Month: December 2007

Categories
Art Art Feature

Taking Stock

From rockabilly and Philip Glass to diamond mines in Africa, this year’s exhibitions ran the gamut of culture, art, and current events, and some of the most evocative artworks were created by already accomplished artists moving in new directions.

For “Perspectives,” the Brooks Museum’s juried exhibition this summer of regional artists, abstract painter Bo Rodda filled an entire wall with a computer-generated world, one with laws of physics different from our own. There were no horizon lines, no solid ground in this alternate universe. Instead, swerving lines, printed on metallic paper in endless shades of gray, read like infinitely complex galvanized interstates careening simultaneously toward and away from the viewer.

Warren Greene, an artist best known for saturate pigments oozing down large canvases, also went beyond color and form to infinite shades of gray in three of his strongest works in “Paleoscapes” at Perry Nicole Fine Art in December. Like a Phillip Glass symphony, the subtle rapid shifts in tone in “Searching for P. Glass” generated unexpected images as what looked like trails of electrons, interference patterns, jet streams, ectoplasm, and snippets of dreams slid our point of view across surfaces sanded as smooth as glass.

David Comstock’s exhibition “Flow” took black-and-white abstractions to new levels of raw power at L Ross Gallery in March. Rods pierced egg-like shapes on frayed and torn canvases in what looked like moments of procreation and checkmate in the well-worn board game of life.

Jonathan Postal’s Waitress, Roadside, TX

Also in March, in an otherwise empty David Lusk Gallery, Terri Jones drew delicate, nearly invisible lines on the wall and on large sheets of vellum that were bathed in the sunlight pouring through plate-glass windows. Those of us who stayed awhile in Jones’ spare luminous space experienced something akin to Buddhism’s Sky Mind.

Bob Riseling’s “Halcyon Days” premiered Memphis College of Art’s new gallery On the Street in November. Pale colors, deep shadows, and haunting monolithic shapes paid homage to the dead trees standing sentinel on Horn Island’s post-Katrina beaches, an ancient hulk of a barge stranded on one of its sandbars, and countless pieces of driftwood washed up on its shores.

Highlights of the year also included Hamlet Dobbins’ luminous textural abstractions at David Lusk in October and John McIntire’s summer show at Perry Nicole that transformed smooth, cool stone into sexual icons, fertility fetishes, and sacrificial gods. And at L Ross Gallery in November, in some of the best works of his career, Anton Weiss scattered scratched and gouged scraps of metal across large earth-toned paintings accented with thalo blue, scarlet, and cadmium yellow.

Last year’s most riveting works of art confronted brutality and oppression. Memphis College of Art’s March exhibition, “Reasons To Riot,” included Zoe Charlton’s searing mixed-media drawing Destiny, in which a man leaned back on his haunches. His face and upper body were whited-out, and the prow of a 17th-century slave ship was strapped around his waist like a dildo. Humanity’s unexpressed (repressed, denied, watered-down) passions were crammed into his phallus, which was as pointed as this artist’s insights, as unadorned as truth, as double-edged as our species’ capacity for cruelty and joy.

A work from David Comstock’s exhibition at L. Ross, ‘Flow’

In early fall, Clough-Hanson Gallery showcased 15 works from Eliot Perry’s collection of contemporary works by African artists, many of them internationally acclaimed. Among them was Wangechi Mutu’s sinuous, cinematic, horrific collage Buck Nose. The images depicted an antelope shot with a high-powered rifle, blood exploding around its head and horns and entrails coiling around a starving girl curled in a fetal position. Most chillingly there’s a manicured hand caressing a gemstone, reminding us that in today’s global market, African diamonds are prized, but life is still cheap.  

In “Two Years,” Jay Etkin Gallery’s December show, we saw Sandra Deacon Robinson’s paintings evolve from Klimt-like mosaics of glittering gemstones to abstractions of Louisiana wetlands. At the top of one of her most beautiful works, the 40-by-60-inch painting Protected, wisps of ochre almost brushed our foreheads, delicate tangles of lines at the bottom reached toward our torsos and legs, and muted golden light at top right suggested we were at the edge of a moist, dark cocoon with a clearing just ahead.

Also at Jay Etkin in December was photographer Jonathan Postal’s “On the Road.” In one of the show’s most disarming images, Waitress, Roadside, TX, a woman with jet-black hair dressed in a white apron and light-pink uniform stands at the side of a thoroughfare. Whether she waits tables in an upscale diner with a retro theme or is working in a smalltown café that looks pretty much like it did when it opened in the Fifties, this woman looks comfortable in her own skin. With a wry, sensual smile she leans back and sizes up Postal (and any gallery viewer who dared to look her in the face).

Postal is best-known for his black-and-white photographs of people living at the edge. While his images of burlesque queens scowling after a swig of hard liquor and wrestling fans howling for blood are fever-pitched and powerful, this body of work’s wide-open spaces and wry waitress boded well for a country at moral and political crossroads in need of citizens, whatever their lifestyles, who can step back and see things clearly.

Categories
Music Record Reviews

In the Mix

Twelves months, thousands of records, five critics. Here’s what our 2007 sounded like:

Chris Herrington:

1. Super Taranta! — Gogol Bordello (Side One Dummy): Hedonistic utopian Eugene Hutz opens Super Taranta! on a leap of faith: “There were never any good old days. They are today. They are tomorrow. It’s a stupid thing we say, cursing tomorrow with sorrow,” the Gogol Bordello frontman spits on “Ultimate,” kicking our collective sense of dread square in the teeth. From there Hutz and his Brooklyn-based “gypsy punk” ensemble embark on an epic journey to re-imagine rock-and-roll via a crosscurrent of Eastern European melodies riding on violin and accordion riffs and to reposition America as the pluralistic, multicultural society it is. How appropriate in this election year that the best rock band in America is a group of immigrants who mock assimilation and taunt our (or anyone else’s) patriotism. How glorious it is that they do so with raucous wit, rootsy party music, and such a magnanimous spirit.
2. Kala —

M.I.A. (XL): Sri Lankan-born world citizen M.I.A. mashes up Western pop (Modern Lovers, Pixies, Duran Duran) with Third World rhythms on this follow-up to her ecstatic debut Arular. Where the earlier record was an intensely pleasurable, beatwise brass-ring grab, Kala is a more rattled, woozy sonic miasma. Fantasizing about a Third World stick-up of First World wealth as she demands (or does she?) that soulja boys the world over toss away their guns; losing her mind in the midst of putting “people on the map who never seen a map”; falling in love on a Darfur tour, rapping joyfully with Aborigine kids: No album this year took in more of the world or did so with such a playful, disorienting rush of ideas.

3. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend — Miranda Lambert (Columbia): A big fan of Miranda Lambert’s 2005 debut, I was initially underwhelmed by its follow-up because the songwriting seemed more formulaic, less personal — a common second-album pitfall. But repeated listens revealed what a formal triumph Crazy Ex-Girlfriend‘s early, spitfire singles are and, more crucially, how much better, more seemingly modest stuff is hidden later. The clinchers are late-album sureshots “Guilty in Here” and “More Like Her” — both piercingly ambivalent about the emotional downside of walking on the wild side.

4. New Wave — Against Me! (Warner): On their major-label debut, this Florida punk band sells out the way Nirvana and Sonic Youth did: with music that’s bigger, bolder, and better than what they made before. This is strident political rock that turns stridency into a good joke (“White People For Peace” — har, har). The band articulates its dissatisfaction, which is achievement enough (indie rock: take note), but never lets righteous, reasonable anger crowd out the empathy, humor, and fierce self-doubt that make their shout-along anthems special.

5. The Real Thing: Words and Music, Vol. 3 — Jill Scott (Hidden Beach): Jill Scott is the reigning poet laureate of neo-soul, a strong, precise lyricist in a genre without many. At its very best, The Real Thing is a sex album simultaneously as clinically carnal as Dirty Mind-era Prince and as warm and mature as Sign ‘O the Times-era Prince. Praising her lover for doing her “as if this year’s harvest depended on it,” Scott’s career peak is funny, weird, and erotic all at once. And she purrs, scats, sighs, and shouts the hell out of it.

