Paul Thomas Anderson has always made big, dizzying films that are as polarizing as any contemporary filmmaker. Either you love his stuff and hold him up as genius, or you hate it and tear him down as the living embodiment of pretension. His latest Punch-Drunk Love, is a decidedly smaller film than his previous works. Instead of a broad cast of characters and stories, there’s only one storyline – but it’s still a perplexing one. In the hands of another director, it would probably have come out as a charming and heartwarming romantic comedy, but Anderson instead adds enough tension and peculiarity to keep the audience from getting too comfortable. And the periodic fits of rage by the protagonist help in that department, too.

Much ink has been spilled in heaping laurels on Adam Sandler’s performance. And it’s true – he’s exceptional in the role. I’ve always suspected that behind all raging idiot schtick there was a capable actor, and am happy to see I was right. Sandler perfectly captures the repressed, on-the-edge desperation of Barry Egan. Granted, it’s not an enormous stretch from some of his comedic roles, but where those were caricatures, this is a real and complex character. He makes Barry a deeply sympathic and a little bit frightening character. I for one felt great empathy for him, and could relate to how he realized Emily Watson was his probably his last, best hope for happiness. Bravo, Adam, and we’ll forgive you Eight Crazy Nights, but don’t mess up again.

I wish I could find a harmonium in the street.

In other news… I grabbed a copy of The American Analog Set’s Through The 90s compilation (sleepy droney hummmm) and Superdrag’s In The Valley Of The Dying Stars (rocka rocka rock). Good stuff!

Bettie Serveert will be coming to North America to tour their new album, Log 22 in March and April! There better be a Toronto date in there.

So apparently we’ve got a candidate for drummer coming down to rehearsal tomorrow night. He responded to an ad I put up on the Anti-Antenna message board, and sounds promising to me. But then, my criteria are pretty much, “Knows which end of the stick is which, will show up to rehearsals”. Not too demanding! Fingers crossed, anyway.

np – The American Analog Set / Through The 90s: Singles And Unreleased

Another night, another repeat viewing of a movie I saw last year but still thoroughly enjoyed – this time, The Royal Tenebaums. I might go so far as to say I enjoyed it more the second time around than the first, since I was able to focus a little less on the story and more on the wonderful direction and cinematography. I just loved the way every scene in the film was composed and framed – the attention to set detail, the warmth of the colours, just the sheer visual richness of it all. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the film itself has a terrific script and cast, to say nothing of the bang-on soundtrack. The juxtaposition of Elliott Smith’s Needle In The Hay with Luke Wilson’s scene in the bathroom still gave me chills. Wes Anderson is one of the best and quirkiest directors in Hollywood – anything he does is worth investigating… which reminds me, I need to find a copy of Bottle Rocket.

np – The Kinks / Arthur, Or The Decline And Fall Of The British Empire

Spent most of this morning reading all of Strong Bad’s email on Homestar Runner. Man, some of that stuff will make you pee yourself. Really, it will.

Watched Spider-Man again last night. Needed to cleanse my palate of the bad taste the Daredevil trailer left in my mouth. Eee-yuck (to DD, not Spidey). Such a great comic book adaptation (Spidey, not DD). When it’s so possible to make GOOD adaptations these days, it’s so frustrating to see them make half-assed crappy ones. Sez I.

np – Velvet Crush / A Single Odessey

Well THIS is exciting. 500 tapes of Beatles sessions, including unreleased material, which was stolen in the 70s have been recovered. It’s from the aborted Get Back album, circa 1969. I’m very anxious to hear what the plans for this material is, though with only Paul and Ringo left, I wouldn’t be shocked to see everything credited to “McCartney/Starkey”… Full story here. I only hope some gets a restraining order to keep Jeff Lynne away from these.

So we found and injured starling in the hallway outside our office this afternoon. It must have gotten into the building through a vent and injured itself against a window or something. It was pretty dazed at first, and seemed to have a broken leg at the least. After an hour or so, it got more animated and began cheeping incessently. It’s in the humane society’s capable hands now. My brother’s girlfriend was particularly interested as her family had a pet starling when she was young and I think it lived to be 18 or some ridiculous such age, and could talk. How about that.

There is currently discussion about bringing another band into the rehearsal space. It could make things a little more crowded, but would also reduce everyone’s rents. There are also some promising leads in the drummer search. Here’s hoping.

New trailer for the Daredevil movie is up. It’s out in just over a month… and it just looks worse and worse. Now they’ve made the mistake of including dialogue in the trailer. I wince. It’s that bad. Whatever voice Ben Affleck is affecting to sound gritty? Um, no. Alls I can say is May 2… X2.

np – Built To Spill / Live

I was going through my web referrer logs a little while ago, and was surprised to see a hit from Playboy Enterprises. Visions of nubile young women in bunny ears and swimsuits huddled around a laptop in the grotto, giggling over my witty and urbane musings on music and life, pranced through my head. Then Hef showed up and things went downhill from there.

But it raises the question – what do people who work at porn companies surf for on the internet when no one else is looking?

np – Superdrag / Regretfully Yours