We were lucky enough to see a small screening of the new Fishbone biographical movie, Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone last night. The Central Cinema was hosting movies as part of the currently-running Langston Hughes African American Film Festival.

Having been a *huge* Fishbone fan most of the time I’ve lived in Seattle, I was stoked to hear about this movie several months ago – it came out in a Los Angeles film festival last June, but then only sporadically appeared in very limited showings since. It is now about to debut on DVD, Scarecrow is ordering it, etc. so I’m sure far more people will get to see it as is deserved.

It is a bittersweet tale, and several things are very apparent. Fishbone has been (and remains) a band that really cannot be defined by many/any musical categories. Not only do they combine elements of ska, metal, funk, reggae and other ridiculously diverse influences – but they simply do not compromise in this vision – in many ways to their own detriment. Naturally this works against them as far as Big Money Record Companies go – and there is notable discussion of this throughout the movie as you might expect – but it has also served to limit their audience longer term, unfortunately. As they note several times (directly and indirectly) – it is very weird to be a black band, singing pretty direct lyrics about the black and minority experience in America (beginning in Reagan’s America of the late 80’s when they were all just getting out of high school) and then gaining a predominantly white following? Just another example of the fairly unique (for better or for worse) Fishbone history.

I don’t want to spoil the movie, so I won’t give any more details – even if you don’t know anything about the band or may only vaguely remember them from their earlier approach to (real) stardom – the movie is definitely worth watching and I hope it really serves them to gain more fans because if there’s one band that has paid its dues many hundreds of times over, it’s Fishbone. Not only are they probably THE best band I’ve ever seen live – and I’m not the only one who says that by any means (the concert footage in the movie should help prove THAT – check out YouTube in the meantime) – but they have more talent they’ve forgotten about than most bands will ever understand, let alone come close to having!

There were some minor disappointments in the movie – Laurence Fishburne’s narration is way overbilled – he really doesn’t talk very much on balance and never appears in person – Tim Robbins only says about 2 mins of stuff if that (and John Cusack – WTF?) It was nice to see Flea and the various members of No Doubt pay their respects (because they DO owe Fishbone, big time) but all those bands have made a LOT more money and are predominantly white, pop-heavy bands that really took a lot less risks (and simply had a lot less to risk in the first place)?

I am really glad this movie came out and as noted before, I hope it helps their career, even if Norwood and Angelo are the only two originals left (shout to John Steward – drummer since 1999 – you rule man!) – this is one of the few bands that never compromised and has stayed true through thick and thin. Dr. Madd Vibe – we love ya – keep that Theremin rolling.

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One of the best things about Seattle is, simply stated, Scarecrow Video. The store is one of the best video stores in the history of the USA, and that’s no exaggeration. In a town that’s movie-crazy, it stands at the center of all that’s cool about the silver screen locally. It is safe to say that no matter what you are looking for, you will find it there (although possibly already rented by someone else :)).

So for me, besides the usual escapist anime and sci-fi, they have an amazing selection of animation and music videos. Being an animation junkie, one of my all-time faves is Bill Plympton. Most may remember him from MTV hand-drawn animation back in the 80’s and early 90s, but he’s still plugging away out there and still as wacked as ever. In the past couple years he’s come out with Santa: The Fascist Years (2008); the four shorts in the Guard Dog series; and one of the MOST recent – Idiots and Angels (still waiting to see this one).

But in visiting Scarecrow to get a specific anime pic, I looked at Bill’s section (there are many DVDs and even a few old VHS titles in there to rent) and in the Animation Show of Shows series, his short ‘Eat‘ (2001) was there (Volume 11), so I got it.

This one – like many Plympton shorts – starts off in one direction, and just when you think you’ve figured out where he’s going, veers off wildly in the complete opposite way and ends up nowhere near your expectations (not a bad thing – but the rubric ‘expect the unexpected’ should be your guide).

A lonely man comes into an empty restaurant, is waved to a table, and then orders for two – when it comes, he begins fantasizing about the other plate taking the form of a fantasy date and acts accordingly.

Meanwhile, another couple comes in the restaurant, takes their seat nearby, the man orders, and then things begin to get weird. Not terribly long after, a family of four comes in and takes another table, and things take another weird turn.

