Well That's Cool

Let me be clear from the start: I have not seen this movie. I will soon, in an attempt to give some credence to my ranting, but I haven’t yet. The following words are a pre-view, a chance to share my anger at its boiling point to those who have not yet had the joy.

This movie takes my blood pressure sky-high. The rise comes for the two reasons, the most obvious being representation of women. The way to get ahead is to scrounge money for a tit-implant, get a “hot” guy, and have him support you? Seriously??? I want to know what ideas got turned down in that pitch meeting. This is an example of one way female comedy can go after the climate change hoped for following the movie “Bridesmaids” last month: women “empowered” by their ability to be dirty versions of what men are after. Charming.

Honestly, the concept is so absurd that I can’t be offended by it for more than five minutes. It’s certainly bad, and Cameron Diaz in particular creeps me out beyond imagination, but it’s not really a shocking development. What really gets my bile up is that Diaz is a teacher.

Maybe the profession isn’t much of a concern to the target group seeing this movie. I don’t have stats on this, but I would hearty bet that the only people seriously concerned with education in the nation are people with kids. Or folks trying to enter the field, like myself. We’re mired in this hellatious swamp of testing, arbitrary accountability ratings, and the idea that class room training is more valuable than subject knowledge (the former is important, no doubt, but ultimately what good is being able to awesomely manage a classroom if you have nothing of substance to teach?). For quite a while the idea was “those who can not do, teach,” that it was a course of study favored by women still waiting to earn their MRS, or just folks who don’t want a life in retail or restaurant, but not smart enough to much else. Now we’ve reached a point where teachers apparently exist to suck the system dry while not doing anything for the students — unions battling for outrageous benefits so that these monsters can sit in front of knowledge starved young ones counting their pile of gold!

This may seem a bit far from a summer flick with Cameron Diaz doing a sexy carwash, just the bitter ramblings of an unemployed graduate, hopelessly jealous of the bleach-blonde Joker look.  Maybe so.  Still, when I’m assaulted by this movie’s trailer all I can see is teachers being slobs who got into the game to be lazy, people who don’t care about their students unless they can profit off of them, and promotion of the idea that standardized tests truly are a great way to get people motivated.  Diaz strutting like a preying mantis in heat and Justin Timberlake looking barely pubescent are just the icing on the caca-cake.

Hopefully, I’m terribly wrong and the trailer is just sensationalist propaganda that doesn’t effectively represent the movie’s core.  For now, I’m just looking for a way to see it without contributing a cent to the weekend gross.

This movie opens today at the Cobb 16 along with Cars 2 which I hear is also quite the masterpiece.

Popularity: 14% [?]

It hasn’t been all bad, though. In Alabama I was going to school full time and working 3 jobs. In Texas, The Art of Unemployment: A New Wellthatscool.com Craft Column

This past April, my worst nightmare became a reality. Now, I’m not talking about the tornado that ripped through our beloved Tuscaloosa (although that was pretty damn scary, too). I’m talking about finding myself at age 25, unemployed, and living with my parents. Overnight I went from graduate student with a great set of friends and a cozy apartment to asking my Dad if I could borrow the car on a Saturday night.

I don’t clock in anywhere and I’ve made a significant dent in my pleasure reading list. At first this was absolutely thrilling, but the novelty wore off pretty quickly and I went looking for productive ways to use my newfound wealth of time.

This is where the “Craft Bucket List” comes in.  There are a million and one projects I’ve been putting off for years—doing derogatory needlepoint, making homemade toothpaste, constructing a bottle tree, etc. Now I’m finding all of the coolest DIY projects out there, taking the time to refine them, and sharing them with you.

The inaugural project is an adaptation of the New York Times’ famous No Knead Bread Recipe.  The original recipe calls for an 18-24 hour prep time, but this recipe yields a fabulous loaf of bread in as little as 8 hours. The ingredients are cheap, and the prep is fast.  Once you bake one of these babies, it’ll be hard to ever go back to buying from the store!

You’re going to need:

3 C Bread flour  

1 ¼  TSP Salt

¾ TSP Traditional dry yeast

1 ¼ C Warm water

Mixing bowl

Kitchen towel

Baking sheet

Dutch oven or all-metal pot with lid

Olive oil for greasing pans

Get it together:

A.  Mix dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.

B.  Add water and stir until all ingredients are well blended. The resulting dough should still be a little bit sticky.

C.  Cover the bowl with a damp towel and place it in the warmest part of your kitchen to rise for 6-8 hours. I leave my dough outside to rise because the stifling summer heat gives an excellent rise at around 6 hours. Prepping the dough only takes about 5 minutes, so you can set it out before a shift at work, and when you get back it’ll be ready!

