Justice Awaits, Foolish Suckas

In one of the rare moments of freedom from work I've had lately, I escaped long enough to re-watch this little gem from New Zealand, Eagle vs. Shark, and felt the need to recommend it to the group. Starring Jemaine Clement -- of HBO's Flight of the Conchords fame (something else you should all give a watch) -- and adorable newcomer Loren Horsley, this one tells the tale of Clement's Jarrod and his fumbling attempts to secure love, happiness, and revenge in Nowheresville, New Zealand. I caught this when it first came out in the theaters last year, which didn't last too long, despite the popularity of Conchords at the time and the film's getting nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. Touching, quirky, and laugh out loud funny, this one is like Napoleon Dynamite set ten years after graduation, and every bit as satisfying as that offering.

Jarrod is a Napoleon-style nerd who works at a tech store in the mall -- he is a video game aficionado, a conceptual candlemaker, and a student of faux martial arts, all played to their dorky hilts -- consumed with his quest for revenge against a former high school tormentor. Horsley's Lily is a sheepish sweetheart who works at Meaty Boy, a burger joint in the food court, and is madly in love with Jarrod. After several clumsy exchanges at the mall -- culminating with their hysterical consummation at the "come as your favorite animal" party that gives the movie its title -- the pair head back to Jarrod's hometown so he can exact his measure of revenge.

The film's heart (and comedy) comes from the pair's on again, off again relationship and their awkward exchanges in determining its outcome. Jarrod's obsession with his training and general dimwittedness continuously have things on the rails, but the charm comes in watching the two flailingly sort it out. Lily's sweetness and that of Jarrod's family -- his wheelchair-bound father, still mourning the death of his son; his sister and her husband, the failed (but try telling them that) fashion mavens who hawk custom track suits and makeup kits; and sundry other relatives who hang out at the house -- flesh out the romantic storyline and give you a host of characters to enjoy for the duration.

Just an all-around cute movie that embraces its characters' quirkiness like Napoleon and other personal fave Juno rather than make fun of it, this one's an underrated gem that's worth a look or two. Enjoy, cockhole...

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For this week's entries in the song o' the week category, we've got another double bill for your enjoyment, a bluesy twosome from two bluesy twosomes, the Black Keys and the Kills. The front half is off the Keys' new Danger Mouse-produced album, Attack and Release, where the boys expand upon their formula of thunderous drums and fuzzed out vocals and guitar. For those unfamiliar with the band, the Keys sound like gritty Southern bluesmen of yore -- like the love child of Muddy Waters and the White Stripes, perhaps -- and make a glorious, glorious racket for two mere humans. But then you find out they're not from the South, and they're not grizzled old bluesmen either -- they're two white boys from Akron, Ohio -- and your appreciation/interest takes on a whole new level. More subdued than some of their other songs, this one's got some of the moodiness that's Danger's specialty and hooks to spare. A great little ditty on another strong album, this one's called "Psychotic Girl."




The back half is from the Kills' new album, Midnight Boom, which showcases the duo's twerpy electronic percussion, sexy vocals, and thunderbolt guitars. For those unfamiliar with these guys, the band is London native Jamie Hince on guitar/electro-beats and Floridian temptress Alison Mosshart on vocals, and they sound something like Yeah Yeah Yeahs-style punk rock (sexpot lead singer, laser beam guitars, gritty, dark mood), with a bluesier, electronic edge. This song "Sour Cherry" shows them at their best -- irresistible beat, punk rock attitude and stutter lyrics, droning guitars; it's bad ass do-it-yourself stuff from the depths of the garage -- and has a sweet little video to boot, so give it a whirl.




[And I'll actually throw this one in, too, because I like you (and because it's one of my favorites on the album). The lead track off the album, this one's got all of the above, with a cool looking viddy and sweet swirling guitar effect that you can't get out of your effing head. Check it here:]



BOTH of these bands are going to be at Lollapalooza this year, which has a ridiculous lineup to enjoy. Whereas last year the promoters picked some of my favorite new bands from the last couple of years, this time they've pulled some of my all-time favorites -- Radiohead, Nails, Rage, Wilco -- for what promises to be another brain-blowing experience on the lake. Check out the full lineup here, and get your tickets now...

