Roger Ebert attends film festival - Yahoo! News

Roger Ebert attends film festival - Yahoo! News

How wonderful to see Roger Ebert appearing in public with verve & confidence, after recent surgeries to his salivary glands & right jaw left him unable to speak. I consider him one of our smartest, greatest film critics, & a person who lives life with optimism & joi de vivre. Few writers have taken movies more seriously, or held them to higher standards, than Mr. Ebert.

His Overlooked Film Festival was held at the Virginia Theater in Champagne, Illinois, near his hometown of Urbana. The AP story (written by David Mercer) posted on Yahoo! News reports:

Ebert walked slowly through the 86-year-old movie house, where he said through his wife that he had watched "Gone with the Wind" and his father saw Marx Brothers films.

In an e-mailed note to reporters and a column in the Chicago Sun-Times earlier this week, Ebert spoke frankly about his appearance, saying he had been warned by friends that showing up would invite both unflattering photos and unkind coverage.

"So what?" Ebert wrote. "I have been very sick, am getting better and this is how it looks."

He wrote that he now awaits another operation that he hopes will restore his speech....

Festival organizers set up a recliner at the back of the theater for Ebert. He wrote in his column that he needed it for back pain but said through his wife Wednesday it served another purpose.

She read from a statement, to laughter and applause: "I will fulfill a lifelong dream to have my own La-Z-Boy chair in a movie theater."

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YouTube - Praise You - Fatboy Slim

YouTube - Praise You - Fatboy Slim



This 1999 video for Fatboy Slim's "Praise You" by director Spike Jonze is still hilarious & fun. Jonze appears as dance leader & "choreographer" "Richard Koufey", while a bald Fatboy Slim (aka Norman Cook) can be seen briefly, walking up behind the troupe & laughing. Enjoy. Feel the love.

"Pink Elephants on Parade" video played by Sun Ra Arkestra

I have always loved this psychedelic segment of Disney's great film, Dumbo. Here is the clip, from YouTube, sync'ed with a wonderful performance of the song by the jazz visionary Sun Ra & his Arkestra, from 1989. The track originally appeared on Stay Awake (A&M Records, 1989), a compilation album created by Hal Wilner, for which he invited various artists to perform tunes from Disney shows. Shortly afterwards, Sun Ra recorded an entire album of Disney numbers, titled Second Star to the Right.

(This sync was created by one "Enjin" at either www.livejournal.com or http://yeahoksure.com/elbert, but the links to those URL's seem to be gone. )



The original Dumbo segment can be seen on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdwVqGGbXno.

New Order - "True Faith" (Morning Sun)

I really love this track; the lyrics pull me in, the music sweeps me off my feet. This entire album of theirs is wonderful--Substance, from 1987, collecting to CD a number of 12" singles, along with this new song, titled "True Faith":



True Faith

I feel so extraordinary
Something's got a hold on me
I get this feeling I'm in motion
A sudden sense of liberty
I don't care 'cos I'm not there
And I don't care if I'm here tomorrow
Again and again I've taken too much
Of the thing that costs you too much

I used to think that the day would never come
I'd see the light in the shade of the morning sun
My morning sun is the drug that brings me near
To the childhood I lost replaced by fear
I used to think that the day would never come
That my life would depend on the morning sun

When I was a very small boy
Very small boys talked to me
Now that we've grown up together
They're afraid of what they see
That's the price that we all pay
Value destiny comes to nothing
I can't tell you where we're going
I guess there's just no way of knowing

I used to think that the day would never come
I'd see the light in the shade of the morning sun
My morning sun is the drug that brings me near
To the childhood I lost replaced by fear
I used to think that the day would never come
That my life would depend on the morning sun

I feel so extraordinary
Something's got a hold on me
I get this feeling I'm in motion
A sudden sense of liberty
The chances are we've gone too far
You took my time and you took my money
Now I feel you've left me standing
In a world that's so demanding

I used to think that the day would never come
I'd see the light in the shade of the morning sun
My morning sun is the drug that brings me near
To the childhood I lost replaced by fear
I used to think that the day would never come
That my life would depend on the morning sun

Kt Tunstall's "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree"

KT Tunstall is a terrific singer-songwriter from Scotland, of Scots-Irish-Chinese parentage. I first heard Tunstall's name last year on American Idol, when Katherine McPhee sang her song, "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree", very well, barefoot & accompanied by two men playing box drums (cajones). It was one of McPhee's--or anyone's--best performances of that Idol season, & it gave KT's career a well-deserved boost in the USA.
You can find Tunstall on the Web at www.kttunstall.com, www.myspace.com/kttunstall, & www.virginrecords.com/kttunstall/.

This is a live acoustic version of that song:



This is the radio single version:



These are the lyrics, pleasingly mysterious & contradictory, with a wonderful opening sentence:

Black Horse & The Cherry Tree (KT Tunstall)

(woo-hoo,woo-hoo)
(woo-hoo,woo-hoo)
Well my heart knows me better than I know myself
So I'm gonna let it do all the talking.
(woo-hoo,woo-hoo)
I came across a place in the middle of nowhere
With a big black horse and a cherry tree.
(woo-hoo,woo-hoo)
I felt a little fear upon my back
I said don't look back, just keep on walking.
(woo-hoo,woo-hoo)
When the big black horse that looked this way,
Said hey lady, will you marry me?
(woo-hoo,woo-hoo)
But I said no, no, no,no-no-no
I said no, no, you're not the one for me
No, no, no,no-no-no
I said no, no, you're not the one for me
(ooooo,woo-hoo)
And my heart had a problem, in the early hours,
So I stopped it dead for a beat or two.
(woo-hoo,woo-hoo)
But I cut some cord, and I shouldn't have done that,
And it won't forgive me after all these years
(woo-hoo,woo-hoo)
So I sent her to a place in the middle of nowhere
With a big black horse and a cherry tree.
(woo-hoo,woo-hoo)
Now it won't come back , cause it's oh so happy
And now I've got a hole for the world to see
(woo-hoo,woo-hoo)
And it said no, no, no,no-no-no
It said no, no, you're not the one for me
No, no, no,no-no-no
Said no, no, you're not the one for me
(ooooo,woo-hoo) (not the one for me, yeah)
(ooooo,woo-hoo)
Said no,no, no,no, no, no, no
You're not the one for me
Said no,no, no,no, no, no, no
You're not the one for me
Big black horse and a cherry tree
I can't quite get there 'cause my heart's forsaken me
Big black horse and a cherry tree
I can't quite get there 'cause my heart's forsaken me

My Beginnings of Brian Eno

In 1977, while I was a junior at Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi, three of my new friends introduced me to the music of Brian Eno, on the LP's Here Come the Warm Jets & Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy, from 1973 & 1974. What I heard changed my musical life that day, & I have never ceased to consider Eno one of the very special wizard-geniuses of song & music. Listen to these two ridiculously amazing pieces: "Baby's on Fire" from his first solo album, Warm Jets, recorded shortly after he parted company with Brian Ferry & Roxy Music; "Golden Hours" from his third solo effort, 1975's Another Green World. (The guitar solos on both are played by Robert Fripp.)