October 2005 Archives

The Nineties were the decade when I had to quit obsessing over pop music and deal with things like jobs, children, etc. As a result, I came to many of the decade's best albums fairly late, and I'm sure I missed some altogether. But of those I've heard, these are the best, and hey, you youngsters may even have been alive for some of them:

They Might Be Giants/Flood (1990)
A two-man band from Brooklyn comprised of two Johns (Linnell on keyboards, sax, accordion, and vocals, Flansburgh on guitars and vocals), TMBG burst onto the scene with a pair of quirky, hilarious independent albums--1986's eponymous debut and 1988's Lincoln--before Elektra offered them a contract. They might have been expected to try something mainstream for their major-label debut, but such was not the case. Oh, sure, Flood perfectly captured both their astonishing gift for melody and their deeply peculiar sense of humor, but it also displayed both a depth of feeling and a pop sensibility we might never have expected. The first single "Birdhouse in Your Soul," is insanely catchy, but its strange images of guardian angels and screaming sailors aren't exactly the stuff of your typical Top 40 hit. "Dead" is a piano dirge that discusses reincarnation as a bag of groceries, and "Your Racist Friend" is pointedly political. Then again, the accordion-based super-hero dissection "Particle Man" and the geographical dance-fest "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" aren't so complicated--they just stick in your head and never ever leave.

R.E.M./Automatic for the People (1992)
After ten years of crafting superlative folk-pop, R.E.M. stripped down their sound and transcended themselves as writers. Bill Berry stepped away from the drum kit more often, Peter Buck played acoustic guitar and mandolin, and Mike Mills' always-gorgeous basslines are enhanced by his keyboard work. Thanks to the arrangements of ex-Led Zep bassist John Paul Jones, the strings on such tracks as "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight" and "Find the River" make the sound even richer, and when the whole band cranks up the electric instruments for "Ignoreland," the shift in energy is startling. It's the writing, though, that makes this album special. The stark, haunting “Drive,” the warm, pulsing“Sweetness Follows,” and the spry "Try Not to Breathe" are songs any band would envy, and they're not even the best on the album. Those would be the brilliant tribute to comedian Andy Kaufman, “Man on the Moon,” and the gorgeous, evocative “Nightswimming," which may be the best song the band ever recorded. All in all, this album was their finest hour.

The Jayhawks/Tomorrow the Green Grass (1995)
Who’d have thought, at this late date, that there was anything worth mining from the depleted seams of countrified rock? In 1992, the Jayhawks staked their claim with the critically acclaimed album Hollywood Town Hall, powered by the single "Waiting for the Sun." With the addition of Karen Grotberg on keyboards and harmony vocals, however, the band made an even better album three years later. Singer/guitarists Mark Olson & Gary Louris twist their trademark harmonies to reveal new and undreamt-of ores lurking down below. The single, "Blue," is a stunner, but the same could be said of "Miss Williams' Guitar," a tribute to Olson's wife, singer Victoria Williams, and the hard-driving "Ten Little Kids," on which Louris' fuzz-tone guitar reaches new levels of screeching feedback. The strings mixed into "I'd Run Away" turn it into an almost perfect pop song, and the cover of Grand Funk's "Bad Time" is a treat. All in all, this is a band that Johnny Cash, R.E.M., and Robbie Robertson would all dig.

Radiohead/OK Computer (1997)
Quite possibly the single best album of the 1990’s: sonically complex, lyrically evocative, and as melodic as some entire pop careers. In its depth of sound, its continuity, and its transitions from sounds to tones to tunes, it's similar to Pink Floyd at their best, but the edge in Thom Yorke's voice and the sting of Jonny Greenwood's guitar are much less grand and distant than anything you'd hear from Floyd. Finally realizing their potential from 1995’s The Bends, the band sweeps you along like a crowd of pedestrians on an escalator, from the dark thump of “Airbag,” through the shifting strums and screeches of “Paranoid Android,” along the gorgeous chimes of “Let Down,” and home again. A marvelous journey.

