The Queen shoudln't have touched me

as intensely as it did. After all, I'm an American, a New Yorker, and never particularly cared about the Royal Family. But of course director Stephen Frears does it again, maintaining his role as the most versatile director working today. Who else could direct The Grifters, High Fidelity, and (my personal favorite) Dirty Pretty Things? These are movies so far from one another that you'd never even guess they came from the same director. And The Queen fits the mold, or lack thereof. By focusing on a period of about seven days (though there's an epilogue), Frears gives the film, about pivotal days after the death of Princess Diana, an immediacy that I've never seen regarding Queen Elizabeth II (she is the second, right?). Here's wishing Steve, and everyone else involved, luck at the Oscars tonight.

Luckily I had the chance to watch this in a theatre full of (mostly) British kids. There were a lot of jokes I would have missed otherwise, and also a lot of bits that were funny to this audience. I think seeing caricatures of the Royal Family for their whole lives made some of the signals unintentionally funny. A chair pulled out behind the Queen as she stands, immersed in a phone call from Blair, proved funny to this crowd, as did Blair (circa '97 in the film) stating his main goal as education. Sure, it was highly fictionalized, and "just a movie," as my English flatmate Chris reminded me, but I came away with two things. One was just how out of touch the Queen was, and Two was just how special Lady Di turned out to be. In 1997, when the movie took place, I was eleven years old. I remember wondering just what it was about Diana that made my mom watch her funeral on live television early in the morning, and wondering just as well why my brother chided her for it (he was 14). And I'm still not sure what my mother had invested.

But for the English people, she was the one down to earth member of the Royal Family. To have a Queen that's actually a figurehead must be hard, but for that Queen to believe she's in charge is even more inconceivable to me. But Diana wasn't like that; she seemed to connect to and believe in the people and for that I respect her. The scene where it's suggested that the Thames Bridge be used for Di's funeral, to the dismay of the Queen Mum, whose own funeral is set to take place there at some point, was one of my favorites. It is one of the moments where it's suggested that Diana has a lot more immediacy to the greater UK than the proper members of the Royal Family. That disconnect is at the heart of this film.

Prince Philip exclaims at one point that the guest list for the funeral consists of "soap stars and homosexuals," and all I could think was that this is exactly what matters most to today's British society. Sure, I'm not British, so who am I to say, but just take a look at the Oscars and you'll see that America is already there. What am I getting at? Fuck if I know. But check out The Queen. Also, Children of Men was pretty great, but it's not even nominated, so my money's on The Queen for tonight at the Oscars. Or at least on Helen Mirren and Michael Sheen. Oh, what's that? He didn't even get nominated for Best Supporting Actor? Oh, nevermind then. Hand that shit over to...wait... seriously now, why wasn't he nominated?

Johnny Marr's definitely still got it.

I don't know if I hear it because I'm listening for it or if Marr's playing is really that distinctive (I like to think it's the latter), but I just got the leak on We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank, the new Modest Mouse album on which the singular Smiths guitarist has joined the band (apparently as a full member, not just hired gun style as on Talking Heads' Naked. Seems like he's invincible even in his old age. Fuck a Smiths reunion; Morrissey's solo stuff is good enough (though his threats to make a Gilbert & Sullivan cover album scare me a little) and more importantly, Johnny Marr is still real and relevant. I've admittedly never been a huge Modest Mouse fan (Ugly Casanova's pretty great though), so who the fuck am I to say, but I'm going to go ahead and call this their best record yet. I mean, how do you add someone like Marr to the roster and not end up dwarfing the rest of your catalog? Sorry guys.

2007 is looking really really good for new albums. Of Montreal, the Fratellis, The Good The Bad and The Queen, now this Modest Mouse record, and a really promising Bright Eyes EP in preparation for his upcoming Cassadaga LP have me really excited. And it's not even March yet!

I'm not really sure

why I haven't posted in so long. I guess a lot's been going on in the last month (as of Jan 2nd, I've been living in Edinburgh until early June), but I stopped leaving posts well before that. Oh well. Beats me. I guess there wasn't a lot to say? Or maybe I've been saving it. Also, The Beatles' Love took up quite a bit of my time.

As I've posted before, Of Montreal were kind of on my bad side. I know they make stellar albums, on a pretty regular basis, too, but they stood me up for an interview and live mix at WERS last year, and then when I saw them at McCarren Park Pool last summer they just blew. Had so little dynamics, and I know that it's a hard music to recreate live, but jesus Kevin, take a step back. Start by making somone play drums, maybe? Anyway, that's neither here nor there. I downloaded yesterday Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? (I know that's a ridiculous title, but stay with me). The thing is, much as I want to hate this band (is it a band at this point? Apparently Kevin Barnes recorded most of it after he relocated with wife and infant son to Norway, beggin the question of whether this is a one-man-show type band) they keep coming out with really solid albums. It's just hard to argue with. So they suck live–I'll just stop checking out their live shows, I guess. From the album opener "Suffer for Fashion," which starts with a very Bright Eyes-esque distant-pianos-storms-and-babies-cooing sound, it breaks into the kind of deliriously dancable tune that we've come to expect since Barnes reinvented the group as an indie-disco-dance party. Overall the album kind of drops off towards the end, but even the twelve minute "The Past Is A Grotesque Animal" holds my interest with its spiraling keyboards and creepy backup vocals. Of course, as with any Of Montreal album or concert, you can't help but be confused at the dude's sexuality (Wife? Really? Like, a female wife?), but that doesn't really matter once you start dancing. I highly recommend this one.

Speaking of Bright Eyes, I also got my hands on a copy of his new Four Winds EP, and it also is very good. Makes me excited for whatever direction he's going with the upcoming LP Cassadaga, which apparently features Gillian Welch and M. Ward. The songs on here are fairly stripped down, and it sounds like he's finally finding the way to combine the country and electronic angles he felt the need to divide down the middle with his last simultaneously-released two LPs. How does this guy manage to make such unfailingly great records one after the other? Conor keeps me forever swooning.

Also yesterday I got from eMusic Meet The Smithereens!, a track-for-track cover of the Beatles' first stateside album, Meet The Beatles!. It plays alright, but really it just makes me want to listen to the original. There's not a lot you can add there, and these guys opt to not even try, just doing these faithful covers. I would, however, like to check out the tour they're doing in support of this release where they play the album start to finish. That would be fun to watch.

There's more, but I gotta save something for the next post.

I sell iPods at Dodger games.

Will Ferrell in some sort of Apple commercial spoof clip... I think it was in a keynote this year. Not sure. But either way:



And while we're at it,

Ooh ooh ooh ooh.

All You People Are Vampires

and all your stories are stale. I can't stop listening to this Arctic Monkeys. UK bands have really cornered the market on danceable rock with really rocking guitars. I don't want to keep trashing Of Montreal, because I really do like their albums, but the energy on the Monkeys' debut Whatever You Say I Am, That's What I'm Not is unbeatable. Combined with the slurred conversational vocals, the Arctic Monkeys have created this new kind of dance-rock. It's some kind of less embarassing danciness. These guys (I almost want to call them hooligans) could kick Nick Kapranos and Kevin Barnes' asses, but they still want to make people dance. It's kind of like a less boring Oasis.

I think I just heard

Of Montreal in an Outback Steakhouse commercial. It was a remixed "Wraith Pinned to the Mist" with different lyrics. It made me want steak. I don't care that Of Montreal are doing commercials (good for them! and good for the Outback!)... what bothers me is how much they suck live.


Update
Someone finally got this up on YouTube:

Last night I watched

the forgotten Pixar movie, A Bug's Life. Oh holy crap. Hadn't seen it since it came out in theaters years ago, and it really satnds up with the rest of the Pixar ouvre. These guys (and girls) can do no wrong. Its a bit formulaic, sure: you get a oft-forgotten world (i.e. Toys, Bugs, Monsters, Fish) populated with real characters, not one dimensional trick ponies like Madagascar or Ice Age. Flik, and Dot, and Princesss whatever her name was (Julia Louis Dreyfuss, perfectly cast) and all the others are deeply emotionally complicated characters that rival anything on "adult" film or TV. The world is also always so real, so well designed, so textured, so full of life and hustle and bustle. The amount of leaf drawings and sculptures the Pixar team must have done for that one... it boggles the mind. People complain that they're too cute, but these are children's movies. And I'd argue that they're smart and clever enough that the cuteness has enough insight in it to keep me, at the very least, entertained and not oversugared. David Hyde Pierce plays a walking stick who complained of being constantly typecast as, well, a stick. The queen had this adorable little animal that apparently has a symbiotic relationship with ants, and the whole thing was loosely based on the food cycle. Less than two months 'til Cars. Check the trailer... they stepped it up again.


ZOETROPE

My blog's not

looking so hot. I should really start writing in it more. Then I won't feel like as much of an ass when I tell people I have a blog. Peter Shippy told me today I could be in a blog, I feel like that's a face-for-radio type compliment, but whatever. I didn't tell him about this little operation. Maybe once it's a little more.... fleshed out.

I can't believe I wrote a blog post about blogging. sick

Blogspot

I just switched the blog over from .Mac to Blogspot. It makes it look more like a blog, lets my dear readers (both of you) post comments, and generally makes it more streamlined and better to read. I still can't figure out the photo posting though. Hope you like it. Narf.

Snakes on a Plane!

There’s a trailer online now for a little flick called Snakes On A Plane. Samuel L. Jackson stars. It looks to be all that the name implies. Snakes in cleavage, snakes eating cats, snakes being whipped around by Sam Motherfucking Jackson. This is news to me, though I guess its been making the rounds on the internet for a while. They wanted to change the title to Pacific Air 201, but Jackson made them change it back because “that’s the only reason I took the job: I read the title.” Right on, man. Don’t try to dress this shit up: it’s snakes on a plane. You get what you pay for. Bravo.