January 28, 2008
I miss Northern Virginia. And now, anytime I listen to music from my past or that reminds me of my friends, every time I look at relics of my time spent there, I miss it a little more. That suburban wasteland seems more appealing than this urban one. I’m starting to get nostalgic over things no nearly-24-year-old guy ought to yearn for.
It all strengthens my feeling that I’m in the wrong place, and I might be re-crossing the country sooner than I ever thought.
Filed by matt at January 28th, 2008 under Life
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December 24, 2007
Found out my high-school friend Reneé is sick—like seriously, doctor-bafflingly sick—today. If there were any justice in the world, she wouldn’t be sick. I, a much shittier human being than she, would be sick. At least I’d deserve it.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
Filed by matt at December 24th, 2007 under Life
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December 15, 2007
I’d been nervous about the film adaptation of Phillip Pullman’s great sci-fi/fantasy epic The Golden Compass ever since I’d seen an “in development” trailer for it at work about a year ago. I tried to psych myself up going into the theater this past Sunday, but I still had niggling doubts. The book is a pretty sprawling work that covers a lot of territory between its two covers, and to turn it into a film seemed to me a pretty dangerous task. Still, I hoped.
That hope was unfounded. Simply put, The Golden Compass fails on pretty much every level as a film. It is a work that lacks all the drama, narrative thrust and significance of the original work. Instead of presenting a story and characters one is inclined to care about, actors flit across the screen leaving little to no impact. Each plot point leads to another but the movie fails to give any of them dramatic weight, and so we are left with two excruciatingly painful hours of cinema.
It seems clear to me at this point that New Line is searching about frantically for fantasy epics to fill the giant-sized shoes of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and this film (like The Chronicles of Narnia before it) is just the latest story to fall prey to this misguided quest. No one at New Line seems to be able to discern that the reason for LotR’s success was Peter Jackson. That trilogy worked because Jackson had a single, uncompromising vision and an intense passion for the material. Everything that followed—the nearly perfect script, the exceptional cast and their performances, the fantastic art direction, Howard Shore’s brilliant score—were a result of Jackson’s relentless pursuit of perfection.
In contrast, The Golden Compass stands little to no chance of success. The script was originally written by British (that’s American!, Ed.) playwright Tom Stoppard, but was scrapped and re-written by director Chris Weitz, who manages to strip all the depth and significance out of the original work and replace it with dialogue and pacing that insults the viewer’s intelligence. Particularly painful is a segment in which Lord Asriel mentions out loud the threat of bandits in the area in which he’s traveling, and then almost immediately is attacked by bandits. It is fair to say that a LOT happens in the novel, but part of the process of adapting a novel is knowing how to condense it and get the important information across in a dramatic manner. Instead, the treatment here tries to cram as much as possible into two hours, and the viewer suffers for it. The whole tale feels rushed and over-explained.
When a great director and great cast combine their talents, sometimes a lackluster script can be saved from being a bad movie. Unfortunately, Weitz lacks the talent to shape the considerable raw acting prowess of his cast into characters that anyone would be particularly inclined to care about, and the cast is hampered by the aforementioned problematic script. Particularly maddening is the movie’s main character Lyra, played by first-time actress Dakota Blue Richards. While she isn’t cloyingly sweet or annoying as many child actors can be, neither is she particularly engaging. I never got the sense that she really felt strongly about anyone or anything else in the movie. She simply didn’t convey any of the fierce intelligence or rebellious nature so integral to the character. Nicole Kidman, an actress more than capable of great performances, fails to particularly intimidate in the way Miss Coulter should. Daniel Craig fails to convey any of the regal bearing or concealed affection for Lyra that Asriel should possess. And the computer-generated dæmons, especially Pantalaimon, are stripped of any of their redeeming characteristics by a script that treats them largely as cute sidekicks rather than manifestations of the characters’ souls.
After all this, even the best computer-generated effects out there can’t save this train wreck. The visuals in the film are striking, although don’t mesh entirely with my mind’s vision of Lyra’s Oxford (though what film CAN match one’s own imagination?). Worse yet, every painful minute of the film seems to be scored, and scored badly. A good film score serves to provide emotional cues and add dramatic weight to the narrative arc of the film. This score merely distracts and draws attention to itself by being terribly banal. And to cap it all off, the film ends with no sense of resolution whatsoever—you can almost hear New Line marketing drones hiding behind the massive CG bulk of Iorek saying “Stay tuned for The Golden Compass II: Electric Boogaloo!”
