Songs for Cineastes: 2012 Edition

Cate Le Bon (The Control Group)

Click here for the 2011 edition. 

Rather than a list of film scores or soundtracks, the following represents an assortment of music recommended for movie lovers such as myself. Some independent film fans prefer mainstream movie fare. Similarly, some art house aficionados prefer major-label music. There's nothing wrong with that; I just can't relate to it (and try to avoid giving the Man my money whenever possible). If you share my taste in movies, there's a good chance you might share my taste in music. Links lead to reviews and previews for Line Out.

The Tops:
1. Cate Le Bon - CYRK (The Control Group)
2. Julia Holter - Ekstasis (RVNG Intl.)
3. Tie: Neneh Cherry - The Cherry Thing
    and The Cherry Thing Remixed (Smalltown Supersound)
4. Niobe - The Cclose Calll (Tomlab)
5. Tie: Ty Segall - Twins and Ty Segall
    and White Fence - Hair (Drag City)
6. Black Moth Super Rainbow - Cobra Juicy (Rad Cult)
7. FRKWYS Vol.9: Sun Araw & M. Geddes Gengras
    Meet the Congos - Icon Give Thank (RVNG Intl.)
8. METZ - METZ (Sub Pop)
9. Django Django - Django Django (Ribbon Music)
10. Melody's Echo Chamber - Melody's Echo Chamber (Fat Possum)

 
Runners-up: 
1. Air - Le Voyage dans le Lune (Astralwerks-EMI)
2. Black Bananas - Rad Times Xpress IV (Drag City)
3. Frankie Rose - Interstellar (Slumberland)
4. Scott Walker - Bish Bosch (4AD)
5. Tie: Field Music - Plumb (Memphis Industries)
    and Play the Hits... limited ed. EP (Field Music)
6. Sic Alps - Sic Alps ( Drag City)
7. Soft Moon - Zeros (Captured Tracks)
8. Six Organs of Admittance - Ascent (Drag City)
9. Chrome Canyon - Elemental Themes (Stones Throw)
10. Redd Kross - Rehearsing the Blues (Merge)


Second runners-up: 
1. Cat Power - Sun (Matador)
2. Shintaro Sakamoto - How to Live with a Phantom
    (Other Music Recording Co.)
3. Moon Duo - Circles (Sacred Bones)
4. Bobby Womack - The Bravest Man in the Universe
    (XL Recordings)
5. Blues Control - Valley Tangents (Drag City)
6. Holly Herndon - Movement (RVNG Intl.)
7. Matmos - The Ganzfeld EP (Thrill Jockey)
8. Beak> - >> (Invada)
9. Tyvek - On Triple Beams (In the Red)
10. Lavender Diamond - Incorruptible Heart (Paracadute)



Also worthy of note: Willis Earl Beal - Acousmatic Sorcery (XL Recordings), the Babies - Our House on the Hill (Woodsist), Erik Blood - Touch Screens (self-released), Ceremony - Zoo (Matador), Deep Time - Deep Time (Hardly Art), Dirty Three - Toward the Low Sun (Drag City), Martin Eden - Dedicate Function (Lefse), Elephant and Castle - Transitions (Plug Research), ESP - ESP EP (self-released), Robert Glasper Experiment - Black Radio (Blue Note-EMI), La Sera - Sees the Light (Hardly Art), Shawn Lee - Synthesizers in Space (ESL Music), Levek - Look a Little Closer (Lefse), Dent May - Do Things (Paw Tracks), Marisa Monte - O Que Você Quer Saber De Verdade (Blue Note-EMI), MV and EE - Space Homestead (Woodsist), Nude Beach - Nude Beach II (Other Music Recording Co.), Onuinu - Mirror Gazer (Bladen County-Bad Cop Bad Cop), Parquet Courts - Light Up Gold (Dull Tools), Robust Worlds - Emotional Planet (De Stijl), Ty Segall Band - Slaughterhouse (In the Red), Mariee Sioux - Gift for the End (Almost Musique-Whale Watch), Standard Fare - Out of Sight, Out of Town (Melodic), Terry Malts - Killing Time (Slumberland), THEESatisfaction - AweNatural (Sub Pop), Tomten - Wednesday's Children (Flat Field), the Unthanks - Diversions Vol. 1: The Songs of Robert Wyatt and Antony & the Johnsons (Rough Trade), UV Race - Racism (In the Red), Various Artists - FAC. Dance 02 (Strut) Various Artists - We Are the Works in Progress (Asa Wa Kuru), Vex Ruffin - Same Thing Tomorrow (Stones Throw) [cassette], White Fence - Family Perfume Vol. 1 & 2 (Woodsist), Andre Williams - Hoods and Shades (Bloodshot), Woods & Amps for Christ split LP (Shrimper), and Young Magic - Melt (Carpark).

