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Elephant
Artiste: The White Stripes

The White Stripes is Jack White on vocals, guitar & piano; Meg White on drums and vocals

“This album is dedicated to, and is for, and about the death of the sweetheart” so summarizes the linear notes in Elephant, The White Stripes, 4th LP, recorded eight track reel to reel and without using any computers during writing, recording, mixing or mastering this record.

Hail the garage blue rock revivalists. Jack who wrote most of the songs here, except a cover of I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself, which was a cover of Burt Bacharach & H. David, a beefed up sweet and nostalgic ditty; along with sister, Meg has once again survived crass commercialization, despite making it. Touted as the upcoming generation who will save the decline of rock and roll, Elephant, is a continuation of their lineage, of their previous efforts, an album that reminds us what all the fuss was all about when it first started.

Jack who sings like Page of Led Zeppelin hates the reference but it is just a starting point because they are different from the famous 70’s metal group. For a start, Jack seldom yelps like Page does and he tries to sing decently with a sweet voice. Their music is sparse even when the guitars are roaring because they lack a droning bassline; one of the more significant trademarks of The White Stripes. Not forgetting they are also a sibling duo – how “un”rock and roll is that. Then, there is their insistence to wear only white and red for their gigs and interviews.

All this is pretty insignificant because what counts at the end of the day is music. Music and only music itself. Music, not as a commodity. Music not to segregate and identify oneself with. Music, more than leisure.

Elephant is an important album for The White Stripes, the critics and fans because they had struck it big with their previous LP, White Blood Cells and everyone is now on them and thinking what their next move will be. Will they sell out? change a new sound? recruit a bass player? add another guitar? throw in synthesizers?

True to their words, The White Stripes held on to what they do best. In fact, Elephant is so “catchy” that all the songs qualifies as singles material. A rare feat considering most musicians nowadays compile albums of uneven consistency – a few single materials and others merely as fillers. It is hard to describe Elephant with its collection of classic rock, metal, talking blues ( Ball And Biscuit), stripped down unplugged (In The Cold Cold Night). They even throw in a cheeky love confession triangle (Well It’s true That We Love One Another) towards the end.

Seven Nation Army, which has a bassline, is a vicious upfront onslaught of chunky choppy guitars: “I’m gonna fight em’ off/ A Seven Nation Army couldn’t hold me back/ They’re gonna rip it off/ taking their time right behind my back”. Black Math chuggles along to more steam with rather idiosyncratic lyrics, “Maybe I’ll put my love on ice/ And teach myself, maybe that’ll be nice.”

There’s No Home for You Here is a man who initiates a break up to his lover. Their cover of I Don’t Know What To Do With Myself seems to hit a reply in the next track, In The Cold Cold Night where Meg laments, “I saw you standing in a corner/ on the edge of burning light/ I saw you standing in the corner/ come to me again in the cold cold night” Meg sings with a non-chalance as if she has been tired of waiting. I Want to Be The Boy That Warms Your Mother’s Heart sounds like a man’s love for a older woman and Jack comes across as a simpleton as he talks about going high school to gain her attention. You’ve Got Her In Your Pocket is a sad song? Jack cries out the fallacy of marriage. Ball and Biscuit reminds us of the psychedelic 60s with a wailing lead guitar solo.
The Hardest Button To Button is family life while Jack dispenses some advice for the ladies in Little Acorns. Watch out for possible next hot airplay, Hypnotize which is a fiery declaration of love over the phone. The Air Near My Fingers is a muttering monologue of a teenager, “Life is so boring/ It got me snoring... I never said I ever want to be a man”. Girl You Have No Faith In Medicine is the pill popping bawl.

If you have always like the metal or blues of Led Zeppelin or Cream, then Elephant will satisfy you. The White Stripes proves that they can play it like the old days.

Fever To Tell
Artiste: Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Brian Chase on drums, Karen O on vocals and Nick Zinner on guitars and drum machine.

Fever To Tell exuberates the thrill of their live performances despite it being a studio record. Karen O’s elastic high pitched voice and beer drenched demeanor on stage has earned her the comparison of a female Iggy Pop and in Fever To Tell, it vibrates with that intensity.

Since the group exploded on the Brit rock scene for a year and a half ago, they have released two EPs, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Machine, of which I had downloaded a few MP3 tracks available – Machine, Art Star, Bang and Miles Away which convinces me that Yeah Yeah Yeahs are a force to be reckoned with.

Opening track, “Rich” sets us on a garage rock and roll turbulence with inanity and follows it through with convulsion:” I'm Rich/like a hot noise/ I'll take you out boy/ so stuck up/ wish you'd stick in to me/ flesh ripped off raaaawr.”

