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The third full-length Los Campesinos! album is due in January, and this is the first video from it, for the song “The Sea Is a Good Place to Think of the Future.” The song is about anorexia, basically, a lament for a girl who goes too far in her quest to be thin – a nice, uplifting topic like most of LC!’s songs. But while their lyrics have always dealt with depressing and bitter topics, that dark side is usually countered by sunny, upbeat, and very poppy music. This time, though, the music is also darker and moodier – something I’ve noticed with the other new songs they’ve been performing live as well. I’m really getting curious to hear the rest of the album when it comes out. Hold On Now Youngster and We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed came out within ten months of each other and sound almost like two discs of the same album; the new one is going to sound very different, I think. The video above was shot by bassist Ellen and her friend Owain – she does most of the behind-the-scenes videography for the band, and this casual, raw and almost candid camera type footage fits the mood of the song very well.

The New World, playing Thursday, September 10th, at 10:05pm on IFC.

A lot of good stuff this week, including a bunch I haven’t featured yet in these posts. I added in a few playing on Fox Movie Channel this week; on my channel guide, FMC is right next to IFC, and I keep seeing great stuff on there as I’m setting my DVR, so I figured it’d be a good idea to go ahead and start monitoring it as well.

Monday, September 7th

9:00am – TCM – King Kong
The granddaddy of special effects monster films still holds up pretty well, considering it’s almost 80 years old. The real beauty is that even though the effects are obvious today, you’ll care enough about Kong that it won’t matter.
1933 USA. Director: Merian C.Copper and Ernest B. Schoedsack. Starring: Robert Armstrong, Fay Wray, Bruce Cabot.
Must See
Newly Featured!

5:30pm – TCM – The Dot and the Line
A Chuck Jones-directed animated short is almost always worth highlighting. This is a later one, post-Looney Tunes, and shows very well his later experimentation into minimalist art. A straight line falls in love with a dot, but she’s enamored of an unruly squiggle. There’s an undercurrent of distrust toward the “anything goes” hippie culture of the 1960s, which is kind of interesting, too.
1965 USA. Director: Chuck Jones. Starring: Robert Morley.
Newly Featured!

8:00pm – IFC – Office Space
Anyone who’s ever worked in an office will identify with Office Space immediately – with the paper-jamming printers, the piles of beaurocratic paperwork, and the difficulty of keeping up with staplers if not the plot to make off with boatloads of money due to an accounting loophole. In fact, if you do or have worked an office job, I’m gonna call this required viewing.1999 USA. Director: Mike Judge. Starring: Ron Livingston, Jennifer Aniston.
(repeats at 1:30am on the 8th)

9:30pm – IFC – Secretary
Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader – making sado-masochism fun since 2002! But seriously, this was Maggie’s breakout role, and it’s still probably her best, as a damaged young woman whose only outlet is pain. And despite the subject, Secretary is somehow one of the sweetest and most tender romances of recent years.
2002 USA. Director: Steven Shainberg. Starring:James Spader, Maggie Gyllenhaal.
(repeats at 3:00am on the 8th)

10:00pm – TCM – I’m Not Scared
While playing one day, a young Italian boy discovers another boy chained up in a dark hole and befriends him. But why is he there, and is it safe to tell anyone about it? A well-done little thriller, with a good many twists and turns and a great performance from twelve-year-old Giuseppe Cristiano.
2003 Italy. Director: Gabriele Salvatores. Starring: Giuseppe Cristiano, Mattia Di Pierro.
Newly Featured!

Tuesday, September 8th

CATCH-UP DAY!

Wednesday, September 9th

7:00am – IFC – Wild Strawberries
Another Bergman film I haven’t seen, but I ought to rectify that. Even though IMDb’s description “After living a life marked by coldness, an aging professor is forced to confront the emptiness of his existence” doesn’t sound particularly engaging. Somehow Bergman has a way of making existential crises exciting.
1959 Sweden. Director: Ingmar Bergman. Starring: Victor Sjöström, Bibi Andersson, Ingrid Thulin, Gunnar Björnstrand.
Newly Featured!

