Tag: Digital Media

Beautifully unusual

eels

Wonderful, Glorious/Vagrant Records

eels’ Mark Oliver Everett (a.k.a. E!) loves making unique albums that span genres and incorporate primal vocal performances. For proof, check out his concept album trilogy of Hombre Lobo, End Times and Tomorrow Morning, or Blinking Lights and Other Revelations. Wonderful, Glorious attempts to continue this trend, but isn’t quite as successful. “Accident Prone”’s down-tempo guitars and Everett’s sedated, melodic vocals are beautifully unusual, and the way he channels Johnny Cash’s mumbling vocal on the dreamy guitar-driven ballad “On the Ropes,” is nothing short of eerie. But “Peach Blossom” and “Kinda Fuzzy” are classic eels—groovy, distortion-drenched, creepy rock—to the point of sounding derivative and unimaginative. At thirteen tracks, the album is a tad long. It starts to run out of steam right around track ten, but it is not without some charm as noted above. Wonderful, Glorious feels aimless in its search to find the things its title seems interested in discovering.

Quiet Fire

Jarjuna/Self-released

Does this group play jazz music? Tribal fusion? World music? Some other style entirely? This is part of the intrigue that defines Charlottesville-based group Quiet Fire, whose music crisscrosses over myriad genres like a nomad in search of its next home. The hypnotic percussion and rhythmic guitar on the opening track, “Elephanta Island,” combine with Miles Davis-like trumpet flourishes to give the track an unexpectedly tranquil, languid feel. The pace and structure of a “Kora’s Song” is more upbeat and improvisational, adding another dimension to the band’s music. “Twilight” sounds like a late-night jazzy jam session from the best dream sequence you’ve ever had, and the title track combines a variety of disparate sounds—sinister percussion, gorgeous acoustic guitar, lively bass, chaotic trumpet, and otherworldly electric guitar. The release is an imaginative, out of the ordinary, and exciting addition to the genre of instrumental music.

Matt Pond

The Lives Inside the Lines of Your Hands/BMG

Singer-songwriter Matt Pond’s latest release, The Lives Inside the Lines in Your Hands, is essentially a pop record which employs the typical trope of wearing your heart on your sleeve with regard to the various ups and downs in relationships. It has fair number of lively melodies and upbeat rhythms, but it’s a little thin at times. The driving pop rock rhythm and somewhat wistful reminiscing about a failed relationship in “Hole in My Heart” perfectly capture the pervasive tone of this record. The pure pop of “Love to Get Used” looks at people who don’t believe they deserve any better, while “Go Where the Leaves Go” gives a nod to Don Henley’s “The Boys of Summer” with its ride-your-car-into-the-sunset vibe. The title track is this album’s best, with its talk of traveling America and lyrics like “Just because we’re in these bodies/Doesn’t mean there isn’t more.” Hands is a steady, if at times familiar and enjoyable album.

It’s spring, and you know what that means: A young man’s fancy turns lightly to thoughts of love. Tennyson doesn’t appear to have thought of the old men or women at all, so let’s assume they’re all thinking about baseball, or as I call it at home, love.

Normally I wouldn’t put together a post on the five best baseball movies ever, but with 42, the Jackie Robinson biopic coming out next week (and not making the list for sure), I figured now is a good time to remind us which baseball movies get it right–and which don’t.

THE BEST (in no particular order)

Bang the Drum Slowly (1973): This movie seems to get lost when talk turns to great sports flicks. And the one-line plot description is no indication that the movie is indeed great: A then-unknown Robert De Niro, as catcher Bruce Pearson, is dying, and he plays for a team modeled on the Yankees. Ugh. Plus, De Niro is supposed to be from Georgia, and we know how he does with accents.

But he and Michael Moriarty (as team star Henry Wiggin) bring quiet power and subtlety to this tale of friendship, and somehow it avoids maudlin territory, which the similarly themed Brian’s Song can’t quite avoid. Yes, you’ll cry, but Bang the Drum Slowly earns your tears. It’s too bad Moriarty didn’t often play leads after this film, because he’s wonderful.