D.  Once the dough has risen, transfer it onto a baking sheet that you’ve spread with olive oil. Give the top of the dough a little wipe with olive oil as well, and then cover it with a towel for an hour.

E.   While the dough is expanding, preheat the oven to 450 F. You’ll need to put your Dutch oven or lidded pot in the oven while it is getting hot. The cold dough hitting the hot vessel is what is going to create the nice crunchy crust on the bottom.  It is SUPER important that if you aren’t using a Dutch oven, you are using a pot that with no plastic parts. You can always call the cookware manufacturer to make sure that it can withstand the temperature.

F.  Drop the dough from the baking sheet into the vessel. Don’t worry about the way the dough lands in the pot! The cruder the drop, the more “rustic” the look of the finished loaf. You can carefully wipe the inside of the pot with a little olive oil to prevent sticking if you’d like. Bake at 450 F for 30 minutes with the lid on.

G. At the 30 minute mark, remove the lid from the vessel and continue to bake for 15 minutes. The fifteen minutes without the lid is going to give the loaf a beautiful golden crust on top.

H. After the total bake time of 45 minutes, remove the loaf from the oven and let cool for a few minutes. Now you’re ready to enjoy your beautiful loaf with butter, jam, or whatever your heart desires! Enjoy!

Ed. Note  We are so happy to be working with Ally again. Even if she is in Texas now (because she crawled out out her hose with just her backpack left after storm) she is always with us in sprite. We can’t wait to see what else she will craft for your reading pleasure.

Popularity: 29% [?]

Note to future filmmakers: If the scene you are creating looks anything like a screensaver or wallpaper included in Windows, DON’T DO IT.

Not sure how to apply this to veteran maker Terrence Malick, but want to at least put a call out in some lame attempt to prevent my eyes from being subjected to that nonsense again.  This trip down memory lane for a man (Sean Penn) trying to grapple with conflicting feelings toward his father, the troubles of becoming a man, and the loss of his childhood, plays more like a punishment than a narrative experience.  What have we done to offend you, Terry?  I understand the intent of vision, but the end product plays like a long trailer — series of partially connected scenes, swooping music, poignant faces, and so on.

Malick works a great lens without the backbone of narrative tightness, a clear perspective, balance of any kind.  The stage has no clear setting, though there is a glimmer of an idea that the two parents battle inside their growing child, an interesting concept worth exploring.  This falls apart with the execution of the parents.  Pitt’s portrayal of the father is beautifully crafted, whether by Malick’s hand or Pitt’s it’s hard to tell.  The dichotomy unravels, and actually does great injustice to the other performers (except for Penn who if just obnoxiously hanging out for the course of the film, looking pensive and destructive as ever), with the two-dimensional image of goodness that is the mother.  Her spacey looks and wispy sayings are dull to the point of distraction.  Or action — I could have run screaming out of the theater a couple times (admittedly, this may have been augmented by highly uncomfortable chairs).

I don’t even know how to approach what I can only decipher as Malick’s failed contribution to a Discovery Channel mini-series.

Self-reflection is a vital part of the human experience, but the purpose of film is communication and that just didn’t happen here.  It was the precipice with no followthrough, a declaration with no substance, just a wide array of glorious items disgracefully lacking.  Very likely, this project fulfilled some great part of Malick’s creative vision, but it’s a school of cinematic thought I have no patience for.  It’s not petty indulgence, as I read in one review, it’s just damn foolishness.  We would all be better served if Malick had approached a talented screen-scribe, laid out the plan, and insisted on visual oversight.  Then, truly (sans creation montage), he would have had a wonder on his hands.

This film was seen at the lovely Cinema Arts Theater in Fairfax, VA.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Before The Gloslabi Challenge at Little Willies, we were lucky enough to have The Howlies and Dead Fingers join us for a live, in-studio session. The first installment is Dead Fingers. Dead Fingers is composed of Taylor Hollingsworth  (Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band, Taylor and the Spider Eaters and SDX) and Kate Taylor ( from the super Musical Taylor family in Birmingham, also having played in her sister Marie Taylor’s band as well as solo). We were very lucky to have them up in the studio. We’ll have more from Dead Fingers and The Howlies in the next few days.

