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Beatnix, Zep, Stu Murdoch, Smithereens, Movies, Pig Spleens   Printer-friendly page   Send this story to someone
Thursday, December 27, 2007 - 08:00 AM
Posted by: Karl

Karl

THE BEATNIX play "Stairway To Heaven."  This is today's must-click selection.

LED ZEPPELIN:  Speaking of which, Captain's Dead has the reunion concert, which you can jukebox via the ol' HM.  Not great quality, but alright.

SHOUT OUT LOUDS did a chat and mini-set at the World Cafe you can stream via NPR.

BEST of 2007:  At I Am Fuel..., Heather Browne is streaming tracks from her fave albums, which she'll be discussing at the World Cafe on New Year's Day.  New York magazine's Vulture blog has posted Pitchfork's Top 100 Tracks as a Pie Chart.  The Rawking Refuses To Stop has posted the Best (and the Rest) of the Songs of 2007, which you can jukebox via the ol' HM.

BRIAN WILSON talked with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about being awarded one of this year's Kennedy Center Honors (telecast last night on CBS), favorite songs, meeting great people, etc.

BELLE & SEBASTIAN frontman Stu Murdoch has been scoring a movie titled God Help The Girl; you can stream a few songs from the soundtrack via the film's page on MySpace.  (Thx, Chromewaves.)

THE CAPSTAN SHAFTS:  Lo-fi, melancholic pop rocker Dean Wells is profiled in Crawdaddy! (Thanks, LHB.)  You can stream a few tracks online, too.

WILCO play "What Light" and "Impossible Germany" from Sky Blue Sky in their loft, because we did not have Twofer Tuesday yet this week.

SUFJAN STEVENS talked to the Sydney Morning Herald about being a youngest child, trying to control his output, and the effect of technology on humanity, among other things.  Yopu can watch him play and talk literature in Brooklyn via the 'Gum.

CAN'T GET IT OUT OF MY HEAD:  The IHT has a piece on earworms and musical memory.

THE SMITHEREEENS played some Christmas tunes and some of their hits at the World Cafe last week, now streaming on demand via NPR.

CHIP KIDD:  The acclaimed book cover designer (and author) is getting good reviews for his new band, Artbreak.  Kidd is best known for designing the iconic Jurassic Park cover and logo, but his designs for books like Naked (by David Sedaris) are equally striking in their own way.

SHANE MacGOWAN of The Pogues was profiled in the Guardian to mark his improbable 50th birthday on Christmas.

CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR is one of several movies I saw over the weekend, and was possibly the best of the lot.  Directed by Mike Nichols from a screenplay by Aaron Sorkin, this tale of the Afghan War against the Soviet Union plays even more like a screwball comedy than Primary Colors or The American President... and probably hits closer to the mark of how the US Congress works than many more serious pics.  Tom Hanks is not a particularly convincing Texan, but he is funny, which is more important here.  Julia Roberts is not given much to do as Wilson's conservative ex-fiancee Joanne Herirng, but Philip Seymour Hoffman is given plenty of scenery to chew as Gust Avrokotos, the Orthodox, but unorthodox CIA agent who supervised America's biggest covert war ever.

Some movie critics, like Roger Ebert and Newsweek's David Ansen, have criticized the movie as not stressing that the Afghan "freedom fighters" would later become the Taliban, but they are mistaken about this.  The Taliban were not on anyone's radar screen before 1994 - significantly after the events depicted in the movie. The screenplay misleadingly suggests that US support went only to the Tajik faction led by Ahmad Shah Massoud, when much more went to the virulently anti-American Pashtun, Gulbaddin Hekmatyar.  However, the story at the last link incorrectly claims that Hekmaytar established terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan with Osama bin Laden and Abdul Rasul Sayaf.  To the contrary, Hekmaytar had become Prime Minister of Afghanistan, but was forced out of power by the Taliban in 1996 and went into exile in Iran until 2002.  OBL returned to Afghanistan in 1996, and cemented ties with the Taliban after they seized power; the camps came later.  So the story of Afghan "blowback" is considerably more complex than either the movie or its critics suggest.  The movie stays on solid ground by suggesting that the US erred greatly in leaving Afghanistan as a failed state.

JUNO:  Jamie Lynn Spears aside, if you think the story of a 16-year-old getting pregnant can't be as funny as it is poignant, think again.  Done badly, this could have turned into a low-budget after-school special, but Juno hits all the right notes -- primarily on the strength of the title performance by Ellen Page, but with really good support from almost all involved, particularly Jason Bateman as a putative adoptive father and J.K. Simmons as Juno's father.  The delightful indie soundtrack is just the icing on the cake.  This movie did not reach Top Ten on just 304 screens for no reason, so if it's playing near you, I highly recommend it.

WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY may disappoint at the box office, but that is all the worse for it being an enjoyable, if not gut-busting, send-up of music biopics like Walk The Line and Ray.  Indeed, you need not have seen these movies to enjoy Walk Hard.  John C. Reilly may not be a big enough name to open a movie (yet, anyway), but he sure can carry one, as he has to hit the dramatic notes of a biopic within the comic package... and sing.  Fortunately, the music is also up to the task; the title track was penned by early pate fave Marshall Crenshaw.  The downsides?  Too many of the jokes are too obvious, and Jenna Fischer is not given nearly enough to do (Kristen Wiig gets more as Cox's first wife and makes the most of it).

SWEENEY TODD:  I tell you right up front that most musicals leave me cold.  However, I do like Johnny Depp and Tim Burton, and this was playing across the corridor immediately after Walk Hard, so I made it a double-feature.  I would say the movie succeeds in what it sets out to accomplish; there's plenty of Sondheim, dark humor and fake blood.  I was unmoved, but if you're the sort who likes musicals -- and doesn't mind plenty of gore -- you might well enjoy it.

JAMIE LYNN SPEARS:  Multiple friends and family say the pregnant 16-year-old actress never wanted to be a star, with one family friend telling US Weekly that mama Lynne "treats her girls like a piggy bank."  The ever-reliable Star magazine insists that Casey Aldridge may not be the father.  Family members reportedly told Star that they believe the real father is a much older executive at her children's TV show, Zoey 101.

BRITNEY SPEARS could be fined or even jailed if she skips out on next week's court-ordered deposition in her ongoing child custody war with Fed-Ex.

EVA LONGORIA & TONY PARKER:  It looks increasingly like the paparazzi at X17 were taken by a hoaxer who accused Parker of cheating on Longoria and even fabricated herself.

THE FRENCH HOTEL:  The Hollywood heirhead's potential inheritance plunged after her grandfather Barron Hilton announced plans to donate 97 percent of his 2.3 billion dollar  fortune to charity.

BRADGELINA got their Christmas dinner at the McDonald's drive-thru window.  Jolie is reportedly treating the bulging veins on her arms, hands and forehead with caviar.

FERGIE & JOSH DUHAMEL are engaged?

QUEEN ELIZABETH II is the current star of the new Royal Channel on YouTube.  You can compare and contrast this year's Christmas Broadcast with her first such broadcast 50 years ago.

THE STANS:  In Afghanistan, the Brits and Afghans seem to be holding Musa Qala, which for 10 months until last weekend had been the most important stronghold of the Taliban in North Helmand.  More than 4500 Taliban insurgents have defected since 2005 and up to 4000 others have been killed in action against British and Canadian forces in southern Afghanistan, according to military intelligence sources.  Agents from MI6 entered secret talks with Taliban leaders despite Gordon Brown's pledge that Britain would not negotiate with terrorists, according to the Daily Telegraph.  Canadian Defense Minister Peter Mackay has accused Pakistan and Iran of supplying weapons to insurgents.  Suicide attacks are part of al Qaeda's plan to disrupt Pakistan's elections on Jan. 8.  Pakistani police stopped a 15-year-old boy they say was carrying a bomb made of dynamite and nails from gettnig into a rally by opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.

IRAN:  Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia's delivery of nuclear fuel to the Bushehr power station makes it unnecessary for Iran to pursue its enrichment program.  Nevertheless, Iran intends to continue its enrichment program, for the 19 nuclear plants it now claims it intends to build.  And Russia has agreed to sell Iran a surface-to-air missile system.  Meanwhile, the former commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards has become the latest leading "conservative" to attack Pres. Ahmadinejad over the country's high inflation.

IRAQ:  Though violence is down significantly this year, AQI is continuing to target the local security forces formed by the Awakening movements in the Sunni regions in the central and northern regions in Iraq.  The Times of London reports on the Diyala Rescue Council, a mixed Sunni-Shiite force fighting AQI that so far is not part of the Concerned Local Citizens or Awakening militias.  Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, the commander of US forces south of Baghdad, warned Tuesday that Sunnis who fight AQI must be rewarded and recognized as legitimate members of Iraqi society -- or Iraq risks losing the hard-fought security gains of the past six months.  The NYDN has video of a carload of important AQI terrorists being shown to Allah by US Hellfire missiles.  A safer Baghdad rolled out the Baghdad Film Festival... though directors of the 40 foreign films at the festival stayed away.  Moreover, hardline Muslim extremists have forced many beauticians to move their trade underground.

CHARLIE the YORKIE swallowed a star-shaped Christmsas decoration.  X-Ray at the link.

WHITE RHINOS in Dublin swallowed holiday glitter to aid their fertility tests.

PIG SPLEENS confirm the National Weather Service three-month forecast for North Dakota.

MARCELLA the ELEPHANT assisted a marriage proposal at Blackpool Zoo, Lancashire.

SANDLER, a six-year-old border collie, saved his family from a fire, but perished trying to save the family's 17-year-old Australian shepherd.  Raja the cat escaped unharmed.

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