Movie of the Week

This week,

WHEN HARRY MET SALLY... (1989)

Starring- Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Carrie Fisher, Bruno Kirby

I would call this one of, if not the, definitive New Year's Eve movie. Most of the action takes place in other times of the year, but the critical part, the ending, takes place as the ball drops. Not only is this film a great vehicle for its two stars, it also made the romantic comedy a genre unto itself. Crystal and Ryan are a fabulous tandem that perfectly balance neurotic tendencies with funny quirks as they develop a friendship that ultimately turns into true love.

Directed by Rob Reiner and written by Nora Ephron, this film has the perfect blend of behind the camera and onscreen talent. I can only see the lines being said by Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan because it feels as if the roles were tailor-made for them by two people who actually lived lives that paralleled the characters. Beginning with Harry and Sally's meeting at the end of college, we are taken on an eleven year journey that sees their relationship evolve as they progress and mature. It is great to see how people can change over time and still maintain who they are at their core. Harry is forever the pessimist, seeing the dark side and never really giving himself over to love, while Sally is the upbeat optimist who works hard to see the bright side of things. I have always marveled at how these two characters slowly come together and meet in the middle by the end of the film, having been through so much together.

The heart of When Harry Met Sally is undeniable, but it is the persistent comedy that makes it a special movie. Never before, or since, for that matter, has a film so brilliantly captured the humor of dating, sex, men and women, and the differences between them. I have applied much of this film to my own marriage, which started as a friendship. So much so that I have used lines from it in my daily life. In fact, here are some of the maxims which I have learned from When Harry Met Sally.

-Men and Women can't be friends because men always want to have sex with their female friends
-Women fake orgasms
-Men can't tell when they fake them
-Sex complicates things
-The little things are what you come to love most about a person

There you have it. If you need more clarification, pop in this movie and see the many sides, moods and jokes of friendship and love.

Things to watch for-

Mr. Zero
Surrey with the Fringe on Top
The Wagon Wheel Coffee Table
Baby Fish Mouth
Days of the Week Underpants
Pecan Pie

"Someone is staring at you in 'personal growth.'"

We Hardly Knew Ye 2010

Here is a list of some of the people we lost in the last year. Think of it as my version of the Oscars' "In Memoriam" video montage.

LESLIE NIELSEN (Actor- The Naked Gun movies, Airplane!)

RONNIE JAMES DIO (Badass rock star)

GARY COLEMAN (Child Star, Utah Resident)

TONY CURTIS (Actor- Some Like It Hot, Spartacus)

BARBARA BILLINGSLEY (Actress- Leave it to Beaver)

BLAKE EDWARDS (Director/Writer- The Pink Panther movies, Victor/Victoria)

TOM BOSLEY (Actor- Happy Days)

RUE MCCLANAHAN (Actress- The Golden Girls)

GEORGE STEINBRENNER (Owner, New York Yankees, The Boss)

PETER GRAVES (Actor- Mission: Impossible, Airplane!)

MANUTE BOL (Basketball Player, Activist)

DENNIS HOPPER (Actor- Speed, Easy Rider, Apocalypse Now)

Farewell.

Grandaddy- Taster 7" Single (1995)- Vinyl Rip (FLAC)

More Grandaddy...




Nebraska

Technical Information:

Artist: Grandaddy
Album: Taster 7" Single
Year: 1995

Audio Codec(s): FLAC
Encoding: Lossless
Rip: Vinyl Rip
Avg. bitrate: 975 Kbps
Sample rate: 44100 Hz
Bits per sample: 16
Channels: 2
File size: 53.4 MB
Length: 00:07:40


Tracklisting:

01. Taster (4:09)
02. Nebraska (3:31)

Special thanks to Pherron for his archiving and discography skillz!



Taster Megaupload Link

Grandaddy- Could This Be Love 7" Single (1994)- Vinyl Rip (FLAC)

This is the beginning of an ongoing Grandaddy archiving project in conjunction with my buddie Pherron. We'll be posting every Grandaddy single and E.P. until there's none left to post. Then it will be over. Mazel Tov!




Could This Be Love

Technical Information:

Artist: Grandaddy
Album: Could This Be Love 7" Single
Year: 1994

Audio Codec(s): FLAC
Encoding: Lossless
Rip: Vinyl Rip- Split Tracks
Avg. bitrate: 867 Kbps
Sample rate: 44100 Hz
Bits per sample: 16
Channels: 2
File size: 54.3 MB
Length: 00:08:46


Tracklisting:

01. Could This Be Love/ Flairless (4:07)
02. Kim, You Bore Me To Death (4:39)

Special thanks to Pherron for his archiving and discography skillz!