Barenaked Ladies/Stunt (1998)
More fun than Canada had ever before produced. As Jon Pareles of the New York Times said, "It's not easy to be hyperactive, brooding and whimsical all at once," but the Ladies pull it off with panache. The tunes are not only melodic and punchy, with a lyrical mixture of the profound and the mundane, but thanks to the rapid-fire tongue of singer/guitarist Ed Robertson and the rich, full tones of singer/guitarist Stephen Page, the band can run the gamut of emotions in the space of a single song. The smash single “One Week” is just the beginning. "Alcohol" is a snide and hilarious party anthem with a keen-eyed view of self-destruction, while "Light Up My Room" is a lovely, wistful description of a happy (?) life in an industrial wasteland. Thanks to new keyboardist Kevin Hearn, songs such as "When You Dream" and "Call and Answer" have a sonic density that gives weight to what might be a throwaway pop tune in other hands. And yes, there's no way around it, “It’s All Been Done” may be the perfect pop song. This album was a huge hit--for a reason.

HONORABLE MENTION:

Brian Eno/John Cale/Wrong Way Up (1990): Eno & Cale, neither a pop star (unless you think Roxy Music or the Velvet Underground was a pop group), show their mastery of pop music: non-Western rhythms meet digital precision, danceable, catchy, and terrific. Fifteen years old and still ahead of its time.

Nirvana/Nevermind (1991): It started “Alternative” radio, altered MTV’s playlist for all time, spawned dozens of imitators, sold millions of copies, got parodied by Weird Al, and ultimately helped kill Kurt Cobain. A cry for help that everyone heard and no one understood.

Matthew Sweet/Girlfriend (1991): The love child of Richard Carpenter and Joan Jett: the guitars grind like metal, the harmonies sugar over like bubble gum, and the tunes stick in your head like taffy.

The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy/Hypocrisy is the Greatest Luxury (1992): What I think hip-hop ought to be: driving, thought-provoking, challenging. Michael Franti goes where most rappers fear to tread, that rarity in rap, an expression of vulnerability.

Cracker/Kerosene Hat (1993): The opening of this record—“Low,” “Movie Star,” and “Get Off This”—may be the most audacious and arresting suite of rootsy rock & roll songs in decades. A real slap in the face.

The Dave Matthews Band/Under the Table and Dreaming (1994): The fact that we’ve all heard it played to death shouldn’t obscure the fact that this is a superb record, from the funky harmonics of “What Would You Say?” to the arpeggiated pulse of “Satellite.”

Cake/Fashion Nugget (1996): A unique mix of funky rhythms, snarling guitars, and deadpan vocals, with great covers of "I Will Survive," and Willie Nelson's "Sad Songs and Waltzes."

Robyn Hitchcock/Moss Elixir (1996): What Robyn does best: wringing gorgeous and disturbing pop songs out of his acoustic guitar. Jangly, beautiful, almost disturbingly catchy.

Ben Folds Five/Whatever and Ever Amen (1997): Every so often someone has to prove that the piano is a rock and roll instrument. Ben Folds—witty, sardonic, and sensitive—is just the guy to do it. A twisted pop gem.

Fountains of Wayne/Utopia Parkway (1999): Best known for "Stacy's Mom," this Jersey band combines Beatlesque melodic gifts with a refreshingly nerdy punk attitude. The title track is a pulsing standout, "Troubled Times" is haunting and uplifting, and "Red Dragon Tattoo" is the greatest Steve Miller Band song ever, even if SMB never heard it.

