This is nothing like the year that saw “There Will Be Blood” and “No Country for Old Men”, “Michael Clayton” and “In the Valley of Elah” brightening everyone’s hearts – no this year we have a truly eclectic range of styles, genres, approaches, tones and morals.  For the first time in years, it is almost too much to absorb.  But I am sure that will get easier as we countdown.

Let’s just hope Taylor Swift doesn’t show up, or she will snag the prize for Best Picture, prompting Jim Cameron to run up onto the stage, wielding a bottle of Hennessy and shouting that his ex wife was robbed and that the audience should now applaud for themselves.

I also wanted to share a list of my favorite films of the 2000’s or in easier terms – the past decade – that I created at the extraordinarily overdue site http://www.theauteurs.com

Here is the list of my favorite films of the past decade.

And without further ado, here is the list, from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, of

Nominees for the 2010 Academy Awards:

Best picture

“Avatar”
“The Blind Side”
“District 9”
“An Education”
“The Hurt Locker”
“Inglourious Basterds”
“Precious”
“A Serious Man”
“Up”
“Up in the Air”

Best actor

Jeff Bridges, “Crazy Heart”
George Clooney, “Up in the Air”
Colin Firth, “A Single Man”
Morgan Freeman, “Invictus”
Jeremy Renner, “The Hurt Locker”

Best actress

Sandra Bullock, “The Blind Side”
Helen Mirren, “The Last Station”
Carey Mulligan, “An Education”
Gabourey Sidibe, “Precious”
Meryl Streep, “Julie & Julia”

Best supporting actor

Matt Damon, “Invictus”
Woody Harrelson, “The Messenger”
Christopher Plummer, “The Last Station”
Stanley Tucci, “The Lovely Bones”
Christoph Waltz, “Inglourious Basterds”

Best supporting actress

Penelope Cruz, “Nine”
Vera Farmiga, “Up in the Air”
Maggie Gyllenhaal, “Crazy Heart”
Anna Kendrick, “Up in the Air”
Mo’Nique, “Precious”

Best director

James Cameron, “Avatar”
Kathryn Bigelow, “The Hurt Locker”
Quentin Tarantino, “Inglourious Basterds”
Lee Daniels, “Precious”
Jason Reitman, “Up in the Air”

Best foreign-language film

“Ajami,” Israel
“El Secreto de Sus Ojos,” Argentina
“The Milk of Sorrow,” Peru
“Un Prophete,” France
“The White Ribbon,” Germany

Best adapted screenplay

Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell, “District 9”
Nick Hornby, “An Education”
Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche, “In the Loop”
Geoffrey Fletcher, “Precious”
Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner, “Up in the Air”

Best original screenplay

Mark Boal, “The Hurt Locker”
Quentin Tarantino, “Inglourious Basterds”
Alessandro Camon and Oren Moverman, “The Messenger”
Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, “A Serious Man”
Bob Peterson, Pete Docter and Tom McCarthy, “Up”

Best animated feature film

“Coraline”
“Fantastic Mr. Fox”
“The Princess and the Frog”
“The Secret of Kells”
“Up”

Best art direction

“Avatar”
“The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus”
“Nine” “Sherlock Holmes”
“The Young Victoria”

Best cinematography

“Avatar”
“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”
“The Hurt Locker”
“Inglourious Basterds”
“The White Ribbon”

Best sound mixing

“Avatar”
“The Hurt Locker”
“Inglourious Basterds”
“Star Trek”
“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”

Best sound editing

“Avatar”
“The Hurt Locker”
“Inglourious Basterds”
“Star Trek”
“Up”

Best original score

“Avatar,” James Horner
“Fantastic Mr. Fox,” Alexandre Desplat
“The Hurt Locker,” Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders
“Sherlock Holmes,” Hans Zimmer
“Up,” Michael Giacchino