6. Neon Bible — Arcade Fire (Merge): I never quite connected with the drama on Arcade Fire’s beloved in some quarters 2004 debut, Funeral, but on Neon Bible this Canadian band of ex-pat Americans take their previously private agonies and anxieties public by naming what they fear: “holy war,” inherited debt, salesmen at the door, a rising tide that could drown us all. Musically, this sweeping, mournful lament is more stirring than engaging, in a manner that I’ve rejected in bigger bands such as U2 or Radiohead. But this music is more intimate, more ragged, more organic. I think the range of voices — male and female — helps considerably. I’ve also decided that, rather than an indie-rock U2, they’re more a middle-class Mekons. Clincher: “The Well and the Lighthouse,” a subtle parable about cultural (read: indie-rock) isolation in which the band chooses the lighthouse and the responsibility that comes with it.

7. Sound of Silver — LCD Soundsystem (DFA/Capitol): The snarky glee of James Murphy’s great early LCD Soundsystem singles (“Beat Connection,” “Losing My Edge”) here blooms into dance-rock as melancholy and beautiful as the best of New Order. No album in 2007 peaked higher than Sound of Silver does with the middle-section trifecta of “North American Scum,” “Someone Great,” and “All My Friends,” the last a song-of-the-year frontrunner that feels universal even as it evokes a club/rave culture I know little of.

8. Alright, Still … — Lily Allen (Capitol): This 2006 British debut got an official stateside release back in January, introducing a grounded, sassy songwriter whose persona is around-the-way-girl (London edition) and who takes a cheerfully dyspeptic tone while negotiating a life plagued by bad credit and worse boyfriends.

9. Turn Out the Lights — The Ponys (Matador): The most purely pleasurable guitar-rock album I heard this year: The dense, echoey sound-over-sense world these Chicago garage-rock grads create on Turn Out the Lights is one of clipped, shivery guitar interplay dancing woozily over a rhythm section that takes Motown on a farewell tour of CBGBs.

10. More Fish and The Big Doe Rehab — Ghostface Killah (Def Jam): The late-2006 leftovers collection More Fish and the late-2007 proper album The Big Doe Rehab fall well short of this Wu-Tang master’s ’06 hip-hop insta-classic, Fishscale. But, in a bad year for hip-hop, nobody made more crucial music than can be found on these combined efforts — deep-soul ghetto and/or crime stories (not the same thing) that are vulgar, funny, and vivid, with an underlying moral gravity.

Honorable Mentions: The Voice of Lightness — Tabu Ley Rochereau (Stern’s Africa); Icky Thump — The White Stripes (Warner); Under the Blacklight — Rilo Kiley (Warner); Graduation — Kanye West (Roc-a-Fella); The Hair, the TV, the Baby, and the Band — Imperial Teen (Merge); La Radiolina — Manu Chao (Nacional/Because); Back to Black — Amy Winehouse (Universal/Republic); Let’s Stay Friends — Les Savy Fav (Frenchkiss); Sirens of the Ditch — Jason Isbell (New West); It’s a Bit Complicated — Art Brut (Downtown).

Singles: “All My Friends” — LCD Soundsystem; “Umbrella” — Rihanna featuring Jay-Z; “Beautiful Girls” — Sean Kingston; “The Good Life” — Kanye West featuring T-Pain; “Valerie” — Mark Ronson featuring Amy Winehouse; “Rehab” — Amy Winehouse; “What a Job” — Devin the Dude featuring Snoop Dogg and Andre 3000; “Ticks” — Brad Paisley; “Lip Gloss” — Lil Mama; “Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin’)” — T-Pain featuring Yung Joc.

Stephen Deusner:

1. Boxer — The National (Beggars): The blog-rock album of the year, which doesn’t ensure it’s the album of the year. In this case, however, Boxer‘s dark tales of white-collar anonymity, delivered in Matt Berninger’s skewed imagery and resonant baritone, make it immensely relevant as well as endlessly rewarding.

2. The Stage Names — Okkervil River (Jagjaguwar): Roughing up their sound, Okkervil River from Austin continue to prove themselves the darkest portrayers of band life. The moment that closer “John Allyn Smith Sails” turns into a sinister cover of “Sloop John B” is the year’s best plot twist.

3. Ears Will Pop and Eyes Will Blink — Bodies of Water (Thousand Eyes): These four Christian indie kids come across like a ’60s L.A. hippie cult and make music that imagines the Arcade Fire starring in Jesus Christ Superstar, but their curiosity about the nature of God is not an end in itself. Instead, faith is a springboard for the most musically and lyrically ambitious debut of the year.

4. Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? — Of Montreal (Polyvinyl): Kevin Barnes recorded one half of Hissing Fauna in Norway, where his wife was giving birth to their daughter, and the other half in Athens, Georgia, where the rest of his problems lived. Setting his songs in the real world — a first for him — didn’t diminish the playfulness of the band’s music but only ratcheted up the urgency of his Prince-meets-Beatles hooks.

5. Night Falls Over Kortedala — Jens Lekman (Secretly Canadian): The Swedish crooner Jens Lekman finally lives up to the promise of his exceptional early EPs with an album that is both hilarious and devastating.

Honorable mentions: Kala — M.I.A. (XL); Sound of Silver — LCD Soundsystem (DFA/Capitol); Mirrored — Battles (Warp); For Emma, Forever Ago — Bon Iver (self-released); Let’s Stay Friends — Les Savy Fav (Frenchkiss).

Andrew Earles:

1. Turn Out the Lights — The Ponys (Matador): The different elements that made previous albums from this Chicago band occasionally great made this album consistently great. Much to their original audience’s chagrin but to my liking, the early garage-rock roots have been totally shed in favor of a consistently catchy hybrid of early Dinosaur Jr., Rough Trade post-punk circa 1980, Disintegration-era Cure, and the Television influence the Ponys have always held close to the chest. They’re also really nice, unpretentious folks, exemplified when they recently played Memphis with …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead. They were the band that didn’t spend pre-performance time holed up in an unnecessarily huge tour bus.

2. Saw a Halo — Mouthus (Load): Often incorrectly classified as a noise band, this Brooklyn duo operates far outside the boundaries of that style. The album-opening “Your Far Church” might be the most haunting song I’ve heard in years, putting to shame compositions by Joanna Newsom, Devendra Banhardt, or any flag-bearer of the awfully named “freak folk” genre.

3. Beyond the Permafrost — Skeletonwitch (Prosthetic/Red): It’s easy for me to get behind a band like Skeletonwitch, which effortlessly cherry-picks the best aspects from 30 years of real metal, starting with Thin Lizzy and going all the way to contemporary black-metal moves. Mastodon sort of managed this trick as well, but the likelihood is slim that the Atlanta band will put out another great album, and this will do just nicely for now.

4. The Flying Nun 25th Anniversary Box Set — Various Artists (Flying Nun): At last, what may be the final word in indie-rock history lessons and all of it courtesy of a country the size of California. Over most of the 1980s and into the early ’90s, New Zealand’s Flying Nun label diligently released the world’s best underground art-pop music in the form of the Chills, the Clean, the Bats, the Verlaines, Straightjacket Fits, the Tall Dwarfs, and many, many others. If you regard the Arcade Fire as groundbreaking, prepare to get floored.

5. The Brit Box — Various Artists (Rhino): Less a history lesson than a highly entertaining collection for the car, The Brit Box provides a thorough introduction to Britain’s ’80s and ’90s contribution to indie and alternative rock forms, covering indie pop, its noisier shoe-gazing cousin, and the eventual worldwide takeover propagated by Brit Pop.