Major League (1989): Hey! A comedy starring Charlie Sheen that’s actually funny on purpose. Major League won’t go down as having the most original story ever–it’s a variation on the misfits-make-good staple–but it’s genuinely uproarious.

And what’s the best line? For my money, it’s when Andy Romano, as bench coach Pepper Leach, first sees Sheen’s young, brash pitching prospect arrive at spring training and deadpans, “Look at this fuckin’ guy.” You could spend an afternoon quoting Major League, and that one-game playoff with the Yankees for the pennant is always tense, even on the fifteenth viewing.

Field of Dreams (1989): Well, you knew this one was on the list, right? For all the baseball talk and terminology, this story isn’t really about the sport. It’s about family–specifically fathers and sons–but it will resonate with anyone who’s had a difficult relationship with a parent or child. Plus, it’s a chance to see Kevin Costner act on screen before he slipped into permanent Gary Cooper-mode. Ray Liotta is great as “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, even if when he laughs he sounds like Ray Liotta.

Moneyball (2011): Baseball is a game of statistics, and someone–namely director Bennett Miller–figured out how to turn those stats into emotions (along with help from screenwriters Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zaillian, who adapted Michael Lewis’ book). Outside of fantasy baseball, stats are as boring as whale shit, so the fact that anyone saw Moneyball at all is a miracle.

Brad Pitt plays Billy Burke, the general manager of the Oakland A’s, and a failed pro. With a tiny budget and a fat numbers whiz (made-up character Peter Brand, played by Jonah Hill), he changes the game of baseball. There are stark differences between how Burke did it in real life and how it worked on screen, but that doesn’t matter. This isn’t a documentary, even if it’s based on real people. See if you can count how often Pitt eats on screen.

Eight Men Out (1988): Like Bang the Drum Slowly, this quiet movie gets left off lots of best sports movie lists. How? It has a hot young cast (including John Cusack and Charlie Sheen), a great director (John Sayles), and a famous true story (the Chicago White Sox throwing the 1919 World Series – a major plot point in Field of Dreams). Say it ain’t so, Joe.

THE NOT BEST (in a particular order)

The Natural (1984): Normally I don’t care that movies often deviate from their source material. Books and movies are markedly different media, and they have different strengths and limitations. But Bernard Malamud’s book doesn’t deserve to become a movie that changes its lead character’s motivation or life story. Plus, Robert Redford, as Roy Hobbs, just isn’t all that good in the part.

Bull Durham (1989): This is one of those persnickety critic things, maybe, but I’ve never enjoyed this movie the way everyone else in America does. Is it that Kevin Costner is so unlikeable? Or that Susan Sarandon is, too? Hard to say, and harder to find out: I’m not watching it again anytime soon.

Pride of the Yankees (1942): Because Gary Cooper. If he’s not killing Frank Miller and marrying Amy Fowler, what’s the point?

Melodic moments

Ivan & Alyosha 

All the Times We Had/Dualtone Music Group

It is fitting that this Seattle-based indie pop rock band is named after characters in a Dostoevsky novel where moral dilemmas, God, and free will are among the topics of debate because similar content is found in this record. “God or Man” talks about the proverbial battle between the eternal and the temporal, while on “Don’t Wanna Die Anymore,” singer Tim Wilson croons about not being ready to go to heaven yet. There’s lots of relational angst too. “Falling” includes lines about wanting to be loved but not loving back, and “Easy to Love” is a self-explanatory song about how easy it is to love some people. Musically, the album dips into dream pop with “Who Are You?” and pays homage to slow-burning rockers on “The Fold.” It’s hard not to compare its sound to The Lumineers and Mumford & Sons on “Running for Cover.” Wilson hypnotizes with his swelling, Tim Warren-esque vocals, and the band mixes compelling lyrics with engaging melodies to great effect.

