Amy Millan

My interview with Stars' Amy Millan runs this week in WE.

“What, me morbid?”: Amy Millan dismisses accusations of death obsession in her songs.

Lone Star
By Andrea Warner

The glass of wine in Amy Millan’s hand is as trademark as the sexy coo that is her singing voice — that of a little girl who’s seen too much, who grew up too fast. The Montreal-based Millan, in addition to her best-known role as singer and co-songwriter in Stars, seemingly has her hand in every major indie act in the country, from a permanent guest spot with Broken Social Scene to occasional backing vocals for Apostle of Hustle.

But right now, the 35-year-old is deep in the midst of the first round of publicity for her second solo album, Masters of the Burial, a gorgeously moody collection of pop songs that takes plenty of detours into folk and alt-country territory, and even finds Millan crafting an uptempo cover of Death Cab for Cutie’s evocative downer, “I Will Follow You Into the Dark.”

WE spoke with Millan over the phone just as she was melting into a chair with a bottle of vino, after a long day that started before the sun rose.

You’ve had back-to-back interviews all day, I hear.
Millan: It’s been quite a day, but coffee and wine make it all better now.

Just alternating mouthfuls? Double-fisting?
You know, start out with a coffee to jack you back up, and then even it up with a nice glass of red wine.

I’ve been listening to Masters of the Burial pretty much non-stop, and a lot of the songs seem to be quite hopeful, even when they’re incredibly sad.
I appreciate that you got that. I definitely never want to be maudlin about anything. I think it’s importance to have a balance of everything. And it’s funny: With Masters of the Burial and Honey from the Tombs [her first solo album], everybody’s like, “What’s with the whole death thing, man?” And it’s not. Honey from the Tombs is from a Tom Waits song about how the mummies were buried with honey, and [the honey] preserved and still tasted as sweet as when it was buried. And Masters of the Burial is a comment on the human condition, and that in our lives we all suffer horrible embarrassment and betrayals and tragedies and loss, and in order to continue living and seeking out hope, we have to bury a lot of things we’ve been through. It’s kind of a tip of the hat to the human, really, and about being alive and not being dead. With these songs, I’m trying to poke at these places that maybe people are trying to forget, and liberate them in a way that maybe won’t lead them down a road of depression, but feel comfort that everyone’s going through similar things.

I should be asking, then, what your most embarrassing moment is...
Oh, I could never tell! (laughs)

So, instead I’ll invite you to talk a bit about what your influences were when you were writing the album.
Welllll... Uhhhhh.... I saw some people suffer in their relationships, who were close to me. That really broke my heart to watch somebody who had been in a relationship for quite a long time and have it dissolve in front of their eyes, and then not really knowing how to maintain it, but knowing that it can’t be maintained... It’s so difficult sometimes to cut the cord when you’ve been in a relationship for a really long time. I just find it so sad to watch, something turning into ash that was a big fire at one point.

I heard Stars is recording, and you’re obviously in the midst of promoting Burial. How are you coping?
It’s busy. On top of everything, I’m doing a complete gut of my house. (laughs) I just thought it wasn’t enough, you know? But as busy as I am, it’s the longest period of time I’ve gone without touring, because Broken [Social Scene]’s been recording, and Stars are recording, and my record’s just come out now. Stars hasn’t played a show since February. It’s been one of the calmest times of my life, actually, because when you’re travelling every day, your soul is kind of far behind, and it takes a while to catch up to you. I’ve been literally around the globe in a six-week period at one point. The fact that I’ve been still and enjoying my city and really discovering Montreal — because I hadn’t been able to do that, I’ve just been on tour since I’ve moved there.

Do you have a fair bit of anonymity in Montreal?
Oh, they don’t care about indie-rock in Montreal. The French people could care less about Arcade Fire, even. It’s really refreshing, you know, and I think that’s why so much good music comes out of Montreal. There isn’t the industry there, and the pressure.

Amy Millan performs Saturday, Oct. 24 at Biltmore Cabaret (395 Kingsway), 8 pm. Tickets $13 from Ticketmaster, Zulu, and Red Cat.

Jeff Lemire

My WE cover story on Jeff Lemire from Oct. 3

Portrait of the artist: Graphic novelist Jeff Lemire, and a frame from his acclaimed Essex County Trilogy, named after the region in southwestern Ontario where he grew up

Comic Instinct

By Andrea Warner

About four hours southwest of Toronto lies Essex County, a region that, until recently, was best known for two things: the city of Windsor (its county seat), and its spitting-distance proximity to Detroit.

But in 2008, Jeff Lemire’s Tales from the Farm, the first installment in his Essex County Trilogy, quietly burst onto the international comic/graphic-novel scene. Ghost Stories followed a few months later, and then The Country Nurse, inadvertently launching Lemire’s tiny hometown of Woodslee (pop. 5,000) out of obscurity and into the imaginations of readers around the world. At the time of this writing, Lemire is the sole “notable person” on Essex County’s Wikipedia page.

Lemire’s rise to fame is part of Canadian cartoonists’ growing role in the comics industry, according to Robin McConnell, host of the comics-based CITR radio show, InkStuds. Lemire’s success continues to raise the profile of Vancouver artists as well.

“Vancouver has some great talents, like Brandon Graham and James Stokoe,” McConnell says. “Jeff exemplifies the work of a Canadian cartoonist, not succumbing to any form of Hollywood or genre-specific pressure for light and easy fare.”

Lemire’s trilogy covers vast narrative terrain, but is consistently rooted in its fictionalized version of his hometown, a rural community where everyone’s histories are neatly and inextricably weaved together through complicated backstories, expressed through sparse but evocative drawings that perfectly capture the books’ themes of loneliness and family. Tales from the Farm focuses on a young comic-book-obsessed boy who wears a superhero cape everywhere he goes, and is forced to move in with his uncle after his mother dies. Ghost Stories best shows Lemire’s innovation as a storyteller as it details an old man’s backward glances at his troubled life, his thwarted hockey career, and the complicated history he shared with his brother. The Country Nurse ties the first two stories together, and follows a tireless woman with her own troubles as she tries her best to tend to the emotional and physical issues of everyone around her.

Top Shelf Comix, the Portland-based independent publishing company that discovered Lemire, recently released The Collected Essex County.

“In some ways, it’s a romanticized view of where I grew up,” Lemire says. “In other ways, it’s a colder, starker version as well. Essex County is flat, with family farms spread out along very flat land. My closest neighbours were miles away, and that led to a lot of time playing alone on the farm, and a lot of time in my room reading and drawing comics.”

Lemire’s early artistic training came from those hours in his room, during which he devoured comics and observed the various styles used by different artists, particularly those featured in DC Comics’ Who’s Who directories.

“That was a real turning point for me,” Lemire says. “It was like an encyclopedia of all of their characters, featuring artwork by every comics artist working at the time. I copied different entries in the styles of [my favourite] artists. I remember my Mom and Dad would sit and go through the books with me; they would cover the artist credit at the bottom of the page and I would tell them which artist drew each page. I got them all right, and they couldn’t believe it, because to their untrained eye all those drawings just looked the same. But I had studied and poured over these drawings and knew the way every different artist created lines and shadow.”

