Apocalypse Now

There is a Blockbuster’s worth of "classic" movies I haven't seen, and a record store’s worth of "classic" albums. Thankfully I now have Netflix, and BitTorrent. I am attempting to fill in those gaps. Please do not leave comments saying "zomg, i can't believe u haven't seen/heard _____." Please do send suggestions.

Apocalypse Now

A couple weeks back, Paul Greengrass released "Green Zone," the new Matt-Damon-as-Jason-Bourne vehicle. It's a fairly pedestrian action movie, made worse with the knowledge that it was based on a pretty great book, Rajiv Chandrasekaran's "Imperial Life in the Emerald City," a non-fiction account of the real Green Zone, filled with the black humor of Americans lounging poolside while car bombs exploded around them in Baghdad. There was precious little of this influence to be found Greengrass' conspiracy-fueled jerky-camera fest, and to plagiarize myself, it would have been nice to have Francis Ford Coppola give the material the "Apocalypse Now" treatment.

Black humor is at the heart of Apocalypse Now's darkness. An opening scene mixes a napalm bombing with Martin Sheen's blinking eyes beneath a ceiling fan spinning in time with the whirr of helicopter blades. Colonel Kilgore - of napalm for breakfast fame - raids a hostile village for the purpose of securing a particularly spectacular stretch of waves, for surfing. Half a dozen Vietnamese are killed for a puppy. (an unrecognizably young Laurence Fishburne does the killing. He was 15.) Gases of various sorts release in comically technicolor shades of lavender and buttercup and and lime. The heart of the movie was summed up in this juxtaposition: One chopper lands during a bloody massacre with "Death From Above" and a pair crossed swords painted on. Later, another chopper with the Playboy Bunny on its side drops the Playmate of the Year into an amphitheater of sex-starved G.I.'s.

Along with its model, "Heart of Darkness," the movie's plot flows downriver. Deeper and deeper into the jungle we go, and the current pulls each of the characters on a slow descent into insanity. Martin Sheen is talking to himself, and one character covers his head with a giant leaf, like a man wrapping his head in tin foil to keep the aliens out. By the end, everything's in shadows. Namely, Marlon Brando's shaved head. Nothing is certain: we're in "the worst place in the world," and we don't even know it, until it's too late. In Green Zone, we're in the 21st-century's worst place, but everything is certain. The morality is so black-and-white, Greg Kinnear is somehow turned into the face of unquestioned evil.

Back on the river, a soldier dies in the arm of his commander, and a taped message plays. It's his mother speaking, on a recorded message she sent in the mail, telling him she plans to buy him a car when he returns. In this one moment, the black humor simply gives way to blackness. As Conrad would have it.

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Reeves Wiedeman

Chat Roulette Funny Piano Improv #1

This has been floating around the internet for a bit, shown to me the other day by Azita Rasoli. Enjoy.
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Marshall

Enigmatica

ENIGMATICA from Kit Webster on Vimeo.

Enigmatica acts as an experimental platform for the combination of light, sound and space in order to develop immersive synthasthetic environments.
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Marshall

3D Truck Advertisements

German semi-trucks with 3D advertisements on the side and back panels of the truck. These are engaging, creative, and fun. Find the rest of the pictures here.

Chad E

Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison

There is a Blockbuster’s worth of "classic" movies I haven't seen, and a record store’s worth of "classic" albums. Thankfully I now have Netflix, and BitTorrent. I am attempting to fill in those gaps. Please do not leave comments saying "zomg, i can't believe u haven't seen/heard _____." Please do send suggestions.

Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison

The first time I heard Johnny Cash, knowingly, was on the local alternative station in Kansas City, covering Trent Reznor. Songs don't get much grimmer than "Hurt," and here was a song by a man I knew, vaguely, to be very legendary and very old. And apparently very sad. To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't have known it was a cover if the DJ hadn't told me. The song seemed natural.

