A Lot Like Christmas

Well, we here at The Glass City are proud to announce that this year’s annual Christmastime mix album (9th annual, in case you were wondering) is by far the most successful yet, with 25 copies being distributed world wide (the previous record was 6 copies… worldwide). Because of it’s IMMENSE popularity I’ve decided to post the full 134-song track list online for reference, so fans everywhere can make their own. It’s like my Christmas present TO YOU which is NON-REFUNDABLE and WITHOUT WARRANTY.

A Lot Like Christmas (2010):

1. It’s Beginning To Look Like Christmas – Dean Martin
2. Christmas Time Is Here – Diana Krall
3. Calling On Mary – Aimee Mann
4. White Christmas (1947) – Bing Crosby
5. Blue Christmas – Elvis Presley
6. Baby It’s Cold Outside – Dean Martin
7. Carol of the Bells – Leonard Bernstein
8. The Christmas Waltz – The Carpenters
9. Silver Bells – Doris Day
10. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas – Frank Sinatra
11. Christmas Is Interesting – Jonathan Coulton
12. I’ll Be Home For Christmas – BB King
13. My Favorite Things – Tony Bennett
14. Let It Snow – Diana Krall
15. I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day – Johnny Cash
16. Sleigh Ride – The Ronettes
17. Winter Wonderland – Bob Dylan
18. Rudolph The Red-Nose Reindeer – Dean Martin
19. Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town – Bing Crosby
20. Frost The Snow Man – Ella Fitzgerald
21. I Believe – Frank Sinatra
22. Merry Christmas Darling – The Carpenters
23. Merry Christmas Baby – Elvis Presley
24. Christmas Comes But Once A Year – BB King
25. Christmas (Baby Please Come Home ) – Darlene Love
26. Christmas Carols – Bing Crosby
27. Love Came Down At Christmas – Jars Of Clay
28. The First Noel – Weezer
29. O Holy Night – Newsboys
30. Angels We Have Heard On High – Joysong
31. O Tannenbaum – Andre Rieu
32. The First Noel – Joysong
33. All I Want For Christmas Is You – Twelve Girls Band
34. Happy Holiday – Bing Crosby
35. Whatever Happened To Christmas – Aimee Mann
36. Our New Year – Tori Amos
37. Lonesome Christmas – BB King
38. Jingle Bells – Dean Martin
39. The Christmas Song – Sammy Davis Jr.
40. Ave Maria – Perry Como
41. Carol of the Bells – Jazz Piano
42. Away In A Manger – Joysong
43. The Little Boy – Nat King Cole
44. You’re A Mean One Mr. Grinch – Aimee Mann
45. The Happiest X-Mas Tree – Nat King Cole
46. Must Be Santa – Bob Dylan
47. Chiron Beta Prime – Jonathan Coulton
48. Santa Claus Is Back In Town – Elvis Presley
49. Looks Like A Cold, Cold Winter – Bing Crosby
50. Winter Wonderland – Perry Como
51. The Christmas Waltz – Doris Day
52. Blue Christmas – Johnny Cash
53. Gift Of The Blues – Loretta Lynn
54. Sleigh Ride – Diana Krall
55. Please Come Home For Christmas – Luther Vandross
56. I’ll Be Home For Christmas – Dean Martin
57. Christmastime – Aimee Mann
58. Happy Xmas (War Is Over) – Twelve Girls Band
59. Joy To The World – Leonard Berstein
60. Home For The Holidays – Perry Como
61. The Christmas Song – The Carpenters
62. Silver Bells – Sleeping At Last
63. Silent Night – Andre Rieu
64. Santa Claus Is Comin To Town – Reader’s Digest
65. A Marshmallow World – Dean Martin
66. Christmas Eve – Perry Como
67. Mistletoe And Holly – Frank Sinatra
68. Carol Meldey – The Carpenters
69. Christmas In Heaven – BB King
70. O Tannenbaum – Nat King Cole
71. Christmas Time Is Here – Tony Bennett
72. The First Noel – Elvis Presley
73. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas – Bob Dylan
74. Wonderful Christmastime – Jars Of Clay
75. Winter Wonderland – Dean Martin
76. Sleigh Ride – Leonard Bernstein
77. It Won’t Seem Like Christmas – Loretta Lynn
78. Hark The Herald Angels Sing – Johnny Cash
79. Do You Hear What I Hear – Perry Como
80. O Come All Ye Faithful – Frank Sinatra
81. Adeste Fideles – Bing Crosby
82. It Came Upon A Midnight Clear – Frank Sinatra
83. White Christmas – Ella Fitzgerald
84. Winter Wonderland – Elvis Presley
85. O Little Town Of Bethlehem – Leonard Bernstein
86. Greensleeves – Vince Guaraldi Trio
87. We Three Kings – Joysong
88. Pat-A-Pan – Leonard Bernstein
89. Adeste Fideles – Frank Sinatra
90. Please Come Home For Christmas – BB King
91. I’ll Be Home For Christmas – The Carpenters
92. Is Christmas Only A Tree – Bing Crosby
93. The Little Xmas Tree – Nat King Cole
94. A Winter Romance – Dean Martin
95. Shiroi Koibito Tachi – Twelve Girls Band
96. Silver Bells – Elvis Presley
97. Winter Wonderland – Doris Day
98. Sleigh Ride – Leonard Bernstein
99. Caroling, Caroling – Nat King Cole
100. Carol Medley – Perry Como
101. Christmas Dream – Perry Como
102. What Child Is This – Bing Crosby
103. Away In A Manger – Leonard Bernstein
104. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen – Leonard Bernstein
105. O Come, O Come Emmanuel – Joysong
106. It Came Upon A Midnight Clear – Joysong
107. The Christmas Song – Vince Guaraldi Trio
108. The Holly And The Ivy – Readers Digest
109. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas – The Carpenters
110. Here Comes Santa Claus – Bobby B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans
111. I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm – Dean Martin
112. It Won’t Seem Like Christmas Without You – Elvis Presley
113. Silver Bells – Readers Digest
114. You’re All I Want For Christmas – Bing Crosby
115. The Christmas Waltz – Frank Sinatra
116. Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow – Dean Martin
117. Christmas Dreaming – Frank Sinatra
118. The Christmas Song – Perry Como
119. O Tannenbaum – Vince Guaraldi Trio
120. Frosty The Snowman – The Ronettes
121. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas – Tony Bennett
122. The First Noel – Twelve Girls Band
123. O Holy Night – The Carpenters
124. The Christmas Song – Ricky Nelson
125. O Come, O Come Emmanuel – Tori Amos
126. The Coventry Carol – Readers Digest
127. Carol Of The Bells – The Carpenters
128. Jesu, Joy Of Man’s Desiring – Readers Digest
129. Christmas Time Is Here –Vince Guaraldi Trio
130. The Christmas Song – Readers Digest
131. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas – Sleeping At Last
132. Count Your Blessings Instead Of Sheep – Diana Krall
133. O Holy Night – Perry Como
134. Happy Xmas (War Is Over) – John Lennon

