I Am a Cliche

You guessed it. The de riguer hiatus. In the past few weeks I've started to post several times before giving up. Not really sure why, but can no longer pretend that the feeling of burn out isn't real. So, rather than fight it, I've decided to give into the ennui and take a break. A few months is what I'm thinking now, but who knows. In the interim, feel free to e-mail me at tosyandcosh@hotmail.com or follow me on Twitter (tosyandcosh).

Happy summer to all!

Until Whenever

Discovering Songs

After watching the Scrubs finale I simply had to go get the song used in the fantasy future montage at the end - Peter Gabriel doing a cover of The Magnetic Fields' "The Book of Love."



I did not know this song, either the original or this cover, before, but was instantly smitten, which almost never happens for me with songs on a first hearing. What I find very surprising is that iTunes didn't have it for sale on its own, but only as part of the soundtrack to the Shall We Dance Richard Gere flop. Why oh why do they do this? Isn't the ability to buy jiust the song you want kind of the point of iTunes?

Thankfully, I was able to get the audio off of the YouTube video and rip an mp3 that way. And now Peter Gabriel doesn't get amy of my money. Smart, iTunes.

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Random TV Notes

(That Also Contain Random Spoilers)

• The House finale was fun, but I really hope they don't abandon the "House in a loonie bin" angle too quickly. There's lots of potential there, but I fear that, come Fall, the show will revert to the status quo too quickly to make use of it.
• I appreciate that, on The Big Bang Theory they are trying to take a very slight hand to the by-now obligatory sitcom cliche of the unrequited love angle, but the CBS marketing monkeys really should get on the same page. They promo'ed the finale as a big Leonard/Penny moment when the reality was much more subtle than that.
• It's been intimated elsewhere that we won't meet How I Met Your Mother's titular mother until the series finale. I know many are fine with this, but I really like this part of the show, and think they need to move faster on it. I'd really love to see a few seasons of the mother integrating with the group. Unless they go with a Will & Grace model, with Ted unable to find true love until he lets go of his college friends. That doesn't feel right here though. The central relationship on W&G was always portrayed as (partially, at least) unhealthy. You never get that feel on HIMYM.
• When Family Guy did a Stephen King night, didn't it feel way too soon to have a Shawshank homage? And then I remembered that that film came out 15 years ago. Yikes.
• The Office has been so good, so assured, that I might actually be looking more forward to its finale than Lost's.
• When watching American Idol last week, one of my five-year olds, shortly after Gokey started "Dream On," said "they're (the judges) not gonna like this."
• Lost has been doing a LOT of set up the past few episodes, so much that I'm actually kind of nervous about their ability to pull off a finale that justifies all of it. Still, fingers crossed.

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He’s No Superman

In honor of Scrubs’ series (season?) finale tonight, here are my ten favorite uses of music on the show, in no particular order:

J.D.’s first emotional connection to a dying patient is scored to – NOT Jeff Buckley’s "Hallelujah,” but John Cale’s!



Turk and Carla, and J.D. and a brief girlfriend whose name I don’t remember, settle down to watch Sanford and Son, with Turk singing improvised lyrics.



Turk races to find a pregnant teen in the park during a Christmas episode over Nina Simone's "Sinnerman"



Ted's a capella band performs a killer version of the Underdog theme song.



Colin Hay does an acoustic "Overkill"



Ted's band does "Over the Rainbow"



Cox loses it after losing one too many patients



Everything Comes Down to Poo


Guy Love



Ted's girlfriend's song



Ted does Hey Ya at the janitor's wedding



I hope they bring Scrubs back just for Ted.

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I Sound Like I’m From Joisey. Who Knew.

If you are not listening to the all-cover songs, all the time podcast Coverville, well than there’s no hope for you. Brian Ibbitt puts together a roughly thrice-weekly show full of cover songs, with pretty much each show unearthing a great cover you probably never heard before.

As part of his “request” shows, Brian features a “musically challenged” trivia contest, in which listeners record and send in short music trivia games that Brian (along with wife Tina) compete in. And in the current episode, the “musically challenged” is a submission by Tosy and Cosh.
Go over and have a listen. But more importantly, go over and subscribe. You won’t regret it.

