The Worst Movies of 2007

[SPOILER ALERT: These are all bad movies. Sometimes, I will ruin them for you. I'll let you know before I do, but if you actually want to see one of the movies I'm discussing and don't want to know how it ends, probably you're safer just skipping that section and moving on.]

I started at Mahalo last January, so unlike in previous years, I didn't have the benefit of free movie rentals in 2007. Yet I still saw more than enough horrible movies to fill a Worst of the Year list, complete with runners-up. You know...in case you were worried...

First things first, the year's worst movies that even I was not brave enough to see. The "Doomed to Fail" list:

Reign Over Me

The log line on this movie seriously makes me want to barf:

"A man who lost his family in the September 11 attack on New York City runs into his old college roommate."

And that's even before I tell you the tragic case at the heart of Reign On Me is played by Adam fucking Sandler! And that it comes to you from the genius behind HBO's short-lived "Mind of the Married Man"! Nooooooooo!

In the Valley of Elah

In Crash, Paul Haggis bravely told you that racism is teh l4m3z0rz. Now, in In the Valley of Elah (great title there, by the way, PH), he boldly takes on the Iraq War. Hmmm, I can't help but wonder if he'll have any useless, generic bromides to share with us...

Dan in Real Life



Has the "uptight dad terrified his daughter will get laid" genre ever given us an actual good movie? When you find yourself mining the same comic territory as Tony Danza, that's when you know things have gone horribly, horribly awry.

Wild Hogs

I don't really even feel the need to elaborate on this one. At this point, I greet trailers for new Tim Allen comedies with roughly the same enthusiasm as new Osama bin Laden videos. "Oh, shit, what's he going on about this time...What an asshole..."

Kickin It Old Skool

Now I've thought long and hard about this, and I'm pretty sure Jamie Kennedy's wigger persona is the lamest schtick in which any comedian on the fucking planet is engaging at this precise moment in history. Bear in mind, this means I find it less inventive or funny than Carlos Mencia's "look at the wildly gesticulating, racist Mexican who's not even really a Mexican" routine, Larry the Cable Guy's "look at the ignorant backwoods good ol' boy who's not even really a good ol' boy" bit and Michael Richards' "walk into a room full of black people and say deeply insulting things" schtick. Seriously, it's that bad...

Delta Farce

Well, as long as we're talking Larry the Cable Guy...He did manage to get some more work this year. Presumably from people who didn't see Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector.

The Bucket List

The more I find out about this movie, the more I hate it. I hate the way it totally ignores the truth about terminal illness, and pretends you could do stuff like motorcycling across the Great Wall of China while wasting away from cancer. I hate how it reveals our disturbing inability to deal with the plain truth of our own mortality in this country. I hate that it reduces the once-legendary Jack Nicholson and the great Morgan Freeman to sub-sitcom "wacky old people" cliches. But most of all, I hate the very notion of such a "list of generic activities" these two simply must engage in before they die. Most of them (at least from what I can see in the trailer) are unimaginative and predictable, and all of them require spending a lot of money. Well, isn't that just the ideal holiday fantasy? Blowing through a wad of cash on pointless shit you don't need, then dying.

License to Wed

Wins the award for the Worst Trailer of the Year:



I think I talked about this before, but I HATE comedies that rely on one of the main characters being completely insane and another character having to do everything the insane one says. That's such a pathetic, desperate way to write a movie, and because we realize immediately that the entire movie is based on needelssly forcing sane people to act insanely (because we're never provided with a GOOD REASON for such a scenario), we realize there are no stakes and essentially give up. Oh, and Robin Williams cloying, vapid blathering doesn't help matters.

Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium



Don't remake Toys, you fools! No one liked that the last time!

----------------

Okay, that's quite enough of that. Let's move on to the bad movies I actually took the time to watch:

THE WORST FILMS OF 2007

16. Paris J'Taime

20 different directors contribute 5-minute films to this anthology about romance in Paris, and I can't honestly say a single one really comes together or demands attention. Each one of the films, in its own way, feels half-baked and tossed off, and with a few exceptions, we're only be able to identify the directors involved because they're named at the beginning of each segment. Many of them are shot well, but none of them are compelling, despite the relative freedom of the concept. (Characters in love or falling in love in different neighborhoods of the city in five minutes...that's it.) It might have been tolerable for a while, but 2 hours of this is far far far too much.

15. Bug

Perhaps Bug just works better on a stage. Tracy Letts adapted the script from her own play, and I guess, at least from the level of performance, its teeth-gnashing theatrics might work in a live setting. But William Friedkin's film version is just absolutely ludicrous. Rather than watching Agnes and Peter slowly go mad together in a crummy motel room, we see them discover a new romance, start to get along, and then suddenly FREAK OUT in a mad, overripe frenzy of schizophrenic horror. Now, of course, it's not really about a couple going insane in the midst of a bug infestation. I understand that weightier themes are involved, about desperate co-dependency, the terror of hopeless loneliness, all that...But it's impossible to take the drama seriously, what with all the funhouse lighting and open sores.

14. Mr. Brooks



In this movie, William Hurt plays the physical manifestation of a voice in Kevin Costner's head urging him to kill. Together, they match wits against blackmailer Dane Cook. Do I need to keep going?

13. Vacancy

Okay, I'm putting my foot down. No more "car fatefully breaks down during already-poignant/emotional road trip" horror movies. I can't fucking take it any more. You guys keep making them and I keep watching them and they're all pointless and lame. This movie actually asks us to tremble with fear at the thought of being attacked by a relatively unarmed Frank Whaley. ("You can't run...you can't hide from...The Nerdy Pervert! Rated R.)

12. Smokin' Aces

Perhaps the ultimate reminder that stunt casting for its own sake is lame, and that few things are more painful than unfunny cameos. Many many members of Hollywood's semi-famous B-list ranks pop up for a scene or two in Joe Carnahan's miserable action-comedy Smokin Aces, most of them playing hitmen determined to wipe out Jeremy Piven. (Unfortunately, we're tasked with rooting against them.) None of them does anything even remotely amusing throughout the entire film; the only moment, in fact, that seems to get any kind of reaction from the audience is when several annoying characters die suddenly and mercifully disappear from the film. That earns a round of applause.

11. Factory Girl



Is this film a really sly, subversive homage to Andy Warhol? A simple-minded, superficial tribute to a brazenly and defiantly superficial mind? Maybe, but it's more likely Factory Girl is simply unable to provide any fresh insight into its already-familiar cast of characters nor any sense of the significance of these artists and their experiences. It reduces the story of Edie Sedgwick, Andy Warhol, the Velvet Underground, Bob Dylan and the New York art world of their time to the most pedestrian level possible - celebrity gossip. "Did you know that this socialite floozy fucked Bob Dylan? And he thought Andy Warhol was, like, totally using her, and Andy Warhol was all like totally jealous, and she got all messed up on drugs and needed rehab?" And of course, the movie itself was tabloid fodder because of Sienna Miller's highly revealing nude scenes, her crushed award-season hopes and her tumultuous romance with Jude Law. Ugh.

Oh, I didn't mention Hayden Christensen's so-bad-it's-hilarious take on Dylan, who didn't allow the filmmakers to use his name or music in the film because he didn't like their take on his relationship with Sedgwick, probably because it's stupid and poorly-conceived. Having Anakin to impersonate Dylan's highly idiosyncratic manner of speaking poorly throughout the entire film was just a horrible choice by director George Hickenlooper. It makes the whole film feel like a bad SNL sketch. I'll take Cate Blanchett, thanks so much.

