Dave Chappelle is the Funniest Human Being on the Planet!!!

So on Sunday, I''m poking around the Ticketmaster site, and happen upon Dave Chappelle's name. It's for a Monday show, and I check the tickets-sold out. Then I scroll down a little further and see that there is also a Tuesday night show-so I check the tickets-they are available! So I buy one and call my dad and tell him to pick up a ticket for himself. It takes him a couple hours to get home, and by that time, the tickets have sold out. So now I'm going by myself, but I don't care-because it will be worth it.

Cut to Tuesday night-I'm waiting in line and I'm only 5 people back. I'm hoping to get a front row seat, but as we go in, it turns out I get a seat kind of the to the side-but it turns out it's right on the path where Chappelle is to be walking past at some point in the evening. I'm waiting for the show to start, and just looking around the club, which is small-there isn't a bad seat in the whole place. From where I'm sitting, I'm about 15 feet from the stage. I'm looking around and happen to see comedian Doug Benson standing to my right. I assume he's just there to watch, but it turns out he's the opener. He was pretty funny. Mostly stoner jokes, with a few good hooker jokes thrown in. His funniest bit was him looking over his list of jokes that he is going to tell and telling us that he has a good one coming up, so we have that to look forward to. His delivery made it funny. So he does about 20/25 mnutes and he introduces Chappelle. Chappelle walks right past me, smoking a cigarette, and heads up to the stage. He proceeds to do a great hour of solid comedy. It's clear that he's not working from a pre made list of jokes. He's just saying whatever comes into his head. He had a lot to say about his current situation, and why he pretty much quit Hollywood. He's fed up with the lies, the deceiving, and the bullshit that goes with it. He is hilarious from the moment he gets on stage, to the moment that he walks off. Dave Chappelle is the funniest man on the planet. He is so smart, and so quick that he doesn't need jokes-he just talks and everything he says is hilarious. So as he's winding down he starts talking about how there are so few "major" players out there who take the time, or have the discipline to hit the road and go out on stage. He then tells us that Chris Tucker is here, and he wants to do some material for us.

I always had the notion that Chris Tucker was an asshole and a jerk. Turns out I was wrong, Chris Tucker is hilarious, and a genuienly nice guy. His Michael Jackson impression is great. He can talk, sing, and dance just like the King of Pop. It turns out he is friends with him and had a lot of good insight into the man. He was completely honest with the crowd, telling them about his struggles, and why he isn't doing any more movies lately. He's just looking for a good script. He asked the crowd whether or not he should make another Rush Hour, or another Friday-since that what everyone is hounding him for. The crowd was behind him, and very surprised to be in the presence of such a well known movie star. As he exited the stage, I threw my hand out and he shook it-so that's always exciting. Dave Chappelle came back on the stage and said thanks to the crowd and thanks to Chris Tucker. Then he looked at his watch.

He looked at his watch, and then at the crowd, and said that he had nowhere else to go, and nothing else to do-and the then proceeded to do another hour or so of completely improvised comedy. He was just asking the crowd what we wanted to have him talk about, and whatever people said, he had good bits of hilarity for them. An especially hilarious thing he kept doing throughout the evening was whenever he said anything funny, he would bang the mike on his knee, a stool, whatever was close. You could tell he was having a good time and completely in his element. He was as open as any person could be to the crowd. He told us a story about getting a blowjob from a girl wearing a motorcycle helmet, and when he was wrapping up, he banged his elbow on the helmet. Genius. He also told us about the Tony Danza-where you nail a girl from behind, and when you're just about done, you punch her in the back of head and tell her-Who's the Boss?!? Hilarious. He had a great bit on hearing someone take a gross shit in the bathroom and waiting around to find out who it was. Great stuff. All in all Dave was a totally honest and hilarious comedian who didn't want to stop talking, but had to because the club had to close. As he walked off the stage the second time, the crowd gave him a standing ovation. He walked past me, and again, I threw out my hand and he shook it and I gave him a pat on the back. A great end to a great evening. It was the best comedy show I've ever been to, and will probably ever go to.

