Random Lost Question #2,482

Weren't Juliet and Ben a couple in New Otherton? and if so, doesn't that mean that Adult Ben remembered the mechanic from when he was a kid when she came to the island? And isn't that a little creepy?

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New Logo

OK, who can guess the provenance of the letters in the new logo? (some are, of course, gimmees).

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Three by Three

Three things I liked about Wet Hot American Summer:

• Chris Meloni is as good as legend would have it as the bat-shit crazy camp cook. He hedges the performance not one bit, committing fully to the character's unhinged lunacy.
• The kids. By and large, they cast very well, and elicited great, non-grating or show performances from the campers.
• Jeneane Garofolo and David Hyde-Pierce, who not only have surprisingly good chemistry, but nail the balance the film calls for between parody and sincerity.

Three things I did not like about Wet Hot American Summer:

• How unevenly the cast and film nailed that balance. WHAS isn't an out and out parody the way Airplane was, but it's not just a goofy comedy film set in the 80s either. It's a very schizophrenic mix of parody and original absurdist humor, and while at times that mix worked great, at other times it felt very disjointed.
• That they filmed (per the bonus features) and didn't use the 10-years later flash-forward reunion. That looked funny.
• The comedy. Not really. It was very funny. But I couldn't help but feeling throughout that it should have been funnier.

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Prognosticatin'

Given that U2 will be doing stadiums in the Fall I am more optimistic than I expected to be about getting tickets. And as I've been thinking about the tour, I've been trying to predict what songs will make the cut this go-round. So, assuming that they stick to the Vertigo model and do 16 or so songs and then a six-song encore, what will we hear?

From the new album
The four songs they have already played live during the promotional tour are gimmes:

• Get On Your Boots
• Breathe
• Magnificent
• I'll Go Crazy if I Don't Go Crazy Tonight

That leaves 18.

From the new album, I'd also expect to hear:

• No Line on the Horizon (I'm going to peg this as the opener, a la the ZOO TV tour opening with "Zoo Station")
• Moment of Surrender (the requisite ballad)
• Unknown Caller

That leaves 15.

From How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, I'd expect them to keep:

• Vertigo
• All Because of You
• City of Blinding Lights

That leaves 12.

From All That You Can't Leave Behind, I'd expect them to keep:

• Beautiful Day

That leaves 11.

Dipping into the U2 live staples, expect the following to remain in the setlist; the songs fans would revolt upon not hearing and that the band can't seem to give up:

• Where the Streets Have No Name
• Bullet the Blue Sky
• One
• New Year's Day
• Sunday Bloody Sunday
• Pride (In the Name of Love)
• Mysterious Ways

That leaves 4.

Expect them to dig out an oldie they haven't played in a long time, like they did last tour. I'm guessing it will be Out of Control.

That leaves 3.

Expect them to go back a tour or two and pull out a live favorite or two they don't have to relearn.

• Until the End of the World
• The Fly

That leaves 1.

The Saints Are Coming cover? They already learned it and it's a left-field choice.

So - my projected set list- in order of how I think it will unfold?

No Line on the Horizon
Magnificent
Get On Your Boots
Vertigo
Beautiful Day
Unknown Caller
Moment of Surrender
I'll Go Crazy if I Don't Go Crazy Tonight
Out of Control
Until the End of the World
The Saints Are Coming
New Years Day
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Bullet the Blue Sky
Where the Streets Have No Name

Encore:
City of Blinding Lights
The Fly
Pride (in the Name of Love)
All Because of You
Breathe
One

Until Whenever

My New Favorite Line About Television

"Part of the joy of watching a theatrical repertory company is seeing the actors play a variety of parts. Television especially is our national repertory theater and seeing a variety of performances from a single actor is part of the pleasure it gives us."

That's from the #21st installment of Tom Stempel's "Understanding Screenwriting" series over at The House Next Door. That you should be reading both the blog and this series there goes without saying. But I just loved this particular quote, and how it encapsulated the joy i get when I see an actor from one shoe pop up on another show.

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Do I Like Fantasy?

I always thought I did. But in recent years, I've wondered more and more. Not if I like it at all - I do - but if I'm really a fan. I can't decide. Maybe you can. The evidence.

