Sansho the Bailiff Recounts The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai

Sansho the Bailiff was a depressing film about a good governor exiled for not being evil to his subjects, and his wife and their two kids are separated from Sansho and sold into slavery. I just got so sad because the film is pretty unrelentingly miserable, and pretty much any time it could possibly be not miserable, they just toss in some other terrible thing. Not as good as Ugetsu, another Kenji Mizoguchi I enjoyed.

Recount was written by Danny (Jonathan from Buffy and Doyle from Gilmore Girls) Strong. If that wasn't enough to make me want to watch it, it's about the Florida Recount. Of course, the major problem with it was the liberties it took with history. Which I heard about in detail from someone who was there. And did some of the things attributed to others in the film. That person also tried to watch it, but was understandably upset by both the changes and by the reminder of history. If you, for some reason, weren't also traumatized by the 2000 election, you could do worse than watching this film. If only for Laura Dern as Katherine Harris. So damn frustrating. I definitely get more and more disgusted with pretty much everyone involved in that the more I read. Maybe I should stop reading. I do want to say that Sydney Pollack's death is a damn shame. I'm a huge fan of his, and I can't help wondering what he would have done with Recount had he been healthy enough to direct it. This does actually make one (1) thing that Jay Roach has done that isn't responsible for the demise of America, though, so good for him. This just is about the demise of America, not responsible for it.

The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai has, in my opinion, one of the best trailers ever: it's the director calling up the office of the prime minister of Japan and trying to get the secretary who answers to agree to show the film to Koizumi for a comment. And the film is a softcore Japanese film about a prostitute who gets shot in the head, develops genius-level intelligence, has her sense of taste delayed by a long time, gets the severed finger of a cloned George W. Bush, and has to avert a nuclear attack. It references Noam Chomsky (misspelled as Chomski every time), features copious cumshots, a horribly fake floating George W. Bush finger that has sex with her, stock footage of Bush giving his Mission Accomplished speech with ridiculous dubbing, and very basic liberal political points. It's totally awesome. Plus, I think that most of the "smart" things she says actually make some sense.

Heavy Metal Parking Lot, The Story of 1, Green for Danger, Samurai Spy, & A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints

Heavy Metal Parking Lot is a short 17 minute documentary that's about how much Judas Priest sucks. Seriously, they suck, and their fans in Landover, Maryland and who went to see them in 1986, are evil. A bunch of drunks, drug users, and underage girls wearing terrible fashions and not afraid to be proud of all of it. I sort of wish that these people would have done enough drinking and drug-using so that we didn't have them around anymore. People do stupid things as kids. Once you hit your 20s, though, your excuses start to sound as ridiculous as Judas Priest.

The Story of 1 is an hour long documentary about the number 1. It was strange. Terry Jones, from Monty Python, is the host, and there are some very stupid jokes, and silly things all throughout, but the thing is that it is interesting. Maybe I'm just a nerd (well, ok, I am), but I love that this important part of history has the documentary to explain it to people who have no interest in reading boring nonfiction.

Green for Danger is a British film about a murder at a hospital during a V-1 attack during WWII. Kept me guessing until the end, and I was convinced the murderer was someone other than who it was. I also was a big fan of Alastair Sim as Inspector Cockrill, who is just about perfect as the annoying, whimsical officer. It may be a slight film, but it has enough pleasures to make it worth watching for those who enjoy English films and mysteries. That's me.

Samurai Spy is the last of the four Rebel Samurai films from Criterion (Sword of the Beast, Samurai Rebellion, and Kill!). This is about as good as Sword of the Beast and Kill!, but not nearly as good as Samurai Rebellion. I wasn't entirely familiar with the history of Japan at the time, but I seem to be learning a bit. I just didn't like enough of the film. The soundtrack, occasional fight scenes, and cinematography are great, but the twisty plot doesn't always make sense.

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints got New York Groove by KISS stuck in my head. I will never forgive the film for that. But it also has Robert Downey Jr and Rosario Dawson, two of my favorite actors currently working. Add in Chazz Palminteri and Dianne Wiest and there's a lot of talent there. The story was interesting, but some of the decisions by Dito Montiel in scenes like the ride to Coney Island just got on my nerves and the film never quite was what I was hoping for.

