Chaos Ensues

From time
to time, I'll
be excavat-
ing reviews that aren't otherwise available online.

Before I started freelancing for Amazon, I used to contribute customer reviews. In 2000, I reviewed Alice et Martin. Since then, the DVD has gone out of print (I've been writing for Amazon for 10 years now). On
the off-chance it disappears from the site, this review also lives here.



ALICE ET MARTIN
(André Téchiné, France, 1998, 120 mins.)

When I first read a description of this film—man falls for his
gay brother's female best friend, chaos ensues—I didn't think
it sounded too promising. Then I noticed who directed it, An-
dré Téchiné (Les Voleurs), and who co-wrote the screenplay,
Olivier Assayas (Irma Vep). I got more than I was expecting.

Certain-
ly, there's
romance,
between
Alice
(Juliette
Binoche)
and
Martin (newcomer Alexis Loret), but that's not what it's really about.

Alice et Martin plays more like a modern-dress Crime and Punishment than some torrid French romance, because its true subjects are regret and redemption, but Téchiné doesn't reveal
until the end why Loret's Martin is so tortured. The 20-year-old
fashion plate seems to have everything going for him—like Bin-
oche's beautiful and devoted violin player Alice—but inside
he's so wracked with guilt, he suffers a breakdown.

The film cuts deep and the acting follows suit. At its worst, Al-
ice et Martin suffers from an excess of plot—it could be short-
er, it could drop a few extraneous details—but the unique struc-
ture serves the story well. The action starts in the recent past,
moves forward to the present, returns to the past again to show
why Martin acts the way he does (he's harboring a terrible sec-
ret), and then returns to the present by which point our Raskol-
nikov has figured out what he needs to do to put his soul at rest.

Some may find Alice et
Martin too slow and oth-
ers may find the acting too
flat—still others may prefer
a torrid French romance—
but fans of Binoche's subtle
work in films like Blue will
probably disagree. Loret,
who looks like Jeff Buckley,
whose version of Nina Sim-
one's "Lilac Wine" features
on the soundtrack, is a real
find. He's weird, hand-
some, and intense.


Special bonus: the always-dependable Mathieu Amalric
(Assayas' Late August, Early September) as Alice's friend,
and Martin's half-brother, Benjamin, through whom prod-
igal son Martin meets Alice, who helps him to become an
adult in ways his two sets of clueless parents never could.

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

Endnote: Slightly revised from the original posting. Click here for my review of Téchiné's The Witnesses. Images from the BBC (Binoche and Amalric), French Premiere (Loret, Binoche, and Téchiné on the set), and Time Out New York (British DVD cover).

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Pursuing
the Muse

The Gift
Machine,
goodbye/
goodluck
Knw-Yr-
Own Rec-
ords
[3/3/09]

"I may
be green,
but I did-
n't fall off
the truck, goodbye, goodbye/goodluck."
-- the title track

The fourth full-length from the Gift Machine arrives in a striking silk-screened sleeve on which black and white ceram-
ic owls cluster beneath a deep-red sky emblazoned with the re-
lease details letter-pressed in gold. If the band's propulsive pop isn't as stark or dramatic as that cover suggests, it gets the job done, recalling a lo-fi Beatles or Velvet Underground in a laid-
back mood. Andrea Gruber's delicate backing vocals soften
Dave Matthies's deep, Lee Hazlewood-esque lead lines as the
instrumentation drifts and buzzes around them. Dreamy.



Loney Dear, Dear John,
Polyvinyl Record Co. [1/27/09]

"That's how I fell from top of
12 stories/to the ground."
-- "Harm/Slow"

Dear John represents Emil Svanängen and Co.'s fifth record
in five years (including Sub Pop's 2007 reissue Loney, Noir), and the press notes describe it as his last, hinting that the Swedish multi-instrumentalist will continue to pursue his muse in
some other form or under some other name (good thing, too, since people often mistakenly call his project Lonely Dear).

Compared to countryman Jens Lekman, Svanängen inhabits
darker territory—like a cross between David Bowie and the
Hidden Cameras—but bears similar melodic gifts. Andrew Bird,
currently touring behind Noble Beast, adds violin to "I Got Lost."