 

Love what I heard (need to hear more): A Place to Bury
Strangers - Onwards to the Wall (Dead Oceans), Flying Lotus -  
Until the Quiet Comes (Warp), Royal Baths - Better Luck 
Next Life (Kanine), Andy Stott - Luxury Problems (Mod-
ern Love), and Thee Oh Sees - Putrifiers II (In the Red).

Top Reissues and Archival Material: 
1. Various Artists - Listen Whitey! Sounds 
of Black Power 1967-74 (Light in the Attic)
2. Sensations Fix - Music Is Painting in the Air (RVNG Intl.)
3. feedtime - The Aberrant Years ( Sub Pop)
4. Royal Trux - Accelerator (Drag City)
5. Golden Calves - Collection (Woodsist)



Note: Can's Lost Tapes box set set is on my wish list.   

Love what I heard (need to hear more): Francis Bebey -
African Electronic Music: 1975-82 (Born Bad), Michael Chap-
man - Rainmaker (Light in the Attic), Alex Chilton - Free Again: 
The 1970 Sessions (Omnivore), Franco Falsini - Cold Nose
(Spectrum Spools), Lee Hazlewood - The LHI Years: Singles 
Nudes & Backsides: 1968-71 (Light in the Attic), Patrice
Sciortino - Chronoradial (Omni Recording Co.), Various Artists -  
Beat Frauleins: Female Pop in Germany 1964-68 (Grosse
Freiheit), and Leslie Winer - Leslie Winer &c. (Wormhole).

Songs I didn't hate...at all: Maroon 5 - "Moves Like Jagger" and Gotye - "Someone That I Used to Know." A great melody is a great melody is a great melody. I don't care where it comes from.



Endnote: A work in progress. More sounds and images to come.  

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Movies for Music Lovers: 2012 Edition

Click here for the 2011 edition.

Some of these films premiered in the US in 2011, but didn't arrive in Seattle until 2012, in which case I deferred to local release dates. Some missed the city altogether, in which case I caught up via DVD. I wrote about many for Amazon, Line Out, The Seattle International Film Festival, SIFFBlog, and Video Librarian (the links lead to reviews, though Rust and Bone and Amour haven't been posted yet, since they don't open here until January). 

The Tops:
1. Patience (After Sebald) (Grant Gee)

In his haunting profile of an author's defining novel, Gee created a true work of art.

2. The Turin Horse (Béla Tarr)
3. Shame (Steve McQueen)
5. Rust and Bone (Jacques Audiard)
6. The Master (P.T. Anderson)
7. Tyrannosaur (Paddy Considine)
8. Killing Them Softly (Andrew Dominick)
9. Hello I Must Be Going (Todd Louiso)
10. The Source (Maria Doumopolis and Jody Wille)



Runners-up:
1. Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson)

Love the adults, couldn't stand the kids. 

2. Compliance (Craig Zobel)
3. Skyfall (Sam Mendes)
4. Bernie (Richard Linklater)
5. Amour (Michael Hanecke)
6. Miss Bala (Gerardo Naranja)

If Laura comes at the trade from a different angle, Miss Bala serves as an inside-out response to Maria Full of Grace, which also centered on a sympathetic mule (and featured a strong central performance from another virtual unknown). From start to finish, Laura is neither action heroine nor passive victim, but rather stoic survivor.

