Slog/Film Opening count: 594 posts/reviews since 2011.
The Seattle International Film Festival: I started working
on the2015 program guide. This is my 14th year as a contribu-
tor, and I've written three blurbs so far. Titles to come in May.
This list is a work in progress.
I began compiling it several months ago, but then the draft disappeared without a trace, so I started to recreate it last week (the original post disappeared while I was working on a new one). Links lead to my reviews for The Stranger, Slog, and SIFFBlog.
The Tops 1.The Selfish Giant (Clio Barnard) 2.Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer) 3.Miss Zombie (Sabu) 4.Boyhood (Richard Linklater) 5.Snowpiercer (Bong Joon-ho) 6.Ida (Pawel Pawlikowski) 7.Whiplash (Damien Chazelle) 8.The Babadook (Jennifer Kent) 9.A Field in England (Ben Wheatley) 10.Selma (Ava DuVernay)
Runners-up 11. Dear White People (Justin Simien) 12.The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson) 13.Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch) 14.Love Is Strange (Ira Sachs) 15.Tracks (John Curran) 16.Edge of Tomorrow (Doug Liman) 17.White Bird in a Blizzard (Gregg Araki) 18.Obvious Child (Gillian Robespierre) 19.Frank (Lenny Abrahamson) 20.Low Down (Jeff Preiss)
Second Runners-up 1.The Past (Asghar Farhadi) 2.Wild (Jean-Marc Vallée) 3.The Skeleton Twins (Craig Johnson) 4.Mr. Turner (Mike Leigh) 5.Diplomacy (Volker Schlondorff) 6.Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy) 7.Top Five (Chris Rock) 8. Pride (Matthew Warchus) 9.Wetlands (David Wnendt) 10. Abuse of Weakness (Catherine Breillat)
Here's my review of The Past, the last one I ever wrote for Amazon as all film freelancers were let go in 2014. It was a great gig for 15 years, and I miss it. To add insult to injury: this piece was never posted.
Asghar Farhadi’s follow-up to his Oscar-winning film, The Separation, takes the procedural approach to two
interlocking relationships. When Ahmad (Ali Mosaffa, who learned French for the
role) travels from Tehran to Paris, he expects to finalize his divorce from
Marie (The Artist’s Bérénice Bejo), so that she can marry
Samir (The Prophet’s Tahar Rahim), but he finds a chaotic
domestic scenario: Samir’s wife, Céline, is in a coma after a failed suicide
attempt; their young son, Fouad (Elyes Aguis), has become difficult; and
Marie’s teenage daughter, Lucie (Pauline Burlet), won’t speak to her. She
assumes it’s because Lucie can’t stand Samir, but she’s actually keeping a
secret that’s eating her up inside. With Samir’s help, Marie has also been
repainting the walls of her dilapidated house, which represent the havoc
within.
Like a cross between a counselor and a detective, Ahmad starts putting
the pieces together by trying to get Lucie to open up. He may not be her birth
father, but she feels more comfortable talking to him than anyone else. As he
discovers, most everyone has been withholding information about the day Céline
attempted to take her life.
By the conclusion, an undocumented worker and a
restaurant owner get caught up in this absorbing, unpredictable drama, but if
Mosaffa and Burlet are particularly good, Bejo and Tahar play more
exasperating characters--Marie is high-strung and Samir is moody--though it’s
to the director’s credit that he would prefer to create characters that are
more intriguing than loveable. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
Reissues:Careful, He Might Hear You (Carl Schultz), Je t'aime, je t'aime (Alain Resnais), Level Five (Chris Marker), A Summer's Tale (Eric Rohmer), and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper).
Missed or Haven't Seen Yet:American Sniper, Beyond the Lights, Bird People, Citizenfour, Elaine Stritch - Shoot Me, Finding Vivian Maier, Force Majeure, Gloria, The Hobbit - The Battle of the Five Armies, The Hunger Games - Mockingjay, Part 1, Interstellar, Keep on Keepin' On, Land Ho!, Last Days in Vietnam, Leviathan, Life Itself, Listen Up, Philip*, Manakamana, A Most Violent Year, National Gallery, Red Army, Stand Clear of the Closing Doors, St. Vincent, 2 Days, 1 Night, Violette, Virunga, We Are the Best!, and Wild Tales.
* I caught up with Listen Up, Philip in March. I liked it.
The fol- lowing list repre- sents the best mu- sic I heard in 2014, and I heard a lot, but I didn't hear everything, so if you know my taste and you think something's missing, feel free to let me know. There's a good chance I simply didn't hear it. Due to income constraints--one longtime free- lance gig came to an end and two other employers reduced hours and/or assignments--I was limited, for the most part, to music that labels sent to me (almost exclusively via stream and download). Now that I'm not reviewing music on a regular basis, since Line Out came to an end, it's possible that I'll be receiving less in 2015, though I'm still writing concert previews ("Up & Comings") for The Stranger, so who's to say. One way or the other, though, I'll continue to make every effort to listen to as much new music as I can. That will never change.
Because I didn't hear many reissues and because I don't pay much attention to singles, I've eliminated separate lists for those formats. Also, I have no interest in major labels. Never have, never will. Other than D'Angelo's long-awaited album on RCA, these increasingly irrelevant dinosaurs did nothing in 2014 to change my mind. Furthermore, major label artists will always have an easier time generating free publicity from writers like myself. I would rather show support for the minimally-funded artists who need it most. And if any of those artists should sign to a major, I will continue to support their efforts as long as they continue to make music I enjoy. That doesn't happen as often as I would like, but there are always exceptions, and I'm grateful for that. Musicians deserve to eat, to pay their rent, and to live, as much as possible, like normal human beings. Here's to them for making our lives much richer than they would be otherwise.
Note: Due to a hard drive crash in November2013, I didn't compile
a list for that year. Links lead to my reviews for Line Out and Slog.
The Tops 1. Neneh Cherry - The Blank Project (Smalltown Supersound) 2.Total Control - Typical System (Iron Lung) 3. Mike Cooper - Trout Steel, Places I Know, and The Machine Gun Co. with Mike Cooper (Paradise of Bachelors) [reissues] 4. The Coathangers - Suck My Shirt (Suicide Squeeze) 5. Meatbodies - Meatbodies (In the Red) 6. Ty Segall - Manipulator (Drag City) 7. Robert Wyatt - Different Every Time (Domino) 8. King Tuff - Black Moon Spell (Sub Pop) 9. Morgan Delt - Morgan Delt (Trouble in Mind) 10. Perfume Genius - Too Bright (Matador)
Runners-up 11. D'Angelo and the Vanguard - Black Messiah (RCA) 12. Quilt - Held in Splendor (Mexican Summer) 13. Stone Jack Jones - Ancestor (Western Vinyl) 14. Angel Olsen - Burn Your Fire for No Witness (Jagjaguwar) 15. Habibi - Habibi (Burger) 16. Boozoo Bajou - 4 (Apollo Records) 17. Todd Terje - It's Album Time (Olsen Records) 18. Ghetto Ghouls - Ghetto Ghouls (Monofonus Press) 19. Bitchin Bajas - Bitchin Bajas (Drag City) 20. Roll the Dice - Until Silence (The Leaf Label)
Second Runners-up 21. White Fence - For the Recently Found Innocent (Drag City) 22.The Aislers Set - Terrible Things Happen, The Last Match, and How I Learned to Write Backwards (Slumberland/Suicide Squeeze) [reissues] 23. Woods - With Light and With Love (Woodsist) 24. The Body - I Shall Die Here (RVNG Intl.) 25. Ex Hex - Rips (Merge) 26. K. Leimer - A Period of Review (Original Recordings: 1975 - 1983) (RVNG Intl.) 27. New Bums - Voices in a Rented Room (Drag City) 28. Craig Leon - Anthology of Interplanetary Folk Music Vol. 1 (RVNG Intl.) 29. Polar Bear - In Each and Every One (The Leaf Label) 30. Paul White - Shaker Notes (R&S)
Also worthy of note: ARP - "Pulsars e Quasars" (Mexican Summer), Cave - Release (Drag City), Cold Beat - Over Me (Crime on the Moon),The Dead Space - Faker (12XU), Amen Dunes - Love (Sacred Bones), The Flesh Eaters - A Minute to Pray, A Second to Die (Superior Viaduct) [reissue], FRKWYS Vol. 11: Steve Gunn & Mike Cooper - Cantos de Lisboa (RVNG Intl.), Gulp - Season Sun (Everloving), Steve Gunn - Way Out Weather (Paradise of Bachelors), Charlie Haden and Jim Hall - Charlie Haden-Jim Hall (Impulse!-Blue Note) [new release; 1990 engagement], Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks - Wig Out at Jagbags (Matador), Montibus Communitas - The Pilgrim to the Absolute (Beyond Beyond is Beyond), Mutual Benefit - "The Cowboy's Prayer" EP (Other Music Recording Co), Jack Name - Light Show (God?-Drag City), Meshell Ndegeocello - Comet, Come to Me (Naïve), Parquet Courts - Sunbathing Animal and Parkay Quarts - Content Nausea (What's Your Rupture), Protomartyr - Under Color of Official Right (Hardly Art), Brian Reitzell - Auto Music(Smalltown Supersound),September Girls - Cursing the Sea (Fortuna POP!), Shabazz Palaces - Lese Majesty (Sub Pop), She Keeps Bees - Eight Houses (Future Gods), Soft Walls - No Time (Trouble in Mind), Trans Upper Egypt - Trans Upper Egypt (Monofonus Press), Turn to Crime - Can't Love (Mugg and Bopp), Doug Tuttle - Doug Tuttle (Trouble in Mind), Ultimate Painting - Ultimate Painting (Trouble in Mind), Chad VanGaalen - Shrink Dust (Sub Pop), Noah Wall - Print the Legend (Driftless Recordings), Web of Sunsets - Room of Monsters (End of Time), Wyrd Visions - Half-Eaten Guitar (P.W. Elverum & Sun) [reissue], and Yo La Tengo - Extra Painful (Matador) [reissue].
Like what I've heard (need to hear more): Willis Earl Beal - Ex- periments in Time (No Label), Black Lips - Underneath the Rainbow
(Vice), Budos Band - Burnt Offering (Daptone), Vashti Bunyan - Heartleap (Fat Cat/Dicristina), Cody ChesnuTT - Landing on a Hun-
dred: B-Sides & Remixes (Vibration Vineyard), Elysian Fields - For House Cats and Sea Fans (Diluvian/Ojet),Andy Haas - Taballah (No Label), Klaus Johann Grobe - Im Sinne der Zeit (Trouble in Mind), Mogwai - Rave Tapes (Sub Pop), Ninos du Brasil - Novos Misterios (Hospital), The Notwist - Close to the Glass (Sub Pop), Soundcarriers - Entropicalia (Ghost Box), and Tele Novella - Umbrellas at the Station (American Laundromat).
Endnote: If it wasn't for 2013's hard drive crash, I would've had to come up with a #1 for that year, but I'm not sure what it would've been. Possible contenders: Cave - Threace, Bill Callahan - Dream River, or Ty Segall - Sleeper. In other words: something on Drag City!
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.
