March 2011
57 posts
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Destiny’s Child- “Say My Name”...
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"Speak Now"- Molly Lambert- This Recording →
Is it patriarchal of me to say that I want Molly to have my babies?
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February 2011
42 posts
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M.I.A.- “Bad Girls” From her mixtape...
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“I’m sorry, man, but I’ve got magic. I’ve got poetry in my...”
– Charlie Sheen This dude might not live through the weekend.
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"The Great Radiohead Post-Mortem: Is the Entire... →
“And yet here we are, always already too late — responsible critics though we may be, we’re talking about this record on a day on which, no joke, people are already advancing conspiracy theories about the next Radiohead record. As if this particular Radiohead record weren’t still basically on pre-order, the mysterious ‘Newspaper Edition’ of the record still...
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Watchmkngyn:
This is an excerpt from There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007). 11 adult viewers were shown the video and their eye movements recorded using an Eyelink 1000 (SR Research) infra-red camera-based eyetracker. Each dot represents the center of one viewer’s gaze. The size of each dot represents the length of time they have held fixation.
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Site Updates
Over the weekend, I learned that Showtime has commissioned a Don Cheadle-Kristen Bell comedy called House of Lies. It motivated me to finally buy the domain name for ahouseoflies.com, which I’ve been meaning to do for a while. So now I own that and host it here. (Or it redirects? I’m not good with computers, which is why it took me two hours to get this right.) You now have to type...
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Will Smith- “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit’...
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James Blake- “To Care (Like You)” From...
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"In Digital Era, Music Spotters Feed a Machine"-... →
In a joke, I might say: “Best job evar. Lulz.” In real life, I think it’s probably anxiety-ridden and desperate.
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Rage Against the Machine- “Maggie’s...
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"The TV Guide"- Josh Levin- Slate →
“Sepinwall-style criticism has obvious strengths. Week-to-week coverage reflects how people actually watch their favorite shows—we rehash the best lines, parse the meaning of weighty moments, and anticipate plot twists. At its best, new-school TV writing is brainy and inquisitive, thoughtful commentary borne out of a fanatical attention to detail. But hypervigilant criticism, written by...
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Watch
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The Strokes- “Under Cover of Darkness”...
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"The Apostate: Paul Haggis vs. The Church of... →
This is some of the best long-form journalism I’ve read in a long time—pretty much 25,000 elegant, diplomatic words that amount to “fuck this shit.” Ah, Lawrence Wright, you had me at “high-stakes, sadistic game of musical chairs using a boombox blaring ‘Bohemian Rhapsody.’”
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The Best Films of 2010: Part IV
Continued from here and here and here. GREAT MOVIES / UNQUALIFIED RECOMMENDATIONS 13. How to Train Your Dragon (Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois)- I mentioned that Enter the Void was the second-most visually-arresting film of the year. This is the clear number one. Especially from a textural standpoint, How to Train Your Dragon is the most technically-advanced animated film of all time. Still, that...
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"Beer Commercials Are Not Stupid"- Tom Scocca-... →
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The Best Films of 2010: Part III
Continued from here and here. GOOD MOVIES 31. The Town (Ben Affleck)- We’re starting to figure out, after only two credits, that Affleck is way more of a director than he is an actor. The action here is taut and explosive but punctuated by lovely small moments that only accentuate how reckless that action is. (I’m reminded specifically of that tiny pause in the car chase when a cop,...
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"Eyes Wide Shut: A Viewing with My 16-Year-Old... →
How did I not think of doing this? I’m almost angered by this premise.
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"Thanks for the Memorex"- Hua Hsu- ArtForum →
“Given that the cassette is widely regarded as a nostalgic curio today, few people were surprised when Sony discontinued production of the Walkman, their once-iconic portable cassette player, last April. The greater shock, for many, was the realization that Sony was still manufacturing Walkmen at all. While we mourn the player’s death and await the iPhone 5, it would be a mistake to...
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The Best Films of 2010: Part II
Continued from here. FLAWED BUT STILL LIKEABLE 57. Cropsey (Joshua Zeman and Barbara Brancaccio)- This documentary probes the validity of a New Jersey boogeyman myth, and there are times when its stranger-than-fiction steez is genuinely creepy. That being said, Zeman distracts by making himself a focal point, and the film veers off course in its final third. 56. Rabbit Hole (John Cameron...
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"R. Kelly"- Will Oldham- Interview →
“OLDHAM: I love that song ‘The World’s Greatest’ as well. We perform that song onstage sometimes. We do sort of like a country version of it.
KELLY: Yeah? I would love to hear that. You know, I took the Queen Mary to Europe once because I didn’t want to get on a plane …” There are non sequitur moments like that, but there are also revealing, comfortingly real...