Hasn’t been a post in awhile, I’ve been damn busy as I assume that’s been the case for most of us at DaMorgue. I don’t even know if there’s anything that’s been going on worth mentioning, unless you want to hear us tackle the issues in Egypt.

In the past we’ve done a whole slew of “upcoming album” posts, so here’s one more to add to the list. Basically albums I’m keeping an ear out for, I’m off to a good start this year and this spring only looks to further that satisfaction.

Feb 15 – Bright Eyes – The People’s Key
: My liking for Bright Eyes has been casual in the past, but I’ve definitely been getting into them a lot more lately. Maybe hearing about a new album made me think, “Hmm maybe it’s finally a good time to check all this out.” Not to mention Nancy proposed the idea of going to see them in Portland in April, I’d be all about that.

Feb 28 – Beady Eye – Different Gear, Still Speeding
“Who the hell Beady Eye?” You probably wouldn’t care if I told you, unless you like Oasis. Yes this is it, the now Noel Gallagher-less Oasis and this is their much hyped (By Liam Gallagher) debut album. A handful of songs have surfaced and the sound is still pretty reminiscent of Oasis, but a little more basic and straightforward. I don’t imagine it will make much of a blip as it’s just not the same without Noel, I just care because I’m such a huge Oasis fan. I hope for the best, but don’t expect much.

March 7 – R.E.M. – Collapse Into Now
: I keep putting off listening to Accelerate for reasons seemingly unknown. I like REM to some extent and reviews were favorable, including Colin’s post here on DaMorgue. So this time ’round I’m going to try and be on the ball and pay some attention to these still standing statesman of alternative rock.

March 22 – The Strokes – Angles
: If there is one album I’m just so unbelievably stoked for, it’s this one. The much anticipated, long awaited, return of one of the best modern rock groups The Strokes is something I wouldn’t miss for the world. Word from the band is it’s supposedly their best album since Is This It? and will be a return to that sound. Seeing that Is This It? was my second favorite album of the 2000s and Colin’s favorite, that’s damn good news. The first single “Undercover of Darkness” is supposed to hit airwaves on February 9th, but I’m hoping it leaks, I don’t know how much longer I can wait.

May 3 – Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues
: I wasn’t as diehard as some people were for the last Fleet Foxes album, but it did have a folksy kind of beauty that was hard not to like. The band says this one will be less poppy and more groove based, so we can find out this may what lies ahead for this hometown Seattle group.

March-ish
Peter Bjorn and John – Gimme Some
Man these guys just never stop,it seems like they always have an album out. Not much is known about Gimme Some, but from the two songs released, it sounds like a back-to-basics album for this Swedish trio. Winning people’s hearts with the instant indie classic “Young Folks” off of 2006’s Writer’s Block, PB&J have done a lot of experimenting since than, most notably on 2009’s Living Thing, an album that controversially split myself and Sean, I liked it. I posted a neat ADD fueled video below of this new song barely passing 90 seconds, intense.

TBA
Death Cab for Cutie – Codes and Keys
No release date yet, but it’s supposedly coming out this Spring. It’s been quoted as “a much less guitar-centric album” so we’ll see if that means electronic, or keys or what, either way I have faith in these Indie Pop Poobahs.

There’s a lot of other rumors flying around, but I’ll wait till I get some more concrete info to report on that. As for 2011, it looks to be a fairly exciting year for music, I am winner! Here’s that PB&J video I was talking about too, pumped for that album.

Even though not much surprised me with the Oscar announcements this morning, I still feel it’s my duty to address the matter, considering how often we talk about movies here anyways. So where to begin exactly? Well let’s begin with the things that surprised me.

Javier Bardem for Biutiful, the latest from Mexican writer/director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. Also nominated in the Best Foreign Film category, this one came out of left field. Although Bituiful may have a had a great performance from Bardem and I bet it does, it’s interesting as the film itself really hasn’t been that raved about, I don’t even know how I could of seen it.

Next might be a good time for me to express my opinion about the other Best Actor nominees. Now I liked The Social Network as much as the next guy, but I still find it strange to see Jesse Eisenberg continually nominated for best actor. He was good, but never when watching him did I ever think “He deserves an oscar.” Of course he wont win, but I find it peculiar how all the critics seem to get set in their ways and all come to the same consensus. Personally I would of liked to see Robert Duvall get nominated for Get Low, one of his most powerful and moving performances in years, but that was probably never gonna happen.

John Hawkes in the best supporting actor category is definitely a pleasant surprise. I’m a fan of his work and I always enjoy seeing some of the lesser names get some recognition. Though it would seem the category is more or less a lock for Christian Bale, but still it’s fun to see. If it were up to me I’d give that shiny golden statue to Geoffrey Rush come Oscar night, but seeing that he’s already got an Oscar it’s unlikely, Oscars man, it’s all politics.