2:09 PM

I started the Eighties in high school and finished them with a graduate degree. During those years, I played in a variety of bands (Terminal Mouse, the John Santa Band, Rohrwaggon, Elmo & PC, etc.), worked as a DJ at the UNC student radio station (WXYC, FM 89.3), and spent my grad school years working at a record store (the Record Bar, on Franklin Street). My best friend was a sound engineer who now owns a recording studio, while my wife's best friend was a music major who now runs an orchestra. In other words, for this decade, music was my life, which is why my attempt to put together a "Top Five 80's Albums" list for our school's New Music Club was doomed to failure--I can't possibly limit such a list to five. Here's my Top Ten list instead; in chronological order, one album per artist (and yeah, I cheated with both a Hitchcock solo album and one with the Egyptians; sue me.) If it seems a bit didactic for the grown-ups, just remember, this is for high-schoolers--people who have no memory of a President Bush with more than one middle initial.

The Pretenders/ Pretenders (1980): After leaving her native Cleveland for the UK punk scene, Chrissy Hynde formed a band that showcased both sides of her personality: the softer side, where one could hear her gift for melody, her love of old Kinks songs, and her gorgeous, quavering vibrato, and the harder side, where her fondness for explicit lyrics and her in-your-face attitude were served up with a snarl. Her love affairs with bassist Pete Farndon and guitarist James Honeyman-Scott added even more of an edge to the band's performance. All this emotional and musical energy was showcased brilliantly on the Pretenders' debut album. Side One--Remember when albums had sides? No?--kicks off with the pounding, acidic “Precious,” tears through the savagely self-critical “Tattooed Love Boys” and the driving “The Wait,” and doesn't let up. Side Two, meanwhile, shows the poppier (the single “Brass in Pocket”) and more pensive Chrissy (“Private Life” and the anthemic “Lovers of Today”), providing a superb contrast to the first part. As the album notes say, “Play this album LOUD!”

Peter Gabriel/ Peter Gabriel (aka III/Melting Face) (1980): Gabriel left Genesis in 1975 and promptly confused music fans everywhere by naming each of his first three solo albums Peter Gabriel. Thus, they're usually identified by their cover art; this one features a treated Polaroid photo of Peter's face, which appears to be flowing away like hot wax. It's unnerving, much like the lyrics, all of which address issues of mental illness or social alienation. Topics like prejudice (“Not One of Us”), nationalism (“Games Without Frontiers”), obsession (“No Self Control”), and assassination (“Family Snapshot”) make for intense and thoughtful, but not cheerful, material. Moreover, Gabriel and producer Hugh Padgham decided to give the sound of the album a twist as well, adding a “gate” effect to Phil Collins' drums (which Collins liked so much he borrowed it for his later work) and removing all the cymbals. As a result, every track has a dark and ominous rumble underneath, and the searing guitars (by Robert Fripp, XTC's Dave Gregory, and the Jam's Paul Weller, among others) are that much more searing as a result. The epic finale, the anti-apartheid anthem “Biko,” nearly explodes from suppressed pain and rage. An easy album? Maybe not. But a great one.

XTC/ Black Sea (1980): XTC began as a quartet of snotty, hyperactive kids from the dead-end industrial town of Swindon, England, but by this, their fourth album, they'd morphed into a crack performance unit with a hard edge, a wry sense of humor, and a positively Beatlesque sense of melody. With guitarist Andy Partridge and endlessly creative bassist Colin Moulding each contributing a set of great songs, the band cranked up their amps a little more, put their politics on their sleeves, and produced an album with the power of a battleship. (That the band is wearing vintage deep-sea diver outfits on the cover is perhaps no coincidence.) The album opens with Partridge's caustic caricature of suburbia, "Respectable Street," flows seamlessly into Moulding's quirky, bouncy "Generals and Majors," and rushes headlong into the near-rap anti-nuclear dance-fest "Living Through Another Cuba" without a pause. By the time drummer Terry Chambers kicks off the thunderous "Towers of London," you may as well have chained yourself to a locomotive.

