Coming Attractions - December 2009

Since I haven't been up to date on my film going I'll be reverting to something I used to do in college in one of the student groups I was in. I will check out trailers for upcoming films and make a brief'ish synopsis on each to encourage or discourage you the reader as to what to go and see. These aren't all necessarily to be released in December, but in the future I may make the attempt to make these monthly updates more relevant to the month they detail.



Made For Each Other
Dec 2nd, 2009

Although released in April of this year, Made For Each Other has just recently been Nationally released. It includes Patrick Warburton, the Masterson brothers, Bijou Phillips, and Oscar Nominee George Segal this cast alone makes the film look very entertaining for me.

The trailer tells of a husband (Chris Masterson) who has yet to consummate his marriage of 3 months, when his sister-in-law helps him with his dilemma and adds to it. Cheating aside, there's the subtle play between the characters and well timed phrasing that, for those with wit, will enjoy.

Kick Ass
April 2010

I remember finding one of the first issues of this comic by Mark Millar online prior to its wider release. I had also read Millar's Wanted shortly before and in my head I was wondering if it was being written exclusively to be released as a film. Although I thought Wanted was fun, it felt like they took the heart out of the story just to appease mainstream audiences.

I look forward to Kick-Ass because it's the average guy in a costume with nothing but a balls out attitude. The trailer sorta makes me laugh because I remembered this site that tracks Real Life Superheroes. Also, Mc Lovin' makes an appearance as Red Mist (a gun toting vigilante with a slight emo look). Should it do disservice to the comic, it should in the least be fun.



Up In The Air
Dec 2009

I enjoy him, but I'm not a huge fan of George Clooney. Sometimes his smugness just makes me want to hit him right between the eyes with a Nine-Iron. However, films like Welcome To Collinwood, Syriana, Three Kings, O Brother, Where Art Thou? and more make him just likable enough for me.

Up In The Air details a gentleman who is outsourced to fire others for a living which causes him to travel frequently for work. Over the course of the film his individualism is questioned by a trainee as he doesn't relate to others and is relatively isolated. Introduce a female lead love interest and the film's premise is complete. While it's not new ground to cover it is a different setting for it be displayed. It'd make a decent date movie, but otherweise wait till it's on cable or Netflix.

Heatmiser - Mic City Sons

Heatmiser - Mic City Sons


Youtube User 1:

I feel like I mss the 90's, even though I wasn't born until 95. Like I was there or something.

Youtube User 2:
same here, we were born as the era ended

Still from Heatmiser music video "Blackout"

I think those comments speak for themselves because I am somewhat speechless.


When people talk about musicians that they were sad to see go young, I think that Elliott Smith is at or near the top in my Top 5 [required High Fidelity reference]. His music has the ability to impact emotions very distinctly and with pinpoint accuracy in a very concentrated way. There have been times that I would pick up my mp3 player and scroll through albums to listen to and happen upon Figure 8, Roman Candle, or Either/Or and think that "Man it's been a long time since I'd listened to that". Immediately I'd cue it up and within a song or two switch to another album to avoid becoming somber, but it'd never deter me from wanting to hear more of his work or ever go back and revisit it.

Heatmiser was formed during by Neil Gust and Smith during their college years in Massachusetts. I had no implication to think that it would be much varied from his local fare and picked up Dead Air and Mic City Sons intent to hear more of Smiths breathy-soft vocals. I was hit from the side by a Mac Truck mixture of pop/rock/grunge/punk. The vocals were shared between the two as were the songwriting credits. I had to push back from Dead Air and use Mic City Sons as the pool in which to dip my toe in the water to get used to this change in perspective on an artist that I had enjoyed in one way for so long.


The strongest songs on Mic City Sons in track listing order for me would have to be Get Lucky, Plainclothes Man, Eagle Eye, See You Later, and Half Right. Plainclothes Man is reminiscent of Miss Misery and the arrangement of Half Right is more full than Smith's solo recordings that I've heard previously.

