Dissolver Magazine

THE MOTION SICK Her Brilliant Fifteen (Self-Released, 2006) by Jon Gorey \| Age: 30 \| Boston, MA The Motion Sick, fueled by Spin.com's "Band of the Month" honors in early 2006, have already racked up their share of acclaim in their first year... but allow me to pile on. Their debut CD, Her Brilliant Fifteen, shows more than just promise - they're already there. Amid the great mix of instrumentation and songwriting, Michael Epstein's disaffected deadpan vocals work surprisingly well, delivering wonderfully offbeat lyrics that are sometimes dark, sometimes funny, and always illumunating. All of these elements culminate in the opener, "Satellite," a just plain terrific song. On its heels, "The Day After" keeps up the pace in a beautiful blend of layered orchestration. (Their skillful use of overdrive fuzz reminds me of the 90's Chicago sound of Hum and, of course, Smashing Pumpkins.) "Grace Kelly" is intense and riveting from the first beat—a dark, evocative, and very unique song in every way, the comparison I want to draw is to the Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby." This is the track you'll remember long after the album ends. The lyric-laden "What I Get" offers some excellent opportunity for interpretation to go along with its itchy guitar accents and many hooks, and the compound time signature allows for a fun tempo shift in the chorus. (This is probably a good time to mention that the drummer is pretty damned good.) However, "Driving in England" and "God Hates Kansas" are better titles than they are songs, as the vocals get a little monotonous in this stretch. Tucked at the end of the album, "My Country" deserves mention as one of the best protest songs spawned by the Bush administration's bellicose obsessions. The lyrics, pinned to a catchy melody, make for an intelligent tongue twist of rhymes with condemning lines like, "I put up a colored cloth that represents borders / So the angel of death knows not to deport me." While not every song is a winner, Her Brilliant Fifteen still makes for an altogether great album, particularly for a first effort. If you live around Boston, look for The Motion Sick at the Midway Cafe in March, the Bullfinch Yacht Club in April, Sally O'Briens in May, and the Abbey Lounge in June. Listen to "Satellite" by the Motion Sick.

ALASDAIR ROBERTS The Amber Gatherers (Drag City, 2007) by Bob Ham \| Age: 30 \| Portland, OR You know when you are living in a brave new world when one of the biggest young bands in America, the Decemberists, handpick an unassuming Scotsman who plays plaintive folk music as the opening act for their victory lap tour of the States. It stands to reason considering Colin Meloy's unabashed love of the folk idiom, but considering the number of "folk" artists twisting the genre to their own ends (Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom), it is a lovely gesture to have Meloy embrace a traditionalist like Roberts. As he showcased on his last album, No Earthly Man, Roberts is a scholar of traditional folk ballads. On that disc, he took eight of his favorites and, with the help of friends like Will Oldham and Isobel Campbell, made them his own, adding a psychedelic tint to the songs' pastoral visions. On his latest endeavor, all the songs are originals of Roberts' but both the mood and lyrics hearken back to folk ballads of years long gone, rich with imagery and language that Meloy only scratches the surface of in Decemberists songs. This isn't to say that this album isn't rooted in the here and now. There is Roberts' backing group (featuring longtime cohort Gareth Eggie on guitar and erstwhile Teenage Fanclub member Gerard Love playing bass) who give even the most ancient-sounding rime a modern edge as well as those songs that appear to be touching on current affairs. One can't help but think that Roberts is singing of either our head of state or England's prime minister when, on "I Have A Charm," he sings of "the very sire of Hell himself/rallying his bloody commonwealth." There will most likely not be a revival of the folk music explosion of the '60s in our cynical modern era, but if there were, Roberts would surely stand at the head of the pack. As evidenced on this amazing and spotless album, he is a master musical craftsman whose lovely voice and guitar playing could very easily break down the hardest of spirits.

