Spokenlore Blog

 by Chris Jones

Back after ten years, Bristol’s Portishead now make Radiohead look like the Monkees. Bleak times deserve bleak music, and here it is. Maybe it’s Beth Gibbons’ voice. It doesn’t have range – but it does have the singular ability to be compressed, filtered, distorted and mangled any way that Geoff Barrow sees fit, and still survive intact. She can be a wailing banshee or some withered crone, but always vulnerable and distraught. And the relentless 21st century-ness of it all means that this time the band will have neatly sidestepped the fate of their first album, Dummy (and also many who came in their wake): that of becoming this summer’s dinner party accompaniment. Put this on over the scallops and seagrass and you’ll be discussing the sheer pointlessness of existence, rather than house prices.

The angst is couched in personal rather than socio-political terminology: On Magic Doors Beth’s ”emotionally undone”; on Threads she’s ”always unsure” while on Nylon Smile she doesn’t know what she’s done to deserve him/her/it; but she can’t live without it. Sex? Drugs? Love? It all fits the bill.

So far, so familiar: But sonically Third is extraordinary. Anyone foolish enough to still label this ‘trip hop’ will be floundering. The band now deals in a kind of psychedelic, post-industrial disjointedness. It’s more like trip stop. Adrian Utley’s contributions remain as awesome as ever. On Small he revives the spirit of Syd Barrett as he thrashes his echo-laden six strings against an organ raga.

The cinematic quality of their work remains, but despite Portishead’s trick of sounding like they come from hellish ’60s spy movie there are signs they’ve listened to what’s been going on over the last few years. Ironically this often means that Third comes over as very post punk. Squelchy analogue synthesizers are a big, repetitive but almost totalitarian presence. The throbbing Machine Gun reminds one of Wire or even DAF with technology being pushed to its limits. On The Rip they progress from folk to krautrock, yet for all its talk of ”‘white horses” it’s not remotely close to the more lightweight sexual shenanigans of illegitimate offspring, Goldfrapp.

Third is also full of alarming juxtapositions. While they still employ the devastating trick of Gibbons’ wail descending into a maelstrom who could have seen them turning out the ‘jolly’ ukulele-driven fever dream of Deep Water? On Hunter the electronics intrude into the mix like a piece of Len Lye’s abstract celluloid cut into a Bergmann movie. And the ‘noise’ at the heart of the only track that could be considered danceable - Magic Doors – will keep sound engineers perplexed for years.

In fact, in ten years you’ll still probably be hard pressed to find anything that sounds remotely like Third: Unless they make another album. Breathtaking…

http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/release/c8p2/

by Colin Buttimer

Tom Richards is a mere 26 and only graduated from the Royal Academy of Music four years ago. However, the music on his debut sounds like the work of someone much older, though there’s also a youthful exuberance at work that’s distinctly beguiling.

The cast list for the Tom Richards Orchestra runs to no less than 23 contributors. The large forces at the composer’s disposal are experienced enjoyably both as backdrop to initially brief, snakey solos and as musical gestures in themselves. There’s no sense, however, of ponderousness - the music is lithe, fast moving and lusciously rich. Richards’ arrangements are intricate without any intimations of fussiness. The music is at times suddenly joyous in a way that’s reminiscent of UK forebear Loose Tubes or the Pat Metheny Group.

The opening track Dropping Pennies, is full of left turns, but somehow doesn’t end up tracing circles. The paced percussion makes one think of Miles Davis’ In A Silent Way though Richards’ orchestral arrangement sounds more contemporary than the overtly modern work of that master. Jamie Cullum contributes careworn, richly textured vocals on Smoke And Mirrors. The almost 12-minute That’s That Then begins as mournfully as the title might suggest before embarking on a wistful odyssey that transmutes into forceful propulsion through the agency of the leader’s own soprano solo taken up by Gwilym Simcock on piano.

