Every month, Cosmik Debris brings you a ton of CD and record reviews, but the writers manage to find a little time for other pursuits, like reading, going to movies and watching videos. That's where Everything Else In Review comes in.


Film: Dogma
Starring: Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Linda Fiorentino, Alan Rickman, Chris Rock, Salma Hyack, George Carlin, Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith.
Director/Writer: Kevin Smith.
Company: View Askew Films.
Reviewed by Rusty Pipes

While Hollywood attempts to cash in on all those frantic apocalyptic fears with films like End of Days and The Omega Code, along comes this unpretentious comedy to put them to shame. Director and writer Kevin Smith, known for Chasing Amy and Mallrats, has his best movie yet in Dogma. It’s a clever and original story; written about the same time he did Clerks, a low budget comedy that gave him his first big notice about five years ago.

It’s a story about trying to get back into Heaven. Loki is the former Angel of Death, played by Matt Damon, who was talked out of doing God’s dirty work long ago by another Angel, Bartleby, played by Ben Affleck. Suddenly they have a new chance for redemption after thousands of years sitting around in Wisconsin. A Cardinal in New Jersey has blessed a door in his church so that any who go through will be forgiven of all sin. The trouble is, if the angels go through and get back into Heaven, God’s judgment on them is proven wrong and She is no longer infallible. And that will make all reality END. Needless to say, the forces of Heaven have an interest in stopping Loki and Bartleby, but no one can find God anywhere. Wait a minute, not even the Prince of Darkness would want EVERYTHING to end! Who’s really behind all this?

Got all that? You don’t have to be Catholic to enjoy Dogma, but it helps.

Clearly the actors delight in the theological in-jokes as well. Kevin Smith himself shows up along with his friend Jason Mewes as a pair of Gen X prophets, and hold their own quite well against a terrific cast. Alan Rickman, playing a jaded seraphim, brings a certain gravity to the movie as he announces to a former believer, Linda Fiorentino, who had similar role in Men in Black, that she must stop Loki and Bartleby. Salma Hyack, as Serendipity, is as predictably alluring as Chris Rock is predictably loud-mouthed as Rufus, the Thirteenth I-was-written-out-of-the-Bible-because-I’m-Black Apostle. World-class heretic George Carlin is endearingly gravelly as a Jersey cardinal trying to gain more market share for the church in this secular age.

It all adds up to something like Bedazzled meets Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Special kudos to Smith, who directs with an economical style that doesn’t dwell on Loki’s gory handiwork like some directors might, but even more for his courage making a film that dares to poke fun some of the church ’s more silly tenets. Fundamentalists of course will be foaming at the mouth over this film’s apparent blasphemy, but as Smith says “…how seriously can you take a movie that has a rubber poop monster in it?" Amen, Hallelujah.


(C) 1999 - Rusty Pipes



CD Box Set: Living In A Shakespearean World
Label: Rhino
Reviewed by DJ Johnson

Somebody on your shopping list is probably a Shakespear freak, and this is the ultimate gift for that person. Six CDs that could as easily have been called Best Of The Bard.

The first four discs are vast montages of great moments from the classic plays of William Shakespear, recorded in performances by the greatest actors who ever graced a stage, including Orson Wells, Sir Ralph Richardson, Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Judith Anderson, Rex Harrison, and John Barrymore. Each of the Bard's major plays is represented by these and a great many other actors in short clips that, taken together, give a pretty fair impression of what the play is about, but the main effect on the listener is a clearer understanding of the man's entire body of work, his gift of language and his creative style. For a confirmed Shakespearphobic, this could be revelatory. I'm speaking from experience. I've never cared for Shakespear because the language lost me. In fact, it overwhelmed me. Taken in these smaller, more focused doses, it began to make sense, and eventually the language itself was exactly what turned me on. There's a rhythm to Shakespear's words, a musical quality that is accentuated throughout these discs.

By the end of disc four, even the phobic is ready for an full play, and that's exactly what we get on discs 5 and 6. Romeo and Juliet is presented in its entirety, with wonderful performances by Albert Finney as Romeo and Claire Bloom as Juliet. After that, you're ready to turn on PBS and watch your first Shakespear play without pulling your hair out by the roots. If this wasn't such a perfect package for seasoned fans, it could also be called Shakespear For Dummies.

Only Rhino could come up with a package like this, guaranteed not to make a lot of money but destined to be beloved by those who care about such things. The packaging is elegant, with a beautiful box cover and a large book with informative liners and transcripts of the short clips on the first four discs. Five stars to the Rhino gang. The sad thing is that very few Shakespearphobes will seek this box set out, as they aren't aware that they could ever be turned around, and they're the ones that would benefit most from having this. Help someone out and give it as a gift.


(C) 1999 - DJ Johnson



Concert: Various Artists - Sacred Music of the Americas
Hollywood Bowl Los Angeles 10/10/99
Reviewed by Rusty Pipes

I've lived in LA for sixteen years now, it's about time I finally made it to the Hollywood Bowl for a concert, right? The event I finally first attended there was the opening for a week long series of concerts collectively entitled Sacred Music of the Americas.

What attracted me the most about this event was that the world's most famous Tibetan refugee, the Dalai Lama, was to give the opening address for the festival. I put in for tickets fast. So did about 17,000 others.

