#5 Kill Bill

#5 Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2 (2003 & 2004)

First of all, I feel justified in combining these two movies because they originally were supposed to be one epic movie and were later edited into two for theaters. Now that that is out of the way, onto Tarantino’s revenge saga. This is a movie lover’s delight – a spaghetti western, Chinese kung fu, Japanese samurai, anime, blaxsploitation cornucopia.  He took all of the best parts of these genres and integrated them into a seamless five-point-palm-splitting-heart technique to the chest.  In an age where Transformers CGI garbage is considered “good action” Kill Bill has some of the best good old fashioned choreographed fight scenes ever. Not to mention it is rank with classic Tarantino dialogue; you know, the  kind of lines that make you smile with malicious delight every time you hear them – the kind of lines that you try to memorize and mouth as you watch the movie for the 100^th time.  In short, the films have wonderful cinematography, pitch-perfect music, bad-ass characters, some the best writing this side of the century, and great tempo. Who doesn’t love a good revenge story?

Favorite moment: This is tough – there are a lot of moments to choose from. I’d have to say though, the confrontation between the Bride and Elle in the trailer.  After a while of fierce battle, there is an intermission and as both pick up their Hanzo swords they exchange words from across the hall. Elle decides to piss Beatrix off by revealing that she killed her master and begins to laugh a classic maniacal laugh as the camera zooms onto her one evil eye which seems itself to defy goodness. Just as you really start to hate that stupid eye our hero charges, the titans clash, and Beatrix (like a total bad-ass) snatches her one eye out with her kung fu grip and, as her defeated foe writhes on the floor screaming, proceeds to drop the eye on the floor and squashes it with her bare foot. YES!

- By Scott

Neverending Like The Sky

     I recently was reminded of one of my favorite albums growing up, around 9th and 10th grade plus or minus a few musical phases I was a sucker for pure un scenester emo. To this day friends will find and old album of some sunny day real estate carbon copy  band and tell me I'd really like it (which I totally do.) I am no expert, and when most of these bands were around I was like 5, but I would consider myself a connoisseur. I am pretty sure I could attribute the discovery of all these bands and albums (some well know and some not) to one album, it is the gateway drug. Growing up I was lucky enough to have an older brother who had a rad and fairly diverse taste in music, and one day in 1999 I remember being somewhere in my house and my brother came home with a new CD, he bought it the day it was released, I pestered him until he let me sit in his room and listen to it with him for the first time. The guitar parts were melodic backed with awesome almost mathematic drum rythyms, the vocals and lyrics almost make you wish you were heartbroken also (as they were totally emo and about girls). I still get excited when I hear "For Me This Is Heaven" - by Jimmy Eat World, that song puts me in a trance, and "Clarity" is absolutely my gateway drug album. This album introduced me to The Get Up Kids, Sunny Day Real Estate, Texas Is The Reason, Mineral, I could list on and on but I think those first 2 bands are enough to explain how much I discovered, via domino effect, Old and New. I think the most important part of Clarity for me is that I redefined my taste in music, I had never liked anything that slow or melodic. And after appreciating it I started liking tons of stuff I never did before, I discovered old stuff and also started liking a whole new different type of music that was being released, Juliana Theory, Mae, Further Seems Forever, The Anniversary, ect. On top of this new sound, I realized there was a lot of music for me to enjoy and I didn't have to limit myself to like 3 genres and say these are the bands I like and write off everything else. In short because I could talk about this for a while, I would absolutely consider Clarity My favorite album of all time, Lots of people like to give this title to an old classic rock album or a beatles album because of what it did for music, which I agree is substantially  important... but... this is MY favorite album of all time, I'm choosing an album that gave me a new view of music, and one that bridges the gap between bands I love. On almost every one of those music maping websites like www.tuneglue.com really diverse bands that I like get linked back to each other through jimmy eat world. But the real reason I put this album at number 1 is because I've been listening to it since 1999, ten years of playback and its still not worn out to me, I have the original copy my brother bought in '99 and I still listen to it, I still start to sing "The first star I see may not be a star" when For Me This is Heaven comes on, and I sometimes still close my eyes when on a long drive listening to Clairty. This sounds super gay... but it could be the only album I'd go gay for. And that is why Clarity is my favorite album... ever.

    Let me get to the whole reason I decided to divulge my love for emo and the real reason I wrote this post. I saw this video... (which you may have already seen because it's got 28 million views)

A friend showed me this video of some random talented guy playing guitar. (he is good, check out "Heather's Song" too) It made me real sad that I ever thought Chris Carrabba was good at acoustic guitar. But when I watched this song all I could think about was how much I loved the chorus... and why, I realized how much it sounds like Sky's The Limit, A little known poorly recorded project from VA with the most mesmerizing harmonics ever. Around freshman year of high school me and few friends loved this album. Its always hard for me to describe why I love a particular band or album. But all you need to do is listen to a few songs from Skys The Limit's - The Never Ending Sessions to understand. I love how music can do this to you, I watched a guy hit these really great harmonics during a chorus and it opened up this flood of musical memory, and all I wanted to do was bring up my music collection and listen to years of emo that I lived off in high school. One of my favorite things about this whole post is that while I am typing, my younger brother is in his room and he started listening to Clarity... he has no idea I'm writing about it.

- By Wes

Top Ten of The Decade #6

 #6 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

The movie starts, and you’re thinking: “Great, another indie love story about an emo guy and an annoying feminist” – let the self-loathing begin. Then the movie takes a turn into memory erasing glory and doesn’t stop spinning until the very end.  The story revolves around Joel (Jim Carey) as he attempts to erase the memory of Clementine (Kate Winslet) only to find that though he can erase her from his mind he can’t erase her from his heart.  There is a lot more to it, but let’s be clear, you must see this movie more than once to fully understand/appreciate it. That is partly due to the way it all unfolds, which is a bit schizophrenic but with good reason. By jumping from memory to memory the viewers begin to see a collage of one couples relationship – from the good times and the bad times. And this movie’s foundation is the realness of their relationship. Unlike most Hollywood romances we see the intimate moments shared between two people in love that we rarely see on the screen.  We see Joel and Clementine’s weird inside jokes, them disclosing their deepest fears and insecurities, them in their happiest moments, and their fights which are just as cruel and nasty as real fights can sadly be. Adding to it is Michael Gondry’s imagination which makes every scene… well, interesting. With him at the helm, jumping from Joel’s memory to real time is as simple and effective as Joel moving from one room to another. Thankfully, his artful hand never feels forced or tacky, but remains feeling like a wholly fresh experience throughout. This is one of the best love stories I have ever seen – it is raw, fantastic, and it’s got something to say.

Favorite Moment: When Joel and Clementine return to the house on the beach where they first met (all inside Joel’s memory).  As the memory is getting erased, the house begins to fall apart and Joel is about to take his cue and leave Clementine alone just like he did in real life, when Clementine asks, “What if you stayed this time.” Breaking the rules, the two lovers spend one last moment together before the memory is erased forever and Clementine mysteriously whispers “Meet me in Montauk.”

- By Scott