10. Spider-Man 3

Raimi had always resisted putting Venom in the Spider-Man films, but the rabid fanboy enthusiasm won out in the end. So we got a Venom movie from a guy who clearly doesn't understand or enjoy the Venom character. (I can't say I blame him...I've never really found Venom all that compelling as a character.) Every decision made on that end just sucked, from casting Eric Forman to play the character to featuring Tobey Maguire in heavy guyliner, trudging around in alien-symbiote-inspired angst like a backup dancer fired from a Fall Out Boy video. The effects were terrific as always in this Spider-Man, but everything else felt turgid and empty.

[Read the original review here]

9. The Number 23

Wow, 2007 fucking SUCKED. I can't believe this piece of shit is actually coming in #9. I picked EIGHT MOVIES as worse than this piffle? This piffle, I should add, directed by one of my all-time least favorite directors, a guy nearly guaranteed a spot on my Worst of the Year list any time he releases a movie, Mr. Joel Schumacher. Joel can't even make it into the Top 5 this year...Damn...

Anyway, I don't want to blow the whole thing for you necessarily, but the entire mystery behind Number 23 is intensely insulting. The set-up: Jim Carrey and wife Virginia Madsen discover a weird book in a rare book shop. It seems to describe aspects of Carrey's childhood and life, details it would be difficult for someone else to know. Also, the book describes a character who grows obsessed with the number 23 and its significance in probability, the universe, etc. That's all fine, I suppose. Mysterious enough I guess, even though it's punctuated by weird, really irritatingly-shot, overexposed "dream sequences" or whatever in which a tattooed Carrey alter-ego stalks around acting generally menacing. But the ending just feels so gratuitous and rushed, like it occurred to the screenwriters five minutes before their pages were due. A movie like this lives or dies by the last five minutes. If you don't have a great final twist, why write a thriller that spends 90 minutes building up to a final twist?

8. Pirates of the Caribbean 3

This movie was awful in a really weird way. I mean, how could you possibly fuck this one up? The first movie is really good, I personally think the second is even better...and then, this aimless, ceaselessly perplexing final chapter, which seems to purposefully ignore all the charms of the first two films? Really? 20 minutes of Depp, with visible flopsweat, desperately dicking around in front of a plain white backdrop? All of the lively, interesting characters sidelined, and newcomer Chow Yun-Fat killed off near-instantly, in favor of some snooty aristocratic Englishmen in powdered wings and their various double-, triple- and quadruple-crosses? The Kraken, the coolest adversary in the entire series, killed off-screen between films? Like I said, just...weird...One of the year's great disappointments.

[Read the original review here]

7. I Know Who Killed Me



As ridiculous as I found the conclusion of The Number 23, Lindsay Lohan's foray into the serial killer genre actually earns the dubious Worst Twist of 2007 award. It's so dubious, they actually have Art Bell appear on-screen during the movie to assure us in the audience that, in fact, these claims are possible. Trust me...they are not. Twists aside, this is just an extremely dark, muddy and unattractive film about a suburban good-girl slasher victim who wakes up after her attack minus an arm and under the impression that she's a stripper. It's just as nihilistic, unpleasant and grim as it sounds, not just brutally violent but also disgusting and lurid. It's trying to shock you, which doesn't make it shocking...Just sad...

6. Southland Tales

This movie's a gigantic mess, and really my respect for Richard Kelly's ambition is the only thing keeping it out of the Top 5. It feels like the work of someone caught up entirely within a world of his own creation. He has no idea how to bring others into this creation, to help us understand the significance of these bizarre characters and random, dimly explained goings-on, to him or anyone else. These images and concepts just sit there, on screen, sometimes coalescing into something approaching satire and other times defiantly refusing to make any sense at all, and after a short time, I found it completely impossible to even pay attention to them.

[Read the original review here]

Interestingly, this is yet another 2007 film with a giant cast of unimpressive, B-level celebrities, many of them "Saturday Night Live" alumni. These kind of deep comedian rosters are like a Grand Tradition truly bad movies. Anyone remember Rat Race? Of course you don't...

5. Stardust



When whimsy fails, it EPIC FAILS. Like farce, whimsical fantasy has to be done with an extremely deft touch. Miss the right tone/tempo/attitude/style/performance even by a bit, and the whole thing's just off. Stardust misses all of the above and MANY MANY MORE. In addition to woefully amateurish special effects and an essentially inert non-romance drearily stretched out to feature-length proportions, Stardust features the least-likable cast of characters in any recent fantasy film. Just when you're thinking no protagonist could possibly be more boring than the Orlando Bloom wannabe they've cast as Tristan, here comes Claire Danes as the whiny Star Girl Yvaine. Oh boy!

The worst of all is, of course, Captain Shakespeare, the friendly mincing sky pirate who pretends to be a tough guy in front of his men even though, when left to his own devices, he's a right dandy! He's played by Robert De Niro, who's obviously in dire need of funds to pay for his grandmother's operation.

[Read the original review here]

4. Transformers

It's not that I had high expectations for Transformers, you understand. I knew it was going to be terrible. It had nothing going for it from the first, save perhaps the corporate, almost entirely non-creative input of producer Steven Spielberg. I mean, a Michael Bay adaptation of an '80s toy concept involving truck-robots scouring the Earth for energy cubes. Suddenly the Lindsay Lohan as the forgetful dismembered stripper concept doesn't sound so bad.

What I wasn't prepared for was the migraine-inducing "action" scenes, which were not entertaining at all but did manage to exactly replicate the POV of a kitten that has been placed inside a dryer along with some Hot Wheels. I wasn't prepared for the "comedy" scenes, in which Optimus Prime bumbles around Shia LaBeouf's backyard like he's starring in some kind of anime Preston Sturges homage. I wasn't prepared for the seemingly endless sub-plots that went nowhere and were suddenly dropped in the last half-hour anyway, padding an already-overlong film into a bladder-decimating 150 minute ordeal. Watch as I instantly transform into someone who doesn't pay for Michael Bay movies any more!

[Read the original review here]

3. Shoot Em Up

Yet more proof that Chuck Jones was a fucking GENIUS. This movie is obviously trying to be live action Looney Tunes, yet director Michael Davis is unable to devise a single joke or set-up that's half as memorable or inventive as any random Warner Bros. classic short. Seriously, to set your expectations this low - a movie with essentially no plot that's just a bunch of random gunfights and cheap chauvanism - and still utterly fail to hit the mark, that's when it's seriously time to consider a new career path. Why would Clive Owen do this to us?

[Read the original review here]

2. 300



Go back and read the full review to get my extensive thoughts on this horrifyingly offensive, Western-supremacist war porn abomination. The popularity of this film and the fact that so many of my countrymen have defended it and lauded it with praise this year seriously makes me feel badly about where we are as a society. This kind of self-congratulatory, bloodthirsty propaganda, disguised as history of all things, just reinforces - and not in a suble way - a great mass of negative, destructive ideas. Homophobia, the fetishization of war, the demonization of foreign peoples...it's all in there, and you don't have to look particularly hard to find it.

For those of you about to write me angry messages in the comments about how 300 is based on a graphic novel from years ago about a war thousands of years ago, and thus can't possibly relate to anything in 2007, let me just say that you might want to read some books without drawings now and again.

[Read the original review here]

1. Revolver



Guy Ritchie's Revolver was produced and released in Europe years ago, but it only made it to America in 2007, because it's clearly one of the worst movies ever made. Here's what Roger Ebert said:

"Revolver" is a frothing mad film that thrashes against its very sprocket holes in an attempt to bash its brains out against the projector. It seems designed to punish the audience for buying tickets.

