No Direction Home

• 2012-03-11

  Woody Allen

  

  I remember the first time I heard about the existence of Woody Allen. I was watching a video review of the movie (500) Days of Summer and the reviewer was talking about how much that film reminded him of Annie Hall. I didn’t care. At that time I was too much in love with (500) Days of Summer and I wasn’t in the mood to look for another great film.

  One year latter, while watching another video review of the same guy, he was giving his opinion on this movie called Midnight in Paris. I thought: “Well, this seem to be a nice movie. I’ll go watch it”. So that day I went to movies. And I bought two ticket, one for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 which I was going to see it again with a couple of friends and the latter was a ticket to Midnight in Paris that I was going to see by myself. The movie was going to be screened at 21:25 and unfortunately I read the time wrong and only got there on 21:40. I got there in the part where Gil was talking to his fiancée in the hotel room, right after the scene that they meet Michael Sheen’s character in the restaurant. At first I didn’t care much for loosing those first minutes but after I had seen the film and after loving it so much it felt kinda bad, and even worse after I got the Blu-Ray of the film and saw that I hadn’t seen those beautiful shots of Paris with Sydney Bechet’s Si Tu Vois Ma Mère in the background on the big screen I almost smacked myself.

  But before re-watching it, after I got out theater that night, like any movie nerd, I went onto IMDb to see the name of the director and it was this Woody Allen guy that I had heard before. So I went on to see what he had done before that and I can say that after I watched Annie Hall and Manhattan no words can describe how much I fell in love with his work and how big of a genius this man is. 

  Beyond those I have mentioned I have watched Bananas, Everything you Wanted to Know About Sex but were afraid to ask*, Sleeper, Love and Death, Interiors, Stardust Memories, A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy, Broadway Danny Rose, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Hannah and Her Sister, Radio Days, Another Woman, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Alice, Husbands and Wives, Manhattan Murder Mystery, Bullets Over Broadway, Everyone Says I Love You, Deconstructing Harry, Celebrity, Sweet and Lowdown, Small Time Crocks, Hollywood Ending, Anything Else, Melinda and Melinda, Match Point, Scoop, Cassandra’s Dream, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Whatever Works and You Will Meet a Talk Dark Stranger just to name “a few”.

  So just like I did with Kubrick I’m going to name some of my favorite movies of his and talk a little about them a little. I won’t give any spoilers even though these movie are pretty old so I kept what I wrote pretty broad.

  Read More

• 2012-02-21

  This movie seems to be incredible crazy. I must watch it.

• 2012-02-19

  Stanley Kubrick

  

  I want to talk today about one of my favorite directors of all time, Stanley Kubrick. He’s one of the most important and influential directors of all time, no one needs to suck up to him at all because his work speaks for itself. Recently I started to watch some of his movies that I hadn’t watched like The Killing, Lolita and Eyes Wide Shut and that made me realize (again) how amazing of an artist he was. I haven’t seen yet Killer’s Kiss, Paths of Glory and Barry Lyndon but I plan on watching them soon. Now I want to talk about the ones I have watched and have become favorites of mine, I’ll talk about them in chronological order and give you my opinion.

  Dr. Strangelove or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

  

  The movie is a dark satire of the “Nuclear Era” in which fright and paranoia ruled the minds of people. The use of jokes on this movie is really clever, not all jokes are in the characters speech but rather on the situations and subtle elements on the environment that they’re in. And one that must be highlighted is the performance of Peter Sellers on this movie which was incredible, the first time I watched this movie I had no idea that he was playing three characters and he portrays them with such distinction that I bet I wasn’t the only one to make that mistake.

  2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

  

  It’s hard to talk about this film for being so broad on the subjects that it tackles and but also, at the same time, so complex. I can say that describing this movie only with words is practically impossible, you have to watch it so you can fully understand what the movie is trying to say.

  A Clockwork Orange (1971)

  

  The movie narrates the misadventures of young Alex DeLarge, the movie is set in a futuristic kind of time in which Alex and his “droogs” commit their acts of horrorshow and ultra violence. The movies’ main subject of discussion is violence and how the individuals and society sees and reacts to it. It questions who is the end was more violent, the person who committed the crimes or the people who were punishing them.

  The Shining (1980)

  

  In my opinion this movie is a masterpiece of the horror genre it still stands out as one of the most scary movies of all time. Modern horror movies depend a lot on using sudden sound noise (couldn’t find a better term) to try to scare people or the use of a lot of CGI an big huge “scary” monsters, but this movie doesn’t do that, everything in it is scary, the hotel, the characters expression of horror, the climate and many other things. Even if you don’t like this genre a lot this is one movie worth giving a try.

• 2012-02-07

  Rdio

  So a couple weeks ago I subscribed to a music service called Rdio, I think it is really great and I want to give my overhaul opinion on it.

