podcasts

Here we are, back on a fairly regular schedule. I knew we could do it. A few quick things before the show notes though.

First, we’re still not rated in iTunes. That means not enough listeners have gone to the enormous trouble of clicking on the appropriate number of stars. So please, if you have a split second, give us a grade on how you think we’re doing. If you have more than a split second, maybe even write a review?

We also came up with a great idea on the fly while recording this episode. Instead of us being the only ones talking, if we let you know some of the things we might discuss on the next episode, people would have a chance to check out them out ahead of time and write in thoughts or questions for us to discuss. So if you want to play along for episode 7, potential topics include :

The Beatles: Rock Band

Big Fan

The Magicians by Lev Grossman

Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith

If you’d like to join the conversation, you can always leave comments here, or email brian@under-culture.com with questions, opinions, etc. This week was our first listener email and it made for some fun conversation, so we’d love to have a few more.

We hope you enjoy this week’s episode…

Download The Under Culture Podcast: #6 - I Would Cross a Clown

Subscribe in iTunes for automatic updates.

(Show notes below…)

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side notes

We here at Under Culture are all in favor of new technology. We’re on the Twitter. We dig the DVR. We play online games. Have you heard our podcast? New media is fun. It expands on what’s possible, and for art, that’s a good thing.

Someone still needs to explain the idea of motion comics though, mostly because it doesn’t seem to create new possibilities for art as much as it does for commerce. Sure, it’s one more place to sell a book — I can hear the marketing department now, saying, “We gotta get ‘em on the iPhone! The iTunes! The HuluTube!” — but in all honesty, how does this serve anyone but their accountants?

I mention this because one of my favorite series of the past few years, Joss Whedon and John Cassaday’s Astonishing X-Men, is getting the motion comic treatment next month. And I have to say I’m less than thrilled.

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watching

Robert Siegel made a name for himself by writing last year’s low-budget powerhouse, The Wrestler. Helped by Darren Aronofsky’s skillful direction and an outstanding performance by Mickey Rourke, that film movingly portrayed how someone might continue to love something even as it slowly destroys him. For washed-up wrestler Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson, the high of performing is akin to a drug. Despite the pain, the scars, and the shitty pay, we can almost see why he does it; it’s the only thing he truly loves, has ever been good at, and which makes him feel like he’s worth a damn. His passion for wrestling may have turned him into “a broken down piece of meat”, but it’s also what’s sustained him for this long, and he’d rather burn out in the spotlight than fade away in the shadows.

Though the story of a crumbling sports star is both heartbreaking and powerful, it’s not something everyday sports fans can relate to on a personal level. Same for fans of film, music, competitive Donkey Kong playing, or anything else. Stories like The Wrestler fascinate us precisely because most of us will never feel the high of performing for a roaring crowd. We’ll never know what it’s like to be adored for our talent. Most of us are at the other end of the equation, among the throngs that pledge that love to our favorite entertainers.

By focusing on the outsiders’ perspective, Big Fan is like the flip side to The Wrestler: a story of what it means to unconditionally love something bigger than ourselves. Where The Ram’s story is about an addiction to life in the spotlight, Paul Aufiero’s is about a working class brand of loyalty that looks an awful lot like religion, and all the contradictions that entails.

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podcasts

After a long summer vacation hiatus we finally recorded our fifth episode. That was two weeks ago. Some sort of evil Garageband spirit was haunting the computer and screwed our audio up irreparably, so now we’re actually back with a fully functioning new podcast. It’s been tough on all our fans, we know.

This episode we cover off on a few summer movies you might have missed that are worth seeing, have a lengthy discussion on a few popular books, examine the possible decline of a favorite band, and gush over a game we can’t stop playing.

We hope you enjoy our triumphant return, and if you like what you hear, review us in iTunes. If you’d like to join the conversation, you can always leave comments, or email brian@under-culture.com with suggestions, questions, etc. We’d love to get some listener feedback or opinions to discuss on future episodes.

Download The Under Culture Podcast: #5 - It’s Not A Party If You’re By Yourself

Subscribe in iTunes for automatic updates.

(Show notes below…)

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watching

The egotistical boss? Turns out he’s irresistible once he shows his sensitive side. The clever artsy guy treats a lady better than the overly-masculine alpha male? Hard to believe, I know. And the wholesome childhood friend-slash-doormat who was always there with a shoulder to cry on? Real soul mate material. How could we have missed it? Then around the 100-minute mark everyone drops their misconceptions and goes running to reclaim their destinies, with a slapstick pratfall or wacky cab driver gag thrown in for good measure. Everything works out, credits roll, please dispose of your empty popcorn buckets in the provided receptacles.