The remaining tracks continues the punk ethos of having simple lyrics sung by Karen who often adds in her piercing shrieks for added effects that gives Fever To Tell a primal feel. Its lack of bass and loud guitars transports us to time when Iggy’s Pop & The Stooges stuns us with their Raw Power.

Starting from “Maps”, their ninth track in the LP, they turned mellower. In Maps, they fooled around with some instrumental echoes and drumming for their intro before delving into a ballad, “Made off/ don't stray/ well my kinds your kind/ I'll stay the same”. Karen O continues to tone down in “Y Control” before she slumbers into heavier solemnity in “Modern Romance”, Well, I’ve been dragged all over the place/ I’ve taken hits time/ Just don't erase/ And baby I can see you've been fucked with too/ but that don't mean your loving days are through”

Yeah Yeah Yeahs represent one of the bands in the garage rock revival movement alongside The White Stripes and Black Rebel Mototrcycle Club (BRMC). While by no means breaking any new grounds, they at least revitalized rock for a new generation.

Welcome To the Monkey House
Artiste: The Dandy Warhols
Dandy Warhols is Courtney Taylor on vocals and guitars, Zia McCabe on keyboards & bass, Peter Loew on guitars, and Brent DeBoer on drums and backing vocals.

The Dandy Warhols third album broke them – Thirteen Tales of Urban Bohemia – a constant trip of rock and roll high. Welcome To The Monkey House took more than two years as a surprising follow up in another offbeat direction. Except for the second track, “We Used To Be Friends” which sounds like a track that could have came from its previous album; the remaining songs drops its guitar sound and adopts a more synthesizsed feel.

Rob Fearn of Q magazine reviews, “As synth-rock rebirths go, it’s highly convincing, and credit must go to Duran Duran’s Nick Rhodes, co-producer for much of the album.” Considering that the reviewer gave this LP a four star rating, it is still difficult to agree with his opinion. The Dope (Wonderful You) is a misnomer – zero nothing zilch. Possibly, worse thing I have ever heard. “I am a scientist” picks up a more sing along melody and strings it up while “I am over it” is close to putting us down again with its playstation background bleeps. The Dandy Warhols Love Everyone” has Taylor on falsetto with a more upbeat tune that sounds like a spoof, a joke, “Exercise in your frustration/ Unconditionally/ Love me/ If I need some salvation/ I have only one”. “Insincere because I” again drops to slow with Taylor in his mellow but rather offputting demeanour. “You were the last high” which was co-written with Evan Dando (ex Lemonhead) is a mid-tempo more contemplative piece that thrusts us into a more exciting sound we wished the Warhols could have pursued. “Heavenly” sets us into more boredom with its sorry lyrics, “now my ass is blue and black/ But I’m still sound”. “I am sound” is another downer that tries to pass off as brainy, “But where are the songs for me to sing along/ when I am hoping someone writes one for me”. The aptly titled, “Hit Rock Bottom” reaches the abyss with more stupid lyrics while “You come in burned” is a lengthy 7 minute that bops along to more inane blips.

I remember BigO of Xiao Jinhong reviewing The Dandy Warhols’ 13 Tales of Urban Bohemia in which he said that the band was grossly overhyped and they wrote stupid lyrics. Come to think of it, he did have a point but 13 wasn’t that bad because the songs carried through. Welcome To The Monkey House, though, is disappointing because the so called “synth-rock rebirth” as mentioned by the above-mentioned Q magazine writer, has neglected to tell us that The Warhols have got nothing worth to offer us this time around. I don’t think their banana cover represents a phallic symbol like The Velvet’s debut LP. Perhaps they thought the listeners are monkeys who can be tempted into buying by their album because of a silly cover.

Vivre Sa Vie
Directed by Jean Luc Godard

Anna Karina as Nana in Vivre Sa Vie (My Life to Live) is compelling. Just like Fellini’s Giulietta Masina, Anna Karina is Goddard’s female screen goddess and Vivre Sa Vie is a vehicle to deliver a metaphysical piece ruminating on Parisian life.

Divided into 12 acts, each opening with a description, Vivre Sa Vie is the life of Nana after leaving her marriage. She ventures into prostitution and finds a pimp, Raoul (Rebbot), who teaches her how to survive on the streets.

As is usual Goddard, Vivre Sa Vie, at times, feels like reading a book on philosophy. For example, when Nana chats to an old man in a cafe about life or when she talks about responsibility and freedom. Goddard unusual zooming, panning and other techniques also makes you aware that you are watching his movie.

Anna is given full rein to explore her character, Nana, a young, attractive and almost devilish lady who dreams of going into film. In fact, she had appeared before in a movie and she mentions it to the men she meets who could be interested and who could give her a job.

