For 82 years, the Academy Awards have purported to choose the year’s best film. For the next year, I’ll be watching one best picture winner per week, starting 52 years ago and working up to tonight’s winner. Some of the films are rightly regarded as classics. Others, decidedly less so. But each of them must have had some quality that earned it the top spot, and I’ll be trying to suss out what that is, and why it holds up — or why it deserves to be forgotten.

1958: Gigi (Best Picture, Best Director, and seven others)

“It’s the same dull world wherever you go / Whatever place you’re at / The Earth is round but everything on it is flat” — Gaston in “It’s a Bore”

If I had started this project when I first thought of it a year ago, the first entry would be David Lean’s Bridge … Read More

A quick chat with Broken City’s exceedingly friendly bartender, Adam, reveals that Brasstronaut is short one guitar player and missed out on a full soundcheck — not necessarily a good sign for a band with two wind instruments to mic. Sure enough, the first song — “Lo Hi Hopes,” from the band’s debut full-length, Mt. Chimaera — is a false start, derailed by feedback.
A quick bit of adjustment and things are back on track. They opt instead for “Six Toes,” Chimaera’s standout track, and it certainly seems to be the right choice. The roiling piano and Dixieland clarinet catch the audience’s ears, and the brief snippets of falsetto soul sets the hook. The absent guitar player isn’t really missed, with the bassist pulling double duty (I can’t see whether … Read More

How Do I Love Thee?, by Florence Gibson MacDonald:
Given my near-complete lack of literary training, I only know Elizabeth Barrett Browning for her titular question, and even less of Robert Browning. Maybe an emotional connection to their poetry would’ve made How Do I Love Thee go down easier, but as it stands, the florid language seemed disconnected from a relatively flat staging. Things improve in the second act, when the play moves from literary wooing to real human conflict, and the actors do their best to instill real passion and energy in the poetry, but it’s hard to imagine there’s much here that wasn’t already on the page.

Abraham Lincoln Goes to the Theatre, by Larry Tremblay, translated by Chantal Bilodeau:
As complex as  … Read More

It looks like the fine folks at Kill Rock Stars are in a generous mood right now. The label is celebrating its first two releases of 2010 by streaming them for free over at soundcloud.com.

So, if you want to check out the latest from hard-rocking, melodically dense Portland trio Quasi or emotionally dour weirdness from Xiu Xiu, just follow the links or click the streams below (which hopefully will work):

Quasi - American Gong by killrockstars

XIU XIU Dear God, I Hate Myself by killrockstars

If I were feeling particularly honest, I’d have to confess that I didn’t think Edge of Darkness would be any good. Director Martin Campbell did direct two of the best Bond movies in recent memory (and maybe the best one ever with Casino Royale), but the presence of Mel Gibson was a major turn-off — not because of his film presence, which I actually enjoy, but more because the assorted scandals of the last few years soured me on him. That one South Park episode didn’t help my biases, either.
The movie’s opening didn’t help much, with Gibson’s Boston accent and his powerful fatherly love providing ample targets for cynicism. But then it got me. The story started unfolding, the tone got increasingly grim, and I found myself wondering why I was … Read More

It's been a year and a half since Fast Forward ran a cover story on the death of community television. That article mostly focussed on the local side of things, but since then, the situation has only gotten more extreme.

Now, for the first time in eight years, the CRTC is doing a review of its public television policy, and they're taking input from the public at large. The forum has been open since last October, and they'll be accepting opinions until Feb 1 — that's six more days. The Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS) has more information on its website, as well as a sample letter that you can send in.

I know public television conjurs images of low-budget sets and awkward hosts that lend themselves to … Read More

Turns out the end of Sundae Sound isn't the only hit the local music scene is taking this month. After 26 years, the Warehouse is closing its doors. I've copied the full statement from the venue's Facebook page below, but the short of it seems to be a perfect storm of liquor license, zoning and building issues, which have been in the works since the crackdown on the Warehouse's "private club" status.

It's pretty much impossible to pin a single sound or clientelle on the Warehouse and Underground, but the two venues have served as a hub for any number of scenes around the city, from metal to goth and industrial to dance and punk. They were always adventurous with their programming (highlights from the last couple years have included … Read More

Local singer-songwriter Lorrie Matheson has posted the second installment in his 52-part 2010 covers project, a cover of the late Vic Chesnutt's "The Gravity of the Situation," and along with the cover, he's posted a great anecdote about Chesnutt's set at the Marquee Room last October. It was a hell of a show (one of the best I saw last year, easily), and as Matheson's the booker at the Marquee Room, he's got an interesting perspective on it.

I was idly staring at a wall of movie posters at Eau Claire the other day when it struck me that the film industry right now has a pronounced case of serious face going on. This is really nothing new — with a few badass exceptions like the Terminator: Salvation poster, studios tend to play it pretty safe with their promotional campaigns. But it does raise the question: Who has the best serious face?

Though initially impressive, Denzel Washington's post-apocalyptic bible thumper is too reliant on props to take the crown. The perfectly horizontal grimace and the ever-so-slightly flexed neck muscles connote a certain intensity, but the gravitas are undoubtedly added to by the shoulder-holstered gun, and the sunglasses hide … Read More

Just a quick note that local label Flemish Eye will be donating 100% of their mail order sales for January to relief efforts in Haiti — as if you needed another reason to love these guys. So go pick up Pale Air Singers's self-titled debut (which has been totally slept on for some reason) or some delicious Chad VanGaalen vinyl, and do your part to make the world a better place.

UPDATE:

Also on a Haitian note, this clip of MSNBC's Keith Olbermann indulging in some well-placed indignation must be seen to be believed (via Paul Lawton of Myelin Sheaths/Endangered Ape):