November 30, 2010

It's Almost December

     Wow. Haven't posted here since January? Sorry about that. Just too damn busy with RowThree and The Movie Club I guess.

Maybe someday I'll be back.

January 04, 2010

FAVORITE FILMS OF THE DECADE (#72):

     Ocean's Eleven

Steven Soderbergh is still my favorite living director. Partly because of his willingness and courage to experiment with little indie fares that probably no one will see. But he also does the big flashy blockbusters with the huge A-list cast and snappy camera work. Enter Ocean's Eleven. A fun caper movie remade with twice the flash and personality of the original. With a cast full of faces that movie goers all adore clearly having a ball, it's just too easy to get swept up in the fun and the snarky dialogue. While the sequels don't quite live up to the greatness that this "original" had to offer, they nonetheless take nothing away from the fun that Clooney, Damon, Cheadle, Pitt, et. al. provide us. This is one that can popped in about once a year and still be enjoyed.









January 02, 2010

Some Music from 2009

     Is there anything more irrelevant than top ten music lists in the world of today? With the wonder of the internet, there is SO MUCH music out there that a top ten list can't possibly be a "best of" list since no one out there can hear everything that the world offers. However, that isn't to say one can't make a list of music that they really liked on the year. That includes me. I'm less in tune with the music world of today as I was, say five years ago. But I still manage to check out a helluva lot of tunage throughout the year that I get to listen to nearly uninterrupted all day, every day. So here is a list (in alpha order) of some of the music I really, really dug over the past 12 months.



Animal Collective (Merriweather Post Pavillion)
- It's like The Coen Brothers' "A Serious Man"; it's on everyone's list. For good reason.





Antlers (Hospice)
- In today's downloady world (a track here and a track there) it's nice when a band comes out and releases such a peaceful, yet sad and angry story piece. This is a full album.





Appleseed Cast (Sagarmatha)
- Nine tracks of sustained, loud, distortion-ridden, crescendoing, shoe-gazing pieces of awesome.





The Big Pink (A Brief History of Love)
-"The Verve" meets "Explosions in the Sky"... with some electronica.





The Dead Weather (Horehound)
- It's the artist of the decade switching instruments and still constructing a most triumphant record.





Florence and the Machine (Lungs)
- Sinead O'Connor joins forces with "The Ting Tings".





Phoenix (Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix)
- If "Spoon" and "Vampire Weekend" had a love child in the mid-70's.





White Lies (To Lose My Life)
- If "The Killers" actually wanted to kill themselves.





White Rabbits (It's Frightening)
- What if 90's era Alanis Morissette wrote a bunch of songs and "Broken Social Scene" arranged and performed them all?





Yeah Yeah Yeahs (It's Blitz!)
- Opening track: Zero. Song of the year? Yes.


Honorable mentions:
Dashboard Confessional (After the Ending)
Magnolia Electric Co. (Josephine)
Cymbals Eat Guitars (Why There are Mountains)
Norah Jones (The Fall)
Metric (Fantasies)
Karen O. and the Kids (Where the Wild Things Are [OST])

January 01, 2010

FAVORITE FILMS OF THE DECADE (#49):

     Downfall
Completely brilliant depiction of Adolf Hitler's final days. Defeat is eminent; acceptance is not. A "character" that has been played time and time again, yet never portrayed more magnificently than by that of the performance given by Bruno Ganz. A person in history that has grown almost laughable (see Inglourious Basterds)in the way in which he is portrayed; almost as a caricature. Not here. This is a stunning and gut wrenching performance that is based mostly on the memoirs of Hitler's personal secretary. This is a part of history only one person was privy to and now we/you finally get to see those details that make the man and shows his colors for who he truly was.