When she watches the silent movie, Passion of Joan of Arc, Goddard alternates between the screen, showing the faces of the various actors on screen and doing a close shot of Karina, with tears streaking down her face. It seems as if Goddard was not only trying to show that Karina has an innate love of cinema and could identify with her characters, but also showing a parallel between the mythical Joan of Arc and Nana in real life. When Nana was in a police station for questioning, we see only her trying to explain timidly what had happened. The only other voice was the policeman which sounded cold and intrusive. This scene also prepare us for what is to come later, that she will go into prostitution, because of her lifestyle.

Vivre Sa Vie has its lighter moments when we hear a dialogue between Karina and a male voice, supposedly the film narrator, Goddard, as he answers her questions on what it takes to be a prostitute. Karina fields questions like an eager student such as how much she should charge per customer and how many of them she can take in a day; which blends in with the visuals– fast forward scenes of her soliciting clients.

Karina also gets to dance in one particular scene and it is Godard’s intention to show her in a more joyful and exuberant mood. As she dances around the room, around a pool table and flirted with a young guy, whom they crossed eyes, we know she is expressing herself and flirting at the same time. This is not the edgy prostitute that refuses to kiss her first customer.

One can draw a parallel of Vivre Sa Vie with Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria. While Fellini’s piece is a realistic piece of Giulietta as Cabiria, the prostitute who searches for love; both women in each movies share a similar childlike innocence. Cabiria is hopeful though she has been hurt while Nana finds prostitution a means to her ends. When she finds another girl for an advertisement man, and was shunned afterwards, possibly because the client felt intimidated, she slumbers down, with the sunlight through the windows and it creates a haunting still portrait of Nana that tells us of an impending doom. It is similar to what Fellini said when he ended Nights of Cabiria; and he reveals in interviews that he has since been worried about her.

By casting Nana as a prostitute with emotions and thoughts, Goddard created a woman that makes us feel for her. This is the compulsion of Vivre Sa Vie.

Shoot The Piano Player
Directed by Francois Truffaut

Shoot The Piano Player is Truffaut’s second film after his critically acclaimed box office debut success, 400 Blows . The latter is a grim and poetically realistic description of adolescence rage, a rebel rouser tale of a boy who fights against home and school.

In retrospect, Shoot The Piano Player, seems miles away from the predecessor with its lighter theme. Eddie (Charles Aznavour) is a classical pianist who turned to playing in a bar when his wife committed suicide. He meets his older brother, Chino, who is running away from 2 gangsters. In saving his brother from being captured, he finds himself entangled in his mess. Meanwhile, he falls in love with the bar’s waitress, played by the attractive and smart Marie Dubois.

Francois Truffaut seems content to allow the film to play out like Jean Luc Goddard in Band Of Outsiders, at times in Shoot The Piano Player. When Charles was distracted in the bar with the fight involving his brother, we see a singer replacing him almost immediately and his singing goes on for a while. When we first see Chino running away from the gangsters, and he fell. He was picked up by a stranger and they had a conversation about marriage.

Shoot The Piano Player also develops a flashback in the middle of the film where Charles’ previous marriage was revealed. Though it goes for more than 15 minutes, we continue to follow through the story because his previous marriage reveals certain insights on his current behaviour towards romance.

His romance with Marie Dubois has a certain sadness attached to it. Their most memorable scene is the one where Marie and Eddie lays on bed with Marie talking. When she stops, another scene is superimposed and fade out quickly to show how blissful both of them are in the relationship.

Charles Aznavour as the man who seems to lead a sorry life before his romance with Marie, has occasional flings with prostitutes. He banters with them and treats it casually but is worried that his brother, Fido might find out, implying a certain guilt associated with him. When he tells Marie that he is not timid which she thought he was and that he respects women, he contradicts himself by saying that when he was famous, he played in his mind of stripping the women who were flirting with him.

Shoot The Piano Player humor may be a bit coloured such as the conversation that wanders aimlessly when Charles and Marie are in the cars of the gangsters. When one of the gangsters said that his mother will die if he lied, we see immediately a small section of an old woman who collapses to the floor.

The gun shooting and fighting scenes looks made-up by today standards but still carries off. The fighting between Charles and the bar man especially looks more comical while the gun fighting and car chasing towards the end looks a bit disjointed.

Nothing quite beats Shoot The Piano Player for having a delightful mix of love, sex, comedy revolving around a heist plot.

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
Directed by George Clooney

Who would have thought that George Clooney, our Hollywood hunk, could have directed Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, an offbeat madcap mix of B grade spy adventure that grabs attention and resembles more a classic without the current Hollywood candy fluff.

George’s directing is loose. Flashbacks intercuts with interviews, the movie plot, spasms of colour and imagination, almost as if it was drenched in acid.

