Daily Loaf

Routes Music is a documentary film acting as a roving music census, taking in the true musical passions (and disgusts) of the American people. We’re traveling all across the country, stopping along the way to interview local bands, take footage of live performances and chat with anyone and everyone. Learn more about the documentary here; check out all previous entries here.

We met Mushroom Montoya in Long Beach after a long, hard day on Malibu Beach. A practicing “modern shaman” for nearly three decades, Montoya views music as more than entertainment: he uses it for healing the mind, body and spirit. His tools are the drum and the didgeridoo, a hollowed-out pole that, when blown into, sounds like a nest of idle bees. Montoya’s choice of the didgeridoo is no accident; the instrument is said to be man’s first wind instrument dating back thousands of years. Aboriginal shamans in Australia used the didgeridoo in their own rituals and ceremonies.

Well, it just so happened that Phil was complaining of congestion, so Montoya took out one of his three didgeridoos to help clear our crew member’s sinuses. Watch the video below: Read the rest of this entry »

This week, life threw a massive curve ball at Creative Loafing Media. Taken over by the NYC-based hedge fund to whom we owed a ton of money, each employee processed the news in a different way: sadness, optimism, relief. Me? I got shit-faced. On great wine. I figured if my family’s legacy is going down [my parents founded Creative Loafing and my brother was CEO until last Tuesday], I should consume voluminous amounts of quality juice. Fast. However, the questioned remained … which ones? So many choices, so little time to race and get to the promised land.

Obviously, I needed something high in alcohol. These sorts of wines emerge from hot areas, where the grapes grow fat with sugar and the resulting wine has more punch (sugar converts to alcohol in fermentation). Napa, Sonoma, Barossa Valley (Australia), Washington State (yes, there are areas where it isn’t miserably rainy), and a host of other delicious choices for the perfect Zen state of non-thought. Read the rest of this entry »

A lot of good Gasparilla video on YouTube. I enjoyed this one, a floats-eye-view of the parade.

• Keeping tabs on the never-ending stimulus debate.
• Republican leader Michael Steele almost went a whole week before having to clear his “good name.”

More news after the break … Read the rest of this entry »

After opening last year with In Bruges, a film packed with star power and scheduled to open in theaters the following weekend, Sundance has chosen this year to open edgy and unpredictable. It is not just that Mary and Max is an independent claymation flick from Australia, with a darkly comic theme about a lonely and misunderstood 8-year-old girl who strikes up an unlikely and disturbing correspondence and friendship with a 48-year-old overweight depressive male diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome. What was truly unexpected was the moving power of its simple message, achieved without resorting to sentimentalism or cliché.

The film, apparently based on a true story, plays like Wallace and Gromit conceived by Oliver Sacks and imagined by David Lynch and Robert Crumb. The animated characters, who tend to be overweight with exaggerated melancholy expressions, are nevertheless enormously expressive – and the film seamlessly shifts from the muted colors of the rundown Australian suburb where Mary lives to the expressive black and white of Max’s New York City. Read the rest of this entry »

Comin’ at ya: Disney’s Beauty and the Beast to be re-released in 2010 in 3-D.

Stiller the one: New photos from the set of the sequel to Night at the Museum. Plus shots of Amy Adams as Amelia Earhart.

Shaking and stirring Bond: Quantum of Solace producers talk about bringing 007 back to his roots, casting Daniel Craig as the iconic spy and the meaning of the new James Bond title.

A Marvel-ous assignment: Chronicles of Narnia screenwriters are in talks to pen the upcoming Captain America.

Drop outs: Directors of Jonah Hex, an adaptation of the D.C. comic-book, have moved on.

Barbie-skewered: Aussie critics have their first crack at Baz Luhrmann’s epic, Australia. Read Variety’s full review.

Young gun: The OC, Gossip Girl creator to write X-Men: First Class.

The Butler did it: Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler to costar in Goree Girls.

Sneak preview: Slashfilm saw a 20-minute screening of the new Star Trek and has a detailed assessment.

It bites: Ropeofsilicon reviews the teenage vampire flick Twilight.