12:30pm – IFC – Howl’s Moving Castle
Hayao Miyazaki has been a leader in the world of kid-friendly anime films for several years now, and while many would point to Spirited Away as his best film, I actually enjoyed Howl’s Moving Castle the most of all his films. Japanese animation takes some getting used to, but Miyazaki’s films are well worth it, and serve as a wonderful antidote to the current stagnation going on in American animation (always excepting Pixar).
2004 Japan. Director: Hayao Miyazaki. Starring (dubbed voices): Christian Bale, Emily Mortimer, Jean Simmons, Lauren Bacall

4:45pm – TCM – While the City Sleeps
The head of a New York newspaper dies, leaving it in his son Vincent Price’s hands to choose someone to promote: managing editor Thomas Mitchell, lead reporter Dana Andrews, or a couple of other people. The way to get the job? Get the scoop on the serial killer taking out women around the city. It gets a little plot-heavy at times, but it’s so full of classic character actors and the noirish feel that director Fritz Lang does so well that it’s still very worthwhile.
1956 USA. Director: Fritz Lang. Starring: Dana Andrews, Rhonda Fleming, Thomas Mitchell, Vincent Price, Ida Lupino, George Sanders

7:30pm – Sundance – A Woman Under the Influence
Gena Rowlands gives a tour-de-force performance as Mabel, a woman whose teetering madness threatens her marriage to Nick (Peter Falk). Their relationship edges back and forth between love, frustration, and anger with amazing quickness, yet it’s not clear whether Mabel’s instability is causing the problems, or the other way around. John Cassavetes directs with an unwavering camera, refusing to look away.
1974 USA. Director: John Cassavetes. Starring: Gena Rowlands, Peter Falk, Fred Draper, Lady Rowlands.
(repeats at 3:05am and 12:15pm on the 10th)

Thursday, September 10th

10:50am – IFC – Vagabond
One of Agnès Varda’s best-known films, about the last few weeks of wandering woman’s life as she struggles to make it. I absolutely loved the only Varda film I’ve seen (Cléo from 5 to 7), so I’m anxious to see more.
1985 France. Director: Angès Varda. Starring: Sandrine Bonnaire.
Newly Featured!
(repeats at 4:25pm)

8:00pm – Sundance – Paris je t’aime
I have a huge soft spot for Paris – basically any movie set there I will like to at least some degree. So an anthology film with eighteen internationally-renowned directors giving their take on Paris with eighteen short films all mashed together? Yeah, instant love. Obviously some sections are far stronger than others – the Coens, Gus van Sant, Alexander Payne, Isabel Coixet, Tom Tykwer, and Wes Craven turn in my favorites.
2006 France. Director: various. Starring: many.
(repeats at 5:00am and 12:25pm on the 11th)

10:05pm – IFC – The New World
Terrence Malick may not make many films, but the ones he does make, wow. Superficially the story of John Smith and Pocahontas, The New World is really something that transcends mere narrative – this is poetry on film. Every scene, every shot has a rhythm and an ethereal that belies the familiarity of the story we know. I expected to dislike this film when I saw it, quite honestly. It ended up moving me in ways I didn’t know cinema could.
2005 USA. Director: Terrence Malick. Starring: Colin Farrell, Q’orianka Kilcher, Christian Bale, Christopher Plummer.
Must See
Newly Featured!
(repeats at 4:35am on the 11th)

12:30am (11th) – IFC – Stage Beauty
Sometime around Shakespeare’s time, theatrical convention changed from having all female parts played by males on stage to allowing women to perform female roles themselves. Caught in this shift were the effeminate men who had made their careers and indeed, their identities, out of playing women. Stage Beauty is about one such man and his crisis of self when he no longer had a professional or personal identity. It’s a fascinating film in many ways.
2004 UK. Director: Richard Eyre. Starring: Billy Crudup, Claire Danes, Tom Wilkinson, Ben Chaplin.

Friday, September 11th

4:15am – TCM – Psycho
Alfred Hitchcock built the foundation for all future psycho-killer movies with his classic. It’s not as terrifying as it once was, but that doesn’t at all diminish its greatness.
1960 USA. Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Starring: Janet Leigh, Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, John Gavin, Martin Balsam.
Must See

8:00am – Fox Movie – My Darling Clementine
John Ford’s version of the famous confrontation at the OK Corral actually focuses more on Wyatt Earp’s fictional romance with the fictional Clementine than on the real-life Earp/Clanton feud, but history aside, this is one of the greatest and most poetic westerns on film, proving yet again Ford’s mastery of the genre and of cinema.
1946 USA. Director: John Ford. Starring: Henry Fonda, Victor Mature, Linda Darnell, Cathy Downs, Walter Brennan, Tim Holt.
Must See
Newly Featured!

