Last night was watched Primer and WOW-O-WOW. What an AWESOME movie.

I’d never even heard of it, Melanie is great and finding these little movies that no one has ever heard of that are just incredible. It’s a very low budget movie starring, written, directed, produced, edited, and filmed by Shane Carruth and he did an awesome job. It was nominated for and won the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize and Grand Jury Prize and the Sundance Film Festival in 2004.

What’s it about? Well that’s the point, for most of the movie you have no idea what the hell is going on. The last movie that I saw that was this confusing was Memento. While this story is nothing like Memento it reminded me of that because it’s just so confusing. It’s about 2 guys that are working in their garage to invent the next big thing. I found parts of it very interesting as they were dealing with a lot of the issues that start up companies deal with, something I have some experience with.

That’s all I’m going to tell you about it. If you’re going to see it (and you should, it’s only 1:17 long, you’ve got that much time to see such a great film!) DO NOT LET ANYONE TELL YOU ANYTHING ABOUT IT! I’m serious about that, a huge part of seeing this film is that you need to not know what’s going on. That being said I can’t wait to see it again and again as I’m sure I’ll pick up SO much more then 2nd and 3rd times. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!

This weekend we finally saw Sideways, something I was really looking forward too. It’s gotten great reviews and was nominated for several awards, including Best Screenplay (which it won), Best Director (for Alexander Payne from About Schmidt and Election – one of my favorites), Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Thomas Haden Church from Ned and Stacey and Wings – who did a great job), and Best Supporting Actress (for Virginia Madsen who’s done a ton of movies but who I only recognized as one of Frasier’s girl friends.

The acting was great, the music was great, the writing was great, the direction was great. the wine was great. The movie was really good. I have to say I was a bit surprised that I didn’t like it more than I did, it just didn’t suck me in. Don’t get me wrong, I did really like it, I just wasn’t blown away by it and I certainly didn’t think it deserved a best picture nomination.

It’s basically a story of two old friends, one of which is getting married (Thomas Hayden Church). He and his buddy, played by Paul Gimatti (from American Splendor) head to the California wine country for a last blast before the wedding. It turns out that Church is a slime ball and wants to get laid one more time before getting married. He and Gimatti meet up with some women and Church gets his way. Gimatti meets Madsen’s character and the hit it off.

Things are going well until the truth about the wedding comes out and everything falls apart. Church’s girl (Sandra Oh from Under the Tuscan Sun) freaks out and attacks him with a motorcycle helmet and breaks his nose pretty bad – just in time for the wedding.

I would totally recommend it, especially if you like wine (we do like wine but will be the first to admit we don’t really know shit about it). While it is really really good, it’s not the great film I was expecting.

Anyone that knows me know that I’m a Dave Matthews Band fan. I’ve enjoyed their music since their first big release, Under the Table and Dreaming, which is still my favorite (Bofre These Crowded Streets is a close second, as is Crash). However I think they are slipping from what made them the fairly original sound that they are, their hard driving but musically interesting melodies and rhythms (their drummer Carter Beauford is just about as good as modern rock drummers get).

Their latest effort, Stand Up well, basically, it’s TERRIBLE. TERRIBLE. I got it yesterday, couldn’t wait to listen to it, jumped in the car, popped it in and was ready for a very enjoyable 45 minute drive home. 1 minute into I thought “what the hell is this crap?”. So I thought, Ok, it took me a bit to get into Everyday and even longer to get into Busted Stuff and Some Devil – which I didn’t really like at all) I’ll give it a few songs. So I hit next and waited with anticipation. Crap again. Next. Crap. Next. Crap. Next. Ok, not bad, neat progression, oh no, wait, crap. Next. Crap. You get the idea.

I’ve since listened to it more and while a like it a bit better I think it’s just that I really *want* to like it so bad that I’m telling myself “it can’t really be this bad”. Well you know what, it is. What the hell they were thinking is beyond me. It’s pop rock crap, crap, crap. If you’re a fan of the older stuff do NOT get the album. If you hate the old stuff and liked Some Devil then you might like this (but then again you’re obviously a complete musical moron and probably don’t have the sense to be reading this anyway!). Sorry, but 2 very disappointed thumbs way way down, you missed the boat on this one Dave…