This is the second recent documentary about bees and beekeeping that i've seen and reviewed, the other being Vanishing of the Bees. As you might expect, there are lots of overlaps between the two, such as the appearance in both of biodynamic beekeeper Gunther Hauk and of Michael Pollan, a leading critic of corporate food systems and factory farming. Both films target monoculture farming and associated practices, including pesticide use, as root causes of the "colony collapse disorder" which has become a major threat to bee populations in the past decade or so. Both regard the plight of the bees as a "canary in the coal mine" which should warn us that our own health is endangered by current agrobusiness practices. Both recommend that we find a healthier way to interact with bees, and give examples of better beekeeping practices. Both also delve into the cultural and spiritual aspects of beekeeping, along with its ancient and recent history.

The main difference is that Vanishing of the Bees focusses strongly on the problems of people involved in the large-scale industrial beekeeping business, who (since they can't make a living selling honey) are forced to truck hives of bees across the country to provide pollination services to the California almond industry and similar operations. Based on their point of view, that film has a strong narrative structure, tracing the course of the investigation into the cause of colony collapse disorder, and arriving near the end at a specific kind of systemic pesticide as the culprit.

Queen of the Sun has a more meandering structure which does not keep any specific subject in focus for very long, but gives more screen time to the beekeeping practices with are (in both films) presented as more healthy and natural alternatives to the conventional industrial approach. If you like this more vague and relaxed approach, it will work for you better than Vanishing of the Sun; if you like the investigative approach, you may find Queen of the Sun too rambling. But the take-home messages of the two films are so similar that if you've seen one, you won't learn very much from the other. I would certainly recommend seeing either one or the other if you care about the way we humans relate to the natural world, especially in connection with food.

Thomas Cleary, along with his brother J.C., made the definitive English translation of the Blue Cliff Record decades ago, and it is among the essential works for students of the Chinese Zen classics. "Secrets of the Blue Cliff Record" is valuable for those readers because it provides an alternative translation of the main cases, and often of Hsueh Tou's verses and Yuan Wu's introductions as well -- which is helpful because no single translation into English can capture the whole meaning of the original Chinese text. The comments by Japanese masters Hakuin and Tenkei are also helpful, not least because they often disagree with each other about what's going on between the dialogue partners in the main cases. Their comments are not always up to the level of those in the original text, but they do help to keep the reader alert and alive to significances that otherwise might be missed. But i wouldn't recommend this book to someone who hasn't already struck up an acquaintance with the prior translation of the complete Blue Cliff Record text.

I've listened for many years to all the Oysterband i could get my hands on, and this album is my favorite of them all. R. Hutchinson's review has already summed up its spirit, but i'd like to add some specific comments.

The folk-punk/prophetic/protest songs on this record, power-driven by the compelling rhythm riding on Chopper's muscular bass lines, are among the best of their kind: Uncommercial Song, Shouting About Jerusalem, Wayfaring. These songs bring out the irony of the cover graphic being dominated by a huge barcode. The personal impulse behind this kind of critical social comment comes out in My Mouth: "it wants a taste of freedom, it wants everything ... " But there's another, maybe more universal counterpoint to this in the spiritual journey to which we are called by songs like The Soul's Electric, Everybody's Leaving Home, Rise Above, and (again) Wayfarer, with its ending that takes off in a whole new direction. And capping it all off is the stunning a capella harmony of the traditional song Bright Morning Star.

We are all on a journey of exploration in these times, and indeed "you find your own way", but you can't find a better soundtrack than this.

The Tempest is Shakespeare's last great play, and i've been hoping that eventually someone would take advantage of the advances in cinematic technology to bring its magic to the screen as effectively as Peter Jackson and crew did with Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Julie Taymor is just the director to achieve this, and the visual effects in this film are everything one could hope for and more, especially considering the budget limitations which ruled out elaborate CGI. The next question is whether this film could be equally successful in rendering the psychological turmoil and interpersonal conflicts which revolve around the magician at the centre of the play. And the answer, for me, is that this film is _dramatically_ the most powerful version of The Tempest that i've seen on stage or screen.

