I first heard Oberon Zell on Coast to Coast AM talking about his book “A Wizard’s Bestiary” almost a year ago. The book is a pretty neat idea, he takes all the mystical and cryptozoological creatures and figures out how the myths started and if any of them were actually real. Turns out unicorns were real, but not in the sense we think of them today.

Unicorns aren’t born that way, nature won’t let that happen. Even the Narwhal, although awesome, isn’t a real unicorn. A unicorn is an animal that can grow 2 horns and goes through a unicorning process.

In 1933 Dr. Franklin Dove did some research and found out that horns do not grow out of the skull, but they actually start out as unattached tissue and then root into the skull as the animal grows. Since this is the case all one needs to do is surgically take the buds of a newborn and place them in the middle of the head in such a way that they grow into each other. Once this happens, if done right, they will cancel each other’s natural curvature thus producing a perfectly straight horn.

If you haven’t figured it out already, Mr. Oberon Zell is a wizard. An awesome looking wizard. One of the earliest instances of unicorns he came across in his research were the Unicorn Tapestries from over 500 years ago. If you’ll look closely you’ll notice that the unicorns aren’t the horses of today’s pop culture, but they actually have goatees and hooves like a goat. After he came across Dr. Franklin Dove’s work, and being knowledgeable in biology and having some pre-med under his belt he decided to try it for himself. It worked, and he even went so far as to go through the patent process. During the 80’s he toured the country showing off his unicorns at Ren-Fairs, sideshows, and even the Ringling Bros. circus for 4 years. If you’d like to read more there’s an interview with him here about unicorns, and how the process changes the animal’s temperament. Unfortunately he doesn’t make unicorns anymore and the last one died a few years ago. I sure wish someone would take up the call, make an army of unicorned bulls, and set them loose during the running of the bulls.

I saw Girl Talk perform in Nashville six years ago. It happened by accident; My boss at the time told me that he read about some electronic music show happening downtown at the Ruby Green and wanted to know if I was interested in going. Around that time in my life, I was getting pretty used to sneaking in and out of shows around town, seeing a lot of horrid, pretentious rock bands, and meeting handfuls of dudes who get high and talk about all of the sweet jams they’re going to make. I spent a lot of time taking classes and making little records in my bedroom. I felt a real affinity for pretty much anything that wasn’t considered normal; I was keeping busy making the musical equivalent to pencil sharpeners and rumble grumbles, while basically looking for a scene that wasn’t so uptight.

The Ruby Green is an art gallery in Nashville and that night was my first time being there. It was full of maybe fifty or so kids running the entire gamut of personality and culture. The show took place in the main gallery space, which was mostly empty except for a giant ball of spiral wound phone cord hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the room, directly over a giant pile of phone receivers. The show was billed as an electronic music tour, dubbed the Wheels of Steel Tour, as all of those performing were from Pittsburgh, PA, one of the major steel producing cities in the country. The first act was a girl with a keytar who hooked it up with a little computer and proceeded to gyrate around to what was, essentially, horrible white noise. At first this was sort of amusing; you really had to give her credit for really going for it, but it was pretty awkward. Then it became pretty obvious, transitioning from song to song, that this was her thing and that she was going to be doing it for longer than two awkward minutes. The rest of those performing followed suit.

As the night furthered along, we found ourselves inching toward the exit until we were pretty much standing in the lobby of the place, which is when I realized I was standing next to a little scrawny guy in a jumpsuit named Gregg, or Girl Talk.

His first record, which I didn’t buy and haven’t heard, was out that year. It was about four years before his benchmark record, the Night Ripper, was to become the heralded new face of Plunderphonics (which we’ll get into in a minute) and party jam monster mixes for everyone from The New Yorker to Pitchfork Media. As I’m standing there with this dude (who is, admittedly, a pretty nice guy) it’s not really making me any less focused on leaving. I’ve had it with all of this creepy weirdness and I’m tired. Someone up front with the PA has started to play Van Halen, which makes me want to leave even more; in addition to that, I am now struggling with the fact that this dude in the jumpsuit is now putting on a headband and wristbands and taking off most of his clothes– the end result essentially being the look that I used to rock when I played basketball for the Catholic League in 1989. He’s clearly getting pumped up; like really, really pumped up. He’s in the zone. People are starting to clear him a path.

