BlackBook Magazine

A horror film and a protest documentary exhibit how not to play by the rules.

Naomi Watts in Funny Games.

Funny Games isn’t funny; it’s horrifying in a way that’s likely to induce frustration, nausea, and a significant percentage of walk-outs. This is just what director Michael Haneke is hoping for.

A provocateur to his fans, a misanthrope to his detractors, Haneke has built his career on this kind of paradox. His films are strategically designed to discomfit and unnerve, each an astringent study in such patently unfunny subjects as bourgeois guilt (Caché, Code Unknown), consumerism (The 7th Continent), and violence in media (Benny’s Video). It’s hard to think of a body of work that’s more serious, or farther away from the Hollywood mold.

Here’s what the true Mister Hollywood hates about that insufferable place in the merciless sun that fries out your hair, causing nasty split ends. (Blow-dryers are not on this list.)

1. Leaf blowers.
2. Girls who flake when they are supposed to meet you because they forgot about their “friend’s birthday party.”
3. When traffic is so bad you don’t go at a green light.
4. Girls who flake when they “think they are getting sick,” and then you see them later that night at a bar and they say it’s walking pneumonia.
5. The over-kissing of ass of certain movies at awards time.
6. High-waisted pants on girls. Bring back the low-riders; they’ve done nothing wrong.
7. Paparazzi that say “it’s my job.” A crack dealer is a job, too; it doesn’t mean it’s a good one.

The Brighton-based quartet release Do You Like Rock Music?, a singular tongue-in-cheeky album that has critics referencing Interpol.

In theory, it should be hard to tell British Sea Power from, say, Interpol. Both share many similar post-punk tropes, from looming bass drones and jagged guitar discordance to vocals that neatly split the difference between Morrissey and Ian Curtis. This Brighton, England quartet is set apart from its shoe-gazing peers by a willful eccentricity and literary sense of irony, epitomized by the cheeky title of their new album.

On This Gift, Glasgow's Sons & Daughters turns vitriol sweet.

With American bands apparently intent on making modern Americana an exercise in moping, it’s a relief to see a few Scots re-sleazing up the genre. Like X without all the internal tragedies, Glasgow’s Sons & Daughters do the post-country rockabilly romp stomp with an electrifying and visceral verve. It’s a singular pleasure to hear Adele Bethel spit such lyrical vitriol and unpleasantness in what is actually rather a sweet, innocent sounding voice. Never have revenge fantasies never sounded so… charming.

The British foursome scour their record collection for inspiration past and present.

At first, Air Traffic comes off as a gridlocked intersection of Britpop styles past and present. On the U.K. foursome’s debut album, one might stumble upon the chiming piano of Keane, the jaunty buzz of classic Blur, Arctic Monkeys’ scruffy attitude, or a pretty fair approximation of Chris Martin’s falsetto. Consistent hooks help make up for Fractured Life’s lack of originality, and nervy touches like the heavy glam-rock guitars of “Just Abuse Me” or the thundering girl-group drums underpinning “No More Running Away” suggest this young band might just outgrow its influences yet.

Oh, go ahead. Call it a comeback.

Rachel de Rougemont—aka The Lady Tigra—spent her teen years as a member of the ‘80s Miami rap duo L’Trimm, remembered largely for their bass-blasting 1988 hit “Cars With The Boom.” Now, nearly 17 years since she last released music, Tigra sheds her old-school skin for an indie-hipster makeover. On her debut solo album, she drops sexy robot flows over trendy neo-electro beats that would make any fan of M.I.A., Peaches, or Diplo shake that ass. Indeed, Please… is free from the tedium of urban hip-hop clichés—free enough, in fact, to include one song, entirely in French. Lady Tigra’s mic skills and ironic charisma makes Please Mr. Boombox the too-cool-for-school party album of the year.

In HBO’s 'Big Love,' she’s the conniving but dorky middle-sister-wife with the bad hair and nerdy, buttoned-up style. But in real life, the Oscar-nominated actress is so uncannily cool and effortlessly put together. Tired of going topless on cable TV, but thoroughly game to show her ‘behind,’ as she calls it, the onetime ‘It-girl’ and indie darling just debuted her revealing line of ready-to-wear, Chloë Sevigny for Opening Ceremony. Now, if writer Bruno Maddox can only get her to show a bit more of herself. You know, in that other way. As you’ll find, in Chloë Sevigny’s personal world, nothing is quite what it seems.

For more images of Chloë Sevigny, click here!

“Oh, and I particularly like that angry walk of hers that you do,” I say to Chloë Sevigny.

“Walk?” she says, italicizing.

“You know,” I say, struggling. “That special tilting attack-walk you have when she’s angry. Your face goes dark, and you sort of lower one shoulder, and you charge across the lawn at an angle.”

Fans of “Big Love”—HBO’s glibly titled but increasingly watchable series about a family of less-than-saintly, modern-day polygamists trying to make a go of it in deceptively menacing suburban Utah—know precisely the walk I’m talking about. Chloë Sevigny, however, the walk’s creator, claims not to. And so on a stretch of carpet outside a theater in Manhattan, where we are scheduled to watch a play, I find myself trying to demonstrate it for her.

Brooklyn duo release debut album, productivity soars.

MGMT
Oracular Spectacular

Brooklyn’s petulant art punks Andrew Vanwyngarden and Ben Goldwasser blow the lid off prog rock and early ‘90s disco with their debut album, a meandering collection of indie anthems ("Kids"), sexed-up shuffle songs ("Electric Feel"), and ominous end-of-days falsetto and synth ("The Youth"). The Of Montreal offspring lose their cool on more earnest fare here, but their irreverent take on rock stars and blowhards finds the duo at their best, all the while underscoring the importance of being ironic.

Shelby Lynne and Cat Power in a feline brawl for best 'covers' album.

Shelby Lynne, Just A Little Lovin’ (Lost Highway)
Cat Power, Jukebox (Matador)

Interpretation can be as rare and mesmerizing a talent as the act of writing great songs—and these two new covers albums prove it. Finally making good on all those comparisons to Dusty in Memphis, Shelby Lynne has recorded Just A Little Lovin’, an album of songs made famous by Dusty Springfield. The hits are there, but in place of Springfield’s dramatic sweep is the spare intimacy of Lynne’s voice, a casual triumph of feeling. There is one Lynne original, “Pretend,” but the real highlights are revelatory versions of songs we only thought we knew, such as “How Can I be Sure,” “The Look of Love,” “You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me,” and the seductively perfect title track. Jukebox, Cat Power’s second covers album, transforms numbers inviolably linked to their original artists such as Sinatra’s “New York, New York” and Joni Mitchell’s “Blue”—even one by Billie Holiday (“Don’t Explain”)—into songs only Power could sing.

In a city with little tradition, four dining and partying treasures of grand Old Hollywood and the rocking Sunset Strip—Trader Vic’s, Whisky Bar, Hamburger Hamlet, and Morton’s—get facelifts or have already faced death. What’s a Scorpion-drinking, chair-in-pool-throwing, Oscar-toting, burger-loving Angeleno to do?

Vanity Fair’s Oscar party at Morton’s, Los Angeles, March 24, 2002

Morton’s, the Robertson outpost that has hosted Vanity Fair’s Oscar party since 1994, closed in December, making way for the West Coast branch of the private club Soho House. The British are coming, and the party of parties is moving to Craft. Beverly Drive’s Hamburger Hamlet, once the place to go to on an early-bird Sunday night for great burgers at the bar while pretending to watch sports—actually listening in on movie directors of the “auteur” era bitch about special effects taking over true-blue acting—is history too. It’s now an H&M.