Late in October, over a four day period, Toronto sees the following shows:
Hot Snakes reunion tour hits the Horseshoe
Nouvelle Vague
The Presets
Now, the Presets show is at the Danforth Music Hall, which seems like a terrible venue for them. I'm-a gonna wanna dance, dammit... I'd much rather they were playing the Mod Club or something. But I'll still be going.
July Travesties
A miserable 14 songs... pah.
Animal - Neon Trees
Bedrock Anthem - Weird Al Yankovic
Girl You'll Be a Woman Soon - Neil Diamond
Happy - Rolling Stones
Hello - Lionel Ritchie (duet w/Mya)
Heroes - David Bowie
How Deep Is Your Love - Bee Gees
I Want To Know What Love Is - Foreigner
Israelites - Desmond Dekker & the Aces
Let My Love Open the Door - Pete Townsend
Rebel Rebel - David Bowie
Sick of Myself - Matthew Sweet
Superfly - Curtis Mayfield
Valerie - Zutons
TIFF 2012: Galas and Special Presentations Preview
Galas and Special Presentations for TIFF got announced today, and... wow. I can't remember the last time I got excited by the Gala lineup. Either my tastes are getting tamer or TIFF is getting incrementally riskier with their prestige picks. Or it's just one of those years.
Anyway, here's what caught my eye on the first pass:
- Zhang Ziyi is back as the good girl in a Chinese Dangerous Liaisons adaptation, alongside Cecilia Cheung as the naughty girl.
- there's an Angela Davis doc? As a Gala??? Holy crap.
- Bill Murray plays FDR in Hyde Park on Hudson. Sure, it's by the guy who directed Notting Hill so I have no expectations that it'll be great, but seriously - Murray's playing FDR. It could be a Ron Howard cure for insomnia/film and I'd still see it.
- oh, and by the way, Looper of all things is the Opening Night Gala. The world's crush on Joseph Gordon-Levitt will continue unabated.
- Deepa Mehta adapts Rushdie's Midnight's Children. This could be a sodden mess, but I'll probably give it a try anyway.
- David O Russell returns to slightly more comedic territory with Silver Linings Playbook, which is good news enough, but the cast includes Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert DeNiro (?), Jacki Weaver (!!) and, umm, Chris Tucker (?!?!?!!????)
- someone tell me how I can not go see Thermae Romae, a movie with this write-up: Ancient Roman architect Lucius is too serious. His inability to keep up with the fast-moving times costs him his job. When a friend takes the dejected Lucius to the public bathhouse to cheer him up, Lucius accidentally slips through time and resurfaces in a modern-day public bath in Japan. There, he meets aspiring young manga artist Mami, along with others of the “flat-faced clan.” Shocked by the many inventive aspects of Japan’s bathing culture, Lucius returns to ancient Rome and garners tremendous attention when he implements these novel ideas back in Rome. As he time-slips back and forth between ancient Rome and modernday Japan, Lucius’ reputation as the ingenious, new bath architect begins to grow.
- Joe Wright directs a Tom Stoppard adaptation of Anna Karenina with Keira Knightly and Jude Law. I'm sure it will be perfectly lovely.
- Neil Jordan's Byzantium seems to be some sort of Irish vampire story. Sold!
- CLOUD ATLAS!!!!!
- Viggo Mortensen stars in an Argentinian twin-swapping thriller, Everybody Has a Plan. Twice the Viggo! Twice the fun!
- top of my list of movies I will never subject myself to, no matter what the buzz is: L'emploi du temps (a film I loathed) director Laurent Cantat does another adaptation of Foxfire, which seems utterly pointless since the last adaptation starred a young force of nature named Angelina Jolie. You won't top that, Laurent. Don't even try.
- Mads Mikklesen stars in Thomas Vinterberg's latest, The Hunt. Sold!
- there's some kind of Graham Chapman doc, or animated doc, or autobiography (???) or something. I don't know how that works, and don't care. I'm there.
- Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing. 'Nuff said.
- Takeshi Kitano did a sequel to Outrage, called Outrage Beyond. Guess I better see Outrage then in the next couple of months...
- I guess I'll probably see Parks of Being a Wallflower, because why not.
That's a hell of a start to the lineup.
Anyway, here's what caught my eye on the first pass:
- Zhang Ziyi is back as the good girl in a Chinese Dangerous Liaisons adaptation, alongside Cecilia Cheung as the naughty girl.
- there's an Angela Davis doc? As a Gala??? Holy crap.
