// Category Archive for: Movies

Best Of 2012: Emily Carney

1. Music: The Very Best of Vince Guaraldi, The Very Best of Bill Evans, and The Bill Evans Trio, Moon Beams

In the last year, Concord Music Group re-released and compiled great jazz collections for those into mid-century modern jazz. The best offerings included Vince Guaraldi’s Peanuts-infused classics and Bill Evans’ elegiac piano stylings. Moon Beams may be one of the saddest jazz records of all time, but it has some of the most elegant, beautiful piano chord progressions recorded in music history.

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Best of 2012: Danny R. Phillips

My editor at this fine publication has informed me that I need not stick to 2012 releases for my “Best Of” list. With that in mind, I have made a list of new releases & “classics” that I have gone back to in the last year or so.

Shall we begin?

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Assemblog: December 14, 2012

Tron: Legacy still from The CillianSite

New this week on Popshifter: I provide a Krampus primer and talk about what works and what doesn’t in V/H/S; Paul puts together a playlist for “Music To Make You Human”; Chelsea recommends the reissued A Charlie Brown Christmas for listening and gift-giving; Danny is stoked for Dave Grohl’s upcoming documentary Sound City; and Lisa recommends 666 Park Avenue if you’re not already watching it.

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New Trailer: Sound City, A Film By Dave Grohl

By Danny R. Phillips

As a fan of rock ‘n roll and music in general, many recording studios are deserving of the documentary treatment: Electric Lady (NYC), The Quonset Hut (Nashville) Abbey Road (London), Sun Records (Memphis), Ardent Studios (Memphis), Electric Audio (Chicago), and Motown (Detroit). Now, for those of us that love history and happen to be music nuts, Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters, Nirvana, a thousand other projects) has made his directorial debut with film on a studio that has a storied history of its own: Sound City.

The Los Angeles recording studio has borne witness to some of the greatest albums in the history of music. The roster of talent that has walked through its doors and blew up the soundboard is staggering: Nirvana, Fleetwood Mac, Rage Against The Machine, Bad Religion, Evel Kneivel, Nine Inch Nails, Neil Young, Cheap Trick, Carl Perkins, Elvis Costello, Johnny Cash, Joe Cocker, The Breeders, the list could go on for days.

Sound City is Grohl’s love letter to a place that means so much to him and to anyone that has ever dropped the needle in a vinyl groove or obsessed over a CD. Sound City is one film I cannot wait to experience.

Sound City will debut at Sundance 2013 in January, but you can pre-order a copy in advance of the film’s February 1 premiere on HD digital download and stream at the movie’s official website. Sound City will open theatrically via Variance Films on February 1. Like the film’s Facebook page and stay tuned for cities and dates to be posted in the near future.

Blu-Ray Review: V/H/S

By Less Lee Moore

V/H/S is possibly the first found-footage horror anthology, two styles of filmmaking that are loved as much as they are hated. Found footage films are, without a doubt, one of the biggest cultural trends of the last decade and as such, can go either very well or horribly awry. Anthologies are another risky venture for horror films as inevitably there will be one or two segments which don’t measure up to the rest, thus rendering the entire project grievously flawed. These issues do plague V/H/S to a certain extent, but as an experimental indie horror film, it’s still a success.

The wraparound story of V/H/S (“Tape 56,” written by Simon Barrett, directed by Adam Wingard) is certainly creepy, but still off putting in the way it posits the main characters as disgusting losers. Our introduction to them is footage of their restraining a woman in a parking garage and filming her naked breasts as they pull off her shirt and later, trashing the hell out of an abandoned house. They do this for money but we get the idea that they’d probably do it for free, too. We next learn they’ve been hired to break into a house and steal one VHS tape, having been told “you’ll know it when you see it.” This makes sense within the context of the wraparound segment, but it doesn’t endear us to them one bit. In fact, I found myself pretty repulsed by the intro and wondered if I could even make it through the rest of the film.

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Assemblog: December 7, 2012

Despite The Gods

New this week on Popshifter: Danny is not very fond of the film 360, out now on home video; Chelsea is over the moon about the new Big Dipper album, Big Dipper Crashes on the Platinum Planet (and shares their new video for “Robert Pollard”); Lisa voices unpopular opinions about It’s A Wonderful Life; Cait raves about the new white vinyl 7″ from Concrete Blonde; I express admiration and frustration for Take This Waltz; and Elizabeth talks about Community, Disney, Netflix & Verizon in a new installment of “TV Is Dead, Long Live TV.”

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It’s (less than) a Wonderful Life

By Lisa Anderson

I am about to share what I’m sure will be an unpopular opinion. I don’t care for It’s a Wonderful Life.

In case there’s anyone out there who hasn’t seen it, It’s a Wonderful Life is a 1946 film directed by Frank Capra and starring James Stewart, Donna Reed, and Henry Tavers. Stewart plays George Bailey, a building-and-loan manager who is thrown into crisis on Christmas Eve when his uncle (a co-worker) misplaces $8,000 that was meant to be deposited in the bank. Faced with criminal charges over the money and beset by lot of small emergencies at home, George contemplates suicide and wishes aloud that he’d never been born. A kindly angel named Clarence (Tavers) comes down and shows George what the world would be like if that were the case.

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DVD Review: Take This Waltz

By Less Lee Moore

Take This Waltz, writer/director Sarah Polley’s latest feature, is lovely to look at, with bright, stimulating visuals and convincing dialogue performed beautifully by the cast. It is also terrifically exasperating. Much of this is due to the central character, Margot, portrayed by Michelle Williams.

Granted, I haven’t seen Michelle Williams in anything but Brokeback Mountain, so it’s difficult for me to tell if she’s incredibly gifted at playing an extremely annoying person or if that’s her acting style, but I will give her the benefit of the doubt. However, it also makes it difficult to decide whether to root for her.

28-year-old Margot meets single Daniel (Luke Kirby) on a business trip and there is instant chemistry, or at least we can understand why she’s attracted to him. He’s handsome, sharp, and witty. Then we discover that not only is Margot married, but also that Daniel lives across the street. As she astutely observes right after than discovery: “Oh shit.” Things get more complicated from there, with Margot and Daniel dancing around each other but never consummating anything physically, on ongoing situation skillfully rendered in the pool scene where the two swim around each other like fighting fish.

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Blu-Ray Review: Excision

By Less Lee Moore

For his first feature, Excision, writer and director Richard Bates, Jr. has assembled quite an impressive cast: Malcolm McDowell, John Waters, Traci Lords, Ray Wise, Matthew Gray Gubler, and Marlee Matlin. Visually, the film is stunning, with pristine, static, centered shots and vivid colors. Excision‘s plot—a disturbed, misanthropic high school student named Pauline dreams (literally) of being a surgeon but her parents just don’t understand–doesn’t sound unique when boiled down to its most basic elements, but Bates manages to create a film that is genuinely disturbing.

Blood plays a crucial role in Excision, too. There is a whole lot of it. Yet it’s not a horror film, despite being well received by a lot of horror film websites and blogs, which puts it into that difficult position of being a genre film that doesn’t fit easily into any genre.

At times, this can be problematic. Excision feels like it wants to be a pitch black comedy or a parody of the suburban dream, but it’s not actually funny. Granted, some of Pauline’s quirks and attempts to navigate her unwelcoming environment at home and school are humorous, but not in a laugh out loud way. The roles of McDowell, Waters, Lords, and Wise in this context could seem like stunt casting, except for the fact that they’re all really good, particularly AnnaLynne McCord as Pauline and Traci Lords as Pauline’s mother Phyllis, whose character arc might represent the best work she’s ever done.

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The Black Museum: Echoes From The Sleep Room

By Less Lee Moore

At long last, I finally attended one of The Black Museum‘s “lurid lectures for the morbidly curious.” (Go here to read my Q&A with the curators.) It was Thursday, November 22 and the topic was “Echoes From The Sleep Room,” an examination of the history of medical experimentation in horror cinema. The presentation was wonderful; my only complaint was that I was unable to attend the previous four lectures!

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