Catchy but Creepy

"Come on Down to My Boat, Baby" by one-hit wonders Every Mothers Son is one of those catchy 60s tunes that so peppy and exuberant you don't realize how deeply disturbing it actually is.  But stop tapping your feet for a minute and listen to the lyrics.  Something is really wrong here.  

"She sits on the dock,
A-fishin' in the water, uh-huh.
I don't know her name,
She's the fisherman's daughter, uh-huh.


Come on down to my boat baby.
Come on down where we can play.
Come on down to my boat baby.
Come on down we'll sail away."


(So far, so good.  Boy meets girl, girl invites girl to ride in his boat.)

"She smiled so nice,
Like she wants to come with me, uh-huh.
But she's tied to the dock,
And she can't get free."


She's what?  Tied to the dock?  Can't get free?  What's going on, has she been kidnapped?


No, the truth is even worse -- "Father never lets her out of his sight."


So, this poor young woman is tied to the dock by her own father, but now that this young man knows of her plight surely he'll rescue her, right?  


Well, yes, eventually:


"Soon I'm gonna have to get my knife,
And cut that rope, cut that rope.
So we can go fishin' in my little red boat,
Make you happy in my little red boat."


Soon?? How about now, you spineless beach bum?  Come on, man, This girl is being abused.  Do the right thing, either cut her free or call the police or the Coast Guard or somebody.  Don't make it worse by taunting her, telling her how much fun she could be having if she was only free. 

Rob reviews "Apres Vous"

If you told me I could only watch movies from one country for the rest of my life I would without hesitation pick France.  French films so rarely disappoint.  (And not just because of my crush on Vanessa Paradis.  There's also Melanie Laurent.)  Even in genres that don't usually do much for me -- like suspense -- I love the way the French do it.  And when it comes to my favorite genre -- Romantic Comedy -- well, the French are the masters in my book.
Today I watched "Apres Vous" and loved it.  Every time I watch one of these French romcoms I hope nobody in Hollywood is doing the same, because I know they'll dumb it down, wring all the charm out of it, and remake it with Adam Sandler and Kate Hudson or someone equally lacking in talent.
Here Daniel Auteuil plays Antoine the head-waiter Chez Jean in Paris.  One night he sees a guy trying to hang himself in the park and he intervenes, saving the guy's life.  But you can tell that Louis (Jose Garcia) is not grateful, and you can tell that as soon as he can summon up the energy he's just going to try again; he's almost catatonic with grief. So Antoine takes the guy home, helps him land a job at Chez Jean, even tracks down the girl who broke Louis's heart. And all that might happen in an American comedy, but they'd have to establish that there was something wrong with Antoine for going out on a limb like that -- something lacking in his life or in his brain -- whereas here we get to see a fundamentally decent guy tries to help someone and ends up screwing his own life up pretty royally.  It's interesting to try and figure out exactly where he went too far.  It's also fun to try and see how all this is going to end up with anything like a happy ending
Another thing the French do that I so appreciate it their actors don't look like movie stars.  I mean they're not all drop-dead gorgeous as they are in American cinema.  In America everybody -- doctors, lawyers, serial killers, are all beautiful.  In France the movie stars look like real people.  Sandrine Kiberlain is not a classical beauty but by the end of the movie you've fallen in love with her because of who her character is and how she lives.  And somewhere along the way she becomes beautiful.
Watch how underplayed and erotic this realizing you're falling in love scene is:

Making Excuses
Après vous... — MOVIECLIPS.com

Rob reviews "Dans Paris"

