A Series of Meaningless Opinions

#25: London Calling (1979), The Clash

2008-05-18T16:43:00.004-06:00

Dan and Sam count down their 28 favorite albums of all time via e-mail conversation. To see the earlier ones in the list, click the tag "The 28".

Place on personal list: Sam--20, Dan--23

Favorite Song: Sam--"Rudie Can't Fail", Dan--"Wrong 'em Boyo"

We're gonna go ahead and skip favorite lines on this one.

Sam

As I alluded to last time, this is one of the albums I've listened to the
most in my life. London Calling was my absolute favorite album and
The Clash my absolute favorite band for a good couple of years in late middle
school into early high school. Rebellious, angry and political music always
appeals to younger kids more than older, but I've certainly maintained most
of my love over the years.

In a lot of ways, this is similar to Out of our Heads in that there's
nothing quite transcendent here, but it's consistently excellent. The
difference though is that OooH is ten songs long and about 33
minutes, London Calling nineteen songs, and over an hour. That's a
huge difference, and putting up great stuff consistently is a lot more
impressive with twice as many songs.

I would like to quibble, however, with the notion that this is one of the
essential punk albums. Their eponymous debut is certainly punk, maybe the
very definition of punk. It's loud, rebellious, fast and packed with short
song after short song ("Police & Thieves" notwithstanding).

London Calling is, on the other hand, slower, longer, calmer, much
more melodic, and even has a ton of horn work. Certainly it's still filled
with its share of anger and rebellion, but that alone does not a punk album
make. Genre distinctions are always iffy, but tell me that "Jimmy Jazz" or
"Train in Vain" are punk songs. This is more like reggae-influenced rock and
roll, not punk.

Actually, London Calling has some of the catchiest hooks on any album
outside of The Beatles' stuff, which may be its greatest strength.

1) London Calling (8.5)

A great tone setter, with a powerful, driving riff that does remind you of
that true punk Clash of their previous two albums. I like the apocalyptic
setting which is appropriate for the album as a whole, particularly "A
nuclear era, but I have no fear, / 'Cause London is drowning and I / Live by
the river."

2) Brand New Cadillac (7)

Perhaps the only genuine punk song on London Calling, and, I think
not coincidentally, the worst song the album too. It's far from bad though,
with a lot of power and some nice-sounding guitar work.

3) Jimmy Jazz (9)

I love this song. It reminds me a lot of my favorite Clash song, "Police &
Thieves," and I wonder if Operation Ivy even exists without The Clash
writing original, ska-influenced material like his.

"Jimmy Jazz" is a good example of the calmer, more tongue-in-cheek Clash we
see on this album, which is what makes London Calling so good. I was
actually very surprised to see that this song is only 3:55 long because it
feels a lot longer, but not in a bad way. It's a drawling (but certainly not
peaceful song) that's a great other look for the band to offer. I also love
how Joe Strummer sounds almost drunk singing it (and who knows, maybe he
was).

4) Hateful (8)

London Calling is a very diverse album, but over nineteen songs,
you're just about bound to have a bunch of similar sounding ones. "Hateful,"
with a catchy oft-repeated hook, is the first of a number of these songs.

5) Rudie Can't Fail (9)

This is probably the catchiest song on the album, and also probably my
favorite. The horns and guitar riff are fantastic here, and you hear a lot
more of that Caribbean influence that present throughout the rest of
LC.

6) Spanish Bombs (8.5)

Very catchy rock and roll again. The chorus might be repeated a few too many
times, but I don't mind. Political/protest kind of lyrics, which is okay,
but, as you know, I'm not too huge a fan of politics in music. I love the (I
assume) deliberate incorrect Spanish of "Yo te quera."

7) The Right Profile (8)

This has got a great riff, the horns are great and Joe Strummer drawls it
wonderfully. That said, it's just too repetitive, we hear the same chorus
too many times. This is, actually, the main problem with the album as a
whole-the catchiness is often undermined by how many times different things
are repeated.

8) Lost in the Supermarket (8)

When I began my Clash-listening life by purchasing The Essential
Clash, this was the song that grabbed me and kept me around long enough
to listen to the rest. It's not a great song, but it's a nice contrast to
the rest, with its pretty standard rock stylings.

9) Clampdown (9)

This is one of the other candidates for my favorite song. It's similar in a
lot of ways with "Rudie," with its catchy ska-influenced beat. God, just
makes you want to dance, right?

10) Guns of Brixton (9)

Probably the most distinctive and original song on the album, with a
fantastic, driving, almost ominous beat. This is, I guess, the most
Caribbean-influenced song too.

11) Wrong 'Em Boyo (8)

I love the little 40 second or so opening, which I believe is an abbreviated
cover, and then the horns are just awesome for the whole thing. The main
song is a cover too, though, so it does get a minor deduction, and it's also
a little over-repetitive as well.

12) Death or Glory (8.5)

"Death or Glory" has a more traditional rock feel than most of the album,
but it's as catchy as anything on the album. I also love that change toward
the end. Too much of that chorus though, man.

13) Koka Kola (7.5)

I like that this song is so short. I don't know that it could hold a full
three minutes, but it's very nice for a minute plus. The lyrics are
appropriately rebellious, I suppose, as well.

14) The Card Cheat (8)

I like this song. It's a nice contrast to the rest of the album.

15) Lover's Rock (8)

This is that "Hateful" kind of song that we hear a lot of on the album, but
I still really like it. I'm particularly fond of the ambiguity between
"lover's rock" meaning the kind of rock and roll music, or an actual rock
for lovers.

16) Four Horsemen (7.5)

Another one of those similar song, but not as good as the rest. It's fine
though.

17) I'm Not Down (8.5)

It's got a lot in common with "Death or Glory," more traditional rock that's
extraordinarily catchy. Gotta love it.

18) Revolution Rock (8)

More than any other song on the album, "Revolution Rock" suffers from
dragging and repetition. It might be my favorite song on the album if it
didn't just last too long. It's disappointing, but it's still excellent and
catchy. It also gets a minor deduction for being a cover.

19) Train in Vain (Stand by Me) (8.5)

Totally different from anything else on London Calling with its synth
(I think) riff. Gives a hint of where they would go with things like "Rock
the Casbah," except it's better than all that stuff. My understanding is
that this song was a last minute addition, which makes the length of
"Revolution Rock" more understandable, but I'm very glad it got added, as
it's a nice way to end a great album.

So, all in all, this is an incredibly consistent, diverse and original
album. I'm very happy at least with this ranking.

I'd also like to talk about the album cover for a minute. This picture of
bassist Paul Simonon destroying his guitar (well, bass guitar) during a
concert is an absolute classic. Combine that with the allusion to Elvis with
the pink and green writing, and you've got perhaps that greatest album cover
of all time, channeling the anger and rebellion into a perfect expression.

Dan

It took me a while to get into this album, but I really can't get enough of it. I agree that its consistency and lack of a real standout track makes it similar to our last album, but the length is a misleading detail. I know you think this too, but I can't stress how much it annoys me how long some of these songs drag. There is some absolutely brilliant material here, the type of genre-transcending, emotive music that at its best reminds me of the Beatles. Nevertheless, I think there is a bit of sloppiness in editing, obviously especially in length.

London Calling (8.5)-It would be an abomination if any other song started this album. The tone is set both musically and lyrically, I also definitely like the apocalyptic shit. Phony Beatlemania is dead just about sums up how they want to be perceived, and I think it works. The minor feel is really good, but what really makes it is the subtleties in the drums and bass that keep the music fresh while the guitar pounds out that riff.

Brand New Cadillac (6.5)-Even though I'm rating it lower than you I'm not sure its the worst track on the album. I like the recognition of musical tradition by covering what was probably a pretty influential track back in the day for young English rockers, its just not very well done, too much noise and not enough feel of the chords. Too bad cause I feel like there was a lot of potential here.

Jimmy Jazz (8.5)-Right from that distinctive sound in the intro you know this is a song that is unique. The whacky and playful feel combined with the tone of the lyrics reminds me of Maxwell's Silver Hammer in the effect it achieves. Also like many songs on this album the horns are used wonderfully, with a simple but nice tenor sax solo and cool backgrounds. I don't think it drags too much, although the vocal inflection actually annoys me a bit, not sure why I just don't like the way it sounds.

Hateful (7)-I don't think there's a whole lot here but its just a very well done, nice song. I like the chromatic chord movement before the verse restarts. Not sure it warrants an 8 from you, I mean it's great filler but in the grand scheme of things it's still filler.

Rudie Can't Fail (9.5)-So close to reaching the pinnacle it almost hurts the song because I want it to be perfect. Again, stellar use of the horn section. I also like how the drums drive the feel by throwing in those snare hits at the beginning of some of the verses. This song just makes you feel good, no? There's just a little bit missing that keeps it from the top, but I'm not sure I've figured out what it is.

Spanish Bombs (9)-A remarkable song, such an interesting and unique choice of subject matter (although I guess it kind of makes sense for a band like the Clash to be interested in this). The music has good momentum, and I really like during the chorus how the guitar accents two and four really heavily, which provides nice contrast to the more fluid guitar part throughout the song. Just not quite as good as the previous track, but it's right up there.

The Right Profile (8)-I really like the hook, and again great horns! The alternating feel between a pounding, but somewhat laid back verse and the much more intense chorus. Here's where the length starts to hurt though. The whole last minute seems to be searching for new material and coming up empty, and like what is even going on in the lyrics at 3:10? That's just not a pleasant sound. Too bad cause if it were maybe a minute shorter I think it would help a lot.

Lost in the Supermarket (6)-I really don't like this song very much, it's still worthy of a listen, but I find the melody much less interesting than much of the other work. Also the mellow feel doesn't really work for me, and I don't like the way the chords are moving. The drums, which have been much more free to this point on the album, are really constrained by the type of feel they were going for in this song, and I don't think it has the same type of forward motion that appears on much of the album. This is the type of song that reminds me we're in the late 70s, not a good thing at all.

Clampdown (8)-I cannot believe this is one of your favorite songs on the album. I will admit that the core of the song is quite good. The intro I find appalling, however. It sounds just like a louder version of the last track, and doesn't really make sense to me to throw in there. And I mean once it gets going it does have good rhythm, and I really like what happens musically around 1:35 with that kind of bridge section. But then here we go again with this last minute. What exactly is the point? It totally loses the musical qualities that make the middle enjoyable and just goes on too long. Great song, but I can't fully enjoy it when it takes time to get going and ends on a bad note.

The Guns of Brixton (8.5)-The intro to this song is so cool, and I also like the ominous feel and reggae-influenced rhythm. Also cool guitar work with all the neat sounds and intense vibrato. The drums do cool things throughout, I particularly like the fill like the one at 1:53 which actually happens a couple times I think.

Wrong 'em Boyo (9.5)-This is my favorite on the album. Again not quite at the apex, but I think along with Rudie it gets closer than any other song here. I don't like when the drums drop out so early in the song, that sounds like something that should happen at the end before one more loud, intense chorus, but the feel and melody is addictive. I love the reworking of the classic blues traditional Stagger Lee at the beginning. I think this captures the reggae/ska whatever you wanna call it feel better than any other track, and it is just too fun to listen too. Well, not TOO fun, I still listen to it all the time.

Death or Glory (7.5)-Yeah this one is pretty simple, but its definitely catchy, I love the melody and chord choices in the chorus, although yeah there's too much of it and by the end its not really as cool. I think the interlude before the chorus at 2:00 is cool, but again already hearing the chorus too much. I feel like everything after 2:40 doesn't add a whole lot though, and probably could have been done without.

Koka Kola (6.5)-I don't really find this as catchy as the rest, but I guess at least it's definitely not too long. I get my advice from the advertising world? Come on boys, you already proved on this album you can be a little more subtle than this without losing that hard core edge.

The Card Cheat (7)-This has a sort of different sound and I guess is nice but doesn't really do much for me. Also here's one of the few places where I don't think the horns are very good, those backgrounds really suck. I feel like there's too much of a mass of sound, you can really pick out parts on most of the other tracks and here things blend too much. Also lasts a long time. Too long.

Four Horsemen (7.5)-Yeah by this point basically the arguments for and against are the same as the rest of the mid-range tracks on this album.

I'm Not Down (7.5)-I don't really think this one's that great, the guitar work is really cool though. Not a bad song at all, but by this point in the album I begin to grow wearier of these well-above average fillers than I would normally, another reason why keeping songs briefer earlier in the album might have helped it overall.

Revolution Rock (8)-Make it stop! Such a good song, and it still is, but just way way too long. There is nowhere near enough material here to stretch this song 5:33. Really like the intro, and the whole song has good rhythm and feeling, but at the end things just start to break down, which I guess they appear to be doing intentionally. Baffling because it seems pretty obvious when you listen that they've just run out of things to do but it just keeps on going. I'll stick to the first two verses or so then move on, thank you very much.

Train in Vain (Stand by Me) (9)-This is a really unique flavor to end the album with, and I think it's a good closer. I actually am pretty sure the riff is just a heavily distorted guitar, but who really gives a shit, it's catchy as all hell. The melody lines are impeccable, and I like how at some points there is a lot of sound and then at others everything cuts out for seconds at a time except the drums. I think the feel of the song fits the lyrics so well, it sounds like the way you feel when you're trying to get on with shit in the face of personal issues. The varying parts rhythmic motifs at the end give the song a lot of power on its way out.

Lots of different feels, like you said, so that even though there are only a few standout tracks the album as a whole works really well. Maybe we should have started talking about cover art when we did Bringing it All Back Home, but I'm willing to start now by agreeing with you that this has a great cover. I think that like other great albums this one has a feel that is both nostalgic and ahead of its time, simultaneously, which the cover so succinctly captures. There's definite homage to a wide variety of musical things here while at the same time this album sounds like nothing I've ever heard. Great combination.

Sam

I object to how loosely you use the term "filler." There are probably a few songs here that could have been cut--"Koka Kola," "Four Horsemen," and "The Card Cheat" in particular. I don't know, I don't think it's a major concern because you recognize that what you call filler is ridiculously good for being that, but it's a loaded term that certainly shouldn't be applied to "Hateful" I don't think.

I'm perfectly willing to acknowledge that I may be overrating "Lost in the Supermarket" because it has sentimental value for me. It's certainly very 80sish sounding.

I really don't see what's so terrible about the "Clampdown" intro. It's a nice transition from the last song. I don't love it necessarily, but it hardly takes anything off the table for me. Perhaps it's just because I like "Lost in the Supermarket."

We basically agree on "Wrong 'Em Boyo" I think. It's a great medley, and when you correct for the slight deduction for not being original, I also think it's one of the 3-4 best songs. You know, I remembered it going on for longer with more chorus repetitions than it actually had, perhaps it deserves a revision to a 9.

I definitely should have been harsher on "Koka Kola's" lyrics. They suck. I was just so pleased that they ended a song too early instead of too late that I ignored that.

Finally, obviously a lot of songs drag. It's kind of impressive actually to have so many songs drag when only one exceeds 4:03. They should have just stuck to their punk roots and kept everything at 2-3 minutes long. I still think its overall length is a count in its favor. Maybe not length time-wise but track-wise. There are so many well above average tracks that they deserve credit for that.

Dan

Yeah I should have thought of a term for what I meant that didn't carry the negative connotations of "filler". Basically I just meant the songs in between the key tracks. I understand the general concept of deducting for covers, but with "Wrong 'em Boyo" I suggest listening to a version of Stagger Lee (I would recommend my favorite, and probably what is widely agreed to be the definitive version by Lloyd Price). It's more like a cover of scene and characters, because they take a lot of liberties in their "cover" that make it fit more appropriately thematically with the rest of the song. For me this has always added points in this particular situation.

“I’m Sorry, But I’m Not Interested in Gold Mines, Oil Wells, Shipping, or Real Estate”* Or: Citizen Kane Review

2008-05-04T23:15:00.005-06:00

*You know, I’ve been listening to the White Stripes’ “Union Forever” for years with no awareness that the whole song is basically an allusion to this movie. I liked it before, now I like it even more.

Citizen Kane is a great movie, but not considering the context of the way it (supposedly) “reinvented movies” as my Netflix case says, I have a hard time seeing how this is the best movie of all time.

For starters, the opening “News on the March” sequence is just lazy storytelling. I know that standards were different at the time, and it may even have been pretty original for Welles to have his voiceover actually grounded in the story. Still this isn’t Casablanca where a modern director would find a way to tell us what we need to know through dialogue, but it’s hard to imagine anyone relating those details in a genuine way. No, everything that we learn in “News on the March” could be told in a more organic way in the story proper, and, in fact, we are told most of it again anyway.

Voiceover should be used only if you absolutely cannot tell it in a different way, or if it adds a lot. Certainly moviemakers didn’t think like that then, and that’s fine, but even then it must have been frowned upon to use it when it is completely unnecessary, and, if not, revolutionary Welles should have realized that anyway, no?

That’s not to say the scene serves no purpose. It sets a frame for the whole film, but that’s easily solvable. The shots of Xanadu and the quotation from “Kubla Khan” sets a stark, symbolic contrast with the haunted house feel it’s given in the first scene, and that certainly is important.

It also lets us know all the basic details of Kane’s life before the story begins, which Welles must have thought was important. But wouldn’t it have been nicer to only know that he was this super rich guy who died, and let us fit in the other stuff as the movie went along?

I guess that’s actually my only serious criticism. I was a little skeptical of this being told as a “frame story” through a series of flashbacks, but it’s necessary for the “rosebud” mystery, and even without that, it would be totally worth it just for seeing Jedediah as an old man—man, that dude was awesome. That the flashbacks all travel linearly through time is a little unbelievable, but I’ll forgive that.

Otherwise, Citizen Kane really is a great movie and would probably be even better if I didn’t know what rosebud was. If you’re one of the ten people in the world that doesn’t know what it is, I won’t ruin it for you, but it is a wonderful bit of symbolism, the “missing piece” that, in a way, explains everything.

The acting is generally superb—particularly for such an old movie, when standards were somewhat different—the cinematography is great, especially the shots inside Xanadu toward the end though the aforementioned “haunted house” shots do feel a little tacky. Also, the make-up work on Welles as Kane gets older is also pretty amazing for 1941.

It does suffer a little from There Will Be Blood syndrome in that the emotional context is mostly dark, repressed emotion. It didn’t bother me so much this time though. In fact, I think I may be overcoming that mental block, actually.

Also, I just want to mention how awesome it is that Welles gives essentially all the principal actors their own screen in the credits, and then sticks his own credit for playing Kane as one line on a screen with ten others. Now that’s modesty.

So, all in all, Citizen Kane is great, but I wasn’t blown away the way I was with Casablanca, or Network, or even Adaptation, American Beauty or Memento. There are enough minor flaws, the symbolism sometimes a bit too overdone, the storytelling occasionally weak enough to keep it out of the “perfect” category and consideration of best movie I’ve ever seen, but those are minor complaints. A

Also, totally unrelated, but I just acquired my copy of Juno (view count: 4), and on the back it proclaims—it, not a critic mind you—that “Juno delivers huge laughs…without even trying!” Ugh. This is why people hate Juno. Why must it market itself as the self-conscious super “indie” film that all its detractors think it is. I don’t know, maybe Diablo Cody thought that, but Jason Reitman clearly saw how much more it could be. Man, it’s really well-directed. Anyway, that’s all.

"The Circus Is in Town" Or: A Lyrical Analyis of Dylan's "Desolation Row," Verse 1

2008-05-03T00:07:00.007-06:00

Rating songs is often little more than an exercise in futility. Sure, I can be pretty sure that I think “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” is better than “It Wasn’t Me,” or even, say, “Play with Fire,” but when songs are close, it’s almost impossible to draw important distinctions between them, and even when you can, it is likely to be dramatically different a week later.

That said, I’m pretty confident that “Desolation Row” and “Visions of Johanna,” from Highway 61 and Blonde on Blonde respectively, are my two favorite songs of all time. They’re pretty similar too—long, sprawling epics with dense lyricism.

That dense lyricism is one of the main attractions, but it also can leave me confused. So I’ve decided to try to understand them as best I can by going through the lyrics and analyzing them. If this works out well (which it probably won’t—writing about poetry has never been my strength), I’ll also do Dylan’s other epics*, which would make the complete list this (in order of goodness): “Visions of Johanna,” “Desolation Row,” “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” (Bringing It All Back Home), “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands,” (BoB) and “Chimes of Freedom” (Another Side of Bob Dylan).

*Am I missing any? And don’t say “Hurricane.”

Considering it took me 700+ words just to do the first verse of “Desolation Row” (there are ten just in this song), it could be quite a while before I get through all of this, but that’s okay.

I should also add that I owe a lot to my high-school English teacher, Mr. Sluyter, for this first verse analysis. One class when I was sixteen, instead of having us talk about whatever book we were reading, he came into the classroom, turned this song on, wrote the first verse’s lyrics on the board and asked us what it meant. I was just happy that I recognized the song, but it ended up being a very awesome experience. I believe he did the same thing with his class the previous year, except using “Visions of Johanna” instead. That guy’s got some taste, eh?

Anyway, the point is that I got a lot of these ideas from that conversation.

Also, the same qualifications apply as with all poetry, except maybe especially with Dylan: I have no idea if he meant any of this, but considering that great artists are all inspired by gods anyway, intention isn’t relevant, only the result is.

Verse 1:

They're selling postcards of the hanging
They're painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in townHere comes the blind commissioner
They've got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants
And the riot squad they're restless
They need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonightFrom Desolation Row

We start off with an ominous description of “selling postcards of the hanging.” There is probably a racial element here too, as it was standard practice in the south during slavery and afterwards to sell postcards with photographs of lynched blacks, which connects nicely with the descriptions of “brown” passports. What’s most striking about this line is of course the utter lack of sensitivity it requires to be involved in this kind of action—first, in trying to make money of someone’s violent and public death; second, presumably there are people spending money to send a picture of a dead man to a friend or relative.

I wonder if “they’re painting the passports brown” suggests that these nebulous “they” are marking all the passports in such a way that no one will be able to leave the place they control, presumably Desolation Row. Of course “Lady and I” are looking out from Desolation Row, not on it, but this song is more than a little surreal, and I don’t think any fact is truly concrete. At the very least, this image portrays more, well, desolation and despair with simple, clear words.

I have two conflicting ideas of the next line. I tend to think “the beauty parlor is filled with sailors” is only the prelude of scary bizarreness to which “the circus is in town” is the conclusion. On the other hand, I’m not sure if it’s totally unheard of for sailors to be in a beauty parlor, looking for women. If that’s the case, then it’s another image of emotional coldness, now only caring about sex. I suppose the answer is that it’s probably both.

“The circus is in town” has been my favorite line of this verse ever since that day back in Mr. Sluyter’s class where we discussed this song. The phrase is normally an exciting, happy one. Imagine a little child saying, “Oh, yay, the circus is in town!” But because of the context Dylan has placed it in, it instead means something terrifying and disconcerting. Brilliant.

Then you’ve got this mysterious “they” in control of the commissioner too, the guy who’s supposed to be running the show. It’s again a very disturbing image—saying they’ve got him in a trance is a powerful way to say they’ve got him in their pocket. And then he’s on the edge of falling—“one hand tied to the tight-rope walker”—and that once again brings the circus back into the picture. Even more damning of the commissioner, he’s got that other hand in his pants, jerking off. Sit back in awe at the way Dylan has painted the guy as an incompetent, unscrupulous guy through evocative images. This is the creative writer’s creed of “show don’t tell” beautifully in action.

“The riot squad they’re restless, / They need somewhere to go” is, I think, pretty obvious, but it really deepens the despair and terror of this place as well.

The last line is nicely ambiguous. Are “Lady and I” looking out at all of this happening somewhere else from Desolation Row, or are they looking away from all of it, which is happening on Desolation Row, as an escape, a short mediation on what else could be possible away from this place? I always assumed it was the former before, but now I think the latter is more likely. I’m sure Dylan intended both meanings to be present, but the second one fits in better, I think.

The other thing that needs to be addressed is the “they” that seem to be responsible for everything that’s going wrong. I like how the first four lines begin “they,” “they,” “the,” “the,” and then there are two others that begin with “theys.” But that’s just more of a stylistic issue rather than a thematic one. It adds a lot though not to define the “they” in any way. They are a mysterious, foreboding presence that hangs over the whole verse.

Suns Lose, Dream Dies / Time to Trade Steve Nash / Basketball Musings

2008-04-30T19:59:00.004-06:00

Tuesday was a dark day for basketball lovers. The Spurs, despite an off game from Manu Ginobili*, finished off the Suns’ season with a 92-87 victory. This means more than that the Shaq trade was a mistake (which we already knew). It means that the dream that was the Steve Nash Suns is likely over.

*Who else is digging the Manu/Nash commercials with Radiohead’s “House of Cards”?

Probably they weren’t good enough to win a championship before the Shaq trade, but I’m certain they’re not good enough afterward, now also stuck with Shaq’s albatross of a contract for two more years. The Lakers are going to (scarily) be even better next year with a full season of Bynum and Gasol. The Blazers will make it ten teams good enough to be the four seed in the East. The Hornets, Jazz, Rockets, Nuggets aren’t going anywhere. The Mavs and Spurs will be back for at least one more year, and the Warriors will be dangerous even with the possibility of losing Baron Davis. And unless Amare Stoudemire turns into a defensive force, there’s no reason to expect the Suns to get anything but worse.

It really is sad. The Suns were the most entertaining team I’ve ever seen and a team that, with a couple of breaks going the other way, could easily have won a title by now, which would have kept Kerr from making the knee-jerk Shaq trade. Now, I can’t shake the feeling that their window with Nash has closed.

If Kerr really wants to show how bold he is, he needs to realize that this team can’t win the West next year, and Nash only has a few more years of value left. He needs to do the boldest thing possible—trade Steve Nash.

The list of teams that would be interested in the third or fourth best point guard in the NBA and has a decent number of young assets is surprisingly short. Here’s what I’ve come up with:

Trade 1: Blazers acquire Steve Nash, Raja Bell. Suns acquire Sergio Rodriguez, Travis Outlaw, Josh McRoberts, Steve Blake, Joel Pryzbilla, the draft rights to Rudy Fernandez, Blazer’s lottery pick.

Why the Suns do it:
They acquire four cheap young guys in Rodriguez, Fernandez, Outlaw and the lottery pick (DeAndre Jordan? Darell Arthur?) that are perfect fits for their system. Rodriguez and Fernandez look like they could be studs, particularly in Suns uniforms, Outlaw’s an athletic scorer that would thrive in an up-and-down offense, and Pryzbilla would provide good depth at both frontcourt spots. They build around a core of Stoudemire, Barbosa, Diaw, Fernandez, Rodriguez, Outlaw, Frye, the lottery pick and their own late first-rounder. In a couple of years, especially if one of the non-Stoudemire guys turns into a superstar (I’m guessing Diaw or Fernandez), that could be a pretty dominant team. At the very least, they’d be a crazily deep team that could run all day.

Why the Blazers do it:
Kevin Pritchard is one of the ballsiest, most proactive GMs around, and he already spent the last trade deadline trying to move some of his smaller pieces for a young point guard he could build around, specifically Devin Harris before he was shipped to Jersey in that terrible Kidd trade. Nash, of course, isn’t young, but he’s still a top five point guard in the association. The upgrade from Jarett Jack/Steve Blake to Nash would be huge. This is what their roster would look like:

1: Nash (Jack, Roy in a pinch)
2: Roy (Martell Webster)
3: Bell (Webster, a resigned James Jones/someone else)
4: Aldridge (Frye)
5: Greg Oden (LaFrentz, Frye)

That’s a damn good team, with a two or three year window to win a title with Steve at the point, and a bigger one with someone else. Nash’s decline should coincide nicely with the rise of Aldridge and Oden (I think Roy already about as good as he’s going to get), keeping them at a steady level of play. They’d have no superstars until/if Oden becomes one, but they would have four borderline All-Stars in Nash, Roy, Aldridge and Oden, a couple of fantastic role players in Roy and Frye, and a few other useful pieces with upside in Jack and Webster. Combine that with Paul Allen’s willingness to buy first round picks all over the place and the bevy of first-rounders they already own the rights to in Europe, and they should be extremely deep and consistent. The Pistons have shown that you can win by being well above average at every spot and not superlative at any.