Werner Trieschmann:

1. Under the Blacklight — Rilo Kiley (Warner Bros.): That most fans of this brainy former indie band revolted against this glorious, glittery, and audacious album is probably the best argument for it. But there are others. Such as: Lead singer Jenny Lewis has the best voice in rock. Or that “Dreamworld,” the lone instance where Lewis isn’t on lead, is the greatest Fleetwood Mac song since “Hold On.” Or that this album springs not from the head but from the hips, where all great rock comes from.

2. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend — Miranda Lambert (Columbia): It opens with a shotgun blast at an abusive male and ends with “Easy From Now On,” an unsettled hope for domestic bliss. In between, Miranda Lambert goes twangy and traditional (“Dry Town”) and modern-rock edgy (“Gettin’ Ready”). Every song hits a different pleasure center, with maybe the ballads (“More Like Her” and “Guilty in Here”) being the most surprising for being so naked and raw.

3. Because of the Times — Kings of Leon (RCA): The third album for this band of three brothers and a cousin benefits from ambition and discipline. The songs are longer than on the Kings’ first two albums, and the hooks that were in short supply before are plentiful here. Opening with the mesmerizing seven-minute “Knocked Up,” Because of the Times never lets up from there.

4. Release It to the Sky — Jim Mize (Fat Possum): Jim Mize works as an insurance adjuster out of Conway, Arkansas, which might in part explain why this Fat Possum release was, for all intents and purposes, dumped on the market. Writing his own blues-tinged songs and belting them out with the force of a hurricane, Mize will probably remind you of vintage Bruce Springsteen. Certainly this album has the reach of the Boss at his best.

5. White Chalk — PJ Harvey (Island): The power of PJ Harvey’s bleak and odd little album isn’t apparent on first or even fifth listen. Since she sings in a high warble accompanied by her own rudimentary piano playing (she learned the instrument for this record and it shows), there are many who’ll find White Chalk maddening — not to mention depressing. But it is all of a piece and it is haunting.

Honorable Mentions: Spring Awakening soundtrack — Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater (Drifter’s Church); Traffic and Weather — Fountains of Wayne (Virgin); 5th Gear — Brad Paisley (Arista); A Place To Land — Little Big Town (Equity); Neon Bible —Arcade Fire (Merge).

David Dunlap Jr.:

1. Wagonmaster — Porter Wagoner (Anti-): It wasn’t just the last recording made by a country legend. It also marked the end of an era in country music. I had the pleasure of seeing Porter Wagoner perform this past May at the Grand Ole Opry, and his incredible performance was exemplary of his entire career — a goofy, cornpone persona that often betrayed a deeper, disturbed melancholia. There was a slightly uncomfortable moment when Wagoner forgot Opry announcer Eddie Stubbs’ name, but then he quickly righted himself and tore into a couple of infidelity classics.

2. Comicopera — Robert Wyatt (Domino): Full disclosure: I had a stake in Robert Wyatt’s Comicopera being a great record. A month prior to its release, I had named my second-born after him. When you gamble with the repercussions of naming your child after a Communist paralytic prog-rocker who sings like a porpoise, you can only hope that the honoree’s subsequent output will dispel any feelings of regret by virtue of its genius. Thankfully, Comicopera is, like the man behind it, warm, cynical, and brilliant. 

3. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend — Miranda Lambert (Columbia): Nashville Star may not be a better program than American Idol, but it has definitely yielded the most legitimate music star of either program. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is undeniably a product of the new Nashville, but Miranda Lambert’s powerful delivery and insightful lyrics are evidence that there’s a real live human beneath the layers of Music Row gloss. “Gunpowder and Lead” easily bests the Dixie Chicks’ “Goodbye Earl” as a country music domestic-abuse revenge fantasy.

4. The Western Lands — Gravenhurst (Warp): This Bristol-based outfit has, on its third full-length, perfected a distinctly British hybrid sound that blends pastoral folk with shoe-gazer rock. Band leader Nick Talbot moved to Bristol because the blissful haze of Flying Saucer Attack inspired him, and his band is carrying on FSA’s shimmering sonic legacy. 

5. Double Up — R. Kelly (Jive): Without getting into the apocalyptic maelstrom of nonsense that perpetually follows in Kel’s wake, Double Up probably entertained me more than any other release this year. You could write a thesis on the harrowing relationship complexities of “Real Talk,” and yet the song is hilarious enough to warrant a spot on Dr. Demento’s playlist. 

Honorable Mentions: 5th Gear — Brad Paisley (Arista Nashville); Person Pitch — Panda Bear (Paw Tracks); Werewolves and Lollipops — Patton Oswalt (Sub Pop); Ire Works — Dillinger Escape Plan (Relapse); The Art of Field Recording (Dust-to-Digital). 

Categories
Opinion

Best, Worst Ideas of 2007

I don’t think it’s a good idea for anyone to serve five straight terms as mayor, but 42 percent of the people who voted in October thought otherwise. Underestimating Mayor Willie Herenton’s political base was not a good idea, and neither was relying on polls to tell you to run against him in a three-way.

It was a good idea for seven City Council incumbents to decide not to run again. (Rickey Peete and Edmund Ford had little choice.) Fresh horses and all that, plus the next four years won’t be any picnic if Memphis slides into a recession.

Going to trial against federal prosecutors in public corruption cases was not a good idea. They’re unbeaten. John Ford put up a good fight, but the tapes were devastating and a jury convicted him on one count to get him a 66-month prison sentence, slightly more than the 63 months given to Roscoe Dixon, who also went to trial.

Cooperating with federal prosecutors was a good idea. Second-offender Rickey Peete got 51 months, and Michael Hooks, who held three elected positions in his career, is serving 26 months. Darrell Catron, who kicked off Tennessee Waltz, got probation plus a new house and spending money without, so far, even having to testify in a trial. Ralph Lunati pleaded guilty and got 18 months for running what investigators called the wildest and most wide-open, drug-infested strip clubs in the country.

Building a team for the future was not a good idea. The Grizzlies will be eliminated from playoff contention about the time March Madness begins.

Building a team for the present was a good idea. You can complain about college basketball stars leaving school early for the pros or you can accept the fact and go get them, as Coach John Calipari has done. No one has done a better job than Calipari of making the best of a bad situation — competition, Beale Street clubs, a weak Conference USA schedule, early departures, a resurgent University of Tennessee. Memphis against UT will be the hottest ticket of 2008.

Hanging around until the shit hits the fan was not a good idea. Joseph Lee, a nice guy who got terrible press, would be in a lot less trouble today if he had not stayed so long at MLGW or had never gone over there from City Hall in the first place.

Resigning before the shit hits the fan was a good idea. Andy Dolich, a nice guy who got great press, couldn’t sell out FedExForum for the Grizzlies. Two weeks later, he landed on his feet as chief operating officer for the San Francisco 49ers. And has anyone seen Jerry West or remember why he was the toast of the town? And why didn’t Carol Johnson tell us any of this stuff was going on at the Memphis City Schools before she left for Boston to be superintendent?

More fun downtown, in the form of roller coasters at The Pyramid, is not a good idea. Look at it this way: Nashville has state government and office buildings and corporate headquarters of insurance companies and telecoms, Knoxville has the University of Tennessee, Little Rock has the Capitol and the Clinton library, and the front door of Memphis might be an amusement park in an abandoned landmark?

Less fun and more work downtown is a good idea. If Mud Island is going to be closed more than half the year, then why not let a private developer have a go at it? Closing streets and turning St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and ALSAC into a true campus was another good idea. So was signing a deal to bring the University of Memphis law school downtown to the old Customs House and post office on Front Street.

Monetizing content by selling sponsorships for stories in The Commercial Appeal was not a good idea, unless you’re in the public relations business.

But monetizing content somehow in the Internet age is a good idea, unless you think reporters and editors should work for nothing. And so was the CA‘s decision to admit a mistake and back off before any more damage was done.