Random Review of the Week(6/20)

This is a new column that I'm going to be starting right now. I will try to make it weekly, but if it veers from that, oh well. In it, I will be reviewing a random movie, a random CD, and that's pretty much it. The only requisite for it is that I need to have had some contact with it within the week of review. Without further ado, on to the review

This week, I will be reviewing:

The Usual Suspects

The Usual Suspects holds a special place in my heart, and I believe it always will. When I first saw this movie, I was only 13 years old, and this was the first movie that I saw that made me realize how much I love movies. The moment this movie started to the second Kevin Spacey says, "And like that-He's gone." I was in a trance. The way this movie reveals information to the audience is remarkable. Nothing is left to chance, nothing is out of place. Every camera angle, every line of dialogue is carefully scripted to build up to those last few minutes. A lesser movie would have realized it had itself backed into a corner and thrown together an ending. The ending we think we are getting when Agent Kuljan says that Keaton was Keyser Soze is the lesser movies ending. Had we ended there, it might have made sense, but we wouldn't have felt that pay off. It shows us some scenes of Keaton perhaps being Soze, but a lot of these are not shots from the movie, just forced shots of Keaton because Kuljan is forcing this ending. He wants it so desperately to be true, and for the moment, we buy it. But it is the moments after this, when Verbal leaves the office, that this movie becomes a classic. When Kuljan starts going over things in his mind, and then noticing the wall of lies that Verbal has built, we are never shown any forced shots, because there is no need for them. Upon watching this movie again, everything is in Spacey's performance. You can see him reading everything and building his story up. The most telling moment in the movie, to me, is when Kuljan is going off about how Keaton was the mastermind and Keaton did this, and Keaton did that, and all we see is Spacey's face and the smile and nods that he does show us a man who is thrilled that this idiot cop is buying everything he is saying. And as soon as Kuljan comes into shot, Verbal's face tightens up like he is learning something new for the first time. He is playing everyone like a fiddle from the moment you see him to the very last frame. And we all buy it.

And it isn't just Spacey who is mesmerizing in this movie, but literally every character that says anything in this movie is fantastic. All of the suspects are perfect in their part, forming an odd family of ciminals. Even Stephen Baldwin, who is pretty much shit in everything else he has ever done, is fantastic. And Benicio del Toro will flip you for real in this movie. This was the first part I ever saw him play, and it is so different from everything else he has ever done. But following his career, most roles of him are different from each other. He refuses to be type cast and continues to do phenomonal jobs in everything he is in. Dan Hedaya also does a good job, and I believe he should do more dramatic work. While I love his dad in Clueless, it is great to see him in roles like this, and even in Mulholland Dr. where he just scares the hell out of me for th 5 minutes he's in the movie.

The Usual Suspects is that rare crime film that manages to be complex, but never buckles under the weight of what is trying to do. If not everything about the movie was perfect, it could have easily collapsed towards the end and turned into just another forgettable crime movie(Christopher McQuarrie's Way of the Gun comes to mind). Bryan Singer knew exactly what he wanted out of this movie, and he got just that. A perfect cast, a perfect script, perfet cinematography, perfect editing, perfect music. This is the kind of crime movie that every other crime movie after it must be compared to. And The Usual Suspects has set the bar so high, that few movies will be able to come close to the genius of it, but I look forward to the ones that do.

Batman Begins: The Review

Yesterday, I was up in the city anxiously waiting for a Rilo Kiley concert that was to start later that evening. I got up there around noon and realized that I had 9 hours that had to be killed until the show started. I wandered over to the Metreon, where Batman was playing in IMAX format. That had to be cool. So I went in and bought my 15 dollar ticket to see Batman on 70mm film on a gigantic screen with 12,000 watts of sound. But that didn't start until 3:30. After wandering for a couple of hours, I went back to the Metreon where I was accosed by a Mexican guy who started saying to me: "Hey, you're a wearing a Batman shirt, you must be seeing Batman." Now I've come to realize, that there are certain types of people who feel it is their responsibility to comment on everything and everyone. I'm the kind of person who can see something, such as a guy wearing a Batman shirt, and going to see Batman, and just let it go. Not this guy, he had other plans. But once I passed that little obstacle, I went upstairs and waited in line. I was behind these two guys, and one went off to buy some popcorn and came back and immediately started telling his friend the story of his popcorn purchase. He feels a great injustice has been done because the popcorn is so expensive, and he questions the freshness of it. He said that he complained to the person and they guaranteed it was fresh. He didn't believe it. But still he paid for the popcorn and returned and happily ate the whole bag before the line even started moving. But my question to this man is this: Have you not been to the movies in the last 10 years, and especially in San Francisco? Everything is expensive. Deal with it. You're not the first guy to realize that shit is overpriced, so don't make it out to be some huge revelation. But eventually we started moving and as we got into the theater, I sat in awe at the giant IMAX screen. I was excited.

At 3:30 on the dot the movie began with a quick little ad about the greatness of IMAX. Now after watching the entire movie, I realized that seeing a regular film on IMAX is not impressive. Aside from loud as hell gunshots that made everyone in the theater jump, it isn't much different from your standard 35mm film. Was it worth 15 bucks to see it on a huge screen? No, not at all. Go see this movie at a standard theater and save yourself the 5 extra bucks. And now, onto the movie itself(finally huh?)

