The Movies of 2014, Volume IV

Last week, we focused entirely on movies that I either flat-out loved or liked very, very much. Hey, 30 very-good-to-great movies in one year is nothing to sneeze at, especially when you consider how many are still out there that I’m looking forward to catching up with (especially Whiplash, Birdman, Big Eyes and Selma, so if you’re wondering when they’re going to show up, they’re not going to).

This week is going to be a little different. Don’t get me wrong, I liked all ten of today’s movies to varying degrees. But in some cases, I didn’t love them the way a lot of other folks seemed to. So if I spend more time talking about what I didn’t like about them, forgive me. These are all fine movies and don’t let me discourage you from checking them out. But don’t be mad if your favorite movie of 2014 wasn’t my favorite movie.

Dom Hemingway

This was fun. Jude Law is excellent and is clearly having a good time as a washed-up, egomaniacal safecracker trying to get back on his feet. And it’s been way too long since we’ve seen the indispensible Richard E. Grant in a role this good. It may be a little too indebted to Guy Ritchie’s early movies but it’s still entertaining.

The Lego Movie

Although I ended up enjoying this movie, I never entirely got over my initial negative reaction to the mercenary nature of this project. This is absolutely the best-case scenario for a movie that is, let’s be honest here, a feature-length commercial for Legos. It really is. At the end of the day, it should be placed at the opposite end of the spectrum of Mac And Me (representing the worst-case scenario of a feature-length commercial). Exceeding expectations doesn’t impress me much when those expectations were less than zero.

Jodorowsky’s Dune

It may surprise some people that this documentary didn’t rank higher on my list. It’s extremely well done and the story of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s unmade version of Dune deserved to be told. In this case, it’s not the movie, it’s me. I already knew a lot about this project and the movie didn’t really reveal anything I hadn’t heard before. And it’s great to see the artwork and hear from the people involved but I could have done with a bit less talk from people who weren’t directly associated with it discussing its influence.

Gloria

When American actresses complain that there aren’t enough good roles for actresses over 40 or 50, this is the kind of movie they’re saying they’d like to see more of. Naturally, it comes from Chile, not the US. Paulina Garcia is excellent as the title character, an over-50 divorcee who spends her evenings at singles mixers. The movie is occasionally a bit slow-going but the final scene is transcendent.

Stranger By The Lake

A secluded gay cruising spot is the ideal setting for a Hitchcockian thriller. Everyone in this movie could be the title character. Anonymity is the whole point. Franck falls for a handsome guy named Michel but Michel’s current boyfriend is extremely jealous. After Franck witnesses the boyfriend’s maybe-maybe-not-accidental death, he hooks up with Michel anyway, despite (or because of) the danger. Writer/director Alain Guiraudie takes his time but succeeds in creating a sultry and dangerously atmospheric film.

Obvious Child 

Indie dramedies about struggling twenty-somethings trying to find their place in the world can often remind me of the worst parts of going to college. And Gillian Robespierre’s movie about an aspiring stand-up (Jenny Slate) coming to terms with an unplanned pregnancy occasionally comes close to disappearing up its own navel. But by the end, the movie reveals itself to be a sharply observed and level-headed portrait of a talented and funny young woman and I had been won over.

Gone Girl

I think David Fincher is a fairly overrated filmmaker in general, so it shouldn’t come as a great surprise that this one didn’t exactly wow me. And I thought Gillian Flynn’s novel was an OK page-turner (up until the ending, which I really disliked). To me, this was just an OK adaptation of an OK book, really no more remarkable than 80s and 90s thrillers like Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct. Although I do have to give it up for Kim Dickens, who I thought was great as Detective Boney, and this is by far the best Tyler Perry movie I’ve ever seen.

Locke

Tom Hardy is one of the most magnetic actors to hit movies in a long time. I doubt many other people could have carried off Steven Knight’s daring drama, which is just Hardy driving a car for 85 minutes, on the phone trying to put out a wide range of fires on what may be the most trying evening of his life. Knight and Hardy can’t quite sustain the premise entirely but the fact that the movie is compelling at all is pretty impressive.

