Angels and Demons: It Could Have Been Worse!

There have been a lot of pithy reviews about "Angels and Demons" so far, but I’d like to go on record as saying it could have been a lot worse. Like, bleeding eyeballs worse. Martin recently praised Guillame Canet for creating a taut Hitchcockian thriller out of an over-the-top airport read. In fact, all of the changes Canet made to Harlan Coben’s novel should have caused Coben to smack himself on his head and say, “Oh that’s what I should have done!" For example: "I don’t need the mystical Viet Nam vet who lives in the deserted forest where the crime takes place and only pops up in the last fifty pages! Somebody else can rescue the main character!”

Dan Brown’s “Angels and Demons” is a much more poorly written book than “Tell No One.” Thus, while screenwriters Akiva Goldsman and David Koepp have much to atone for over their past movie mistakes, they at least got something right with this adaptation. Everything that follows is a major spoiler, but I don't see how knowing the story's outcome could affect your filmgoing experience.

• They let one of the kidnapped Cardinals survive. Reading the book, it was kind of a buzzkill to be reading a zippy thriller and periodically have that levity dampened by the grisly murder of a peaceful man of the cloth. Also, it made the story’s hero, Robert Langdon, seem not very good at his job. You were brought on board to save Cardinals, dude, so save Cardinals.
  
• They removed the part about Ayelet Zurer’s character not only being a brilliant particle physicist but also a Yoga instructor. This saved Ms. Zurer the indignity of having to say to Tom Hanks, as her book counterpart does at the story’s end, “Have you ever made love to a Yoga instructor?” The Hanks-Zurer chemistry can be described by many words, but Tantric is not one of them.
  
• They took out the part where Robert Langdon jumps out of an ascending helicopter, uses his blazer as a parachute, crashes into the Tiber, and survives. “Oh,” Dan Brown supposedly murmured at the first test screening, “So he didn’t even have to get on the helicopter in the first place! Ingenious!”
  
• They took away the part about Ewan MacGregor’s character being the product of the Pope donating his sperm to a nun who had left the order and wanted to be a mother. This is just Screenwriting 101: Whenever you have a chance to remove the part about the Pope making a sperm donation, do it.

"The Tempest," or Bring Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Elderly, and Your Free (on a Wednesday Afternoon)

The recent passing of Bea Arthur has caused me to miss the older people in my own family even more. It might have been this nostalgia for the elderly that recently led me to their Chicago Mecca: the Wednesday matinee at the Steppenwolf Theatre. I had purchased my ticket online that morning* and got a great seat in the third row center section. But when I got to my seat the row was filled up with a quintet of elderly female friends. After we compared tickets, we realized that they were supposed to be sitting in the main right section, but they seemed curiously unmotivated to move to their correct seats. I tried to be nonplussed about the whole thing; I’m a pretty non-confrontational person, and there were two empty seats to the right of their group. I figured if the occupants of those seats showed up, we’d let the ushers sort the whole mess out.

I was sitting next to what is referred to in the Golden Girl’s community as a “Rose.” Although she had on a tailored tweed suit and several thousand dollars worth of jewelry on her left hand, she was one Tom Collins away from launching into a heartwarming tale of life in Saint Olaf. She would periodically attempt to move her group to their actual seats, anxiously glancing at the door as if the Chicago Police were finally going to put an end to her seat-switching ways. “Calm down, Evelyn,” her friend (the “Dorothy”) would then snap, with the tone she usually reserves for the waitress when there’s too much endive in the spring salad. “They’re not going to show up!”**

Then the show started, which leads me to things the elderly do not care for during a theatrical performance:

• The sudden sound of cannonfire as soon as the lights go out.

• Bright stage lights being pointed directly at their faces, signifying the tumult of a ship lost at sea
  

Here are things they do like:

• Mike Nussbaum. His powers override all. Everyone leaned in whenever he spoke, and if they had taken a straw poll at the show’s end, people probably would have demanded that he play Prospero for the show’s remaining performances (Nothing against Frank Galati, it was just that people LOVED Mike Nussbaum. If you want to get Mike Nussbaum something for his birthday, go to a Wednesday matinee at the Steppenwolf and record all of the people’s conversations at the show’s end: they’re all verbal love letters to Mike Nussbaum performances, past and present).