- Bill Murray plays FDR in Hyde Park on Hudson. Sure, it's by the guy who directed Notting Hill so I have no expectations that it'll be great, but seriously - Murray's playing FDR. It could be a Ron Howard cure for insomnia/film and I'd still see it.
- oh, and by the way, Looper of all things is the Opening Night Gala. The world's crush on Joseph Gordon-Levitt will continue unabated.
- Deepa Mehta adapts Rushdie's Midnight's Children. This could be a sodden mess, but I'll probably give it a try anyway.
- David O Russell returns to slightly more comedic territory with Silver Linings Playbook, which is good news enough, but the cast includes Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert DeNiro (?), Jacki Weaver (!!) and, umm, Chris Tucker (?!?!?!!????)
- someone tell me how I can not go see Thermae Romae, a movie with this write-up: Ancient Roman architect Lucius is too serious. His inability to keep up with the fast-moving times costs him his job. When a friend takes the dejected Lucius to the public bathhouse to cheer him up, Lucius accidentally slips through time and resurfaces in a modern-day public bath in Japan. There, he meets aspiring young manga artist Mami, along with others of the “flat-faced clan.” Shocked by the many inventive aspects of Japan’s bathing culture, Lucius returns to ancient Rome and garners tremendous attention when he implements these novel ideas back in Rome. As he time-slips back and forth between ancient Rome and modernday Japan, Lucius’ reputation as the ingenious, new bath architect begins to grow.
- Joe Wright directs a Tom Stoppard adaptation of Anna Karenina with Keira Knightly and Jude Law. I'm sure it will be perfectly lovely.
- Neil Jordan's Byzantium seems to be some sort of Irish vampire story. Sold!
- CLOUD ATLAS!!!!!
- Viggo Mortensen stars in an Argentinian twin-swapping thriller, Everybody Has a Plan. Twice the Viggo! Twice the fun!
- top of my list of movies I will never subject myself to, no matter what the buzz is: L'emploi du temps (a film I loathed) director Laurent Cantat does another adaptation of Foxfire, which seems utterly pointless since the last adaptation starred a young force of nature named Angelina Jolie. You won't top that, Laurent. Don't even try.
- Mads Mikklesen stars in Thomas Vinterberg's latest, The Hunt. Sold!
- there's some kind of Graham Chapman doc, or animated doc, or autobiography (???) or something. I don't know how that works, and don't care. I'm there.
- Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing. 'Nuff said.
- Takeshi Kitano did a sequel to Outrage, called Outrage Beyond. Guess I better see Outrage then in the next couple of months...
- I guess I'll probably see Parks of Being a Wallflower, because why not.
That's a hell of a start to the lineup.
June Travesties
The usual midteens (17, to be exact). How did I ever manage 40+ in a month? Jinkies.
Bad Case of Loving You - Robert Palmer
Copperhead Road - Steve Earle
Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood - Animals
Everlong - Foo Fighters
Feel Like Making Love - Bad Company
High and Dry - Radiohead
High School Confidential - Rough Trade
My Life - Billy Joel
Polka Your Eyes Out - Weird Al Yankovic
Rocky Mountain Way - Joe Walsh
Shakin' All Over - Guess Who
Suffragette City - David Bowie
Sundown - Gordon Lightfoot
Valerie - Zutons
What Becomes of the Broken Hearted - Jimmy Ruffin
Whistle For the Choir - Fratellis
White Wedding - Billy Idol
Bad Case of Loving You - Robert Palmer
Copperhead Road - Steve Earle
Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood - Animals
Everlong - Foo Fighters
Feel Like Making Love - Bad Company
High and Dry - Radiohead
High School Confidential - Rough Trade
My Life - Billy Joel
Polka Your Eyes Out - Weird Al Yankovic
Rocky Mountain Way - Joe Walsh
Shakin' All Over - Guess Who
Suffragette City - David Bowie
Sundown - Gordon Lightfoot
Valerie - Zutons
What Becomes of the Broken Hearted - Jimmy Ruffin
Whistle For the Choir - Fratellis
White Wedding - Billy Idol
New Presets! New Presets!
The new album will apparently drop during the film festival. Yeah, that won't distract me writing reviews at all...
Mitt Romney, Socialist
So Think Progress (and Wonkette, and Balloon Juice...) saw a clip of a Romney speech in which he says Americans should "get as much education as they can afford" and worked themselves into a tizzy over it, tossing out all the usual out of touch, Millionaire Mittens jokes.
