Recent Stories in A&E

"A Place To Bury Strangers @ Neumos.. March 12th,2010" by jandrew33, via The SunBreak Flickr pool

There was something I had forgotten about A Place to Bury Strangers since the last time I saw them, at Chop Suey two years ago: The Brooklyn noise-rock trio doesn't like people looking at them. Sure, they're standing onstage in front of a sold-out Neumo's crowd, but they play in heavy clouds of smoke machine fog. They either have the lights way down (see frontman Oliver Ackermann, right) or turned all the way up, with shards of white aurora borealis streaming over the band. APTBS waited till towards the end of Friday's set to turn on the strobes, and when they did, most of the crowd found themselves unable to look at the stage and stood wincing from both visual and auditory overload.

It's fitting though, as it's not as if this is a band that needs much interaction with the crowd. You don't sing along or dance to APTBS songs; you just stand there and let the noise wash over you. The band played songs from both of their full-length releases, not that you could really tell what was what.  It's all head-sploding distortion of one type or another.  I could pick out songs here or there, like first album reverb jam "To Fix the Gash in Your Head," but for the most part, just surrender and give yourself up to the noise....

Live from New York, it's another Saturday night with Pearl Jam. Tune into Saturday Night Live this evening to see Jude Law play funny and Seattle’s reigning rock band play two tunes from their latest album, Backspacer. Giddily retweeted clues suggest Pearl Jam will play the gorgeous "Just Breathe" and chunky-riffed "Force Of Nature." (Wouldn't it be cool, though, if they surprised everyone with a cut from the forthcoming—probably—Backspacer-session EP?) Cross your fingers for a skit that has the real Eddie Vedder trading verses with Bill Hader's EV....

A reminder: This Sunday morning marks the beginning of Daylight Savings Time, where we spring back an hour.  Sure, it's nice for the days to be longer, but those first few mornings HURT.  And what to do with those longer days?  Watch some movies, of course.  Here's this week's new DVD releases, care of our good friends at Scarecrow Video.

This week actually has a bunch of decent films--except for Old Dogs (and let us never speak of that again).  Catch up on your Oscars-mandated viewing with Precious and Up in the Air, truly two of last year's best, well worth your time.  There's Michael Moore's latest manifesto, Capitalism: A Love Story, which somehow didn't make the final cut for documentary nominees.  (And once again, if you haven't seen Oscar winner The Cove yet, please do.)

For the kids, there's computer-animated aliens in Planet 51, which did not get very good reviews.  There's also Lasse Hallstrom's Hachi: A Dog's Tale, the remake of the based-on-a-true-story Japanese tearjerker about the love that exists between a dog and his owner.  It's not not kid-friendly (it's rated G), but you might have to have a heart-to-heart discussion after the film about the fact that everyone and everything your child ever knows will die....

When A Place to Bury Strangers released their 2007 self-titled debut, the press promptly dubbed the Brooklyn trio "the loudest band in New York."  APTBS' appropriately-named follow-up Exploding Head is more of the same: skull-crushing shoegaze with nods to both My Bloody Valentine and The Jesus and Mary Chain.  It's a wall of noise, a whiplash of volume, a sonic assault of customized effects pedals crafted by frontman Oliver Ackermann himself. Wear a pair of earplugs and then put in another set of earplugs, just to be safe.  Your ears will thank you.

They'll be playing Neumo's tonight with The Big Pink, who will assuredly have nearly as many effects pedals, but probably won't be quite as loud. The British producer duo put out one of the best albums of last year, A Brief History of Love, and will definitely have the crowd dancing through the noise.

• A Place To Bury Strangers, The Big Pink, Grave Babies, and io echo play a 21+ show at Neumo's tonight. Doors at 8 p.m., $15.  Tix are almost sold out!
  

"It's like how the Clientele are a ghost band because everything we do is through this pop-art lens. We won't play a folk song, we'll play a Peter Blake painting of a folk song," lead singer Alasdair MacLean told Pitchfork, adding that he felt the latest album, Bonfires on the Heath, might make a good going-away present.