I won’t spoil things for you – it’s hard enough to get people to watch BP movies with me as it is, so I encourage you to seek it out for yourself 🙂 – suffice it to say, the chaos in the last few minutes will be both vaguely familar, yet completely disturbing at the same time.

You aren’t meant to understand his short films – he lets loose in most of them fairly quickly and you are simply along for the ride at that point. But that’s half the fun! And of course the fact that he’s from Portland, OR (like me) and that he hand-draws every frame of every short/movie himself – the last holdout on that for sure – makes him truly one of a kind, even beyond the unique content of his films.

It appears from his site BP now actually has a book out, with the foreword by Terry Gilliam (one of the few people likely close to Plympton’s vision when doing those wacked Python animations long ago). I will definitely have to keep an eye out for when he comes back to the PNW, and show up for my signed copy. 🙂

In the meantime – check out some Plymptoons!

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In

So finally watched The Big Lebowski, by Los Hermanos Coen. I never saw this movie the first time around, and despite its cult following, tried to watch it once before but gave up about 10 min. into the movie. For whatever weird reason, I decided to give it another chance.

So….I have to say this is one of the weirdest movies I’ve ever seen – and that’s even by Coen Brothers standards (Fargo or Raising Arizona, anyone?). On the one hand, The Dude (the always too-cool-for-school Jeff Bridges) is definitely a sympathetic central character, despite all the s*** (literally and figuratively) thrown at him during the movie. And Walter (John Goodman) is a complete freak from the first words out of his mouth until the very end. Steve Buscemi must have had the easiest acting job of his career – he has about one page of dialog the whole movie (mostly the same sentence over and over again which makes John Goodman scream at him) and to otherwise just sit there in most scenes. Finally, Julianne Moore is kind of wasted here as the weird art-heiress – she’s definitely one of my favorite actors, but her character just doesn’t make much sense (like most of the rest of the movie). John Turturro as ‘Jesus’ only gets a couple yelly scenes and then no big showdown at the end with The Dude (or even Walter)?

I’m not sure if this movie is an indictment or a celebration (!?) of the So-Cal lifestyle but its events likely couldn’t happen anywhere else (save possibly Monaco, to far richer and likely crazier people)? Definitely a unique look at Americana, that’s for sure.

I guess I’m glad I finally saw it, but as a Coen Brothers movie, I just don’t think it’s up to either of the two mentioned above, nor the far more recent No Country for Old Men. If it wasn’t for Jeff Bridges, there wouldn’t be much to recommend this movie, really. Definitely looking forward to seeing JB in the (really recent) Coen remake of True Grit, though.

The Dude abides…..and has left me shaking my head. 🙂

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So recently I remembered an old X-Files episode written by William Gibson (of cyberpunk fame) and Tom Maddox – Kill Switch. You can watch the whole thing on Vimeo here. Rather than spoil the plot (wikipedia linked earlier will do that if you read it), i will simply say this is an engaging and taut story definitely ahead of its time (originally broadcast on Feb 15, 1998). If you ever worry about Cold War technology, Skynet or the like, you should like this a lot.

Last night, I watched the second, later Gibson episode – First Person Shooter. This one aired on Freb 27, 2000 and did well ratings wise, even winning two Emmys. But while it’s well made, I found it fairly predictable (helps having the vantage point of watching it almost 11 years after broadcast :)) – and overly melodramatic. This episode is very similar in plot to a certain 1993 first-person shooter videogame we’re all familiar with (because it all but started the whole genre) but in some ways, less interesting. I’ve never been a huge fan of shooter videogames to begin with, so that may have biased my take too, not sure. This episode was in the Seventh Season of The X-Files, in case you want to rent it to watch.

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So finally was able to watch my library copy of Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage. This is a documentary of the Rush story, from early-70’s beginnings to present (2010). It also has some bonus stuff on the second DVD, deleted scenes, and some rare concert footage from VERY early on (the original three playing at Toronto high schools, which at the time were the ‘tour’ given the band wasn’t 21 so not in bars).

All in all, this is a good show, and has a nice mix of fandom (e.g. other musicians talking about why Rush mattered to them or to music generally), musical history of the band (album histories and capturing a bit of events at each one) and sporadic concert footage spread throughout. While I could have done without Gene Simmons (is that guy in EVERY rock documentary these days or what?) his comments are actually restrained and kind of funny, and Geddy Lee also gives KISS their due in terms of how much they helped Rush early on.

