Movies
for
Music
Lovers:
2009
Edition

Click here
for the
2008
edition

I'm always pleased when my top 10 doesn't look like anybody else's, but I'd never set out to create something unique just to stand out from the crowd. Not unless my heart was really in it.

Last year, it was all about the re-release of Jerzy Skolimowski's long-lost Deep End (and this year, the reissue of two forgotten Sylvester albums from the early-1970s top my music list).

But not all years are created equal. In 2006, I gave pride of place
to 1969's Army of Shadows, indicating that the year had nothing
better to offer—not that I don't stand by Jean-Pierre Melville's
amazing movie—but I really would prefer to celebrate the new.

The minute Kathryn Bigelow's Hurt Locker ended, I knew I'd
found my #1, even though there were still six months left in the
year. As it turns out, dozens—if not hundreds—of film critics felt
exactly the same way. So be it. It's my number one with a bullet.

For some, the picture pro-
vided their first exposure
to Bigelow (Near Dark) and
Jeremy Renner (North
Country), which is great—
better late than never—but
I've been pulling for these
underdogs for years. Same for Anthony Mackie, who made my list
three year ago with Half Nelson. He's a fine actor who deserves
more leading roles of his own (and also rates a mention for his
charismatic portrayal of rapper Tupac Shakur in Notorious).

Note: The links lead to my Amazon, SIFF, Siffblog, and Video Librarian reviews.

The Tops:
1. The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow)
2. Il Divo (Paulo Sorrentino)
3. Precious (Lee Daniels)
4. Summer Hours (Olivier Assayas)
5. Public Enemies (Michael Mann)
6. Bad Lieutenant - Port of Call New Orleans (Werner Herzog)
7. District 9 (Neill Blomkamp)
8. Gomorrah (Matteo Garrone)
9. Hunger (Steve McQueen)
10. Bright Star (Jane Campion)



Runners-up:
11. Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson)
12. Up in the Air (Jason Reitman)
13. Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt)
14. Goodbye, Solo (Ramin Bahrani)
15. The Headless Woman (Lucrecia Martel)
16. 35 Shots of Rum (Claire Denis)
17. Tony Manero (Pablo Larraín)
18. Medicine for Melancholy (Barry Jenkins)
19. Silent Light (Carlos Reygadas)
20. Lake Tahoe (Fernando Eimbcke)

Note: I wish so many critics
didn't find it necessary to dis-
parage Anderson's previous ef-
fort, The Darjeeling Limited, in
order to praise Fantastic Mr.
Fox. Couldn't Fox be appreciated
on its own merits? Further, I
prefer Darjeeling to his debut, Bottle Rocket, among Martin Scorsese's favorite films of the '00s. (For once, I disagree with the director. And I'd also like to see more love for The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou).

Second Runners-up:
21. The Informant! (Steven Soderbergh)
22. A Serious Man (Joel and Ethan Coen)
23. Where the Wild Things Are (Spike Jonze)
24. Black Dynamite (Scott Sanders)
25. Tie: Big Fan (Robert Seigel) and The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky)
26. The Silence of Lorna* (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)
27. Humpday (Lynn Shelton)
28. Beeswax (Andrew Bujalski)
29. Tokyo Sonata (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
30. The Merry Gentleman (Michael Keaton)

* Also known as Lorna's Silence. Either way: she isn't very talkative.



Note: For my money, A Serious Man and The Informant! are
the year's saddest comedies. While watching both, I laughed. But
afterwards, I wanted to cry. As for The Wrestler and Big Fan, Ro-
bert Seigel penned the pair. And Roy Andersson's morbidly hilar-
ious You, the Living misses my top 30 only because I saw it in '08.

Top Documentaries:
1. Stranded (Gonzalo Arijón)
2. Soul Power (Jeffrey Levy-Hinte)
3. The September Issue (C.J. Cutler)
4. Tyson (James Toback)
5. Audience of One (Michael Jacobs)
6. The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins (Pietra Brettkelly)
7. RiP! A Remix Manifesto (Brett Gaylor)
8. Invisible Girlfriend (David Redmon and Ashley Sabin)
9. Food, Inc. (Robert Kenner)
10. The Queen and I (Nahid Persson)

Top Rediscoveries:
1. Skidoo (Otto Preminger)
2. Cléo from 5 to 7 (Agnes Varda)
3. Model Shop (Jacques Demy)
4. Lola Montès (Max Ophüls)
5. Dillinger Is Dead (Marco Ferreri)
6. Funeral Parade of Ros-
es (Toshio Matsumoto)
7. Phase IV (Saul Bass)
8. The Rain People (Francis Ford Coppola)
9. So Long at the Fair (Terence Fisher)
10. Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice (Paul Mazursky)

Note: Most of these titles screened as part of the Northwest Film
Forum's year-long '69 series. Skidoo is wacked-out, hippie-dippy fun
with a Harry Nilsson score and an all-star cast. The music is available,
the movie is not. To quote Adam Sekuler, "Skidoo: you gotta be there!"



