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Reviews of Stuff Only I Care About
* Haagen-Dazs Sticky Toffee Pudding ice cream - I saw a reality show on the Food Network about this--I think five people were chosen to adapt their home recipes in the H-D kitchens to prospective flavors, the best one being chosen by a panel of judges. This very attractive chef came up with this one--I didn't watch all the show but before I could get back to it I saw an ad for this flavor on the back of a magazine and knew the outcome. It's a tasty flavor--vanilla ice cream with bits of a brown sugary bread pudding--but it doesn't say toffee to me, nor is it sticky. I remember another contestant's flavor sounding good but one of the judges, who worked for H-D, said it wasn't quite up to the brand, or something. He meant it was a lowbrow flavor and more like something Ben & Jerry's would do, and he was right, and I realize I like B&J's (no jokes, please) better, anyway, largely because their stuff is chunkier.
* Rubio's new fajita tacos/burritos - ruined by a disgusting "jalapeno crema sauce" that they tell you is where the heat comes from. Really, it's not hot at all, but it is like pouring hot glue on some perfectly okay, if bland, fajitas. Why not a better marinade or a glazey type sauce? Creme has nothing to do with fajitas aside from, perhaps, sour cream. Bleh. They blew it on this one.
* Roger Ebert's Your Movie Sucks - This came out 2-3 years ago, I think, and it collects some of his best negative reviews. The title comes not from one of these reviews but from a reply Ebert gave to Rob Schneider after Schneider publicly attacked another critic for the man's review of Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, on the grounds that the critic was not a Pulitzer or other prize winner for his criticism (in fact he had won other awards but Schneider's poor research was the least of his errors here). Ebert got a big fat pitch there and wrote that, as he WAS a Pulitzer winner himself, he was qualified to tell Schneider that his movie sucks. Anyway, I read the book waiting for my car to be serviced, otherwise it's better in smaller doses. And if you're like me, you'll skip movies you never even heard of to get to other ones, but I did read probably 75% of it. It's good, just not as good or essential as The Great Movies I & II, or Awake in the Dark, or Roger Ebert's Book of Film. I did like discovering one of Ebert's pet phrases, "knows the words but not the music," usually to describe a filmmaker imitating the work of another and failing to produce work of like quality. He uses it at least three times, which isn't bad for the dozens of negative reviews here.
* Stars - Set Yourself on Fire - I downloaded this about a month ago, only noticing this (2004?) cd because the band recently released something with a title like, How Well Do You Trust Your Friends? that featured remixes by other artists of the tracks on this album. I suppose it's part fun idea/part stopgap between actual new material, which would appear to be overdue. It's a pretty good album. I like the grandeur of the opener, "Your Ex-Lover Is Dead" quite a bit, and there isn't a BAD song on the album. There are nice melodies, both the male and female vocalists are appealing if undistinguished, and clearly much effort went into the production, with lots of programming and little keyboard swirls all over. And yet I could tell this isn't going to be something I listen to very much. I think it comes down to, though the titles and lyrics are somewhat harsh and speak of a degree of emotional intensity, the music is just too spotless to really sell it. It's too polished, and at times too coy. The last track, "Calendar Girl," has very good verse parts for the woman almost ruined by the "calendar girl" junk sung by the guy. And somewhere around the middle is a track which features a longish section of electronic rocking out--all distorted blips and bleeps and whirrs--and it doesn't rock at all. It just sounds like it should've faded out a minute earlier. Stars sounds, here, like a band with some promising elements but they haven't put them all together yet, or maybe they've put them together but need an iconoclastic producer like an Eno or somebody to really break those elements down again and reassemble them into something more interesting. Now, it's true--polished techno pop is a genre that I've somewhat left behind about a decade ago aside from a Pet Shop Boys best of, but bands like the Flaming Lips and Sparklehorse show that you can still do good things without being really edgy or noisy, as long as the songs are good. These songs are pretty good, but rarely get close to great.