Could This Be Love Megaupload Link

Poison Idea- Feel the Darkness (1990)- EAC CD Rip (FLAC)

We aren't just strictly hardcore during Jesus Week.




From Craigslist:

Guitarist wanted for new punk band. Age/race/sex not important. (Well, I suppose those things ARE important, but we don't care if you are a gay Russian pre-op transsexual or whatever, as long as you can play).

What we need from you is to show up and buy us beer when we rehearse. Oh, and the ability to play some power chords at ear-piercing volumes. We don't care how old you are, what your political affiliations may be, or if you like to wear your mom's underwear. (Well, actually, the drummer might like it if you do that last one). You must have a guitar and an amp. The amp doesn't need to be a Mesa Triple Rectifier with 2 4x12 cabs, but something big enough to be heard while playing with a heavy-pounding drummer.

We aim to sound like a cross between Poison Idea, Turbonegro and Anal Cunt. We rehearse once a week, more if our schedules allow. We don't have a set day yet, though this could change once we get the ball rolling. We plan on just playing locally for now, until we get a solid set of originals together, and then we'll record (the singer/guitarist owns a recording studio), get our name out there a bit and then probably start doing weekend mini-tours around the midwest. We have contacts for shows nationwide, as well as a few labels already interested in our potential.



Technical Information:

Artist: Poison Idea
Album: Feel the Darkness
Year: 1990

Audio Codec(s): FLAC
Encoding: Lossless
Rip: EAC Split Tracks
Avg. bitrate: 922 Kbps
Sample rate: 44100 Hz
Bits per sample: 16
Channels: 2
File size: 261 MB
Length: OO:39:37


Tracklisting:

01. Plastic Bombs
02. Deep Sleep
03. The Badge
04. Just to Get Away
05. Gone for Good
06. Death of an Idiot Blues
07. Taken by Surprise
08. Alan's on Fire
09. Welcome to Krell
10. Nation of Finks
11. Black Stab Gospel
12. Painkiller
13. Feel the Darkness
14. Discontent




Feel The Darkness Megaupload Link

The House of Love- 1986-88: The Creation Recordings (2001)- CD Rip (FLAC)

After practically slitting my wrist while listening to Deerhunter, it got me wanting for some Creation-era The House of Love. So here it is...




House of Love- Real Animal

From Andy Kellman at AMG:

Guitar pop - British or otherwise - was nearing wasteland status when the House of Love debuted with "Shine On" in the spring of 1987. The Smiths and Hüsker Dü were months away from their respective breakups, Echo & the Bunnymen were about to issue their less-than-great self-titled album, and the Go-Betweens were flirting with yuppiedom. Aside from the short-lived, often-gutless C-86 scene and the then brilliant Jesus & Mary Chain, the House of Love really didn't have that much competition. It's almost as if the bands that influenced them subconsciously faded to give them the much-deserved spotlight.

Now that over a decade has passed since the release of the material collected here - everything they released on Creation, meaning 1988's self-titled debut and four singles racked with lithe greatness - those who claimed the band's popularity had to do with their existence during a dry era can finally be silenced. Why, you ask? Because most everything here smacks violently of timelessness.




"Christine," the penultimate combination of gorgeously spectral pop and noise, still sounds every bit spectacular, as if the eras of acid house, shoegaze, grunge, Brit-pop, post-rock, etc., Have done nothing to erode its effect . That song alone should be as well-known as "Light My Fire" or, at the very least, "How Soon Is Now." Without a doubt, time has been extremely good to this era of the band, who, after 1988, was on the brink of leaving Creation for Fontana following a legendary bidding war.

While Chadwick's boastfulness didn't help things, his band wasn't the group of underachievers many would like to say they were. Not a bit. If they were in fact underachievers, it was because not enough people bought their records when they were first released. Behold, for here is your penance.