Without the benefits of previews to ease you into the movie, this one started rather abruptly. It covered the Bruce Wayne childhood very quickly, moving us into current(?) day where Bruce Wayne was a prisoner in a foreign jail. He beats up some guys and then Liam Neeson approaches him about joining the League of Shadows, a group of ninjas who make it their personal responsibility to ensure that people live happily ever after, by any means necessary. Bruce trains, confronts his past, then to show that he is different from these guys and better than them because he doesn't have to kill bad people, he burns down their temple and kills them because he thinks they are bad people(they have plotted to destroy Gotham to save it from itself). However he saves Liam Neeson who has trained him up to this point. Now we finally get back to Bruce Wayne's return to Gotham City. This is where I'm going to stop just retelling the plot to you because anymore would spoil this movie.

The good: This movie is full of great dialogue, and it didn't feel forced like other comic book movies. Now, I've only seen previews for Fantastic Four, but that is a movie that is going to be full of bad, forced dialogue. Christopher Nolan has a touch for natural sounding conversation, especially when dealing with heavy handed, moralistic conversations that only people in movies have. The dialogue shines, even when being said by Katie Holmes(who I'll get to in the bad sectoin). Christian Bale as Batman was a fantastic casting choice. He has already shown that he can play that cold, callous rich person in American Psycho, and this is a good extension of that. Batman fights the bad people because he wants to save people from them, while his Patrick Bateman character killed the people he thought less of out of anger and hatred towards them not being able to help themselves. Interesting parallels could be drawn between these two characters and it is my guess that his role in American Psycho directly contributed to his casting as Batman, because it sure as hell wasn't his role in Newsies(or Reign of Fire)that did it. Overall, the cast in this movie is spot on. Michael Caine is a bit too high profile to play Alfred, Michael Gough was the perfect Alfred. But Michael Caine does a good job and really shows how much he cares about Bruce Wayne and the whole Wayne legacy. Morgan Freeman does his usual good job, even when not given too much to work with. He's pretty much relegated to a Q like character who only serves to give Batman whatever new technology he needs. Gary Oldman does a fantastic job as a not crazy guy. I didn't know he had it in him. His Gordon is great and it is interesting to see how the Batman/Gordon relationship started and why they both can trust each other so much. I think more people should cast Oldman as a regular guy because he's done the crazy thing so much that it is really interesting to see him in such a subdued role.

The villains in this movie are also excellent around the board. Liam Neeson here being the standout. (sorry, is that a spoiler? oh well, I don't think anyone is ever going to read this anyway) The villains in the older Batman movies have all been extremely over the top, but in the first two it was within the boundaries of their characters, but in Begins, Liam Neeson plays a very calm and driven villain who uses subtlety over sheer craziness. Cillian Murphy on the other hand plays a very crazy Scarecrow who uses a drug to induce panic in people. To shield himself from the effect he wears a crazy looking burlap sack over his head. It is his scenes that are the most surreal and frightening in the entire movie. The scene between him and Batman is sure to scare the hell out of any kid whose parents were dumb enough to take them to a PG-13 movie. The mob boss guy was suitably mob boss like. He gives a decent speech about how he uses fear to control the city, but it's been told before countless times in countless other movies. Overall the villains are very well rounded and seem much more believable in this world than a Mr. Freeze does(this is just used as a bash to Batman and Robin, which I think will never ever be watched by another human being from here on out.)

Now onto the bad: Katie Holmes. I know we should be able to detach her as an actress and her in her normal life, but given the recent "news" about her and Tom Cruise(TomKat anyone?) it's hard to not be pissed off by her presence in this movie. But that could have been easily forgiven if she was good, but unfortunately she isn't. Granted, she has to deliver most of the moralistic speeches that must be difficult to have to spit out due to their nature. But she is a woman that has no sympathy at all for Bruce Wayne until she finds out he is Batman.(sorry for that other spoiler, but it's pretty obvious that she's going to figure it out) And she is just so goddamn goofy looking throughout most of the movie-half of her face seems to be normal, and the other half just seems to sag to one side. It's very strange. But she does wear a white satin shirt on a cold day at the end of the movie. You know right where that's headed.

My other complaint was in the action. It was generally very good, but a lot of the one on one fights used such quick close up cuts that it was difficult to figure out just what was going on sometimes. When he fights the prisoners at the beginning of the film, I didn't even realize he was kicking ass, I thought it looked pretty even. Now I don't know if that's just the IMAX doing that, but it was very distracting. Luckily it fixes that in spots, and once he becomes Batman, it becomes a little easier to tell who is doing what because he is the guy in the costume.