That, in addition to The Fleet Foxes once calling The Clientele "Britain's best band," makes this evening's appearance at the Tractor Tavern special (tickets: $12). The weather is just right, too--some wind and rain and MacLean's surrealist poetry over jingle-jangle guitar will make it clear that the Foxes are on to something. Listen closely.

This shot--by Great Beyond over at our Flickr pool--really requires no further comment.

Looks like Conan O'Brien has found something to do with his free time, as today he announced a thirty-city live performance tour.  Dubbed "The Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour," his live show promises "a night of music, comedy, hugging, and the occasional awkward silence."  That sounds like the Conan we all know and love.

Kicking off in Eugene, Oregon on April 12th, the tour will take place over two months, making stops in twenty states and three Canadian provinces, as well as a special appearance at Bonnaroo.  Locally, Conan will perform at McCaw Hall on April 18th and April 19th--looks like this second show was just added!  Prices start at $39.50 (but this is Ticketmaster, so let's just say $50) all the way up to $695 for the drool-worthy special VIP meet-and-greet package. 

Full list of tour dates as of right now--ticket sales are strong, so second shows keep getting added--after the jump....

This Friday, March 12, from 6 to 9 p.m., Roq la Rue is having its opening night for the second annual Lush Life invitational group show. Featuring works by 18 separate artists "that contain an opulence or richness, either in subject matter or technique," Lush Life 2 serves as a sort of primer course in the pop surrealist work Roq la Rue specializes in. The show features everything from Brian Despain's steampunk paintings to Travis Louie's ephemeral old-fashioned photorealistic paintings of alternate realities. Michael Brown's animal paintings pervert Margaret Keane's famous "big eye" paintings by making them far too human and soulful, while Andrew Arconti and Madeline Von Foerster ape classical painting styles while adding in surreal twists. The show also goes beyond paintings to include sculptures by Kris Kuksi, Mandy Greer, and Boomer Torvik.

The promoters for the third Isle of Wight pop festival in 1970 thought they'd build a bit on their successful draw of 150,000 the previous year. They got 600,000 or more. Despite the three-pound entrance fee for a weekend concert with Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Miles Davis, Procol Harum, Joan Baez, and Joni Mitchell, hordes camped out on a bluff overlooking the festival, watched for free, and occasionally set things on fire.

35-year-old Leonard Cohen was one of the last acts, roused in the middle of the night, and wearing what look like pajamas under his trench coat. Murray Lerner's live footage is more in the way of a concert film than a documentary, though he cuts away briefly to get context from Joan Baez, Judy Collins, and Kris Kristofferson. The best thing would be to see it in a crowded theater, savoring all the hits Cohen had come up with before 1970, enveloped in a darkness that is both the beginning and end of something. Leonard Cohen Live at the Isle of Wight, 1970: Friday, March 12, 9 p.m., Saturday March 13, 9 p.m.

Also opening Friday at the Forum is Bill and Ross Turner's mesmerizing 45365, named after the Zip code of a small Ohio town. Too improvisationally loose for "documentary" to sum up, the film has been called a "symphony," "tapestry," and "mosaic." The camera dogs its way around town, sniffing out what's interesting. Although it's frequently distracted from following this or that person (the judge running an election campaign, a police officer out on call, doings in the barber shop, an alcoholic with one foot on and off the wagon), the camera in its detours through town keeps stumbling upon community epiphanies that anyone who's fled to the big city will remember keenly. It's noteworthy that in a town where everyone knows everyone else's business, one of the most cutting things you can do is not refer to someone by their name. 45365: Friday, March 12-Thursday, March 18 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.

From Flickr pool contributor SlightlyNorth.

Tomorrow night, the 15th annual Seattle Jewish Film Festival opens, with more than 20 films screening at several venues around town. But the big, big movie in the festival is this Friday at SIFF, where Yaron Shani and Scandar Copti's Ajami plays at 8 p.m.