Visually, Essex County’s illustrations offer up starkly contrasted images of people in varying states of despair, discovery, or delightful escape, usually interacting with some element of nature. Long country roads, a frozen river, the high-stakes hockey game — all are rendered with varying intensity. Hazy memories are represented by loosely penciled renditions, while present-day confrontations are liberally shaded with rich black ink. These drawings, more than the stories themselves, fulfill the mission that Lemire set for himself with the Essex County Trilogy.

“I never really sat down and wrote,” Lemire says. “I still rarely do. For me, it’s always been about the drawing first. It all starts visually, and story and character and plot all evolve out of my drawings. In a way, my drawing is my writing. I don’t see a separation between the two when it comes to making comics; they’re all part of the same process... I took the things I loved the most about the Essex County landscape — old rusted farm equipment, tattered wooden barns, vast open fields, endless telephone lines running off into the horizon — and focused on creating an idealized, timeless visual shorthand for the setting.”

Lemire’s ascent has been both arduous and breakneck. The 33-year-old former film student self-published his first book, Lost Dogs, in 2005. Flash forward four years, and he’s now part of DC Comics / Vertigo, one of the biggest players in the comics market. Lemire’s first novel for DC, The Nobody, came out this year, and he’s now working on a monthly series called Sweet Tooth, and another book for Top Shelf about impending fatherhood (Lemire himself is a proud new dad). Ultimately, he says, it was self-publishing that was key in launching his career.

“There is just no other way to get started,” Lemire says. “Who’s going to publish someone who’s never been published before? I mean, of course that happens on the rare occasion, but really most publishers need to see a published — or at least a finished — work to be able to get a sense of who you are and if it’s something they want to take on. In comics we’re lucky that it’s seen as cool to go the DIY route, and there’s actually grassroots support for that.”

And taking chances on new writers is continuing to pay off as the audience for graphic novels continues to widen. According to Publishers Weekly, North American graphic-novel and comic-book sales is one of the few areas of growth in the publishing industry, up to 715 million in 2008, versus 705 million in 2007. It’s a relatively small increase, but in an industry on the decline, any growth is deemed a success. Lemire’s view of his industry’s future is decidedly similar to the tone of his work: realistic with a dash of hopefulness.

“Eventually, it will all be digitally distributed and viewed, and only a few really high-end print editions will be done as collector’s items,” Lemire predicts.

“In terms of the medium itself, it’s really limitless.There are going to be more and more interesting young voices coming up in the comics, telling really diverse stories. It’s not just going to be white boys bred on superheroes like me anymore. I also think we’re seeing more and more female cartoonists emerging each year, and that’s really going to change a traditionally male-dominated medium for the better. The more diverse comics get, the more the medium can continue to grow and evolve... There are a lot more women coming up to me at shows and getting their books signed. It’s not just 18- to 40-year-old men with Batman T-shirts anymore.”

Ra Ra Riot

My interview with Ra Ra Riot appears in this week's WE.

Rising above adversity: Ra Ra Riot persevered after the death of their drummer in 2007, completing their debut album and initiating a music-oriented philanthropy project in the drummer’s name.

Credit: supplied

By Andrea Warner

Ra Ra Riot’s humble origins are the stuff of dorm-room legend: college kids at Syracuse University, facing graduation and not sure what the future might hold. Most of them were on the cusp of obtaining degrees that had nothing to do with music when they began jamming together, discovering an affinity for Kate Bush, and writing their own songs. Six months after their first hometown show, they became the buzz band of the day — or, at least, of their campus. But it was a tragic accident that ended up launching them onto the mainstream media radar a month before they released their self-titled debut EP in 2007. After playing a show in Providence, Rhode Island, drummer John Pike disappeared into the cold waters of Wilbur’s Point. His body washed up the next day.

The group grieved and persevered, and are now on the second leg of a tour promoting their debut full-length album, The Rhumb Line, which highlights the band’s skill for combining a raft of indie-rock and Britpop influences with a chamber-pop flair (the band’s membership includes cellist Alexandra Lawn and violinist Rebecca Zeller).

Guitarist Milo Bonacci took a quick break from Ra Ra Riot’s U.K. tour to chat with WE.

How does one go from studying architecture to playing guitar in a band?
Milo Bonacci: Well, I grew up playing guitar. Architecture’s a more recent development in my life. I guess when the time came to choose between the band and architecture, I though I could be a 60-year-old architect, but I don’t want to be a 60-year-old rock star necessarily. It was really just, “Let’s do this now while we can, and we’ll figure out our careers afterwards.”

String sections have really found a place in indie-rock over the last several years. Was it a conscious effort by Ra Ra Riot to incorporate that sound?
It was really just the combination of people who were able and willing to spend some time devoted to the band. I don’t think any of us really knew what to expect in the first couple of weeks, but from the start it was really satisfying to have that palette of sonic flavours.

You’ve covered Kate Bush twice now. What’s the draw there?
Originally, we started playing “Hounds of Love” in those first couple weeks when we were first forming, because we just needed songs to play. (laughs) Working on covers in our time together was easier, in some respects, than writing songs, because you can only do that so fast. Very early on, that was a very common bond between us. We were all fascinated by her songwriting. She’s very much an inspiration.

Have you had a chance to meet her?
No, no. (laughs) I think that’s a long way off. I’ve never even considered the possibility.

What are some key mistakes that up-and-coming bands should watch out for?
The most important thing is to play music that you’re passionate about and that you love. The worst thing is when you see a band and nobody is that interested in the music that they’re making. You have to love it if you expect anybody else to love it also.

What is the John Pike Memorial Project?
Basically, it would be a network of musicians and songwriters that people could use to further their own projects or ideas, part of that being a lending library — a library of musical instruments people could borrow. The ultimate goal is that there would be recording studios or free places where people could explore their interests. Mainly, it would encourage people to explore their creative energies instead of smothering it before it starts. It’s sort of designed to further the energy John had as a person. He was the type who, if he had an interest in something, he’d go out and read every book about it, explore the subject, learn how to play the instrument. This would allow for that sort of process. If all goes well, something really great could come out of it.

Polyamory

My piece on polyamory appears in this week's WE.

Are polyamorists sexual deviants or the world’s most incurable romantics?

poly•am•ory

noun

participation in multiple and simultaneous loving or sexual relationships

— Webster’s New Millennium Dictionary

Other “kinks” have come and gone as the primary target of “polite” society’s moral outrage — homosexuality, orgies, swinging — and forged, in some people’s homes, an uneasy truce. Polyamory, then, might be the last taboo — possibly because many people can barely navigate the obstacles of one relationship, let alone several.

But, contrary to popular belief, people who engage in “poly” say they aren’t just in it for the sex — although that doesn’t hurt. True to their name, polyamorists have a whole lot of love to give (and take).

According to John Ince, co-owner of Vancouver sex shop the Art of Loving, poly people might just be the world’s biggest romantics. “Poly is really about relationships, an ongoing experience rather than a sexual connection,” he says. “I’ve done long-term monogamous relationships and long-term polyamorous relationship, and the poly ones are conducive to more intimacy... but it’s a lot of relational time. Time and work.”