Drew Holcomb & the Neighbors

Good Light/Good Time Records

The Southern-drenched country, Americana and rock sensibilities, great melodies, alternately philosophical and lovey-dovey lyrics, and perfectly harmonized vocals from Drew Holcomb and his wife, Ellie, all combine to make Good Light a truly memorable record. Whether singing about relationships in “I Love You, I Do,” civic pride in “Tennessee,” the profound on “You Can’t Take it With You,” or the slightly silly “Nothing But Trouble,” the album is guided by strong, honest storytellers. Holcomb’s slightly raspy vocals are augmented by Ellie’s gorgeous, impassioned harmonies, which act as a steadying counterpoint to Holcolmb’s more aggressive moments. They steal the show on tracks like “Nothing Like a Woman,” where you can hear them smiling as they sing about each other. You can’t fake moments like those, which is why this album shines so brightly.

Melody Pool

The Hurting Scene/Weston Boys

The debut release from Australian singer-
songwriter Melody Pool is filled with a number of stunning moments. For example, check out the harmonies on the bluegrass number “All the Love.” But, what makes this album so extraordinary, is how it defies your expectations. As the title The Hurting Scene suggests, these are songs about broken relationships, but in a number of cases it takes on a more positive or cathartic note. “Lion on the Loose” employs a jangly bluegrass pop rhythm to augment Pool’s lyrics about being crazy about someone who makes her crazy, and “On the ‘Morrow” has a be-careful-what-you-wish-for aspect to it, as Pool laments being in love. The album moves between country, Americana, bluegrass, pop, and acoustic fare, but Pool threads it all together with her gorgeous, often subtle vocals.

 

Highly resistant: The Host captures everything but the moviegoers’ attention

The Host, the latest in a long line of Stephenie Meyer-written heavy-breathers, is absurd. It’s so absurd it’s hard to take seriously. But let’s try. How many times do we get to deconstruct overproduced and underwritten stories of teen lust—if lust stops at kissing?

Aliens that look like glowing white caterpillars with sparkly tendrils have invaded Earth. The aliens enter humans through the back of the neck, merge with the human host, and eventually take over the body while the personality of the host lies dormant or dies. The only physical change in humans seems to be glowing eyes.

Forget that this story recalls not only Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but also Robert Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters and John W. Campbell’s Who Goes There?—better known to most people as Howard Hawks’ The Thing from Another World or John Carpenter’s The Thing. Because, really, this story is about liking boys. And Jesus, sort of.

And another thing: When did the film industry decide that all aliens must be boring? They come to Earth. They take over. Then they either kill us (which happens in The Host) or turn the planet into some utopian/dystopian fantasy (which also happens in The Host).

So aliens can travel millions of light years across the galaxy, and all they want to do is kill us? Or take over? If they have the technology for intergalactic space travel, why must their goals be so mundane? Why can’t they use that technology on Earth? The vistas of New Mexico—prominently on display in The Host—are beautiful. But worth crossing time and space?

Similar thoughts may occupy moviegoers older than 13 during The Host’s first hour. There’s so little going on (under the guise of OMG there’s so much going on!) that the mind wanders.

The only thing that jolts the mind back into the cineplex is an unfortunate choice by the filmmakers. Melanie (Saoirse Ronan) has been captured and an alien implanted in her. But Melanie’s a fighter. And her soul lives on in her body, even as an alien called The Wanderer takes control.

That unfortunate choice is to have Melanie’s thoughts argue, via reverb-filled voiceover, with The Wanderer, who speaks aloud in response. It’s a laughably bad choice, distracting even, and Ronan isn’t done any favors talking (and voiceovering) Meyer’s dialogue, which at least has been streamlined by director Andrew Niccol.

But Ronan has the makings of a star, and she plays the Melanie/Wanderer roles earnestly, as if she believes the choice they have to make—between two boys, of course, and the planet, sort of—are serious things and not the fantasy of an inexplicably popular novelist. Ronan is so good, at times she may even make you gasp.

The rest is poppycock. William Hurt, as Melanie’s uncle, seems lost. Diane Kruger, as an evil alien, has one good scene (her last). The guys? Snooze. Niccol (Gattaca) has a gift for science fiction, but The Host is still gushy and childish. If only there were pods. Or shape-shifters. Or vampires.

