It’s hard to believe it’s been 10 years since Rufus Wainwright released his debut album. I remember reading all the raves about him on a discussion list and finally getting a copy myself. Addiction came quickly, and the one song I found myself keep listening to was In My Arms. It’s the most sparingly orchestrated and nevertheless the most gripping song on the album; I remember getting goose bumps all over when midway a most sensual voice joined Rufus’. “WHO IS THAT!” I asked myself and immediately grabbed the CD booklet for information: the voice belongs to someone called Martha, who also shares Rufus’ family name. I had been waiting for a full-length from her ever since.
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Popularity: 30%
June 13th, 2008
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em8chel <<
the hound of music, thought for food >>
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“I didn’t want to offend anyone, but I did perhaps want them to be provoked. If anybody is offended, it’s his [or her] own fault. You are free to leave the theater after 5 minutes. I have always said: anyone who watches the film from beginning to end apparently has needed it,” says Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke to Stern about his latest film Funny Games U.S., a scene for scene, shot by shot remake of his own notorious creation bearing the same name sans the U.S. tag a decade ago. The original German cast (starring The Lives of Others‘ Ulrich Mühe) is replaced by Naomi Watts and Tim Roth, and the story is taken to the US. Why a remake of his own film? Because, the controversial director elaborates, the 1997 original has not reached his intended American audience due to the language barrier and the average viewers’ aversion to subtitles.
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Popularity: 33%
June 6th, 2008
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em8chel <<
spoiler alert, thought for food >>
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Actually “favorite 5s” would be a much more appropriate term; it’s not like I’m grading or anything. Besides, there are still heaps of movies and albums I haven’t got to see/listen to. Nevertheless, the following is a compilation of some of my favorite movies, music, books, music videos and various YouTube clips of 2007:
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Popularity: 64%
December 21st, 2007
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em8chel <<
judge a book by its lover, the hound of music, thought for food >>
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The wait is finally over: my Radiohead In Raibowns discbox arrived on Wednesday!
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Popularity: 66%
December 14th, 2007
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em8chel <<
the hound of music, thought for food >>
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The first time I saw The River, it being my first movie by Tsai Ming-Liang, I brushed it off as overdrawn and artsy. The Wayward Cloud from 2005, however, has so impressed me that I started digging into Tsai’s film archive: Goodbye, Dragon Inn is a fantastic idea somewhat lost in pretension; Rebels of The Neon Gods feels like a reminiscent tribute to my teenage years. When Tsai’s latest I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone premiered last year at the London Film Festival, a friend of mine who saw it told me, vaguely and without irony, that the film was about a mattress. He was not all too enthusiastic about it alright. So when the movie opened in Taipei a couple of weeks ago, I walked into the movie theater half expecting to be staring at a flea ridden mattress for 2 hours.
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Popularity: 34%
April 20th, 2007
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em8chel <<
gay stew's coming to dinner, spoiler alert, thought for food >>
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After Bloc Party’s rather lukewarm, uninspiring sophomore album last month, I awaited Arcade Fire’s follow-up to their stunning debut funeral with apprehensive anticipation. Making a second album after a critically acclaimed first has never been easy: bands are under pressure to “mature”, and at the same time still deliver whatever it was that drew the fans to listen in the first round. The curse of sophomore slump often leaves artists either trying too hard to prove or doing nothing to improve. Take the latest release from BP for example, A weekend in the city finds Kele Okereke crooning instead of roaring, the melody dictating the rhythm instead of the other way around, and the unbridled energy of Bloc Party smothered by cloying grandeur of a post-Achtung-Baby U2. Blame it on Jacknife Lee I guess.
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Popularity: 39%
March 17th, 2007
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em8chel <<
bruising my religion, the hound of music, thought for food >>
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It is 1984. The totalitarian state of paranoia and terror George Orwell immortalized in his cautionary tale half a century ago is really happening right in front of our eyes. This is East Germany, where Stasi, the ruthless GDR secret police, “shield and sword” of the regime, spies on its citizens to find everything there’s to know about “the lives of others” by wiring apartments, tapping phone lines, and turning family members, friends, neighbors and colleagues into informants. It is estimated that some 102,000 Stasis and as many as 2 million informants have been recruited to espionage and oppress the 17 million population over four decades. Violators of the GDR criminal code, such as “Treasonable Relaying of Information” (talking to a journalist from West Germany), “Treasonable Agent Activity” (planning immigration to West Germany) or spreading “propaganda hostile to the state” (criticism of a party member) are to be severely “corrected”. This all in the name of “protecting the party and the state”.
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Popularity: 47%
February 24th, 2007
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em8chel <<
spoiler alert, thought for food >>
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