luminato

A story to begin your Friday…

From the word “go”, I’ve long maintained one rule about my relationship with Lindsay; I need to be the musical brains of the operation. I don’t have to be rich, tall, strong, or well-dressed…but if I’m not the one tuned into the good music and saying “Hey, listen to this…” my whole universe gets turned upside-down.

It’s just the way I’m wired.

Fast-forward to last weekend. After a week or two of Lindsay telling me that a particular song had starting affecting her whenever it played in her earbuds, she told me to go looking for it. The song is “Firewood” by Regina Spektor. In a neat twist, it’s a song I have in my music library but wasn’t familiar with.

We sat together and listened, and just as she said – the song was deeply affecting. It’s beautiful, bittersweet, strangely hopeful, and deeply melancholic. It makes me want to learn how to waltz so that I can properly dance along with it.

She brought it to me.

It went against my natural order of things, and made me feel doubly dumb since it was a song I owned. However, in the week since that night, any time it has come up on my iPod – which is every day now – I find myself instantly zapped back to that Saturday night sitting on our couch and being told about something beautiful by somebody beautiful. My universe hasn’t been turned upside-down, in fact it seems a whole lot prettier.

Just thought I’d share.

.

For your listening and reading fulfilment, I give you…

.

I mentioned this on Wednesday, but it bears repeating – mad amounts of thanks to Andrew James for the site tweak on the main page pointing people towards viewing recommendations. His podcasting baby – The Cinecast – has been in fine form all year long, and this week’s episode  is no exception.

We lost Eli Wallach this week – pour one out, people. Withrow eulogizes the fine character actor with the appropriate levels of wisdom and grace

Going back a week or so, The Sydney Film Festival wrapped up for another year, and with every passing year it continues to amuse me the way I know more and more film fans going (perhaps I should hop a plane sometime). As the book closed on the fest’s 61st year, Sam McCosh wrapped it up thusly.

There’s a subtle art to casting the bad guy. Sometimes they need to be pretty, sometimes they need to be ugly, sometimes old, sometimes young. Fisti has some thoughts on casting of such things in a pretty good post at Fistful.

Back at TIFF, I was beginning to think that I was the only person who enjoyed John Carney’s new film BEGIN AGAIN (then titled CAN A SONG SAVE YOUR LIFE). Well as it gets ready to make its North American debut, our friend Darren in Ireland weighs in with his thoughts, and shows that in fact I’m not the only person who enjoyed it.

The Mezzanine has a thoughtful piece on Lars von Trier’s relationship with Rape Culture – no easy topic, but I believe Kyle writes about it with grace.

So, wouldn’t you know it, The Blindspot Series has been pretty handy in introducing me to some sites I’d never noticed before. It all started with Niall, who (rumour has it) will be writing a Blindspot post eminently. Niall writes his film-related-thoughts at Raging Fluff…

…Niall’s site pointed me towards Cara over at Silver Screen Serenade. Seems as though Cara is in the midst of celebrating her second first blog-a-versary, and in an age where most spaces can’t keep going for two months, two years one year is reason to crack a bottle! Go wish her well. (Note to Self: Read closer next time)

Speaking of The Blindspot Series, while Nick Prigge has never come to play in the sandbox with the rest of us, he’s made an ongoing effort to watch the cinematic staples with his Friday’s Old Fashioned series. This week, his entry nods back to his Matineecast appearance in September where he mentioned not having seen THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS.

.

As for a tweet of the week, a reading from The Gospel according to Ehrlich:

 


.
Enjoy!

4 Replies to “Everybody’s Talkin’ 6 – 27 (Chatter from Other Bloggers)”

  1. I think you’d probably love Sydney Film Fest. It’s no TIFF but we have a hell of a good time. The proximity of the Festival to Cannes means we’re the first to see some films. That’s not a common thing on this side of the world..

  2. Thanks for the link, man, and for helping spur me toward finally catching up with that one! And while I have yet to see “Can A Song Save Your Life?” (“Begin Again”), I sense that lovely story you told might have fit into it very neatly.

    1. Actually no – the two characters in BEGIN AGAIN are on an equal-footing in terms of their musical tastes. There’s no “New Slang” moment this time.

Comments are closed.