7. House of Pleasures (Bertrand Bonello)
8. Silver Linings Playbook (David O. Russell)
9. Dark Horse (Todd Solondz)
10. Lincoln (Steven Spielberg)



Second runners-up:
1. Tie: The Avengers (Joss Whedon) and 
Cabin in the Woods (Drew Goddard)
2. The Sessions (Ben Lewin)
3. Holy Motors (Leos Carax)
4. Looper (Rian Johnson)

Mostly for the boy from StephenKingLand.  

5. Cosmopolis (David Cronenberg)
6. Flight (Robert Zemeckis)  
7. For a Good Time, Call... (Jamie Travis)
8. Life of Pi (Ang Lee)
9. Chicken with Plums (Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud)
10. Magic Mike (Steven Soderbergh)

 

Also worthy of note: Anna Karenina, Before Your Eyes (Min 
Dit: The Children of Diyarbakir), Bonsái, Bullhead, Cirkus Col-
umbia, Cloud Atlas, Coriolanus, The Dark Knight Rises, The Do-
Deca-Pentathlon, Eden, Eye of the Storm, Goodbye (Bé Omid E Didar), The Hunger Games, In Darkness (W Ciemności), The Iron Lady, Policeman (Ha-shoter), Post Mortem, Rampart, Rebellion (L’Ordre et la Morale), Rent-a-Cat (Rentaneko), Roadie, Seven Psychopaths, Snowtown Murders, Sound of My Voice, The Slut, Summer Holiday (Boogie), Turn Me on Dammit! (Få Meg På, for Faen), V/H/S, We Need to Talk about Kevin, Your Sister's Sister.


 
Missed (or haven't seen yet): Arbitrage, Barbara*, Bestiaire,
Chronicle, The Color Wheel, Consuming Spirits, Damsels in Dis-
tress, The Day He Arrives (Book Chon Bang Hyang), The Deep Blue Sea, Footnote (Hearat Shulayim), Goodbye First Love (Un Amour de Jeunesse), The Grey, In Another Country (Da-reun Na-ra-e-seo), Keep the Lights On, The Kid With a Bike (Le Gamin au Vélo), Late Quartet, Les Misérables, The Loneliest Planet, Middle of Nowhere, Neighboring Sounds (O Som ao Redor), Oslo, August 31st, A Royal Affair (En Kongelig Affære), A Simple Life (Tao Jie), Sister (L'Enfant d'en Haut), Starlet, Zero Dark Thirty.

Television notables: Boardwalk Empire - Season Two, Downton Abbey - Season Two, Game Change, The Good Wife - Season Four, Revenge - Season Two, and Vegas - Season One.

* I caught a screening on Jan. 5. Adding to my Best of 2013 list.

 

They've done better: Andrea Arnold (Wuthering Heights), Bobby and Peter Farrelly (The Three Stooges), William Friedkin (Killer Joe), Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained), and Woody Allen (To Rome with Love...which I enjoyed in spite of myself).

 

Top documentaries: 

Caught few of the big non-fiction films, but saw the small ones most others missed.

1. 5 Broken Cameras (Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi)
2. The Chilean Building (Macarena Aguiló)
3. The Boxing Girls of Kabul (Ariel Nasr)
4. Taken by Storm: The Art of Storm Thorgerson
and Hipgnosis (Roddy Bogawa)
5. Paul Williams: I'm Still Here (Stephen Kessler)
6. Pink Ribbons, Inc. (Léa Pool)
7. Girl Model (David Redmon and Ashley Sabin)
8. Marley (Kevin Macdonald)
9. Bad Brains: A Band in DC (Benjamen Logan)
10. Chely Wright: Wish Me Away (Bobbie Birleffi and Beverly Kopf)

 

Also worthy of note: Barbershop Punk, Carol Channing: Larger Than Life, Dish: Women, Waitressing and the Art of Service, Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone, Family Portrait in Black and White, Better Than Something: Jay Reatard, Last Days Here, Last Fast Ride: The Life, Love and Death of a Punk Goddess, Made in India, Step up to the Plate, Tales of the Waria, and Winter Nomads (Hiver Nomade).

