I need some content here, and what's better than a list? Like every year, come May (sometimes June), I get around to posting a Best of Last Year, including all the films that get released in the spring. It's a nuisance, waiting for films to show up - but now, I have seen most of what I want to - with a couple Absolute Requirements finally getting screened (if not released), in Still Walking and Tokyo Sonata - though there are a couple more, 35 Rhums, maybe Night and Day, that ought to count as absolutes... But I said - I need content - so... here's a list. I have to say - even now - 08 doesn't look like all that great a year - a nice selection of films, but nothing like the blitz of great stuff that came out (somewhere) in 07. Anyway - here are 25 films from last year, roughly in order:
1. Che - USA - Steven Soderburgh
2. Tokyo Sonata - Japan - Kiroshi Kurosawa
3. The Headless Woman - Argentina - Lucretia Martel
4. Birdsongs - Spain - Albert Serra
5. Hunger - UK - Steve McQueen
6. Christmas Tale - France - Arnaud Desplechins
7. My Winnepeg - Canada - Guy Maddin
8. Still Walking - Japan - Hirokazu Kore-Eda
9. Wall-E - USA - Andrew Stanton
10. Revanche - Austria - Gotz Spielman
11. The Class - France - Laurent Cantet
12. Encounters at the End of the World - USA - Werner Herzog
13. Gomorrah - Italy - Matteo Garrone
14. Man on Wire - UK - James Marsh
15. Ballast - USA - Lance Hammer
16. Waltz With Bashir - Israel - Ari Folman
17. Momma's Man - USA - Azezel Jacobs
18. Burn After Reading - USA - Coens
19. Wendy and Lucy - USA - Kelly Reichardt
20. Goodbye Solo - USA - Ramin Bahrani
21. Rachel Getting Married - USA - Jonathan Demme
22. Sita Sings the Blues - USA - Nina Paley
23. Happy Go Lucky - UK - Mike Leigh
24. Speed Racer - USA - Wachowskis
25. Tokyo! - Japan (France, Korea) - Michel Gondry, Leos Carax, Bong Joon ho
(And for reference - what I had seen in January:)
1. The Headless Woman - Lucrecia Martel
2. A Christmas Tale - Arnaud Desplechin
3. My Winnipeg - Guy Maddin
4. Encounters at the End of the World - Werner Herzog
5. Man on Wire - James Marsh
6. Ballast - Lance Hammer
7. Burn After Reading - Coen Brothers
8. Momma's Man - Azazel Jacobs
9. Rachel Getting Married - Jonathan Demme
10. Happy Go Lucky - Mike Leigh
Showing posts with label 2008 list. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2008 list. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Friday, January 02, 2009
Music, 2008
And tonight - music! The best of 2008! the best I bought in 2008, anyway - which this year seems to have dropped a bit. 22 records was it? oy. I listed 20 favorite records last year - that's all I got this year...
The odd thing is - it didn't seem all that impressive a year for music. Same as movies, I guess! I don't know which direction it moves in - I bought less music so heard less I liked? or bought less music because fewer records looked essential? I don't know. It's odd anyway - a lot of what I got were bands I have long liked - that's no different than last year, but this year they didn't seem as rewarding - or not as many of them were. Or maybe fewer of my favorites released records - which would explain some of the thin going. I don't know. I will stop complaining and make a list:
1. Earth - The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull: actually, that's Earth with Bill Frisell - which is to say, 2 of my favorite guitar stranglers. Slow echoing strangulation, but gorgeous - tone and sound and deceptive melodies...
2. TV on the Radio - Dear Science: maybe not as wonderful as Cookie Mountain, though no slouch - more songs running through my head this year than anyone else... "the lazy way they turn your head into a rest stop for the dead..." -
3. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Dig Lazarus Dig: a good record a year more or less, bless him. More in the raucous vein established by the Grinderman record. "What an enormous and encyclopedic brain!"
4. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes: gorgeous folk songs run through Van Dyke Parks - beautiful record.
5. The Raconteurs - Consolers of the Lonely: Jack White, too, can be counted on for a good record a year, in one of his 12 different bands.
6. Sigur Rus - Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust: they continue the folkish turn they took with Hvarf/Heim and their movie... I rather prefer their previous post-rock style, but this is still quite extraordinary.
7. The Melvins - Nude with Boots: more (mostly) slow motion pummeling, from the masters. I have only this year really pursued the Melvins - I've had a couple of their CDs but didn't pay much attention until now - thank Boris...
8. Boris - Smile: speaking of whom... not as immediately and completely enthralling as last year's Rainbow, or even some of the earlier records (Pink, say), but still first rate guitar wanking and drony noise.
