UnTotal Abandonment

Wow.
So it has been months.... Eons.....Tree life times since I have done anything remotely bloggingly...
Sorry.
I really knuckled down and dirty with my dissertation, and got it all handed in early to boot! That was a couple of weeks ago now. My dissertation focused on the post-modern attitudes of the photography of children, or more specifically adolescent girls. I looked at critical texts by Patricia Holland, (hers are ever so easy to read, huzzah! And she has loads of really interesting points and personal opinion, so that's lovely.) I also included Foucault, because you pretty much have to. I looked at examples of "Outrage!" On the public side from the last 30 years or so. The Gary Gross photographs of Brooke Sheilds, Sally Manns - Immediate Family, Bill Hensons Untitled portraits and then Annie Leibovitzs' Vanity Fair shoot of Miley Cyrus. Lots of nice discussion. :)
I think I hit just over 8100 words. I did a lot of bloody cutting out though. It's harder than you think to delete a page of writing that has taken you two days to do!

Movie Review - Inglorious Basterds

I know right. Its a fracking Tarantino.

I'll be honest here. I think I knew from the get go that I would like Inglorious.
Kill Bill one and two are right up there on my fave film lists. Oh yeah. That high up.
I don't know the exact reason I love Tarantino films so much, but I've narrowed it down to a few reasons, which I will so conveniently list pour vu.

1) His use of languages. He uses them. No shitty talking with a funny accent like were not ment to tell the difference. I will admit, The Pianist (Roman Polanski) has a bit of the iffy accents, but its a damn good film in its own right. Anyway, I just hated it when a character spoke English but the German/French/Spanish who also spoke English albeit with a weird lilt, totes didn't understand. That deserves a WTF.

2)His sound tracks. When Inglorious was first released I saw an interview on Friday Night With Johnathan Ross. He said that he didn't like composers because they could set the scene. The music score has such an impact on the viewer, and Tarantino knows exactally what he wants.
So he picks the choons.
One of the most recognisable is the opening tune for The Alamo which is a John Wayne classic, FYI, hinting on at the films spaghetti western likeness.

3) Comedy....... What? I laugh at the wrong things mmkay?
(I laughed out loud when Landa is speaking english and sounds like he's on 'Das Ist Numberwang,' - Mitchell and Webb look. Google it.)

4) Gore.... But gore where its due. Aldo's got a knife. Donny's got a bat. There's guns and a big fire.

5) Chapters. Yes please.

The Actors:

Lets start with the Laydee'z of the film.

Cinema owning French Resistance:
(Shockingly there is only one of these in the film.)

Here Shosanna is all sexy with a gun.

Here Shosanna is all sexy with a bohochic and a cigarette.

Melanie Laurent plays Shosanna Dreyfus. The film opens with her familly being shot by Standartenfuhrer Hans Landa aka "The Jew Hunter." She is allowed to run away by Landa. (His laughing is just a wee hint at his sociopath tendencies.)
We then see her threeish years later and she has a new identity, a lover (the very cute and adoring Marcel, played by Jacky Ido,) and a cinema. Also a hatred of Nazis, but we kinda guessed at that. Her cinema is chosen (with a little help from Zoller who has a teeny crush on her,) to show the movie premier.

The German Resistance:

I kill baby daddies and sleep easy at night. What can I say? It's a gift?

The beautiful Diane Kruger as Bridget von Hammersmark. A very popular film star in Germany and a spy for the Allies. She knows her shit.
Probably doesn't like Aldo all that much. Just a hunch.

The Germans:

Check out mah pipe. I'm like a German Sherlock Holmes. With all mah detectiveing.

Standartenfuhrer Hans Landa. Given the name "The Jew Hunter" by his adoring fans and sporting game alike. He finds it a form of flattery. Landa has the job of rounding up all the Jews in France, or just killing them, and he's damn good at it. During the film we realise he can speak fluent German, French, English and Italian. He can be a charming detective but he never strays from his goal. (See opening chapter.)

ZOMG he's the cutest fraking German. To whom it may concern, I want a Bruhl of my own. Thanking you in advance.

Schutze Fredrick Zoller. Played by the wonderfull actor Daniel Bruhl. I may or may not have sung his praises before, but if I haven't, hes fucking aces.
As well as being a wonderful actor, hes easy on the eyes. *happy sigh*
I have not watched as many of his films as I want, but in the few I have seen he has played a communist (The Edukators,) new-consumerist (Goodbye Lenin) and now a Nazi. I am running a mock on Amazon at first chance.

Obviously there are a lot more Germans in this film. Such as Hitler.

The British:

Scotch? Attaboy.

Now here is just a teeny tiny smidge of the comedy I was on about earlier.

The Brits are all toffy-talking, scotch-guzzeling, arse licking tossers. Nice enough to like, but the small chapter in the Brits briefing room (*snort*) With the hil-fucking-arious Mike Myers... Well... Just watch yes?

Michael Fassbender is Lutenint Archie Hilcox. (Left.) He was a film critic and had written a book about German film before the war. He speaks German fluently. Both these are center to the plot. Alas. Scotch will be his downfall, as well as not being able to count to three in German.)

General Ed Fenech played brilliantly by Mike Myers (Right.) He makes the plot to kill the germans up. With the help of the Basterds.

Rod Taylor as Winston Churchill. Fantastic. Even got the lisp.


The Basterds:

The Basterds.

Got me a job.. Killin' Nazis. And I rock me a 'stache.

1st Lieutenant Aldo Raine. aka "Aldo the Apache" (so named for him and his Basterds habit of scalping their German Nazi victims. Nice.)
He got together a missfit group of Jewish soldiers for the sole reason of being dropped into occupied France and killing Nazis. First to 500 wins.
Brad Pitt. Fan-bloody-tastic. He has nailed Aldo's character.
The heavy accented guy from Maynardville Tennessee. Can't miss him.

Thats nice yes?

Oh go on. Have another. Just look at those biceps......*THUD*

Eli Roth... Oh shit his name made me ovulate.... Yummhmm.

'Scuse.

Eli Roth put on thirty five.. THIRTY FIVE fucking pounds of muscle for the roll of Donny Donowitz, aka "The Bear Jew'.
Donny carries a bat that has signatures of people in Boston that have Jewish family in Europe and he uses the bat to smash Nazis heads into little blobby smushy pulpy piles on the floor.
Gore when its due folks, gore when its due...

Roth directs the short film used in the film "Nations Pride". Busy guy.

Stiglitz. Everyone in the film knows his name. Has a feck off big gun.

Til Schweiger plays Hugo Stiglitz, An ex-German Soldier who is a quiet character vocally. With his actions he kills Nazi's, which is why he was approached in prison by the Basterds in a kind of "Want in?" break out.

Wicki: Rocking the scalp/sporran look.

Gedeon Burkhard plays Corporal Wilhelm Wicki. An Austro-German who emmigrated to America at the Nazis started taking over Europe. He is the translator for the Basterds.

B. J. Novak as Smithson Utivich aka "The Little Man"

Omar Doom as Omar Ulmer

Samm Levine as Gerold Hirschberg.

Paul Rust as Andy Kagan:

Michael Bacall as Michael Zimmerman.

Carlos Fidel as Simon Sakowitz.

Shosanna and Frederick. Awkward moment.

Bridget doing what she does best.

Eli Roth... Fucking artistic. Oh and Brad Pitt's there too.

The Plot:
Now I would like to explain this, I really would. But its a Tarantino. I can't ruin for others and I would be here for timeage anyway. Just for you I will list the chapters out. As if that helps.
1) Once Upon A Time... In Nazi Occupied France
2) Inglourious Basterds
3 German Night in Paris
4) Operation Kino
5) Revenge of the Giant Face

There are a lot of questions left unanswered. Did QT want that or was it just what was cut out due to time restraints? I think a bit of both.
Aldo's neck scar. Rumours and a small hint in the film of an attempted lynching.
The signatures Donnowitzs' bat, apparantly there was a scene showing people signing it, but it got cut.
Frederik Zoller. How the fuck did he kill 300 Americans? Was it an accident?