Missed (or haven't seen yet): Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, Beware of Mr. Baker, Brooklyn Castle, Bully, The Central Park Five, Detropia, The Gatekeepers, The House I Live In, How to Survive a Plague, The Invisible War, Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present, The Queen of Versailles, Searching for Sugar Man, This Is Not a Film, and Under African Skies.

Reissues and rediscoveries: 
1. World on a Wire / Welt am Draht(Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
2. A Man Vanishes / Ningen Jôhatsu(Shohei Imamura)
3. Tie: The Connection and Ornette Made in America (Shirley Clarke)
4. Movie Orgy (Joe Dante)
5. La Vampire Nue / The Nude Vampire (Jean Rollin)

With live Demdike Stare score at this year's Decibel Festival. 

Yes, I did see: Beasts of the Southern Wild.


 
Endnote: A work in progress. More sounds and images to come.   

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December Reviews

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

Amazon DVDs: Psych - The Complete Sixth Season [four-disc set], Call the Midwife - Season One [two-disc set], and Eastbound & Down - The Complete Third Season [two-disc set].

Amazon Theatricals:  
Playing for Keeps (with
Gerard Butler and Jessica
Biel), Rust and Bone (Jac-
ques Audiard directs Marion Cotillard and Matthias Schoenaerts), and The Guilt Trip (with Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand).

Line Out: Mikal Cronin Signs to Merge Records, METZ Digital Single: "Dirty Shirt," Vex Ruffin: Getting Wiggy in Chino, The Haunting Sounds of Holly Herndon, Django Django: Video, Remix, and Tour Date, Chrome Canyon's "Pluze" and the Season of Lists, Blues Control Takes Their Show on the Road, More KCMU Schwag from Way Back When, NYC Duo's Sampledelic Dream Sequence, Sun Araw Reunites with the Congos, and Trux's Accelerator.   

 

Video Librarian: Call the Midwife - Season One [two-disc set], 
Delete - The Art of Forgetting, Just Around the Corner, Produced 
by George Martin [Blu-ray], Liberal Arts, Freddie Mercury - The 
Great Pretender [Blu], Gary Moore - Blues for Jimi [Blu], Sky-
dancer, Words of Witness, I Am - SM Town Live World Tour in Madison Square Garden, So - Peter Gabriel [Blu], Chely Wright - Wish Me Away, Children Who Chase Lost Voices, John Cage - Journeys in Sound [Blu], Greg Allman - I'm No Angel, Paco de Lucía and Group - Live at the Germeringer Jazztage, Half the Sky - Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide.

 

Endnote: Rust and Bone image from Sony Pictures Classics.  

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November Reviews

Technological remnant of the 1980s

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









Amazon DVDs: Parenthood - The Complete 3rd Season [five-disc set], Last of the Summer Wine - Vintage 1995 Sum-
mer Reserve [two-disc set], Upstairs Downstairs - Season 2 [two-disc set], and Ancient Aliens - Season 4 [two-Blu-ray set]

Amazon Theatricals: Ang Lee's Life of Pi, Joe Wright's Anna Karenina, and Steven Spielberg's Lincoln (with Daniel Day-Lewis).

Line Out: Matmos Gets Literal in New Video, Dual Form, Cyclist, and Cassette Culture, There Are Still Careers in Combat, My Son, Remixing Neneh Cherry and The Thing, Big Star and the Ballad of the Rock Doc, Stones Throw Doc on the Way, Just Say Yeah, Yeah, Yeah to Tyvek, Tweeting Scott Walker's Bish Bosch, Lola, the Boombox Cat, The Ghost of Karen Carpenter Lives On, Pearl Necklace, Arp, Double Entendres, Helado Negro's "Dance Ghost".



Video Librarian: The Kathy Griffin Collection [two-disc set], 5 
Broken Cameras, Groundhogs - Live at Astoria, Mariachi High. 


 
Endnote: Image from my personal collection.  

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Sic Alps photo by David Waldman

October Reviews

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



Amazon DVDs: Burn Notice - Season Five [four-disc set],  
Kingdom - Season One (with Stephen Fry) [two-disc set], and  
The Ice House (with Daniel Craig and Corin Redgrave).

Amazon Theatrical: Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights.

