When I lived in Australia well over a decade ago, the Australian government would take the “boat people” – refugees coming illegally by boat to Northern Australia, Western Australian Queensland and some Australian islands – who made it ashore and throw them in jails in the middle of nowhere in the Outback. The boat people …
Month: April 2016
Missy Higgins: Oh Canada (2016, Nicholas Kallincos, Natasha Pincus)
I saw this music video posing as a short film at Hot Docs last night. It’s an animated film about Alan Kurdi. It includes pictures drawn by refugees but most of it was professionally animated (even though it is given the look of a child’s picture).
Blue is the Warmest Color aka La vie d’Adele (2013, Abdellatif Kechiche)
This is an affecting, if long, coming of age story that contains perhaps the most graphic sex scenes I’ve ever seen in a coming of age movie (i.e. a movie involving “teens”). The film goes places other films don’t with the passion of “first love” thing, i.e. explicit sex. But there’s a lot more to …
Top 33 Maple Leafs Draft Picks of All Time
More than a little while ago now (this past summer), Scott Wheeler (of PPP, etc.) claimed that Mitch Marner might be the most talented hockey player ever drafted by the Maple Leafs. And now that the Leafs have the #1 overall pick for the first time in over 30 years, Marner might be only the …
2015-16 NBA Awards
MVP Curry is
Metal Evolution (2011)
Metal Evolution is an in depth examination of metal by the man most associated with covering metal on film – though I have yet to see either of his movies.
The Best of the Classic Capitol Singles (2013) by Wanda Jackson
This is a compilation that, despite its title, appears to contain every single one of Jackson’s singles for Capitol between 1956 and the early ’60s. It shows off what could only be a pioneering fusion of country and rock music that I was completely unaware existed.
The Quest for a Moral Compass (2014) by Kenan Malik
I have been reading Malik’s blog for more than a few years at this point (I think), in part because I feel like he has much greater insight into the issues around jihadism than most of the people writing in North America (who I’ve had a chance to read). I find his approach not only …
A Case of Need (1968) by Michael Crichton writing as Jeffery Hudson
This is a real page turner and it’s easy to see why it’s the book that properly launched Crichton’s career: it’s full of detailed information about contemporary medicine but Crichton uses that detail to drive the plot, not to overwhelm the reader in minutiae (as some “techno thriller” writers do). Though this type of thriller …
2015-16 NHL Awards
For the second time in as many years, I watched barely any hockey. But that won’t stop me from deciding who was good! I can’t decide whether I am doing this as some kind of self-parody, or just because, really, I want to know who was good, so that I can do better on Sporcle …
Ives: Symphonies Nos 2 and 3; The Unanswered Question (1966) by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Berstein
This is a compilation of the New York Philharmonic and Leonard Berstein’s performances of the middle symphonies and The Unanswered Question, originally a piece paired with another but one that has found a lot of attention as a standalone.
Ives: The Symphonies; Orchestral Sets 1 and 2 (2000) by Various Artists
This is one of those Decca compilations that takes recordings from all over its catalogue – in this case from the mid ’70s and the mid ’90s – to create an ostensibly “complete” collection of a composer’s works in a given field, in this case Ives’ work for large orchestra. Of course it’s not complete, …
Ives: Symphonies Nos 2 and 3 (2006) by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andrew Litton
This set pairs Ives’ middle symphonies with the “song” he orchestrated. The second symphony opens with a movement that is, for Ives, startlingly traditional but it soon brings the zaniness he’s known for.
Ives: Concord Sonata; Songs (2004) by Pierre-Laurent Aimard with Susan Graham
This is one of those discs that pairs two different types of music and so, right off the bat, kind of annoys me. Ives has plenty of songs to release a whole disc (or many discs) of them, without instrumental music. (For example, one of his collections is called 114 Songs.) And he’s got plenty …