  

   

  Basically how it works is you pay a monthly fee that goes from 8.99 for a Web subscription (you can only use it on your browser and the desktop app and you stream an unlimited amount of music) or 14.90 for an Unlimited subscription (the same thing as the previous but you can also use mobile devices like smartphones, iPods touch and tablets like the iPad). And with that monthly fee there is no limited to the amount of music that you can add to your collection or listen to.

  

  Rdio basically consist of using these things:

  Collection - All the music you added to it so it can be easier to find them.

  Playlist - This one is pretty self-explanatory but one interesting thing is that you can subscribe to playlist other people made.

  Queue - The last albums songs you were listening stay there so you can finish listening.

  Heavy Rotation - The albums the people on your friends list/people you follow are listening.

  Recent Activity - Everything anyone you follow or in your friends list added to their collection.

  New Release - New songs available on Rdio.

  Top Charts - The music that most people on Rdio are listening.

  Recommended - Recommendation based on the music you listen.

  The range of music you can find is incredible I’ve found major pop artists that are on the top charts list of iTunes, for an example, and also great older bands that I enjoy like Pink Floyd, The Clash, The Smiths and many others. I have a problem that some music is not available in my country and in my opinion this is the most annoying part of Rdio when you find a great artist but you can’t stream their music because of where you live. Those that are included and are some omissions that are personally painful like John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Wings, older Pink Floyd albums (but for some reason just  some of the remastered are available, like The Dark Side of the Moon, The Wall, Meddle and there is a collection of 10 of their studio albums in one “package”, but not available separately). If you’re in the US, this should not be a problem.

  About the apps for Rdio, I’m not a big fan of them, I’ve had problem with the desktop app (I use the Mac version) such as playing a song and the bar on top of the windows which displays the song info, time, album cover doesn’t change when the next song starts playing, it keeps frozen with the previous song information. If I’m going to listen to music while using my computer I’ll keep using the browser. The iPhone/iPod touch app is more usable in my opinion, you can search for music and add them to your collection pretty easily, you can also download them for listening offline directly from the device and so far all song I streamed/downloaded have had great quality. But I’m also not a big fan of the design of the music app for the iPhone because I don’t think it is centered enough on listening to the music you already have, when you open the application you get a menu with the option Collection, Playlist, Queue, Heavy Rotation, Activity, History, New Release, Top Charts and Recommended, personally I’d like it to display my collection of artists as soon as I open it up so it would cut down a step, I rarely use most of those other features, once a week I open up Heavy Rotation to check what the people I follow are listening or I check new releases to see if there’s anything new I’d like to add to my collection but that’s about it.

  In the end I think it’s worth it, specially if you consume a massive amount of music like me and buying all the albums that you like separately would make you go broke.

• 2012-01-26

  Garden State

  

  Just a really cool movie I’d like to recommend. It was released in 2005, written and directed by Zach Braff. The screenplay was partially based on his life before he got his first acting job as a character in the series from the beginning of the 2000’s called Scrubs. He also acted in the movie, he played the main character and the movie also features Natalie Portman and Peter Sarsgaard. It is about self-discovery, love and making the right decisions. Also the soundtrack is amazing, check it out on iTunes or the music store you like.

• 2012-01-21

  

  Just found out Gary Oldman played Sid Vicious in a 1986 bio pic. Must. Watch. NOW!

• 2012-01-16

  It is really late, but I wanted to talk.

  

  You know, one of the things that I love the most about having this blog/tumblr/thing-of-a-bob and keeping it without identifying myself is that I can say anything that I want to say and I don’t need to care about what people might think of what I said or about what I think or feel. I think I should do that also in real life but I think I still lack the courage to do so now. But the reason to this kind of dramatic introduction I just want to talk about this incredible and touching movie that I just watched that was 50/50 with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogers, I don’t think that I can express with word how much I loved this movie, I don’t know, I’m kind of a sucker for these kinds of movie, especially with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, there are these kinds of movie that I kind of create a bond with and they just become near and dear to my heart, some of those movie now including 50/50 are (500) Days of Summer, Garden State, Elizabethtown, Annie Hall, Submarine and others alike. But finally talking about 50/50 it is a movie where the main character, Adam, finds out that he has cancer and the movie show how he faces it and how people around face that with him. I don’t want to give any spoilers to this amazing film so I’ll be superficial and talk about what made me like this movie so much which I’ll mention in some points.

  - Death

  We are all gonna die someday, sooner or later, like the Hemingway character in Midnight in Paris said “it is something that all men before you have done and all men after you will do” (I may have butchered the sentence, but you get the point). I’m fascinated with death, I can say that is something that come to my mind somewhat often and you might think that that is kinda creppy but I don’t think about in a pessimistic way, I can say that I’m curious. Not enough to do anything stupid of course but still I wonder what happens after death, I’m not catholic neither an atheist, I’d say that closest way of religious thinking that I could relate would be agnostic but religion aside, the point in the movie is how people react if they suddenly discovered that their time would be shortened, that in the near future they might not be around anymore and how people around them would react after learning those news and how they would react to their reactions and the movies portrays that in great way.

