Warm fuzz. Deep croons. Succulent samples. These are a few of the words I'll use to describe Dirty Beaches. Great, great stuff.

Dirty Beaches - Lord Knows Best by thesubs-blog

Dirty Beaches - Golden Desert Sun by silkydoll

Dirty Beaches on Myspace

Lower Dens were a favorite discovery of mine in 2010 and they are already starting off 2011 with new tunes. Lovely. The 7" is out January 18 on Gnomonsong. "Batman" is the A and "Dear Betty Baby" is the B. Pre-order it here.

Also, the fine folks of Lower Dens have created some sort of cooking infomercial for the single. It's delightfully bizarre.



LOWER DENS - BATMAN from gorillavsbear.net on Vimeo.

Take a listen to the lovely, bouncy A-side, "Batman."

Lower Dens - "Batman"
Batman by brunostroszek

Being a large fan of The Virgin Suicides, a gigantic fan of Lost in Translation, an angry loather of Marie Antoinette, I was going into Sofia Coppola's new film, Somewhere, with confident, but cautious eyes. From an early trailer it seemed poised to capture at least a fragment of the melancholy simmering within Lost in Translation. But alas, this worried me as well. All in all, the Somewhere trailer made me see it as another famous dissatisfied moving picture star in a hotel doing nothing and feeling nothing for anyone for any reason but his own insecurites and misanthropic ways. Surprise! Well, not a full blown dirty boxers surprise, but a pleasent surprise indeed.

Somewhere is a quiet film. REALLY quiet. Much softer and human than anything Sofia has directed thus far. Stephen Dorff plays Johnny Marco. A blockbuster megastar stuck in a vicious circle of having all of his wants met and none of his needs treated or even realized. He parties, has strange twin strippers entertain him while he struggles to stay awake, takes pills, parties more, and even while living it up and swallowing prescriptions, he hooks up with beautiful women and proceeds to fall asleep with his head buried into their most private of privates. His dissatisfaction is funny, laughable, relatable and downright hateable from one second to the next. Johnny is confused, bored, and miserable as anybody in those theater seats watching him.

Enter Cleo, played incredibly well by Elle Fanning. Johnny's young daughter shows up for a surprise visit. We see her draw a small heart on Johnny's broken arm cast, an injury he plays off skillfully as botched stunt work, as he wakes up from another drunken pill ridden stupor. A small heart and a 'hey dad!' come off much deeper and heartfelt than most will take in. Cleo's mother drops her off for a day and brings her by again a few days later for another visit, only to let Johnny know that she needs some time for herself and he has to get Cleo to summer camp in a week or so. Johnny doesn't know what to do. His capabilities only allow him to be a father for a few days, seven seems impossible, but he does his best and Cleo seems to understand and never once bring Johnny down for this.

Sofia plays around this idea beautifully. Long static shots of Johnny and Cleo doing mundane, everyday things shows us how much these two really love each other, even though neither is giving 110% towards any aspect. Guitar hero, eggs benedict, awkward Italy awards shows and a stunning sequence set to Julian Casablancas' "I'll Try Anything Once" of the two swimming, sunbathing and just goofing around pushes a slow, soft wave of melancholy that Sofia has grown so accustomed to bestowing upon us, enlightened even more with the absolutely amazing photography by the great Harris Savides.
  
Somewhere is a gem. Scenes with Johnny by himself play similarly close to Bill Murray in Lost in Translation, but when Cleo enters the picture, Somewhere becomes the gentle heartwarming father and daughter film that it is. A film that never knocks you off of your feet while viewing it, but latches on and hangs around well after the credits roll. A lovely examination of loneliness and dissatisfaction that lies within us all. With kids or without kids, famous or unknown, we all crave that well carved out purpose. Something so detailed and  precise that we never, ever have to question why we are here. Which is ridiculous, as we are all here for one thing, to please and satisfy ourselves. And sometimes, that path will hurt or damage others or ourselves, but we do it anyways, because we don't know how to do anything else.