Dan Mooney

I was done running my two errands.  Things hadn’t really changed in the six months since I’d moved out of the place on West 73rd St.  The construction that had bottled up Verdi Square all year was naturally finished, just in time.  It was a perfect afternoon, the kind that would show up first in a Google Image Search of the area.

The trains ran local so I got the 1 headed down to my new place.  It was a lazy Saturday.  I sank as far as anyone could sink into my hard plastic seat, buds plugging my ears, cap pulled low, prepared not to think until Chambers Street.

A stop later, the doors opened and an insane woman charged one step into the car.  Fifties, probably.  Rumpled pink spring dress.  Later I would notice the lipstick on her teeth.  She screamed out, as if howling at the moon, “Does this train go to Canal Street?!?!”

At this point, she had worn out almost half the welcome that would soon force her to back off the train, if no one would answer her question.  Time was nearly up.

Her exclamation shook me from my reverie.  I was not expecting to be called upon to answer any question at all, let alone one with a fast-approaching time limit, let alone to defuse the ball of nerves inside that rumpled dress.  My fellow travelers had much the same lack of response.

It would bother me most because I knew the train did in fact run to Canal Street.  I would take the very train down from 14th Street, five years earlier.  I couldn’t process the situation quickly enough, first recognizing that this lady wasn’t out to harm any of us, or herself, then having to acknowledge that her outcry was a fair question, and an answerable one, all within the shred of time between the ding and the closing.

One eagle-eared passenger was able to hack through all this resistance and answer affirmatively yes, lady, this train does in fact stop at Canal Street.  Welcome aboard.  Go ahead and reach back and call your friend to board as well.  All is well now.  You are safe.

The near future had been closer than I’d imagined when first baseman Ike Davis was called up from Buffalo to start for the Mets tonight.

I’m very okay with this move, as satisfied as I am surprised. I’d heard Davis was hitting well in the minors, but didn’t figure he’d be up so soon. Who knows if Mike Jacobs’ demotion to make room for a needed arm (after Saturday’s marathon with the Cardinals) was part of a larger scheme to accelerate Davis’ promotion? Then again, considering the Mets’ paucity of excellent starting pitching and further lack of effort in obtaining any, I doubt the capability of fostering any scheme of any sort.

I am curious to see how this all proceeds. No doubt it’ll be refreshing to see a prototypical first baseman installed there, hopefully on a regular basis. Makes the whole team more reputable, I think. Fernando Tatis, a starter for no one else right now, doesn’t have the frame or the power for the position. His playing there bothers me because it’s the most obvious of the many ways in which the Mets are a poorly designed, incomplete team. Second most obvious, actually – the first was Frank Catalanotto – utilityman Frank Catalanotto, Smithtown’s own, he of never having hit more than 13 home runs in a season – batting fourth the other night. I don’t care if it’s just because he was a lefty and Jerry Manuel wanted to gain the edge in the late-inning matchups, alternating lefties and righties. It’s a whimper of a statement and it’s not why we paid Jason Bay all that money.

Really, the last time I was looking forward to a rookie’s call-up like this was back in 2004. I went to a Spring Training game that year – my only time – in Fort Lauderdale, where a Mets split squad was playing the Orioles (who’d just gotten Miguel Tejada). Many of the bigger Met names went to the other game, so we got stalwarts Jeremy Griffiths, Royce Ring, Jay Roach, Justin Huber – and David Wright. When I first saw him, he was ten feet away from me, a year younger but far closer to my dream than I’d ever be, playing a crisp game of catch. His tongue was extended a little bit, mouth closed, if that helps put you there. The buzz was exciting and I awaited his arrival, later that summer.

I thought Ike Davis would be escorted along at a similar clip, showing up in Queens sometime in June or July. But this isn’t 2004, not at all. With Delgado gone, it was up to Murphy to handle first, but he got hurt. So many Mets are still injured, matching the beating our egos and hopes have taken this last few years. The Curse of Willie Mays may well be in force. No reason not to bring this kid up. Many reasons not to expect him to be David Wright. His recent track record is promising, but for me, it’s more just that he’s someone different, anyone different, who stirs an optimism among fans as can only someone who hasn’t yet succumbed to the anguish – and perhaps curse – of being a Met.

I haven’t seen Invictus yet, but still, District 9 is the best movie set in South Africa I’ve seen in a long time.

In short, District 9 is Avatar plus The Hurt Locker, divided by 2, plus 28 Days Later. But for all that went into it, and came out of it, I liked District 9 more than all of them. It does a better job of storytelling than Avatar, casts a wider net than The Hurt Locker (or seems to), and has a similar excitement to, but is deeper and more touching than, 28 Days Later.

