28 June 2007

Raising Helen

“I'm a sexy man of God, and I know it.”*

Raising Helen is a cute, fluffy kind of New York City movie featuring lots of great clothes and pretty, skinny women in high heels - and three kids from New Jersey whose parents have just died and are shipped off to the big city to live with their young, hipster Aunt (Kate Hudson). The end result is a combination of heart-wrenching drama with plaintive cries of "I miss my Mommy!" (sniff sniff) with slap-dash comedy as Auntie transitions from fashion model agent to used car saleswoman - and meets up with an exceptionally randy Pastor Dan* (played by John Corbett with a rather un-sexy resemblance to Three’s Company-era John Ritter).

Despite the fact that 95% of the film is totally unbelievable (and unremarkable) there are a few genuine laugh-out-loud moments provided by Joan Cusack as the hilariously frightening, mini-van driving, potpourri-loving, "Super Mom" middle sister.

Best thing about Raising Helen: no sign of Meg Ryan.

27 June 2007

The Poe Shadow

I really enjoyed Matthew Pearle’s The Dante Club so I eagerly approached his sophomore offering, The Poe Shadow. Whereas Dante focused on Longfellow and the other Harvard scholars who were involved in translating Dante’s Inferno, The Poe Shadow delves into the mystery of Edgar Allen Poe’s death in Baltimore. The protagonist, Quentin Clark, is a young, slightly excitable lawyer who rejects his previous life of comfort and social standing to embark upon a multi-year quest to unearth the secrets surrounding Poe’s final days.

Matthew Pearl uses his literary research skills to infuse his work of fiction with historical authenticity and continuity. It was this ability to seamlessly blend fiction and non-fiction that made me such an admirer of The Dante Club. However, The Poe Shadow never succeeds in capturing the excitement and intrigue that marked Dante. Clark is a bit too naïve and impressionable a character and while his commitment to solving the mystery of Poe’s demise is clear, he comes off as a bit of an anguished dilettante. It isn’t any great shocker when in the end he realizes that his years of work have yielded few answers, many additional questions, and fueled the coffers of several charlatans and carpet-baggers looking to make a name for themselves. Gee - it sounds like academia...

“…to guess is one of the most elevated and indestructible powers of the human mind, a far more interesting art than reasoning or demonstration because it comes to us directly from imagination.”

06 June 2007

Perry Farrell’s Satellite Party

Ack! I’m totally traumatized. What on earth happened to Perry Farrell? OK, I realize he’s almost 50 but this Ray Davies-meets-Bryan Ferry-meets-the wardrobe assistant from Purple Rain-look is just too much. Maybe he’s been morphing into this for some time and I didn’t notice… It would be less embarrassing if he was still sporting the braids and SoCal surfer thing (like Keith Morris of the Circle Jerks – who’s older but still manages to keep it real). The personal styling is bad and the music on Ultra Payloaded isn’t much better. "Insanity Rains" sounds like a band trying to sound like Jane’s Addiction (and reviewers are heralding this song??!!) and the version of "The Solutionists" is vastly inferior to the identical "Revolution Solution" on Thievery Corporations’ Cosmic Game (which is not the best T.C. offering, but certainly better than anything Satellite Party is cooking up…) . Despite all the negatives, I do like "Wish Upon a DogStar" which leads off the album – but a penchant for slick production and heavy bass lines has been a character fault for a long time now…

04 June 2007

I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead

A great title, but the jury’s out on this one. Clive Owen is very good as Will Graham – brooding, dark, and sexy as all hell (before and after the hair cut and shave). But this “film noir” leaves too many unanswered questions. We get the dark alleys, the twists and the turns, but not enough insight into the back-story or future directions. Even the relationships between characters is left vague – is Charlotte Rampling’s Helen the wife, sister, mother, or friend to Will and his recently deceased brother, Davey? A bit more definition would have made this considerably more enjoyable.

03 June 2007

Dead Boys: Live at CBGB 1977

It’s been awhile since I’ve splashed in the fountain of 70s punk rock, but thanks to Netflix, I had an opportunity to sample the legendary Dead Boys – Live at CBGBs! 1977! I’ll admit that I never made to CBGBs – ever - and in 1977 I was 9. By the time I discovered the Dead Boys, Stiv Bators was in Paris (but not yet dead) and Cheetah Chrome was living in Boston trying to get gigs at the Rat in Kenmore Square (drug addicted loser). Regardless, this DVD is a great piece of musical history. The footage and sound are amazing and at 28 minutes it’s just one song after another with all the between-song tuning and whatnot edited out. Stiv is so great – clearly paying homage to Iggy and the Stooges but with some nice, personal touches (like blowing his nose into a piece of sandwich meat and eating it). Sonic Reducer and Search & Destroy are two of the best songs to come out of US punk scene and they’re done with rip-roaring intensity here (except that no one goes for the high notes on Sonic Reducer, no surprise there though).

The extras on the DVD include a very interesting performance by Steel Tips – kind of a punk/atonal noise/performance art ensemble. Worth investigating.

I wonder what all those kids at the show are doing now. Probably a bunch of soccer moms and lawn-moving dads renting punk rock documentaries through Netflix…