The whole thing turns into the slow clap moment at the end of Lucas.

The little dude, looking pretty determined, races to the front of the room (to his laptop), where he proceeds to shoot rainbow magic out of the speakers like lightning bolts from the able hands of Party Zeus on a Friday night before a three day weekend. There is really nothing that could have prepared me for what he was doing; it was like someone took the radio and shook it like you would shake a maraca before smacking you in the back of the head with it. His music presents itself as a casey casem cut and paste ‘where’s waldo’ jigsaw puzzle.

The crowd, having been prepared for this by the stevie nicks of white noise experimental keytarists, seemed a little confused. It was a lot like sleeping for 15 hours straight before having someone unload a dump truck full of alarm clocks on your face. And I was sold.

Fast forward five years to the Cannery Ballroom in Nashville. I’m standing inside and it’s really hot and already I’m sort of pissed because I hate the Cannery and there’s some dude in an Old Navy visor standing next to me and he’s drunk. I have the worst luck with Old Navy visor dudes, and tonight, there are lots of them at the Cannery. There’s lots of every type of girl and boy at the Cannery tonight; the place is packed from wall to wall. I have no idea what the capacity is there, but it feels like they’ve hit it. The stage is full of balloons and in the wings there’s a little dude wearing a hoodie, drinking a beer and holding a laptop.

It’s Gregg.

Looking back at the Girl Talk timeline, you realize that Night Ripper obviously did a lot of things. Girl Talk is a prime example of a performer who excels because of blogs, who does so without any major advertising. This is becoming more and more common, despite what your local record label owning, private equity firm wants you to think. The record buyer has changed, advertising has changed, and all of it continues to keep changing, which is why 400 people are crammed into the Cannery, spilling beer on one another, waiting to see a Plunderphonics DJ with no light show, no backing band, and, arguably, no music of his own.

You could argue that Girl Talk put Plunderphonics, or ‘making music out of other people’s music,’ on the mainstream map almost two decades after John Oswald coined the term, but I feel like that’s less important than the cultural and social implications of his work. Wikipedia, which has compiled an incomplete chronological list of samples for each Girl Talk track on the new album, lists samples from 23 different songs in the first track alone. For tracks on the Night Ripper, they point out that some of the sampled material comes tracks where the original artist sampled someone else:

[ “Summer in the City” by Quincy Jones + “Are You Experienced?” by Jimi Hendrix = “Passing Me By” by the Pharcyde, used by Girl Talk on “Smash Your Head”]

This is where Gillis eclipses the academic work of John Oswald; Girl Talk’s central motivation is not to outsmart anybody. He’s essentially making the greatest mixtape ever created, and not because it’s got your favorite TI song over your Mom’s favorite Tiny Tim song, but because it captures what mainstream culture is all about: turnover. Music sales overall were down 25% last year compared to the year before. Physical product is down 20% while internet sales are up 50%, yet the business is still losing revenue. You don’t technically need a slide ruler to figure out that people aren’t buying cds in stores anymore. They aren’t responding to radio or to ads like they used to; and the people who are buying music are online. They’re reading their email, talking to people, reading websites (like this one), and buying the new Lil Wayne single for a dollar on itunes; chances are they’re on their computer, and they’re talking to someone or watching tv, or making dinner, etc, so on and so forth. Keeping this in mind, after you download your new Lil Wayne jam, put it in itunes and on your ipod, about how long will you listen to it before you’re back on itunes, buying more new singles to listen to?

