutes to shoot an action scene, this third Bourne film might have been really great. As it stands, I feel kind of torn. I really admire this series, which is far more clever and inventive than most American spy fare and which provides a perfect vehicle for the steely distance of Matt Damon. But I can't get past the chase sequences, which are jittery and blurry and indistinct and awful. I'm not sure if D.P. Oliver Wood actually suffers from epilepsy, but if not, someone needs to put a stop to Greengrass before he ruins another savvy, globe-trotting Hollywood thriller.



After three films, screenwriter Tony Gilroy (who here teams up with Scott Burns) just absolutely nails the Bourne formula. Really, Bourne's a reverse spy, and his entire story is one long, relentless chase. Bond pursues the villains by using assumed identities and gadgets. Bourne spends two hours running from the villains at top speed. Rather than using state-of-the-art technology to track criminals and evil-doers around the world, he is constantly being tracked and spied upon, and must escape using his superior wits and super-strength. That formula essentially describes every moment of Bourne Ultimatum. Will Jason manage to usurp the greatest tactical and surveillance forces on the planet by repeatedly punching people really hard in the solar plexus? Let's watch...

And it works; for the better part of 2 hours, it works. David Strathairn makes an excellent addition to the series as Jason's latest foe within the CIA, Deputy Director Noah Vosen, and the great Albert Finney takes an important, if small, role as Dr. Albert Hirsch, the man who holds the secret to Bourne's memory loss and backstory. Bourne tracks Hirsch, Vosen tracks Bourne and Bourne's old allies Pamela Landy (Joan Allen) and Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles, who has appeared in all three films but only gets an actual role to play this time around) help out whenever they can.

That's about all there is, folks. Lots of chases, lots of close-calls, lots of one-ups, and an ending that doesn't really add any new information about Jason that we didn't get in the first two films, but at least provides the series with a sense of closure. (The door is, of course, left open for what Damon and Greengrass have termed The Bourne Redundancy.) I can't say I was totally satisfied by the ending. It seems like the film is building to some kind of crazy twist, a previously unimaginable wrinkle in Jason's story, what with the extensive use of flashbacks and the ominous atmosphere surrounding the Finney character. Instead, Jason's backstory is pretty much what I've assumed it would be all along - Wolverine's backstory minus the adamantium.

Greengrass manages to settle down a little from spazzed-out Bourne Supremacy mode, in which the camera never stopped rattling around for long enough to focus on a subject, like an excitable old lady who's off her meds. Here, a brutal back-and-forth between textbook-wielding Bourne and another assassin actually uses the shaky handheld technique well, highlighting the claustrophobia of the setting and the visceral force of the punches.

Alas, as he did in Supremacy, Greengrass hopelessly botches the film's car chase. I suppose it's impressive, in a way, that he's actually able to physically capture an entire car chase using handheldc ameras, but it's a pyrrhic victory because you still can't tell what's going on. The exciting part about watching a car get bashed into a center divider is, you know, watching it, not getting a sense for its impact by seeing blurry shards of glass flying near your head.

Look, I'm not a fan of this guy from Part 2 in this series and particularly the woeful United 93, which just felt like a tremendously self-involved wank session, Greengrass attempting to substitute his personal vision of events for their reality. So I guess I'm a little biased at this point when he hauls out his old tricks on every single movie and asked to be acclaimed anew. Yes, Paul, you're the Parkinson of Cinema, the Sultan of Shaky-Cam. Now will you cut it the fuck out and direct a movie I can actually watch without developing Ménière's disease?

The Fat Tax

Earlier, I made a Mahalo page about a viral video in which Snoop Dogg dances in Kirby's Dreamland, and yet this MSNBC article was still the craziest thing I've seen all day:

For employees at Clarian Health, feeling the burn of trying to lose weight will take on new meaning.

In late June, the Indianapolis-based hospital system announced that starting in 2009, it will fine employees $10 per paycheck if their body mass index [BMI, a ratio of height to weight that measures body fat] is over 30. If their cholesterol, blood pressure, and glucose levels are too high, they'll be charged $5 for each standard they don't meet. Ditto if they smoke: Starting next year, they'll be charged another $5 in each check.