The Long Blondes at Rock 'n' Roll Hotel 5/17 & Bishop Allen at Black Cat 5/18

Figured I should actually write these up.

Shorter The Long Blondes: second album not nearly as boring as I was led to believe from the actual album, but I won't be seeing them again unless they put out another album that is more like the first one, which is awesome. Setlist fairly similar to, if not exactly, this. Every time they'd play one from the first album, the crowd would go wild. Second album songs were much less raucously cheered for.

Rock 'n' Roll Hotel wasn't too bad of a place, smaller than I was expecting, but the location was terrible. The stage had a lot of speakers blocking parts of the stage even from those not too far back and in the middle, so what the hell? I'm going to have to really want to see a band if I go back.

Shorter Bishop Allen: they didn't play long enough. How can any headlining band play only 45 minutes plus a 5 minute encore? So frickin' awesome while playing though. I took a pic of the setlist, but it was all red, and somewhat hard for me to read.

Empire City
The Monitor
Like Castanets
The Light of the Lost
Quarter to Three
Middle Management
Rain
Choose Again
The News from Your Bed
Click Click Click Click
Busted Heart
Flight 180
The Same Fire
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Butterfly Nets
EDIT (Thanks, The Maestro): Things are What You Make of Them
Also, how the hell did they not play Corazon?

Also, I failed in being able to purchase both Bishop Allen albums, because no one was there when I was there at the beginning. $10 for the albums was much cheaper than what I could get online. I wanted the actual CDs. I was over there during The War on Drugs, which had one song that was this pounding drumming, and was ok, until the vocals just started to get to me.

I was in the second row during Bishop Allen, a place I hadn't been at a concert since I was in the front row for Superchunk in 2001. Not a particularly big fan of being that close unless I really want to see the band. I also wanted to mention that Justin Rice had very tight jeans, did weird dances throughout, Christian Rudder rocked the Rockelele, and Darby was delightful.

Infamous, The U.S. vs. John Lennon, Samaritan Girl, Free Zone, Casino Royale, & Curse of the Golden Flower

Infamous is the second Truman Capote writing In Cold Blood movie that came out in the 2005-2006 time frame. And I have to say that Capote actually isn't as good as Infamous. Well, I still like Phillip Seymour Hoffman as Capote and Catherine Keener as Harper Lee, but Lee Pace and Daniel Craig, along with Sigourney Weaver and Jeff Daniels are considerably better. Toby Jones and Sandra Bullock (yes, her) are not bad at all, so overall the acting is somewhat better. Plots exactly the same, although a little more explicit in Capote falling for Perry Smith, so there really isn't much to compare besides acting. Everything else seems to be pretty similar, so uh... both are good, but not great?

The U.S. vs. John Lennon really wasn't anything particularly interesting unless you're a Beatles fan. As I am one, I spent the entire running time ironing and singing along. Because I'm apparently domesticated now? Maybe. And I'll always be a Beatles nerd. As a Beatles fan, I enjoyed it, and it made me sort of like Yoko a little bit more. It wasn't Yoko's fault that the Beatles broke up, it's the Beatles's fault. Also, Richard Nixon.

Samaritan Girl is a film from Kim Ki-Duk that really makes me question what the hell is up with him. He's a messed up guy. Also, are there really that many high school girl prostitutes? This isn't the only film about this, but I never hear about teens selling themselves in the media. I mean, having sex for money. Sad frakkin' film, with two girls making money for a trip to Europe together by one of them being a prostitute and the other being the pimp (can a pimp be female?), until the prostitute dies and then the alive one starts to sleep with the same johns and gives them their money back. But the dad finds out. And miserableness ensues.

Free Zone starts with a long scene of Natalie Portman crying in a taxi. And then becomes a journey into Jordan for $30,000. It's directed by Amos Gitai, who did one of the better sections of 11'09"01, but also did the supremely boring Kippur. This one unfortunately was far more like Kippur. Only for Portman completists. Unless you like your women Israeli. Which she sort of is, so ummm... she's hot? Just rewatch Closer. Not Beautiful Girls, Leon, or Heat, because those're just icky now. Even if at the time, she was my age. Creepy now.

