It may not be fair to review this album since I’m on it, but James Eric has compiled a great collection of artists covering the hilarious and heartbreaking Magnetic Fields.
The covers here run the gamut from faithful to downright bizarre. Check out Tinyfolk’s take on “I Don’t Believe You,” I’m so strangely drawn to it, but every time I’m like “WTF is going here?” It sounds like a mice and robot orgy.
Fairmount Fair turn “Why I Cry” into an upbeat jungle romp ‘n’ stomp sing-along. The same goes for James Eric’s cover of “(Crazy For You) But Not That Crazy,” as he injects about ten billion watts of electricity into the original and lets go with wondrous results.
Now before you think that everyone here is taking a piss out of Stephin Merritt, its all in good fun and I think he might get a real kick out of this if, or when, he hears it.
There are some also really touching covers, my cover of “Plant White Roses,” for example. No, no really. But seriously, A Lime Tree’s homespun, front porch country cover of “You Me And The Moon,” is really sweet and banjolicious.
But my favorite cover on this album is Your Yellow Dress’s cover of “Absolutely Cuckoo.” This has become a full blown twee number, and you’ll totally fall in love with Carrie Muller’s voice. Her voice bounces just on the edge of the melody and keeps the song racing. Alex Poska ain’t no slouch either and the simple yet effective arrangement keeps it on constant repeat for me.
When James first started calling for admissions on this tribute I hadn’t even heard of The Magnetic Fields, but I was totally won over and consider myself one of the believers. I think everyone on this tribute, regardless of fandom, really pulled out the big guns and made a great album even if you haven’t heard of The Magnetic Fields either.
Trust
Bonnie and Clyde
Eyes Wide Shut
The Girl From Monday
Simple Men
Welcome to the first in a weekly feature, discussing random films I’ve uncovered through the glorious creation of Netflix’s new WATCH NOW feature with over 7,000 titles you can view instantly on your PC. For those who don’t know, I used to be a film critic for a few online sites and my college newspaper. Therefore I tend to use a lot of adjectives, and use them repeatedly. I’m not a writer in the grammatically correct sense and I apologize in advance. I write in a stream-of-consciousness style with very little editing (much like I do with my music). I usually watch 5 movies a week because I’m addicted to it, and I will choose to write in detail about one. Or I will write short paragraphs for each that I watch if I feel like I have something to say about everything I watched for the week. Part One is in regards to a film that I hadn’t seen in over ten years, and now officially declare, my “favorite.” Yeah, I know. All my friends are rolling their eyes thinking “That’s his favorite for THIS week.” (Sorry Collin). I just can’t deny the excitement I get when something completely washes over me. Maybe Fearless is my favorite movie after I watch it again. But for right now, it’s Trust, directed by Hal Hartley.
There probably wouldn’t be a Juno, Chasing Amy, or Rushmore if it weren’t for the indie darlings of the 90s like filmmakers Hal Hartley, Noah Baumbach, and Jim Jarmusch. Hartley’s masterpiece, Trust, exists as a unique little motion picture encased inside a universe which manages to be both ridiculous and real at the same time. An offbeat hodgepodge that mirrors the surreal absurdity of love which, often times, dominates the structure of actual life. The most remarkable thing about this movie, though, is its ability to fill a charmingly sweet love story in the center out of what seems to be utter emptiness. It’s not very often that I think of Buster Keaton and David Mamet while watching a movie. Trust lives inside its own volcanic-sized heart, and speaks a rhythm of dialogue that influences mean-spirited critiques of a show like “Gilmore Girls,” for being too unrealistic and overtly cute for cute’s sake.
The thing is. I adore movies with a hyper-sense of reality, in which characters exchange coincidences, and talk in a language drowned in non-sequitur and random life observations. Maybe I’m envious of the people who live in the movie who can think fast, talk fast, and attempt to deconstruct their issues within 90 minutes. But Trust is one of those films where there is no sound resolution, but offers a sense of hope and possibility that can only be manifested by the redemptive promise of love. Plus it helps that the characters are flawed, three-dimensional, and constantly conflicted about their actions. I’m drawn to the ones in Trust in a way that hadn’t happened since probably Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I had seen this movie a decade ago, and only watched it this past week thanks to the new Netflix “watch now” option in which you don’t even have to wait for the movie to come in the mail.
