My Favorite Music of 2011

This is very strange - I don't think I can even pretend to make list of favorite records this year. I bought a modest number of new records - 30 or so - many of them by bands I like and respect, some for a long time (REM! a new Feelies record!), some more recent (Battles? just found them...) - more than a few serious favorites - Feelies, Gang of Four, PJ Harvey, Tom Waits, Boris, Damon and Naomi, REM, Earth, Bill Frisell, 6 Organs of Admittance, TV on the Radio.... But I have just not listened to them. Maybe a song here or there, coming up on the iPod, but only a handful got beyond that. I mean - being honest, I think I might have listened to a grand total of - what - 6? all the way through? somewhere along the line?

PJ Harvey
Josh Pearson
Wire
The Feelies
Gang of Four
Iron & Wine

I think that might be it. It's a question of habits, really - of not putting on the iPod every time I get on a train, say. (Which has other implications - I've read a lot more in the last couple years than I had been - I pull out a book when I step on the subway, these days.) It will change back, I know - somewhere in the next few years, I will get obsessive about music again. When it does, I will have to come back to 2011 and try a more serious ranking. For now? I can make a list, but the first two are the only ones I feel confident will be on any future top 10:

1. PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
2. Josh T. Pearson - Last of the Country Gentlemen
3. Gang of four - Content
4. Tom Waits - Bad As Me
5. Feelies - Here Before
6. Times New Viking - Dancer Equired
7. Iron & Wine - Kiss Each Other Clean
8. Wire - Red Barked Tree
9. Boris - Attention Please (the Wata record)
10. TV on the Radio - Nine Types of Light

Okay - the one good thing about listening to music on an iPod is that you do, in fact, get to hear songs. So I can, I think, offer a fairly convinced version of my 10 favorite songs of the year:

1. PJ Harvey - Words That Maketh Murder
2. Wire - Please Take
3. Iron & Wine - Big Burned Hand
4. Battles - My Machines
5. Boris - Spoon [sounding remarkably My Bloody Valentinish]
6. Gang of Four - She Said 'You Make a Thing of Me'
7. PJ Harvey - On Battleship Hill [I could have limited myself to one song per artist - I've left out a few I like, REM's Discoverer, the Feelies' When You Know, maybe Radiohead's Lotus Flower, etc... - but this is just too good - one of the most distinctive tunes of the year...]
8. Mogwai - Mexican Grand Prix [I remain a sucker for a nice bit of motorik]
9. Tom Waits - New Year's Day
10. Times New Viking - It's a Culture

Good enough. One thing I will commit to - PJ Harvey's Let England Shake is a damned Great Record. I liked it enough when I got it - it's grown since. I like it as much as any of her records, and that is saying something. I will add - it was the occasion for some outstanding videos as well - here is "Let England Shake":



And on that subject - here is another great one, that might be my favorite video of the year, after, or along with, Polly Jean's. Gary Numan singing with Battles, on "My Machines". (And another note - while I bought a fair amount of music, but didn't listen to it - what I bought was almost all stuff I am very familiar with already. I think this record - Battles' Gloss Drop - is just about the only record I got this year from a group I don't already own the rest of their catalogue. Battles and Josh Pearson. And nothing at all that's genuinely new, since they've both been around a while - and of course, I bought up their back catalogue too.):

Best Films of 2011

Here we are again, a new year - a couple days old now, and time, I suppose, to sum of last year. 2011 - making this list, I was surprised to see how many films I rather liked last year. At the halfway point, I thought it was a very thin year - even later, in the fall, it didn't seem that a lot of really interesting films were coming out - but I guess they did. Certainly, the last couple months have been very satisfying. And it helps that a good number of truly outstanding foreign films were released this year, especially early. So - here you go - best 25 films I saw this year. As always, my criteria are: films that received a commercial release in metro Boston in the year 2011. (That I managed to see - there are a couple out in release now I haven't seen, but should - but they will have to wait, because I don't want to.)

1. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall his Past Lives - Apichatpong Weerasethakul
2. Mysteries of Lisbon - Raoul Ruiz
3. Certified Copy - Abbas Kiarostami
4. Melancholia - Lars von Trier
5. Quattro Volte - Michaelangelo Frammartino
6. Poetry - Lee Chang Dong
7. Le Havre - Aki Kaurismaki
8. Meek's Cutoff - Kelly Reichardt
9. Strange Case of Angelica - Manoel de Oliveira
10. Take Shelter - Jeff Nichols
11. 13 Assassins - Takashi Miike
12. Dogtooth - Yorgos Lanthimos
13. Martha Marcy May Marlene - Sean Durkin
14. The Skin I Live In - Pedro Almodovar
15. Tales from the Golden Age - Hofer, Marculescu, Mungiu, Popescu & Uricaru
16. Jane Eyre - Cory Fukunaga
17. Nostalgia for the Light - Patricio Guzman
18. Rapt - Lucas Belvaux
19. The Descendents - Alexander Payne
20. Outrage - Takeshi Kitano
21. Rango - Gore Verbinski
22. Page One:Inside the New York Times - Andrew Rossi
23. A Dangerous Method - David Cronenberg
24. The Guard - John McDonogh
25. Sleeping Beauty - Catherine Breillat

