For an Aussie lassie, Kasey Chambers understands the heartache hidden in country music — you can hear it in her voice, a tearing, weary note that streaks through every song. I first heard her in a crowded bar, a CD played as background to a room full of conversation. It doesn’t happen very often where I hear something that just blocks out everything else, that leaves me having to interrupt people to say, “What the hell is this?” I remember hearing Elmore James in a similar situation, but it was the guitar and voice combination. This was just a sweet clear voice, stopping time.
I no longer remember which song it was, but I found out that it was from her first LP, The Captain. Once I got my hands on a copy, I was able to listen closer. That voice was incredible, so natural and lean — when it breaks during the title track, I thought, they must have kept that take, specifically because it sounds so. . .I don’t know. . .adorable. I was smitten already, and it just added to her appeal.
Her songwriting seemed just a bit unpolished as well, but I loved a couple of twists like “I’m not much like my generation/their music only hurts my ears” (from “Cry Like a Baby”) and “This flower is my soul/but it’s not half of what I owe/I should give you every rose that ever grew” (from “This Flower”).
Shortly after this, she released her Barricades and Brickwalls record, as well as the single “[Am I] Not Pretty Enough,” which I usually warn people about. Cynics will hear an attempt to fish for compliments, especially given the album’s cover photo. But it’s a sweet, sad song about being rejected. Her high, clear voice is especially featured on this record, a mix of twangy country (including a great version of Gram Parsons’ “Still Feeling Blue”) and sparse acoustic ballads.
About this time, I saw her perform on Austin City Limits, looking like she was in her 12th month of pregnancy. There’s just something inspiring about seeing someone playing guitar and sounding so good, and looking so uncomfortable.
Since that breakthrough single (”Not Pretty Enough” was a number-one hit in Australia), she has released three more albums, including the latest, a collaboration with her husband, Shane Nicholson, called Rattling Bones. The previous two, Wayward Angel and Carnival seemed like much more serious, mature efforts, with stronger songwriting. I liked them (especially Wayward’s “Bluebird,” one of the prettiest songs she’s ever recorded), but I really miss the charmingly awkward moments from her earlier records. “Rattling Bones” is surprisingly strong, as she gives up a lot of the lead singing to her partner, but the songs are so good, they make a case for an Australian-led Americana revival.
Official site: http://www.kaseychambers.com/
2008. Starring Scott Speedman, Liv Tyler. Directed by Bryan Bertino.
When I was an impressionable kid, I heard about a couple who were friends of some friends of a friend of mine who had been out parking on some country road when they ran out of gas. Being that it was late, and cold, the boy offered to walk back to town and get help, while the girl lay down to sleep, making the best of an inconvenient situation. She woke up hours later to the sound of a gentle scraping, back and forth on the car’s roof. It crossed her mind that they had parked under a tree, and it could be a branch — probably was a branch — blown by the wind and scraping the roof. But it didn’t really sound like a branch. She sat in the cold car, imagining what else it could be, scraping back and forth, inches above her head. She finally built up her courage, crawled out of the back seat, and peeked out to see what was making the noise. . .
I love those stories as much as I used to fear them: the hook in the car door, the dog under the bed, the hitchhiker in the back seat, and many more stories about terrible things that happened to other people. When I saw the trailer for The Strangers, I flashed back to that easy-to-scare kid in the ’70s who saw the drive-in “coming attractions” for films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes, movies that promised to depict the dread I could only imagine. And there was no effort to hide the tormentor in any of the trailers — like had been done with “monster movies” for so long — to save the impact that unveiling would provide. The impact from these movies would be the lasting damage done to your sense of safety and trust in the baseline humanity of others.
First-time director Bryan Bertino does a lot of things right with The Strangers, but it must be hard to maintain the sense of foreboding — the essence of the story — for 90 minutes. It begins slowly, which is promising, by introducing James (Scott Speedman) and Kristen (Liv Tyler), who arrive at his family’s summer home early in the morning after a wedding. They have been arguing, she is crying. They settle in, relax, even begin to reconcile in the near-silent ranch house, when there is an odd knock at the door. “It’s 4 in the morning,” James asks himself.
The young woman who knocks asks for someone who doesn’t live there, then leaves. Then James leaves to get more cigarettes. Kristen is left in the unfamiliar house to wait, and listen.
Anyone who has spent time in an old house knows about the strange noises one can make. The only thing worse than those faint creaks and groans is a distinct sound, like a knock or a thud. As Kristen stands near the window and hears a distinct thud, a muscle in her throat contracts, and I swear that is the most-frightening moment of this movie.
There is one fatal flaw common to many horror movies: the character who doesn’t act the way a normal person would act — you know, the one who enters a creepy house without even trying to turn on a light, or crawls into the attic after four friends go missing, rather than call the police. That’s when I know I’m watching film spool by, and not having the story tap into my subconscious. The Strangers nearly avoids this, and could have easily done without the character in question.
