The Babs/Bergman Experiment

First thing's first---I should acknowledge it's been a while. At least ten mediocre sequels, re-makes, or Freaky Friday rip offs have been released into theatres, and I haven't had the time, resources, or chutzpah to tear them a new one. Instead, I've been doing this little thing called Moving Into College. Many of my friends have too, and I'd like to take this opportunity to quote Adele; "I wish nothing but the best for you, too." Love you guys.

If you want some kind of detailed update on MY life, you know how to contact me, yo. Owl post is probably the fastest way, but a good Skype date shall do nicely. I will say this; I'm currently sitting in the library, chillaxing after successfully registering for a class in New Realism, sipping a Mint Javalanche, and holding newly checked out copies of Sidney Bechet's Best and the Avenue Q cast album....if that doesn't tell you how I happy I am, nothing will. Nothing, except perhaps the news that Barbra Joan Streisand's thirty-third studio album hit shelves yesterday. Those of you who know me well get it; those who are just now getting to know me should be aware that I'm probably the strongest Streisomaniac in the straight white American community. In your lifetime, you get a precious few artists who really connect with you. She's one of mine. She's the one. And yet, this review will be far from a fan-boy droolfest. I've got some issues with this release, ya'll. If you love me, you'll read it. If you like me, you'll skim it. If you hate me, then by all means shut this window and go learn how to shuffle or try to hack your way into Pottermore or something. Anywho...

WHAT MATTERS MOST

"Well, I guess I'm stuck with the leftovers!", Barbra Streisand exclaimed as she closed a recent Grammy tribute to her genius by performing a few numbers of her own. Leftovers, my ass--her expert renderings of "Happy Days Are Here Again", "What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?" and "Evergreen" were the evening's inevitable piece de resistance. (How do I know? Two words. You. Tube.)

The "leftovers" remark makes more sense when applied to Streisand's latest studio output, What Matters Most. It's a collection of songs with lyrics penned solely by the Bergmans, the legendary husband-and-wife showbiz staple who specialize in short, swooning, hyperbolically emotional pieces written to order for movies, and who have given Babs two of her most memorable hits, "The Way We Were" and "Papa, Can You Hear Me?". They're also close friends of both Barbra and her son Jason, so the decision to honor them with an album all their own makes sense. But the problem is that, while this indeed is her first full-out Bergman extravaganza, she's included several of their songs on almost every album she's released in the past thirty years--indeed, The Way We Were and A Love Like Ours are bursting with so much Bergman that they feel like mini-tributes in themselves. The point is this; having recorded all of the team's greatest hits and plundered a sizable section of their back catalog, Barbra Streisand is stuck with whatever oddities and obscurities remain. This is indeed an album of leftovers, and, to paraphrase Sondheim, out of some she makes a sumptuous feast, and out of others, mere figs.

We begin with the only canonized Bergman classic on the album--"The Windmills of Your Mind". Perhaps their darkest composition ever, this spiralling dirge into vulnerability and despair tends to lend itself to breathy, "haunted" (read; flat) renditions. Not here. Streisand the actress give it an urgently dramatic, fearless reading, even singing a cappella for the first minute of so. It's a classic vocal performance--she navigates the brusque clip of the words and the swooping high notes of the chorus with ease and energy. But with a repeat listen, you notice something; the orchestra just isn't matching Streisand's energy. Until the haunting violin solo at the end of the track, they're simply plunking out the same chords over and over. Therein lies What Matters Most's most urgent problem--the arrangement of the songs themselves pale in comparison to the passion that Streisand contributes to each and every lyric line.

William Ross is responsible for the orchestrations, something that I confess worried me, because I spend my free time worrying about this sort of thing. Ross has worked with Her Majesty before, and the results have been consistently inconsistent. The man is a talented conductor, but doesn't seem to have an innate understanding of that voice (THE voice), and too often buries it in treacly glissandos, half-assed back-up vocals, etc--check out his shoddy work on the mess that was Christmas Memories. However, every now and then, when inspiration strikes him, he'll make a decision that actually benefits Babs's sound--his surging version of "You'll Never Walk Alone" was a stunning addition to her greatest hits album. Here, both Rosses come out to play, but unfortunately the first moreso than the second.