• As a kid I read Lloyd Alexander's Prydain series at least three times.
• I've never read the Lord of the Rings. The Hobbit and The Fellowship, and the beginning of The Two Towers, yes. But not any more. Nor do I particularly want to.
• I read in high school the first two Shannara trilogies, and loved them.
• In college I tried (twice) to get into The Eye of the World, the first book in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, reading hundreds of pages. Never happened, and I never finished it.
• I've seen all three Lord of the Rings films multiple times, and love them dearly.
• I am now reading George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones, the first book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series. I am loving it, much to my surprise. I expected to not really like it enough to invest time in such a massive series (I only picked it up because news of the HBO series intrigued me), but was rapidly sucked in.
• I played D&D sporadically in high school and college, but never that regularly.
• Stephen King is my favorite author.
• I read comic books (but find explicitly "fantasy" comics boring).
• I am a fair-to-middling Star Wars nerd, and have read a good dozen or so of the novels.
• Apart from what I listed above, I don't know that I've ever read any other fantasy novels.

So - what say you?

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Most Played

So according to iTunes, these are the 10 songs I have played most often over the past year and a half.

10. Spirit on the Water, Bob Dylan - 29 plays
When I got Modern Times I listened to it a lot. This is the second track, and since I will often listen to an album and not finish it, this ends up pretty high.

9. Hoop de Doo, The Wiggles - 30 plays
The kids have a bunch of CDs in iTunes, and thew Wiggles CD is a favorite.

8. Open Spaces - Johnny Greenwood - 30 plays
The opening track to Greenwood's score for There Will Be Blood, which makes great "tune out the office" music.

7. Thunder on the Mountain, Bob Dylan - 30 plays
The first song on Modern Times

6. Toot Toot, Chugga Chugga, Big Red Car - The Wiggles - 31 plays
The first song on that CD.

5. Imagine - Jordis Unga - 31 plays
The Wife and I both love this version, so it gets a lot of play.

4. Central Park, New York, The Wiggles - 32 plays
Not really sure why this is higher than some of the other Wiggle songs.

3. Jingle Bells, Ella Fitzgerald - 33 plays
A Christmas favorite that the girls and I like a lot.

2. Over the Rainbow - Wonderful World, Israel Kamakawiwo'ole - 35 plays
This is likely the Wife's favorite song, so it appears on most of her playlists.

1. Get On Your Boots, U2 - 36 plays
I got the single weeks before the album, so it got a lot of play.

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Reason George Lucas Is Still Pretty Cool # 68

I've been watching the new animated Clone Wars series and have been pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoy it. Part of this is just the sheer fun of seeing those many glorious Clone War battles that Obi-Wan hinted at 32 years ago. But an even bigger part is the sheer quality of the action. See, as a big Marvel fan I was very excited when the company first started rolling out animated movies on DVD a few years back. I mean, an animated Ultimates film sounded just brilliant. But the animation itself, when unveiled, was clumsy and non-compelling, and not much better than the animation in those old 90s Marvel X-Men and Spider-Man series. Limited and not good to look at.

Maybe I've just been spoiled by Disney and Pixar. They don't (aside from the brilliant Incredibles) really do action/super-hero movies, but the action scenes they do do are always wonderfully kinetic and realized. Think of the final scene in the original Toy Story. Or the door-chase in Monster's Inc. Or even the fights in Pocohontas. That level of sophistication delivered to a Captain America film would be just a great thing. But that's not what we got.

But it is what Lucas is delivering on Clone Wars. The first episode I saw was the Yoda ep, and the quality of the action scenes was just great. And with each episode I've seen that level is being upheld. It's fun, engaging, and thrilling Star Wars action. And for that, I thank Lucas.

Until Whenever

Random Top Ten

Random Top Ten!!!

Top Ten Mandy Patinkin Songs

10. "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?"
This is for me the archetypal Patink performance. Start off slow and build to an impassioned, slightly manic finish.



9. "If I Loved You"
Here, he takes this model and expands on it. Just when you think he's done he comes back with a final, bellowed, gorgeous repeat of the final verse.



8. "Color and Light"
The "blue-red-blue-red" sequence is a tour de force. Who else could convey pointillism so well musically?

7. "Loving You"
A delicate, haunting rendition of this slow, sorrowfully happy song from Passion.



6. "Over the Rainbow"
Is this the greatest song ever? It might be.

\

5. "I Wish I Could Forget You"
Listen to his deep register here. Puts the lie to the notion that all he;s got going is that falsetto tone.

4. "Oh What a Circus"
The original recipe, and his introduction to the theater world. What an entrance.

3. "Finishing the Hat"
A more convincing expression of the miracle of the artistic process has never been sung.

2. "Casey Medley"
A seamless joining of "Casey," Randy Newman's "Marie," and Charles Strouse's achingly beautiful "Once Upon a Time." Probably my all-time favorite medley.