There were a lot of fun arrangement choices I made with this one, including (but not limited to): track 4 “White Christmas” being followed by track 5 “Blue Christmas”, track 22 “Merry Christmas Darling” followed by track 23 “Merry Christmas Baby”, tracks 35-37 being a thematic suite, track 55 “Please Come Home For Christmas” being followed by track 56 “I’ll Be Home For Christamas”, track 78 “Hark The Herald” being followed by track 79 “Do You Hear What I Hear”, track 92 “Is Christmas Only A Tree” followed by track 93 “The Little Christmas Tree”, and ending the CD with an anti-war message. Among others. Tell your friends.

Feel free to perform this tracklist in the traditional fashion.

So from all of us here at The Glass City, have a pleasant holiday.

Movie Review: “The Boondock Saints”

Despite having watched nearly 40 movies for my November-December film contest already, I’ve yet to deliver on a single, full-fledged movie review (or even half-fledged for that matter). Merry Christmas. Oh, also, BE WARY OF SPOILERS.

 

Much like Clark Griswold (or the real life Chevy Chase), I tried to stay optimistic

THE BOONDOCK SAINTS (1999/Troy Duffy)… Spoilers Included

Not to brag, but I tend to watch a lot of movies (is brag the word? Shamefully admit might also work), and rarely does a movie catch me off guard. I’ve developed something of a knack for correctly assuming how much I will like any given movie before I see it, based largely on background information and hearsay (some conjecture, too). I would say my success rate is so formidable, in fact, that perhaps only ten percent of movies seen truly surprise me.

