Mary Gauthier

I was recently made aware of Mary Gauthier (pronounced Go-Shay), a folk singer-songwriter from Nashville, TN. She started writing music at the age of 35 and has since put out seven albums, garnering acclaim from The New York Times, Billboard, and others. Gauthier's latest release, The Foundling, is an autobiographical concept album about her quest to find her mother, who gave her up for adoption at birth. Gauthier did find her mother but was denied a meeting (harsh), and the album details her fractured identity and feelings of abandonment and whatnot.

Gauthier's songs are extremely revelatory and introspective, and that works both to her advantage and detriment. The Foundling as a whole describes a heart-breaking story that is told with incredible passion and set to some great music, and listening to it is like reading a novel or watching a movie. The tracks don't hold up quite as well on their own, however, as they sometimes sound fragmented and overly melodramatic when stripped of their context. But Gauthier's best songs work no matter how you listen to them, such as "Drag Queens and Limousines" or the carnivalesque "Sideshow."  I particularly enjoy the sweeping "Blood is Blood." You can check out all of these songs on her MySpace, or download "Sideshow" below.

MP3: Mary Gauthier - Sideshow 

Scott Pilgrim Video Game

Top 10 Reasons This Game Looks Awesome:

1. It's Scott Pilgrim!
2. It's totally old-school
3. It looks exactly like the comics, only in motion and in colour
4. The amazing 8-bit music
5. It features a level on the TTC!
6. The in-game currency is actually Canadian! I see Toonies!
7. The developers are working the telltale Scott Pilgrim humour into the game mechanics (see the guitar battle sequence)
8. The awesome Akira reference in the fight with Todd
9. 4 player online co-op
10. The buzz for the game is really positive

11. Did I mention that it's Scott freakin' Pilgrim?!

My growing excitement for the explosion of the Scott Pilgrim franchise continues unabated. Add August 10 to the list of dates when I'll be doing something decidedly Pilgrim-related.

Cool Stuff: Sky Blue Sky Sandwich Company

There's a sandwich shop in Toronto called the Sky Blue Sky Sandwich Company, named after Wilco's 2007 album Sky Blue Sky. Every sandwich on the menu is named after a Wilco song, and since hearing about this place I've spent a lot of time listening to Wilco songs and thinking about what each of them might taste like.

It's a pretty novel idea, and as soon as I heard about the place I knew that I needed to try the "One Wing" and/or the "Side With The Seeds." This gimmick puts me in the strange position of ranking my desire for sandwiches based on both their ingredients and also how much I enjoy songs that really have nothing to do with food. For example, a Pitchfork news post about the shop describes the "California Stars," which is unfortunately no longer featured. Unfortunate not because the sandwich sounds tasty, but because I love that song, and thus want to eat it. This seems to be some new and strange horizon for musical appreciation and I for one fully support it.

Last night a friend and I visited the cafe for the first time, and I can say that the sandwiches are awesome as well as cleverly named. On the proprietor's recommendation I decided against the "Side With The Seeds" and instead had the "Wishful Thinking." Not because I liked the second song more than the first (quite the contrary), but because I have more of a penchant for mushrooms than tomatoes. Seems this really is about the food first and foremost after all. Go figure. My friend had the "Via Chicago" and it was, in a word, scrumptious. In addition to the fantastic food the cafe featured an incredible atmosphere, with Wilco tour posters adorning the walls and tasteful music playing on the stereo. The staff were also incredibly friendly, offering the aforementioned helpful recommendations as well as good conversation about nature of running a sandwich shop. All in all it was a great visit, and I look forward to many more in the coming months.

If you are in the Toronto area and like food and/or Wilco then I strongly recommend you check out the Sky Blue Sky Sandwich Company. Come for the novelty, stay for the amazing sandwiches. Just don't ask for Wilco The Sandwich.

Vincenzo Natali Adapting Neuromancer

/Film reported the news a while back, but there's now official confirmation that Splice director Vincenzo Natali will direct a film adaptation of William Gibson's Neuromancer.