1. "Lesson #8"
Makes the hairs on my arm stand up, every damn time.

Until Whenever

Fudging

I'm watching War Games currently, a movie I haven't seen in many years. I may have seen this film in the theaters when it was originally released in 1983, when I would have been nine years old. I had forgotten what a good little movie it is - how good Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy are (and how cute Ally Sheedy is!) as the naive teens at the center of the plot; how suspenseful that last sequence really is; how good Dabney Coleman is doing his Dabney Coleman thing.

I usually don't do this, but I didn't really want to watch this twice on rental, so I've been watching with the commentary on (I usually only listen to commentaries after seeing the movie fresh), and have been entertained by how candid the commentators (director John Badham and writers Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes) are about the film. It gets almost comical as they point out fudge after fudge after fudge. No, they probably wouldn't have bothered to remove the chairs from the missile command rooms after the computers took over. No, computers in high schools in 1983 would not have been linked to modems. No, the speech replicator that lets Joshua talk didn't exist, nor would it certainly have worked on non-speakered computers! No, NORAD isn't that big. No, NORAD wouldn't have had tour groups randomly passing through.

The excuse for almost all of these cheats is that they are needed for tension and that the movie is better for them. Especially that computer voice thing. Which sounds on the surface like a cop out. But isn't. After all, the movie does work, even if a small part of you is wondering where the speaker is. And that's what, in the end, matters.

This is a great commentary, both for this fun frankness and for the structural details they note and talk about. Like the idea that sometimes in a script you want the audience behind, not totally clear on what's happening (like during most of that opening sequence in the missile command bunker), while at others you want the audience ahead of your characters (like when we know, but Broderick and Sheedy don't, that the game they are playing is having real-world effects). And they have obvious affection for the film and the kids (if less so for Dabney Coleman, who they hint at being difficult to work with, even as they admit that his ideas helped the film).

Commentaries can be very hit-or-miss. This is a palpable hit.

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Three by Three

Three things I liked about The Ice Storm.

• The design - costumes, sets, props - all worked seamlessly to evoke a very specific time and place. Even the architecture - the split-level house, the big, open windows, all very specific to that era. And the way they got the ice storm itself, and its effects, on screen was brilliant - I assumed they filmed in a real ice storm, but it was apparently Spring when they filmed!
• The acting - Both the parents and the kids were all very well-drawn by the cast, with Christina Ricci in particular doing a fine job of portraying that fine line between girl and woman.
• The score - a very effective use of minimal music, so that the music that is there works very effectively. I'm a film music fan, and usually prefer more music, but this worked.

Three things I did not like about The Ice Storm.

• Elijah Wood getting electrocuted. In a film that so diligently avoided plot machinations, and was so focused on the small and sublime, the sudden jump to such an immense tragedy was off-putting and took me out of the movie.
• That the Sigourney Weaver and Jamey Sheridan characters got so relatively little focus. I felt as if we knew the Kevin Kline and Joan Allen characters much better, but didn't feel that was really the intention.
• The preacher character. It felt as if something got left on the cutting room floor there.

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First Impressions

1. "No Line on the Horizon"
An excellent opener. U2 has for a while no been opening their albums with the first single, meaning that the new album's sound and feel has been introduced by a more radio-friendly song ("Beautiful Day," "Vertigo," "Discotheque"). Here, they revert to the Joshua Tree/Achtung Baby gambit of opening the album with a bit of a more challenging cut that more clearly lays out the album's sonic blueprint. I love how the driving two-chord guitar figure in the verses modulates down; it's a great mood setter, and I love how that insistent beats yields at the verses to a more open sound. And that "No, no line on the horizon" melody is a great bit of spare hook writing.

2 "Magnificent"
Every U2 album, it seems, has a song that at least nods to the "classic" U2 sound - ringing, helicopter guitars, driving bass and drums, impassioned vocals - and this is NLOTH's. I don't at this stage think this is going to crack the pantheon of favorite U2 songs, but it's a fine example of its type.

3. "Moment of Surrender"
The album's big ballad. Every U2 album has one, and this is one of the greats, no "One," but close. I absolutely am enchanted by the way Bono enters into it with a big bellow at the absolute top of his range - completely counter-intuitive, and very effective. There are some very nice gospel harmonies working here as well on the chorus, and the very churchy organ does a lot of work in the background to tie the song together.

4. "Unknown Caller"
There's a moment late in this song when the chords rise up step-wise and a regal french horn chimes in with a beautiful, uplifting quick burst of sound. 30 years in and U2 can still pull off the new. Some have called Bono's use of cell phone metaphors cheesy, but I think they work perfectly in the context of the song.

