♫: janelle monáe (ft. big boi) - tightrope (2010)

i don't have my finger on the pulse of contemporary r&b but i know i what i like when i hear it. in that sense i'm somewhat of an authority on the subject. for instance, back in 2005 when amerie's 1 thing dropped i said to myself, i said, "this song is going to be hot." and it was. blazing. well i think tightrope by janelle monáe is also going to be burning shit up round these parts soon. or already is. i don't know. like i said i don't really know as much about contemporary r&b as i should. but this song shares 1 thing's funky, horn blasting beat and infectiously snappy vocals. also big boi stops by for a few words. so that's cool.



also just for the hell of it, 1 thing:

update: the sherwood showdown

if you recall from my robin hood: prince of theives post, i had all but decided that the kevin costner vehicle was the supreme robin hood movie but admitted that a clear winner could not be decided until having watched disney's take. well, ladies and gentlemen, im happy to say i did just that and i feel like i can now make a final assessment. but it's not going to be easy.

when looking at the movies you have to factor in a few key things: storyline, entertainment value, nostalgia level, characters, and song quality. so i went through and compared the two movies based on these criteria. i know there are probably some that i'm missing and if you feel particularly disgusted by the omission of a certain choice topic please feel free to drop some knowledge on me in the comments section. otherwise, lets get on with this hoedown.

now when i say storyline that has a few criteria of its own. you're talking about faithfulness to the original story but you're also talking about reinterpretation/originality and overall presentation. obviously the kevin costner version has more going for it in terms of depth (you're talking 144 minutes versus 83 minutes worth of story development here), but the disney version is comprised 100% of anthropomorphic talking animals. unfortunately, looney tunes beat out disney on this idea by about 15 years with robin hood daffy (which is a great little short). so i'm going to give prince of theives the nod on this one.
(thieves: 1, foxes: 0)

entertainment value is another tricky one. its kind of a vague catch all but really it boils down to how sustained the overall excitement was. and again, tough call. disney's running time was a real asset to it this time. the death knell for prince of thieves was the admission of my friend that he had fallen asleep about half way through and only caught certain bits of the "slow parts." that same friend made it all the way through disney's robin hood. point to disney.
(thieves: 1, foxes: 1)

nostalgia was probably the real reason for watching both of these. i remember them both fondly from my childhood and wanted to see if they would be just as memorable on a fresh viewing. also, what sort of feelings would they spark up? with the disney version i found myself surprised that i remembered certain parts, but with the costner version it wasn't just parts of the movie that i remembered - there were surrounding bits of life that came back with it. where was i watching it? on the couch in the house i grew up in with my dad. what else? recreating scenes on the massive fort at my elementary school. making bows and arrows out of twigs and string in boy scouts. definitely prince of thieves on this one.
(thieves: 2, foxes: 1)

obviously the characters are the same so i guess what im talking about here are the actors. prince of thieves had an all-star cast: kevin costner, morgan freeman, alan rickman, christian slater, etc. but disney had god damn talking animals. game over. disney.
(thieves: 2, foxes: 2)

and so it comes down to songs. i knew it would. and they both have strong contenders. on one hand you have bryan adams' powerhouse of emotion (everything i do) i do it for you and on the other you have the simple folky fun of oo de lally. both great, but one must be the victor. for all the marbles. whose it going to be? (drumroll, please)

...

come on, how can you deny bryan adams on this one? that song made that entire movie. that song is canada's greatest export. that song wins. hands down. prince of thieves, your robin hood winner.
final (thieves: 3, foxes: 2)

thirst (2009)

enough with these serious movies! let's watch korean films about vampires! thirst comes from the same guy who brought us old boy, so i imagined a lot of vampires fighting people with hammers. i was disappointed. no live octopi eating though. small favors.


i've never seen twilight so i can't really comment on it except i think its about sexy vampires. thirst is kind of also about sexy vampires but it also has a "story." here's an analogy i just now came up with: twilight is to pulpy romance novels as thirst is to the eternal lightness of being. very different yet...also similar? like i said i haven't seen the sexy vampire movie so i can't say for sure, but since nobody is here to argue me i will say yes. good analogy. thank you. you're welcome.


there is a very clear division in the movie, almost like it was made by two different people. the first half starts off as a pretty interesting parable that relates vampirism to religion and faith and miracle working...and by the second half it takes a turn for the crazy, or maybe metaphysical and i just don't get it. is it a critique on marriage? a refute of adultery (is the act vampirism a form of adultery - having multiple partners, exchanging fluids, getting diseases)? commentary on domestic living? an examination of guilt reminiscent of poe? maybe all of the above. it's hard to say.