Line Out: Niobe's Close Call, What Goes On with Sic Alps, Robust Worlds - "Best Wishes," Chrome Canyon's Elemental Themes, Six Organs of Admittance at the Crocodile, Generationals - "Sale City," Throbbing Gristle, Genesis, and Nico, Martin Eden's Dedicate(d) Function, Rangda's Desert Trip, Field Music Play(s) the Hits, Black Moth and the Return of the Rad Cult, Shirley Clarke's The Connec-
tion, Girls Names - "The New Life," Angel from Chicago (by Way of
Missouri), Holly Herndon's Fabulous "Fade," Soft Moon's Zeros. 

 

SIFFBlog: The 2012 Stranger Genius Awards. 

Video Librarian: Turn Me On, Dammit!, 17 Girls, Fela Kuti 
Double Feature - Documentary and Concert: Teacher Don't Teach
Me Nonsense / Berliner Jazztage '78 [two-disc set], Ben Lee - 
Catch My Disease, Sushi - Global Catch, Salt of Life, Hung - The 
Complete Third Season [two-disc set], Grey’s Anatomy - The Com-
plete Eighth Season [six-disc set], Etta James - Live at Montreux 
[Blu], Happy Endings - The Complete Second Season [2-disc set].


 
Endnote: Mike Donovan image from Drag City. 

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September Reviews

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

Amazon DVDs: Leverage - The 4th Season [4-disc set].

Amazon Theatricals: Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paron-
naud's Chicken with Plums (with Mathieu Amalric), Liberal Arts (with Elizabeth Olsen), and P.T. Anderson's The Master (with Joaquin Phoenix, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams).  

Still playing (or yet to open): For a Good Time, Call..., Hello I Must
Be Going, The Hunger Games, Old Goats, Sparkle, and The Words.  


 
Line Out: Apocalypse - A Bill Callahan Tour Film, Norwood Fisher at the NWFF, Inside Melody's Echo Chamber, Switched on by Chrome Canyon, Redd Kross at Chop Suey, Laetitia Sadier - "The Rule of the Game," Striking Sparks with Ben Chasny, Sing Along with the Fall, Teen Daze Teams Up with Frankie Rose, Get Physical with Moon Duo and King Khan, Fac. Dance 02: Global Groove Machine, Cat Power's Triumphant Sun, METZ: More Noise Please, The Best Tom Waits Song...This Week, Terra Treasures from Levek, The Raveonettes and Melody's Echo Chamber, Dem-
dike Stare and Director Jean Rollin, Bad Books - "Forest Whitak-
er," Drag City's Crazy Commercials, Julianna Barwick and Maria Minerva (at the Triple Door), and Niobe's Cclose Calll.

Video Librarian: Mike and Molly - The Complete Second Season [three-disc set], Autumn de Forest, The Boxing Girls of Kabul, A Drummer's Dream, How to Make a Book with Steidl, The Klez-
matics - On Holy Ground, Master Qi and the Monkey King, Our Summer in Tehran, Reflections on Media Ethics, The Witches of Gambaga, Staind - Live from Mohegan Sun [Blu-ray], and Sparkle.

 

 

Endnote: Bill Callahan image from his Apocalypse Kickstarter.

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August Reviews

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

Amazon DVDs: Going for the Gold - The '48 Games, Misfits - Season One [two-disc set], Mighty Morphin Powers Rangers - Season 1, Vol. 1 [three-disc set], and Judge John Deed - Season Six [two-disc set]. 

Amazon Theatricals: Old Goats, The Words (with Bradley
Cooper and Zoë Saldana), and Sparkle (with Whitney Houston). 

Still playing (or yet to open): For a Good Time Call..., Hello I Must Be
Going, The Hunger Games, Neil Young Journeys, and To Rome with Love. 

