A review of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' "The Girl With The DragonTattoo" score

While it isn’t quite Option 30’s cover of “Der Kommissar”, I’ve decided to review Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ score for “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” anyway.

The temperature is lowered a hundred degrees the second we hear the hollow wind at the start of the album. It doesn’t get much warmer. Yes, there’s sunlight to contrast the icy, creeping dark, and, sometimes it serves to warm us, but, more often than not, it’s cold sunlight, too far away to do more than hurt our eyes.

Practically every track has a wash of sound or some sort of distorted warble, sometimes they detract, like in “One Particular Moment”, but, in almost every other case, it adds tension, distress and, most importantly, cold.

I’ve discovered how Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross managed to get such a desolate, cold feeling on the majority of this album: the use of instrumentation (the hammered dulcimer is a simple, beautiful instrument, but they make it chilly and unnerving by doing something that sounds like hooking one up to an old modem receiving an error message) and scant vocals of Mariqueen Maandig, plus the keys and pitches at which things are played.

Most everything sounds just a little wrong.

Very alienating and cold.

 David Fincher now has his very own Ghosts.

Disc 1

1. Immigrant Song – After the empty howling of the frozen North wind sweeps down upon you, the drums kick in, their surface crusted with ice that’s shattered with each blow and yet reforms almost as fast as it’s being destroyed. The vocals, like a frozen blade slash across your face and, just as you’re certain you’ll be lost forever under the huge, apocalyptic avalanche of ice and sound at the end, it’s finished, you’re finished…and the album, the thirty-nine track, two hour and fifty three minute score has just begun. 
2. She Reminds Me Of You – There’s something predatory about this. The wailing, lost moan speaks of things vast and beautiful and dangerous, like a moonlit plain, pocked with holes covered in snow, waiting to break your ankle and strand you there to die of exposure.
3. People Lie All The Time – A diseased thrum pervades this piece like blows sounding on a massive, stone door. The scrambling, wavering strings serve as a warning: don’t open this door. A huge note at the end signifies that we’re too late, the door was opened and everything is undone. There’s a stunning sense of finality to this, even though it’s only the third track on the album.
4. Pinned and Mounted – This track goes to a few different places; none of them places you’d want to go. A piping organ towards the end creeps up on you like something small and deadly, a psychotic child with a knife.
5. Perihelion – One of the most disturbing tracks on the album. It opens like a glowing, infected eye, spilling its poisoned light on fields of atrocities. Towards the end, when that rusted, metallic cry comes in and then the half digital, half demonic chattering madness…it’s hard to keep listening, an aurora borealis over Hell. This is a strong argument for Trent and Atticus to score a horror movie.
6. What If We Could? – Could this be the only warm track on the entire album? The only piece that isn’t comprised of icicles in the dark and shallow pools of gray water covered by particle-thin sheets of frost? For a moment, for this moment, everything’s okay, everything’s going to work out. There’s hope. A sad hope, but that still counts. Then the light at the end of the tunnel turns red…
7. With The Flies – Some tracks on the album work when placed next to one another, but none as much as “What If We Could?” and “With The Flies”, if only for the juxtaposition. The creeping terror inherent here is just so unsettling.  Both the title and the content indicate something horrible has taken place. This and “Perihelion” are both reminiscent of Akira Yamaoka’s work on the Silent Hill video game series.
8. Hidden In Snow – The background is tar and the hammered dulcimer is insects trapped and dying on its surface. Listen to this on the right set of speakers and the pervasive bass will alter your brainwave patterns. There is a sickness here.  
9. A Thousand Details – A bit reminiscent of “Driver Down” from the “Lost Highway” soundtrack, there’s a wonderful sense of desperation, of pursuit taking place within this track. Feel that crunchy guitar. This one is all about disaster, explosions and the motherfucking end of days.
10. One Particular Moment – Out of the wailing, teeth-gritting void comes some of the most beautiful piano on the album. Eventually, some simple, effective strings are added and the melody emerges from the cloud of dissonance like the sun on a cold day. Only for a moment though, before it’s swallowed up by a huge wave of fuzzed out synth. At the very end though, if you listen closely, after the wave has receded, you can still hear the ghost of that melody, floating off into nothing.
11. I Can’t Take It Anymore – Mariqueen’s gauzy vocalizations add to the cold of an already frigid piece.
12. How Brittle The Bones – On a disc of dynamic, fluid, interesting tracks, this one stands out by not standing out. A simple, dull interlude.
13. Please Take Your Hand Away – This is both reassuring and unsettling. The big, slightly blurred piano offers solemnity and resolve, but everything else around it is jittery, unsure of itself. Something about those tumbling, falling notes at the end sound like giving up in a state of confusion. This is a great ending to the first act of Reznor and Ross’ latest opus.

Disc 2

1. Cut Into Pieces – Brings you right back in. It’s sharp and uncomfortable, more technological that anything we’ve seen so far. The ending is zombie crickets and cell phone interference
2. The Splinter – A lot like “How Brittle The Bones” as far as it’s unimpressive.
3. An Itch – Everything happening in this track is great. The sound of sound itself tearing that pings back and forth, the paranoid pacing, the slightly detuned piano which runs throughout…one of the best tracks on the album.
4. Hypomania – Some thing is following you down a dark, wet tunnel. Something lumbering, inexorable. You run because you’re terrified, but it doesn’t have to because there’s only one exit and it’s standing between you and it. At the end of the piece, you face a bricked-over doorway and feel hot breath on your neck…
5. Under The Midnight Sun – Something broken stumbling across vast, empty, freezing tundra. You can actually feel the wind when you listen to this. The end is pure Silent Hill, as the limping thing returns to its lair and dies.
6. Aphelion – This begins with the sounds of space rushing at you, but not empty space. There’s something there, waiting. Then a small, insistent melody. Delicate. Too delicate for a place like this. Suddenly, the space is shut out and you’re confronted with the melody, but just for a moment. There’s a music box buried under ashes somewhere in the wasteland...
7. You’re Here – A juxtaposition of high, fragile sounds and a heavy, thudding bass beat. There isn’t enough development for this to become interesting.
8. The Same As The Others – The high, lonely squeal off to the right combined with the deep, cavernous rumbling is pure Yamaoka. The melody has a ponderous, lost feel to it, also very Silent Hill.
9. A Pause For Reflection – The skittering, sparkling, dancing hammered dulcimer (like light) is given form by the simply thudding and depth by the roaring ocean in the background. When that glacial background comes forward and the rest recedes, something interesting happens. This is a track that goes from small to large, shallow to deep; like a body of water. A body of water under a sheet of ice.
10. While Waiting – Mariqueen Maandig’s voice works wonderfully paired up with the bells on this. The track is short, but it accomplishes what it sets out to accomplish: it tells of the deep, rising, of something under the sun-dappled surface of the water, something old, something hungry.
11. The Seconds Drag – One of the most straightforward and literal tracks on the album. A clock ticks as, well, the seconds drag. More percussive than most. Eventually, there’s some light programming that weaves into the ticking, but, in the end, the title says it all.
12. Later Into The Night – Plodding and deliberate. The use of a simple, repeated melody really you to feel the passage of time. There’s a sense of maybe you’re closer to the machinery than you should be. Broken jack-in-the-box. All this, but it feels a bit thin, like something’s missing.
13. Parallel Timeline With Alternate Outcome – The name is more interesting than the music, but just barely. One of the most varied tracks on the album, starting and ending in totally different places. It’s restful at first, warm, everything bad is happening on the outside, in the cold. This is like walking through a forest, beautiful yet eerie, then finding a body…first a cloud of flies, then a bloodstained shoe, then a second shoe with a foot still inside it… then a whole pile of bodies. The end guitar is fucking terrifying. Another great end to an act.

Disc 3

1. Another Way Of Caring – This is a rape carnival. Plinking, wandering notes taken right from a child’s nightmare meander throughout this along with big, disharmonious strings and creepy, out of tune piano, scaring the shit out of anyone happening by. Welcome to the final act/disc…we’re having some problems.   
2. A Viable Construct – More tech sounding than most of what we’ve heard thus far. Somehow feels reminiscent of ‘The Terminator’…
3. Revealed In The Thaw – The last patch of warmth on a very cold, very bleak journey. We’re not quite safe yet. Maybe we’ve found a place to catch our breath, but that incessant thudding let’s us know it isn’t over yet, there’s still something outside…and we’ll have to face it before all this is over.
4. Millennia – The passage of time as seen from a great height.
5. We Could Wait Forever – Another tech-heavy track, one with a lot of error messages. One can envision a large, rubbery tube leading into a room full of malfunctioning mainframes. Perhaps there was a Freon leak, because everything is tinted blue.
6. Oraculum – Does Industrial Bhangra make sense? This is the most energetic (and longest) track on the album and is so disparate from anything else…I have no idea where it’s coming from or where it’s going…but I’m willing to bet they serve couscous there. One can almost dance to this, if there tried hard enough.
7. Great Bird Of Prey – After the most energetic track, we now have the most literal. One can actually hear majestic, deadly birds circling high in the air… And just as things start to sound like they’re getting typical around the end…the track explodes.
8. The Heretics – Yet another techy track on a disc full of techy tracks. I can’t help but think of “Ringfinger” when I hear this. This would be the most interesting piece on someone else’s project, but on this album, among the others jewels found here, it’s merely good. You can really feel the space that Reznor and Ross talked about in this track.
9. A Pair Of Doves - Just as airy and graceful as the title denotes…but short. An interlude almost.
10. Infiltrator – Here’s another electronic track. There’s a great, loose bolt sound in this. It creates a sense of “if we keep going at this speed, something is going to fall apart”.
11. The Sound Of Forgetting – The sound of someone slamming a tool against the obdurate past. The sound of forgetting, not forgiving. The high notes alleviate some of the guilt and pain, but nothing can erase it.
12. Of Secrets – To end the album, which is comprised mostly of odd, obsolete, frozen instruments, there’s hardly any instrumentation at all, just a rising and falling of static; building to a climax, then pulling back, like a frozen sea, only to rise and rise and rise until…nothing. A simple and amazing ending to one of the most incredible sonic sojourns you’ll ever take.
13. Is Your Love Strong Enough? – A coda.

