DVD Review: Certified Copy (Criterion Collection)

This article was first published at Blogcritics

Iranian ex-pat auteur Abbas Kiarostami's 2010 exploration of the mysteries of the male female relationship in the context of authenticity in art, Certified Copy, is now available as a two disc set in The Criterion Collection.  Disc One has a "director-approved" digital master and the film's trailer.  The second disc has the rarely seen The Report, Kiarostami's second feature from 1977 encoded from an old analog video master made from a subtitled theatrical print damaged from heavy use.  The original was destroyed during the Iranian Revolution.  The quality of the print is poor, but clearly better than nothing for those interested in the trajectory of the director's work.  Also included are a 2012 interview with the Kiarostami and an Italian documentary feature on the making of the film, Let's See "Copia conforme".  Finally the package includes an excellent introductory essay on the director and the film by critic Godfrey Cheshire.

The Criterion Collection gives you your money's worth.  You watch it all and you come away stuffed with information.  More often than not this is a good thing, but there are times when—well, think of the dodgy repletion after a Thanksgiving turkey with too many trimmings.  If you watch all the bonus material, you will learn an awful lot about the film, perhaps too much.  Certified Copy is a film filled with interpretive possibilities, the more you know about what the artists—the actors, the writer/director—think, the more those possibilities shrink.  In interviews they all pay lip service to the need for the audience to draw its own conclusions about characters, about themes, about meaning.  In practice, their ideas and comments are nearly impossible to ignore.  Of course, no one is making you watch the bonus material.  While some of it is interesting and informative, nothing there is essential, and I, for one, am sorry I watched it.

If Certified Copy is a great film, and it is a great film, its greatness lies in its inscrutability.  As I watched, the cinematic ancestor it brought to mind was the Alain Resnais classic Last Year at Marienbad, perhaps the ultimate film enigma.  Technically there were things like the slow pace, the moving camera, the intense close ups. Then there were things like the importance of the setting—as Resnais' camera moves through the rococo hallways of the hotel, Kiarostami  has his actors, Juliette Binoche and William Shimell, drive through the Tuscan countryside, walk through the village of Lucignano and its museums. Most interesting of all by way of analogy, however, is the sense of fractured time in both films and the sense of some elaborate game being played between a woman who has no name and a man she both loves and hates, fears and is drawn to.

What happened last year at Marienbad?   What happened fifteen years ago in Tuscany?  Resnais and Alain Robbe-Grillet, who wrote the script for Mairienbad, were very clear in the case of their film, that that was not a meaningful question.  Ontologically, there was no such thing as a last year.  All there was was a film.  In life there is a last year, in a film there is only what appears on the screen.  Moreover it is not for the artist to tell the audience what a work of art means. Robbe-Grillet is famed as a believer in the dictum that art doesn't mean, art is. 

In some sense, Kiarostami would seem to agree, the trouble is that the more he talks in his interviews, the more he seems to indicate that in fact there is one reading of the relationship between the central characters in the film, that time sequence may not be indicated directly, but once he mentions how he views it, it claims authority. Some viewers will welcome certainty; others, myself included, favor ambiguity. I guess I prefer what I thought I was seeing to what the director thought he was showing me.

Enough about the intrusion of external material, it is after all the film that's the thing, and while some will find it slow going, others will be thoroughly engrossed.  Whether it is dealing with an aesthetic question like the value of a copy in relation to an original work of art—a question which focuses the initial relationship between Binoche's character and Shimell's James Miller who has written a book on the subject, or the nature of the emotional relationship between the two, it offers no easy answers.  We follow the pair as they meet the day after, a lecture in which Miller is promoting his book.  She takes him on a tour of the area to pass the time before his scheduled departure at nine and eventually they wind up in Lucignano, a village famous for weddings.  At first their conversation runs to intellectual argumentation—the witty by play of strangers getting to know one another.  As the day progresses, if it is in fact one day, the stakes are raised, their conflicts become more intense; they become the kinds of conflicts that grow over years.  It is as much the universal conflict between the sexes as it is between the two specifics individuals: in a sense they are copies, themselves.

