The Mots Nouveaux, Right the Stars and Harper Blynn at Hotel Cafe

It was off to Hotel Cafe to catch Harper Blynn, Right the Stars and The Mots Nouveaux.

Random thoughts.

Harper Blynn: Passion.
Right the Stars: Comfort.
The Mots Nouveaux: Fashion.

Harper Blynn



Right the Stars



The Mots Nouveaux

Incan Abraham and Hands at Bootleg

Off to the Bootleg for a Monday night. Hands: fastest hands in the Los Angeles.

This was my first time seeing Incan Abraham. I loved how the vocals were shared by this group. My question: did they purposely have the video playing upside down?


Hands



Incan Abraham

A Movie Review: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (original)

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. The European version of these movies concludes. Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Repace) spends a significant portion of the movie either in the hospital recovering from three gunshot wounds or in jail/court for the murders she is accused of committing in the second movie. It is now Mikael Blomkvist who must conduct a lot of the investigative research.

You might think that a movie where one of the lead characters spends much of her time in confined spaces might be a touch boring, but this movie is an intense conclusion to the trilogy. There isn’t a lot of suspense in terms of who is guilty or not. You honestly know who the bad guys and good guys are at this point in time. What is intense is not knowing the ending and so you don’t really know if more harm will come to Salander or Blomkvist – and considering the fact that this is a European movie based on a European book, one never knows.

A Movie Review: The Girl Who Played With Fire (original)

The Girl Who Played With Fire. As mentioned, I watched the European version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo after watching the US version. I obviously couldn’t stop there. I went on to the second movie. Here, Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Repace) is off enjoying life outside of Sweden. Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) is back working as a journalist. His magazine is digging into the sex slave trade going on in Sweden. Lisbeth returns to Sweden and is soon caught up in this via unknown direct connections with the article. She is soon framed for three murders.

Now since I had no US movie version to compare to, I found myself really involved in the storyline. As mentioned in my review of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, many of the scenes that I feel allows us to empathize with Salander in the US version are pushed into this movie so she is a much more sympathetic character in this sequel.

Would I say this is a great movie? No. Will it keep you highly involved? Yes. It is well worth the time. Though I will say: that movie soundtrack is really annoying.

A Movie Review: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (original)

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I so enjoyed the US version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo that I decided to watch the European version. Instead of Rooney Mara playing Lisbeth Salander, we have Noomi Repace. And instead of Daniel Craig playing Mikael Blomkvist, we have Michael Nyqvist. As the story goes, Blomkvist is a journalist who gets into trouble for investigating a billionaire. Even though he has embarrassed himself nationally, a Swedish industrialist still reaches out to him to investigate an unsolved murder case from 40 years back. Salander eventually joins up with Blomkvist and they soon realize that they’re on the trail of a serial killer.

Having watched the US version, there weren’t exactly many surprises. Many of the shots look almost the same. There are some divergences between the two movies such as a key piece of information being passed along via the daughter of Blomkvist in the US version, while by Salander in the European version. There are also scenes in the US version that don’t show up until the second European movie. I’ll have to read the book and see which movie is more accurate – of course, by the time I read the book, I’ll probably totally forget the finer details.

What did I think? I really do believe that the US version is the better movie. The US version gives us more reason to empathize with Salander. It feels like she is an individual who has dealt with very difficult situations that would cause any other individual to reject the world and yet she still isn’t emotionally dead. In the European version, she not only has a very difficult pass, but also appears to be emotionally isolated. To a large extend, I believe this is driven by the fact that certain scenes in the US version eventually show up in the European’s version of The Girl Who Played with Fire. Shifting those moments in the US version makes us connect with Salander in a faster way.

NO and Rich Aucoin at Bootleg

I've wanted to see NO for awhile. I finally got to catch them. First up was Rich Aucoin. He gave us an energetic set mixing in audience participation and visual media with his sound.  At one point, he got half the Bootleg audience to play under a plastic covering.  As for NO, I wasn't disappointed.  The place was packed.  The audience anticipating that they were seeing the next big thing to come out of the Silverlake/Echo Park music scene.  Some bands mix their music along with a stage performance to get the audience excited.  This band just gives you a performance and the fact that they have this great confidence on stage is enough.  There is no need to run around the stage.  There is no need to plow into each other.  They just are.

