Undeterred by the unmitigated disaster that was KISS Meets The Phantom Of The Park, Gene Simmons took a mercifully short detour into serious acting in the mid-eighties, when he starred in three films of dubious artistic merit, but of kitsch value roughly equal to that of diamond-encrusted gold. In all three his character meets an unceremonious end. What, if anything, this is trying to imply is unclear. Let us take you through them now:

Article 1. Runaway (1984)

In the robot future, mechanical toasterspiders bring death upon Los Angelinos by injecting acid into their unsuspecting (and slow moving) veins. Here Gene Simmons' character "megalomaniacal and sociopathic genius Dr. Charles Luther", punches his ticket:



Article 2. Wanted: Dead or Alive (1987)

Here we see Gene Simmons (born Chaim Witz in Haifi, Isreal) playing feared terrorist Malak Al Rahim, unhappily munching on a grenade placed in his mouth by Rutger Hauer:



Article 3, Never Too Young To Die (1986)

In this film Gene Simmons played two characters: Carruther, and "evil hermaphrodite cross-dresser", Velvet Von Ragner. Velvet also kicks the bucket, but finding footage of this has proved difficult. In case reportage such as this leads you believe that I, you know, make shit up, you will have to settle for this trailer:



Overdubbed in German: "A secret agent is murdered, and his son--a high school gymnast--teams up with a spy to catch the man who killed him." Hard though it is to believe, Gene Simmons wasn't really into the whole movie thing so much after this.

Find more delicious pop culture ephemera at the Offices of DAMN! Magazine

The Girls Next Door

When Jeffrey Dahmer wanted to zombify his victims, he drilled a small hole in their unfortunate skull into which he poured formaldehyde, and BAM! Instant zombie slave. This is a feeling somewhat similar (well, I imagine) to how you might feel after watching 6 straight episodes of The Girls Next Door, aka Girls of the Playboy Mansion. Unless you're a 15-year-old boy, in which case you'll feel intensely pre-occupied and able only to utter the word 'boobies.'

I guess it’s at least a more humane way of creating a zombie army of idiot children.

God, I hate this show. It's not even a show, it's dreck. Horrid, sleazy, pointless, depressing dreck, which speaks of nothing but the slow, encroaching end of civil society. There is nothing even vaguely funny about it -- which is a particular achievement seeing as it centres in large part on an Octogenarian Hugh Hefner doing a passable job of portraying a cadaver. Infact, it's the opposite of funny; it's hideously, bone-crushingly depressing.

I'm as much for people enjoying their sexuality until they can't get themselves out of bed as the next person, just as long as I never, ever, ever, ever have to witness it in any way. If people want to live a polygamous lifestyle as one of three concubines to an ancient, barely functioning smut-peddler, that is also fine. If you want to throw parties with no-name, D-list celebutards as attendees, go for it! Just don't expect for it to make great television. In fact, don't expect for it to make television at all. The Girls Next Door is a series of increasingly painful forty minute long commericals advertising the end of reason. It is also, hugely popular.

While the tried and tested MTV format of quick cut edits over the clever employment of silly noises and a cute old school soundtrack reminiscent of a '50s sitcom (The Osbournes) was a deft touch a poking fun at the subject, it's been so copied and dulled down that this is its natural end. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the end of dog racing. For every Gene Simmons Family Jewels there's a Sunset Tan. For every LA Ink, there's Inked on A&E. And for everyone who deserves a punch in the balls, there's The Girls Next Door.

These people don't need to be poked fun at in attempt to show us how celebrities are just like us only independently weathly. They need to be euthanised.

Why does this exist? There’s five seasons so far. Isn’t Hugh Hefner dead yet? Maybe he is. Oh wait, we’ve already seen Weekend At Bernie’s. Nothing will fill the hissing, gaping void of dignity which looms in place of where this show’s reason for existence should be. Thanks E! Network Television, for inching us all ever closer to death. 

This scores Less Than Zero. (Sorry, Bret Easton Ellis.) 

Tropic Thunder

Starring Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jnr, Nick Nolte, Matthew McConaughey, Steve Coogan, Tom Cruise
Directed by Ben Stiller

Tropic Thunder is a mind-bendingly clever, massively ribald and hugely self-referential riff on Zoolander, only this time calling out Hollywood’s insane, big-budget expenditures and the vacuous tendencies of actors, not models (though let’s not split hairs). With a principle cast clearly revelling in hamming it up, and a sprawling support cast shining equally, it’s the neck snapping speed of the agile script that will make your head hurt. And Tom Cruise turns in the wackiest performance of his life – which is sure saying something.

This movie is ridiculous. Which isn’t to say it’s not also hilarious. More that its layer upon spoof-layer upon insidery spoof-layer joke-within-joke, does becomes a little exhausting at points along the way. It’s way meta, dude. Like when if ever you were a kid and you made a cake with your friends, you wanted to make what was clearly the Most Mind-Blowing, Most Badass Tasting Cake Ever. So into the chocolate mix goes M&Ms, and maybe a melted Mars Bar. Okay, I see what you’re doing. And what about a whole bag of those chewy little cars? Ah, Okay. And also, an entire block of chocolate. And then, we’ll melt caramel over the whole things once we’ve done the icing. Voila!

