Ultranormal

Category: entertainment

  • Coldplay and Transvestite Funny

    As you’ve probably noticed, I resist what’s popular until I just can’t take it anymore and then embrace it as soon as everyone else has found it and proclaimed it to be the Best Thing In The Whole Wide World™. Well, here I go again. Heather got Coldplay’s Parachutes for Christmas and wow, it’s just great. I haven’t heard the new one yet (because Heather hasn’t let me borrow it yet), but Parachutes is just great. It’s moody, mellow and is great “float away into what you’re doing” background music. I’ve been listening to the album for a couple hours now, and I’ve finally figured out why it sounds so familiar. Colplay’s lead singer sounds an awful lot like Jeff Buckley, especially on the second track, Shiver. I loved Grace, and this album sounds a lot like it, which isn’t a bad thing. I know you all know this already, but I figured I’d share anyway.

    Speaking of things I know that you probably already do too, I got Eddie Izzard’s Dress to Kill on DVD for Christmas. Now, I’d seen the show on HBO about a million times, but wanted a DVD to watch when I’m sick, and something I can loan to friends who haven’t been indoctrinated yet. The coolest bonus of the whole thing is that there’s a show Eddie did in Paris as a prep for his new show, Circle. It’s all in French, but has sub-titles, which were nice for them big words and funky conjugations I didn’t get. It’s mostly his older material, but there were some great new bits in it. My favorite being (and this is a paraphrase, because it was in this big thing about the Renaissance), “You know, I’m just like Leonardo Da Vinci. He invented this helicopter that doesn’t work, and when I was seven, I also invented a helicopter that doesn’t work!! I’m a bloody genius, I tell you.” It was funnier in French… I swear it was.

  • Spiders, Wolfs and Steve McQueen, Oh My!

    Jen was sick this weekend so I ran to the local video store and grabbed some sick-movies. Here’s the recap:

    • Eight Legged Freaks: A small town in Arizona, dumbass, cute cop, colorful local characters… big scary monsters killing the population? Oh yeah, this is Tremors with more eyes and legs. The spiders were pretty cool for the most part. The only real problem I had with them is they had too much personality for spiders. I think it would have been better if they’d left the funny to the people (although with David Arquette, might want to let the spiders try the funnny). Altogether, it had some good moments, but it was completely forgettable. Perfect sick movie.

    • Brotherhood of the Wolf: Thankfully, Jen was feeling better by the time we started this one. I’d seen the trailers and thought it looked different. I figured, hey, it’s a werewolf movie, right? It’s French, and set in the late 18th century. The DVD offers either English dubbed, or French with English subtitles. I would go for the subtitles. The dubbing is sometimes distracting. Past the dubbing, I really liked this movie (and so did Jen!). It’s a period, horror, mystery, upstairs/downstairs, romance, political thriller. Yeah, really. It’s gorgeously shot, well-directed and paced just like you’d expect a French horror movie to be. The story is well-told, and we were fully involved even though the movie is pretty long. Definitely go rent it – and keep an open mind.

    Another possible title for this site: Sitting on my butt between the mainstream and the bleeding edge. It’s long, but I like it.

    My sister wrote all about the big bowling excursion last night. I bowled two 127’s in a row, which I’m pretty proud of. I haven’t bowled since the league ended last year, so woo-hoo me. There’s a certain freedom in bowling alleys. No one’s expecting anyone else to be quiet, prim, proper or even really that nice. Everything is in good fun. In that spirit, Heather and I came up with our new team motto that I’m thinking of having made into a t-shirt: We bowl straighter than Steve McQueen. Now, this may sound bad, but it’s really funny in context. Heather has this really funny approach and release because of her toe. She throws it straight down the alley, practically no spin. Hell, the ball doesn’t even hardly roll. It’s hilarious. So, that’s where my horrible motto came from… and I’m not apologizing for it.

  • They’re EVERYWHERE!

    “it’s like the bastard offspring of Enya and Radiohead” – See, I post something and the world goes crazy. Now, I can’t go five minutes without seeing something else about Sigur Ros.

  • Sigur Ros: Bonus

    As an addendum, Amazon is offering a free download of a couple of Sigur Ros’ songs off of Agaetis Byrjun. The title track is one of them, and it is gorgeous. They played it last night and it almost brought me to tears. They overdid the end of the song, but the first ten minutes were musical bliss. The album track has all of the beauty with just the right amount of feedback.

