… has reached dizz­ying new heights. A long time ago I mixed up the mea­ning for the word nadir, thin­king it meant pre­ci­sely the oppo­site. I say this now; Sonic has reached its nadir; and I truly wish this sen­tence held the mea­ning I once would have thought it did.

And so ever­yone is raving about Bond’s bri­lliant return to form. Indeed, this is one action film you should not miss. I am only dishear­te­ned slightly by my correct pre­dic­tions for the entire plot arc and the intro scene that felt second rate. Other than that I am tho­roughly impres­sed and look for­ward to future epi­so­des in Bond’s all new suave yet lethal direction.

Sofia Cop­pola has a uni­que abi­lity to cap­ture and por­tray the subtle yet power­ful nuan­ces of human beha­viour, expres­sion and body lan­guage. It is pro­bably already evi­dent that I am a big Sofia Cop­pola fan via the Vir­gin Sui­ci­des fan­site I crea­ted back in 2002. When I heard that pro­duc­tion for Lost in Trans­la­tion had star­ted and it invol­ved not only one of my favou­rite direc­tors but also Bill Murray and Scar­lett Johans­son, two actors I both highly rate, I was whet with anti­ci­pa­tion for well over a year. Finally, come January 2004, my expec­ta­tions were gree­ted with the per­fec­tion of another subli­mely astute mag­num opus. And so, two and a bit years later I am rapt with anti­ci­pa­tion for Coppola’s third ins­tall­ment; Marie Antoinette. 

Kirs­ten Dunst is the star of a Cop­pola movie once more, this time it is a pecu­liar amal­ga­ma­tion of pop cul­ture and period drama that tells the com­mon Sofia tale of a lost girl and her trou­bles; though this time it is ensh­ri­ned with his­to­ri­cal fact, which has ulti­ma­tely led to cru­ci­fi­xion by some cri­tics that utter slurs of his­to­ri­cal inac­cu­ra­cies. I can’t really com­ment with regards to this, my know­ledge of Marie Antoi­nette, before watching the film, was limi­ted to the sin­gu­lar quote, “Let them eat cake”. I did not watch the film for a his­to­ri­cal bio­pic, I watched for the lofty-comely movie expe­rience I have yet to expe­rience in any another cine­ma­tic work but so dearly love like an addiction. 

To talk of the pre­cise satis­fac­tion I get when watching The Vir­gin Sui­ci­des, Lost in Trans­la­tion or Marie Antoi­nette is dif­fi­cult and many fail to see how I and others can be so cap­ti­va­ted by these sto­ries. Whether it be some strange dreamy essence or hid­den con­nec­tion to my pri­vate thoughts — those that whisk me away during my rou­tine daily life — I can­not really tell, and even if I could explain in full retort would you the rea­der com­prehend this con­nec­tion? The only win­dow to my rap­ture that I can think to give you is that of Sofia Coppola’s tra­de­mark scene; the long drive and the absent min­ded win­dow gazing. Many see just that — a girl loo­king out of the win­dow — what I see and ulti­ma­tely relate to is the simul­ta­neous tran­qui­lity of emp­ti­ness and full­ness; of our ran­dom pas­sing thoughts and memory re-enactments as the street lights and the trees accom­pany us in life’s brief rest bite, in the pause where we think of what might have been, what will be and everything in between. 

To wrap up this lovely little post here is a jewel in YouTube’s rough, it is entit­led Lick the Star and is Sofia Coppola’s first short movie:

We have all suc­cum­bed to the exqui­site reso­nance of divine melody and rhythm and we have each reve­lled in its poig­nant effects. There is an unde­nia­ble calm­ness when smooth sinuous vocals meld with gra­ce­ful ensem­ble, a benign com­fort if you will. An equally power­ful and sup­po­sed oppo­site coe­xists. Dis­cor­dant beats that follow no recog­ni­sa­ble out­line force a men­tal agi­ta­tion. Hesi­tant underl­ying noise pro­vi­des an aural bat­te­ring that the brain endea­vours yet ulti­ma­tely fails to inter­pret. Now envi­sage a fault­less amal­ga­ma­tion of these two dis­si­mi­lar the­mes, an oxy­mo­ro­nic proposition?