These are Q's which are valid, but if you see the films ending, you know real life facts don't really matter to this film anyway.

Little Factoid: All the swastikas had to be 'shopped out of the German movie posters. Tru fax.

It's taken nearly two hours to put this together. I'm that crap with blogger. And I will now always spell basterds/bastard wrong.

Now.
Go fucking see it. Is good. No lie.

101 Reykjavik - A small movie review.

Song Du Jour - The Bleeding Heart Show by The New Pornographers.

Hey.

Am feeling more on the shit side of things today, and haven't been able to eat in more than 24 hours. But on the plus side, I've lost 6 pounds. Score!

101 Reykjavik is a feck hot book by Hallgrimur Helgason which was published in 1996.

The book is fab, but, and please don't shoot me here. I'm going to talk about the film. Yes! I know! I normally hate book to movie swaps, (Unless it involves the actors RPatz and Jackson Rathbone, but that is for a whole other issue....)

The film 101 Reykjavik was made in 2000, and directed by Baltasar Kormákur.

The film stars Hilmir Snær Guðnason as the roguish? No, lazy but lovable anti hero Hylmur. Hulmur is pushing thirty and still lives with his mother Berglind. (Hanna María Karlsdóttir,) in her very groovy house. (a bath with a lid on is the dining bench. It works and looks fab, believe me.

He does the same things every day. Wakes up after noon. Cashes in his empty coke bottles for a pack of smokes and mooches off to find the nearest party. Or down to the pub with his friends.

"The boozer-loser-blues piss-up pick-up place. Old meat served on every table. Recycled jawbones kissing, pickled bollocks in pussy juice. Everybody's had everybody. It's like the waiting room at the VD clinic. Everybody locked up in the same DNA chain. Abortions floating between the tables. This place is haunted by unborn children. It's like the family reunion of a non-existent family." - Hylmur.

The film does take some rather philosophical ramblings from Hylmur's narrated dialogue in the book. Such as "People only live in Iceland because they are born here." And, "I was dead before I was born, and I will be dead again when I die. Living is just a break from being dead." And my personal fave, "Saturday night [at the pub/club] is just friday night part two. Everyone talks about last night like it's a sequel."

I can think of a shit load more quotes but I'm rambling and don't want to ruin it for you. I'm that kind of kind.

Anyways, heres Hylmur.

Awww Cute and bespectacled huh?

Everything's going along smoothly. Hylmur spends his days in his set routine, mostly ignoring his one night stand girl Hofy, (who is desperately trying to make Hylmur turn into a steady boyfriend and settle down...)

Enter Lola.

Lola (Victoria Abril) is Hylmur's mother's flamenco dancing teacher. It quickly becomes apparent, to the viewer at least, that their relationship is a special kinda relationship. Wink wink.

Eventually christmas rolls round, and Hylmur and his mother drive up to his perfect big sisters house. She has it all. House in the 'burbs, Husband, kids, new car every year. The lot.

You can she she is making an effort for Christmas to be perfect, but alas, there's only so much you can do to a room of boring people. (Here Hylmur imagines a very vivid bloodbath scene, where he takes a shot gun off the wall and proceeds' to shoot all the people in the room. Much screaming)

Next up is new years. Here, his mum Berglind, drives to visit more family, leaving Lola and Hylmur alone to ring in the new years. They get drunk and... (dot, dot, dot.)

Later on we see Hylmurs' calm exterior start to crack, we see him face the prospect of two children to different women, his mother coming out the closet and re evaluating his life.

"Lola will be his mum, and my mum will be his dad. And I'll be his brother, but his father too, and the son of his dad and of his grandmother and his mothers ex-lover." - Hylmur

I wont say much else. You go watch it. Oh, and go read the book.

TMx

Movie Tag line. 30° below zero, five hours of daylight, what else can you do but get wrecked.

