http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Thu, 3 Jul 2003 01:19:36 EDT http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding. Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/07/03/011936.php Pieter KA recent conversation about Depeche Mode got me listening to some of their albums again, Violator in particular. What a fine, fine album. I'll never tire of this record. The now worn cassette which I've had since I bought it in 1990; that beautiful, austere cover: the red flower on the black background...the small grey field in the corner and the cursive title. I was listening to it again this morning in the car; threading my way up the 5 and on to the 134 west. "Waiting for the Night" came on. I always seem to listen to this song twice. I started thinking about what a masterpiece of a song this is. I started thinking that in a way, it's got something in common with some of what The Beach Boys were doing on Pet Sounds: taking pop music and turning it into pure art; reinventing the form. The Beach Boys wrote exquisitely arranged songs using all sorts of unconventional instrumentation, densely constructed vocal parts, and unorthodox structures. They defied pop conventions even while writing stunning pop music. Depeche Mode managed the same thing, except their defiance of tradition lies elsewhere. In stripping the beat out of the tune altogether, it becomes somehow more naked; more honest. In contrast to the Beach Boys' rich strata of sound, "Waiting for the Night" is built largely around a very spare synth arpeggio, with David Gahan's vocals providing almost all of the melody. Fleeting details appear and disappear--a tintinnabulating arpeggio works in counterpoint to the main line--a sort of oboe sounding instrument is briefly introduced, recalling the earlier single "Everything Counts;" ghostly shreds of Gahan's voice shimmer in the background. In many ways, the music anticipates some of the very uncommercial ambient electronic music that was soon to come while remaining firmly wedded to a very traditional pop song format, with a melody so plainly beautiful and direct that it's impossible for me to not want to hear it again and again. The bridge in particular is otherworldly. All of that is fine. The main thing is, it's a moving piece of music...as is the whole album; almost conceptual without obviously appearing to be so; without trying to be anything other than what it is: a collection of great, honest songs whose sum total is even greater than its parts.[Adapted from an original post here] Music6701@blogcritics.org Thu, 3 Jul 2003 01:19:36 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2002/11/15/011245.php Pieter K...and although Breathless is one of my favorite movies ever, it's not making it on to my list today. It could tomorrow, it might have yesterday, but today, here's how I'm feeling.Ran directed by Akira Kurosawa: He's made a good half a dozen films that I consider to be masterpieces, and a couple dozen more that are great (with a few that are slight but noble fun, i.e., The Hidden Fortress, which is Star Wars' grandfather). It's an impossible choice really, but in deciding to adhere to my arbitrary criterion of the day--only one film by any given director--this is the one I'm picking. As I suggested on the blog, I also consider this to be the single most successful adaptation of King Lear (set of course in feudal Japan!). A completely staggering film.The Seventh Seal directed by Ingmar Bergman: a poignant, meditative film that covers a lot of philosophical ground. It's at once brooding and playful, rich in mythological and historical allusion, inhabiting a world in which J.L. Borges, G.G. Marquez, Milan Kundera as well as Shakespeare and Goethe would be right at home. It's probably Max von Sydow's greatest part. I even once named my now-gone cat after his character. Sadly my cat was not a chess-player (yes, this is the film in which the protagonist plays chess with Death). It was also parodied to fine effect by Woody Allen in Love and Death.Apocalypse Now directed by Francis Ford Coppola: I wrote a bit about this a few days ago. I was happy to see (via Eric Olsen on this site) that the British Film Institute voted it the best film of the last 25 years. I agree. Any of the qualifications that lingered around this film have finally been banished I think, and it's claimed its rightful place as one of cinema's great films.The Rules of the Game directed by Jean Renoir: Another director of whose work it's painfully difficult to pick a clear favorite, The Rules of the Game is a fantastically rich film, deeply nuanced and at the same time utterly accessible and engaging. It manages to fearlessly address weighty social and moral issues while never unravelling into self-indulgent didacticism (Oliver Stone take note). It's a humane and sympathetic film, that is as subtly dark as it is comical.Chungking Express directed by Wong Kar-Wai: From the director of the more widely-seen and beautiful In the Mood for Love, this film--set amongst disaffected Hong Kong residents in the 90s--launched Wong Kar-Wai into the directorial limelight. Upon it's release, Tony Rayns of Sight and Sound declared that seeing Chungking Express for the first time was akin to seeing Godard's Breathless for the first time in 1961. The effect is indeed breathtaking. The narrative is loose but that isn't where this film finds its greatest strengths. Watching this film is akin to learning to see anew, almost as if the medium of film had been reinvented. This, while remaining completely engrossing and accessible. A contemporary masterpiece.Aguirre, the Wrath of God directed by Werner Herzog: A harrowing film, admirable nearly as much for the sheer ambition that went into filming it as for the film itself. The