Top DVDs:
1. Magnificent Obsession - Criterion
Collection (Douglas Sirk/John M. Stahl)
2. Philippe Garrel x 2: I Can No Longer
Hear the Guitar/Emergency Kisses
3. Made in USA (Jean-Luc Godard)
4. The Exiles (Kent Mckenzie)
5. Careful (Guy Maddin)

Note: I only list DVDs with extras that enhance the viewing ex-
perience in some way. Further, I only list those that I either pur-
chased or reviewed, hence no AK 100: 25 Films by Kurosawa,
Jeanne Dielman, 23 Qual du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, Gau-
mont Treasures, Zabriskie Point, The Exterminating Angel,
or The Samuel Fuller Film Collection, all of which appear
on Dennis Lim's list for The Los Angeles Times.

Worthy of attention
(in alphabetical order):
(500) Days of Summer, Ad-
ventureland, The Baader Meinhof Complex, Broken Embraces, Ché, Coco before Chanel, Cold Souls, The Country Teacher, Duplicity, An Education, Endgame, The Firm Land, The House of the
Devil, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus*, The Imma-
culate Conception of Little Dizzle, Inglourious Basterds, Lem-
on Tree, Me and Orson Welles, The Messenger, The Missing Person, Moon, Séraphine, A Single Man, State of Play, Stel-
la, Sunshine Cleaning, Telstar, Trucker, and Two Lovers.

* Opens at the Metro Cinemas on 1/8/10.

Missed (or haven't seen yet): The Beaches of Agnes, Bron-
son, Coraline, The Cove, Crazy Heart, The Damned United, The
English Surgeon, Everlasting Moments, I'm Gonna Explode, Julia,
Liverpool, The Maid, Next Day Air, Night and Day, Of Time and
the City, Passing Strange, Police, Adjective, Pontypool, Ponyo,
The Road, Still Walking, Somers Town, Sugar, Tetro, Three
Monkeys, Tulpan, Unmade Beds, Up, Whip It!, The
White Ribbon, and World's Greatest Dad.

Note: I'll be seeing The Beaches of Agnes, Cra-
zy Heart, Julia, and Passing Strange shortly.



Endnote: Cross-posted at Facebook and Siffblog.
Images from Film Reference, Action Movie Reviews,
Way of the West, Channel 4, and The Guardian.

Read more »

A Surp-
risingly
Cohesive
Whole

Dios,

We Are

Dios,

Buddy-

head

Records

[2/16/10]

On their third full-length, Cali quartet Dios tosses a grab bag of

styles and moods into the mix and makes them into a surprising-

ly cohesive whole. Driving beats collide with acoustic guitar inter-

ludes, while treated vocals spar with enchanting chimes. As with

Black Moth Super Rainbow, they also wield the flute, an instru-

ment making quite a comeback lately, with aplomb. Fans of Beck

and the Beta Band would do wise to give We Are Dios a try.

Note: According to the AMG, "In summer 2004, guitarist Ronnie
James Dio served Dios with a cease and desist order, citing potential

confusion over his own outfit's name Dio and the younger group's

moniker. In response, Dios changed their name to Dios Malos."

Love ya, Dio, but that's lame—especially since Dios, whose

name comes from the Spanish word for God, consists of four

second-generation, Los Angeles-born Mexican-Americans.



Cosmo Jarvis, Humasyouhitch
Sonofabitch, Wall of Sound

"Well, I'm 19, and I don't know much

about anything, but I ain't dumb."
-- Cosmo Jarvis, "Clean My Room"

About Cosmo Jarvis's self-titled EP, I wrote, "I could

do without a few of his more adolescent lyrics," and I feel

the same way about the New Jersey-to-UK transplant's

two-disc debut (he definitely has a way with a melody,

but one disc would've gotten the job done). That

said, I still like his description of Megan

Fox as "the girl in Transformers."



Static of the Gods, Knowledge

Machine, delVerano records [3/23/10]

The indie rock of Bettie Serveet meets the electro-pop of

the Yeah Yeah Yeahs on this Boston trio's second record, ex-

cept Static of the Gods offer a slightly darker, more under-

stated sound. I feel like I've been down this road before,

but that doesn't make the journey any less pleasant.