It’s cyclical. Music today has an extremely high turnover rate. It doesn’t matter if you like Top 40 or if you’re digging through crates in the back of Grimey’s, chances are whatever you find will lose replay value as soon as you hear it. This is why Girl Talk and his Plunderphonics bonanza won with the metropolitan Cannery crowd in the same way that he wins with most every crowd: if you don’t like the song the band is playing, wait two seconds, and you’ll get a new one. His records and shows last about an hour. The last record was released as mp3s as soon as he was finished with it. The whole thing comes with all of the bells and whistles, not too fast and not too slow, but just fast enough to simultaneously keep you from being bored and overwhelmed, which is why, in the end, I think Gillis is capitalizing less on the music he’s pilfering than the audience he’s entertaining.

By the end of the Cannery show, everyone was tired and coated in sweat and beer, Old Navy visor dude punched my friend Ben’s sister in the head two or three times with his drunken dance moves, and the stage had been completely dismantled. The helium in the balloons had allowed them to be strewn around the room, clinging to the ceiling as if they were trying to escape the animals below- everyone following Gillis, the Pied Piper of Plunderphonics.

Feed the Animals by Girl Talk is out now on Illegal Art.

I’m not going to say what the movie is about. It’s a Pixar film, that should be enough. Fred Willard is in it too, he says my favorite line of the movie, “Space is the final FUNtier!”. 5 stars.

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Aimee said I have to say something more about the movie.

I’m a big fan of Pixar, they consistently do it right. They get wonderful talent to make their films and then they do something that no other studio has dared to ever do; they keep them around and nurture their talents so they can make more imaginative films. Brilliant! This crazy plan makes the worst Pixar movie¹ better than the best piece of garbage coming out of any other studio. I’m not just talking about CGI kids fare, I’m talking about EVERYTHING coming out today. On average² for every Toy Story, we get 100 You Don’t Mess With The Zohans. Why would anyone want to have their intelligence insulted by watching that junk is beyond me. I know, some people don’t care. They just want to watch something that they don’t have to think about. I like watching dumb movies too, but I still get more out of repeated viewings of R.O.T.O.R. than I would if I had watched the newest rehashed Dane Cook “comedy”. Gosh, I didn’t think I’d get so angry writing about Wall-E.

Ok, so I know it’s not for everyone, but Idiocracy³ is a great companion piece to Wall-E. I did a good job of avoiding the advertisements of Wall-E so I didn’t really know what it was about. And I’m not going to ruin one bit of it for you. The animation is the best ever, the sound design is just superb, and the storytelling is top-notch. Storytelling, that’s what it’s all about. If you can’t even do that then your movie is going to be terrible. I don’t really care what the story is, the art of telling a story well is enough for me.

1. I say it’s Monsters Inc. But I’ll probably change my mind if I had a Pixar marathon. Which sounds like a great way to spend my weekend.

2. I just did the math in my head, it’s correct.

3. Idiocracy definitely has it’s problems, but at least it exists.

Basically, postcolonial theory looks at racial and cultural bias towards a conquering element or against a dominated element in a text. I started thinking about Jungle Book in these terms originally because of Rudyard Kipling’s involvement with India as a British colony, and Disney’s tendency to say horrible things in the undertones of their movies. Also, I quite like Jungle Book, and I was just curious to see what I found in it that six-year-old me did not. Before I go into the postcolonial side of things, I would like to note how unashamedly horrible and hilarious the little girl’s song at the end of the film is. I remember hating it when I was a kid, I thought because it was slow instead of the jazz/beat inspired music of the rest of the film, but I think my subconscious was also reacting to the words: “When I’m grown/ I will have a handsome husband/ And a daughter of my own/ And I’ll send her to fetch the water/ I’ll be cooking in the home.” I just thought I’d share that because it’s ridiculous to have a whole song about, even if it was the state of Indian women at some unknown time in animated history.