He's far too kind.

Word on the street is that Ritchie was inspired by his wife Madonna's Kabballah religion, and if that's the case, those people are easily as fucked up as the Scientologists.

Ritchie's movie constantly promises to lead to something, and then keeps turning you around and showing you what you've already seen. (Get it? Revolver? Ha ha, this obvious pun excuses all my film's repetitiveness!) A convict is freed from jail. There's a gangster after him for some reason. Two mysterious guys come to his aid, but keep asking him to pull crappy errands for them in exchange. Are these the same two guys he got to know through the walls of his prison cell, who had long planned how to pull off the perfect crime? I still have no idea, because the movie doesn't so much answer questions as ask them over and over and over again. Eventually, you stop caring about getting any answers and just want to get as far away from the DVD of Revolver as possible. You may even lose your will to live. Who knows? Results may vary.

[Read the original review here]

The Magic of Reeding

Admittedly, I'm ripping off this post from Sadly, No. But I can't help myself. This is the most hilarious facial hair I have ever seen.



I thought it must have been PhotoShopped in there, but no, it's the real deal.

This is Reed Heustis, Jr. He's a lawyer. This sentence appears on the front page of his website:

"Unfortunately these same students are never taught that there exists one sovereign power that reigns supreme, even over the Constitution: King Jesus Christ."

I have to say, as far as personal webpages go, Reed is batting 1000.

Happy New Year!

Let's start 2008 with a chuckle. Here, compliments of the inimitable Prof. Myers, is an ACTUAL FOR-SERIOUS letter to the editor of the Salt Lake Tribune. I give you a look inside the twisted mind of one Vera B. Ivie:

In his Dec. 27 letter, Steven Fehr says he believes President Bush is the worst president he has seen. Whenever I hear someone complain about the president, I ask them, “Do you pray for the president of the United States daily?” Is that too much trouble?

She poses this question as if it's obvious. "Oh, no wonder Bush starts illegal wars, tortures innocent people and spies on his own citizenry, then craps all over the Constitution trying to cover it up! We haven't been praying for him every single day! Man, is my face red..."

And I mean...every day? Do we really want to nag the Lord in this way? Imagine if someone asked you to do something and then pestered you about it every day.

"Hey, God, it's me, Lon, again. Look, I hate to be a bother, but you remember how I asked you to bless our millionaire cokehead president? Could you actually get around to doing that? Like, some time soon? I mean, I know you've got a lot on your plate but it's, like, totally super-important that we get this thing squared away. I really appreciate it, Big Guy. Thanks a billion. I'll call you tomorrow to make sure it's done. No, it's no problem. Thanks again. I owe you one."

It's like, he's God. He knows what you're going to ask for before you even ask for it. Once a week ought to be enough.

There used to be a custom of praying for our president.

You know, there used to be a custom of living in caves, dressing in animal skins and doodling on cave walls to pass the hours between sabretooth tiger attacks. It's called progress.

>Perhaps too many people in the United States believe this would be mixing politics and religion.

Yes, I fail to see how engaging in a religious practice on behalf of a politician mixes religion and politics.

If the majority of the people are agnostic and atheistic, it may be that they are partly to blame for the problems we have.

I think, clearly, the majority of the people are not agnostic or atheist...sigh...atheistic. The majority of people still believe in angels and Heaven, last I heard. But you've still got to appreciate how Vera needlessly hedges her bets here. She's saying something irretrievably stupid, but leaves herself rhetorical "outs" anyway in case anyone calls her on her bullshit. the majority of the people are agnostic and atheistic, it may be that they are partly to blame for the problems we have. Why not just out and say it? Shun the non-believers! Shuuuuuuunnnnnn.

To think one man is responsible for the war and the problems we face in our nation is about as foolish as to not believe in the power of prayer.

Where to begin with this one? I mean, what a strawman. No one's suggesting Bush and Bush alone is responsible for the war and the problems we face. It's Bush, Dick Cheney and their cadre of fanatics, of course. I mean, has anyone suggested that Bill Kristol, David Frum, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld and a whole cast of unsavory characters don't share some of the blame here?

Then Vera blathers on for a while meaninglessly. The point is, Atheists is the Devil. Go Bush FTW!

It's gonna be a good year, I can just feel it.

My Favorite Albums of 2007

[Start checking out the Favorite Songs Lists here with Part 1]

Let's get right to it, shall we...This was extremely difficult to compile. I must have listened to at least 50 good-to-great albums in 2007 that were considered for this list...

21. White Rabbits, Fort Nightly

These guys make experimental indie pop that's also totally accessible. I'm thinking this might even be easy to dance to if I had any natural ability in that area. On first hearing this album, I was reminded of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, but this is better than that band's 2005 debut (and far better than their lame 2007 entry, Some Loud Thunder). Long-time readers will also recall my bias towards rock with piano, which helps explain my immediate fondness for The Rabbits.

20. Calla, Strength in Numbers

This is a heavy, brooding guitar rock that's remarkably consistent, both in tone and quality. I love the fuzzed-out, distorted, almost tortured guitar noise on "Simone" in particular, which sounds like a Garbage song performed by a less self-conscious, male lead singer.

19. Windmill, Puddle City Racing Lights

I can't tell if I like this record in spite of its cheesiness or because it's so unapologetically cheesy. They're operatic to such an extent on every track, Windmill somehow moves beyond cheese, like U2 did on Joshua Tree (and Achtung Baby, and then never ever again.) I mean, take the song "Fit." It's ridiculously sweet and also ridiculously silly, from the swelling horns at the opening to the "Guitar for Dummies" riff over the chorus. It's hard to imagine Windmill even performing it with a straight face. It sounds like something from a musical. And not a rock musical. Like one of those Tim Rice jobs.

18. Arcade Fire, Neon Bible

Probably my most anticipated album of 2007 (I didn't know Radiohead had anything coming out), so I guess it's surprising this comes in so far down the list. Some songs are great - "Intervention," "Keep the Car Running," "Windowstill" - but there's also a sameness to a lot of the songs that got to me after a while. It certainly didn't hold up to repeat listens like the band's phenomenal "Funeral" from a few years back. And I'm sorry..."No Cars Go" is just a bad song, and the band has now put it on two separate albums.

17. Ween, La Cucaracha

These guys don't get 1/8 of the respect they deserve, so I'm always eager to shower them with praise...but even a superfan like myself must concede "La Cucaracha" was not their best-ever effort. Opener "Fiesta" is just boring, the falsetto on "Spirit Walker" grates after a listen or two and the suitably brown "Blue Balloon" goes on about two minutes too long. This album, in fact, makes the list because of three songs: "Your Party," which made my Favorite Songs of the Year list, "Object" and one of the most hilarious filthy tracks in the band's entire discography, "My Own Bare Hands."

16. Aesop Rock, None Shall Pass

There's so much going on in this album, lyrically and sonically. Even if it weren't so entertaining and listenable, you'd have to admire the sheer amount of effort that went into None Shall Pass. Aesop's rhymes are the polar opposite of the party anthems and club music that dominates the radio - intricate, detailed, absurdist, reference-heavy narratives and rants alike, they could probably be transcribed and published as a short story collection.

