To help deal with her disappointment over the second season of Downton Abbey, Sarah Werner watches its predecessor, 1971′s Upstairs Downstairs. Read “Downstairs at Downton Abbey”

Mike Vincent visits his archive, and rediscovers the Super Furry Animals. Read “SFA-OK”

Gavin Craig weighs in against the panini, and offers a slightly off-the-beaten-track grilled alternative. Read “Up in my grill”

The Artist

Its story is a sort of mash-up of Singing in the rain (1952) and Sunset Boulevard (1950) — the first being a film about the inception of the “talkie” and a young starlet who makes it big because she has a better voice than the current big name (a less squeaky one, at least), and the latter being about a washed-up silent film star left behind by her former industry to go mad in solitude. Admittedly, The Artist functions much better when it’s closer to the former, but the winks help with the latter.

These “winks” that I keep mentioning mostly come in the form of melodrama, especially towards the end, which gets to be a bit. . . much. But there are also a few clever uses of sound here and there. Hearing Jean Dujardin’s thick, French accent at the film’s end is especially fun.

Speaking of Dujardin, the casting is phenomenal. None of the actors, even the highly recognizable ones (John Goodman, Penelope Ann Miller, James Cromwell), feel out of place. But man, does Dujardin look at home in black and white! Roger Ebert described him as a cross between Sean Connery and Gene Kelly, which is pretty apropos. Berenice Bejo as the plucky young Peppy Miller doesn’t do half bad herself, with her winning smile and perfectly placed (by Dujardin, in fact) beauty mark.

So the order for the day here seems to be charm. There isn’t a second of The Artist that isn’t charming in one way or another. But can a film win a Best Picture Oscar on charm alone?

The Artist is nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor (Jean Dujardin), Best Supporting Actress (Berenice Bejo), Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Costume Design, Best Directing, Best Editing, Music (original score) & Best original Screenplay

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Kevin Mattison is co-editor of The Idler, and a filmmaker and videographer. You can follow him on Twitter at @kmmattison.

“It’s hard not to be romantic about baseball”
– Billy Beane

Many great things have been said about the game of baseball (and a few silly things, too — Just Google Yogi Berra), but the above quote wraps it all up nicely and puts a bow on top. I would argue that you’d be hard-pressed to find a sport where even a regular season game, especially one early in the season, could hold as much drama as baseball. Bennett Miller’s Moneyball opens with a playoff loss and closes with one, but it focuses on a record-setting winning streak during the Oakland A’s 2002 regular season.

Beane, played by Brad Pitt, attributes the season’s winning ways to a team-building system devised by a night watchman at a pork and beans cannery named Bill James, now an advisor for the Boston Red Sox. James’ theory is that you choose players based on specific skill sets regardless of their perceived worth and overall talent. Beane is introduced to this system by a young Yale grad named Peter Brand (Jonah Hill).

Of course everyone thinks that Beane’s lost his. . . beans. But the wins begin to pile up, and you can’t argue with wins. Well, I suppose you can. Even Beane states that he won’t be truly satisfied until they’ve won it all. Even then he’d probably just want to do it again.

We spend a lot of time with Billy Beane off the field, which is easy because we’re told that superstition prevents him from watching the games on television, let alone live. He is a doting father and an honest, hard-working guy who doesn’t take himself too seriously. I was thoroughly impressed by how well Pitt was able to disappear into the character and contribute to Beane’s high level of likeability. If you had asked me beforehand whether or not I would expect a potential award-winning performance from him I would have said no, but there it is.

Moneyball is cleverly written (The Social Network writer Aaron Sorkin was involved, after all), well-directed and perfectly acted. The only real question is whether or not it is too quiet to stand out in the crowd. Well, if the montage of Oakland’s 20-win streak doesn’t get them, then I just don’t know what would have.

Moneyball is nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor (Brad Pitt), Best Supporting Actor (Jonah Hill), Film editing, Sound Mixing & Best Adapted Screenplay

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Kevin Mattison is co-editor of The Idler, and a filmmaker and videographer. You can follow him on Twitter at @kmmattison.

If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a movable feast
– Ernest Hemingway

I have been lucky enough to have visited Paris twice in my life (so far) — once on a back-backing trip and once on my honeymoon. It is an easy city to be romantic in, but it’s even easier to be romantic about, and Woody Allen’s latest film, Midnight in Paris, is an hour-and-a-half love letter to the city, art, literature and creativity itself.

There is always a “Woody Allen character” in Woody Allen films, and this go-round his name is Gil and he’s played by Owen Wilson, displaying a kind of youthful exuberance I haven’t seen from Wilson since Bottle Rocket (1996). He’s travelled to Paris with his wife-to-be (Rachel McAdams) and future in-laws on a business trip, and this is not his first visit. No matter how hard he tries, he simply cannot get anyone to comprehend the beauty and amazement he sees all around him in the city of lights. They are more interested in stuffy dinners and shopping. His wife seems to be more interested in spending time with the laughably pretentious Paul (Michael Sheen), a family “friend.”

Gil often finds himself wandering the streets alone, which I’m sure he prefers. One night, unable to find his way back to his hotel, Gil is picked up by a mysterious cab full of revelers on their way to a party. Two of the revelers turn out to be F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda. It isn’t long before Gil, an aspiring novelist, is hanging with the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein and Pablo Picasso. Allen makes little effort to explain this flight of fancy, and the film is better for it. One evening, while chilling at Gertrude Stein’s home, Gil meets Adriana, a mistress of Pablo Picasso’s. They immediately hit it off and, in finding real romance, Gil begins to question himself and his life choices.

But enough about that.

This movie is really about Paris and the romance it inspires, and in that regard it is hugely successful. If this film doesn’t make you want to pack your bags then I’ve got nothing for you. Its literary and film references are clever (the gag where Gil suggests that Luis Bunuel make a film about a bunch of bourgeoisie people having dinner together and then finding that they can’t leave the room is a personal fav), but not so esoteric as to lose everybody, and the jazz soundtrack really seals the deal. A beautiful film set in a beautiful city. Will that be enough?

Midnight in Paris is nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best original Screenplay & Best Art Direction

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Kevin Mattison is co-editor of The Idler, and a filmmaker and videographer. You can follow him on Twitter at @kmmattison.

But what I really hated Downton Abbey for was its condescending dismissal of class politics. Branson, the Irish chauffeur who drove Sybil to her suffrage rallies in the first season and who endlessly spouts class revolution, goes through one belittlement after another. Despite the fact that he hates the English — with good cause, given his brother’s death in the Easter Rising, an innocent bystander killed by an English solider — Branson’s big hope to shame the English is to proclaim himself a conscientious objector in front of the entire community when he’s called up to war. Alas, poor Branson has a heart murmur, and so can’t enlist. Instead he has to settle for a back-up plan, one that presents itself when a general comes to dine at Downton Abbey. Short of staff, the head butler accepts Branson’s offer to help serve dinner. Through dastardly music and ominous cutting, we know that Branson is up to something and we, like the always-decent lady’s maid Anna, imagine that it’s assassination. But, no, it’s nothing so actionable. Branson’s plan is to pour a pot of slime on the general because, you know, that will show him not to mistreat the Irish. Nothing like a heap of shit to change the course of history.

As it turns out, of course, Branson isn’t really a revolutionary. He’s just love-sick for Sybil. There are no class differences, only passions of the heart. I suppose it’s something that he does get to marry Sybil and move back to Ireland. The other class transgressors get punished fiercely — Ethel sleeps with one of the wounded soldiers, gets pregnant, is cast out, and is finally humiliated by the soldier’s horribly snobby parents. And Thomas, poor Thomas wants nothing but to make something of himself, and by the end of the second season, he’s reduced to begging for his place back as a footman in the house. We aren’t really meant to feel sorry for Ethel, I don’t think. She’s so whiny, she offers nothing of interest to the audience, and we can see her fate a mile off. I do feel sorry for Thomas, but I have to work pretty hard at it. The one gay character, he starts off the first season as someone whose unhappiness in his lot in life is clearly tied to the repressive regime of heterosexuality to which he must conform. But that character arc gets dropped pretty quickly and he becomes more homogeneously petty and rotten. When he’s brought low in the second season, having been out-conned by another con artist on the black market, he sobs and you again get a glimpse of his desperation. But then he has an idiotic scheme to steal and return Lord Grantham’s dog, so as to earn his trust to become his valet, and we’re back in soap opera land.