Is this a team that can beat the Lakers? I wouldn’t bet on it, but then again, I wouldn’t bet on anyone in the west beating LA next year, and Portland would at least have a chance. They could keep waiting around for their young players to make the leap, and maybe that’s the right move, but the Bulls have shown us that waiting around for the perfect deal to come around can leave you in the lurch with nothing to show for it.

Speaking of the Bulls….

Trade 2: Bulls acquire Steve Nash, Raja Bell. Suns acquire Tyrus Thomas, Joakim Noah, Larry Hughes, Bulls’ lottery pick.

Why the Suns do it:
They’re essentially getting three lottery picks that are great fits for their system in Thomas, Noah and, well, the lottery pick. That’s a nice way to start over. The core becomes Stoudemire, Diaw, Barbosa, Thomas, Noah, lottery pick (Mayo? Bayless? Ty Lawson?), and their late first rounder (Robin Lopez?). That’s a damn good base to start from. They’d have to take Hughes’ terrible contract, but he might actually be useful again on an up-and-down team.

Unless they take a true 1 like Lawson with the draft pick, they’d probably have to start running the offense through Diaw, which might actually be a good thing based on the way he played in San Antonio. I really think he’s ready to be an All-Star at the 3, where he’s just as fast as everyone else and a solid shooter but can abuse other 3s on the block and is also a great passer. How amazing was that where he drew like 8 straight fouls on the Spurs in the 3rd quarter?

Let’s say they take Bayless and Lopez, and let’s leave Shaq off, who won’t contribute whenever they do win a title:

1: Bayless (D.J. Strawberry/random dude)
2: Hughes (Barbosa)
3: Diaw (a resigned Gordan Giricek (?), Thomas, Hughes)
4: Stoudemire (Thomas, Lopez)
5: Noah (Lopez)

The key to this deal for me is not Thomas, who has the upside of another Amare, but Noah, who’d give them an athletic, energetic big that plays good defense and rebounds. That’s what they need next to Stoudemire more than anything else and what they were missing all year after giving away Kurt Thomas*.

*Damn you, Robert Sarver!

Why the Bulls do it:
Well, they’ve got to do something, don’t they? This leaves them with a ridiculously well-paid back-up point in Hinrich*, but he’s not good enough to start for a good team unless he really turns things around. Also, if they want to re-sign Ben Gordon, they’d have a very tough time defending anyone with a backcourt of Nash and Gordon.

Still, this is a deal they have to make isn’t it? Maybe they can sign-and-trade Gordon for another solid big, or use him as a Barbosa-like 6th man, as they did early in his career. A team with a core of Nash, Bell, Deng, Nocioni, Gooden and Gordon/someone else probably isn’t quite good enough to win a title, but it’s a chance John Paxson probably has to take after last season’s debacle.

***

The white elephant in both of these deals is Shaq, of course. He and his $20 MM/yr contract would essentially become useless to them because all he would do is take playing time away from their young guys. That’s a sacrifice Kerr has to be willing to make though. Shaq was a mistake and is a sunk cost, and one of the signs of a good manager is acknowledging mistakes and moving on. Plus, hey, in a year he’ll be a ridiculous expiring contract, so if another Chris Wallace wants to give away another Pau Gasol, they’ll be at the top of the list.

Other musings:

Can someone tell these goddamned super-athletic guards to take the damn ball to the hole? I know Iguodala is being guarded well, but how can he possibly think it’s a good idea to take fade-away, off-the-dribble jump shots?

Ditto LeBron, actually. Even as good as he’s been, he settles for the jumper way too often. He does have a pretty good excuse in that his teammates, for lack of a better word, suck. I can’t wait ‘til he signs with the Brooklyn Nets in 2010.

Ditto Josh Howard*. My God, did he suck in that series. I understand he’s not being guarded on the outside, but there’s a very good reason: he’s lucky to hit the freaking rim from there right now.

*Of course it was stupid of Howard to admit he smokes pot in the offseason during a playoff series, but all these commentators acting like this is some kind of travesty or that it’s a surprise are blowhards. Most NBA players are young, rich people who never had to learn to be mature adults. You’re surprised they smoke weed? Just be thankful if that’s the worst thing they do.

Ditto especially Tracy McGrady. I didn’t see game 5 because of my NBA TV lacking, but game 4 was painful. I’ve been a McGrady apologist for as long as I can remember, and I still love him, so I was happy when everyone got off his back after game 3, but, man, even that wasn’t particularly good. All he did was hit three shots in the 4th. The thing is, when he takes the ball to the basket, he gets a good shot every time or gets fouled. But instead he does his take a dribble and rise up routine, which he make about 40% of the time. Why, why, why? Now, if the problem is his knee, then I take it back, but my recollection is that this basically how he’s always done it.

I love Jannero Pargo. The man is ridiculous, he just doesn’t miss. He does what I was just bitching about McGrady doing, except he makes it. All the time. Or at least that’s how it seems when he’s hot. He could take a step-back half-court shot, and I’d fully expect it to go in.

I used to feel like that about Steve Nash too. If he missed a jump shot, I’d be shocked. The last few games though, he was just off. It was a sad way to go out.

David West is good. Really, really good. Paul gets all the credit for that team, and probably rightfully so, but West just doesn’t miss a 17-foot jumper, and he destroyed everyone last night one on one.

The Mavs are screwed. The Kidd trade always looked like a bad, bad idea, and now that their season has petered out, they really have nowhere to go, lacking the assets to really go for it or to start over. And Kidd is just about cooked. I feel bad for Dirk because he plays with so much passion and wants it so badly.

I love Josh Smith, even as I root for the Celtics to make the finals. I hope he learns to shoot jumpers because if he does, he’ll be a superstar.

#26: Out of our Heads, The Rolling Stones (USA) (1965)

2008-04-29T11:15:00.007-06:00

Dan and Sam count down their 28 favorite albums of all time via e-mail conversation. To see the earlier ones in the list, click the tag "The 28"

Place on personal list: Sam--22, Dan--26, Average--24

Favorite Song: Sam--"That's How Strong My Love Is," Dan--"Mercy Mercy"

Favorite Line: Sam--uhh, maybe we should skip that this time. Dan--okay.

Dan:
This is unequivocally my favorite Rolling Stones album, and probably my favorite British Invasion album in general. Of all the British Invasion-era bands, I've always thought the Rolling Stones are right there in the top three with the Beatles and the Dave Clark Five. I think smart people still could've told at the time how great the Beatles would be, since even in their pre-Rubber Soul phase they were doing very interesting things with harmony and chord structure for a pop group, but their early work somehow lacks the authentic soul feel the Stones were able to achieve. I'll elaborate more on these things after I go through the songs, but one more point I would make is that we're talking about the US release here, the UK release is significantly altered and, in my opinion, much worse.

1) Mercy Mercy (9): This is my favorite song on the album, and I think a perfect tone-setter right up front. The beat is nice and heavy, and the guitar tone has nice buzz to it. I like the instrumental breaks, where Mick's voice comes through particularly well. He also shows great range, like during the bridge around 1:40. Also around 2:15 they alter the rhythm of the riff a little bit and it sounds really cool.

2) Hitch Hike (8.5): Gotta love the backing vocals on this Marvin Gaye cover. The drum hits at the end of each verse are great, and the whole song has lots of drive forward, even though the tempo is kind of relaxed and it's not really that loud or anything. This reminds me a lot of the Edwin Starr song "Twenty-Five Miles" in that you actually sort of FEEL the travels being described in the song.

3) The Last Time (8.5): Thank you Brian Jones for this killer riff. A pretty early example of riff-based rock songs, obviously a fundamental precursor to Led Zeppelin et al. I really feel a lot of emotion in the song during the end of each verse, "maybe the last time, i don't know." The guitar solo is extremely simple but I like it a lot. Love when everything drops out at the end and its just the tambourine before the guitar comes back in. The energy builds really well right at the end, what with the yelling and all.

4) That's How Strong My Love Is (8): There are a lot of covers on this album, but they're done so well I'm not really going to complain that we're a third of the way in and only have had one original composition. This is a really good song to begin with, but the Stones do it up quite well, with a heavy triplet feel that alternates between relaxed and mellow and loud and frenetic. It has a really good rhythmic feel to it, and the groove is tight throughout.

5) Good Times (7): Ok now things are getting a little out of hand on the cover front, not because this isn't a good song (in fact, it's a great song), but it's really way too similar to the Sam Cooke version to have much merit. It gets a solid rating here just because it sounds good, but they're really not doing anything too exciting. At least they don't butcher it like all those Chuck Berry covers the Beatles put out.

6) I'm All Right (Live) (7): I think throwing live tracks on a studio album is a cool idea, and this really gives some insight into the intensity, energy, and sheer volume the Stones possessed at the time. One of the select few times I actually applaud the awful audio quality because it gives me a feeling that there's almost so much energy the audio equipment can't even handle it (which scientifically speaking is actually half true). Of course there aren't really many lyrics, but the riff is really catchy. I wouldn't say this is an extraordinary song, but it really works well here in context after a softer tune and is a solid listen.

7) (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction (8): Forget every time you've previously heard Mark Coppola declare the Stones the greatest rock band ever before playing this track. Now listen to it. It's very very good, and it's a damn shame that the commodification [ed. note: I don't know what this word means, but, yeah] of the Stones has led to the overplay of this song on virtually every "classic rock" station across the country, for a long time ruining it for me. In reality its a seriously good song, and really ahead of its time in terms of volume and guitar distortion. The driving beat and vocals really get the emotion across here.

8) Cry to Me (9): Not a Stones original, but I think this might be among the best covers of all time. The interplay between the rhythm guitar with all that reverb and the sweet tone on the lead part is awesome. Also lots of peaks and valleys in intensity which is nice. I really love the end, listen particularly to the lead guitar from 2:15 on. The buildup in energy is driven by that part I think, and in general is awesome.

9) The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man (7.5): This is a really funny, nice sounding blues. The lyrics are legitimately pretty comical, and I like the sardonic element with him voicing his opinion on how much he contributes to a group's artistic success when it's clear he doesn't give a shit about music. The harmonica is a nice touch in the background, and the riff is kind of goofy, but I think quite good in this song which is kind of goofy in general.

10) Play With Fire (9): This song really comes from out of nowhere, which I think adds to how good it is, although its really one of the best Stones' tracks to begin with. The echo chamber effect is stellar, and the guitar part, particularly the moving bass line, is great. The feeling it exudes is really strong, and the lyrics are simple but effective in delivering their message emotionally, not just textually. I really like the guitar verse at 1:00.

11) The Spider and the Fly (7): A pretty straightforward blues, but the guitar weaving that Jones and Keith Richards were known for is on prime display here. It has a lot of drive and energy (kind of a theme on this album? i've said it like 10 times already) and the lyrics and cadence are a little corny but the blues feel itself is authentic enough to make up for it. I like its position on the album, a nice low key song to follow a much more emotional track.

12) One More Try (6.5): Not bad, but not really much here. The intro is pretty weak, the lyrics are kind of like a stupid version of 19th Nervous Breakdown, and there's not very much creativity measure to measure. Especially as a last track, it doesn't work so well.

Bonus) Gotta Get Away (9): Just throw this song in here right at the end and the album becomes wayyyyyy better. This song is on the UK release of the album, and why it didn't make it to the US one is beyond me. I love everything about this, the melody is really cool, the guitar part is heavy and inventive, and in general it just sounds awesome. I didn't even know about this song till I got the complete Stones' singles and b-sides collection, so I suggest everyone check it out if you haven't heard it before. Really, this would be the perfect song to end this album and would bump it up at least a couple spots on my list.

I think this album is the antithesis of Bringing it All Back Home. It's not really that much better, but I would definitely choose to listen to it all the way through first because it's way more consistent. Especially the first half, which is not only consistently good, but consistently great. Brian Jones has always been my favorite Stone, not even so much for his playing, but for what I perceive to be his musical influence, and this is one of the last albums they released where he was a significant contributor in my opinion. Although in very broad terms a lot of these songs are pretty similar, there's a lot of subtle musical things going on that keep the whole album fresh.

I promised I'd say something about Charlie Watts, so here it is. I think he sucks. Well, not exactly. It's more like I just don't get why he's so acclaimed. Most of his work with the Stones is really uninspiring. He keeps a great beat, no doubt, but how can any self-respecting drummer go through entire songs without even throwing in a fill? On THIS album, however, he's really in the zone, laying down great grooves but also throwing in some cool rhythms etc. Love Mick's vocals, he's got great soul, and I despise Keith Richards but have gotta admit that he plays the guitar quite well, at least here. None of the songs here are my absolute favorite Stones tracks, but after the three or four songs of theirs I like best pretty much every song here makes the list right after them. Essentially, other than a couple other songs, I think this album possesses the rest of their best work.

Sam:
I'm uncomfortable about a few things in discussing Out of Our Heads. I'm uncomfortable calling this The Stones' best album when I only know Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street in the most cursory manner. I'm uncomfortable trying to assess an album of mostly covers when I haven't heard any of the originals. I'm uncomfortable, as I will be 2-3 other albums that are coming up soon on the list, in talking about a piece of art that I just don't know that well. Sure I love it, and I've listened to it at least 15-20 times, but I still don't have a full understanding of what's going on. And finally, I'm uncomfortable that, the more I think about it, there's no way I prefer this album to Bringing It All Back Home or Black Star. I think both of us gave precedence to albums with consistent excellence/very goodness over ones with flashes of incredible brilliance and some mediocrity, but, philosophically, I tend the other way, so I'm regretting ranking things the way I did. Ah, c'est la vie, I guess.

All of that said, I shall press on, and because I can't compare the covers to the originals, I'm just going to assess the quality of the song with a, say, half point deduction for being a cover.

1) Mercy, Mercy (8)
I love the little guitar intro. It's a little ahead of its time, no? It sounds almost like something out of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. While I wish that sound was more incorporated into the rest of the song, I still like it a lot, vintage British Invasion stuff, which I really enjoy. Mick is a powerful singer.

2) Hitch Hike (8)
I also dig the backing vocals, and this is long been a song that I toss on any playlist that it doesn't sound terrible on. The laid back pace is also welcome.

3) The Last Time (8.5)
Hey, a song they wrote! The riff is killer, the chorus is catchy and it's some great simple rock. This is another one from the OooH that I've been known to put on far too many playlists.

4) That's How Strong My Love Is (8)
I really love this song. In terms of simply how much I enjoy listening to it, this and "Good Times" are probably my favorites on the album. I especially like the contrast between the mellow verses and the powerful chorus. And Mick is a great performer.

5) Good Times (8)
Like I said, I haven't heard the original, so I believe you when you say this is too similar to the original to have a lot of merit, but I'm ignoring that aspect of it. It's such a relaxing song to listen to a summer afternoon. It's a blissful listening experience.

6) I'm All Right (7.5)
I love having a live track on here, and yes, while there aren't too many lyrics to speak of, we're not actually listening to The Stones for their lyrical complexity. It's a fantastic live performance of a song that's probably a little too short.

7) (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction (8)
I agree with you completely about this song. It's been pretty close to ruined for me by the way it's been fawned over, but when I've been away from classic rock radio for a while, it's an excellent song with probably one of the most important riffs ever written.

8) Cry to Me (8.5)
I actually sometimes forget about this song, but you're right, it's awesome. The lead guitar at the end is great, Mick is great, the contrasts in intensity are great, everything's great.

9) The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man (7.5)
Yeah, I like this a lot too. I don't think the lyrics are all that funny (they are a little bit), but I like all the musical stuff going on, particularly the aforementioned goofy beat, which is totally appropriate, and the little change at the end.

10) Play with Fire (9)
Like you said, "Play with Fire" comes out of nowhere. It's also the only track that has any kind of emotional tension, and while I'm not a big fan of angry derisive lyrics, it does show that The Stones have more going on than meets the eye. Musically, it obviously sounds totally different from the rest of the album too, and it's a good change of pace.

11) The Spider and the Fly (7)
Agree about this one too. Straightforward blues but very enjoyable. The truth is that I just love straightforward blues, so I can't complain too much.

12) One More Try (7.5)
I actually like this song a lot, and I think this is my favorite use of the harmonica on the album. I'm totally fine with this as a final track.

I haven't heard "Gotta Get Away."

One thing I realized as I was writing this is that, at the time, it was standard practice to write very few to none of your songs. I believe Dylan and The Beatles were both revolutionary as singer/songwriter pop musicians, and both still began their careers with a lot of covers. The point is that we shouldn't penalize The Stones too harshly for all the covers (not that think either of us did). Still, I can't shake the feeling that this is a little bit like saying With The Beatles or Bob's eponymous debut is their best work, where of course they're doing good things, but haven't yet entered their truly revolutionary phase. Perhaps the difference with The Stones is the death of Brian Jones, but I still feel weird about it.

Dan:
I can't actually remember our personal rankings, did you put this one ahead of the last two on your personal list or did it just average this way? I'm a little less comfortable after going through the two really in depth saying this is better than Black Star, but I'm still convinced it's better than Bringing it All Back Home. I'm also not really sure how to deal with covers, even when I have heard the originals. I think when evaluating an album I tend to lean fairly heavily towards actual performance, because if you get picky over original material then you'd kind of face a dilemma calling Rushmore a great album, which it obviously is even though most of it someone just chose.

Mercy Mercy is definitely ahead of its time, not just in terms the heavy use of distorted, riff-oriented guitar, but also just the general heavy feel. It sounds way more dense than anything else coming out of England at this time.

You're last comments were very thought provoking. First, I think the Stones are a very unique case, as you alluded to, since The Beatles and Bob, although exploring a huge range of music, were the same artistic minds, whereas after Brian Jones left the band there was a pretty clear change in direction artistically.

I don't think the comparison to debut albums holds though [ed. note: Dude, you know With The Beatles isn't a debut right?], because although the Stones were still one album away from predominantly their own written material, I don't think they ever made an album as consistently good as this. Like I said, my absolute favorite Stones' tracks are from, shall we say, more mature albums. But you won't catch me ever listening to those albums all the way through. The album on our list I thought about most when I reviewed this was actually Rubber Soul. I'm pretty sure both albums were the fourth US release from those bands, and I think they're both the first albums that move from really really good pop to really really good music.

Sam:
Man, did I write some inane things in describing those songs. That's a symptom, I suppose, of us dealing with a kind of music that I don't really have the vocabulary to describe. It was frustrating trying to say what I thought about the songs and failing, and now I'm realizing just how much I failed. This will continue to be a problem on any of these British Invasion, early pop/R&B albums though thankfully, I think there's only one or two left.

And yeah, I think I actually had this album higher than you did (23 maybe? [22]), which wasn't a terrible mistake but evidence at least that I hadn't gone as in-depth evaluating everything as I have now. For one thing, I was skeptical about having Black Star on the list at all, and now I think we put it significantly too low.

Are you saying that you think Please Please Me was "really really good pop" and not "really really good music"? Well, we'll get to that I guess.

I'm not sure I'm buying the Rubber Soul comparison because though there's certainly some original stuff on here, it still sounds like British Invasion pop/R&B while I think Rubber Soul is as different from With The Beatles as Revolver is from Rubber Soul. Rubber Soul was a revolutionary album, and I don't think this one was. I do see what you're saying though.

As for covers, I think songwriting is critically important (I mean, I think something like 70% or more of Bob's greatest is in the writing), so I gave a small deduction for every song that wasn't original, but because of the context, I didn't penalize too much.

Alright, that was frustrating but also maybe the most interesting conversation yet. And thankfully, I know the next album about as well as I know anything this side of Chutes Too Narrow (which holds the record for number of times played in one summer (~3,986,543)).

#27: Mos Def and Talib Kweli are Black Star (1998)

2008-04-22T21:39:00.014-06:00

Or: "Hello, everybody. Recording live from somewhere…"

Dan and Sam count down their 28 favorite albums of all time via e-mail conversation. Click the tag "The 28" for the rest on the list so far.

Place on personal list:

Sam—24 Dan—26 Average—25

Favorite Song:

Sam—"Definition/RE:DEFinition"

Dan—"Definition/RE:DEFinition"

Favorite Line:

Sam—Too many. I'll put them at the beginning of each song review.
Dan--"stop acting like a bitch already, be a visionary” (Kweli, Definition), and “hotter than tales of crack peddlin, makin ‘em WHOOP! like blue gelatin, swing like Duke Ellington” in Mos’ verse on REgarding DEFinition, my favorite line from any hip hop song ever, no joke.

Sam:
I'd generally say it's fair to characterize you as more of a Mos supporter, and me as more of a Kweli guy. In fact, I actually like Kweli and Hi-Tek's Reflection Eternal/Train of Thought at least as much as this album though it did not make the list. That said, re-listening to Black Star, I've come to the conclusion that, as great as Kweli is on this album, Mos gives one of the great MC performances of all time. Both drop killer rhymes all over the place, but Mos' flow has always been tighter, and it's just unbelievable how good he sounds here, not to mention that the dude can sing as well. I still say Hi-Tek's production improved in leaps and bounds—at least in consistency—on Reflection Eternal, but I have a lot more respect for his work this time.

I'll go through song by song, rating each 1-10. I'm going to try to match the standard you used on BIABH, which was a little harsher than I usually use.

1) Intro [NA]
"We feel that we have a responsibility to shine the light into the darkness. There's a lot of darkness out there. We watch it all the time. I'm busy lookin' at some darkness right now, sayin', man, there's some darkness."

A nice, funny intro.

2) Astronomy (8th Light) [7]
"What is the Black Star? / Is it the cat with the black shades, the black car? / Is it shinin' from very far, to where you are? / It is commonplace and different / Intimate and distant / Fresher than an infant"

I definitely dig this song. In a sense, this is the album's intro, giving an idea for what exactly Black Star is (defenders of black people that also like to have some fun?), while also giving a nice impression that this is going to be somewhere between an old school record and something totally different. It does a really good job of setting the tone, I think.

3/4) Definition/RE:DEFinition [10+]
"My presence felt, my name is Kweli from the Eternal Reflection / People thinkin' MC is short hand for misconception."

The best 6 minutes of hip-hop ever made? I'm not in a position to answer that question, but I've a hard time imagining anything better. Kweli's flow doesn't sound fantastic in "Definition," but that's only because it's so insanely fast*, and the lyrics are out of this world. Mos is even better, particularly his verse on "RE:DEFinition," which is probably the best hip-hop verse I've ever heard—"makin em WOOP like blue gelatin, swing like Duke Ellington." And everything he just says sounds so rhythmically right. It's beautiful listening to the man rap. I also really love the way the end of Kweli's verse on "RE:DEF" rhymes with the first line of Mos'. And the chorus is one of the catchiest this side of The Beatles.

The beat is, of course, phenomenal. This is probably Hi-Tek's greatest success, even above "The Blast" from Reflection Eternal. Both beats are fantastic independently of each other, but the way they run together, making these two tracks into one coherent creation, is brilliant.

I'm a little less sure if I prefer the two tracks being placed back-to-back, essentially making them one song for all intents and purposes. Would "RE:DEF" work better placed, say, right before or after "Thieves in the Night" as a reprise? I don't know. It certainly works the way it is though.

*Seriously, try rapping Kweli's first verse the way he does it. You can't do it. You just can't.

5) Children's Story [5.5]
"He was out chasin' cream and the American dream / Tryin' to pretend the ends justify the means / This ain't funny so don't you dare laugh / It's just what comes to pass when you sell your ass / Life is more than what your hands can grasp."

This is one of the more old school tracks on the album, just a very simple beat and a repetitive flow. It's okay, but not my thing at all. It's that Tribe Called Quest/De La Soul style of flow that I just do not get. I'm sure there's a good reason they're so respected, but I sure as hell don't understand it.

6) Brown Skin Lady [8]
"My brown lady, creates environments, / for happy brown babies, I know it sounds crazy / but your skin's the inspiration for cocoa butter."

Another very catchy song where Mos shines as a singer. I prefer Kweli's verse on here though, which has some of his best flow on the album. Another very solid beat from Hi-Tek (I assume; it could be someone else). These guys are really in top form.

7) B Boys* Will B Boys [5]:
*A B-boy or B-girl is a person devoted to hip-hop culture, specifically the breakdance element. (From Wikipedia)

This is my least favorite song on the album. There's really nothing much going on at all, and it actually sounds a little bit like the Fresh Prince theme song (am I crazy?), which I don't think is a particularly good thing for a serious hip-hop group.

8) K.O.S. (Determination) [7.5]
"Life without knowledge is death in disguise."

K.O.S. stands for knowledge of self, and I dig how the chorus uses the word self once to mean two different things—"knowledge of self…determination." I like this song a lot, it's got a nice simple beat, a pretty solid chorus by a female singer for a change and some of the album's more insightful lyrics, talking about the importance of self-knowledge (obviously).

9) Hater-Players [6.5]
"It's a small wonder like Vicki*"

*You may have to google "small wonder vicki" (as I did) to understand this one, but trust me, it's funny.

There are some pretty funny moments on the song, but it's ultimately a diatribe against commercial, heartless hip-hop like "Children's Story" is, a theme which Kweli would return to in songs like "Too Late." It's seems to be a particular concern for these guys, and that's understandable to people who the music is so important to. The song itself is also solid.

10) Yo Yeah [NA]

This is not really a song. In fact, I forget it exists unless I look at the track listing.

11) Respiration [9]
"I choreograph seven steps to heaven / And hell, waiting to exhale and make the bread leavened / Veteran of a cold war, It's Chica-I-go for / What I know or, what's known / So some days I take the bus home, just to touch home" –basically just Common's whole verse.

This is a much better song than I realized however many months ago it was I bought this album. I still think that opening part of the beat is borderline plagiarism of "Dream On," but it's really good regardless. Lyrically it's a sort of ode to New York (and later, Chicago) that remains realistic and conflicted. I love the image of listening to and feeling the city breathing.

And Common's verse, both lyrically and flow-wise, is spectacular, perhaps the best I've heard from him, except maybe the one on "Be." Plus, I just love listening to his voice.

12) Thieves in the Night [10]
"Not strong, / Only aggressive, / Not free, / We only licensed, / Not compassionate, only polite, / Now who the nicest? / Not good but well behaved, / Chasin' after death
so we can call ourselves brave, / Still livin' like mental slaves, / Hidin' like thieves in the night from life, / Illusions of oasis makin' you look twice."

I don't think there's a significant difference in quality between this and the "Definitions," but I give them a slight edge for their greater importance. The lyrics here are sublime, among the best I've heard, from both Kweli and Mos behind the perfect beat to highlight said lyrics. When they write things so insightful about society and living in false ideals created by it ("Caught up, in conversations of our personal worth / Brought up, through endangered species status on the planet Earth / Survival tactics means, bustin' gats to prove you hard / Your firearms are too short to box with God / Without faith, all of that is illusionary / Raise my son, no vindication of manhood necessary"), it's hard to believe how bigoted both men remain about homosexuality and other issues that are common to the hip-hop community. Regardless, the song is superb.

13) Twice Inna Lifetime [7]
We be lightin' shit up like phosphorus / Turnin' flamboyant n***** anonymous, depressin' to optimus / You stoppin' us is preposterous, like an androgynous misogynist."

Take a minute to just stare at those lyrics. Ah.

Okay, now remember how shitty Jane Doe is, and you start to understand why this is only a seven. Common is really the only guest who should be allowed on this album, everyone else is just worse than Mos and Kweli and takes away from the quality. It's unfortunate because the rest of the song is pretty excellent.

The problem is compounded further by making this the last song on the album. I really wish they had tossed this in the middle and ended with one of "RE:DEFinition," "Respiration," or "Thieves in the Night." It's just a moderately depressing way to finish such a great album.

