Paul Soter, congratulations, because not only are you a member of a comedy troupe that has made multiple hilarious movies that have already become cult classics, but you have written and directed a movie that made me feel like a movie hasn't been able to in quite a long time. It's a fleeting feeling that makes colors look slightly brighter, allows you to tune out the person that just cut you off, and makes apples taste juicier and crunchier than ever. It's a feeling called happiness. Pure and simple, nothing more, nothing less. That's not to say that I'm some dark, depressed dude who rarely sees the light of day. It's just that this movie did everything right.
Watching the Detectives is a romantic comedy at heart. However, I hate to call it that because that creates all sorts of stigmas for all sorts of people. It's about a guy named Neil (Cillian Murphy) who works at a floundering movie-rental store, and mysterious a girl named Violet (Lucy Liu) who turns his world upside down. Sound generic, cliché even? Indeed it does, and for Watching the Detectives to still come out nearly flawless is a true feat.
The romance is adequately covered; Lucy Liu's character is the kind of girl that every man would like to meet: bubbly but not annoyingly so, spontaneous and adventurous, enigmatic, cute, and charming. And Cillian Murphy's character, who is predictable but not quite boring, eats it up like a death-row inmate sitting in front of his last meal. They get into all sorts of escapades together like a modern day, sexy Bonnie and Clyde. While you're watching you actually can feel the connection quickly forming between the two. The comedy is fantastic, too. The best part about it is that it strays so far away from what is currently considered "comedy": there is no BS slapstick, no lame one-liners, no irrelevant references to pop culture. It relies on situation irony and mundane actions and events that you won't know are funny until you're actually laughing at them, like when Neil is running the bases at his softball game, bawling like a little girl.
The real beef of this movie lies in analysis. The entire movie analyzes different aspects of life, love, and chance. The characters actually have intelligent, relatively deep conversations about these things. And I know some people will be immediately turned off by that notion, but Soter manages never to make it sound preachy or uninteresting. There's that old saying, "Opposites attract." That's great and true, but this movie looks at it more as "opposites are never as opposite as you think they are." It's hard to sum it up. Watch and you'll understand.
Paul Soter has crafted a winner of a movie. I was engaged the entire time, I never heard a single line that didn't work, and everything that happened in the movie felt natural and right. Soter's inspiration comes from films of the past, an element that is featured largely in the movie. Perhaps it's this interest in cinema of the past that allows him to write from a different perspective than other current filmmakers. That and the fact that he's inherently very funny. In fact, if you've seen him in any of his other movies, especially Super Troopers, chances are you'll be able to extract any line that anybody in the movie says and mentally hear and see it coming straight from him. Watching the Detectives is oozing with personality, and every character is consistent. It's a fun movie that manages to never hit up the cheese dip, and it will leave you satisfied and happy. It even has a perfect emotional climax, a cathartic scene that fully and adequately explains Liu's character's motives, but not in a lame or overtly obvious way. Plus, I always disliked Lucy Liu, but this movie has totally won me over for her. To wrap up a tangled and messy conclusion, it's almost like a smart Garden State for adults, not embarrassingly hip, confused teenagers.
7/7
11.14.2008
11.13.2008
Baby Mama
For a long time, I didn't think Tina Fey was funny. At all. When she first started doing Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live some years ago, I thought for sure it was the end. Of Weekend Update. So I stopped watching it. Problem solved. 'Til Tina's spot-on Palin impression that took the country by storm. Now that the election is over and stuff is calming down, I figured I'd give Fey another try and check out her movie, Baby Mama.
The first thing about the movie I noticed is that it seemed like Fey just saw Knocked Up and realized that babies could get laughs, so they tossed a bunch of them in the beginning. In fact, if I had to mathematically break down this movie, it'd probably look like this: Knocked Up + Wedding Crashers + chick flick = Baby Mama. It's basically an Apatow production for women.
As far as the humor goes, it's there, but it's not the main attraction. Tina Fey is the straight man and Amy Poehler is the funny man, it's as simple as that. Poehler delivers most of the jokes, and is the rest of them. In fact, I'd say that Poehler put in the best performance of all the characters in Baby Mama. She was the funniest, the most dynamic, AND in the movie she actually grew up and matured, something I've always wanted to see happen to Amy Poehler, on screen or off. Fey seemed like she was basically herself with a bossy hat on, and her character never really changed at all, even at the end of the movie she seemed like she had just fallen back into place where she used to be with a few situational details modified. Greg Kinnear played the same role he plays in half of his movies, but that was fine with me. Steve Martin basically played Kevin Nealon's role in Grandma's Boy. The side characters were pretty mundane and under-developed, but I guess that's why they're side characters.
When you take off all the bells and whistles, Baby Mama is a typical chick flick dramedy -- two people get close, one person messes it up, sad music montage leads to a happy ending in a convenient twist of circumstance. Is it worth watching? Yes. Tina Fey put together an entertaining cast of actors and characters to back her up. Is it funny enough to be called a comedy? It's debatable, but Poehler and Romany Malco definitely get some good laughs. Did it make me like Tina Fey any more than previously? I'd say so.
