Empty Bookshelf Reviews

Author: Dan

  • Best Song Ever?: Magic (Ben Folds Five)

    Another in the “Best Song Ever?” series. Simply, I give the background, a point, a counterpoint, then star rating for songs that I have on my list of “good songs” with the goal of deciding what’s the best song ever. Note for those using feedreaders: the song is embedded on this review’s entry so there’s a point-of-reference in the review; you might want to view this entry from the webpage instead of the feed.

    Background
    I was really never a fan of Ben Folds Five. I thought “Brick” was catchy in its own way, way back when (1995?). I never followed Ben Folds Five, but I knew the band ceased to exist sometime between 1995 and 2000, with Ben Folds going out on his own, making CD’s that sounded just like when he was in “Ben Folds Five.” (I had no problem with it, I just wasn’t into it.) I randomly (very randomly) heard the song, “Magic” sometime in the fall of 2005 on WMUH. I didn’t know what it was when I heard it (I had missed the DJ’s intro), so I scribbled down some of the lyrics to look up later on the internet. Turns out that this was the mystery song. +1 for college radio.

    For

    • Shows that playing “around” chords and a pleasant melody can get you pretty far as a singer-songwriter. (yes, I’m aware that being that he had a backing band, this isn’t really a “singer-songwriter” type song). For what it’s worth, the song was actually written by the drummer, Darren Jessee, so it’s not necessarily a “Ben Folds” song.
    • The viola playing the bottom of the chords in a nice touch during the first verse.
    • It’s in 6/8. None of the pedestrian 4/4 stuff here, thank you very much.
    • The soft-loud-soft dynamic is used to good effect here. (see “against”)
    • 2:12 – At the risk of venturing into girliness, the line “You’re the magic that holds the sky up” really gets the point of that whole “love” thing. It’s not a metaphor, there’s nothing really figurative to it, I’m not sure it’s even symbolic, but it’s just a gentle exaggeration which gets the point across rather well.

      • Against

    • For the love of God, who thought it would be a good idea to have the timpani levels so loud. If you’ve turned up your head phones to hear the first verse, the timpani is seriously “damage your ears and headphones” loud. Why, why, why? Studio engineers:The enhanced dynamic range offered by CD’s is a privilege, not a right. Don’t abuse it.
    • Again, the timpani. If anyone has his or her bass turned up (most people usually do), the two timpani entrances (combined with the relative quiet of the first verse) will cause noticeable clipping because of their volume. Again, why?
    • The string section is a bit gratuitous. A single viola, violin, or cello would be ok, but with all of them, it gets a little heavy sounding.

      ****

      I’ve got a fever and the only prescription is louder timpani. No one would ever say that, even jokingly making reference to a Saturday Night Live sketch. The slightly over-the-top string section can be forgiven, but when the mixing of a song calls attention to itself, someone should be fired. Jarring dynamic changes are one thing; being unpleasant to listen to is another. It gets 4 out of 5, because of the quality of the song, but the mixing should really give it an “NA” for its rating.

  • Inadvertently Recreating a Scene from Garden State

    Though each time I go to China, I make a pledge to write many reviews (usually a stretch where I’ve written very few) and not follow through, I’ll quietly imply that same pledge now, and begin and start here.

    With the fact that flying to China from the U.S. is an awful experience, many of my co-workers get small prescriptions (2 or 3 pills total) for sleeping medicine. I’m not a big fan of taking even over-the-counter taking medicine as it is (my family has a history of awesomeness), but the flight is just plain awful for 15+ hours at a time. With that in mind, I stopped at CVS the night before my trip and purchased a bottle of Advil PM, not exactly prescription sleeping pills per se, but maybe they’d help a little bit.

    scrubs
    Potential captions for this picture
    1) No, not this scene.
    2) I’m dark and brooding, too!
    3) Because if the girl on the far left weren’t touching his hand, he’d return to the land of lollipops and gumdrops.

    Skipping ahead to being on the plane between Chicago and Hong Kong (China), the first (of like 7 drink services – the flight is that long) came through, and international flights serve alcoholic drinks free. For whatever reason (maybe because it seems poetic), sleeping pills are “supposed” to be taken with red wine. Sure, the package explicitly says “do not mix with alcohol,” but I want to be dramatic, darn it. I get a 175mL mini-bottle (about half of a soda can) of red wine from a whichever vintner in California was willing to offer United Airlines wine at 3rd world prices. I take two Advil PM pills, then finish the bottle of wine.