narrative involves a company of Spanish conquistadors on an imperiled search for El Dorado. The film plumbs the depths of hubris and obssession and contains some of the most astonishing shots ever committed to celluloid, including one that effectively reduces humanity to little more than an ant-trail. To first-time viewers, comparisons to Apocalypse Now may be inevitable. A first-rate soundtrack by Popol Vuh is a plus as well.La Jetee directed by Chris Marker: Sometimes considered more a film essayist than traditional director, Marker forged a half-hour film that is dazzling, unsettling and deeply thoughtful, even as it is, really, a post-apocalyptic sci-fi adventure and love story. I'm not sure if I should reveal the most salient characteristic of this film; it would be giving something essential away. Let's just say that it takes huge liberties with the basic assumptions of the medium itself; a risky proposition, but one that works. It's a briliant experiment rich in theoretical implication that raises a lot of questions...even as it is enfolds classic ideas of narrative. It was the inspiration behind Terry Gilliam's Twelve Monkeys. Sunset Boulevard directed by Billy Wilder: I've sometimes thought that this is the perfect film: propelled by sterling narrative, it works on many levels. Nearly as much about film and storytelling themselves as it is vanity, age and death, this noir classic wears its darkness lightly, wielding a shimmering comic edge of wit and intelligence. An essential film I think, by anyone's reckoning.Once Upon a Time in the West directed by Sergio Leone: Leone's masterpiece. Distinct from other westerns in its scope and grandeur, it tells an epic tale of avarice, love, faith, rememberance and forgetting. The opening sequence is a gem, and the closing gunfight an unparalleled exercise in tension, where time seems to go elastic. Time figures into the film in a crucial way, and Leone consumes vast tracts of it. Shot to the soundtrack by Ennio Morricone, the film evinces a certain musicality in its pacing through movements, from lento to allegretto to presto and so forth. A final touch of excellence is the casting: amongst fellow players who are uniformly great, Henry Fonda plays a merciless killer, his blue eyes sparkling under the brim of his black hat. Epic stuff.To Live directed by Zhang Yimou: Rich in metaphor and deeply immersed in history, To Live takes a panoramic view of a couple's fortunes and misfortunes through the profound upheavals of 20th Century China, reflecting on privelage and privation and the consequences of choice and habit. Exquisitely composed and shot in a Realist fashion, it's a finely wrought and open-hearted film that's hugely affecting. Not generally considered as towering a film as some of its predecessors, I feel it's his most completely moving film. Video1844@blogcritics.org Fri, 15 Nov 2002 01:12:45 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2002/11/07/153321.php Pieter KThis is an expanded version of a review that appeared in this post, from this blog. The show was in Jersey City at Uncle Joe's on September 14.Next up: Rye Coalition. A Jersey City band--and proud of it--that has gained limited national recognition for RAWKING. This band does rock. Really rock. I had been briefed on their schtick and was skeptical, as I tend to be leery of riff-heavy rock. I ended up being very impressed. Kind of like Soundgarden but less serious and more unabashed in their rockingness...more willing to let out their hair (if they had any long hair) and just rock. Think AC/DC meets Led Zeppelin through a Seattle circa-90 filter. Kinda like Mudhoney but stronger riffs and less gratuitous fuzz. Highlights of the night were "Prosthetic aesthetic," an epic dirge built around interwoven, circular guitar riffs (they're a quintet now) and a stunningly heavy rhythmic undertow that recalled some of the earlier Rollins Band material; and, a raucous cover of AC/DC's "Whole Lotta Rosie."Gratuitous lead guitar wankery was restrained, with only a few relatively brief indulgences. This band isn't about dazzling you with chops, it's about pounding you with superbly rendered rock and roll that doesn't sound cheap or overly retro. They're worth the price of admission alone just for the singer, a true front-man if ever there was one. No shoe-gazing here. Tour dates (courtesy of Eric Olsen):Fri. Nov 1st: Brooklyn, NY @ Warsaw (Tiger Style CMJ Showcase w/ James Chance, Broken Spindles, The Mercury Program, Lo-Hi & The Dears) Sat. Nov 2nd: Chicago, IL @ Fireside Bowl Sun. Nov 3rd: Omaha, NE @ Sokol Hall Mon. Nov 4th: Lawrence, KS @ Replay Lounge Tue. Nov 5th: Denver, CO @ Climax Lounge Wed. Nov 6th: Salt Lake City, UT @ Urban Lounge Thu. Nov 7th: Portland, OR @ The Blackbird Fri. Nov 8th: Vancouver, BC @ Picadilly Pub Sat. Nov 9th: Seattle, WA @ Chop Suey Tue. Nov 12th: San Francisco, CA @ The Covered Wagon (w/ Drunkhorse) Thu. Nov 14th: Los Angeles, CA @ Spaceland Fri. Nov 15th: Las Vegas, NV @ The Rock (w/ Nebula) Sat. Nov 16th: Mesa, AZ @ The Mason Jar Tue. Nov 19th: Oklahoma City, OK @ Green Door Wed. Nov 20th: Kansas City, MO @ Davey's Uptown (w/ The Gadjits) Thu. Nov 21st: St. Paul, MN @ Big V's (w/ Soviettes) Fri. Nov 22nd: Milwaukee, WI @ Cactus Club Sat. Nov 23rd: Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Tavern Music1736@blogcritics.org Thu, 7 Nov 2002 15:33:21 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2002/11/06/173558.php Pieter KThe following essay originally appeared here, a companion page to this blog. There was an interesting piece on NPR's On the Media last week about the value of good Public Relations and Jesse James. The guest was T.J. Stiles, author of a new biography of James called Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War.The show