• Half-dressed young men. When Ariel’s fairies first came onstage there was an audible intake of breath from the ladies in my row. They also spent most of Ferdinand’s stage time trying to read (aloud) his back tattoos (“Pride,” “Loyalty,” and “Integrity” I think).
  
  
• The descending flowers. They’re really pretty.
  
  
• Zip lines. They’re fun!
  

I myself was kind of lukewarm about the whole show. This admittedly could have been because of the frequent distraction the Golden Girls provided, but I think it’s also because “The Tempest” is kind of boring. Somebody recently told me that the play doesn’t really have a plot: a bunch of things happen and then it’s over. This seemed true on Wednesday – I was on board for the first half hour and then felt my mind wander for the rest of the show. The villain is pretty non-descript, and there never seems to be any tension or payoff in Prospero’s plan of revenge. That being said, Frank Galati was great as Prospero. He had most of the heavy lifting in the show and always made his speeches understandable and moving. The actors playing Caliban and Trinculo were terrific and their scene with the blanket was especially fun. I would list their names except Rose picked my program off the floor during intermission and put it in her purse.

My final thought was that I like Wednesday matinees because they’re the great equalizer. There’s something reassuring that Frank Galati has been nominated for an Academy Award but still has to contend with the audience’s chatter and errant hearing aids. And, not to be corny, but there’s something great about the fact that there’s this large population of older people in Chicago who are actively invested in their city’s theatrical community and can speak more knowledgeably than I could about Shakespearean interpretation and past productions. I just wish they’d sit in the right seats.

*I would have gotten the same seat for half the price if I had purchased the ticket an hour ahead of time, when the box office sells the remaining seats for half off.

**They did show up, about a minute before the curtain rose. The usher was brought in and asked to see my ticket. When he realized I was sitting next to the geriatric female version of “Ocean’s Eleven,” all of whom had just pulled off the Great Seat-Switch of ’09, he decided that some battles are best left un-fought and moved the latecomers into seats in the left section. This caused Dorothy to launch into a monologue about how it is poor form to arrive late to the theater.

Rock'N'Roll is Here to Stay

Saturday night I went to see Tom Stoppard’s “Rock'N'Roll” at the Goodman. I had tried reading it last year but only got halfway through the first act, finding it hard to follow, which leads me to these helpful questions you might want to ask yourself before you go see the play:

1. Do you have a passing knowledge of Communism and Eastern Europe, specifically the Russian occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968?
2. When at a party, do you find yourself steering the conversation towards Sappho and the issue of consciousness?
3. Does your significant other have to tell you to calm down when discussing Syd Barrett’s expulsion from Pink Floyd?
   

If you answered yes to all three questions, then congratulations – you are Tom Stoppard! I myself would be a resounding no to all three, yet I was transfixed by the play. It details the political and love lives of Jan, a Czech grad student, and the Cambridge professor (and devoted Communist) Max over the course of thirty years. The first act is a heady mix of politics and history, and you pretty much need to pore over the program notes before the show or during the intermission to understand what is happening. But about ¾ of the way through of Act 1, Mary Beth Fisher (as the professor’s wife) has a scene where she sucker punches you in the solar plexus and this story you’ve been straining to follow develops a beating heart and you’re on board for the rest of the ride.

The acting is pretty strong across the board. I’ll make an admission – I like seeing plays but I get turned off by how some stage actors Act with a Capital A. This play is no exception, and at various points certain people in the cast were hitting their lines with a hammer when perhaps a lighter touch was needed. That being said, Timothy Edward Kane was fantastic as Jan, giving a totally natural performance while performing the almost impossible task of explaining the changing Czech political climes and rock and roll arcana. Also, he wears about eight different wigs.

I feel like I’ve been overselling how dense the play is, and if I’m guilty of hyperbole it’s only because I feel it’s important you know what you’re getting into. I’m a political dummy and I understood and enjoyed the show, so take that for what it’s worth. But judging by the number of men in the lobby wearing two hundred dollar distressed t-shirts (seriously, one of them was embroidered), I think certain audience members were expecting a totally different show based on its title. Ten minutes in, the Audrina Partridge look-alike who sat next to me turned and stared directly at her (distressed t-shirt wearing) boyfriend until he got up and walked out with her. Maybe she was a political refugee and the whole thing cut a little too close to home, but if she had only stayed the course I think she would have liked what she saw.

