Sergeant York

This Sunday, let me add to Friday's remembrance with another WWI film. This one is the rarest of breeds - a film about WWI that is not anti-war. Though it is a strange kind of not-anti-war film: a film about a pacifist who comes to fight - though the film is as much about a violent man who becomes non-violent as about a non-violent man who takes up arms. Which gives it some kick - in a way, then, it becomes really about the limits of absolutes in morality - there is always a case where your values are less useful than some others... Whatever you might say about WWI, in WWII the values are different. There is that. Of course, being a Howard Hawks film, it is largely about the mastery of someone who is very very good at what he does.

Competence:






God:




War:





Home:

Friday Random Ten Plus One!

A gimmick! A random eleven (maybe not entirely random) published at 11:11 11/11/11!!!11!11! etc. (I wonder how many other bloggers will think this same thing is just too cute to resist? will we bring the internet to its knees? we'll see!)

1. Grateful Dead - The Eleven Jam
2. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - The Ship Song
3. Warren Zevon - Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner
4. Thelonius Monk - Suburban Eyes
5. Elvis Costello - Oliver's Army
6. Rush - Witch Hunt
7. Elvis Presley - Lawdy Miss Clawdy
8. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Rifles
9. Boris with Merzbow - A Bao A Qu
10. Smashing Pumpkins - Rhinoceros
11. Benny Goodman - Seven Come Eleven

Charlie Christian and Benny Goodman:



And - Tal Farlow, Barney Kessel and Charlie Byrd, the same:

Armistice Day 2011

Veteran's Day, 2011 - it's notable that 2 years ago, there were still three surviving veterans - possibly combat veterans, at that point. Now, there is only one, Florence Green, 110 years old...

I've said before, especially in regard to this holiday - I think it's important to keep the original point of days like this in mind. And probably - WWI being one of the most decisive moments of history - this one in particular. And so?

Some songs: Here's A Long Way to Tipperary, from a 1914 recording:



And Pack all your Troubles in an Old Kit Bag:



And - Over There... patriotism in full bloom:



But I can't stop without another version of Eric Bogle's transcendent anti-war song - the Band Played Waltzing Matilda...

Musicals

Now that Wonders in the Dark has finished counting down their list of musicals, I am moved to comment. First - that's it's been a treat to follow along, as it came out. A bit intimidating, as well... Not so intimidating that I'm not inspired to offer my own list of favorite musicals.

Or best musicals - or whatever they are. The countdown does tend to stir up questions about genre - they seem to have been deliberately vague about the definition of a musical - though they seem to have reached a consensus on some things. Documentaries and concert films seem to be right out - none on the list (that I can see) - I'm assuming that if they were considered eligible, you'd see Don't Look Back or Stop Making Sense or Gimme Shelter in there somewhere. That's a rule that makes sense, though it's odd that everyone seems to have gone by it on their own.

On the other hand - what about Nashville? O Brother Where Art Thou? or for that matter - how did This is Spinal Tap not make it? I won't credit the possibility that they aren't among the 140 best films with music in them - so they must be passed over for other reasons. And - I suppose it's reasonable enough that they are, they don't exactly present themselves as musicals, not in any traditional sense. (Though what else would Spinal Tap be, anyway?) But what is striking about those films, even more than some others that might fall on the edge of being musicals (from - oh - Pierrot le Fou to To Have and Have Not to some on the list - Blue Angel, say) is how conventionally they fit the genre. How is Nashville not, from start to finish, a backstage musical? O Brother Where Art Thou is an even more complete match - it is a backstage musical, featuring multiple performances in the film; plus more than one musical number that is NOT a performance - the Sirens - the KKK rally - the baptism scene. It also has the tone of old movies - light and breezy (with a hint of seriousness) - though I'd say it draws its tone more from old newspaper comic strips than old movies, there's a lot of overlap. It's not just a musical, it's an old fashioned musical - and on top of that, features some outstanding music, played straight. It's interesting that it's not there - not quite surprising - if I hadn't started thinking about definitions, I might not of considered it myself.... But once you think about it - I don't know how you ignore it.