    Now, I had to be at the Allentown airport at 5:15am, so as one could imagine, I was pretty tired to begin with but rather uncomfortable because of the whole “being on an airplane” thing. I started noticing the fact that I had drunk wine, then shortly thereafter, went from lazy-feeling because of the wine to full-out, “boy, I’m starting to feel more sleepy than I was before.” This turned into, “wow, I really don’t feel like moving, but I’m not sleepy. Ooh, look how interesting the wall in front of me is.”

    So, for about an hour (I think – it was about half of the movie “Marie Antoinette”) I sat there, dazed staring at the wall in front of me on the airplane as other passengers did their business, getting things from their stowed luggage, heading to the facilities, taking little strolls down the aisle. It’s like the chemicals had slowed me down to the point of not being able to process the outside world my choices had made it so life was passing me by. Oh no, I was inadvertently recreating a scene from Garden State!

    Extra bonus points for providing which Scrubs episode ending on a similar note to my ending.

    **½

    Inadvertently Recreating a Scene from Garden State receives two-and-a-half stars for, well, I’m not sure. I won’t be repeating the experience on the way back (maybe with significantly more Advil PM’s, though I doubt it), so I guess that counts for everything.

    A refresher for those who haven’t seen the movie or for whom it’s been awhile…

  • Best Song Ever?: Ambulance (TV on the Radio)

    Another in the “Best Song Ever?” series. Simply, I give the background, a point, a counterpoint, then star rating for songs that I have on my list of “good songs” with the goal of deciding what’s the best song ever. Note for those using feedreaders: the song is embedded on this review’s entry so there’s a point-of-reference in the review; you might want to view this entry from the webpage instead of the feed.

    Background
    TV on the Radio, creators of one of 2006’s best-reviewed albums, Return to Cookie Mountain were once “indie” in more than just genre. They’re now one of those “popular unpopular” bands, with an appearance on David Letterman and a video on rotation on MTV Hits. You’ll see music critics fawning over their doo-wop and soul influences, though at the end of the day, their “thing” is usually more of a noise/fuzz experiment (basically, it’s an entrant in the genre of “stoner rock”), in 2004, they released the album Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes with the a cappella “retro-ish” track “Ambulance.” They’re the type of band that if you namedrop “TV on the Radio,” you’re guaranteed to impress your pretentious friends.

    For

    • Who needs any stinkin’ instruments when you’ve got competent singers.
    • The “dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum” bass line won’t leave your head. Ever.
    • Relentlessly solid lyrics (and I’m not a lyrics person): I will be your accident if you will be my ambulance //
      And I will be your screech and crash if you will be my crutch and cast // And I will be your one more time if you will be my one last chance.

    Against

    • The “dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum” bass line won’t leave your head.
    • The music is so straight-forward that you can’t help but pay attention to the words, and some of those words, while usually solid, if not looked at in the context of the whole song give the feel of written-by-high-schoolers-literature. Heart’s colors changed like leaves sounds like one of those faux-deep expressions a 16 year old would think up. To be fair, the line does actually work because the rest of that verse mentions vines, gardens, seeds and other earthy, not entirely unmetamorphical terms. I’m not sure this should be held against the song, but I don’t feel like erasing it.
    • At 4:54, it’s a bit simple for a song with no “build” or swell.

    ***

    This is a tough one. The song is timeless – if I hadn’t mentioned the dates in the first section, I’m not sure anyone would know that it was from 2004 instead of any decade preceding that. Timelessness would be a characteristic of “the best song ever,” but I think this one draws too much from the past. A more modern take of the song is offered when it’s played live (see video, below). A guitar plays some atmospheric texture, a bass plays the “dum-dum-dum-dum-dum” part, and someone beatboxes a drum part. It’s wholly the same song, but provides an all-new direction for it. Note: the video is just a portion of the song, but it’ll get the point across.

  • Best Song Ever?: Superman (Goldfinger)

    Another in the “Best Song Ever?” series. Simply, I give the background, a point, a counterpoint, then star rating for songs that I have on my list of “good songs” with the goal of deciding what’s the best song ever. Note for those using feedreaders: the song is embedded on this review’s entry so there’s a point-of-reference in the review; you might want to view this entry from the webpage instead of the feed.

    Background
    Goldfinger was one of the bigger bands (along with The Mighty Might Bosstones and Reel Big Fish) of the ska “boom” of 1996/1997. They’ve been churning out albums at the pace of about one every other year since 1996, and are known for doing hundreds of concerts each year. The album Hang-Ups is probably their best work. The preceding self-titled album was a bit rough around the edges and the later albums (3 as of today), while solid, didn’t quite have the creative edge presented with the whole of Hang-Ups. Basically, along with Blink 182, Goldfinger invented pop-punk, though for Goldfinger, the “pop” aspect never really came true. I heard the song “Superman” in 9th grade in 1997, and since then it’s been one of my favorites.

    For

    • Incorporates the trumpets and trombones without it being gimmicky. They don’t sound out of place, and they used sparingly enough that the texture they add is not arbitrary.
    • Similar to the last song reviewed, the return from the bridge (the bridge starting at 1:57) happens at exactly the right time within the song (2:23 as the lead guitar plays 3 notes to lead into a recap of the first verse), and the stripped down arrangement of rhythm guitar, bass, cymbal ride, and vocals is the perfect contrast to the “throw everything at the fan” arrangement of the bridge.
    • Ambitious bass playing.

    Against

    • Probably a bit too aggressive for most people.
    • Some people just don’t and won’t like the ska, guitar chord on the upbeat style.
    • No one’s going to be writing a treatise on the lyrics any time soon. (maybe Nate would be up it)

    ***

    In terms of this being the best song ever, it gets only 3 stars. It puts up a good fight, but a real test here is whether one can listen to it beginning to end more than once in a row. This song? Can’t do it. I could listen to the recapitulation of the first verse after the bridge (starting at 2:23) all day long, but unfortunately that’s only part of the song, not the whole thing. And, well, the whole ska thing probably knocks it out of competition for good.

  • Best Song Ever?: In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (Neutral Milk Hotel)

    The first in (maybe) a series of reviews. Simply, I give the background, a point, a counterpoint, then star rating for songs that I have on my list of “good songs” with the goal of deciding what’s the best song ever. Up first is one that definitely isn’t the best song ever, but lets me test my review format. Note for those using feedreaders: the song is embedded on this review’s entry so there’s a point-of-reference in the review; you might want to view this entry from the webpage instead of the feed.

    Background
    I came across Neutral Milk Hotel after reading that they had a 10.0 reviewed album with one of our nemeses, Pitchfork Media. (That’s darn near impossible). I checked out the album, and came across a song I had heard once before and had stuck with me reasonably well considering I had only heard it once. That brings us to “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.”

    For

    • Note the singing saw and the who cares if it’s out of tune trumpet. It does the whole “using non-traditional instruments” in an artistic, non-self-conscious-way. (see Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys).
    • It’s in 6/8 (kind of rare for rock music [well, indie {the genre} music]).
    • Evocative-ish lyrics “When we meet on a cloud, I’ll be laughing out loud” [internal rhyme for the win!]
    • Everything seems right in the world as the verses begin after the controlled musical meanderings (0:40, 1:28). The return after the bridge (the bridge starting at 2:00) is especially epic. As a listener, you’re rooting for it to get to the “What beautiful face…” after the song seemingly deconstructs after the bridge. At 2:45, everything is where it needs to be.

    Against

    • Neutral Cheese Who?
    • Odd instruments, intentionally sloppy singing and bass playing.
    • Lyrically, there are some nice little onesies (see above), but there’s not much going on beyond that.
    • Just plain too weird for most people.

    *½

    While not a one and a half star song on its own merits, in the scale of whether it’s the best song ever, it really isn’t even a contender. It’s one-of-a-kind, but the weirdness-to-most-people inherent in making a song “one-of-a-kind” seals its fate on the “not the best song ever” side of the dividing line.

  • Calling Out Northwestern on National TV

    It’s not often that colleges get called out negatively on TV. Usually, writers namedrop the college they attended in passing: “These guys were frat brothers of mine from my time at Northwestern” (a sort of quote from an episode of Andy Richter Controls the Universe); it’s not really an endorsement, but it is a type of plug, I guess the screenplayer writer‘s to hanging one’s diploma on the wall at work. Anyway, aside from some Simpsons jokes making fun of Yale (because there was a time when many of the Simpsons writers had come from Harvard), college namedrops are neutral at worst.

    NU
    Hollywood doesn’t like you!

    But, when watching tonight’s episode of “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip“, the following dialogue was exchanged:
    note, this is more of an “I think this is what they said” than a pure transcription

    Matthew Perry’s Character: I’ll write you a letter of recommendation.
    Bradley Whitford’s Character: Speaking of which, against my better advice, my nephew is applying to Northwestern, and he needs a letter of recommendation, too.

    Not that big a deal, I know, but in a way, my non-donating-alumnus status just got a high five from Hollywood! Now, I guess it could be rationalized away by the writers by saying, they were getting at: “there are better such and such programs at some other college than Northwestern,” but I feel like I’m part of higher educational history: The first(?) prime time dis’.