LYNETTE YETTER Inka Spirit / Espiritu Inciaco (Ayni Records, 2006) by Casey Rue \| Age: 28 \| Boston, MA I have to start off with this disclaimer: I generally do not listen to World Music or anything you can find in the International section (although Petru Guelfucci’s “Corsica” is a little piece of hot foreign musical yumminess). It’s just not my thing. Having said that, I feel like my review of Lynette Yetter’s Espiritu Incaico CD may not be very informative. But I doubt most of the readers of The Dissolver are experts in indigenous Incan music. Can I get a what-what? Yetter is a self-described Renaissance woman. She pretty much wrote all the lyrics and music on this CD (hell, she even designed the cover). There’s also an accompanying video which she directed. My first impression of the CD was that it’s something I’d hear at a medieval festival, with the knights and fair maidens and super freaking huge turkey drumsticks. On closer inspection I realized the eleven songs sounded like one really long song, like some antiquated Philip Glass piece. Perhaps it has something to do with the lack of a standard lapse between each song, or perhaps it goes along with Yetter’s belief that all things flow from/into/out of some echoing space-time continuum. More than once I noticed discordant chord progressions and a peculiar vocal harmonization. I don’t know if it’s just me, or Yetter, or if that’s the way Incan music is supposed to sound. I hope it’s the latter since all of song 10, “Kusikunchej,” is totally flat. I imagine if it weren’t intentional then someone would have either smacked the tone deaf player or would have digitally altered it to sound in tune. Well, I have to give Yetter credit for going out full force and doing what she evidently loves. While this is not the type of thing I’d listen to, there’s obviously a niche where she fits in snugly. (Ed. note: Ms. Yetter wrote us to say, "Yes, song 10 (Kusikunchej) is supposed to sound that way. Every community tunes their panpipes differently. For instance, A 436 instead of A 440 is the sound indentifying a certain community. A 442 is a different community. The dissonace the reviewer referred to is something I love. Its function is to wake up the spirit and form community as everyone plays their panpipes together, all night long.")

SHAWN FOGEL Millions of Miles Away (Self-released, 2006) by Jason Holloway \| Age: 28 \| Boston, MA Shawn Fogel's third solo CD, Millions of Miles Away, really IS what you'd call a solo CD: he sings every line and plays every single instrument on the album—horns, drums, and banjo included. I suppose the best compliment to his abilities as a multi-instrumentalist is that I had no idea it was just him! Indeed, Millions of Miles Away is a fun collection of well-played songs that exhibits plenty of variety throughout, the way an album should. The quick, mod intro "Maybe Tonight" and ensuing title track mix a nice sense of low-fi production into their catchy hooks— like a Britpop band playing in a garage. "Oh Yeah (How I Miss You)" belies at least some level of influence from Matthew Sweet, and "I'd Be Lyin'," a fun song with a Johnny Cash style strumbeat, is probably my favorite on the album. I couldn't make it through Part I of "Walk It Off" without skipping ahead, however— not even once. The digital effects are just too much. Part II redeems itself as a good instrumental song with great bass lines and guitar solo, but the lack of vocals allows the wealth of good musical ideas to slip away without making a lasting impact. Like a good album, though, MoMA recovers, and doesn't fade toward the end. "Everyone's Got Me Down" has a nice, slowpolk country feel, with a welcome burst of horns in the chorus and a good bridge. I liked "Days Go By" right away as well, and Fogel's voice sounds its best here. The chorus exposes a common (if minor) flaw in his songwriting though - whether Fogel's lyrical well tends to run dry, or he simply believes in the importance of repetition, a few songs get tiringly redundant at points, at least for my taste. "Maybe Tonight Reprise" makes for a decent ending (I particularly like how he goes up an octave midway through), but it's again a little heavy-handed with the distortion effects. Taken altogether though, Millions of Miles Away is an enjoyable record, and its highlights are indicative of even better things to come from Shawn Fogel.

*THE JOB* by Seth Maislin Joseph Paulo Esposito, age 22, entered the Easy Corner convenience store with a cut-barrel shotgun. Seventeen-year-old Gina Shrinkley had the bad luck of being behind the counter. Esposito, probably under the influence of crack cocaine, ignored Miss Shrinkley’s pleading. He shot and killed her. Esposito then began to methodically slaughter four more people: Gus Franklin, age 44; his wife, Zoe Franklin, age 41; Vito Andretti, age 69; and high-school senior Bruno Cavalieri, age 18. When the coast was clear, Esposito emptied the cash register and walked away with less than thirty-five dollars in cash and coins. Thus ended an otherwise ordinary summer day, July 27, 1988. Joseph Esposito is still at large. I played Esposito on television. I’m Mike Bentley. I’m an actor who looks over his shoulder. Doggedly following me are the couch potatoes in this country, the men and women with an uncanny ability to remember faces. My face. They call the police, and the police catch up to me. Since America’s Most Wanted first aired the Esposito segment in October 1988, and for every airing since, I’m consistently recognized by the American people. In Scottsdale, Toledo, and Rochester, I’ve been pushed against the wall while hands roughly twisted my arms and searched my pants. In Boston and Philadelphia, I’ve been held at gunpoint with my hands in the air. I’ve been pulled over on the highway. Police have visited my parents, my grandparents, my boyfriend, and my workplace. A Houston man once fired a bullet over my head. Were this the movies, I’d capture the one-armed man. That’s not how I work. I’m on a videotape packaged with a digital camera. I did a public service announcement about gas leaks. My smile sells computers, my shoulders hold suits, my face halts bankruptcy. But nobody remembers these parts. Even now, in a corner store where I’m buying prophylactics, a cop whispers “Joseph Esposito” and I should know better, but eight invisible months have gone by. I turn around. He draws his gun. An old lady screams and I stand there, arms and condoms overhead, with what I’m sure is the terrified look of an idiot in my eyes. With my face in the carpet, he shucks open my wallet.