5. "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight"
A concentrated burst of pop power. The bouncy, up and down feel of the verses is just infectious, and I love the irrelevant feel to the lyrics. A more mature, successful attempt at what they tried with "The Sweetest Thing."

6. "Get On Your Boots"
Makes much more sense in the context of the album than it does as a single, kind of like "The Fly" did, even if it's less lasting and serious than that critical Achtung Baby track. The verses may be kind of forgettable, all Elvis Costello pastiche, but that chorus is inspired, with a sly chord progression that gives it the faintest hint of Middle Eastern exoticness.

7. "Stand Up Comedy"
A bounce-up-in-your-seat bit of mildly funky rock, kind of as if the Red Hot Chili Peppers tried to do a U2 song. "Stop trying to help God across the street like a little old lady" is a classic Bono song. U2 have tried songs with this kind of swaggering attitude before, but never as successfully.

8. "FEZ - Being Born"
The one song that could have worked on Zooropa, what with the ambient, clicks-and-whirrs opener that yields to a minor-key urgent U2 rock song. Some unidentifiable part of me absolutely loves the way that we hear the "Let me in the sound" refrain from "Get On Your Boots" echoed here as if its drifting in from another room.

9. "White As Snow"
I'm a big fan of taking classic melodies and recontextualizing them in rock songs, so I love this quiet, weary ballad, which takes the form of the melody from "O Come O Come Emmanuel" and repurposes it quite beautifully. The delicate, almost reluctant guitar lines are exquisite.

10. "Breathe"
One more big U2 rocker before the familiar hushed close. Big, meaty guitar and chiming piano lines mark this as U2 even as Bono's near-rapped vocals mark it as a detour. Those staccato verses shouldn't work, but they do. And the big-leap "These DAYS" of the chorus are just classic Bono.

11. "Cedars of Lebanon"
It's no "Love Is Blindness," but that old U2 trick of ending on a melancholy, subdued, somewhat pessimistic note still works well. It's that almost jazz-like drum beat that makes the song for me - this is musically more of a successor to "Please" than anything else.

Until Whenever

25 Milepost Albums

This has been going around, and it sounded fun. Here are 25 albums that mark important moments in my life as a music fan.

1. The Muppet Movie (Soundtrack)
The first album I can remember listening to, and seeing around the house and being interested in. The first time I recognized music as being something separate from the radio or TV that you could play on demand.

2. Born in the USA, Bruce Springsteen
The first album I owned. I was maybe ten or eleven and had no interest in music. A well-meaning aunt gave me the cassette as a birthday present. I suspect my lack of enthusiasm may have, alas, showed. A few years later, as I started to like music, I went back to it and discovered that “hey! I like this!”

3 and 4. Beverly Hills Cop/The Goonies (soundtracks)
When I got my first cassette player, my mother took me to Sam Goody to get a cassette for it. I talked her into getting both for me. I ended up listening to these a lot; these were my first heavy-rotation albums. They also foreshadowed my future love for film music, as my favorite tracks on each were the instrumental “Axel F” and the bit of Dave Grusin scoring at the end of that album.

5 and 6. Invisible Touch, Genesis/Fore!, Huey Luis and the News
The first “pop” albums I got hooked on. I would lie on my bed with my tape player and play one after the other, night after night. The first albums I memorized. (I was young!)

7. The Joshua Tree, U2
When “With or Without You” hit big I was annoyed by its constant presence on MTV. A few months later though, something happened. I was into it. And I liked the other two singles too – especially the sweep of “Where the Streets Have No Name.” So I biked down to Ridgewood to buy the cassette. First album I bought with my own money. And still my favorite album, by anyone.

8. Jesus Christ Superstar, Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice
My father had the original concept album on LP. I taped it to cassette, and to this day can remember the few skips I inadvertently recorded. The first theater music I fell in love with.

9. The Best of the Police
My father got me this for Christmas (I was maybe 13?). I had only the dimmest sense of who the Police were, and was kind of annoyed that he wasted a Christmas gift on such nonsense. But then I listened – and found I knew (and liked!) almost all the songs. I still think of this as the broadening of my musical taste, the realization that I liked stuff I didn’t know I liked.

10. The Lonesome Jubilee, John Mellencamp
Same story. My mother got me this one and I was nonplussed. I only knew that “Paper in Fire” song from the radio, which she knew I liked. But that didn’t mean I would like a whole album of his stuff! Except, as it turned out, it did. Ever since, I’ve been an album guy, not a singles guy.