    ****½

    Calling Out Northwestern on National TV gets four-and-a-half stars for being the first negative namedrop of a college, with that 1/2 being deducted for the episode of “Studio 60…” being a perfect example of everything that’s right and everything that’s wrong with the show. *note: I don’t really have any negative feelings towards Northwestern or anything like that, but considering how rarely it’s brought up in pop culture, the fact that it was a negative (or pushing towards negative from neutral, at best) mention makes it quite newsworthy.

  • The 2006 Fuller Christmas Letter

    Look, we have a new design! If there are any issues with this new layout, please (please, please) leave a comment so I can fix it. It looks fine on my computer, but maybe it doesn’t on yours. Please let us know what you think – Positive, Negative, Who Cares – in the comments section for this review.

    What with my mom using a computer relatively regularly these days, she’s made a habit of writing a Christmas letter every year to stuff into Christmas cards. I’ve long been on the record about the, well, “impersonal-ness” of Christmas card letters, but at the end of the day, is a general letter any more impersonal than the simple signatures at the bottom of any Christmas card? Eh, not really. Two (three? – maybe four? – god, I’m old) years ago, I actually made a deal with my mom that I would write the letter for the cards, mainly because I had complained about the content in years past. She sent my letter out indiscriminately with the cards, so I’m sure that my tale of how my brother had become an unsuccessful comic artist/writer probably fell upon many a “not getting the joke” ear. Anyway, that’s in the past, so here we are at 2006’s letter.

    Nate still hates Christmas.

    First, let it be known that I don’t feel bad reviewing my mom’s letter – as my mother, she should expect no less from me. Whatever the star rating I assign, she should simply say, “well, that’s Dan for ya.” In her defense, this the first year that both my brother and I have been completely out of her hair, both having completely moved out years and (almost) a year ago.

    On to the letter (note: my comments are in pop-ins, so be sure to hover over what look to be links):

    MERRY CHRISTMAS – HAPPY, HEALTHY 2007

    The usual busy-ness has overtaken our lives despite our empty nest. Gordon’s mother passed away in Wilmington in March after her 16+ year siege of dementia or Alzheimer’s. It took about 4 months to know that working weekends & holidays were no longer for me, as much as I enjoyed it. Our business and my new (in August) Nursery School director/ teacher position, trying to rebuild the program, at our nearby church, Mon.-Fri., and painting our new kitchen trim/doors/walls keep me hopping. Sept. & Oct. were crazy with 3 part-time jobs. I left the organist position 10/31.

    We celebrated 3 November weekends by going to the Delaware shore – visiting relatives, to Gordon’s take-in father, now 90, in So. N.J., and to Longwood Gardens!

    Our business went through a few slower months again this year, but Gordon keeps busy. We were fortunate to have work, while other shops were extremely slow or dead. We’re dinosaurs. Dealerships, as you know, give huge, extended warranties on new vehicles. There are dealer-only repairs due to technological restrictions. The trend is for repair information to be restricted or unavailable- e.g. our ’97 Volvo wagon.

    Brian and Beth are fine, in Oxford (near the very recent Amish one-room schoolhouse tragic shooting). She’s made a great recovery from thyroid cancer surgery/treatment, enjoying her new, administrative job with the same hospice. Brian, a Nationwide Ins. senior claims adjuster, is in Chester County, also. We plan to see more of them on our weekends! Brian and Dan live 40 minutes apart.

    Dan lives in Media, an hour+ away from us, and is a project manager for LaFrance Corp., Concordville, PA. He works in its factory in China, a 45 minute ferry ride from Hong Kong, a few times a year for a few weeks. Interesting work, but definitely a company city in a ‘third world’ area, he says. After five VERY hot, humid summer weeks, he preferred his three weeks during a very warm, not-so-humid fall. He and his high school friends premiered their new movie, Franklin II, this Saturday night at a church in Bethlehem. They have a good time. It’s not serious movie-making, but with serious production values, I guess. His website is emptybookshelf.com.

    Come see our kitchen some time. Primer White (2 coats on walls & trim, which our 2nd contractor custom-made to cover #1’s mistakes takes time!) is looking pretty good. But that’s another story. The year of our totally incompetent contractor-thief is over! I’m jealous of all you handypeople!!

    Sorry to be late, but the best to you in 2007!

