The RIAA is Naughty and DFA Records Is Nice

Happy Holidays all, here are 3 more trax from DFA Records:

Hurcules and Love Affair - "Hurcules Theme" (my favorite of the bunch, nice disco/funk track, anticipating their debut disc in '08)

Shocking Pinks - "I Want U Back"

Prinzhorn Dance School - "Realer, Pretender"

And also I have an a$$ load of cards leftover from the Starbucks/iTunes Song of the Day promo that expire on the 31st. Since the RIAA has now decided everything that you've ripped from the cd's you bought constitutes an illegal use of the songs you should grab as many legal ones as you can, but please leave a comment letting others know which ones are used. These can also be used to open accounts in the UK, Canadian, French, Dutch, Japanese or Australian iTunes stores (all of which have weekly free tracks to check out) without a local credit card.

John Fogerty - "Gunslinger"
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Emily King - "Moon"
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Gloria Estefan - "90 Millas"
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A Fine Frenzy - "You Picked Me"
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John Legend - "Show Me"
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Patti Scialfa - "Looking for Elvis"
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Herbie Hancock - "Maiden Voyage"
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Annie Lennox - "Dark Road"
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Angie Stone - "Happy Being Me"
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Brandi Carlile - "Turpentine"
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Alice Smith - "New Religion [ƒ Pauletta Washington]"
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Rogue Wave - "Lake Michigan"
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Alice Russell - "Hurry On Now [ƒ TM Juke]"
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Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds - "Grace Is Gone"
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Bitter:Sweet - "Heaven (Nicola Conte 'West Coast Vibes' Remix)"
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Greyboy - "Got to Be a Love [ƒ Sharon Jones]"
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Spanish Harlem Orchestra - "Sacala Bailar"
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Rissi Palmer - "Country Girl"
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Raul Midon - "Pick Somebody Up"
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Joss Stone - "Tell Me 'Bout It (Live from the Bowery Ballroom)"
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Federico Aubele - "Maria Jose"
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Sara Bareilles - "Love Song"
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Hilary McRae - "Consider Me Gone"
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John Mayer - "Dreaming With a Broken Heart"
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Galactic - "I Got It (What You Need) [ƒ Lyrics Born]"
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Bebel Gilberto - "Um Segundo"
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Suzanne Vega - "Frank & Ava"
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Sia - "Day to Soon"
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Paul McCartney - "Only Mama Knows"
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Enjoy!

The Bucket List (Review)

Rob Reiner does a damned fine job of channeling former brother-in-law Gary Marshall in this flick. Its an overly sentimental, manipulative and predictable story. But the timing and performances from Nicholson and Freeman make this holiday feel-good fluff worth a look.

As anyone can see from the trailers, Nicholson plays a wealthy hospital corporation owner who gets sick and ends up in one of his own hospitals in a room with Freeman. They are both sick, form a bond and decide to do everything they ever wanted to do with the months the doctors give them.

There are the typical life lessons that one teaches the other and both characters have enough depth for you to invest in their happiness. The funny parts are great (Nicholson is the joker while Freeman plays the straight man as expected). While there is a whole lot in the film to be cynical about if you just take it for what it is, an enjoyable way to spend 2 hrs and you leave feeling just fine... though not worthy of lengthy review.

B (How this made NBR's Top 10 of the year I have no idea)

Atonement (Review)

An actors film that is at times engrossing and often satisfying but there are flaws that hold it back from true romanic epic status.

This non-linear narrative starts off in a pastoral British country estate in the tense times between the wars. The owner's eldest daughter (Keira Knightley) relaxes after coming home from Cambridge and falls for the long time, yet upwardly mobile helper boy played by James MacAvoy. On a hot day the house gets packed with family and friends and mistakes happen... and other things happen that are not mistakes. Briony Tallis, the youngest daughter, allows her overactive imagination to get the best of her and MacAvoy is falsely accused of a heinous crime and sent to prision. 4 years later he enlists and before shipping to France the romance is rekindled providing the perfect set up for painful seperation and a sweet homecoming.

The deftly handled overlapping narrative of the first act flips between several first person set-ups to reveal several points of the story. The acting is pure british stage and uniformly impressive. The flaws aren't revealed until the war begins and the overlapping turns to flashback laden timeshifting and the story gets muddled. The small upstairs/downstairs intruigue of the early part of the film works beautifully but the the grand epic of the longing and horrors of war fail to live up to this start. There is one long-shot on the beach in Dunkirk that lasts for more than five minutes yet despite this technical feat the scene adds nothing to the plot and this is just one scene among many that while powerful in their own right are adrift from any relavance to the story and fail to build up MacAvoy's character.

Once back in Britian we catch up with the Tallis sisters and the film refocuses with strong character scenes and plot resolution on the way to an emotionally powerful finale which is tellegraphed by some subtle flightly camera work and a sense that something is slightly off but the bad taste of the second act still lingers. I liked the film for the most part and the leads are strong but it is far from the Oscar contender the hype would lead one the lead to believe.

B+

A special mention about the main title theme and its variations...loved it. Though I don't know him by name Dario Marianelli (did V for Vendetta) crafts a great piece around a base of type strokes from a typewriter and it works beautifully.

The Golden Compass (Review)

Maybe this is what people who didn't read the LOTR books felt like while watching. The names of places, people, ect all sound very similar and it felt like there were some in there that were never first explained. This is a problem inherent in creating a fantasy world like this.

Other than that the whole thing is just very bland. The stakes are barely established and the main plot point in this area (played by Daniel Craig) is barely in the film anyway. The actual stakes of the whole series aren't revealed till the final act of the film just before is a visually uninteresting battle. If you've got a PG-13 rating anyway make a decently violent battle, and even thought it's set at night light it better. This looks like a 70m film for the most part instead of something that was at least twice that - they spent way too much on talent that didn't really show up.

Sam Elliot is the only decent name in the cast that acquits himself well. Most of the actors don't seem to know what is going on (Craig, Eva Green) likely because they have little to do and then there are Simon McBurney & Nicole Kidman who play so far over the top its laughable.

Director Chris Weitz for his part does almost everything wrong. It feels like he sat down to watch a hand full of fantasy epics and tried to copy them...badly. The editing is poor, this film has no consistent flow, and everything about that final fight is terrible. The sneak I was at last Saturday was 85% full and 5 or so people clapped at the end before realizing no one else was gonna join them and promptly stopped.

Kinda feel sad for New Line, the attached trailers looked pretty "bomb-y." The new Will Farrell flick Semi-Pro steps too far into the the dumb zone and another ghastly fantasy Inkheart. This is not good news for a studio having one of the worst years for both money and quality I've ever seen (Love in the Time of Cholera, Shoot 'em Up, Rush Hour 3, Rendition, Mr. Woodcock, Martian Child, The Number 23, El Cantante, Code Name: The Cleaner and now this).

C-