This Guest Track is courtesy of A. Mantle, a friend, a scholar and a music enthusiast. If you’d like to contribute to the Guest Track series, send an e-mail to guesttrack@thecorch.com.

I envy Glen Hansard’s voice. Listening to his voice is often a cathartic experience for me, so I imagine that it’s pretty amazing to actually sing with it. It must also be useful to have his voice when you’ve had a bad day, or when you wonder about the point of life.

I can just see it; a long line at the grocery store, Glen’s running late and he’s not happy; Glen get’s into his car, throws back his head and howls: I had to waaaaiiiitttttt REAL LONG, I had to waaaaaiiiiittttttt REEEAAAALLLLLL LONG……..to get my food…..to get my foooooood, and just like that, he’s feeling better.

Seriously though, the almost over the top emotionalism in Glen’s music is what thrills me. Everything is a big deal to him. Since I tend to live my own life in that fashion, I’m thankful that someone else can appreciate this view of reality.

Leave is one of Hansard’s masterpieces. This song is a temper tantrum set to music. I’m amazed to think that so much passion and energy are possible with only an acoustic guitar. I think that you will be too.

Leave

I came to know Belle & Sebastian a few years before their breakthrough release, Dear Catastrophe Waitress, came out in North America. I remember listening to an Internet radio station looking for some new music with Fox in the Snow came on. I must’ve stopped and thought, “What is this?” because at some point, on a day later, I bought a copy of If You’re Feeling Sinister. And then the band’s complete back catalog.

Fox in the Snow

Fox in the Snow is everything that I love about Belle & Sebastian, and music in general. It’s a beautifully written story punctuated with wonderfully simple and concise music. I like the way that the song builds upon itself, musically, yet it maintains that stripped down feeling of a very simple folk song. And if Belle & Sebastian’s musical chops are sufficiently demonstrated on a song like Fox in the Snow, have a listen to some of their other stuff. Their more recent releases, which are decidedly more upbeat and produced, are a departure from tracks like Fox in the Snow but still showcase a wonderfully talented band.

Belle & Sebastian are possibly my favourite band, so choosing a track was difficult but since Fox in the Snow was the first one I heard it holds a certain sentimental value, too. Check it out.

Truly, An Education wasn’t what I expected it would be going in.

To be fair, it was probably my fault. Concerned about sexual content, I looked it up on some family-oriented movie review sites. The kind of sites that warn parents about inappropriate material in films, and tell you which to stay far away from.

This particular website described An Education as pretty terrible. In not so many words, it said that the film was about a young girl being seduced by an older man who wanted to have sex with her. It said that the majority of the film surrounded this attempt, by the older man, to get the younger girl to have intercourse with him. It said that that was essentially the point of the film. I had my own reservations as well. Having recently seen Crazy Heart, I was still smarting from the classic Hollywood older man is swooned by much younger woman fantasy that that film let play out. An Education seemed like it would be much the same. But, as I’d find out, it wasn’t all about sex and it wasn’t just that same old Hollywood story.

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Those that know me well know that I love everything about the British royals—the Monarchy—so I approach a cinematic offering like The Young Victoria ready to just devour it. I’m happy to say that this film is a feast that doesn’t disappoint.

I should clarify. I do love the royals, but more than that, I love a good historical biopic film. The Young Victoria is exactly that: a dramatization of just what the name implies—the life of the young Queen Victoria. The beginning of the film covers Victoria’s growing up, her aging uncle, the King, and the power struggle that surrounded her eventual rise to the throne. Once she assumes the throne—and I hope I’m not spoiling this for anyone but she does become Queen—the rest of the film follows her settling into power, her mistakes and missteps, her personal life and, of course, her falling in love.

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God Help the Girl is the latest project from Belle & Sebastian frontman Stuart Murdoch. If you haven’t heard the full story behind the group, allow me. God Help the Girl is essentially the soundtrack to a film that hasn’t come out yet. According to Murdoch, he’s had the idea for this film for some time and on the heels of Belle & Sebastian’s last record, The Life Pursuit, he began placing ads for female singers to join him on the project. After scouring applications and deciding on a final line-up, God Help the Girl went into the studio to record. The result, along with an EP titled Stills, was this full-length self-titled record. The film, according to Murdoch, is still in the works but until  then we have this album and, in a word, it’s absolutely charming. I guess that’s two words.

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The Gathering Storm (2002) and Into the Storm (2009) are the first and second parts of an HBO-produced made-for-television movie series on the life of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. While they’re two very separate movies, with entirely different casts, produced seven years apart I think a review of them, in contrast and comparison, is the best approach to take.
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