was primarily about how James was able to manipulate contemporary media into painting a favorable portrait of him as a kind of heroic resistor of the "radical Republican administration in Washington"; the former Unionists in other words. This, in Missouri, torn apart along factional lines, where there was no clean division between Confederate and Union sympathies. James, with the help of newspaper editors such as John Edwards, was cast in a political role, as Confederate guerilla, a bushwhacker, enemy of Grant and the corrupt Union. He "was polarizing and dividing the people in his own community...rallying one element of this bitterly divided community against another" under a banner of noble resistance, a resistance that was, ultimately, a media fabrication. Stiles argues that in actuality, James was a barbarous outlaw. A media-savvy outlaw who would at times leave press releases at the site of his crimes. His 'good works' were largely a fiction, the mantle of a Robin Hood myth.Following the Northfield, Minnesota robbery of 1876, and a three year semi-retirement, they picked up where they left off in 1879 robbing trains - but Missouri had changed. Culturally, the Confederates had won the war of reconstruction in Missouri; both U.S. senators and Missouri congressmen were former Confederates. The mythologized image of James as noble rebel had lost its nobility. Jesse was later assassinated by one of his own men, in a conspiracy with the governor of Missouri that shocked Missourians. The newspapers lashed the state government for it and public shock gave way to sympathy, leading to the acquittal of Frank. Retrospectively, this softening of the facts surrounding the life of Jesse "cleared the way for Jesse James's second act in the media -- the life of the completely unpolitical man who was the defender of the small farmer against the rapacious railroads -- a role he had never played during his life" said Stiles.Neither role reflected a true sense of mission, and it's an interesting revaluation of James. Stripped of the media-generated image, he was no more than a daring and audacious - even psychotic - criminal.Contrast James with the fictional character of Josey Wales, in Clint Eastwood's under-appreciated western from 1976, The Outlaw Josey Wales. In it, Eastwood plays Wales, a peaceful farmer in Missouri whose family is murdered and his home burned by Union renegades at the close of the Civil War. His life in ashes, Wales polishes his guns, practices his shooting and embarks on a mission to avenge the crimes. Abjuring a life of the apolitical homesteader, he fights the Union loyalists, right through the surrender of the Confederacy. He becomes, legally, an outlaw. Throughout the film Wales' motives are clear: the viewer understands that this is an outlaw whose motives are rooted in a notion of justice. He does not fight for property or personal gain, nor does he camouflage his fight in self-aggrandizing terms. Wales becomes precisely what James was not: a man driven by an instinctual notion of right and wrong, fighting to avenge an unassailably atrocious deed. It is only circumstantially that he is fighting to defend the Confederacy's abstract value of independence from a corrupt Union. It is ironic that Wales ends up politicized by virtue of his mission, by the mere engagement with his quest. He is transformed from a law-abiding quiet man to an outlaw, an outlaw in the service of a particular justice. For Wales, ultimately, this justice serves his own aggrieved self, and it is only by association that it may serve some external, political definition of justice. That it does in fact serve the Confederacy is a secondary consideration, one that has little bearing on our perception of Wales as a character, but does distinguish him still more from James' ultimately shallow engagement with politics as a claimed motive. We sympathize with Wales regardless of what we know the values of the Confederacy to be. James supporters in post-war Missouri sympathized with James because of the values of the Confederacy. In the film, political justice and how it's perceived has everything to do with how Wales' contemporaries in Missouri might have viewed his actions and not with the motives of the character himself. He is politicized despite himself. His war is personal, and it is certainly not shaped for public consumption via the media. This is underscored towards the end of the film when he takes up with a group of settlers and attempts to regenerate some semblance of his lost life. The message is clear: Wales is not a political agent, nor is he a professional rebel.Josey Wales, and not Jesse James, is the true, if fictional, personification of the James myth. Wales embodies what James attempted to fabricate for himself: an image of the noble rebel, fighting the good fight, a kind of latter-day Robin Hood. James' image is a falsehood while Wales' image is an authentic one. It is the honest fulfillment of what Stiles calls "a need that people have, that American culture has, for a rebel - for someone who resists the powers that be...this heroic, defiant figure." Even in the model of Robin Hood, Wales wins the day, lending his expertise and the still-warm albeit deeply submerged embers of his heart to this band of settlers; he is, in effect, giving to the poor. For James--Stiles argues--giving to the poor largely amounted to gambling heavily, "and at best [paying] handsomely when he stopped at a farm house anonymously for a...night's rest and for a meal; that's about as close as he came to ever giving money to the poor."For this alone, for providing what I would suggest is an authentic depiction of the myth of the heroic rebel, The Outlaw Josey Wales is worth revisiting. Video1715@blogcritics.org Wed, 6 Nov 2002 17:35:58 EST