8:00pm – Sundance – Volver
Pedro Almodóvar deftly straddles the line between drama and comedy in one of his more accessible films. Two sisters return to their home at the death of their aunt, only to find their mother’s ghost – or is it a ghost? And as always in Almodóvar’s films, there are related subplots aplenty. Penélope Cruz is incredible as the younger, fierier sister – she’s never been more moving than in her passionate rendition of the title song, nor funnier than when calmly cleaning up a murder scene.
2006 Spain. Director: Pedro Almodóvar. Starring: Penélope Cruz, Carmen Maura, Lola Dueñas, Blanco Portillo, Yohana Cobo
Must See
(repeats at 1:00am on the 12th)

Saturday, September 12th

7:25am – IFC – La Jetée
Very few short films become classics (outside of silent films and arguably Looney Tunes), but Chris Marker’s La Jetee, told entirely in sequences of still photographs, is one of them. In a postapocalyptic future, a man is sent back in time to try and stop WWIII from happening. But he both falls in love and is haunted by a childhood memory – two things that are fatefully interconnected.
1962 France. Director: Chris Marker. Starring: Jean Négroni, Hélène Chatelain, Davos Hanich.

10:00am – TCM – They Drive By Night
Humphrey Bogart and George Raft play truck driver brothers, trying to get ahead before they get killed (who knew truck driving was so dangerous?), or, you know, framed into murder plots by Ida Lupino – their boss’s wife who has amorous designs on Raft, despite his much healthier relationship with a young Ann Sheridan. Not a great movie, but a solid example of Warner’s pre-noirish studio style.
1940 USA. Director: Raoul Walsh. Starring: Humphrey Bogart, George Raft, Ida Lupino, Ann Sheridan.
Newly Featured!

8:00pm – Fox Movie – Die Hard
All John McClane wants to do is get home for Christmas. But plans change, especially when a bunch of terrorists take over his wife’s office building and McClane has to take them out almost singlehandedly. And give us one of the best action movies ever made.
1988 USA. Director: John McTiernan. Starring: Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Bonnie Bedelia
Must See
Newly Featured!
(repeats at 10:30pm, and 1:00am on the 13th)

10:00pm – TCM – The Three Faces of Eve
Joanne Woodward portrays a woman with multiple personalities in an Oscar-winning role; Lee J. Cobb is allowed an uncharacteristically sympathetic role as her doctor (usually he’s the villain, or at least antagonist).
1957 USA. Director: Nunnally Johnson. Starring: Joanne Woodward, Lee J. Cobb, David Wayne.
Newly Featured!

10:00pm – IFC – Chasing Amy
Kevin Smith’s third film, not as low-fi indie as Clerks, as goofy as Mallrats, as irreverently genius as Dogma, as self-referential as Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, or as racy as Zach and Miri Make a Porno, but perhaps sweeter than all of them – Ben Affleck falls for Joey Lauren Adams, with the only slight obstacle being that she’s a lesbian.
1997 USA. Director: Kevin Smith. Starring: Ben Affleck, Joey Lauren Adams, Jason Lee.
(repeats at 4:00am on the 13th)

Sunday, September 13th

7:30am – Fox Movie – How Green Was My Valley
This film won Oscars for Best Picture and director John Ford; it’s a bit overly sentimental at times, perhaps, but by and large its simple story of Welsh mining village is pretty solid, thanks in no small part to great supporting turns by its stellar supporting cast.
1941 USA. Director: John Ford. Starring: Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O’Hara, Anna Lee, Donald Crisp, Roddy McDowall, Sara Allgood, Barry Fitzgerald.
Newly Featured!

9:00am – TCM – What’s Up, Tiger Lily?
The first film Woody Allen directed was this redubbed Japanese film – he stripped off the original sound track and redid it with his own dialogue, making a spy film into a crazy comedy. Anticipating today’s remix culture by a few decades, I’d say!
1966 USA/Japan. Director: Woody Allen/Senkichi Taniguchi. Starring: Woody Allen, Tatsuyo Mihashi, Akiko Wakabayashi, Mie Hama, John Sebastian.
Newly Featured!