Under The Skin

I was hoping to like this a lot more than I did. Scarlett Johansson gives an impressive performance and director Jonathan Glazer creates an impressively eerie, otherworldly mood. Some have likened it to Kubrick but it struck me as more of a Man Who Fell To Earth vibe. But the movie’s glacial pace worked against it, at least for me. I feel like I got the point about halfway through and while I kept expecting there to be more to it, at the end, there was just no there there. Not bad but pretty disappointing.

The Interview

After all of the sturm und drang surrounding the release of this movie, it would be nice to report that Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg and James Franco had really upped their game and crafted a biting satire for the ages. Of course they did not. I like Seth Rogen and I feel bad that his goofball little movie caused such a fuss that it could never possibly live up to. I got some laughs from this but not as many as I’d hoped. I’ll give Rogen and Goldberg one thing, however. I admire them for continuing to develop their own unique visual style. A lot of comedy filmmakers go their entire careers without even thinking about it. I appreciate that Rogen and Goldberg are making comedies that don’t look like comedies.

We’re down to the last two entries! Tomorrow, I’ll take a look at the disappointments and meh’s of 2014. Then come back Wednesday for the movies I simply did not like. That’s always a fun one.

The Movies of 2014, Volume III

Who’s ready for another round? Let’s see what ended up in slots #21-30 on my personal ranking of the various kinetoscopes and peep shows of 2014.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Critics may have gotten a little bit carried away when they started comparing this Marvel sequel to the great conspiracy thrillers of the 1970s. Don’t get me wrong, it’s very good. It just maybe isn’t Parallax View-good. Regardless, this is a superior follow-up and a terrifically entertaining superhero movie that did an excellent job broadening and shaking up the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And Chris Evans deserves a lot of praise for his work as Cap, taking what could be a one-dimensional character and instilling it with a great sense of purpose and soul.

Joe

It may be hard to believe these days but the Academy did not hand Nicolas Cage a Best Actor Oscar as a prank. David Gordon Green’s rural drama reminds us what Cage is capable of when he actually gives a damn. He’s remarkable as an alcoholic ex-con who just wants to be left alone until he becomes a reluctant mentor to a teenager who’s even worse off than himself. Green captures the low-income environment extremely well and it’s a little scary how seamlessly Cage blends into it.

Godzilla

Expectations for another Americanized Godzilla movie couldn’t possibly have been lower, which certainly helped make this a nice surprise. But Gareth Edwards delivered an extremely fun kaiju movie with a solid (and arguably overqualified) cast giving the proceedings gravitas. I’m looking forward to a return trip to Monster Island.

Nymphomaniac: Vol. I

Like I said in part one of this series, this movie doesn’t really stand on its own merits without its companion piece. It’s an interesting journey but you don’t discover the destination until Vol. II. But it’s definitely a compelling set-up that makes you want to see the rest. And Uma Thurman deserves some sort of MVP award for her brief but unforgettable appearance in this.

Alan Partridge

Steve Coogan’s most famous character comes to the big screen in this somewhat disposable but often hilarious adventure (titled Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa everywhere in the world except here). The good news is that if you aren’t familiar with Partridge, this is a pretty decent introduction to the character that’ll probably make you want to track down his TV appearances. It’s no classic but it’s a much better TV-to-film transition than, say, Ali G Indahouse.

X-Men: Days Of Future Past

First Class was the kind of reinvigorating fresh start that gives reboots a good name. Bringing all the X-Men, past, present and future, together into one super-colossal epic was an ambitious move that mostly paid off. It offers some of the year’s best superhero setpieces and entertaining character bits. The movie’s biggest flaw may be that its mythology is getting a little too convoluted at this point. It doesn’t seem like you should have to do so much homework just to enjoy an X-Men movie.

Ida

An orphaned girl raised in a convent is forced to postpone taking her vows when she learns her real family history from an aunt she never knew she had. Directed by Pawel Pawlikowski and shot in stunning black and white, the film takes you on a journey into the heart of identity and family. It’s an impressive work, deserving of its recent Oscar nominations.

