Songs of 2009 part 7: Top 10 Albums of 2009

Argh! Running out of time to get this up before the end of the year... (okay, I didn't really make it. Happy 2010!)

Below are my favourite albums of the year. Most of these I knew I loved upon first listen, and only grew to love even more as I listened and relistened and played each to death over the year, in the car, on my ipod, while studying, doing my chores.

First, some honourable mentions:

About Time (EP) by Straylight Run

More upbeat and yet at the same time angrier and harder than before, Straylight recovered from the disappointment of being dropped from their major label with a great four song EP. I look forward to seeing what they come up with next.

Buy: About Time (for only US$4!)

Lost in Pacific Time (EP) by The Academy Is...

Following on sonically from their underappreciated third album Fast Times in Barrington High, this is a great five track EP, all jangly guitars and a driving rhythm section overlaid with great melodies after a pop sensibility.

Buy: Lost in Pacific Time (AU$6)

Dark Was the Night

A compliation two disc album where the proceeds went towards HIV/AIDS work. The contributors read like a who's who of indie music, an amazing list of artists and songs and collaborations. I highly recommend getting a copy for yourself, it's worth checking out for Sufjan Stevens' reworking of 'You Are the Blood' or for Cat Powers' lovely version of 'Amazing Grace' or for Gillian Welch and Conor Oberst together on 'Lua'.

Buy: Dark Was the Night


And now, to the actual list... *drumroll*

10. There Is No Enemy by Built to Spill

A return to form for veteran band BtS. The album has that fuzzy guitar sound, Doug Martsch's yelp-like voice, and some almost-alt-country melodies as the lyrics contemplate the fears and worries of the everyday and this world.

listen: 'Things Fall Apart', a standout track; slow, and slow-building, almost-dreamlike.



9. New Again by Taking Back Sunday

It's a patchy album, but when TBS are good they're really good. Bookended with the best songs: the 1-2 punch of the album opener 'New Again' and lead single 'Sink Into Me'; and the revengeful, regretful closers 'Capital M-E', 'Carpathia' and 'Everything Must Go'. The latter is particularly bitterly heartbreaking as everything - the lyrics about the end of a dream and Adam Lazzara's angrysadbrokendown voice and all the rage and regret - comes together in one fantastic song.

Listen: 'Everything Must Go'



8 Middle Cyclone by Neko Case

Her voice is so beautiful, and it rings through the alt-country tinged songs of this album, soaking it in an atmosphere of smoke and tenderness and longing.

Download:
People Got A Lot of Nerve (click to download)


7. Hold Time by M. Ward

I love the sound of this album, all lo-fi and folky, matched perfectly with the lazy huskiness of his voice. There's something for everybody, from the upbeat collaborations with Zooey Deschanel like 'Never Had Nobody Like You' to slow, grand songs like the sombre, beautiful title track.

Download:
Never Had Nobody Like You


6. Zounds by Dappled Cities

Dappled have gone with a more electronic, darker sound on this third album, but they haven't lost their touch at building great songs: there's the same great grasp of melodies, blending shimmering synths and layers of guitars and dreamy vocal calls over evershifting drumlines.

Download:
The Price


5. I and Love and You by The Avett Brothers

Late to the party, but oh, I'm so glad Al pushed them time after time at me. A little folk, a little Americana, a little alt-country, but most of all, plenty awesome. From beautifully sweet songs like 'I and Love and You' to the fun, witty 'Kick Drum Heart', the songs are perfect in their simplicity.

Watch/Listen: 'Kick Drum Heart'

The Avett Brothers - Ch 7: "Kick Drum Heart" (Official Music Video) - Watch more top selected videos about: The_Avett_Brothers


4. Brother's Blood by Kevin Devine

Kevin Devine is a singer-songwriter who says his influences are "comic books, 90's guitar rock over and underground, good folk and country music, punk rock, social justice, books in general, books and books and books", which comes across most strongly in his way with words. He writes great songs about things going wrong (with the world, with relationships, himself) with an angry, weary passion and I love the way this album makes me feel; that yeah, even when sometimes we're bruised and hurt we press on the bruises, we go back for more.

I really really recommend the two tracks below; they are fantastic, complex songs, lyrically and musically.

Download:
Brother's Blood
Carnival


3. Hazards Of Love by The Decemberists

Not content with having one concept album under their belt (previous album The Crane Wife, based on a Japanese fable), the Decemberists returned with a full rock-opera, originally planned as a musical. Having seen them perform this in its entirety, I can say unequivocally that it is meant to be enjoyed in this form. And the more I listen to it, the more I am amazed that a band has the guts to make such wonderful anachronistic music and be celebrated for it.

Buy:
The Hazards of Love

When it came down to these two albums, I couldn't justifiably rank one above the other. So I cheated; I have two absolute favourite albums of the year.

1. = Daisy by Brand New

Still moody, but maybe even more angry and frustrated and resigned this time around. I was surprised by the relative simplicity of Daisy compared to the more accessible but complex previous album The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me, but I love it all the same for the directness of emotion that comes across in the harsh, restless music. It's the sound of a breakdown in process, an unravelling; it's raw and painful and mesmerising. I will always remember the first time the hymn slid without warning into the screams on 'Vices', surprising and shocking me into the mood of the album.

Watch: a stripped back version of 'At the Botton' in the studio

Brand New - At the Bottom (Daisy Sessions) from The Old Man and the Seymour on Vimeo.

1. = Mean Everything to Nothing by Manchester Orchestra


I was sucked into this from the moment Andy Hull sings the first line: "I am the only one who thinks I'm going crazy". The first half of the album is packed with layered, intense rock songs, howling and powerful and almost overwhelming, save that it's balanced by a sense of insecurity and worries in the lyrics. The latter half of the album, however, is more contemplative; softer and more vulnerable and emotionally painful. Andy Hull's voice is amazing; it roars over the pounding guitars and drums, and cracks in the softer moments, tender and broken. I listen to this album when I'm feeling down, bruised, and scared; not because it tells me that everything will be okay, but because it gets how I feel.

