Beltmann

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzlazAyylw8 Andrew Haigh's "Lean on Pete" is ostensibly about a boy and his horse, but it's really about a boy and his environment--and the careful, observant, compassionate point-of-view makes it one of the most compelling dramas of the year so far.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XeK0rc_9a0 Joaquin Phoenix plays another damaged soul--this time he's Joe, a child-retrieval professional imploding under the weight of his own childhood terrors--in Lynne Ramsay's dense and surprising character study. "You Were Never Really Here" is a thriller in name only, as the usual genre conventions are completely swamped by Ramsay's fractured layers of memories, flashbacks, fantasies, and confounding tension. There's plenty of blood, but the real violence occurs inside of Joe's mind. His heart is filled with tender circles but his head is filled with h

Brian Fallon, at Turner Hall in Milwaukee.

I think that's exactly what she's up to. Her sly wink often makes it into the songs, too.

Good grief, Crow, you sure know how to make an entrance! Sorry to hear about your difficult spell, man. But I'm super glad to see you back in these parts.

Looking forward to that one, too. If you haven't yet, check out the catchy video for "It's a Shame." I'm also eager for the new Brandi Carlile, Brian Fallon, Erika Wennerstrom, and, most of all, the Eels in April.

Over the course of the year I do a solid job of seeing eventual Oscar nominees--the result, no doubt, of being a ravenous cinephile--so when the noms finally arrive I usually have few gaps to fill. This year, my initial reaction to the announced nominations was, "Dammit, now I have to see Ferdinand." Crossed that one off tonight.

This admin laughed out loud when looking through the reports.

Grabbed me instantly--sounds fantastic.

I saw 50 feature films and 24 shorts at the 15-day Milwaukee Film Festival. My favorite? "Faces Places," a collaborative documentary-essay-poem-memoir by Agnes Varda and the street artist JR. I also thought highly of "Lucky," with Harry Dean Stanton in one of his final roles; "The Summer Is Gone," a Chinese drama about how a young boy perceives China's privatization reforms; "The Blood Is at the Doorstep," a documentary about the aftermath of the killing of Dontre Hamilton; and "Maliglitut," a revenge tale set in 1913 on a small Inuit island in northern Canada. https://www.youtube.com/watch?

"That's Not the Issue," today in a Potbelly Sandwich Shop in Milwaukee.

My wife and I still count the "nuthin's" when we hear the song live. Many years ago Jeff crossed 50 at one of our shows, and the crowd went crazy.

Oh, this sounds good. Downloading now. Thanks for the heads up, SS!

Canoa: A Shameful Memory / dir. Felipe Cazals / Mexico / 1976 One of the key works of Mexican cinema. In 1968, several university workers are killed by a rural mob convinced they are Communists in a movie that effectively combines docudrama with ethnography and horror. By relaying the real-life incident through several unusual structural methods, including allegory and an occasional mock documentary style that partly functions as parody, director Felipe Cazals goes beyond analyzing mob mentality. He indicts much larger cultural and political dynamics. Watching it as an American in 2017, it’s

Missed you, Paul. We were there, but didn't see you... afterwards Stacy said she thought she glimpsed you from afar but wasn't sure. Our seats were on the first floor (Row S) and it was indeed weird with the sit?/stand? awkwardness in the middle. I've seen Wilco in Milwaukee plenty of times and I don't think the floor has ever been so reluctant to stand. (We like to stand, and were grateful when people finally were up on their feet.)

Thanks, Paul! Sounds like a fantastic night with fantastic people.

Brian Wilson Presents Pet Sounds

Good read at the AV Club: "A great time to be alive and own a guitar": Chicago's 1990s alt-rock explosion This era of Chicago alt-rock was formative for me. How can it be that it's already time to reminisce? Wasn't all of this happening last week? The piece also contains minor Wilco connections, as Lounge Ax is mentioned and at one point Joel Spencer of Menthol says, "I remember being at Lounge Ax and Jeff Tweedy showing up with his son, and we were sound-checking, and he came up and asked [drummer] Colin [Koteles] if he could let his little boy get behind the drums for a second. Colin’s l

Good to hear. I'm taking my 12-year-old daughter to the Pet Sounds show in April. Her favorite band is the Beach Boys; she's seen the Mike Love version of the band, but never Brian. She knows what to expect, though... she saw the movie "Love and Mercy" and read a biography about Brian.

My main interest is cinema, specifically the history of global film. I also spend a ridiculous amount of time watching baseball and playing softball. I suppose I should include the endless hours I put into local political issues.

Just bought both EPs by Rolling Blackout Coastal Fever. Thanks for the tip, PopTodd!

I'm on my third listen, and it keeps sounding better. Might be my favorite since Gimme Fiction.

Thanks for sharing!

“Silence” never slips into sensationalism, which might be why its violence is fairly easy to stomach--it proves to be a searching, rewarding riposte to the kind of suffer-porn found in “Unbroken” or, um, any movie directed by Mel Gibson. I especially admired the way the film re-examines what it means to follow Jesus’ example. Rodrigues, like many modern evangelicals, believes his faith is defined by purism and pedantry, but I think Scorsese wants viewers to consider how that definition has limitations and, by reducing something complex to something like a checklist, perhaps damages real faith.