The Factual Opinion

Television Of The Weak: Neil Burnside Will Peel Your Face Off Before Peeling Off What's Underneath Your Face

This week we've got I Survived a Japanese Game Show, The Mighty Boosh, Mental, Sandbaggers, Tim & Eric Awesome Show Great Job & The Apprentice UK.

I Survived a Japanese Game Show - "Episode Three" by Matthew J. Brady

The difficulties of covering a show like this become apparent this week, as each episode appears to be pretty much the same. The teams compete, the losers have to send two members off to an elimination game, there's a reward and a punishment, yada yada yada. Any "review" will consist of describing the silly games and maybe noting some of the interpersonal rivalries, which might be worth a mention but are usually the low point of the show anyway. Is that necessary? Probably not, but if I keep doing it, maybe it will repair the cultural divide between East and West. Here goes:

The first game this week was a sort of human Whack-A-Mole, with team members poking their heads out of holes and spitting ping pong balls into bins while somebody from the other team whacked their heads with a soft mallet. Somewhat entertaining, although the producers might be running out of humiliating ideas, since they didn't bother costuming the contestants in silly gopher outfits or something. The big team intrigue consisted of the Green Tigers, who were so far undefeated, sending one of their members to the Red Robots. They choose the "soccer mom" (as she describes herself), who at the ancient age of 36 must be dragging them down. This backfires though, as she is by far the best ping pong ball spitter, winning the robots an advantage for the second game. And that's where things get sillier. In what is either a strange bit of translation or just some nonsensicality, the game sees the teams dress in mouse costumes and try to catch cartons of milk dropped from a conveyor belt, then carry them across a slick surface and dump them in a bucket. They also wear boxing gloves and goggles that black out their vision except for a small hole in one eye, and one member shouts instructions while hanging above and wearing a cheese costume (over their mouse costume). Yeah, it doesn't make sense to me either. It's pretty funny though, since they keep spilling milk all over the place and slipping and falling down. Ah, physical comedy, the true international language.

So, the Red Robots win again, giving them a chance to celebrate for once. For their reward, they go to "the most famous restaurant in Japan", which turns out to be the one where monkeys serve the food. Cute? Or non-humane? Whatever. The losers get to spend a day building a zen garden, and it's somewhat enjoyable to watch them sweat (not so much to hear them whine about it, but that's the unfortunate part of any loss on this show), although I would have like to see more painstakingly precise instructions from the designer.

Then we get to the elimination, and the Tigers seem to be going for the stupid strategy of voting off their strongest players so they will have easier opponents to face down the line. Rather than get rid of a useless fatso like the amazingly annoyingly-named Bobaloo, the dreadlocked Hawaiian salsa instructor and cute blond girl who has also done pretty well in all the games so far have to compete at popping egg-shaped balloons by jumping on them belly-first. They're also dressed in penguin costumes, which is the second game this season already to feature penguins; did I mention that the producers might be running out of humiliations? Anyway, the athletic dude wins, of course, and on we go to the next week. I predict messiness, stupidity (both purposeful and otherwise), confessional bitching, and me getting tired of watching this show.

The Mighty Boosh - "Call of the Yeti"

"You ever been rohypnoled by a swan, woke up in Cancun?"

The plot this week - the Boosh gang take a holiday in the woods, rent the Evil Dead cabin. Vince is totally dressed as Runaways-era Joan Jett for half the episode, causing Rich Fulcher's Grizzly Adams-style mountain man Kodiak Jack spends most of the episode trying to screw him. Because let's face it - everyone wants to fuck Runaways-era Joan Jett. Floria Sigismondi is banking on that shit to kick-start a legitimate movie career. Kristin Stewart is banking on it to get her out of Mormon servitude. He trades Howard a map to a Yeti settlement for the chance to spend the night with Vince. Bollo and Naboo go shopping for Shaman gear in the woods. Apparently parts of the UK wilderness are run like Costco?Howard goes to photograph the Yeti. Who, scarily enough, are in their once-every-25-years breeding cycle. Vince burns Jack's nose off with a straightening iron. The gang go to save him, and Howard has been brainwashed into a lovechild of the universe. Yeti's brainwash people with their evil hippy song. Naboo to Vince: "Your a punk, stay punk. Think of Johnny Thunders. Mick and Keef. Block it out.". Immediately, Vince is done up like Pocahantas. The crew are about to be group-screwed by the entire pride of Yeti and their queen, until the Jack saves them and gets it in their stead.

Cut - Vince trying on clothes Julia Roberts style in the opening. Bollo's first strange monologue where he reminsces about his childhood and makes a left turn into mutilating his young friend. A running joke about Owl Beaks being a natural aphrodisiac. Weirdly there's a bad mid-sentence cut after the first commercial break. Bollo's second speech, which is the same speech only about speed cameras and ends with him chopping off someone's feet. Shots of Fulcher's ass are cropped out. Some abridging of various scenes.

