Sex Mob at the 55 Bar - May 20, 2010

The slide trumpet is an unruly instrument. It sounds more raw than its valved cousin and intonation's just a bitch. When Steven Bernstein puts the instrument to his lips while fronting his band Sex Mob, he doesn't tame the beastly horn, but lets the thing out of its cage. It's hard to imagine anything other than a slide trumpet leading this raucously fun band.

Even after 14 years together, Sex Mob still plays with irrepressible energy, an energy that threatened to blow out the windows of the tiny speakeasy venue. While its repertoire is more indicative of a bar band, Sex Mob deconstructs the cheesy pop tunes with a great deal of subversive wit. The melody's there, but doesn't sound quite right. The groove's there, but Wollesen puts the backbeat just a little too far behind the pulse to make it comfortable. And it's just frickin' hilarious when they transition from Duke Ellington's "The Mooch" to "The Macarena" without blinking an eye.

Bernstein's also one hell of an emmcee. He filled breaks with goofy stories about Bill O'Reilly and doctors of music writing pot prescriptions, and was totally comfortable asking the audience about volume levels during sound check (Somebody should get him on a late night show. Seriously.) This casualness runs into the music as well. Se Mob's not about creating well-manicured works where everything lines up exactly, but that's not to say they aren't a tight band. It's more like wickedly-precise untogetherness, making it sound like a group of four guys just picking up instruments and deciding to play whatever they heard on the AM radio.

Sex Mob is very analog music. There are no quantized divisions between genres, or pitches, or tempos. It's all just a soupy texture of pop tunes you're embarrassed to like and mind-blowing free jazz. And in a digital music world, nothing can be so refreshing.

Painfully Real (Without 3-D!) - Daddy Longlegs

The great irony of reality TV is that in order for it to be effective, the audience cannot feel sympathy for the people on screen. Whether confined to a tropical island or thirty-second singing audition, reality show participants are boiled down to their unsavory antics and personality flaws. Because they are divorced from the rest of their humanity, we can laugh at their ridiculous faux pas without a tinge of guilt. But to see a real human being screw-up in royal fashion is a much more nerve-racking affair. And this is what precisely unfolds before us in Josh and Benny Safdie’s Daddy Longlegs.

At the movie’s outset we are introduced to Lenny (played convincingly by Ronald Bronstein), a lanky thirty-something munching on a hot dog as he runs through the busy streets of NYC to an appointment. He falls while attempting to jump a fence, loses his hot dog, and lies in the grass, laughing at his own misfortune. Lenny is so irresistibly exuberant and carefree, you can’t help but laugh with him. But when Lenny gets to elementary school to pick up his boys, Sage and Frey (real-life brothers Sage and Frey Ranaldo), for a two-week visitation, he gets into a verbal spat with the school principal due to a lack of discipline. Everything isn’t so happy-go-lucky in Lenny Land, but he tries his best to keep it that way.

Despite his charms, Lenny is a total space cadet and a thoroughly incompetent father. He loves his kids, but as a buddy rather than a friend. Lenny takes his boys on a trip upstate with a girl he met in a bar, leaves them to play with the photocopier at the movie theater he works at, and sends them to the grocery store on their own. And when you think he can’t screw up any worse, Lenny administers sleeping pills that leave Sage and Frey nearly comatose. Each of Lenny’s mistakes is groan-inducing and stomach-twisting. As the blunders pile up, all you can do is put your head in your hands and sigh. Though Lenny is visibly regretful after each case of negligence, he is somehow unable to learn anything from his mistakes, creating an even more excruciating viewing experience.

You won’t enjoy watching Daddy Longlegs, as it creates the unconscionable urge to jump into the film and give Lenny a Homer Simpson-style strangling. But that doesn’t mean it is a movie to be avoided. There are few movies that push the viewers’ buttons in this way, and even fewer that push them as effectively as this one does. Like in many films that look back on youth, Josh and Benny Safdie imbue the film with a sense of altered memory. Events end abruptly and then cut to a scene many hours later, with things seemingly back to normal. Instead of following a traditional narrative arc, the film moves with the unpredictable rhythms of daily life. The film is an oddly idealized portrait of childhood, not in that it smoothes over the ugly parts, but in how it emphasizes certain moments, stretching time out or deleting it entirely. In Daddy Longlegs, the Safdie brothers have concocted a distinctive film with rare emotional intensity. Of course they’re not the kind of emotions we want when seeing a movie, but that’s what makes the experience all the more visceral. Sometimes we need a movie that isn’t an escape, but rather throws us headlong into the pains of reality.

Daddy Longlegs opens today in Manhattan, and hopefully coming to an indie cinema near you.

Regal Butter on Royal Toast

I know I'm addicted to NPR. You don't have to tell me again. And yes, my mother has every reason to make fun of me for rolling my eyes when she would talk about something she heard on NPR at the dinner table.

But seriously, it's hard not to love it after spending a day there. It's like watching a 6-hour episode of the West Wing in real life. Just tons of smart and funny people saying tons of smart and funny things. And any organization that has 70,000 music CDs on the premises is good by me. There's also NPR goes Gaga.

Not to mention their exclusive first listen is pretty frickin' sweet. Recently I've checked out new albums by Nels Cline, the New Pornographers, and the National, all of which are now on my Princeton Record Exchange watch list. And this week, NPR is hosting a preview of the new album by drummer John Hollenbeck's Claudia Quintet, Royal Toast.

In terms of name ridiculosity, the Claudia Quintet certainly one up's the Ben Folds Five. On this record at least, there are no less than six members in the quintet, none of them named Claudia. The instrumentation's a bit off-kilter too, with the sounds of accordion and vibraphone swirling around tenor sax, bass and drums(with the addition of piano this time around). Over their near-decade together as a band, Hollenbeck and co have staked out a unique musical territory, somewhere in the murk that separates jazz, indie pop, and chamber music. Improvised solos are seamlessly inserted into heavily notated pieces, while Mr. Hollenbeck lays down an almost-danceable groove.

Their self-titled debut album was notable for its hard edges separated by ample space. Accordions, vibes and saxes don't blend very well, and so the music was built on interlocking and angular melodies, all jumping into the foreground simultaneously. Royal Toast marks a sonic mellowing out of sorts. Gary Versace's piano fills in a lot of the frequencies between the bass and lead instruments, smoothing over the music's stark lines. After playing with this particular combination of instruments for so long, Hollenbeck is uncannily attuned to how they sound together and so Royal Toast is oh so carefully orchestrated. The instruments jump in and out of the mix gracefully, creating blissful sonic landscapes. In a lot of ways it's reminiscent of good pop production, except for being totally acoustic and all.

Especially on Royal Toast, Hollenbeck's compositions sound like an audio analog of Charlie Kaufman's films. They're subdued, a bit cerebral and carefully controlled, but with a good dose of deadpan humor thrown in. On the two part tune Keramag, Hollenbeck begins with an admirably sloppy drum solo; the drums aren't falling down the stairs by accident, he's dropping them at exact times. Then suddenly the rest of the band jumps in and it all turns into a broke-down dance party, with the backbeat uncomfortably loose. This may be the only time the music gets louder than a dull roar, but that restraint only brings the listener in more. Despite a harmonic palette and gain level reminiscent of ambient music, Royal Toast certainly isn't an album that fades into the background. There are just too many little jokes and "aha" moments to find in this lush music to tune it out.

So pull out your good pair of headphones and head on over to NPR to check out the Claudia Quintet and Royal Toast.

Coherent Babblings

So it's the night before all written work for the semester is due here at Princeton U and about an hour ago, a large group of students in the courtyard of nearby Holder Hall screamed like a pack of teenage banshees pissed off that the next episode of "Glee" was postponed because of the World Series or something. Yeah, not so pleasing. But at least there are somethings that scream beautifully. Like Little Richard. And Bill Frisell's guitar. To hear some of the wonderful sounds Mr. Frisell coaxes from a modest piece of wood and steel, check out the audio piece below. Think of it as a segment from the "All Things Considered" rejection bin. (sorry for the cheesy photos but I have to put it in video format).

Oscar Wrapup

Ok, I'm getting a bit obsessed with movies. I think my last two significant conversations over meals were about stuff I've been watching. The good news is that I'm no longer blabbing about music no one else has heard before. The bad news is that I'm still not over my egocentric need to voice critical opinions.