Jillian Deri, a PhD candidate writing about polyamory and jealousy within the queer community, is also involved in poly relationships, and acknowledges the common misconceptions people have about it. “[People think] we’re just dating around until we find the right person,” she says, “or that we’re just promiscuous and can’t decide, or that we’re not committed. But, actually, poly people are usually more committed because they commit to more than one person.”

Pervading notions about polyamory label its practitioners as sluts or perverts. Internet culture does nothing to subvert that belief either: simply Googling the phrase “polyamory Vancouver” calls up sites devoted to BDSM, fetish nights, and a smattering of other kinky topics that might send potential polyamorists right back into the closet. And there’s precious little information available to those looking for a safe place to explore this type of relationship.

Ince, who published a book called The Politics of Lust, believes polyamorists are simply seeking a variety of intimacy, much the same way people favour variety in friends, food, and entertainment. “We encourage multi-loving in every area except the sexual dimension,” he says. “In our culture, the model is one romantic relationship at a time, otherwise you’re cheating. Huge numbers of people are practicing unethical [secretive] polyamory.”

Ince has been involved in poly relationships of various configurations for over 30 years. He’s currently involved with two women, and he says the key to a successful poly relationship is open communication. “It takes a lot of emotional sophistication to practice polyamory in a healthy way. That’s perhaps why relatively few people can do it. Most people don’t have high self-esteem and would interpret their partner’s interest in someone else as a rejection of them. The fact that I love having two women in my life does not say anything about my lack of attraction to one. It just says that I’m a very complex character and need a whole variety of stimulation to be excited and passionate and fulfilled.”

For Deri, polyamory is an affair of the heart, though she admits it’s sometimes easier said than done. “I feel that it’s definitely not for everyone, but I find it easier to give my heart when there’s an open aspect to the relationship, being more true to what I actually want.

“I believe we have this dichotomy between friends and lovers: only one lover and all the rest are friends. I find that having that boundary broken allows for more intimacy — a whole range of different ways to be with people.”

Deri admits an open relationship does force people to have to deal with jealousy head-on, but poly people, she says, choose to “work around it.”

“Poly people realize it’s not inevitable, it’s not intolerable, but in the culture we grow up in, there’s this idea that if your lover is with someone else, you’re going to be jealous, and the jealousy should stop whatever you’re doing,” Deri says. “Poly people tend to see jealousy as something you could feel, but you can get over it and move on. It doesn’t have to change your behaviour.”

In a world where hate, rancour and loneliness permeate all aspects of society, one could say that polyamorists are, in their own way, forging a path where love is all around. For those looking to venture into the world of poly, Deri suggests honesty as your best tactic for success.

“Find someone you can communicate well with and who you feel safe to explore with,” Deri advises, “and ask yourself a lot of questions about what you really want, and be honest. As soon as you’re really honest with yourself you can be honest with other people. Communication is the biggest key to making it work.”

Broken Social Scene

My interview with Broken Social Scene's Brendan Canning appears in this week's WE.

Band may not come exactly as shown: Broken Social Scene, in one of their many incarnations. (Inset: founding member Brendan Canning.)

About 10 years ago, two guys in Toronto got together and, a couple of years later, released an atmospheric art-rock album that was virtually impossible to replicate live as a duo. A few well-placed phone calls later, they had drafted in numerous friends on an array of instruments, ultimately creating a signature widescreen post-rock sound on follow-up album You Forgot it in People (2002) that would come to define Broken Social Scene. A sort of mother ship for Canada’s recent rash of successful indie musicians, Feist, Final Fantasy, Metric, Stars, and Land of Talk are just a few bands with roots in BSS.

A co-headlining gig with Tegan and Sara brings the ever-mutating collective back to Vancouver this week as part of the Cultural Olympiad. WE caught up with founding member Brendan Canning from his home in Toronto.

I heard you were walking the dog when I first called. What kind of dog do you have?

Canning: We got a little chihuahua half-breed, a little chihuahua mutt. He’s quite cute, and we got him a little black-and-white camouflage jacket for the winter. (laughs) He’s not like a little pipsqueak either; he’s a big dog.

What’s the touring lineup for BSS right now?

It’s sort of the same as last year. We’re going out as an eight-piece: Kevin [Drew], Justin [Peroff], Charlie [Spearin], Andrew [Whiteman], Sam [Goldberg], Leon [Kingstone], and instead of Liz [Powell] with us, who plays in Land of Talk, it’s Lisa Lobsinger, who was with us in 2006 in Vancouver. She kind of floats in and out of the band.

You’re playing with Tegan and Sara when you’re here.

Yeah. Who knows, maybe we can even steal those guys for a song. It’s on my to-do list to call those guys.

The band’s Wikipedia page is this pretty great who’s-who of indie music in Canada. It seems like everyone’s been affiliated with you at some point, and some of the most successful indie musicians of the last five years have had something to do with BSS. What draws you all together?

I don’t know. Just between all of us we know a lot of people, and I think our whole thing has always been to be really as inclusive as we can, and a lot of the time we’re looking for people. The last year of touring, in 2008, we were getting different horn sections in different cities, and different vocalist who we’d never met before. I think we just try to keep that up, and it makes it more fun for us. If the shows can vary night to night — I mean, especially with bringing in different vocalists, it’s always sort of a kick. You meet this woman in the afternoon and you do a little soundcheck, but then the lights go down you have no idea what this person’s about to do on stage or what their moves are going to be like. So, it’s always pretty entertaining in that regard.

Anyone who stands out for you?

There was this one girl in Taipei who was really great. There were a couple different singers in Mexico City who did really well. There was a girl in Singapore, it was practically like Broken Social Scene Idol. She was really, really goin’ for it. It was quite funny. At one moment she’d be grabbing Kevin by the sleeve and singing really close to him, and then just throwing him away at the end of her line and really being theatrical about it. That was pretty hilarious.

Are you venturing toward another BSS album? [The group’s last album came out in 2005.]

Venturing... I mean, we don’t have any real firm plans, but we’re definitely in the talking-about-it stage. Everyone seems pretty excited this year to actually make a record, but there’s just no point in putting any real pressure on us to do that. It just wouldn’t be as much fun if we say, “Alright, we’ve got an October release so we really have to get this record in the can by May so we plan for press.” I mean, Charlie’s got a record coming out next month called The Happiness Project, and Andrew’s got his Apostle of Hustle record, and, unofficially, Kevin and I are still touring our records [solo albums released as part of the Broken Social Scene presents... series). There’s a wealth of material, but I think we will try to bust out a couple new jams on this upcoming run.

The Constant Wife and Last Five Years

My review of The Constant Wife and Last Five Years appears in this week's WE.

Nicole Underhay and Ted Cole in Arts Club’s The Constant Wife, and (inset) Naomi Dayneswood and Jesse Donaldson in the failed-marriage musical, The Last Five Years.

Two very different plays sift through the rubble of crumbling marriages

Love (or something like it) is in the air on Vancouver stages right now, as relationship-themed plays compete for a little piece of your heart. It’s almost unfair that The Last Five Years, a small-scale Broadway musical (fighting against an uneven script), finds itself pitted against the witty and wonderful words of Somerset Maugham’s The Constant Wife. That, and Years’ tired depiction of a woman in love, feels so painfully passé when compared to the balls-out equality of Wife’s fierce females.

