(500) Days of Summer (Webb, 2009)

Picking up Chicks Rule #84: Chicks love The Smiths.

(out of 4)

It’s fair to say that the term “romantic comedy” is a bit of a misnomer since most films that belong to that category are neither funny nor romantic. Instead, they are usually bland, predictable, and appeal to the lowest common denominator in humor. If you ask me, it’s high time we loosened that term of some of its baggage and returned it to a nobler plane in cinema. So, when I say that (500) Days of Summer is the best romantic comedy in years, I’m not thinking How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, I’m thinking When Harry Met Sally and Annie Hall.

(500) Days celebrates youth, life, love, and music in ways that few films have this decade– it’s probably THE romantic comedy for my generation. However, before young couples start to flock to this film in droves they should be informed of the narrator’s warning at the film’s beginning, this is not a love story; or, as Brandon Fibbs wrote in his review, this film may be more accurately described as a “romantic tragedy.”

Tom, Joseph Gordon-Levitt in his best role since Brick, believes in true love and wears his heart on his sleeve; meanwhile, Summer, Zooey Deschanel utilizing her big blue eyes here more than ever before, believes in living in the moment and rejects the use of relationship labels. The film follows the highs and lows of their relationship in a way that’s touching, funny, and believable. Tom and Summer speak, flirt, and behave like real people that I know. At the end of the day, this film will be remembered and adored because of these three-dimensional characters, the tender romance that they share, and the sincerity with which the lead actors portray them.

One of the things that makes this film so mesmerizing is how well the medium of film is utilized here. There are so many sequences that dazzled and entranced me. One of the primary devices used in telling the story is an animated title card informing us of what day we are seeing in the year and a half covered in the film. This is particularly helpful as the film doesn’t unfold chronologically but skips around casually. I’ll avoid divulging anything important, but let me say that another particularly wonderful sequence comes as a dinner part unfolds in a split screen, one side showing us Tom’s expectations and the other showing us reality.

It’s touches like these which reveal director Marc Webb to be serious student of cinema and an up-and-coming director to watch. He understands his medium so well and he packs (500) Days, his very impressive feature-length debut, with winks and nods to many other films (I’ve never seen film clips and references used as creatively as they are here). While a few of these references may be lost on a few viewers, many will be able to appreciate the rich soundtrack this film offers. While the film hits many underground classics of the last couple decades, it never feels like it’s name-dropping or trying to earn hipster cred. Nearly all the music heard and mentioned in the film serves a greater purpose.

In short, (500) Days of Summer is a rare treat, one I can’t wait to see again. Filmmakers take note, if many more films like this are made then romantic comedies may once again have a respectable place in cinema.

White Hipsters Heart NPR

NPR’s All Songs Considered Blog held a poll for their readers of the best albums and songs of 2009 at the half-way point. Here is what they selected:

Best Albums of 2009 (so far):

1. Animal Collective — Merriweather Post Pavillion
2. Grizzly Bear — Veckatimest
3. The Decemberists — Hazards of Love
4. Neko Case — Middle Cyclone
5. Wilco — Wilco (The Album)

Best Songs of 2009 (so far):

1. Animal Collective — “My Girls”
2. Grizzly Bear — “Two Weeks”
3. Bon Iver — “Blood Bank”
4. Yeah Yeah Yeahs — “Zero”
5. Phoenix — “Lisztomania”

So apparently only white, indie artists are making all the worthwhile music of 2009.

Thoughts?

Favorite 2009 Film at Mid-year: PIXAR’s Up

The wild, blue yonder…

As of very recently, this blog has begun covering film and television (though the primary focus will still remain on music) and to kick things off in the film department, I decided to present my favorite films of 2009 at the half-way point. Sadly, I’ve only seen a handful of films in theaters this year (however, my Netflix account has been smoking, see my Viewing Diary for proof) and so I’ve decided just to devote this space to my favorite film of the year (so far) which is, by a landslide, PIXAR’s Up (dir. Peter Docter). And the way things are going, this very well may top my list in December.

