Crickets Chirping

777 is a three part song in 7/4 time. It may have been better in concept than in execution, but I felt compelled to follow through after I told a couple of people “hey it would be funny to make a three part song in 7, on 07/07/07.”

At first glance this appears to be your standard comic book sci-fi action flick. But as you probably guessed, there’s more than meets the eye.

Through a series of mechanical plot turns and a few extreme bends of both logic and physics, this movie turns into…

…a commercial.

Some of the brands on display:

• GM (I think. If not GM, then at least they were all American manufacturers- Not japanese, which is funny.)
• Taco Bell
• Nokia
• Apple
• eBay
• US Military (you know they do that kind of thing, right?)

I bet this thing paid for itself before it even hit the theaters. Maybe I haven’t seen enough movies lately. Maybe this isn’t unusual these days. Maybe I’m getting old but I’m also getting sick of everything turning into an ad. We’re turning into Idiocracy for real.

Go watch this movie.

Description from the website:

Le Grand Content examines the omnipresent Powerpoint-culture in search for its philosophical potential. Intersections and diagrams are assembled to form a grand ‘association-chain-massacre’. which challenges itself to answer all questions of the universe and some more. Of course, it totally fails this assignment, but in its failure it still manages to produce some magical nuance and shades between the great topics death, cable tv, emotions and hamsters.

I watched the first Burn to Shine DVD last night. I took notes (I’m taking notes while I watch TV a lot lately. I should probably keep a TV Notebook on the coffee table for convenience.)

I first heard about this DVD series back when my friend Shawn interviewed Brendan Canty for Space City Rock, but didn’t think of it again until I saw it amongst the documentaries at I Love Video. In short, the series (of which DC is the first) is recordings of local bands playing in houses that are about to be demolished. I don’t know what they’re trying to say with the demolished house thing. On the one hand, it’s fuckin’ punk rock to demolish shit, but on the other they could be saying that the music goes in cycles just like our living spaces. The surroundings and sounds we currently find ourselves in- they’re all temporary despite the design and intent of the creators. Music can protect us from the emotional elements- tragedy, heartbreak and so on, just like a house provides shelter from the weather. But both are destined to be torn down, replaced by something better suited to the new occupants.

Or not.

What I wrote down while watching the DVD:

Q and Not U: MicroKORG! (One of the lists I’d like to make is of bands that use the MicroKORG.)

Medications: Is that the guy from Faraquet? (I checked the internets after I finished watching the DVD: it is the guy from faraquet).

Garland of Hours: Is Music Man the only brand of bass guitar sold in DC? It’s hard to rock out on piano because the player is sitting down.

French Toast: It’s hard to rock out on a drum machine because the drummer doesn’t exist.

Ted Leo: Amazing. If you ever get a chance to see this guy live, do it.

Weird War: Is that the guy from Nation of Ulysses The Makeup? And he’s wearing a pink triangle? No. Way. (Check out this NPR piece from him where he explains how Electroclash and the recent Psychadelic Folk revival are fraternal twins, midwifed by Alan Greenspan’s real estate boom, born without acoustic drums into spaces without garages, spaces un-owned by their occupants.) Turns out there’s a guy from Golden and another guy from Trans Am in this band. I should check out more of their stuff.

The Evens: Is she playing drums with the handles of the sticks? She’s better looking than I imagined.

Whoever is After the Evens: This guy is very pop-folksy. He sounds like he might be the guy who writes all those Incubus songs. That’s not an insult, by the way. I think a lot of shitty pop musicians try to make up for their lack of greatness by buying some off real musicans. Like when Pink did that Beck song for that Charlie’s Angels movie. (Oh shit, I just looked up the Burn to Shine credits and that’s Bob Mould. hehehehehe.)

I recommend this DVD. There are lots of nice close ups of people playing, which I enjoy. It’s all very crisp and clear. Just the bands playing live in a house that’s about to be demolished.

I look forward to watching vol. 2 and 3 (Chicago and Portland). Even though they came out two years ago. I’m slow like that.

And what’s up with Austin? Can we get a Burn to Shine DVD made here? We’ve got plenty of bands and plenty of houses to demolish.

I saw Mike Judge’s new film, Idiocracy last night.

It’s the dumbest movie I’ve ever seen.

I mean that in the best way possible, because I actually liked this movie. Mike Judge is an expert in Stupid. He finds clever ways of illustrating stupidity and although some gags in this movie were pretty uh, retarded, I thought it was quite funny overall.

Set in a future where people are dumber than they are now, it migh as well be the fast-forwarded ultimate conclusion of just about any movie or cartoon he’s ever made.

Here’s the President, something-Mountain-Dew-something-Comacho, driving in a motorcade:

He’s also a professional wrestler and a porn star, in addition to Commander in Chief. Characters seem to have names taken from consumer products. There’s a lawyer named “Frito” and a doctor named “Lexus.”

Most of the characters wear clothing that is entirely covered in advertiesements. One of the cabinet members gets paid to say “brought to you by Carl’s Junior” after everything he says. Judge is clearly highlighting the stupidity of excessive branding, a growing trend and one I agree is pretty stupid. Here he’s just illustrating what that trend looks like taken to its (il)logical conclusion.

The lawyer went to college in an Costco, which stretches on for miles and miles. It’s actually turned into an indoor city of sorts.

The premise itself, and the gradual revelation of how earth became so stupid is enough for me to give it the thumbs up.

That said, the romantic interest between the protagonist and Maya Rudolph’s character is clumsy. I didn’t expect much from Judge in this department, but it is necessary to the plot so I can see why he threw it in there.

A cautionary tale wrapped in fart jokes? Beavis and butthead set in the future? The incompetent dystopia resulting from companies like Initech taking over the country?

I’m not going to compare it to current events, but there are some obvious connections you could make between it and our low-IQ administration. Scifi and comedy have always been a safe haven for political satire and according to Judge, FOX News is alive and well in 2505 (that scene is fucking priceless, btw).

Overall, I recommend it.

Saw The Science of Sleep friday night. I highly recommend this movie. Great premise: a guy who has dreams and reality inverted. Great story with lots of hilarious dialog (“It’s like Noah’s Ark, but for Vegetables!!!”) and some (for me at least) unexpected twists. Michel Gondry is a friggin genius, in case I haven’t said it before.

Been listening to Mason Proper. I highly recommend this band. Listen to the MP3s linked from 3hive, then check out this live recording at WOXY. I’m really impressed that they pull all that shit off live. I figured it was AutoTune and a bunch of other Studio Magic (TM), but it sounds like they’re the real deal. I would love to see this band play here in Austin.

LA Times, regarding Charlie Kaufman’s next film, Synecdoche, New York:

“Synecdoche” will make “Adaptation” and “Eternal Sunshine” look like instructional industrial films. No one has ever written a screenplay like this. It’s questionable whether cinema is even capable of handling the thematic, tonal and narrative weight of a story this ambitious.

Wow. That’s a pretty tall order. I hope it lives up to this review.

And regarding the title:

For all those who aren’t AP English professors, a “synecdoche,” other than a clever play on Schenectady, where some of the film takes place, is a figure of speech in which a part is used to describe the whole or the whole is used to describe a part (think “threads” for clothes, or “the law” for a police officer). It’s representative shorthand.

Related: I am looking forward to seeing Michel Gondry’s new film The Sceince of Sleep too.

Always wondered that myself. Cameos: Ted Leo, Devendra Banhart and Pitchfork.

I saw Mathew Barney’s new film, Drawing Restraint 9 yesterday with Oscar.

My feelings are mixed. I don’t know which I desparately wanted more: a fast-forward button or a mute button.

Like the Cremaster Cycle, I think this film would be better experienced as a series of still photographs that you can flip through or as a walk through the Gugenheim filled with its props. Facinating imagery, otherwise quite capitivating, worn flat by awful pacing and pointless repetition. The bloody dance sequence in particular, would have been much better if it wasn’t revisted so many times. Initially the cut up body parts are really disturbing, but after he goes back to them a dozen or so times you start to notice the shoddy effects. You notice these because there’s nothing else going on to draw your attention or suspend your disbelief. All that’s there is the fake legs, floating around under a big piece of white plastic (or wax? who knows).

And that song with the japanese guy wailing and beating a wooden block. Seriously, it went on for half an hour. Like the film itself this song was painfully slow. There were these long pauses in it and I kept thinking the song was over but then…

[Thwack]

Ssossoooouyuuuuuuwwwwwywyyooooo!

whhhoooooooooop!

[Thwack]

aaaiiiyyyyoooooooooot!

It was back again. I like bjork. Her contribution to the sountrack was nice, but man the rest of it was just plain antagonistic to the audience. You know how lazy dipshit film makers use the “ringing telephone” to create tensinon? It’s like that times a million.

Aside from my gripes, here are my observations: Most of the film takes place on a japanese whaling ship. They’re dressed in animal skins. The symbolism seemed to be dominated by themes of hunting. And vaseline. Tons of it (literally, but that’s to be expected).