Casino Royale was considerably darker than I was expecting for a Bond film, although I don't see how Bond would fall so much harder for Vesper Lynd than a lot of other Bond Girls. I know this was a "restart" of the Bond story, but she wasn't all that. I mean, I've seen her naked. The movie also was about 20 minutes too long. I didn't care for the entire ending section of the film. Certainly far better than most post-60s Bonds, as I vastly prefer the non-ridiculous ones. Well, the non-ridiculous are generally better than the ridiculous ones (seriously, Moonraker can suck it), even if On Her Majesty's Secret Service and You Only Live Twice are my two favorite Bonds. Certainly better than the Brosnan or Dalton Bonds, maybe better than The Spy Who Loves Me, but only better than Dr. No, Thunderball, and Diamonds Are Forever of the Connerys. It's also a metric frakton better than the earlier Casino Royale. And I wanted to point out that Daniel Craig's eyes are ridiculously blue.

Curse of the Golden Flower is all pretty and no good. Also, every battle scene is narrated by every single person in it. Whenever they throw spears, "Throw", or to catch someone "Catch". What the hell? Are you treating everyone in the audience like they're 4, Zhang Yimou? What the hell happened to you? You make amazing films for most of your career, and then you start to stagnate by making enormous costume epics, and man is this one all costume and no epic. And what's up with the female costumes? I never imagined there could be as much cleavage in China now as there was in this film. Every female had an outfit that looked like it seriously constricted blood flow to the breasts for more impressive cleavage. But man, that was just distracting. And once you got past that, you realized that it was just a stupid plot. Full of incest for those of you who like that sort of thing.

Radiohead at Nissan Pavilion 5/11

So through all of my years of being a Radiohead fan, somehow I had never seen them live, so this was one to cross off my list of bands to see (and one of the few $50+ shows to which I'm willing to go). My brother has seen them a couple times, and I have wanted it to happen, but somehow they never played Cincinnati or Durham or DC when I was capable of going or getting tickets. Now that that's out of the way, I can hope that my next Radiohead-concert-going experience is a little different from this one. And that monsoon season in DC needs to be scheduled during a time when I'm not going to see an outdoor concert.

Also, I just wanted to say that Radiohead had little at all to do with anything bad during the concert. Except for a longer delay than I would have wanted before playing (due to the setting up of the LED lighting). Setlist (and I have this in bootleg form!):

All I Need
Jigsaw Falling Into Place
Lucky
15 Step
Nude
Pyramid Song
Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
Myxomatosis
Idioteque
Faust Arp
Videotape
Paranoid Android
Just
Reckoner
Everything In Its Right Place
Bangers + Mash
Body Snatchers
---------------------
Like Spinning Plates
Optimistic
Karma Police
Go Slowly
Planet Telex
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Fake Plastic Trees (not planned, based on the setlist, but dedicated to those on the lawn (that's me!))
National Anthem
House of Cards

I was a little late walking out of my house to meet up with the 9 others going (I could list them all, but MBG has already written this up, so I'll keep some of it briefer than otherwise). But I saw Sherpa Herpes driving down my street, park directly in front of my place and then run off. I was intrigued and decided not to continue on to the Castle, and instead, call him and then wait for him to return. It was raining, but not that hard by that point. I had remembered to bring my umbrella and "waterproof" jacket, along with putting my garbage can on my bathroom sink (it started to leak again, but not as badly as before). Everyone else was getting ponchos and rain boots and the like. I ended up riding in the back of MBG's car from Target to the Castle and that wasn't an entirely fun trip. I used to like riding in the backs of cars, but then again, riding in the back of a Suburban is what gave me my blog handle, so it isn't my favorite thing to do anymore, nor do I eat Handi-Snacks. I switched my shoes for a pair of Flux's waterproof boots that were too big. Unfortunately, I don't own a pair of long underwear and didn't wear any of my thick and long socks. And I had a hot dog bun for dinner (after a large and delicious brunch with sorbet), which was nice, as I wasn't going to eat anything more for a while, and I wasn't near the garbage can, so I just put the bun bag in my pocket. This will come into play later.

We all ended up having to go in an SUV and a non-SUV, which isn't that bad, but will come into play later as well. We left around 5:30ish, and drove in the pouring rain for the next two hours to Nissan. And then came upon this. Not actually stopped, but not too far off. Luckily we just made it before they closed off the road we came in on. We eventually got to the far parking lot (Mountain Dew F-3, I believe), and started to soggily make our soggy way to the soggy venue itself. Which isn't that bad, sort of reminds me of Riverbend in Cincinnati, although larger and in the middle of nowhere. Anyway, there were enormous rivers running through the parking lot and near the gates. We went off to the side and started the trudge up the stairs. And then the walk through the mud to a place on the lawn that seemed ok. The Liars were on then, and I couldn't tell if I hated them because I was miserable or because they sucked. Probably a combination of both, but I wasn't impressed with them at all. And they were off some time after 8. Times will be approximate for most of this, as my phone was ensconced in the plastic bun bag, because that was the only way it wouldn't have been completely waterlogged and probably non-functioning. Somewhere in between sets, a very drunk group of people start screaming for people to move, and stand clear. After a few minutes of this, one of them does a belly flop slide down the hill, luckily taking out no one, and he seemed to enjoy himself. But there is no way I would have done the same thing. So much mud getting in so many places...

Radiohead started setting up their Awesome LED Light Show. The long strings of LEDs were all in rows (much clearer when you're there), and would light up with the songs, and could display images. Behind that was a large LED screen that would show each member of the band in all their monochromatic glory. The light show was itself extremely cool.

Radiohead started to play around 9ish, and I can't complain about anything they did. Great setlist (especially with the added Fake Plastic Trees, although to make up for the rain, we could have used a little Electioneering...), with a fine mix of newer and older stuff. And Thom was clearly very apologetic about the rain and how miserable everyone on the lawn was (and Colin posted this). By Weird Fishes/Arpeggi, I was pretty uncontrollably shaking and there were puddles of water in my boots. I was regretting my decision to come. But I was determined to stick around, because I knew that the encores would be awesome.

And they were. Oh man, I regret nothing about the concert. For the chance to see Fake Plastic Trees live, singing along in a monsoon, and attempting to move while freezing and wet, well, there are few experiences in my life that will be as unique. Sure, I was concerned about my ability to move after the show, and I was concerned that I might lose a toe, but those were pretty minor compared to seeing one of the best bands of my lifetime play a show. For those of us who made it all the way through, yay. To those of us who didn't, well, I hope you enjoyed the dry car.

After House of Cards, a song that gets better every time I hear it, they finally finished. It was sometime just after 11, and we started trudging up the hill, and spent another 20 minutes or so getting from there to the cars. When we got there, we started to take off as many wet things as possible, but only one of us had extra clothes. So I spent a while trying to take off my boots in the small backseat, and then had people empty the boots and I squeezed my socks out onto the pavement. Then we sat, me with my wet bare feet and soaked through clothes, and everyone else just soaked. And sat. And sat. After an hour, Vermonstrous noted that we hadn't moved in an hour. Tomahawk Chop went off to the bathroom and came back, confirming something we'd heard earlier: all but one road had been washed out and it would be a while (apparently, many people were turned away from the venue entirely, which completely sucks). After almost an hour and a half, there was some movement in the parking lot ahead of us, but we still didn't move for about a half an hour. It only took about ten minutes to get out of the lot once we started to move, but that two hours to move thing was rough.

And there was still a 70ish minute drive, slightly longer due to us taking the first exit to Lee Highway off 66 rather than the second, so I didn't get back to my place until 2:45, and I was soaking wet, and I couldn't put shoes back on, so I ran back to my place from the street in the rain, freezing. I piled my wet clothes on the floor in my bathroom and went to sleep sometime around 3. Woke up with my alarm at 7 and then promptly went to bed for another hour, making me late to work, and cranky. Well, crankier than normal.

I usually use a few different status messages for my gchat, and the one I had switched back to last week was "Rain also falls in an Earthward direction." Somehow I can't find the original quote anywhere, but it was about something being very obvious. After the concert, I have to say, that isn't true. It was raining sideways. And the crowd was cheering every mention of rain in the lyrics.

Random things: Thecar (that's his new blog name, until someone comes up with something better) was on the phone with the other car after the concert, and asked them if they had any wasabi peas. I just heard that, didn't realize he was on the phone, and asked if he was talking to me. After he got off the phone, I told him I had some wasabi peas in my bag, because I didn't really eat beforehand, and wanted to make sure I had some way of getting some food later. Apparently, he really really wanted wasabi peas, and as I will buy them whenever I see them in a store, I had a bag of what he wanted. He then said, "Let me try this again, do you have any matzoh ball soup in your bag?" If only. Hot soup would have been perfect to warm me up.

Wounds of concert: I have a cut on my hand from my umbrella, which was so wet it was dripping through for most of the concert, and two big red marks on the back of my Achilles tendons where the wet boot rubbed my skin for a few hours. And I've been limping slightly for the last couple of days because of it. The only thing that wasn't soaked when I got home was my phone. It was only slightly wet. I had to toss a bunch of business cards and hold all my money and wallet up to a space heater to dry them out. And even with all that, Radiohead was worth it.

The Rosebuds & British Sea Power at Black Cat 5/8

Food before show: delicious turkey burgers (really some of the best I've ever had) with chipotles, jalapeños, and onions (and probably other things) with pepper jack cheese, spinach and mustard. Great way to have dinner.

Made it to the Black Cat in time to see the beginning of a song about the Chinese Communist Revolution performed by Jeffrey Lewis. Who is an anti-folker, not Jenny Lewis in drag. Which would have been awesome instead of terrible. I stood there for a second, thought: this is terrible, and then went straight to the merch table where I purchased the Rosebuds' 2008 Tour EP. Mine had a plastic flower attached. Then I stood for a bit longer watching this interminable "song" go, and then found my friends.

I moved up for the Rosebuds, as they were the band I was there to see. And they were awesome. I didn't remember seeing that Matt McCaughan was drumming for the Rosebuds this tour, but I fully approve. He was great drumming for Portastatic, and it goes to show that the McCaughan family is talented. Playing a wide mix of stuff from their three albums save for one thing: they didn't play one single bad song. Closest they came was When the Lights Went Dim, which I would have replaced with I Better Run from Night of the Furies. Or maybe I would have had them play I'd Feel Better or Shake Our Tree, but that would have been far too much awesome for one show. Especially when it's an opener. They basically played my two or three favorite songs from each of the three albums, which is the sure sign that the setlist was fantastic:

Cemetery Lawn
Hold Hands and Fight
Bluebird
Back to Boston
Kicks in the Schoolyard
Drunkard's Worst Nightmare
Leaves Do Fall
When the Lights Went Dim
Boxcar
Get up Get Out

My only embarrassment was my ability to sing along to each song, and yet I still had problems remembering Drunkard's Worst Nightmare's title. Mainly because I forgot how long of an intro there was on the album version when I was skipping through the tracks on my iPod between sets.

After a while, and a long time of setting up plants on the stage, British Sea Power came out, and put on an amazing hour long set. Unfortunately they played for about 80 minutes, which sucked. The last twenty minutes or so was them playing feedback and attacking each other with the plant branches and getting on each other's shoulders and just messing around. By the end a large portion of the crowd left. Because it was not remotely what anyone wanted to see. Well, most of the people. Short of that last 10-15-20 minutes or whatever it was, the show was lots of fun, they played all the songs I could recognize, and basically really impressed me. Although Do You Like Rock Music? is what really made me impressed. The first two albums were sort of bland indie rocky stuff, not bad, but nothing to make me take much notice. Fixed that with the quite fun new album.