And also - the best new films from 2011 - whether released or not. This is necessarily a very tentative list:

1. Melancholia - Lars von Trier
2. Le Havre
3. Meek's Cutoff
4. Take Shelter
5. Martha Marcy May Marlene
6. The Skin I Live in
7. Jane Eyre
8. The Descendants
9. Rango
10. Page One

And finally, using this chance to revisit Last year's list of new (in 2010) films:

1. Carlos
2. Exit Through the Gift Shop
3. The Social Network
4. True Grit
5. A Film Unfinished
6. Greenberg
7. The Tillman Story
8. The Ghost Writer
9. The Kids Are All Right
10. Kick-Ass

Given a year to think about it, see a few of them again, and see a broader sampling of 2010's films - here is a retroactive list. The films from last year's top 10 are italicized:

1. Carlos
2. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall his Past Lives
3. Mysteries of Lisbon
4. Certified Copy
5. Quattro Volte
6. Poetry
7. True Grit
8. Exit Through the Gift Shop
9. 13 Assassins
10. Oki's Movie
11. The Social Network
12. The Strange Case of Angelica
13. Another Year
14. A Film Unfinished
15. Nostalgia for the Light
16. Outrage
17. Greenberg
18. Road To Nowhere
19. Somewhere
20. The Tillman Story
21. Sleeping Beauty
22. The Housemaid
23. Gainsbourg
24. The Ghost Writer
25. The Kids Are All Right

It's Still Friday, Isn't It

Another random list of songs from this year:

1. Wilco - Rising Red Lung
2. Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - No ONe Is (As I are Be)
3. Surfer Blood - Miranda
4. The Feelies - Bluer Skies
5. Beastie Boys - The Bill Harper Collection
6. Jane's Addiction - Words Right out of My Mouth
7. Gang of Four - I Can See From Far Away
8. Tom Waits - Pay Me
9. Josh T Pearson - Thou Art Loosed
10. PJ Harvey - The Glorious Land

Videos? Josh T. Pearson?



And Polly Jean:

More Random new Music

And, once more, 2011 randomized -

1. Six Organs of Admittance - Above a desert I'Ve never seen
2. Wire - red barked trees
3. Fleet Foxes - Bedoin Dress
4. The Kills - the Last Goodbye
5. Boris - see you next week
6. Deerhoof - C'Mon
7. TV on the Radio -You
8. Iron & Wine - glad man singing
9. Burfer Blood - Voyager Reprise
10. Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Spazz

Video? from a likely contender for record of the year - TV on the Radio:



...and now, off to the mall...

December is for This Year's Music

Another random sampling of records I bought this year:

1. Boris - Spoon [from Attention Please, the Wata record they released this year - sounding, here, more than a little My Bloody Valentinesque...]
2. REM - All the Best [Collapse into Now is an almost listenable REM record - they went out on a pretty decent note, I think.]
3. Decembrists - January Hymn
4. Tinawiren - Takkest Tamidaret
5. Gang of Four - Do as I Say
6. Feelies - Later On
7. Battles (featuring Matias Aguayo) - Ice Cream
8. Boris - Leak - Truth, yesnoyesnoyes [from Heavy Rocks, sounding more like Dinosaur Jr. than ever]
9. Damon & Naomi - Walking Backwards [hey! more Kurihara!]
10. Times New Viking - No Room to Live

Video? Boris is always good:



And maybe an actual Times New Viking video:

Another 2011 Music Sampler

Continuing with December's theme, here's a random sample of 2011 music:

1. Danielson - Grow Up
2. Beastie Boys - Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament
3. Jane's Addiction - Twisted Tales
4. Boris - Jackson Head
5. Six Organs of Admittance - Brilliant Blue Sea Between Us
6. Tom Waits - Talking at the Same Time
7. Tinawaren - Aden Osamnat
8. Damon & Naomi - SHadow Boxing
9. Wilco - Art of Almost
10. Loutaliica - Junior Dad

And video? Loutallica?



And how about the Danielson, sounding more Pixie-like than ever, with all those electric guitars and everything.

Film Posts 2011

Here then is my yearly Index of my film posts. This year, I think I will add links to blogathons and similar projects during the year, even if I don't actually participate. I used to try to keep on top of these things, but these days, there are fewer of them, and I am lazier - I won't pretend this is comprehensive, but I'll try to make it useful.

Mostly, though, this is to keep track of what I manage to write during the year.

Longer Pieces:

2/13: Notes on Hong Sang Soo - films, and appearance.
5/31: Mr Deeds Goes to Town - shots and essay
6/2: John Doe Footnote
9/18: Screen grabs and mini-essay on Capitalism, Violence and the Media in some Fassbinder films
10/30: Illustrated essay on the two classic Frankenstein films.

