Music: Download Oasis' 1998 unplugged show ... and don't look back in anger

oasis

Patch over at In Search of Arcadia has done Britpop fans a wonderful favor. He's posted MP3 links to every track from Oasis' 1998 MTV Unplugged set.

There are two great things about these tracks. The bulk of them are off What's the Story Morning Glory, my favorite Oasis album, and Noel Gallagher sings lead on all of them instead of lead singer Liam, who reportedly had laryngitis or some shit.

The tracks sound even better than I remember them. Noel's voice sounds great and the band is backed by some beautiful strings and horns.

Grab the track below and click here to download the entire set.

MP3:
Oasis - 'Cast No Shadow' (Unplugged)

Film: Three recent beautiful failures

the science of sleep

Have you ever watched a movie and thought, "Wow, that was a mess, but I loved it"? I have, and I have a name for movies that make me feel that way. I call 'em "beautiful failures."

Beautiful failures are usually too long, too weird, too sloppy or just plain stupid, but they're always strangely compelling and, well, beautiful. They're the movies you think you hate but you can't stop thinking about. You come back to them over and over and you can't figure out why. They can be very complex, pretentious or even too simple or mass appealing. Other film buffs might tell you different, but there's really no formula to creating a beautiful failure.

Some of my favorite beautiful failures are Steven Soderbergh's Solaris, Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut and David Cronenberg's awkward 1996 thriller Crash. I love these films for different reasons, but I recognize that they're all a little ... dreadful.

Here are a few titles I've recently added to my list of beautiful failures. Please, share some of your favorite "bf's" in the comments.

The Science of Sleep

The problems start with the packaging and advertising for director Michel Gondry's follow-up to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The trailer and DVD box try to sell the film as a quirky romantic comedy full of whimsical dream sequences and cute one-liners. What you really get is a seemingly chaotic but densely structured character study of an unlikable, mentally ill manchild (Gael Garcia Bernal).

There's a lot of good here, though. Bernal's character has trouble disassociating fantasy from reality, and Gondry illustrates this with some charming and singular visual tricks. Also, the ending is somewhat of a stunner that brilliantly unites all the disparate ideas and elements that came before. Unfortunately, most viewers will be confused and sick of all the seeming randomness before the third act. Bernal and the rest of the cast are great, but most of the characters are unappealing or hard to relate to. Still, I'll go back to this movie again for its brave storytelling, strange comedic bits and great visuals.
View the trailer

The Fountain

Where to start? The Fountain is the perfect beautiful failure. It's at times fiercely incoherent, silly and pretentious, but it's also visually impressive and features a very strong lead performance by Hugh Jackman.

All of the "big ideas" director Daron Aronofsky (Pi, Requim for a Dream) attempts to convey here can be gleaned from the preface of one of those Don't Sweat the Small Stuff books, but he delivers his dime store philosophy in an extravagant package that constantly switches from compelling to laughable (picture a bald Jackman reaching nirvana while sitting in a lotus position). Add to that a bunch of muddled biblical references, plot strands that go nowhere and performances that range from sleepy (Rachel Weisz) to irrelevant (Ellen Burstyn) and you have a "bf" that, somehow, demands repeat viewing.
View the trailer

Ghost Rider

This campy comic book adaptation is about a guy with a flaming skull for a head, but that's the least ridiculous thing about it. After delivering two joyless duds based on Marvel books (Daredevil and Elektra) writer-director Mark Steven Johnson amps Ghost Rider's absurdity factor up to 11. Unfortunately, that's way too high -- even for a comic book movie.

The film is a poorly written, painfully simplistic and predictable popcorn flick, but its worst attributes are what will keep me coming back to it. You have to admire a film that so economically delivers the cheap thrills and seems willing to suck ass to do so. The cast members do their best to make sure that Ghost Rider makes you smirk for 90 minutes and slips out of your system faster than a Diet Coke. It's a sick and fascinating thing to watch Nicholas Cage violently hammer tons of trite quirks and ticks into his character (He eats M&Ms from a champagne flute! He listens to The Carpenters! He speaks with an undefinable accent!). Peter Fonda and Sam Elliot ham it up, but the real kick here is Wes Bentley as the film's impossibly witless and fruity villain, Blackheart.
View the trailer, I dare you

Mad props from BlogCritics

My last Veronica Mars review was selected as an Editor's Pick over at BlogCritics Magazine. Also, another VM review was syndicated to national newspaper Web sites. Here's what BC has to say:

"What a great show! Just every episode, I love every episode. I think Mike Moody loves it too, otherwise how could he cover it all so well? And, who doesn't love Veronica? I think we all love Veronica. Veronica who? Veronica Mars!"
-BlogCritics Magazine

We done good

I couldn't believe it. Close to 2,000 hits yesterday and today. Wow. This little blog got close to 4,000 hits in two days.