What they missed was the rest of the clip, which heralded a sudden, drastic shift to the left by Romney which is assuredly going to allow him to win all the independents and Reagan Democrats and maybe even real Democrats and thump the Kenyan usurper right good and send him packing:
They "ought" to be able to provide for their families? Everybody knows wages for non-job creators have been stagnant for decades (see chart below from the EPI) and that it doesn't really matter how hard you work or how right your values are, you probably can't provide for your family these days on a single person's salary, and maybe not even with two people's salaries.
Romney is pointing to nothing less than a massive re-distribution of wealth from the top to the bottom with his talk of "ought" and "dreams". That's boilerplate class warfare rhetoric, folks.
I mean, it's just a small step from saying "if you work hard and have the right values you ought to be able to provide for your family" to "hey, why can't you provide for your family even though you work hard and have the right values?" And that way lies revolution and pitchforks and Stalinism.
So you go, Mitt! Keep talking that commie talk, and the working-class electorate will be putty in your soft, manicured hands.
What they missed was the rest of the clip, which heralded a sudden, drastic shift to the left by Romney which is assuredly going to allow him to win all the independents and Reagan Democrats and maybe even real Democrats and thump the Kenyan usurper right good and send him packing:
I think this is a land of opportunity for every single person, every single citizen of this great nation. And I want to make sure that we keep America a place of opportunity, where everyone has a fair shot. They get as much education as they can afford and with their time they’re able to get and if they have a willingness to work hard and the right values, they ought to be able to provide for their family and have a shot of realizing their dreams.
They "ought" to be able to provide for their families? Everybody knows wages for non-job creators have been stagnant for decades (see chart below from the EPI) and that it doesn't really matter how hard you work or how right your values are, you probably can't provide for your family these days on a single person's salary, and maybe not even with two people's salaries.
Romney is pointing to nothing less than a massive re-distribution of wealth from the top to the bottom with his talk of "ought" and "dreams". That's boilerplate class warfare rhetoric, folks.
I mean, it's just a small step from saying "if you work hard and have the right values you ought to be able to provide for your family" to "hey, why can't you provide for your family even though you work hard and have the right values?" And that way lies revolution and pitchforks and Stalinism.
So you go, Mitt! Keep talking that commie talk, and the working-class electorate will be putty in your soft, manicured hands.
Review: Beasts of the Southern Wild
Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012, directed by Benh Zeitlin)
A little girl, Hushpuppy, and her father Wink try to make their way in an environment both fertile and inhospitable. Rules are few: home, family and community have to be defended. Never forget there's something out there that sees you as meat. And above all, no crying. Be strong. Be the man, no matter how big a storm is brewing on the horizon.
Beasts of the Southern Wild could only be a debut film. Much like Hushpuppy and Wink, Zeitlin himself seemed to have had few rules when constructing the world around them. The sense of invention and discovery, the rawness of the film, echo similarly energetic debuts centered on children like Laughton's Night of the Hunter and David Gordon Green's George Washington, but Beasts is very much its own beastie. Boundaries aren't so much blurred as ignored. You could call Beasts a fantasy, I suppose, but that description doesn't really do it justice. 'Fantasy film' implies a distinction between fantasy and reality, a threshold that needs to be crossed to bring a character into the magical realm or a seal that needs to be broken to let the magic spill out into our otherwise mundane existence. Instead in Beasts, 'fantasy' and 'reality' co-exist side by side, if not exactly peacefully, and both are equally natural to Hushpuppy. She makes no distinction between them. Her world is simply a big ball of glorious chaos where just about anything can happen - whether it's the glaciers melting and freeing giant Ice Age boars from their slumber, or a dynamite-filled alligator carcass blowing up a levee. Similarly, the film itself doesn't so much blur the distinction between genres as ignore the very concept of 'genre' entirely. You could just as easily call it a disaster film as a fantasy, a road comedy or a coming-of-age drama, but Beasts is too drunk on its own freedom to let itself get tucked away in a convenient box like that. It simply is itself, and you can accept it on its own terms and get swept up in its current or get out of the way.
Really, if Beasts put me in mind of anything, it's Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are. There's the same lack of wide-eyed wonder from the kids at the heart of the film no matter what gets thrown at them, and the same externalization of emotional turmoil, but where WTWTA's Max is dealing with the aftermath of a divorce that looms over him like a thundercloud Beasts is fueled by what Hurricane Katrina left in its wake, physically, geographically and spiritually. Katrina is almost an unnamed main character in Beasts, so thoroughly does its memory infuse the movie. Hushpuppy's world is a fragile one, pieced together from things washed up on her shore and left behind by the wind, and it sometimes seems like the only thing holding it together is her desire for any kind of stability. Even her friends and family are flotsam.