Is this some kind of sick joke? Brad at Sadly, No! makes the obvious point that this cancels out any concerns about government-run health care intruding on personal choices. Even the government won't stoop to taxing you based on your relative fatness.

But beyond that important point, this is just the grossest possible violation of an individual's privacy imaginable. (Also, didn't I read somewhere that the BMI isn't really all that accurate in many cases?)

But some employment lawyers and wellness program administrators believe Clarian's approach may not be so unusual in coming years. They see employers, already overwhelmed by rising health-care costs, getting more aggressive in mandating changes in employee behavior. Garry Mathiason, a senior partner at employment law firm Littler Mendelson, says more than 300 companies have requested its assistance on mandatory wellness initiatives since it released a study on the topic in April. "In reality, you only get a certain amount of participation with incentive and encouragement," he says. "The demand for [curtailing health-care costs] is so great that [employers] are willing to take the next step. It's tough love."

Tough love...Cut me a goddamn break. It's not often that someone mistakes "greed" for "love," but that's just what things have come to in George Bush's America. Cold-hearted corporatism = compassionate conservatism, after all.

The fines are waived for employees who can provide a doctor's note stating it's not advisable for them to try to meet the benchmark -- employees will be able to submit new notes from their doctors quarterly -- and that they are complying with the proper diet, exercise, and treatment plan.

So...if you're willing to be humiliated and debased, getting a doctor's note excusing your weight problem and, like, totally promising to work out extra-hard...you can keep your $10 a month. Then, you have to walk to Queens and get the CEO of Clarian a slice of cheesecake.

Or, you know, you could quit, which is probably what I would do. And my subsequent months of unemployment, spent on the streets without food and shelter, would probably decrease my body mass index such that I could go back to work at Clarian and keep my entire paycheck! See how things work out if you're only willing to compromise?

The Not-At-All-Ironic Ironic T-Shirt

Major props to D Listed (which, I have to say, has been on fire all week) for this hilarious photo:



Nice! Busted for a DUI wearing a shirt proclaiming yourself to be a drunk has got to be kind of embarrassing. Unless you're this guy, in which case you might as well just go with it...

Jurassic Park is frightening in the dark...

From my friend Matt or Wayne, I don't remember which, I'm stealing this hilarious YouTube clip, in which a guy re-enacts an entire scene from Jurassic Park by himself. It's awesome.



You do have to watch the whole thing, because you wouldn't want to miss the excellent Sam Neill impression right at the end.

I've always disliked this scene...It just feels kind of fraudulent to me, that Hammond would not have even considered the contrary position before that moment, when Ian Malcolm brings it up, and just that these experts would be discussing the implications of this complex project in such a straight-forward, basic fashion. It's one of many moments in the film that feel dumbed down, written in layman's language so that mass audiences all over the world can enjoy it on the same level. I understand why movies like Jurassic Park are made in this way, but it's still kind of boring...But this young actor still rocks all the same.

Never Attack a Dude With a Microphone

Say what you will about Kevin Smith's skills as a director...but the guy's a quick wit. Check out this video, in which he brutally destroys a rude, overweight guy at a ComicCon Q&A session from last week.



Ouch...I mean, yeah, the guy insulted his filmmaking, but pointing out a fellow fat guy's man-tits might actually be over the line.

How to Download Free Music

So, Andy and I made this Mahalo page that got some Internet buzz going today. It's a guide to downloading free music. From all kinds of sources: mp3 blogs, peer-to-peer networks, search engines and, yes, BitTorrent. Now, I realize that not everything found on BitTorrent networks is necessarily legal...There was much discussion in the office about these issues.

Anyway, it's a kind of amazing resource, if I do say so myself, featuring a lot of useful information all in one place. (The tip about using Del.icio.us to search for mp3's is fairly ingenious...Props to Andy for that one...) Enjoy.

R.I.P. Ingmar Bergman and Sherman Torgan

From CNN:

Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, an iconoclastic filmmaker widely regarded as one of the great masters of modern cinema, died Monday, the president of his foundation said. He was 89.