Though I started the film intending to focus on the story, what jumped out to me instead were the choices in characterization and voicing that Disney made for the different animals. Almost all of the animals are voiced by British actors, with varying degrees of “Britishness” to their accents. The story is set in India, so this is initially bizarre considering that the filmmakers decided not to use standard American English (as they did in Mulan, which is set in China). Even if they were set on depicting character by accents, they did not use an Indian English accent, which would seem most appropriate for most of the characters. This aids in seeing some themes in the movie, as well as comments on the choice of the filmmakers to cast it this way.

The story seems to be centered on the idea that the Tiger’s opinion of how to treat Mowgli differs from the rest of the Jungle’s, but because he is the tiger, they have to give up their beliefs in favor of his position. They appear to be depicting a system of oppression where a minority’s (the tiger) opinion on the world causes everyone else to stop what they’re doing and deal with it or face consequences. Shere Kahn, of course, gets what is coming to him (delivered by an American bear, I might point out), and leaves the Jungle apparently forever (the vultures say they’ll never have to deal with him again). Ultimately it is Mowgli, a sort of symbol of the oppression of the jungle, who gets rid of him, with the help of the American bear and the British-expatriate ¹panther.

There is much to be said for the symbolism in the story itself, a lot of which I actually had to go ahead and write to get out of my system before I got to this. But though the story seems to paint a picture in support of freedom from imperial oppression, the lack of nationality and representation of Indians when the story clearly has reason to include them indicates a problem either with the casting directors or the prospective audience of the film. There are no Indian accents, even in Mowgli or the girl, who both have American accents for no apparent reason other than to create kinship between them and the American children in the audience. While the film seems to depict with it’s story the successful liberation of an oppressed jungle, it seems that the only way to depict this was to attribute success to Americans, and to a lesser degree, other white British people. The only African American voices are the monkeys, another set of bad guys, and not bad in the sense of Shere Kahn, who has different beliefs and is a sort of political extremist, but bad in the sense of amoral, rough kidnappers with intent to exploit and do away with the man cub. Further, the monkeys speak jive or use the diction of swingers (no pun intended) instead of hardworking, common dialects, alienating them as some kind of dangerous, edgy fringe group or counter-cultural movement. There is clearly a preference for the white outlook, specifically the white western-European value system. Perhaps the insinuation is that the native people could not achieve success on their own, or that if they did, they would be following American ideals of independence and freedom, and thus be more like white members of civilized society than natives who cannot speak proper English.

Another possibility is the prospect of an American audience who would not relate to the “foreign” Indian accent. This is different from the British accent, which is common in mainstream American film and television and even carries an insinuation of higher intelligence and refinement. It does seem probable that if there were Indian accents in the film, the audience would notice them as different, where the only British accent that is distinct is Shere Kahn’s, and as a child I remember perceiving it not as a British, but as an intelligent and powerful accent. So the problem could be with the audience’s perception of an “other,” where the other is not a fellow western hemisphere Caucasian, but a brown easterner, or even “Why does he talk that funny way? What kind of accent is that?” I imagine it would have been my first encounter with an Indian accent, and probably my last until I was allowed to watch The Simpsons.

Based on the themes of the plot, Jungle Book seems to be an example of an author intending to convey one idea, which is undermined by the author’s culture and experience. What is interesting in this case is the idea that the undermining subtext could be caused by marketing, which I would guess happens very often in the consumerism-art relationship. It also shows the applicability of these theories to all art and creation, including children-oriented film, books, and art. A bit scary, but being a child in a world that creates all these subtexts in the first place is also scary.

1. I call Bagheera the expatriate instead of the oppressor like Shere Kahn because, though he is similar in species to Shere Kahn and though his accent is a British one, it is not as pronounced as the tiger’s and he has sympathy for the opinion of the wolves that Mowgli is not dangerous. He is, however, the strongest supporter of Mowgli going back to the man village, the closest opinion to that of Shere Kahn, which seems to link him to British citizens sympathizing with the native “them,” in this case, Indians or wolves.

