Due Process: Rework

The inside cover of Rework states that in reading it, "You'll learn how to be more productive, how to get exposure without breaking the bank, and tons more counterintuitive ideas that will inspire and provoke you." Add the print and web endorsements from hip business savants like Tony Hsieh, Tim Ferriss and Seth Godin, and you have a hot little hardback that's all but guaranteed to underdeliver.

But this is a great book. Penned by Jason Fried and David Heinemeir Hansson, the founders of 37signals, the book is similar in design to their company's software applications: simple and elegant.

Snap Judgment: Wu Massacre

Album: Wu Massacre
Artist:  Method Man, Ghostface Killah, Raekwon

Like the cover art, Wu Massacre is a comic (and comedic, considering certain interludes) panel of spliced-together, sharply-animated talents. Still, certifiable "Wu bangers" only occasion the roll call, the instrumentals are too listenable for old-school Wu fans, and these three clansmen only do what they already do best. Verdict: [B-]

Skip to the good part:  Mef vs Chef 2

Snap Judgment: My Propeller

Album: My Propeller
Artist: Arctic Monkeys

What a head-hung, cavernous drag through four nearly-identical tracks. My Propeller is less consistency, more redundancy, from these (admittedly) typically moody Brit rockers. Only the finale, "Don't Forget Whose Legs You're On," prevented me from stepping off a window ledge. Verdict: [C]

Due Process: Fantastic Mr. Fox

That settles it. This is the first kids movie I'll be purchasing for my baby. She's only one month old (she might correct me to say a month-and-a-half), but I have very little faith that a more cleverly-written and directed kids film will arrive anytime before her third birthday. Probably even by her fifth.

George Clooney reprises his role as Danny Ocean, believably stumbling his way through marriage and fatherhood, all while taking on big business, Fern Gully-style.

The crotch-kicking fart-joke reliance of most other kids films--let alone their movie trailers--has me facepalming before I even turn the DVD box over, but that's probably why Fantastic Mr. Fox so winningly succeeds: It's not a "kids movie." At least there's no crotch-kicking, and I didn't hear a single fart joke, which pretty much knocks it out of the kids movie category nowadays anyway. Verdict: [A]

Snap Judgment: More Malice

Album: More Malice
Artist: Snoop Dogg

A phoned-in verse by Hove on the leading track, "I Wanna Rock (The Kings G-Mix feat. Jay-Z)," is a shoulda-been-better starting point to a schizophrenic jumble of new tracks, coupled with some Malice 'N Wonderland hits and remixes copy-pasted in. Still, the variety feels inorganic but nonetheless compelling. Verdict: [C+]

Skip to the good part: Gangsta Luv (Mayer Hawthorne G-Mix)

Snap Judgment: The Black Swan - The Impact of the Highly Improbable (prologue and chapters I - III)

Nassim Nicholas Taleb's thesis is interesting enough, if rather dry: that modern statistics has such a focus on the standard bell-curve that outliers are routinely omitted from any given data-set in order to artificially create one. Couple that with his observation that outlying events are not only inevitable, but highly impactful, and you have many critical fields of study that delude themselves on a regular basis. Taleb refers to these outlying events, of course, as Black Swans.

But Taleb's error in these first few chapters is not in his thesis--it's in his delivery. Like an actor overstepping his entertainment boundaries to promote ill-formed political biases, Taleb painfully trips over himself to make snide parenthetical comments regarding irrelevant trivialities. At one point in the first chapter, Taleb uses a paragraph-long footnote to expound his thoughts on why "Levantine" is a more appropriate term than "Lebanese" to describe people from Lebanon (apparently, Lebanon is too new a country to deserve its own -ese just yet). These reckless asides are so frequent and distracting that you have to wonder whether the manuscript ever crossed an editor's desk, or if Random House instead settled for a simple once-over from a team of proofreaders. Perhaps the book itself was a black swan, far more successful than the publisher ever expected based on the minimal editorial attention allotted.

Regardless of what Taleb is focusing on at any given point, the tone of his prose is consistent: presumptuous, professorial, and filled with self-aggrandizement. Take this example from the end of chapter one:  

     Once, on a transatlantic flight, I found myself upgraded to first class next to an expensively dressed, high-powered lady dripping with gold and jewelry who continuously ate nuts (low-carb diet, perhaps), [and] insisted on drinking only Evian... She kept trying to start a conversation in broken French, since she saw me reading a book (in French) by the sociologist-philosopher Pierre Bourdieu--which, ironically, dealt with the marks of social distinction.

These anecdotes are sprinkled throughout to serve as evidence that Taleb is intelligent and worth our time--if we're worth his. His style is pompous and forced, with occasional jocularity that comes off as contempt; in short, he isn't someone I want to spend 305 pages with, despite my interest in his thesis. And that's the most frustrating part: this book probably does contain worthwhile, exciting information. But you'd have to get past Taleb to find it.

