Theo Angelopoulos (Reconstruction) directed this 1998 Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or winner about a famed author nearing the end of his life. Alexander (Bruno Ganz) lives in his old seaside family home near Thessaloniki, but his daughter and son-in-law plan to sell the house, slightly damaged by an earthquake. Seriously ill, Alexander thinks if he checks himself into the hospital, he'll never check out. Awash in nostalgia, he recalls his late wife, Anna (Isabelle Renauld), seen in flashback, and he lets his daughter read a letter her mother had written to him right after her birth. Alexander's current project involves completing the last unfinished work of a 19th-century poet, but he puts that aside in order to spend time finding a home for his dog. Since his son-in-law won't take the dog, Alexander gives it to his servant. After rescuing an Albanian boy (Achileas Skevis) from a gang that sells children to wealthy Greeks who can't adopt legally, Alexander intends to return the youth to his grandmother in Albania. However, the child lied, and Alexander is unaware the boy has no grandmother. The old man and the boy set forth on a journey, and the other bus passengers include several musicians and the 19th-century poet (Fabrizio Bentivoglio). Bruno Ganz was dubbed into Greek for this Greek-French-Italian co-production.Jan 31, 2012
Eternity and a Day (1998), Theo Angelopoulos
Theo Angelopoulos (Reconstruction) directed this 1998 Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or winner about a famed author nearing the end of his life. Alexander (Bruno Ganz) lives in his old seaside family home near Thessaloniki, but his daughter and son-in-law plan to sell the house, slightly damaged by an earthquake. Seriously ill, Alexander thinks if he checks himself into the hospital, he'll never check out. Awash in nostalgia, he recalls his late wife, Anna (Isabelle Renauld), seen in flashback, and he lets his daughter read a letter her mother had written to him right after her birth. Alexander's current project involves completing the last unfinished work of a 19th-century poet, but he puts that aside in order to spend time finding a home for his dog. Since his son-in-law won't take the dog, Alexander gives it to his servant. After rescuing an Albanian boy (Achileas Skevis) from a gang that sells children to wealthy Greeks who can't adopt legally, Alexander intends to return the youth to his grandmother in Albania. However, the child lied, and Alexander is unaware the boy has no grandmother. The old man and the boy set forth on a journey, and the other bus passengers include several musicians and the 19th-century poet (Fabrizio Bentivoglio). Bruno Ganz was dubbed into Greek for this Greek-French-Italian co-production.
Leonard Cohen – Old Ideas (2012)
It’s difficult, albeit a little ill-mannered, not to regard Old Ideas as possibly Leonard Cohen’s final recorded testament. There’s a distinct valedictory tone to his customary musings upon life, love and the spirit, with one track titled “Amen” and another “The Darkness”. But if it is to be his last communiqué, at least the old smoothie’s going down swinging.The higher concerns are continued in “Come Healing”, whose hymnal tone reflects a desire for both physical and spiritual healing: “Come healing of the reason, come healing of the heart”. It’s an obvious heir of sorts to “Hallelujah”, although given that that song was as much about waning potency as anything, a more apt successor may be “Show Me The Place”, a heartfelt plea for the restoration of desire: “Show me the place I’ve forgotten I don’t know”. Likewise, in “Crazy to Love You”, Cohen admits to the wearisome duty of love: “I’m tired of chasing desire, I’m saved by a blessed fatigue.”
Jan 30, 2012
Devendra Banhart's Love-In for Oliver Peoples
"Get in the bathtub! Be together!" Those were the orders given to Devendra Banhart and his girlfriend Rebecca Schwartz for today's exclusive film, the director's cut of a new campaign for eyewear company Oliver Peoples shot by photographer Lisa Eisner. In homage to French New Wave classics like Godard's Une Femme Mariée, Eisner was determined to cast a real-life couple with genuine chemistry, to create "infatuated cant-keep-your-hands-off-each-other moments." Psych-folk polyglot Banhart and his set designer paramour happily obliged, their liaison unfolding on staircases and shag carpets in the Rainbow House, architect John Lautner's 1961 Los Angeles masterpiece. The Venezuelan-born Banhart's Spanish serenade "Brindo" (from 2009's What Will We Be; a new album is in the works) sets the mood for love, a topic he mused on when we rang him up in LA yesterday morning. "The last lyrics are 'the only thing open right now is the hospital'—there's something weirdly beguiling and beautiful about that. But the majority of the song is about: 'I'm going to say a toast to this person who has given me a reason to drink joyfully.' And she's definitely that person," he says of his girlfriend.
Jan 29, 2012
Damien Jurado – Maraqopa (2012)
Damien Jurado’s newest collaboration with producer Richard Swift drops us into a brutal and benevolent landscape. The bold strokes and new turns the pair made with 2010′s Saint Bartlett are taken even further. He throws open the gate on his oft insular dirges and allows them do some real wilding out in the canyon. In Maraqopa, the vistas are miles-wide; the action is more dynamic; the close-ups sweaty and snarling. The strummed desert blues that begin “Nothing is the News” quickly bursts open into an Eddie Hazel-worthy supernova shred session, all of it swirling in tinny-psych and Echoplex’d howls. We’ve never heard anything like this from Jurado. Fifteen years into his remarkable career, and he continues to blossom. Jurado and Swift establish themselves not only as inventive, trusting collaborators, but as one another’s spirit animals in American outsider songcraft –lone wolves in black sheep’s clothing. Swift is the Ennio Morricone to Jurado’s Sergio Leone.
Jan 25, 2012
Mark Lanegan – Blues Funeral (2012)
...Princ Of Darkness Is Back...Kakav Album!!!Mark Lanegan Band releases Blues Funeral on February 6th 2012, Lanegan’s first album since 2004’s Bubblegum. It was recorded in Hollywood, California with Alain Johannes and features guest appearances from the likes of Josh Homme, Greg Dulli and Jack Irons
‘The Gravedigger’s Song’ will be released as a 7” backed with a new version of ‘Burning Jacob’s Ladder’, a song which briefly featured in a trailer for the Rage video game in early 2011. The 7” will be issued on coloured vinyl and available from January 2nd.
Jan 24, 2012
Animal Kingdom (2010), David Michôd
A youngster is given an inside look at a criminal empire that also happens to be his family in this independent drama. Teenage Joshua Cody (James Frecheville) is suddenly on his own after his mother's drug habit catches up with her, and he's taken in by his grandmother Smurf (Jacki Weaver), usually regarded as the black sheep of the family. Joshua quickly learns Smurf's reputation is well deserved; she and her four sons are members of a mid-level crime syndicate that operates out of her home in Melbourne. Baz (Joel Edgerton) looks after the money and is urging Smurf to move into something legit, Pope (Ben Mendelsohn) is a criminal jack-of-all-trades who never lets go of a grudge, Darren (Luke Ford) is an enforcer with an unfortunate weak streak, and Craig (Sullivan Stapleton) is a drug dealer who has become addicted to his own product. When Baz is murdered, the family's voice of reason is gone, and the unstable Pope takes the lead in the family's hierarchy; as suspicions fall on Joshua, the quiet newcomer is moved out of the house to keep him safe. Nathan Leckie (Guy Pearce) is a police detective who has found out who Joshua is and what he knows, and he tries to convince the teenager to help him put the Cody family behind bars, though Joshua isn't certain about his loyalties to these outlaws who are also his blood. The first feature film from director David Michod, Animal Kingdom was an official selection at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, where it received the World Cinema Jury Prize for Best Dramatic Feature.Jan 23, 2012
Xiu Xiu – Always (2012)
...Zajebano Sjebano I Lepo...Wonderfully and schizophrenically aggressive post-punk band Xiu Xiu will be releasing Always on March 6th, and the tracklist for said album is out. As per usual, some of the titles of the songs are controversial (e.g. “Factory Girls” or “I Luv Abortion”). Xiu Xiu, of course, wouldn’t engage in controversy without reasonable explanations; “Factory Girls” is really about the “sexual objectification and desperate existence of Chinese female migrant workers,” and “I Luv Abortion” is about the “resolute heartache of a friend too young to be pregnant.” A vinyl version will also be dropped, and it will include a poster of Xiu Xiu tattoos.
