The best of 2009

Best album(s) : Mumford and Sons: Sigh no more ; Bonnie Prince Billy: Beware ; Declan de Barra: A fire to scare the sun

Best song : Little Lion Man, Mumford and Sons

Best concert(s): Paul McCartney, Nick Cave, Vic Chestnutt, Camille, Declan de Barra, Leonard Cohen.

Best movie : Lots of expectations and as many disappointments. Best surprise : Das weisse Band - Michael Haneke

Best tv show(s): Flash forward, Capadocia

This is it

So last night, I went to see This is it, expecting it to be a nice overview of what had happened during the rehearsals of the shows Michael Jackson was supposed to do in London last summer.
And what I got... was exactly that. For once, no disapointment, just the man himself rehearsing what he wanted to be his big come back and final farewell to the fans.

What I hadn't known is that some people misunderstood the publicity stunt of the producers and thought that the documentary was going to be some kind of tribute to the myth and was going to talk about the impact of the man's death on our society.

But no. No pretty images, just the raw footage of a fifty year old veteran performer who thought he could still make a difference in the world.
His megalomania was sometimes laughable, sometimes honorable, and even sometimes a bit impressive. But most of all, it was quite cool to see the guy trying to have his old songs come back from the ashes, especially the ones that we hadn't heard 12 548 times since his death.

As I type this, I'm listening to Dangerous. Something I haven't done in about 15 years. All of a sudden, so many pictures of my teen years rush through my mind and make me realise how much I've missed these songs... Give it to me... In the closet... Who is it... Damn... I love this album.

Huh hum, sorry. Sweet old memories over.
Back to This is it...

So yeah, we all knew Michael had a very debatable taste in clothing and these images were the confirmation that it never got better over the years...
We also knew all his shows as "Michael Jackson" were 60% lip-synched (if not more) and the producers didn't have any problem showing it in the documentary. I'm pretty sure any regular spectator wouldn't even notice but when you're a fan and you know the songs by heart, you realize quite easily when 50 year-old Michael does an incredibly perfect impression of his 30 year-old recorded song version...
I mean, ok if it's all about the show and dance... who cares if he sings live or not? But the part where he apparently lets himself go and starts improvising on The way you make me feel and later tells the staff he shouldn't have done that because he needs to keep his voice intact till the real shows... come on, Michael... You probably would have sung 5 songs out of the 20 on the setlist that night. Can't you try and rehearse them all properly, for god's sake?

The most revealing and actually most interesting part of the whole film was when Michael admitted he never wore earpieces ever before and was disturbed because "he was used to hearing the instruments live"... (I guess he was talking about the era when he was 8 and his voice had actually a lower pitch...) Then we heard producer Kenny Ortega asking what kind of mix he wanted to hear in his earpieces - something any musician, used to performing live, would have been a pain in the ass with - and Michael's answer was the most naive and unprofessional of all... "I don't know... Not so loud"...

I smiled and thought to myself, it was so cool and at the same time so weird that a guy that innocent had succeded in making it so big in music history.

Anyway whatever we say about him, he'll always be the guy who wrote the song Man in the Mirror in 1988. A song which lyrics could have been Al Gore or Nicolas Hulot's anthem 20 years later without any problem.

I'm Starting With The Man In The Mirror
I'm Asking Him To Change His Ways
And No Message Could Have Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place
Take A Look At Yourself,
And Then Make A Change

This is all there is to say.
The King is dead.
This is it.

Warm shivers

there are those moments when it seems like all around you, everything has stopped moving, everyone has stopped breathing, the whole universe has decided to briefly align itself for your own personal well-being.

you feel a shiver at the back of your neck, bringing weird warmth to your whole body.

a magic moment. a minute. maybe three. never more.

a song. "orange sky" while watching the sunset. "exit music" while watching the wall paper of your empty apartment. "airport man" while trying to get some sleep in a jetlagged american night. "i eat dinner" while waiting patienly for your loved one to come home.

a kid. a laugh. a geography lesson. a book that makes you cry. a comfortable night by the fireplace with all of your loved ones silently busy with what they enjoy doing in a quiet time.

precious, precious moments.

me loves them...