"It's an unbelievable loss for Sweden, but even more so internationally," Astrid Soderbergh Widding, president of The Ingmar Bergman Foundation, which administers the directors' archives, told The Associated Press.

For more info, we already have a Mahalo page up.

Also, everyone should read this New York Times piece featuring some of Woody Allen's writings about Bergman.

It feels kind of crass and unnecessary to discuss the guy's films just because he died, and I don't really have anything grand and insightful to say about his work that you won't read in that Woody Allen bit or other obituaries. Really, it's difficult to talk about Bergman dying because so many of his films discuss the nature and practice of doing that very thing. It was like he'd spent decades preparing us for this inevitability. Woody quotes Bergman's memoirs:

‘’I suffered from several indefinable illnesses and could never really decide whether I wanted to live at all.'’

He was 89, after all. These things happen. Still, I think the case can be made for Bergman as one of the reigning geniuses of the cinema, one of the most natural and well-rounded filmmakers of all time.

Sherman Torgan, owner and manager of LA's New Beverly Cinema revival house, was regrettably taken a bit sooner: he died earlier this month at the age of 63. I've clocked a lot of hours at the New Bev over this past decade. (They show awesome double features for five dollars!) I knew Sherman by sight, but not by name, and to be honest, I'd always found him a bit unapproachable and gruff.

But he did a spectacular job running that place, which routinely boasted double-bills of amazing films. It's the kind of work that's thankless unless you have a true love for movies. And not just watching movies, but watching them in a theater, with an audience, they way they were always meant to be seen. You have to respect that kind of devotion to a dying art form.

As a hardcore movie nerd, I owe Sherman a great deal. The New Bev hosted the monthy "Grindhouse" night that introduced me to a whole world of underground movies I'd never have seen otherwise. I watched Pasolini's Salo at the New Beverly, watching disgusted patrons head for the aisles in droves during the rightfully-infamous banquet sequence. One troubled night, when I was living in Hollywood, I went alone and watched Platoon and Wall Street. You know, to ease my nerves. Most of us LA movie fans probably didn't know Sherman's name, unless I'm just particularly aloof and insensitive, but we'll all miss him...

Oh, yeah, and also dead today were Tom Snyder and some football coach guy. The end.

The Simpsons Movie

Here's a short review for The Simpson Movie. It's very, very funny, and though it's extremely silly and cartoony like the present incarnation of the show, it has also brought back the sweetness and the warmth of the earlier era (say, the first 5 seasons).



Still reading? Okay. Here's why it's so good:

James L. Brooks		screenplay
Joel Cohen		consultant writer
John Frink		consultant writer
Matt Groening		screenplay
Al Jean		screenplay
Tim Long		consultant writer
Ian Maxtone-Graham		screenplay
George Meyer		screenplay
David Mirkin		screenplay
Michael Price		consultant writer
Mike Reiss		screenplay
Mike Scully		screenplay
Matt Selman		screenplay
John Swartzwelder		screenplay
Jon Vitti		screenplay

These are the men who created "The Simpsons" as we know it today. Getting them back to collaborate on the film was the only way to ensure that it would work, and they have all risen to the challenge, composing what's sure to be among the year's most funny, rewatchable comedies.

I've been a huge "Simpsons" fan for what feels like my entire life. (I was 11 when the show made its debut on December 17, 1989.) Like a lot of long-time "Simpsons" fans, I still enjoy watching the show, but it no longer feels like essential viewing. Rather than a full 30 minutes of hilarity (most of the classic episodes manage to get at least one or two good jokes in every 60 seconds), recent episodes are easy-going, enjoyable-enough entertainment punctuated by one or two really sharp gags. Still, it's "The Simpsons," which for me makes it comforting and familiar even if it isn't a non-stop Kavalcade of Komedy. What I'm saying is, I no longer feel pressed to memorize entire episodes as I once did. But that's probably healthy...

I doubt I'll be committing the film to memory any time soon, but the experience of watching it in a theater was the most fun I've had watching "The Simpsons" in a long, long time. Sure, some of this is bound to be the excitement of opening night in a crowded theater full of enthusiastic fans, applauding after particularly good jokes and singing along to Homer's "Spider-Pig" anthem. Watching the film on my computer alone will be the true test of its staying power. But it just feels right, feels like "The Simpsons," from leaping over Springfield Gorge to Bart wilding through the center of town on his skateboard.