15. The New Pornographers, Challengers

First off, the Dan Bejar (aka Destroyer) songs on this album are among his best contributions to any New Pornographers album to date. "Myriad Harbour" in particular. The remainder of Challengers feels a bit less ambitious than Twin Cinemas, my favorite of their LP's, but does include some great indie pop songs. "Failsafe," "All the Old Showstoppers" and "Mutiny, I Promise You" are the highlights.

14. Busdriver, RoadKill Overcoat

Most of the albums on this list won over a lot of fans this year besides me. Many of them made Pitchfork's Best of the Year List, and a slew of other Top 10's from around the Web. But RoadKill Overcoat came out really early this year, and I'm not sure I've heard anyone praise it other than myself. (Granted, I haven't been paying close attention). Anyway, I know Busdriver raps very fast with a very weaselly, high-pitched voice, and that half of the songs on here find him leaving his comfort zone and singing, but I still can't imagine why this isn't more popular, at least with music bloggers.

13. Blitzen Trapper, Wild Mountain Nation

Blitzen Trapper pull off a wide variety of sounds and styles on Wild Mountain Nation and never once sound less than totally confident. You'd swear the title track was written by Jerry Garcia, then it segues neatly into the contemporary indie pop of "Futures & Folly," then suddenly you find you're listening to lo-fi garage rock (interrupted by a harmonica solo) and on and on and on. All Music Guide refers to the style as "schizophrenic," but that implies that it's somehow out-of-control, when nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the band sounds incredibly accomplished and tight here, particularly Erik Menteer on guitar.

12. Dinosaur Jr., Beyond

I was a bit young for Dinosaur Jr. the first time around (You're Living All Over Me dropped when I was 8 years old), and actually only discovered the band after developing something of an obsession with bassist Lou Barlow's follow-up project, Sebadoh. So this Dinosaur Jr. "reunion" is actually my first chance to be a real fan - seeing them play together at the Wiltern was definitely the best time I had at a rock show in '07. And it's all particularly gratifying because the new songs are so good, reminiscent of the music they've always made but not outdated or predictable. The Dinosaur Jr. Reunion kicks The Pixies Reunion's ass.

11. Feist, The Reminder

The Reminder sounds like a lost gem from another era. It's hard to believe the same airwaves crowded with shrill, guylinered emo bands and fucking Fergie nightmares actually broadcast these simple, perfect little Feist melodies. I liked Let It Die largely because of Karen Feist's beautiful vocals, but The Reminder gets pretty much everything right.

10. Okkervil River, The Stage Names

Not much to say about Okkervil River I haven't said before. These guys continue to impress with their expert musicianship, Will Sheff's phenomenal singing and deft lyricism and their outsize ambition. This may not be quite as memorable as the haunting Black Sheep Boy, but it's fantastic nevertheless.

9. Battles, Mirrored

I really should have put "Tonto" from this record on my Favorite Songs list. Not sure what I was thinking on that one. Anyway, it's an understandable mistake, because I never once put on an individual Battles song - I always listened to the entire album straight through. It's so easy to just get into the groove of these songs and let my mind drift, I had to remind myself after giving Mirrored about 10 listens to actually pay attention to what I was hearing. The way these guys just develop little melodies and then let them play out and mutate over the course of 7, 8 minutes is truly awe-inspiring at times.

8. The Ponys, Turn the Lights Out

Hands down, the guitar-rock album of the year. "Everyday Weapon," "Small Talk," "Poser Psychotic"...those are my favorites, but Jered Gummere and Brian Case just shred their way through 12 straight tracks. By the time they finish with the epic 6 minute plus finale, "Pickpocket Song," I typically need a nap.

7. The Fiery Furnaces, Widow City

A fine return to form for The Furnaces after several years in a kind of experimental daze, lost in the Friedberger Siblings esoteric and frequently unlistenable artistic impulses, like King Lear if he'd taken become addicted to ether during his travels. Only two songs, "Clear Signal from Cairo" and "Navy Nurse," drift around between several melodies and tempos like Blueberry Boat or Rehearsing My Choir. But rather than allowing the more clipped style to limit their palette of styles and sounds, the Furnaces just zip around more quickly. It makes for an exhilarating, always intriguing hour of music.

6. Bat for Lashes, Fur and Gold

This is late-night music, to be listened to on headphones with the lights out. I'm not sure how Natasha Khan put together such a delicate, quiet collection of songs that's this riveting. Also, what the hell is up with "The Wizard"? " Trembling midnight lands/I travel with the wizard/
Drink his blood and he's our leader"? It scares the hell out of me, and yet I can't stop listening to it.

5. The National, Boxer

I'm not sure what these guys do that other bands don't do, but I can listen to these songs A TON and not get tired of them. "Mistaken for Strangers," "Ava," "Guest Room," "Apartment Story"...I'm not even close to getting tired of these songs. Also, as they did on Alligator, The National have managed to put together a collection of songs that feel like they're about a common theme...but damned if I know what that theme is. And what it has to do with boxers. Also, I don't know how to talk about Matt Berninger's singing without making it sound like I have a mancrush on him. So let's just leave it at that.

4. M.I.A., Kala

At work, my friend Travis and I were both listening to this album obsessively all year, and it felt almost wrong somehow. Like this intensely immediate, exciting music - full of violent anger but also this powerful optimism and humanity - being listened to by a couple of guys sitting near-motionless at computers all day. But it's not really all that strange, because in addition to a good soundtrack for a convenience store robbery and/or block party, Kala is also the most compelling album of 2007, rewarding careful listening and close attention. A fucking masterpiece.

3. Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

Maybe Spoon's best album ever, there I said it. This is seriously up there with Girls Can Tell and Series of Sneaks, people. Every single song is good, and quite a number of them are exceptionally good. In fact, the four songs that close it out - "The Underdog," "My Little Japanese Cigarette Case," "Finer Feelings" and "Black Like Me" - are my favorite part of any album of the year. How's that for obsessive listing!

2. Radiohead, In Rainbows

Radiohead's best album since Kid A. I'm sure you're all sick of hearing me talk about Yorke, Greenwood & Co. at this point, so here's the Safety Dance.



1. Panda Bear, Person Pitch

Yes, I have the same #1 album of the year as Pitchfork. I am a poseur. But seriously...listen to this 6 or 7 times, and it just automatically becomes your favorite album of the year. It's that good. Person Pitch is like a puzzle box - at first it's confusing and you don't know what the hell's going on, and then you slowly start to investigate and figure things out and then, suddenly, everything falls perfectly into place. "Oh, wrapped up tightly inside all these sound effects and stray noises are warm little pop songs!" Gradually discovering Panda Bear's hidden melodies was one of the highlights of 2007 for me.

Shoot Em Up

This is the first film I have ever seen from Michael Davis, and I know nothing about the man. But based solely on Shoot Em Up, I'm going to go ahead and assume that he was born with severe birth defects, has spent his entire life in a single dark room, was educated and schooled with only Maxim Magazines and Jackie Chan films and that he's currently 12 years old. A pointless exercise in cruel stupidity, I could deal with. But such a poorly made exercise in cruel stupidity just makes me angry...



Shoot Em Up is one of those movies that tries to excuse ineptitude with goofiness. It would like to be a genuinely kickass action movie, but the dialogue is excruciatingly awful, so none of the jokes are funny, and Davis has no clue how to shoot or choreograph an action sequence, so it's never cool or exciting. To compensate, the film WINKS at you for 90 solid minutes. "Hey, we know these one-liners are terrible! Yeah, this gunfight is preposterous, incoherently edited and totally nonsensical! That's what makes it so funny! Ha ha!"

