Though I was largely absent last week, I had a few things stockpiled for use at Spectrum Culture, largely because I’m way behind on my CD reviews. In fact, I’m still trying to catch up on all that.

I provided a lukewarm assessment of the latest Steve Earle album and an even less enthused consideration of the new outing from the Wave Pictures. The Earle record was assigned to me, but the latter was my own damn fault. I asked for it.

Which brings me to the new movie review I wrote for this week. Without getting too deep into the process, the writers for Spectrum generally get to select which film, records and books they’ll write on. Every Friday, the list of available offerings goes up and we look through them. From there, it’s first-come-first-served. On the day that films that would be reviewed this past week went up, I was in a bit of a rush. I decided I wanted to try a film from Romania that looked interesting. I planted my flag in that, or so I thought. A couple hours later, I got an email from the editor indicating that a screener for the film Tied to a Chair was on the way. I had no idea what that even meant. Turns out I went to the wrong thread in our discussion forum and blindly hit reply. I genuinely hoped the end of the story would involve me celebrating the film as a hidden gem I wouldn’t have otherwise discovered. It wasn’t.

On the movie front, I also wrote the latest entry in the “Oeuvre” series that tracks film-by-film through the career of one director. Currently, we’re collectively working through the films of Francois Truffaut, which is an especially useful exercise for me as I still feel woefully weak when it comes to foreign film. My contribution this time out was especially intimidating. I had to write about Day for Night, which was the sole Truffaut film to claim the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and also represented his one Best Director nomination from the Academy. Sometimes it’s more difficult finding fresh things to say about films when their place in the canon is a secure as can be.

Finally, I should note that my one collection of words that graced the site in the prior week was a contribution to a List Inconsequential feature on books. I wouldn’t have been able to write about that book if it hadn’t been recommended to me in the first place by my friend Holly, one of my reading idols. As far as the other entries on the list, I think Zeitoun by David Eggers is an especially good selection.