Bonus Review—What's Beef? (From Chapelle's Show) [8]
"Beef is not what Jay said to Nas / Beef is when workin' n***** can't find jobs."

There's really no beat at all to speak of here, and Kweli's flow is actually pretty weak, but Mos really shines with insightful, meaningful lyrics (even if they're on a grander scale than I prefer, they're trying to alter a warped hip-hop perspective) and extremely tight flow.

All together, Black Star suffers from inconsistency like Bringing It All Back Home, but it offers perhaps a few more truly excellent songs. And actually, looking back at how many of my favorite lines were Kweli's, I might have to take back that thing about Mos being better here. I don't know; regardless, they're both incredible.

This isn't my absolute favorite hip-hop album ever, but I'd have a hard time arguing with anyone who claimed it was the best.

Dan:

I think that’s a fair characterization you make. I love Kweli, and generally I find the actual content of his lyrics resonates with me more, but only generally, and I enjoy Mos’ flow more so in the end he comes out slightly ahead. Yes, I do think he makes the album, but even if you just kept Kweli’s verses on all these tracks you’d have some great stuff. Both of them just give an unyielding performance here, with more good lines per song than a lot of pretty solid ALBUMS out there. I think Hi-Tek does great work here, especially with some cool musical things that you never hear in hip-hop which I’ll discuss later in greater detail. The other producers lay down good beats as well, and they all fit well together.

Intro: As far as hip-hop album intros go, this is probably one of the best. Nice, cool, mellow beat to set the tone for the whole album.

Astronomy (8th Light) (7): I like to think of this as an extension of the intro as well. Its cool to hear them explain what Black Star means to them, instead of just leaving it as a cool sounding name that may or may not mean something. The sonority is pretty similar to the intro which makes for a smooth transition. Even though I actually stated my favorite lines I like your idea so I’ll jot down some more of my faves at the end of each song if something strikes my fancy. In this one I really like is Kweli’s line “I love rockin tracks like John Coltrane love Naima.” The emphasis on both musical and philosophical roots throughout this album is probably my favorite theme. Its just some simple (albeit excellent) wordplay, but what he’s also showing is an appreciation for his musical tradition and a knowledge of that tradition (Naima was Train’s wife). I am sure I will discuss this theme again in future albums we review because I can already think of examples, but many of them (especially Beatles tracks) give props out via the music, not the words (exception to previous parenthetical statement, “for you blue”).

Definition (9.5)/REgarding DEFinition (10+) (overall a 10+ for sure): First of all, how funny would it be if they actually spelled it that way. Seriously though, title is such a meaningless thing compared to content but if you had to give out an award, this is about as cool as they come. I cannot imagine them not being separate. Yeah a reprise would be cool I guess, but together its just like whoa, incredible statement, followed by WHOA, INCREDIBLE STATEMENT. The flow throughout the whole piece is incredible, and I think Kweli’s is better than you give him credit for. It sounds a little out of whack when he gets going real fast, but I like how that provides contrast to some of the more straight-ahead feeling rhymes. Mos definitely rules this track though. Even when he gets flying in the second half of his verse in RE:DEFinition his flow is way in the pocket (the actual musical term, not that line that Kanye may or may not be referencing the actual musical term with) and sounds so much more relaxed. I like how you pointed out the difficulty in reproducing some of the lines in this song. I think a good metric for how inventive and skillful someone’s flow is is to see if you can just rap it acapella. Usually most stuff is pretty easy once you memorize the words, but even after listening to this song tens of times I have trouble reciting “my presence felt, my name is kweli….etc.” This is an easy one to recite, but just on the note of cool lines, I really like when Mos raps “me and kweli close like Bethlehem and Nazareth/after his you be pressing rewind on top yo’ masterdisk.” If you REALLY wanted my favorite line I guess I should have just written out his whole verse in re:def. Its very similar to Subterranean in that its just a torrent of unbelievably wit/insight/humor/wordplay. I couldn’t even imagine something like that being written before I heard it. Simply incredible.

Lets talk about some cool things Hi-Tek does with what I think is his best beat. First of all, the intro is really cool. Also I like how the first half has a kind of lighthearted feel even with the heavy bass drum and the second half sounds dead serious, kind of like they were saying something in the first part, got pissed no one was paying attention (hip hop community?) and that mood permeated the second part. Besides Thieves in the Night this is the greatest accomplishment of Hi-Tek’s from a musical (not how cool it sounds, but the actual music of it) standpoint. Traditionally when DJs drop the beat it’s a very straight forward affair. Four beat measure, maybe they drop the whole thing or the first two or last two beats. In Definition the primary beat drop, which can be best heard at :59-1:04, lays out for a while then accents the second and third beat of the measure before it reenters, which makes for a very funky off-beat feel. I like the beat drop in re:def a little better, with the 1 and 3 of the second measure of the break accented. The placement is also a little better I think, especially the one that occurs right at the beginning of Talib’s verse. Throughout the album there are cool reversals of the beat or accents that make it more like a real drum beat as opposed to a computer-generated beat.

Children’s Story (7.5): This is a really cool concept of a song. Taking the Slick Rick classic and updating the lyrics is exactly the type of thing no one does but Black Star obviously would and does, making this album so good. Also a good moral about making art. I think the beat is pretty catchy too, and stripped down so the story comes through very clearly. I like that Mos doesn’t feel the need to lay down ridiculous lines like in the previous song, he just has a story he wants to tell and does so, although he has such good flow and cadence that it still sounds like he’s rapping beyond what the rhymes are. Music as storytelling is something that I think has become less and less important to mainstream performers since the advent of commercial recorded music, and I think that it’s bad for everyone. Some of the best music ever does nothing more than tell a story. Obviously these guys get that. This song goes on a little too long though, I think the other shit that goes on after the actual lyrics end is kind of stupid. As if we don’t know we’re listening to Black Star?

Brown Skin Lady (7): The intro is really cool, and I think the song is good but its around this point in the album that the similarity between beats starts to really set in, which I’ll discuss more at the end, but basically its not a good thing. I do like how the rhythm changes every now and then and there are some cool drum hits in here. This is actually one of my least favorite beats on the album though, and even another John Coltrane reference can’t save it from relative mediocrity.

B Boys Will B Boys (7.5): I totally disagree with you on this song. I think the album needs more tracks like this. Not in place of other songs, but in between. So many of these tracks are awesome but too mellow and blend together too much. A song like this, although one of the worst lyrically, at least has a cool upbeat tempo that changes the pace. Plus it gives some cool shout outs (native tongues for example).

K.O.S. (Determination) (7.5): Cool lyrics, cool beat, cool idea. Not much to say except again this song could really sound much worse if it came before the previous track instead of after it because of how mellow the beat is.

Hater Players (6.5): Still good, but starting to go downhill relative to the rest of the album. I would have preferred if they made this beat heavier, especially the part where the drums drop out.

Yo Yeah (4): Yeah its not a song, but its so shitty it still deserves to be poorly rated. It actually is pretty cool and the beat is good, but why in the name of the Universal Zulu Nation did they think it was a good idea to have that stupid fucking “yo/yeah” shit going on the whole song. AHHHHHH!

Respiration (8.5): Just the type of heavy beat I’ve been looking for since RE:DEFinition. Great flow and the beat is killer. I love Common’s voice too. All the flow here is great though. “Killers Born Naturally like, Mickey and Mallory/Not knowing the ways'll get you capped like an NBA salary.”

Thieves in the Night (9.5): Unbelievable song. The beat is so jazzy, way more so in a true sense of having cool chord progressions than any of that so-called jazz hip hop stuff like Tribe and De La Soul and whatnot. The only thing that keeps it from a 10 for me is the excessively long outro. Don’t you think its just a little much? Around 1:50-55 there is a really cool turnaround of the beat. Lyrics, what can one say? They are incredible and meaningful. “Same song, just remixed, different arrangement/they put you on a yacht but they won’t call it a slave ship.”

Twice Inna Lifetime (6.5): Shitty first verse, and even the rest, including that incredible line you cited and a pretty solid beat can’t make up for it. Why did this song have to be last. Thieves in the Night is the perfect song to end it. PERFECT! This just makes me angry. Well, too bad.

What is Beef? (9): First of all, this is the real title. They even say that it is “entitled, ‘What is Beef?’. I think the lack of serious beat is ok, because its heavy and allows space for the words to come through, especially important since it was recorded live, not in the studio. Not Kweli’s best as you say, but its pretty damn good, especially the acappella intro. Mos does rule this song however. I think it’s a really serious sardonic statement and I love it.

Overall I agree with your likening it to our last reviewed album. Some truly outstanding tracks, the ones I rate high are all among the best songs I’ve ever heard. The album is still great because there are few things that are really BAD, but it could be so much better with a few tweaks in the order and maybe one or two heavier tracks.

Sam:
First, let me object to your claim that "What's Beef?" is in fact called "What Is Beef?" That may be the way Mos introduces it, but in the song they clearly say "What's beef?" and every thing ever labels it that way. So, you know...

"Children's Story"--Someday someone is going to have to explain to me why I'm supposed to find rap like this to be good. I don't doubt that there's a reason, but it is completely lost on me. A repetive simple beat with repetitive simple flow and simple lyrics? Don't get it. And I suppose it's "a good moral about making art," but it's presented in about as superficial a way as possible. I don't think this song is bad, but I really don't see anything particularly worthwhile about it.

"B Boys Will B Boys"--This is basically the same disagreement, I think. I like the intro to it too, which I neglected to mention in my first email. But the flow at the beginning is weak, and the rest is super simple. Now, if I think of these two songs (and even "Hater Playes") more as interludes that break up the similarlity of the rest instead of real songs, then I'm much cooler with it. It's not like I'm asking that they be removed from the album, and maybe they actually add something to it in the way a skit or interlude can by keeping things fresh, but as songs, I don't think they're particularly good.

"Brown Skin Lady"--I really don't get what you're saying about this beat. I mean, if you don't particularly like it, that's fine, but it's really not similar at all to anything [ed. note: not similar to any beats before it] but the "Definitions." It's nothing like "Astronomy" or "Children's Story," and it's not that similar even to "Definition." Maybe you're getting too much mellow stuff in a row, and it would be better somewhere else on the album, but in and of itself I can't begin to understand how this gets a lower rating than the "Children's Story" and "B Boys." From my point of view, everything about this song is better than those two--beat, lyrics, and especially flow.

"Thieves in the Night"--Eh, I don't mind the long outro. Maybe it's a little long, but I really don't care very much. Also, I had never done this until you mentioned the outro, but have you ever turned the volume all the way up at the very end? There's this guy saying something about "Are you drifting? Get on the [something] train" or something like that.

That's it for now.

Dan:
I think it's an exercise in futility for me to try to explain to you what you're supposed to like about songs like Children's Story. I mean, there's something to be said for gaining an appreciation for things, but is someone really going to tell you why they like songs like that and it will magically make you like them? Anyways I guess I'll try since you ask. The beat is simple, but I think it's really catchy which is why the repetitive nature doesn't bother me. Also, I understand that this is all in degrees, and for a hip hop track this IS a very repetitive beat, but isn't the very nature of a beat a repetitive rhythm with varying shades of embellishment? I find all hip hop repetitive to some degree, but catchiness is generally what makes a beat good, although cutting down on the repetition (like i talked about in the definitions) certainly helps. Sure this beat makes Charlie Watts look like Buddy Rich, but I find the bass really catchy and I think the cadence of Mos' flow also helps lend some spice. I also don't get when you're saying it's presented in a superficial way. Isn't the point of the song to lambast the stereotypical rapper and his superficiality and lack of artistic integrity?

I don't think B Boys Will B Boys is particularly good, but I definitely think its an above average track and its especially good when it comes where it does. Maybe I was a bit too overzealous in my rating, but I'm not wiling to back down TOO much off of that number.

You have it all twisted about this beat. It doesn't have the weight of either definition at all, nor the musical complexity of RE:. The simplest way I can describe this track is a mild beat (way less bass drum than most traditional beats) with a moderately interesting bass line, really defined by the guitar riff with really mellow tone. That's also the way I would describe Astronomy except that it has a way heavier bass, K.O.S. except it has that vocal part and a little more embellishment with instruments, and Thieves in the Night except that its way way more interesting musically. Also, since very few of the other songs I don't think it outright sounds similar to have really heavy beats, to the ear as the album is flowing they begin to blend even more than they should.

How can you NOT mind the outro? Its over a minute long and as much as I love that beat I don't need to listen to below average singing and a restatement of various phrases we've already heard while I wait for it to end, they should've just faded it quickly during the rechorus or something like that.

Well, that was FUN! I will email you about the next album soon, and perhaps that Charlie Watts reference will be more fully examined (and by perhaps I mean definitely).

Oh my god...

2008-04-22T14:41:00.004-06:00

Oh my god...

only Sam knows what I'm talking about.

This really sucks.

Martin Scorcese directing a new Bob Marley documentary

2008-04-17T14:14:00.003-06:00

This is pretty exciting. I'm not an enormous Marley fan, but if it's anything like No Direction Home, we should be in for a treat. I'm actually in the middle of watching NDH for the second time now, and it's amazing. I've never seen a documentary so well done. Telling the story in a non-linear way was particularly brilliant. You know, I give The Departed a lot of crap for being an extremely weak Oscar winner, but that's not Scorcese's fault. The man is a fantastic director, and I really look forward to this.

read more digg story

"All I wanna do is [gunshot, gunshot, gunshot] and a [gun cocking, cash register] and take your money."

2008-04-16T16:20:00.013-06:00

Kala, M.I.A.

Before I get into this, I want you all to know that I really really wanted to love this album (sorry, Julie!). "Paper Planes" is so awesome and so unique, and I desperately wanted the rest of the album to live up to that. Sadly, it doesn't really come close. There's only two other songs I have any interest in listening to--"Bamboo Banga" and "Come Around." Kala being Rolling Stone's number 1 album of the year* is even more ridiculous than Graduation being number six.

*I haven't heard that many albums from 2007, but my list would be something like:

In Rainbows, Radiohead: See my recent review.
Sky Blue Sky, Wilco: This is probably the worst of the six albums Wilco has released, and it's still excellent. I actually think it's worse because it's missing that extraordinary pain we're used to getting from Jeff Tweedy, but, in the end, it's hard to complain about that because he sounds happier and more peaceful than ever before. (How was this 44 on Rolling Stone?!)
Wincing the Night Away, The Shins: It took me a while to warm to this album, and it still can't touch Chutes Too Narrow, but it's got a lot of nice high points even with a significant amount of mediocrity. Then again, if they had just recorded "Sea Legs" ten times in a row, this would probably be number 1. I really hope their next album has a lot more of that Beck-sounding-hip-hop-beat-pop because that song is spectacular.
Eardrum, Talib Kweli: A solid album from Kweli. He'll probably never live up to the classics he began his career with--Black Star and Reflection Eternal/Train of Thought--but the man can still flow, and he's more fun to listen to than he's ever been.
Finding Forever, Common: Kanye's production on here is at least as good as his Graduation work, and Common's got some solid flow as well as significantly better lyrics than the word-vomit Kanye was pouring out this year. "Drivin' Me Wild," "Southside," and "Forever Begins" are all excellent songs.
Graduation, Kanye West: In a year filled with mild disappointments from some of my favorite artists, this easily took the cake. It's not exactly a bad album, but as a follow-up to The College Dropout and Late Registration, it's an enormous let-down. As far as I'm concerned, "Good Morning" is the only song that would definitely make The Dropout, and "Drunk and Hot Girls" is easily the worst song he's recorded. There's some solid stuff and all, but it's a very worrying album for me. See, no artist can make great music consistently forever, but I'm concerned that this isn't just a blip, and he's become so arrogant that he won't even be able to realize that the quality of his music has slipped, especially when he keeps winning Grammys all over the freaking place.
Kala, M.I.A.: See the review you're already reading. (I think that's everything I've bought from last year.)

The truth is that there's not anything that M.I.A. or her producer, Switch, are particularly talented at. Switch does some nice things, I guess--especially on "Paper Planes" of course, which is very original--but a lot of it is way too club-rappish, repetitive and commonplace. And M.I.A., while her accent is cool and everything and her flow is fine, doesn't seem to have any talent at, you know, writing. Most of her songs consist of her repeating shit over and over, and though this can occasionally work, like on "Bamboo Banga," it's mostly just annoying. And then when she raps in a more traditional way, her rhymes are mediocre at best. The best I can think of are, "I put people on the map who've never seen a map," and "I've got more records than the KGB," but neither of those are genuinely good, I don't think.

Overall 5.5/10: I'm not going to go through all the songs because there's really no point. "Paper Planes" is a great techno-hip-hop song, and "Come Around," and "Bamboo Banga" are very listenable, but the rest is just consistently mediocre. I don't hate Kala by any means, but I certainly wish I'd saved my $8.99 and just bought "Paper Planes."

(I guess that turned into a post more about my top albums of 2007 instead of Kala. Well, I'm sorry. Hopefully, you'll forgive me.)

#28: Bringing It All Back Home

2008-04-16T12:30:00.016-06:00

Dan and Sam count down their 28 favorite albums of all time via e-mail conversation. Click the tag "The 28" for the rest on the list so far. (I wouldn't do that yet, as you'll only get this post, but, hey, whatever floats your boat.)

#28: Bringing It All Back Home, Bob Dylan (1965)

Quick overview:

Place on personal list: Sam--25; Dan--27; average--26

Favorite song:
Sam--"It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)"
Dan--"Subterranean Homesick Blues"

Favorite line(s):
Sam--"He who is not busy being born is busy dying." ("It's Alright, Ma"); "She's 78, but she says she's 24." ("Maggie's Farm"--sort of)

Dan--"Get born, keep warm, short pants, romance, learn to dance, get dressed, get blessed, try to be a success." ("Subterranean Homesick Blues")

Dan:
What a fun album to start our discussion of our favorite 28 albums with. This is one of my favorites because it was such a seminal record for Bob, demonstrating not only his remarkable folk songwriting/performing ability of the Freewheelin' era, but his ingenious discovery of what I would say was a completely new sound, not an easy task for anyone. Here's a track listing with ratings on a 10 point scale and comments on each song, followed by my thoughts on the album as a whole.

Side One:
1. Subterranean Homesick Blues (10+) I know you're supposed to give yourself some slack when you judge early to make sure you don't look like an idiot when you rate everything really highly, but this is no joke. This song is amongst a group of maybe 10-20 that I confidently say transcend any form of rating system. It says so much, beyond just the words, that it is almost impossible to describe its power. At the beginning of an album I think an artist should be setting the tone, making a statement, etc., and few album openers, if any, can compete with this (Good Times, Bad Times is the only one I can think of off the top of my head that I would say can compete and ISN'T on an album we rate above this). Literally the ONLY things I can think of that are wrong with this song are the slightly whiney harmonica tone (probably should have had some treble taken out of it in the mixdown) and what appears to be a slight miscommunication in the band about how many measures are left before the next verse around 1:40, which doesn't really affect one's enjoyment at all, just a little awkward. Musically this song is brilliant in its simplicity. A simple rock style blues is necessary in a lot of Dylan songs to communicate in some way the influence of the folk-blues era a la Robert Johnson, and this one is probably where it works best because of how remarkably complex and un-folky the lyrics are; the music provides the perfect down-home counterpoint to the text. I really like the lead guitar tone, not too overbearing. The whole song really makes you want to move. I don't even know where to begin with the lyrics. Its just like an avalanche of unbelievableness. You do not need a weatherman to know that this is one of the best songs of all time.

2. She Belongs to Me (7) I think on a lot of these albums I'll be throwing around 6s and 7s for songs that are pretty weak compared to the rest of the album, which is a testament to how good these albums are. She Belongs to Me is a really pretty song, its just not quite in the upper echelon for me. I like the chords he uses at the end of the verse, its not really a deceptive cadence but you certainly aren't exactly expecting it to work out that way. Similar guitar tone in the lead part to Subterranean, and I like how it fits here too. I guess my only problem with this song is that it kinda just is there, which means that it lacks drive for me. Sounds great in context when you're listening to the whole thing, but I rarely go out of my way to listen to this one. The lyrics are sound and nice, but not enough to put it over the edge and neither is the fairly rudimentary, although quite nice, music.

3. Maggie's Farm (6) I really love the lyrics to this tune. They're so simple, yet at the same time so powerful. Unfortunately, there aren't too many lyrics and the song is a little on the long side, which is a bad combination. Like the previous track, sounds great in context, not something I actively seek out (although I recommend everyone check out the really cool jungle-beat type thing they do with it at the infamous Newport performance, my personal hero and Jewish legend Mike Bloomfield playing lead guitar there). Its basically just a slower, less energetic Subterranean without anything to carry it like a guitar solo or interesting bridge. Its not that its too simple. Songs like James Brown's Cold Sweat are as simple and twice as long, yet somehow they are way better. I think its because it lacks the subtleties that can carry a simple song past the 3 minute range. Still, a solid track.

4. Love Minus Zero/No Limit (7.5) I think my commentary on this is pretty much the exact same as for She Belongs to Me, except I give this a slight edge because I like the lyrics (both actual text and flow) better and it is more musically interesting.

5. Outlaw Blues (5.5) My stance on Bob’s harmonica has always been kind of uncertain, but in this song I definitely like its use as more of a rhythmic addition to the piece. Unfortunately I find his vocals a little weak in this piece. I mean, I know his voice is “whiney” or something, but he doesn’t usually actually whine, and there are a couple parts in here I just can’t really get behind. Also having this shuffle-feel piece right before another one doesn’t flow too well, the songs are too similar and this one is weaker. They even both feature an instrumental break at the end of every verse. Not a great song in my opinion, but when Bob makes a weak song its still better than like 97% of songs.

6. On the Road Again (7) This is a really nice song, I like the straight-ahead shuffle feel and the lead guitar ornaments. Nothing extraordinary about it, but it’s a very good and well done song.

7. Bob Dylan's 115th Dream (8) A personal favorite of mine. I love the surreal lyrics and ruckus blues format. It’s a tad too long I think, but the interplay of the instruments keeps things fresh. This same interplay, by the way, is what would become in future albums Bob’s “sound,” and I’m surprised how few people I meet who list this as among their favorite songs when it is really very clearly the musical forefather of everything on Highway 61. Lots of energy, great way to finish off the side and also gives it some nice symmetry. Also, wouldn’t it be kind of cool if they did an actual acoustic version like the first 10 seconds?

Side Two:
1. Mr. Tambourine Man (9) One of the most beautiful songs he’s ever written. Adding the second guitar on top of the rhythm part really adds a lot, even though it’s quite soft. It reaches a place I really like a lot in music where its sound is somewhere in between happy and sad that you can’t describe (or maybe just I can’t). I also like the theme of music as a living thing flowing throughout the lyrics. The final harmonica part is really quite good.

2. Gates of Eden (6) Not my favorite. The lyrics are pretty solid, and I like the melody and changes, but the vocals are just a little too harsh for my liking. It’s still a good listen though and is a good sound after Mr. Tambourine Man.

3. It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) (8) This is one of my favorite acoustic Bob pieces. The chromatic descending guitar line during the verse is awesome, and the changes and melody that come at the ending climax of each verse are incredible. As usual, the lyrics are very good. My only beef is not that it’s too long, but that he doesn’t keep the music itself interesting enough to drive the piece to the end. There should be more of that really great ornamentation like there is at :07-:09. Also, the last line I find really annoying, the flow doesn’t work at all in my opinion. Basically all the other final lines of verses after he says its alright etc. are about four syllables each, and the last one (it’s life and life only) is very clearly six (very clearly as in he doesn’t even attempt to slur it into four) and does not work at all in my opinion. Too bad, cause a weak ending can really kill a great song, and although this one doesn’t kill it it certainly hurts.

4. It's All Over Now, Baby Blue (7.5) I think the vocal tone is leaning more towards Gates of Eden tone instead of Mr. Tambourine Man tone, but it doesn’t hurt this song too much. It’s a great way to finish the album up, a more personal warning song instead of the broadly-themed tracks that proceed it. Simple and nice, leading to a strong finish.

Overall this comes out to a very solid album behind one unfathomably good track. This is not a bad thing at all. If I had written and performed Subterranean Homesick Blues I probably would just cut my losses and never write another song again. To create a great album, that still sounds great even after you listen to the first song is really incredible. Although, as the few people who tolerate my rants on the subject know, Mike Bloomfield is the best guitarist to ever live and his indomitable skill makes Highway 61 Bob’s best, I like John Hammond and Bruce Langhorne’s guitar work here. Although no one in these sessions has the skill of future Dylan sidemen like Bloomfield, The Band, etc., they don’t play beyond their abilities, and play the simple stuff extremely well. I think it’s a well constructed album; the two distinct sides work well instead of trying to fit those acoustic songs in between the rest. Not enough extraordinary work to put it above other albums on the list, but its way above virtually every other album ever released.

Sam:
I'm very conflicted about Bringing It All Back Home, in much the same way that I suppose the album itself is. Obviously, I love it. I believe I actually had it as 23rd [editor's note: actually, 25th] on my personal list. Also, it is clearly one of the most important albums ever made. That said, as you've more than implied as well, it's a lot less consistent than some of Dylan's best work. I also like that he broke it up into two distinct sides, but you can feel the tension between them.

This is close to the platonic idea of a transition album, and it comes with all the pitfalls that go along with that. It has, I think, two truly great songs, two of the 25 or so best I've ever heard by him--"Subterranean Homesick Blues," and "It's Alright, Ma"--and a couple of other favorites of mine. But it also contains more forgettable songs than Highway 61, Blonde on Blonde and Blood on the Tracks put together (which, to be fair, is probably like 3).

I don't have quite the appreciation for "Subterranean" as you do, but I can recognize just how important it is, and it really is the defining song of the album--surreal, original, powerful and loud, daring you to tell him he can't make this kind of music. I can just imagine listening to Freewheelin' and Another Side and getting really excited for the new Dylan album. You run out to the store, put it on the turntable, and it must have been just absolutely shocking. I'm sure that was Bob's intention, and he obviously succeeded with one of the most seminal songs ever written.

On the other hand, I disagree with you pretty strongly about "It's Alright, Ma." I see that you like it a lot, but it's my favorite song on the album, and though it clearly doesn't have the significance of "Subterranean," I think this is the best epic he's written, even better than "Desolation Row." Some of the lyrics are spectacular--"He who is not busy being born, is busy dying;" "Even the President of the United States must sometimes stand naked." I understand the complaint that the music doesn't stay interesting long enough, but it's not an issue at all for me. It's like "Desolation Row"--one awesome verse and chorus of music repeated over and over. By keeping the music repetitive, he puts the focus squarely on the lyrics, and this is a song that deserves to be understood.

As to the last line, I actually like that he breaks the meter a lot. Dylan is a genuine poet, and poets understand when to break their own rules they've imposed on themselves to draw attention to a particularly important line. Now, if you are consistently are lax with meter (see: Sufjan Stevens) it becomes a problem, but if you do it intentionally every once in a while at the right time, it can really add something, and I think that's the case here. "It's alright, Ma, it's life and life only" is a clear climax of the song, and maybe the most important line. Breaking the rules willy-nilly is stupid, but the great writers are the ones who know when and how to break them. (Also, the normal line is five syllables, not four (I'm-on-ly-sigh-ing vs. It's-life-and-life-on-ly), so it's not even that big a change.)

My other favorites from the album are "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Baby Blue." "Mr. Tambourine Man" is, like you said, an incredibly beautiful song. It feels almost like it's swirling and eddying all over the place. I don't know if that means anything, but do you have some sense of what I'm saying? It's a very calming song, and, for a change, his surreal lyrics create a sort of peace instead of hilarity.

I think I understand what you're saying about the vocal tone in "Baby Blue," but I like the harshness. I think the almost guttural sound gives his voice a lot of character. This is another one, actually, that I disagree with you pretty strongly about, as I think it's every bit as good as "Mr. Tambourine Man." When I'm in the mood for mellow Dylan, this song is near the top of the list. I can understand why you wouldn't like it that much though.

