This is only vaguely related to my usual topics, I guess, but I couldn’t let it pass by. From the Motley Fool: Printing on a Pringle

Up until a few days ago I accidentally left the link to my RSS feed pointing to the wrong feed. It’s ok now. Promise.

I finished off my first batch of four with Spider (read: Oedipus) and Punch (read: Electra), each featuring brutal and amazing performances by the leads. Zip has now sent me Elephant and Big Fish, both of which we’ve wanted to see for a long time and just weren’t able to track down at our local rental shop. They’ve also just slipped Secretary and Swimming Pool in the mail for us. Now that hockey’s over and the Flames have lost (damn unreviewed game-winning goal!) I’ll have more TV-watching time available. And once Euro2004 and the NBA finals wrap up, and my wife’s done watching Queer As Folk, the cable’s gettin’ yanked!!

Uh, if you know what I mean…

Went to see a free (thanks Duarte!) sneak preview of Zatoichi (rotten tomatoes | imdb) last night at The Cumberland. If you were a fan of volume 1 of Kill Bill, you’ll like this movie: super-cool central character, bits of dark comedy here and there, and massive amounts of gushing/spewing/dripping/flying blood. And it has a bonus stomp-like dance number at the end, just for shits and giggles.

from Yahoo

Rock Band Creed Breaks Up After 3 Albums
By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer

NEW YORK – The spiritually inclined band Creed, whose anthemic hits “Higher” and “With Arms Wide Open” helped them become one of the top-selling rock acts of the past decade, has called it quits.

Three former Creed members immediately announced they were forming a new band — minus singer Scott Stapp (news) — but were quick to say it was not “just Creed with a different singer.”

Creed’s three albums sold a combined 24 million copies in the United States. While many critics dismissed them as pale Pearl Jam imitators, Creed members used that as creative fuel and laughed all the way to the bank.

Lyricist Stapp grew up with a strict religious upbringing and often explored those topics in song. At one point five of the first eight queries on the “frequently asked questions” section of the Florida-based band’s Web site dealt with Christianity, including “Is Creed a Christian band?”

The band always said no.

Stapp and guitarist Mark Tremonti (news) were longtime friends and songwriting partners whose relationship soured in the past couple of years, as Tremonti explained in a recent interview with MTV.com.

That caused tension in the band. “There was a lot more drama,” drummer Scott Phillips (news) told The Associated Press on Friday. “It wasn’t necessarily created by anyone in particular. It just stopped being fun.”

Stapp was not available for comment, said a spokesman for Wind-up Records.

Creed took most of last year off, and reconvened in the winter to come up with new material. “The vibe just wasn’t the same,” Phillips said.

Still, they weren’t about to casually disband such a successful unit. The band had initially figured on taking a hiatus, but a side project was working out so well they decided not to turn back, Phillips said.

The new band, Alter Bridge, features Tremonti, Phillips and former Creed bassist Brian Marshall. Singer-songwriter Myles Kennedy, formerly of the band Mayfield Four, was recruited as the fourth member. Their first album is due out in August.

Phillips described the music as edgier than Creed, with the musicians given more space to show off their chops.

“We don’t want to make it seem like it’s just Creed with a different singer,” he said.

Stapp’s first solo recording will be on a soundtrack of music inspired by the film “The Passion of the Christ.” He’s working on a solo album with the Canadian band the Tea Party.

Although the Croisette was crawling with press this year, few seemed to notice the wording on the final day’s screening schedule: “Intégrale Kill Bill”. Perhaps they were bored of QT after 11 days of him, or perhaps they couldn’t face four hours indoors, but it seems there were few journalists there to see him introduce “the first screening ever, ever, ever” of the full, run-on Kill Bill. Dressed in jeans and a black Kill Bill T-shirt that didn’t do much for his beer-belly, QT looked tanned and relaxed as he took the stage, bowing to a standing ovation. With simultaneous translation from festival head Thierry Fremaux, Tarantino explained that this was not simply one volume after another but the full deal, featuring the Asian cut of Volume One, with a few trims, and the standard Volume Two (minus the ‘roaring rampage of revenge’ driving sequence used in the trailer). This version, he revealed, will go out in a roadshow version in a year’s time, with a five-minute intermission – with music from the film – acting as a cigarette break for the restless.