--Bobby Sunshine

One You Should Know: Built to Spill

Thanks to my being surged to a special project at work, I've been holed up in the office basement the past month, putting in 30-odd hours of overtime during each of my six-day weeks. Thus the absence of posts, calls, or any other signs of life from yours truly in that span. (Which, depending on your viewpoint, could be a blessing I'm now shattering.) Unfortunately, things aren't expected to change any time soon, so it looks like we'll be testing the theory that less is more here for the near future. That said, I wanted to take a few minutes here to both implore others to make posts and recommendations -- I KNOW you people are out there, I can hear you breathing -- and to start another segment, that of the title. The thought with this form is to provide your own "greatest hits" tracklist for a band you feel everyone should know, and a brief explanation of why. I've been doing this for years on CDs, usually tacking them onto birthday or Christmas gifts for some of you, and thought this would be a perfect forum to put them on paper for others.

So, the first band to be thus honored here is Built to Spill, the best -- and only, I think -- thing to come out of Idaho besides potatoes. Formed back in the early 90s when grunge was still king and muddy, meandering guitar solos were all the rage, Doug Martsch grabbed a couple of friends from Boise and formed this band, a unique mix of knotty, intricate guitar parts and wistful, sardonic lyrics. Initially meant to be a rotating lineup of friends and musicians playing beside Martsch (a la Queens of the Stone Age for that band's front man, Josh Homme), the complexity of the songs -- with their slow buildups, sharp tempo breaks, and consistently changing melodies -- eventually became too tiresome and difficult to teach, so Martsch settled on a permanent lineup of guitarist Brett Nelson and cans man Scott Plouf for their major label debut.

Besides being an incredibly creative and talented guitarist -- Martsch's guitar parts continually shift and move, diving off down random melodic rabbitholes before coming back to the surface in the chorus -- Martsch's delicate, wisp of a voice beautifully marries up to the numerous melodies packed into each song. Unafraid of longer instrumental sections and songs that defy the standard verse-chorus-verse scheme, Martsch manages to avoid the excesses of other bands employing these weapons, keeping Built to Spill an indie band without the pretentiousness and a "jam band" without the pointless, self-important meanderings.

The songs chosen here are from their first three albums after their major label debut, 1997's Perfect From Now On, 1999's Keep it Like a Secret, and 2001's Ancient Melodies of the Future. It's a mix of all their strengths and represents the high points of each album, capturing the melancholy of Martsch's voice and lyrics and the heroics of his guitar work. Furthermore, I put them in reverse order, chronologically, so you build to their masterpiece off that 1997 debut, the blistering five-minutes of perfection, "Out of Sight." So load up your Itunes and get ready to enjoy...

Built to Spill:

1. In Your Mind
2. Alarmed
3. Trimmed and Burning
4. Don't Try
5. Fly Around my Pretty Little Miss
6. The Weather
7. Carry the Zero
8. Time Trap
9. Else
10. You Were Right
11. Temporarily Blind
12. I Would Hurt a Fly
13. Stop the Show
14. Out of Sight

The Jury Speaks -- Update your Queue, and Mark Your Calendars

I stumbled on this jewel thanks to TCM's month of Oscar-winning movies, back to back with another good find, The Day of the Jackal. (A 1970s thriller about the attempted assassination of then-French president Charles de Gaulle, without which the Bourne movies and likely all other quality spy thrillers since would not exist.) This one's plot is simple -- a jury of the titular individuals must deliver a unanimous verdict in a murder trial, that of an anonymous, beleaguered looking young man seen only momentarily at the beginning, who is accused of stabbing his father to death after an abusive argument. After the very brief intro in the courtroom, the remainder of the film is spent in the sweltering confines of the jury room where the 12 men collect to debate the evidence and determine the young man's fate, knowing that a guilty verdict will send him to the electric chair.

