Jonsi's new solo album

its been awhile as stained would say but i am posting this great player to listen to Jonsi's new album in full before it's released! it is pretty dang awesome. he is the front man for icelandic, sigur ros. give it a listen, you won't regret it. it is called "Go"

internet piracy, israeli animation, pond hockey and the doors meets phish

Movie:
"Steal This Film" -
I just watched an interesting documentary on internet piracy the other day; as I mentioned in a previous post, Hulu has some real great documentaries. It is pro piracy and has a lot of interviews by the guys from Pirate Bay, Bittorrent, lawyers, and intellectual attorneys. Our American media has been portraying this piracy as super negative and something that needs to stop, BUT there have been a lot of other products in the past that the music, movie, and even book industries have been opposed of and have considered them just as illegal as internet piracy. Such examples are the VHS recorder, mobile printing presses, and mp3 players just to name a few! If you are interested you can find the film on hulu at  Steal This Film.

"Waltz with Bashir" -
Last night a group of us watched "Waltz with Bashir" which is an Israeli animated documentary film about the 1982 Lebanon War. This film was gorgeous! It won a ton of awards including a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language film. I didn't know much about the Lebanon War, but this was a really interesting and sad story of a soldier trying to remember the war so he was going around and interviewing his fellow soldiers to try and piece together what he encountered during the war. I recommend that you check out the trailer below.



"Pond Hockey" -
Another documentary that I watched on Hulu was  Pond Hockey. If you are interested in hockey, roller hockey, or ice hockey you should check this out. Its a fun film that is basically in 2 parts but intertwined: one part is about the history of pond hockey and how the youth of today aren't getting the real sense of the game by playing structured hockey in indoor rinks and how pond hockey really gives kids the freedom to try new moves and perfect their skills and the second part is about the 2005 U.S. Pond Hockey Championship in Minneapolis, Minnesota and they follow a couple of teams through the tournament. Just a fun and interesting documentary if you enjoy hockey. Please check it out.

Music:
I just started listening to Devendra Banhart's "Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon". Phil introduced it to me by having me listen to "Seahorse" which is my favorite song off that album. The whole album is great, a really nice and unique Venezuelan-esque sound. Devendra's voice is soothing and he sings both in Spanish and English which is a nice mix. Back to "Seahorse", they really jam hard in it and I love it so check it out please!

want to watch some documentaries?

if you are interested in documentaries then you should check out Hulu's collection; i was really surprised that i never checked there.

i watched one called "Lemonade" which was short, like 35 minutes, about advertisers, graphic designers, and other talented people who got laid off from different companies and made a realization that this was the time to do something they've always wanted to do. just a really neat and inspiring documentary that found the good amongst the negative. if life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

some other docs that i have seen or am planning on watching from Hulu are: "Google Me" (a guy googles his name then goes and interviews the people with his same name and hangs out with them), "The Corporation" (previously talked about), "Future of Food", "Super Size Me", "Pond Hockey" (super excited to watch this one), "MacHeads" (which talks about Apple computers and their fan club), "Steal This Film" (another one i'm excited to see which is about piracy), and "Confessions of a Superhero".

So check em out, they're FREE!

a bit behind

so i got real busy and haven't written about anything for awhile so here is a condensed post...

Movies:

 

I enjoyed this flick, some gorgeous aerial shots, a unique story, and George Clooney is superb. If you like Juno or Thank You for Smoking please go see this. It's pretty darn funny too. Sad to see this film so overlooked by crap like "Avatar".

This is a documentary on Burning Man and it was good since I knew nothing about it. It is definitely something I want to partake in once in my life. If you love craziness, check this out.

This documentary about how we got into the war in Iraq is great and sad. Sad to see how our government dropped the ball and how many have suffered from it. Please watch this, it's very well done.

Awesome movie. I almost stopped right there but then thought it'd be a disservice to Sam Rockwell; he did a fantastic job. This is also the first film for director, Duncan Jones, he did a great job; interested to see what he comes up with next. A nice and unique story as well as simplistic. Basically about an astronaut who is harvesting moon rocks starts seeing himself around his moon base.