Stuart and Caan, The Mayfly
Dance, Knw-Yr-Own Records

"God asked me up to heaven for tea."
-- "Lord of the Cosmos"

Stuart and Caan, the British duo behind The Mayfly Dance,
have an Incredible String Band thing going on, which will surely
strike some as entrancing, others as precious, i.e. wavery voic-
es, scratchy violin, rough-hewn recording, and hippie-dippy
lyrics. As a Libra, I tend to seek the middle ground, so I
vote for entrancing and precious, since their charm
feels more heartfelt than calculated...though I could
do without the funny voices on "Cosmos." Fans of
the Bevis Frond, Animal Collective, and their
pal Devendra Banhart would do wise
to give these groovy guys a listen.



Endnote: Opening for Mr. Bird, Loney Dear plays the
Moore Theater on 2/23, while the Gift Machine guests
on KEXP's Audioasis on 3/14. For more information about
Loney Dear, please click here; and for Stuart and Caan,
here. Gift Machine images from their MySpace Page
(Melissa Stager took the picture; dig that tinted bottle).

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Flowing Outside of Time: An Interview with Stephen Kijak

From time to time, I'll
be excavating unedited
versions of interviews that aren't otherwise available online. To that end, here's the first draft of my conversation with director Stephen Kijak. The finished edition, tit-
led "Great Scott," appear-
ed in the 9/07 issue of
Resonance, which ceas-
ed publication in 2/08.

In the 1960s, a good looking Ohio-bred baritone named Scott Engel fronted the chart-topping UK baroque pop outfit the Walk-
er Brothers. (Yes, the unrelated trio preceded the Ramones in tak-
ing the same surname.) In Stephen Kijak’s eye-opening docu-
mentary Scott Walker: 30 Century Man, tour mate Lulu confesses, “Let's be honest, I had the biggest crush on him. First
of all, the voice resonates with you, but he was so gorgeous.”

Click here for the trailer

Times have changed a lot since then. Now the reclusive Walk-
er only emerges every decade or so to release eerie albums like 1995’s Tilt or last year’s inscrutable Drift. In the film, Brian Eno claims, "He really should be recognized as, not only one of our great composers, but one of our great poets, as well.” Pulp's Jar-
vis Cocker muses, "It's like an intrepid explorer...somebody who goes to a part of the world that nobody's ever been to before.”

Resonance spoke with Kijak while he was in Texas for the US premiere at SXSW. The goal was to find out how he discover-
ed Scott Walker and why he made such unusual choices, like filming fans listening and responding to his music in real time.

Kijak clearly remembers the first time he heard the man’s expres-
sive voice. It was during a late afternoon in San Francisco in 1991. He explains, “You know how it is—the way it happens with anything you discover—music geeks get together to play stuff for each other. Fontana had just put out Scott One through Four for the first time on CD. And then there was the Boy Child compilation. So there was that. It was very basic. The song was ‘The Old Man's Back Again.’ I heard it
out of these gargantuan speakers, and it blew me away. It was
one of those moments when you hear everything that you're influenced by and you're into in this music. And I didn't peg it
for 1960s music. It was this thing that seemed to be flowing outside of time in a way. And that was the beginning. I just collected everything I could get my hands on from then on in.”

In 2001, the New York-based, Boston University-educated filmmaker began work on 30 Century Man. Seven years lat-
er, he was finished. Along the way, he convinced David Bowie
and actor Gale Harold (Queer as Folk) to produce and Michael Winterbottom cinematographer Mat Whitecross (The Road
to Guantánamo) to provide a portion of the camera work.



In working on the film, Kijak learned as much about the Scott
of the past as the Scott of today. As he acknowledges, “I didn't know that this was some guy who was famous in England and had throngs of female fans chasing him around. I didn't know about any of that. So, he was very much in isolation. It was a voice, it was a persona, and it was a songwriter, and that was really what pulled me through. So when you see the film, you're seeing the point of view of someone interested in the songwriting, and I wanted to make it about the journey of a songwriter and yes,
of course, create a history and try to communicate the grand-
eur of his fame for people to see what effect that had on him.”

