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July 21, 2007

24 Documentaries

We're documentary freaks in this household. Both Michael and I often wish we could spend our time making documentaries instead of writing books. Anyway: in no particular order, here are 24 absolute favorites off the top of my head (without a doubt I'm forgetting some--I'll do a "part two" later.)

(1) Brother's Keeper
(2) Gates of Heaven
(3) Salesman
(4) Spellbound

(5) The Gleaners and I
(6) Stolen
(7) Best Boy
(8) Southern Comfort

(9) Grizzly Man
(10) Paris Is Burning
(11) Cane Toads
(12) My Flesh and Blood

(13) Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills
(14) American Movie
(15) Scared Straight!
(16) Born Into Brothels

(17) Stevie
(18) Devil's Playground
(19) Stone Reader
(20) Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control

(21) Meeting People Is Easy
(22) I Like Killing Flies
(23) Baraka
(24) Grey Gardens

Posted by scottheim at 10:49 PM | Comments (7)

July 10, 2007

Nine 'Classic' Novels I Still Haven't Read (But Plan To Read Before the End of This Summer)

(1) William Faulkner, Light In August
(2) James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room
(3) Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky
(4) Willa Cather, Death Comes For the Archbishop
(5) Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire
(6) Henry Roth, Call It Sleep
(7) Joseph Heller, Catch-22
(8) Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse
(9) Philip Roth, ...well... anything (I've never read a single book of his.)

Posted by scottheim at 07:16 PM | Comments (5)

July 07, 2007

Happy Birthday, Mo Collins

About a year ago I blogged about my love for the two funniest women ever, Andrea Martin and Catherine O'Hara. Now there's someone I like almost as much. Lately my TiVo keeps recording reruns of MAD TV, and I honestly think that MO COLLINS is an utter genius. I can't believe this woman isn't immensely famous. Apart from a part on Arrested Development and a tiny role in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, I haven't seen too much of her since she left MAD TV (and the show went rapidly downhill not long after). Someone needs to give Mo a starring role. Well, today's her birthday, so here's my tribute.

(Above: as Shakira, Cher, Barbara Bush, Madonna, Audrey Meadows/Alice Kramden, Celine Dion, Jenny Jones, and Penny Marshall/Laverne.)

(Above: a MAD TV clip of Mo as her character Lorraine Swanson; her characters Trina Moss and Doreen Larkin; a clip of Mo as Trina.)

(Above: Mo as Doreen Larkin, with Michael McDonald as Stuart; and below that, bloopers with the same characters.)

Posted by scottheim at 03:06 AM | Comments (1)

July 04, 2007

Music I've Been Listening To This Month....

Apparat, Walls.
A follow-up to last year's phenomenal Orchestra of Bubbles, recorded with Ellen Allien. The songs are warmer now and more "band"-like. I love the cover, too.

Air Formation, Daylight Storms.
Self-described as "spacerock from Sussex in the south of England." This one is so good I would have included it on that shoegaze list I made a few months back. The opening song "Cold Morning" is gorgeous.

The Field, From Here We Go Sublime.
A Swedish electronic genius named Axel Willner. This cd got a 9.0 rating from the increasingly pretentious Pitchfork, who called it "2007's most luxuriant record" and "Kraftwerk daydreaming they're a soul duo." Anyone who builds songs around sampled Kate Bush, then "I Only Have Eyes For You," and then Lionel Richie's "Hello," has got to be cool.

The National, Boxer.
Fantastic, as usual. Terrific lyrics, as usual (my favorites are in the song "Slow Show"). The National will always remind me of driving around gray, rainy Belgium with my friend Christophe, their music on the car stereo. This new record makes me want to sit in the dark, getting drunk. "I leaned on the wall, and the wall leaned away."

Amiina, Kurr.
This is the Icelandic quartet of ladies who play live with my favorites Sigur Rós. From the description on Amazon: "Like the sound of cooing, aspects of Amiina's music flicker quietly and float softly, content and beautiful. Kurr is full of dazzling moments of that caliber, a wholly original work that is delicate, intricate and dream-like. Their music is genuinely so special, ineffably charming and infused with a sense of cosmic magic."

Maps, We Can Create.
My UK friend Paul Christelis (author of a great novel, Rabbit Season) has been recommending this to me for months, but I only recently bought it (maybe because it's only 5.99 on iTunes). The Slowdive/My Bloody Valentine/Spiritualized influences might be a little obvious, but in my book, that's never a bad thing.

God Is an Astronaut, Far From Refuge.
Instrumental, dramatic stuff in that "post-rock" vein.

Ulrich Schnauss, Goodbye.
I know this hasn't been officially released yet, but I've been listening to the tracks he's put up on his myspace page (as well as a few others that seem to have been leaked over the internet). The songs are utterly lovely and daydreamy--pretty much everything I expected after the absolute genius of A Strangely Isolated Place--but I'm not sure whether I love the new stuff as much as the old. That said, this will doubtlessly be one of my top three records of the year.

The Shebangs, "Maybe Yes, Maybe No" 45.
Some of you might know this is the Lawrence, KS band for which my beloved sister Tamyra sings and plays bass. A few months back, they released their first two-song 45, and it's available at the website for Little Hits, their label. I'm glowingly proud and can't wait for a full-length album.

Posted by scottheim at 12:09 AM | Comments (3)

July 02, 2007

My Podcast With Prince

No, not that Prince. Prince Gomolvilas. The charming, hilarious, amazingly talented playwright who wrote the stage adaptation of Mysterious Skin (which I blogged about many months ago, when the show ran in San Francisco and later LA). (That's him in the photo pictured below, second from left, along with his boyfriend Loren, the genius actor Mary Lynn Rajskub, and me. Photo taken 5/24/05 at the LA premiere of the film).

Anyway, when Prince was in Boston a couple of months back for his Jukebox Stories production (which you should see immediately if it comes anywhere near you), we recorded a podcast together for his "Bamboo Nation" series. And now Prince's podcast of our interview/discussion is available for downloading. (I haven't listened to it myself, and I don't really remember everything we rambled about, so I'm a little nervous now about the content...).

Posted by scottheim at 02:56 AM | Comments (5)