One of this year's best foreign feature Oscar nominees, Ajami has attracted stunning reviews. Set in a neighborhood of the same name in the ancient port city of Jaffa (part of greater Tel Aviv today), the film tells a series of interwoven stories about Jews and Palestinians grappling with the complexities of crime, poverty, and gentrification against the backdrop of the continuing violence between their peoples. The film's achievement--and it's supposed to be a doozy--was pretty well summed up by The New York Times's Ethan Bronner, who wrote in January that:

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the movie, however, is what it does to viewers. In a conflict where each side lives and breathes its own victimhood, feeling the hurt of the other is a challenge. Ajami meets it. When a Palestinian youth turns to drug selling to help pay for his mother's surgery, Jewish filmgoers here have wept. When the family of a kidnapped Israeli soldier breaks down over his murder by Palestinians, Palestinians in the theater have had tears in their eyes.

Pre-sales for the Friday SIFF showing are closed, but more tickets should be available at the door, and Ajami is being screened again on March 25 at the Washington State History Museum (tickets $11).

Tamara Ober's charming "Pipa," from SPF 4

But before I get to the two solo works I saw last week, I have to call out some of the exciting shows on this week's docket. Tonight I'm going back for a pair of artists previously featured on The SunBreak: Paul Budraitis with Not. Stable. At all., and Norman Bell with Subprime!, along with recent Cornish grad Mike Harris' Traveling Panties. And tomorrow, one of the most exciting works at SPF 4 opens: Gin Hammond's Returning the Bones. Hammond, a graduate of Harvard and trained at the Moscow Art Theatre, has produced a powerful show about racial and national identity that's supposed to be amazing, and I'm still trying to find time to go see it. Point is, SPF 4 has a lot to offer, so be sure to check out the full schedule and go see some of this stuff.

Movement artist Tamara Ober, a long-time member of Minnesota's Zenon Dance, has created a charmingly odd little performance piece with Pipa. Using monologue and physical humor in addition to dance, Ober constructs a compellingly clumsy character in a way only a trained dancer could. At the opening, she's on the floor, and immediately sits up into a microphone, creating a big thump that reverberates through the sound system....

A rainforest tree at Lake Quinault Lodge. Photo care of Aramark Parks and Destinations.

If James Cameron wants to lick his wounds and soothe his bruised ego after losing a whole bunch of Oscars to his smoking hot ex-wife, apparently he'd feel right at home on the Washington Coast. 

Trying to take a bite of that sweet Avatar pie, two of Aramark Parks and Destinations' four Washington properties are advertising themselves as Pandora on Earth.  It makes sense that both Lake Quinault Lodge and Kalaloch Lodge are taking advantage of the film's success to promote the resorts' picturesque rainforest locales--Lord knows sci-fi fanboys will pony up the money (see New Zealand and LOTR tourism, or Forks' active courting of Twi-hards).

So head to the coast to get in touch with your Na'vi side.  Commune with nature, search for precious unobtanium, and/or try to plug your braid into anything that moves (TWSS).  Full press release after the jump....

There's something about this photo--the charm of an urban neighborhood, the saturating orange glow of the sun--that reminds my of my childhood in Southeast Portland, living off Hawthorne in the 1980s. Much thanks to our Flickr group contributor :MPG: for the shot.

Don't get the wrong idea--the Navy Times Scoop Deck is "thrilled that Kathryn Bigelow broke the barrier and nabbed the first top prize for a female director." But they're also worried that The Hurt Locker's gritty, you-are-there perspective will "lead people to believe the film to be an authentic and accurate portrayal not only of military operations, but the military mindset."

Intrigued, I asked the author, Lance Bacon for more details, based on his eight years in the Marine Corps, where he served as a platoon sergeant in the 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 2nd Marine Division. He worked with explosives experts, and was a combat correspondent his final four years. Continuing his journalism career, in 2000 he became managing editor of Air Force Times, where he provided combat coverage in the early days of Operation Enduring Freedom. Now he's a senior writer for the Navy Times.

I thought that the "military mindset" was supposed to be conveyed by Sgt. JT Sanborn, who never stopped trying to do things by the book.

There are characters in the movie who display the military mindset, as you rightly point out. Unfortunately, they have a secondary status in the movie....

Let's say someone was as pigheaded and risk-taking as Renner's character: What would his sergeant have most likely done?