4/7
The first thing about the movie I noticed is that it seemed like Fey just saw Knocked Up and realized that babies could get laughs, so they tossed a bunch of them in the beginning. In fact, if I had to mathematically break down this movie, it'd probably look like this: Knocked Up + Wedding Crashers + chick flick = Baby Mama. It's basically an Apatow production for women.
As far as the humor goes, it's there, but it's not the main attraction. Tina Fey is the straight man and Amy Poehler is the funny man, it's as simple as that. Poehler delivers most of the jokes, and is the rest of them. In fact, I'd say that Poehler put in the best performance of all the characters in Baby Mama. She was the funniest, the most dynamic, AND in the movie she actually grew up and matured, something I've always wanted to see happen to Amy Poehler, on screen or off. Fey seemed like she was basically herself with a bossy hat on, and her character never really changed at all, even at the end of the movie she seemed like she had just fallen back into place where she used to be with a few situational details modified. Greg Kinnear played the same role he plays in half of his movies, but that was fine with me. Steve Martin basically played Kevin Nealon's role in Grandma's Boy. The side characters were pretty mundane and under-developed, but I guess that's why they're side characters.
When you take off all the bells and whistles, Baby Mama is a typical chick flick dramedy -- two people get close, one person messes it up, sad music montage leads to a happy ending in a convenient twist of circumstance. Is it worth watching? Yes. Tina Fey put together an entertaining cast of actors and characters to back her up. Is it funny enough to be called a comedy? It's debatable, but Poehler and Romany Malco definitely get some good laughs. Did it make me like Tina Fey any more than previously? I'd say so.
4/7
Chocolate News (S01E03)
It makes sense that Chocolate News, being rather chocolatey, would be at its best with Obama on the verge of winning the presidency. There's just so much damn material! And they definitely took advantage of it. So lets jump right in.
DAG always starts the show by pleading with somebody to "Please, do not lose yo damn mind!" This week, it was addressed to Black people in general. He claimed that it was critical that they "tone down the coon-age" until Obama wins the White House, and it seems to have worked. It was a particularly good bit, especially the part about the sacrifices that DAG himself is making, notably the bit about what he'd say if he got in an accident with a White person and it WASN'T his fault: "I'm not gonna yell, scream, or even honk my horn, I'm gonna get out, laugh at the dents, and say "Chet, it happens all the time. Hope and Change!" He also points out that a few famous Black people need to change their ways; for example, Steve Harvey - stop wearing Steve Harvey suits:
The first actual skit was one of the funniest of any so far, I think. It detailed the life of a 55 year-old, married man with two kids, Robert Rhonstein. He is also a wigger. Apparently, some people just don't grow out of it, so they took Robert to the De-Negrofication Institute, a "rehabilitation facility dedicated to deprogramming wiggers everywhere." This whole skit was hilarious, from when he's being forced to listen to White people music, to my favorite part of the episode, where DAG is trying to teach him how to talk normally. The guy they got to play the wigger makes the whole skit work by looking and sounding absurdly funny.
The next, almost equally funny, skit is a report on the first African-American porn star, Licorice Stick. After some personal accounts about Licorice Stick from some old friends, they show a video from 1979 of Stick himself, going through some of the moves he made up. The list goes on forever, and that's about how long you'll laugh at it. Some of the names are absolutely brilliant. The Itchy Spider?! There are so many I want to say, but I don't wanna spoil them.
The last skit of the show pulls back the curtain on a little-known affliction called Fat Black Momma Syndrome, or FBMS for short. Why would a man want to be a Fat Black Momma? Respect. A Fat, Black Momma garners some r-e-s-p-e-c-t like nobody else. Take this scene for example: an average Black father trying to get his children off the TV has no effect, but when he drops a wig on his head and yells "Y'all kids betta turn that TV off 'fore I hit you in the head with my house shoe!", they listen immediately!
This is a top-notch example of how good Chocolate News can be. Almost every joke and skit in this episode is high-quality and original, it's mildly satirical, and it kept me laughing the whole time. Even the correspondents on the show are pretty funny, or, at the very least none of them are terrible. If the show can stay at this level, I'll be surprised, but it'll truly deserve a permanent spot on Comedy Central.
