The Thermals conjure this sort of insanely overwrought pop-punk with brutally on-point no blood for oil lyrics (literally) and a style that can be described as ‘hooky’ without being bogged down by all the cliches of its genre. Lead singer Hutch Harris is a dead-ringer vocally for Ted Leo, and Kathy Foster (also of All-Girl Summer Fun Band) adds insanely inventive punk bass.

Basically, seeing this band live is like seeing the greatest local teen punk act ever. The band has an incredibly winning stage presence that seems genuinely friendly and they blast through an hour-long set of two-minute ditties with an efficient, feverish abandon. That they manage to sound even better - more angry, faster, dirtier - live is not really the issue. That they make you feel like a teenager watching your friend’s band (only significantly better) at some crappy local venue does. This sort of ecstatic nostalgia doesn’t come from just anywhere - it comes from a genuine affection for live performance.

Anyway, tonight I watched two movies: Fassbinder’s Lola (which is amazing - maybe my favorite Fassbinder yet, and so unbelievably unnerving). Peer Rabin’s incredible score, which permeates nearly every second of the film, is both hauntingly beautiful and at times just frightening, punctuating Fassbinder’s abrupt mid-scene focus-dissolves. It seems to be Fassbinder’s update on The Blue Angel, and the film has some beautiful psychedelic color work and some incredible camerawork from Fassbinder’s late-career collaborator Xaver Schwarzenberger.

The other was Kazuhiko Yamaguchi’s Karate Bear Fighter starring Sonny Chiba. Second in a trilogy that includes Karate Bull Fighter and the motivational-sounding Karate for Life, Chiba’s Masutatsu Oyama indeed fights a bear - with karate! - in this movie. Remarkably, this sequence, which almost completely comes out of nowhere, is the worst fight in the picture. Even with the unbelievably bad bear costume, I mostly just felt bad for the bear, who gets an eye ripped out (with ’70s hot pink blood everywhere) and who gets ka-thunked on the head about twenty times in the course of the last minute of the battle - how was he supposed know he was fighting Mas Oyama?

Maybe I’ll see Vengeance is Mine tomorrow…