FLYING SOLO: The Sublime Oil Paintings of Brookline's Ellen Granter by Barry Maloney \| Age: 41 \| Dedham, MA Brookline artist Ellen Granter has a history of focusing on specific themes that interest her until she has mined the topic to her satisfaction. In the past she has done clusters of work focused on flowers, bees, beetles, butterfly chrysalises, jellyfish, and most recently an interesting series of bathingsuit clad people playing in the surf at the seashore. Though her current reputation is most strongly associated with virtuoso oil paintings of birds and timeless beach and marsh landscapes, she has an unending interest in all natural life. Granter was born in 1962 in New York City and grew up in Rochester, N.Y. Upon earning a B.A. in 1984 from the University of Vermont, she studied Chinese in Hong Kong and Beijing, received her M.A. in Chinese history in 1988, and ultimately moving to the Boston area in 1990. It wasn’t until 1993, she says, “partly as an antidote to the constraints of a computer-intensive graphic design career,” that her casual painting became something much more earnest and, perhaps, therapeutic. Yet there is an inevitability to her artistic re-awakening. She is a naturally expressive person, with a powerful artistic sensibility that demanded to bloom one way or another. I was recently invited to her studio for a private viewing of new work. Her workspace, a third-floor brownstone near Coolidge Corner, is permeated with a strong Chinese aesthetic; paintings adorning every wall, both her own and her coveted personal collection of work by favorite artists. In the dining area, dozens of newly finished canvases stand on end, leaning one on another, awaiting their unveiling. Viewing her luminous images, we are transported, each image displaying an uncanny ability to draft the willing volunteer into the contemplation of time in motion. Her landscape paintings are like poems by Wordsworth; heavy with thought, yet expansive in spirit. Still lifes, animals, and her immortal birds all drawn with compassion and insight, even painting our fellow humans, chubby and clad in ridiculously patterned bathing suits, with a clear-eyed objectivity. Instead of harsh psychological judgement, we are instead treated to an accepting view of ourselves standing shin deep in the tide, playing, talking or simply looking off into the distance. These images are curiously reminiscent of her many images of clustered birds perched on a telephone wire, relating us all as fragile living beings. Each image takes its viewer to a place in time, yet her technique of slightly blurring edges between positive and negative space gives us the impression that here time is not still, but in flux. Working quickly, she combines a simplicity of composition and complexity of emotion and texture to great effect. I am reminded of a quote by John Constable: “In a sketch, there is nothing but one state of mind - that which you were in at the time (of creation).” Yet somehow Ellen Granter manages to make paintings – each one a completely realized oil work – retain that sense of immediacy of experience. It is less a traditional painting that is built-up and more of a modern painting that simply pours out of the artist. Asked about this approach, Granter replied “I work very quickly, trying to get everything I am thinking about into the painting as fast as possible, then I try to sustain my interest in it until it is done, or it is done when I’m through thinking about it. Going back into it after it is dry is always problematic because more often than not I am not thinking about the painting in as focused a way, or with the same light as on the first sessions.” Having spent time living in China and Hong Kong, she was influenced by Eastern concepts of visual beauty, studying Chinese and Japanese art. Her work, though obviously informed by Impressionism, and showing the influences of Wayne Thiebaud and Richard Diebenkorn, is much more than the sum of her art-history-knowledge parts. She has an uncanny gift for turning surface texture into an aesthetic pleasure, creating delicious paintings that we wish to eat, like some strange form of visual pastry. Using a distinctive impasto technique and knowledge of the effect of calligraphic sweep and dance motion, she creates glorious surface play, leaving many places for the eye to dwell in and delight. We see color as matter, and volume portrayed as dimensional light. No review of Ellen Granter would be complete without a mention of the subject of birds. These paintings in particular read like zen poems or haiku, where the combination of small bits of information are arranged in such a way that the composition comes to completion in the viewers mind, bringing about those attendant aesthetic highs. Showing a thorough knowledge of avian anatomy, her greatest technical feat is the ability to portray that featherweight lightness of small birds, conveying the near weightlessness of their bones. Sparrows, perched on the line of a fence like musical notes across the page of a Chopin composition offer us a glimpse of ethereal beauty. Asked about her personal conception of a successful piece, Granter has said: “a beautiful painting is both a gift of vision and a testament of appreciation for our short lives.” Granter’s work is currently represented by several galleries and arts organizations: ~ Alpers Fine Art, 2 Main Street, Andover, MA 01810 (www.alpersfineart.com) ~ The Left Bank Gallery, 8 Cove Road, Orleans, MA 02653 (www.leftbankgallery.com) ~ The Copley Society of Art, 158 Newbury Street, Boston, MA 02116 (www.copleysociety.org)

*THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED* Directed by Kirby Dick by Jim Briggs \| Age: 23 \| Concord, CA Once most filmgoers pass the age of 17, a film’s rating becomes irrelevant (until they have children). Many don’t realize the effect a rating has on the filmmakers and studios. Kirby Dick’s documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated investigates how detrimental and arbitrary these decisions really are. If a film receives an NC-17 rating, most theatres won’t show it and most newspapers won’t advertise it. So filmmakers, when given this rating, must cut out certain material, sometimes entire scenes, to get to the more desirable R rating. Often, the filmmakers have no idea what should be cut, as they are given no direction by the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America). As the documentary points out, the members of the MPAA ratings board are kept anonymous and hence, are not held accountable for their decisions. To make things more frustrating, there is no training for raters and no criteria for rating. Writer/producer Matt Stone recalls the decision to pack as much into Team America: World Police’s infamous puppet sex scene as possible so when the got the inevitable NC-17 they’d have something to cut out. With the help of a private investigator, Kirby Dick is able to identify all members serving on the anonymous board. What will this accomplish? I don’t know, but I suppose it’s a start. Even without the P.I. the film is a damning portrait of the ratings board, featuring interviews with filmmakers, film scholars, former ratings board members and a first amendment attorney among others. I don’t know if the P.I. is even necessary to get the point across, though she’s a lot of fun to watch in action. But when she starts digging through a rater’s trash, I wonder how low she and Dick are willing to go. What they find in the trash is mildly interesting but doesn’t further their case. The horror stories from directors like Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream), Kevin Smith (Clerks), Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don’t Cry) and John Waters (A Dirty Shame) whose films have been “slapped with” the dreaded NC-17 rating are far more compelling. Possibly the most damning of what’s uncovered about the board is the fairly obvious homophobia that influences their decisions. “We don’t set values, we reflect them,” said a spokesperson from the board. Scenes of homosexuality are almost guaranteed an NC-17. This became very obvious to me when I saw Pedro Almodovar’s NC-17 rated Bad Education, whose scenes of sexuality are very tame. As far as nudity we briefly see Gael García Bernal’s butt. But said scenes of sexuality are between two men. Meanwhile films featuring brutal violence skate with an easy R rating. One wonders what the MPAA is trying to “protect” America’s children from. The effect this film can potentially have on the future of the ratings board, if any, is yet to be seen, as it is a recent release on DVD. It should come as no surprise that it has been rated NC-17. The DVD features commentary with director Kirby Dick, producer Eddie Schmidt and private investigator Becky Altringer. They have an interesting discussion about the life of the film since it wrapped, incidentally the same day it premiered at Sundance. There are also a handful of deleted scenes that delve into the issues of piracy and public domain.

*L'ENFANT* Written and Directed by Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne by Jim Briggs \| Age: 23 \| Concord, CA "L’Enfant" translates to "The Child." I can’t imagine a more appropriate title. Bruno (Jérémie Renier), our protagonist, is a petty thug living in Paris with his girlfriend, Sonia (Déborah François). In the very first scene we learn that Bruno subletted Sonia’s apartment, possibly to strangers, to make a few extra bucks. What makes this truly unforgivable is that Sonia’s cradling her newborn child and Bruno is nowhere to be found. Bruno is a thug by profession, operating out of a dilapidated shack next to the Seine. This is where Sonia finds him and he meets his son for the first time. The two are understandably excited; they frolic on the ground like children who’ve just discovered that they enjoy doing so. Every encounter between them seems to end up this way, that is until Bruno sells the child on the black market and a similar encounter involves a knife and lots of shouting. Sonia does what any sensible woman would do; she kicks him out. The narrative abandons the baby and focuses on another child, Bruno. His “associates” are all children, none of whom are equipped to live in the real world. They don’t fully understand that their actions have real consequences, often negative in their line of “work.” At one point Bruno visits his mother to ask a favor, and she robotically does as he asks. His childhood must have been cake. When Bruno is forced to face the consequences of his actions head on it seems that everything in his life is at stake. He has literally nothing to lose, which makes his decision surprising and heroic, leading to an emotionally charged and completely earned dénouement. In a way, L’Enfant is a coming of age story with a protagonist that has already done so physically. At this point in his life, he must play catch up. What the filmmaker brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (Le Fils) have done so well is create chemistry between Sonia and Bruno. Sonia gives into Bruno’s childish quirks and seems to find them endearing. But she must draw the line somewhere, as do we. Wherever your line is, Bruno will probably cross it.