8:00pm – IFC – Gangs of New York
I found this film a difficult one to like when I watched it, but I haven’t seen it for five years – perhaps a rewatch is in order. It certainly is hard to argue with the concept of a Scorsese/diCaprio/Day-Lewis trifecta in a story about Irish gangs at the dawn of New York’s existence.
2003 USA. Director: Martin Scorsese. Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Leonardo diCaprio, Cameron Diaz.
(repeats at 2:05am on the 14th)

10:00pm – TCM – The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Charles Laughton plays the put-upon hunchback Quasimodo, a young Maureen O’Hara the lovely Esmerelda in one of the best film versions of Victor Hugo’s classic of gothic romanticism.
1939 USA. Director: William Dieterle. Starring: Charles Laughton, Maureen O’Hara, Cedric Hardwicke, Thomas Mitchell, Edmond O’Brien.

2:00am – TCM – The Earrings of Madame de…
A good companion piece to La Ronde (which played last week), Max Ophüls’ not dissimilar The Earrings of Madame de… follows a pair of earrings from owner to owner, showcasing Ophüis’ opulent and sophisticated style.
1953 France. Director: Max Ophüls. Starring: Danielle Darrieux, Charles Boyer, Vittorio De Sica.
Must See
Newly Featured!

Every once in a while I put together a mix that’s unthemed other than it’s what I’m into at the moment. Okay, that’s actually what most of my mixes are. Usually I just make them and foist them off on people and say HERE LISTEN TO THIS IT’S AWESOME because I’m egomaniacal like that. But this time, my friend Lis specifically asked me for one, so this one is specifically stuff that I’m into right now that I know she doesn’t have. Other than, like, Rilo Kiley, who she’s really into but she doesn’t have this one because it’s a non-album track. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Anyway, I’m giving her an actual burned copy, but I figured why not share it here as well. Just a snapshot of what I’m listening to in September 2009. Not all of them are new, some of them are from older albums; others are from upcoming albums. The main criteria is I love them *right now*.

Preview or download individual songs below, or grab the whole mix here: September ’09 Mix zip file. Order in the mix is based on how they sound good. :)

As always, .mp3s are provided for sampling purposes. If you like the artist, please support them by buying their music and attending their concerts. If you are or represent one of these artists and would like the file removed, please let me know. The album titles are linked to Amazon, using my affiliate ID, so if you buy them through here, I get a tiny kickback. Cover image is based on a photo by Stuck in Customs on Flickr, one of my favorite photographers who has amazingly licensed his photos with Creative Commons and allowed derivative works. /disclaimers

1) Elizabeth & the Catapult – Race You (album: Taller Children, 2009)
Thanks to Nathan Chase on FriendFeed for this recommendation – I fell immediately in love with this album and have been promoting it all over everywhere. And then they played it in Barnes & Noble the other day. And I was kind of simultaneously happy they were getting exposure and sad that I wasn’t very far ahead of the curve on them.

2) The Bird and the Bee – love letter to japan (album: ray guns are not just the future, 2009)
I have possibly put this on every mix I’ve done since it came out. I can’t get over it, and even though I love every song on the album, this one somehow embodies the whole sound the best. Plus it’s hopelessly catchy.

3) Broken Social Scene – Anthems for a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl (album: You Forgot It In People, 2002)
This song took me forever to get into. I heard it, and just kinda went, meh, what’s everyone see in this one? And then one day I heard it again and it just clicked. And now every time it comes on I have to put it on repeat for a while. I might have to do it right now.

4) Viva Voce – Wrecking Ball (album: Lovers, Lead the Way!, 2003)
I almost put on one from their 2009 album, Rose City, which I very much like, but “Wrecking Ball” came out of nowhere on random the other day and made me fall in love with it. And I can’t deny instant love like that.

5) Neko Case – Deep Red Bells (album: Blacklisted, 2002)
And I also chose an old one of Neko’s rather than one off her 2009 album. One of my cowriters on Row Three suggested I pick up Blacklisted when I was first starting to get into Neko, and wow, was he right. And this song even more than the others – it just feels so deep and lived-in and worn and…perfect.