  - Relating with characters

  His mom is, well, my mom. That character is my mom and my mom is that character, she’s the neurotic-ever worried about everything mom that think she always know what is the best for people around her, also that scene (don’t worry, not a significant spoiler) in which they are in the doctors office and she starts bad mouthing his diploma and that her son should get better treatment is just what my mom would probably be talking. I have some relations with Adam also, which are that I’m kind of introverted and also reluctant to driving (although I do have a license) and I have a friend that sometimes behaves like Seth Roger’s character.

  - Relationships

  I once heard that when you’re in bad moments is when you find out which of the people around you are the ones who really care about you, and I through my life I can say that that is absolutely true. I had friends bailing out on me when I needed then and I know what is to fell sometimes that people around you just don’t care, you know, and it is a pretty horrible feeling. And in the film shows how people reacted around him in that hard time of his and with those scenes, besides some hilarious stuff, that that I just talked about people.

  - Soundtrack

  I don’t know if said it already but I’m also a sucker for soundtracks, I said this once and great movies have great soundtracks, this one is no different and the right songs with the right modes are in the right place with perfect timing.

• 2012-01-10

  

  I’m not sure from which of the album session she took this photo, I guess it is from “Still the Unknown” but I can be wrong. Also if I’m posting the picture without having it in the same post it is because I’m doing this from my iPad/iPhone.

• →

  While I still have time.

  Like I said I won’t have much free time in the next months, maybe year, so I’m trying to enjoy the little time that I have but also I going to start “working” as soon as tomorrow. But still I’d like to talk about this artist that I have known for sometime and as far as I know she isn’t that much known. Her name is Gaby Moreno, she’s an amazing musician, I fell in love with both her album “Still the unknown” and “Illustrated songs”, so if you have a chance listen to them, they’re pretty great.

• →

  First things first.

  First, I have no idea why I created this. That’s a lie, I know what I have hope for it to be, just a little place that I can say/share anything that I want. I don’t have anyone to read what I say and I’m not going to try to promote it to my friends with social media and stuff because since I have no one to read this I can say/write anything I want therefore this gives me a fake sense of freedom. So, somethings to say:

  - The reason for the name of the Tumblr is because I was (and pretty much still am) really into Bob Dylan’s music and history, and to take this chance, if you like Bob Dylan and, if you haven’t yet, I highly recommend you to watch I’m Not There (it is good to know some of his history so that you can follow each plot) and read his autobiography called “Chronicles” which is pretty good (again if you know and like Dylan’s work, you’re not going to be his biggest fan by reading it, the autobiography is not linear and it’s doesn’t cover all of his history, look for more info if you wanna know why).

  - One of my hobbies right now is to write. Write stories that I think that might turn out to be interesting or to say something to say or anything like that. Right now I’m having some sort of writers block, I have ideas but I don’t find a way to develop then into bigger things right now. Probably because I’m in really stale point in my life, these next couple of months at least. The reason why I want to write is, well, I’m not sure. Just because I want to I guess, I’d say that currently my bigger source of inspiration is Woody Allen’s work and I’m watching his movie, all of then. I watched Cassandra’s Dream today which for what I heard I thought it was not going to be that good of a movie and I can say that the really low expectations helped because the movie was actually better than I thought, most of it in my opinion is brilliant until around 1:30-1:40 and then the story take a path that I didn’t really like, but in the end the picture is quite decent. As I’ve heard and quote “There isn’t a bad Woody Allen movie, only stronger and weaker ones”.

  - I’m into music, really into it, mostly rock, jazz (need better introduction to the world of jazz music), folk and some pop rock. I don’t like most of the pop music that is around these days, in my opinion the lyrics are just stupid, they don’t have any message or anything interesting or meaningful to say, that’s my opinion. Some of my favorite artist are Bob Dylan, as I previously mentioned, The Beatles, Wings, Pink Floyd, The Doors, The Smiths, John Lennon’s and Paul McCartney’s solo work, The Strokes, Arctic Monkeys, Arcade Fire, Coldplay (except that God awful Mylo Xyloto album) KT Tunstall and Gaby Moreno.

  - Also I’m really into movies, I’m not gonna name favorite movies, but instead I’m going to name some director’s that I really like: Woody Allen, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, Brian De Palma, Quentin Tarantino, Christopher Nolan, David Fincher and I’m creating high hopes to add to this list Marc Webb, I absolutely loved (500) Days of Summer and this was his first work as a movie director. Hope he will do a great job in The Amazing Spider-Man.

  - Also I like reading books, not as much as listening to music or watching movies, but to name a few that I like: Joe Dunthorne’s Submarine, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy, Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs bio, Philip Norman’s John Lennon bio and recently I started to read Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Getsby.

  - And I’m also really into technology, mainly Apple stuff, I love Jony Ive’s sense of design. I’m happy living in my beautiful, clean and organized cage if you’re going to start talking about how Android is better and how Apple sucks for not being open and yadda yadda yadda, those things that people that like technology discuss a lot.

  P.S.: If I did any horrible grammar mistake (probably did), well, my first language is not English so please bare with me.