For those interested in the subject matter who also want to enjoy the reading experience, Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers and The Tipping Point are excellent, as is Leonard Mlodinow's revelatory (and happily math-heavy) The Drunkard's Walk. These books all tackle similar concepts to Taleb's but with more veracity and excitement, and none of the self-congratulatory pretense of The Black Swan.

Verdict: [D+]

Due Process: Repo Men

I was drunk when I saw Repo Men. My girlfriend, her friend and I went to see it over the weekend and decided to play a game of drinking-Twister first (take more than five seconds to put the right appendage on the right spot and you have to take a drink; fall or sit down and you take two). But we chose Repo Men for that very purpose: a bad movie that, based on the previews, promised to be funny if viewed while intoxicated.

It came through on that promise. Between the awful dialogue ("We just fit, like two pieces of a puzzle"), the terrible acting and directing (there were at least two moments where the lead actress shed a single tear), and the nonsensical-yet-predictable plot, this is a movie that must be viewed drunkenly, if at all. Director Miguel Sapochnik's attempts to impersonate Guy Ritchie fall flat through a series of poorly executed, unnecessary voiceovers by lead Jude Law, and Forest Whitaker's talent is wasted on the two-dimensional script, written by fifth-graders Eric Garcia and Garrett Lerner.

The titular repo men, played by Law and Whitaker, work for a healthcare company in the future that specializes in artificial-organ implants. The obligatory evil-empire twist comes when you find out that these agents actually euthanize former patients when they fall behind on their payments, reclaiming the organs (presumably to resell). But watching the film, it becomes clear that a more insidious evil is taking place in real life as it seeks to claim your brain cells by forcing you to drink more and more Seagram's-spiked Cherry Coke to keep the entertainment value from wearing off. This movie will give you a hangover.

Verdicts: Repo Men [D]; Drunken Twister [A]

Randy:  The movie forces you to drink more Seagram's-spiked Cherry Coke?  Gee, spoiler much?
 

Due Process: Led Zeppelin - "Dazed and Confused (Gyber Remix)"

I wanted to hate this track. It begins with too little Jimmy Page and too much Gyber (whoever that is). It reduces Robert Plant's classic driving vocals to an annoying, stuttering echo. And it backs all of this with a typical dancehall-breakbeat drumline under a seizure-inducing atonal glitch rhythm. The standard remix instrumentals continue until they become catchy or you throw up, whichever comes first--and the other is sure to follow.

But later, as the song gradually brings in more of Plant's vocals and Page's guitar (supplemented by overdubbing), and gives due focus to John Paul Jones's bassline, eventually it starts to feel more like an homage and less like an awkward, random sampling of soundbites. The beautiful friction that came with being dragged through the emotions of the original song is not here in the slightest, but the original wouldn't translate to a sweat-slicked dance floor tonight. As a pelvic-grinding remix, then, the Gyber version succeeds. Verdict: [C+]

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Due Process: Dwight Shrute vs. Lil' Wayne - "Office Musik (Clockwork Edit)"

Rap's current advocate for prolificacy and damning overexposure, Lil' Wayne, teams up with the Office's Dwight Schrute in a mashup that's woefully thin on Dwight Schrute. Still, it's a harmonica- and kick drum-driven remix that'll grind a few minutes off your Outlook calendar. Verdict: [C]

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Due Process: Gentlemen Broncos

Ten minutes in, my only fear was that Gentlemen Broncos wouldn't go all the way. By the time there was only ten minutes to go, I wished they'd reeled it all back in.

Not because of the attach-laser-turrets-to-everything notebook drawings, because I did that. Not from the fantasy/sci-fi author hero worship, because I did that, too. In fact, there's plenty here for library-lurking writers-workshop dorks to draw parallels to: my father always dreamed of raising his kids in a dome home; my mother's clothing was oblivious to both fashion and function; and I often injected pointy-eared, soft-porn scenarios into my private journals.

Regardless, Gentlemen Broncos eventually trades in its anachronistic nostalgia for gross-out gags, and even treats prime awkward-teen-romance real estate as a mishandled sidebar. Verdict: [D]

Skip To The Good Part:  The airbrushed, Boris-Valejo recreations of main guy Benjamin's stories are a pulpy piecemeal of Buck Rogers, Top Gun, and Heavy Metal magazine, but certainly don't stop there.

Snap Judgment: Black Dynamite

Kyle: Black Dynamite is funny and worth your time. Verdict: [B+]

Randy: Though obviously not worth Kyle's time to explicate on.

Kyle: Correct. Because with its B+ grade, it's only one step above a Bobby Womack song.