There are some solid options for a sergeant in such a scenario. He could go to the team/squad leader's immediate supervisor. If that person was of the same nature (which is highly unlikely), the sergeant could "request mast." That means he can talk to anyone within his chain of command without having to divulge his concerns to others. For example, if he desires to talk to the battalion commander, he can do so without first explaining his concerns to the company first sergeant, sergeant major, commander, etc.

What does tend to happen to cowboys? In the movie, he gets complimented for being a "wild man."

No one in a real combat unit is complimented for being a "wild man." Discipline and integrated teamwork is the name of the game. Cowboys get you killed. The more specialized your unit, the more this holds true. There is a huge difference between heroic courage and reckless abandon. I had no time, use or respect for the latter, and most military leaders--from the squad level to top leadership--would say the same. A cowboy will end up in a job where he can't hurt others, the mission, or himself. And if he keeps acting in a undisciplined way, chances are good he will get a bad fitness report and soon be shown the door....

Sally Pepper, one of the many artists who have performed with the Moisture Festival, which opens this week at ACT. Photo by Michelle Bates

Wednesday

• Former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Thomas Daschle talks about the topic of his book Critical: What to Do About the Health-Care Crisis @ the Seattle Sheraton
• Open Satellite and the Henry Art Gallery co-present a lecture by Brad Cloepfil, one of the founders of Allied Works Architecture @ Kane Hall on the UW campus

Thursday

• Opening of The Jammer @ the Balagan Theatre
• Opening of the fifth annual Moisture Festival, with the Grand Variete and Libertease (burlesque) shows @ ACT Theatre
• Eighth annual Young Playwrights Festival, featuring eight original plays written by Seattle students ages 14-18 @ ACT Theatre
• The Esoterics celebrate Samuel Barber's 100th birthday-week with his entire choral oeuvre @ Plymouth Congregational Church

Friday

• Mike "Soul Coughing" Doughty presents "The Question Jar Show" (an acoustic evening) @ the Triple Door
• Opening night of Lush Life 2, a group show that runs through May 7 @ Roq la Rue
• Martin Lawrence does stand up @ the Paramount

Saturday

• "Fantasmical" art from fairy tale artist Alexandra Sandlin and painter/poet Dennis Julius Loeb @ Rung Studio (part of Georgetown's Second Saturday Art Attack)
• Mobile Chowdown 3: Seattle vs. Portland, from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. @ Safeco Field Parking Lot
• Toy-Box Trio, a three-piece that performs chamber music like a sideshow band, is having their CD release party @ Empty Sea Studios

Sunday

• Northwest Associated Arts combines four choirs and an orchestra for Mozart's Requiem @ Benaroya Hall
• PNB's Doug Fullington and soloists Maria Chapman and Lesley Rausch discuss 3 By Dove @ the Elliott Bay Book Company
• Red Pine reads from his new translation of Lao-Tzu's Taoteching @ the Seattle Asian Art Museum

Monday

• Stephen S. Hall talks about his book Wisdom: From Philosophy to Neuroscience @ Town Hall
• Silent Movie Mondays: Gloria Swanson stars as preacher-seducing Sadie Thompson @ the Paramount
• Chang-Rae Lee reads from his novel The Surrendered @ Seattle Public Central Library

Tuesday

• "One of America’s most brilliant classical virtuosos" (Guitar Player Magazine), David Tanenbaum gives a recital @ Benaroya Hall
• John Boylan's Next Conversation on "Retreats and Residencies," a round-table discussion from 7-9 p.m., with SuttonBeresCuller @ Vermillion

It's hard to find information on Prodigal Sons, Kimberly Reed's documentary about her truly dysfunctional family, that doesn't reveal too much of the story. The majority of the reviews and even the official trailer gives away more than I think is appropriate.  Since I live a life of NO SPOILERS--what's in the baaaaaahhhhxxxx?--I direct you to the review above (also because I agree with their recommendation of The Ghost Writer) and warn you to seek out further info at your movie-ruining peril. 