Download:
I've Got Friends


Songs of 2009 part 6
Songs of 2009 part 5
Songs of 2009 part 4
Songs of 2009 part 3
Songs of 2009 part 2
Songs of 2009 part 1

Movies of the Decade: 2009

Finally: my favourite movies for this year. I know I missed 2008, but that was because the movies I saw were rather middling; though Persepolis was beautiful if a little unevenly paced, and I really enjoyed the bubblegum-coloured Speed Racer, for all its flaws and the critical drubbing it received.

Just quickly, some Honourable Mentions for 2009: Where the Wild Things Are, Bright Star, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (see review), I Love You, Man

These were good movies, enjoyable movies; and the first two are probably the most beautiful movies I saw this year in terms of set direction and artistry. I think what kept them from being in my top 5 was that I didn't *feel* as strongly about these, or I didn't have as much to mull over when I left the theatre.

So what made the top five?

5. Whip It! (d. Drew Barrymore)

Sure it's flawed: mostly I noticed how staidly it was filmed, even the exciting roller derby scenes. But I could care less when something is this warm and fun to watch; I just wanted to give this movie a big hug at the end. I loved that it put women front and centre and made them all kinds of people but you could like them all, even the supposed 'bad' ones. It's got this infectious, happy energy to it, and it deserved a lot more love than it got.


4. An Education (d. Lone Scherfig)

Such bittersweet but hopeful movie. I didn't so much identify with Jenny than I remembered wanting to be a girl like her; someone school-smart and well-read, who wants to be cultured and sophisticated, who starts to think that academia may not the only way in life. But the movie, based on Lynn Barber's memoir, also shows how Jenny is maybe not as smart as she thinks she is, and that sophistication and culture doesn't always lead to that perfect life she dreams of. It's a gorgeous movie, from the romantic sojourn in Paris to all the 60s costuming, and filled with some fantastic performances: Carey Mulligan, of course, as Jenny who starts off the movie so young and idealistic and finishes with a wise, sadder look in her eyes; but also Rosamund Pike as a beautiful but rather dim friend of Jenny's older boyfriend who lends the film a comic charm.


3. Star Trek (d. J.J. Abrams)

This was just rollicking fun. I heard so many times from friends this year that they loved it, when though they don't love Star Trek/science fiction; and also from people who were ardent ST/SF fans who also loved it to death. I didn't have so strong an opinion, except for wanting to yell "Science doesn't work like that!!" (though according to this, sometimes it can. Bits of it anyway. Bits that are not red matter). But the more I thought about the movie afterwards, the more I realised sometimes it's just enough to enjoy something without overthinking it to death, particularly if it's something upon which popular opinion and actual quality coincide happily for once.


2. The Class (d. Laurent Cantet)

Absorbing, naturalistic, almost documentary-like feature about a year in the class of a junior high school in the 20th in Paris. Based on the real life events documented in Francois Begaudeau's book on his own teaching experiences, the author plays Mr Marin, who teaches French to a class of 14/15 year olds, and tries to push them to be more engaged with learning and thinking in general, by challenging, and on occasions, mocking them, about their behaviours, attitudes and beliefs. In doing so, I couldn't help but be challenged the same way. I remember Amanda, Belinda and I having a rather heated discussion about race afterwards, feeling our ways toward understanding the society around us through the lens of this high school class.

But unlike many Hollywood movies about inspiring teachers, it's not some cut and dried heartwarming tale that ends in the salvation of a previously recalcitrant class. True to life, there are some children who blossom under this intense environment, and others who fall by the education wayside, the consequence of not one but many conflicting factors of class and race and societal pressures and personality.


1. Inglourious Basterds (d. Quentin Tarantino)

From the moment the last line was spoken I knew I agreed: this is Tarantino's masterpiece.

There's a lot of debate about IB out there on the internets, and even personally I had three email threads about it going on post-movie, in my eagerness to rehash and argue why I responded so positively to it. For starters, it's very funny, super thought provoking, and ridiculously film geeky in the very best of ways. There's just so much to mull about, from a moral angle, from a film history angle, from a history angle...it's amazing.

Each of the five parts is perfectly constructed, with the tension ratcheting slowly and terrifyingly and absorbingly until it's almost unberable, begging for a release, begging for the violence to give us relief, and then sicken ourselves all over again. I talked with some people who felt that IB goes too far in its ending, that it satisfies, and could be read as encouraging, an unacceptable bloodlust. I think IB is the ultimate revenge fantasy for a world that takes the holocaust to be the biggest moral infraction of the last century, but I also think that in the way Taratino does it, the film then questions us in return: now that we have an idea what that revenge would look like, do we still want it or feel the same way about it?

It still catches me in moments, after a few months; images still very clear in my head (like Shoshanna putting on her warpaint, reflected in the glass and in the poster and all around so beautifully) and thoughts still buzzing about its knotty ethical implications.

**

Well, I hope you've enjoyed this rambling little series on the movies that have made the most impact on me these last ten years! Here's to more fascinating, thought-provoking, beautiful, memorable films in the coming year...

Movies of the Decade: 2007
Movies of the Decade: 2006
Movies of the Decade: 2004-2005
Movies of the Decade: 2003
Movies of the Decade: 2002
Movies of the Decade: 2000-2001

Songs of 2009 part 6

Are you starting to see a pattern in my song choices yet? I feel like I've used the words 'driving beat' and 'fuzzy guitars' and 'makes me want to dance' about fifty gazillion times by now. At least now I know I have consistent taste! :)

## Panic Switch by Silversun Pickups
from Swoon

Fuzzy guitars like sirens in the background, that gravelly growly voice that goes so well with it. The album is good, not great; maybe I was expecting a few more stand-out tracks like this one.