Anyway - that aside - I can't see much to quarrel with on the list. Though - there are a couple films I don't understand missing it. Namely - Fantasia - that might have been definitional, though other Disney cartoons are on there - it is something of a strange beast, though... The other one - and I'm less inclined to forgive this oversight - is Shall We Dance. Fred and Ginger got lots of love - 3 films (that I remember off the top of my head) - #6 and #11 at that - but surely there should be at least one more. I like the early ones the best - you can see that below... but I can see why someone might prefer Swing Time or Shall We Dance - they are sleeker, the formula has been shined to a sparkle - and formula is not a bad thing at all in films... I would take Shall We Dance over Swing Time, but it's not so much the order as the fact that they are both aces... Though I do think this - that over all, Shall We Dance has the best music of any of the Fred and Ginger films. Overall - nothing, ever, beat Night and Day, as a song - but the Gershwin score, the Gershwin songs (You Can't Take That Away From Me; Let's Call the Whole Thing Off) are just marvelous, and add up to more than the music of any of the others....

Okay - enough. What would I vote for? This could bog down into definitions - and so I am going to offer two versions of this list. First - the expansionary one - this is the best films that I can find a reason to call musicals, ranked as movies:

1. Duck Soup
2. Pierrot Le Fou
3. Nashville
4. Blue Angel
5. Love Me Tonight
6. Top Hat
7. Hard Days Night
8. Night at the Opera
9. Gay Divorcee
10. Golddiggers of 1933
11. Wizard of Oz
12. Horsefeathers
13. O Brother Where Art Thou
14. Thirty Two Short Films About Glen Gould
15. Beijing Bastards
16. This is Spinal Tap
17. Merry Widow
18. West Side Story
19. Under the Roofs of Paris
20. Blond Venus
21. Don't Look Back
22. Forty Second Street
23. An American in Paris
24. Singing in the Rain
25. Red Shoes

And then - ranked as Musicals. For - meeting the genre requirements of a musical; and for the music itself - the dancing - the performances, the way the music is used in the film, as an end to itself. I think this is what I would end up with there:

1. Top Hat
2. Love Me Tonight
3. Gay Divorcee
4. Golddiggers of 1933
5. Hard Days Night
6. Duck Soup
7. Wizard of Oz
8. West Side Story
9. Forty Second Street
10. O Brother Where Art Thou
11. Singin' in the Rain
12. Meet Me in St.Louis
13. An American in Paris
14. Shall We Dance
15. Blond Venus
16. This is Spinal Tap
17. Don't Look Back
18. Merry Widow
19. Under the Roofs of Paris
20. The Red Shoes
21. Fantasia
22. Nashville
23. Gimme Shelter
24. Golddiggers of 1935
25. Cabin in the Sky

Today anyway...

Scribblers of the World, Unite!

Since November is National Novel Writing Month:















Good luck!

Friday Random Ten

Today?

1. Radiohead - Scatterbrain (As Dead as Leaves)
2. Soft Machine - We Know What You Mean [the Kevin Ayers years...]
3. Muddy Waters - I Just Want to Make Love to You [electric mudd version - Pete Cosey!]
4. Bing Crosby - I'll be Home for Christmas [starting this already are we?]
5. The Tragically Hip - Eldorado
6. Byrds - Have you Seen Her Face
7. Devo - That's good
8. Van Morrison - Caravan
9. Bob Dylan - It Takes a Lot to Laugh, it Takes a Train to Cry
10. Big Star - Jesus Christ

I'm going to vote that one hell of a random playlist.

For video? Let's start with Soft Machine, on TV back in 1967 or so:



And - here's a tribute to Alex Chilton, featuring the latter day Big Star and some guy named Mike Mills in Chilton's role. I can't say that I am planning to post a Christmas song every week, but if it works out that way...

Frankenstein

I have never posted anything here about the James Whale Frankenstein films - that’s odd. They are great films - they are also films I have spent a lot of time pondering. As it happens, I did not see them when I was a kid - unlike all my friends, who would talk about them every Halloween, arguing about whether the mob really killed the monster, or how he could keep turning up in more films... Not me, though, so I didn't really have any kind of primary shock of seeing them. I've mentioned this before - last year in fact, writing about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - 30s horror films seem to have been made for 2 audiences - for people who would see them once (for kids?) - and for people who would see them over and over. The first emphasizes the shocks, the spectacle - the second, the artistry, the characters and plots and themes - and many times, the half-submerged themes. Frankenstein is a prime example of that - the horror film (terrifying monster, battle against evil, etc.) is very effective - but under it - and not very far under it - is something else. A monster who comes off as much as a child, or maybe a shell shocked veteran, as monster... someone thrust into the world and abandoned, surrounded by people who are far more evil than he is. Though - even that breaks up in this film: the worst people are also by far the most interesting.



IN any case - the first one is the horror film - a tight, clean story, maybe the best story of the early Universal horror films - an economically told nightmare. The horror comes fairly straight, the shocks and spectacle played as shocks and spectacle, with far less of the operatic parody of the second one. Everything is to the point - though even here, a good part of the point is an ironic one. The monster - his first act is to reach of the light - he’s thwarted at every turn, hurt and abused, and blamed when he fights back or protects himself. Abandoned by his makers, set loose in the world, which he tragically misunderstands - that’s all there. Those elements get replayed in the second one, with a few more twists, and a lot more comedy - though the archness, the sense of the absurd, that animates the second one is present in the first as well. Technically, of course, is a triumph. The cast is superb - Karloff is miraculous, glorious looking and giving a stunning performance without saying a word.



The second one is even better. This film is different than the first of course - funnier - essentially a dark comedy all the way through. There is conventional comic relief in the first one - in the second one, the conventional comic relief (the very grating Una O’Conner) plays like comic relief from the much darker, and funnier, comedy of Pretorius. (Or is it the other way? Is Pretorius meant as a sophisticated, ironic, relief from the overplayed antics of the conventional clowns? Might be - O’Conner, particularly, is playing to the back of the hall - she’s very close to being a self-parody.) Though it is also a deeper, more serious work than the first one - the scene with the Hermit is meant to be taken straight (though it is seeded with jokes and ironies and what look like elaborate parodies of something); the ending - is almost heartbreaking. “We belong dead!” - the Bride’s hiss - the last shot of the monster’s tear - indeed....




Both films are masterfully made. They look great - deep spaces, fluid camera movement, imaginative editing. Whale wasn’t as extravagant as Rouben Mamoulian, but he was no slouch - both films contain numerous bits of bravura filmmaking. Showy angles; Whale’s favorite move of tracking through walls; neat compositional tricks, echoes and rhymes across the films:




- and a handful of magnificent editing sequences. The monster’s introduction is the most famous of these - jump cutting straight in - but there are several remarkable instances. The introduction of the secondary characters, Elizabeth and Victor, for example - a series of fast cuts from closeups of a picture of Henry to a maid announcing Victor's arrival to Victor (coming into the room) to Elizabeth standing from her couch. He seems to like that kind of trick, especially when he can play it against longer, often moving shots. And it's all in service of the film, sometimes to the point of symbolism - the monster's crucifixion, for example:



But there are equally significant bits of editing - this one at the end, Frankenstein and his monster looking through a mill wheel at one another, cut so they blend into one another:




It's one of the more obvious moments of doubling in the film - Henry becoming the monster - but hardly the only one. It's a theme picked up from the book - the ways the monster becomes Henry's (Victor's, in the book) double, the ways he supplements or replaces him. Replaces him in his bedroom on his wedding day - in film and book - in one of the more obvious cases:



These two films are very interesting as adaptations - there's no doubt that they abandon pretty much everything in the book except the title, some of the names (though even those are changed), and the Creature that Frankenstein made out of dead bodies. But at the same time, it gets back around to many of the book's themes - the doubling of monster and Frankenstein; the fraught relationships of fathers and sons; and a certain attention to the development of the monster - it is a book about education, and that is a major theme of the films, as well. In fact, the dominant theme of the second one - education and sexuality. The monster is a pretty clear figure of the Id - and frequently seems to spark sexual moments - taking Henry's place in his wedding bed in the first one - the whole plot, basically, of the second one. Though there, the emphasis has shifted from the idea of the monster as a kind of unleashed Id to the idea of the monster as a character in his own right - and specifically, as a young man coming of age. Karloff, I believe, later criticized the decision to make the monster speak in the second film - but I think that is central to the point of the film. It is about his education and development - and the failures of the people around him.






