Sad Sack Serenade: March 25th

Thanks for letting me complain on air about my school problems. It definitely helps to get it out. But what a great show musically! So many wonderful songs, and by lots of smaller name artists, with the odd big name artist thrown in. This is the tracklisting for Sad Sack Serenade on CJSF 90.1FM for March 25th:

Mel Brown - Slow Moan
Rae Spoon - Death by Elektro
Silver Jews - Tide to the Oceans
Mirah - The Tears That Fall
Modest Mouse - Bankrupt on Selling
My Dad vs Yours - Ghost Horse
The Reindeer Section - Cartwheels
Stars - How Much More
Phono D'Enfant - Never Cold
The Decemberists - Red Right Ankle
Sean Nicolas Savage - Misery Mountain
Wye Oak - We Were Wealth
Bright Eyes - Lua

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Thanks for listening. Broadcasts of Sad Sack Serenade between now and our summer-time hiatus are dwindling, so don't miss out!

Sad Sack Serenade: March 11th

"The thoughts in their heads,
Manifest on their brow
Like bad scars from ill feelings
They themselves arouse
So hateful of anyone that is happy "

I was more than a little bit pleased to get through so many songs today. Usually I'm stuck at about 9-12 but today I got up to fourteen, which hopefully means less mindless yammering and more sad sackery. Regardless of quantity though, it was a good shmorgusborg of music as always. This is what played Friday morning from 9-10am on CJSF 90.1FM:

Lia Ices - Love Is Won
William Fitzsimmons - Beautiful Girl
Broken Records - Home
Suuns - Fear
Kiersten Holthe - Window Bird (Stars cover)
George Harrison - The Light That Has Lighted the World
Antony and the Johnsons - Swanlights
K.C. Accidental - Something for Chicago
John Frusciante - Dying
The Gertrudes - Blackbird and the Cedar
Adem - Tears Are In Your Eyes (Yo La Tengo cover)
Emily Haines & the Soft Skeleton - Reading In Bed
Elvis Costello - Alison
Radiohead - Codex

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Thanks for listening! Make sure you keep tuning in because the semester is winding down and there aren't too many broadcasts of Sad Sack Serenade left. Then it'll be summer and you'll forced to listen to cheery bubblegum pop all season. BARF.

Sad Sack Serenade: March 4th

Only held by gravity, faded with uncertainty, no longer young and not that pretty. How will he find me?

Welcome to March everybody! And what a red letter day it was, because I got to use the turntable this morning, which contained great music but was also just fun to play in itself. As the old adage goes, the medium is the message, and the message with the turntable is "fun fun fun".

Woods - I Was Gone
Zaac Pick - Foot of My Pride
Four Tet - And They All Look Broken Hearted
Regina Spektor - The Call
Deb Talan - How Will He Find Me?
Zac Crouse - The First Time
Xiu Xiu - I Am Hated For Loving
Jon Brion - Hook, Line, and Sinker
Mother Mother - Try to Change
Young Galaxy - We Have Everything
Damien Jurado - Rachel & Cali
Little Joy - Play the Part
Crissi Cochrane - Kinda Late

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Thanks everybody for listening to Sad Sack Serenade. Do it again next week Friday at 9am on CJSF 90.1FM for more sweet, sad music.

Sad Sack Serenade: February 18th

And despite what they say, we're not like birds or even aeroplanes. We'll never get to fly, fly, fly away.

Happy post-Valentine's Day! A beautiful day in Burnaby and a bounty of great songs this morning on Sad Sack Serenade on CJSF 90.1FM. Here's what played from 9-10am:

Rogue Wave - Christians in Black
Lia Ices - After Is Always Before
Immoor - Porno Queen
Jim Bryson & the Weakerthans - Constellation
Joshua James - You're the Cocaine
Dolorean - Fools Gold Ring
K.C. Accidental - Residential Love Song
Priscilla Ahn - Dream
The New Pornographers - Go Places
The Mad Caddies - Drinking For 11
Cloud Nothings - Forget You All the Time
Meaghan Blanchard - Gotta' Let

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Comment on the show, leave requests, and be sure to tune in next Friday at 9. Also, you should totally come be social and party it up with awesome radio people at CJSF's FM Party on February 26th. It shall be rad.