Watch:



## Hell by Tegan and Sara
from Sainthood

I am so torn by their new album. The first time I listened to it I really didn't like it. I didn't enjoy the new direction they'd taken, all jagged edges; I missed the sweetness of their folkier, heartfelt songs. But I've given the album a few more spins and I think I'm getting it more now: they are no less heartfelt under the layers of guitars and driving beats. This song is fantastic: it's catchy, but the grittiness of the lyrical content is conveyed in, and suits, the rockier sound.

Watch: live performance vid, which means cute Canadian accents and banter and rambly stories about weird hair diseases guinea pigs get :D



## Sweet Disposition by The Temper Trap
from Conditions

I tried to resist, but they started playing this endlessly on the radio and it became a highlight of my work day, when they'd play this instead of the bland, mainstream junk. It's so pretty and lovely and joyful, as the insistent beat drives the whole thing on while that lovely falsetto vocal floats over the top.

Watch:



## You and I by Wilco
from Wilco (the album)

A duet, featuring Feist. Jeff Tweedy's voice works so so well with her voice; they meld in this lovely harmony, the textures complemeting each other. The song is lovely too, a slice of alt-country pop with a melody that just begs to be sung-along to.

Watch: in performance



Zero by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
from It’s Blitz!

From the synth-heavy opener to when Karen O's sublime voice slinks over it, this song always always makes me want to dance. And be as badass as Karen O in the video, ever dancing and performing so freely for an unseen audience. :)

Watch: Cutest moment: the whole band smushed onto one trolley!



Songs of 2009 part 5
Songs of 2009 part 4
Songs of 2009 part 3
Songs of 2009 part 2
Songs of 2009 part 1

Movies of the Decade: 2007

Last post before my top movies of this year! :)

Hot Fuzz (2007; d. Edgar Wright)

I was going to try and fit in a repeat viewing of this before writing it up, but alas it was not to be. This movie is hilarious; I saw it twice within the space of a week around Christmas two years ago, and it was as ridiculous and fresh and fantastic the second time around. I love that it's smart about the genres its parodies, but in a loving way.


Juno (2007; d. Jason Reitman)

In the years since it came out, this has been much maligned. Even when we went to see it, as the lights came back on I turned to the friends who saw it with me and said I liked it, only to have the other two make faces. But I've seen it again since then, and I still find it really lovely and charming. If you look past the rather obvious affectations ('honest to blog' is still a really irritating, nonsensical quip), it navigates an ethically tricky story with heart, not judging Juno for becoming pregnant, not judging her nor explaining in depth the choices she makes, just allowing her to be a confused but smart sixteen year old with some big decisions to make. Ellen Page is so good as Juno, letting her be prickly on the outside while always giving us glimpses of the softer girl inside. The rest of the supporting cast are great, particularly J.K. Simmons as Juno's dad, and Jennifer Garner as the uptight but desperately maternal Vanessa.


No Country for Old Men (2007; Joel and Ethan Coen)

Bleak and affecting, an old story told very well, and filmed beautifully. Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin) takes $2million out of a drug deal gone wrong, and a scarily focussed killer (Javier Bardem) tracks him down for a form of justice. There are some immensely suspenseful moments in this, the pacing just-so for them maximum heart-in-mouth moments, and the killings, even as they decrease in violence, increase in meaning and heartache. Excellent supporting cast - Tommy Lee Jones plays his straightforward sheriff with just the right amount of bewilderment and wisdom as he contemplates a world more violent than he can patrol, and Kelly Macdonald really surprises as Moss' southern wife.


The Simpsons movie (2007; d. David Silverman)

I must admit that my first feeling upon leaving the theatre was relief; relief that the movie hadn't sucked. So my expectations were not high, going in. That said, this is really funny. Sure, the story doesn't always hold together, but then, do we really expect it too? And it manages to feel more than several episodes strung together. The jokes are a great mix of visual and verbal, with the kind of wittiness and sense of fun that the earlier series had.


Zodiac (2007; d. David Fincher)

A very tense movie that somehow sustains the subtle horror of the unsolved serial killer mystery throughout the whole movie, allowing the story to conveying the weary reality of chasing the unknown criminal to no, typical, satisfyingly pat end. Good performances all round, though Robert Downey Jnr. is the best thing in this movie (as he often is).

Movies of the Decade: 2006
Movies of the Decade: 2004-2005
Movies of the Decade: 2003
Movies of the Decade: 2002
Movies of the Decade: 2000-2001

Songs of 2009 part 5

Had this open in the window all day, and forgot about it until now! It's all been a bit hectic...

eta: one late addition at top


## Moth's Wings by Passion Pit
from Manners

I was lucky to receive this CD for Christmas. This song is so pretty, all glintering noises as a backdrop and driving beat and airy voices.

Download:
Moth's Wings


## The Good News by Philadelphia Grand Jury
from Hope is For Hopers

Aussie pop-rock, immensely catchy with great fuzzy guitars and a rhythmic keyboard line that should drive me mad but really just makes me want to dance.

(If you missed it, here's the write-up of their show at the Factory a week ago.)

Download:
The Good News


## 1901 by Phoenix
from Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

Shimmery electro-pop. I love the first half of the album more than the latter, but in the right mood it's a lot of fun, and again, totally makes me want to dance.

Download:
1901


## These Are My Twisted Words by Radiohead
online single

A new Radiohead song is always welcome. A free one even more so! This is a moody (hah - when is it not?) track that's a touch of Amnesiac (wait! come back!) and In Rainbows era sound.

