Arrived in the mail: Jerusalem by Guy Delisle

Will be reading this weekend for review….

Twin Peaks revisited

Despite – or maybe because – it was never resolved properly, Twin Peaks reverberates in the pop culture consciousness like few other series of recent decades. I recall watching the show weekly but I’ve never seen Fire Walk With Me (the movie prequel?), and I’ve never really felt the urge to revisit the series – maybe because of its lack of proper resolution.

But I’d consider myself a Lynch fan – I love Mulholland Drive (here’s Lynch discussing, but not really, the meaning behind the movie courtesy the blog Biblioklept) and parts of Lost Highway. And although Inland Empire (2006) was more of a chore to sit through than a pleasure, it did have some worthwhile, supremely Lynchian moments. I do recall seeing Eraserhead when I was 17, and then buying U2′s War right after. No correlation.

I haven’t heard Lynch’s album, Crazy Clown Time.

Here’s a link to a story on my site about a new Twin Peaks zine. It’s cool to see a younger generation (I’m guessing the people putting it together missed the series the first time around, in 1990-1) discovering the series.

Reviewing Elvis

Elvis Costello at the Orpheum Theatre, Vancouver, April 10 2012. Robyn Hanson photo

Man, when I was a teenager there was no one whose music I loved more than Elvis Costello’s. My Aim is True, This Year’s Model, Armed Forces, Get Happy, Trust, and Imperial Bedroom – each new album was like a message from the gods. I listened to them obsessively and played them on acoustic guitar; the massive songbook A Singing Dictionary, which included guitar tabs and lyrics to the first four Elvis Costello albums, plus the B-sides compilation Taking Liberties, was my bible.

Growing up in Winnipeg, however, I never got to see him perform, although a close friend of mine, Eugene Osudar, saw him in 1977 at the Manitoba Playhouse (and raves about it to this day). Costello was then on his first North American tour, for his debut My Aim is True, and played for something like 35 minutes.

However, living in Vancouver – which also now happens to be Costello’s adopted hometown, since he married B.C. native Diana Krall – means I’ve had more than a few opportunities to see my teenage hero live.

Last night’s Orpheum show, which was the kick-off of his 2012 Spectacular Spinning Songbook Tour with The Imposters, was I believe my third time seeing the so-called “beloved entertainer” at the old theatre. Three years ago I also saw him outdoors, at the Malkin Bowl in Stanley Park with his band the Sugarcanes; and I vaguely recall seeing him perform with just keyboardist Steve Nieve in 1999 at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre (read the late Dave Watson‘s review here).

But this concert may well have been the best yet, and proved to me that the 58-year-old still has the punk fire in him, and that he can still rock ‘n’ roll when he wants to – even if at times Costello seems to have let showbiz go to his head (let’s just say he sometimes reminded me of that uncle who thinks he’s a lot funnier than he actually is). I especially loved hearing/seeing him do “Strict Time”, “You Belong to Me” and “Five Gears in Reverse”, a few of the more obscure songs from his lengthy catalogue. Oh, and “(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea”, inexplicably a fan favourite. And I mean that in a good way.

And you can’t beat The Imposters – whom Costello called “the best band in the world” – for tight, ferocious playing.

You can read my full review here.

Wizards is out today…

And I say: buy it if you can. Or at least find a copy to watch.

The 1977 animated feature, which hit theatres just two weeks before Star Wars, has been unjustly forgotten over the years. A DVD edition came out in 2004 but now Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment has released a 35th Anniversary Blu-Ray Digipack with 24 pages of art from the Ralph Bakshi production, some apparently never seen before by human eyes.

I watched the movie the other night – a DVD rental – and was surprised to find how well it holds up all these years later…

My Wizards review is here.

Edith Wharton on Facebook

Andrew Garfield and Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network (2010).

I just finished reading The Accidental Billionaires, Ben Mezrich’s 2009 book about the founding of Facebook. Putting aside the book’s literary merits (let’s just say the story’s compelling, at least), I was struck by the undercurrent of social and class mores that run through the book.

I grew up in a distressed area of a downtrodden city in the middle of Canada (okay, it was Winnipeg). In my family, the idea of going to university was as remote as going to Israel to live on a kibbutz – actually, the kibbutz probably was more likely. If it wasn’t for my own initiative, I probably never would have gone on to post-secondary education (about which the less said, the better).

So reading about the privileged asswipes (sorry, class consciousness getting the better of me here) attending Harvard in The Accidental Billionaires I couldn’t help but compare my own circumstances to those of these entitled Americans, even if I’m a couple generations off. These guys – whether Mark Zuckerberg or the Winkelvoss twins or any of other privileged clowns populating the book – are all pretty much walking a gold-paved road to the promised land, and were from the moment of birth on. It was hard not to hope one, if not all, of them would develop a nasty crack habit.

I suppose it’s to the filmmakers’ credit that audiences actually feel sympathy for these guys in The Social Network, at least enough to have made it a successful movie. I was less affected by the story (i.e., Zuckerberg’s betrayal of his friend Eduardo Saverin, his supposed ripping-off of the Winkelvoss twins) as presented in Mezrich’s book, however – probably because the actors, including Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield, did such a good job of making them seem almost human.

But it is instructive reading Edith Wharton afterwards. In House of Mirth (1905), Lily Bart is forced, in order to stay afloat, to navigate the upper-crust of New York society in the early 20th century. What she goes through a century earlier is really not that different from Mezrich’s portrayal of Zuckerberg and Saverin negotiating their way in Harvard’s hierarchy.

Gillian Anderson and Eric Stoltz in House of Mirth (2000).

Reading the two books back to back, I’m struck by a couple of thoughts. One, that the class system in North America, which has always been with us but seldom actually acknowledged, is finally a part of the greater conversation. And two: has the Facebook generation found its Edith Wharton yet?

Wally Wood – Artist’s Edition

I want this – I really, really want this. Unfortunately no comic book stores in Vancouver seem to have a copy in stock (it was shipped to go on sale today, Feb 22, apparently).

If you see this book for sale, let me know!

Wally Wood Artist's Edition. Where is it?

Wood is considered one of the best cartoonists of the last 60 years. His stories for EC are considered by most to be his best work, I think, though he also worked on Marvel’s Daredevil in the ’60s.

Last week’s movies – The King of Comedy, Pulp Fiction, Carnage and more

Robert De Niro in The King of Comedy (1983).

I’m a little late, but in future I’ll be trying to post each Monday (or even Sunday) about the previous week’s watched movies.

The edition is for movies watched between Dec 5 – 11.

Pulp Fiction (DVD rental; Mon) – For some reason I wanted to revisit this and, you know, it doesn’t quite hold up. It’s still thrilling in some spots – when Tarantino lets loose and just revels in the joy of moviemaking, such as in the pawnshop scene and the stoned-out milieu at Eric Stoltz‘s drug-den – he’s like a kid in a sandbox. But at other times he falls prey to his own hubris. The sequence in which he’s cast himself with Harvey Keitel is unbearable, for instance, and the diner robbery with Amanda Plummer and Tim Roth that bookends the flick is just a whole lot of scenery chewing. In fact, for all of the director/writer’s much-vaunted dialogue, much of Pulp Fiction‘s chit-chat is just hot air, though of an above-average quality. Tarantino would go on to write much better scenes, if not whole movies, than anything in Pulp Fiction.

Incendies (DVD rental; Tues) – Canada’s entry for last year’s Best Foreign Language Film category at the Academy Awards, this play-based nail-biter looks at the aftermath of war with many unusual, and finally heartbreaking, twists and turns. One of those movies you don’t want to say too much about, just grab people by the lapels and say, “Watch this.”

Carnage (press screening; Wed): Roman Polanski directs a movie based on a hit Broadway play from last year. I was riveted by the fast-paced dialogue, the jockeying for the moral upper-hand between the four New Yorkers, and particularly by Christoph Waltz‘s edge-of-calm, teeth-grinding performance, but critics have taken a seen-it-all-before stance to the story’s themes.

The King of Comedy (DVD rental) – This unjustly overlooked and at the time seemingly out-of-character movie from Martin Scorsese is a character study, really, though I remember it more as a kidnapping film – but the kidnapping doesn’t happen until halfway through. Robert De Niro is mesmerizing as the delusional comedian of the title, Rupert Pupkin, and Sandra Bernhard has a comic, slapstick-y presence that has never been better utilized; it’s like she was born 50 years too late, after the era of the great screwball comedies. Though it had been years since I’d seen it, there are moments – Pupkin waiting to see the talk show host played by Jerry Lewis at the host’s TV studio office, invading the Lewis character’s summer home – that have stayed with me all these years. Still a terrific film, and a great snapshot of the ’80s, too (members of The Clash make cameos on a street scene!).

One Magic Christmas (YouTube, Fri – Sat) – One of my girlfriend’s favourite Christmas movies growing up, One Magic Christmas (1984) piles on the tragic events in this tear-jerking twist on It’s a Wonderful Life. Mary Steenburgen, Harry Dean Stanton and a moppet-ish Sarah Polley star in this cardboard-looking, Ontario-shot Disney-Telefilm Canada co-production, but darned if it isn’t kind of affecting. Directed by Philip Borsos (the Whistler Film Festival named an award after him).

Watch One Magic Christmas on YouTube

KISS in Abbotsford – the director’s cut

KISS at Abbotsford Entertainment and Sports Centre, June 27 2011. Ted Reckoning photo

We recently posted an abbreviated version of Kyle Harcott’s review of KISS in Abbotsford on www.guttersnipenews.com. Here’s Kyle’s original review, with a few minor edits. Photos by Ted Reckoning.

KISS at Abbotsford Entertainment and Sports Center, Abbotsford, BC, Monday 27 June 2011

- by Kyle Harcott

Perhaps it’s the age bracket, but for some of us, KISS is not just a couple of 60-year-old men playing 40-year-old songs as an excuse to hawk various cheaply-made trinkets bearing their logo and image. Yes, there are still those of us around who grew up with KISS as a band, not a brand, and to many their early canon (some say up to Alive II, some say beyond that) is beyond reproach. Even now I beseech you to name a better live (ahem) album than Alive! You can’t. It simply doesn’t exist. Be all that as it may, though, I’m not nostalgic enough, nor naïve enough to ignore that in 2011, it’s no stretch to say KISS has well overstayed their welcome.

Perhaps this is the reason why, on their latest We’re-Never-Going-To-Retire Tour, KISS is playing secondary markets, towns like Kamloops and Abbotsford, with smaller sheds – yet even still, only to three-quarters-full houses. I’ll admit, as a “lapsed” KISS fan (i.e., one who swears by the [early] albums but doesn’t drink the Gene $immon$ Kool-Aid [too expensive]), there is a certain perverse glee in knowing I am seeing the band in Abbotsford and not Vancouver – it somehow doesn’t seem right, and yet it totally does.

Nonetheless – even the cynical old bastard in me cannot completely suppress a jackassed grin when the lights go down and I hear The Voice: “AWWWWWRIGHT ABBOTSFORD! YOU WANTED THE BEST AND YOU GOT THE BEST! THE HOTTEST BAND IN THE WORLD: KEEEUSSSSSSS!!!!”  The curtain drops and there they are on the massive stage: Gene, Paul, and those other two dudes dressed up like Ace and Peter. Everything is very bright, the pyro is very hot. Instantly I am transported to that moment forever crystallized in my memory, some 30-odd years ago as my elder cousins showed me the jacket to Hotter Than Hell for the first time. I was transfixed then. I am surprised, all this time later, to find I still AM.

Kicking off proceedings with “Modern Day Delilah” from their 2009 album Sonic Boom (I know, right – KISS are still putting out albums?), the old men use the opener as a chance to preen and work the shooters in the photo pit – presumably because nobody particularly cares how bad they might possibly botch the new song amidst all the posing. With the new fluff out of the way, they dive right into “Cold Gin” and finally Abbotsford roars its approval – the crowd knows this one. And the next one. And the next. And save for one other new song early on in the set, the entire rest of the setlist is bonafide KISS classics – not a single B-side to be found here.

Of course, I could take the cheap shots: Gene’s puffy jowls during the blood-spit sequence make him look like something akin to a bloated black-metal Elvis, in monster boots instead of a rhinestone jumpsuit; Paul’s rude chest hair appears to have grown even more abundant in his senior years and his incessant (and incessantly bad) by-the-book stage banter (insert  an Abbotsford-approved Vancouver-diss here, interject a lookth-lahk-we-gonna-have-ourthelveth-a-rock-n-roll-pawty-tonight there) is still the most ludicrous (and mincing) in the biz; that-dude-dressed-up-as-Ace copping every nuance of Frehley’s classic performance and shtick (sorry, Tommy Thayer, nobody and I mean nobody should be allowed to sing “Shock Me” except Ace. Period. I WILL overlook the floating, firework-shooting Les Pauls. This time.)

Surprisingly, I’ve got no beef with dude-dressed-up-like-Peter, because everybody knows Eric Singer is ten times the drummer Peter Criss ever was, and his bombastic drum solo proved it beyond a doubt. But I won’t take the cheap shots. Truth is, I was having more fun than I’d expected to, and it was good to hear a lot of those songs played live again. Much better than when I saw the full original KISS back in 1996 on the first reunion tour, when a lot of the classics were played at what felt like half-speed, so the drummer could keep up. Say what you will about Tommy & Eric “playing” Ace & Peter, at least they can play. And they want to.

As such, the Abbotsford show was everything you’d expect a KISS concert to be: the big production, the fire, the smoke bombs, the blood. I’m guessing if I’d stuck around for the encore, I’d have gotten confetti and a levitating drum riser, too. We even got a bit of a Spinal Tap moment at the conclusion of Eric Singer’s drum solo, as he brandished a rocket launcher and fired upon a prop lighting rig, sending it tumbling to the ground. Too bad he had the weapon turned around and shot the loaded firework backwards. Thankfully nothing caught fire (that wasn’t meant to) and on went the show.

Even with all the gimmicks and trappings, a KISS show is still all about the songs, and for the most part, the setlist was rock solid, spanning the ‘70s heyday with a toe-dip into early ‘80s territory too. For the most part, the songs were even played note-for-note from the albums, though a lot of the time the sound in Abbotsford’s shed left a lot to be desired. I decided to beat traffic and split the scene halfway thru “Black Diamond”, before the encore, because to me, that’s the song a KISS show should end on. I really had no desire to hear “Rock and Roll All Nite” again.

So, while my starry-eyed inner five-year-old was sated by the big time rock show KISS put on, I’m happy to report my curmudgeonly inner mid-30s-year-old was equally sarcastically sated by what I saw. All it took was a trip past one of many merch tables set up throughout the venue to gawk at overpriced KISS junk (and there was loads of it). I realize that KISS will never again be what they represented to me in my childhood, but all the same I’m glad I got to see them again, if only because it means I now know I won’t want to on their next tour.

KISS in Abbotsford setlist:

1. Modern Day Delilah
2. Cold Gin
3. Let Me Go, Rock ‘N’ Roll
4. Say Yeah
5. Deuce
6. Firehouse
7. Do You Love Me?

Tommy & Eric jam / drum solo / guitar solo

8. Calling Dr. Love
9. Shock Me
10. God of Thunder
11. Love Gun
12. I Love It Loud
13. 100,000 Years
14. Black Diamond
15. Detroit Rock City

Encore:

16. Beth
17. Lick It Up
18. Shout It Out Loud
19. Rock and Roll All Nite

More KISS in Abbotsford concert photos

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sucker Punch DVD/Blu-Ray release

"Don't fire until you see their ticket stubs, girls!"

- by Shawn Conner

Next week, June 28, sees the release of Sucker Punch on DVD and Blu-Ray. You know what this means – a whole raft of extras designed to entice unsuspecting movie fans (i.e. people who didn’t see two-hour music video on the big screen) to shell out for a movie that will be lucky to earn back its estimated $90 million price tag.

I was lucky enough to see it for free and man, am I glad I didn’t pay for it. That said, I should add it’s not as bad as I had anticipated; but it’s not also bad enough to warrant so-bad-you-have-to-see-it tag. In fact, it’s resoundingly mediocre, though with just enough visual inventiveness and WTF? moments to hold one’s interest, at least for this viewer.

One of the scenes that "held this viewer's interest".

However, the idea of the a DVD/Blu-Ray release got me thinking about what kind of extras they could, but probably won’t, include. Herewith:

Zach Snyder on the Death of Storytelling – Director/co-screenwriter Zach Snyder takes the viewer step-by-step through his method of writing the original screenplay, explaining creative decisions such as populating the script with bland, characterless stereotypes whom no one will remember five minutes after the movie. Also: Snyder explains his technique of draining any possible wit out of dialogue, particularly instances when characters are confronted with video-game monsters that warrant at least a dry response about how fucked-up this all is. Bonus: Snyder explains how he came up with the names “Baby Doll” and “Sweet Pea”.

The Madonna/Whore Complex: Special guest Camille Paglia’s audio commentary explains the significance of female characters who occupy a mental asylum which becomes a bordello/dancehall which leads to a rich fantasy life where they have super-powers and defeat steam-powered Nazis.

Interview with film critic Bo Rapinski: As the only person to pick Sucker Punch as his favourite movie of 2010, blogger Bo Rapinsky (Ain’tIttheShit.com and Ilovetitties.org) has his work cut out for him. But Bo, taking a break from filling out accreditation forms to comic book conventions, was happy to explain why Sucker Punch is so “epic” and “awesome” in exchange for Jena Malone’s phone number.

Character development is at the forefront in Zach Snyder's Sucker Punch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shoe star of the week – The Pipettes’ Gwenno Saunders

The Pipettes played Venue in Vancouver on Friday night. The British pop group is fronted by sisters Gwenno and Ani Saunders, who wore dresses with polka-dot tops and matching flower-print skirts. Gwenno also had on some cute shoes…. (Thanks to Anja Weber for the photos).

Gwenno Saunders with The Pipettes at Venue, Vancouver, April 29 2011. Anja Weber photo

Gwenno Saunders with The Pipettes at Venue, Vancouver, April 29 2011. Anja Weber photo