In the movie, Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley) is an excitable corporate worker and government operative selected to spearhead the eviction and relocation of an alien population from District 9 in Johannesburg to internment camps outside the city. In Copley, I see a lot of Craig Ferguson, and a little Christian Bale – he’s a wide-eyed, orderly guy who opens the movie with enthusiasm. His cheerfulness fades, but not his optimism. He’s shown to be quite capable, resilient and realistic when the severity of his predicament sets in.

There’s a lot to like in this movie. For one, I enjoy how the aliens are introduced, without fanfare, really – more like they’re just humans of another race (rather than emphasizing the fact that they’re extra-terrestrial ooooh). That sets a good tone for the parallels exist between the movie and South Africa in the era of apartheid. Comparisons aren’t heavy-handed, or preachy, or overwhelming. Often in movies of this type, the aliens revolt and get real angry and find national landmarks to blow up, but in this movie they’re oppressed, shown rather sparingly, and when they are, it’s generally as decent beings as defensive as any other race on earth.

District 9 reminds me of The Hurt Locker in some of the visuals, the mise en scene of battle. The device of the news/documentary for purposes of exposition is done with a light touch – the people speak more from the heart, are more willing to speculate rather than just being talking heads explaining what’s been going on. The hints of foreshadowing add some flavor, too.

Can’t forget to note the appearance of the mech suit, seen recently in Avatar. I’m now convinced that whenever this shows up, there’s commentary having to deal with the fragility of the human body, of an increasing reliance on technology, and on a slightly different tack, of the “ghost in the machine,” sort of; how the human spirit is, for better or worse, tethered to a corporeal form. The symbolism isn’t as clear or obvious as in the fight scenes of Avatar, but I think it’s worth mentioning as a go-to device in sci-fi movies.

Maybe it’s silly of me to compare genres here: it’s tough to argue that District 9, say, should have won the Oscar over The Hurt Locker, for several reasons I won’t get into in this very last paragraph. But it further surpasses other “alien movies” than The Hurt Locker does other “war movies.” I will say that. It’s excellent, nonetheless.

4 stars

I saw The Hurt Locker a while back, before the Oscars, but didn’t take the time to sit down and write about it. There’s no accounting for that, really. I’m satisfied enough with the idea that the time from finishing this review to publishing it will be hundreds of times faster than the time from viewing to writing. Ah, the Internet, what an amazing thing: in a little while, something I haven’t yet written will be accessible from nearly any corner of the globe. I don’t see how a globe can have corners, but that’s beyond the scope of this entry right now.

In this film we follow William James, a bomb defuser, for a month in Iraq. We see what he does, how he acts, in a small way what makes him tick and why he keeps doing what he does. I applaud the movie mostly for keeping my interest: How do you make a film exciting when it’s certain your main character – who deactivates bombs – will not be blown up straightaway while deactivating a bomb? You do it with good filmmaking, which in this case supersedes reason and expectation and keeps people like me watching throughout. Good enough for me.

Some might criticize the pacing of the movie – maybe less easily done when the screenplay wins an Oscar, but not nearly impossible – but I enjoyed the different backdrops for the action. A mid-desert stakeout seems to play out for much longer than the chapter’s running time, but that plays off well against the tense scenes in which there are bombs that may blow up and kill people.

And, to continue with that example, moments like that, the quieter moments (though never entirely quiet, or boring) let us know about William James in ways a bomb suit doesn’t fully address. We see how he looks after his brothers in arms: he prepares a juice-box for one, he cleans bullets for another. These are not the actions of a one-dimensional adrenaline junky. They’re more like those of a big brother, or babysitter, or even parent. When a guy defusing explosives can mute his ego enough to show this camaraderie, we see more of why William James returns so often to this lifestyle. It’s a shared experience, one more visceral and exciting and more important to him than what he might find spending time with his wife and infant child. It’s remarkable for me to see this character with some understanding and even sympathy despite his veritable dismissal of his family. The merit of his choice is arguable, but that the reasoning behind his chronic decision is so compelling speaks to part of why the film has gotten the praise and awards that it has.

In the weeks before the Academy Awards, there was some criticism of the screenplay for its inaccuracies, and apparently there weren’t just a few of them. There’s talk it was to create backlash/uproar before the Awards, I don’t know, but even if the criticism were true, I’m not even sure it’d matters. The movie’s not a documentary, it’s a movie. This is what fiction is, lies telling a truth. The awards were not in the details. And while I didn’t think it was the Best Picture of the year, I’m not too upset about that. It was in the conversation.

3.5 stars

I’m finally tying up this little thread after a delay of about six months. Here are parts one and two.