Building a new football stadium at the Fairgrounds was a bad idea. The problem is the teams on the field, Conference USA, and the stadium’s shabby surroundings.

Flat screens, high def, and the new no-smoking regs in bars were good ideas. The best seat in the house is at a sports bar or on your couch.

Categories
Cover Feature News

Making Room for 2008

Next year is going to be a great year. It has to be, because 2007 was disappointing at best. Sure, some good things happened. But somehow the resignation of Alberto Gonzales, a very brief Police reunion tour, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows really can’t get rid of the Virginia Tech shootings, the never-ending war in Iraq, and Barry Bonds’ continuing major-league career. Even locally, 2007 delivered a fractious mayoral election, and The Pyramid is still waiting for someone to pay its rent.

So, what exactly is it that’s going to make ’08 so great? For starters, it’s a leap year, which is always fun; Indiana Jones should be returning to theaters in May; and the first new president in eight years will be elected in November. And the Olympics are in August. Come on. It’s never a bad year when they hold the Olympics.

However, to make room for the utopian dreams of 2008, you need to cleanse your minds of the impurities of this one. December 31st is right around the corner, and no doubt many of you have begun considering how you’ll spend New Year’s evening. Well, we at the Flyer have prepared a list of party destinations. But what’s more, we also have included some of those 2007 memories that we hope an evening of “holiday cheer,” a few Advil, and an afternoon of football on January 1st will wipe from your memory permanently. Cheers!

Obnoxious 2007 Memory: Cable News Coverage of Anna Nicole Smith’s Death

Purge: New Year’s Eve Spectacular with Kallen Esperian at GPAC

The late Anna Nicole Smith loved attention. But even she would have been outraged by the weeks of nonstop cable drivel on her untimely death. So, as a remedy for the most obnoxious news coverage of the year, we recommend a drive to the Germantown Performing Arts Centre, where Kallen Esperian, along with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, will ring in the New Year with music that will shove even the most relentless talking head out of your head.

Tickets are $75 plus handling. Call the GPAC box office, 751-7500, for more info.

Troubling 2007 Memory: The U.S. Economy

Purge: Tunica

The dollar has seen better days. Dropping consistently against the euro, competing in the booming Asian markets, and suffering from a troubled housing market and high oil prices at home, the greenback has taken quite a beating this year. What better way to both celebrate the New Year and reinvest in the economy than an evening down at “the Boats”?

Hollywood Casino has a great New Year’s Eve lineup. Buy the two-night hotel package for $299, dine on a four-course meal at Fairbank’s Steakhouse for $125, then join Andy Childs in the Safari Lounge for live music, champagne, and a countdown and balloon drop at midnight. Roll out of bed before 2 p.m. and order a mimosa with brunch at the Epic Buffet.

For Hollywood hotel and dinner reservations and information, call (800) 871-0711.

Sam’s Town also is offering its New Year’s revelers a big time. Eat all day on New Year’s Eve at the Great Buffet or sit down for dinner at Twain’s Steakhouse or Smoky Joe’s Café. Join Pat Sullivan & One Night Stand in the Atrium or catch the country beat of Mickey Utley & J Jam Inc. at Roxy’s Live. There’s a champagne toast and balloon drop at midnight, and guests can eat breakfast at the crack of dawn or brunch until 3 p.m.

For Sam’s Town hotel and dinner reservations and information, call (800) 946-0711.

Aggravating 2007 Memory: Hannah Montana and High School Musical

Purge: Take the kids to the Children’s Museum or the Memphis Zoo Snooze.

Let’s be honest: We’re glad they keep the kids happy, but these two pre-teen hits are as vapid as they come. So get involved with the kids at the Children’s Museum in the afternoon or have an evening away from it all at the Memphis Zoo.

The Children’s Museum of Memphis is celebrating 2008 with an afternoon of noisemakers, karaoke, and a parade to “Times Square” for a bedtime-friendly countdown to the New Year at noon.

Kallen Esperian

Cost is free with museum admission. For more info, call 320-3170.

On December 31st, the Memphis Zoo is opening its gates after hours to families, church groups, scout troops, and other organizations for an evening of nocturnal adventure. The Zoo Snooze offers 6- to 12-year-olds a night safari, games and learning activities, and a warm, indoor sleeping space to “camp out” at night. Security will be around the clock, and in the morning after a continental breakfast, snoozers are free to tour the zoo.

Cost is $50 per member child, $60 for nonmember children. For more info and to register, call 333-6572.

Ridiculous 2007 Memory: O.J Simpson’s Armed “Memorabilia” Robbery

Purge: Downtown Hotel Galas

As if we wanted to hear anymore from O.J Simpson, in September, the former Heisman Trophy winner and three other men, all armed, burst into a Las Vegas hotel room to “reclaim” sports memorabilia from Simpson’s tarnished football career. “O.J,” one witness reported thinking at the time, “how could you be so stupid?” So, head down to the Madison Hotel or The Peabody for New Year’s Eve parties and celebrate the freedom that comes with being a law-abiding citizen.

The Peabody New Year’s Eve party has become one of the best attended in the city. Start the evening off with dinner packages from Chez Philippe or the Capriccio Grill and then join an estimated 4,000 partygoers in the hotel’s lobby, dancing 2007 into the history books to the sounds of Cowboy Mouth, Lord T & Eloise, and DJ Party Train. Tickets are $45 in advance and $50 at the door.

Amy LaVere

Dinner is by reservation only. For Chez Philippe, call 529-4188; for Capriccio Grill, call 529-4199.

At the 83 Lounge inside the Madison Hotel, guests can spend the evening at the carved-ice martini bar and for $83 dine on gourmet hors d’oeuvres, regaled by the music of the critically acclaimed Amy LaVere. The hotel also offers dinner at Grill 83 for $80, not including tax and gratuity, and hotel rooms starting at $440.

For the Madison Hotel, dinner reservations, and info, call 333-1200.

Unsurprising 2007 Memory: The U.S. Movie Box Office

Purge: Boscos Squared

This year in movies left many fans of the cinema disappointed. While some true diamonds shined, they shined in a very murky rough. A discussion of this year’s releases is, of course, replete with as many opinions as there are moviegoers. But for every dollar wasted and every hour lost, Boscos Squared — where many meet before meeting their movie fate at Malco’s Studio on the Square — will make up in a matter of minutes on New Year’s Eve. The microbrewery will have eight choices of award-winning beers on tap, a special menu, Lynn Cardona singing, and champagne at midnight. This will be the perfect place to forget that you saw Norbit.

For information, call Boscos Squared at 432-2222.

Lucero

Embarrassing 2007 Memory: President Bush’s “[Nelson] Mandela’s dead.”

Purge: Dinner Out on the Town

President Bush’s gaffes have come to be like knock-knock jokes, even when he is saying that the late Saddam Hussein has killed world leaders who are still alive. (Now would be a good time to reflect on two things about Bush’s quips: They are unscripted, and he has actually said them.) So, as 2008 rolls in, celebrate the guarantee of a new leader over dinner before painting the town red … or blue.

Esplanade’s New Year’s Eve gala will feature music by Almost Famous, a premium cash bar, hors d’oeuvres, and bubbly at midnight. $75 at the door. 901 Cordova Station, 753-3333

Make your way to the Majestic Grille on Main Street for dinner specials, live music all evening, and champagne at midnight. 145 S. Main, 522-8555

Circa’s New Year’s Eve celebration will offer an impressive meal and live jazz. $150 (includes wine). 119 S. Main, 522-1488

Encore will offer a four-course prix fixe menu for $65, which includes a midnight champagne toast, as well as their regular menu offerings. Jim Wenger and the Jim Spake Duo will provide live music. 150 Peabody Place, 528-1514

Pearl’s Oyster House will offer a prix fixe, four-course menu starting at $50 with free admission to the downstairs party featuring DJ Andy Boone and complimentary champagne at midnight. 292 S. Main, 522-9070

WTF? 2007 Memory: Britney Spears’ MTV Video Music Awards “Performance”

Purge: Memphis Rock-and-Roll

No need to mention the above performer at all other than to say that it’s about frickin’ time. Let the pop idols self-destruct. This New Year’s Eve head out into the town that invented rock-and-roll, find a cutie, and rock out. The shows go on all night all over town. Give “The Man” the finger one last time in 2007 (before you go buy that new iPod with the Christmas money your parents gave you).

Lucero tops the bill at the Young Avenue Deli New Year’s Eve bash. Pick from one of the best beer selections in the city and enjoy the sights. Glossary and Ghostfinger will open for the hometown alt-country rockers. Doors open at 9 p.m. Tickets are $15.

Murphy’s will make your ears bleed for one last time in 2007 with Mouserocket, Evil Army, and the Red Mollies. Doors open at 9 p.m. Cover is $10.

The Hi-Tone lets you rock out your New Year’s in the very building where Kang Rhee taught Elvis to kick. Jack O and the Tearjerkers headline with Moto and the Perfect Fits opening. Doors open at 9 p.m. The cover is $8.

Newby’s will get the Highland strip rowdy with On a Dead Machine, Stonecreek, and Perspective on the bill. The doors open at 9 p.m. Cover is $10.

FUBAR: Everything Else

Purge: Beale Street

From rampant wildfires, to invisible tanks, to the entire Bush administration, there is a plethora of noteworthy detritus that could make its way onto this list. And so for everything we’d rather forget about this year, there’s Beale Street. Whatever your poison, the Birthplace of the Blues is bound to provide it.

New Year’s Eve on Beale is huge. With every venue packed with partiers, live music at Handy Park, and unending food and drink specials, there will be enough noise, dim lighting, and eye candy to scrub every unwanted memory of 2007 from your brain.

So grab a Diver from Silky’s and find someone to smooch at midnight. But be careful: Don’t start 2008 with a bad memory you’ll carry around for the rest of the year.

Categories
News The Fly-By

The Cheat Sheet

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

Greg Cravens

In February, a Millington man has his wife arrested when she throws him the TV remote control a bit harder than expected. After he complains, they get into a tussle, and she dumps him out of bed. Police come and arrest the woman for assault. With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, we can think of the perfect gift for this woman: bail.

Greg Cravens

An ultrasound confirms in the spring that the Zoo’s panda Ya Ya is indeed about to become a Ma Ma. Pandas rarely give birth in captivity, so if all goes well, the cub would be one of about a dozen pandas ever born in the United States. Meanwhile, the proud papa should be handing out cigars. What? Artificial insemination? Oh. Well, maybe whoever used the syringe — or however the heck they do it (we really don’t want to know) can do the honors.

Greg Cravens

Agents with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency — in an undercover sting with the deadly accurate title of “Operation Striking Distance” — make arrests throughout the state in July and confiscate more than 100 poisonous reptiles. The catch includes vipers, copperheads, rattlesnakes, and even something called a monocled cobra, whose bite can kill an adult in less than 15 minutes. Look, with all the murders, shootings, and stabbings around here, we really don’t need snakes to make our city more dangerous.

Greg Cravens

Also in July, former state senator Kathryn Bowers, one of many nabbed in the Tennessee Waltz sting, pleads guilty to bribery to avoid a trial. With so many of our politicians heading to prison, perhaps we should take their mug shots when they are elected, just to save time.

Greg Cravens

During October, gunmen pick the wrong fellow to rob when they try to hold up a carpenter in Cordova. The victim was building a fence, and when the men told him to “Stick ’em up” he just followed their orders and picked up his pneumatically powered nail gun and starting firing. The men ran off, ducking nails the whole way, but were nabbed later. They were lucky he wasn’t using a chain saw.

Categories
News The Fly-By

The Last Word

In January, city councilman Edmund Ford declared 2007 the year of truth.

Now, we’re not saying it wasn’t a truthful year, but maybe — especially since Congressman Steve Cohen found himself on The Colbert Report — it was the year of what Colbert calls truthiness.

Rickey Peete, under an indictment of bribery, resigned again from the City Council. Ford, facing a similar indictment, decided to stay on the council until his term ended. When the election rolled around, Ford’s son ran and won his father’s former seat.

Below is a month-by-month guide to 2007. Or, in all truthiness, as close as we could get.

January

At his annual New Year’s Day Prayer breakfast, Mayor Willie Herenton proposes building a brand-new football stadium to replace the aging Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium. Meanwhile, the City Council commits $15 million to upgrade bathrooms and disabled access at the Liberty Bowl.

Memphis Zoo female panda Ya Ya gives Le Le the cold shoulder when he tries to impress her by doing handstands, apparently a panda mating ritual.

Memphis-based Stax Records turns 50 and celebrates the big day with a party not in Memphis but in New York City.

February

A national survey ranks Memphis number one in the amount of time we spend watching television.

City Council member Edmund Ford racks up a $16,000 utility bill, but his power stays on. Turns out he and other politicians, like E.C. Jones, Myron Lowery, and Jack Sammons, are on a special VIP list.

Memphis director Craig Brewer’s Black Snake Moan, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Christina Ricci, premieres. Brewer held off on its release to give people plenty of time to forget that other Samuel L. Jackson film with a serpent title: Snakes on a Plane.

March

Congressman Steve Cohen appears on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report. Host Steven Colbert asks Cohen if he’s the first Jew from Tennessee.

Church of God in Christ (COGIC) presiding bishop G.E. Patterson dies of heart failure on March 20th. Bishop Charles Blake of the West Angeles COGIC in Los Angeles is named presiding bishop at the annual convocation in November.

Twenty-five-year-old Anna Clifford makes national news after she appears in a mugshot with a 12-inch Mohawk. The attention started after her mugshot, the result of a DUI charge after leaving a Midtown bar, was posted on TheSmokingGun.com.

April

Dale Mardis is sentenced to 15 years in prison for the slaying of code-enforcement inspector Mickey Wright. Mardis admitted to killing Wright, then dismembering and burning the body. Wright’s family becomes outraged that Mardis only received a charge of second-degree murder.

Thieves steal more than $11,000 worth of brass valves from the Sears Crosstown building’s plumbing and fire-control system. It is just one of countless “scrap metal” thefts — air conditioning parts and vehicle catalytic converters are also routinely stolen — across the city during the year.

In Selmer, Tennessee, Mary Winkler is convicted of manslaughter in the shooting death of her preacher husband Matthew Winkler. While on the stand, she showed a pair of white, high-heeled shoes she said her husband forced her to wear.

May

Former Senator John Ford is convicted of bribery. Ophelia Ford — who won John’s vacated state Senate seat — falls off of a barstool in Nashville after informing attendees of a Senate hearing that they “need to get knowledged.”

Zookeepers at the Memphis Zoo artificially inseminate Ya Ya, starting a panda pregnancy watch that ultimately ends with a miscarriage.

After playing “Ice Ice Baby” one time too many, Raiford’s Hollywood Disco closes, only to reopen under new ownership in the fall.

June

Robert F.X. Sillerman, owner of Elvis Presley’s image, announces plans to invest $250 million in upgrades to both sides of Elvis Presley Boulevard around Graceland.

John McCain threatens to name FedEx founder Fred Smith to his cabinet if elected president.

July

The Memphis Light Gas and Water board decides to sell Memphis Networx to Colorado-based Communications Infrastructure Investments at a more than $28 million loss.

August

A Raleigh man grabs national headlines when he became the victim of a gunshot wound — inflicted by his dog.

An overzealous Elvis fan steals one of the King’s firearms from a museum across the street from Graceland but “dumps” the pistol in a nearby port-a-potty.

September

Local Air America station trades liberal politics for sports scores.

An FBI report says Memphis is the most dangerous city in the country. U of M football player Taylor Bradford is shot on campus in a botched robbery attempt and later dies at the Med.

October

Noted photographer Ernest Withers dies.

A Memphis high school student shoots his friend during an English class. The friend recovers; the Memphis city school district asks its schools to beef up security.

November

Bruce Thompson is indicted on corruption charges. The former county commissioner allegedly received $260,000 in consulting fees as part of an MCS construction job.

Though Mayor Willie Herenton once vowed he would conduct a national search for a new president of MLGW, after being reelected for his gazillionth term, Herenton appoints the city’s public works director, Jerry Collins, to the job.

New evidence in the West Memphis Three case points to animal attacks to explain evidence once considered signs that the young victims were part of a Satanic ritual.

December

While waiting for outdoor retailer Bass Pro to move forward with plans for The Pyramid, county commissioners hear an alternative reuse plan: a $250 million indoor theme park with a 300- to 400-room hotel and a shopping mall.

Local Scientologists put their Midtown mansion on the market.

Justin Timberlake’s family buys the Big Creek golf course in Millington and promises a new clubhouse, new golf carts, and maintenance to the course itself. He’s bringing BigCreek back!

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

2007: A Lot To Swallow

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

Wording Their Eats: Nationally, LA Weekly writer Jonathan Gold’s 2007 Pulitzer Prize in the criticism category — the first Pulitzer ever presented to food writing — was a great accomplishment. Not so great was Colby Buzzell’s Esquire article about the tamale trail, which presented a disappointingly stereotypical view of the South.

Locally, Commercial Appeal food critic Leslie Kelly departed the Bluff City in early 2007 and now freelances for The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. During her three-year stint at the CA, Kelly’s enthusiastic, stranger-in-a-strange-land approach drew her share of both loyal followers and angry detractors. And steadily building a following of its own is local-foods quarterly Edible Memphis and the local chapter of the Slow Food Movement, both spearheaded by newcomers Melissa and Kjeld Petersen.

Waffles: When Interim opened in early 2007, owner Fred Carl Jr. intended for the restaurant to be a short-term replacement for the restaurant Wally Joe. Interim, under the direction of chef Jackson Kramer, did well, and Carl decided to stick with it. More recently, Carl, who is the founder and CEO of Viking Range Corporation, has partnered with Amerigo’s former owners Bill Latham and Al Roberts. No change in concept or food is expected for Interim, but the group plans to develop other restaurant concepts in the Memphis and Mississippi areas.

La Tourelle was another Memphis eatery that couldn’t quite decide what it was going to be for 2007 — opened or closed, a French restaurant with white tablecloths, or a laid-back Italian bistro. In August, La Tourelle, after 30 years in business, changed flags to become Tuscany. But then, just a few months later, owners Glenn and Martha Hays sold the restaurant to Kelly English, who will be opening Restaurant Iris early in the new year.

While Marena’s Gerani was long-rumored to be for sale, owner Mortez Gerani declared back in June that the restaurant would remain open. A month later, Marena’s was sold to Kevin Rains, former executive chef at Equestria. Rains opened Roustica and has kept much of the Midtown restaurant’s charm intact. Meanwhile, Gerani has opened a new restaurant, Marciano Mediterranean and Italian Cuisine in East Memphis.

Opening Acts: After much anticipation, Judd Grisanti opened his Italian restaurant Spindini in the South Main Historic Arts District in early 2007. Grisanti’s approach is not just old-school, it’s the oldest-school: cooking with fire. In his case, the fire is smoldering in a $30,000 custom-built, wood-burning oven that is the focal point of every seat in the house.

John Bragg, who had relatively brief stints at La Montagne and River Oaks, opened Circa by John Bragg last spring, vowing to “provide a culinary taste adventure centered on the freshest food ingredients and a very interesting, welcoming, and sociable atmosphere.” The restaurant is a current downtown hot spot.

Also, Memphis got a little sweeter this year with the openings of Sweet, the Exquisite Desserterie in Cooper-Young and Blues City Pastry in the former Viking space downtown.

The Westin Hotel, also downtown, opened with Penny McGraw as its executive banquet chef and the Daily Grill, a California-based eaterie, as the hotel’s restaurant.

The opening of the River Inn of Harbor Town added two new restaurants to the downtown dining scene: Currents, a fine-dining restaurant, and Tug’s, the inn’s more casual alternative. In charge of both is executive chef Brian Flanders.

And there’s more: Pearl’s Oyster House opened in the South Main arts district; Karen Carrier re-invented Cielo by turning it into the Mollie Fontaine Lounge; and Ken Lumpkin, a Jose Gutierrez protégé, opened Umai, a small French/Japanese restaurant on Madison where On Teur used to be located.

RIP: Memphis bid farewell to Romulus Morgan Hammond Jr. — the “Buster” of Buster’s Liquors and Wines. Hammond, who died September 8th at the age of 97, was the face of Buster’s for more than 50 years.

Among the restaurant closings in 2007 were Meditrina, Lulu Grille, Café Francisco, and Garland’s.

Also departed from much of the Memphis restaurant scene: smoking. The Comprehensive Workplace Smoking Act became a reality on October 1st.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

It’s Secular

The office of the president is a secular office in a secular government. There is not a word in the Constitution that authorizes the president or anyone else in the federal government to make a religious decision.

Why then are both voters and candidates wasting their time talking about religion? The personal religious beliefs of the candidates should be considered irrelevant. Furthermore, people should not forget that there are a lot more professors of religion than practitioners. What a person claims to believe and how that person leads his or her life are often quite different.

Laws are, in the final analysis, words on paper. They cannot and do not control human behavior. If they could, there would be no crimes. Americans, especially politicians, have developed the bad habit of thinking that there ought to be a law to cover every conceivable human action. Consequently, there are so many laws today that no human being can possibly know what they all are. This defeats one of the useful purposes of laws, which is to educate the public.

As for religion, people should recognize that all the world’s religions have failed to eliminate sin, and therefore no one should expect the government to do that. Christianity in particular is based on the twin concepts of sin and forgiveness. Governments are better at finding sin than at forgiving.

Religion has a legitimate role in our society. George Washington said religion is the best way known to instill virtue in masses of people. That is job enough for religion, and religion should stay out of politics as an organization. Religious individuals, of course, have the same rights and duties as any other citizen.

Religion itself has enough problems to solve. Christian Zionists, for example, are a heretical cult without any biblical foundation and with a political agenda. Other Christians have perverted the religion into a weekly course on how to be rich and happy. Christianity, in fact, teaches that it is easier to pass a camel through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Militant Christianity is a contradiction in terms.

If you are trying to find someone actually practicing Christianity, whom would you choose — a preacher with a six-figure salary, a limousine, and a private jet or, say, an actor like Brad Pitt, who has committed $5 million of his own money to build homes for people in New Orleans’ 9th Ward?

In judging human affairs, always look for actions, not words. What a person says tells you nothing reliable; what a person does gives you a better clue as to what kind of a person he or she is. At the same time, don’t forget the dual nature of human beings.

One can find faults with all religions. One should not forget, however, that the same can be said of all secular philosophies, ideologies, and institutions. Nothing human is or ever will be perfect.

As for the presidential candidates, people should be asking not what these people claim to believe about God, but what have they actually done? How do their lives measure up to their speeches? Do they demonstrate a belief in and a concern for the Constitution? Do they have a wide knowledge of the world as it truly is? Are they catering to special interests? Are they independent thinkers or followers?

The presidential race is, after all, a search for a secular leader, not for a pope or ayatollah. The United States is in deep trouble politically, financially, and economically. It will take a smart, sane, and courageous person to get us out. Opportunists and people who sell their souls for campaign contributions may well preside over our national collapse.

Charley Reese has been a journalist for 50 years.

