Laura
Cantrell
CQ |
To
be fair, the first half of 2002 is hard to remember. Something
about being cold, then warming up to stifling heat. Proper memories
return somewhere around August or September. Unfortunately,
most of those memories are shared with Mario as he/I battled
a fake impostor Mario (in a strange twist that Philip Roth would
appreciate) on the Isle Delfino. But a few things did push through
the clamor of the brain to be truly memorable
• Saint Etienne’s latest album Finisterre is
a gorgeous return to form by a band whose strength is making
chart-topping music for a parallel reality where 60s soul and
melody reign supreme. Bob, Pete, and Sarah use elements of their
own influences, but create something new. So the single "Action"
uses the melody of a Beach Boys song. It's not emulation--its
re-creation.
• Country-singer Laura Cantrell’s second album When
The Roses Bloom Again hit the same sad and sweet note that
her first album did. She makes it seem so easy: host radio show
for old forgotten country music, record album of covers and
originals on par with covers. Something about the music journalist
term “alt-country” seems like a put down. Let’s
just call it plain, regular “country” and try to ignore
the sequin and ill-advised fireworks that have invaded the genre
in the popular mind. That’s a battle worth fighting.
• A few years ago a roommate was remarked on my resemblance
to Leonard Cohen. It wasn’t my face so much, or even my
voice—the resemblance was based on a winter coat. The type
of coat Leonard Cohen would wear, he said. Others agreed to
this assessment when questioned. But my relationship with Mr
Cohen was left at that—a shadow resemblance based on clothing.
Now that that coat lives in the back of the closet, Mr Cohen’s
records are in frequent rotation here. He never sings about
a coat though; his poetry concerns loftier ideas.
• The movie within the movie CQ would have been
a fine feature itself: a Barbarella-inspired international spy
gal clad in leather jumpsuits and taking down Paris 1969 rebels
on the moon. But that film wasn't even the point. A young director
tries to find his way between truth and fiction, back when truth
didn't seem such an illusion. He finds what he is looking for,
or a something else on the way.
• Lynne Ramsay's second film, Morvern Callar, is
adapted from Alan Warner's novel of the same name. Morvern wakes
up one morning to find her boyfriend's body on the floor with
a completed novel and love note on the computer. So she travels
to Spain with her favorite mixtape… (Other details withheld
to encourage more viewers to see the movie). Ramsay lets the
camera just linger... on a hand stretching towards the sea…
a hand against a chest. One quibble: Morvern only lights a Silk
Cut with the goldish lighter twice. And one of those times the
lighter doesn't even work.
• The museum as a ghost—the building as a character.
Russian Ark is a delirious tour of the Hermitage in St
Petersburg. One single tracking shot follows a mysterious tour
guide through scenes of the lives of Catherine the Great, Pushkin,
the last czar and family, and the building's current life as
a museum. The film is a Proustian meditation on Russia, history,
life and time. You are the camera drifting along…
What did I forgot?
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