To be honest, with the festival re-screening all its movies, Empire planned only on staying for the first half, to see what all the fuss was about. Surprisingly, and even though the full cut isn’t that much different, we wound up staying for the whole thing. And it was, to be honest, a revelation. The film we had misgivings about as two halves plays brilliantly as a whole movie, giving more depth to The Bride and balancing out the action sequences with the slower, character-led scenes. Given the entire timeline, it also establishes the chain of events, bringing home the sense that the DiVAS (Deadly Viper Assassination Squad) have drifted apart during The Bride’s four-year coma.

Most crucially, the full KB places proper emphasis on the controversial Superman speech at the end of Volume Two. As well as being a wry joke at his own expense (The Bride is forced to listen to Bill’s rambling theory while waiting for his truth serum to hit), it perfectly crystallises the key theme of the movie. Here, Tarantino pulls the rug, revealing that the woman we feel so much empathy for is nothing a but a stone-cold killer, passing for human in the same way Superman poses as Clark Kent. The Bride is Bill’s equal and much more, which is why only one can survive, because the other can’t be trusted. In one sitting, her respect for Bill becomes more distinct: Vernita Green, O-Ren Ishii, Elle Driver and Budd bring down the red fog of fury (signalled by bursts of the Ironside theme), but Bill himself gets a smile, even in the prelude to the final showdown.

So now we come to the stuff you really want to know. Well, surprisingly, there’s not too much difference. Although it still begins with the subtitle Vol. One, the Klingon proverb is gone, replaced by a dedication to Kinji Fukasaku. Unsurprisingly, all the major differences occur in this half, which, as you might expect, is a pretty sick ride. The Vernita Green fight is slightly different (no gore) and the anime sequence is more explicit in the details of O-Ren’s revenge killing, but the biggest difference, of course, is the House Of Blue Leaves battle. No longer in coy B&W, with close-up amputations and throat-slitting, the scene now plays like a berserk mix of ’60s TV Batman and Monty Python circa Holy Grail. The effect is quite surreal, more explicitly funny, and softens up the audience for the return of Gordon Liu – the mentalist Green Hornet figure -as the cruel martial arts guru Pai Mei. It also paves the way for Volume One’s true ending. Not the cliffhanger about the baby, (that mercifully has gone, seeing as Vol 1’s desire to end on an unecessary ‘oooh’ moment, only served to spoil Vol 2’s big twist ending), but the full wrath of The Bride coming down on Sofie Fatale, who winds up with a 50 per cent limb deficit in full, blood-on-the-lens technicolour.

The Bride’s speech to Fatale is sure to go down as a twisted QT classic. “I want you to tell him all the information you just told me,” she screams. “I want him to know what I know. I want him to know I want him to know. And I want them all to know they’ll all soon be as dead as O-Ren.” Which is where Tarantino’s particular genius comes into play. Like True Romance or Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill plays with the concept of pop culture ciphers having real lives, and it truly is the trash-movie epic he promised. Vernita Green has married a doctor, Budd cleans toilets in a strip bar and when the vile Pai Mei blinds her, Elle Driver simply poisons his dinner. It’s a film that rides wave after wave of action and bathos, which paves the way for its (anti)climax and makes more sense in one sitting, piling up tropes and clichés from every grindhouse flick imaginable. Indeed, although everyone suddenly became a grindhouse expert after Vol. One, few seemed to remember that even the most violent B-movie has its dull-arse moments of daft exposition.

In two parts, the film seemed like a cash-in, and the fact that QT diehards will pay up to five times (including DVD releases) for the privilege of seeing it didn’t help. But as one whole movie, you get the sense that Tarantino was testing the water. In one go, it would have seemed patchy and self-indulgent and most likely would have tanked. This way, though, QT introduced us to one half, then the other, warming us up to the prospect of the full, four-hour monty. In one go, there’s no longer the shock of the new, or the misleading expectation that QT has something mind-blowing up his sleeve. These characters come alive on the screen, especially Thurman’s Bride, and stay in the brain, so much so that, even after four hours, you might be tempted to stay in your seat and see it again.