Jean Marsh as Rose

If you haven’t seen Downton Abbey, the first season is on Netflix Instant, and you can just save yourself the heartbreak and stop when that’s over. If you’ve already seen all of the show and need to get your skepticism on, read Gavin’s piece on breaking up with Downton Abbey.

The first season of the original Upstairs, Downstairs is also on Netflix Instant, and I absolutely recommend watching that — especially while I wait for the 2010 remake/sequel to hit Netflix streaming. I’m sure it will be gorgeous and glittery, but I’m less sure about the rest of its value.

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Sarah Werner has two sons, at least one job, and too many books to read. As a result, Netflix Instant is her constant companion. She blogs about books and reading and is known to a corner of the twitterverse as @wynkenhimself.

The band has been on my mind lately for two reasons. A recent trip downstate was accompanied by my bringing along the band’s third LP as well as one of their EP releases. The LP is Guerilla, and I had forgotten just how strong the record is. From the opening strains of “Check It Out,” the CD just cooks with an energy and a freshness that still feels authentic so many years later. The first song on the disc I ever got stuck on is “Wherever I Lay My Phone (That’s My Home).” Folks, this is a song that was recorded in mid-1998. Did you have a cell phone then? A mobile phone? No. They hadn’t taken America in their grip at that point in history. But they were enough of a cultural thing in the UK to be mentioned in a song. So this song with its dancey bits and bobs really drew me into their catalog and I bought as much as possible from the band. But it took me years really to appreciate the band’s work, scope, and creativity. As I listened to Guerilla again I just marveled at how great it sounded, how it gently drifted from one song to the next, how it all fit and felt right. Some songs have odd sounds, like steel drums, in the mix. Others move along at a peaceful pace, like an exhalation of breath from your speakers. The band set out to make a “pop” disc and I honestly still cannot think of a pop album as diverse as the sounds of this one.

I went to the wall at home, found the catalog and gave the music another listen. It was interesting to see if I thought that their other works held up quite as well as Guerilla. Fuzzy Logic was good, with a few tracks I remember being standouts holding up very well to my current ears and taste. The songs I still gravitated towards included the very first song by the band I knew, “If You Don’t Want Me to Destroy You,” and I do hold a fondness for the opening track “God, Show Me Magic.”

Next was the band’s second disc, Radiator. At the time, in the span of the catalog, this was my least favorite disc by the band when I first picked it up. And it was one of the most fun discs to rediscover. The cover depicts an animated creature walking down the street, the first move from a photographic reality to an animated one. The Welsh artist Pete Fowler would go on over the next few years to add to the aura of the band, designing specific “monsters” to adorn their stage, singles and LPs. I love the plastic brightness of Fowler’s work and his work with the band really makes me feel like a de facto band member. Radiator is a strong CD, and when you peruse the lyric book you see the wild and interesting topics the band sings about. Two songs stand out to me, the second and third singles released. The second single is called “The International Language of Screaming” and it just is catchy, fun, and filled with the fun sounds that hook your brain and stick in your brain for years. High praise for a song that is only 2:16 long. Listen for the big WOOOO, which is so great it may, just may, supplant Ric Flair as the greatest WOOO of all time.

The second song, third single, is called “Play It Cool.” I love this song, and placed it on a mix CD called Summer Sun. The song is super super catchy and it feels like a full length, traditional song — something that the band doesn’t always feel like they do on record. The video for the song is notable as it feels so dated! The band gets together to play FIFA Football on the PLAYSTATION and all become characters within the game. The graphics and such just make the video seem antiquated. It also is striking to me that while music stripped of era can sound timeless, a video of then-modern technology will be instantly more dated. Listen to the melody and listen to the handclaps. Man, those are some great handclaps.

