isabelle huppert never lets me down

Five things that will happen to you during a snowpocalypse:

1. You'll get stranded in Connecticut.

2. You'll remember how much you hate shoveling snow. Outside of the threat of gay bullying, it was the thing you liked least about high school.

3. You'll become lousy for baked goods. You'll see that there's an inverse relationship between inches of powder and ability to display will power. You'll dread returning to New York this puffy.

4. You'll fall for Video On Demand. You'll take full advantage of your parents' cable and watch White Material, now showing at the IFC. You'll love Claire Denis' searing, unflinching look at post-colonialism. You've always had a crush on Isabelle Huppert and as the operator of a crumbling coffee plantation, beset with family disloyalty, a corrupt government, and unruly rebel miltias, she brings it. If you had a vote, she'd be your pick for the Oscar.

5. You'll be glad to (finally) return to Williamsburg, only to find yourself in something out of Land of the Lost. More than a day after the snow ended, your street will not be plowed and you'll see an abandoned bus stuck at the intersection of Driggs and N. 7. The look will be post-apocalyptic arctic chic. You get hipster apathy, but with half the guys in the nabe looking like burly woodsmen, you'll wonder why so few of them lack shoveling skills.

your parents' favorite movie of the year

We managed to take a break from preparing for Snow-pocalypse 2010 last night to catch The King's Speech. It's tradition for the Schumanns to brave the cold and the crowds to catch a movie on Christmas night. My pleas for Burlesque were ignored and we ended up at Masterpiece Theater.

Tis the season for self-serious historical biopics, and that's just what this one is. Deliberately paced (read: slow), handsomely photographed, and screaming it's importance at the top of it's lungs, one senses that the real climax the filmmakers are aiming for will occur on Oscar night. That might be a tad harsh, as the film does this brand of film as well as any other ... I'm just a bit sick of the stuffy British dramas.

The history behind the King's Speech is actually pretty fascinating -- the reluctant Duke of York (Colin Firth) is forced to take the thrown when his brother (Guy Pearce) steps down to marry a commoner (Wallis Simpson, the subject of Madonna's future Razzie-winning directorial debut). That's all fine, but it's the age of radio, there are Nazis all over the place, and the new king has a killer stutter. Enter an unconventional elocution expert (Geoffrey Rush) hired to prepare the king for his first wartime speech. It's the Odd Couple with a scepter when the unlikely duo become good chums and isn't that nice.

The actors, though, cannot be faulted. It's nice to see Firth do something more lively than the morose gay eulogy that was A Single Man, and Rush proves again that he can do no wrong -- they're an apt, dynamic pair. Most people know that I have an undying love for Helena Bonham Carter, so of course I ate up her tart rendition of the Queen Mum -- she's quick-tongued and witty. As much as I love her constant goth queen incarnations in Tim Burton's films, I wouldn't mind seeing her remind us of her range like this more often.

my 2010 music picks

I love the end of the year. The constant stream of holiday parties is like being on an endless prosecco-drip, skillful layering is back in fashion, and frosted items momentarily become their own food group. It's also the time of year-end lists, which are just the tops.

So here's my take on the year in music. I've listed my ten favorite albums and also four EPs from new-ish bands that are exciting and worth exploring.

Albums

10. Crystal Castles, Crystal Castles

I was a huge fan of the band's previous self-titled effort ("Untrust Us" is one of the ten highest played songs on my iTunes), so I had high expectations for this follow-up. The high points here are "Celestica" and "Not in Love" which stay true to the band's electro-pop supremacy, but are also layered and atmospheric.

9. Kanye West, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Even I couldn't avoid the bandwagon on this one. Try to forget his cloying public persona and appreciate the magic here. The trumpet chorus and hypnotic Rihanna vocals make "All of the Lights" my fave track.

8. No Joy, Ghost Magic

I'm a sucker for dreamy, hazy dissonance, so it's no wonder I latched onto this one. Re-visiting the storied shoegaze territory of My Bloody Valentine, it's beautiful, distant background music.