Summer Playlist

Good sound for your ears according to me...

If you don't have spotify, I can send you an invitation ;)

Two princes

Not too long ago I decided to pay a whole load of cash to go see a legendary guy in concert. And well I guess the disapointment was pretty much just as big as the legend itself... It pains me to say that my first reaction leaving the venue that night was: "Bob Dylan... check, done."

Weirdly enough, in the same period I went to see two other concerts. Two other guys whose legends have not entered music history yet but which have already and definitely reached my heart.

I know I'm quite late on their discovery and I can only put the blame on myself as both their names had been familiar to me for some time. But they both made an incredible impression on me when I saw them live and I'm about to explain why.

The first guy I'm gonna talk about is Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, an American songwriter about whom I knew nothing until very recently. Well, apart from the fact that he was the guy who'd wrote 'I see a darkness' (The song Johnny Cash made an exeptional version of on American Recordings III -Solitary Man). Not that I actually know more about him now, but I have to say I'm not sure I actually wanna know and here's why.

When we decided to go see him when he'd be in Paris, I started playing five of his albums on repeat and became familiar with his peculiar voice and his quiet instrumentaly-stripped down songs while playing a certain wii game...

It took me approximatively 3 weeks to finish the game, and by that time Bonnie 'Prince' Billy's voice had forever anchored the visual elements of the game in my mind. So yeah, from now on, I can't hear one of his songs without picturing the game... :P

The weirdest thing is that I had no idea that Bonne 'Prince' Billy was a tall bald and moustache man and when I saw him walk in on that stage that night, I just coudn't bring myself to believe the voice I knew so well was coming out of that strange body... Even now, as I listen to the songs, I know it's gonna take some time for it to sink in.

The second prince I wanna talk about might not call himself that but deserves the title all the same. His name is Vic Chesnutt and he's a hero.

I vaguely knew him from his REM connection but had not realised my good ol' uncle Michael Stipe had actually produced some of his albums.

The reason we were at that gig was because Teitur was opening and I have to say I would have gladly left after his wonderful set if curiosity hadn't kept me on my seat to hear what the Chesnutt guy sounded like.

But before I got to actually hear his voice, I first "saw" him. And that was quite an astonishing sight...

There he was, so small, sitting in his wheel chair, swimming in his clothes, with his guitar strapped around his neck with a little rope.

Wikipedia revealed later on that he had been in a car accident in his twenties and that he had been left partially paralized but thankfully still able to play his guitar.

The best part of the night happened when the first impression of sadness and pity that might have gone through my mind as I saw him was completely swept away when the concert started and when the first few lines of the song melody flowed from his mouth. The strength and assurance was amazing. The words were harsh and straight-forward and didn't leave any bullshit flying around in the air. He sang his pain, his joys and made us complelety forget the band accompagnying him.

For some of you, these two guys might be old news... to others, they might be unknown artists... but I just thought they deserved to be praised for all the qualities they showed during the gigs and for the emotion they constantly put forward through their music. Seriously, to me, they made Bob Dylan look like a pathetic old retired singer trying to sing blues songs in his neighborhood café...

If you didn't know them before, you may have the will to try out their music or not. Just know that a third of the year has passed and these two people are so far, what made it worth for me musically. Enough said... ;)

The 81st Academy Awards Review

When I heard that Hugh Jackman was gonna host the 81st Academy Awards a few months ago, I knew this year's ceremony would not be the usual comedy show we usually get from people such as Billy Cristal, Jon Stewart or Ellen DeGeneres... I knew Hugh had made his debut in musicals and never missed an occasion to show his incredible talent as a dancer and a singer...

But oh my, what a treat did we get last night! Thank you, Baz Lhurmann, for staging that musical tribute. The musical is back!

