Salim Nourallah – Constellation
At first, I only listened to the first track, “Endless Dream Days” and then everything is just flowing until the last one.

Metric – Fantasies
Let’s just ignore the fact that I always have a crush for Emily Haines for a while and focus on their long-awaited album after four years. It’s danceable, bigger, more mature, and more aggressive than their previous Live It Out. My favourites: “Help, I’m Alive” and “Close Call”

Gliss – Devotion Implosion
This is the first time I listen to this experimental noise pop band and they just reminds me why I love shoegaze in the first place. Their highlighted tracks are “Morning Light” and “Beauty”, and… well screw it, the whole album.

Dog Day – Concentration
Why does Canada have many great bands? Well, there’s no exact answer for that kind of question, really. Try “Rome” and maybe you will have another Canadian bands on your favourite list.

Iron & Wine – Around The Well
This is the compilation of Sam Beam’s rare tracks. Just what Iron & Wine hard-core listener really needs.

God Help The Girl – God Help The Girl
OK, since new Belle & Sebastian album in the near future, you can try listening to this musical story of Stuart Murdoch. I just can’t resist his brilliance poured out by three gorgeous-looking female vocalists – who, of course, happened to have beautiful voice.

Super Furry Animals – Dark Days/Light Years
The funk, 80′s guitar riffs, electronic experiments, and the vibrant-ish feeling are all blended in this one psychedelic album. If there’s a band who could pull those off, It would be Super Furry Animals.

Clara Luzia – The Ground Below
Her unique voice is just mesmerizing. This Austrian singer nailed every single upbeat and mellow-drunk tracks. Start with “Queen of the Wolves” and play around a little bit with “Bleed”.

]]> http://24and12.wordpress.com/2009/04/27/recommendations-swoon-constellation/feed/ 1 catapost Swoon Constellation Fantasies Devotion Implosion Concentration Around The Well God Help The Girl Dark Days/Light Years The Ground Below http://24and12.wordpress.com/2009/04/22/an-upcoming-where-the-wild-things-are/ http://24and12.wordpress.com/2009/04/22/an-upcoming-where-the-wild-things-are/#comments Tue, 21 Apr 2009 23:51:33 +0000 Muhammad Rizki http://24and12.wordpress.com/?p=25 ]]>
Spike Jonze may be one of music video directors that made a success in his way into film industry. His two previous movies, Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. are critically acclaimed and now he’s back after a while with Where The Wild Things Are. A movie based on a Maurice Sendak children story, and is written to the screen by one of McSweeney’s writers, Dave Eggers.

What makes the movie is so worth the wait is that this is the first time Spike Jonze not working with Charlie Kaufman (that was busy doing his first feature, Synecdoche, New York) and late rumors that a lot of children cried during the screening of the film (though, then Warner Bros representative denied this, saying that it was exaggerated). Well, as far as I can see, the trailer is awesome, and maybe one of the best trailer I’ve seen this year. I don’t know why, but I even want to cry a little bit. It shows mostly footage of Wild Things and Max in their adventure and Arcade’s Fire Wake Up played along the way (that in my opinion, really worked out).

Where The Wild Things Are told a story about Max, a disobedient little boy sent to bed without his supper, creates his own world – a forest inhabited by ferocious wild creatures that crown Max as their ruler. The cast includes Paul Dano, Catherine Keener, Mark Ruffalo, Lauren Ambrose and Forest Whitaker as the voice of Wild Things. Oh, I almost forgot, the score is done by Yeah Yeah Yeah’s frontman and also Spike’s former girlfriend, Karen O.

And for the bonus, there’s this spoof of the trailer. It is so funny, trust me, it’s totally worth the two minutes of your life.

One of the memorable scene: Jaws

In love – you have to put the individual ahead of their actions.. always. It’s comprehension of the past – not condemnation – that neutralizes insecurity…

When we are talking about Chasing Amy, it is highly unlikely that we can avoid referring View Askewniverse which also includes five other movies: its predecessors, Clerks and Mallrats, and the successors, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back, and the end of the era, Clerks II. View Askewniverse is the fictional setting that writer/director Kevin Smith created that took place in central New Jersey. The characters Jay and Silent Bob appear in almost all the View Askewniverse media, and characters from one story often reappear or are made reference to in others.

Chasing Amy succeeds commercially and also became an answer for all the harsh critics on the director’s previous work, Mallrats, released in 1995. It is also one of the pioneers in bromantic theme movies that are somehow becoming a plague these days. Chasing Amy told a story of friendship of two comic writers, Holden and Banky. Everything got messed up when Holden fell in love with Alyssa Jones, another comic writers that turned out to be lesbian. The story is loosely based on Kevin Smith’s personal experience with his then girlfriend, the real Alyssa, Joey Lauren Adams (even though Kevin claimed that the conflict is totally different).

Just like any of Kevin Smith’s films, Chasing Amy is still filled with the usual smart snappy Smith-esque dialogue that often took sex, films, and books as the subjects. The Jaws scene, for example (as seen in the picture) depicted sex experience in such an open comfortable discussion, or the intervention scene served as a weird moment that is always in Smith’s movies (we all remember the girl-fucking-a-dead-guy scene from Clerks, right?).

There are so much that I can relate watching Chasing Amy again and I guess it will did to you too. The message that it represents is not judgmental or anything, but simply a notion to consider for couples with insecurity problems regarding their relationships. And oh, the cast, where should I begin? Jason Lee was still an active pro-skater, Ben Affleck was in his early career and Joey Lauren Adams still had that cute voice, before it’s becoming more and more like Jennifer Tilly’s. There are a lot of memorable scenes that I can barely even pick one favourite, and watching them over and over again just brings back reasons why the movie becomes one of my favourite Kevin Smith’s movies (besides Clerks and Clerks II).

And here’s the interview between Lee Stranahan and Kevin Smith talking about Chasing Amy and how Kevin said it could’ve been much better.

The picture is courtesy of Viewaskew

Anne Hathaway as Kym

Jonathan Demme. Probably that’s the only reason for me to watch this movie in the first place, but I was wrong.

Rachel Getting Married is more than justJonathan Demme. Yeah, I know that when you heard his name, you will remember something like The Silence of the Lambs or Philadelphia, but trust me, this movie is really different from his previous works and the person who made the difference is Jenny Lumet. Jenny, – the daughter of an auteur filmmaker, Sidney Lumet – in her first screenplay succeeds to bring sensitive issues in right portion. Rachel Getting Married is not only centered on the relationship between Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt) and his sister (Anne Hathaway). Grief and multiculturalism are also explained beautifully by how each and every characters copes with them.

The wobbly camera technique used along the scenes made it seemed like an amateur wedding video in order to support the feel of the movie and if there’s one guy who knows damn well how to do it, it’s Jonathan Demme. Having background working on a lot of music documentary projects gave him a chance – an easy one, if I must say – to make us wanting so much to be in Rachel’s wedding.

That left us to the superb cast. Anne Hathaway gave her best performance portraying self-centered, drug-addict sister that gave her an Oscar nominee. I also give my kudos to Rosemarie DeWitt that is undoubtedly remarkable on her role and the best effort of the cast even I really expect Tunde Adebimpe (known as the vocalist of TV on the radio) played as Rachel’s fiancée should deserve bigger portion of his role in the movie.

After all, Rachel Getting Married is not flawless. There are many overlong scenes, lack of character explorations and story cohesion but they all are somehow redeemed by great performance of the cast. This movie is definitely deserves a watch.