Best original song

“Almost There” from “The Princess and the Frog,” Randy Newman
“Down in New Orleans” from “The Princess and the Frog,” Randy Newman
“Loin de Paname” from “Paris 36,” Reinhardt Wagner and Frank Thomas
“Take It All” from “Nine,” Maury Yeston
“The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)” from “Crazy Heart,” Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett

Best costume design

“Bright Star”
“Coco Before Chanel”
“The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus”
“Nine”
“The Young Victoria”

Best documentary feature

“Burma VJ”
“The Cove”
“Food, Inc.”
“The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers”
“Which Way Home”

Best documentary short

“China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province”
“The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner”
“The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant”
“Music by Prudence”
“Rabbit a la Berlin”

Best film editing

“Avatar”
“District 9”
“The Hurt Locker”
“Inglourious Basterds”
“Precious”

Best makeup

“Il Divo”
“Star Trek”
“The Young Victoria”

Best animated short film

“French Roast”
“Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty”
“The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte)”
“Logorama”
“A Matter of Loaf and Death”

Best live-action short film

“The Door”
“Instead of Abracadabra”
“Kavi”
“Miracle Fish”
“The New Tenants”

Best visual effects

“Avatar”
“District 9”
“Star Trek”

The post The List of the 2010 Oscar Nominees + My Favorite Films of the Past Decade appeared first on TheCulturepin.com.

“Lordy knows new models must begin to emerge – the existing climate for musicians, as vastly interesting as it may be, as de-centralized as it may be, is actually rather disheartening when it comes to the heavy task of producing an audiophile grade recording. At least the old bottleneck created a filter, the new era of the tastemaker will take some time to develop gravity and in the interim “indie musician” is a hard to thing to still consider a career path. But we persist, don’t we, because the irrepressible urge is there, and so is opportunity and a vast landscape for innovation.”

Dick M. replied:

“Keram – some real contrasts there… I don’t feel like my music has ever been a “career path”… ergo, my music is lumped in the “amateur” category (which is all right with me, because as you indicated, we persist because we MUST). To me, “indie” means it’s NOT a career, because if it IS, it necessitates compromise and time spent in pursuit of $$$… NOT saying there’s anything WRONG with that, just that if it’s for $$$, I don’t believe it’s “independent”.”

To which I countered:

DJ AM found dead in NYC apartment
FB response: thing is, death is so fucking final. Believe what you need concerning the beyond; if it brings you solace, peace of mind, then God bless. But the ride is short. Music makes it so much easier. I need more of it in my life and less of the frenetic gossipy nature of the new paradigm. Apologies if this is heavy, but have lost some people, too young, this week. Have lost so many before. Too young. Followed by what. More status updates. Live goddamit. Live.

My favorite Sufi proverb says “Die before ye die, that you shall live” – recognize your mortality and revel in it.

Moreover, music is a mystical, unquantifiable gift. I am tired of posturing behind the coolness of what. It is miraculous. Lend it your energy, because it comes from something beyond what we understand.  And it needs your help.”

p2pnet news » Blog Archive » Dick Cheney new RIAA president
@ConstantChange

Tweet: No. I don’t believe it. I don’t, as a musician or music lover want to be sent to a gulag. I categorically reject the very possibility of this eventuality.

It’s hard to believe, but it is written in an online magazine format so it MUST be true.

For good measure, a moment of solace in the form of a song, video added, from my friend at Monty Python Eric Idle:

Fuck You FCC

This blog will return to reason and matters of the soul and the beauty of culture after these messages.

The post DJ AM Dies, Cheney Appointed New Prez of RIAA – A Brief Twitterstream appeared first on TheCulturepin.com.

Hrm, I will endeavor to turn off my verbose brain I think to get this across.

As I write this it is 5am in Los Angeles, my sister left for Toronto this morning en route from a pilgrimage to the mystic ancient city of Machu Pichu in Peru to a Tech trade show in Canton, China.  My uncle Paco is visiting from Ecuador and is sleeping in my bed, my girlfriend is sleeping on the floor (her grandfather is being taken off life support in the morning) and Josh Joudrie, my co-producer and soundman for Blue Dog Pict, visiting from Toronto, is sleeping on my couch.  Having nowhere left for myself to repose, I am up typing this chronicle.

We started this album three years ago.  An effort to continue to the work we did with BDP almost a decade ago.  Lest you don’t know me, I am not some balding wannabe ex-rocker seeking former glory days.  I am a kid who didn’t feel like I had yet reached the root.  So I decided it was time to move to the next set of songs and find a way to tell their unique stories.  I had no money in my pocket, I still don’t, but I have found in that, some amazing benefits – restrictions engender innovation, experimentation, cunning, tenacity, faith and play, and all of those put together lead to extraordinary ideas that may have otherwise been circumvented.

I would not trade a single moment of my tumultuous journey for any other.  I have learned so much and continue to learn.

Because we recorded this album piecemeal – parts in Toronto, parts in Los Angeles, parts in England via email – it has been a fascinating jigsaw puzzle to assemble.  After months, even years of configuring arrangements, painstakingly lining up different audio sources and trying to find their relationships, something as simple as bringing a completely new voice like Marc Thomas (of LA band Madras) to play guitars can re-liberate a song  and make it feel totally alive all over again.  You see, in the editing process, we find all the various pieces that we have recorded and build a comp. After cleaning it all up it feels a little stilted and after the fact.  Having a new musician with fresh ears come in and just replay it with their own unique brain makes it feel completely inspired and in-the-moment.  And that is because it is.

Last week, Ryan Brown came in to replay some snare and cymbal parts.  Instead we ended up playing brushes on the windscreen, chopsticks on pots, pans and coffee jar lids and throwing things around the room while Pro Tools was faithfully recording at 24 bits in the background.

Marc brought in a heap of pedals and I added my own to his arsenal.  We spent four separate days tracking guitars just for Killing Days; primary melodies, harmonies, swirling ambient washes, whatever occurred to us in the moment.

I would then assemble all of this discovery into a variety of stereo tracks, line them up, make a hundred decisions, and then when I would retire as the sun came up over Santa Monica Boulevard, Josh would wake up and take over, making sure the drums, bass, guitars, keyboards and vocals all lined up, that their phase relationships were coherent and so on.  He is the ultimate audio tech head.  It’s why I keep him around 😉

Now, almost two, three years later, we are closing in on seven amazing opuses. Sonic journeys.  I have no idea what they sound like in relation to what plays on the radio.  None.  We even recorded “Box“, an acoustic album comprising several of my songs that didn’t want to be played by a band while doing vocals for this record – for me and for you – just to tide things over while we sorted out the rest in the meantime.

Sure I listen to stuff coming out now, but that has nothing to do with this other journey I have been on – that of making this record I decided will be called “Come To Life” about a year ago.  The name comes from a catchphrase for the annual Sky Pirate holiday (celebrated August 4th) I created called Robot Pride Day – “My daddy builds robots; we don’t tell anyone.  They have come to life.  Come to life.”

The lyrics are poems I wrote at some point (of trouble, typically) to remind my future self that I have endured in the past, and that I will endure again, and every time come out the wiser, the stronger and the richer.  They are about the soul, about the death of some of my closest allies, about faith, about us, about the future, about the past, about mystery, reason and benevolence and fear.

I don’t know if and when you will ultimately hear the fruit of all this labor and play and duress and fascination.  Maybe it will be your children.  Maybe it will all be buried under the ground.  But if you do, drop me a line and let me know if you tapped in to everything that is going on with it.  It is all bigger than me; the amazing talents of those involved, the adventures that led to its creation, and whatever encompasses the sum of its parts.  I want to know what it is and what it did.

I hope to have Come To Life ready by the end of 2009.

Thanks for listening.  Really.  Every time you let me know your ears are receiving these transmissions, they fill up some little emptied battery cell in my soul.

kms
los angeles, april 6th, 2009

The post Come To Life: One from the heart, about the new record appeared first on TheCulturepin.com.

Now I present the other side of the argument by way of several videos featuring well-known actors including Elliot Gould, Rob Schneider and Martin Sheen strongly arguing for a YES from fellow guild members on the vote to strike.

Rob Schneider revealing how FOX TV plans to broadcast reruns exclusively online and not on TV airwaves (but without paying actors their current royalty/residuals rate, but instead only 3% of that for online play)

Elliot Gould makes an emphatic appeal and argument in favor of SAG moving to strike as he explains the media wash employed by the AMPTA to control the perception of the actor’s fight for a fair deal.

And Diane Ladd:

And Martin Sheen:

And me, Keram, who has been a professional actor for almost 30 years and who has given seminars and been invited to speak at conferences about the arts and new media can strongly state that SAG has my full support in moving to strike if it should require it.  The AMPTA claims that it needs time to understand and assess its online broadcast strategies and will be willing to renegotiate in three years.

That’s what they said about DVDs and it never happened.

Presently, the broadcasters are already streaming their programs, even the newest episodes in high-resolution, full screen, online and forcing the viewer to watch 15 second ads at regular commercial breaks, and yet they do not feel that actors should receive the same royalties (or in some cases, any at all) for these presentations.

SAG represents some 150,000 actors nationwide of which roughly 2% earn the majority of the money.  When one considers that the top 1% is earning twenty million dollars per picture, then it clarifies that the remaining percentile are not necessarily slouches, but they are mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and people who contribute to society and work many other jobs.  The idea that actors live some sort of fantasy life or that they would want to strike out of greed is a gross misrepresentation of the reality.

The concern that many actors presently share about the downturn in the economy and California’s massive financial crisis making it a bad time to strike must remember that the renegotiation of this contract has been known for several years and the possibility of a strike has already slowed work for as long.  My feeling is – we are here, lets get it over with: thinking that delaying this for another three years will suddenly create confidence in the production landscape seems absurd – the only thing we will lose is the momentum and bargaining position.  As cinematographer Steve Gainer said on my podcast (and I am paraphrasing here) – do what we have to do, but let’s just get it sorted out so we can all move forward.  I agree – once a fair deal is struck we can just go back to making movies, television and online content and not suffer from the concern of mounting a production that could fall apart as the result of a looming strike.

So if you read this and are an actor or have dialogues with people who have the ability to vote on this, consider both positions but recognize that the time to get this deal done is now and the the guild needs the support of its members.

The post Many Well Known Actors Speak Out In Favor of SAG Strike appeared first on TheCulturepin.com.

Then the my mother’s Ecuadorian traditions took over. We would return from Mass to open presents until two or three in the morning. Often the most bearded member of the family would play the surrogate Santa Clause and everyone would take turns accepting gifts from him and take pictures and so on.

Our house was the central HQ for the holiday season and so all the uncles and aunts and their growing legions of offspring would descend upon it. We could numbers in the dozens and the piles of wrapping paper could become quite formidable.

These traditions often came with some bemoaning as we opined about the gluttony and greed and consumerism, but also they maintained something else that was very important – the spirit of togetherness in a time of year that becomes quite cold and quiet and dark. It was a reminder that we all came from somewhere and that the things we believe, our perception of the world has direct roots to our upbringing. They also provided some sense of constancy in such a volatile reality and thus afforded us an anchor in the storm.

Years ago I studied Kaballah under the tutelage of a mystic named Gahl Sasson. One year, when I couldn’t make it home for Christmas, Gahl talked about a pattern that existed among all the great religions and traditions at this time of year – that is – that they all celebrated the Light in one form or another. I never forgot this teaching and was never quite so jaded about the holidays again. I Googled Gahl and sure enough he had a recent blog entry recapitulating what he had taught us in that ashram years ago. Rather than paraphrase I include a quote from his blog at CosmicNavigator here:

“The winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, is the day we encounter the least amount of light. The winter solstice has proven to be rather traumatic for many cultures in the Northern Hemisphere. As we progress toward the winter solstice, the days are stripped of their light. Everything becomes dark and gloomy. Early stargazers and shamans recognized this phenomenon and its deleterious effect on human mood and behavior…Bears have found a practical solution to winter depression. They just go to sleep. Psychologists devised a different remedy. They expose the patient to light. They call it light therapy.

[snip]

All over the world, wise elders, storytellers, religious teachers, and astrologers lit upon another solution. I am sure that you and your family have already practiced this same preventive medicine many times before. It’s called the holiday season, or to be more specific, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, Saturnalia, and Yule, just to name a few. Our astute ancestors, like modern day psychologists, could not help but notice that people’s moods sour as the days grow shorter. Versed in the practical applications of the ancient alchemical axiom of “as above, so below,” they figured that as the light slowly disappeared above, people’s energy levels declined correspondingly below. In order to enliven their communities, these ancients decided to concoct holiday festivities to crown the winter solstice with special significance. During the darkest time of the year, they created the holidays of light.”

Indeed as I walk through my neighborhood in Hollywood, California, I reflect upon the strings of white Christmas lights adorning the hedgerows in front of people’s homes and recognize that they are reminding us of the little lights in the darkness.

This was a fascinating and challenging year. The economy faced a shakedown the likes of which we haven’t experience in half a century.  Dozens, if not hundreds of major corporations, banks, and even industries went under. The game changed in so many ways that we were simply forced to surrender expectation to be able to maintain any semblance of sanity as we were tossed around the storm of change and entropy.

We also saw America elect the most unlikely of candidates into the Presidency. Barack Obama was an essentially untried politician whose message of hope and desire for change captured the imagination of not only the country but of the world.

I began the year by releasing a humble solo music album. I had fifteen years experience launching albums and thought that my knowledge and wisdom in the music market would serve me well. What I found was quite different. Gone was the interest of print media, even handmade indie Zines, as was the process of submitting a music video for television broadcast or even college radio. In its place were music micro blogs, affiliate marketing, search engine optimization, free music streams, linkback directories, and handing out CDs for free in the hundreds of units. Before I was a prophet of guerilla marketing. Now I was a podcaster, a blogger, a new media consultant. All because I recorded a small intimate collection of acoustic songs that I wrote in the windy forests of Northern Ontario, Canada.

I proclaimed the death of Web2.0 – that world of social linking and networking. I decried the glut of intentionally made viral videos and begged for the next phase, one that had already become comfortable with the ubiquity and reach of the new broadcasting power afforded to anyone with a webcam, and created something of substance, art and depth.

I may have been radically premature in these proclamations, however the bell tolls.

I am a different person at the end of 2008 than I was at its outset. I have been exposed to very powerful tools that track how people shop, think and behave, though I look at their thought processes in terms of keywords and statistics.

When I removed myself from Facebook, I felt a strange void, as though a giant lead wall had been erected between me and social network. As though I was the last man on Earth. And yet my hope and desire was that my self-imposed exile would restore the warmth and intimacy of those relationships.

I started reading more books, more of the time as a result. I took more walks out in the world. I recommenced drawing, exploring various hobbies like Lomo photography, model-making, cooking.

And now as we face the shortest days of light in the year, I can see the little beacons of humanity set out on those front lawns, reminding us that someone is still home. They are displaying those strings of little hopes that say, its alright, the world may be at its darkest, but we have been here a long time, as substantiated by our traditions, and we have returned after the darkness to explore new ground time and time again.

Have a happy and safe holiday and thanks for reading The Culturepin this year.

Keram

The post The Celebration of Light and 2008 in Review appeared first on TheCulturepin.com.