The electronic treatments on Smoke and Mirrors (of which it would be good to hear more of in Richards’ future work), the surprise flamenco-esque handclaps towards the end of Liquor Bickering: It’s the details as much as the rich melodies or sense of generosity running throughout Smoke and Mirrors that are likely to win you over.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/release/8vmq/

By Carina Chocano, Times Movie Critic

IS TINA FEY, former head writer for “Saturday Night Live” and creator and star of one of the best shows on television, “30 Rock,” going to get hit with a knee-jerk media backlash now? It could happen, given the blood-thirst that motivates so much cultural writing these days and, of course, her “convention-defying” success. I’m never quite sure that the conventions defied are real rather than media-made, but whether her new comedy “Baby Mama” blows up or is quickly ushered off the national stage like a grateful documentarian at the Academy Awards, it’s a pretty safe bet that Fey’s exotic status as a funny, smart woman over 35 will be cited.

“Baby Mama,” which was written for Fey and her “Weekend Update” co-anchor Amy Poehler by “SNL” alumnus and “Austin Powers” screenwriter Michael McCullers, who also directs, is blithely unconcerned with gender-baiting. In fact, the movie hardly allows itself any sharp moments at all — it’s much too sweet-natured to be cruel, and much too cheerful to be angry. It probably could have pushed a few more buttons, but “Baby Mama” aims to please and succeeds.

Fey plays Kate Holbrook, a 37-year-old single businesswoman who is suddenly overcome with the desire to have a baby. She’s not a basket case, she’s just a fool in love with little, bald, fat incontinent creatures. She tries a sperm donor, but the insemination doesn’t take. Kate has an unfortunate T-shaped uterus, and her dreams of motherhood are dashed. Enter Angie Ostrowiski (Poehler), an underachiever from South Philadelphia turned surrogate mother.

Considering the premise, “Baby Mama” might have gone the skewering route, taking on all that is over-the-top about technology-assisted, socially revolutionary baby-making and rearing. And it does get in some jabs. When it lets the mean zingers fly, it’s mercilessly on-target. In one scene, Kate and Angie meet to work out some issues with Chaffee Bicknell (Sigourney Weaver), the formidable, clearly post-menopausal head of the surrogacy agency that has brought them together. When Chaffee smugly announces that she’s expecting, Kate and Angie allow their shock to register. Then Angie mutters under her breath, “Expecting what? A Social Security check?”

There are other moments like that: Angie’s IVF is played like a romantic scene, set to the song “Endless Love,” as a fertility doctor (John Hodgman) preps the turkey-baster-sized syringe in the background; a mother in a playground tells her kids it’s time for their play-date with Wingspan and Banjo; Kate’s callous mom (whose liver spot medication may have caused her daughter’s uterus problems) begs her not to adopt a black baby just because the celebrities are doing it.

But most of the time, “Baby Mama” stays away from satire and goes for smiles as often as it goes for laughs. “Baby Mama” is a love-fest, a good-natured buddy comedy whose humor comes from the odd-coupling of Angie and Kate, who wind up living together after Angie leaves her trashy common-law husband, Carl (Dax Shepard). Poehler and Fey play against stereotype with sweet, unexpected results.

Basically, Fey is Martin to Poehler’s Lewis. When Angie first shows up in Kate’s life, it’s in a pigpen cloud of bad choices and chaos. But McCullers doesn’t milk the white-trash bashing for long, and Angie mellows into a three-dimensional character in fairly short order. What she doesn’t lose is that lunatic edge that makes her so funny. Next to Fey’s even-tempered, good girl, Poehler is a loose cannon. As Kate complains to her sister Caroline, an under-used (where has she been?) Maura Tierney, after Angie first moves in, “It’s like living with a child!” Pregnant and surrounded by out-of-control kids, Caroline reminds her that she soon will be living with an actual child, so she’d better get used to it.

If Angie is a nice respite from the usual blue-collar representations, Kate is an especially welcome antidote to the prevalent movie stereotype of the working woman who forgot to have a baby. Unlike, say, Helen Hunt’s character in this week’s other desperate non-housewife movie “Then She Found Me,” Kate is a warm, calming, grounding presence. Her brand of desperation — if you can even call it that — is gooier, more distracted, more romantic than the hard-edged kind you usually get.

The men in Kate’s life, aside from a hilariously cheesy, mustache-sporting ex played by Will Forte, are limited at first to co-workers, in particular her boss, Barry, a super-groovy health food chain owner played by Steve Martin. Martin and Weaver make up the smug boomer contingent of the movie, the we-can-have-it-all types who make life so hard for people like Kate. (Kate’s boss rewards her for a job well done with “five minutes of uninterrupted eye contact.”) As annoying as Barry is, Kate treats him with respect and affection.