Just last week, also for the first time, I heard Cash sing "Flushed From the Bathroom of your Heart," which goes something like this:

In the garbage disposal of you dreams I’ve been ground up dear
On the river of your plans I’m up the creek
Up the elevator of your future I’ve been shafted
On the calendar of your events I’m last week

The song is from Cash's live album, "At Folsom Prison," but I couldn't help imagining Adam Sandler with a guitar and a stool on Saturday Night Live. If all you knew of Cash was "Hurt," or any of his other AARP-approved recordings, you'd never know this humorous side of Cash existed. There are so many Cashes on display at Folsom Prison that it makes me sad to have never witnessed this version - in the same way it would have been nice to enjoy Gore Vidal when he wasn't a crank, or Michael Jackson without the baggage. There's anger ("I shot a man in Reno/just to see him die"), sex ("Come here Sugar/Ya know, I believe this is the first time I ever watched the sun come up/That I couldn't come up"), and heartbreak ("Sweethearts walk by together/And I still miss someone.")

And, if it needs to be done, note that Cash let all this loose in a state penitentiary. Could anyone do that today? Bruce, perhaps, but he's lost his edge. Jay-Z doesn't have the sense of humor. It seems no coincidence that Cash's dark humor comes across nowhere more than the half a dozen songs he seems to have picked specifically for his prison audience. There's no "Ring of Fire" or "I Walk The Line." Instead, there's "Folsom Prison Blues," "I Got Stripes," and "25 Minutes to Go," a song that recounts a death row inmate's last half hour of life:

Won't somebody come and cut me loose with 4 more minutes to go
I can see the mountains I can see the skies with 3 more minutes to go
And it's too darn pretty for a man to want to die 2 more minutes to go
I can see the buzzards I can hear the crows 1 more minute to go
And now I'm swingin' and here I go-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!

The inmates hoot and laugh and holler throughout. You only want to do the same.

—
Reeves Wiedeman

Record Makers Promo

Moriceau for Sebastien Tellier/10th anniversary of Record Makers.

Check out our interview with Sebastien.
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Marshall Rake

Manhattan

There is a Blockbuster’s worth of "classic" movies I haven't seen, and a record store’s worth of "classic" albums. Thankfully I now have Netflix, and BitTorrent. I am attempting to fill in those gaps. Please do not leave comments saying "zomg, i can't believe u haven't seen/heard _____." Please do send suggestions.

Manhattan

There’s a scene near the end of “Manhattan” in which Woody Allen lounges on a couch talking into a tape recorder. He’s listing things worth living for: Cezzane’s apples and pears, Marlon Brando, the second movement of “Jupiter.” The last item on the list, which he admits only after a long pause, is “Tracy’s face.”

Tracy, it must now be noted, is the 17-going-on-18-year old with whom Allen, closer to AARP benefits than high school graduation, has an obviously problematic dalliance. We watch with a strange mix of relief and horror as Allen breaks off the tryst to begin a relationship with a woman more his age - a woman who is also the “other woman” in his best friend’s marriage.

In fact, the only affair that never wanes from the opening scene, when Gershwin punctuates still images of the Manhattan skyline, is with New York City. The black and white film (my Netflix sleeve tells me this was Allen’s first black and white film) makes the city’s grit almost tender as Allen’s character narrates a tale of adoration and disenchantment to scenes of people passing by.

There’s a sense of romance deep in the city's DNA, and in the story. The doomed relationships, the self-destruction, the convertible rides on the West Side Highway. It’s all loudly neurotic. But many of the best scenes take place in silence, barely visible: a moment of breathless anticipation set against moonscapes at the Hayden Planetarium, silent fidgeting as the star-crossed lovers - all of them - sit in a row at the opera. Even the lone physical gag in the film, a literal muckraking of the Central Park Reservoir, is silent. It’s not a movie to see with a lover, perhaps, but it sure makes having one seem nice.

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Reeves Wiedeman