'When I Was Born For The 7th Time'

I remember seeing the video for "Brimful of Asha" at my mother's house a year or so before going to college. There was something I liked, but there was even more that I thought was missing.

In hindsight, I wonder if it was my first ever real exposure to independent music that sounded like independent music. I'd heard of unsigned bands constantly. But nothing that had the aesthetic of Cornershop or Belle and Sebastian.

The album is interesting mostly because none of it really sounds like "Brimful of Asha." It's a mishmash of hip-hop beats, turntable scratching and a host of Indian staples from the tabla and the sitar. The founding brothers are actually of Asian descent although growing up in England. Although never leaving behind their ancestral sounds and picking up hip-hop beats, the pair fully embraced the sensibilities of the Stone Roses and Oasis to pair the sweet of the sour.

'Down By Law'

I expected absolutely nothing out of this film and was pleasantly surprised by what transpired. All this due to Stranger Than Paradise.

Expecting 90 minutes of pompous pointless dialogue and Tom Waits being Tom Waits, I was given a story with compelling characters and a plot that moved and remained animated.

I still think Waits was caught being Tom Waits, which can happen. It's not like he knows how to "act" in the strictest of senses. He was probably just playing a disc jockey turned set-up con as he would play a milk man, farmer or Wall Street day trader. John Lurie, another musician, although way less popular, fit as the more natural fight in front of the camera.

My favorite Jim Jarmusch appearance is in the HBO show, Bored to Death, starring Jason Schwartzman as a struggling writer, who takes to being a private detective not unlike Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler's mysteries.

In one episode, Schwartzman's agent, played by Ted Danson, gets Schwartzman an opportunity to write a screenplay for a Jarmusch film. When he belatedly goes to turn in his screenplay, Jarmusch is found inside a largely empty loft riding a bicycle in circles.

If he doesn't do this, he should.

'Happiness'

Todd Solondz makes me sad. It is frightening and disturbing to watch his movies. They're a train wreck. They are a neverending series of circus freakdom, the world's physically and emotionally deformed.

He makes extremely 1990s films. The 1990s -- extremely underrated for being impeccably lame, some sort of bastardization of the 1980s -- was a soulless era. The style and the pop culture was a sort of evolution of 1980s culture. But at least the 1980s had pizazz. There was dancing. The 1990s was full of self-loathing as Generation X came of age and entered adulthood.
Meanwhile, everyone was desperately trying to be cool and it got out of hand. Solandz captures this desperation. It went, of course, beyond clothes and music, all of which soiled everything from art to religion. Happiness was released in 1998. However, he captures 1993 perfectly in all of his movies. Maybe its the wardrobe or the sickening provincialism and snobbery, despite being completely desperate and sad.

In this world, there is the slightly chubby, sexually frustrated young boy seeking his fist orgasm. His dad, the pedophile. His aunt, the professionally frustrated youngish woman, with no prospects in either her personal or professional life. His grandparents, who find themselves bored with their lives, but without the drive to be alone or seek other partnerships. His other aunt, the successful writer, who pines to live the sexually degrading exploits of her characters and who is obsessed upon by her neighbor, the overweight, socially awkward Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

There are poignant moments for each. The sister walking to work as a teacher, getting rotten fruit and vegetables thrown at her as someone crossing the picket line. The father who admits that he abuses young boys, but only "jerks off" at the thought of his son. The moment that Hoffman's character ejaculates on the wall, only to place a postcard on the wall for it to stick.

Then the boy. Walks into the dining room on Thanksgiving having reached orgasm on the balcony, and tells the family that he came.

If it weren't completely despressing, you might life.

'Bossanova' & 'Surfer Rosa' & 'Doolittle'

Shoot you straight here: These are three albums released in three consecutive years by a little indie rock band out of Boston.

They came. They conquered. Then they dissipated into the thin air.

The Pixies are a billion times bigger than they actually are. They have a greatest hits records without any hits. They can play medium-sized venues without being popular. They are rock stars despite the fact that most can't name the lead guitarist and drummer and the lead singer is an overweight guy with a bald head.

The Pixies defy all logic and expectations. They are probably the only group to have a hiatus at the peak of their popularity and break up for 11 years after opening for U2.

They can't get a song on the radio, they are unaccessible to a majority of people and they're grumpy as hell. Still, they are the Pixies and I dare anyone to listen to these three unremarkably remarkable records and not think that they don't have any value.

