Top 20 Films of 2007

1 No Country for Old Men
2 There Will be BLOOD
3 Before the Devil Knows Your Dead
4 Assasination of Jesse James
5 Diving Bell and the Butterfly
6 I'm Not There
7 Zodiac
8 Red Road
9 Superbad
10 Eastern Promises
11 Syndromes and a Century
12 Grindhouse
13 Savages
14 Away From Her
15 Margot at the Wedding
16 Youth Without Youth
17 American Gangster
18 Juno
19 Once
20 in the Valley of Elah

Better late than never I guess. And a post is better than no post. Even if it is a shitty post.

Woody I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down

New Music: Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend

Rating 7.4

I like it. Good clean fun. Little taste of Talking Heads here, a little Paul Simon flavor there, even an occaisonal Michael Kang playing Under African Skies sprinkled in with Travis on drums. However I can’t help but listen to it and not be satisfied. None of the songs really mean shit to me. The songwriting is just lacking for me right now but I don’t think it would be the case if I were two or three years younger. Songs of campus life just make me envious, and songs about the Northeast such as Cape Cod and Walcott(?) pack no emotional impact for me. I just picture Vampire Weekend in white boat shoes with sweaters wrapped around their shoulders playing badminton on a summer day in the back yard as they sip Arnold Palmer’s and laugh about how great their next semester at Columbia is going to be. But I like it and I want to put on my white keds and yupster out with these dudes, go lay in the Columbia quad and vote for Obama. The song that put the biggest smile on my face is the one with the chorus that repeats over and over, “Blake’s got a new face” ala the Kinks. More of a spring or summer record than a winter one, I can see myself listening to it through the year.

Rubbed the Wrong Way

Yikes... Lot's of perturbing information going on out there. Most notably the nine finalists for the Foreign Film Academy Award nominations. Critical darlings and worldwide lauded films The Orphanage, Persepolis, and the Palme D'Or winner that comes out next week, 4 Weeks, 3 Months, 2 Days, are all missing from the list. Although I haven't seen any of the films in contention, I can't believe these three films are missing when they are on so many critics top ten lists and the Academy's choices are not. What gives? Looking at the synopsis of the films from the Academy's list, they seem to all hit recurring Oscar trends. What can you do? Makes me care even less about the retarded upcoming nominations. They might as well give the Academy Award now to Julie Christie and Atonement.

Mars Volta @ Terminal 5

The ringing in my ears is slowly starting to fade. Maybe tomorrow when I wake up the persistent white noise of the television inside my head will finally be turned off. Hopefully I remembered to set the DVR...

Interesting Releases for the Week of January 11th

Finally some new releases to look forward to! This weekend marks the much anticipated release of Cloverfield, as well as the sundance fave Teeth, the new Woody Allen Cassandra's Dream, and a pair of Chinese films (Still Life and Summer Palace) taboot! Anything else I'm missing?!?!?

Last Great American Whale

Last night in a Brooklyn Vegan comment, I saw someone offering to sell a Lou Reed / John Zorn ticket for face value, $30, if the purchaser would met them outside the show at "The Stone". Since I hadn't heard anything about this show I figured it was at the Stone Pony but was still a little bummed since I would have possibly, might have, maybe even made the trek for it. Turns out it was at a place called The Stone that was only a couple of blocks from the apartment. Ouch...

Sluggish New Year

New York Cinema

Upcoming Releases of Interest

January 11, 2007

Woman on the Beach and The Business of Being Born

Both films technically came out on Wednesday but I didn't see them yesterday and probably won't see them this weekend either.

Not familiar with Hong Sang Soo's previous films but the synopsis for Woman on the Beach sounds interesting and more engaging then some of the other Korean films I have seen of late.

As for The Business of Being Born, the title says it all. An expose on the costs of having a baby and I'm guessing, who is making all the money.

Meanwhile, probably due to the post Christmas lack of new releases, there are some great films coming out of the archives and getting the big screen treatment.

Film Forum is having a massive Otto Preminger retrospective which includes today's Bunny Lake is Missing as well as some other gems with special guests.

IFC Center is having a Louis Malle retrospective every weekend in January as well as the Bergman's cut of Fanny and Alexander.