The Omnivore's Dilemma: Great Journalism Defeats Dull Soul-Searching

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan

rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Omnivore's Dilemma is 2/3rds of an extremely fascinating book. The central conceit of the book -- that author Michael Pollan will eat (and document) four very different meals for himself -- gets pretty lost in the eye-opening reporting about the different food chains we omnivorous humans enjoy.

The first third of the book describes in sad, stark terms the unpleasant, unsustainable, biologically unimaginable processes of industrial food production. Corn and "monoculture" in general get raked over the coals pretty successfully in this first third. Supermarkets like Jewel and Safeway and "restaurants" like McDonald's don't come out looking so good either. The second third of the book -- and certainly the most interesting -- discuss "organic" food, splitting the organic world into two camps: industrial-organic (typified by Whole Foods), and organic-organic (typified by a family farm called Polyface Farms, located coincidentally about half an hour (I would guess) away from where Greg grew in up the Shenandoah valley of Virginia).

Learning about industrial farming processes was pretty appalling and sad, whereas learning about industrial-organic and organic-organic practices was thought-provoking and fascinating. Both of these sections, however, towered over the final third of the book, wherein Pollan hunts and gathers his final meal for himself -- as a kind of "back to basics" personal journey. Yet, it is at this point in the book when we realize (when I realized) that I was no longer interested in Pollan's personal experiences or travails in the slightest; rather, I craved more reporting on different farming models, different types of food distribution, different theories on human health in relation to diet. Those first two sections positively bulged with startling information and insight -- applicable and pertinent information to how each of us shops and eats today -- while the third sagged with self-indulgence and tedious personal grappling. Pollan's individual and highly emotional soul-searching after shooting a wild pig paled in comparison with his reporting on how industrial organic practices differ from those of a traditional "family farm," like Polyface.

I'm giving this book four stars because I was so riveted by the first 2/3rds. Even more specifically, I can say that the first 333 pages (of 411 total) were wonderful -- this includes the fist chapter of the final section, which discussed evenhandedly the ethics of eating animals. The last 78 pages, however, were eminently skimmable (and I'm not ashamed to say that many of them were, in fact, skimmed by me). I'm sure that Pollan's original intention to make the book a personalized "natural history" of four meals would have been all well and good if the first couple of sections hadn't been so shocking and fascinating that they took on a life of their own and entirely overshadowed his original intentions. The widespread popularity of this book, too, I'm certain, was generated by Pollan's insights into the vastly different types of food production in use today, not his atavistic impulse to reconnect with his mushroom-gathering homo sapien progenitors.

I would argue that the journalistic (some might say political) parts of this book ought to be read by everybody. One of the chief strengths (of the first 333pgs) of the book is the lack of obnoxiously political rhetoric. While Pollan certainly has a point of view and doesn't need to hide it, he also presents the issues with a degree of restraint; this isn't a book version of a gross-sign-waving militant vegetarian protest. Yet it is important to know -- as Pollan notes again and again -- where the food you eat comes from -- how it is created, biologically, economically, politically. The personal, navel-gazing stuff you can skip. The rest (the majority), though, feels both timely and important.

—Photo of Polyface: Jim Franco, via Mother Jones

3 New Songs for 3 New Places in New York City

I recently returned from New York (City). Since I was afforded the time and opportunity to walk around and do a lot of nothing, I got a chance to listen to a bunch of new music, as well as become a repeat customer to some neat places. There is no better place in the world than to create your own soundtrack than NYC, because, in the words of David Cross, you are either looking at the most beautiful person you have ever seen, or the craziest person you have ever seen.* Here are three places to add to your next New York trip and three tracks to go with them:

Song: Like a Hitman, Like a Dancer by A.C. Newman

Place: Cafe Grumpy
Though I, like Martin, have never been as excited about the solo projects of the New Pornographers, I went ahead and got A.C. Newman's newest Get Guilty and love it. It really could be a New Pornos album -- lots of sweet singable pop hooks and harmonies. I now think that Newman might be the brainchild behind the songs I really love by the NP's. This song is ear caffeine to match the high octane coffee from Cafe Grumpy. I was joined by friend and coffee connoisseur Ross on this trip, and he opened the doors to this amazing cafe. Expensive? Yes. But all the coffee is brewed cup by cup, using only the best from around the world. I might even say it rivals our beloved Intelligentsia, which they also serve.