"Bob Dylan's 115th Dream" is one in a long line of Dylan songs that are hysterical in their absurdity. I particularly love the image of him finding a parking ticket on the mast of the Mayflower and ripping it up. Having said that, I think these lyrics, as opposed to, say, "I Shall Be Free," are more just a series of crazy things rather truly clever. It works, but it's not his best. And as a piece of music, I don't love it either. It sounds right on the album, but I think it's a good example of Bob not having refined this new electric sound yet. It's obvious, I think, as you listen to the whole album that Dylan's been playing acoustic folk for forever and is only now learning how to be a commercial electric musician. It's a good song, just not my favorite.

I didn't think about "Maggie's Farm" that way until you said it, but you're right, it's really just a longer, more repetitive, less interesting version of "Subterranean." That still gives us a damn good song, particularly with the wondefully rebellious lyrics, but it's not a high point of the album.

Everything else is more or less forgettable, at least by Dylan's incredibly high standards. The main problem with them is that they tend to be very repetitive and they don't have any characteristic that carries them above that the way "It's Alright, Ma" does. I think you're right to group "She Belongs to Me" and "Love Minus Zero" together, and I also prefer the latter, which really reminds me of his later composition, "If Not for You," which I love. "She Belongs to Me" is just so repetitive and not that musically interesting. It'd still be the best song on most albums, but for Bob, it's a let down.

"Outlaw Blues" is, again, just too much of the same over and over (though I do enjoy the lyric "I may look like Robert Ford / But I feel just like Jesse James"). "On the Road Again" is a little better, but it doesn't do that much for me either. "Gates of Eden" is, I think, the best of this group, but its placement next to another repetitive, extremely long song with a focus on lyrics that is frankly much better ("It's Alright, Ma") diminishes its impact a lot.

So all in all, BIABH is one of the more uneven albums on this list but still extremely solid even beyond the two masterpieces that hold it up. And really, even the songs I call "forgettable" are only forgettable because there's very little point to bother with them in the face of brilliance. Outside the context of the most fertile period of one of the greatest artists of all time, they're way above average.

Dan:
I appreciate that you got that I really like It's Alright, Ma even though I was critical, but I don't think you fully understand my critique. First, I do agree with your assertion that purposely changing meter is an effective means of highlighting important text, which that last line clearly is. Nevertheless, change in meter doesn't mean you can just get away with things sounding bad, and that sounds bad to me. In that time and place and with the music, all things considered essentially, it just doesn't work for me right there. Just my opinion I guess, apparently you like it a lot. Now to you're point that repetitive music can highlight text. Again, I think you're both right and wrong. You're right in general, but in this particular instance I think you're wrong. I'm sorry you chose an example that plays into my argument so well, but Desolation Row?! Remember that lead guitar part that improvises throughout the whole song? Keeps things really fresh.

I think a better way of expressing your sentiment is that simple music can highlight text well, because repetitive music is really a poor way of putting it. Jazz? Any jazz piece is simply a chord structure that is repeated indefinitely, its not really essentially related to highlighting things. The simplicity of the music is a better way to examine how it highlights text, and here obviously I think that is an intention. Still, even with this change in wording, I don't agree with you. Yes, it highlights the text, but it's not really like even subtly different music every verse, its like virtually the same music every verse and it just can't keep me interested for that long. Anyways, that's really my only point of serious contention, you can respond and we can move on.

Sam:
I think you only think it sounds bad because you're expecting it to be something different. Taken independently of the formula he's set in place, it sounds absolutely fine. I suppose you could say that about any lyrical meter, but I think it's especially true here. And he wants you to be jarred by it. I think we're probably just going to have to agree to disagree because I think it sounds really good, and you think it sounds bad, and that's hardly reconcilable. Your point about "Desolation Row" is well-taken (though to my untrained ear, it doesn't sound like the lead guitar part is changing all that much), but I guess it's just that I think the one verse and chorus of music is so spectacular on "It's Alright, Ma", that I want to hear it for 7+ minutes. Again, this is probably an irreconcilable point.

As to simple vs. repetitive music, I think you're right that simplicity highlights lyrics too, and "It's Alright, Ma" has both, but I don't think repetitive is an inaccurate way to put it. "Desolation Row" isn't musically simple, but it is repetitive (even with the flourishes there is no major change over 11+ minutes unless you count the harmonica), and that's why its lyrics are so much more accessible. In fact, I think you prefer it because it's more complex than "It's Alright, Ma," not because it's less repetitive, which of course it is too. Your jazz example is irrelevant because my point isn't that the purpose of repetitive musically is invariably to highlight lyrics, but that that is one possible result of it. Also, I'm woefully ignorant of jazz, but isn't the repetitive structure used to highlight the solos?

The MLB has only 8.2% black players. And?

2008-04-15T19:57:00.005-06:00

The annual announcement that baseball has fewer black atheletes then ever has just arrived. The Do the Right Thing thread going on is actually a perfect segue to this.

Joe Sheehan over at BP (subscription only, I think) has my favorite take I've seen on it:

So when I read that African-American representation on rosters is at a low
point since the early days of the game’s integration, I don’t understand the
importance. I analyze baseball decision makers for a living, and I am certain
that the decisions they make are, in toto, as race-blind as the basketball
courts of Inwood Park were in my adolescence. That is to say that while
individuals may harbor biases, and may even act upon them in their words or
actions, how they build baseball teams is not subject to racial discrimination.
How they select players for their organizations is not subject to racial
discrimination. Baseball and, in fact, all professional sports at the highest
levels are as meritocratic as any entity in human history.

This is true. It may be a tad simplistic and over-general, but the point is well-taken. For whatever reason, perhaps because they are so visible and poor performance is so much harder to hide, sports offer as little racial discrimination as any other business in America. That the percentage of blacks playing baseball has steadily decreased means nothing except that young black people are less interested in the game then ever before. This is not a good thing for the sport, but it's not especially bad either, and anyone who thinks black ball-players don't get the same shots as white ones (in general of course, maybe not in the specific) is crazy.

Do you know why no one complains that the NBA is almost 80% black with a disproportionately small number of whites and hispanics compared to the population? Because that would be utterly stupid, that's why. The cultural demographics of this country mean that a young black man is going to be more likely to play basketball or football, and a young white man is going to be more likely to play baseball.

Is this a problem for the country? Perhaps because it says something about how disturbingly heterogeneous we are culturally. But is it a problem for baseball? No way in hell. It's not their responsibility to fundamentally alter the cultural divides. It's their responsibility to make their product the best it can be, and with record revenues et cetera, it is clear they've done a good job of that even with a predominantly white and hispanic player population.

I'll argue that these kinds of studies and the responses to them do more to harm race relations than benefit them. No one ever makes a big deal about how many hispanics play a sport, even though there are 25 million of them in this country. Why do blacks get singled out? Because us whites are obsessed with black culture--we feel guilty about the atrocities our ancestors committed against theirs, and we're so interested in looking like we care about black people that we'll spout whatever bullshit we can think of to give that appearance. I know it's not so simple that we can just say, "treat everyone the same regardless of color," but, Jesus, can't we draw the line at what sport a certain group of people prefers to play?

"How come I end up where I started? How come I end up where I went wrong?"

2008-04-14T19:04:00.014-06:00

You know what the best thing about having moved to the blog format? No freaking title character limits. Ahh, look at that long title. So nice.

So we're about to unveil The Arbitrarily Chosen 28 Best/Favorite/Most Respected Albums Of All Time (That We've Heard) (TAC28B/F/MRAoAT(TWH)). We'll be publishing them one post at a time over a period of 1-75 weeks in a back-and-forth kind of format between Daniel and me. It's going to be extremely boss*, or crappy, depending on your point-of-view. Mostly, Dan's pieces will be boss and filled with musical knowledge, and mine will be crappy and borderline incoherent. But either way, I'm excited. Anyway, number 28 on the list is Elston Gunn's** Bringing It All Back Home, so, get excited too!

*I love that people have started using this word again. I give Teddy Moller 100% of the credit.

**Bob's Wiki entry is really wonderful. I suggest you all read it, for fun facts like this one. Also, bonus fun fact: when I spell-checked this post, "Elston" did not come up as spelled wrong.

But until then, you'll have to make due with a review of Radiohead's In Rainbows.

I'm not a Radiohead-head, but I have a hard time denying that they have the been the most consistently excellent band of the last 10-15 years along with Wilco. OK Computer is an absolute masterpiece, easily one of the 25 best albums I've ever heard (though because of Dan's miserliness, it did not make the TAC28B/F/MRAoAT(TWH)), and I haven't heard anything by them that I could call anything less than good. That said, I have not been a fan of their post-OK phase. Kid A and Hail to the Thief are fine, but I always thought they were a little bit stilted and the songs ran together a little too much (honestly, the only song I can name from Kid A is "Everything in Its Right Place"). I didn't even bother with Amnesiac. Now, everyone tells me I really should give Kid A another chance and Amnesiac a first one, and I promise I will.

But for now, In Rainbows is easily my favorite post OK album, and I may like it even a little more than The Bends. It can't touch OK of course, but it blends the things that I liked best about Kid A and HttT with the best things from The Bends. Namely, the album is extraordinarily coherent, sounding like a single piece of art, but also eminently listenable with much simpler sounds.

I'm not going to do my standard song-by-song listing because I have a lot left to do tonight. "15 Step" is a fantastic opener, probably my favorite non-OK song by them. It's got a wonderful, driving beat combined with (somewhat) introspective, frustrated lyrics. I'm not sure how to explain this, but if someone asked me to define In Rainbows in one song, I would give them this one without hesitation. It's like "15 Step" sets the tone and everything else falls naturally out of it.

"Bodysnatchers" is a nice follow-up, another very catchy rocker that caught my attention and stayed with me from the first time I heard it. "Nude" is very, well, nude, that is, its sparse and soft. It does a very nice job of bringing the tone of the album down a notch without being jarring. "All I Need" was probably my favorite song on the album the first time I heard it, and while that's changed, it has a deep earnestness that can't be ignored. "House of Cards" is the simplest, sweetest song I've heard by Radiohead since...ever, I guess. I mean, isn't it a little shocking to not only have a light-sounding Radiohead song, but for it also to start with the lyrics "I don't want to be your friend, / I just want to be your lover?" Needless to say, I am pleased with this development. "Jigsaw Falling into Place" reminds me of "Electioneering" from OK (this is a very good thing), except that it takes more time to build. It's also a good reminder that even (especially?) great artists are just as insecure as we are.

The album then ends with the gorgeous "Videotape," which is probably the sparsest song I've ever heard by Thom Yorke and company--most of the song is just a single piano and Yorke's voice, and then a simple drumbeat comes in later. It also has some beautiful lyrics: "When I am at the pearly gates / This will be on videotape." Well, actually that doesn't give a sense of them...this is really one of those songs that you have to listen to appreciate the beauty of the lyrics, but they seem very earnest and profound to me.

Overall 8.5/10: In Rainbows reminded me why I loved Radiohead in the first place, and it has inspired me to return to those old albums that I may not have given a fair shake. I know Radiohead have become one of the most respected bands in the world by also being one of the most ambitious, but it's refreshing to hear a simpler, easier to listen to Radiohead. Do I hope the next album is like this one? I don't know, but I am glad that In Rainbows is the way it is.

are we gonna live together, together are we gonna live?

2008-04-13T18:32:00.010-06:00

The other day I finally got around to seeing Spike Lee's (probably) most critically acclaimed film, Do the Right Thing. It was a smart move mainly because I thought it was great and really enjoyed it, but also because I got it in just before Spike came to Brown to give a talk. While nothing he said was really too noteworthy, he made some comments about the film that I've been thinking a lot about and will come back to later. Anyways, here are some thoughts on it, if you don't want the plot ruined don't read this, although I wouldn't say that knowing the plot would hinder one's enjoyment of this movie.

Spike said during his talk that what he likes to do in his films (and this is tragically the only of his I've seen so far) is show the "vibrancy" of urban black life. This movie definitely gets that across and it was one of its greatest strengths. The plot is pretty simple and I think, although I'm not sure, that Lee kept it that way purposely so you don't get too caught up in anything. For example, Mookie's faltering relationship with his girlfriend and their young child is something that one might expect to get investigated in great depth and is not. I don't think this is a failure in writing, however, because instead you get to focus more on day to day life in Bed-Stuy, which none of us (unless this blog has really been catching on beyond our group of friends) knows shit about. The colors are bright, almost coloring over the abject poverty that is equally obvious, and you get a feel of the characters that inhabit the block where the entire film takes place. Da Mayor is a great character, kind of a typical old nice drunk, and I particularly love his most poignant and simple line when he advises Mookie, "Always do the right thing."

My favorite, however, was Radio Raheem, a hilariously flamboyant guy seen wandering around the neighborhood blasting his huge boom box. He also provides one of the best sequences in the film, when he tells Mookie the story of his left and right hands, which have brass knuckles on them that say "hate" and "love" respectively. This scene is just so cool, especially because it made me really think a lot about what exactly protest movements are all about. The civil rights movement obviously had a lot of success because of love, but at the same time it had to resort to (and in many cases I think rightfully so) to violence. Its not as powerful, but I just can't resist giving you the quote right here, because for me there are a lot of cool things in this movie that I'd love to discuss with those of you who have seen it, but nothing is more important than this conflict in the film:

Radio Raheem: Let me tell you the story of "Right Hand, Left Hand." It's a tale of good and evil. Hate: It was with this hand that Cain iced his brother. Love: These five fingers, they go straight to the soul of man. The right hand. The hand of love. The story of life is this: Static. One hand is always fighting the other hand, and the left hand is kicking much ass. I mean, it looks like the right hand, Love, is finished. But hold on, stop the presses. The right hand is coming back. Yeah, he got the left hand on the ropes now, that's right. Oh! It's the devastating right and Hate is hurt, he's down. Left-Hand Hate KOed by Love.

That is badass. And it means something. It is this struggle that is at the core of the film, because at the end Mookie witnesses the police kill his friend and, in Spike's opinion (I know this because he said so, not speculation), he does the right thing, inciting a riot resulting in the destruction of Italian Sal's pizzaria, where he worked. Throughout the movie Mookie has acted with a lot of restraint, so this came as a shock to me. Now I went through three phases trying to understand this ending. At first I was like, this is a little bizarre to me, these aren't great people (Sal and his two sons who run the joint), but they weren't overt racists or asshole except for one of the sons, and Sal gives Mookie shit but still pays him fine and to be fair Mookie does slack a little bit on the job. So I was thrown in a weird space as Charlie Murphy would say, because if I were in Mookie's situation I'm sure I would react similarly, but I wasn't sure what Spike was trying to say. Violence is ok I guess.

Then someone asked him at the lecture if Mookie "did the right thing", to which he gave an emphatic yes. To paraphrase his argument, lots of people who think it wasn't right to start the riot show a valuation of white property over black life, and that clearly pissed him off a lot. Now to his credit, this is a legit complaint. I looked back at some reviews and some of them are just stupid, saying that the film preaches violence and support destruction of white property while not giving proper recognition to the fact that what started everything was THE POLICE KILLING SOMEONE BECAUSE HE WAS BLACK! Absurd. What I didn't like at all about Spike's response, however, was his implicit rejection of the notion that there are white people out there who are going to feel uncomfortable watching this but are really on his side in all of this.

Like I said, I felt uncomfortable but wasn't sure why. This was all stage two. Stage three is where I resolved this. I think the movie is good for people who can't relate to the plight of blacks and others in the ghetto BECAUSE it makes you feel uncomfortable. Unfortunately I am sure tons of people miss this, but when I felt uncomfortable I wanted to figure out why. The reason why is because I can't grasp the life portrayed enough to really be able to fully feel good about the riot. So even after rational evaluation during which I came to the conclusion that Mookie did the right thing, I still couldn't really get into the violence because I lack the background.

To grow up in the environment Spike portrays is something I'm trying to learn about and relate to, but it will take a long time. None of us can even begin to imagine what it's like living in fear of the police, the very people meant to protect us. I think any really meaningful dialogue between blacks and whites rests on people taking initiative to figure things out about each other's situations. Not just watching a film like this and saying, oh that's what it's like in Bed-Stuy. Thinking about it and internalizing it and then trying to meet people in real life, etc. Anyways, I suggest everyone check this Spike Lee joint out, it'll provoke your thoughts and is good for some great laughs and music as well.

The Hornets Lose to the Kings

2008-04-13T00:10:00.007-06:00

See, Chris Paul, look what you went and did:

That is all.

Picture from poster.net

Kobe Redux

2008-04-12T20:44:00.006-06:00

I just read something that kind of blew my mind at Henry Abbot's TrueHoop:

I urge you to consider an amazing email from professor Stephen Ilardi, who has consulted with Roy Williams' staff at Kansas, and is an expert in adusted +/-. He writes: "CP3 is obviously one of the game's top offensive players, his overall defensive performance this season has been poor. How can I be sure? The simplest way is to look at the Hornets' defensive efficiency (opponents' points-per-100-possessions) with Paul on-court versus off-court. With Paul on the court, the Hornets give up 106.37 points every 100 possessions; with him off the court they're much better defensively, giving up only 99.94 points every 100 possessions. It's worth noting that Paul's on-off disparity is the worst of all Hornets players (starters or subs), so it cannot be a mere artifact of his being on the court with other poor defensive players. (By way of comparison, for example, the Hornets are 1.5 points better defensively with David West on the court). As you know, the best measure of a player's overall impact on the game's bottom line is his adjusted plus-minus rating, which adjusts statistically for the effect of all teammates and opponents, and also factors in both offensive and defensive contributions. Paul's adjusted plus-minus rating right now (through games of April 10) is +0.76 points per 100 possessions, indicative of a modest overall positive contribution. Put simply: his superb offensive contributions have been largely offset by his apparent defensive liabilities. Based on this season's adjusted plus-minus numbers, a much stronger MVP case can be made for either Kobe (+12.04) or LeBron (+11.35), and perhaps the best case of all for Dwight Howard (+16.57)

I don't know what to believe anymore. Adjusted +/- numbers are generally pretty hard to interpret because the small sample of minutes you play with bit players can have an enormous effect, but I can't deny that PER may overrate Paul a little because of his incredibly high steal numbers without genuinely strong defense. I'd be surprised if CP3's really that poor a defender though.

Does this mean I'm changing my vote to Kobe? No, but it does mean that I won't be at all upset if he does win, like I would have yesterday. Also, I think I'd now vote for LeBron, who basically every sane person and statistic agrees is the best player in the game. I'm not a big "best player on a winning team" guy. I'm more of a "best player" guy, so it doesn't bother me that Cleveland's not all that good. If Paul's as good as his PER says, then his intangibles and the success of his team beat LBJ, but when stuff like this comes to my attention, I have to just give it to the guy I see as the best player. I also think it's true that D-Ho (I love that nickname) deserves more credit than he gets, but I can't believe he's really a better player than LBJ though maybe I'm just fitting the evidence to support my conclusion. It's always so damn hard to tell.

Is Kobe the MVP?

2008-04-11T15:03:00.010-06:00

In his his chat Tuesday, John Hollinger (the best NBA writer around for my money, no matter what you think of his statistics) said something interesting, if not exactly surprising:

Michael (Batavia, NY): If the Lakers finish as the #2 seed, does Kobe Bryant get your vote as MVP? I see an argument for Chris Paul, but the Hornets haven't had all of the injuries the Lakers have.
John Hollinger: I think Kobe's argument for MVP is pretty weak to be honest. His PER isn't even better than Garnett's, who is supposed to be the non-numbers candidate, and it isn't close to Paul's or James's. If he wins, it's a guilt trip by the writers over the '06 vote.

And then:

Bryan (Boulder): To be MVP, Chris Paul should be recognized as the best player in the game. That's what more I want. If Kobe isn't the MVP - and by the way PER is merely an indicator not a precise reflection of value - than why do the vast majority of players, coaches, and GMs routinely cite him as the league's best player?
John Hollinger: No, it doesn't mean best player, it means best season. You'd still draft Kobe ahead of Paul until he proved he could repeat his level of play this year -- but there's no question he's played better than Kobe in 2007-08.
As far as the other part of your question, I wish I knew why everyone keeps saying Kobe is the best player -- he's certainly the most electrifying, and he's the best player 6-6 or under, but LeBron has outPERed him three straight years and Dirk has for four, and it's not like he's had massive intangibles to offset that.

I don't know that I'd go so far as to say that I'd rather have Dirk Nowitzki than Kobe (nor does Hollinger say that though he does imply it later in the chat), but I am sure that Kobe has not been the best or most valuable player in basketball this year.

He can't touch LeBron or Paul in PER (Hollinger's all encompassing stat)--24.34 to 29.84 and 28.52 respectively--and he trails, among others, Garnett, who is the best defensive player in the league, Tim Duncan, also better at defense, and Amare Stoudemaire, who has been amazing since the Shaq trade (but that's a story for another time). Kobe definitely plays better defense than LeBron and probably plays it better than Paul too, and PER does underrate that a lot, but there's no way he can make up that big a difference (4 or 5 points is HUGE).

And then when you add intangible effects, particularly to Paul, things move even further apart. Kobe's supporting cast is a lot better and deeper when healthy (and even with all the injuries it's been at least as good) AND his team has won fewer games than Paul's. Then, if you consider it relevant, Paul essentially saved basketball in New Orleans, turning the team from a lame duck in a lame duck location to a genuine drawing force in a city that desperately needed a bright spot. Should that matter? I don't know, but it certainly can't hurt an already strong case.

Why is it that people, like the chatter from above, repeatedly throw around this claim that Kobe is the "best player in the game" when there's really no evidence that that's true? As Hollinger notes later, even when Kobe played with Shaq, probably one of the 10-20 best players of all time at that point in his career, Shaq was the "most dominant" and Kobe was the "best," like there's somehow a distinction between those two phrases.

I think there are two big reasons for this, which are actually pretty related: 1) Kobe is closer to our platonic ideal of a basketball player, that is, Michael Jordan, than the other players. We want our best player to be Michael Jordan again, but MJ wasn't the best because he was the best competitive 6'6'' 2-guard, he was the best because he was the best. 2) Kobe is a 2-guard, the position that produces the most exciting players who do the most things on offense.

So Kobe is exciting and he looks like what we expect the best player to look like. Dirk doesn't fit what we think a great player should be--his greatness lies in the fact that he's 7-feet tall and an unbelievable jump shooter. That's a killer combination, but it doesn't look pretty. Same story with Duncan--he's great because he's an athletic, smart, totally fundamentally sound 7-footer. He does everything right, but nothing that makes you say, "Wow."

And even Paul, who I think it's pretty hard to argue isn't fun to watch, doesn't seem like a truly great player. The MVP's not supposed to be 6'0'' anymore than he's supposed to be 7'0''. Paul is already putting in probably the best season ever by a small point-guard, so we don't really have a comparison for a player like him. That, however, doesn't mean he isn't the best.

Who's my MVP? Paul, I suppose, because he deserves a small bonus for taking a team that didn't make the playoffs last year to first place in the most competitive conference ever, but I could vote for LeBron every year and not regret it in the least, and Garnett with his defense is a much better option than I would have expected. So that's a tentative vote for Chris Paul, savior of the New Orleans Hornets.

What does CP3 think about that?

Pictures from Sports Illustrated.

"When you've been licked before you begin..."

2008-04-10T13:01:00.016-06:00

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

I suppose this one can't rightly be called a book I didn't understand in high school because I actually read it in eighth grade, but you get the point. (I'm going to again be assuming you've read the book though I don't reveal any key plot details, I don't think.)

Maybe I should explain this series in more detail before I get into this particular book. We've all read (or at least read the SparkNotes of) many many highly-regarded novels in school that, for the most part, we didn't "get" or appreciate so much. Sometimes this might be a function of rebellion against school, so we don't give it the full attention it deserves. Sometimes this might be the fault of the teacher not being talented enough to make us understand what made it so special.

But my theory is that the main reason is that, as 13-16 even 17 or 18 year olds, our minds just haven't developed sufficiently or encountered enough for us to grasp the greatness of these books. This is probably still true and will continue to be for the rest of my life--I'll probably read Gatsby again in five years and see fifteen things I didn't notice this time. But hopefully, at least I now have a better understanding of just how much I'm missing.

My experience with Plato has been a perfect example of this that's only taken about 7 or 8 months to happen. When I began reading things like the Apology and the Meno and other dialogues, I didn't think I was getting everything, but I did think I was getting most things. But after spending so much more time with him, and now trying to write a paper on Apology and reading Meno slowly in the original Greek, I now know a lot more about the dialogues, but even more, I can see that I haven't even scratched the surface of the levels Plato is working on*. It takes time, effort, and a lot of experience to understand great writers, things which we are not afforded as high school students. I am now trying to remedy the things I've missed because of this.

*I still haven't decided if I think Plato or Shakespeare is the most talented writer that ever lived--you'll have to wait 'til next year for that--but Plato is truly awe-inspiring when you spend a lot of time with him, even when you disagree with a lot of his premises. I guess all you regular-school-non-philosophy-majors will just have to trust me on this.

Okay, back to the book. Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the most famous and most loved American novels ever. I don't know that a lot of people consider it to be the proverbial "Great American Novel,"* but it's one of six or seven that are at least in the discussion.

When I read this many years ago, I didn't even begin to understand how this could be true. I thought the first half was merely a bunch of collected children stories and the second half a pretty simple look at racism with a nice sappy-sweet, don't-judge-a-book-by-its cover-conclusion.** While this isn't totally false, it's a vast oversimplification.

*What's the deal with this "Great American Novel" stuff, anyway? Does anyone ever ask what the "Great Russian Novel" is, or the "Great English Novel?" To tell you the truth though, I kind of like it. It's as if we're saying that American life is so unique, so individual that it demands a perfect representation of itself (and, well, I kind of believe this. I love America). Because "Great American Novel" does not mean best novel by an American. It means the novel that capture the American experience. For the record, the ones I think that people consider to be in the discussion are: Huckleberry Finn, TKaM, Gatsby, Catch-22, On the Road, Moby Dick (haven't read), The Sound and the Fury (haven't read) and maybe The Grapes of Wrath (also haven't read). My vote would obviously be for Gatsby.

**Actually, now that I think about it, I don't think I read the second half of TKaM at all and just came to that conclusion based on class discussion. Hmmmm....

So on my second reading, I think this book is a wonderfully charming representation of America. This is why TKaM is one of those books that is in the GAN discussion: it synthesizes the American experience--a people demanding freedom while having the face their own contradictions, wide-eyed innocence in the face of profound injustice--into an easy-to-read, sweet story that eventually has a very hopeful view of our country's potential.

No, TKaM is not a towering work of art the way Gatsby or Huckleberry Finn is, but it does capture a people in a way only those two books really have. You have Atticus, the American ideal, the man who believes in freedom, in God, in courage*, and above all, in justice no matter the consequences. Then there's Scout, a rebellious freedom-loving innocent who seems to make the same "Screw it, then I'll go to hell" decision that Huck Finn makes. Bob Ewell, the dark, ignorant heart of America. And of course, Boo Radley, the basic goodness hiding and lurking in the principles of this country.

*"Courage is [...] when u know you've been licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through not matter what."** Just wonderful. That's Atticus in a sentence.

**Oh, so I couldn't find this quote at first, so I searched for it on a Google. The first hit for it is this. It's an essay from a site called "eCheat," so I'm assuming you're supposed to use this to cheat on papers. Well, let me just say that if you're stupid enough to think that's any good, then, well, no matter how much you cheat, you're going to have a little bit of trouble in school...Even beyond how stupid and poorly written it is, you would have to be from New York AND be a highly-ranked tennis player for it to work. I mean, Jesus.

Am I making too much of the connection to America as a country? Probably, and TKaM certainly works almost as well as a simple story of justice and the human spirit, but I think it's more than that. I don't think you can separate TKaM from the context of America and the civil rights movement that was in its infancy when Harper Lee penned her one and only novel, nor would I want to. It may not be the "Great American Novel," but it is one of the definitive statements of what it means to be an American.