“The Boondock Saints”, by Troy Duffy, was one such movie, but not in the typical sense. Before sitting down to watch the movie I pegged it at a B- letter grade, and I ended up giving it a C+, so in that sense I wasn’t too far off. No, it wasn’t my letter grade that surprised me. What surprised me was how genuinely confused the movie itself left me.

For the past eight or so years I’ve been at the mercy of the general public opinion that “The Boondock Saints” is one of the greatest underground pulp action films of all time, up there with the likes of “Reservoir Dogs”, and “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.” I suppose the main reason I finally sat down to watch this film was to satiate my curiosity on the matter. Unfortunately, watching the film presented did little to answer my question, “why do people think this movie is so damn great?”

Honestly, I do not know. If I had to take a guess, I’d say that it tries to follow the same formula as the aforementioned underground films, but beyond that I can’t really fathom it.

Not to say that it’s a particularly bad movie, because it really isn’t. It is, in fact, astoundingly average. It presents an almost painfully linear storyline, delivers it to a “t”, without taking any real risks or leaps forward in the process. The story itself is your run-of-the-mill vigilante storyline that we’ve seen dozens of times before in Die Hard, Rambo, and Death Wish (the latter two are referenced directly by name in the movie, even), and while it draws attention to the fact that nothing that happens “in the movies” is ever how it works out in real life, we are never given a proper example of this being even remotely demonstrated. Everything happens like “in the movies” in this film because Troy Duffy desperately wants to make an homage to vigilante movies. He succeeds pretty easily and churns out a pretty decent product, but again, it’s nothing especially new or exciting.

The reason “Reservoir Dogs”, “Pulp Fiction”, “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels”, “Hard Boiled”, “Kill Bill”, “Fight Club”, or any of Sergio Leone’s “Man With No Name” movies work so well at being underground action (with dramatic and comedic elements) hits is because the directors have the balls to try something new and different to add to and/or subvert the genre. Aside from Dafoe’s character being gay (although also not a hero for three quarters of the movie), I can’t really think of a single facet of its delivery that hasn’t already been done before, and in most all cases done better.

The product we end up with is unsurprisingly a movie that doesn’t know if it wants to be “Pulp Fiction” or “Dirty Harry”, and naturally fails at being both as it flounders between the two. I’d naturally like to think he wanted it to be more subversive and therefore more “Pulp Fiction”, but the general moral of this movie is “vigilantes are cool! They’re superheroes!” so, I’m left with the reality that it’s trying to be more like “Dirty Harry” or “Death Wish” or “Payback” or “Lethal Weapon” or “Clear and Present Danger, all of which take about as clear a stance on vigilantism as “Boondock” does. Quick fun fact by the way, Willem Dafoe plays a very similar vigilante role in “Clear and Present Danger” which came out just five years prior to “Boondocks”. Anyway, ethics or personal views aside, it’s still insulting that you use the epilogue for your film to show fake interviews with people talking about why vigilantism is good. I say that they’re talking about why it’s good and not just about the subject in general, because the only two arguments you hear in the course of this two-minute outro are “They’re just killing bad people, which is good” and the counter “You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about!” One of those isn’t an argument, purposely.

It's actually a lot like watching FOX News

Bizarre use of an ending notwithstanding, there are quite a few other issues this film has against it. First and foremost is that the loveable sidekick character “Rocco” is in the movie at all. After being introduced as the goofy and bumbling good guy (seriously his character’s nickname is “funny man”), we’re all kind of just waiting for him to be accidentally killed early on so the story can get back to focusing on the two brothers’ crusade. Unfortunately, because this movie so easily and often falls into the traps set up by the 70’s and 80’s movies it’s trying to emulate, Rocco stays in the picture up until the final act, fucking things up and being generally useless and frustratingly annoying for the entire duration. Aside from one scene in which he yells at his girlfriend (a twenty second scene), I cannot think of a single thing he contributes to the movie’s effort that the script couldn’t just use the brothers for. When he’s finally killed instead of feeling horrified and grief-stricken as I think Duffy would want us to feel, the audience is mostly just relieved that the movie can finally get back to the professionals’ crusade. Again, Duffy denies us this pleasure by confusing the hell out of me.

