Is This A Joke?

Is this real? Is this really music-mag cover photo-finish? This has got to be the most unflattering picture of anyone I have ever seen! Eddie and Danny look like distracted wax-works of themselves whilst Bear sports a pose as fake as those grapes dangling from his feelers. T, on the other hand, displays his most Hollywood look yet, strikingly-successfully channeling our first love Leo "Let's Save the World" DiCaprio. It's not a bad look, but it's definitely a pose that tends to seek shelter in the naughty-drawer, not the music-mag cover-out-in-public...ugh...drawer. I bet Amelia Bauer (fabulous photographer/illustrator/strutter of silent film star gorgeousness + Danny's main squeeze) would have done a way better job. Oh wait...is this an Am Bauer? I hope not.


Oh well. You know I'm gonna buy me like 4 copies of that.

There Are No Words Except These Words To Express That There Are No Words

Animal Collective
Merriweather Post Pavilion



Millions and Millions of Fudge Sundaes:

SIN-OCH-DEE-keeeeee

Synechdoche, New York
Director: Charlie Kaufman
Starring: Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Samantha Morton, Michelle Williams









YES.










Millions and Millions of Fudge Sundaes:

YUM.

Here We Go Magic, Department of Eagles
Bowery Ballroom
Dr. King Day

Listen to Here We Go Magic please. It's lovely. Hope I can trot to the Southpaw show next month.

Turns out that Chris Bear of Grizzly Bear fame and Department of Eagles triumph is a genetic freak of nature. He's that good-looking. It's pretty gross. And you know when celebrities are way shorter in person than you expect them to be? I'm pretty sure that Kevin Arnold's Winnie Cooper was silver-screen-shot like an Amazon and I almost suffered a stroke when I spotted her so close to the ground (she is kind of a math genius though, true story)...ANYWAY...Ed Grizzly Bear is friggin' tall (and he's sporting some highly fashionable nautical-inspired cardigan, I want to hug him). All of the GrizB gather at the bottom of the stairs that serve entrance to the stage and I do a little vomit in my mouth in response to my sudden impulse to NOT STARE AND DISSOLVE INTO MOLECULES. But it's okay, because everyone else is totally freaking out too. Once we enter the theater all I hear are whispers of:

"Did you see Grizzly Bear?"
"Like OMG LOL OMFG LMAO OMG OMGGGG."
"They are all at the bottom of the stairs, LIKE YEAH LIKE YAAAA."

And I have no words to describe the mythical creature that is Chris Taylor. I'm working on a blueprint for his action figure. I feel like that is the only way I can properly honor his magical qualities. I was really nervous because I thought Taylor would be playing bass tonight (nervous that I might accidentally project stomach acid in his general direction if I stepped a step too close to the sun), but it turns out that they've replaced the dreamy blond with another dreamy blond in the form of some moustache named Matt.

Works.
For.
Me.

And the Fleet Foxes keyboardist Casey Wescott a.k.a, the Fleet Fox that touched my elbow that one time after that one awkward thing that he did at that one place, ya--he was there too. And the actual music? It's fireside comfy. I really wanted to hear "Teenagers" but I got over it when I saw Danny's fancy banjo fingers make musical pyrotechnics. Freddy and Danny (whose girlfriend, I noticed this time, totally has silent film star glamor) are wholly delightful and produce skeletal versions of their crystalline chamber works and it's like milk and cookies. YUM.

Don't See Valkyrie

The Reader
Directed by: Stephen Daldry
Starring: Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes, David Kross

So Kate Winslet is the other Kate I'd go gay for. Her Hannah Schmidt is so strange and cold and confusing with a cinematic character cherry-on-top of ambiguous notions of redemption via secretive modesty. And then there's that German kid whose legs go on forever...