The disc the Super Furry Animals followed up Guerilla with is great. I’ll just say it now. It is great and I have very, very specific timeframe associations with the disc, Drawing Rings Around The World. It came out in 2001 and I remember listening to the music again and again that summer. I was on vacation in Benzie County (where I now spend lots of time every week) and listening to this disc over and over. The song “Juxtaposed With You” contains the line, “I’m not in love with you/but I won’t hold that against you.” That line meant a lot to me that trip, for reasons best left to my memories. The disc was accompanied on release by a DVD surround sound version with accompanying visuals. I own it, or at least used to, and have watched it a few times. As an event it isn’t much, but at the time it was fun to fire up the surround sound system my then-roommate had and watch and listen. This LP is strong, with one great song after another, any and all of which function both on their own as individual songs and as part of the whole of the LP. The line “you expose the film in me” from the title track says so much, and yet it is a line that will forever be empty as the future will wonder just what film was.

The surround sound gimmick would continue on the next release, Phantom Power. I like the disc, but I don’t remember it that much. Even giving it a re-listen in the car didn’t trigger any strong emotions or attachment. It is just a disc, a good disc, but not one that sticks in my memory. The only song that does is the closing track, “Slow Life.” I’m drawn to the sound of that song, the way it sounds and the way it feels. And with that last LP I stopped listening to the band. Not out of disgust, or anything stronger than apathy. My ears grew closed to nearly everything, and when the band next issued a CD I was out of work, in school and unable to lay hands on the music. I didn’t cry, I didn’t even notice. I just moved on.

As part of my adventure back in time I did spend some time with two of the band’s stand-alone singles. The first is the Ice Hockey Hair EP, and the second is the band’s greatest moment (I think) the non-album release “The Man Don’t Give A Fuck.” On the former a sample from Burning Spear forms the basis for a song “Smokin’” that bubbles and moves and grooves. The whole EP is great and the “Smokin’” reprieve at the end of the single is just so much fun. The latter track is also built around a sample, that of Steely Dan’s 1973 song “Showbiz Kids.” For time, it was said, this held the record for a single with the most amount of profanity, using the F word 50 times in the song. Whatever the case it is great, it builds and builds and there is a frenetic craziness and happiness in the song that just makes you smile. There is also something about the song, about any song with that much cussing, that brings out your smile. It is almost like being a child again and discovering the illicit and secret nature of dirty words. They make you laugh, the make you think, they empower you the first time you use them and then they knock you right down when they are used against you. The power of language comes through and something about the song always makes me think. And then smile.  A few years ago the band released a 23-minute LIVE version of this track. I need to find that and dig it up and give it a listen. Could it be as great as the original? We’ll see!

Any non-American band really brings out my inner linguist. I’ve always been fascinated by accents, the sounds of our voices and how they are all the same yet all different. There are vague recollections of hearing an English accent for the first time (Terrence Stamp aka General ZOD comes to mind) and just marveling at the difference. As I reach middle age I find myself less interested in accents and more interested in vowels. Think about it. Where does the root sound of a word come from, forgetting about morphemes and graphemes and such. Maybe it’s not all the vowels, maybe I’m more intrigued with A’s. Those are the sounds that really stand out when one first encounters a foreign accent (and to be fair, does this boundary even exist anymore? With YouTube, the Internet, BBC America, friggin’ Downton Abbey, etc., etc., etc., do the children of today, the future of tomorrow, have such strong reactions to accents? They’re everywhere). Except with the Furries. They make all the vowels sound individual and unique. Take the song of theirs I first fell into, “If You Don’t Want Me To Destroy You.” Say it out loud, right now. Notice the feeling of your tongue in your mouth, the way it feels to say that simple sentence. Now say and stress the N’s in the song. Feel the difference? Can you hear the difference?? Griff Rhys sings in both English and Welsh, but I read that his primary language is Welsh and that he is always processing the two languages in his head. This is what gives his conversations rich pauses in which he can address his thoughts and put them in the correct language. In the end that is what stuck with me ,and what I took away from my dance with this music from my past 15 years. By rediscovering this music it sort of shows me where my mind is at in my life right now. Inner linguist? Really? Really.

