There is no space between us

Hope your holidays are going well. Mine have been extremely pleasant. Here are some movies I've seen recently.

"Tron: Legacy" (2010, dir. Joseph Kosinski) - Hooray! It's not a disappointment. First of all, it's a legitimate sequel, one surprisingly created with a lot of love and respect for the original "Tron." Flynn's genius hacker son gets sucked into the game grid, where his dad has been trapped since the late '80s, and runs through the same games the senior Flynn did, now commanded by the too-aggressive CLU program. The story picks up as organically as possible, considering it's been almost 30 years since its predecessor. Although the movie often doesn't use the 3D medium to its advantage, the showy, glowy effects, even the freaky digitally de-aged Jeff Bridges, look fine in context, and Daft Punk's electro/symphonic score (see below) is mighty cool. Yet, what impresses me most about "Tron: Legacy" is how dissimilar it is from most of the other recent updates of pop culture I loved during my childhood. Unlike "Transformers" or "G.I. Joe" or even the "Star Wars" prequels, this feels like "Tron" down to its methodical (some would say slow) plotting and Disney-fied violence. I challenge you to find a 7 year-old boy who wouldn't love this movie.

"Until the Light Takes Us" (2008, dirs. Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell) - A much-hyped metal documentary, one not produced by VH1 for a change. It abstractly tells the story of the old Norwegian black metal scene through interviews with several key figures, including two of its most famous murderers. Then-inmate Varg "Count Grishnackh" Vikernes sports a hilarious Hitler youth haircut and "Three Musketeers" facial hair while chatting demurely from a nice-looking prison, while Bård "Faust" Eithun hides his face and voice behind an identity cloak, even though everyone knows what he looks like. As a document, "Light" covers the basics of the story, but it mostly hints at a more fascinating film. Its biggest problem is that it treats a multifaceted artistic scene as a lurid conversation starter or a hallowed museum piece. After footage of affable Darkthrone granddaddy Fenriz wandering around looking bewildered at a touring gallery show "inspired" by Norwegian black metal, one begs for more contrast between the antisocial, reactionary, destructive ideals of second-wave black metal's origins with its evolution into a global niche rock music commodity and, more recently, a curiosity that the gatekeepers of modern art have decided to explore and accept. I would have preferred to hear more perpsective from artistic transgressives such as chameleonic Ulver frontman Garm, who only gets in a few brief quotes, or progressive pagan lords Enslaved (see below), whose Ivar Bjørnson and Grutle Kjellson are only seen in the disc's deleted footage. Light on context for the uninitiated and offering little in the way of fresh insight, it often ignores the music entirely, as well as the primal, hypnotic atmosphere that makes people all over the globe adhere to what Norwegian black metal was then or where it's gone since. The film is thus far more tabloid than it wants to be, and the praise heaped on it bodes ill for the proposed feature film based on the Euronymous/Grishnackh rivalry.

"Fantastic Mr. Fox" (2009, dir. Wes Anderson) - Finally got around to Anderson's stop-motion Roald Dahl adaptation. I never read this book, so the story was all new to me, acceptable Dahlian kids' fare about a cunning fox who recruits some pals to raid the farms of three megafarmers. The farmers retaliate with increasingly outrageous weaponry, and, for some reason, are British, even though the animals living among them all have American accents. Anderson's low-key whimsy befits the story and animation, adding a homespun feel to the film which is very different from most modern animated fare. Case in point: "Fox" is the only post-"Shrek" kids' movie that ends with an impromptu dance party which is not completely crass and irritating. I wonder whether actual kids like it, or if they'd prefer something with more farting and TV actors shrieking the voices.

"Sugar Hill" (1974, dir. Paul Maslansky) - Until this year, I'd kind of gotten out of my formerly compulsive habit of renting movies, but Netflix has changed all that by helping me cross off titles from my long list of Films I've Always Wanted to See. Not to be confused with the largely forgotten Wesley Snipes vehicle, this "Sugar Hill" is the world's first blaxploitation zombie flick, which has until recently been very difficult to rent. It wisely features traditional Haitian-style zombies, in this case undead slaves awoken by Baron Samedi to help the young woman of the film's title avenge her fiancé's murder. All the reviews I'd read before seeing it pointed out its PG-rated levels of violence and sensuality, so I was prepared for the old-fashioned movie that it is. Other than Don Pedro Colley, who is a lot of fun as the guffawing, hammily enthusiastic Baron, the unique zombies are the reason to see the movie. Like the Spanish "Blind Dead," these are dry corpses, perpetually covered with cobwebs and dust. Their eyes bulge grotesquely, and they always seem to be smiling about their supernatural wetwork. They do not eat the racist mob villains, instead dispatching them with machetes or cornering them so that pigs, voodoo dolls, quicksand, reanimated chicken feet and/or coffins full of snakes do the job. Aside from its horror elements, this is a pretty tame and predictable racially-charged revenge story. The most outrageous thing about "Sugar Hill" is that Sugar receives no comeuppance, assuming everyone watching agrees that she was right to send in her zombie hit squad. Well, that and its eye-searing '70s fashions, but what vintage blaxploitation movie can't you say that about?