Line Out: Frankie Rose Takes a Trip to the 1980s, Psychic Ills-Moon Duo Split Single, Redd Kross's Welcome Return, Black Moth Super Rainbow Conquers Kickstarter, Releases New Single, Eats Your Face, Levek's Lovely "French Lessons", Franco Falsini's Cosmic Saudade, BURN!, Moon Duo - "Sleepwalker,"   Melody's Echo Chamber Meets UMO, Django Django's Intergalactic Show-
down, The Presets - "Youth in Trouble," Soft Moon - "Die Life," Onuinu's Shimmering Mirror Gazer, Redd Kross - "Stay Away from Downtown," Catching up with Matthew Cooper, The Dream of the '80s Is Alive in Greenpoint, Nude Beach: Video and Tour Dates, ESP EP and ESP-Disk, Moon Duo and Lumerians at Octopus Fest, Mouse on Mars - "They Know Your Name," Sic Alps - "Glyphs," Ty Segall - "The Hill," Matmos - "Very Large Green Triangles." 



East Portland Blog: My pics are in this piece.

Siffblog: Your Sister's Sister (holdover from SIFF '12).  

Video Librarian: Changing Your Mind, Coping to Excelling, The Chilean Building, Eating Baba Yaga - An Evening with Brian Rohr, Family Portrait in Black and White, Hit So Hard - The Life and Near Death Story of Drummer Patty Schemel, Shakespeare High, Tales of the Waria, Water Children, John Gorka - The Gypsy Life [Blu-ray], Kasabian Live [Blu-ray], Rockwell - A Night of Legendary Collaborations, The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister, 4.3.2.1, Parenthood - Season 3 [4-disc set], Raspberry Magic, Slipknot: (sic)nesses—Live at Download, Tonight You’re Mine, Leave It on the Floor, Pink Ribbons, Inc., The Slut, Going for the Gold, Boardwalk Empire - Complete 2nd Season [5-disc set].

 

Endnote: Researching the Blues image from Merge Records.

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July Reviews

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

Amazon DVDs: Super WHY!: Around the World Adventure, Art: 21 - Art in the Twenty-First Century, Season Six, Birdsong, Great Expectations, and Secrets of the Manor House.

Amazon Theatricals: Jonathan Demme's Neil 
Young Journeys and  
For a Good Time, Call... 

Still playing (or yet to open): 21 Jump Street, Hello I Must Be Going, The Hunger Games, The Lucky One, Salmon Fishing in Yemen, The Three Stooges, To Rome with Love. 

Line Out: YouTube to Upgrade Comment System, Blues Control's Valley Tangents, Deep Time Album Teaser and Stream, ESG and the Factory Dance Archives, The Comet Gets a New Mural, Shin-
taro Sakamoto Makes Me Feel Fine, Black Bananas - "Foxy Play-
ground," Brits Keep the Flame of Krautrock Alive, Washington Post Pummels Twin Shadow, Pre-Decibel Orbital Mega-Post, Dirty Three - "Rising Below," Girls Names - "A Troubled See," ByDesign: Music Films and Events, A Million Miles Away with Nude Beach, I Want My Name Back, Love Rock Revolution at Elliot Bay Book Co., Thee Oh Sees Rock AllSaints, Estonian Brings Hazed Beats to Town, XTC: Melt the Guns (and the Thugs), Taken by Storm at the NWFF, Tame Impala: New Keyboards, Old Producer, Stream New Shawn Lee Album, More Weird and Creepy Imagery from BEAK>.

 

Video Librarian: Drop Dead Diva – The Complete Third Season [3-disc set], Love Never Dies [Blu-ray], Chicago in Chicago, The FP, Girl Model, Gone - The Disappearance of Aeryn Gillern, Good Deeds [Blu], Marley, From the Back of the Room, Pink Floyd - The Story of Wish You Were Here [Blu], and Muddy Waters and the Rolling Stones - Checkerboard Lounge: Live Chicago 1981.

 

Endnote: Neil Young poster image from Sony Classics

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Abbott and Lynskey in Hello I Must Be Going

June 

Reviews

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

Amazon DVDs: Albert Nobbs [Blu-ray] and Emmanuelle.

Amazon Theatricals: Hello I Must Be Going (with
Melanie Lynskey) and Woody Allen's To Rome with Love.

Still playing (or yet to open): 21 Jump Street, The Hunger Games,  
The Lucky One, Salmon Fishing in Yemen, and The Three Stooges.

