Sarah Jaffe - Clementine

Life by the 50's, time wasted? Think not...

Heartless Bastards - Parted Ways (Official Music Video)

Good tune, weird video...

Novalima - Full Performance (Live on KEXP)

Un poco de ritmo y color desde la niebla de Africa hasta la niebla de Seattle por via de la niebla de Lima, loco viaje... 

Nouvelle Vague - Dance With Me [Bande à Part - Anna Karina]

Tres francais, le new wave....

DMA'S - Laced (Official Video)

Brit pop

Grimes - Oblivion (Live at Grimey's)

Sunday Serendipity...

The Shins - New Slang [OFFICIAL VIDEO]

"There's nothing worse than old slang..."

Princess Chelsea - The Cigarette Duet

Hindi Zahra - Beautiful Tango

DVD Review: Automata—Clunker with a Heart of Gold

I missed this movie when it came out a year ago, but that's nothing new. I miss a lot. And foreign-made films don't always rate first response from the American press. I suspect that's why the reviews were not so good, either. Hollywood loves nothing so much as itself, even with Antonio Banderas in the lead role and Dylan McDermott and Melanie Griffith backing up. It's just not a Hollywood flick and that speaks volumes. Even Robert Rodriguez rates better press than this from his Texas stronghold, but then he follows the bang-bang playbook to a 'T'.

Okay, so 'Automata' might not be 'Birdman' or even 'Matrix', but it's not bad, not bad at all. It's not easy making a good sci-fi film. It has to be 'scientific' enough for that crowd, yet realistic enough to be believable, and still satisfy the human need for narrative and sympathy—not easy. Apparently the main beef seems to be that it doesn't live up to its promise. Geez! Give it credit for even having a promise! Most sci-fi flicks don't, and action films don't even pretend to..

'The Matrix' was great, but totally unbelievable. 'Star Wars' doesn't even count. That's just live-action animation based on the 'Hero with a 1000 Faces' mono-myth like 1000 other stories. And space-based tales like it and 'Star Trek' are largely a failed paradigm now—too bad—though '2001' will never be surpassed in that genre. Space is dead—for now. Wait for the Mars space program—if we're lucky. So we're left with robots for our science fix, still relevant if kept up-to-date.