Amazon Theatricals:Amour (Michael Hanecke
directs Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva) and Quartet (Dustin Hoffman directs Maggie Smith and Tom Courtenay).
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 toreviews and previews forLine 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
andWhite 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)
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.
Cate Le Bon image from The Control Group (R.I.P.).
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 toreviews, though Rust and Bone and Amour haven't been posted yet, since theydon't open here untilJanuary).
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 theboyfrom 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)
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. Televisionnotables:Boardwalk Empire - Season Two,Downton Abbey - Season Two,Game Change,The Good Wife - Season Four,Revenge - Season Two, andVegas - 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, butsawthe 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: 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)
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, andUnder 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 Connectionand 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.
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).
I write about popular music and film and the relationship between the two. I'm Irish on one side, Italian on the other—British on both. I was born in Connecticut (Far From Heaven), raised in Alaska (Northern Exposure), and I've lived in Seattle, WA (Trouble in Mind) since 1988.