7. Scissor Sisters, Night Work

This was the year when I became a true Scissor Sisters fan. Their NYC concert at Terminal 5 was a big gay must this summer -- they were on fire and I was immediately hooked. I feel like this album brings together all of their strengths -- sometimes soulful, but always with a flare for the dramatic, it makes me want to get glitter-bombed.

6. Twin Shadow, Forget

My favorite trend this year was the resurgence of the 80s backbeat, and Twin Shadow led the charge. It's a heart-wrenching gay fantasia that recalls Talking Heads and The Smiths. The opening track "Tyrant Destroyed" features my favorite line from any song this year: "As if it wasn't enough to hear you speak, they had to give you lips like that."

5. Beach Fossils, Beach Fossils

This was my album of the summer. The Brooklyn-based band epitomized the beach-ready, retro stylings that so many bands were doing earlier this year. It's relaxed and sandy, and makes me miss my tan lines.

4. No Age, Everything in Between

When I saw these guys at Music Hall of Williamsburg earlier this year, I was pretty disappointed. All of their nuance was lost in a sea of unruly distortion and sloppy noise. This album, however, captures it all, and is a great, loud rock effort. The bonus track, "Inflorescence", is a quick, rollicking jaunt, and easily wins best in show.

3. Beach House, Teen Dream

I was a huge fan of the band's previous album Devotion and think this new outing builds on their initial promise. Tracks are able to stand firmer on their -- "Norway" and "Zebra" are singular efforts -- while the album still retains an appealing consistency.

2. Small Black, New Chain

These guys were the saving grace of the ill-fated No Age show. They were that great opener I had never heard of going in, but stole the show. It's all 80s-inspired synch-pop with a heavy layer of electro dissonance. "Camouflage" and "Photojournalist" are the stand-out tracks.

1. Wild Nothing, Gemini

What can I say, these guys stole my heart when I first heard this album. It's everything that I want to hear right now -- 80s beat, hazy vocals, and a slather of melancholy. I'm kicking myself for missing their several NYC shows this year (oh business travel), but hope to catch them in 2011. My fave tracks are "Chinatown" and "My Angel Lonely".

EPs

4. Twin Sister, Color Your Life EP

These guys caught my ear when I heard the track "All Around and Away We Go" which feels like a dusted off, bedazzled Donna Summer track. The rest of the tracks show impressive dexterity -- "The Other Side of Your Face" and "Lady Daydream" are lovely, sad ballads.

3. Class Actress, Journal of Ardency EP

I think these guys have real potential. The songs range from the exceedingly listenable, upbeat "Let Me Take You Out" to the more complex, weighty "Someone Real." Worth looking into.

2. Games, That We Play

Probably a bit more electronic and abstract than I normally go, but this has some great beats. I'm partial to "Strawberry Skies" which is both catchy and melodramatic.

1. Memoryhouse, The Years EP

These guys had me when I heard their live cover of My Bloody Valentine's "When You Sleep" (covering and being inspired by MBV is the surest way to my heart, by the way). This EP is dreamy like that iconic band. Can't wait for more.

When Spider Man Fell

It was an eventful Monday night, as I was in the audience of Spider Man when one of the stunt men was injured. I had bought tickets for the show a while ago, thinking it would be a great birthday present for my Dad, who loves theater. I chose Dec. 20 when the opening night was scheduled for Dec. 21, thinking the show would be "frozen" by then. Silly me.

The first act was technically seamless -- there's a great deal of complex aerial work that occurs above the orchestra audience (we sat in Row M, Center, so at the thick of the action). The stunts are impressive and really did go off without a hitch. The accident occurred about an hour into the second act -- and what couldn't be far from the end of the show. It's during the iconic sequence when Mary Jane hangs beneath the Brooklyn Bridge. There's a giant set piece of the bridge, the actress dangling on a tether below, and then a giant cardboard cut of the Green Goblin appears and cuts the tether (if calling it cardboard sounds like a cheap shot, it is, the show has a frustrating lack of a unified aesthetic vision, and for the $65 million budget, the seams really do show).

