Okay, I’m a girl, so when my brother treated me, my mother, and his daughter to see The Bourne Ultimatum for a “family” night, we were obviously blindsided. I don’t live for action movies the way my brother does. What I do live for, however, are movies that say something…something about who we are as a community, as a society, as a country, and as a people.

And what is The Bourne Ultimatum saying to us?

… a philosophy that’s all too common in American culture and perhaps influential in world culture. A philosophy that muses… We are on a constant quest to know who we are. We want to live forever (we are afraid of death). And some of us don’t trust the American government.

With much admission, there is significant irony in what will follow. There are few artists in whom I own every album in production and David Bazan is one of them. Bazan finally shed the "Pedro the Lion" persona (and what was left of it as a band) with his latest and appropriately named album Fewer Moving Parts.

Having recently embarked on a fall solo tour, I was fortunate enough to catch a live performance this weekend at Chicago's Beat Kitchen . Bazan, known for his ironic and honest storytelling, plowed through more songs in a given time span than anyone I have seen of late. Midst a mixture of tracks from his latest solo release and various Pedro songs, Bazan provided background to a few lyrics in addition to opening himself up to questions from the audience-an aspect of the performance that has become somewhat of a staple for Bazan shows.

You've seen this video before-or you soon will. It's the new song and video from the newest Ipod Nano commercial. Which seems like a pretty good choice since the Ipod commercial seems to mirror the style of this video for Feist's song 1, 2, 3, 4. This video, like the ipod commercial, is shot in the style of a "one take" video (though I do believe that there was some sly editing done to make it look this way). In the manner of the song this video is colorful (both literally and figuratively), fun and quirky, and the video style seems to be one (the "one take") that Feist (or at least Feist's video director) likes, as it's the same style used in the video for Feist's song My Moon My Man.

The lyrics of this song are beautiful on their own, but when they are paired with what seem to be people responding to their beauty, they are even more powerful.

It makes me ask, what is behind the tears? Are they moved by the sincerity of the words? Do they weep because of a lost love? Or could it be the emotion of a person who does not believe in a God who will listen and act but desperately wishes such a god existed?

The production cost of this video must have been relatively small, but Glazer is able to make it work. Capturing raw emotion on film like this cannot be simple. Either these people are truly connecting with Cave's lyrics or they should all be nominated for an Oscar.