What Beasts wasn't for me, and seems like it should have been, is emotionally engaging. Here I am throwing around comparisons to a classic like Night of the Hunter or to Where the Wild Things Are (which almost felt autobiographical the first time I saw it), movies which I consider part of my own personal canon, and yet when Beasts was done I just thought it was... good. Cool and trippy, but nothing more. The look and feel of it, the subject matter, make me think Beasts should have hit home for me a lot harder than it did, and I can't quite put my finger on where the distance is coming from. Beasts looks great, it's certainly unique, and it's easy to see why it's been such a critical and festival darling... but it didn't have me leaving the theater thinking I'd seen the next great film about childhood.
What the movie done well though, it does very well indeed. Despite its ramshackle aesthetic it never comes across as artificial or forced, and Zeitlin has certainly marked himself as a director to watch out for down the line. Beasts is, like Hushpuppy herself, fierce and immature, proud of who it is and where it came from. And I'll take a jury-rigged raft like this over a summer sea full of Battleships any day of the week and twice on Sundays.
A little girl, Hushpuppy, and her father Wink try to make their way in an environment both fertile and inhospitable. Rules are few: home, family and community have to be defended. Never forget there's something out there that sees you as meat. And above all, no crying. Be strong. Be the man, no matter how big a storm is brewing on the horizon.
Beasts of the Southern Wild could only be a debut film. Much like Hushpuppy and Wink, Zeitlin himself seemed to have had few rules when constructing the world around them. The sense of invention and discovery, the rawness of the film, echo similarly energetic debuts centered on children like Laughton's Night of the Hunter and David Gordon Green's George Washington, but Beasts is very much its own beastie. Boundaries aren't so much blurred as ignored. You could call Beasts a fantasy, I suppose, but that description doesn't really do it justice. 'Fantasy film' implies a distinction between fantasy and reality, a threshold that needs to be crossed to bring a character into the magical realm or a seal that needs to be broken to let the magic spill out into our otherwise mundane existence. Instead in Beasts, 'fantasy' and 'reality' co-exist side by side, if not exactly peacefully, and both are equally natural to Hushpuppy. She makes no distinction between them. Her world is simply a big ball of glorious chaos where just about anything can happen - whether it's the glaciers melting and freeing giant Ice Age boars from their slumber, or a dynamite-filled alligator carcass blowing up a levee. Similarly, the film itself doesn't so much blur the distinction between genres as ignore the very concept of 'genre' entirely. You could just as easily call it a disaster film as a fantasy, a road comedy or a coming-of-age drama, but Beasts is too drunk on its own freedom to let itself get tucked away in a convenient box like that. It simply is itself, and you can accept it on its own terms and get swept up in its current or get out of the way.
Really, if Beasts put me in mind of anything, it's Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are. There's the same lack of wide-eyed wonder from the kids at the heart of the film no matter what gets thrown at them, and the same externalization of emotional turmoil, but where WTWTA's Max is dealing with the aftermath of a divorce that looms over him like a thundercloud Beasts is fueled by what Hurricane Katrina left in its wake, physically, geographically and spiritually. Katrina is almost an unnamed main character in Beasts, so thoroughly does its memory infuse the movie. Hushpuppy's world is a fragile one, pieced together from things washed up on her shore and left behind by the wind, and it sometimes seems like the only thing holding it together is her desire for any kind of stability. Even her friends and family are flotsam.
What Beasts wasn't for me, and seems like it should have been, is emotionally engaging. Here I am throwing around comparisons to a classic like Night of the Hunter or to Where the Wild Things Are (which almost felt autobiographical the first time I saw it), movies which I consider part of my own personal canon, and yet when Beasts was done I just thought it was... good. Cool and trippy, but nothing more. The look and feel of it, the subject matter, make me think Beasts should have hit home for me a lot harder than it did, and I can't quite put my finger on where the distance is coming from. Beasts looks great, it's certainly unique, and it's easy to see why it's been such a critical and festival darling... but it didn't have me leaving the theater thinking I'd seen the next great film about childhood.
What the movie done well though, it does very well indeed. Despite its ramshackle aesthetic it never comes across as artificial or forced, and Zeitlin has certainly marked himself as a director to watch out for down the line. Beasts is, like Hushpuppy herself, fierce and immature, proud of who it is and where it came from. And I'll take a jury-rigged raft like this over a summer sea full of Battleships any day of the week and twice on Sundays.
Easily Debunked Romney Talking Points, Part 1
I'm finding the artlessness and incompetence of the Romney campaign really amusing. Take, for instance, the core talking point in this segment (in which Anderson Cooper can't help but point out a couple of other blatant lies being told by Romney's surrogate):
Gitcho's main point is that Romney's job creation record is better than Obama's, because the unemployment rate under Obama is still above 8% while Romney got the unemployment rate in Massachusetts under 5%. And, as she says, "We're happy to compare those records!"
So let's compare them:
Hmm. Obama improved his rate by about 1.1% (with the final 2012 number not yet in) while Romney improved his by 0.7%. I guess we could call that a wash (it should be easier to drop a bigger number, all else being equal)... except that there's one more bit of context:
In short, the MA unemployment rate under Romney failed to keep pace with the national average, improving only 0.7% when the whole country improved by 0.9%
Are you sure you're happy to compare these records, Ms. Gitcho?
The amazing thing to me is that Obama's job creation record is actually hard to defend in a typical pundit-sized sound bite. The defense becomes a debate over the stimulus and whether it was successful, and who's to blame for it being less effective than it could have been. But by making a comparison to Romney's own weak MA numbers, instead of attacking Obama's numbers in isolation, the Romney campaign shoots itself in the foot. The talking point all but rebuts itself.
Morons. Absolute morons.
Gitcho's main point is that Romney's job creation record is better than Obama's, because the unemployment rate under Obama is still above 8% while Romney got the unemployment rate in Massachusetts under 5%. And, as she says, "We're happy to compare those records!"
So let's compare them:
- Under Obama, the US unemployment rate went from 9.3% in 2009 to 8.2% in May 2012
- Under Romney, the MA unemployment rate went from 5.2% in 2003 to 4.5% in 2007
Hmm. Obama improved his rate by about 1.1% (with the final 2012 number not yet in) while Romney improved his by 0.7%. I guess we could call that a wash (it should be easier to drop a bigger number, all else being equal)... except that there's one more bit of context:
- Under Romney, the MA unemployment rate went from 5.2% (against a national average of 5.5%) in 2003 to 4.5% (against a national average of 4.6%) in 2007
In short, the MA unemployment rate under Romney failed to keep pace with the national average, improving only 0.7% when the whole country improved by 0.9%
Are you sure you're happy to compare these records, Ms. Gitcho?
The amazing thing to me is that Obama's job creation record is actually hard to defend in a typical pundit-sized sound bite. The defense becomes a debate over the stimulus and whether it was successful, and who's to blame for it being less effective than it could have been. But by making a comparison to Romney's own weak MA numbers, instead of attacking Obama's numbers in isolation, the Romney campaign shoots itself in the foot. The talking point all but rebuts itself.
Morons. Absolute morons.
May Travesties
17 this month (or 18 if you count We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions as two):
Angie - Rolling Stones
Fool In the Rain - Led Zeppelin
Go With the Flow - Queens of the Stone Age
God Only Knows - Beach Boys
I've Just Seen a Face - Beatles
Jersey Girl - Bruce Springsteen
Let's Go Crazy - Prince
Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm - Crash Test Dummies
My Old School - Steely Dan
My Sacrifice - Creed
Owner of a Lonely Heart - Yes
Run-around - Blues Traveler
She Talks To Angels - Black Crowes
Summertime - DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince
Sunglasses At Night - Corey Hart
There Goes the Fear - Doves
We Will Rock You / We Are the Champions - Queen
Angie - Rolling Stones
Fool In the Rain - Led Zeppelin
Go With the Flow - Queens of the Stone Age
God Only Knows - Beach Boys
I've Just Seen a Face - Beatles
Jersey Girl - Bruce Springsteen
Let's Go Crazy - Prince
Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm - Crash Test Dummies
My Old School - Steely Dan
My Sacrifice - Creed
Owner of a Lonely Heart - Yes
Run-around - Blues Traveler
She Talks To Angels - Black Crowes
Summertime - DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince
Sunglasses At Night - Corey Hart
There Goes the Fear - Doves
We Will Rock You / We Are the Champions - Queen
This Is Why Nate Makes the Big Bucks
Nate Silver provides us with an entirely new paradigm for thinking about "swing states". His new "elastic state" model looks like it'll require a fair bit of fine tuning before it becomes a really useful tool, but as a metaphor it's really quite elegant.
And if you want to get meta on it, consider that with the inevitable exception of wacky ol' New Hampshire the most "elastic" states fall into the 'liberal/Democratic bastion' camp, while the least "elastic" states are all hard-core conservative... plus DC.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)