Download:
These Are My Twisted Words


## Bodies by Robbie Williams
from Reality Killed the Radio Star

Ignore the faux-irreligious nonsensical lyrics; focus on the music. The genius of Robbie Williams' latest album sees a return of some ridiculous catchy pop songs like this, that marries a jagged electronic sound with a lush string section and manages to sound so grand and pretty.

Watch: This video is crap. But it has brooding Robbie, on a motorcycle.



Songs of 2009 part 4
Songs of 2009 part 3
Songs of 2009 part 2
Songs of 2009 part 1

Movies of the Decade: 2006

Happy Boxing Day aka yearly avoid-the-heat, watch-a-blockbuster movie day. :)

I went to see Sherlock Holmes, which I enjoyed in a brain-dead, in love with RDJ and Jude Law and Rachel McAdams kind of way.

And so we continue into movies I have also enjoyed, from 2006:

Little Miss Sunshine (2006; d. Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris)

I know it's manipulative, but aren't all movies? It's a funny, bittersweet and very human tale, with some great characters, and it mostly manages to steer clear of mawkishness. Steve Carell is particularly good as the depressed, second most pre-eminent scholar of Proust. I watched the beauty pageant scene again recently, for a class on the sexualisation of pre-teens, and was struck again by how funny and uncomfortable little Olive's routine is, and how well that whole scene is constructed to make the audience laugh and squirm.


Look Both Ways (2006; d. Sarah Watts)

A lovely Australian movie about the difficult reconciliation of coping with death and loss while being alive. Over a summer weekend, a motley group of loosely related people - particularly Meryl, whose father has just died; and Nick, who's just learned he has cancer - deal with the emotions of losing lovers and parents, their own fear of death and loss, finding new people to care for, and so on. It sounds like a heavy mix, but it's actually quite a hopeful film, grounded in reality and well-rounded characters, that asks for some thought in processing the various relationships that are formed, held and broken. Also, the mood is broken up with some really beautiful animation work by the director, who illustrates Meryl's wild imaginative scenarios of death and shows Nick's own mirroring thoughts in photo collages.


Pan’s Labyrinth (2006; d. Guillermo del Toro)

I don't normally cry at the movies, but I was sobbing by the end of this movie. It's so wonderfully made and terrifyingly beautiful; the storytelling is excellent, and from the tears, you can guess that it had a great emotional impact on me. I came home and I could not stop talking about it with my family. But it's certainly not a movie for the fainthearted.


Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (2006; d. Michael Winterbottom)

I declared this movie the best of the year immediately after I watched it, and while the other three in this post are strong contenders I don't know if any of them match this in sheer ludicrous, free-wheeling enjoyment. It's meant to be a film adaptation of a rambling 18th century English novel that has been dubbed "unfilmable" but it is also a film about the film of an adaptation of a rambling 18th century novel and it is actually a film about the film of a... Whatever it actually ends up being, it is very very funny and clever and knows just how to send up its pretentious roots. At one point, Steve Coogan, playing an actor named Steve Coogan, pompously announces, though he hasn't read the novel the film is based on, "This is a postmodern novel before there was any modernism to be post about."

And he's kind of right. You don't have to have read the novel either, and that's one of the running jokes of the film, that no one on set has actually read the 600+ pages of novel. While the set up is completely confusing, it makes complete sense on camera, and unfolds wonderfully on-screen as actors, directors, and actors playing directors, and actors playing themselves break the fourth wall to talk to the camera, while moving between scenes and sets and "real life", all with a funny, hyper-realistic script that flows naturally between all the different modes. This is a film for people who love film; there's plenty of inside jokes, I'm told there are even inside jokes inside inside jokes for those who are really obsessive about movies.

The cast is amazing. A veritable list of great British actors cross the screen doing good work no matter how big or small their part. In particular, Steve Coogan is great - he's such an vain, insecure man as 'the actor', but he also shows a softer side playing a new father, and it makes him endearingly human and thus likeable - plus he also has to play Tristram the narrator and Walter Shandy his father. But apart from the clever ideas, the great acting and the tamed chaos, there's also a lovely sense of the visual joke. See the picture I've posted? That's one of my favourite scenes of the movie.

As Steve Coogan is lowered head first, complete with his 18th century costume, into a big pink uterus model, he has an argument with the production assistant about how he is positioned.

"[Mark, the director] wants it to be as realistic as possible."

"He wants realism. Yeah. I'm a grown man, talking to the camera, in a womb."

Original post-movie reaction and review.


Movies of the Decade: 2004-2005
Movies of the Decade: 2003
Movies of the Decade: 2002
Movies of the Decade: 2000-2001

Songs of 2009 part 4

## Merrimack River by Mandy Moore
from Amanda Leigh

Bet you didn't know that a) I'm a closet Mandy Moore fan, and b) she released an album this year. A world away from the teen pop princess she once aspired to be (but could never quite be, ala Britney and Christina), Moore has, after a bumpy few transition albums, matured nicely into a singer-songwriter of some very pretty folk influenced adult contemporary music. I really like this opening track, stripped back, gentle and waltz-like.

Watch: live @ Walmart Soundcheck



## Help I’m Alive by Metric
from Fantasies

Emily Haines' pretty voice floating over fuzzy guitars and a relentless drum beat "like a hammer". I'm in.

Watch:


Download:
Help I'm Alive (acoustic)


## Satellite Skin by Modest Mouse
from No One’s First and You’re Next EP

This one is rollicking and full of attitude, Isaac Brock's growly voice, jangly guitars and an unexpected lightness. I must admit that apart from this song the EP didn't really grab me, but MM haven't lost the ability to rock out from time to time.