This is really motivating. Most of the hits came courtesy of Whedonesque. It seems the editors of the A-list Joss Whedon blog really dug the "Catching up with the Buffy cast" post I wrote last week. It looks like I'll have to write that promised part 2 pretty soon.

So yes, this does mean I'm not abandoning Gold Teeth. I probably won't have the time to update it daily, but for now you can still look forward to fresh content every week. I've yet to decide what to do with this blog permanently though, but I'll figure it out.

Thanks for reading, and expect more Whedonverse posts plus media reviews, news, music and more .

Gold Teeth closes mouth

Gold Teeth will be pretty quiet in the coming months. Actually, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this blog from now on.

I got a new job and it's going to demand a lot of my time for a while. The good news is that part of the new job will be blogging about TV and pop culture, so anyone will be able to read Gold Teeth-esque content at the new Web site we're building for Valley Freedom.

Stay tuned for more. Thanks ... MM.

Film: Aykroyd says Ghostbusters III will be CGI

Dan Aykroyd recently told country music station CISN that he is working on a second sequel to the 1984 hit Ghostbusters.

Ghostbusters III: Hellbent will be a CGI film instead of live action, Aykroyd said. The plot involves the Ghostbusters traveling to hell (shades of Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey?). Aykroyd wrote the script.

Bill Murray has agreed to voice a character, probably reprising his role as wisecracking Peter Venkman from the first two films, and Harold Ramis is already attached.

There have been rumors of a third Ghostbusters film for years. The idea of a "young Ghostbusters" film was circulated in the 90s with names like Will Smith and Ben Stiller tossed around. Hellbent sounds more like an all-star, big budget version of The Real Ghostbusters animated series from the 1980s.

Aykrod and Ramis wrote and starred in the first two films. There's no word yet on a release date or whether this project will hit theaters or go straight to DVD. Listen to the Aykroyd interview here.

TV: Veronica Mars (3.11) - 'Poughkeepsie, Tramps & Thieves'

vm 3-11

(Air date: 1/30/07)
The theme of this week’s episode was trust -- when to give it and who to give it to. Apparently, according to Veronica Mars, you can kinda trust hookers looking to evade their pimps. Unfortunately, you can’t trust a semi-reformed bad boy like Logan Echolls.

The teaser and first act of this ep were hilarious and very, very intriguing. There was no sign of Piz, Mac or Wallace, but we did get a whole lot of face time with Max (a.k.a. the Louis Skolnick-looking dude who sells phony term papers on campus). I couldn’t keep up with how many clever Battlestar Galactica references were dropped in the opening scene alone (I lost count at 400 billion). If more Max means more Galactica references, then I say give the guy some credit sequence billing.

Besides giving Veronica a reason to say "frak," Max provided her with the mystery of the week: Track down the hot hooker hired by my friends to seduce me.

I was right there with Veronica in doubting the sudden spark between Max and Chelsea/Wendy/ Fiona (she’s the hooker with a thousand names, and yes, she has a heart of gold). Veronica’s a little more jaded than most -- coming of age while tailing unfaithful spouses for money will do that to you -- but it wasn’t a stretch to think that, maybe, this hooker was playing our Starbuck-loving friend for a fool. He’s desperate and he’s got wads of cash. He’s the perfect mark for a cute hooker-con woman.

But this is Veronica Mars. Things are much more complicated than that. Unfortunately, as the ep went on and the plot continued to coil, things came to a drowsy crawl before the last act hit. It wasn’t hard to keep up with the twists, but after I while I just stopped caring. I’m guessing that most viewers felt the same.

The Galactica references were very funny, and brave, and the plot wasn’t exactly humdrum, but I was a little disturbed by this ep. With the news that VM will ditch season-long arcs in an effort to gain new viewers, one thought kept running through my brain: Name-dropping another low-rated cult TV series and throwing the viewer a million curveballs in one ep probably won’t help raise the ratings. It doesn’t make sense that the powers that be behind VM would want to sacrifice the arcs, which the fans love and have proven to up ratings, but keep all the obscure references and super-dense plots, which undoubtedly alienate new viewers.

Speaking of arcs, we got a great interrogation scene with Keith. Decked out in too-tight fake police duds, he hammered the sanctimonious Lilith House chicks about the night Dean O’Dell died. Yeah, they egged his van and his office, but head Lilith Nish says she egged the Dean’s Volvo alone. Too bad for her then that O’Dell wasn’t driving the Volvo the night he died. Also, Nish’s mouth almost hit the floor when she learned that Keith was investigating O'Dell's death as a murder. I guess that makes her suspect number three, right behind Prof. Landry and Cheaty O’Dell.