What I mean to say is, if the “Duce” character is supposed to be their father, why is it that they never recognize each other at any point in the film, prior to or during this reveal? I understand that the plot device of the prayer being a family prayer has to get used and come to fruition, but it’s never explained why they don’t know about each other’s existence. Doing the work on one’s own they can figure that he’s been in prison for 25 or 30 years, which is maybe the age of the twins, so he must have fathered them and then been arrested for working for the Italian mafia. I guess. Which still doesn’t really make sense because if his code of honor before hand is kill anybody for any reason (aside from women and children) as long as you’re contracted by the mob, then why at the end does he so easily convert to “only kill bad guys?” None of this is actually explained in the movie, but I guess it doesn’t need to be if we don’t really care that much, which I guess we don’t.

Speaking of plot points that don’t ever get explained or even make sense, how is it that Willem Dafoe’s character, who can piece together even the most backwards and intricate of crime scenes, can’t put two and two together about the twins being behind the killings? After the Russian mob shootout in the motel, Dafoe describes in excruciating detail the two Irish twins motives, ponders for a second as he perhaps recollects fondly on the two Irish twins he just released from custody yesterday that the media is already calling vigilantes, and throws up his hands in defeat. Seriously? An hour of this movie’s character building devotion to Dafoe’s character could have been avoided if he simply could remember something for more than 24hrs. Not to say that Dafoe’s character was as unnecessary as Rocco’s, but it was almost as irritating. What starts out as a relatively well shot scene of Dafoe explaining the shootout at the poker game—the walkthrough explanation—wherein past and present are intersecting, turns into a dreadful implosion of the entire sequence. For no reason other than that for whatever reason Duffy told Dafoe to “act like he’s going crazy and conducting an invisible murder orchestra”, the scene goes from being semi-bold to plainly silly. In literally two minutes, the movie goes from actively trying to involve you to laughing at you for giving it the chance.

And while I’m on Dafoe’s character, I’m glad to see that another 80’s action device is still alive and kicking: classical music. I think we can all remember a time in cinema history in which there was ever only one way to convey that someone is crazy, evil, or complex: through classical music, obviously. The main reasoning behind this is that those are the only types of people that can stand to listen to classical music. The audience, on the other hand, which the director quite correctly assumes are just there to watch Bruce Willis blow some shit up probably doesn’t listen to classical music, because demographics are easy to exploit. The action-loving, hot-blooded straight male audience member will identify with the main character as an action star because he’s not the one listening to classical music like some crazy evil complex dude. Anyway, Dafoe is complex. And crazy. Because he listens to classical music. And is gay.

 

One of these men listens to classical music.

All that said, though, it’s still an effective film. For the most part it does everything correctly and by the book, and succeeds at being a watchable action film. There are two heroes to follow, which is always nice, and I guess they’re unique because they’re Irish and Catholic (naturally if Jules from “Pulp Fiction” was Irish this would be old-hat). It’s cautiously directed and conveys its moral with ease.

What this film doesn’t do, however, is actually subvert the action genre. It rides on the pretense of edge while actually just playing it safe. It looks to greater examples of genre subversion, then copy & pastes their formulas to suit its own needs. It’s the conservative answer to “Pulp Fiction” in the same way “Dirty Harry” was the conservative response to, well, the 60’s I guess, but films like “High Noon” specifically. It takes a plot and idea we’ve seen countless times before and ever-so-slightly tweaks it until it’s worth of “underground” status, then labels itself as edgy.

I can understand that, though. And like I’ve said, it works. What I still don’t really understand is why it’s so popular. Was there a hidden band of conservative youth just waiting for this film to come along and say “Take that Fight Club! This movie serves out real justice” much in the same way “Dirty Harry” did? Or are people really just lumping this movie in with the movies it rips off, without distinguishing between the caliber of the two styles? Maybe some people just really did love and agree with the message of “Death Wish” but were too blasé to admit it, and now that “Boondock” is out and underground they can finally latch on to something. Or maybe the people that describe it as “an amazing movie” will just call any movie filmed in the Tarantino/Rodriguez/Woo tradition of film style “amazing” without putting further thought into it.

In any case, no matter what their reasoning, it’s still a very average movie, undeserving of the radical praise it receives.

Final Grade: C+

Almost 30 Movies in Almost 30 Days

Well, Hanukkah is here, and that can mean only ONE thing (aside from that I abstained from posting for the entire month of November): I’m half-way through my two-month movie contest. Usually I start this sort of contest at the beginning of the year and it ends, well, you know, at the end of the year; but this year was dramatically different, in that we were all too lazy to watch any films until fall hit.