  • Sigur Ros at the Lincoln Theatre: 11/4/2002

    The story is more in the getting there and home than in the concert itself, but I’ll tell you about the concert first, since the trip took longer than the music lasted. The four of us, Jen, Heather, and Steve made the trek downtown for the show. For the uninitiated, Sigur Ros is an Icelandic band. The lead singer has a voice that lives in the octaves above Radiohead‘s Thom Yorke. It’s haunting and downright beautiful. He plays his guitar with a bow about half the time, and can create quite a noise with it, alternatingly gorgeous and horrible. Their drummer is chock full of energy, although his solo was overly repetetive for a drum solo. He was just keeping the beat, only louder.

    But, I’m getting ahead of myself. The opening act was another Icelandic musician who came out in a black t-shirt, armed with an acoustic guitar and a chair. He spoke in English with an outrageous Icelandic accent (Steve said, “Did he justs say, ‘A glass moose eye is glass’?”). Unfortunately, his songs were also sung in English and were completely unintelligible, both because of his accent and the fact that he mumbled like a Nordic Bob Dylan on Valium. I made out the following phrases:

    • Even eagles cry (repeated about a million times)

    • something something… dive into you.. something else something else

    • She had purple eyes… blah blah… Icelandic sky

    I would have been OK with a folksy opening act if he weren’t so bad. He constantly messed up changes and when he flubbed, instead of playing over it like he meant to do that (like we would have known the difference), he paused right in the middle of the song, and sometimes said “oopsy”. It was entertaining.

    Then… we waited. I don’t know what it is about concert nowadays but why are there always at least 20 minutes between the opening act and the headliner? It happened when we saw No Doubt, and it happened last night too. It’s just stupid. The point of an opener is to warm up the audience. Why do that, if you’re just going to let them cool off for twenty minutes between the two? The stage was already set up for the band, why not just come right on out and get started?

    Eventually, Sigur Ros made it to the stage. They had quite a show for it being a smaller theater. They had a huge screen behind them where they played distorted videos of children playing, power lines, a sleeping old man’s face (that was the first and most impressive… uber-creepy). Before I get into how they sounded, I will couch this with the fact that I’ve only ever heard one of their songs and had no idea what to expect. So, my hour with the band was my only exposure, and that may color this commentary. Heather and I really dug the concert. Jen hated it, and Steve said it was “weird”. The only musical comparison I can make is that they sound a little like Radiohead in concert. The lead singer sings in this lilting Icelandic falsetto the whole time (all the lyrics are in Icelandic, which is a pretty melodic language). The music is sometimes overly repetetive, but overall, I really liked their sound. They fell into some classic rock concert traps like overdoing it with the screeching, ear-bleeding feedback when they really didn’t need to, and their set seemed almost too choreographed. They played for maybe an hour, with no encores even though the audience went nuts and the band came out for two bows. Every non-classical, amateur concert I’ve been to since I was 13 has had at least one encore. I was pretty disappointed that bowing counts in their book.

    Overall, I give their performance a B. The lighting and screen effects were cool, and I never once thought they should get off the stage (except the extended feedback song… why, Icelandic guys, why?). I probably wouldn’t go see them again, but I may go buy an album or two.

    Thus ends the concert report, and begins the horrible trip report

    Before I begin, let me give you the stats:

    • Miles: A trip that should have been 60 miles round-trip took almost 150.

    • Drive Time: 1.5 hours planned, 4 hours actual

    • Unintentional Monument / Landmark Sitings / Major Bridge Crossings:

      • The Washington Monument (Jen’s Barometer for how lost we get when we go downtown): 9 – a new Lawver record

      • The Pentagon: 3

      • The Capitol Building: 2

      • Thomas Jefferson Memorial: 1

      • The Key Bridge: 2 crossings (1 was intended, the second was a bonus)

      • The Theodore Roosevelt Bridge: 1 crossing (none intended)

      • The Woodrow Wilson Bridge: 2 crossings (none intended)

      • The State of Maryland: 1 entrance, and thankfully, one exit

    • Major Freeways / Roadways Driven On (unintended/accidental in bold):

