It’s hard not to love Charlotte Gainsbourg. Even the film Antichrist, with its disturbing imagery, rampant misogyny, and charming genital mutilation couldn’t lessen our affection for her. She may not be the only indie musician/actress out there, but she is the only one who does both things well (take that, Deschanel). The ambidextrous Gainsbourg has once again put on her songwriter’s cap for her forthcoming album IRM. Her gorgeous debut, 5:55, was produced by none other than the great Nigel Godrich, but this time around Gainsbourg has enlisted Beck to produce and cowrite all the songs.
The star-crossed pairing has just yielded its first video, the Keith Schofield-directed “Heaven Can Wait”. Beck’s vocals feature strongly in the song, lending further weight to the idea that the record is a Gainsbourg solo album in name only. In the surreal clip, mundane interactions between people and bizarre creatures are interrupted by bizarre bouts of food fetishism and sudden acts of violence. IRM will be available stateside on January 26th via Elektra, and the smart money says it’ll be a good one.
(500) Days of Summer is a formulaic, twee romantic comedy masquerading as an iconoclastic rethinking of the date movie designed to lure in unsuspecting hipsters by flattering their self-perceived sophistication and esoteric musical taste (“You like the Smiths?“) that ultimately perpetuates the same silly, shallow, and juvenile worldview it claims to transcend, and, in doing so, sends the increasingly trite and predictable indie-rock film aesthetic careening even further toward the mainstream whilst offering a version of He’s Just Not That Into You for Buffalo Exchange shoppers.