My Month of Entertainment - November 2006

So the temperature got down to 6 degrees last night...now all the snow that was so light and powdery (and impossible to shovel) is now rock hard. Goodie. But before it's my turn to go back out and shovel some more, I thought I'd crank this post out first...

Books

None. I didn't buy a single book this month. Not sure the last time that happened...

Music

Once again, iTunes and eMusic kept me quite busy. I haven't bought an actual physical copy of a cd since I got the iPod in September. I upped my eMusic plan to 65 downloads a month, which gives me a bit more room to experiment with different bands about which I've heard good things...plus, none of my top artists had anything coming out this month (Talib Kweli's Eardrum was put off yet again), so I needed something new to listen to...

Young Liars, TV on the Radio - This was their debut EP. Nothing amazing here, but it was still interesting to see what this unique band's first song ideas were. Best songs: "Blind" and "Young Liars."

Boys and Girls in America, The Hold Steady - Rolling Stone has been extremely high on this group for a while, and they definitely seem to have built a pretty good critical following, so I figured I'd give them a shot. It's like Social Distortion meets Greetings from Asbury Park-era Springsteen...only it's not quite as good as that comparison would make it sound. There are some highlights, but it's kind of the same half-sung/half-spoken vocal schtick throughout, and I've never been a giant fan of that (even when it's coming from Brooooooooooce). But the music itself is quite solid, and I figure I'll try out whatever they do next as well. Best songs: "Party Pit," "Massive Nights," "Stuck Between Stations," and "Citrus."

Hello Love, The Be Good Tanyas - Decent mood music. The Be Good Tanyas have been around a while, and this is their latest...lots of covers on this one, and I'll say right now, I don't know how they pull off a female, folky version of "When Doves Cry," but they do. I was very pessimistic about that one, and I was quite surprised. The songs with drums and full band work much better than the ones without, and you really have to be in the right mood to listen to this music...and the vocal style is a bit slurred, which is sometimes perfect and sometimes annoying. But it was worth the experiment. Best songs: "A Little Blues," "Ootishenia," "For the Turnstiles" (fantastic Neil Young song from On the Beach), "When Doves Cry."

Fightin' Side of Me: 15 #1 Hits, Merle Haggard - Don't know what caused me to dip into the Merle catalog, but I stumbled across it on eMusic and decided what the hell. Even though my political leanings don't agree with "Okie From Muskogee," that was a perfectly written statement on his part. Every word seems to ring strong and true, though I don't love country music enough to get through all 15 songs in a row. Best songs: "Okie from Muskogee," "I Think I'll Just Stay Here and Drink," "Kentucky Gambler."

Roots & Crowns, Califone - This Califone album is on a lot of critics' and music nerds' "Best of 2006" lists, but...well, we'll just have to agree to disagree. This too fits into my "mood music" category, where it's too slow and sparse to listen to at any time, and while there are some pretty solid selections here, it won't be making any Best Of list I put together. I respect the effort, and it's fine, but it doesn't knock my socks off. Best songs: "Burned by the Christians," "The Orchids," "A Chinese Actor," "Spiders House."

Ink is My Drink, Panacea - This was both a pleasant surprise and a disappointment. A few weeks ago, I realized I hadn't visited www.okayplayer.com in a while, so I headed on over, and Panacea's new album was one of their featured selections. I visited their myspace page and really liked what I heard, so I hopped over to iTunes and picked it up. They produce a really strong hip hop sound...and then repeat it 12 times. All the samples are that Kanye-esque '70s-soul sound, and it's really easy to listen to, but there just isn't enough variety for my tastes. This is one of those where I strongly encourage you to download the strong tracks...but there's really not too much need to download the whole album. Best songs: "Work of Art", "Starlite," "Pulse," "Burning Bush," "These Words."

Transistor Radio and Transfiguration of Vincent, M. Ward - Honestly I just downloaded these a couple days ago, but I figured that, considering how much I loved Post War, I should go ahead and nab these. Atrios posted a youtube link of M. Ward singing "Right in the Head" a while back, which made me happy...that song is the best protest-esque song I've heard in quite a while. Anyway, I'm pretty sure you'll be hearing more about M. Ward from me soon, so for now we'll leave it at this.

DVD

With the weekend trip to St. Louis and football to contend with, it was a relatively slow Netflix month.

American Dreamz - Mandy Moore is developing an interesting career starring in movies that are almost brilliant satire but come up a little short. Saved! was probably better overall than American Dreamz, but I'd say this is worth seeing even though it ends up a bit disappointing. Moore is good as the stardom-hungry small-town girl, Hugh Grant is decent as the Simon Cowell character, Dennis Quaid is fine as the Dubya character, and Chris Klein is fine as the dopey boyfriend who wants nothing more in life than to satisfy Mandy Moore's character. The interesting part comes in the Muslim character. His parents are killed, and he joins an Al-Qaeda type of group to get his revenge, but he's too clumsy to be counted on in a suicide mission, so he's sent (as luck would have it) to live with family in California. He just so happens to get selected to be on the Idol-esque American Dreams, and he just so happens to make the finals...and he just so happens to get called on by the fake Al-Qaeda to kill the president, who just so happens to be a special guest judge for the finals.

Like Saved, Dreamz doesn't go all out on the dark parody, and it needs a balls out effort to work. It comes up short, but it does do a strong job of pointing out how people all over the world hate America for it's very obvious faults, but want to be like Americans because of America's obvious strengths. That point came across well despite the other points that didn't.

Man on Fire, Mission: Impossible III, Guess Who - these were rented, and The Butterfly's parents watched them, but we never got around to it.

Junebug - I finally got around to seeing this, and I liked it quite a bit. In one sentence, it's about a guy bringing his girl home to meet his messed up family, though it's much more like Laurel Canyon than any typical Hollywood girl-meets-family movie. Actually, I like that comparison...go me! The awkwardness between mother and son and daughter-in-law are pretty similar to Laurel Canyon (fantastic, underrated movie, by the way...though how can a movie be bad with Christian Bale, Francis McDormand, and Kate Beckinsale?), though there's more sadness running through Junebug, while Laurel Canyon trended more toward bitterness.

This movie is best known for the fact that Amy Adams was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress nomination. WOW, did she deserve it. She's really the only character who brings much positivity to the movie, but she radiates it and steals every scene she's in. She's the never-left-town Southern girl who remains extremely optimistic about the future even though she has absolutely no reason to be so. Her high-school-sweetheart husband (played pretty well by The OC's Ben McKenzie) is silent and bitter and is lashing out against the life he has (and doesn't want to have), and even though he's been down and negative for going on two years, she just knows tomorrow will be better.

In all, this is a pretty weird movie with too-long cutaways and too-dark night shots and sometimes too-quiet dialogue (it's an indy movie, so...duh), but it doesn't follow generic plot devices, and there isn't a perfect resolution, and I like that. In all, it's a solid movie that's made great by a bunch of good performances and one amazing one.