Technical Information:

Artist: The House of Love
Album: 1986-88: The Creation Recordings
Year: 2001

Audio Codec(s): FLAC
Encoding: lossless
Rip: Split Tracks
Avg. bitrate: 910 Kbps
Sample rate: 44100 Hz
Bits per sample: 16
Channels: 2
File size: 461 MB
Length: 1:10:54


Tracklisting:

01. Christine (3:26)
02. Hope (2:57)
03. Road (3:45)
04. Sulphur (3:06)
05. Man to Child (2:50)
06. Salome (2:30)
07. Love in a Car (4:00)
08. Happy (2:54)
09. Fisherman's Tale (3:45)
10. Touch Me (3:03)
11. Shine On 3:20)
12. Plastic (2:05)
13. Love (2:25)
14. Real Animal (3:00)
15. The Hedonist (4:04)
16. Flow (2:37)
17. Nothing to Me (3:11)
18. Welt (3:20)
19. On the Hill (2:54)
20. Loneliness Is a Gun (2:27)
21. Destoy the Heart (2:43)
22. Blind (2:38)
23. Mr. Jo (3:55)





The House of Love Megaupload Links

2010 In Review

2010 was a year that saw some big things happen for yours truly, let's review shall we?

I met film director, and my birthday buddy, Spike Lee.

I had the privilege of working as an intern at KUER for RadioWest with Doug Fabrizio. It was truly an enlightening experience and I learned a great deal from everyone at KUER, especially RadioWest's producer, Elaine Clark. (P.S. That's how I got to meet Spike Lee)

My wife surprised me with tickets to see one of my all-time idols- Paul McCartney. He was in The Beatles.

We took a trip to Napa Valley with friends. It was a great trip and I learned a lot of wine factoids. For example, did you know that wine is made from grapes?

After almost a year of not having full-time employment, I got a job. A real big boy job.

I ate a really good dill pickle.

The dog and I built a fort.

I taught little kid P.E. for a brief period in the Spring. I discovered that my skills at corralling first graders still need developing.

We took our annual trip to the Utah State Fair. I ate a bunch of fried stuff on a stick and rode the Tilt-A-Whirl.

Mary Anne and I celebrated our fourth anniversary.

That about does it. Let's hope that 2011 has as much awesomeness in it as 2010 did.

Jesus Week: Peter Geyer- Klaus Kinski: Jesus Christus Erlöser/ Jesus Christ Savior (2008)- DVD9 (PAL Format)

Sorry, but I just had to end Jesus Week with this post. Jesus Christ Saviour could quite possibly be one of the strangest visual experiences I've had the (dis?)pleasure of seeing. Who's to say if Kinski planned this event to self-destruct in the way it did...but it did. It self-destructed in a fashion that Brecht would have been proud of: the actor and audience became fully (dis?)engaged.

In my humble opinion, this is a "must have" DVD, but you might not want to show it at parties. Well, unless you're one of those Berliners with really modern furniture. A word of caution: check out clips of this on youtube before you make the commitment. I don't need any "why IN THE HELL did you post this crap?!?..." letters and telegrams. My life's tough enough as it is.

Goodbye Jesus Week. I'll miss you.

xo,
leclisse




From an interview with director Peter Geyer by Pamela Jahn at Electric Sheep Magazine:

Pamela Jahn: Your film documents Kinski’s attempt to engage an audience of thousands with a recitation of over 30 typewritten pages reclaiming the story of Jesus. What made Kinski do that?

Peter Geyer: Back in 1961, Kinski announced in an interview in Der Spiegel (the largest German weekly magazine at that time), that he would put the New Testament on stage. Most people probably don’t know that Kinski started as an actor by doing recitations on stage in the late 1950s with verses and ballads by Villon, Rimbaud etc – So, basically, Kinski spoke himself to fame. During 1959-62 he performed and released 32 audio-books. The event was long planned, but soon after he had achieved the cover story in Der Spiegel he moved on to film where financial prospects were better.

PJ: But he obviously cherished the idea. Was he to a certain degree obsessed with Jesus?

PG: I am not sure if the obsession increased with the years, but whatever he did, he was always totally passionate and fanatical about it. For example, if you watch Aguirre you get the feeling that he was exceptionally obsessed with that role, but the truth is that he actually didn’t want to shoot Aguirre in the first place. Initially, he came back to Germany to go on tour with Jesus Christ. But after what happened in Berlin, the tour got cancelled, and Kinski needed a new job. He was more obsessed with money than with anything else.




