Sam Means posted a new demo over the weekend called “Bigger Heart.” I can’t stop listening to it, so I figured I would share it with the zero people who frequent my infrequent blog.

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I have been actively trying to view every film on the (ever changing) IMDb Top 250 list since my sophomore year in college. Inevitably I will spend a month or so making a lot of progress.Then I will stop perusing the list all together for a while and backtrack. Thus, I have been perusing this goal for nearly 5 years without completing it. I know it is a silly goal, but I do find it interesting to what the movie viewing public deems great.  I am on the home stretch now with less than 20 films left. As a result I have been watching  a lot of movies that I would, under any other circumstance, probably avoid (Avatar, How to Train Your Dragon, pretty much anything anime, etc.) And while How to Train Your Dragon surprised me. many have not. So when I got The Celebration in the mail last week I was fully convinced that I was about to view a candidate for the most overrated film on the entire list. The Celebration was the first film created using the rules of Dogme 95, a very specific and intentional style of film making with the intent to make films that feel and look more natural and true to life. I had read up on Dogme film making my freshman year of college and instantly dismissed it as ridiculous and counterintuitive.  I have since spent 6 years scoffing at the idea without actually viewing a single Dogme movie. That changed with The Celebration, and my perception of the Dogme rules… really didn’t.

Despite my best efforts, I really enjoyed The Celebration. The story was very compelling and the acting was great. However, it would have been even better if it didn’t look like it was shot and edited by a 15 year old. I did not hate  the style of the film simply because it was shot on a MiniDV camera, but  because the camera work was in many cases extraordinarily distracting.  Dogme calls for the director to admit they are not an auteur but the way this film was shot and edited is very deliberate and at times very deliberately sloppy. The work of  cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, particularly  in Alfonso Cuarón’s films  (Y Tu Mamá También, Children of Men,) feels much more natural and unasuming than anything in this film.

As I stated before, the acting in this film was very good. This  is the result of either an entire cast of great actors who can all hold their own and work together perfectly… OR a director DIRECTING… But wouldn’t that lend itself to the director putting his own mark on the film?

I suppose The Celebration is just proof that a good script has a chance to survive when also accompanied by equally good actors, even if the production value of the rest of the film is egregious. In the end I really enjoyed the film, but I can only imagine how much more powerful it could have been as a more traditional production.

In closing…
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Christian (the main character) has a soul patch on all of the promotional material I have seen, but in the film he is clean shaven. In fact, that is one of the first things out of his mouth in the film.
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I waited for the soul patch guy to show up for about half an hour before I realized he was the first person we meet in the film and he doesn’t have a soul patch.

Ben Rector’s summer singles, Summer Candy, are  available today on iTunes & AmazonMP3. Summer Candy is 2 perfect summer jams, ideal for cruising with the windows down & the volume up. Track one, Summer Candy is a smooth, dancy Passion Pit-esque tune with some great synths (including a little keytar.) Track two, Mr. Mailman (which I called Mr. Milkman for months,) is a classic summer pop song that reminds me of diving into a pool and eating snow cones.
Summer Candy doesn’t only sound like summer, it even looks like summer!  Jason Yang did another amazing job as always on the cover (above) for the singles.
Get them now while the sun’s still hot!

Ben Rector’s third full length album, Into the Morning, released Tuesday and reached #5 on the iTunes pop charts by the end of the day. I say this with absolute honesty, I think it is by far his best record to date and is well worth the purchase. You can currently buy it 4 ways. Buy Into the Morning digitally from Amazon.com or iTunes. Or you can order the CD directly from Ben or buy it from him at one of his upcoming shows.