    Love,
    Peggy and Gordon

    end of letter
    ***

    The 2006 Fuller Christmas Letter receives three stars. There was nothing patently untrue or unnecessarily subjective in it, though the details which make my life more difficult (such as the whole putting the ‘works in China’ part before ‘for a few weeks each year’) makes my Christmas season filled with too many conversations that start with “So, Dan, I hear you’re in China most of the year” then me following with, “well, I’m there less than two months per year…I’m in the US most of the year.” Minor grammatical quibbles aside, it provided a fair update of the Fullers for 2006AD.

    I’ve never been known for my punctuality, so I cannot deduct any points for the fact that the cards will be going out during Epiphany instead of Advent/Christmas.

  • 13 Months of Empty Bookshelf Reviews

    Though this was meant to correspond with Nate’s review of the first 100 reviews, schedules and, uh, not-feeling-like-it-at-the-moment-because-it’s-a-bit-daunting-of-a-task-itis, has delayed this “One Year Anniversary” review and pushed it into 13/14 months, but that’s fine by me.

    WARNING: Intense self-congratulation ahead.

    Nate’s recap covered things in a time-based manner, in fact you could almost call it a “temporal” recap. (HA!), so I’ll look at things a step back or so.

    stats
    Basically, this chart says that aside from people that randomly come across the site via search engines, a large portion of our readership seems to check back pretty regularly.

    When I had run the idea of a website by Nate, it was presented simply in a “wouldn’t it be funny if we reviewed anything-and-everything.” How often do people assign star rankings to things that aren’t arts or consumables? (Consumer Reports gives star ratings to lots of stuff, though it’s always physical items available for purchase). We never officially decided on what constitutes “reviewable”, but being that we’ve reviewed Pluto’s demotion (those bastards) and thrown an ambitious amount of words towards reviewing the hype surrounding various media properties, we’re definitely keeping our options open.

    From the beginning, we’ve dreaded the dirty “B” word. Our site looks like many, many sites associated with the “movement” associated with the B word; our site runs the same software that is one of the most popular B word platforms, and the fact that we usually indignantly explain “it’s a website, not one of those” when people refer to it as our “BLOG” just serves to establish how much like a blog it is. Well, though we’re wont to admit it, at the end of the day, we’re really not too far removed from the “blogosphere” – we just avoid the “I feel bad today because” style rampant in most blogs. Likewise, it’s rare that we read a random article online then say, “I think I’m going to review that” the way that many people who have blogs write snippets of “I read this article and I think this about it.”

    Nate did a good job wrapping up the first batch of reviews we did. Though the writing in those first reviews had “voice”, the big picture aspects of the site were still up in the air. My first review (about a really long baseball game) didn’t really accomplish much, though it did help to establish the implicit theme of our reviews and how we think we’d like aim to separate from the “blogosphere”: as everyone who writes anything on the internet, we think that we offer something new and interesting that is unique to our site. You could find people talking about how long that baseball game was and how great it was, but no one saying “well, actually, the game wasn’t any good.” This led into our future reviews, where we’re pretty much the only people writing about the topics (verbally harassing horses, recaps of great football injuries, the myth of the Christmas season coming earlier every year [as opposed to the complaint that it does or doesn’t come earlier every year] etc.) That’s not to say we didn’t write about things that were more straight-forward as needed. When I had bad luck with Vonage and when Nate’s long distance provider didn’t see that anything was out of the ordinary when his long distance bill went up somewhere in the 900%+ range, reviews were written. There, the goal was to try to make our bad experiences in consumerism known and hopefully somewhat entertaining.

    After we had established the criteria for whether or not something was considered reviewable, we looked toward more “touchy-feely” sort of goals. Well, at least I did. I’m not sure what Nate’s goals have been. The shear size of the internet makes it so any schmuck can make any website about any thing. That’s widely understood, and that’s fine, but it also gives space for incredibly, well, passionate (for better or for worse) defenses or critiques of topics that go (rightly) ignored in the mainstream print media. Heck, even a devoted sneaker magazine such as Sole Collector probably wouldn’t devote 1600 words to the Oakley Twitch. Likewise, Entertainment Weekly would never run 3500 words about Scrubs (and rightly so). One of the first websites that took advantage of this freedom afforded by the internet was the movie news/rumors site Ain’t It Cool News; it didn’t create the mold, but it had a lot to do with shaping what people expect from the internet. Ain’t It Cool News still “works” as a website almost 10 years after its creation, but it would never work as a traditional magazine or even newspaper. As I’ve said before, I don’t believe in the community “power” of the internet, but I will stand behind the sense of community that it can create. Ain’t It Cool News is famous for its rumors and news, but what sets it apart from, say, Variety or Entertainment Weekly are the actual movie reviews. Needless to say, read Harry Knowles’ review of Clerks 2, then read the Variety review. They’re both positive, but the limitations of “traditional journalism” are evident. Sure, Knowles’ review is a bit fanboy-ish, but there’s something to be said about liking a movie, then seeing someone else on the internet go out of his way explaining how and why it is that good. Oddly, it’s re-affirming in some way to see that someone is as over-the-top positive for a movie (or CD, or pair of sneakers, or a Star Wars promo video).