I have no idea why but I'm pretty sure that last night was more rightly aimed at women who enjoy watching men shaking their booties in rhythm rather than at the regular movie aficionado...

It wasn't a bad ceremony, no, but it wasn't the best either. Thank god for the little Woopy Goldberg bit aimed at Amy Adams on the facts of being a nun on screen, and thank god for Robert De Niro messing with the way Sean Penn plays a better gay guy than any straight ones in previous movies...

And if Steve Martin was indeed funny... I can't say the same for Ben Stiller and Jack Black who both tried definitely too hard. I have to give credit, though, to Jack Black for the only little bit of controversy in the ceremony when he admitted making more money with animation films than regular ones, because every year, he just has to bet a whole load of cash on the Pixar movie to win. This year he was in competition with Kung Fu Panda vs Pixar's Wall-E and had the balls to make an ironic little "Yes!" when Wall-E (rather expectedly) won...

Now, let's talk about the movies, shall we?

I have to say I haven't seen all of them, well, just because they're not out over here yet (Milk, Frost/Nixon and The Reader) - How hilarious was Hugh Jackman when he admitted not having seen The Reader either in his opening song... hehehe...

Anyway, out of all the movies nominated I've seen, to me, none of them really deserved the big prize.

I'm really happy Danny Boyle got the oscar for best director and that the film also got best editing and best cinematography, cause that was what made the movie unique and original... But, best picture... I'm not sure... Better than Benjamin Button, yes, but better than the 3 others? Time will tell when I see them. No, what's really outrageous is that it got the award for best freaking adapted screenplay when they changed so many things that seemed so great in the book and made a very predictable (and even dull) story at times... The Academy had done the same mistake last year when they gave the award to No Country For Old Men which certainly didn't deserve it. They must have a definition of "best adapted screenplay" very different from mine since, in my opinion, Revolutionary Road should have been nominated and should have won hands down.

Another thing that the Academy has to explain to me is why they only selected three songs out of the hundreds of movies from last year - two of them being from the same film...

Now, let's take a look at poor Benjamin Button which didn't get much, last night, but art direction, make-up and visual effects... Ah well, I wouldn't even have given them those, so my dear old David Fincher, consider yourself lucky...

I found the 4 prizegivings for best actors and supporting actors really cool when a selection of 5 artists having already won the awards said a sweet thing about the nominees. Just a word about Sofia Loren: ...Aouch...

Of course I'm really happy Penelope Cruz got her award for best supporting actress and found both her and Kate Winslet's speeches really cute and moving. Heath Ledger's award was, I guess, just as deserved as it was expected. Talking about expected... Sean Penn's role in Milk was said from the beginning to be an academy-award-winning character... Ah well, I guess I was expecting a bit too much by wishing Richard Jenkins "to be recognized at last", as Adrian Brody so rightly put it. As much as I like Brad Pitt as an actor, I'm glad he didn't get an award for this film. He'll get it some day, I'm sure. I'm just sad that they gave it a second time to Sean Penn while for the sake of comedy/controversy/emotion, it would have been quite cool to hear Mickey Rourke's speech. Ah well.

So basically, I'll be able to judge more properly when I see Milk, The Reader and Frost/Nixon, but that ceremony was just as unfair and rightly-rewarding as any other academy award celebrations I've seen.

Oh and why in the hell didn't anybody tell me Isaac Hayes and Michael Crichton had died?

A disappointment one too many...

I feared it.

Since the moment I saw the trailer for the first time, I knew it.

I wouldn't like the curious case of Benjamin Button as much as the other David Fincher films. Damn!

Now, "why" is not really the question here, because it would take me a while to explain how he tried to make a Jean-Pierre Jeunet film and kinda failed. No, the real problem today is "why oh why do all my heroes fail me?"