The former Ross is present especially on some of the slower tracks--the ever-present pinging harps on "So Many Stars" de-dramify one of the album's strongest set of lyrics, and on "Solitary Moon", the impossible happens; the insistent Kenny G-style sax and chintzy shaker percussion are so obnoxious that they actually overwhelm Barbra's beautiful vocal. Then again, I ought to lay off Ross, I guess. Some of the missteps on this album aren't actually his fault-some of it's on Streisand for her poor song selection. "Something New In My Life" is a syrupy, hopelessly repetitive power ballad that spends way too much time spinning wink-wink clever rhymes on the word "new" to actually mean much of anything, and the aforementioned orchestral clutter of "Moon" isn't helped by its faux-sexy verses that try far too hard for bedroom beauty, but instead descend into minor camp. Some of these songs aren't recorded often for a reason. They're beneath Barbra, and they make me want to cry.

Then again, we all know that when Streisand does right, she does very right, and tears of joy were a part of my listening experience as well. Her take on Sinatra's "Nice 'n' Easy" is bliss--she sounds as relaxed here is she did on her last masterpiece, 2009's Love Is The Answer, and she contributes a buttery sensuality to the classic chorus as the piano follows her every move. Ross helps her out on "The Same Hello, The Same Goodbye", devising a string-heavy slow build that allows her to slowly but steadily marshal her indomitable force of will and then let loose with her trademark belt; the cumulative effect packs a wallop, due in no small part to the fact that she's won back a few of the high notes she lost on her 2006 tour. "That Face" finds her returning to big-band roots, and she's right at home, juicing up phrases like "asleep or awake, it's second to none!" with a swinging vitality that'd give Bobby Darin a hard-on.

The crowning jewel is undoubtedly "Alone in the World", one of her best ballads and a true discovery, featuring superb backup by trumpeter Chris Botti. Here's an orchestration that enhances the vocal instead of detracting from it. As Botti flits between notes with his typical grace, Streisand delivers a knockout set of lyrics that blur the line between love song and lonely plea, balancing her burnished lower register and crystalline head voice without showing a single sign of strain, going deeper and deeper into the world of the song and taking us right along with her. As the soaring bridge draws to a close, Streisand unfurls the final chorus slowly, savoring each syllable and sprinkling her tonal purity about like stardust until she reaches the phrase "sleep inside my arms", which she delivers with such quiet, unforced conviction that those four words become a glimmering universe unto themselves. As she held the final note and Botti trumpet slid up the scale to meet her up there in the heavens, tears rolled down my face, and my fingernails dug into my bed. Thank God my suitemates weren't around for this.

The album draws to a close with the title song, a short, seemingly simple lyric with deep wells of hidden meaning. Streisand mines every word for all it's worth, singing softly and sincerely against the spare accompaniment. It's the perfect closer, because it reminds us what a rare birdie she is, even if she doesn’t show off her full wingspan this time around. The belting, the phrasing, and that peerless tone are all important, but what makes Barbra great is her respect for the music. She aims for nothing less than total fusion with her songs, and when she succeeds, it feels like a hand has reached out and taken yours. You're a little less lonely, a little less frightened, a little less hurt when listening to her, and though this album is wildly uneven at times, it's far from negligible, for at its best it reminds you just how great the greatest singer of the 20th century is, and why she's the top, the Colosseum, the Louvre Museum. What Matters Most? Her generous heart.

Album as a whole: B. Just to put this in perspective, I gave her last effort, Love Is The Answer, an A+. It's place in the Streisand canon: Somewhere in the middle, with other hit-and-miss efforts such as Barbra Joan Streisand and Back to Broadway “Alone in the World”: A+.

For Dan and Ally

I really thought I shouldn't do this, and couldn't do it without coming off as exploitative or just plain silly. But in the face of sadness, after losing my beloved puppy dog and two good classmates in one summer, this is one I HAVE to write.

I deal with language. I sing it. I write it. I love it, and here's why; language is a net that reigns in a world that too often seems to be running away from us, or even with us. When we describe something, a little piece of our world becomes knowable, if not totally understandable. It's my desire to use it here to maybe hold down a world that in the past few hours, has been nothing less than out of control.

But I begin with the admission that there are times when the demands are too much; when we try to write down what we have come to know and we bend the words into strange new shapes and they break. There are no words for what happened to Ally and Dan. None. Never will be. But there are words for us, I think, and here are a few.

Whatever pain they were spared or better place they've arrived at can't really provide a suitable salve for the pain we feel; we can't apply the bandage when, in all honesty, we don't know where it hurts. For me, there is no joy to be found in this, and no comfort, at least not now. To allow ourselves to believe there is seems wrong- "seems" being the key word--these are opinions, not assertions. What we're left with, then, is knowledge. Knowledge that though some of us may sob in a crowd and others retreat to our rooms, some grieve for a year, others for a day, at the moment we're all hurting, every one of us and we don't know where, how much, or for how long. When you feel as if something very dear has slipped through you fingers, you can at least know that many others are also holding out empty palms. When you know you cannot articulate what you feel, you may at least rest assured in the knowledge that the only thing anyone can articulate right now is how inarticulate they are. If you're walking around with a hole where something should be, know that it isn't just you. Stephen Sondheim summed up what I just wrote in a single lyric line: "No one is alone, truly."