1. "Get Lucky" (Elliot Smith)
2. "Plainclothes Man" (Smith)
3. "Low-Flying Jets" (Neil Gust)
   
4. "Rest My Head Against The Wall" (Gust)
5. "The Fix Is In" (Smith)
6. "Eagle Eye" (Gust)
7. "Cruel Reminder" (Gust)
8. "You Gotta Move" (Smith)
9. "Pop in G" (Gust)
10. "Blue Highway" (Gust)
11. "See You Later" (Smith)
12. "Half Right" (hidden track) (Smith)

Overall Rating- 75%
averaged between 66% and 83%

Album Approval Rating System
I've created a way for me to gauge my approval of an album by passing or eliminating the songs after multiple listenings. It goes as such; if I listen to the album over and over and on repeated listenings a song doesn't get skipped it obviously passes. If I get in a habit of skipping a song, it fails. If I listen to it sometimes and other times skip it, the score is figured once with the songs skipped and once without the songs skipped and then averaged for an accumulated score. Figure this though, for the majority of pop albums that even achieve gold record status, there might be two songs on that nine or ten song album that are heard or are even passable. [that's a 20% to 22% approval rating]. It's easier for me to quantify to others how and why I like an album.

I Caught Reel Big Fish

I recently picked up Why Do They Rock So Hard? and thought about just doing a minor write up. Although the album has been out for the better part of 11 years (October 20th, 1998), I had neglected listening to it until recently. I wasn't surprised to find out that I'd like it, just surprised that I'd be endeared to it so quickly. The repartee in each of Reel Big Fish's songs is great and can be passed over by many critics, but what I find is RBF's most often overlooked asset is their instrumental arrangements. "Victory Over Peter Bones" is one such song that I had on repeat anytime I was in the car, "Sayonara Senorita" (Cheer Up!) and "241" (Turn the Radio Off) are other great examples.

There are always bands that you enjoy for a variety of factors that once you attempt to describe it to another, you are at a loss for words. You try hard, are patient, and expose said bands to friends, loved ones, and then you start to unleash it on to strangers when all else fails. I had done this multiple times with little luck.

I know that Ska is difficult for many people to get into. My first forays into it were met with a slight resistance. It was it's upbeat nature and style pulled me into it's relentless grasp. The mix of Blues and Jazz with the walking bass lines, the often flip between Major and Minor keys, it all just seemed to work for me. So cue ripple dissolve to flashback and chimes or harp.

Without jumping too deeply into my own past history, RBF was like that person that made the transition from friend to girlfriend/boyfriend and then back to friend, it was the way things best worked out. I picked up Turn the Radio Off in '98 just prior to my Freshman year of High School due to the recent release of the film BASEketball. It was one of the better choices I made during that time period. It was a very big pick-me up for that which was coming would be a harsh couple of years, but then that's High School.

To make a brief summary of their albums as correlated to my life would be:
1998
Turn the Radio Off-Just starting High School
2002
Cheer Up!-Recently finished H.S., helped to ease break-up with a girlfriend
2005
Everything Sucks-My RBF get-to-know-you-better-album
We're Not Happy 'til You're Not Happy-Stressful period during College, my break-up with RBF for a period of time
2007
Monkeys For Nothing and the Chimps for Free-Get back together album with RBF and have fun
2009
Fame, Fortune, and Fornication-Hangout album (I'm indifferent)
Why Do They Rock So Hard?-Final Studio Album that I hadn't heard


Reel Big Fish has been that relentlessly peppy bastard who's so openly optimistic that you'd just like to shoot him in the head. The guy has no reason to be optimistic due to the random negative events that have happened to him, but he just is. I enjoy their ethos of a self-deprecating sense of humor and non-entirely-sincere-pessimism. That outlook makes me laugh because no matter how upset I get, the juxtaposition of mocking lyrics and upbeat melody get me out of that negative funk.

12300 And Still Going

I had a couple of potential updates in the works but I've halted them temporarily. And I also apologize for my lack of updates as per the schedule I set out on but I will resume as soon as possible.

I purchased roughly 45 new albums while I was out in San Francisco at Amoeba Records in the Haight area. So currently I am working on getting my music collection completely updated and listening to many of the new albums in their entirety. There should be some new material there to document, much of which will be from albums that are years old, but good music is good music.

I should also be updating on the book front as I am going through a ravenous period of reading. Currently, I'm between three books and just finished three (two of which I purchased and read during my trip). In my current cue is Half Asleep In Frog's Pajamas, Spook Country, and a book by Maugham. I recently updated my book list also so I'm doing well on tracking right now of some of my goals.