Popularity: 29% [?]

caught after awarkdly hopping

As most of you know, the great state of Alabama’s bird is known as the Yellowhammer. The problem is that our bird is only known as the Yellowhammer as a nickname. Its proper name is the Yellow-shafted Common Flicker. A good bit of info on this little guy can be found here at the Alabama Department of Archives and History. For those that want it in a nutshell, here is some info from their article:

“The common flicker is more terrestrial in habit than are other woodpeckers. On the ground, it has an awkward hopping movement, but this does not slow its ground feeding. It is commonly observed feeding on lawns and is, perhaps, the most obvious woodpecker of the city and suburban areas.”

‘The common flicker is the State Bird of Alabama. Alabama has been known as the “Yellowhammer State” since the Civil War. The yellowhammer nickname was applied to the Confederate soldiers from Alabama when a company of young cavalry soldiers from Huntsville, under the command of Rev. D.C. Kelly, arrived at Hopkinsville, KY, where Gen. Forrest’s troops were stationed. The officers and men of the Huntsville company wore fine, new uniforms, whereas the soldiers who had long been on the battlefields were dressed in faded, worn uniforms. On the sleeves, collars and coattails of the new calvary troop were bits of brilliant yellow cloth. As the company rode past Company A , Will Arnett cried out in greeting “Yellowhammer, Yellowhammer, flicker, flicker!” The greeting brought a roar of laughter from the men and from that moment the Huntsville soldiers were spoken of as the “yellowhammer company.” The term quickly spread throughout the Confederate Army and all Alabama troops were referred to unofficially as the “Yellowhammers.”

So there you go. Our state bird was named for a fancy pants company of soldiers that Forest Gump’s namesake made fun of for having new nice uniforms while everyone else was lucky to have one shoe. It’s also a wood pecker that has an “awkward hopping movement”. This reminds us of the dancing moves we pull out when bourboned up after football games at Egans.

Yellow Hammer I chose you, electric pooh bomb go!

The problem, however, is that if you just Google “Yellow Hammer,” you are taken to a completely different bird. This Yellow Hammer, or in Latin, Emberiza citrinella, is a passerine bird in the bunting family. They only live in Europe and Asia. They look way more like a Pokemon than a bird befitting the title of State Bird of Alabama. Also, the whole not being found in the state or even the whole country is a big reason this bird is not our state bird. I mean, had you rather have a woodpecker or a bunting? In bird school, I bet buntings get their asses handed to them all the time by woodpeckers. This Google confusion leads many mishaps by well meaning individuals who want to pay homage to our state bird. We feel it our duty as proud Alabamians to act as auditors of  the bird and educators to end this innocent but silly mistake. If someone takes the time to use the bird, they most likely have all the intentions in the world of using it as a point of pride. So if you’ve you have done this in the past, know we are not trying to be dicks. We just want you to know.

The Civil Wars: Auction for Alabama is a great cause that is raising a ton of money for tornado relief . We highly recommend checking it out. Their poster is beautifully designed and features many things our state is know for: a rocket, a football player, a vinyl record, a Camelia and you guessed it, the wrong Yellowhammer. I know these guys are really doing great work and are from Alabama and are raising much needed money. So once again, we are not trying to chap their ass but just to use as an illustration of how the proper bird get missed sometime. Now, go there and bid on some cool stuff, we just did.

If you’ve been a WTC fan for awhile, then you know how much we love the Dexateens. They played on our first Brews Cruise, recorded videos from our world wide headquarters (you have to wait till the :40 mark to see the studio in all her glory)  and have generally made us proud of Tuscaloosa for years now. They also have about as much state pride as we do believing that if people look past the stereotypes, there is a lot of good going on here in Alabama. So that is why is was really hard to tell them that a shirt they produced was of the dreaded limy Pokemon than our awkward hopping, bad-ass ground feeding woodpecker of Alabama. Please good people of Alabama know your bird.

Popularity: 92% [?]