Book Review: Brad Pitt's Dog, by Johan Kugelberg

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I must begin by acknowledging that I have neither knowledge about nor interest in two thirds of the subjects Johan Kugelberg writes about in his collection Brad Pitt's Dog: Essays on Fame/Death/Punk.  I must further admit that having read each of the essays with as much attention as I could muster my lack of knowledge of the subjects remains intact as does my interest.  I must further confess that as often as not I had absolutely no idea what Kugelberg was talking about.  Given all that, let me say that at least in those parts of the book that I thought I understood, Kugelberg is one of the most entertaining prose stylists I have come across in many a day.

His flights of rhetorical flash—gems that often come three or four to a page—are more than worth the price of admission.  I may have had no idea what he was writing about, but I have to say I had a hell of good time reading it. So I can't tell you if I agree with the things he has to say about punk, I have no idea who the Flying Calvittos are and why anyone on earth would be interested in collecting their "hopelessly obscure" record "Lucky to Be an Australian." I don't know the Lurkers from the The Rings, and I wouldn't know The Dictators Girls Go Crazy t-shirt if it was hanging out to dry in the sun, let alone who Eddie Flowers is. Moreover I have no idea what motivates collectors of fanzines, old rock posters, band t-shirts and any of the other passions that Kugelberg anatomizes with excruciating detail.  Come to think of it I have no idea what motivates collectors of anything.  So I can tell you I absolutely find his fetish for collecting absurd, but then I find collectors of rare books, baseball cards and aluminum foil absurd as well. 

I can't tell you if I agree with his critiques of a photographer like Carl Johan De Geer or an artist like Dash Snow, because until I read the essays I had never heard of them.  I did check the internet, and I must admit that what I saw left me unenthusiastic.  I have no doubt I would feel the same way about the music Kugelberg admires, although I must admit to listening to the Velvet Underground with a smile on my face.  Even here, however, I don't think I could manage the same kind of fervor Kugelberg generates.

I guess the point that I'm making is that it's not so much what Kugelberg says , even when I think I understand and agree with it, that intrigues me, it's the way that he says it.  Anyone who can get me to keep reading when I have no idea what he's talking about can write.  Kugelberg can write. Kugelberg has a love affair with language, and I'm happy to watch the romance. The best way to describe what I'm talking about is to check out some samples.  Here is a list (he seems to like lists) of Kugelbergiana:

--Metaphors worthy of the Metaphysical poets:  the musical glory years of 65/66, he tells us "were about to rise like a Phoenix and flush the great white toilet of pop culture."

--Inventive coinages: "Scandihoovians."

--Oh my god puns: cultural expressions may be "hi-, lo-, or uni-brow."

--Internal rhyming: "The unk in the glam-junk, which ultimately is pre-punk, . . ." and "The Masses are asses that need better glasses. . .  ."

--Plays on cliché: some hepcats are "letting plenty o'kittens out of the bag."

--Rhetorical echoes: attitudes of some to drugs are a "picaresque of addict picturesgue."

--Sly ironic allusions: The Molly Bloom yeses of the collector's orgasmic reaction to a bargain at a record fair.

--Not so sly allusions: a prize record discovered is a "scratchy and worn Moby Dick harpooned by an Ahab with coffee-jitters."

­­--What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed: "The sacred ability to capture the anyday grit of everyday life and make it beautiful."

--What ne'er was thought, and ne'er expressed at all: " . . . insights of pure thunka-drum flatulent-fuzztone gnosis."

These are just a few examples, but if you like this kind of thing you'll like Brad Pitt's Dog.  If you like this kind of thing and you are into punk and collecting old records and fanzines of yore, you'll love it.  