When the Goblin has cut the rope, she descends artfully and theatrically into the pit below. Spider Man, on top of the bridge, looking helpless, is meant to artfully and theatrically descend after her. Well, that's not what happened. He dove in after her, and fell. Like, really fell. Quickly and without control. His cable swung in the air after him, and was connected to him but seemingly not connected to anything else. It looked to me that it may have snapped, and even seemed to swing out into the audience.

It was immediately clear something was wrong. Initially, I had thought that someone in the front rows may have been hit by the swinging tether. But then a scream and muffled sobs from in the pit -- presumably from the actress who plays Mary Jane -- and a shout from down below to call 911 made it clear that an actor had been hurt. Shortly thereafter a voice came over the PA and said they would be taking a "momentary break" (duh) and then less than a minute later the current came down, the lights went up, and they announced that they would be "ending the show for the night". As we walked down the street, we saw the ambulance pull in on the street behind the theater so our thoughts that someone may have been seriously injured were seemingly confirmed.

So that's that. After word got on that I saw the whole thing, a friend-of-a-friend who works for NY1 did a quick phone interview that aired live that night (I've also got a blurb on the online piece), so I've had about two-and-a-half minutes of fame and have added "Spider Man Audience Member" to my CV.

The eeriest thing about it -- and yes, it's eerie to witness someone get injured in a spectacle -- is that I had joked all week about possible catastrophe at the performance. Given the heaps of bad buzz the show had amassed, I really wasn't expecting much. I thought the best bet would be to look forward to a Carrie-esque debacle. So I was really hoping for something that would implode, shutter early, and become the stuff of theater legend. Like with most things in my life, I was in search of a killer anecdote, something that could become endless fodder at dinner parties for years. And, really, that's just what I got.

That said, I think the responsible thing to do is either to close down the show or cut back on the elaborate spectacle. It's reckless to continue at this pace given the amount of cast injuries. And, trust me, this is not a show worth dying for. With it's split-personalities, forgettable rock anthems, and histrionic choreography, it's the theatrical equivalent of Exxon Valdez. As I watched (often with slack-jawed befuddlement that the entire spectacle was actually happening), I came up with the following alternate titles:

1. Barbarella On Ice

There's an odd number in a lab (where Peter Parker will, as we all know, be bitten by a radioactive bug), that has a chorus of scientists clad in silver jumpsuits doing something that looks like the macarena. It's stilted at best, something one would expect from a marriage of Jane Fonda's sci-fi classic and the Ice Capades.

2. The Battle of Reeve Carney's Bulge

It took me a while to realize that Carney (who headlines the show as Peter Parker) wasn't doing his own stunts as Spider Man. Lucky him, as the show's one faulty tether short of a dead aerialist. I came to this realization because, well, the skin-tight Spidey suits leave precious little to the imagination. Let's just say the pole-thin Carney doesn't hold up to his stuntmen counterparts.

3. Spaceballs: A Melodrama

There's a very odd moment near the end of the second act when the Green Goblin (resembling the beleaguered hero from Return of Swamp Thing) hams it up in a broadly comic cabaret number. It reminded me, naturally, of the sequence in Spaceballs that spoofs Alien. The critter leaps from the poor guy's stomach with a top hat on, ready to bilk his moment in the spotlight. In a show that really does put everyone's life on the line -- characters, audience members, aerialists -- it's a jarring tonal shift.

shuffle this!

So a while back on the FB, there was a meme where you'd hit shuffle on your iPod and forward your list to friends. Then they'd do the same, etc. The whole bit is that we all have great stuff and we all have schlock, and oh isn't it fun to revel in it all. So, on this champagne friday (yes, that's how we roll on Friday afternoons at The Sound), I thought I'd share my shuffle ten. Here is the v. Williamsburg-friendly list:

1 - Intro, Deerhunter

2 - Music Is Happiness, The Octopus Project

3 - Into the Groove, Madonna

4 - Young Adult Fiction, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

5 - Procession, New Order

6 - I Bleed, The Pixies

7 - Pitter Patter Goes My Heart, Broken Social Scene

8 - Home, LCD Soundsystem

9 - Your Name Is Wild, Guided By Voices

10 - Daniel, Bat for Lashes

What are yours? Please do share.