In the process of looking for a site for a new store, Kate meets Rob (Greg Kinnear), a corporate lawyer turned proprietor of Super Fruity, a smoothie place under constant threat by Jamba Juice. Of course, Rob is as super fruity as Kate is a mean old career woman — which is to say not at all.

“Baby Mama” adheres fairly closely to the conventions of the studio comedy, although it’s never actually predictable, probably because the characters and subject matter are so novel. Relatively standard product as it is, it’s also unexpectedly scrappy. When Kate learns of Rob’s antipathy for Jamba Juice, she raises her voice in genuine surprise. “Jamba Juice is ‘The Man?’ ” For a guy with a corner juice shop with an equivocal name and an unfortunately shaped logo (an apple and an orange flanking a banana), it is. It’s all a matter of how you look at it.

Fey has spent several years proving that she’s very good at what she does, and she may spend the next few years having to prove that she deserves any success that comes her way. But hey, this is America — where the fact that a woman is running for president is still talked about with a kind of gee-whiz-look-how-far-we’ve-come disingenuousness, despite the many countries that have already seen one or more women presidents. If a Fey backlash happens, I hope Hillary buys her a drink.

 By A. O. SCOTT

At first glance “Forbidden Kingdom,” the first movie to unite the martial arts action stars Jackie Chan and Jet Li, might be mistaken for a pastiche of its genre. Its main character, a Boston teenager named Jason (Michael Angarano), is obsessed with kung fu cinema, and the ways of modern Hollywood might lead you to expect the filmmakers to mock, travesty or wink at this obsession.

Instead they — the screenwriter John Fusco and the director Rob Minkoff — clearly share it. And though it is an English-language film (albeit a heavily accented one), “Forbidden Kingdom” is a faithful and disarmingly earnest attempt to honor some venerable and popular Chinese cinematic traditions.

These include a plot that is at times so convoluted as to teeter on the brink of incomprehensibility, a heavy brocade of martial honor and blurry mysticism, and above all a lot of wildly inventive fighting. The battles were choreographed by Yuen Wo Ping, one of the supreme masters of the art, and shot by Peter Pau, whose credits as a cinematographer include “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”

Filmed on Chinese locations and studio sets, the movie shows the lavish artificiality that is, in the currently booming Chinese film industry, a sign of authenticity. Mr. Chan made his name in scruffier, scrappier Hong Kong entertainments, but as he has aged into an international superstar, he has come to seem at home just about everywhere. Here he plays two roles: an elderly junk dealer in 21st-century Boston and an itinerant fighter, specializing in the “drunken fist” style of combat, in a mythic ancient China.

Mr. Li also plays two parts, both in the mythic past: the mischievous Monkey King (who uses — what else? — monkey kung fu fighting techniques) and a monk. After an inconclusive and thrilling battle — surely the high point of the movie — the monk and Mr. Chan’s character join forces to help Jason, who has been transported to their world by a magic staff that once belonged to the Monkey King.

An evil warlord (Collin Chou) stands in their way, as does a white-haired witch (Li Bing Bing). Accompanying the monk, the drunk and the kid from Boston is a young woman named Golden Sparrow (Liu Yifei), a fearsome warrior in her own right, who seeks to avenge the death of her parents.

There is both a surfeit of motives and a dearth of momentum driving the narrative of “The Forbidden Kingdom,” which often drags in the expository sections between set pieces. But many of the set pieces are dazzling, even if, by now, audiences may be a bit jaded by high-flying wire work and artful blends of computer-generated imagery and traditional production design.

Still, the film works well enough as a primer for latecomers and a fix for insatiable martial arts lovers. If you’ve never seen a movie like this, it might satisfy your curiosity; if you can’t get enough of this kind of movie, nothing I say about it would keep you away.