A lesser flaw, only because it’s become a staple of modern horror, is the cat-and-mouse game played between tormentors and prey. I would rather see someone running for their life (as does the “last girl” in Texas Chainsaw Massacre) or fighting back (as in Halloween) than do the hiding-running-tripping routine that only dilutes the tentative suspense.
Endings are the hardest, and horror movies have given us the full spectrum of results — from satisfying and sudden to lame and unlikely. All I’ll say about The Strangers is that it gives us a believable and devastating ending . . . before completely betraying itself.
I wish The Strangers would have been better. I love the warm, dim lighting in the house; the eerie unveiling of one of “the strangers” in the background; the dull reading of their infrequent lines; the dread of looking out at the well-lit yard full of trees. But if it had been better, I might not have been able to sleep as well for the next 30 years.
1987. Starring Jenny Wright, Adrian Pasdar. Directed by Kathryn Bigelow.
On some level in nearly every vampire movie, you are expected to feel a little sorry for the monster. Trapped for eternity (or until some horrible ritualistic death frees them to an unclear afterlife) as a parasite who robs others of life, damned to a solitary, fugitive existence, the vampire seems to be deserve the stake that eventually awaits him. They are pale, hungry, dirty and doomed. Except for when they’re doing something horrific, they seem kind of pathetic.
But what about those unfortunate victims of the vampires who are merely nicked, maimed for the purpose of accompanying the vampire for the next several centuries, to provide company and romance for the bloodsucker? Don’t they deserve a little sympathy?
When we first see Mae (Jenny Wright), at the beginning of Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark, she is an angelic waif with an ice cream cone, sauntering in front of a convenience store. There’s a small crowd of rowdy farmboys, and they notice right away. Wright is so sexy, she doesn’t even lick the ice cream cone she’s holding. How she holds the cone is enough to get the farmboys howling at the moon. Farmboy Caleb (Adrian Pasdar) is the first to jump to the bait.
Her vulnerability is an act, but Mae is truly lonely. Soon she is riding the backroads with her prey, waiting for the right moment to make her move. Whether what drives her is a physical attraction or a physical thirst is unclear, but a nip on the neck seals Caleb’s fate. Soon, he finds himself traveling in a blacked-out RV with an extended family of vampires, repelled by them but needing their help.
What keeps him from running away is his attraction to Mae, whose bite has destined him to be with her forever. Mae herself was brought into the family in a similar way, nipped out of affection by Homer, who has been damned to spend his vampire days as a child. (”Have any idea what it’s like to be a big man on the inside and have a small body on the outside?” he asks, pathetically.)
The vampire family also demands some allegiance, but Caleb makes for a poor killer, relying on Mae’s willingness to open her veins to keep him. . .well, not alive, but still moving, at least. Leader Jesse (Lance Henriksen) has been feeding on folks since the Civil War, and young wolf Severen (Bill Paxton, in a great over-the-top performance) is viciously cruel, but the family is getting too big to travel light.
The blood-engorged heart of Near Dark is a scene inside a roadside tavern scene near closing time. The vampires tear through patron and employee alike in a scene where Paxton really gets to chew the scenery. The tug-of-war that follows — between Caleb’s real family and the vampires, between Caleb and Homer, between Mae and the vampires — is much less interesting, and the less said about the unbelievable ending the better.
Besides Paxton’s performance of a smirking, wiseass predator, the reason to watch Near Dark is Jenny Wright. She had a few other roles, but apparently abandoned the acting life early in her career. Mae is unique among vampire roles — sad, lonely, sweet. In the middle of the tavern-scene carnage, she takes a quivering farmboy by the hand and dances with him as a prelude to calmly draining him. And, all things considered, it doesn’t seem like a bad way to go.
Here are some fantastic photos of Barack Obama along the campaign trail taken by Time photographer Callie Shell. Besides the nice, simple navigation at the bottom of the page that allows you to load several photos at a time, this is a rare behind-the-scenes look at a rare man. It’s exciting to think that, in a few weeks, he’ll begin to bring this country and its divided people together.
The Digital Journalist: Callie Shell
Ξ October 17th, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Music |
After The Ball was the first “platinum” single in history, selling more than two million copies of its sheet music in 1892. At its heart is a misunderstanding and the bitter regret of someone who was too hurt and stubborn to accept an explanation, which probably accounted for its melodramatic appeal. (When the Louvin Brothers wrote and recorded “I Don’t Believe You’ve Met My Baby,” they at least let the jealous guy off by explaining the brother-sister relationship while still at the dance.) I love the Blue Sky Boys version of the song, recorded live in 1964 and released on Rounder Records. The Blue Sky Boys heyday was in the ’30s and ’40s, but their sentimental performance of this ancient song is especially good.
After The Ball (performed by the Blue Sky Boys, among others)
Written by Charles K. Harris
A little maiden climbed an old man’s knee
Begged for a story — “Do, uncle, please!”
“Why are you single, why live alone?
Have you no babies, have you no home?”
