The Flaming Lips Have Finished Their Movie!

I'm sure everyone already knew this, but after seven years in the making, Christmas on Mars is finally complete and has already begun making the rounds at various music festivals, including Sasquatch and Bonnaroo. In order to prepare the audience for the film, the Lips have made this brief PSA that plays before they screen it:



Now, if only they could get the multiplexes to put this in front of their feature presentation, rather than the dancing popcorn...

George Carlin, R.I.P.

George Carlin died Sunday at the age of 71. He will be sorely missed. Here's one of my favorite Carlin sketches from recent years:

George Carlin - Why We Don't Need 10 Commandments (mp3)

Get Smart Gets a Reality Check

The New York Times turned in a puff piece about the new Get Smart movie, basically talking about how hard it will be to update a television series making fun of the cold war for a modern audience, an audience made up mostly of kids and Steve Carell fans. However, the Times made a mistake by including a multimedia section showing three scenes from the television series and three similar scenes that will appear in the film, which prove beyond a shadow of a doubt what you probably already knew, but were afraid to admit: the movie sucks in comparison to the television show. You simply can't hire the two guys who wrote Failure to Launch and expect the same level of comedic brilliance that show creators Mel Brooks and Buck Henry provided.

So, it looks like both Get Smart and The Love Guru will blow, so you're just gonna have to hold out until next week when Wall-E comes out to get your comedy fix.

Movie Review: Futurama: The Beast With a Billion Backs

In the mid-2000s, something unusual happened. Futurama and Family Guy, two of the seemingly endless amounts of television programs Fox had cancelled at the start of the decade, were suddenly popular again, mostly thanks to a successful syndication of both shows on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim lineup and strong DVD sales. Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane decided to exploit the situation, and revive the series for three increasingly formulaic seasons on Fox, as well as an upcoming spin-off, The Cleveland Show. In Futurama’s case, Matt Groening decided to take things in a different direction, choosing to create a series of direct-to-DVD movies, which would then be split into half-hour episodes for Comedy Central. While the first of these movies, Bender’s Big Score, oftentimes felt contrived and lacking in the biting satire that fans of Futurama had come to expect from its creator, The Beast with a Billion Backs actually feels like a feature-length film, and less like a series of episodes strung together.

What makes the new movie work is that writers Eric Kaplan and David X. Cohen (who co-developed the show with Groening) keep the subplots to a bare minimum and, thankfully, keep away from that nasty plot device called time travel. In the film, a giant hole in the universe has been ripped open, causing scientist Stephen Hawking (played by the real Stephen Hawking) to stage a conference for all the scientists to try and come up with a solution to the problem. Meanwhile, Fry (Billy West) starts a relationship with Colleen (Brittany Murphy), who gives him a bit of a surprise when it turns out that she has four other boyfriends. After discovering this, Fry dumps her and decides to jump through the rip in space, in order to start a new life. Once through the rift, he discovers a planet-sized, multi-tentacled monster called Yivo who falls in love with Fry’s universe and decides to mate with it. Strange, I know, and it gets stranger. Pretty soon, Fry becomes the Pope of Yivo’s new religion, and invites humanity to leave Earth and enter the other dimension. At the same time, Bender becomes a member of the secret League of Robots, whose mission statement to “Kill All Humans!” is pretty much ignored by its members, which include Calculon, Hedonismbot, and other familiar faces in the Futurama universe.

It may seem like a lot to swallow, but keep in mind that Bender’s Big Score had a lot more plotlines, and plenty of disorganization to go with it. The Beast with a Billion Backs keeps the energy focused on one story at a time, and only rarely pulls out some obscure character for a cheap laugh. The movie also benefits greatly from the casting of David Cross as Yivo, who injects some much-needed droll humor into an otherwise daunting character. Overall, Groening restores our faith in the future of Futurama with a wonderful new movie, and while it does represent a return to form, it doesn’t feel like a rehash of the same old jokes.

Radiohead: The Best Of (DVD Review)

Capitol Records drove the final nail into the coffin that was Radiohead’s contract today, with the release of a massive selection of greatest hits compilations, including a single-disc edition, a double-disc limited edition, a quadruple-LP edition, and a DVD featuring all of their videos. All of these came with the somewhat unoriginal title Radiohead: The Best Of, a puzzling choice considering so many of their song titles would make wonderful alternatives. What about No Surprises...or Exit Music...or We Suck Young Blood? Anyway, if you’ve already got most of Radiohead’s albums, you’ll probably find the DVD to be the only release this week of any value (though that LP box set looks pretty sweet, too). On it are 21 of their music videos, culled from each of the albums released on Capitol. The only glaring omissions are two videos done for Kid A, most notably Stanley Donwood and Shynola’s animated film for “Motion Picture Soundtrack.”

Unlike the single and double-disc CD sets, the DVD is arranged chronologically, so that viewers can truly see the evolution of the band from angst-ridden alt-rockers to representatives of the dark corners of the avant-garde. Pablo Honey alone is represented by four videos (three more than necessary, but I guess we must be thorough), most of which feature Thom Yorke mugging for the camera while the band plays on behind him. Radiohead’s visual style matured along with their music as they released 1995’s The Bends, and the directors they worked with began to forge dense narratives, as evidenced by the videos for “Just” and “High and Dry” (both the US and UK versions are on here, though the US version is the one worth watching). Jonathan Glazer proved especially good at translating Radiohead’s music into memorable visuals, with his beautiful time-lapse photography for “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” and the sinister car ride of “Karma Police.”

The real treat, however, is all the videos for Amnesiac and Hail to the Thief, most of which have never been released on DVD in the US. Michel Gondry’s astounding one-shot video for “Knives Out” is alone worth the price of admission, considering it was mercilessly removed from Gondry’s Director’s Label DVD at the last minute. Also essential viewing is Shynola’s ethereal computer animated video for “Pyramid Song,” featuring a polygonal character diving into an ocean filled with abandoned buildings and houses. One of the more surprising inclusions on this set is the video for “Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors / Like Spinning Plates,” directed by Johnny Hardstaff and featuring two Siamese twin babies whose chests get ripped apart by robotic machinery. The video isn’t as graphic as the description suggests, and the highly detailed machinery is actually quite beautiful to look at. Finally, out of the four videos for Hail to the Thief, the Jan Svankmejer-influenced “There There,” directed by Chris Hopewell, is the definite highlight.

Overall, Radiohead: The Best Of does a good job of showing a band in transition, as their video collection slowly goes from simply starring the band to reinterpreting their increasingly sinister, yet highly innovative music.