Watch:



## I Belong To You/Mon Coeur S'ouvre A Toi by Muse
from The Resistance

I just did not get this album at first. Muse have always been OTT and grandoise in their music and ideas, and I love them for it, but The Resistance was just too much on first listen. But then Al linked me to this review at Strange Horizons by Adam Roberts and I was so taken by how he lovingly describes and embraces it all that I gave it another go, this time with the SF framework as a guide. And it made all the difference. The album is still a little cold and synth-heavy for general listening, but when I'm in the mood for some storytelling it's evocative and interesting.

This song is immense and lush and darkly romantic, with its thumping beat and crashing piano chords and Matt Bellamy's voice poured over like syrup; and THEN they add a power-ballad bridge in French and throw in a jazzy woodwind interlude for good measure.

Listen: the karaoke version, complete with lyrics and random art. :)



Songs of 2009 part 3
Songs of 2009 part 2
Songs of 2009 part 1

Movies of the Decade 2004-2005

Better late than never! We're at the halfway point. :)

Bad Education (2004; Pedro Almodovar)

This is a dark, complicated, lush, morally complex movie. It pitches you into three or four different time periods and timelines, where characters exist in all these different story arcs, but are not what they seem; somehow, he manages to draw these strands tighter and tighter around each other until they become one narrative...or do they? It's confusing and maddening and so gorgeously coloured and filmed (the presence of Gael Garcia Bernal, playing three characters, doesn't hurt!) that no matter the end the journey is totally engrossing and worth it.


The Incredibles (2004; d. Brad Bird)

I loved this take on the post-superhero experience in a family friendly redux of the Watchmen premise. Instead of darkness, Bird manages to milk a great deal of humour from the situation, but balances it with a pathos and an emotional complexity. It also smartly plays with the conventions of comic books and cartoons, in the script, the beautiful and thoughtful design of the film, and the gorgeous animation. It was my last film of 2004 and I couldn’t have capped the year off with a better movie.

Original post-movie reaction and review.


Mean Girls (2004; d. Mark Waters)

I saw this in a packed theatre full of teen girls, the target audience. They laughed and giggled at all the jokes, and there were a lot of the great script from Tina Fey, capturing the zeitgeist while using high school and teen movie clichés to skewer teen behaviour. In doing so it points out the damaged attitudes teen girls have each other and tries, in some small way, to fix things. Unfortunately, in our theatre, about three minutes after one of the characters says something about "don't call each other sluts and whores because it just makes it easier for guys to label you that way", a scuffle happened near the bottom of the theatre and a very clear female voice was heard to yell, "You slut!" But I appreciated the efforts of the film, the way it’s so very funny and quotable, and the very good performances by the cast as a whole (and Lindsay Lohan has never been as appealing and personable as she is in this role).


Mysterious Skin (2005; d. Gregg Araki)

As the last scene faded and the credits rolled, there was a complete silence in the theatre, a hush unlike the end of a multiplex popcorn film; whether it was from shock, or deep thought, or sadness - or even, as I felt, a mixture of all three - it was an eerie feeling. This was a deeply moving film about the loss of innocence. It was a very hard movie to watch at times, even when none of the actual abuse is actually depicted; the hardest part is watching two lost characters stumbling through adulthood, trying to make sense of a world that has already failed them and will again and again. But it’s darkly funny too, walking a fine line between the ridiculous and the pathetically profound, and a strange beauty in the horrific details (I can still see the shower of rainbow colored fruit loops that a young Neil gleefully delights in, that his abuser uses to reel him in). The movie adapts the books really well; for me, the ending of the book is one of the most beautifully written passages I‘ve ever read, and the movie comes close to matching the loveliness in the pathos, the beauty in its sadness. My first reaction, when I walked out of the theatre, was of how amazing this movie was, and how I never wanted to watch it again.

Original post-movie reaction and review.


Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005; d. Shane Black)

This is really funny, highly enjoyable neo-noir take on the buddy movie. Robert Downey Jr is so good as the nervy, fast-talking, no good anti-hero, Michelle Monaghan is so appealing as the ultimate girl-next-door, and there's great chemistry between all three leads. I love the construction of the style, the snappy narrative voice, the way the film hurtles back and forth along the timeline, the gloss of the Hollywood setting against the seedy happenings and people.


Kung Fu Hustle(2005; d. Stephen Chow)

I finally saw this last year, and I'm so glad I got to. It is so much fun; I laughed myself silly. It has a shambolic charm, using a well-worn forumlaic David v. Goliath story to hang its many bizarre, funny and wonderful flights of fancy. The restless referencing to old movies - Hollywood musicals of the 40s, classic kung fu pics of the 70s - is great and geeky. It's major failing is in a romantic subplot that is both boring, underwritten and infuriating (he makes her a one-dimensional, actually mute character!).


Movies of the Decade: 2003
Movies of the Decade: 2002
Movies of the Decade: 2000-2001

Songs of 2009 part 3

Part 3 of 7 of my favourite songs for 2009 (released in 2009, only one per artist, in alphabetical order by artist) -

##Alpha Dog by Fall Out Boy
from Believers Never Die

I listened a lot to Fall Out Boy's Folie a Deux through the first half of this year, but since their singles collection was released a few months ago this song has gradually become one of my most-played. It seems they will never run out of big sounding stadium-ready pop punk anthems with clever, biting lyrics about the fleeting, unstable illusion of fame. This makes me happy though, because I don't think I will get sick of hearing such songs any time soon.

Watch:

Alpha Dog

Fall Out Boy | MySpace Music Videos


## Drumming Song by Florence + the Machine
from Lungs

I cannot get this song out of my head. The awesome drumming that builds and builds the song in relentless movement, the almost chant-like music, and Florence Welch's unearthly voice over it all...every time I hear this I want to dance and whirl around and just expel the energy that comes from this (the video captures this feeling pretty well!)