The Bowl is indeed a nearly perfect spot to hear music. Though it's very near the Hollywood Freeway, it's well protected from nearly all of LA's distractions except the occasional helicopter flyby. Unfortunately though, that same freeway's traffic made it very time consuming to get there. Arriving close to the 4PM start time, I was distressed to find an immense line at the Will Call windows which slowed my entry even further. Someone else in the line made the remark that Buddhists are terrible at planning ahead; that was surely proof. Still, it much more than just Buddhists and other starry-eyed New Agers there. It was a marvelous cosmopolitan mix of old and young, from hot dog eaters to oolong tea drinkers, people of every ethnic stripe imaginable. It was the best face Los Angeles had ever presented to me at a concert, the epitome of civility balanced with passion, even in that dauntingly long line.

Thankfully Kundun's speech was held back an hour. I had just entered the Bowl when he began speaking. His voice was almost a caricature of what you'd expect, kind of a tenor singsong, but with an obvious joy of life in it. Partly in English and partly in translated Tibetan, his message was simple and direct. Lose your narrow focus and see the bigger picture. Have compassion. Do things for others.

The Dalai Lama is addressed as His Holiness by most people, but he clearly didn't take himself so seriously. "If I should see a mad dog, I run away," he said at one point, an obvious reference to his flight from Tibet as China invaded 40 years ago. Pretty practical advice from the highest member of an order famous for non-attachment to worldly issues. Refreshingly, there were no pitches for donations to Free Tibet or his own monastic order, instead he projected a warmth and humanity that was irresistible in spite of the address's brevity. He said he was very tired from traveling so he only spoke about twenty minutes. Twenty sublime minutes that touched everyone deeply. I guess now everyone there can officially say they've been in an audience with the Dalai Lama.

I missed the Indonesian gamelan and the Hawaiian music that were moved in front of the Dalai Lama's speech, but at least I was there to enjoy several songs each from the other performers on the five hour program, artists whose music is decidedly devotional, but in radically different ways. Standouts among them were Marlui Miranda with songs and chants from Brazil; Yaccov Motzen, a fine Jewish cantor from Canada; and Ali Jihad Racy and Ahmed El-Asmer who are Sufi musicians from California. My favorite was Lila Downs, a tiny woman with a huge, rich voice who sang in English, Spanish and ancient dialects from her native Columbia.

Toward the end of the evening, an enormous interdenominational gospel choir took to the stage. Now you know me, I can argue against Christian superstitions for hours on end, but even I couldn't help but get shivers listening to the choir's unswervingly wholesome sound of love. 250 strong and drawn from several Los Angeles churches, they gave new meaning to making a "joyful noise."

The evening ended with Esa-Peka Salonen conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic in a magnificent performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, complete with another huge chorus and soloists. More shivers.

The Sacred Music of the Americas series continued over the next week. I didn't get to see any other performances but to borrow a Zen description, I felt like I was walking six inches off the ground for days.


(C) 1999 - Rusty Pipes



CDROM: Video Clash
Company: OmniMedia
Reviewed by DJ Johnson

This one has actually been in the office here a long, long time, hidden between the proverbial cracks, but it deserves mention. During the recent move, it was found, played, enjoyed, played some more, played some more, and so on. Video Clash is a collection of Clash Videos on CDROM. Duh, right? You're not forced to view them in a tiny window on your computer's monitor, however. It's full screen punkorama. The videos are "Tommy Gun," "London Calling," "Bank Robber," "Train In Vain," "The Call Up," "This Is Radio Clash," Rock The Casbah" and "Should I Stay Or Should I Go," which total 31 minutes of running time. At full screen on a 17 inch monitor, the picture is only slightly blurry, but be aware that if you have an older, slower machine this puppy will frustrate the hell out of you. We found this odd, since the disc was released in late 1995. We played it on a 486 and experienced long hang-ups and crashes, as well as herky-jerky action and sound dropouts. On a newer machine (Pentium) with lots of RAM, it ran very well. Screen size can be adjusted, and there are help sound files in four languages. It doesn't play on an audio CD player, but if you're a big enough Clash fan to want this, you've already got the CDs anyway. (OmniMedia, The Old Police Station, 6 London Road, Kingston Upon Thames, UK, ktz 65W)


(C) 1999 - DJ Johnson



CDROM: Allons En Louisiane
Label: Rounder Records
Reviewed by DJ Johnson

This is a nifty little double-disc set that has one CD of Cajun and Zydeco music and a second CD of multi-media that does what Rounder Records has always done: educate. The audio CD is almost worth the 19 buck price tag by itself. It gives you 15 tracks by some of the most important artists of the genres, including Boozoo Chavis, Geno Delafose, Steve Riley, and Chris Ardoin. The CDROM introduces you to the humans behind those names, giving you a chance to hear them talk and to learn what their lives are like. For me, hearing the colorful Boozoo Chavis describe their very different kind of Mardis Gras gave me an even greater appreciation of someone who was already one of my favorite musicians in this world. The CDROM includes mutli-media tours, albeit limited, of a few of the towns of southwest Louisiana, a few traditional recipes, bios of the players, and even a pair of video dance lessons. If I were to complain about anything, it'd be the fact that there are no concert clips to view. This is music made to be played live in a festive atmosphere, and that element is totally missing on the CDROM. Too bad, but there's still plenty to see and read and hear. With Christmas around the corner, this makes the perfect gift for someone just beginning to discover Cajun and Zydeco music. [This set can be purchased at the low price of $15.99 at CD World.


(C) 1999 - DJ Johnson