Duck

AFLAC!

Duck (Nic Bettauer, 2005) is a simple little film starring Philip Baker Hall, one of my favorite actors.  As someone whose face seems worn and weary by time, Hall is a perfect fit as a lonely widower who has one of the saddest back-stories you’ll hear.  The premise is rather basic: Hall as Arthur Pratt is lonely to the point of suicide until he comes upon a new friend, a duckling who he names Joe.

Arthur speaks to Joe like a crazy lady speaks to the child she kidnapped.  He talks almost non-stop to Joe with overly descriptive language of what he is doing – pretty redundant and a bit inane.  It probably would have been better served without any, which would have given it a more striking effect.  Joe is a unrelenting quacker, too, meaning that our two main characters both talk a lot, even though one really doesn’t understand the other.  Gradually we learn how the world the two live in is being torn apart.  Arthur is broke and getting evicted from his apartment; the ponds that Joe would call home are being drained to make way for malls by construction workers so evil they probably burn down FernGully in their spare time.  In this dystopian future of 2009 in which Duck takes place, we learn that Jeb Bush has become president, trash is now strewn everywhere, and the average dickishness quotient among the general population has become exceedingly high.

Joe grows up rapidly, giving us some nebulous sense of time passing.  Over this time, the duo head west from Los Angeles to the ocean encountering various people who they help or get helped by.  This includes a suicidal French Stewart (!), who is probably the easiest to help suicidal person ever.  The encounters are vignette-like, fleeting as quickly as they arrive.  My favorite was their visit at a nail parlor with an Asian pedicurist who gives Joe a bath.  She’s played by actress Amy Hill, who you’ll almost certainly recognize from something.  The scene is expressed with simple character-building dialog that’s the film’s strong point.  Of course, it’s entirely possible that this was just longest Aflac commercial ever.

Arbitrary song of the day: The Offspring – Pay the Man

Sit Down, Shut Up pilot

This past Sunday, Fox premiered its new animated series Sit Down, Shut Shut Up.  Born in Australia and reinterpreted through Arrested Development creator Mitchell Hurwitz, the series has arrived with little fanfare but a quality timeslot.  I’m not sure if Fox is trying to kill it yet or not.

Sit Down, Shut Up is surprisingly visually striking, utilizing animation over top of set photographs.  It’s really interesting, but not distracting.  This type of animation gives the frames greater detail with little additional effort (I assume we can expect to see the same backdrops reused).  There are little jokes caught in the background, such as what teachers should if a student is choking (hint: drag him off school grounds).

The cast is extremely overqualified.  We have Arrested Development alums Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, and Henry Winkler along with current/former SNL members Will Forte, Cheri Oteri, and Kenan Thompson* as well as voice acting mainstay Tom Kenny**.  The characters are cast as you would expect them: Jason Bateman plays a nice guy who is in love with someone but can’t tell her, Will Arnett plays an over-the-top obnoxious jock, Henry Winkler a sad-sack teacher with a penchant for pornography, and Kenan Thompson is a large black woman.

Character design was done by Mo Willems, who did the character design for Sheep in the Big City, a short-lived but favorite cartoon of mine.  Like Sheep, Sit Down delivers plenty of fourth wall-breaking laughs and clever quips.  This show doesn’t have infinite potential, but I think it’ll be solid.  I’m really hoping this series is given a fair chance by Fox, but unfortunately, I wouldn’t surprised if it ends up with only a Clone High-like run.

*I love that Kenan Thompson started on All That in the Good Burger sketches and ended up on SNL.  I feel kind of bad for Kel though.

**That Tom Kenny and Jill Talley are the couple in the “Tonight, Tonight” video is one my favorite bits of Smashing Pumpkins trivia.

Arbitrary song of the day: Hot Chip – Ready for the Floor

Nick Warren – GU35: Lima

Nick Warren has been associated with the Global Underground series for over a decade.  GU35, his eighth release in the iconic DJ series is unlike any of his previous albums.  This is, of course, has been true for each of his mixes since I started listening to him via an imported copy of his Brazil compilation about ten years ago.  It’s the reason why he’s been able to maintain his relevance in the ever-changing dance music landscape.  His previous compilation, GU30 – Paris, explored more of Warren’s alternative moody side, with tracks like Cates & Dpl – “Living in a” (a favorite of mine which still doesn’t seem to have been released anywhere in full form).  Disc 1 immediately puts that in the past.

After a dreamy intro, Warren establishes the clean, almost sterile, template that wil be used for the next 70 minutes.  Each of the tracks is deliberate, yet direct.  They share a common “sound”, as tracks from good mix albums often do.  Tunes like Kruse & Nürnberg’s “An Why E” and Ormatie’s “Twisted Turns” bring forward a pulsating bassline over a crisp rhythm section, where you can’t help but hear each percussive element.  The melodies are simple and repetitive, but all seem to work over a background sweeping synthetic swooshes.  There’s just enough variation to keep it interesting while holding onto an extremely unified vibe.

During my first listen through, I was struck as I heard the intro to “Surface”.  I apparently hadn’t noticed the Michael Burns/Panoptic name on the back of the case (limited edition wide box, of course).  “Surface” was never a favorite of mine*, but on an album full of unfamiliar tracks, you can’t help but feel a little bit of happy recognition.  I’m a little curious as to why Nick Warren chose this track in particular, considering it was released over five years ago and is one of the more distinctive tracks on the entire compilation.

*I was always a fan of Michael Burns’ work done under the Blue Haze moniker, such as “Absorb” and his remix of Echofalls’ “Shiver”.  Dave Preston and Habersham also did a might fine job of remixing the Blue Haze track “A Time to Reflect” with their “Dirtydoodoofunk Straight Outta Strongbadia Mix” (its actual name!).  That particular remix uses a clip from the “Techno” sbemail (well, technically from the Strong Bad Sings album).  However, the North EP is still his best work.

My first reaction was to call the second disc more experimental, but I think that’s inaccurate.  It’s much more electro, which may have been experimental five years ago, but now electro is a pretty standard direction to take a progressive house mix.  The low-fi, electro edge becomes apparent somewhere between Etiket – “Revelation” and Yvel & Tristan – “Panama”, which sounds like it could be off the Border Community label.  We’re even treated to a little bit of fun in this otherwise serious set of sounds with “Castillian”, a Spanish guitar-influenced track that’s gone even faster than it came.

Towards the final half-disc of GU35 we get into some harsh bass grooves with tracks like “Siberian Transit” and Robert Babicz’s remix of Warren’s own Way Out West track “Spaceman”.  Perhaps its my late 90s/early 00s dramatic progressive trance side, but I like my epic compilations to have a bit of an ending than GU35, which seems to just fade out with the breathy “Bosworth”.  But, maybe doing things a little bit differently disrupts what Warren was trying to do here.  Rather than providing a creative mish-mash of genres like he did with disc 1 of GU24: Reykjavik, he seems to want to create an incredibly even and well-polished set of respectable electronic dance music.  And I think it’s difficult to argue that he didn’t.

Arbitrary song of the day: Silversun Pickups – Lazy Eye

The best 18 Adult Swim shows – Part 5: 6-4

This is taking me many months apparently…

6. Home Movies

From the people who brought you Dr. Katz, you’ve got Home Movies.  It features a lot of the improvisational feeling of the Dr. Katz segments with H. Jon Benjamin and Jonathan Katz. The main character, Brendon, is a kid movie director partially based on the actor who plays him, Brendon Small (who also co-created the series). Like Dr. Katz, it uses the techniques of retroscripting and, originally at least, Squigglevision. After the first season, they switched over to normal animation techniques (Adobe Flash I believe), which was just fine with me. Squigglevision is freaky…

Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Laaaaaaaaw

5. Robot Chicken

Robot Chicken is probably the most popular original Adult Swim program. The sheer number of celebrities who have appeared on Robot Chicken is staggering, especially for a semi-obscure cable show shown after midnight. The Star Wars episode is must-see and includes what is probably my favorite Robot Chicken sketch, which features Emperor Palpatine speaking to Darth Vader over the phone after the Battle of Yavin. I think everyone who has watched Robot Chicken since the beginning felt a little pride when the show was given a shout-out on Family Guy’s Star Wars special.

4. Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law

There’s so much to love about this series, whether it is the poking fun at Hanna-Barbera characters, over-the-top theme song, or Stephen Colbert as insane, eye-patch wearing boss Phil Ken Sebben. Despite all the bizarre sight gags and non sequiturs, the most strange thing about the series may be that there was a video game based on the show for the Wii.

Radio Places

No matter what city you live in, there are always corners you’ve never explored.  Maybe you’ve heard of them, but don’t even know where they are on a map.  Maybe they have a car dealership or mall there.  Maybe you have a friend who once went to an Olive Garden there.  These are radio places.

Also, I'm pretty sure no one has ever actually been inside one of these.

Why are they called radio places?  The primary reason behind this is that you hear about these places an inordinate amount on the radio.  There could be annoying commercials for an “automile” in that area or mentions of a festival there which will feature an appearance from a former local sports hero who played back when the team was good.  People on call-in shows will often be from one of these places.  Multiple traffic light delays are reported daily from this place, making you wonder why anyone is there in the first place.*  And for some reason, schools in these districts are always the first and sometimes only schools that will close on days when it snows.

* No one has ever heard a traffic report that was relevant to their driving route.  I don’t know how they do this.  Maybe they always just report about traffic in the same (possibly fictional) place.  On a related note, I am never driving near the Doubletree Hotel.

Your interaction with this small city/township/locality consists entirely of hearing about it on the radio and possibly passing the exit for it on the highway about 30 minutes from where you live.  Do not visit it, you will get lost somewhere between the Bed Bath & Beyond and the Big Lots.

A couple of my radio places:

• Mentor, OH
• Bedford, OH
• Parma, OH
• Castle Shannon, PA
• All of Beaver County, PA

What are some of yours?

Arbitrary song of the day: The Orb – Pomme Fritz