6/7
DAG always starts the show by pleading with somebody to "Please, do not lose yo damn mind!" This week, it was addressed to Black people in general. He claimed that it was critical that they "tone down the coon-age" until Obama wins the White House, and it seems to have worked. It was a particularly good bit, especially the part about the sacrifices that DAG himself is making, notably the bit about what he'd say if he got in an accident with a White person and it WASN'T his fault: "I'm not gonna yell, scream, or even honk my horn, I'm gonna get out, laugh at the dents, and say "Chet, it happens all the time. Hope and Change!" He also points out that a few famous Black people need to change their ways; for example, Steve Harvey - stop wearing Steve Harvey suits:
The first actual skit was one of the funniest of any so far, I think. It detailed the life of a 55 year-old, married man with two kids, Robert Rhonstein. He is also a wigger. Apparently, some people just don't grow out of it, so they took Robert to the De-Negrofication Institute, a "rehabilitation facility dedicated to deprogramming wiggers everywhere." This whole skit was hilarious, from when he's being forced to listen to White people music, to my favorite part of the episode, where DAG is trying to teach him how to talk normally. The guy they got to play the wigger makes the whole skit work by looking and sounding absurdly funny.
The next, almost equally funny, skit is a report on the first African-American porn star, Licorice Stick. After some personal accounts about Licorice Stick from some old friends, they show a video from 1979 of Stick himself, going through some of the moves he made up. The list goes on forever, and that's about how long you'll laugh at it. Some of the names are absolutely brilliant. The Itchy Spider?! There are so many I want to say, but I don't wanna spoil them.
The last skit of the show pulls back the curtain on a little-known affliction called Fat Black Momma Syndrome, or FBMS for short. Why would a man want to be a Fat Black Momma? Respect. A Fat, Black Momma garners some r-e-s-p-e-c-t like nobody else. Take this scene for example: an average Black father trying to get his children off the TV has no effect, but when he drops a wig on his head and yells "Y'all kids betta turn that TV off 'fore I hit you in the head with my house shoe!", they listen immediately!
This is a top-notch example of how good Chocolate News can be. Almost every joke and skit in this episode is high-quality and original, it's mildly satirical, and it kept me laughing the whole time. Even the correspondents on the show are pretty funny, or, at the very least none of them are terrible. If the show can stay at this level, I'll be surprised, but it'll truly deserve a permanent spot on Comedy Central.
6/7
11.11.2008
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (DS)
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia is the next adventure in the growing line of Castlevania DS games. It takes place after Symphony of the Night, the Order of Ecclesia is trying put together a plan to take out Dracula, who has been terrorizing people for centuries. You play as Shanoa, a woman chosen by Ecclesia's leader, Barlowe, to host "Dominus", a three-piece magical glyph, which I'll talk more about later. Apparently Barlowe told Shanoa's friend, Albus, that he would actually be the vessel through which Dominus defeats Dracula, so while the ritual is being performed on Shanoa, Albus runs up and ruins everything. After stealing the glyphs and disappearing, Shanoa has no choice but to find him and get them back, thus the motivation for the gameplay.
The story is actually pretty cool. There are some nice plot twists, and there's even an alternate ending, which is the first I've ever seen on a DS game. The gameplay is pretty simple - X, Y, and R buttons all perform attacks, or "glyphs". Glyphs are magic or weapons or both absorbed by Shanoa by standing under them and holding the Up button. Apart from having multiple glyphs to use, you can set multiple glyph groups that you can switch back and forth from. All this is to fight various ghouls, monsters, and freaks, just like in pretty much every Castlevania. Killing enemies will then level you up, increasing your attack and defense and everything else. The game has many classic RPG elements to it, even though it's considered a "Castleroid" game -- meaning it incorporates gameplay features first used by Super Metroid, such as non-linear exploration, the ability to unlock new areas by finding items, and side-scrolling.
The game itself is actually pretty damn hard. I found myself dying multiple times before I even got to the first save point, which was a pretty frustrating ordeal. If you don't get stuck on the same part a bunch of times, though, you'll probably have the motivation to keep going. It's not impossible or anything. The gameplay is seriously enhanced in this game; it's smoother, there are better fighting combos, the story is captivating, and the game is just more fun in general than most of the older ones. On top of that, the artwork is totally revamped, going from more of an anime-style to a sort of traditional gothic animation. Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia is the first canonical Castlevania to feature a female lead character, so enjoy it, fanboys.
5/7
The story is actually pretty cool. There are some nice plot twists, and there's even an alternate ending, which is the first I've ever seen on a DS game. The gameplay is pretty simple - X, Y, and R buttons all perform attacks, or "glyphs". Glyphs are magic or weapons or both absorbed by Shanoa by standing under them and holding the Up button. Apart from having multiple glyphs to use, you can set multiple glyph groups that you can switch back and forth from. All this is to fight various ghouls, monsters, and freaks, just like in pretty much every Castlevania. Killing enemies will then level you up, increasing your attack and defense and everything else. The game has many classic RPG elements to it, even though it's considered a "Castleroid" game -- meaning it incorporates gameplay features first used by Super Metroid, such as non-linear exploration, the ability to unlock new areas by finding items, and side-scrolling.
The game itself is actually pretty damn hard. I found myself dying multiple times before I even got to the first save point, which was a pretty frustrating ordeal. If you don't get stuck on the same part a bunch of times, though, you'll probably have the motivation to keep going. It's not impossible or anything. The gameplay is seriously enhanced in this game; it's smoother, there are better fighting combos, the story is captivating, and the game is just more fun in general than most of the older ones. On top of that, the artwork is totally revamped, going from more of an anime-style to a sort of traditional gothic animation. Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia is the first canonical Castlevania to feature a female lead character, so enjoy it, fanboys.