PJ: So, it was all about money…

PG: Of course. Kinski sold his soul for money, which explains why his film career is so lousy. By the end of the 1960s, the Italian film industry was in deep financial crisis, and Kinski – who starred in a vast number of those low-budget Spaghetti Westerns – got in trouble because of that, too. His very clever strategy to receive incredibly high fees for only very few days of actual shooting wouldn’t work any longer. Plus, the producers had had enough of Mr Kinski’s extravagances. Right then he got this very attractive offer from a famous German concert impresario: For the enormous fee of one million Deutschmarks, Kinski would perform in 100 venues all over the world, reciting his version of the New Testament live on stage. The initial plan was to start the tour in Germany and then take it to Europe and America. So, Berlin was meant to be only the beginning of a word tour that never happened.

PJ: Kinski didn’t even get a chance to start his monologue properly, almost immediately people start interrupting him, and it seems that the audience was out for blood from the beginning… Why would they pay for someone they didn’t want to see?

PG: It’s true that the atmosphere was very tense from the beginning. Many people came to provoke Kinski, but I wouldn’t necessarily say that all of them were just thirsting for confrontation. I think it was only a small number of real hecklers, which makes it even worse, because the rest of the audience didn’t manage to kick out the few assholes and get to see the show. None of them dared raise their voice against the few Kinski opponents in the auditorium and after a while the aggressive tone took over the entire hall. Of course, Kinski misbehaved too, and so it all ended in great chaos.




PJ: Didn’t he enjoy provoking people?

PG: If you look closely at his performance in the film, you see that Kinski never deliberately provoked an argument. He didn’t seek confrontation, but he also couldn’t take any form of criticism. He was too insecure for that. So in order to be able to cope with it and avoid getting hurt, he trained himself to be quick at repartee. But all the shouting and screaming on top of that just scared people, they didn’t know how to deal with him.

PJ: What sort of reputation preceded Kinski in Germany at that time?

PG: It was something of an open secret that Kinski lived in luxury in his villa in Italy. He was a rich international film star. But I don’t think that his flamboyant life style or his eccentric, egomaniac persona was the problem. In many ways, Kinski often was ahead of his time, in his work but also because he was the first person who used tabloids for his own purposes. In 1971, however, he simply looked like a self-proclaimed believer, an epigone.

PJ: Your film is simply a raw and meticulous reconstruction of the infamous event. Why did you decide to offer no further comments or explanation?

PG: My intention was to make his work accessible, and to be truthful about Kinski. The most interesting thing is to just see him performing life on stage, there’s no need for further explanation or attempted whitewashing. I am used to facing the aggression of Kinski fans because they hate me for clarifying lies that he made up in his book (All I Need Is Love). But it’s not my intention to turn Kinski into a super-human or create a new legend.




PJ: Did you ever search for any of the people who attended that evening?

PG: No, never. Having said that, I actually never had to look for them, they came to me. I’ve met a lot of people who said that they were in the audience that night. But whenever it comes to Kinski, it seems that people’s memories become very vague. I call this the Werner Herzog syndrome, which is that, whenever it is about Kinski, you have to come up with a great story simply to make Kinski larger than life. People who say they encountered Kinksi but who were actually not really close to him, always try to turn his pretty boring private life into something bigger, more exciting. I’ve got the recorded material anyway, material that is not manipulated, so why should I ask someone else?

PJ: How do you think people look at the material today?

PG: It depends on the generation. When I took over Kinski’s estate, Kinski was ‘dead’; the time for people like him is over. Today, the younger generation understands that he was actually the last non-conformist figure in the German entertainment industry. Someone who really said, ‘No – I am against your system’, but who didn’t hurt anyone. Which makes him an ideal badge to wear for people trying to be different – it’s the same with Kinski as it is with Che Guevara.

PJ: Did Kinski ever think about making a film out of the footage himself?

PG: No. His third wife, Monhoi, told me that she had asked him once about the footage and why he didn’t want to edit it and show it again. Kinski answered, ‘They would only nail me to the cross again. You can do that when I am dead, but as long as I am alive, they would think that I am a bad loser.’




Technical Information:


Title: Klaus Kinski: Jesus Christus Erlöser/Jesus Christ Savior
Year: 2009
Country: Germany
Director: Peter Geyer

Source: Retail DVD5
DVD Format: PAL
DVD Size: DVD5
Container: VIDEO_TS
Size: 4.11 GB
Length: 1:24:00

Resolution: 720X576
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1, 4:3
Video: MPEG2 @ 6280 kb/s
Frame Rate: 25 fps

Audio: Dolby Digital German @ 192 kb/s
Subtitles: English, Spanish, Portugese, Polish, Italian

Menu: Yes
Video: Untouched
DVD Extras: Out-takes and trailers




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Jesus Christ Savior Megaupload Links

Yoko Ono- Approximately Infinite Universe (1972)- EAC CD Rip (FLAC)

I'll say one thing about Yoko Ono. She can write some of the most personal lyrics this side of Elliott Smith. Everything she writes is so honest and straight-forward- painfully honest at times. Gimmee a sec. Check out these lyrics:

Age 39, looking over from my hotel window,
Blue dots and red dots skating away in the park.
I used to be there twenty years ago,
Huffing over a mug hot chocolate drink.

Age 39, looking over from my hotel window,
Wondering if one should jump off or go to sleep.
People tell you up is better than down,
But they never tell you which is up and which is down.

Age 39, looking over from my hotel window,
95 pound bundle but it's trouble when there's nowhere to leave.
People say stardust and golddust are it,
But they never tell you it chokes you just as sawdust does.

Age 39, feeling pretty suicidal,
The weight gets heavier when you've bled thirty years.
Show me your blood, john, and i'll show you mine,
They say it's running even when you're asleep.

No trace of resentment, no trace of regrets,
One blood's thinner but both look red and fresh.
If i ever die, please go to my daughter
And tell her that she used to haunt me in my dreams.
(that's saying a lot for a neurotic like me.)

Age 39, looking over from my hotel window,
Trying to tackle away with heart of clay.
The weight gets lighter when there's nowhere to turn,
God's little dandruff floating in the air.

Age 39, looking over the world,
Age 39, floating over the world,
Age 39,...mm-mm...floating along.

Damnnnnnnnnnn. Crazy good. My only complaint with this album is that Yoko was attempting to go mainstream musically, but still had the crazy lyrics, which makes for a strange mix. Crazy music would have been a better choice. Other than that- it's all good.




Technical Information:

Artist: Yoko Ono
Album: Approximateley Infinite Universe
Year: 1972

Audio Codec(s): FLAC
Encoding: Lossless
Rip: EAC Split-Tracks-log+.cue
Avg. bitrate: 811 kbps
Sample rate: 44100 Hz
Bits per sample: 16
Channels: 2
File size: 538 MB
Length: 1:32:44


Yoko Ono- Yang Yang Yoko Ono- Move on Fast

Personnel:

Yoko Ono: vocals, piano ("Looking Over From My Hotel Window", "She Gets Down on Her Knees")
Stan Bronstein: saxophone, flute, clarinet
Richard Frank, Jr.: drums, percussion
Daria Prince: castanet
Gary Van Scyoc: bass, trumpet
Adam Ippolito: piano, organ, harmonuim, trumpet
Wayne Gabriel: guitar
Joel Nohnn (John Lennon): guitar, background vocals

All songs composed by Yoko Ono
Produced by Yoko Ono and John Lennon
Arrangement: Yoko Ono
String orchestration: Ron Frangipane




Tracklisting:

Disc One:

01. Yang Yang (3:50)
02. Death of Samantha (6:22)
03. I Want My Love To Rest Tonight (5:11)
04. What Did I Do! (4:12)
05. Have You Seen A Horizon Lately (1:57)
06. Approximately Infinite Universe (3:21)
07. Peter The Dealer (4:46)
08. Song for John (2:06)
09. Catman (The Rosies Are Coming) (5:34)
10. What a Bastard The World Is (4:35)
11. Waiting for the Sunrise (2:33)

Disc Two:

01. I Felt Like Smashing My Face In A Clear Glass Window (4:09)
02. Winter Song (3:39)
03. Kite Song (3:18)
04. What a Mess (2:41)
05. Shiranakatta (I Didn't Know) (3:11)
06. Air Talk (3:22)
07. I Have a Woman Inside My Soul (5:33)
08. Move on Fast (3:43)
09. Now or Never (5:49)
10. Is Winter Here To Stay? (4:22)
11. Looking Over From My Hotel Window (3:36)
12. Dogtown (acoustic demo) (bonus track) (2:51)
13. She Gets Down on Her Knees (bonus track) (2:45)





AIU Megaupload Link

Ilyas Ahmed- Between Two Skies (2005)- CD Rip (192 mp3)

It's amazing what great music is out there, if only one looks. I couldn't find Ilyas Ahmed's album in lossless...but I had to post it anyway! If you love excellent guitar work with a middle-eastern meditational feel, then you might enjoy this album. I'm not trying to sound like a scene out of The Player, but "Think of Sun Kil Moon by way of Muzlimgauze...", and that describes Ilyas Ahmed very poorly. And if anyone out there has a lossless upgrade to this, by all means, send it my way. Enjoy!