The initial vote is 11-1 for a guilty verdict -- the sole abstainee the slender, sagging-shouldered Henry Fonda. And what follows is a riveting examination of the case's key witnesses and testimony couched in the lively back and forth among the characters. The conversation, which starts cool and loose in the opening sequences, builds into a sweaty, sometimes angry, affair as the characters' tempers flare and rise alongside the temperature of the room.

It is fascinating to watch.

Sidney Lumet (of Network, Serpico, and half a million other classics), in his directorial debut, spins up the tension masterfully, using close ups and a gradually lowered camera perspective to emphasize the encroaching physical space and peer pressure as the group begins their slow, inexorable swing towards a unanimous decision. The way Lumet methodically fleshes out the characters and doles out the evidence is irresistible, with each individual gradually revealing more of themselves as they support or pokes holes in the testimony and witnesses. The cast is superb and their interpersonal dynamics -- between the hot-headed Ed Begley and Lee J. Cobb; the dispassionate Joseph Sweeney and E.G. Marshall; the loud-mouthed Jack Warden; the quietly volatile Jack Klugman -- are positively mesmerizing.

I had a million other things I needed to accomplish today, but was absolutely unable to tear myself away from the screen. Movies like this are like a new best friend or girlfriend -- you're amazed they avoided your detection for so long, but once discovered you can't talk about anything else. Netflix or rent this one and prepare to lose yourself completely for the next hour and a half -- brilliant, brilliant stuff.

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As for the bit in the headline about marking your calendars, I have only two things to say -- Radiohead, and Nails.

August 1 - 3. Lollapalooza. One of the best times I've ever had in my fair city by the lake. The prettiest city in the country, at the best time of year, with the best bands in the world. Get ready for the 2008 update.

Tickets go on sale March 25 -- check the details here and here. Fitz, Whit, and I are in. Join the coalition. You've been warned...

--BdS

The Assassination of Jesse James by the -- zzzzzz.....

This is a vexing one. At turns beautiful and boring, mesmerizing and meandering, the latest feature by director Andrew Dominik will leave you scratching your head over what you just saw, trying to discern how you feel about the whole complicated encounter. Telling exactly the tale its title implies, this one charts the slow -- and brother, at two hours and forty minutes long, do I mean SLOOOooooooooooow -- demise of the notorious outlaw Jesse James, both in terms of sanity and of the circle of people around him, after his last train heist in Blue Cut, Missouri in 1881.

The movie starts with James and his gang right before the train heist in Blue Cut and spends the majority of the film's remainder with James and his sidekick wannabe, Robert Ford, as they scatter across the country on the lam. At the time the nation's most wanted man, James (played by Brad Pitt) alternates between periods of sharp intelligence and those of cracked up insanity and paranoia, swooping through certain encounters with the lethality of a hawk while strutting through others like a opulent and skittish peacock. It's a frustrating portrayal, and Pitt does his best with it, bouncing between the two extremes with increasing frequency, but it too often feels like retreads of his earlier work, and not a natural representation of the character. He borrows some of the deranged lunacy of Fight Club, the twitchy weirdness of 12 Monkeys, the grinning charm of the Ocean's movies, and the dead-eyed intensity of se7en, and mixes them all together, but they never congeal into a cohesive whole, rather remaining independently interesting pieces that fail to compel collectively. (He even channels his inner pimp/hip hop mogul in one scene, prancing around in a fluffy fur coat and hat like a coked out junkie, shooting fish through the ice of a frozen lake. All that was missing was the thumping bass music and diamond-encrusted bling.)

James is followed everywhere by his corporeal shadow Ford (played by Casey Affleck), a man who grew up idolizing James and is now desperate to become part of his crew, despite frequent ridicule and some mental deficiencies of his own. (Not to mention a complete lack of qualification.) Affleck is brilliant in the role, having mastered both the foggy pie-eyed absence and uncomfortable sycophancy required. It's a quietly disturbing performance, one that has you sympathizing with Ford one minute and wanting to throttle him for his clingy neediness and stupidity the next, but it's a portrayal that is memorable for longer than the film's gluttonous duration. (Which cannot be said about Pitt's, for example.)

Unfortunately, Affleck's efforts, plus the haunting Nick Cave score (who makes a nice cameo at the end, if you make it that far) and the absolutely BEAUTIFUL cinematography of Roger Deakins (the genius behind No Country For Old Men's brilliant landscapes) are not enough to save the film. (The movie also fritters away an over-the-top line worthy of There Will be Blood when Pitt screams rapid-fire at a kid he's beating, "WHERE'S JEEM! WHERE'S JEEM! WHERE'S JEEM! WHERE'S JEEM!")

They strive valiantly, though.

Cave's characteristically dark, moody score fits the shots perfectly, and Deakin's work is just out of this world. The film is a smörgåsbord of searing images, one of the best reasons I've seen to buy a HD setup for the house yet. From the snow-covered plains to the rustling wheat fields, the film looks absolutely breathtaking -- I went back and rewatched the scenes of the gang in the woods before the Blue Cut heist and the displaying of James' corpse at the end repeatedly for their pitch-perfect use of lighting and framing.

But the film is just too long and indulgent for its own good -- at times interminably so -- which winds up squandering its significant natural resources. (It also feels oddly like an audio book at times, with a narrator popping in and out who for whatever reason calls to mind images of the author reading his own words offscreen.) Dominik manages to tease out a number of uncomfortable silences and tense scenes over the course of the film, but the unease and betrayal of James (and these scenes) would still have resonated with a more liberal editing. Two hours and forty minutes to chronicle a relatively simple story of betrayal -- by one man, and a stranger, at that -- is just gratuitous. I know at thirty, I'm an old man, but any movie that makes me fall asleep on the floor one night, and then on the couch the next day while I'm trying to finish it, (and then one more time, for good measure, before the end) is simply too long. (Christ, even the title feels fatty and comes across like a Fiona Apple album title opus.)

A more effective trimming of the proceedings would have made the most of the film's strengths, maintaining its understated moodiness and postcard picture beauty while still avoiding it being a standard Hollywood-type movie. Instead we are treated (or subjected, depending on your perspective) to a bloated, and at times indulgent, recreation of some forgotten history, which looks brilliant on the screen, but feels emotionally washed-out and faded.

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As for the songs of the week portion of our session here -- and honestly, was I not clear about the intent of this page? Is anyone else going to start writing? I KNOW you guys have recommendations on these things -- you still email/IM them to me all the time! Cowboy up! -- despite losing a trip to Spain I'd been working on for two months, being sick, and having an utterly atrocious month at work, it looks like Stella's got her groove back because I feel strangely fine -- good, even -- in spite of everything. So the songs that have gotten stuck on my Pod are correspondingly upbeat this time around. We'll start with The Magic Numbers' "Love Me Like You" from their self-titled 2005 debut, a sunny little blast replete with handclaps, Strokes-y type guitars, and falsetto backing vocals. What's not to like? You'll be pogoing and singing along in no time... Check out the video (actually it's probably better just to listen to it -- we've got a case of radio faces sneaking out of the booth, sadly) here:




The second half of this week's sunny doubleheader is Vampire Weekend's "Oxford Comma"from their self-titled 2008 release, another dose of sonic bliss that showcases sharp, cruise ship guitars, peppy lyrics, and a great new nerdy one-liner for you to add to the collection. ("'Who gives a fuck about an Oxford Comma,' Peter -- geezus!") Enjoy it here:




Until next time, my friends...

--Bob Sunshine

Be Kind, Skip

It pains me to say this, but you probably shouldn't go see Be Kind Rewind. At least, not now. Not because it's terrible (it's not) and not because there aren't far worse ways things you could see at the movies right now. (Take your pick from any of the cinematic chinchulines clogging theaters right now -- Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins, Fool's Gold, or Jumper, to name a few of the absolute stinkers...) But for anyone familiar with Michel Gondry's other offerings -- his music videos for the White Stripes, Daft Punk, or Beck; the wrenching, but beautiful Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind -- this will come off as a pale reminder of former brilliance.