The Moon is here... I still don't know why. It's really not as funny as the stuff they cut. Bollo and Naboo finally have the full roles they deserve - Bollo says "I've got a bad feeling about this" for the first time, as he will every episode after this. No Bob Fossil. We do get Kodiak Jack and Fulcher's Mr. Watson impression, so it's a trade-off.

The music - season 2 may not have a song that's as catchy as "Tundra" in it, but it's the second album of seasons. A good one where the band finds its style. Instead of just having the same incidental music every episode like they did in the first season, S2 has actual soundtrack-style variations on the title song. "Call of the Yeti" is so good - not just as tv music but as a great song. It's very 90s-psychedelia. The Boosh are a great band, and are really hitting their stride. There's also a faux-Mothersbaugh redux of it for the chase scene, which evokes Wes Anderson and the Banana Splits at the same time.

One of my favorite things about this show is the dynamic between Howard and Vince - Howard is the neurotic weirdo and Vince is the trendy idiot, yeah, we know that. But over the course of three seasons, Howard is constantly throwing himself into artistic pursuits while Vince obsesses with fashion and kind of drifts through life. In other shows, the vain one would be the one desperate for validation...but Vince really isn't. Howard wants to matter, and is constantly failing and/or almost getting killed. Vince just cares about looking good and hanging out, enjoying every day of his life. Usually he succeeds where Howard fails. It's a little element, but the fact that Howard's desperation is never used as a moralistic ending and is always just a thing that Howard always does, the show is so much more satisfying than your average sitcom. That and Friends didn't have Yetis raping old mountain men.

Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! - "Jim & Derrick" by Nina Stone

Have you seen this one? HILARIOUS. So hilarious because it doesn't even try to be funny or absurd. It just replicates every MTV reality show. They do it all - they master the vocal cadence of inexperienced show hosts. They perfectly mimic and simultaneously mock the style choices. Everything from the voice-overs to the editing to the way they promote what's about to happen at the end of the show like it's the second coming of Christ. This is a magnificent piece of satire. True satire. If you want to check that, here's what our trusty Wikipedia has to say about satire: "The essential point, however, is that "in satire, irony is militant". This "militant irony" (or sarcasm) often professes to approve (or at least accept as natural) the very things the satirist actually wishes to attack." Boom. You've been Nina'd, mofo.

Mental – “Rainy Days” by Martin Brown

The Fox website describes Mental as “a medical mystery drama featuring Dr. Jack Gallagher, a radically unorthodox psychiatrist who becomes Director of Mental Health Services at a Los Angeles hospital where he takes on patients battling unknown, misunderstood and often misdiagnosed psychiatric conditions.” Sub out a couple of words—“doctor” for “psychiatrist,” “Princeton” for “Los Angeles,” etc.—and it’s the exact plot synopsis for House. They’re not even trying to be sneaky about it—though, to be completely fair, tweaking a couple of points in the formula of one of your network’s biggest successes to create another show. At the end of the day, it’s a smart move—a lazy move, creatively; but a smart one, business-wise. With strong enough writing and acting, Mental could transcend the fact that their set-up is the very definition of a cliché, and they just might have, if they weren’t so goddamn horrible at every single thing they do.

This week’s episode begins with a security guard calling on Gallagher to help talk a suicidal man down from a roof ledge. On his way up to the roof, he stops an intern and asks him to bring a sandwich—no, make that two sandwiches. Within the course of three lines, the security guard goes from mumbling about pushing the guy off himself to giving the doctor grief for not getting up to the roof fast enough. When they do reach the roof, the suicidal man greets them with lines like, “You want to see me go splat? Take a step closer, dumb cop!” and “Step a little closer! See the middle-aged Jew take his first flying lesson!” Gallagher attempts to lure the guy down by eating a sandwich and a pickle—presumably making him, I don’t know, jealous? Gallagher bites into the pickle, and the guy says, “Is that a new pickle? I can tell by the crunch.” There’s some stuff about how the news cameras were there earlier, and some stuff about how his family doesn’t care that he’s up there—because the show (and it’s a psychological drama, mind you) can’t decide whether it wants the character to be narcissistic or depressive (turns out he’s just a gambling addict. Ding!) When Gallagher offers the guy a sandwich, and the guy accepts, Gallagher throws it over the side of the building. Then, he reveals that he has yet another sandwich to offer the guy. Three sandwiches—one he’s eating, one over the side, one for the guy—which at this point is mathematically impossible, but fuck it. The guy comes down off of the ledge.

That’s all in the opening scene. When the actual episode starts, it focuses on a lawyer, played by a freaky blonde chick wearing way too much foundation (and, yet, strangely still not enough to cover up the two wrinkles that make her look 35.) Her story begins in the middle of a trial of a kid accused of murder, which Gallagher is testifying at. She’s supposed to be a brilliant lawyer who has never lost a case, but there’s nothing even remotely lawyerly (or winning) about her—most likely, this was the only blonde actress they could get to fly down to Columbia, where Mental films, to work on such a craptastic project. The episode eventually tries to pull some serious Bryan Singer shit and it turns out the whole trial was—get this—IN HER MIND.

