Summer Finally Arrives

Summer fun had been at a dismal low. It began with promise. Then I became one of the only four people on the planet who had anything bad to say about Iron Man. My problem with it were that it was painfully slow. So slow that when the action did kick in (which I admit, looked gorgeous) it was unable to shake me from my coma. The movie had basically been given an enormous handjob by critics and fans alike for simply containing character development, never you mind if the character development was interesting or well done. Superhero films sort of devolved into a retarded mutant stepson of the greater medium of film altogether. We don't cream our pants when a Kate Hudson/Matthew McConaughey picture contains character development and an intelligible storyline, we get excited about films when they're riveting, when they're outstanding. To give a movie slack for having a comic book as its source material is like just accepting it when the waiter brings you chicken Kiev instead of the Fillet Mignon that you ordered. Especially when you refuse to admit that the chicken Kiev is under cooked.

Then came Indiana Jones and The Longest Title Ever Created By George Lucas Who I Am Now Positive Has Lost Any Sense of What Film Making and Story Telling Actually Is. I didn't like that one too much either. In fact, it made me sad. Why does George keep murdering the things I love... I don't know.

But I don't want to talk about disappointments. That's a whole other post - I still have to get my thoughts on the production of Tommy I saw where the entire audience was wearing headphones. No, I'm going to talk about four nights in a row of excellence.

Friday 18th: Patton Oswalt at the Irvine Improv. This is the funniest man doing comedy. The way he grabed the audience by the throat and forced us to look deep into the insanity of our lives has not been done since Bill Hicks. With George Carlin recently gone, we need more comedians who are brains-funny not anus-funny, otherwise... Dane Cook, folks. Take a look at this commencement address Patton delivered a few weeks ago at his old high school.

Saturday 19th: Townland at Visualaid in Long Beach. Townland. First off $5 for admission and you get a free cd. These guys have nothing but class. This was my second Townland show and once again I felt that there was no better place to be in Los Angeles that night than sitting comfortably on a hay bale and drinking a Tecate. The music is beautiful, truly the finest in prairie pop - a term I think they coined, but what else are you going to call it? - Matt Gourley's lyrics are so sweet and playful that when they turn around and kick your ass you feel like you've been playing with a kitten that morphed into a rattler. You can hear the tunes on their myspace and also take a look at the dates of their pacific coastline tour.

Sunday 20th: The Dark Knight. Hey Iron Man, look character development. I don't know why no one has attempted this before, make a comic book film that occurs in the real world. Shoot it as if it were a film and not a joke. Let the horrific crimes perpetrated by the villains actually penetrate the audience and give the hero gravity. My expectations for this movie were enormous, the Dark Knight blew them away.

Monday 21st: I went to see Tim Hick's film The Aphrikan as part of the New York Independent Film and Video Festival. This 37 minute horror film was an actual horror film, something I haven't seen in theaters... well, ever. The kind of horror you can only find in the spiderwebby section of super-dense video stores, probably on VHS. I don't really know terribly much about horror, but I do know that The Aphrikan is what wussified Hollywood horror films dream they were in their most wonderful nightmares. There was no cheese, no cheap gimmicks, no remorse. Bravo Tim.

So thats about it. Hopefully this string of goodness does not run out. I'm looking forward to three Radiohead shows in August, hopefully I'll find something to bridge the gap.