It's not a complete departure. In Rewind (written and directed by Gondry), he maintains his childlike sense of mischief and wonder, as well as his extraordinary creativity -- there were moments in the various recreations that had me dumbstruck with how unique his solutions were, the Xeroxed faces used to "shoot at night" in the Ghostbusters clip, to name just one. But what he forgets to include in this eau de cinema, and what ultimately makes it fail to resonate, is the hook that grabs your heart and moves you; something that makes this more than just the mildly entertaining semester project of a talented art student. (That, or even the slightest dose of reality -- more on that later.)

For those that don't know, this one tells the tale of a rundown New Jersey store in an even more rundown building that needs to upgrade or face demolition for an anonymous condominium development. The shopowner (played by Danny Glover) needs to come up with $60,000 to save his store and leaves town to go on a research expedition to hatch a winning business plan, leaving the store under the watchful eyes of its sole employee (Mos Def) and one of its sole regular customers (Jack Black). Throw in a catastrophe with the store's wares -- one that has to get fixed before the owner returns -- and you're ready to go. Cue the hijinks and hilarity.

Only not really.

What follows is undeniably creative and at times quite fun (as Michael Phillips says in my hometown paper, "Gondry's misses are more interesting than most filmmakers' successes"), but it's so ridiculously implausible -- unnecessarily so -- that it subverts any real emotional connection or import to what passes on screen. (Did I mention the store just happens to rent nothing but videotapes? And that all the tapes get erased when Black mistakenly becomes magnetized? Or that the guys decide to re-film all the videos rather than, I don't know, ordering new copies online or just explaining what happened to Glover's $50 inventory when he returns? Apparently the internet is yet another thing these guys have missed out on.)

And as is so often the case with movies that fall flat emotionally, the results are uncannily formulaic. You know exactly where the movie's going far before Gondry takes you there -- the town will fall in love with these refilmed videos, they'll almost save the store before the evil villain (in this case, Hollywood lawyers) comes and ruins everything, but that won't matter because the town will have come together and they'll show their kinship in a touching final farewell. It's a threadbare plotline, one that unfortunately illustrates the worst and most cornball impulses of moviemaking (from one of its most unlikely sources) while trying to illuminate its virtues.

What should (or could) have been a feel-good manifesto for the do-it-yourself indie self-publishers of the YouTube generation, instead is something that even an eight-year old would roll their eyes at in disbelief. (Not even in Nowheresville, Indiana would you find a place -- one that is arguably set in the present day -- that hasn't heard of DVDs and still specializes in VHS rentals. Hell, not even in Nowhereseville, Nigeria is this still plausible.)

Gondry could have made things easier on himself -- by adjusting the timespan to the 80s, when VHS was still de rigeur, or having the guys just decide to remake the old, nostalgic hits they chose here as fundraisers for the store would have gone a long way towards making things more believable and getting you invested in the protagonists. Perhaps it's because he doesn't have a romantic subtext to explore that these deficiencies are so apparent. Both Sunshine and, to a lesser degree, The Science of Sleep, worked so well because Gondry's whimsical flourishes were sprinkled amidst the more believable ruins of two failed relationships. It's much easier to believe silly flights of fancy when you're dealing with affairs of the heart -- everyone knows nothing makes a lick of sense when you're in love -- but modern day Passaic, New Jersey, despite I'm sure being a magical place, should be at least somewhat grounded in reality.

Instead we're left with disappointment. And before I get lambasted for being a cynical, overly logical fuddy-duddy who needs his movies to be realistic, remember my first sentence disclaimer -- I love Gondry's stuff. (I'm a boring white guy -- of course I do!) But Gondry divorces things so far from reality that not even its finer points can save it. Phillips is right, Gondry's misses are more interesting than almost everything out there. (They're sure unlike everyone else's.) The scenes of Mos, Black, and Glover sitting around a junkyard wearing colanders and sieves are great, as are the former pair's perfectly executed camouflage for their failed act of sabotage. And the Boyz in the Hood remake, with Black sporting a fuzzy mini-'fro and Technicolor polo, as well as the aforementioned Ghostbusters redo, are absolutely hilarious.

But in the end it isn't enough. The movie never transcends the somewhat needy, "look at what I can do" feeling of that art student's project; by not engaging the heart, things just feel goofy and gratuitous. Is this movie worth seeing at the theaters? No. Better to wait for it on VHS...

