Robin Wood (1931-2009)

The excellent film critic Robin Wood died a few days ago. He wrote a number of outstanding and important books, including the two I am most familiar with: his first, a book about Hitchcock's films originally published in 1965, and Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan, originally published in 1986. David Bordwell has written an appreciation of Wood's work here.

Elliott Smith albums to be re-released on Kill Rock Stars ( + free download of a previously unreleased song)

Pacific Northwest record label Kill Rock Stars has announced that they have acquired the rights to two of the late Elliot Smith's albums, Roman Candle and From a Basement on the Hill. With these additions, Kill Rock Stars' catalog now includes all of Smith albums except the two albums--XO (1998) and Figure 8 (2000)--Smith recorded during a brief stint on the now-defunct Dreamworks Records. According to Kill Rock Stars' website, Roman Candle (originally released on Cavity Search in 1994) has been remastered for the new release. The album will also be released available on vinyl for the first time. Release date for both albums will be April 6th, 2010,

To celebrate, the Smith albums currently available on KRS--Elliott Smith, Either/Or, and New Moon--are on sale on their website and via iTunes. Additionally, they are offering a previously unreleased Smith recording, "Cecilia/Amanda," as a free download.

Some thoughts on CD Remastering

Remastered music: making new from old?

(Posted using ShareThis)

I came across this article via a link from a friend's blog. It's a sort of intro to the pros and cons of remastering:

"Remastering is a valid, yet often overused concept. Record labels have found remastering to be a way to get loyal fans to buy their favorite albums again. In many cases, the music is just dusted off, treated with some noise reduction, and slapped on new CDs—perhaps with a few bonus tracks"

"Remastering raises some philosophical questions, though. When listeners are used to a certain sound over a long period—such as several decades—any remastering sounds peculiar."

Something the author doesn't mention--the so-called "loudness war":

Kissed at Wal-Mart

As you may already be aware, Kiss released their 19th studio album, Sonic Boom—there first in more than a decade (their previous record, the somewhat ill-conceived “reunion” of the band's original line-up Psycho Circus, was released way back in 1998)--is being sold in the U.S. exclusively through Wal-Mart (I'm generally not a fan of the concept of exclusive albums, but that's a topic for another day). It's a pretty good record, but more interesting to me has been the mega-retailers strategy to rouse additional interest in the album by making the heart of the band's back catalog—remastered version of the studio albums the band recorded for Casablanca Records between 1974-1977—available for either $5.00 or $7.00 depending on title. I've been a Kiss fan since I first heard them on the radio as a youngster during that period during which they were at the height of their popularity, but I'd somehow never bought these albums on CD. In the past few months, I've purchased Kiss (1974), Hotter than Hell (1974), Dressed to Kill (1975), Destroyer (1976), Rock and Roll Over (1976), and Love Gun (1977).

Invictus

I'm hoping to get out and see Clint Eastwood's new film, Invictus, some time before Christmas.

Christgau on the new Nirvana album

Robert Christgau on Nirvana's Live at Reading (released November 3rd), an official release of the band's oft-bootlegged performance headlining the 1992 Reading Festival:

Nirvana's outtakes retain more jam than most, in part because they've been doled out so sparingly. Even the detritus-happy three- CD/one-DVD "With the Lights Out" box is not only fascinating but pleasurable. A side effect of this restraint is that, except for the subdued and hence one-of-a-kind "MTV Unplugged," this is the band's very first concert album -- one show beginning to end rather than the hither-and-yon performances unified into "From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah" in 1996. Half these 24 songs aren't on that record anyway, but even if most of them were, the sustained mood and energy flow would be something new and precious. The arrangements offer few surprises, though check the guitar intro to "Smells Like Teen Spirit"; the Mudhoney cover and unfinalized "D-7" at the end are there to tamp the crowd down a little. So what? This one proceeds directly to the canon.

1st trailer for Iron Man 2

Iron Man 2 hits theaters on May 7, 2010, followed by Thor on May 20, 2011 and The First Avenger: Captain America on July 22, 2011, all leading up to The Avengers (which will unite the title characters of the other films in a single film) on May 4, 2012.

Trailers from the Home Theater II: The House of the Devil

Our dog has an injured leg and my wife is not feeling well, so the three of us are curled up in bed watching The House of Devil.

Michael Atkinson's Top 50 films of the decade

Over at Zero for Conduct, Michael Atkinson has compiled a list of the best films of the '00s--"my decade-best list, the Top 50, in order because it's not fun any other way, as it’s being fed into the exanding universe of film critic best-of stats":