One thing we can safely surmise about Tropic Thunder, is that Russell Crowe will never, ever see it. What? Okay. The script penned by Ben Stiller, Justin Theroux and Etan Coen, cliff-noted: A brilliant, though nearly insane British director (Steve Coogan), is trying to complete filming on his epic war film based on the memoirs of screw-loose ‘Nam Vet with only hooks for hands (Nick Nolte). Production in the jungle is way over budget. A giant, multimillion dollar explosives sequences is ruined when petulant action star Tugg Speedman (Stiller) can’t cry on cue in his climactic death scene with Crowe stand-in and 5 times Oscar-winning Australian method actor Kirk Lazurus (Robert Downey Jnr). Kirk has dyed his skin black in order to authentically portray an African America soldier, much to the chargin of actual black actor and hip-hop megastar Alpa Chino (Brandon T Jackson), also playing a soldier. There’s Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), famed for his roles in a series of fart joke movies in which he plays multiple roles, a la Eddie Murphy. Jeff is also a raging heroin addict trying his hand at serious acting. All are then dropped in the Golden Triangle and left to fend for themselves. When a stunt designed to frighten a “real performance” out of them goes horribly awry, they are kidnapped by a Laotian drug cartel.

And that’s the first half hour. Rest assured that in the following hour, no sacred cow is left unslain.

Tropic Thunder is prefaced by a series of fake trailers which chart the fictitious careers of the fictitious leads with such pin-point accuracy that even the preview audience took a minute to work out they weren’t real. On the web the film birthed its own mini-universe, with fake sites for both the fake leads and their fake films, as well as an hilarious clip on YouTube where the real life versions of Stiller, Black and Downey parodied their attempt to create the ultimate viral video hyping Tropic Thunder, which unsurprisingly went viral. Our heads!

Back in the cinema, Ben Stiller does a more than passable imitation of a chiselled but dim (a combination he evidently loves) action star who aches to be taken seriously by critics -- doubly so after his film Simple Jack, about a retarded farm hand, bombed. Jack Black is given the bluest lines as the party hard bad boy trying to go cold turkey while tied to a tree in the middle of a poppy plantation. But it’s famed Method man Robert Downey Jnr, in his blue-eyed, blonde haired portrayal of the insufferably self-serious Kirk Lazarus (nee Maximus) -- who undergoes a “skin darkening” surgery to wholly transform into character -- who steals every scene. The “full retard” speech he gives Stiller, which perfectly skewers the absurdity of actors’ commitment to character, sums up the problem Tropic Thunder has with Hollywood specifically but also with film generally: what goes into creating the most “authentic” spectacle possible, at whatever cost -- whether personal or financial or both -- is indeed ripe for parody. The fact that Tropic Thunder itself cost upwards of US$100 million to produce is either taking this critique to the ultimate self-referential end, or best not thought about.

While very much worth seeing in the cinema for the dead-on impressive (see: expensive) action set-pieces ripped straight from Apocalypse Now (itself parodied in yet a further spoof pillorying Heart of Darkness, the making of Tropic Thunder mockumentary, Rain of Madness. Available only as a faux website) one can only imagine what kind of down-the-rabbit-hole life Tropic Thunder will lead on DVD, where all its metaverses will converge. As Robert Downey Jnr playing Russel Crowe as Kirk Lazurus playing Sergeant Osiris (just a dude playing a dude pretending to be another dude) at one point says, “I don’t break character until the DVD commentary!” It might all make sense then. In the meantime just enjoy it.

For more interviews and reviews, just follow this link.

KISS
Thursday, March 20th
Acer Arena, Sydney

Ever so slightly creeping in, is the law of diminishing returns on seeing KISS twice in a week. This show at Acer Arena, was word for word and play for play the exact same show they put on in Melbourne. Only Paul Stanley crowns the harbour city the rock and roll capital of the country (touché!), and sadly, was without a wire to fly on.

But who’s going to complain, really? Most people aren’t the kind of retards who follow a band around the country. For most people here, it’s all fresh and – oh, who fucking cares? IT IS FUN. It’s the epitome of fun. It’s catching the Zombie Ghost Train to Cirque du Soleil. On steroids. With more explosions.

What else is fun, is timing your arrival at about one minute before the lights go out and being wholesale consumed by the insanely excitable, revving of the crowd. To the point where it’s possible that you maybe, at a pinch, screamed with sheer abandon at the top of your lungs while flipping the international hand signal for ROCK, and right then and there became one with the KISS Army. Maybe*.

’Deuce’ has been a killer opening KISS track for nearly 35 years, and they aren’t messing with a winning formula now. A KISS show is such an elaborate production, with so many cues on which things explode, it has to follow a formula. It’s equal parts theatre and rock and roll. Any band who brings out a tour that big (U2, the Rolling Stones) falls back on the same setpieces and setlist – and maybe KISS, with their excessive pyrotechnics and scripted banter ("SYD-NEEEEEEY! YOU ARE OUR SECOND HOME!!" Paul Stanley squeals, breaking the hearts of every other city on Earth), are somehow more authentic – because they aren’t striving to recreate a heartfelt emotional connection night after night; it’s all about recreating the spectacle.

’Detroit Rock City’ ’Shout It Out Loud’, ’Love Gun’, ’Lick It Up’, ’Dr Love’, ’God Of Thunder’, ’Firehouse’. Breathing fire, vomiting blood, the call and response, the EXPLOSIONS, it’s all dialed in on cue. And the people, are going nuts. Paul Stanley informing the crowd that the show is being filmed is all the incentive enough for women to graphically flash the cameramen and for dudes to show off their Ace Frehley tattoos on the big screens. Draw the line people, I draw the line at KISS tattoos.

Clearly, this band really means something to all the people here, and if you aren’t a part of it, you will never understand – though I would challenge anyone in attendance with a beating heart not to be swept up in it. It’s all Nuremburg, baby. If they come back someday and you’ve never seen them, see KISS next time. It’s truly one of the greatest shows on earth. It is the very definition of "value for money". And I though won’t ever get it quite like the KISS Army do, I walk out of there two hours later, completely elated, totally converted.

But not before I can resist the 7 foot lure of the God of Thunder himself. Our seats are on the floor, a few rows back from the stage. I take the between songs opportunity to sidle up the aisle and plant myself in the front row, at Gene Simmons’ feet while he sticks his tongue out at me during ’Dr Love’. It’s so creepishly awesome I don’t mind at all being ordered back to my seat almost immediately. My work here is done.