I have a serious affinity for Neuromancer, and to be honest the fact that Natali will be directing it accounts for like half of my excitement for Splice. I'm still excited to see Splice on its own merits (though with some significant apprehensions), but I'll be unusually suspicious of the directorial talents on display. If someone is going to make a film adaptation of Neuromancer they better be on their fucking game, and Natali still has everything to prove as far as I'm concerned.

A while back I asked whether or not a cultural product can be so influential as to render itself irrelevant for adaptation; I used Neuromancer as an example of a book that has not been adapted into a major film but has nevertheless made a serious impact on contemporary cinema by inspiring more popular movies, particularly The Matrix. In a recent interview with /Film's David Chen, Natali specifically addressed how his adaptation will negotiate the significant cultural weight of The Matrix in adapting Neuromancer. I'm including the relevant section of the interview here, but you should really check out /Film for the full piece, there's both video and text available and it's a great interview. Natali clearly has a lot of passion, time will tell whether or not he has the competence to match it.

On making Neuromancer in a post-Matrix world, he says:

“For me, it’s a story of redemption, if you want to get down to the core element of it. I think in terms of how you approach Neuromancer now, post-Matrix, post-all the other films that have poached from it, in the 21st century (because the book was written in 1984), I think you have to take those things and use them to your advantage, because what they give you, what The Matrix, for instance, gives you is the opportunity to make Neuromancer in a culture that is already aware of what The Matrix is. I mean, the very word “matrix” is in Neuromancer. It was borrowed by the Wachowski brothers for their film. I think that’s a good thing, because I don’t even know how someone would have been able to make that film 10 years ago or 15 years ago, because it’s so abstract. I don’t even know how people understood the book when it first came out. I think I read it in the late 1980s, but in 1984, how would people even understand it, because it was just so far ahead of the curve?

I think when you read it now, it still feels very relevant, maybe in some ways more relevant, because so much of what it predicted has come to pass. And therefore, my approach to it would be to be very realistic. I think The Matrix is a wonderful film, but it absolutely takes place in a comic book universe…everything about it, in the best possible way mind you, but really I think it’s a very heightened reality..."

Splice: Expectation and Apprehension

Splice opened in theatres last Friday and I'm going to see it later today. I first heard about the movie back in January when the /Film.com guys were covering the Sundance film festival. I was immediately intrigued since the movie got great reviews and was essentially billed as a contemporary re-envisioning of Frankenstein, one of my favourite novels. Since then I've been patiently waiting for Splice's release, but in the last few months the marketing push for the film has started to worry me:

The trailer above shows that Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley use human DNA to create a new life form that eventually gets out of control. All that is fine and dandy and sounds like it could make for a solid horror film, but I'm concerned about the angle the film seems to be taking on this type of experiment. The trailer openly discusses contemporary legislation and debate about the use of human DNA, and shows that the scientific protagonists are blazing a trail regardless of whether or not the powers that be allow it. Despite that setup Brody's character appears to be a mouthpiece for the conservative right who tries to kill the new creature and melodramatically calls it "a mistake." When things take a turn for the horrible the trailer seems to vindicate this perspective and broadcast the "moral" to the audience that "science is bad!"

I've mentioned recently that I'm getting really sick of primitivism and conservatism in my mainstream movies. Yes they're popcorn flicks but dammit I want to empathize with the characters and feel that my upper-middle class perspective is represented! I want my popular entertainment to promote a culture of liberalism and open-mindedness, not regressive conservative doctrine. Admittedly a contemporary Frankenstein isn't exactly the best site for progressive politics (modern Prometheus much?), but it's possible for movies to show experiments going horrifically awry without implying that it's intrinsically wrong to explore new scientific territory.

I don't know that Splice berates the use of cloning technologies or experimentation with human DNA, but judging by the trailers it certainly looks that way. I'm still going to see the film because it looks like an interesting cross between Alien and Species, but I'm going in with my guard up. I'll do a follow-up post saying whether or not Splice is more intelligent than it looks, but right now I'm not hopeful. Fingers crossed that I'm wrong.