Even Better?
Time will be kind to Kill Bill, that’s for sure, and given time to breathe, and without the weight of hype, it will reveal itself as the film Tarantino intended it to be. It may even, dare we say it, be his best film. But history will be the judge of that.

from Empire Online

from ZDNet:

Study: CD prices sing the blues
By CNET News.com Staff
CNET News.com
June 3, 2004, 10:09 AM PT

The average retail price of full-length CDs fell to $13.29 in the first quarter of 2004–a decline of 4 percent from the same period a year ago, according to a new study.

The top 50 CD sellers nationwide sold discs for an average price of $13.36, a drop of 3.1 percent versus a year ago, said a survey released Thursday by the NPD Group. Meanwhile, catalog CDs–comprised of titles that are 18-months-old or more–dropped below the $13 threshold to $12.99.

NPD President Russ Crupnick attributed the decline in part to a changing market due to the file-sharing boom. In addition, competition for entertainment dollars has become tougher for the recording industry in an environment that saw DVDs and video games growing at double-digit rates, he said.

Universal Music Group slashed retail prices of its titles by 5 percent between the first quarter of 2003 and the first quarter of 2004. However, a study by Harvard University researchers who tracked music downloads said file sharing does not affect CD sales.

NPD Group earlier had said that digital song and subscription site consumers were buying up to 80 percent more CDs than those who did not subscribe.

from Eye Magazine

BY ADAM NAYMAN
“One of your mother’s more endearing traits,” explains the avuncular liberal senator to his prospective son-in-law, “is a tendency to refer to anyone who disagrees with her about anything as a Communist.” The dialogue is from the 1962 Cold War classicThe Manchurian Candidate, and the lady in question is Mrs. Iselin, the distaff McCarthyist and would-be presidential usurper played with unforgettable venom by Angela Lansbury.

The description might be applied with equal fidelity to a more contemporary right-wing villain: the conservative Fox News channel commentator and bestselling author Bill O’Reilly. Guests on his top-rated cable program, The O’Reilly Factor (unavailable in Canada without a satellite dish), are branded as “leftists” — or, even more damning, “liberals” — the moment they disagree with the outspoken host. He’ll also shout over them or even cut their mic the moment he starts losing an argument — which is often.

Earlier this year, O’Reilly warned the son of a 9/11 victim to “get out of my studio before I tear you to fucking pieces,” when he became perturbed that his guest would have the temerity to speak against the war in Iraq. In April, 2004, The Globe and Mail columnist Heather Mallick went on The O’Reilly Factor to discuss the presence of American military deserters in Canada, and the host was so outraged at her “socialist” credentials that he cited “secular” newspapers like the Globe as grounds for his proposed (and vaguely South Park-ish) “boycott” of Canada.

The difference between O’Reilly and The Manchurian Candidate’s Mrs. Iselin — besides the fact that she’s fictional — is that, if pressed about her affiliations, Mrs. Iselin would likely concede her Republican credentials. O’Reilly, by contrast, purports vociferously to be, in his words, “an independent,” advertising his program as a “no spin zone” where issues are addressed from a non-partisan point of view.

He’s not fooling anyone, except possibly the millions of like-minded American viewers who have made the show a hit and its star a very wealthy and influential man. O’Reilly’s rabid attack-dog style makes him virtually critic-proof: when he’s taken to task for his faulty journalism or one-sided rhetoric, he responds in kind, painting his critics as members of a dishonest intellectual elite.

What’s scary about The O’Reilly Factor is that in spite of its consistent manipulations of the truth, it’s considered to be a genuine news program. Those unfazed by its brainwashing tactics argue that the show performs a vital function: it’s an unintentionally hilarious self-critique of the bloody partisan divide fissuring the American political scene. The Globe TV columnist John Doyle even suggested that the show be broadcast in Canada as an alternative to the Comedy Network.

One program that does air in Canada on the Comedy Network (and CTV) is The Daily Show, the once obscure, now ubiquitous current-events satire program hosted by Jon Stewart. Its hilarity is entirely intentional — and it has multiple Emmys to show for it — but it is also the very thing O’Reilly’s program claims to be (but is not): an “independent” and even informative source of political commentary.