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Three by Three


SPOILERS




Three things I liked about The Reader

• Kate Winslet’s performance, which was better than I had heard. Sure, she’s winning for not only doing a Holocaust film, and an accent, but for doing the whole “old-age makeup” thing as well, but she is really good here.
• The piano-heavy score, by newcomer Nico Muhly (whose name makes him sound like an old Italian composer, but who on the special features is revealed to be a shockingly young-looking American), which steers (mostly) away from heavy-handedness in favor of subtle, quiet moments.
• The production design, which made all of the locations, especially the apartments, feel very real and lived in, and evoked a wide range of eras very nicely indeed.

Three things I did not like about The Reader:

• Davis Kross’ performance as young Michael, which felt very flat to me, tentative and insecure – the bravado the character unleashes at several moments never felt earned.
• As much as the film tried to avoid sensationalism and cheap emotional ploys, it did succumb a few times – Hannah’s suicide, for example, which they tried to underplay by not showing the actual moment, still felt overly dramatic, what with her stacking books to stand on and the close-up of her shoes and laces.
• The mini-drama between Michael and his parents, which felt very tacked-on and undercooked. Better to have been cut altogether, I think.
  

Until Whenever

And the Streak Continues

I’ve never been to a smoky, wood-floored, gritty bar on the Mexican border. And yet I can’t help but imagine that Bob Dylan’s new album captures what being in one would feel like. Is this a masterpiece on the order of Love and Theft? No. But it is a remarkably strong album, with the old-timey, Tin Pan Alley colors and flavors of that album, or the in-the-groove 50s dance hall band feel of its immediate predecessor, Modern Times, replaced by a distinctly Latin-flavored color here, primarily added by David Hidalgo’s accordion.

The opening track, “Beyond Here Lies Nothing,” has a careless, tossed-off feel, almost like a warm-up, but the second track is a real keeper, a delicate rumination colored by trilling banjo and defined by a stuttered, halting, earnest melody. And the wheezing, charming, accordion-driven up-down riff in “If You Ever Go to Houston” is a great engine, with more complex harmonies underneath than might be immediately apparent.

There’s blues here (in the shuffling one-two beat of “My Wife’s Hometown,” and balladry, but none of the more straight-ahead rocking that modern Dylan has favored (nothing like Love and Theft’s “Tweedledee and Tweedledum” or Modern Times’ “Thunder on the Mountain”). And yet it doesn’t feel missing.

This is another in a series of albums that are very much of a piece, with a definite sound and color palette unique to themselves. And, lest we forget, it’s an album written and sung by a 67-year old. Lots of singers have kept on recording great stuff well into their dotage, but have any songwriters? It’s looking increasingly like Dylan is going to have a career more singular than anyone imagined.

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Doin' the Friday Shuffle

For today's shuffle, I'm shuffling in only songs I've labeled "Rock" (which in my system really just means rock and pop) and that have been labeled four or five stars:

1. "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" - The Beatles - Rubber Soul
A wonderfully lilting melody, with that step-wise melody in the verse. Still, I'm often struck by how much of the Beatles catalog is barely "rock." Kind of odd that the biggest and most influential band either did do relatively little straight-on rock, and so much music hall-influenced melodic pop.



2. "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes" - Paul Simon - Graceland
I absolutely love the opening, with Ladysmith Black Mambazo providing a great counterweight. and that feather-light guitar enters with the shuffling percussion. Great song.



3. "My Funny Valentine" - Elvis Costello - Armed Forces
Solo guitar, kind of menacing, then sweet, and delicately sung. Suck it, American Idol guy!

4. "Mary's Place" - Bruce Springsteen - The Rising
Springsteen does a big 'ol rave-up better than just about anyone.



5. "The Mayor of Simpleton" - XTC - Upsy Daisy Assortment
I can never hear this song the same way again after having it pointed out to me how similar it is to Tears or Fears' Everybody Wants to Rule the World.



6. "Angelina" - Bob Dylan - The Bootleg Series Vols. 1-3: Rare and Unreleased
A slow-burning, quasi-gospel, piano-driven lost track.

7. "I Threw It All Away" - Bob Dylan - Nashville Skyline
Bob in crooner mode. Sweet and sad song of loss.




8. "The Levee's Gonna Break" - Bob Dylan - Modern Times
Bob settles into a sweet groove.



9. "There There (The Boney King of Nowhere)" - Radiohead - Hail to the Thief
I love Radiohead, but does anyone have any idea of what their songs mean?



10. "Jerry" - John Mellencamp - Mr. Happy Go Lucky
A slightly sinister, insistent Bo Diddley beat anchors this song.