The plotline with the suicidal dude plays out thusly: Gallagher finds out dude’s a compulsive gambler, and arranges a meeting with his bookie who “does this thing with a ball peen hammer, then he throws you off a freeway overpass,” asks the bookie to forgive the suicidal guy’s debt, and when the bookie tries to walk out of the room, Gallagher wordlessly hands him a ball peen hammer to get him to stay. And he stays! Later, Gallagher cons the suicidal dude into going to 8 “Gamblers United” meetings—because that’s how psychiatrists do—by loading a deck so that he can cut to a high card every time. When Gallagher meets suicidal guy at his first meeting, suicidal guy tells him he doesn’t have to stick around, to which Gallagher replies, “Confession time? When you cut the cards, I stacked the deck. We’re not so different, you and I.” This presumably means that Gallagher is also a gambling addict, even though stacking the deck is actually the opposite of gambling.

The episode is called “Rainy Days,” and they can’t even do rain right. In the context of the episode, it’s supposed to rain for two days straight. Yet, when the characters are outside, all we see is some mist coming up from some vents, and a few drops on the back of Gallagher’s leather jacket. Nobody’s even fucking wet! And take a look at the show’s logo: a zipper across Gallagher’s forehead, which zips up every time the show cuts to a commercial. It’s supposed to be a metaphor for, I don’t know, something having to do with psychiatry—but it’s more indicative of the show mentally taking a piss in between words from its sponsors.

The Sandbaggers - "Season One" by Nina Stone

So, I've started watching Sandbaggers. Wait, that's not right. Let me try again.

So, I've started watching the Godfather of all spy shows, Sandbaggers. I think it's British. (I know it's British. It's either Gordon Ramsay or the British serious-a-thon around here lately.) Do you like your spy shows filled with action and special effects? Look elsewhere, pal. But if you like good acting, this is where to turn. After watching the first six seasons of MI-5 (or Spooks, if you live anywhere that isn't in America), it's a little jarring to see set pieces like "a large cherry desk the size of your apartment" and "half-empty metal shelving from dad's garage". (Yeah - I'm talking 'bout yer dad. We're tight.) The interior of MI-5 (Again, that's "Spooks" in every other country in the world) looked like it was designed by Norwegian architects. From the future. Replicant Norwegian architects. Alternate future. It's hard to marry the two shows in my head, sorry. Here you go, simply put: Sandbaggers is the late 70's version of MI-6, MI-5 is the nownownownow version of MI-5. (It's called Spooks.)

Although I haven't said anything about him yet, not enough can be said about Neil Burnside, the lead character, the head of the Special Section, the Sandbagger qua excellence. He's just awful. He's like House with the humor surgically removed, tortured, and publicly executed. In fact, I wonder if Hugh Laurie used this character as an inspiration for his performance of Dr. House. I mean, this Burnside guy just doesn't give a fuck about anything but his bottom line. And you say, "But it's his job - he has to be this way." Sure, but it's clear that he's got nothing else but his job - and he doesn't care to. He's an awful, insensitive, manipulative prick. And his behavior never ceases to amaze. It's like watching a classy serial killers play chess with human skulls. By talking.

The Apprentice UK - Week Eleven

As this first season of the Apprentice UK winds down, I can almost certainly guarantee that I'll never watch this show again, despite being just as certain I'll watch it end next week. What started off initially as an engaging (and somewhat surprising) take on the reality show competition hour has now dribbled its way towards what will most certainly be marked down as a waste of time. It's just not that entertaining to watch a bunch of sourpusses desperately try to prove that they're merely tolerating the cameras surrounding them when the only reason for their every interaction is defined solely by those cameras. This episode--the first season's second to last--is referred to as "the semi-finals" more than once. And what does semi-finals mean, pray tell?

It means watching the final four contestants "bond" in shared mockery, a sequence that drowns in the completely absurd dramatic choice for it to be delivered in a Silent Montage of Laugher. Where, in the history of filmed narrative, has a silent montage of laughter ever been a good idea? (Besides some Cameron Crowe movie. Those have music.) After that, the final four are told to awaken at....6:45 in the morning! So they can be driven to an office building!

Where they will be interviewed by four different people!

For a total of four hours!

Of interviews!

Look, I'm not even sure how you recap something like this. Or review it. I guess you can just respond to it, but even then...I mean, c'mon. The producers had 16 hours of raw footage of these four people being interviewed to pull from, and they came up with a grand total of about three minutes per person, and at least half of that was cutaways so that the interviewer could say "I think she's a fucking liar" and "I like Tim, but he's got zero experience" or "James seems like he's 70 years old, is he? He's 34? Fuck that man, I betcha he's 70 years old." On top of that, only one of the interviewers has a personality--he's the one who doesn't work directly for Sir Alan Sugar--while the other three seem to have been dug up out of whatever cemetery is closest to the nondescript building the interviews are being held in. (A building so boring that the producers choose to cut to their helicopter shots of London a grand total of 11 fucking times during one segment.) The majority of the episode consists of the various interviewers telling Sir Alan Sugar what they think of the contestants, which roughly breaks down like this:

Tim: Three of the judges think he's the clear choice for the show, as he's young, smart, and hardworking. And likeable. And not an asshole. And classy. And physically attractive. The one guy who doesn't like him seems not to like him because he's inexperienced, which kind of misses the point of the title of the fucking show, which is "The Apprentice", which means that Being Experienced Means You're Not Qualified For The Position.