A note on where we go from here. Death may mean the world to the dead, but to us, it has no purpose, unlike it's opposite birth, which is naturally the assignation of place and thus of purpose. So try not to focus on the fact that, because they're gone so soon, you fear you might not live to a ripe old age, either. Instead, look at all they folded into the few years they had. The randomness of death is terrifying, yes, but the randomness of life is beautiful. In defiance of science and reason and sometimes even fate, good people are born into this world. They run around it with eyes wide open and blood pumping furiously, and they leave their imprints all over. Again, for proof that I'm no Pulitzer winner, look at the Man Himself, JRR Tolkien, who said it best;

‎"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

I recommend writing down your thoughts about the situation, even if you never share them. I recommend leaning on your friends, or even people you don't know--hell, if anyone's reading this and needs to talk, I'd be more than happy to listen. But most of all, try to pull off the impossible trick of sobbing and smiling all at once. Weep for two wonderful people who were taken from us, regardless of where they are now. But also smile, not just because they were given time but, against the astronomical odds of the vast, cold cosmos, you were given time, and to the best of your knowledge, you still have a great deal left.

In conclusion, I think everything has its currency; we pay for sustenance with money, friends with time, and love with loss. It's the steepest price there is, but only in paying it do we find the sweetest rewards. What I hoped I've conveyed with my language tonight, ladies and gents, is that even in times like these you aren't alone, and you are alive. I can't think of two more important things to write about, or to read about. From the Torah, or Jewish Bible; "Zekher ẓaddik liverakhah--may the memory of the righteous be for a blessing."

Love you all. Sleep well, and see many of you tomorrow.

Mischief Managed: A Review and A Final Look Back

PART 1: The Pensieve, or Why These Stories Matter

13 years of flying motorcycles, Owl post, chatty hats, trolls in the dungeon, pissed-off chess pieces, spirited house-elves, flying hippogriffs, all-knowing chalices, foggy prophecies, and wand duels, all doing their business in the shadows of the twin monoliths of Love and Hate, hell, Life and Death, and for all of this sound and fury my chief thought in regards to both JK Rowling's staggering Harry Potter bildungsroman and the hugely satisfying final film adaptation has to do with silence.

If you've ever been to a midnight movie premiere, be it HP or Hairspray, you know what a noisy affair these things are; give hundreds of teenagers free caffeine and T-shirts and stick them in a crowded space for four or so hours, and you've got pandemonium on the plate. It's not just that we act like the rowdy adolescents we are; we act like the rowdy four-year-olds that tend to piss off adolescents. In the two hours between our admittance to the theatre and the start of the screening, childish games of MASH, rock paper scissors, and "Never Have I Ever" were going down in almost every row. Faux spells were being cast with faux wands, slow claps seizing up, pointless shhhhhh's scattered about. Even the Wave reared its ugly head for a bit.

Around 12:10, when we hadn't even gotten into the previews (late starts--another midnight premiere tradition), a hearty chorus of boos ensued. Then the previews. Overwhelming laughter and catcalls for Cowboys and Aliens which, believe it or not, is not billed as a comedy. Then came an actual comedy trailer, for some God-awful-3D-I-wish-I-were-Despicable Me-flick called Arthur Christmas. Let's just say we weren't feeling the seasonal cheer. With each preview the snarky conversations and blatant catcalls escalated, the commotion escalated, and by the final few it had ballooned into an all-consuming bedlam over which I couldn't hear myself think, much less whatever the voice-over guy was saying.

Then total blackness. After a moment, the ubiquitous WB logo came up. By the time it had vanished, you could hear a pin drop. There had been no agitated shushing, no emphatic jabbing, no "Oh my God, its starting!" Everything simply got dead quiet. For men in bootstraps fighting CGI slime and dancing animals and Santy Claus we showed nothing but disdain, but when it came time to reunite with Harry Potter and his friends, there was an unforced air of total, nearly reverential respect. Proof that, for all the digitized dumbing-down our ADD-addled generation has faced, not always but often, when you tell us a story that's actually worth hearing, we'll listen. Ultimately, that's perhaps the greatest give the Generous Jo gave our generation-- her trust.