A few of the more inspired decisions:

- Bringing back Albert Brooks to voice the film's villain. He's one of what I'd consider the three All-Star "Simpsons" guest voices. The first is obviously Phil Hartman, who voiced one of the greatest characters in "Simpsons" history, lawyer Lionel Hutz, along with actor Troy McClure, monorail shyster Lyle Langley and too many others to name. Second would have to be Kelsey Grammar, whose Sideshow Bob stars in my favorite-ever episode, the Emmy-nominated "Cape Feare." And third is "A. Brooks," responsible for self-help guru Brad Goodman, Bond villain Hank Scorpio (from another Best Episode Ever contender, "You Only Move Twice.") Brooks is awesome here as EPA chief Russ Cargill.

- Making the movie PG-13. It feels different and a bit more risque, particularly one completely ingenious shot I would not dream of revealing here, but never dirty or inappropriate for a family audience. This is not "Family Guy." This is the show "Family Guy" secretly wishes it could be, amusing without having to rely on '80s references and innuendo. (I'm still entertained by "Family Guy" in fits and spurts, but it's hardly on the level of "Simpsons" or "South Park.")

- Improving the animation...but not too much. There's obviously been some attempts to update the show's basic 2-D style for contemporary audiences, but it's generally kept in the background or at the height of action sequences. It's "The Simpsons," but smoother and drawn with greater attention to detail.

- Not getting all meta. There's an opening sequence, recreating the opening sequence of the show but BIGGER because this is a HOLLYWOOD MOVIE, two or three self-referential jokes in the film and some extra gags thrown in during the credits but that's it. It's not a musical or an adventure story or a crazy chase. In fact, the plot unfolds exactly as an episode would - even starting with a misadventure that only somewhat relates to the main plot. (In this case, Grandpa revealing an omen and Homer obtaining a pet pig.)

It doesn't try to bring back every classic character or revisit locations from much-loved episodes. They've just ported the show into movie form, and basically made a 90 minute "Simpsons" episode with better animation. Done and done.

Doing Hard Time

This is the craziest piece of dumbassery I have read in some time...

A Broward prisoner accused of committing a sex act while he was alone in his jail cell was found guilty Tuesday of indecent exposure.

Terry Lee Alexander, 20, unsuccessfully fought the charge, which had been brought by a female Broward Sheriff's Office detention deputy who saw him perform the sex act in his cell in November.

The dude was ALONE in his jail cell jerking off, and for that, they're adding 2 months on to his prison sentence. I'm not sure what's more egregious in this case...The fact that prisoners who are doing 10 years in jail are expected to just go all that time without pleasuring themselves or the fact that the taxpayers of Florida had to pay for a masturbation trial.

In reaching the guilty verdict, jurors found that an inmate's jail cell is ''a limited access public place'' where exposing oneself is against the law.

Okay, I'm officially confused. Is there a lawyer in the house?

How can this law be consistently applied? If taking my clothes off in my jail cell is considered indecent exposure, does this mean I can't change in my cell? What about going to the bathroom? It'd be illegal for me to do THAT in a public place (say...the Sears Home Appliance Department), but I figure, in the relative privacy of a jail cell, it ought to be permissible. 10 years is a long time to hold it in.

The sole witness in the case, BSO Deputy Coryus Veal, testified that Alexander did not try to hide what he was doing as most prisoners do. Veal saw him perform the act while she was working in a glass-enclosed master control room, 100 feetfrom Alexander's cell. There was no video tape or other witnesses.

She sounds fun!

Alexander's attorney argued that the prison cell was a private place and that what Alexander was doing was perfectly normal.

''Did other inmates start masturbating because of Mr. Alexander?'' McHugh asked Veal. ``Did you call a SWAT team?''

''I wish I had,'' Veal answered.