In the second part, I criticized a critic named Tom Breihan for being too general in his judgments regarding two Weezer tracks from the band’s latest album, Raditude. He seemed to attack the band on so many levels, not one of which appeared to be his actually having listened to these particular tracks. His gripe was a question of aesthetics but only of aesthetics, text being ignored solely for context. It’s a short-sighted way to frame any kind of criticism, especially some so vehement. While the piece he wrote was more of an article than a review, he seemed to sell the band irretrievably short without giving them a chance to defend themselves.

Let’s see what Weezer’s got this time around.

I should start by saying it feels like years since this album was actually released. Whether that says more about the age in which we live than about the album itself is debatable, but it certainly doesn’t help the album’s cause outright.

Now, track by track:

1. “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To” – Not one of the guilty tracks cited in the Pitchfork attack. A really enjoyable straighforward uptempo pop song. Lots of handclaps and bouncing drums, bright acoustic guitars, a major key, and – not to be underestimated – singing that’s in tune! A beautiful nearly a cappella bridge mixes things up without changing the tempo at all, a gimmick that I think drains songs of momentum, mostly irreparably. Here we have a great choice for an opener but the sad truth is it’s more or less downhill from here. How steep is the dropoff?

2. “I’m Your Daddy” – The first of the condemned. If there’s a problem with this song it’s really in the arrangement, and not in the song itself. Of course, that’s one of the very choices that can veer an album towards good or bad. Take the glossy edge off these drums, and distort the guitars a little more on the chorus, and the song’s not far off from the band’s earliest recordings. The electronic bridge fastens the song and the album to a particular time period – ours – and really while the whole enterprise is kind of relentless, I’m still with them, and I’m not putting the band out to pasture just yet.

3. “The Girl Got Hot” – No shame: I love this song. It’s fun as hell to play on electric guitar. The internal rhyme that’s going on all over the place demonstrates a conspicuous measure of effort (na-na interlude notwithstanding). It’s probably the most fun song of the group, if not the most musically inventive. It’s also the second of the previewed tracks that so pissed off the other reviewer. Thirdly, it’s about as far as I’m willing to go with Rivers’ partyin’ persona and still suspend my disbelief. Which leads us to…

4. “Can’t Stop Partying” – This song burrowed itself into my brain the first couple of times I heard it, and it was different enough to fool me into thinking I actually liked the song and the recording and, what the hell, maybe even the rapping. Then I got over it. And then I realized it’s about as ironic a song as the definition of irony will allow. It’s ironic past the point of humor all the way directly to maddening. Lil’ Wayne’s excessively slanty rhyme twists the knife for me on this one. It all just makes me sad. It’s repetitive and annoying musically and aesthetically and my brain hurts trying to figure out how to respond to it. If this guy can’t stop partying, I just wish he’d at least stop fucking singing about it.

5. “Put Me Back Together” – Co-written with some of the All-American Rejects, who were Weezer fans from way back. Just a weird circle of influence right there. Kind of catchy, but not exactly Weezer, sounding more like exactly what it is, an imitation of something it wants to be but absolutely isn’t.

6. “Tripping Down the Freeway” – Is that a guitar solo? It is! Good song.

7. “Love Is The Answer” – By all accounts, the worst song on this album. All but one, that is. Maybe it’s backlash to the backlash, but I find its straightforwardness and sincerity a relief from the posturing going on in the surrounding tracks. Its message might seem too blunt, certainly cliched, but it’s a clean sound just outside of the range they’ve already set up. I really like the Indian vocals and for those alone, even, the song gets a nod of approval.

8. “Let It All Hang Out” – Cool guitar riff, unfortunately a little too grating, but the rest of the song works for me. Good beat. The drums on this song could and maybe should have showed up on “I’m Your Daddy” to rein that one in a little bit. More singing about dance floors and homeys. I might say, a companion song to “The Girl Got Hot.”

9. “In the Mall” – Even worse than “Can’t Stop Partying” With their Red Album, Weezer tried letting people who weren’t Rivers write songs and/or sing. Here’s another reason why that’s a terrible idea.

10. “I Don’t Want To Let You Go” – Not a career high when a song’s strongest influence is anything by Hoobastank, in this case, “The Reason.” Also, given all the syllables and the couplets, it sounds like a love song Mike Shinoda would write. Probably not a step in any direction Weezer really wants to go. An airy but strange finale to the CD, ending not with a bang but with a “huh?”

All in all – not their worst album. Nothing truly transcendent, but as an album arguably better than anything they’ve put out in the last eight years. Not Pinkerton but nothing is, so comparisons like that aren’t helpful or even fair. Weezer could have dug a little deeper but chose to go more superficial on this one. In the end, it worked more than it didn’t. The catch with any album as harmless as this one is that, without a dedicated listen, it’s likewise not as memorable lo these many months later.

2.5 stars out of 4