Oh!  Brad's dog you ask?  In the essay on Dash Snow, Kugelberg talks about a photo of "a dog taking a crap" which only gains value and importance for some people when they learn that it's Brad Pitt's dog.  He sees this as the aesthetic fallacy of substituting the artist for the art.  I'm not sure I follow the logic, but who am I to argue.  

DVD Review:Norman Mailer: The American

It would probably be impossible to make an uninteresting documentary about the life of Norman Mailer, director Joe Mantegna's Norman Mailer: The American is not interesting.   It is absolutely fascinating.  Relying on a wealth of film of the never camera shy author himself interwoven with revealing commentary from wives and lovers, friends and enemies, he creates a  warts and all portrait of a complex man who at times managed to be a writer of genius, at times an egomaniacal reprobate.  For all his flaws, and there were many of them, he had the kind of personality that could infatuate some, infuriate others.  Those that loved him seemed to love him no matter what he might do; for those that hated him, he could do nothing worthwhile.

Mantegna begins with some information about Mailer's parents, his childhood, and even his early writing success with a prize winning short story while at Harvard, but the real focus of the film is the prominence that he achieved with his debut novel The Naked and the Dead, a book many people still consider his finest piece of work and his life and work until his death in 2007.  This is a man who had six wives, nine children, and who knows how many mistresses.  This is a man who managed to get a murderer freed from prison only to have him murder again, a who man stabbed his second wife and persuaded her not to press charges, a man who marched on Washington to end the Viet Nam War, and can be seen in a movie doing his best to bite off Rip Torn's ear.

There is a good deal about Mailer's writing.  "Why do I write?"  He has said: "Why did I start to write?  Because it was the only thing I was good at and I wanted to be more attractive to the girls." That's Mailer at his best, a little false modesty, a bit of a wink, and you know damn well he doesn't mean a word of it.  The critical failure of the novels he wrote after the phenomenal success of his first book left him seriously depressed.  He turned to journalism and non-fiction and in effect invented his own new genre for his reportage--History as a Novel/The Novel as History, creative non-fiction. He wrote about people and he wrote about events.  Eventually he returned to the novel, and once a again found acclaim. He won two Pulitzer Prizes and was still writing up to his death.  This is not a man who took his craft casually.

There is a good deal about his personal life.  His sexual peccadilloes are trotted out with gusto.  His brawls, both physical and intellectual, are itemized with special emphasis on the film of the fight with Torn and the contretemps with Gore Vidal on Dick Cavett's TV show.  His career as a political provocateur, from his anti-war activities to his race for mayor in New York, is illustrated.  He is shown in the context of the sweeping societal changes that were shaping the country in the latter half of the 20^th century.  The major figures and events of the period, whether the presidency of LBJ or the emergence of Muhammad Ali, are always cited to provide the background needed to understand how the times helped to make the man.

There are touching moments.  Mailer looks back on a copy of his bar mitzvah speech. His wife Adele reads from a letter he sent from the Pacific during the war.  There are moments that make you cringe.  His wife describes the crude language he used where his mother was bound to hear.  There is film of screaming quarrels with his fourth wife.  He can be witty and urbane.  He can be gross and boorish, but he can never be boring, and neither can any decent documentary of his life.  Montegna hasn't merely brought the man to the screen, he has brought him to life.

Cinema Libre's DVD runs 85 minutes.  Bonus features include the film's trailer, a gallery of letters from Mailer to his wife Adele, and some further interview material with Mailer. 

This article was first published at Blogcritics

Comedy Review: Reggie Watts: A Live at Central Park,

This article was first published at Blogcritics

Watching a comedian like Reggie Watt makes me feel like people of my age must have felt when they first heard the likes of Lenny Bruce or Andy Kauffman.  I mean if your idea of a comedian is Bob Hope or Jack Benny, what on earth are you going to make of these new voices, lauded and praised thought they be.  So along comes Comedy Central's CD/DVD set, Reggie Watts: A Live at Central Park, and I have to ask myself, am I the right person to review it?   I know that a lot of very bright people think of him as a major cutting edge talent.  I know that he as much praised for his musical talent as he is for his comic sensibility.  And I know that I am never quite sure that I get him.  I may find myself laughing at some of his bits, but when it comes right down to it, I'm not sure what's so funny about beat boxing nonsense syllables.

