Ferrell, Best Coast and Pike Place Market ghosts

Some summer movies are so slight, so marginally interesting, that I'm always left wondering why I bothered.  Such is very much the case with "The Other Guys" which I saw earlier this week as an escape from the playdates and home projects that fill the days until kindergarten gets us back on a regular schedule.  Straight up, my rating is a slightly pissy D.  Will Ferrell plays himself barely testing the limits with his overworn charm.  Mark Wahlberg and a cast of sleepwalkers yuck it up.  Only Michael Keaton made me feel anything like good about what goes on here.  I'm still a big fan of his particular charms, even though he looks like he's been shriveling up at the bottom of a bottle of tequila for the last decade.  The larger point being this movie makes me hate my instinct (or is it learned behavior?) to play catch up on movies that have been in theatres for a handful of weeks.  If you're not inspired, don't force it.  That, in effect, could have been the tagline of this movie.  Rent it.

One new album that I dig while struggling to explain exactly why is Best Coast's "Crazy for You".  The same things get said about them repeatedly.  Lo-fi.  Surf rock.  Indie.  But the standard breakdown's as lazy sounding as a first listen of the album.  I think the appeal is broader.  Start an arc from Nancy Sinatra connected all the way through a fuzzy Karen Carpenter up all the way through Sleater-Kinney to the current flavor of hipster female ennui and you've got the sound that's being repeated here.  I like that sound.  It's a bit haunting.  Echoey.  More than a bit pretentious.  If you could boil down the sound of a band practicing some songs on their porch without amps a spleef's throw away from the ocean, you'd have Best Coast and the handful of hooks on this album.  An album I very much recommend.  My rating's a solid B.  Bring it on your next road trip and I'll bet y'all a round of In-N-Out burgers that it will get replayed often enough to stick.

Finally, a very strange Seattle touristy mention.  Not a recommendation in its current form, by any means.  But something worth pointing out in hopes that it will get serious about entertaining people in the future.  Almost everyone that comes through Seattle makes it to the Pike Place Market.  As they should.  And I think that anyone living here would love to avail themselves of opportunities to get to know the Market better.  I tried to do so last night, cashing in a Groupon for a half-price tour with the Market Ghost Tour.  For those familiar with the competition, I'd say it's about half as interesting as the Underground Tour around Pioneer Square (I took it years ago and remember it was half a hoot).  But I in no way begrudge the Ghost Tour folks for the effort - I love public theatre, no matter the form.  I merely suggest that they seriously step it up a notch.  I was the only local amidst a sold-out tour group of what the guide said would be 20 (it wasn't).  What did we do?  Not much.  We walked a few blocks worth of the Market and got some stories that didn't really stick.  I challenge the Ghost Tour to at the very least make some compelling stuff up.  Deliver it with verve.  Tourists will swallow it whole.  The coolest thing by far was seeing that a ballsy attitude can mean you're let loose inside the Market after the producers have packed up for the day.  But otherwise, my rating is an encouraging D.  With a smile and a friendly handshake.  You'd be better off spending $15 at Kell's or The Alibi Room and chatting up a Irish drunk or a trannie.  Or better yet, both.

Hope your own scattershot entertainment hits the mark today.  Rock on.