Watch:



## Walking the Dog by fun.
from Aim and Ignite

Late last year, I 'discovered' this awesome band The Format...then discovered they'd just broken up. :( Luckily, frontman Nate Ruess went on to form fun. It's got the same bombastic jaunty pop sound, but there's possibly even more going on (instrumentation, arrangements, his musical-theatre-rich voice) at all times, and a lot of referencing of other musical genres. At first, I thought it was all a bit to much, but I listened to a stripped back acoustic set yesterday and actually missed the OTTness of it all. I guess I've been won over!

Listen:


Have some more fun.!


## Two Weeks by Grizzly Bear
from Veckatimest

I'm a sucker for jangly, summery tunes and this, by indie darlings Grizzly Bear, is perfect in its shimmery lightness contrasting with the slightly mournful vocals and 'oooh aaaah' flourishes.

Watch/Listen: The video is creepy. :(



Songs of 2009 part 2
Songs of 2009 part 1

Movies of the Decade: 2003

Today's Movies of the Decade post brought to you by the number 2003.

Finding Nemo (2003; d. Andrew Stanton)

This movie is so joyous. I don't there really is a bad Pixar film but Finding Nemo remains one of my all time favourite pick-me-up movies. It's so beautiful and gentle and funny; when my friends quote a Pixar movie it's most likely to be a line from Nemo ("Mine! Mine!", "Fish are friends, not food", "...now what?", pretty much this whole page).

Also, this, Happy Feet and Moulin Rouge are the movies that have brought me the most grief (and okay, fun) at uni as I get into my 849th argument about what constitutes an Australian movie.


Kill Bill I (2003; d. Quentin Tarantino)

I was so tense all through this movie; props to QT for sucking me into the story of the Bride so completely. It's such a fantastic movie, from the eye-popping visuals, the layers of music and sound, all those references to older films, the great acting from Uma Thurman. It's funny too, full of deft comic touches that fit seamlessly into a very gory, fastpaced revenge tale. If only part two had been as consistently good and evenly paced as this...


Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003; d. Peter Weir)

For a movie with no women, full of guns and battles and ships - topics I am not normally interested in - I was utterly engrossed in this, and loved it so much I went back and reread a glut of Patrick O'Brien books until I finally got sick of guns and battles and ships. But oh, it's such a great adventure, the friendship between Aubrey and Maturin is so well conveyed and served through the storyline and the fantastic acting by Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany respectively, and it's such a handsome film as well, all expanses of ocean, furious storms, and exacting period detail.


Peter Pan (2003; d. P.J. Hogan)

A beautiful, wonderful film that captures the essence of Barrie's Neverland so well, both fantastic in its bold colours and lush scenery, and dark, as dark as it needs to be to convey the subtext of Barrie's work. The child actors are so good, particularly Rachel Hurd-Wood, who does such a subtle, lovely job as Wendy on the precipice of the end of innocence. It made me fall in love all over again with Peter Pan, restoring the depth in this children's book that had been missing from the Disney version I grew up with.


Chicago (2003; d. Rob Marshall)

I've seen this twice on the big screen, the second while picnicing at twilight in a park. It's a catchy, bold spectacle of a movie, that takes the great songs and balances it out with visuals that both capture the theatrical nature of the original stageshow as well as giving it a fluidity that it could only have onscreen, leaving an indelible impression. Both female leads in this are impressive; Catherine Zeta-Jones is fabulous as the clever, hardened cabaret star/husband killer, and Renee Zellweger plays Roxie well, all shiny surface and 'razzle-dazzle'.


Movies of the Decade: 2002
Movies of the Decade: 2000-2001

Philadelphia Grand Jury - 19 Dec 2009 - The Factory

We headed down to The Factory while the sun was still up (!) for an all-ages (!!) gig, a night of Aussie music. To be honest, Al and I bought our (cheap!) tickets in a bit of a kneejerk reaction to reading A Reminder's post on the top Aussie and NZ bands of 2009 and feeling like we didn't know half of them. It was time we did our bit to support the local scene!

We got there early enough to catch half of the Tom Ugly set. They had good energy and some catchy hooks, but the vocal was weak under all the noise. They were pretty enjoyable nevertheless.

Cassette Kids were up next. They were polished and had good stage presence, despite their drummer having continual technical problems, but after a while every song sounded the same - the same driving beat, spiky guitar riffs and wailed vocal. They sounded like a mix of Metric, Phoenix and Yeah Yeah Yeahs - all bands that released good albums this year - and in the end they just seemed, as Al said, "very now" and derivative.

Watch: Lying Around

Headliners Philadelphia Grand Jury are currently seeing a great deal of airplay for their ridiculously catchy song The Good News, and just released their first album Hope is For Hopers in September. They played a fun, crazy and hilarious set, ripping through ten songs in just over half an hour. Singer/guitarist Simon Berckelman knocked his mike off the stand every second song and had to borrow bandmate Joel Beeson's mike, then the drummer's mike, to keep singing until the hardworking tech ("Give it up for George!") duct taped the mike to secure it to the stand. Berckelman then lost his glasses due to his energetic performance - maybe he needed everything taped down?

The duo finished the night with their four strongest songs back to back - I'm Going to Kill You, Going to a Casino, The Good News and I Don't Want to Party (Party). All of them ridiculously simple and a little on the repetitive side but so catchy it sucks you into dancing along. They threw in a chaotic outro with feedback and shambolic playing before dragging two fanboys on stage and letting them loose on bass and drums to play at being rockstars.

Download: The Good News

All in all, a fun, relaxing show to finish off the year. Yay for the Australian indie music scene!