The conventional wisdom is that serious film fanatics (largely geeky males) rarely give a thought to these cookie-cutter Hollywood romantic comedies unless coerced to do so by the women in their lives. But even girls with film-geek cred — that sought-after dream woman who’s into foreign films, has actual fashion sense, and should theoretically know better — still seem to have a weak spot for these confections. So can even the snootiest of movie snobs escape them outright if they ever hope to land a woman?

The old reprieve for us serious film goers looking for bearable date movies were of a very specific style: standard story arcs wrapped in strong creative sensibility. That could mean an ironic sense of humor (Reality Bites), a more artful execution (Before Sunrise, Amelie), or even combined with another genre altogether (see Grosse Pointe Blank’s ‘hitman falls in love’, not The Time Traveler’s Wife’s ’sci-fi meets harlequin novel’. Nice try, Rachel McAdams!). They’re still all about finding love in [cue movie trailer voice] “The Unlikeliest of Places,” but at least these films have enough personality to prevent the deep shame those of us with standards would feel at sitting through, say, The Ugly Truth.

Luckily for us, in the last few years a spin-off genre has taken shape in contrast to conventional rom-coms. Instead of formulaic films about stock starlets finding their perfect match, a slew of smarter, more stylish takes on romance give movie snobs something they can get mushy over without the guilt. After all, we like love stories too. It just so happens we prefer them with a bit more substance.

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side notes

Most film buffs would agree; a new Coen Brothers movie is always something to get excited about. Despite a few missteps now and then (and this from a guy who even liked Intolerable Cruelty), they’re guaranteed at the very least to deliver a unique vision. No other films quite look or sound like the Coen Brothers’ work. One might think that after an Oscar nod for No Country for Old Men, and a more star-studded turn in Burn After Reading, they’d be tempted to veer away from the eccentric style that’s won them such fan loyalty.

The recently released trailer for A Serious Man knocks those concerns right out of your stupid head.

Right on the verge of more mainstream success, they release this: a strange, sad story of a man who’s losing it. Obviously it’s hard to tell much from a creatively-edited two minute teaser. But what we do get to see doesn’t signify a pedestrian film, or even one that’s simply good storytelling with their own brand of quirky characters on the level of an O Brother or Fargo. This looks like full-on hyper-real misanthropy in the style of Barton Fink, with maybe a little bit of Lebowski weirdness thrown in. Can you imagine Falling Down as envisioned by the Coen Brothers? I can, and it fascinates me. We’ll see how it ends up on October 2nd.

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watching

For those who saw our recent post about The State coming to DVD and thought, “Hey, I should go pick that up,” or even, “I’ve never seen that show, I should check it out,” — well, we have some good news.

Under Culture is happy to be offering two The State DVD prize packs, which include:

1. The State Complete Series on DVD
   That’s four whole seasons of comedy goodness, and an additional disc with hours of extra features.
2. A The State T-shirt
   To impress the ladies and/or gentlemen who know good comedy and good fashion when they see it.
3. A signed The State poster
   Because framing the DVDs and putting them on the wall would be terribly impractical.

To enter, just leave your favorite quote and/or sketch from The State in the comments section (and be sure to use your real email address).

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watching

In a season known for all things huge — budgets, celebrities, marketing, even explosions — two of the season’s best films go the opposite route. Not just because they’re more highbrow or too indie to afford all those things, though that’s certainly true as well. But more importantly, because the smaller scale actually makes them better movies.

In one of my all-time favorite Q&A quotes, after an AFI screening of The Empire Strikes Back, director Irvin Kershner was asked to compare that movie with the later prequels. Tactfully, he focused on how the limitations they faced in bringing Yoda to life as a character forced them to work all the harder to give him presence and personality, and contrasted that with the limitless digital canvas of its follow-ups. The implication being that in the end all the wizardry of ILM can still leave you cold, whereas a brilliantly acted puppet can deliver a piercing performance. The same holds true even in a non-blockbuster like Children of Men, where the few enormous sequences end up being the most memorable moments. The intimacy we feel with the characters is dwarfed by our personal reaction to the incredible world on screen.

The Hurt Locker and Moon, both smaller budgets and smaller scale stories, get so much more out of so much less by brutally focusing on their subjects. What sticks with you aren’t the precisely choreographed action sequences or epic set pieces. What resonates are the moments of human vulnerability: confusion, fear, despair. That’s what makes them much more powerful works. That’s not to say there isn’t a place for the big bad blockbuster. But behind the Terminators and Transformers dominating billboards around town, a few excellent character dramas are working a lot harder with a lot less, and shouldn’t be missed if you’re lucky enough to find them at your local multiplex.

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side notes

[Editor's Note: Apologies for the slow month here on Under Culture; the onset of summer has kept us out celebrating America, vacationing, etc. Here are a handful of interesting bits for now, and we'll return with more full articles and podcasts by the end of the month.]

The problem with being a non-professional fan/critic during LA Film Fest is that as someone with a day job, a lot of the afternoon or evening screenings aren’t feasible. Then, of the showings that are at night or on weekends, several potentially great films play in the same time slots. Probably my biggest regret was not being able to catch Big Fan, showing at the same time as In The Loop (which was also wonderful).

If you still haven’t heard of it, Big Fan follows a hard-core NY Giants fan, played by Patton Oswalt, with no life outside his fandom. Shitty job, living with his mom, obsessively calling in to sports talk radio. Sounds like a sad nothing of a movie, until a run-in with one of the team’s stars brings him into the spotlight, with a shot at fame and fortune he may or may not want to take.

Though the premise still might not sound that exciting, there are three major reasons I was so eager to see this film last month, and excited to get the chance soon:

1) Patton Oswalt in a non-comedy role. Since he’s a self-professed comic nerd playing a sports junkie, I can’t wait to see how this turns out. Especially since I suspect there are some acting chops somewhere under the brilliant stand-up performances. His comedy already involves a lot of dramatic storytelling, but seeing him as a character so different from the one he plays most — himself — will be fascinating if he delivers. His likeable everyday-guy persona in a role where a sad everyday guy’s life gets put in an insane situation could be pretty riveting.

2) Written and directed by Robert Siegel, writer of The Wrestler. One of the most intimate, honest character stories in years, and definitely one of last year’s best films, The Wrestler was an impressive display of talent. Another equally moving, brutally honest personal story is what it will take to make Big Fan something powerful. If he succeeds, we may have a new writer to watch.

3) Not another shitty sports movie. The market is flooded with ‘the inspirational true story of a team that overcame the odds’-type movies. We don’t need more of those (another season of Friday Night Lights will do just fine, thanks). But how many movies examine the strange, somewhat pathetic relationship of super-fans to the teams they love in a real way? This is a story I haven’t seen and am interested in. And no, De Niro as The Fan doesn’t count.

Enjoy the trailer below, and look out for the film in theaters in September.

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side notes

For better or worse, we’re in the midst of a vampire renaissance (again). These things come in waves, it would seem, with Buffy and Anne Rice adaptations having their little heyday in the late 90’s, and now a new resurgence of people trying to remake the legend with their own modern spins. Twilight seems laughable — especially coming from Stephanie “I’ve never read Dracula or seen an R-rated movie” Meyer. Their baseball games and sparkling and (on film at least) atrocious emo hair are like garlic and holy water to any self-respecting horror fan. True Blood’s ‘coming out’ premise and its parallels with southern intolerance are intriguing, but the dialogue is written and delivered so cornily it’s hard to sit through on a weekly basis. Both rewrite the traditional rules to varying degrees, which would be acceptable, if only the liberties taken were put to better use.

The recent Swedish film, Let the Right One In, goes the opposite route by sticking to basics, and creating fascination out of characters instead of reinvention — in this case, a 12-year-old girl vampire and her only human friend. More importantly, that film doesn’t rely on weak-sauce ‘vampire integration’ for its setup, not trying to take away the fairly central part of making vampires entertaining, i.e., that they fucking eat people. Sure, the sexualization of vampire-human relationships is canon, but the tragedy is somewhat blunted when they also have to attend to mortal tedium like household chores, social functions or showing up for algebra class; no one’s afraid of Count von Count.

Luckily there are still stories to be told about vampires that don’t involve castrating them in the process. Daybreakers, due in January (trailer below), carves out an interesting take on the modern vampire myth without de-fanging the monster. In this world, most of the humans are now vampires, and those left with good old-fashioned blood pumping through their veins are captured and harvested. Instead of vampires as a metaphor for struggles with abstinence or racism, Daybreakers uses them as a lens to explore diminishing natural resources and even factory farming. Most importantly, they’re still kind of evil, and when a band of still-free humans starts fighting back, one can extrapolate that shit goes down. Ethan Hawke, Sam Neill, and Willem DaFoe turning up in an action-horror film is encouraging, too; maybe this story will be more cerebral, closer to a Gattaca than an Underworld. Lord knows in the face of New Moon, we grown-ups could use a smart vampire story to balance the teen trash that’ll be everywhere this fall. Obviously it’s too soon to judge, but based on a single trailer, at least there’s hope that vampires aren’t relegated to soap opera status for good.

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