Music Review: Verve Remixed 4

One often wonders if Verve could’ve saved a whole lot of production costs if it had just lumped the best songs from the last three Verve Remixed compilations onto a single disc and released that instead. The same case could be made for the fourth volume in the series, which suffers from the same problem that plagued the earlier volumes, which is that not many DJs like to do a whole lot of tinkering to the classic compositions they are asked to remix.

Like volume three, which culled most of its remixers from the indie community (Postal Service, RJD2, and Danger Mouse, to name a few), volume four tries for thematic unity by recruiting globetrotting turntablists to work their magic on the Verve back catalog. It’s a gamble that pays off…for the most part. Nina Simone’s “Gimme Some,” a track originally rooted in the blues tradition, is given a Motown sheen by pop producer Mike Mangini, while French electro experimentalist Pilooski does a thumping cut-and-paste number on Simone’s “Taking Care of Business,” making it one of the biggest departures from the original and a definite highlight of the Verve Remixed series. Meanwhile, funk/jazz hybrid group Antibalas transforms the rhumba stylings of Patato & Totico’s “Dilo Como Yo” into something resembling an atmospheric outtake from Panda Bear’s last album.

But for every Pilooski and Antibalas, there’s a Truth & Soul, who simply add a beat to Dinah Washington’s “Cry Me a River” and call it a remix. Even more perplexing is Kenny Dope’s take on James Brown’s “There Was a Time,” which sounds like nothing has been altered, but still ends up being two minutes longer than its original incarnation. As always, the compilation ends on a downtempo note, with The Cinematic Orchestra taking Ella Fitzgerald’s cover of “I Get a Kick out of You” and laying some acoustic guitar over it, as well as a somewhat obnoxious vinyl-scratch sound effect. It’s an anticlimactic end to a somewhat lackluster compilation, but for the people at Verve, I suppose it’s business as usual. (In typical bureaucratic fashion, Verve decided to punish the people who actively searched for a physical copy of the album at record stores. A bonus, album-only remix of Ella Fitzgerald’s “Take the ‘A’ Train” by Mint Royale was added to the iTunes version of the album.)

Farewell, Sydney

Sydney Pollack has passed away. He was not only an outstanding filmmaker, with directing credits for Tootsie, Out of Africa, and The Way We Were, he was also an outstanding actor, with his final performance, as George Clooney's superior in Michael Clayton, being one of the acting highlights of 2007. He died of cancer at the age of 73.

My Criterion Collection

I recently counted up all of the Criterion Collection movies I had the pleasure of viewing and found that I have seen over ninety of their titles. How well do you rank? (Titles are listed by Spine No.)

