Real Topeka People

Poor forgotten Joe Casepack. It must be hard having ‘Joe The Plumber’ come in and steal your thunder.

Wow, I think I might have been dancing to “Holding Back The Years” last Saturday too.

Even better than the last one. Apparently Spielberg had a lot of involvement in this one.

I know the relevance to our country is minimal, but the message is universal. EVERY. VOTE. COUNTS.

Plus the Borat appearances are genius. “I need to make a small shit. Please.”

From a personal perspective: God, please give us an Obama victory on November 4th.

I’ve had a Billy Joel Jones recently…. He was easily my favourite perfomer from age 15-20, and my love for him has never diminished. Cannot wait for his tour in December. I’ve never seen him live, but from all accounts he is an amazing live perfomer.

This track is from his album ‘Turnstiles’. It is in my humble opinion one of his most poignant songs lyrically.

“For we are always what our situations hand us…
It’s either sadness or euphoria. ”

Sums up so much of the human experience, doesn’t it?

Gus Van Sant’s new film ‘Milk’, a biopic about the later life and assassination of San Francisco city supervisor/gay rights activist Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man in U.S. politics, is already generating serious Oscar buzz. The trailer gives you a good idea why:

Van Sant has assembled a brilliant cast, and all the major players are already receiving high praise. It looks to be more of a return to the kind of strong narrative filmmaking that served him so well with ‘Good Will Hunting’. Sean Penn has had an amazing run of performances in the last few years (’The Assassination of Richard Nixon’, ‘Mystic River’ and ‘21 Grams’ are all A+ films in my opinion); he’s definitely at the top of his game and ‘Milk’ looks set to continue this run.

The new Oasis album ‘Dig Out Your Soul’ is a big return to their classic songwriting form and one of the most enjoyable start-to-finish albums I’ve listened to all year. Drop a tab and check out the psychadelic clip to their first single ‘Shock Of The Lightning’. Still trying to gauge the zeitgeist’s response to the new album (I get the feeling Oasis haven’t been cool for ten years or so), but I am unabashedly in love with it (even more so with the inspired Liam-penned ballad ‘I’m Outta Time’).

I’ve been reading positive buzz about this one on a whole bunch of movie websites, and the trailer has me very intrigued. I love a good vampire movie, and even better is a vampire movie that follows the tenets of vampire mythology (I’m pretty sure the title refers to the rule that a vampire cannot enter an abode without being invited). This Swedish film looks like it has that going for it, as well as some atmospheric photography and, from what I have read, two riveting performances.

Can’t find any Australian release date yet. Here’s a great review from Cinematical.

The new single from ‘Chimney’s Afire’, Josh Pyke in his guitar boat and ‘Make You Happy’.

I can almost smell the barbecues and feel the warm summer air watching this clip.

The debut directing effort from brilliant screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, the genius behind ‘Being John Malkovich’, ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ and ‘Adaptation’ (three movies that would easily crack my top twenty films of the last ten years).

Here’s the synopsis from the trailer attached:
Theater director Caden Cotard is mounting a new play. His life catering to suburban blue-hairs at the local regional theater in Schenectady, New York is looking bleak. His wife Adele has left him to pursue her painting in Berlin, taking their young daughter Olive with her. His therapist, Madeleine Gravis, is better at plugging her best-seller than she is at counseling him. A new relationship with the alluringly candid Hazel has prematurely run aground. And a mysterious condition is systematically shutting down each of his autonomic functions, one by one. Worried about the transience of his life, he leaves his home behind. He gathers an ensemble cast into a warehouse in New York City, hoping to create a work of brutal honesty. He directs them in a celebration of the mundane, instructing each to live out their constructed lives in a growing mockup of the city outside. Somewhere in Berlin, his daughter is growing up under the questionable guidance of Adele’s friend, Maria. His lingering attachments to both Adele and Hazel are causing him to helplessly drive his new marriage to actress Claire into the ground. Sammy and Tammy, the actors hired to play Caden and Hazel, are making it difficult for the real Caden to revive his relationship with the real Hazel. The textured tangle of real and theatrical relationships blurs the line between the world of the play and that of Caden’s own deteriorating reality. The years rapidly fold into each other, and Caden buries himself deeper into his masterpiece. As he pushes the limits of his relationships, both personally and professionally, a change in creative direction arrives in Millicent Weems, a celebrated theater actress who may offer Caden the break he needs.

As Keanu Reeves would say: Whoa. Great cast, intriguing premise, but maybe too big a bite for a first-time director. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a cerebral masterpiece. I think Philip Seymour Hoffman (or ‘Pheymour’, as I know him) is the perfect actor for the complex, insular yet undeniably funny worlds Kaufman creates in his films.

For those that don’t know, the title is a play on the word Synecdoche, a figure of speech where a part of something is used to refer to the whole (i.e. “mouths to feed” for hungry people) and the town of Schenectady, New York.

Guess who got tickets today to My Morning Jacket at the Metro January 22nd! Me, baby, me.

Their latest album ‘Evil Urges’ has copped a fair bit of flack, even from MMJ fans. Count me as slightly disappointed but overall still very appreciative of the latest effort. There are a couple of detours into new territory, but overall the musicianship is faultless and Jim James still has one of the most enthralling voices in rock. New single ‘I’m Amazed’ is full of soul and sincerity.

This preview of ‘Okonokos’, their live concert CD\DVD from last year really sells how amazing they must be to see live. It’s one of my favourite live CDs.

What I really can’t wait for are moments like what happens at 3:50 on this very decent fan shot clip of ‘Lay Low’. Can anyone argue that MMJ don’t have one of the best rhythm sections in music today after seeing this clip.

Time for another vent… this one for the people who care wayyyyy too much about the look of their car, but who are also too cheap to afford a really good car. Yep, I’m talking about the tools who modify their crappy low-budget cars.

More often than not these people also think they are only one lucky break away from becoming a Formula One driver. They weave through traffic at a dangerously high speed, thinking everyone must be marvelling at how cool their car is and how great a driver they are when really, nearly everyone is laughing at them. They also normally have some sort of ridiculously large tacky decal on the back window that promotes how fast they are, like SUPERJET or SPEEDBABE.

I’m talking about the people who do this kind of crap to their junky Daewoo, shitty Mitsubishi, or dorky Hyundai Excel:

These retards spent $17K on a car then spent an additional $20K on rims, spoilers, paint, and a stereo system so powerful it can turn the brain of the driver to jelly (fortunately not a problem for these losers).

And they probably paid for this crap on credit. Here’s a tip morons: take that money and buy yourself a clue.

Sidenote: Whilst doing in-depth research on this rant I found this total wank of a website where people can post pics of their modified cars - only people are obviously taking the piss and posting stuff like this. Awesome. If you read the comments of the posts like this, some of the rocket scientists who are users of the site are genuinely outraged at the quality of the mods. Let’s give them geniuses a slow clap.