]]> http://www.readtheloop.com/2008/06/jungle-book-theory/feed/ http://www.readtheloop.com/2008/06/the-incredible-hulk/ http://www.readtheloop.com/2008/06/the-incredible-hulk/#comments Fri, 13 Jun 2008 13:27:28 +0000 Jesse Wayne http://www.readtheloop.com/?p=227

I don’t have much time, and I don’t think much needs to be said about the new Hulk movie. So I’m going to keep this one short.

If you loved the TV show like I did growing up in the 80’s then you’ll love the new movie.  It has an intro very similar to the show intro, and it even uses the same Bruce-Banner-walking-away-music at one point. I tried to find a video of the closing credits to the tv show with the song, but instead this came up.

One of the best things about Marvel having their own film studio now is that they can finally have crossovers without any legal problems. How much better would Daredevil had been if Spiderman showed up? Probably not much better, but it would’ve been neat. Starting In the beginning- and throughout the whole movie- we get a lot of crossover from the recent Iron Man movie. Very, very cool. Oh, and Martin Starr from Freaks & Geeks is in it for a second too!

So Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk are both hits in my mind (Iron Man was better though). My concern is for the future of Marvel Studios. Are they going to do it right and copy Pixar’s business model, or are they going to get greedy like everyone else and stop getting great talent to make great films? People will go see Iron Man 2 no matter what now. Marvel can get a terrible director and writer to make it for a lot cheaper than bringing back Jon Favreau to make another brilliant piece of film that will stand the test of time. We’ve seen it time and time again.

The Hulk was a blast. I had a great time. Everything is better this time around. Don’t waste your time with The Happening. I hear from trusted sources that it’s just simply terrible. Hulk Smash The Happening!

I would like to also point you to The Magician, it was a show that Bill Bixby did before he did The Incredible Hulk TV show. He was a magician that solved crimes or something. He really was a magician in real life too. I just really like magic and the Hulk. God Bless you Bill Bixby.

I’ve never been a New Kids fan. When they were doing their thing in the 80’s, I was listening to mostly terrible Christian music (Except for Keith Green, Lamb, and 2nd Chapter of Acts… of course) cause I wasn’t allowed to listen to the radio. I did manage to get my aunt to make me a mix tape of The Beach Boys though.

I never really knew any of NKOTB’s songs. Sure I heard “Hanging Tough” a few times and whatnot, but I couldn’t tell you how it goes. It’s 2008 and they’re back with a new album I guess. I haven’t really read much on what’s going on and I think it’s better that I stay ignorant of the whole affair. I should note that I stopped listening to current music on the radio or TV about 4 years ago. I have no idea what’s cool today, but I’m pretty sure it’s not NKOTB.

I do remember something kinda cool about New Kids. My friend David had a slap bracelet with a bunch of 80’s metal bands on it, I believe it had Twisted Sister, Ratt, definitely Poison, Def Leppard, and maybe Judas Priest or Cinderella as well. But at the end of the bracelet was a picture of NKOTB for no reason at all. It looked a lot like this.

Here’s the video and the lyrics to their new single Summertime:

So Donnie who apparently is now a helicopter pilot tells the boys that “It’s on”. We’re not sure what he means yet. By the way he’s dressed it might be a heist

Spoken:

Jones Beach 1988. Come on!

Maybe they’re all going back to dig up a time capsule?

Do you remember,
Or should I rewind,
To that summer when you caught my eye,

Oh, it’s not a heist. He’s talking about a girl

I played it cool,
The weather was hot,

Wow, the lip syncing is really bad already

You had the beauty and the beach on lock.

They really should have done the heist video instead, we had the guy in the fancy car, a helicopter, a big boat, running through the jungle, it could’ve been a really neat high concept video, I have a feeling it’s only going to get worse from here on out

With your flip flops, half shirt, short shorts, mini skirt,

Hold on! Short shorts AND a mini skirt? Who does that? If anyone can prove to me that a female has EVER worn short shorts and a mini skirt in 1988 on Jones Beach I’ll eat my hat

Walkin’ on the beach, so pretty,

I guess the guys lost their pitch along with their fan base. Autotune?