11. Sweeney Todd, Stephen Sondheim
We did the show in high school and I listened to the score over and over. I had no idea at the time, but an obsession with Sondheim’s genius had begun.

12. Achtung Baby, U2
By the time this was released I had become a huge U2 fan, had all their albums, and had inducted my sister into the cult. This was the first album I remember waiting for. We knew the release date, and went to get the CD the day it was released. Put it on in that same cassette player in my room. Listened. And were confused. This was not U2. This was some strange, noisy thing. But then we listened again. And again. And realized how good it was – once you found that essential “U2” spirit in the new sounds. This is the album that showed me artists can change, and they deserve the benefit of the doubt.

13. Spike, Elvis Costello
“Veronica” had been on the radio and I had liked it. I knew Costello otherwise only from the snippet of “Watching the Detectives” that was played on some Time-Life collection commercial. But the cassette was in a bargain bin at a store at college for $5. So I grabbed it. And became an instant Elvis Costello fan. I kind of think of my musical appreciation as having two phases. This marked the beginning of phase two.

14. The Soul Cages, Sting
This was the first album I dug into the bones of. I loved it enough to buy the piano/vocal book, and very clumsily would play through certain songs, getting a sense of the chord structures and how they worked. I don’t really play guitar or piano (just enough to play some chords), so this was the first time I’ve understood music in this sense.

15 and 16. Mahler’s 9th Symphony and Beethoven’s 9th Symphony
I got the Mahler out of the library on a whim (mostly I think because Sondheim name-checked Mahler in Company) and was blown away by the music. The Beethoven I did in college (singing in the chorus), and I fell in love with it that way. Such a remarkable, big, piece of music, and something I own multiple versions of. These albums will always represent to me my discovery of classical music.

17. Kind of Blue, Miles Davis
I was browsing in a Borders, killing time, and this was on a listening station. I put the headphones on and gave it a listen. After hearing 30 seconds I bought the CD. That’s never happened to me. My jazz gateway drug.

18. Star Wars, John Williams
When the movies were re-released in 1997 I got the full soundtracks they were releasing. 2 discs each. I had always loved Williams’ stuff, but this was turning a corner. The start of my film score obsession.

19. Floyd Collins, Adam Guettel
Bought on a whim at the Virgin Music store in Times Square while on a break at work. I listened to this dozens of times, and couldn’t get enough of the inspired mix of folk/bluegrass and Broadway. This CD started me down a road of more current theater music, and now almost all the theater music I get is by new composers (aside from Sondheim, of course).

20. OK Computer, Radiohead
15 years after I made her into a U2 fan, my sister returned the favor and got me into Radiohead. Nice.

21. Time Out of Mind, Bob Dylan
I had “Highway 61” from years back, but didn’t like it. Can’t remember why I got this, but it was like a revelation – oh, THAT’S why people revere Dylan like they do!! I went back to Highway 61 and kept building, and still have more to go. Dylan is the 20th Century Shakespeare, and we get to hear him, even see him perform live! How lucky are we! (Dylan may have supplanted U2 as my #1 musical obsession, actually. Shhh, it’s a secret).

22. Neon Bible, Arcade Fire
Got the CD out of the library on a whim and fell in love. One of the few current acts I’ve really gotten into. Reminded me that you can’t rest on all the old artists you love. You have to make room for new ones.

23. De Profundis, Arvo Part
I went to see the Rutgers Glee Club after I graduated and they did an Arvo Part piece that I was astonished by. Bought this CD and haven’t looked back – Part is easily my favorite contemporary composer.

24. Ella Fitzgerald, The Best of the Songbooks
I had heard for years about how great Ella was, and when I got this I was almost surprised – I was expecting a bigger, “prettier” voice. But soon enough she taught me what jazz singing was about.

25. A Charlie Brown Christmas, Vince Guaraldi
It doesn’t need to be Christmastime to play this album. Just a singular piece of work that makes me happy every damn time I hear it.

Until Whenever

U2 Ranked - #s 119-128

128. "Lady With The Spinning Head" – “Even Better than the Real Thing” B-Side
A few U2 B-sides that have turned up are pretty clearly just earlier versions of songs that made the album. Such is the case with this upbeat song, which sounds like a happier shiny version of “The Fly.” Nonetheless, this is one of U2 fandom’s more popular “lost” songs, and it’s dance rhythms and catchy hook make it a fun, if in the end lightweight, bit of pop.



