Killflavour

Here's a great little Krautrock kinda band, you can download their 2006 album The Flavour Of 51 Golden Mandingos at their last.fm page here

Musictopia - Kaffine/(Don't) Be Yourself

Here are one of my favourite new bands: Musictopia - a Brazilian underground post-rock/dance band heavily influenced by the likes of Kraftwerk, Radiohead, David Bowie, Air and Mogwai. A review of their new album Dois is coming to this blog very soon, but here is a video featuring 2 tracks from their 2006 debut Hello? set to The Wizard Of Oz.



For more information on the band check out their myspace here or you can download both of their albums for free and legally at their website here

The Flight Of The Phoenix (1965) Dir: Robert Aldrich

There are few things that I enjoy more than a good Jimmy Stewart film, there's just something about that voice which turn him from a good actor into a great one. Coupled with Leicester's finest Richard Attenborough The Flight Of The Phoenix was never going to fail.

It kicks off with Stewart, Attenborough and the rest of the crew flying in an aeroplane over the Sahara desert, before a freak sandstorm causes the plane to fail and crash into the middle of the desert with no communications and only enough water to last them 10 days at a bare minimum. It's not too long before arrogant German Heinrich Dorfmann reveals he is infact a plane designer and has built up plans to make a smaller plane from the remains of the one that crashed. Although is Dorfmann all that he makes out? Will the plane be built in time before all the water runs out? Will they ever make it out alive?

A fascinating story of survival and adventure, which will keep you hanging in until the end. Dorfmann's revelation is hilarious and there is some fine acting throughout. Although not flawless to set almost the entirety of the film in one place was a brave decision and one that payed off well. All in all a highly fun film and strongly recommended.

Rating: 8.1

Eels - Electro-Shock Blues (1998)

I plan to do some album reviews, kinda Pitchfork-esque an rate them out of 10 in decimals, with 10 being godlike perfection. Not necessarily new releases, just stuff I am listening to atm, and I'll try to do a mixture of obscure and mainstream stuff :P I'll start with an album I give the full whack of 10.0, OK, here goes:

Most, if not all of my favourite albums are usually albums which I don't really like at first, but then they just grow on me like mad, one of the few exceptions to this rule however, was E and the gang's 2nd album Electro-Shock Blues. Having already built a good cornerstone for their career with their debut Beautiful Freak the Eels matured both musically and lyrically to create one of the best albums of the 90's. People may argue that tracks such as "Baby Genius" and "Going To Your Funeral Part II" are fillers, but to me they are essential to the flow of the album and almost act like breathers from the heart-thumping rip-roar of the rest of it.

Perhaps the best thing about this album though are lyrics, although not known as the most upbeat of wordsmiths, E has a knack of putting in lyrics are truth and honesty and even the odd laugh out loud funny line. The name references are so subtle that I didn't even notice them at first, but they are brilliantly done: "Springfield's looking pretty Dusty today" and "Courtney needs Love, and so do I" there are probably even more in there that I didn't notice.

Highlights for me are the opener "Elizabeth On The Bathroom Floor" - a simple, short anthem for the more suicidal of us: "Life is so much harder when you wanna die" "My name's Elizabeth, my life is shit and piss." "Climbing Up The Moon" - an acoustic track of subtlety and "P.S. You Rock My World" - an amazing end to an amazing album.

The Eels really outdid themselves here, an instant classic that 9 years on hasn't seemed to date in the slightest and still sounds as relevant today as ever. Without doubt one of the best albums of the 1990's.

Key Tracks: "Elizabeth On The Bathroom Floor" "Climbing To The Moon" "P.S. You Rock My World"

Rating: 10.0

American Film instution to Do Another Top 100 US Films List

AFI (not the crappy nu-metal band) are doing another 100 Years - 100 Films list later this month, and I'm always a sucker for lists like this :(

http://www.afi.com/tvevents/100years/movies.aspx

Top 10 when this was done 9 years ago was:

1. Citizen Kane
2. Casblanca
3. The Godfather
4. Gone With The Wind
5. Lawrence of Arabia
6. The Wizard Of Oz
7. The Graduate
8. On The Waterfront
9. Schindler's List
10. Singin' In The Rain

I was surprised to see Shindler's List on that list as films critics are almost always biased towards older films (All that Hollywood's Golden Age bullshit!) and that was only 5 years old when this list was done (maybe it was because it was done in b&w :/). I can't see anything but CK topping the list, howver I do get the feeling The Godfather will leap-frog Casablanca this time, which seems to be losing it's popularity a bit, even though it is the coolest fucking film I've personally ever seen. Hopefully SL will climb a few places to support modern cinema and good old Speilberg aswell.

My First Blog

So I created this because I'm a sad little fecker and I can give my thoughts and the world, and what music I'm currently listening to or what films I've recently seen. Just to voice my opinion to the world, no one will probably read this but i don't care...