THE SPECIAL EDITION: 04.05.2011

Taxi Driver is one of the greatest American films. Everyone has their favorite moments, some of them involving a child prostitute. My favorite moment in the film still comes from Scorsese’s bit role where he describes the physics of shoving a magnum inside a vagina. It’s chuckles and fun, until Travis Bickle becomes the hero that New York needs. Seeing as how it’s been twenty years since Paul Schrader became my cinema hero, it’s a little hard to break away childhood attachments to a film like this. I have to applaud Sony for bargain-pricing this stacked released for the budget-conscious. Unfortunately, most of the special features are ported from prior releases.

I Love You Phillip Morris is the story of a low-key cop realizing that he wants to be a criminal. A criminal in the eyes of the Law and in the eyes of Fred Phelps. Eventually, Morris admits that he’s a homosexual and begins to purse Ewan McGregor. There are certain elements of the readership that will have flashbacks to The Pillow Book and envy Jim Carrey’s mission. The film suffered a difficult road to finally being released, so I hope that more people discover it on Home Video. However, it might not be for everyone. For the Right-minded out there, nobody gets Ned Beatty’d. The end result is a well-written film that’s plagued by pedestrian direction and awkward editing choices.

 

A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Director: Steven Spielberg

Dreamworks/Paramount

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Special Features:

A.I. was supposed to be this dream project. Like most dreams, it was begun by a better man and fulfilled by a lesser dreamer. The last ten years has seen a ton of critics, fans and like-minded nerds flip their opinion on the film. While you can appreciate the mother-child dynamic, there’s a lot of creepy shit going on. The whole idea of service industry turning into virtual prostitution caught my eye on my most recent viewing. If that wasn’t enough, there’s almost the entire third act to effectively reconsider. When David meets the Aliens and wishes for something better, it’s not about fairy tale trappings. You’re watching an eternal child forced to suffer for eternity, as he seeks parental approval.

 

 

Music

Section By Jeb D.

BLOOD PRESSURES

The Kills

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Following the mad, raucous sprawl of The Dead Weather, it’s a little strange hearing Mosshart in such a controlled setting again. But the time away from her day job (and the gossip press) has done the band some good: the sound is clearly that of The Kills, but the music takes a few more chances than on their previous albums. Hince, naturally, brings the Stonesy riffing on “Future Starts Slow” and “Nail In My Coffin,” and “Baby Says” is, in fact, based on a darkly inverted “Gimme Shelter.” But for all the grinding satisfaction of the familiar post-punk blues sound, some of the best moments come when Mosshart steps out for things like the slinky reggae of “Satellite,” the crosscutting counterpoint of “DNA,” and the down-home plainspokennessof “The Last Goodbye,” where she tells us she is unable to “survive on a halfhearted love that will never be whole.”  I have to admit, there’s a part of me that wonders if what we’re reacting to with this band is the production technique as much as anything: if you dialed down the EQ, would these songs pack the same punch? But that’s a theoretical question that evaporates in the wake of actually hearing the band driving behind Mosshart at her most urgent: “You can holler / You can wail / You can swing / You can flail.” Yes, ma’am.

 

SEE MY FRIENDS

Ray Davies and a Bunch of Folks

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How you react to this album will likely depend on what you think it should have been: If the idea were to have a bunch of musical celebs tip a hat to Davies by duetting with him on recreations of his greatest songs, then the all-over-the-mapness of the performances (and the decidedly non-Kinsky approach of most of the artists) might come off as a jumbled mess. On t’other hand, if you think of it as Davies demonstrating that the scope of his writing can fit the styles of a dizzyingly wide range of performers, it works rather well in that context. There’s more hits than misses: Bon Jovi backing Davies on “Celluloid Heroes” is even more lugubrious than the original (if you can imagine such a thing), but Ray’s duet with Jackson Browne on “Waterloo Sunset” works far better than it should, Lucinda Williams is stunning on the relatively obscure “Long Way From Home,” and Mumford and Sons on “Days/This Time Tomorrow” is a natural that would have fit right in on Sigh No More. And you don’t need to know that Davies cut “Till The End Of The Day” with Alex Chilton just before his death to hear it as an inspired high point. I will admit that the “jumbled mess” camp will have a point here: you don’t put Metallica, Spoon, and Jackson Browne on the same album and expect musical cohesion. But Davies’ decision not to have people phone in a bunch of long-distance duets (a la Sinatra), but to travel around the world to hook up with his collaborators in person, provides a through-line that is normally missing in such collections.

