This is basically an interview with John Gaeta about the approach taken in the upcoming remake of Speed Racer. The movie looks great, and I’m such a fan of the Wachowski brothers that this is on my must see list. The Matrix and V for Vendetta are among my favorite movies in large part because of the visual and stylistic weight of their films.

Here’s another Vampire Weekend track, Mansard Roof. I’ve had this album on repeat since yesterday afternoon. And, when I say that, understand that I work from like noon until 5-6AM. That’s a lot of Vampire Weekend.

The stuff is so peppy, and I love the cellos and strings in many of their songs. Keeps me bouncing, happy, and moving. I’m not kidding… the guys here have been trying to sneak pictures of me “dancing” at my desk.

Their album, Vampire Weekend, is available via Amazon’s MP3 store. Love Mansard Roof and A-Punk.

Loving this song right now, and loving the fact that I found it via Coolspotters. It’s not really what our site is about, but it’s this sort of serendipitous discovery that makes our site fun. You can get in on the fun soon!

Too funny. Imagine one of the Democratic candidates being this flip about stupid controversies. They don’t get a pass, but I guess IOKIYAR is in effect.

Posting this for two reasons. One, I love seeing genre mashing, and this qualifies certainly. I also have been listening to the melody of this song for a few weeks but I didn’t realize what the guitar melody was from, even though I know this Pixies song.

(via Boing Boing)

OK, OK, here’s the official trailer:

Fanzter will be heading out to see this together, I think. As always, come one, come all.

Colin Powell on GMA this AM. The line about Obama’s experience is perfect. Still not able to forget or forgive Powell for his role in leading us into this war, but I still respect his intelligence. It’s too bad he hitched his star to the W machine…

Via a friend via AW, I discovered Girl Talk today. You must listen to this album. Funny, clever, and good music. Go get it. For the local peeps, he’s playing at Toad’s Place in New Haven in 2 weeks.

What makes his stuff cool is that it’s entirely composed of short samples of a bunch of different songs blended together into a new composition. Some of the combinations are just surprising and trying to identify songs is part of the fun. On top of that, hearing an 80s track overlaid with a hip hop track from 2007 or a remake of an old song next to the original just is a cool experience. This guy is talented.

Update: By “this album” I mean Night Ripper. Oops.

First up is Saul Williams take on U2’s Sunday Bloody Sunday. Great cover, interesting video, which features a little part played by Leo Fitzpatrick, still best known for playing Telly in the completely f’d up but powerful film, Kids. If you haven’t seen that movie, you should. Just give yourself time to recover after.

Next up is Buraka Som Sistema’s Sound of Kuduro, featuring M.I.A. among others. My sister got me exposed to M.I.A.’s frantic sound, and Buraka’s track fits her style. The song title and video got me googling a bit, and I now understand the title. Kuduro is a style of music from Angola that then found its way into Portugal. Angola used to be a Portuguese colony, which explains the migration and the fact that a Portuguese artist is behind this track.

Speaking of the Angolan Colonial period, one of the very best books I’ve ever read was about the Angolan Civil War as the last throes of colonialism came crashing down in the 60’s and 70’s. The book is Another Day of Life by Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuściński. It is an amazing book, translated from the original Polish. Absolutely amazing, and a quick read, too. Pulling together the links for this post, I found out that he died last year. He has written some amazing books, and his death is a loss. I need to get some of his other books. I feel like I have Imperium on a shelf downstairs, so maybe that will be the next plane ride/take a break read.

Anyway, back to work with me. Consider this your random music/books/history post of the week.

This could be the first time a Single of the Week artist from iTunes may actually work out as something I want to listen to.

Neat song and neat video.

Chris Wallace (Chris Wallace!) calls out the hosts of Fox and Friends about their two hours of Obama bashing. I’m actually speechless about this. Couldn’t believe it. I do wonder if Wallace is trying to get Obama to lift his Fox News ban, but this does seem sincere. I’m surprised, and impressed.

It was a crazy day at Fox, though. Prior to Wallace coming on air, this happened:

I don’t know what to make of this, but I was surprised at all of this. I do want to point out that the blonde woman in the middle has to be one of the most idiotic people on TV right now. I don’t think she knows what “allegedly” means, just that if she uses it, she can make wild a** accusations of people’s motives.

Granted, this is Fox News. So, was this all staged? Or sincere? Let me know what you think.

(via too many blogs to count, but first seen at Kevin Drum’s place)

Update: Just watched Olbermann do today’s “World’s Worst” segment. Even he’s shocked:

Fox News: the useless network.

This seems like a technicality (McCain’s campaign said he “misspoke” and immediately corrected himself). Watch this, though. Joe Lieberman (Lieberman!) had to correct him in front of cameras because he kept making the same mistake in all the interviews while in Jordan. It wasn’t just one instance of mis-speaking. He has made this fundamental error repeatedly, and the political aspects of defeating terrorism are as important (or more important) than the military aspects of the campaign.

I’m with Kevin Drum, btw. Hillary has a golden opportunity to say that McCain isn’t qualified to answer the 3 A.M. call.

You can watch it here. My thoughts on the text of the speech are here. Still watching it myself, more later if I have time.

Just want to pass this on. There are some strong points and some criticisms I have about this, but I think it speaks for itself.