Books:
Life of Pi - This was a very fun to read book and something different from what I thought it'd be about, but I liked where it went. Basically an Indian boy gets in a shipwreck from India to Canada and is on a life boat with a tiger. Martel, the author, does a great job keeping the story interesting even though its just a boy and a tiger on a boat! come on people, this is good stuff. love the ending.

The Stranger - Just started this short book by Alexander Camus; my friend Chris just handed it to me the other day and I'm already half way done. Different writing style than what I'm used to, a bit choppy, but it fits really well with the story. Basically its about a guy who winds up murdering someone, so we'll see what happens....

Music:
Have Heart "Songs to Scream at the Sun" - Just another great album by Have Heart. "Songs to Scream at the Sun is the coming of age story. It's about the growing process of a young kid shaking the chains of selfishness, but it's everything about what you lose and gain in that process of growing up." —Patrick Flynn (vocals for Have Heart) This says it all! "The Same Sun" is my fav, and the fav of so many others.

Defiance, Ohio "The Great Depression" - A band I heard from Evan. A peppy punk rock band who sings a lot about anti-capitalism. The first four songs on the album are really great check em out! you can download their music for FREE: Defiance, Ohio

Pedro the Lion "Control" - David Bazan's former band. Just great songs, definitely one of his best albums. Please take a listen.

IMAX Everest & Into Thin Air

A couple of months ago I read John Krakauer's book, Into Thin Air, which is the account of the worst disaster on Everest. I love Krakauer and I think he's a very talented writer; this was especially crazy because he was up there, not writing second hand like Into the Wild or his latest book, Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman. This is a crazy book and such a tragic story about how 8 climbers were killed and a handful were trapped on the top of Everest because of a storm. Krakauer does a great job in connecting you with all the people and parties up on the mountain, there were several including an IMAX film crew. I believe he told the sequences of events in a very acceptable manner and in a riveting way; I didn't want to go to sleep because I wanted to keep reading. He really went into detail about their journey to the base camp of Everest and to the other three camps and what they had to pass through to get there. After reading this fantastic book, I wanted to see the film the IMAX crew shot up there wondering if it would have any footage of Rob Hall and his expedition; so I Netflixed it (funny that that is a word now) and watched it.

I didn't expect much of the IMAX Everest film to be about the tragedy but I expected there to be much more than what it was. The film was only 44 minutes, granted it is an IMAX film so its not supposed to be a full feature film BUT still, I know they had tons of other footage they didn't put in to it because when I watched the special features on how they made the film (which is pretty awesome) they showed some shots not in the movie. The special features was 34 minutes long, with basically the same shots from the film, which was kinda too bad. Nonetheless the feat of hauling all that equipment and the camera and film etc. to the top of the world, is a tremendous accomplishment. I will say I wasn't shocked or had my jaw drop when I watched it, like I expected but it was still impressive but the commentary from the climbers was shoddy at best. I guess seeing it in the IMAX would've been better and maybe if I saw it in the mid-90's when it was made would've impressed me more. I think Planet Earth has spoiled us all. So if you read Into Thin Air and was wondering about the IMAX movie, don't, it's not much to watch.

This Film is Not Yet Rated

Finally watched this documentary which addresses the Motion Pictures Associations of America, basically the rating system for movies. It wasn't what I expected, but it was interesting. I don't feel like it did much good besides expose who is on the viewing committee and the appeals committee, which mainly helps filmmakers. It is interesting to kind of see what they rate movies on, but they aren't really specific about it which I can see how that would be frustrating. I will say that our ratings system is not at its best but I'm not sure how or what they should do to change it; I don't think you should be allowed to put whatever you want in a movie and expect an R rating, there needs to be guidelines and criteria for filmmakers. Its hard to not limit the filmmaker but we have to draw a line between what is acceptable. This documentary is rated a NC-17 so beware of that. It isn't necessary to watch but it is a bit interesting. So there's my two cents on that.