So having confessed my fears of inadequacy for the task at hand let me rush in where I ought fear to tread.   First, here are some of the basic facts about the new release. The set was recorded at Summerstage in Manhattan's Central Park on June 22, 2011.  The CD has 13 tracks.  The DVD has a selection of most of the same tracks plus added sketch sequences in which Watts' tries to determine if the Central Park performance is really a dream, or perhaps even a dream within a dream.  There will be a world premiere showing of I presume a censored version of the evening on Comedy Central on May 11, at 1:00am.  The CD/DVD combo will be released on May 15^th.

The set featuring the typical elements that Watts' fans have more than likely come to expect from him will not disappoint them.  There are the vocal gyrations, the beat boxing, the looping, even a little fancy footwork—all both comically absurd and musically inventive.  It's the kind of thing that wouldn't be funny in the hands of a musically inept performer, but that the musically talented Watts can turn into a tour de force.  It's the kind of thing his fans love; it is obvious in the audience reaction to the piece he calls "Reggiohead."  They know where he's going the minute he opens his mouth.  To show my age again: it makes me think of a performer like Victor Borge, whose ridicule of classical music and its performers worked because his own virtuosity was well recognized.

"Tweet Yourself Right" is an impromptu romp that begins with Zippos at concerts and moves to tissues near your computer screen and ends with social media. Going on for almost 12   presumably improvised minutes and showing off some sweet vocal gymnastics, this has to be one of the highlights of the evening. "Having Sex" is another nice piece. "So Good Yeah," a kind of Stevie Wonder take off which is only on the CD is a musical gem. The thing about Watts is that you never know where he's likely to go or how he's going to get there, you just have to sit back and enjoy the trip.

It's the same for the absurdist monologues like his dissertation on time which seems to mean something but that ends in utter nonsense and the little games he likes to play with the audience.  Sometimes, as in "Boroughs" it seems to go on too long before he decides where to take it, but once he gets going, he works it.  He does one of his patented British dialect rants starting with the craziness of performers, gives a nod to Adele and ends in absolute absurdity.  There is silliness, there is profanity, but there is also truth. 

A quarter of a century from now, some old codger will be listening to some new cutting edge comic, and he'll likely be thinking "watching this guy, I feel like someone my age must have felt watching Reggie Watts back in the day." 

Music Revew: Bill Evans- Bill Evans Live at Art D'Lugoff's Top of the Gate.

This article was first published at Blogcritics

The first time I ever had a chance to really listen to the Bill Evans Trio was back in 1961 when the Columbia Record Club sent me its monthly selection because I had forgotten to return the notification that I wanted some other record or nothing at all that month.  The record that arrived was Waltz For Debby. Certainly I must have heard some of Evans' work on some of the jazz radio shows, but I don't know that I ever really listened seriously.  As pianists went then, the names in my pantheon were Peterson, Brubeck, Shearing and the like.  Waltz For Debby arrived and with it the discovery of something that  more than a few jazz  lovers already knew—Bill Evans was an artist who could play with the best of them, and a good deal better than most.

So when over 50 years from the date of its recording a release of two live sets from an October, 1968 gig at the Top of the Gate, a recording that had had only been heard one time on the Columbia University radio show of George Klabin, now president of Resonance Records and the man who had managed to record it, becomes available, it has to be a cause for celebration.  This, of course, is not the original Evans trio that had played on Waltz For Debby.  Bassist Scott LaFaro had died in a car accident, and a drummer Paul Motian had left some time after.  Eddie Gomez eventually took over the bass and Marty Morell the drums, and this was to become the trio that was to play together through the end of the 60's and into the 70's.  This is the trio playing on the two disc release from Resonance: Bill Evans Live at Art D'Lugoff's Top of the Gate.

