Le Scaphandre et le papillon

Hands down one of the best films I've seen in a handful. "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" is a true story of Elle editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, who suffered a stroke causing him to be almost fully paralyzed apart from his left eye. Through family, transcribers and doctors, Bauby uses his left eye to blink a memoir describing "the aspects of his interior world, from the psychological torment of being trapped inside his body to his imagined stories from lands he'd only visited in his mind" (imdb). See the trailer here

Aside from the brilliant cinematography, the actors involved and the numerous awards that this film has secured (including a Golden Globe for best director), the music was sterling. Not only serving as the director, Julian Schnabel also supervised the films soundtrack. Watching the film and noticing the pastel layout of colors along with the surf and ocean scenes coupled perfectly with Tom Waits, Lou Reed and some grunge from the days forgotten, I immediately thought of another movie, "Basquiat". After making a trip to IMDB, it was no surprise that Schnabel also wrote and directed "Basquiat" He also composed the soundtrack's original music with John Cale, the man responsible for the now notorious "Hallelujah."

Anywhoo...Go see the film (or both!) and get the soundtrack(s). The Diving Bell and The Butterfly's bloated soundtrack is full of Lou Reed, traditional French gems from the 40s and 50s, The Dirtbombs, obscure(ish) U2, classic Tom Waits, Joe Strummer, Bach, and Ultra Orange and Emmanuelle. Speaking of...
The Velvet Underground - Pale Blue Eyes

Ultra Orange and Emmanuelle - Don't Kiss Me Goodbye

New Decemberists Cover Velvet Underground

The Juno Soundtrack was the "Garden State" of the past few years. A pretty damn-strong soundtrack that served our highschoolers, college boys and girls with some of the great indie staples they may have missed out on while focusing on Beyonce, Bush, No Doubt or Modest Mouse only a few years before. Juno re-introduced the younger masses to acts like Mott The Hoople, Kimaya Dawson and her Moldy Peaches, The Velvet Underground, Belle and Sebastian and some Sonic Youth. The Juno soundtrack really didn't debut any new songs, it reminded us what needs to be re-added to our iPods.

Portland's The Decemberists are about to release another album and having listened to it in it's entirety, I'm now assuming Meloy and Co. are one of the few bands that just don't put out an average album. They didn't get the memo about the notorious one-hit wonder phase and they overlooked putting out a weak sophomore album. Maybe their last album in 32 years will suck.

Anywhoo, The Decemberists are set to release a handful of singles through their Always The Brides Maid: A Singles Series from Capitol Records. A few are currently available through their site, iTunes or ThinkIndie.com. One released single covers Lou Reed's 1976 bootleg called "I'm Sticking With You," which resurfaced in early 2008 thanks to Juno and Velvet Underground. Seriously, take a listen to this and then get the rest of the singles for yourself...it really is another strong output from the Portland quintet.

The Decemberists - I'm Sticking With You

Here's the Velvet Underground version