Wife, set in the 1930s (as depicted in a beautiful set from Ken MacDonald), unleashes its characters from conventional behaviour — these are rich people who play by a different set of rules — and tackles the three big Fs: fidelity, feminism, and fortune. Constance (a perfectly cast and sparkling Nicole Underhay) and John (Ted Cole) have been married for 15 years when rumours surface of John’s affair with Constance’s best friend, Marie-Louise Durham (Celine Stubel does the chirpy strumpet with aplomb). When Constance’s former suitor comes back into the picture, all hell breaks loose, and Constance proves that she’s no silent, suffering spouse.

Wife has been hailed by Variety as the precursor to Sex and the City, and it’s true, in that the women in Wife rule the stage. Martha (Moya O’Connell) is Constance’s self-righteous younger sister and a spinster, and both women are stifled by their brutally witty mother, Mrs. Culver (a divine Bridget O’Sullivan), a rich old woman whose words carry the same blunt force as a blow from a sledgehammer.

The bon mots and one-liners are delivered with sophistication, and director Morris Panych brings out the best in Maugham’s catty and astute asides. Panych also digs into the source material to hit the nail on the head of some of today’s taboos: seeking satisfaction outside of the marital bed, embarking on an open relationship, and seeing women as equals.

Women fair less well in The Last Five Years, a musical written by Jason Robert Brown and based on his own failed marriage. Jamie (Jesse Donaldson, vacillating between winning and annoying) and Cathy (bright spot Naomi Dayneswood) meet in their early twenties, fall in love, get married, and eventually break up over the course of five years, with each song representing a different stage in their relationship. Jamie’s gaining some major success as a new best-selling author, while Cathy’s doing summer theatre in Ohio and failing to get her big break as an actress.

Jamie’s story arc moves from first meeting to breakup, while Cathy’s tale starts at the breakup and moves backward to the couple’s first meeting. It’s an interesting conceit, but one that allows each characters’ flaws too much room to breathe, making it difficult to muster prolonged sympathy for either side. Simplistic characters — Jamie is the jerk who disappears, leaving only a Dear John letter; Cathy is the needy wife who’s hung her star in someone else’s sky — don’t help matters either. The Last Five Years is like watching friends who have no business being together break up for an hour and a half. You want to give them both a shake and then go get a drink.

As the audience traverses both sides of the story, certain songs allow for moments of genuine heart to shine through. “The Schmuel Song” shows a softer side of Jamie as he makes up a Christmas story for Cathy to encourage her self-esteem. “I Can Do Better Than That” shows some of the fire Cathy used to have, declaring she’s not looking for the proverbial white picket fence and desires a more complete life.

Many of Cathy’s songs paint her as a woman who is insecure, defined solely by her relationship with Jamie. (Brown’s former wife, on whom Cathy is based, threatened legal action if certain songs weren’t changed.) Conversely, Jamie’s songs are mostly self-involved, alternating between falling for Cathy and his burgeoning success as an author. Donaldson’s got a charismatic presence, but he does little work to keep Jamie’s cartoonish ego in check; his Jamie is prone to plenty of pelvic thrusts and rock-star antics. Dayneswood’s Cathy is appropriately sad and pathetic, but she infuses the character with lovely doses of defiance and vigour.

We should connect with the broken people singing sad songs in The Last Five Years, but the heart loves who it wants — and the women of The Constant Wife are irresistible: mind games, manipulation and all. After all, who among us would choose a bittersweet break-up tale when there’s the tartly delicious story of sweet revenge waiting in the wings?

Wendy and Lucy

My review of Wendy and Lucy appears in this week's WE.

WENDY AND LUCY
Starring Michelle Williams
Directed by Kelly Reichardt
4 stars (out of 5)

By Andrea Warner
The string of horrible Hollywood flicks boasting talking dogs with interior voices provided by celebrities (see Beverly Hills Chihauha — actually, don’t) has created four-legged fatigue among many moviegoers. But our furry friends get a second chance to be worthy co-stars in Kelly Reichardt’s evocative and emotionally devastating Wendy and Lucy.

Wendy (a superb Michelle Williams) is a loner in her early twenties, living in her car with her dog, Lucy, en route from Indiana to Alaska in search of a summer job that promises big bucks. It’s a dream that stays just out of reach when Wendy’s car breaks down in a small, rundown town in Oregon, and then Lucy disappears, sending Wendy’s life into a tailspin.

Writer-director Reichardt is an expert in crafting unsettling films that double as quiet character studies, as demonstrated in the 2006 gem Old Joy. Nor does she doesn’t any easy answers here about why Wendy is the way she is. Small moments, like a desperate phone call home or Wendy’s tentative friendship with a security guard, hint at some of her invisible fractures, but we never really understand why she’s gone so far adrift.

Wendy and Lucy is also a bleak foreshadowing of the economic mess in which we’re all mired, where jobs are few and far between, and a series of simple events can prevent upward momentum. (Wendy doesn’t have an address because she lives in her car, and she can’t afford a cellphone, making finding Lucy, much less a job, virtually impossible.)

There’s nary a talking dog in the whole film, but every moment between Wendy and Lucy speaks volumes.

Matt & Kim

My interview with Matt & Kim appears in this week's WE.

Matt & Kim prepare to leave their mark on New York City.

MUSIC: Matt & Kim dare the hipsters to get happy

By Andrea Warner

Indie-band stereotypes abound in pop duo Matt and Kim. Based in Brooklyn? Yep. Met in art school? ’Natch. Nerdy glasses, tight jeans, and a nasal twang? Of course. And yet, Matt Johnson and Kim Schifino have one major quality that sets them apart from the other too-cool-for-school hipster bands who practice their pouts before propping up their instruments: They are the happiest damn people ever, and they’re not afraid to show it.

Matt & Kim’s brand of dance-punk-pop music sounds, at first listen, like kids goofing off in their parents’ basement — which isn’t far from the truth. The couple fell in love six years ago, made art, and decided to take up learning new instruments. Rather than focus on chords and scales, Kim banged away on the drums, Matt plunked out melodies on his keyboard, and they began writing songs by way of practicing.

The duo’s live shows and online presence garnered them a rabid fan base of kids who love to dance, thrash, and fling themselves with wild abandon. While preparing to embark on a North American tour for their new album, The Grand, Matt checked in last week from NYC.

I visited your MySpace page earlier today and one of your fans wrote, “I was listening to ‘Daylight’ [from Grand] earlier today, and my older brother asked, ‘Is this Weird Al?’”

Johnson: (laughs for a long time) Nice. I haven’t seen that comment yet, but I remember thinking true success was if Weird Al parodied one of your songs.

I was watching videos of your live shows and you look really happy onstage. What do you love about performing?

What is there not to love about performing, you know? There are so many bands who look really bored, and I don’t really get that — that’s more confusing to me. Playing music was always something I only did because I really like doing it. It had been an expensive habit for years, and now somehow I make a living doing it. We do it ’cause it’s fun. Kim, though — if she’s terrified, she just starts laughing and smiling. It’s sort of her defense. If she’s really nervous, too, in the movie theatre, if someone’s getting cut to pieces, she’s just laughing hysterically, so people just think she’s totally fucked up.

Was there anything different for you in writing Grand?