The Host/PG-13, 121 minutes.Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

 

Playing this week

Admission
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Argo
Carmike Cinema 6

The Call
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Croods 3D
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Emperor
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Escape From Planet Earth
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

G.I. Joe Retaliation 3D
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

On The Road
Vinegar Hill Theatre

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Carmike Cinema 6

The Impossible
Carmike Cinema 6

The Incredible Burt
Wonderstone
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Jack the Giant Slayer
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Les Miserables
Carmike Cinema 6

Life of Pi
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Mama
Carmike Cinema 6

Olympus Has Fallen
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Oz the Great and Powerful
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Silver Linings Playbook
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Spring Breakers
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Stoker
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Tyler Perry’s Temptation
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Upside Down
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Wreck-It Ralph
Carmike Cinema 6

Movie houses

Carmike Cinema 6
973-4294

Regal Downtown Mall
Cinema 6
979-7669

Regal Stonefield 14
and IMAX
244-3213

Vinegar Hill Theatre
977-4911

Comedy neutral: Admission struggles to find a balance between humor and drama

Some movies are serious comedies. Others are dramas that happen to be funny. Then there’s Admission, which can’t make up its mind which it is, and is subsequently neither.

At Admission’s center is Tina Fey, who stretches beyond playing the straight man and being the butt of every other character’s jokes (as often was the case on “30 Rock”). She’s Portia Nathan, an admissions officer at Princeton, who’s contacted by John Pressman (Paul Rudd), a teacher at a hippie- friendly type school in Keene, N.H.

Pressman has a senior in his class who has terrible grades, but aced the SAT and the AP exams (without taking AP courses). He’s also a heavy reader, and self-taught about most things.

And he’s adopted. And his birth date happens to be an important date to Portia. And Pressman puts two and two together.

That sounds like a spoiler, but it’s really a McGuffin—a plot device used to kick the story into action. Because once Portia learns about the senior, Jeremiah (Nat Wolff), she begins to question everything in her life.

Why, for example, has she stayed at the same job for 16 years? Why is her job in education? Why does she stay with the same boyfriend for a decade when there’s clearly no passion between them? Why is her mother (a welcome Lily Tomlin) such a jerk to her? Why is she afraid of personal risk?

Why, the filmmakers ask us? They demand that we care! And it’s hard to care. Director Paul Weitz (most recently he directed the not-comedy Being Flynn) gets stuck between the jokes (Portia gets roped into delivering a calf at the hippie school with John and Jeremiah) and the drama (the whole what’s-best-for-our-kids motif), and the rhythm is off.

None of that would be difficult to swallow if the gags were funny and didn’t come across as time-fillers. Rudd downplays most of the comedy in a way that makes it seem like he’s compensating for the screenplay’s straight-up silly turns.

Still, the movie gets some things right. Portia’s initial reaction to meeting Jeremiah and learning, maybe, who he is, feels authentic. So does her reaction after she bumps into him during a Princeton tour.

What feels inauthentic is much of everything else. For example, do the filmmakers know how far apart Princeton, N.J., and Keene, N.H. are? Do the filmmakers realize Lily Tomlin is really funny, and is wasted in the role of a bitter hippie? Is there any way the ventriloquism show would actually produce the effect it does in the end?

Sure, seeing those scene descriptions railroaded next to each other doesn’t make much sense. Neither does much of Admission. At least the movie proves that Tina Fey can carry a picture (even if it’s not so good), and Paul Rudd can rein it in, which he hasn’t done often outside The Object of My Affection and The Shape of Things. On the whole, though, Admission’s studio should have denied it like so many kids Princeton turns away.

Admission/PG-13, 107 minutes /Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Playing this week

A Good Day to Die Hard
Carmike Cinema 6

Argo
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Beautiful Creatures
Carmike Cinema 6

The Call
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Croods 3D
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Django Unchained
Carmike Cinema 6

Emperor
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Escape From Planet Earth
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters
Carmike Cinema 6

Happy People: A Year in
the Taiga
Vinegar Hill Theatre

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Carmike Cinema 6

Identity Thief
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Incredible Burt
Wonderstone
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Jack the Giant Slayer
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Last Exorcism Part II
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Life of Pi
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Lincoln
Carmike Cinema 6

