08.25.08 My Top Ten: Right Now

1. “Elegy”

This little gem of a film is far from perfect, and yet it totally captured and captivated me.  Where the story failed time and again, the performances from Penelope Cruz, Ben Kingsley and Patricia Clarkson carried me through from beginning to end, as did the fantastic soundtrack with its mix of melancholy piano, jazz and Latin music.

2. Doris Day “Day By Night”

Ok, let me set the scene.  It’s mid-afternoon, the late summer sun slowly moving below the tall buildings.  A soft cool wind blows through the streets of NYC.  Doris Day croons “Dream a Little Dream” into my ears, accompanied by lush brassy orchestrations.  I turn the corner, and come upon hordes of freshmen moving into the NYU dorms.  The world slows a bit, my pace slows a bit, and I lose myself in the gorgeous sentimentality of this album…

3. The Duhks “Migrations”

So I probably should be writing about this band’s excellent new album, “Fast Paced World,” but I find myself constantly drawn back to their 2006 release, “Migrations.” Throw bluegrass, blues, traditional folk, Irish, gospel and Tracy Chapman (oh yeah, they cover “Mountains O’ Things”) into a blender and you get an infectious album that makes me happy at any moment of any day.

4. “Man on Wire“

Admittedly I wanted to hate this film.  From the mostly recycled overly dramatic Michael Nyman score to the reenactments that I couldn’t help laugh at, it was a recipe of attempted Errol Morris disaster.  But I was completely overtaken by the wealth of emotion, heart and friendship that it took to make one man’s dream come true.  If this movie doesn’t inspire someone to follow his or her dreams, they might as well be dead inside…

5. “Watchmen” by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

After two weeks in a row of not understanding the covers of my Entertainment Weekly, I got very flustered (I had no clue what “Twilight” was and was only vaguely familiar with “Watchmen.”)  So I decided to educate myself only to find that this graphic novel is an amazing piece of literature, to the point that I’m a little worried about what Zack Snyder will do to the movie…

6. “Blindness” by Jose Saramago

I attempt to read as much source material as possible before a big movie adaptation comes out.  With the fall now being Oscar-bait season, it’s become a nearly impossible feat.  But Saramago’s text was a must for me, and well worth the time it takes to read all that text without punctuation.  He paints such a grim and all too believable vision for our modern times.

7. The benches along the Hudson River at sunset

So this really isn’t culturally relevant, but life doesn’t get much better than sitting in the park off of the West Side Highway watching day turn to blue night.  And if the pollution over Jersey is just right, you see the most amazing colors. Besides, with Time Warner Center blocking the sun in Central Park after 4pm, one has to find somewhere to catch those last few rays…

8. Mary McCormack in “Boeing-Boeing”

This performance is so unbelievably over the top as Ms. McCormack skewers a German flight attendant in the Broadway farce “Boeing-Boeing.”  She pushes her performance to such an extreme that I couldn’t help but let the belly-laughs roll.  It was a lovely reminder that overblown stage comedy can still work. 

9. Season 5 of Project Runway on Bravo

This hasn’t been the best season.  In fact, it’s been rather dull. I’ve never seen a more poorly dressed group of drag queens walk down a runway in my life (hmmm… that might not be entirely true).  But even at its worst, PR is better than most any other bit of summer TV.

10. Penelope Cruz (right now, not then)

I’m not sure she really deserve two mentions in one column, but I can’t seem to get over how much she’s grown into a fantastic actress.  Her career has finally dropped the attempt to become an American superstar (Sahara, Corelli’s Mandolin) in favor of a return to intelligent and passionate women from the good old days when she didn’t speak English.  I breathed a huge sigh of relief when she appeared on screen mid-way through Woody Allen’s “Vicky Christina Barcelona.”  She gave the film the shot in the arm it needed!