 

This clock may help you learn the Hebrew calendar, but really, when is it NOT Jewish Time? Also, this is Windows compatible.

That being said, I have to win (naturally).

While nearly NONE of this may concern you, or benefit you in any real way directly, you automatically indirectly benefit because I’ve decided to post my mid-contest results, FULLY EQUIPPED with movie letter grades. Huzzah! Huzzah for the tipper (you!)

Starting 11/01/2010:

1. Tales of Terror (1962/Roger Corman): C
2. Suspiria (1977/Dario Argento): B+
3. Paranormal Entity (2009/Shane Van Dyke): F
4. Duck Soup (1933/Leo McCarey): A
5. The Big Lebowski (1998/Joel Coen): B+
6. The Dark Ages (2007/Christopher Cassel): C
7. Tetro (2009/Francis Ford Coppola): B+
8. The Machinist (2004/Brad Anderson): C
9. The Office, Series 2 (2002/Ricky Gervais): A
10. Nightmares In Red, White and Blue (2009/Andrew Monument): B
11. A Christmas Carol (2009/Robert Zemeckis): C+
12. The Devil’s Backbone (2001/Guillermo del Toro): A-
13. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2009/Niels Arden Oplev): A-
14. The Girl Who Played With Fire (2009/Daniel Alfredson): B+
15. Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010/Brandon Vietti): C
16. American Grindhouse (2010/Elijah Drenner): C
17. Terror By Night (1946/Roy William Niell): C+
18. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920/Robert Wiene): A-
19. The Man From Earth (2007/Richard Shenkman): C+
20. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993/Eric Radomski): B+
21. Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006/Goran Dukic): B-
22. The Mystery of the 13^th Guest (1943/William Beaudine): F
23. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part One (2010/David Yates): B
24. Fantasia (1940/Various): B+
25. Fantasia 2000 (1999/Various): A-
26. Mushi-Shi (2005/Hiroshi Nagahama): A
27. Ugetsu (1953/Kenji Mizoguchi): A-
28. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010/Edgar Wright): B+
29. How To Train Your Dragon (2010/Chris Sanders): C+

A quick note: as always, television series’ only count when watched unedited either streaming or on DVD. They are also only worth one point if you complete an entire season. Also worth noting: “Paranormal Entity” is the B-movie ripoff of “Paranormal Activity”, which wasn’t a terrific film to begin with. Please do not see it (Entity, not Activity). Surprisingly falling short of my expectations were: “The Machinist”, “The Man From Earth”, and the original “Fantasia”. Now, it’s not that I hated any of these three, it’s just that my usually accurate perception as to how these movies were going to be going in to them was slightly off. “Fantasia” surprises me the most, really. To be fair, though, the last time I saw it was 10 years ago, so maybe I was just easier to please with sight and sound back then.

 

When I searched for "Racism in Fantasia", I wasn't expecting to get this, but you know, it kinda fits.

Surpassing my expectations were: “The Big Lebowski”, “Tetro”, “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”, “Harry Potter” and “Scott Pilgrim”. Again, none of these were “A” films, but they all pleasantly surprised me.

Everything else is pretty much how I thought it’d be.  “How To Train…” was slightly better than average, aided only by the fact that it’s pretty much Sanders’ reworking the novel to more closely fit Lilo & Stitch. “Wristcutters” was slightly better than average, but hampered by the idea that it’s trying to closely skirt the line between indie and mainstream. “Ugetsu” was great, as was “Suspiria”, “Cabinet” and “Devil’s Backbone”, but who wouldn’t’ve seen that coming.

ON A SPECIAL SIDE-NOTE, though, “Mushi-shi” is a 26-episode anime series from 2005 based on the surreal folk manga of the same name. It’s more or less serialized short stories revolving around the idea that pure-energy creatures known as Mushi are everywhere affecting everyday life but not everyone can see them, and when they start to create problems a master is called in. The series follows the random exploits of one such master. It’s eerily peaceful and reflective, relying heavily on beautiful imagery and lyrical narrative. I’d highly recommend it if you’re into that sort of thing.

Other than that, I’ll be quick-posting tracklists for two mega-compilations I’ve put out recently for work, family, and friends. That’ll be my next post, because you must understand, if I do not separate my posts I will become CONFUSED and quite possibly delete my entire blog by mistake. That would not be good for anybody (aside from my rivals, YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE).