Lilya 4-Ever, The Quiet Family, Time, Gunhed, & Real Life

Lilya 4-Ever was not a depressing Russian film, no matter what I thought. It was, in fact, a depressing Swedish film, mostly in Estonian, about a teenage girl whose mom leaves her in Estonia to fend for herself when she goes to the US to marry some dude. And, of course, she starts having to do things for money (or candy!) to make ends meet. A younger boy falls in love with her and tries to get her to see that others are using her, but of course she doesn't listen and it just becomes this huge shame spiral that only ends when she kills herself. Just a very depressing film, made worse by the fact that it was based on a true story. People, we suck. Not this movie, though, it's just a horrible downer, but quite good otherwise.

The Quiet Family was remade a few years later. Normally, I would be all aghast, but Takashi Miike remade it into The Happiness of the Katakuris. This film was the original Korean film, and a much more subdued, although still with a wicked comedic streak, look a family who buys a remote hotel and whose guests all start dying. Although it isn't as crazy, it's an actual good film, ratcheting up the tension, and being just kooky enough to keep you guessing. I can certainly see why Miike was so tempted to remake it in his own image.

Time is another Kim Ki-Duk film, about a very messed up relationship. Are there any of his films that aren't about a crazy relationship? I can't think of any. Some better than others, but almost all are about obsessions and how they can destroy even possibly happy people. This movie is about a jealous girl who thinks her boyfriend is cheating on her, so she disappears for a long time and gets extensive plastic surgery to test his love for her. And then comes back and tries to get him to fall for her in some weird ass proof that he was going to cheat all along. And then he does the exact same thing. That's just cracked. Also, there's apparently a sculpture park on an island somewhere in South Korea with a nude reclining with a book over his face and his hand on his hard penis. No actual point, really, just saying.

Gunhed was utter crap. So bad that there needed to be around five minutes of introduction, and the movie still made no sense. There was both an opening crawl, along with an introductory narration. And then it devolves into badly dubbed crap, so bad that the director actually took his name off the American version of the film. I can't blame him. I can't imagine that any film was intentionally that bad. Why the hell was that in my Netflix queue? I honestly can't figure it out at all. It's a terrible live-action anime thing about a fighting giant robot. It was supposed to be a Godzilla movie, but Godzilla was taken out early on in the process. Why was that in my Netflix queue?

Real Life is Albert Brooks's satire of what reality TV does to both the people on the show as well as those filming it. Of course, it wasn't made in the last decade. Yep, it comes from 1979. Somehow, he saw that reality TV is a degrading and terrifying new view into the American psyche, as well as giving him some great lines (and a truly demented final scene). Enjoyable, although your own feelings on the "respectableness" of reality TV and the watchability of it may affect your enjoyment of this. I still haven't found one single reality TV show that isn't a horribly fake, clearly staged, and remarkably self-centered, so this satire was right in my wheelhouse. For those who can get past the "reality" of reality tv and actually watch the crap, it might not be what you want to see.

Caseus Archivelox: Forgotten Silver, The Devil's Backbone, & Cronos

2002-04-13 - 1:55 p.m.
It was Peter Jackson Film Day. First was one I hadn't seen before Forgotten Silver, it was a mockumentary about the first filmmaker to use sound film and color film, and tried to make a 4 hour long biblical epic with the help of the communists and some corrupt American producers. It was really funny. Next was Bad Taste, which I skipped about ten minutes in the middle of because it was somewhat boring seeing those ten minutes again. It was definitely a low budget film. Then I watched all of the Frighteners, because I hadn't seen it in a while. It was good. Sort of silly serial killer at the end, but most movies have that. Well, most movies that have serial killers in them have that. Coolest thing about the movie is that Dammers tries to drown out Lynskey's screaming with Sonic Youth's version of the Carpenter's classic "Superstar". Then I watched almost an hour of Dead Alive. I decided that I only wanted to watch the Kung Fu priest scene, and the entire zombie massacre at the end. If I need to watch them again, it's not like I really have a problem.