Occasional Pieces:

1/2: Best of 2010 (and 2009, in retrospect).
1/4: A quiz.
2/11: Pointers to Noir blogathon, Korean, Michael Mann blogathons. - Iranian blogathon announcement here.
2/14 & 17: Maltese Falcon (1931) notes, on style, especially in the meeting between Spade and Gutman. And 1941 notes on the same scene. For the Noir blogathon.
2/22: Iranian film blogathon, announcement and list.
also - 2/27: on Sound in Iranian films. (Shirin and The Mirror.)
3/7: Korean film blogathon - my list.
5/8: Mother's Day Screen shots - Japanese films
5/19 - Comments on Cannes, mostly Von Trier
5/22 - Syberberg Screen Shots
6/6: Big Red One D-Day post
6/12: Mon Oncle shots
6/18: Springtime Quiz
6/19: Fathers Day - Ozu
6/26: Sunday - Triangles (Ozu, Lester)
6/27: Peter Falk memorial, Columbo's strength
7/2: Halftime Report - movies of 2011.
7/3: Screen shots - Rio Bravo.
8/7: Screen Shots - The Furies
8/14: Screen Shots - Carol Reed
8/21: Screen Shots - minute 55 of three 1955 films (Ordet, Kiss Me Deadly, Smiles of a Summer Night)
9/4: Screen shots - Kick Me Deadly - feet in Kiss Me Deadly
9/11: Memorial, with shot from Stosczek
9/26: Shots from Guy Maddin's Dracula ballet movie, and links to a Maddin blogathon.
10/2: Rio Lobo shots.
10/9: from Horror of Dracula.
10/16: Empty spaces in Let the Right One In.
10/23: Thirst
10/28: Halloween Quiz from SLIFR.
11/13: Sergeant York, in honor of Armistice Day.
11/20: Platinum Blonde screen shots.
12/4: Godard's birthday commemorated with shots from 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her.
12/11: Manoel de Oliveira turns 103 - Eccentricities of a Blonde Haired Girl shots.
12/12: Ozu's birthday, in pictures.
12/18: Snow! - from Frgo and The Saddest Music in the World.
12/25: Have yourself a Melancholy Christmas - courtesy of Meet Me in St. Louis.

Reviews:

1/17: Capsules - True Grit, Rabbit Hole, Blue Valentine, Somewhere.
4/20: Certified Copy
4/23: Le Quattro Volte.
6/9: Midnight in Paris and Tree of Life Reviews
6/23: Big roundup - Bridesmaids, Princess of Montpensier, The Trip, Nostalgia for the Light, Blank City, Legend fo the Fist, 13 Assassins, Meek's Cutoff
7/10: Summer roundup - Pianomania, Buck, Page One, Bad Teacher, Larry Crowne.
8/15: Capsules - Tabloid, Friends With Benefits, Road to Nowhere, The Future
9/7: New films - The Sleeping Beauty, Mysteries of Lisbon, Magic Trip, Myth of the American Sleepover and Senna.
9/21: More theatrical viewings - Contagion, The Guard, Rapt, Drive & World on a Wire.
10/21: More new films: Detective Dee, Restless, Black Power Mix Tape, Ides of March, Love Crime
12/6: Recent films - Melancholia, Take Shelter, Martha Marcy May Marlene, The Skin I Live In.

Outside Events - blogathons, etc.:

1/17: Alfred Hitchcock blogathon at the Classic Movie Blog Association.
2/13-20: For the Love of Film Noir blogathon. Donation site.
2/21-27: Iranian Blogathon.
3/7-13: Korean blogathon.
9/5-9/9 : My 9/6 link to Nick Ray blogathon
11/10: Reaction to Wonders in The Dark's musical countdown.

Happy New Year!

2011 is under way - how delightful! I am back from visiting the kin, and getting settled back in. I have a new housemate, a dear little kitty cat under the tree:



Though more typically, in the tree:



Anyway - she is settling in, and should be all right, as long as she doesn't try climbing to the top of my bookshelves - we might all be in for a nasty surprise then...

So it's been a full week or so, with traveling and holidays and all - a nice little rest, some very photogenic weather -



- way too much chocolate, cookies, pie, etc. And lots of Christmas movies. And Bogart - another nice gift under the tree:



And so - into the new year. I won't belabor my resolutions - I notice I posted blogging resolutions last year - yikes! I did visit the relatives, though - I did take a class or two - it took me all year, but I even got the Mabuse set! Otherwise.... the goals stand, basically - see more movies, write more - we'll see. This is about all I have the energy for today, having celebrated the new year mostly by eating way too much Tapas and Chinese food. Time for a nap!

And - I suppose - a somber note - the passing of Hideko Takamine, the extraordinary Japanese actress, aged 86. I have not really composed anything in her honor - I will give you the Siren's take and an image - Takamine as a delightful moppet in Tokyo Chorus. She would grow up to be among the very best actresses, in some of the very best films of all time. And, I think, the most purely beautiful of the great Japanese actresses of the 40s and 50s...