Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Film The Evolution of the Exorcism Movie
Posted by Henry Stewart on Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 5:00 PM
- Now we're getting somewhere...
Slasher-movie victims deal with symbolic manifestations of evil; John Carpenter’s white-masked killer is called “The Boogeyman” as often as "Michael Myers". But the victims in exorcism movies battle literal soldiers of Satan, hell-demons who punish PYTs for their spiritual purity. You could read them as metaphors if you tried hard enough—is the demon’s name “Puberticus”?—but neither The Exorcist nor its sequel encourages you to do so. John Boorman’s follow-up, in fact, is explicit in its insistence that Ancient, Unadulterated Evil is real, whether modern peoples believe in it or not.
But then, in 2006, Hans-Christian Schmid, working from a script by Bernd Lange, directed Requiem, an exorcism movie unlike all others.
Food & Drink "Weigh yourself naked every morning at the same time. Your weight will fluctuate by about five pounds depending on when you last pooped."
Posted by Mark Asch on Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 4:27 PM
- Don't be fat. Everybody hates fat people.
Mostly, the tips seem to be tricks for waging psychological warfare against your natural desire to eat all the great food that surrounds you at all times because it's your job to eat it. Like: the same amount of food on a smaller plate will make you think you've eaten a bigger meal; keep the really good stuff out of easy reach; etc. There's much wisdom here, if you're the kind of person who's always looking for new ways to dress up your painful, hateful discipline.
Music Cornershop Announce First Tour in a Million Years
Posted by Lauren Beck on Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 3:55 PM
Music Video: That Band Chief Was on Craig Ferguson Last Night
Posted by Mike Conklin on Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 3:14 PM
I don't know, people seem to be talking about these guys a little bit lately, right? I guess they're fine. Like The Walkmen but with much worse hair?
Music The Internet Has Nothing New to Offer Today, So Let's Watch This Old Ryan Adams Video
Posted by Mike Conklin on Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 2:37 PM
The way I see it, today will be the last really terrible, boring day of summer. Tomorrow there will be new issues of all the weeklies (and, uh, biweeklies), so at the very least, there will be new shit to read. And then by the time Thursday and Friday roll around, there should probably be some fighting abut the Top 200 Tracks of the 90s thing on Pitchfork (uh, riiiight, Yellow Leadbetter is the best Pearl Jam song, but still not as good as "The Humpty Dance"). And then it's the weekend, and then it's Labor Day, and then after that, everything is brand new and awesome. In the meantime, though, for at least a few more hours, things remain terrible and boring. So now I'm going to watch this video from 2004 of Ryan Adams on Letterman doing the "So Alive" from the very underrated Demolition album.
Film The Rollicking Arch-Conservative Violence of Piranhas 3D
Posted by Henry Stewart on Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 1:47 PM
Director Alexander Aja seems a lot harder on his characters than he is on himself. Piranha 3D, a bloodbath spectacular set during spring break debauchery—Hip Shakin’ Mamas in 3D might be more like it, as it boasts more T&A than any studio movie since the 1970s—is not for want of leering objectifiers. Chief among them, however, is the camera itself.
News Public Advocate Annouces the 153 Worst Landlords in New York
Posted by Mark Asch on Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 1:20 PM
Today in hilariously revealing Google Maps is this new guide to the slumlords of New York City, unveiled by the office of Public Advocate Bill de Blasio. In an effort to raise tenant awareness and shame negligent and greedy landlords, the office, with the help of aggrieved tenants will keep an up-to-date map of all the crack squats and horrifying toilet rats throughout the five boroughs.
Or, you know, the parts of the five boroughs where no white people live.
Music Watch the Trailer for a New Song by No Age
Posted by Lauren Beck on Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 12:39 PM
No Age has taken the trailer to a whole new level, having just unveiled a sneak peek to neither an album (though Everything in Between is going to be pretty good, I think) nor a tour (though they've got that happening too), but to a song. "Life Prowler," the opening track on their forthcoming record, points to more chaotic, climbing noise-pop from the L.A. duo... but then the trailer stops just when it starts getting really good. I suppose that's the point of a trailer. That guy in the inflatable suit is mega creepy, just for the record.
Everything in Between is out on September 28 via Sub Pop.
Music Watch The Walkmen Cover R.E.M.
Posted by Mike Conklin on Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 12:03 PM
Well, this is a nice way to end things, huh? We've been all over the A.V. Club's Undercover Series this summer, because it has been by and large really, surprisingly awesome. The final installment was posted online this morning, and it's NYC's very own The Walkmen covering R.E.M.'s unimpeachable "Driver 8," which for some reason, likely having to do with the fact that it is pretty much impossible to ever sound too much like R.E.M., was the final song left on the original list of 25. They do a fine job, though. Not earth-shattering, not embarrassing.
News Brooklyn College Has a Dorm, Now
Posted by Mark Asch on Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 11:07 AM
- (Artist's rendering.)
