The Shins:

Here's my review of The new Shins as seen in The News and Review.

The Shins
Wincing the Night Away
The Shins’ long-awaited third release is great. It may take Shins fans a few listens to really appreciate that greatness, since the album is unfortunately not their best. The three-year wait may have gotten our hopes too high while we tried to imagine what kind of wonderful stew the band was brewing, only to get another damn fine album that sounds like it could have been released right on the tail of the last damn fine album. Despite its place as a merely great effort, Wincing delivers more poetic and poignant yet acerbically humorous lyrics from James Mercer, one of today’s sharpest songwriters. The haunting first single, “Phantom Limb,” and the second track, “Australia,” are immediate standouts. The Shins continue to find a natural sound in a mishmash of retro flourishes from the past five decades of pop.

Best American Comics 2006

I wrote a review for the new News and Review

The Best American Comics 2006
Harvey Pekar (ed.), Anne Elizabeth Moore (series ed.)
Houghton Mifflin
Click here to buy it from Amazon

The Best American Series continues to expand, now taking on comics. And, as guest editor Harvey Pekar (American Splendor) explains in his introduction, what’s “best” continues to be subjective. A near-total exclusion of superhero comics--unless you count the charmingly reluctant crime-fighter/world-saver Onion Jack--undoubtedly will disappoint fans of that form. What this volume does offer is a vast selection of fantastic underground-comic-book craft, beautifully bound in a full-color hardcover with gold leafing. Maybe you’ll be discovering the wonderfully simple drawings of Joel Priddy for the first time, but contributions from the likes of comix superstar Robert Crumb and Love & Rockets’ Jaime Hernandez will fill the need for something familiar.

Click here to read this review at The News and Review's site.

What I'm Looking forward to in 2007

Grindhouse

YES! I am most excited about this one. Two flicks from two of my favorite directors presented as a double feature. As if that wasn't enough, the intermission, YEAH THERE'S EVEN AN INTERMISSION, will be filled with trailers for films that should exist but don't.

The Shins: Wincing The Night Away

I've been listening to this one non-stop. Buy it. Don't get it illegally on the internet like SOME PEOPLE, really buy it. And stop asking how I have it already, damn.

The Return of Futurama

It's such a crime that Futurama went off the air, while The Simpson continued it's downhill slide (don't get me wrong, The Simpsons still beats most of what's out there) and Family Guy got brought back. I hate Family Guy. Well, the universe is correcting itself at last. One more reason I've got to get cable.

with a certain anxiety, The Simpsons Movie

Please be good, please be good, please be good, please be good, please be good, please be good, please be good, please be good, please be good, please be good, please be good, please be good, please be good, please be good, please be good!

And The RockAss Show, which is gonna totally ROCK in fact it'll ROCK ASS. No, for real.
Watch for great guests like Smooot Valley High and my nephew who makes fart noises. Coming by February 2007 or sooner.

Best of 2006

Another year of me doing a terrible job of keeping up on pop culture. Hey, why don't you pay me to go to movies and listen to CDs? Then I might be better at it. In the meanwhile, I spend an awful lot of time catching up on the flicks and albums I missed from previous years. But alas, I did catch some good stuff this year and so without further doodoo I present...

KLJ's 2006 Highlights:

Best Albums
The Coup- Pick A Bigger Weapon

The Coup kill with their follow up to Party Music. They're not afraid of controversy and controversy is a hard thing to stir up these days. What's great about front man Boots O'Reily is that he never seems to be going out of his way to be shocking as he praises the folks who steal and resell from corporate retailers, or raps about Bush and Hussein taking care of one another's carnal debt, it just sound so natural flowing from this talented MC. Click here to buy it.

Belle and Sebastian- The Life Pursuit

Hands down the best B&E album and the best album of 2006 period. When you end a sentence by saying "period" do you have to put a period? Click here to buy The Life Pursuit

TV On The Radio
Return To Cookie Mountain

Wow. One of the most unique sounds going in pop music today, TV On The Radio knows no bounds, and I was pretty sure that there weren't enough good songs about werewolves.