The only thing for fans to lament about this recording is that it took over 50 years to get it released.  Not only does it show the virtuosity of the individual musicians, it clearly demonstrates their collaborative dynamism.  Each disc features one complete set—nine tracks in the first set, eight in the second.  Three of the songs in the first set are repeated in the second ("Emily," the Jerome Kern "Yesterdays" and Monk's jazz classic "'Round Midnight") giving listeners an opportunity to compare the variations in the musician's performances on the same evening.  The only Evans original is his "Turn Out the Stars" which closes the first set, otherwise the sets are made up of some jazz standards and familiar tunes, with perhaps one or two representing some of the trio's earliest live and recorded versions of the songs. 

The first set features a swinging "Gone With the Wind" and an elegant take on "My Funny Valentine."  "Emily," which opens the set begins almost introspectively before taking off with some nice interaction between Evans and Morell.   "Witchcraft" has some inventive solo work from Evans and Gomez.  But if you're looking for some exceptional bass work,  "Autumn Leaves" in the second set is truly something special.  Indeed Gomez makes his presence felt through both sets.  Duke Ellington's "In a Sentimental Mood" is a sweet reading of the classic tune and "Someday My Prince Will Come" will make you forget Snow White, if not Miles Davis.  The set ends with a subtly moody "Here's That Rainy Day."  These are two sets that show convincingly that Evans, Gomez and Morell are at the top of their game.

The two disc set includes a 27 page booklet with a wealth of vintage photographs and essays and notes by producer Zev Feldman, jazz critic Nat Hentoff, and vibraphonist Gary Burton.  Gomez and Morell contribute some personal memories.  There are some notes from Klabin about the recording where he explains that Evans and the trio had not yet garnered the "respect" they were later to command, and that accounts for some of the background chatter that can be heard during the sets.  It may also account for the sometimes less than enthusiastic applause.  There is also a short piece on Art D'Lugoff and the Top of the Gate by his son Raphael.

All in all this set is a welcome addition to the Bill Evans discography.  Release is scheduled for June 12, 2012. Besides the two disc CD set, Resonance will be issuing a limited pressing of 3,000 hand numbered 3-LP vinyl box sets which will include the content from the CD booklet.  The music will also be available for downloading for those who prefer a digital version.

Music Review: Bill Evans Trio - Moonbeams

This article was first published at Blogcritics
(Note: A comment on Blogcritics says the name of the album should read Moom Beams.  As a matter of fact the CD has it both ways.)

May will be a good month for fans of pianist Bill Evans' trios.  A two disc set of a previously unreleased 1968 gig, Bill Evans Live at Art D'Lugoff's Top of the Gate is due out from Resonance records, and Jazz Classics is releasing a remastered edition of his 1962 studio recording, Moonbeams.  Moonbeams was the first recording Evans made with his new trio after a period of depression following the accidental death of his first trio's bassist, Scott LaFaro in June of '61.  Drummer Paul Motian was still on board, and Chuck Israels replaced what many thought was the irreplaceable LaFaro.  It and one other, How My Heart Sings!, were the only two albums recorded by this second trio, which soon gave way to the trio—Eddie Gomez on bass and Marty Morell on drums--that played together into the '70's.

An all ballad album, Moonbeams capitalizes on Evans' lyric sensitivity, but producer Orrin Keepnews, according to Doug Ramsey's liner notes for the remastered release, worried that the "steady dose of slower tempos" might make the band lethargic, had them intersperse up tempo pieces throughout the sessions.     He needn't have worried; Evans is a master at playing with tempos.  According to Israels: "The rhythms are more sophisticated, more inventive, more creative than almost any other jazz musician I know."  Turns out there were enough of these faster tunes for the second album.