VIFF 2010 in Review

I regret that it's taken me as long as it has to post even this meagre review of my experience at the 29th annual Vancouver International Film Festival. Alas, I am both lazy and lately plagued with self-confidence problems, which often negates my ability to convey my opinions in a non-ambiguous manner. I have learned a great deal in my year and a bit at university, and I feel as though with each new piece information or theory or historical tidbit I absorb, paradoxically the less prepared I am to offer my comments on films or music or anything else. I hope readers of this document will read it as little more than a written history and categorization of my personal experience at VIFF 2010.

I have never been able to attend a film festival with a full pass to all the films, and now that I have, am quite certain that there is no other way to approach attending a big event like VIFF. My pass gave me the flexibility to see films at the spur of the moment if I wanted, but also enabled me to see my top picks if I was dedicated enough to line up early. Although I didn't get to see everything I wanted, I felt pretty satisfied with what I did come away with, a diverse selection of 26 feature films from a variety of countries. My one regret is that I didn't pick a more eclectic crop of national cinemas; I didn't get to a single film from Africa and only two from the Asian film category. At the same time though, I think I had a better experience seeing the films I was interested in than I would have if I forced myself to go to see films that hadn't really caught my fancy.

The film selection crew at VIFF did a fantastic job this year, and I was extremely pleased with the programming categories and the overall quality of the films I saw. I only saw three or four movies that I would dub as duds, undeserving in my opinion of being included in the festival. Although, unlike last year, no breakthrough favourites emerged from the festival, I was still very fond of the vast majority of the films I saw and would be more than happy to see them again or recommend them to friends.

So without much further ado, these are the films that I saw in their entirety, rated very roughly by letter grade:


GRADE A
Another Year (UK, Mike Leigh)
Certified Copy (France/Italy/Belgium, Abbas Kiarostami)
Inside Job (USA, Charles Ferguson)
Armadillo (Denmark, Janus Metz)
Our Life (Italy, Daniele Luchetti)
Fathers&Sons (British Columbia, Carl Bessai)
Winter Vacation (China, Li Hongqi)

GRADE B
Biutiful (Spain/Mexico, Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu)
Me, Too (Spain, Alavro Pastor and Antonio Naharro)
The Woodmans (USA, C. Scott Willis)
Rubber (France/USA, Quentin Dupieux)
A Somewhat Gentle Man (Norway, Hans Petter Molland)
Win/Win (Netherlands, Jaap van Heusden)
Snow & Ashes (Quebec, Charles-Olivier Michaud)
Heartbeats (Quebec, Xavier Dolan)
Curling (Quebec, Denis Cote)

GRADE C
Good Morning to the World! (Japan, Hirohara Saturo)
Incendies (Quebec, Denis Villeneuve)
Two Indians Talking (British Columbia, Sara McIntyre)
King's Road (Iceland, Valdis Oskarsdottir)
The Woodmans (USA, C. Scott Willis)
ReGeneration (USA, Phillip Montgomery)

GRADE D
Severn, The Voice of Our Children (France, Jean-Paul Jaud)
Uncle Brian (Ontario, Nick McAnulty)
The Tree (Australia/France, Julie Bertucceli)
Monsters (UK, Gareth Edwards)
The Strange Case of Angelica (Portugal/Spain/France/Brazil, Manoel de Oliveira)


A few specific comments on individual films...

Probably my most anticipated film of the festival was Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu (Babel, 21 Grams, Amores Perros)'s new film Biutiful. It was difficult to not compare this new work with his three previous films because they are so extraordinary and so moving and so entrenched in my memory, and in relation to those movies, Biutiful isn't quite on par. That said, see this film because it is still a pandora's box of interesting themes and emotional issues well worth exploring. But if you are a fan of Innaritu's previous work, don't go expecting the same sort of clarity of ideas and poignancy.