The decision to cast the wronged magician Prospero as a woman was bound to raise eyebrows, but Helen Mirren's performance as Prospera blows away all doubts on that score. It is masterful in every way, especially in its embodiment of her struggle against the dark side of her own power. The rest of the cast is equally good, and i would single out Ben Whishaw's Ariel as a revelation. I've seen some good stage Ariels, but never before one who is so totally convincing as a powerful and shapeshifting being whose volatile moods are expressed in every move, thanks not not only to the imaginative visual effects but also to Whishaw's performance as an actor.

All the human characters, including Caliban, likewise come across as real people with real motivations and realistic reactions to the situations they find themselves in -- even the young lovers Miranda and Ferdinand, whose idealism is difficult to flesh out, especially in a play which revolves so much around political intrigue, murderous lust for power and revenge. The more comic characters are hilarious too, although this production brings out the parallel between their plot against Prospera and the plot against the king of Naples, so the "dark side" is never far below the surface.

I can't say how this film would come across to someone totally new to Shakespeare, or to this play, but i was totally absorbed in the story on first viewing -- and in reflecting on it afterwards, i'm amazed at how well Taymor and the whole cast have used Shakespeare's words to enhance the power of the experience. They have certainly not treated the language of the play as an untouchable relic; the gender change of Prospero to Prospera required some (surprisingly minor) changes to the dialogue and the back story. And like most good productions of Shakespeare, they have dropped parts of the text that don't move the story forward or contribute immediately to character development or atmosphere. But it all comes across so seamlessly that even someone familiar with the text will hardly notice the omissions or changes, except maybe the lines inserted into Shakespeare's blank verse to deal with the gender change. And those unfamiliar with Shakespearean language should have little trouble following what's being said and probably won't notice how much of it _is_ blank verse.

In short, this is the Tempest i've been waiting for, the one that finally marries the magic of Shakespeare's imagination with the magic of film, and i hope everyone will revel in it as much as i do. And by the way, the blu-ray picture is gorgeous (thanks especially to the location on a Hawaiian island), and (as usual with Taymor's films) the extras are substantial, informative and entertaining in themselves.

This unique film has been extravagantly praised by A.O. Scott of the New York Times, so i won't do that here. I'll just try to explain why you might want to see a 90-minute contemplation of a remote village in the mountains of Calabria, viewed mostly in long shots, with long takes during which the camera hardly moves, with no dialogue and no spoken narrative, in which hardly anything happens except the simple routines of daily life. My explanation will not succeed, but i have to say something.

First, although this film is the very opposite of an action movie, some things happen in it that you have to see to believe. I'm reluctant to say what they are (no spoilers here), but i can say that the distinction between documentary and drama is demolished by this film. Does this kind of thing happen all the time way back in the Italian mountains, and the filmmaker was lucky enough to capture it -- or was it scripted, and he somehow got it performed with totally authentic spontaneity? We have no way of knowing from this disc, as there is no making-of included. In fact there are no extras at all, except a few stills and the trailer -- which, unlike the film itself, does have a voice-over, and does help to explain the idea behind the film (and its title).

As far as voices are concerned, this is practically a silent movie -- when the villagers talk to each other we are too far away to catch what they are saying (even if we knew the language). There is no music either, unless you count church bells and goat bells. Yet the soundtrack is an absolutely vital part of the film. Again, you have to hear it for yourself to see why.

The action here, if we can call it that, is viewed from a distance, with the crucial exception of the four main characters: a very old goatherder, a very young goat (we actually witness its birth), a very large tree, and a mound of charcoal. The story -- and the film does have a definite story -- follows each of these, in the order i've given, often with intimate close-ups. There is something about the contrast and juxtaposition between these close-ups and the broad view of simple village life that accounts for the mysterious effect of this wordless experience. It not only erases the boundary between documentary and drama, but also the boundary between the sacred and the mundane.

As for the format, i can certainly recommend blu-ray because you need high definition to make out the details in the many long shots, which is important since the film gives you plenty of time to contemplate these scenes. Then there are those intimate details, which you might not even notice ordinarily, that take on deep significance here ... if you value both the contemplative and the unusual among films, i can recommend this one whole-heartedly.

I haven't seen this film in 3D, but short of that, blu-ray is the ideal format for it. Some of the paintings in the Chauvet Cave in France are 32,000 years old but look as if they were done yesterday, and by an excellent artist too. The cave has been kept in its pristine condition since it was discovered in 1994 by excluding all human traffic except a few scientists -- and now Herzog's film crew, who made the most of their opportunity to document this amazing art.

Herzog also interviews some of the scientists and cave explorers involved, intercutting the interview footage with shots of the cave walls. We begin to imagine what it was like to live in an ice age among mammoth, rhinoceros, lions and cave bears, and freely roaming horses. The drawings of these creatures in the cave convey an intimate acquaintance with them, and the background information supplied in the earlier part of the film prepares us so that the lingering contemplations of the art later on have their maximum effect, enhanced by slow movement of camera and lights which bring out the subtle details. The result is a hair-raising sense of connection with our Cro-Magnon ancestors.

In addition to his flair for documenting very special places, Werner Herzog also excels at combining them with special music. Here he calls upon Ernst Reijseger, whose mix of improvised cello and wordless choral singing suits the film very well. It's not quite classical, not quite sacred music, not quite avant-garde, but finds a space near enough to all of these to enhance the sense of strangeness and awe which the cave itself inspires. As he did with Grizzly Man, Herzog includes here a "making of" the soundtrack. Other extras or commentary tracks would be superfluous. This film is a must-see if you want to get a sense of prehistoric humanity.

I should perhaps mention that the version i obtained (thanks to a gift certificate) came from Amazon.com and combines 3D and regular Blu-ray on one disc (along with the extras); the Blu-ray version available from Amazon.ca may be slightly different, though i doubt it.

This film is a kind of triple biopic, recreating a crucial period in the lives of psychoanalytic pioneers Freud, Jung and Sabina Spielrein in a manner that shows great respect for historical accuracy. But the interplay between the three, as played by Mortenson, Fassbender and Knightley, is so riveting that it comes across as a subtle and moving psychological masterpiece, not a museum piece.

I came to it having read a bit of Freud and a bit more of Jung, and was vaguely acquainted with their points of disagreement, but i was completely unprepared for the revelation of how their respective theories were shaped by their relationships, especially by Jung's relationship with Spielrein. Christopher Hampton's concise script and Cronenberg's impeccable direction create a vivid space in which the three leads, along with Sarah Gadon as Jung's wife and Vincent Cassel as Otto Gross, become living personalities grappling with challenges that are no less real today. It all looks beautiful on blu-ray, too! The result is a hugely entertaining film, and one you'll want to see again, just to witness (and maybe share in) the titanic struggles of soul that both Spielrein and Jung went through.

I've loved Cronenberg's more far-out creations such as Videodrome, The Fly, and Naked Lunch, but i'd have to say this is his best work yet. There's not much in the way of extras on this disk, but the edited interviews with him and the actors show how he's honed his art to the point that he's in complete control but also has complete trust in his actors. This is the perfect story for that kind of technique, as it creates just the right atmosphere for the whole film -- in a way, it's all about the psychological ambiguities and ambivalences of control (including self-control). A flawless work of art about people with fascinating flaws.

The liner notes for this col legno/ Musica Viva release tell us that both performances were "recorded live" in 2001 and 2002. Since there is no audible trace of an audience present, i think this probably means that each was recorded in a single take. In any case, both performances gloriously confirm that although Feldman died in 1987, his music is very much alive.