The Truth Is Out There...In Your Mom's Vagina

12.19.12
4:46 pm
 
A few days ago, I watched the last Fincher film I’ll watch for a while (unless I remember to watch the one about Buttons and Brad Pitt), Zodiac.
Below are my smattering of notes…
 
It’s shot beautifully, as all his stuff. Every scene is massively detailed.
If awards were given for how good a film looks, hen clap for this one, but, after a serial killer movie like Se7en, is there really any point to keep making them?
 
Mark Ruffalo is excellent, loved every minute of him (but I still don’t love him for Bruce Banner).
His back and forth with Anthony Edwards (NNNNNEEEERRRRRDDDDDDDDD!!!!!!!!!) is great and as natural as Fincher could have dreamed.
 
Chloë Sevigny looks (relatively) normal for once…but she’s still kind of a bitch.
 
And Charles Fleischer is astounding. I’d never want to be in a basement (even such a well-lit and set-dressed basement as this one) with him.
He’s terrifying.
But I’d still rather hang out with this creepy Charlie Fleischer than the one from his weird ass talk show.
Hyperactive little spaz.
 
You can feel the passage of time like a mofo in this movie.
From 1968 to 1991, you feel it.
Crazy…
 
In the end though, true stories that have no real ending aren’t my favorites.
Even with Donovan on the soundtrack.
 
I’ve also been rewatching X-Files and some diamonds have revealed themselves…either because of their awesomeness or their outright oddness.
 
First off, there was an episode in the second season called “3”, which is kind of like a Brett Easton Ellis homage.
It features Mulder having sex with some kind of vampire chick for no real reason while fires rage in the hills of Los Angels.
Scully gets abducted for six measly months and Mulder gets all existential and nilistic…
Very odd episode…
 
Then there is the classic, “Irresistable”, which introduced Donnie Pfaster, the “escalating fetishist” who starts off cutting the hair of a dead teenage girl, then digging up graves and taking hair, fingernails and occasionally a finger and then picking up prostitutes in order to kill them simply to obtain their hair and nails. This actor, Nick Chinlund, is PERFECT for the role and reminds me a bit of Crispin (Hellion) Glover, but less theatrically creepy and more death-sex-fetishist-next-door creepy.
You know.
Scully is so vulnerable in this…it’s heartbreaking to see her so scared.
 
Then there’s the episode I watched just today.
It’s called “Humbug” and it’s Chris Carter’s love letter to sideshows, starring Jim Rose, The Enigma, the midget from Twin Peaks and a whle bunch of other awesome actors.
The whole thing is tongue in cheek and funny as hell.
And there is some sort of aborted looking monkey monster.
Which is good.
 
And, finally, I returned to Bang studios downtown this morning for my second Speakaboos recording in as many weeks.
I was another slew of characters; a fox (a Paul Lind fox which is like a regular fox but more sassy), three different pigs, a newt, another monkey, two different narrators, Old MacDonald, the Speakaboos dragon and…more.
As for before, it was exhausting and the most fun I’ve had in a booth in a while AND I’m coming back in January!
WOO!!!
SPEAKABOOS!!!!
And, you know what’s supergreat about this?
Speakaboos is about teaching kids to read, so, in the end, I’m helping kids be less stupid.
And that is all I’ve ever wanted to do, make people a little less stupid.
Merry Christmas, future.
You’re welcome.

A review of David Fincher's "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo"

Last night, a few friends and I were lucky enough to get into the Mouth Taped Shut New York screening of David Fincher’s “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”.
And here’s how it went.

Note: I’m going to try and not lean on “here’s how this one was different from/better than the original film/the book, but it’ll happen from time to time.
Also, there are lots of spoilers, so, be warned.

After a little more than an hour out in the cold, we were ushered into the theater, stripped of our cell phones and given a free Dragon Tattoo poster (the same one that was going for fifteen or twenty dollars at the Hard X Mouth Taped Shut events…which were kind of pointless, by the way).
Right around ten o’clock, a man showed up and told us to look on the back of seats for an “X”, and that whoever was in or closest to that seat would get a free “razor blade” Dragon Tattoo poster…signed by Trent Reznor.
I was not that person.

Then the lights dimmed and, after a short scene introducing Henrik Vanger, Dectective Morell and a pressed flower in a picture frame…the title sequence began.
A few days ago a “mysterious video” was posted on Pitchfork that served as a sort of music video for Karen O., Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ cover of “Immigrant Song”; it turns out this was merely a blurred glimpse at the full, mind-blowing title sequence for the film.
I won’t spoil it for you, I’ll simply say everything is made of technology and tar and hands and nightmares and your head will explode after watching it.
While it isn’t as pivotal to the plot as the opening sequences of Fincher’s other films such as “Fight Club”, in which the viewer is taken from the part of “Jack’s” brain where Tyler Durden exists, to the opening shot of the film or “Se7en”, in which the viewer sees John Doe and the creation of his notebooks, it’s certainly just as visually stunning, if not more so.
The images in it and their thematic relation to the film almost make it seem more like the opening credits to one of the recent Bond film (there’s even Daniel Craig).

After this intro, the film begins.

On the whole, the film has an excellent flow to it; introducing both main characters, disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist and anti-social hacker/master researcher Lisbeth Salander, then slowly bringing them together about halfway through the film in a wonderfully awkward scene involving lesbianism. While Daniel Craig delivers a rock solid performance as the harried, world weary Blomkvist, Rooney Mara’s Lisbeth Salander is the obvious star here. From the first time you see her hollow, hungry face, you really can’t take your eyes off her. You’ll notice something new about her, some little detail, every time you see her. She manages to steal just about every scene she’s in, sometimes merely by being there, silently staring with her huge, angry eyes. That is, by the way, not a slight to the rest of the cast, more a credit to Mara’s screen presence.
Christopher Plummer’s Henrik Vanger is replete with aged, brittle dignity, Stellan Skarsgård’s Martin Vanger is polite and charming, even when he’s psychotic and brutal (his “conversation” with Blomkvist in the exceptionally designed kill room hidden beneath his home is bone-chilling…and he doesn’t raise his voice once. It also brings up some interesting, baffling questions regarding human nature) and Yorick van Wageningen as Nils Bjurman…well, I hope this fat, scummy fuck enjoys typecasting, because he is perfect in this role, so much so that the first time he appears on screen, the entire audience bristled with discomfort and disgust, and when Lisbeth hits him with her taser at the top of her revenge scene, the audience cheered. Maybe he and Dylan Baker (the pedophile/psychiatrist from 1998’s Happiness) can start a We're-So-Good-At-Playing-Horrific-Inhuman-Mosters-On-Film-That-You’ll-Never-See-Us-As-Anything-Else-Ever-Again Club…the first rule of which is you don’t talk about it…
The plethora of awful-yet-necessary research scenes from the book are present and accounted for, given more screen time than one would think to give to characters staring at books and computers, but they’re actually made bearable (not quite enjoyable, but bearable) by the accompanying music and cinematography. As I always say, if you must have a library research scene, make sure it’s scored by Trent Reznor and directed by David Fincher.

Not everything about the movie was great though…
After reading a few interviews with Fincher and his production team, I’d have thought that Sweden and its cold, desolate environs would have played more of a character in the film, but I was a bit let down to find that wasn’t the case. Remember when Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman walked into the Gluttony crime scene in “Se7en”? Remember how the lighting was practically a character in the room with them? I never really got a sense of that in Dragon Tattoo. The whole thing was shot beautifully, but, aside from a few moments here and there (Bjurman’s bound foot, passing in front of the light during Lisbeth’s revenge scene, that first shot of Henrik’s massive mansion sliding towards the viewer like a predator), nothing took my breath away.

I will say that the score lowered the temperature of the whole film by about fifty degrees. Reznor and Ross spoke about “experimenting with space” this time around, but, more than space, I think they’ve harnessed the ability to actually lower the temperature of the listener. Almost every one of the thirty-nine tracks on the score has an inescapably chilly feel to it, whether it’s the dynamic, crashing “A Thousand Details” or the Akira Yamaoka-esque “With The Files”, you can feel a bitter wind blowing while you listen to their compositions.
Unlike they’re work on “The Social Network” score, this time around, the music fits the subject matter perfectly. Don’t get me wrong, the “Social Network” score was groundbreaking, “The Social Network” was excellent, but the “Social Network” score in “The Social Network”? Honestly, it never worked for me.
Let me put it another way: I could picture different, more typical music behind “The Social Network” (more along the lines of that Elvis Costello song originally slated for the opening scene), but I cannot imagine “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” without the Reznor/Ross score. It is married to the film and vice versa.
Basically, David Fincher commissioned Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross to make a “Ghosts I-IV” just for him, “Ghosts V-VIII”, if you will (“But, Trent, could you use a hammered dulcimer rather than a marimba?”).
The only downside to the music was that Fincher didn’t use nearly enough of it.
Admittedly, I didn’t have the cue list and the liner notes with me at the screening, but I’ve been listening to nothing but the score for the past five days and I could have sworn they didn’t use more than a quarter of it. Some of my favorite tracks (“A Thousand Details”, “An Itch”, “Hypomania”, “Parallel Timelines With Alternate Outcomes”) weren’t used at all, while several tracks (“Hidden In Snow”, “Under The Midnight Sun”, “She Reminds Me Of You”) were used more than once (or twice, in some scenes).
In the end though, what they did use and where they chose to use it, for the most part, worked perfectly.
I’m very much looking forward to a commentary track with Reznor and Ross when this is released on disc.

Two more tiny things before I wrap this up: first, there’s a nice little nod to Nine Inch Nails when Lisbeth first visits Plague, and, second, this movie has some of the best cat acting I’ve seen in a while, since “Cat’s Eye” perhaps…

Overall, this movie is complex and beautiful, and the interactions between Fincher’s Salander and Blomkvist work for me more than Niels Arden Oplev’s (there’s a cute moment when Lisbeth tells Mikael in her solemn, little voice to “put your hand back inside my shirt”), plus, Fincher gets the ending from the book perfectly.
And I’m a huge Nine Inch Nails fan who hasn’t missed an update to Comes Forth In The Thaw since it popped up about a month and a half ago.
At its heart, this is a bigger, slicker version of the Swedish film from two years ago, give or take several million dollars.
I’m not going to say “Noomi who?” when it comes to her portrayal of Lisbeth, but Rooney Mara is pretty incredible in this.
Fincher focuses more on the characters while Oplev focuses more on the world of the characters.
Bottom line? Although this movie is truly excellent, I don’t see the need for it.
Yes, I’m glad for nearly three hours of new music from one of my favorite artists.
Yes, I’m glad David Fincher is getting some well earned love from the critics.
Yes, I’m not a huge fan of movies with subtitles (not a comment on foreign films, they’re distracting is all).
But this movie didn’t need to be remade, just as a lot of people don’t think “Let The Right One In” needed to be remade.

All that said, this is just my opinion.
If you want to see it, go see it.
If you’re incensed it exists, don’t go see it.
But, here are some facts: because of this remake, David Fincher gets more freedom in the studio system, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are going to create more insane, landmark score work and people who would never in their lives think to read a book about Swedish finance, hacking and misogyny are going to be exposed to something that isn’t fucking Twilight.
People, this is a win.

Things.

12.9.12
3:55 pm
 
Things and stuff, actually.
 
This…has been a very long week.
Very.
TWO reasons.
First, the impending release of nearly three hours of new music from one of my favorite artists, which made the minutes pass like hours, and second, the fact that my Speakaboos booking (which I found out about last week) was scheduled from 9 am to 11 am this morning.
And this wasn’t a job where I could gruff my way through like Harley-Davidson or Comcast, a job in which my thick, sleepy voice was just what the client ordered; I was to voice nine separate characters with varying tones, timbres and ranges.
It was actually to be a challenge.
So, since last Sunday, I’ve been going to sleep and waking up an hour earlier every day this week.
I must say, it has been quite a harrowing experience; in some ways good (the massive amounts of time I have before going to work- I did laundry!) and in some ways bad (the pervasive feeling that I was slowly losing my god damn mind as the people around me were turning into tentacular abominations).
It’s certainly helped me to understand why so many of you folks that work a 9 to 5 every day of every week are such blistering assholes.
Sorry, such high-strung, blistering assholes.
I also understand why you all drink so much coffee.
Because you’re weak.
Anyway, this recording was excellent, one of the best I’ve had in a while.
Unlike the well-paying but overall unexciting/undemanding Comcast/Cablevision stuff, this was fun as hell. I gave these characters character, some inspired by my favorites voice actors over the years, some pure me.
Pure. Throbbing. Me.
The segments I worked on (Humpty Dumpty- the egg creature, not the lead singer of Digital Underground, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, Chicken Little, The Three Little Pigs, Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star, and the Tortoise and the Hare) should be on the Speakaboos website (www.speakaboos.com) in about a month or so.
I’ll be sure to keep you posted.
 
In honor of my weird week of fucked up sleep, I decided to rewatch the X-Files…all 202 episodes (and two movies).
Jenna was right, some of these first season episodes are GARBAGE*.
But Mulder and Scully are just so cute!
And, is it weird that Scully carrying a Walther is arousing?
Something about a hot redhead carrying James Bond’s trademark gun…I don’t know…gets my pickle tickled.
But I digress…sexily.
I’m not sure if I’m going to (be able to) keep up this new sleeping/waking regimen, but we’ll see.
Another thing it’s allowed me to accomplish and a big pebble in the “Pros” jar, is work on some music for a project I’m calling “the Tucker EP”.
Basically, it’s music (all instrumental and created under my ‘pseudonymous’ moniker, no diarrhea here) inspired by Phil’s books.
Aside from the Grind Show theme, nothing else is completed, but I have a few sketches.
Between ProTools and my newly acquired Kaoss pad (thanks again, Will), well, like He-Man, I have the power.
The power to make some badass, creepy drones.
HEAVY DROP!
DUB STEP!!!
GLASS KNIVES!!!!!!
If I do end up getting an iPad, I think I’ll have enough tools to build something interesting.
I just have to stop trying to emulate Trent fucking Reznor.
I’ve finally found a down side to listening to Nine Inch Nails for all these years:  I’m thinking/composing like him, but with the scantest fraction of the tools/talent at his disposal.
Mm.
Who knows, I have like, three friends who know NIN, so maybe it’s not such a problem.
We’ll find out when the lawsuits start rolling in.
 
Tomorrow evening, I will be in attendance at Kaitlyn’s birthday party and, before that, some event relating in some way to the new Dragon Tattoo movie. It’s called Hard X Mouth Taped Shut and I’m not 100% what it is.
But they have some cool looking t-shirts and I want one.
 
God I’m exhausted…
 
All right, no more finger talk.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
* Their homage to Carpenter’s “The Thing” was pretty great though.

The World Of Froud

12.2.11
7:46 pm

Last night, thanks to my lovely taking an amazing puppet/creature crafting class with Wendy and Brian Froud (check out her Facebook for picture of the thing she made, it's astounding), her and I were invited to the opening of the World of Froud exhibit at the Animazing Gallery downtown.
Some highlights included seeing several of Brian's original character sketches from Labyrinth as well as a slew of goblin and faerie paintings and sculptures by Wendy, Brian and Toby (who played Toby AKA the Babe with the Power in Labyrinth and has since become an INCREDIBLE sculptor), participating in an auction run by Lolly Lardpop for a one-of-a-kind Brian Froud painting (Chris and I capped our bidding at $3500 and missed out by $250...we're still kind of fifty/fifty about not getting it...), and then, because of our high bidding, spending the rest of the evening as VIPs of sorts, getting to hang out and talk with Heather Henson (Jim Henson's daughter who sounds a hell of a lot like Sarah Vowell but without her inherent darkness), writer Ellen Kushner and the one and only Brian Froud.
I had a conversation with Brian Froud, the guy from whose imagination most of the creatures from Labyrinth sprang.
I am now cooler.
It was a wonderful, magical evening.

In far more mundane news, I have continued my Fincher Fest, watching Panic Room two nights ago and Fight Club last night.
Panic Room is much better than I remembered it being and I think I figured out why I had such a problem with it when I saw it in theaters, oh, nine years ago.
Thing is, Fight Club desensitized me.
That movie was as mind blowing as anything Chris Nolan has ever done, even more so, and the fact that the next movie after it was shot (primarily) in one room in one house with a cast of less than ten people...well, it just didn't stack up.
But, seeing it now, as an adult and more of a film person (?), I was able to get a lot more of the nuance, the back and forth between Jodie Foster and Kristen Stewart (excellent casting, by the way, they look like mother and daughter), the schizophrenic hysterics of Jared Leto's Junior and the evil of Dwight Yoakam's Raoul.
Obviously, still not as great as Fight Club, but a very good, very well-made film.

Fight Club, of course, is still as excellent as always.
The perfect blend of dark humor, intense action and ridiculous visual effects.
I'm upgrading to Blu Ray as soon as I get the chance.
Also, I remember hearing this on the commentary with Fincher, Pitt and Norton when I watched it with their commentary years ago and it came back to me: despite all the madness and chaos and anarchic overtones of Fight Club, only ONE person is actually killed by violence in the entire movie.
Another person is shot, but that's all.
Compare that to your typical action hero bloodbath and complaining about Fight Club suddenly seems a bit pointless, eh, right-wing fuckos?
Do you mind if I call you fuckos?
Thanks.

Anyway, planning on taking in Se7en for the umpteenth time this weekend and maybe Get Low, which has finally made its way to my home after months of blockage due to me not watching Re-Animator and the HBO Angels In America mini-series.
Next week should herald the arrival of both Zodiac and The Something Something Something Of Benjamin Button, which I hear was also pretty awesome.