Best Movie
Little Miss Sunshine

Okay, so it borrowed, heavily from the Chevy Chase classic Vacation. The list of great twists NOT borrowed from Vacation still makes this more original than any other flick out this year. Fantastic movie with great performances all around. Allen Arkin just keeps getting better as he gets older. If you don't know what I mean go grab a great flick of his from a few years ago called The Slums of Beverly Hills and then go back to the beginning and watch the amazing Catch 22. I love this guy. Buy the Little Miss Sunshine DVD here.

Best DVD
Saturday Night Live Season One

The best cast ever for Saturday Night Live was the first cast and we can finally enjoy them on DVD without having to piece together a bunch of "Best of" discs. It's all here, including the amazing musical guests and the rough start. It's fascinating watching the Not Ready for Prime Time Players get up to speed which doesn't happen until show three or four. Of course watching this great old footage makes it even harder to stomach the direction SNL has gone in the past decade. Yuck! Check out this amazing set for sale here.

Best New TV Show
Ugly Betty

I discovered this new take on the telanovela from Spanish TV a few days before New Year's Eve. It doesn't hurt that producer Selma Hayek (we're in love, she just doesn't know it yet) is featured on the show, but she takes a back seat to Betty who is one of the most engaging characters to grace the little tiny screen with terrible reception even after I stick a safety pin in the cable port and attach a hanger to it, in a long time (yeah, I got to get cable).

Talk Show
Okay, so I saw this new latenight show hosted by a geek and it's just called Talk Show with (insert geeks name). I loved it like I loved the first season of Conan O'Brian and now I can't find any information on it. HELP.

CHECK BACK LATER FOR MY MOST LOOKED FORWARD TO IN 2007 LIST.

World War Z

Max Brooks RULES. His Zombie Survival guide was great. Bryna and I, thanks to that book, keep Zombie holocaust foremost in our minds when planning our dream home. World War Z is pretty damn cool too. Here's the review I wrote, appearing in this weeks News and Review.

"If you’re reading this, you must have survived. It may seem too soon to look back at what went wrong and what went right as we all struggled with the terror of the dead refusing to stay dead. But now, as we come to terms with the fact that our lives are forever changed and work to stamp out the last of the undead hordes (be they frozen in the arctic or creeping across the ocean floor), the time is right for examining the past--so as to choose a better future. Max Brooks gives us this opportunity. As the author of the first Zombie Survival Guide, Brooks is uniquely qualified to present the stories of World War Z’s veterans. That he was appointed by the United Nations to do so gave him unprecedented access and the credentials to reach even the most reclusive of survivors. Know this: You’re not alone."

When this book comes out in paperback I'll buy a gross and hide 'em under the gideon bibles at hotels. :)

Currently Reading /Listening To/ Watching:

Letter To A Christian Nation

“Thousands of people have written to tell me that I am wrong not to believe in God. The most hostile of these communications have come from Christians. This is ironic, as Christians generally imagine that no faith imparts the virtues of love and forgiveness more effectively than their own. The truth is that many who claim to be transformed by Christ’s love are deeply, even murderously, intolerant of criticism. While we may want to ascribe this to human nature, it is clear that such hatred draws considerable support from the Bible. How do I know this? The most disturbed of my correspondents always cite chapter and verse.”

