Pop Candy Arcade

RIP: Whitney Houston

2012-02-12T10:51:00.002-06:00

Whitney Houston was found dead last night in her suite at the Beverly Hilton. She was 48-years old. While the cause of death, at the time of writing, is still unknown, and we're all familiar with Houston's public battles with substance abuse; her death feels sudden and far too soon. For a more eloquent telling, I recommend you read Barry Michael Cooper's tribute on The Huffington Post.

Seen & Heard: St. Vincent, "Cheerleader"

2012-02-07T22:02:00.003-06:00

It made my list of favorite songs for last year and now St. Vincent's "Cheerleader" has been given a lovely, rather surreal official video in which Annie Clark becomes a living work of art. Oh, and if you haven't already checked out the full album (Strange Mercy),it's your own problem.

Novelty Treats: "Video Games" meets "Hunger Games"

2012-02-07T21:51:00.001-06:00

...and we all win. Second City's Holly Laurent has mashed-up Lana Del Rey and your new favorite YA series in a way we all should have seen coming. This would be notable for the line "I don't want Peeta to be dead/a pita is a pouch of bread/but that's his name" alone...

Seen & Heard: Die Antwoord, "I Fink U Freeky"

2012-02-05T13:50:00.001-06:00

The problem with Die Antwoord is that the moment I hear one of their songs it becomes trapped in my head for days running on a loop of sounds and accents and rolling verses and Vi$$er's (that's her above, yes, she was the style basis for David Fincher's Lisbeth Salander) strange child-cartoon voice. With that in mind, I invite you to watch the South African rap duo's appropriately scuzzy "I Fink U Freeky" video. The short is directed by photographer Roger Ballen, and while I don't always love Die Antwoord, this is a phenomenally realized video that works to visually match the sound on every level. It's a circus geek freak show in a grimy, bombed-out trash heap of decrepitude that would be creepy if it weren't such a dance party. Above and beyond. A-grade.

Seen & Heard: M.I.A.

2012-02-03T21:55:00.001-06:00

WHAT WAS MISSING FROM YOUR FRIDAY NIGHT? WAS IT M.I.A.? YES. IT WAS. PROBLEM SOLVED. YOU'RE WELCOME. THAT'S MY OPINION ON THIS RIGHT NOW.

Seen & Heard: Madonna, "Give Me All Your Luvin'"

2012-02-03T10:28:00.000-06:00

Hey Sportsfans. The Super Bowl is this weekend. That's a thing that's happening. On Monday, people will be talking about things like "plays" and "did you see that one dude do that one thing." I will not be talking about that. I will probably talk about Madonna, though. While it's certainly true that Madonna's last couple albums have not offered the pristine pop that made her an industry legend, I would still count myself as a fan. I'll definitely listen to her new album MDNA when it drops, and I'd say as things go the debut single "Give Me All Your Luvin'" is significantly more playful than the overtly self-serious persona she's possessed since...Evita? The single is a little half-hearted, but peppy, poppy, and glossily camp. Leave it to Madonna to release a video declaring herself the main event in the biggest sports event of the year...

Review: Haywire

2012-01-30T23:37:00.001-06:00

Between Haywire and Steven Soderbergh's last film, Contagion, one could posit that the director is very much in a period of genre exploration. To an extent, he's always been this way. Soderbergh tends to pick up 'typical' Hollywood fare (the heist film, the biopic) and generally finds a way to elevate it just beyond expectations. Yet, Contagion and Haywire feel quite different than the fun, high-kitsch aesthetic of something like the Oceans films. There's a minimalist sleekness to each of them, a spartan nature that reads as an almost clinical dilution of a larger, showier affair. Contagion and Haywire are each essentially B-movies that have been considered, shot, and polished as if they were aspiring for the art house. They lay out their bare-boned roots in such a confident, stylish manner that you dare not say, for example, that Haywire has a lot in common with your average Jason Statham actioner, or that Contagion is just another disaster flick. Something about both films dismisses those ideas as ridiculous, even though they’re really quite true...

finish this review @

Award Season: Golden Globe Winners

2012-01-17T11:56:00.000-06:00

During the Golden Globes I was all over the Twitter tweeting the usual inane reactions to the disappointing wins and celebrity back patting. Is it just me, or have the Golden Globes really become quite deflated over the last few years? I used to really enjoy this award show, but the last couple years have become so very tedious...

Highlights : Christopher Plummer's win, Homeland and Woody Allen recognition, George Clooney's bad jokes, Elton John's facial expressions, the obvious disdain of many for the winners...all caught on camera.

Disappointments : Ricky Gervais behaving well, snubs for Rango, Midnight in Paris, Tilda Swinton, and Michael Fassbender. The lack of celebrity variety (how many times can we see Angelina Jolie?), Madonna's completely affected acceptance speech, the omnipresence of Piper Perabo (say what now?).

And the winners were...

Best Supporting Actor (Series, Mini-Series, TV Movie)
Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones)

Best Supporting Actress (Series, Mini-Series or TV Movie)
Jessica Lange (American Horror Story)

Best Actress TV Series (Comedy or Musical)
Laura Dern (Enlightened)

Best Actor TV Series (Comedy or Musical)
Matt LeBlanc (Episodes)

Best TV Series (Comedy or Musical)
Modern Family --- Feel like this one has run its course, don't we have anything else to recognize?

Best (Mini-Series / TV Movie)
Downton Abbey --- Alright, guys, can someone explain to me how it is that a normal, multi-season BBC program qualifies as a "mini" series in America? Is this just a way to squeeze in another recognition? Because...Mildred Pierce was phenomenal.

Best Actress (Mini-Series / TV Movie)
Kate Winslet (Mildred Pierce)

Best Actor (Mini-Series / TV Movie)
Idris Elba (Luther)

Actor TV Series (Drama)
Kelsey Grammer (Boss)

Best Actress TV Series (Drama)
Claire Danes (Homeland) --- Well deserved.

Best TV Series (Drama)
Homeland

Best Original Score – Motion Picture
Ludovic Bource (The Artist)

Best Original Song – Motion Picture
Masterpiece (Madonna)

Best Screenplay
Woody Allen (Midnight in Paris)

Best Animated Film
The Adventures of Tintin : The Secret of the Unicorn

Best Supporting Actor
Christopher Plummer (Beginners)

Best Supporting Actress
Octavia Spencer (The Help)

Best Actress Motion Picture Comedy or Musical
Michelle Williams (My Week With Marilyn)

Best Actor Motion Picture Comedy or Musical
Jean Dujardin (The Artist)

Best Actress Motion Picture - Drama
Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady)

Best Actor Motion Picture -Drama
George Clooney (The Descendants)

Best Director
Martin Scorsese (Hugo)

Best Foreign Language Film
A Separation

Best Picture, Comedy or Musical
The Artist --- People really need to wake up and realize that while this may be a feel good movie, it's accomplishes almost nothing deserving of recognition or future canonization...

Best Picture, Drama
The Descendants --- Ok, why wasn't Tree of Life even nominated?

The Playlist, 60 Most Excellent Songs of 2011, 41-60

2011-12-31T15:15:00.002-06:00

Welcome to the conclusion of the annual music list, just in time for the New Year. It's a dreadful holiday, made slightly better by summarizing and compiling. Today I thought about it as I ran through my morning routine and realized, however, that as much as I despise New Year's Eve...I may loathe St. Patrick's Day more: no glitter, but a lot of dyed products and shitty beer... is there a holiday more abrasively fratty? I don't think so. Anyhow, the last 20-songs are scattered a bit here and there, and unfortunately the playlist functions are scattered as well. You'll only find the Charli XCX song, for instance, on the Youtube playlist. Similarly, you should ignore the John Maus live clip on the Youtube playlist and only listen to it via 8tracks. That's the way it goes. Youtube just doesn't have everything, guys. Happy New Year, and look for the movie list to be appearing on Love & Squalor sometime this next week.

Oh, and yeah, you're not missing anything...I've completely omitted Bon Iver. Deal with it. "Beth/Rest" almost got on there, but every time I listened to it I wanted a nap like halfway through.

41. UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA / "FFUNNY FFRIENDS" Lightweight pop rock with a dense, gritty middle and vocals that sound like they should come from a petite Japanese rock queen instead of the dude (Ruban Nielson) pictured above.

42. JOHN MAUS / "QUANTUM LEAP" I've heard John Maus is a performance art hot mess in his live acts, but on recordings, he comes across more like some reincarnation of Ian Curtis. "Quantum Leap" sounds like a lost Joy Division recording and there's no way that's a bad thing...

43. DANNY! FEAT. DANNY BROWN / "THEME MUSIC TO A KILLING SPREE" I feel like that title is deceptive...

44. JAY-Z AND KANYE WEST FT. FRANK OCEAN / "NO CHURCH IN THE WILD" The beats. Check them. The beats: they stalk and prowl.

45. GRIMES / "VANESSA" Grimes (Claire Boucher) calls herself a "post-internet" artist. I have no idea what that means, but I'm intrigued by the sweet sparseness of the sound.

46. CHARLI XCX / "STAY AWAY" She's been thrown around as everything from next year's La Roux to a slightly more poptimistic Zola Jesus. Either way, the UK 19-year old has a dark, vaguely 80's gothic sound that I like quite a bit.

47. GIRLS / "VOMIT" Oh, Girls. One of the hardest band names to run a Google search on. "Vomit" is a pit of Floydian despair that cracks open into a lovelorn revelation of guitars, big vocals, and distortion.

48. YUCK / "GET AWAY" Hey you...you like Pavement? Built to Spill? Dinosaur Jr.? The Pixies? Here is the Yuck album. It is the brand new sound of twenty years ago. If you're not a teenager anymore, don't worry...your inner 15 year old will be pleased.

49. REAL ESTATE / "IT'S REAL" This is an exceptionally pleasant song by a pleasant band. I like it quite a bit.

50. NICKI MINAJ / "SUPER BASS" I don't want to hear this song all the time, but when I do wind up hearing it, I'm amazed by how completely it captures all the instrumental noises I associate with pure bubblegum pop. This song is a bag of Valentine's Day candy hearts, a meal made up of pop rocks and Cherry Coke, an afternoon of glitter nail polish and lip gloss, and all of that business. It's a just a huge sound made up of little tiny happy things.

51. COLD CAVE / "UNDERWORLD USA" Cold Cave's Cherish the Light is even more 80's Brit Goth rock than the John Maus sound. I would not be surprised if the band got together because they all had matching Sisters of Mercy posters in their childhood bedrooms. WE HAVE INSIGHTS AND EMOTIONS, BUT THEY NEED MORE BEATS.

52. JULIO BASHMORE / "BATTLE FOR MIDDLE YOU" You get why I like this, right? Do I need to keep explaining it to you? Did I not just post the RuPaul Christmas special last week?

53. TUNE-YARDS / "POWA" For real...I am not as in love with Merrill Garbus as everyone else on the planet is. She's one of those acts people seem to insist has a joyful exuberance where I just here clattering with a voice like a brass instrument. So, I can't listen to too much at once, and like huge parts of some songs while flinching through others. "Powa" though, has real swagger.

54. METRONOMY / "THE BAY" Everything about Metronomy seems a little smug in the retelling. A little too polished, a little too carefully orchestrated, and just too neat for their own good. Still, "The Bay" is cut from a lightweight fabric that allows for a summer breeze.

55. DUM DUM GIRLS / "COMING DOWN" The Dum Dum Girls are a 60's girl group with a wall of sound that's been reinforced with shoegaze guitars. Here, they slow things down with shimmering guitars and lilting vocals that feel borrowed from a comfortably worn in Mazzy Star track.

56. CULTS / "WALK AT NIGHT" The Cults album is essentially a series of 45 singles in compact 2-and-3 minute bursts of echo-chamber pop and radio tinny vocals. Listen to them all at once, and they don't do much. Individually, they have a jukebox power.

57. AUSTRA / "THE NOISE" Austra had a strong debut earlier in the year and seemed to sort of evaporate into the ether. What we have left are ghost stories like "The Noise".

58. SHABAZZ PALACES / "SWERVE...THE REEPING OF ALL THAT IS WORTHWHILE (NOIR NOT WITHSTANDING) "Swerve" is sneaky. It will make you want to choreograph things. You're not good at that, though, so you shouldn't.

59. PURITY RING / "LOFTICRIES" Exactly the right kind of sound.

60. VERONICA FALLS / "BEACHY HEAD" Bratty, driven rock with a Victorian surfer sensibility that seems to snarl at you and tell you to back the hell off even as it bops merrily along.

Honorable Mention:
CUT COPY / "NEED YOU NOW" What I've noticed is that you're either a Cut Copy fan, or you're not. When you are a Cut Copy fan, their music has the power to make you insanely, dizzyingly happy. "Need You Now" is a slightly more lackadaisical track with warm, gooey vocals that reassure you like a lullaby with a high BPM rate.

The Playlist, 60 Most Excellent Songs of 2011, 21-40

2011-12-30T09:39:00.000-06:00

Yesterday you asked, today you shall receive. In an effort not to clutter up memory space or freak out browser pages, you can find the Youtube playlist for this installment at the bottom of the entry - or- opt for straight sound / no visuals with the 8tracks option included right up top. One more day and we're there...

21. BURIAL / "STREET HALO" Burial arrives back on the scene with an ambient sort of dubstep as true to his sound as ever. I do love a sustained rhythm. There you have it.

22. RADIOHEAD / "LOTUS FLOWER" and "CODEX" The songs run up next to one another in a slipstream of Radiohead's trademark moaning melancholy. "Lotus Flower" has a beat to it, but "Codex" is classic sad bastard music perfect for late nights, headphones, and ceiling-gazing.

23. FRANK OCEAN / "NOVACANE" On the less offensive and slightly more sophisticated side of OFWGKTA, we have Frank Ocean, the smooth operator of the rap clan who loads his songs with an overabundance of incidental information and seems to be trying so very hard to strike just the right pose. This is a hip hop track called 'novacane' because...well...it's totally about Frank getting with a girl who wants to be a dentist real bad...why else?

24. LANA DEL REY / "BLUE JEANS" All that was said for "Video Games" can be repeated here. This song staggers, saunters, then flies.

25. FLORENCE + THE MACHINE / "WHAT THE WATER GAVE ME" Does anyone really hate on Florence Welch yet? If haters do exist, I haven't met them. Welch gets mainstream charts as close to fairy folk as they have been since, what, Annie Lennox? Kate Bush?

26. JAMES BLAKE / "LIMIT TO YOUR LOVE" James Blake almost didn't make the cut. He makes a fairly underwhelming first impression on most, especially if you've been pre-exposed to the vast amounts of hype afforded him. Still, Blake makes for first rate insomniac listening; a fantastic score to projects, classwork, and writing of all sorts. His songs are slow, sparsely instrumented, cautiously layered auditory collages that build at the same time that they deconstruct. From another artist, this song would be a straightforward piano ballad. Here, it's anything but.

27. DJ KHALED FT. DRAKE, RICK ROSS, & LIL WAYNE / "I'M ON ONE" All of them folding into the Drake/The Weeknd populated realm of the decadent slow-burn. This is an exhausted, weary, cynical party song. It's great.

28. EMA / "ANTEROOM" EMA made it on the merits of the work, and not particularly because I'd call "Anteroom" a favorite. I admire it in all its lo-fi, angst-ridden honesty. It has the sound of a depressive anthem, perfect for being a brooding teenager kicking rocks along the sidewalk, but just as good scoring an indie flick suicide attempt. A little sad, a little angry, a lot stand offish.

29. DRAKE FT. RIHANNA / "TAKE CARE" Drake and Rihanna pretty much show up everywhere. Here they are together. It's like double trouble. They're both interesting pop characters, and Drake continues to blur hip hop lines and shift between straight up R&B and trying to be a boy next door Kanye West.

30. PLANNINGTOROCK / "DOORWAY" Planningtorock is the stage name of Janine Rostron, a woman who wears a facial appliance to perform and experiments in gender perception via her music. If you listen to Planningtorock, the vocals have an androgynous quality that make them, for lack of a better word, terribly mysterious. Rostron has created an enigmatic sound and style, and "Doorway" has a witchy quality that invites you in only to drag you under.

31. LADY GAGA / "AMERICANO" The best songs on Born This Way are not the radio singles. They're the dark, odd little dance tracks that seem to tread carefully in the direction of something other than the Top 40. I could have chosen the 80's hair infused "Highway Unicorn" or the chanting, Germanic "Scheiße" --both of which I rather love-- but instead opted for the truly bizarre "Americano". "Americano" is like the place where Rosemary Clooney, West Side Story, ABBA, and 2 Unlimited intersect with Madonna. It's a trash pop masterpiece of tarantella gypsy beats, pounding bass, and platinum blonde grit. As such...I love it. I just love it. I want to link arms and run in a circle as fast as I can to it until I get so dizzy I can't stand up.

32. THE FIELD / "IS THIS POWER" Remember the part where I said I like sustained rhythms? This is the cheery side of that.

33. THEE OH SEES / "THE DREAM" If this was actually the result of time travel to a garage in the 1960's, I wouldn't be surprised. Now would be the time to commence jumping about the room. Throw a twist or two in (or some LSD, or some napalm) and you'll be good.

34. SBTRKT / "WILDFIRE" Little Dragon's vocals remind me of Prince in Camille mode, with the synths just as exactingly orchestrated as they would be if the song belonged to the purple one. SBTRKT takes the same bastardized R&B sound The Weeknd is working with and breaks it a little more...

35. CHILDISH GAMBINO / "L.E.S." Childish Gambino is the stage name of the multi-talented Donald Glover, who you know as Troy on "Community". Glover seems to be operating in a mode incredibly similar to his TV persona, loading up his homebrewed hip-hop beats with pop culture references and incredibly nerdy insults that seem to mock the titans even as it aspires to their level of flippancy. As I recall, Pitchfork dismissed the album outright as a collection of sort of out-of-touch, self-centered joke rhymes, but I think there's quite a bit to enjoy here.

36. GIL SCOTT-HERON & JAMIE XX / "I'LL TAKE CARE OF YOU" Jamie XX remixes an under-appreciated poet and gives the now late Scott-Heron a bittersweet farewell track.

37. ARAABMUZIK / "MAKE IT HAPPEN" The sort of tranced out electronica that's too big and atmospheric for its confines. Dripping with menace, perfect as an opener, potentially as powerful when blasted from giant speakers as "Ghosts N' Stuff."

38. ADELE / "ROLLING IN THE DEEP" ALRIGHT ALREADY. WE KNOW, WE KNOW.

39. TORO Y MOI / "STILL SOUND" Chazwick Bundick often looks, for all practical purposes, like the most grating hipster son of a bitch on the planet. Those glasses, that sometimes facial hair, the tank top in this video...oy. Also, I hate the cover of "Underneath the Pine" like a lot. Yet, the album possesses a great retro sound that blends his signature chillwave with a tremendously charming spaced out lounge noise.

40. ACTIVE CHILD / "JOHNNY BELINDA" In one word: regal.

The Playlist, 60 Most Excellent Songs of 2011, 1-20

2011-12-29T11:58:00.000-06:00

I've heard it said that the worst way to preface a "best of the year" list is to hem and haw on the subject of how difficult it was to narrow down. We all know it's difficult, and we all know it's ultimately something entirely subjective. This is the third year I've decided to create this list and in each successive instance the total has increased by 5, not on purpose, mind you, but because in knowing that this is coming I become receptive to a wider and wider variety of music. I wind up with a playlist like a time capsule. I go looking for songs to fall in love with, and the result is that I wind up with a list of tracks that begins at a total around 125 and must be stripped of song after song upon repeat listen. Sometimes, whole albums feel like they should be included and narrowing the options down to a reasonable one or two stings a bit. Sometimes a sound dominates, or, the need arises to include things that might be among the technical best, but not favorites. Because at the end of the day this is just a personal blog, and not a major media outlet, I've opted not to make this harder than it already is. Know that there is no particular ranking system at work. While the absolute favorites have made it to the extreme top, number 50 is no less valuable than 25 on any given day. On some of these too, you may wonder how one can be a favorite while another of something similar made it on the guilty list. Subjectivity, kids. That's how it works...

1. THE WEEKND / "HOUSE OF BALLOONS - GLASS TABLE GIRLS" Slow down Siouxsie and the Banshees to a depraved crawl , mix with copious recreational drug use, a lethargic decadence, a splash of moral indifference, and add the slick R&B vocals of the mysterious Abel Tesfaye and you have the massive, achingly melancholy sound of The Weeknd; a group that can make rooms full of coke-addled wastoids into something beautiful. Tesfaye and producers Don McKinney and Illangelo released three free mixtapes in 2011, this song is the title track of what is my pick for album of the year.

2. LANA DEL REY / "VIDEO GAMES" Chances are, if you frequent the internet, you've heard of Lana Del Rey. She's become a divisive name among hipsters and music nerds, a 20-something Californian sex kitten playing the role of tragic bombshell and growling her way through romantic slacker ballads. "Video Games" is a gorgeous song with cinematic instrumentals that seem in opposition to Del Rey's oh-so current 20-something, stunted adolescent lyrics.

3. M83 / "MIDNIGHT CITY M83 (Anthony Gonzalez) has long made dreamy, soaring electro-pop, the sort that releases some childlike urge to run across open lawns, through sprinklers, and over flower beds. "Midnight City" is one of Gonzalez's finest moments, bursting with howling, staccato synths and quiet, introspective moments.

4. PANDA BEAR / "AFTERBURNER" Pure 21st century, psychedelic disco. The beats here are undeniable, sucking you into a sustained 70's sound that's been corrupted by a downed club drug into an overlay of beachy dream pop wails and cries from some delirious dance floor. It's surprisingly fantastic.

5. PJ HARVEY / "THE WORDS THAT MAKETH MURDER" This year, PJ Harvey returned with yet another album in yet another direction. On Let England Shake, she took up an autoharp and spoke of war. As usual, she succeeded.

6. KAVINSKY and LOVEFOXX / "NIGHTCALL" It's true that "Nightcall" was originally released in 2010. If the Grammys can continue to nominate a two-year old Katy Perry album, however, then I can certainly list the song that made Drive's opening credit sequence so immediately classic.

7. ANNA CALVI / "NO MORE WORDS" Our other deeply cinematic sounding female vocalist this year was certainly Anna Calvi, whose sound is rooted in something glamorous and ghostly; red lipstick and cigarettes burned across celluloid the world over.

8. JAY-Z AND KANYE WEST / "NI**AS IN PARIS" Is this a game or a song? What is the point? We may never know for sure, but there's a reason they've been repeating it in encore loops as much as nine times in a single concert...

9. WASHED OUT / "FAR AWAY" and "EYES BE CLOSED" In the original list, I ran these songs as separate entries. In listening to them repeatedly since the summer, however, I kept coming back to the thought that they were of the same breath. Washed Out has found a polished version of their shimmering, transportive sound. Have these songs been used in car commercials yet? Because, I mean...listen to them. They scream: we are going away now and it's going to be great and we're traveling in style.

10. BEYONCE / "COUNTDOWN" In a repeat of what has already been noted by many, I will say that the beauty of "Countdown" comes from its unbridled enthusiasm. Beyonce is absolutely in love with being in love, she's thrilled about everything, and she seems to have found the place she wants to be. She's happy, and it's a happy that makes you happy too.

11. PICTUREPLANE / "TRANCEGENDER" Dark wave electro with a techno bent that feels more like a mechanized autoerotic heaven than an obnoxiously thudding dance track.

12. THE RAPTURE / "HOW DEEP IS YOUR LOVE?" The disco strikes back with a title that cribs from the Beegees and a jangling piano that screams early 90's while keeping in stride with the band's new wave, dance punk roots. I could dance to this song like a million times.

13. NEON INDIAN / "POLISH GIRL" Neon Indian's debut album was a mixed bag for me that still sits largely untouched in the library list of my iTunes. Which, of course, is why I must admit that I was a little bit surprised to find I liked the bleep-blooping robot sounds of "Polish Girl" so much.

14. ST. VINCENT / "CHEERLEADER" Hitherto, St. Vincent had not impressed me. I found her pretty boring, if we're being honest. Strange Mercy, though, blew me away. On the album, St. Vincent (Annie Clark) seems to have finally dropped any hint of naivety or unassuming presence and gone with the dark id that hid at the surface of her earlier works. "Cheerleader" is a grinding assertion of place in which Clark lackadaisically dismisses societal expectations and digs her heels into the earth.

15. DESTROYER / "KAPUTT" I'm sorry, have you heard this song? How can you not like this song? Even your mom will like this song. Mostly because it's masquerading as mellow gold.

16. LYKKE LI / "I FOLLOW RIVERS" This song sounds like a summer music festival. Do you hear that little spiky steel drum beats? That's the sort of sound that just cuts through the heat and makes it alright that the gigantic drunk bro dude in front of you keeps spilling beer all over your shoes.

17. BRITNEY SPEARS / "HOW I ROLL" No, it wasn't a radio single. This is a good thing, because you would never get it out of your head if you heard it constantly. "How I Roll" is the other of the two songs that could be called "I Wanna Go" on Britney's Femme Fatale...and it's a fantastically simple pop song built off of easy sentiments, building schoolyard rhymes, and sonically dense layered bubble sounds. If you don't like it the first time you hear it, don't worry...you will. You will.

18. CANT / "TOO LATE, TOO FAR" CANT is actually Chris Taylor, one part of Grizzly Bear who has been spending time experimenting with sounds of a slightly different variety. I love "Too Late, Too Far" not for what it begins as, but for what it becomes in its second half...

19. GANG GANG DANCE / "MINDKILLA" One of the oddest dance tracks around. All the pieces are there, but they're broken, dismembered, and burned until the ashes can be scattered across galaxies.

20. THE WEEKND / "THE MORNING" As you may have gathered, it was hard to limit myself to only a couple offerings from The Weeknd's three mixtapes. The album is seriously good, I can't say this enough. I almost went with "Loft Music" or "The Party & The After Party" but decided to just opt for the hazy sounds of "The Morning" - a track that sounds like the tail end of a very long night.

Stay tuned....part II will appear tomorrow.

The Playlist: The 10 Guiltiest POPtimist Pleasures of 2011

2011-12-28T16:43:00.000-06:00

I hate calling something a guilty pleasure. Despite my deep cynicism, I'm a firm believer in poptimism and owning up to the crappy bubble gum noise I enjoy. I believe that if you like something, you like it. Yet, in spite of this, with some of the songs listed here, I do actually feel like I'm hiding a shameful secret when I listen to them. If this isn't the textbook definition of the phrase guilty pleasure, I don't know what is. Certain artists on this list make me grimace a bit. Sometimes it's because I can't stand their personas or radio singles, and yet I have that one track or so that I really like listening to every now and then, usually because it wormed its way into my head and hearing it is the only way to exorcise the beast. Like everyone else on this planet, my pretentious facade can be broken down by a catchy dance hook, for better or worse. Because I don't really care if you judge me, I now present for your perusal the 10 songs of 2011 that brought the most shame upon my house. Own up to liking them. Deal with it. And dance.

What you don't see here may show up on the full 'best of' list, don't panic.

