Last Ten CDs We've Listened To: Folk, Indy and Jazz

Greetings to our blog readers in Ireland, Uruguay and South Africa.

Here are the last ten compact discs we've listened. Yes, we have based this on our regular Last Ten Films We've Seen series, an idea we got from "Film Comment" magazine, as they frequently ask movie directors, such as Quentin Tarantino or Sofia Coppola, what are the last ten films they have watched.

Here's is our list; Bruce Piephoff, a Greensboro, NC, singer featured on this list, is a good friend of our's, alas, we have never met David Bowie. The top image is of the late rock singer Alex Chilton, a song about him was on The Replacements' cd "Pleased to Meet Me" (1987) and the bottom image is of folk singer Sufjan Stevens:

1) Bruce Piephoff. Soft Soap Purrings. 2014. Folk

2) The Replacements. Pleased To Meet Me. 1987. Indy

3) David Bowie. Hunky Dory. 1971.Rock

4) Steely Dan. Countdown to Ecstasy.1973. Rock

5) Pink Floyd. Animals. 1977. Rock

6) Sufjan Stevens. Illinoise, 2005. Indy/folk (the recording features a ballad about a notorious serial killer!)

7) Superchunk. On the Mouth. 1992.Indy/punk

8) Talking Heads. Face the Music. 1979. New Wave/rock/punk

9) The Police. Regatta de Blanc. 1979. New Wave/rock/punk

10) Pat Metheny Group. Letter from Home. 1989.  Jazz.

http://www.reverbnation.com/brucepiephof

http://thereplacementsofficial.com/pages/home

http://www.davidbowie.com

http://sufjan.com/

http://www.superchunk.com/

Now Showing: Films at Independent Cinemas in the USA (East Coast Edition)

Since putting this together took way more time than we expected, we are going to post new films opening at independent cinemas in America and/or perhaps elsewhere just once a month on Friday as opposed to once a week on Friday as we had planned.

But, here are movies which are showing at independent arthouse cinemas from New York to Athens, Ga., they include the Lyric Theatre in Blacksburg, Va., the West End Cinema in Washington, DC, and a/perture Cinema in Winston-Salem, NC.

These are not necessarily the only films showing at each venue as only the Lyric and the Vinegar Hill Theatre in Charlottesville, Va., are one-screen venues.

The images above are of Sarah Polley, the director of the documentary "Stories We Tell," which is showing at the West End (it will show at the Lyric starting on June 28th), Greta Gerwig, the star of "Frances Ha," showing at the Cine in Athens, Ga., and Sofia Coppola, the director of "Bling Ring," which is showing at the Vinegar Hill.

On our sister blog "Politics, Culture, and Other Wastes of Time"  http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com we will list films showing west of the Mississippi River.

Going from north to south, we start with Film Forum in New York, which is showing the acclaimed Danish film "A Hijacking," about Europeans who have their boat hijacked by Somali pirates. The film shows in New York at 1:15; 3:15; 6:00; 8:00 and 10:10 p.m. (times may vary).

In the nation's capital, "Stories We Tell," which is a documentary about how Polley, a Canadian film star, found out her father was not actually her biological father. The film has a very high 7.8 rating on the IMDB. It will show at the West End during the following times on Saturday: 11:20 (a.m.); 1:40; 4:00; 6:40 and 9:00 p.m.

At the Vinegar Hill in Charlottesville, one can see "The Bling Ring," which we believe is the "Lost in Translation" director's fifth film at 7:00 and 9:00 p.m. In Virginia's other major college town, "Mud" is showing at the Lyric in Blacksburg at 7:00 and 9:30; with a Sunday matinee at 3:00 p.m.

On Saturday, a/perture in Winston-Salem is showing "Much Ado About Nothing," directed by joss Whedon ("Cabin in the Woods") at 1:15; 3:45; 6:15 and 8:45.

Lastly, way down in Athens, Ga., Cine is showing "Frances Ha"at 5:15 and 7:15, with an additional 9:15 screening times starting on June 24.

http://www.visulitecinemas.com

http://www.filmforum.com

http://www.athenscine.com

http://www.thelyric.com

http://www.aperturecinema.com

http://www.westendcinema.com

Last Ten Films I've Seen

Here are the last ten films I've seen, films I've seen before these viewings are marked with an asteriks (*) and films I saw in a movie theatre are marked with an exclamation point (!):

1) "Les Bonnes Femmes" (1960. France. dir-Claude Chabrol)

2) "The Baader Meinhof Complex" (2008. Germany. dir-Uli Edel)

3) "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" (2009. Sweden. dir-Daniel Alfredson)

4)*! "Time Bandits" (1981. dir-Terry Gilliam)

5) "A Psycho Love Story" (2008. Turkey. dir-Biray Dalkiran)

6) ! "Beginners" (2010. dir-Mike Mills)

7) * "Marie Antoinette" (2006. dir-Sofia Coppola)

8) "Sounds Like Teen Spirit" (2008. doc. dir-Jamie Jay Johnson)

9) "The Big Uneasy" (2010. doc. dir-Harry Shearer)

10) "A Tale of Springtime" (1990. France. dir-Eric Rohmer)

Notes on films on this list:

1) This early French New Wave film about attractive young Parisian women has a very surreal ending which has become a discussion board topic on the IMDB, and after seeing the film I certainly understand why.