Inside Job I would say is by far the most important film that played at the festival. Everyone interested in the future of economics, politics, and the vitality of democracy in the world (this should be everyone) needs to see this movie because it explores every cranny of the corruption inside the world's economic trendsetter and the unsound base on which the country has been built. Charles Ferguson is a vital American filmmaker, and a gutsy one at that.

Armadillo is a particularly relevant film for Canadians in light of our withdrawal from Afghanistan next year. It contains some of the most extraordinary and candid documentary footage I have ever seen. The way in which this film structures itself and develops character is so effortless it almost fooled me into thinking it was a narrative work of fiction.

If I had to choose my favourite movie at the festival, it would be the Chinese film Winter Vacation. A third of the audience walked out during the screening I attended because it was so slow and aimlessly plotted, but I drew a lot out of the striking and unique mise-en-scene. This was by far the most original work I saw, it had a fantastic sense of humour, and the underpinning social commentary and nihilist philosophy I thought were conveyed in a very artful manner. A valuable insight into the psyche of the youth in China.

Destined to become a cult favourite was the midnight film Rubber. Anyone can tell just from the plot description that this film is outlandish, hilarious, and completely unconventional, but I think a lot of people missed how clever the self-reflexive elements of the film were. This is a comedy with something to say (albeit something simple) about the medium.

Young Xavier Dolan is a tremendously exciting talent to watch. Although Heartbeats is not as insightful or inspired as last year's I Killed My Mother, it is still a creatively ambitious and fun and definitely post-modern work that continues to develop a distinct cinematic voice.

Good Morning to the World! and its 23 year old filmmaker Hirohara Saturo was the surprise winner of the Dragons & Tigers Award. Even though I was not particularly struck by the film, I commend the Dragons jury for rewarding an obviously talented young student instead of gifting the award to one of the more obvious candidates like Cannes winner Poetry or the blockbuster Aftershock. Saturo, who I was privileged to hear speak after his film, is a smart young man with some terrific ideas, and will certainly be someone to watch in the future.

I was post puzzled by the superb audience reaction and my film theory professor's praise for Denis Villeneuve's new film Incendies, Canada's submission for Oscar consideration this year. I was not impressed with Villeneuve's pedestrian direction and the film's awkward weaving between time-lines, but more importantly I thought this work demeaned the tragedy of the historical conflict and the real life victims of violence by making the film's major tragedy a thing of chance or hand of God event in the style of a Greek tragedy. I seem to be alone in this assessment, so by all means see it for yourself. I look forward to a discussion with someone about it.

The Ontario production Uncle Brian I thought was an accidentally morally reprehensible work. It was clear to me after the Q&A that the filmmakers had no concept of the codes of representation their movie took on. To give on example, the final frames of the film brutally victimizes the main character at the hands of an angry, violent, repressed homosexual. I was disappointed that the VIFF programming committee thought that the shock factor of this film's content made it worthy of inclusion at the festival.


Maybe I will write more about more movies as time allows. Check back to find out.

Tell me about your experience at VIFF! What did you see you loved/hated? Do you think I'm totally out to lunch on some of my comments? Let me know.

VIFF 2010

I'm going to be volunteering at the Vancouver International Film Festival this year, and while I'm a bit nervous about the work I'll be doing and fitting it all into my busy schedule, I can't wait to take advantage of the opportunity to see a bunch of exciting films. Last year the crowds were huge, which should make the volunteer job a major headache, but it is always a lot more fun to share the cinematic experience with a big group of people. My first impressions of VIFF last year were great, and I hope this year will be just as positive.

These are the movies I have on my radar to see, although I can't imagine seeing all of them. If you think I'm missing a gem, or you want to insist that I not miss one already on my list, give me a shout. If any of my friends reading this wanted to go see something with me, then send me a message and let me know!

• David Wants to Fly
• Fathers & Sons
• Biutiful
• Inside Job
• The Tree
• Certified Copy
• Heartbeats
• Waiting for Superman
• Another Year
• Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
• The Illusionist
• My Film and My Story
• Snow & Ashes
• Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and The Magnetic Fields

Happy festivaling everyone!