In Stores Now: Realism by the Magnetic Fields

Image from an advertisement for Smirnoff Vodka, 1972

The Magnetic Fields' "no-synths" trilogy ends with Realism, and this would come as a relief to some old-school fans of the band, except that Stephin Merritt didn't even bother to tell anyone that this was a trilogy he was working on until it was done. Beginning with 2004's i album, Merritt has worked with narrowly-defined concepts and structures in reaction to the everything-in-one-go 69 Love Songs that came before. Merritt has said that his career-defining triple album was him doing everything he knows how to do, so it's no surprise to see him using self-imposed strictures to deliver something different. Realism was supposed to be Merritt's "folk" album, a contrast to the JAMC-mimicking noisefest of of 2008's Distortion, but that label and a few other issues kind of make this album one that is hard to get into.

First, the "folk" tag is a red herring - the clean acoustic sound of Realism sounds less folky than other things Merritt has done (e.g. 69LS's "The One You Really Love") - it's closer to the "AM Gold" sound from the Merritt songs on the Pieces of April soundtrack. So that threw me off on my first listen, as did the much-commented-upon similarity between the opening track of Realism and "I Don't Believe You" from i. The number of showtunes-style songs also caught me off-guard (I was expecting folk songs!) - the songs with female lead vocals are the main offenders. I loved Shirley Simms' contributions to previous albums, but her singing sounds weird and stilted on "Interlude" and "Painted Flower". The album's other jokey songs are those that feature gang vocals - "We Are Having a Hootenanny", "Everything Is One Big Christmas Tree", and "The Dada Polka" can easily be written off as novelty songs. I was ready to write Realism off because I couldn't get past these issues, but then I ran across a few insightful comments about the album that made me go back and give it another listen.

I don't usually look for hidden themes in Merritt's albums, but there's an interesting depth and unstated theme to Realism that makes it a much more interesting album to me. Merritt has said that he originally considered calling his last two albums True and False, but he wasn't sure which label to give to which. How could the clean, unadorned songs of Realism be "false"? Perhaps it's because it's a set of songs dealing with distortions of reality (a theme not found to the same degree on Distortion). The delusion of the opening track, "You Must Be Out of Your Mind", is right there in the title, but there are subtler distortions throughout the album. There is no real hootenanny going on, the dolls' tea party is not what it seems, and the painted flower is ... well, it's a painted flower. The key song that brings it all together is "Better Things", the album's strongest song and a statement of purpose that would serve the album better if it wasn't buried in the album's second half. In this song, three fanciful creatures (a mermaid, a ghost princess, and a wolfboy) are set in contrast to "real birds" in a way that raises the question, "What parts of Realism are really real?"

I may never embrace the trifles of Realism on the same level that I've loved other songs that Merritt has written, but I appreciate the trompe l'oeil he's created. And now that I find it interesting, I'm listening to Realism a lot more often and enjoying it more.

"We Are Having a Hootenanny" by the Magnetic Fields

Probabilistic Jukebox: "Bubblegum World" by 1910 Fruitgum Company

Color woodcut titled The Daruma Branch by Helen Hyde, 1910

I think 1910 Fruitgum Company is largely responsible for the creation of bubblegum pop in the mid-1960s. There were plenty of other bands honing the bubblegum sound at the time (e.g. Ohio Express, Music Explosion), but a confluence of events brought the whole package together with 1910 Fruitgum Company's first hit. The group was contacted by the production team of Kasenetz and Katz, the real brains behind the creation of bubblegum pop, with a single they wanted recorded called "Simon Says". The band didn't really like the song, so they retooled it to give it a more insistent "Wooly Bully"-style rhythm and sound. The song was a big hit, and the archetype for bubblegum pop really gelled for the first time: a bouncy upbeat sound, childhood-inspire subject matter, and immediate vocal arrangements with lots of backing vocals.

1910 Fruitgum Company stuck with that formula through several hit singles, as is easy to see from titles like "May I Take a Giant Step (Into Your Heart)", "1, 2, 3 Red Light", :Goody Goody Gumdrops", and "Pop Goes the Weasel". By 1968, the original lineup of 1910 Fruitgum Company was coming apart, but it didn't matter because Kasenetz and Katz owned the band name and could replace the vocalists and musicians at will. The band ceased to exist the minute the producers decided there was no money to be made with the band name.

One of my favorite 1910 Fruitgum Company songs, "Bubblegum World", was actually never a single - it was a track on the band's first LP. The song is perfect late-'60s bubblegum pop, though - the rhythm is exuberant and the layered backing vocals are as sickly sweet as the song's subject matter (no surprise that the band opened for the Beach Boys on tour around this time). The song uses a childhood object as a metaphor for relationship issues, as many 1910 Fruitgum Company songs did, and there's an underlying creepiness in some of the song's content as well - the weird, condescending dynamic of a man using little-kid stuff to describe a relationship issue to a girl, and particularly the way vocalist Mark Gutkowski sings the last line of the verse, "You're going a little insane!" It skeeves me out just a little every time. That little cheek-popping sound effect throughout the song is cool, though, particularly the last one right at the end of the song.

"Bubblegum World" by 1910 Fruitgum Company

I Saw a Movie (Sundance Film Festival Edition): The Romantics

Photograph titled "Untitled (TV room), from the Portfolio Graceland" by William Eggleston, 1983

The Romantics had several strikes against it from the start. First, I was not feeling too well when I saw it. Second, it was a movie about rich, entitled, young white people with lame problems - not my favorite movie genre. And third, most importantly, the print of the film we saw had seriously problems with its audio track, rendering about five seconds of every minute of the movie inaudible. As a result, not only did I get pretty frustrated with the movie, I was in a large theater full of people who were upset about the situation. Since none of these problems are the fault of the filmmaker and cast, is it fair for me to talk about how terrible the movie is? I think so - I think I could see past the situational problems affecting my viewing experience and say that few people I know would enjoy The Romantics under the best of circumstances.

It's too bad that The Romantics is a bad movie because there are some things about it that are quite good. The story is nothing special - Laura (Katie Holmes) goes to the wedding of her best friend Lila (Anna Paquin) and her ex-lover Tom (Josh Duhamel) that turns out to be a reunion of sorts for the college clique the three belonged to (the titular "Romantics"). Laura's relationships with Lila and Tom have understandably become complicated by the impending marriage, particularly as she has not achieved any sort of closure on her own relationship with Tom. This is the core conflict in the movie and Holmes (who also produced the movie) delivers a quite-good performance. The other players do fairly well, including underused but capable supporting players like Malin Akerman, Elijah Wood, and Adam Brody - the only one who doesn't really deliver is Duhamel, who just isn't right for this kind of role or this kind of movie. A key scene in the movie centers on him quoting Keats, and it just doesn't really work.

Which brings me to the main problem with The Romantics - the script just isn't that good. And that's a sad thing to have to say about a movie adapted by author Galt Niederhoffer from his own novel and directed by her as well. The story moves too fast, never giving the viewer time to get to know any of the characters other than Laura, and much of the dialogue is just the wrong combination of stilted and clumsy. Some problems with the pacing may still be fixable as the version shown at Sundance is still a work in progress (the terrible and too-loud musical cues may also be improved dramatically in the final version) but I don't really think there is a really good movie to be found here. As I said, Holmes is very good here, but she can't make up for The Romantics' deficiencies, especially when it so clearly invites comparisons to much better movies (Rachel Getting Married springs to mind). I'm almost glad I didn't see The Romantics under better circumstances - I probably would just have been THAT much more disappointed.

"This Is How You Spell 'HAHAHA, We Destroyed the Hopes and Dreams of a Generation of Faux-Romantics'" by Los Campesinos

I Saw a Movie (Sundance Film Festival Edition): Get Low

Illustration from Butterick dress pattern 5902, c. 1970

I'm starting to experience some review-writing fatigue when it comes to the shows I saw at Sundance this year, particularly now that the Festival's over and the winners have been announced (by the way, hooray for Red Chapel winning the Best Foreign Documentary award!). But I'm going to write about the last two shows I saw, even though I don't have much to say about them. Also, I was not feeling well the night I watched them back-to-back, which couldn't have helped. Anyway, Get Low is not a hip-hop epic about just trying to survive day to day in the inner city - well, that's the initial impression I got from the title, anyway. And it's kind of too bad, because who wouldn't want to see a hip-hop epic starring Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, and Bill Murray?

Get Low is about a hermit living in a back-woods part of Tennessee in the '30s. Feared and hated by the people of the nearby town, the man decides for reasons unknown to throw himself a big funeral party prior to his own death. Everyone's invited. Duvall is great as Felix, the grizzly enigma at the center of the story, and Bill Murray delivers another solid performance as Quinn the undertaker, an opportunistic businessman willing to cash in on Felix's weird idea. The film takes a very leisurely pace, unwinding its mystery slowly while allowing the era and the locale to act as important characters in the story in their own right.

The only issue I had with Get Low is that the mystery at the center of the plot is not equal to the narrative and acting that surround it. When Felix's motivations are finally revealed, my thought was, "Really? That's all there is to it?" A little disappointing. But maybe it was my mistake to expect a melodramatic reveal at the end of such a conspicuously "small" movie. Or maybe it's because I fell asleep for about five minutes toward the end of the film because I was achy and feverish. I think I'll give Get Low another viewing at some point - the performances from the leads are among the best of their respective careers, and few movies in my recent memory have had such an excess of easy-going charm.

Tune in tomorrow to read about the one disastrous failure I saw at Sundance this year!

"Hermit Stew" by Tobin Sprout

I Saw a Movie (Sundance Film Festival Edition): Four Lions

Illustration titled "India rubber balls of the manufactories of Albert Cohen, Vaillant & Co." from the Illustrated Catalogue of the Industrial Department, 1862

Chris Morris isn't really a household name in the US - shows like Brass Eye and Nathan Barley haven't aired in the US - but his penchant for controversial "issue" comedy is well-known and well-liked in the UK. Four Lions is Morris's first feature film as writer and director, and it's no surprise that its main characters are a cell of Jihadi terrorists living in northern England. Morris strikes a good balance with Four Lions between funny, sympathetic characters and uncomfortable subject matter, but the movie is only not a disaster because the jokes are consistently good.

It helps that the terrorist-wannabe fivesome are lovably incompetent. Omar is smart and really cares about his friends, but his dedication to the cause (including his supportive wife and son!) is the most unnerving aspect of the movie. Waj and Fessel are idiots (to a degree that threatens to derail the movie at some points), but they are trying to do good. And Barry and Hassan are attention-seeking jerks with dubious reasons for being involved in terrorism. As their casual involvement in the Jihad movement gradually escalates, the dynamic of the group shifts and the movie's discomfort level ratchets up considerably. But the humor keeps coming until the wild conclusion, even though Morris never shies away from confronting the core issue of the movie while having fun with it.

I had some logistical issues with Four Lions that many US viewers will likely share - the fast-moving, heavily accented dialogue can be hard to follow, particularly as it often switches into Urdu (?) without warning. Also, some of the cultural references are going to be unfamiliar to a lot of Americans. Oh, and also IT'S A COMEDY ABOUT JIHADI TERRORISTS. People may have some issues with that. If you've enjoyed the recent edgy, "discomfort" comedies coming out of the UK, though, Four Lions might be something you'd enjoy.

"Terror" by the Stockholm Monsters