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As for our little song of the week installment, we'll double dip that chip again so as to paint both ends of my frayed personality of late. We'll start with the white side of my black and white cookie, from the beloved Mag Fields' new album, Distortion. Much has been made of the Jesus and Mary Chain influence/inspiration for the album, and the common theme Stephen Merritt and company have arranged it around is definitely the titular guitar noise, but on this entry -- "Too Drunk to Dream" -- nothing can wash over Merritt's characteristically sharp, funny lyrics.

Starting out extolling the virtues of an alcoholic outlook ("Sober, life is depressing. Shitfaced, it is a blessing. Sober, nobody wants you, shitfaced, they're all undressing...") this one is razor sharp throughout, tossing off blistering one-liners as nonchalantly as a radiator does heat. Things build to the gleeful chorus where the lovelorn Merritt admits, "I've gotta get too drunk to dream, cause dreaming only makes me blue. I gotta get too drunk to dream because I only dream of you." More wit from the man who taught us a pretty girl is like a violent crime (if you do it wrong, you could do time), this one's another classic from the guy who'll be playing the first dance at my wedding. (You'll have to come to find out what...) Download/stream it here.

The B-side to this week's recommendation is an entry from the fit of melancholy that's been strangling me lately, the pretty little heartbreaker "Lua" by Bright Eyes. Lead singer/songwriter Conor Oberst, and the inordinate amount of nearly Messianic praise that accompanies him, is one of those things that I haven't really gotten the hype on, or haven't until recent years. Songs like this, though, with its delicate guitar and Oberst's fragile singing, help make the case a whole lot clearer. The nakedness of this take, and the sadness lying under the lyrics like purple under a bruise, are mesmerizing. You feel like you're eavesdropping on some wistful teenager pouring their heart out in their bedroom. Heartbreaking stuff -- stream it here.

That's all for this week -- until next time, my friends...
Roberto del Sol

Song(s) of the Week: Radiohead Warns, Mates Dance

The second half of this week's soundtrack parallels the uptick things took at the very end of the week, much to my delight (and the stability of my sanity). This one comes from the husband and wife duo from Lawrence, Kansas, Mates of State, and is a peppy little ditty from their 2006 album "Bring it Back," called "Fraud in the 80's." Showcasing a killer synth hook and infectious pop vocals, this one is pure pop happiness that'll have you bopping around whatever room you happen to be listening in at the time. (For me, it was anonymous cube #1324 at work, where despite the severe case of ABH I had come down with -- anywhere but here, baby, anywhere but here -- the Mates helped restore a bit of Bobby's last name and puncture the blah before the weekend.)

Similar to the exuberance of early New Pornos, by the time the "Oh! Oh! Oh!" shouts come near the chorus, you'll be smiling and singing along with them. Simple, yet undeniably winning, you can't argue with the truth of the lyrics -- "You will surely find this...pleasing to your ears..." Indeed. Check it out (and its charming little video) here:

There Will Be Disappointment, Milkshakes

The reviews are stellar -- "extraordinary;" "a work of symphonic aspirations and masterful execution;" "as astounding in its emotional force and as haunting and mysterious as anything seen in American movies in recent years..." Daniel Day Lewis' performance is "among the best I've seen." Paul Thomas Anderson is a genius; "California's certified cinematic poet laureate." And while DDL is undeniably good in this movie -- the twinkle in his eyes and his lupine grin dance effortlessly between menace and charm -- the ejaculatory praise being heaped upon this film and its director miss the mark. (Only Roger Ebert's review gets it right, in my opinion, as far as the mainstream media outlets go.)

Is the film beautifully shot? Undoubtedly. Cinematographer Robert Elswit's locations and Anderson's framing of shots are beautiful. The elemental mix of dirt, oil, fire, and blood make for a wonderful visual display -- you can almost taste the grit on your tongue as you inhale in the theater and feel the warmth of the sere Texas breeze.

