Daria - one of the great underappreciated cartoons

Daria is like the Frazier of the animated world. It's the show that was spun off from a super popular show but ended up far outshining it's originator. Sadly, Frazier outstripped Cheers in both quality and popularity (arguable in the latter case, I suppose), while Daria was much better than its predecessor but was not (and honestly couldn't have been) the cultural milestone that Beavis and Butthead was. Daria is smarter, funnier, and infinitely more interesting than most shows on TV. The animation itself is nothing special, but I'm not sure it could work any other way. Our monotonous heroine might not be as effective if we had to watch some actress playing for the cameras. The chemistry between Daria and her best friend Jane couldn't be recreated, the ridiculous side characters simply would not be believable in any way except animation. So yet again animation has proven itself to be a versatile medium not meant for just kiddie movies, but I digress.

I have been watching and re-watching the entire series with my wife, and I haven't yet gotten tired of it. The episodes are funny, of course, it's a comedy show, but they also reveal depths to the writing and the characters the closer you look. There's an episode I particularly love where an old high school football star dies, leaving everyone to think he was a great guy, even though he was a major asshole to both Daria and Jane. Everyone starts coming up to Daria wanting to talk to her because she's the "depressing girl" or "the girl who must think about death a lot" and it starts angering Daria that people see her that way. In a sense it's her getting angry about her image, which just makes her even angrier that she now cares what people think of her. I also like the dynamic event of the coming of Jane's boyfriend Tom, who begins to have a thing for Daria, challenging the relationship between the two best friends.
One of the best things about the show is the abundance of great side characters. Daria and Jane are great and infinitely watchable, but I think Daria's dad Jake may be my favorite character, with his low self esteem and anger outbursts. I think he may say "dammit" in every single episode. Daria's self-involved sister Quinn and their mother Helen offer up their fair share of laughs, as do the abundance of students and teachers at the school. Whether it's the double airheaded duo of head cheerleader Britney and her quarterbacking boyfriend Kevin, or Mr. DeMartino, who must be perpetually seconds away from a blood-pressure induced heart attack. All add a lot to the comedic fabric of the show, even if the occasional character building kinda moments get saved for Daria or Jane.

So it's a terrifically underrated show, and like I said in the opening paragraph, it's further proof that animation isn't just for kids. So if any of you get a chance to catch up with Daria on DVD as I have, I would highly recommend doing so.

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

So, in my ongoing effort to read classic novels, I recently picked up John le Carré's seminal 1963 novel The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. It's the story of Alec Leamas, an MI6 (British intelligence) officer during the Cold War who defects and begins giving secrets to the East Germans, or does he? He may be on his final mission before retirement ("coming in from the cold" being when he's able to step out of the cold of spy work and into the warmth of regular life). Apparently the only books in the spy genre up until that point had been along the lines of James Bond kinda stuff. John le Carré had worked (and when he wrote this book, was working) as an intelligence officer with MI6, he would retire after the international success of the novel. His approach was of the more realistic spy variety and not of the outlandish adventure type and this sort of turned the entire genre on its head and changed what was expected of a spy novel. Time magazine named this book one of its all-time top 100.

I admire Le Carré's dedication to keeping his story realistic, but I didn't exactly have a great time reading it. It starts off brilliantly, in the first chapter Leamas watches one of his contacts get murdered trying to cross from East back into West Berlin, and I just knew I was in the hands of a master writer who would take me on the ride of a lifetime. Well, that's not Le Carré's style. He slows it down and gives us a kind of portrait of a hard drinking, seen it all, kind of guy in Leamas. The problem I had with this was that we're not always privy to the knowledge that Leamas has, so we're not always sure where he's coming from, not sure what he's hiding from the other characters (as well as us), so it's not as dramatically interesting as it possibly could've been. I've heard great things about the movie directed by Martin Ritt and starring Richard Burton as Leamas. I want to check it out, and may amend this review once I've seen it. I think the slow-ish nature of the book might be sped up in the truncated time of a movie. We'll see.

So one more classic book down, a million to go. Not sure what's up next, but I'm always up for more.