I finished reading Sam Harris' Letter To A Christian Nation and it's a worthwhile read, but not the great atheist hope that some have billed it as. My biggest problem with Harris is that he embraces a-lot of the same anger and fear that turn me off amongst the religious folks. He reaches out to Christians partialy by addressing the one thing they may have in common with atheists; a fear of Muslims. From here he points out that the obvious irrationality of Islam applies to Christendom as well. An interesting angle, but I think he misses one point as he describes the threat of the fast growing Islamic movement. He says it's not about being poor and undereducated, and cites individuals who were well educated and successful yet still willing to martyr themselves. In my view, individuals will always be present who are willing to subscribe to extreme views, but the more comfortable a populace is the less willing the masses will be to subscribe to beliefs that threaten that comfort. He himself points out the violent history of Christ's followers and the ease with which the Bible has been used to justify this violence and yet we've seen that the majority of Christians have become much less willing to take up arms (even if many are still a bit too willing to let others take up arms in their name and with their money).
I do not fear Islam as much as I fear the haves continuing to screw with and agitate the have nots in a way that has always led to a lack of stability for everyone. Harris sees a threat in the various world religions continuing to war with one another and in the fundamentalist masses supporting a Church/state. I agree that this is a frightening and real prospect, but I still feel very strongly that fighting poverty is the way to fight fundamentalism.

That said, this book makes some very strong arguments and is a great Christmas present for the agnostic or atheist in your life. It'd be a great present for any Christians you know who like to keep their debating skills sharp. When the book comes out in paper back I will buy a gross, and hide copies beneath the Gideon Bible whenever I stay at hotels.

Modern Times

Rewatching this Chaplin masterpiece with my nephew. I'm explaining to him the historical context so he'll understand the scenes dealing with strikes and worker's marches and the many scenes of people worrying about having enough to eat. "No, those aren't bad men. They don't want to steal, but they're starving. That's why he's crying." Pretty heavy stuff to be explaining to a 9 year old.

Chaplin's socialist leanings are not subtley expressed here; Modern Times is as much a propaganda film as it is a comedy, but it works brilliantly on both fronts.

Amazing that this film is so funny while dealing head on with such subject matter. This is comedy at it's best.

I can't wait to crack open the bonus disc which features several documentaries including a 1967 short capturing the reaction of peasants in Cuba seeing their first movie ever when a travelling projectionist shows them Modern Times. There's also a promotional musical film commissioned by that king of the assembly line, Ford himself. That should be pretty funny.

Two Great Documentaries

I just finished watching Grizzly Man, a documentary by Werner Herzog about Timothy Treadwell, a man who spent his summers living among the Grizzly Bears of Alaska. A fascinating character, Treadwell died before deciding which of the hours of footage he shot would be shared with us.

Herzog gives us the chance to see what an amazing man Timothy Treadwell was, especially his relationship with the foxes who would play with him, let him pet them and even bring their young right to his tent, but we're also allowed a look at what a paranoid and desperate man he was. Prone to wild mood swings and a crippling amount of empathy for everything around him, Treadwell cracks on camera repeatedly. He saw himself as the sole protector of the Bears and the world as his enemy. One amazing scene captures him in his tent screaming at god for rain, and he is furious! In another scene he is moved to near tears at finding a dead bumble bee.

Herzog's best move is in letting the story unfold using mostly Timothy's footage. Outside interviews with friends, family and other people involved in the life and habitat of the Alaskan bears help us to gain perspective but mostly Timothy tells the story himself. Herzog comes across the audio only recording of Treadwell and a girlfriend being killed by a bear, and he opts not to use it, instead using only a clip of himself listening to it. While probably depriving the film of a sensational selling point, this is a classy decision and what's really going on this movie is so much more powerful than a snuff film.

Last night I enjoyed End Of The Century, a documentary on The Ramones. What a fascinating set of characters, all of them, Tommy, Marky, Dee Dee, the very sensitive Joey but for me the most intriguing was Johnnie. His complete inability to feel anything but disgust is overwhelming. He is Bert from Sesame Street if Bert were a leather jacket wearing pioneer of Punk Rock. As he blesses George Bush and God while being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame I damn near fell over.

The doc features plenty of live footage, wonderful old photos and great interviews with the band members who are reluctant to dish ALL the dirt but end up opening up every can of worms put before them thanks to the patience and persistence of the interviewer, much to my voyeristic glee. Especially entertaining is Dee Dee's foray into rap in the eighties! It aint pretty.

I watched The Filth and The Fury, about the Sex Pistols a week ago and was disappointed. End of The Century went much further in satisfying my craving for a great punk rock documentary.