*Edited for clarity*

Pictures from Marshall.edu and IMDB

"...And one fine morning--"

2008-04-08T20:16:00.017-06:00

The Great Gatsby by Jon Stewart and the Daily Show Writers as told to F. Scott Fitzgerald*

Next up in my continuing series of re-read books that I read in high school and didn’t understand**: The Great Gatsby.

*Yes! Obscure allusions tag!

**Well, I guess as far as you’re concerned this is the first in said series because I haven’t mentioned it before. The others I’ve re-read so far are To Kill a Mockingbird and Beloved by Toni Morrison. I highly recommend starting your own version of this because it’s really eye-opening. In that time, I’ve also read Nabokov's Lolita. Right now I’m re-reading Ibsen’s “A Doll House.” I’ll get around to reviews of all of them sooner or later.

First let me say that I’m basically going to write this assuming you’ve already read the book. So if you haven’t(probably only a couple of you) and you don’t want to know the plot you may want to avoid this. That said, plot has very little to do with enjoyment of the book, and I liked it a hundred times better this time even though I knew what was going to happen.

Okay, so onward! I’m about to throw about some ridiculously huge phrases, so if that scares you, you can stop now. Still here? Okay, here it goes: I think The Great Gatsby is the greatest piece of art I have ever encountered.

That’s right, you read what I said. Look, I’m sure Proust, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and (especially) Shakespeare will have something to say about this before it’s all done. But for now, nothing equals Gatsby in my eyes--not Abbey Road, not Highway 61, not Macbeth*, not Network not Swann’s Way.

*Don’t make fun of my choice of Shakespeare, okay? I’ve only read Romeo and Juliet, The Winter’s Tale and Macbeth, alright? Like I said, I’m sure Billy boy will have plenty more to say about this as I read nine freaking plays of his next year.

Fitzgerald is a master at seeing the poetic in life. Gatsby isn’t an extended prose poem, but clocking in at only about 40,000 words (extremely short for a novel) and filled with poetic imagery, it’s not that far off. What I’ve noticed a lot recently in doing my own writing is that when symbols are good, they are not contrived. Life is absolutely full of symbols, you just have to be able to see them. This is the thing that Fitzgerald captured—he sees some defining characteristic of a culture or character (Gatsby’s need of Daisy and a past that no longer exists) and then sees how that gets expressed in the minute (reaching his arms for the green light).

Having said that, Fitzgerald is no slouch at plotting or characterization either. It’s particularly remarkable that in a 40,000 word work he’s able to have you feel like you know the characters so intimately. When you think about it, you really don’t spend that much time wit Gatsby, and you barely spend any with Daisy or Tom or Jordan. And yet you barely even notice this lack because Fitzgerald, like all great writers, can tell you almost everything about a character in a few short moments. Like, for instance, this passage at Nick's first meeting with Daisy in East Egg:

"You see I think everything's terrible anyhow," she went on in a convinced way. "Everybody thinks so--the most advanced people. And I know. I've been everywhere and seen everything and done everything." Her eyes flashed around in a defiant way, rather like Tom's, and she laughed with thrilling scorn. "Sophisticated--God, I'm so sophisticated!"

The instant her voice broke off, ceasing to compel my attention, my belief, I felt the basic insincerity of what she had said. It made me uneasy, as though the whole evening bad been a trick of some sort to exact a contributory emotion from me. I waited, and sure enough, in a moment she looked at me with an absolute smirk on her lovely face as if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged.

Now, you may say, "Sam, I thought you didn't like art that had no hope." I have said this, more or less, but I no longer think it's true. I don't know exactly how to explain what I was trying to get at by saying that before, but I think it's something like this: I don't demand a happy ending or hope, I only demand vitality and emotional depth. That doesn't mean there have to be a lot of emotional confrontations--in fact, if you can show me the inner lives of the characters without forcing them to actually say what's going on, as Fitzgerald does with a few exceptions (such as: --"You can't bring back the past" --"Of course, you can!" (paraphrased)), then all the better. What I have a hard time liking are stories that I would call empty, like No Country for Old Men and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. I'm having trouble putting my finger on exactly what "empty" means for me, but that's what I have for now.

Before I end this, I'll say one more thing. As you may know, I write a lot (fiction) and hope to one day be able to do it for a living. If I already gave Fitzgerald the highest praise I could possibly give, then I'll now give the next highest: if I could write like any person I have read, it would be F. Scott Fitzgerald. I want to sound like him and make you feel like Walt Whitman does. For me, Fitzgerald's writing has now become the gold standard against which I will always measure my own.

Now, I will leave you with a few lines you probably know, which I consider some of the finest sentences ever written:

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther...And one fine morning--

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Picture from Yale.edu via Google

Liverpool 4 - Arsenal 2

2008-04-08T19:28:00.010-06:00

I'm not sure which game I'm more upset about missing--this one or last night's NCAA final. Man, this "school" stuff is really starting to chap my ass, if you know what I mean.

Ugh, this game sounded so amazing. Okay, I guess you're all going to need a quick explanation of how Champion's League soccer works: Up until the final, you play two-legged ties, meaning you play two games, one at each club's home, with the team that has the better aggregate score moving through. If there is a tie, the club with more away goals, that is, goals scored at the other team's field, wins.

Liverpool drew the first leg at the Emirates (where Arsenal plays) 1-1, which was an excellent result because they came back to Anfield (their home) without a deficit and an away goal to work with. So, all they needed to do was keep Arsenal off the scoreboard today, their specialty, and they would move through. I figured if LFC gave up a goal, they would lose or at least have to go to penalties, if they didn't, they would win (obviously).

But to paraphrase Bill Simmons, the lesson is, as usual, that I'm an idiot.

Arsenal jumped out to an early lead behind an Abou Diaby* goal in the 13th minute, which LFC answered with a Sami Hyppia header. In the second half, Liverpool moved ahead with a Fernando Torres goal (he's an absolute goal-machine at this point). But just when it seemed things were looking good for Rafa Benitez' men, Emmannuel Adebayor scored in the 83rd, and now, at 2-2 Arsenal was prepared to move forward on away goals. It was not to be though, as a apparently, LFC caught Arsenal completely with their pants down, and while they were still celebrating, Ryan Babel burst into the box and drew an (apparently very iffy) penalty, which Steven Gerrard (my favorite player, if you must know) finished off. Babel then sealed it as Arsenal pushed everyone forward.

*This is a funny name. Abou Diaby. Abou Daby. Aboodaby. Aboodoo baby. Funny stuff. Also, this guy was supposed to be a Viera-type. How the hell is he so good on the wing? Wenger is really amazing sometimes. (Yes, I know roughly 0.5% of you understood that. Forgive me.)

What a game! It does seem that Liverpool got the benefit of the refereeing decisions in both games (a penalty not called in the first and the one called in this one), but I'm not complaining.

Ah, it so hard to be an American who loves soccer. To paraphrase Herman Melville: Ah, Sam! Ah, Humanity!

Picture courtesy of Soccernet.

And the winner is...

2008-04-07T22:45:00.006-06:00

Unbelievable national championship game, all you suckers who missed it (like my friend scott who stupidly opted out in order to participate in an intramural flag football game) you really should be kicking yourself. Since this is my first post, I guess I should set the tone for my contributions in much the same way that Sam did in his first post. I really respect that he went out of his way to point out that everything he says is merely a statement of his opinion, not fact. I think we'll work really well together in this setting, because everything I say is clearly heavily opinion-based, but in my mind, completely factual. Anyways, I'm going to go buy some air force ones with the $137 I just won in my bracket pool, catch you guys later.

P.S. Wednesday night, Red Sox-Tigers, I'll be there scouring the bleachers for Bill James and an impromptu interview. It is doubtful anyone besides Sam will care about this.

Pretty cool, right?

2008-04-07T14:44:00.005-06:00

You like the format switch? Almost all my old notes are on here, and now I have way more options of what I can do with the everything--I can add tags, I can change font, I can change how it looks.

The title, other than an attempt at charming self-effacement, is meant as a reminder to me and to you that I'm almost exclusively dealing with opinions that are just that. To get too self-righteous or upset about anything I talk about here is clearly crazy, and I forget that too often.

The subtitle is sort of an allusion to the fact that they always say the way to make a successful blog is to find your "niche" which I clearly don't have because I want to talk about everything. Do you prefer the one that's there or: "The Opposite of What a Successful Blog Should Be"?

More to come relatively shortly.

My Top Movies

2008-04-07T14:42:00.003-06:00

Origninally posted 4/3/08:
I’m doing basically the same thing I did with albums a while back, mostly because it’s fun and it created a fun conversation last time.

The same stipulations as last time apply, and please read them this time so you don’t get pissed at me over a misunderstanding:

1) This rating is a combination of how much I like it and some attempt at “intrinsic goodness” which I don’t put too much stock in. Maybe it would be better to say it’s a combination of how much I love the movie along with how much I appreciate it as art. So because I have Little Miss Sunshine above Goodfellas does not mean I think it’s “better.”

2) Just because a movie isn’t here doesn’t mean I don’t like it. It probably means I either haven’t seen it, forgot it or didn’t remember it well enough to assign an opinion.

3) The movies aren't in any particular order within the categories though I did try to put my favorite/most appreciated ones in the first 1-3 spots (Through A-, the top 1-3 are generally the ones I appreciate most--yes, this means I think Network is the best movie I've seen--after that it's generally more my favorites. Though again, I caution you not to make too many assumptions from this.)

A+
Network
Adaptation
Casablanca
American Beauty

A+/A
Memento
Saving Private Ryan
Pulp Fiction
Ordinary People
The Lives of Others

A
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
The Shawshank Redemption
The Matrix
21 Grams
Juno
Little Miss Sunshine
Letters from Iwa Jima
Full Metal Jacket
Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Braveheart
The Royal Tennenbaums
The Godfather

A/A-
The Usual Suspects
Goodfellas
Into the Wild
V for Vendetta
This Is Spinal Tap
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
Rushmore
2001: A Space Odyssey

A-
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
The Sixth Sense
Spiderman 2
Batman Begins
Ocean’s Eleven
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
The Lord of the Ring: The Return of the King
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
Star Wars Episode VI: The Return of the Jedi
Stars Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

A-/B+
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Blues Brothers
The Prestige
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
No Country for Old Men
Michael Clayton
There Will Be Blood
Best in Show
Under the Same Moon
A Simple Twist of Fate
The Hours
Love Actually
Resovoir Dogs
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Spiderman
Being John Malkovich
3:10 to Yuma
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
The French Connection
The Big Lebowski
Gladiator
The Graduate

B+
Titanic
Young Frankenstein
In Bruges
Starting Out in the Evening
Thirteen
The Illusionist
Kinsey
The Departed
It’s A Wonderful Life
The Aviator
Mean Girls
Borat: Cultural Learnings for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kasakhstan
The History of the World Part 1
Garden State
A Clockwork Orange
I Heart Huckabees
The Family Stone
Forrest Gump
Kill Bill Vol. 1
Kill Bill Vol. 2
Die Hard
Die Hard 2
The Terminator
The Lion King
The Truman Show
Meet the Parents
Unbreakable

B
Back to the Future 1
Back to the Future 2
Clue
The Last King of Scotland
Crash
The Wedding Singer
Atonement
I Am Legend
Alladin
Cloverfield
There’s Something About Mary
Human Nature
American Pie
Animal House
Double Jeopardy
Signs
The Matrix Revolutions

B-
American Pie 2
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
Big Daddy
Thank You for Smoking
Once
Back to the Future 3
The Village
Get Shorty
Million Dollar Baby
Liar Liar
Stripes
Hitch
Die Hard with a Vengeance
Billy Madison
Happy Gilmore
300
The Matrix Reloaded
High Crimes

C+
Live Free or Die Hard
The 40 Year Old Virgin
Toy Story
The Mask
Click
Wayne’s World
The Mummy

C
Superbad
Knocked Up
The Italian Job
Speed
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
Van Wilder
Wayne’s World 2
The Mummy Returns

C-
Me, Myself and Irene
Mr. Deeds

D
Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls
The Breakfast Club
The 10 Minutes I Saw of 16 Candles
Probably All Other John Hughes Movies

F
Spiderman 3
The Golden Compass
Black Hawk Down

A Few Comments:
I obviously had a hard time thinking of bad movies to include on here, but I’m sure there are many many more I have seen that I simply forgot about, so simply remind me, and I’ll add them.

Also, A-/B+ and B+ pretty clearly the biggest categories, which doesn’t really surprise me because that’s where I generally stick movies that I think are really good and like a lot but don’t cut “great” for me. I think that there's a bigger gap between A-/B+ and A- than anything else, even A+/A and A+.

Pure comedies are going to score pretty low because I do take into account intention along with execution, which just makes Austin Powers being that high even more remarkable. I really think that’s a truly amazing movie. If you’re a comedy, it’s no shame to be even as low as a C (for instance, I like Superbad a lot, it just doesn’t have much depth), but if you’re a drama even as low as a B- (I’m looking at you, Million Dollar Baby), then you’ve got problems. That’s all for now, I’ll add more later.

"Are You Watching Closely?" [Prestige, Love Actually Etc.]

2008-04-07T14:42:00.002-06:00

Originally Posted 4/1/08:

The Prestige
First Viewing: Movies like this are all about the payoff in the ending. Satisfaction is almost entirely dependent on that “Oh, my God” moment when everything is revealed, so it’s hard to talk about The Prestige without talking about the ending, but I won’t reveal anything except, when it’s over, you still have no fucking clue what’s going on. The cover of the DVD boasts a quote from Peter Travers that says “You want to watch it again the second it’s over!” Well, strictly speaking, this is true. But it’s not in a Sixth Sense, “I swear Bruce Willis talked to other people” kind of way but in a, “What the fuck just happened?” kind of way. You’re supposed to be confused the whole movie, and then in the end be blown away when everything is revealed. I was blown away by one part of the ending, but there’s another part that I literally don’t understand at all.

The frustrating part is that I think The Prestige has a lot more potential than its counterpart, The Illusionist* (which I really liked, mostly because it had a great ending), because the milieu is more complete and appropriate, Nikola Tesla and the “real” magic is extremely interesting, The Prestige (the final part of a magic trick) is a way cooler name than The Illusionist, and Christopher Nolan obviously has enormous talent as a director. I’ll watch it again and tell you what I think then, but I’m afraid it has been undone by its ending. B-/C+ (Incomplete)

*Why is it that movies with disturbingly similar subjects always come out at the same time? Volcano and Dante’s Peak, Deep Impact and Armageddon, these two, and I’m sure there are more I can’t remember right now. I mean, these people have to be ripping each other off, right? It can’t just be coincidence, can it?

Second Viewing: Well, I guess this is the kind of movie you just really have to see twice, or at least I did. The second time you really gain an appreciation for the way Nolan is basically playing his own magic trick on you.

The movie begins with a voiceover by Michael Caine that basically boils down to this: “A magic trick has three parts: The pledge, where you show the audience an ordinary object, like a bird or a man. The turn, where you do something extraordinary to that object. But you wouldn’t clap yet because it’s not enough to make it disappear. You have to bring it back. That’s the third part, the prestige.”

As you’re watching the movie for the second time, you realize he’s pulling this trick with both main characters (well, it’s an adaptation, so a combination of him and the author), and yet, somehow, unlike a magic trick, you’re only satisfied by the prestige here when you understand how it happened. Basically, what I realized the second time is that this is a damn well-directed film, which you would expect from the director of perhaps the best constructed movie I’ve ever seen in Memento. So basically, I had to watch it twice, but, in the end I really liked it. And Nikola Tesla/David Bowie is awesome. A-/B+

Love Actually
There are certain movies that transcend their somewhat limited genres: The Matrix in action; The Royal Tennenbaums in comedy; V for Vendetta in superhero movies; Adaptation in, umm, flower movies. Then there are those that are merely near-perfect examples of their genre: Terminator 2, Spiderman or Austin Powers.

Love Actually is of the second kind. It stays stuck in its genre distinction of romantic comedy, often sacrificing realism and honesty for sweet, funny storytelling. I am 100% fine with this. It knows what it is and doesn’t stray from that. A movie like this will never make my top tier, but that doesn’t stop me from loving it.

This movie is just so sweet and, actually, absolutely hilarious. I laughed out loud ten or fifteen times at least. You don’t often find that in conjunction with a movie that makes you feel so good.

There are way too many different stories to get into any kind of plot summary, but my favorites include Liam Neeson as the father to an in-love ten-year-old, the aging rock star covering his hit “Love Is All Around Me” with “Christmas Is All Around Me,” and the awkward couple that falls for each other while doing stand-ins for sex scenes in movies. There were a couple stories, like some dude on an American sex romp, that didn’t really fit and were a little beyond the realm of reality to be enjoyable, and I wasn’t close to believing that Hugh Grant was the Prime Minister of Britain (though I do love him), but most of the stories more than worked for me. I also like how a number of them didn’t end wrapped up into neat little packages.

So all in all, this is about as good as you can make a romantic comedy without leaving the genre all together. A-/B+

A Simple Twist of Fate
A Simple Twist of Fate is one of the sweetest, most charming movies I’ve ever seen. It’s written and directed and starred-in by Steve Martin, but it’s actually a straight realistic drama. The story is essentially this: Martin, with his wife 6 months-ish pregnant, finds out the baby isn’t his. He leaves, and we rejoin him two years later, miserable and alone. A drug addict mother basically dies on his front poor, and he takes in her three year old daughter. Unfortunately, she turns out to be the illegitimate daughter of the local congressman, and there’s a drawn out legal battle many years down the line, but that stuff is all really secondary. It’s just a very moving portrayal of a man and his daughter, and the way they change each other’s life. (Ugh, generic, I know, but you get the point. It’s not “gritty” or anything like that, and the scope is small, but it’s so loving and sweet.)
A-/B+

The Hours
The Hours’ three viewpoints, one woman writing Mrs. Dalloway, one reading it and one reliving it in different times, is an interesting way to tell a story, but it is its acting that makes it very good even more than the writing. Each of the stories is only 30 or 40 minutes long, so we have to learn everything about our characters is only a few moments. The writing does a good job with this, but it takes special acting performances to get the depth of character in that amount of time that is achieved by all three main women—Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep. That being said, I think the Ed Harris provides the best performance as a depressed AIDS-infected poet. He’s really unbelievable. Plus, Clare Danes plays a small role, and for whatever reason, I have a huge crush* on her. My mom had said she didn’t think I would like The Hours because it wasn’t emotional enough, and I know where she’s coming from. The difference though is that, while the emotion is only rarely on the surface, the actors make it real beneath it the whole time. A-/B+

*My top five movie-star crushes:
1. Ingrid Bergman. “Ingrid Bergman you’re so purty, you’d make any mountain quiver / you’d make fire fly from the crater.” Let’s just say Woody Guthrie and I have similar views on this subject.

2. Natalie Portman. God, I am so in love with Sam from Garden State (I guess that’s the ultimate proof of my narcissm, right? I’m in love with Sam). I don’t even think that movie’s particularly great, but I love it, mostly because of her. She’s not too shabby in other things either.

3. Clare Danes. This mostly stems from The Family Stone, I think, a movie I really like and the closest thing I could think of to a movie that transcended the romantic comedy genre.

4. Laura Linney. This is kind of a weird one, I guess, because she’s relatively old by now, but when she’s on screen, my eyes are always on her. My favorite is her in Kinsey.

5. ? This one’s up for grabs. I definitely think Jessica Alba is unbelievably gorgeous, and Scarlett Johansson’s not too far behind, but I don’t think they cut it. Ellen Page? The combination of her character in Juno and how she looks when not wearing clothes that compress her breasts to nothing and make her look like a genuine 16-year-old could do it.

Under the Same Moon
This is another movie I loved and is just profoundly sweet. I’m kind of running out of steam, so I won’t go into too much detail, but it’s about a 9 year old Mexican kid whose mother has crossed illegally* into the US and left him behind, hoping to make enough money so they can both have a better life. She keeps insisting they will be together soon, but when the boy’s grandmother, who is now taking care of him, dies, he decides to cross the border himself and find her. The acting is all solid, the characters are often slightly flat and predictable but never uninteresting and the story is wonderful in a lot of ways. Also, the ending is perfect—abrupt but perfect. A-/B+

*It does make you think about immigration laws when you see how hard it is for these people. And I do kind of think we should just let any non-criminals into the US that want to come as long as they’re documented and go through customs and everything (thoguh I know a lot of rational people disagree with me profoundly with me on this, and I’m not informed at all), but if the West Wing taught me anything it’s that when you’re running a country, you can’t be affected by individuals cases. It’s impossible to do what’s best for everyone, and you do what helps the country as a whole (like, say, for instance, cutting off corn subsidies, maybe?). I’m not sure strictly limiting immigration accomplishes that, but it might.

Once
Eh, basically. I like some of the music a lot, particularly the song that won the Oscar (the sinking boat one), but such a high percentage of the movie is just music, and not in a musical way that advances the story, that it would be really hard for Once to be great as a movie. As a combination music video/simple pseudo-love story, it worked for me, and it really is done in an ultra, almost too realistic a way, but I wouldn’t particularly recommend it. B-

Oh and Jules, I only have Brokeback left to watch, so I’ll send them all back beginning of next week. Dorm or home address? Thanks again.

The Most Fair and Most Exciting Sports Tournaments

2008-04-07T14:40:00.001-06:00

Orignially Posted 3/20/08:

So it's NCAA tournament time, which is of course awesome, but there’s something you hear a lot this time of year that really bothers me. Television personalities all over the place will make off the cuff snide remarks about the BCS, basically saying isn’t it great that we actually have a fair system, where we actually find out who the best team is. Now, I won’t deny that the 64 (or rather, 65) team tournament is a much more entertaining way to choose a champion than a combination of a computer program and a bunch of dudes voting on it, but I really don’t think its any more fair.

I’m defining fair here such that in the most fair situation, the best team wins every single time. This would obviously be very boring, and then we might as well just have PECOTA play the season for us.

So, my contention is that the best college football team wins the title about as often, if not more, than the best college basketball team. In football, the two teams in the championship game are almost universally two of the three or four teams, and they only have to play one game to decide it. In basketball, the best teams have to instead win 7 (!) straight games in single elimination competition, inherently the format most dependent on luck. You could argue in basketball that your luck at least happens during the game instead of in the minds of the coach’s etc, but I really don’t see how that makes it more fair.

Just for fun, here’s how I’d rate the major sport competitions in terms of fairness:

1) European Soccer Leagues: Everyone plays each other twice (home and home), and there’s no playoffs of any kind. The team with the most points at the end of the year wins, simple as that. This makes sense in such a low scoring sport, which makes it extremely dependent on luck in individual games. But without the cup competitions, it might make things a little ho-hum.

2) NBA Playoffs: For some reason, the best team almost always seems to win in the NBA. I think it’s because effort, concentration and intensity are genuine “skills” in basketball (as opposed to baseball, for instance), and this seems to make it possible for the best players to “raise their game” in the playoffs (again, as opposed to baseball, where that’s bullshit). Also helpful is how high scoring the sport is, how much importance individual players have and that they are all seven game series (what is the plural of series?).

3) Grand Slam Tennis: You have the variability of a single elimination tournament, but the best out of five sets format cuts out most of the luck factor. I think a lot of people would prefer it to be best out of three, so everyone wouldn’t be shocked when, say, Roger Federer loses before the finals, but I like it the way it is.

4) NFL Playoffs: It’s surprising to me how fair this seems to be, considering its only one game at a time, but the enormous advantage of the bye week levels that out. You obviously get situations like the Patriots in 2001 or the Giants this year, but it could be a lot worse.

5) (tie) NCAA Tournament: Not particularly fair, but it does seem that the cream still usually rises to the top. (Kansas is clearly the best team this year, as far as I can tell, so we’ll see. Pomeroy at Basketball Prospectus has them as better than 1:1 to win the whole thing! That’s ridiculous.)

5) (tie) BCS: ditto above.

7) MLB Playoffs: The thing that saves this from being at the bottom of the list is how difficult it is to make the playoffs in the first place, as only 8 out of 30 teams get there. That said, making the playoffs as a baseball team is like earning a lottery ticket with a 1/8 chance to win. If I were to guess, I’d say the best team usually has about a 22% chance of winning, and the worst team about 7-8% (See: Cardinals, St Louis). Those are not very disparate odds. Look at it this way: when the best team in baseball wins the World Series, and everyone is surprised, then, well, you’ve got a problem.

I’m not sure why this is exactly. I mean, you’d think 7 game series would iron out some of those problems. But the issue in baseball is that it is a game particularly dependent on luck. For instance, 60% of whether a ball put into play is a hit or not is due to luck. And whether your hits arrive when there are men on base or the bases are empty is critically important (note: most evidence suggests being “clutch” in baseball doesn’t exist—I’m skeptical that this is true, but it at least seems to be a minor effect at most). Also, home field advantage means nothing in baseball.

I kind of think that baseball should go to a 12 team playoff with the top 4 getting byes the way football does because that should solve a lot of these problems. I really just don’t think the 12th or 13th best team in baseball should be able to win the title (What where the Giants this year? 10th or 11th in football? That’s pushing what I’m comfortable with).

8) UEFA Champions League: Though there do seem to be teams like Liverpool and AC Milan that, for whatever reason, excel at the two-legged ties of Champions league competition, in a sport as low scoring as soccer, cup competitions will be inherently extremely dependent on luck. For example, one year Porto and Monaco played for the title (if that doesn’t mean anything to you, just trust me that neither of those teams were among the top 10-15 teams in Europe). And the year Liverpool won, they were terrible from a talent perspective. It sure is fun though.

9) Golf: Not quite a crapshoot, but about as close as you’ll get outside of, say, the World Series of Poker, which just proves how extraordinarily amazing Tiger Woods is. I wish I appreciated golf more, just so I could fully appreciate him.

Quickly, in order of entertainment value:

1) NCAA Tournament.
2) UEFA Champions League
3) NBA Playoffs (I love them, okay? NFL is great too, I guess. All around, I like the NBA the best, except when the Pistons or Larry Hughes are prominently involved.)
4) NFL Playoffs
5) MLB Playoffs
6) Grand Slam Tennis
7) European Soccer Leagues
8) BCS
9) Golf

So you see, the big difference between college football and basketball, and why the NCAA tournament is so much better, is because it’s so much more entertaining, not because it’s so much more fair. Also, yeah, I don’t really like golf, nor have any idea how fair NASCAR is (or why anyone would watch it).

"You're An Inanimate Fucking Object!"*

2008-04-07T13:19:00.002-06:00

Originally Posted 3/19/08:

*That's from In Bruges. The context is a dude is pissed and is bashing a phone to smithereens. His wife walks in and says, "Harry, it's an inanimate object." He wittily retorts the above. It's hilarious. Later he apoligizes by saying, "I'm sorry I called you an inanimate object."

Okay, I’m back. I know it’s been tough for you guys to get through the night without my notes to comment on, but it’s time to step off the ledge.

I was gone for two reasons primarily. 1) I had a ton of stuff to do. 2) I realized after that Oscar post that I had gotten way too in love with my opinions. Yes, I love Juno* and Into the Wild, and no, I don’t love No Country for Old Men or There Will Be Blood, but they’re all on the same level. And who cares anyway? Geez. I needed a break. And so, keeping that in mind, I’m going to do my best to talk about these things in terms of how much I like them, and you much I think you all will like them, rather than about some nebulous intrinsic goodness.

Anyway, because it’s been so long, I have an absolutely ridiculous amount of stuff to cover. So, let’s begin.

*Yeah, so my house here in Santa Fe is for sale, and some people came by to look at it today, so what did I do with that time? That’s right, saw Juno again (View Count: 3—will rise dramatically when it becomes available for purchase). In my defense, there was nothing else playing at the right time, but I think I would have seen it again over anything but Snow Angels anyway.