5/7
11.10.2008
Kaki King - Dreaming of Revenge
First of all, if you don't know who Kaki King is, HA HA! Second, you're about to know who she is, because her most recent album, Dreaming of Revenge, is pretty much a masterpiece. It was released in March of this year and somehow, regrettably, it slipped under my radar until now. Kaki King has been getting lots of publicity recently; she had a few songs on the Into The Wild soundtrack, she wrote some music for August Rush as well as serving as a hand-double for the guitar playing scenes, and she was even in a duet with Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters for a song on their newest album. She's come a long way from when I saw her in an edition of Guitar World magazine a few years ago, featuring her as an up-and-coming guitar hero.
Her playing style is unique, to say the least. I'm sure you've seen a few of those guys on TV or wherever, those people that play "slap guitar", if you will; they pluck pop the strings and create rhythms by slapping their guitar while playing to create some sort of tribal, primitive, melodic music that astounds everybody in the room because they've never heard anything like it. Kaki King is that times ten. Her music started out completely instrumental, just her and a guitar making crazy sounds. Since then, however, it's grown and evolved into something bigger, more encompassing. On her third album, ...Until We Felt Red, she finally introduced the world to her singing voice, which had been unnecessarily neglected on her first two albums, because it's as lovely as the music she creates. On Dreaming of Revenge, she utilizes her voice far more than on any previous release, as well as opening her music up to many other sources of inspiration and variety. For instance, she returns to her original instrument, the drums, on this album in a big way. She's listed as contributing "guitar (electric/acoustic), slide guitar, bass, drums, piano, other randomly weird instruments, tears" to the album, so obviously she's opened up her repertoire quite a bit. And it's as impressive as it sounds; she's seemingly a master at each of these instruments, demonstrating definitive dexterity and deftness all over the carefully crafted songs included on Dreaming of Revenge. All of these newfound options combine to create the most coherent, catchy, diverse, atmospheric, and most of all, accessible, Kaki King album to date.
The album kicks off with "Bone Chaos In the Castle", which opens the album with a classic style Kaki King guitar riff, but quickly makes way for drums and, gasp, an actual individual melody! An item that most older Kaki King songs lacked, because the melodies were built-in to the rhythm. This song, in my opinion, is a great representation of Kaki King in general. It presents both the acoustic, hammer-on pull-off style of music that she broke into the scene with, as well as the additional melodies and drums and ambient noise that characterizes some of her newer music, as if to say "Hey there, nice to meet you, here are both of my musical sides, get used to 'em." This tune gives way to "Life Being What It Is", a personal song that King refers to as a breakup song. Tender and sweeping, this finger-picked lament is probably my current favorite on the album, possibly because it's one of Kaki's most straightforward songs to date -- mostly just her guitar and her voice, with some accompanying strings to help with the mood. Speaking of the mood, this song is so intimate that while listening you really get the sense that the music is really an accurate reflection of her mental state and her very being, creating a sort of super empathy, thus accomplishing the very intent of music at its core. "Sad American", one of my other favorites on the album, is the third song, either lightly brooding or darkly contemplating with a satisfying hook. It's a very ambient and atmospheric song. "Pull Me Out Alive" throws you at the beginning because, in the midst of these hyper creative songs, it sounds like she's pulling a page out of the nineties and employing this cliché, staccato method of singing while playing muted power chords, but the chorus makes up for it, and in the rest of the verses, that notion is shattered completely.
"Montreal" is an interesting song because the entire thing is based on the opening guitar riff, which provides the skeleton and foundation of the song. You might think a song with the same guitar riff playing the whole time would be the opposite of fascinating, but I'll let you experience it for yourself. In my opinion it provides an underlying structure for the song, which allows the rest of the instruments in the song to experiment and be a bit more free. "Open Mouth" is a dreamscape-esque song, which halfway turns a bit darker, aided by rapid violin and a more menacing, minor-key chord progression. "So Much For So Little" catches your attention within moments of beginning due to the syncopated and offbeat rhythm, as well as how the guitar affects it, securing its spot as one of the most entertaining songs on Dreaming of Revenge. "Saving Days In a Frozen Head" is another heavy-hearted, vocal-oriented song, and this one specifically so, because there are so many layers of her voice, which makes this a standout track. The next song, "Air and Kilometers", is a punchy, choppy, syncopated guitar-centric track that relies on strings to keep it lifted. After listening to the existentially titled "Can Anyone Who Has Heard This Music Really Be A Bad Person?", I find myself asking the same thing. Kaki seriously rocks out on the drums in this song. It's moody and intimidating, just like a woman. The closing tune, entitled "2 O'Clock", is another hushed, intimate song with regretful, melancholy lyrics until about halfway through, when Kaki sings more boldly than she ever has before.