I liked the quiet moments between Veronica and Logan, especially the intimate Q&A session at the end (scored by Leonard Cohen). Veronica was pleased and surprised to find out that Logan had never slept with a hooker. He smartly copped to fooling around with that surfer skank in the last ep, but Veronica was cool with it. However, she wasn't cool with Madison (where'd she come from anyway) saying she had a fling with Logan in Aspen. My guess? It might have happened, but Madison is a liar and she likes to push Veronica's buttons. It wouldn't be the first time she tried to screw with Veronica.

Random thought: Why is it that everyone Logan hangs out with or screws, save Veronica, is a shallow jerk (Dick, Mercer, Chip, surfer skank and now Madison)? Logan's come a long way. Shouldn't his friends reflect that journey?

The CW is now streaming this ep online. Also, watch a preview of next Tuesday's ep and consider the question: Is Veronica preggers?

Memorable quote: (Besides all the great Galactica references)
Veronica: (Examining the escort search engine) It's like a Zagat guide for hookers!

Friday Video: Le Tigre - 'Deceptacon'

Here's the Devo-esque clip from Le Tigre's Feminist Sweepstakes. Try this dance at home -- I dare you.

TV: Catching up with the Buffy cast (Part 1)

buffy cast

A few former cast members of Buffy the Vampire Slayer will appear at February's New York ComiCon, Variety reported earlier this week. The news got me wondering about what some of my favorite Buffyverse alums are up to these days.

Sure, most of us know about Alyson Hannigan's blossoming TV career and that Sarah Michelle Gellar has mostly resigned herself to starring in artless horror flicks, but did you know that Nick Brendan (Xander) does voice work for Disney Channel? Have you seen Tom Lenk's (Andrew) insane short film series about an eccentric dancer?

Read on to find out about how these former Buffy actors are keeping busy. I'll post more info about other Buffyverse alum in the coming weeks. And remember; let's try to support some of their projects. It's the least we can do for these talented performers.

Nicholas Brendon (Xander Harris)
Nick Brendon had a tough time in TV land after Buffy went off the air in 2003. He starred in a sitcom pilot that never became a series, The Pool at Maddy Breakers, and Fox quickly cancelled Kitchen Confidential, the critically acclaimed but low-rated single-camera series in which Brendon co-starred with Bradley Cooper from Alias.
In between those projects Brendon starred as Roswell's Majandra Delfino's gay cousin in the surprisingly decent ABC Family flick Celeste in the City.
In 2004, he voluntarily entered rehab to fight his addiction to alcohol.
He served as honorary chairperson for the Stuttering Foundation of America during Stuttering Awareness Week from 2000-2003. According to his official Web site, Brendon's fans have raised more than $5,000 for the SFA.
In 2006, Brendan starred in LA's Blank Theater Co. production of Lobster Alice. He co-starred with Charisma Carpenter in another ABC Family flick, Relative Chaos, in 2006 and does voice work on the Disney Channel animated series American Dragon: Jake Long.
Catch Brendon's next project Fire Serpent, a SciFi Channel original film, on Feb. 24.


Emma Caulfield (Anya)
Before arriving on Buffy, Emma Caulfield had already guest-starred on a number of TV series, most memorably on Beverly Hills 90210. Since Buffy's end, she's mostly gone back to taking TV guest spots (Monk, Robot Chicken).
In 2004, Caulfield parodied herself in the award-winning indie mockumentary Bandwagon. In the film, Caulfield portrays herself as a self-absorbed starlet on a downward spiral. Bandwagon won the Maverick Award at the 2004 Newport Beach Film Festival. The film also features cameos by Buffy alum Tom Lenk, Buffy director David Fury and Joss Whedon. Read an interview with her about the film here.
Catch Emma in A Valentine Carol, Feb. 12 on Lifetime.


Tom Lenk (Andrew Wells)
Yep, that's Tom Lenk in that Wendy's commercial. He's also popped up recently on a number of TV shows, including How I Met Your Mother, Six Feet Under and House M.D.
In 2004, Lenk reprised his recurring role as Buffy's Andrew Wells for two hilarious episodes of Angel on theWB. He had a cameo as "Frodo" in Alyson Haniggan's 2006 film Date Movie and will appear in two of this year's major Hollywood releases, 23 with Jim Carey and Michael Bay's Transformers. According to IMDB, he plays a Pentagon analyst in Transformers. (That should be interesting.)
Tom will also appear in the upcoming indie film Equal Opportunity and the horror sequel Boogeyman 2.
Tom is also a well-received stage performer and comedian. He's part of the L.A.-based Strangely Attractive sketch comedy troupe. He started the bizarro comic stage production Unitarded in LA with acting partner Patty Wortham. Tom has also appeared in and directed several short films with other Strangely Attractive members. He has a few of these shorts posted on his MySpace page. The oddest ones star Tom as Trudy, a nerdy, 8-year-old female tap dancer. Check out the clip below.



Next week: Catch up with Amber Benson (Tara), Danny Strong (Andrew) and Tony Head (Giles).