A touch of absurdity in a throwback action-comedy like this is welcome. Shane Black's screenplays for tongue-in-cheek action films like The Long Kiss Goodnight manage to inject lunacy into the genre without being this grating. Constant and total absurdity gets wearisome fast, and the fact that the cartoon logic and over-the-top violence in Shoot Em Up aren't cleverly employed or original kills any midnight movie value this ugly mess could have hoped for. (Also, if you want to reach a cult movie audience, don't brazenly rip off shots from Sam Raimi and Coen Brothers films. Cult movie fans are the exact people who will recognize what you're doing.)

Initially, I thought Davis was going to completely avoid telling a story at all, which actually would have been okay. The film just sort of starts and it's at least 20 minutes before even the basics of a plotline begin to creep in at the margins - and I was glad. "At least he didn't bother trying to concoct some ridiculous storyline for this nonsense," I thought. "I'll give him some credit for that." But, alas...it was not to be. Almost as if the movie could hear my thoughts, a miserably thin, purposeless and idiotic story was introduced.

The unnamed hero (Clive Owen) is essentially a bum. He's hanging out at a bus stop eating a carrot when a pregnant woman, terrified for her life, runs by him, followed by a mean-looking guy with a gun. Owen intervenes and tries to save the woman, but is confronted by a veritable army of mean-looking guys with lots and lots of guns, led by a guy I thought was unnamed but whom IMDb refers to as "Hertz." (Ha ha!) He is played by Paul Giamatti who, like Owen, salvages some dignity by chewing the scenery, just playing the entire film for laughs.

During the ensuing gun battle, Owen kills just about everybody (except Giamatti) and delivers the pregnant woman's baby. Then he and the baby get in several more gun battles. Then he brings the baby to a lactating prostitute (poor, unfortunate Monica Bellucci). Then he begins to solve the mystery of the Baby Whom All the Really Bad Marksmen Want to Kill.

See, the whole idea of the film is that Owen uses a variety of ridiculous, physics-defying, Looney Tunes-esque methods of shooting at bad guys. If this had been done well, employing some degree of imagination and Rube Goldberg ingenuity, these scenes could maybe have worked. I'm not convinced, but it's theoretically possible. I'm not a huge fan of the Final Destination series, but they're organized in a similar fashion - ironic, self-aware set pieces in which a series of unlikely or unpredictable little events lead to big, gruesome payoffs. But those films try to outwit the viewer, employing devious little surprises and twists to keep the death-mechanisms entertaining (well, somewhat.)

The shenanigans in Shoot Em Up are just unlikely, but not in a fun or interesting way. I think the major problem is the direction, which is haphazard and sloppy and does a very poor job of giving these absurd stunts even a faint whiff of genuine physical reality. You want sloppy? In the first shot of the movie, we see Clive Owen take a bite out of a carrot. A few moments later, he uses the carrot to stab another man to death, and when it pops out the back of the other guy's skull, it's brand new and uneaten. THAT, my friends, is some lazy, sloppy shit.

Oh, and I'm blaming Davis and not cinematographer Peter Pau for the film's drab, indistinct and unattractive visuals because the latter has a long resume that includes Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I doubt very much all this crap was his doing.

If we don't ever believe for a moment that Owen is aiming a gun whilst skydiving, or moving a playground carousel around by shooting at it, or wielding a carrot as a weapon, or whipping a baby up into his arms by grabbing its blankie, because the movie makes it look fraudulent and jokey, then we're not going to find it funny. You have to invest in the reality of a situation in order to then find its goings-on comical. Think Ben Stiller wrestling the dog in Something About Mary. It works because Stiller's good at that kind of dorky physical comedy and because the Farrellys intercut between shots of a real dog and a fake stuffed one, complete with realistic sound effects. We know that he's not really beating up a dog, but it feels real enough to surprise us, to give the fleeting impression that an adorable dog is being manhandled by Ben Stiller.

In comparison, the effects work and editing here just don't work at all, not even for a moment. Some of this stuff might have seemed okay to me if it were pulled off well, like the bit with Owen rigging up a variety of automatic weapons with strings, and then firing them at villains like a puppeteer. That's an okay concept for a sequence, but the way Davis lays it out ruins the effect. The guns are obviously placed. The bad guys can clearly see them and would just get out of their direct line of fire. Some of the shots are so poorly edited and sequenced, it seems like the bad guys have LONG PERIODS OF TIME between realizing Owen is going to shoot at them and trying to get out of the way of the bullets. The whole movie is just botched like this, almost as if Shoot Em Up became a comedy because it couldn't hack it as a real action movie.

(These stunts are also insanely repetitive - Owen slides on his belly past enemies then fires backwards at them at least 10 times in the film's first hour, and Bruce Willis already did that a bunch in Die Hard!)

Finally, I feel like I point this out about bad movies a lot these days, and I'm not sure if I'm becoming more sensitive to this stuff or if it's creeping into mainstream films more, but Shoot Em Up is misogynist to a fairly extreme degree. Bellucci's character exists only to be degraded or to be used as a literal prop by the film's male characters. When she's first introduced, a pervert is paying her to drink her breast milk. Later, in a scene meant to be funny, she gives a back alley blowjob to earn money for a bulletproof vest. Owen kills bad guys while having sex with her, flinging her out of the way of incoming bullets, and she barely seems to notice. She's in the vast majority of this movie, and she's not given a single one-liner or heroic moment. She doesn't impact the plot in any way. It's like, "Hey, baby, show us your tits. Now fuck the lead character to make him seem more awesome. Now take care of this baby we no longer require and get the hell out of here before I throw you a beating."

Also, Giamatti gets constant phone calls from his unseen wife; he pauses from threatening to shoot Owen only to make disparaging jokes about her. Oh, and in the midst of one of the film's gun battles, the camera pauses on a calendar, in which a bullet hole has been driven right through the pin-up girl's butt. Oh, yeah, and right after a brand new mother is shot in the head, her corpse is carried around as a running joke, and Giamatti's character gets off on feeling her breasts. Ha ha!

Shoot Em Up may be what all movies are like in 30 years, when all filmmakers will have grown up surrounded by video games, Michael Bay movies and "Girls Gone Wild" ads. I just hope somebody will have the common decency to shove a carrot through my eye socket before it comes to that.

Charlie Wilson's War

[SPOILER ALERT: I won't blow anything fictional that happens in this movie, but I may "spoil" some actual world history in the course of this review. If you don't know shit about Afghanistan in the '80s and plan to see this movie, better not read any further.]

It's easier, I suppose, to appreciate the simple pleasures of film-viewing if the films themselves are placed into a vacuum, one where nothing has any meaning in the real world. To pretend, in other words, that it's all just some crazy fictional shit some writer concocted that was then put to film, that none of these individuals involved in the process of putting this movie together had any agenda or bias aside from making the most entertaining crazy fictional shit possible and that films cease to have any influence on their viewers the moment the reel actually stops unspooling.

As you can probably guess, I don't see this as the case. To me, an individual film comes into being in the midst of a grand conversation - not only with other films, but with other arts, with politics, with culture. It's not just ignorant and superficial but ridiculous to view a collaborative artistic project that can take years to create purely on its own terms, removed from any and all context.

So how to write about the strange and idiosyncratic Charlie Wilson's War, a well-made but highly (to my mind) misleading political satire about important events in recent American history? I'm not sure I agree with its perspective. Like...AT ALL. It's hard to translate that kind of position into a traditional "thumbs up" or a star ranking...But I can say, as a piece of entertainment, it's pretty damn solid. As a history lesson/commentary, it could be a lot better.