THE MOTION SICK Her Brilliant Fifteen (Self-Released, 2006) by Jon Gorey \| Age: 30 \| Boston, MA The Motion Sick, fueled by Spin.com's "Band of the Month" honors in early 2006, have already racked up their share of acclaim in their first year... but allow me to pile on. Their debut CD, Her Brilliant Fifteen, shows more than just promise - they're already there. Amid the great mix of instrumentation and songwriting, Michael Epstein's disaffected deadpan vocals work surprisingly well, delivering wonderfully offbeat lyrics that are sometimes dark, sometimes funny, and always illumunating. All of these elements culminate in the opener, "Satellite," a just plain terrific song. On its heels, "The Day After" keeps up the pace in a beautiful blend of layered orchestration. (Their skillful use of overdrive fuzz reminds me of the 90's Chicago sound of Hum and, of course, Smashing Pumpkins.) "Grace Kelly" is intense and riveting from the first beat—a dark, evocative, and very unique song in every way, the comparison I want to draw is to the Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby." This is the track you'll remember long after the album ends. The lyric-laden "What I Get" offers some excellent opportunity for interpretation to go along with its itchy guitar accents and many hooks, and the compound time signature allows for a fun tempo shift in the chorus. (This is probably a good time to mention that the drummer is pretty damned good.) However, "Driving in England" and "God Hates Kansas" are better titles than they are songs, as the vocals get a little monotonous in this stretch. Tucked at the end of the album, "My Country" deserves mention as one of the best protest songs spawned by the Bush administration's bellicose obsessions. The lyrics, pinned to a catchy melody, make for an intelligent tongue twist of rhymes with condemning lines like, "I put up a colored cloth that represents borders / So the angel of death knows not to deport me." While not every song is a winner, Her Brilliant Fifteen still makes for an altogether great album, particularly for a first effort. If you live around Boston, look for The Motion Sick at the Midway Cafe in March, the Bullfinch Yacht Club in April, Sally O'Briens in May, and the Abbey Lounge in June. Listen to "Satellite" by the Motion Sick.

ALASDAIR ROBERTS The Amber Gatherers (Drag City, 2007) by Bob Ham \| Age: 30 \| Portland, OR You know when you are living in a brave new world when one of the biggest young bands in America, the Decemberists, handpick an unassuming Scotsman who plays plaintive folk music as the opening act for their victory lap tour of the States. It stands to reason considering Colin Meloy's unabashed love of the folk idiom, but considering the number of "folk" artists twisting the genre to their own ends (Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom), it is a lovely gesture to have Meloy embrace a traditionalist like Roberts. As he showcased on his last album, No Earthly Man, Roberts is a scholar of traditional folk ballads. On that disc, he took eight of his favorites and, with the help of friends like Will Oldham and Isobel Campbell, made them his own, adding a psychedelic tint to the songs' pastoral visions. On his latest endeavor, all the songs are originals of Roberts' but both the mood and lyrics hearken back to folk ballads of years long gone, rich with imagery and language that Meloy only scratches the surface of in Decemberists songs. This isn't to say that this album isn't rooted in the here and now. There is Roberts' backing group (featuring longtime cohort Gareth Eggie on guitar and erstwhile Teenage Fanclub member Gerard Love playing bass) who give even the most ancient-sounding rime a modern edge as well as those songs that appear to be touching on current affairs. One can't help but think that Roberts is singing of either our head of state or England's prime minister when, on "I Have A Charm," he sings of "the very sire of Hell himself/rallying his bloody commonwealth." There will most likely not be a revival of the folk music explosion of the '60s in our cynical modern era, but if there were, Roberts would surely stand at the head of the pack. As evidenced on this amazing and spotless album, he is a master musical craftsman whose lovely voice and guitar playing could very easily break down the hardest of spirits.