Until Kijak got ahold of him, Walker, who relocated to Great Britain in 1965 during the height of Walkermania, had kept his secrets to himself. Kijak respects that decision and accomplish-
es a neat trick with his impressionistic portrait. First, he encour-
aged the infamous enigma to open up about his career and to al-
low cameras into the studio during the making of Drift. This was
a first for Walker, and 30 Century Man will surely stand as
the definitive document of the man’s working methods—
which are unconventional, to say the least.

At the same time, Kijak lets his subject retain the air of mystery that’s long been part of his allure. Walker’s on-cam-
era commentary stems from two different conversations, but there’s precious little a-
bout his personal life—and that’s by design. As far as Walker is concerned, it’s “all about the music,” and Kijak takes the same approach. Granted, he does allude to a drinking problem, but doesn’t go into detail. Regarding Walker’s private life, Kijak says, “If you're a little intuitive, you can read between the lines, but I don't want to spell it out. At the end of the day, it's not real-
ly that interesting to me, but maybe it is to some people. I mean, there are obviously people who want more of it, but is it because we're trained to want more by some of the crap television we see?”

Instead, he traces Walker’s career from the 1960s to the pres-
ent and gives numerous admirers the chance to have their say, including Marc Almond, Gavin Friday, Alison Goldfrapp, and members of Radiohead. Though some viewers may be disappointed that Kijak doesn’t delve deeper into Walker’s childhood or intimate relationships, the director emphasizes,
“I didn't want to do a 'Behind the Music.’ I didn't want to do the boring sex, drugs, and rock and roll bullshit. I mean, I'm sure he went through it, but...” He concludes that he finds those kinds of biographies “invasive” and that too many artists buy into them.



So Kijak honors Walker’s iconoclastic nature with a few unusual moves of his own. Consequently, he captures several musicians listening to and sharing their thoughts about Walker's music. It was, he agrees, a response to his own feeling about hearing Walk-
er for the first time. As he puts it, “I wanted to replicate the ex-
perience for people. For anyone in the audience who was being introduced to him by the film, it's like you're sitting there with [Blur's] Damon Albarn, and you're listening to tunes. And a lot
of the time, we had records. I had vinyl with me and a turntab-
le, or I shot in my friend's apartment with a DJ deck in the liv-
ing room. It can be tricky when you have live music, because
you are synched to it, but the emotion—the real authenticity
of the moment—was great. It wasn't some mind-blowing in-
novation, but it's something people really respond to.”

It’s a risk, but Kijak pulls it off. As director Atom Egoyan
(The Sweet Hereafter) remarked about the film at the Berlin International Film Festival, “I have rarely seen a biographic-
al documentary that is able to make the viewer experience the perspective of a devoted fan, a concerned friend, and a complete stranger at the same time.” And everyone on screen responds differently, honing in on different aspects of Walker’s work.

Kijak elucidates, “A lot of
it was led by their favorite songs, for the most part. Sometimes they would say, 'I'll let you pick.' And I would say, 'Let me play this for you,' but a lot of times they would just go for the vinyl and say, 'Ooh, play this' or 'Play that.' It was to replicate that exper-
ience and get back to the core of how I discovered it, because the foundation of my obsession was the groovy 1960s stuff, and spec-
ifically because it was coming off of that Boy Child compilation, it was his own writing. That's really what formed my point of view. I didn't hear him and then go buy a bunch of Walker Brothers rec-
ords, and then being a young American at the time—I was in my early-20s, coming out of college—I had no knowledge of all that.”

Already the filmmaker’s labor of love is off to a strong start
with sold-out screenings from London to Austin. It isn’t his first festival hit. Kijak is also responsible for the cult classic Cineman-
ia (2002), in which he and co-director Angela Christlieb profile a group of New York-based filmgoers who do nothing but watch movies all day. Just as they’re obsessed with movies, Scott Walker is obsessed with music—and so is Stephen Kijak.