3 Fudge Sundaes for the legs:

Darn it, Oscar Season Is Feeding All My Monies To The Cinema

I've been to the cinema like 40,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,003 times within the last 5 days, it's kinda gross. I might have to trade in my bevy of faux-specs for the real deal--real thick ones like my buddy-pal wild 'n crazy guy Bill from Freaks and Geeks.


Revolutionary Road
Director: Sam Mendes
Starring: Kate Winslet, Leonardo Di-Hey Arnold, Kathy Bates

So word on the street is that peeps be worried that Mendes would just make another American Beauty--and no doubt, the two share major themes--but that's not to say that Revolutionary Road is recycled, dated, nor ineffective material. Shots are bold, art direction is spotless, and character development is crudely raw. Winslet is so gorgeous it's painful and I'm forever baffled by the screen-pairing with Di Caprio, who still needs to grow into his Hey Arnold head.


Milk
Director: Gus Van Sant
Starring: Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, James Franco, Emile Hotness

Holy crap! Sean Penn and James Franco together make me so happy! Whether or not Van Sant's Milk portrait is pure mythology, it's a terribly inspirational story. Penn's Milk is one of the most striking performances I've ever been privileged to witness. The whole time I was thinking, "Spicoli, are you in there?" Pretty perfect timing amid all this Prop 8 business, huh?


Doubt
Director: John Patrick Shanley
Starring: Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Amy Adams

Holy crap! Meryl Streep is terrifying! Phillip Seymour Hoffman yet again, proves his godliness while Amy Adams disproves all the fem-bot rumors. Whoa I just realized that all three of these movies feature melodramatic white people. HA!



I'm too broke to offer any fudge ratings. Darn the economy.

Best of L I S T

I'm having a more and more difficult time comprehending the hyper-capitalist model in which we value human production. In an imperfect-perhaps-perfect universe, I like to imagine that most artists dive into creative processes without predetermining the product's final destination, and disallow capitalistic restraints -- how imaginary or real they may actually be -- influence the object/expression/happening. Although all artistic merit is often weighed from mere effectiveness -- the details are often wholly subjective and unique to each spectator -- but despite this, it is always a contest, wholly an economic, maybe (hopefully) a faux-socialistic contest, but nonetheless a contest, which I find wholly irrelevant; thus, my "Some/Best/Bits of 2008" includes a mixed bag of music, films, blogs, and thangs that most explicitly dominated my favorite experiences this year despite the fact that some of them weren't born in '08.

100, 004. Band of Horses and accepted Country Western Rock twang in selected indie contexts
034 1/2. Before Sunset
3. Reese's Fast Break candybar
1002. Youthmovies, Good Nature
21. Wanted
82. Cake Wrecks (blog)
007. Orange Electrical Tape
89. Fleet Foxes, Self-Titled EP
72. Foals, Antidotes
71. Oxford Lace-Ups, Loafers, Dinner Jackets, and the return of Schoolboy Fashion
33. Yeasayer's Bassist Ira Wolf Tuton
55. Beach House, Devotion
675. Simon Reynolds
41. Hreda
47. Sorry I Missed Your Party (blog)
32. Chris Nolan's The Dark Knight
17. Panda Bear, Person Pitch
30. John Water's Pink Flamingos
2. Beach Boys, Pet Sounds
3/4. Gary Oldman
43. Justin Timberlake, "My Love"
47. Grizzly Bear, Yellow House
62. The Wes Anderson + Paul Simon love-child that is Vampire Weekend
13. Sexy People (blog)
722. Jonquil
76. Fellini's 8 1/2
20. George Michael, "Careless Whisper"
8. Fritz Lang's Metropolis
12. Grizzly Bear, Friend EP
3.14257. Orange Nail Polish
10. Department of Eagles, In Ear Park
98. Robert Altman's Brewster McCloud (1970)
10. Cate Blanchett in I'm Not There
19. Tomas Alfredson's Let the Right One In
-2, 212. Jake Ryan
60. LOLcats


...ad infinitum...