Casting Couch

No stranger to the political circus, writer Aaron Sorkin will tackle the John Edwards-Elizabeth Edwards-Rielle Hunter-Andrew Young saga. He's bought the rights to Young's tell-all and will write as well as direct. Good for him. Based on the Edwards section of John Heilemann and Mark Halperin's Game Change (which I loved), there's plenty of drama to mine.

No matter the quality of Sorkin's script, the film's success, I'm betting, will come down to casting. Think of The Queen without Helen Mirren's dead-on portrayal. And remember how sour all of the portrayals in Oliver Stone's W. rang? Thandie Newton as Condi Rice? Please. So let the guessing game begin.

For the man in the center of the media firestorm, I'd say Dennis Quaid if he hadn't just played another Southern politician embroiled in scandal (Bill Clinton) in HBO's The Special Relationship. So, as wary as I am to give Tom Cruise more work, who else could embody smarm, artificiality, and expensive hair so well?

The role of Elizabeth is a meaty role for any actress - she's a media martyr but a reported paranoid terror behind closed doors. I'll go with Annette Bening, who is showing everyone how good she is at mixing steely exteriors and fragile vulnerability right now in The Kids Are All Right.

Based on how she came off on Oprah, all lost/affected valley girl, I'd have to say Gwyneth Paltrow. Hey, and if the script calls for her to carve a chicken, we know Paltrow's a pro at that.

Scenes from a blog, revisited ...

Last night was about revisiting the past. Keeping in the spirit, I've decided to revamp this blog (wherein I'll actually write on a semi-regular basis). Reboots are the thing of the moment, don't you know?

Hole is the latest to try to recreate something old as something new. That's right. Flannel made a comeback last winter, so why not dredge up everything from 1996? At the time, Hole was everything I was afraid of and wanted to be. Loud, outspoken, subversive, provocative. Courtney Love - front woman, pinup, antichrist - shocked and scared me. But somehow I couldn't look away. I just wanted more and more and more.

That was then. For Love, the road since has been wild and well-documented. For a while, her trainwreck antics were emblematic of the flip side of celebrity culture in the information age. Drugs, twitter, trash bag dresses, pale skin, protruding bones, and plastic surgery -- that's a look that even an icon can't wear well. So it was with morbid fascination that I accepted an invitation to see Love front a rebooted Hole at Terminal 5 last night. Based on my experience, here are 10 things that will happen to you at a Hole show:

1. You will get hit on.

He may be old and in town from Buffalo, but it will happen. Another demographic you're not pursuing thinks you're irresistible. Cheers.

2. You will learn esoteric facts about Courtney Love.

Like the fact that Malibu won't give her the key of the city, despite the song she rocks on Celebrity Skin. What's a girl gotta do?

3. You will see Zach Quinto.

In the VIP. Dreamy.

4. You will be in the splash zone of the mosh pit. And it will suck.

No wonder your mother wouldn't let you go to shows like this in the mid-90s.

5. You will be corrected for thinking that Hole is an oldies band

Or in Courtney's words, "We're not an oldies band, fuckers!!!"

6. But you will still think the old stuff trumps the new stuff.

Miss World, Doll Parts, Violet. These are a few of your favorite things. And she can still rock them.

7. You will see Love channel Stevie Nicks.

The cover of Gold Dust Woman? Fab.

8. You will learn you shouldn't wear your shitty converse with holes in them.

You will get spilt beer on your purple socks.

9. You will think Courtney Love has a thing for her lead guitarist.

Yes, his name is Dragon.

10. You will be glad that Courtney Love is alive. And fabulous.

Enough said.