Ordinary People
This movie is remembered more for beating Raging Bull for Best Picture in 1980 than for its own merits, but I think that is wildly unfair.

Ordinary People tells the story of a family, primarily through the eyes of its younger son, in the aftermath of their older son’s accidental death and the other’s subsequent suicide attempt. Those events all happen before the movie’s open, and what we actually see is much smaller and more understated.

That’s what I really love about Ordinary People, how personal and understated it is. Its entire focus is the emotional lives of the three main characters—the cruel, Stepford-esque mother; the confused, well-intentioned father; and the terrified and depressed but sensitive son. My favorite relationship is the one between the son (Timothy Hutton) and his psychiatrist, which is the best treatment of the subject I’ve ever seen.

That said, I don’t think most of you will love this movie as much as I did. It’s like Ordinary People was written precisely to please me. This is exactly the kind of movie I love*: personal, emotional, realistic, uplifting, honest. It has none of the flair or scope of a Goodfellas, a Network, a Casablanca, or really any of the movies I can think of that are considered among the best ever. That is actually a bonus for me, but for everyone else, it may hold back your enjoyment. A+/A

*This actually made me start thinking about what exactly is “the kind of movie I love.” I’ve narrowed it down to essentially three categories:

1) Ordinary People type understatement. This also includes The Lives of Others (seems like scope should be bigger but ends up being extremely personal), Into the Wild (ditto) and 21 Grams. This is the smallest of the categories, I think partially because these kinds of movies tend to aim for goodness rather than greatness (see: Thirteen later).

2) Hero stories. I love the good against evil duality, and the one (or a couple) people having the fate of the world in their hands. Plus, it’s a category that lends itself nicely to symbolism and allegory. Favorites include V for Vendetta, The Matrix, Spiderman 2, Batman Begins and Terminator 2.

3) Quirky, insightful films that exist in a stylized pseudo-reality. Charlie Kaufman and Wes Anderson movies are the best examples of this, but I’d also include Juno,** Quentin Tarantino movies, maybe even Memento and American Beauty. Obviously, there’s major variability in how realistic those are, but I think they basically fit together. When I look at my favorite movies, most of the top ones come from this category, which surprises me a little, but I think what I like is that these movies toe the line well between aspiring for greatness without getting lost in their subject rather than the characters (obviously there are exceptions—I Heart Huckabees is a good example of being about its shtick instead of characters, though I like it a lot, ditto Science of Sleep—but there are less well-done films in every category.

**I think this is one of the things that people miss about Juno. It’s not nearly as out there as a Wes Anderson movie, but the same kind of elements are present. Yes Olivia Thrilby says, “Honest to blog.” Yes, Dwight Schrute calls Juno a “home-skillet.” No, no one has ever actually said either of those things. But that’s not the point. If you don’t demand realism from Juno the same way you don’t demand Luke Wilson to ever change his clothes in The Royal Tennenbaums, then those and many other problems disappear. I’m not saying it’s a flawless movie, just that I don’t think the use of ridiculous slang is one of those flaws.

Alright, we’re going to have to pick things up, as I only have so much free time (okay, I have a lot, but not THAT much).

Thirteen
Thirteen is another very understated film, painfully realistic to the point that you almost forget there’s someone standing behind the camera. I said last note in passing that I think it sometimes gets caught up in being a cautionary tale, but I don’t think that anymore. There’s no judgment, just honesty. The ending doesn’t resolve a whole lot, but it works well enough. B+

In Bruges
In Bruges is about a couple of hit men hiding out after a murder in the Belgian medieval tourist town, Bruges (pronounced Brooj, with a soft j). It is a black, black, black comedy, and though it often tries to add elements of real drama and emotion, it is the comedy that makes it worth seeing. I found many parts hilarious, and this is a movie Ross was made to see. But don’t let that dissuade the rest of—just about everyone should find it funny. The more emotional parts aren’t bad at all, but the few parts where it does fall flat come in those moments. And despite not liking most of the things that led up to the ending, I really liked the last 30-60 seconds, so that made up for it somewhat. B+

Starting Out in the Evening
This is about a forgotten writer trying to finish his last novel before he succumbs to heart problems, a pretty, young grad student trying to write a dissertation that will bring the writer’s work back to prominence, and the writer’s middle aged daughter’s relationship with a man who loves her but doesn’t want children.

There’s a lot to really like in this movie, and it actually falls into that Ordinary People category too, which seems to be popping up all over the place today. The most interesting part to me was the relationship between the daughter and her boyfriend, and he was actually the character that changed the most. The grad student gets kind of lost in the ending, but overall, I was very satisfied. The story was interesting, the acting was good, and, again, everything was understated. Definitely recommended. B+

Thank You for Smoking
Considering how much I love Juno, I was excited to see Jason Reitman’s other film (does he have others?), Thank You for Smoking. And while I liked it, I was far from blown away. It’s quirky and funny, always pluses, and the relationship between Aaron Eckhart and his son was pretty genuine, but for the most part I didn’t really find most of the relationships deep at all. Also, I have no idea what the ending means. Is the conclusion that you should do what you’re best at regardless of the moral implications? The movie also seems to often ignore those moral implications all together. All in all though, I still thought it was plenty enjoyable. B/B-

Clue
I love this movie, and this board game. Ah, get a clue like Colonel Mustard in the study with the candlestick.

Mean Girls
I also love this movie. B+

Oh, and also...
I've given this a small amount of thought, and, for now, I've decided to change my NBA allegiance from the Suns to the Hornets. I'll always love the Suns, root for them against everyone ese, and imagine the team they could have had if Robert Sarver wasn't a cheapskate*. But the Suns aren't as fun with Shaq, and Chris Paul is unbelievable. You know he throws more than one alley-oop a game just to Tyson Chandler, whcih is three times as many as anyone else does to any other player. It's incredible. He's carrying that team in a way you never see pure point guards carry their teams, not even Steven Nash in his undeserved MVP years (seriously, that was all about him being short and white, as much as I love him). Ah, the beauty of being a sports bigamist.

*PG: Nash, Rondo. Wing: Iguodala/Deng, Bell, Barbosa, Grant Hill (maybe he wouldn't have signed with them--fine, James Jones). Big: Amare, Marion, Diaw, Kurt Thomas. It almost makes me cry to think how good and exciting that team would be.

I was going to do books too (Beloved and To Kill a Mockingbird), but I’m all noted out. I didn’t cover Saving Private Ryan, but you probably all know it’s fantastic already (see it otherwise), and I’m sure I forgot something else too. I’ll fill it in when I remember. And I can’t wait to see Snow Angels. Hope this wasn’t too much for one post…

The Oscars in Review

2008-04-07T13:17:00.001-06:00

Originally Posted 2/26/08:

The Oscars
Movies released this year that I think are better than No Country for Old Men (in rough order): The Lives of Others (doesn’t count, I know), Into the Wild, Juno, There Will Be Blood, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, 3:10 to Yuma. Michael Clayton’s extremely close.

Other movies I’ll probably think are better once I see them: The Savages, Ratatouille, I’m Not There.

Others there’s a decent chance I’ll think are better: Eastern Promises, In the Valley of Ellah, Sweeney Todd, Once, American Gangster,

Other’s there’s a not insignificant chance I’ll think are better: Away from Her, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, The Darjeeling Limited, La Vie en Rose, No End in Sight, Taxi to the Dark Side…anyway, you get the point. I spent waaay too much time coming up with all that.

Ugh. I don’t know why I even bother. Everything rational in my head says I should just ignore the Oscars, and yet, I still care, for some ridiculous reason. I mean, honestly, in what parallel universe was Javier Bardem better than Tom Wilkinson or Hal Holbrook? Or even Tommy Lee Jones in the same goddamned movie? How in God’s name did Into the Wild get only a single significant nomination? Particularly egregious was Atonement’s adapted screenplay nod over Into the Wild. Atonement’s adapted screenplay was mediocre at best; Into the Wild was wonderfully written. Also, how was The Diving Bell not even nominated for foreign language film? Was their some technicality I’m missing? Ugh.

In the end, this certainly isn’t a Forrest Gump over Shawshank/Pulp Fiction or Rocky over Network*/Taxi Driver** situation because I don’t really think there was a truly great movie released this year (though a lot of people seem to think Oil! was). At least the Academy hasn’t permanently sullied their reputation any further with this one.

*I just looked up 1976 on the Oscars website, and Network won Best Original Screenplay, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, was nominated for Best Director and Best Supporting Actor, AND had TWO nominations for Best Actor, including the winner, Peter Finch for Howard Beale (I thought William Holden was better, but whatever, the Academy loves those huge performances). Has that ever even happened before or after?

What I find so remarkable about this is that the Academy, by their own logic, clearly thought Network was a better movie than Rocky. I can understand, say purely hypothetically, giving an inferior movie awards for supporting actor, director, adapted screenplay and picture. That makes sense to me. They may disagree with me, but at least their opinion’s consistent. But how can you give practically every significant award to one movie, nominate it for the other two—only one of which Rocky won (admittedly the most important one, directing)—and then not give it Best Picture? That’s just absolutely baffling to me.

**You know, I’m looking at the movies that beat Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas, and while probably at least one of Scorsese's films deserved to win, it doesn’t seem like there were any obvious years where it had to win. (For the purposes of this, I’m going to treat Network as the winner of 1976—both movies probably got jobbed by Rocky, but based on the above it seems clear the Academy preferred Network to Taxi Driver anyway). I haven’t seen most of the movies involved, but just based on general opinion, Network is at least comparable to Taxi Driver, Ordinary People is at least comparable to Raging Bull if significantly less important, and Dances with Wolves is in the same league as Goodfellas. It seems like Goodfellas is the one that really should have won, but like I said, it doesn’t seem that Scorsese got robbed nearly as much as people will lead you to believe, at least concerning Best Pictures. Maybe he did in the directing category. Anyway, I’ll see more of the movies and get back to you. I still wish one of them had one though, so we could have avoided the lifetime achievement award that was The Departed.

You know, I’m noticing that there’s something like the Derek Jeter Effect going on with me right now, where people irrationally overrate something, and the response to that overrating is to underrate it. (i.e. Derek Jeter is a Hall of Fame offensive baseball player who plays bad defense at shortstop but isn’t anywhere near what New Yorkers or baseball purists think he is, which has led a lot of more statistically inclined baseball observers to hate him irrationally and think that he sucks, which simply isn't true.) I now find myself hating No Country, even though I know that, for what it was, it was actually pretty good and wonderfully directed. That’s actually happened in regard to The Departed too (see snide remark above), even though that wasn’t actually a bad movie, just a B/B+, which shouldn’t put you in the Best Picture discussion. So, No Country lovers (if you’re out there), try to forgive me.

Maybe Later
I was gonna do Saving Private Ryan (absolutely loved it—A+) and Thirteen (thought it was surprisingly good, if a little caught between being a cautionary tale and a real movie—B+), but I don’t feel like it. Maybe later this week.

"Maybe Not Today, Maybe Not Tomorrow..."

2008-04-07T13:14:00.003-06:00

Originally Posted 2/21/08:

Alternate post title: "Play it, [me]" Or: How I learned to stop worrying and love old movies.

This is kind of a long one, and I barely even talked about two of the movies. Well, you know, get me started on sex…

Casablanca
This was the second time I saw Casablanca, and it may or may not be my favorite movie ever. It really has everything: It’s funny, it’s suspenseful, it’s exciting, it’s clever, and it’s emotionally deep, not to mention that it stars the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen (seriously, have you ever seen a woman as physically gorgeous as Ingrid Bergman? I bet she’s got the Golden Ratio all over the place). And it’s got a funny, unambitious, Jim Crow-style black dude that calls Rick “boss”! (I’ll forgive them for that, and Sam actually is a pretty strong character—it could’ve been a lot more racist considering the time.) It certainly compares favorably with my other three favorites—American Beauty, Adaptation and Pulp Fiction.

The story is, I suppose, not extremely complex, and you could argue that Rick’s transformation is somewhat predictable and cheesy, but I really don’t think so. The “Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life” speech is really affecting, and I think it would be even more so if it wasn’t platitude-icized by being so conspicuously in the American canon of film.

What is particularly great about Casablanca is that you have a very strong sense of the emotional lives of the characters while in only seeing them in a couple of challenging moments. For instance, Rick’s conversation with Lazlo that ends with “You love her that much, huh?” tells us a lot about Lazlo in very few words, without him even getting to a deep emotional place. And we have a strong sense of Ilsa just from the few moments with her in the flashback scene, even before she spills everything to Rick when she comes begging for the visas. This is a sign of very strong acting and, particularly, very strong writing.

The acting is solid, particularly from Bergman, who is far from just a pretty face and owns the room every time she’s on stage. If the nebulous “it” that Hollywood famously seeks is real, she most certainly has it. I’m less impressed by Humphrey Bogart. His performance is, I think, a little wooden and flat, but he’s of course more than passable, particularly in a role that doesn’t require him to be much more than a hard outer shell—even in his most expressive moments, it’s still the expression of a man who’s not very good at it, which is the way it should be.

So, yeah, Casablanca is awesome. It’s really one movie that everyone should see at least once. A+

Goodfellas
I watched Goodfellas almost two weeks ago, so I don’t have a lot to say about it, but it’s certainly an excellent movie. I’m still having trouble recognizing what makes a movie without a ton of emotional growth great, so it’s not an all time favorite or anything. Still, I really enjoyed it, and it’s clearly extremely well-made. The characters of Tommy (Joe Pesci) and Robert DeNiro are particularly well drawn. A/A-

Kinsey
Kinsey’s not a great movie, but it’s a pretty good one and deals with a subject in sex that is vert close to my heart*. Liam Neeson and Laura Linney are great s the main characters, and while this really is a biopic, the purpose of which is to tell you the life and effects of the great sex researcher, it has its own nice thematic choices, and the ending especially is well-done. B+/B.

*Watching how Kinsey was thwarted over and over again in his attempts to make sex a thing that could be talked about openly but also how eager people were to read his books at the same time got me thinking about the way things are today. In one sense, things are the same, only less pronounced. People still get tongue-tied in having honest conversations about sex (i.e. ones that don’t include the word “fuck” or “bitch” etc.); we’re terrified to have sex (or any other sexual/romantic activity) the first time(s) we do it; we’re embarrassed for our parents—part of the baby-boomer generation and products in some ways of the sexual liberation of the 60s—to know anything about our sex lives; in some at least at least subconscious way, we regard sex and normal sexual things as dirty or disgusting (it’s not an accident that “dick,” “asshole,” “pussy,” “cunt,” “fuck” etc. are derogatory terms); for men, masturbation is still a dirty little secret or an uncomfortable joke, and women aren't, for the most part, even that willing to talk about it; and we still all desperately want to know we’re normal sexually (Kinsey’s most basic finding) like we want to know we’re normal in all ways.

In another sense, our sexual mores are the opposite. While I think it’s a noble thing Kinsey is doing in rebelling against the prudish (and destructive) sexual opinions of his time, the same way I admire what Heinlein does in regards to that in Stranger in a Strange Land, if there’s anything we should be rebelling against today, it is the marginalization of sex. Youth culture regards sex as a conquest, and as a desire that should be sated, and, in maybe its best form, should be done at least with someone you like a little bit, but that’s not even a given. Why has learning that sex is a wonderful, normal, beautiful thing come to mean that it’s essentially no big deal? And I’m not even talking about pregnancy or STDs. I think people by now have realized that stuff actually is a big deal, we just haven’t realized how important the emotional element is too.

My orientation toward sex is that while yes it is great and a joy that should be cherished, but that doesn’t make it something to be just tossed away on a whim. There’s been nothing in my life that I have been more terrified of than sex, and that orientation boiled down to, if I got past my fear enough to do it with anyone I thought was attractive, I would do it. I never thought about what I really wanted, only what I could get. Now that that fear has diminished significantly I’ve realized that I only want a sexual relationship when it can be aligned with a profound love. I hope to have any kind of sexual interaction (from kissing on down) with only one more woman the rest of my life, and I’m happier and more satisfied with this orientation.

Now, I’m not saying that my orientation is the right orientation or anything like that. I make no claim to be able to lay down moral pronouncements (in fact, I don't consider this a moral issue at all, just one of satisfaction in life), nor do I ever try to tell someone how to live their lives (or if I do, I regret it afterward). My only intentions with saying all this are both to write down in words what’s going on in my head, if only to quiet my thoughts so I can do real work (as is really the main intention of all these notes), and also to say that I think sex is something that should, at least, be thought about more, so you really know what you’re choosing. Then, even if you stick with the way you live now, at least you’ll know that you’ve made the decision consciously rather than by some of osmosis of culture beliefs.

Basically what I'm saying is, in sex like in everything else, it is essential to an effective, satisfying life to know your beliefs and to have genuinely chosen them yourself. Otherwise you will be at the whim of what others think without even realizing it.

Whew. I'm done. Sorry about that. Hope you made it to the end. Thanks.

*Edit*: Also, I'm reading the Nicomachean Ethics now, and I think they're relevant to this conversation. What's so great about Aristotle is that he's not shaking a stick at you telling you you're a bad person if you're not virtuous and everyone should look down on you. Instead he's saying, "Look, if you want to be happy, then this is the way to do it: be virtuous." I love that about him, and I think it might be my favorite book I've read in school this year so far (I'm only a third of the way through).

I mean, I dig the transcendental stuff of Plato, but I like Aristotle's pragmatism even more (it's that Yankee pragmatism, man). Plato asks "what is virtue?" and never answers it, implying it can't be answered. Aristotle gives a simple, incomplete definition and says "why do we need a more complete definition? We know what virtue is well enough to do it." I guess, I just like his intentions a little better.

He did make one major mistake though. He says "Happiness is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue" when happiness has been demonstrably proven to be a warm gun. But other than that, he's great.

"O R They?" [Rushmore]

2008-04-07T13:13:00.001-06:00

Originally Posted 2/8/08:

Rushmore
Okay, well I finally got it. Rushmore is an extremely funny movie, and you even get some genuine emotion and good acting, particularly from Olivia Williams (Ms. Cross). Wes Anderson is unbelievably good at creating strange, stylized situations and making them absolutely hysterical while remaining understated and never being slapstick. I think my favorite exchange is this one:

Max: I understand you were in Vietnam?
Bloom: Yes, I was.
Max: Were you in the shit?
Bloom: (pause.)Yeah, I was in the shit.

It’s things like that that are so incongruous but deadpan and understated with no one really trying to make a joke. Beautiful. Anderson is extremely talented at what he does. Another incongruous thing is to watch Max and Bloom—two caricatures that can hardly be accepted as real people—interact with Ms. Cross, who is so stunningly real. It’s very funny sometimes, and very painful at others—Max pretending to get hit by the car being the best example of the latter.

I didn’t believe a lot of things in Rushmore*, but I’m not sure that’s a huge problem because it does seem Anderson’s movies exist in a sort of stylized reality all their own. The only thing that really bothered me was that I didn’t like Max much at all, but he was okay by the end, and it didn’t interfere with my enjoyment too much.

*1) I didn’t believe Max existed. I’ll give a pass on that. 2) I didn’t believe Ms. Cross would ever be interested in Bloom for more than 10 seconds. 3) I didn’t believe Margaret Yang would continue pursuing Max in the face of his incredible douchiness. 4) Obviously, I didn’t believe any of the play sets, but I totally have no problem with that part. Those plays are just out-of-this-world hilarious.

And then there’s the soundtrack, which is an absolute work of art. I don’t know that I’ve ever encountered better use of music in a film. I generally don’t downgrade a movie too much for even shitty music (see my A/A- for Into The Wild), but music this good definitely deserves a bonus.

The best part is that I no longer feel crazy for loving Royal Tennenbaums and disliking Rushmore. Fantastic. A.

Also…
Totally unrelated, but check this out—if you don’t find this funny then I think you need some serious therapy.

Also totally unrelated, but if the Democrats seat the delegates from Michigan and Florida, and that decides the nomination, that would be one of the most disgusting and indefensible things in the recent history of American politics. I'm already feeling sick at the prospect.

Say It Isn't So, Steve Kerr!

2008-04-07T13:11:00.001-06:00

I know 95% of you probably don't care, but, man, sports are just not going well for me right now. First, Liverpool absolutelly, posilutely go in the tank. Then Billy Beane trades two of his three or four best players--Nick Swisher and Dan Haren--who are also locked up cheaply long term, for many, many prospects, who, combined, will probably never be as good as those two. Then the Pats miss out on the chance for 19-0 (Damn you, David Tyree!). And now, this monstrosity of a deal.

According to the report, the Suns will trade All-Star Shawn Marion for Shaq.

Say what?!?!?

I thought Steve Kerr was supposed to be smart.

Look, I've grudgingly come to accept that one of the most exciting teams in any sport ever would never achieve greatness because they had a cheap owner that forced them to sell first-round pick after first-round pick and give away expensive players--because they were cash-strapped the Suns essentially traded the same players to Seattle for a 2nd round pick that LA just traded to Memphis for Pau freaking Gasol. But this isn't even that. Shaq is more expensive, and signed for longer than Marion. WTF?!?!?

This is like trading Ocean's Eleven for Godfather 3. Ocean's Eleven may not be an all-tiime great, but, for what it is, it's fantastic and worth every second. Godfather 3 used be one of the best ever, but has now gotten old and bloated and only interested in a paycheck. And sucks (I should probably note I've never seen Godfather 3 but I'm just assuming everything I've heard is accurate).

Shaq is still okay on offense on the very rare occasions when he's healthy, but he sucks defensively, and he's the worst possible fit for the up and down Pheonix offense. At this point, he gets winded (and tears his achilles) just from lying down and being felated.

The Suns have as good a shot as anyone at getting out of the West as currently constituted. With Shaq and without Marion, they're, in a word, fucked.

What. The. Fuck.

(I honestly have no idea who to tag. Do any of my friends care about basketball? Well, maybe the McMahons...)

"I'm Mad As Hell and I'm Not Going to Take This Anymore!!" [Network, French Connection]

2008-04-07T13:09:00.005-06:00

Originally Posted 2/5/08:

My first two Netflix movies, as suggested by Dan.

Network
Network is one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. Now, I haven’t seen too many great movies in my life (I’m working on that), but Network has to be in my top 5-10 in quality. It’s also, I think, a movie that looks better today than it probably did back in 1976 because of it’s startlingly accurate prediction of the path of television (like someone said on IMDB, UBS might as well be FOX).

Most people would probably tell you that Network is about Howard Beale, a Dan Rather-type news broadcaster who basically goes crazy on the air when he’s told he’s going to be fired and then becomes the most popular person on television. That wouldn’t be wrong, but I think it would be more accurate to say that it is about Max Schumacher, the old-school television executive, and Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway), the new-school one. Schumacher is the most interesting character, an emotionally complex man who somehow falls in love with the gorgeous but icy Christensen (the scene of him leaving his wife is particularly fantastic).

(Oh, and God, when you see this movie, please talk to me about how hilarious that scene with the Ecumenical Liberation Army arguing about overhead costs is. I can’t explain it now.)

I think there is a little too much blaming television for the loss of sensitivity of modern generations (it’s a little chicken-and-egg isn’t it?), and I’m skeptical that the 50s man was more emotionally intelligent than the late-70s man, but the point of the superficiality of modern culture, which seems to have only increased, is well-taken, as well as well-delivered. (Oh, and I think this should prove once and for all that I can still love a depressing movie—it’s just has to be fucking amazing.) A+

The French Connection
I actually really can’t say that much about The French Connection because, for some reason, I was having a really hard time focusing when I watched it. I didn’t love it, but I still thought it was good for what it was. It’s kind of a very rich man’s Departed (or I guess I should say, Departed is a poor man’s French Connection) in that it really explores cop and criminal as not really being fundamentally all that different. In 2008, that’s a tired idea (In the words of Charlie Kaufman: “ ‘[Your script explores] the notion that cop and criminal are really two aspects of the same person. See every cop movie ever made for other examples of this.’ ‘Mom said it was “psychologically taught.”’”(Did you see how many quotation marks I just put next to each other?!?)). But, in 1977 (or whenever it was) that may have been very original, so it’s hard for me to judge that part of it one way or another.

The only other thing I have to say is: that’s the freaking car chase I’ve been hearing about my whole life?!? That?! Fucking Julia Roberts movies have more exciting car chases than that nowadays. Well, at least we’ve come far in one regard. A-/B+ (with a special right reserved to change my mind if I see it again)

The Super Bowl
I don't want to talk about it.

Coming Soon...
Rushmore Part Tois (maybe this time I can make myself like it) and Goodfellas or The Savages.

Odds and Ends Vol. 1

2008-04-07T13:07:00.001-06:00

Originally Posted 2/1/08:

First of all, Netflix is the most amazing thing ever. Not only do I get two DVDs at a time an unlimited number of times (realistically 3 or 4) a month for $13 (you can also get one at a time for $8), I also get unlimited access to, like, 6,000 movies and TV shows I can watch instantly on my computer that download in about 15 seconds on my relatively weak school internet access with mediocre but passable video quality. Awesome. Anyway, on with the show…

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly revisited
In thinking about this some more, I definitely overrated it. There just isn’t enough meat to the story to justify my enormously high praise. Still really good though. A-.

Cloverfield
I’m sure I’ll be in the minority on this, but I loved Cloverfield. I mean, I know the acting isn’t good, and I know the dialogue isn’t good, and it’s hard to believe that Hud (also the most annoying character) would carry the camera around the whole time, and that Blair Witch already did this, but none of that really stood in the way of my enjoyment. See, while the characters weren’t well drawn and the acting was pretty mediocre, the way the failed was in more of an artistic sense than in a “bullshit—there’s no way that’s actually happening” sense. So the acting and dialogue never took me out of the reality of the movie, nor did having to suspend my disbelief about Hud continuing to hold the camera (that actually didn’t take much for me, but I understand it did for a lot of others). That’s what was so compelling about Cloverfield for me: I always felt like what I was watching was actually happening. It was one of the more intense movies I’ve ever seen. I understand why others didn’t/won’t like it though. B+/B.

Rain Man
Rain Man is a pretty good movie, and Dustin Hoffman is really excellent as Tom Cruise’s autistic brother, but I found the movie lacking in a lot of important ways. I didn’t think Cruise’s character was all that well drawn—it’s a pretty standard cold yuppie learns to be nice kind of story—and while it was hopeful and sweet and all that, I wasn’t really moved by any of it. So it’s a pretty good movie, but not nearly Best-Picture worthy. B.

Titanic
I watched this for the first time in years the other day on TNT, and I did so fully expecting to get an opportunity to make fun of the Academy for giving 11 freaking Oscars to a trite love story that exploits one of the most famous events of the last century. I still think it’s absolutely bizarre that they gave it that many awards, basically anointing it an all-time great in their eyes, but it is actually a pretty damn good movie, in my opinion. It really is divided into two distinct halves—a pure against-all-odds rich-girl, poor guy love story before the iceberg hits, and then basically an action movie afterwards. I should point out that each half is basically a full-length movie in itself—it took me four freaking hours to watch it on TV—but that’s only a minor complaint. The love story is obviously not original, but it’s classic and well-done, and I didn’t find any of the parts too corny (though “I’m flying” came close). And though the historical milieu can get overbearing sometimes (Rose has a bunch of paintings from “some Picasso guy” really? This is the only way, James Cameron, you could think of to show that Rose had good taste in art?), but mostly it adds to the story rather than takes away from it. And then the action movie part is compelling, exciting, frustrating (in a good way), and emotionally affecting. That said, it does have two big flaws. The biggest is that there’s absolutely no way a “great” movie should have an important character so painfully banal, trite and flat as Rose’s fiancé, Cal. Secondly, I have no fucking clue why James Cameron thought it was necessary to have the story be told as a flashback on a ship searching for Rose’s diamond. It serves NO PURPOSE. There are a couple of moments in it that are okay, I guess, but nothing that comes close to being worth the extra half an hour it takes. Having her climb the ship and do the “I’m flying” thing again and drop the diamond into the ocean was an okay ending, but having Rose tell the guy on the dock her name was “Rose Dawson” and sort of figuratively walk off into the sunset would have been better and saved SOO much time. Anyway, it’s still a good movie. B+.