By Michael Phillips
Tribune critic

Running time: 126 minutes

Rated: PG-13

Cast:

Robert Downey - Tony Stark

Terrence Howard - Jim “Rhodey” Rhodes

Gwyneth Paltrow - Virginia “Pepper” Potts

Jeff Bridges - Obadiah Stane

Surviving his own private Afghanistan hostage drama, billionaire industrialist Tony Stark returns home, as he terms it, “conflicted.” You could say the same about “Iron Man,” in which a war profiteer develops a conscience, an off-and-on politicized streak as well as a titanium alloy flying suit, with jets of flame shooting out of his palms.

As big-budget comic book adaptations go, this one’s a gratifying freak—the right kind of conflicted, as well as quick-witted. It’s a lot of fun. The style may be in the performances more than in the film itself, directed by Jon Favreau (“Elf,” “Zathura: A Space Adventure”). But Favreau’s picture, rumored to have cost $180 million, doesn’t look, feel or play like a heavy-spirited blockbuster.

Mainly it has Robert Downey Jr. The newly insurable actor, who has had his run-ins with various chemicals in the past, plays this louche playboy with a knowing glint in his eye. You swear you can see that glint even when Stark’s head is stuck inside the red-and-gold helmet with the slits for peepholes. And when he bandies the badinage about with Gwyneth Paltrow, who plays Stark’s gal Friday, Virginia “Pepper” Potts, you’re seeing two actors who understand each other completely, who can mine the pulp fictions at hand for both earnestness and laughs. Has there ever been a comic book movie with such high-comic fizz in the dialogue scenes?

The Iron Man created in 1963 by Stan Lee and company had some interesting wrinkles: He was an alcoholic as well as a hard-living hedonist who, as originally drawn, looked like a mustachioed Efrem Zimbalist Jr., or a variation on Clark Gable. Downey evokes a different sort of glamor, that of a famously self-destructive hipster fending off middle age as best he can. In the comic book original Stark fell afoul of a Ho Chi Minh-styled dictator, returning to safety with shrapnel dangerously near x his heart and a cylindrical metal canister planted in his chest. (It’s electromagnetic, or non-returnable, or something.) The Vietnam era Iron Man’s mission was simple: destroy communism, one North Vietnamese at a time.

Times change, wars curdle and film producers must arrange for a new villain. Behold: the Taliban, finally good for something. In the film’s prologue Stark and his Air Force pal Rhodey (Terrence Howard in a functional role) meet in Afghanistan for a demonstration of Stark Industries’ latest and most fearsome arms. Then comes an ambush, and Stark is captured by cave-dwelling insurgents and forced to create for them a horrible new weapon of mass destruction. Instead, with the help of a fellow prisoner (Shaun Toub), he creates a crude prototype of Iron Man and blasts his way to freedom.

Back in America with the magnetic chest canister keeping him alive, Stark has other battles, including a struggle for the future of Stark Industries waged with a steely colleague played by Jeff Bridges. It’s a kick to see Bridges munching on an adversarial role such as this. Regarding the climactic metal-on-metal smackdown, well, no one (not even 14-year-old boys) will consider it the film’s highlight. It doesn’t impart a “Transformers” headache. But we’ve seen it before. Favreau is a solid director; what’s missing is a sense of distinction and eccentricity in the big action sequences to augment his facility with actors. (He saves himself a bit role as Stark’s chauffeur.)

The best scenes keep Stark front and center and riffing on the reluctant-superhero premise. In the sleek, well-appointed garage of his fab Pacific coast mansion, Stark noodles with his new, improved Iron Man gear. Once he’s airborne Iron Man recalls the jet-pack days of “The Rocketeer” (a tasty film, though a big flop). What “The Rocketeer” lacked in star power, “Iron Man” has in spades. When Stark mutters lines of self-realization such as “I could … actually do some good,” Downey finds just the right spin. He’s like Tobey Maguire in the first two “Spider-Man” pictures: an unlikely casting choice, but the only correct one in retrospect.

They are all signs that you have bonded.

In those precious first weeks of life, your baby responds to you using all five of her senses. Here are some ways to engage her in each one and ensure the emotional attachment you create with your child is healthy –and rewarding – for you both.

1. SOUND – Your baby has been hearing you speak for months before he was born. Chances are he already recognizes the sound and tone of your voice. By speaking gently to your baby or singing lullaby’s to him, even when you are out of his range of sight, you are letting him know you are there. He trusts your voice and every time he hears you, it bonds you to him. And it won’t be long before he talks back.