Endnote: For more information about Cosmo

Jarvis, please click here; for Static of the Gods,

here. Dios image from ...nonphenomenal lineage.

Read more »

Movie
of the
Month:
Part 13

I recently
reviewed
the fol-
lowing
film for
Video Librarian, and thought the results were worth sharing.

THE MERRY GENTLEMAN [***1/2]
(Michael Keaton, US, 2008, 97 mins.)

Last summer, Michael Keaton (Batman, Game 6)
made his directorial debut with The Merry Gentle-
man, a two-pronged character study shot in shades of noir.

The set-up begins in Chicago with Keaton's Frank Logan wan-
dering through the wintery weather. Kate Frazier (Kelly Mac-
donald), meanwhile, lives in an unnamed town with another man
(Bobby Cannavale), and enters the scene with a bruised eye. Af-
ter her cop companion leaves for work, she packs up her stuff,
catches a plane to the Windy City, and starts a new life.

In the interval, Logan watch-
es a trio of men leave a corner
bar. Moments later, he shoots
one of them dead. Days later,
while planning another hit, he
spies Frazier, now working as
a receptionist, through his
viewfinder. She notices him
on the roof, screams, and calls the police because she thought he
was going to jump. He disappears, but after a second murder, they
return to question her about the man she saw. Now, Frank’s got
two bodies to his name and a connection to Kate, who tells
different people different stories about her background.

From the opening sequence, the film appears to share similari-
ties with John Dahl's Chicago-set You Kill Me, except The Mer-
ry Gentleman isn’t a black comedy, despite a few subtle comic
touches, like the world's most depressing office holiday party.
Plus, the central duo doesn’t meet until the halfway point.

If a first film reveals where an actor-turned-director’s head is
at, then Keaton’s mind resides in a dimly-lit, but not hopeless
place. The Merry Gentleman starts out as a two-hander,
but Macdonald gets all the best scenes, while he barely speaks
a word. Frank’s die is cast, but Kate’s future is unwritten, and
it takes a hit man to help her to write it. Highly recommended.

Click here for Movie of the Month, Part 12: Il Divo



Endnote: This is an edited version of a longer review.
Click here for the original. Images from Time Out Chicago
and All Movie Photo (Copyright © Samuel Goldwyn Films).

Read more »

Search
Results

Every few
months,
I check
Google to
see where
my re-
views
(and oth-
er ephem-
era) are ending up. Here are some of the more interesting results.

Cinema Cinema:
AndMoreAgain review of Exile Baby

Cinema of the World:
Siffblog review of Skin, Skin

DVD Beaver:
Amazon review of Food, Inc.

Fandango:
Amazon review of This Is It

Hot Splice:
Siffblog photo of director Barry Jenkins

Magnolia:
Humpday thanks

Reel Black:
Amazon review of Music Is the Weapon

Reverb Nation:
AndMoreAgain review
of The End of Suffering

Rivercoast Film:
Amazon review of American Meth

The Spiritualized Forums:
Wire interview with Loop's Robert Hampson

TracyMorgan.net:
Amazon review of Totally Awesome



Endnote: Images from Barry Jenkins's Medicine
for Melancholy and Lynn Shelton's Humpday,
among my favorite films of the year (full list here).

Read more »

Eat, For This Is My Body


Black
Moth
Super
Rain-
bow,
Eat-
ing Us,
Grave-
face



Eating Us is like the answer to a dream I didn't know I had.
Imagine if Air re-recorded Moon Safari under the influence of
some powerful psychotropics and invited a few old folkies and
young dance denizens to the party. In an ideal world, the re-
sults from that schizophrenic soirée would resemble the lat-
est enchantment from this mysterious Pittsburgh collective.


Goofy video for a great song.

Don't go looking to the glossy booklet for further information,
however, other than song titles. Like the cover, it consists en-
tirely of black and white photographic collages daubed with
splashes of neon orange. The back of the CD, however,
states that lysergic maestro Dave Fridmann (the Flam-
ing Lips, Mercury Rev) served as producer and that
the participants include Tobacco (voice + music +
visual), Iffernaut (drums), and Ryan Graveface
and Seven Fields of Aphelion (more music).

A few nursery rhyme-like lyrics float to the sparkling sur-
face: "Neon lemonade, eat my face away, na na-na-na na...
you and me, we're gonna melt away, like apples in the
ground..." All the while, Iffernaut pounds the skins like
a mad robot and the synthesizer player, whoe'er he
may be, sets his controls for the heart of the sun.

Eating Us serves as the ideal successor to Fridmann's work
on Rev's motorik-inspired Snowflake Midnight. And when you
least expect it, flute and banjo enter the fray. Though I'm new
to Black Moth Super Rainbow, I love, love, love this record.



Endnote: For more information about
Black Moth Super Rainbow, please click
here or here. Image from Fanatic Promotion.

Read more »

Acts of Com-
munication

Hotel St. George,
City Boy Lemon,
This Is Tightrope

Add singer/guitar-
ist Matt Binder to
the list of Ameri-
cans who think—
or wish—they'd
been born in Brit-
ain. Growing up,
I was often surpris-
ed by the number
of Brits who sang
sans accent until I heard Herman's Hermits and the Kinks.

This San Diego quartet doesn't bring either act to mind,
though they've probably got a few UK records in their col-
lection, since they combine precise vocals with layers of fuzz
and reverberating beats, like a cross between the Stone Roses
New Order, and the Vapours (that's a compliment, by the way).

Note: Vinyl and digital download only.



Julie the Band, An Act of Communication, Baby Bird Records

An Act of Communication works well enough as far as new
wave-meets-baroque pop goes—trumpets, violins, Cars-like key-
boards—and harder-edged than that description suggests, but this
LA quintet's debut doesn't leave as much of an impression as it
should. Includes a reverant version of the Beatles' "Blackbird"
and a remix of "Foggin Up a Clear View" with Obie Trice.



Seaspin, Reverser EP, self-released

This LA five-piece cooks up
airy melodies in the vein of
My Bloody Valentine and Cur-
ve with Jennifer Goodridge's
delicate vocals floating atop
a three-guitar maelstrom.
You've heard it before, and if
you're like me, you won't mind hearing it again. Ends in a phosphorescent spray of feedback.



Samuel Stewart, The Beginner
EP, Frank Lawless Entertainment

I know I'm a sinner, been doing it
for years, but I'm still a beginner.
-- Samuel Stewart, "The Beginner"

Now based in LA, London singer/multi-instrumentalist
Samuel Stewart follows in the ornate footsteps of Ar-
cade Fire and DeVotchka on this music hall-inspired EP
(I'd imagine he also has a thing for The Threepenny Op-
era). His vibrato brings to mind Marc Bolan and Deven-
dra Banhart, but with fewer folk and glam touches, while
he sounds a little like Gogol Bordello's Eugene Hütz on
the gypsy-oriented "Devil Music." If Stewart isnt work-
ing from the most original blueprint, his talent and ease
of execution make The Beginner worthy of attention.

***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Endnote: For more information about Hotel St.
George, please click here; for Julie the Band, here
or here; for Seaspin, here or here; and for Samuel
Stewart, here or here. Images from Planetary Group.

Read more »

December
Reviews

These are
the reviews
and other
pieces I'm
working on
this month.

Amazon
DVDs: The Edge of Love, Hung (HBO Series) - Season One, Bewitch-
ed - The Complete Eighth Season [four-disc set], Dare, and
Mental - The Complete First Season [four-disc set].

Amazon Theatricals: Brothers (Jim Sheridan directs
Jake Gyllenhaal, Toby Maguire, and Natalie Portman), In-
victus (Clint Eastwood directs Morgan Freeman and Matt
Damon), Broken Embraces (Pedro Almodóvar directs
Penélope Cruz), and The Imaginarium of Doctor Par-
nassus (Terry Gilliam directs Heath Ledger).

Still playing (or yet to open): Coco before Chanel,
Law Abiding Citizen, Me and Orson Welles, This Is It,
Where the Wild Things Are, and Youth in Revolt.



KCTS 9: These are some of the press releases I've written or to which I've contributed: CFO announcement, development team announcement, FRONTLINE: Puget Sound's Poisoned Waters, KCTS 9 Chefs 2010, This Emotional Life, The Whole World Was Watching, and Yakima Valley Community Foundation grant.

Video Librarian: Latin Music USA [two-disc set], A Little
Snow Fairy Sugar [two-disc set], You Weren't There - A His-
tory of Chicago Punk 1977-1984, Beyond a Reasonable Doubt,
Coco before Chanel, Dirty - The Official ODB Biography, Lost -
The Complete Fifth Season [five-disc set], The Merry Gent-
leman, Trucker, Wild Child, Runaway, Shall We Kiss,
and A Wink and a Smile - The Art of Burlesque.



Endnote: Image from Band of Thebes.

Read more »