Archives : all posts by Dan

The following are taken from Disney's new Disney Parks Memories site. A place where people can upload all their photos, videos, and stories of their Disney memories. Disney memories are sorted by theme (Moment of Wonder, Character Moment, Family Tradition), location (Walt Disney World Resort, Disneyland Resort, Disney Cruise Lines) and emotion (Happy, Excited, Inspired, Amazed)

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Clinic - "Another Way of Giving". The magic and joy one receives at the mere mention of Disneyland is such an indescribable moment in any child's life. Our first trip to WDW with our children was in 2005. Our kids were so excited they could hardly contain themselves. My husband and I spent our Honeymoon at WDW so we were all ready hooked but our kids had no idea what they were in for. They absolutely fell in love and haven't stopped their passion for Disney ever since. None of us have. We have since been on 3 Disney cruises and have been to WDW and have even become Disney Vacation Club members. I can't wait to hear "Welcome Home" again in March, 2011 when we will be at the most magical place on earth, once again. [pre-order Bubblegum]

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Deerhunter - "He Would Have Laughed". As we wait in line with my 14 month old daughter to see the princesses, I realize I am doing it more for myself than for her, even though she loves them, she won't remember this. The wait was 60 mins & it flew by. When we met Cinderella, I put my 14 month old on the ground to walk up to her. Cinderella sat on the floor & held my daughter & called her "Tiny Princess Shelby". Cinderella also asked if my daughter could come back to live with her in the castle. There was no way I could fight back the tears. Cinderella has always been my favorite princess & I am certain as my daughter gets older, because of this experience, will be hers also. The pictures I got of them together are priceless. I am not sure if she does this for everyone, but it sure made me feel special. She spent a good 10 minutes just holding my daughter & hugging on her so sweetly. And my never be still, always on the go daughter just sat there on her lap & never moved. Thank you Cinderella! [Buy Halcyon Digest]

It's not often that we at Said the Gramophone talk about film. It's happened before, in our own way, but with Catfish it's a different situation. I have been a long-time supporter of the work of Henry Joost, and Catfish is his first feature film with two of his partners. You've probably seen it advertised in your local weekly, or maybe in the metro, or possibly online. But this is their first feature, and Universal Pictures picked it right up fresh from Sundance. And deservedly so, it's a brilliant film.

It's hard to write about Catfish at all because of the way it's marketed. It has that experiential quality (it must first be seen before it can be discussed) that is garnering it comparisons to Hitchcock. The tagline is "don't let anyone tell you what it is", and I certainly won't, but I will tell you to see it. And I will discuss it in the vaguest-yet-most-enticing way I can think of.

First, a synopsis: Catfish is a documentary about Nēv Schulman, a photographer in NYC who has a friendship with 8-year-old Abby, a painter in Michigan. Through Facebook, Nēv connects to Abby's whole family, including her very attractive older sister Megan. The documentary quickly shifts perspective to the burgeoning romance between Nēv and Megan. And from there, things get crazy.

Now, what I want to talk about, and what I have not seen in any reviews I've read, is that Catfish is a marvelous examination of personal manipulation. Catfish is entirely a film about control. Control of your own identity, control over your heart, and in a totally exciting way, control over the very film you're watching. It's made by three friends, two of whom are brothers, but the film's opening exchange is "Do you want to be in this film or not?" which comes from behind the camera, and then in response, Nēv: "No!" and laughs. And from that point on comes a stream of the most personal moments of a very current-feeling relationship. Nēv is constantly baring his heart, and showing the weaknesses and embarrassments that come with the growing pains of meeting someone online. And just when you think Nēv is going to be pushed along the whole way, cowed into being made a film out of, he suddenly takes control of the entire film, of the crew who are his friends, and the film shifts gears. And then another person takes control, and then another, and another.

It's built expertly, the pristine structure of a masterful thriller, but I wouldn't compare it to Hitchcock so much as I would put it right alongside Errol Morris' early work The Thin Blue Line. It's a documentary that utilizes genre elements to enhance its story, but is still very much, and thankfully so, a Documentary.

To Henry, and Ariel, and Nēv, congratulations on an amazing work, and I know that this is still only the beginning.

[Catfish official site]
[Catfish on Facebook]

BONUS:

The track you heard at the top is from the Mark Mothersbaugh score of the film, the track was given to us specially by Henry, and it's perfect; at once epic and tiny, it's both love-excitement and danger-excitement.