Watching a childhood favorite as an adult is a dangerous venture as you seem destined to either collapse into crippling nostalgia (no, sweetheart, I will NOT call you Atreyu) or shuffle through depressing, shattered illusions (why does Falkor look so fake move so weird?). After going to this flick, suggest galloping down memory lane with someone whose excitement matches a penchant for dirty jokes.
For those not privy, this Wolfgang Peterson masterpiece is the tale of alonely child who escapes into a book henabs from a creepy bookshop. The “neverending” element relates to the paralyzing fear that the battle of growing up will destroy the glorious treasure of imagination that fuels the younger years. The music is cheesier than a Frenchman’s sockdrawer and Atreyu is one of the most melodramatic warriors to ever grace the plains, bit all scoffs and petty jokes (an upright plethora) are born of admiration, not disdain. We all know the terror of lost imagination. If you put your sad hat on, you’d probably find

this guy still scares the shit out of us

it’s the cause for more than half your committed drinking. But what avenue is there for full-on “grown” folks? In theory, our minds have already been devoured by a faceless cloud, leaving only bumps and chunks of land behind. Joke as we may about people in a state of perpetual childhood, we’re really referring to a post-pubescent realm far out of reach from unicorns in math books and the endearing scampiness of stealing or trespassing. So we get obliterated, piss on the remains of other people’s glowing genital structure, and wait to shake the last few golden grains of sand from our shoe.
SEE movies like this. Make foul jokes, mock the bad ass theme song, and scream like Bastian on the way home (I know someone out there knows the name — help a sister out!). In light of all the rest, please, act an ass — it’s the noble thing to do.

Three cheers for the Bama Theater for bringing this gem back to the big screen! Warmed my heart to see kids enjoying a movie NOT fueled by fart jokes and castrated rap. Look forward to seeing what other “youth movies” are coming next.

Popularity: 17% [?]

I know our usual film reviewer is the lovely Dosty Glory, but after seeing a movie I had been anticipating for quite some time, I decided to finally make use of my Critical Film and Television Studies degree and review it.  As you already know because you clicked on the link, the film I’m talking about is Super 8, which was directed by J.J. Abrams and produced by the American union equivalent of Senor Spielbergo, Steven Spielberg.

The film tells the story of a group of friends trying to make a homemade zombie movie in a mundane Ohio steel town in 1979.  One member of the group, Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney), is still strongly affected by his mother’s death in a freak accident at the steel mill.  His father Jackson (Kyle Chandler), a sheriff’s deputy, has a strained relationship with his son and does not understand the boy’s willingness to go running around with his friends making crazy movies.  One night, the director of the film, Charles (Riley Griffiths), gets the crew to sneak out and film some shots at a local train station.  They are aided by the slightly older Alice (Elle Fanning), who naturally catches the eye of all the boys, specifically Joe.  If you’ve seen the trailers, you know that while the kids are at the train station, a derailment occurs followed by some pretty big explosions.  From there, things just start getting worse as all sorts of weird things occur in town.  Something has escaped from the train, and that something is rather angry.

A lot has been said about how Super 8 is J.J. Abrams’ homage to the Steven Spielberg movies of the 1970′s and 1980′s.  It is pretty easy to see the influence of Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind and E.T., straight down to a shot that mirrors a key scene early in that film.  Still, below the surface, the film touches on something that Spielberg and Abrams’ have both covered in their previous work: Strained family relationships revolving around the father.   After the death of Mrs. Lamb, Joe and Jackson can’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, including Joe’s fascination with Alice due to the fact Alice’s dad was indirectly responsible for the death of Mrs. Lamb, or so Jackson believes.  Alice’s relationship with her father is also severely strained from the effects of alcoholism and guilt.

With that in mind, though, the main point of the film, at least in my opinion, comes through.  The whole film is about letting go and moving forward.  Joe clutches a locket that belonged to his mother for the whole film.  Jackson blames Alice’s dad for the accident, thus banning Joe from seeing Alice.  Even the creature has these same issues.  He can’t let go of what’s been done to him, and the government literally can’t let him go to live in piece.  I don’t want to say too much about the creature as the film is not so much about a pissed off alien causing havoc, but it’s about an incredibly strange situation in the most normal of towns.  The attention to detail, the characterization, especially the kids acting like normal kids, and the atmosphere presented gives you that feeling throughout the film.  The actions of the creature serve as the catalyst for all our characters to make the necessary decisions about letting go and moving forward.

On a personal note, I did rather enjoy the interaction shown between the children in the film.  As mentioned before, they act and talk like normal kids meaning they curse, insult each other, and constantly try to one up each other.  Some will definitely see shades of the dynamic shown in “The Goonies”, well, at least I did.  Goonies never say die.