6) The Raveonettes – Suicide (album: In & Out of Control, 2009)
Okay, here’s a new one. From their upcoming album releasing in October. I’m enough into The Raveonettes right now that I’ve already reserved a spot in my top five albums of the year for In & Out of Control, so let’s hope the rest of the songs are as good as the three that have leaked so far.

7) Bat for Lashes – Daniel (album: Two Suns, 2009)
It took me seeing Bat for Lashes live to fall completely in love with her (Natasha Khan, that is; Bat for Lashes is her band pseudonym), but now her combination of ethereal vocals, intricate melodies, and innovative instrumentation is right near the top of my faves.

8) Stars – Elevator Love Letter (album: Heart, 2004)
Stars, like Metric and Feist, is connected to supergroup Broken Social Scene, this time through vocalist Amy Millan. They’re a little sweeter, a little less experimental than BSS or Metric, and when it all comes together right, they’re hard to beat for just pure pop goodness. Like here.

9) Headlights – Get Going (album: Wildlife, 2009)
This album is due out in October, and if this track is any indication, it’ll match their first two albums in quality.

10) Johnathan Rice feat. Jenny Lewis – End of the Affair (album: Further North, 2007
In addition to his solo career, Johnathan also does guitar and vocals for Jenny Lewis’s latest album and tour, returning the favor of her appearances on his album and tour. Though she sings vocals on several songs on his album, this is the only one where she’s featured.

11) The Dodos – Fables (album: Time to Die, 2009)
My current favorite of the sub-trend of folk rock, I guess you’d call it. I like them even better than Fleet Foxes – more confident, more catchy, and more jaunty.

12) An Horse – Scared as Fuck (album: Rearrange Beds, 2008)
An Australian duo, they hung out in LA for several months this year, and I was glad to catch them twice. I think this is their best song, and the one that uses Kate’s distinctive voice to the best advantage.

13) The Whispertown 2000 – Ebb and Flow (album: Swim, 2008)
This is potentially not the best introduction to The Whispertown 2000 – it’s a little more experimental and a lot less melodic than most of their songs, but this mix is about what I love and this is the song that completely bowled me over when I heard it live. Something about the slide on “great divide” and Morgan’s a capalla phrases just overpowered everything in the room.

14) The Dead Weather – Hang You from the Heavens (album: Horehound, 2009)
Heh. Okay, this one is less about what I love and more about seeing how far I can push Lis before she stops letting me make mixes for her. I’m genuinely curious to see if she’ll like it. Anyway, I think The Dead Weather are really interesting, but I’m not always sure how much I like the album. I’m somehow drawn to keep listening to it, though, so there’s that.

15) The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – Young Adult Friction (album: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, 2009)
I came at this band randomly, through a Stereogum post, and liked it immediately. Listening to the album more has only solidified that – fits in very well with my move toward a more Raveonettes/Viva Voce-type sound.

16) Rilo Kiley – Jenny, You’re Barely Alive (album: Saddle Creek 50, 2003)
NEWS FLASH: I like Rilo Kiley. What? You knew that? Oh. Well, maybe you’ve still missed this song, which isn’t on any of their albums, but appeared on a Saddle Creek Records compilation a few years back. I’ve been collecting their non-album tracks the past few weeks, and this is easily one of my favorites.

17) Metric – Rock Me Now (album: Grow Up and Blow Away, 2001/2007)
Yes, you also know I love Metric. Interestingly, this song from their first album (recorded in 2001, but due to a label issue not released until 2007), which isn’t particularly Metric-esque nor particularly within my usual taste, is the one that really got me into Metric last year. I can’t explain why I love it so much. But I do.

18) Shout Out Louds – 100 Percent (album: Howl Howl Gaff Gaff, 2005)
One of several Swedish bands I like very much; probably my favorite right now, actually. You just can’t hardly help being happy listening to them.

19) stellastarr* – My Coco (album: stellastarr*, 2003)
Thanks to Robert Patton on FriendFeed for this one; it was listening to his last.fm library that I first heard of stellastarr*, and he also pointed me towards this song as one of his faves. The moment it kicks into high gear? Awesome.

20) Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Heads Will Roll (album: It’s Blitz!, 2009)
Picking just one YYYs song was as annoying as picking just one Metric or just one Rilo Kiley. But this is the one that makes me chairdance the most, so this one won out. I DARE YOU to sit still while listening to this song.