The ArchAndroid (Janelle Monae) (2010)

Neon Messiah

In summarizing Janelle Monae’s Metropolis two years ago, I was surprised how few other critics had cited her as one of that year’s best new discoveries or even bothered to review her EP. It’s not like Monae didn’t have the stuff we love: cool weirdness, undeniable talent plus a kick-ass pompadour. Metropolis was more than an arty collage of pop music; it was a masterful exploration of alien rebellion and love denied. Its idea was not without precedence but it’s been decades since we’ve had a Ziggy Stardust figure in our midst, much less an interesting female version. Through her persona, Cindi Mayweather, Monae unearthed an ethereal yet groovy space that never dropped the ball.

When last we left her, Mayweather was busy dismembering her robotic parts and headed to Earth in hot pursuit of love. The ArchAndroid thus is the combination of her search for Anthony Greendown and the discovery of her own intrinsic value to her robotic race. It’s a Neo-like transition that takes root in historical and colorful literary references but somehow not overburdened by it all. The opus is comprised of two separate concept suites over seventy minutes and garnished with retro musical production.

Suite II leads off with Overture, an instrumentation piece that signals Cindi Mayweather’s arrival on Earth in search of the titular object. Monae steps immediately into a purple patch: Dance or Die is a nifty club number with a stunning guitar rave up towards its end. Faster flames out into a Badu-esque last few minutes that literally bring the funk curtain down on any thoughts of insincere flattery. Locked Inside juxtaposes her lovelorn vocals with a warm chorus and rhythms that wash over in seamless bliss. Come Alive literally does just that under her screams and electronic guitars. Oh Maker is a simplistic ballad but the multiple-vocal work is brilliantly layered to full effect. Mushrooms and Roses, a track dipped into so much Prince-like energy that by the time the electric guitars trip in you’ve already died and gone to heaven. These are simple songs but when the music is this glorious then it feels miles ahead of anything else R&B has now sake for Badu and Santi White. Cold War and Tightrope, the first two singles, both gloriously expand on Monae’s funk credentials. Tightrope evinces so much dirty funk that it’s hard to imagine your midsection not quivering under its command. Cold War ups the amps with its horns and irresistible beats. At such groovy moments, she becomes inhabited by a huge source of proto-funk, the source origin I’m still trying to figure out but all those years hanging around with Outkast have clearly influenced her.

If it had ended there then it’d be perfect but as Suite III’s Overture gets going, one realizes that if her focus was on satisfying our needs before, now she’s about to refocus on her mission. Neon Valley Street pulls off the Badu-esque trick but there’s something missing from the glint in her eye. Suite III totally slows down her frantic pace and thus we are finally forced to face the naked aim of this effort. The ArchAndroid stumbles in the homestretch though because of the overlap of different directions.

Which is frustrating because her aesthetics slightly suffers by trying to cram diversity where staying on point would’ve sufficed. The duet with Of Montreal (Make the Bus) is contextually mismatched here and as brilliant as Wondaland is, it only leads into the puzzling last trio of songs. These are the songs that focus exclusively on Greendown (57821, Say You’ll Go & Babopbyeya) but, unlike Metropolis, the focus on him here is plaintive. It’s as if the exhaustive nature of her genre-exploration has finally caught up with her.

This is not to distract from the praise Monae has been getting from critics. Given the heavy staleness that hangs over contemporary pop her attempt to bring something new is good. Never mind the fact that this gushing critical love is belated, The ArchAndroid is an established body of work from which to spring from. It doesn’t have masterpieces like Many Moons or Violet Stars Happy Hunting but it marks the point at which we’re making Lauryn Hill comparisons and fast-tracking to next year’s Grammy acceptance speech for Best Album. We’re all playing our part now in recognition of her talent and hype. How else could Clayton Purdom (cokemachineglow.com) write that her music is exactly the type of stuff we’ve (serious music lovers) been waiting for since ever. Oddly enough, he further states that while The ArchAndroid isn’t his favorite album of the year, it’s the best by far.

As someone who’s been in her corner since the start I read conscientiousness in such a statement as well as fiction. It’s a good sophomore but let’s not add pressure by applying the term ‘epochal’ because that only terrifies me as to the great expectations being put on her now…the same expectations that have irrevocably wrecked D’angelo and Lauryn Hill. The same expectations that had Badu sit out five years due to writer’s bloc. For now though it’s just enough that our heroine is still firmly caught up in the hunt for her true love. The only difference is that now she knows that her worshipful audience has finally shown up to register its support.

RATING: 8.75/10

Dear God, I Hate Myself (Xiu Xiu) (2010)

Lion in a Coma

Though his name isn’t familiar outside of indie, Jaime Stewart has spent the past decade as the main persona of the experimental-pop rock band Xiu Xiu (pronounced zhoo zhoo) and as a ringleader for the emo-rock movement. In many ways, he is the movement’s poet laureate and it takes its cues from his dark lyricism and subject palette. Of course, no movement can be held in sway by one person for too long and if Dear God, I Hate Myself is any indicator of Xiu Xiu’s future direction then Stewart’s reign is slowly coming to and end.
But, first we have to summarize what the band has achieved: Xiu Xiu’s music has remained totally uncompromising since their debut ten years ago. Stewart’s angst-ridden, queer lyrics craftily continue to expose a wounded psyche and combined with terrific pop beats it creates the type of music that only they seem capable of anymore.

Maybe then it is that weight of continuity that makes Dear God, I Hate Myself miss its own sardonic point. That of course is the point of being mired deliciously in self-depreciation. Instead, the lovely opening track (Gray Death) aside, it sounds more like a decade’s worth of album rejects and B side recordings that somehow never got completed. Coming off the cool-- yet not heavy critical embrace of-- Women as Lovers (2008) one felt the band was finally full circle. Everything was poised for a breakthrough.

It has not materialized however. I could give many different theories for this but the only one that sticks is Stewart’s great disappointment that no one really seemed to ‘get’ his last album. Thus, this new one isn’t titled as a personal reference but as a professional one. It is smattered with cynicism and unnecessary levels of morose insights. Instead of Stewart using his disappointment with determination he struggles for consistency throughout (for example, Chocolate Makes you Happy starts with riveting promise then tapers off way too easily). This is not with the album’s professed self-loathing but rather his dogged meandering. His interpretation of pop as a main tool of expression has always been fantastically abstract yet somewhat held back. Therefore, his whimsical lyrics have always played around the twin evils of abuse and unrequited desire but the last half of Dear God, I Hate Myself really drags because there’s no gay complexity or subtext present, just empty, boring space.

Which is a great indictment I know, but one that must be acknowledged before the band runs the risk of self-parody. Stewart remains-- amid this falling off--fascinating: his ticking time-bomb vocals still utter breathy non sequitors but the idealism of queer indie music keeps evolving whereas his has not. These kids now have FrYars and Patrick Wolf for affirmation so there is no further need for Stewart’s apparent resistance to change or adaptability to newer thematic ideas. How he got stuck in this holding pattern is not clear but it’s not as if the structural style of Xiu Xiu’s music has diverged greatly since their debut. Even their acclaimed Fabulous Muscles (2004) was very choppy despite having a much sharper personal focus.

Maybe what Stewart hasn’t realized yet is the extent of his collective’s development. Dear God, I Hate Myself never allows its production to subvert things beyond the point of recognition or his total control. So, both Impossible Feeling and This Too Shall Pass Away shut down well before lifting off into unchartered territory. That phrase, unchartered territory, is vital because Xiu Xiu is all Jaime Stewart, all the time so we’re not sure what their true capability lies outside of his doomed poetry. If Women as Lovers was the culmination of dark envy maybe it’s time for a second-party exploration or a break from the minimalistic sound they’ve used exclusively since The Air Force (2006). Lord knows we’ve marveled at his genius (The Leash, from the aforementioned Women as Lovers, is a terrifying piece of psycho-sexual brilliance) but now we’ve borne witness to this impasse. Not quite a step back but here is Stewart dawdling at the fork in the road, unsure where to next with us urging him from the sidelines to get on with it already and stop being such a pussy.

RATING: 6/10

Have One on Me (Joanna Newsom) (2010)

"Little Life-giver"


I won’t lie to you, when I first realized that Have One on Me was a triple CD with a run time of two hours, my heart sank. Eighteen tracks on any album is a huge task for any reviewer to go through but Joanna Newsom is one of the few artists that demand such patience. This is a woman after all who used the line ‘and the meteoroid is a stone/ that’s devoid of the fire/ that propelled it/ to thee’ on her last album, the brilliant yet challenging Ys (2006). The level of intelligence lurking behind her lyrics ensures that you either get her totally or you don’t ever want to. That’s a very uncompromising statement but in a pop landscape where everything must be tackily Lady GaGa-ed or deploringly RiRi-ed just to grab your fleeting attention, it’s refreshing to hear someone bravely flipping the script. Spreading these songs over three portions, six tracks each, makes the task easier but make no mistake: the tail does not wag this dog.


Disc I contains four masterpieces. Easy, the opener is a wicked experiment that juxtaposes her lovely voice with strings and violins. ‘I am easy/ easy to keep/ honey, you please me/ even in your sleep’, she croons, channeling Kate Bush lusciously throughout. Instantly, it is clear that Newsom has lyrically arrived to contemporary themes instead of just dawdling on the medieval intricacies that Ys conceptualized. Have One on Me seismically shifts her inward to the point of incapability from herself. The title track combines both motifs; taking a beautiful leap at 1:45 into the thrilling life of Lola Montez and her affair with King Ludwig I of Bavaria (lovingly called ‘Daddy Long legs’) to the point of being a novella. Then there’s Good Intentions Paving Company (‘and I will love you/ ’til the noise has long since passed/and that right there/is the course I keep…’), her most listener-friendly song ever. Both tracks run for a combined eighteen minutes but these are more than merely this year’s most brilliant musical theses; these are career highlights. Baby Birch builds its guilty abortion theme slowly with a hectic staccato burst of folk and overwhelming sadness. The unspooling of her craft here is particularly patient and masterful. These are songs that leave you in awe at their sheer perfection because this surely is the pinnacle of expressed human emotion.


Disc II is less dramatic as if deliberately cooling its heels. Her similarities to Joni Mitchell are reinforced here as she tackles various relationship issues that are sensually detailed. You and Me, Bess is Newsom tackling suicide as the backing vocals seep through along with horns on the chorus. In California stretches her into mid-love crisis and, in the process, puts her voice sharply in focus. This vocal vigor is her newest weapon and it is evenly distributed vis-à-vis her previous work which regulated her voice to mere spastic bursts. Have One on Me also dims the prominence of her harpsichord to embrace more alternative melodies. Quite a few critics mistake this for shapelessness but the structure that Newsom uses is deliberate. She isn’t experimenting but deepening her sound. Sure, she’ll toss off tracks like Go Long and Occident to placate those unwilling to accompany her to the depths of emotion but even those tracks are utterly beautiful and leave you wanting more.


Disc III feels like a combination of the two previous discs. Soft as Chalk is a fantastic track about ‘lawlessness’ that features some Tori Amos-esque piano strings and shrilly singing. ‘who is there/ who is there/ I am calling beyond anger/ and sadness’, she sings repeatedly amid an impressive instrumental set. Ribbon Bows returns her to the beloved harpsichord, this time shrouded in sadness that grows over its six minute length. Kingfisher is about a disturbing relationship, impressively retaining its lyrical freshness. Newsom spins her poetry with the sureness of a woman who is hearing a call most of us are not aware of but this makes Have One on Me a bold concept, one that renews faith in the album as a learning yet reflective experience.


This reinforces the point of albums still being relevant in an age that is determined to get rid of them. Triple albums have always been seen as a major artistic statement but perhaps none has ever been made to overpower the listener lyrically like this one. The beauty of Newsom is in her words: ‘like a little clock / that trembles/ on the edge of the hour…’ from the glorious In California. Autumn features the gem, ‘in the cold West/ flew a waxwing who falls/ and dies against my breast…’. And from the sad Does Not Suffice, ‘the tap of hangers/ swaying in the closet/ unburdened hooks and empty drawers/ and everywhere I tried to love you/ it is yours again/ and only yours…’.


Newsom has proven that there’s more, much more sadness yet to be etched from a pop singer’s
tongue. She makes it so because the record transcends music to become a stunning document that recalls some of the greatest literature. This is Pride & Prejudice for the 21st century. This is Alice Walker with headphones on and a pen. This is a feminine version of Brando demanding to be more than just a contender in On the Waterfront... the very thoughts trapped in Virginia Woolf’s head as she drowned in the Ouse. These are the painful admissions and personally rewarding moments we keep to ourselves still, laid bare by Newsom with such great detail that it renders her contemporaries toothless by comparison.


So, in the end while you balk at the thought of purchasing this chamber pop record or take the easy way out by avoiding it because you just can’t commit to its intensity, Newsom has yet again successfully pushed the boundaries of her art-form up a notch. She has forced us to view music as accessible yet incessantly clever. This feat mirrors the re-positioning of pop that Bjork achieved in the 1990s as well as the way M.I.A viciously detonated the genre with third-world consciousness a mere decade later. Newsom may never be seen as revolutionary as those women but that’s exactly where all this is heading. What she shares with them is a stubborn, singular vision that will have its way and succeed despite being antithetical to everything else around it. And while critics throw around comparisons to Tori Amos, Kate Bush and Joni Mitchell, the fact is that Newsom is, at last, their equal now, residing somewhere betwixt them all in a fantastic web of complexity. And in this defining process that lasts for two hours she has given us the most faith-affirming album of the year.

RATING: 8.75/10

Nobody’s Daughter (Hole) (2010)

Bitch’s Brew


Rolling Stone dubs her ‘the most controversial woman in rock’ but a quick look at Courtney Love’s shenanigans over the last decade would more make her the saddest. There has been far more rehab time, lawsuits and denial than actual new music from her and even though SPIN loved her America’s Sweetheart solo gig, that was all of six years ago. Nobody’s Daughter is in fact a five year project that had spawned its own problematic mythology, which Love has actively encouraged just for the heck of it and because, now in her mid-forties, it’s really all she has left of a once glamorous life.


Lyrically, the album points towards contrition and the settling of a guilty conscience, something Love has thwarted doing for many years. The title track deals, in depth, with Kurt Cobain’s suicide and the speculation on whatever role she may have had in the act (your whole wide world/ is in my hands/ I’ve got your blood in my hands/ and you know I’m drowning). Never Go Hungry Again affirms the descent to which her personal life fell into (and out of it all/ I’m still alive/ from the fires of hell/ I have survived). These are only two tracks but they set the overall tone of Nobody’s Daughter even though she hijacks the mood often by centering on sorrows she brought upon herself.


Lost among all this touchy-feely stuff though is the raw firework that had always set Love apart from other rockers. For Once in Your Life sounds more like a Stevie Nicks-wannabe on Vh-1 Storytellers than Love biting into a bitter pill. Letter to God gives us her most disarming line ever (why the hell am I so out of control?), yet this is a ballad which only turns the amps up towards the end, only to cave into, gasp, the type of adult contemporary that usually signals when an artist is out of ideas. She has wisely removed the awful Stand Up Motherf-cker that featured on the original leak in January but its absence still doesn’t lift the album. Loser Dust salvages some pride because it plugs the amps early and Love’s voice sounds enriched instead of drained, even though its wah wah chorus has little to say really.


This, funnily enough, leads to the catch-22 situation Love finds herself in way too often. Her contrition when dealing with her rowdy past with Cobain is juxtaposed with the failed fire of her current life without him. She’s spent so much of her career in his shadow that emerging from under it now would only further alienate listeners from her. Thus, her co-dependence on his name has driven her to frustration in two parts: the great years between 1994—1998 when she literally rocked. But also the lean years, which is everything since because it all started to take a toll on her. It didn’t help that she has never stopped at anything to impress upon us the extent of her own singular talent. The fact that her band, Hole hasn’t recorded new music for the past thirteen years is indicative of Love’s inability to sacrifice her own personality for a collaborative effort. Indeed, original members, Melisa der Maur and Eric Erlandson, are not even featured on this project. Love hasn’t even dealt with that publicly. In interviews all she’s fixated on is how much of her energy is invested in the album, ad nauseum.

The sad thing for her though is that she’s far easier to digest when others are in control of her direction. What little that works on Nobody’s Daughter is due mainly to the production and personal support Linda Perry and Billy Corgan--a far more important male figure in her life than Cobain-- have given Love over the years. Without their push and effort then she may have never been able to release the album, much less still have an emotional outlet for her despair. Nobody’s Daughter fights the same old ghosts she’s been battling since her rise to fame (adoption issues, family upheaval, infamy, etc.) but at what point, one wonders, does Love ever plan to cease manipulating them for her own purposes and finally release them?

RATING: 5/10

Clash of the Titans (2010)

Some Odd Thunder


In the beginning we are told how the Olympian gods overthrew the Titans with the help of the terrifying Kraken and settled on Mount Olympus with Zeus (Liam Neeson) as ruler of all and his brother Hades (Ray Fiennes) ‘tricked’ into ruling the underworld.


That opening narrative aside, Louis Leterrier’s Clash of the Titans pays little homage to the 1981 film that it’s adapted from or actual mythological events in any proper sequence. Instead this vanity remake follows its hero Perseus (Sam Worthington) as he sets out to save Argos by destroying the Kraken and Hades, the god responsible for his mother’s death. Of course, this quest requires a motley crew of men to help him battle awkward-looking giant scorpions, three blind sister crones and, more dangerously, behead the gorgon Medusa.


It’s a plot we know well but soon enough huge holes appear and they blur the realistic efforts of the film almost as much as the hasty rush to 3D formatting on display. Leterrier, known more for the Transporter series, doesn’t fixate on storyline long enough to set off his action sequences to full effect. This causes much static. Clash of the Titans, like the ridiculous Percy Johnson and the Lightning Thief, misunderstands its source material by focusing less on the Olympians and more on one human (a demi-god, to be technical).


This antagonistic need to ‘Americanize’ every foreign concept for film vanishes, for example, the romance between Perseus and Andromeda (Alexa Davalos) and in its place she functions solely as a high-priced extradition request. Hades demands her as a sacrifice to the gods or else Argos will be wiped out by the Kraken. Though the king, her father, tries to find ways around the request, Andromeda eventually gives in to the idea so as to spare her people of certain destruction.

Perseus’ ‘love’ interest is Io (Gemma Arterton), a female nymph who has watched over him since birth. She councils him until conveniently killed before any real sexual tension arises between them. He saves Andromeda of course but Worthington’s performance evokes a type of rigid asexuality that contrasts sharply to Harry Hamlin in the original film. This asexual broad stroke from the writers (Lawrence Kasdan, Travis Beacham) makes every character suffer from an alarming purge of human frailty; they’re characters playing characters essentially, not full-bloodied people.


Only the gods are shown with any human traits ironically: Zeus as the conciliatory ruler looking out with concern for a son and Hades maliciously out to destroy Argos with tacit consent. That consent of course comes from Zeus and though it throws his own leadership and its consequences in doubt, Leterrier skirts any real religious implications by simply making him seem like an average Joe. Being an action film, Clash of the Titans thus isn’t concerned with Zeus’ complexity issues or who needs protection from whom. It is interested in bringing unruly subjects to the brink of peril before our hero saves the day and gets the girl. It is concerned with Medusa’s hair of snakes and Pegasus magnificently black and brief shimmering across your 3D glasses. Its innovative look sacrifices important characters in the original (Thetis) so as to give you more action and pretty destruction.


And sure enough, it is in this gargantuan scope that the film fails so miserably. Avatar showed us last year that with this new 3D technology much is visually possible but Clash of the Titans follows an annoying trend of hyping big fight sequences only to wrap them up just as you’re settling in for the long haul. The emergence of the Kraken adds menace but Perseus hardly toils to do away with it. Even more surprising is his ‘defeat’ of Hades by merely throwing a lightning bolt-dagger in the god’s direction.


A small gesture with big implications and one passed over entirely by Leterrier but Perseus’ hand is not unaided in the latest banishment of Hades to the underworld. That Zeus would so daringly side against a god (his brother) in favor of humanity (through a son of his) at such a moment of crisis is telling. Leterrier’s scant regard for these conflicts between the brothers limits their true motives. This is amplified by the deafening silence of the other gods whom we see virtually nothing of, not even Hera, the only deity who dares to contradict Zeus on a regular basis.

In the end though the film delivers on its basic premise of being just an update of a cultish fantasy film…nothing more, nothing less. Purists who fume at its clear inferiority to the original miss the point as much as how you can’t equate an online idea like Farmville to real farming. The fact is that more people will flock to the former to appreciate the latter and, for them, on surprisingly deep levels too. This crass update can therefore eschew any noble notion of ideology that makes sense or multi-dimensional gods just to present them—well, Zeus and Hades really—as merely capricious gods of war. Here are deities fighting for human adoration and control and only out to prove, quite frankly, who has the bigger dick. That at least, since the start of humanity, is something we can all relate to.

RATING: 4/10

The Best Films of 2000-2009

FILM #18: 'Slumdog Millionaire' (2008)

The Oscar winner that very nearly went straight to video...Danny Boyle's look at slum life in India comes vividly alive at every winning turn.

THE 100 BEST FILMS of 2000-2009:

FILM #17: 'Le Temps qui Reste' ('Time to Leave') (2006)

Directed by Francois Ozon, this 81 minute French film explores the darkest moment of human life: knowing the time when one is to die. Romain (Melvil Poupaud)is a photographer who finds out that he has an inoperable tumor. The doctor tell him that even with chemo he has a 5% chance of remission. He decides to literally shut down everything and be as painfully honest to his emotions with the little time he has left.

That means breaking up with his boyfriend, silently accepting his fate and visiting his grandmother one last time. She is the only one he confides in and it is at this point of Poupaud's gritty performance that we see an eerie inner piece. Along the way, he sleeps with a couple and passes his entire fortune to his unborn child.

Straightforward enough but through Romain and the French culture we are witness to shocking intimacy and sadness that most American films just simply cannot unearth.

Life is Sweet! Nice to Meet You (Lightspeed Champion) (2010)

'Here a Track, There a Trap'


It’s an unsuspecting gaffe how the very first line of Life is Sweet! Nice to Meet You—‘nothing seems to be happening/except a shift from your world’-- sums up the entire feel of Devonte Hynes’, aka Lightspeed Champion, newest reinvention. The world he mentions on Dead Head Blues is not one inhabited by anyone other than himself apparently but such is the curse of the burgeoning genius. Yes, that’s right, Hynes is a musical genius, as much as Connor Oberst is and Andrew Bird and even bigger titans like Spenser Krug and Prince.

For the un-initiated, Hynes burst unto a solo career two years ago with Falling Off the Lavender Bridge, a self-conscious pop-rock project that hinted at his emerging talent. Trust me; it’d take others years to dust up brilliant tracks like Galaxy of the Lost and Tell Me What it’s Worth first time around much less ever. Before the solo outing though he was a member of dance-punk band Test Icicles and interconnecting this entire period was a plethora of online bootlegs and recordings…seriously, ad nauseum stuff.

What this is symptomatic of though is the restlessness that courses through his brain. Hynes’ approach to pop is jittery at best but when he merges it with rock then he becomes an entirely different musical beast. Falling Off the Lavender Bridge, for all its faults, at least accomplished this. This new album though, like a harsh AA meeting, has found him sobered up to the point of painful straightness. Now, instead of pop-rock experimentation, we’re limited to boring adult fare like the aforementioned Dead Head Blues.

Of course, being genius-based, it’s not a bad album by any stretch but it won’t have critics declaring him the new Beck either. For rock geeks like Hynes that is what counts though: due recognition of his art. But then that’s the problem with Life is Sweet! Nice to Meet You; its ultra serious musical landscape designed for you the listener to recognize it as such and nothing else. Which is sad because, at twenty-three, with the rabid producer’s resume he’s compiled so far, Hynes can rest assured that we consider him prolific. Maybe what he lacks now is just the raw data needed (life experiences) to people his songs. Falling Off the Lavender Bridge at least could cull from that but here he’s juxtaposed growth with grasp but left out anything personal to make a crucial connection. Thus, Life is Sweet! Nice to Meet You can’t hold a candle to, say, Patrick Wolf’s last gem, The Bachelor.

Speaking of Wolf, both artists still share a slavish admiration of others. It’s great to look up to innovators like David Bowie and Madonna but it’s another thing to actively try to relive their careers. Wolf is still guilty of such duplicity on a visual level whereas Hynes is still entrenched in audio guilt. So, Life is Sweet! Nice to Meet You wears its idols on its sleeves and that causes serious overlap and identity crises. Middle of the Dark is a quasi-Queen pop number that shows a glimmer of originality but it’s trapped under so much Freddie Mercury self-consciousness that it ends up being the most frustrating thing here. Romart is genetically lined by the presence of Oberst; in fact if this wasn’t a Lightspeed Champion album, I’d swear it was a new Bright Eyes (Connor Oberst’s band) track.