True, calling The Daily Show hard news is a bit of a stretch. It’s really a talk show, although it shoves its interview segments towards the end, acknowledging implicitly their relative unimportance.

The Daily Show’s 60 Minutes-inspired news items, which usually involve sending a crack team of correspondents to remote locations to cover ludicrous human-interest stories such as a citizen’s misplaced winter coat or lap dance-parlour legislation, are also mostly beside the point. The meat of The Daily Show is Stewart’s opening remarks, which reveal a trenchant sensibility through a format similar to “Weekend Update” on Saturday Night Live.

Like fellow late-night wiseacre David Letterman (who has managed the tricky feat of appearing apolitical for 20 years in the public spotlight), Stewart is often predisposed towards mocking Bush. But he stops short of being an ideologue; as anyone who has read his 1999 essay collection, Naked Pictures of Famous People, knows, Stewart’s lucidly funny contempt doesn’t run along party lines. (The highlight of the book was a memoir about the young JFK that dealt with the president’s racism, misogyny and general spoiled-brattiness.)

This equal-opportunity approach to satire manifests itself consistently on The Daily Show. Reporting on an MTV appearance by John Kerry, Stewart took a clip of the Democratic hopeful discussing “coolness,” as Kerry informed the host “If I was cool, I wouldn’t say… I was… cool” — and teased it out into a stinging jab at the candidate’s total and potentially crippling lack of charisma. This was contrasted with a segment in which a Republican spin manager appeared on MTV and projected a comparatively loose, accessible vibe. Later on that same show, Stewart interviewed Karen Hughes, author of a pro-Bush tome Ten Minutes From Normaland managed to ask direct, non-leading questions even as she attempted to turn the chat into an anti-Kerry stump speech.

Like O’Reilly, Stewart isn’t above using shock tactics. But the difference is that O’Reilly is at his most surprising when he comes unhinged, while Stewart calculates cleverly for maximum impact. Discussing the uproar over gay marriages with guest Melissa Etheridge, Stewart feigned belligerence, complaining that he didn’t think it was right. When a surprised-seeming Etheridge pressed him on his stance, Stewart dropped the punchline: he loved his wife, he explained, and didn’t see why he had to leave her to marry a man. The lesbian rock star laughed and informed him that homosexual unions weren’t mandatory. “Oh,” he said, stone-faced.

With Michael Moore’s newly minted Cannes championFahrenheit 911 set to join John Sayles’ anti-Bush project Silver City and a Gulf-war themed (not to mention wholly superfluous) Manchurian Candidate remake in theatres later this fall, the time to consider pop culture politics seems nigh. As Canadians, we’re fortunate on some level to be spared access to the “no spin zone” of O’Reilly’s hate-mongering charlatanism. At the same time, we’re spoiled to believe that even most hard American news programs operate with the wit and elegant proportion of The Daily Show.

Stewart’s program is ostensibly the fake: it bills itself as comedy and deals in punchlines. But for all its silly ebullience, its consistent acknowledgement of the dirty pool that has come to mark public American political discourse makes its all-spin zone the safest place to be.

• Deterrence (imdb | rotten tomatoes | buy it) was a movie I got off a list of underrated movies. I can honestly say I’d never underrated it as I’d never heard of it. It wasn’t bad, really; it looked like it could have been adapted from a play, as the whole thing took place on one set. It seemed like a Fail Safe-quality movie until the end, which let me down somewhat, but overall not a bad little movie. The most interesting thing was how prominently Uday Hussein figured in the movie, after being killed by the US last year.
• Pieces Of April (imdb | rotten tomatoes | buy it) was excellent. Even my wife, who dislikes Katie Holmes a great deal, liked it. It’s really remarkable that, with practically no budget, they produced this little movie that’s SO much better than The Day After Tomorrow, which cost $125 million.

“It doesn’t matter that Britney Spears has nothing to say and is about as deep as a birdbath. It matters that she has cute tits, and that’s all that matters.”

From PBS, by way of MeFi.