Finally the encore is drawing to a close, and though it has been done countless times since, there’s really noone who does a falling confetti curtain quite like KISS. It seems to never end. It’s like being inside a giant, Satan-themed snowglobe. We’re up on our chairs, screaming the words to ’Rock and Roll All Nite’ until our throats are bleeding, while tens of thousands of white shards of paper fall around us, and over everyone in the place streaming down from the ceiling.

There’s the flashing lights, the flaming stage, the 60 year old men in warpaint you can just about make out in between the fireworks, lapping it all up with the crowd. Paul Stanley has nary a coiffed hair out of place; the Demon, however, looks like he’s been dragged face first through a sandpit by the end of the night. But they’re equally giving it hell.

You would have to be so far beyond cynical to look around the arena and see all the people up on their friend’s shoulders, all the little kids going apeshit and all the hardcore dudes with their arms around eachother, singing along drunkenly out of tune, and think that this was anything other than the pinnacle of "who gives a shit" party anthems to be rocked along to with utter abandon. Forget the world outside, for two hours in this place, there is nothing else to worry about. "It’s a KISS world," as Gene Simmons has said with trademark humility, "you all just live in it."

Irony died today, crushed by the weight of 8 inch Godzilla boots.

*Alright, I totally did that.

[The Brag]

KISS
ALIVE 35 World Tour
Melbourne, Albert Park Raceway
Sunday, March 16



And that, boys and girls, is entertainment.

It had topped nearly 40 degrees in Melbourne this Grand Prix Sunday. And the rev-heads who’d been standing in the pelting sun and drinking beer all day were surprisingly sedate as they waited, chatting amiably, for KISS as little kids in Starchild make up ran in between their parent’s legs.

The speaker stacks jumped suddenly in volume, as the Who’s ’Won’t Be Fooled Again’ blared over the crowd. You could feel it thumping through the ground, it’s a throwdown if ever there was one. The giant black, KISS emblazoned flag dropped to hide the stage, and you knew they were behind there, the hottest band in the world! KIIIIIIIIIIIISS!!

Hey! Fireworks! The flag drops and the band have hit the stage with ’Deuce’, and close-ups on Gene Simmons face show that he is already blinking sweat and greasepaint out of his eyes. It’s hot in the crowd; onstage under lights, surrounded by flames wearing several extra kilos of spike laden costume and facepaint has got to be like having jalepeno peppers in your pants. You know your man is workin’ hard/ He’s worth a deuce. He is. Whatever a deuce is.

Paul Stanley gets off easier wearing only a unitard up to his waist. As ridiculous as this looks at first, if you’re a dude pushing sixty and looking like that, you’ll be happy. Or you’ll be Iggy Pop. If you’re still letting rip, screaming for high notes and just about getting them all, you’ll be happy about that, too.

Did I mention it was loud? This is about the loudest show I have ever heard in my life, apart from perhaps the Sex Pistols show in the late nineties at the Hordern Pavilion after which it sounded like everyone I spoke to had swallowed helium – for about a week. Yes, this is KISS at ear splitting volume and it is glorious.

OK, so KISS are like the McDonalds of rock: a globally recognised brand with a thousand product tie-ins. They both have clown mascots. Both are a guilty pleasure that you know isn’t good for you, but nuts if that cheeseburger isn’t the best tasting thing in the world when you’ve got a hangover. You’ll be damned to let anyone catch you enjoying it though, but you do – sweet lord, does it taste good. You get after food guilt, but you know that you’ll do it again, and again.

KISS even went through a "we’re health conscious and are introducing a salads menu" phase when they tried to get serious and take off their make up and put out some darker records when it was clear that grunge was not a passing phase. Grunge was trying to destroy the metal! But noone wanted to eat from that salad menu! I want the Big Mac. Give me the goddamn Big Mac and fries. So KISS got back in the greasepaint, never played those songs again, and headed out on the kinds of never ending, greatest hits, wham bam, hit-after-hit-after-hit shows like we saw at the Grand Prix.*

Gene Simmons spits blood during his bass ’solo’ (come on, showman yes. Great musician? No) and the effect is still awesome, even after the countless thousandth time – awesome because you can see that he is loving it. It seems with so much of KISS’ enterprise, that the music, the show, is the last thing that ever happens with the giant branding industry which swirls around it and its 100 extra-curricular activities. But when the Demon is winched straight up in the air on a wire and planted in his 8 inch heels on a lighting rig 10 feet above the stage, legs wide and roaring out ’God of Thunder’ like his life depended on it, you can be reminded that this, is rock and roll.

"If you wanna be lectured to by someone at a rock and roll show, you’re in the wrong fucking place tonight!" Paul Stanley shrieks to the crowd, chewing out some equally well know and equally huge rock bands who use the stage as a political vantage point. "If you wanna hear bad news, turn on the tv. THIS IS A KISS SHOW!" And what is that? Pure, unadulterated escapism for 2 hours. It’s like being in a circus. Not to be outdone, Paul Stanley flies on a wire over the crowd and lands on a small stage in the middle of the field and tears into "Love Gun". I decide right there that this could possibly be the best thing I’ve ever seen. I’m stuck in a moment, here, with KISS. And I can’t get out of it. I don’t want to, either.

The encore takes us through ’I Was Made For Loving You’, I disco riff so ferocious not even Blondie came up with it. Gene Simmons spits fire. By this point, pretty much everything on the stage is on fire. ’I Wanna Rock and Roll All Nite’ is capping off the show, and there are confetti canons showering the crowd in silver shards. There’s flames shooting up from the stage. There’s those pinwheel fireworks covering the backdrop, there’s actual fireworks in the sky. There’s fit-inducing strobes going off, there’s a showering curtain of golden sparks falling to the stage. Somehow KISS avoid igniting in flame and scream out "We’ll never forget you!"