Comment of the night by NO: We're really hard to find on the Internet, we learned this after we chose are name.

Rich Aucoin





NO

The Shakers, Cityzen, The Young Rapscallions, Magnastic and Post War Quartet Band at The Roxy

I was off to The Roxy to catch The Shakers. First up that night was Post War Quartet Band. There is a 95% chance that they're high school kids. I noticed on their Facebook page that they like FIDLAR. Best of luck to them. Magnastic hit the stage with their hip-hop style. Before The Shakers hit the stage, the crowd was chanting for them. The curtains rose and the band ran out onto the stage. The crowd went wild and we all had a lot of fun. The Young Rapscallions had their CD release party that night. And as for Cityzen, they ruled. I had heard of this band before, but this was the first time I caught them. I was swept away during their first couple songs. Just as a note: the lead singer is in a wheelchair and about seven fans who were also in wheelchairs showed up to support.

Post War Quartet Band



Magnastic



The Shakers



The Young Rapscallions



Cityzen

My Top Fall/Winter 2011 Movies

I saw a ton of movies over the last few months and here are my rankings:

Top Movies

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Hugo
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
A Separation
Like Crazy
Sherlock Holmes:  A Game of Shadows

Fun Movies

Carnage
Young Adult

Worthwhile

Moneyball
50/50
Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol
Tower Heist
The Artist
Martha Marcy May Marlene
Contagion
Drive

Average

My Week with Marilyn
Puss in Boots
The Descendants
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close 

Depends on what you find interesting

A Dangerous Method


Did not appreciate

The Adventures of Titan
Melancholia
Happy Feet 2
The Twilight Saga:  Breaking Dawn Part 1

A Movie Review: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn) is on a mission. His father Thomas Schell (Tom Hanks) died in one of the Twin Towers on September 11 (the worst day). After a year passes, Oskar decides to look around his father’s closet. He finds a blue vase and accidentally breaks it. Inside the vase was a key. Oskar is convinced it opens up something important and so he goes on a search to find what it opens.

This movie just didn’t do much for me. I’m not saying it is horrible. I just couldn’t connect. I understand the kid is under an emotional strain that I can’t begin to understand, but I just found him to be a jerk. And with that opinion of the kid, I didn’t much care all that much for his mission. Also, due to obvious time limitations on a movie, a lot of his encounters are extremely brief and feel superficial.

One potential problem with the film: I swear after his first visit that later in the day he had a photo of the individual in his hands. Maybe he took his film to get developed after taking only one shot (it isn’t a digital camera so he had to use film), but considering the number of people he went to see that would be one expensive hobby to take only partially used film to get developed. Anyways, I just thought it was a flaw in the movie.

A Movie Review: Carnage

Carnage. The movie opens with a group of children in a park. Ethan Longstreet (Eliot Berger) is seen arguing with Zachary Cowan (Elvis Polanski). Ethan has a group of young boys behind him. Zachary is seen carrying a stick. After what looks like a heated exchange, Zachary uses the stick and strikes Ethan in the face.

The movie switches to the Longstreet home where the two sets of parents are discussing the matter. We have Penelope Longstreet (Jodie Foster), Michael Longstreet (John C. Reilly), Nancy Cowan (Kate Winslet) and Alan Cowan (Christoph Waltz). The vast majority of the movie takes place in the confined space of either the Longstreet condo/apartment or the hallway near the elevator. Ethan has suffered some dental damage. Both sets of parents agree that Zachary must apologize to Ethan. Of course, this is where we start to delve into the mindset of these four individuals. Penelope wants an honest apology. She wants Zachary to want to apologize to her son Ethan. She isn’t satisfied that the Cowans plan to require Zachary apologize. No, he has to want to do so. From there we do a deep dive into what I believe this movie is all about: dynamics and conversations. We get to see how the two husbands don’t necessarily get along, but still form an alliance. The wives feel they must keep discussing the matter from various angles. And throughout the conversation, they are so focused in on what the others are saying that they are constantly pointing out potential hypocrisies and disconnects in statements.