Song: A Community Service Announcement by Jonathon Boulet
This 20-year-old Aussie is hard to find online, but I recommend listening to this single. Reminiscent of the Talking Heads, I can not get enough of this track. Join me on walkabout anyone? And a free download!

Place: Plump Dumpling
Kudos to pal Thomas for leading us to this hole-in-wall dumpling shop in the East Village. Plump Dumpling and owner Peter will serve up some of the most ridiculous dumplings ever tasted, as well as a Mandarin lesson. Chicago Chinese is lacking (as is NYC's Mexican faire), but this cheap and out of the way spot was a great departure from anything we have here.
Song: Actor Out of Work by St. Vincent
Any cheap meal should be accompanied by a song about unemployed thespians. This is from St. Vincent's newest Actor, and though it is not my favorite on the album, I think this video is great (funny) but maybe only to actors.




Place: Neue Gallery
I am the first to be drawn to the large tourist attractions (the Met, Museum of Natural History) while in New York, which is why I deliberately ventured to the Neue Gallery on this trip. Housed in an old mansion, this small museum and cafe deals in German and Austrian art, with the current exhibition entitled BRÜCKE: THE BIRTH OF EXPRESSIONISM IN DRESDEN AND BERLIN, 1905-1913. Not only was the show very good, but the Neue is the perfect size to see all the galleries and not feel as though you have just run a marathon. Manageable Mansion art. That's how I roll. Song: Ferry 3 by Mr. Raccoon And for no other reason than maintaining the international vibe, I chose this track from Mexican progressive pop artist, Mr. Racoon. I love how he sings the guitar line, which sounds weird and wonderful. Just like German Expressionism.







*Definition of good cinema

Tell No One, a French Fugitive, Co-Starring Kristin Scott Thomas, Based on a Crappy American Book. AKA: The World IS Flat.

Tell No One, a French film based on a Harlan Coben airport-thriller-crap-novel, manages to turn a book which I’m told is “terrible” into an exciting, engrossing thriller. It’s probably the most “satisfying” suspense/thriller-type movie I’ve seen in a long time. It’s a bit like the Bourne films without the car chases and the explosions and the ludicrous plots. Everything in “Tell No One” feels very real and is all the more tense and exciting as a result. It actually reminded me a good bit of The Fugitive, one of my all-time favorites. Any semi-realistic thriller that’s as tense and fun as The Fugitive is in great company.

I say Tell No One is especially satisfying because you really root for the good guys, you absolutely loathe the bad guys, and are on the edge of your seat until the gratifying conclusion. Really the only speedbumps are a couple of plot points which fail to make a ton of sense after careful consideration post-viewing, and a clunker of a climax, which involves an extended (and I mean extended) expository monologue. Yet even that ends up being pretty satisfying once you get past the fact that it essentially throws the emergency brake on the action. There are a couple absolutely terrific scenes – an escape scene that felt very real and Fugitive-esque, and a couple super-satisying escapes, twists, and reversals of fortune. All of which is handled deftly and isn’t overplayed or melodramatic. (Until the very, very end which goes crazily melodramatic, but by that time the film had worked up enough credit with me that I allowed it to go a wee bit overboard.)

My wife said that she thought about the movie for two straight days afterwards, and I think that was about the same for me; there were certainly a lot of packed-up twists and turns and labyrinthine motivations to decipher afterwards, in the greatest tradition of mysteries. Friend-of-Culturephiles, James, who brought us the movie to watch, also read the source novel, which he reports was not just transposed from America to France, but also enormously streamlined. This came as a surprise to me, since the movie is so absolutely chock-a-block with flashbacks, characters, and twisty, knotty plot points and plot reversals that I can’t imagine what more could have been crammed into the novel. James also informed us that the French co-screenwriter and director, Guillaume Canet, snapped up the adaptation rights in a semi-suspenseful fashion himself: after a big Hollywood director, Michael Apted, let slip that he was passing on making an American version, Canet snuck into the bathroom to call his producer and tell him to start trying to secure the rights.

A final, tangential, connection to us here at the Culturephiles is that the film’s US distribution rights were purchased by Music Box Films, the distribution company started by the owner of the famed Music Box Theater. It’s a little known, yet important fact that all three of the contributors here at the Culturephiles lived together right across the street from The Music Box for a couple years. It’s a small world, isn’t it? And a small, awesome, super-suspenseful movie. Rent it.