Ernest & Celestine

A lot of the most interesting animated movies these days are coming from overseas. This gentle French movie about the unlikely friendship between a bear and a young mouse pairs lovely hand-drawn animation with a clever, imaginative story. The movie gets dangerously close to being too soft-spoken for its own good but at its best, this is a winning and engaging family film.

Neighbors

Seth Rogen certainly had an interesting year, didn’t he? I wasn’t really expecting much from this raucous comedy about a war between would-be cool dad Rogen and frat boy Zac Efron. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get some big laughs out of this. Rogen and Rose Byrne are a believable and very funny couple and Efron (who honestly I knew more by name than his actual work prior to this) is a terrific foil.

The Missing Picture

On the opposite end of the fun spectrum is this Cambodian documentary from director Rithy Panh. Using carved figurines and miniature sets, Panh tells the harrowing story of growing up under the regime of Pol Pot in the 70s. It’s an innovative, dark but compelling film worth seeking out.

I’ll be back on Monday with ten more that I liked but didn’t love, then it’s on to the year’s disappointments and stinkers. Stick around, the worst is yet to come.

The Movies of 2014, Volume II

Let’s continue looking back at 2014 with #11-20 on my personal list of faves. There’s still plenty of good stuff here to load up your Netflix queue. We won’t start getting to the real duds for awhile yet.

Coherence

You don’t need a lot of money to make a smart, gripping science fiction movie. Shane Carruth proved that with Primer and Upstream Color. This year, James Ward Byrkit followed in his footsteps with this twisty thriller about a dinner party gone seriously haywire. I wasn’t sure where this was headed for quite awhile. Even after I started to figure out what was going to happen, I had a great time seeing if I’d be proven correct or not.

The Lunchbox

Maybe last year’s most pleasant surprise, this is a gentle, extremely winning romance. Nimrat Kaur stars as a lonely wife trying to capture her emotionally distant husband’s attention by making him a special lunch. But the lunchbox is delivered to the wrong address, ending up in the hands of widowed Irrfan Khan. Soon, a friendship blossoms between the two via handwritten notes. Ritesh Batra directs this lovely little sleeper.

Boyhood

Richard Linklater’s 12-years-in-the-making intimate epic is absolutely a remarkable accomplishment. I didn’t exactly fall in love with it like everybody else seemed to. It gets better as it goes along but the first hour definitely feels like Linklater is trying to figure out what story he’s telling. I’m sure in this case he really was but most of his movies feel like that to me. But at its best, Boyhood provides some of the year’s most powerful and emotional moments.

Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes

Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes was one of the best franchise reboots I’d ever seen. Despite this, I didn’t dare get my hopes too high that lightning could strike twice. But Matt Reeves pulled it off capably with eye-popping visual effects, thrilling action and a bracingly grim tone. The bar for the next installment has been set very high.

Witching And Bitching

Alex de la Iglesia, Spain’s maddest filmmaker, returns with a movie that couldn’t possibly be the work of anybody else. A jewel heist performed by Jesus Christ, a plastic soldier (or men disguised as them, anyway) and a young boy goes awry and the crooks take it on the lam, ending up in a house owned by three generations of witches. This movie starts off over the top but somehow manages to keep turning corners and find new levels of crazy to climb.

Bethlehem

A complex and compelling Israeli drama that does a remarkable job of illuminating the friction between the Palestinians and the Israelis through the story of an Israeli Secret Service officer and his young Palestinian informant. It’s both a tension-filled spy thriller and a gripping drama and well-worth seeking out.

The Trip To Italy

Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon are back, eating sumptuous meals, staying in beautiful hotels and engaging in frequently hilarious conversation. Not quite as good as the first Trip but so much fun that it almost doesn’t matter.

The Immigrant

James Gray’s period drama went mostly unnoticed for some reason, which is a shame because it’s actually quite good. Marion Cotillard is excellent as a Polish immigrant who reluctantly becomes a prostitute under the thumb of Joaquin Phoenix to provide for her sister, quarantined on Ellis Island. Back in the 70s, this kind of well-mounted, intelligent production was commonplace. It deserved a wider audience.

Night Moves

Kelly Reichardt’s films are very deliberately paced but if you stick with them, they’re extremely rewarding. Jesse Eisenberg, Peter Sarsgaard and a virtually unrecognizable Dakota Fanning are eco-terrorists whose sabotage of a dam leads to unexpected consequences. Not Reichardt’s best work but never less than engaging.