And DDL is a marvel to watch -- Anderson captures every fleck of spit and bulging vein thrown forth as DDL swings from glowering stare to furious explosion. (The prolonged close-up on his face in the church scene towards the end, with its violent shifts and wild range, are almost worth enduring the previous two and a half hours.)

But Anderson is not the second coming of the Messiah. "Blood" is merely the latest entry in his catalog of films that prove just because a movie is technically well made does not mean it is a good movie. Anderson continues to fill his movies with characters that are utterly devoid of sympathy or pathos and an ability to generate those feelings in the viewer. They are powerfully and emotionally acted -- besides DDL, Paul Dano (from "Little Miss Sunshine") does a great job as the preacher Eli Sunday -- but they don't induce powerful emotional reactions.

A perfect example comes here in "Blood" -- early in the movie there is a scene with DDL and his son on a train where the infant is staring intently up at him, tickling his chin and cooing. DDL smiles and looks back, oblivious of his surroundings on the loud, clattering train. For a second, it is just the two of them, alone in their private moment. It is a touching scene, one that feels surprisingly candid and natural. Sadly, it is also the only time I connected emotionally to a character for the remaining 2:45 hours. (Which at times plods interminably forward -- the film never matches the implied doom and bloodshed of the title or its commercials.) DDL's son has an accident shortly thereafter that leaves him deaf, an event that seems to serve as a breaking point for DDL's Plainview and he slowly spirals towards the emotionally black madness of the film's conclusion.

But you never feel sympathy for his plight, a point that becomes abundantly clear in a confrontation between the two at the end. This sequence, which should be utterly wrenching, instead falls flat, only showcasing the worst of DDL's devolution. We should feel gutshot, sharing the devastating blow his son feels. But because Anderson never seems to care about his characters -- there is no loving portrayal of them akin to the Coen brothers, say, and their care with equally complex and flawed protagonists Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones, and the freight train that is Javier Bardem in "No Country for Old Men," for example -- you never get emotionally invested in the people in front of you, and thus only enjoy the film on a basic, superficial level.

True art connects with you emotionally and forces you to engage it on a personal level; it makes you invest yourself personally and empathize with the main character(s). To use "No Country" as an example again (which was shot in the exact same locations as "Blood," with far different results), the care with which the Coens spin out their tale and force you to put a piece of yourself in each of the leads' shoes is revelatory. They make you grapple with what your emotional responses mean -- how you can simultaneously want Brolin to get away with the money, Bardem to catch or kill him, and Jones to stop both of them before they can? It is a powerful, draining experience and why "No Country," and not "Blood," as many have suggested, is hands down the movie of the year.

Because DDL doesn't have a foil to counter his insanity and aggression, you are left to watch his performace as mere spectacle. (And it is spectacular -- besides Bardem, I haven't seen such a mesmerizing performance this year.) But you never connect with him -- "Blood" is filled with people you just don't care about. Besides the situation with his son, Dano's confession of hardship and ruin at the end leaves you similarly unaffected and detached.

And this does a severe disservice to the film's component parts -- in addition to the great performances by DDL and Dano, there's the aforementioned cinematography and the jangly score by Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood, which bounces nicely between Psycho-style strings and tribal drum arrangements, to enjoy along the way. The problem is that each of these pieces float through the film like bubbles -- they may exist in the same scene or area, but they never occupy the same physical space and overlap. They blaze in isolation like lightning bugs in the forest, individual points of brilliance that fail to illuminate the night sky.

This isn't the first time we've seen this. Anderson does this in all his movies -- the 70s pop and Mark Wahlberg/ Julianne Moore in "Boogie Nights;" Aimee Mann and Tom Cruise/ Philip Seymour Hoffman/ John C. Reilly, et al, in "Magnolia;" Jon Brion and Adam Sandler in "Punchdrunk Love" -- all are rendered toothless and squandered by Anderson's neglect. If he doesn't care, why should we?

Anderson continuously proves to be the cinematic exception to the rule of Gestalt, where the product is decidedly not more than the sum of its parts. And nowhere is this reality more criminal than in "Blood," which comes to the fore with an arsenal of weapons, but never inflicts the wounds its title portends.

--Roberto del Sol