They are, these two films, both masterpieces - together especially. It is a sequel that picks up from the first and develops its most interesting elements - that takes the pathos hinted at in the first and works it out at length. And - as I said in those Jekyll and Hide posts - because they are horror films, because Frankenstein's monster is a monster - the filmmakers are free to take a much more challenging approach. Their heroes don't have to be heroic; it is possible for there to be unhappy endings. It's liberating. And the results, here, are among the best films ever made.

Halloween Quiz Time

I have been waiting for this, it's been a long time - Dennis Cozzalio is back, with a new quiz for Halloween!

DR. ANTON PHIBES’ ABOMINABLY ERUDITE, MUSICALLY MALIGNANT, CURSEDLY CLEVER HALLOWEEN HORROR MOVIE QUIZ

Let us away!
***********************************************

1) Favorite Vincent Price/American International Pictures release.

A. I am not sure how many I have seen - bits an pieces, yes, but start to finish? Saw a 16mm print of The Raven when I was in college, a double feature with House of Wax - rather neat, a way of seeing films that seems to have disappeared...

2) What horror classic (or non-classic) that has not yet been remade would you like to see upgraded for modern audiences?

A. While Vampire Lovers (and Vampiros Lesbos, for that matter) have their - let's call it charms - I think the world could use a more straightforward adaptation of Carmilla.

3) Jonathan Frid or Thayer David?

A. I watched a bit of the show, but I can't say it made much of an impression on me.... probably have to vote for Frid, though.

4) Name the one horror movie you need to see that has so far eluded you.

A. The answer is probably The Exorcist - that's about the most prominent horror film I have avoided...

5) Favorite film director most closely associated with the horror genre.

A. This is James Whale, easily.

6) Ingrid Pitt or Barbara Steele?

A. Barbara Steele

7) Favorite 50’s sci-fi/horror creature.

A. Gojira - probably not really close, unless I can count Tor Johnson.

8) Favorite/best sequel to an established horror classic.

A. There are a couple possible answers, I suppose. Bride of Frankenstein is obvious, almost too simple - and I am inclined sometimes to look at it as more a continuation than a sequel (though I know better.) Dracula's Daughter is a very interesting variation on the theme...

9) Name a sequel in a horror series which clearly signaled that the once-vital franchise had run out of gas.

A. For whatever reasons, I find that series' I like I never got to the bad ones - and ridiculous sequels I've seen have tended to be of series' I don't care much about - Hellraiser III? why would I have seen that? Another kind of answer might be Bride of Reanimator - pointless and not very interesting sequel to a great film...

10) John Carradine or Lon Chaney Jr.?

A. John Carradine, though I suppose this goes well beyond horror movies.

11) What was the last horror movie you saw in a theater? On DVD or Blu-ray?

A. Restless is a ghost story and it was pretty horrible - does that count? Take Shelter might be a slightly better answer... DVD - Thirst, watched it for this post - though the Frankensteins will end up in this position.

12) Best foreign-language fiend/monster.

A. I suppose the obvious answer is Count Orlock - I don't know if silent films count, but if not, Kinski works as well as Shrek. Though I'm thinking a good contender might be either the two kids or the television in Funny Games.

13) Favorite Mario Bava movie.

A. Tough, but I'd say Black Sabbath (Three Faces of Fear) - the Verdulak section especially is one of the greatest horror films of all time.

14) Favorite horror actor and actress.

A. Karloff, easily.... And - Brigitte Lin? a case can be made, a good one...

15) Name a great horror director’s least effective movie.

A. I'm not really an obsessive horror fan, so haven't gone looking for a lot of lame films by great directors here - though - Dario Argento's Mother of Tears might count - silly, boring story, though even here, boy, it looks good...

16) Grayson Hall or Joan Bennett?

A. Joan Bennett - I mean, she was Fritz Lang's go to actress for a while! I think more or less any of his films are, in fact, scarier and more disturbing than just about anything labelled horror...

17) When did you realize that you were a fan of the horror genre? And if you’re not, when did you realize you weren’t?

A. I'm not, in any special sense. I enjoy horror films, find the genre interesting enough - but no more so than any other genre, and I don't tend to enjoy horror films because they're horror films as much as, oh - I will watch even a bad western or martial arts film just because it is a western or martial arts film. On the other hand, I suppose I do find the horror genre more interesting to talk about, as a genre, than westerns, noir, martial arts films... it does seem to have a metaphorical interest that I find fascinating...

18) Favorite Bert I. Gordon (B.I.G.) movie.

A. I wish I could answer this, but I don't think I can. If I've seen any of his films, I don't remember them, and I think if I had seen them, I would remember them.

19) Name an obscure horror favorite that you wish more people knew about.

A. Let's go with Dream Lovers - Brigitte Lin and Chow Yun-fat as contemporary characters who start dreaming about one another, and about ancient terracotta figures - they meet, they fall in love of course, there are other people involved who suffer, 8 years or 2000 years, it's still love... shares a lot with the Mummy - plot elements, and a tone of infinite romantic sorrow. Great little film that's not much talked about.

20) The Human Centipede-- yes or no?

A. I suppose I have no inherent objection to it, but I have no interest in seeing it.

21) And while we’re in the neighborhood, is there a horror film you can think of that you felt “went too far”?

A. I am not inclined to think of any film in those terms - art shows what it shows... that is somewhat different from saying that a film fails - or becomes less effective or interesting because it tries to gross people out or shock them - going for cheap effects or whatever the problem is. Something like Organ comes to mind - because it's kind of a dull, underwhelming film (or so I remember it), that tries to make up for its flaws by being grosser than its competition. I suppose by that criteria, Passion of the Christ would qualify... quite well, actually.

22) Name a film that is technically outside the horror genre that you might still feel comfortable describing as a horror film.

A. Being probably more fond of the theory of horror films than actual horror films - I suppose I do this rather a lot. I've done it a couple times already in this quiz - Passion of the Christ - the great mass of Fritz Lang films. My pet theory is that the major theme of horror is the instability of the self - how the self is threatened by forces outside it, that turn out to be somehow inside it - the themes of the Other who is a Double; themes of invasion, especially - loss of bodily integrity, loss of self.... Given that - lots of films, not horror, become very close to horror - from stuff that is, really horror, like Lost Highway - to things like, oh - L'Humanite... Bigger than Life.... Showboat....

23) Lara Parker or Kathryn Leigh Scott?

A. No, I'm well out of my depths now.

24) If you’re a horror fan, at some point in your past your dad, grandmother, teacher or some other disgusted figure of authority probably wagged her/his finger at you and said, “Why do you insist on reading/watching all this morbid monster/horror junk?” How did you reply? And if that reply fell short somehow, how would you have liked to have replied?

A. Well - no, it's never happened. For this sort of thing, you would have to ask me about either the music I listen to, or about people wondering why I watch so many cheap Hong Kong police thrillers - I have had that question...

25) Name the critic or Web site you most enjoy reading on the subject of the horror genre.

A. Siegfried Kracauer? getting there first is a big thing sometimes...

26) Most frightening image you’ve ever taken away from a horror movie.

A. This is a great question - this is the one that justifies the quiz. I don't know the answer though - unless it's that reel-long shot in Funny Games after the first set of abuse... I think, rather seriously, that Funny Games was the most disturbing horror film I have ever seen, and that the most excruciating moment in it.

27) Your favorite memory associated with watching a horror movie.

A. Another interesting one - seeing the whole 9 hours of The Kingdom over 2 nights was certainly up there

28) What would you say is the most important/significant horror movie of the past 20 years (1992-2012)? Why?