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

The Big Screen

Several hundred movies opened in Memphis in 2007. Here are our critics’ faves:

Chris Herrington:

1. Knocked Up: The movie of the year in so many ways, Judd Apatow’s riotous comedy about a mismatched couple confronting an unwanted pregnancy united art and commerce like no other 2007 flick. It’s wildly unlikely to receive the Oscar nomination it certainly deserves because it isn’t deemed “serious” enough, though it’s as serious a mass-released movie as I saw this year. Knocked Up isn’t perfect for the very reasons its detractors cite: It privileges a male perspective, no doubt, as most movies do, which is why we need more female filmmakers. But, after four viewings, I find the women here every bit as likable, funny, and relatable as the men whose collective Peter Pan syndrome Apatow critiques even as he mines it for comedic bonhomie. And I find that the film’s generous depiction of life as a series of fumbling negotiations to be as real and vital as anything on the big screen this year.

2. Children of Men: This futuristic, dystopian journey from Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón (Y Tu Mamã También) takes a familiar genre and reinvents it — with outdoor settings, quietly poetic moments, and bravura long takes — as something unusually organic and intimate. A rattling, resonant response to a litany of public anxieties (nuclear threat, terrorism, flu pandemic, immigration, etc.), the film imagines a future in which mankind has become infertile, but it never offers a scientific explanation, suggesting that new life has simply rejected a world so rotten. Yet, from this dire premise, a movie emerges that’s essentially about hope. From city to forest to war zone to a lone boat in the sea, it’s an unforgettable experience.

3. Black Book: No American studio released a film in 2007 as briskly paced and consistently exciting as this merciless Dutch World War II epic from former Hollywood director Paul Verhoeven. Set in Nazi-occupied Holland, Black Book is a serious, morally complex, intensely entertaining adventure yarn about a Jewish woman (a dazzling Carice van Houten) trying to stay alive amid the chaos of the war and its messy aftermath.

4. Zodiac: David Fincher’s finest film, about the investigation into the real-life “Zodiac” killings that haunted the San Francisco era in the late ’60s and early ’70s, is essentially a movie about not quite knowing something. It’s an obsessive movie about obsession, perversely engrossing in its withholding of any kind of resolution.

5. Pan’s Labyrinth: Like Children of Men, Pan’s Labyrinth is a 2006 film from a Mexican director that arrived in local theaters last January. A lyrical but somber adult fairy tale, Guillermo del Toro’s film presents a child’s-eye view of the Spanish Civil War, where the adolescent Ofelia copes with new life under the watch of her Fascist stepfather by escaping into a fantasy life. Both of these worlds are envisioned with great richness, and the parallel narratives comment on each other. But part of the depth and mystery of Pan’s Labyrinth is how del Toro resists obvious symbolism or underscored doublings. The connections between Ofelia’s waking Fascist nightmare and her equally dangerous dream life are intuitively graspable and endlessly evocative yet defy easy explanation.

6. In the Shadow of the Moon and No End in Sight: I can’t think of a more persuasive or more depressing indictment of the recent degradation of our national character and competence than a double feature of the two best documentaries to play Memphis this year. A tribute to the Apollo space program told entirely from the perspective of the only living humans to visit the moon, In the Shadow of the Moon is an inspiring tribute to national resolve and an almost mystical treat. No End in Sight, a sober, comprehensive analysis of what went wrong in post-invasion Iraq, is a damning indictment of a government where can-do idealism has devolved into arrogant ineptitude.

7. No Country for Old Men: Intricately designed and richly photographed by Roger Deakins, No Country for Old Men is the Coen brothers’ most measured film ever, a tense, virtuoso thriller where violence is undercut by the rare appearance of actual human emotion. Like any other Coen movie, No Country for Old Men is more about their cultural source material (Cormac McCarthy’s novel, film thrillers from ’40s noir to Sam Peckinpah) than about real life. But here, unlike most of their work, they treat their influences right.

8. Juno: A precocious film about a precocious kid (the splendid Ellen Page in the title role), Juno is too in love with its own hipster verbosity at first but settles down then blooms into a family comedy of rare generosity.

9. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead: Who saw this coming? At the ripe age of 83, veteran Hollywood director Sidney Lumet made his finest film in at least 25 years with this bleak, twisty heist flick in which Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke play a pair of desperate brothers who try to knock off their parents’ suburban jewelry store. The film’s oscillating chronology moves with the disorderly precision of a crossword puzzle where each correct answer sets up the next, while the bruising story emerges as a subtle generational allegory for an era of crushing debt.

Knocked Up

10. Away From Her: Canadian actress Sarah Polley emerged as a potentially major filmmaker with a directorial debut (which she also adapted from an Alice Munro short story) impressive in its utter lack of autobiography. This modest drama about an elderly couple coping with the onset of Alzheimer’s (including a great performance from Julie Christie as the afflicted) has palpable warmth but avoids sentimentality with its meticulous, unflinching austerity, achieving something like a sense of grace.

Special Jury (of One) Prizes

Grindhouse: At a time when the experience of filmgoing is being constantly debased, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s high-concept double feature was a heroic effort to turn the movies into a communal event. So sad, then, that Grindhouse garnered such a meager audience. However, set together, the two films — Tarantino’s car flick Death Proof and Rodriguez’s zombie movie Planet Terror — functioned as an unintentional test of aesthetic judgment. Do you like great cinema (Death Proof, Tarantino’s finest work since Jackie Brown, if not Pulp Fiction) or do you just like to see stuff blown up (the comparatively inept Planet Terror)?

Killer of Sheep: Long as much a rumor as a movie, Charles Burnett’s haunting 16-millimeter 1981 feature about everyday life in Watts got new life in 2007, hitting the art-house and museum circuit, including a June showing at the Brooks Museum.

Team Picture: Barring Craig Brewer’s Black Snake Moan, Kentucker Audley’s Indie Memphis Film Festival winning feature debut was the year’s best local feature.

Honorable Mentions: Ratatouille, Michael Clayton, Waitress, Black Snake Moan, The Bourne Ultimatum, Eastern Promises, Offside, Gone Baby Gone, Paris Je T’aime, Little Children.

Addison Engelking:

1. Army of Shadows and Black Book: I said all I needed to say about Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1969 masterpiece, Army of Shadows, which screened once at the Brooks Museum, awhile back, but I can’t wait to gush about Paul Verhoeven’s best film, Black Book. In a movie where no one is safe or secure for more than 10 consecutive minutes, Carice van Houten’s lead performance is the only sure thing, and she gets you on her side early when she steals a kiss from a Dutch sailor while cooking a fish for him. Her vitality and star power remind me of the great bombshells like Marlene Dietrich and Carole Lombard. But Black Book is bolder when Verhoeven coolly punctures the mythology of World War II and all its “greatest generation” bravado and argues that even more heinous wartime atrocities occur after the loser surrenders. I wonder if he’s kept up with the U.S. involvement in Iraq?

2. Hot Fuzz: The Don Quixote of action-comedy buddy pictures; when you’re not amazed by its dual effectiveness as a dry, character-driven English satire — and, eventually, a kick-ass action flick in its own right — you’re marveling at the endless throwaway references in Hot Fuzz to the hyper-manly movies it knowingly steals from. (I still can’t get over the unexpected nods to Melville’s Le Samouri and the Chuck Norris discount-bin title Silent Rage.) All of Lethal Weapon‘s bastard children are hereby euthanized.

3. Zodiac: An obsessive-compulsive nightmare about murder, paperwork, and telephone booths, David Fincher’s epic study of the men who couldn’t stop pondering the identity of the “Zodiac” killer is the year’s most outrageous studio release. Holding narrative closure eternally at bay, this is principally a film about almost knowing something, and its loose or dead ends may frustrate some viewers. But once you nestle into its brown polyester world, you’ll stay there spellbound.

Children of Men

4. The Curse of the Golden Flower: Will Zhang Yimou’s period epic, which is perhaps the apex of the high-gloss martial-arts fable, lose its considerable visual power on a smaller screen? I hope not. The Curse of the Golden Flower contains some of the most breathtaking battle choreography I’ve ever seen. I’m sure Chow Yun-Fat’s triumphant, slow-motion hair-shake as he’s about to beat down his challengers will still hold up, though.

5. Pan’s Labyrinth: The most memorable sequence from this ghoulishly smart and inventive phantasmagoria (when brave little Ofelia steals some food from the lair of a stringy demon) should soon belong to all of horror-film history. Take a look at that demon once more and you see Nosferatu’s cousin, zonked out at the dinner table, waiting for his next tyke-shaped hors d’oeuvre, his eyeballs on a plate next to him.

6. Paprika: This surreal blast of sensory overload captures the boundless possibilities for pleasure and misery of all the virtual universes we care to inhabit: the Internet, our memories, dreams, wherever. And to keep you focused and fearful, Paprika boasts the year’s most jarring, disorienting sound design.

7. Paris Je T’aime: I’m still pleased by this outstanding work of artistic democracy. Just look at the kinds of lives we get to see in this anthology depiction of Paris. Whether you’re old, young, single, married, divorced, native-born, tourist, immigrant, live, or dead, everyone gets a voice and a couple of moments to be seen. City air breathes free.

8. Knocked Up: You know, the funny Seth Rogen-Judd Apatow collaboration.

9. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and No Country for Old Men: Two from cinematographer Roger Deakins. The first one is photographed for show and contrast; Deakins is such a magician in Assassination that he seems capable of anything, like lighting a whole crowd scene with flame from a half-burnt matchstick. He shot No Country with less fanfare and swagger, in a cool, man-with-a-job-to-do style. It’s beautiful all the same. I keep coming back to that queer, grave Coen brothers picture and I can’t shake it; I keep hearing Tommy Lee Jones’ voice and seeing his bewildered, trancelike stare. To be continued, I reckon.

Zodiac

10. No End in Sight and In The Shadow of the Moon: America: Love it or leave it, buster.

DVD Highlights: Here are two films that saw commercial release during 2007 but never made their way to Memphis. I urge you to catch them in the privacy of your own home.

1. Inland Empire: David Lynch’s impossible, masterful three-hour opus (which grows to cover nearly four hours on the special-edition DVD) is a meta-movie as toxic as the most bitter striking screenwriter’s revenge fantasy: an epic avant-garde work whose scenes and tones pass back and forth into and out of the bleakest craters of fear, pain, and despair like runners passing batons in an endless relay; the comeback vehicle of the new century for Laura Dern, who plants herself in the movie and runs wild as the id of every backlit Hollywood film goddess; a black hole trimmed in pastel and tissue paper; a crock; the least likely home of the feel-good ending of the year. I could keep going; Inland Empire might be a film without a ground floor. Maybe I still am; maybe it is.

2. Chalk: As the much-needed antidote to nearly a century of stupid “inspirational” movies about education, this unsparing and funny look at the everyday lives of high school teachers may be too much of an insider’s film. But see it anyway. I teach high school, and Chalk‘s endless, petty conversations about the tardy policy and other bureaucratic nonsense are the God’s honest truth.

Greg Akers:

1. Children of Men: Children of Men is one of those rare films that is so singular, it really doesn’t have any historical cinematic analogue. What’s not to worship about it? It’s dystopian, with a hopeful outlook; an actioner, with a pacifist heart; political and moral, without being preachy. Director/co-writer Alfonso Cuarón goes documentary-style to put the viewer right in the thick of things. Bar none and by a goodly margin, Children of Men is the best film of the 21st century thus far.

2. Zodiac: I’ve read plenty of books that chronicle an investigator’s personal decline after becoming obsessed with trying to solve a crime; it’s maybe my favorite subset of the mystery genre. But I’d never seen a movie that pulled off the trick until Zodiac. Who done it? Director David Fincher. His masterpiece, Zodiac imposes a dread that is both physical and existential and adds gorgeous photography and a brilliant script to outstanding performances from Jake Gyllenhaal and Mark Ruffalo and a career best from Robert Downey Jr.

3. No Country for Old Men: About as straight a poker face of a film as you’re ever likely to get from the Coen brothers. It even contains what amounts to the Coen mission statement: Deputy Wendell (Garret Dillahunt) is embarrassed when he can’t help but laugh upon hearing about a horrible crime. Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) responds, “That’s all right. I laugh myself sometimes. There ain’t a whole lot else you can do.” Oh, and Javier Bardem co-stars as Anton Chigurh, the scariest movie character since Li’l Zé in City of God.

4. Charlie Wilson’s War: The most fun I had watching actors act all year, even if Julia Roberts is in it. It’s too much to keep up with anymore, but Philip Seymour Hoffman and Tom Hanks turn in something close to career performances. The film’s mix of drama and comedy is utterly entertaining. For my money, Charlie Wilson’s War is the next Best Picture Oscar winner, and it would be deservedly so.

5. Grindhouse: It’s almost not fair, as Grindhouse gets two movies in the Top 10 list for the price of one. Though Robert Rodriguez’s splatter-happy Planet Terror is thoroughly entertaining, Quentin Tarantino’s half, Death Proof, is the real story here. Pure cinematic thrills, whether it’s tires or mouths going 100 miles per hour.

6. Atonement: A mathematical discovery: Keira Knightley + Joe Wright + Jane Austen (2005’s Pride & Prejudice) = Pass the barf bag. But Keira Knightley + Joe Wright + Ian McEwan (Atonement) = Pass the popcorn.

7. Lions for Lambs: Many critics who have panned Lions for Lambs — and that would be just about all of them — level two charges against the film: It isn’t cinematic enough and it’s too talky. Um, remember when breaking from convention was a good thing for art to do? A must-see political commentary for anyone who thinks it’s still okay to admit that another political side — from whatever side you’re on — might be capable of making valid points.

8. Knocked Up: Knocked Up might have made it on this list on the strength of its comedy alone, which, at times, had me laughing so hard my vision got fuzzy. But its nonjudgmental core values — accepting of the knuckleheaded and the ambitious alike — assures its place. Plus, Knocked Up led my wife and I to move Freaks and Geeks to the top of our Netflix queue, for which I am forever in its debt.

9. The Bourne Ultimatum: A workshop in brilliant editing — credit goes to Christopher Rouse — highlighted by one sequence’s hand-to-hand combat in a tiny bathroom. Director Paul Greengrass’ handheld camera is deft enough to get in so tight we feel we’re part of the fight but is still able to explain the action. What isn’t visually captured is revealed through audio clues, including the sounds of knives, fists, and breathing. The film’s the topper to a top-notch action series.

10. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead: Enjoy the first few, pre-opening-title minutes of Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. Once the title comes up, the devil has got it figured out. But it’s a highly watchable vision of human torment — and not the flames and hot pokers version. About two brothers (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke) who conspire to rob their parents’ jewelry store to escape what their lives have become, the movie takes place in a hellish locale that is cold, lonely, and utterly personal. Convincing stuff.

Honorable Mentions: Lucky You, The Curse of the Golden Flower, Black Book, Jindabyne, Letters From Iwo Jima, The Lives of Others, Goya’s Ghosts, Michael Clayton, The Host, Pan’s Labyrinth.

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Music Music Features

Harlan T. Bobo and Amy LaVere Highlight the Year in Memphis Music

CREDIT: Memphis Magazine

A lot of the usual suspects in local music were quiet in 2007. Recent headliners Three 6 Mafia, North Mississippi Allstars, Lucero, Snowglobe, the ex-Oblivians (Jack Yarber and Greg Cartwright), and ex-Lost Sounds (Alicja Trout and, to an extent, Jay Reatard) all took the year off as far as releasing new albums. Meanwhile, the past loomed large again in the form of a relaunch of Stax records, which spurred a welcome avalanche of reissue and archival material.

But into this new-music breach, lots of good stuff emerged, including (obviously or arguably) improved sophomore releases from the likes of Tunnel Clones, Harlan T. Bobo, and breakout star Amy LaVere …

Read the rest of the Flyer’s picks for the best in Memphis music for 2007.