I'm married.

I love watching foreign films that remind me of how terrible American cinema really is these days. After I interviewed Liars the other day at drummer Julian Gross's pad in Glendale (or Burbank or Pasadena), Jen and I drove over to Arclight Theatre in Hollywood to see Day Watch, er Dnevnoy Dozor because that's pretty much the only theatre around town showing it. There were only four other people in the theatre with us, and we were all treated to some inventive good vs. evil interplay (like X-men, but less "for the masses" if that makes sense). Not to mention some impressive cinematic eye candy.

I can't help but think of the movie in conjunction with Transformers which looks so incredibly glossy and generic it could be straight-to-video. Instead, Day Watch is gritty, occasionally goofy, filled with a somber feeling of sorrow and regret, well-imagined and oddly realistic (for a post-apocalyptic, grimy film). The only recent popular film I can think of to compare it to is Children of Men, and that, of course, was directed by Alfonso Cuaron, a Mexican. Maybe it has to do with the embrace of Magical Realism in Latin America, the former Eastern Bloc and India, and America's outdated "art imitates life" trappings. Who knows. I am going to go see David Lynch's Inland Empire later this week, so maybe that'll restore my faith.

(No lie. A video advertisement for the Transformers video game just emerged on AIM. And even it looks better than that movie.)

After the movie Jen and I stuck around for a minute because the theatre was hosting the premiere of some terrible sounding "B" movie called "On Bloody Sunday," which isn't even listed on IMDB. I'm not sure how that's even possible. Through research, I learned the movie is a "feature length teen horror film depicting an unspeakable reign of terror wrought through the lures and seduction of Internet social networking on Myspace." It's apparently being put out by Seskri Produktionz, which, from observation at the premiere, means "The Mob." As for the actors, financiers and their "arm candy," I've never seen such a collection of dorks mixed with road whores in one place. Unintentional comedy scale was through the roof. So, yeah, earlier that day I interviewed Liars, and we had a blast. They were all smoking pot and chatting about bullshit, and I didn't come off like an idiot, so I consider the whole thing a bit of a victory. I think my favorite part of the interview happened when we were discussing the art of marketing, and Julian said, "Yeah man. I want to buy the new Paul McCartney. And three Ipods!"

Last week, in addition to Liars, I also interviewed Aesop Rock and the Animal Collective's Avey Tare. Nothing special to report there, except both went pretty well.

Two nights ago Jen and I went to go see Rhode Island's White Mice at The Smell. They're this insanely heavy bass/drums/electronics trio on Load Records who dress like mice and apparently also are Satanic. Their new album is called Blassstphlegmeice. Tragically, there were probably only about 25 or so people there to see them, but I bought their new album, and an older one on vinyl called Do They Know it's Christmice.

Rhode Island is awesome. I want my children to go to school there.

Chuck Dukowski from Black Flag also played with his "Chuck Dukowski Sextet." The dude can still rip on the bass. But before I go any further, a funny story.

The last time (and first time) I took Jen to The Smell, we saw Barr, who is a mild-mannered spoken word artist who sometimes writes absurdist word interplays, and other times writes hyper-sensitive personal narratives. All around great dude. Anyway, he's performing for the first time at The Smell in Los Angeles (his home venue) as a band. He's doing his thing, his band's doing its thing, and all of a sudden he steps on the mic stand and almost falls. He kicks it out of the way and it nails Jen and me in the collective heads. He apologizes endlessly at the end of the song, we laugh it off (though Jen did get the brunt of the contact and two bumps).

Flash forward to the second time I make Jen go to The Smell with me. We're watching the Chuck Dukowski sextet, which features Chuck on bass, a crazy cool lady named Lori Norton on vocals, some teenager named Milo on guitar and a buff drummer named Tony. They're playing their psychedelic rock and everyone's grooving. Then they bust into a cover of Black Flag's "My War" (Is it a cover if Dukowski wrote the original?) and Lori freaks out, screaming (it rules) and throws the mic stand at, who else, Jen and me. All of the force of the stand hit Jen directly on one toe (a decidedly better spot than her face) but it still hurt. Again, it was the nicest lady ever who did it.

Weird. I'm not sure if she'll ever go to a show with me there again.

Knocked out...

For months I've been hearing about how amazing Knocked Up was, and finally got the chance to see it tonight.

A short list of what blew:

• The chemistry between Seth Rogen (a supporting character at best) and Katherine Heigl (a walking set of boobs at best). There was nothing compelling about their relationship, or even vaguely real. They didn't even hug, that I can remember.
• The underutilization of Jonah Hill and the other potsmoking friends of Rogen's character. Almost every line seemed like outakes from "You know how I know you're gay" improv games.
• That Jonah Hill's character was named "Jonah."
• That the funniest person in the whole movie was the Asian girlfriend.
• The oddly formal conversation between Seth Rogen (son) and Harold Ramis (dad).

A short list of what ruled:

• The usage of "Shimmy Shimmy Ya" by Ol' Dirty Bastard.
• The pink eye gag. (marginal)
• The shrooms experience (specifically the hotel room chairs bit)

That's about it. The movie just failed to click...and I think it all centered around Heigl and Rogen's zombie acting style.

I got the new Liars, Aesop Rock and No Age CDs today. They all come out in August. Print magazines rule.