10. Coldplay ft. Rihanna / "Princess of China" Seeing as how Coldplay is about as mainstream bland as it gets, it's almost hard to call this poptimism. They're fairly boring, completely unoffensive, and if you call them a guilty pleasure you sort of just wind up sounding like a total elitist. Unless, of course, you're me and your social group has somehow concocted an elaborate, unfounded inside joke revolving around some latent secret super fandom I have for the band. I mean, I liked them as much as the next person around the time Rush of Blood to the Head was out, but that phase passed. But, yes, guys, I did listen to MYLOXYLOTO and no, I have no idea how to pronounce that properly or what the hell it means. I also don't know what Chris Martin is talking about when he calls Rihanna "the best singer in the world." Also, I agree that this song has a terrible title. It's really just awful. Still, I like the shimmery synths.

9. Avril Lavigne / "What the Hell" Why does Avril Lavigne still look the same? How has her style not changed? Are we not like a decade in the future now? Why is this still happening? Is that a commercial in the middle of her music video? What the hell? Yes. Admit it: you liked "Girlfriend" and you like this song.

8. Ke$ha / "Fuck Him He's a DJ" No, this wasn't a radio single. I kind of wish it had been. Instead, it's snuck onto her remix album I Am the Dance Commander + I Command You to Dance, where it wastes time pretending not to be worth listening to very loudly in your car as you tear down the highway. There were a couple days in the summer where I would play this about three times in a row and revel in its anthemic sleaze.

7. Rihanna / "We Found Love" and "S&M" For the purpose of this list, we are merging these two songs. "We Found Love" has fallen into honest favor with a number of critics. There are more than a few respectable sources who have claimed it to be a legitimately great song worthy of true "best of" status in 2011. Obviously, I'm not sure I completely agree. I've grown to like it, as I rather like the raunchy sentiments in "S&M." Both songs revolve around a very Eurotrashy repetitive buzz bass, a sound that seems to compliment the bleating qualities of Rihanna's vocal range. Yet, they get old fast...

6. Maroon 5 ft. Christina Aguilera / "Moves Like Jagger" This song is disgustingly catchy. Seriously, it's like an infectious disease that's just dripping its slime all over the place. If Maroon 5 made pop tracks this dancey all the time, I might have to pay more attention to them. It cannot be denied, even if now the radio plays it every five goddamn minutes. Do you not love singing "and it goes like this" though? In that sort of half growl? It's a good time. My tiny cousins call the song "Moves Like Cheddar" which sort of makes it even better.

5. LMFAO / "Sexy and I Know It" LMFAO does not make good songs. They seem to make purposely bad songs that are really just novelty tracks good for drinking and playing loudly prior to drinking. We need to all acknowledge that though "Party Rock Anthem" can be fun, that song overstays its welcome by about three full repetitive minutes. "Sexy and I Know It" isn't much better, but what it lacks in lyrical innovation, it makes up for in absurdity. How can you not smile at a song that has a refrain of "wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle, yeah"? No, really. How? Because I'd like it to stop.

4. Chris Brown ft. Benny Benassi / "Beautiful People" I would have loved this song without incident at age 17 when I was deep into my house/techno phase. As it is, I'm rather fond of it. The guilt here comes from the fact that it's Chris Brown and Chris Brown, in my opinion, still falls on the morally questionable side of things. As I recall, Rihanna may have forgiven him. Still...

3. Katy Perry / "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)" If I have to explain to you why this is a guilty pleasure, you may be one of the brainwashed masses. You should get that checked out. "Last Friday Night" is a rehashing of every sentiment Katy Perry has already written. It's another checklist of poor decisions made while on the verge of blacking out and thus very similar to "Waking Up in Vegas". We get it, Katy, those parties were totally crazy! For some reason, though, I quite enjoy this song. Amazingly, what I seem to like the most is the cheesy, overtly ironic saxophone break.

2. Eminem ft. P!nk / "Won't Back Down" Ugh. Here's where actual guilt comes in. I don't want to like this song, I really just can't stand Eminem for reasons outlined at length in my after the fact review of 8 Mile over at Love & Squalor. The rhymes on here are typical of what we expect of Eminem, and occasionally completely, phallocentrically inane. Yet, while I wish this had been rapped by almost anyone else, this song is fantastic in any number of situations: driving, being angry, trying to exercise (meh), getting amped up for whatever, etc. While I realize this song is from 2010, I never would have heard it if it hadn't been used in that very well edited Mission Impossible trailer. Now I can't unhear it, so I just need to accept it...

1. Selena Gomez and the Scene / "Love You Like a Love Song" and "Whiplash" Is there anything more shameful than Disney Channel pop? I'm going to vote no. And that, my friends, is why Selena Gomez -- the girl you may only know as the girlfriend of Justin Bieber -- falls at number one on the Guilty list.

Review: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

2011-12-27T18:44:00.003-06:00

When I read the novel sometime last year, the greatest mystery inherent in Steig Larsson's bestselling The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was how it managed to become so wildly popular. Here was a very basic cut-and-dry detective story overrun with lifeless prose, rambling paragraphs, and moments of surprisingly bland sexualized violence. I'd never read a rape scene so clinical or a revenge enacted with such restrained language, and yet, somehow what I found dull to the point of impenetrable was resonating with millions. The reason, it's safe to say, lies not with the quality of the writing (apologies to the deceased Larsson, but, it's terrible), but with the ferocious, seductive draw of its enigmatic heroine. Lisbeth Salander is a character deserving of a prominent place in the pop culture canon...

finish this review @

We Need to Talk About Kitten.

2011-12-24T15:56:00.001-06:00

Review: The Artist

2011-12-24T01:42:00.002-06:00

There are times, my friends, where I find myself deep within the critical minority. The Artist, I fear, is one of those rare moments of nearly complete disagreement. After all, the film has already landed on numerous 'best of' lists, racked up the most Golden Globe nominations, is a shoo in for a half dozen Oscar nods, and -for a moment- was a major contender for the Palme d'Or at Cannes (luckily, Tree of Life topped it). I'd left a space open for The Artist on my own personal end-of-the-year wrap up, certain that I too would fall victim to the rosy warmth of its silent era nostalgia. After all, a cinephile is a sucker for a movie about movies, and who could possibly resist a contemporary dose of shimmering black and white?
finish this review @

Review: Young Adult

2011-12-20T13:45:00.000-06:00

A dark comedy done right is a thing of terrible beauty. When the mean-spirited, black heart of a deeply cynical film can be effectively punctuated with sharp, stab wound laughs, it becomes impossible to look away. In Young Adult, director Jason Reitman and writer Diablo Cody team up for the second time to bring us a nasty, brutish, and short portrait of a train wreck. While the formula is a familiar one built from rom-com cliches of boyfriend snatching and pining old flames, the script is phenomenally fresh and, frankly, outright ballsy. Cody has been criticized in the wake of Juno, accused of overwriting dialogue and ushering in a new era of overly glib screenwriting (amongst other sassy twee annoyances). Yet, while I tired of Juno's cutesy teen pregnancy long ago, I have found myself admiring Cody's tenacity since. She has a way of making us interested in unlikable characters. "United States of Tara" frequently toed the line between good and evil in each member of its fractured family, making us hate them even as we sympathized. Jennifer's Body dared to make a cheerleader queen bitch both villain and victim. Young Adult goes the extra mile with Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron)...

finish this review @

Review: Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

2011-12-20T01:01:00.000-06:00

Guys, we need to talk, ok? Just, like, take a seat or something so I can try to explain to you how this works: can we please remember that Guy Ritchie's version of Sherlock Holmes is not a fancy BBC adaptation? It's just, well, it's just not. Can we please also remember that the first Sherlock Holmes (while your memories have shaded it positively) was far from a great film at the time of its release. It was a good film. It was a fun film. It had two men who shared a surprising amount of on-screen chemistry. But...it was also meandering, murky, long, and Rachel McAdams was supremely irritating. Still, what it was really about, that is, what you likely really took from it was Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law having a grand old time being a bantering, turn of the century odd couple. Now, use your powers of deductive reasoning, my dear naysayer, and know before you go that Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is more of the same. It is not out for plainclothes espionage, sleuthing and skulduggery. It is an extension of the first installment, but, like nearly all of Ritchie's films, has staged its characters for full-force engagement in rampant bad-assery and sharp, silly dialogue. That is, essentially, all it's about...

finish this review @

Review: Shame

2011-12-18T12:23:00.003-06:00

What you know about Shame is that it's an NC-17 portrait of a sex addict. To a teenager (or those who have never watched an Almodovar film) the taboo rating signifies something immediately forbidden. There will be nudity, there will be sex that somehow qualifies as "more adult" than the MPAA's R-rating. In all likelihood: there will be boobs. It's true. But, you know, where aren't there boobs? So, the thing is that there will also be a penis flopping about somewhere. If you're lucky, it won't belong to Harvey Keitel. What gets overlooked, often times, is that simple body parts do not an NC-17 rating warrant. In the case of Shame, and, in my experience, the case of a great deal of NC-17 'serious' films (versus 'unrated'), anatomy is sullied. Sexualized content is rarely sexy. It will be somehow dirtied up, plot relevant, and often horribly unpleasant. What this really means, apparently, is that when an NC-17 film actually makes it into a theater, the combination of these elements will prove a great annoyance. Personally? I was carded multiple times before the film started, the theater management felt the need to post detailed warnings as far out as the parking garage elevator that Shame contained content of a graphic nature, and that the final usher to check my ID muttered "Good luck" as I walked in. "Don't worry," I assured him, "I won't ask for my money back."

finish this review @

Award Season: Golden Globe Nominations!

2011-12-15T09:54:00.003-06:00

The nominees for the 69th annual Golden Globes were announced in the morning half-light earlier today. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the silent The Artist came in as nominee front-runner with just a nomination more than The Descendants and The Help. Of course, the Globes famously break down their categories between genres, opening up more spaces for films that likely won't meet Academy standards. Still, in such a solid year, it's surprising to see a drama as weak as The Ides of March back it into the Best Picture category. It's similarly surprising to see a film like 50/50 nominated at all where critically applauded darlings like The Tree of Life, Beginners, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Drive, Contagion and Melancholia have failed.

On the television side of the nominations, there are much larger upsets, however. American Horror Story and The New Girl have both snuck into Best Series and acting nominations where cult hits like Breaking Bad and Dexter are notably absent. As someone currently on the American Horror Story bandwagon, I'm pretty pumped its listed so early in the game. Yet, you know, conflicted...

Also, I was really hoping someone would step up and give Community the recognition it deserves.

The full list of nominees is below...

BEST PICTURE: DRAMA

“The Descendants”

“The Help”

“Hugo”

“The Ides of March”

“Moneyball”

“War Horse”

BEST PICTURE: COMEDY ORMUSICAL

“50/50”

“The Artist”

“Bridesmaids”

“Midnight in Paris”

“My Week With Marilyn”

BEST DIRECTOR

Woody Allen (“Midnight in Paris”)

George Clooney (“The Ides ofMarch”)

Michel Hazanavicius (“The Artist”)

Alexander Payne (“The Descendants”)

Martin Scorsese (“Hugo”)

BEST ACTOR: DRAMA

George Clooney (“The Descendants”)

Leonardo Dicaprio (“J. Edgar”)

Michael Fassbender (“Shame”)

Ryan Gosling (“The Ides of March”)

Brad Pitt (“Moneyball”)

BEST ACTRESS: DRAMA

Glenn Close (“Albert Nobbs”)

Viola Davis (“The Help”)

Rooney Mara (“The Girl With theDragon Tattoo”)

Meryl Streep (“The Iron Lady”)

Tilda Swinton (“We Need to TalkAbout Kevin”)

BEST ACTRESS: COMEDY ORMUSICAL

Jodie Foster (“Carnage”)

Charlize Theron (“Young Adult”)

Kristen Wiig (“Bridesmaids”)

Michelle Williams (“My Week WithMarilyn”)

Kate Winslet (“Carnage”)

BEST ACTOR: COMEDY OR MUSICAL

Jean Dujardin (“The Artist”)

Brendan Gleeson (“The Guard”)

Joseph Gordon-Levitt (“50/50”)

Ryan Gosling (“Crazy, Stupid,Love”)

Owen Wilson (“Midnight in Paris”)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Berenice Bejo (“The Artist”)

Jessica Chastain (“The Help”)

Janet McTeer (“Albert Nobbs”)

Octavia Spencer (“The Help”)

Shailene Woodley (“TheDescendants”)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Kenneth Branagh (“My Week WithMarilyn”)

Altbert Brooks (“Drive”)

Jonah Hill (“Moneyball”)

Viggo Mortensen (“A DangerousMethod”)

Christopher Plummer (“Beginners”)

BEST ANIMATED FILM

“The Adventures of Tintin”

“Arthur Christmas”

“Cars 2”

“Puss in Boots”

“Rango”

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

“The Flowers Of War” (China)

“In The Land Of Blood and Honey”(USA)

“The Kid With a Bike” (Belgium)

”A Separation” (Iran)

“The Skin I Live In” (Spain)

BEST SCREENPLAY

”The Artist”

“The Descendants”

“The Ides of March”

“Midnight in Paris”

“Moneyball”

TELEVISION

BEST ACTRESS, TV COMEDY

Laura Dern (Enlightened)

Zooey Deschanel (The New Girl)

Tina Fey (30 Rock)

Laura Linney (The Big C)

Amy Poehler (Parks and Recreation)

BEST ACTRESS, TV DRAMA

Claire Danes (Homeland)

Mireille Enos (The Killing)

Julianna Margulies (The Good Wife)

Madeleine Stowe (Revenge)

Callie Thorne (Necessary Roughness)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR, TVSERIES, MINI-SERIES or MOVIE

Peter Dinklange (Game of Thrones)

Paul Giamatti (Too Big to Fail)

Guy Pearce (Mildred Pierce)

Tim Robbins (Cinema Verite)

Eric Stonestreet (Modern Family)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS, TVSERIES, MINI-SERIES or MOVIE

Jessica Lange (American HorrorStory)

Kelly Macdonald (Boardwalk Empire)

Maggie Smith (Downton Abbey)

SofiaVegara (Modern Family)

Evan Rachel Wood (Mildred Pierce)

BEST ACTOR, TV COMEDY

Alec Baldwin (“30 Rock”)

David Duchovny (“Californication”)

Johnny Galecki (“The Big BangTheory”)

Thomas Jane (“Hung”)

Matt LeBlanc (“Episodes”)

BEST ACTOR, TV DRAMA

SteveBuscemi, "Boardwalk Empire"

BryanCranston, "Breaking Bad"

KelseyGrammer, "Boss"

JeremyIrons, "The Borgias"

DamianLewis, "Homeland"

BEST COMEDY SERIES, TV

“Enlightened”

“Episodes”

“Glee”

“Modern Family”

“New Girl”

Merry Christmas, Super Models...