Music Box photo credit: Jim Newberry for the Chicago Reader

A Couple More Mini-Reviews For You Country Music-Lovers: Sara Watkins, Buddy & Julie Miller

Sara Watkins

Sara Watkins is probably more familiar to you as a featured member of the back Nickel Creek (possibly more familiar? No? Fair.) but this self-titled debut is an obvious foray into solo work. I was never much into Nickel Creek – one of my college roommates played “I am a Lighthouse” over and over in our dorm room for a couple weeks one year – but I always liked what little I knew of them. Nickel Creek seemed to me to be cut from the same cloth as Alison Krauss, that is, the neo-bluegrass cloth, where the basic tenants of bluegrass apply, but you aren’t afraid to throw a drum kit in the mix once in a while. (For true fans of Nickel Creek (you guys are out there, right?), if I am hopelessly simplifying and butchering the heart & soul of their innovative, progressive, underrated music, please leave a comment and set me straight; I won’t be offended in the least.)

This solo disc, anyway, seems to be somewhat loosely in the Alison Krauss mold. There’s still more than a hint of bluegrass around the edges – especially the couple instrumentals – but the rest of the disc veers more towards straight-up country-pop. Some of the songs are better than others, but nothing stands out as being particularly amazing or particularly unfortunate. Watkins does herself no great service by stacking some of her original compositions up against covers of Jimmie Rodgers and Tom Waits. But I suppose it’s a (backhanded) compliment to her songwriting that her own songs don’t stick out like sore thumbs!

All in all, it’s a catchy, slick album with a nice fusion of sounds and traditions, which I like. I’m always for someone using pedal steel in a pop song, and/or having a bluegrass arrangement of a Jon Brion tune. And there’s no doubt Watkins is a great fiddle player. I suppose my biggest reservation with the album – what keeps me from being truly, 100% enthusiastic about it – is her singing voice. Don’t get me wrong, she has a very nice voice, a perfectly capable voice. But I just don’t get either the amazing crystalline beauty of an Alison Krauss-voice, or the spark and sass of a Dolly Parton-voice – two singers she sort of reminds me of, for example. This is certainly a kind of straw man argument – why should she have to be as good as those two amazing singers? – but it speaks to the fundamental appeal of her voice. It isn’t really great in any one direction (and I use Alison and Dolly as just two examples). That said, her voice is certainly nice, and perhaps the sass will come in time, or the heartbreaking purity will be developed. I like both her voice and the album, but with some reservations.

Buddy & Julie Miller - Written In Chalk

On the other hand, two people who have no problem sounding distinct – and distinctly awesome – are husband and wife duo Buddy & Julie Miller. Buddy’s twangy straight-from-the-holler voice, and Julie’s raspy growl couldn’t be mistaken for anyone, or anything, else. Buddy Miller is one of the truly underrated guitarists and singers around – his solo work is similarly exceptional. And while Julie Miller is a voice that I can’t always take solo over the course of an entire album, she’s tempered when she sings in harmony with her husband, and her few featured solos are affecting and wonderful (especially “Don’t Say Goodbye”). I couldn’t necessarily get behind listening to a Julie Miller solo album from beginning to end, but this duo-format is perfect – her songwriting is as good as anyone’s (and better than most), and, in small doses, her singing can actually be both raw and powerful.

The stripped-down, production feels somewhat akin to the Robert Plant-Alison Krauss collaboralbum Raising Sand, and all the guest appearances (from Plant himself, Patty Griffin, Emmylou Harris, and others) both fit perfectly, and give the feeling of a group of great friends all pitching in their incredible talents around a big living room for each others’ benefit. (Whether that’s true or not, it’s what I choose to believe thankyouverymuch.) Buddy Miller’s work as a producer and guitarist (for lots of people but Emmylou Harris is one notable client who comes to mind) is probably better documented than his own work, and his production and guitar work on this album are, per usual, a cut above.

Even though the mood is laid-back in the extreme, the Millers feature a perfect mix of uptempo rockers, heartrending ballads, and swamp-bluesy shuffles, all. Buddy and Julie Miller couldn’t be more distinct, but their styles and aesthetics fit perfectly – or perfectly wrongly, if the lyrics to “Gasoline and Matches” are to be believed. There’s some country, some rock & roll, some blues, even some smoky, late-night noir-jazz on “Long Time.” Everybody sounds great, everything sounds great, the songs and mood are pitch-perfect throughout. It’s a really great rootsy, uncategorizable album from two criminally-underrated talents.

