UNDER THE SKIN - The best way to experience Under The Skin, if you haven't experienced it yet, is to know absolutely nothing about it. Nothing at all. Don't Google the plot, however miniscule it may be, don't watch the trailer, don't read the book, don't let anyone tell you about it. Just watch it while it's still on the big screen, in a big, quiet, dark auditorium because it's a big, quiet, dark film and your experience will be heightened for doing so. Some people in the group I saw it with walked out, another said it made her nauseous and gave her nightmares, another just simply stated he didn't know what he just watched. It's a really interesting film that challenges a lot of preconceived notions about filmmaking and the human condition, just to name a few.
ATMOSPHERE "Southsiders" - I'm not generally a fan of hip-hop and it's been a long time since I've listened to Slug & the gang but I really like this album. It's pretty mellow, it's not quite as angry as some of the earlier stuff, the backing tracks are more chill and free-flowing, layering well behind Slug as he tells stories about life and growing up in the titular southside of Minneapolis. Perhaps being a family man has sanded down the rough edges but he's still got some stuff he needs to get off his chest.
ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE - Jim Jarmusch is the epitome of cool, eclipsing even Nick Cave and David Lynch, I think. Leave it up to him to take a tired genre and make it look effortlessly cool while paying homage to its roots in literature and pop culture without any of the worn out tropes that have plagued the vampire story in the last decade. Hiddleston and Swinton are perfect as ancient vampires pondering their existence and struggling to coexist in a world that the main species is destroying. Detroit is a stand-in for the wasteland that humans have made of the world and the lovers pass their days sneaking into hospitals to steal blood and listening to rock music and wondering when humans will taint their surroundings and their bodies to the point when they become toxic.
KCRW's PRESS PLAY - Press Play is a daily news podcast on KCRW hosted by Madeleine Brand and it provides me with a small link to my Southern California roots. Brand and guests discuss events happening in LA and issues that are impacting Angelinos and Californians as a whole, from the drought to the Clippers fiasco to the exodus of auto manufacturers to the week's films. I feel smarter just for listening and it's my way of keeping up on some of the important news of the day because I'm admittedly not really a news junkie and wouldn't know what's going on unless it jumped up and bit me. I've also been listening to The Treatment with Elvis Mitchell (the recent Dan Harmon episode is really good) and The Business on KCRW.
RICHARD STARK'S PARKER by Darwyn Cooke - I've praised the Parker novels before and I absolutely love these adaptations of the Parker series by Darwyn Cooke who captures the brutality and coldness of the '60s criminal underworld that Parker exists in. Start with The Hunter, the first Parker book but check out The Score where Parker leads a team of thieves who are planning to rob an entire town in a single night.
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