SWAT Team? Because he was touching himself? This thief has already been locked away from everyone he knows and everything he loves for a decade. (Not that I'm defending armed robbery or anything). Now, he's being penalized for pleasuring himself? Is it our goal, as the society that has chosen to lock him in jail, to humiliate and degrade this man, to strip away his dignity as punishment for his crimes? Because that's the only conclusion one can draw from the decision to prosecute this case...

Veal, who has charged seven other inmates with the same offense, insisted that she was not against the act itself -- just the fact that Alexander was so blatant about it. Most inmates, she testified, do it in bed, under the blankets.

Anyone else think this woman might have some issues of her own going on? She couldn't look away from that particular monitor for a few moments? She has to charge Spanky with a crime?

Defense attorney Kathleen McHugh faced 17 prospective jurors and asked point-blank who among them had never done that particular sex act.

No hands went up.

Exactly.

Here's the crucial part of the whole article, to me:

While most prisons deal with such an offense internally, Broward Sheriff Ken Jenne -- and Miami-Dade Corrections officials -- are hoping to curb the practice among inmates by prosecuting them.

Janelle Hall, a spokeswoman for Miami-Dade Corrections, said that while no charges have been brought against inmates, the department is working with State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle's office to discuss prosecution of such ''egregious'' cases in the jail.

''It has been a hot topic so to speak in our department,'' Hall said. ``In those cases that are egregious, where there is some sort of intent to deliberately expose themselves, those cases will be reviewed further in the courts.''

Wowzers. As I see it, there are only two possibilities here:

(1) The men and women of the Miami-Dade Department of Corrections are perverts who sit around in their comfortable offices all day discussing the masturbatory habits of male prisoners

OR

(2) This is a deliberate, pre-meditated attempt to humiliate prisoners, by charging them with a crime for doing something people do all the time, in and out of jail.

And last I checked, attempting to humiliate people is wrong, even if they committed a crime a few years back.

Also, I'd just like to point out, for the record, that Scooter Libby is at home tonight, and I'm sure he would be masturbating with impunity if he wasn't a withered old troll capable of attaining sexual arousal only by sending thousands of American troops into the direct path of IED's for no good reason.

(Link graciously provided by Andrew Sullivan).

Tonight, on a Very Special Crushed by Inertia...

A friend just IM'ed me this amazing clip from "Facts of Life," where Tootie and Natalie come home with a bag full of bongs. It really needs to be seen to be believed...



Clip courtesy of Jezebel...

Just Press Play

I was all set to write a post about how the one benefit of iMeem over SeeqPod is the ability to create and embed playlists. But...well...


SeeqPod Music beta - Playable Search

This is a bunch of stuff I've been listening to all week. I first grabbed a few songs by Everthus The Deadbeats because their name references perhaps the single most obscure line of dialogue in The Big Lebowski. (Woo says "Everthus the deadbeats, Lebowski" to The Dude after peeing on his rug). The only one that I still listen to is this "Some Terry's" one, but I've been listening to it a bunch. Something about that real sing-songy conclusion...I found it annoying at first, but it has really grown on me.

I saw some of these bands/musicians live this week. Sonic Youth played their entire "Daydream Nation" album as well as half of their most recent LP, "Rather Ripped," as an encore. (This track is the first on "Rather Ripped" and was, to my mind, one of the show highlights, along with "Total Trash.") It was a really cool show. I had seen SY live a few years back at All Tomorrows Parties, but I'm pretty sure they didn't play any "Daydream"-era songs.

My one complaint about The Greek is that, if you're sitting kind of far back, it's not really loud enough. I mean, this isn't Spinal Tap. I don't need to be blown out of my seat. But I don't know...I never really feel drawn into the show when I'm there; I've been in venues where you sit much further back, but can enjoy a richer, fuller sound. (It's gotta be The Greek, because I had the same exact feeling after seeing Belle and Sebastian there a while back, though I grant they're not ever going to be the loudest band).

I'm thinking it's not just me, because during the show (while the band was taking a little breather, I should add), a guy sitting in front of me asked me to stop talking. (I was, at the time, summarizing this week's "Hell's Kitchen" for the benefit of my brother Jonathan). You KNOW a concert's kind of hard to hear when people are actually asking their neighbors to shut up at an outdoor amphitheater! There could be a guy smoking crack right in front of me at an outdoor amphitheater and I wouldn't say anything. #1 rule of large-scale event attendance: mellow out and let everyone do their thing and enjoy themselves.