A. Significant or best? The best, when push comes to shove, probably comes down to either The Kingdom or Thirst - The Kingdom wins if you count the whole series, I think, parts 1 & 2. Thirst probably wins otherwise... Significant? MIght be something like the Ring films, popularizing Asian horror, touching off a host of American imitators... or Buffy the Vampire Slayer - which seem to be one of the places vampires made a jump into a new realm of pop culture. Though a big part of that jump is out of the horror genre...

29) Favorite Dr. Phibes curse (from either film).

A. Alas, etc.

30) You are programming an all-night Halloween horror-thon for your favorite old movie palace. What five movies make up your schedule?

A. Another great question - all right - going on the themes, Invasions - dissolution of self/other - tragic monsters - doubles - how about this:

Student of Prague
Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde (Mamoulian)
Vertigo
Lost Highway
Doppelganger

Scary Music Friday

On this Halloween Weekend, here are some songs about monsters!

1. Half Japanese - Frankenstein Must Die
2. Slint - Nosferatu Man
3. Sunn0))) - Bathory Erzsebet
4. Outkast - Dracula's Wedding
5. Beck - Devil's Haircut
6. Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath
7. Blue Oyster Cult - Joan Crawford
8. Donovan - Season of the Witch
9. Mogwai - Mogwai Fear Satan
10. Fleetwood Mac - Green Manilishi

For Video - let's be like the stores! it might not be Halloween yet, but let's get started on the Christmas carols! here's Spinal Tap:



And - though it's just audio, it's still irresistable - James Chance:

Thirst

I guess I will continue this month's vampire theme with what is, I think, the best horror film of the century so far - Park Chan-wook's Thirst.





Combining, as it does, two 19th century texts - Stoker and Zola - from two great traditions, that don't necessarily seem to go together - but it works, mixing the mundane....





... and mordantly comic....





... with the gorgeous style of classic vampire films - in the same shot, sometimes (has anyone ever looked better going out a tiny bathroom window than Song Kang-ho?) - but always, hitting it's high points in style - the cool blue lighting alternating with murky darkness, the perfectly posed and shot scenes and decor...







- and - at least one character who knows how to act like a vampire...

No Rapture? Well - Music then!

Another slothful week, and another randomly generated list. I suppose I could have rooted around looking for topical connections - we have another dead dictator; the world has apparently not come to an end; the Rangers have tied the world series - well? Let's see what iTunes says.

1. Charlie Parker - Cheers
2. Charlie Parker - this is Always - with vocals by Earl Coleman [and again I ask - 13,000+ songs and 2 from the same record come up in a row? strange, though welcome.]
3. Glenn Gould - Piano Contrapunctus IV [iTunes is going high brow so far...]
4. Pere Ubu - Misery Goats [live, acoustic version, from Apocalypse Now - not that is timely!]
5. Waterboys - Upon the Wind and the Waves
6. Jim Reid - I'm Stranded
7. Young Marble Giants - Sporting Life [go Rangers!]
8. Pink Floyd - One of My Turns [if I did manage a theme, it would probably be to do with Pink Floyd, as I recently snagged a pile of their remastered music...]
9. Love - Orange Skies
10. Danielson Famille - Fathom the Nine Fruits Pie [from Fetch the Compass Kids, one of the many records better than This is It in 2001.]

Video? a Sax chorus playing Cheers.



And Glenn Gould himself:

Let the Right One In

This week's screen shots come from Let the Right One In - one of the handful of outstanding vampire films in the 21st century (a decade of which has brought up more vampire films than you can shake a sharpened stake at.) It is a fine film, though one of it's unusual characteristics, among vampire books and films, is that the book is, in fact, even better than the movie. Stoker's Dracula is top shelf, and there are so many derived films, that a good number of them don't measure up - but Nosferatu is better (that actually true for either Murnau's or Herzog's version) - with lesser vampire books (which are legion), this is almost universal. I mean - even the Twilight movie - the first one anyway, the only one I have had to watch (and read) - is almost a decent film, at least to a point.... This goes pretty far - last year, in the vampire class I mentioned a couple times, the subject was broached from time to time - why (after Dracula, and with a few exceptions here and there along the way), are these books so bad? why are there no (or very few) vampire books that are really good? Unspoken in this question, though it certain occurred to me, is the corollary - why are there so few serious and ambitious vampire books - and so many serious ambitious vampire films? Murnau, Dreyer, Herzog, Denis, Park, Maddin, etc.? And why are the schlocky vampire books so bad, and even run of the mill vampire films seem to have a spark? I don't know if I have an answer - except that vampires look so good on screen - or that vampires are, like films, shadows on the wall - or maybe that filmmakers have to create striking imagery to be frightening, and books - I don't know...