Until Whenever

Old News

A few weeks back, when Danny Gokey did "Stand By Me" on American Idol, I was surprised by how few people called him out on such a soulless rendition, one that did absolutely nothing to honor the song. In fact, his lifeless version called for a tonic.

And here it is.

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume you've already seen this, but it's eminently worth posting nonetheless. Such a simple, beautiful idea, and just seamlessly executed.



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Movies I Will See in Six Months

In what has become a yearly tradition, here are the summer films I'm most looking forward to, along with a numerical pegging of my excitement (on a ten-point scale) and the percentage chance that I will actually see them in a theater.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Bad buzz aside, I love Hugh Jackman, I liked all three (yes, all three) X-Men films, and am intrigued by the very notion of Liev Schriber in a superhero film.
Excited Score: 8
Chance of seeing in the theater: 50%

Star Trek
I have only seen two Star Trek films, and no episodes of any series. That said, I like JJ Abrams quite a bit.
Excited Score: 6
Chance of seeing in the theater: 05%

Terminator: Salvation
I like Christian Bale, but am not the world's biggest Terminator fan. And nothing in the marketing so far has grabbed me much.
Excited Score: 5
Chance of seeing in the theater: 03%

A Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
Haven't seen the first, but could see taking the kids in a pinch. Maybe. TV spots actually look fun, though.
Excited Score: 3
Chance of seeing in the theater: 10%

Up
Pixar has not failed me yet, and this looks to be one I could actually take my five-year old twin girls to.
Excited Score: 10
Chance of seeing in the theater: 70%

Land of the Lost
Something about Will Ferrell in a big SFX movie amuses me. And the girl from Pushing Daisies is hella cute.
Excited Score: 6
Chance of seeing in the theater: 05%

Year One
Harodl Ramis is due, isn't he? And Michael Cera and Jack Black sounds like an inspired combo.
Excited Score: 7
Chance of seeing in the theater: 15%

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
The first movie did nothing at all for me.
Excited Score: 3
Chance of seeing in the theater: 01%

Public Enemies
I'm not a huge historical crime guy. Nothing about this intrigues me.
Excited Score: 2
Chance of seeing in the theater: 01%

Bruno
I still haven's sen Borat.
Excited Score: 4
Chance of seeing in the theater: 04%

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
These films have gelled into a very satisfying whole, and I can't wait to see the next installment.
Excited Score: 9
Chance of seeing in the theater: 50%

Funny People
Given the way Apatow has built his little empire, it's easy to forget that he's only written and directed two movies. But when those two movies are The Forty-Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up, I'll follow him anywhere.
Excited Score: 9
Chance of seeing in the theater: 50%

G.I. Joe
Really?
Excited Score: 1
Chance of seeing in the theater: 01%

Inglorious Basterds
Quentin Tarantino has yet to make a boring movie.
Excited Score: 7
Chance of seeing in the theater: 10%

Until Whenever

Things That Are Great #470

Jimmy Stewart getting impassioned.

I just watched Mr. Smith Goes to Washington for the first time, and was reminded, quite forcibly, of what a joy it is to watch Jimmy Stewart get all impassioned about something. Watching the film also reminded me that I need to see more Frank Capra - I think that this and It's a Wonderful Life are all I've seen. It also spurred me to check out what other films Jean Arthur has been in - that tough-on-the-outside, gooey-on-the-inside persona combined with that nasal and perfectly pitched voice are a great combination, and I really feel bereft at not having seen her in (I think) anything else.

But mostly it's that long Jimmy Stewart fillibusterin' sequence that did it, and the way he can convey desperate passion that so impressed me. Sure, the movie kind of screeched to a halt, rather than ends properly, but still, this is prime stuff.

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Well, No Pictures

Is there anything I don't love about the anual Best American Magazine Writing editions? The best magazine articles of the year, offered up in one wonderful package. It's simplicity at its best, really. This year's edition was as good as its predecessors. The highlights, for me:

China’s Instant Cities, Peter Hessler, National Geographic

An engaging, detail-laden, very in-the-moment look at the economic explosion in China, as seen through the test case of a man and his uncle opening up a factory to make bra straps.

The Black Sites, Jane Mayer, The New Yorker

A harrowing, anger-up-the-blood look at workers at a nuclear weapons facility who years later start coming down with cancer, and the government that denies any connection.

Specialist Town Takes His Case to Washington, Joshua Kors, The Nation

The tale of an Iraq War veteran (representing hundreds of others) denied benefits for post-traumatic stress-related conditions because the government claims they stem from a "pre-existing condition." More blood-angering.