Scott Walker: 30 Century Man will be making its way
to other US film festivals throughout the summer with plans
to open the film in limited release later in the year.



Endnote: The film didn't actually begin its run until 2008, but better late than never! 30 Century Man opens in the Bay Area on 1/23 and LA on 2/27, while a DVD is in the works for the spring. (For more information, please see the official website). Interview assistance by former Resonance editor and current IMDb impresario Arno Kazarian, who helped to interrogate Kijak.

Click here for my Slog post about the movie, here for Stev-
en Fried's Siffblog entry, and here and here for my Resonance interviews with the Brothers Quay and David Lynch. Incidental-
ly, I first encountered the title track, "30 Century Man," through the soundtrack for The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Images from Plexifilm, Andrew "Filmbrain" Grant, and Sight & Sound.

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January Reviews

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

Amazon DVDs: The Rockford Files - Season Six [three-disc set] (click here and here for seasons two and three) and MGM - When the Lion Roars: The Story of a Hollywood Empire [two-disc set].

Amazon Theatrical: Notorious, my second B.I.G.
review after Nick Broomfield's Biggie & Tupac, which I
covered for Amazon and the SIFF '02 program guide.

Still playing or yet to open: Burn After Reading, Doubt, Lakeview Terrace, Let the Right One In, Milk, Rachel Getting Married, Timecrimes, and Waltz with Bashir.



Siffblog: Wendy and Lucy and the continuation of an
interview with Tia Lessin. I also fixed some more links:
Deep End, Lemming, Pierrot le Fou, Shopgirl, Married
Life and Prefab People, and a chat with Michel Gondry.

Still playing or yet to open: Gran Torino.

Video Librarian: Absolutely Safe, The Cheetah Girls - One World [click here for my first Cheetah Girls review], En Vogue - Live in the USA, The Great Polar Bear Adventure, Ice-T - Live
in Montreux, Inheritance, and Through the Eastern Gate.



Endnote: Wendy and Lucy, Kelly Reichardt's fine follow-up
to the excellent Old Joy, opens at Seattle's Varsity on 1/23 (that's
Michelle Williams, above, as Wendy). Film still from Blake City.

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Movies for Music
Lovers: 2008 Edition

Part two (click
here for part one)

Though I compile a top 30 every year, I find positions 21-30 the most difficult to compile. Simply put, they're films I liked. A lot. But with reservations. But I still liked them. A lot.



Second runners-up:
21. Tell No One (Guillaume Canet)
22. Ballast (Lance Hammer)
23. Doubt (John Patrick Shanley)
24. Burn After Reading (Joel and Ethan Coen)
25. Mister Foe (David Mackenzie)
26. Synechdoche, NY (Charlie Kaufman)
27. Baghead (Jay and Mark Duplass)
28. Cadillac Records (Darnell Martin)
29. Jellyfish (Shira Geffen and Etgar Keret)
30. The Visitor (Tom McCarthy)

Note: The stunning chase sequence in Tell No One equals the chase sequence in The Dark Knight—and probably cost millions less to execute. Granted, it recalls The Marathon Man, but I'm not so sure that's such
a bad thing...I just wish the ending had been less sentimental.

Top reissues:
1. The Human Condition (Masaki Kobayashi)
2. Faces (John Cassavetes)
3. Last Year at Marienbad and Muriel (Alain Resnais)
4. Becky Sharp (Rouben Mamoulian)
5. The Saga of Anatahan (Josef von Sternberg)
6. La Chinoise and Vivre Sa Vie (Jean-Luc Godard)
7. The Exiles (Kent McKenzie)
8. Monsieur Verdoux (Charles Chaplin)
9. Ashes of Time Redux (Wong Kar-Wai)
10. In the Land of the Head Hunters (Edward S. Curtis)



[Top retrospectives still to come.]