It's not a spoiler to say that filmmaker Kimberly Reed grew up as a boy named Paul, a popular dreamboat who never felt quite right in a quarterback's body.  So as an adult, Paul became Kimberly, and the film follows her as she returns to her Montana hometown for a high school reunion.  But she's also reuniting with her older brother, Marc, who she's been estranged from since their father's funeral.  Marc is the family's eldest of three sons, but he's also adopted (crazy) and suffers from the long-term neurological effects of a car accident (double crazy).  And it is the absolute worst when a crazy person has some sort of vague idea that there's a reason (read: excuse) for acting crazy.  That's tough to deal with as it is, let alone when he's your brother who has identity issues of his own....

Flickr user Photocoyote provides this rather unique perspective of the Seattle cityscape, from our Flickr pool.

Billy Connolly has been making people laugh since the 1970s with his hilarious, off-the-cuff stand-up performance.

On television Connolly starred in the final season of the popular sitcom Head of the Class. He has also starred in a wide range of films including Indecent Proposal, Muppet Treasure Island, The Boondock Saints (I and II), Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, and the upcoming Gulliver's Travels.

Billy Connolly performs March 12 and 13 at 8 p.m. at the Bagley Wright Theatre.

Been to Seattle before?

Never once. I've always wanted to, but all the tours I've been on just never went there. You know people say it rains there all the time but I don't give a shit, I'm Scottish, I'm waterproof.

Any naked dancing planned for your visit?

No, I usually only do that on those documentary travel films I do. I got into the habit of doing it because I did it once and then I was thinking, oh, what do I do to top that for my next film, and I thought, ah fuck it, I'll just do another naked dance. Actually the last one I did in New Zealand and I did a naked bungee.

I hope nothing was harmed by whatever harness you were wearing.

No, it's a boot thing. It's a boot harness that's calf-length. And the rest of me was pink and fluffy.

You've had a long career in which you've sung folk music, written books, acted in numerous movies and television shows, and of course, stand-up comedy. Do you have a favorite? What makes you happiest?

Comedy is my calling. The rest of it is incidental. I like acting and I like acting well, and music is something, well, some people are musicians and some aren't and I'm an aren't. But comedy--it's at once exhilarating and frightening. And when I'm on the stage doing it, I'm very very happy. 

You're going to be doing two shows in Seattle, and you've done a lot of marathon, multi-date runs of shows in your career. How do you keep it fresh and exciting doing so many shows in a row?

It's kind of a weird thing. It takes work. I do about two, two and a half hours usually and it's kept fresh by trying to remember it most of the time. Half the time I can't remember everything so I have to make up stuff. I don't write it down, you see. I've never written it in my life. I was tempted to try writing it down afterward when things went really well, but I never got around to doing that.

There was an ad-lib I did once that lasted a very long time. It was a whole sketch, just ad-libbed. It's on YouTube, you can look up "Billy Connolly Wildebeast." And that's its only performance. I've thought since, maybe I should do that wildebeast thing, but what did I say about them wildebeasts, ah fuck it, I don't remember.

You've played many different roles on film, but most people know you as a comedian. How fun was it to play Il Duce, a complete badass, in The Boondock Saints?

Oh, I loved that. It's brilliant. Being a badass is wonderful because badasses do interesting things. Nice guys are just nice. They go to work and feed their family, but a badass can kill people they don't like with a nine millimeter. It just gives life that little slant. That happy little slant of your fantasies. It's a wonderful world to live in for ninety minutes....

"An hour-long parade of topless women," is the grabber DVD Verdict uses to get you into the review of LeGong: Dance of the Virgins, but it also says the 1935 film is "like a National Geographic photo spread come to life, replete with the gaudy temples, weather-worn faces, and vaguely erotic naked torsos. From historical, sociological, and ethnographic standpoints, the footage in this film is fascinating."

"Actually filmed in Bali," the movie poster assures you, by Marquis Henry de la Falaise. It was shot in two-color Technicolor. You wish the Paramount would have rounded up a gamelan orchestra, but it looks like the Paramount's Mighty Wurlitzer will be pressed into action, with Jim Riggs at the keyboard.