After that I went back to coordinate the 9:30 showing of The Devil's Backbone. The movie was a really really good ghost story. Very atmospheric and had some good scares, at least according to a girl in the audience who screamed a lot. The movie only had a couple jump scenes, most were shots where the camera panned, tilted, or tracked away from a character to the disturbing thing, fully anticipating a sort of scary shot. Not really screaming quality scares. But the movie was incredibly well made. I think that Blade 2 is probably a better film than Blade. I really want to see that. Especially because of the midnight film Cronos. That was a great reimagination of the vampire mythos. Too bad there weren't any lesbians in the movie. Guillermo Del Toro is a really talented director, and even Mimic (easily his worst film, no matter how bad Blade 2 may or may not be) shows flashes of brilliance.

Caseus Archivelox: Seven, Halloween, & This Gun for Hire

2002-04-11
When rewatching Seven in class, I was struck by how long and boring the movie is when you already know what is going to happen. The movie gives the audience no pleasure from rewatching it, and thus, I question how this movie has entered the pantheon as one of the greatest films of the 1990s. Although the directing and acting are spectacular, the writing is frustratingly preachy and there is too much depressing worldview to make me watch the movie over again. Another problem with the film is that there are too few tense scenes in the film. Because of the preachy-ness of the script, it became very clear very early on that John Doe would eventually win, and the only tension would occur would be which sin would be next. There are also no scares at all in the movie, and all (any?) of the suspense is released in the last scene, giving the audience no feeling after leaving the film besides being disturbed by some of the imagery, but no feelings that any of this could happen to them. Unless the audience is deeply religious, they would not be disturbed by the seeming threat of eternal damnation for their sins, and thus would have nothing to fear from the film as they would already by scared by reading the bible and some of the (in my opinion) more disturbing religious imagery only referenced in the movie. More disturbing to me than the movie is reading Dante’s Inferno while looking at Hieronymous Bosch artwork. Seven just borrows some disturbing imagery and adds a dark layer of grime to create an ultimately boring parable to catholic values.

Halloween on the other hand, has an incredible opening tracking shot, adequate to good acting (for a slasher film), and a genuinely tense atmosphere throughout, created partially by the great score, but also by the almost constant subjective camera angles that put the viewer into the film completely. Carpenter uses the urban legend of the boogeyman to great effect here, with Laurie and Tommy constantly discussing whether either of them saw a shape or whether it exists. After Laurie stabs Michael with the knitting needles, she says that she killed him, but Tommy correctly states that you can’t kill the boogeyman, and after Dr. Loomis shot him six times, he confirms that it was the boogeyman, also in a way confirming that he will rise again, along with the closing shots of where his body was when it fell out of the second story window, and the shots of where Michael had been previously.

The creation of the slasher genre can be shown in Psycho, Night of the Living Dead, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but few of those films caused the huge number of copycat films that Halloween did. The Fog, Prom Night, Terror Train, and Halloween 2 all followed within the next few years, and those are just the ones with Jamie Lee Curtis. The problem is that few (if any) of the films were created with the style that Halloween was. The later slasher series (Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street) borrowed heavily from Halloween’s sense of moral retribution for sex, the indestructibility of the killer, while adding the twist that the audience begins to root for the killer to win and remove the stupid teens from the earth. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was the film to start that, as Franklin is one of the most annoying characters in slasher history until that fat kid with the afro in Friday the 13th Part 3-D who gives the audience headaches until he is so kind as to give Jason the now trademark hockey mask. Thanks, I think.

2002-04-12 - 12:31 a.m.
I went to horror, which was boring, because we just watched Se7en. I don't remember it being as boring before, nor as preachy. Well directed, stylish, well acted. Wayyyyyy too preachy. Andrew Kevin Walker is not that good of a writer. 8mm anyone? Sleepy Hollow anyone?

Then I struggled through a meal at the Dillo before going to see This Gun for Hire. It was based upon a Graham Greene novel. For those who aren't familiar with him, he's an incredibly good writer of lots of things including spy novels and similar things, but also is just a great writer. If you don't like reading, watch The End of the Affair or The Third Man. The only problem with This Gun For Hire (and since I haven't read the book, I'm not sure whether it is Hollywood or Greene) was that I was able to figure out the ending from the first scene. Stupid Hays Code making it so obvious when a character kills someone, they have to be punished. Then again, the fact that it would have caused some weird sexual tension for him to have survived could have also lead to that.