I’ve been working on this review for an hour and could go on, but I’m all bitched out. There is no reason you should go see The Golden Compass—it’s a wholesale failure as a movie. If you’re unfamiliar with the books but are intrigued by the story’s premise or the controversy it has stirred up, I’d strongly encourage you to read the books instead. Being targeted towards pre-teens/teens they’re certainly an easy, but rewarding, read.
In other news: I’m re-reading Drew Weing’s excellent The Journal Comic. It’s a great diary strip whose simplicity and frankness really resonates with me. I’m thinking about buying it in dead-tree format (along with some of Drew and Elanor’s other shorter works).
Filed by matt at December 15th, 2007 under Movies, Web
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December 9, 2007
Two big ones: Andrew Bird and Juno.
Andrew Bird: Saw him play live at the Orpheum on Friday night. I actually almost missed the show. I got distracted talking to friends and didn’t remember until an alarm went off on my iPhone (inexplicably) at 8—when the show was starting. In any event I booked it to the Metro and rode into downtown for a measly buck twenty-five and made it there just after 9 PM. I was in my seat just a few minutes before Bird came on stage.
Being a middling fan of his latest album, Armchair Apocrypha, I wasn’t sure about the show going in. But the highs were high enough that I figured he’d be worth a shot. I’m happy to report that he exceeded expectations—his performance was incredibly fun. He began solo, building up loops using his violin until he had a veritable string section backing him. Then he brought out his band, Dosh on drums/keyboards/loops, and Jeremy on guitar/backup vocals, and proceeded to blaze through a good selection of tunes from his catalog. The live renditions of “Fiery Crash” and “Heretics” were especially inspired. Definitely want to check out his last album.
Juno: God, what can I say about this movie that hasn’t already been said? It’s an excellent film, one of my favorites in recent memory, better and more sensitive by far than the last two comedies I’ve seen. Michael Cera and Jason Bateman are endearing as usual, but it is Ellen Paige’s heartfelt and nuanced performance that really impresses. She portrays young Juno with alternating spunk, self-confidence, wry humor, and vulnerability. The dialogue is pitch-perfect, realistic but clever. All in all it’s a fantastically constructed movie and I would pay to see it again (and might).
That just leaves The Golden Compass for tonight.
Filed by matt at December 9th, 2007 under Concert, Movies, Music
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December 5, 2007
I’ll be honest—last year didn’t feel like Christmas. Maybe it was the warmer climate, the palm trees, or the lack of any decoration in the apartment. Even my single Christmas Eve trip to the church up the street didn’t bring the feeling around. I didn’t go home, so I didn’t have family around. All in all it was the first un-Christmas-like Christmas I’ve ever had.
I didn’t miss it exactly, except in that “I’m far away in a new town and something at least a little familiar would be nice” kind of way. The funny thing is, even with a full year under my belt in L.A., that feeling creeps back as December rolls around. Rian and I have a little 2-foot tall tree with fiber-optic light strands in it, but that’s about as much Christmas as is going on in our apartment.
Just this morning I was talking with my co-workers about the tree back home—that it’s artificial, how we keep the lights on when we pack it up so we don’t have to re-string it, and decorate it every year from our boxes of ornaments. Maybe, in my head, I haven’t really moved out. I’m still just on a long vacation away from Virginia and someday I’ll go back.
It was with that feeling firmly in mind that I sat down yesterday to write my first Christmas letter. It’s hard to encapsulate a whole year spent in relative isolation, far from everything and everyone familiar, in one page of words on fancy paper. And as it stands, I’m not sure I’m happy with it. It’s a list of big events, certainly—job, car, apartment—but I want to try and capture the more subtle things from this year. How important, in the long run, are those “big” things? Those aren’t the story of my life. I hope my existence can’t be summed up by an 11-year-old convertible with bad brakes.
So tonight I’ll be putting on the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s soundtrack to “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and sitting down again to collect my thoughts and start a new Christmas letter—one that I hope more accurately captures my experience of 2007.
Filed by matt at December 5th, 2007 under Life
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November 10, 2007
I am more than a bit frustrated that my peers look like adults while I am stuck perpetually looking like an 18-year-old.
