Monthly Archives: December 2009

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Song of the Day #520: ‘Mother Nature’s Son’ – The Beatles

It’s funny how now matter what Beatles song you pull up on YouTube or elsewhere on the Web, you’ll always find several people who consider it their favorite song.

I suppose, given the long tail of the World Wide Web, that’s the case with pretty much any song by any artist. I could probably post an obscure B-side by a band that put out one poorly-received album in the 90s and find somebody who wants it played at his funeral.

But when it comes to The Beatles, I can understand it. Just about every one of their songs is worthy of being somebody’s favorite.

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Song of the Day #519: ‘Must Be Santa’ – Bob Dylan

Merry Christmas to all!

I’m taking a break from the Beck theme to wish everybody a happy holiday and present you with Mr. Bob Dylan’s rendition of ‘Must Be Santa,’ a song I’d never heard before buying his Christmas album two months ago. Here’s a link to the original for the nostalgic among you, but I must say I prefer Dylan’s version.

The wily old Jew turned Christian turned who-knows-what has the cheek to perform this little-known Christmas tune in full Klezmer fashion. What better way to start the day? And the video’s a hoot, too.

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Avatar

I’m having a hard time deciding exactly how I feel about Avatar.

On the one hand, it has a shopworn plot, clunky dialogue, cardboard villains and heavy-handed messages about the environment and military imperialism. But on the other hand, it creates and inhabits an entirely new world to a degree I’ve never quite experienced before in a movie. The cutting-edge special effects bring to vivid life an entire ecosystem brimming with the fantastic imaginings of its creator.

That creator, of course, is James Cameron, the director of such enduring classics as The Terminator, Aliens, Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Titanic. Cameron has spent many of the 12 years since Titanic won a crate full of Oscars and set the all-time box office record working on Avatar, specifically on the motion capture technology that allows flesh-and-blood actors to bring digital characters to life in a way that makes Lord of the Rings‘ Gollum look like a sock puppet.

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Song of the Day #518: ‘Hollywood Freaks’ – Beck

Having slowed down and mellowed out a year earlier on Mutations, Beck reversed course in 1999 and released Midnite Vultures, a neon slice of pure electrified funk.

More than anything, he spends the length of this fabulous album staking his claim as the white Prince, especially on epic closer ‘Debra,’ an homage to every smooth R&B booty call song ever written (though certainly the first to feature the lyrics “Lady, step inside my Hyundai”).

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The Princess and the Frog

Disney’s latest animated gem, The Princess and the Frog, has quite a burden on its shoulders. In addition to being the studio’s first hand-drawn film in 6 years, it’s the first new “princess” movie since Mulan in 1998 (though I still don’t know why they count Mulan as a princess, meaning it’s the first true princess movie since 1995’s Pocohontas). And of course the film features the first Black princess in Disney history, a milestone so late in coming that the generation of kids watching today probably won’t even notice.

Still, it’s touching to think of all the little girls out there, their rooms littered with Belle, Ariel and Jasmine merchandise, who for the first time will see a princess onscreen who looks like them.

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