      • 495

      • 395

      • 66

      • Route 1

      • Whitehurst Freeway

      • George Washington Parkway (1 intentional, 1 accidental)

      • Route 7: from Falls Church to Tysons Corner

      • The Dulles Toll Road

      • Route 28

    Here’s my tip to you, as a freebie: never trust MapQuest‘s driving directions when going into the district. Take my brother Steve and a good map (I recommend the ADC map book). We got so turned around and messed up that it took him taking over with the map to get us where we needed to be. Luckily (or unluckily depending on your point of view, Jen), we got the show in time, but it took us 2.5 hours to get home. I hate driving in DC, and have decided to either rent a limo, take the limo (which would probably never happen, which means:) or just not go.

  • Bittersweet Motel

    I’m sitting here watching Bittersweet Motel waiting for Sunday Night Football to come on, and my headache to leave. It’s the Phish concert movie. It has some really funny interviews with the band and live and (odd) other versions of the songs from my favorite album: Billy Breathes. It’s an interesting portrait of the band. They’re all so New England quirky (as opposed to Southern Quirky… sorry, this is a stupid line, but I’m too tired to backspace).

    The band is releasing a lot of their live shows on CD this fall, most importantly, the Halloween shows where they pick another band’s album to cover. I really want to hear their cover of The White Album and Remain in the Light by the Talking Heads. Hear that folks? Good Christmas present ideas… or Hannukah or Thanksgiving even.

  • The Weekend Entertainment Roundup

    It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, but I actually got out this weekend (with the sniper on the loose, that’s a feat). Here’s the roundup, in chronological order:

    • The Transporter: So, they gave Turkish from Snatch a chance at his own action movie. Jason Statham is perfect for the action hero thing. He’s buff, has an accent, can deliver catch phrases with a bit of flair and just looks like a guy who could kick a whole boatload of ass if he needed to. That said, the movie was a joke. There were some good fights, but overall, it should have gone straight to video or HBO. Jason Statham and the French cop were the only roles with any depth (and even then, you could see the bottom). The bad guy was a third rate menacer who tried to look tough by feigning constipation and a Sling Blade-like grimage. The other bad guy kept making me laugh because he was the same guy who played to gay club owner in Good Morning Vietnam and had the world’s worst rug on his wrinkled little head. The opening car chase would have been fun if the guy had watched a little less Gone in Sixty Seconds and a bit more Ronin (sorry, at a loss for good car chases this morning…). There were so many jump cuts, it was hard to keep up. If it had been directed better, the sequence could have been top notch. There were a couple other funny inconsistencies like a Cessna going from “graze the powerlines on the highway” to 10,000 feet in a matter of seconds so Jason Statham could jump out of the plane, but it was fun. The fight in the bus garage with the oil was one of the most original fights I’ve seen in a long time, and Jason Statham chews up the scenery when given the chance and more than three words to say at a time. So, rent it when it comes out if you want to see Turkish kick some butt in toe clips (don’t ask), but don’t see it in the theater.

    • Twister: I’ve been watching the DVD on and off just to play with the sound on the new TV. I loved this movie when it first came out. What happened? It has an early (and weird) performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Carey Elwes with another in his pantheon of horrible accents. I think the problem I have with it now is the amazing Wooden Bill Paxton. He just lumbers through each line he has. I liked him in A Simple Plan, and he’s done good work in other movies, but man, he was just wretched in that movie.

    • The Sopranos: It’s nice to see that the first episode didn’t set the tone for the whole season. Last night’s episode was great. The only problem I have is Janice. She bugs me, and I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s that I know too many emotional vultures like her. Maybe it’s the fact that I like the actress, and feel bad that she’s written so unevenly on the show. She goes from complete wreck to her mother in the span of fifteen minutes. Maybe that’s what she’s supposed to be, but it doesn’t fit for me.

    • Sunday Night Football: Wow, what a game. I started watching in the middle of the second quarter, and didn’t leave until the last couple seconds. There weren’t a ton of points scored, but it was the best game I’ve seen all season. It came down to two long field goals in the last five minutes, and either team deserved to win it. There were so many great defensive plays! It was just amazing. If you missed it, you missed the reason I love the NFL.