    What brings it all back is that my goal has been to write reviews that people who already like something end up liking it more after they’ve read it. I guess that’s sort of a pretentious if not presumptuous opinion of my own work, but that’s my goal. As always, there have been humorous reviews sprinkled in within the more serious (the Chinese basketball game, verbally harassing horses, etc.), but by-and-large I yearn to educate. So, here’s a recap.

    I like how every single review (well except Nate’s U2/Green Day one) has a picture and funny caption. Nate’s Saving Silverman review has a good one, and I’m still fond of my “Nate Hates Christmas” when we were feuding over whether Christmas comes early every year or earlier every year. I like how pop-ins created an entirely new dynamic within the articles, allowing for jokes that are completely removed from the review itself (such as “HE HAD THE HIGH GROUND” in my Star Wars review. In terms of stuff liked enough to call out…

    Of my reviews, I think the “When Your Reach Exceeds Your Grasp” is probably the strongest: it doesn’t meander, it includes that self-deprecating humor found in all of the emptybookshelf reviews that the ladies claim to love. Of course, here we (I) are (am) writing about how great we are, but still… Anyway, I’d stand behind Verbally Harassing Horses, Oakley Twitch, Outsourcing Phone Support to India, The Last 200 Years of Human Creative Output, the 3 part Current TV Landscape (meandering as the reviews do), and the Roger Ebert’s Take on Video Games.

    I’ve enjoyed how I very infrequently actually follow-up on things I claim I will review in the future: my Pirates Magazine series ended up being just one review, and as you read that review, you can sense my feeling of having any point in reviewing further aspects of it go out the window. I’ve never reviewed the Daily Show, and heck, of the original topics I listed in the first review, well, let’s take a look.

    • electricity – nope
    • Columbus Day – nope
    • sandwiches – hmm…Nate reviewed something from Quizno’s and I reviewed Super Bowl food
    • Adam’s Smug Sense of Self-Worth – actually, I think I ended up covering this in “Knocking the Wind Out of Adam“
    • Arby’s – MIA
    • Dell 2005FPW monitor – Yes
    • scissors – Nope
    • Verizon Online DSL – Uhh, That’d be exciting
    • The Streets’ A Grand Don’t Come for Free – Yep

    Facts:
    4,851 visitors (this actually isn’t very many considering that we’re indexed by Google and these are not necessarily unique visitors. For example, every time I turn my cable modem off then back on, I’m tallied as a “new visitor”)

    The most visited reviews since October 12 of 2005 are the following:

    1. Nate’s LOST Season 2 review
    2. My review of “the internet“
    3. The Cinemax/Star Wars promo review (this has been the third most read review and has been up only about a month so far)
    4. Roger Ebert’s Take on Video Games
    5. Nate’s Other People Stealing Your Ideas Without Having Met You or Even Knowing They Stole Something
    6. My assault on the underaged and pantsless in the review of the Cure4Cole “Ad” campaign

    ****½

    13 Months of Empty Bookshelf gets four-and-a-half big stars due to the fact that, as Nate had covered in his 100 Review review, we managed to keep everything going even though we thought we had a good chance of running out of steam after only a few months. It’s a side project/hobby-type thing, but we’ve both moved into “grown up” type jobs and manage to provide (arguably) quality content on a regular basis. Of course “regular basis” has become much less regular as sometimes after spending all day in front of a computer does not leave one wanting to spend more time in there at home, so that somewhat lack of productivity is responsible for that minus half a star. We’re going to be pretty busy in the coming weeks leading into the movie premiere on December 23, but I’m sure we’ll still have stuff to post.

  • Lady in the Water

    This happened to be one of the five movies shown on the way back from Hong Kong/China. Remembering Nate’s review about the critical hub-bub over this movie, I decided to write notes throughout the movie. I hadn’t read Nate’s review for a long time and was unable to access it on the plane, so this is definitely not a review of his review.

    I was in that sort of delirious state where you’re really tired, but unable to sleep, so the following reads as a combination of the notes one would take during a screening of a movie and a stream-of-consciousness scribbling for however long the movie was. I was too tired to keep track of the context in the movie for some of the notes, so some seems sort of random. Anyway, here we go:

    lady in the water
    If the Lady in the Water were actually a guy, there’d be a solid NAMbLA joke here.