Caseus Archivelox: Calendar & Ah! My Goddess

2002-04-10 - 1:24 a.m.
Then I went to go watch Calendar for Sexualities. Pretty good, if a little slow, look at how a videographer has problems associating himself with his wife who is falling in love with their guide through Armenia taking pictures of churches. He is more comfortable behind the camera, and it's sort of weird. At least it was short.

Then I went downstairs to watch Ah! My Goddess. When someone finds an anime movie that is not just internally consistent, but makes sense to anyone who hasn't read the manga or watched the show, please let me know because this one didn't. Why are there goddesses that can be summoned by misdialing for a pizza? The movie made no sense. Maybe next week's movie will make more sense. And maybe monkey's will fly out of my bum.

Caseus Archivelox: Novocaine & Little Shop of Horrors

2002-04-06 - 11:04 a.m.
Then at 9ish I went to Griffith to watch Novocaine. The movie was a pretty bland film noir, with the first half an hour or so bucking the trend of most movies by being boring. After Kevin Bacon showed up, it got better, even if it was really obvious what was going to happen at the end. It was just not that good.

I stuck around for the midnight showing of Little Shop of Horrors, which I hadn't seen in forever (and it wasn't even listed on my seen movie list), but remembered the musical version vividly which scared me greatly when I was about five or six or so (and saw in the theatre). The best part of the movie, besides Steve Martin as the semi-sadist dentist and Bill Murray as his masochistic patient, was that Tisha Campbell, aka Gina from Martin, was one of the chorus. Also for some added fun, your porn movie cannot be titled Little Shop of Whores, because that's already been taken. I wasn't going to stay, but [female friend] came by looking for [other female friend], and I stuck around to watch it again. I greatly preferred the musical ending to the movie ending. Just a little too convenient. It was neat seeing Christopher Guest as the first customer though. Even if I didn't realize it was him.

Caseus Archivelox: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

2002-04-04
It’s not every 85 minute long movie that can be said to be both the most influential slasher film of all time and one of the longest 85 minute long movies of all time. This movie of course is both influential and too long. There is too much time spent with the group of teens, as the audience begins to hate them and roots for them to be killed, as they are annoying, especially Franklin, who figures out a way to be the most annoying character in all slasher films that I have seen. Which is interesting, because in most films a guy in a wheelchair would gain the audiences sympathy, but in this one, the audience becomes quickly tired of his whining and complaining. Thus, the more shocking thing about his death is what it does to Sally who is one of the many shocked heroines that do not run away from the man with the chainsaw or knife or axe in so many later films.

Also, there are so many shots that are too long, as we do not need to see so many random canted shots of Sally’s face or the random bone structures around the house. Tobe Hooper has always been a somewhat messy director, not knowing how to make a tightly directed film that has no extraneous shots. Poltergeist is as close as he was to making a competent film, with more of that related to the influence of Steven Spielberg than Hooper’s own style. Few movies are as famous with as little plot or technical competence as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Caseus Archivelox: Psycho, Peeping Tom, Kids, & Jin-Roh

2002-04-02
Psycho is one of the best low budget horror films of all time. The main reason for it is that Alfred Hitchcock, a decidedly high budget director, decided to bring his talent to a low budget film. The black and white camerawork is impeccable, with the camera angles, especially during the police stop scene and, of course, the shower scene, being very well chosen.

Mothers play an important role, as Marion refuses to continue to see Sam until they are able to see each other in public and in front of the picture of her mother. The need to have societal acceptance of their relationship leads to the crime that introduces the more important mother to the story, Mrs. Bates. “Her” disapproval for the imagined relationship between Normal and Marion leads to her murder.

The famous shower scene gives the viewer the sexual thrill of watching her shower before giving us the visceral murder, and when we see Norman come into the bathroom with the knife raised high, we want to stop the murder. But as we cannot do anything about it, we are part of the reason for her death, and are implicated as a voyeur in the murder.

Peeping Tom on the other hand implicates the audience as the complicit voyeur of the murders even more. By filming the murders, we are able (except for Mark’s suicide) to watch the murders from the voyeur’s perspective, and then from the camera’s (and murderer’s) perspective. And the second murder scene goes on so long, and the audience knows exactly how it is going to end (with her death, and subsequent fall into the blue trunk that he has placed in the way of where she will die), that the audience begins to want Mark to kill her quickly and get the overbearing sense of dread to stop. Few movies at the time got the audience to identify so clearly with a serial killer.

