There’s an inter­view with Pedro Almod­ovar on Volver that real­ly changed my think­ing about his char­ac­ters. In response to why he writes such beau­ti­ful­ly strong women into his films, he claims that it’s based on mem­o­ries from youth, that women ran the home when he observed them as a child, even if men were either at work or in the bar. Par­don my fem­i­nism, but isn’t this the most roman­tic way to char­ac­ter­ize unpaid domes­tic work?

Also: Mr. Frere-Jones prob­lems with the movie take issue with the Coen-esque mur­der mys­tery, but mine are with Raimunda’s state­ment that “they are a poor fam­i­ly, so they’ll live like one.” Once Agosti­na is diag­nosed with can­cer, every­one stops work­ing to sud­den­ly con­cen­trate on hid­ing Paco’s body, sort­ing out things with a moth­er who’s reap­peared and sup­pressed mem­o­ries from childhood.

It’s not about plau­si­bil­i­ty real­ly, but these are the sorts of holes that make you won­der what the movie’s actu­al­ly about in the first place. Okay so there’s an over­ar­ch­ing for­give­ness motif, but why should the view­er have to put those pieces togeth­er so delib­er­ate­ly when its the writer/director’s job to get us there?

And most impor­tant­ly, Pene­lope Cruz should’ve been nom­i­nat­ed for sup­port­ing actress for her role in All About My Moth­er instead of this Span­ish mur­der mys­tery that could’ve been filmed with out­takes from Woman on Top.

• Unless Jess, Ronan, Philip, Jack or Gee­ta pipe any­thing else direct­ly into my ear via the blo­gos­phere or the var­i­ous out­lets to which they con­tribute, I can safe­ly say that Gui Borat­to and Jus­tice will prob­a­bly be my token dance records of the year. I still need to hear the Field and Pan­tha du Prince though, so we’ll see what happens.
• Speak­ing of tokens, I haven’t been all that amped on met­al so far this year either. Noise too. That new Liars’ track pre­dictably brought me down and there’s noth­ing star­ing me in the face that I feel I must hear [okay Air Con­di­tion­ing and maybe a few choice cuts iden­ti­fied over at Paper Thin Walls.]
• In all seri­ous­ness, tell me what I’m miss­ing in the com­ments, or write me @ black­mail AT black­mail is my life dot com. I’m des­per­ate for new, weird input! Man can’t live on Raven Sings the Blues alone [though it sure as hell is a good start. Check out Raven’s 2007 faves so far in ’07.]
• Also a must read: David Raposa’s review of the new QOTSA album. Is there any­thing more shock­ing than what I’d hoped would be the guar­an­teed hard rock album of the sum­mer? Raposa dives right in and diag­noses the prob­lem. Bravo.

Shin­ing’s take on King Crim­son’s “21st Cen­tu­ry Schizoid Man.” That is all. [MySpace]

Will the next album be called Boomerang or A.B.D. at UMich?

• Remem­ber how I was just bitch­ing about the sor­ry state of affairs Music ’07? Well, I think I’m half right. The New Pornog­ra­phers’ Chal­lengers phones in more of the same mid-tem­po pop they record­ed for Twin Cin­e­ma. The best part of “My Rights ver­sus Yours” steals the open­ing gui­tar chords from “Good Day Sun­shine.” Check it out for your­self [That ver­sion won’t have two blips at the end.]
• Or you can total­ly buy the hype at Goril­la vs. Bear. [You know, cred­it for post­ing repeat­ed­ly through­out the day, but wow, this is straight up PR copy. Par for the course…]
• That Spoon album? Idol­a­tor’s sen­ti­ments more or less hit the mark. More latent Bil­ly Joelisms than those on Gimme Fic­tion, but for its high points [“The Ghost of You Lingers,” “You Got Yr Cher­ry Bomb”] it feels too much like the sec­ond half of Kill the Moon­light.
• Speak­ing of Idol­a­tor, I was just speak­ing to a cer­tain name­less some­one about how Idol­a­tor at times seems like that mem­ber of the Gawk­er fam­i­ly who left for col­lege only to grad­u­ate to a life of slack­ing on Mom and Dad’s couch. Well, that may be true, but posts like this one real­ly make my day.
• In light of those two afore­men­tioned albums, I’m wor­ried to lis­ten to the new Art Brut too close­ly. Too late! It sounds more pol­ished and pro­fes­sion­al than the last record [see also: Franz Fer­di­nand, Inter­pol, Spoon, et. al.] but no more like­ly to make a crossover splash than the last record.
• Here’s k‑punk on a new dub­step comp. As with so many new gen­res that are com­ing and going almost simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, it feels like folks are lin­ing up to give eulo­gies at birth­day parties.
• If you’re a Fish­town­er, this is total­ly amazing.
• This is prac­ti­cal­ly with­in my grasp, although this prob­a­bly takes precedent.
• Any­one with thoughts on the Kodak v705, leave com­ments. My SLR-lite cam­era has not only nev­er had the tight focus I’ve need­ed, nor the fun pos­si­bil­i­ties of a slim point and shoot. In short, WANT!