I received my script for next Friday's Speakaboos session; I shall play six characters and all of them will sound drastically different.
THIS is why I'm doing this, for projects like THIS.
Teaching kids to read and talking in funny voices.
You know, I had a good feeling when I walked out of that audition, but didn't hear anything so I just chalked it up to fools not understanding my genius (a problem I face, literally, every hour of every day...and that includes the ten or so during which I am sleeping), but then I got the booking and realized that they were all probably still unconscious from the exposure to my genius and quickly forgave them.
I am kind and ridiculously talented.
Also modest.
I am hugely modest.
And well hung.
Have I mentioned that recently?
Well, either way.
I am.
Huge.

Since about midnight last night, I have been absorbing the six track sampler released in advance of the full Dragon Tattoo score (digital release on the 9th, physical release on the 27th) and have been experiencing a sort of aural word association with some of the tracks:

Hidden In Snow - Aphex Twin's Drukqs (specifically the stuff with the hammered dulcimer)
People Lie All The Time - Saul William's Skin Of A Drum
What If We Could? - No association, just caught up in how beautiful and sad it is
Oraculum - How To Destroy Angels' The Believers
Please Take Your Hand Away - No association as this was one of the Comes Forth In The Thaw tracks
Under The Midnight Sun - Bowie's The Motel (specifically the slide guitar from the end)

At this moment, with seven of the thirty-nine* tracks revealed (the full Karen O. "Immigrant Song" cover is available for a buck on iTunes), it seems as if, while the Swarmatron was Reznor and Ross' weapon of choice on The Social Network score, the hammered dulcimer is the selection for TGWTDT.
Quite frankly, I'm going to need some psychotically explosive guitar like that in the more exciting bits of the 8-minute trailer you can find streaming out there now.
Then we'll talk...
 
Oh, and, finally, you might have noticed that this is going up between the hours of 3pm and 11pm, my standard working hours...well, that's because we just got us a motherloving computer with the motherloving internet here at the Hospital.**
But, there are quite a few administrative restrictions...chiefly enforced by Barracuda.
Anyone know a way to get past it?
I'm quickly becoming a detractor of said program and, as a result, the fish which shares its name.
Will, could you drop Mr. Doom a line and help a brother out?
If you do, you won't just be helping me, you'll be helping yourself find out more about Shock G.
That's a promise.

All right.
Weekend time.

*Read as "thirty-holy-fucking-shit-nine"

**And don't worry, I'm utterly disintegrating the cookies/cache file/temporary internet files and everything else that could expose my three dozen searches for variations on the "clowns fucking dolphins" motif...hey, a new computer demands a new desktop background, right?

End of the Month Music Bitchfest - November

It's Stove Top, bitch.
 
Nine Inch Nails
On November 17th, Reznor posted that he had just finished sequencing the Dragon Tattoo score...and that it clocks in at two hours and forty minutes.
Then, on November 18th he took that back and said, with transitions, it was no clocking in at two hours and fifty five minutes.
Which means I was wrong when I postulated that this was to be a double album.
It's going to be a triple album.
If he releases one more triple album before the end of the year...he'll officially be Prince.
He also states that more information will be available on December 2nd and the Internet Rumor Mill states that the score itself will be out on December 5th.
Right after this is posted.
Dick.
Based on the way things went down with the Social Network score, this is probably going to include some free tracks from the score, the complete tracklisting (replete with ridiculously overwrought titles) and purchase/pre-order options.
Fingers crossed for another Blu-Ray with a 5.1 mix on it...
 
And the music on Comes Forth In The Thaw dot com continues to evolve weekly.
Once the album comes out, these songs will appear in their final versions, static, unchanging, but, now, on this site, people get to experience something like an exploded view of this new music as it changes and develops into something different.
It makes one feel like they're a part of something living as opposed to just a consumer buying a product.
 
In addition to his news about finishing the score, Reznor states that, with Dragon Tattoo out the door to be mastered, he's 100% focused on mixing the full length How To Destroy Angels album.
Let us give thanks...and pray it's out before 2013.
Amen.
 
Beck
Listen up, you goddamn hippy asshole...cut your hair and get a job.
Then release some fucking music.
Stoner.
 
They Might Be Giants
Between the more or less solid "Album Raises New And Troubling Questions" and their eternal, insufferable touring, these guys are doing what they should.
And, in a little over two months, I'll be in California to see them doing it.
 
Eels
You know, the epic nature of THREE albums in FOURTEEN MONTHS still has yet to lose its luster. That plus everything else that's going on (see entry for Nine Inch Nails), I'm totally willing to give E another few months. Enjoy, you sullen, bearded bastard, enjoy.
 
Cake
Something.
Actually something.
Something small, but something nonetheless.
Cake is shooting a video to their third and, most likely, final single from their January 2011 release, Showroom of Compassion, "Moustache Man (Wasted)".
They sent out a call for men and women with moustaches and those creepy rape-vans from the 70's that often times have murals painted on the sides.
Should be a fun one.
Cake's music videos are pretty hit or miss, but those that hit, hit well.
And they are still touring, mostly the West Coast.
No news about that (fake) new album they mentioned back in May. 
 
In other news...
Marilyn Manson regained consciousness in a small, cardboard box, croaked once, broke wind, then passed out again.
 
Garbage is still doing whatever bands actually do in that huge gulf of time between the completion of their album and its release. Photo shoots, interviews, hair appointments, ...buying...jars of...hands...
Look, just put the fucking thing out already.
It's done.
You're not going to suddenly garner more fans in five months.
If people like you and/or remember you, they'll listen, if not, they won't.
If the album is great, new listeners will hear about it and join the party.
Word of mouth, you silly bitches, WORD OF MOUTH.
JFC*... 
You came out in 1995, disappeared for six years and now you're back.
Just make an amazing album, that's all you can really do.
 
The Charlotte Gainsbourg double album, Stage Whisper, is coming out on December 13th.
One disc is a live CD and the other is b-sides and leftovers from various places, including her "IRM" sessions, featuring the closest thing to new Beck music that anyone will hear ever again.
Which is sad, but good...like a priest having an orgasm.
 
Tweaker still has that sassy little message (tweaker will return in 2011) up on their home page, but, you know, that's kind of milky.
I mean...technically, since all the members of the group are still alive, they never really went anywhere and as they have been making new Tweaker music in 2011, then, yes, Tweaker has returned in 2011...but...well...is the album coming out in 2011 or what?
Vrenna has posted a few times that "you are going to love the guests on the new album". and yeah, obviously he thinks that.
I mean, is he really going to be like, "Well...we're happy, but you all might have some doubts..."?
Underneath that post is a link to their (oddly) still active "vote for who you want on the new Tweaker album" poll.
Nine Inch Nails has 51 votes, and everyone else has 13 or under.
I wonder if Tweaker will take the hint...
What they're missing, friends, is clarification.
And you know how much I hates that.
A much.
A so much.
That's how much I hates that.
Hopefully, in our next Bitchfest, we'll have a brand new Tweaker album to complain about.

Cavalcade of Link
The Null Corporation (come December 2nd, shits gonna go OFF)
 
12.1.11
12:38 am
ADDENDUM!!!!!!
Two things:
First, Chris Vrenna left Marilyn Manson (ther band, not the unconscious self-aggrandizing flop) which is great and the three-disc "Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" score is available for pre-order on amazon.com for $27.50 right now. It will be released (on disc) on the 27th of December.
 
 3:14 am
Just as I fucking thought...I post this and all hell breaks loose...
So, Reznor tweeted that he and some others are working on packaging for all SIX vinyls and THEN How To Destroy Angels tweeted that they've contributed a cover of Bryan Ferry's "Is Your Love Strong Enough?" to the fucking soundtrack as well.
Hey...go buy this thing when it's out....assholes...
 
 
 
 
 
*Jesus Fucking Christ (patent pending)

BEACH GAME!!!!

11.30.11
3:22 pm
 
Recently, I watched Danny Boyle's "The Beach".
It should have been titled "Someone Took A Shit On The Beach".
Because watching it was the equivalent of stepping in a pile of sand-covered feces on a beach...for two hours.
Danny Boyle earned a hell of a lot of cred with "Trainspotting" and lost it all on this bag of balls.
From the random character choices made by characters you didn't care about to all the pointless yelling and then the fact that the idea of paradise is a bunch of smelly hippies with an unlimited supply of weed.
Yes.
Paradise is a commune, folks.
Run by Tilda Swinton, perhaps the strangest-looking woman in Hollywood...although she was great in "Constantine".
And, at the end of the movie, all the poor, life-is-too-hard-man-so-just-roll-up-a-joint-and-let-the-sun-GOOOOOOO-BAYBEEEE!!!! stoners have to leave their sticky, green Shangri La and return to the real world.
Total bummer, dude.
I'm sure once they reconnect with their respective dealers though, that life will be a little easier.
And thank goodness for that.
I'm willing to wave away this fart of a movie simply because everything else this guy has done has been great and everybody gets one.
"The Beach" is Danny Boyle's one.
Let's move on...
 