But that aside - this time, the book Let the Right One In is better than the film - the book is simply outstanding. But the film is no slouch -handsome and understated, with a subtle touch for glorious horror imagery, tucking things into the backs and corners of the frame, like Eli climbing the wall in the back of this shot....



But one of it's best features is the use of spaces - the empty, stark, cold spaces of Blackeberg, a vision of Swedish hell, swallowing its inhabitants whole. The book (more than the movie, though some of this survives) seems to be explicitly about the return of a violent, pagan, past to the sterile, domesticated present - nature red in tooth and claw coming back to get its own. Though if Eli is a kind of hell visited on the modern world, the modern world is a kind of hell for her - and Tomas Alfredson shoots the suburb to make it look as horrifying as anything Eli might do.

Musical Friday

Well, I was thinking about possible themes for this Friday, but as usual, haven't done any prep work, so it's gonna be another randomizer day....

1. DNA - Surrender
2. Minor Threat - No Reason
3. Jimi Hendrix - Purple Haze (live at Winterland)
4. Naked CIty - Igneous Ejaculation
5. Mission of Burma - Academy Fight Song
6. Warlocks - Come Save Us
7. Times New Viking - No Time, No Hope
8. Rolling Stones - I am Waiting
9. Queen - Under Pressure
10. Otomo Yoshihide, Bill Laswell, Yoshida Tatsuya

There has been some chatter in the blogosphere about someone (Taylor Clark by name) at Slate declaring the Strokes' This is It the best record of the 00's - most of the chatter negative.... Amanda Marcotte noted something that may or may not have anything to do with the Slate writer, but is interesting anyway - that the Strokes are a bunch of straight white guys, and so they look like a rock band, in a way that - oh - the White Stripes or TV on the Radio don't. I've taken a stab at listing the best music of the 2000s (by which I mean, my favorite music of the decade, but that has to be obvious) - and she's right - the list (my list) is pretty thin on all straight white guy bands - Mercury Rev (though with their first album made without a regular female member), Liars, Grinderman, Radiohead, Gomez get in the top 25 - plus a couple solo artists - the rest are mixed... even with the near misses listed - only two or three more all straight white guys bands appear (Modest Mouse, Mission of Burma, Fire Theft...) Now - obviously I have somewhat idiosyncratic tastes, that tends not to encompass a lot of mainstream rock bands - but I think you can see something changing there. I'm still mostly listening to rock (with something of a jazz/avant garde flavor to it) - I'm not looking for groups with women or Black men in them (I am a big fan of Japanese rock, though - but most of those groups are mixed - my favorites - Boris, Acid Mothers Temple, Ghost, Boredoms, all feature women.) And yet... And Marcotte's list, quite different from mine - shows the same thing....

I couldn't do that in the 70s - a 10 best, 20 best of the 70s would be very heavy on straight white guys. 60s too, if I stuck to rock. (Though you'd get Mo Tucker up there at the top...) 80s - it starts to change - though mainly because of Husker Du and REM. In the 90s -a quick top 10 albums? would feature PJ Harvey, Pere Ubu, Yo La Tengo, REM, Sleater Kinney, Mercury Rev - all mixed - plus Pavement, Janes Addiction, Built to Spill, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - say... I think it is different. For whatever reasons, even within rock, "the image many people have in their heads about what a great band should look like" (as Marcotte puts it) isn't what it used to be. Neat.

Video? what a great band looks like - Times New Viking?



What great rock bands sometimes looked like in 1980 or so:



And sometimes in the 60s: