NYE

So the show wasn't the mindblowing epicness of the Hideout show in March, but it was still a fun night out. Can't wait for Martyr's tonight.

Of Precious Place, Precious Things...

I'm sure I'm going to miss something, but here's 2007 in review. The so-called year of Rob has come to an end:


A brief stint as a vegetarian at the beginning of the year. Let's not talk about why.
Tomorrow Never Knows. 5 nights of music alone. Exhausting.

VMars nights! Best meal of the week! Great company! Jon Brion. Musical genius. Here Come the Warm Jets!

Grindhouse with Emily. Feverish. Swollen tongue. Freezing cold wait for a bus that never came.Camping and hiking at Powell Plateau and Brice after Spring Finals with my Dad, Beata, and Max.
Lost. We Have To Go Back! Mind-blowing season finale.
Buffy Musical Sing-Along @ Music Box with Emily. Bunnies, bunnies, bunnies, it must be bunnies! That woman was sort of creepy. Glad that Emily is now a converted fan! Grrrrr! Argh!

Lolla! Highlights: That signing woman, Ghostland Observatory, LCD Soundsystem, and getting our dance on at Interpol!Labor Day Weekend on Lake Erie with Emily and Val. Maybe that speeding ticket was a sign that the weekend didn't go as smoothly as originally thought.


Superbad @ Northbrook Court with Emily and Val. Nothing like being carded at 24 for an R rated movie, and always nice when friends will come out to the suburbs just to see a movie.That Nite. Raven's. 9/8/07. Enough said.
Rilo Kiley and Across the Universe. Dejalo, nuestra cosa! Awkward first dates and a reminder of awkward first kisses. Really, my neck?

Halloween! Fuck anyone who thought I was Kid Rock.
Worst Thanksgiving EVER
Greatest Christmas Gift! Who killed Laura Palmer? I'm not telling.Cincinnati. Visiting Emily after Christmas and finally meeting her parents. Well worth the 13 hours of round trip travel, and that's an understatement.

Other highlights:
-Looptopia: the fact that the most memorable part was smoking with some bum is probably not a good sign for how the actual event was.

Inland Empire @ Music Box with Elizabeth: Being in the same room with David Lynch nearly makes up for a bunch of idiots kissing ass at the Q & A. Despite the film making absolutely no sense, I still loved it.

Switching jobs from Pissetzky and Berliner to the Illinois Attorney General's Office: Guess what, clerking is boring no matter where you do it.

My 24th B-Day Party at Matilda: Even if everyone couldn't make it out, I have some awesome friends. Highlights: Sarah flipping out at my dad for apparently hitting on Nicole, even though he was really just trying to sell her on pre-payed legal. Me and my sisters sneaking a cigarette break as a drunken end of the night as soon as our dad had left.

Finally starting to ride my bicycle: I'd been missing out.

The 3rd Annual Meatacular: Now I remember why I skipped the 2nd Annual Meatacular.

NYE @ Harris Theater with Jon Brion: I think that really was the best NYE of my life.

Happy New Year! Here's to 2008!

Is That a Banana in Your Pocket...

I'm out in Cincinnati visiting Emily and finally meeting her parents, but more on that later (possibly).

I'm a day late, but I just wanted to share my oddest Christmas gift and stocking stuffer.
It's a plastic banana guard. That's on oddly phallic gift to get from your own Grandma, no? Her explanation: Whenever I see bananas I think of you. What?!

Beside the oddness, how practical is a banana guard anyway? For one, I can never take that out in public. Secondly, how many bananas are so perfectly shaped like that?

Merry Christmas!

The Sun's Not Yellow, It's Chicken

I was going to write about "I'm Not There" this morning along with Juno, since they were the two films I watched on Wednesday, but I figured I had gone on long enough about Juno, as I do tend to ramble if you haven't noticed, and had to get going out into the freezing cold to go watch the Bears game.

I'm even sort of frustrated writing this about the film, but was what Todd Hayne's made really necessary?

I keep trying to think that maybe I just didn't get it or something, but I honestly just think there isn't much to get.

What I get, and I'm no Dylan expert:
Bob Dylan is pretty damn enigmatic, and throughout his career (or more specifically from his 60's folk protest singer days to his 80s found Jesus days) he remained elusive by simply refusing to assume a single identity. From a young folk singer who lied about where he was from and loved and admired Woody Guthrie, here played by Marcus Carl Franklin, a young black boy "named" Woody Guthrie, to an up and coming star in the New York folk scene falling in love and then struggling with failed relationships and divorce (Joan Baez, Suze Rotlo-the girl on the cover of Free Wheelin', Sara), here played by Heath Ledger as Robbie Clark, an actor instead of a musician, to the androgynous Dylan that went electric hopped up on amphetamines in 1966 and toyed with reporters that tried so hard to pin him down in "Don't Look Back", played by Cate Blanchett as Jude Quinn, to the post-motorcycle accident Dylan who missed Woodstock living in the country played by Richard Gere as Billy the Kid (how clever that Dylan acted in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid), to the Dylan that found Jesus played by Christian Bale as Jack Rollins.

While the film interestingly takes these points in Dylan's life and career, assigns them to individual characters, and jumbles things around a bit, it becomes a difficult not to see the film as an artful and admirable experiment, but one that isn't ultimately very worthwhile. That's not to say that I wish the film was more biographical. There honestly doesn't seem much more that can be known about Dylan unless he is actually going to decide to say more. The problem with the film is actually that it seems to regurgitate what we already do know.

Most critics are discussing Cate Blanchett's performance as the high point of the film, and, while I find it admirable how she is totally lost in the part, to say that she isn't just playing an extrapolated version of the Dylan in "Don't Look Back" (and somehow intertwined with Fellini's 8 1/2) is delusional, and is pretty exemplary of what's wrong with the movie in the first place. Either it's supposed to actually be about Bob Dylan, in a biographical sense, or it's not, but the film just straddles that line a little too much.

What really stood out for me as the high point of the film, rather than Cate Blanchett, were the portions of the film with Heath Ledger and Charlotte Gainsbourg as Robbie and Claire. Maybe I am just a sucker for a crumbling romance, but there are few women as naturally beautiful as Charlotte Gainsbourg, and Heath Ledger gives the best performance of the film of someone who isn't just trying to emulate the physicality of Dylan. There is a real struggle in Robbie's desire to want to be a good husband and father despite his tendencies, and a real sadness when even with a stewardess with him in his hotel room, he is truly alone without his family.

Writing about it, I guess because it at least feels like there's so much to discuss, it's worth seeing (maybe I even have to see it again), but right now, I just think time spent watching "Don't Look Back" or "No Direction Home" is time better spent.

And I Know You Weren't Bored That Day...

I've been trying to stay pretty busy and distracted, so even though I've been done with finals for a couple days, I already feel like I've neglected any writing.

One more day until I'm actually going to be busy with Christmas, Cincinnati, New Year's, and my annual CD City residency.

So after an excruciatingly painful yet delicious meal at Fogo de Chao on Wednesday, I lied on the couch over at Jon's and we watched some movies.

Juno:
Thankfully due to my living arrangement, I've been able to see Juno twice now, and strangely, over the last couple days, I haven't been able to get it out of my head. After that first viewing, I thought it was a decent but pretty standard indie, but it's really starting to grow on me. When I finally catch up on the rest of what I've missed this year, I really won't be surprised if it sneaks onto my top 10 (if I ever get around to making one).

I'd read and heard plenty about Juno after it seemed to wow critics and audiences at Sundance, went in with the expectation that it was just going to be overhyped and overrated, and have read and heard plenty since, and in a lot of ways, I don't have much new to say that hasn't already been said. I really am walking the critical line with this one.

The film's greatest strength is the depth of emotions it's able to display of a young girl who as she says, just hasn't decided what kind of girl she wants to be yet. The final stretch of the movie is just so heartfelt that it's hard not to be won over. When Juno narrates about how her and Paulie didn't want to see the baby, it's really heartbreaking stuff.

This time around, I was also much more sold on the romance between Paulie and Juno. Where it seemed more of a romantic subplot hurriedly dovetailed in for a seemingly happy ending the first time around, it really does work. These are just two confused high school kids. The fact that one day Juno is consumed with the thought of being pregnant and finding people to adopt her baby, and then when everything falls apart realizes that she just misses the simpler times of just hanging out with her friend really plays naturally.

It's the film's attempts at being clever that really stand in its way. While I appreciate some pop culture references, the film just has too many. Here's just a few: Sonic Youth, blogs, Herschell Gordon Lewis, The Melvins, The Blair Witch Project, Etch and Sketch, slurpees, hamburger phones, and Thundercats. While Blair Witch Project being on Starz might be the funniest line in the film, that "Thundercats are Go!" after Juno's water breaks is cringe worthy, and is a glaring mistake in what is almost a flawless final act. It's also the film's own cleverness that really makes it difficult to get into at the beginning with a ridiculous Rainn Wilson cameo. I get that some of what makes the character of Juno so likeable, besides Ellen Page just being outstanding, is her cleverness and verbal quips, and that as the film goes on, that tougher exterior begins to fall away, but the film still really struggles due to its dialogue and survives because of its story. Just based on the two screencaps which I think really capture the film for me, it's really the quiet moments that are the most memorable and effective.