Randy: That was the part where Kyle tried his hand at writing a Non-Sequitur comic strip. But for the record, Black Dynamite has just enough self-awareness to pull everything off without a hitch. Breaking the fourth wall, tire-damaging plotholes, boom mics dipping into the picture, deus ex machina--this isn't a comedy about a Shaft knockoff. It's a farce on Hollywood action films as a whole. Which was never more painfully obvious until I said it out loud. Just now. Verdict: [B]

Kyle: That was the part where Randy couldn't keep it to a short-and-simple snap judgment and had to get preachy. But his description has my blessing, despite the "tire-damaging plotholes" pun.

Due Process: Broken Bells

Album:  Broken Bells
Artist:  Broken Bells

Brian Burton (nee Danger Mouse) ditched his outsized director's chair in this collaboration with the Shins' James Mercer. And not only that, Burton's shedding much of the bombast informing earlier works with Cee-Lo and MF Doom, even putting chocks on the glitchy bravado splayed on Beck's Modern Guilt. On Broken Bells, Danger Mouse's fingerprint is indeed here, just not his iron fist.

Mercer's vocals deftly shoulder the wavering, electronic undercurrent. His typically bright, guitar-driven outlook from his work with the Shins is cottoned by virtue of Burton's more nuanced hand, not due to donning any jade-colored glasses.

But nothing here challenges your inner ear. In fact, Broken Bells' only drawback is that it's perfectly palatable from the very first listen. There may be very little here that actually fossilizes for future generations. Verdict: [B-]

Skip To The Good Part: The High Road,  The Ghost Inside.

Hung Jury: "Cloud of Unknowing"

Track:  Cloud of Unknowing
Album:  Plastic Beach
Artist:  Gorillaz

Randy:  R&B elder statesman, Bobby Womack, sits on the leeward side of Plastic Beach’s peak on the “Cloud of Unknowing.” His gravelly gospel rides orchestral air currents, soaring somewhere between the seagulls and the solar system. 

While Snoop Dogg is the album’s Wal-Mart greeter, Little Dragon the windswept schoolboy crush, and Albarn’s reticence aligning with his toon’s emo-tossed haircut, Womack croons a breath of spiritual oxygen into an atmosphere otherwise worked into a moody and amnesiac lather.

Without “Cloud of Unknowing” it would be easy to think that Plastic Beach is all fun and games (until somebody gets their heart broken). But Womack’s grandfatherly growl is a guide, serving as a reorientation of the island’s aesthetic compass. It’s less ‘glory hallelujah’ and more ‘rise with the sun,’ before gently descending back to the beach’s looping take-off and landing point on the “Pirate Jet.” Verdict: [A]

Kyle: Objection: For "Cloud of Unknowing," Damon Albarn exhumes the corpse of Robert Womack a second time, puppeting him around like a karaoke version of the title character from Weekend at Bernie's. But without Womack's peculiar blend of overfelt preteen cliches expressed through a box-of-rocks, hurts-your-throat-to-listen post-Motown wail, the final stretch of Plastic Beach would have simply been too good.

Sandwiching Womack's paleolithic groans between Little Dragon and Albarn's stunning "To Binge" and the perfect bookend "Pirate Ship" acts as an auditory palette cleanser, giving the listener a chance to take a breath and turn down the volume for a few minutes before finishing up an otherwise gorgeous album. Womack is a necessity out of fairness to the talent: a retired record agent for the real musicians of Plastic Beach. Verdict: [B]

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Hung Jury: "Melancholy Hill"

Track:  On Melancholy Hill
Album:  Plastic Beach
Artist:  Gorillaz

Kyle:  The tonal foundation of "On Melancholy Hill"--the buzzing synthesizer hum--drags the song down like an albatross, carrying through its entirety as a nagging reminder of how it began and where it will end. The sighing backup vocals and Damon Albarn's resigned tone form the emotional texture, while the upbeat piano and chimes act as counterpoints to make the sadness easier to swallow but no less painful to digest. 

The track is produced with a scratchy, vinyl-like quality that makes it sound like it's been sitting in someone's attic: this is not a song that takes place as we hear it. It's a memory, slightly faded and sweetened with age as all memories are, but haunted with mournful regret. [A]

Randy:  Objection. “On Melancholy Hill” is officially a letter of resignation from Albarn--a dreamer run out of dreams, and, behind the boards, a musical producer warily toeing the line between understated and lazy. Lifting that buzzy cicada synth reveals only lifeless, filmy slackerisms below it, and a might-as-well love story puckering up with all the permanence of a middle school game of MASH. Marshmallow-plucked percussion and scribbling riffs aside, “Melancholy Hill” is life as an interlude, and acquiescence mistaken for romance. That said, it's absolutely mesmeric. [B+]
 

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