"The Human Centipede: First Sequence" (2009, dir. Tom Six) - Like most folks of my persuasion, I needed to see this sensation before I finished my first view of the trailer. Y'all know the "story," wherein a crazy German doctor who is skilled at separating conjoined twins aspires to achieve the opposite by attaching three people ass-to-mouth. I had high aspirations. I hoped to be challenged and thoroughly sickened. I did not anticipate such a low-achieving b-movie. The awesomely-named Dieter Laser is perfect as the sicko surgeon, surely leering his way into a decent screen career as a poor man's Udo Kier. He's especially great in the first third, which had me hoping the rest would be played as a disgusting black comedy. However, the American girls are terrible, both as slasher-fodder characters and as actresses trying to make us sympathize with them, beyond the obvious consideration of how much it would suck to have your face sewn to someone's fudge factory. Very little happens in the movie that you can't infer from the trailer (SPOILER: two cops show up!), but unlike the far better "Inside," it's not substantial or visceral enough to satisfy with how it plays out its concept. It's a bog-standard, low-body-count survival horror flick with an ingeniously gross hook. In that, it's definitely a modern exploitation classic, but I already want the proposed trilogy to just get to the damn climax. Show us 100 or however many fucking people linked up and be done with it.

To conclude, the player now features a selection from each of the final 17 new albums I heard during 2010. There's some definite top 10 material in here, folks, so pay attention. The grand total of new releases I listened to this year? A respectable 117.

1. Helloween - "World of Fantasy" (7 Sinners, The End/Sony)

2. Anamanaguchi - "Airbrushed" (Airbrushed, self-released)

3. Withered - "Residue in the Void" (Dualitas, Prosthetic)

4. The Dead Weather - "Gasoline" (Sea of Cowards, Third Man/Warner Bros.)

5. Solefald - "Norrøn Livskunst" (Norrøn Livskunst, Indie)

6. Daft Punk - "The Game Has Changed" (Tron: Legacy Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, Walt Disney)

7. Ghost - "Ritual" (Opus Eponymous, Rise Above)

8. Anathema - "Summernight Horizon" (We're Here Because We're Here, Kscope)

9. Heljareyga - "Heljareyga" (Heljareyga, Tutl)

10. Mini Mansions "Thriller Escapade" (Mini Mansions, Rekords/Ipecac)

11. Enslaved - "Night-Sight" (Axioma Ethica Odini, Nuclear Blast)

12. Ishraqiyun - "Balthassar : Melchior : Kaspar" (Secret Chiefs 3: Satellite Supersonic, Vol. 1, Mimicry)

13. Bad Religion - "Pride and the Pallor" (The Dissent of Man, Epitaph)

14. Gorillaz - "The Joplin Spider" (The Fall, EMI)

15. Slough Feg - "Heavyworlder" (The Animal Spirits, Profound Lore)

16. El Guincho - "Novias" (Pop Negro, Young Turks)

17. Agalloch - "The Watcher's Monolith" (Marrow of the Spirit, Profound Lore)

I used to write letters

Ladies and germs, the year groweth long. I present one song from each of the 81st through 100th new musical releases I heard during 2010. As usual, I don't have much time to work on this, so just once sentence about each. Spot two of each of these: self-titled albums, Middle Eastern-themed metal bands, covers (hint: self-covers count) and songs featuring the same Swedish guitarist.

1. Powerglove - "Inspector Gadget" (Saturday Morning Apocalypse, E1): The instrumental cover prodigies' first mass-released album nimbly brutalizes songs from cartoons of their youth, tossing in a little Grieg here to keep it metal.

2. Menomena - "BOTE" (Mines, City Slang): Funky, yearning, sweeping and addictive, the indie-prog trio's sublime follow-up to Friend & Foe only misses that album's kitchen-sink brilliance by a hair.

3. Amorphis - "Sign from the North Side" (Magic & Mayhem: Tales from the Early Years, Nuclear Blast): The Finns celebrate their 20th anniversary by re-recording early tracks in their current uncategorizable style, which in some cases means old Swedish-style melodic death metal gets a pleasing psychedelic overhaul.

4. John Zorn - "Seven Sigils" (Ipsissimus, Tzadik): Legendary avant-garde saxophonist Zorn joins the Moonchild trio (vocalist Mike Patton and bassist Trevor Dunn, both Mr. Bungle and Fantômas alums, and drummer Joey Baron) on this track, but is hardly heard elsewhere on this head-scratcher of a record.

5. Elvenking - "Runereader" (Red Silent Tides, AFM): Coming back strongly after the universally-unloved style change of The Scythe, the Italian folk metal mainstays return to power metal and display unabashed, fluffy pop sensibility, with shockingly good results.

6. Interpol - "Try It On" (Interpol, Matador): With fewer highs and lows than Our Love to Admire, bassist Carlos Dengler's final album with Interpol is another elegantly harrowing urban gothic concoction that requires frequent spins for its teeth to sink in.

7. Triptykon - "Descendant" (Eparistera Daimones, Century Media): Onetime Celtic Frost frontman Thomas Gabriel Fischer's unbelievably strong debut with his new outfit dips into furious black metal and avant-garde artsiness, but at heart it's a punishing, woozy, ash-caked doom record.

8. Arcade Fire - "We Used to Wait" (The Suburbs, Merge): With a strong flow, emotional intelligence and giant hooks everywhere you look, AF's latest reminds me of how much I loved their debut, as well as of how the suburbs felt when I was too young to notice the negatives.

9. Katatonia - "Sold Heart" (The Longest Year, Peaceville): A soft, haunting pillow of ethereal melancholy by my favorite band, the b-side to a single from my favorite album of 2009.

10. Melechesh - "Grand Gathas of Baal Sin" (The Epigenesis, Nuclear Blast): A feral, dextrously violent assault from the Mesopotamian metal masters, although much of their latest album finds Melechesh widening their focus to lofty, cinematic prog/folk heights.

11. Parenthetical Girls - "Young Throats" (Privilege, Pt. II: The Past, Imperfect, Slender Means Society): More infectious, infected pop from the fertile mind of Zac Pennington, who as always never misses the chance to soil a perfectly gorgeous melody with poetically creepy lyrics.

12. King of Asgard - "Vämods Tale" (Fi'mbulvintr, Metal Blade): Guitarist Kalle Beckmann and drummer Karsten Larsson revive the rousing spirit of their pioneering folk/black metal outfit Mithotyn, with all the tremolo picking and shout-along choruses we've missed since the '90s.

13. Marnie Stern - "Cinco de Mayo" (Marnie Stern, Kill Rock Stars): Less go-for-broke than her debut and less mantra-like than her second disc, guitar ace Stern's latest offers a few more (relatively) straightforward rockers while still kicking up a homemade whirlwind of sparkling grandeur.

14. October Tide - "The Dividing Line" (A Thin Shell, Candlelight): Apparently, Fred Norman left Katatonia in order to revive the mid-'90s hiatus project once famous for sounding pretty much like mid-'90s Katatonia, dependably delivering a strong slab of gloomy, mid-paced melodic death.

15. Bassnectar - "Underwater (feat. Tina Malia)" (Wildstyle, Amorphous): Known best for providing the insane levels of low end that gave him his name, dubstep superstar Lorin Ashton doesn't simply pump out repetitive dance jams, he sculpts vivid, evolving textures out of rhythm, here energizing potentially sleepy trip-hop with his signature whirring synths and wobbly beats.

16. Powerless - "Dead Man's Chest" (Battle Hymns, Set Productions): My Sassy Frassy Lassie's dad was born and raised in Croatia, so once in a while I like to check out Croatian folk metal, and while Powerless' lo-fi Ensiferumish power/death galloping isn't as original or affecting an example as the equally obscure doom outfit S.O.M., this tune's got some cool moments.

17. Murder By Death - "Yes" (Good Morning, Magpie, Vagrant): MBD shake off the by-the-book malaise of their last album and follow their hearts back to the rawness and mystery that drew me to them in the first place, where rootsy warmth exudes mirth in the face of misery.

18. Aeternam - "Hamunaptra" (Disciples of the Unseen, Metal Blade): The debut of this Egyptian-themed Canadian metal outfit comes off like a high-gloss cross between Melechesh and Amorphis at their most "Arabian," and that's not a bad thing.

19. Weezer - "Ruling Me" (Hurley, Epitaph): Weezer can still write a great power-pop tune, but Hurley's by no means the stongest album they've ever released, and at times is a little too fucking smarmy and cute for its own good.

20. In Vain - "Dark Prophets, Black Hearts" (Mantra, Indie): Sometimes, checking something out based on an enthusiastic review can pan out, as this release by a little Norwegian act turned out to be a rewarding alt/prog/doom pileup.