Killing My Way To The Truth

LCD Soundsystem @ Bowery Ballroom 4/2/2005
Beat Connection / Too Much Love / Give It Up / Daft Punk Is Playing At My House / On Repeat / Thrills / Tribulations / Movement / Jump Into The Fire (Nilsson) /Losing My Edge / Slowdive (Siouxsie) / Yeah

Harry Nilsson “Jump Into The Fire” – The LCD Soundsystem show was perfectly fine, but I was just not in the mood for it on that particular night. This isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy it as it was happening, though my mind did wander into thinking about some family-related problems more than once. I just stuck to the back of the room and observed for the most part, only really moving when the songs gave me no other choice. Most of the songs inspired at least a bit of motion, though there wasn’t very much room for movement (especially during “Movement,” haw haw.) The setlist was a bit samey and would’ve benefited greatly from having included the two ballads from the album to break up the mood a bit. I would not have guessed that their cover of Harry Nilsson’s “Jump Into The Fire” would’ve been the highlight of the show, but it was, at least for me. It was probably the ideal song for me at that moment, expressing a desire to get away from problems, but understanding that running away from them won’t make them go away, especially when they are tied up in people that you love. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Sin City -When I say that this film is like X-Treme Noir, I promise that I mean it in the best possible way. Like Kill Bill, Sin City is a postmodern, highly stylized, super-violent dark comedy that manages to be at once a loving homage to its lowbrow roots and an over-the-top joke at their expense. The movie is amazing to look at, even if you don’t care for the hyper-masculine revenge fantasies at the core of its narrative. Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino are the big names of the film’s directorial trio, but they are only acting as midwives to creator/co-director Frank Miller’s vision. The film’s aesthetic is lifted directly off of the pages of Miller’s comics; mimicing his stark contrasts and copying his compositions with slavish devotion, as though the original comics were just storyboards for this project. The resulting stills and scenes often improve upon the source material and blow most other current cinema out of the water in terms of simple beauty of design and composition. The story is delightfully disposable, but the images are high art.

A funny thing about Sin City for me is that Alexis “Rory Gilmore” Bledel plays a sweet teenage prostitute in the middle section, which took me out of the film a bit, but mostly because I’ve never seen her play anything other than Rory. Her character kept talking about having to call her mother, which only made me think “oh man, Lorelai is going to be sooooo pissed!”