I doubt that. I’m not moved by KISS’ music, but I am moved by what it does to people. The whole night I stand behind a KISS family, mum and dad and three kids under 10 all wearing their favourite make-up, the cat, the demon, the star child. And they spend the whole night yelling along and dancing like white people do and laughing and getting up on their parent’s shoulders. And this is probably their first ever gig. They’re the one’s who’ll never forget it.

So, if you eat nothing but McDonald’s, you’re Morgan Spurlock. If you listen to nothing but KISS, you’re the Darkness – and noone wants that. But everyone’s diet of rock has room for junk occasionally and KISS tonight, was junk of the highest order. I have been saved. God Gave Rock and Roll to me, put it in the soul of everyone. Amen.


This review originally appeared on FasterLouder.com.au

Gene Simmons: very, very long… sentences. Marketing guru, king of commerce, television producer, action figure likeness, one time partner to Cher. Oh, and he plays bass in that band, KISS. You've heard of them, right? Allow us to introduce you…

Read the FULL INTERVIEW here

LCD Soundsystem
Enmore Theatre
Saturday, January 26

There were ushers running the length of the 200 strong queue outside the Enmore on Australia Day night, with alphabetized ticketing, all trying to get everyone inside. Five minutes to show time and this was not looking likely. This mad dash to make it was a perfectly apt reflection of the general nuttiness which greeted LCD Soundsystem as they took the stage: the build up, the long drawn-out climax, then BAM! The energy that barely dropped below fevered for the duration of the set. From 'Daft Punk Is Playing At My House' through to 'North American Scum' and hitting mentalcakes proportions with the gloriously extended 'Yeah'; all the way to the thoughtful and lovely closer 'New York I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down.'

As was pointed out to me by a particularly ardent and close attention playing fan, the genius of LCD Soundsystem is that everyone in the six piece band breaks the complex layerings of the records down to very simple parts that each of them play in a unrelenting crescendo of simplicity. Long haired, short short wearing drummer Pat Mahoney pummels a rock steady beat to revival any 303, bringing an acoustic heart to the party. Joined for a track by a stray Arcade Fire guitarist, the remaining members of the band drew wonderful blips from an array of strange boxes, tinkled/beat the hell out of keys, and often pumped out bass lines courtesy of two simultaneous players, hitting chords.

And ontop of this all was James Murphy, hereafter referred to as the father of our feast, belting out his lacerating, insightful lyrics to what was pretty much a roomful of kids who just wanted to be loaded. Hard. Which is why LCD Soundsystem is so great: you can out of it exactly what you want – nerding out on seeing how they do it live, being moved to tears by the heart-rending and unparalleled of 'Someone Great', or losing your shit along with everyone else, arms aloft to 'All My Friends.' Where are you friends tonight? Everywhere you turned at the Enmore.

[First published in The Brag]

Sydney festival program notes refer to New York's The National
as a mix of "the atmosphere of Joy Division and the gentle twang of Wilco", which further goes to show how ubiquitous and incorrect references to Ian Curtis are at the moment. Singer and lyricist Matt Berninger may have a baritone the envy of Paul Banks, but that's right about where any comparision to miserablists should end. There is too much uplift and passion in the music for that. Not to mention effortlessly witty between song banter.

The National are firm heirs to the grand mantle of big, big music. Refreshingly free of hamfisted histrionics, bombast, embarrasing earnestness or self serious throwbacks, the band – much like Wilco – rely on almost peerless musicianship and lacerating lyrical insight to strip the listener to the core. Comprising of two sets of brothers – twins Scott & Bryan Devendorf on guitars and rhythm section Aaron & Bryce Dessner, joined by freakish multi instrumentalist Padma Newsome and rounded out with frontman Berninger – the National effortlessly build layer upon layer of complexity without ever being needlessly showy.

Calling on members of sister support band Clogs, there was a time when 8 musicians and 6 voices filled the City Recital Hall with exactly the kind of granduer it was meant for. Strings and basoon, trumpet, organ, bass being swapped for guitar, guitar for piano, piano for violin – it was an embarrasing amount of talent on show. "We're used to playing places like CBGBs," Berninger deadpanned. "But if my parents could see me in a place like this, they'd understand why I quit my dayjob."

Fans of the last two super-acclaimed records, Alligator and Boxer, were sated by a set which drew heavily from both. The gorgeous 'Geese of Beverly Road' with its inspired, extended Edge-worthy ending was likely the highlight, judging from the response. And not letting the austere surrounds interfere with their rock credientials, the band tore into 'Abel' and the incomprable 'Mr November' as though it were CBGSs, the latter inspiring the lank frontman to clamber into the front rows and howl the chorus from a gentleman's lap ("I won't fuck us over! I'm Mr November!") The back rows might have still felt disconnected in a venue not quite suited to this, but down the front we were goosed til the end after that.

A standing ovation and an encore later, the band are gone, then milling around outside smoking cigarettes, politely accepting the effusive thanks of the dazed and shook up lingerers. If you can get tickets, do. If you don't have this music, get it. The glimmering world awaits.

[First published in the Brag]

The Police
Testra Stadium
Wednesday January 24

In the week during which Sydney played host to The Arcade Fire, The National, Rage Against the Machine, LCD Soundsystem, Bjork (and if you care, Bon Jovi) to name only a few, will not soon be forgotten. So in amongst a summer week in which we were seriously spoiled for choice, you may be forgiven for forgetting that the hottest ticket (just about, Led Zeppelin not withstanding) in rock was coming to a stadium near you also: the reformed Police, playing their first shows in Australia in roughly 20 years.

Say what you like about Sting; wife's toe sucking exhibitionist, most pretentious person with one name (thankyou, Conan O'Brien), rainforest loving, car commercial soundtrack provider, rocking a Fisher King beard. All of these are true. But none of them prevent Sting from hitting notes at the top of his range as though he were still 25, while moving around the stage on legs the envy of any dude who IS 25. Sting is a beautiful man, still. Let it be said. All that yoga and tantric whatnot has preserved him, somehow – probably thanks to things none of us really want to think about too deeply.

Forget Sting! This is the Stewart Copeland show! Clad in his Ghost in the Machine shirt, the drum hero demigod of the last three decades was there, resplendent, beating out those unholy, complex rhythms with that straight-armed intensity at warp speed – when he wasn't hitting that gong the one time, or dashing from kit to one man percussion orchestra and back. But wait – it's the Andy Sumners show! Another freakily ageless rockstar, there he was screaming out solos, back to back with Sting, cracking ever so small a smile at the roar that greeted him as he rang out the first unmistakable notes to 'Message in a Bottle.' You'd smile too, if you were responsible for such indelible riffs, be they from 'Every Breath You Take', to 'Walking on the Moon,' to all he wrote between.

That was the genius of the Police – essentially the three shit-hottest session players in the land at the time – joining forces, dyeing their hair blonde and marrying a perfect pop sensibility to that incredible musicianship. It was a recipe for nothing less than their globe conquering rock which brought reggae rhythms to a wider audience who might never otherwise of heard them before. And though Sting's lyrics have at times been the most thoroughly awful in the history of rock (see: 'Don't Stand So Close To Me', also known as 'Lecherous Old Man Pedophile Anthem'; or 'Every Breath You Take', also know as 'Staggeringly Terrifying Stalker Anthem'; or 'Can't Stand Losing You', also knows as 'Psychotically Unable To Cope With A Break-Up'), I would defy any one person who was in the stadium to resist the pull of belting "Rrrrrrrrox-AAAANNE!" at the top of their lungs with 40,000 other people. You couldn't.

Just having the three members of the Police sharing a stage without getting into a fistfight is a sight to behold in itself. This was far from nostalgic, rote, going through the motions: this was the band who were in the 80s the Biggest in the World, showing everyone exactly why that once was the case – and proving they could still take all comers right now, should they want to. Apart from a strange interlude during which Sting played pan-pipes (it could have been worse) over an animated montage of a dinosaur skeleton (stay with me), it was nothing but balls to the wall hits from start to finish. There may never be another Police album, but with this much back catalogue gold, does it really matter? Showered in applause as they were, taking their bows joined at the hand two encores later, witnesses would have to say not.

[Originally published in The Brag]

New York: Officially OK to Destroy It On Film Again.


Sometimes as a reviewer you think about how great it would be to able to unleash your inner geek and just gush in a similar fashion to unabashed fanbot and rotund man Harry Knowles. After all, he's made a living out of it! In any case, sometimes you put aside your critical faculties and remember that cinema at its best is often about pure entertainment. Enter Cloverfield, the most mercilessly hyped, secrecy-cloaked, genre busting monster movie since some other movie about destroying major landmarks. Or something. Whatever – this film absolutely lives up to the hype, in the way that we all hope the final episode of Lost will (or mark my words: heads will roll. Either that, or the internet will spontaneously combust.)

What a neat segue! Producer and Lost co-creator JJ Abrams (for anyone interested, Cloverfield's director is Matt Reeves, and it was written by Drew Goddard – of Angel, Alias and Buffy fame) really knows how to crank our anxieties to unbearable levels. There's every kind of anxiety ticked off here you could imagine to endure: claustrophobic anxiety, collapsed super-structures anxiety, separated from love of one's life anxiety, aircraft disaster anxiety, exploding from the inside out with rivers of blood anxiety, horrid giant insects anxiety, and of course, it-came-from-another-place, seriously huge and bent on destruction monster anxiety.

Yes – the monster. Is it the monster from Lost? Who cares! Focus! We see it almost immediately (taking a leaf from _The Host'_s hugely successful book), and thus the action – which is "white knuckle", to use a great action movie cliché for good reason – can begin in earnest and cease to relent for the next 60 minutes. Shot on good looking handheld cameras, the through line in Cloverfield is of the classic race against time variety. Our heroes set out as a pack from a party rudely interrupted by the unfettered destruction of Manhattan, and we know they will each meet suitably awful ends by the time the credits roll. And by "awful", I mean "bone-crushingly disgusting".

Cloverfield is incredibly clever. It uses very few locations and little known actors to achieve its eerily intense and somewhat familiar (hi 9/11 survivors) realism. And though the dialogue is occasionally ham-fisted, the obvious humour (which could be lifted straight from Buffy – something which will endlessly please all those weirdos who loved that show) works very effectively to alleviate the tension right before something truly horrifying happens. Again. I screamed, clutched my head repeatedly, peered through my fingers, nearly got vertigo from one particularly memorable scene and dug appropriately impressive holes into the burly arm of my date. In short, it was a bit like being on a rollercoaster – thrilling and totally awesome fun, dude. THIS MOVIE FUCKING KILLED, MAN. If I'd paid to see it, I would feel immensely satisfied. And that's something which doesn't happen all that often anymore.

Four and a half stars

[Originally published in the Brag]

The Best of 2007 (The BRAG)

In case you missed it, the year 2007 recently passed over the course of 365 days, ending on December 31st according to our Roman calendar. This means - on top of the annual sacrificing of goats we are all currently enjoying - it's time for another Best Of list, which will more likely than not be consigned to the dustbin of critical history. However! We are paid to be big mouthed, opinionated know-nothing, know-it-alls! So here it is, everyone's favourite game of "I loved/hated, bought/didn't buy that record/film/gig ticket: 2007 Edition." May the roasting begin!

Record of the Year

Internationale:

Cold War Kids – Robbers and Cowards
Ryan Adams – Easy Tiger
Of Montreal – Hissing Fauna Are You The Destroyer?
LCD Soundsystem – The Sound Of Silver
The National – Boxer

This embarrassment of riches and nary a U2 release in sight! Until that is, the 20th Anniversary Reissue of the Joshua Tree came late in the game and just in time for Christmas! (thanks Santa. I mean, Bono.) Topping this list with a 20 year old record would have me swinging from the nearest lamp post, but I can't let the year pass without at least one gratuitous mention of Bono. Bono. Bono Bono Bono Bono Bono. Bono. They've got a future, this "U2" band. And Cold War Kids are really good too.

Local releases:

Operator Please – Yes Yes Vindictive
Bluejuice – Problems
Kid Confucius – Stripes
Cloud Control – Cloud Control
Beasts of Bourbon – Little Animals

I love cool teenagers: they're everything I never was in highschool. These kids may come across as brattish with the Ping Pong song, but scratch their scarily colourful surface and you'll find the unearthing of a rare talent in singer/songwriter and future solo artist, Amandah Wilkinson, whose knack for a freakishly accurate observation wrapped in a stupidly punchy arrangement makes her the envy of musicians twice her age. In the meantime, Operator Please play a live show that makes everyone else on the scene look like they're running on fumes. Which at this time of year, they are.

Single of the Year:

LCD Soundsystem - Someone Great
Bluejuice – Vitriol
Cold War Kids – We Used to Vacation
FINK – This is the Thing
Kings of Leon – On Call

So tempting to give this to local lads come good and two times the bride's maid, bluejuice for their wildly popular crossover hit built on a truly exceptional keyboard riff. But LCD Soundsystem managed to make everyone think this unbearably catchy slice of disco punk pop was about breaking up, when it's about something much more heartbreaking: You're smaller than my wife imagined/ Surprised you were human / There shouldn't be this radio silence/ But what are the options when someone great is gone?

Film of the Year:

Control
I'm Not There
Joe Strummer – the Future is Unwritten
Michael Clayton
Zodiac

2007 was a boon year for the rock biopic. Three completely different renderings of the lives of three iconic rock frontmen makes it somewhat difficult to choose, but Anton Corbijn's intensely personal and visually stunning portrait of Ian Curtis managed to be both moving and even handed. Not to mention that the actors learned their instruments from scratch for the live performance footage which was all shot for real - and they sounded better than Joy Division doing it, according to Peter Hook.

Most Hyped Near (and Wide) Misses:

Foo Fighters – Echoes, Patience, Silence and Grace
Silverchair – Young Modern
Smashing Pumpkins – Zeitgeist
Expatriate – In The Midst of This
Interpol – Our Love To Admire

Foo Fighters are still putting records out? As interchangeable as they are with the latest Nickleback release, apparently yes. When did Dave Grohl turn into a parody of everything Nirvana stood against? Some time and several stadium tours ago. You can only trade off a legacy for so many horrible, cock rock albums.

Gig of the Year:

The Cure – Sydney Entertainment Centre
Ryan Adams – Enmore Theatre (Night Two)
Wilco – Enmore Theatre
The Pixies – The Big Top, Luna Park
Operator Please – The Annandale

One could gripe that not having a keyboardist on this tour meant that hearing Close To Me was not exactly as it should have been. And one could be a total fucking moron, because three plus glorious hours of nothing but pure gold and perfect sound is a once in a lifetime experience.

Most Awful Gig of the Year:

Robyn – Oxford Art Factory
The Killers – Sydney Entertainment Centre
Elton John – Acer Arena
Bloc Party – Hordern Pavillion
Cold War Kids – The Forum

Could easily have been the Killers' soulless rock pantomime, or Sir Reg's god awful mauling of Rocket Man, or even the Forum's unchallenged ability to ruin a great gig by leaving the house lights on. While Bloc Party failed to bring a stage show big enough to liven the dead space of the Hordern, it was Robyn who played the most nonsensically hyped "show" of the year. Since when was house music either coolly ironic or in need of a revival? Certainly not when it was lip-synced by a midget with an asymmetrical peroxide fringe.

Hype of the Year:

Silverchair. If I read one more men's magazine (which are my favourite kind) cover feature about how this record full of overblown orchestral arrangements and schizophrenic song structures is the best thing to come out of the country this decade, I'll vomit all over Daniel John's perfectly manicured facial hair. Working with Van Dyke Parks does not the genius make.

VICE records

Four stars

People are going to hate this band for being signed to Vice Records. This will suck for you if you're one of those people who considers themselves to be some kind of arbiter of taste who automatically eschews Black Lips because they're tarred with the hipster brush. Don't want to have fun? Don't want to hear some wilfully joyous, balls out rock and roll? Fine! Don't get this record then, and definitely don't throw it on at your next party. Rubes!

Unlike boorish, self serious throwbacks like Jet and Wolfmother, Black Lips are far from pretending to have reinvented rock, but rather gleefully admit to loving the hell out of everyone from The Gun Club, to the Byrds, Television, The Velvet Underground, The Stones and the Zombies – to name only a few references which immediately jump out of the speakers. Black Lips are much more in the Ryan Adams/Black Keys vein of brilliant homage, rather than blatant rip off. Above anything else, this record is fun.

There is a lot to love here – the effusive freshness of the production: low-fi, with just a hint of contemporary sheen. The joy in not taking yourself seriously – for the most part – while still bashing out something like "How Do You Tell A Child That Some Has Died?", a bluegrassy fable about the untimely death the band's founding guitarist Ben Eberbaugh met in a car wreck.

Maybe that sums this record up – life is short. Enjoy it. Take everything that gives you pleasure and mix it up in a southern flavoured chowder, get your friends over and have one hell of a whiskey sodden clambake. Or similar, if you don't like clams.

[Originally published in the Brag]

For many people who see it, the enduring memory of Todd Haynes' Bob Dylan inspired I'm Not There will be Cate Blanchett's magnetising portrayal of the man in his famed electric period. It's little wonder that Blanchett's Dylan has been plastered on all the promotional material for the film – it is impossible to be anywhere that than right in the moment with her/him for every minute of screen time. Blanchett shifts shape into popular culture's ultimate shapeshifter in a performance that is not only Oscar worthy (safe to puts odds on it now) but almost appears to be a kind of possession – she has captured everything: from hand gestures, turns of phrase and syllable, even the way Dylan lit his cigarettes, and above that managed to make us care for him as a character, even at the height his most unsympathetic - some might even say misogynist – phase. It is remarkable in every sense, and the film never quite finds the same strength in the five other Dylan threads explored in portrayals by Christian Bale, Richard Gere, eleven year old black actor Marcus Carl Franklin, with Ben Whishaw and Heath Ledger.

If you are hoping for an austere, factually accurate portrait of Dylan, you are not going to get it here. Rather than add to the huge amounts of seriously minded (not to imply that I'm Not There isn't serious, because it is) documentary material there already is, Haynes' vision is to take on storylines which were directly inspired by key periods in Dylan's creative life. And it is a very personal and subjective interpretation of what those periods mean to the director. As a result there are sections that clearly make perfect sense to the filmmaker, but are somewhat lost on the viewer who doesn't share a similarly intense obsession with the subject. Yet there is so much passion and careful consideration infused within each of the stories, that they stand alone, if not as a coherent whole. Richard Gere's storyline, which sees him playing an old west incarnation of a lost America, will be confusing to those of us not familiar with that history. But it's hypnotic none the less, and also one of the more emotionally affecting pieces.

Heath Ledger plays the Blood on the Tracks era Dylan with an atypical intensity. After we follow the part where he is playing an actor who portrays a Dylanesque character in a film (following? Nevermind) named Robbie Clark, we get to explore a time tested notion of the extracurricular affects of a creative life on a domestic one. It is a by turns ugly and devastating story, but again told so honestly by Ledger and Charlotte Gainsbourg as the wife divorcing him, that the brutal selfishness of rockstars seems almost a regular human folly.

Bob Dylan signed off on this film, which until now was unheard of. It won't reveal any ultimate secrets to his creative longevity, or provide much new insight into a man who has made a career out of obsfucation. But it will move you if you're a fan of music, whether of Dylan in particular or not. There are brilliant cameos from Kim Gordon and David Cross (as Allen Ginsberg, no less) and Haynes' long time muse, Julianne Moore appears as a Joan Baez character in Christian Bale's folk line. There are complex references to the historical contexts of each of the timelines, (which are sometimes intercut with newsreel footage to illustrate this) as well as a cultural commentary on the aftemath of the 60s counter culture revolution. It is extremely dense, well researched, funny, insightful, clever and thought provoking all at once.

I went and got a bunch more Dylan records after I saw this, so I'm Not There may well turn a whole new bunch of people onto him¬, who will then discover the music in their own way - which is surely a beautiful thing and more than the average film can deliver.

Four stars

[Originally published in the Brag]

No Country For Old Men

No Country for Old Men is perhaps the most un-Coen brothers like film the Coen Brothers have ever made. It is an amazingly faithful adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel of the same name, and as a result employs a somewhat spare visual aesthetic which is in stark contrast the duos's highly stylised Man Who Wasn't There, or O Brother Where Art Thou? The washed out colour scheme and harsh light of the barren American West serve as the ideal environs for the grizzled actors to inhabit as they deliver the clipped and unmistakable McCarthy dialogue, lifted often verbatim from the source material.

A drug deal gone wrong has left a swathe of bodies and shot up trucks in the desert, just as local good old boy Moss (Josh Brolin) stumbles upon the scene – and the $2 million dollars in cash left for the taking. In a tightly wound two hours, the films traces his fate, and that of the sociopathic Chigurh – a bounty hunter with dubious motives in pursuit of the money, played with dead eyed calculation by Javier Bardem. From this heist movie staple set up, the plot goes on reveals its true heart to be a rumination on consequence – a very bloody one – a motif that McCarthy explores as a writer without par.

McCarthy is fascinated by human brutalities and incarnations of evil. His most famous may be The Judge in Blood Meridian, his 1971 Old West opus, which has been optioned by Tommy Lee Jones. Tommy Lee Jones stars in Old Men (SEGUES! I CAN HAS THEM!) as the small town Sheriff in his twilight years, hardened by the decades in the job, yet still struggling to comprehend the depravity of the crimes committed in his county, reading his newspaper with quiet shakes of the head and black coffee. As the narrator, his character stands as the film's moral compass, wearily following the path of destruction paved by Moss and Chigurh, and always two footsteps behind, too late.

There is tension in this film ratcheted up to almost unbearable levels by the climax (or is it anti? – you'll decide.) The script is watertight and the performances are each exceptional, especially Bardem as the Judge-like killer with the terrifying weapon of choice. This is a vision lifted so precisely from the page, it will impress even those of us who are fans of McCarthy and already know the turns in the story. And if you don't, I'd venture that the suspense would be thrilling. This film is a bonafide entry into the Western canon, despite its modern setting. A deeply unsettling, but hugely rewarding experience.

(I thought I might get through this review without mentioning Javier Bardem's hair. But I can't. Javier Bardem's hair, I'm sure it had its own trailer. WHO STYLED THIS MOVIE? The editor of Cosmo circa 1978? WTF is with the hair? FIN.)

Four and a half stars

[Originally published in the Brag]

Todd Haynes' I'm Not There, his extraordinarily complex semi-biopic "inspired by the many lives of Bob Dylan" is a vision as mercurial as the man himself. To try to explain it is to take away from it – much like Dylan, it defies genres, classifications or other clumsy attempts to pigeon-hole it. Here, Todd Haynes recalls how this vision – eight reflections of Dylan played by eight different actors including a woman and an eleven year old black kid, in stories which sometimes connect and other times don't – came to him as he drove across America from New York to his home town of Portland, Oregon listening exclusively to Bob Dylan, reconnecting the music he loved as a teenager but had left behind for many years as he moved cities and directed his films Velvet Goldmine, Safe, and Far From Heaven.

As to the eternal question of if Dylan is a bonafide genius or a supreme charlatan, Haynes says: "I don't think he's a charlatan. I think there's a charlatanism at the root of all creative endeavours. It's inherently a lie – something we create from nothing, from outside ourselves, and becomes a surrogate for ourselves, for our emotions for what we're going through at the time. Something that we have every right to relinquish and run from and reject, and not feel that we're continually being defined by it. Because we – everybody – changes." A statement which seems to sum up the enduring appeal of Dylan's chameleon nature.

It's clear from your films that you are a huge fan of music. What did rock and roll mean to you growing up?

Oh, it meant everything. I mean, it continues you. For young people, it's often the thing that gets them through their lives and helps them establish a sense of themselves, a sense of rebellion, a sense of autonomy. I think a feeling of possibility in the world, that I definitely felt in music and very specifically Dylan's music.

Did this huge, interweaving concept of a vision come to you all at once? Or was it knocking around in your mind for a long time before you were able to put it on paper?

The concept of the multiple characters really did come fairly quickly, and it came in this environment of a fresh obsession with Dylan. A different kind of obsession – maybe one that stood out because it came to me in my mature years.

What had happened in your life at the time?

It was definitely coming out of a kind of fallow period in New York, where I was starting to feel less inspired by the city and my life there and feeling in general that all my energies had been going into my work and not my life, or my sense of home or place. And that encouraged a desire to just drive across country to Portland, Oregon where my sister lives. Just to get away. And this whole period was suddenly being kind of distracted by this desire to listen to Dylan much more intensely than I had before – or with at least a new intensity. And it exposed me to a lot of new stuff I'd never heard before. Old stuff – old, mysterious recordings and bootlegs. And then I started reading the biographies and reading interviews. And it was in this spell that this idea of the shapeshifter – this constant artistic chameleon -came to me. It wasn't something imposed on what I was looking at – it was something I felt like I was bumping into everywhere I turned.

Did you have an image of Cate Blanchett specifically to play the female Dylan in the electric period? Because watching her, it's impossible to imagine anyone else playing the part.

That's because of Cate and her unbelievable, transcendent performance. It was never really out of a desire to reveal the female side of him – except in a physical sense. I was really dumbstruck by how he had transformed yet again, physically, into this strange amphibious figure on stage during the electric period. And in interviews and all the footage I saw, I saw all his eccentric gestures and hand movements, his fidgeting body where completely different to how they were in Don't Look Back, the film earlier in the same year. Just the speed of the shedding skins, and throwing himself into new climates and commitments – he was moving so quickly. I felt like a woman playing that would bring out that strangeness. It would not be because Dylan had a new sensitivity at that time, in his writing or his outlook. If anything it was the contrary. But I found that physical manifestation really important to dramatise.

Was she pretty well familiar with Dylan and a fan before you started work on the film?

She seemed pretty familiar with Dylan, but the process of the film – and this is true of all the actors – deepened their love and knowledge of his work. For Cate it became almost a love affair – she really fell for Dylan. She was passionately extolling his virtues in many of the pre production meetings that we had, so she had that appreciation and respect. But I think just submerging herself into it brought her to a different level. Her husband Andrew was like, "you're falling in love with the guy!" (laughs).

Where do you fall on Dylan's constant reinvention? Do you feel it's all genuine, or is it some kind of façade or a meeting of the two?

Everybody goes through a refuting of what they were before. And he just did it all much more so, with much more product than most creative people. The funny thing about someone who's constantly reinventing themselves and living fully in the moment is that they're always vulnerable to being unmasked. And there's always that vulnerability and that sense of terror, or a childlike innocence at the thought of being betrayed by people around them. And it's remarkable for all of us because we assume that people in the public eye can handle all that kind of stuff. But Dylan at times remarkably fragile for being so famous, for being so coveted and being constantly in the company of other people and being interviewed constantly. But I love that about him, that ability to be so strong and so fragile at the same time.

The way he depicts women in some of his songs, his regard for women – I felt these were important issues to raise in the film. And also the way that we gained consciousness as a culture between the 60s and the 70s about these issues – he right in the middle of those changes and that maturing process. Which I think he ultimately underwent like all of us. It happens in the songs, and you see everything in the songs. You see the blind spots and you see the points learning and the corrections and the reappraisals and all of those things. The kinds of claims on him and questions asked of him at certain times – I didn't want him getting a total free pass through.

It was clear he was put in a position he didn't want to be in yet he never resisted success either.

That's the thing – that's part of those fair questions. He can certainly say when he plugged in electric "oh, I was never really into the folk thing. I just did that to break into a scene." But then you read the songs, you look at the lyrics, you listen to those performances – and they're stunning! And you know this guy is bullshitting you. You know what I mean? That he puts so much labour, and so much thought and sensitivity into whatever he's doing and it's easy for him to say "I only care about what I'm doing now." He definitely has this ability to kind of slap in your face, your interest in what he was doing yesterday.

Do you have a favourite Dylan period that you keep going back to or does it change in accordance with wherever you are in your life?

It moves around. I certainly came to this project with a special interest in the electric period, in the Blonde on Blonde time. I think that having this through each of them through the production, I feel so close to each one. They each touch a different side of you and respond to different moods and moments in all of us. What makes it hard to say what my favourite song is, it's so impossible because there's so many – for any different mood or emotion or phase in your life that you could ever want.