Other notable films (in alphabetical order): 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu), A Christmas Tale (Arnaud Desplechin), Be Kind Rewind (Michel Gondry), Bigger, Stronger, Faster (Christopher Bell), Blindsight (Lucy Walker), Boy A (John Crowley), Erik Nietzsche - The Early Years, Part 1 (Jacob Thuesen), Fear(s) of the Dark (Various), Girl by the Lake (Andrea Molaioli), Grace Is Gone (James C. Strouse), Gran Torino (Clint Eastwood), Hidden Face (Bernard Campan), Iron Man (Jon Favreau), It Is Fine. Everything Is Fine! (Crispin Glover), Jar City (Baltasar Kormákur), Miracle at St. Anna (Spike Lee), Mister Lonely (Harmony Korine), I Always Wanted to Be a Gangster (Samuel Benchetrit), The Orphanage (Juan Antonio Bayona), Patti Smith - Dream of Life (Steven Sebring), Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud), Pineapple Express and Snow Angels (David Gordon Green), Recount (Jay Roach), Searchers 2.0 (Alex Cox), Shotgun Stories (Jeff Nichols), Slumdog Millionaire (Danny Boyle), Standard Operating Procedure (Errol Morris), Strange Culture (Lynn Hershman Leeson), Stuck (Stuart Gordon), Teeth (Mitchell Lichtenstein), Ten of Dreams (Various), Time to Die (Dorota Kedzierzawska), Tropic Thunder (Ben Stiller), Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Woody Allen), Wall-E (Andrew Stanton), The Wrecking Crew (Denny Tedesco), and Zidane, a 21st Century Portrait (Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno).

Note: The Emmy Award-winning Recount was produced for HBO, but betters most theatrical releases, while Gran Torino doesn't open (outside New York and Los Angeles) until January. Also, Dream of
Life originally made my doc top 10 until I remembered At the Death House Door from Hoop Dreams directors Steve James and Peter Gilbert. For anti-death penalty prop-
onents, it's a must-see, though there's noth-
ing heavyhanded about their approach.

Films I missed (in alphabetical order): Alexandra (Alex-
ander Sokurov), Anvil! The Story of Anvil (Sacha Gervasi), Chop Shop (Ramin Bahrani), The Duchess (Saul Dibb), La Duchesse de Langeais (Jacques Rivette), Flight of the Red Balloon (Hou Hsia-Hsien), La France (Serge Bozon), Heavy Metal in Baghdad (Eddy Moretti and Suroosh Alvi), I've Loved You So Long (Philippe Claudel), My Effortless Brilliance (Lynn Shelton)*, The Romance of Astrea and Celadon (Eric Rohmer), and Still Life (Jia Zhangke).

* I look forward to watching the screener, which I received months ago, and feel guilty that I haven't yet. I've also got one for the Oscar-shortlisted Flow floating around here somewhere...

Note: This is only a partial list. I just wanted to explain why certain contenders are otherwise absent. If it seems as if I see everything under the sun, I don't. Alas. So thank God for DVD. And thanks to the Grand Illusion Cinema, the Northwest Film Forum, and the Seattle International Film Festival Group for another year of fabulous screenings. Finally, all praise to France and Japan for continuing to provide some of my favorite film experiences of this or any year.



Endnote: Cross-posted at Facebook.
Tell No One image from Killer Virgo.

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Songs for Swingin' Cin-
eastes: 2008 Edition

Click here for 2007's Songs for
Swingin' Cineastes and here for
2008's Movies for Music Lovers

As ever, I like to rock, but
with the '80s revival in full
swing, I decided to give in and
embrace the synth-pop I used
to resist. It never seemed particularly cool or edgy, but rather safe, sanitized, and incredibly bourgeois. And maybe it is. May-
be I am, but I like what I like, and 2008 was a better year for
keyboards than guitars, so I went, willingly, with the flow.

In the end, though, it's still about the voice. My Spanish may be
rusty, but that doesn't matter when it comes to Argentinian TV
star-turned-indie sensation Juana Molina, since she spends as
much time scatting and sighing as she does singing. She could do
anything with that airy voice, and I would gladly follow along.

As for the Dirtbombs,
not only do they rock, but
Mick Collins is one of the
nation's finest vocalists. I
asked him about his style
once, and he laughed. He
doesn't seem to think he
has one, but it's that com-
bination of humility and flexibility that makes him such a great
front man—his guitar-playing is nothing to sneeze at either.

