Moving in, Once & some Led Zeppelin

I spent last week "moving in" to my new place. I used quotes on that, because I've only moved like half of my stuff, there's still so much at a friend's place that I've been kind of afraid to even go there. But it's starting to look like somebody's home already, and I'm really loving it. It took so long that I was kinda losing hope already. Now I just need a TV and a DVD player (I already have a stereo and my turntable), because if I can't watch movies in it, it ain't my home!
This was, all in all, a pretty busy weekend: moving, went to see a Led Zeppelin cover band, we did some cooking yesterday at a friend's place (while we watched that shameful 5 x 0 Cruzeiro and Atlético game), I unbraided my hair (which took a whole lot more than I'd hoped and gave me the chance to watch half a season of Seinfeld while I did it).
One interesting thing about BH is the music scene: they have so many cool rock bands here, even though they are mostly cover bands. I've seen quite a few since I arrived, but at least three are really worth mentioning: Sgt. Pepper's Band, Gleison Túlio and the Led Zeppelin cover I saw last friday. The first one is a Beatler cover band that is actually one of the best in the world: apparently they've been to the annual festival they have in Liverpool and have been chosen as a Top 3 band quite a few times. They are simply amazing, it's uncanny. Gleison Túlio is an amazing singer/guitar player that desperately needs a better stage name. I saw him a month ago or so and he really blew me away, playing a huge spectrum of different stuff really well, singing, doing bass and percussion on his guitar... it's really hard to describe, but basically he uses loops (you record something and it keeps looping as much as you want) to record each separate instrument (all done on his guitar) and then sings and does solos on top of it. My explanation does not do justice to his show, it's just amazing and you should check it out when you have a chance. The Zeppelin cover band wasn't quite as impressive, but was really good nonetheless: the singer/bass player was amazing, everybody else was really good too, I just didn't love it more because they were more into the hard rock side of Zeppelin and completely neglected their more bluesy stuff (Dazed and Confused, Since I've Been Loving You, I Can't Quit You Baby, etc.) Who could've guessed, BH might actually be a cool place for listening to good music.
If I've been lucky with music, I can't say the same for movies: these have been terrible times for those of us addicted to the cinema. The only thing that seemed remotely interesting to watch last week was Once, which to me felt almost like Damien's Rice biography: a busker on the streets of Dublin and how meeting an immigrant who happens to play the piano changes his otherwise beat-up self into a somewhat hopeful person again. The story is not a simplistic hollywood-style love story, which makes it all the more interesting. For people like me, who love the aching singer-songwriter stuff, the soundtrack is pretty good, very Damien Rice-y; but, even I had to admit that they overdid it a little bit, too many too long songs, too much repetition... just too much. This makes the movie a little tiresome, but it was still worth watching: the cast is pretty good, the photography is weird, but in a good way (hand-held camera throughout the movie, which adds to the whole ambiance really well). All in all, a pretty good option in the lack of something better.

Dylan & Reeves

It's been awhile, but what better way to get back to blogging than to talk about some movies I watched over the long weekend? :-)
Let's start with Bob Dylan's "unconventional" biography, I'm not there. To be totally honest, I was kind of under-impressed with it: I was expecting amazing, epic, timeless; all I got was pretty good. And, well, pretty weird too. The whole idea of telling the story through different characters representing Dylan's "personas" was really interesting, but the execution was a little too confusing for me, maybe I didn't know enough about Dylan to understand it all, maybe I just wasn't having a particularly smart day... But, confusing storytelling aside, the movie is very entertaining, filled with great music (how could it not?), with an amazing cast at the top of their game (kudos Cate Blanchet!!!), and, just to be sure I'd really enjoy it, the funniest Beatles reference!! Overall, it's a pretty good movie, real original, but just a little below my expectations.
Yesterday was a holiday, so what better way to spend it (in a beach-less city, I might add), then to wake up late, go to the movies and then go out for some beers? So that's what I did, pity nothing really good was on, so I has to settle for Keanu Reeves' latest flick, Street Kings. I don't like Keanu Reeves, he's probably one of the worst really famous actors out there. But, goddamnit, he is a lucky son of a bitch. He's been playing the same characters for a decade or so (except for trying out some Shakespeare in Much Ado About Nothing... hum, even I was embarassed for him on that one), but it seems to work with an unbelievably high frequency. This time around good ol' Neo has a slightly higher tendency to kill than usual, and he basically goes Rambo on a lot of sad bastards unlucky enough to be on his way (cheesy, hey?? Well, just so you get the feel of the movie :-) ). It's pretty cool to see Forest Whitaker try to yell some depth into the dullest character ever, but the best part by far was seeing Hugh Laurie (House, for the uninitiated) walking and not limping!!!! Now that was cool. The funny thing is, even with a lot going against it (lack of originality comes to mind), the movie is actually pretty good, some nice, forgettable entertainment, the kind Hollywood is so good at. Well, keep 'em coming.
On a sidenote, I finally have a home in BH!!! Will post some news/photos soon.

Springsteen and the Flight Back Home

To end my trip to sunny (but a little cold) California on a high note I went to see Springsteen last saturday in San Jose. I wasn't much of a Springsteen fan before last year, only knew those songs that everybody probably does (Streets of Philadelphia, Born in the USA, Glory Days...). But then I read Rolling Stone's review of Magic and just had to listen to it: now Magic was probably my favorite album of 2007 and I'm a big fan of the guy. Luckily he was playing in San Jose, which is like 10 minutes away from Moutain View, so I had to go (even if the tickets were a little pricey). It was amazing!!! First of all, that guy can't be (almost) 60, it's impossible. He played for way over 2 hours with so much energy, it was really impressive. He played most of Magic and a lot of oldies too, and he'd always take requests, taking signs from the audience and playing the songs they asked for. He and the E Street Band sound just as good live as they do on the records, they know each other so well it's amazing (well, they have been playing together for over thirty years after all). And, to top it all, he did an amazing live version of my favorite song on Magic, the title track... it was really cool and I managed to find (bless YouTube!!) him doing something similar on another concert of this tour... check it out!

Psycho and Stanford Theatre

There's this very cool, old-fashioned theatre in Palo Alto called the Stanford Theatre. It's a theatre from the '20s that got some attention in the late '80s and since then only shows old movies, with great decoration and ambiance (if you haven't noticed there is a guy playing a Wulitzer organ in the photo on the right... it's very cool, he plays before and after the movie, and he did a part Psycho's soundtrack!!!). The main hall is all decorated with old movie posters, and there's always some cool memorabilia related to the movies currently playing. Particularly this past week they had the last days of a Hitchcock festival, featuring Psycho and The Birds.
Now, I'm not really fond of The Birds... I watched it a few years ago but couldn't understand what the hell everybody saw in it. Psycho, on the other hand, is a timeless classic: not even the bad memories brought about by Gus Van Sant's "version" (basically, a frame-by-frame copy of the original with the expection of picking a bad cast, using color, and of a unnecessary scene of Bates jerking off). I watched it last monday. Psycho has grown old a little bit... the countless times we've seen the shower scene takes the edge off it, but luckily there's dozens of other scenes just as good, but a lot less exploited... Everything is top notch: Anthony Perkins gives one of the most memorable performances ever as poor, lonely Norman Bates... Hitchcock is at his best, orchestrating one memorable scene after the other... the soundtrack is amazing... even the black & white photography seems perfect!! It's an amazing, memorable movie, and it was really cool watching it in the Stanford Theatre (and getting to listen the guy wailing Psycho's soundtrack at the end!).