Konsum: Turkey Parade
November 27th, 2007
The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford
Dullsville and then some. Artfully shot, for sure, but ripping off Malick isn’t as easy as it looks. The voice-over narration, always describing what we already saw, doesn’t create openings but locks the movie down even more than the airless, repetitive scenes between paranoid outlaws. Sam Shepard disappears much too early, and soon thereafter, the drama completely stalls. After thirty minutes, I was begging for Casey Affleck to shoot Brad Pitt in the head already, but there were two more hours to go. Andrew Dominik, 2007. *
3:10 to Yuma
Now, this is how you do a western: engaging, exciting, and steeped in sepia tones. Russell Crowe plays a bandit who has to be brought to justice; Christian Bale is the one-legged stand-up guy to do it. Together with his performances in Rescue Dawn and I’m Not There, Bale is one of my favorite actors this year. James Mangold, 2007. ***
The Bucket List
The trailer for this movie is so hideous, we just had to check it out. Also, we might have been drunk. If Jack Nicholson throwing up in a hospital gown or jumping out of airplanes is your idea of fun, go right ahead. Sanctimonious Morgan Freeman is starting to get on my nerves. Rob Reiner, 2007. *
In Between Days
We had high hopes for this unassuming coming-of-age story about a Korean immigrant. I’m perfectly willing to stomach a slight story, mannered direction, or uncommunicative main characters — but if you heap them on top of each other, I’m probably already asleep. 83% on Rotten Tomatoes. So Yong Kim, 2007. *
The Brave One
Jodie Foster and Terrence Howard have what they call “good chemistry” in this surprisingly gripping tale of New York City revenge. Neil Jordan, 2007. ***
In the Valley of Elah
Worlds better than Crash, but that’s not saying much of anything. Tommy Lee Jones and Charlize Theron try to solve the murder of his son, an AWOL soldier on leave from Iraq. In the process, they discover all sorts of truths about important issues. See Redacted instead. Paul Haggis, 2007. **
Once
Every bit as lovely the second time around. I finally discovered the title in the film, and I have a new favorite line: “Can I bring my mother?” Marcy’s review. John Carney, 2007. ****
No Country for Old Men
Wildly overpraised. Yes, I can see the expert filmmaking here, but all the sumptuous cinematography and vivid attention to detail is lavished on a story full of walking cliches and a lousy third act. On second viewing, the glaring problems with both plot and character — what Marcy called “lack of soul” — are impossible to ignore. Llewelyn’s too foolish to care for, the Coens avert their gaze at the crucial moment, and Bell’s defeatist retread of Marge Gunderson leaves us with a dire moral: “you can’t stop what’s coming.” Oh well then. No Country wastes a lot of hard-boiled effort on a tale that ends with an Old Testament shrug. Joel and Ethan Coen, 2007. **
Down By the River
July 7th, 2007
Has it really been ten years? The plan was to post a little piece about the two shows a bald version of myself saw Phish play at the SFX Centre in Dublin in June of ‘97, notable for the 13 new songs they tried out on the tiny, Guinness-drunk crowd (Ghost, Twist, Velvet Sea, and Piper among them.) You could tell the band felt there was little at stake, which led to the kind of relaxed excursions that would blossom into full-fledged intergalactic space funk by the time they returned to the U.S. for a now-legendary Fall tour. But we already missed the anniversary by a few weeks, and it turns out that my audience recordings, stashed in a back corner of the closet, haven’t aged all that well.
So instead, here’s a tasty old chestnut I came across digging for the Dublin tapes, unavailable on YouTube until today: the first time Phish shared the stage with Neil Young, during the Farm Aid broadcast in 1998. (They would play together again at Young’s annual Bridge School Benefit.) Willie Nelson, Paul Schaffer, and four unidentified Native Americans joined for the big finale. The setlist:
10/3/98, New World Music Theater, Tinley Park, IL
Birds of Feather, Farmhouse, Moma Dance, Runaway Jim -> Arc* -> Down By the River*, Moonlight in Vermont*, Will the Circle Be Unbroken*, Amazing Grace*, Uncloudy Day*
You can download the set from etree, and there is a nicely mastered DVD going around the torrent networks, too. Here’s the centerpiece, a twenty-minute Down By the River featuring Pepe Le Pew Anastasio and Neil playing Trey’s backup Languedoc. In the immortal words of the CMT commentator, “That was, uh, quite a jam.”
Update: I uploaded the rest of the set to YouTube. Follow the links in the setlist to watch, or head straight for the playlist.
Once
May 1st, 2007
This sweet, lo-fi musical romance about a Dublin busker and an immigrant single mother who meet in the streets and record a demo tape together is a real charmer. Glen Hansard plays the nameless “guy” who belts out songs on a battered guitar and pines for his long-gone girlfriend; Marketa Irglova is the “girl” who likes his songs and begins to accompany him on the piano. During the days, the guy fixes vacuum cleaners, which leads to a nice visual joke of the girl pulling a Hoover through downtown Dublin; she has a child and mother at home and perhaps even more of a life back in the Czech Republic.
The production isn’t half as polished as Hustle & Flow or The Commitments (in which Hansard also appeared), and that’s a good thing; Once has an authentic indie feel, with many scenes that seem to be shot on the run. The music is heartfelt and fresh, and the movie doesn’t have a cynical bone in its body. It’s the genuine article: a winning story told with simple grace and humanity. More soon for About.com when Once opens on May 18th.
Once. John Carney, 2006. ****