I was going to attempt to strip this next paragraph of ostentatious soapbox-ing, but I'll tell you right now that that's about as likely as me getting Adele concert tickets or a girlfriend. Look, the fact is, art at its best isn't just a chance to live other lives, explore other universes. It's a powerful aid to human empathy. We deal with fictional love and fabricated death far more often then we do with honest love and actualized death. Compassion is a character trait, yes, but it also acts like a muscle that needs occasionally strengthening--thus, is it through witnessing the trials and triumphs of made-up characters who we come to care about that we expand our capacity to care about people in our own lives.

In the same vein, if our generation has been oft accused of chronic apathy, it's only because of the apathetic nature of our modern artists. It's not that Michael Bay, Stephanie Meyer and co. are entirely untalented; it's just that they underestimate our generation, deeming us narrow-minded and small-hearted, and thus only worthy of works that traffic in cheap wish-fulfillment instead of true feeling. When people declare their love for, say, Transformers 3 or LMFAO, it's with a slightly embarrassed, knowing air---they enjoy it, but they secretly believe they deserve better. So did JK Rowling. She gave us words to get swept up in, worlds to get lost in, and the greatest gift any artist can give us, characters to care deeply about. Sure, her descriptions are occasionally lacking, and her pacing is a little off every now and then, but and yet I'd pick her over the cold perfection of Conrad or Melville any day. In a world where terror and paranoia are now legitimately integrated into the common fabric of our everyday lives, we risk desensitizing ourselves so as not to feel the agony of it all. But JK Rowling, wise woman that she is, knew that the price of love is loss, the price of peace is pain, and the price of growth is sacrifice. And she knew that we needed to know it. And, by creating Hogwarts and filling it with all the right people, she gave us a bit of an education, too.

Potter is not just a cultural milestone, it's an exquisitely constructed bridge between highbrow and lowbrow. As with that other great Brit import, The Beatles, everyone from the most pretentious college professor to the crudest of first graders can get into this. It's moral in an age of amorality, daring in an age of cowardice. I speak in the present tense because this isn't over yet. If--and the tears come freely as I write this sentence-if anyone ever mentions that pop art is dead and the standards of my generation are trending ever downward, to them I say this; "Accio, Harry".

Part 2: It All Ends-The Review

Oncemore, silence is golden. In the final hour of Deathly Hallows, Part 2, when Harry finally learns the nature of his fate and confronts it, director David Yates lets the soundtrack bottom out and gives us only Harry's footsteps. It's a fitting symbol for the very nature of this glorious Harry Potter movie business; even in the shaky first films, these movies never forgot that this was really the story of a boy on a journey. Even the weaker installments, lop-sided and somewhat lacking as they were, could never be accused of a deficit of heart. Indeed, heart, in my opinion, is what saved the first installment of The Deathly Hallows from crashing and burning entirely. Packed with part-one filler and allowing outside opinions of the actors and characters to seep into the storytelling, it was saved only by a few tremendously realized setpieces and a truly committed cast. Part 2 ain't quite perfect, but it sure as hell don't need no rescuing either--its an electrifyingly accomplished finale that thrums with gratitude for the fans, love for the characters, and faith in JK Rowling's eternal wisdom.

You know where we left off--or I hope you do, for this film doesn't play catch-up, not for a second. Harry, Hermione, and Ron (if you need me to tell you who plays them, go to therapy) are hunting for Horcruxes, parts of Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) that enable him to live eternally as long as they exist. Of course the hunt will bring them to Hogwarts, and of course there will be a final battle of staggering proportions.

So battle royale it is, for most of the film as well. After one last wonderfully measured moment of suspense involving a shifty goblin---you can sense the series gravitating on the edge one final time before it finally takes the plunge into chaos--Deathly Hallows is exclusively payoff, the total opposite of its predecessor. Yates doesn't go for an epic, Return of the King-esque finale, but instead gives us a spirited sprint to the bloody finish, and if his approach proves occasionally frustrating for those of us wishing for a few moments to say our goodbyes (some of our favorite characters don't even get a quick close-up), then there is still a sense that every moment that is onscreen is hugely important--everything's at stake here, and there's a definite sense of tense, almost competitive energy, as if every member of the cast and crew is hell-bent on going out with a bang. That they do. All the Oscar talk centers on Alan Rickman's Snape, and for good reason--he's perhaps Rowling's most vivid creation, a tragic antihero for the post-9/11 world, and when he stands center stage for the "Prince's Tale" sequence, its perhaps the most affecting stand-alone moment in the entire series. But the performances stupefy across the board. Maggie Smith and Julie Walters remind us just why they're fan favorites. Helena Bonham Carter takes her bitchy Bellatrix to the next level. All three Malfoys are imbued with shadings of regret and existential anguish we've never caught before. Ralph Fiennes's ballsily theatrical Voldemort has always been the stuff of controversy, but I think his high-wire act finally pays off here. Hell, even Michael Gambon makes the best of his limited, post-death screen-time, finally becoming the ebullient-but-erudite Dumbeldore we'd always hoped he'd be. To say Dan, Rupert, and Emma get better with each film has become redundant, but this truly is the pinnacle of their careers thud far. Ron and Hermione figure less prominently in the plot here than usual, but they make the most of their moments--especially that moment, if you know what I mean. Daniel Radcliffe is simply a marvel; you watch him seize control of the screen here and feel as if you've watched your own kid mature into a great man before your eyes. Acting like this is simply how it's done.