Every other singer below is equally compelling. Not necessar-
ily in a technical sense—whatever that means—but in terms of
personality, sincerity, or even quote-unquote insincerity, i.e.
Gary Numan's robotic drone. Me? I connect with it.

Lastly, I realize there are some old folks on this list. What can
I say? I was born in the '60s, and grew up with these fellows.
Against all odds, they've still got the goods, and yet it's far too
easy to take them for granted. Don't. It's unlikely we'll see their
kind again. Randy Newman, for one, is a national treasure.



The Tops
1. Juana Molina - Un Dia (Domino)
2. The Dirtbombs - We Have You Surrounded (In the Red)
3. Santogold - Santogold (Downtown/Atlantic)
4. Santogold & Diplo - Top Ranking (Mad Decent)
5. She Keeps Bees - Nests (self-released)
6. Vivian Girls - self-titled (In the Red)
7. Jenny Lewis - Acid Tongue (Warner Brothers)
8. Mercury Rev - Snowflake Midnight (Yep Roc)
9. M83 - Saturdays = Youth (Mute)
10. Matmos - Supreme Balloon (Matador)

Note: For most of the year, the Dirtbombs were at #1, but I use a
simple litmus test for the top spot: not what's "best," but what I listen-
ed to most, and the answer is Un Dia, a record with no real beginning
or ending; it just flows from track to track. Another litmus test: did I
buy the t-shirt? In the case of the Vivian Girls: yes. (The only oth-
er band t-shirt I purchased this year features a fabulous Queen logo.)



Runners-up
11. Deerhunter - Microcastle/Weird Era Continued (Kranky)
12. Linda Lewis - Lark (Collector's Choice) [reissue]
13. Howlin Rain - Magnificent Fiend (Birdman)
14. Shearwater - Rook (Matador)
15. Joan as Police Woman - To Survive (Reveal)
16. Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours (Modular)
17. Karl Hector & the Malcouns - Sahara Swing (Now Again)
18. Calexico - Carried to Dust (Quarterstick/Touch & Go)
19. Randy Newman - Harps and Angels (Nonesuch)
20. James Hunter - The Hard Way (Hear Music)

Note: Unclassifiable British singer/songwriter Linda Lewis or-
iginally came in at #10, but after some friendly persuasion from
Randall Roberts, music editor of The LA Weekly, I gave her spot
to Maryland-based electronic duo Matmos. What the hell, they
killed it live...also, on 3/8/09, I switched out the Department
of Eagles with Deerhunter after catching up with Microcastle.

Top Reissues
1. Gary Numan & Tube-
way Army - Replicas Redux (Mute)
2. Arthur Russell - Love
Is Overtaking Me (Audika)
3. Rodriguez - Cold Fact
(Light in the Attic)
4. The Shop Assistants -
Will Anything Happen
(Cherry Red)
5. Steinski - What Does It All Mean?
1983–2006 Retrospective (Illegal Art)

Note: Click here for my review of Wild
Combination - A Portrait of Arthur Russell.

Other notable efforts (in alphabetical order): Arbouretum/Pontiak - Kale EP (Thrill Jockey), the Black Keys -
Attack & Release (Nonesuch), Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Dig!!
Lazarus!! Dig!! (Mute), Department of Eagles - In Ear Park (Ma-
tador) Frightened Rabbit - Midnight Organ Fight (Fat Cat), Al
Green - Lay It Down (Blue Note/EMI), Hercules and Love Af-
fair - self-titled (DFA), the Last Shadow Puppets - Age of the
Understatement (Domino), John Matthias - Stories from the
Watercooler (Counter), Sam Phillips - Don't Do Anything
(Nonesuch), Jay Reatard - Matador Singles '08 (Mata-
dor), TV on the Radio - Dear Science (Interscope),
Vampire Weekend - self-titled (XL Recordings),
Various Artists - Thank You Friends: The Ar-
dent Records Story (Big Beat), and Various
Artists - On Vine Street: The Ear-
ly Songs of Randy New-
man (Ace Records).