More Photography anyone?

I figure since the I'm off into the photography trade, I should put some more pictures on up here.

I wasn't sure what I should put up here first, but Ted was round here today, being all sick and... Gooey and so on, full of cold germs, nice. We got chatting and all giddy and excited about the gigs were planning on going to and first on our list of giggage we have iLikeTrains.

I heart iLikeTrains. A lot. I mean really, my web alias is iLikeTigerMilk.

A hommage if you will to Belle and Sebastian and the Train Appreciators.

Photos. Here y'are.

iLikeTrains at Live@Leeds 2009.

(Sweet baby Jesus I think I just ovulated...... Far too beautiful.. (Man beautiful, man beautiful!!)

(Favorite of mine! Just 'cos of the light on his lovely bearded face. A-Fecking-Sigh....)

Sorry the pics are pretty crap. I have them on Facebook, (yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sad and pathetic.... So shoot me.) Anywho, I couldn't be arsed re-converting my Raw files all over again. Make do people. Make do.

Heres the Album. Go listen. Or even better, go get the aces DVD like Ted. Play all the videos in one go. They link together, so you get the date in numbers on the first, then it will say shit like "200 years earlier" and "35 years later". The videos are made with little puppets. Fantastic. Y'all will know what I'm on about if your a Terra Nova lover. Makes me cry every bloody time...

I have just realised I like any band that has some 'bow' action. (i.e uses a viola/violin/cello bow on an electric bass or guitar.) Pour example, Jonsi - Sigur Ros and iLikeTrains... Ok, not a really long list... Please continue like that interruption never happened.

Me and Ted are off to see iLT at the Cockpit in Leeds on the 16th of October. Cannot fucking wait. We first saw iLT in a battle of the bands on my 16th birthday. so that'll be nearly FIVE years when we see them in a couple of months..... I like to think that I've been with the guys from the start..... But only when there in Leeds.... (Which fyi, they always come to, they are pure Leeds baby..)

I'm off now to sort through pictures that I can put up here to be all cool and shizz.

Night night. TM.

Je suis une funky femme......

And I do like Marmaduke Duke, (see title.) But it isn't really what I'm addicted to atm. But its a fecking cool title. My blog, my rules.

Anywho. Le Musique. I'm not gonna do a huge random list and bombard you with tons of music. Uncool. And take fecking ages. I'm going to put up only a few of my fave and most listened to bands of the moment right now. This minute.

Riceboy Sleeps is a, well, side type project with non other than Sigur Rós front man Jónsi and his partner in life and crime Alex. They also work with the awesome string quartet Amiina.

The reason I love this album so much, is that they have managed to still make a sound unique and different to Sigur Rós' usual tones. More in depth and quiet I think. I can't tell if a song is "happy" or "sad", for want of a better explanation.. Whereas Sigur Rós, me and Ted say they have "happy" songs and "sleepy" songs.

Through random damn curiosity, and the aid of wikipedia. Me and Ted discovered that (track 4,) Stokkseyri is a town in the south of Iceland, (no shit Sherlock..) AND it was founded by Hásteinn Atlason (Track 2, Atlas Song?)

Also, wikipedia also says that track 5, Boy 1904 has the last castrati left.... Me and Ted think that might be pushing it somehow, and that they have used the same choir boys from Ara Batur, on the Sigur Rós album.

Tracks you must listen to: Boy 1904, Sleeping Giant.

u_mä are Pau Vallvé and Maria Coma. See what they did there? pa|u_mä|ria. Awwww thats cute! heh. They say on their website: http://www.umabcn.com/

"For us u_mä is a mixture of nostalgia, nature and "home made". It is also the result of what we are as a couple.Our music is small and cyclical with a very familiar sonority. We keep on recording the instruments in real time in some samplers creating like this the bases of the songs. On top of these bases we play and sing."

Let me tell you, the homemadeness really comes out in their music. They have recently re-released their first album, complete with bonus tracks.

Track 11 is so homemade, they have a damn cute kid singing with the piano.