Top Chef

This Wednesday marks the return of the best reality show to ever be on TV, and one of the flat out best shows around period, Bravo's Top Chef. I only started watching this past season (season 6) when they were in Las Vegas, but I've since caught up with the majority of seasons 1 (San Francisco), 4 (Chicago), and 5 (New York), as well as rewatching a good bit of season 6. Top Chef is made up of some of the best up and coming chefs in the country competing against one another in a variety of challenges served up to them by head judge Tom Colicchio, host Padma Lakshmi, and a variety of guest judges and critics. One of the most interesting aspects of Top Chef is the elimination system, which depends totally on what happened during this weeks episode. That may not sound revolutionary, but it makes for nail-biting watching, since the most talented chef may have an off day at the wrong time and get kicked off. This has happened multiple times, when the favorite to win makes something the judges don't like, and they get no mercy for their screw-up.

Top Chef is the essential show for anyone interested (even if only slightly) in food. The guest judges have ranged from faces familiar to the common person like Anthony Bourdain, Nigella Lawson, Wolfgang Puck, Tyler Florence, and Emeril Lagasse, to legendary chefs like Lidia Bastianich, Wylie Dufresne, Jacques Pepin, and Thomas Keller. The competition has ramped up as the show has gone on. Many of the contestants in season 1 were not even executive chefs at their own restaurants, while in this past season there were competitors like Michael Voltaggio who'd already been awarded a rare Michelin star for his restaurant, Kevin who'd already been nominated for a James Beard award (it's like a culinary Academy Award, in case you were wondering), and Jennifer who was executive chef at a restaurant owned by food giant Eric Ripert.

Of course, a big factor of the shows success comes from head judge Tom Colicchio (pronounced Co-leek-ee-o). In fact, when I saw a Tony Bourdain speaking engagement this weekend, he talked at length about why Top Chef was the only great cooking show around anymore, and a big reason was because of Tom. Tony said that Tom added gravitas, combined with his credentials as a renowned NYC chef and restaurateur, and winner of a ridiculous 5 James Beard awards. Bourdain, one of my two favorite food personalities (alongside his friend Mario Batali), has appeared on the show multiple times, and even served as fill-in head judge while Tom was away at a charity event once. Tony said that he loves appearing on the show because he's a big fan of the show, and if it's got Tony Bourdain's approval, you know it's gotta be great, right? Another big reason it's great is because of model and cookbook author, the beautiful Padma Lakshmi. Padma has hosted the show since season 2, after taking over for the personality-less Katie Lee Joel. Padma adds a wonderful presence onscreen, along with some definite culinary knowledge, and the same sort of gravitas that makes Tom so amazing. They work together terrifically, and their comments at the end of each episode, during the Judge's Table deliberation, are always the most interesting.

So I could go on and on about the show, it really is that great. I don't know why, but I never had an inkling to watch it in previous seasons, I think because of my general dislike of reality shows. But my wonderful wife insisted that I should give it a try (she'd been a fan since the beginning) and we didn't have to watch it together if I didn't like it. As it turns out, the only thing I didn't like was having to wait a week between episodes. She got me hooked, and you won't be able to keep me away from season 7 in D.C. if you tried. It's one of the 3 or 5 best shows on TV, and everyone with the slightest interest in chefs or food owes it to themselves to get exposed to the greatness of Top Chef. I may even write a bit each week after seeing the episodes, since I find my thoughts changing over time, some chefs endear themselves to me and others do not, I may end up keeping a bit of a Top Chef log.

Bad Lieutenant - Herzog style

I've written about mad genius director Werner Herzog many times before. I wrote about his brilliant documentary Encounters at the End of the World, where Herzog traveled to the strange and beautiful world in, around, and under the ice in Antarctica (it ended up in my top ten of 2008). I also more recently wrote about his haunting magnum opus Aguirre, the Wrath of God when I was recounting the movies that just missed out on my all-time top ten. Herzog's volatile relationship with his Aguirre star Klaus Kinski (father of Natasha) is the stuff of legend. Kinski alienated the whole Aguirre crew and when he threatened to quit the production, while in the middle of the Peruvian jungle, Herzog told him he had a rifle and Kinski wasn't going anywhere. Kinski finished the film. Later, in another of their movies (yes, both were crazy enough to work together again, 5 times in fact), Kinski again alienated the crew working in the middle of the Peruvian jungle, and a native offered to kill Kinski if Herzog wanted him to. Herzog declined on the grounds that he hadn't finished filming and didn't want to re-shoot the movie. With those kinds of things in his past, it's no surprise when he decided to "remake" 1992's Harvey Kietel showcase Bad Lieutenant despite having never seen it, moving the action away from New York City, changing the plot completely, and not really considering it a remake at all. So that's how we got the terrific, but ridiculously titled, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.

Nicolas Cage plays the titular Lieutenant, Terence McDonagh. In the opening scenes, Terence injures his back saving an inmate from the rising water rushing in after Hurricane Katrina. That may sound like a noble way to get injured in the line of duty, but just minutes previously Terence had been making bets with his partner Stevie (Val Kilmer) about when the guy would drown in his cell from the quickly rising water. Months after the injury and Terence is addicted to the vicodin he was prescribed for his back pain, and has graduated his addictions to include cocaine, heroin, crack, gambling, and trading sexual favors for letting a woman out of a ticket (while making her boyfriend watch at gunpoint). McDonagh also spends time with his prostitute girlfriend Frankie (Eva Mendes), his bookie Ned (Brad Dourif, for once not the craziest actor in his cast), and occasionally goes to visit his dad, who's successfully trying to beat his alcoholism with AA meetings. What Herzog concerns himself with plot-wise isn't really significant, this is another of his many looks at a man nearing on madness. Usually his heroes descend further into madness than they were in the beginning of the movie, and Terence looks to be on the same arc, but maybe things turn out differently for him. I think Herzog might even be giving us his version of a happy ending, who knows.

One thing that is for certain though, is that Cage and Herzog were born to work together. I sometimes forget just how brilliant Cage can be when he works with the right people and material. He, for sure, has done more than his fair share of crap over the years, but he can also be one of our finest actors when put in the correct circumstances. Working with Herzog allowed Cage to be as unhinged as he's ever been, and he hasn't been this brilliant since 2002's Adaptation. He can somehow deliver a (now classic) line like "Shoot him again, his soul is still dancing" and make it sound not like a crazy line, but like a line delivered by a crazy man. And fellow crazy man that he is, Herzog actually shows us the soul that Terence still sees dancing. He also gives us extended shots into the eyes of an alligator and multiple times into the cold staring eyes of a pair of iguanas that Terence continues to hallucinate. They're odd, strangely poetic, and completely fitting in a way that can only be described as Herzog-ian.

There's a performance in the movie even more surprising than Cage's and that's the one of Terence's step-mother Genevieve, played by Jennifer Coolidge, a.k.a. Stifler's Mom. She's constantly drunk on beer, but objects when she finds cocaine in Frankie's purse, yet doesn't object when she catches Terence snorting in the house, saying that they both just have their vices. It's a tremendously real performance next to Cage's wild man performance. There's also rapper Xzibit playing a drug kingpin and holding his own against some serious acting talent. And there are nice little cameos by Fairuza Balk and Michael Shannon. Shannon, despite his recent Oscar nomination for Revolutionary Road, appears in only two scenes for the chance to work with Herzog. Shannon would go on to star in Herzog's next movie.

So Herzog has created his latest great movie, one containing one of the best performances of '09, by Nicholas Cage at his most unrestrained and brilliant in years. He's a filmmaker that continues to intrigue me, always coming up with something interesting, keeping him on a different level than many of his peers. A Herzog movie is incapable of being boring or uninventive, and Bad Lieutenant is no exception.

Penelope Cruz and Pedro Almodovar

Penelope Cruz is an actress that I have decidedly not admired for a long time. Unlike many, when she shot to fame with her parts in All the Pretty Horses, Blow, and Vanilla Sky, I didn't think she was a very good actress and didn't find her particularly attractive. But then Vicky Christina Barcelona came along and showed me what kind of actress she could really be when working with the right people (Woody Allen in that case). So I decided to go back and check out her Oscar nominated performance in the Spanish language movie Volver, directed by Oscar-winning director Pedro Almodovar. I was blown away by what I saw, which was a warm and commanding, alluring and magnetic work from a performer of obviously the highest caliber. As soon as I could, I checked out their newest collaboration, Broken Embraces, the pair's fourth time working together. It's kind of Almodovar's take on noir, except like his other movies, it's tremendously filmed in bright beautiful colors instead of the standard noir black-and-white.

Cruz doesn't have quite the part or performance that she had in Volver, but she still has a much more comfortable and enticing presence onscreen in her native language. Cruz's current fiancee, Javier Bardem, has said in the past that he didn't think he'd ever feel comfortable acting in English, because it wasn't his first language and he would always be having to think about what he was saying instead of getting lost in the moment the way he could be in Spanish. I feel kind of the same about Cruz. She is noticeably more comfortable on screen when speaking Spanish, which is probably one of the reasons her performance in Vicky Christina Barcelona is so revelatory (although it didn't hit me as brilliant until a second viewing), considering it's in both Spanish and English, but mostly in Spanish. For some reason, even though I don't with Bardem or many other foreign actors, I get caught up listening to Cruz's accent when I hear her in English, and I find her generally unappealing due to that. But in her element, Cruz is a wonderful actress who can command the screen like only a certain group of actors can.
So I'm planning on checking out some of Cruz's other Spanish language work, including her 2 other collaborations with Almodovar, and am actually looking forward to seeing Cruz onscreen.

Hockey - the band is much better than the sport

I ran across the band Hockey on the TV show Live at Abbey Road, where different bands record songs at the famous studio. Hockey was on an episode with two artists I've admired for a long time, Counting Crows and Melody Gardot, and naturally I thought "Who the hell is Hockey?" Well, they're a New Wave-y/Punk-y kinda band from Portland, Oregon that is like a poppier version of The Strokes. Or, at least, a band better at the pop elements and hooks that they put into their music. My wife immediately said "these guys are awesome, we need to buy their album", so we did (it's called Mind Chaos) and I've been listening to little else lately. Their song "Learn to Lose" is my favorite and I included a link to it down below. Hope everyone likes it as much as I do, although I does grow on me each time I listen to it, so don't give up after one if you don't care for it. And if you like it, check out their song "Too Fake" as well, or just get the whole album, it's one of the few recent albums I can listen to from front to back and not have a problem with any song.

HOCKEY learn to lose (official video)

An Education

I'm still catching up with some of the 2009 movies I wanted to see but didn't get a chance to see in theaters. I had really wanted to see An Education because it was the first screenplay by Nick Hornby, one of my favorite authors. It also starred two of my favorite "underrated" actors, Peter Sarsgaard and Alfred Molina. It's the story of a bright but inexperienced 16-year-old girl's affair with a smooth talking, cultured 30-something man in early 1960's London. Sarsgaard plays the man, Molina plays her father, and the girl is played by relative newcomer Carey Mulligan. It's a sort of coming-of-age drama, with Hornby's knack for every day comedy, a killer soundtrack and tremendous performances all around.

David (Sarsgaard) charms young Jenny Millar (Mulligan) when they run into each other after one of her cello practices, and again a few days later when they unexpectedly cross paths again and he asks her out. Eventually, he even comes by her house and talks her father Jack (Molina) into letting Jenny go places that he would not normally let her go. The parents become just as charmed by David as young Jenny is, and soon Jenny is awash in life experiences that she wouldn't have had if she'd stayed at her boring school with all of its boring teachers and difficult studying. Jenny mostly still manages to get high marks in her classes, she's obviously the top student of the class, even with setting off to all parts of England and eventually Paris with the smooth talking David. But her English teacher and the school's Headmistress (played in a tiny role by the great Emma Thompson) begin to worry that Jenny is experiencing a bit too much life for such a young girl. Jenny and her parents are much too blinded by David's charm to come to this conclusion on their own and don't listen when the thought is thrown in their faces. As Jenny starts neglecting school a bit more to experience life with David, the title An Education begins to take on new meaning for our young herione, as she may not be getting the kind of education that she needs.

