the pod bay door

:: I’ve been meaning for some time to make mention of two reviews I wrote recently for Blogcritics.com. Both reviews have Stanley Kubrick as their subject.

The first book is Moonwatcher’s Memoir: A Diary of 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Dan Richter, the actor and mime who played Moonwatcher in the movie. What was special for me was that I e-mailed the review to Dan, who in turn e-mailed me back with a few comments, as well as permission to add to the review his notes about how the voices were recorded for the 18-minute Dawn of Man sequence, which opens the movie. The review is here.

The second book is Stanley Kubrick: A Life In Pictures, a gorgeous coffee-table book, assembled with much love and care by his wife, Christiane. I borrowed the book from another library in the country, and spent two weeks examining it in detail. If you are a Kubrick fan, it is a book that belongs in your library. The review is here.

:: Do you think you know your (somewhat obscure) album covers? Take this test.

:: ConsumerSearch is a portal site, linking readers to consumer product reviews. It also provides reviews of the reviews, as it were, ranking them “according to how well they identify the category’s best products”.

From Blogcritics.org: Ian Thomas is one of my favorite Canadian songwriters, ever. He burst onto the Canadian scene in 1973 with the tune, “Painted Ladies“, and has remained a fixture ever since, albeit somewhat quietly at times. Thomas’s regional hit single, “I’ll Do You Right“, from his 1984 album Riders on Dark Horses, is my favorite singalong-in-the-car song, and a brilliant love song as well.
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¦¦ Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi) is the recent full-length Academy award-winning animated feature from legendary Japanese animation director Hayao Miyazaki, creator of the critically acclaimed Kiki’s Delivery Service, and Princess Mononoke. It tells the story of a little girl named Chihiro, who enters what appears to be a deserted theme park with her parents after they become lost while driving to their new home in a new city. While her parents take a break to eat, she wanders off and is discovered by a boy named Haku, who tells her she must leave the area. She runs back to her parents, only to discover that they are still eating, and have morphed into giant pigs. Thus begins an adventure that features the some of the oddest characters and weirdest twists I’ve ever seen in a full-length cartoon.
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¦¦ From Blogcritics.org: I will preface this (first) review by noting that it will be quite biased. Jessica Owen is also known as The Artist Formerly Known As Jessica Schoenberg. The review is biased because when Jess lived in Edmonton, I performed alongside her for a couple years (93-94), and played guitar on and arranged most of her first album, Sounds Like A Plan, released on cassette only.
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