“I had a sweetheart, years, years ago
Where she is now, pet, you will soon know
List to the story, I’ll tell it all
I believed her faithless, after the ball”
After the ball is over
After the break of morn
After the dancers’ leaving
After the stars are gone
Many a heart is aching
If you could read them all
Many the hopes that have vanished
After the ball
“Bright lights were flashing in the grand ballroom
Softly the music, playing sweet tunes
There came my sweetheart, my love, my own
‘I wish some water, leave me alone’
When I returned, dear, there stood a man
Kissing my sweetheart, as lovers can
Down fell the glass, pet, broken, that’s all
Just as my heart was, after the ball”
After the ball is over
After the break of morn
After the dancers’ leaving
After the stars are gone
Many a heart is aching
If you could read them all
Many the hopes that have vanished
After the ball
“Long years have passed child, I’ve never wed
True to my lost love, though she is dead
She tried to tell me, tried to explain
I would not listen, pleadings were vain
One day a letter came from that man
He was her brother — the letter ran
That’s why I’m lonely, no home at all
I broke her heart, pet, after the ball”
After the ball is over
After the break of morn
After the dancers’ leaving
After the stars are gone
Many a heart is aching
If you could read them all
Many the hopes that have vanished
After the ball
The heartbreak in the song might be a bit overdone, but I have to appreciate a song written more than a century ago that can still stick in my head. My father remembered his grandmother singing it when he was a child, and though I’ve never known her or heard her voice, I can imagine her singing, watching out her window, as they say she always did, crying as they left.
I’m confident enough in my masculinity to admit that I love Cute Overload. This is what blogging is about: the unabashed obsession digitized. Soon, every photo or video of an animal (preferably a baby animal) being cute will be documented here. And the site has been responsible for several new words that deserve consideration in the English language: snorgle, prosh, puppitude. If you worry at all about your manliness taking a hit while oohing and aaaawwwwwing over the baby chicks and sleeping kitties, there’s always the Cats ‘n Racks link.
In its own vernacular, Cute Overload is redonkulous.
Link: http://www.cuteoverload.com/
1988. Starring Gene Bervoets, Johanna ter Steeges, Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu. Directed by George Sluizer.
What has always been frightening to me has been the unknown. Things that happen in full daylight that can’t easily be explained, someone acting just out of the ordinary, a change slight enough that would surprise you if you weren’t paying attention. That may be why The Vanishing is such a haunting film for me.
The story begins as a Dutch couple is driving through France on their way to a holiday. It’s clear that their relationship is complex — they laugh, tease each other, kiss, argue. Their car runs out of gas in a tunnel. Rex (Gene Bervoets) leaves his girlfriend, Saskia (a supernaturally beautiful Johanna ter Steege), in the car, in the dark. She screams for him to return, but he walks away. When he returns, she has left for the bright light at the end of the tunnel. They reconcile before stopping at a crowded gas station. She goes in to buy drinks for their trip. And disappears.
The panic that Rex feels in that first hour feels real, as he retraces their steps, questions employees, demands that an investigation begin — starting with a fingerprinting of vending machine coins. He is desperate, aware that all roads lead away from the gas station, and his love is down one of them, farther out of reach with each passing minute.
Three years pass, and Rex still searches. Although he has a new girlfriend, he really hasn’t moved on from that day, borrowing money to conduct publicity efforts to find Saskia, collecting wild-goose-chase leads, appearing where and when requested through postcards by a man who claims to have abducted the girl. He admits to his new girlfriend that he can imagine Saskia alive as easily as he can imagine her dead, but he has to know. He has to know what happened to her. Not surprisingly, his obsession causes his new girlfriend to leave him.
Meanwhile, we are introduced to Raymond Lemorne, a professor with a lovely family, who lives nearby in Nimes. He has purchased a new country house, and has been practicing his technique at abducting young women. To introduce the villain as early as this film does tells us how much the film has waiting for us. He clumsily attempts to get close to women, mostly those wary enough to not get into his car. He tests his drugging techniques, times his trips to the country house, and tries on a cast and sling to project helplessness.
He has been toying with Rex, and finally confronts him, eager to brag about his crime and promising to tell him everything on their way to France. Rex’s obsession to know what happened to Saskia overwhelms his common sense.
This is one of those films whose ending has been leaked over the years, but it is not diminished by knowing — not that I’m going to spoil it for you. Sluizer directed an American remake in 1993, and the trailer for that film actually showed scenes from the ending, which doomed it, I believe. In fact, you know Saskia’s fate long before you understand Rex’s fate, but you’ll realize throughout the film that fate is not just how we end up, but the path we travel to reach our ending. As Lemorne relates to Rex on their long car drive, he defied fate by doing something dangerous as a teen. He just imagined himself doing it, against the likelihood of not doing it, and in doing so, changed his fate. Rex tries the same thing, leading to the film’s disturbing ending.
What’s frightening about The Vanishing is the average man behind the evil, the normalcy of his family, the daylight abduction, the without-a-trace disappearance of a person so alive a minute ago, the panic, the bargaining, the not knowing.
Then finally, the knowing.