A Little Late Because Everyone Has Seen It But Oh Well Here Goes

After seeing The Dark Knight for a second time I came to the realization that the movie deserves/needs two viewings. It is great the first time, but even better the second. Ledger's Performance is twice as good and the odds and ends to his Joker really come alive.

What I was most struck with during both viewings was Michael Caine's performance. Yes he is playing himself, once again, but he has some of the best lines in any of the summer blockbusters. The story of the jewel thief is amazing. The dry humor he brings to the table is unmatchable. While one laughs uncomfortably at Ledger, Caine brings in warming laughs of "told you so's" and one liners.

The movie is great, everyone has read that, or witnessed it. But the movie definitely deserves a few viewings. I can't wait to catch it in IMAX (hopefully the air conditioning will be on there, the second time I went my pit stains were as large as the Atlantic).

But I will have to wait to see it in IMAX (so many sold out showings) with this beautiful weather.

A Sweltering Siren Fest Saturday

The Village Voice-sponsored Siren Music Festival took place on New York's storied Coney Island Saturday July 19th, a free music event open to the public, or at least to those who dared to venture out into the afternoon's 95-degree scorch. This did not stop many from stubbornly donning pants, surely to the utter dismay of their legs, though most concert-goers were tank top and cutoffs-clad to battle the extreme heat.

Due to subway mishaps and poor planning, my party arrived a tad late (shot for 1:30, arrived at 3:00) for a couple anticipated acts, though caught some favorites all the same. Among the bands missed were These Are Powers, sporting an ex-Liars member, who are beginning to gain some recognition as a force in dissonant, spastic art rock, as well as Parts & Labor, a noisy Brooklyn outfit whose Dan Friel has released one of this year's more interesting as well as intimidating electronic releases, "Ghost Town."

The first band I managed to catch was the Dodos on the Main Stage around 3:00, playing their African drumming-informed, fingerpicked psych-folk. In addition to their base as a guitar/drums duo, a vibraphonist joined them on stage for certain numbers. Adding to the clatter was the presence of a miked metallic trashcan in between the rest of the band's equipment, aiding in the Dodo's most raucous songs as yet another driving, percussive element.

I then moseyed on over to the second stage to catch the end of Jaguar Love, an arty group of ex-Blood Brothers and Pretty Girls Make Graves members attempting fervently, with little success, to capture the bombast of prog behemoths the Mars Volta in their angular songs complete with high-pitched, Cedric Bixler-Zavala rip-off vocal.

After that yelping annoyance came Beach House, nearly Jaguar Love's opposite, churning out dreamy, down-tempo guitar/keys/drums psychedelic pop. Vocalist Victoria Legrand's gorgeous vocal swirled with her keyboard lines and the atmospheric guitar, backed by simple, drum-machine-ready drum parts. The highlight of the set was "Master of None," from their self-titled 2006 full-length, a perfect biopsy of their sound.

Another stage trek brought me back to the Main Stage for Montreal's epic pop sextet Islands, whose Nick Thorburn took the stage under the previously-mentioned trashcan used by the Dodos during their set. Islands ran through some hits including "The Arm" from their new record "Arm's Way" and selections from their first record "Return to the Sea," including "Swans," a lackluster version of "Don't Call Me Whitney, Bobby," and "Where There's a Will There's a Whalebone," during which the band welcomed out a local MC to bust a few lines in place of the verse on the album recording.

The last decision of the night was between Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks and Broken Social Scene, dim-wittedly scheduled against each other. In the end I decided on Toronto's Broken Social Scene collective on the second stage, and it proved a good choice even though the Jicks unveiled a new track "Astral Facial." Broken Social Scene came out roaring, boasting 10 musicians on stage at a time, including a 4-piece horn section. During their set any sort of security seemed to evaporate, with audience members climbing higher and higher to catch a better glimpse. Atop fences, vendors, and Pepsi machines certain members of the crowd climbed, heck, I even noticed people climbing on the ambulance which made its way into the middle of the back of the crowd. Highlights from their set included one number with accompaniment by a fan whom the band met that afternoon singing a female vocal part in the absence of the real deal, as well as "KC Accidental" and "Ibi Dreams of Pavement (A Better Day)."

The end of their set found Kevin Drew preaching a vote for Obama/change, as well as prodding the audience to scream to save Coney Island, which has apparently been the target of some well-fought-against condominium projects. The Siren Festival has been running eight years now, and doing away with Coney Island as a place for entertainment would surely make for a less kooky spectacle for the event, if it would even continue to go on at all.

Ian, Collegian Staff

Hellboy II Excedes This Movie Snobs Expectations

I must admit:Hellboy II was near the bottom of my Summer Blockbuster List. But I was moved to go see it, with the temptation of Chinese food being snuck into the theater (General Goa's Chicken, Low Mein and White Rice, yum). I was mistaken when I wrote the preview for the movie in our Summer Guide . It was the only preview I would have the time to write (the other writers spent 4 or so hours, probably more, in the Daily Collegian office, in a basement with no windows, it's a basement, on a beautiful spring afternoon at Umass). I though this sequel would be a bust, and was I sorely mistaken.