Oh, yeah, it was completely different. The first one [2006’s self-titled debut album], I mean, the songs we’d written were from within the first year we’d started even trying to play, and also we recorded that in nine days. This new recording we did over nine months. We were touring so much, every couple weeks we’d come back and work on it for a week. But it gave us a fresh perspective, like, “Oh, yeah, that sucks” or “That works.”

The dance-punk sound has really flourished in the last couple of years. Do you think it’s an emotional antidote to the political and economic climate? Are we just desperate for something joyful?

Well, in New York, for a long time there were these types of bands that were just too worried about looking cool to have any fun. I think people are just wanting to have fun with music again and have fun at shows again. And maybe that is part of all this shit that’s happening. Finally, I think, things are looking up. January 20th is coming, and Mr. Obama will be in.

Yeah, the national tension level should ease in about a week.

And it’s the day our album comes out. A pretty important day in American history. (laughs) 

Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired

My review of the new Roman Polanski documentary, screening at Vancity this week, is in today's WE.

ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED

By Andrea Warner

3 stars (out of 5)

Roman Polanski is one of Hollywood’s most polarizing people: semi-tragic figure (he survived the Holocaust; his wife, Sharon Tate, was murdered by Charles Manson); revolutionary director (Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown, The Pianist); and child molester. His complicated history gets a fresh retelling in director Marina Zenovich’s revealing documentary.

The film opens with an unflinching account of the charges against Polanski resulting from an afternoon he spent photographing 13-year-old Samantha Gailey. Accused of rape, sodomy, and giving drugs to a minor (among other things), Polanski became the focal point of a media circus. After a trial fraught with corruption and injustice, he ultimately fled to France, where he’s stayed in exile for the last 30 years.

It’s fitting that the majority of Wanted and Desired is devoted to exploring the curious motivations of the judge who presided over the case, Laurence J. Rittenband. His damaging machinations, which included striking secret deals with the defense and prosecution while staging proceedings for the press with pre-determined outcomes, ultimately perverted any sense of justice for Gailey or Polanski.

Wanted and Desired contains fascinating, candid interviews with key players in the trial, but, frustratingly, the least interesting one is with a grown-up Gailey, who offers little insight. What makes the documentary so compelling is how Zenovich fleshes out the film with plenty of character-building moments, offering a fully realized portrait of Polanski that, while never exonerating him, effectively illustrates how he’s been cast in the make-believe film version of his own life: visionary, villain, and victim. 

Maz Jobrani

I also got to interview Maz Jobrani for WE's comedy issue.

Raised on a steady diet of Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor, the forefathers of button-pushing comedy, Maz Jobrani felt he had no choice but to follow suit. The Iranian-American comedian irks the politically correct with brashly subversive routines that alternate between mocking and debunking Middle Eastern stereotypes. See his Axis of Evil special on Comedy Central for proof, or better still, see him at the Commodore.

Did you always want to stir the pot with your comedy?

Jobrani: You know, I never thought of it that way. I just wanted to be funny. But Eddie Murphy was my first influence, and the first time I was going to do stand-up — which I chickened out of, by the way — I was 17, and I started writing material that was all sex-based. I was trying to do a bit about why was our genitalia in the middle of our body, in the most inflexible place, as opposed to our palms, which would be great, and then every time you shake hands you’re having sex, or if you high-five somebody. I’d write it and think it was brilliant, and then the next day I’d read it and go, “Ohhh, that’s stupid.”

Do you get criticized by politically correct organizations?

I think a lot of times people take offense to it because they’re not listening to the context. They just hear a red-flag word and go nuts. After September 11, I was doing a joke about the guys who crashed the planes and, I mean, they affected everybody, including me as a Middle Easterner, and now I have to deal with all this backlash and the people, obviously, who died. But the one group nobody is talking about is high-school students, because in the future, history tests are going to suck. When the teacher asks them to name the people who hijacked the planes, the students are going to be like, “Umm, there was Al-Kafee, Al-Kafeek Kafou, Al Kafee Kafoococoapuff.” (Laughs.) And so, I’m making fun of their names and a lady took offense. Or, around the Iraq War, the administration sold the line that if you criticized the Iraq War, you’re criticizing the troops, and I was doing a bit about George Bush and a couple times people were like, “You shouldn’t make fun of the President!” And I’m like, that’s the whole point of this country!

I want to do a little word association with you, if you’re up for it. Give me your initial gut reaction or thoughts on each one: George Bush.

AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

Barack Obama.

Yesss!

Democracy.

We kind of have it. We kind of don’t.

Iran.

Leave ’em alone.

Axis of Evil.

There’s only one left, which is Iran, so it’s kind of just a Point of Evil now. It’s so 2004.

Lily Tomlin interview

I got to interview Lily Tomlin for this week's WE. Pick up a copy if you get the chance!


An interview with the legendary Lily Tomlin is a remarkable way to spend Christmas Eve. Her throaty laughter punctuates every anecdote, and conversation quickly becomes the equivalent of a meandering stroll behind the scenes of late-20th-century Hollywood. From her first regular paying gig, opposite Madeline Khan and Dixie Carter, to her recent stint on Desperate Housewives, Tomlin has continued to revolutionize and redefine what it means to be a woman in comedy.

Which female comedians inspired you when you were younger?

Tomlin: I had very eclectic tastes, from the most sophisticated to the most out-there person. As a kid growing up, when we first got a TV, I would see a lot of women who had sitcoms, like Joan Davis from I Married Joan — she was very range-y, she wasn’t pretty, but a very character-looking woman. And, of course, Lucy [Lucille Ball]; I loved her and Ethel and the stuff they would get into, the physicality. One time, at [New York comedy club] Upstairs at the Downstairs, one of the young girls was the ingénue, but she was hilarious offstage. She’d be telling me stories and doing stuff, and I’d be telling her she should do that onstage because she was always so boring, because the ingénues are always boring, and she’d fluff up and her hair would get real big and she’d say, “Oh, I wouldn’t want anyone to think I was unattractive.”

Speaking of the attractive element of women in comedy, have you seen the cover story on Tina Fey for this month’s Vanity Fair?

I saw the cover, but I haven’t read it yet. Was there a lot of character stuff inside?

Well, the author, Maureen Dowd...

Ah, well, forget it. As much as I love her sometimes, she’s really a piece of work.

It’s all about how Tina Fey has become hot, and how her attractiveness has finally caught up to her brains. I can’t imagine being Tina Fey and reading it. It’s really just a sum of her body parts.

I’ve gotta read it before I jump to any conclusions, but that’s a shame. Maureen’s not a very generous person. I don’t know her, I shouldn’t make these pronouncements, but, from her pieces, she doesn’t seem very generous, and I would think she’s not very kind to other women.

Yeah, I don’t think you need to be lovely to every woman because you have matching parts, but still...

I think it clouds her objectivity, and I don’t read Maureen with any intense regularity. Primarily, in the ’50s and ’60s, people would say, “How can you do stand-up? You’ll lose your femininity.” That was an old song. Frankly, it didn’t even occur to me. I wasn’t crazy about anybody who debased the species. In the old days, [male comedians] would always say, “Take my mother-in-law... please!” and I always wanted to play the mother-in-law.

What made you decide to get back out on the road now and do stand-up?

I never stopped doing stand-up, one-nighters or two-nighters. From the time I got on Laugh-In, I had an act, and it was the only thing that kept me off Match Game [a popular ’70s game show whose guest panel was ostensibly a dumping ground for has-been celebrities]. Unless I was doing a movie or doing my one-woman show, I always had my act and did 40 to 50 dates a year.

What sorts of things are on your mind right now?

Everything to me is sort of political, so it depends on what’s going on in the times. Ernestine [one of Tomlin’s famous characters from Laugh-In] is a good character and she can speak to anybody. She’s irascible. Lately, she’s been working at a big healthcare insurance company, and so she can deny healthcare to everyone, and that makes her happy. And it speaks to that issue.

Almost everyone in Canada was really excited about Obama getting elected. Are you still feeling that sensation of hope and change?

We’re praying for it. I mean, even the whole Rick Warren thing — I can sort of buy Obama’s justification about different points of view and so on. When I was on Laugh-In, we were so political about the Vietnam War — those of us against the war — and John Wayne was on the show and I wouldn’t even be photographed with him. In retrospect, as a mature person, I regret those times. I wish I’d been more outgoing with them and found out what they think and why they think it, see if I could influence them. But when you’re younger, you have this sort of righteous thing, and it’s not good.

Died Young, Stayed Pretty

My review of Died Young, Stayed Pretty is online at WestEnder.com

Eileen Yaghoobian's documentary explores the kooky, insufferable, and fascinating world of rock-poster artists.

DIED YOUNG, STAYED PRETTY

By Andrea Warner

2 stars (out of 5)

Rock ’n’ roll has been a prime benefactor of the blurred line between advertising and art. Slapping a band’s logo on every blank surface has given way to an underground rock-poster scene, haphazardly taking shape over the last few decades and gaining momentum, as documented in Eileen Yaghoobian’s uneven directorial debut, Died Young, Stayed Pretty.

Pretty is Yaghoobian’s labour of love (she’s also the editor, cinematographer, and producer), and, unfortunately, her inability to be objective suffocates this doc. It’s a meandering mess from start to finish, but one that’s partly salvaged because her subjects are themselves a merry band of wandering misfits.

Yaghoobian’s desire to create a full-fledged insider’s guide to rock-poster artists (a kooky, insufferable, and fascinating bunch) is admirable. She offers interviews with a few artists, allowing them ample footage to talk about what motivates them, their processes, and how they fell into this unusual medium.

Other artists seem to have wandered in front of the camera by accident. One man makes a World Trade Center joke while flicking a lamp on and off (for what feels like forever) and faux-screaming like people jumping out of the towers. To what end? To show how “subversive” he is? How provocative art can be? It falls flat, and Yanghoobian does her subjects and her film a disservice by failing to establish a clear narrative.

The actual poster art is a tasty treat for music lovers, but the rest of Died Young, Stayed Pretty grows old fast.

Little Joy

My interview with the band Little Joy appears in this week's WE.

Little Joy (from left): Rodrigo Amarante, Binki Shapiro, and Fabrizio Moretti.

MUSIC: Little Joy springs forth from a Stroke of luck

Posted By: Andrea Warner

Up until about six months ago, almost no one had heard of Binki Shapiro, but now she’s one-third of Little Joy, the new laid-back indie-lounge band formed by her famous boyfriend, Fabrizio Moretti, drummer for on-hiatus rock hipsters the Strokes. Little Joy’s origins are as feel-good as their songs: Moretti met up with Rodrigo Amarante (singer-guitarist for Los Hermanos) at a Portuguese music festival in 2007, and the two became fast friends. Amarante then relocated to Los Angeles to work with Devendra Banhart, and he and Moretti met Shapiro. The trio traded musical ideas and ended up renting a house in the Echo Park neighbourhood to write and record, eventually naming themselves after their favourite watering hole. (It’s no accident that the songs on their Brazilian-tinged debut are perfect drinking music.)

Little Joy’s self-titled debut is receiving some high-profile reviews, thanks to the album’s rock-star pedigree and its lazy-day-at-the-beach rhythms. (It doesn’t hurt that Amarante’s voice has inspired more than a few people to double-check the liner notes to make sure it’s not Strokes lead singer Julian Casablancas.) Still, it’s a lot to get used to for Shapiro. The perpetually shy unknown is suddenly touring in a van with her partner and their band, and the first time WE calls to talk about her school-of-rock immersion, she demures, asking to postpone the interview until the next day because she’s too shy to chat in front of the guys. All together now: Awwww!

WE: What was your musical background before Little Joy?
Shapiro: I learned how to play the guitar a few years ago — I taught myself, and I wrote a few songs, playing at my house and doing songs on GarageBand and stuff like that. Fab and Rodrigo were really the first people I showed my songs to. I mean, I showed them to a few people before, but I was always really secretive or shy about it.

Were you scared about showing your songs to established musicians?
I was a bit, but it wasn’t about them. It was about showing them to anyone. Fab was really shy and timid to show me what he’d been working on, because he hadn’t really shown people before. He was sort of in the same boat as me, so it gave me comfort to do the same.

How did the band come together?
One thing just came after the other and it just sort of fell into place, and we were all getting to know each other and discovering who we were. We were in that beginning stage of friendship where everything is very fun and interesting and you haven’t heard people’s stories a million times, so it was just born out of having a good time and a common love for music. The sound sort of came from banging on something and going, “Oh, this sounds cool!”

Did you have a favourite part of making this album, or a song that really clicked for you?
I was at my sister’s house when Fab called me and, I mean, the amount of times I’ve gotten these phone calls from Fab and he’s like, “Wait, you gotta hear this!” and he’d set the phone down by the guitar and I’m, like, at the bank or something. This time he called me and said, “I wrote a song for you and I want you to hear it.” So I came home and he showed me “Brand New Start,” and he sat there and sang it very sweetly. While we were recording it, everyone who came to visit us during that time would leave singing the chorus. I’ve always had a closeness to that song.

Influence

My review of Influence also appears in this week's WE.

STAGE REVIEW: History and fantasy meld beautifully in ‘Influence’

Daniel Arnold and Colleen Wheeler combine literary history and Greek mythology in Influence.

Credit: Supplied

Posted By: Andrea Warner

11/13/2008 12:00 AM

Victoria-based playwright Janet Munsil might be a genius. At first glance, the ideas behind her new play, Influence, seem too numerous and, well, dull — like some strange introductory English Lit class — to result in anything resembling an entertaining two hours of theatre. And yet, in her capably crafty hands, she makes her audience care about the magic of inspiration and art by interweaving Greek mythology, Romantic poet John Keats, and failed painter Benjamin Robert Haydon.

Influence delights in its academics, but takes equal pleasure in blending fact and fiction for a full-bodied re-imagining of a visit by Keats and Haydon to view the Elgin Marbles (ancient Greek statues originally housed in the Parthenon, and the inspiration for Keats’s famous sonnet). There, the pair meet three tempestuous Greek gods — Athena, Apollo, and Hephaestus — who end up battling over Keats’s fate, as well as settling old scores with each other.