2) Perhaps, the most interesting film on the list. The German film, which was nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, is about the radical left-wing terrorist group RFA, which started in then West Berlin in 1970. The group was responsible for political assasinations, kidnapping and an airplane hijacking that went across three continents, so this story is quite epic in tone and in my view, the film delivers. Interestingly enough, surviing RFA member Horst Mahler has now gone to the far-right, so much so that he was imprisoned (again) in Germany for being a Holocaust denier.

3) The Swedish film based on the last of the Millenium triology novels by Stieg Larsson seems quite timely given the heinous actions of the far-right, radical Christian terrorist suspect in Norway on Friday. Larsson researched far-right groups in Sweden and other Scandanavian countries before his own untimely death in 2004, and that is reflected in the novels he wrote as well as their filmed versions.

4) I forgot how dark the ending of this 'children's film' from Terry Gilliam was. I saw it at the Salem Valley-4 (now Salem Valley-8 back when the film was first released when I was a child).

5) Yes, as one might expect from the film's title (it was actually called "Heaven" in Turkey), it is a very strange movie, but the director's earlier effort "The Abortion" is even more over-the-top than this film.

6) Christopher Plummer will hopefully win an Oscar for his great performance in this film.

7) This Sofia Coppola film seems slightly better with the second viewing.

8) This doc follows teens in Cyprus, Georgia, Bulgaria and Belgium as they try to be the next European teen idol.

9) An interesting environmental doc from Harry Shearer, best-known for voicing Simpsons characters like Principal Seymour Skinner.

10) This is a typical Rohmer film, which means those of us who generally like his films will like it, everyone else might opt to watch infommercials, pro wrestling or radical televangelists praying for a new hot tub.

The Last 10 Films I've Seen- It's a Strange List

We are using the image above as something that could go with "Rango" that the other 112, 316 bloggers who've mentioned the animated western with the voice of Johnny Depp haven't used. We had to insert the words "Big Green Lizard Costa Rica" in Google to come up with this!

I wasn't too keen on seeing "Rango" until a tweet from film director Sofia Coppola said that it was not only a good film, but it was like 'a kiddie version of Chinatown.'

The very last movie I've seen is the 2000 Iranian film "The Circle" by Jafar Panahi, whose later film "Offside" was championed by my good friend Bilge Ebiri. The late Susan Sontag was among those who praised "The Circle," an amazing, highly-political film about the plight of women in Iran.

The Iranian film brought to mind some of the controversial films made by the late Turkish actor/director Yilmaz Guney in the late '70s and early '80s. Although, I have the subjective opinion, which I think even people who aren't of Turkish heritage like myself would agree with, that Turkey is a far better place politically than Iran. Well, we certainly hope that is the case!

The most disappointing of the ten films listed was unquestionably "Bronson," a 2008 English film which is essentially a Stanley Kubrick rip-off orchestrated for the shock porn generation.....hmm....I am starting to sound too much like Jonathan Rosenbaum, forgive the film geek humor!

We must profess that we got this idea from the great magazine "Film Comment," which has an amazing article on the gradual death of film projection in the current issue.

Here is the the list, my rating (out of four stars) comes after each film:

1. "The Circle" (Iran, 2000) ****

2. "Rango" (2011) ***1/2

3. "The Lucky Ones" (2008) ***

4. "The Tall T" (1957) ***1/2

5. "The Devil-Doll" (1936) **1/2

6. "24 City" (China, 2008) ****

7. "Treeless Mountain" (So. Korea, 2008) ***1/2

8. "Bronson" (2008) **

9. "The Adjustment Bureau" (2011) **

10. "Youth in Revolt" (2009) **

Quote of the Week- Leon Trotsky

Today, we quote the Russian, Marxist philosopher/revolutionary figure Leon Trotsky
(1879-1940) who lived a life that would be worth of a 985-page biography that we have no time to read.

Instead, we can tell you a few things we already or learned from Wikipedia about this major figure of the October Revolution and Russian Civil War:

-Lead opposition to Joseph Stalin

-Ideas formed the basis for Trotskyism

-Exiled to Turkey in 1929, he spent four years of his life on Buyukada, the largest of the four Prince's Islands off the coast of Istanbul. This period of his life was the subject of a documentary film called "Exile in Buyukada" (2000, Turkey), which might still be available in America from Facets in Chicago.