    This opening animation/cartoon certainly doesn’t seem like the beginning of a Will Ferrell movie – maybe there’s some sort of ironic, humorous twist at the end. [I had thought that when they announced the movies they were showing, they were announcing them in order.]

    Hmm, this movie certainly isn’t Talledega Nights. Judging by the opening titles, this looks like “Lady in the Water.” Nate you’re about to be served.

    This looks serious.

    Paul Giamatti seems to play the same character in every movie: tortured, middle-aged man who’s best friends with that guy from Wings. Maybe there just aren’t that many roles for unattractive middle-aged men.

    Get out of the darn pool! He’s so serious, he goes in with all of his clothes on.

    Cleveland Heap’s name should really be “BlueCollar McWorkingClass.”

    Apparently, there’s some sort of monster in the pool. Drain the damn pool. I’m sure the tenants would be okay about the pool closing if there were a monster in it.

    Your mom is the lady in the water.

    Can’t really make out many details: numerous people towards the screen have their shades open or reading lights on.

    He stutters: looks like Paul G is looking for an Oscar – “I JUST WANT TO BE NORMAL!!”

    Chinese people are funny (the people in the movie) – real Chinese people? (not so much)

    Your mom is a Narf.

    TURBULENCE!

    Something about a “chosen one” – man, I wonder if the 2nd and 3rd Matrix movies are still as bad as I remember them being.

    Whispering = dramatic.

    So the guy who sees the water nymph is the “chosen one” – gee, I wonder who that could be…because Cleveland certainly has no idea.

    Bob Balaban was funny in Waiting for Guffman.

    If they made soup out of butterflies, I wonder if rich white people would eat if only because of its extreme expense.

    9 letter word to “in human form” – CORPOREAL – hey, wait, the movie says “INCARNATE” – we’ll see about that, movie.

    The guy next to me loves his armrests.

    Paul Giamatti has a different voice when he yells, not unlike a certain German teacher I know.

    I’ve seen WWE Wrestlers who can do the stuttering disability better than Paul Giamatti.

    I think the movie is something about a story about writing a story – something smells recursive.

    If M. Night Shyamalan would’ve made Franklin, he wouldn’t have revealed Jefferson as a traitor until the very end, and it might’ve sucked even more.

    I spy: a pretentious director cameo!

    Right next to my head is a great place to place your screaming, newly adopted Chinese baby after you’ve decided that the people sitting near you are probably sick of hearing it, and you want to take it for a walk.

    Real janitors who are introspective are usually just crazy.

    Finally, someone is calling out the fact that Cleveland is hanging out with a teenaged girl who has a proclivity for not wearing clothing.

    Your mom is a narf.

    Monkeys!

    Cleveland happens to have an underwater flashlight — and the lung capacity of an orca.

    Tagline for future water movie: Under water, no one can hear you scream…unless they’re under water with you.

    I think the Chinese girl’s accent is fake – it’s too thick considering how solid her English grammar is.

    Scrunt? Madame North? – what the heck is going on?

    How can people have such serious conversations about such ludicrous things?

    M. Night Shyamalan has one face he makes when he “acts” – pensively concerned. Why can’t he do non-speaking cameos like Martin Scorcese in Gangs of New York.

    I bet the end of the movie will coincide with Cleveland finding out about the end of the Chinese story.

    Why do I smell vomit? Oh yeah, a plane full of adopted babies. It’s stinky enough that I don’t feel bad calling this flight “The Infertility Express.”

    This movie is stupid.

    “Is the eagle going to come back for her?”

    One character says, “There’s no originality left in the world.”
    -He’s calling the story and the viewer out.
    -What’s the point of the story calling itself out? Self-awareness is a trite, easy avenue for movies to take.
    -Will there be a big stupid surprise ending?

    Would the movie be more or less creepy if the character named “Story” were a guy? (answer: probably)

    When did all of the people from the apartments not think this was all stupid and decided to try to decipher the story.

    They should make a sequel to Apollo 13 where the astronauts who didn’t make it to the moon try to blow it up.

    It might’ve been a better idea to go through the details of attacking the scrunt instead of being told on-the-fly.

    Bob Balaban’s character again: is he talking about all movies or just this one?
    -Family Guy and the Simpsons make fun of themselves, but they don’t take themselves too seriously.

    Uh-oh, someone killed Cleveland’s family.

    It’s the ultimate, indulgent writer thing to think that you’d write something so powerful that someone would kill you over it.

    I think Hal Sparks is the muscle head in this movie.

