Sorry Everyone

I really do have a funny post in the works, but life has decided that this is not the week for me to be funny. I got some bad news today that has me pretty shaken and upset. Not gonna share it to the world, just letting you know that I am slacking off but there's at least a reason for it.

To make up for my not posting anything good I give you this:

Almost Always All Yours

I have a fun post in the works, one that revolves almost entirely around dick jokes, but I have to throw this one up first.

As usual Heather from Fuel Friends blog beat me to this one, but she recently put up a song from the band Widower's new album Fool Moon. I'm obsessed with this song. It's been on repeat on my computer for nearly an hour, and when it ends, I will start it up again. I can't help it. There's this lingering sadness in this song that floods in like a tidal wave and sweeps you up in this confession. "I was almost always all yours" It's a brutal sort of honesty. There's something that he's holding back, maybe not always the same thing, and maybe not all the time. That feeling of being so close but having a wall up that you're just not willing to take down. Oof. These guys are killing me. Plus, check out the 'stache on this guy.

I know, I know, more mostly acoustic slow music. I will post about some upbeat rocker type tunes soon. I'm still crawling out of my winter catalogue which is mostly dark slow music that fits my deep set desire to hibernate three months away even though I no longer live in a cold enough place to justify it. I'm slowly transitioning into the upbeat jangling spring timey stuff. Give me a few more hits on the snooze button. 

...But I Want the Soundtrack

Here's the thing, living in LA means constant exposure to Hollywood and all the bullshit that goes along with it. Everyday I get assaulted with billboards and commercials for movies and tv that I will never watch and will make tasteless and often offensive jokes about (I'm looking at you Ryan Murphy). But the one thing that I cannot deny, is that there seems to be an inverse relationship for me with movies I like and soundtracks I love. I collect music the way meth heads collect shiny objects; I see something I like and I have to own it even if I put it down a few seconds later and forget I ever had it. I go through my itunes sometimes and honestly wonder when I bought certain songs. Most of the songs in question, it turns out, come from TV shows and movies that I didn't like very well.

I have a theory that well placed music can save a bad scene but not a bad project. So when a movie starts to go south for me, I start either picking apart the sound editing or I pay really close attention to the music. My sisters do the same thing with directing and acting. Don't judge, some people juggle geese.

I bring up all of this to talk about a movie that very few people saw, because ten seconds into the preview it was clear that it was a stupid film. I'm talking about Country Strong.

Nothing says Country like a girl raised in Beverly Hills. Right?

I have been film stalking Garrett Hedlund this week and I got to this one and just couldn't bring myself to watch it. I can make excuses and say that Tim McGraw ran over my puppy or that I'm allergic to Gwyneth Paltrow (One of these is true) but mostly I just can't stand fictionalized versions of the music industry. Also it's been trashed by everyone with eyes who saw it. And some blind. So without actually subjecting myself to potentially fatal doses of Paltrow, my only option was to look up the soundtrack. Seemed decent enough, I don't have to listen to Gwenny or that repugnant thing from Gossip Girl, but I still got to claim to have ingested a part of the movie.

I'm not even sure she's human. 

Those who know me know that I grew up on country music. Especially in the summer, I love to drive with the windows down, blaring Garth Brooks like the Damn hick I am. The soundtrack to this movie is good country. It seems counter intuitive to me to cast Tim McGraw in a film about country music and not let him handle most of the soundtrack but I'll be damned if I just didn't care by the end of it. I don't know who got the songs together for the movie but bravo. 

Discounting the Gwyneth songs (I have a note from my doctor, I couldn't listen to them), there are some great tracks. One almost wonders what dark deals went down in Nashville to get Hank Williams Jr. and Sarah Evans to contribute. Then you remember that Tim and his sheet clad wife pretty much run the damn scene. Anyone else have a favorite soundtrack from a bad movie? Just throwing these out there, but I own the soundtracks to A Knights Tale and two separate Resident Evil movies. 

Crime Movie Suggestion Number 2

The Hungry Home Intruder (Alternate title: Chef Boyar-Deal Breaker)

The Crime: At the end of last October a 38 year old man Named Michael Don Mitchell broke into a house in Texas and stole $87. I'm totally with the story this far. Who hasn't engaged in some light breaking and entering? I mean since this blog is public I sure haven't but I can sympathize. This part is where the story gets interesting though. While on his little spree around the house to collect coins from sofa cushions, MDM made a quick swing by the pantry and ate a can of Chef Boyardee ravioli and then left the can on the counter. Which lead to his arrest when the police found him skulking around the area with his face still covered in tomato sauce. Seriously, I want to be in the court room staring at the judges face when that bit of evidence comes out in trial. Because after four years of college, three years of law school and god only knows how many years as a lawyer before being appointed to the bench, someone is going to have to watch this guy explain why he couldn't be bothered to wipe his mouth after committing a felony. Although the dissappointment and dispair is gonna have to fight its way to the suface through a look of pure terror because MDM looks like this

The guy would make Michael Meyers pause and think "Maybe I should look on the next block over for a puppy to kill. Dark people live here."