LYNETTE YETTER Inka Spirit / Espiritu Inciaco (Ayni Records, 2006) by Casey Rue \| Age: 28 \| Boston, MA I have to start off with this disclaimer: I generally do not listen to World Music or anything you can find in the International section (although Petru Guelfucci’s “Corsica” is a little piece of hot foreign musical yumminess). It’s just not my thing. Having said that, I feel like my review of Lynette Yetter’s Espiritu Incaico CD may not be very informative. But I doubt most of the readers of The Dissolver are experts in indigenous Incan music. Can I get a what-what? Yetter is a self-described Renaissance woman. She pretty much wrote all the lyrics and music on this CD (hell, she even designed the cover). There’s also an accompanying video which she directed. My first impression of the CD was that it’s something I’d hear at a medieval festival, with the knights and fair maidens and super freaking huge turkey drumsticks. On closer inspection I realized the eleven songs sounded like one really long song, like some antiquated Philip Glass piece. Perhaps it has something to do with the lack of a standard lapse between each song, or perhaps it goes along with Yetter’s belief that all things flow from/into/out of some echoing space-time continuum. More than once I noticed discordant chord progressions and a peculiar vocal harmonization. I don’t know if it’s just me, or Yetter, or if that’s the way Incan music is supposed to sound. I hope it’s the latter since all of song 10, “Kusikunchej,” is totally flat. I imagine if it weren’t intentional then someone would have either smacked the tone deaf player or would have digitally altered it to sound in tune. Well, I have to give Yetter credit for going out full force and doing what she evidently loves. While this is not the type of thing I’d listen to, there’s obviously a niche where she fits in snugly. (Ed. note: Ms. Yetter wrote us to say, "Yes, song 10 (Kusikunchej) is supposed to sound that way. Every community tunes their panpipes differently. For instance, A 436 instead of A 440 is the sound indentifying a certain community. A 442 is a different community. The dissonace the reviewer referred to is something I love. Its function is to wake up the spirit and form community as everyone plays their panpipes together, all night long.")

SHAWN FOGEL Millions of Miles Away (Self-released, 2006) by Jason Holloway \| Age: 28 \| Boston, MA Shawn Fogel's third solo CD, Millions of Miles Away, really IS what you'd call a solo CD: he sings every line and plays every single instrument on the album—horns, drums, and banjo included. I suppose the best compliment to his abilities as a multi-instrumentalist is that I had no idea it was just him! Indeed, Millions of Miles Away is a fun collection of well-played songs that exhibits plenty of variety throughout, the way an album should. The quick, mod intro "Maybe Tonight" and ensuing title track mix a nice sense of low-fi production into their catchy hooks— like a Britpop band playing in a garage. "Oh Yeah (How I Miss You)" belies at least some level of influence from Matthew Sweet, and "I'd Be Lyin'," a fun song with a Johnny Cash style strumbeat, is probably my favorite on the album. I couldn't make it through Part I of "Walk It Off" without skipping ahead, however— not even once. The digital effects are just too much. Part II redeems itself as a good instrumental song with great bass lines and guitar solo, but the lack of vocals allows the wealth of good musical ideas to slip away without making a lasting impact. Like a good album, though, MoMA recovers, and doesn't fade toward the end. "Everyone's Got Me Down" has a nice, slowpolk country feel, with a welcome burst of horns in the chorus and a good bridge. I liked "Days Go By" right away as well, and Fogel's voice sounds its best here. The chorus exposes a common (if minor) flaw in his songwriting though - whether Fogel's lyrical well tends to run dry, or he simply believes in the importance of repetition, a few songs get tiringly redundant at points, at least for my taste. "Maybe Tonight Reprise" makes for a decent ending (I particularly like how he goes up an octave midway through), but it's again a little heavy-handed with the distortion effects. Taken altogether though, Millions of Miles Away is an enjoyable record, and its highlights are indicative of even better things to come from Shawn Fogel.

*THE JOB* by Seth Maislin Joseph Paulo Esposito, age 22, entered the Easy Corner convenience store with a cut-barrel shotgun. Seventeen-year-old Gina Shrinkley had the bad luck of being behind the counter. Esposito, probably under the influence of crack cocaine, ignored Miss Shrinkley’s pleading. He shot and killed her. Esposito then began to methodically slaughter four more people: Gus Franklin, age 44; his wife, Zoe Franklin, age 41; Vito Andretti, age 69; and high-school senior Bruno Cavalieri, age 18. When the coast was clear, Esposito emptied the cash register and walked away with less than thirty-five dollars in cash and coins. Thus ended an otherwise ordinary summer day, July 27, 1988. Joseph Esposito is still at large. I played Esposito on television. I’m Mike Bentley. I’m an actor who looks over his shoulder. Doggedly following me are the couch potatoes in this country, the men and women with an uncanny ability to remember faces. My face. They call the police, and the police catch up to me. Since America’s Most Wanted first aired the Esposito segment in October 1988, and for every airing since, I’m consistently recognized by the American people. In Scottsdale, Toledo, and Rochester, I’ve been pushed against the wall while hands roughly twisted my arms and searched my pants. In Boston and Philadelphia, I’ve been held at gunpoint with my hands in the air. I’ve been pulled over on the highway. Police have visited my parents, my grandparents, my boyfriend, and my workplace. A Houston man once fired a bullet over my head. Were this the movies, I’d capture the one-armed man. That’s not how I work. I’m on a videotape packaged with a digital camera. I did a public service announcement about gas leaks. My smile sells computers, my shoulders hold suits, my face halts bankruptcy. But nobody remembers these parts. Even now, in a corner store where I’m buying prophylactics, a cop whispers “Joseph Esposito” and I should know better, but eight invisible months have gone by. I turn around. He draws his gun. An old lady screams and I stand there, arms and condoms overhead, with what I’m sure is the terrified look of an idiot in my eyes. With my face in the carpet, he shucks open my wallet.