Interesting thing I noticed: Hamilton and Yan traded off vocal duties along with the bass for most of the set, with whoever was bassist not being the vocalist. This apparently changed immediately after I went back to sit down because my feet hurt. Also, Yan sort of looks like William Sanderson in Blade Runner (which I just saw the final cut of on Blu-Ray and recommend to anyone who hadn't seen it or hasn't seen the director's cut), while Hamilton looks like a mix between Mike Dunleavy, Jr. and Rocco Siffredi. Yes, that's what I was thinking about for most of the set. Sadly, once my mind decides upon something, it would take far longer than even BSP's last song for it to change.

Also, I wanted to boo BSP for not having enough copies of the most recent album at the merch table. I had to purchase from Amazon rather than you guys. Alternately, I should have just purchased it when I got the Rosebuds EP. But I talked to Kelly Crisp for a bit, told her how much the set rocked, and was again surprised by her Southern accent. Which doesn't come across in their songs much, but it really does when they are interviewed. She's an extremely nice person, but I find that most of the musicians I've met at merch tables and after shows have been very nice people. I guess if you're a dick you don't go out and have the possibility of meeting a fan.

Atonement, The Times of Harvey Milk, La Haine, & The Threepenny Opera

Atonement is the last of the Oscar Nominated films (No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Juno, and Michael Clayton). And it's easily the worst. The other four are all very good to great films, and this is a film that wouldn't be out of place on a mediocre Masterpiece Theater episode. I have this feeling that the main reason it was nominated was the English accents and the (admittedly very impressive, yet distracting in its flashiness) scene of devastation at Dunkirk.

The Times of Harvey Milk is another of those annoying liberal documentaries about some do-gooder who is unfairly destroyed by an uncaring society. In this case, it's about Harvey Milk, the first openly gay San Francisco councilor, who was shot, along with the mayor, by a former councilor who clearly didn't agree with his lifestyle. It was made by PBS in the mid-80s, and certainly looks like an 80s PBS production. It's just a very frustrating film, not being as informative as I would have liked, but also the story itself with the fact that far too many people are still like Dan White.

La Haine makes me sort of want an Elvis shot JFK t-shirt. I guess I could make one myself, but it's so much easier to buy it. And I'm not a fan of the changing of Asterix and Obelix to Snoopy and Charlie Brown. Maybe no one else in America knows who Asterix and Obelix are (I have read almost all of them), but I'd prefer that the subtitles are what was actually said in the film. Also, the film felt like a talented student film, shot in striking black and white, but with very little actual plot there. Of course, that's sort of the point, as it's about three French youths, one Jewish, one Arab, and one African, who find a gun and try to figure out what to do with it. There's a lot of rage against the police, as they put one of their friends in the hospital during a riot.

The Threepenny Opera is the most cynical musical ever. And it's probably the only time I can imagine a tacked on happy ending fitting completely with the rest of the film without it being a total cop out. The most famous song in it was somewhat rewritten in the mid-50s and then recorded by Bobby Darin in 1959, Mack the Knife. I wasn't familiar with any of the other tracks, and it actually took me a little longer than it should have for that one. But it's a dark Romeo and Juliet tale of the love between the king of pickpockets and the daughter of the king of panhandlers. But with an added bonus of a smooth criminal lead, no whiny young teens, and music rather than iambic pentameter. Very enjoyable.

Dune Megapost

Back in the early 90s probably, I first saw Dune. I remember liking it, although the severed head on a plate, along with Paul riding a worm and the shield effects were about all I recall from it. I caught bits and pieces of it again over the next decade or so, becoming less and less impressed. But moving to DC along with talking with The Maestro and Tweaks lead to me buying Dune, which I read last month, and then I spent half the weekend (estimated) watching the extended edition of Dune and the director's cut of the Dune miniseries.

The 1984 film, in the extended 3 hour edition, has some inconsistent special effects, with the blue eyes disappearing occasionally among characters who should have them. And the CGI and blue screened effects are early and distracting now, and some of the changes from the book are weak. I liked the weirding way in the book, and the switch to a sonic weapon didn't really make any sense. I really didn't like what they did with the floaty Baron Harkonnen, and the Sardaukar definitely didn't look like people in hazmat suits. And the narration along with the many, many thought asides just goes to show that the book probably couldn't have made a successful movie. I'm normally an enormous fan of the book rather than the movie, although sometimes that isn't entirely the case, as Starship Troopers is a far more enjoyable movie than the rather fascist book. Not to say that the book wasn't slightly enjoyable, but the movie was better. In this case, Dune the book allowed for all the characters to be developed. Although most of the plot points survived the transition, three hours wasn't remotely enough to cover it all. Maybe the five hour miniseries will be ok.