You wasn’t lookin’ for a man,

He changed clothes in the helicopter I guess, why didn’t he put on his beach clothes and put his suit in a suitcase instead, I’m sure it’s no fun trying to change in a cramped copter.

When you saw me in the sand,
But you fell for the boy from the city.

Is he talking about himself? I think it should be obvious, but I’m unclear on this part

I was like, “hey, girl, can I get your number”
I remember what you told me too,
“Don’t call after ten”
But you know that I did,

Yeah, I’ll bet her dad totally didn’t mind at all. Good job, now she’s not allowed to see you or anyone else.

‘Cause I couldn’t stop thinkin’ ’bout you.

I’m sure she won’t forget you either since you’re the reason she’s grounded for 2 weeks.

I think about you in the summertime,

Only in the summertime? What a romantic.

(Oh oh)
And all the good times we had, baby,
Been a few years and I can’t deny,
(Oh oh)
The thought of you still makes me crazy,
I think about you in the summertime,
(Oh oh)
I’m sittin’ here in the sun with you on my mind.
You’re my, my summertime.

Wow, that shindig is sporting a really great girl to guy ratio for him. I wonder where all the dudes are.

Do you remember,
I’ll never forget,
Touchin’ your body all soakin’ wet,
The water was cool,

The bouncer is wearing a Misfits hoodie, I’m sure he listens to them all the time

The feelin’ was hot,
Kissin’ on you while the ocean rocked.

That’s gotta be gross. I can’t stand the taste of salt water on my lips.

In your strapless sundress,
Kickin’ back, no stress,
As long as we was together,
‘Cause we were feelin’ young love,

She might be feeling young love, but I think that boat has sailed for you boys.

And we couldn’t get enough.
Baby, I could reminisce forever.

Icky

And now I’m like,
Hey, girl, don’t you know I miss it,
And I wonder if you miss it too,
Never thought it would end ’til it did,
Now, I’m here and I can’t stop thinkin’ ’bout you.

So, is she there too, or is he just talking to himself?

I think about you in the summertime,
(Oh oh)
And all the good times we had, baby,
Been a few years and I can’t deny,
(Oh oh)
The thought of you still makes me crazy,
I think about you in the summertime,
I’m sittin’ here in the sun with you on my mind.
You’re my, my summertime.

What kind of party is this? This never happens!

Spoken: Break it down.
Summer ended,
Winter started,
It got colder,
When we parted ways,
(Spoken: I like this part.)

You do? Well that’s just great, I almost did until you ruined it. Again, why the auto tuned vocals? I’m pretty sure Joey knows how to sing for real.

As the seasons change.
(Spoken: Bring it forward, bring it back)

Quit talking over Joey!

Winter melted,
Spring I felt it,
Summertime will never be the same,
(Without you. My summertime.)

I’ve never understood dancing like this

My summertime.

I think about you in the summertime,
I think about you
(Oh oh)
And all the good times we had, baby,
We had baby
It’s been a few years and I can’t deny,
I can’t deny
(Oh oh)
The thought of you still makes me crazy,
Makes me crazy
I think about you in the summertime,

What’s with the dancing? I don’t understand synchronized dancing. It totally distracts me from the song! …Oh.

I’m sittin’ here in the sun with you on my mind.
On my mind,
My summertime.

They threw in a fake crowd?!?! Lame.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, oh yeah.

You’re not convincing me that any of you guys had a fling in the summertime with your totally unnecessary vocal runs.

Back in 1981, when Raiders of the Lost Ark came out, three 12 year old kids in Mississippi saw it multiple times and became a little obsessed with it. They decided that it would be a great idea to remake the movie shot for shot during the summer. 7 summers later it was finally finished.

