Breaking the Line

Bob Balaban: Narrating Moonrise Kingdom, Translating Truffaut, Waiting for Guffman

I probably should have been disappointed when word came back I wouldn't be able to interview Wes Anderson for Moonrise Kingdom (an excellent movie I'll get around to praising in this space, I hope soon). But I was way too busy turning mental backflips over the fact that I'd get to talk to Bob Balaban, a brilliant actor and not-at-all-bad director who plays the onscreen narrator in Anderson's film. Balaban's great roles are too many to number, or to get to in a 40-minute exchange, but I touched on a good number, including his memorable turn as François Truffaut's translator in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. (I enthusiastically recommend Balaban's diaries from the film, recently republished as Spielberg, Truffaut, and Me.) He's also a valued member of Christopher Guest's repertory company, a prime mover behind Robert Altman's Gosford Park, and the go-to doppelganger for Warren Littlefield. Plus, he sees as much Truffaut in Moonrise Kingdom as I do. Read.

Mad Men's Styles of the Times: How the Show's Shifts Mirror the Characters' Uncertainties and a Turbulent Era

While I watch a lot of TV, I don't often get a chance to write about it; weekly recaps are a bit of a  thankless grind, and they've largely taken the place of more reflective, occasional essays. (Some people, like my colleagues Matt Zoller Seitz and Noel Murray, manage to do both at once, damn them.) Plus, Jesus are there a lot of people writing smart stuff about Mad Men on an almost minute-by-minute basis. Thanks, at any rate, to my Indiewire editor Alison Willmore for letting me chime in on the Mad Men finale and the season as a whole, focusing (I hope) on some of the broader issues that sometimes get lost in the weekly wash of plot developments, especially when it comes to keep tabs on the show's style. Enjoy.

Paul Wiliams: '70s Hitmaker on Writing Songs for Kermit, the Carpenters and Ishtar

The documentary Paul Williams: Still Alive distracts from its intriguing subject with the naggingly persistent intrusions of the filmmaker himself, who more often than not seems to be making the film as a means to buddy up with his musical idol. (It doesn't work.) But if nothing else, it has put Williams, a prolific lyricist whose songs include "We've Only Just Begun," "Rainy Days and Mondays" and "The Rainbow Connection" back in the spotlight, and gave me a chance to talk to him about them for the A.V. Club. It also gave me a chance to pursue what's become an accident campaign to mention the cult classic The Phantom of the Paradise in as many recent articles as possible; see here and here, and stay tuned for my upcoming interview with the guy who played Beef.

 

"It's Laura Now": Against Me! and Its Transgender Singer Own the Stage

As a critic, sometimes you get paid to be in the right place at the right time. I'd somehow missed the fact that Against Me! was playing at Philadelphia's Electric Factory this past Sunday until my Inquirer editor asked me to cover the show — something about the phrase "opening for The Cult" evidently induced some form of temporary amnesia. But being present for the band's first tour with singer Laura Jane Grace — who, up until a few months ago, was known as singer Tommy Gabel — turned out to be a genuine privilege. I suppose the fact that the throng pressed up against the stage had paid headliner prices to watch the band play a 45-minute opening set meant they were a self-selecting group of diehard fans, but even so, it was amazing to watch heavily tattooed dudes jab their fingers in the air, biceps flexing, as they shouted along with the words to the unreleased new song "Transgender Dysphoria Blues," whose lyrics include the lines, "You want them to see you like they see every other girl / They just see a faggot." Even more extraordinary was the moment when an aggrieved looking fan, dressed for the occasion in an Against Me! t-shirt, yelled out, "Play some old shit, Tom!" and the man behind tapped him softly on the shoulder and gently chided him, "It's Laura now." More on the show, including a few words on the ostensible headliner, in my Inquirer review.

As a codicil, here's a review I did a few weeks back on Wish Me Away, a documentary about country star Chely Wright's decision to come out as a lesbian. The movie spends a lot of time worrying about whether the country music establishment can ever embrace an openly gay performer, but I wonder if the individual fans might be turn out to be more open-minded than the industry that services them gives them credit. If Carrie Underwood can embrace gay marriage, maybe we're not as polarized as some would have us believe.

Metric's Emily Haines: "It Was Always the Dream to Reclaim Radio"

I don't know many critics who rated Metric's 2009 album Fantasies quite as highly as I did, but if you like your pop music unabashed, heavy on sleazy synths and swing-for-the-rafters choruses, it's just about perfect. And while plenty of the popular music I love ends up being, in fact, not all that popular, Fantasies sold nearly half a million copies worldwide, especially impressive considering it was the band's first self-released album. Their new Synthetica doesn't have anything as punch-you-in-the-face awesome as "Help I'm Alive" or "Gold Guns Girls," but it turns out to be a surprisingly effective grower, not to mention a good pretext for me to chat up singer Emily Haines about the band's ongoing quest to make music people listen to without selling their soul in the process. More, including thoughts on sharing a vocal booth with Lou Reed, at eMusic.

Prometheus (Mostly) De-Livers: Alien Prequel Dazzles More Than It Disappoints

So I had this nice post pointing in the direction of my Prometheus review all set to go at an embargo-compliant 12:01 a.m. — a real beaut, involving the phrase "plays like a motherfucker" — and Typepad seems not only to have declined to post it but eaten it altogether. But here, in any case, is my Promtheus review, linked without embellishment or apology.

"Safety Not Guaranteed": Towards a Grand Unified Theory of Aubrey Plaza

I was in the midst of writing my review of Safety Not Guaranteed, in which Parks and Recreation's Aubrey Plaza plays a magazine intern who tracks down the author of a classified ad seeking a time-travel companion, when I got an email from All Things Considered asking me to contribute to a profile on the actress. (The impetus, apparently, was this 2010 interview, in which, among other things, she talks about her sullen Parks & Rec intern, April Ludgate, as being a kind of generational stand-in.) NPR ended up whittling me down to one inconsequential soundbite — no complaints, it's nice to be asked, etc. — but I did end up give some serious thought to Plaza's screen persona in preparation. Among other things, it struck me as interesting that April's reflexive disdain is almost entirely without malice; she's not a disillusioned idealist so much as an idealist in waiting. (I also ventured that Plaza, who trained with the Upright Citizens Bridage, replaces the improv rule "Yes and..." with "So what?" This stuff is gold, people.) We've seen over the course of several seasons that April is capable of unironic appreciation — of her husband Andy, among other things — but there's a bar that must first be cleared, a defensive barrier breached. There's also a playful element to it, as when Rashida Jones' bubbly Ann, in an attempt to strike up small talk, asks April where she got her haircut, and Plaza deadpans, "Prison." The key, if perhaps slightly-on-the-nose, moment, is when April and Andy take a trip to the Grand Canyon — prompted by a small-town cult's doomsday prophecy — and she stares out at it and says, "I'm trying to find a way to be annoyed at it. But I can't." Frankly, I think Plaza does a good enough job portraying April's inner softie to make such a set piece redundant, but it comes in handy when you want to put a bow on things.

The Passion of Bjorn Pork: Down in the Muck With Mel Gibson and Joe Ezsterhas

Under the heading of "I read it so you don't have to," I slogged through all 30,000 words of Joe Ezsterhas' Heaven and Mel and wrote up the results for Slate. Long story short: Mel Gibson is, as expected, a raving, anti-Semitic loon, with a curious email alias (in the above title) to boot. (Remember when he was the fun, wacky kind of crazy, rather than the I'll-just-take-this-butcher-knife-to-bed-with-me kind? Good times.) Ezsterhas, as expected, turns out to be a self-serving sleaze whose converstion to devout Catholicism has only added self-righteousness into the mix. Also, Mel Gibson's father believes that Pope John Paul I was murdered when a cardinal sat on his face. Enjoy.