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Sitges Film Festival 2009: Amer, The Loved Ones, Doghouse, More
6 November 2009 10:00 AM, PST
What you do in Sitges, Spain, during the annual Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic, is pretty much this: Wake up at 7:30 a.m. Eat breakfast. Hit first movie at 8:30 a.m. Continue throughout day. Break for late-afternoon nap, snack, interview or hang in the lobby bar of the Hotel Melia. Go see more movies. Go to dinner. Go drinking. See a movie (maybe). Go to the late-night party that usually begins after 1 a.m. Get back to room about 4:30 a.m. (with luck). Wake up at 7:30 a.m. And repeat. For seven or eight days straight. If your eyeballs haven’t... »
The Men Who Stare At Goats' Title Character Chews the Cud About Breakout Role
6 November 2009 9:00 AM, PST
The Men Who Stare At Goats is a star-studded dark comedy about, well, pretty much what it sounds like. Reporter Bob Wilton hopes to break the story of his career by investigating a special government wing that equips “Warrior Monks” with bizarre psychic powers for combat. Aside from walking through walls, bursting clouds and reading enemies’ thoughts, the soldiers also have the ability to stare a goat to death in just a matter of seconds. Sure we talked to the guy who wrote the book, but in order to find more about the film, which hits theaters today, Paste also... »
Win Some Shoes Autographed by The National, Yo La Tengo, The Jesus Lizard and 47 Other Bands
6 November 2009 8:30 AM, PST
If you a) like indie rock, b) spend at least some portion of your day walking and c) are a generally good person who cares about others, then boy, have we got some news for you. Currently available via eBay auction are a pair of Saucony Original sneakers autographed by no fewer than 50 of today’s best musicians in independent music.... »
The Best of the Decade
6 November 2009 8:03 AM, PST
When this decade began, Paste’s website was barely a year old, and the magazine was still a twinkle in its daddies’ eyes. So looking back over the first 10 years of the 2000s feels like looking back over our own history. There hasn’t been a new album, film, TV show, video game or book Paste has covered that wasn’t eligible for our “Best of the Decade” consideration. We had dozens of critics vote in each of these five categories, and then we argued some more until we’d focused our spotlight onto the very best pop culture created during the aughts—whether... »
30 Rock Review: "Audition Day" (Episode 4.4)
6 November 2009 7:30 AM, PST
You know how sometimes a song can be well-written, the lyrics literate and its singer passionate, but you still think "meh" about it? That's kind of what this episode of 30 Rock was like for me. It had a good premise that had been set up for episodes and the usual manic comedy that the show thrives on, but I wasn't really feeling the whole thing. ... »
Weezer: Raditude
6 November 2009 6:30 AM, PST
This Rivers is all dried up Weezer fans often cry that haters should quit comparing the band’s later work to Pinkerton and the blue album. That’s fair—bands change, and music evolves. Thing is, even without hope for a return to form, we’re still left sifting through dribble that barely passes as All-American Rejects’ rejects. Had the classics never existed, there’d be little reason to care about Weezer at all.... »
The Low Anthem: "Charlie Darwin" Video (Awesome of the Day)
6 November 2009 6:12 AM, PST
I’ve talked about my love for The Low Anthem here on a few occasions, but I had to share their brand new video for the lovely song, “Charlie Darwin.” It’s done with stop-motion animation from Simon Taffe And Glenn Taunton, part of the design team behind The End of the Road Festival. With the help of a small team of painters, carpenters and handymen, the duo filmed the video at a studio in Sussex. Enjoy.... »
Film Friday: A Weekend of Pushing Buttons
6 November 2009 5:58 AM, PST
This weekend at your local Big Screen, the movies are about pushing buttons. In The Box, directed by Donnie Darko creator Richard Kelly, a mysterious man in a long coat who appears to have been slapped in the face on more than one occasion shows up at the home of Cameron Diaz and James Marsden to ask if this attractive, cash-strapped couple wants to see what’s in his box. Spoiler: it’s a button. Push it and you get a million dollars, but when you do someone on the other side of the earth whom you do not know will be... »
Catching Up With... The Men Who Stare at Goats Author Jon Ronson
6 November 2009 5:55 AM, PST
Jon Ronson knows his way around weird. The author and documentary filmmaker has spent his career tracking down some of the most wildly weird people on the planet to bring their stories to us normal folk. His bestseller, Them: Adventures with Extremists, chronicled the tales of wannabe global dominators like Islamic fundamentalists and neo-Nazi Ku Klux Klansmen. But it’s his book, The Men Who Stare at Goats, that’s putting his name on the map—in part thanks to George Clooney. The book, about the secret army unit of soldiers with psychic power called the First Earth Battalion, was just made into... »
Salute Your Shorts: Dan Harmon's Channel 101 Shows
6 November 2009 5:00 AM, PST
Salute Your Shorts is a weekly column that looks at short films, music videos, commercials or any other short form visual media that generally gets ignored.For any longtime fans of Dan Harmon’s work, Community is a surprise. Not the fact that it’s good, no, that’s something that we could all be pretty sure of. It’s that the show, a relatively conventional sitcom, could come from the avant-garde co-founder of Channel 101, whose prior claim to fame involves shows such as Computerman and Laser Fart. He’s long been a superstar for a relatively niche group of Los Angeles filmmakers and comedians,... »
Community Review: "Home Economics" (Episode 1.8)
6 November 2009 4:58 AM, PST
Community for the most part plays like a traditional sitcom, but there's one primary aspect that keeps it away from being another exmaple of the old genre: continuity. Due primarily, I would guess, to the way syndication works, sitcoms just don't have a background where what happens in one episode stays relevant in the next. The most important sitcom of my generation, The Simpsons, will make jokes about past episodes but would never base a plotline around it. The two-part "Who Shot Mr. Burns" episodes were noteworthy because things didn't resolve in a quick 22-minutes.... »
The Talking, Self-Eating Fox From Antichrist Has His Moment
6 November 2009 2:37 AM, PST
Whatever your opinion of the genital-chopping, misogyny-cheering controversy stirred up by Lars von Trier’s Antichrist, there is one scene that is an undeniable cult novelty. Deep in the movie’s indeterminable midsection, Willem Dafoe’s character wanders into the woods and finds a mangy little fox cannibalizing itself, a fairly horrifying image. The horror, however, quickly turns to hilarity when the fox looks into the camera, and in an ominous voice declares “Chaos Reigns” before a slow fade to black.... »
Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (Nintendo DS)
6 November 2009 2:35 AM, PST
Developer: AlphaDream Publisher: Nintendo Platform: Nintendo DS Get further inside the Mushroom Kingdom than ever before At this point, new Mario games are excuses for Nintendo to poke mild fun at itself, in that secretly flattering way only unimpeachable powerhouses can pull off. The company’s 28-year-old mascot has hopped through every genre under the sun, including, in the Mario and Luigi series, action role-playing. The third entry, Bowser’s Inside Story, feels like a long-running sitcom, where every character entrance enjoys great fanfare, and all the gags wink knowingly at prior gags. Nintendo could coast on nostalgia alone, but to their... »
Lightspeed Champion Reacquaints Himself with New Album
5 November 2009 7:30 AM, PST
Although he’s only in his 20s, Lightspeed Champion’s Dev Hynes has had to reintroduce himself several times. Once a guitarist for unfortunately-named-and-now-defunct rock band, Test Icicles, the singer/songwriter reemerged in 2008 with the country-inspired Falling Off the Lavender Bridge. And now, after dabbling into classical compositions and musical theatre, he is ready to do it all over again.... »
George Clooney in Talks for Alexander Payne's Next Film
5 November 2009 6:30 AM, PST
George Clooney is in talks to play the lead role in the first feature film Alexander Payne has directed in five years, the follow-up to 2004’s Sideways. Payne also directed 1999’s Election and currently executive produces HBO’s series Hung. Produced by Fox Searchlight (where Payne has a first-look deal), the new film is a family “dramedy” called The Descendants, based on Kaui Hart Hemmings’ 2007 novel of the same name.... »
Evil Dead to Rise Again to Theaters in 2010
5 November 2009 5:00 AM, PST
Before there was Spider-Man, Sam Raimi began his multi-billion dollar career with little more than $375,000 and a script for a schlocky X-rated horror film. But when Evil Dead was released in 1981, its gore and wit garnered it a cult following, amassing box office earnings of $2.4 million in the U.S. and over $29 million worldwide. Its success led to several sequels, a stage musical, and cult fame for its writer-director and its star, Bruce Campbell.... »
Robert Mattheu: The Stooges: The Authorized and Illustrated Story
5 November 2009 3:30 AM, PST
Could use more raw power If the snarling Iggy Pop of 1969 knew his Stooges would be coffee table book fodder, he would’ve scoffed. But here we are, 40 years later, with The Stooges: The Authorized and Illustrated Story. The title tells all: unreleased photos, band testimonials and album reviews. But while rock’n’roll platitudes flourish in books about, say, The Beatles, here the fawning feels awkward. Creem photographer Robert Mattheu’s stilted writing never dives deeper than anecdotes and base descriptions. We learn Ron Ashton’s apartment, when he hosted Elektra Record executives in 1971, was “too horrible to describe.” The execs... »
James Franco to Play Jenna's Boyfriend on 30 Rock
5 November 2009 2:28 AM, PST
30 Rock never wastes a good guest star. Salma Hayek’s six-episode arc last season as Jack Donaghy’s girlfriend was rapaciously sharp-edged and clever. Will Arnett’s appearances as Jack’s closeted nemesis who sexually harrasses Kenneth is always squirm-worthy and hilarious. And hey, even that ridiculously unfunny comedian with the hatemonger puppets was well placed in last week’s episode.... »
Favorite Music of the '00s
5 November 2009 1:05 AM, PST
Here's my current take. This could change, as early as tomorrow. I'll try to add some commentary in the days ahead. It might be worth noting that "Favorites" does not translate to "Best." "Best" would imply some overarching knowledge of the music released in this decade, and I don't have that knowledge. It also would have to account for cultural impact, general popularity, musical innovation, and all those other factors that typically cause reviewers to agonize long into the night. I didn't agonize over this. I also didn't think about jazz, classical, or several other genres of music... »
The Booky Man: Maus... or There's No Place Like Home for the Holocaust
5 November 2009 12:45 AM, PST
Comic books in their most familiar form—tales of super-heroes and adventurers—sprang from pulp novel potboilers of the 1930s and ‘40s. They were often lurid, licentious, shocking. In fact, by the 1950s, as America focused on the Red Scare and those dirty Commies tunneling like termites under our American way of life, ‘seditious’ comic books grew so popular among impressionable young people that authorities passed laws banning comics. and even burned them.... »
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