On the downside, on our way to the Factory we were surprised to see an enormous queue snaking its way around the Enmore. What, we wondered, could gather so so many fluoro-tights-wearing teen girls with choppy hair around the doors at 5pm? The answer: Short Stack. Be afraid, Australian music lovers, be very afraid.

Songs of 2009 part 2

The aim: a manageable list of my favourite songs of 2009

The criteria: released in 2009, and only one per artist (this was hard!)

Presenting part 2 (of 7), in alphabetical order by artist:

## Good Girls Go Bad by Cobra Starship
from Hot Mess

I don't think Leighton Meester should be encouraged in her music career, but you can't deny that this is one catchy fun song and video. Cobra Starship are courting commercial success with collaborations such as this on their shinier and glossier third album. While it doesn't have the heart and consistency of their great first album I'm just glad to see this long time fave (they do great live shows!) getting some recognition.

Watch: Good Girls Go Bad (HQ video)


## Nikorette by Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band
from Outer South

Sure, it's lighter in tone and meaning than anything Oberst was able to churn out as Bright Eyes. But how can you not love a rollicking, toe-tapping song that restlessly drives towards a great acoustic guitar solo breakdown in the middle? (If you're still jonesing for the old stuff, check out Ahead of the Curve, one of Oberst's contributions to the Monsters of Folk album also released this year.)

Download:
Nikorette


## From the Hips by Cursive
from Mama, I'm Swollen

I've seen this described (derisively) as emo for grown ups. Whatever it is, I love the dark, slow-build towards the furious, howling conclusion.

I'm in my worst when I'm at my best
I'm at my best when I'm trying to look and think and talk
And sing and read and write like all the rest
We're all just trying to play our roles
In a play that runs ad nauseum
I hate this damn enlightenment
We were better off as animals

Download:
From the Hips


## Little Bribes by Death Cab for Cutie
from The Open Door EP

The cheeriest song about love between two problem gamblers in Vegas. Also, one of my favourite lines of the year: Pretend every slot machine is a robot amputee waving hello.

Watch:

Death Cab for Cutie - Little Bribes from Ross Ching on Vimeo.

## Every Time You Lie by Demi Lovato
from Here We Go Again

I know, Disney Spawn. But this is a really good album! She has a great, husky voice beyond her years, and an arsenal of unashamedly pop songs that touch on all kinds of styles and genres. This track has a nice swing feel and is great for belting out loud in the privacy of your car. :)

Watch:



Songs of 2009 part 1

Movies of the Decade: 2001-2002

Continuing with my Movies of the Decade list, of movies I find particularly memorable for one reason or another over the last ten years.

Today we're looking at 2002 (with a quick trip back into 2001, and forward to 2003). Yes, here's the requisite Lord of the Rings trilogy mention...

The Lord of the Rings trilogy (d. Peter Jackson)

Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
The Two Towers 2002)
Return of the King (2003)

The trilogy certainly made choosing a Boxing Day movie very easy for three years, and all three years I felt the wait, and the incredible length of the movies, were completely worth it. I know they're not perfect films, but I was, and continue to be, awed by the very scale of them; an epic undertaking of an epic series. The films are beautiful too; I can still remember my glee at the the spread of flames over all those wonderful remote mountains in RotK when Pippin manages to light the beacon. That Jackson was able to make all three installments exciting and fascinating, gripping and enjoyable from a sprawling, difficult and universally loved text is testament to his abilities.

Oh, I found another RotK memory: "It was the most emotional wearing of the trilogy - I cried the most during Fellowship, but I felt more tense in this one with the constant battles and with each weary step that Sam and Frodo took to Mount Doom...I had Steph practically yelling for Frodo to look up on one side, and Emma hiding her face on my shoulder on the other, so it made me just that much more nervous." Thanks guys!

I really should dig out my extended edition set, and rewatch all three of them.

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001; d. Wes Anderson)

Wes Anderson is so good at making films about sad sad people hurting their loved ones and making everyone more sad. I know that doesn't sound like a recommendation, but he manages to make his films so funny at the same time, as well as poignant and visually distinct.

This is my favourite of his films, I think, because of the sprawling cast, all those sad lives and stories, that he somehow manages to weave together so they rasp against each other and create even more stories, more ideas. I love the sense of family - the good and the bad - that I get from this even as each character projects loneliness; ideas about biological family and how they make you crazy because of some inexorable pull that binds you together even when you would do anything to be free of them, and also ideas about created family, how its not only biological ties that count but the people you take into your lives, sometimes without you even realising.

Lovely and Amazing (2002; d. Nicole Holofcener)

This is a small film about ordinary lives and I love it because this intimacy and celebration of the everday. The four main characters - an aging mother who is hospitalised after a cosmetic procedure goes wrong, her two diffident daughters in their 30s, and her pre-teen adopted daughter - are well-fleshed out characters who make mistakes and hurt themselves and others but they're understandably prickly and very real. At heart it's about mothers and daughters, and how women look at themselves, and how women are looked at, and how all these things contribute to how women think of themselves. It's one of the few films I honestly relate to.

It's also a film by a woman that is truly about women. Al pointed out two articles to me today that I found great, if sad, reads (thanks Al!). The first is a piece by New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis on women in Hollywood that sets out, with the cold facts and figures, a slight increase in the number of films made by women but points out that the power women hold, and the scope and funding of the films they make, are not increasing. The second is Dargis with the gloves off, a fiery interview in which she lambasts the Hollywood system for the way it treats women, on screen and off screen and behind the scenes.

About a Boy (2002; d. Chris and Paul Weitz)

I was very conflicted going into this movie. On one hand, Hugh Grant. (My love for Hugh Grant knows (almost) no bounds.) On the other hand, my least favourite Nick Hornby book (then. A Long Way Down has taken over that title solidly.) But I enjoyed About a Boy so much that as the credits rolled and my friends turned to ask me what I thought, I was so animated in my response that I spilled an entire box of biscotti over myself.