Olympus Has Fallen
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Murph: The Protector
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Oz the Great and Powerful
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Safe Haven
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Silver Linings Playbook
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Snitch
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Spring Breakers
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Stoker
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Movie houses

Carmike Cinema 6
973-4294

Regal Downtown Mall
Cinema 6
979-7669

Regal Stonefield 14
and IMAX
244-3213

Vinegar Hill Theatre
977-4911

Magically funny: The Incredible Burt Wonderstone exceeds low expectations

The advertisements for The Incredible Burt Wonderstone make it seem like it will be the least funny, most egregious, and patience-trying movie of Steve Carell’s career. A movie comedy about Las Vegas performers and street magicians? News flash: The David Blaine jokes stopped being funny the moment he first appeared on ABC News in the early aughts.

There’s another movie out there that, on paper, seems like a losing proposition: A bunch of guys play sexist newsmen at a San Diego affiliate in the late 1970s. The ads were unfunny, even if the players were people audiences knew and liked. It’s Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, which has since entered the pop culture lexicon, and The Incredible Burt Wonderstone takes some cues from it. Similarly, it seems like a terrible idea.

How refreshing it is to report that The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is hilarious, and often can’t-stop-laughing hilarious. It’s no Anchorman—the characters aren’t as broadly over-the-top funny, and it has a weakness for sentimentality that Anchorman doesn’t—but it largely gets things right, even when he it takes wrong turns.

For example, Carell mostly abandons his you-must-love-me persona that he’s been using since he became a movie lead. That obnoxious sincere-guy thing he does in Dan in Real Life and Crazy, Stupid, Love. pops up here, but for most of the movie he plays Burt Wonderstone as a self-absorbed lout, akin to his characters in Bruce Almighty and “The Daily Show.”

Then there’s Jim Carrey, who plays a jerk street magician named Steve Gray with a combination of gusto and restraint. Carrey disappears into Gray as much as a giant movie star can (and quite well), and his portrayal of Gray trying to fall asleep on a bed of hot coals is uproarious.
http://youtu.be/FeU1ILHi_Lo

That leaves the not-so-great moments in Burt Wonderstone. The story itself is for the birds (and, because this is a movie about magic, there are plenty of birds). Carell and Steve Buscemi are lifelong friends and magic partners who have been a big draw on the Las Vegas strip for a decade. Now their magic is stale, their audience is dwindling, and Gray threatens to, figuratively and literally, steal their show. The fun is watching these guys play off each other and nearly kill themselves (on screen) in the process.

Buscemi has a rougher go of things. He’s mostly on screen to be made fun of (and it’s pretty easy to make fun of Buscemi’s appearance, even when he’s not sporting a terrible wig), but he seems game, so give him a pass.

But Olivia Wilde gets a raw deal. Whereas Christina Applegate in Anchorman got plenty of jokes, Wilde is the straight man here. It’s a stretch to say a funny woman would threaten the men on screen—who knows what filmmakers were thinking?—but she’s not much more than window dressing. It’s a drag.

However, it’s hard to dislike a movie that acknowledges the magicians’ best trick is highly illegal. When it’s operating on all thrusters, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is nearly incredible.

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone/PG-13, 101 min./Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Playing this week

21 and Over
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

A Good Day to Die Hard
Carmike Cinema 6

Argo
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Call
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Dead Man Down
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Emperor
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Escape From Planet Earth
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Carmike Cinema 6

Identity Thief
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Jack the Giant Slayer
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Last Exorcism Part II
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Life of Pi
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Lincoln
Carmike Cinema 6

Movie 43
Carmike Cinema 6

Oscar Nominated Short Films 2013
Vinegar Hill Theatre

Oz the Great and Powerful
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Parker
Carmike Cinema 6

Quartet
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Safe Haven
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Silver Linings Playbook
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Snitch
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Warm Bodies
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Wreck-it Ralph
Carmike Cinema 6

Zero Dark Thirty
Carmike Cinema 6

Movie houses

Carmike Cinema 6
973-4294

Regal Downtown Mall
Cinema 6
979-7669

Regal Stonefield 14
and IMAX
244-3213

Vinegar Hill Theatre
977-4911

“We’re librarians by day, and indie-rockers by night,” said Dave Gibson.

“And because we’re librarians, we think in a very organized, compartmental way,” added Renee Reighart.

Gibson works for the Library of Congress in Culpeper, while Reighart is employed at the Fine Arts Library at UVA. The couple moved to Charlottesville a few years ago, and are perhaps best known to local music fans as members of the now-defunct indie-pop group The Hilarious Posters.

“Believe it or not, the Posters was actually the first time we had played music together,” Gibson said.

“We’ll I’d played trumpet on one track for one of Dave’s earlier bands,” Reighart said, “but we’ve been married almost 11 years, and it took us five or six before we could collaborate on anything without fighting.”

Since the Posters disintegrated, Gibson has played as a sideman in Borrowed Beams of Light, while Reighart has played with Mss.. They also kept busy by making music videos for a number of local bands, and soon got the itch to start another one of their own. In February they debuted their new group, Weird Mob, headlining an EP release show at the Southern.

Though Weird Mob is a new band, Gibson’s sunshine-y pop hooks, sung in a charming, boyish voice, are immediately recognizable. The songs themselves aren’t much different from earlier efforts, but this time they’re packaged in a synthesizer-heavy, new-wave-flavored format. “It’s pretty similar, in some ways,” he said. “I let a few of my more esoteric influences creep in. But it’s poppy and melodic. I think no matter what I do, I can’t escape doing that.”

“Dave wrote and recorded all the songs himself, that’s something he’s been doing for a while,” Reighart said. “That’s been a trend with some bands, to have a singular vision, one creative voice, with other players that help you realize that live, but where the recording is the purest form of that vision. So I’m kind of just a hired hand.”

“She’s selling herself short,” Gibson said. “She does sing on it, she wrote the lyrics, she plays bass. That’s why I didn’t want to sell it as ‘Me, a dude, and here are my four buddies who play with me.’ I wanted to sell it as ‘Renee and I,’ as part of the whole Renee-and-Dave artistic endeavor. We designed the cover together, the whole aesthetic just comes from what we’re both into.”

“I’m definitely the cinematographer,” Reighart added.

The band’s debut was a one-minute music video, edited to look like the opening credits from a fictional 1980s TV show starring the band, consistent with an affection for the entertainment of the late analog era.

“I had been watching a lot of this old TV show, the ‘Tomorrow People,’” Gibson said. “It was ITV’s attempt at making a kind of ‘Doctor Who.’ So the opening credits are really in that style—a lot of still images, crazy shots of brains and electrodes—and I’d written that little intro jam, which was my attempt at writing something like the theme from ‘3-2-1 Contact.’”

By the time Weird Mob played its first live gig, it had already recorded a seven-track EP and made several music videos, a reversal of the process common to most bands. “We’d seen a lot of bands self-destruct when they put out an album, or when they went into the studio to record,” Gibson said. “It’s kind of backwards, but I’m glad we did it this way. I’ve been in so many bands where the release show of our first album was also the band’s last show, so for once I wanted to be in a band where the release was our first show.”

The debut EP, They’re a Weird Mob, is also the first release for Hibernator Gigs, the pseudonym Gibson and Reighart are using for their home-operated record label, as well as their music video endeavors.

“We were ready to put out the EP, but didn’t even want to have to talk to record labels,” Reighart said. “With the way music distribution is, there’s no reason to wait. We recorded it here in our house, in our own time, and it was like—‘Hey, it’s ready.’”

“Hibernator Gigs is an anagram of both of our last names,” she explained, “But it also kind of stands for one of our goals, which is just to stay home and make as much as you can, and be productive. In the past our creative exercises took the form of project more than product, and we wanted to shift more towards creating a product, and not get bogged down in messing around.”

“Sometimes it’s hard to come home and do things after work, especially with the commute that I have,” Gibson said. “That’s the other reason I wanted to make sure that Renee was part of it. She’s very encouraging of not just sitting around. It would be easy enough just to sit down and watch TV every night, but instead we work together on cool shit.”

Hibernator Gigs is currently at work on a 7″ compilation entitled Guided By Bob, in which a half-dozen local bands contribute “fake” covers, paying tribute to Bob Pollard’s Guided By Voices. The label will also release a forthcoming Borrowed Beams record.

