I don’t normally review music DVDs on this blog, but since Drew Thomas’ 2006 documentary Coachella received a theatrical release in Europe, I thought it deserved a mention. It’s a rare concert film that is as interested in the concertgoers and the character of the event itself as in simply capturing the performances.
Favorite moments: Thom Yorke actually smiling before Radiohead rips into “Planet Telex”, the unexpected sight of a crowd grooving to Squarepusher’s difficult arrhythmic beats, The Flaming Lips‘ furry freakout, and The Polyphonic Spree joyously heralding the sun on, fittingly, Sunday morning. Scariest moments: Iggy Pop’s return of the living dead, and Fischerspooner dressing up in fright wigs and fishnet speedos.
Roger Ebert’s Great Movies. But what on earth was he thinking with Ripley’s Game? As someone who works at New Line / Fine Line (and in fact actually started to design the official web site), my impression was that it went straight to video not because of Lord of the Rings, but rather that no one thought it was very good. That said, I agree with nearly everything Ebert has to say about it; I’ve read the novel and Malkovich indeed is Ripley.
Oh. My. God. Lego football stadia [no longer online: bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=157301&page=5]. Look at all the little smiley-faced Lego people! (spotted on IconFactory)
Some Lost tidbits:
Lost desktop icons volumes one and two. [no longer online: http://www.mixthepix.com] (spotted on IconFactory)
Lost, from a design perspective [no longer online: beadesigngroup.com/blog/archives/2006/06/designing_a_better_enigma_1.html].
Steven Hill in Mother Jones: “an elite, trickle-down political system eventually dead-ends in arrogance, secretiveness, and abuse of power. History is filled with examples of this bitter lesson, from the Roman Republic’s prototype democracy imploding into Caesar’s dictatorship, to Germany’s Weimar Republic transmogrifying into the brutality of Hitler’s Third Reich.”
The New York tabloids are always worth a glance, and one of yesterday’s is an instant classic.
The 10 most beautiful Mac OS X apps (no longer online: phillryu.com/2006/07/03/the-top-ten-most-beautiful-os-x-apps), only one of which I use (Transmit). (spotted on Kottke.org)
Google must be delighted; they’ve officially become a verb. (guest submission from Proper Noun Andrea)
Michael Brook’s new album RockPaperScissors is due July 18:
Check out the hi-res album cover (no longer online).
Here’s a technical blog post about the new Flash Player (that I don’t recommend any layperson to read). As a designer I’m delighted to learn Adobe/Macromedia has created a new, separate application called Flex for developers. Hooray! Let them have their own little thing while I can focus on design!
Tommy Lee Jones‘ The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada joins Jim Jarmusch‘s Dead Man as one of my few highly-rated westerns. Like Dead Man, its tone meanders from the darkly comic to the melodramatic, and is at times almost unwatchably gruesome. Which does nothing to explain why I liked it, I know.
Special mention to Barry Pepper for taking what must be one of the most thankless roles in movie history: his character is a onanistic, racist brute; he is beaten, dragged by a horse, forced at gunpoint to disinter a corpse, bitten by a rattlesnake, and not the least of which, spends a good part of the movie with his pants down (come to think of it, so does Dwight Yoakam).
The Radio Times pits the Cybermen vs. the Daleks in the World Cup. [no longer online: bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/news/cult/news/drwho/2006/07/03/33411.shtml]
New technojargon: Blackberry-go-round: an endless whirlpool of second-guessing, spontaneous opining, and one-syllable utterances by a minimum of four executives mashing thumbs on portable email devices. (I doubt I’m the first to coin this, but I wanted to get it on record just in case)
Senator Ted Steven’s staff sends him internets through a series of tubes [no longer online: blog.wired.com/27BStroke6/?entry_id=1512499]. These are the people legislating the internet, mind. (guest submission from Dave)
Doctor Doom, Spider-Man, The Thing, Dr. Strange, and Silver Surfer meet their maker [no longer available: newsarama.com/marvelnew/StanLee/StanMeets.html]. Excelsior!
It’s probably my own fault for buying into the hype, but Superman Returns left me cold. There’s not a lot of drama implicit in the story of an omnipotent alien from another planet, and I just can’t buy the “god walks among us” metaphors.