In anticipation of Fincher's "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" remake, I've been reading up on him.
Did you know the first thing he directed was a music video for Rick fucking Springfield?
It's for a song called "Bop Til You Drop" and could not have less to do with Rick Springfield or bopping.
It (sort of) still holds up and was probably one of the weirder things on MTV at that time.
Or certainly one of the most ambitious.
After a handful of interviews, I realized two things: that he's kind of a megalomaniacal, control-freak dick (which makes for a great director) and that I need to watch more of his stuff.
I had totally forgotten that he directed "The Game" back in 1997, a movie which involves Michael Douglas in an "ARG" when an "ARG" was merely something the Hulk exclaimed in comics.
If you haven't seen "The Game", see it.
It's a brilliantly made mindfuck of a movie.
Michael Douglas is great as is Sean Penn.
Granted, it's one of those "The Usual Suspects" type revelation movies, but, also like "Usual Suspects", it's fun the whole way through.
And it still holds up.
I plan to rewatch both "Panic Room" and "Zodiac", though I remember not loving either of them.
Then, once I've gotten through them, I'm going to do "Fight Club" and "Se7en", two of my favorite movies.
Between those two and "12 Monkeys", I learned to love Brad Pitt for more than his DSLs and myriad abs.
 
So yes, in short, avoid "The Beach" like a dirty hypo lying on a beach and embrace "The Game" as the kick ass future glimpse it was/is.
 
Also, next Friday, I am going to be recording a bunch of characters for an upcoming Speakaboos project.
Google Speakaboos, think of me and then laugh and laugh.

Last night, I saw the new Muppets movie...

11.28.11
7:37 pm
 
...after another excellent meal at Bareburger with Chris.
 
And I have some thoughts...
 
First, I must say that I disagree with the overall premise: that the Muppets have been forgotten.
Maybe I'm not hanging around the right grade/pre-schools, but the Muppets are eternal.
You watch Sesame Street until you are old enough for the Muppets proper and then you are a real human being, no questions.
The idea that they have somehow become unpopular is ridiculous.
Not enough disbelief to suspend.
 
Next, Jack Black was the biggest and most relevant star they could find?
Really?
The Muppets?
Settling for Jack Black?
Someone in Hollywood is not doing their job.
 
And Selina Gomez?
Yeech.
At least she was only in it for a moment.
During which I farted.
 
Kristin Schaal, on the other hand, was wonderful, as always.
 
The music, also, was excellent, Brett McKenzie nailed it, although pretty much all the songs sound exactly like Flight of the Conchords.
But whatever.
They work and are delightful.
As is Amy Adams.
I think I enjoyed her simply by virtue of the fact I've never seen her in anything.
Which, based on peoples' opinions of her, is probably a good thing.
 
And I loved that Scooter now works for Google.
The fact that both myself and a Muppet have had the same name on our paychecks (on a few occasions, at least) just makes me feel magical.
 
I've always felt a connection with the Muppets, as I grew up two blocks from Jim Henson's home and had my picture taken there in front of the two story mural depicting all the Muppets seated in a movie theater looking out.
Wonderful energy in that place.
 
On the whole, I didn't the love the new Muppet movie, it really just made me want to go home and watch Muppet Show DVDs.
Chris and I watched a few before she lost her nightly battle with Mr. Sandman, twelve minutes after laying on the couch.

• Steve Martin - Banjo madman.


• Madeline Kahn - I'd gladly trade a dozen of these mindless, pointless "hot young things" to have her back with us, she was truly amazing.


• John Cleese - Living, breathing comic god. Bow before him or suffer.

Around the time I recorded the voice of Baby Kermit for that never-released talking doll, I discovered that it was to be part of a Muppets renaissance of sorts, ushering in a new wave of Muppet media including a new Muppet Babies and a brand new Muppet Show.
But then Disney bought back the recently reacquired Henson Studios and fucked everything right up.
At the moment, there is a sitcom coming out which hinges on people living next door to Muppets.
Although I'd like to believe that anything with Muppets in it has the potential to be great...that premise is just assy.
Throw in a laugh track and some canned voices going "oooooooooooohhh!!!" and you've got yourself a fine recipe for Poop Soup.
Which is crushing.
 
To sum up: the Muppets are good.
That's all I've got for you.
 
Mahna, mahna.

Skrutz

11.22.11
3:38 pm
 
That's about where I'm at right now.
Skrutz.
Why am I skrutz?
Good question.
Good.
 
On Friday, I was asked if I could come into work on Monday, not at 3pm, but at 4:30pm.
I happily said yes and then proceeded to stay up until 6am on Monday, playing the new Assassin's Creed.
I woke at 3pm, showered and went to work.
But (and here's where some of the skrutz comes in), I had a booking with Cablevision* at 10am this morning.
So, I went to beddy sleep at 1:30 this morning, hoping to, I don't know, trick myself into getting a good night's sleep, but no one can fool me.
Not even me.
Or can I?
No, I can't.
Everything was fine, I went out like a light at 1:45ish, only to wake up at 3:45 and then again at 6, 7:30 and, finally, at 9:45.
The booking was from 10am to 2pm and was a bit hurry-up-and-wait because of "crossed wires" and "group failings".
But, it was all good, as the folks from Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal & Partners all have wonderful, twisted senses of humor and we got along thunderously.
Then...at 12:30...Sound Lounge (the place I've been booking a lot of stuff lately) presented lunch...a fully catered Thanksgiving bonanza consisting of everything wonderful you could ever wish for.
Luckily, the client called in and gave notes and I did the last bit of VO before the food kicked it.
At this moment though, the food has officially kicked in.
I'm not one of "those people" who believe there is enough tryptophane in a few slices of turkey to actually affect a grown man like myself, but I do believe that a full tummy (especially when that tummy is full of yummy nummy foodsies) plus lack of proper sleep results in skrutz.
Hence: me, now.
Skrutz.
 
And yet...I carry on...
Somehow, some way.
LBC, funky ass shit, etc.
 
So, back to the me.
...have I mentioned that I finished editing my recording of The Grind Show?
I know Phil knows, but...hm...I may have forgotten to mention it elsewhere.
Well.
Done with that.
Taking a bit of a breather and then I'm going to take his notes and implement them.
Implement them xmax.
But Christ the Jesus does it feel good to be, more or less, done with this project.
Now, the ball is in audible.com's court.
Hopefully they'll pass it back covered in honey and thousand dollar bills.
That is how this whole thing works, right?
Balls covered in honey and thousand dollar bills?
Honeymoneyballs?
 
I've also been reading the new King, 11/22/63.
After the requisite "here's how time travel works in this book" chapters, things were pretty cool; the main character returns to Derry, Maine, about a year after the events of IT and runs into some familiar faces, but after that, things got real uninteresting, real fast and have stayed that way for a while.
And King has actually brought out an argument that is tantamount to the old chestnut "would you kill Hitler as a baby?" and he's (the main character) acting all mixed up about it.
Dude.
Yes.
You kill Hitler.
You always kill Hitler.
As an adult, as a baby, as a sperm in his father's nut sack.
You always. Kill. Hitler.**
Anyway, hopefully things will pick up again.
 
I've been intersticing the King with some DC comics (which is redundant, but so is the "Rio Grande River" so fuck right off), namely Suicide Squad (pretty good, depending on the writer/time period. Here's a hint: avoid the 80's.), Checkmate (slow), Salvation Run (excellent) and, just recently, Batman Confidential, which has been rock solid for the first dozen or so issues.
The second story arc is a reinvention of the Joker's origin by a guy called Michael Green and it's stunning.
Gives Batman a lot more of the responsibility for what happened... 
The art is a bit odd, looks a touch like Aeon Flux at times, but with a lot more lines.
 
Going back to whatever it was I was talking about before; last week, Comcast called me back for yet another rerecord AND have booked me Monday for yet another rerecord.
I must say, being the "voice" of a certain spot for several months running is a lot better than auditioning and not getting gigs.
A lot.
It's like, "Yeah, we remember you were good that one time, so let's get down to brass tacks. How much for the monkey?"
And you're like, "Just pay me every time I walk through the door."
And they're like, "Have some Thanksgiving dinner on a Tuesday."
And you're like, "Yes. I will."
This is what I was talking about when I said I enjoy being a boy in love with you.
In love with you, girl.
Oh yeah.
 
Fucking shit I'm tired.
Does Starbucks do Frappucino enemas?
Can I get extra caramel?
And a lot...of whipped cream.
 
Oh, and go check out that short film that Ray and me and Pete and Jess Howell and Phil (different Phil) did.
I'm scary as shit in it and I did the sound design.
Not the piano, the cool background ambience.
Here's a link!!!
"Bitter Sweet"!!!!!!!!
And, the entry before this is a behind the scenes look...in writing!!!
BLEEDING EDGE TECH!!!
 
