Wednesday, July 22, 2009

"If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense."

Undeniably, the greatest mind of all time, Albert Einstein, was quoted in saying, "Imagination is more important than knowledge."

Since I was a little girl, Alice was the only Disney (and later when introduced to Lewis Carroll, literary) character I ever felt a deep connection with. She was not like the other girls; not a queen, never a princess, not a damsel in distress, nor a leader of the minions. Alice was different; she was a clever day-dreamer who self-seekingly created her own world, filled with whimsical oddities and curious anomalies, simply to escape the mundane existence of the physical world. Simply, an ordinary girl with an extraordinary imagination. Her eccentric reality gave validation to my own mental departure from all things certain. Alice gave me the freedom to indulge in my own curiosities, and taught me how to explore the unfamiliar, how to question the rational and how to dream the unimaginable.

With yet another remake of this moralistic tale arriving soon, I have no doubt that Tim Burton's version will help to inspire others in visualizing and actualizing their own "nonsensical" realities.

- C.

Watch the teaser-trailer here :

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Thuis. Casa. Accueil. Heim. Domov. Inicio. Home.

If you've never seen the documentary released in 2007 by Sigur Rós, the time has come to right your wrong.

Excerpt from the Heima website :

Heima : An introduction

Last year, in the endless magic hour of the Icelandic summer, Sigur Rós played a series of concerts around their homeland. Combining both the biggest and smallest shows of their career, the entire tour was filmed, and now provides a unique insight into one of the world’s shyest and least understood bands captured live in their natural habitat.

The culmination of more than a year spent promoting their hugely successful ‘Takk…’ album around the world, the Icelandic tour was free to all-comers and went largely unannounced. Playing in deserted fish factories, outsider art follies, far-flung community halls, sylvan fields, darkened caves and the hoofprint of Odin’s horse, Sleipnir*, the band reached an entirely new spectrum of the Icelandic population; young and old, ardent and merely quizzical, entirely by word-of-mouth.

The question of the way Sigur Rós’s music relates to, and is influenced by, their environment has been reduced to a journalistic cliché about glacial majesty and fire and ice, but there is no doubt that the band are inextricably linked to the land in which they were forged. And the decision to film this first-ever Sigur Rós film in Iceland was, in the end, ineluctable.

Shot using a largely Icelandic crew (to minimise Eurovision-style scenic-wonder overload), ‘Heima’ - which means both “at home” and “homeland” - is an attempt to make a film every bit as big, beautiful and unfettered as a Sigur Rós album. As such it was always going to be something of a grand folie, but one, which taking in no fewer than 15 locations around Iceland (including the country’s largest ever concert at the band’s Reykjavik homecoming), is never less than epic in its ambition.

Material from all four of the band’s albums is featured, including many rare and notable moments. Among these are a heart-stopping rendition of the previously unreleased ‘Gitardjamm’, filmed inside a derelict herring oil tank in the far West Fjords; a windblown, one-mic recording of ‘Vaka’, shot at a dam protest camp subsequently drowned by rising water; and first time acoustic versions of such rare live beauties as ‘Staralfur’, ‘Agaetis Byrjun’ and ‘Von’.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Are you with me? Are you with me?

Such great imagery for such great sound. I love you, Super 8 Film, yes I do, yes I do.

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - "Everything With You"





The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - "Young Adult Friction"


Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Los Angeles loved Bob Mitchell.

Thanks to the folks at LA-underground.net for posting this blurb today :



Bob Mitchell, longtime organist at the Silent Movie Theatre, passed away on the 4th of July at the age of 96. Chances are if you've ever been to see one of the many silver screen classics at the Theatre or at various silent film revival nights around town, you've seen Mr. Mitchell on organ or piano accompanying the films. As regular attendees of SMT/Cinefamily and just huge fans of the man who's been a cherished local icon for nearly a century, we will miss him dearly. There will be a short memorial service for Mr. Mitchell at the Silent Movie Theatre on Wednesday prior to the 8pm screening of Greta Garbo's Love.

Los Angeles loved Bob Mitchell.