Up (Docter, 2009)

PIXAR, aka the best filmmaking company in the biz today, takes joy in choosing unlikely heroes for their films and they do it like no one else; they’ve introduced us to toys, bugs, monsters, fish, super heroes, cars, rats, and robots and miraculously we’ve cared about them all. For their tenth film, they select what is perhaps their most unexpected hero to date, an ornery, old widower with a walker.

We first meet Carl Fredricksen as a child in a movie house in the 1940s, and I can think of no better place for the adventure depicted in Up to begin. On the silver screen, Carl sees his hero, the explorer Charles Muntz, and wants to venture to faraway lands just like him. Carl soon meets a young girl, Ellie, who shares his passion for Muntz and seeking adventures in exotic lands. Carl is quickly smitten with Ellie and what follows on screen is one of the purest, most touching segments in recent cinema. We see Carl and Ellie’s life from marriage until they are parted by death in a wordless montage that captures the highs and lows, the exciting and the boring, and the pure joy that is possible in marital life.

M.Ward: Hold Time

(out of 5)

M.Ward has always had a penchant for older music. He claims his favorite song is the hymn, “Amazing Grace,” his albums have always had a certain AM radio vibe to them, and his collaboration last year with Zooey Deschanel as She&Him was as great a throwback to sunny 1960s pop and country as we’ve heard in recent years. However, the last time we heard from him on a solo album, 2006’s Post-War, he had his mind set on the future as he was crafting a set of songs to be used and sung after the War in Iraq. While we are still waiting to be able to spin Post-War as it was intended, M.Ward has given us a new album, Hold Time, which points us backward in time, both with its AM radio folk-rock and its lyrics which take us all the way back to the Garden of Eden in the opening track.

So effective is Ward in this back-in-time movement that Hold Time feels stuck in time and timeless at the same time. Though released in 2009, it sounds as though it could just as easily been released any time in the last several decades. And The Garden of Eden is not the only biblical reference found here. Ward drops them all over the place in this record including references to the Apostle Paul, Mount Zion, and a song about the “Fisher of Men.” Whether this is indicative of a personal faith in Ward is difficult to tell but it does provide Hold Time with a certain context, a certain language that makes its timelessness all the more believable. This religious lingo sounds somewhat out of place in 21st century pop music but it builds a nostalgic feel to the record that provides a breath of fresh air to the arid wastelands of most of the 2009 releases.

Favorite Music of 2009 at the Halfway Point

A couple days late is better than never. Here are my favorite records of 2009 that were released between January 1 and June 30. To see some startling changes check this list after the first quarter.

1. Mos Def — The Ecstatic
Hip-hop at its finest. This is a great comeback for Mos Def. I won’t say any more here, just read my lengthy review.

2. Allen Toussaint — The Bright Mississippi
Terrific set of old jazz standards by one of the elder statesmen of R&B/pop. This record never gets old even after tons of plays.

3. Animal Collective — Merriweather Post Pavilion
The buzz has died down about this album, but its still a terrific listen. I pulled it out a few days ago and I’m still entranced by its bizarre concoctions and its domestic subject matter.

4. Jarvis Cocker — Further Complications
There isn’t really anyone else out there like Jarvis Cocker. Someone who combines nerdy sex appeal with witty lyrics and terrific pop hooks. He does it here just as well as he’s done it anywhere else. This is also the hardest rocking set of his career.

5. M.Ward — Hold Time
Have I still not reviewed this one yet? Wow, that’s lame. This is a great record from the AM-radio obsessed M.Ward. I’ll say more in my forthcoming review, I promise. UPDATE: Here’s my review.

6. Grizzly Bear — Veckatimest
One of my favorite records of this decade is Grizzly Bear’s Yellow House. I’m not convinced that this is as good as that record. This one is perhaps more meticulously crafted, but is more difficult to connect with emotionally. Still a fine record and a happy addition to this list. Review coming eventually.

7. Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society — Infernal Machines
Is it big band music? Is it jazz? Is it punk? It’s all three and it’s terrific. It’s like nothing else I’ve ever listened to. Review coming eventually.

8. Aaron Strumpel — Elephants
The Psalms as they were meant to be played– full of desperation, wailing, and pain. A moving and startling record. Review coming eventually.

9. Dirty Projectors — Bitte Orca
I’m still getting into this one. I’m not in love with every song yet, but most of it is just plain wonderful. “Stillness is the Move” is in the running for my favorite song of the year. Review coming eventually.

10. P.O.S. — Never Better
Why didn’t anyone combine punk rock and hip-hop this well before now? This record is energetic and angry– so angry that I can’t listen to it every day. But if you’re in the mood for it, there’s just about nothing better to scratch that itch. Review coming eventually.

(NOTE: I’ve already heard Joe Henry’s Blood from Stars (released on Anti- on August 18) and were I to make this list based on what I’ve heard rather than release dates, that one would be #1 with a bullet. Just letting you know. Much more on that record in August.)

Mos Def: The Ecstatic

(out of 5)

In 1999, Mos Def took the hip-hop world by storm with his debut solo album, Black on Both Sides. The power of this record was not too surprising since Mos Def had already proved himself to be one of the most important voices in late 90’s hip-hop as one-half of the brilliant duo, Black Star, along with Talib Kweli. Black on Both Sides is likely a hip-hop masterpiece– it celebrates being black in America and its a love letter to African-American music including hip-hop (“We are hip-hop” he declares) and rock’n'roll. Yet, that record wasn’t all a party, Mos Def took some time to unpack some of the difficulties that the African-American community still faced at the turn of the century. It was an album that took seriously the problems of the past and the present but was also bursting with hope for the future and as a result it was truly the perfect album to sum up the 1990s and propel hip-hop music into a new decade, a new century, and a new millennium.

Yet, Mos Def was as unaware as everyone else about the events that would occur throughout the first decade of the new century. Def’s beloved hometown of NYC was flipped upside down in 2001, the Middle East which birthed his Islamic faith spiraled deeper into turmoil, and the United States slowly filled with distrust and paranoia of its government before finally teetering on economic collapse in 2008. During this time, Mos Def’s music career also suffered while he spent more time and energy focusing on his acting career in which he earned both critical praise and (at times) disdain for his performances. He didn’t altogether leave the music biz though, he released two mildly received albums (probably in an effort to fulfill and get released from his contract) under Geffen who had absorbed Rawkus Records, the label that released Black on Both Sides. His music career reached an all-time low with 2006’s True Magic which prompted Allmusic’s Andy Kellman to end his review with: “It’s unthinkable that Mos has nothing left in the tank for hip-hop. He must be saving his strength for the next release.”

So in the middle of 2009, now that we finally get to hear Def’s new album, The Ecstatic (which he’s been talking about since 2007), we can agree with Kellman’s prophetic assessment, Mos Def has just been saving up his creative abilities. Appearing on a brand new label, Downtown, Mos Def sounds brighter and looser than he has in years. He’s created an album that flows together as well as any hip-hop album of recent years. Each song bleeds and runs right into the next one, but that’s only half the album’s genius. The other half lies in the variety of musical styles and instruments that are showcased here. The opener, “Supermagic” plays on the role of African-Americans’ contributions in developing rock’n'roll (a subject he treated on Black on Both Sides) by placing a searing rock guitar as the backbone of the song, the guitar drops out and the funky, jazzy horns of “Twilite Speedball” take center stage. He also builds a song around handclaps on the terrific “Quiet Dog Bite Hard” and includes plenty of Eastern instruments and rhythms throughout the record. The Ecstatic carefully combines live instruments with samples and beats and displays clear influences from jazz, funk, soul, and rock at every turn– all while sounding like a completely new and original recording.