City of Fear, William Langewiesche, Vanity Fair

Langewiesche is my favorite journalist, and he pops up in these things like clockwork. This year's piece, an in-depth look at the cultureof an omnipresent prison gang in Brazil is remarkable in how it both condemns and looks honeslty at the gang.

“You Have Thousands of Angels Around You,” Paige Williams, Atlanta

A heart-stirring and -breaking look at a young refugee from Africa taken in by a family in Georgia.

Babes in the Woods, Caitlin Flanagan, The Atlantic

A creepy look at how the on-line world has made stalking teens so very, very easy.

Underworld, Jeanne Marie Laskas, GQ

A close and personal look at the otherworldly world of coal mining.

Until Whenever

How much does a typical newborn baby weigh? What is the smallest weight of bowling ball typically found in a bowling alley?

Seven Pounds may well be the worst movie I have ever seen.

SPOILERS AHEAD

I like Will Smith. But I'm not sure what he was thinking here. Apart from the sheer over-the-top drama of the premise there's the way the story is told. First, the premise:

A man, driving home with the fiance he has just proposed to, does a little texting-while-driving and crashes his car into a van, killing seven people, including his wife. To atone for his sin, he undertakes an elaborate scheme in which he gifts complete strangers he has discovered to be "good" people with life-changing gift, usually of the bodily organ variety. To make his machinations easier to pull off, he steals his brother's identity as an IRS agent. For his final act of charity, he kills himself so that he can give his heart to a woman with congenital failure who has the same rare blood part as he (even though he has by that point fallen in love with her).

This is ludicrous, purple stuff all on its lonesome.

But, and for me this was the real kicker, is that almost none of this is revealed until the last ten minutes of the film. We spend nearly the entire movie not knowing why Smith's character is doing any of this, what any of the scenes mean, what any of the context is. We spend it with no anchor, no reason to invest in the story apart from the curiosity to fill in those blanks. But the blanks are so many and so complete that we have no desire to fill them in. It's like a connect-the-dots with only three dots. There's no reason to try.

I usually like Will Smith. But I don't understand what he was getting at here.

Until Whenever

Is It Plagiarism If You Steal From Yourself?

From John Williams' score for Memoirs of a Geisha. (listen from 2:30 - 2:55)



From John Williams' score for Star Wars: Episode III - The Revenge of the Sith (from 1:40 - 2:48)



You make the call.

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Failure of Nerve

I, after being prodded by many friends familiar with my musical theater affinity, finally watched the film Camp last week. Camp is a small indie film about a musical theater summer camp, a camp where the kids who are to some degree outcasts in their high schools can be themselves.

It's a sweet film, if a bit underbaked and kind of embarrassingly badly directed and acted and edited. But nonetheless with its heart in the right place. But what I most want to talk about isn't any of that; it's the music.

This is a film that takes as its central thematic conceit the notion that these kids (and adults) who are passionate about musical theater have nothing to be ashamed about. That musical theater is worthy of passion and worth embracing.

And yet while the music in the film does include a few showtunes, with one exception they are all more "pop" showtunes. The opening number, from "The Gospel at Colonus" is a big, belty gospel number, not a traditional musical theater song. The original songs are by the folks who did Fame, and sound much more R&B-influenced than Broadway influenced. The one big number we get to see from a production is "Turkey Lurkey Time" from Promises, Promises by Burt Bacharach, a composer from the pop world. And the non-diegetic music is by and large soft acoustic lite rock stuff, the same kind of music used in sensitive teen drams all the time.

Where is the real Broadway stuff? Why, in a film that celebrates musical theater fandom, is there so much hedging when it comes to the real thing? I really would have loved for the film to embrace its own ethos more, and used showtunes for scene transitions, underscoring, etc. To have used showtunes for the big emotional numbers, not showtunes-by-proxy. In the end, it really took the wind out of the film's sails for me.

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All I Ask Is That You Listen To Me

Has there ever been as big a gap between the front-runner and the rest in the history of American Idol? In any case, next week is Movie Songs, and I'd love to see Adam Lambert bust out some Jesus Christ Superstar.



Until Whenever

Doin' the Friday Shuffle

1. "Time of the Preacher" - Willie Nelson - Red-Headed Stranger
Every year I become more of a Willie fan. This is a lovely little country ditty.