And thus begins a few reflections about the Oscars last night.

In the fallout of "The Hurt Locker's" big night, some have argued that the secret to its success vs. the box-office behemoth that is "Avatar" is that actors, who make up more than 2/3 of the Academy voters, feel threatened by its profusion of special effects. Or it at least makes them think about how much is filmed in this universe and how much is created in the digital one. These voting actors wanted to award a movie that showcases acting, rather than effects. And that's why they gave the best picture Oscar to "Up in the Air."

Whoops. Maybe not.

But this would be the logical conclusion from this argument. If actors were indeed voicing their preferences for performance-driven movies, "Up in the Air" would certainly take the cake. It had the most nominations in acting categories and probably would have picked up a couple if it was nominated in most other years. So this can't be the whole secret to "The Hurt Locker's" success.

While Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, and Brian Geraghty certainly did a good job in animating their roles in "The Hurt Locker," their performances did not make the movie. What gave the movie its emotional potency were the technical elements. "The Hurt Locker's" Baghdad is one of the most penetratingly real settings ever filmed for a war movie. The attention to detail combined with the tension-driven story make the film a nerve-racking thrill ride from start to finish. I think this had a lot to do with "Hurt Locker's" eventual success--the technical elements are transparent and easy to recognize and have a definite expressive purpose of amping up tension. The film has a bite that was lacking in every other film nominated for best picture. "The Hurt Locker" did what a good action movie is supposed to do--keep your adrenaline up for a good two hours--and was rewarded for it by both actors and technicians.

So yes, I am a bit disappointed that two terrific films--"Up in the Air" and "An Education"--went away empty handed. But that has more to do with the strength of this year's nominees than anything else. I could easily see "Up in the Air" taking a good four or five awards home if it were came out last year and was up against that weaker field. Oh well. The one bit of silver lining is that Jason Reitman and Carey Mulligan are still at the beginning of their careers and certainly have the obscene talent to get their hardware in the near future.

In the end, as A.O. Scott so elegantly put it in Sunday's New York Times, the Academy Awards are really about what Hollywood thinks of itself, or at least wants itself to be. As more and more boutique studios get shut down and the box office is dominated by buzz rather than artistic merit, I think many academy members wanted to show that there is still a place for thoughtful and independent film in the industry. Just the number of cracks last night about "Avatar" showed how much Hollywood is uneasy with technical and economic Goliaths. This isn't to say that artsy movies are going to make a comeback. The so-called independent films that got nominated were far from weird or inaccessible, were cleanly made, and came from relatively mainstream sources, be it best-selling novels or prescient current events. With this lens, it's easy to see how a well-shot indie movie with an archetypal plot like "Slumdog Millionaire" was so successful last year.

I feel I can't end though without some final thoughts about "Avatar." So what if it came home with three minor awards. It's still the most audacious piece of filmmaking out of the nominated bunch. You can criticize the script, the score, and the acting all you want, but it's hard not to admit they did their job well. "Avatar's" real problem lies elsewhere.

It's a bit ironic that a sci-fi movie that was so immersive through its use of 3-D technology would feature a relatively compact alternate world. In the great sci-fi and fantasy movies, like "Star Wars," "Star Trek," and "Lord of the Rings," the worlds that the filmmakers have created are so rich and detailed that you feel that the story you're watching isn't all that's going on out there. The worlds are filled with minor places and characters that probably have colorful histories of their own; you just have to fill them in. "Avatar" lacks a world of this magnitude. Pandora is a land lost in time. The Na'avi live the same way they have lived forever. There are no other adventures to be had on the other side of the planet. Everything that's important or interesting about this world is confined to the 3 hour run time. Our imaginations aren't allowed to run wild after the fact like they do after watching "Star Wars" or "Lord of the Rings." Certainly James Cameron loves the world he has created, but he doesn't make it large enough for the audience to take a piece of it home with them and love it too.

