Word: absurdist
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...ears, a lot of it seems "old hat." On Midnite, Beck's hats are all new--he mixes rap with rock, but he does so in a way that's unique. Midnite's songs explode in burbles of electronic noise and brassy horn-section blasts; the lyrics alternate between absurdist imagery and street jokiness. Beck isn't afraid to fail, and he sometimes does. But while other rock-hoppers adhere to a "keep it real" doctrine, Beck feels free to invent his own playful lyrical reality: "I wanna get with you/ Only you/ And your sister/ I think her name...
...Barlow Anderson as Lomov reaches feats of physical hypochondria that defy description. Parkinson's production comes dangerously close to the line between farce and sheer Vaudeville at times. It evokes laughter from the audience, but it is more of the laughter one expects at a play by absurdist writer Christopher Durang than at the drawing-room comedies of Chekov. Love is a social game in Chekov, but under Parkinson's direction it becomes a high-energy romp. It is not the most romantic view of love, for sure, but in comparison to the other plays included in Seductions, it offers...
...Jewels for Sophia showcased Hitchcock at his best, spouting cryptic, conceptual lyrics over a mix of soft acoustic guitars and driving rock riffs. Its songs ranged from absurdist character studies ("Antwoman") to a genuinely haunting love story ("Dark Princess"). There are also two sneering but comical tributes: "Viva! Sea-Tac," on which he proclaims that the Pacific Northwest has "the best computers and coffee and smack," and a live hidden track on which he tells a giggling audience "Don't talk to me about Gene Hackman/he's in every film/sometimes wearing a towel/and...
...future. It's an elegy for the past. As I sit here, on the brink of the fin de millennium, I'm already misty-eyed with nostalgia. I'll miss the 20th century. I really liked it. I liked the abstract art, the 12-tone music, the absurdist theater, the austere furniture, the Manichaean bipolar geopolitics. And so, given my longing for an irretrievable past, I think insularity and exile are the ambient notes to strive for this year, as opposed to your mindless, self-annulling, Leni Riefenstahl-style euphoria. Here's my provisional itinerary...
...would you like to fall down a tunnel, land inside actor John Malkovich's body for 15 minutes, then be dumped next to the New Jersey Turnpike--all for $200 (tolls included). That's the weird, beguiling premise of writer Charlie Kaufman's absurdist romance. Jonze, a music-video whiz and an actor (Three Kings), has the vexing habit of forcing his attractive stars (John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener) to deliver their big scenes through clumps of matted hair. But he keeps the wheels spinning on this funny-peculiar story of people so desperate that they would...