Michael Jackson's "This is It" recently retitled: "That Was It?"

For anyone looking for new insights into the mind that was Michael Jackson, and the meticulous pop-science that was his process, forgo This is It and see if you can finds some clips of the good stuff on YouTube. This posthumously released "documentary (?)" does indeed document Michael and company rehearsing for his last concert, but outside of actually seeing some of your favorite hits played, This is It lacks any commentary, hell, any talking, that might give the impression of what it might be like to work with MJ, or how MJ worked. If this wasn't your reason for watching in the first place, don't get excited, there aren't any tantalizing train wrecks either. Just dancing. And singing. Rinse. Repeat. With the exception of various team members saying "He's a genius. And he knows what he wants," one never gets to hear Michael talk about what he wants, which, maybe, he never did. Luckily, 98% of all the substantive talking was used in the theatrical trailer, so that the 10 million (and counting) internet viewers might get the sense that a real documentary was made.



Though idly taping a rehearsal process does not a film make (I fully realize the intention was not for theatrical release) This is It is redeemed somewhat by the fact that MJ was the consummate performer, and therefore, interesting to watch. In the age of VH1 5 second teaser clips, the movie does allow extended viewing of the late great doing his thing, and still doing it well. You will get to see "Smooth Criminal", in its entirety, and then, "Billie Jean", all if it, and then, yep, "Man in the Mirror"...maybe even twice. And with these old standbys, totally new videos. And by new, I mean revamped. And by videos, I mean, heavy handed messages about saving the world. Though it isn't online, just take the time to watch the original "Earth Song" video, and replace MJ with a young girl of ubiquitous ethnicity being chased through her beloved woods by a bulldozer. Feel me? Now imagine that same bulldozer crashing onto stage and MJ stopping it just before it crushes him. I know, you're already on Fandango buying a ticket.

Perhaps the most unique, accidental, commentary is made when we see the bizarre, soft spoken, androgyne MJ, transform into his performer-self, and then back again. When he rehearsed, there was no fucking around. There was sweat flowing out of those oversized lamé coats and skinny pants, soaking into the white socks, and pooling in the black leather shoes. It was nice to see that even in the unseen working hours, MJ kept it MJ, and never resorted to Under Armor and Gatorade for rehearsal.

For those of us that grew up with some version of Michael, This is It provides a cathartic goodbye to one of the best. Or, then again, you could just watch this.

An Open Letter to the "Open Letter" Comedy Bit

Dear "Open-Letter" Bit,

I'm sorry to be the one to have to break it to you, but you are played out and it's time you retired from comedy.

We have had some good times together, to be sure, but I see you all over the place these days and hereby humbly suggest that enough is enough. The heroin-like instant gratification that comes from Facebook and Twitter posts has created, in my view, a generation of junkies hooked on you. It is time for intervention. Let me be your Ken Seeley.

No offense is intended to anybody who has used you. (Don’t shoot the messenger!) Heck, LOTS of great people have used you. McSweeneys has been using you to great effect for ages. (Serious journalists/commentators have used you, too, but I am less concerned with the serious open letter than I am with you, you sweet, tempting, jokey open letter.) I want to make this perfectly clear: nobody individually is responsible for your overuse, and if someone has used you in the past they are not a hack by any means; this situation is on a much larger, out-of-control, zeitgeist-y scale.

You are funny, Open Letter Bit, that’s the problem. But just because you are funny that doesn’t mean every time someone wants to make a hilarious comment about someone they can’t contact directly (e.g. celebrities, giant corporations, amorphous concepts) they should use you. Things that are funny are, sadly, also subject to the law of diminishing returns. The person who leans too heavily on one comic trick or device is generally doomed to a brutal irrelevance, and I don’t want to see that happen to you. Perhaps you can still have a place in the world’s comedy toolkit – you just have to scale it way, way back.

I know I haven't contributed a new comedy bit to the pool of comedy bits to make up for the hopeful reduction in the use of you, the one individual bit that I'm hereby calling out. But as they say, those who can't DO, teach, and those who can't even TEACH, criticize.

Open Letter Bit, I hope you take this open letter in the good-hearted spirit in which it was intended, and I sincerely wish you all the best in your future endeavors.

Love,
Comedy

The (Un)Exclusive Inside Scoop on Last Night's SOFA Exhibition Opening Night Gala at Navy Pier

Last night, per usual, I found myself at a ritzy art-party, celebrating the opening of SOFA Chicago 2009. SOFA, for those of you not as plugged into the ultra-modern art-world as I am, stands for "Sculpture Objects and Functional Design," and the SOFA shows only take place in Chicago and New York (and Santa Fe, I am legally obligated to mention). The Chicago expo opened last night, and I, typically, found myself among the glamorous throng, casually sipping Barefoot wine and dispassionately scooping up massive globules of spinach and artichoke dip on multigrain flatbread.

The art, fellow art-lovers...well, what can one say about such art? It was all exceedingly artistic, and most of it was crafted with impressive artistry. Frankly, it was nothing this globe-trotting, high-flying, art aficionado hadn’t heard of before. There were your general bowl-y-type things, and your standard clay devices, with a healthy smattering of colorful trinkets in varying shapes and shades and sizes. All very expected and ordinary for frequent art-partygoers like yours truly.

Once I had drunk deeply enough of the art itself – swishing it around in my mouth, allowing that familiar art-flavor to once again wash over me, ultimately expectorating it classily into a Sculpture Object Functionally Designed for such purposes that I might stay art-sober with my art-judgement unimpaired – I turned my keen and critical eye toward the human population of the exposition. There was a lot to see.

It takes a lot to turn the head of such a devotee of the arts, and friend of all artists, as I. But a couple individuals really stuck out in the brightly-colored (not to say outré) crowd. The first, an older gentleman, whose blinding orange tie is tragically obscured in this on-the-go paparazzi print (you will please note the footwear):

The second, perhaps slightly too far away for close inspection in this ill-framed drive-by snapshot, features a lovely artistic person, hair dyed neon green, wearing a golden crown of deer head & antlers:
These are my people!

I did, however, make sure to take enough time to hang out in and around the Maria Elena Kravitz Gallery from Argentina at Booth 421, in town to represent (among others) Barbara Kobylinska, who was showing her colorful, human-size, clay bird sculptures, pictured here:

(Full disclosure: Barbara Kobylinska is, in fact, my mother in law. This doesn't change my perfectly objective assessment of the show, however. Far from it! But for more information on Ms. Kobylinska, you can follow her blog, or check out her personal website.) The birds displayed at SOFA would stand as beautiful sentinels outside (or inside) any true culture-loving abode. And she has many other pieces, small and large, whimsical and serious, available for sale to only the finest homes.

Fellow lovers-of-the-arts, please make sure to take some time out of your busy, culture-filled lives to venture to Navy Pier for this magnum opus of art- and people-watching. If you make it, keep your eye peeled for one of my favorite pieces of the show, entitled "The Gift," which was sadly purchased sometime on opening night, but still worth seeing:

Happy Halloween!

I am a sucker for this time of year, mainly because of all the lists of scary movies and scary books to help you while away the hours. While I liked my friend Marty's list, I was disappointed that he put "The Haunting" at number 1. Maybe it was too subtle for my taste, or maybe I am a victim of the MTV-ization of my youth, but I found it dull when I watched it a few years ago. The rest of the list is a tasteful and carefully chosen affair, one that any culturephile would be happy to cite at a "Dia de los Muertos" cocktail party. But there is one glaring omission. How could Martin Scorsese, perhaps the greatest living filmmaker, miss the scariest movie of all time?

I am of course referring to "The Watcher in the Woods."


For those of you who don't know, "The Watcher in the Woods" (aka "TWITW") is a terrifying tale - produced by the Disney corporation of all people - involving all the hallmarks of a superior horror film: a secret club, a seance gone wrong, solar eclipses, possessed younger sisters, and Bette Davis. It was Massachusetts state law in the early eighties that every elementary school watch it each October, which as a result prolonged my bedwetting years. But how could it not? It is an instructional movie about the dangers of being young. After watching it, my fellow second graders and I knew that we were vulnerable to evil. At any point, we too could be possessed by the spirit of a girl who had disappeared twenty years earlier, listlessly scrawling names backward on a frosted window pane

Now there are many things working against this movie. Number one, it is terrible. Its star is Lynn-Holly Johnson, a much-maligned figure skater turned actress who does not worry herself with the constraints of charisma. Bette Davis too quickly transforms from the terrifying neighbor to a sad old lady, when the whole point of having Bette Davis in a horror movie is that she will decapitate somebody or serve them a rat for breakfast. And the special effects are awful (on the DVD, there is a deleted scene of Lynn-Holly Johnson traveling to outer space to retrieve the missing girl's spirit, and the special effects consist of nothing more than her being superimposed on the laser-light backdrop for a GlamourShots photo). But the movie is still scary! How can you not be chilled by the falling church bell or the collapsing bridge? And to a second grader, the revelation of who the other female contingent of the secret society was like a pre-adolescent "She's my sister AND my daughter! moment."

So go rent the movie. And if you want a recommendation for a scary book, "The Thirteenth Tale" is a great modern day gothic horror with a very satisfying twist that I did not see coming. If Martin Scorsese wanted to atone for his inclusion of "The Haunting," he would snatch up the rights and make it into a movie starring Carey Mulligan and Judi Dench (since Bette Davis is unavailable).

*photo of the poster courtesy of Retrojunk

Fall Music: New Release Roundup

Monsters Of Folk
This was my most anticipated album of the fall, and I am happy to report I have not been let down at all! The “Monsters of Folk” (in spite of their stupid name) fulfill anticipations! The "supergroup" consists of Conor Oberst (Bright Eyes), Jim James (My Morning Jacket) and M. Ward (M. Ward). Mike Mogis, who works with Oberst/Bright Eyes is the fourth, lower-right-hand-corner-of-the-album-cover, behind-the-scenes guy. I’m sure he’s the glue that holds the whole thing together but because he doesn’t sing and isn't famous in his own right I don’t care about him at all. Take that, Mogis, you weirdo. Anyway, the Big Three all contribute songs, mixing and matching their vocals and sensibilities. And it’s a great mix of sensibilities, too, without being either a meaningless mishmash or overly dominated by one lead-guy. A steady current of religion and Higher-Power-questioning runs through the album, interestingly, but the whole affair never feels overly weighty. On the contrary, everything feels like a lot of fun – catchy, eclectic, interesting. The “Traveling Wilburys” vibe is undeniable, but at the same time it never feels like a rip-off or something silly these guys just tossed off. It’s both substantial and fun, and manages to highlight the best of these three talented dudes and largely leave their individual weaknesses behind.

Will Hoge - The Wreckage
I’ve been a Will Hoge fan for a while now, but there have been some somewhat lengthy gaps in our relationship. I found him back when I worked at the University of Chicago and got addicted to obsessively rating music on the online Yahoo Radio feature (my early pre-Pandora internet music source). His sophomore album, Blackbird on a Lonely Wire was my introduction in 2003, then he seemed to disappear for awhile and I read later that he had been in a bad motorcycle accident. Yikes. Safety first. Anyway, his next record, The Man Who Killed Love, was self-released, and I liked it fine, but it was missing some of that glossy rock sheen that I so often (guiltily) like. His return to the world of major record labels came in 2007 with an album (Draw the Curtains) I never got interested in, based on both reviews and some online listening. But Hoge’s latest is a return to 2003-form, with a big, straight-ahead rock & roll sound, and just enough sheen to take the edge off and tickle my eardrums right. The absolute home run track off here is the duet "Goodnight/Goodbye," with an unknown (to me) singer Ashley Monroe, who has got a great voice. A great voice, somewhere in Dolly Parton/Patty Griffin/Tanya Tucker/Mindy Smith mold (that’s not a mold at all, what’s wrong with me). On the surface, it’s a simple, sappy duet, but a winner nonetheless, and as I have often stated, I remain something of a sucker for sap. At any rate, with a slight Tom Petty-feel, and a great voice all his own, Will Hoge’s latest is a winner, full of hooks and heart.

Kings of Convenience - Declaration Of Dependence
Sometimes as I get myself through yet another workday I need some music that doesn’t drive like rock and roll, that isn’t uptempo like bluegrass, or experimental like indie-rock or sleepy like artificial nature sounds. Something that is soothing without being sleepy, music to relax the soul. Typically I will turn to classical music, choral music, pop standards, or someone like Mindy Smith or Rosie Thomas. Another great choice along those same lines are the Kings of Convenince, Norwegian pop-duo extraordinaire. Talk about soothing. Pretty, simple melodies with Simon & Garfunkel-like harmonies (that are really more like Garfunkel & Garfunkel-like harmonies, so closely and fluidly do Erik Glambek Bøe and Erlend Øye’s (!!) voices combine). Their 2004 album, Riot on an Empty Street is one of my favorites, but they have been totally silent since then, so far as I know. It was with great happiness then, that I picked up their most recent collaboration, Declaration of Dependence. The songwriting is probably not as uniformly tight as “Empty Street,” but the album is still lovely. Maybe it's just because Flight Of The Conchords has fundamentally changed the way we view folk-duos, but there is part of me, listening to some of these songs, that's unable to take it all seriously. I find myself wondering if there isn’t some tongue-in-cheek going on. (Sample lyric: Hey Baby/Mrs. Cold/acting so tough/didn’t know you had it in you to be hurt at all/you waited/too long/you shoulda hooked me before I put my raincoat on/OK I get it/OK I see/you were affronted 'cause you knew you’d find yourself vulnerable around me/OK I get it/OK I see/you feel vulnerable around me.) I mean, we can’t take that seriously, right? But it certainly is delivered absolutely straight-faced, so if it’s a Conchords-style spoof, they don’t tip their hand at all. Anyway, that’s probably the (questionable?) lowpoint, but the point isn’t the lyrics anyway. It’s the tight harmonies, lilting melodies, and soft mood that wins here – perfect for soothing the nerves (especially on a rainy Friday after a long week of work).

Brandi Carlile - Give Up The Ghost
I have become a big fan of Brandi Carlile’s big, thumping, heart-on-its-sleeve, country-tinged rock & roll. She and “the twins” – Phil and Tim Hanseroth, her guitarist and bassist and writing collaborators – specialize in catchy melodies, somewhat simplistic lyrics (I might call them “lyrics of empowerment” if I wanted to coin a phrase), and restrained bombasticism (not a real word, and also an intended contradiction in terms). Carlile’s like a good, solid meal at your favorite local restaurant: it’s not going to reinvent the wheel or amaze you, but you always leave satisfied and happy. And you always go back. Her latest, Give Up the Ghost, is more of the same, but still good. To my mind, the standout track is the collaboration with Elton John (you heard me), "Caroline," featuring a rollicking tempo, a bit of lightheartedness, and some barroom piano. You don’t realize how serious and somber the proceedings have been until you get that little breath of fresh, flippant fun. It’s enormously welcome. Anyway, it’s a good, solid follow-up to Carlile’s first two good, solid albums. I do have one quibble that I have to get off my chest: after working with IT-producer of yesterday, T-Bone Burnett (the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack among many others), Carlile traded up to the IT-producer of today, Rick Rubin (in his reincarnation as a producer of Americana albums). And it’s on track three, "Pride and Joy," that you hear simple, almost droning, repeated piano chords and you think, this sounds familiar, where have I heard that before? Oh, yeah, the last Dixie Chicks album…and the recent Dan Wilson album, Free Life…also those later-period Johnny Cash albums (which were the start of it all). What's the common thread there? All of a sudden you realize it’s the stock Rick Rubin-effect. His signature, or something. Those Cash albums were fantastic and wonderfully done, but as soon as you become self-conscious of production that production-style really loses something, to my mind. And by now it feels like a shadow of a shade of a copy of a copy. Mix it up, Rick Rubin! And while we’re at it, let’s try and stop any more artists I really like from setting up shop with the beardo-weirdo. That lightning is out of the bottle; Johnny Cash captured it, but it ain’t coming back at this point. Brandi Carlile needs someone to help her innovate, for sure, and I applaud her for roving in search of that innovation (I assume I can speak for her intentions like this). But Rick Rubin’s not innovating anymore, he’s retreading tires he put on the Cash-mobile in 1995. I look forward to where Brandi will land next, and hope it isn’t a return to Rubin. Don't stick with Rick, Brandi!

The Best Actress Experiment

A friend of mine recently asked me to be a friend on my Netflix account* and I accepted. After he looked at my queue, he posted on my facebook wall - a place I normally reserve for people to thank me for the amazing conversation we had the previous night - that my favorite movies all had strong female protagonists. What did I learn from this? Never to let people get too close. A few nights later, I decided I would show him and, in a drunken fit of rage, I rearranged my queue so that the top twenty movies were all Best Actress Nominees that I had never seen. Well, he might have ended up having the last laugh. The following is a sampling of what I have watched the past month:

Darling: This netted Julie Christie an Oscar for her portrayal of a manipulative model who uses the men in her life to get what she wants - or does she? I was a little bored and partly drunk by the time it ended; my big takeaway was that Julie Christie had surprisingly big bazongas for such a tiny lady. I watched most of Don't Look Now a few years ago, partly because I had heard it was such a scary movie and - to be candid - because of the rumors of the love scene between her and Donald Sutherland. My memories of their bedroom tryst were that both Christie and Sutherland were 85% shoulderblade. So it was nice to see Julie with a little meat on her bones. Other than that, I don't think the movie is worth seeing.

Mrs. Miniver - I am sure this was one of my grandmother's favorite movies. It is a very pleasant and very dull movie about life in World War II England. The first twenty minutes are about the purchase of a hat; you think it is going to figure into the plot later on or be integral to the movie's symbolism, but no, it is pretty much about buying a hat. As the titular character, Greer Garson is fine, but she seems very passive from a contemporary viewpoint. At one point, Mrs. Miniver comes across a sleeping Nazi in her garden (it's that kind of movie) and she stares at his gun which is lying right there beside him before deciding that no, she's not going to take it. Sure enough, he wakes up and holds her hostage in her kitchen before she can be rescued by the milkman. Later, while driving with her daughter-in-law through a nighttime Blitzkrieg, she decides that the best plan of action when traveling through an open field being shelled by the Germans is to stop the car right in the middle of the action. Predictably, her problem solving skills don't bode well for the daughter-in-law.

Coal Miner's Daughter: I usually hate biopics, particularly biopics about musicians, so I am very surprised that this might be my new favorite movie. It is less a biopic than a movie about the evolving relationship between two strong-willed people who keep having to figure out their changing place in the world. Sissy Spacek is adorable as Loretta Lynn and makes you see her as a flesh and blood creature. Tommy Lee Jones does exactly what Tommy Lee Jones should do in a movie: scare the shit out of you and do hypermasculine things, like hotrodding a jeep up a ninety degree incline. Plus, Beverly D'Angelo sounds exactly like Patsy Cline and the whole movie looks gorgeous: from the mountain scenery at the beginning to the rainsoaked fairgrounds that Loretta travels through on her way to the top.

Anne of the Thousand Days: This starred an actress who I didn't know very well, Genevieve Bujold. I know I saw her in the creepiest movie ever, Dead Ringers, and that she was in one of Martin's precious Star Trek series, but other than that, I was unfamiliar with her work. This Bujoldnorance (aka, lack of knowledge of or about Genevieve Bujold) is a shame, because she is a great actress and deserves a bigger place in the spotlight. She looks like a prettier version of Hilary Swank, and as Anne Boleyn, she tears through the transformation from naïve courtier to ruthless political policy-maker. She even manages to acquit herself in a heavy-handed monologue that clumsily combines popsicle sticks and the film's title. The story of Henry VIII always makes me uneasy, because you just know he felt terrible when he got to heaven and St. Peter explained how sexual determination worked. But AOTTD has a lot of great elements to carry you through: Richard Burton is a lot of fun as Henry, there's a lot of sumptuous scenery, and a ton of acclaimed Shakespearean actors in supporting roles.

*which I privately refer to as "my precious, precious Netflix account."

We Regret to Informant You

The Informant! was a movie I really wanted to enjoy, but didn't. It looks beautiful: sleek surfaces accompanied by an overly lush score by Marvin Hamlisch, and Matt Damon delivers what they call a bravura performance. But somehow I left the movie unaffected. The movie centers on the fumbling attempts of a real-life whistleblower, Mark Whitacre, to expose a price-fixing scandal within his company. Part of its charm is how terrible both sides of the operation are at their jobs: Whitacre conspicuously dictates his going-ons into his wire while the rest of his company glides along blissfully unaware. And maybe that's the film's larger point: there are no shadow conspiracies manipulating our world, just genial people who remain willfully ignorant of the consequences of their actions. To its credit, the movie doesn't talk down to its audience. It deliberately withholds information and is unconcerned with making sure you understand what's happening at every single minute. But halfway through the movie I got annoyed that a director I really like, Steven Soderbergh, had wasted his talent and a fantastic cast on a film that I didn't really care about. In his defense, there is one scene towards the end of the movie that seamlessly combines Soderbergh's cinematic innovation with Damon's terrific performance to reveal the wounded core of Whitacre. But as Martin said in his review of Inglourious Basterds, one great scene does not a film make. So I will hold onto the hope that Soderbergh just needed to get this out of his system and will deliver a film to rival one of my all-time favorites, "Out of Sight," the next time around.

Post-Script It has been two days since I saw this movie, and I suspect it might be a sneakbomb, aka a movie that you initially are ambivalent about but upon further reflection find yourself liking more and more (there's probably a better term for this, but I am sticking with "sneakbomb" for the time being). I think I would have benefitted from knowing more about the case it was based on. You, young reader, might want to check out the This American Life story about the problems with the ADM case.