#1: Grand Illusion (dir. Jean Renoir)
#2: The Seven Samurai (dir. Akira Kurosawa)
#11: The Seventh Seal (dir. Ingmar Bergman)
#12: This is Spinal Tap (dir. Rob Reiner)
#13: The Silence of the Lambs (dir. Jonathan Demme)
#24: High and Low (dir. Akira Kurosawa)
#25: Alphaville (dir. Jean-Luc Godard)
#26: The Long Good Friday (dir. John Mackenzie)
#29: Picnic at Hanging Rock (dir. Peter Weir)
#30: M (dir. Fritz Lang)
#33: Nanook of the North (dir. Robert Flaherty)
#39: Tokyo Drifter (dir. Seijun Suzuki)
#40: Armageddon (dir. Michael Bay)
#46: The Most Dangerous Game (dir. Ernest B. Schoedsack & Irving Pichel)
#48: Black Orpheus (dir. Marcel Camus)
#51: Brazil (dir. Terry Gilliam)
#52: Yojimbo (dir. Akira Kurosawa)
#53: Sanjuro (dir. Akira Kurosawa)
#56: The 39 Steps (dir. Alfred Hitchcock)
#57: Charade (dir. Stanley Donen)
#61: Monty Python’s Life of Brian (dir. Terry Jones)
#64: The Third Man (dir. Carol Reed)
#65: Rushmore (dir. Wes Anderson)
#70: The Last Temptation of Christ (dir. Martin Scorsese)
#78: The Bank Dick (dir. Edward Cline)
#91: The Blob (dir. Irvin S. Yeaworth)
#97: Do the Right Thing (dir. Spike Lee)
#98: L’avventura (dir. Michelangelo Antonioni)
#100: Beastie Boys Video Anthology (dir. Various)
#102: The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (dir. Luis Buñuel)
#103: The Lady Eve (dir. Preston Sturges)
#104: Double Suicide (dir. Masahiro Shinoda)
#105: Spartacus (dir. Stanley Kubrick)
#107: Mona Lisa (dir. Neil Jordan)
#110: M. Hulot’s Holiday (dir. Jacques Tati)
#111: Mon Oncle (dir. Jacques Tati)
#112: Playtime (dir. Jacques Tati)
#116: The Hidden Fortress (dir. Akira Kurosawa)
#131: Closely Watched Trains (dir. Jirí Menzel)
#135: Rebecca (dir. Alfred Hitchcock)
#137: Notorious (dir. Alfred Hitchcock)
#138: Rashomon (dir. Akira Kurosawa)
#140: 8 ½ (dir. Federico Fellini)
#144: Loves of a Blonde (dir. Milos Forman)
#157: The Royal Tenenbaums (dir. Wes Anderson)
#164: Solaris (dir. Andrei Tarkovsky)
#166: Down By Law (dir. Jim Jarmusch)
#168: Monterey Pop (dir. D. A. Pennebaker)
#170: Trouble in Paradise (dir. Ernst Lubitsch)
#175: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (dir. Terry Gilliam)
#178: My Life as a Dog (dir. Lasse Hallström)
#190: Throne of Blood (dir. Akira Kurosawa)
#217: Tokyo Story (dir. Yasujiro Ozu)
#219: La Strada (dir. Federico Fellini)
#220: Naked Lunch (dir. David Cronenberg)
#221: Ikiru (dir. Akira Kurosawa)
#226: Onibaba (dir. Kaneto Shindo)
#230: 3 Women (dir. Robert Altman)
#233: Stray Dog (dir. Akira Kurosawa)
#247: Slacker (dir. Richard Linklater)
#251: Shadows (dir. John Cassavetes)
#260: Eyes Without a Face (dir. Georges Franju)
#265: Short Cuts (dir. Robert Altman)
#268: Youth of the Beast (dir. Seijun Suzuki)
#280: The Sword of Doom (dir. Kihachi Okamoto)
#287: Burden of Dreams (dir. Les Frank)
#288: F for Fake (dir. Orson Welles)
#300: The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (dir. Wes Anderson)
#302: Harakiri (dir. Masaki Kobayashi)
#307: Naked (dir. Mike Leigh)
#309: Ugetsu (dir. Kenji Mizoguchi)
#319: The Bad Sleep Well (dir. Akira Kurosawa)
#322: The Complete Mr. Arkadin (dir. Orson Welles)
#336: Dazed and Confused (dir. Richard Linklater)
#349: Kicking and Screaming (dir. Noah Baumbach)
#352: Jigoku (dir. Nobuo Nakagawa)
#353: Sólo con tu Pareja (dir. Alfonso Cuarón)
#374: Bicycle Thieves (dir. Vittorio de Sica)
#377: When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (dir. Mikio Naruse)
#381: La Haine (dir. Mathieu Kassovitz)
#385: Army of Shadows (dir. Jean-Pierre Melville)
#386: Sansho the Bailiff (dir. Kenji Mizoguchi)
#387: La Jetée (dir. Chris Marker)
#391: If…. (dir. Lindsay Anderson)
#393: Pitfall (dir. Hiroshi Teshigahara)
#395: The Face of Another (dir. Hiroshi Teshigahara)
#396: Ace in the Hole (dir. Billy Wilder)
#399: House of Games (dir. David Mamet)
#400: Stranger Than Paradise (dir. Jim Jarmusch)
#408: Breathless (dir. Jean-Luc Godard)
#413: Drunken Angel (dir. Akira Kurosawa)
#421: Pierrot le Fou (dir. Jean-Luc Godard)
#431: The Thief of Bagdad (dir. Ludwig Berger, Michael Powell & Tim Whelan)