KCTS 9: Speaker at this month's History Café on Seattle Rock.  

Line Out: The Womack - on the Screen and in the Studio, Julia
Holter, Naomi Yang, and Sigur Ros, Lee Hazlewood and Martin Newell, Blues Control - "Love's a Rondo," "You Are Not a Curator, You Are Actually Just a Filthy Blogger", What Is the Summer MixTape Festival?, I Faced the Music (and Survived), Deep Time - "Clouds," Father Yod, Ya Ho Wa 13, and The Source, Bruce Spring-
steen and the Ties That Bind, Cate Le Bon Announces Cyrk II EP, Doom Metal Pioneer Rises from the Grave, Neneh Cherry Meets The Thing, Sub Pop Signs METZ, I've Done a Lot of Foolish Things, "It's a rip off!," Ty Segall Band's Slaughterhouse, The Night I Met METZ, Getting a Fix on Franco Falsini, New Laetitia Sadier Track.

 

Siffblog: Blurry Pictures of Dynamic Directors.

Video Librarian: Menopause in an Hour [two-disc set], 
Quadrangle, Bonsái, Chick Corea and Friedrich Gulda - 
The Meeting: Live Recording from the Muncher Klaviersom-
mer '82, Girl Fight, Here, John Mellencamp - It’s About You  
[Blu-ray], Queen of Hearts, The Raconteurs - Live at Mont-
reux 2008 [Blu-ray], Simply Red - Live at Montreux 20-
03 [Blu-ray], and Ultrasuede - In Search of Halston.

Kate Winslet and Lynskey in Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures

Endnote: Hello I Must Be Going image from Indiewire via Oscilloscope Laboratories, Heavenly Creatures from Miramax.

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May Reviews

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

Amazon DVD: Weeds - Season Seven [three-disc set] (click here for six). 

Amazon Theatricals:  
Sound of My Voice (with
Another Earth writer-
actress Brit Marling).

Still playing (or yet to open): 21 Jump Street, The Hunger Games,
The Lucky One, Salmon Fishing in Yemen, and The Three Stooges.

Line Out: Seun Kuti - From Africa with Fury, Prins Thomas Remixes Dent May, Happy Trails with MV and EE, Willis Earl
Beal - One-Man Band at Barboza, Ty Segall and White Fence at Chop Suey, Beak > Returns to Bedevil Your Text, Melody's Echo Chamber - "Crystallized," Live Music + 35mm Classics at the NWFF, On Musical Perpetual-Motion Machines, Pickled Pig's Feet and Corn Liquor (Standing in the Shadows of Motown), A Band Called Death: The Documentary, Dent May Does Things His Own Way, Alpine Party Rock with Thee Oh Sees, Young Magic Remix and Mixtape, "Don't Fuck with the Fat Kid," Bad Brains: A Band in DC, Shintaro Sakamoto - "In a Phantom Mood," Julia Holter and
Jib Kidder at Barboza, Redd Kross Research the Blues, Paul Williams at the Egyptian, Roll the Dice's Canadian Mixtape,
The Soft Moon and John Foxx, and Blouse - "Time Travel."  


 
SIFF (notes for the 2012 guide): Finding North, Rebellion, Step
up to the Plate, Goodbye, Winter Nomads, A Checkout Girl's Big Adventures, The Crown Jewels, The Fourth State, The Blindfold, L’Afrance, Free Throw, The Details, and The Intouchables.

Siffblog: SIFF Dispatch #1, SIFF Dispatch #2, SIFF Dispatch #3.

Video Librarian: Legends of Folk - The Village Scene, Sleep-
ing Beauty, The Man on the Train, The Best of Bluegrass Un-
derground, The Fat Body (In)Visible, The Jeff Healey Band - 
Live in Belgium,  Leaving Home, Me Facing Life - Cyntoia's 
Story, One Alcoholic to Another - Demystifying AA, Wild Life - 
Une Vie Sauvage, Dawn of the Dead - The Grateful Dead and 
the Rise of the San Francisco Underground, Led Zeppelin - 
Dazed and Confused, and When the Drum Is Beating.



Endnote: Image from Fox Searchlight Pictures.

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