2011-12-15T00:28:00.000-06:00

It's a Christmas miracle: RuPaul's 1993 VH1 Christmas special has appeared on Youtube and even though I'm only 10 minutes in as I write this, I must gift it to you early. Over the top camp, ridiculous segues, completely random guest stars, and yes, a full backup cast of club kids as bit players. It's probably my new favorite thing and I haven't even gotten to the special guest appearances by Elton John, Boy George, and...Nirvana. CHRISTMAS SPIRIT, BITCHES. [via Vulture]

Awards Season: SAG Nominees

2011-12-14T23:56:00.001-06:00

The Screen Actors Guild nominees were announced the other day and if this is what we can expect from the Oscars, it's going to be another milquetoast year. The Help scored the expected slew of acting nominations for Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, and Jessica Chastain (noticeably unrecognized for Tree of Life). NC-17 critical darling Shame has been snubbed in favor of Weinstein bait My Week with Marilyn and Eastwood's J. Edgar. And, yeah, you know, it's a lot of things that were good but bland. Hey, though, at least Tilda Swinton made it on there this time. So, that's a win.

The telecast will air on Sunday, January 29th.

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
Demián Bichir, A Better Life
George Clooney, The Descendants
Leonardo DiCaprio, J. Edgar
Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Brad Pitt, Moneyball

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs
Viola Davis, The Help
Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin
Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role
Kenneth Branagh, My Week With Marilyn
Armie Hammer, J. Edgar
Jonah Hill, Moneyball
Nick Nolte, Warrior
Christopher Plummer, Beginners

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role
Bérénice Bejo, The Artist
Jessica Chastain, The Help
Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids
Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs
Octavia Spencer, The Help

Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
The Artist
Bridesmaids
The Descendants
The Help
Midnight in Paris

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries

Laurence Fishburne, Thurgood
Paul Giamatti, Too Big To Fail
Greg Kinnear, The Kennedys
Guy Pearce, Mildred Pierce
James Woods, Too Big To Fail

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries
Diane Lane, Cinema Verite
Maggie Smith, Downton Abbey
Emily Watson, Appropriate Adult
Betty White, Hallmark Hall of Fame: The Lost Valentine
Kate Winslet, Mildred Pierce

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series
Patrick J. Adams, Suits
Steve Buscemi, Boardwalk Empire
Kyle Chandler, Friday Night Lights
Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad
Michael C. Hall, Dexter

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series
Kathy Bates, Harry’s Law
Glenn Close, Damages
Jessica Lange, American Horror Story
Julianna Margulies, The Good Wife
Kyra Sedgwick, The Closer

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series
Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock
Ty Burrell, Modern Family
Steve Carell, The Office
John Cryer, Two and a Half Men
Eric Stonestreet, Modern Family

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series
Julie Bowen, Modern Family
Edie Falco, Nurse Jackie
Tina Fey, 30 Rock
Sofia Vergara, Modern Family
Betty White, Hot in Cleveland

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series
Boardwalk Empire
Breaking Bad
Dexter
Game of Thrones
The Good Wife

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series
30 Rock
The Big Bang Theory
Glee
Modern Family
The Office

Stunt Ensemble Nominations

Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture
The Adjustment Bureau
Cowboys & Aliens
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
X-Men: First Class

Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Television Series
Dexter
Game of Thrones
Southland
Spartacus: Gods of the Arena
True Blood

Screen Actors Guild Awards 48th Annual Life Achievement Award
Mary Tyler Moore

Seen & Heard: Lana del Rey (again)

2011-12-14T23:17:00.000-06:00

I know I just posted the audio for this a couple days back, but now there's an official video for Lana del Rey's "Born to Die." I can't remember the last time I anticipated an album this much. Born to Die can't come out soon enough. January 31st. January 31st. Not that long, right?

Seen & Heard: Karen O/Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross

2011-12-14T23:05:00.002-06:00

As you may recall from the first posting of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trailer some months ago, I was pretty crazy about the Karen O and Trent Reznor cover of Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song." Now, as we enter the final few days until the film's long-hyped release, we have a video. It's essentially a preview, supposedly, of what the masses will be seeing during the opening credits sequence of the adaptation. Not bad, not bad...

Novelty Treats: Mondo Ghibli

2011-12-14T22:56:00.001-06:00

Guys, Mondo's Olly Moss is releasing a series of posters based on Studio Ghibli films! While getting your hands on a Mondo poster is a nearly impossible task, what with the limited prints and the fanatic fans and all, I still like to admire them from afar. Needless to say, I want one of these My Neighbor Totoro editions. They're fabulous. Keep your eyes peeled for the screenprints. The standard edition on the right will have a 400 print run, while the green one on the left will be a mere 150. Good luck, crazy kids.

Seen & Heard: Anna Calvi, Lana Del Rey, Lynchian Ladies...

2011-12-11T20:03:00.003-06:00

I've been digging Anna Calvi's debut album (which has popped up on quite a few best of lists) and was a huge fan of TV on the Radio's Return to Cookie Mountain album, so, when Calvi covered "Wolf Like Me" I was all over it. Calvi is a British member of what seems to be a trending school of wailing ladies and howling guitars, a sort of PJ Harvey via David Lynch sensibility that I hope is the next big sound.

Check out my previous matching of Calvi with California girl Lana Del Rey in the Twin Peaks inspired playlist on my other blog.

Touch of Evil

2011-12-11T19:35:00.000-06:00

If you haven't already, find a few minutes to wander on over to the New York Times Magazine site, where they've put together a virtual portfolio of villains specific and archetypal starring some of the most talked about actors this year (Jessica Chastian, Viola Davis, Gary Oldman, Glenn Close, Ryan Gosling, etc). Touch of Evil is a beautifully shot set of photos and video shorts which, while a little scattershot in some respects, are awesome if only because we get to see George Clooney make a comedic mad face as Captain Bligh:

Award Season: Independent Spirit Nominees

2011-12-11T19:16:00.002-06:00

While I've been busying myself watching as many Award Season contenders as geographically possible, I've completely neglected my pop culture blogger posting duties when it comes to actually covering nomination announcements. So, hey! The Independent Spirit Award nominees have been posted! Guess what? There's a noticeable lack of Midnight in Paris, or something, and a very noteworthy omnipresence of Beginners, The Descendants, etc.

The Spirit Awards ceremony will be take place on February 25, 2012 on IFC.

BEST FEATURE (Award given to the producer)
50/50 - PRODUCERS: Evan Goldberg, Ben Karlin, Seth Rogen
BEGINNERS - Producers: Miranda de Pencier, Lars Knudsen, Leslie Urdang, Dean Vanech, Jay Van Hoy
DRIVE - Producers: Michel Litvak, John Palermo,Marc Platt, Gigi Pritzker, Adam Siegel
TAKE SHELTER - Producers: Tyler Davidson, Sophia Lin
THE ARTIST - Producer: Thomas Langmann
THE DESCENDANTS - Producers: Jim Burke, Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor

BEST DIRECTOR
MICHEL HAZANAVICIUS - The Artist
MIKE MILLS - Beginners
JEFF NICHOLS - Take Shelter
ALEXANDER PAYNE - The Descendants
NICOLAS WINDING REFN - Drive

BEST SCREENPLAY
JOSEPH CEDAR - Footnote
MICHEL HAZANAVICIUS - The Artist
TOM McCARTHY - Win Win
MIKE MILLS - Beginners
ALEXANDER PAYNE, NAT FAXON & JIM RASH - The Descendants

BEST FIRST FEATURE (Award given to the director and producer)
ANOTHER EARTH - DIRECTOR: Mike Cahill; PRODUCERS: Mike Cahill, Hunter Gray, Brit Marling, Nicholas Shumaker
IN THE FAMILY - DIRECTOR: Patrick Wang; PRODUCERS: Robert Tonino, Andrew van den Houten, Patrick Wang
MARGIN CALL - DIRECTOR: J.C. Chandor; PRODUCERS: Robert Ogden Barnum, Michael Benaroya, Neal Dodson, Joe Jenckes, Corey Moosa, Zachary Quinto
MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE - DIRECTOR: Sean Durkin; PRODUCERS: Antonio Campos, Patrick Cunningham, Chris Maybach, Josh Mond
NATURAL SELECTION - DIRECTOR: Robbie Pickering; PRODUCERS: Brion Hambel, Paul Jensen

BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY
MIKE CAHILL & BRIT MARLING - Another Earth
J.C. CHANDOR - Margin Call
PATRICK DeWITT - Terri
PHIL JOHNSTON - Cedar Rapids
WILL REISER - 50/50

JOHN CASSAVETES AWARD
Award given to the best feature made for under $500,000; award given to the writer, director, and producer
BELLFLOWER - WRITER/DIRECTOR: Evan Glodell; PRODUCERS: Evan Glodell, Vincent Grashaw
CIRCUMSTANCE - WRITER/DIRECTOR: Maryam Keshavarz; PRODUCERS: Karin Chien, Maryam Keshavarz, Melissa Lee
HELLO LONESOME - WRITER/DIRECTOR/ PRODUCER: Adam Reid
PARIAH - WRITER/DIRECTOR: Dee Rees; PRODUCER: Nekisa Cooper
THE DYNAMITER - WRITER: Brad Inglesby; DIRECTOR: Matthew Gordon ;PRODUCERS: Kevin Abrams, Matthew Gordon, Merilee Holt, Art Jones, Mike Jones, Nate Tuck, Amile Wilson

BEST FEMALE LEAD
LAUREN AMBROSE - Think of Me
RACHAEL HARRIS - Natural Selection
ADEPERO ODUYE - Pariah
ELIZABETH OLSEN - Martha Marcy May Marlene
MICHELLE WILLIAMS - My Week with Marilyn

BEST MALE LEAD
DEMIÁN BICHIR - A Better Life
JEAN DUJARDIN - The Artist
RYAN GOSLING - Drive
WOODY HARRELSON - Rampart
MICHAEL SHANNON - Take Shelter

BEST SUPPORTING FEMALE
JESSICA CHASTAIN - Take Shelter
ANJELICA HUSTON - 50/50
JANET McTEER - Albert Nobbs
HARMONY SANTANA - Gun Hill Road
SHAILENE WOODLEY - The Descendants

BEST SUPPORTING MALE
ALBERT BROOKS - Drive
JOHN HAWKES - Martha Marcy May Marlene
CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER - Beginners
JOHN C. REILLY - Cedar Rapids
COREY STOLL - Midnight in Paris

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
JOEL HODGE - Bellflower
BENJAMIN KASULKE - The Off Hours
DARIUS KHONDJI - Midnight in Paris
GUILLAUME SCHIFFMAN - The Artist
JEFFREY WALDRON - The Dynamiter

BEST DOCUMENTARY Award given to the dir ector and producer
AN AFRICAN ELECTION - DIRECTOR/PRODUCER: Jarreth Merz
BILL CUNNINGHAM NEW YORK - DIRECTOR: Richard Press; PRODUCER: Philip Gefter
THE INTERRUPTERS - DIRECTOR/PRODUCER: Steve James; PRODUCER: Alex Kotlowitz
THE REDEMPTION OF GENERAL BUTT NAKED - DIRECTORS/PRODUCERS: Eric Strauss, Daniele Anastasion
WE WERE HERE - DIRECTOR/PRODUCER: David Weissman

BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM Award given to the director
A SEPARATION (Iran) DIRECTOR: Asghar Farhadi
MELANCHOLIA (Denmark, Sweded, France, Germany) DIRECTOR: Lars Von Trier
SHAME (UK) DIRECTOR: Steve McQueen
THE KID WITH A BIKE (Belgium, France, Italy) DIRECTOR: Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne
TYRANNOSAUR (UK) DIRECTOR: Paddy Considine

ROBERT ALTMAN AWARD Award given to one film’s director, casting director, and its ensemble cast
MARGIN CALL
DIRECTOR: J.C. Chandor; CASTING DIRECTORS: Tiffany Little Canfield, Bernard Telsey
ENSEMBLE CAST: Penn Badgley, Simon Baker, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Mary McDonnell, Demi Moore, Zachary Quinto, Kevin Spacey, Stanley Tucci

Seen & Heard: Holy Ghost!

2011-12-11T19:05:00.001-06:00

Speaking of synth-pop: Holy Ghost! covers Ministry's "I Wanted to Tell Her" and we all reap the rewards. Namely: neon, sequins, BMX tricks, and 80's movie dance sequences. Assuming that you don't hate fun, I found it for you!

Seen & Heard: Goldfrapp

2011-12-11T18:59:00.000-06:00

Goldfrapp has been in synth-pop overload for the past few years which is fine, but which has veered away from the otherworldly electro sounds of their first two albums and towards something deliberately kitsch. As they prep to release a greatest hits compilation, we're given the new, ultra chill "Yellow Halo" as the shiny new single. It suggests a push back in the direction of the old school. The song is lovely, but the video (shot entirely on an iPhone during the group's tour) is lovelier.