2. TOUCH – There is little that soothes a baby more than when you pick her up and hold her close. The security she feels increases each time you respond when she cries, rock her to sleep, or let her curl her hand around your finger. Also, research indicates there are many benefits to nurturing your baby with infant massage. This can also be a wonderful time of bonding with your baby. Check into local classes or conduct online research regarding the techniques of infant massage.

3. SIGHT – Is there anything that can compare with the moment when your baby locks his eyes with yours and breaks into a smile? Focusing your gaze on your child sends the message that he has your full attention which is essential for creating a bond with your child. He needs to know he is the center of your world and maintaining eye contact tells him that he is, indeed.

4. TASTE – Of course, breastfeeding is the way your baby will bond through taste. Your milk has a distinct taste that she immediately becomes accustomed to because that taste also is her primary source of nutrition. But even if you don’t breastfeed your baby, the formula you use will become the tasting bond for you and your child. While it’s true that anyone is able to feed a non-breastfed baby, when combined with the other four senses, your child will feel especially secure when you’re the one holding the bottle.

5. SMELL – We all have a unique scent to our bodies and it doesn’t take long for your baby to know yours. It is especially important not to wear perfumes around your baby that might turn him off to you or cause you to be more unrecognizable to him. Clean and fresh is better and promotes a more familiar - and gentler - atmosphere for your baby.

The opportunity to bond with your newborn lasts only for a time and then is gone, forever. Whatever you do, make the most of each moment and savor the special time you have together.

Most parents want to be good parents. Yet parenting is one of those things that does not have hard and fast rules. So how do we know what to do? How do we know what will support our children in being all they can be?

One of the most important things for parents to do is to learn to trust their own intuition. Your feelings tell you when you are on course or off course in your behavior with your children. When things feel right inside, then you know that you are being a truly loving parent, and when they feel wrong inside, you know you are out of alignment with what is in your highest good and your children’s highest good.

I remember my mother telling me that she used to put her fist in her mouth to stop herself from crying and from picking me up when I was an infant and cried. She had read in Dr. Spock that babies should not be picked up when they cry, that it is good for their lungs to cry, and that she would spoil me if she picked me up. But her insides were telling her the opposite - that babies cry when they need food, changing, or love. It is so sad that she followed Dr. Spock instead of her own inner knowing.

Now research has proven that babies who are not picked up when they cry become more dependent and insecure than babies who are kept with their mothers. In other countries, babies sleep with their parents until they no longer want to, feeling safe all night. In our country, most babies are alone at night, some crying themselves to sleep. This is not only sad, it is not healthy for the baby.

So the first thing your child needs from you is to trust your inner knowing rather than any book you read.

Your child needs your loving presence - not your busy preoccupied presence. For your children to feel important to you, they need to feel you fully present with them - reading to them daily, playing with them, holding and comforting them, and listening to them.

Your children need for you to create a healthy environment for them by feeding them healthy food, restricting screen time - TV, computer, video games - and making sure they play outdoors and get enough exercise. They need your encouragement to develop their hobbies and interests. They need you to try natural remedies before resorting to drugs for illness, so that you don’t set them up for more illness with the side effects of drugs.

They need for you to be a good role model of self-care. Children need to see their parents taking full responsibility for their own feelings instead of being victims and blaming others. With this role modeling, they will also learn to take full responsibility for their own feelings. Learning and practicing the Inner Bonding process that we teach will support you in becoming this loving role model for your children.

Children also need you to be a role model for care of the environment. My daughter told me that my 3-1/2 year-old grandson got very upset with the checker at the market for using a plastic bag. “No, no plastic bags! It’s bad for the environment!” he told the checker. By role modeling caring for our planet, we can raise children who are much more conscious of taking care of our environment.

Your children need to see you being connected with a spiritual Source of love, peace and wisdom in order to naturally connect with their own higher power. By developing your spiritual connection, they can learn to have their own.

What do your children really need from you? They need you to learn to be all you can be so they have the role modeling and permission to be all they can be.

Keep your CDs in there Jewel Cases. If not there are PVC wallets which act as ample protection or Card Wallets. For you DVDs you must keep them in their DVD boxes or, as previously mentioned, PVC Wallets and Card wallets will do.

If your CD or DVD gets scratched, you may think that it’s damaged forever……..Wrong! The scratching on the surface of the disc simply fools the laser and makes it skip. Or, if you’re player has difficulty in loading the data, it’s due the surface being scratched and unable to read the digital data below.

However, do not panic! There are plenty of repair kits around to eliminate this problem and allow you to perfrom that all important cd copying or dvd copying. If you’ve thought you’ve lost a CD forever due to mark or scratch, think again!

These repair kits are a compound mixture of polish, which are specially designed for plastic (which discs are made up of). The mixture interacts with the polymer and allows the polish to get to work on the scratch. This polish will remove the majority of the disc that has been damaged and restore the music/data back to full playability.

Therefore, you revive your discs using these kits. However, I suggest you look after your CD or DVD by putting them back into their Jewel Case, DVD box, PVC Wallet or Card Wallet. Keep them in a dust-free environment or storage case.

Keep your discs playing longer…

When you remove your discs from their CD Jewel Cases or DVD box then you risk the centre-hub cracking or breaking. This will lead to disc failures. Especially for console playing or DVD films. Having looked around for a remedy to this common problem, we have found a solution…

It’s in the form of a metal reinforced centre-hub. It’s easy to attach and will reduce the stress that is normally applied when removing CDs or DVDs from Jewel Cases or DVD Boxes. This will prevent the discs from cracking at the centre. “Hurray!” I hear you say.

A simple way to explain it is that the resolution of the picture is greatly improved. Improved? One may ask, well yes that is just it. So you should go out right now and see for your self. Now back to video games on a HDTV. For starters the picture is much clearer. When it is not in HD the picture has what looks like to be a fuzz effect going on with it. Now if you are one of those people that have never seen HD then you will not notice it and would have to look for it. But if you do have a HDTV and play your video games on it normally you will in fact notice a significant difference the quality of picture.

Not only that, if you were to play a video game that you play often in HD and then switched it over to standard definition it would be enough to make your self sick. Also it is a great excuse for you to go out and buy a HD DVD player. That way you can start buying HD movies and when you see an ad on TV about a movie and it says also comes in HD you can go out and buy it. The only down side to buying HD movies is the increase in price of the movie. You can usually get a normal DVD at around twenty dollars, for a HD movie you will be spending up wards to around thirty dollars.

Although that might be a lot for just one movie, HD movies come with an extreme amount of content compared to just a normal DVD. On every HD DVD there are just about all the extras for that movie that you possibly could want. If you want behind the scenes or interviews with the cast of the movie they are all there. I have personally only seen a couple of HD DVDs my self one being Pirates of The Caribbean: At Worlds End which was a great movie, but I know for a fact that all HD DVDs have all of the content I have just said.

1 - Screen Size and sound are important. Especially while driving. The screen should be readable and bright, Also Make sure the buttons are big enough for your fingers, so that you aren’t pressing multiple buttons at the same time. Vehicles are noisier than you may think. Driving noise can make it difficult to hear weak audio. Be sure to check out the sound quality to make sure you can understand what is being said. It should be clear and loud so that you can hear it in your vehicle.

2 - Downloadable Maps and memory. Most gps units come with maps built in. A lot of them can download maps as well. It is a good idea to puchase one that has the ability to download maps, so that you map doesn’t get outdated.

Memory - the more memory the gps unit has, the more locations, waypoints, landmarks, and maps you can save.

3 - The time it takes a GPS to find and display information. This depends on the number of channels a GPS has. The more channels the unit has the better the reception. Take this into consideration. You don’t want to have to pull over and wait for it to get map data if you make a wrong turn.

4 - Does the unit speak street names? This is very helpful. If it does not say the street names and it tells you to turn right. You may have to glance at the unit to check the street name. This can be dangerous.

5 - What type of batteries are used with the GPS? Are they normal rechargeable AA batteries or are they special manufacturer batteries? Also how long do they last.

6 - Bluetooth is great for those who need to use cell phones while driving, With Bluetooth the driver can make and receive hands-free calls through the unit’s speaker and microphone, and view their telephone book and access caller ID on the screen. What an amazing feature. Of course blue-tooth enabled units are little more expensive.

Those are the six things you need to know before you buy a GPS.