Real Life Wall-E

As if I didn't need another reason to see the new Pixar film, apparently they went and built a real-life version of the title character. Take a look:

Explorers Club Debut LP This Tuesday

I've been singing the praises of the Most Likely to Win a Beach Boys Sound-Alike Contest band, The Explorers Club, whose debut album, Freedom Wind, drops on CD and LP this Tuesday. It's a beautiful summer soundtrack, and one I will definitely be picking up when it comes out. For now, though, not only can you grab a couple free MP3s from the album, you can stream six tracks as a muxtape!

Criterion Goes Blu-ray!

Diehard cinephiles, get ready to buy your favorite movies all over again: The Criterion Collection will start releasing Blu-ray versions of existing titles this October. According to a recent e-mail sent to newsletter subscribers, "These new editions will feature glorious high-definition picture and sound, all the supplemental content of the DVD releases, and they will be priced to match our standard-def editions." Here's a look at the list of films slated for high-def release:

The Third Man
Bottle Rocket
Chungking Express
The Man Who Fell to Earth
The Last Emperor
El Norte
The 400 Blows
Gimme Shelter
The Complete Monterey Pop
Contempt
Walkabout
For All Mankind
The Wages of Fear

If one or two of those titles seem new to you, it's because they probably are. Kar Wai Wong's Chungking Express, Gregory Nava's El Norte, and Wes Anderson's directorial debut, Bottle Rocket, will be receiving the Criterion treatment for the first time.

MST3K: The Movie is Silently Released on DVD

For the longest time, the only way you could see the glorious slice of mid-90s nostalgia that was Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie was to either have a friend with a penchant for making VHS bootlegs or to have a YouTube account. Well, the folks at Rogue Pictures (Shaun of the Dead) decided to quietly give the film its long overdue DVD release this Tuesday. Of course, in typical bureaucratic fashion, the disc has zilch as far as extras are concerned. But the film looks great and, in the end, isn't that really all that matters? Here's my favorite moment:

"This American Life" Returns to TV Tomorrow Night

I have recently come to the conclusion that I no longer have the time or the ability to discover new television shows by turning on the television. I now get my TV fix through my DVD player. Programs like "Human Giant" and "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" are so rarely shown on their respective networks that buying their seasons on DVD is the only way I am truly able to take them in.

Case in point is "This American Life." Not only have I never had time to listen to the NPR station here in Wilmington, and thus have to subscribe to the podcast version of the radio show; I also don't get Showtime, so I won't be able to tune in to the premiere of the second season this Sunday. However, I do have access to YouTube, and Showtime has been kind enough to bestow some clips from the upcoming season, including a second short film by animator extraordinaire Chris Ware (Jimmy Corrigan, The Smartest Kid on Earth):



"This American Life: Season One" is available on DVD exclusively at Borders bookstores (trust me, it's worth the effort). Season Two debuts tomorrow night at 10 PM on Showtime or, for those without Showtime, probably the next day on YouTube.

Hooray! Another short film complete!

This one's called Ball and, despite its short running time and simple premise, was a bitch to put together. Rotoscoping every single one of those frames literally drove me crazy. I think I frightened a few of my friends when they interrupted me working on this thing in the editing lab. Anyway, here is the finished result:



The song is "It's Okay" by the delightful PWRFL Power, off his self-titled EP, which you can purchase for a whopping $4 at the Catbird Records website.