Visitors

Godfrey Reggio’s latest and most challenging work is probably not best experienced at home. The movie’s ultra-long takes and Philip Glass score may well put you to sleep if you’re watching it on your sofa. But on the big screen in a theater without outside distractions, the movie’s effect is actually rather hypnotic. I don’t imagine this will develop the same following as the Qatsi trilogy but on its own terms, it’s a unique and often extraordinarily beautiful film.

I’ll be back tomorrow with ten more. Hey, maybe your favorite movie of 2014 will be one of them! Unless your favorite movie of 2014 was Veronica Mars, in which case you shouldn’t get your hopes up.

The Movies of 2014, Volume I

Hi. Told you I’d be back.

Welcome back (or, possibly for many of you, for the first time) to The Doctor Is In. I started this blog back in 2009 as a place to collect miscellaneous thoughts that didn’t exactly fit at The Digital Bits. It didn’t last long before I got busy with other work and essentially forgot all about this. It happens.

For now, this will be my temporary home until I can bring back the stand-alone Jahnke’s Electric Theatre blog. Or, it’ll be my permanent home until I get busy with other work and essentially forget all about this. We’ll see what happens.

Some of you may be wondering why I left The Bits in the first place. I’ll get into some of that later on, as well as what will hopefully make this different from what I was doing over there. But before Baby New Year turns into Surly Teen New Year, I’d like to take one more look at the movies of 2014.

I didn’t want to start this back up with just another top ten list. For one thing, there are so many 2014 movies that I haven’t seen yet that any attempt at a top ten would be ludicrously limited. According to The Big Checklist assembled by The Dissolve’s Scott Tobias, I’ve only seen 25% of the movies that matter in 2014. Granted, this is the internet and rock-solid opinions are established regularly on far less information but still.

Like a lot of people, my movie-watching habits have changed a lot in the last few years. I confess that I don’t make it to the cinema as often as I’d like. This is primarily due to laziness on my part but also because there are only a handful of theatres I can stand. If I didn’t live in Los Angeles, there’d probably be even less. I’ve been slow to embrace on-demand exhibition because I don’t have cable or satellite TV and I refuse to watch anything longer than 15 minutes on my computer. I did get a Roku this past year, so I’m finally catching up to the wave of the future. And unlike most other people who publish a top ten, I’m not a member of any critics’ association or guild that has year-end awards to bestow, so no screeners for me.

But if you’re doing a year-in-review thing, it’s kind of hard to avoid it becoming a list. Doesn’t matter if it’s 5, 10, 25 or 100, ranked by merit, release date or running time, a list’s a list. I thought about listing everything alphabetically but that seemed like kind of a dick move, so over the next few days, I’ll be writing about all of the 2014 movies I’ve seen, ranked in roughly my order of preference, subject to wiggling around depending on my whims. If you’re wondering why I left off Movie X, it’s because I haven’t seen it yet. Simple as that. (Now if you’re wondering why I haven’t seen Movie X yet, that’s a different story.) I’ll do ten a day to keep it manageable, so if you absolutely must have a top ten, you can stop reading after today’s entry.

The Grand Budapest Hotel

By now, most people seem to have a firmly entrenched opinion on the films of Wes Anderson. Either they find his style insufferable and swore off them long ago or they look forward to the arrival of each new movie like it’s a Christmas present from their most imaginative friend. I’m solidly in the latter camp but even I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this. Beyond the usual, expected delights of Anderson’s sumptuously detailed sets, wonderful music and witty dialogue, there’s a surprisingly dark and even moving story. Anderson’s skill at assembling extraordinary ensemble casts hasn’t been in doubt for some time but he outdoes himself here, led by a superb comic performance from Ralph Fiennes. This might not be Anderson’s best film but it’s certainly one of his most enjoyable.

Guardians Of The Galaxy

It’s been a long time since the top-grossing movie of the year came within spitting distance of my personal top ten. But Marvel’s bold move out into the cosmos proved to be the exact right antidote to superhero overload. Kudos to Marvel (and their new corporate overlords, Disney) for giving James Gunn the keys to such a sweet ride and the freedom to drive it as fast and as far as he could.

