Ingmar Bergman, one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers ever, died yesterday. I haven’t seen a lot of Bergman films, and those I have tend to strand me between a sense that I may be watching something incredible and my realization that I’m not understanding half of it. Reading around the film blogosphere a little this morning, though, is increasing my desire to try to become better acquainted with Bergman.

I think Persona was the first film of his I saw, and the only thing I remember was how fascinating it was when the two women, isolated on an island, started merging or even exchanging personalities almost, and how much I liked the way he juxtaposed their faces onto each other to depict that merging visually. Those shots have been imitated to the point of cliche now, but then I hadn’t seen them before. My favorite Bergman film right now is probably the lighthearted romantic romp Smiles of a Summer Night, largely, I think, because it remains one of his more accessible ones. ;) I recently saw the second part of his “Faith” trilogy, Winter Light (I gave my reaction to the first of the trilogy, Through a Glass Darkly, here), and was suitably impressed by it, especially as compared to Bresson‘s Diary of a Country Priest, which I should have liked but didn’t. I have also seen The Seventh Seal, probably Bergman’s most famous film (featuring a chess game between a medieval knight and Death), but need a rewatch on it, because I don’t remember much except liking the visuals and being sort of bored by the slow, philosophic pacing (hey, I was young).

The Guardian has links to several Bergman clips, and the New York Times has reprinted part of a review/essay on Bergman by Woody Allen, who was very influenced by him as a filmmaker. (I watched a bit of Manhattan the other day, and it wasn’t ten minutes before Allen and Keaton were arguing over whether Bergman was the greatest of all filmmakers or overrated.)

Top ten! No more judges saving people! All up to America! Which actually kinda sucks, because America has not been what I’d call intelligent about who should be in the Bottom Three. And I even voted last week, so yes, I get to say that. Lauren, you better be stepping it up, girl. We lost Anya over you, and while I get that from a solo point of view, you’ve got a long way to go to match her as a partner. Are they drawing partners this week? Yes, they are. :( I miss my couples once they’re gone.

Mia’s the guest judge, so no esoteric contemporary routine from her, but hopefully we can have a totally awesome weird-ass Wade Robson routine. Ooh, there’s Wade now! Yay Wade! Ooh, is he choreographing their solos? That’ll be good–take the pressure off the dancers from having to choreograph their solos and let them focus on the, you know, dancing.

edit – Now with video and results talk.

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A few weeks ago I posted a song by the Acid House Kings, and since then I’ve bought their LP and listened to it over and over. I still like the song I posted before (“This Heart Is a Stone”) the best, but the others are also good. Anyway, it turns out that the Acid House Kings’ label, Labrador Records, is awesome in and of itself, and has posted a mix equivalent to 4 albums culled from their various bands for free on their website. And what’s even cooler, they encouraged people to share it via The Pirate Bay, a torrent tracker site which has been coming under a lot of fire from the MPAA lately. It’s nice that some of the indie labels like Labrador are realizing that a) giving music away can be good marketing and b) torrents aren’t only for illegal sharing. (It probably doesn’t hurt that Labrador is a Swedish label, just as The Pirate Bay is a Sweden-based site.)

Anyway, go here to snag the torrent. (If you don’t already have a BitTorrent client, I recommend Azureus.)

Here are a few samples off the mix. All of the bands are from Sweden, to my knowledge, but most of the songs are in English. They’re all pretty much in the same general indie-pop category; if you like these, you’ll like the rest, too.

Acid House Kings – Do What You Wanna Do
Acid House Kings – This Heart is a Stone (repeat from earlier post, but I enjoy it too much not to post it again)
Douglas Heart – Smoke Screen
Loveninjas – Keep Your Love
Ronderlin – Reflected
Sambassadeur – Between the Lines

In May I was home for a few weeks, and took advantage of the amazing St. Louis library system to knock several films off my 2007 Goal list. Then I got burned out on that and just watched some random old stuff. After the jump, reactions to Spider-Man 3, The Great Dictator, They Were Expendable, Taxi Driver, Unforgiven, The New World, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting and more.

I have a Music post in the works, but I was focusing on getting this thing finished. Tomorrow.

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I just started using a new (to me) statistics tracker (Pmetrics from Performancing, which I highly recommend based on the week I’ve been using it), and I’ve noticed several hits from people looking for Allison and Ivan’s umbrella dance from last year, which Nigel mentioned a week or two ago on SYTYCD, and which I have also mentioned a time or two as being one my absolute favorites from Season Two. So, I thought I’d oblige and share it. Here’s Allison and Ivan dancing Shane Sparks’ hip hop routine from SYTYCD S2, the one with the umbrella. :)

And looking at that episode, I discovered that it’s also the one in which Heidi and Benji danced their incredible Black Mambo number, so I ripped that as well. It may still stand as the best dance on the show. Although, considering that they are both trained Latin dancers who are also cousins and have danced together competitively and they’re dancing a Latin dance, that’s perhaps not terribly surprising.

(I also updated my earlier SYTYCD recap post with videos; I don’t know how various people’s RSS readers deal with edited posts, so I’m not sure if people can tell when I update the post.)

Developers are working on a Duck Amuck game for the Nintendo DS. I have to say, this is the first time a DS game has ever caught my interest…I pretty much don’t see the appeal of the system at all. But Duck Amuck is the Best.Cartoon.Ever, and if they can make a viable game out of it, I at least want to play it at Best Buy. ;) Can’t even consider buying it, though, because that would cut into my Xbox360 fund. Which is pretty much nonexistent. Can you cut into something that doesn’t exist? It’s a philosophical conundrum. Or something.

Anyway, I was just going to make this a brief aside, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to post the original cartoon, which I figured had to be on YouTube somewhere, and I was right. Looney Tunes are awesome. Now I’m going to be stuck on YouTube all day looking for more, aren’t I? Ah well.

edit: The Duck Amuck short has been taken off YouTube (not surprised, really; even I’d admit putting complete Looney Tunes shorts online is a copyright violation), so here’s the ad for the game. Not nearly as good, but hey.

I almost forgot to watch SYTYCD tonight, since I was enjoying my personal Firefly marathon a little too much. I nearly decided to just let the DVR catch SYTYCD and continue with Captain Mal and the crew, but I’ve been doing that for a few days now, and the DVR is nearly full (getting movies off TCM really eats the disc space).

Awww!!! Last week for our beloved couples! :( That makes me sad. I don’t like it when they change up partners. I’m also sad that Wade is on the panel, because that means he won’t choreograph. Dude, I totally said that before Nigel did. Did Nigel get a haircut? Also, Cat? Asking the audience to say “judges” for you every.single.week is GETTING INCREDIBLY OLD. Normally, you don’t bother me too much, but I pretty much want to smack you now whenever you do that.

Rundown after the cut; I’ll add video (with rehearsals and judging) tomorrow.

edit: I’ve added commentary on the eliminations, but Photobucket is being a bitca, so I don’t have the videos ready yet. Hopefully sometime tonight, or else tomorrow.

edit²: The videos are up now.

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One of these days I’m going to start posting things on time. Or not. I’m spending too much time feeling guilty for not working on my French homework to blog (we’re now to the point in class past what I remember from high school, which means I actually have to, like, pay attention at some level). I don’t feel like picking just a couple of bands this time, so I’m going to post several one-offs that have found frequent airtime on my mix CDs and iPod lately. (A propos of nothing except posting these songs reminds me of hearing them all the way back from seeing HP5 in Dallas on Sunday–Harry Potter in 3D IMAX? Awesome. Highly recommended. The 3D is only for about fifteen minutes near the end, but it’s pretty cool-looking, if a little tending toward eye-strain. I was glad it wasn’t 3D for the whole film.)

I discovered Spoon last year and bought some of their songs on emusic before my subscription ran out and I decided it was an unnecessary expense. Someday, though, when I have money, it’s going to be a necessary expense, because I just ran a quick search on six or seven bands I’ve recently decided I love, and they had them ALL. Especially since based on the two songs I’ve heard from Spoon’s new album, “Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga,” they’re only getting better. I generally like this song, “Black Like Me,” but when he hits falsetto for a couple of notes? That completely hooked me, no turning back.

Spoon – Black Like Me (album “Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga”)
e-music – Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (2007)

It took me a few times through a Polyphonic Spree song to really get into it, but this one had me pretty much from the start. I love the density, which makes it impossible to use as background music or anything like it. In fact, it came on during the drive back from Dallas, when I was talking to the two friends riding with me, and it was incredibly distracting and I decided I didn’t like it. But then when I heard it today, by myself, I loved it again. Why? Because it requires your full attention in a way that most music doesn’t anymore.

The Polyphonic Spree – Section 22 [Running Away] (album: “The Fragile Army”)
emusic – The Fragile Army (2007)

There are a lot of Bishop Allen songs on my iPod. I mean, a lot considering I’ve only ever gotten them off mp3 blogs–like seven or eight tracks, where I usually only end up with two or three from a given band before I have to start buying them. And I liked one of those (“Butterfly Nets”) a lot, hated one (“Corazon”), and the rest fell sort of in-between, and yet I never deleted any of them, for an unknown reason. Then I heard “Rain” last week, not at all for the first time. In fact, it’s already on my iPod under two different titles (from different live performances or EPs). Yet it never clicked until now. Couldn’t tell you why. But I’ve listened to it at least five or six times just today.

Bishop Allen – Rain (album: “The Broken String”)
not available on emusic

I think I didn’t listen to Architecture in Helsinki for a while because their name is so odd. And then I decided their name was actually cool, but didn’t seek out their music. And then I saw this Sprint commercial on TV, and was like, that’s a cool song! And then it was on you ain’t no picasso. And so I downloaded it and played it and loved it and put in on mixes and posted it to my blog. The end.

Architecture in Helsinki – Souvenirs (album: “Fingers Crossed”)
emusic: Fingers Crossed (2004)
amazon: (click the album art for “Fingers Crossed”, but note also their upcoming album: Places Like This)

There. And now, between this post and all the previous Music Monday ones, you’ve pretty much got the mix CD I made last weekend and listened to two or three times today while running errands and procrastinating French homework. :)