Scopophilia is the inherent reason for people to go see movies, as they can spend a couple of hours to watch other people live (or in the case of horror films, die). In this way, it is sort of a mixture between Psycho and Rear Window, as it has the story revolving around the voyeurism of Rear Window with the depraved murder plot of Psycho. The interesting thing is that Psycho was beloved (even if it did scare many of its viewers), while Peeping Tom was reviled, and that is a direct result of the distance from movie-making that Psycho allows, as it has no characters morbidly discussing filming the deaths of the characters.

Another difference between the two movies is that Psycho is filmed in black and white, while Peeping Tom is filmed in bright colors. The black and white Psycho allows the audience to distance themselves from the plot because it is not in color like real life, and it contrasts with the obviously current Peeping Tom’s use of bright colors.

However, both movies use their murderer’s houses as symbols of their inner psyche, with the Bates house’s fruit cellar as the place where Norman hides his mother in an attempt to keep the others from finding her, while Mark uses the huge darkroom as the place where he works over his many inner demons from his childhood. These dark places are where the characters hide their dark secrets.

2002-04-03 - 12:24 a.m.
So I was late to Horror, and the lecture part of the class was shorter than normal, as we had to watch Peeping Tom, which was actually fairly good, if it did make me really uncomfortable to watch it. Mainly because the room was too f---ing cold. Why the f--- does the room need to be 55 degrees? That is completely f---ing unnecessary. The movie itself is a freaky movie about scopophilia and big phallic knives on camera tripods.

Then I came back to West to watch Kids. I ate a piece of matza for dinner before the movie. The movie itself (I had seen it six years ago) is really a bad movie. The acting is pretty bad for the most part (Chloë Sevigny is good, and that's about it for consistently good work), some actors look directly at the camera in crowd scenes, the handheld work is annoying, the characters are on the whole despicable, and it's a depressing look at teenagers. I would be remiss in not blasting Larry Clark for his voyeuristic zeal in filming teens in various states of undress as I had done for Brian De Palma. The only thing I can say about that is that Clark at least has some restraint, as some sex scenes are filmed with no nudity, but I can only assume that is mainly because the actresses were underage. The movie is complete trash. Except for the really good soundtrack by Lou Barlow and John Davis as Folk Implosion.

Then I tried to call some people from my game theory class to get them to explain the homework to me, but they couldn't get it at that point, so I just went to watch Jin-Roh. It was actually pretty good. Nice plotline (only occasionally confusing in a bad way) and well-animated.

Caseus Archivelox: Gosford Park & Lesbian Vampire Paper

2002-04-02 - 12:29 a.m.
I then went to see Gosford Park. I cannot tell you how much I recommend that movie. It's my third favorite film of last year. Behind only The Fellowship of the Ring and Amelie. Those who don't like Gosford Park do not like good movies. It's just that simple. The same can be said for the last two as well. Well, maybe not for FOTR, because those who don't like it hate movies that are literary adaptions of some of the greatest books of all time, that just happen to be an incredibly well made, casted, written, and everything else movie.

Altman is a sort of acquired taste, but the movie is so well constructed, even when it gets into its plot, that you cannot help but love it. Also, Bob Balaban is a god. Even if the movie is terrible, he is excellent.

So I then wrote my Lesbian Vampire paper for the next four hours or so. It turned out very well, as I got to use biting, cunnilingus and fellatio in the same sentence. I'm proud of myself. Here's the sentences I'm most proud of in this paper: Biting can be seen as a sexual act in and of itself, and the similarities to cunnilingus and fellatio are made even more explicit in later vampire films. The vampire's bites are occasionally even seen as kisses by both the viewer and the victim until it is too late for both: the viewer is sexually excited and the victim is dead, or, worse, undead. I almost used "the viewer is erect", but I realized that that would be a little much.

Tokyo Gore Police

Tokyo Gore Police stars the lead of Audition. That movie freaked me the hell out. Apparently I saw it before I started to write my blog, so you don't get my fancy thoughts at the time. But that movie was freaky as hell.