Lost Season Premiere
Awesome. Almost as good as last season's finale. A.

Coming soon…
At least 2 out of 3 of The Savages, Network and The French Connection, plus a review of the Pats victory celebration. .

The Diving Bell and Before the Devil

2008-04-07T13:04:00.001-06:00

Originally Posted 1/26/07:

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
So, I miraculously found this tiny theatre in an art museum that charges $15 for a ticket and gives you little pink “Admit One” carnival style tickets that was playing Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead at one showing in its single theatre.* I won’t say too much about the plot except that it’s about two brothers who decide to rob their own parents’ jewelry store and, as you can imagine, things kind of go a teensy bit wrong.

*Santa Fe Sidenote: Not only was this practically in the middle of nowhere but normally-sized theatre nearly full at 2:00 for a movie that was playing at a nearby, much more consumer-friendly theatre for about two months, but the bigger theatre, where I saw the Diving Bell, a shall-we-say not enormously commercially successful film, sold out the 4:20 show, and, arriving 10 minutes before the 7:40 started, I was stuck with Bowfinger-esque seats that caused me to have significant neck pain. And then, after the movie was over, not a single person in the completely full theatre got up until the entire credits (in French I might add) were over. You’ve got to love Santa Fe.

Anyway, as I was saying, Before the Devil is really good, but I still liked Juno better. Like Chill, I didn’t enjoy the cutting from perspective to perspective, but that’s a very minor complaint. The acting is great, I’d say particularly by Philip Seymour Hoffman, and it’s a very well-told story. But seriously, what a fucked up movie. That’s not a criticism, but Jesus. Like There Will Be Blood though, its hopelessness really did keep me from truly loving it. It’s a little better than Oil!, I think, because you understand the characters on a deeper level, but I can’t say that I saw a huge gap between them in quality, and they’re very comparable movies.**

**Dan Sidebar: What about Before the Devil had you think it was on such another level from Oil!? I never really got a full explanation of why you loved the former, or what you didn’t like about the latter. I’m genuinely interested.

In the end, I guess the thing that drags Before the Devil Knows down for me most of all is its despair. In trying to grade these movies on “objective” quality, that’s probably not fair, but that’s not really the only thing I’m trying to do. My reviews always mix an opinion on “objective” quality combined with a simple opinion of how much I liked it, and while everything in Before the Devil was extremely well-done, I didn’t love it. And it’s not that I’m asking for the perfect storybook ending of a movie like Juno. I just want hope, growth, to be shown that life is worth living, not a series of upsets and tragedies that only build on themselves and can never be stopped. Is that so much to ask? A-

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Now there’s your best picture. I came into this movie not knowing anything about it at all, not even that it was in French. I would highly recommend entering it with the same state of knowledge if you can just trust me that it is really really great, and will definitely be worth it. If so, stop reading here and move onto the next bold heading.

Otherwise, I’ll get into a little more depth about it, if you’re into that kind of thing. The movie is the true story of a man, the former editor of Elle magazine, who has a massive stroke and becomes completely paralyzed except for his left eye. His mind still works perfectly, however, and he sustains his will to live through his imagination. As he gradually decides to stop pitying himself, he decides to write a book, being able to communicate only by blinking his eye.

To articulate and keep interesting a story in which very few events actually happen, Julian Schnabel has to get very creative with the directorial style, and it works brilliantly. It’s not really like Adaptation or Eternal Sunshine at all, but somehow it reminded me of that Charlie Kaufman/Michael Gondry*** way of working things, of adapting a style to fit your story. I’m conflicted now between Schnabel and the Cohens for Best Director. Schnabel is doing something much more original and creative, and not just for show either, but the Cohens perfectly executed their vision in a clear, understated way. I’m still leaning to the Cohens, but I couldn’t argue against either choice.

***Michael Gondry aside: Be Kind, Please Rewind with Mos Def and Jack Black looks superb. I cannot wait.

Also, The Diving Bell did a wonderful job of toeing that line between despair and hope, between success and failure that all great movies should do. Plus, as a major bonus to me, they played a perfect Joe Strummer song over the credits. Isn’t that such a wonderful feeling, when you love something a little bit obscure, and then someone who you would never expect to like it or even know of it, out of the blue shows you in such a great way? Anyway, the movie was fantastic. Go see it immediately. A+/A

Top Ten Movies of the Year^
1. The Lives of Others^^. A+/A
2. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. A+/A
3. Juno. A
4. Into the Wild. A/A-
5. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. A-
6. 3:10 to Yuma. A-/B+
7. No Country for Old Men. A-/B+
8. There Will Be Blood. A-/B+
9. Borat: Cultural Learnings for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. B+
10. Atonement. B
(11.) Michael Clayton. B
(12.) I Am Legend. B

^^Lives of Others Tangent: It probably shouldn’t be on the list because it was up for the Oscars last year, but the American release was 2007, and I seek any excuse to proclaim how great it is.

^^Lives of Others Tangent #2: To Sauce: Please kindly return my copy of this superb movie. My mailing address is on my profile page. (Did Julie give you Superbad?)

I imagine The Savages and I’m Not There will crack this list once I see them, but I think only Ratatouille, Eastern Promises and Darjeeling have a shot of the others I haven’t seen, so this is a pretty good list for now.

^Dan Sidebar #2: I saw you call this a relatively weak year. Did you mean a weak year for the nominees, or all together, including the films that were overlooked? Because when I look at this list, I see 2/3 great movies, 2/3 almost great movies, 4 very good movies, and then a few more well above average ones. That doesn’t look weak to me at all.

My Personal Oscars 2007

2008-04-07T12:58:00.000-06:00

Well, Oscar nominations are out, and for the first time ever, I've seen all five movies up for Best Picture, so I'm excited. Though I disagree with a few nominations, I'm going to accept them for now, except to say this: I really liked Michael Clayton, but I really don't see any way that it was a better movie than Into the Wild, or (I imagine because I haven't seen it) Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. Atonement, I thought, was also not as good, but I'll let it slide because so many people think it was great.

Actor: Nominees are George Clooney, Daniel Day-Lewis, Johnny Depp, Tommy Lee Jones (In the Valley of Ellah) and Viggo Mortensen (Easter Promises). I've only seen Lewis and Clooney, but unless one of those other performances was out of this world (and Depp's might be I suppose), it has to be Day-Lewis.

Actress: Can't comment, as I've only seen Juno. Ellen Page was great, but I don't think Oscar-worthy. At least Keira Knightley didn't get nominated.

Supporting Actor: Nominees are Casey Affleck (Assasination of Jesse James), Phillip Seymour Hoffman (Charlie Wilson's), Javier Bardem (No Country--Anton Suger), Hal Holbrook (Into the Wild--Ron Franz), and Tom Wilkinson (Michael Clayton). Bardem is probably going to win it, but I can't for the life of me understand what he did to deserve it. It's not that his performance was bad--it was more than competent. But how exactly is it hard to look calm, slightly deranged, and chillily pissed off for two hours?

I haven't seen The Assasination or Charlie Wilson's, but for me this is between Holbrook and Wilkinson, who were both phenomenal. Holbrook plays a sort of crotchety old war veteran who Wild's main character runs into along the way, and he captures beautifully the struggle of a man who has been alone and emotionally distant since his wife and son died in a car accident trying to open up in the presence of the son-figure that is Chris McCandless. Wilkinson is just about equally great as a manic-depressive but brilliant lawyer who finally turns on the big corporate interest he's been defending for years in an enormous class-action lawsuit. His opening monologue is particularly great. If pressed, I'll give a slight nod to Holbrook.

Supporting Actress: Again, can't really comment, but I bet Cate Blanchett wins a surprise victory for her protrayal of Bob Dylan, which seems to have a lot of the appropriate buzz. The Academy loves people stepping outside the box in an acting role like that--in the words of Kit Ramsey: "Did I ever get a nomination? No! You know why? Cause I hadn't played any of them slave roles, and get my ass whipped. That's how you get the nomination. A black dude who plays a slave that gets his ass whipped gets the nomination, a white guy who plays an idiot gets the Oscar. That's what I need, I need to play a retarded slave, then I'll get the Oscar."

Director: Nominees are the four Best Picture nominees minus Atonement and plus The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Unless the Diving Bell is absolutely amazing, I don't see any way that you can give this to anyone but the The Cohen Brothers for No Country, who gave the best performance, I think, of anyone in any of the major categories.

I'll skip the screenplays except to say Atonement was okay at best and Juno was great, but again, it had enough flaws that it would be kind of a weak winner (though I wouldn't be surprised if it did win, as it's really the only category, except actress, I suppose, that it has a real shot in).

Best Picture: In order:

5. Michael Clayton. I really enjoyed this movie, and everything about it is good, but except for Wilkinson, nothing is great, and it's also kind of a story that's been done many times before though maybe never so well. B.

4. Atonement. You probably know that I didn't think much of Atonement as an adaptation of a spectacular book, but it was competent enough to still be a good movie. When evaluating the movie as a whole, you can't try to remove the contributions of the book from the equation, and if you don't do that, it was solid. B.

3. There Will Be Blood. It didn't reach my unrealistically high expecations, but the more I've thought about it, the more I think it was a better than good film. Everything was good--even the ending, which I didn't personally like because of its extraordinary pessimism about money and the American Dream--and there were moments that were spectacular, like the scene with the oil derrick on fire. A lot of the points it loses are because it's so uninspiring, not because of faults in execution. That said, I thought the Johnny Greenwood (of Radiohead) score totally sucked. But that's just me. B+.

2. No Country for Old Men. I originally gave it a B+, and while I still think the characters were, while interesting, almost totally undeveloped, and the plot is average, the execution of it as a film was just so flawless that it deserves an A-. No Country will probably win, and I have no beef with that. A-.

1a (tie). Spiderman 3 and The Golden Compass. You would think it would be a bad idea to have three entirely separate villians in an hour and a half movie, or to have two of the most unlikely events in the history of mankind happen basically silmultaneously, or to totally chop up the plot of one of the world's most beloved stories, but you would be wrong. A++.

1. Juno. I've already talked about it a lot, and while it has its own flaws--the biggest one I think is how easy it makes giving up a child seem--it's so engrossing, bright, enjoyable, funny, deep and inspiring that it more than makes up for it. Juno has virtually no chance to bring home the shiny gold man, but it would be a worthy winner. A.

"I Can't See What Anyone Sees In Anyone Else" [Christmas Movies]

2008-04-07T12:55:00.003-06:00

Originally Posted 1/4/08:

Dan: I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the quality of even major studio releases recently. I’m not sure that in like five years or so I’ll look back at any of these movies and think of them as great, but at least four of them have a chance I think, which is pretty solid. I’ve graded them relative to each other, not all films. Anyways…

Sam: Okay, so this is a collection of reviews of the movies we’ve seen recently, with a review from each of Dan and me where applicable. I should note that I had the ability to respond to Dan’s because I got to see his reviews before I wrote mine. As you’ll see, we pretty much agree on almost everything though I have no idea what Dan means by he’s grading them relative to each other rather than all films, but I’m certainly not doing that. Anyways…

I’m Not There

Dan’s Take: Directed by fellow (former) Brunonian Todd Haynes, this movie is highly experimental and highly awesome. I’ve seen it thrice, and it has been better each time. I could write pages and pages on it, but I’ll spare everyone since I doubt most of you will see it. The acting is great, but the story is really where its at, and the screenplay is a brilliant blend of fact and fiction, at times purposely confusing the two. Unfortunately for most, there is so much Dylan knowledge that is essential for a full appreciation of the movie that it will fly over many people’s heads. Fortunately for me and other Dylan-obsessed moviegoers, there is so much Dylan knowledge that is essential for a full appreciation of the film that it will be gratefully received like a Christmas (or Hanukah) gift. If you are familiar with, at the very least, Bob’s wiki entry, love his music, and are willing to go with the flow of six simultaneously developing plotlines, you are going to love this movie. Otherwise, its gonna be a long two hours. Also the soundtrack is great, check it out on itunes. B+

Sam’s Take : Didn’t see it.

Atonement

Dan’s Take: Well above-average acting and an excellent ending saved this film from the mediocrity it seemed destined for during some slow parts, but on the whole its still not really that good a movie. Worth seeing once and that’s it. That said, there were some real highlights. As I mentioned, the acting is pretty solid and the ending, although obviously owing credit in originality to Mr. McEwan, is brilliantly executed. I was floored by it. The real problem with the movie, and also with my positive analysis, is that apparently its pretty loosely based on the novel, which is also apparently much better. So if you’ve read the book, don’t expect too much. C+

Sam’s Take: Atonement is probably the best book I’ve read that was published in the 90s, so the movie was always going to have trouble living up to it. Moreover, the book incorporates a lot of Virginia Woolf-style detail and psychology which is virtually impossible to translate to film. That said, the first part is actually the most Virginia Woolf-y and yet it was the part that translated the best, which was surprising. The thing that was really missing in the movie actually was the suspense not the detail. One of the things that is so incredible about the book is that, unlike others of its sort of type (it’s hard to classify exactly), is that it’s not a slog to get through. You actually find yourself eager to turn the page, while the movie is very boring at parts. Also, I’m surprised to see Dan praise the acting because I thought it was in general pretty weak, particularly from Keira Knightley. Now, because I’m a writer at heart, my judgments about films are normally about the screenplay, and unless an acting performance is particularly poor or incredible (Forest Whitaker as Amin would be a good example of the latter), I barely notice acting. But I thought Knightley consistently rushed her scenes and didn’t allow the emotions to really build, and that also really held back the movie. I thought James MacAvoy was also slightly below average. Furthermore, the ending works much better in writing than it does on film.

Having said all of that though, I would encourage everyone to see Atonement who doesn’t think they have the discipline or motivation to read the book (which, trust me, is worth it). I think it’s also important to note that Dan’s reaction as we came out of the theatre (before I mentioned the problems in adaptation) was much more positive, so I think it’s fair to say that Dan’s somewhat critical review is an attempt at an evaluation of the movie independent of the material the book provided, rather than all its elements. I think the general consensus of people who haven’t read the book is that it’s really good, but I strongly advise reading it instead. C+ for the adaptation, B all together

Golden Compass

Dan’s Take: This movie is shitty. Don’t see it. F

Sam’s Take: This movie is SOOOO much shittier if you have read the book. The screenwriting particularly is absolutely atrocious. The thing I’m afraid of is that people will see this movie and assume the book isn’t worth it, but The Amber Spyglass especially is another one of the best books of the 90s. The only positive to take out of this is that Sam Elliot (the cowboy guy in The Big Lebowski) is FANTASTIC, and all the principle actors are at least average, so there is some hope for the rest of the series. F

No Country for Old Men

Dan’s Take:I really enjoyed this film a lot, and I’ve needed to constantly put it in perspective when talking about it so as to avoid wildly overrating it, but that being said it is seriously a really good movie. Nice to see a high quality Coen Brothers movie after those pieces of shit the Ladykillers and Intolerable Cruelty, although I’m not sure they’ll ever match that string of movies from the 90s (Fargo, Big Lebowski, O Brother) and Raising Arizona, but then again even with just those four films they’d be deserving of high accolades. The acting is remarkable; not only was there no bad performance, but I can’t really think of any mediocre ones either, everyone was great. The desert was incorporated really well into shots, reminiscent of the bleak panoramas from Fargo. There are some really great shots, not only these wide desert panoramas, but also close profiles, etc. I loved the shot of Anton’s boot after he kills a person I won’t name for the sake of those who haven’t seen it yet. The camera stays tight and motionless on the boot and as Anton speaks on the phone blood slowly seeps along the floor. The shots aren’t the only good part of the cinema, the cuts are great too. Your everyday Hollywood action flick director would jump at the chance to show Anton brutally murdering the driver of the chicken truck, but the Coen’s smartly have him deliver a witty line about taking the chickens out of the bed and then cut to him washing feathers off the truck. The implication is much stronger than the image could be. Most people’s problem is going to be with the storyline, but I enjoyed it thoroughly, and was not disappointed at all with the ending. Not an outright Coen comedy, it still shows they have a great sense of humor, with some truly hilarious one-liners sprinkled throughout the dialogue. The characters aren’t all necessarily well-developed, but they are definitely interesting and make you think. And although abrupt is an understatement for the ending, when I look back on it, its highly appropriate. Prolonging the plot after that point would be pretty stupid and would force you to see things that are better left to speculation and debate. What I would have liked to see, however, were the themes brought up in the Sheriff’s final speech more clearly expressed during the rest of the film. I think that this is what most people find disappointing about the film, whether or not they realize it. For example, a major conflict for the Sheriff is his dislike of federal agencies and a desire to solve the crime on his own. But besides two or three brief mentions of federal agents going out to the crime scene and him not wanting to join them, this isn’t really explored at all. Overall this film is pretty close to classic Coen Brothers film fun, and if you enjoyed Fargo you’ll find this a poor man’s version. B+

Sam’s Take: I honestly think the best part of this movie was the cinematography, which as Dan pointed out too is superb. Dan covered most of the important points, but I’ve got a few other things to add. I’ve talked about this a lot with my brother, and I think NCFOM is a prime example of what “good” Hollywood movies have become, that is well-shot, clever, black and heartless. Dan says the acting was excellent, and I really can’t argue with that, except that it’s not exactly challenging to keep your face blank for two hours. Now, obviously that’s an exaggeration (and the main character’s wife actually had a pretty meaty, if abbreviated, role as does Tommy Lee Jones), but there’s not very much emotion or depth in this film, which is what keeps it from being great in my book. For what it was trying to do though, it passed with flying colors.

And I thought the ending was pretty fitting, and of the three best scenes in the movie (Anton with the store clerk, Anton with Llewelyn’s wife and Jones with the older character with an undefined relationship) two of them came at the end. I still don’t know what the hell Tommy Lee Jones’ dream means though. B+

I am Legend

Dan’s Take: I’m not sure if I was more surprised by this or Juno. Juno is the better film by a little bit, but I also expected a little more of it. I went into I am Legend hoping that it would do a good job with the Hollywood action that was clearly going to be involved while staying true to some of the psychological questions brought up in the 1962 novel. I was pretty sure though, that it would just be another Independence Day—lots of fun, not too much substance. I am Legend was a complete success though, living up to my hopes. The action sequences are pretty solid, and the shots of an abandoned New York City are absolutely incredible. Even more impressive, I thought, was the acting of Will Smith. He convinced me that he really was the last man on earth, and his relationship with his dog Sam was really aided by his strong performance. For a blockbuster type film there were a surprising amount of truly emotional sequences, although the initial greatness of the ending is somewhat diminished by that stupid voice over at the very end. Of course its then saved by “Redemption Song”. Whether or not you like Bob Marley, the way his ethos and music are incorporated into the film is a strong point. And as Sam pointed out afterwards, the complete lack of music throughout most of the film was highly appropriate. My favorite part of the movie were the couple of flashbacks, which I thought were really tastefully done. Particularly the last one, which cuts right before you see the helicopters collide, is brilliant. Most importantly, the film really did attempt to deal with the psychological aspects of being the last man on earth, and not just the high octane killing zombies shit. Reminded me a bit of Cast Away in this sense. B

Sam’s Take: I *really* enjoyed this movie, particularly because they didn’t go overboard with the zombie attack stuff. 60-70% of the movie is just Will Smith and his dog in an abandoned New York City, and the writer’s and director’s willingness to back off and let Smith do his thing is really ballsy and effective. It’s so understated, not a typical blockbuster, and that’s why it’s so successful. Plot holes and stupid voice over be damned, really well done. “So won’t you help to sing, these songs of freedom? ‘Cause all I ever had, redemption songs.” B

Juno

Dan’s Take:I think that I’m Not There and No Country for Old Men were both better made films, but this is hands down the best movie I’ve seen in a while. Strong performances from all, and great performances from Ellen Page, Michael Cera, and Jason Bateman. I was especially pleased with Cera’s performance. All the potential of Superbad (which as I’m pretty sure all of you know I think sucked balls) was realized in this film, with Cera being allowed to play a character who is naturally funny, not having to force funny. Not really too much to the story, it’s a simple affair, but if it doesn’t make you feel really good then you have no soul. I basically felt like this took Napoleon Dynamite (which I thought was quite good in its own right) to the next level, and also incorporated a lot of the stuff I was hoping for in Superbad and didn’t get. The whole funny slang thing was straight out of Napoleon’s book and the chapters were reminiscent of Rushmore, but it was still a very original film. In fact, they should’ve just not worried about being so original and taken “We’re Going to be Friends” from Napoleon Dynamite as well because that would have been a perfect song for the movie, although it certainly wasn’t lacking in perfect songs. I’d say about six of the songs in the movie were literally perfect for it. Just like any good Wes Anderson film, I shudder to think what this movie would be without the music. Everyone needs to see this movie. A

Sam’s Take:I *love* this movie. Love, love, love it. I expected to really like it but thought it would be heavier on the hilariousness with a dash of sweetness rather than the opposite. I wouldn’t say the plot is especially simple, but like Dan said, it’s not extremely complex either though that only contributes to its beauty. Cera is still playing George Michael from Arrested Development but the character has more depth than it’s ever had before, and Juno is really fleshed out by the script and Ellen Page delivers a superb accompanying performance. You come in expecting many of the characters to be flat caricatures, but, in the end, none of them are, except for maybe Juno’s best friend who’s not that important anyway. The relationship between Jason Bateman and Page is especially excellent, with the awkward sexual tension and confusion. The movie is funny but in the way real life is funny around interesting people, rather than the way American Pie or Knocked Up is funny. You leave Juno glad to be alive, and nothing makes me love a piece of art more than inspiring me like that. Oh yeah, and the soundtrack is *perfect*. A

Into the Wild

Dan’s Take:Haven’t read the book, so like Atonement I don’t think I have the full picture. This was clearly the better film though. The acting was phenomenal, one of the best supporting casts I’ve seen in recent history. I thought Catherine Keener and Vince Vaughn were particularly noteworthy. The story was really what got the movie going though, and it was executed really well. I enjoyed the dual voice over that changed perspective, and despite occasional periods of no dialogue, I never lost interest. Motivation for conflict was a little tricky in this one though. I thought that there was suitable motivation for the events, but my mom was less convinced. I think there’s a huge difference in how parents and children will view this movie, which doesn’t necessarily take away from it, but it is the mark of a great movie to reach wide audiences effectively. The only thing I didn’t really like about the film was the music, which had the potential to be great as these existential sort of affairs tend to support (think American Beauty, I <3 Huckabees, etc.). I thought the original stuff by Eddie Vedder really really sucked, and the occasional unoriginal songs didn’t work so well either. Going Up The Country was just about as good a fit you could get for this type of movie, but somehow they managed to make it not work. Being that this was my only major complaint, however, I can’t really say too much bad against the movie. I was a little disappointed that it didn’t achieve greatness, but in light of my high expectations it still performed very well. The ending is not only stellar, but is shot brilliantly. B

Sam’s Take: This is the first movie that I have a significant disagreement with Dan about (we’ve actually had all the same grades so far). You can see my earlier note I wrote when this movie first came out (it's called "Rather than fame...than fairness...give me truth"). But if you are too lazy for that(I guess you should read both anyway): I think Into the Wild might be the best of the whole bunch, with only Juno to compete with. The opening credits are ridiculously cheesy, and I agree the Eddie Vedder stuff is crappy, but other than minor directorial stuff like that, I thought everything else was just about spot on. I disagree that the motivation wasn’t sufficiently explored. Obviously the circumstances Chris/Alex experienced wouldn’t cause the average kid to do something crazy like that, but he was clearly not normal, and it was obvious that his parents’ treatment of him and his sister combined with the revelation about his father’s hidden first marriage were plenty of motivation for a kid like that. I’m not saying it was justified, nor do I think the movie had that orientation, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t motivated. What the movie was so good at exploring was the two sides of Chris/Alex: his drive for freedom combined with his rebellious selfishness that hurt everyone he cared about. This was also one of those rare movies were I really noticed the acting in a positive way. Every performance was at least above average and I thought Hal Holbrook (Mr. Franz) easily deserved an Oscar. And God that ending! I can’t believe something so deeply poetic really happened.

The structure of the script, including the voiceovers, worked really well though I imagine much of that was borrowed from the book. In the end, the only thing that separates it from Juno is that while that movie got all the little things perfect, Into the Wild made a number of small errors that took a little bit away. A/A-

"Glocks Still Spittin', The Whole Block Politickin' Like Presidents" [A Political Aside]

2008-04-07T12:49:00.002-06:00

Originally Posted 1/4/08:

Sam Baron already did this, but maybe I'll reach a different audience, so who y'all voting for/would be voting for if you were older?

I'm voting for Obama, who I do dig but admittedly don't know that much about beyond what comes out of the highly biased mouth of my brother. But, like I said, I wish I could vote for Ron Paul because I'm a Libertarian at heart, but I just can't make myself do it.

Also, I wanted a little more space to talk about my political beliefs (which I'm not too clear on myself), particularly in answer to Dan's question on the other other Sam's note.

"Dan Davidson (Brown) wrote

sam, if you were a libertarian at heart wouldn't you believe that concealed weapons would have a statistically insignificant impact on gun violence because when you let people do whatever they want things are chill?"

First, I won't pretend to know a lot about the justification for things like concealed weapons, but I imagine that (beyond the 2nd Amendment) it's something along the lines of allowing people to defend themselves. Which is, if not entirely stupid, at least totally unreasonable--you want to talk about statistically insignificant, imagine the number of times that you need to have a weapon concealed in order to protect yourself vs. the number of times it would allow people (particularly in already dangerous urban areas) to murder people more easily.

See, I'm all for freedom, and, particularly, rewarding the people who have earned their reward, but when it's reasonable to assume that by allowing a particular freedom, it will lead to violence and death and virtually no actual benefit, it ends up leading to less net freedom (i.e. it's hard to do what you want when you've been shot). As Ayn Rand says, "morality ends where a gun begins."

I'm a little confused about my political beliefs in general, especially because I don't actually believe that when people do whatever they want within reasonable boundaries, things are generally more helpful. I think most people make things worse in that situation. What it does allow is for the truly great peopleto rise to the top, which has them earn what they deserve and is better for the country as a whole. The problem, however, is that modern Libertarians don't make much distinction between the rich who are the great producers of the world and the rich who have bullshitted their way there by playing the political game, inheriting it, et cetera.

Libertarians aren't actually interested in having the best people run the country, they're interested in having the rich (whether they are truly productive or parasitic) stay rich and the poor stay poor. It does nothing to try to get us to a place a of equality of opportunity, which is the only way we could have a truly Randian moral country. The point of Libertarianism should be true justice in the Orestian or Karmic sense--that is, you get exactly what you deserve without a handout or an unfair penalty--but that's not what happens. So, in conclusion, I badly want to be a Libertarian, but I just can't in good conscience.

Which sucks.

And fuck corn farmers. At least Ron Paul wouldn't give them shit.

"We Go Through Episodes Too Like Attack of the Clones" [Quality by Kweli]

2008-04-07T12:46:00.001-06:00

Originally Posted 12/3/07:

First, let me say that Talib's third album should definitely be called Kwelity instead of Quality, but I'll forgive him for that. I mean isn't that obvious?

Second, and this isn't particularly relevant because this album's political track "The Proud" is actually pretty good, but it seems to me that for most people, conscious hip-hop = political hip-hop, and that really bothers me. Somehow it seems that by being conscious of the name of our president and saying he's bad, while also saying that the police are out to get all black people, makes you a "conscious rapper." That seems like such a low threshold, and I particularly resent it considering that political songs are among the easiest to write because you don't really have to say anything new for it to be considered intelligent.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, let's actually get to Quality. It is, fundamentally, an album of contradictions. Is Kweli the spokesman of conscious, compassionate somewhat underground hip-hop ("The Proud," "Won't You Stay," "Where Do We Go," "Talk To You")? Or is he simply one of the most talented bullshit thug rappers ("Rush," "Shock Body," "Waitin' for the DJ," "Guerilla Monsoon Rap," "Gun Music," "Put it in the Air")? Or is he the perfect meeting of both worlds ("Get By" and to a lesser extent, "Joy," "Stand To The Side" and "Good to You" )?