The behind-the-scenes department wasn't slacking off, either--the effects uncover some of the hidden poetry in Rowling's prose, the sets become a character in and of themselves, and the score is the best since John Williams gave up his conductor's baton several years ago. In fact, none of the (minor) issues with the film have anything to do with poor execution, just some slightly off-center ideas. An attempt to establish a new set of villains, the Carrow Twins, pretty much bombs. Voldemort and Harry's final duel crackles with a truly epic sense of dread and awe, until it segues into a briskly edited fistfight as intense as it is arbitrary. And the epilogue, while still deeply stirring, doesn't convey the depths of meaning that it did in the book. I don't knock the picture for being imperfect though. Anything made by a human being will be flawed, for we all are.

Is it the best adaptation of the series? Probably--almost all of the fan-treasured moments are fantastically rendered and received deafening applause at my screening. Yet, purely cinematically speaking, I'd deem it second best, just a step below the sublime Half-Blood Prince. Second and third viewings may change my mind, but the fact remains that this an explosively emotional The End worthy of all the hype. It gives us a lasting gift--it lets us get lost in this imaginary world one last time. The beauty of this glorious Potter synergy between Rowling, Radcliffe, Heyman, Yates, and the readers, viewers, and die-hard fans is this; these people and their lives are so vividly imagined that we can carry them with us, like a reverse deluminator that projects little pieces of light and beauty in a world where all things bright and beautiful too often flame out. Dumbledore, as always, said it best; “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” A-

4 Parts, No Harmony

As I'm sure you've noticed, my posts tend to be pretty structured. Everything in a particular post relates back to a certain theme-"Orson Welles and the Cinema", "Music You Need to Know About", "If Only I Had Woody's Glasses and Barbra's Nose I'd Be Happy With Life", etc. etc. This post, not so much. We have my seasonal "favorite things" (it'll help you through your Oprahwithdrawals), a blatant (albeit well-deserved) endorsement of my voice teacher's new CD, a summer reading list, and a hastily composed paean to a member of my family who left us all too soon. Also I've updated the "Simply Streisand" page with some massive news. This is chaotic, meine freunde. But then again, these past few week, my LIFE has been chaos. If you read nothing else, read the last part.

PART 1: My Favorite Things. Or, your summer as dictated by ME:

New In the Lolcats Department:

If you're anything resembling a normal comedian, chances are you'll spend a good portion of your act riffing on the Holy Trinity of Comedic Topics--booze, sex, and religion. But Maria Bamford is not your normal comedienne. Her prize subjects include dog costuming, sea cows, credit scores, and Susan Sarandon. If this material doesn't sound inherently funny, well, it probably isn't. What makes it work is her delivery--her sprite-with-a-sting, Cheno-on-Xanex voice and the biting self-awareness ("And tonight, we have my quiet, odd joke-stories...don't you wish it was just Carlos Mencia?") elevates her weird hodgepodge of merrily macabre observations into a rarefied air of unmitigated hysteria. Listen to bits like "Fun Being Evil", "Alicia Keys", and "Baby Jesus" and tell me I'm wrong. Admittedly, sometimes Bamford's high-wire act goes a little off course (is a minute-long riff on the word "therapist" really necessary?), but when she's on track, what she does is pure genius. Comedy is generally regarded as the art of finding flippant absurdity in the mundane. Maria Bamford, with a tart faux-naivete that puts Chelsea Handler to shame, turns the entire mechanism on its head, making the most ridiculous activities sound as normal as walking down the street. Love her or hate her, but you can't say there's anything like her.