One thing that is also noticeable is how nerdy a band they really are. They even joke about how early on, their fans were nearly all men. Then later on, still nearly all men. Only in more recent years have they seemed to gain female fans of any amount – which is good, but I doubt it had much effect on their musical direction or appeal – still way nerdy compared to most bands. They really don’t sing much, if at all, about the usual rock ‘topics’ – sex and drugs – something that got them a lot of crap from UFO while on tour in the UK/Europe (funny anecdotes from Geddy on that).

It’s also interesting to note how Alex/Geddy were the founders and have the history together all the way back to grade school, whereas despite Neil Peart having now been in the band around 40 years, he is still (jokingly) called ‘the new guy’, because he was the second (and only since) drummer. The sequences with him are somewhat different than the other two – he’s definitely a different breed of cat, much quieter – nice guy, but definitely more intense and a bit ‘brooding’ vs. the other two.

I knew that Neil’s daughter had passed away in a bad car accident while they were on tour many years ago, but didn’t know that his wife had passed on not long after too. What a terrible, sad experience – they relate how they thought it was the end of the band – they really didn’t do anything for almost 5 years before Neil came around and wanted to get things rolling again. I’m glad he came through it, but it sounds like it took a long, long time.

I think a couple additional things might have improved this film a bit, though. For one, I would have liked a closer look at their composition process – how do they sit down and come up with stuff, what does it look like? They talk about this a bit but not in real detail, more high-level.

Second, I know that Geddy and Alex write the music for the most part, and Neil writes the lyrics in many cases. How does his writing process work? He is a voracious reader, and it’s obvious his lyrics come from all that reading – but how was he ‘inspired’, etc.? While he’s a pretty private guy, at least a minimal conversation about it would have been pretty cool.

Also, some anecdotes about specific songs might have been neat – you can see a few in the liner notes on some albums (e.g. Red Barchetta is based on a sci-fi story, etc.) but say, where other songs come from? Some are obvious (LimeLight, Subdivisions, etc.) but others?

At any rate, it’s always interesting to see what the band guys are really like – are they ‘normal’ people, self-absorbed jerks, wankers, or? Rush are definitely the former, and have largely maintained cool heads throughout their long career – cheers to them!

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Saw 1997’s Mrs. Brown Friday night. While a pretty ‘sedate’ movie compared to most of my usual fare, it was interesting and a tragic, human story nonetheless.

I originally wanted to see this because it has Billy Connolly and Judi Dench in it. They play Mr. Brown and Queen Victoria, respectively. I’ll pretty much watch *anything* with Billy Connolly in it, and having seen Judi Dench in a number of movies and shows over the years, she is one of those actors always worth watching, regardless of the subject matter. Geoffrey Palmer and even a young Gerard Butler play key surrounding roles also, amid the other supporting cast.

Here, Mr. Brown is a former friend called in from Scotland by the Queen to be a personal assistant while she continues her mourning in seclusion over her dead husband, Prince Albert. He rapidly shakes things up, being a brusque, non-nonsense Scotsman amid an otherwise huge group of bootlicks and suck-ups surrounding the Queen in her daily routine – this includes her large family of children (9) who seem to live there too.

This movie is as much about personal relationships, loyalty and ‘office politics’ as it is about the main characters. And as we see all too often in real life, the outsider is rapidly the subject of multiple attempts (both subtle and direct) to ruin him and roust him out of a position of influence.

But the tragedy here isn’t completely about Mr. Brown – the Queen bears responsibility for a lot of ‘drama’ here – both imagined and real. On the one hand, she’s already been in mourning/seclusion for several years before he arrives, and even despite his resulting positive influence on her, remains there for several years hence. But his devotion is unswerving and without exception, the only successful interruption to which is ultimately brought by Prime Minister Disraeli who makes an appeal to Brown directly.

It would be very interesting to have seen the real relationship play out in person (this movie is based on a true story) as the Queen here is all-too-often very harsh in her dealings with everyone around her – I wonder if that portrayal was accurate, exaggerated in the movie or worst case, understated? It is often painful to watch her switch back and forth to coming out of her shell vs. addressing everyone so formally while describing herself in the third person. I realize monarchies (well, from what i’ve read – monarchies in the USA are only created truly within the minds of the self-deluded, not that there’s any shortage) breed their family members to expect and demand complete ‘service’ wherever possible – it’s just still painful to see it in practice. Especially these days where the British Crown is even more a leech on the public finances than it ever was?