I had first heard about this remake 5 years ago. It was so fantastic it just couldn’t be true. I looked around for bootlegs, but it turned out to be as hard as finding a copy of “The Day the Clown Cried“. Who has that kind of patience? Who has the resources to create something so epic? It was a huge Hollywood production, how could 3 kids possibly do such a thing? A few nights ago I saw the proof. It is very real, and they totally pulled it off, and it was one of the best movie experiences I’ve ever had in my life.

You really should watch the trailer that The Belcourt put together for this screening. It looks awful, the sound is unintelligible half the time, and pretty much everything about the movie is bad. But there is so much magic in it. What these kids accomplished is nothing short of spectacular. It really reminded me why I love movies.

Obviously there are some things they couldn’t film, but they’re few and far between. For instance, they decided not to film the scene where the muscled dude gets destroyed by the airplane propeller because they thought it would “look fake” when they had to blow up a model airplane at the end of the scene. I don’t want to spoil any more of it for you because half the fun is trying to figure out how they’re going to pull off the next big scene.

The director Eric Zala was in attendance and did a Q&A session after the screening. He told us that Daniel Clowes (writer of Ghost World) is currently writing a movie about their experience during the 7 years. He told a lot of great stories about the filming. But perhaps the best story was about Steven Spielberg writing a letter to him after seeing a bootleg of it and telling him that not only did he love it, but it actually inspired him. That would be like if I was a teenager and somehow got to compete against Bo Jackson in the many things he knows and he gave me a high five after I kicked his butt. That was a really bad analogy. Man I really love Bo Jackson.

The movie can only be screened at non-profit venues. So if you want to see it then you’ll have to bug your local non-profit art house theater or college and demand that they show it. We’re lucky that George Lucas hasn’t pitched a fit and sued the pants off the filmmakers. There have been rumors since 2004 that it will one day be released in an Indy box set or something. They were filming a lot at the event, it looked like they were filming for a documentary perhaps. So maybe it will get released, but don’t hold your breath. Also it’s better than Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

This has been the first time in years that I’ve seen a movie with nothing but the poster to go on, I never even saw the trailer. It’s really hard to see a movie these days without being tainted by any sort of baggage. I saw the poster. It didn’t make any sense, but I’m a fan of both David Fincher and Spike Jonze. Tarsem’s only other film was the completely insane The Cell¹, a film I’ve been meaning to revisit for the past few years, but I have yet to make the time.

Tarsem is known for being really artsy. He often recreates or pays homage to paintings in his work, he’ll spend 17 years working on a film (which he did for The Fall), and he doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, but it’s always really pretty anyway.

The Fall is about a crippled stunt man (Lee Pace) in a hospital in 1920’s LA. A cute little girl that barely knows English (Cantinca Untaru, who really didn’t know any English) befriends him. He starts telling her an epic story during her daily visits to him, but he’s really just using her so she’ll do stuff for him. It’s very much like The Princess Bride² in that the story frequently gets interrupted by the storyteller or listener. In fact, the interactions between the stunt man and the girl were filmed first and all improvised. The chemistry they have is the best I’ve seen in a long time. They actually dictated a lot of what happens in the story by their improvisation.

The story world scenes are spectacular. They really are epic. Tarsem shot this movie all over the world. Really. He’d been scouting locations for nearly two decades³. There’s so many amazing places in the world I didn’t know about, but thankfully Tarsem exposes many of them in this film. Palaces, deserts, tiny islands in the middle of the sea (and I do mean tiny, like only 20 wide), ancient ruins and an M.C. Escher drawing come to life.

I’ll admit it, I don’t get the movie⁴, but it still haunts me nearly a week after seeing it. It doesn’t make any sense to me. You’ve got an elephant swimming, Charles Darwin wearing a pimp coat, birds coming out of a dude’s mouth, evil black guards that sound like snarling dogs and this amazing scene. I love really great slow motion and this film really gets it right. The whole intro to the film is a long slow motion black and white sequence that’s just brilliant.

