Horribly wrong
Just watched Rosemary’s Baby by Polanski, again. I noticed that when Mia Farrow gets pregnant, but keeps on drinken alcohol, as well as milkshakes with raw egs. She eats raw red meat and her husband keeps on smoking. No wonder things go horribly wrong!
IFFR 2011
The International Film Festival Rotterdam, edition 2011, is coming up. This is my personal program for Saturday 29 and Sunday 30 January:
A Stoker – PA1 19:00
Contemporary Russian film set in Leningrad in the early 1990s during the collaps of the Soviet Union. About a man whose whole world around him is changing, but he is not.
Cold Fish – LUX 22:15
Japanese horror film. From the catalogue: “Sushi is usually made of fish, but fish knives are also good for filleting people. The owner of a large aquarium shop employs chilling methods for ridding himself of creditors. The owner of a smaller shop becomes the victim of this money- and sex-hungry shark.”
Short Stories – LV2 10:00
4 short stories about parents and their children. To start the day early.
White Sun of the Desert – CI4 12:00
Russian cult film from the 1960s. Intended to be a Soviet answer to the Hollywood western genre, the director sneaked in his personal opinion about the failing melting pot of european oriented russia and the predominantly moslim people of central asia. A very current theme considering this week’s terrorist attack on Moskow’s airport.
Soul of Sand – CI1 14:15
A very Indian film in very Indian surroundings, yet not a very Indian film. A guard keeps watch strictly but pointlessly at a deserted mine. When a fleeing couple wants to hide there one night, his world shifts. A harrowing metaphor for unrelenting inequalities.
Sensation – SGZ 19:15
From the catalogue: “When all you have left to make love to is sheep, life can only improve.” I stopped reading after that and bought my tickets. Supposedly also about the current economic climate in Ireland. Oh, well…
Hot as Hell: The Deadbeat March – CI1 22:15
A Chinese horror film this time to bookend this festival’s program.
We Tell Them Tonight
Enjoying my copy of We Tell Them Tonight, the second long player of Rotterdam based indie band AC Berkheimer. The album was launched yesterday at a packed Cafe Rotown. Brilliant mesmerizing shoe-gazing music invoking the best of memories of Sonic Youth and Yo La Tengo. The songs are melodic and loud when necessary. There’s some beautiful production with some surprising percussion here and there.
This band is proving to become too big for this town.
Get your own copy!
Disclaimer: the band’s bass player is a very dear friend of mine.
Empty Mall
On the anniversary of the September 11 attacks and President Bush’s subsequent remark to keep on shopping, German magazine Die Zeit publishes a series of beatifully haunting and stark immages of empty shopping malls in the US.
Most pictures are taken by night adding to the eerie atmosphere. It’s easy to see the pictures as an example of the decline of the US as a world dominating economic power. But it’s much more fun to just enjoy the sheer beauty of these empty mastodonts.
Suburban lacquer
Last weekend indie kids Arcade Fire released there 3rd long-play, called The Suburbs, a layered tribute to a generation grown up in faceless towns.
To make sure the cd sounds exactly like vinyl (which sound is, as anyone knows, superior by far) they pressed lacquer discs of the songs and then ripped them back to digital. There is a photo gallery, in case you may wonder what this looked like.
I wonder if they used Audacity, as I do, when I transfer vinyl to digital.
First In Line By Accident
Rotterdam based indie band AC Berkheimer just released their second album First In Line By Accident, an EP carrying four fresh songs. Shoegazing, mesmerizing and rhythmic – it makes for a great listen during warm summer evenings. This is music for l’heur bleue, the hour just after sunset, and before it gets dark. Looking forward to the full album in the fall.
(disclaimer: Berkheimer’s bass player is a very dear friend of mine).
More music leads to better living
Rebecca from San Francisco band Stripmall Architecture hits the nail on the head in her explanation why you should always stay interested in new music and bands.
Not only have I come across some great bands and briljant albums, if you find yourself intersted in music, you will also learn great art in general. There’s ofcourse Sonic Youth’s flirtations with contemporary artists. I’ve become a great fan of Jean gabin, following the release of Morrissey’s Years of Refusal. And I just ordered a copy of G.W. Pabst’s Pandora’s Box, starring Louise Brooks, after listening to Rufus Wainwright’s All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu.
Live!
Dutch chansonnier Ramses Shaffy passed away on December 1 2009. Last week someone painted his image on a wall of the nursing home where he died.