The sound of the voice and the sound of the music and the sound of the voice AND music has always been as big an appeal to me as the music itself. Having been through more education since I first heard these songs that new education, or forms of it, opened my mind to think about these songs and their sounds in a wildly different way. I almost feel like at this stage in my life the next 15 years will be more about rediscovery than discovery. Normally I think that would have made me feel sad, but it doesn’t. Rather it fills me with anticipation and excitement the likes of which I hadn’t felt since flipping my fifth grade teacher the bird behind her back. That thrill, that rush, that feeling is still there, and I just need to find it in different ways now. Wonder what I should listen to next?

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Mike Vincent is a teacher, dreamer, grouch, and runner. He lives in northern Michigan and his favorite Beatle is George Harrison.

There are plenty of fine ways to make a hot sandwich. After Thanksgiving every year, I make hot turkey sandwiches by warming leftover turkey and gravy together and pouring the result over toast. I’ll eat this for lunch every day until the gravy runs out (and sometimes for breakfast, especially if there’s a bit of stuffing too.) I’m also a fan of the oven-toasted sandwich, I don’t even care who does it. I wouldn’t be writing this column if hot sandwiches weren’t the best sandwiches and the panini weren’t just a dry, tepid loogie on the face of hot sandwiches everywhere.

But there’s another option, one that really makes the panini suffer by comparison, and that’s the grilled sandwich. The dry, compressed panini is really just a pale imitation of the rich, buttery, glorious, tuna melt, or grilled cheese. Or even better, and as I’ve found, a bit more unusual, my personal favorite, the grilled peanut butter sandwich.

The only other person I’ve ever heard of who ate grilled peanut butter sandwiches regularly was Elvis Presley, and he liked to load his sandwiches down with bananas and maybe bacon. I hate bananas, so I’m going to stick with the basics. This is a really simple recipe, so I’m not going to bother with amounts. (In fact, I wouldn’t bother with the recipe at all if I didn’t always get such uncomprehending looks when I try to tell people about what seems like it should be a self-explanatory sandwich.)

Spread peanut butter (preferably crunchy) between two slices of bread, butter one side of the sandwich and place on a hot griddle. Carefully butter the unbuttered side of the sandwich. Grill until the bottom is golden (3-5 minutes), then flip and grill the other side (maybe 2 minutes). Serve immediately.

If I’m trying to recreate my childhood, I’ll cut the sandwich into fingers, but just about any presentation will do (or none at all — bachelors feel free to consume immediately over the stove). And give up on the panini. Seriously.

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Gavin Craig is co-editor of The Idler. You can follow him on Twitter at @craiggav.

Why is Louis C.K. Ana Holguin’s Valentine this year? Because he’s funny, and there’s a brain under all that flabby male self-loathing. Read “My funny Valentine”

Even booksellers can’t read everything. Kelly Hannon had never heard of Locus Award winner and Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy Award nominee N. K. Jemisin, but a well-directed advance copy of her upcoming novel The Killing Moon changed all that. Read “The stuff of dreams”

Lindsey Malta shares the story of her cheesiest Valentine’s Day ever, and her recipe to do even better this year. Read “Cheesiest Valentine’s Day ever”

Jill Kolongowski makes double rainbow cupcakes as a Valentine’s Day treat for her sweetie. We’ll leave you to figure out what it all means. Read “Valentine’s day: Double rainbow coconut cupcakes”

I’ll admit to initially being turned off a bit by the aforementioned cosmic ballet, the birth of life, the dinosaurs (yes, there are dinosaurs). It all seems a bit much. But when the film began to settle on the O’Brien family, circa 1950, it all started to fall into place. Everything about this family — the film’s center — feels stunningly authentic and lovingly rendered. Sunlight poring in through windows, glasses of lemonade served in plastic cups with flowers on them.

We learn a great deal about this family with very little dialogue. We learn that the family has lost a son. We learn that the eldest of the remaining two boys (played as an adult by Sean Penn) resents his father’s affection towards his younger brother. Sometimes the father (Brad Pitt) is a little hard on the boys. His wife (Jessica Chastain) is warm and forgiving.

A great deal of time is spent with the boys running, jumping, and skinning their knees. It’s enough to make anyone who grew up in a middle- to lower-middle-class suburban family wistful. They make mistakes and learn things about themselves. They mature. The film is filled with whispered narration, “Mother, Father. Always you wrestle inside me. Always you will.”

