review

23 posts

Concert Review: Feist

Singer-songwriter Feist played at Chicago’s Riviera Theater on November 4. Never before have I been to a concert that made me want to fall asleep until this one. Despite being a little tired from the week, I was ready to rock.

In every other concert I’ve been to the headliner usually comes out with one of their faster songs to get the crowd ready to jam out for the next hour or so. Not so with Feist. She played a slow song followed by another slow song and then another and another and it went on like that for the next 45 minutes until she played “My Moon, My Man” from her 2007 album The Reminder. Standing in the middle of the middle level would seem like an ideal place to take advantage of a venues acoustics, but this was not so with this concert. Continue reading

Thoughts On The Rosie Show

In the late 1990’s, The Rosie O’Donnell Show was one of the most popular daytime talk shows. Back then, Rosie was the Queen Of Nice. She had lots of big name guests, she was wacky, she threw Koosh Balls at everyone and screamed about how much she loved Tom Cruise.

Like all good things, The Rosie O’Donnell Show came to an end in 2002 after almost 1200 episodes. Throughout the aughties, she kept busy with appearances on various talk shows, producing documentaries and TV specials, and a notable run on “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” Continue reading

Should You Watch Terra Nova?

Hi! I'm that guy from Avatar! Welcome to Terra Nova!

Fox’s dinosaur time travel family drama premiered this week.

Here’s the basic premise: In the year 2149, Earth is a polluted, overcrowded, dystopian crap-hole. Families are limited to two children. People wear breathing masks. Street urchins watch broken ipads. Everything is dirty. Fortunately, scientists discover a crack in time! What? Yes! A crack in time! And we can ease the burden of the surplus population by letting people go through the crack, to colonize the past. Not just any past, though–it’s the Dinosaur Past! You can become one of the lucky colonists in the Terra Nova settlement by winning a lottery, or by having special skills. Continue reading

Review: Perhaps Whitney Cummings Should Learn What Abominable Means

You know that opening scene in that not great movie The Way of The Gun where Ryan Phillippe, doosh, has this crazy, foul-mouthed banter with this dark-haired, lady-cretin who rages and rants in a way that is incredibly awful, yet shamefully funny in its offensiveness, but then a few years later lots of people love her for it, and yes, well, many of us said, “Hey, Sarah Silverman was that sick, twisted chick from the opening scene of that movie all my stoner friends told me about. Yeah, that’s her. Wow. She’s come a long way.” Well none of that happened with this Whitney Cummings person.

Continue reading

Time Machine Book Review: The Timothy Files and Timothy’s Game

The Timothy Files, Lawrence Sanders, 1987, Berkley Books
Timothy’s Game, Lawrence Sanders, 1988, Berkley Books

When the term Private Investigator comes up in conversation, everyone has a touchstone. Whether it’s Magnum P.I. or Sam Spade, the overall tradition has been of a man who is pithy, good with the ladies, drinks, smokes, and kills, albeit reluctantly and usually in self defense.

Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Timothy Cone.

Although he’s a private detective and fits the bill of stereotypes, he’s not pithy. In fact, he’s the only detective who has forced me keep a dictionary handy to translate his verbosity during the reading of Lawrence Sanders’ wonderfully funny and unfortunately too short series of 2 books containing 3 short stories each.

Timothy Cone works for Haldering & Co. a Manhattan Wall Street firm that investigates clients for buyouts and mergers. Pretty dull stuff in theory, until the murder, sex, (the stories take place in the 1980’s, so there is a lot of cocaine and some ebullient wife-swapping) and thievery of the clients make the books difficult to put down. With plots that are so realistic they can awaken the felon a reader never knew they inwardly possessed, (I know now how to commit insider trading if it was 30 years ago).  The books “The Timothy Files” and “Timothy’s Game” have intricate descriptions of Manhattan when it was still dirty and dangerous, with mind-numbingly intelligent plots that make these short stories some of the best mysteries I have ever read. And re-read. And still laughed out loud at, 16 years after I read them for the first time. But the best thing, is the is the dialogue. (And the fact that when Cone leaves his apartment he orders his cat, Cleo not to masturbate while he is gone.)

