The last couple months have been good for those of us who grew up in the ’80s. Kate Bush, Depeche Mode and New Order recently put out some really great albums, and now Pet Shop Boys joins the fray.

The new album is called Fundamental and is pretty good. Great tracks like “Integral” and “Indefinite Leave To Remain” do something that only PSB can do: create dancy pop songs that cover touchy issue (immigration, ID cards, stupid leadership, war, etc). Reminds me of a lot of their Thatcher-era tracks (Let’s Make Lots Of Money, King’s Cross, etc). Their first single off the album is “I’m With Stupid”, but their original choice (“Minimal”) is a better track. (Though, IWS is a good rant againt Tony and George.)

Probably the edgiest track (if PSB can every be called edgy) is “Integral” (about government ID cards) which has this great refrain: “If you’ve done nothing wrong / you’ve got nothing to fear / if you’ve something to hide / you shouldn’t even be here”.

If you can, pick up the two disc set. It contains the Fundamental album, along with a remix CD called Fundamentalism (which includes two additional songs, which I think should have been included on the album–”Fugitive” is a great track). If you are a PSB fan, it’s worth getting the set. If you haven’t heard PSB, then you’d likely be better checking out one of their “Best Of” CDs first.

The North American release isn’t until June 27th, but you can pick up the Import now, if you are in a hurry.

So unreal and yet very much real life. 

For those who have ever worked in retail, you would relate so much to Rafael González (played by Guillermo Toledo) in this movie directed by Álex de la Iglesia from Spain.   Alex is very clever in the way he present the story.  It’s bigger then life and exploding with colours.  Each character bring a layer of complexity and in some cases simplity which adds a dimension of surrealism.

You’ll really feel the anxiety that Rafael is going through at his job.  Alex sucks you in to Rafael’s thoughts and emotions while all along you feel like you’re riding on a roller coaster not knowing when it’s going to come to an end.

Yes, there is a murder and it’s a perfect crime, I mean Crimen ferpecto.  This one will make your day. 

Sound’s strange. It’s Korean for a movie that I recent saw titled ”Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring” (International: English title) directed by Ki-duk Kim. 

This film I highly recommend for those wanting to escape the every day routine of work, living in a conjested area, dealing with noise and any other things that creates stress. 

The story is set in a breath taking landscape were you’ll experience the changes of the season and the simplicity of a home and it’s inhabitants.

It’s a story of young boy who lives with a monk in this secluded area. You’ll follow his growth and experiences as the season changes. 

The journey alone is enlightening but visually this movie is stunning.  The performances are so good this film hardly has any dialog.  The sound track is relaxing and calm allowing you to further dive into this environment.

Make your next movie night an adventure to another side of Korea.

We just finished watching an older (1984) documentary on Harvey Milk. It’s about the colorful and tragic story of a San Francisco gay activist during the late 1970′s. It’s a very moving story and well worth the rental. It really gives you more background on the gay rights movement–I learned a lot.

(I know I rave alot about Netflix, but this is one of the reasons: It’s got decent suggestions [a la Amazon] so you end up renting stuff you enjoy that you’d normally never think of renting. We’ve seen so many interesting movies because of this. Very cool.)

Also, when you watch this movie you’ll be very pissed off at the end. But remember that this was filmed in 1984 (about 6 years after the incident). After you’re done watching, do a Wikipedia search on Dan White. You’ll find that karma (good and bad) has a way of catching up to you.

As you might have heard, we currently get about 5 TV stations down here (and two of them are duplicates), so we end up watching a lot of movies. We have Netflix down here (which is a great service, in my opinion), but we only get three movies at a time…and since we get them shipping from NJ, they sometimes take a couple days to get here.

So, we just ordered some “box sets” from Amazon: 50 Movie Pack Horror Classics and 50 Movie Pack Mystery Classics. Yep, that’s right, each set comes with 50 movies (on 12 DVDs). The best part is the price: Each set runs under $25.

Now don’t go expecting grade A movies here. These are all old B movies, some in color, some in B&W. Some are stupid, many are decent. Some are “talkies” some are silent. The quality is okay for the most part, but do go expecting Dolby DTS Surrount. Heck, for less than 50 cents a movie you can’t complain that much.

So, if you are stuck in the campo, or just want some cheap old movies to watch, you can’t go too horribly wrong with these sets. Heck, even if you liked even only one movie it’s still only $25. If your dad is anything like mine or Evelyn’s, they will love these sets. It’s a good way to unwind after a long day of work.

We saw one of Hitchcock’s best, Strangers On A Train, the other day. It’s about two strangers who meet on a train (duh!) and end up talking about who they would like to get “out of the way”. What evolves is an tense thriller based on the idea of a “criss-cross” murder scheme–except that only one of the guys agrees with the plan. It’s a lot of fun to watch, especially the over-the-top merry-go-round scene.

Word of advice: If a guy named Bruno starts talking to you, run away from the creepy freak! (The actor, Robert Walker, did a great job of being a whacko. Unfortunately, in real life, he ended up having a nervous breakdown and dying of an accidental overdose. He really looks like another actor I know…plays a lot of evil guys…but I can’t place his name.)

Roger Ebert has a good in-depth review @ RogerEbert.Com.

(A nice thing about being part of the US is that we get regular USPS service. So, we were able to start up our Netflix account again. We end up getting our movies almost as fast as we did in Chicago, even though they come from New Jersey! I highly recommend Netflix.)

One thing that I hate about the iPod (besides the fact that they “force” you to use iTunes) is that you can’t pull music off the damn thing. With all my PCs in storage, all my music was locked up on the iPod. I guess they figure that no one ever upgrades PCs–or has more than one iPod. (The whole “just download it from iTunes again” thing is stupid. First, I’m not on a fast connection anymore. Second, I’ve never bought everything from iTunes. It’s all my personal CDs that I ripped.)

One of the handiest pieces of software I’ve found for the iPod is called SharePod. It, god forbid, allows you to transfer your MP3s off of the dang thing. Now I can pull down everything to my laptop, and finally get music from one iPod (my dying 40 GB) to another (my Nano).

It’s the little things that keep me happy (and annoy me).

For those of you who might not know, Kate Bush is one of my favorite artists. She finally came out with a new album (after 10!!! years) and it’s good. I was glad to see that it went platinum (300k sold) after 4 weeks. Maybe that will prompt her to put out an album more frequently. For those Chicago people, I’m sure there’s some Kate out on the “X:” drive, if you want to check her out. Hounds of Love is probably a good album to start with.

Why do I bring this up? Because we were playing the new album (Aerial) earlier today. Ev’s dad comes in and sits down. We ask him if he wants to watch TV. Nope. And he proceeds to listen to the entire album. (Keep in mind, that he speaks mostly Spanish.) That’s the power of K8.