127. "With A Shout" - October
I really like Larry’s rapid drumming in this song, with rapid-fire bursts of sound. I think the tempo and momentum start and stop too much, but those fast parts have a great, propulsive energy. It’s the slower, grinding bass-driven chorus that doesn’t quite work for me.



126. "Trash, Trampoline And The Party Girl" – Boy-era B-Side
U2 has trouble pulling off these light, strummed novelty-type songs. Still, this one, which gained fame outside the proportions warranted due to its inclusion in the Live at Red Rocks video and EP, is charming enough. I’ve always liked the way Bono and the Edge sing/play the same melody in unison on the bridge.



125. "Tomorrow" – October
This song features one of the Irish band’s very few forays into Irish-sounding music, and prominently features a mournful Irish Uillean pipes melody line. It’s a pretty, slow song that kicks up into a more traditional U2 jam there at the end.



124. "I Fall Down" – October
A kind of “New Year’s Day” precursor in the way that it very nicely integrates piano and guitar. The angry “I Fall Down” chorus comes across today as a bit silly, but the up-and-down piano figure is a keeper.



123. “Your Blue Room” – Passengers – Original Soundtracks: 1
This slow, moody, hushed song is one of only two real “songs” to emerge from the experimental Passengers project, and it’s a very subtle piece of work, all washed-out effect and quiet power. I really like the churchy organ and laid-back beat, but it’s really the effect of Bono’s almost-whispered singing that really makes the song.



122. “Promenade” – The Unforgettable Fire
Whereas the other experimental songs from this album (“Elvis Presley and America” and “4th of July”) largely fail, this one works. The simple, echoing guitar and atmospheric synths never really add up to much, but Bono’s contemplative delivery really sells the song.



121. "Falling At Your Feet" – The Million-Dollar Hotel
Bono wrote the screenplay to this film and he and the band are all over the soundtrack. This is a solid little list song, reminiscent of better songs like “Tryin’ to Throw Your Arms Around the World,” but, deliberately I think, more modest in scope. The bridge is what makes the song for me – those sing-songy “all fall downs” come across as kind of sweet.



120. "Walk To The Water" – "With or Without You" B-Side
U2 in a trancey, laid-back vibe. Kind of a more melodic and relaxed cousin to “Miami,” what with the near-spoken verse, but elevated above that song by the simple-but-effective “walk to the water” choruses and some interesting harmonic changes in the Edge’s arpeggiated background guitar wash.



119. "Fast Cars" – How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
The vaguely Middle Eastern guitar figure and the shouts by the band kind of prefigure some of the sounds coming out of the new album. I like the belly-dancing vibe coming off of the chorus and the slightly exotic feel of this song, even if in the end it never really takes off.



Until Whenever

Three by Three

Three things I liked about Gattaca.

• The concept and execution of a near-future society in which your genetic code serves as the basis for a new class system. It's a neat concept, and a very believable one. The scene in the beginning, with the nurse taking the just-born baby's blood and dispassionately reciting its chances of contracting major diseases was chilling.
• Its depiction of such a society as a somewhat sterile place. It makes sense to me that in a society where so much is predestined, much of the drama that makes the human race interesting would be leached away.
• The murder mystery, which is nicely woven into the larger story, and which reminded me of Asimov.

Three things I did not like about Gattaca.

• That the lead detective turns out to be Vincent's brother. Contrived and didn't add much.
• While the idea of a non-genetically ideal person stealing a genetically gifted's identity is neat, the execution pushed credibility to the breaking point. He had his legs cut off to gain 4 inches? How does that even work? And the daily scrubbing of the skin and hair to minimize biological evidence seemed silly - no amount of scrubbing is going to prevent you from dropping hairs and skin cells, is it?
• The Jude Law character in general - I found the notion that a genetically gifted person would become a useless part of society just because he was in a wheelchair hard to swallow. And the suicide at the end just didn't land. I didn't buy it, or care.

Until Whenever

Surprise

I am not an audiophile. I listen to mp3s almost exclusively now, the speakers on my computer came with it, and my beautiful new flatscreen TV is hooked up to an eight-year old Dolby 2.0 system.

But I am curious. I hear all the time that CD sound is superior to standard mp3 sound. OK. But can I tell the difference? So, I pulled my Achtung Baby CD out of my CD drawer and put it into my DVD player, which is hooked up to the stereo. I then put my iPod on "Zoo Station" and plugged it into the iPod jack that feeeds into the same stereo. To accommodate the iPod, DVD player, and TV I've got a switcher plugged into the stero. So i was able to, with the push of a button, switch from the CD to the iPod. And back and forth.