This one... Well, I wish I had watched it alone so I could justify trying to catalogue everything that was in the film, like I did with The Girls Rebel Force of Competitive Swimmers (although this blog comes close (and adds some more pics here). You could read this or this, but I'll try to give you some idea of the film. It starts with an exploding head. There's also many decapitations, delimbinations, and a depenistration during a blow job (result here). There's an alligator-like vagina dentata, a quadruple amputee gimp (who gets both swords and machine guns attached), a golden shower from a flower vagina chair creature, sewn up by teeth breasts (along with a snail girl and a penis nose), a guy who loses his legs and uses the resultant sprays of blood to fly around, a rocket jump done outside of a video game, a broken glass bottle used to cut some dude's face off (result here), a serial killer whose methodology is to stick hollow metal poles through a woman to drain out the blood and then cutting her up to stick in a box (a box in a box, as long as the box was actually in the box...), a missed phone call because of a vibrator, a woman quartered by cars, the doctor has a gatling gun that shoots severed arms, and more. Oh, and I certainly can't forget the fact that the impetus of the film is that there is a very bad guy who turns people he meets into "engineers" who are able to grow weapons from wounds on their bodies. Like the alligator vagina dentata, a penis gun from the depenistrated guy, the woman who was shot in the chest and grew acid-dispensing nipple spouts, the chainsaw wielding maniac who gets his arm shot off and then grows a new arm with a chainsaw attached (end result is this), the main bad guy who rips the top of his head off and grows brain guns (and explains his backstory with a puppet show), and the lead who eventually grows an infrared eye and an alligator-like arm. But the best thing about it are the commercials interspersed (that recall the social satire of Starship Troopers) for designer wrist-cutters and anti-harakiri PSAs.

The movie is completely ridiculous, the pacing is off, but man, there are few things more enjoyable than a film that crossed the line into ridiculous within a minute of starting and just gets weirder and weirder. Some more pics are here of the all that stuff and more, along with clips. I'm not sure, but I think that site will either make you extremely jealous or extremely squikked. Also, um, all of those links are not safe for work, in case you were wondering for some reason.

OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies, King Lear, Be Kind Rewind, Spider-Man 3, & Hostel: Part II

OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies is a French spy spoof, done very straight up, but with many ridiculous touches, like the main spy is completely oblivious. I'm not sure exactly why I thought that I would like it, as it's a very goofy film, but never as funny as it probably should be.

King Lear was the theatre production shown on PBS, and so little Ian was edited out, which was a little disappointing. Otherwise, the cast was amazing, it's my favorite Shakespeare play, and it was overall a fun time. As fun a time as King Lear could possibly be. Thanks, PBS for at least broadcasting almost all of it.

Be Kind Rewind was a little bit of a good movie in a whole bunch of silliness. Gondry can't just slide on his visual talent, which is most evident in the insanely awesome Swede-ing of the movies. Other than that, though, there are some nice visual jokes, but most of it is just silly. Mos Def is the best thing in the film, and Jack Black just got on my nerves.

Spider-Man 3 is stupid. The dancing Parker? No. No to basically everything in this film. I like the idea of Venom, but the Sandman was worthless, the second Green Goblin was worse, and I am a masochistic idiot for watching this. I couldn't turn away.

Hostel: Part II is just ugh. The first one was fun. This one goes too far. Did I need to see this? No, but this just follows in my mini-fest of "stupid sequels that are actually crap and not worth the time it takes to watch them". Hostel didn't go too far, but this one is utterly ridiculous. Although I appreciate the scene of the cat eating the neck of a body, the killing of Lorna in Bathory-esque fashion was gratuitous. The point is not to get to that point. But it never gets scary or anything other than unnecessary (yes, even the decapitated Eli Roth was little more than a giggle for me).