 

HOW TO BECOME CLAIRVOYANT

Robbie Robertson

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It’s not intended as a putdown when I say that this album would have made more sense twenty-five years ago (and, indeed, some of the basic tracks go back to sessions from the late 90’s). A quarter-century ago, with The Band ending in a finger-pointing fury of death, drugs, and dissolution, Robertson’s defense (“This Is Where I Get Off”) against accusations of his hogging all the songwriting credit would have had the punch of immediacy. But in the wake of the deaths of Danko and Manuel, and Helm’s emergence from cancer as the Grand Old Man of Americana, it feels, if not exactly petty, at least well past its sell-by date. Regardless, Robertson’s post-Band work was always deeply personal, and deserved a wider audience. And he does a decent job of holding off the whiff of irrelevance by mingling guests like peers Steve Winwood and Eric Clapton (who co-wrote several songs) with disciples like Tom Morello and Trent Reznor. With their backing, and with Clapton sounding more involved than he has in some time, the album has a nice blues-soul groove, but with more jab and weave than actual punch. Lyrically, Robertson digs deeply into the past, both his and that of his generation. “When The Night Was Young” is a melancholy slice of down-home soul that watches youthful idealism fading just out of reach: “We had dreams / We could change the world / Stop the war / But that was back / When the night was young.”  “Straight Down The Line” revisits the day when rock and roll was dangerous enough to be the Devil’s music, and any regrets about a life of excess on “He Don t Live Here No More” are brushed aside by the eerie insinuation of Clapton’s slide guitar, and Robertson s acoustic Flamenco-styled solo. The album slips up here and there–“The Right Mistake” is the kind of cliché-heavy nostalgia that you’d prefer a guy of Robertson’s experience would avoid; the name-checking “Axman” isn’t much more than a showcase for Morello; and “Madame X” and “Tango For Django” are nice acoustic pieces that lack the twisted genius of Robertson’s electric soloing. But the album never falls back on nostalgia for the sound of The Band, and serves as a welcome check-in on the current state of affairs with several rock legends.

 

THE DEFINITIVE BILL EVANS ON RIVERSIDE  &  FANTASY

Bill Evans

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Arguably the most important and influential jazz pianist of the post-WW2 era, the wide-raging nature of Evans’ career makes a collected set like this the ideal introduction to his mutli-faceted genius. While Evans did spend a fair amount of time in the 60’s recording for Verve, his years with Riverside and Fantasy (both labels now owned by the Concord Music Group) rather neatly bookend his career: his first album for Riverside, New Jazz Conceptions, came out in 1956, while his final Fantasy release was 1977’s I Will Say Goodbye. The twenty-five selections on these two CDs feature high points ranging from Evans’ famous 1961 appearance at New York City’s Village Vanguard (“Gloria’s Step,” “Waltz for Debbie”) to his ground-breaking “Peace Piece” from 1958’s Everybody Digs Bill Evans, to his brilliant recordings with Tony Bennett (“Young and Foolish,” “The Touch of Your Lips”), which demonstrated that being the most important piano soloist of his day didn’t prevent Evans from being a sensitive and supportive collaborator and accompanist. Besides Bennett, the roll call of musicians on the album is pretty staggering, including Cannonball Adderley, Zoot Sims, Ray Brown, Freddie Hubbard, Eddie Gomez, Kenny Burrell, and Ron Carter among many others. And while Evans’ takes on standards like “Autumn Leaves” and “Isn’t It Romantic” are revelatory, it’s equally impressive to hear his transformative powers brought to bear on a trifle like “Love Theme From Spartacus.” Given the decades covered, these are well-engineered disks, and the mastering manages to keep the sound from different venues and eras reasonably consistent without gimmicking-up the originals. One of the best jazz starter sets of recent months.