The performances here are great, imho. Billy C. doesn’t have to imitate any accent but his natural brogue (probably a good thing :)) and portrays the kind heart, blind loyalty and ultimately tragic figure of Mr. Brown very well. Judi Dench’s Queen V. comes across as frequently melodramatic and fairly black & white in her life outlook. She is sometimes on the verge of opening up back to humanity, but then quickly retreats into stiff formality and her role as Queen as a protective mechanism. It was also interesting at the start of the movie when Gerard Butler’s accent sounded forced and kinda fake compared to BC’s – he also plays a Scottish character in this movie – but in reading his IMDB bio, he’s actually also Scottish (but lived in Canada in his later childhood). Hmm.

Ultimately, this is a good movie and anyone who likes period pieces, these actors, or an insight into a completely different society (and historical period) than our own should like this movie. Be warned that it might be harder to find on DVD – we had to watch it on VHS.

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Saw the french movie Delicatessen again tonight. Great movie, and definitely very weird. I saw it way back around the time it came out (1991) and remembered bits of it but was good to see it again.

This is a post-apocalyptic black comedy about an apartment building with a butcher shop on the street level (the butcher is also the landlord), vegetable-eating ‘sewer rebels’, and a cast of mostly crazy residents living in the building. To tell you more would begin to spoil things – just see it. It was directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who also directed more well-known Amélie ten years later. Since I fell asleep in watching Amélie the first time around, I will now have to rewatch that one.

Again, get Delicatessen – it’s out there, but definitely worth watching. The butcher is a great bad guy!

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Watched Point Break again a couple nights ago (It was on USA Network). Ah, what a guilty pleasure. This is one of my all-time fave movies, for several reasons:

1) It has everything that Keanu Reeves is reviled for (yar-dude dialog and acting) yet everything he’s perfect for (playing an ex-football QB who’s now an FBI agent, with the perfect name: “Johnny Utah”?)

2) It has Patrick Swayze (RIP :(), one of those rare onscreen combinations of sensitivity, philosophy, thrillseeking, surfing and violent rubber-masked bank robbery – no WONDER they called him ‘the Boddhisatva‘

3) It has Gary Busey – sadly somewhat absent from American film these days – but in his prime, nothing could touch him for over-the-top acting coupled with ridiculous obnoxious characters and mannerisms. What’s not to love? (See also: Under Siege – where he teams up with Tommy Lee Jones and Colm Meaney to battle Steven Seagal – classic ridiculous movie to rival even Point Break!)

4) It has bank robberies committed in broad daylight by crazy guys in President masks (Nixon, LBJ, Carter and Reagan) who seemingly have been at it for four years every summer, same m.o., and never been caught – until Keanu and Busey come along? 🙂

5) It even has Anthony Kiedis(!) in a bit part as part of a surfer gang briefly trying to beat the crap out of Keanu, until PS helps Keanu turn the tables.

Silly plot and dialogue aside – the film has some great action/montage sequences – most of the surfing scenes are slowed down and very pretty to watch, and the skydiving stuff is also very cool.

And the end doesn’t disappoint, even though it’s plainly preposterous. Keanu’s ‘vaya con dios’ ending line says it all.

Like another fave – The Fifth Element – this movie is just pure entertainment – what Hollywood was invented for (although now there’s also YouTube :))

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The Nation is revisiting this question, and asking for comments – I haven’t written mine yet – but that shouldn’t stop you? Happy 4th of July!

What Is Patriotism?

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Well, it’s over for another year. And it was a big success (again). Not only did we have more games on the video side – we had several more vendors on the pinball side, a great series of seminars, and seemingly lots more word of mouth (definitely more social media and related online promotion/podcasts/etc. too).

Here’s some of the results – take a gander!

Video from the show floor;

Additional video walk-thru’s during the show;

Review from the ‘Seattlest‘ blog;

The Stranger’s SLOG review;

Seattle Weekly slideshow;

Seattle Times article;

Seattle Times show video;

Online photo galleries: here and here;

Dave Okert’s SMAC photo gallery (mostly video side of show);

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