Novelty Treat: Peggy Dvorak's Home for Actresses

2011-12-11T18:47:00.003-06:00

Megan Mullally's Peggy Dvorak teaches wayward actresses how to be come sardonic and "cool" in this amusing little Funny or Die video featuring a whole host of ladies you like from sitcoms present, future, and cancelled. By the time they got to the Nina Simone bit, I was sold on having to share this with you all...

Oh, Lindsay...

2011-12-11T18:28:00.001-06:00

Lindsay Lohan's last ditch Playboy spread leaked a couple days back. It's predictable. Pretty much everything I have to say about the subject has been illustrated in this side by side compare/contrast image. You'll note that the image on the left is transgender multi-hyphenate Amanda Lepore, while the images on the right are 25-year old Lilo. I mean, by pin-up standards Lohan's shoot is pretty tasteful, but there's something significantly cheaper than the faux-Marilyn she hoped for...

Ke$ha Has One Request...

2011-12-11T18:09:00.001-06:00

...she would like you to put your beard in her mouth. The pop whatsit has set up a Tumblr entitled "PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH" that's somewhere between parody and an episode of True Life (assuming that's not parody) in which she posts pictures of bearded men, pictures of her with facial hair in her mouth, and comments upon these things in all caps. It's beyond explanation, essentially. It successfully outweirds Gaga on a great many levels, while simultaneously displaying a sense of humor that seems to legitimize parts of her "brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack" act. Like, on the one hand I'm completely grossed out by the idea of someone chewing on a beard, but on the other I suddenly feel like Ke$ha could be really entertaining if she rolled up to your party...

Review: My Week with Marilyn

2011-11-29T13:32:00.001-06:00

Audiences tend to love or loathe Marilyn Monroe. Decades after her untimely death, we're still perversely fascinated by her sad duality, by the contrast between the pose she affected as a true Hollywood star and the insecurity of the little girl lost just beneath the surface. She's a twisted figure of the Golden Age, a true legend whispered and wondered about, an animated caricature, someone used as sex symbol and security blanket. My Week with Marilyn capitalizes on that split nature in a way that's almost enchanting. It doesn't dive to the lowest lows in a lurid tabloid manner, but instead captures something of the spirit of Marilyn, seeking to bottle what it was about her that so captivated those she came in contact with. We don't get a biopic or a "Star is Born" rise and fall here, but merely a gentle, lovely, picture book of a film built off of impressionistic moments and the ghostly possession of an actress by a glamorous icon. Your choice here is simple: choose to fall willingly into Harvey Weinstein's Oscar-bait formula or denounce it as trite (with nice performances)...

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Review: The Muppets

2011-11-27T21:40:00.001-06:00

I never outgrew the Muppets. In reality, I've not known many people who have. When I was very small I loved the Muppet crew for their enthusiasm and ebullient, no-holds barred goofiness. They were colorful and electric, a motley crew of frogs and bears and chickens and things: walking, talking, flailing creatures I secretly believed must have been real (and in some ways still do) and which served as the partial basis for a million and one puppeted plush personalities my sister and I brought to life each day. As I got older, I learned to see the Muppets as my parents already did. I seem to recall my father explaining that, like the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons he cherished, Jim Henson's puppets were in possession of jokes that improved with age and wisdom...

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Review: The Descendants

2011-11-26T17:15:00.000-06:00

The last quarter of the year is my favorite film season, as I suspect is the case with most avid filmgoers. It’s when we get the bulk of the Oscar contenders, festival favorites, and under the radar limited releases in bulk quantities with a new “good” movie (or two, or three) slipped into a theatrical run each and every weekend. I love it, of course, but I’ll let you in on a secret: this is also a season boasting a surplus of bland yet “solid” films, and writing half-positive review after half-positive review for something you like, but don’t love, can become fantastically tedious. MyJ. Edgar rehashing was tepid at best, and when I went to see The Descendants the day after that viewing, I was worried I might be stacking my non-profit workload with writings I’d have to force myself to push through in the name of self-discipline (and a mildly OCD penchant for completion). After all, it wasn’t too long ago I found myself writing a rather underwhelmed review on Ides of March, I hadn’t been Up in the Air’s biggest fan, and there was a strong possibility that Alexander Payne’s The Descendants would be just another in a run of sad sack stories disguised as mildly comedic slices of life...

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RIP: Heavy D

2011-11-08T18:51:00.003-06:00

Rapper and actor Heavy D (Dwight Arrington Myers) was reported dead this evening at age 44. The Jamaican-born artist was rushed to the hospital this morning after being found unconscious at his home in Beverly Hills. [source]

Guest Post: Ed of Our City is Burning Watches Wrestling

2011-11-08T09:46:00.001-06:00

Right, so this is a guest post. My name is Ed, and I'm interrupting the normal stream of synthy pop music and movie reviews to bring you some musings on faux fisticuffs and The Muppets. Normally I blog over at Our City Is Burning, but Wilde asked me to write a brief piece on the weird intersection of our interests. She loves pro wrestling, and I love the Muppets, so it seemed a natural combination.

The cross-promotion was pretty uninspired, to be honest. There were a couple of enjoyable moments(like Jack Swagger threatened to kill and consume both Ms. Piggy and Kermit in the most monotone voice ever, wocka wocka), but most of the interaction seemed really forced. Obvious ideas, like Waldorf and Statler providing Play by Play were passed by for jokes about Stone Cold Steve Austin. Beeker and Sheamus both have red hair! They're related! Hilarity ensues, or not really. All in all, this was a pretty sub-par outing by both groups, and leaves me with plenty of doubts about the upcoming film.

The real questions: Where the hell was Sam the Eagle in all about this? Why weren't Kermit and John Laurenitis complaining about managing the craziest people on television? Or why didn't they do this eight years ago when Super-Gonzo could have tagged with the Hurricane against the Rock, or Sam the Eagle and Kurt Angle could sing "God Bless America" together?

It's like the old joke goes: "What's worse than watching this TV show?"

"NOTHING!"

RIP: Andy Rooney

2011-11-06T18:44:00.000-06:00

Lovable curmudgeon Andy Rooney passed away this past Saturday at age 92. His death comes a mere month after his retirement from "60 Minutes," where he offered up cranky commentaries and humorous observations to television audiences for 33 years. His final essay was his 1,097th (!), and he expressed his desire to keep going, saying "I wish I could do this forever. I can’t, though.” [via LA Times]

Andy Rooney had been a TV fixture for my entire life. While I rarely catch "60 Minutes" these days, as someone who grew up watching his segments, it seems surreal knowing that the final Rooney complaint has come and gone. Let's all watch and feel nostalgic as Andy Rooney talks about losing touch with pop music...

Seen and Heard: OH MY!

2011-11-01T22:08:00.001-05:00

I stumbled upon OH MY!'s infectious video for "Dirty Dancer" late last week and haven't really been able to get it out of my head since. There's something about the whole thing: the track, the visuals, the dance moves that feels a little awkward, but also manages to seem excitably genuine. You know, like it's less about posing and more about fun. It's...oddly addicting and sort of makes me want to jump around. Thus, I must share it...

Review: In Time

2011-10-31T22:35:00.000-05:00

At a point prior to the Netflix boom and at the height of Blockbuster’s inflated in-store rental costs, my dad did something out of character: he bought a small stack of DVDs in a Virgin Megastore binge. They were all science fiction, and they were all things he’d decided his kids “needed to see.” Amongst them was Logan’s Run, a movie in which cheesy plasticity is a virtue and guilty pleasuredom seems to be the loftiest goal. In 1976, life until 30 meant a world built off of simple, airy silliness. There are robotic monsters and miniskirts; all one really needs to survive 3.5 decades of scrutiny while remaining a story compelling enough to be frequently copied, referenced, and placed on the ‘must-see’ list by parents with a penchant for science-fiction. The latest Logan’s Run copycat is In Time, a dystopian thriller with an A-list genetic make-up, but not much in the way of personality. Where in Logan’s world life ended at 30, In Time features a complicated economic allegory in which folks are essentially guaranteed the right to live until 25. At 25 you stop aging, and that’s fantastic, but in order to make the most of it you must then beg, borrow, and steal to extend your lifespan. Time is money, money is time. Society measures everything according to the clock under their skin. Years are the currency of the 1%, while the 99% life in squalor from minute to minute...

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Review: The Rum Diary

2011-10-31T22:26:00.001-05:00

Like any respectable pop culture junkie, I went through my Hunter S. Thompson phase. I chose Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas for an independent reading assignment in my junior year of high school and found a soft spot for all things Gonzo. This means that no, I can’t hear “White Rabbit” without requesting that someone attempt an electrocution at the song’s climax. Please, that goes without saying. It also means that yes, I’ve read Thompson’s ‘long lost’ novel. When I read The Rum Diary oh so long ago, the impression it left was one befitting of a work by Mr. Thompson: it comes in flashbacks and waves; tangible short bursts and colorful scenes without incident. The book itself is muddled, but enjoyable enough. There are plenty of bright pieces and memorable tableaux to be found: the drinking, the girl, the carnival, the decrepit newspaper and laboring masses; alcohol-soaked Puerto Rico remembered through a hangover-like daze of poorly linked, often humorous incidents. The Rum Diary, in my opinion, was never a story to be taken as a cohesive work with a straight narrative arc. Instead, it’s something tangled and a little broken, an early attempt by a young author loaded up like a jumbled pile of stained postcards from the edge. Perhaps you love it, perhaps you find it listless, perhaps you simply don’t care (in which case, I wouldn’t recommend bothering). Any which way you approach it, from page to screen there’s a surprising amount of love invested in getting this messy little novel’s film transition just right. For my money, it succeeds...

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(Early) Review: A Dangerous Method

2011-10-24T22:48:00.001-05:00

When the end credits began to roll on A Dangerous Method, my gut reaction came in the form of a bad pun: that Method? Not so Dangerous. What I’d watched had felt less David Cronenberg, more Merchant Ivory; a lovely period piece lightly infused with just a touch of sado-masochism. It’s funny, because before watching the film I felt I knew exactly why a director like Cronenberg would be interested in the story of Carl Jung and Sabina Spielrein. The version I’d been told was an embellished drama of adultery, insanity, and perversion. Sabina was made out to be a torrid sort of enchantress, a manic, hysteric genius with an insatiable sexual appetite who so fascinated Jung and his mentor, Sigmund Freud, that an irreparable rift was created between them. In this telling, I could have sworn Sabina was rumored to have taken each of the doctors as lovers, though we know Freud was famously distant from his patients...

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Seen and Heard: Class Actress

2011-10-18T14:05:00.001-05:00

Seen and Heard: M83

2011-10-18T13:56:00.004-05:00

The new M83 album, Hurry Up, We're Dreaming officially drops today. Before you go and Spotify that, however, you should check out the video for "Midnight City", it's got creepy mutant school kids with glowing eyes. That's a decent enough reason, right?

Review: Melancholia

2011-10-17T22:11:00.005-05:00

We all know I’m a tireless, dogged defender of Lars Von Trier’s psychologically shattering Antichrist. For all its horrors (and there are many), it carries itself in a way that’s hauntingly beautiful and which makes its nightmarish provocations all the more lasting. See it once and, unless you’re prone to burying bad memories deep within your psyche, you’ll remember it always in fits, starts, and bursts of graphic imagery. Antichrist was Von Trier’s version of semi-conventional horror. The pieces are simple, familiar: cabin in the woods, a dead toddler, insanity, graphic mutilation and the evocation of Satan. The way they came together was alien; pieced from the darkest depths of its creator’s brutal depression. When Von Trier announced that his next go would be a science fiction film centered, essentially, around the end of the world, I could only imagine what that would entail for someone with his off-kilter vision. Would we wind up with Tarkovsky? Would we rehash Antichrist’s bleakest points of nihilism? Could we see society tipping towards the sense of loss that Charlotte Gainsbourg made so visceral, so painful, in 2009? All we could count on was Von Trier discontinuing his current mode. Love him or hate him, he’s ever-changing, innovative, and consistent, perhaps only in a latent distrust in humanity and Dogme 95 (though we seem to have moved beyond that movement)...

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Seen and Heard: Beyonce (Single Ladies Redux)

2011-10-13T11:47:00.000-05:00

This lady kills it with the videos. Seriously. The clip for "Countdown" is sort of exactly what you need to wake up in the morning.

Fall Pilot #13: Homeland

2011-10-05T22:00:00.000-05:00

FALL PILOT #13: Homeland
NETWORK: Showtime

SUPPOSED SELLING POINT: Political thriller with Claire Danes on Showtime, what could go wrong?

POSSIBLE SELLING POINT FOR ME: Ditto.

If you actually read my lazy (and oh so late to the party) evaluation of Charlie's Angels you've likely discerned that I'm becoming quite disenchanted with this whole "let's talk all about every new show on the block" task I've set for myself. I mean, it's a couple weeks in now and The Playboy Club has already been canceled. Great success, but isn't it time to be done now? Nope. More to go. More to go forever.

Of course, while my attitude is one reflective of ennui and the overwhelming desire to delete everything in my DVR and begin anew, Showtime's new drama Homeland is a keeper. If I had the energy, I'd be jumping up and down insisting that you give this show more than just the time of day, give it your dollars as well. Lately I feel as though I'm becoming a sort of Showtime fangirl. While HBO seems to pull rank in the esteem of critics and cults (True Blood, Game of Thrones), focusing epic proportions, Showtime's output is appealing in the phenomenally addicting way network fare tends to be. Its comedies (Californication, Weeds, Shameless, United States of Tara (RIP)) are often raunchy, sexed-up, drugged-out, guiltily addicting spins on familial sitcom set-ups. Its dramas take everything you like about that particular genre and amp it up so it goes where you wish "normal" TV would. Dexter's police procedural wields a sharp, delightfully bloody point. Nurse Jackie (let's face it, it's between comedy and drama) snarks what Dr. House can't. The Borgias? Take your Masterpiece Theatre and shove it straight up whatever hole Pope Jeremy Irons is working on stuffing, if you know what I mean.

