Everything People Say I Am,That's What I Am: On The Arctic Monkeys, Be Your Own Pet, and The Hype MachineAll you people are vampiresAll your stories are staleThough you pretend to stand by us Though you're certain we'll fail.-- The Arctic Monkeys,"Perhaps Vampires Is a Bit Strong But..."Hype is a funny thing. Or maybe I should say: The way people react to it is funny. Some fall for it, while others run away. But why does it have to be an either/or proposition? That's what I've never understood. Some phenomena lives up to it, some doesn't.After hearing all the hub-bub about the Arctic Monkeys, I picked up their debut. Guess what? I love it, and I'd be

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Cinematic Status ReportSo far this year I've seen 179 films. I caught 63 during this year's Seattle International Film Festival, which ran from 5/25-6/18 (and which I've been attending since 1988, when I moved to Seattle). Press screenings ran from 5/8-6/16, so that's 42 days of uninterrupted filmgoing. This year, I've also watched two dozen films for Amazon reviewing purposes (that number seems small, but it's what my records indicate). Some, like Clean and New York Doll, I'd seen before, but I was more than happy to visit them again.No one film at this year's fest impressed me as much as Crumb (1994) or Trainspotting (1996), but my favorites were Sk

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Who is Peter Tevis (And Why Is Bob CumbowTalkin' About Him)?The following is a portion of an email auth-or/attorney Bob Cumbow sent to a few friends in May. With his permission, I am reproduc-ing it here, as I thought the information was worth sharing.***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****As you might recall, I notified some of you a couple monthsago that Peter Tevis--who sang the lyrics to several of the tit-le songs from spaghetti westerns--lives on Mercer Island (who knew?). Tevis was more important to the evolution of the spaghetti western than most people know, because, in 1962,Peter introduced a song to Ennio Morricone. At that ti

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Around the Way GirlJames Brown may have invented funk, but Sly Stone perfected it.--Jason Ankeny,All Music GuideA few weeks ago, I picked up Sly & the Family Stone's Whole New Thing, which features a hypnotic number called "Trip to Your Heart." Granted, I bought the album mostly for "Underdog," covered so persuasively by the Dirtbombs on Ultraglide in Black, but "Trip" is just as good (if not better). It's also a big part of LL Cool J's "Mama Said Knock You Out," i.e. he borrowed the ascending "Ah-ah-ah-ah" from Stone. The goopy "Around the Way Girl," on the other hand, is my least favorite LL song, but seemed like an ideal subject line for this p

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JunebugHere are the reviews I'mworking on for this month.Amazon: Thee Emergency - Can You Dig It? [yes!], The Submarines - Declare a New State, McKids Adventures - Get Up and Go With Ronald, Pink - Live in Europe ("God is a DJ"), Winter Passing (Ed Harris, Will Ferrell, and Zooey Deschanel), Beavis and Butt-head - The Mike Judge Collection: Volume Two [three-disc set] (I also reviewed Volume One), Various Artists - '80s Hits Stripped (acoustic versions of MTV staples), Alexi Murdoch - Time Without Consequence, Ism - Monkey Underneath, Madame Curie (Mervyn LeRoy reunites with Greer "Mrs. Miniver" Garson), Mike's Murder (Debra Winger plus Joe Jackson

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SIFF Shorts: Crazy TeenagersWhile Siffblog is down, I thought I'd post these re-views here. You can find revised versions there. C.R.A.Z.Y.(Jean-Marc Vallée, Canada, 129 mins.)Funny, moving, and highly tuneful, C.R.A.Z.Y. trumps mostof the gay coming-of-age films that have preceded it. Montreal writer/director Vallée (Liste Noire) pulls off the feat simply by painting an indelible portrait of an entire family, particularlythe relationship between stern father and free-spirited son,and not just the efforts by the latter to define his sexuality.He also sidesteps (or at least subverts) many of the clichés thathave hampered the genre. Worth watching for t

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