The Studio

Hello readers and welcome to the inaugural blog entry by yours truly Athens Moreno..

I was gonna do a movie review on a movie I saw recently, but over the last week or so I have been listening exclusively to the new Kanye West CD during my travel to work so I figured I would review a local boy done good..

Kanye West’s latest release is titled “808s & Heartbreak“…

The 808 part refers to a machine that makes drum noises called an 808…Kanye insisted that every track was made using this machine which gives the songs a robot drum melody during the songs. Heartbreak comes from Kanye being heartbroken over the death of his mother and the breakup by his fiancee.

Heartbreak is what the CD is really about. After first listen the CD sounds like a hip hop star who got his heart broken and now decided to sing with a robot tarnished voice. However over the last week or so I have had each one of his songs stuck in my ear. It certainly is not a rap or hip hop album, which is what Kanye would normally fall into category wise, which has left some fans disappointed. However the CD grows onto you. Each track is technically a break up song. There is the “sad” songs about breaking up and there is the “nobody better than me” break up songs. If you have been in the situation of a break up in your lifetime, well then this album certainly will catch your ear. This album does not have the “commercial appeal” that many hip hop/rap artist strive for, Kanye literally puts his heart on his sleeve for you all to hear and does away with the songs he normally would have on his CD’s that get you excited about a night on the town..The CD will have your thinking and feeling Kanye’s pain over his heartbreak..I encourage you all to take a listen to this Chicago star, especially the song “Pinnochio’s Story” which is a song about somebody wanting to live a real life instead of being a celebrity..This we might not all relate to, but Kanye certainly makes us feel his sadness during this song, and the entire 808s & Heartbreak Cd.

The link below is of Kanye performing the hit single “Love Lockdown” on SNL recently..much controversy has come from his performance on the show, because it is obvious that his singing voice doesn’t match the background vocals.. Kanye West a “lip singer” is a possibility but I urge you to take a look at his emotion during the performance…this is how the CD is..the robot sounds and drums might be annoying but after a while you certainly can relate to Kanye West’s heartbreaks.

[UPDATE] Looks like we’re safe for the time being. It appears that Star Wars: A Musical Journey is merely a concert performance of selections from John Williams’ scores, accompanied with clips from all six films. Let’s all breath a sigh of relief that we’re spared the Stormtrooper kickline.

Via Yahoo! News:

“George Lucas has signed off on Star Wars: A Musical Journey, a two-hour live musical event featuring a Stormtrooper kick line and singing Wookiees.”

Part of me continues to feel justified for shutting the door on anything that exists outside of the Star Wars movie canon. (Even then, I must qualify that with by saying Episodes 1-3 are skating on thin ice.) Other parts of me say this is going to be one incredible disasterpiece, a freakshow trainwreck that’s not to be missed.

Most of me, however, just wants to curl up with the Original Trilogy, and content myself with nostalgia for a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

Catch two classic film screenings at the Library!

Friday, January 2 at 1:30pm

The Philadelphia Story

Friday, January 23 at 1:30pm

Breakfast at Tiffany’s

The 2009 Golden Globe Nominations have been announced! The awards show is January 11th. Link to the official website to read the latest news.

In the meantime, check out what you can reserve at the Library:

(Feature Films)

Burn After Reading

The Changeling

The Dark Knight

The Duchess

Happy-Go-Lucky

In Burges

Kung Fu Panda

Mamma Mia!

The Pineapple Express

Tropic Thunder

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

WALL-E

(Television Series/Movies)

24: Redemption

An American Crime

Bernard and Doris

Cranford

In Treatment

John Adams

A Raisin in the Sun

Recount: The Story of the 2000 Presidential Election

The Tudors

And don’t miss previous winners:

Best Picture – Drama

Best Musical or Comedy

Best Foreign Language Film

I just listened to the soundtrack for the movie Twilight and thought wow this is really good. The Twilight people got it right. That aside, other soundtracks that I have really enjoyed and recommend are (in no particular order):

Trainspotting #2

10 Things I Hate about You

Wicker Park

Across the Universe

Juno

Once

So – what are some others? I know that I am forgetting dozens of great and worthy soundtracks!

Has anybody tried the new movie picking website Clerk Dogs?  The technology blogosphere was discussing this website recently and I wanted to give it a shot.

Basically it is a recommendation engine along the lines of the awesome music sites Pandora/Last.fm but for movies.  Type in a title of a movie you have enjoyed and it will try to bring up like movies.  Simple enough sounding but it is often difficult to match a person with a movie.

The first movie I tried was Sin City.  The matches received were Sin City (less than an inspired guess by Clerk Dogs) and Sin City 2 which I didn’t even know was in the works.   I then tried Stardust and Clerk Dogs suggested The Princess Bride (good one), Willow (still good), Ever After (never saw it, maybe I should), Labrynith (I remember thinking David Bowie moving around the little glass ball was way cool), and more.  I then tried SpaceBalls with no hits.  I would think that would be an easy one with all the other Mel Brooks films.

Clerk Dogs is still in beta so I give it a pass for now, but it will be interesting to see what it will it will be like in the future.  If anybody else has tried it let me know your results, stellar or less.

Ok – anyone have a favorite Christmas movie or song?

Miracle on 34th Street is one that I LOVED as a kid, and still. More recently, I thoroughly enjoyed The Holiday, starring Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz.

And songs, for some reason I can listen to Christmas Wrapping by The Waitresses dozens of times (you can find it on Now That’s What I Call Christmas 2 and the Fred Claus soundtrack).

For ideas, check out Christmas movies and Christmas music CDs owned by the library.

The movie awards season has begun. The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures has just announced the 2008 winners. For the most part, you’ll have to catch these in the theater (until the DVDs get released, then check the library’s collection).

Best Film – Slumdog Millionaire

Best Foreign Language Film – Mongol

Best Documentary – Man on Wire

Best Actor – Clint Eastwood – Gran Torino

Best Actress – Anne Hathaway – Rachel Getting Married

Best Supporting Actor – Josh Brolin – Milk

Best Supporting Actress – Penelope Cruz – Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Best Ensemble Cast – Doubt

Best Director – David Fincher – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Best Animated Feature – WALL-E