Precious

I recently saw Precious, and it's a must see film. Yes, it's difficult to watch and yes it's nearly heart breaking but from reading about some of the students my brother-in-law teaches (blog-sothoth.blogspot.com) I think this story deserves to be told. The cast is amazing and the use of subtle special effects to enhance the story telling is seamless. For example there's a quick scene where Precious is getting ready for school and in the mirror she sees a beautiful thin blond girl. It's an unobtrusive way of letting the audience know more about Precious. It's filled with seemingly effortless effects that never intrude upon the narrative. I hope the inner city kids watch this and get it, I hope they can find some resilience in their lives, and I hope that this opens up discussion about domestic abuse and how more help is needed for good kids in unbearable situations. This story has stayed with me, and I have to say it had the best villan I've seen in a long time, scarier and more psychological than Dr. Hannibal Lecter. No one else can f you up quite like your mom.

Mountain Goats and Final Fantasy

We headed over to Webster Hall last night and caught a great show, Final Fantasy opened for The Mountain Goats. And Owen Pallett (Final Fantasy) was cooky and pretty good, plucking his violin and shouting into the instrument microphone. He also used a Loop machine to pick and choose bits of instrumentals, and sometimes had an off-beat drummer join him on stage. They were a nice warm up to The Mountain Goats, in full disclosure I don't know the MG very well. Only a few songs that I've heard John play over and over, and I knew I would like them, but I didn't know how much I would like them. The Mountain Goats rocked. John Darnielle is lead and it's obviously his show, and he was funny, endearing and entertaining. You can tell he loves what being on the stage. Although they didn't play John's favorite song (Jam Eater Blues) they knocked out a great bunch of songs and ended the night with _This Year_ and _Going To Georgia_. Don't miss these guys if you get a chance to see them live...unfortunately their last show of this tour is tonight in Brooklyn...which is sold out..but you can always try Craigslist.com or scalpers.