Charlie Wilson's War tells the true story of the U.S. response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan during the 1980's. The real Charlie Wilson, a skirt-chasing, alcoholic Texas Congressman, used his position on the House's Defense Appropriations subcommittee to initiate the largest-ever covert CIA operation, funneling billions of dollars in weaponry to Afghan rebels (Mujahideen) fighting the Soviets.

This is a pretty incredible story and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin succeeds in not only making complicated political machinations relatively straight-forward and even sporadically funny. He's done this largely by writing clever dialogue, full of television-style set-ups, punchlines and quips, but not to an irritating, "Studio 60" degree.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman nearly steals the entire film (for what must be the fifteenth time this year) as Gust Avrakotos, the hot-tempered CIA know-it-all who helps Wilson arrange and understand his elaborate project. Hoffman's really the audience's way into the film - he looks at the cocksure and utterly corrupted Wilson with the mix of appreciation and bewilderment I sense we're meant to feel.

Wilson's not just sleazy but defiantly sleazy, openly referring to his beautiful assistants as "jailbait" and explaining away his relationships to drug dealers by noting that they were introduced by a Playboy covergirl. Tom Hanks gets some laughs in the part, though he's a bit mistcast. And not only because he has some accent trouble and whenever I see him play drunk, I'm reminded of his Dean Martin impression.

The one defining Wilson trait seems to be a preternatural ability to cozy up to all manner of people and feign sincerity in order to win them over. Hanks' charm is a bit too genial and open - we believe other people would like him, but I'm not sure we ever see him use this charisma to his advantage. In fact, the few times during the film that Wilson is actually left to his own devices, such as a tense meeting with the Prime Minister of Pakistan and his advisers, he falters and ends up embarrassing himself.

Director Mike Nichols brings a veteran's touch to the film - it's very tight and professional, but doesn't really show off or call attention to its own style. Nothing about the film feels all that ambitious, really, and the entire production is disarmingly slight considering the massive award campaign behind it and the uber-stars on its poster. It's reminiscent of Wag the Dog in some ways, another small, unassuming political comedy that arrived with a big cast and epic hype.

As political satire, however, Charlie Wilson's War falls short. Very short. As in, I can't even tell who or what is actually being satirized. I think it's supposed to be Wilson himself, who could be taken as a representation of American foreign policy. He's self-involved and reckless, acting emotionally without really considering the consequences. Wilson's convinced we need to help the Afghan people because he's hot for a woman lobbying on their behalf. After visiting a refugee camp and seeing the brutality of the Soviet Army, he starts sending them weapons without considering what will happen if the Afghans actually use them.

The end of the film finds Wilson successful, but it's a meaningless victory. (Hey, it's not a Spoiler if it actually happened decades ago.) The CIA helps the Afghans expel the Soviets and then leaves them totally to their own devices. The film ends with Avrakotos grimly warning Wilson about what's happening in the country they just "saved" from Communism. "The crazies," he intones, are amassing in Kandahar. (This foreshadows, of course, the rise of the Taliban, the group of crazies that we ended up removing from power in Afghanistan shortly after 9/11. Will most Americans make this connection? Does it even count as satire if it's too vague for a significant portion of the potential audience to catch?)

It almost feels as if Sorkin and Nichols want to confront the harsh reality that Wilson and the CIA, in not thinking about the consequences of their actions, maybe have indirectly led to the growth of Al Qaeda, the use of Afghanistan as a training base for terrorists, and thus, the 9/11 attacks. My point is, if they are trying to say that - and it seems to me that, in fact, they are - this needs to be much more direct.

This version of Charlie Wilson is not really an apt metaphor for America, if we're being 100% honest. Because Tom Hanks' Charlie Wilson is a genuinely good, well-intentioned, heroic guy. The film opens and closes with him being awarded a medal. Granted, the scene is kind of ironic and even snarky. (The movie opens with the line, "Greetings, members of the Clandestine Community.") But I'm not sure that's really an excuse to advance the myth of American exceptionalism as this film does so repeatedly and fervently. "Hey, mistakes were made, it didn't all work out as we'd hoped, but America is still the greatest country in the world! Am I right or am I right or am I right?"

It's just kind of wrong to celebrate covert CIA wars in a lightly comical fashion, and I'm not sure the film is clear enough about where it stands to avoid confusion on this matter. It's far too close to a celebration of American intervention overseas, a restatement of the Big Lie, the lie that's actually repeated by a Congressman (played by Ned Beatty) during the film: that America is always on the side of good in whatever it does, all over the world.

If we are to see Wilson as the embodiment of American faults, he needs to seem more reckless and dangerous. The real Charlie Wilson got into lots of trouble that the film glosses over, including some drunk driving accidents, that might have actually made the film work better as a satire. But I guess you can't make your Tom Hanks protagonist too unlikable, even if he is based on a real guy and representative of the decadent, self-aggrandizing American spirit.

The Julia Roberts character - wealthy and powerful Republican whackjob Joanne Herring - perfectly exemplifies my issues with the film. This woman is probably evil, and definitely misguided in her approach to foreign affairs, and yet the film depicts her like Queen fucking Elizabeth. Beautiful, brilliant, glamorous, passionate and adored. Maybe I'm just prejudiced against warmongering Republican Texas millionaires, but the way this character is fawned over and considered above reproach, acting solely out of compassion for Afghan refugees, struck me as entirely ludicrous. Melissa Roddy in AlterNet compares it to "tell[ing] the story of World War II and pretend[ing] that, because the United States might have given a box of guns to the French Underground, there was no Holocaust." I might not go that far, but I get what she's talking about...This feels like a whimsical fantasy at times, not a comedy based on real events.

I'm not going to settle these questions in a blog review, but this is what I was thinking about while exiting Charlie Wilson's War. Do filmmakers take on a responsibility when making films about recent history? Or is it appropriate to just take significant events from a relatively short time ago and render them unrecognizable for the sake of comedy?

What Do You Do That Makes You Famous?

In your face, John Cusack.

ChristmAss

Daryl Hill bought his 10-year-old daughter an mp3 player for Christmas (from Wal-Mart, naturally), and it came loaded up with a heaping holiday helping of pr0n. I know, I know, it's hard to believe that a friendly neighborhood company like Wal-Mart would do something duplicitous like charging people new merchandise prices for previously-used electronics. But it's Christmas; try to have a little faith.

Hill bought three of the players as Christmas presents for his children. He said one of the devices had apparently been returned to the store from a previous owner who loaded sex clips and songs with lyrics about using drugs.

"Within 10 minutes, my daughter was crying," Hill said Thursday. "I wish I could take the thoughts and images out of her head."

You gotta feel bad for the kids, but this should be easy enough to explain.

"Santa was bringing you an mp3 player filled with Hannah Montana songs and a different mp3 player filled with porn to some horny, perverted little kid who's been particularly good this year. And one of the elves must have made a mix-up! The point is, even Santa makes mistakes. Oh, yeah, and always look directly into the camera when giving head."

There, done and done. Maybe I should have a few kids...I'm good at this...

Anyway, if you really want to laugh...I mean, more than you just did at the little girl who got porn for Christmas...check out this MSNBC news report on the incident, sent by faithful reader and Mahooligan, Brian. I wish I could embed it on here, but MSNBC continues to not provide embeddable videos...Losers...