i guess it's worth noting it is the first mainstream korean film to feature full-frontal adult male nudity. balls in your court now, robert pattinson.

now for lots of images:

♫: the everly brothers - cathy's clown (1960)

so i have to give props to my roommate on this one. the everly brothers were never really on my radar. acoustic guitar driven pop from the late 50's was never really my cup of tea i guess. and then one day i'm walking around the apartment thinking sean's put on some phil spector album (those drums are straight up phil spector) and the vocals kick in...the cascading harmonies on this song are perfect. the way they draw out notes matches up perfectly with the bitter melancholy of the lyrics. it gives you that sinking feeling in your stomach. i die each time i hear this sound, indeed.



fun fact: the everly brothers, in particular this very song, were heavily influential on an early beatles. you can hear it in their similar use of harmony and tempo from their first albums.

spoorloos (1988)

spoorloos aka. the vanishing...first of all, what kind of awesome word is spoorloos? i need to learn me some dutch. so here's why i like this movie - it takes your classic suspense/mystery archetype and totally turns it on it's head. the setup is played out enough: a couple (rex and saskia) are on holiday when at a gas station one of them disappears. as much as the other searches for them they are nowhere to be found. poof. magic dust.

the thing about movies like these is that the suspense usually derives from trying to figure out who the kidnapper is and we suffer the rest of the movie with each revealing clue hungering for the climatic reveal towards the end (and often a triumphant reunion or at least the bad guy loses, right?). but the vanishing lays all its cards out on the table from the moment of the crime. we know, well before the tortured protagonist, who the kidnapper is and even what makes him tick. we dive into the man's family life, we see him plotting in notebooks and lecturing at school. in fact, he seems like a perfectly likable fellow. he's not a monster. he has kids. he makes mistakes. but maybe that makes him an even more sinister character. he could be anyone. your neighbor, your friend, your colleague. anyone.


boy those are some silly screengrabs. so anyways, the suspense, instead, comes from the interaction between rex, and the kidnapper, raymond. the movie suggests a distorted sort of stockholm syndrome where, instead of the victim becoming enamored with their captor, the survivor and the kidnapper share an intense connection. a connection based on obsession. on one hand you have raymond who obsessively plans out the crime and on the other you have rex who obsessively searches for the kidnapper. in the end, rex's dedication compels raymond to seek him out and make contact. this is when the real suspense unfolds. the slowly revealed answers to all of rex's questions...and ours! after all, in these movies don't we also play victim? aren't we also rex, searching for our lost love, his will imposed onto our own?


finally i just want to share this bit of dialogue that nicely expresses the underlying theme of the movie, that being fate.

saskia: my nightmare. i had it again last night.
rex: that you're inside a golden egg and you can't get out, and you float alone through space forever.
saskia: yes, the loneliness is unbearable...no. this time there was another golden egg flying through space. and if we were to collide, it'd be all over.

don't mess with the flying space egg, rex! it only means your doom! dooooooooom!

bonus image::


oh a running gag. how cute.

10th post anniversary! we did it!

♫: sleigh bells - crown on the ground (2009)

first post in february! i meant to do a post about the vanishing tonight but i went over to a friends house and watched wwe raw instead? how does that happen? so look forward to that tomorrow. but to hold you over until then another music post. this one about a new band out of brooklyn (go figure) who have combined two of the great trends of the last couple of years: lo-fidelity and dancehall. they go by the name of sleigh bells and they absolutely destroy me. shew, i narrowly avoided that pun. anyways, here's the track:



at first you're probably like, "oh god this is going to be so annoying." but then the beat drops and all of the sudden you're thinking, "what is this feeling that is creeping over me?" which is followed by alexis krauss' twee pop vocals and finally you're lost. you've lost all sense of direction. what was once grindcore is now synth-pop. what is synth-pop is grindcore. and you really don't even know what those terms mean. it's like when your friend tells you how great marshmallow and peanut butter sandwiches are and you're all like, "no thanks i think i'll stick to jelly" and then you try it on a whim and it blows your mind. well its sort of like that...

for some reason they remind me of lady gaga. i think it's something having to do with the change in collective consciousness about what makes acceptable/mass-marketable pop music that lady gaga so obviously symbolizes. sure, taylor swift still dominated the award shows this year with her saccharine americana charm but the fact that someone as undefinable as lady gaga even exists in the popular spectrum gives a hopeful indication of what the future of music could hold. and perhaps the equally undefinable lo-fi dance pop of sleigh bells could be a part of that future?