Like his friend John Cage, Feldman devoted his art to the direct immediacy of the listener's experience. They saw it as a problem (and a lost opportunity) that we tend to fall into habits of hearing music through a haze of conventional or habitual expectations, so that what's needed is what Canadian composer Murray Schafer called "ear cleaning". But whereas Cage took a conceptual path to this, erasing the boundary between sound and music, abandoning the composer's control of composition, and using randomizing methods to prevent the world of sound from being filtered through his or anyone's personal habits, Feldman developed in the opposite direction. He designed sound-worlds with details minutely specified in his scores. Violin and Orchestra (1979, 50 minutes) is one of his most fascinating orchestral works; i've been listening to this recording of it for two years now, and each hearing is virtually the first. It's as if every sound produced by the Bavarian Radio Orchestra and soloist Isabelle Faust has a spontaneous life of its own, all of them constituting an aural ecosystem which somehow deepens the silence they all inhabit. The only musical element which doesn't change throughout is that it's all pianissimo.

Coptic Light (1985, 25 minutes) is very different. Here, as in the Coptic textiles which Feldman saw in the Louvre, the texture is more closely woven, with no room for silence. I've heard performances which make it sound almost claustrophobic, but that's not the case here, at least not for this listener. It's all texture, and though it is woven with great care, the sound-threads do not fall back on melody or conventional tonality. To me the atmosphere is quite nocturnal, although both the title and the liner notes say otherwise. No matter; it's the immediate presence in the ear that counts at any given moment, and not what we associate with it or remember of it. Catch it if you can!

This is not a "Best of" collection, despite Amazon's listing. Island has put out an excellent 16-track CD called "Close Watch" which does select the best of Cale's work up to 1998. "The Island Years", on the other hand, collects onto two discs everything that Cale recorded with Island Records, including a couple of tracks previously unreleased, all digitally remastered by Steve Fallone so it sounds beautiful.

I never heard any of John Cale's music until 1980, and although i was impressed with what i heard, it's taken me another 30 years to discover his earlier work, and it's quite a revelation to hear how consistently good it is. The booklet included here gives plenty of the information about the other musicians who participated in these sessions (including Brian Eno, Phil Manzanera, Richard Thompson, Judy Nylon and many others.) The songs range from moving ballads like "I Keep a Close Watch" to wild, screaming assaults on the senses like Cale's devastating cover of "Heartbreak Hotel", with not a bland track among them. This collection is a real treasure, certainly a highlight of the music of the 70s, and those hearing it now for the first time may be astonished at how fresh it all sounds. I know i was. Besides, the liner essay by Ben Edmonds is a real bonus, even for those already familiar with Cale's career. Highly recommended!

Taigen Dan Lieghton has impeccable credentials as a Zen "priest" (though that word always sounds a bit odd to me in conjunction with Zen), and as a translator, editor and scholar of Eihei Dogen, the 13th-century founder of the Soto lineage. He is also a lucid writer who is well attuned to those currents of contemporary American culture which find a deep connection between nature and spirituality. This collection of talks and essays on Dogen, other writers and related subjects is a very good read, especially for those who practice zazen or are thinking of taking it up, and for those seeking entry points into the complex works of Dogen himself.

Although Leighton is careful to document his sources, this is not a scholarly work so much as a personal testimony to the profound effect of living the Zen life in the current cultural milieu of North America. The first chapter on "zazen as inquiry" is excellent and clarifies what Leighton means by "the spirit of creative inquiry", which is central to the whole book (and to Dogen's style of Zen). From there i skipped to one of the later pieces where Leighton gives a detailed commentary on Bob Dylan's song "Visions of Johanna" as an expression of "Zen mind". He is not claiming that this was Dylan's intention, just pointing out how the imagery of the song resonates with the experience of "sesshin" (an extended period of zazen practice). It certainly showed me some new ways to hear that song, although (not having experienced sesshin myself) i don't follow all that Leighton says about it. Anyway, i hope this gives some idea of what's in this stimulating book -- you can "look inside" for the rest.