Bought a Sonos home audio system. Unreal. With a Rhapsody account that basically comes with it, you can access practically every song ever produced and point it to any set of speakers in your house. It's an incredible party novelty... just hand someone a remote, and they have a blast picking tracks. Internet radio stations galore as well. I think I made it to the future.
In honor of the world of great music now at my finger tips, today's film is one that's both an incredible docu-drama and an effortless musical. Effortless to the extent that while the lead character, Ian Curtis of the band Joy Division, is writhing with trapped discomfort, his music just flows from his existence without question in a jerky march on the stage. Literally, the art of songwriting and the making of music don't even play a part in the film. Rather, a black and white look into the gray world of the tortured frontman of a band being squeezed between pre-alternative and post-punk. Sam Riley plays the emotional poet with eloquent distance while his music hums in your ears from near beginning to end... of his life. Early 80's emo as sh*t and as it gets. Though not referenced in the film, ultimately, guitarist Bernard Sumner took over vocals to dominate the late 80's as New Order.
A poster for this album, JD's Unknown Pleasures, is on the wall of my office. A younger associate, of whom, I totally look to for current music recommendations, as I rust, asked me what it was. He knows now. I told him to see the movie, Control.