9. Keiji Haino & Tatsuya Yoshida - Urfasudhasdd: it can't all be happy pop! though truth is, this is remarkably happy music - Yoshida, especially, is always witty as well as virtuosic - Haino gets in the spirit, and offers up everything from almost normal rock guitar to avant garde noise, with both of them yelping away...
10. Helena Espvall & Masaki Batoh - S/T: more beautiful avant-garde folk. I managed to see them this year, playing with Damon and Naomi - one of the 2 concerts I made it to. Which these days, is a pretty good year!
After that - still some good stuff - one good thing about only buying 22 records is you're less likely to get anything bad. There were a couple disappointments - I don't know why I bothered with the latest REM record.. nothing bad, just boring... more surprising - the new Mercury Rev record was quite underwhelming, and I never really got into the new Bloc Party or Of Montreal records... Others - Beck, Stephen Malkmus, Deerhoof, the Kills, were pretty good, if not overwhelming.
And so? Video for my favorite songs of the year:
TV on the Radio, Halfway Home:
Nick Cave and company - Dig Lazarus Dig!
And Fleet Foxes, doing Sun it Rises:
The odd thing is - it didn't seem all that impressive a year for music. Same as movies, I guess! I don't know which direction it moves in - I bought less music so heard less I liked? or bought less music because fewer records looked essential? I don't know. It's odd anyway - a lot of what I got were bands I have long liked - that's no different than last year, but this year they didn't seem as rewarding - or not as many of them were. Or maybe fewer of my favorites released records - which would explain some of the thin going. I don't know. I will stop complaining and make a list:
1. Earth - The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull: actually, that's Earth with Bill Frisell - which is to say, 2 of my favorite guitar stranglers. Slow echoing strangulation, but gorgeous - tone and sound and deceptive melodies...
2. TV on the Radio - Dear Science: maybe not as wonderful as Cookie Mountain, though no slouch - more songs running through my head this year than anyone else... "the lazy way they turn your head into a rest stop for the dead..." -
3. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Dig Lazarus Dig: a good record a year more or less, bless him. More in the raucous vein established by the Grinderman record. "What an enormous and encyclopedic brain!"
4. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes: gorgeous folk songs run through Van Dyke Parks - beautiful record.
5. The Raconteurs - Consolers of the Lonely: Jack White, too, can be counted on for a good record a year, in one of his 12 different bands.
6. Sigur Rus - Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust: they continue the folkish turn they took with Hvarf/Heim and their movie... I rather prefer their previous post-rock style, but this is still quite extraordinary.
7. The Melvins - Nude with Boots: more (mostly) slow motion pummeling, from the masters. I have only this year really pursued the Melvins - I've had a couple of their CDs but didn't pay much attention until now - thank Boris...
8. Boris - Smile: speaking of whom... not as immediately and completely enthralling as last year's Rainbow, or even some of the earlier records (Pink, say), but still first rate guitar wanking and drony noise.
9. Keiji Haino & Tatsuya Yoshida - Urfasudhasdd: it can't all be happy pop! though truth is, this is remarkably happy music - Yoshida, especially, is always witty as well as virtuosic - Haino gets in the spirit, and offers up everything from almost normal rock guitar to avant garde noise, with both of them yelping away...
10. Helena Espvall & Masaki Batoh - S/T: more beautiful avant-garde folk. I managed to see them this year, playing with Damon and Naomi - one of the 2 concerts I made it to. Which these days, is a pretty good year!
After that - still some good stuff - one good thing about only buying 22 records is you're less likely to get anything bad. There were a couple disappointments - I don't know why I bothered with the latest REM record.. nothing bad, just boring... more surprising - the new Mercury Rev record was quite underwhelming, and I never really got into the new Bloc Party or Of Montreal records... Others - Beck, Stephen Malkmus, Deerhoof, the Kills, were pretty good, if not overwhelming.
And so? Video for my favorite songs of the year:
TV on the Radio, Halfway Home:
Nick Cave and company - Dig Lazarus Dig!
And Fleet Foxes, doing Sun it Rises:
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Best Films of 2008
This is a more difficult post than usual. This was a disappointing year. Not so much in terms of films I saw - it was a spectacular year for rep series: Manoel de Oliveira, Jose Luis Guerin, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Lee Chang-dong, Joseph Losey, Edward Yang, Vincente Minelli, Lucrecia Martel, Claire Denis, Nagisa Oshima - and that's just at the HFA. With Guerin, Weerasethakul, Lee, Wu Nien-jen, Martel and Denis in person. Nor was it a bad year in the cinemas - mainly because 2007 seems nearly inexhaustible, and many excellent foreign pictures arrived in our theaters this year... It's for the best, since the brand new films have been remarkably underwhelming. Some nice ones - but after last year? Part of the problem is obviously that 2007 was a great year for American films: so a bunch of superb films had already come out by the end of the year. (Zodiac, No Country for Old Men, Diving Bell and Butterfly, Assassination of Jesse James, etc.) The American prestige pictures that have come out this year have been quite underwhelming...
Enough complaining. This is my list of the best films to get a (more or less) legitimate commercial release in Boston in 2008:
1. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days - from last year's class
2. Flight of the Red Balloon - 2007 again
3. Christmas Tale - this one, though, is new - hooray!
4. Exiles - this year's superb rediscovery and rerelease.
5. Don’t Touch the Axe - another 07 film
6. My Winnipeg - an 08 documentary, sort of - a theme!
7. Encounters at the end of the World - another 08 doc - told you there was a theme.
8. Man on Wire - see?
9. Romance of Astree and Celedon - last year of course
10. Chop Shop - another 07 film
11. Up the Yangtze - and another documentary
12. Ballast - an 08 film, that keeps rising in my estimation
13. Burn After Reading - very entertaining Coen brothers comedy, though nothing special
14. Momma’s Man - another nice 08 indie
15. Married Life - another 07 films, one that seems to have dropped off the earth
16. Rachel Getting Married - 08, nice film, nice return for Demme, though in the end, just a nice film...
17. Happy Go Lucky - another new film, pretty good, not sure how good though
18. A Girl Cut in Two - another 07 film by an old Frenchman
19. Speed Racer - look, if you're going to go overboard on the CGI, Go Overboard on the CGI!
20. Paranoid Park - last year's Gus Van Sant
21. Milk - this year's Gus Van Sant - pretty good itself
22. Witnesses - another 2007 French movie, Andre Techine this time
23. Curious Case of Benjamin Button - looks great, less filling
24. The Wrestler - nicely made film, but as cliched and predictable as a wrestling match
25. Operation Filmmaker - another documantary
And now - the best films made in 2008, whether they were released here or not: an okay list so far, though the film at the top is outstanding. Nothing wrong with these films, just very little else that seems like a timeless classic.
1. The Headless Woman - Lucrecia Martel
2. A Christmas Tale - Arnaud Desplechin
3. My Winnipeg - Guy Maddin
4. Encounters at the End of the World - Werner Herzog
5. Man on Wire - James Marsh
6. Ballast - Lance Hammer
7. Burn After Reading - Coen Brothers
8. Momma's Man - Azazel Jacobs
9. Rachel Getting Married - Jonathan Demme
10. Happy Go Lucky - Mike Leigh
Enough complaining. This is my list of the best films to get a (more or less) legitimate commercial release in Boston in 2008:
1. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days - from last year's class
2. Flight of the Red Balloon - 2007 again
3. Christmas Tale - this one, though, is new - hooray!
4. Exiles - this year's superb rediscovery and rerelease.
5. Don’t Touch the Axe - another 07 film
6. My Winnipeg - an 08 documentary, sort of - a theme!
7. Encounters at the end of the World - another 08 doc - told you there was a theme.
8. Man on Wire - see?
9. Romance of Astree and Celedon - last year of course
10. Chop Shop - another 07 film
11. Up the Yangtze - and another documentary
12. Ballast - an 08 film, that keeps rising in my estimation
13. Burn After Reading - very entertaining Coen brothers comedy, though nothing special
14. Momma’s Man - another nice 08 indie
15. Married Life - another 07 films, one that seems to have dropped off the earth
16. Rachel Getting Married - 08, nice film, nice return for Demme, though in the end, just a nice film...
17. Happy Go Lucky - another new film, pretty good, not sure how good though
18. A Girl Cut in Two - another 07 film by an old Frenchman
19. Speed Racer - look, if you're going to go overboard on the CGI, Go Overboard on the CGI!
20. Paranoid Park - last year's Gus Van Sant
21. Milk - this year's Gus Van Sant - pretty good itself
22. Witnesses - another 2007 French movie, Andre Techine this time
23. Curious Case of Benjamin Button - looks great, less filling
24. The Wrestler - nicely made film, but as cliched and predictable as a wrestling match
25. Operation Filmmaker - another documantary
And now - the best films made in 2008, whether they were released here or not: an okay list so far, though the film at the top is outstanding. Nothing wrong with these films, just very little else that seems like a timeless classic.
1. The Headless Woman - Lucrecia Martel
2. A Christmas Tale - Arnaud Desplechin
3. My Winnipeg - Guy Maddin
4. Encounters at the End of the World - Werner Herzog
5. Man on Wire - James Marsh
6. Ballast - Lance Hammer
7. Burn After Reading - Coen Brothers
8. Momma's Man - Azazel Jacobs
9. Rachel Getting Married - Jonathan Demme
10. Happy Go Lucky - Mike Leigh
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