Unifying Cultural Events: Summer Star Trek

It is exciting both to have a unifying cultural event on our hands, and to have a new STAR TREK movie!!! Double bonuses don't come any sweeter for this guy. Like Brendan, I gleefully saw the new Star Trek (no subtitle? no number? no nothing??), but unlike Brendan, I am a big fan of Star Trek and gladly whooped (and wept) at all the appropriate nostalgia-button moments. Back to being UNlike Brendan, though, I don't much care for "prequels" and/or "baby" versions of things I like. Muppet Babies may be the only exception to this rule, and the new Star Wars movies (Episodes I-III) may be the ultimate case-in-point. When I go to see a franchise movie, I go to find out What Happens Next, not How Did Past Events Bring Us To This Previously Exciting Moment? I'm sure my simple, plodding preference violates of all sorts of modernistic narrative-theories, where cool films open with their endings and then flash backward to understand how we got to that point. Meh. That's fine, I guess, but I would just as soon start at the beginning and see how we get to the end. I like Memento as much as the next guy, but as the exception, not the rule. Imagine watching Frodo hurl the ring into the fires of Mordor and then flashing backward to see him at his Hobbit party. You've got the next 11 hours to understand how he gets back to that climactic moment. No thanks!

But I digress. Star Trek was a blast. Do I wish that JJ Abrams and his crack team of action-movie writers went to work and crafted new characters that we would all come to love just as much a Kirk & Spock & McCoy? Yeah, probably. We all (and by we all, I mean me) love Kirk and Spock, but we already know them. Why do we need to reboot them and fundamentally change their story and relationship and world(s)? But since Paramount didn't call me for my input, I have to admit I'm pretty satisfied with this slick, sleek new Sar Trek. The cast was great, and if too much time was spent (singing)"getting to know you," then it just made me that much more excited for the inevitable sequel with this same cast.

And now, it's time once again for another* edition of my Quibbles and Commendations Rundown!

Quibbles:
-Kirk was a little too whiney and know-it-all-ish for me. Confidence vs dickishness is a tough line to walk. Most of the time it was fine, some of the time it got on my nerves.
-That plot was...something else. Seriously, what a totally bizarre "storyline", devoid of (wait for it, wait for it) logic. Fully half of that movie made utterly no sense whatsoever. Of course that didn't matter at all, but it surely deserves to go in a list of Quibbles.
-Tyler Perry. If Brendan thought Winona Ryder was distracting (and she sort of was), there are no words for how I felt about that guy popping up. Yeesh.
-I agree with Brendan on our villan, Eric Bana. Why hire a musclebound (wait for it, wait for it) HULK, if he's not going to have any actual fisticuff action? If you want a guy just to be an awesomely menacing bad guy, Brendan's right: get some Shakespearean-trained Brit (think Christopher Plummer) to chew the scenery with CLASS. Brendan mentioned McKellan, who would be great...or someone like Ralph Fiennes (though I know those two are both taken as franchise bad guys) or (dare I say it?) Patrick Stewart would have been awesome. Think about it, Patrick!

Commendations:
-The cast was uniformly great at paying slight homage to the previous iteration of these characters without doing impressions or feeling hemmed in.
-The special effects were great, without being at the total expense of some good old-fashioned fight scenes.
-The pace, action, and freewheeling sprit of the whole production was great. If you are going to reboot this huge, beloved franchise and have to concoct a (semi-coherent) plot that allows you to do that in a unique way, you might as well throw caution to the space wind and go full-out. This movie made no apologies for being mindless fun, and I appreciated that.
-Coolness factor: say it with me, Star Trek is cool again!! And as an actual Star Trek nerd-fan, I couldn't be happier. Live long & prosper, culturephiles!


