2007-05-14 - 8:52 a.m. Monday mornin', wedding and Mother's Day over, back to music and movies: Music: Mavis Staples's new album is fantastic. She's always had that low growl of a voice, and now, in her late 60s, her register is slightly lower but just as rich and resonant and passionate. The songs (all relating to the civil rights movement) are inspiring. In geek terms, this one is nestling into low-top-ten status as we speak. Movies: I watched, in stunned disbelief, the worst movie in recent memory the other night. (Yes, worse than Jersey Girl, The Family Stone, and Fast Track, though neck-and-neck with anything by Bart Freundlich.) It's a stagey, glib, pretentious, boring film about a boring relationship between two unlikeable indie-movie cliches. The sad thing is that I admire what it was trying to do, which is just to show, without a lot of false drama, the unraveling of a romantic relationship. But in getting there, it abandoned realism for excrutiating sub-Gilmore Girls banter and forced observational caprice. I think the screenplay would have made a better short story or novel, though no less aggravating for its characters' unlikeability. thoughts? (11 comments so far) previous - next blog archive contact