Broadway Babies, Mainstream vs. Indie: When it comes to the Best Musical Tony, I've rooted for the dark horses (Urinetown, The Light in the Piazza, Next to Normal) since I was gestating in the womb, but this year I can say without a single caveat that the Annual Big Hit, The Book of Mormon, has earned its hallelujahs. Molded by the creators of South Park and Broadway's ownAvenue Q, this fudged-up fairy tale for adults takes the most sober of plots--Mormon missionaries go to AIDS-ravaged Uganda to bring the impoverished to Jesus--and improbably mines from it both comedic gold and a measure of genuine emotion. The performing talent is rock-solid across the board, but Mormon's crown jewel is its score, which stakes out a fresh sound of its own while still finding time for riotous melodic roasts of everyone from Harold Hill to Elphaba. Yes, everyone's raising hell about the show's dirty mouth (be prepared to hear every dirty word you've even known used in connection with "God"), but they seem to be missing its pure heart. Indeed, for all its vulgarity, this show doesn't aim to debunk religion, but instead to remind us that, as with all other components of our lives, the shit only hits the fan when we take it too seriously. On the flipside, Women on the Verge of A Nervous Breakdown was this year's bona fide flop, and while it'll never appeal to non-Broadwayites the way Mormon does, true theater nerds will take plenty of guilty pleasure in this one's cast recording. To hear seasoned, serious performers like Brian Stokes Mitchell and Laura Benanti sport Spanish accents, chew scenery, and belt out Latino pop tunes is a once-in-a-lifetime sugary treat. Plus, Patti Lupone, perhaps the Last Great Rialto Diva, seriously socks over her eleven o'clock number. Ay-ay-ay!!!

Sing Out, Mr. Schwartz!: Inspirational music tends to be so generic and syrupy that it leaves me with a toothache. As such, I must say I'm extraordinarily proud of my voice teacher, Jared Schwartz. His debut album, Hope, doesn't pummel you with insistent choruses and obsessive messages, but instead gently offers you a hand out of whatever rut you may be in. Gentle anthems to mature, steadfast compassion ("100, 000 Nights", "Bobby Blue) mingle with soaring affirmations of commitment and togetherness ("No More Darkness", "Fall Into My Arms") to create a listening experience that moves you to believe in something, even if it's just yourself. Jared calls himself a "popera" artist, but he really doesn't need to bother with the label--the passion of these vocal performances transcend boundaries. Listen to his stripped-down cover of "Sparrow", and you'll see what I mean. Music like this, and we make "Party Rock Anthem" #1??

A Slot for Some Scots:

Whether you're trying to ease the pain of college-time so-longs (I refuse to call them goodbyes) or you just need something different to send skyrocketing out of your open windows as you speed down the freeway on a July afternoon, here's your musical drug of choice. Warning; it will induce wide, stupid grins and spontaneous sing-alongs. Remember The Proclaimers? That band that did the "500 Miles" song ("When I wake up, well I know I'm gonna be I'm gonna be the man who wakes up next to you...")? Well, turns out this Scottish pop-rock outfit has a veritable treasure chest of songs that are just as good as their one hit, if not better. I love all of their work that I've purchased, but their second album is still by far their best, crackling with the ineffable exuberance of young people making great music and having a grand time doing it. Slap-that-tambourine rave-ups like "Then I Met You" and "Come On Nature" call to mind the soaring choruses of, say, the Monkees at their best, but they don't forget to pay tribute to their own heritage on the instantly memorable "Sean" and the achingly beautiful "Teardrops". If you desire sweet, smart summer jam with a dash of nostalgia thrown in free of charge, then you and I are kindred spirits, and I think you'll like this one alot.

"Throne" for A Loop:

Yes, me. Yes, TV. I've Hulu'd the occasional "Glee" and watched "Modern Family" while pretending to work out, but I've never had that show, the one that pulled me in by the neck and wouldn't let go, until now. Adapted from George R.R. Martin's hit books (what is it with fantasy authors and initials?!), Game of Thrones tells the story of four families vying for political power in the blighted land of Westeros--the noble Starks, the boozy Baratheons, the incestuous, insufferable Lannisters, and the vengeful Taragaryens. We get to know every member of these bloodlines, living and dead, which makes keeping up a bit of a strain. But TRUST THIS JEW, it's beyond worth it. This is damn good drama, and the cast is once-in-a-lifetime; Sean Bean, Peter Dinklage, and Lena Headey deserve Emmys for their career work here. Thrones does something else incredible, too; it takes the fantasy genre and cunningly rewires its moral compass. Good men give up their honor and loyalty at the drop of a hat (and aren't always rewarded for it), and the baddies, far from cartoon villains, are driven by a series of increasingly complex modus operandi. This show goes further over the edge than any other, and I'm not just talking about the startlingly graphic sex and battle scenes--there are moments of nihilistic despair here that will freeze your blood. But that makes it all the more moving when righteousness claims its small victories. I don't know much about television, but I've got a feeling shows like this don't come along very often. On-Demand it, folks.

Part 2: But Mason, I Feel Like Being Literate and S@!#t!

Never fear. I've assembled a last minute summer reading list. If last summer was a hunt for the Great American Novel (conclusion; still looking), then this summer finds me continuing my search, as well as making a few excursions into the world of post-modernism and British comedy. I've already read a few. Ask for my thoughts, or wait for the inevitable reviews....

Reading Like A Writer, Francine Prose

The Doctor Is Sick, Anthony Burgess

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, David Foster Wallace

All the King's Men, Robert Penn Warren

The Girl In Blue, P.G. Wodehouse

V, Thomas Pynchon

When All You've Ever Wanted Isn't Enough, Harold Kushner

Consider the Lobster, David Foster Wallace

Finally,

And yes, as I journey onward into the land of English Major, I feel the need to re-read the book that made me really want to read; Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison.

PART 3: Announcement Time

As much as I love being your neighborhood critic, trying to accurately judge creations as sprawling as The Tree of Life or as silly as Larry Crowne leaves me exhausted. Time to create something of my own. Expect reviews of all the major movies and some sterling indies, as always, but expect them to share this page with 100% fresh short stories and essays by yours truly. The Babs-Worship, I'm afraid, stays.

And finally....

PART 4: The Dog Days

Dwelling on loss is neither my intent nor what's ultimately best for me, but I'd feel amiss if I didn't take a moment whilst sending my thoughts out into the cybersphere to honor my beloved puppy dog, Maggie, who passed away a week or so ago after an excruciating battle with kidney disease. I refuse to say she lost her battle, because I never saw her stop fighting. She was unflaggingly energetic, consistently sweet-natured, and strikingly loyal--many a door or gate was left open in this house, and never once did she try to run for it. I must also say that as an only child, I needed either a pet or a straitjacket. Maggie was, in a way, integral to the work I did as a writer; she'd put her head on my lap for a bit of encouragement as I tried in vain to strengthen a weak turn of phrase, nudge me if I fell asleep in my spinny chair, and let me drone on and on about how I'll never be half as good as Thomas Pynchon. They say writing is the best way of speaking with being interrupted. Perhaps the most eloquent way, yes, but I think dogs deserve that title a little more. To call her my sibling would be hyperbole, but to call her just a dog would be almost an insult. I'll simply say that she was an integral piece of the puzzle that is me, and if losing her doesn't mean having to put all the parts of it back together, there is a distinct sense that a piece is missing.

Rest in peace, Maggie Moo.

Sci Fi Squared

Super 8

Flock to the Angelika all you like, folks (I know I do), but the simple truth is this; man cannot live on sterling indies alone. They may be soulful, organic, deeply satisfying dishes, but we all need to tuck into a sugary, summer-days-driftin'-away confection every now and then--albeit a well-made one. Super 8 is just that, an Event picture with a capital E that doubles as a piquant, sweetly nostalgic ode to the art of the analog home movie. It's appropriate that Steven Spielberg's producing; the movie pays homage to many of his hot-months milestones, including Close Encounters, ET, and The Goonies, and is worth mentioning in the same breath as those minor classics. Director JJ Abrams has proved a fiercely talented celluloid pop artist from the very beginning, but here he outdoes himself. This is one of the best films of the year.

Abrams gives us a refreshing respite from this summer's seemingly endless parade of superheroes, pirates, and talking animals, putting a group of startlingly real, incredibly likable tweens at the center of his story. Yes, adults hover around the periphery--deputies and sheriffs here, abusive parents there, etc. etc. But this movie really belongs to Joe (Joel Courtney) and Charles (Riley Griffiths) and their many friends, who are in the midst of filming an amateur zombie flick on the titular device when they witness a mysterious train accident. The crash is followed by a plethora of supernatural occurrences-hundreds of dogs go missing, car generators vanish, radio frequencies go haywire-and while the local law searches frantically for ever-elusive evidence, the kids also search for an explanation of what they saw, uncovering a military conspiracy, and, oh yeah, an alien on the loose. And they film the whole thing--production value is production value, after all.

Putting a bunch of 13-year-olds at the helm of a blockbuster is tres risky, but, in this case, it's a decision that pays dividends. Courtney is the best male child actor I've seen in some time-he delivers his lines with great truth and clarity, and his expressions are laced with an angelic innocence that can't be bought. On the flip side, Elle Fanning shows beyond-her-years grit as the self-sufficient "actress" he falls in love with. As a director, Abrams smartly steps back and just lets these kids be kids. Their interactions unfold with such unforced, good-humoured grace that I have to wonder of some of the scenes were improvised. These children are portrayed warts-and-all; they lie and curse and steal and even commandeer a car. Yet they are also quick-witted, wide-eyed, and loyal to a fault. But notice how the director's love for them shines through in every frame. The explosions pop and the gunshots fly--to say Abrams is good with action scenes is like noting that Picasso was fairly skilled with a paintbrush-but this movie is about them. You root for them from scene one--and, by extension, for the movie.

When people complain that mainstream releases have "lost something" these past few decades, they're probably referring to that sense of wonder, that feeling that you've been lifted out of your solitary confinement of space and time and body and into a new world so beautiful you come back down grinning ecstatically and wiping the stardust from your sleeve. To watch Super 8 is to remember how you felt when Rick stood on the runway with Ilsa, when Obi Wan shouted "Use the force, Luke!", when ET defied gravity and Elliot defied his wildest dreams. And to watch Super 8 is to feel it all again. Here's a film about a group of children united by a love of good ol'-fashion movie magic that instills in us their precious sense of youthful, cinema-crazed wonder. It's good enough to give you your faith back in movies, or make you a believer if you aren't already. It's a film that's already come to mean a lot to me, and if non-cinephiles won't be quite as moved by it as I was, I can promise this; they'll still enjoy the hell out of it. If you give even 1/10th of a damn about my critical opinion, you'll run, not walk, to Super 8. A

PS. Stick around for the credits. You won't be sorry.

---

The Tree of Life

People have this movie critic thing all wrong. The chief question a critic should concern him or herself with answering is not "should I see this movie?", but "what am I seeing?" What is the filmmaker attempting to do here? How do they do it? Is there technical mastery to be appreciated? Intellectual fecundity to be savored? What lurks just behind the visages of the actors and the veneer of the scenery that could lead audience to a better appreciation of this picture? Conversely, what's hiding in plain sight that abuses cinema, that extracts false emotions, endeavours to create cheap sensations, serves to diminish our human experience instead of enhance it?

So many motion pictures of recent years are so aesthetically uninspired and ideologically vacuous that they collapse under such intense questioning. On the flip side, Tree of Life is so dense-complex and simple, epic and intimate, horrifying and moving, insipid and inspiring, magical and maddening-that it renders even the most profound inquiries trite and ridiculous. I do not know how Terence Malick accomplished what he has accomplished here. I'm not entirely sure what he has accomplished. I cannot even answer basic questions regarding the picture's plot, characters, and storytelling structure. It resists categorization and criticism; Roger Ebert was correct in deeming it a "cinematic prayer", and you just can't give a prayer a letter grade.

I will say this; there are moments in this movie that rank among the most astonishing ever captured by a camera. As it attempts to link a fractured Texas family (Brad Pitt is the brooding patriarch, Jessica Chastain the loving wife) to nothing less than the creation of our planet, Malick, a deliberate, intensely visual hermit-god of a filmmaker, creates a few precious moments that serve to widen our very view of the world and our place in it. There are times, particular in the opening half hour, where it feels as if he's discovered something new and wonderful about our relationship to time and space, something you can't say about most new releases in the age of Something Borrowed. There are also long stretches of maddening passivity, of mazes of metaphors trapped inside other metaphors, of ponderous, exasperating exegesis and examination of What It All Means. There is an utterly indescribable ending that takes us directly into Malick's haunted brain and then leaves us there, directionless and exhausted and frustrated.

"Suffer into wisdom", Aeschylus said, and Terry Malick seems to agree. How can I recommend a film that's often so obtuse and spacey that the act of watching it becomes almost physically painful? Yet how can I urge you to stay away from a picture that, when it works, works so well as to give us a little glimpse into the hidden clockwork of the universe itself? I bet you know by now if Tree of Life is for you. If not, watch some of Malick's earlier work, particularly the masterful Thin Red Line, and see if you're ready for his latest, twice as sprawling and ambitious. Ask yourself how important things like narrative and action are to your moviegoing experience. Steel yourself for a deeply emotional experience, whether that emotion be agitation or awe. And, if you do see the thing, don't watch it, don't try to figure it out as it happens--just let it wash over you. No grade