Category Archives: Avant Garde

Pistol Opera (2001), Samurai Fiction (1998)

Speaking of watching really terrible and definitely outrageous foreign films and thinking they were brilliant, “Pistol Opera” is a movie I found in my early days of discovering Netflix. I had rented this awesome movie called “Samurai Fiction” (it’s named a samurai movie for the MTV generation). I think it was made in the late ’90s, but anyhoo, It was a REALLY cool, funny, and hip movie, I thought. Especially because I saw it with my older aunt and her cool hip friends I was like, soooo cool for laughing at the same parts and stuff. AND for reading subtitles. I was so legit.

Anyway, attached to that film was the trailer for “Pistol Opera”. As you can tell from watching the trailer below, it is the most artistic piece of nonsense ever. I thought it was really beautiful and SO Important and stuff. And this was before my philosophic and existential meanderings of community college. But yeah! This trailer definitely reminds me of my pseudo-pretentious art film phase. I actually rented it, and was HORRIFIED out how awful it was. It might have been a joke it was so bad. Maybe I just didn’t get it, but the characters would inexplicably pose and speak in haikus and kill each other and my 14 year old self was just terribly confused.

It temporarily brought me out of my pretentious movie phase. I think I might need to watch it again, just to see if the same view holds. Oh gawd, it was so bad. I still love the trailer though. I think the movie was just raw footage for someone to make the best trailer ever.

Reporting from Berkeley–Outer Space

Might as well be outer space. I’m still getting used to it here. I haven’t updated since I’ve moved away, but I figure, now that I’m all settled in and have felt trickles of being comfortable, I’m gonna start up this beast again! Today whilst shopping at the Buffalo Exchange here in Berkeley, this song came on, and it blew my mind. Listen to it loud.

mp3: B-52′s “Planet Claire

Swim, Caribou

Just posting some cool music I downloaded on a whim. I love it when that happens: When I throw 10 bucks down on itunes and I come out with a cool album of songs. Thanks, Pitchfork! Almost seems like happenstance/I actually have good taste in music.

It’s like, some kind of avant garde house music that will throb your brain sometimes. I first listened to this while I was slowly developing a hangover, falling asleep after a night of Vegas drinking. I find myself constantly going back to listen to it over the weeks, though. Bowls especially, needs to be bumped with some loud bass as it counters with some harpy harps and clangy clanging bells. Somewhere in there, there’s a house party. And Found Out is a deconstructed, softly mutated disco diva’s ballad sung by a croony white dude with remorseful pains about being found out about some affair or another. Or at least that’s the story I imagine, I didn’t really listen to the lyrics. It’s soooo Thelma Houston’s “Don’t Leave Me This Way”. And I mean that in the best way.

mp3: Caribou “Found Out
mp3: Caribou “Bowls