Jan 22, 2012
Fanny and Elvis (1999), Kay Mellor
British TV screenwriter Kay Mellor debuts with this quirky screwball comedy. The film opens with romance novelist Kate (Kerry Fox) crashing her VW bug into the gleaming Jaguar of car salesman Dave (Ray Winstone), resulting in an insult-barbed screamfest. They both enter the same pub, where they learn that Kate's husband is leaving her for Dave's young buxom wife (his third). The distraught Kate seeks solace and cheer from Andrew (Ben Daniels), her gay actor friend and housemate. When Dave's wife changes the locks, he cuts a deal with Kate, who still intensely dislikes the man: if he can stay in her spare room, she can forget about the outlandishly high bill to repair his damaged Jag. Soon, of course, love blooms when Kate realizes that Dave is no mere car salesman: he is a loving father to his six kids from previous marriages and an avid reader of the classics. Things seem peachy until Dave mysteriously disappears. Fanny and Elvis was screened at the 1999 Dinard Film Festival.Snowtown (2011), Justin Kurzel
A harrowing account of the true crime story that shocked Australia, Justin Kurzel's Snowtown follows an impressionable teenager as he falls under the spell of a charismatic serial killer and gets hopelessly drawn into a vicious cycle of violence and murder. Single mother Elizabeth Harvey (Louise Harris) lives in a cramped house in the northern suburbs of Adelaide with her three young sons. When Elizabeth's current boyfriend reveals himself to be a pedophile, charismatic newcomer John Bunting (Daniel Henshall) drives him out of the neighborhood while laying on the charm, and in the process he captures the attention of her teenage son Jamie (Lucas Pittaway). But as Jamie gets closer to John, he learns that the amiable stranger's quick smile masks a dark secret.Justin Robinson and the Mary Annettes – Bones For Tinder (2012)
Justin Robinson was a founding member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, an outfit steeped in the traditions of Piedmont bluegrass, though willing, on occasion, to interpret a contemporary tune in old-time style. One of only two known contemporary all-black string bands, Carolina Chocolate Drops paid tribute to a once-vibrant, now nearly forgotten tradition of African-American strumming and picking. The band won a Grammy in 2010 for Genuine Negro Jig, an album that Blurt called “a rollicking polemic”. Robinson left the Chocolate Drops in 2011, seeking, according to his website, to break out of the traditional folk mold and explore other musical styles and genres.Demetra – Lone Migration (2012)
Winnipeg-based traveller, visual artist and yoga instructor Demetra (full name: Demetra Penner) explores Northern landscapes and the hardships of love on her debut full-length.It’s a spacious, slow album propelled by piano and guitars, with hints of folk, classical and pop influences and decorated with banjo, mandolin, autoharp, ukulele and strings. Good thing there’s space, because Penner’s soaring soprano – the kind that can be mistaken for “intimate” and “diminutive” before she shows her power – is clearly the star.
The swaying, oceanic lullabies are a lovely falling-asleep soundtrack (she even references waking from dreams in the intro of Hunt & Gather), but I prefer her livelier side, revealed on Hey Stranger and Maiden Of Ice. Also cool is Nikki Komaksiutiksak’s throat-singing on Arctic Sea.
Jan 20, 2012
Charlotte Gainsbourg – Stage Whisper (2CD/2011)
Charlotte Gainsbourg will release her new album ‘Stage Whisper’ through Because Music on 7th November. A double album of live and unreleased studio tracks, it will be the follow up to the critically acclaimed ‘IRM’ album, which came out in January 2010. ‘Stage Whisper’s studio material features collaborations with Beck, Conor O’Brien of Villagers, Noah and the Whale and Connan Mockasin. A new EP entitled ‘Terrible Angels’ will be released on 5th September. Available on vinyl and CD, the EP features two unreleased studio tracks, two live recordings and two videos.
The Hunt for Red October (1990),John McTiernan
The first of several films based on Tom Clancy's "Jack Ryan" technothrillers, Hunt for Red October stars Alec Baldwin as eccentric CIA analyst Ryan and Sean Connery as Soviet submarine commander Marko Ramius. Ramius sets the plot in motion when he murders his political adviser, burns his orders, and steers his sub Red October towards American waters, hoping to defect. The CIA, aware that the Red October was about to embark on an evasive mission to demonstrate its ability to avoid detection and fire its nuclear missiles upon U.S. installations, believes that Ramius is insane, and that he plans to start World War III. To cover their own behinds, the Russians back up the CIA's suspicion. Only Jack Ryan believes that Ramius' mission is not as apocalyptic as it seems -- and it is Ryan who is assigned to infiltrate the Red October to prove his theory. The sort of film that in an earlier era would have been called a "thinking man's thriller," The Hunt for Red October ushered in a new series of Hollywood-produced post-Cold War adventure films, including 1995's Crimson Tide.Kafka (1991), Steven Soderbergh
Steve Soderbergh did a 180 degree turnaround from his debut film sex, lies, and videotape with Kafka, a stark art-film fable for literature majors. Jeremy Irons plays a fictional Franz Kafka, living in Prague in 1919. By day, Kafka works in a massive, impersonal insurance company. At night, he spends his time alone writing stories about men who turn into giant cockroaches. Although quiet and solitary, he becomes a suspect in a murder investigation conducted by Inspector Grubach (Armin Mueller-Stahl) when a friend of his turns up dead. Rather than being harassed by Grubach, Kafka decides to investigate his friend's murder on his own. Kafka speaks to his dead friend's girlfriend, Gabriela (Theresa Russell) and talks with gravestone carver Bizzlebek (Jeroen Krabbe). Kafka follows the clues to the Castle, a menacing tower that casts its shadow over the city and houses files on everything. He winds his way through the cellars and tunnels of the Castle, where he encounters the evil and insidious Dr. Murnau (Ian Holm), whom he hopes holds the solution to the murder.Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory ( Berlinger, Sinofsky, 2011)
On May 5, 1993, three eight-year-old boy scouts -- Stevie Branch, Michael Moore and Christopher Byers -- were found dead. One month later, three teenagers -- Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley -- were arrested for the murders, despite a lack of evidence. They spent 18 years in prison for a crime they didn't commit, before being released in August 2011 after taking the Alford Plea deal offered to them.
Filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky chronicled the West Memphis Three's 1993 arrests and their sentencing in the 1996 HBO film, "Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills" and a 2000 sequel. The third and final installment of the "Paradise Lost" trilogy, "Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory," premiered on Jan. 12, 2012.
The Descendants (Alexander Payne, 2011)
From Alexander Payne, the creator of the Oscar-winning Sideways, set in Hawaii, The Descendants is a sometimes humorous, sometimes tragic journey for Matt King (George Clooney) an indifferent husband and father of two girls, who is forced to re-examine his past and embrace his future when his wife suffers a boating accident off of Waikiki. The event leads to a rapprochement with his young daughters while Matt wrestles with a decision to sell the family's land handed down from Hawaiian royalty and missionaries.Jan 18, 2012
Sharon Van Etten – Tramp (2012)
Serpents is the first single off of Tramp, Sharon Van Etten's Jagjaguwar debut.
The shimmering sound of Tramp both defies and illuminates the unsteadiness of a life in flux. During the 14 months of scattered recording sessions, Sharon Van Etten was without a home - crashing with friends and spreading out her possessions between various locations. The only constant during this time was when Van Etten returned to the garage studio of The National's Aaron Dessner.
Jan 16, 2012
First Aid Kit – The Lion’s Roar (2012)
Swedish sister act First Aid Kit are back with ‘The Lion’s Roar’, the title track from their forthcoming record. Slightly more country-influenced than their previous work, ‘The Lion’s Roar’ features the band’s trademark vulnerable-yet-world-weary vocals, a reminder of just how young this obscenely talented pair are. Perfect for fans of Fleet Foxes and Laura MarlingJan 15, 2012
Jan 13, 2012
The Raveonettes – Rarities & B-Sides (2011)
...bacili su nam komadice hleba, usli smo u sumu, tamo nas je cekala cokoladna kucica...Combining the noisy swells of the Jesus and Mary Chain with melodic elements of ’50s rock & roll, The Raveonettes formed in Copenhagen during the early 2000s. Their discography includes five LPs, plus a handful of EPs, so it’s only fitting that the Danish shoegazers should get their own odds ‘n’ sods collection.
Trailer Trash Tracys
Trailer Trash Tracys
Ester (Double Six/Domino,2012)
Inhabiting their own beautifully dark, ethereal corner of the musical universe, poised somewhere at the crossroads between the nocturnal, rolling soundscapes of Angelo Badalamenti and the sublime, naive melodies of 50s pop, Trailer Trash Tracys are a deliciously unique proposition. Ester’ neatly combines elements including the dream pop of Beach House, the sweet nocturnal melancholy of The xx and the sonic exploration of My Bloody Valentine to form an album that’s streets apart from any of its contemporaries.