It's clear that Kweli decided he wanted to be more commercially successful, and all of the beats are much more commercial than the Hi-Tek beats I've gotten used to. Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing, but when the subject matter of his raps drops to a more commercial level as well, rather than demanding his audience rise to his level, then we have a problem. Songs like "Waitin' for the DJ" and "Put it in the Air" have no place on an album by the Talib Greene I've come to love. It's not that they're bad songs (well, "Put it in the Air" isn't at least), but that they're mindless club/party songs that contradict the other things he says, especially on the album's (and probably his career's) shining moment, "Get By." What he does prove on the songs like these (especially "Rush," "Shock Body," "Put it..." and "Guerilla Monsoon Rap") is that when he tries to make club music, he's awesome at that too, and I honestly don't understand why "Get By" was the only successful song from this album. All complaints aside, Kweli is still an incredibly skilled MC, and he has an excellent stable of producers working with him, and that shows through on Quality.

Songs

Keynote Speaker NA/10: Dave Chapelle, Kweli's close friend, doing an hilarious fake introduction of the album's "keynote speaker," Kweli. Including gems like "Three time Nobel Peace Prize winner, the first black man to pilot an aircraft, the n***** that made up the Nike swoosh, the man who made Kool Aid say 'Oh, Yeah,' Brooklyn's own, Taliiiib Kweeeeeli."

Rush 7.5/10: Sets the tone for the first half of the album with a somewhat vapid but tight rap over a good beat.

Get By 10/10: This is literally my favorite song ever, certainly my favorite hip-hop song. With excellent, insightful lyrics and some of the best flow of Kweli's career over one of Kanye's two or three best beats ever, this is a truly special song, and if you couldn't buy it off iTunes by itself, I would say it would be worth buying this whole album just for this one song.

Sidenote: The live version of this on "Chapelle's Show," which I saw last night, was pretty crappy. It was performed on the same pier in front of the NY skyline that I saw Kanye and Mos perform "Two Words," which was also crappy. It's obvious to me that this venue, which has terrible acoustics and from the expressions on the artists' faces is very cold, is horrific for recording music, and I kind of feel cheated that the performances of artists I like so much get ruined by the venue. The only good performances I've seen have been indoors (most notably Mos' "Close Edge"[which I also saw last night, man that's good] in a car and Common's "The Food" in a kitchen). That's all I've got to say about that.

Shock Body 8/10: Similar in a lot of ways to "Rush" though I like both the beat and lyrics a little better.

Gun Music 7/10: Did you ever think you'd hear Talib Kweli rap about guns without disdain? It's very jarring. Other than that though, this is a very good song for what it's trying to be--danceable beat, good flow--so I can't give it too low a rating. I kind of suspect that this song is actually ironic, as he almost explicitly contradicts what he says about guns giving you power on "Good to You," but I'm far from sure.

Waitin' for the DJ 5.5/10: The worst song on the album, and also, somehow, the first single. Now that was a mistake. The flow is actually kind of good, but the chorus is extremely shitty.

Joy 8.5/10: I'm probably overrating this song because I have a weird obsession with the Mos Def chorus, but I really like it. The flow isn't anything special nor are the lyrics, but they're very sweet ones about the birth of Kweli's two children.

Talk to You (Lil' Darlin') 6.5/10: This song reminds me a lot of Kanye's "Slow Jamz" except if it wasn't totally shitty. It actually has pretty sweet honest lyrics, so I give it somewhat of a pass for the boring beat and annoying chorus.

Guerilla Monsoon Rap 8/10: Not Kanye's finest hour as a producer, and the lyrics are thug crap, but I still think this is the best club song on the album (unless you count "Get By" I guess). I love Black Thought's (of The Roots) flow, and I dig the chorus.

Put it in the Air 7.5/10: This is one of the most confusing songs lyrically (on "Get By": "We get high on all types drug / when all you need is love;" on the chorus of this song: "If you got a spliff then put it in the air"), and DJ Quik (also the song's producer) is extremely callous and mean-spirited on his verse ("What do you think I'm here for, not to love you, a ho"). Having said that, the beat's still really good, DJ Quik has a great rap voice, and the general sound of the song is excellent.

The Proud 8/10: Like I implied earlier, I'm not a big fan of political music, and political hip-hop especially, but this song is actually pretty good. Kweli lets his parnoia shine through again (remember "medicine is big business so my remedies is herbal"?) on the second verse, with lines like "I think the pigs killed Big and Pac too / If they didn't, they know who did; they got too." Well, I guess that's actually not that paranoid, I mean they do have to know who killed them don't they? But he does have a "the government and especially the police is out to get all black people" complex, which comes through on this song. I suppose it might be justified, but it doesn't seem very productive to me. Still, the verses on Timothy McVeigh on 9/11 are actually pretty moving.

Where Do We Go 8/10: Well, I'm generally pretty lenient about rhyming the same word with itself once, but this song does it in it's freaking chorus ("Where do we go for inspiration? / It's like pain is our only inspiration.") That's pretty inexcusable, but the rest of the song is very good.

Stand to the Side 8/10: This is a low 8.5/high 8 song. The production is really good, I like the rap and I like Vinia Monica's (remember her from "The Blast"?) verse too. On the other hand, it does drag at points, which is it's major negative.

Good to You 8/10: Another Kanye beat, and another good one. This rap isn't especially compassionate, but it would be right at home on Train of Thought, and that's all I really ask.

Won't You Stay 8/10: A sweet song about relationships. A nice way to the end the album.

Overall 8/10: It's not a classic like Reflection Eternal/Train of Thought, and it's not an almost classic like Black star, but it's still a very good, if very confused, album.

"Please Respond When I Call Your Name...Lauryn Hill? Lauryn Hill?" [The Miseducation]

2008-04-07T12:43:00.002-06:00

Originally Posted 11/17/07:

So, I’m sitting here in my house in Santa Fe, with a combination The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, Degrassi: The Next Generation and Space Jam playing in the background, thinking about all (or most) of you together in Jersey. I’m happy to be here, and I’m excited to see my family on Monday, but I miss you too. I am so satisfied at school, but part of that satisfaction comes from knowing I always have you to talk to. I hope and expect that you will always be a major part of my life, and that makes me happy. Also, on a side note, I hung out with a few people for a long time last night who I really really like. I think I may actually have some friends at school! Shocking isn’t it? Anyway, I have mucho tiempo this weekend, and some music reviewing to catch up on, so let’s begin.

The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is generally considered to be among the very best hip-hop albums of the 90s (for instance, it was nominated for ten Grammys, taking home five including Best Album). I have to, respectfully, disagree. There’s nothing bad about Miseducation, in fact, it has some extremely high moments, but it falls short of true greatness (the 9/10 range).

Have you ever heard of the problem of firsts and lasts? It refers to the tendency of artists to put all their good music at the beginning and the end of a CD, and include the weaker stuff/filler in the middle. Miseducation instead suffers from firsts and 11ths and 13ths. The first four tracks are killer, and then most of the rest is fine and sometimes good but nothing special except for “Every Ghetto, Every City,” and “Everything is Everything.”

A consistent problem for Lauryn is that while her flow is fine when she raps, she often creates awkward rhythms when she sings her verses. It’s weird. And in a related problem, her choruses are consistently far more interesting than her verses. It’s especially noticeable on songs like “Ex-Factor,” “When It Hurts So Bad,” “I Used to Love Him,” “Forgive Them Father,” and “Every Ghetto, Every City. ”

Songs

Intro NA/10: The intro sets the stage for the skits that are present throughout the album: A class meets, talking about love and relationships, but Lauryn is absent. She is instead receiving her “miseducation.” I like the skits in general when listening to the album together, but the fact that they’re not usually separate tracks makes using the songs in playlists frustrating. Ugh.

Lost Ones 9/10: Competing with “Doo Wop” for best rap on the album, and I think her flow is best on this track. However, as usual, the chorus is better than any of the verses though the gap is less noticeable than on many other songs. This is one of the songs I really love.

Ex-Factor 8/10: The early verses are actually a little blah, but the bridge (or is it a second chorus because it’s repeated? I don’t know musical terms) is really awesome, and this is the most touching song on the album in general. Lauryn has obviously been terribly hurt in her relationships, and it really shines through here.

To Zion 9/10: Maybe the most musically interesting song (featuring a Carlos Santana guitar solo) along with “Doo Wop,” “To Zion” is the best example of Lauryn’s singing talent. Another very moving song with occasionally slightly clunky lyrics. Nonetheless, excellent track.

Doo Wop (That Thing) 9/10: What is there to say about this song? You’ve all heard it before, and, therefore, you should know how awesome it is. Musically excellent, with really good rapping, and then that wonderful chorus. The last truly excellent song on the album, only four songs in.

Superstar 5.5/10: Here’s where things take a turn for the worse. The song opens with a very interesting rap that leaves me wanting more but quickly shifts into a boring R&B song. One of my least favorite on Miseducation.

Final Hour 6.5/10: A pretty good song actually (there’s nothing on Miseducation that’s actually bad) with pretty good flow and lyrics but a mediocre beat.

When It Hurts So Bad 6.5/10: The perfect example of a song with an excellent chorus/bridge thing, but really weak, boring verses.

I Used to Love Him 7/10: Same problem as above, with slightly better verses. And man, that chorus is good.

Forgive Them Father 7/10: Again the same problem, though the difference is less pronounced (the chorus isn’t quite as good; the verses aren’t as bad).

Every Ghetto, Every City 8/10: The verses are still a little weak, but it’s musically so much more interesting than the previous songs that it doesn’t really matter. A very enjoyable song.

Nothing Even Matters 5/10: The same slow, mediocre verses without the beautiful chorus to save it.

Everything Is Everything 8/10: The first truly balanced song in a long time. The beat is really good, she alternates between singing and rapping, and I actually want to listen to the verses. This song makes me happy though not because it’s especially optimistic or anything.

The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill 7/10: Another very slow, pretty static R&B song, but this one is more interesting lyrically, emotionally and musically.

And then there are two bonus tracks, neither of which are particularly bad or good. The thing that bothers me though, and this happens on a lot of CDs, is that “Miseducation” is clearly the thematic end to the story. However, the bonus tracks (which are on virtually every version) extend the album, and leave it without the thematically correct ending. Why do artists do this? Wilco’s A Ghost Is Born is the perfect example, where “Less Than You Think” needed to be the end, but instead they tossed the incongruous (but good) bonus track “Late Greats” after it. Why don’t they just put it in the middle of the CD as a regular album track? Also, it was on every version of the CD released, so in what sense was it a “bonus”?

Overall 8/10 : The things I’ve said about Miseducation have been largely negative, but that is, to some extent, a product of how highly regarded it is, as well as its inconsistency. The truth is that, however, it’s really an excellent album, and the first four songs by themselves would be worth owing the whole CD.

"Yeah, You Pronounce My Name KWAH-LEE" [Reflection Eternal/Train of Thought]

2008-04-07T12:36:00.003-06:00

Originally Posted 10/31/07:

Reflection Eternal/Train of Thought is one the 10-15 best albums I have ever heard, as you can tell by looking at my most recent note. Here's why:

First of all, Talib Kweli is the king of MC's. He's clever ("if they put my life on the screen then its got to be the IMAX / I live large stroke your mind, till you reach climax"), socially aware ("These cats drink champagne and toast to death and pain / Like slaves on a ship talking about who got the flyest chain") and emotionally aware ("It's more than pillow talk, it can't be translated /Learn how to speak it, and become emancipated / It's a language / Universal love...").

Then there's the other half of the Reflection Eternal duo, producer Hi-Tek. He has improved in leaps and bound from the work he did on Black Star, even though some of it ("Definition") was very good. He's still no Kanye, but beats like "Too Late" and "The Blast" are much better than anything he's ever done before, and the beats in general are consistently very good.

Finally, Talib and Hi-Tek show a great feel here for matching lyrics with the appropriate beats. The introspective, incisive raps are accompanied perfectly by laid back beats (ex. "Memories Live") and the more playful, clever lyrics are accompanied by more noticeable, exciting and entertaining beats (ex. "The Blast").

This album is 20 songs long, and really only "Big Del From Da Natti," "On My Way" and "Love Speakeasy" can be classified as filler. It's nearly all excelent. It's a really amazing achievement.

Songs

Experience Dedication 7.5/10: I normally don't give true intros like this ratings at all, but even though Kweli is more talking than rapping, there's enough here to evaluate it. There's a hilarious Dave Chapelle impersonation of Nelson Mandella to start the song, and then Kwe introduces the album over a solid Hi-Tek beat.

Move Somethin' 8/10: Solid all around though I don't think the rap is as good as usual.

Some Kind of Wonderful 8/10: Similar in a lot of ways to "Move Somethin'" though their beats aren't that similar. Another attack song.

The Blast 9/10: Fantastic beat, maybe the best on the album, and, shockingly, Hi-Tek featuring on the song actually provides the best verse.

This Means You 8.5/10: Once again Kweli doesn't provide the best verse; here it belongs to Mos Def. Mos' guest appearance is the only one (other than Hi-Tek above which doesn't really count and maybe De La Soul) on the album that I think actually adds to the song from what Kweli could have done by himself. Talib is just better than all of the other people.

Too Late 9/10: About the demise of hip-hop as an art form, "Too Late" has one of the best beats on the album.

Memories Live 8/10: Chill beat, introspective lyrics about Kweli's childhood and the dreams he had.

Africa Dream 8/10: Cool African drums intro along with Zimbabwean proverb "If you can talk, you can sing / If you can walk you can dance," followed by a very good song including the aforementioned "who got the flyer chain" line.

Down For The Count 8/10: Probably the song that places the most importance on the beat, and it's a good one (Sidenote: can you all download this song and tell me where you've heard the beat before? I know it; I just can't place it. It almost sounds DRE-ish). Talib also features the least here of on any song, which takes a little away from it though he does show up long enough to tell us that "Like Jim Morrison, we break on through"

Name of the Game 6/10: Pretty mediocre all around.

Ghetto Affair 7/10: Pretty solid, not out of this world.

On My Way 6/10: Not a rap song at all, and very short. But it's not really bad.

Love Language 9/10: Now THERE's a song about love. Remember when I said that I loved the sentiment of Common's "Love Is" but just didn't think he had really discovered anything? Well, this is what I was looking for. Not glossing over the problems of relationships, Kweli shows the beauty of love. And the use of a French chorus really underscores his theme of "The language of love cannot be translated." One of my favorites.

Love Speakeasy 5/10: Just kind of a smooth jazz song with no lyrics. It's not terrible but I'm not a fan.

Soul Rebels 8/10: "We don't live for hip-hop / It lives for us." One of the better beats, and De La Soul add a cool flavor on the chorus.

Eternalists 8.5/10: The rap has the same kind of feel as "Move Somethin'" and "Some Kind of Wonderful" though it's better than those. It has a different kind of beat too. All in all, it's a really good song though I don't know what it means to be an "eternalist."

Big Del From Da Natti 6/10: Seems like just an excuse to get Hi-Tek on the mic (Kweli isn't even on this track). It's not that bad though.

Touch You 7.5/10: I'm not a huge fan of the chorus, but the rest of the song is really good., including the "IMAX" line from before.

Good Mourning 9/10: This song, about death and mortality, is one of the most incisive and beautiful on this incisive and beautiful album. The beat is appropriately chill as well. "Just because people don't understand when you speak / doesn't mean what you sayin' is necessarily deep."

Expansion Outro NA/10: The original version I got didn't have this song, which includes a cover of a Nina Simone song, and I just got it today so I'm not prepared to evaluate it.

Overall 9/10: I know that if you took an average of all these ratings it be more like 8-8.5, but the consistent quality of this album is College Dropout-esque. Look at all those 8 or betters! 12 by my count, including 4 9s! And "Expansion Outro" is probably a 7.5 or 8. Frankly, that's preposterous like an androgynous misogynist. I can't recommend this highly enough; it compares favorably to The College Dropout, the epitome of a great hip-hop album to me, and depending on whether you prefer great producers or great MCs, you might like Reflection Eternal even more.

P.S. Can you all please respond to my discussion topic about Josh's Alter-Ego on the Josh Freedman Fan Club page? It's hilarious, trust me.

"These People Think an MC is Shorthand for Misconception" [Mos Def and Talib Kweli are Black Star]

2008-04-07T12:33:00.004-06:00

Okay so I'm a little late on writing about Black Star, but that's basically because I've been listening to a bunch of other stuff too, so it took me longer than usual to have listened to the album the necessary one one hundred thousand times to be able to talk about it. I still actually don't know the CD as well as I would like, but c'est la vie.

The basic verdict is that this album is great. Kweli is better than Mos Def, but they're both great, and they rap about things that are much more interesting than most rappers. Most of the beats (which I think are mostly done by Hi Tek) are pretty sparse and old-school, and there are a few basically anonymous songs because their beats are so nothing. That being said, there are some GREAT songs on here, and it's very much worth owning.

Songs

Intro NA/10: Just an intro, so it wouldn't really be fair to give it a grade, but it's kind of a cool one. "We feel that we have a responsibility to shine the light into the darkness. There's a lot of darkness out there. We watch it all the time. I'm busy lookin at some darkness right now, sayin', man, there's some darkness."

Astronomy (8th Light) 7.5/10: This song's basically about the name Black Star, and it's pretty cool. Laid back beat, but the lyrics are clever.

Definition 9.5/10: One of the standouts. EXTREMELY catchy chorus, and one of the few really good beats. It has a reggae kind of feel, and then the rap is (surprise!) really good. "My name is Kweli from the Eternal Reflection / These people think a MC is shorthand for misconception." (I'm not sure what Eternal Reflection means, but the Talib album by that name came out after Black Star *Okay, found out what it means. Reflection Eternal is the duo of Talib and Hi-Tek*). Oh yeah, and Mos Def can really sing.

RE:DEFinition 10/10: The beat changes somewhat subtly to another good one, but the chorus stays basically the same as on "Definition," which is a very good thing. I don't like this "RE" quite as much as it's predecessor, mostly because I don't like the beat as much, but it's REALLY good.

Children's Story 5.5/10: I don't know. It's not bad, but it's just very anonymous. The beat is essentially just a slow drum beat, and the rap isn't anything special.

Brown Skin Lady 8.5/10: Really funny intro ("The Man has programmed my conditioning. Even my conditioning is conditioned."), followed by a really catchy song, with Mos singing on the chorus. Talib shreds one of the album's better beats, and Mos' verse is good too.

Boys Will B Boys 6/10: Another really sparse beat. I don't even really know what to say about it.

K.O.S. (Determination) 8/10: K.O.S. stands for Knowledge of Self. The subject is solid, and is executed really well."K.O.S" has one of my favorite lines on the album ("Life without knowledge is just death in disguise"), and also features really enoyable backing vocals.

Hater Players 7.5/10: I think this song is supposed to be a joke, but I don't get it. "It's a small wonder like Vicki" is a really clever line which I had to look up to understand ("Small Wonder" was an 80's TV about a robot named Vicki), and the beat is above average.

Yo Yeah NA/10: This is really a nothing track.

Respiration 8.5/10: The beat sounds disturbingly like "Dream On," but whatever, at least they chose to plagiarize (I don't think it's a sample) the one good song by Aerosmith. The subject is crime in the city, and it's well executed. Common appears for a verse, and it's typically good.

Thieves in the Night 10/10: Here we go, the best song on the album. Another chill beat, but it's appropriately laid back here instead of anonymous. With lyrics this incisive, they should be front in center without an overpowering beat (the all around excellence of "Get By" notwithstanding). The chorus says it all "Not strong, only aggressive. Not free, only licensed. Not compassionate, only polite. Now who the nicest? Not good but well-behaved, chasin' after death to call ourselves brave, still living like mental slaves. Hidin' like thieves in the night from life, illusions of oasis makin' you look twice." God, that's good. I especially love "Not free, only licensed" because it's not true freedom if your dependent on another's approval to do what you want, and "Not good, but well-behaved"--good people may generally be nice and polite, but those qualities in themselves mean nothing, and are usually a way to hide who you are not show it. As you can tell, I think this is a decent song.

Twice inna Lifetime 7.5/10: Whoever the girl is rapping on this(Jane Doe?) has a really annoying voice but otherwise this is a good song. I have nothing special to add to that except: "We be lightin' shit up like phosphorus, / Turnin' flamboyant n***** anonymous, depressin' to optimus, / You stoppin' us is preposterous, like an androgenous misogynist"

Overall 8.5/10: A couple duds, but the great songs more than make up for it. As I'm am quickly learning Kweli is the king of rap, and this album is excellent.

(Next time: Talib and Hi-Tek's Reflection Eternal/Train of Thought. Sneak preview: it will be getting at least 9/10, probably 9.5/10, which, let me tell you is some seriously rarefied air. It's at least as good as The College Dropout though for very different reasons.)

"Rather Than Love...Than Faith...Than Fairness, Give Me Truth" [Into the Wild]

2008-04-07T12:28:00.002-06:00

Originally Posted 10/23/07:

I saw Into the Wild this weekend, based on the book by Jon Krakauer which I've never read but is supposed to be excellent. It couldn't possibly be much better than the movie. Oh my god, what a film. The best thing I've seen in a theatre in a LONG time.

The story is about Chris McCandless, the son of rich but dysfunctional parents who basically decides to leave his entire life behind. After graduating from Emory, he donates his whole life's savings to charity, and just starts driving, and after his car breaks down, hitchiking across the country. He brings almost no money, no IDs and tells no one, including his family where he is going. He meets interesting person after interesting person and eventually ends up, on his own, in the Yukon territory in Alaska.

Into the Wild is, for me, fundamentally about happiness--what is it, where does it come from, and how do we know when we have it? Chris, who, on his travels, changes his name to Alexander Supertramp, hates his parents, and by extension, has come to hate to hate the society that they exemplify. He reads Thoreau and Tolstoy over and over again, and seeks to escape the clutches of culture as they did. At one point, Chris tells an old man he meets along the way, Ron Franz, that (I'm paraphrasing) "It's a mistake to think that happiness comes from human relationships." This is his misconception, fueled by rebellion and anger rather than love or compassion or even truth, that he must learn to see for what it is.

Nearly everything about this film, except for the kind of tacky opening titles, is superb. Into the Wild makes frequent use of voice over, which I assume are passages from the book. I was wary of this at first, but it proved to work very well. Moreover, it is one of the most beautiful movies I have ever seen from a purely visual standpoint, and the soundtrack is excellent as well. The acting is also excellent, especially from Hal Halbrook playing the aforementioned Ron Franz. Oh man, what a character, and the final scene between him and Chris is spectacular.

I can't really say enough about Into the Wild. I haven't seen many movies this year, but I'll be shocked if I find a better one. It's gorgeous, moving and incisive. Just see it, and I don't think you'll be disappointed.

"I Drop My New Disc, It Sound Like the Best Of" [Best of Kanye]

2008-04-07T12:21:00.002-06:00

Originally Posted 10/17/07:
I thought I'd share with everyone my favorite, and, by far, most listened to playlist.

Rules:
-Make a "Best of Kanye" style album.
-Anything with a Kanye beat is eligible.
-In close calls, give the edge to songs where 'Ye features prominently on the rap.
-Must fit on one CD, i.e. less than 1:20.
-Pay attention to transtitions, and how the songs work together

*EDIT*
1. Good Morning
2. All Falls Down
3. I'll Fly Away
4. Spaceship
5. The Food--'Ye and Common
6. Touch the Sky
7. Heart of the City--Jay-Z
8. Heard 'Em Say
9. They Say--Common feat. Kanye
10. School Spirit
11.Gone
12.Be--Common
13. Southside--Common feat. Kanye*
14. Get By--Talib*
15. Lucifer--Jay-Z*
16. Drivin' Me Wild--Common
17. Drive Slow
18. The Corner--Common*
19. Last Call (Full Version)

Top four:
Gone
Heart of the City
Last Call
Drivin' Me Wild

What's wrong with mine? What would you do differently?

"The Present is a Gift and I Just Wanna Be" [Be by Common]

2008-04-07T12:14:00.005-06:00

First Posted 10/17/07:
So, I find that there are a lot of things I always want to explore my thoughts on, and I also find that when I write about them I really enjoy it and learn more about the thing. Usually, I just write these things to Daniel Cady Davidson, but why not share them with everyone? With that in mind, I think I'm going to periodically write reviews of things I'm interested in, not necessarily new things. I hope it contributes to you, but it's mostly for my own benefit.

This particular note is about Be by Common. Most of you who know me, know I have a borderline pshycotic affection for Kanye, and I first heard Common on Kanye's "Get 'Em High." I didn't love his verse at first, but it really grew on me with time ("Good rappers are hard to find, like a remote"). Then I learned that Be was also produced by Kanye, so I had to check it out.

What we get is a really superb album, probably better than Mr. West's most recent release, Graduation. Common lacks that distinctive and remarkable flow that 'Ye possesses, but he's still an excellent MC and he also benefits from beats written by the world's best producer. What sets Common apart from the other rappers I've listened to (which admittedly is not very many) is that his lyrics are, while ocassionaly vulgar, generally insightful and sensitive, something I really value. The intro "Be" especially underscores this, with lyrics like "I look into my daughter's eyes / And realize I'm a learn through her, / The Messiah might even return through her / If I'm a do it, I have to change the world through her."

Songs

Be 9/10: Fantastic song. Great production by Kanye, as it slowly builds to Common's one, superb verse. I wish it had a second verse and was just generally longer, but I suppose that might dilute some of the quality.

The Corner 9/10: One of the best songs on the album. Good beat, good flow, good lyrics, and a spoken word part after each chorus that really works. (Kanye features on the chorus).

Go! 6.5/10: I like the beat and rap part of the chorus (again done by Kanye), but the "Go, Go, Go" parts which are done by John Mayer really annoy me, and there are just too many of them. Okay song.

Faithful 7/10: This song's about imagining that God was a woman, and how it would change how Common lived his life. I like this aspect of it, and his conclusions are interesting, but the chorus is just really annoying, so I can't give it a higher grade.

Testify 7.5/10: Definitely a song that tells a story, in this case about a murder trial. It has a pretty good ending too. All in all, a very good sounding song.

Love Is 7.5/10: You would think this would be my favorite song because I'm so obsessed with love. Now, don't get me wrong, I love that the chorus is "Lovin' you is lovin' me," but in general the lyrics are, while well-intentioned, not all that clever or insightful, and the beat is good but not spectacular.

Chi City 7.5/10: Really fun, more traditional rap song with a very solid beat. I don't have much else to say about it.

The Food 10/10: This is a live performance from "Chapelle's Show," and it's really awesome. The beat sounds a little odd because it is live, but the combination of Kanye and Common here is really spectacular. Maybe the best song on the album.

Real People 7/10: Nice transition from "The Food" into here. The beat's a little too smooth jazz in a bad way for me. Not bad though.

They Say: 8.5/10: Good chorus from John Legend, well above average beat, good verses from Common, and a GREAT verse from Kanye (well, at least until the very end--ironically once he mentions how crazy his verse is, it starts sucking a liitle because the rythm totally just doesn't work). Kanye's superb flow is the star of this song.

It's Your World/Pop's Reprise 7/10: My grade just for the "It's Your World" part would probably more like a 7.5. I like the verses and the beat is above average. I don't hate "Pop's Reprise" which is all spoken word; in fact, I love the sentiment of it. I just really hate that Common makes this one track instead of two that transition. It's like "Last Call." My play count gets all fucked up!

Overall 8/10: 8/10 is, by the way, and extremely good rating from my point of view. That 6.5/10 is the worst song on the album is very very good. If you like Kanye, check this out for sure. Hell, just if you like rap.