Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Westerns are so in.

From casual conversation with drunk people at bars who read this blog I have learned two things. Half of the people just want to read about music and find new music. The other half of my tiny-but-growing readership wants to read about other things.

So I fully plan on writing about all kinds of random topics to keep the masses happy.
And we all love the movies.
And as usual the movies are all about the music.



It seems like Westerns are the new background for semi serious artsy films. In one oscar hunting season we have 3:10 To Yuma, There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men, three mammoths of timing and sparse diologue, three highly intelligent movies by very quirky directors. Big budget and fun with lots of violence, supported by extremely A-list actors.

3:10 to Yuma is nominated for best original soundtrack and No Country for Old Men is almost completly devoid of music, the only score coming from singing bowls and Buddhist standing metal bells. In There Will Be Blood the music is composed by Jonny Greenwood, a member of the somewhat-important-in-the-music-world band, Radiohead.

For the directors that want to be successfull but proud of their work the traditional desert background is once again a place of suspense and one of the few remaining homes for iintelligent and twisty plot lines. The harsh sun and stark backdrops lay open human weakness, and as a jaded audience we need a certain gravity of the environment to forge coming of age stories, peverse human violence and ethically questionable heros.

1 comment:

David Blake said...

Paul Thomas Anderson. Hands Down.