Sarsgaard is terrific as David, effortlessly affecting a British accent. David certainly knows how to play people, and Sarsgaard keeps the character mysterious enough and occasionally sweet enough to make sure he get what he wants from whoever he wants something from. Molina, for possibly the first time I've seen him in his native British accent, gives a wonderfully layered performance as Jack, the father. He wants what's best for his daughter, looks out for her, cares for her, is often the butt of her jokes, and is heartbroken when he lets her down. Molina showed what a truly amazing actor can do with just a look. He can tell a whole story with it, and he's hilarious as well. Mulligan won and was nominated for many awards (including an Oscar nom for Best Actress) and the accolades are richly deserved. Her Jenny is taken from a young girl, to a girl trying to be a woman, to a girl thinking she is a woman, back to young girl (but a bit less naive) throughout the brisk 96 minutes of the movie and Mulligan imbues each moment with a genuineness that is engrossing to watch.

It's interesting to see Hornby, who usually tends to tackle middle aged men stuck in adolescence, take on the coming-of-age of a young girl. He has said though, "I think the moment you're writing about somebody who's not exactly you, then the challenge is all equal. I was glad that everyone around me on this movie was a woman so that they could watch me carefully. But I don't remember anyone saying to me, 'That isn't how women think.'" so maybe it isn't that different from normal for him. The screenplay is tremendous in the balance it gives to developing each character, with more than just the two leads feeling like full blown people. It's a really good movie all around, and one I'm glad I caught up with.

Justin Nozuka

When then 19-year-old singer/songwriter Justin Nozuka's debut album Holly came out, I was caught by the lead single "After Tonight" when I saw the video one morning on VH1 (you know, the only times the "music channels" play anything musically related). I didn't think he seemed particularly special, but had a nice sound and an interesting voice. So as I always do I did some research on the guy and found out how young he was and was blown away, especially as I listened to "After Tonight" a few more times and had it grow and grow on me. So I downloaded Holly (named after Nozuka's beloved mother) from iTunes and was soon enraptured by the young man's sound. Seeing that he was the chief songwriter, only sharing songwriting duties on 2 of the album's 11 tracks, I was further impressed by the maturity he displayed throughout the album. So, of course, I'd been anticipating the release of his second effort and snatched it up as soon as I could.

Sadly, the sophomore release You I Wind Land and Sea doesn't have the same magic. There's nothing necessarily wrong with the album, but there's nothing spectacular either. There's nothing on the level of catchiness of Holly's "Be Back Soon" or "After Tonight", although "Heartless" comes close and is probably the best song on the new album. There's certainly nothing of the emotional devastation of the first release's best song, "Save Him", where Nozuka dealt with abusive relationships in a more gut-wrenchingly honest and affecting way than I've ever heard it handled before. That song is a masterpiece, but there's nothing here to reach that level. Here he seems to oversing far too often. He's got a wonderful voice, with R&B type vocal runs in many songs, too many. It's like he's trying to lift the material up to a higher level, when really no songs outside "Heartless", and the groovetastic "Woman Put Your Weapon Down" are up to the standard he set on the first go around.

It simply seems like Nozuka hit the dreaded 2nd album drag (the sophomore slump as some call it) where he simply doesn't have his craft honed in such a way to be able to churn out the same quality of material as on the first release, when he had no pressure from a label to deliver an album. But since Holly is an album I like more and more every time I listen to it (and I liked it to begin with), I will still, undoubtedly, anticipate the release of Nozuka's third album, which is generally a good barometer of whether someone is a real artist to watch, or if it's all downhill from the debut. I think Nozuka will fall into the former category. I hope anyway.

I'm back!!!

Ok, now with wedding and honeymoon behind me, I can continue back with my blogging here. That's the longest I've stayed away, and I'm sure it'll take me a bit to get back into the swing of things, but I look forward to it.