All of this is the long way of arriving at Homeland as the next step in Showtime's 'give the people what they want' strategy: government intrigue, military action, and CIA investigations with a TVMA rating. Are you still mourning the loss of Jack Bauer? Do you wish Fringe was actually more about brainwashing sleeper cells then multiple dimensions? If you answered 'yes' to either of these questions you're probably going to love the hell out of Homeland. Here, Claire Danes returns to the small screen to play a devoted agent whose unwavering, at times rebellious devotion to her task is complicated by the realities of her fragile, deteriorating mental state. One episode in and I'm guessing she'll take the Emmy next year. Her Carrie Mathison is a brilliantly acted piece of work who's compellingly unhinged, rapidly swinging between bipolar highs and lows. The story itself appears to be a molotov cocktail of timely political elements, blending 9/11 conspiracy theories with Middle East tensions and an undercurrent of the clockwork suspense that made The Manchurian Candidate tick. Carrie is monitoring a Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis), a rescued American POW she believes has been turned by al-Qaida. She's watching him, his family, his every waking move. It's precarious, dangerous for her and not quite legal. Yet, she does it anyway. Homeland promises to be a slow burn, a reveal that brings up more questions initially than answers. So far, its dramatic tension is compelling and its actors are a hell of a cat and mouse pair. Is it the best pilot of the fall? It might be. It just might be.

SECOND EPISODE?: Yes.

WILL IT MAKE IT TO A SECOND SEASON?: Definitely yes.

R.I.P.: Steve Jobs

2011-10-05T20:37:00.002-05:00

Apple co-founder and visionary Steve Jobs lost his long battle with pancreatic cancer today at the age of 56. He's survived by his wife, four children, and the fully-formed creative visions and advancements that have left an indelible impression on modern life as we know it. It's truly unfortunate that his time had to come so soon.

Fall Pilot #12: Charlie's Angels

2011-10-04T19:31:00.002-05:00

FALL PILOT #12: Charlie's Angels
NETWORK: ABC

SUPPOSED SELLING POINT: OMG, they're back.

POSSIBLE SELLING POINT FOR ME: Wasn't going to watch it at all, but was hoping for camp?

Perhaps I'm fudging the details on this, but it seems as though ABC tries nearly every year to launch an espionage show in primetime. Every so many years, they succeed (see: Alias), but for the most part they've lost many an agent. Remember Snoops? Women's Murder Club? Under Cover? Yeah, me either. Anyhow, this season they decided to go the CBS Hawaii Five-O route and resurrect a 70's Frankenstein to try to trick people into tuning in. Screw those "new" ideas.

As someone who grew up more with Drew Barrymore's take on the Angels than anywhere near Farrah Fawcett (I'm pretty sure I've never actually seen an original episode), I have to say that the resurrection doesn't really work for me. Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, and Lucy Liu's take on the concept was all pop music, bright colors, disguises, kitsch and camp. It had Bill Murray, Sam Rockwell, and Crispin Glover. There was no such thing as taking the concept too seriously. A return to the old ways now, any sort of soap opera sincerity feels...false. While Barrymore scores a producer's credit here, the extent of her influence seems based in the non-lethal weaponry the Angels sport. Our new Angels are milquetoast. They're dolled-up pieces of cardboard without much substance outside of occasionally quippy lines. Minka Kelly, Rachael Taylor, and Annie Ilonzeh are um, not exactly the best actresses, and while the show has its own generic brand of sort of entertaining action, it's hard not to look at the whole package as just another recyclable. It's funny, somehow, that ABC still firmly believes all people need to tune in is an unrealistically attractive cast. Even Bosley's a young, good looking crime fighter here; working and flirting alongside the trio. Somehow, this is the wrong sort of cheese....

SECOND EPISODE?: No, but I could see putting on a rerun if there's absolutely nothing else on.

WILL IT MAKE IT TO A SECOND SEASON?: It may survive a while on the brand alone, but I can't see it sustaining itself in primetime.

Fall Pilot #11: Suburgatory

2011-09-30T11:23:00.001-05:00

FALL PILOT #11: Suburgatory
NETWORK: ABC

SUPPOSED SELLING POINT: Teen angst, snark, and brightly colored satire.

POSSIBLE SELLING POINT FOR ME: Teen angst, snark, and brightly colored satire.

It should come as no surprise that there's little I love more than a smart teen angst comedy. Those satirical seasons of Popular (when Ryan Murphy was still fresh and uninhibited), Freaks and Geeks, Daria, MTV's delightfully wry Awkward (watch it, seriously); get it right and the rewatchability factor leaps through the roof. So, you should have no doubt that I've been harboring secret, very high hopes for Suburgatory, just another in a long line-up of ABC's snarky peeks at the American middle class. The network seems to have the suburban satire market cornered. They're the land of Desperate Housewives, Modern Family, Cougar Town, and soon, Good Christian Bitches (I kid you not).

Amid the standards, Suburgatory seems special. While it still boasts the bright color contrasts and perfectly manicured cul de sac lawns of those other shows, the story (at least in this first taste) feels preternaturally focused. Our fish out of water tale knows where its going, has found its voice, and has pegged its targets in ways that may not be unique, but that are spectacularly charming. Like a cross-pollinated clone of Emma Stone, Lindsay Lohan (in her prime), and Ashley Rickards, Shameless kid Jane Levy has all the right stuff to make her instantly recognizable to the average high school hater. The show is indebted to Mean Girls, and portions here play as a competent riff on Tina Fey's comedy; complete with a ginger-haired protagonist in ass kicking boots and an army surplus jacket. As Tessa, though, Jane Levy is far more self-assured than Cady Heron was. When an unopened box of condoms condemns her to life in a world of teenagers with nose jobs and bottle-blonde text fiends, she doesn't immediately bend over backwards. No one's there to really show her the ropes, and this time, her single dad (Jeremy Sisto) is sucked into the mayhem too.

A lot could destroy Suburgatory. Canned laughter, for example, would be quite unwelcome here. Luckily, Suburgatory doesn't have that. What it has is a thus far perfectly cast Cheryl Hines, a constantly watering Ana Gasteyer, a creepily enthusiastic Alan Tudyk, and a dead eyed plastic teen houseplant embodied by relative newcomer Carly Chaikin. Thus far? Um yes, yes, it's good. How good? In the pilot episode we not only get a Fellini reference (!) and the sort of Lynchian yards you expect to find an ear in, we also get this completely ridiculous outfit. If it continues like this, I could probably love this show. Stake that suburban mall culture, kids. Go for it.

SECOND EPISODE?: Absolutely.

WILL IT MAKE IT TO A SECOND SEASON?: Thus far, I hope so.

Fall Pilot #10: Terra Nova

2011-09-29T13:36:00.002-05:00

FALL PILOT #10: Terra Nova
NETWORK: FOX

SUPPOSED SELLING POINT: Avatar meets Jurassic Park, a possible replacement for Lost?

POSSIBLE SELLING POINT FOR ME: Dinosaurs?

If Terra Nova looks like it's blatantly trying to rip off Jurassic Park and mix it with Avatar and somehow snag a huge audience off this combination of elements, that's because it is. It's a show built around a million recycles sci-fi plot lines. Earth is dying, we've killed it with our grubby human ways. The solution? Jump through a stargate and start to rebuild human society on a mint condition planet in the Cretaceous period. It's like Land of the Lost and Earth 2 (remember that show?) had a baby that took itself too seriously. As can be expected, the show follows a family of sci-fi pilgrims on their magical journey, forging the way to completely mess up all of history. Within the space-time continuum rules of science fiction, I'm not sure how forcing human life to exist during a time which humans had not yet evolved works, but it sounds like it would probably destroy natural progression as we know it. It's an interesting concept, and the visuals are rather impressive for a network show. It looks damn expensive, and it's a major risk for Fox as problem here is that apart from surprisingly decent looking dinos it offers almost nothing new.

Terra Nova has the usual things. The creators seem to know that while they have a chance of reeling in an action audience, their primary targets are approximately ten years old. So, it's another forced family drama. Not space family Robinson, but close. Instead of opening the group dynamic the way Lost did, introducing us to mysterious characters with complicated pasts, we're immediately pushed into a stagnant set of relationships. Our patriarch, Jim Shannon (Jason O'Mara) spent some time in prison for protecting his brood, and while he managed to sneak his way to Terra Nova, there's some unresolved daddy issues from his wife and kids. They talk through things, they try to bond, they marvel at the sights. Mom is a smarty pants doctor, there's a teen daughter, a little daughter, and a teen son who meets a sparky teen girl. They take the all-terrain vehicle for a spin and get into trouble. There are big dinosaurs and small dinosaurs. There are fences (see above) that really push that Jurassic Park association. There's a tribe of human arrivals who have turned against this use of time travel and are fighting a resistance from somewhere in the rainforest. There are politics. Stephen Lang (the bad guy from Avatar) is in it. He's the leader but we're not sure what kind yet. He still looks like an action figure and scares me a little bit.

It's nice to look at, but oddly bland. Honestly, I wound up involved for maybe the first half hour, then barely watching it as it slogged through expected terrain. I can't say it was a disappointment, because I didn't have high hopes to begin with. What I can say is that I'm pretty sure it's wasting its money on creatures when it should be spending more time with its writers.

SECOND EPISODE?: Eh, those two hours exhausted me.

WILL IT MAKE IT TO A SECOND SEASON?: It's got a good chance of collecting a cult following, and getting canceled...

Review: Moneyball

2011-09-27T20:27:00.001-05:00

“It’s hard not to romanticize baseball.” Or, so says Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) at a couple key moments in Moneyball. Though in context I could see what he was getting at, and for many people this appears to be quite true, I have to admit: it’s damn easy for me not to romanticize baseball. You may be able to romanticize the players or the fans, the upset of not winning or the pain of coming so close, but that’s not unique to the game. And, I mean, the game? Call me un-American or whatever but, oh man, how loudly would you like to hear me snore? Needless to say: I’m not a sports person. I've never read Michael Lewis's book, can't fathom a reality in which I'd pick it up, have no recollection of the Oakland A’s 20-game win streak in 2002, didn’t recognize the names of any of the players mentioned in the film, and can only tell you that at some point in the last decade the Boston Red Sox won the World Series. I remember that...

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Fall Pilot #9: Pan Am

2011-09-26T20:10:00.000-05:00

FALL PILOT #9: Pan Am
NETWORK: ABC

SUPPOSED SELLING POINT: Retro glamour!

POSSIBLE SELLING POINT FOR ME: Wednesday Addams is in this show.

Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird, it’s a plane, no, it’s a plane full of promiscuous stewardesses! ABC’s Pan Am took flight last night, making it the second hour long network melodrama to be built around an iconic 1960’s uniform this fall. Where NBC’s bunnies are mixed up with murder and the mob, ABC’s flight attendants get the glossy candy colors of camp espionage; the hair is all perfectly coiffed and capped, the girdles are on, and we’re ready for some in-flight entertainment. We learn early on that our Pan Am wonder women were an elite group of “evolved” ladies with all the right qualifications to symbolize the luxury, the picture-postcard romance of air travel. Namely that they were three things: pretty, unmarried, and under thirty-two. Ah yes, Pan Am: the Logan’s Run of the sky.

Still, for its frothier components, Pan Am has its charms. Christina Ricci, who we can assume has a significant role here, has a surprisingly slight screen presence in this initial episode. We’re left wondering where her character will factor in, as the first episode frantically opens the boxes on too many subplots. Thus, it’s a tough pilot to judge as we can’t be sure we know what Pan Am is all about. Unlike Playboy Club, there’s a more convincing conflict between image and substance here (not too deep, mind you, but there’s a chance it may get there if given the opportunity). Is it a front for women’s lib? Will it break down into Cold War paranoia? How many of these girls will be involved in the espionage antics we see Kelli Garner enter into here? Where Playboy Club posited its women were empowered because they earned a pretty penny in their skivvies, Pan Am hints at cocktail waitress opportunities for its girls to become worldly, liberated, free agents until 32. The show wants us to believe that they’re not just handing you peanuts, they’re spies, beatniks, and the actors doing all the work. For those old enough to remember Pan Am airlines in its heyday, the show is likely all nostalgia. For the rest of us, it seems to play off of a retro aesthetic fetishized and cultivated in Catch Me If You Can and Down with Love. The result is something poppy and a little tongue-in-cheek, but not actually humorous enough to thrust it into a cult canon. While the pilot is a bit of a jumble, it seems likely that the pieces will all land safely, and that there’s potential here for something addictively fun. At the very least? It’s watchable and doesn’t have a shoddy narration.

SECOND EPISODE?: I will consider giving it a second chance as it seems to need time to settle…

WILL IT MAKE IT TO A SECOND SEASON?: If they can even out the pacing.

Fall Pilot #8: Revenge

2011-09-26T11:25:00.003-05:00

FALL PILOT #8: Revenge
NETWORK: ABC

SUPPOSED SELLING POINT: REVENGE. Attractive people! Beach houses!

POSSIBLE SELLING POINT FOR ME: Calculating manipulation and beach houses, in that order.

I pretty much lost track of what was actually happening in ABC's new "rich people destroying rich people" show Revenge. This isn't because it's super complicated (but it kind of is), but because earlier in the week I'd been thinking about Josie and the Pussycats (as people do) and wondered what happened to the guy that played Alan M.(Gabriel Mann) in the movie. Then, of course, the universe has a way of working these things out and soon answered my question: he's on Revenge! When I went to IMDB to confirm that this was indeed Alan M., I learned that Gabriel Mann has been around everywhere and that somehow I'd completely neglected to recognize him. When I say everywhere I mean Mad Men and the Jason Bourne movies, but still: I totally watched those things.