Now, I wasn't able to get the volumes synced, so that the CD was louder than the iPod. But still, the sound did sound richer, deeper, fuller. I'm still not convinced how much was quality and how much was simple volume. Like I said, I'm no audiophile. But I was surprised to hear a difference. I'm not going back to CDs - I do too much listening on the train, and I'm not going back to sorting CDs for the car. But I might just be more inclined to pull out a CD and listen at home. And that's a good thing.

Until Whenever

Reason I Love the Internet #2,392

In 17 days, the new U2 album, No Line on the Horizon, will be released.

Nine years ago, when All That You Can't Leave Behind was released, I had to wait until the day of its release to hear it. I had to drive out to the local Tower, buy the CD, and put in in the CD player - starting with the CD player in the car on the way home from said record store.

Today, as we speak, I am listening to the U2 album while I work, as it streams on MySpace. By the time I purchase the actual CD (which I will - see a forthcoming post on why), I will have listened to it at least several times already.

I love the Internet

Until Whenever

U2 Ranked - #s 129 - 138


138. Drowning Man - War
A simple guitar-strummed figure alongside a fey martial beat, with a meandering Bono vocal on top. Not a bad song, and it does evoke a nice mood, but in the end it never really goes anywhere. U2 would later learn how to do a much better job with this kind of repetitive, simple song - see Zooropa's "The First Time."



137. Elvis Presley And America - The Unforgettable Fire
This song, famously, is an improvised first cut that the bane decided to leave as is. Bad idea. There's the germs of some interesting ideas here, poking their heads out from the muddled musical swamp they are stuck in, but the band really would have been much better served had they played with this more. As great as U2 is live, they're really not the kind of band that can jam and produce full-fleshed songs from the ether. They have to work at it.



136. Wave Of Sorrow (Birdland) - The Joshua Tree (cut track)
I like this song, but not nearly as much as I expected to, what with all of the hype that came with it when the band re-released The Joshua Tree. (Bono had to rerecord vocals for it, making it feel like some long-lost gem.) U2 can pull off piano-based songs on occasion, but here it's just a bit by the numbers.



135. Miami - Pop
This song pissed off a lot of U2 fans when Pop came out, with its near-spoken choruses over a fuzzy drum track, then a distortion-laden static rhythmic figure. You can see where they were going with it, but it's not a track that's aging well.



134. The Playboy Mansion - Pop
I very much like the laid-back, sunnin' on a beach vibe this song has; it's a mood and groove the band almost never plays in. And I like the way the chorus shakes loose, but in the end it will never be a favorite - it's just a little too relaxed for U2.



133. Scarlet - October
There's a definite Biblical feel to this song, a grandiose feel derived from the stately drums and the chiming piano, and the simple repeated "rejoice." A very lovely bit of more-overtly Christian rock before the band would figure out how to express its faith and much more oblique - and interesting - ways.



132. I Threw A Brick Through A Window - October
A classic U2 song and concert staple from the early years. This is one of many, many indelible, simple Edge riffs that will be featured on this list. What I like about this song is the energy it has, the way that it creates a kind of impulsive, excited beat even though the tempo is pretty slow. It also, for what it's worth, features that rarest of beasts - the Adam bass solo.



131. North And South Of The River - B-Side (Staring at the Sun)
This is a song that faced no injustice in being relegated to a b-side. A bouncy, shimmery beat over which play some basic piano chords. The synths that come in partway don't save it. Still, I like the simple yet impassioned vocal Bono gives it, and it's sweetly resigned little melody.



130. Fire - The Unforgettable Fire
And the songs I really like start. I like the quiet, cinematic opening; I like the dramatic strings, and I like the insistent, somehow sinister bass line. But I especially like how they open the song up at the chorus, with a chiming, yearning hopeful quality. And I especially like how in the bridge they take the song to a new, almost mystical level - "And if the mountain should crumble or disappear into the sea. Not at ear, no not I." Chills. (OK, the synth orchestra hits are kind of cheesy.)



129. Like A Song... - War
And now we're getting to some good, classic U2. Listen to the mini-guitar solo that comes after the first verse. That's classic U2. And listen to Larry's impassioned drumming here - he's kind of kicking some ass on this track, right? Most of all, this song hits that right blend of straight-ahead rock interspersed with echoey, slower sections that U2 does very well.