FLYING SOLO: The Sublime Oil Paintings of Brookline's Ellen Granter by Barry Maloney \| Age: 41 \| Dedham, MA Brookline artist Ellen Granter has a history of focusing on specific themes that interest her until she has mined the topic to her satisfaction. In the past she has done clusters of work focused on flowers, bees, beetles, butterfly chrysalises, jellyfish, and most recently an interesting series of bathingsuit clad people playing in the surf at the seashore. Though her current reputation is most strongly associated with virtuoso oil paintings of birds and timeless beach and marsh landscapes, she has an unending interest in all natural life. Granter was born in 1962 in New York City and grew up in Rochester, N.Y. Upon earning a B.A. in 1984 from the University of Vermont, she studied Chinese in Hong Kong and Beijing, received her M.A. in Chinese history in 1988, and ultimately moving to the Boston area in 1990. It wasn’t until 1993, she says, “partly as an antidote to the constraints of a computer-intensive graphic design career,” that her casual painting became something much more earnest and, perhaps, therapeutic. Yet there is an inevitability to her artistic re-awakening. She is a naturally expressive person, with a powerful artistic sensibility that demanded to bloom one way or another. I was recently invited to her studio for a private viewing of new work. Her workspace, a third-floor brownstone near Coolidge Corner, is permeated with a strong Chinese aesthetic; paintings adorning every wall, both her own and her coveted personal collection of work by favorite artists. In the dining area, dozens of newly finished canvases stand on end, leaning one on another, awaiting their unveiling. Viewing her luminous images, we are transported, each image displaying an uncanny ability to draft the willing volunteer into the contemplation of time in motion. Her landscape paintings are like poems by Wordsworth; heavy with thought, yet expansive in spirit. Still lifes, animals, and her immortal birds all drawn with compassion and insight, even painting our fellow humans, chubby and clad in ridiculously patterned bathing suits, with a clear-eyed objectivity. Instead of harsh psychological judgement, we are instead treated to an accepting view of ourselves standing shin deep in the tide, playing, talking or simply looking off into the distance. These images are curiously reminiscent of her many images of clustered birds perched on a telephone wire, relating us all as fragile living beings. Each image takes its viewer to a place in time, yet her technique of slightly blurring edges between positive and negative space gives us the impression that here time is not still, but in flux. Working quickly, she combines a simplicity of composition and complexity of emotion and texture to great effect. I am reminded of a quote by John Constable: “In a sketch, there is nothing but one state of mind - that which you were in at the time (of creation).” Yet somehow Ellen Granter manages to make paintings – each one a completely realized oil work – retain that sense of immediacy of experience. It is less a traditional painting that is built-up and more of a modern painting that simply pours out of the artist. Asked about this approach, Granter replied “I work very quickly, trying to get everything I am thinking about into the painting as fast as possible, then I try to sustain my interest in it until it is done, or it is done when I’m through thinking about it. Going back into it after it is dry is always problematic because more often than not I am not thinking about the painting in as focused a way, or with the same light as on the first sessions.” Having spent time living in China and Hong Kong, she was influenced by Eastern concepts of visual beauty, studying Chinese and Japanese art. Her work, though obviously informed by Impressionism, and showing the influences of Wayne Thiebaud and Richard Diebenkorn, is much more than the sum of her art-history-knowledge parts. She has an uncanny gift for turning surface texture into an aesthetic pleasure, creating delicious paintings that we wish to eat, like some strange form of visual pastry. Using a distinctive impasto technique and knowledge of the effect of calligraphic sweep and dance motion, she creates glorious surface play, leaving many places for the eye to dwell in and delight. We see color as matter, and volume portrayed as dimensional light. No review of Ellen Granter would be complete without a mention of the subject of birds. These paintings in particular read like zen poems or haiku, where the combination of small bits of information are arranged in such a way that the composition comes to completion in the viewers mind, bringing about those attendant aesthetic highs. Showing a thorough knowledge of avian anatomy, her greatest technical feat is the ability to portray that featherweight lightness of small birds, conveying the near weightlessness of their bones. Sparrows, perched on the line of a fence like musical notes across the page of a Chopin composition offer us a glimpse of ethereal beauty. Asked about her personal conception of a successful piece, Granter has said: “a beautiful painting is both a gift of vision and a testament of appreciation for our short lives.” Granter’s work is currently represented by several galleries and arts organizations: ~ Alpers Fine Art, 2 Main Street, Andover, MA 01810 (www.alpersfineart.com) ~ The Left Bank Gallery, 8 Cove Road, Orleans, MA 02653 (www.leftbankgallery.com) ~ The Copley Society of Art, 158 Newbury Street, Boston, MA 02116 (www.copleysociety.org)

*THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED* Directed by Kirby Dick by Jim Briggs \| Age: 23 \| Concord, CA Once most filmgoers pass the age of 17, a film’s rating becomes irrelevant (until they have children). Many don’t realize the effect a rating has on the filmmakers and studios. Kirby Dick’s documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated investigates how detrimental and arbitrary these decisions really are. If a film receives an NC-17 rating, most theatres won’t show it and most newspapers won’t advertise it. So filmmakers, when given this rating, must cut out certain material, sometimes entire scenes, to get to the more desirable R rating. Often, the filmmakers have no idea what should be cut, as they are given no direction by the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America). As the documentary points out, the members of the MPAA ratings board are kept anonymous and hence, are not held accountable for their decisions. To make things more frustrating, there is no training for raters and no criteria for rating. Writer/producer Matt Stone recalls the decision to pack as much into Team America: World Police’s infamous puppet sex scene as possible so when the got the inevitable NC-17 they’d have something to cut out. With the help of a private investigator, Kirby Dick is able to identify all members serving on the anonymous board. What will this accomplish? I don’t know, but I suppose it’s a start. Even without the P.I. the film is a damning portrait of the ratings board, featuring interviews with filmmakers, film scholars, former ratings board members and a first amendment attorney among others. I don’t know if the P.I. is even necessary to get the point across, though she’s a lot of fun to watch in action. But when she starts digging through a rater’s trash, I wonder how low she and Dick are willing to go. What they find in the trash is mildly interesting but doesn’t further their case. The horror stories from directors like Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream), Kevin Smith (Clerks), Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don’t Cry) and John Waters (A Dirty Shame) whose films have been “slapped with” the dreaded NC-17 rating are far more compelling. Possibly the most damning of what’s uncovered about the board is the fairly obvious homophobia that influences their decisions. “We don’t set values, we reflect them,” said a spokesperson from the board. Scenes of homosexuality are almost guaranteed an NC-17. This became very obvious to me when I saw Pedro Almodovar’s NC-17 rated Bad Education, whose scenes of sexuality are very tame. As far as nudity we briefly see Gael García Bernal’s butt. But said scenes of sexuality are between two men. Meanwhile films featuring brutal violence skate with an easy R rating. One wonders what the MPAA is trying to “protect” America’s children from. The effect this film can potentially have on the future of the ratings board, if any, is yet to be seen, as it is a recent release on DVD. It should come as no surprise that it has been rated NC-17. The DVD features commentary with director Kirby Dick, producer Eddie Schmidt and private investigator Becky Altringer. They have an interesting discussion about the life of the film since it wrapped, incidentally the same day it premiered at Sundance. There are also a handful of deleted scenes that delve into the issues of piracy and public domain.

*L'ENFANT* Written and Directed by Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne by Jim Briggs \| Age: 23 \| Concord, CA "L’Enfant" translates to "The Child." I can’t imagine a more appropriate title. Bruno (Jérémie Renier), our protagonist, is a petty thug living in Paris with his girlfriend, Sonia (Déborah François). In the very first scene we learn that Bruno subletted Sonia’s apartment, possibly to strangers, to make a few extra bucks. What makes this truly unforgivable is that Sonia’s cradling her newborn child and Bruno is nowhere to be found. Bruno is a thug by profession, operating out of a dilapidated shack next to the Seine. This is where Sonia finds him and he meets his son for the first time. The two are understandably excited; they frolic on the ground like children who’ve just discovered that they enjoy doing so. Every encounter between them seems to end up this way, that is until Bruno sells the child on the black market and a similar encounter involves a knife and lots of shouting. Sonia does what any sensible woman would do; she kicks him out. The narrative abandons the baby and focuses on another child, Bruno. His “associates” are all children, none of whom are equipped to live in the real world. They don’t fully understand that their actions have real consequences, often negative in their line of “work.” At one point Bruno visits his mother to ask a favor, and she robotically does as he asks. His childhood must have been cake. When Bruno is forced to face the consequences of his actions head on it seems that everything in his life is at stake. He has literally nothing to lose, which makes his decision surprising and heroic, leading to an emotionally charged and completely earned dénouement. In a way, L’Enfant is a coming of age story with a protagonist that has already done so physically. At this point in his life, he must play catch up. What the filmmaker brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (Le Fils) have done so well is create chemistry between Sonia and Bruno. Sonia gives into Bruno’s childish quirks and seems to find them endearing. But she must draw the line somewhere, as do we. Wherever your line is, Bruno will probably cross it.