Hot Stuff

The remix of Coldplay's "Talk" that appears on +Thrivemix, Vol. 2+ and the track "Animal Attraction" (from She Wants Revenge's EP +Up and Down+)  are two of the most you-can't-fight-it-so-shake-it-till-you-can't-shake-it-no-more dance songs you will ever hear. And since it's been too cold to go out (and I don't really go to clubs these days when I go out anyway) I've been exercising inside to them...even better, songs like these make cleaning much much more interesting...

"Talk" as it appears on  +X & Y+ is radically different...with the remix you'll find lots of synth and drum machines, but it is so hypnotic and chill that you feel pretty dazed during the whole thing...still, it's so great to dance to.

Hearing the original version reminded me that Coldplay did so much before +Viva La Vida+...one of the most haunting and beautiful of their earlier songs (just my two cents, of course!) is "Trouble." When I first heard it back in 2003 it stayed with me for days afterward...perhaps because it hits so close to anyone who has ever done something they regret with all their heart...

 

So I've been listening to Spoon's new album +Transference+ a lot in the past 24 hours and I really, really like it...one of the songs has been especially looping in my head...with its driving beat and mystic sounds. I like the title because it makes me think of dreams. Below, the last line breaks up like it does because that's what happens when you listen to the song...very surreal how it just ends at the very beginning of my-----

"The Mystery Zone"

Picture yourself
Set up for good in a whole other life
In the mystery zone

Make us a house
Some far away town
Where nobody will know us well
Where your dad's not around
And all the trouble you look for all your life
You will find it for sure
In the mystery zone

Times that we met
Before we met
Times that we met
We'll go there
To the mystery zone
Ah the mystery zone

There goes the rider
At gates of dawn
He takes no prisoners at all
He'll be there on his own

What gets him gone
Off down that road
Is something he don't understand
Ooh! The mystery zone

Maybe all he wants
Maybe all he needs
Is to know that the sun don't set
On the mystery zone

How come it feels so familiar
When you never been there?
How come it seems so unreachable
You never tried to find
Never tired to find the mystery zone
Mystery zone, oooh!

All of the people
You used to run into but never do now
They took off for the mystery zone

And when you know love
When you find it for real
It contains the emotion sense of
Everyone ready
Your cover was blown
You weren't there but you were
Ooh in the mystery zone
You weren't there but you were
You weren't there but you were

Openin' windows
Doors never close it's the fresh air fiend
It's the information troll

We'll pack a bag
Sendin' it off just some things that never fit right
To the m...
And we'll send it ahead as a test so we'll know
Call it up when it gets there
"What's it like in the mystery zone?"

The times that we met
Before we met
We'll go back there
Oh, times that we met
We'll go back
We'll go back there
The mystery zone
To the mystery zone
The mystery zone
Oh the mys...

(one of my favorites even though it's not really something i'd say i like)

The first time I saw "Vampire's Kiss" I didn't know what to think...DID Nicolas Cage's character get bitten by a vampire or did he suffer a psychotic break from reality? In some scenes he's talking to a vamp (played by Jennifer Beals) and other times he's talking to nothing but air. 

Cage (as Peter Loew) has this very odd way of talking in the movie...an affectation of sorts that isn't as put-on as it sounds the more he descends into madness. As annoying as his character can be at times, you can't help but be fascinated by his craziness and his intense need to believe what he thinks is (or what may actually be) happening to him.

Jennifer Beals does the best she can with a rather limited role, but when she IS on screen, she is strangely seductive and convincingly vampiric. The great thing about films like "Vampire's Kiss" is that it's up to the viewer to decide what's happening. And while I could be totally wrong, I think Rachel (Beals) is not a vampire,  but the amazingly attractive woman who is completely out of Peter's league and whose rejection of him at a party one night sends him into a tailspin.

I could never do this book justice with a review. All I will say is that _Affinity_ by Sarah Waters broke my heart. I went through several tissues and my heart skipped a few beats through some of the twists and turns the novel took.  

When I first read it a few years ago I filled my journal with pages of thoughts and feelings, but I have since lost it...I remember reading it and getting so into it that I was devastated  for days, even after I finished reading...in my lifetime not many books have done that to me.

 

Just when I think I have seen all the films that could possibly leave me vulnerable, I find this under-rated and powerful DVD. I watched this on Showtime and it left me in that "wow" fog a good movie can leave behind.

If you start watching AMERICAN GUN and are tempted to stop because Virginia Madsen apparently leaves the storyline early, don't! Not only is her character crucial to the overall plot, James Coburn knocks you out cold with his caring, but angry-at-the-world-and-himself portrayal of a father who loses a family member to a fatal gunshot.

I hesitate to describe too much of the plot since there are unexpected turns and twists that shouldn't be revealed, but I can elaborate on the style and lovely quietness of AMERICAN GUN. Maybe "quiet" isn't the whole truth since various gunshots explode throughout the movie as James Coburn explores the history of one gun that has traveled through many different hands. The loudness is also there when he looks back at his own experiences with ammunition in war.

AMERICAN GUN hit me so hard because it is an emotional film more than anything else. At first it seems to be about how a husband and wife each handle grief differently or how one man is determined to find his daughter's killer. In a way, that could sum it up, but there's also a lot about closure and what we think we see versus what is actually there.

The reason this indie deserves more acclaim is because it takes you places you don't expect to go and you are able to experience that great mental process called "thinking." Watch this by yourself--or better yet, rent it with a group of friends who truly enjoy discussing (but not talking to death) a great work of art.

On a side note: The whole cast is just spectacular (a small role by Alexandra Holden will get you a bit teary-eyed), but Coburn and Madsen shine.