6.17.2015

A review of the "Supergirl" pilot



In a shrewd and ballsy move by CBS, the pilot episode of "Supergirl" has been "leaked". Set, originally, for release in October of this year, two versions (one HD, one less than HD) showed up online a few weeks ago.

And I watched it.

Here are some thoughts:

Way to wrap up the origin in two minutes (Man of Steel, I'm looking at you...). Although I'm sure we're going to see it again. And again. And again.

Both Laura Benanti and Malina Weissman have great "cry face" acting, the former more so than the latter.

Dean Cain! Woo!

Getting a ridiculously strong Felicity Smoak vibe from Benoist. "I have glasses! I can't be hot! Look the the glasses!!!! And I bump into people!!!!!!!!!! Because of the glasses!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Eight minutes and we already have a romantic interest. Ugh.

And eleven minutes in and they're already spoon feeding us details they brought up nine minutes in. Kreisberg must really think his audience is a huge flock of magpies with ADD standing next to an exploded tinsel factory.

May that be the last not-really-funny-in-the-90's-yet-somehow-still-rehashed-twenty-five-years-later-"I-thought-you-were-going-to-say-you-were-a-lesbian!!!" lesbian joke we ever see.*

Puffy mouth bad guy, Vartox, has too much air in his tummy! Get it all out, Puffy Diddy!

The DEO angle is interesting, but I assume it's going to be 30% of every episode. The rest will be a balance of awkward exchanges between Kara and Jimmy, Cat Grant being a strong, competent, stereotypical bitch, and, I don't know, popular music? This was sort of my issue with "Alias".**

Flockhart's heavy-handed "defending the word 'girl' " speech is a bit much, but, as Kreisberg has already illustrated, he thinks he's writing for distracted birds. Perhaps he also thinks the birds are stupid.

Regarding the emotional and revealing speech Alex gives through the door of Kara's apartment…neighbors? Hello?

There are four actors worth of acting coming out of Harewood's Hank Henshaw. He really needs to rein it in.   

One positive: I'm glad that there's only a very small number of people who don't know who she is; less time wasted with those inevitable, awful speeches about trust and putting people in danger and so on. This is the first upside to having Kreisberg write a third show in this universe: even he's getting sick of his worn out formula.

Of the four shows currently being written by Andrew Kreisberg, this is the least annoying***, but it still feels so goddamn much like "Arrow" and "Flash" that I can say, with confidence, that a lot of people will watch and enjoy this show, but that I will not be one of them.

There is an infinitesimal chance that, since CBS is using fan reaction from this "leak" to change aspects of the show before its release this Fall, that we might get something better, but, like I always say, less diarrhea is still diarrhea.

* It will not be.

** The TV show, not the Bendis book.

*** Obviously, I haven't seen any of "Legends of Whatever", but I have a strange feeling that, since it's "Arrow" and "Flash" having a stupid family of badly written idiots, that that'll annoy the piss out of me as well.

6.03.2015

A review of They Might Be Giants at the Williamsburg Hall of Music on 5/31/15 - "The Else" show

In May of 2007, They Might Be Giants released The Else, their "least coziest" album, which had been produced by themselves, their long time friend and producer, Pat Dillett, and the Dust Brothers. It is, at times, a political album ("I'm Impressed", "The Shadow Government"), a classic TMBG album ("Bird of the Bee of the Moth", "Take Out The Trash"), and a TMBG/Dust Bros. collabo ("Withered Hope", "Upside Down Frown"). It also features a Monkees pastiche, the opening track from their scrapped work on the Coraline score, a Frankenstein experiment, and a song which resulted from a challenge issued on NPR. It stands, boldly, out from their later catalogue of work and, about eight years after its release, at the nigh-submersed Williamsburg Hall of Music, it was given its due...except for "Feign Amnesia", which was too hard to learn.