 

Other Notable 4/5 Releases

Various Artists, Songs For Japan. With 38 tracks (all, so far as I can tell, previously released), you’re bound to find something here to make you feel good about sending a few bucks to help the relief effort. And if your goal in life was to own one single album that featured John Lennon, Bruno Mars, Katy Perry, Bruce Springsteen, and Michael Buble…

Ray Charles, Live in Concert. On the one hand, thinner sound than last week’s live tribute from Nelson and Marsalis, and fewer familiar hits. On the other hand… well, genius.

Hot Tuna, Steady As She Goes. Back in the day, their laid-back acoustic blues stood apart from the Haight-Ashbury freakouts that were part and parcel of their day job. With their first album in a decade, the acoustic stuff takes a back seat, and what they provide is more or less roots-rock comfort food, which certainly has its place. If you liked last week’s new one from Band of Heathens, you could do worse than follow it up with this.

Smithereens, 2011. Years of releasing Beatle and Who cover albums stripped this band of any relevance they might once have had, but they remain one of the few power-pop bands that knows how to emphasize the one without sacrificing the other. Won’t change your life, but if you liked ’em before, they still sound pretty damn fine.

Raveonettes, Raven In The Grave. When bands cite The Velvet Underground as a principal influence, I often wonder if they’ve considered the wide range of sounds and styles that the Velvets covered over the space of just four albums, or if they simply glommed onto one Velvets album as their favorite. In the case of The Raveonettes, that was pretty clearly the self-titled third; sounds OK, but tossing a little Loaded into the mix wouldn’t hurt.

INXS, Original Sin. Why is this album of leftover INXS members re-recording their old songs with guest artists any less worthy than Ray Davies doing the same thing? Well, for starters, the songs aren’t as good and the guests aren’t as interesting. And, it kinda sucks.

Fleshtones, Roman Gods/Up-Front/Plus. Starter set for the best frat-garage-party rock band of the 80’s: their debut EP, first full-length album, and nine live tracks. The fact that they’re still around suggests that this stuff might actually be good for you.

The Submarines, Love Notes/Letter Bombs. I have no objection to a pop group chirping about such subjects as “Shoelaces,” “Fire,” “Birds,” “Tigers,” (all song titles here), but that level of thematic reduction suggests a reach for universality that they’re not quite up to. Cute tunes, though.

Sergio Mendes, Celebration: A Musical Journey. Even listeners who can ignore the “elevator music” label that got attached to Bossa Nova (thanks to Getz/Gilberto’s “The Girl From Ipanema”) often find the music of Mendes and his Brasil ’66 (‘67, ’68, etc.) just a bit too easy-listening. I won’t argue, really, but if you can get past the sugary vocals on top, the lush grooves underneath are satisfyingly funky. In conjunction with his work on the movie Rio, this latest anthology does a fine job of spanning Mendes’ career from the Brasil ’66 days up to the present.

Little Fockers                                                 $16.99  $22.99
Tron: Legacy                                                   $15.99 $19.99 $24.99 $64.99

Ong Bak 3                                                          $13.99  $13.99

Sarah Palin’s Alaska                                      $12.99

Chronicles of Narnia: Dawn Treader     $15.99  $19.99

127 Hours                                                         $13.99  $17.99

The Tourist                                                       $13.99  $17.99

Tron: Classic                                                    $13.99  $19.99

Let Me In                                                          $12.99  $14.99

Taxi Driver                                                                 $12.99

I Love You, Philip Morris                                     $16.99  $22.99

Meet the Parents

Meet the Fockers

Hereafter

Due Date

Inception

Red

Tron: Classic