In the segment, there's a shot of the reporter watching the screen of the mp3 player as she says, "The porn on here is so graphic...there's not even a part of it we can show you." This has to be one of the most unintentionally hilarious bits of TV journalamism EVER. The direct implication is that this journalist is watching porn on camera and judging it too disturbing for a mass audience, like Herzog listening to the Timothy Treadwell death tapes. Awesome. I'm just imagining the meeting in the NBC Newsroom where they made the decision not to show any of the tapes.

"Can we show this?"

"It's just a Cincinnati Bowtie. They show 'em on Bloomberg all the time."

"I don't know...What's that?"

"I think it's just a nostril."

"We can show just nostrils, right?"

"It depends on what's around them."

"What about felching?"

"What's felching?"

"Mr. Brokaw, you're retired now. Why don't you go home and have a nice lie-down?"

Favorite Songs of 2007, Part 5

[Read Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4]

This concludes the Favorite Songs list for this year. In a few days, I'll post the Favorite Albums list.

Radiohead, "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi"

Yeah, that's right, I chose two songs from the Radiohead album.



Sea Wolf, "You're a Wolf"

Love the haunting cello line that runs throughout this song.



Spoon, "Finer Feelings"

It was hard not to pick multiple songs from this year's Spoon album as well. I like every track and I haven't gotten tired of any of them yet...Amazing.



St. Vincent, "Paris is Burning"

Seeing Annie Clark play this live at the Wiltern, followed by an awesome rendition of "Dig a Pony," not to mention a killer set from The National, was quite possibly 2007's concert highlight.



Vampire Weekend, "Oxford Comma"

These guys actually have kind of a Spoon thing going, now that I think about it. Very simple but intensely listenable and above all precise pop songwriting. This is just a really fun song.



Voxtrot, "Kid Gloves"

The background vocals on this song are absolutely brilliant. So '80s. Voxtrot is one of these great unknown bands that I'm almost 100% positive could be massively popular if only people had heard of them.



Ween, "Your Party"

The best ironic/not-ironic song since Beck's "Debra." As expected from musical chameleons Dean and Gene, this song pulls off yacht rock better than most yacht rock songs. The saxophone, the middle-aged-white-suburban-dork lyrics...Perfection.



White Rabbits, "The Plot"

This song was bouncing around in my head for probably 1/3 of 2007's total days.



Windmill, "Tokyo Moon"

Totally epic. This song is like Soft Bulletin-era "Flaming Lips."



Whalebones, "Don't You Know"

I love a nice low-key alt-country song. This song kind of reminds me of Songs:Ohia...

Brad Pitt of Despair

I'm a bit puzzled by this article from Variety about the failure of The Assassination of Jesse James at the box office. Specifically, how the writer appears surprised that the movie wasn't a big success.

It seemed entirely clear to me that Jesse James, despite being one of 2007's best films in terms of quality, was never going to rank among the year's most popular films. It's a difficult, deliberately-paced 3-hour Western with minimal action and one major star. Has a film like that scored with audiences since 1990's Dances With Wolves? Its backers were most likely gambling on the film garnering awards recognition or critical praise and parlaying that into a moderately-successful theatrical run and long shelf-life on DVD. That still might happen. Though it's hard to figure a $3.8 million domestic haul is anything less than a major disappointment, this is a film movie fans will discover over the course of a few years. (Here's my original review)

The interesting story here is how a foreign director with one notable American release to his credit (Andrew Dominik) was able to convince a studio to invest any money at all in this film. Instead, writer Pamela McClintock tries to use the failure of Jesse James to make some kind of point about the very concept of movie stardom:

One studio exec says people are in the mood to be entertained -- regardless of the name on the marquee, at least to some extent.

"I think it's the movie, not the movie star," one studio exec says. "Movies like 'Juno' have the accumulation of great contemporary resonance, and you have a dazzling breakthrough performance in Ellen Page."

Though it kind of unfortunately comes off as a knock on the film - implying that Jesse James isn't entertaining, when nothing could be further from the truth - the point she's making is actually quite obvious: famous names don't guarantee box office success, and attention from the tabloids doesn't mean attention from paying film audiences. (One need look no further than Lindsay Lohan and Jessica Simpson's dismal returns at this year's box office to confirm this fact).

I mean, dozens of films open each year featuring major stars that fail to connect with audiences. The idea is that it's very difficult to guarantee an audience for a movie that doesn't have celebrities, so a film like that will have a harder time finding investors. That doesn't necessarily mean that the inverse is true, that a film that does feature celebrities will have guaranteed success. It just makes this significantly more likely to occur. I mean, duh.

It just strikes me as incredibly superficial to view this disappointment as a mark on Brad Pitt's celebrity status. It's not like the guy's had a foolproof, stellar record of hits up until now. Babel did $34 million last year despite months of publicity and Oscar nominations. From 1997 to 2000, the guy made nothing but flops - The Devil's Own, Seven Years in Tibet, Meet Joe Black, Fight Club, Snatch. He's done alright with the Ocean's movies and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, but let's not forget those also starred George Clooney, Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie and half the celebrities in Hollywood.

Why are we suddenly expecting him to have Will Smith-style opening weekends?

The article also fails to mention anything about the marketing or advertising of the film, and any analysis of box office performance without bringing this into account can't possibly be complete or thorough. I mean, McClintock writes that Warners had essentially written off the film years before it was ever released:

The studio says "Jesse James" cost $30 million to produce. Shooting was actually completed in the latter part of 2005; the release was delayed by more than a year until September 2007 due to editing.

By the time "Jesse James" opened in five locations Sept. 21, Warners had tempered its expectations; usually, when a film underperforms at the box office, there's all sorts of hand-wringing back on the studio lot.

So, they didn't expect it to do well and therefore, it's likely they didn't put their full resources behind promoting it. (Also, if I'm not mistaken, Pitt distanced himself from the production over time and didn't participate in a lot of publicity when it finally opened.) You think this may have had something to do with its poor showing?

Christmas with Lee Majors

He's been a very good $6 million man this year...

Is It Too Late to Change My "Best Songs" List?

I picked this up from Stereogum after I noticed that the band has been mentioned a bunch in Pitchfork's roundup of musician Top 10 lists.

HOLY CRAP THIS SONG IS AWESOME:



The band is High Places, and they don't have a proper album out yet, but that Stereogum post has a four songs, all very good-to-excellent. This band will likely have an amazing 2008.

Christmastime for the Jews

Another classic SNL Christmas moment that I saw posted on Valleywag, of all places. Enjoy.

Favorite Songs of 2007, Part 4

[Read Parts 1, 2 and 3]

Neil Young, "Dirty Old Man"

I only liked about half of Neil's 2007 entry, Chrome Dreams II. This track sounds a lot like something he would have written 30 years ago. Lyrically, it's a lot like "Sedan Delivery" and "Welfare Mothers."

I could not find a single embeddable or direct link for this song. I guess Neil wants your 99 cents.

The New Pornographers, "Failsafe"

It was a toss-up between this track and "Myriad Harbor" from the New Pornos' "Challengers" record, but I went with this one because I love Neko Case's Kathryn Calder's vocals on it.



Of Montreal, "Gronlandic Edit"

I'll admit, some of the songs of this album were too far-out for me to get into. I admire what Kevin Barnes & Co. are going for...but it's not the sort of thing I'll listen to frequently. I listened to this song a shitload this year. It's like a Beck in full-on Prince mode, backed up by Hot Chip - weird, hypnotic and funky. Plus, you've got to love the line "physics makes us all its bitches."