Ilyas Ahmed- Night Song

Technical Information:

Artist: Ilyas Ahmed
Album: Between Two Skies
Year: 2005

Audio Codec(s): MP3
Encoding: Lossy
Rip: Split Tracks
Avg. bitrate: 192 kb/s
Sample rate: 44100 Hz
Bits per sample: CBR
Channels: 2
File size: 66.2 MB
Length: 00:48:15


Tracklisting:

01. Black Midas (5:15)
02. As Those Above (5:59)
03. Night Song (5:28)
04. To You- Silent High (16:15)
05. Amajan (5:16)
06. This Dust (4:49)
07. Samanjah (5:13)





Between Two Skies Megaupload Links

Jesus Week: Spencer Williams- The Blood of Jesus (1940)- DVD5 (NTSC Format)

Well...
Jesus Week is slowly winding down, and all is well, other than listening to too much Yoko Ono...sober. If anyone trys to tell you that pure organic Darjeeling tea is in any way equal to the narcotic properties of Jacob Marley Barley wine (which, in actuality, is beer), they're fucking lying to you. But, as usual, I'm straying from the post. Here's some really cool depression-era cinema from Spencer Williams (of Amos "N" Andy fame). I thought it would fit in well with Jesus Week, because it's from a Missionary Black Baptist perspective, where fire and brimstone can be extremely entertaining. Enjoy!




From qualityinformationpublishers.com:

A landmark in African American independent filmmaking, The Blood of Jesus is a moralistic fantasy adventure through the afterlife. This was the first feature length foray by director Spencer Williams, who utilized an all black cast and a shoestring budget. The result is a look into the life and faith of African Americans in the forties. A pious woman is accidentally shot by her husband, and proceeds to a place in between Heaven and Hell. There she is tempted by the devil to lead a sinful life. She goes from a nightclub to a roadhouse, witness easy money and debauchery. Through these energized scenes, Williams abilities as a director shine through the meager means available to make the film. A struggle for righteousness and goodness, The Blood of Jesus is a historically crucial look at African American culture and art during the great depression.




The financial backer of Spencer Williams' The Blood of Jesus claimed it was "possibly the most successful" and "lived the longest" of all the movies of its period created by black filmmakers for black audiences. Williams wrote, produced and directed this religious drama. He also stars in the leading role of Razz, a ne'er-do-well who accidentally shoots his wife, causing her to hover in limbo between life and death, heaven and hell. The struggle for a woman's soul is underscored by ethereal gospel songs alternated with "down-and-dirty" blues numbers.

In his book Black Film as Genre, Thomas Cripps wrote that the film "provided a brief anatomy of Southern Baptist folk theology by presenting Christian myth in literal termsÉ From its opening voiceover, the film became an advocate for the most enduring traditions of Afro-American family life on Southern ground."




Technical Information:

Title: The Blood of Jesus/ Lying Lips
Year: 1941/ 1938
Country: USA
Director(s): Spencer Williams/Oscar Micheaux

Source: DVD5 Retail
DVD Format: NTSC
Container: VIDEO_TS
Size: 3.82 GB
Length: 00:56:35/ 1:07:05
Programs used: Unknown

Resolution: 720x480
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Video: MPGE2 @ ~4300 kbs
Frame Rate: 29.97

Audio: English- Dolby AC3 @384 kbs
Subtitles: None

Menu: Yes
Video: Untouched
DVD Extras: Oscar Micheaux- Lying Lips (1938)/ Coming Attractions




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The Blood of Jesus Megaupload Links

Monolake- Atlas/Titan (2009) and Atlas- T++ Remixes (2009)- Vinyl Rip (16 bit FLAC)

I'm trying to expand my horizons musically, so I've been downloading stuff from blogs, and though most of the music bores the heck out of me, I always seem to run into some gems. Some people over at welikeitlossless were talking about Monolake, so I found some, and I was quite impressed with this Robert Henke fellow. Thought you might like him too. Or not.




