I'm a few days late. Been very busy working on SWAT with my PFC peeps. Meanwhile my car brakes failed completely. It was like in movies. I was lucky not to have crashed into 3-4 cars. Finally got everything fixed. Only to have a flat tire just 2 hours back. Talk about Flat luck. Anyways lets get to music.
This was the week when I discovered the Band 2 Bit Pie. Right now I'm totally in love with their songs.
As you can tell. The world is going crazy about Slumdog Millionaire. Though I'm not that crazy about the second half of the film. Its amazing to see a film about India making everyone so crazy. The soundtrack is playing everywhere in LA. AR Rahman is weeks away from being the 1st Indian to Win the OSCARS. The cast has already won SAG Ensamble Award.
53 milion domestic and 73 million worldwide as of last sunday. Yesterday's gross was approx 750k. It's also #34 on imdb top 250 films and #1 on moviemeter.
This week I was mostly listening to the soundtracks of 3 films - Dev D, OYE LUCKY & Slumdog Millionaire. It was also a historic week for us. AR Rahman won the Golden Globes & Slumdog swept everything it was nominated for. It was a total Brit-Invasion at the Golden Globes.
This must be a really great mix because I can still enjoy this song with this mix. This song is probably the sound of 2009 alongwith Electric Feel & Love Lockdown.
4) Funky Roads - Raul Ramirez
This is from the album ECOMUSICA. I found this song on Pandora.
This was a song I would hear on radio from time to time but never found out the artist. Finally last week I found it in the Hypem Zeitgeist Blog Countdown. Very very sexy song.
Hi I'm finally starting something I have been intending to do for last 6 months. Write a post about the 5 songs that I loved in that particular week/month.
2008 was a very low key year as far as music & movies goes in my life. Esp after last 2 years of marathon movie watching & discovering music. But I would still go ahead & write a diary similar to last years Discoveries of 2007.
Books - I read a lot of books this year. I tried to read of lot from the Random's 100 list.
1) Animal Farm - George Orwell This was probably the most satisfying book I read last year. What happens to Boxer brought tears to my eyes. Thats very rare in my life. I can't believe I had not read this book till now.
2) The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald A year when Hollywood got curious about Fitzgerald, I finally read his classic. Loved it.
4) GUNS GERMS & STEEL - Jared Diamond http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns%2C_Germs%2C_and_Steel Pulitzer winning work. The story of civilization from a Biologists perspective. Highly reccomended. Why Eurasians conquered the world? And How?(The answer is diseases). Why Man could not domesticate Leopards(My fav part of the book). Etc etc
Sneha Khanwalkar - Oye Lucky Lucky Oye (Soundtrack) I think Oye Lucky Soundtrack was the best album made in 2008 anywhere in the world.
MGMT - Oracular Spectacular definitely was the album of the year for me. It was the sound of 2008. It pushed Electronic music into the living rooms of American kids. The JUSTICE REMIX of Electric feel is the most played song on radio in LA. And it just keeps growing on me.
Moby - Last Night A long awaited album. Although the magic of Moby is gone, this album had quite a good songs. Ooh Yeah & I Love to Move in here are my fav so far. Gnarles Barkley - The Odd Couple A Great second is so rare these days. Also the only big live show I went too. Gnarles Barkley to me is the best thing in Pop Music right now.
Lil Wayne - Tha Carter III My Hip-hop artist of 2008. His SNL version of Lollilop just blew me away.
But most importantly I loved a britney Spears song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4NayXtzsBo Piece of Me is the song. If you had told me that I wouldn't be able to stop listening to a Britney song I would have laughed at you. Also I also think this is the best & most personal lyrics a Britney songs can get.
FILMS -
I watched very few films this year. One film that stands out for recommendation would be Everything Is Illuminated. It was the best film I saw in 2008.
Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye was my fav film of 2008. Mainly because of how Dibankar showed us Lucky's life. My friend after watching the film said, there was something lacking in the film. My 1st thought was that it didn't have the standard "Arc" type 3 act story. And thats why it felt odd sometimes. As if questioning how this scene is moving the film. Because we are so conditioned of the standard stuff. It took some time to realize what Dibankar had created. And the music was amazing. After watching the documentary of how Sneha did the music, there was no question in my mind that this was the album of the year also.
I also liked DASVIDANYA a lot. The movie had the most heart of all the movies of 2008. This year again belonged to Vinay. ROCK ON was something that exceeded my expectation. Is Farhan Akhtar the most talented man in Bollywood right now? He might not be the best singer, best actor, best director, but he is good at everything he does.
HELLBOY II was my fav film of the year so far. This was the year when I watched a lot of SuperHero film. Even THE FANTASTIC FOUR. This was the year of Superhero films.
The best scene of the year so far also goes to Hellboy. Those were the best moments inside the theater this year. Even more so than Jokers presence in Dark Knight.
2008 movies that I missed and will watch this month would be - The Class ,Man on Wire, Waltz with Basir, Gomorrah, Che, Wendy & Lucy, Happy Go Lucky, The Wrestler & WALL-E.
TELEVISION
I watched the 2nd best show on Cable TV ever - THE WIRE Now that the show is over, I urge you guys to watch this series. Also you cannot call yourself a cinema lover & not know who OMAR is.
I also discovered what was the big deal about SIX FEET UNDER. Probably the best Pilot of a TV show I have seen. Alan Ball is one of my favorite writer/director right now.
2008 was also the year of SNL. Esp Tina Hey & Amy Poehler. My fav SNL video of last year Dick in a Box -
One of the major discoveries for me was Stop Motion Graffiti films. Check out this artist Blu from Buenos Aires
Like last year there are so much i probably don't remember right now. I will add them as we go along.