Simply put, Dreaming of Revenge is Kaki King's best, most creative, most accessible, catchiest, most melodic and emotional album to date, by leaps and bounds. I was going to say that Kaki King knows guitar like the back of her hand, but at this point I think it'd be a crime to not replace "guitar" with "music". The amount of instruments and the proportion of music she played to the total music on the album is simply astounding. Especially the drums; her style is so fluid and she's so adaptable, I was unbelievably impressed. She crafts such interesting, smart chord progressions that she manages to make all of her songs sound new - hardly one of them sounds like something you've heard before; or if it does, she goes out of her way to change that pretty quickly. Kaki said on this album she wanted to concentrate more on creating hooks and melodies, and she has inarguably and applaudably accomplished that goal -- there's not a song on this album without at least ONE moment that will stay with you. In a recent interview, she said she feels like she's writing pop songs. In some ways she is, but she's writing on multiple levels, which is a sign of a competent musician. It has always been clear that she is an incredible musician, but now I think it might be safe to say that she's a musical genius. It's obvious that she truly puts tons of time and effort into her music from the macro scale, where the songs in general are amazing, to the micro scale, on which she adds tons of little parts that enhance the music in small but important ways, like harmonics, ghost notes, atmospherics, slide guitar. In an interview, Kaki King said, “I want people to listen to it and think, ‘This sounds like something completely new, but it also sounds like something Kaki King would do’". It's hard to believe how accurate that statement really is; I've rarely listened to an artist more self-aware and embodied by his/her music. If you're a fan, check this out NOW. If you don't know her, check it out even sooner.
7/7
Her playing style is unique, to say the least. I'm sure you've seen a few of those guys on TV or wherever, those people that play "slap guitar", if you will; they pluck pop the strings and create rhythms by slapping their guitar while playing to create some sort of tribal, primitive, melodic music that astounds everybody in the room because they've never heard anything like it. Kaki King is that times ten. Her music started out completely instrumental, just her and a guitar making crazy sounds. Since then, however, it's grown and evolved into something bigger, more encompassing. On her third album, ...Until We Felt Red, she finally introduced the world to her singing voice, which had been unnecessarily neglected on her first two albums, because it's as lovely as the music she creates. On Dreaming of Revenge, she utilizes her voice far more than on any previous release, as well as opening her music up to many other sources of inspiration and variety. For instance, she returns to her original instrument, the drums, on this album in a big way. She's listed as contributing "guitar (electric/acoustic), slide guitar, bass, drums, piano, other randomly weird instruments, tears" to the album, so obviously she's opened up her repertoire quite a bit. And it's as impressive as it sounds; she's seemingly a master at each of these instruments, demonstrating definitive dexterity and deftness all over the carefully crafted songs included on Dreaming of Revenge. All of these newfound options combine to create the most coherent, catchy, diverse, atmospheric, and most of all, accessible, Kaki King album to date.
The album kicks off with "Bone Chaos In the Castle", which opens the album with a classic style Kaki King guitar riff, but quickly makes way for drums and, gasp, an actual individual melody! An item that most older Kaki King songs lacked, because the melodies were built-in to the rhythm. This song, in my opinion, is a great representation of Kaki King in general. It presents both the acoustic, hammer-on pull-off style of music that she broke into the scene with, as well as the additional melodies and drums and ambient noise that characterizes some of her newer music, as if to say "Hey there, nice to meet you, here are both of my musical sides, get used to 'em." This tune gives way to "Life Being What It Is", a personal song that King refers to as a breakup song. Tender and sweeping, this finger-picked lament is probably my current favorite on the album, possibly because it's one of Kaki's most straightforward songs to date -- mostly just her guitar and her voice, with some accompanying strings to help with the mood. Speaking of the mood, this song is so intimate that while listening you really get the sense that the music is really an accurate reflection of her mental state and her very being, creating a sort of super empathy, thus accomplishing the very intent of music at its core. "Sad American", one of my other favorites on the album, is the third song, either lightly brooding or darkly contemplating with a satisfying hook. It's a very ambient and atmospheric song. "Pull Me Out Alive" throws you at the beginning because, in the midst of these hyper creative songs, it sounds like she's pulling a page out of the nineties and employing this cliché, staccato method of singing while playing muted power chords, but the chorus makes up for it, and in the rest of the verses, that notion is shattered completely.
"Montreal" is an interesting song because the entire thing is based on the opening guitar riff, which provides the skeleton and foundation of the song. You might think a song with the same guitar riff playing the whole time would be the opposite of fascinating, but I'll let you experience it for yourself. In my opinion it provides an underlying structure for the song, which allows the rest of the instruments in the song to experiment and be a bit more free. "Open Mouth" is a dreamscape-esque song, which halfway turns a bit darker, aided by rapid violin and a more menacing, minor-key chord progression. "So Much For So Little" catches your attention within moments of beginning due to the syncopated and offbeat rhythm, as well as how the guitar affects it, securing its spot as one of the most entertaining songs on Dreaming of Revenge. "Saving Days In a Frozen Head" is another heavy-hearted, vocal-oriented song, and this one specifically so, because there are so many layers of her voice, which makes this a standout track. The next song, "Air and Kilometers", is a punchy, choppy, syncopated guitar-centric track that relies on strings to keep it lifted. After listening to the existentially titled "Can Anyone Who Has Heard This Music Really Be A Bad Person?", I find myself asking the same thing. Kaki seriously rocks out on the drums in this song. It's moody and intimidating, just like a woman. The closing tune, entitled "2 O'Clock", is another hushed, intimate song with regretful, melancholy lyrics until about halfway through, when Kaki sings more boldly than she ever has before.
Simply put, Dreaming of Revenge is Kaki King's best, most creative, most accessible, catchiest, most melodic and emotional album to date, by leaps and bounds. I was going to say that Kaki King knows guitar like the back of her hand, but at this point I think it'd be a crime to not replace "guitar" with "music". The amount of instruments and the proportion of music she played to the total music on the album is simply astounding. Especially the drums; her style is so fluid and she's so adaptable, I was unbelievably impressed. She crafts such interesting, smart chord progressions that she manages to make all of her songs sound new - hardly one of them sounds like something you've heard before; or if it does, she goes out of her way to change that pretty quickly. Kaki said on this album she wanted to concentrate more on creating hooks and melodies, and she has inarguably and applaudably accomplished that goal -- there's not a song on this album without at least ONE moment that will stay with you. In a recent interview, she said she feels like she's writing pop songs. In some ways she is, but she's writing on multiple levels, which is a sign of a competent musician. It has always been clear that she is an incredible musician, but now I think it might be safe to say that she's a musical genius. It's obvious that she truly puts tons of time and effort into her music from the macro scale, where the songs in general are amazing, to the micro scale, on which she adds tons of little parts that enhance the music in small but important ways, like harmonics, ghost notes, atmospherics, slide guitar. In an interview, Kaki King said, “I want people to listen to it and think, ‘This sounds like something completely new, but it also sounds like something Kaki King would do’". It's hard to believe how accurate that statement really is; I've rarely listened to an artist more self-aware and embodied by his/her music. If you're a fan, check this out NOW. If you don't know her, check it out even sooner.
7/7
11.06.2008
Houston Calls - The End of an Error
Houston Calls used to be a ska band called Face First. That's how I know about them, that's why I like them. When they first split up and became Houston Calls, they put out a four song sampler with some of the best pop punk songs I've heard in a while. Needless to say, it was exciting; I thought I'd found a new favorite band (this was when I was like... sixteen). Then they started putting out songs in their finished quality, the songs that would actually be on their full length release, what became A Collection of Short Stories. I'm not sure how, but the band had transformed completely from what they started as, in a very short amount of time. Seriously, they managed to take a fast paced, slightly edgy sounding pop punk song and make it into an unbelievable piano-based pop song. The rest of their songs got a similar treatment.
That's why, when I found out Houston Calls' new album was to be called The End of an Error, I once again got excited. Hoping that they'd realized what wimps they'd become on the last album, I ventured into the first song, Modest Manifesto. It was a faster song, more rough sounding, like early Houston Calls. It was great. The lyrics were slightly juvenile, but if that's the cost of having songs with some semblance of testosterone, so be it, I thought. Even the second song, "Life Won't Wait" (Rancid? what?) sounded alright, really radio-friendly, but nothing as lame as the final version of A Line in the Sand (the aforementioned transformed punk song -- I don't mean to rant but it's literally so bad. It's like they gave the song a sex change). So that's great and all, it's a bouncy pop punk song, also filling the role of their first single. The lyrics weren't even that bad: "Life won't wait for me to get back on both my feet again; it just might sucker me into the new, and flip the switch on everything I do." Yeah, it's all been said before, but they found a slightly new way to say it. The next song, A Shot in the Dark came on and I felt absolutely nothing for it. Still don't. It's about at this point that the album loses most of its solidity. The next few songs are almost nothing but cliché, mostly unoriginal pop punk songs.