This is an impeccably cast production, but a few standouts include Daniel Arnold, who is a joy as Keats. His desperation is palpable (Keats has just quit his job to become a poet), and his delighted awe at Haydon’s artistic passion makes their mentor-protégé relationship entirely believable. Colleen Wheeler is always wonderful, and her Athena is powerful and appropriately intimidating, given that the character is the God of wisdom and war.

But Influence’s greatest asset is Mike Stack as Haydon, imagined here as obnoxious, self-involved, a borderline mad Willy Wonka wielding a paintbrush. Yet Stack keeps the character relatable, allowing the audience to see that for all Haydon’s bravado, his denial is a fragile bubble in which to hide.

This is Influence’s world premiere, and while there likely are still tweaks to be made (it’s about 20 minutes too long), it has all the makings of a new classic.

Rosebuds

And, my Rosebuds piece appears this week as well in WE.

The Rosebuds’ Kelly Crisp and Ivan Howard.

Credit: Supplied

MUSIC: The couple that rocks together, stays together

Posted By: Andrea Warner

11/13/2008 12:00 AM

It’s been a beautifully morose few years for Ivan Howard and Kelly Crisp, the married musical duo also known as the Rosebuds. Death has had a profound effect on their last two albums: Crisp’s grandmother died while she and Howard were writing their third, 2007’s Night of the Furies; and the death of a neighbourhood fox inspired “Nice Fox,” the best song on their latest album, Life Like. Most recently — three weeks ago, in fact — the couple had to put down their 14-year-old Boxer, Jasmine, the subject of an inspired music video in which they cover Salt N’ Pepa’s “Push It” (it subsequently became a YouTube sensation).

But even with such dark inspirations, Howard is pretty upbeat, looking forward to embarking on a North American tour in support of the Rosebuds’ most thoughtful album yet. The North Carolina-based indie-rock darlings are known for creating albums that sound nothing like their predecessors, and this latest one is no exception. Recorded inside their little two-storey house, Life Like has an extraordinarily intimate acoustic sound that stands in sharp contrast with the electronic/pop-rock stylings of Furies.

WE caught up with Howard a few days before the band’s hometown tour-kick-off show.

“Nice Fox” is about a fox that died in your backyard. Do you take from nature and your surroundings a lot?
Howard: Yeah, I think. We did the [2005 album] Birds Make Good Neighbors, and we didn’t record it in our house, but I wrote everything in the back room of our house. We live in downtown Raleigh, and it actually has 10 acres of woods behind the house, so we actually have a wildlife rescue, sort of, in our backyard. When you’re around that many things, it’s liable to creep up in your imagery. Our last record, Furies, didn’t have much of the animal imagery — it was based more on our trip to Europe and the impending doom of George Bush, stuff like that.

How did you deal with recording this album in your house, turning your living space into your work space and vice versa?
Every day, you have to re-set up everything, which sucks, but it kind of gets you in the mood to work again. [We ended up leaving everything up] and just shutting the door. It was better than driving an hour to the studio every day and driving back. You just make room for it and then try to forget it’s there. It’s a tiny house, too — just two bedrooms. But it was fun.

It’s a pretty unique situation, working so intimately with your partner.
Yeah. It’s good. That part was really convenient. (laughs) But sometimes you need space to think about things for a little bit. When I show Kelly ideas, I like to work them out a little bit and then show them to her, and she does the same thing. But when we’re all over each other in the same space and recording, you don’t get a chance to do that.

Kelly’s time is divided between Raleigh and Brooklyn as she pursues being a stand-up comic. Is it difficult juggling both lives?
Yeah, but not that difficult. Before we got the band going, she was doing a lot of acting and comedy, and then we moved to Raleigh and, before we knew it, our whole support community was music-based. Then we got signed to Merge Records and, accidentally, we were in a band full-time. We went to New York in 2004 to The Onion’s Christmas party, and she ran into all these comics and she was like, “Wow, I forgot about this whole part of my life that I really love,” so she got a sketch group together back in Raleigh and they were amazing, and I was like, “Yeah, we’ve been doing my thing for five years. Let’s do yours.”

I know you’re into sports. I don’t hear many musicians say that.
The whole community in Raleigh is into basketball, so I think that’s a misnomer... in the south, anyway. One of my best friends, Justin Vernon from Bon Iver, that’s how we met, was playing basketball… But maybe you’re right. I’ve spent months on the road and never shot a basket. I really know more about the starting lineup of a team than how a song was written.

Quantum of Solace

My review of Quantum of Solace appears in this week's WE.

James Bond (Daniel Craig) comes to the aid of Camille (Olga Kurylenko) in Quantum of Solace.

Credit: Supplied

QUANTUM OF SOLACE
By Andrea Warner
2 stars (out of 5; 3 stars if you've seen Casino Royale)

Casino Royale revitalized the James Bond franchise by fusing ass-kicking action with art-house grace, and its increasingly troubled legacy was reborn!

Or so we thought. Quantum of Solace suffers a severe case of Second Child Syndrome, with several lacklustre action sequences, a preposterous plot, and an arrogant presumption by its writers that audiences would carry the emotional baggage from Royale forward.

Quantum opens moments after Royale ends, with Bond (a steely Daniel Craig) desperate to avenge the death of his lady love, Vesper Lynd. He’s pulled in to help uncover the identity of a top-secret group — comprised of the world’s political, financial, and morally compromised elite — that has infiltrated MI6. Bond’s nemesis is the power-crazed Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric, his eyeball-driven acting chewing the scenery), who wants to control the world’s water supply. At Bond’s side is wounded beauty Camille (Olga Kurylenko), also consumed by revenge.

It’s a convoluted mess of a story that fails to resonate in any meaningful way, and not just because the audience is expected to harken back to Royale every 20 minutes. Greene is never adequately established as a chilling villain or credible foil for Bond, Camille’s backstory is predictable, and the chemistry between Kurylenko and Craig barely quickens the pulse.

The one truly awesome sequence juxtaposes scenes from Puccini’s Tosca amidst the unravelling of the secret society’s key players. It’s beautifully shot, and showcases Bond’s brains and balls over his brawn. The cinematography is innovative and clever, but it’s the only moment in the film that manages to rise above its infinitely superior predecessor.

Scarcely shaken, never stirred, there’s only minor solace to be found here.

The Dresser

My review of the play, The Dresser, appears in this week's WE.

The Dresser
By Andrea Warner

The Dresser, the finely crafted 1980 play by Ronald Harwood, has a lengthy history of granting good performers an award-winning tours de force, both on stage and on the silver screen. At its centre is an aging, egomaniacal actor facing his mortality, and the servile, fey dresser who has taken care of him for the last 16 years, all as the London blitz wails in the background. The Dresser is every actor’s dream: an opportunity for the aging lion to roar one last time, and for the young cub to prove his worth and hold his own.

Unfortunately, little of the play’s greatness is evident in the production currently on at Presentation House, and it’s hard to know where the blame should fall.

Dave McIntosh plays Sir — the aforementioned actor and head of a touring Shakespeare company — with almost comic exaggeration, chewing on scenery like a puppy getting its adult teeth. The character should alternate between breaking our hearts and frustrating us with his selfishness. Instead, he’s just exhausting as he launches in for the umpteenth time (between scenes of King Lear, the play he is performing that evening) about his impending descent into death. McIntosh’s performance is one-note and oddly flat, even when he’s clenching his hands and raging with fury.

As Norman, Sir’s dresser, Michael Morabito does a convincing job of smoothing out Sir’s wrinkles (professional and personal) with aplomb. But he also lets the nuances of the script slip by, tossing off some brilliantly funny asides too quickly. Norman’s alcoholism and slipping grip on reality are communicated via increasingly frequent nips from a flask, rather than any real emotional or physical transformation.

The play picks up a bit of steam in the second act, but never recovers from its shaky start. A surer hand from director Jennifer Morabito, and more time spent interpreting the explosive script, would have kept The Dresser from succumbing to its show-within-a-show irony and mirroring Sir’s painfully slow (but ultimately welcome) end.

Secret Machines

My interview with the band, Secret Machines, appears in this week's WE. I saw them open for Blonde Redhead a number of years ago and they're pretty great live.

Secret Machines
By Andrea Warner

Brandon Curtis, lead singer of Secret Machines, is in Aspen, Colorado, for the first time, looking into the distance at snow-capped mountains, a jarring contrast to the balmy temperature outside. He calls the city “exotic,” and though that may be an exaggeration, it’s easy to understand why the New York-by-way-of-Dallas transplant is allowing himself a moment to be awed by the unfamiliar landscape.

This has been an overwhelming year for the Dallas-based trio. In the midst of their first tour as newly independent artists, they’re making stops in places the band’s former label, Warner Bros., would have overlooked. The group’s self-described “space rock” borrows heavily from forefathers like Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, and big, atmospheric, riff-heavy sounds populate their new self-released, self-titled album. With a fresh lease on life as a bona fide indie band comes a line-up change, too: Last year, Curtis’s brother, Benjamin, departed Secret Machines to focus on his new band, School of Seven Bells.

Curtis took a quick break to talk with WE about his new commitment to fiscal conservatism, getting the finger in Milan, and receiving David Bowie’s stamp of approval.

What’s your mindset when you’re going on stage to play a gig?
Brandon Curtis: It’s kind of a strange thing to do night after night. Playing a song that we’ve played for years and feeling like we’re connecting with feelings that existed when we were writing the song, and bringing that to the surface night after night, is odd. There’s some kind of psychological manipulation that I go through to rediscover that state of mind.

Do the fans’ reactions translate from the crowd onto the stage?
Definitely, especially in support slots. Like the Foo Fighters, for example — there were some pretty rabid Foo Fighters fans, and you’d think they would be very tolerant and happy, but they weren’t. They were very anxious and just “Get off the stage, already,” and that creates a very confrontational kind of atmosphere. But, afterwards, it’s like a notch — you know, that time in Milan with the Foo Fighters and the sea of middle fingers.

Obviously, Secret Machines have been through some changes in the last few years. How is that reflected in the new album?
Well, first of all, Phil’s [Karmats] contributions on guitar — he’s a different player and a very different personality than Benjamin, and that’s pretty evident on the album. He has a different way of hearing music and playing. For me, that’s the biggest difference. I don’t think we approached the process any differently based on our business situation, not making a record for Warner Bros.

Was it scary to do it on your own?
With Warner Bros., you have this big, bureaucratic monolith with seemingly endless resources, and we don’t have that anymore. It’s not scary, but it changes the context of things and the way we view the business. We have to be more precise and conservative with time and money. The weirdest thing about Warner Bros. is that the money didn’t come out of anyone’s pockets, so they were very happy to spend it. But when it’s your own circumstances, your own livelihood, it’s a finite amount and it comes from here to go there — you can see where everything’s going. That’s taken some adjustments.

David Bowie asked you to close out the Highline Festival he curated in New York. What does it mean when a big name like that endorses you?
It’s very flattering. We’ve been really fortunate. And someone like David Bowie, who I’ve grown up adoring and wishing to emulate, basically worshipping on some level — you know, someone who represents music and art on the highest level, like a name that doesn’t even equal human to me — and then to have an opportunity to meet someone like that... I’m pinching myself sometimes. It’s fucking great.

I've Loved You So Long

My review of the new French film, I've Loved You So Long, appears in this week's WE.

I've Loved You So Long
By Andrea Warner
4 stars

Fractious sisters and women playing “ugly” (read: au naturel) are the twin wonders of cinema in 2008 (see also: Then She Found Me, Frozen River, Silent Light). But, to date, no one has brought such exquisite elegance to the combination as Kristin Scott Thomas, who stars in one of the most resonant films of the year, the beautiful French weeper, I’ve Loved You So Long.

Thomas disappears wholly inside the character of Juliet, a lean, brittle, exposed nerve of a woman who is reunited with her younger sister, Léa (the sweetly hopeful Elsa Zylberstein), after 15 years. Léa is young and vibrant, with the complete package: a happy family, a career as a literature professor, and a beautiful home. Juliet is starting from scratch, her belongings being one suitcase and plenty of emotional baggage.

The 15-year absence is central to the plot twists, and, as the sisters slowly reconnect, Juliet finds herself further entrenched in Léa’s life. The women dance around each other — Juliet guarded and cold, Léa tentative and yearning — and the subsequent revelations provide one emotional wallop after another.

This is a film that wraps its broken heart inside a blanket of books, as almost every character — a multi-ethnic cast of casual intellectuals who read (!) and are more interesting for it — retreats into the world of fiction to make sense of their lives.

If the film makes one misstep, it’s the compulsive need to redeem Juliet in its last five minutes. Thorny issues involving law and morality politicize her journey, weakening the impact of the sisters’ cathartic climax. But, it’s just one flaw in an otherwise perfect facade. C’est la vie.

Let the Right One In

One of the best movie's this year! My review of Let the Right One In appears in this week's WE.

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN

By Andrea Warner

4 stars

Haunting, hopeful, and soulfully sweet, Let The Right One In is the remarkable and complex new Swedish film juxtaposing vampire lore with the awkward loneliness of prepubescent youth.

Oskar (Kåre Hederbrand) is a ghostly-pale 12-year-old who is being bullied at school, constantly fantasizing about revenge and murder, and intrigued by his new neighbour, Eli (Lina Leandersson), a mysterious young girl whose penchant for human blood is becoming harder and harder to satisfy on the sly. As Eli’s secret threatens to come out of the coffin, so to speak, Oskar has to face the fact that his new friend is a real-life manifestation of his darkest thoughts.

Director Tomas Alfredson’s adaptation of John Ajvide Lindqvist’s novel (Lindqvist wrote the screenplay as well) balances the nuances of love and horror perfectly. He allows Oskar and Eli to forge a touching relationship — fully realized through a series of scenes that revel in the push-pull of childishness and maturity — that is infinitely wiser than most adult couplings.

And then there’s the body count. This is perhaps the only film wherein a decapitated head signals true love, and really means it. At times delightful and winsome, the film never loses its menace. The cinematography is rooted in the naturally creepy beauty of winter-blown landscapes, with crunching snow, sparse forests, frozen lakes, and industrial-looking buildings casting a cool, pale-blue hue over the entire picture.

Every detail of Let The Right One In is perfectly layered, and all manner of themes are hinted at: family issues, suicide, homosexuality, class. It’s a thoroughly modern coming-of-age story. But, like any good vampire, it has a strong bite.