Anyway, even better was the John Vanderslice/Spoon show at Little Radio in the heart of Downtown LA's gorgeous Warehouse and Dumpster District. This was a tiny little not-club (I believe it's an Internet radio station by day) that was packed densely with about 300 people and a shitload of free Dewar's (the event's sponsor).



The chance to see not only a big band like Spoon but an acoustic set by Vanderslice in that kind of venue was worth the sweltering, inhuman heat. (No ventilation + bright stage lights + 300 human bodies = teh suck). I actually felt bad for Britt Daniel during the show - he was trying to sing and play guitar while sweat literally streamed down his face. They still played for 90 minutes...It was awesome, especially the epic rendition of "My Mathematical Mind" off their previous album.

Posted Without Comment

Courtesy of TMZ

SeeqPod...Totally Blown Out...

SeeqPod just somewhat blew my mind. iMeem is kind of nice...but like I said before, those :30 second clips were pissing me off. SeeqPod is a similar idea, only rather than relying on public-spirited individuals to upload full songs, it just searches all the mp3s already out there and plays them right in the search window PLUS it lets you embed what you've found!

I tend to test music search engines with "Sebadoh" for some reason. Not sure why. Maybe it's because they're not totally obscure, so it doesn't feel unfair, but it's going to rely on a bit deeper catalog than most big, popular artists.



SeeqPod found a BUNCH of results immediately. Okay...how about something a bit more recent. Like, say, that Bat for Lashes single "The Wizard" I discussed a few days ago...



Bam! Done!

What's that? Does it have any old school hip hop?



iMeem's got some catching up to do. In fact, pretty much every other mp3 site on the Intar-Web has some catching up to do. This thing rocks...



I can't stop.

Stardust

I don't know how much they paid Robert De Niro to play gay pirate Captain Shakespeare in director Matthew Vaughn's unfortunate big-screen adaptation of Neil Gaiman's graphic novel Stardust, but unless he's now one of the five richest men in the world, it wasn't enough. It's humiliating for an artist of De Niro's caliber to flounder around in lame shit like Analyze That, sure, but Stardust is another conversation entirely. We're no longer discussing his reputation as an actor; that battle has been fought and lost, long ago. Now he's starting to sacrifice...and I say this not to insult the man, but out of real concern...but he's starting to sacrifice his basic human dignity.

I was literally, without embellishment, embarrassed for De Niro throughout his mercifully brief role in Stardust. I don't want to give too much away...but at the same time, I don't want you to see this movie...so I'm torn. Suffice it to say that the key joke around which De Niro's character is based SUCKS. He's asked to inhabit a degrading, mincing stereotype that's completely beneath Neil Gaiman, Matthew Vaughn, Robert De Niro and most of all the American and British moviegoing public. I actually feel like I am a worse person for having seen De Niro in this film.

Even if the remainder of Stardust was a work of genius, under no circumstances could the final product warrant any grade higher than a B-. Like failing to stick the triple lutz, this is just the kind of error that will mar an entire undertaking.

Krazy Krossdressing Kapt. Shakespeare is the most unfortunate float in the Parade of Incompetence called Stardust, but many other examples could and will be provided.

Most bad Hollywood films are a failure of vision - some mediocre but easily marketed ideas thrown together lackadaisically to produce something cheap, moderately entertaining and disposable. Stardust doesn't have this problem. It has plenty of interesting, fun ideas (most of them, I'm assuming, taken from Gaiman's book, which I have not read). Flying pirates who bottle lightning, telepathic unicorns, witch rivalries, wisecracking ghosts of slaughtered princes, undead swordplay...Vaughn and screenwriter Jane Goldman definitely had the raw materials for at least a passable fantasy-adventure film.

They simply have no idea what to do with them. Any of them. At all. Every one of these concepts, and dozens of other possible avenues for amusement, are squandered, wasted and ignored. At times, such as the atrocious Ricky Gervais cameo, I could tell the movie was trying and failing to be funny. But for much of the film's midsection, there didn't seem to be any jokes at all. Just situations that resemble other films, but don't build to anything. Vaughn's film plods along toward an inevitable storybook conclusion for 2 hours and even its protagonists don't seem to actually care. They just mosey around the wilderness in silly outfits because that's all there is to do in these movies. You walk around, you ride some horses, you discuss prophecies, you have a sword fight and you cash your check. Bada bing, bada bang, bada boom, learn from the pros, kid.

The result is a movie that clearly aimed for the inspired silliness of The Princess Bride or The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, but plays like a high school production of "Fellowship of the Ring" on opening night. A lot of recognizable characters, scenes and concepts, but jumbled together, performed in an awkward, halting manner and entirely unconvincing.



Okay, so, the set-up...150 years ago, in England, a guy named Tristan (Charlie Cox, the human embodiment of a double Nyquil shot) tries to hit on his cute neighbor Victoria (Sienna Miller) by promising to fetch for her a falling star. She agrees to marry him (this being the 1800's and all) if he can return with the star by her birthday the following week.

So Tristan crosses the magic wall separating England from the magical fantasy-world of Stormhold in search of his star, which itself turns out to be a beautiful lady named Yvaine (Claire Danes). In Stormhold, I guess, stars are not balls of gas at all, but beautiful ladies that hang around in space...but glow. And are magic.

Danes, stepping into the Jeff Bridges role, is really really terrible in this film. (If you laughed at that sentence, Welcome to Dorkville...Population: You). I mean, Yvaine the Star Woman is not by any stretch a sensational role...don't get me wrong...The "rules" governing her behavior and her situation aren't very clear, and thus I found it kind of hard to relate to her. Is it fair to ask an actress to simultaneously play scared, angry and bored? Isn't that kind of contradictory?

Still, Danes could not be more aloof or distant as Yvaine if she were starring in a remake of Persona. For the first half of the film, she's arguing with Tristan despite not appearing to actually be mad, and then she pulls a 180 and falls in love with him without ever once appearing to give a shit. At any point during the film, Yvaine could have said, "This planet sucks, I'm outta here," turned into a star and disappeared forever and it would not have seemed out of place.

I don't know if Gaiman's book made any more sense on this front, but I'm not sure I get what Yvaine is, why she's here or why she's doing what she does. At first, she's focused entirely on returning to outer space or something, but she also craves love, attention and warmth in order to retain her starlike brilliance or whatever.

But this is even more description than you need. I'll keep it simple. She's supposed to be an embodied star, right, that fell from the heavens to earth accidentally when a dying king (Peter O'Toole) tossed his ruby necklace skyward. (I wish I were just rattling this off as a joke, but it's the actual plot of the film). So you'd think that being on Earth would be a new and exciting experience for her, and we'd get some Daryl Hannah in Splash kind of scenes with the mythological woman exploring our familiar world.

But after years of watching Earth from above, Yvaine's entirely nonchalant about being an embodied human on Earth. You'd figure, even if a star knew what Earth was all about, it would be a considerably difference experience to come down here in a woman's body and walk around, meeting people and falling in love and having adventures. Rather than Hannah in Splash, the Danes performance here reminded me of Michael Jordan in Space Jam, who wanders into the Looney Tunes Universe without registering the least inkling of surprise or alarm. "Hey, Bugs Bunny...what are you doin' here?" That's about where Claire Danes is at in this film.

The only character I found even remotely appealing was Witch Queen Lamia, played by Michelle Pfeiffer with some actual relish and personality. The best shot in the film is Lamia's rapid transformation from an old hag into the only somewhat-old Michelle Pfeiffer, which is funny and even kind of sexy. I'll admit, I did wonder why a witch casting a youth spell on herself would turn into the middle-aged version of Michelle Pfeiffer. Shouldn't it have been Fabulous Baker Boys Michelle Pfeiffer? Or even Scarface Michelle Pfeiffer? I mean, we are talking a realm of sorcery and magic. (I'm making fun of Pfeiffer a bit, but she's the only one who really commits to this world and her character, and she gets almost all of the films best little jokes and moments, so I really appreciated her presence. She gets more laughs out of an arched eyebrow than 2 hours of quipping spirits and effeminate sky sailors could muster.)



Anyway, Lamia is after the Star Girl because she wants to cut out her heart and eat it, thus permanently restoring her youth-ish beauty. The last-living son of dead king Peter O'Toole, the evil Septimus (Mark Strong), is after the Star Girl because she's wearing his father's ruby necklace, which he needs in order to establish his rule over Stormhold. Tristan needs the Star Girl so he can prove his love for cruel taskmaster Victoria. And so all manner of poorly-shot swashbuckling, poorly-conceived shenanigans, poorly-written banter and poorly-executed effects sequences ensue.

The effects work, as you can probably tell, really bothered me. Either Vaughn lacked the resources to realize the story as it existed in his head or he doesn't know what the hell he's doing. De Niro's flying pirate ship just looks silly (and particularly unimpressive on the heels of ILM's work on the Pirates franchise). There's none of the scope or majesty of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films (this is much more reminiscent of the forgettable Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe). Lamia's "magic" effects are particularly dire - her outstretched hand oozes a glowing green mist that looks like something out of a "Tales from the Crypt" re-run.

Lamia at one point has a "witches' battle" against Ditchwater Sal (Melanie Hill). I bring up this scene for two reasons. One, it represents a common and peculiar motif of Stardust: showdowns between two antagonists, neither of whom has garnered any sympathy thus far with the audience. Two, Vaughn's finished footage perfectly recreates the dailies from the Harry Potter/Voldemort showdown in Goblet of Fire, before they added the actual effects. Vincent Price and Boris Karloff have a duel in the 1963 Roger Corman-directed comic spin on The Raven, and I swear to you, it looks cooler than the Sal-Lamia faceoff in Stardust.

I had a similar reaction, overall, to Matthew Vaughn's directorial debut, Layer Cake. Not in terms of shoddy effects work, but just the feeling that he was grasping at something considerably out of his depth. Twice now, Vaughn has attempted a recognizable genre (in the case of Layer Cake, the hard-edged British crime film) and rendered it without grace or style, utterly failing to make it his own. This is never a good thing, but working with specific sub-genres that a lot of other directors do particularly well (like dryly funny crime movies or postmodern fantasies), Vaughn's kind of asking for trouble. Perhaps he should start with something less ambitious? This kind of irreverent, idiosyncratic material, straddling the line between children's adventure and satirical comedy for grown-ups, can't be the easiest thing to pull off, and it's only the guy's second film. Perhaps a nice buddy road movie might be more his speed?

iMeem Officially Works!

It's actually kind of cool. I upload mp3's, they host them, then I can put them up on my blog. Not 100% sure what they're getting out of it. (There's a few ads, but isn't this a really expensive proposition, to host all this content?)

I mean, I have no real intention of joining their "social" community, as I can never seem to get really into the whole online social community thing, despite spending 140 billion hours a week online, which isn't even possible.

So it's just like a free hosting service, really, but as such, it's actually quite a nifty one. I notice that most users don't actually bother to upload their own music. (I should add, I am only uploading free, legal mp3's that I have downloaded from Official Band Sites or legit mp3 blogs, and I think iMeem actually polices for people uploading pirated music.) You can, if you so choose, just browse from songs on iMeem and add them to your profile, but unless the record company gives the A-OK, you just get :30 second clips.

So most people's iMeem profiles suck, because it's just a sample of a song, not a song. And who the hell wants to save song samples or share them with friends? My iMeem profile, however, will eventually be kickass. Right now, it's just two songs. Here's the second one. It's an awesome live collaboration between post-folk oddball Final Fantasy and Canadian rapper Cadence Weapon.

Take a Gawk at the Weird Side

I've been listening to this song all day. Let's see how well this iMeem thing works:



It's a band called Everything, Now!, off their new album "Bible Universe." I'm thinking about buying the album just because I can't get this one song out of my head. My Old Kentucky Blog tells me it's a wacky concept album about a suicidal kid named St. Backbone who finds himself in an alternate dimension. Interesting...

Here's the band's official site if you also want to pick up the whole album becuase this is such a cool, catchy song.