The film is not without faults as it does lose steam during the last act, but it’s a small criticism.  We’re still dealing with a summer film that has a lot of heart and intelligence behind it, and that’s a rarity this time of the year.  Do yourself a favor and go see this one.  I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

Popularity: 11% [?]

To celebrate Alabama Beer Week . On Tuesday at 5pm come to Egans see, talk and drink with  Xandy from Craft Beer Consulting, Brian from Tommy Knocker Brewery, or Tripp for Back Forty. They will have the following draft to choose from: Tallgrass IPA, Great Divide 17th Anniversary, Naked Pig, Back Forty Porter (new beer not even released yet), Great Divide Hoss, and Tommy Knocker HopStrike. Come out and enjoy a pint of your favorite craft beer and feel free to ask any questions to our guests. All the drafts will be $3.50. There will be neat giveaways and if word on the street is correct general merriment. You can not beat that with a stick, not even a great big stick. We’ll be there, which I know is shocking because you know how much we dislike beer and general merriment.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Let’s leave aside the obvious (who would choose to work for James McAvoy over Kevin Bacon??) and focus on the necessary: badass people with bad dialogue and awesome powers!

I love these movies – from the Marvel flipping comic page logo to the last lame sweep-shot. They have their faults. More than goofy dialogue (“Mutant, and proud!”) but also in areas that could have easily been fixed if someone would take five minutes to review the material. Like – Sebastian Shaw speaks all these languages, and is presumably German, but he speaks as if he’s from Ohio. Or, why is Moira the only person in most scenes not in period dress? My most obnoxious complaint, for the millionth time: why the blip does Dr. X’s chair look like that?! I know, later on in the saga, sure, get yourself a fancy set of wheels. But initially? You might as well make it out of plexi-glass, fill it with gold fish, and blame it on the times.
Obviously it’s a bit obscene to expect some type of realism from a comic book film. The plot, afterall, does focus on a new (to my knowledge) explanation of a world event. Still, I’ve got my standards, and one of them is the idea that fans deserve to be treated like they have some cinematic sense, even if they don’t know it. These nit-picks aside, the movie mainly falls prey to the flaws of most origin stories — too much jumping around to cover all the bases, too much attention to explaining things that can respectfully be taken for granted. A lot of this gets back to giving credit to your fanbase. I’m not suggesting film makers should act like the movie is a giant inside joke and everyone not in the know can just flip off. A little a mystery is a good thing and, when used right, can spark desire to investigate deeper from those unfamiliar while providing a fun treat for long termers. It’s all about balance, a space between bottomless insider references and walking the viewer through like a newly toddled child.
In the end, these are more complaints for the genre at large than this particular flick. I’m not a reader of the books so it was fun to learn new things, while also enjoying little gifts for those who’ve seen the other films. It’s fun, it’s exciting, and I can’t wait for the next one (hurry, hurry, hurry).

Can’t finish without saying a word about the wicked performance by Nicholas Hoult, portraying my own favorite X-Men character (who I shamefully didn’t recognize initially). His subtlety as an actor continues to astonish me, I hope they keep him on for the next film (seriously, there better be another film, and soon). In the meantime, I’ve moved the other X-Men flicks to the top of my Netflix queue, if only to enjoy how Holt’s characters make-up SHOULD have looked.

Popularity: 19% [?]

Greetings Everyone,

On Thursday, June 2nd, Egans played host to an incredible night of rock and roll.  Tuscaloosa’s The Dexateens reunited for a warm-up show before they play the Oxford American’s ABALABIP show in Florence on June 4th.  The band played two incredible sets while Lee Bains and The Glory Fires played in between.  It was an amazing night in front of a jam packed house, and DSmithImages was on hand to photograph the festivities of the first set.  Enjoy the sample photos and be sure to check out the full gallery at:

http://www.dsmithimages.com/site/music/the-dexateens-6-2-11/1/

Be sure to check out The Dexateens on June 4th in Florence and September 10th in Tuscaloosa as the Oxford American will bring its ABALABIP series to town.

Enjoy!

-David
DSmithImages
“Modern Photography for Modern Times”
http://www.dsmithimages.com
david@dsmithimages.com
2314 Starlight Drive, Tuscaloosa, AL 35405
205-586-9723

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Popularity: 15% [?]