Ruminations on The Hold Steady

So yah, one thing about me is that i'm some terrible music obsessive. Because of that fact last year (and this year so far) was kind of depressing because, honestly, barely anything worth listening to came out. Or at least that's what i thought.

You see the last couple of weeks i've become obsessed with a particular album. That album is The Hold Steady's Boys and Girls in America. Yes, I heard about it last year, but i really didn't pay much attention to it because i really didn't like the Hold Steady that much. Of course, based the raving critics i gave it a chance, but as is usual was probably distracted, or watching TV or cursing those damn Lakers or something because i didn't really listen to it again. That is until maybe two weeks ago when i started listening to it obsessively.

So yah, I guess it's common knowledge, (or should be at least) that the Hold Steady rock. The only problem I had with the album, (and in retrospect probably the reason I didn't purchase a physical copy of the CD until last week), is that the freaking cover are is so bloody, unspeakably ugly!!! If you've seen it you know what I'm talking about. The "art" is ridiculous, it looks like one of Raffi's rejected album covers made up by some guy who was high on confetti drugs or something (perhaps explaining the strange excess of confetti plastered on the cover). The Hold Steady should be one of those CD's that you can proudly display and be like, BOO-YAH, brother, or sister, look how awesome this CD is, it has skulls and crossbones and flaming skulls and eerie landscape pictures of barren barns and wheat farms or something. But no, all the Hold Steady's "colorful" album art provides me is a quizzical look that seems to say, "so that's why your pants are so tight"-even though i don't wear tight pants. So yah, that kind of sucks obviously.

So my shortened point, is, curse you Hold Steady, I expect this out of The Polyphonic Spree but not you!!!!

Oh, and I really want to see them live in San Diego, that would be awesomer then awesome.

Unforgiven is forgiven...by me at least

So yah, the other week, or month or sometime in the recent but not too recent past Best Buy had like the most awesome sale ever where they essentially liquidated their special edition movie thingamajig and sold a bunch of awesome special edition movies for 10 bucks each. Understandably i was jazzed and bought a whole bunch...i got some good ones (amadeus, se7en) some totally terrible ones (chariots of fire...this garbage won best picture?!?) ones that i forgot (i can't paranthesize them because i forgot the titles) and one truly awesome piece of American cinematic acheivement -Unforgiven.

Now this is a movie I love. In fact, i already owned the crappy one disk slack cardboard case edition of it but still felt the need to buy the two disk special edition even though it lacked film commentary by Eastwood himself (which i would really like to hear but which he never seems to sit down and do for any of his movies). For those of you that don't know, Unforgiven won best picture in 1992 i believe and, in my opinion, definitely deserved the honor. There are, of course, those that decry and refuse to watch it because it is a Western (i would generally fall into this category, because i hate shit like Gunsmoke and Maverick) but in all honesty Unforgiven transcends simple genre labels. It's raw, emotional, gritty and uber Dirty Harry style violent in some places. In fact, that's probably the most gripping unique aspect of the film-the way in which it handles violence. The story revolves around violence and the film, in no way sanitizes the pain and bloodshed associated with violent acts. It's a daring approach that adds a new dimension to a story about the fall of a "good" man.

So the point is not really a point. I just thought the way that Unforgiven approaches violent situations was interesting, and, honestly, one of most intriguing parts of the film. I tried to think of other movies that tap into the same vein, but really could only think of a few. One obvious one was Saving Private Ryan, though it didn't have nearly the same emotional impact as the violence in Unforgiven. Another one i considered was Straw Dogs but honestly, after that, i really couldn't think of many films that don't glorify explosions in the like. On the same note, i'd really like to find a copy of David Croenberg's History of Violence because it sounds like it would explore similar themes (though croenberg is like borderline psychotic or something - because, after all, he came up with Videodrome). If anyone reads this (doubtful) or thinks of similar movies, i'l like to know the names.

So yah, go watch Unforgiven. Oh, and when i have more time i'll put more stuff up on here, since, i've obviously, let myself lag a bit.