Highlights from an evening absolutely teeming with highlights included "Doctor Worm"*, the instant live classic "Unpronounceable", "Withered Hope" (even with the lack of horn support), the abrasive punk assault of "The Shadow Government"** , "Don't Let's Start", "Bills, Bills, Bills" (because I know it's fleeting and because I love how angry Flans seems to get when telling us about the "triflin', good-for-nothin' type of brother"), "Twistin'", "Rhythm Section Want Ad" and "Contrecoup", which, although Linnell said they didn't do very often because it was too difficult, they made sound easy.
Lowlights included the idiot girl on ecstasy who was alternately making "heart hands" at the band, snapping her head around wildly, and licking her poor-bastard-of-a-boyfriend's teeth throughout the evening.
The. Entire. Evening.

The real star of the show, however, was TMBG's drummer, Marty Beller. He can't be 100% human. Can not. The way he obliterated tracks like "Let Me Tell You About My Operation", "The Famous Polka" and, especially, "Upside Down Frown", with their combination of precision drumming and high BPMs prove this point.
He's a weaponized drum machine in the shape of a guy from Brooklyn.

Overall, I found their lack of horns disturbing; The Else, performed live, needs horns.
Bottom line.
Despite that fact, it was still a fantastic and varied show.

Next month, the band is performing two kid's shows and then, in July, a Lincoln show.

* I saw a lot of TMBG shows in 1999 and have heard this song, with and without horns, dozens of times, but I can't remember a time when the energy was this high. Either the coffee was doing its job or the band has fallen back in love with this track.

** A performance choice which really illustrates the unease and chaos at the heart of the song.

6.01.2015

End of the Month Music Bitchfest - May 2015

They Might Be Giants

Dial-A-Song Round Up! pt. 5

"Glean" (the final track from the album of the same name) is a delightful cha cha in hell, with a dusty, post-apocalyptic feel. A fantastically simple video.

"ECNALUBMA" shares some similarity with "Unpronounceable", but still stands strong on its own, very strong. I can see this coming up in discussions for inclusion on Glean, but I can also see it making the a Glean b-side collection, maybe even as the first track. The lyrics and horns are excellent, almost too perfectly TMBG.

Next up, a cover of The Record's 1978 single, "Starry Eyes". Don't know what to say here, it's a great, straight up cover of a nice little punk gem.

Finally, a month after its release, all of Glean has been released on DAS, now we can move on. Sorry if that came across a bit bitchy, but, I don't know, when the release date rolled around and they kept posting songs from it on DAS, I kept thinking it was a wasted opportunity.  Anyway, despite my inner turmoil, "Aaa" is a really fantastic song. I think of it as Linnell's response to Flansburgh's "Music Jail", mainly because of its freneticism. And I stand by my assessment. I also love any song with built in yelling parts, and this song is mostly built in yelling parts. Hope to see this live. The video, while nothing special, is a nice callback to the very first for "I Wasn't Listening".

This month's TMBG concert was The Else, and it was fantastic. Review forthcoming.

Nine Inch Nails

Um. Well. It appears that the Fight Club musical is happening.


In other news not directly associated with They Might be Giants, I spent some time this month with the new Blur, The Magic Whip. Normally, the way I experience Blur albums is to sift through and find which songs sound enough like Gorillaz that I can delude myself into thinking that there still is a Gorillaz, and that these are just, sort of, b-sides or tracks from some unreleased album. I did not do that with Whip, however, because almost the whole thing is fantastic.*
The slightly detuned and delightfully demented piano set against the happy sway of "Ong Ong", the straight up punk rock of "I Broadcast", the gloomy grandeur of "Pyongyang", the summery dub of "Ghost Ship", and the infectious nature of "Lonesome Street" and "Go Out"...this album is fucking great. Certainly enough to hold me over until FUCKING GORILLAZ RETURNS LATER THIS YEAR, DAMON, DO YOU FUCKING HEAR ME?

* Although I did add a song or two to my "This Could Be A Gorillaz Album" playlist.