On Revenge, Alan M. has grown into a 40-year old version of young James Spader. As far as I can tell, he's playing Steff in Pretty in Pink if Steff were some sort of genius entrepreneur who really liked animal applique pants from J.Crew. Speaking as someone who now has to watch The Office just because she finds James Spader hilarious and weirdly magnetic, this is a good thing. I'm all for villainous characters who studied in the Spader school of creepery. Unfortunately, there's more to Revenge than Alan M.

In the first episode, we learn that Emily Thorne (Emily VanCamp) wants revenge. Her family was destroyed at some point in the past by the malicious queen bees and kingpins of East Hampton society, and she's taken great pains to transform herself into someone they won't recognize (except Alan M. sees right through that, so I don't know how well that's going to work out for her). She's going to go Alias on them, with wigs and disguises and poisons and tricky methods of bringing them down. Hopefully, she's going to drive them to their deaths, but right now she seems mostly interested in 'taking them down a peg', which I find rather disappointing. We meet a surplus of characters without much context and (since no one ages in the Hamptons) any moments of the show's back and forth temporal flux read as minutely confusing. When is this happening? Why is this happening? Maybe we could meet these people in the next episode? No? Ok...

From where I sat, Revenge's hour long pilot felt as though it dragged well beyond its run time. The landscape, while glamorous, felt stagnant and unchanging. The characters seemed superficially introduced, relying on our understanding of past archetypes like them: rich bitches, social climbers, fortunate sons. It saves time, but it's not the best way to open a show. I was plagued by the need to pre-judge all of them as evil based on Emily's blank expression even though the show eventually makes it clear that no, there are some good people here as well. Is Emily one of them? Presumably yes, but I'm not so sure I care...

SECOND EPISODE?: I'm still not sure I caught on to what's going on here. Oh wait, REVENGE. Why was she in prison,. though? She didn't see her dad for 10 years? How old is she?

WILL IT MAKE IT TO A SECOND SEASON?: Probably.

Fall Pilot #7: Whitney

2011-09-23T22:24:00.000-05:00

FALL PILOT #7: Whitney
NETWORK: NBC

SUPPOSED SELLING POINT: Another lady comedian on NBC

POSSIBLE SELLING POINT FOR ME: ...?

Isn't Whitney Cummings supposed to be edgy or something? I mean, I thought that was the word on the street. If her new self-titled sitcom is any indication, however, she was edgy in maybe...1996? 1997? Remember Ally McBeal's dancing baby biological clock? The cloud pajamas? The early days of cosmopolitans and Manolo Blahniks? That's when Whitney would have been an edgy network sitcom: in the hey day of Bridget Jones singletons shouting loud, proud, and occasionally mussed up. Nothing against those ladies, but our new female comedy leads are dimensional beyond quirks, uncertainty, and frank sex talk. Whitney feels like a step back in time to a cheap, tacky land of forced jokes, shoddy reaction shots, and brightly colored 'sitcom' clothes (you know, the sort that the characters might never wear in real life). It's the right idea, NBC. Putting female comedians in leading roles works out well for you and everyone else. It's just, in execution, this one feels slapped together and stilted; cheesy, passively feminist tripe chock full of characters who could easily be exchanged with those on the now 100% more self-aware Cougar Town.

Amazingly, after enduring the first six fairly painful minutes of Whitney, I would have preferred to watch Cougar Town. You know the difference? Whitney's got a goddamn "live audience" laugh-track. In a scripted comedy, nothing could be more distracting. On Whitney? That "live studio audience" sounds like a live audience of people operating laugh-track machines. It's grating, particularly when the laughter triggers at a moment where NOTHING IS FUNNY. I shut it off. I shut it off after six minutes, threw in the towel and figured it wasn't worth it.

"Oh, that Whitney, she so crazy, she's eating those wedding cupcakes before they "cut" the wedding cake."

"Oh, that Whitney, she wore a yellow dress to the wedding instead of a white one to try not to upstage the bride, but the bride wore yellow too. She so crazy."

"Oh, that Whitney, she's so wild and crazy that we need a random wedding guest to tell her boyfriend that she's so wild and crazy so that we understand she so wild and crazy."

Twelve hours later, I decided to suck it up and finish the remaining 15 minutes. Whatever. Hulu in the morning as I ate my breakfast. My reward? Watching Whitney Cummings fret about the lack of routine sex in her long-term committed relationship (because we haven't seen that before), watching her put on a slutty nurse's outfit and managing to get her boyfriend checked into the real hospital, and watching her best friend walk into the apartment and start drinking. Ah yes, I see how deeply neurotic we are...

Character aside, the primary problem facing Whitney is that it's simply rather unfunny. There's a sense that everyone in the cast is trying too hard, that they're aware they don't have an original concept or a real direction to take the show in. Whitney may be playing a fictional version of herself, but she doesn't seem to know who that person is. She and her faux-boyfriend Alex (Chris D'Elia) alternate between kooky kooks and total apathy. Both, it turns out, aren't particularly interesting...

SECOND EPISODE?: Um, I'd really prefer not to...

WILL IT MAKE IT TO A SECOND SEASON?: Based on the first one? I hope not...

Seen & Heard: Neon Indian

2011-09-20T18:15:00.002-05:00

What's that you say? You didn't listen to my Boogie Nights mixtape on Love & Squalor? Oh, well then perhaps you haven't heard this excellent little fun time synth track by Neon Indian. Obviously, you should listen to these things. Pay attention, be astute, all that stuff.

Seen & Heard: Magenta Skycode

2011-09-20T18:05:00.001-05:00

Finnish group Magenta Skycode's "Kipling." In which we run with dogs.

Fall Pilot #6: The Playboy Club

2011-09-20T13:17:00.000-05:00

FALL PILOT #6: The Playboy Club

NETWORK: NBC

SUPPOSED SELLING POINT: Mad Men-esque retro glamour, attractive ladies.

POSSIBLE SELLING POINT FOR ME: Retro period piece, high probability of stylish parties.

NBC and ABC are both trying to capture idle Mad Men fans this fall with a bit of retro glamour and a complete misunderstanding of why it is that viewers are drawn to that world. Where Mad Men wins out time and again in part because the writing is smart, the acting on target, and the setting immaculately conceived; the other part of its success is built off of its culturally relevant, sturdy adherence to story. Mad Men doesn't glorify the mistreatment of women or play at any sense of glamour in being a Madison Avenue secretary, it subverts that silly notion and pushes its female characters to have an ambition and drive that we see them as socially uncomfortable acknowledging. NBC's The Playboy Club, meanwhile, is a fetishistic sorority house that seems to be thoroughly committed to trying to convince anyone watching that its glorified cocktail waitresses were nothing if not driven suffragettes. The sporadic, poorly thought out Hugh Hefner narration tells us that in the 60's "bunnies were some of the only women who could be anything they wanted to be." Oh, really? I'm thinking not. Can anyone explain how that works? Is it because they made really decent wages (another bunny says "I make more than my father")? Because correct me if I'm wrong, but the tips are earned by looking good until they're too old to wear the uniform. At what point does the "be anything you want to be" come into play?

Where the narration and dressing room chatter between the ladies plays at a preemptive defense of the show's focus on corsets and ass, it seems a slow paced glimpse into the real life of the girls (which would have been potentially interesting) wasn't good enough for the executives at NBC. So, instead of leaving our story to mine the highs and lows of an iconic position in a tumultuous period of American history, we get murder, intrigue, and a low-rent Don Draper impersonator. Early into the show, our leggy blonde lead bunny Maureen (Amber Heard) fends off a gropey, rapey, murderous mob boss and accidentally kills him with a stiletto to the jugular. Our phony Don Draper, the squinty Nick Dalton (Eddie Cibrian), helps her dump the body in the Chicago River. From that point on Maureen is a shaky, wide-eyed bundle of nerves, a wet blanket, and about as cardboard as they come. We know that one day the secret will be out, that Maureen will be hunted, and that all of this has nothing to do with the conflicts of the other half dozen characters we meet on this first outing.

It's a vapid, dreary affair that can't decide what kind of story it's trying to tell. Is it a straight period piece? Is it another shoddy thriller? Is it a dark American Dreams-esque showcase for dolled up musical acts (we get Ike and Tina impersonators twice in the premiere)? Is it just a tarted-up primetime soap? My money is on that last one. Don't get sucked in by the allure of all that cigarette smoke and satin, The Playboy Club is really quite poorly conceived in its first outing. While Gloria Steinem called for a boycott earlier in the summer, I'd say it doesn't even warrant that. It's offensive, yes, but in such a superficial way that I'd find it hard to believe folks could watch it without an eye roll.

As this ship goes down, however, someone should save Naturi Naughton (the self-proclaimed "chocolate bunny") from the wreckage. She was sort of adorable, and I honestly have no idea why NBC didn't filter the focus through her potentially far more compelling story instead of through yet another small-town leggy blonde transplant. Oh, wait...

Super lame, NBC. Super lame.

SECOND EPISODE?: No.

WILL IT MAKE IT TO A SECOND SEASON?: Pretty damn doubtful.

Fall Pilot #5: 2 Broke Girls

2011-09-20T00:28:00.002-05:00

FALL PILOT #5: 2 Broke Girls

NETWORK: The Abysmal Pit that is CBS.

SUPPOSED SELLING POINT: People will watch it because if follows that show where Doogie Howser really overacts. Also, Michael Patrick King and Whitney Cummings put it together.

POSSIBLE SELLING POINT FOR ME: I just kind of like Kat Dennings.

I broke my rule, guys. I watched CBS tonight. I know, I know, it's terrible. I feel a little dirty viewing their backwards laugh track comedies on the same night they happened to air. Just...as if I've been wronged, somehow. We've been through this before but I sincerely believe that CBS is the least progressive, blandest network around. I tend to ignore it, though I've learned to suffer through (on DVD, of course) The Big Bang Theory's antiquated structure to get at those great little morsels of nerddom. Today, as I watched 2 Broke Girls, hoping for Kat Dennings' snark to pervade through the cheery flat camerawork that mars all CBS sitcoms, I arrived at a new conclusion. I don't loathe CBS because it's block after block of repetitive police procedurals catering to old ladies, I can't stand it because so many of the shows seem to have been birthed in a previous decade. For me, television -- and in particular the sitcom -- has evolved beyond certain modes and forms. The CBS sitcom, with its reliance on the laugh track, its bawdy overacting, and its lack of self-deprecating understanding of its own mechanics, is an outdated machinery best consumed in reruns viewed over leftovers or in college dorms. It's nothing new. In fact, it feels quite the opposite. 2 Broke Girls, like Two and a Half Men, How I Met Your Mother, and yes, even Big Bang Theory actually feel old. They're the TGIF shows of my youth resurrected for some sort of audience who never advanced beyond that level. I mean, seriously? Outsourced offered something with more of a postmodern, vaguely satirical edge than almost anything on CBS, and that's really saying something. Of course, something doesn't have to be new to be effectively funny, but...

While I was momentarily entertained by 2 Broke Girls, I didn't laugh. Kat Dennings gets a handful of smart, cynical lines here and runs with them, but it's almost as if she were CG'd into a pre-existing show in an attempt to make a stale thing a little bit edgier. Where even The New Girl knows how to place a pause for comedic effect, 2 Broke Girls fills its silences with a barrage of idle prattle, relying on harebrained gags and raunchy innuendos to spice up mediocre content. There are logical leaps, stilted characters reading stilted dialogue, and an easy breezy ghost of a narrative arc. We meet sharp-tongued waitress Max, we see the hijinks of Brooklyn diner staff, and then meet Caroline (Beth Behrs): a down and out ex-trust funder whose daddy just got locked up for defrauding half of New York. Voila: they're living together, finding ways to bridge their vast differences, and suddenly planning on saving up money to open a cupcake shop. How many hijinks will ensue as they hunt for that $250,000, folks? SO MANY HIJINKS. I get exhausted just thinking about all those hijinks. It's like Whitney Cummings fell asleep after watching Bridesmaids and The Odd Couple in quick succession but didn't think through how the relationship could be exploited to be actually interesting. Just as I'm consistently amazed that Jason Segal remains a presence on How I Met Your Mother, I have no idea why Dennings attached herself to this show on this network. I could see the premise working out if filmed for Showtime or HBO in a Nurse Jackie meets Bored to Death sort of light. But, with a laugh track, the shoddy camera work, and the whoopsy-daisy whipped cream bit? Ugh. She's better than this, smarter than the jokes, and darker as a presence.

SECOND EPISODE?: Eh...I just can't do the laugh track. That's it.

WILL IT MAKE IT TO A SECOND SEASON?: Does anything shown on The Abysmal Pit that is CBS ever get canceled?

Fall Pilot #4: The New Girl

2011-09-18T21:41:00.000-05:00

FALL PILOT #4: The New Girl

NETWORK: FOX

SUPPOSED SELLING POINT: Zooey Deschanel is bringing the manic pixie dream girl to TV, or something?

POSSIBLE SELLING POINT FOR ME: It's a comedy that doesn't have a laugh track. Also, I'm interested in seeing how Damon Wayans Jr. manages two sitcoms at once (he's also on ABC's Happy Endings).

I don't particularly care for Zooey Deschanel, but I don't loathe her as many tend to. To some, she's an obnoxious hipster cipher, the source code to the programming of a million 'quirky' girls trying to catch the attentions of boys who have attached mystical properties to her cartoon cute blank canvas. I don't think Deschanel lacks personality, but I do find that there's something that always seems a little false about her. Still, I held out hope for The New Girl because, let's face it, Zooey is a star smart enough to know her market. If she makes the decision to come to network TV instead of latching onto an HBO original, there's gotta be something to it.