Filed by matt at November 10th, 2007 under Angst
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November 1, 2007
After the last MONO show I went to, I realized I had managed to acquire quite a large amount of merchandise from a band I wouldn’t even put in my top five, just because I’d seen them live. I walked away from that show owning three studio albums on CD, a t-shirt, a tour DVD, a limited edition 3x colored vinyl rarities compilation, and a limited edition Travels in Constants EP (The Phoenix Tree)on CD. In comparison, my Sigur Rós merch collection paled—just three studio albums on CD, and the same three albums as part of the limited edition In A Frozen Sea vinyl collection—especially considering they’re my favorite band ever.
Thankfully, I will soon correct this trend. By the end of this year I will have added to my collection:
- ( ) on double colored vinyl, still factory-sealed, very rare
- Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do EP on CD
- Sigur 1 / Sigur 9 CD/DVD single
- Sæglópur EP on CD
- Hvarf / Heim double EP on CD (pre-ordered)
- Heima DVD documentary (pre-ordered)
- Limited edition Hjlómalind single on 7″ vinyl (UK only, ordered)
Oh yeah, and tonight I’m going to see the L.A. premiere of Heima at the Vista theater. It will be followed by a 3-song acoustic set by the band. Exciting!
Filed by matt at November 1st, 2007 under Music
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October 22, 2007
In the last two weeks I’ve:
- Become obsessed with Andrew Bird’s album Armchair Apocrypha.
- Listened to the new Coheed and Cambria (verdict: enjoyable, but not mind-blowing).
- Been to Amoeba Music for the first time.
- Fluctuated between “money” and “no money” in terrifyingly rapid succession.
- Bought Beautiful Katamari.
- Gotten drunk.
- Moved to Hollywood.
I guess that last one is the most important.
Filed by matt at October 22nd, 2007 under Life, Music
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October 10, 2007
I’ve recommended a lot of albums to a lot of people in my time, but I believe (and I’m prepared to go on record as saying) this is the first time that a recommendation of mine has driven someone into a state of childlike fear. Score one for me, or perhaps Boards of Canada.
Filed by matt at October 10th, 2007 under Life, Music
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October 5, 2007
So, as anyone who follows them knows, Jimmy Eat World’s latest album Chase This Light has leaked to the Internet in the last few days. Far be it from me to steal an artist’s upcoming work though. I simply employed time travel to legally purchase a copy.
After 2004’s musically driving but lyrically disappointing Futures, I was hoping for Jim Adkins to take some time off and recapture the stronger writing he displayed on their breakout Bleed American. I’m happy to say that the three intervening years had just the effect I was hoping for—Chase This Light is a step up from its predecessor in many ways.
It’s funny, six years after my introduction to this band, I think I’m finally able to step back from the music and acknowledge just what kind of relationship I have with them. The reason I still like Jimmy Eat World despite their clearly glossy pop-leanings and somewhat formulaic songwriting is that with each album they manage to bring out my inner teenager. Their songs clearly capture that time when every emotion and event was gigantic and life-altering. Theirs is the music of extreme highs and lows, and sometimes I miss those feelings.
Which brings me to Chase This Light. It took several plays to really help the album gel for me, but now (some 15 listens later) the favorites have become clear. The driving power-riffs on “Big Casino” get the album off to a rip-roaring start, as Adkins wryly pays tribute to the gamble that is every kid’s aspiration to money, fame, coolness—of “making it.” The chorus of “Always Be” stands out: “I’m alone in this / I’m as I’ve always been / Right behind what’s happening / She’s lost in this / She’s like she’ll always be / A little far for me to reach”. It’s an honest expression of that unique brand of inadequacy and reverence so typical of adolescent love. “Here it Goes” is a hand-clapping, four-on-the-floor power-pop confection in the style of “The Authority Song.” The album’s title track is wide-eyed, pleading, and earnest in a way that can only woo a 15-year-old, but speaks to those who still freshly recall that time. “Dizzy” caps off the 40-minute record with a wide-open ode to love lost, recalling Futures’ “23.”
Reading all this, it might sound like I’m critical of the album, but I think of it a lot like cotton candy: it’s fluffed sugar, all sweetness (har har!) and no nutritional value, unfulfilling and yet utterly satisfying. While I don’t think a wildly successful band like Jimmy Eat World is capable of re-capturing the delicate balance between confidence and pensive insecurity that made Bleed American such a fantastic record, I’ll certainly enjoy Chase This Light every time I put it on… and it’s looking like that’s going to happen many more times over the next few weeks.
Filed by matt at October 5th, 2007 under Music
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