Random notes
They Might Be Giants rocked. Best free show ever (well, okay, maybe the Psychedelic Furs was better, but that was about 21 years ago). How about, best free show accompanying a book signing held in a former Talbot’s store ever? Oh, anyway, they rocked, and the girls had a great time. They did NOT just focus on the songs accompanying their new book, either. Did highlights from throughout their career.
“Memento” — interesting, odd. Sort of the unreliable narrator thing with a new twist. Hard to think of Carrie-Anne Moss as evil and manipulative, which is why I’d be in trouble if I were the guy in the movie. Those eyes would just do me in.
Saturday night, we watched a double bill of “A Mighty Wind” and “Waiting for Guffman”. Guffman was the first of Christopher Guest’s touching little trilogy — hilarious, but you really start to feel for these people and their little dreams and wishes and quirks. “A Mighty Wind” was more sensitive than the others (still hilarious, though). Eugene Levy’s Mitch, and Mickey’s devotion to him (played with brilliance by Catherine O’Hara) was the real centerpiece of the movie, and although the sendups of folk stereotypes are marvelous, you can’t help feeling for poor Mitch, who didn’t make it out of the ’60s unscathed. (Odd piece of detail — Mitch arrives by bus at the Albany, NY bus station. It’s not the Albany bus station, and from the sun and architecture looks more like New Mexico. But someone went to the effort to put an actual Times Union newspaper box out in front). I think “Best in Show” is the best of the three mockumentaries, but there were some stunning moments in “A Mighty Wind.”
Speaking of stunning moments, Stephen Colbert on The Daily Show last night, speaking of the Prince Charles scandal of which no one seems to be allowed to speak, peeled a banana and suddenly, for lack of better description, went down on it. On camera. And I was thankful for this shocking moment, because it got his earlier bizarre hand gestures out of my head.
Elvis’s “North” – beautiful. But Mac users beware: the bonus online track isn’t even available for us to TRY to download. Damn the man!