* Ashley Wood's 48 Nudes - It is what it is, a lot of drawings and paintings of sexy young women, the way Wood likes 'em, which is to say, usually a little hippy but no more than a B-cup up top, and often bent over. I prefer when he illustrates the faces realistically, because he's good at it, and when he draws the faces with just two dots for eyes, it's kind of creepy. I also would have preferred this feel purely like its own project instead of the pages with references to Les Morts 13, but that's a minor complaint. I like Wood's work, so I'm always interested in more of it.
* Rubio's new fajita tacos/burritos - ruined by a disgusting "jalapeno crema sauce" that they tell you is where the heat comes from. Really, it's not hot at all, but it is like pouring hot glue on some perfectly okay, if bland, fajitas. Why not a better marinade or a glazey type sauce? Creme has nothing to do with fajitas aside from, perhaps, sour cream. Bleh. They blew it on this one.
* Roger Ebert's Your Movie Sucks - This came out 2-3 years ago, I think, and it collects some of his best negative reviews. The title comes not from one of these reviews but from a reply Ebert gave to Rob Schneider after Schneider publicly attacked another critic for the man's review of Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, on the grounds that the critic was not a Pulitzer or other prize winner for his criticism (in fact he had won other awards but Schneider's poor research was the least of his errors here). Ebert got a big fat pitch there and wrote that, as he WAS a Pulitzer winner himself, he was qualified to tell Schneider that his movie sucks. Anyway, I read the book waiting for my car to be serviced, otherwise it's better in smaller doses. And if you're like me, you'll skip movies you never even heard of to get to other ones, but I did read probably 75% of it. It's good, just not as good or essential as The Great Movies I & II, or Awake in the Dark, or Roger Ebert's Book of Film. I did like discovering one of Ebert's pet phrases, "knows the words but not the music," usually to describe a filmmaker imitating the work of another and failing to produce work of like quality. He uses it at least three times, which isn't bad for the dozens of negative reviews here.
* Stars - Set Yourself on Fire - I downloaded this about a month ago, only noticing this (2004?) cd because the band recently released something with a title like, How Well Do You Trust Your Friends? that featured remixes by other artists of the tracks on this album. I suppose it's part fun idea/part stopgap between actual new material, which would appear to be overdue. It's a pretty good album. I like the grandeur of the opener, "Your Ex-Lover Is Dead" quite a bit, and there isn't a BAD song on the album. There are nice melodies, both the male and female vocalists are appealing if undistinguished, and clearly much effort went into the production, with lots of programming and little keyboard swirls all over. And yet I could tell this isn't going to be something I listen to very much. I think it comes down to, though the titles and lyrics are somewhat harsh and speak of a degree of emotional intensity, the music is just too spotless to really sell it. It's too polished, and at times too coy. The last track, "Calendar Girl," has very good verse parts for the woman almost ruined by the "calendar girl" junk sung by the guy. And somewhere around the middle is a track which features a longish section of electronic rocking out--all distorted blips and bleeps and whirrs--and it doesn't rock at all. It just sounds like it should've faded out a minute earlier. Stars sounds, here, like a band with some promising elements but they haven't put them all together yet, or maybe they've put them together but need an iconoclastic producer like an Eno or somebody to really break those elements down again and reassemble them into something more interesting. Now, it's true--polished techno pop is a genre that I've somewhat left behind about a decade ago aside from a Pet Shop Boys best of, but bands like the Flaming Lips and Sparklehorse show that you can still do good things without being really edgy or noisy, as long as the songs are good. These songs are pretty good, but rarely get close to great.
* Ashley Wood's 48 Nudes - It is what it is, a lot of drawings and paintings of sexy young women, the way Wood likes 'em, which is to say, usually a little hippy but no more than a B-cup up top, and often bent over. I prefer when he illustrates the faces realistically, because he's good at it, and when he draws the faces with just two dots for eyes, it's kind of creepy. I also would have preferred this feel purely like its own project instead of the pages with references to Les Morts 13, but that's a minor complaint. I like Wood's work, so I'm always interested in more of it.
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