Trust revolves around a brilliant idiot (Matthew) played by indie-stalwart Martin Donavan, and a wise-beyond-her-years teenager (Maria) played by the late great beauty Adrienne Shelley. When Maria announces her pregnancy to her parents, her father drops dead on the floor. Her mother kicks her out of the house and her boyfriend dumps her, so Maria is left alone and homeless. This is when she meets the seemingly nihilistic Matthew. Matthew is an older, educated high school graduate with a great talent for fixing electronic devices, but he can’t hang on to a job because of his principled attitude towards quality and his lack of endurance to be surrounded by capitalist automatons. When Maria accepts Matthew’s offer to help her, they begin to form a relationship with each other in which both of them begin to change, despite their imperfections. It’s hard to define it as ‘romantic’ in the same way that you can’t categorize the relationship in Lost In Translation as turning into something that’s driven by lust. It’s more revolved around two lonely souls, meeting randomly, forming a bond, and learning how to be human in an inhumane society.
While watching Trust unfold, I sat on my bed in astonishment, re-realizing that it’s simply just perfect in the way it captures my sensibilities and predilection for quirk, exaggeration, and emotionally-inconsistent individuals who try to better themselves while repeating mistakes they can’t seem to shake. I’m aware of my strange, picky sense-of-humor but there are so many moments where I’m laughing too loud, and questioning myself in the process. For instance there’s a moment towards the end involving a confrontation between Matthew and his father, and after things settle down, Maria’s mom asks “Do you want something to eat?” It’s a complete throwaway transition to the next scene, but in Hal Hartley’s world, he manages to make that line so deadpan and skillfully executed that despite its awkwardness, it’s ridiculously charming.
There’s also some sublime social commentary mixed in throughout about sex, teenage pregnancy, TV, and family relations that is cringe-worthy and honest. But if there is a flaw (and it’s not a quibble for me), it’s that Hartley’s movies tell and speak, instead of show and visualize. He has a style thats all its own, but it’s mostly carried by the screenplay rather than the directing. Kevin Smith sort of carries that same torch, but aside from Chasing Amy and Clerks 2 as being his only four star masterworks, Smith too, became somewhat lost in his own world. Hartley has made some abysmal films. The Girl From Monday is his attempt as low-fi science fiction, and it’s a chore to sit through despite the presence of Sabrina Lloyd. Flirt is arthouse pretension at its most languid. The only other times Hartley came close to replicating the genius displayed in Trust were with the spy-comedy Amateur (what if Hal Hartley made the Bourne movies?), and the struggling-writer malaise of Henry Fool (what if Hal Hartley made Adaptation and decided to throw in an homage to the toilet scene in Dumb and Dumber?). I genuinely like the majority of Hartley’s admittedly pretentious films, but you have to prepare for a period of adjustment while watching them in the same way you have to with David Mamet. It’s sooo stylized that it can be off-putting, but the rewards are plentiful if you can stomach the quirkiness. Trust is one of those rare movies that makes you see yourself and the world outside in a whole different light. It makes you cautious and hopeful for the future (especially if you’re single - have a lot of quirks - and tend to think that no one will put up with you). I think in the end, there’s a line in the film that sums up the hyper-surreal soap opera world of these characters: “Family is like a gun, point in the wrong direction, and someone gets hurt.” I could go on and on about why Trust has become my favorite movie as of 2008, but I need to curb my hyperboles. Stay tuned for more “Life Is Not A Movie… Or Maybe” articles. I am mostly revisiting movies that I haven’t watched in years, to see if my viewpoint has changed since I’ve grown up a bit. Trust is the perfect starting point for this project, and reaffirms that I will remain a cinemaniac til I’m six feet underground.
A great scene from TRUST, and the movie can also be viewed in its entirety on YouTube! If this scene isn’t your cup of tea, then you probably won’t like the movie as a whole:
But in the (pretty much) absence of content, I smell a power vacuum. And I’ve always wanted to be king. So guess who just became royalty? Patrick Ripoll, that’s who. I broke free of my stale prison they call “Friday assignments” and am now proposing something new.
You (all twelve of you) don’t go to this blog because you want to see where we stand on the big entertainment issues of the day (but, for the record, Semi-Pro is shit). You want us to share with you. This is a place where we stand on our little soap box (which would promptly tear and collapse, because it’s a fucking cardboard box that’s designed to hold soap) and yell “Hey! You! The funny looking one with the hat! Check this out! It is awesome!”. So that’s what I’m going to do every day. Sometimes it will be in the form of an album review, a rant about women in prison films, a retrospective on the career of Bill Duke, a comparison between stand-up comedy and 80’s cop films, whatever. Point is, I see some shit, I know some shit, I want to share this said shit with you. Because goddamnit, that’s what it’s all about.
I, King Patrick, declare that this blog be a place of sharing, from now until forever, cuz there’ll never be another better*. If this whole goddamned Collective is about people sharing music for the sheer thrill of it, then there’s no need to be as stingy as to limit my output to one day.
And I declare this: If you e-mail me (soybomb@care2.com) with a link to your music, your website, your blog, your short documentary about midget turtles, I will mention it here. People will hear about it. I’m not gonna lie and go “Oh my god, Long Necks, Little Torsos is the greatest short film about midget turtles ever made!” but I’ll keep an open mind, I’ll keep positive energy, and most of all, I will keep what I write about it entertaining so even if it sucks, at least a funny joke came of it.
I got several different e-mails recently from various blokes asking me to review their albums. On Friday (which will still be “Patrick’s Big Stuff Day”) I’m reviewing Chicago folkie James Eric’s new album Fire in the Mountains. Spoiler Warning: It’s good. The next Friday after that I’ll be reviewing plucky young upstart Big Round Spectacle’s debut misfortuneless, which is also all sorts of pleasant. But let me cover the two non-CLLCT folks who contacted me recently, AKA, “the less important”.
I got an e-mail recently from a Nadav Young promoting his curious site www.VIRV.TV I say curious because it’s purpose is not entirely clear to me. In the little e-mail press release thing I got, it claimed to be “a hand-picked, all-indie playlist 24/7, exclusively on the web. Our playlist includes Bright Eyes, Of Montreal, Spoon, Arcade fire, Xiu Xiu, The Good Life, Now Its Overhead, Architecture In Helsinki, Bloc Party, Shout Out Louds and many, many more..”. So it’s like a YouTube with super-limited selection and no easy ability to control what you watch? I’d like MTV2 to start playing all music videos again, too, but that’s cuz it’s on TV, so it’s easy to have on in the background while I do other things, like making gin in my bathtub. An online tv station just misses the point of why people choose to sit in front of the TV: It’s passive. So why have it online? Why would someone download an application to watch videos they could find on youtube? Well, Nadav’s job is a playlist manager, so I suppose the angle they are going for is “if you like X band, you’d like Y band!” Which I guess makes a little more sense, but not a ton.
Nadav, if you read this and you could clarify exactly what your site is and the needs of the consumers it fills, that’d be super helpful. As far as the music, I think it’s silly to limit yourself to indie, but niches are meant to be filled, I suppose. For once I’d like to see a radio station that plays Curtis Mayfield, Paul Simon, Captain Beefheart,Kylie Minogue, Daniel Johnston, and Leadbelly back to back. They could call it “97.5, The Hammer: We’re completely unmarketable!” Then I could listen to it for a week before I get all up in arms about it shutting down. Cuz that’s what happens to great things. They get replaced by Lite Rock mix stations. Fuck quality, we need another outlet to hear Rob Thomas.
The other fellas that contacted me were one of those musical rock ‘n roll groups you kids love so much. Their name: Springfactory. Their mission: to rock you. Or make you dance. Or make you giggle while dancing. Look, I’m not going to tell them why they do the shit, point is they make music and they want to share it with ya’s. They have a new album of old material, their previous released EP’s, coming out through Series Two records. Series Two records is based in Nebraska, the music capital of the world. I’ve listened to music via their myspace, and the tracks they e-mailed me, and I gotta say, it’s pretty nice (especially “No More”, which has a fun Georgie James quality to it). Go ahead, check it out, it won’t hurt. It’s some rather lovely definitely well-made indie/pop/rock/dance stuff. Look, I won’t do Springfactory the disservice of lumping them into the genre. You know why? Because I’m not a good enough writer to do that. You gotta be a DaveB motherfucker to do that shit. I’m just some college dropout.
Speaking of which, will Kanye West ever be interesting again? Just wondering. Dude can make fucking beautiful beat, but will he ever be interesting again? I wonder. But speaking of Kanye West and interesting, have you seen Spike Jonze’s video for “Flashing Lights” yet? Holy great.
Anyway, that’s about all I got for now. Keep in touch though, for real. BTW, if I ever say something stupid here, or just incredibly ignorant, tell me. That’s you sharing with me. Which is beautiful.