Blue Ruin

I’d been looking forward to the second film from writer/director Jeremy Saulnier ever since I fell in love with his low-budget debut, Murder Party, five or six years ago. Macon Blair’s performance as a hapless loser whose life is turned upside down by an ill-advised quest for revenge is on par with William H. Macy’s in Fargo. This is one of the best neo-noirs of recent years.

Snowpiercer

A lot of folks seem to enjoy picking the logic of this movie apart, probably because it’s pretty easy to do. And sure, there is a lot about the last surviving members of humanity trapped aboard an eternally-moving, circumnavigating train that doesn’t make a whole let of sense. But guess what? There’s a lot about Fritz Lang’s Metropolis that doesn’t make much sense and nobody seems to complain about that one. Bong Joon-ho’s sci-fi vision is wildly imaginative and thrillingly exciting. And if its central metaphor is a little heavy-handed, at least it has one.

The Babadook 

My vote for horror movie of the year goes to Jennifer Kent’s amazing slow-burn thriller. Essie Davis is brilliant as a single mother whose son and sanity are threatened by a smart-dressed boogeyman manifested from a disturbing children’s book. This one gets under your skin and lodges itself there for days.

Inherent Vice

Give Paul Thomas Anderson this much credit: over the course of his career, he has consistently and steadily increased his difficulty level with each new film. Most filmmakers have steered well clear of adapting the works of Thomas Pynchon to the screen but Anderson jumps right into the deep end, delivering a dense, funny and atmospheric movie that’s all but guaranteed to reward multiple viewings.

20,000 Days On Earth

If you’ve already decided you don’t like Nick Cave, this mythology-perpetuating sorta-documentary isn’t going to change your mind. But it may win you over if you aren’t familiar with him and if you’re a longtime fan, like me, it’s essential. Directors Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard dig deep into Cave’s creative process. If you’re an artist or aspire to be one, this may be the most inspirational film you’ll see all year.

The Boxtrolls

The stop-motion animation wizards at Laika Entertainment continue their winning streak with this funny, gleefully gross concoction reminiscent of the works of Roald Dahl. Bonus points for what may be the best post-credits bonus scene ever filmed.

The Battered Bastards Of Baseball

I’m not much of a sports fan but I do have a peculiar fondness for sports documentaries. While the game is being played, it doesn’t mean much to me. But if a filmmaker can frame that event in the context of a larger story, then you’ve got my interest. Chapman and Maclain Way have got one hell of a good story in the little-known tale of Bing Russell’s Portland Mavericks, an independent minor league team that shook up the status quo of Major League Baseball. This crowd-pleaser is almost certain to become a Major Hollywood Motion Picture but don’t fail to check out the real deal first.

Nymphomaniac: Vol. II

I was surprised by the number of reviews I saw that felt the first part of Lars von Trier’s Trojan Magnum Opus was far superior to the second. I liked Vol. I just fine (more on that later) but Vol. II justifies the project and raises it to a different level. It’s a bold and provocative film and arguably one of von Trier’s most feminist statements to date. 

My magical mystery tour through the past 12 months continues tomorrow, so y'all come back now, y'hear?

 

Jahnke's Record Collection: In Defense Of Schlock

If you were to look through my CD collection, you’d quickly realize things are broken down into three general sections. Like a lot of movie buffs, I have quite a few soundtrack albums. Far less than hardcore soundtrack collectors but more than the average person, who typically only has a few of the pop-rock compilation variety. There’s a section devoted to classical music, smaller than I’d like but enough to provide a pleasant soundtrack on Sunday mornings while reading The New York Times in an overstuffed leather chair should I ever decide to completely devote my life to pretentious snobbery.

Before you get to either of these two sections, there’s Everything Else. I don’t segregate my albums according to rock, jazz, country or whatever, mainly because this is my home, not a record store. It’s arranged alphabetically, so the Beach Boys and the Beastie Boys hang out side by side, Johnny Cash rubs shoulders with Nick Cave, and Miles Davis rests comfortably next to Dead Can Dance.

Obviously I have more albums by some artists than others, so if you’re just giving the rack a cursory glance, some names are going to jump out at you. But if you give it a closer look, you’ll run across a few albums, primarily greatest hits collections, that could seriously jeopardize your opinion of me as a hipster douchebag. Here’s where we enter the world of schlock pop, songs of debatable musical value that makes a huge impact on the greater world of pop culture. I am not embarrassed to admit that I own (and play) greatest hits albums by ABBA, Duran Duran, Eurythmics, Tom Jones and yes, even Madonna.

I never owned a Madonna album during her 80s heyday. I didn’t need to. The woman was inescapable. Switch on MTV at any time of the day and if they weren’t already playing one of her videos, wait ten minutes and one would turn up. I didn’t like all of her music. “Borderline” was the only song from her first album that I could tolerate. But I more or less enjoyed quite a few from the years between Like A Virgin and Like A Prayer. When The Immaculate Collection was released, I didn’t hesitate to make it the first Madonna album I owned. (Come to think of it, that’s not 100% true. I attended a midnight screening of Dick Tracy where a local radio station gave away free copies of I’m Breathless. I didn’t buy the record but I didn’t exactly toss it in the garbage, either.)

These days, if Madonna is discussed at all, it’s usually in terms of her style, her image, her personality and her influence. The music has almost become a footnote. Admitting that you like Madonna opens you up to all kinds of ridicule, especially if you’re a heterosexual male. This strikes me as odd. Let’s turn back to my media library for a minute. If you were to scan my DVD shelves, you’d see plenty of movies like Showgirls, Troll 2, Xanadu, and others that can in no way be considered good films. Yet very few people would blink an eye at their presence.

It boils down to a fundamental but often unexpressed difference between music and any other art form. Enjoyment of a particular song or album is pure, unfiltered by any stopgaps or prior awareness of it. Either a song connects with you or it doesn’t. You either like it or you don’t. You can’t enjoy music ironically, the way many of us dig crappy movies like The Room. You can hear a song and on an intellectual level think it’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard in your life. But music doesn’t work on an intellectual level, at least not entirely. Music is a drug that taps directly into a primeval part of your brain and makes you happy or sad or romantic or nostalgic or even some magical cocktail combination of emotions that can’t be expressed any other way but through a song.

We cannot predict how we’ll respond to a song and this is one of the things that makes music so thrilling. I can’t stand it when I hear people say they enjoy all music except rap or country or whatever. As far as I’m concerned, these people simply need to dig deeper. If you keep your ears and mind open, you can make some remarkable discoveries. I’ve never heard so much as a second of a Justin Bieber song and, while I may not think it’s very likely that I’ll enjoy his music, if I did, I’d be only to happy to fess up to it.

We live in very strange times. Thanks to Facebook, blogging and whatnot, we’re theoretically sharing more about ourselves than ever before. But like attracts like and it’s all too easy to stay cooped up in our virtual bubbles, discovering more and more about things we already know we like but nothing at all about anything else. Radio and television both now cater to specific individual tastes. I enjoy Pandora quite a bit and I’ve discovered some new bands that way but it hasn’t introduced me to completely new forms of music I’d have never heard otherwise. We’re sharing more but discovering less and this is true across the board, for music, movies, TV, books, you name it. If Madonna was starting out today, I’d probably be dimly aware of her music at best. Why? Because she’d only be played on the radio alongside Lady Gaga and Katy Perry on a station I don’t listen to because I’ve predetermined that I don’t like most of what they play. The only reason I’ve heard anything by Katy Perry is because they play that station over the loudspeaker at my local carwash and I forgot to bring my iPod that day.

The only real shot a recording artist has at expanding beyond their core audience today is nabbing a spot on a talk show like Letterman or Conan O’Brien. I’d have never given a thought to Janelle Monae if I hadn’t seen her bring the house down on Letterman. If I’d missed that performance, I never would have discovered her album The Archandroid, which quickly became one of my favorite records of 2010. I’m glad I found her but how many other acts slipped beneath my radar? How do you convince someone who listens mainly to indie rock to give something massively popular a shot? Even more troubling, where does a hip-hop fan go to learn about jazz? For that matter, how do they even learn they might want to learn about jazz in the first place?

I don’t have any answers to these questions. I wish I did. When my friends post music on Facebook, I listen to it, whether or not I’m familiar with it or my tastes perfectly align with their own. Sometimes that leads me to reconsider bands I’d previously dismissed. Other times, it just reaffirms what I thought in the first place. But no matter what, if there is pleasure to be derived from those few minutes, I embrace it without asking questions and go looking for more. Now if you’ll excuse me, “Material Girl” just started playing and I love that song.

Jahnke's Record Collection: Van Dyke Parks - Discover America

And we’re back!

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted one of these blog entries. I apologize to those of you who were just starting to get into them. Part of the delay had to do with this year’s Hell Plaza Oktoberfest for The Digital Bits, which effectively wipes out all other projects for the entire month of October. But besides that, Jahnke’s Record Collection had fallen victim to something that happens quite a bit with me. I was overthinking it. I had an idea for an entry back in September which would have been a year-by-year look at albums that had shaped my life since my birth. I still think it’s a neat idea. It’s also ridiculously ambitious and pretty far afield from my original concept for the Record Collection blogs.

So I’m gonna try this again, hopefully on a more consistent basis this time. For those of you who may have forgotten the original idea (like I obviously did), it’s quite simple. Every week, I select an album completely at random from my collection, give it a few listens, then write up my impressions of it, history with it, and in a few cases, attempt to justify why I bought it in the first place and hung on to it all these years. As you may have guessed from the image up above, this week’s entry is Discover America by Van Dyke Parks. And as is the case with several of my albums, my history with this one begins with a list.

I’m a sucker for lists. I love making them and I love reading them. When Rolling Stone or Entertainment Weekly does a list issue, I’m the first to pore over it with a fine toothcomb. I’m also often the first to throw the magazine across the room in disgust. Lists like these are put together by committee. They rarely surprise you or lead you to discover anything you wouldn’t eventually have found on your own. Personal lists, on the other hand, can be a different story. Film Comment, I believe, runs or used to run an annual best-of issue. I always found the most interesting part to be the section devoted to the personal favorites of various critics and filmmakers. This is where you can learn something about the person compiling the list and hear about titles that would otherwise have flown beneath your radar.

Several years ago, Elvis Costello did a list of his 500 essential albums for Vanity Fair. I don’t remember the exact wording. It may have been “essential” or “favorite” or something else entirely. At any rate, it was one of the most interesting and eclectic album lists I’d ever seen before or since. He covered a wide range of genres, including classical, jazz, country, hip-hop and, of course, rock & roll. The list included such out of left field choices as An Evening With Groucho Marx and Noel Coward’s HMV Recordings. Needless to say, the idiosyncratic nature of the list appealed to me and I went on a mission to find as many of these albums as I could.

One of the albums was Van Dyke Parks’ Discover America. I knew Parks’ name from his work with The Beach Boys and Harry Nilsson but had no idea he was a recording artist in his own right. This also happened to be during the heyday of Napster, so it was no problem to jump online and download a song or two to get a taste. Unlike apparently most of the world, I would actually use Napster to help me decide whether or not I wanted to buy an album. I’d get a couple songs and, if I liked them, I’d go buy the album. So if your name is Van Dyke Parks, don’t sue me for downloading one of your tunes. It actually led to a sale you wouldn’t have got otherwise.

Anyway, the song I selected was a little ditty called “Jack Palance”, which I obviously chose because of the name. It was absolutely not what I was expecting. It’s a short and sweet calypso number and despite being barely a minute long, it made me grin uncontrollably. It was just fun. I enjoyed it a lot but half assumed it was a goof. It would sort of be like if you heard The Beatles’ “Maggie May” and assumed it was representative of Let It Be. So I was very surprised when I bought Discover America and learned that yes, in fact the entire album is like that one song. It’s a warm, jaunty calypso record and most of the songs are only about two or three minutes in length.

In addition to Jack Palance, Parks’ subjects include Bing Crosby, J. Edgar Hoover, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and The Mills Brothers. But the high point begins with a cover of Allen Toussaint’s “Occapella” and continues with “Sailin’ Shoes” and “Riverboat”. It’s a string of great, infectious songs and if they don’t make you happy, you may want to see a shrink. Get on some antidepressants or something, man, because this is fun, fun stuff.

I was pleasantly surprised that in 1972, the year of Watergate and so much other turmoil, a nostalgically happy album called Discover America was released. It does not surprise me that it seems to remain something of a cult record cherished only by a handful of people. I don’t know anyone who actively dislikes calypso music, although I suppose it’s possible. But I also don’t know many people who like it enough to groove to an entire album of it. A lot of people seem to look at it as background music, enjoyable enough if it’s there but not something they seek out. Their loss. Discover America is a burst of tropical sunshine on a cloudy day and it makes me smile every time I put it on.

Jahnke's Record Collection: Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska

Cast your mind back to 1982. MTV had just celebrated its first birthday and was already beginning to change the way we heard music. Artists as diverse as Pat Benatar, Peter Gabriel, The Pretenders and Billy Idol had already started experimenting with this new music video thing. In May, Duran Duran released Rio, becoming arguably the first major group to owe most of its success to MTV. Even The J. Geils Band had popped up their signature blues bar-band sound, hitting the top of the charts with “Centerfold”. By the end of the year, Michael Jackson would release Thriller and the music industry would never really be the same again.

In the middle of all this, on September 30, Bruce Springsteen defiantly released Nebraska, a stark, stripped-down, unpolished collection of songs about murder, unemployment, loneliness and desperation. Recorded by Springsteen alone in his bedroom on a cheap four-track cassette recorder, Nebraska wasn’t even supposed to be an album. They were demo tapes meant to be played for the E Street Band, fleshed out, re-recorded and then released as a record. But everyone agreed that the full-band versions weren’t nearly as effective as the originals. Supposedly Springsteen carted the tape around in the back of his car for a few weeks while trying to decide what to do with the songs. That may be an apocryphal story but it’s a good one. Regardless, the demos were eventually released as the final album, technical limitations, tape hiss and all.

Considering that Springsteen had just enjoyed the biggest pop success of his career with “Hungry Heart” two years earlier, it’s a bit shocking that Columbia Records let him release Nebraska at all. There were no singles off the album in the US. Springsteen did concede to releasing a video for “Atlantic City”, although it’s really more of an anti-video, consisting entirely of grainy, black-and-white images of the city at its bleakest. The whole thing looks like it was shot from a car in about half an hour and the vibe is downright post-apocalyptic. Needless to say, it made strange bedfellows alongside the likes of “Hungry Like The Wolf” and “We Got The Beat”.

The no-frills approach resulted in one of Springsteen’s most enduring and cohesive albums. The individual songs are brilliant and often beautiful but the total is much greater than the sum of its parts. Nebraska is an intimate, poignant record that demands to be heard from start to finish. The album has inspired countless writers, filmmakers and other musicians. “Highway Patrolman” alone was covered by no less than Johnny Cash and provided the basis for Sean Penn’s film The Indian Runner, while “State Trooper” served as the end credits music for the finale of the first season of The Sopranos. Coincidentally, that was the first episode of the series I watched and I became addicted to it the second I heard that familiar, ominous guitar riff start to play.

If Nebraska isn’t my favorite in the Springsteen catalog, it’s definitely in the top three. Depending on my mood on a particular day, there’s a good chance I will cite Nebraska as my favorite Springsteen album. Back in my college days, I took a cross-country road-trip from West Virginia to Montana with my friend Andrew Hansen. (These days, Andy’s a big-time composer and sound designer in the Chicago area. That doesn’t really have any bearing on this story but it is pretty damn cool.) Our route took us through the great state of Nebraska and there was really only one choice of music to play across those rolling plains. Springsteen’s songs transformed what could have been a deadly dull stretch of empty road into a starkly beautiful American landscape. Suddenly every farm house and small town we passed had a dozen stories to tell. I’d wager we both could have criss-crossed the state a dozen times listening to that album. That’s a pretty good legacy for a record that could have been lost under the passenger seat of Bruce Springsteen’s car.