If you think Krautrock is passé, think again. I have just reviewed Radiate! – a fine debut album by a Berlin trio called Camera who have built a reputation for “guerilla gigs” in the city.
They are the kind of buskers that give humanity to the metropolis.
I love this video of them playing at an underground station – check out the funky dancing:
I’ve been living in Italy for over sixteen years now , and I love movies, but I still wouldn’t count myself as an expert of Italian contemporary cinema. On the contrary, I confess that, until fairly recently, I had a snobbish, and blinkered attitude to the films produced in my adopted country.
I took the simplistic view that when Neorealism faded out and after Fellini died, Italian cinema fell into a terminal decline. I based this on the fact that the comedies struck me as examples of crude slapstick while dramas or other ‘serious’ movies seemed like poor imitations of American films.
This broad and inaccurate generalisation counts as a form of blind prejudice and ,as with any form of bigotry, the holder of such views (i.e. me) ends up being the biggest loser.
The truth is that if you judge any country’s cultural production solely by what is popular or, in the case of movies, by what fares best at the box office, you gain only the most superficial of perspectives.
I am now trying to adopt a more open-minded attitude and one rule of thumb that has paid off so far is that any movie starring Toni Servillo is worth seeing.
Toni Servillo
Prior to La Ragazza del Lago, I’ve seen him in Gomorrah, Le consequenze dell’amore (The Consequences of Love), Il Divo and Gorbaciof; all of which impressed me and proved that he is one of those rare character actors who inhabits a part so fully, you forget he’s only acting.
In La Ragazza del Lago (The Girl by the Lake), based on a novel by Norwegian author Karin Fossum, he plays Commissario Giovanni Sanzio, a police inspector from the south of Italy with a dry wit and maverick qualities that are not a million miles away from those of Commissario Montalbano. However, Sanzio is made of much sterner stuff than Andrea Camilleri’s fictional creation with a courteous yet direct manner that makes it plain that he doesn’t suffer fools gladly.
Taking its cues from the novel, the film has a very Nordic look and feel even though it was shot in and around the lake of Fusine in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of North-Eastern Italy.
The case Sanzio/Servillo is investigating is the mysterious death of an attractive young woman found naked by the side of a lake. The plot thickens when the post-mortem reveals that she was a virgin and that, although she was drowned, there are no signs of a struggle.
The story cleverly interweaves police procedural with themes relating to mental and physical illness. Insights into the latter help solve the murder as well as giving a deeper insight into Sanzio’s private life as the father of a stroppy teenage daughter and husband of a wife suffering from the early onset of dementia.
The movie is tightly directed by Andrea Molaioli and makes for a very impressive debut that shows he learnt a lot as assistant to Nanni Moretti.
His follow-up film is Il Gioiellino which was released in 2011. I haven’t seen this yet but as it also stars Toni Servillo, there’s no doubt I’ll be checking it at the earliest opportunity.
This two-hour concert movie was recorded at Led Zeppelin’s one-off show at London’s O2 Arena on 10th December 2007.
This was staged almost one year to the day after the death of the founder of Atlantic Records Ahmet Ertegun. Proceeds from the concert went to Artegun’s Education Fund which sets out to provide music scholarships to gifted children.
I arrived late for the cinema screening (“for one night only”) without pre-booking and was highly fortunate to get the last ticket. I felt almost as pumped up as if I was seeing the band in the flesh and the atmosphere in the movie house made this a memorable way to experience their timeless music.
Continue reading
I’m quite excited to discover COURSERA, a social entrepreneurship company that partners with some top universities to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free.
It was founded by computer science professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Kollerfrom of Stanford University and as it was launched in April of 2012 it is still in its infancy. Most courses don’t begin until 2013.
Time will tell if they can continue to provide these courses solely through venture capital. Logic tells you that sooner or later students will have to pay something but for the moment it seems an opportunity not to pass up. Continue reading
 | Anonymous on No tears for Mark Lanegan |
 | MaleFriends on IN PRAISE OF THE HAIRY CHEST |
| Anonymous on COPYCAT KILLER IN DUMB MOVIE |
