step and repeat

Ya know those times when you walk out of your apartment on a cold-ish type day, where the sun is just starting to shine through a gray morning, just enough that you put on your sunglasses not to look cool but maybe to just to protect yourself, and you have a converse feeling of solitude before you become enveloped by the city and all you want is something other than your own self-awareness, your own self-analysis to do all the work for you, to be like "hey, this is how you're feeling right now and if it's not how you're feeling I'm going to make you feel this way because you sometimes don't have a fucking clue what to feel" and what that something is is a song that comes on in a moment of kismet timing so you just go with it and it feels good, really good, to just get lost in something, even if it's just on the walk to the subway station and even if it kind of hurts at least you know if it hurts something is working and everything isn't covered in scars where only phantoms get the last laugh?

these are those songs:

allow me ruminate, dammit.

How hot is this poster?!

I originally had no plans to take to my blog to talk about New Moon, because -- while I'm finally OK with admitting I'm a Twihard -- I didn't want to contribute to the collective Twitteratti that is making everyone else want to put a gun in their mouths.

Nevertheless, this is my blog, and I need to realize that it's perfectly fine to indulge my obsessions so long as they don't become destructive and/or all consuming (thanks for go-ahead, Dr. Kelly!). That being said, I'm simply going to expound on Twilight v. New Moon. This isn't review so much as observation; so observe me observing.

Given I saw New Moon two times in 24 hours, I can't say I didn't like the movie. I obviously did. I know how to walk into a movie like this and reduce my critical eye to that of an untreated, nearly blind syphilitic (STD reference is intentional and appropriate), able to enjoy spoonful after spoonful of schmultz because, look, there's pleasure in the lowbrow if you just get over your ego for a couple of hours. And so I "eee!"-d a bit when the title came across the screen; I clapped when Edward did his first slow-motion walk across the school parking towards Bella; I gaped and then cried when Jacob took off his shirt; I snapped my fingers and said "Yeah, bitch!" when Dakota Fanning was all "Pain." You watch for moments like these that speak do your immature whims, not Oscars and accolades.

Still, if I have to be comparatively critical, I liked Twilight better, and here's where I'm going to get all first-year-film-major on you. There are moments when New Moon certainly exceeds Twilight. The overall scope of the story is more easily managed by Chris Weitz. That is to say he's able to take the remarkability of vampires and wolves and capture it with more technical savoir faire. It just felt like a bigger, meatier movie with him at the helm. However (and this is a big however), I really really missed Hardwicke's direction when it came to the emotion of the story. One of the reasons I was unable to stop watching Twilight over and over again was due to her ability to take the complexities of teenage emotion and attraction and desire and channel them through Bella's experience. Across the board, any emotion a teenager has is going to be affected by some type of angst, and no one does adolescent angst better than Hardwicke. Watch 20 minutes of Hardwicke's raw masterpiece, Thirteen, and you'll understand that. So when I saw New Moon, I just couldn't help but wonder what she would have done with Bella's gyre of despair post-Edward walk-out. And even Bella's recovery at the hands of Jacob would have been more treated, more palpably wearisome and painful. Hardwicke noted in the commentary of Twilight that she inserted a lot of Thirteen-type shots and scene set-ups that were, for me, really effective in conveying the story. And while she got a few knocks for having a directorial style that was too narrowed and sometimes careless, I actually felt it worked in the movie. The fact that she would approach certain scenes with a "let's-just-film-and-see-where-it-goes" mentality made for a movie who's instabilities only enhanced the themes of the books and the nature of teenage main characters. I'll cite the first time Bella comes to The Cullens in Twilight, when we get the whole dancing in Edward's room/climbing through pine trees/Edward playing the piano to example how she can seriously set a mood and capture sensibility.

It's a pity Hardwicke never got her shot at New Moon, but given her lack of experience with CGI, it could have been an embarrassing disaster. When it's all said and done she got to introduce the world to what will -- lamentably, perhaps -- become one of the greatest love stories ever told. Weitz did an OK job with his turn, but I'm glad there will be some new blood in Eclipse with David Slade, who directed 30 Days of Night, where vampires looked like this:



So if anyone is going to bring a darker, more mature element to this franchise, it's going to be Slade. Let's hope for an epic werewolves + The Cullens v. new vampire army battle.

Seth

The Big Pink is My New Therapy

Why I thought a Sunday night would be appropriate for a viewing of the mind-liquifyingly horrifying House of the Devil, I have no idea, especially considering I hate scary movies. Alas, I found myself hunkered down in the Angelika Theater mentally preparing for what was sure to be almost two hours of sheer terror. And it was, OK? I cowered. I covered my eyes. I jumped. I shrieked. I nearly wept. But I don’t want to talk about it, alright? Because if I talk about it I...look, I’M NOT GOING TO TALK ABOUT IT!

But, what I am going to talk about is The Big Pink. What I love about the Angelika Theater is their dedication not only to little-engine-that-could movies, but also indie music that deserves to be heard. Before previews start they’re always running those fun trivia/factoid reels with featured music playing on top. On Sunday night, one of those featured bands was The Big Pink. The playlist had to loop through a couple of times before I started to take notice of their single, “Dominoes,” that was playing amid other tracks. I jotted down their name in my moleskin and, later that night, looking for something—anything—to ease my mind after what I’d just watched, I downloaded their debut album, A Brief History of Love, which dropped back in September. I owe my post-House of the Devil-sanity in part to British duo Robbie Furze and Milo Cordell for creating so cohesive an album and sound that I was able to fully get lost in it, momentarily forgetting that not half an hour prior I’d seen a deformed satanic old lady bleeding from her eyes.

Beyond the unstoppably catchy “Dominoes” is a collection of songs that reminds me of Animal Collective—distorted noise, synthetic riffs, doctored voices—only better, more focused with the right kind of intention of heavy beats, consistent tempos, and hooks I can actually get behind. “Crystal Visions” starts things off beautifully and “Velvet” kicks in mid-album just when you need it. Two days later and I’ve still got ABHOL on repeat, definitely for the sound…but also just to maybe get me back to that place before I’d seen House of the Devil.

—Seth Plattner, Assistant Editor

via ELLE.com

currently with Seth Plattner

Reading: Lolita

Song of the moment: "Dominoes" The Big Pink

Albums on repeat: A Brief History of Love, Lost Channels, Glee, The Music: Volume 1

Phrase I'm Using Too Much: "of the what?"

Over it: regret

Girl Crush: Carrey Mulligan

obsession: Frosted Flakes!