Which one is Pink? (Before they even cared about Pink)

Meddle is one of the more over-looked Pink Floyd albums. It came out right before Dark Side of the Moon in 1971 and none of its songs have gotten much radio play at all (which could be said of most early Floyd).

Meddle (along with Animals), came to attention a bit more it seems in the metal community ever since Blake from Nachtmystium mentioned it as one of his favorite albums. This can be best seen (heard) in Nachtmystium's song One of These Nights, which thematically and musically plays upon the Floyd's One of these Days.

With that in mind I thought I would link a few vids for those not familiar with this side of Floyd.

Here is One of These Days (subtitled: I'm Going to Cut You into Little Pieces)





Next is the song Echoes, which is possibly one of Floyd's best songs ever. It comes in at more than 23 minutes. There have been two video presentations of this song that have in particular touched me. One is the Live in Pompeii version which has a unique sound to it since it's live and they're playing behind a literal wall of amps (out in the ruins of Pompeii, quite cool, huh?). The second is the pairing of the song with the last scene from Stanley Kubrick's film "2001: A Space Odyssey". There are a lot of rumors as to why it fits so perfectly, but I won't touch upon that besides the fact that they work together SO GOD DAMN PERFECTLY.

Anyway here, in all 23+ minute form:



(note: It is best to watch this in a very dark room, with the screen blown all the way out and the volume very, very high.... which you might want to get as well)

I don't want to post the Pompeii version because you should all go out and buy it, but if you want to see it now just go on youtube you'll find it easily enough.

25 Most Conservative/Liberal Films?

The National Review recently released a list, based on votes from subscribers and apparently some editorial/crtic based editing, of what they claimed were the top 25 Conservative films of the past 25 years.

25 Top Conservative Films

In looking it up, I also found that Daily Kos posted a list as well based on polls (or something).

Top 25 Liberal Films


My general conclusion after looking at both lists is that they both have quite a bit of bullshit in them. However, the Daily Kos' list is filled with the most bulllshit.

First off a documentary really shouldn't be placed on a list of "great" films unless you're just talking about documentaries alone. It's like putting a book on tape in a list of greatest albums. It just doesn't work. So Daily Kos really fucks it up by including, by my count (I don't know all the movies they posted), 6 docs and 4 of them are from Michael Moore. I'm sorry but that's really bullshit. But even more bullshit is that they gave #1 to An Inconvenient Truth. I don't know if I should laugh or cry. At its best it can be called informative and thought provoking, however that doesn't make it great film making, rather it was very dull film making because it was only filming a god damn lecture. Oh, and to have included Thank You for Smoking... that's really fucking ironic.

Anyway... as for NR's list, some of it seems fitting and some of it seems to be rather bizzare. The Incredibles I would say is fitting though I have to laugh to myself about it because after seeing the film I called it the most blatant anti-communist propaganda I had ever seen (note: I still enjoyed the movie). The Life of Others seems very odd, but I guess the ethics of spying can be overshadowed if the ultimate result is showing how fucked up Soviet style Communism was.

One funny bit is how both lists have Brazil, which in reflection doesn't suprise me. It's a highly Orwellian like story and that's the real root of why both the left and right love it. Orwell's works pointed out the failings/horror of totalitarianism, as seen in the Soviet Union, yet he was a staunch socialist. Anyway, I would certainly rank Brazil as one of my favorite movies of all time (gotta love Criterion).

Videodrome: