Winter Quarter 2006 Report
After the first three months of 2006, I guess it’s time to report the best of the first quarter of 2006. Or is that a bit to compulsive? Oh well.
Music
1. The Knife - Silent Shout (although I’ve now heard this many times as it has lost its novelty, it definitely fulfills the Bjork-Northern European electronica quota)
2. Guillemots - From the Cliffs (not every song is great, but Trains to Brazil is definitely one to have on repeat mode)
3. Mike Andrews - Hand on String (more mellow than my usual tastes, but it’s got an artful edge that keeps me interested, and besides, the man is a badass)
4. High School Musical - Original Soundtrack (definitely not my usual cup of tea, but it’s a genuine phenomenon that is facile in its adolescent cheese, making it go down as the guilty pleasure of the quarter)
Movies
1. The Inside Man - It’s not a great film, but certainly worthy of Spike Lee and actors like Jodie Foster, Clive Owen, and the great Denzel Washington. Script is unusual and parts of it don’t work well (Terence Blanchard needs to learn some subtlety), but overall it’s well above usual Hollywood fare (I guess being NY-centric helps).
2. V For Vendetta - Talky and politically-minded for an action comic book movie, and is about as heavy and politicized a film as Hollywood is able to produce.
3. Tristram Shandy - Goofy BBC-type comedy with Steve Coogan doing his typically self-effacing act. Though it pretends to actually be about the history of a fictional character, the silliest, funniest, and most insightful moments come when we see the dynamics of the film crew teetering on the edge of disaster.
4. Duck Season - Another somewhat silly comedy that continues in the vein of the Mexican New Wave of Cuaron and Innaritu (Cuaron helped the film get attention from distributors). But the film deals more with emptiness in time and how four very different people fill it with dreams small and large.
