Thursday, November 24, 2011

Drawing in Chalk and The Turnback.

It is not very often that a film really hits a nerve with me, I am usually knocked sideways by a great lyric or a great piece of music, but Drawing in Chalk did more than hit a nerve with me, it resonated on all of them, that is about 7 trillion neurons by the way....I googled that of course!

I became aware of the film by way of the soundtrack which I heard first, hence the reason I am reviewing a film on a music blog.  The film was written and directed Todd Giglio who also plays the role of Jay in the film and is the singer and guitarist with The Turnback.

 The album, "Drawn in Chalk" is a meticulous piece of power pop with Byrds-like jangly guitars, fantastic harmonies and beautifully crafted lyrics.
The 12 tracks on the album are all excellent, there isn't a filler in sight, a rare occurrence these days and very, very welcome to these ears.


One of the 12 standout tracks, "What She Said." is 1 minute and 57 seconds of jangly, bouncy, uptempo, foot tapping heaven, everything about this track gets in amongst those 7 trillion neurons and fires them up.  Whilst on a flight from Sweden to England recently, I played this song on repeat for the whole duration of the 1 hour 50 minute flight time....that is about 70 times and I am still playing it daily, but, it isn't just this song, the whole album is full of sparkling, infectious gems.
This album will be gracing my stereo for a long time to come and I await the follow up with all the eagerness of a child waiting for Christmas day!

The Turnback were the first band to use the iPhone 4S to film their most recent video, Cellophane sky and had over 100,000 views of it on Youtube in the first two weeks!

The Turnback are:
 
Todd Giglio  (vocals, guitars, keyboards)
Kenny Sherman (vocals, guitars, bass)
Barry Nagel (drums, keyboards)
 with
Roger Lipson (live bass, vocals, sitar)

You can purchase the album Drawn in Chalk on itunes amazon Digstation and cdbaby 

Drawing with Chalk......The film.

Film info:

Jay and Matt were once wide-eyed, would-be rock stars, eager to leave their hometown and head for the big city and never look back. After 15 years of struggling to get a record deal in NYC, they find themselves back in their small working class hometown, dreaming of what might have been. Now, at 40 years old, they're out to give it one more shot. While Matt struggles with personal demons and a fear of being too old, Jay is ultimately faced with having to make a choice between his artistic dreams and his responsibility to his wife and 5 year old son.

I finally got around to watching the film last night, it was an absolute spot on portrayal of real life, my life in fact, the lives of ordinary people, you may not be an aspiring musician like the characters in the film but we all have dreams, that, for the majority of us we don't fulfill for whatever reason.

Watching Drawing with Chalk re-ignited something in me that made me want to get up and go and do something, have another final crack at something that I haven't achieved, I have about a million things personally, but to nail one would be great and this film is inspiring in that way.

The film has many laugh out loud moments that once again seemed to relate to my life, I found myself nodding in agreement to many of the things being said and done in the film.  The characters played their roles brilliantly including Todd Giglio's young son who played his son in the film.

Todd and Brennan Giglio.

I really can't express how much I enjoyed watching this film, I have seen so many films filled with car chases, exploding buildings and numerous costly effects, this fantastic independent production just goes to show you don't need all that, you just need to be able to relate to people.

"This film is for the 99.8% who never see their dream come true but still carry the urge. This film can give us a voice." - Todd Giglio




The film can be purchased here Indiepix Films

Starring
Todd Giglio, Pooja Kumar, Christopher Springer, Debargo Sanyal
Directed by
Todd Giglio
Screenplay by
Todd Giglio and Christopher Springer
Produced by
Todd Giglio and Christopher Springer
Website





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