In the case of snubs, I think there’s one in particular that’s creating a frenzy and that’s the absence of Christopher Nolan for Best Director. As far as I’m concerned Inception was one of the best films of the year. It was a stunning exploration of the mind that came solely from Nolan’s own noggin, so he gets the royal screw job. It wouldn’t sting so bad if he hadn’t already been snubbed for The Dark Knight in 08′. I mean do the Coens really need another nomination? Come on, let’s mix it up! And David O. Russell? The Fighter was good, but it’s easily the weakest movie considering the amount of nominations it has. If it wasn’t for Christian Bale, Amy Adams, and Melissa Leo I wonder if anyone would of even given a shit?

The Town is another film that I believe should of taken the place of The Fighter, in this case for the Best Picture category. It was one of the most critically acclaimed films of the fall and all it has is a single nomination for Jeremy Renner. I swear it’s like all these award shows make a pact about what movies to include and not include. It’s a real shame how uninventive and unfortunately predictable the nominations were this year, but I shouldn’t take it out on the movies most of them were gold!

Pete Postlethwaite
1946-2011
This is so tragic considering the fact that Pete Postlethwaite was still working so steadily and he was only 64. I didn’t even know he had cancer, but sadly he succumbed to it on January 2nd. A highly skilled actor of both stage and screen, Pete Postlethwaite’s was a consummate pro no matter how big his role. With his cracked and wrinkled face, he was adept at playing villains or even emotionally distraught characters with the flick of a switch.

I’ll always remember him for what will probably go down as his best role, playing Daniel Day-Lewis’ father in the emotional drama In the Name of the Father. Though Postlethwaite was no stranger to other genres, other notable roles include; The Usual Suspects, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Amistad, The Constant Gardener, and most recently The Town and Inception. It kind of freaks me out that I just watched Inception and all Postlethwaite’s character does in it is die, that will always be chilling for me now.

Even in less than spectacular films like Alien 3 and The Clash of the Titans (2010, Postlethwaite was fun to watch, it didn’t matter what movie he was in, he always brought his best stuff and I will miss that.

From all of us here at Damorgue, welcome to the year 2011! As we celebrate today as a beginning of a new year and decade, as well as a palindrome (1.1.11), I have calculated some statistics regarding Damorgue last year. 2010 was a busy year for Damorgue; we posted a whopping 262 posts, just 103 shy from one for every day of the year. As for individual posts, John published the most with 128 entries. Shortly behind was Sean with 76 posts. Colin kept a steady pace with 41 posts in 2010. Nancy was able to contribute 15 posts to the blog, while our newest member, Kevin just barely got in 2. It will be interesting to see how the count changes next year! The longest by day consecutive post streak for Damorgue stretched 39 posts from 24th of September to the 2nd of November. Within that, John receives the award for longest consecutive posts from a single author at 9 posts stretching the 7th of October to the 15th for his impressive Shocktober series. The people’s choice award, meaning most comments is awarded to the post “T3: Guilty Pleasures Part Deux” by John that pulled in 7 comments. Sean produces the most feedback for his controversial posts with 83% of posts receiving comments. Themed posts of 2010 included 80’s week, Shocktober, 2010 recaps, Seattle International Film Festival, Top Ten Movies of 2009, Top Ten Movies of 2000’s, and the introduction of Dapodcasket. 2010 was filled of greatness, we hope that 2011 brings even more!

“Married Christmas!” As I once declared in my younger and more vulnerable years. Today of course being that time of year that Jesus rises from the grave to feed upon the flesh of the living. No, I don’t have anything of particular note to announce, nor do I have a disturbing message of our watchful omniscience (as Sean posted last year), all I have to proclaim is “Happy Holidays!”

P.S. You can expect to see some “Best of 2010” lists in the following weeks and all sorts of other absurdities, so keep reading and once again, “Married Christmas!”

For all you Da Morgue fans, I’m very happy to inform you that our 43 minute comedy film “Rock McTrigger in Heavy Vengeance” is now available on Vimeo, free of charge naturally. This completes our “McTrilogy” that we started in 2006 and were glad we could go out with a bang, hopefully we can put together a DVD, which would also have to be free (because of copyright issues) but if you read this blog just send us a message.

It was a long road to put this together, but it’s done and were all very happy with it. Really what I cherish most from teh experience is the little things you learn along the way; technical skills, ways to improve hands on production, problems to look for like weather and lighting, there all just little nuggets of experience (of sorts) that will only aid us in future productions. I hope to start another video project again in June with all the usual suspects, so always be on the look out for something offensive on the horizon.