Doctor Who, Torchwood, 28 Weeks Later, La Chinoise, Dead Like Me: Life after Death, You Kill Me, & From Hell

So back in February, I started to watch all of Doctor Who (the new series), along with Torchwood. And, finally, in early April I finished. There were some delays (I watched the excellent State of Play and Let the Right One In from Netflix to break up the slightly cheeky (in the case of Doctor Who) and entirely cheeky (in the case of Torchwood) Britishness). But basically, I'm here to tell you that Doctor Who was actually fairly enjoyable, especially once Billie Piper left the show (somehow not for good... damnit), while Torchwood was not as good. I didn't watch them in broadcast order, so I already knew some plot twists at the end of the two seasons of Torchwood (sigh...), but I'm not sure even watching them slightly unspoiled would have made me enjoy it more. It just felt like it was trying far too hard to be "adult". Doctor Who was light and fluffy, slipped in funny references (the Shakespeare episode blows away Shakespeare in Love for pure nerdity), and was frequently quite good. Certainly there was some unnecessary returns (why keep bringing back the Daleks after you keep destroying them for the last time? along with each return of Billie Piper), but I enjoyed the show quite a bit, and have added it (along with Torchwood) to my DVR in the hopes that they will broadcast the next seasons at some point this year (in the US, I'm aware that the first Doctor Who special has already aired in the UK).

28 Weeks Later would have been better as a stand alone zombie movie. But comparing it to 28 Days Later just was ugh. The anti-militarism and nihilistic ending was just basically Return of the Living Dead 3 over again. Also, why, exactly was the mother left alone in the hospital complex with no one watching her at all? Seriously, U.S. Military? You aren't that stupid. Stringer Bell would never do anything that stupid. And the genetic immunity made no sense at all. Just a mess of a film that was more successful than it deserved. Danny Boyle would have rocked it. Hard.

La Chinoise is Godard at his most Godardian. I probably could have made more sense of it if I knew French, as some of the intertitles and graffiti were not subtitled. I feel like it suffers from being a little too radicalized, although there are touches of playfulness that made his earlier films so great, but the preachiness that ruined Godard is in full effect.

Dead Like Me: Life after Death sucked. Pure and simple. Especially with my complaints about the show not finishing the first time, to have it extended in this fashion, with a new Daisy and Mandy Patinkin not back (replaced with Desmond from Lost, but in a horrendously bad subplot), is actually worse than not bringing it back. So yeah, I complained about not seeing an ending back in 2007, but I still kinda wish it didn't have an ending. Or that they had splurged and brought back Laura Harris (who, even though Canadian, did a much better Southern accent than the Australian Sarah Wynter, who didn't even bother with the accent) and Mandy Patinkin and thought for a second about whether it would help to bring it back. Because we just got another character disappearing without much of a goodbye and a movie that at under 90 minutes long still felt like it was channeling the extended edition of Return of the King when it came to endings. Avoid unless you're a masochistic Dead Like Me fan.

You Kill Me is... why the hell did I add this to my Netflix queue?

From Hell is something I knew why I added it, although I definitely have added and removed it at least once before. It certainly isn't a particularly good movie, and I'm not going to go into the historical inaccuracies. Maybe I should try reading it again. About the only thing notable about From Hell is that Alan Moore hadn't yet gotten pissed enough with Hollywood to take his name off the film. I'm pretty sure that he didn't have a better impression of Hollywood after this. Eeesh. His feelings are well deserved.

Crooked Fingers & Neko Case at 9:30 Club 4/8

Again, the 9:30 Club conspires to mess with me about seeing the first or second nights of shows by announcing a second night after I've purchased tickets to the first night. Damn them. Neko sells out here in DC (mainly for putting on an amazing show, just like she did in 2007), so just acknowledge that there will be two shows and plan accordingly. This would have bothered me a lot more, had Crooked Fingers not been scheduled to play a show at Iota the next night, so they were only going to open for Neko on Wednesday, not Thursday (although man, bringing in Will Sheff to open instead is not a bad thing...). I got to see them, so I didn't care, but had I really wanted to see them, bought tickets to the second night, and found out they weren't playing, I would have been pissed.

Anyway, based on that review from two years ago, I was expecting a great show, and I got it. Crooked Fingers could play songs I don't really like as long as they play New Drink for the Old Drunk, and I will stupidly sing along at the top of my voice and love the show. I may not be a fair observer, but that is really all I need to love seeing Crooked Fingers. They haven't disappointed me yet.

Neko, on the other hand, just has to sing. That voice is so outstanding that the fact that the songs are quite good is just an added bonus. This time, she had a huge screen behind her band, with an owl overlooking the stage, and projected various images and videos behind it, including the video for People Got a Lotta Nerve.

