No Country for Old Men

Last night I saw the newest Coen brothers movie, No Country for Old Men, based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy. It was the best movies I have seen in a long, long time (not a fan of Lawrence of Arabia, which I finally got around to watching this week. Seems like a lot of hype for a big, bloated, boring movie, whose only bonus is Peter O'Toole's beautiful blue eyes). I would highly recommend No Country for Old Men for Coen brothers fans: it's their best work, a bit like Fargo and Blood Simple but even better. I would really love to read some Cormac McCarthy, I just haven't gotten around to it yet. I did see a play by him at Steppenwolf before I left Chicago last year that was excellent, I think it was called "The Sunset Express." Anyway, I'm sure the source of the movie was wonderful, so the dialogue was beautiful, and the acting was excellent. The Coens are masterful at keeping tension at a max, and every frame was a piece of art. OK, I'll stop raving now. But seriously, if you don't mind violence in movies, go see this film. (It is really violent. And the villain, played by Javier Bardem, is one of the scariest ever. So it's not for the faint of heart.)

Geico spot with Michael Winslow

bergman, von sydow, new operas, and more

So I have a string of unrelated things to blog about today. First, on Sunday I saw an Ingmar Bergman double feature at the Aero, part of a tribute to Max von Sydow. We started the evening with The Seventh Seal, which I've seen before, but not in the theater, and ended with The Virgin Spring, which was new to me. It was a dark and heavy evening, spent pondering the existence of a divine being and if s/he exists why so many awful things happen in this world. It was nonetheless very enjoyable, and I highly recommend these two films. The evening would have been even better had Max von Sydow been in attendance to answer questions between the two films, as he had originally been slated to do. Alas, his son's grandmother, therefore his mother (!! Max is 88, according to IMDB, so how old is his mom????) was ill in Sweden and thus he had to return home early, as his son informed us.

Ok, next unrelated idea: this article in the New York Times caught my attention, so I looked for Charles Ward's thoughts in the Houston Chronicle. Intriguing.

Also of interest, there have been a few more articles about Gustavo Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Orchestra, including this and this.

Finally, a fellow oboist pointed out the above YouTube clip. I have no comment for it.

radio, youth orchestras, maestros (maestri?), etc

Local radio station KPCC has had some interesting pieces on Gustavo Dudamel lately, including this article online, and this week's edition of Off-Ramp. That program, which aired on Saturday, included bits on Dudamel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and the youth orchestra festival (and it can be podcast). As for the youth orchestras, why are neither AYS nor Debut mentioned at all? Not that they're really "youth" orchestras, but the Simon Bolivar and the Sibelius Academy orchestras also include many musicians in their early 20s. I'm sorry I missed the latter orchestras perform, but Art went to everything.

On a side-note, I've noticed that everyone calls Esa-Pekka Salonen just "Esa-Pekka," most of the time (myself included). I find that amusing. In Chicago, people called Daniel Barenboim "Barenboim," not "Daniel." Then again, "Esa-Pekka" is a far more unusual name in the US then "Daniel," maybe that has something to do with it. Anyway. I wanted to point out the LA Phil's tour website, since I did for Chicago. It's more personal than the CSO's, which I like.

ney & zorba

Last night I attended a LACO concert at the Alex Theater in Glendale with my roommate. She won free tickets off of KCRW, local public radio station extraordinaire. LA actually has three public radio stations, which I think is pretty cool. Anyway. We heard Prokovief's Classical Symphony, Mendelssohn Symphony No. 5, and a new work, a concerto for the Persian ney, which is sort of an ancestor of the flute. (Incidentally, Wikipedia informs me that the ney is made of Arundo Donax, the same plant used for oboe reeds.) It was an interesting piece. The accompanying orchestra was fairly large, with full brass and percussion. The ney was amplified. This instrument has a lot of accompanying airiness in its sound. If one were to hear it in its natural setting, unamplified and with other instruments of its background, I'm guessing the airiness would not be noticeable. But the mics seemed to pick up the airiness almost more than the actual pitches of the instrument, which I found distracting. Perhaps the concerto would have worked better with a much smaller orchestra that would allow the ney to remain unamplified. It was also a somewhat odd juxtaposition of western 12-tone (as in we use 12 notes, not serialism) music and traditional Persian music. I'm still not totally sure what I thought of the piece.


I also watched Zorba the Greek this weekend. It wasn't quite what I was expecting. In fact, it was sometimes a little upsetting. I don't want to give anything away, but, gosh, widows sure had it rough in post-war Crete. It does have some good moments, though.

Ukulele Orchestra of GB - The Good the Bad the Ugly

This is for Jan :)