R.E.M./ Murmur (1983): As Rick Miller once pointed out, everyone who bought this album sang along with it in the shower, and not a one knew the words. That's how infectious R.E.M.'s melodies were on their full-length debut. The ear first notes Peter Buck's jangly Rickenbacker guitar (the first to make a big splash in rock since the Byrds) and Michael Stipe's sinuous baritone, but what holds the band's sound together is the fluid power of Mike Mills' bass and the harmonic sweetness of Mills' and drummer Bill Berry's backup vocals. The band sounds straightforward but isn't--there are depths and twists and shadows there, just as in the kudzu tangle on the cover, and the production team of Mitch Easter and Don Dixon do their best to show them off. The propulsive single, "Radio Free Europe," could be about anything, but it's mostly about the wonderful sound of Stipe wailing "Raaaaydeeeeeohh staaaayshonnnn..." as the song accelerates from E to F#. "Talk About the Passion" adds a plaintive cello to Stipe's disconnected quasi-religious images, while Buck throws an unexpected wail or two into the piano ballad "Perfect Circle." This is the raw batter from which one of rock's great careers would be baked. Have a taste.

Robyn Hitchcock/ I Often Dream of Trains (1984): Hitchcock formed the Soft Boys in the heyday of punk, but his own influences were more psychedelic: Bob Dylan, John Lennon, and the original leader of Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett. When the Soft Boys split, Hitchcock began a solo career that continued their tradition of punk energy, catchy melodies, and bizarre lyrics about prawns, vegetables, and death. In 1984, however, Robyn stripped away everything but his guitar (plus the occasional piano and sax) to create this haunting, meditative beauty. Gorgeous acoustic landscapes ("Heartfull of Leaves," "Trams of Old London") are paired with psychosexual musings ("Sometimes I Wish I Was a Pretty Girl" and the a capella classic "Uncorrected Personality Traits") and philosophizing about impermanence ("My Favorite Buildings") and faith ("Ye Sleeping Knights of Jesus.") The title track, a lilting guitar waltz, perfectly captures the album's wistful but never somber tone. You'll never find a more personal glimpse of one of pop music's most fertile and imaginative minds.

Billy Bragg/ Talking with the Taxman About Poetry (1986):
Bragg began his career as a busker, a guy singing songs in London's subway stations for spare change, but by this, his third album, he had broadened his original one-man-and-an-electric-guitar act, adding a few backup singers, some bass, a little percussion, some keyboards, and a trumpet or two, all creating a rich and engaging variety of sounds. Lyrically, his traditional left-wing folksinger stance remained, but his gift for capturing the details of a love affair had grown still stronger, making Taxman a rich combination of the political and the personal. The former impulse gives us the anthemic "Ideology" ("When one voice rules the nation…it doesn't mean their vision is the clearest") and the catchy "Help Save the Youth of America." It's the latter impulse that makes the album great, however; Bragg always packs up the abstract qualities of love in a container of concrete details--the ice cream and chocolate kisses in "Greetings to the New Brunette," the glossy catalogues in "The Marriage," or the blood tests in "The Warmest Room"--that make the lovers seem like people you know (or maybe like you.) When the haunting, heartbreaking "Levi Stubbs' Tears" tells of a battered, abandoned wife whose only comfort is an old Four Tops tape, you'll know you're in the presence of a master storyteller.

Elvis Costello/ King of America (1986): After nearly a decade together, the relationship between Elvis and his band, the Attractions, was fraying (they play on only one track), so when he recorded this album, he went to L.A. and found a bunch of session musicians, plus producer T-Bone Burnett. As a result, this album is an exercise in Americana, with twangs and strums and steel guitars around every corner, and it's magnificent. Elvis has never sounded more regretful ("I wish that I could push a button/ And talk in the past and not the present tense"--"Brilliant Mistake"), more snide ("He stood five feet tall/ In his elevator shoes and stovepipe hat"--"Glitter Gulch"), or more sorrowful ("We'll build a bonfire of our dreams/ And burn a broken effigy of me and you"--"Indoor Fireworks"). His songwriting has never been stronger, and his tale of two G.I. Brides emigrating to New Orleans, "American Without Tears," is one of his all-time best. His career has been in a long downward spiral, but on this album, at least, Elvis captures everything we used to love about him.

Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians/Element of Light (1986):
With former Soft Boys Morris Windsor (drums) and Andy Metcalf (bass) back in the fold, Robyn formed the Egyptians, a combo that let him give his muse an electrified rock-and-roll outlet. Their debut, Fegmania!, was a hit on college radio, but this is their masterpiece, combining the anti-Reagan thrash of "The President" ("When I hear the word 'democracy,' I reach for my headphones"), the propulsive rocker "If You Were a Priest," and the bizarre, Poe-like song-story "Lady Waters and the Hooded One." The writing is sharp, the arrangements beautiful (especially on wistful songs like "Winchester" and "Airscape"), and Hitchcock's lyrics as peculiar and thought-provoking as ever. A great rock record.

U2/ The Joshua Tree (1987): An obvious choice? Maybe. But this is the album that transformed U2 from college radio darlings with a couple of hits into the biggest band in the world. With producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois returning from The Unforgettable Fire, the band turned their trademark wall of sound into something that was still grand, but more precise and more subtle; witness the chiming, repeating guitar figure that the Edge uses to open the album on "Where the Streets Have No Name," or the pensive piano on "Running to Stand Still." Rarely has a band paid more attention to dynamics, and rarely has it paid off so well. Bono's voice is in fine form, and though his lyrics sometimes cross the line into pretentiousness, there's undeniable power in his portraits of addiction ("Running to Stand Still") and life under oppression ("Mothers of the Disappeared"). The climax is probably "One Tree Hill," a prayer for a departed friend that combines a sense of loss with sheer rock passion ("I'll see you again when the stars fall from the sky/ And the moon has turned red over One Tree Hill") to create a sweeping, uplifting vision. If this album is an obvious choice for this list, well, there's a good reason.

Pixies/ Doolittle (1989): From the first moment I heard the opening chords of "Debaser," I was hooked; never before had I heard an album that so perfectly coupled soft, dark, unsettling sounds with hard, metallic thrashing. I would hear another within two years, though--Nirvana's Nevermind, which Kurt Cobain admitted was patterned very consciously on Doolittle's sound. The Pixies' combination of strengths would appeal to Cobain--their love of loud-quiet-loud dynamics, their disturbing lyrics ("Got me a movie, I want you to know/ Slicing up eyeballs, I want you to know"--"Debaser"), the distorted sting of Joey Santiago's guitar, and above all the yowl of singer/guitarist Black Francis (later Frank Black). It's not studio effects--when he does "Tame" or "Crackity Jones," that yelping and howling is all happening in his throat. The album is not all thrash, though--"La La Love You," sung by drummer David Lovering, is downright poppy, while the single, "Monkey Gone to Heaven," comes off as an apocalyptic eco-fable, and "Here Comes Your Man" is a jangly, tuneful recasting of a Velvet Underground classic. If you're looking for the point of transition from the Eighties to the Nineties, here it is.


HONORABLE MENTION:
Squeeze/ Argybargy (1980) A triumph of Brit-pop: tuneful, catchy, lyrically sophisticated. A classic.
Talking Heads/ Remain in Light (1980) The fusion of new wave with pan-global funk, featuring the triumphant "Once in a Lifetime."
Dire Straits/ Love Over Gold (1982) Epic in scope, gorgeous in execution, held together by Mark Knopfler's superb guitar work.
Tom Waits/ Rain Dogs (1985) Skid row goes around the world--half opera, half blues, all surreal. Utterly brilliant.
Balancing Act/ Three Squares and a Roof (1988) Acoustic guitars and miscellaneous percussion framing songs both quirky and beautiful.