Cones’ description of his romantic interest Samantha Watling, (his boss): “an iron fist in an iron glove.”

About a briefcase full of papers he has to carry home: “I lugged the blivet down here.” *

Admiring an attractive woman: “What a dish! He suddenly remembers a gyrene** buddy of his spotting a similar woman on the street and remarking admiringly, ‘all you need with that is a spoon and a straw.'”

A sergeant he’s working a case with, who constantly bums cigarettes: “I’m trying to quit smoking by not buying cigarettes. Now I’m going to die a mooch with lung cancer.”

To a libidinous older police detective he’s eating lunch with: “Your a dirty old man.” “Well, I was a dirty young man, I haven’t changed.”

These stories are fast paced, daring, and the perfect mix of noir and humor. And I haven’t loaned one out without the person becoming a convert. A girlfriend who’s never read a mystery, a friend before he was shipped to Iraq, a theater production designer – they all came back raving and quoting the book randomly over drinks.

Timothy Cone can make friends among the most diverse groups of people.

I’m not a fan of Lawrence Sanders’ ‘Deadly Sin’ series, or any of his other books actually. They never captured my interest. But, to re-work that stupid Jerry Maguire quote into the ground in regard to Timothy Cone, “He had me at scragged.” ***

* blivet – 10 pounds of shit in a 5 pound bag
**gyrene – a member the US Marine Corps
*** scragged – killed

Reel Previews: Rubber (2011)

I love movie trailers – come deconstruct them with me!

(Don’t cloud your judgement! Watch the trailer then read my rant.)

Rubber (April 01 2011* |Magnet Releasing)

*US Release date. Shown at the Cannes Film Festival in May of 2010.

(Advanced apologies for the sailor cussin’. It is necessary, as you’ll see in the trailer above/review below).

My first exposure to this movie was the poster. Very different from the orange and blue movie posters currently dominating the walls of cinemas these days. The thumbnail on the Apple trailers site was so small, I couldn’t see the tagline. I simply assumed that it was some sort of documentary on the millions of tires choking landfills and making our planet a sad and dirty place to live. For a split second prior to this I also thought of condoms (rubber, condoms, geddit?! Mind perpetually in the gutter, or just feeling horny these days? Hmm….*rubs chin*).

But assumptions make an ass out of the person doing the assuming, and I felt like an idiot thinking that this was some sort of environmental wake-up call to the materialistic masses. This is not a documentary.

Rubber Movie Poster
The poster has a grindhouse feel, doesn't it?

My first clue was at the very beginning of the trailer, when the fucking tire spins and gets up and starts rolling itself down the fucking road going on his merry way whatthefuckisthisfuckeryhisnameisRobert?!?!

So yeah, colour me confused. And really, really fascinated. Because he gets pulled over. By Babylon – *cough* I mean, the cops. The tire turns around and fucking blows the head of one of the cops to fucking smithereens ohmyholyshitiamdyingthisishilarious!

Just give me a sec while I catch my breath and wipe the tears from my eyes.

Okay! So this is a horror movie about a killer tire. If that isn’t the higher heights of brilliancy, I don’t know what is. And so, on the movie’s premise alone, I know that this is a must-see film. But does the rest of the trailer hold up to my heightened expectations? I mean, what are you supposed to expect from a movie about a murderous car part?

I suppose this could be a horror-comedy hybrid that the filmmakers, after puffing up some high grade hydro spliffs, though would be good for a laugh, not realizing that you’re not supposed to go through with any ideas you come up with when you’re high. Or it can a serious avant-garde film with deep themes and other bullshit that would just go over my head.

A brilliant idea then occurred to me and I tried a little thought experiment: re-watch the trailer again, but pretend that the tire is a person. How would I perceive the trailer then? Turns out, it was kinda hard to do. The film does look like a mixture of camp and artistic, though. The camp definitely comes from the tire itself, as well as the numerous jokes such as the briefing with the cops (“Is it black?” HAHAHA!) and the obligatory horror/suspense movie shower scene (around the 1:14 mark). But the cinematography and editing look like top notch indie film material.

I actually feel sorry for the damn tire when he forlornly stares at the fire at the 1:54 mark. Did he see the injustice of it all and then turn on mankind à la Falling Down? Is this a complex character study of a good tire gone bad? And just who the hell is this ‘visionary’ filmmaker Quentin Dupieux and his composers Mr. Oizo and Gaspard Augé? (Hint: one of these things is not like the others.) This is so confusing! Movies as ridiculous as this should look and sound shitty and have terrible, cringe-worth acting. And yet, it doesn’t seem to have any of these traits.

My final judgement is that it probably doesn’t matter; I will be seeing this (if I can) whatever the filmmaker’s intentions. Do you think the trailer sold you on the movie? Because it surely fucking did for me!

If you missed them, read the previous installments of Reel Previews here (The Mechanic) and here (Winnie-The-Pooh).

The Detroiter: La Ronde at The Abreact

La Ronde by Arthur Schnitzler
Abreact Performance Space
Closing Night: February 26: 8pm
Tickets: Free but Donations Welcome

Cast (Order of Appearance)
Caroline Price: The Prostitute, The Young Wife and The Actress
Stephen Blackwell: The Soldier, The Husband and The Count
Kristen Knisley: The Maid, The Sweet Young Thing
Martin Turner Shelton: The Young Master, The Poet 

Last night, after venturing into Corktown, Detroit’s historic Irish district filled with great food and great buildings, I arrived at The Abreact Performance Space inside the Lafayette Lofts on the corner of West Lafayette and Brooklyn. I was there early to speak with the powers that be about a one act regarding alcoholic misanthropes as well as to make sure I scored a prime seat (I did, in the front row) for the night’s show: La Ronde: Arthur Schnitzler’s controversial play about sex that was initially banned in Germany, but hailed by Sigmund Freud and which eventually found major followings in the United Kingdom and, not surprisingly, France. The house filled up quickly and a few minutes before the play started, it had reached capacity as The Abreact rushed to accommodate those who had made reservations prior to the performance.

After everything had been taken care of, the lights began to dim and a card on the mantle of a fireplace alerted us that the first (of  ten) dialogues would be between the prostitute and the soldier and I was swept away into early 20th century Vienna (well, with British accents). The prostitute tried to pick up the soldier who gruffly and forcefully told her that not only did he have no money, but that he had to get back to barracks. They joked around for a bit before heading down to a secluded area to have sex since the soldier refused to go to the prostitute’s apartment. The house went black as the characters simulated sex, the lights raising again to showcase them half dressed and the prostitute trying to get money out of the soldier, despite having offered her services to him free of charge.

The rest of the show went through this general formula amongst different social classes to showcase how what we want out of love and sex is exactly the same, even if the way we deal with it is different and also reaffirmed the notion that everyone sleeps with everyone. To make a long story short:

The Prostitute slept with The Soldier
The Soldier slept with The Maid
The Maid with the Young Master
The Young Master with The Young Wife
The Young Wife with her Husband
The Husband with the Sweet Young Thing
The Sweet Young Thing with The Poet
The Poet with The Actress
The Actress with The Count

and, finally, to complete the circle, The Count with The Prostitute.

I, and the rest of the audience, spent the two hours (excluding the intermission wherein we all grabbed either cans of PBR or a glass of wine from the kitchen which were also free (everyone donated a couple bucks to offset costs, however)) in uproarious laughter as people teased, snarled and made outrageous noises and comments during sex (my favorite was the monotone “Oh, cricket. Oh, cricket” during the Poet/Actress scene). The show was a triumph, and, while the entire cast was sublime, the strongest was Matthew Shelton as The Young Master trust fund kid who seduced The Maid and The Young Wife (despite both of their protestations. I’d say that it could be seriously considered that some of the characters in the show were raped) and as The Poet/Playwright Robert/Biebitz who lived in squalor while seducing The Sweet Young Thing and The Actress who wouldn’t shut up about an ex-lover named Fritz. His anger at The Maid for falling in love with him during sex, at The Young Wife for teasing him when he couldn’t maintain an erection and his shock that The Sweet Young thing had no idea who Biebitz was felt like some of the most authentic dialogue in a piece filled with incredibly believable words.  The sets were spartan, but the space was small and they worked with the vibe of the show.

Overall, I haven’t a bad word to say, which is odd. It’s just a well-written, well acted piece and I urge you to see it. If however, you miss the final performance tonight or live outside of the Detroit area, the French filmed a well-received version of La Ronde in 1950. I haven’t seen it, but, if it sticks close to the script, it should be pretty quality.

 

The Abreact Performance Space is located at 1301 W. Lafayette Street at Brooklyn. Performances start at 8 with doors opening at 730. The Abreact will begin a production of Waiting For Godot on April 15, which will also star Stephen Blackwell. Tickets, as mentioned, are free, but The Abreact is funded solely by donation. Arrive early! If you decide to get a bite before the show, I highly recommend going to Mudgie’s Deli on Porter and Brooklyn, three blocks north of The Abreact. It’s my favorite place to get sandwiches in Detroit. Go there. Seriously.

Reel Previews: The Mechanic (2011)

I love movie trailers – come deconstruct them with me!

(Don’t cloud your judgement! Watch the trailer then read my rant.)

The Mechanic (January 28 2011 | CBS Films)

Years ago, I was bored and happened to flip to a local channel showing some seventies movie with Charles Bronson in it. I thought it was going to be lame, old-timey shit.

I was wrong.

That movie was The Mechanic, and it was fucking badass. The details of the plot are hard for me to remember, but simply reciting the movie’s title summons a soft blanket woven with fond memories of badassery over my heart.

A similar situation happened with El Mariachi; having never heard of it, nor having seen any plot-spoiling trailers for it, I watched El Mariachi one idle night on that same local channel with expectations so low, it was digging quite successfully to China. Needless to say, I was blown away by its majesty (and by the fact, which I only found out later, that it was the precursor to Desperado and Once Upon a Time in Mexico).

Now there’s a remake of The Mechanic, starting Jason Statham.

I guess you can cue the sad violin and sense of foreboding, right? A remake is cruel, surprize buttsecks to the cherished films of yore, right? Well…I dunno. The Mechanic actually seems suited to a modern retelling. The plot is simple enough – sophisticated assassin takes on an apprentice (and hijinks ensue!). You can go interesting places with an outline like that.

The problem is that this new version looks like it goes to the least interesting corner of the Imagination Station. The original version had an almost meditative quality, which had the effect of making the violence even more chilling. The Wikipedia page for the original has a little note on the existentialism of the film, ferchrissake! But the trailer for the new version is hardly Zen-like. Almost instantly after the green rating card disappears you get wacked over the head with the sound of a pulsating electric guitar. You know, ‘cuz rock music makes everything cooler.

Quick cuts in the beginning showcase the lead character’s résumé of death screaming “Hire me! Hire me, bitch!” Bronson’s Mechanic would need no such brazen excessiveness. He’d kill your enemy’s dog and make it look like it accidentally choked on its favourite chew toy if you asked him for an employment reference.

The rest of the trailer is an infodump of gadgets and violence that leads me to believe that this movie will sink into the bowels of mediocrity. Case in point: “Time to take your training to the next level.” What the fuck is this, Training from Hell?! I’ll give the trailer’s tagline (“A good mechanic is hard to find.”) a pass, though. Because it’s true. Jason Statham may be a mechanic, but I doubt he’s a good one. It’s not that I don’t like him as an actor. He just doesn’t seem like the spiritual successor to Bronson. So keep on looking, folks! Nothing to see here!

Taken by itself, this is an exciting trailer that piques your interest in the movie, no doubt about that. Flashy action isn’t bad by itself, but come on…so many modern action movies are like that. The 1972 movie was special because it transcended the tired clichés that films about assassins are wont to slip into. Will the 2011 version do the same? If the trailer’s any indication, probably not. That’s a shame for badass lovers everywhere.