Hellboy II has been the best summer movie I have seen so far (Zohan was god awful, Get Smart got me to laugh, Iron Man rocked, The Chronicles of Narnia was like watching the Spanish and Portuguese invade South America, Indiana Jones 4 had the worst ending ever in cinema. Lucas and Spielberg love UFO's more than I love John Harvards' Rail Trail Ale, that's a lot. And whatever ones I'm forgetting.) But Hellboy II was so much fun. I ate Chinese, spit some on the floor in front of me because I was laughing so hard. The monsters rocked, and the B Movie flower/nature God was unforgettable.

Del Toro has a flair that a lot of directors need to find. He knows how to balance mediums. Collecting genuine laughs, creating unforgettable characters and executing a plot.

Hellboy II gets this snobs recommendation.


Also, Tonight is the midnight showing of "The Dark Knight" and I'm about to burst into flames because I have to wait until tomorrow night at 8:30 to see it, and not in IMAX (14 something for tickets, forget it. I am a poor camp counselor/lifeguard/swim instructor).


Have fun everyone who gets to go to the midnight showing. And everyone who will enjoy Christopher Nolan's direction like myself. He rocks. His brother rocks at writing. Go see "Following" and "Insomnia" and "Memento" and you'll understand.

Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company Brings "Capel/Chapter" to Jacob's Pillow

Saturday night saw the eighth of nine performances of the Bill T. Jones and (the late) Arnie Zane Dance Company's "Chapel/Chapter" at Jacob's Pillow's Doris Duke Studio Theatre in Becket, MA. The tense marriage of dance, live musical accompaniment, and light projection from the rafters made for a complete performance, drawing on the multiple media to affect the audience from all three sides.

Preceding the performance was a "Pillow Talk" on the piece and on Bill T. Jones' life of choreography (accomplishments include a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship and a 2007 Tony Award), framing the work in the societal context of the prison system.

The prison system was indeed represented rather drastically, with the introduction to the performance, while the audience was filing in, consisting of dancers in full-body, inmate-orange jumpsuits meandering around the white, oval-shaped dancefloor with eyes closed, only changing direction when swiveled around by dancers in blue populating the perimeter, acting as the prison guards, all against the blood-red backdrop of the small theater. This may have been commentary on the judicial system's total control over criminals, disallowing any leeway after but one mistake or even accident. Even the ushers made the audience to feel as if they were trapped within a strict institution, commanding performance-goers to fill up pews and cramp in close to strangers (this may not have been in the script).

The piece itself was a whirlwind of acrobatic, natural movement, oftentimes finding the dancers very close to or on the ground itself. This worked wonders for the premise, which followed fragments of three stories of death from beginning to culmination, each involving a murder of some degree. The murderer was always at a greater height advantage than the victim, who was consistently cowering or suffering at the instigator's feet.

The three stories involved a man's completely unattached murder of a whole family, the Sotos, as part of a sexual fantasy, a father accidentally murdering his trouble-making daughter, and a fragmented killing of one summer camper, Cameron, by another. Each story was broken up into pieces over the course of the performance, not one story being fed to the audience as a whole but serially, the viewer learning more about each individual crime every time its story came back. This made for much repetition, overlapping, and distortion of initial notions about the crimes.

Not one element was of more importance than the next, the cellist (Christopher Antonio William Lancaster) and guitarist/mouth horn extraordinaire (Lawrence "Lipbone" Redding) dictating the pace of the dancers' movements as well as providing welcoming intro/outro sound. The projection onto the dancefloor from the ceiling was also of great importance to the piece, providing appropriate visuals such as a hopscotch outline for the Little Girl and a pool of water in which Cameron's lifeless body floated.

This intriguing, relevant dance superbly captured the essence of its themes, all the while doing so through extremely athletic and expressive dance. The intimate setting was nearly perfect for such a piece, drawing the audience in close enough to watch the beads of sweat take form, multiply, and soak the dancers, leaving streaks of wet on the floor after their final bows.

Ian Nelson, Collegian Staff

Times New Viking and Titus Andronicus Rock Sets at Allston's Great Scott

Noisy Columbus, Ohio trio Times New Viking brought their lo-fi, punk-inflected mess to the Great Scott Sunday night, supported by New Jersey's Titus Andronicus.

Titus took the stage first, diving into their set with what seemed to be a Boston shout-out full of Fenway references. The six-piece took off into selections from their new record "The Airing of Grievances," hitting most of them spot-on with 4 guitars' worth of noise (at times) to back them up. Nearly each member took their turn on vocal duties, singing/shouting backups on many numbers. The scruffily bearded, energetic frontman (apparently named Liam Betson) put down the guitar for songs at a time to shake out a tambourine rhythm and jump around a bit, culminating in a final assault upon his guitar which left it on the floor hissing feedback.

Times New Viking's set was not as visually appealing, though was a strange yet pleasant diversion from the filthily recorded tinny quality of any of their three records. The guitar/drums/keys three-piece blasted out a hoard of short songs, with vocal duties shared by drummer Adam Elliott and Beth Murphy on keys. Elliott's drum parts were quick and tight, bashing out as many cymbal crashes as possible while Murphy's organesque keyboard tones sunk deep within the mix. These parts of the act were expected, the anomaly being guitarist Jared Phillips, constantly staring with anger into the crowd, whose tones were not as grating as they appear on the band's records. The tones were instead very crisp and clean, like those of newer Sonic Youth's guitar work. This variation from the recorded work was the personal focus of the set, neither disappointing nor expected but a blissful, unanticipated gem of a performance, backed into the bowels of the bar where sounds like that thrive.

Ian Nelson, Collegian Staff