"Fearless"- Pink Floyd

     Can't beat the slide guitar on this number. A simple ascending riff takes this song to great heights before slowing the tempo down mid verse to send you off into space. Dream like vocals that only come from David Gilmour will have you swaying as you go to places that Pink Floyd creates with musical greatness. This is early Floyd at their best. 

"Marla" - Grizzly Bear

     A great track by a little known band. Piano, violins, and an assortment of weird noises (was that a dog barking in a reverberation hall?) make this creepy yet beautiful song one worth listening to over several times to catch all the suddal details. The lyrics seem to tell the story of a ghost maid trying to find things that belong to her old master. It's eerie in the best kind of way. 

"Ballad For My One True Love" - Mason Jennings 

     Probably the best love song I've heard in months. It makes me feel like I'm back in Paris when the night takes the Iffel Tower at its best. It's got an incredibly seren opener and the lyrics in the bridge make me smile without fail. Great song. 

"Machine Gun (Live)" - Jimi Hendrix and The Band of Gypsys

     This song will murder you in your sleep if you don't watch out. Recorded live in protest of the Vietnam War, this track shows why Hendrix was a master of the guitar. From the machine gun dead notes to the death tunes of war at it's conclusion, this 13 minute track will have you on the edge of your seat if your listening through headphones on blast with the lights out. Back ground harmonies moan as Hendrix sings of war causalities. Bass notes descend and carry as Jimi explodes off throughout the recording in a series of increasingly intense solos that leave his band mates scrambling to catch up. However, with Mitch Mitchell on drums and Billy Cox on bass, they are never far behind. To this day, this track is revered as one of the most powerful displays of electric guitar playing. If I can ever get my rig to support the amount of sustain Hendrix cranks out, I'll be a very happy player indeed. 

Youtube doesn't have the version from Felmore East, but click this link to hear it at Dailymotion.com 

1. The Grand Budapest Hotel


     The word I would use to describe this movie is "brilliant". Let's be honest, Wes Anderson can make some weird shit, but he hits the nail on the head with his latest contribution to the film world. Sharp, quirky dialog, a fantastic cast of characters, Anderson's unconventional, trademark camera work, humor, heartbreak and a tale that is worth coming back to again and again. 
     Though the story shines brightly, it is the characters that breath life into each scene. Jude Law is the author of the story. Ralph Fiennes does a great job in the role of Monsieur Gustave, filling out his charismatic and comical personality. Zero, his lobby boy in training, performs admirably as a trusty side-kick who delivers a unique form of humor from a foreign perspective. Adrien Brody plays a greedy son with sinister intentions, but it is his henchman J.G. Jopling (Wllem Dafoe), that became a personal favorite of mine. Check out the whiskey compartment of his leather jacket. You'll want one. Edward Norton is a police inspector, Harvey Keitel is an aged prisoner with a hand for drawing, and Bill Murray, Owen Wilson and Tom Wilkinson make appearances for cameo roles. 
     This one I can't recommend highly enough. See The Grand Budapest Hotel. It's one of the best 2014.

2. Ghost Dog
      
     Forest Whitaker plays a mafia hitman who lives by the codes and philosophy as outlined in the ancient ways of the samurai. Though the formula doesnt sound like a winner on paper, Jim Jarmusch, director of the current box office, Only Lovers Left Alive, delivers an interesting take on Urban America mixed with the deep roots of Asian culture. With a soundtrack composed by Wu Tang Clan's, RZA, the film moves along with Ghost Dog reading exerpts from his principal read, Hagakure, as he tries to right the wrong of an itilaian gangster who he is eternally in debt to.
     Its the lifestyle Ghost Dog lives that is most compelling. He relays information through carrier pigeons, his best friend is a french ice cream driver (neither one of them knowing the others language), and he tots around a brief case full of modified weaponry.
     The flick isnt without fault however. There's no sword play, no close quarters combat, and the final scenes of bad guy elimination is kinda anti-climatic. And what's the deal with that pistol "wave" Ghost Dog does when he hustlers his weapon. Seriously. Even with me knowing what the intentions are of such actions in the world of martial arts, it just looks dumb. That shit ain't a sword bro.
      Still, its definitely worth a watch and if you happen to see Only Lovers Left Alive, let me know if its one for the books.

3. The Fisher King

      In honor of Robin Williams passing, I started scoping out his most praised works. Then I went to Netflix. The Fisher King came up and I noticed it starred a personal favorite of mine, Jeff Bridges.
      I was a little turned off by the premise, a jerk of a radio host sets off a caller, sending the man into a killing spree at a local upscale restaurant. The incident sends Bridge's character into a depression that lasts several years, until he meets an eccentric homeless man (Williams) who asks him for help in recovering the Holy Grail from a rich man's castle home in Manhattan. The former radio host is hesitant at first, until he learns that his past connects with the bum in startling ways.
     The movie as a whole has enough laughs to keep you watching and even tugs at your heart strings in its conclusion. Give it a watch and maybe check out other Williams movies on Netflix like the Birdcage, which I hear is pretty solid comedy.

4. Moon

       Okay, so I saw this movie like 5 years ago and remember very little of it. All I know is its a well respected British sifi-drama that features an isolated spaceman trying to return home, with only his robot companion (voiced by Kevin Spacey) to keep him company. I recently found Moon for $2 at an antique store and decided to snag it up. Within the course of a week, two different people had picked it out among the rest of my collection, stating it was among their favorite films. Its been on my mind for weeks now, though I haven't gotten around to watching it. If you beat me to it let me know what you think, but don't spoil the twist at the end.  If you like thought provoking, slow building movies, you may find Moon worth your time.

5. The Talented Mr. Ripley

       Matt Damon, in the early days of his career, plays a sociopath whose lies land him in Italy chasing down the son of a wealthy ship builder in an attempt to bring him home for a cash reward. Using his talent to impersonate and deceive, Tom Ripley (Damon) gets in close with the man's son Dickie Greenleaf, but soon finds the young man's life so exciting that he decides to stick around in Italy, living the fast life with Dickie who pays for all of their adventures with his fathers money. Overtime, their relationship begins to change in unexpected ways that will send Ripley down a dark path that forces him to invent more lies, play games with the law, and ultimately lose sense of who he himself is. 
      Almost halfway into the film, viewers are also treated to a side performance by the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, who plays a close friend of Dickie's. His role is an engaging one, but it is the building reaction of Damon's character that stirs the pot on the pairs relationship. 
      You may not know how you feel about the movie at it's conclusion, but let it sit with you for a few days. You may start asking yourself all kinds of questions about Tom Ripley. Who was he really? How did he come into the situation that originally triggered everything that followed in the movie? Is his sexuality, a key element of the film, the result of his own twisted and confusing persona? It's one of the few movies that has actually gotten under my skin days AFTER I had viewed it, in such a way that it makes me question much about the psychological nature of people, as each character from the film represents something unique in their own role, with Tom Ripley muddling the waters all the way through.