That one follows the book considerably closer, and even adds a touch of nudity, something I really wasn't expecting in a Sci-Fi channel miniseries. I guess that's what the director's cut was for, though. Some of the cast in the movie was considerably better than the miniseries, but the ability to allow the characters to have some time to become interesting is helpful. The extra time with Princess Irulan wasn't really adding much, but at least the miniseries didn't end with it raining on Arrakis, which makes no sense at all. And it still has the Baron Harkonnen floating with his suspensors. Which isn't what I got from the book at all. And I always imagined the final battle to be in stillsuits, again distracting me. Certainly, if you are looking for following the book, more modern special effects, and an overall better experience, go with the miniseries, but the movie definitely has some things to recommend it. Acting was considerably better. And the final battle, short of the change to the weirding way was closer in the movie.

I've been told to read through the fourth book, but I almost definitely will not. Not that I didn't enjoy it, but sequels, especially ones that start to mess with characters just make me annoyed. I was having this discussion, although slightly different, with someone I haven't decided how to name on here, about how much I love both Pavement and Dismemberment Plan, and that I am extremely reluctant to listen to any Malkmus or Morrison solo stuff. Even if I now know a member of the Hellfighters. The chance to see something I enjoy ruined is something I try to avoid. No more Phantom Menaces please.

Tokyo Police Club and Smoosh at Black Cat 4/29

In the tradition of previous music posts, I start with dinner: Peruvian chicken and a cheese papusa. I should have ordered more. Oh well.

After seeing Smoosh last year opening for the Pipettes, I know I wanted to see them again. And for some reason (no new album), they were touring with Tokyo Police Club, another of those bloggy bands that everyone seems to love. Not quite as big as Arcade Fire, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, or Vampire Weekend, but of the same level as Wolf Parade or Voxtrot. I liked their EP, but, like Voxtrot, didn't entirely care for the album that followed. So I really was going for the opener. Hadn't done that in a while, since Portastatic opening for John Vanderslice in 2005.

Smoosh was about as enjoyable as last time, and I do want them to release a new album now. Find a Way is still just as outstanding as it has always been. And they spent time at the merch table, but I did my normal too embarrassed to talk to them thing. I would have bought a shirt of theirs, but I think it would have been more creepy than I feel comfortable. Plus, as much as I like Smoosh, there are many bands I like far more than them.

Unfortunately, it was a Tuesday show, which don't go well for me, and this was somewhat the case for me again, although I made it through the entire show.

When Tokyo Police Club came on, I had moved up to the raised section, and was sitting on a bench next to the douchebags of the concert. Somehow the emo couple (the guy had the most impressive emover I've seen outside of a videogame or a music video) weren't them, or the woman who grabbed my ass when she passed me in the crowd during Smoosh. It was the kids from Maryland, one of whom was writing a paper and asked Smoosh some questions for it, and then asked me why I had my eyes closed during the show. If you've ever been to the Black Cat, you know that it's not an enormous club, and light shows are not normally too big. TPC, though, came with a light show that would have been slightly appropriate for the much larger 9:30 Club. So it was blindingly bright, and I was exhausted. Also, they played every song like it was from their EP, which normally would have been enjoyable for me, but everyone ended up sounding so similar I couldn't tell the difference. Even had I known them far better than I did, I wouldn't have been able. Pretty much it was screaming for the entire song or screaming after a quiet bit at the end. Plus bright lights. And I was not impressed. So with all that, I didn't feel the need to watch every second of the show. I basically only watched one song, and that was the one when Smoosh came out on stage and danced. Wouldn't have known, but Vermonstrous tapped my leg. So the douches from Maryland were talking about how could he sleep or why I didn't enjoy the show. I didn't want to get into an argument about the stupidity of the light show in the small club or the sameness and loudness of it all, so I just said I was tired.