Top track: MIA - "Paper Planes" (DFA remix)

Note: The song features, quite exuberantly, in Danny Boyle's Slum-
dog Millionaire and also helped to promote David Gordon Green's
Pineapple Express, in which it does not otherwise appear...des-
pite Robert Christgau's Slate-based claims to the contrary.

Top show: The Dirtbombs at Neumos in May. They re-
turned in November, but I missed the second gig. How can
you top perfection? Matmos, Holly Golightly, and Battles
at Bumbershoot were also excellent...and I'm still kicking
myself for missing Howlin Rain, M83, Shearwater, and
the Vivian Girls, who played the same night as Go-
lightly, so thanks to KEXP for broadcasting live sets
from M83 and the 'Girls, who both sounded great.



Endnote: Cross-posted at Facebook. The links lead
to my CD reviews for Amazon, AndMoreAgain, and
Fuzz.com (R.I.P.). This year, I also covered music
for KEXP and Seattle Sound. Juana Molina im-
age from Sem Fio; all others from the archives.

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Movies for Music Lovers: 2008 Edition

Click here for the 2007 edition and here
for 2008's Songs for Swingin' Cineastes.

I'm still working on a complete list, i.e. positions 21-30, top re-
issues, and other notable titles (I also look forward to catching up with Wendy and Lucy and The Wrestler before the end of 2008). In the meantime, here's the gist of my film year. Click the links be-
low for my Amazon and Siffblog reviews and/or interviews, plus Steven Fried's post on My Winnipeg. Where my pieces aren't avail-
able online, I've used excerpts from my Video Librarian reviews.

The Tops:
1. Deep End (Jerzy Skolimowski)
2. Milk (Gus Van Sant)
3. Man on Wire (James Marsh)
4. The Bank Job (Roger Donaldson)
5. Frozen River (Courtney Hunt)
6. The Edge of Heaven (Fatih Akin)
7. My Winnipeg (Guy Maddin)
8. The Secret of the Grain (Abdellatif Kechiche)
9. Encounters at the End of the World (Werner Herzog)
10. The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan)

Note: Every year, I compile a top 50, counting documentaries and reissues, but if a non-narrative/pre-existing title impresses sufficient-
ly, it might make my top 10, as in the case of Deep End, My Winnipeg, and Encounters. Since the former never received a proper US release, it's almost like a new title, though Skolimowski finally issued a film
in 2008, Four Nights with Anna, which is making the festival rounds.


Wagner Moura in Elite Squad

Runners-up:
11. Elite Squad (José Padilha)
12. The Band's Visit (Eran Kolirin)
13. Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson)
14. You, the Living (Roy Andersson)
15. Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman)
16. Reprise (Joachim Trier)
17. Happy-Go-Lucky (Mike Leigh)
18. The Last Mistress (Catherine Breillat)
19. Momma's Man (Azazel Jacobs)
20. Rachel Getting Married (Jonathan Demme)

Note: What an amazing year for Israeli film! Aside from The
Band's Visit and Waltz with Bashir, Jellyfish made my top 30
(of 2008's animated features, I also enjoyed Wall-E and Fear(s)
of the Dark). You, the Living is still seeking distribution.


Gonzo!

Top Documentaries:
1. Gonzo - The Life and Work of Dr.
Hunter S. Thompson (Alex Gibney)
2. Trouble the Water (Tia Lessin and Carl Deal)
3. The Order of Myths (Margaret Brown)
4. Surfwise (Doug Pray)



