Le Moribund Thursday, June 16, 2005

Hey, White House: a medal of honor for Mrs. WTJ. Last night she began weaning Wrong Turn Jr. off of night feedings, which he uses to get himself back to sleep when he stirs. This involved him screaming inconsolably for an hour every two hours. Last I checked he was conked out and hiccoughing fitfully: a definite improvement. If the medal doesn't come through, kudos to mama. I saw the whole thing from a foot away, and I don't know how she pulled him through.

Recapping...

We saw another perfect house we're not going to get. Real wood on the outside, spotless inside. A few questionable aesthetic choices, but no deal-breakers. The family loved where they lived and took care of the place. Our bid goes in officially today. Keep your fingers crossed.

Last night, I caught up on a longstanding obligation. Back in college, a good friend (now the co-proprietor of the Last Homely House in Jersey City, New Jersey) gave me my first taste of off-center music. He didn't have a ton in his collection, but he knew what he liked, and his taste was impeccable: Captain Beefheart, John Cale, Richard Thompson, Brian Eno, Tom Waits...and Jacques Brel.

To someone who had been (literally) listening to Steely Dan mix tapes and nothing but since high school, this last one in particular was a revelation. Another friend called Brel's songs "show tunes from an alternate universe." He didn't intend that as a compliment, but it captured the music's appeal for me: smart, sweeping, balls-on-the-table art songs with bizarre subject matter--matadors, the middle class and Minh.

At any rate, I spent a long time looking for the source of the songs: the movie version of Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris. (The orchestrations on the off-Broadway cast recording were nowhere near as good.) Last year, it finally came out on DVD; last night, I finally got around to watching it. Poor choice!

This is the kind of project that gives the phrase Un Film De a bad name. The movie dates from the early 1970s, and leaves no period trope untapped: a Greek Chorus of dancerly hippies, straight out of Blow-Up, who heckle the bourgeois; Nouvelle Vague cutaways to World War II atrocities; even a goddamn Pierrot mincing around.

All that I might be able to forgive if the actors didn't lip-synch their numbers, with comical ineptitude, directly into the camera. Or if the movie amounted to anything besides song on top of song with no narrative to tie them together. Imagine a bunch of music videos by the guy who directed The Red Balloon.

In all, I can't think of a broader disconnect between the quality of the soundtrack and the lousiness of the movie since Jesus Christ Superstar (or The End of Violence, which is a different issue altogether). Seek out Brel, but not on screen.

@ 6:18:00 AM,

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