The film is rated R, but really should have been rated PG-13. There is nothing in here that warrants an R rating, I guess it might be because of the violence, but it’s no worse than Lord of the Rings or Star Wars. There is a scene that comes to mind that could be found offensive in this post 911 world, and I’m assuming that’s why they got the R rating. If it is the reason, then I’m offended.

If you like breathtaking photography then you’ll enjoy the movie no matter how weird it gets. If you like knowing what’s going on then buy a ticket to The Fall and sneak in to What Happens in Vegas.

1. I understand that The Cell was pretty much only made because The Matrix was such a hit and the studio heads finally “understood” what Tarsem was trying to do.

2. Turns out The Fall is actually a remake of an old Bulgarian movie called “Yo Ho Ho“, but who’s ever seen or even heard of that movie?

3. He was just waiting for the right little girl to come along, and when she did he knew he had to make it right away because little girls grow up so fast.

4. I think it’s a tribute to the pioneers of stunt work in the early silent films. Seriously.

i’m going to make a website this weekend and start posting all of the songs i’ve ever made ever on it. it’s going to be the comprehensive putay song catalog. everything will be available to download. it’ll all be free. and after that i’m going to post everything new that i do as well. i’m taking all of the terrible pressures of commerce out of making jams.
no sweats. - Matt Pusti

Matt Pusti makes some of my favorite music in the universe. He’s also making my music some of my favorite music in the universe.

Matt’s obsession with noise laces his hefty electronic music with subtle delicacies no one should be forced to live without.  You may know him as “Makeup and Vanity Set” … RIP.

After some initial difficulty¹, Matt has put up a website of his ‘jams.’ Do yourself a favor and check it out.

1. In matt’s tumblr blog, he cites the following areas of difficulty

1 the amount of songs versus how much webspace i have is sort of an issue. it’s a lot of jams. 2 writing out all of the code for the links will probably take me forever and i really didn’t have any time to do it this weekend. 3 the last makeup and vanity set record was (is) technically supposed to be released on matt and paul’s cassette tape label, so i’m sort of hesistant to put that online since i committed to releasing it with them.

I was so excited to finally see this movie.  I’ve heard so many great things about it. I really dig Hammer and Tongs as filmmakers, plus it’s about the son of Rambo(w). I must say the wait was definitely worth it.

Son of Rambow takes place in the 80’s in England, but unlike movies like The Wedding Singer it doesn’t bombard you with 80’s nostalgia (except for one amazing over the top dance party scene).  Will Proudfoot is a young boy with a healthy imagination.  He also belongs to a highly religious family (they’re Quakers or something, I never did catch what religion they were).  At school he has to leave the classroom whenever they watch a documentary because he’s not allowed to watch TV.  The school troublemaker, Lee Carter, befriends him and tricks him in to being a stunt man in a movie he’s shooting.   There’s also a French exchange student that has got to be the coolest kid in world.

Will accidentally watches a bootleg of First Blood¹, the first movie he’s ever seen. It has the same effect as giving a six pack of Mountain Dew laced with LSD to a 6 year-old.  He goes completely bonkers.  He becomes obsessed with making the movie.  What happens next is nothing short of brilliant.

This film is a total 80’s PG family movie². It can stand up next to The Goonies, Monster Squad, and The Sandlot- all movies that capture the spirit, imagination, and excitement of being a kid. I don’t want to ruin any more of the movie for you, this is something you need to see with as little preconceived notions as possible.  Just go in there with an open mind and let it get blown.

Real quick- you should really check out Hammer and Tongs other videos right now.

1. The writer/director Garth Jennings says that this was the first R rated movie he ever saw as well.

2. The Goonies was rated PG even though the language was a bit hard, PG-13 had just been invented a year earlier and was still being defined. Just like The Goonies it features kids talking like kids.