Okkervil River, "Our Life Is Not a Movie Or Maybe"

This one kicks off The Stage Names with a bang. Not every band could pull off such a BIG, emotional gesture right up front and make it work, but as they did a few years back with Black Sheep Boy, Okkervil River has constructed a rock album that builds in dramatic intensity more like a rock opera. The Arcade Fire goes for the same kind of sweeping, epic scale in their music, and succeeded beautifully in Funeral a few years back, but Stage Names clearly outdid this year's A.F. entry, Neon Bible.



Panda Bear, "Good Girl/Carrots"

Holy shit. This song is a masterpiece. Almost 13 minutes long and every second is entrancing and vital. It may take a few listens to "get it," but once you're there...bliss.



Patrick Wolf, "Bluebells"

I love the use of fireworks sound effects in this song. Gives everything kind of a oddly nostalgic quality.



Photo Atlas, "Handshake Heart Attack"



The Ponys, "Poser Psychotic"

There's a lot less straight-up guitar rock on my Favorite Lists this year than in years past. Even an old fart like myself, who came of age when Grunge was King, has to admit that electronic music and hip-hop are changing the landscape of what's worth listening to. The Ponys, however, are keeping the old ways alive.



Professor Murder, "Flex-It Formula"

Radiohead, "Reckoner"

I love Radiohead. I love "In Rainbows." I love this song. That is all.



[The Favorite Song list concludes with Part 5 here!]

Do I Know It's Christmas?

Typically, this is about the time I would post some angry, curmudgeonly take on the Christmas season and piss off all the True Believers who stumble into my blog-space. In 2005, I wrote this post, "The 6 Types of Annoying Christmas Songs," a goofy little bit of business making fun of the severity or anachronism of most popular Christmas carols. I thought it was pretty lighthearted, but still received some strongly-worded rebukes in comments from Yuletide fans.

The best was from Webmastergo Dallas:

It's really too bad you're so sad. Calling you names (like a pit-dwelling grinch who's soul seems near dead) would serve no purpose and might almost surely fuel your WAY-MORE-than-cynical and hateful fire against things decent, peaceful and good, albeit agreed that in some cases antiquated (yet not irrelevant to many with joyful souls). Or you may actually enjoy such name-calling as vaildating a selected humanity-rebellion. The biggest wrong such name-calling will commit is to push you further away from the soul-saving subject-person of (and reason for) Christmas, the creator of the entire universe who unselfishly came to sacrifice himself for the likes of me and you.

Who knows if you're uncommonly financially wealthy and silver-spoon-life lived without compassion or any personal lack or struggle has utterly impoverished and jaded your spirit, with a "let em eat cake in hell" resultant attitude... or if you're just a raging semi-sociopath who from personal choice or lack of familial nurturing has grown into killjoy-jerkishness toward everyone else's happiness except your own. On top of it all you probably don't give a rat's tail WHAT anybody thinks. But just a parting tip as we ease into the joy of a season mostly celebrating Jesus Christ who LOVED YOU AND STILL LOVES YOU SO MUCH (and hopes you'll soon chill out and discover that truth ... before it's too late) -- GOD LOVES YOUUU DUDE!!! No matter who you are..what you've done.. who you've hurt..who's hurt you...GOD LOVES YOU.

I have no idea where he got the "uncommonly financially wealthy" "silver-spoon-life" thing...All I did was goof on some Christmas songs. I mean, my folks did alright, but I don't see what that has to do with anything.

Also, I object to being called a "pit-dwelling Grinch." I believe he lived on a high mountaintop overlooking Whoville, did he not? Insulting me is one thing, but I'll not have you misstate details from the beloved classics of Dr. Seuss.



Anyway, I'm not sure I really have it in my this year to do a caustic, anti-Christmas post. I feel like things have been more subdued this year (or maybe I've just been busier), and I've been less overwhelmed by holiday-themed nonsense than in years past. Is it because people are nervous about the economy and spending less on pointless crap they don't need? Or have I personally just been more preoccupied with my own shit and not paying attention to the usual full-on Shopping Orgy Experience?

So instead of ranting, enjoy Mark Jensen's Family Christmas:

The Not-Particularly-Great Debaters

Funny.

A Post About Watching Football? As a Couple?

Relax, it's just the setup for a new Mahalo Daily installment. I'm not going all Gridiron on you all of the sudden...Enjoy yours truly doing an excruciatingly poor Al Michaels voice AND SO MUCH MORE!

Favorite Songs of 2007, Part 3

[Read Part 1 and Part 2]

Interpol, "Heinrich Maneuver"

Interpol's second album, "Antics," was so boring and uninteresting to me, I thought maybe the mechanism in my brain that enjoyed Interpol had broken permanently. I listened to that album 3 or 4 times, and then pretty much never again. This year's "Our Love to Admire" fared far better, and this was my favorite track - it brings together everything the band does really well.



Iron and Wine, "Boy with a Coin"



Jay-Z, "Ignorant Shit"

The great thing about Jay-Z's soundtrack/album "American Gangster," which at this point I can safely say I prefer to the Ridley Scott film of the same name, was all the '70s samples. My favorite song from the album, "Ignorant Shit," borrows the same bit of the Isley Brothers' "Between the Sheets" as Biggie Smalls' "Big Poppa," invoking the memory of a patron saint of the genre and giving everything to come a feeling of significance. The opening, in which Hova wonders aloud why fans declare his party albums "genius" but can't be bothered with his more heady "Kingdom Come"-style endeavors, lays the foundation for a takedown of the culture of hip-hop and its politics that's both hilarious and insightful. I'm serious, there's a lot of interesting ideas packed into this 3 minutes and 44 seconds. I honestly can't BELIEVE Pitchfork chose a song from this album as it's Best of the Year and it WASN'T "Ignorant Shit." I like "Roc Boys" too, but...this one is clearly the highlight.



Kings of Leon, "Fans"

Hells yes.



Kanye West, "Can't Tell Me Nothing"

I swear, I'm not just picking this song so I can post this video. I really do like the song, even better than "Stronger":



Jesca Hoop, "Intelligentactile 101"

The first time I posted this song on here, I said I had no idea what it was about. But I've listened to it a lot more, and now I think I've got it. It's sung from the perspective of either (1) a fetus or (2) a soul floating around in space waiting to be placed inside a fetus, and it's about how the narrator is excited about being born. Maybe I've overthought it, but what can I say? This was one of those songs that wouldn't get out of my head this year.



The Light Footwork, "Rebellion Time"

I really like this band. This song is what Sufjan Stevens would sound like if he wrote songs instead of faux-symphonies. And had a girl with him. In other words, The Light Footwork would kick the White Stripes ass in team debate.



M.I.A., "Paper Planes"

This is an amazing song, both because I could listen to it 10,000 times without getting sick of it, and because it so boldly tells its audience what they don't want to hear. What could be a more direct response, in a year when so much of the world continues to recoil against the horror of IMMIGRANTS in their HOMELAND, than a woman flying the flag of "Third World Democracy" chanting "all I want to do is [bullet sounds] and take your money?" I'm going to go ahead and say, "nothing could be a more direct response than that."



Melody Function, "Anne Maria"

Just a great, loud, driving hard rock song. This is kind of a throwback to the early aughts when bands like The Strokes ruled the airwaves, and even though that "The Blanks" era has ended, this kind of simple pop song never really goes out of style. No embeddable copy, but you can download the song here at You Ain't No Picasso. That's where I found it, and a good deal of the other songs on these lists.

The National, "Mistaken for Strangers"

It was tough to pick just one National song for this list. There are at least 5 cuts from the album I could see putting on a Best 2007 Songs list.



[Continue with Part 4! Or skip to the end, Part 5!]