From: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org (loud-fans-digest) To: loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Subject: loud-fans-digest V5 #12 Reply-To: loud-fans@smoe.org Sender: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk loud-fans-digest Thursday, January 13 2005 Volume 05 : Number 012 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [loud-fans] Favorite films of 2004 [glenn mcdonald ] [loud-fans] Top 10 (sorta) [Gil Ray ] Re: [loud-fans] Top 10 (sorta) [AWeiss4338@aol.com] Re: [loud-fans] Top 10 (sorta) [AWeiss4338@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 10:32:17 -0500 From: glenn mcdonald Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Favorite films of 2004 The description of The Crying Wind in the Montreal Film Festival guide made it sound like a Japanese Guy Maddin film, crazed and inexplicable, which turned out to be pathetically inaccurate. It's a very quiet, graceful tone piece set and shot in a small village on Okinawa. The title refers to a keening sound that comes from a particular ocean breeze playing over the WWII bullet hole in a skull sitting on a high ledge. A young mother and her small child arrive to stay with relatives. An older woman has come on her yearly search for signs or memories of her long-dead kamikaze-pilot fiance. An old war veteran keeps to himself. The child meets other kids. The kids have their world, the older adults a much different one occupying the same space, and the mother is kind of a lost generation in between the two. Some things happen, but most of the charm is in the portrayal of the slower pace of village existence, and the juxtapositions of painful memories and oblivious playfulness. The Parking Attendant in July was apparently a huge hit in China, in part because the actor who plays the attendant (a painfully vulnerable role) is a well-known comic in his first serious part, which I would never have guessed from seeing the film. He's a normal, unremarkable middle-aged guy in Beijing who lost his real job some time ago, with the eventual result that his wife left him. He works part-time to support his troubled teenage son. Many things happen, both to the father and the son, all revolving around status and honor and self-image and self-esteem. Very human, very elegantly understated, very compelling. I think this one would be pretty successful in limited run in the US. Both of these won awards at the Montreal festival, The Crying Wind the "innovation award" for its "poetic quality" and The Parking Attendant in July both Best Actor for Fan Wei and one of the festival's two Grand Jury Prizes. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 21:45:23 -0800 (PST) From: Gil Ray Subject: [loud-fans] Top 10 (sorta) My top 10...Hmmm..Well, I'll try. I only got 15 CD's in 2004 that were released in 2004. Of those, 2 are compilations and 4 are reissues. I'm actually a bit more excited about the Cactus, Beck Bogert and Appice, and early Uriah Heep (pre-wizardy stuff), cd's that I got this year. Go figure..Nevertheless here are all in descending order. 1. Magnetic Fields - i (love it, would've loved it more if there was more Claudia!) 2. Piero Piccioni - I Giovani Tigri (soundtrack to some mid 60's Italian groovy love romp, I think. It's awesome loungy groovy organ driven music. Drives Stacey nuts) 3. Doug Gillard - Salamander 4. Shalini - Metal Corner (great version of Cheap Trick's Downed. Top notch album.) 5.Zolar X - Timeless (insane glam rock that has never been released before) 6.Slade - Get Yer Boots On (a best of that rocks, I never really checked them out before, because they look like insects, but this is awesome) 7.Akira Ifukube - Godzilla (soundtrack to the original movie that was recently re-released.) 8.Ted Leo & The Pharmacists - Shake The Sheets (woulda been higher, but I think he needs to explore different...paths..a bit..) 9. Jamie Hoover/Bill Lloyd - Paparazzi (Jamie is an old friend and former bandmate that just keeps on trying....Hate to say it, but I like Bill's stuff better!) 10.Dean Martin - Aw C'mon (a best of from a Brit label we carry at work) 11. Chris von Sneidern - Headful Of Words (another best of that's pretty strong..can't take his real albums, but this works ok for me) 12.The Monolith - Here Comes (pretty cool Beatlesque pop, but I'll probably not play it much....) 13.Betty Wright - can't find it, and I've forgotten the title..but it's her 2nd album.(There's not another Clean UP Woman on here, but there is a great version of I Am Woman). 14.Mac Dre - Ronald Dregan-Dreganomics (Mac Dre was a rapper we carried at City Hall Records. He was also the ONLY artist to ever thank the warehouse workers at City Hall, by name, on a CD. He was murdered a couple of months ago in Kansas City. His records are the same old rap shit, but he's getting an honorable mention here because he was a very fun and interesting guy, and I tried to talk him into running for governor in California, during the bastard Republican coup that took place in California a while back. He declined, noting that he was a convicted felon (conspiracy to commit bank robbery!). I hate that he was killed. His mother is taking over his label, and I wish her the best. R.I.P., Mac Dre. Speaking of DEATH...Spencer Dryden (drummer for Jefferson Airplane and New Riders of the Purple Sage) died a couple of days ago. I had the wonderful pleasure to have worked with him for about 5 years, and he was a wonderful, great, beautiful soul that had the best stories I have ever heard. His health had been declining for a while, but prostate cancer finally did him in. I will miss him, and I'm so very thankful that I got to know him as a friend. This really sucks. Goddamn it. Gil Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 01:07:30 EST From: AWeiss4338@aol.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Top 10 (sorta) In a message dated 1/13/2005 12:56:11 AM Eastern Standard Time, ggilray@yahoo.com writes: Speaking of DEATH...Spencer Dryden (drummer for Jefferson Airplane and New Riders of the Purple Sage) died a couple of days ago. I had the wonderful pleasure to have worked with him for about 5 years, and he was a wonderful, great, beautiful soul that had the best stories I have ever heard. His health had been declining for a while, but prostate cancer finally did him in. I will miss him, and I'm so very thankful that I got to know him as a friend. This really sucks. Goddamn it. He's dead! That is a big shame. I loved his drumming. I have a DVD called Got A Revolution, which is a bio of the Airplane, the 'classic' lineup, with interviews of all the band members. He was great, especially what he had to say about Lather, which Grace Slick wrote for him turning 30. Sounds like he was a good person Gil. RIP Spencer, Andrea ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 01:35:02 EST From: AWeiss4338@aol.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Top 10 (sorta) And Git A Revolution is a mistake. It's Fly Jefferson Airplane for the title of the DVD. Sorry about that. Andrea ------------------------------ End of loud-fans-digest V5 #12 ******************************