One thing I love to do is find music on my own. Whether it’s staying up all week watching Conan hoping for a glimpse of a promising new band, or exploring the family tree’s of bands members and producers. I recently borrowed a the latest Decemberists album “Crane Wife” and have to say it is one of the better works of this decade. They take on a whole persona of mariners writing indie rock music with mermaids and all sorts of nonsense. But the stories though sometimes eerie are set to beautiful arrangements and are worth listening to over and over and over again.

But before I get ahead of myself, the reason I am here is because of Laura Viers. I found her in the linear notes of Crane Wife when I heard her do a duet called “Yankee Bayonet”. So I looked her up on myspace. I was skeptical at first but decided to blow some of my iTunes gift card money on her latest album, “Salt Breakers”. I’ve listened to it nearly 30 times in the last week and I just cannot get enough. My iPod is on repeat, so everytime it starts over I think, “I should really listen to something different.” But I am so content with these easy going melodies, fitting harmonies, and cheap percussion, I just leave it be.

All this rambling might just be part of my Avril obsession, but who knows, I just might be on to something.

Flight of the Conchords

One of HBO’s newer sitcoms; Flight of the Conchords shows us the daily adventures of the New Zealand band of the same name trying to find success in New York City. There names are Jemaine and Bret, and though in real life they are comedians, in the show the music is taken very seriously. Their manager, Murray, works in the New Zealand consulate and has largely no idea what he’s doing. Mel is the band’s only fan, who spends most of her time stalking the band with her husband. And Dave is Jemaine and Bret’s best friend, who runs a pawn shop and dispenses advice to them. The whole cast is very good, providing lots of laughs in between the songs. But the songs take the center stage as both very amusing and pretty catchy. This is a great show, one of the funniest on TV. The first season is over and the band are working of writing the new season right now, so go pick the DVD or something. You won’t regret it.

So I was watching an old episode of “Amazing Stories” on Encore… For those who don’t know “Amazing Stories” was a fantasy TV show from the 80s that was produced by Steven Spielberg. (Kind of like a more family oriented “Twilight Zone”) Anyways, I was watching this one episode starring Patrick Swayze called “Life on Death Row” when after only a few minutes into the episode I noticed something, the story was strikingly similar to “The Green Mile” yet this episode was made 10 years before the book was published, Interesting.

So what are the similarities you might ask? Well here we go… In “Life on Death Row” we first of all have our prisoner. Patrick Swayze plays “Eric David Peterson” a convicted murderer on death row. While in prison he develops a friendship with one of the guards who tries to console him. Early into his stay Eric and a few other prisoners make an escape attempt, but Eric is hit by lightning giving him the ability to heal. The prisoners are apprehended and brought back where the guard soon learns of Eric’s powers. Thus the guard starts using Eric to help a few prisoners and even gets help himself for his bad leg. Now aside from the escape attempt, this whole thing about a “healing prisoner” is quite similar to “The Green Mile” He even gets somewhat fatigued after he does it, just like John Coffey. Now I’m not saying Stephen King ripped of a cheesy 80s TV show, in fact I’ll bet “Life on Death Row” was probably even based off of an earlier story. I missed the starting credits so I’m not exactly sure, but there were a handful of Twilight Zone episodes based off of short stories so it’s a possibility. Basically I just found this kind of interesting and worth a bit of a peek. One thing is for sure it’s no where as good as King’s story..

Here are a couple stories from the Academy Awards that you might not have heard, unless you read IMDb or watch E!

Brad Renfro did not make the dead celebrities montage; people are pissed. I actually noticed this during the show, but didn’t put too much thought into it at the time. Now, the MPAA says that, “It is simply not possible to include everyone in that segment.” Which is pretty ridiculous, since he was one of the bigger deaths, uh, this year, and how could they not have enough room for 2-3 seconds? So, since the MPAA is not big enough:
In other news, Tilda Swinton said she had a “reverse Zoolander moment” when she won her Oscar. I think that’s pretty cool that an A-list British actress would reference Zoolander, there’s really no punchline here. Now that I think about it, all the acting awards went to foreigners this year… Come on, Americans!

So that Jimmy Kimmel Oscar Special last night was pretty lame. I couldn’t believe Jimmy Kimmel managed to get all those celebrities (Robin Williams, Harrison Ford, Brad Pitt, Don Cheadle, Josh Groban, whom Nancy loves) to sing that “I’m F**king Ben Affleck Song” An idea that I like in theory but unfortunately was poorly executed. I liked seeing Matt Damon show up in that dumb “F**king Matt Damon Song” though. I hear he’s a pretty good sport about making fun of himself (One instance being that he really enjoyed his portrayal in “Team America” a few years back) So good for him and bad for Jimmy Kimmel’s subpar special

Well today was Oscar Sunday and it was indeed a both fun and satisfying ceremony. With host Jon Stewart at the helm, what we got was an amusing and exciting show with some big wins and mild surprises. First off let’s talk about Mr. Stewart. I wasn’t really a fan of Jon Stewart’s last Oscar hosting gig, but this year he was just fine. Not particularly thrilling but he did have a handful of clever wise-cracks and I had no complaints.

The winners in most of the categories I think were what most people expected. Daniel Day-Lewis was obviously a lock for best actor and Javier Bardem (Or as Regis Philbin called him in the Pre-Oscar program “Hogxavier”) was heavily favored, and I as well was as glad to see him get the win. It seemed best actress was regarded as a close race with Marion Cotillard ( From La Vie En Rose) taking home the win. Though when seeing that she wore makeup to somewhat downplay her looks, I couldn’t help but think back to other female performances that won also with help from heavy makeup. (Nicole Kidman for “The Hours” or Charlize Theron for “Monster”) Not to say that these weren’t good performances, I suppose I just mean that being less pretty (due to makeup) appears to be a great aide. Tilda Swinton for Best Supporting Actress was certainly a surprise (Beating the favored Amy Ryan and always talented Cate Blanchett.) I thought she was great in “Michael Clayton” so that was a nice treat.

For the most part, screenplays and directing went in the direction I think everyone was anticipating. I was quite amused by Ethan Coen’s loss for words in both of The Coen brothers acceptance speeches. “There Will Be Blood” only winning for Cinematography and acting I also found to be quite acceptable.

But out of all these awards, I couldn’t of been more happier than the film that took home the most coveted prize of the night. “No Country For Old Men” without a doubt deserved Best Picture and as Denzel Washington called out it’s name, I certainly felt a great sigh of relief. So I think for the most part we can all be satisfied with the ceremony this year. If they were rushed with writing it than it certainly didn’t show. Yes a competend and fair Oscar Show indeed… I’m already excited for next year.