When Hynes rests his heroes though the music comes across more naturally: Sweetheart builds nicely into a living, breathing thing with vocal urgency and guitars crashing all around. There’s Nothing Underwater fits snugly too into an original space where he manages all the little tweaks effectively. Madame Van Damme oozes wry humor; the type that could have sexed up the album much more effectively than his gender-inappropriate lyrics. Even Faculty of Tears (‘if he’s so evil/ then/ why does he like to kiss’) shows spurts of the obvious brilliance this young man can conjure, lyrically and musically. All four tracks point to the need for Hynes to step out of shadows that he’s been at pains to present on a grand scale for so long; time now to breathe the music instead of merely re-interpreting it. I’ll go even further to state that Hynes will overhaul both Bird and Oberst once he starts to get laid and realize that the guitar is more than just a handy prop. With that crazy, cropped hairdo of his and thick-lens glasses, he’s got the look. Now it’s time for him to go forth and seek the complimentary swagger.
RATING: 6.5/10

THE 100 BEST FILMS of 2000-2009:

FILM #16: 'Borat' (2006):

A mocumentary of sort, 'Borat' is the vehicle for its star Sacha Baron Cohen to portray his immense comedic talents. Sure enough, 'Borat' is offensive, lewd, stunningly frank yet totally captivating. The type of satire and comedy involved is akin to the reality-based sketches of Monty Python.

Cohen plays Borat Sagdiyev, a Kazakhstani TV personality who comes to America with his producer, Azamat (Ken Davitian) to basically explore Western culture. He then discovers Baywatch star Pamela Anderson and goes in hot pursuit of her. Along the way, he tours America and uncovers the real state of things by interaction to some politicians, special-interest groups and rednecks. Of course the trick is that those interviewed were not aware of the true nature of the project and that within itself is a huge coup for this daring yet brilliant film.

THE 100 BEST FILMS of 2000-2009:

FILM #15: 'The Simpson Movie' (2007)

A long overdue victory lap for America's most consistent and clever animated comedy.

THE 100 BEST FILMS of 2000-2009:

FILM #14: 'Let The Right One In' (2008)

Vampire films seldom foray into 'best of' lists anymore but this Swedish gem doesn't seek to pander to excessive adolescent needs but examines the bare essentials needed to survive such a stage in life. 'Let The Right One In' is about Eli and Oskar, two outcasts in society. She is the vampire and he is the bullied youth. Based on John Ajvide Lindqvist's novel, the film takes its cues on the reality of their situations. So the endless bullying that Oskar endures results in him moving from victim to violator, right under his mother's nose without her suspecting a thing. Eli's need of blood to keep alive is masterfully played out in a sequence of scenes that are gritty and portray real terror.

Both come to form an unusual alliance because Eli doesn't view Oskar as food and besides after her 'father' Hakan dies, he becomes her only source of companionship. The sexual connotation of this bond is disturbing enough but it parallels the ease in which it is welcomed in the society. What ensues is pure art and accomplished in inescapable silence. Though the film doesn't adapt some of the more morbid plots of the novel, director Tomas Alfredson manages to keep the tension going full speed ahead.

THE 100 BEST FILMS of 2000-2009:

FILM #13: 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' (2000)

For many of us, this was the first real karate film that we saw two women fight. I mean, real all-out war and not just over a man but over a principle. Director Ang Lee doesn't earn kudos there alone but for the exquisite tale of denied love, revenge and foolish youth. No one will ever forget that bamboo trees fight scene or the eloquence of the swords in action or the ease with which the storyline emerges and deftly restructures everything. A true masterpiece, 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon', will be what comes to define Lee's work for generations to come.

THE 100 BEST FILMS of 2000-2009:

FILM #12: 'Persepolis' (2007--08)

Directed by Marjane Satrapi and based on her own memoirs, this witty animated film loudly presents a perspective of Iran most Westerners would be seeing for the first time. Clearly the title character--like Miss Satrapi--is from the upper educated class but that doesn't make the writing less authentic. In an age where Pixar is defining the way 3D animation can be juxtaposed to great story-telling, its heartening to see the old 2D stuff still holding its own.

More stunning though is the in-depth analysis of life in Iran. What Satrapi makes clear is that the lives of the youngsters are the same anywhere they are and that it takes more than a revolution to alter that. Her story is also caustic and brilliant in the satire juxtaposed to the comedic interference of divinity in the state of things and sexual tension. References to other cultural icons (Michael Jackson, 'Che' Guevera ect) and the suppression of the Western life is explored exquisitely throughout the ninety-plus minutes that we watch Persepolis grow up to the point of becoming her own woman and, finally, our headstrong feminist hero.

THE 100 BEST FILMS of 2000-2009:

FILM #11: 'United 93' (2006)

Nearly ten years after the horrific events that brought down the Twin Towers, Paul Greengrass' film feels just as fresh and disturbing. I still feel this was the best film released in 2006 because Greengrass' signature tension makes watching the action almost unbearable. Utilizing real aviation personnel and relatives of those who perished adds authenticity but the sequential order that he assembles is simultaneously non-judgmental and sacrosanct.

THE 100 BEST FILMS of 2000-2009:

FILM #10: "Amores Perros" (2000)

Jagged in its flashbacks and with obvious homage to Pulp Fiction, Amores Perros consistently and brilliantly challenges film convention. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's direction is simply sublime as he tackles three interlinked vignettes that explore cause and effect, greed and envy, ambition and family life. It also deals with consequences of actions that touch not just your own situation but the lives of others. Inarritu's style is disjointed , poetic and captures the perfect Latino, smarmy ethos that has come to be expected: blood stir-fries into a frying pan, ect.

The first vignette slyly deals with family strife so intense that the brothers end up clobbering each other, in essence over a woman. The second vignette centers of Valeria (Goya Toleda), a supermodel who is having an affair with a married man. Opposite the apartment where they live is a giant poster of her leggy beauty but this soon becomes a curse after a car crash leaves her in a wheelchair. The third vignette deals with El Chivo (Emilio Echevarria) and his abandonment of society. All three stories are brutal in the depiction of human life yet stunningly tender towards dogs...

THE 100 BEST FILMS of 2000-2009:

FILM #9: No Country for Old Men (2007)

Adapted from the Cormac McCarthy novel, the film settles into its 1980 West Texas landscape poetically and, in the form of the local sheriff, Ed Tom Bell (the ever solid Tommy Lee Jones) philosophically. Brilliantly directed by the Coen brothers (Joel & Ethan), ‘No Country for Old Men’ is a thrilling expose on the changing value of violence and the slow realization of such. The attention to detail is sheer poetic and, like the film itself, volatile: Chigurh shoots Carson Wells (Woody Harrelson) while the telephone rings and then speaks to Moss mindful to lift his legs as Wells’ blood spreads thickly on the floor. The beauty of the film though lies in its conviction that one repudiates violence at one’s own peril and that we have to acknowledge its presence as a way of life. Sheriff Bell realizes the enormity that faces him and has no option but to admit openly that the level of crime is beyond his handling. Chigurh is the killer of a new time, one that can walk away unscathed to fight new battles or at least pay his way out of complicity. He, not the law, is the one with his hand on the pulse of this new world. That makes ‘No Country for Old Men’ frighteningly real and a modernistic take on the evolutionary process of crime that will likely smudge our paranoid lives, one way or the other.

THE 100 BEST FILMS of 2000-2009:

FILM #8: 'Moulin Rouge' (2001)

With 19th century Paris and its nightlife as the backdrop, Moulin Rouge perfectly captures the essence of human need versus desire. Nicole Kidman earned her first real critical recognition as Satine,the ambitious courtesan. She clearly wasn't ideal for such a role but as the film progresses we literally see her coming into her own. Baz Luhrmann's dizzy direction subdues its wow factor after an hour but it is afterwards that the love story takes true shape and starts to unspool. The songs are chaotic, loud and non-traditional but its lovely energy and a huge plus. BUt it is Kidman that rises most effectively especially when required to take duplicitous action. The scene where she lashes out at Zidler (the ever excellent Jim Broadbent)is stunning and shows how quickly her ambition turns to love.

Unlike most musicals, Moulin Rouge risks everything by segueing into real drama. Not content to be faithful to source material, Luhrmann earns full marks for presenting something fresh and contemporary. We get to see the various characters as complicated human beings they really are and not just mere one-dimensional products for the audience's amusement. No other musical in the decade dared to keep its ethos so firmly rooted in reality.