Ms. Welch Has Some Lungs on Her: Yes, I did Just do that

Great Britain regularly churns out scrumptious music, I blame the accents. A lot of talented, female acts have hailed from Britain: Lily Allen, Kate Nash, and Amy Winehouse, just to name a few. One of the newest and most satisfying acts is a Florence Welch - the face and voice of Florence and the Machine.
Florence and her Machine only recently gained recognition in the States when she performed at this year's VMAs. She was the ethereal British chick with red hair. One of the best VMA performances of all time, of all time.

Her first and to date only album, Lungs, is a perfect example of what music should be. Florence and the Machine don't shy away from big, sweeping musical scores. There is persistent percussion, harps, pianos, and other instruments that I can't immediately recognize. Lyrically, it often descends into dark imagery. On one track, Howl, she sings "Like some child possessed, the beast howls in my veins/I want to find you, tear out your tenderness" Then there is the sweet romantic side to Florence and the Machine, but the dark edge does not go away. Cosmic Love offers some incredibly beautiful images of stars, maps, and eyes.

Other standout tracks, besides the ones mentioned above, include: Rabbit Heart (Raise it Up), Between Two Lungs, My Boy Builds Coffins, and a cover of You've Got the Love.

I'm Here: Actual Review is Here

Spike Jonze, of Where the Wild Things Are fame, created and directed a short film titled I'm Here and I am very glad that it is here.

It took two views to fully grasp everything and write a coherent review. Note: the previous entry where I could only articulate blind excitement. The second viewing allowed me to see the I'm Here world a little clearer and it was way, way worth it.

Jonze creates an alternative universe where robots and humans coexist with some tension. Robots are treated like second class citizens who are forced to work menial jobs and cannot drive cars. The basic premise of I'm Here is a fun deviation from the boy meets girl formula. Instead, there is robot boy meets robot girl. The robot boy, Sheldon, is a mild mannered robot who falls for the rebellious Francesca.

They begin their poignant relationship when Fancesca and her friends have Sheldon come out with them to have a good time. And so their love affair begins. They sleep together the robot way, sharing an electrical cable. Francesca tells Sheldon about her ability to dream, something that is considered impossible for robots.

However, their touching and intimate relationship is impeded when Francesca starts to literally fall apart. Her various robotic body parts become detached and Sheldon finds himself replacing them with his own parts. It's a very touching take on a relationship and the sacrifices that come with it. These sacrifices that transcend race, religion, orientation, age, and even humanity. One particularly moving scene is when Sheldon convinces Francesca to take his leg. He tells her that he had a dream. His dream involved Francesca singling out his leg as the only leg she wanted. He tells her that it was "the best dream in the history of dreams."

It's all incredibly sweet and beautiful and soon becomes almost tragic. In the entire 30 minutes you will run the gamut of emotions. You will be initially bemused by the rather unusual concept and in the end you will be curled up in tears as Sheldon and Francesca's fates are sealed.

The soundtrack is also worth checking out. The clear standout is up and coming ASKA and her two contributions: "There are Many of Us" and "Y.O.U." Her album is due out in February 2011.

I am not very well versed in technical aspect of film making, but I want to comment on the lighting. I don't know any correct terminology that could describe it. I will just say that it is SO SO PRETTY. My eyes were so absorbed with the gorgeous shots that it actually took three viewings to properly form this review. I had to watch and review at the same time to piece together everything I felt.

Kudos, Spike Jonze.

I'm Here: SEETHISSEETHISSEETHIS

Robots were never so beautifully endearing than in Spike Jonze's short film, I'm Here.



http://www.imheremovie.com/

Easy A(+)

I was nervous about Easy A. The teen movie genre is plagued with one dimensional characters who are focused on fucking and/or getting themselves and others intoxicated so that they can accomplish the aforementioned fucking. It has declined since its glory days of the John Hughes dominated 1980s.

On behalf of my demographic, I cringe at this simplistic representation of adolescents. Although, I will cop to enjoying Superbad, which unabashedly celebrates the two above factors. I am going to further contradict myself and admit to incessantly quoting Mean Girls and Clueless ("boo you whore" and "that was way harsh", respectively). But, for every one of these enjoyable, albeit unrealistic, teen movies there are at least fifteen movies like The Virginity Hit or the long decayed and rotten American Pie series. These movies are unilaterally focused on inserting tab A into slot B. The other end of the genre is the overly sentimental and insipid Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

Easy A dared me to hope for something beyond this. The trailer had some pretty good lines ("I always thought that pretending to lose my virginity would be a little more special. Judy Blume should have prepared me for that"). It was a different spin on the cherry popping that had the potential to be interesting. Easy A also had Emma Stone as its lead. I have a firm girl-crush on Emma Stone: who managed to make her character in Superbad somewhat interesting despite limited material and rocked the hell out Zombieland. I was afraid to get too excited as I walked into the theater.

I was very impressed with how the movie handled cliques and relationship dynamics in high school. Instead of defined and cliques that are segregated in the lunch room, the students are a singular, shapeless body. Everyone is far too concerned with themselves and how they are presented to bother aligning themselves with a firm group. This is a much more accurate representation of 21st Century high school. A world where you have 500 Facebook friends.

The story kicks off with a little white lie. Olive Penderghast (Stone) lies to get out of a camping trip with her friend, Rhiannon, and says that she is going on a date. This lie soon gets bigger and bigger. Soon, the entire school, thinks that Olive lost her virginity to a college guy (who, remember, is nonexistent). One thing leads to another and Olive's gay friend, Brandon, asks her to do him a solid. He asks if she can pretend that he slept with her in order to stop his constant harassment. Olive agrees and she eventually does this for many maligned boys, in exchange for gift cards and money.

The school's Conservative Christian coalition harass and alienate Olive, who in response, starts wearing a scarlet A on her newly purchased slutty clothes. This ties to The Scarlet Letter, which Easy A borrows from. Her reputation corrodes and we watch as Olive tries to pull herself out this mess she created.

Perhaps, the greatest thing about Easy A is that it delineates from the teen movie formula in one wonderful way. Olive relies on herself to get out of her mess. She does not call upon her fiercely loyal friends (she has none), there is no big speech at the end about morals and what the good things in life are, and Olive doesn't fall over another guy. There is a love interest (Penn Badgley), but he doesn't figure into the plot that much except to serve as a foil for the puritanical student body.

All Olive does is simply explains her side of the story to the entire student body via webcam broadcast. This is what makes Easy A great. Although John Hughes helped define teen movies, this is no John Hughes movie. It moves cinematic teens into the 21st Century, Olive gives hope that teens are greater and smarter than they often get credit for.