Filmslash!

Urgh, I'm bad at keeping up with this blorgh lately. Sorry about that.

Exciting news, though: The new film magazine has emerged from the ashes of Stylus: Filmslash Magazine!

It's a bit rickety at the moment, and all the writers have a lot of catching up to do (me more than most, I suspect), but it's up, and it's damnably exciting. My reviews of Cloverfield, Teeth, Sweeney Todd, and (carried over from Stylus) The Scene of the Crime are all there, as well as a semi-pretentious argument between me and my fellow reviewer--and Filmslash head honcho, new father, and all-around good guy--Paolo Cabrelli over whether Inland Empire is any good at all.

More, much more, to come soon.

The Master's Bedroom Is Worth Spending a Night In

The Master's Bedroom Is Worth Spending a Night In, the new album by Thee Oh Sees (formerly...er...many other similar names), is one of those albums that is completely unexceptional except in that it's really good, if that makes sense. It doesn't add anything to its genre (the same surreal, noisy, b-movie influenced Jesus & Mary Chain revival that the Raveonettes work in*) except for fifteen new great songs. And that's OK. Actually, I'm not sure how much can be added to this genre besides new songs, anyway, and that's OK, too. Dis is highly recommended.

"Poison Finger"
"You Will See This Dog Before You Die"
"Visit Colonel"
"Quadrospazzed"

By the way, check out the sound effect towards the end of "Quadrospazzed" that makes it sound like you're listening to it on a record player--I don't know if it's deliberate, but to me it sounds like the tinny sound of the stylus itself as it runs down the groove, before being amplified by the stereo system. I like that sound.

Angel Season Three

[Consider this a spoiler alert. If you haven't seen the third season, plan to, and don't want to know what happens, don't read this.]

When I first heard that the third season of Veronica Mars (bear with me here) was going to be made up of three mini-arcs, each a separate mystery, I was very excited. I thought the faster pace would solve a lot of the problems of the second season, and I also assumed (and this is the part that's relevant right now) that the storylines wouldn't be self-contained, that they would feed into one another and inform each other and that later ones might redefine earlier ones, and so on. It ended up being a major disappointment, but that's how I envisioned it.

And I'm just realizing that that's kind of what Angel is. Rather than the season-long arcs of Buffy, Angel is made up of a lot of short arcs that work together synergistically, weaving in and out of one another, all leading to wherever it is that the show is going. Sometimes the show has been very good, sometimes it's been very bad, but conceptually, I think the structure is fantastic. It's also reminiscent of Heroes*, and I imagine that, like that show, it has its origins in the comic books its creators love so much.

Season Three starts with a very patchy arc: the one dealing with Darla's pregnancy. There is some very nice stuff here--unlike many, I quite liked the pseudoreënsouling effect the baby had on Darla (especially because seeing her soul be taken away last season was so wrenching), and I also liked the revelation that Angel's love for Darla went--and might continue to go--deeper than his love for Buffy. I was extremely fond of all the scenes involving Holtz and Sahjahn, both of whom are fantastic characters. But for the most part, I found myself frustrated by the execution. I don't have a specific complaint, but I just kept feeling like the storyline deserved better than it was getting. Actually, I lied when I said I didn't have a specific complaint, because I'm about to get very specific. The moment that sums up, for me, the problem with this arc, is the one where Darla craves the blood of a child and so goes to the arcade to eat one. Buffy killed children. With Angel, I knew there was no chance, and that was sad to me. I hope this makes sense without making me sound too bloodthirsty.

But the instant Darla staked herself, everything changed, entirely for the better. In fact, while no children died that I recall, Angel became a show that would kill children. This is getting long, I'm getting tired, and I have a lot more to say, so I will continue tomorrow (hopefully). But be prepared: every single thing I have left to say is positive. And it's all about Angel. Crazy, but true.

Weird racial observations while listening to Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels

Black people invented rock and roll, and white people added to it by not being very good at it. Which works really well for rock and roll. I'm not forgiving white people for stealing rock and roll from black people, but they did make a contribution. I just wish they were willing to share.

Also, why is it that I like soul music by white women and white men, but only like it by black women and maybe two black menwhite women, white men, and black women, but only like it by maybe two black men*?

Jargon

You know what technical term (from film) is funny to me? Two shot. I realize that it's quicker to say than "shot with two people in the frame", but it seems like a silly thing to need a technical term for.

Tilt

I'm not in any way equipped to talk usefully about experimental music, and this isn't exactly breaking news, but Scott Walker's 1995 album Tilt is ridiculously awesome. I'm not going to post any of it, because it doesn't make sense to just do individual songs and whole-album posting isn't my style, but I highly recommend tracking it down.

The one aspect of it that I know how to describe that I really like is the huge dynamic range--the variation from the quietest parts to the loudest parts is more like a lot of classical music (particularly late Romantic stuff) than rock and roll. It's especially effective on an album like this, where the music ranges from very beautiful to very abrasive. If you listen to it loud enough to hear the quiet parts, you're forced to endure some very loud atonality. In the best possible way.

Oh, also, between this album, 1984's Climate of Hunter, and 2006's The Drift, I really like how Mr. Walker has apparently decided to spend the latter part of his career releasing one new album every eleven years.

Open letter

Dear Television Without Pity:

The recent redesign of your site really, really sucks it, like, totally hard. It's bulky and unwieldy and unpleasant to look at, it's ridiculously counterintuitive to use, and there has been a severe loss in plain old functionality. You're owned by Bravo now; surely their design team can do better than that.

Yours, etc.,
Ethan Robinson

The best thirty-two seconds in television history

Fracking hilarious.

(My third ever youtube video. I'm afraid I might be hooked.)

A Man and a Woman

The Isaac Hayes and Dionne Warwick A Man and a Woman concert record often sounds just as gimmicky Las Vegas as you'd expect--for some reason Bacharachy pop singers and soul singers both turn into lounge lizards in a live setting--but it is pretty nice to hear them duet on an "I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself/Walk On By"* medley. Hayes's interpretations of Bacharach songs are the best music he ever made (I've mentioned this a couple times before), and it's really gratifying to hear Warwick sing what have always been her songs to his arrangements. Also, the last two minutes or so (starting around 5:15) are unmitigated awesome: check out the two slow builds in a row, the call and response, and the great backing vocals, particularly after 6:30, where it's like the backup singers can't decide whose side they're on.

Idea

The Bee Gees' (Bee Gees's?) Idea sounds really surprisingly like T.Rex at times. Particularly "Kitty Can". The strangest thing is that it sounds like T.Rex but more hippie-ish, but doesn't sound like Tyrannosaurus Rex.

But then again, I seem to think everything sounds like T.Rex these days. Like, no one else I've asked hears "Jeepster" in The Kills' (The Kills's?) "Last Day of Magic" (which so far is my favorite song on the awesome Midnight Boom, which you should buy right now), but I hear it so clearly that I feel like it had to have been deliberate.

By the way, I'm very glad that I've finally discovered that before the Bee Gees turned into the Very Worst Kind of Disco, they were really great at heavily-orchestrated psychedelia.