Weird Mob will next appear at the Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar on March 21, along with Brooklyn bands The So So Glos and Sunset Guns, as well as Typefighter, a Washington, D.C. group featuring former local Thomas Orgren. Tickets are $7 and the doors open at 8:30pm.

Married to your art(ist)? Tell us about it?

 

Behind the curtain: Oz the Great and Powerful is a playful take on the wizard’s rise

In this day and age, when everything in life—movies, television, sporting events, you name it—seems rooted in money, a prequel to The Wizard of Oz feels like, perhaps, the most cynical of moneymaking schemes. Is there a more surefire way to earn tons of cash than with a prequel to one of the most beloved movies of all time?

It’s hard to say. Disney has tried to climb on the L. Frank Baum movie train before, in 1985 with the miserable Return to Oz. Any filmgoer wishing for the magic of Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion, the Tin Man and the Scarecrow should probably set his sights low. When sinking into that theater seat and donning the 3D glasses, remember: No Oz will match The Wizard of Oz.

Thankfully, director Sam Raimi knows what he’s up against, and he’s wise to pay homage (clumsily, most of the time) to the 1939 film that many people consider a classic. He even sneaks in some knowing references to his earlier work—namely the Evil Dead trilogy—while keeping Oz’s PG wheels turning.

Some people will grouse that Oz the Great and Powerful is a pale imitation of a great film. But I think, perhaps unwittingly, that’s part of this movie’s charm. After all, the Wizard is revealed near the end of The Wizard of Oz to be a shyster. In Oz the Great and Powerful, he’s revealed to be a shyster from the moment he’s seen on screen.

Oscar “Oz” Diggs (James Franco) is a carnival magician. This movie, if you’re given to the bent that The Wizard of Oz is a masterpiece, is a lesser cultural event. The filmmakers know it. The writers know it. Disney knows it. So why don’t we all have some fun with the stupid thing?

That’s what Sam Raimi is good for when he’s not making For Love of the Game or Spider-Man 3: Fun. And Oz the Great and Powerful is fun while it lives within the confines of Disney parameters and the conventions it must follow.

For example, we know there must be a Wicked Witch. There’s some bizarre marketing campaign out there trying to keep the identity of the Wicked Witch a secret. Don’t get caught up in it. The explanation really doesn’t make sense, anyway.

For that matter, lots of things don’t make sense in Oz the Great and Powerful. Why is it so long? Why are so many of the jokes telegraphed, and so poorly? Why does the whole thing work?

Sometimes, even the most cynical of us can close his eyes and believe. And after a rotten day, Oz the Great and Powerful, with its tale of a ne’er-do-well who does well, was just the thing I needed. You try not to cry when Oz fixes the China Girl (Joey King).

Sure, Mila Kunis isn’t quite right, and Rachel Weisz (and the audience) deserve better. But sometimes we get what we get, and sometimes it’s good enough.

Oz the Great and Powerful/PG, 130 minutes/Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Playing this week

21 and Over
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
A Good Day to Die Hard
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
Amour
Vinegar Hill Theatre
Argo
Regal Downtown Mall 6
Dark Skies
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
Dead Man Down
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
Emperor
Regal Downtown Mall 6
Escape From Planet Earth
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Carmike Cinema 6
Identity Thief
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
The Last Exorcism Part II
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
Life of Pi
Regal Downtown Mall 6
Monsters, Inc. 3D
Carmike Cinema 6
Parental Guidance
Carmike Cinema 6
Quartet
Regal Downtown Mall 6
Rise of the Guardians
Carmike Cinema 6
Safe Haven
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
Side Effects
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
Silver Linings Playbook
Regal Downtown Mall 6
Snitch
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
Warm Bodies
Regal Downtown Mall 6
Wreck-it Ralph
Carmike Cinema 6
Zero Dark Thirty
Regal Downtown Mall 6

Movie houses
Carmike Cinema 6
973-4294
Regal Downtown Mall
Cinema 6
979-7669
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
244-3213
Vinegar Hill Theatre
977-4911