Then:
MONEY FOR DOPE!!!!!!!!!!!
BANGOLIN!!!!!!!!
A DOZEN OYSTERS ON THE HALF SHELL!!!!!!!!!
WOODEN LEG!!!!!!!!!!!!!
GALVANIZED TUB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
MONEY FOR DOOOOOOOPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
*Cablevision = enjoying my Kool-Aid
 
** Would someone please t-shirt that for me? Something pink and flashy? XXL, if you could.

The Making of 'Bitter Sweet'

9.27.11
10:37 pm
 
About  a month ago, my friend and professional filmmaker, Ray Zablocki, told me of a short film contest sponsored by the Producers Guild of America (PGA).
He said it would be in the vein of a 48 hour film festival in which the entire product must be written, shot and edited within forty eight hours.
On Friday the 23rd at 5:00 pm, Ray, his cousin Pete and I got together and began to create.
The PGA requirements were as follows:
The setting had to be Halloween.
One or more of the following themes had to be expressed: Grace and forgiveness, escape and/or the unlikely hero.
The film had to feature, in some manner, the following three object, one serving as a key plot element: a knitting needle, a knight chess piece and a cassette tape.
From about five to about midnight, the three of us threw out ideas, bouncing them back and forth at one another.
Over those five hours, certain ideas became clear.
We were almost sure what to do with the cassette tape, 100% sure what to do with the chess piece and undecided about the needle.
The two of them left to write the actual script and I went to sleep, readying myself for the twelve hour shoot the next day.
Turned out to be a twenty hour shoot, but, who's counting?
 
The next morning, my co-star, the amazing and resplendent Jessica Howell showed up a tick after ten.
The "crew" (consisting of Ray and his second cousin/filmmaker Phil), showed up a bit later and the day officially began.
First of all, we were crippled from the start for lack of a larger team.
Our director of photography was with his wife who was having a baby and the other two assistants that would have made this thing go faster were also unavailable.
This would end up being a problem...
 
The first handful of hours were spent mostly hanging out with Jess while Phil and Ray did film things.
Later, Ray's friend and our first assistant, Laura, showed up and also hung out.
Understand, we did what we could, but we were really just waiting for it to get dark.
We showed up on location about forty five minutes before our first shot so Jess helped stretch the fuck out of me (she is a Yoga instructor) and then Ray got some turkey while Phil, Jess and I shot a short, improvised film entitled "Dog Balls".
Hopefully that will pop up somewhere sometime.
Eventually, Ray returned with his turkey and the sun began to set.
 
Our very first shot was to be the opening shot of the film; Jessica carrying a bag of groceries while being followed by a large, trench coated figure down by the gantries near the Long Island City Pepsi-Cola sign.
After a full day of uniform gray skies, the sun showed up to astound us; not only an amazing sunset, but exploding with Halloween oranges and, eventually, deep, unsettling bruise purples.
We ended up not using that footage as the start of the film.
Total bummer.
As we were wrapping that location, our second assistant, Steve Earthman, showed up and accompanied us back to our second and final location: my apartment.
Once we retuned, work began in earnest, spending about a half hour shooting Jess arriving home and me watching her from outside.
Then some interiors in the hallways, then, finally, the apartment scenes.
I won't give away the plot, but a big old mess was made, some screaming occurred and some shit got serious.
 
Jess' day ended around two in the morning and mine ended at five.
And her and I were the lucky ones.
Ray, that poor bastard, had yet to edit the footage we had shot that day.
Edit, color correct and everything else...in less that fifteen hours.
The whole thing was due, no exceptions, by 8pm on Sunday, September 25th.
 
I awoke on Sunday and created some unsettling background ambience for Ray to drop in behind some piano music Steve's girlfriend had provided.
Ray called once, asking for me to record my door bell, and I did so.
Then, I waited.
Around 10:40 that evening, Ray sent me a link to the finished product, a tight, well-shot slice of disturbing questions called "Bitter Sweet".
 
Overall, I personally feel like one or two things are missing, and I preferred the alternate ending proposed by Phil Tucker, but this is Ray's baby and I've also heard a lot of positive feedback as well.
In the end, it doesn't really matter what we think, but what the six judges think.
The judges, Steve Buchemi, Leslie Ann Warren, Jamie Lee Curtis, Paul Reubens, Shirley Sher (producer of "Pulp Fiction") and Bruce Coen (producer of "American Beauty") will watch all the submissions and post their decision by November 15th at the very latest on the Producer's Guild of America web site.
 
Aside from the whole film aspect, the day of the shoot was an excellent opportunity to bond further will Jess, someone who will always do her best to pop in at the parties Chris and I throw, but also someone who is always gone too soon.
I've worked with her a few times, as both an actor and as her director and she's like a tiny sun, constantly warming and energizing those in her presence; it was, as always, a pleasure to work with her.
 
At some point soon, we're going to have a wrap party/screening.
At said party, we're going to watch "Bitter Sweet", "Dog Balls" (hopefully), "Eels" from The Mighty Boosh (as Jess has just gotten into the show and we were making references all day) and "The Dark Knight", as Jess has never seen it.
I know what you're thinking: what, she hasn't seen "The Dark Knight"? What? WHAT?! WHAT THE FUCKING HELL??!?!?!?!?!?
Check it out though: Jess is the kind of person who you wouldn't judge for not having seen "The Dark Knight".
Heck, she doesn't even remember if she saw "Batman Begins" or not.
Which is fine.
Seriously.
But only because she is Jess Howell and she is amazing.
And she opened my shoulders.

My sweet 3 dog

11.9.11
3:11 pm
 
The Human Centipede.
These three words have made quite an impact over the past few years.*
And, as yesterday was Election Day, I elected to find out why.
 
Now, I had heard of the first film in the series, "The Human Centipede (First Sequence)", a few years ago.
I'd heard it was groundbreaking in its atrociousness and just awful.
The merest mention actually had the ability to send this girl Jessica into fits.
She was kind of a pussy though.
But that's neither here nor there.
So, the gist of the film is as follows: two idiot American tourists get lost in the woods of Germany (because, when their car gets a flat and their phone has no service THEY FUCKING WANDER OFF INTO THE FUCKING WOODS. I'll not go as far as to say these girls deserved what happened to them, but, people...THINK...), then get kidnapped (along with some Japanese dude) by this crazy, German surgeon who, for no apparent reason, decides to connect these three people anus to mouth to anus to mouth, thus creating one digestive system...a human centipede.
Of course, the individual segments of a centipede aren't really their own entities or capable of independent thought, but, whatever man, just take the ride.
The big deal about this whole concept is that the operation is completely, 100% medically feasible and, the results, 100% medically accurate (one of the films tag lines).
Once the surgery works and this crazy, German doctor has his human centipede, hijinks ensue before things eventually go wrong(er) and everyone but the Unluckiest Girl in the World dies horribly.
 
I took some notes:
First off, the thing is SO TROPEY.
Aside from what exactly the bad guy is trying to do, everything is right out of [insert any mad scientist movie ever].
Even the way the police are insinuated into the situation is old hat.
If not for the one horrific thing going on, this could almost be any horror movie of the "kidnapped by maniac for horrible experiment" type.
 
Next, this movie, above all others, needs a "Shining" treatment.
Hopefully, you'll know what I mean by that.
 
One of the first things you see in the movie is a small grave stone with "Mein susser hund drei" written on it.
That's German for "my sweet 3 dog".
I actually laughed out loud at that.
The fact that they show it more than once is just wonderful.
I suppose, if you'd never heard anything about this film, then it makes sense to show it once, before you have any idea what's about to occur and then again, after it's taken place, but, seriously, aside from the very, very first people to see this film, who the hell hasn't heard a least one, choked, terrified whisper about it?
But, yeah, my sweet 3 dog.
Excellent.
 
Once the human centipede was made, my first question was, what the hell are you going to do with a human centipede?
I mean, yes, it was quite a shock, but, then what?
Aside from trying a few basic dog-like things with it (teaching them to walk, training them not to bite, feeding them from a dog food dish), I think the writer/director, Tom Six, had the same question.
And no real answer.
That was apparent.
At one point, the doctor mentions adding another segment, but never gets the chance.
That issue, adding a segment, comes up later...
 
At several points, I thought of how much I'd enjoy the blooper reel from this movie...
 
For all the terror and shock and horror and whatever that surrounded this movie, the surgery was the worst part for me, specifically the removal of the teeth.
I don't like the gooshy bits.
In the end, this was a movie about team work and the dangers of going ass-to-mouth(to-ass).
Quite frankly, I think we have Kevin Smith's "Clerks 2" to blame for this whole fiasco...
 
After I'd finished the first movie, I decided that I needed to see the second one.
So I set that to download and went to sleep.
 
I woke to find that "The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence)" (a.k.a. "The Human Centipede 2: Even Centipedier") was ready for action.
Now, I hadn't actually heard anything about this film (like how it was banned in the U.K.), I'd just seen a trailer which kind of gave everything away: massive fan of the movie "The Human Centipede" kidnaps a bunch of people and makes his own, hijinks ensue.
That, on its own, doesn't seem all that enticing (not that anything about the first film was enticing, but you get the point...if you're still reading this...), but Tom Six does a pretty amazing job of setting this, more or less, straightforward progression of the story in a ridiculously fucked up world.
Literally every character in this movie, except for maybe one or two of the kidnapping victims is portrayed as a huge, awful asshole.
From the Neo-Nazi upstairs neighbor who beats the living hell out of the main character to the psychiatrist who would love nothing more than to rape the main character (who also happens to be his patient) to the main character's mother who resents her son for getting her sexually abusive husband put in jail.
I cannot explain how over-the-top these people are.
In fact, "over-the-top" is sort of the watchword here...
The movie takes place in London, where graveyard shift parking attendant, Martin (probably the best over-the-top casting job since the crazy, German doctor from the first film), uses the cameras in the garage to locate his victims.
With a crowbar and pistol, he incapacitates them, loads them into his van and drives them to a huge abandoned warehouse.
Well, not really abandoned.
He gets the realtor to sow him the space and then knocks him unconscious with the aforementioned crowbar.
When he isn't hunting and bludgeoning folks, he is watching "The Human Centipede" on his laptop.
Then rewinding it and watching it again.
And again.
And again.
And occasionally masturbating to one of the actresses in it.
Let me tell you a little about Martin...Martin (maybe five feet tall with a massive, sloping gut and bulging, crooked eyes) was sexually abused as a child by his father (on more than one occasion, we hear Martin's dreams: a baby crying and some guy with a Cockney accent say, "Stop with them tears, they're only makin' Daddy's pee pee harder."). He appears slightly retarded and seems to only speak when not on screen.
When on screen, his vocalizations are limited to grunts, farting noises, trilling, baby noises and so on.
Kind of a weak choice, in my opinion, but I really don't feel like Tom Six asked a lot of people for input on this one.
This movie is in black and white, and, as it progresses, I am happy with that choice.
Martin keeps a sort of Human Centipede scrapbook which contains far more impressive collaging than I'm capable of, so at least there's that.
He has pictures of the actors and actresses from the film in it, as well as the medical drawings, pictures of centipedes and a bunch of other crazy things that establish him to be crazy.
 