'Tigermilk'

One of my friends from my formative years went to the University of North Texas to study film. Following graduation, he left for Hollywood and has been there ever since.

We communicate mostly over Facebook and e-mail. Periodically, we correspond and ask each other what we are listening to.

Just two weeks ago, he said he had been listening to a bunch of indie rock from the 1990s like The Pixies and Sonic Youth. He couldn't believe that he was listening to so much crap at the time with all this brilliant, life-changing music all around us. We were too wrapped up in teenage wannabe punk rock and ska groups. We thought we had it figured out.

Like all good music lovers, we aged and matured. Our tastes along with it. It's quite the transformation. As if our love for music had gone to war and seen action and come home changed, old, wise and poignant.

Belle and Sebastian's debut album took three days to record and only 1,000 copies were originally printed for sale.

One song was used in the film, Juno, so you know it's indie rock.

Slowly, they've become one of my favorite bands. Twenty-five years after the fact. Here's to growing up.

'Trust' & 'Stranger Than Paradise'

I coupled these two seemingly distant films because they are both highly-regarded early independent films. You know. Back when independent films just sucked.

I've got to be honest: I liked neither. But I get it. I get why they are important because without them, dudes like Kevin Smith don't exist. Then there are a million less gay Kevin Smith fans. And maybe Kevin Smith doesn't have the very real weight problem that no one's really willing to talk about.

Independent films are basically based on the idea that you can spend the least amount of money to tell a story. Now, these directors would like you think they're saying something by making movies where there is no real plot, so-so writing and these angry, disillusioned characters.

The reality is that they don't have the money to pay actual talented people to make or be in their films so they come off as such. It's a genre of convenience, at times.

'Paris, Texas'

I had read before watching this film that it was a favorite of rock musicians Kurt Cobain and Elliott Smith.

Not only did they have similar movie tastes, but both struggled mightily with substance abuse, grew up and became famous in the same time period and eventually killed themselves.

They also had famalial issues. "Paris, Texas" is wrought with mommy issues. It's perfect for Smith and Cobain.

More interestingly, I wonder what their favorite comedies were?

'My Own Private Idaho'

This movie ain't nearly as good as everyone would like to think. It's the River Phoenix effect, I know. Young, brilliant talent struck down by our modern-day epidemic far too early.

Blah, blah, blah.

For one, Keanu Reeves can't act. I know it's a known thing. However, he keeps getting acting gigs. How is this possible?

Two, a good debate came about when discussing Phoenix had he not croaked in a gutter ODing on heroin.

How would he be regarded today? Would he be a Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp too cool for school type? Would he be a Keanu Reeves? In 2009, is Phoenix doing Disney familiy adventure films? Would he be making serious, well-acted films and be regarded as one of the best in the business (like Phillip Seymour Hoffman or Daniel Day Lewis)?

Nobody can know that. Frankly, I wasn't too knocked out by Phoenix in this film. But I still he has significantly more chops than Reeves and probably just as many as Pitt (in all but two or three films he plays himself).

It's still interesting talk.

'Slacker'

Girl: "Sorry I'm late. I mean ..."

Girl 2: "That's alright. Time doesn't exist."

Richard Linklater is interesting.



On one hand, he can direct some of the most wandering and listless independent films like "Slacker" or "Waking Life." And these just aren't independent films. Most people would find these films ridiculously obnoxious with no point or plot.



Then Linklater can go out and direct "Newton Boys," "School of Rock" and "Bad News Bears." If you watched all five movies, you'd never really think that the same guy directed all five.



Then he's capable of "Dazed and Confused," which is a legit amalgamation of both styles (the random conversations and the way the camera serves as a fly with ADD).



I think it's more remarkable that he can do both kind of films rather than doing the more independent-style films.

'My Winnipeg'

The problem I face with watching, reading and listening to the 1,001 films, books and records I should watch, read and listen to before I die is that each year, more and more records, books and films are added to the list.

But an "official" list is not put out every year. So I take some of the "best" of that year and add them on. Unofficially.

"My Winnipeg" is unofficially a film I should watch before I die.

But I'm certainly glad I did. It's a low budget artsy house film about a guy's divorce from his hometown, Winnipeg.

And it's great. It's especially great if you yourself grew up in a town that had no identity or had an identity but let it fall apart. Also, there are the fascinating and almost unbelievable anecdotes and tidbits that every town has. These are the things that you tell other people and they can't fathom that happening.

The "What If ..." day and the horses freezing the river come to mind.