Well that was fast…
First good album of the year - thanks to Todd Terje. Give a listen to It’s The Arps.
Lakeside
New Release - Ring Trick - Oasis EP
Here’s a collection of vocal and ambient songs I’ve been working on for quite awhile. Time to consolidate, tweak, share, and move on. Hope you enjoy the listen!
Now on to new tracks.
Warm regards,
Charlie
Movie Of The Day - Take Shelter
Movies that try to balance a narrator between two alternate, hypothetical realities are always a tough sell. Undoubtedly they’re a major challenge for any screenwriter. People laugh when I insist - honestly- that Total Recall has one of the better scripts ever in mainstream Hollywood. One key reason for this belief comes from that scripts uncanny ability to make the viewers doubt what they see.
So yes - it’s a challenge. After all, you’ve got multiple elements in play. You’ve got to make the unreliable narrators doubt an audience’s doubt. If the story leans too much toward the supernatural, or vice versa, the game’s over. The movie becomes boring and predictable. You’ve also got to make the characters struggle the audience’s struggle. So both realities have to be independently compelling. The scenario where a man is losing his mind has to be just as interesting as the scenario where he’s totally, utterly right. That perfect balance creates a pleasurable hell for the audience because they spend the entire runtime second-guessing themselves. Finally, you have to make that unreliable narrator a likeable character.
Here is a movie that tries that epic balancing act - and succeeds for the most part. It’s not perfect, but it’s always entertaining. These are the kinds of stories that are arguably most difficult to tell. And the trying alone makes it worth it.
jmak:
Thanks, Steve.
Posting designs like this one makes me paranoid, because I can’t shake the feeling that it’s not original. I enjoyed the process regardless, but please let me know if somebody else beat me to the idea!
Thoughts?
reblogged from jmak
Reckless Caregiver
I made a new song! Click on the link to be directed to the SoundCloud page.
It’s been awhile! So here it is! Hope you like it, internet.
I watched Alien the other night for the first time in multiple years. It’s funny how the rough edges of a movie disappear, but an idea of its quality remains. I had forgotten the specifics of what made it so special.
The awesome oddity of a totally empowered, badass female hero in a movie made during the 70s. The wretched sounds of all those future-people getting picked off one by one by that alien, whose unseen shadow-presence still inspires a dread Hollywood has been unsuccessfully trying to replicate for years. A production and art design that invested in actual sets over pure technical gimmickry - and cheated around the overly complicated stuff with solutions that only added to an overall aesthetic creepiness.
More than anything, I was struck by the movie’s pace. Part of the reason Alien is so scary is because the movie takes its time. You get to know the characters. You begin to see yourself in them. And when the movie begins to grow more and more tense, it does so carefully. There’s a scene where a character slowly follows a stupid cat through various rooms - and we know for certain the guy is toast - but the movie teases you with that knowledge over a painful time. He pauses under water to take off his hat and clean his sweaty face. He calls out to the cat. He walks through room after room. Finally the alien strikes. Good lord.
More movies like that, please.
Drive - quite the film. Just downloaded the soundtrack. Probably the favorite non-lyric track. All music composed by Cliff Martinez. The nice thing about smaller films, I guess, is that they get to me more experimental with the sounds. I wish the big action blockbusters went for it with the synths like this one does.