2:29 PM

LBJs

*First, the good news: the site's email system is up and running once again, thanks to the nice folks at FictCo. The bad news: the spam is also running, sort of like the salmon in the Pacific Northwest, or perhaps the bulls in Pamplona. It's irritating, but worth it to keep the communication channels open here at petercashwell.com

*I'm in one of those horrific twisted positions that only occur in those who participate in multiple fantasy leagues: I need Peyton Manning to have a really good game, but only just good enough. Peyton's one of my QBs in my pal Mike's insanely complicated and therefore addictive Number Crushers league, where my Scrub Jays are currently trailing the Super Donkey Kram (don't ask) by 110 points. Don't panic--scores of over 300 points are common in the NC games, and the Donkeys are currently holding 353 of them. I've still got Peyton, Marvin Harrison, and Dwight Freeney waiting to play, and if they each earn their average weekly total... I'll lose by forty. So I need a big game--a huge, multi-TD/multi-sack performance from each and every one of my Colts if I want to snap my three-game losing streak in the Crushers' brutal contests.

On the other hand, I don't want Peyton to do TOO well, because over in the Fantasy League of Gentlemen/Gentlewomen, he's playing against my Fighting Coelacanths. I'm holding a fairly big lead right now, 95-40 in the FLOGG scoring system, but not only does Peyton lead the Banana Slugs, they've also got star wideout Torry Holt. It's entirely possible for Peyton & Torry to combine for 55+ points tomorrow night--but I have a hole card: Marvin Harrison is not only a Jay, but a Coelacanth as well; as long as HE is the one catching Peyton's passes, Mr. Manning can throw all he wants. But if Reggie Wayne or Edgerrin James gets into the act...

This is going to be a long, painful MNF, I can tell.

*A beautiful fall day today--that missing crispness was finally present, and that means I can almost break out my sweaters--joy! The best part of wearing sweaters is of course the fact that you don't have to have on a tie. The bad part is that my classroom is occasionally a litte on the toasty side, so the extra layer can be an issue. Somehow I'll cope.

*Somewhat to my surprise, I'm done with my grading for the marking period, which ended last Wednesday. I've still got about twenty comments to write, but I should be able to do that tomorrow at work; my two English classes are taking their midterms, so I'll need something to do while they're sweating. Maybe I should make plans for the next marking period, too...

*Thanks to Netflix, we've started watching Smallville, which has been interesting, and not just because I grew up steeped in the Superboy mythos. I mean, yes, I can still name all the members of the Legion of Super-Heroes, the Legion of Substitute Heroes, and even the Legion of Super-Pets, but that's not important to appreciating the show. Happily, the rather formulaic nature of the first few episodes seems less of a problem in the later discs of Season 1, and we're getting a more interesting and complex Lex Luthor as well, which makes for a far more interesting storyline, to my mind, than Clark endlessly mooning over Lana. I'm enjoying the interplay between Lex and Clark quite a bit--I understand there are a lot of slash fiction writers who enjoy it for other reasons--and one reason I like it is that I know the mythology. In some ways, fanboys like me enjoy the same sense of dramatic irony watching Smallville that the ancient Greeks enjoyed watching the first performance of Oedipus Rex. The story had been around for ages, but nobody in the amphitheater knew exactly how Sophocles was going to carry it out. There have been some fascinating hints of how Clark and Lex are going to go from here, and if I can continue to put up with some of the show's minor irritations (the lovely but not terribly compelling Kristin Kreuk as Lana, say), I think I'll enjoy the ride.

*October 15th has come, so I'm spreading the word: Duke should not lose a basketball game this year. They have no right. Their seniors were the number one recruiting class in the country when they put on the Blue Devil uniform for the first time; their freshmen are likewise the number one recruiting class this year. So if they lose a single game, I expect to hear every one of the friggin' announcers who's been crediting Duke for "overachieving" over the last few years giving them a dressing down for underachieving this year.

And for once, I'm going to enjoy the prospect of a UNC team that's actually going to be an underdog. Defending champs AND underdogs? Man, that's a combination I've never gotten to enjoy before. I can't wait to see Noel, QT, Reyshawn and the new kids hit the hardwood. We've got no pressure on us whatsoever!

4:53 AM

***TEMPORARY E-MAIL ISSUES***

On the off chance that you've recently tried to email me here, you should be aware that we're having email problems; nothing's made it through to petercashwell.com in the last two weeks.

How did it go on this long? Well, because I sort of did it myself. To help stem the flow of spam, which was becoming downright Yangtze-sized, I deactivated the site's catchall email feature. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Catchalls accept ANY mail that includes "@yourdomainname.com" at the end, so even mail with a miskeyed address can get to its intended target. Alas, because some spammers send multiple messages to ___@yourdomainname.com, using generalized names like "administrator," "mail," or "webmaster," a catchall can result in multiple spams piling up very quickly.

This was my problem until I deactivated the catchall--literally dozens of spam messages arriving every day. I still checked the box regularly, but I'd say the ratio of spam to personal messages was easily thirty to one; I might go several days without a personal message, but twenty to forty spams would appear overnight. Thus, when the good folks at the Fictional Company suggested the catchall might be the problem, I jumped to implement their solution. Ta-daaaa! No more spam!

The mailbox remained empty overnight for the first time in years. And then another day went by--still no mail. And another. And another. I was starting to feel really neglected, but the joy of a mailbox that didn't mock my sex life or my stock portfolio was so great that I didn't cotton to the truth for a while longer. Then I thought to try sending myself an email from another site. It didn't get through. I tried another message from yet another site. (I think I use something like four different email systems.) When that one didn't work either, I knew something was up. I've emailed the crack FictCo staff, so I have every confidence that petercashwell.com will have a fully functioning email system within a day or two.

Until then, I beg your patience, and I promise to tell some interesting stories soon.

In the meantime, you can go here to apply for a high-paying, high-status job in the Bush administration. Be sure to click on all the pull-down menus to make sure your application goes through!

We'll talk soon.

--PC

2:10 PM

***OFFICIAL SPOILER ALERT: IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN SERENITY YET, BUT WOULD LIKE TO DO SO WITHOUT KNOWING IMPORTANT PLOT POINTS, SKIP THIS ENTRY.***

Much to the delight of the lovely Ms. Dalton, we took in last night's premiere of Joss Whedon's Serenity, the long-awaited feature film based on his abruptly-cancelled TV series Firefly. And how was it?

Well, since we were stone fans of the show, it shouldn't come as a shock that we enjoyed it immensely. If there were relatively few delightful shocks, we were still treated to a great many familiarities, some cranked up to a higher pitch than we'd have expected--the improved special effects and fight scenes, for example. Perhaps more important, many of our fears were allayed, as we'd been somewhat concerned at how well a nine-character show designed to stretch out over twenty-odd episodes could have its sensibilities transferred to a two-hour film.

Luckily, Whedon has not only spent a lot of time writing for the small screen, but has worked in other media such as comics (if you're not reading his Astonishing X-Men, you're missing a treat) and the big screen, which is where Buffy the Vampire Slayer had its first (uneven) treatment. He's thus got a pretty good idea of how different formats demand different tricks, and he did a good job, to my thinking, of adapting the universe of Firefly to the two-hour format. The events of the nine episodes that made it to air were neatly summarized with a minimum of Expositional Dialogue, and we were treated to an action-packed escape sequence almost immediately.

Naturally, the balance had to be shifted to a small number of characters, and those two were Mal and River. This was fine by me, as Mal is probably the most interesting of the bunch, and River's story was the biggest loose end still dangling when the show was cancelled. Yeah, I would have liked to see a bit more of Kaylee and Zoe (and I mean that in, um, only the correct sense...) but (well, actually, I mean it in the incorrect sense as well...) I can't really (oh, c'mon, can you blame me?) fault Joss for putting them on the back burner for the moment. In the sequel, though... mmmm...

Where was I? Ah, yes, Serenity. Well. Apart from a few pseudo-western lines, the dialogue crackled nicely. Some of Mal's cowboyisms worked well, such as the punchy "I aim to misbehave," but when he said that soon there'd be "no place for naughty men like us to slip about" I felt like signalling a waiter to box up some of the vernacular for me to take home; it was certainly too much to eat right there. Both Wash and Jayne had some lovely mood-altering interjections ("How about the part where it's a trap?"), and River's post-aircar chase "I swallowed a bug" should probably be in the Bathos Hall of Fame.

But there's no getting around the Big Events, at least as far as the rabid fandom is concerned: the deaths of Book and Wash. (Yeah, some other people die, too, but they weren't on the show.) Book's death was the sort of trade you can imagine Whedon brokering with an old veteran like Ron "Harris" Glass: "Look, since you're getting a smaller part in the movie no matter what, this way you at least get a really great death scene. Besides, we need to give Mal some motivation to take on the Alliance, and if they go after his old friends, his change of heart will be legitimized." It's completely logical from a storytelling standpoint, as it transforms Mal from a maverick trying to avoid the Alliance to a rogue trying to hurt it.

It's a little harder to take the death of Wash. For one, he's one of my favorite characters, starting from his first appearance onscreen in the pilot, where he was playing with his toy dinosaur figures and providing dialogue for them:

Stegosaurus: Yes... This land will be fertile. We will thrive here, and we will call it... This Land.
Tyrannosaurus Rex: I think we should call it Your Grave!
Stego: Ah! Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!
T-Rex: Ha ha ha! Mine is an evil laugh!

You've got to love anybody who can pull that off. But again, in the context of the film, losing Wash makes sense. First, the climactic battle sequence occurs on the ground, after the death-defying flight through the fleets of both the crazed, cannibalistic Reavers AND the tight-assed, militaristic Alliance, between the blasts of lasers and the screaming of projectiles, after the death spiral and the G-forces too nasty to count. Wash is a pilot, and getting through all of the above is his triumph, and his character's only real opportunity to triumph; he's not going to top that in the battle. He goes out on top. More important, his loss signifies that the threat is serious. If Joss demonstrates that Wash can be lost, then the audience can't make any assumptions about the outcome of the final fight--anybody could be killed.

Because of that, the audience is kept nervous about every other character in the battle; when Zoe charges and is wounded, when Jayne takes a hit, when Kaylee is darted, and when Simon gets shot, the stakes are significantly raised, which makes River's rush back toward the Reavers that much more meaningful. I assumed at first that River had sacrificed herself by rushing back and closing the blast doors from the other side. The possibility that she could survive may have lurked at the back of my mind, but I was already into my Character Attrition mode. Thus, when we eventually see her hacking and slashing away (and oh my god, what amazing fight choreography for Summer Glau--her dance background really worked beautifully here) it's a shock, but a more positive one; instead of saying to ourselves, "She's alive? Oh, yeah, right..." we say "She's alive! Holy shit!"

(That also allows us the lovely Buffy-reincarnate shot of River, standing in her little waifish dress and combat boots, gracefully holding her weapons over the bodies of the Reavers, with blood flowing down the edge and dripping off.)

Kel and I also noted the way Mal defeats the Operative--by using his weakness, his old war wound, rather than his strength--and the fact that in the end, the true-believer Op is forced to watch the broadcast and witness exactly what his beloved Alliance has done--the film's tag line, "Can't stop the signal," also applies to those who would just as soon not know what their own side is doing, a lesson worth recalling in these days of Abu Ghraib and Gitmo. And perhaps more important, after this witnessing, the Op is given another chance to shut down Mal and the others for good--and now, fully cognizant, chooses not to. With all the death that's been dealt, it's an oddly positive conclusion.

So: it's a thrill ride, a delight for those who enjoy Whedon's trademark wit, and a darker and meatier examination of the morality of imposing peace and freedom than you might expect in a space opera. By all means, if you haven't seen it yet, see it; and if you have, find a friend who hasn't and get to the multiplex.

Oh, and the DVDs of the complete series? A damn fine Xmas gift.

5:06 AM