I don’t know if actually knowing who Werner Herzog is would have increased my appreciation for Incident At Loch Ness or at least given me a different angle from which to enjoy it, but I somehow doubt it. I rented it for… well, no real reason I can articulate. I think I read something good about it before and, um, I’m a fan of the Loch Ness Monster.

The conceit of the film is rather clever, though fundamentally unwieldy and unworkable. Herzog wants to make a documentary about the cultural phenomenon of the Loch Ness Monster. His producer (also director of this film), Zak Penn wants to make it a flashy Hollywood adventure film. The whole production is being filmed by a crew making a documentary about Herzog, which is ostensibly the film you are actually watching. And then there’s the Loch Ness monster. A crew of actual actors might have been able to pull off something reasonably convincing, but the non-actors the film uses (not counting the actress/Playboy model Penn brings in to be a “sonar operator”) simply aren’t capable of selling what they’re trying to peddle. It’s ineffective as a drama, too dull for an adventure film and not nearly sharp or incisive enough to function as satire. The fact that you can clearly see what their goal was just makes it that much more obvious how far off the mark they fell.

Yeah, oh well. If you want to see a really excellent film about the disastrous making of a film, rent Lost In La Mancha, which documents Terry Gilliam’s doomed attempts to bring Don Quixote to the screen. It’s fascinating and all true.

While I don’t usually link to complete album MP3s, I’ll make an exception here – someone on the Mojave 3 message boards has uploaded the score/soundtrack to the film I Am The Elephant, U Are The Mouse which was written and recorded by the Pygmalion-era Slowdive. These are easily the best sounding versions of these tracks I’ve heard (224 Kbps!), and are worth saving and keeping. Every once in a while someone hears news that the rights to these recordings are getting sorted out and it might see a proper release, but I’m not holding my breath. Grab em while you can – if the links go down for whatever reason, I have the zip files on my computer.

Broken Social Scene reveal to Billboard that their new album will not be called Windsurfing Nation as had been promised for well over a year now, but will instead be self-titled. It’s still coming out on October 4, though, and will be followed next Spring by yet another album.

Prefix (the magazine) interviews Iron & Wine. The I&W/Calexico EP has leaked and people are gushing about it. I haven’t heard a note and am holding out until In The Reins comes out on September 20… but damn it’s hard. No east coast tour dates yet, but they are expected on this half of the continent in November.

Prefix (the blog) has an update in Absolutely Kosher’s quest to liberate the first two Wrens albums from the evil clutches of their old label, Wind-Up. Unfortunately, it’s still fruitless. Every once in a while, I get emails from Wind-Up asking if I want to play blog-buddy with their label. I should send them a reply back that I’ll pimp whatever Creed side-project they’re trying to sell in exchange for the rights to the Wrens records. Because surely THAT is worth more than the $100,000 AK offered…

Bradley’s Almanac is working a Canadian theme with live reviews and recordings from recent shows by Picastro, A Northern Chorus and SIANspheric.

Concert news – Lou Barlow has cancelled his October 3 show at the Horseshoe because he’s now part of the opening for The Posies at Lee’s Palace that night. San Francisco’s Oranger are also on the bill. Also coming to town are Ohioan blues boys The Black Keys, playing the Opera House on November 19.

np – Son Volt / Okemah And The Melody Of Riot