So, Martin plans on making himself a human centipede with twelve segments.
Yes.
The first two thirds of the movie is him collecting his victims (one of which is the actual actress who played the Middle Segment from the first movie playing herself. Turns out, in one of his off-camera-speaking-moments, Martin convinced this actress' agent that he is holding auditions for the new Quentin Tarentino film and they'd just love to see her try out for the part...) before doing his best to emulate the procedure as seen in "The Human Centipede".
This is where I had a a few problems...especially with his amateur removal of the teeth...
Oh man was that tough to watch.
And hear.
While the tag line of "The Human Centipede" was "100% Medically Accurate", the tag line of this one is "100% Medically Inaccurate".
Instead of scalpels, anesthesia, sutures and gauze, our dear Martin uses scissors, a crowbar, a staple gun and duct tape.
A lot of duct tape.
And a lot of staples.
After losing two victims in the process, an older man and a woman, nine months pregnant, he has his very own ten-segmented human centipede.
He giggles and capers and dances about for a bit, then proceeds to feed the first segment, in order to reenact a truly horrible scene from the first movie in which the first segment...well...poops.
The first segment throws the food away, causing Martin to insert a huge feeding tube down her throat and fill a funnel with cream of mushroom soup.
Which I don't enjoy even under ideal conditions.
But...no one poops.
Upset, Martin grabs a large bottle marked "Laxative" and a syringe.
I was worried about what was to follow.
Turns out I had every reason on earth to be.
What happens next...is really something terrible.
Then, as in the first film, things start to go wrong.
But more wrong than in the first.
Horrifically, nightmarishly wrong.
So wrong that I'm not going to get into here...on my personal fuckrant page.
One thing I will say, for all Tom Six's effort to make this thing as realistic as possible, people are still able to make noise without a tongue.
I'm just saying.
 
As with the first movie, this movie has its own allegories and morals: beware the dangers of fan fiction and do not trust psychiatrists with big, styled beards.
THC 2 was a lot harder to watch than THC and very much harder to eat stew during.
I learned something though, aside from don't park your car in London.
I learned that, no matter how dour and twisted upcoming events look to be, a naked guy bound with duct tape, sobbing "he's gonna stitch us up...he's gonna stitch us up ass to mouth" can't be greeted with anything other than giggles.
Tom, it's never going to replace "Soilent Green is made from people!" as a classic horror movie catchphrase.
Sorry.
 
All right, that was my journey through the deepest, darkest parts of a Dutchman's mind.
It's over.
Or is it?
According to Mr. Six (who is probably also an assassin with a name like Tom Six...most likely the sixth of his line and he's now being hunted by Tom Two through Tom Five with Tom One at the helm....), there will be a third and final "sequence" to the Human Centipede trilogy.
It will be shot entirely in the U.S and is slated for release in 2013.
He says, "it's going to make the second film look like a Disney flick".
So...there's that to look forward to.
Yay.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
*And these three words when you're gettin' busy will get you punched in the dick.

Dulcet Butter

11.2.11
3:48 pm
 
Finished editing chapter 29 of Grind Show last night.
Over three quarters of the way through.
I realized something while sliding my voice around...I have a great voice.
Like...really great.
And I need to do more with it.
So I hatched an idea.
We'll see where it goes.
 
Without thinking, I purchased Uncharted 3 yesterday.
And I mean "without thinking".
Total auto-pilot.
But, I promise you, I am not even putting the game in until I finish these last eleven chapters.
Ten, really as chapters 40 and 41 combined are shorter than a regular chapter.
And, as I'm also catching up with myself in regards to the fourth season of Sons of Anarchy, I have nothing on my plate except for The Grind Show.
Which is good news for Philip.
And, I can imagine what you're thinking, "You said you were going to finish editing before you put Batman: Arkham City in".
No.
Wrong.
I said I would promise to try.
But, Uncharted 3 is different.
This game is kind of a play it once or twice then either enjoy the multiplayer or be done with it sort of game.
Arkham City, I will play again.
And again probably.
Wearing Batman's Sinestro Corp skin.
Or his Year One skin.
Or his Earth One skin.
Or his Batman Beyond skin.
Or his 1970's skin.
You get the idea.
But not Uncharted 3.
This is going to be the blockbuster game event of 2011, but it isn't going to be better than Arkham City.
And you can put that in the bank.
The Video Game Bank.
And then, of course, in two weeks, there's the third game in the current Assassin's Creed series, Assassin's Creed: Revelations.
This too, will I purchase and enjoy, but, just like Uncharted 3, it will not be as good as Arkham City.
In the end, it's about the characters.
Yes, Nathan Drake (hero of the Uncharted series...you can tell by his name) is fun and exciting, a young Indiana Jones-type fellow and Ezio Auditore di Firenze (hero of Assassin's Creed II, Brotherhood and Revelations...Italian gentleman, in case you couldn't tell by his name) is mysterious and a badass assassin, but...Batman is fucking Batman.
None of these characters will ever be as cool as Batman, and I will never be as excited to play as them when these two (and hopefully three) Batman games exist.
So...Grind Show comes first.
 
I found out at the Halloween party that Kaitlyn is now taking a crack at copy editing Throne.
I think that's a good idea, as I may have put a few extra commas in...but they seemed correct at the time...
Hm.
I suppose we'll find out.
 
I plan to start the second Hunger Games book today, because, you know, Hunger Games.
 
Nothing else really happening.
Yesterday's entry was terribly cathartic.
My life is like some sort of horrible boil...it fills with hatepus and needs lancing from time to time.
THIS is that disinfected needle.
And I am happier for it.
As you should be as well.
Because my hate could level mountains and sink continents.
Or something.

Eat A Dick, United States Postal Service

11.1.11
3:54 pm
 
I was just on the line with the U.S. Postal Service's awful phone robot and it asked me:
"Are you in the business?"
Then a saucy pause.
Then: "The 'getting it there safe and sound' business?"
If I had had an employee of the USPS in front of me at that exact second, I would have screamed and laughed and torn their face from their skull, all at the same time.
And then there would have been diffused, polite applause from everywhere and nowhere.
And I would have smiled.
Stuffed their newly removed face into my mouth and smiled.
Chewed, swallowed, grinned, danced then smiled some more.
If I were running the Post Office, I'd go waaay out of my way to make sure the things that are already annoying in regular life (i.e. fucking awful phone robots) were much less annoying in relation to the PO.
I'd hire Morgan Freeman to read haikus about puppies.
Phone robots already make one want to tear peoples' faces off, but the Post Office...?
No one ever goes to the Post Office unless they fucking have to.
No one ever just calls the Post Office to say, "Hey, you guys are doing a great job. Keep up the good work and enjoy your still-attached faces."
No.
They go there because they didn't received something at their home.
They call because something went wrong, perhaps something costly.
And when you are calling the Post Office or the DMV or your insurance provider or any other organization that has a horrible-yet-completely-justified-and-proven-time-and-time-again stigma against it, the LAST thing you want to hear (aside from some disinterested freak with a wet sock in its mouth on the other end of the call) is something like the above awful phone robot statement.
WHY ARE THEY MAKING THINGS WORSE FOR THEMSELVES?
Even if you are coolheaded at the start of the call (and I will argue that years being on the other end of asshole phone calls has made me very sympathetic to these ball gargling fucks), by the time you've listened to the awful fucking phone robot go through its spiel six times, you're ready to...oh, I don't know...remove someone's face and eat it.
So why are they poking their proverbial stick into our proverbial wound?
Do they want people to scream at their idiot employees and tear their faces off?
Maybe this is all some trolling scheme to get great "Difficult Customer" training tapes for future employees?
Whatever the case.
Eat a dick, United States Postal Service.
Eat a massive, rancid dick.
 
In unrelated news, I've started editing The Grind Show again.
Halfway through chapter 29...which is huge, the longest remaining chapter, in fact.
After that, it's all a soft, sexy slope made of buttered leather.
Why have I suddenly returned to editing?
Well, because I have completed Batman: Arkham City, and I enjoyed every second of it.
There are approximately two things they didn't do as well as the first game, but they are minor enough as to not even count in the end.
And the end...oh the end...
I believe this might be the best ending to a video game I've ever encountered.
At least since Red Dead Redemption, but, fuck that, this is Batman.
I'll be replaying it soon, but it isn't going to consume my life as it did when it was fresh, so, don't worry, Phil
TGS will be fully edited well before the end of November.
Let us give thanks...to me.
While I'm not charging Phil anything for the recording and editing of Grind Show, he wrote me a little something that pretty much made everything worth it.
 