Today I watched Dans Paris (allow me to translate for you "Inside Paris") starring Romain Duris, and Monsieur Duris is the reason I checked this out from Netflix.  Duris was the titular "Heartbreaker" in that movie starring Vanessa Paradis, and during the moments I was able to take my eyes off her -- well, I couldn't take my eyes off her, but during the moments she wasn't onscreen I noticed that Duris was a pretty good actor too.  I've seen him in several other movies "The Beat That My Heart Skipped" "Moliere" "Paris" "Russian Dolls" and pretty much anything else of his I could track down.  The London Guardian says " He does have a completely transformative smile, capable of changing his face in the flick of a lip: from sexy to silly, brooding to buffoonish."  And I agree.  Romain Duris joins William Powell as the only male actors who I will watch in anything.
Here he plays Paul, a man suicidally depressed after his girlfriend breaks up with him.  Why they broke up I am not sure.  French people break up some times for reasons that don't translate well.  Suffice it to say that he was not easy to live and she was only slightly easier than him.  He seemed a little depressed before they broke up actually, as in the scene where she nudges him with the car to try to get him to get in and he lies down in front of the car.  I can certainly understand his being depressed.  Joana Preiss is not a classic beauty but she is certainly sexy as she dances unselfconsciously here.



He heads home to Dad and little brother Jonathan (Louis Garrel) intending to wallow in self-pity, and maybe work enough gumption to kill himself, but they have other plans.  They know he's in trouble cuz he lays around the house all day in his underwear listening to Kim Wilde's "Cambodia" (without a doubt the saddest 80's synth-pop song ever).  Actually the whole family is still dealing with the fallout from the suicide of only daughter (sister) Claire several years previously.  Dad fixates on everyday chores -- making soup, buying a Christmas tree. etc.  Jonathan tries to help Paul; he makes a deal with his older brother that if can make it to Le Bon Marche in 20 minutes, Paul will put on his pants and meet him there.  It ends up taking him seven hours but only because he runs into an old girlfriend (Alice Bataud) and makes two new girlfriends on the way.  Naturally he has sex with all three.  This definitely seems like the healthiest way to deal with depression.
Near the end this movie contains one of the most amazing scenes I've ever seen, as this rather dark comedy turns into a musical when Paul calls his ex and they sing to each other.  Don't roll your eyes, it works.  I would include it here but you really need to see the whole movie to see why this works.
I'll give this movie 4 out of five stars -- docked one star because Vanessa Paradis is not in it.

Busiest website in the world today

Drpepper.com. Why? Because they promised to give everyone in America a free 20 oz Dr. Pepper if the Guns and Roses album "Chinese Democracy" was released before the end of the year. Considering that Axl Rose (the only thing left of G and R) has spent 14 million dollars and 14 years working on the thing, it must have looked like the very definition of a safe bet.
But guess what? In the words of Leonard Cohen, "Democracy" is coming to the USA. (If you consider Best Buy part of the USA.)

By the way, as much as I would love to believe that this a great album, a return to form for the last great rock and roll band, I don't see any way it can be anything other than a disappointment -- even if it is great, it will be a disappointment. No album is worth waiting 14 years and spending 14 mill.
I am however glad to see that this album continues the trend of vinyl LPs becoming more popular again. Real music instead of ones and zeros. That's a good thing.

Talk about an oxymoron!

There's no such thing as Conservative Rock and Roll because rock and roll is about sex and drugs and change, and conservatism is about abstinence, sobriety and the status quo. But that didn't stop the morons at the National Review from listing what they consider the top "conservative rock tunes" You really need to read this:
http://scottpeterson.typepad.com/leftofthedial/2006/05/rockin_the_righ.html
Are they joking? I mean, the top, number 1 conservative rock and roll song (according to these idjits) is The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again", the one that starts out "We'll be fighting in the streets / With our children at our feet / And the morals that they worship will be gone." That is so far left it's anarchic. The Beatles' "Revolution"? Revolution is a conservative concept? I don't think so, repression, yeah, revolution no. And even the ones that don't directly contradict conservative principles, I think they read too much into. "Janie's Got a Gun" is not an advertisement for the NRA. In "Wouldn't it Be Nice" the Beach Boys are lamenting that they cannot get funky until after they get married, not praising the institution.
Oh, and "Stand By Your Man"? Not by any stretch of the imagination a rock song.
They really don't get it, do they. They never have -- that's why their great God Reagan co-opted The Boss's "Born in the USA" as his theme song. The crepuscular old fart thought it was a flag-waving my-country-right-or-wrong anthem.
Morons.