Music 2013

Happy first Friday of the new year! It is a happy day for me - big ass blizzard outside has shut down the city so here I am sitting at home. (I'm not sure why the city is shut down - there is not that much snow down, 10-12 inches - I think it is a new thing, cities, and businesses, shut down quicker, stay shut longer, trying to make sure things are working again before loosing the public on the world. Businesses can get away with it because of technology - people work from home anyway, a bit of snow doesn't have to change anything. 20 years ago - 10 even - you could get 2 feet of snow [over a couple days], and the office stayed open. I don't mean to pass judgment - but it is an under-remarked change...)

Enough of that (for now - I plan to go out in a bit, walk around, take some pictures, maybe post them...) I will spare you another year of snow songs - since this is the first Friday of the new year, and the time for a best of 2013 post.

Which, I am sorry to say, is almost completely pointless. It's been that way for the last couple years - it is odd; I go in cycles of listening to music - this is a down cycle, and it's lasted a while now. I don't know if this year was as bad as last year - I did spend a fair amount of time listening to music for my band of the month posts, and bought quite a bit of music for that (this was a year I ended up buying a lot of things I have on vinyl from iTunes) - I didn't buy much new, though. 17 records, I think it is - but unlike last year, I think I managed to listen to them. Most of them. At least once. I think.

So this isn't anything like a real list or rank or anything else - it's just naming some names - the records I did listen to, some of them quite a bit, that made an impression....

1. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Push the Sky Away: this one I listened to a lot - not surprising, I suppose, as I have become a passionate fan of Nick Cave lately - of current Nick Cave, too - I got plenty of records by old favorites this year (Richard Thompson; Pere Ubu - those two about as favorite as it gets), records I like well enough, but that aren't really at the top of their body of work. But Cave - for the past 15 years or so - just keeps getting better and better. I didn't love Nick Cave in the 80s, and don't really love 80s Nick Cave even now - but I love 2000s Nick Cave, almost all of it. This is no exception. Great record.

2. Janelle Monae - The Electric Lady: I don't think this made as much an impression as Archandroid, but - still - damn, it's catchy, and clever, smart, writing - likely to hold up as the best thing of the year (along with the Bad Seeds: they are on top of their game.)

3. Grant Hart - The Argument: this is an odd one - based on Paradise Lost - um, okay. It's not bad though - I've listened to it a couple times, the songs come up on shuffle a couple times, and it's really rather cool. And - you know - having someone like Hart come back, make new music, now - makes me very happy.

4. Richard Thompson - Electric: these latter day Richard Thompson records tend to all sound alike to me - they fade into one another - the songs fade into one another... but when you listen to them, you know, somewhere in there, you are going to hear the best guitar playing of the year. With a couple big guitar solos that leave you helpless.

5. Pere Ubu - Lady from Shanghai: an odd record, all electric beeps and burps and David Thomas mumbling in his way... it's not quite vintage Pere Ubu, but it's a fascinating record, as they always are.

And? that's about all I have - there are a couple records here I have to listen to to judge, though I expect I would like them if I gave them the attention they deserve (Sigur Rus; Melvins; Neko Case; My Bloody Valentine) - records I feel guilty about not spending enough time with. Others - Lee Renaldo's record, MBV - I liked enough, though I can't quite say more.

Enough. The truth is, I wallowed in nostalgia this year, when I did listen to music - so... until things change (and I expect it will - my music listening runs in cycles, and there is bound to be an up cycle sooner or later) these kinds of posts will have to be pretty perfunctory. I'll leave you with 5 songs that I made a point of listening to more than once, then some video.

1. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - We No Who U R
2. Janelle Monae - Dance Apocalytic
3. Richard Thompson - Good Things Happen to Bad People
4. Grant Hart - The Argument
5. Lee Renaldo & The Dust - Blackt Out

Video - Nick Cave:



Thompson, live:



Janelle Monae - the hardest working woman in show business:

2013 Films

Another year done... 2013 was kind of an off year for me and films - I didn't see all that many (though I think I beat 2012, which kind of surprises me) - and wasn't exactly overwhelmed by the ones I did see. It certainly seemed that there were a lot more weeks this year than usual where I didn't care if I saw any new films or not. Strange. But now at the end - it's not a bad collection. Actually, in terms of movies I saw in theaters this year - a rather strong year, though a lot of it was because the stragglers from 2012 turned out to be very good.

And - I do wonder how much of my general negative attitude toward this year's films comes from my inability to do a lot of writing about new films. I have completely lost the habit of reviewing new films, even in capsules - a habit I need to try to get back... I did a lot more writing about old films, whether associated with my directors series, or with the Wonders in the Dark's Western Countdown - certainly, Japanese films and Westerns made a lot more impression on me than the new stuff.

But that's still not quite fair. I look at the list below, and realize there were some very good films out this year. And quite a few good films beyond the 25. (Of course that might be a result of cutting back on film going - being even more careful than usual to only go to films that I know I will be impressed by. Though that takes a lot of the fun out of it - takes the chance of being surprised away, which is a shame. I have to work against that.) Okay - that is enough. Here then - the best films I saw, that were released commercially, in Boston, in 2013:

1. The Act of Killing
2. 12 Years a Slave
3. Blue is the Warmest Color
4. Beyond the Hills
5. 56 Up
6. Apres Mai
7. Tabu
8. Inside Llewyn Davis
9. Like Someone in Love
10. Computer Chess
11. Stories We tell
12. The Hunt
13. Ain't them Bodies Saints
14. Post Tenebras Lux
15. Much Ado About Nothing
16. Night Across the Street
17. Frances Ha
18. Mud
19. The Great Beauty
20. No
21. Ginger and Rosa
22. Upstream Color
23. Before Midnight
24. Enough Said
25. I Used to be Darker

And now - though it's early, of course - the best films dated in 2013:

1. 12 Years a Slave
2. Blue is the Warmest Color
3. Inside Llewyn Davis
4. Computer Chess
5. Ain't them Bodies Saints
6. The Great Beauty
7. Upstream Color
8. Before Midnight
9. Enough Said
10. I Used to Be Darker

Finally, a look back at 2012 - which is retrospect, looks a lot stronger than I thought. I remain completely sold on those top 2 films - 2 of the best of the century. But there's a lot of depth there too. Good year.

This was my immediate top ten for 2012:

1. Moonrise Kingdom
2. The Master
3. Barbara
4. Killing them Softly
5. Lincoln
6. Django Unchained
7. Compliance
8. The Central Park Five
9. Keep the Lights On
10. How to Survive a Plague

And retrospectively:

1. Moonrise Kingdom
2. The Master
3. Amour
4. The Act of Killing
5. Beyond the Hills
6. Barbara
7. 56-Up
8. Apres Mai
9. In Another Country
10. Tabu
11. Like Someone in Love
12. Stories We Tell
13. The Hunt
14. Zero Dark Thirty
15. Post Tenebras Lux
16. Much Ado About Nothing
17. Killing them Softly
18. Night Across the Street
19. Lincoln
20. Frances Ha
21. Mud
22. Ginger and Rosa
23. No
24. Django Unchained
25. How to Survive a Plague

Film Posts 2013

Another yearly index post.

Occasional Pieces:

1/15: Oshima Obituary
1/29: Director of the Month: Oshima
2/28: Donald Richie obit and comments (and a list)
3/31: Director of the Month - Akira Kurosawa
4/4: Roger Ebert Obituary
4/29: April Director - Mikio Naruse.
6/25: June Director - Kon Ichikawa
8/3: July Director (despite the date): Shohei Imamura
8/28: August Director: Kenji Mizoguchi
10/29: Yasujiro Ozu for Director of the Month
12/12: Ozu memorial

Published Elsewhere:

10/1: My review of the Coens' True Grit, at Wonders in the Dark, for the Western Countdown.
10/9: Bend of the River, also for the countdown
11/22: Winchester 73 atWonders in the Dark


Polls, Lists, Memes, etc.

1/2: Best of 2012 - first cut
1/9: WITD Poll - 1960s
2/23: Oscars and Categories
3/10: Spring Quiz - Jean Brodie
3/24: WITD Poll - 1970s
5/20: WITD Poll - 1980s
8/13: WITD Poll - 1990s
10/1: Western Countdown announcement
12/14: Larry Gopnik Quiz from Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule.

Reviews:

1/5: Lincoln & Django Unchained
1/25: Zero Dark Thirty - plus Barbara and the Central Park Five
2/19: Up Series (56 Up released)
4/24: Big Roundup of Auteurist films seen this spring - To The Wonder, Upstream Color, Beyond the Hills, Spring Breakers, Like Someone in Love, Night Across the Street, Stoker and Side Effects
5/12: Roundup: Angel's Share, Mud, Renoir, In the House, Something in the Air.
6/19: Another Roundup: Stories We Tell, Deceptive Practices, Frances Ha, Before Midnight, Post Tenebras Lux, An Oversimplification of her Beauty
9/9: Very big roundup of summer film viewing: Much Ado About Nothing, The Bling Ring, A Band Called Death, Lone Ranger, The Hunt, I'm So Excited, You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet, Computer Chess, Crystal Fairy, The Act of Killing, The Way Way Back, Despicable Me 2, In a World, Prince Avalanche, Ain't Them Bodies Saints, The Grandmaster, Austenland