Vic lent me his copy of Alien: Resurrection from the Alien Quadrology box set with the glowing endorsement of, “it sucks”. And while I’m generally loathe to dismiss anything with so flippant a comment… I won’t debate him on this. I liked Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s previous film, The City Of Lost Children, so it stands to reason I’d at least like the look of Resurrection since it draws heavily on the same visual style. The story though… scribe Joss Whedon should have gone with ‘Alan Smithee’ for this one, because it’s really not something anyone should want on their resume.

There were some interesting twists on the Alien mythos, but on the whole it all seemed awful cliche and predictable. “Okay, this is the part where he checks out the goo on the floor and the alien comes up behind him… now.” “Here’s where the bad guy thinks he’s gotten away but the alien comes up behind him… now” “Oh look, they think they’ve escaped… but wait! The big bad somehow snuck onto the ship!” Yawn. The aliens weren’t especially scary, there wasn’t much suspense, the characters were all disposable stereotypes. And I don’t even know what to say about the final alien fight, save that’s one of the more extended and grotesque (yet somehow antiseptic) demises I’d seen in a while. On the whole, it was just very flat-feeling and didn’t seem to do much of anything. For reasons I can’t quite articulate it felt like a video game to me. And not an especially good one. Oh well. ‹sarcasm›Maybe ALIENS VS PREDATOR will renew my faith in the franchise.‹/sarcasm› I do feel like watching Alien 3 again, though – I think that one was really misunderstood and underappreciated.

Jay Farrar explains to Uncut why The Byrds’ Fifth Dimension is a record that changed his life.

One reason to vote for John Kerry – in the 60s, he played bass in New Hampshire garage rockers The Electras. Not that would make him a better candidate/president, just a slightly cooler one. Unless you’re into the screaming thing, in which case Howard Dean is still your man.

The Late Night with Conan O’Brien Toronto edition runs this week Tuesday through Friday. Guests are as follows:

Tu 2/10: Mike Myers, Ron James

We 2/11: Michael J. Fox, Ken Capling, Nickelback

Th 2/12: Adam Sandler, Stompin’ Tom Connors

Fr 2/13: Jim Carrey, Eric McCormack, Barenaked Ladies

Hardly the most scintillating lineup, but I will be watching anyway, obviously. Because like all Canadians, I desperately crave the validation that American television exposure provides. I’m kidding – I actually desperately crave validation from everyone. Anyhoo, naturally there’ll be a slew of local media coverage on the event – like this Globe & Mail piece. I’ll post links to the better ones till I get bored, which shouldn’t be long.

Okay, this is strange. Someone has syndicated my site as a Livejournal. And it wasn’t me. Was it you? I’m not upset or anything, since there’s no indication that this is some sloppy indentity or content theft, I’m just a little perplexed.

np – The Olivia Tremor Control / Dusk At Cubist Castle

Here’s one for framing – Toronto Maple Leafs tough guy Tie Domi gives Conan O’Brien a proper Torontonian welcome. O’Brien is in town shooting segments for his week of Late Night shows which will be broadcast from Hogtown later this month. And speaking of the Leafs… Nice game last night. Down 4-0 halfway through the second last night and coming back to win 5-4 in overtime? Ottawa will say they all came down with the flu… well, they certainly were gagging. Zing!

Some geek movie casting news – Sam Rockwell will play Zaphod Beeblebrox in the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy movie – I like this casting decision. Rockwell was great in Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind, and I think he’ll do well as the two-headed President of the Galaxy. One pan-galactic gargle blaster, please. Also, Sigourney Weaver has reportedly been cast as the first Silk Spectre and Daniel Craig as Rorschach in Watchmen. Add this to the rumours of John Cusack as Nite Owl. More and more it looks like Watchmen is actually happening. Cue ambievalence… now.

NOW talks to John Stirratt about The Autumn Defense as well as his full-time job in Wilco. The Autumn Defense play the Horseshoe next Tuesday. It’s a free show, so I may stop by and check it out – their set starts at 10:15.

Elf Power’s new album, Walking With The Beggar Boys hits the streets April 6. According to the band, it’s “Musically it’s all over the place, ranging from sleazy, T Rex-ish rockers to psychedelic electronica to Southern rock romps (The title track features a duet with folk rock legend Vic Chesnutt !)”. Big-ass tour to follow.

M Doughty, former frontman for Soul Coughing, bring his solo show to Lee’s Palace March 7. They’ve even made posters for you to print out and paste all over your bedroom walls!

np – The Shins / Oh, Inverted World

eye has a little piece on The Wrens, who will be at the ‘Shoe this Saturday night.