Spider-Man is a real, troubled human being burdened with great responsibility; Batman is a human being wracked with guilt and obsessed with revenge; Daredevil is a literally broken man overcompensating for far more than just his disability. With Superman, it’s just plain hard to relate to an alien, even if he suffers such petty human problems as unrequited love.
An obvious point of conflict is conspicuously absent: instead of any jealousy or anger from Richard White (James “Cyclops” Marsden), he simply acquieses to his romantic rival. It’s more like Superman to be above & beyond mere mortal jealousy; what makes White so noble? Perhaps he’s intimidated by Superman’s sheer potency. Just as the character is defined by nepotism (he’s the Daily Planet’s editor-in-chief’s son), Marsden is Bryan Singer‘s X-Man star who was conspicuously erased very early in Brett Ratner’s X3. Hmm…
Unsurprisingly, Parker Posey is far and away the best thing in Superman Returns.
Another disappointment: whereas Spider-Man 2 exuded a strong sense of New York, the Metropolis of Superman Returns is a blank, generic city without character. It’s a timeless locale – the present, yet nostalgic – where when a superhero returns from across the galaxy to save them, the citizens all run out and buy newspapers.
As for the cast, Parker Posey wins for best screen presence. While Kevin Spacey gurns, hams, and scenery-chomps, she scores laughs with mere looks on her face. There was a lot of concern over the casting of a relatively inexperienced former soap star for the lead, but I thought Brandon Routh was just fine. Kate Bosworth (made up to look like Rachel McAdams), however, is was too young to be plausible as a star journalist with a five-year-old kid, and to be at all appealing to (yes I have to say it again) an omnipotent alien from another planet. Points detracted for dull, overhyped outtakes of Marlon Brando’s mumbled improv bullshit, and shafting screen legend Eva Marie Saint with about 5 minutes of screen time.
Stanley Kubrick’s first short film! (guest submission from Kubrick the Kute & Cuddly Hippo)
Oh boy, how exciting: Flash Player 9 (no longer online: adobe.com/go/getflash).
Attention actors, line up for the Transformers open casting call (no longer online: boingboing.net/2006/06/27/transformers_casting.html). (guest submission from Dave)
Forget Norway! Come to Kenya! (no longer online: weebls-stuff.com/toons/kenya)
Despite the fact they’re still filming in New York City, the Spider-Man 3 teaser trailer (no longer online: apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/spider-man_3) is out and it looks brilliant.
1,000 2,000-year-old skeletons (no longer online: news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=916922006). (spotted on Fortean Times) (no longer online: forteantimes.com/breaking_news/breaking_news.shtml)
The Beatles are taking it to Vegas. But what really interests me is the NY Times reporter’s preview of the new Beatles remixes/remasters.
After audio quality, the next detraction to digital music is the lack of packaging, artwork, liner notes, etc. Some “albums” on iTunes include PDF documents as “digital booklets”, but now The Residents have a new scheme (no longer online: cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Music/06/26/music.residents.reut) on how the music industry might transition the long tradition of album packaging to the digital realm.
Mac-obsessed Goobers who can’t wait for Mac OS 10.5 (“Leopard”) are already mocking up their own fantasy versions in Photoshop: Dream 1 , Dream 2 (spotted on AppleInsider)
Whoda thunk, Clowns boost fertility (no longer online: sky.com/skynews/article/0,,91059-13529244,00.html). Are they sure the clown wasn’t, you know, taking advantage of the situation? (spotted on Fortean Times)
Rest assured: the government is totally on top of this whole terrorism thing, snooping on your phone calls and “Swifting” through your bank records.
Not to nitpick, but I believe this is actually a triple-dip.
Lost Girls, one of Alan Moore’s famously unfinished projects, is finally about to be published. Moore grants a massive interview (no longer online: comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=7411) (more of an extended monologue, actually – honestly, the man thinks and speaks in paragraphs) on the subject of pornography.
Related to the above, the owners of the Peter Pan copyright are, perhaps unsurprisingly, not pleased (no longer online: canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/news/lifestyle/story.html) with the portrayal of Wendy as sexually active in her adult years.
Two 2006 bootleg perspectives on the Pink Floyd legacy: Roger Waters live in Verona (no longer online: bigozine3.com/rarities/?p=18) and Dave Gilmour live in Manchester (no longer online: bigozine3.com/rarities/?p=13).
