Movie Review: A Band Called Death

By Less Lee Moore

In an article on Film School Rejects, Scott Beggs points out the similarities between A Band Called Death and other recent music documentaries.

He notes that the trajectory of this film is similar to that of Searching For Sugar Man and Anvil! The Story of Anvil. Watching A Band Called Death, I was reminded of both Bad Brains: A Band In DC and also Nothing Can Hurt Me, the film about Big Star. The trajectory—unknown band, their individual and collective obstacles to fame, and their posthumous rediscovery and appreciation—is one that’s repeated in all of these films.

This is not to say that any of these films are formulaic or that music documentaries are repetitive. As Beggs argues, it just means that our preconceived notions of music history might be skewed.

(more…)

Assemblog: August 9, 2013

Michael Fassbender in The Counselor

New this week on Popshifter: Stuart likes the way Scared To Get Happy: A Story of Indie-Pop 1980 – 1989 tells a story with music; Melissa thinks that the debut of The Fun Boy Three still sounds immediate after all these years; Paul compiles a listener’s guide for R&B in this new millennium; I throw chum into the water in the form of a blog post about Frenzy, an illustrated novel with a Kickstarter campaign; and recommend the sweet and the bitter in Minks’ new album Tides End.

(more…)

Music Review: Minks, Tides End

By Less Lee Moore

On their second album, Tides End, Minks have created a distinctively ’80s UK-pop feeling. But they’re not Depeche Mode or Duran Duran (not that there’s anything wrong with that). On these ten songs Minks are more reminiscent of bands like The Korgis or Close Lobsters, with the quirky synth sounds of pre-Different Class era Pulp adding a unique element of modernity. There’s also no shortage of New Order-esque guitar. Oddly, Sonny Kilfoyle, who is Minks on this album for all intents and purposes, lives in Long Island.

(more…)

Forget About Shark Week: It’s Shark Month with the August Kickstarter for Frenzy, An Illustrated Prose Novel

By Less Lee Moore

Artwork © Chandra Free, 2013

If you prefer your sharks to be more like Jaws than Sharknado, here’s something you can really sink your multiple rows of teeth into: Frenzy, where the sharks are the stars, and the humans are the threat!

(more…)

Assemblog: August 2, 2013

Rinko Kikuchi as Mako Mori in Pacific Rim

New this week on Popshifter: Brad reviews yet another Scream Factory reissue, this time it’s The Burning; Jeff finishes up this month’s Waxing Nostalgic Cover Albums series with Replicants’ eponymous album; Paul informs critics that being average is not worse than being bad; John pays tribute to The Olivia Tremor Control’s Bill Doss; I embrace the post-punk transvestite stylings of The Garden on their new album The Life And Times Of A Paperclip; and enjoy a lot of good movies new on home video and in theaters: Trance, Kiss of the Damned, The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh, and Berberian Sound Studio.

(more…)

DVD Review: The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh

By Less Lee Moore

The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh is the feature film debut of Rodrigo Gudiño, founder of Rue Morgue magazine. It hearkens back to the Gothic thrillers of the 1960s but it isn’t a period piece. It’s more of a slow burn than most slow burning films, but once it catches flame it becomes genuinely sinister.

(more…)

Movie Review: Berberian Sound Studio

By Less Lee Moore

Berberian Sound Studio is a wonderfully self-reflexive film. It is as much about the effects of cinema as it is about the special effects that go into creating it. These ideas converge in Gilderoy, a British sound engineer who moves to Italy in the 1970s to work on The Equestrian Vortex, a giallo concerning black magic rituals.

Gilderoy, imbued with fragile realism by Toby Jones, is a fish so far out of the water that he’s gasping for air on the first day of his employment, ostracized by language and cultural barriers that he’s too polite and timid to overcome. His discomfort is so palpable as to be excruciating. He’s also uncomfortable with the subject matter of the film, which involves drowning, stabbing, hair pulling, and hot pokers shoved inside of women. Director Peter Strickland never shows us the harrowing scenes that trouble Gilderoy’s psyche; we see their impact on his face and eventually his entire persona, as he becomes completely unraveled both physically and mentally.

(more…)

DVD Review: Kiss Of The Damned

By Less Lee Moore

If anything could be more thrilling and sexy than Kiss of the Damned, it would be the fact that this is writer and director Xan Cassevetes’s first film. The daughter of John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands, her pedigree is as assured as her talent.

Kiss of the Damned is the vampire movie that we’ve all been waiting for, engorged with atmosphere, sex, betrayal, and blood. It’s indebted to films like Daughters of Darkness, The Hunger, and the oeuvres of Jean Rollin and Jess Franco. Yet it feels fresh and invigorating and not like a retread at all.

(more…)

Music Review: The Garden, The Life And Times Of A Paperclip

By Less Lee Moore

My introduction to The Garden was the video for “I Am A Woman.” I was immediately taken with the band’s sound and the low budget, nonsensical video that featured one member wearing women’s clothes and makeup. Music that sounds like Killing Joke and The Minutemen? Guys in drag? Sign me up.

The Life And Times Of A Paperclip is the Burger Records debut of the duo known as The Garden, 19-year-old identical twins named Wyatt (vocals, bass) and Fletcher (drums, drag) Shears, who started making music a couple of years ago. Although the album has 16 tracks, it’s only 19 minutes long, but the songs are so good, you’ll be happy to listen to it on repeat for a couple of hours at a time.

(more…)

Blu-Ray Review: Trance

By Less Lee Moore

Trance is a very odd film. Director Danny Boyle has crafted a good career out of odd films, mostly because he refuses—admirably—to hew to one specific genre. Trance is particularly Boylean then, veering from genre to genre at a discombobulating pace.

(more…)