Monolake- Titan

From Max Bacharach at residentadvisor.net:

So excited was I by the almost magical appearance of this release—Robert Henke's first under the Monolake alias since mid-2006—that I accidentally bought it twice. Which, quite frankly, is all gravy, because it's nothing short of breathtaking. Coming at a time when talk of dubstep x techno inspires as much antipathy as it does excitement, it's a much-needed breath of fresh air, drawing on both genres' strengths but ultimately landing up—like so much of Henke's best material—in a world all of its own.

A-side "Atlas" melds devastating wads of bass to Resident Evil-esque panic strings and spine-tingling percussion the likes of which Henke is so skilled at dealing in. A meandering woodwind lead—unusually earthly by Monolake's standards—takes centre stage, howling and screeching as it plays off against the track's more heads-down elements, never quite settling and, as such, lending the whole thing a gripping, cinematic sense of tension. Skipping along at a healthy 140 BPM, "Atlas" will mix comfortably with your average Hotfulsh or Hessle ditty, but to call it dubstep (or whatever else) would be silly. It's simply dark, heart-stopping club music.

B-side "Titan" deepens the already palpable lost-in-space ambience, sticking with the garage-friendly tempo but adopting a straighter, kick-driven posture. Bleak, dubby chord stabs are the order of the day, lashing against the track's skittering beat pattern—a kind of jittery, alien UK funky shuffle—and opening out majestically at the halfway mark as things slide into deeper, melodically sumptuous territory. An epic piece of sound design, it's up there with the best of Monolake's considerable output, and evidence (impossible as it might seem) that this project—now over ten years old—just gets better with age.




Atlas/Titan Technical Information:

Artist: Monolake
Album: Atlas/Titan
Year: 2009

Audio Codec(s): FLAC
Encoding: Lossless
Rip: Vinyl Rip- auCDtect
Avg. bitrate: 798 kbps
Sample rate: 44100 Hz
Bits per sample: 16
Channels: 2
File size: 84.3 MB
Length: 00:14:46


Personnel:

Robert Henke


Tracklisting:

01. Atlas (7:38)
02. Titan (7:08)


Atlas/Titan Megaupload Link




Atlas T++ Remixes Technical Information:

Artist: Monolake
Album: Atlas T++ Remix
Year: 2009

Audio Codec(s): FLAC
Encoding: Lossless
Rip: Vinyl Rip- auCDtect
Avg. bitrate: 1009 kbps
Sample rate: 44100 Hz
Bits per sample: 16
Channels: 2
File size: 119 MB
Length: 00:16:32


Personnel:

Robert Henke
Torsten Pröfrock


Tracklisting:

01. Atlas (T++ Remix) (8:59)
02. Atlas (T++ Remix)- Test #10 (7:33)


Atlas T++ Remixes Megaupload Link

Jesus Week: Alison Maclean- Jesus' Son (1999)- DVD5 (PAL Format)

First: This film is AMAZING!!!
Second: Was it just me, or did any of you people think that Billy Cruddup was going to be the next "great actor" after viewing this damn-near-perfect late nineties independent film?

Excuse me? You've never seen Jesus' Son? Hmmmmm...you really need to fix that. Everything about this film works. Cruddup and Samantha Morton have a wonderful chemistry. Even Jack Black can't fuck Jesus' Son up, and that in itself is a testament (<---- another Jesus Week tie-in) to the directorial prowess of Alison Maclean. Also, this is IMPOSSIBLE to find on the Interweb in DVD; but for Jesus Week I am pulling no punches. So don't go turning the other cheek on me, or you will be hit square on the jaw by my posts. Enjoy this wonderful film!




From Roger Ebert:

Thinking at first I am seeing still one more road movie about a druggie, I find I am wrong. "Jesus' Son" surprises me with moments of wry humor, poignancy, sorrow and wildness. It has a sequence as funny as any I've seen this year, and one as harrowing, and it ends in a bittersweet minor key, as it should, because to attach this story to a big climax would be a lie, if not a crime. Like all good films, it is not for everybody (only bad films are for everybody).

The story revolves around the time and place of Iowa City, circa 1971, although the hero does a lot of traveling all over the country, and in his own memories. His name is FH, which is short for guess what, and in the beginning he is one of those college town layabouts with no plans and not many problems. One day on a bench he meets Michelle. They talk a little and he asks, "Do I kiss you now?" Later, she asks him, "You ever seen anybody shoot up before?" He has not, but soon heroin is running his life.




But this is not a drug movie like any you've seen. It doesn't glamorize drugs or demonize them, but simply remembers them from the point of view of a survivor. FH (Billy Crudup) narrates the story, sometimes doubling back to fill in gaps or add overlooked details. He isn't a hero or an anti-hero, just a fairly clueless guy with good intentions who gets muddled by the drug lifestyle--which creates a burden the mind is not really designed to endure.

The movie's director is Alison Maclean, a New Zealander whose screenplay (by Elizabeth Cuthrell, David Urrutia and Oren Moverman) is based on short stories by the American author Denis Johnson. Some will complain that the episodes jostle too loosely against one another (it's "a barbiturate-driven version of `Pulp Fiction,' in which the guns misfire and the cars don't have brakes," writes Salon's Andrew O'Hehir, in a negative but somehow affectionate review). I think short stories are right for a story about druggies. Their lives are too episodic to add up to a novel; the highs and lows settle out into disconnected adventures and anecdotes, separated by voids and blackouts.




The thing about FH and Michelle (Samantha Morton) is that they love each other, in a fashion, but are inhabiting a lifestyle that has too many distractions for any kind of continuity. Drugs or love: You sort of have to choose one or the other, because you can't pay attention to both. Their romance, when it is working, has a kind of tenderness that grows out of their suffering. They are so screwed up that when the movie lingers on the sight of them kissing, we realize with a stir that their kissing is direct and needy, not movie-stylized. They aren't putting on a show for the camera, but feeding at each other's lips.

Samantha Morton you will remember from Woody Allen's "Sweet and Lowdown," where she played a mute. Here she plays a woman who is more or less the result of the situation she's gotten herself into: If you are going to use drugs and don't have infinite money, you are going to have to make some compromises. Crudup is a good partner for her, coming in under her radar, ready for whatever she has in mind.




But the movie is not just about (or even really about) FH and Michelle. It's episodic, and there are moments that stand out like sharp memories in a confused time. Like the fat kid who races after their car and runs into the pole. Or the naked woman on a parasail. "That's my wife," says FH's newfound barroom buddy Wayne (Denis Leary). No further explanation. They spend an afternoon stripping the copper wires out of an empty house. "How much money do you think we can make from this?" FH asks. "Enough to go to bed drunk tonight," says Wayne.

FH eventually gets a job as an orderly in a hospital, and that leads to a sequence that combines the gruesome and the comic as memorably as the needle to the heart in "Pulp Fiction." A patient comes in with a knife sticking out of his eye socket. The ER nurse tells him, "We better get you lying down." I liked the way the man's condition is diagnosed: "Patient complains of knife in head." FH's fellow orderly is Georgie (Jack Black, the larger of the two clerks in "High Fidelity"). When a doctor hesitates, he knows what to do.




The last third of the film is one bemusement and perplexity after another. FH goes into rehab and gives a shave to a patient (Dennis Hopper) whose sentences summarize decades. He has a little romance with a woman (Holly Hunter) who just plain has bad luck with her husbands. He gets a job as the editor of a newsletter at an old folks home ("This job includes a lot of touching," he's told. "We want to see you touching the patients.") He falls in love with the overheard voice of a Mennonite woman singing in her shower--and observe the complexities of the situation where her husband tells him, "Take what you need." The movie's title is not intended to be a literal description of FH ("Jesus' Son" is a line from a Lou Reed song), but I see what it's getting at: A lot of great men have sons who plug away at the family business but just don't have the knack. FH's story is not a cautionary tale, a parable or a fable. It is just what happened to him. He's not a bad guy. He should play more of an active role in his life instead of just letting it happen to him. And when he's asked if he's ever seen anybody shoot up before, he should ask himself if he hasn't been getting along more or less OK without having had that experience.




Technical Information:

Title: Jesus' Son
Year: 1999
Country: USA
Director: Alison Maclean

Source: PAL DVD5 Retail
DVD Format: PAL
Container: VIDEO_TS
Size: 4.02 Gb
Length: 1:43:02
Programs used: Unknown

Resolution: 720x576
Aspect Ratio: 16:9 Letterboxed
Video: MPEG2 @ ~5600 kb/s
Frame Rate: 25 fp/s

Audio: English- Dolby Digital AC3
Subtitles: Dutch, German

Menu: Yes
Video: Untouched
DVD Extras: None on source




A note to North American downloaders:
All Phillips branded DVD players play European PAL DVD's without a hitch, and it seems like a fair amount of the DVD's  we post around here are in PAL, even though we're on your side of the pond. Just a head-up.


Jesus' Son Megaupload Links