There’ll be a new Calexico EP coming out in early 2004. Convict Pool will collect a number of tracks from European singles including their cover of Love’s “Alone Again Or”, which I’ve been trying to hunt down for a while. There will also be a live DVD, Worlds Drift In, which will feature their November 29, 2002 show in London. Finally, there will be a tour-only album made available by the end of the year. There was supposed to be a new studio album in 2004, but it appears that there’ll be an assortment of other goodies instead.

A couple shows to note – TV On The Radio are opening for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs February 27 at the Phoenix, and Blonde Redhead roll into town at the Opera House April 6 with Victoria’s Unicorns as support.

Some unlikely ingredients in this Go Home Productions mash-up. It’s a mid-90s revival combining American r&b one-hit wonder Adina Howard’s “Freak Like Me” getting gene-spliced with Ride’s “Leave Them All Behind”.

Ryan Adams’ wrist surgery was successful. Doctors estimate he will once again be able to give critics the finger within weeks.

Uh-oh. A post to the Big Takeover mailing list read, “A close friend of mine, who is next-door neighbors/friends with David Lovering, was told by Lovering that the whole thing is off.” ‘The whole thing’ being the Pixies reunion, of course. I hope this is just irresponsible rumour-mongering on my part, but The BTO list isn’t generally a place for trolling. I have to say that I find it unlikely that the band would finally decide to reunite after over a decade, make some doubtlessly expensive touring commitments and then realize, “hey, these guys are assholes, I’m going home”. Surely for the amount of cash that’s being thrown at them, they can at least handle the eleven North American dates that are in the process of being confirmed. Fingers crossed. If I find anything to support or debunk this, I’ll update.

np – The Sleepy Jackson / Lovers

Random thought… when the Pixies reunite, will they be fronted by Frank Black or Black Francis? Only Charles Thompson knows for sure. Maybe the title of the next Frank Black album (a double record, no less) due out in April offers a clue… Frank Black Francis. What is known is the North American reunion tour will happen in advance of Coachella – which means April. Which means that specifics should be made available sooner rather than later. Which means you should start getting excited or disgusted, depending on how you view reunions, shortly. Me, I’m excited. But I’m an excitable person.

Steve Earle’s Just An American Boy documentary is out on DVD next Tuesday. I’ll get it either way, but I hope the performances are different from those on the companion live double-album.

There will be a new Idlewild record this Spring with Dave Eringa, who produced their last two albums, behind the board.

Ben Kweller and Death Cab are teaming up for a massive US tour from March through May, but with no Canadian dates. Obviously, these artists did not feel Canuck love their last times through and are deliberately slighting us. And for this, I blame each and every one of you. Hang your heads in shame. Kweller’s new record (say the five times fast!) is out April 6 and entitled On My Way. But not to Canada! Also, The Bens EP, featuring Kweller, piano man Ben Folds and Clare Danes cast-off Ben Lee, is now available domestically.

This week’s installment of the 24 peanut gallery – Okay, this is more like it. Gunplay! Double-crosses! And best of all, we now have a Euro-trash villain! Every good action flick needs a good Euro-trash villain. Mexican drug lords just don’t have the same cachet. And I’ve figured out what’s wrong with every other storyline this season. The writers have made the horribly incorrect assumption that we care about the characters. Newsflash – we don’t. We don’t care about Palmer’s presidency. We don’t care about Chloe’s black market baby syndicate . We don’t care about Sherry trying to get back in David’s good books or her fear of geriatric motorists. All we care about is Jack kicking ass, chewing gum and shooting smack. More of that, less of everything else. Thank you. Spoilers finis.

np – Mogwai / Happy Songs For Happy People

I find it a criminal injustice that The Tick live-action show, the very existance of which confounded me, is available on DVD but the brilliant animated series is not (Yeah, you can get it through ‘unoffical’ channels, but this is more about principle). Running on Saturday mornings in the early 90s (remember Saturday morning cartoons?), the cartoon was truly a worthy heir to the dearly missed comic books. Sure, New England Comics kept publishing Tick-related books after the original series ended, but without creator Ben Edlund at the helm, it just wasn’t the same. The cartoon though… Truly one of the funniest shows in recent years. A cast of characters the likes of which the world has never seen… The Civic-Minded Five. Speak. Bi-Polar Bear. The Decency Squad. And the rogues gallery! The Angry Red Herring! El Seed! Multiple Santa! Thrakazog (Click it! Click it!)! Man, good times. I miss The Tick.

Expect Pixies reunion tour dates to be announced any day now. Well well well. I wonder what size of a venue they’d play? They’d sell out the 2000-capacity Kool Haus in a heartbeat. Maybe the Ricoh Collisseum, which can go from 3500 to 10000+ seats would be a fit? Pixies = arena rockers? Who’d have thunk it.

The new Doves disc, originally slated for an early March release, has been pushed back indefinitely.

Umbrella Music has a list of ten albums they overlooked last year. Just one month into 2004, I have my own list of stuff that came out last year that I totally overlooked, but am really enjoying now. On this list: