Failure and Surrender

"As you have all heard hope of the states is no longer. " - Open letter from Sam Herlihy.

Here's another indispensable non-album track from the band.

They'll be sorely missed.

[download Hope of the States - The Last Picture Show]

These ain't the last days at all

Following the lukewarm reception to their newest record (not least from this site), comes the as-yet unconfirmed announcement that Hope of the States could be heading to splitsville following this weekend's Carling Weekender shows. Sure, it doesn't say "The band is breaking up", but for them to not play live anymore, it can't be a good sign, can it?

I would be really sad to see them go. I stand by the fact the newest record, 'Left', sounds unambitious and kind-of-like a better Embrace. Outside of some soaring choruses, I found little to fall in love with. And this is all the more frustrating because when they first came out, they had so much promise to them, which they delivered upon with 'The Lost Riots'. I can't articulate very well how much that record means to me, but this review from the NME puts it close. Suffice to say that 'Enemies/Friends' will always be one of my favourite songs.

If the rumour is indeed true, then shit, let's go out on a bang. Today's song is their usual set-closer 'Static in the Cities', a song so good that they never bothered to officially record it. This is the demo version of the track, and the band realised that they'd never be able to improve on it. This song kinda captures everything that I love about HOTS. From humble beginnings to the Apocalypse over about eight minutes, I always thought it'd make a better album finale than '1776', but maybe that's just me. Enjoy!

[download Hope of the States - Static in the Cities (demo)]

(go to thehalfwayhome for lots of bootlegs and rarities)



[UPDATE: Steve Lamacq wrote a guest entry at the nme.com blog saying:

"It is with a heavy heart that I sit here, having just witnessed the last Hope Of The States gig. Watching the as ever, charismatic Sam wandering off stage at the end was one of the most poignant sights I've seen this year. But then Reading, for the most part, hasn't been the place for massive pop landscapes, the like of which HOTS specialised in."

And he would know. Balls.]

They're novelettes!

I don't really have much to post about tonight. I begin law school in twelve hours' time, so I'm hoping to have an early night, maybe watch 'Akeelah and the Bee' til I fall asleep.

But, rather than leave you suckers hangin', here's a short clip from The Mighty Boosh. It's one of the funniest things I've seen in years. If you don't think it's hilarious, fair enough. But you should probably loosen your tie and chill.

Enjoy!

The pre-eminent Proust scholar in the U.S

To atone for the brain cells which may've died on Friday night during Snakes, I went today to watch Little Miss Sunshine with the girlfriend and a lot of Sunday afternoon old folks. Nice to see the Science of Sleep trailer on the big screen beforehand. That Gondry sure is mental.

Little Miss Sunshine is riding on a wave of really great reviews, is released by a trendy studio, and has Sufjan on the soundtrack. It has the potential to drown in some sort of hipster mudslide. Luckily, it's brilliant and you should all see it. There are a lot of laugh out loud moments, characters you can really warm to, some really uncomfortable parts, and it never has any of that "LOOK! WE'RE MAKING A STATEMENT!" gaudiness. The soundtrack, with a lot of Devotchka songs, is spot on, and although there are a couple of parts where it gets a little too slapstick/crazy (there's a corpse scene), the performances are so earnest that it's hard not to at least like the film.

Going down faster than a Thai hooker

Look, the title was Snakes on a Plane, and frankly, nobody has any reason to be disappointed. It delivered exactly what it promised. Definitely not a classic, nor even something I'd watch again, but dear lord, was it fun. From the guy in Gainesville who had printed out a picture of Sam from The Man and taped it onto his t-shirt to this dude from Tallahassee, people were excited, and the fact that the opening titles say SNAKES in huge letters and then ON A PLANE in much smaller letters got everyone cheering. The acting was pretty poor from the start, especially from Nathan Phillips, and there's a Chinese gangster, Eddie Kim, who beats a prosecutor to death with a bat and screams 'Whoo!' in the process.

Does anything else really matter about the film? Snakes, and indeed people, get killed in a variety of gruesome and hilarious ways. There was lots of hi-fiving in the crowd. Kenan is funny. The lines are corny. David Ellis said he wanted it to be taken seriously, and not just enjoyed on a "so bad it's good" level, but as long as people are enjoying it, what does it matter? I sure enjoyed it - perhaps not as much as the guy who saw it ten times in a row at my favourite cinema in America - and if there is a sequel, I'd see it.