The Movie: Obviously an intent character study on the mind of a hungry criminal. Like the movie Jared Leto made a few years ago but waaaaaaay less boring

The Cast: No brainer. Someone call Nick Cage. I have his next film. Southern accent: check. Intense and somewhat scary stare: check. Love of Italian food: double check. Mr. Cage, your oscar awaits. 

Pretty sure my cat is making a pact with the devil

Or she talking to squirrels. I can't be sure. For the last thirty minutes I've been sitting in my living room covertly trying to determine who my cat is talking to. Make no mistake. She's not meowing for attention or anything like that. She is making very distinct verbalizations as she stares out the window. I tried to very sly-wise sidle up beside her and she jumped down and stared at the floor until I left. I wish I were joking.

The thing is, there are really two possibilities here. Either she is actually evil and talking to ghosts or demons or something, or she knows I'm paranoid enough to believe this is what she's doing and this is all a plot to drive me crazy. If there was ever a cat that was going to concoct an elaborate plot to drive its owner insane, it'd be Roxy. I thought I was probably just a little sleep deprived, but I went into the other room and she followed me, went up to that window and continued her chanting. I'm onto you cat.

Then again, maybe I deserve it for that Christmas card...

I Would Go See That Movie

Folks, it's January. In Los Angeles that means that anything worth seeing in the movie theater has already been out for at least a month and the new films coming out are the bullshit that the studios knew they wouldn't make money on if they released them over the holidays or during the summer rush *cough*Parker*cough*. So for the next two months those of us who work at theaters will pull out decks of cards and talk endlessly about our Oscar predictions until the ceremony happens and we can go back to talking about how disappointing the Oscars were again. In the meantime I'd like to propose a series of crime dramas based on actual crimes that happened in the last year. I'm throwing in casting suggestions because I'm just that generous.

The Great Maple Syrup Heist (Alternate title: Black Market Pancakes)

The crime: In August of last year the Canadian government discovered that a warehouse they were using to store much of the maple syrup reserve for the country had been robbed. Take a minute to reread that sentence so it sinks in. According to an official from the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers (I'm putting that on my business card) the drums holding the syrup were last checked about a year before, but someone had come in somewhere over the course of the last 12 months and bypassed the secure and fortified... chain link fence around the compound and drained the barrels. The stolen tree sap is estimated to be worth 30 million dollars.

Makes you proud to be a Canadian, eh?

The movie: Obviously what would be the most interesting about this film is the wacky cast of characters who come up with the plan to steal maple syrup and sell it on the Canadian black market. Which takes daring and guts since much like Colombian cocaine, pure maple syrup is available at most grocery stores and diners across the continent... 

The Cast: Pretty sure you're not gonna get the star power of The Italian Job or Oceans Eleven. But Bruce Willis seems fairly desperate for movie roles that cast him as a wacky badass, so have him head the team and throw in J-Lo and Taylor Kitsch who is in desperate need of a career bump. It'll be snarky magic. 

I'll have a new movie up every few days. Check back in later

The Monster Killed the Melody

If you haven't listened to Ben Howard yet, go look him up. Seriously. I'll wait. 

...

We on the same page? Good. 

Ben Howard is a surfer and self taught musician from Cornwall England. He's got a goofy accent and hair that is so salt burned that it sticks straight out from his head, and music that knocks the wind out of me.  

He also has a new 4 song EP out (Shameless plug)

The opening song, Esmerelda, dances in on a discordant guitar and from the first lyrics "Blinded, now I see I could not hold you" Ben's got me going. The mismatch of the frantic guitar and his long staggering lyrical phrases keeps you on edge as the song builds. It's a beautiful intro to an EP that seems to be in the wake of a hurricane, or at least a bad relationship. "I failed to be the light you found in love"

Oats in the Water follows but the tone doesn't get much lighter as he describes the break up like a storm. 

"You'll find loss

You'll fear what you found

When the weather comes down"

The electric guitar tones over the song, cutting through the cymbals in deep painful bursts. It's not an easy song to listen to but the release is well worth the emotional build up.

If Oats was the storm, the To Be Alone is the aftermath. Airy and haunting, the song takes nearly 2 minutes to really get going. That kind of build up tends to bug the Hell out of me but listening to it in sequence the slow start feels earned. 

The title track comes in last. It's by far the lightest song but that's not to say it's a happy one. Even the opening guitar comes off as resigned. The whole song vibrates with a painful disappointment. Ben has a powerful ability to translate subtle emotions into his vocal performance. Monica Heldal (this is the first I'm hearing of her but if she's in the Communion family it won't be the last) sings a beautiful bridge, and almost makes me forgive the two minutes of weird ambient sounds the Ben tacked on to the end of a track. Bad Ben. Don't do weird shit like that. It sounds pretentious. 

Oh never mind. I can't stay mad. Look at his hair.

It's like it's trying to escape from his head. Bless