The tracks lyrics, which have just been put up with English translations on the couples website, have a mixture of

themes but seem mostly to do with animals. And Cats :)

The music itself seems to swing between childish playfulness and complete melancholy, but hey, thats me to a T.

Tracks you must listen to: Track 2, Adeu, track 3, Blanc, track 6, Miau (oh yes it is what you think.)

Oh and track's 9, 12 and 13.

Just go listen kay?

So here are The Black Ghosts. How'd they get on this list?! They just did m'kay. Eclectic tastes a-go-go here.

Spotify say TBGs are: "A dance-pop duo." .... Well I s'pose I do dance to them. I calls 'em my photo editing music. :)

I found them, (where they ever lost?) When they appeared on the Twilight soundtrack with the song Full Moon. This song really sticks out in style to the other tracks on the album, and I am finding that I prefere their 'normal' sound. Still, it's a da-mn good song.

The rest of the album seems to be danceish music, heavily on the instruments, (and I DON'T mean a damn beatboxer guy..) I mean violins and pianos. Their lyrics are also fab, and a helluva lot better than say... Hot Chip......

TBGs are Simon Lord and Theo Keating.

Tracks you must listen to. Track 3, It's your touch, track 4, Repetition Kills You and of course, track 7, Full Moon.

P.S I also like how each track is completely different. Just the feeling it gives off. Rather than the whole album being too

....erm.. samey.

Alrighty. Here goes Iron and Wine. Two albums in fact.

Iron and Wine is the name of Samuel Beam. He is a bearded Floridian with a wife and two kids. He's a fecking genius and has given me an unhealthy obsession for folk, whiskey, American porches and bearded men.

'The Shepherds Dog' was released in 2007. Five years after the release of 'The Creek Cradel' in 2002. (Which, alas, is not on this list 'cos Spotify's a bitch and Amazon aint ordered yet. Guilty as charged people. Guilty as charged....)

Anywho. Compare this album to his much earlier recordings, which feature just his whispery sweet sweet voice and his slide guitar.... Oh sorry, got lost in a moment there... Where was I, yes, comparing this release to his earlier works and you can see just how much he has grown as a musician, but still managed to keep his own style. He uses percussion, though still quietly in subtle ways such as clapping, and you can see he has made full use of a 'real' recording studio as he has recorded his own backing vocals. (His earlier recordings are just him and damn dictation machine!)

This album features tracks that make you want to be sat at dusk, in some southern state in the U.S of A, drinking whiskey.... Having a smoke..... Oops, again with the moment.

Other tracks on this album are definitely danceable. Or at least jiggable. (See video for A Boy With A Coin.)

Tracks you must listen to. Track 1, (best album opener ever,) 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, (listen to it twice and learn the lyrics.) 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12. (Yes its the Twilight love song. But its good.)

Around The Well is a release of new things and a lot of beautiful old things he just had lying around. He is made of music this fine fine man.

This album is a whopping 23 tracks long. And, dare I say it? All of them are GOOD! some are even great. And most are damn fecking fantastic. Mmm hmm..

The album opens with Dearest Forsaken. A track which keeps all that is good and holy about our man Sam Beam. He starts with simple melancholic strumming, then starts to sing in That Voice and then the guitar takes on an added riff. It sends the proverbial shivers this track does..... Ohhh yeahh.... Ahem, 'scuse.....

The rest of the album mixes the older and the newer sounds well, so that it doesn't feel like a 'best of' album, y'all know what I'm on about here. And FYI, this ain't no best of album. :)

I don't know what else to say, except, please, go listen to the blessed thing. You wont regret. You will be in love... And dream of guitars and beards.....

Tracks you must listen to. 1, 2, 6 (if only for the banjo.) 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.. Oh fuck it. Go listen.

Needless to say, I has a shit load of music on my poor Mac. This is a slither of a slice but it my faves of the moment. And what I just can't not listen to.

Well... Iron and Wine is still playing. So I think I'll go grab a whiskey.

Ha Det folks!

TM x