2. "Walk of Life" - Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms
I remember this song as being omnipresent when I was in high school. I also remember vividly the sports bloopers video. What was all that about?



3. "Finale" - Kander & Ebb - Cabaret (Original Broadway Cast)
I've never actually seen Cabaret. I should really rectify that someday.

4. "Blue Skies" - Ella Fitzgerald - Ella Sings Berlin
Some killer scatting here.

5. "Pleasant Little Kingdom/Too Many Mornings" - Mandy Patinkin - Oscar & Steve
Gorgeously full-throated big Broadway singing. The first piece is a cut song from Follies, but it's the second that goes for the kill. This is one of Sondheim's biggest, purplest songs, and Mandy and guest star Judy Blazer do it justice.

6. "Transition 3" - Stephen Sondheim - Passion (Original Broadway Cast)
These short soldier-sung transition pieces were very effective on stage. Reminds me that I really need to watch Passion again.

7. "Jeru" - Miles Davis - Birth of the Cool
Early Miles, swinging much more than usual.



8. "Right Now" - Mark Knopfler - All the Roadrunning
A sly little slow jam between Knopfler and Emmylou Harris.



9 "The King of the Golden Hall" - Howard Shore - The Two Towers
Regal, majestic, bittersweet - a wonderful cut.



10. "Somewhere" - Audra McDonald - How Glory Goes
A beautifully understated rendition of one of my top-ten all-time favorite melodies.

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Logo

For the curious, the sources for the letters in the new logo are:

T - Star Wars logo.
O - The one true ring from The Lord of the Rings films
S - Shawshank Redemption film poster
Y - Playbill masthead

And - From the Broadway Beauty and the Beast logo

C - Classic Captain America logo
O - The good Captain's shield
S - The original Sweeney Todd Broadway logo
H - The Simpsons

Until Whenever

Where'd I Put That Cane?

A post over at A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago about the 10th anniversary of The Matrix made me realize that, hey, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace came out (almost) 10 years ago. I suddenly feel very, very old.

I still remember seeing this first trailer, on Entertainment Tonight or Access Hollywood. I remember taping it so that I could show some friends, since the insta-trailer world of the Internet wasn't real yet.



Damn. Now I'm going to have to watch this soon.

Until Whenever

The Power of Movies

I watched Monsters, Inc. with my twin five-year old daughters over the past few nights, and in the process was very strongly reminded once again of how powerful movies can be. For me, there are two moments at the end of Monsters, Inc. that tear at my guts – when Sully returns Boo to her bedroom, and has to say goodbye to her for the last time, and the very last moment in the film, when he is gifted with a way to see her again, and he eagerly and tentatively opens her door to see her.

As we watched these last moments, I had one of my daughters on my lap (the Wife had the other). And, as that first moment played out, I was keenly watching my daughters react to the moment, to see how they took it.

Of course, the moment has two levels superimposed on top of each other. The first is the happy ending moment – after many close calls, the child is being returned to her home (and unseen parents) after her big fantasy adventure. She’s like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. But the second—and it’s this moment that the scoring and direction and actors play up—is a very sad thing, with Sully and the little girl realizing that they will never see each other again. The Wizard of Oz has this level going on as well, with Dorothy’s farewell to her friends, but there it’s not nearly as heartbreaking as it is here. It’s all a matter of perspective. In Oz, we identify with Dorothy, she’s our protagonist. But here, it’s Sully, and so it’s his loss we feel.

Twin A took the moment on that first level. She had expressed real fear several times throughout the film that the little girl would never find her way home. So seeing that happy ending was exactly what she had been anxiously awaiting.

But Twin B saw through to the other level, the level on which the scene has always hit me hard. And because she was in my lap I could see her react up close, and it was, well, astonishing. As the import of the scene hit her – Sully would never see Boo again – her eyes welled up and her breath started to hitch and constrict. But she wasn’t upset. She didn’t turn away. She stared, completely enraptured by the turn the story had taken. In a small, choked voice, she said “he loves the little girl.” She had been emotionally moved by the film, yes, but not in a scared way, or a disturbing way. She had been moved, and emotionally ensnared, in exactly the way the filmmakers intended.

So, when that last shot came, when it was revealed that Sully would get to see Boo again, the payoff was there. She gazed at the screen with a look of complete and open joy. She was as happy as he was. She had been surprised and delighted and taken quite out of the world of our Sugar Maple Split and into another place entirely.

And that's the power of movies.

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