Not everyone is cut out to be a doctor, but few medical practition-
ers chuck it all to become surfers who sire nine children and travel
the world in a 24-foot camper. Doug Pray's admirably even-handed
portrait of Dorian "Doc" Paskowitz and clan immediately distinguishes
itself from surfing celebrations like Endless Summer and Riding Giants,
though pro boarders Kelly Slater and Taylor Knox stop by to pay trib-
ute (after all, Doc lived the dream, even bringing surfing to Israel).
Co-produced by son Jonathan Paskowitz, Surfwise is more of a charac-
ter study, and the salty-tongued Doc is quite a character. As his wife,
Juliette, puts it, "For 10 years I was either pregnant or breast-feeding."
As youngest child Josh quips, "We were born because Doc wanted to re-
populate the world with Jews." A tanned and fit 85 at the time of film-
ing, Doc doesn't see any of this as unusual, describing his family, in-
stead as "the most conventional people." (And they do seem surprising-
ly sane.) Nonetheless, all 11 members subsisted on a diet of health food
(including branches), home-schooling, and big waves. For cash, Doc
ran a surf camp and treated the occasional patient. Despite the lack of
creature comforts, it might sound like paradise, except for the cor-
poral punishment and the fact that the kids had to listen to their par-
ents having sex every night. The director behind the fine music docs
Hype! and Scratch, Pray never imposes his views on the narrative,
but rather allows his subjects to speak for themselves. He leaves it
up to viewers to decide whether Doc was genius, madman, or some-
where in between. Easily one of the year's most fascinating films.



5. Up the Yangtze (Yung Chang)
6. Wild Combination - A Portrait of Arthur Russell (Matt Wolf)
7. Billy the Kid (Jennifer Venditti)
8. At the Death House Door (Peter Gilbert and Steve James)
9. Wrangler - Anatomy of an Icon (Jeffrey Schwarz)



Blond, blue-eyed, all-American Jack Wrangler (née Stillman) was one of the top porn stars of the 1970s. Like John Holmes, he wasn't much of an actor, but he gave the people what they wanted: beefcake. Unlike Holmes, he specialized in gay porn, but by participating in Jeffrey Schwarz's perceptive documentary, he doesn’t seek to exploit—or even to condemn—his past, but to prove that there's more to Jack Wrangler than meets the eye. A self-effacing raconteur, he makes his case. Born to wealth and privilege (his father produced Bonanza), Wrangler be-
gan life as an inauspicious runt, but hobnobbed with Tinseltown roy-
alty and soon developed silver-screen ambitions of his own. As the years passed, he also found himself attracted to other men. Though his enthusiasm trumped his talent, he discovered his niche when he seg-
ued from dinner theater and bit parts to exotic dancing and the adult film industry. His improbable biography kicks into high gear when he marries Margaret Whiting, a singer 20 years his senior. As he speaks to the camera, it becomes clear that Wrangler isn't just a story about one man's life in and out of the porn business, but about popular con-
ceptions of masculinity since the 1950s. Throughout, Schwarz, the filmmaker behind Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story, cuts between stills, clips (some incredibly rare), and comments from 40 speakers, including gossip columnist Michael Musto, publisher Al Goldstein, composer Marc Shaiman, and author Bruce Vilanch. Frank words
and images aside, the unrated Wrangler is only marginally more explicit than That Man - Peter Berlin, a previous porn portrait emphasizing character and context over shock value.

10. Joy Division (Grant Gee)

Bonus: Patti Smith - Dream of Life (Steven Sebring)

Note: It's beyond me why The Order of Myths and Up the Yang-
tze weren't shortlisted for a best documentary Oscar. The Acade-
my Award nominating committee instead selected Patrick Cread-
on's I.O.U.S.A., which displays all the artistry of a PowerPoint
presentation. Ms. Brown's doc premieres on PBS next year.


The year's best cover art

Top DVDs:
1. Mishima - A Life in Four Chapters (Paul Schrader)
2. Touch of Evil - 50th Anniversary Edition (Orson Welles)
3. Le Deuxième Soufflé (Jean-Pierre Melville)
4. Class Tous Risques (Claude Sautet)
5. Pierrot le Fou (Jean-Luc Godard)
6. Miss Julie (Alf Sjöberg)
7. Fallen Women [box set] (Kenji Mizoguchi)
8. The Rabbit Is Me (Kurt Maetzig)
9. The Furies (Anthony Mann)
10. The Small Back Room (Michael Powell)

Click here for part two



Until next year!

Endnote: Cross-posted at Facebook and Siffblog. Images from
Buzz Sugar, Collider, J4HI, Marmalade Skies, and Nippon Cinema.

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