What's Goin' on Here

So, yeah, that last post doesn't really fit with everything else here. And there's a reason for it. I'm taking a class on film criticism and so I've been doing a lot of writing in that department. Since Yellow Handkerchief came out last weekend and I had done a piece on it, why not throw my piece into the ring. There's also a forthcoming review of the Sundance fan-favorite "Daddy Long Legs" for when that gets released in the spring. But in the meantime, check out this podcast created by members of my journalism class. I have a quick bit about how District 9 and Avatar are the same movie, and how James Horner recycles his old scores yet again in Avatar.

http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2010/03/04/25413/

And if you're wondering about who I think should win (rather than will), here are a couple of picks:

Picture: "The Hurt Locker"

Actor: Colin Firth, "A Single Man"

Actress: Carey Mulligan, "An Education"

Best Animated Feature: "Fantastic Mr. Fox"

Best Original Score: "Up"

Best Score assembled from previous work: "Avatar"

The Yellow Handkerchief: A Journey Small and Strange

Most movies are afraid to be small. People don’t talk about or line up to see small movies. But in the midst of movie culture that rewards excess, The Yellow Handkerchief, directed by Udayan Prasad, dares to be small without a hint of apology.

Part road movie, part old-time country song, the film follows an unlikely threesome’s travels through the backcountry of summer-soaked Louisiana. Martine, an enticing and embittered 15-year-old played by Kristen Stewart, is desperate for escape, which is provided by an awkward 20-something itinerant named Gordy (Eddie Redmayne) and his beat-up convertible. Joining them is Brett (William Hurt), a balding and taciturn just-released ex-convict who lives in a social isolation chamber of his own construction. These aren’t people you would have a coffee date with. They can be impulsive, immature, inconsiderate, and downright mean. Yet the common bonds of loneliness and the quiet optimism of the road join them.

The three begin their trip as total strangers, as mysterious to each other as they are to us. Prasad doesn’t reveal their back-stories, save for some of Brett’s flashbacks about a woman named May (Maria Bello) that only come into focus when he explains them. The directness with which Prasad presents the characters forces us to project our own preconceptions on them, which are then molded by subtle visual cues—the way Brett looks at Martine when he sees her for the first time, the giddiness that comes over Gordy’s face when he gets a female travel companion. While this sense of mystery would appear to increase dramatic tension, the pace and tone of the movie sap it of intended suspense. The overly manicured shots and Eef Bazelay’s score, a sort of Brian Eno does Americana, sooth rather than seethe.

What does keep the viewer engaged at first is the capable acting of the major players. Brett, Martine, and Gordy are quirky outcasts, roles that lend themselves to overacting. But Hurt, Stewart, and Redmayne’s understated performances give the characters a sense of dignity and genuineness. Working with a merely serviceable script, the actors revel in their poignant scenes of silence, like Brett’s first taste of beer in six years. Though they all fit into different sociological archetypes—the ex-convict looking for redemption, the maturing teenager looking for meaning, the young man looking for his place in the world—they are real people with complex issues. We begin to see in them the awkward co-worker or distant family member, or maybe even parts of ourselves.

Unlike most road movies, The Yellow Handkerchief isn’t about the car, or the wild antics, or the setting for that matter. Though the characters are driving toward a post-Katrina New Orleans, the storm is a mere specter, revealing itself through the run-down landscape rather than explicit reference. Prasad is instead much more interested in the dynamics of intimate human relationships rather than how humans interact with the world around them and narrows his shots accordingly. All of the film’s set pieces are oddly devoid of other human presence. When Gordy’s car springs a leak, he pulls over to a grimy old gas station, long since abandoned. As he rummages through the garage looking for ways to fix the car, Martine, frustrated by another setback, complains to Brett about Gordy’s social ineptitude. As her words trail off into the bayou, Brett mutters that she should be patient with him. Alone in the wilderness, without the luxury of a crowd to disappear in, the three begin to realize that despite their mutual strangeness, they are no longer strangers, to each other and to us.

Like the paintings of Edward Hopper that depict the loneliness of a crowd, The Yellow Handkerchief shows the intimacy of isolation. But while Hopper’s paintings strike the viewer with their aggressively peculiar compositions, Prasad’s film retreats in on itself, preferring to revel in its own subtlety. The movie can be so self-absorbed at points that it doesn’t bother to care whether the viewer is really engaged or not.

Ironically, it is on a journey that requires a great deal of self-reliance that Brett, Martine, and Gordy learn that it’s ok to rely on others, that it’s just fine to be small. That this realization should come without fanfare is a given. This movie is too committed to its own smallness to have it any other way.