Business Casual Superstar
TV is good for two things: Serving as an inert medium on which to project our deep-seeded insecurities, AND FAN MIXES! Booyeah!
I just got off the phone with Phil from Marketing, and he had the latest focus group results. You guys will be happy to know that last week's Lily Aldrin fanmix post was a big success here, on Twitter, on Facebook, and on LiveJournal. We're still waiting for how it went over with the WSJ and NYT, but I'm optimistic, you guys. Bob from Accounting tells me that based on our great results, I may be able to buy myself that pony after all. I'm going to keep the pony in the room that I keep as my home office, so I can write it off as a deduction...
Posted by Huma Rashid on Aug 25, 2010 @ 9:09 am
"Get Low" Review.
Robert Duvall and Bill Murray can only power the indie flick two-thirds of the way.
The latest offering from Sony Pictures Classics is one-part fable and one-part loosely based on a true-story tale of a man named Felix Bush (Robert Duvall) who threw his own funeral “party” in 1930s Tennessee while he was still alive. Get Low’s premise and cast are enough to grab interest, but to add to the mix is a dark secret that forced Bush to self-induce a hermit lifestyle for decades...
Posted by Ryan Peters on Aug 25, 2010 @ 9:09 am
"Burning"
Mogwai's new concert film will appeal to fan's, but may not win over new ones.
A concert film like Mogwai’s Burning is a trick to review, because by its very nature I’d be better served telling you about the accompanying live album, Special Moves. Shot over three days in Brooklyn in April 2009, Burning is an incredibly tight set, but it’s a true concert film in every sense. By this, I mean there are no interstitial bits, no scenes of the band doing whatever in between songs. The film runs about 45 minutes and is composed out of eight songs, shot in a purposely washed-out, grainy black and white to give the entire show a noir feel. (Just in case you miss the noir imagery, there are plenty of shots of rain-soaked streets to be had.) However, because of the lack of any kind of dialogue or breakup, the entire film feels like an extended music video, albeit a well-made one. This is, by and large, a film for fans of the Scottish outfit only, though a worthwhile look for anybody who enjoys the band. “Like Herod” and “Batcat” are compelling to hear in a live setting, but the real marvel is how clean of a recording this is; Mogwai’s live performance is near-perfect to their records. Burning is a solid entry into the concert film canon, but nothing to rush out and pick up.
Posted by Dominick Mayer on Aug 24, 2010 @ 11:11 am
News for Now
Portland stays weird on IFC, Megafaun gets even more epic, and Joanna Newsom hits the road.
While I am and always will be a Midwesterner at heart, I've got to say that living in Portland definitely has its perks. Like possibly getting to be on the new IFC series Portlandia (which sounds super majestic, but is really just the name of a statue downtown). Carrie Brownstein (of Sleater-Kinney fame) and Fred Armisen (SNL) have comically performed together for quite some time as ThunderAnt, and they're taking their sketch selves over to IFC to film a show about Portland and all of the weirdness that exists in this city. I'm not totally sold on it, but as long as they have the feminist bookstore owners that were featured in St. Vincent's "Laughing With a Mouth of Blood" video, I'll check it out.
This genuinely excites me--Megafaun and Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) covering field recordings of old folk and blues songs. I say "field recordings" because the tracks they're covering (off a series of LPs called Sounds of the South) were collected by an ethnomusicologist. These are literally sonic artifacts, about to be reimagined by some extremely talented people. They'll be performing the covers in a concert series that runs from September 17-19 in Durham, NC. If you can't make it though, don't worry--it'll become a live album in 2011.
Speaking of the south, Joanna Newsom's heading there come early November. She'll be hitting up Arizona, Texas, New Orleans, Florida, and finally heading up to Carnegie Hall to wrap things up.
Posted by Alyssa Vincent on Aug 24, 2010 @ 11:11 am
Pirahna 3D
Lots of violent deaths and one mangled penis; WHAT'S NOT TO LOVE??
If ever there was a movie that proves everything flawed in the MPAA rating system, it is Pirahna 3D. Despite the fact that this has been a banner year for some pretty shocking material in film already (Chloe Moretz nearly getting beaten to death in Kick-Ass, the entirety of The Human Centipede), Pirahna either raises or lowers the bar yet again...
Posted by Dominick Mayer on Aug 20, 2010 @ 7:19 pm