The original album had eight tracks and included two of Evans' original compositions.  The new release includes alternate takes of three pieces as bonus tracks. It opens with Evans' "Re: Person I Knew" which according to the original liner notes was meant as an anagram of the producer's name, although the tense of the verb seems to have been changed to protect the spelling.   While Evans work is often compared to the 19^th century Impressionist composers, it's haunting opening reminds me a lot of Erik Satie, as do a lot of other moments on the CD. The other Evans composition is the waltz time "Very Early" which closes the album.  While the waltz is not typical jazz fare, in Evans' hand you have to wonder why that should be.

In between there is a stunning version of "Polka Dots and Moonbeams," for my money the highlight of the album.  It is Evans at his lyrical best.  And the rest of the set is equally fine.  "I Fall in Love Too Easily" is followed by a powerful take on "Stairway to the Stars" which is given a bit of a bluesy vibe. "If You Could See Me Now," "It Might as Well Be Spring, and "In Love in Vain" round out the album.  The bonus tracks are alternate takes of "Polka Dots and Moonbeams," "I Fall in Love Too Easily," and "Very Early."

Nat Hentoff quotes Bill Evans as saying: "It bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual theorem.  It's not.  It's feeling."  There have certainly been those who have made it their business to analyze just what it is that he does that makes him such a great pianist.  He is after all the very model of what you might call a pianist's pianist.  Certainly he is technically adroit, but a lot of people are technically adroit.  As he says, what makes a great pianist, what makes him a great pianist is the feeling.  Evans in his trademark position leaning over the keyboard seemed to audiences to become almost at one with his instrument.  He feels the instrument.  He feels  the music.

Music Review: Drunksouls - Revolution

This article was first published at Blogcritics

Perhaps what makes Revolution the second album from eclectic French indie reggae rock band Drunksouls so revolutionary, its intelligent humor, is at least partially if not completely lost on an English speaking audience because some of the 16 tracks are in French.  It may be chauvinistic on my part to suggest that a French band ought to sing everything in English,, but it is difficult if not impossible to get the full effects of humor if you have no idea what the lyrics mean.  That said, when the lyrics are in English, it becomes fairly easy to see that this is a band with an almost surreal sense of the absurdities of life.  Unfortunately, it just makes the sense that you are missing something valuable because of your linguistic ignorance worse, and you begin to wonder about what you think you do understand. 

On the other hand, if you simply let the music flow—this is a band that will have you up and dancing.  They have an almost hypnotic sound that contrasts with the edgier lyrical content, even when the English only handicapped can understand them.  Take a song like "Human Race."  The lyric talks about looming darkness and the vacuum of life, but the music is absolutely bouncy and joyful.  In a sense the conflict between the music and the lyric defines the conflict in the voice of the song.  The blatantly un-erotic sexuality of "Lust" is another example of the same kind of contrast, although  here the beat is less joyful and more insistent.  Just to call a song with a kind of sentimental pop hook "Happy Death Day" suggests the kind of ironic sensibility that defines the album. 

Songs like "Africa," "Revolution" and "The End" suggest that the band has a socially conscious political agenda as well.  "Africa" begins with the joyful sounds of children playing and laughing and launches into an Afro-pop anthem with very dark overtones, despite its infectious rhythms.  "Revolution," on the other hand, has an almost other worldly opening that gives way to a kind of punk rant.  "The End" opens with a dark jazzy vibe that emphasizes its lyric darkness before merging into something with an almost spiritual quality.

In over an hour's worth of music there really isn’t a bad track on this album.  The fact that it bothers me that I can’t understand the lyrics of songs like "J'ai fait un rêve," "L'amour diététique" and even the seemingly English friendly titled "Sullivan Story," is testament to how good the music is.  If  the music wasn't so captivating, I more than likely wouldn't care what those French lyrics really meant.