I was intro­du­ced to a mix tape entit­led “Lis­ten with Xela” in August 2004. Xela, also known as John Twells, may be like­ned to the elec­tro­nic mas­ter­minds Four Tet and Fen­nesz. Boom­kat, an English inde­pen­dent music spe­cia­list issued this album as part of their ongoing mix collec­tion, gar­nished as follows:

“An out of focus world of modi­fied sympho­nies, alien sound­tracks and smo­key jazz base­ments […] — for late night love­li­ness, the selec­tion just doesn’t get any better……or more inspired.”

This was my first expe­rience of “dis­so­nant euphony”. I had dis­co­ve­red music that could utterly horrify me before effort­lessly brin­ging me to sere­nity. “Lis­ten with Xela” mer­ges the fear of the night with the won­der of the stars and remains an unsur­pas­sed mid­night soundtrack.

Time to say so long, it won’t be too long. Good Night

• 1.edward arte­miev — sola­ris part i (bach) (toei music) 
• 2.carbon fra­me­work — krane (unreleased) 
• 3.night of the living dead OST — dri­ve­way to the ceme­tary (varese saraband) 
• 4.goblin — jane mirror theme (dagored) 
• 5.goodiepal — flap nip­per main (skipp) 
• 6.midaircondo — sere­nade (type) 
• 7.kenji kawai — the ring (pony canyon) 
• 8.julee cruise — up in fla­mes (war­ner bros.) 
• 9.max rich­ter — ico­no­graphy (fatcat) 
• 10.angelo bade­la­menti — gene­ri­que : mar­ce­llo (philips) 
• 11.susanna and the magi­cal orches­tra — sweet devil (rune grammofon) 
• 12.doris day — time to say goodnight 
• 13.philip jeck — who­le­some (touch) 
• 14.akira rabe­lais — buciu­meana (ritornell) 
• 15.angelo bada­la­menti — mulho­lland drive (milan) 
• 16.signer — night is blu­rred (involve/carpark) 
• 17.julien neto — one (type) 
• 18.svarte grei­ner — radar sound (unreleased) 
• 19.fennesz — tran­sit (with david syl­vian) (touch) 
• 20.carter bur­well — fargo, north dakota (tvt) 
• 21.susumu yokota — lapus lazuli (leaf) 
• 22.john car­pen­ter — dark star (varese) 
• 23.porn sword tobacco — pinkys (city cen­tre offices) 
• 24.cocteau twins — otter­ley (4ad) 
• 25.david lynch and peter ivers — in hea­ven (lady in the radia­tor song) (IRS) 
• 26.goldmund — sola­ris part i. (bach) (unreleased) 

I dearly wish for this to come back into print.

It is impos­si­ble to find an online clip of this movie, though rela­ti­vely easy to obtain a copy. So the video above is a fit­ting tri­bute in the form of a music video by Albarn’s Blur for the song “To the end”. 

L’Année der­nière à Marien­bad’s plot is thus:

In a huge, old-fashioned luxury hotel a stran­ger tries to per­suade a married woman to run away with him, but it seems she hardly remem­bers the affair they may have had (or not?) last year at Marienbad.

That plot desc­rip­tion paints the fea­ture as a sim­ple tale yet it is one of the stran­gest and most mys­te­rious of movies you will ever lay your eyes upon and one which is enti­rely ori­gi­nal; the grace and finesse of its laby­rinthine plot shall be end­lessly fas­ci­na­ting, eerily sump­tuous and will irre­co­ve­rably haunt you fore­ver­more,; come full circle — last year at Marienbad? 

Empty salons. Corri­dors. Salons. Doors. Doors. Salons. Empty chairs, deep armchairs, thick car­pets. Heavy han­gings. Stairs, steps. Steps, one after the other. Glass objects, objects still intact, empty glas­ses. A glass that falls, three, two, one, zero. Glass par­ti­tion, letters.