Paul: All four agree on Paul. They think Paul is a liar and an asshole. Through the magic of wasting fucking time, they discuss this for a full five minutes. 

Saira: They all think Saira would be a great salesperson, which is mostly attributable to the fact that none of them have the courage to say "Saira's a crazy fucking bitch". I guess they're worried how that will look on television? Look guys, it's not sexist to call a crazy fucking bitch a "crazy fucking bitch". It's sexist when you call an angry woman (who is just angry) a crazy fucking bitch. This isn't math. There is such a thing as a "crazy fucking bitch". They aren't unicorns. Either way, they have zero evidence for thinking that she's a good salesperson. She just comes off looking like a princess because she's a female and therefore cannot be Paul, who they all hate enough to bring up while talking about Saira.

James: For some reason, they all dislike James, except for the guy who keeps bitching about Tim. At a certain point, I started to wonder if I even liked James, because they were really convincing. The best part was watching two of the interviewers argue about James for a while until one of the quiet ones spoke up and said "I really don't trust James", like the dude was some kind of spy or something. And then they all agreed with him! I guess he did something shady. He just always seemed dopey to me.

After that, Sir Alan Sugar brings in all the candidates and proceeds to talk at them about how he's fucking awesome and doesn't give a shit about what the producers say, how he doesn't care about the "telly people"--he says it like they have leprosy--and then he gets done to the business of firing people. He really stretches it out with Tim, which is sort of ridiculous--it's obvious that Tim is the only logical choice out of the four following the interviews--but it goes on for a good couple of minutes. During this time period, Tim whips out his biggest surprise move of all: he can open his eyes so wide that he looks like a fucking puppy, and he sort of slouches down in his seat like he's five, and you're just like Holy Shit This Guy, What's He Doing. It's insane. He turns into a yorkshire terrier. It's everything in you not to tear your heart of your chest and hand it to him with a trembling hand. It's so adorable it almost makes the entire episode worth watching. Almost. He's in the finals.

The rest of the interviews go about as predictably as expected. James takes his firing like he's been kicked in the stomach by God, because James is a fucking baby, Paul takes it like he can fight his way out of it, and Saira believes she has a chance at winning despite the fact that she makes it into the finals on the strength of Not Being James or Paul. She does have a chance, because this is a reality show, but she's actually crazy enough to believe she earned it. Which--well, it is kind of understandable. She's gotten away with being a jerk ass crazy person for eleven episodes. What's one more?

-Matthew J. Brady, Sean Witzke, Nina Stone, Martin Brown & Tucker Stone, 2009

The Virgin Read: PS Comics

PS Comics
By Minty Lewis
Published by Secret Acres, 2009

This collection of comics by Minty Lewis, like everything I've read from Secret Acres, is completely delightful.

I'm a girl who adores the use of personification. All of my early creative writing was of this nature, be it a piece about an irritated telephone endlessly annoyed at being grabbed all day, or my secret conversations with my left foot and my right foot as they forever competed for my attention: "Tie me first!" "No, my turn!"

So you can imagine the utter delight in reading an entire book filled with the ins an outs of daily office life with the employees depicted as a wide array of fruit, or the trials and tribulations of Yorkie schoolmates, Yorkie roommates and Yorkie matrimony. Every chapter in PS Comics was as clever as the one before, with my personal favorites being "Salt & Sugar" and "Craftstival Follies".

The pace of the book has the same quiet cleverness that I liked so much in other Secret Acres books and most recently in Kate T. Williamson's At A Crossroads. What attracts me to this quietness is what it seems to illustrate about the human interaction (be it via fruit or animals) that goes on in between the written words. In the pictures. From the comics I've read, the ones I've liked, this is where I see the talent lie. Minty Lewis is obviously not only a great observer of human behavior and our various idiosyncrasies, but she's evenly matched it with an ability to illustrate those observations. And it's interesting to me when I find that reading a comic that does that so well that it doesn't always mean that the actual drawings are the world's best renderings. But it almost doesn't seem necessary, because the drawings contain the ability to illustrate doubt on a face that didn't have it in the panel before, or to show us a character's intentions and motivations betraying the lie of the dialogue written in the very same frame. It reads like a gift. And yet, even though I don't know a thing about cartooning, it isn't a gift, is it? After all, calling it a gift is just another way of saying that it isn't earned, that it isn't hard--but if it's not hard to do, than everybody would do it. They aren't. Minty is.

It's the same talent of great actors, I think. Sure, there's interpreting what's been written, memorizing and saying the words. That's a talent, yes--but it's also a skill, and it can be taught. But have you ever seen actors who do so much more than that? Like, have you ever seen a fantastic production of Shakespeare? Shakespeare is the ideal way to express my example because although Shakespeare wrote brilliant plays, he left absolutely no direction except for "enter" and "exit." Or "In another part of the Forest." So, what an actor does in between the words or with the words or in spite of the words is where the play is at. The difference is a simple recitation of glorious words in the structure of a play, or an expression and communication of the commonality of human experience and universal truths related through the cleverness of gifted actors. I was honored to work with an incredibly talented group who did just that, years ago. These inspired geniuses took the same-old, same-old As You Like It, and found ways to incorporate actionable behavior in regards to cell phones and golf and things clearly not IN the text, to express and communicate so much more about those words than I'd ever seen in them before. They didn't touch the text. They didn't just add contemporary props. They made the work more palatable to an audience who were positive that you could bring them nothing new.  

This is I found in PS Comics. Yes, even in something as silly as an arrogant dog and a "green" cat attending a Craft Festival together. You see the best and worst of our own behavior in them. You can identify with both of them. And they're pets! Likewise, just as the reader begins to feel on the side of our lovable loser "Apple," he does something unlikable. And I immediately thought, of a friend of mine who i generally like until he does that same sort of thing that Apple's doing. A new experience for me  -- having a comic book remind me to have compassion and that everyone is human.  

On a lighter note, this book is just plain funny. The story that speculates about what has happened to the author's dog when the family car was stolen (with the dog inside) is hilarious. Did he find another dog and spend his time reclining on the beach, glad to be done with that family he'd been with for seven years? That's priceless stuff. It's also a bit painful, as Minty points out, to think about what really may have happened to the dog. (Although it's delivered with such cleverness that its still pretty funny.) You know I was going to love that. Look, my father wrote an obituary for our cat of 18 years, Oreo, making sure to mention how much Orea loved the Philadelphia Eagles, and how he would watch the games every Sunday. This is who I come from. Apparently we love to see ourselves in our pets.

And I guess we're not alone.

-Nina Stone, 2009

Comics Of The Weak: Sky? Rockets In Flight.

Captain America: Reborn # 1

Written by Ed Brubaker

Art by Bryan Hitch, Butch Guice & Frank D'Ar...wait a second, Paul Mounts?

Published by Marvel Comics

Grant Morrison and Neil Gaiman better make room at the table! It's time for yet another story where a super-hero sits around hallucinating/time-jumping/being drugged/dying so that we can read them relive tiny snippets of their past adventures, while said main character goes "geez, what's going on, this is my third birthday" and "oh man, this is that time I accidently called Sharon 'mom' while she was going down on the capschlong" and "man alive, i've been sitting here for twenty minutes, i gotta start eating prunes or something, i feel like my dad". For fiscal reasons determined by Marvel Comics, this story is being told in a mini-series instead of the regular series, and they're replacing the regular art team with a guy whose style is only similar to the last 50 issues of Captain America if you didn't read them, although Butch Guice is hanging around a bit. Anyway, you've read this before. Why don't you read it again?

The Boys # 32

Written by Garth Ennis

Art by Carlos Ezquerra & Tony Avina

Published by Dynamite Entertainment

If you were wondering why Carlos Ezquerra had taken over for Darick Robertson on this current Boys arc--like, the real reason--The Boys # 32 brings out the evidence for all to see, specifically on the page where the Mother's Milk character (who is black) responds to the Nazi Superman's "wog" slur by crushing said Superman's testicles and penis with his hand. See, Darick can do penile carnage drawings, but his skill set is more dedicated towards doing gross out work with the ass/anus region (see the Marvel MAX series "Fury" as exhibit A), whereas Ezquerra holds the testicle wreckage king ranking due to his work in Vertigo's Adventures In The Rifle Brigade. You're welcome.

Agents of Atlas #7

Written by Jeff Parker

Art by Gabriel Hardman, Jana Schirmer, Carlos Pagulayan, Jason Paz & Elizabeth Dismang

Published by Marvel Comics

Last time anybody checked, Namor responded to the mildest of insults by whipping out his massive, Atlantean cock and screaming "look at all the little tattoos, each one of those is for a family I slaughtered with my teeth for daring to question my desire not to have lettuce on a cheeseburger." That makes it somewhat confusing why, in this comic, he responds to someone betraying him, betraying Atlantis, and by-all-accounts ruining his "consummation" ceremony by speaking in a mannered tone and behaving, well, rationally. Maybe that whole Skrulls in the place of people thing isn't over yet? No man escapes the Manhunters. Wait, no, that's not right. Oh look, a talking dragon. This comic has a talking dragon in it!

Batman Confidential # 31

Written by Peter Milligan

Art by Andy Clarke & David Baron

Published by DC Comics

Other than the actively horrible "Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul" story arc, a storyline that operated on a sociological level of cruelty so trenchant it's deserving of indictment for criminal failure, Peter Milligan actually hasn't messed with the Batman character in years. And while Batman Confidential is the sort of comic most purchased by people who don't care what or who it's about, as long as it features Batman doing absolutely anything, that doesn't make this--the best Batman story this awful series has had--any less of a success. Sneering in the face of the rachet-up-the-depravity game, a device that has no logical end other than the eventual story featuring an alcoholic Batman tramping through a wading pool of intestines in hopes of saving a four year old lolicon (who has been dismembered), Milligan uses the oldest saw in the book--Batman beating the shit out of gangsters in a dark room--and proves that the old songs can be made new again.

Greek Street # 1

Written by Peter Milligan

Art by Davide Gianfelice & Patricia Mulvihill

Published by Vertigo/DC Comics

What's that thing they teach in English classes? That there's only four stories, or seven, or something, probably a prime number, and that all the stories we have are just variations on those forms? If your pants just got wet, you're the kind of person that Greek Street is for. It's another Vertigo series designed for an audience that wants to applaud itself for being interested in "graphic novels", while being uninterested in super-hero trash, and unaware, or incapable of purchasing, something that might actually demand the critical thinking they earned a degree in. It's intellectual button pushing, spot the allegory gamesmanship, and its status as comic is a mere byproduct of chance. Worst of all, it's written by someone who not only has done better, but has done better with such flair and panache that Greek Street reads as if it was created to please the worst segment of the comic book reading audience--the ones who are experimenting with it merely out of some kind of trending cultural flashpoint. Even the CGC Grading Scale shitbags are better company.

At the same time, it costs a buck, so who fucking cares.

USA Comics # 1

Written by John Arcudi

Art by Steve Ellis

Published by Marvel Comics

You have to get up pretty early in the morning to write a comic book that uses the Holocast as dramatic-shortcut in a more tasteless fashion than that Magneto: Whaa Happened? series from last year. The last few pages of this, where those chucklebox Jews are artistically interpreted to be George Romero extras, comes close. But the rest of the comic is just too childish for its choke-on-the-importance conclusion to take the title away. (Scared of dying? You must be a fucking coward. Only cowards are scared of dying.) Instead, USA Comics # 1 (there will never be a number 2) is just more evidence that unless the Red Skull is involved, Marvel Comics are incapable of telling a story about World War II without using emaciated Holocaust victims as trump card. The scripts just write themselves! Based on the examples given here, the art isn't far behind.

Chew # 2

Written by John Layman

Art by Rob Guillory

Published by Image Comics

Yes, they still have that stupid little box on the cover. There's not really too much else to say about that little box that wasn't covered last time, so let's just point at that if you don't remember, and get into the business of Chew itself.

...

Okay, you know those catchy songs that you hear on the radio, when you listen to the radio, if you still listen to the radio (does anybody listen to the radio?) and you say "this isn't too bad, and maybe I should listen to the radio more often, at least that way I'd know what's popular with people who don't read the music websites I read", but then you get home, and you listen to the radio some and remember why the radio fucking sucks, and you go "what was that song that made me think I should do this radio thing again", but you can't remember what it was, you just remember that it wasn't terrible, and was kind of good?

That's what Chew is like. It's not terrible. It's kind of good. It just doesn't leave much of a mark.

Exiles # 4

Written by Jeff Parker

Art by Casey Jones, Karl Kesel & Anthony Washington

Published by Marvel Comics

While it reads like a comic book, Exiles looks a whole lot more like a coloring book filled in by a particular fastidious teenager. Like a lot of Marvel comics, it's not lacking in technical aptitude, you aren't going to blast it for amateurishness, but there's an overall feeling to it that its loftiest goals are to be An Efficient And Direct Super-Hero Comic Book. That's not an evil thing to do. But it is boring. Of course, maybe that's just because the general plot of Exiles is a pretty boring concept, a bunch of What If scenarios where the Watcher bookend pieces are stretched to half the books length, and continuity gets tacked in. If online fan fiction didn't exist, maybe it would even seem novel. But at the point comics are at now--where anyone that ever fantasized about this story has already written 10,000 words on LiveJournal about a Marvel Universe where Ultron, Cerebro, the Vision & Machine Man have taken over, a la Skynet--this entire franchise seems a tad superfluous.

Sir Edward Grey: Witchfinder # 1

Written by Mike Mignola

Art by Ben Stenbeck & Dave Stewart

Published by Dark Horse Comics

The name of this comic doesn't really stick in the brain, which is why they have this joke in it.

Get it the guys say "sir" and the lady says "edward grey" and the other guy says WITCHFINDER!

Hahahahahhahha what the fuck happened to the comics that i loved this shit is terrible

Secret Six # 11

Written by Gail Simone

Art by Nicola Scott & Doug Hazlewood

Published by DC Comics

Although the cover is certainly a hideous beast to look at, with the "Artemis" character depicted as if her fleshy skin is tunneling its way to decay, as pasty as any television autopsy, the real ugliness is inside. The problem with "root for the bad guy" stories is that they usually lace everything in this toxic selfishness, as if a horrible past or some abusive parents excuses wholesale slaughter, shrugging out a "cycle of violence" excuse while wallowing in a teenage idea of "intensity". Secret Six rides the line at times, and it doesn't totally work, considering it's actually better at being funny than it is at being HardCore. But here, where a team of super-villains turned mercenary violencemen finds themselves at odds with one another over the prospect of working for slavers, it's done intelligently enough. One of the worst (yet most popular) myths of the land o' crime is that killers have "rules" they won't break. That's nice if you're watching Heat and want to fantasize about taking Val Kilmer's place. Otherwise, it's just tired and lame. Simone's decision--to have the most likeable characters in the comic sneer in the face of their criminal partners who have, for no real reason, decided to develop morals--is a relatively gutsy one. But it's doubtful she'll play this one until the end. Expect some "i was only kidding" moments to come.

Destroyer # 4

Written by Robert Kirkman

Art by Cory Walker & Val Staples

Published by Marvel MAX

The last issue of Destroyer read like this kill kill kill kill kill KILL KILL KILL KILL KIILLLLLLLLL KILL THE FUCKER KILL KILL DRINK IN THE BLOOD KILLEYMALL TUESDAY SPECIAL, I WILL HAVE BACON IN MY HASHBROWNS DONT COOK IT RAW BACON RAW BACON

Now, this issue reads like this: sit talk talk talk jump run kill run yell talk talk GROSS gross LOVE talk talk break-up talk talk.

Which...maybe it'll work better in a trade. But yeah, that's kind of selfish. Like--talking? Who gives a shit about talking anymore? After #1-3, all those "talking" fans have fucked off back to whatever basement they escaped from. Church basement.

Look, what are you after here anyway?

-Tucker Stone, 2009

Music of the Weak: The Mid-Year Check-In, Part Two

Typically, we don’t need an excuse to pore over our favorite music of the year, but since it’s the halfway point of 2009, we just happen to have one. Yesterday, we looked at some albums that have been running their flags up our pole. Today, we’ll look at songs. We’ve covered a good number of our favorite songs in this column before, but we’re happy to re-point you in the direction of “Gibberish,” “Stillness is the Move,” “Portofino,” “Quiet Where I Lie,” “Andrew,” “Atlantic City,” “The New Wu,” “The Island,” “My Wife, Lost in the Wild,” “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell,” and Hypnotic Brass Ensemble’s “War,” which finally got a proper release. Plus, here are seven more tracks to add to that list:

DJ Kaos – “Love the Nite Away (Tiedye Remix)” 

DJ Kaos, possibly the only artist Best New Music-ed by Pitchfork who is available to play at your wedding, originally arranged “Love the Nite Away” with a definite edge. The vocalist may sing about unrequited lust, but the music is all hard, grinding house music that ultimately erupts into an electric guitar solo. In the hands of remixer Tiedye, on the other hand, the music matches the lyrical content exactly, and the song becomes into a summery jam where the lust is less coked-up clubby, more lazy and lounge-y.

Dyme Def – “Get Off Me” 

It originally leaked in January ’08, but Dyme Def’s “Get Off Me” finally got an actual release this year on the Seattle-based threesome’s Panic EP. There’s not a whole lot to the song, except for some ferocious horns, a little bit of guitar wank, and some, you know, rapping, but that’s all these guys need to churn out a serious banger.

Free Energy – “Dream City” 

Prinzhorn Dance School and the Shocking Pinks may have their plusses, but the idea of a straight-up rock band on the DFA Records label is still a little bit of an iffy proposition—James Murphy and Tim Goldsworthy have proven over and over that dance music can work with a high level of self-awareness, but rock music usually needs its self-seriousness. Case in point: 2003 saw the rise of LCD Soundsystem, The Darkness and the Electric Six, and look who’s still standing.

Free Energy have a fair shot precisely because it’s impossible to tell where they fall on the ironic/sincere scale. “Dream City” is layered with handclaps, “na na na na” choruses, and a Glenn Frey-worthy sax solo to cap it all off. Yet it’s all played with a straightforward ebullience, which may be confounding in terms of easy categorization, but is phenomenal when it comes to providing a summer rock song.

Gui Boratto – “No Turning Back” 

House of House – “Rushing to Paradise (Walking These Streets)”

Both Gui Boratto’s “No Turning Back” and House of House’s “Rushing to Paradise” build up to monstrous payoffs by delaying their vocals as much as possible. “No Turning Back” introduces itself with a rusty, metallic groove, while “Rushing to Paradise” dabbles in some extended piano riffing, but when the respective singers finally make their appearances, each song turns into a wistful, nostalgic triumph.

Junior Boys – “Hazel”

Nobody loves the Junior Boys anymore. After a ridiculously hyped first couple of albums, and a couple killer singles, the group’s third effort, Begone Dull Care, had little impact on its arrival. Nevertheless, “Hazel,” at the center of the new album, can stand alongside previous singles “Birthday” and “In the Morning” as some of the brightest 80’s influenced synth-pop confections in a decade full of ‘em.

Yeasayer – “Tightrope”

Among all of the uniformly excellent downers on the Dark Was the Night, it’s the uptempo songs that stick out—Dirty Projectors & David Byrne’s “Knotty Pine,” Spoon’s “Well Alright,” and especially Yeasayer’s “Tightrope.” The Brooklyn-based, Eastern-influenced indie band contributes one of the tightest songs in their catalogue, and it manages to be upbeat and laconic all at once—fitting in perfectly with the compilation, and also rising above it.

-Martin Brown, 2009

Music of the Weak: The Mid-Year Check-In, Part One

We just hit the mid-way point of 2009, and it turns out that it’s been a pretty phenomenal year for music—if a monumentally shitty year for everything else. We’ve mentioned some of our favorite albums of the year over the course of the last couple of months—Dirty Projectors, DJ Quik & Kurupt, Cymbals Eat Guitars, and if you haven’t grabbed your free copy of Theophilus London’s This Charming Mixtape yet, now’s the time—but here are a handful of albums worth your time that haven’t gotten a whole lot of screen time on TFO. Plus, check in tomorrow as we take a look at our favorite songs of 2009 so far.

Dan Deacon – Bromst

To say that Dan Deacon’s music has matured since 2007’s Spiderman of the Rings is to truly ignore how magnificently immature his music is. Used to be that Deacon merely assembled a clattering racket of abrasive techno, bolted some helium-enriched voices to the top of it, and let the tempo fly. With Bromst, however, Deacon seems to be using the same palate to aim for something that was unfathomable in his early work: emotional impact. And he just about pulls it off. Deacon’s songs have always been overtly joyous, but here his playful spirit is tempered with melancholy, echoing Moby’s Play or LCD Soundsystem’s “All My Friends” without sounding anything like either of them.

Dinosaur Jr. – Farm

DOOM – Born Like This.

Fifty some odd years into rock & roll, and we’ve finally figured out how to do comeback albums. It’s a simple formula, really: Give the people exactly what they want, without becoming a mere shadow of your former identity. In other words, just be perfectly you. DOOM and Dinosaur Jr. both do themselves better than anyone. On Born Like This, MF Doom traffics in breathless raps, dialogue collages and Dan Stuckey references while managing to liquefy the thousand styles he dabbled in before his extended absence into a unified aesthetic and turn J Dilla’s “Lightworks” sketch off of Donuts into an actual song. Dinosaur Jr. churns out a grip of catchy songs tethered by some triumphant guitar work, and make like 1993 never turned grunge into a dirty word.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

It’s increasingly rare, these days, for a band to break through on songs rather than style. While Brooklyn’s The Pains of Being Pure at Heart have plenty of the latter, borrowing liberally from The Cure, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Belle and Sebastian, and just about every late-80’s/early 90’s shoegaze band you could name, it’s with the former that they excel. Each song on the band’s self-titled debut album is tuneful and indelible, which may make it easier to reluctantly get past its twee as fuck song titles—“Young Adult Friction,” “A Teenager in Love,” “This Love is Fucking Right!”—not to mention the ultra-precious band name.

Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

The grooves that flavored their first couple of albums hardened into riffs on their last album, 2006’s incredible It’s Never Been Like That, so it was more than a little ironic that everyone started to call them “the soft-rock Strokes” after that album dropped. Phoenix worked damn hard to find the edge to their dance-influenced pop rock; you’d be hard-pressed to find much that was “soft” about it. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, on the other hand, lays back in the cut. The rawer sound of It’s Never Been Like That merges with the breeziness of their earlier work—so much that it’s difficult to spot where one ends and the other begins—and the French band’s songwriting kicks up a notch or two.

Ryan Leslie

If you google “Ryan Leslie Obnoxious,” you’ll be directed to a blog post on Leslie’s website where he defends a Facebook status update where he brags about his new credit card. This is the kind of shit we’re dealing with in 2009. Thankfully, though Ryan Leslie’s privileged posturing doesn’t make him the most immediately likable dude in R&B these days, his debut album is packed tight with enough ideas and songs to make his attitude worth putting up with—from classic post-Neptunes, radio-friendly R&B to an AutoTune song that also works as a critique of AutoTune songs.

Wu-Tang Clan – Chamber Music

What the?! Where did this come from? A year and a half after most people presumed 8 Diagrams to be their swan song, the Wu-Tang Clan have stealthily dropped its follow-up. Well, sort-of. Initially touted as a project that would see contributions from all eight living members of the Wu-Tang, in actuality, GZA and Method Man are nowhere to be found on Chamber Music. In their stead, RZA collaborates with a ton of rap legends—Sadat X, Masta Ace, Kool G Rap, M.O.P., AZ, Havoc, and TFO favorite Sean Price. Mostly, though, it’s RZA branding a live band, The Revelations, as the new sound of the Wu-Tang, and alternating rap tracks with instrumental hip-hop. It’s not the burner that their late-period catalogue needs, but it might—emphasis on miiiiight—be a step toward the next chapter.

-Martin Brown, 2009