Confessions is based on the unauthorized biography of Chuck Barris (Sam Rockwell), a 70’s TV producer who claims he kills 33 people for the U.S. government, working as a CIA secret agent.

His contact with the organization is the cool looking Jim Byrd (George Clooney) and Chuck gets the excuse of doing his assassination when he goes overseas to chaperone couples who had won trips for his TV game show, The Dating Game. His overseas contact is the blonde crop cut hard looking seductive Patricia (Julia Roberts) whom he has a fling.

Sam Rockwell, as Chuck Barris, reminds us of Mark Wahlberg in Boogie Nights, a confident porn star. Chuck, though, comes across more like a TV man who is constantly battling to find new ideas for his TV shows, which has been criticized as “the decline of western civilization”; forebearer of the current crop of reality TV, the likes of Survivor, Big Brother and Fear Factor.

His relationship with Penny (Drew Barrymore) comes across as rather filmsy in this story though Drew managed to get out of the stereotypes that she had been casted in her previous roles. We see Penny in an open relationship with Chuck and before we knew it, she was stuck to him and insisting that he be faithful to her.

The other actors look constrained and it could be because George was not giving proper or too little directions. More likely, it was a poor story without strong characterization. It is hard to see why Julia Roberts, the attractive femme fatale could have fallen for a goon like Chuck.

Though the story is about Chuck, the movie shows his “behaviour” rather than the motivations and thoughts behind them. There was a scene where he recalled his first murder, which transcends for a moment, of which we thought, could offer more insights on the man who leads a shadowy double life.

Despite its sloppiness, we are still entranced by the way the whole movie binds everything together because we are entertained. Whether its the characters in his shows that makes lewd jokes, when Chuck commits errors during his training or assignment, or when he finds himself in hot water being caught by the enemy.

It is courageous for George to choose Confessions as his directorial debut for it is just not the kind of story that can be easily moved into the big screen. How do you tell an interesting story about a legendary B-grade TV producer who claims to be an assassin at the same time? How do you make it insightful or at least entertaining without resorting to crap humour? How do you built up something with so much loop holes; can hardly be proven and make it convincing? I reckon George did it by relinquishing the leash and let your imagination speak for yourself.

Story Of Women
Directed by Claude Chabrol

Claude Chabrol made some memorable movies about women. In Les Bonnes
Femme, women are boring and subordinate to men.

4 girls who worked in a shop - Ginette, Rita, Jacqueline and Jane try
to find something bigger than their lives. Rita is engaged to a man
whose family is obsessed with class distinction. Jane is frivolous
with sex though she has an army boyfriend. Ginette is mysterious
while shy Jacqueline is fascinated by a mysterious bike-rider stalker.

In La Ceremonie, women plays a central role in creating the suspense.
Sophie who was employed by Catherine's family befriends Jeanne, the
postmaster, who will go on to goad the girl to commit a heinous crime
against the family, that parallels Thelma and Lousie.

In Story Of Women, Chabrol presents another light of the feminine
sex. Marie as Isabelle Huppert performs illegal abortions for women
during the Second World War. She stumbles upon opportunities to make
money by renting her apartment out to prostitutes, her contact from
her hooker friend, Lulu (Marie Trintignant) . Tired of the
relationship with her husband, a moustached honest looking shell
shocked veteran who could not even hold a job, Paul, (Francois
Cluzet) she gets her cleaning lady to have sex with him. Meanwhile,
she has an affair with a fair young and good looking Nils Tavernier,
who works for the Germans.

Isabelle Huppert who is not a very beautiful actress, transgresses
her role from wretched poor mother who grits her teeth to get food
for her kids to the women who dances and dreams of becoming a singer.
When she avoids her husband's lewd gaze and returns his advances with
contempt and indifference, we see a woman who is breaking free from
the married women role imposed on her. She becomes playful when she
is with her lover, Nils.

When Isabella was imprisoned because her cuckolded and infuriated
husband reported her to the authorities, she remained unremorseful.
She is steely and only when she was waiting for her sentence that she
breaks down, afraid of her own mortality, to be judged by a group of
male judges, who only wanted to pass the death sentence to make her
an "example".

This film is powerful because it moves convincincly. We are moved by
the character's emotions. Whether its Paul's seething anger toward's
her wife's infidelity, Marie's offbeat attitude towards men or Nil's
lack of conscience working for the Germans, they are all just part of
the bigger picture, doing what they can to get by.

In portraying a woman repressed by norms, who breaks free by earning
money illegally, living for the moment, lusting for life, Story of
Women also grapples with femininity issues like Chabrol's other
movies about women. In a world where men make decisions and women
trying to achieve some say, the ending somehow concludes that the
fight is still a long way to go.