This is the one area that The End of an Error fails even harder than the first. While the first was full of wussified (replace that w with a p for what I actually think) songs, at the very least the songs were relatively original. They had interesting hooks that actually kept you wanting to listen. Many of the songs on this album I listened to multiple times trying desperately to grasp onto anything great, but I was left with nothing to hold on to. For example, the song Things Are Happening is a basic pop rock song, with a two second long piano part registering as the only unique part of a boring song. Stay With Me Tonight is more of a tender piano song, but instead of going all the way piano, they half-assed it and made it a tender pop-punk song with guitar and drums. I Fancy Abroad has a clever title and little more. Nagoya is actually one of the better songs on the album; the main guitar part is a trade-off between the two players, one playing the lower, power chords while the other plays the higher pitch, lead chords, and they alternate. The chorus is huge, with tons of people singing some of the parts, and it's actually pretty catchy. After that comes Behind The Gun, another piano-based rock song. Nothing new, nothing good. Abandone is the last good song on the album, rocking a drum 'n bass rhythm with some standard claps in there for good measure. The last two songs are You Can't Simi, and The Oaks On Prince Street. I don't know what Simi is, unless they're just making fun of Japanese people, but again, the song isn't as clever as the title. The final song, The Oaks On Prince Street, in no way lives up to its position. It's a decent song, slightly catchy, a bit less formulaic sounding, but it's nothing overly special. In fact, The Oaks On Prince Street is almost a metaphor for the entire album: it starts out promising and slow, gets loud and faster, then dies back down again and never reaches its full potential.
So a lackluster sophomore effort for Houston Calls solidifies the fact that they can't decide who they are or what they should be. It almost lacks more personality than their debut. I understand that they want to be a modern, new-wavy pop punk band, but when you only have ONE song with a synth in it (Abandone) when you started out as a synth-rock band, you're not doing that well. Entirely too much piano, not enough synth. The production is a bit slick, but it's not as bad as on A Collection of Short Stores. And I was a fool for thinking that not every song would be about a girl this time around. As much as I will probably always love this band, the music is really for like, 15 year olds at this point. The messages are mostly hackneyed and over-pondered at my age, and the music didn't keep my attention very well.
3/7
That's why, when I found out Houston Calls' new album was to be called The End of an Error, I once again got excited. Hoping that they'd realized what wimps they'd become on the last album, I ventured into the first song, Modest Manifesto. It was a faster song, more rough sounding, like early Houston Calls. It was great. The lyrics were slightly juvenile, but if that's the cost of having songs with some semblance of testosterone, so be it, I thought. Even the second song, "Life Won't Wait" (Rancid? what?) sounded alright, really radio-friendly, but nothing as lame as the final version of A Line in the Sand (the aforementioned transformed punk song -- I don't mean to rant but it's literally so bad. It's like they gave the song a sex change). So that's great and all, it's a bouncy pop punk song, also filling the role of their first single. The lyrics weren't even that bad: "Life won't wait for me to get back on both my feet again; it just might sucker me into the new, and flip the switch on everything I do." Yeah, it's all been said before, but they found a slightly new way to say it. The next song, A Shot in the Dark came on and I felt absolutely nothing for it. Still don't. It's about at this point that the album loses most of its solidity. The next few songs are almost nothing but cliché, mostly unoriginal pop punk songs.
This is the one area that The End of an Error fails even harder than the first. While the first was full of wussified (replace that w with a p for what I actually think) songs, at the very least the songs were relatively original. They had interesting hooks that actually kept you wanting to listen. Many of the songs on this album I listened to multiple times trying desperately to grasp onto anything great, but I was left with nothing to hold on to. For example, the song Things Are Happening is a basic pop rock song, with a two second long piano part registering as the only unique part of a boring song. Stay With Me Tonight is more of a tender piano song, but instead of going all the way piano, they half-assed it and made it a tender pop-punk song with guitar and drums. I Fancy Abroad has a clever title and little more. Nagoya is actually one of the better songs on the album; the main guitar part is a trade-off between the two players, one playing the lower, power chords while the other plays the higher pitch, lead chords, and they alternate. The chorus is huge, with tons of people singing some of the parts, and it's actually pretty catchy. After that comes Behind The Gun, another piano-based rock song. Nothing new, nothing good. Abandone is the last good song on the album, rocking a drum 'n bass rhythm with some standard claps in there for good measure. The last two songs are You Can't Simi, and The Oaks On Prince Street. I don't know what Simi is, unless they're just making fun of Japanese people, but again, the song isn't as clever as the title. The final song, The Oaks On Prince Street, in no way lives up to its position. It's a decent song, slightly catchy, a bit less formulaic sounding, but it's nothing overly special. In fact, The Oaks On Prince Street is almost a metaphor for the entire album: it starts out promising and slow, gets loud and faster, then dies back down again and never reaches its full potential.
So a lackluster sophomore effort for Houston Calls solidifies the fact that they can't decide who they are or what they should be. It almost lacks more personality than their debut. I understand that they want to be a modern, new-wavy pop punk band, but when you only have ONE song with a synth in it (Abandone) when you started out as a synth-rock band, you're not doing that well. Entirely too much piano, not enough synth. The production is a bit slick, but it's not as bad as on A Collection of Short Stores. And I was a fool for thinking that not every song would be about a girl this time around. As much as I will probably always love this band, the music is really for like, 15 year olds at this point. The messages are mostly hackneyed and over-pondered at my age, and the music didn't keep my attention very well.
3/7
11.04.2008
Chocolate News (S01E02)
To start out this review, I want to point out how great the Chocolate News logo is. After the title hits the background, a bunch of shiny little diamonds cover the word News, which I find absolutely hilarious.