And actually? Yeah, while the premise isn't so original, the pilot is surprisingly sound and frequently quite funny. The first episode (currently available early OnDemand, premiering Tuesday evening) plays almost like a mini bromantic film as we're introduced to Jess Day (Deschanel) and her predicament. Jess is an awkward 20-something who moves in with a ragtag group of dudes after finding her boyfriend with another woman. She sings to herself and cites Lord of the Rings and then cries hysterically watching Dirty Dancing seven straight times on the couch in her new apartment. There are moments when she's oddly endearing, and moments where we cringe because her weaknesses and quirks feel so contrived, as though Deschanel had decided to channel Tina Fey's Liz Lemon without understanding the basic self-deprecating elements that made that character truly funny. If this were a show solely about Jess, it would be a tremendous failure. She's too much, manically nerdy in a way that's designed to be cloyingly cute instead of risky. Where Liz Lemon is a tough lady, Jess is helpless and uninformed. Still, though, there are laughs and the pilot leaves the show with room to grow and sturdy legs to stand on. Deschanel's quirk is evened out by her three new "bro" roommates. Damon Wayans Jr., Max Greenfield, and Jake Johnson act occasionally as filters for the audience, occasionally as quirky archetypes of their own. They work in a way that's charmingly inept even as they try to help, thus making them subdued, unknowingly dorky male counterparts to Deschanel's unapologetic face making. The show isn't particularly clever, original, or especially self-aware. It's no Arrested Development or 30 Rock. What it has going for it, however, is that's it's light, fun, and simply silly without resorting to that condescending laugh track. As far as network comedies go? That's a giant step in the right direction.

SECOND EPISODE?: Yes, actually.

WILL IT MAKE IT TO A SECOND SEASON?: Depends on where FOX keeps it in the lineup and if they can balance out the show so all characters are equal to or greater than Zooey Deschanel.

Fall Pilot #3: The Secret Circle

2011-09-15T23:30:00.000-05:00

FALL PILOT #3: The Secret Circle

NETWORK: The CW

SUPPOSED SELLING POINT: Teen witches are back, yo.

POSSIBLE SELLING POINT FOR ME: Campy camp, primed for a Very Special Halloween Episode. Return of The Craft?

This is another show based on a young adult series. In fact, it's by the same author (L.J. Smith) as The Vampire Diaries books. Today, I connected the dots and realized that both are, in fact, from the early 90's. Color me uninformed. I mean, do you even know how many times I've referred to The Vampire Diaries as just a quick, moneymaking attempt to capitalize on Twilight's success? Nope. Dead wrong. Spread the blood like mustard, let the fangers lick it up. If you've seen The Vampire Diaries, or any other supernaturally inclined teen crush generator on the CW, you should know what to expect from this one. A trendy soundtrack, a wardrobe that makes kids spring to the mall, and a gothic, gravity-hungry melodramatic tendency that kills most opportunities for pure camp (but makes a great clip for The Soup). Witches are the new werewolves, werewolves were the new zombies, and zombies were the new vampires; but that's not the point. The point is: HOW DOES THOMAS DEKKER LOOK FIVE YEARS YOUNGER THAN IN KABOOM? That's him on the far left of the cast photo. Outrageous. Truly. You give that boy a haircut and suddenly he's a perfectly average teen? I barely recognized him as our heroine's star-destined love interest. I mean, I liked Gregg Araki's dirtied up Dekker. He knew camp. This one is all serious about making water droplets fly all over the place and leaning in really close for the major moment of magically hormonal tension.

There's not much point discussing this further. As teen shows go, it's not so bad. Our new girl, Cassie (Brittany Robertson) moves to California and is told, flat out, by a gaggle of characters that she is, in fact a full-blooded witch. Very little build-up. Cut to the chase. No slow process of self-discovery or any sort of Smallville set-up where it takes 15 years for Superman to finally realize he can fly. This is a good thing, I suppose. In the new little little co-ed coven (titular Circle), we've got our unstable, power-hungry Fairuza Balk-type and our sweetly sweet proper good witch. What's Cassie? Powerful. Destined. Bound to be manipulated. There will be combat boots. There will be cute little leather jackets. There will be drama. Secret, magical drama. In this episode? A spell no more complicated than yellint "STOP THE STORM" over and over again at the heavens...

SECOND EPISODE?: Let's not kid ourselves, I probably will at some point...

WILL IT MAKE IT TO A SECOND SEASON?: How long did they run One Tree Hill? Yeah, this will live.

Review: Contagion

2011-09-15T09:42:00.003-05:00

Open on: a too-convincingly suffering Gwyneth Paltrow. No makeup, sweat on her brow, hair frazzled, face hollow, coughing and pallid in an airport bar. This is a film about an epidemic. We know that she isn’t just sick. We know this isn’t a common cold or the result of too much time spent flying over the Pacific. We know that she’s a carrier, that she’s dying, that her death is inevitable. We think of the human beings herded like cattle into closed cabins alongside her. Using the same tin can restroom. The flight attendants picking up the garbage her hands have touched. The germs tracked everywhere. Carry-on baggage lifted, tickets exchanged, bacteria like a cloudburst spraying with each poorly covered cough. These people will all die. They will get off of the airplane and proliferate. They will use public toilets, buy food, grab a drink, they will hire limos and climb into cabs, they will go home to houses filled with family members, apartments filled with people, with loved ones, with children. They will go to work, their children will go to school and travel on buses, on trains, in carpools. They’ll think it’s “no big deal.” They’ll load up on vitamin C, cough suppressants, suck on drops. They will touch their faces. They will cough in their hands. They will blow their noses. They will not wash after each of these incidents, in between all of them. Later, they will seize. They will freeze up, their muscles will spasm, they will foam at the mouth and collapse without warning, biting down on tongues before someone even reaches to call 911...

finish this review @

Seen & Heard: Florence + the Machine

2011-09-15T09:35:00.002-05:00

I'm behind on listening to the new Florence + the Machine single "What the Water Gave Me." I know this. But I did it now, and it's pretty fantastic in that I SUDDENLY WANT TO BOHO UP MY WARDROBE BUT ALSO HAVE A ONE PERSON DANCE PARTY sort of way. Florence Welch is some sort of harmonious pairing of Kate Bush and Annie Lennox and that, my friend, is a good thing for pop. The new album is expected sometime in November. Looking forward to it. Observe:

Fall Pilot #2: Up All Night

2011-09-14T00:03:00.000-05:00

FALL PILOT #2: Up All Night

NETWORK: NBC

SUPPOSED SELLING POINT: Thursday Night Comedy on NBC is so good that it needs to expand onto Wednesday. Will Arnett! Maya Rudolph! Christina Applegate!

POSSIBLE SELLING POINT FOR ME: Will Arnett! Maya Rudolph! No laugh track!

Dear internet,

I'm terrified of babies.
There. I said it. Now you know. Feel free to judge and consider me inhuman and so on and so on, it's already brought about more than one spectacularly awkward situation at work. Heeeey, what do you do when you wander into work expecting no babies and find a baby right in your path? Oh, and yeah, it's your boss's baby and you really want to be nice but your mouth pretty much just turned into a claymation desert. Do you put your stuff away and stand completely silent with eyes the size of fists for the next five, unending minutes as your co-workers turn into cooing, disturbing versions of themselves? Yes, yes, you do. Because you're me. And eventually someone tells you to run, and you are saved.
Needless to say: I'm not really into the whole "baby" thing. Don't get me wrong, there's definitely a fine amount of comedy to be mined from improper parenting. Fox scored big last season with Raising Hope, namely because that show is only tangentially about babies and happens to feature the insanely awesome Cloris Leachman letting it all hang out. Gem, I tell you, GEM. I'd hoped that with Will Arnett and Maya Rudolph on board, Up All Night would be a new slightly off-kilter take on the awkwardness of child rearing. Somehow, I didn't really factor "the baby" being an issue. She is. Up All Night starts off suggesting shenanigans, and quickly backslides into something unfunny and loaded with lady show cliches. We jump from a mildly amusing scene in which Applegate and Arnett reflect on the positives of having a child come the nursing home years and suddenly we're at a cringe-worthy moment of physical comedy in which Applegate is bending over backwards to zip her pencil skirt over her post-pregnancy stomach. Uh huh. It got worse. Enter the baby-centric changes of heart: the "I love our baby" and "I think about her every waking second" and so on and so on leading through to the moment at which our protagonists realize their lives have changed. Oh, did I mention this happens after one of the blandest drunk party montage scenes I've seen since Sex and the City 2? Because it does. (And yes, Maya Rudolph gets to do her pseudo-Whitney Houston over-belting not once, or twice, but three times as I recall. I didn't like it when she did it on SNL, why fit it in here?)

And then I remembered: this show isn't going to be for me. This show is going to be all babies because all three of the stars have had new additions to their families within the last year or so. As they film this there's undoubtedly a room just off set in which their mewling spawn are all under the watchful eye of some studio intern/nanny. They have this shit on their brains, man. On their brains. A show about parenting starring three fresh parents probably won't shoot off in the meta directions of 30 Rock or Community. It may be time for me to walk away...

If you take nothing else from this? Watch Raising Hope. You'll like it. I swear.

SECOND EPISODE?: I'll consider it ONLY BECAUSE I KNOW PILOTS SOMETIMES SUCK.

WILL IT MAKE IT TO A SECOND SEASON?: It's too early to tell...

Fall Pilot #1: Ringer

2011-09-13T22:20:00.002-05:00

FALL PILOT #1: Ringer

NETWORK: The CW

SUPPOSED SELLING POINT: Sarah Michelle Gellar returns to television. Sarah Michelle Gellar plays twins. Sarah Michelle Gellar engages in intrigue. Sarah Michelle Gellar brings a show with real adults to the CW.

POSSIBLE SELLING POINT FOR ME: Being able to find a mystery that's not as embarrassing to be addicted to? Because I really feel ridiculous watching Pretty Little Liars...in the best way.

There's been a lot of excited chatter about Buffy the Vampire Slayer's return to network television. In the years since Joss Whedon's show came to an end, the show has grown exponentially within canons cult and academic alike. Buffy the series is a thing, Gellar the actress? Well, in my opinion: not so much. While I've enjoyed my share of Buffy, Gellar the Sunnydale hamster (and many of the cast members) always struck me as rather here nor there, working with material that played to their individual strengths and happened to have them in the right place at the right time. Ringer doesn't suggest anything to the contrary at this point, but it does seem to be a good match for the now 34-year-old actress. Here, Gellar gets the chance to flex her soapy muscles and take a stab at playing twins: Bridget and Siobhan. Bridget is a little closer to Buffy level casual. She's a former stripper and recovering addict currently on the run from a dangerous killer, yes, but a likable, potentially talkative former stripper. Bridget is scheduled to testify in court and is under FBI watch, before she can do that, though, she takes off, escaping to East Hampton with the help of her estranged sister Siobhan. Siobhan appears to have it all. She's the cold, calculating, manipulative Sarah Michelle Gellar we got a glimpse at in Cruel Intentions. One thing leads to another, and after a great shot featuring the twins side by side in an infinity hall of mirrors, a supposed suicide finds Bridget assuming Siobhan's life in full. The noir melodrama is palpable, the improbability equally so. Still, Ringer is gripping in a B-movie, conspiracy sort of way. It's easy to get involved in, namely because we find ourselves quickly worried that Bridget's lies will be revealed as she attempts to slip into Siobhan's pristine Louboutins. There will be false deaths, there will be identity games, Gellar will look concerned, and I'm sure there will no doubt be twist after twist of the "I'm not who you think I am" sort thrown in down the line. Right now, it promises evening soap hijinks and delivers in its first episode on all the extramarital affairs and high society scandals your little heart could possibly desire. Ringer is what happens when you cross-pollinate Gossip Girl and Damages. That's not a bad thing, really. It just means it's going to be like crack for the female 18-45 demographic.

SECOND EPISODE?: Yeah, I'll probably check it out again.

WILL IT MAKE IT TO A SECOND SEASON?: Yes. Undoubtedly.

I Just Like These Posters...

2011-09-10T10:47:00.000-05:00

Guys, I just like these posters. Let's admire the cleverness of the design for Young Adult and hope that it bodes well for the film itself. I mean, that's a pitch perfect approximation of so many of the book jackets of my youth. Now, let's scroll down and look at the simplicity of The Rum Diary's poster design. Bottle after bottle artfully arranged with a clean, italicized serif font on white. Very nice. Almost a stripped down companion piece to last year's I'm Still Here art.

Seen & Heard: Wild Flag

2011-09-10T10:27:00.002-05:00

As if Carrie Brownstein's life progress report weren't already enough to put most other lives to shame, this year she had to go conquer comedy on IFC's Portlandia and then remind us that she's still a pretty rad guitarist with her new supergroup Wild Flag. "Romance" is the first single off the debut album, and now it has a video that's simply a whole lot of fun.

Bonjour, Girl

2011-09-10T09:39:00.002-05:00

Sometimes, it's the little things in life. Like, a simple, sassy voice-over thrown over a Disney song. You didn't know you needed a version of Belle who sounds a little like Harvey Fierstein, but yep, you did. "Bonjour, girl!"

Playlist: Boogie Nights

2011-09-10T09:31:00.001-05:00

Occasionally, I like to remind you that most of my more rigorous blogging occurs not here, but at loveandsqualorfilm.com. That's the place for all things cinema, including movie-inspired playlists. Because I'm feeling particularly disco-y lately, I figured I'd repost Love & Squalor #12 here for easy consumption. So here you have it:

We're your 17-year-old piece of gold, baby. We never take our skates off, and we're going to be a big, bright, shining star. See this system here? This is hi-fi...high fidelity. A 19 song mixtape inspired by Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights.