Eyes: '08 Edition

Personal favorites from the cinema of 2008. Kind of in a descending order though only slightly...

Paranoid Park (dir. by Gus Van Sant) "Best Film of the Year"

A cinematic poem to innocence and the loss of. A hyper-culmination of the style developed and explored in Van Sant's self-proclaimed "death trilogy" (Gerry, Elephant, Last Days), Paranoid is much more kinetic than his previous three films and benefits heavily from an emotive soundtrack and beautifully steady visuals. These images float onscreen and possess a lyricism sorely lacking in today's cinema of "realism."

Best in Realism

Rachel Getting Married (dir. by Jonathon Demme)
This film depicted life as both euphoric and tragic (as opposed to the one-sided Synecdoche, New York which seemed unfairly obsessed with the latter). Although Anne Hathaway recieved most of the attention for this film (deservingly), its Bill Irwin's performance as the eager yet helpless head of the family that I found the most heartbreaking. The scene in the kitchen, packing the dishwasher is simultaenously the emotional peak and nadir of the film. Witness the American family trying to be whole once more in the aftermath of divorce, family tragedy, drug addiction and general disfunction. With Tunde Adebimpe from TV on the Radio!

Happy-Go-Lucky (dir. and written by Mike Leigh)
Another great realist film that follows the blissfully positive Poppy, an elementary school teacher in London, as she attempts to hold on to her self-prescribed naivete in the face of psychotic driving instructors, child-abuse and the homeless. Beautiful in its highs as well as lows.

Best in Vampires

Let the Right One In (dir. by Tomas Alfredson)
What a strange little film. A beautiful story of adolescence and young love accented with scenes of intense horror and violence. The ending is one of the most perversely satisfying endings of any film I've seen in a long while.

Best of Hollywood

Milk (dir. by Gus Van Sant)
Gus Van Sant returns to the populist cinema of Hollywood to make a movie about the political life and death of a gay politician in San Francisco. What a guy. Like Elephant and Last Days, most of the audience knows how Milk ends but Sean Penn and Josh Brolin's performances doubled with Van Sant's visual poetry elevates the script above its trappings as a standard biopic. A bar raid shot from outside with a gradual zooming single take not only captures the hysteria better than a handheld, choppily-edited sequence would but also shows the thought put in to even the smallest of details.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (dir. by David Fincher)
Forrest Gump makes me cry. I don't think its a coincidence that Button also wrecked me. I mean REALLY wrecked me. Good thing I saw this alone because it was embarrassing. I can't even remember the last I was this emotionally devastated by a picture. A subdued love story (no grand emotional peaks or valleys) was boring to many but I found it quietly beautiful.

Iron Man (dir. by Jon Favreau)
I saw this film on opening night in packed Paris theater and it was one of my proudest moment as an American abroad. No one does spectacle like Hollywood. And no one does snark and charm like Robert Downey Jr. U S A!!! U S A!!! U S A!!!

Forgetting Sarah Marshall (dir. by Nicolas Stoller)
The funniest movie I saw all year. Its taken me a while to warm up to Jason Segel (I found him annoyingly whiny and pathetic on Freaks and Geeks [perhaps it just hit a little too close to home?]) but he was great in this (though still pretty pathetic). I'm working my way through How I Met Your Mother currently and find him hilarious there, as well. Wheelz seems disgusted by the idea that Segel is a "star" but I'm happy see his average mug on billboards across town. Nice counterpoint to all the Clive Owen posters.

Best de l'Amour

Wall-E (dir. by Andrew Stanton)
A beautifully felt picture that glued a stunned smile to my face for the majority of its runtime. The Hello, Dolly touches were particularly affecting. And that ballet in space was quite magical. Though it deserved a better third act, the perfection of the take-off made forgivable the stilted landing.

Slumdog Millionaire (dir. by Danny Boyle and Loveleen Tandan)
The "Its His Destiny" answer at the end made me scoff but it was a fun ride. Danny Boyle's cool.

Best in Joints

Pineapple Express (dir. by David Gordon Green)
Has gotten better with each repeat viewing. More Undertow than George Washington as far as Green goes but that's not a slight. Tim Orr's gorgeous cinematography floats through scenes of awkardly realistic violence until the end where Seth Rogen is fucking flying around the warehouse. Little touches like the young overweight Hispanic girl in a swimsuit staring at James Franco crying into a sandwich and the weightlifting neighbor of Rogen's girlfriend show that Green still has an eye for the beautiful oddities of life. The walking through the forest interlude stands as the most poetic sequence in the film.

Smiley Face (dir. by Greg Araki)
A strange and hilarious picture that would surely benefit from a good joint. While its still good sober the unspeakably bad cinematography tires the eyes and the mind. Anna Farris continues to impress, throwing herself into these silly roles with such reckless abandon.

Best in Comebacks

JCVD (dir. by Mabrouk El Mechri)
Jean-Claude is incredible in this movie and its a shame it didn't get as much attention as the other comeback role this year. But this isn't so much a comeback as a realization of the skills that Van Damme has. He's funny, sad and beaten by the end of the film and vulnerable in a way no other star was this year, except maybe ...

The Wrestler (dir. by Darren Aranofsky)
A nice piece of realist filmmaking that shows Aranofsky roping in his style in order to let Mickey Rourke dominate the screen. He goes out on top with the only family that stands by him - his fans. The last shot of this movie was one of the most beautiful and heartbreaking endings of any film this year (though JCVD's was pretty devastating also). We leave Rourke soaring through the air, knowing full well he's falling just as much as flying.

I need to work on being more concise. Next time.

808s & Heartbreak: Breakin' the Blues!

With Kanye's most recent re-imagining of the VH1 Storytellers format, here's a review of what i believe to be his masterpiece, 808s & Heartbreak...

Beeps and blips bounce back and forth over a sparse drum beat created by the generally reviled Roland TR-808 drum machine. Sampled vocals create a mournful choir and the occasional chord on piano drops. The light among this desolate arrangement? The melodies of auto-tuned Kanye West. A question arises - the same one that came to mind when I heard Charlie Kaufman would be directing a feature film of his own - why?

It all sounds too terrible to be true. A loudmouthed, arrogant popstar lamenting the life he's built for himself full of money, women and sports cars? 808s & Heartbreak would be worthy of contempt were it not so beautifully contradictory and simply strange. You get the sense that Mr. West is really trying something here. Trying to write a proper pop song. Trying to excise the pain of losing a fiancé (she left him) and a mother (to a botched surgery) in the same year.

Above all, Mr. West is coping with this loss using his music, hoping for some sort of catharsis. Each song has all the immediacy we've come to know from Kanye (the man's first single was sung while his jaw was wired shut after a car accident) with little reflection. This is both a strength and a weakness. On one hand it makes the album incredibly contradictory. Sometimes on the same song - "Heartless" laments the loss of a girl, while also bragging "you'll never find nobody better than me." But, in a way, its an honest snapshot of the conflicted, unfiltered emotions one experiences after a break-up. Kanye's not thinking straight and neither are his songs as they bounce through his doubts ("Love Lockdown"), the career he chose ("Amazing"), his regrets ("Street Lights"), and - most underrepresented on this album - his cool (the transcendent "Paranoid").



Then there's the formal elements, most specifically the auto-tune. The man can't sing. But in this day and age why should that stop him? His use of auto-tune I find most effective in his live performances, where the rawness of his voice often overpowers the electronic vibrato of the correction tool. Its not always the most aesthetically pleasing but its real in a way that is absent from most pop. The 808 drum machine is known as a punchline in the music industry for sounding unapologetically fake. It was introduced to Kanye by composer / producer / songwriter Jon Brion (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Fiona Apple's When The Pawn..., Meaningless) who co-produced most of Kanye's sophomore effort Late Registration. Brion's love of orchestral strings appears to have also influenced Kanye (see "Robocop" on Storytellers below). The true beauty of 808s comes from the fact that Mr. West uses these tried and despised tools to create something wholly new and interesting. And the album ends up sounding like a robot discovering its humanity.

By "Coldest Winter" Kanye proves himself to be just as big as he boasts he is (or at least on his way), with a heart bigger than any of the written-by-committee trash found on most Top 20 radio. Its an album of awkwardness, ambition and honesty that is extremely refreshing coming from an artist who could just as easily keep shilling out more of the same with great returns. I didn't hear anything else in 2008 that featured an artist challenging himself and pushing himself to the edge of his limitations as much as 808s & Heartbreak did for Kanye. One hopes that once he overcomes this bout of self-pity and grief, this ambition will manifest itself in an even greater way. 808s deserves applause for its intentions and a nod for its achievements. Here's to the self-proclaimed Elvis of our day.

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(note: please delete all versions of the bonus track found at the end of the album as it is pretty lame. you'll be doing yourself and Yeezy a favor.)

The Last Semester: Cut-Up

A frequent posting meant to document my final semester of undergraduate studies. Lazy, wandering journal entries for posterity's sake.

friday night parties. Zencu in Little Tokyo for Poda's b-day. she was one of the first people i met here at university. sake bombs, stuffed calamari, grand roll. a beautiful beginning. Denny and i enjoy the views of a SI swimsuit program on TNT during dinner. then back to the apartment, with pabst in hand. then to the big red house where Brown, Peabody and Monsieur Rager have nicked some champagne from the inside 'sophomoric' party (in all the senses they assure me). eventually some roomies show up and we're off to an old parisian amie, Sia.

its a small get-together but nice. Pfff tries to get Sia to take a body shot off of him. she respectfully declines. the house runs out of cigarettes. Joe and Julie say they'll stick around if i go run get some from the 76 down the street. with Feels in my ear i'm off.

hood on, head down to deter any interested parties. cigarettes acquired. pause on the scaffolding taco shop across the way. sit, smoke, and bob my head along to the music. then continue heading back. pass my old building. haven't broken a window in the main entrance in a while. figure its time for it. and afterward i'll just hop out the back - a shortcut to the party. tall metal fence with sharp arrowheads of steel on top. around the side i use an adjacent fence to hopefully propel me over the steel arrows. the second fence begins to sway and i go for it, slicing the side of palm under my pinky open.

fuck.

it doesn't hurt too bad. good thing i had a buzz going. i light a cigarette and walk back to the party. "anybody sober enough to drive?" i'm convinced to call DPS. they take my info and then escort me to Good Sam, Kevin, whom i met earlier, comes as well. the woman DPS officer gets a picture after dropping me at the hospital. i get in to the emergency room easily enough and then wait. next to me is an obese shirtless hispanic man named William. he is having trouble staying conscious. the male nurse takes a picture of my cut. i hear slaps next door and calm shouts of "William. William. We need you to wake up." I look over and see him knocked out with tubes going into his nose. slap, slap, slap. "William, honey." i stare over. his eyes are closed. the nurse catches me and pulls the curtain. After some more slaps William starts to gurgle and mumbles, "Awwwgh! It GHurrts!" more of the same for the rest of the night. i got out at about 4 30 to find Kevin, Will, and Chelsey waiting outside to give me a lift home.

can't hold a guitar neck is possible bad news for a Clue Jr. reunion on march 2nd. but it also means more computer music for me. hopefully i won't fall prey to self-pity and laziness. fingers crossed!

The Last Semester: Week-End

A frequent posting meant to document my final semester of undergraduate studies. Lazy, wandering journal entries for posterity's sake.



its raining in the Grapevine. takes us almost two hours to get there because the friday traffic. although i didn't know at the time the back tires on Bear's car are completely bald. car starts to catch puddles. we seem to float across four lanes then we settle into the far right lane at humble 55 mph. Bear handles it but its damn scary. My 'Road To Max(imum Overdrive)' CD doesn't work in the car. We stop at a Best Buy in Gilroy to Coo's chagrin. New blank cd works and the mix gets us into San Jose in 45 minutes. But no. We go to Sonoma Chicken Coop in Campbell where Overdrive's birthday dinner is finishing up. Hello's then temporary goodbye's as we head to Overdrive's apartment for the bash.

Mickey's, Sierra Nevada, Apricot Ale. Blurry names. Shepherd from Firefly? Leo the Brit? Ms. Hip corners me on several occasions and calls me 'irritating' and two other non-flattering adjectives i don't (care to) recall. i add worthless to her list. Overdrive shows me some incredible Ratatat remixes. as the evening wanes, Ms. Hip and i argue music. The Brit (sans accent) tells us to shut the fuck up. then me specifically. "(Overdrive), i love you, i love most of your friends." mood soured, sleep enjoyed.

Slow morning. Fantastic scene in front of the bathroom mirror with four or five people in their applying makeup, teeth brushing, hair combing, talking as Interpol plays on the small stereo. Then to Cafe San Jose for some delicious hangover cures. Then to Goodwill and the acquisition of a nice croquet set and a Cosby LP for Peabody. Followed by croquet in the park. Your humble author taking the prize both games. Video games and lethargy back at Overdrive's apartment. Then to Berkeley.

Bear's car takes us past Oakland with the tunes of Ms. Hip. a Diplo mix. fine, i guess. We hang out at Qua's house and watch Rain Man. "what's hummus?" the Bear asks. "its greek for dip," i reply. Car 2 carrying Overdrive, Captain America, and Joe French arrives and we head out for burritos, pitchers of beer and I, Robot in spanish. A walk through Berkeley campus gets us to the row of bars. "Brrr, It's Cold!" Sports Bar filled with Berkeley gear. BroTV bores, so Bear takes to the jukebox. "Drain You", "Soul to Squeeze" and some CCR to begin the reminiscing. Then Overdrive steps up (after two whiskey shots from Bear) with "New Year's Day", "Hey Joe" and another that escapes me. The place fills up. A smoke break takes us outside to meet the Joke Writer. Jokes had his "old lady's" guitar and told us how he loved life and once sold jokes to George Carlin on the streets of New York for 50 bucks ("you think those cops over there speak pig latin?").

Then a long walk to a billiards bar. Drinks all around (Racer 5 IPA was it?). A guy in Kanye glasses sparks me to proclaim "808s & Heartbreak til i die!" Observation by Overdrive about your humble author, "your level of intoxication is inversely related to your respect for authority." Captain America is does not adjust his trajectory for bushes or trees. Bear is checking all doors. Wine bottles crash to the ground from a recycling can. The point of going out to bars is to enjoy the walk home. A phone book (my achilles heel) knocks me out of a tree. i climb the scaffolding of the building next to Qua's apartment. i jump from roof B to roof A where we spend the rest of the night enjoying the view, drinking vodka, tossing pots ("when we're drunk we do things that just are not cool"), bullshitting and listening to Autolux.



Waking up on hardwood floor at noon. A Firestone is spotted on the way out of Berkeley. We decide to fix the bald tires in order to survive the Gilroy road and Grapevine once again. Lunch at a burger joint owned by two brothers raised by their grandfather. They've got "sweet plus (chuckles)" but no splenda. Wandering. Another Goodwill visit. less successful. Catch the end of the Lakers v. Cavs game (LeBron is sloppy). Leaving Berkeley by 3:30 with Merriweather Post Pavillion dominating the soundscape of Bear's car. the sea and "My Girls" and we're fucking floating. land in San Jose after the album ends. Moan's depiction of "Wham City" (inset) is incredible and a summation of that week-end as it was coming to its undesired end. Overdrive to work. World's Strongest Ghost promises made. To Santa Cruz to acquire the Coo. Successfully brave the Gilroy and the Grapevine (thanks to the new treads) to get back to "home" by 1 in the AM.

Merriweather Post Pavilion now belongs to that one perfect week-end.

Jerry Fellwell (version 2)

based upon a loop by james meiser. i don't do it justice. a second version that is arguably better than the first.

Altman And Anderson

i'm not fond of multiple character storyarcs that intertwine only fleetingly. i guess i like the idea of it. expanding on supporting characters giving them the fullness they deserve as human beings. but its just been abused as of late with the likes of Babel and Crash. though some of the best examples of this device come from Altman and Anderson. three standouts for me feature their characters being connected by increasingly more surreal events. the assassination of a country star in Nashville, earthquake in Short Cuts, frog rain in Magnolia (this really is the absurdist end of the 'genre'). after those three is there really much else to be mined from this overly realist conceit?

Incredibad.

Like A Boss by The Lonely Island. Incredibad indeed.