Luckily the weaker elements of the film are never terribly distracting and we are left with a great Batman which has lots of promise for the future franchise(I wonder who they were dropping hints about at the end there?) Let's hope that Christopher Nolan decides to stay with this franchise because he brings great visual style, and a great ear for dialogue to a series that was in dire need of both. Let us now leave the Joel Schumacher Batman's behind us and lok ahead to the Christopher Nolan Batman.

Rating: 9.1/10 (This was a great film, but there is still room to improve to make these even better, and if anyone can do it, it is Christopher Nolan)

Rilo Kiley Live(6/18)

I just walked in the door after my drive home from the city. I figured, the show is still fresh in my mind, so let's write up a little something about it. First of all, I was a bit weary to go to a show by myself, after all, I'm used to having at least one other person to talk to throughout the course of a show. And second of all, well, I guess there is no second of all. Seeing the show by myself was my only real concern. But that didn't turn out to be too bad because I just secured myself a seat up top and kicked back until the show started. Some drunk lawyer started talking to me at one point between acts and he wasn't interesing at all. He was going into great detail about San Francisco's water supply. I stopped paying attention pretty fast. But now, onto the concert itself.

The first opener, The Brunettes, were actually very good. They had tons of hand clapping, and snapping, and all kinds of percussion equipment. I can't remember a single song they did, except the first one, where they spelled baby, but they were overall quite good. I usually expect openers to be shitty, so the fact that they weren't was good news.

The second opener, Feist(sp?) was not as good. Now, she had a great voice, and it takes a lot of talent to play all by yourself, but it was just kind of boring. Maybe if she had a whole band it would have been better, but as it was, I just wanted her to stop playing so Rilo Kiley would come out.

And come out they did. As soon as they walked out, they owned that stage. They opened with It's a Hit and that's not my favorite song of theirs, but they did a good job with it. The trumpet player from The Brunettes did a fantastic job on his part, and all the parts he did throughout the evening. Now from here on out, I'm going to lose track of the order of songs, so deal with it. They played Portion for Foxes, which is also not one of my favorite songs. Sure, it's damn catchy, but I feel they have much better songs. But they killed this song. It was fantastic how much energy they put into it and pretty much the entire show. The Execution of All Things was a show highlight for me, as that is one of my favorite songs of theirs. It was great singing along to that one and watching Jenny play the bass as well, it was all very cool. They also did a great job on So Long, which live is very neat because it brings out Jenny's background vocals and turns it into more of a duet. Now I was hoping for Science vs. Romance and Pictures of Success, but tonight I had to make due with only PoS. They did an amazing job with that too. Other songs were played, and they were all played well. I really enjoyed the final number with everyone out on stage singing and banging some kind of piece of percussion.

My final impression of the show was just one of complete bliss. Rilo Kiley is such a solid band and they put so much energy into their roughly 90 minute set. Jenny is a beautiful woman with such great stage presence, and it'll be interesting to see her hit the road for her solo stuff. The whole band in general plays very well together and you can tell they are having fun. I would see them again in a heartbeat(and since they are opening for Coldplay, I'll probably go to that).
Edit: Turns out they are only opening for them for their Midwest and East Coast dates, not the West Coast. Oh well-what are you gonna do?

Bottom Line: Rilo Kiley live gets an A+ from me. Go see them. You won't regret it.

Album of the Week (6/13)

The White Stripes, Get Behind Me Satan

The White Stripes have decided to bless us with a new album. After my first listen to Elephant, my immediate reaction was, damn-I can't wait for them to come out with new material. And now that new material is upon us. Now before I get into the actual review, let me give you a little Matt Lemos/White Stripes history lesson.

The White Stripes are a band I got into by complete accident. White Blood Cells was on sale at Virgin Megastore in SF for 10 bucks, and I had heard good things about them, so I picked it up. I've been a fan ever since. Every album of theirs is completely different from the one before it, yet you can tell they are all coming from the same band, but a band that is actually growing and not just trying to copy their past successes. Fell in Love With a Girl is probably their biggest hit, but it's the only song that really sounds like that song. Where other bands would try and copy what made that song succesful(see Coldplay, and Beck, unfortunately)the White Stripes build off of it and move in new directions. Hypnotize on Elephant is probably the closest song to FILWAG, but is still completely seperate from that. The White Stripes are constantly trying to outdo themselves and make each new album of theirs truly unique. Which brings us to Get Behind me Satan.