Malick marvels at the world around him and how everything means everything (or nothing at all). He senses a bigger picture, but it’s too grand to put a finger on. There is a certain level of spirituality in the film’s final moments, Sean Penn surrounded by those he knew and loved on a beach, a white door leading to. . . somewhere. But one could certainly go the other way with it, acknowledging that we are the sum total of those who have touched us along the way.

The Tree of Life might be too big and too difficult to win it all this year. Or perhaps that’s precisely why it could? I suppose it all depends on whether or not the Academy is willing to reward a film for attempting to reach so far even if it can’t always grasp anything?

The Tree of Life is nominated for Best Picture, Cinematography & Directing

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Kevin Mattison is co-editor of The Idler, as well as being an occasional film review contributor for Real Detroit Weekly, a filmmaker and videographer. You can follow him on Twitter at @kmmattison.

I thought it might be nice, this Valentine’s week, to discuss what I love about Louis.  I used my analytical super powers for this one, so don’t expect a sonnet to his freckles or his sadly tonsured crown, but an elevation of his craft.  Said elevation follows thusly:

Though his stand-up persona carries himself with a fairly typical brand of New York male bravado and “this world is fucking stupid” existentialism, C.K.’s performative work is perforated with extensive self-hatred — hatred that he links both to his biological maleness along with the hegemonic infrastructure of a society that creates men like him.

In form, he suggests that he’s the same old ornery comedian; paunchy in his black t-shirt he’s comfortably average.  Unsurprisingly, he talks about typical dude stuff, subject matter ranging from having balls and obsessing about sex and women to smoking joints and obsessing about sex and women.  In content, however, his rantings fill in this typical masculine outline with an atypical questioning of male and white privilege.  And funnily enough, it’s his portrayal of himself as abject that most caught my loving eye.

On stage and on screen (in his F/X show Louie), C.K. depicts himself as disgusted by his body — its girth, his baldness, its (in)ability to have sex.  He despises his desires — to eat, to masturbate, to acquire friendships, girlfriends.  The unique strength of his self-loathing is that, in his delivery, C.K. sounds like any unquestionably average masculine man.  The gruffness, the register of his voice, his posture, diction, and dress all suggest that as an American male he is typical.  But within the Trojan horse of normativity, bursts forth a troop of more realistic, but rarely discussed failures and sick expectations of masculinity.

Louis will lift his shirt and expose his lily white belly to the crowd, or build an entire episode of his TV show around his stupefying depression — the loneliest orgy between a man and multiple pints of Häagen-Dazs that you’ll ever see.  Our everyday dude emasculates himself through confession and this is not, as we’ve been taught, a bad thing.  Through his intensely detailed self-deprecation, C.K. creates a safety net for his audience.  Targeting himself with the heft of his ire, the viewer feels safe to laugh. Rather than appearing too academic or authoritarian in his beliefs about institutions and hegemonic power, he disarmingly deconstructs our privileged models of masculinity by sloughing them off of himself through his performances.

He says, “look at this shitty body, this shitty brain that reduces women to pussy.  Look at me, this fuck-up, this racist, this homophobe, this fat American failure.”  And he lets us look really closely.  Getting naked before us as Louis C.K. the super specific individual person, but narrated by the voice of Louis C.K. Every(dumfuck)man, he builds a powerfully uncomfortable and thus hilarious tension, one capable of complicating our notions of gender and shaking us a little freer from our socially constructed roles.

Our Everyman sounds powerful, stands-up before us like a God, but he worries about his figure like me and every woman I know, his children hurt his feelings, he wants to know how to make friends.  On Louie, he kisses women (when he gets the chance) with an ardor and desire for connection so unbelievably and pathetically palpable you just want to slap the guy — for we all know there is no joy in Louieland, but the poor sap just keeps hoping/trying.

So, yes, in all of this he is un-manned; he emerges ugly, flaccid, fat, emotional, soft, and this is human, this is real — more real than the gendered lies we cling to out of cowardice — this is Louis, my funny Valentine.

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Ana Holguin writes PopHeart for The Idler.