Sunday, February 08, 2009

Rewind #5

Headlights: Some Racing, Some Stopping (2008)

This is music that caters to my pop-flash sensibilities. Sometimes soft and lazy, other times pulsing with a pleasant frenetic energy but in the end always easy on the ear, Some Racing, Some Stopping quickly became one of my favorite albums of the year. Hailing from the mid-west, Headlights have a sound that blossoms in my mind with the colors of life. It's like that movie "Waking Life", how everything has been animated via photoshop and you can make it reflect any color strata you wish. You walk around experiencing everything anew and learning from each interaction. Headlights' music climbs right up into the sun with warm hues that then refract, emanating right out from your chest. It makes the vision in your eyes gloss over into wonderful dreams of hope that you've always knew would come out one day in the future. You've waited for that day all your life and now, with this blessing resonating from your speakers, you realize that it was forever with you and will forever be, just as long as you listen to the rhythm of your heart.




Two Days In Paris: Julie Delpy (2007)

Here's why this movie is so great. It's a creative indie film about a person who takes their significant other home for a couple of days to meet the family and friends from the old days, who eventually gets caught up in the nostalgic appreciations of their youth (as well as the attention of distant lovers) while the person who came along suffers dramatically, feeling out of place, disconnected and worried about losing their partner. It's not very unique idea, especially for an indie film (I think that's the general description of the requirements for being able to submit to Sundance), but a couple of things that make it different is that it's filmed in Paris and it's from the perspective of a woman. Julie Delpy directed Two Days In Paris and starred in the leading role and she gives us such an honest portrayal. All of the conflict that arises throughout the film centers on the way her character must deal with these mixed up emotions, while her boyfriend stumbles around trying so hard not to be overwhelmed by everything that's happening to him. It's so refreshing to view this story through Delpy's perspective. She's confident and charming and afraid of love and eager for attention and supportive of her family but exhausted by them after only a couple of days and confused and wild. She's like so many thirty-something leading guys that we see all the time who don't know what they really want out of life but they're getting closer to middle-age than they probably want to be and now it's time to actually make some definite decisions but it's all so easy to just pretend that they'll never be ready to be so responsible. A basic quandary for so many of our generation. Delpy gives us an intimate film (even using her own parents) that allows us to get deeply into these people's lives and hurt and laugh and smile and cry with them. I knew the moment that it ended that it would be right up here on my list.

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