  • Booooooomtown Homirobbery Division

    We watched two new cop shows this weekend, Robbery Homicide Division and Boomtown. First, Robbery Homicide Division was ok. It’s better than CSi, but far worse than any of the Law & Order series or NYPD Blue. The weird part is it’s hard to nail down what’s wrong with it. LA is ripe for a good cop show. All the other good cop series on TV are in New York, and LA has enough crime to accomodate several shows, don’t you think? Tom Sizemore was good. The production quality was good. I think it was just a little too easy, even though the end tried to be all indy-film bad news, it didn’t quite live up. There was nothing that made me really care about what was going on. It was just OK.

    Boomtown is another story. Written by Graham Yost, who adapted Band of Brothers for HBO, this is going to be a good show. The storytelling method isn’t as revolutionary as the reviewers have made it out to be, but it is an interesting way to introduce all the characters and give the whole picture of the crime. Again, this show is set in LA, and they did a good job of highlighting the fact they were in LA without relying on the landmarks everyone knows (the Hollywood sign, LAX, etc). It was very well acted, even Jason Gedrick, which surprised me. Definitely worth watching. Hopefully, the rest of the season will match up to the Pilot.

  • Sacharin Home Alabama

    So, I took Jen to see Sweet Home Alabama last night. Oh my, what a crap movie. I’ll start with the two good things about the movie, and then go into the myriad sins it commits. There were three highlights: Candace Bergen, Ethan Embry and Fred Ward, all underused, but they managed to stand out like shiny bits of corn in this turd of a movie.

    Ethan Embry played a closetted redneck, and did a decent job playing it evenly and without queening out. It was well done and subtle. Fred Ward was funny and showed why he should get more work than he does. Ms. Bergen was caustic and had some good lines as the mayor of New York, but she ends the movie being completely humiliated, and kind of ruins her character, through no fault of her own.

    Now, on to the crap. This movie was equal to the horrible Serendipity in pure shmaltz and predictability. It was horrible. It’s an unspeakable abuse of the sacred romantic comedy formula. In a better movie, there would have been a twist or two, and something that sets it apart. This movie gave me nothing, nothing at all. There was no chemistry between Reese Witherspoon and her not-yet-divorced ex. There was no real drama either. Almost everyone involved slept through the movie, and nothing rises above the level of Lifetime Movie of the Week (alternate title, “Mother, May I Marry a Yankee?”).

    If you’re stupid, you’ll like this movie. If you have an IQ higher than 70, and have ever seen any other romantic comedy (both of which are used for this movie as aspiration and hyperbole, not as an indication of the actual content of the film), skip it and go rent When Harry Met Sally, Prelude to a Kiss or even Sleepless in Seattle.

  • The Folds of Thieving Acid House Hillbilly Jams

    So, the big order from Amazon showed up yesterday with Jen’s Gift Pack and my CD’s. I got Jen the new remastered Grease DVD, the soundtrack, the Grease II soundtrack, Carole King’s remastered Tapestry and A3’s Exile on Coldharbor Lane because she loves the Sopranos theme song, but I don’t like the rest of the songs on the soundtrack. I’ve been listening to the album this morning, and it’s right up my alley. It’s a weird combination of styles, but I love it. Take a little bit of Robbie Robertson’s self-titled solo album, Leonard Cohen, Acid Jazz, rap, a little early Moby beat, and rockabilly. It’s crazy, and there’s some foul language (that’s for you, Heather), but it’s so much fun, I can’t stop listening to it.

    I also ordered Ben Folds’ Rockin’ the Suburbs, Thievery Corporation’s DJ Kicks and Lamb’s self-titled debut. I somehow forgot to rip Lamb, so it’s still at home and I haven’t listened to it yet. I also haven’t finished DJ Kicks, but I’ve heard almost all of those songs at some point on other compilations or from friends, so I’m pretty secure in saying that I’ll love it.

    Rockin’ the Suburbs is Ben Folds’ funniest album yet. All the other albums have funny lines and some songs that amuse and delight, but this one is far and away the funniest. The title track is great, but it doesn’t end there. On top of being funny, there isn’t a dud on the album. All the songs are tight, catchy and well-crafted. Not once did I skip a track just to get to the next song, or think a song was self-indulgent. It’s a great album.