    One time I got mauled by an invisible fantasy creature.

    Logic challenge: a “good” movie is in which you want to keep watching until the end (so you can see what happens). If I want to keep watching this movie to see how much stupider it gets, does that make this a good movie?

    Bob Balaban gets called out for being the type of person who sees through bad movies – then he sees so far into the movie that he gets mauled.

    This kid interprets cereal boxes. That’s a life skill, Junior.

    Man, that girl’s good and dead – how inappropriate.

    They should just show the Star Wars movies on airplanes.

    I think this is supposed to be about how traditional stories can be perfectly entertaining…. but this one isn’t entertaining.
    – only people who aren’t clever would think that this clever.

    Looks like the same creature from Brotherhood of the Wolf.

    Okay, that’s NOT Hal Sparks.

    James Newton Howard?! I would’ve never guessed.

    *

    Actually, the end is pretty strong (everything after when Cleveland “heals” the Story character). Looking back, it doesn’t seem that bad, but boy, was it ever. The ending is simply testament to “film-making” skills, not “film writing” skills. Self-indulgent nonsense that’s made even worse by him trying to be “clever” by defending the problems of the movie inside of the movie.

  • Game 3 of the LaFrance China vs. LaFrance US Basketball Series

    Chinese people love their basketball. Playing, watching, talking about it, assuming that the black guy that’s over here for four weeks is both an engineer and in the NBA (because he’s black, duh). They love it the way the same way that noted friend of The Bookshelf™ (Josh) Calloway loves ginger ale.

    basketball

    Score: 92-80 US
    Any color blue jersey: Chinese Team
    Front Row (minus one basketball player): Basketball Groupies
    Whistle-Owner: Referee
    The rest: The US team (including the girl in the back right who’s from the US)
    (This victory made the US team 3-0. Notice, the US team member holding 3 fingers up. The Chinese people hold 2 fingers up because, well, that’s what Chinese people seem to do when they have their picture taken.)

    So, naturally, the Chinese all-stars (pulled from the ranks of security guards, engineers, factory workers, etc, etc.) from the company want to play the Americans, who they assume are seasoned basketball veterans, being that they’re Americans. So, here are the requirements for a successful intercontinental basketball dominance challenge:

    1. It has to be Wednesday. Selective brown-outs make it so the court is only illuminated on Wednesdays. Let’s say you have some sort of conflict that can only be resolved on the basketball court… and it’s Thursday. You have to wait one whole week to get it taken care of.

    2. You need a court with the gigantic, trapezoidal, official international basketball lane dimensions. Well, this is the only type you’ll find in China, you’re all set. And be careful, if the referee (see below) feels like calling offensive 3 second violations, and you’re in for some embarrassment until you get used to it.

    3. You need fans. The court is between two dorms which probably house 200 people combined. These fans need to bring a drum to bang on whenever the Chinese team scores.

    4. You need groupies. When you’ve just missed two layups, airballed a shot from the arc, and you’re out of breath only three minutes into the game, you need someone to tell you that you’re “number 1 basketball star.”

    5. You need a referee. No, scratch that. You need someone who owns a whistle. Two older (in their 40’s) whistle-owning guys who live in the dorms provided law and order (and a bafflingly inadequate grasp of the concepts of the backcourt violation and team foul) for our game.

    6. You need to have at least 4 of 5 players who are taller than 6’2″. Otherwise, the speed of the Chinese will overwhelm the rebound and layup differentials.

    7. You need to figure out which Chinese player is the best and switch to a box and one zone to cause him to take shots with an exceedingly low chance of being successful. The four people in #6 take care of the rebounds resulting from these shots.

    8. You need a time keeper who keeps time by his watch and yells when the 12 minute quarters are over. Also, he should speak no English; this way, the US team is unable to know how much time is remaining. More importantly, he should arbitrarily add time to the fourth quarter whenever the Chinese team slightly closes the point differential. This way, what should be 48 minutes of basketball ends up being closer to 60 minutes.

    9. You need a security guard to operate the scoreboard. Because he wouldn’t let anyone else near it.

    10. Most importantly, the US team needs an in-shape 40ish guy who plays basketball three times a week.

    ****½

    Game 3 of the LaFrance China vs. LaFrance US Basketball Series receives four-and-a-half stars due largely to the fact that we won the game and that games against the Chinese team don’t end up with someone from one team wanting to fight someone on the other team, like most (if not all) other competitive-in-some-way basketball games in which I’ve participated. And how often does someone get to represent their country successfully without doing something stupid? Minus 1/2 star for the ungodly amount of running involved in basketball.