I'm not a huge fan of Kirsten Dunst, so Marie Antoinette has kind of snuck up on me. I suppose i should be focusing on the fact that it's directed by Sofia Coppola, who also created the mesmerizing Lost in Translation and The Virgin Suicides. My first viewing of the trailer caught me unaware, as i was surprised to find scenes of French aristocrats set to New Order's "Ceremony". The rest of the soundtrack is an interesting blend of post-punk, neo-shoegazing, and classical sounds. The graphic art for the production seems rooted in the Malcolm McLaren/Sex Pistols aesthetic. And you know what? It all seems to mesh beautifully. I've gone from totally disinterested to anxiously awaiting the film's October 20 release.

I'm also interested in the documentary The U.S. Vs. John Lennon, describing the government's investigation of the former Beatle while he used his status to campaign against the Vietnam war. And Martin Scorsese's latest gangster tale The Departed. I wouldn't mind seeing the U.S. punk documentary American Hardcore, although that's one i'd have to guess i won't make it out to see. Jet Li's final martial arts epic Fearless looks good, but given my latter-day consumption of movies at the theater, i'll have to keep an eye out for it on cable in 9-12 months. Idiocracy, Mike Judge's science fiction depiction of a future society based entirely on popular culture, looks to be a worthy successor to Office Space, but i have no idea where that's even playing near me.

The take-home message is that i have to ration my theater visits these days, and push for going to see films that 1) Veronica won't veto outright, 2) are playing at a reasonably convenient location so i won't have to orchestrate a field trip to go see it, and 3) i won't get to see unless i go to the theater.

I find it difficult to believe that one of the most popular shows in America features a main character named "Dr. McDreamy". Who's watching this crap, anyway?

Added a new 500GB drive to my home computer so i can fully backup my sprawling mp3 collection. My latest ID3-related OCD incident involved discovery of the "album artist" tag in the new iTunes. I'm not exactly sure what this field is intended for, but i pounced on it as a chance to embed artist sorting information in the ID3 tags. For example, i can now have the proper artist be listed as Miles Davis, but have it sorted based on "Davis, Miles" which will be hidden in the album artist field. Sweet. And it only took three hours or so to go through all 2191 artists in my collection and add the necessary information.

Off to see British popster Lily Allen at Popscene tonight. I dunno why, but her sunny indie hip hop makes me smile. Calling her the female Streets may be a bit of a misnomer as she's got her own unique viewpoint, but musically that's a decent starting point for descriptions. If anything, the backing music to "LDN" reminds me of the old theme to Match of the Day. Or the Jam's quirky "The Planner's Dream Goes Wrong" from the Gift. Allmusic notes that she grew up listening to acts like the Specials, which now that i think about it is quite insightful. A lot of Terry Hall inflection in there, particularly on tracks like "Friday Night". "I go out on Friday night, and i come home on Saturday morning"? I'm not demeaning her, god knows the world needs a Terry Hall for the 21st century.

there was a little old lady who was walkin' down the road
she was struggling with bags from Tesco
there were people from the city having lunch in the park
i believe that is called al fresco

you might laugh, you might frown
walkin' round London town
sun is in the sky, oh why oh why
would i wanna be anywhere else?
when you look with your eyes, everything seems nice
but if you look twice, you can see it's all lies

The mosaicking bug strikes again. Upon a very reasonable suggestion from Veronica that a Chelsea collage should be made up of images of Blues players/coaches/matches/history, i devised a way of grabbing stills from Chelsea videos. Then after downloading an hour and a half of movies and converting them into approximately 5000 images, i ran my mosaic program again using the Chelsea logo. A bit less clean than the collage made up of album covers ... for those math geeks out there, i think my basis functions aren't quite as effective in this case ... but nevertheless interesting.