Mixed bag
Hmmm. Do I need to see the new Muppets movie in the theater? I was going to wait for the DVD, but it's been getting very good reviews. I might need to bump it up my priority list. (Pezzers, why aren't you nearby so we could see it together?)
Speaking of movies, I watched Super 8 tonight. If you ever wanted to see a movie where Mulder and Scully have been replaced by a group of fourteen-year-old boys (and Elle Fanning) and sent back to 1979, but still have a run-in with aliens and creepy military people, this is the movie for you.
I watched it because of the J.J. Abrams pedigree, since I usually tend to like what comes out of Abrams's crazy head--though, admittedly, I tend to like it more once it's been filtered through the heads of people who can keep details straight--and it did not disappoint on that score. Highlights: HOLY CRAP THAT TRAIN CRASH WAS AMAZING. It's worth renting the DVD for that alone. The alien making its ship out of the water tower and all the metal in the town was extremely cool-looking too.
The kids were appropriately kid-like, by which I mean the boys all had that over-excited shouty teenaged reaction to everything even mildly startling that kind of makes me want to muzzle them, but the main character was reasonably endearing, and the pyromaniac was kind of hilarious. So was the bossy director.
My memories of childhood start around 1987, so I'm about ten years too late for the nostalgic setting to really get to me, but I still enjoyed the use of songs like "My Sharona" and "Heart of Glass" and things like the gas station dude being all excited over his new Walkman. I've also never seen all the Spielberg films this is obviously evocative of (insert standard unamerican/alien baby/grew up on Mars disclaimers here ;)), but they've so permeated American culture by now that I could easily figure out what they were doing.
Lowlights: The criminal underuse of Elle Fanning. She was definitely the best kid actor, and yet she basically got to play the Juliet to the main kid's Romeo and then spent half the film kidnapped by the alien before he came to rescue her. Sigh.
*
Awww, look, someone made a Julian/Jadzia vid! Okay, the song actively makes me want to set fire to something, but but but Baby's First OTP! And no one ever makes vids for them, and literally there hasn't been a new fic written for them since 2003!
*
Finally, some more music recs. I've mentioned before that I have something of a like-hate relationship with The Innocence Mission, but recently Pandora started coughing up tracks that I actually love. Who knew these were their best albums?
First is Glow, which is from 1995 and sounds basically like the album The Sundays might have made if they were American. (For that matter, have my current favorite Sundays song: Can't Be Sure.) Again like The Sundays, this album is built around the sound of a hollow-body electric guitar. I only just recently learned that this instrument is what produces the sound I find so attractive.
Anyway, my four favorites from this album:
Brave
That Was Another Country
Spinning
There
Fast-forward fifteen years. Not long after Glow, their drummer quit, and they just...never bothered to replace him, which had a considerable effect on their sound. Where Glow fits in, albeit not perfectly, to the wide, wide field that was alternative rock of the early- and mid-nineties, by the time they got to My Room in the Trees they'd obviously decided they were a folk band, by god, and so like some of their others I've recced, this is much more piano-driven and generally quieter. But my quibble with much of their other work is that Karen Peris lets the melody noodle around unattractively for ages and ages until she gets back to the chorus or another verse, and while I like variations and inventiveness as much as the next person, these just make me want to yell at her to get back to the point. Thankfully, this tendency is much less in evidence on this album, and in particular on my two favorites:
Gentle the Rain at Home
North American Field Song
Annnnd one more for the road, entirely unrelated to any of the above:
Follow the Arrow - Rosi Golan & Human. Dunno who Human is, but this sounds exactly like one of Golan's bouncier solo tracks.
This entry was originally posted at http://icepixie.dreamwidth.org/824716.html. It has
comments over there.
Speaking of movies, I watched Super 8 tonight. If you ever wanted to see a movie where Mulder and Scully have been replaced by a group of fourteen-year-old boys (and Elle Fanning) and sent back to 1979, but still have a run-in with aliens and creepy military people, this is the movie for you.
I watched it because of the J.J. Abrams pedigree, since I usually tend to like what comes out of Abrams's crazy head--though, admittedly, I tend to like it more once it's been filtered through the heads of people who can keep details straight--and it did not disappoint on that score. Highlights: HOLY CRAP THAT TRAIN CRASH WAS AMAZING. It's worth renting the DVD for that alone. The alien making its ship out of the water tower and all the metal in the town was extremely cool-looking too.
The kids were appropriately kid-like, by which I mean the boys all had that over-excited shouty teenaged reaction to everything even mildly startling that kind of makes me want to muzzle them, but the main character was reasonably endearing, and the pyromaniac was kind of hilarious. So was the bossy director.
My memories of childhood start around 1987, so I'm about ten years too late for the nostalgic setting to really get to me, but I still enjoyed the use of songs like "My Sharona" and "Heart of Glass" and things like the gas station dude being all excited over his new Walkman. I've also never seen all the Spielberg films this is obviously evocative of (insert standard unamerican/alien baby/grew up on Mars disclaimers here ;)), but they've so permeated American culture by now that I could easily figure out what they were doing.
Lowlights: The criminal underuse of Elle Fanning. She was definitely the best kid actor, and yet she basically got to play the Juliet to the main kid's Romeo and then spent half the film kidnapped by the alien before he came to rescue her. Sigh.
*
Awww, look, someone made a Julian/Jadzia vid! Okay, the song actively makes me want to set fire to something, but but but Baby's First OTP! And no one ever makes vids for them, and literally there hasn't been a new fic written for them since 2003!
*
Finally, some more music recs. I've mentioned before that I have something of a like-hate relationship with The Innocence Mission, but recently Pandora started coughing up tracks that I actually love. Who knew these were their best albums?
First is Glow, which is from 1995 and sounds basically like the album The Sundays might have made if they were American. (For that matter, have my current favorite Sundays song: Can't Be Sure.) Again like The Sundays, this album is built around the sound of a hollow-body electric guitar. I only just recently learned that this instrument is what produces the sound I find so attractive.
Anyway, my four favorites from this album:
Brave
That Was Another Country
Spinning
There
Fast-forward fifteen years. Not long after Glow, their drummer quit, and they just...never bothered to replace him, which had a considerable effect on their sound. Where Glow fits in, albeit not perfectly, to the wide, wide field that was alternative rock of the early- and mid-nineties, by the time they got to My Room in the Trees they'd obviously decided they were a folk band, by god, and so like some of their others I've recced, this is much more piano-driven and generally quieter. But my quibble with much of their other work is that Karen Peris lets the melody noodle around unattractively for ages and ages until she gets back to the chorus or another verse, and while I like variations and inventiveness as much as the next person, these just make me want to yell at her to get back to the point. Thankfully, this tendency is much less in evidence on this album, and in particular on my two favorites:
Gentle the Rain at Home
North American Field Song
Annnnd one more for the road, entirely unrelated to any of the above:
Follow the Arrow - Rosi Golan & Human. Dunno who Human is, but this sounds exactly like one of Golan's bouncier solo tracks.
This entry was originally posted at http://icepixie.dreamwidth.org/824716.html. It has
comments over there.