*first

Summer Movies: "Star Trek" or "I like my Franchises like Santa Claus on the 24th: Rebooted"*

So, last night I ventured to see “Star Trek” in order to reaffirm my love for summer movies – the crowds, the stars, the special effects, your bladder slowly swelling with sodium and caffeine. Dear reader, the movie did not disappoint. I should hasten to add that I have a very limited “Star Trek” knowledge, despite the fact that much of my sixth grade science curriculum was based on that one Star Trek movie with all the whales. Also, I had a professor in college who filled up ten minutes of her lectures on “Moby Dick” by playing clips of Ricardo Montalban in Star Trek II; apparently a lot of his dialogue is lifted from Ahab’s speeches with the appropriate space/ocean substitutions. I often think of that thorny, uncompromising woman (usually whenever I use “that” or “which,” as she drilled the correct grammatical usage of both into her students) and hope that she found some respite from busting Chi O’s talking during her Hawthorne lectures and got her Trek freak on last night.

I’ve heard that some people have criticized the movie as being “Star Trek 90210” and I would say 1) I don’t care and 2) it is, if you think Garth, Spelling, Doherty et. al are charming and charismatic performers. The entire crew is pretty dynamite and despite the fact that they’re all more attractive than you, they’re also pretty good actors. Getting back to point 1, I am a huge fan of what I like to call “The Muppet Babies-ization” of any franchise. The first twelve minutes of “The Last Crusade” are genius, in my opinion, and if Natalie Portman and Ryan Gosling ever wanted to make “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf: The Early Years,” I would be first in line. A lot of the allusions in “Star Trek” went over my head, so I just used the social cues of the audience to know when to whoop appropriately.

My two quibbles would be Eric Bana is a little boring as the villain. I like my villains Shakespearean-trained (e.g., Rickman, McKellan) and over the top. Bana, unfortunately, just gets to have some cool face make-up and sulk around his console. More egregious, however, is Winona Ryder as Spock’s mom. I don’t know if Abrams was trying to go for a “can-you-believe-this-beloved-movie-star-cameos-in-my-movie?” a la Connery in “Robin Hood,” but he misses the mark with Ryder. I’m not sure if she recently helped him move or always brings cookies to the set, but she sticks out like a sore thumb here. Don’t get me wrong, I was a huge Ryder proponent in the late eighties and early nineties – I’m pretty sure I saw “Little Women” in the movie theater – but lately she sounds as if she’s badly in need of a lozenge. Also, they lump old age make-up on her, as if to blatantly piss off Sally Field that she didn’t get the call. I should point out that her character is frequently referred to as a “whore” whenever she is spoken of, so maybe Abrams has some misogynist vendetta against her and Sally should be glad she let the call go to voice mail.

But in all, “Star Trek” gets the summer off to a great start. The trailer for “G.I. Joe,” however, cautions us not to get ourhopes up too soon.

*Is the title too long? Be honest.

Bob Dylan's "Together Through Life," is like my grandmother. Short, Southern, and Witty.

rating: 3 out of 5 stars

It was with much anticipation that I pre-ordered the Amazon.com deluxe edition of Bob Dylan's newest release, "Together Through Life." Having been a huge fan and latecomer to "Modern Times," I think Dylan's latest recordings are some of my personal favorites of his career. In some ways, I like to think Dylan grew into his great talent, or maybe it settled into him. I feel like I listen to him more closely now, like my grandmother, and ironically, it all feels more salient.

"Together Through Life" is conceptually a far throw from "Modern Times," which, for lack of a better word, I would call a "grand" recording. His newest is a a ten-track album, and feels like a sketchbook of songs, half-written, rarely edited. Musically, the band gives over to this vibe. They are loose and rambling, and I only hope began every recording session at midnight in a sweltering studio. There is a feeling that a song might last twice as long as it does, and that between solos, a bottle of rye is being passed around. That said, the band couldn't be better players, and are highlighted by the production quality which feels like what an old Sun Records album might sound like in the modern studio. Oh, and there is lots of accordion. And not ironic rock accordion. The real deal.

The shining star of the album is Dylan's voice, which uses all of it's 68 years to produce the most deep and gravely tone he has ever had. Always the chameleon, you won't hear any dulcet "Lay Lady Lay" tones on this record. Whatever tonic Tom Waits and Johnny Cash shared, Dylan had a few glasses of the same for these tracks.

This is not the album that will blow your hair back on the first listen. But it is the album you will want to have in heavy rotation this summer on your back porch, beer in hand. Or, as this slide show music video would suggest: the perfect album to play as you transform into a kick-ass tatooed greaser for the warmer weather.