Life On Film Admitting to Michael Moore fandom must be like admitting to driving a Kia: you're bound to be judged. Still, those who claim to despise Moore's politics are often the same people who bristle with curiosity whenever the Flint, Michigan native offers up a new release. Like him or hate him, we all like to know what the most controversial documentary filmmaker in America is cooking up next. SiCKO , Moore's latest effort, exposes America's health care industry to the director's incisive wit. Many have [...]
New Wax First of all, let me preface this review by saying that you'll find this release under the artist Friday Morning's Regret. The band has officially changed their name to The Wooden Sky since the release, so look for future releases under their new moniker. There's a childlike excitement in discovering an impressive new band. Part of you wants to hoard your new discovery in a nuclear-proof vault guarded by motion-detectors just so you can maintain a superior level of indie snobbery, but [...]
1997 Best Picture Nominees Revisited: Part 1 of 5 To lend some sort of order to this five-part blog, I've decided to write about each 1997 best picture nominee in reverse order according to my initial (i.e. how I felt ten years ago) impression, excepting Titanic, of course, which I'll save for last. Worst to best. For contextual purposes, keep in mind that I was a high school junior in the autumn of 1997, 16-years-old and far from cynical. But I wasn't naïve either. [...]
Life On Film It is under the most extreme circumstances that human beings tend to display the greatest amount of resilience. Sierra Leone's Refugee All-Stars documents the plight of Sierra Leoneans who are driven out of their homeland, which is ravished by an ongoing civil war. Haunted by memories of pain and suffering inflicted by ruthless rebels, the refugees are forced to flee to Guinea, where they migrate from one refugee camp to another. Amidst all this turmoil, a small group of the [...]
New Wax On Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters , Glasgow's the Twilight Sad mixes tinges of My Bloody Valentine with their own thick and overdriven brand of shoegaze. The songs unfold sparingly with thudding drumlines and reverberated guitar riffs only to build into sonically dense barricades of repetitious distortion and crashing cymbals. Lead singer James Graham's accent is unabashedly Scottish, and his vocals fluctuate from calm and composed to angst-ridden wails. The album content is rooted in painful adolescent experiences and regrets, with Graham's [...]
Albums Revisited The term "emo" has been bastardized by scenesters with Hot Topic giftcards. There was once a time when emo music was founded on raw emotion rather than fitting into the tightest pair of girl jeans you can find. Emo/screamo bands are a dime a dozen now, with teenage girls and guys with dyed swoop-hair and black fingernail polish flocking towards Warped Tour stages like rabid jackals, singing along to regurgitated lyrics about bleeding hearts and running mascara. It makes me wonder what happened to the real [...]
Celluloid Many cinephiles regard German director Werner Herzog as one of the greatest filmmakers of our time. His documentaries and films are aesthetically breathtaking musings on survival and the violent chaotic order of the natural world. His stories are dense with memorable characters, and his epical cinematic visions bring to mind film greats such as Akira Kurosawa and Terrence Malick. While Rescue Dawn is far from Herzog's best work, it's a worthy edition to his resume. The film rehashes the true-life story [...]
New Wax When I sat down to listen to the Felice Brothers' new release Tonight At The Arizona I thought I played the wrong album. I thought to myself, "Shit, this is Dylan." But alas, it was indeed the Felice Brothers, and while it's obvious that this band of three brothers and some friends is influenced by the likes of Dylan and The Band, there's a refreshing originality weaved into their songs. The group was living out of an old shortbus (you know, [...]
Celluloid Once stars Glen Hansard, Irish frontman of the criminally overlooked band the Frames, as a struggling Dublin vacuum repairman/street musician who meets a Czechoslovakian single mother (Marketa Irglova) with whom he makes beautiful music with, and I don't mean that in a metaphorical sense. The story plays as sort of a folk-musical, with its delicate songs providing the film's memorable soundtrack. The two main characters, who are never named and are actually credited as "Guy" and "Girl," are blatantly attracted to each [...]
New Wax It's apparent from the onset of Okkervil River's new release The Stage Names that the dark delicateness of the band's 2005 release Black Sheep Boy has given way to a more layered, upbeat sound. While the music may be more majestic in scope, the subject matter remains intelligent and wholly original. Singer Will Sheff shouts and howls with more confidence and recklessness than ever, even to the point of over-indulgence, but it never comes off as contrived or insincere. [...]
New Wax There's something hauntingly familiar about J. Tillman's songs. His music makes me feel like I'm sitting amidst a swirling cloud of cigarette smoke in some trashy divebar, inching towards a makeshift stage where some scruffy guy in a pearl-button western shirt and torn wranglers is confessing his sins to the strum of a weather-beaten acoustic guitar. On his newest release Cancer And Delirium , Tillman's breathy and whispered delivery demands the listener's full attention, and his arrangements are powerful and rich while maintaining [...]
The Bookshelf Constructing the perfect mix can be a difficult process. You select each track meticulously, give it a thorough play-through test, and tweak the order of the songs to maximize poignancy and emotional impact. There's nothing like giving someone important a mix of songs that tells a story or says the things you don't have the guts or eloquence to say with mere words. Music can be a powerful thing, and Rob Sheffield's love for music is apparent throughout Love Is A Mixtape [...]
Albums Revisited Since his initial release of the impressive Bloomed in 1994, alt. country troubadour Richard Buckner has released seven lyrically and thematically dense albums, an EP, and a collaborative effort with John Langford. In 1996, Buckner was picked up by MCA Records, where he would release 1997's Devotion + Doubt and 1998's follow-up Since . Not Surprisingly, Buckner's major-label releases were not commercially viable and he was subsequently released from his contract. Rejoining the indie circuit, Buckner made a [...]
Captain Obvious
Avicii – Two Million
Beck – I Just Started Hating Some People Today
H&M Lookbook Mujer y Hombre Otoño 2012.