Trader Joe's Silent Movie Mondays begin at 7 p.m. (tickets are $12 adults/$9 students & seniors). After LeGong, the Silents of the South Seas brings Sadie Thompson and F. W. Murnau's Tabu, before closing up on March 29 with a collection of three Charlie Chaplin shorts.

From our Flickr pool, Slightynorth captures the loveliness of a sun-drenched cafe on Capitol Hill just a couple days ago, which stands in stark contrast to our gloomy, overcast morning today.

Right now would seem as good a time as any to tell the story of the time I made Sandra Bullock laugh. It was 1994, outside Manhattan's Bryant Park, where limos were dropping off people going to the after-party of the MTV Movie Awards. My friend Dave and I, both NYU freshmen, thought it would be fun to go stand behind the police barriers and heckle famous people.

Speed was the big movie that summer, but I hadn't seen it, so I didn't recognize the person who everyone started yelling "Sandra!" at. Someone shouted out "Speech! Speech!" I found this all endlessly amusing, because, who was this person? I'd never heard of her or seen her. So I yell out, sarcastically, "You should run for President!"

And she laughed. It wasn't actually very funny, I'm sure she laughed out of a mixture of surprise and pity.

Anyway, there it is, the story of how I made Sandra Bullock laugh. Not a very good one, is it?

You've still got about an hour to find a spot to watch the Oscars before the 5 p.m. telecast begins on ABC.  (And girl, the red carpet has been on E! all day, doncha know.) 

The Mayor's Office of Film and Music has provided a list of notable Oscars events, including the Washington Filmworks benefit for local filmmakers at the Spitfire, Three Dollar Cinema's party at SoDo Park, and TheFilmSchool's auction at the Triple Door. On the Central District tip, as previously mentioned, the Bottleneck is hosting a viewing party tonight, and Central Cinema is of course hosting the Reel Grrls' second annual Oscars party.  And don't forget the 20/20 Awards coming at Central Cinema up next Monday the 15th, in which a select group of the Seattle filmmaking community rights the wrongs of the 1990 Academy Awards. 

As for tonight, let's hope for a couple pretty dresses and any film but Avatar winning Best Picture.

After you watch the other film award show this weekend, take your sense of outrage and "we wuz robbed" to the 20/20 Awards, held next weekend, March 15th at Central Cinema (1411 21st Ave). It features a little less red-carpet treatment, and more brutal honesty.

The organizers explain it like this: "We're going back 20 years to 'correct' the Academy Awards with the advantage of time, perspective, and history." They're doing 15 categories; things start at 7 p.m. Unsuccessful Oscar-defenders will be forever sullied, "new" faces will be rewarded with a Felix.

But of course, just holding an awards show is honor enough. They've managed to placate the lawyers for AMPAS (the cease-and-desist letter was "surprisingly friendly, breezy, and showed a sense of humor"). Some film industry folks were all set to become part of the 20/20 Voting Syndicate body, then reconsidered going on record.

This year, it's the 1990 Academy Awards put under the scrutiny of hindsight. Of the six 20/20 nods for Best Picture, none were noticed by the original Academy back in 1990. Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing is up for seven 20/20 Awards, despite its poor showing with Oscar voters. And up for Best Doc is Michael Moore’s vastly influential Roger & Me, which didn’t even get a nomination.

The cavalcade of 20/20 stars includes Tyrone Brown (BrownBox Theater); Michael Seiwaerath (former NW Film Forum honcho); Curtiss Marlowe (Geek #1 in Heathers); Brendan Kiley, Lindy West, David Schmader (the Stranger); Andrew Chapman (cinematographer); dj Riz Rollins (KEXP); Jennifer Zeyl (scenic designer); Josh Feit (Publicola); Paul Mullin (gadfly/playwright); Gavin Borchert (Seattle Weekly); Sue Corcoran (writer/director), Brian McDonald (writer/bon vivant) and Sean Nelson (man about town).

"For fun," the Fleet Foxes' Robin Pecknold is opening for Joanna Newsom, just a few times, on her tour, Pitchfork tells me. I don't see Seattle anywhere on that list, so it's nice the Pecknold has added this video to his YouTube channel. Never satisfied, Pitchfork would like a duet.