One of the highlights of a Neko Case show is the banter, and it was again funny. But boo to her for going to both, and boo to Becca for the same. Kelly Hogan makes any concert more enjoyable, as she can talk while Neko spends time (an inordinate amount of time, not long periods, just almost between every song) switching guitars.

Also, Arne Duncan was kind of goofy. I mean, I appreciate the desire to reach out to those who might not listen to other arguments, but having the Secretary of Education request that people at a Neko Case show consider working in Education is a little weird. It's not like Neko is not political (far from it), but it's that her causes are much more geared towards animals. But if Neko gave it her blessing, I guess that's ok, even if I find it a strange.

With any complaints you may think I had about the show, you are missing my high praise. I will definitely go see both bands the next time they come through DC, especially if they continue this awesome trend of coming through together.

Setlists:

Crooked Fingers

Broken Man
Bad Man Coming (something like this version, but imagine the drums even more insistent and awesome)
You Can Never Leave
Let's Not Pretend To Be New Men
Luisa's Bones
Phony Revolutions
Your Control (for some reason, not with Neko, who performs on the album track)
Angelina
New Drink for the Old Drunk
So Long Savannah

Neko Case

Maybe Sparrow
People Got a Lotta Nerve
Fever
Hold on, Hold On
The Pharaohs
Middle Cyclone
Deep Red Bells
I Wish I Was the Moon
I'm an Animal
Prison Girls
The Tigers Have Spoken
Margaret vs. Pauline
Red Tide
Don't Forget Me
That Teenage Feeling
This Tornado Loves You
-------------
Vengeance Is Sleeping
Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth
Knock Loud

National Arboretum

It's not really a museum, per se, but it does have a museum on grounds (the awesome National Bonsai and Penjing Museum), so I'm going to review it anyway. Especially the Bonsai museum, which had stuff like this. It also had a Moon Gate where a couple were having their picture taken (one of many Asian couples there, along with just about everyone besides my family and Ms. Albright at The Dancing Crab later that night, which was the most Asians I've ever seen (percentage wise) at a non-Asian restaurant). Anyway, I really liked the ones that had little model people in them, and the ones that looked like the top of hills. Unfortunately, the Tropical section was closed. After that, we headed to the National Capital Columns (kind of incongruously placed on top of a hill, and there was a very pregnant woman taking pregnancy pictures in black short shorts and a halter top, which provided something extremely disturbing to look at), then drove around the Azaleas section (which wasn't blooming yet), past the closed for renovation fern valley, and headed to the Magnolia and Holly area. It was absolutely gorgeous, and Ms. Albright had to restrain herself from running from one Magnolia to the next and smelling the all the flowers. I tried to restrain myself from climbing a Magnolia that was perfect for climbing (and failed to stop, but I did only go a little way up it). The last thing we saw was the Asian Collection, which had a pagoda and some Chinese Redbud, which are not worth going off the path to smell, no matter what you may think they smell like. So basically, I really enjoyed my day, although I got a little sunburned (not as bad as last Memorial Day), but would definitely do again, in a few weeks when the azaleas and some other flowers are out.

Asobi Seksu at Rock 'n' Roll Hotel 3/28

Honestly, I don't have a lot to say about this concert. Hush isn't nearly as good an album as Citrus, which I consider to be almost as good as My Bloody Valentine's albums, but I still like all three of their albums. But I just couldn't get into the show all that much. And a set list would be utterly worthless. This guy has a lot to say about the concert (I did not notice Yuki taking her jacket off, but I am pretty sure I would not have needed to "change my shorts", at least partially because I was wearing jeans), although I disagree on the merits of Tyvek.

To give you an idea of the Tyvek lead singer see this. Also, imagine a huge douchebag who talks loudly in the back of the crowd during the headliner. So loud that you can hear him even with the wall of noise that is Asobi Seksu. So loud that you can hear him and he bothers you when you are wearing ear plugs because Asobi Seksu is so loud. Seriously, Asobi Seksu was the loudest concert I have ever been at, and I specifically remembered to bring my ear plugs because I knew they would be loud.

I did end up eating at Granville Morris with Ms. Albright ahead of the concert, which was very good, if the curry mayo was disappointing, as was the two-hour wait. So long to wait for mussels and frites (although I did get to watch the first half of the Pitt-Nova game). Food was better than Bistro Du Coin though.