-In 1935, Trotsky moved to Mexico where he befriended the famous artist couple of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. Trotsky went on to have an affair with Frida, but amazingly enough Diego was not the one who tried to kill him.

-Trotsky was however succefully killed by a Spanish man named Ramon Mercader, who was working as a Soviet agent, at his home in the village of Coyocan, Mexico, in
1940.

-On film, Trotsky was played by Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush in the film "Frida."

Here is our quote from Trotsky, which pretty much indicates why supposedly smart people, like John McCain (note: I am not a Republican, but McCain is a lot smarter than many in his party) chose Sarah Palin as a running mate:

"If we had more time for discussion we should probably have made a great many more mistakes."

MONDAY LEFTOVERS-In our last entry, we talked about the Duke-UNC game for the ACC tourney championship. As everyone in Durham and Chapel Hill knows, Duke won the game 78-58, but that might be news for those of you in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia.

In my hometown of Roanoke, Va., many people are unhappy today because the Virginia Tech Hokies were snubbed by the NCAA selction committee. "The Roanoke Times" quotes Hokies' coach Seth Greenberg as saying that 'there might be someone with a strong personality who views the Hokies as a fungus.'

We noted in another previous entry that Sofia Coppola's new film "Somewhere" is playing at the Galaxy Cinema in Cary, NC; the film is also playing up the road at the Carolina Theatre in Durham, NC. "Marie Antoinette," the film she directed before "Somewhere," will be shown on IFC on March 30 at 5:00 p.m.

Lastly and obviously, when we posted an entry which mentioned the devastating tsunami in Japan there were only 60 confirmed casualties. Tragically, that number now appears headed to top the 10,000 mark in the city of Miaygi alone. Anyone who wished to help can go www.redcross.org

Media outlets, such as MSNBC, are warning people to be fully aware of scams trying to take advantage of the tragedy.

Things We Learned on Twitter Today- Sofia Coppola Likes Rango

Since I have longed though that film director Sofia Coppola was a private person, I was surprised when I heard her give an interview to Terry Gross for the NPR show "Fresh Air." And, I was even more stunned to see that she has a Twitter account.

And, apparently, the director of "Lost in Translation" who turns 40 in May likes the new animated film "Rango" that stars Johnny Depp (well his voice any way):

"Rango is such an amazing film, has anyone seen it? It's like Chinatown for kids, even the old turtle resembled John Huston."

I thought the tweet was a bit ironic since in a book about the Oscars writer Danny Peary said that "Chinatown" should have been chosen as the Best Film of 1974 instead of "The Godfather, Part 2," which Sofia's father directed. (We're not getting into this debate, as fighting and arguing with radical rapture-seeking right-wing extremists like the Rev. Johnny Robertson of Martinsville, Va.*, is our top priority around here!).

As for Sofia Coppola's new film "Somewhere" is showing at one of our favorite cinemas, the Galaxy Cinema in Cary, NC (Raleigh). They are not showing "Rango," but they are also screening "Barney's Version" which a friend of mine in Bethesda, Maryland, really enjoyed!

*- Yes, this is a real person and (of course!) he has his own tv show!

Sofia Coppola Likes John Hughes Movies

According to the current issue of "Film Comment," our favorite film magazine/journal (but, like "Cineaste" too), film director Sofia Coppola, best known for her film "Lost Translation" with Bill Murray (see image above), recently watched the 'classic' John Hughes' film "Sixteen Candles" (1984).

The comedy film starring Molly Ringwald was number nine on her "The Last 10 Films I've Seen" list, which we are not printing in its entirety to avoid a potential federal cease and desist lawsuit from Gavin Smith (the editor of "Film Comment). But, we will mention that other films on the list included "The Social Network," Never Let Me Go," "Greenberg," and "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids," which surprised us too!

SIDEBAR: There are a whole host of special screenings going on in Virginia and North Carolina. My good friend Jason Garnett will be screening the vintage 2003 good/bad movie "The Room" on Nov. 22 and 24 at 7:00 at the Shadowbox Cinema in Roanoke, Va.

Closer to home, my friend Joe Scott will be screening the vintage 1984 Prince film "Purple Rain" this Thursday at the Carousel Luxury Cinemas in Greensboro, NC, at 7:30 and 10:00 p.m.

Lastly, the classic 1969 Oscar-winning film "Midnight Cowboy" with Dustin Hoffman and hippie turned tea bagger Jon Voight will be shown at the Varsity Theatre in Chapel Hill, NC, for a week-long run starting on Friday.

SIDEBAR TWO: George W. Bush's new memoir, a book I will not be reading (I'm a hippie turned coffee partier), is apparently a tough book to sell in San Francisco, so Green Apple Books, a San Fran book shop, will be giving all funds from the sale of the book to veterans, according to "San Francisco Weekly."