Upon my first listen to this album, I was mildly disappointed. Granted, I was doing dishes and cooking dinner, so I wasn't really paying attention to it, but still, it didn't jump out and grab me by the throat immediately like their other albums had. But upon listening to it a few more times, I realized I was listening to another great Stripes album. Blue Orchid is a good opener, but it isn't as strong an opener as Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground, or even Seven Nation Army. Both of these songs did a great job at establishing the mood, and the musical style of each of these albums, but Blue Orchid doesn't even hint at the styles that the Stripes play around with on Satan.

Get Behind Me Satan is easily their most musically diverse album to date, ranging in styles from blues, to folk, to just straight rock and roll. To me, My Doorbell is the highlight of the album. There's something about Jack White kicking into the first verse that puts a huge smile on my face. Red Rain, the hardest rocking song on the album, has such a great guitar riff that it will get stuck in your head and never leave.

Unfortunately, this album is not without its faults. Cold, Cold Night on Elephant was a great song for Meg White to sing, and she did a passable job on it. In concert, she was sexy as hell singing it and that really added to the track for me. But Passive Manipulation just doesn't have that spark to it. It's entirely too short for anything noteworthy to happen, and it just seems out of place on this album. Little Ghost, which is most reminiscent of Jack's work on the Cold Mountain soundtrack, is also a weak effort. While it is still a good song, it just doesn't feel like a White Stripes song.

Overall, this is a solid addition to the White Stripes albums. And just like after listening to Elephant, after hearing this, I cannot wait to hear what they do next.

I Hate Rolling Stone Magazine

A few years ago, when I rented a little apartment by myself, I got lonely. It wasn't so much in a social sense, I had my friends around, it was more in a mail sense. See, when you live alone and aren't very popular, the only mail you get is junk mail and the occasional bill. I had to do something to remedy this situation, and the only way to do that was to subscribe to a magazine. Playboy was out because I didn't want to be one of the single guys, who live in an apartment by himself and reads nothing but Playboy magazine. Plus, it only comes once a month, and I wanted more than that. The magazine I turned to to fill my mail void was Rolling Stone magazine. It was 20 bucks for a 2 year subscription, so even if after a month I stopped caring about the magazine, I was only out 20 dollars. And it comes every 2 weeks, so I'd have something special in the mail pretty frequently. So even if no one else liked me, I knew the subscription department of Rolling Stone would never stop liking me(assuming I paid them the necessary money)

Now in the past, Rolling Stone magazine used to be relevant. When it first started, music was important as a vehicle for social change. John Lennon appeared on the very first cover of the magazine, and he was discussing the Vietnam War. It used to mean something when you appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone, it meant your band had acheieved a status beyond record sales, and popularity. It meant you were a good band who deserved national recognition. Now that cover spot is filled by any would be pop-star or over pretenious rock star. If I see Bono or Britney Spears on the cover again, I'm going to tear the cover right off! My point is, Rolling Stone, like so many things before it, has sold out and has forgotten that it used to stand for something. I don't think it will ever realize that and we are going to be doomed to see every worthless celebrity parade themselves out on the cover to try and show people how hip they really are.

But this is not why I hate the magazine. The cover is a nuisance, but it could be forgiven if the contents of the magazine were worthwhile. Unfortunately, the music reviewing group over at Rolling Stone have no idea how to review music of any kind and continually drive me crazy with their terrible reviews. The latest example comes from their review of the new White Stripes album, Get Behind Me Satan. Now the album is good, and they give it 4 and 1/2 stars, but after reading the review I felt like I had just lost all my brain cells. The last line of the review says something along of the lines of, "Satan, you just got served." Now it is my opinion that a music review should be timeless. Someone should be able to read in any time period and immediately understand what is being said. Now if the album itself is not timeless, and just a boring, crappy album, then that is no the fault of the reviewer. But when you actually use shitty slang to review an album that has no connection to being served at all, then it is sloppy, lazy writing and it makes me hate your magazine and never want to read it again.

There are a lot of things I can forgive Rolling Stone for. I can forgive them that half of their magazine is US weekly tabloid bullshit, I can forgive them that they devote articles to shitty popstars because that is what people like. But I cannot forgive them for their sub-par review department. They have changed reviews in the past(dropping albums that they gave 5 stars to in print, down to 4 and 1/2 stars or lower in their music guide[examples of this are White Stripes-Elephant, Beck-Sea Change, Beastie Boys-To the 5 Buroughs]). If they can't stand by their original review, then they have no business publishing that review.
This is something that I've wanted to get off of my chest for some time now, and unless you've been around me when I'm drunk, this is all new to you. I hate Rolling Stone magazine and I vow to never again purchase another issue of their magazine for as long as I live. Now, who's with me?