Ester (Double Six/Domino,2012)
Inhabiting their own beautifully dark, ethereal corner of the musical universe, poised somewhere at the crossroads between the nocturnal, rolling soundscapes of Angelo Badalamenti and the sublime, naive melodies of 50s pop, Trailer Trash Tracys are a deliciously unique proposition. Ester’ neatly combines elements including the dream pop of Beach House, the sweet nocturnal melancholy of The xx and the sonic exploration of My Bloody Valentine to form an album that’s streets apart from any of its contemporaries.
Jan 12, 2012
PJ Harvey – Let England Shake – 12 Short Films by Seamus Murphy (2011)
Let England Shake: 12 Short Fims By Seamus Murphy is the visual accompaniment to the Mercury Prize-winning album Let England Shake, featuring all 12 tracks from the album, each with its own short film shot by award winning photographer and film-maker Seamus Murphy.The DVD also features a bonus video, a solo live version of the track "England".
Director Seamus Murphy introduces 12 short films he made for PJ Harvey's forthcoming LP, Let England Shake...
Jan 11, 2012
Jan 10, 2012
The Rain People (Francis Ford Coppola, 1969)
Despite an effort by the Warner Bros. publicity mills to turn The Rain People into an instant cult film upon its first release (the ad campaign stressed the intimacy and humanity of the story), this early Francis Ford Coppola effort would have to wait several years to find its audience. Shirley Knight stars as Natalie, a housewife who, unable to cope with being "trapped" by impending pregnancy, deserts her husband and takes to the road.
Jan 9, 2012
Pigeons – They Sweetheartstammers (2011)
...Chelsea Wolfe Ima Sestru...Pigeons is Wednesday Knudsen and Clark Griffin, from Bronx, NY. After flirting with lo-fi psychedelic-leaning Francophile pop on their two previous full-lengths, Liasons and Si Faustine (both from 2010), the pair have shifted into more dense, heady modes for their new record, They Sweetheartstammers. Heavy doses of melody & dissonance carry free-form songs like "Lauren" and "Behind the Reeds" into Broadcast and Meddle-era Floyd territory. The more-straightforward "Red Friend" and "Tournoi" offer differing ends of the pop spectrum, with (unconscious) nods to Opal's Happy Nightmare Baby, Galaxie 500 and Brigitte Fontaine. The sole constant throughout the twists & turns of They Sweetheartstammers is Wednesday Knudsen's stunning guitar work and distant, plaintive voice.
Jan 8, 2012
Jan 6, 2012
Rob St. John – Weald (2011)
...Cistokrvna Amerikana...From The Bottom Of The Black Heart...A Lancashire native, St. John plays a haunted, electric folk song, held together on a tightrope of dark, archaic yet lyrically playful language and the sound of collaborative talent tapering into waveringly tuneful rough music. The creaks and drones of harmoniums, saws and violins are underlain by field and hydrophone recordings of waterfalls, and hold together a broken consort of assorted Edinburgh singers.
Jan 5, 2012
Durutti Column– Chronicle (Official Live Album/2011)
The Durutti Column mark a return to live activity with a special one-off show at the “Bridgewater Hall” in Manchester on Saturday April 30, 2011. On this occasion they will premiere their long-awaited biographical album ‘Chronicle’. The album itself contains fourteen tracks and comes with a booklet of Vini Reilly’s photographs. The sleeve design is by Trevor Johnson and Haider Mundi. The album will initially be sold exclusively at the Bridgewater Hall as a special pre-release CD available with a ticket at the show.
Jan 3, 2012
My Afternoons with Margueritte (Jean Becker, 2010)
Jean Becker’s new movie, La Tête en Friche (based on Marie-Sabine Roger’s book of the same name), is in so many ways hopelessly outdated. It portrays village life as it was represented on film in the 1930s and 1940s: gentle, undemanding and with the lesser roles of the villagers overacted with eye-rolling and thigh-slapping joviality.
Yet, thanks to the central roles of the village idiot Germain and 95-year-old Margueritte (yes, spelled with two ts), played by Gérard Depardieu and Gisèle Casadesus respectively, La Tête en Friche (My Afternoons with Margueritte) manages a charm and intensity that just manage to avoid most clichés of rural French life.
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