Until Whenever

Project X

A few weeks back, the good folks over at A List of Things Thrown Ten Minutes Ago linked to a list by JBev at JamsBio magazine, in which the writer ranked, in order, all 185 original Beatles songs. Now, I'm not the world's biggest Beatles fan, so the specifics of this list didn't hold too much interest for me. But the idea of the list most certainly did. And it got me to thinking, of course, of doing one for U2. And I have.

Before I dive into the list, some criteria. I haven't included every single B-side or cut single that's cropped up somewhere or other, simply because I don't actually have all of them. I also haven't included covers. I also didn't include the songs from the Passengers album, aside from the two songs that are really U2 songs - "Your Blue Room" and "Miss Sarajevo." Nonetheless, this is a pretty comprehensive list.


148. 4th Of July - The Unforgettable Fire
This is it. The worst U2 song in this list. U2 doesn't do many instrumentals, and this meandering, ambient piece, while pretty enough, never goes anywhere or develops into anything interesting. It's just a plodding bass figure with echoey guitars sweeping over it in waves. This is from The Unforgettable Fire, and the Eno influence is front and center. When I was younger I convinced myself that this was a great piece of music, moody and deep, but, well, I was wrong.



147. Alex Descends Into Hell For A Bottle Of Milk/Korova 1 -"The Fly" B-Side
This song was written for a stage version, I think, of A Clockwork Orange, and it's insistent guitar figure marks it as a U2 song. The boy soprano is a bit trite, rather than as evocative as he's supposed to be, the whole thing just kind of descends (hah!) into a sub-par, grungey, industrial thing at the end. Not one for the ages.



146. Love Comes Tumbling - Wide Awake in America
Wide Awake in America was a short EP put out in between The Unforgettable Fire and The Joshua Tree that featured two live tracks and two cut songs. This is one of the cut songs, and it sounds like the kind of song you would write if you were trying to do a U2 parody. Ringing guitar, Bono singing intently - it all feels very by the books.



145. Two Hearts Beat As One - War
I believe this one was actually something of a hit eat, but the big, happy chorus always struck me as sort of fake and overly poppy, and not really U2. Also, the lyric is about as facile as you can get. Two hearts beat as one. Yes, we get it.



144. Deep In The Heart - "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" - B-Side
When people talk about U2 songs being mind-numbingly repetitive, this is what they mean. Just kind of droning really, and a case for leaving some cut songs where you found them.



143. The Three Sunrises - Wide Awake in America
Another cut song, another lackluster piece of music. To be fair, the release in the chorus here is kind of nice, and the simple joy of the song kind of works. Still, a song about how nice it is when the sun rises is hardly groundbreaking.



142. The Ocean - Boy
It's, as you can see, my least favorite Boy song, but I have to admit to liking the quiet moody vibe they get at here. That sad, descending guitar figure works, and, as much as I hate to admit it, the quiet ocean sound effects in the background do work. This is a slight song, but at 1:35, it doesn't overstay its welcome.




141. Spanish Eyes - I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" - B-Side
I still remember seeing this song on those little jukeboxes they used to have in diners. It's a pretty straightforward U2 song, with Bono throwing a bit too much grit into his voice at parts. When he sings "And I LOVE the way she talks to me," he sounds like he's doing a parody of himself.




140. The Refugee - War
This isn't a bad song, but it just kind of doesn't really hang together in the end. The percussion-only opening, the pretty weakly brewed slide guitar, the U2-by-the-book chorus; the parts never really add up.



139. Numb - Zooropa
One of only three U2 songs with lead vocals by the Edge, this experimental, deliberately monotonous, numbing piece of music is well-executed, and kind of fun what with the Bono fat lady falsetto coming in, and the tongue-in-cheek simplicity of that guitar riff, but in the end not something you look to listen to over and over.



Until Whenever

Ten TV Things That Made Me Grin Recently






SPOILERS FOR STUFF





1. Smash calls Mama Smash "Mommy" when he gets into college on Friday Night Lights
2. Smash thanks Coach Taylor for all he's done on Friday Night Lights
3. Reading that FX might do a TV show based on Brian Michael Bendis' Powers comic
4. The 13th time Adama reacted to a shock or threat with stone-faced hard-assery on Battlestar Galactica.
5. Seeing young Rousseou (sp?) on Lost
6. Seeing Jin on Lost
7. Bill Hendrickson has a moral epiphany and realizes that the prophet must be put down on Big Love
8. U2 does "Get On your Boots" for the first time live on the Grammys



9. Radiohead does a remarkable version of "15 steps" with full marching band (minus the actual marching) the Grammys



10. Matt and his mother kind-of-sort-of bond on Friday Night Lights


Until Whenever