But in addition to the score, Catfish uses songs as well, two of which were found from reading Said the Gramophone, so in the spirit of fearlessly facing one's own foibles, the original paragraphs are included.

by Dan, from Nov 2007:
Opium Flirt - "Saint European King Days". I got an email with the subject line "new music from Estonia". As if the whole country had just finished catching up on old unreturned phone calls and raked the leaves and put on a sweater and had finally gotten around to making some more music. If this is in fact the case (I see no reason why it isn't) then I congratulate them. Still no words to say, they've written a warm wooly walk in the park, where green has become brown and grey, and the roads are getting harder, whiter. Opium Flirt have written a national treat, a crisp smile for the afternoon, for the world. [Buy for 185 EEK]

by Sean, from Mar 2007:
The Hidden Cameras - "Learning the Lie". With "Learning the Lie", The Hidden Cameras propose a hypothesis: The Velvet Underground, at their best, may be emulated by just mumbo-jumbo mumble-wacka-wacka'ing the lyrics. "Mumbo-jumbo mumble-wacka-wacka" is a phrase of my own creation, an attempt to formalise the bullshit Joel Gibb gets up to here. He's just tootling away, singing nothing at all, smirking in the confidence of his caricature. And I kinda want to sock him in the mouth for thinking that he can get away with this. A slouching guitar-line, a dented violin, forward-leaning drums: this is all you need to pretend to be The Velvets? He's "hilariously mistaken". But as I stride towards him, sleeve rolled up, cheeks sucked in so I look something like a death's-head Popeye, he gets me. Joel gets me. The swing's in my step and I can't shake it out, the hook's in my ears and I can't get them clear, I'm singing along and I can't help myself. "Ooo-do-do-doo doo, haw-aw oo-doo doo doo!" I feel like a square so I lean up against a building, put hands in pockets, wait for the man. Tap my foot and grin like a damn fool. [buy Awoo]

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Comments on the film are so so encouraged (no spoilers, obv) in the comments section, we can discuss anything, from Nēv's wonderful smile, to how Henry (though he speaks rarely in Catfish) has the most important line in the whole movie.

Pavement - "Speak, See, Remember"
Pavement - "Strings of Nashville"

This is the week of the original Pavement reunion shows in New York City. A time for another time, a week to remember the bygone era of a band that never really existed. Remember 1996? When your dad was still working his P.O.W. job and your grandparents were still alive, and still went by their CB handles. Crusty Rusty and The Squall. You masturbated on your homework and used PhoneNet to start a rumour that Caitlin Benjamin-Ng was responsible for renaming dorm wing F "BlowTown USA". Your girlfriends were all Family Size Ruffles and every time you'd chug a beer you'd smack your glasses into your eyes. A simpler time, a better time. A time when you could pay for cigarettes with a french kiss. A time when "goin' to the library" didn't mean going to the library, it meant mini-putt and a knife fight. When learning something from a stranger was as simple as a head-on collision; a note of apology and you're on your way. When love was affordable and didn't hang around like a bad fart: Paparazzi Priest will preside over this marriage, "God loves you, but what could he do." When we humans ruled this planet like we deserve, before the Great Cowering. So bring back 1996, I say, bring back powdered envelopes and binge-boarding, bring back Crushed Velvet Cola and Dr. Sandwich (the fixin's are in!), and we can all sag like open wallets on a jazz-era chaise-longue, twenties from the twenties, "What's your twenty?" "In my twenties."

[Bye]

(photo embroidery by Maurizio Anzeri)

Ollie Gilbert - "Joseph Looney"

The body decomposes on its legs, the meat it rots from inwards, corroded by the Spirit. God is a seizure that life-long shakes the bones from their joints, the thoughts from your skull, the breath from your lungs. Be not afraid but be not welcoming to God, He will make His home in you no matter what your will or offer, so spend not your time a-wondering whether God will keep you safe. I've called to God already and you will see his wondrous 'rrival, I've called to him, no one need call to him any longer. I've seen a sign of bubbling, of garish waste and plenty, He's swingin' on his way.

ready?