There is also the underlying tensions based on social status. Though not stated, the Cowans are wealthy. Alan is a well paid attorney who actually spends a significant amount of time during the movie talking to a CEO of a top medical corporation. Nancy is a stock broker. The Longstreets are more middle class (I couldn’t help but wonder how they could afford their condo/apartment) with Penelope a writer of books that focus in on the struggles of Africa while Michael owns a wholesale business.

Though movies that focus primarily on conversations sometimes bore me (such as A Tree of Life), I found myself intrigued by this movie. The conversations were interesting and you could easily see how these intelligent individuals found themselves in a total mess by the end of the movie. And there are plenty of laughs, especially when they attempt to poke holes into discrepancies that popped up (discrepancies that would of course occur when talking for around an hour).

And perhaps the most important question in this movie: where are the kids by the way?

Raw Geronimo, VUM and Free Moral Agents at Los Globos

A fun night seeing three female led bands. First up was VUM, providing us with some psychedelic inspired music. Free Moral Agents has a front woman who paces the front of the stage with a smile, but makes one wonder if there isn't something hidden in that jacket that will help her take down someone she finds irritating. Raw Geronimo has a front woman who knows how to groove and is more than willing to toss her way into the crowd.

Before Raw Geronimo hit the stage, we got a chance to see their video for 'Role Play.'

VUM



Free Moral Agents




Raw Geronimo

The Chevin, The Californian, Chasing Kings, Nightmare and the Cat at The Satellite

I hung around The Satellite for a longer timeframe than I usually do. The night started off with The Chevin. They're a band from Leeds, England -- a city I ended up in briefly when my flight to Edinburgh got cancelled due to volcanic ash and I was put onto a plane to Leeds. This is a power vocal driven band.

Next up was The Californian. I was pretty sure I'd seen this band before at Villains. I was wrong as soon as they hit the stage. I figured maybe there were two bands out their with slightly different takes on California.  Looking through my posts, I realized the band I saw at Villains was called The Americans. Oh well. A little confusion.  Looking through my list again, I realized that I had in fact seen The Californian.  That initial time, the guys in the band were in ties.  As you can see below, the style in now different.  I suppose they're also changing things up in terms of music.   The crowd was very receptive to their music.

The residency band for the evening was Chasing Kings. Where was the onstage artist who hung out with them at their Silverlake Lounge residency? I shouldn't complain about that. A small group of folks demanded an encore, but the band waved them off and told them to come next week for their final show.

I only stuck around for about half of Nightmare and the Cat's set. They were on past my midnight sleep deadline (and I knew I was going to be out late on Tuesday catching another set of bands). I'd actually gone to the Satellite on this night to catch this band specifically and was disappointed when I looked up at the schedule posted on the door and saw that they were going on at midnight. I was randomly asked at The Satellite if I'd seen this band before. I said that I'd seen them about two years ago. Not the truth. Looking through my posts, the correct answer is 1 year and 4 months. Oh well, maybe time doesn't speed by as quickly as I think.  From my short listen, I say the band's sound has changed into being a bit more frenzied -- or maybe that is just my faded memory.  Either way, I really enjoyed what I heard and hope to catch them again soon (and by soon I don't mean 1 year and 4 months), I unfortunately just needed to go home and crawl into bed.


The Chevin



The Californian





Chasing Kings



Nightmare and the Cat

A Movie Review: Warhorse

Warhorse. I enjoyed this movie that follows a warhorse named Joey through the years prior and during World War I. It so moved one woman that was next to me that she was sobbing during the end. I wasn’t, but that doesn’t mean the movie didn’t move me. I did have problems with this movie. First, I felt the ending was too sentimental. Second, I felt this movie was set up like a high school history book: this is how life in Europe was before the war, this is how the war impacted the Germans, this is how the war impacted the non-combatants, this is how the war impacted the British. In fact, this is probably a wonderful movie to show in a high school history class. I know, I’m slamming the movie for being too sentimental and not being deep enough, but I say this movie is entertaining enough to recommend though probably not a picture that should get a Best Picture nomination.