Yo La Tengo, Dead to Me.
I never thought this day would come. Yo La Tengo and I, well, we've had some good times together. Sure, things started a little rough, when, at 14, I found myself unimpressed by Painful when I checked it out from the library.
But then Electr-O-Pura straightened me out, and we became fast friends. Flying Lesson, Tom Courtenay, Pablo and Andrea - it was like gold spun from my speakers. Blue Line Swinger, their closing 9 minute opus, was unlike anything else I'd heard up until that point. And I don't even have to tell you about how great I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One was, or how much it soundtracked the first false start of my college career, and the whirlwind year leading up to my marriage.
Heck, I even re-evaluated Painful, and found that I no longer found the title to be a fitting description of how I thought listening to it felt. And now, they've got this new album coming out, with, like the best name ever, and boy howdy, was I excited.
But then I found this. And I realize that it has to be over for us - I just can't support them, not after this traitorous call to make the world's most disgusting condiment the national condiment of the U.S. of A.
It was fun while it lasted, Ira, James, and Georgia. But, sadly, it's all over now.
August 31, 2006 at 11:11 AM | TrackBack
links for 2006-08-31
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Fire scene footage as apocalyptic short film. Nice use of sound.
August 31, 2006 at 1:22 AM | TrackBack
links for 2006-08-30
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The Yes Men strike again!
August 30, 2006 at 1:25 AM | TrackBack
links for 2006-08-29
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Horrifying is a pretty apt description.
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Now what? Until recently most business economists were predicting a “soft landing” for housing. But this complacency looks increasingly like denial, as hard data start to confirm anecdotal evidence that it is, indeed, a bust.
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These stunt drivers are amazing.
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Sure, it looks cute. But you turn your back for a moment, and you're squid food.
August 29, 2006 at 1:27 AM | TrackBack
links for 2006-08-28
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Uh... Steven Leavitt didn't realize this article was satire until he found out it was published in The Onion? Er...c'mon guys, you're smarter than that - right?
August 28, 2006 at 1:20 AM | TrackBack
links for 2006-08-26
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This could be good. Or bad. But hopefully good.
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I like to think they were avenging the tragic treatment of their squirrelly counterpart in the southeast.
August 26, 2006 at 1:21 AM | TrackBack
links for 2006-08-25
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"Hitler was a bad man, but what's wrong with having food here?" said Ashwini Phadnis, 22, a microbiology student as she tucked away a piece of chocolate cake.
August 25, 2006 at 1:25 AM | TrackBack
links for 2006-08-23
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Some songs and their subsequent videos speak to such truths and eloquence as to be timeless.
This one's pretty much stuck in 1991.
August 23, 2006 at 1:22 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
links for 2006-08-22
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Well, that's just kind of creepy.
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About the semi-annual Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot.
August 22, 2006 at 1:24 AM | TrackBack
links for 2006-08-20
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"I really don't want to disturb the neighbors but the high volume is needed in the battle against the devil," Pierre D., the 42-year-old father of the Christian family, told Bild newspaper.
August 20, 2006 at 1:21 AM | TrackBack
links for 2006-08-19
August 19, 2006 at 1:26 AM | TrackBack
links for 2006-08-18
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Sigh. Not that there was any chance this would be good. Go see the original - it's funny, it's scary, and it's got Olivia Hussey in it.
August 18, 2006 at 1:22 AM | TrackBack
links for 2006-08-17
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These parents can always do what my parents did. You know, not pay. What's a 12 year old kid going to do?
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Yay for small victories. Except for the fact that they probably say more about the general health of our economy, which can't be good.
August 17, 2006 at 1:24 AM | TrackBack
Short films written with Plotbot!
There's been a neat development with our little online collaborative screenwriting tool - two original short films have popped up in the last week, both written with Plotbot.
Hop on over to Happy+Middle and check out the first ever video made from a screenplay written on Plotbot - Suburban Fight Society!
The troupe has put together a cute, funny little film that appears to be the first of many for them. It's got eyepatches, pickle factories, and chair slams - check it out!
And while you're watching funny short films take a look at Le Mon's "Rated R", which as he writes on his site, was also written in Plotbot. It's a quick and amusing film worth a few minutes of your time (though, in case you're at work, be forewarned that some of the language is a little, you know, Rated R).
August 16, 2006 at 7:42 PM | TrackBack
links for 2006-08-15
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Very simple, effective video - Magnolia Electric Co. + slow-motion demolition derby footage works out quite well.
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Fascinating 1982 Antlantic Monthly profile/history of the DeBeers cartel.
August 15, 2006 at 1:20 AM | TrackBack
links for 2006-08-12
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Cops tried to pepper spray it? Really?
August 12, 2006 at 1:23 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
links for 2006-08-11
August 11, 2006 at 1:27 AM | TrackBack
The Descent
The Descent hits theatres today. If you appreciate a good scare at all, go see it. It's the best horror film in quite some time and one of the best films this year, horror or otherwise.
A small review, reasons why you should see it now, in the theaters, and why the marketing campaign and Lions Gate suck, all after the jump.
Written and directed by Neil Marshall, The Descent has a simple plot: a group of friends go spelunking in an unexplored cave system, become trapped, and then find out they're not alone. It's an incredibly claustrophobic and suspenseful film that takes its time to establish characters and relationships, with nary a cannibal beast in sight for more than the first half of the film.
Neil Marshall's last film, Dog Soldiers, is the sort of film that showed just enough promise to become quickly overrated by its many champions. The Descent delivers on that promise, with strong characters, spot-on performances, genuine scares, and the most tense solid half hour I've spent in a theatre. It's the sort of film that makes you jump, but stays scary after the "Boo!" moment.
I watched the film at home off of a DVD that paused for ten seconds every five minutes or so (not bootleg - just a different region that my DVD player wasn't playing nice with), and it still built up enough tension to make me jump multiple times and remain creeped out after the film was over. And when I watched it again a couple of weeks later, I still jumped.
I can't recommend enough that you go see this film sooner than later, though, so as to see it with a crowd. I caught it at an outdoor screening at the John Ford Amphitheatre as part of the Los Angeles Film Festival, and it was easily the biggest, most enjoyable crowd reaction I've ever seen or been a part of. I have never seen so many people jump at once, nor heard so many out-loud screams in a theater ever.
As a side note, the marketing for the film in the US has been pretty terrible. From the not-as-clever-as-it-thinks-it-is poster, to the "From the studio that brought you Saw and Hostel" misdirection-in-the-wrong-direction, I'm aware that the film looks like a slightly gorier retread of that Cave film from last year you probably already forgot about. This film has nothing in common with either Saw or Hostel's assault-on-the-senses filmic violence - if anything, the film has more in common with 28 Days Later (though that's not quite apt, either).
The studio touting itself is a shame, too, as apart from creating a braindead marketing campaign, the only other addition they've made from the film is a significant edit - they've removed the last 2 to 3 minutes of the film. It drastically changes the ending, making it seem like your standard horror-film copout -
"How do we end this now?"
"Dunno. How 'bout an unmotivated false scare?"
It's not enough to ruin the film - the rest of the film is too strong for that - but the original ending very nicely pulls the rest of the film together in a way that the US edit doesn't. (If you've seen the current version and are curious to know how the original version ends, email me.
Go see it already.
August 4, 2006 at 8:24 AM | TrackBack
links for 2006-08-03
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"Be Famous. It Helps."