Anyway, after viewing the second episode of this show, I feel like my hopes are beginning to be realized. This episode was easily as funny as the first, and it felt more concrete in its format; Chocolate News is becoming more of its own show, rather than mirroring its predecessors.
The first skit is about the economy. It looks at it from the view of a small, urban gang, the Black Guerilla family, which consists of three ganstas (one of which is David Alan Grier) and a crackwhore. They proceed to let us know how they can't service their neighborhood with the beatings and robbery that we would normally be blessed with because of the state of the economy. They don't have the money to pay for gas, basically, even resorting to doing drive-by's by bicycle! After, an economist informs us that "when crime is down, so is the economy." He uses the example of "psycho mike", who gets shot in the head. The funeral home, florist, police, etc. all will not get paid if psycho mike is not killed. So basically, there's your economic relief plan: rob and main people.
As lacking in funny as it sounds when I write it, it's pretty entertaining coming from David Alan Grier and co. So far, Chocolate News has been pretty good at coming up with decent comedic topics and ideas. Then again, it's only episode two. A hilarious, surprising surprise in this episode was when Niecy Nash, aka Raineesha Williams on Reno 911, showed up playing a parent of a little-league baseball player in the second skit. Man, I love that woman. The second skit details Thelonius Brown's institute to help little black children excel in baseball, through his controversial new method entitled ROIDS (Reinforcement, Optimism, Initiative, Dedication, and Support). Basically, he pumps little children full of steroids and throws them on the playing field. The funny part comes when you see little Troy, one of the outpatients of this institute. However, I think the funniest part is with Candelabra Effervescence, the transgender in the beauty pageant. The talent show section gets me every time.
Overall, the show is falling in place nicely I think. They're smart about the type of comedy that they use on Chocolate News, because it's funny and mainstream enough for the national white audience to grab ahold of it, and it's also got an underlying appeal to African-Americans not only in the issues it deals with, but in the spirit of the humor of the show. Without sounding racist, it's comedy that white people will laugh at, but black people will jump up and down and clap at and love. Also, if I make this sound like some sort of super black power show, it's not. It's as self-deprecating as it is self-appreciating. Last, if there's anybody who can continue to carry a show like this while keeping the high quality of the content, it's David Alan Grier. Earlier I remarked on how he could never really escape himself while portraying other characters, but now I really think that's a big part of why the producers chose him. He's very endearing, and he has enough charisma to perform this show to an audience of one and still sell it perfectly if he wanted.
5/7
Anyway, after viewing the second episode of this show, I feel like my hopes are beginning to be realized. This episode was easily as funny as the first, and it felt more concrete in its format; Chocolate News is becoming more of its own show, rather than mirroring its predecessors.
The first skit is about the economy. It looks at it from the view of a small, urban gang, the Black Guerilla family, which consists of three ganstas (one of which is David Alan Grier) and a crackwhore. They proceed to let us know how they can't service their neighborhood with the beatings and robbery that we would normally be blessed with because of the state of the economy. They don't have the money to pay for gas, basically, even resorting to doing drive-by's by bicycle! After, an economist informs us that "when crime is down, so is the economy." He uses the example of "psycho mike", who gets shot in the head. The funeral home, florist, police, etc. all will not get paid if psycho mike is not killed. So basically, there's your economic relief plan: rob and main people.
As lacking in funny as it sounds when I write it, it's pretty entertaining coming from David Alan Grier and co. So far, Chocolate News has been pretty good at coming up with decent comedic topics and ideas. Then again, it's only episode two. A hilarious, surprising surprise in this episode was when Niecy Nash, aka Raineesha Williams on Reno 911, showed up playing a parent of a little-league baseball player in the second skit. Man, I love that woman. The second skit details Thelonius Brown's institute to help little black children excel in baseball, through his controversial new method entitled ROIDS (Reinforcement, Optimism, Initiative, Dedication, and Support). Basically, he pumps little children full of steroids and throws them on the playing field. The funny part comes when you see little Troy, one of the outpatients of this institute. However, I think the funniest part is with Candelabra Effervescence, the transgender in the beauty pageant. The talent show section gets me every time.
Overall, the show is falling in place nicely I think. They're smart about the type of comedy that they use on Chocolate News, because it's funny and mainstream enough for the national white audience to grab ahold of it, and it's also got an underlying appeal to African-Americans not only in the issues it deals with, but in the spirit of the humor of the show. Without sounding racist, it's comedy that white people will laugh at, but black people will jump up and down and clap at and love. Also, if I make this sound like some sort of super black power show, it's not. It's as self-deprecating as it is self-appreciating. Last, if there's anybody who can continue to carry a show like this while keeping the high quality of the content, it's David Alan Grier. Earlier I remarked on how he could never really escape himself while portraying other characters, but now I really think that's a big part of why the producers chose him. He's very endearing, and he has enough charisma to perform this show to an audience of one and still sell it perfectly if he wanted.
5/7
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