As a footnote... the theme to Snakes on a Plane is by Cobra Starship, a supergroup comprising various blokes and, for clearly no reason other than to appeal to males, the singer from The Sounds. The song itself is pretty rubbish, of course, but Sounds lady looks really uncomfortable in it. Maybe that's what happens when there's a guest cameo from Pete Wentz from Fall Out Boy. I guess I'd be uncomfortable too. Check the film, laugh at the music video.

Woke up with a shoe in my mouth

Today's post is about the album "Through the Windowpane" by Guillemots. It's nominated for the Mercury Music Prize, and I sincerely hope it wins. Perhaps you've heard their "Made Up Lovesong #43" which is effortlessly sweet, daft and lovely. The album is really ambitious, and I like that it doesn't always work - there are a lot of open spaces, where it's just the singer's voice over very bare backing, and even though his voice is pretty special, at times it's not that great. But oh shit, when they get it right...

Especially check out the last track, Sao Paolo, which lasts for ages and is layer upon layer of awesomeness.

[download Guillemots - Les Black Sessions (full show)]

She has a real problem with promiscuity

I saw a handful of films in the past week. Mostly because, as the summer is winding down, I need to utilize all possible moments with mindless, unimportant crap, before law school crushes me and my gentle and adorable spirit.

First up, Water. Another Fox Searchlight winner, I was amazed that it was playing at our local dollar theater. Read this, about the making of the film. Death threats, secret location changes, and so on. The movie itself was very pretty, very sad and very good. The darker sides of religious fundamentalism come out to play, and it’s set against the rise of Gandhi in the late 1930s. Check it out if you can.

Pretty much as different from that as you can get, is John Tucker Must Die. Have you seen Mean Girls? Or How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days? Or Never Been Kissed? Or Down With Love? Or any other “pretend to like someone just to ultimately get revenge upon them, and whatever you do, DON’T actually fall in love with them – oh, crap” film? Well, then, you have the idea. This one could have been good, but where Mean Girls liked to be intelligent and catty, this just went for thong jokes, or volleyball-to-the-face jokes. And also the line “She likes early Elvis Costello, and listens to podcasts, and reads Dave Eggers. She’s deep.” And, sorry for the spoiler, but John Tucker doesn’t die, although it would’ve been great if the last scene was him getting hit by a bus.

After years of rubbish films, Woody Allen regained a lot of respect last year for Match Point, and his new film is called Scoop. He’s in it, again, and he’s the best part of it. He talks and talks and talks, and Scarlett Johansson does the same, less convincingly. It’s a fun film, there’s a “Boat of Death” and Hugh Jackman is very charming. The plot isn’t amazing, but it’s enjoyable, so check it if you can.

Finally, I caught last year’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was very day-glo, as you’d expect from Tim Burton. Depp was alright in it, he had a few good lines, but it was really unsatisfying. There was a lot of back story about Willy Wonka’s dad, which was really weird and didn’t fit very well. Overall, it was the equivalent of a fistful of fudge – cool for a little while, but ultimately thick and gross.

A song about myself

Tomorrow, August 15th, marks four years since my family and I moved to the United States. Now, I'm not going to post a sentimental "Oh my, how I've grown" kind of entry in here, but I did want to post this song. It came out a few months before the move, after I'd told my friends that I'd be goin' Transatlantic on their asses. We'd been into Idlewild since the Captain days, and this song was their most epic yet, and the lyrics, title, everything just had an incredible poignancy. So, I can't listen to it now without thinking of the summer of 2002, watching them play it at Glastonbury, the beautifully lit video, and my London peoples.

Sniff.

[download Idlewild - American English (live in Shetland)]

We can dance if you wanna

You should probably know this about me. I love to dance. Not seamless, fluid, confident dancing like the kind you can see in Step Up (in cinemas now!), but more akin to (a) a man getting an electric shock, or (b) Anthony Rapp from ‘Rent’. In the States, I don’t get to dance in clubs too much, because most of the ones I encounter tend to play either low-slung booty hip hop, or eighties classics. And whilst I’m not entirely adverse to shaking it like a rattlesnake, or doing the ‘Like a Prayer’ shuffle, I don’t go out dancing too much.

In Miami earlier this year, I chanced upon a place that played ‘Pilot’ by the Notwist, and I couldn’t believe my luck. It’s very rare to find clubs that play the same sort of music as the clubs I’m used to in London, certainly here in Florida. So when my girlfriend texted me a few Fridays ago to say she was at a place in Orlando that was playing Bloc Party, the Pipettes and the Arctic Monkeys, I was pretty excited, and eager to check it out for myself.

So last week I did. The place was not bad, filled with emo-haircuts, but quite cool. The music selection was very odd, though. Aside from ‘The Fallen’ and ‘Cheated Hearts’, there was nothing played that I really liked. There was some Sounds, Wolfmother, Darkness, and other bands who I don’t really like, and although there was someone wearing that Pipettes blue dress, there was nothing I could really go on a pointin’ extravaganza to. And weirdest of all, at one point, they played two Vines songs in a row. Two Vines songs?! ‘Get Free’ and ‘Highly Evolved’, you ask? No! Two songs off the newest Vines album. Can anyone even name the newest Vines album?

It was just a bad night’s spinnin’, I’m sure.

Don't forget that you're living

Q: What do you get when you combine Brighton Beach, David Line’s piss-poor acting (and newly un-collapsed lung), a remote controlled car, a baby, walls with graffiti on them, and a budget of about six pounds?

A: The actually-quite sweet new video for ‘Signal Sparks’ by Seafood.

Best bit: Dave’s totally gay camera-point at the 3.08 mark.

Be a Winner! Not a Weiner!

Perhaps I should be ashamed to admit this, but lately I’ve been following, and getting quite into, a reality elimination show. In own defense, though, it’s Who Wants to be a Superhero? It’s executive produced by Stan Lee, and isn’t really very reality-based. So why is it so interesting? I can’t really explain it – Major Victory points at pigeons, there’s a character called Fat Momma, and one of the contestants shrieks like a monkey. I downloaded the first episode off iTunes because it was free, and both the girl and I were surprised at how enjoyable it is. It doesn’t have much in the way of “they’re living together in a house, let’s get some bitchy dirt on each other”, except that The Iron Enforcer, apparently, smells quite bad. Since Cell Phone Girl’s elimination last week, something I’m still quietly fuming over, by the way, my new tip for victory – and a Stan Lee-drawn comic and movie – is Major Victory. And whilst we’re here, screw Creature. God, she’s annoying.

Who Wants to be a Superhero is on the Sci-Fi Channel on Thursdays at 9pm.

Drinking Hennessey with Morrissey

I've trained my girlfriend well. Now, every time I say "I'm considering a move to L.A." she knows to say "He's considering a move to L.A."

[download Art Brut - Moving to LA (live)]

Is that a catchphrase? Or epilepsy?

I saw a couple of newish comedies this weekend. Thanks to American Eagle's "try a pair of jeans, see a movie for free" promo, we went to see Talladega Nights last night. It's written by the guys who wrote Anchorman, directed by the guy that directed Anchorman, starring the guy that starred in Anchorman and was produced by the guy that produced Anchorman. That's a whole lot of uses of the same word. It should give you a pretty good idea of what the movie's like.

Now, I can understand why people hate this kind of film - the plot is thin, almost nonexistant, and essentially, it's just a series of one-liners and a few cameos. If you don't think it's funny to see an man saying "Shut up boy, or I'll put you in the microwave" to his grandchild, then fair enough. Unfortunately, I do still find that very funny, and so I enjoyed the film horrendously. There's a lot of joy in seeing John C. Reilly screaming "That's egrarious!" Also, the film has - count 'em! - one people who went to the same high school as me, a silly cameo from Mos Def and Elvis Costello, and the line "If you don't eat Big Red chewing gum, then fuck you." Dumb as three planks of wood, for sure, but at least six percent more fun. Only gripe is that (Academy Award nominee) Amy Adams was barely in it, and her character was pretty useless.

Also, as a footnote, they played a trailer for 'Employee of the Month', which, like the internet one, doesn't look very funny, but this one had 'Good Weekend' by Art Brut playing at the start, which I'm sure only I yelled out loud.

Also, lady and I watched 'Clerks 2' because, well, it's there. I think that being really hardcore into Kevin Smith's earlier films is more of an American thing. To me, they've always been good enough, but with the exception of 'Dogma', nothing has really stood out. 'Clerks 2' features liberal use of the word 'porch-monkey', rooftop dancing, Lord of the Rings, and the usual mix of lowbrow conversation, Randall Graves being Randall Graves, Jay and Silent Bob and Jason Lee being funny for one minute. I lasted longer than Joel Siegel with this film, but I don't think I'd ever see it again. If you like bestia inter-species erotica, check it out. Otherwise, Nascar it up with this guy.

An argument, an ambulance

The video for Hope of the States' new single, Left, just got put up on ye olde Interweb. Unlike their last two, which featured dancing lady Communists, and electro-shock therapy respectively, this one focuses almost entirely on singer Sam Herlihy's face. Now, I'm not one to judge people on their looks or anything, but all I'm saying is, Sam's looks are not exactly the band's strongest asset.

[watch Hope of the States - Left video]

Step Up! In theaters August 11th!

Anyone who knows me, and even many of the people who have served me at coffee houses, Chinese restaurants and, when I still lived in England, newsagents, will tell you that I love fish out of water comedies. The format is so simple! Take someone who’s very set in their ways, to the point of stubborn hilariousness. It doesn’t matter what their initial lifestyle is – they could be a surly police chief, an effete pastry chef; or a surly and effete police chief from the pastry division. Then, and here’s the science part, they are put into a whole new environment, one for which they are miserably ill-suited. Imagine the limitless joke potential of a tough white guy from the so-called “wrong side of the tracks” – just as an FYI, that’s the north side – taking up something totally uncool and unstreet, like, oh I don’t know, ballet. Or taking a bunch of tough inner city kids (inner city kids will be a recurring theme, you’ll get used to it) to ballroom dancing classes.

If they don’t have difficult backgrounds, then they’re fast talkers. Oh man, if you have a smart alec, a wiseguy, someone annoying, then put him (or her, but mostly him) in a situation where he’d never belong. Like a library. Or a convent. Or Hong Kong.

Next time you’re at a loss as to what to watch, or indeed write, if you’re that way inclined, just remember – nothing is funnier than an ex con acting as a detective.Join us next time on Are You Gene Hackman? for “When the humans aren’t around, animals do/say funny things!”

The future is in your hands

I recently got a new laptop, and I’m in the process of copying my music onto it. Today I noticed that I have over 900MB of Super Furry Animals tunes. Now, some people might say that’s a little excessive. These people are hoodlums, plain and simple. Anyway, that was pretty much the entire reason why I thought I’d post some SFA here on Are You Gene Hackman? That and the fact that Bring Me The Heads just posted a gargantuan live recording of their profanity-tastic ‘The Man Don’t Give A Fuck’. Further, the whole world seems to be undergoing some sort of genetically engineered super-summer, so the song ‘Ysbeidiau Heulog,’ which means sunny intervals, sprang to mind. But that’s in Welsh, and this is an English language website.

So, here are two SFA songs for you. One is a b-side called ‘Foxy Music’, possibly based on a true story about a farmer who shot a fella. If you only take one moral from a song you download this week, make it “just because he’s got red hair, it doesn’t mean that he’s a fox”. Secondly, and even more obscurely, there’s ‘Charge (Theme from Das Koolies)’. It was the b-side to Ysbeidiau Heulog, and it features samples, fuzzed-up bass, and shouting, so you should love it. Also, there are chimps. It’s how I imagine a zoologists’ rave would sound. This is a very high endorsement.

[download Super Furry Animals – Foxy Music]

[download Super Furry Animals – Charge]

The sound that machines make

I’ve been really enjoying the band Duels this week. They’re from Leeds, there are five of them, and they’ve just put out their debut album, “The Bright Lights and What I Should Have Learned” in the UK. Apparently, they were at SXSW earlier this year, but I’ve only just heard of them recently, possibly because I’m completely uncool. They’ve got that very British vibe about them – along with iLiKETRAiNS and My Latest Novel they write songs that are big enough to fill large rooms. It’s epic stuff, I was going to use the word grandiose but that’s a bit lame, innit?

You can hear some tracks on their myspace page, including The Slow Build, which appropriately enough builds very slowly. I like it very much. Further, here’s a song hosted on the SXSW website. Enjoy!

[download Duels – Potential Futures]

And now our roots grow deep

There was a band during the Britpop years called Brassy. They weren’t very good. One of their songs was their band name spelled out. I think their lead singer Muffin was related to Jon Spencer – the Blues Explosion one, not the Chelsea one.

Anyway, the new Cursive album Happy Hollow is out next month, and it, too, is Brassy. I really dug their previous record, The Ugly Organ, because it had cellos and sounded mournful but still heavy as aw’hell. When I heard that the cello player had left, I was a little trepid. I think that’s the word. When you display trepidation? Instead of strings, there’s a lot of brass on Happy Hollow, and consequently, it’s a really uptempo album which I’m pleased to say, is fantastic.

Tim Kasher’s lyrical themes are always very strong, and this album seems to center around Red State/Blue State values and politics. ‘Flag and Family’ is about a soldier sent off to war as a last resort, ‘Big Bang’ is brilliant and about evolution (“They said there was a big bang once, but that don’t jive with Adam and Eve”), and “Retreat!” almost comes across as an open letter to Mr. Christ - “since you’ve been away on holiday, we’ve hosted a few wars over you” - and probably won’t win the band too many new Bible-Belt fans, although there’s some gospel crooning over the end of it. The first and last tracks have the same tune, and I'll even forgive the way the opener comes to almost a complete stop a minute in, after building some heavy momentum.

Saddle Creek have put up a couple of tracks, showing off the album’s different styles. ‘Dorothy at Forty’ is hard and heavy and features Kasher’s bellow; whilst ‘Bad Sects’ is much more gentle, perhaps more in line with old Cursive. I’m putting up another song, ‘Bad Science’, which really highlights the new trumpets, but still rocks like a hurricane.

So, it’s a healthy departure, not entirely a complete reinvention, and the only disappointing thing is that album cover – what’s going on there?

[download Cursive – Bad Science]

So I'm guilty of violating Section 34 Double-D?

Watched the latest Spike Lee joint, Inside Man, today. I realise that this is hardly topical, but you know. She Hate Me, his previous film, was universally shat upon, and not without good reason. It was pretty horrendous.

Inside Man is brilliant, though. Clive Owen and Denzel Washington are as solid as ever in the lead roles. Jodie Foster and Willem Dafoe back them up well. Spike films New York City the way a dad might film a newborn baby, with love, pride and tremendous care. Not, like, in a silly hat with its eyes closed. The real star is the story, though. Tense, with twists but not too many twists, and a nice ending, it really works. Of course, there's some social commentary about racism thrown in for good measure, but it works. There's incongruous Hindi film music at the start and end, not sure why. Waris Ahluwalia, who was in The Life Aquatic, plays a character also called Vikram. There were a lot of iPods, and a nice Vice-City style video game cutaway. "Like my man Fifty says, you gotta get rich or die tryin'."

Catch it when you can.

A Change in the Weather

Oh man...

Victoria Bergsman leaves The Concretes

Maybe, like me, she thought the newest album, In Colour, was a bit lame. Good luck to her, and indeed the rest of the band. Let's all get out of mid-tempo limbo now, shall we?



[download the concretes - you can't hurry love*]

(*my favourite pop song of the last five years... FACT)

All my life, watching America

I thought Razorlight's first album, Up All Night, was a bit rubbish. It was TOO debut album-y (song titles like Rip It Up, Vice, In The City, etc) had didn't really have any substance. And their singer Johnny Borrell always comes across as a bit of a knob - he once said "If Dylan's making the chips then I'm drinking the champagne." My impression has always been that they're a sub-Libertines band doing a Strokes impression.

(Edit: To affirm his "being a knob" status, listen to Johnny talk about the album on XFM here. Apparently the music scene in London is now totally different from three years ago, there's no creativity any more, and every new band owes him a fiver)

Anyway, they've got a new record out, called Razorlight. The first single is kind of lame, but the rest of it is pretty good. It's mature, confident and has a really strong Springsteen/U2 vibe. It's an album that moves out of the narrow confines of East London where Up All Night was rooted, and it's much better for it. It's still not a great record - his voice still rubs me the wrong way, and 'Back to the Start' and 'Fall to Pieces' belong on the last album. But 'Los Angeles Waltz' is easily the best song they've ever written, not just because it namechecks Turnpike Lane (five stops on the Tube from me). There's nothing on this album with the instant radio-appeal of 'Golden Touch', but who cares? Kudos for making me change my opinion.

[download razorlight - los angeles waltz]

Wild Wild West

I mentioned recently the mental track Knights of Cydonia off the new Muse record. They've just put out the video for it, since its the song getting the airplay in America, and suitably enough, the video too is a little nutbar. Chris looks like the Edge circa the Popmart tour.

[Watch Muse - Knights of Cydonia (youtube)]

Finiculi, finicula, finiculi, finicula

Saw the Richard Gere flick 'Bee Season' last night. It's based on the novel by Myla Goldberg. Perhaps you've heard the Decemberists song about it. (If you haven't, link below!). The film was put out by the reliable studio Fox Searchlight, and as such was very dramatic, arty, pretty and well soundtracked. Combining a cute spelling bee candidate with intricate Kaballah teachings and spiritual journeys, plus deep-seeded dark family secrets made for a messy film. Every major character has their own issues which could do with more explanation, or at least some context. The visuals are really nice, though, and the performances are good. Even though I don't like Richard Gere much.



[download The Decemberists - Song for Myla Goldberg]

--

If they're anything like their last record, the singles from The Killers' new album Sam's Town will be inescapable for the next twelve years. To that end, the taster has just made it to the interweb. Considering this is meant to be one of the greatest of the last twenty years, I'm a little underwhelmed, although giving Jesus a namecheck is usually a way to my heart. If you haven't yet, you can nab the track here.

It's kind of a long-distance relationship

You guys should thank me, you know. In order to make Are You Gene Hackman? a better, more rounded compendium of opinions and news, I sometimes subject myself to absolute shite, in the name of research. Granted, as I write this, I am not watching The Devil Wears Prada with my sister and girlfriend – gotta have some standards – but the other night, we caught The Lake House. Behind Snakes on a Plane, this is perhaps the summer’s most ri-goodam-diculous major release. In case you haven’t been paying attention, Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock play unlikable people who live in the same house, but two years apart. They start exchanging letters, and then in a hilarious You’ve Got Mail style manner, go from hating each other, to loving each other.

Of course, the film is pretty rubbish. There’s plenty of clunky dialogue about how, doubtless anticipating the audience’s reaction, neither understands the situation regarding the year: “Everyone knows it’s 2004!” and all that. It’s written by a Pulitzer Prize winner, but that doesn’t mean it makes sense, follows any of Newton’s laws of the universe, is cogent, etc. There’s a really awkward and ultimately useless subplot about Keanu’s dad. There’s a rival love interest who has no personality. Fortunately, there is a bus, so in one way, there’s something else in common with Speed. Keanu’s “huh?” face was the prototype for Derek Zoolander’s Blue Steel. Like in American Dreamz, Shohreh Agadashloo is the best thing in a horrible film. It wasn’t even so bad that it became good in a kitsch way. The ending was daft, the beginning wasn’t much better, and damn, even with five minutes left, it felt like two hundred.

Did anything else happen in the final?

Smell ya later, Zissou.

Dirt... this is a jar of dirt

Like $55m worth of people, I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest last night. The trailers beforehand began unimpressively with Top Gun but less gay, Tony Scott by (recent) numbers, but then picked up considerably. We got a first look at 'Night at the Museum' (co-starring Ricky Gervais!) and then another for a live-action version of Pixar's Cars, with at least two laugh-out-loud moments. "I can't control my heart rate, I got a cougar on me!" Oh, and there was this, which two people applauded. Including me.

OK... Pirates. It's very action packed. Not much cohesive storyline. Unsurprisingly, not nearly as good as the first one. Captain J isn't as awesome or hilarious this time around, maybe because there isn't the novelty that he had last time. The action is exhausting and spectacular. There are cannibals who dance, a heart in a box, and Stellan Skarsgård has a starfish on his face. This man is terrific in it.



The ending is pretty interesting. In case you haven't seen it, I'll put my comments in white. So if you want to read them, just highlight the text. Fair?

It really has bad middle-film-of-trilogy syndrome. I was unsatisfied at the end, because absolutely nothing had resolution. This one was building and building but then just sort of stopped. Jack's in the belly of the Kraken, the East India Company has Davy Jones' heart, Davy Jones is still, presumably, at large, and best (and most inexplicably) of all, Barbossa is back! I didn't have this many questions at the end of 'Back to the Future 2', you know. I thought of the Harry Potter series - although as a series, they're building to an overall conclusion, at least each individual one has its own story and satisfying climax, whereas from this there's little story and just a bizarre set of cliffhangers. It's a kid's film at heart so I don't want to pick holes in the story, that'd be really pointless (but how did Will get the key from Davy so easily? etc.) but the (absence of an) ending kinda soured the film for me.

Can't wait for Part 3, though.

Ow! My face!

My sister got back this week, after two months in England and France. I am, of course, delighted that she's back. Not so much because I obviously haven't seen her since May, but because she bought me the Big Train DVD whilst over there.

C'est quoi? A BBC sketch comedy show from the late 90s, starring - amongst others - Simon Pegg and Mark Heap (who'd go on to be in Spaced) and Kevin Eldon (Jam, Spaced, Black Books). It was very surreal and silly and funny and to show you what I'm talking about, here's a couple of sketches of theirs.



* Parlez-vous Anglais?

* The American General

Alas, I couldn't find the clip online of Chaka Khan taking on the Bee Gees in an Old-Western saloon fight, maybe look for that on your own?

Our hopes and expectations

The new Muse record, Black Holes and Revelations, is out next week in the US. I have to say that even though I do like it quite a bit, it's the first album of theirs that doesn't have any "smack you in the face, that's incredible" songs. It's definitely solid because there are plenty of really good songs on there. I like 'Starlight' for beginning like Kraftwerk and then having the riff from 'We're Not Gonna Take It' on piano. I like the way 'Map of the Problematique' sounds like Depeche Mode but heavier. I really like 'Invincible' and 'Exo Politics', but there's nothing that sucks the wind right out of me the way 'New Born' did, or 'Micro Cuts' or 'Butterflies and Hurricanes' or even 'Showbiz'. The closest thing is the last track, 'Knights of Cydonia', which is mental and features horses and lasers and probably cannons and fireworks, and has a part that sounds like 'Atomic' by Blondie and is terrific. It's a pretty nice place for a band to be when their fourth album isn't quite as good as some of their others, but is still a towering inferno.



Like I said, it's out next week in America, and will come with a live DVD from their last tour. Can't recommend this highly enough. Onstage they're borderline live-changing. Don't believe me? Download some live videos here, including aforementioned 'Knights', the video projection for which even features horses.

We have too much surplus

I saw a couple of big Hollywood films, because, well, England aren't in the World Cup anymore, and I had the day off work today. Go America and all that.

First in line was The Break Up. Interestingly, the trailer makes it out to be very funny, and outside of those jokes, it isn't very funny. For a big-name summer blockbuster, it gets pretty heavy, but the funny moments sort of detract from the drama. Plus, for a break-up film, you never really want the two to get back together, so it drags. One thing, though. Justin Long is in it, and contrary to what I posted a few days ago, he is outside of his stock character, so fair play to him. Besides, Vince Vaughn is in the film, and he does his stock role just fine. He's funny! But insensitive! It's his thing. His screen chemistry with Favreau is better than it is with Aniston. Say something nice? Jon Brion's score is warm and pretty. And Chicago looks lovely.

Today I watched (Pixar's) Cars and guess what - it was dead good. The signs weren't promising - delayed for like two years, overwhemingly similar to Doc Hollywood, and about Nascar (what can I say? I'm a skinny Brindian) but Pixar have earned their reputation. Nice short at the beginning, decent story, good voices, jokes that the kids won't get, corny ending. Good stuff. Can't wait for Ratatouille next summer.

In other news, at the opposite end of the budget spectrum, the best film I saw at SXSW 2004 is finally getting a DVD release later this month. If you like He-Man, the Daily Show or paintball, you'll dig it. If you're Canadian, you may have some reservations.

Faster than fast

Like overpopulation, call-centers and making a song and dance out of things, staying very close with your extended family is a very Indian thing. This past weekend, we had my grandparents over from Delhi, and my aunt's family from Boston. My four-year old cousin is totally cute, and he's totally affected by Hollywood advertising. I pushed him around in a shopping cart at Target, and he kept shouting "I'm faster than fast! I'm Lightning McQueen! Vrooom!" in tribute to the current hit animation. The adorable thing here, though, is that every time he would refer to the film, he would always say "Pixar's Cars".

Bear in mind what I was saying about brand loyalty the other day. He's four, and he already knows to say the name of the studio before the film. I thought it was cute, if worrying. I'm pretty loyal to the Pixar brand, although I haven't yet seen "Pixar's Cars", planning on catching it tonight, so I'll let you know what I think. Aren't I sweet?