There is a slightly bigger issue here, though: namely, Brooklyn College needs no longer be an exclusively commuter school, and indeed would appear to prefer not to be, as evidenced by their new $4.1 million door. For many young people, moving to Brooklyn is the new moving to New York—the NYU and New School kids who used to live off-campus in Alphabet City now live in Williamsburg, also a hub for prepostgraduates from liberal arts collegs all across the East Coast, as many have noted. So why not bring out-of-state students directly to Brooklyn? Brooklyn College may become a new college hub in Flatbush, similar to Pratt in Fort Greene-Clinton Hill-Bed Stuy (which, if you haven't seen Art School Confidential, was at once far more inhospitable to students than Flatbush is now). We all eagerly await the further spread of hipster-to-yuppie gentrification.
Music Dirty Projectors to Release Super Duper Expanded Premium Deluxe Fancy Edition of Bitte Orca
Posted by Mike Conklin on Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 10:32 AM
Now, I've got a lot of love for Dirty Projectors. I find frontman Dave Longstreth to be one of the most interesting figures currently working in our small but rapidly expanding world of indie rock, and I think Bitte Orca was very obviously one of the best records released last year. But that said, I can never really get behind these expanded special edition things. They seem to come along when a band has had more success than they saw coming and they're trying to extend the life of an album ever further. Taylor Swift did it with Fearless, and I know Grizzly Bear did it with Veckatimest, right around the release of the high-profile New Moon soundtrack they were on. It always feels sort of desperate, and the bonus material never seems to be worth all that much. It feels silly complaining about stuff like this, because yes, I know, it's increasingly difficult for bands to get paid, but it also feels strange to live in a world where Taylor Swift and Dirty Projectors subscribe to the same business practices. If it affords them a few more hours in the studio when it comes time to make a new record, though, I suppose it's alright with me.
Music Hear the New Matt and Kim Single
Posted by Mike Conklin on Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 9:03 AM
Monday, August 30, 2010
Film They Drive By Night: Capitalism As Dream and Nightmare
Posted by David Phelps on Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 4:35 PM
Music CMJ Announces First Batch of Bands: It Includes Surfer Blood
Posted by Lauren Beck on Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 4:02 PM
- Hi again!
Though not "officially" announced, BrookynVegan has started rolling out a list of additional showcases and corresponding bands, including his own (featuring The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Yuck, Young Man); a Todd P/Hardly Art party (Xray Eyeballs, Circle Pit, Fergus & Geronimo, Woven Bones, Golden Triangle and Vivian Girl Katy Goodman's solo project, La Sera); Park the Van (Juston Stens, Generationals and more); and Fat Wreck Chords (Me First & the Gimme Gimmes, None More Black, Teenage Bottlerocket and more). A press release that recently came to the office noted that Cloud Nothings will also be making an appearance, one that we imagine will be among the most buzzy (heard it hear first).
The official lineup, joined by a smattering of panel discussions, film screenings and CMJ Play, the festival's first-ever gaming and music seminar, is after the jump:
News Baby Baboons at Brooklyn Zoo Need You to Name Them
Posted by Jonny Diamond on Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 3:19 PM
News Brooklyn Woman Fakes Getting Crushed By Lamppost
Posted by Jonny Diamond on Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 2:49 PM
Music The Drums Cover Arcade Fire, No Kidding
Posted by Lauren Beck on Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 2:11 PM
This makes me very nervous, but I'm staring at a YouTube link to a live recording of The Drums taking on Arcade Fire's "We Used to Wait," and I'm about to click on it.
So it's obviously much more bouncy than the original, with plenty of clanking guitars and a swinging backbeat. I could see Win Butler hearing it, and it getting under his skin a little bit. Why singer Jonathan Pierce insists on pronouncing the word "last" so funny is beyond me, as why he sounds so breathless and British, but, all in all, I'm really digging it. Is that bad?
Music The Justin Bieber/Raekwon/Kanye Collab Has Now Hit the Internet
Posted by Lauren Beck on Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 1:34 PM
TV Your Emmy Awards Recap?
Posted by Mark Asch on Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 1:03 PM
Television's annual Emmy Awards are broadcast on a Sunday night in August, because there's never anything else on television on a Sunday night in August. Except Mad Men, which won the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series for the third year running at about 10:52pm last night, right as last night's episode was winding up (no spoilers please, I watch via the iTunes store).
The fact that most of the people who would be happy about Mad Men winning an Emmy were not in fact watching the Emmys—the fact that many fans of critically lauded television don't actually watch television per se, but rather follow specific shows, generally on our computer screens—seems to underscore the fragmentation of American culture in general, even as, paradoxically, major events like the Emmys give online communities an opportunity to gather, remotely, around a cultural moment, staving off loneliness through shared experience while also driving up pageviews.
Oh and here are Christina Hendricks and January Jones and Elisabeth Moss in their dresses from last night.
Special Events I Hate Unicyclists
Posted by Jonny Diamond on Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 12:27 PM
- Ain't no friends of mine.
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