Confused and rather dull boy-loses-girl story which inexplicably got some pant-wetting reviews. The greatly admired David Gordon Green loosely introduces us to the small-town Romeo and younger college girl who fall in love, only for her brother to kick up a rumpus and for her to break hearts. It's all wilfully vague and indecisive, and her infidelity doesn't make sense. Terrence Malick meets Dawson's Creek.
Imagine if the Doors, The Byrds or Love had, long after their late '60s heyday, reconvened to record a quartet of brilliant albums, the first a double LP of classic, even epic, proportions issued just months before punk broke.
Donald Fagenson (Don Was) and David Weiss (David Was), two nice Jewish boys from the Detroit suburb of Oak Park, were the Walter Becker and Donald Fagen of the early '80s, making acerbic commentaries on Reagan-era geopolitics over superbly produced and polished, futuristic punk-funk.
Detroit being the Motor City and the home of Motown and the MC5, Was (Not Was) incorporated equal parts R&B and rock, with soul vocals from Sweet Pea Atkinson and angular guitar courtesy of Wayne Kramer of the '5.
Conceived as a black Woodstock in '72, an act of healing seven years after LA's Watts district had been all but burned down in race riots to the chanting of "burn, baby, burn", Wattstax was also, in truth, a masterful idea for a showcase of all the Stax acts of the time. Still, hell of a concert—112,000 people watched seven hours of Isaac Hayes, The Staple Singers, The Bar-Kays, Rufus Thomas etc, and a legend was born.
Generic horror film, scored by Nathan Barr with contributions from the man who ups the eerie ante for David Lynch Angelo Badalamenti. Also has spooky-in-context songs from The Turtlenecks and Your Mom. Deliberately nerve-jangling: when I wanted to take it off, I couldn't. Most entertaining are Barr's sleevenotes: "After the score was completed I checked myself into the local psychiatric facility for various tests and shock therapy. They released me after a month with an electronic monitoring bracelet.