1. La Commune (Paris, 1871) (Peter Watkins, France)
2. What Time Is It There? (Tsai Ming-liang, Taiwan)
4. Adaptation (Spike Jonze/Charlie Kaufman, US)
3. Werckmeister Harmonies (Bela Tarr, Hungary)
5. 2046 (Wong Kar-wai, Hong Kong)
6. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry/Charlie Kaufman, US)
7. Time of the Wolf (Michael Haneke, France)
8. Battle in Heaven (Carlos Reygadas, Mexico)
9. Cache (Michael Haneke, France)
10. Inland Empire (David Lynch, US
11. Gerry (Gus Van Sant, US)
12. Elephant (Gus Van Sant, US)
13. Children of Men (Alphonse Cuaron, US/GB)
14. Oasis (Lee Chang-dong, Korea)
15. Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weersethakul, Thailand)
16. Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch, US)
17. Syndromes and a Century (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand)
18. Yi Yi (Edward Yang, Taiwan)
19. In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, Hong Kong)
20. Songs from the Second Floor (Roy Andersson, Sweden)
21. Innocence (Lucile Hadzihalilovic, France)
22. The Weeping Meadow (Theo Angelopoulos, Greece)
23. Safe Conduct (Bertrand Tavernier, France)
24. There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, US)
25. Platform (Jia Zhangke, China)
26. Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, US)
27. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Andrew Dominik, US)
28. 4 (Ilya Khrjanovsky, Russia)
29. My Winnipeg (Guy Maddin, Canada)
30. The Day I Became a Woman (Marziyeh Meshkini, Iran)
31. Regular Lovers (Philippe Garrel, France)
32. Wordly Desires (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand)
33. Dans Ma Peau (Marina de Van, France)
34. United 93 (Paul Greengrass, US)
35. Ballast (Lance Hammer, US
36. Le Fils (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, Belgium)
37. Wendy & Lucy (Kelly Reichardt, US)
38. Keane (Lodge Kerrigan, US)
39. The World (Jia Zhangke, China)
40. Capturing the Friedmans (Andrew Jarecki, US)
41. Turtles Can Fly (Bahman Ghobadi, Iran/Iraq/Kurdistan
42. Silent Light (Carlos Reygadas, Mexico)
43. Once (John Carney, Ireland)
44. Still Life (Jia Zhangke, China)
45. Monday Morning (Otar Iosseliani, France)
46. The Headless Woman (Lucretia Martel, Argentina)
47. The Last Train (Alexei German Jr., Russia)
48. Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman, Israel)
49. Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, US)
50. The Mist in the Palm Trees (Carlos Molinaro & Lola Salvador, Spain)

It's a very astute list, I think, though I wouldn't rank Inglorious Basterds, Brokeback Mountain, or Adaptation as highly as does Atkinson.

(I've put the ones that I've a chance to see in red, most of the rest are in my Netflix queue)

Trailers from the Home Theater: John Woo's Red Cliff and Gregor Jordan's The Informers

This afternoon I'm watching Red Cliff, directed by the Hong Kong filmmaker John Woo, an outstanding director of action melodramas who was never wholly successful at translating his grand style into the idiom of present-day Hollywood. Red Cliff is Woo's first HK film since 1992's masterful Hard Boiled, and is being hailed as a return to form.



Last night I watched the film adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' 1994 collection of linked short stories The Informers. Like most of Ellis' work (American Psycho being a notable exception), this book made a not-so-good film. With the exception of relatively small roles by Mickey Rourke and the late Brad Renfro, it's a pretty lifeless film.

Idle Thoughts

Check out the the official promo photos for  former American Idol contestant Katherine McPhee. She's gone platinum blonde:

The new album (to be titled Unbroken, apparently) was to be released in October 2009, but like her first record, it was delayed, pushed back due to "scheduling conflicts," and is now due out January 5th, 2010. She got dumped by he original label, RCA, due to underwhelming sales of he eponymous debut (I heard it not long after it was released in 2007, but honestly have virtually no recollection of what it actually sounded like), and is now signed to Verve Forecast Records. The delay doesn't seem to bode well for McPhee's career.

Reading List—December 2009

Ripped: How the Wired Generation Revolutionized Music—Greg Kot

The Book of Basketball—Bill Simmons

Eating the Dinosaur—Chuck Klosterman

How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music—Elijah Wald

The Beatles: The Biography—Bob Spitz

''Truly, My Satan, thou art but a Dunce"

Earlier this week I watched Lars Von Trier's Antichrist on pay-per-view television. Very disappointing. Sitting down to watch it, I was aware that it had received generally negative reviews, though I hadn't actually read any of these reviews. I admire some of Von Trier's earlier films—The Element of Crime, Europa, Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark—but I've found his recent films increasingly numb and treadless, rote quasi-provocations, and his latest is no exception. For all it's sex-and-guilt violence, and despite some memorable imagery (see above image), Antichrist is not nearly the outrageous work it was billed as being, though it's plenty dumb at times . . . and occasionally downright laughable.

Recent acquisitions:

Middle Cyclone--Neko Case
Off Ground-Paul McCartney
Lost Dogs--Pearl Jam
Play: The Guitar Album--Brad Paisley
Electric Arguments--The Fireman
Living Things--Matthew Sweet
Get Happy!!--Elvis Costello & the Attractions
Please Do Not Disturb--Juliana Hatfield
American Saturday Night--Brad Paisley
Love Gun--Kiss
Psycho Circus--Kiss
Destroyer--Kiss
A Thousand Leaves--Sonic Youth
Riot Act--Pearl Jam
Democracy--Killing Joke
The Believer--Rhett Miller
In Rainbows--Radiohead
OK Computer--Radiohead
Experimental Jet Set, Trash & No Star--Sonic Youth
Funeral--Arcade Fire
Neon Bible--Arcade Fire
Magical Mystery Tour--The Beatles

Pardon Our Dust

I've been away for a while again--busy with the kids, etc--so I decide it was time to freshen up the look of things again. Hope you like it.

This month's reading list

Michael Sragow's Victor Fleming: An American Movie Master
Emanuel Levy's Vincente Minnelli: Hollywood's Dark Dreamer
Kevin Browlow's Hollywood: The Pioneers
Werner Herzog's Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo

This week I'm busy trying to find time to watch:

Solaris
Farewell, My Concubine
W.

More bad news for American film culture--one of the great independent film distributors, New Yorker Films, is going out of business:

Sátántangó

I'm a few hours into Hungarian filmmaker Bela Tarr's 450-minute-long masterpiece Sátántangó. It's a fascinating film, but one that is a bit of a feat of endurance to get through, so I'm trying to muster the concentration to do so. I anticipate having quite a bit to say about this film in the near future. Stay tuned.