It's been a while since I've been to the cinema so I hope to make that trip sometime within the next week or so. I haven't been watching movies so much as I've been watching television shows to catch up on culture buzz. I refused to watch Lost and now upon hearing that it'll be ending for good I finally feel comfortable watching the series through. There's a logos that I hold where I am uninterested by major components of main stream culture, or becoming part of that shared experience as it is happening. I prefer to witness it from a more objective viewpoint. This isn't to say that I don't share that experience all the time, I've engaged various things from time to time, I just don't like being part of the herd as it goes from point to point. I like to take the short cut sometimes or enjoy blazing a trail all my own and taking "the long way home".

I will say this though, Hurley is probably my favorite character due to his reactions to some of the events as well as his quotes.

So I will be back with plenty of material soon enough.

Hugo "Hurley" Reyes-
Look, I don't know about you, but things have really sucked for me lately, and I could really use a victory. So let's get one, dude! Let's get this car started. Let's look death in the face and say: "Whatever, man!"

Pete Yorn - Nightcrawler

Spurred by my relentless need to have a meticulously organized music collection, I came across Nightcrawler during another monotonous archive and importing session into iTunes recently. As with other albums in my collection, I purchased this with the all too good intention of becoming a further devotee to well written music (based upon artist namesake alone in this case). I think I listened to it briefly before shelving it for other albums I had recently purchased at the time.

Aptly called Nightcrawler, Pete Yorn’s third studio album seems to be fishing for a concurrent theme that most listeners wouldn’t pick up on. In interviews prior to the widespread release of the album Mr. Yorn let it slip that he saw his first three albums as a trilogy of sorts but not in the sense of Star Wars or the Godfather series. Musicforthemorningafter, Day I Forgot, and Nightcrawler were a concept that Yorn had as the 24-hour elapse of a day. With five years of time between the release of his debut album and Nighcrawler’s release, I don’t think he has rushed the pace of this trilogy or sacrificed any quality of the crafting for his music. Other artists could likewise follow in his steps of keeping quality high while completing ambitious projects, Sufjan I’m looking at you on this one. (I’ll give credit 50 is a big number for a project.)

AMC’s pick off of Nightcrawler includes “For Us”, “Maybe I’m Right”, and “Splendid Isloation" rightly so given the ability for those songs to be used in mix mediums. I can’t disagree either because if I wanted to sell music from this album, those three songs are the ones that I’d choose also. They fit perfectly for commercial spots, television shows, and filler for movies. This isn’t to say that the songwriting suffers or the composition lacks substance to his music a pop hit, it might be more the contrary. Mr. Yorn’s music has been in the adult contemporary for so long due in part to the fact that it has substance. Unfortunately, in Pop circles the majority of what sells is catchy, repetitive, and has something of a 5^th Grade comprehension level, The Beatles had this formula down perfectly.

Yorn has the uncanny ability to sequence an album so that its songs are able to flow. [Insert quote from Nick Hornby’s, “High Fidelity” here] Nightcrawler reminds me so much of Steve Miller’s Fly Like An Eagle in how enjoyable of an album it is to listen to from start to finish. The first few times that I listened completely through Nightcrawler, I didn’t realize that I had made it through the album until the 3^rd or 4^th listening of “Vampyre.” There are a variety of styles to the songs included on this album; “Undercover”, “Policies”, and “Alive” with their slightly reminiscent overly produced late 90’s carry over. “The Man” (with backing vocals by Natalie Maines) comes off as an obvious soothing country sound. Nightcrawler comes together as a very solid album.

I anticipate listening to his newest solo release Back and Forth and also Break Up (later this year) with actress/“singer” Scarlett Johansson.

First Post + Whitburn Song Duration

According to the Whitburn Project, average song length is approximately 3 minutes and 36 seconds long in 2008. I'll be using this information in future posts sporadically.

I also plan on sprucing the page up a little more once I get the enthusiasm to do so. Posts will be reviews/essays with some insight put into research and cross topic correlations (if I deem worthwhile). There will be the occasional YOU GOTTA SEE THIS! or OMG! but due to the nature of this blog, I will try to keep the fanboy/fangirl spamming to a minimum. I would eventually like to write for publication but that's a pipedream. The least I could do is add my 2 cents here and there and hope that it influences people to expand their horizons a little.

Updates will be sporadic as I am coming to grips with my schedule. I will attempt to maintain a bi-monthly update when I get into the swing of things, it also all depends upon source material. I can't update if I haven't read, listened, watched, or researched. If there is anything I can do to improve my writing or style to make it more available to people please feel free to comment as such. If I disagree I may as well tell you to bugger-off.

Thank you.