[Buy]

The Bad Plus - "Super America"

The mail, the buses, the cars, the cats, the garbage, the sunshine, the paint, the peeling, the ground, the sewer, the snakes. The wind, the welcome, the war, the whinny. The bend, the truth, the ever-lasting life. [Buy]

Parasites of the Western World - "Mo"

This story is a procedural. It follows all the steps that make up a comforting list of familiar benchmarks in the revelation of a set of motivations and actions. In the unfolding of the Preakness, an invisible and immovable wire had been stretched across the track, and as all the horses hit it, one by one, they were split open, and the jockeys legs were halved, bodies and flesh of all kinds strewn in the soft mud of the racetrack. Only the final two horses in the race were able to stop in time. All the interested parties were questioned, owners, spectators, track maintenance, nothing was found. Until the surviving jockeys were questioned, when Arms Japper, 2nd last place, showed himself to be a sight less distraught than Ham Niggs, last. Which piqued the interest of lead investigator Gomenesai Woods. "The order of their standings is what gave it away," said Woods, acting both as detective and crown attorney, "Second-last was not supposed to survive, only last place was supposed to make it out alive." The crowd in the courtroom hushed, the jockey tearfully confessed, the horse turned about-face and stormed out, betrayed. Sentences were handed out like flower necklaces, and Woods returned home to bed, still a failure to his wife, still a cripple and a drunk. [Buy from De Stijl records]

The Black Angels - "The Sniper"

We're only gonna hear from aliens when they need help. When the bums of the universe come callin' they're gonna be lookin' for a goddamn hand-out. Life, if you look at the numbers, is a rare thing in outer space, and it needs plenty of shit to keep itself going. Not room enough for the two of us, aliens, sorry, tough beans. [Out Today]

Long Long Long - "Ponytail Ambition"
Long Long Long - "Judy Chicago"

Some people are friends, that should never be friends, but they AAAAAAAAARRE!!!

In the dream it was hard to read, almost impossible. I was trying to read the DVD case for what is now obviously Brüno, but in the dream I was reading T....L....U....T...C..H. If I would read Brüno as T.L.U.T.C.H. what would trying to write be like? I tried to write my name and it came out as Disney Bee, and the pen had a lot of difficulty writing, I put many holes in the paper. I think inhabiting the world of Long Long Long, I would be much better off with a name like Disney Bee, and for all my meals to be made out of macaroni and snakes, and to have an apartment in the sewer, and to have a cell phone installed in my head, and to cry at the drop of a hat. Dream life.

[DL]

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Long Long Long are, I'm told, a sister band to Mean Wind. Collectively, these two bands have three of the freshest records I've heard in a few months. Right now all their stuff is free, which is pretty incredible, but that won't last for long, stuff this good deserves to generate some payback sooner or later.

The Tragically Hip - "Escape is at Hand for the Travellin' Man"

"On those drives, they were so long. Through trees just like this, they remind me of it. I would just think about my mother dying." Jane C. smokes with a squint, her stocking feet up on the dash, a ghostly yellow light on her face. Jane S. drives, hunched slightly towards the wheel, both hands grip, she smiles, "You didn't listen to the radio?" "You're so far north up there," Jane C. takes a puff, blows it lazily towards the crack in the window, "You don't get any stations. On a lucky night you'd get Coast-to-Coast, but I just stopped trying after a while. I had one tape, Never Mind the Bullocks. And it got tired fast. Yeah, I would mostly just think. About if I got there and it had happened, or if it happened in front of me, what I would do." Jane S. lowered her high-beams for a passing a car, and let the silence hang in the air, and coughed from it. She checked the fans, at the right level, checked cruise control, 110, oil, fine, RPMs, sure, thermometer in water, middle, is that good? Flash. Raise the beams again.

"If you knew how things ended between us, would you stay with me or would you let me go?" Jane C. nipped the whiskey that sat crooked in the cup holder, on a wet receipt. "How does it end? Badly?" Jane S. had to look down a bit to look Jane C. in the eyes. "It ends how it ends. But if you knew how it ended would you stay with me, or are you just hanging around to find out?" The silence was now a fully present thing in the car. It sat between them, on the arm rest, like a ghost. Like the way the ghost of sleep would sometimes lie between them, penetrating neither, itself a restless thing, holding their eyes locked in the darkness, some sort of silent guessing game prayer breath-holding competition. If a deer comes out of the woods, honk first, then slow, then swerve. Or never swerve. Right, never swerve.

[Buy]