Category Archives: Pop Culture

In the Mood for Language

Lost in Translation.gifSofia Coppola’s “Lost in Translation” can be said to be a shallow exercise in style. First, it’s clearly a savvy assembly of key touchpoints for a specific niche of the New Thirtysomethings. Its characters, milieu and tone constitute an almost exquisitely calculated dream combination of many hallmarks of hipster elitism: a fascination with the idiosyncrasies of urban Japanese culture, the dissonance of semi-obscure British pop, the watercolor kinetics of Wong Kar Wai’s films, the mannered understatement of naturalistic acting, the ironic wisecracks of Bill Murray, and the irresistibility of adorable young actresses who spend a lot of time appearing in indie films.

All of these things possess an unimpeachable street cred, and yet, their confluence in this film has an overbearing quality. It’s as if Coppola is determined to illustrate her impeccable taste; any movie that gives a prominent role to a My Bloody Valentine song (and even employs Kevin Shields for original music) is making an unmistakable declaration of its own sophisticated, conspicuous eclecticism.

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Fake Realpolitik

The West WingAfter complaints and criticisms last season that it had lost touch with the times, the new creative team of NBC’s highly decorated series “The West Wing” seems prepared to play catch-up — and furiously — in its first outings without creator and former executive producer Aaron Sorkin at the helm. For those who don’t watch the show or who can’t be bothered by the dramatic meanderings of network television, it’s not worth recapping the details of tonight’s plot, but suffice it to say that a show that was once engineered specifically as a liberal fantasia has been rudely awoken to the new conservative reality; the president that sits in this fictitious Oval Office is now a member of the Grand Old Party.

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Brought to You by the Letter K

K StreetPolitics is one thing I can’t seem to get enough of these days, so I was happy to see the debut of Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney’s “K Street” earlier this week. Conceptually, this new ongoing series is something like a verité mockumentary, a kind of cross between the work of D.A. Pennebaker and Christopher Guest — I realize that putting it like that would seemingly confound distinction, but there’s not an easy way to describe the tone of a series that pits a small handful of fictional characters mingling and interacting with real-life politicians and Washington power brokers, and that is designed to be conceived, written, shot, edited and aired all within the span of a week. It’s a bold concept, and the result is generally worthwhile; “K Street” is by turns revealing and lightly comedic, but it also bears the creakiness of an improvised enterprise.

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Biomusicologist

Ted Leo/PharmacistsThough the nature of recent posts might suggest that I’ve become exclusively preoccupied with politics and baseball, I’m still heavily invested in other interests like music and movies. Well, not exactly movies, because a busy schedule at Behavior has pretty much precluded me from very many two-hour blocks of cinema or DVD time. I’ve been keeping a mental list of movies I want to be sure to find the time to watch, but I have no idea when that’s going to be.

As for music, well, thanks to my iPod and the fact that the act of designing is conducive to concurrently listening to music, I’m still a steady consumer of pop. Looking back at the past month or so, I’ve downloaded a ton of tracks from Emusic. Not all of it has been particularly good, but I’ve found a few gems, including “The Tyranny of Distance,” a two-year old album from Ted Leo/Pharamacists.

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Color Commentary

Roger ClemensI’m not sure how this happened, but I’m now a pretty dedicated follower of baseball, having recently got into the habit of checking the American league standings nearly every day to see if the Yankees can hang on to their precarious lead over the Boston Red Sox. This is unremarkable except for the fact that professional sports in general, and team sports in particular, have left me cold for most of my life. But as I’ve mentioned before, there’s a real soothing quality to this sport, and what’s more I’ve been seduced by the endless depths of its statistical undercurrent.

On the other hand, my progress has been slower in developing an appreciation for the somewhat lackluster personalities of baseball’s ‘stars.’ These guys generally don’t have a particularly interesting message to communicate to the world beyond the expert feats of athleticism they commit on the field. After watching ball all season, I’m at a point now where I’m pleasantly indifferent to the worldview of most major league players, which isn’t such a bad way to enjoy the sport, really. Until, that is, one of them opens their mouths and says something substantially uninformed about the world beyond the ballpark.

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That’s My Bush

D.C. 9/11: Time of CrisisThanks to the handy-dandy new DVR in my cable box, tonight I was able to watch Showtime’s dramatization of the Bush White House in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, “D.C. 9/11: Time of Crisis.” Oh man, this thing was a hoot. I would almost say that it’s a completely worthless, clumsy piece of right wing propaganda, to say nothing of its shallow command of scripting, acting, filmmaking and drama… But there is in fact some inherent value to be found in its jingoistic melodrama, and that is a level of camp not seen since the days when Adam West ran around Southern California in a pair of gray tights.

The script for this historical fiction is loaded with groaners so heavy with histrionics (and pock-marked with innumerable dramatic pauses that never seem to want to end) that the final result is gut-bustingly hilarious. Take, as but one example among dozens and dozens, this line uttered by Bush — who has been wildly reimagined as an heroically intelligent, even-handed and profound statesman — utters to the uncharacteristically reserved and deferential Cheney: “I’m going to need you at my side at all times… consigliere.” Truly, this is the stuff of drunken, riotous midnight movie screenings. Good job, Showtime!

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The Sound of Washington

All the President's MenStill sick, I slept through most of today uncomfortably. By the mid-afternoon, I finally felt well enough to get up and cook myself some soup and park myself in front of the television for a while. As it happened, Encore was running Alan J. Pakula’s 1976 film adaptation of “All the President’s Men.” I’ve watched this film about half a dozen times since I was kid, and each time I come away convinced that it’s one of the greatest movies I’ll ever watch.

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I Knew Him When

Curb Your EnthusiasmAmong the nominees announced yesterday for the 55th Annual Emmy Awards was Jonathan Corn for “Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Comedy Series.“ Specifically, the nomination singles out his work on the semi-infamous “Krazee Eyez Killa” episode of Larry David’s painfully hilarious HBO show “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” It was a brilliant episode, but the real reason I’m posting this here is that I’ve known Jonathan since the 8th grade, when we attended, first, junior high and, later on, high school together. I also saw him off with a books-on-tape copy of O.J. Simpson’s “I Want to Tell You” when he packed up his bags, left behind the East Coast and headed off to Hollywood in search of fame and fortune. Congratulations, Mr. Corn!

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Rehabilitation of a Coke Addict

Coca-ColaAs vices go, an addiction to Coca-Cola is pretty timid stuff, which may be the reason I developed one so easily. Because of the long hours we work at Behavior, it was only natural that we decided to carry on the dot-com era tradition of stocking our fridge with dozens of bright red cans of Coke. It became a habit for me to drink at least one or two cans of it during the workday, then go home and drink a half-liter more with dinner and another half-liter while I worked on my computer late into the night. It was a nasty habit and I knew it, but I swear Coke tastes so damn good, and I found it incredibly difficult to convince myself to cut it out.

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The Eyes Have It

What little I know of the Off-Broadway production “Staring out the Window” is derived entirely from my own experience with it this very evening: my girlfriend reminded me that I had agreed to go see this double-feature theatrical event with her and some friends; I showed up at the Red Room, a little-known theater stowed away one flight above the semi-famous KGB in the East Village; I watched, first, a production of Don Nigro’s “Specter” and, immediately afterwards, Jhon Doria’s “Eye Can’t See You,” both one-act plays united by the fact that their principal players spend much of their time on stage staring straight ahead. I really, really enjoyed “Specter,” a funny and unexpectedly frightening conversation between two strangers in a car. Apparently, I’m in good company: a Google search reveals that it’s been produced many times by small theaters around the country. It was a fun night; I need to get out and see more theater.

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