I'm not sure about the chronology but I guess the first big disappointment came from my favorite singer-songwriter Tom McRae when he released his fourth album, King of Cards. We all wondered "Geez, what has he done? Where has his genius gone?" And all of a sudden it became less easy to fight for the cause and to spread the word about his music being not heard enough.

But then the same happened with all my other favorite singers... Rufus Wainwright, Josh Ritter, Teitur, Duke Special...

They all released albums that were just not as good as what they had done before!

And I can't say I have been listening to their music much in the past year...

I used to be a big fan (Some might call me a groupie) of theirs and well, now my feeling is just "meh"...

If we go back to the movies, let's take a look at all my favorite directors from the past few years:

Soderbergh and Che : where are the ideals?

Baz Lhurmann and Australia : come one, where's the genius cinematography?

Clint Eastwood and The Changeling : where's the subtlety and ambiguity?

The Coen Brothers with No Country for old men : where's the Tommy Lee Jones character from the book?

Night Shyamalan and The Happening : ... no there's no words to describe how bad that was...

And if you think about Batman and Indiana Jones that nearly made me cry out of disillusion...

No, no, there must be something wrong with me... Have I changed so much? Am I that desperate to stay in the past? Will I have to stick to the good old things to be happy? Will no-one ever surprise me again artistically speaking?

No-one?

So.. what's your story?

So... What's your story?

I don't know if it's because I'm reading Kerouac's On the road again or because I'm jobless at the moment (hence too much time to think), but as I was coming out of the métro tonight with Barbara singing "Dis, quand reviendras-tu" in my headphones and the cold air brushing my thoughts away, this question suddenly came back from deep deep inside my head and struck me as the best question to ask anybody on Earth.

The first time I was asked was back in 2001 by a guy who was way too old for me and to whom I couldn't find anything interesting to say. By that time I hadn't lived. Or so I thought. I was merely 20 and just went blank when it was time to tell stories about me. How silly.

Later in 2003, I was asked the same unnnerving and mysterious question, by an American girl of Persian descent called Rosita whom I was meeting for the first time. We were driving across America with my great friend (and probably favorite American person) Christen and had all the time in the world to discuss our stories.

All of a sudden, my life came into perspective and even though I hadn't done much, I understood that your life doesn't depend on the things you do or achieve (the good old "been there, done that") but on who you decide to be.

Cause if you decide to be curious and thorough about things, it will inevitably lead you to want to do stuff, see places and create your own stories.

As Rosita was listening to me telling my hunger for travels and my optimistic hopelessness about boys, I was far from imagining that her eagerness to know about me was hiding an absolutely incredible life of hers - a life that she is probably still living over in America today.

That day, the thirteen hour drive from North Carolina to Tennessee went by in a flash and I realised that if I wanted to try and become a good person, I should become like Rosita.

Don't you think it very frustrating when you're by yourself somewhere in the middle of a crowd and you're watching people go by, imagining their lives... and you actually never get to know them...

Next time you meet somebody new, try and ask that question. Others' stories make you learn and make you wanna move your butt and do things. Sometimes they bore you or piss you off, but you still listen to them, because well, not everyone is Rosita and we're all made of the bits and pieces we gather around.

So, now that you've read the gibberish I've been trying to explain, will you tell me one thing...?


What's YOUR story?

1001 films to see before I die

So that book became my new bible 9 months ago.

As some people might know, I have some kind of neurosis that push me to finish whatever Herculean task I've started. Reading Don Quixote's 1200 pages, finishing up a 6000 pieces jigsaw puzzle left at my parents' house, reading the 'how to speak Dutch in 10 chapters' book...
And well, seeing the 1001 films before I die.

Obviously, they missed some classics (according to me) but on the other hand it gives me a nice panel of various types of cinema to watch.

As of May 4th 2008, the day I purchased the book, I had seen 327 of the 1001 films they mention. Since then, I'm not sure how many more I checked out but I'll be sure to count again on May 4th 2009.
I guess I'll be blogging about some of the most striking ones in the meantime.