DJ Jazzy Jeff f/ Eminem and Parl Yams - "When To Stand Up". Poorly ripped from a 12" which isn't mine, here's Eminem circa 1999, rapping atop a horn-and-scratch heavy track from Jazzy Jeff. This isn't exactly Eminem at the top of his game, but it's interesting to hear Em's snark on a track that features something other than sneaky organ-lines.

Pedro the Lion - "Keep Swinging". Taken from the new Pedro the Lion LP, Achilles Heel. The record's all right - the same sort of territory as Control (ie, electric guitars) - but neither the stories (lyrics) nor the songs (music) are very compelling. I'm beginning to think that It's Hard to Find a Friend is where Bazan's artistic career peaked. Anyway - what I like about "Keep Swinging" is that it actually seems concerned with being a pop song, at least to the degree that Pedro the Lion is capable. There's a shaker and a meandering pop bassline, not to mention some close vocal harmonies. To my great surprise, it sounds a lot like something that Sloan could have recorded circa Navy Blues, albeit after a medium dose of downers.

Saw a bunch of terrific films with Dan this weekend (thanks, dan):

All the Real Girls - A really beautiful love-story, more concerned with truth than with comfortable cliche. Beautifully shot, beautifully written, beautifully acted (although Zooey Deschanel is considerably better than Paul Schneider). I loved the languorous pace of this, the way that David Gordon Greene uses cuts like a good poet uses punctuation - ie, doing more than simply separating throughlines of meaning. The scene with the lovers standing in the bowling-alley seems imprinted on my mind... Oh, and special kudos for opening with a Bonnie Prince Billy song.

Man Bites Dog - A viciously funny French mockumentary about a serial killer. Benoit was a fascinatingly realistic character study - and much of his performance felt improvised, brilliantly so. The subject-matter was horrific, and yet I'm fascinated by the way that the movie made me self-conscious about how inured I was to seeing such violence. Like I said to Dan, I was glad (and disappointed) that the inevitable/expected ending was the one that the filmmakers followed: I would have been very unsettled to see something more open-ended.

Take the Money and Run - Woody Allen's second film. Good-natured and most hilarious for the way that it is at odds with Allen's contemporary reputation. Much closer to Airplane! than Annie Hall, it seems like something that sounded funny on paper ("a crook who is an incompetent loser!") but which falls flat on screen. All the same, Take the Money and Run is funny for the way that it falls flat - so totally and unashamedly, as if it has no idea.

In the Company of Men - A mean, maddeningly well-acted film about men, business, and something approaching evil. Two colleagues decide to target a "vulnerable" woman, lavish her with attention, seduce her, and then pull the rug from under her. Their selected target - Christine, a beautiful deaf receptionist - falls hook, line and sinker. I was too drawn into the action to like this movie, but I admired it as a film - and I think that the distance afforded by future viewings would allow me to appreciate its construction/effect, without being so wholly affronted by the subject-matter.

Woman Under the Influence - My first exposure to John Cassavetes. This is a brilliant piece of filmmaking, with a restrained directorial hand (esp. w/r/t the genius use of music), and arresting, astonishing performances. Gena Rowlands, Peter Falk and the children who play their kids are breathtaking in their realistic depictions of a family strained by mental illness, but the movie goes farther than that, exploring the characters and relationships in such a way that we feel we're standing right beside them, understanding the joys alongside the strife, experiencing the tension in a first-person way. Exhausting, uplifting... and it feels so true.