Over the weekend...the shitty let's-have-a-blizzard-just-to-fuck-with-Paul weekend...Chris and I had our Halloween party.
It was a sad state of affairs for an hour or so, but then people showed up and then more people showed up and it then began to kick ass.
Should have the '11 Freak Fuck video up soon so you can all either reminisce or feel left out.
Whatever.
 
I think that's all I'm willing to tell you at the moment.
Don't press me.
DON'T.
PRESS.
ME.
 
Don't.

End of the Month Music Bitchfest - October

Holy Bitchfest, Batman!!!*
 
Nine Inch Nails
Good news/bad news regarding Nine Inch Nails this month.
Or bad news/cocktease news, if you want to be a pessimist.
WHICH I DO NOT.
So.
A few weeks ago, Mouth Taped Shut (the mysterious behind-the-scenes blog for the Fincher remake of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo...although I have a sneaking suspicion that it's being run by long time Nine Inch Nails co-hort and mindfucker, Rob Sheridan), posted a picture of Trent Reznor in front of a computer monitor looking kind of smug/confused.
Now why would Trent Reznor be smug and confused?
I will FUCKING TELL YOU WHY.
Because, if you looked at the address on the browser on his monitor (www.comesforthinthethaw.com/index2) and then entered that into YOUR browser...well...shit got real.
Or, more specifically, you got a message, the tag line of the movie, "What Is Hidden In Snow, Comes Forth In The Thaw" (which is, apparently, an old, Swedish adage...a creepy, old, Swedish adage). When you click on said old and creepy adage, you got what amounted to a frost-obscured slideshow of images from the new Dragon Tattoo with a really annoying, high pitched warble looped endlessly in the background with the occasional distorted burst of sound from the movie; some room ambience, a blur of voices, etc.
At least you did on the first day.
Over the next week, the images would change and a new sound was layered on until, at the end of the week, there was a fully constructed piece of music.
Beautiful, haunting, cold music.
At the start of the next week, everything was taken down and a new sound was posted, a plinking, circusy tune that reeked of tainted innocence.
As before, each day added a new layer.
The week after that, a deep, bassy bass note echoed to and fro, from nowhere to nowhere, then, by the end of that week, there were hammer dulcimers and tidal guitars and a whole buncha other Coil meet Aphex Twin ("Drukqs" Aphex, not "Aphex Acid" Aphex) meets other stuff stuff.
And, just today, everything was cleared out again and replaced with a series of out of tune, d-verbed piano chords.
It actually sounds a bit like something you'd hear in the Haunted Mansion.
Which is cool.
Not sure if this is going to continue until the release of the film, but, if it does, I'm fine with that.
Along with Comes Forth In The Thaw dot com, there is a website for What Is Hidden In Snow dot com, but it's an ARG relating to the framed, pressed flowers in the film and really has nothing to do with Nine Inch Nails.
Not musically, anyway.
Now, while this whole not-really-an-ARG is interesting and all, it seems to cement the fact that we aren't going to get any new Nine Inch Nails or How To Destroy Angels until after December 21st, 2011.
And, knowing Reznor's callous, utter disregard for how hard or loud his fans whine, probably not until Q2 2012.
Oh, and if you think I'm just saying this so Reznor (a dedicated fan of my Monthly Bitchfest) reads this and releases a bunch of stuff, just to prove me wrong...well, you've got problems.
Mind problems.
 
Aside from this not-really-an-ARG nonsense, Nine Inch Nails contributed a cover of U2's "Zoo Station" to Q Magazine's "'Ahk-toong Bay-bee Covered".
Apparently, "Achtung Baby" is 25 years old.
The cover is less NIN-y than I would have suspected and kind of builds/drags (depending on your taste/opinion) during the last, oh, two and a half minutes.
In a way, it reminds me a bit of their cover of Gary Numan's "Metal", but without all the interesting stuff at the end.
Something about the cover makes me think either Reznor simply picked the first song off the back of the album or someone assigned it to him thinking that this was the most sonically nuanced track and figured Reznor would do something interesting with it.
Feels kind of rushed, I suppose.
Along with Nine Inch Nails, the album (only available with a copy of Q Magazine...a UK-only god damn magazine) features covers by Gavin Friday, Depeche Mode and a band you might know from my previous Monthly Bitchfests...
 
Oh, and "We're In This Together" (a NIN song from 1999's "The Fragile") was featured (in a horribly edited fashion) in the latest trailer for The Avengers.
It totally works.
Because, you know, the superheroes...are all in "this" together..."this" being trouble.
It's rumored that Trent Reznor is set to play Galactus...
That's not true.
He's set to play Dr. Klaw.
 
And, just four days ago, one Mr. Trevor Resnick posted on his thing: "lots of new music coming your way very soon".
Now, In Trentspeak, "soon" translates into "anywhere from six months to never" BUT, "very soon" translates to "roughly between a week and two weeks".
So it seems that he has insiders who are aware of the above comment regarding releasing a bunch of stuff just to spite me...
I'm assuming it will be the (two disc?) Dragon Tattoo score...but I just love being surprised by him...
 
Beck
I angrily downloaded his cover of John Martyn's "Stormbringer", then listened to and enjoyed it, angrily.
Other than that, no noise.
Oh, wait, there's a new Beck t-shirt.
Urge to kill...rising...
 
Eels
Nothing but the news that E has contributed a letter to the new book, "Dear Me", in which people (actors, writers, musicians etc.) write letters to their sixteen year old selves.
Meh.
 
Cake
Zip.
 
They Might Be Giants
Had a chance to listen to the superexclusive vinyl 7" I received.
Two songs good, two songs not so good (though the idea that the dark, folk ballade about Nikolai Tesla was originally slated for and quickly rejected from the Disney kids' album "Here Comes Science" is pretty hilarious...Flans sings about "Tesla's body, lying on the floor" and "an x-ray of Mark Twain's  skull").
No need to buy any new audio equipment.
Along with their continuing tour (Saturday, March 10th at Terminal 5!!! WOO!!!!!), TMBG announced they were releasing yet another rarities collection on November 1st, but, as it's only digital until after the discs ship on December 1st, they released it two days ago. It's called "Album Raises New and Troubling Questions" and, whether or not you like the band, you have to admit that's an excellent title.
The album is kind of a junk drawer of songs, featuring tracks written for their most recent album, "Join Us", that didn't quite fit in, their cover of "Havalina", their cover of "Tubthumping", some of the tracks they recorded with their brass band, one of the songs they did for Strongbad and a leftover kids song.
It's super hit or miss, but the hits are great, like Linnell's response to their kids song "I Am A Grocery Bag" called "Money For Dope", the album quality "Authenticity Trip", and an electronic reinterpretation of their old classic "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" titled, well, "Electronic Istanbul (Not Constantinople)", obviously.
I've always felt that the level of a TMBG fan's fanaticism can be measured by just how unknown the tracks on a rarities album are to said TMBG fan.
I was aware of/familiar with less than half.
Which says...something.
Anyway, overall, this release is just for fans.
Head's up.
 
Meanwhile...
Marilyn Manson remains asleep under some foul-smelling blankets.
 
Garbage has slated the release of their new album for the fucking end of March/beginning of April 2012.
Which is ridiculous, since, as of October 17th, it was mastered.
I fucking hate the old fashioned way musicians continue to release music.
It strikes me that four of my five favorite bands are either unsigned or on their own label.
But, Garbage also contributed a U2 cover for the "Achtung Baby" tribute album.
Something about crazy horses.
The cover is pure Garbage, dark and electronic, then loud and sweeping, displaying that they are still capable of doing what made people love them, which is terribly exciting for the prospect of that new album...coming out in six fucking months.
Wazzers.
You can read a hugely in-depth interview with the Head Wazzers of Garbage, namely, Shirley Manson and Butch Vig by clicking the linky below. 
 
In a soul crushing interview earlier this month, Chris Vrenna, ex-NIN drummer/programmer and the mind behind Tweaker, said that the new Tweaker album (possibly due out before the end of the year) will be the last.
I am truly saddened by this.
While not every track was gold, there was some amazing stuff on their two releases, "The Attraction To All Things Uncertain" and "2 a.m. wakeup call" and I am going to miss them and the places they might have gone.
I continue to blame Marilyn Mason.
 
As a tiny, little side note: the new Puscifer album, "Conditions Of My Parole", is pretty solid.
Some excellent programming on there, proving that too many cooks can sometimes make a pretty tasty taco.
There is a song on there called "Horizons" and it feel very Grind Showy.
 
All right.
Like the Otter...you're free to go.
 
Cavalcade of Links
Drip-feed yourself some new Reznor/Ross compositions
Buy TMBG’s new rarities album
Nine Inch Nails' cover of U2's "Zoo Station"
Garbage's cover of U2's "Who Going To Ride Your Etc. Etc.":
Marilyn Manson, Twiggy and Madonna Wayne Gacy's 1994 appearance on Donahue:





*Batman is not mentioned in this month's Music Bitchfest