The movie makes the characters more likeable and relatable, without erasing all the edges from them. It strikes the perfect balance in telling a potentially downer story - about a fatherless young boy (Tony Hoult), his depressed mother (Toni Collette) and the selfish slacker he adopts as an unlikely mentor (Hugh Grant, who has never used his bastard-or-nice-guy? façade to better effect) - with just the right touches of humour to leaven out the darkness.

Infernal Affairs (2002; d. Lau Wai Keung and Alan Mak)

I grew up on Hong Kong movies, so I hold a great fondness for many of them despite the patchy quality. But this is a classy, beautifully composed movie; despite the (overly?) intricate plot it's tense and exciting and moving. It's far from a perfect film; the three female characters feel shoehorned into the narrative, not all the twists make sense, and it relies on the dark, absorbing atmosphere and a
pair of very good performances by Tony Leung and Andy Lau to carry it through. The scene in the picture above, a meeting of two adversaries who, at this point in time, still believe themselves to be long-ago friends, is beautifully shot and perfect in its understated direction. Ultimately, this a fine film from an industry that often panders to the lowest common denominator for the profits, rather than attempt something bold and smart for art's sake. (It is also - unpopular opinion time! - a better film than the Scorsese remake.)

Movies of the Decade: 2000-2001

Songs of 2009 part 1

The aim: a manageable list of my favourite songs of 2009

The criteria: released in 2009, and only one per artist (this was hard!)

Presenting, in alphabetical order by artist:

## Not a Robot but a Ghost by Andrew Bird
from Noble Beast

I have this weird word association problem: say the word 'robot', and I think 'Radiohead'. So I don't know if this is why I always think of this song as rather Radioheadesque; or if the combination of the shuffling, insistent beat, the pretty, tremulous melody in minor key and Bird's croon really is reminiscent of Thom Yorke and co. Either way, it's a good song.

Watch: live at Lollapalooza 2009 - I was there! Nowhere as close as the person taking this video was though.



## Travelling Woman by Bat for Lashes
from Two Suns

I love the dreamy, atmospheric mood of this song, how it suits Natasha Khan's dusky voice.

Listen:



## Blood Bank by Bon Iver
from Blood Bank EP

This is muted but so pretty, and I think it's really romantic in a small, quiet way, like being caught out in the snow with someone you love.

Download:
Blood Bank


## Love Drunk by Boys Like Girls
from Love Drunk

This is the musical equivalent of candied popcorn - colourful and nutritionally useless, but it's so damn more-ish. :)

Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_uQO6NeFis


## You Belong to Me by Butch Walker

The Taylor Swift original is a guilty pleasure of mine (pleasure because it just begs you to sing along to its catchy lovelorn self; guilty because, well, it rightly sits amongst the pantheon of top 5 psuedo feminist anthems). This gender-flipped cover is equally as catchy, if not more so because it involves a plucked mandolin.

A mandolin! (And not a ukelele, as the link below claims it to be.)

Have I ever mentioned my love of unusual instrumentation in pop songs? :)

Listen:
You Belong With Me (Taylor Swift cover)

Tomorrow: Movies of the Decade 2001-2002

Movies of the Decade: 2000-2001

It's year end, and that means LISTS! In the next two weeks I'll be posting each day, alternating between my Movies of the Decade and my Songs of the Year countdowns.

Movies of the Decade is not about the best movies of the decade, because I have no real standing to judge what is 'the best'. It's mostly a list of movies I find particularly memorable for one reason or another over the last ten years.

So let's start at the very beginning (I hear it's a very good place to start):

American Beauty (1999; d. Sam Mendes)

This squeaks into my list because it was released early 2000 in Australia. I remember walking out of the cinema already heatedly debating moments from the movie with my best friend. She stayed the night, and we talked about it into the wee hours of the morning, we were that rapt in it. I haven’t seen it since then, but even after almost ten years, I can still see iconic moments from the movie in my head. Strangely enough, for a story that is about Kevin Spacey’s Lester Burnham, it is the women I remember most: Mena Suvari draped in the rose petals on the ceiling, Thora Birch lifting her shirt in front of her bedroom window, Annette Bening breaking down in the immaculate house she’s trying to sell.

Billy Elliott (2000; d. Stephen Daldry)

This was the first movie I saw post-HSC. Maybe it was the timing, but the theme of dreaming big and defying your family and expectations resonated with me; however, I have seen it a few times since then and I still love everything about this movie, from the opening credits with Billy jumping and dancing on the drab beds of his house to T-Rex, in slow motion and yet conveying so much free energy; to the graceful, almost stilted drama of the last scene. The movie handles the relationships in this so beautifully, from the slow implosion of the tension within Billy’s family, to the way Billy finds and provides support to other misfits around him.

Bring It On (2000, d.Peyton Reed)

I will not hear a bad word about this movie. It is bold and splashy and fun, and it doesn’t try to intellectualise or dumb down its subject and its character; they just are, imperfectly human and a little bitchy but ultimately good people. The romance is sweet, the leads are charming, and there’s a lot of very quotable lines and memorable moments. Not to mention the cheerleading sequences are fabulous to watch. One of my favourite pick-me-up movies still.

Gosford Park (2001, d. Robert Altman)

The first time I watched this I went in with the wrong impression; I was expecting an Agatha Christie-like country house mystery, like the box seemed to promise, and I came out a little disappointed. But I watched it again; and then again; and each time I discovered something more, a new way to read the scenes, different facets of the (large) cast of characters. I came to an appreciation for how Altman allows scenes to flow almost naturally, conversations and interactions tumbling over each other; while structuring each scene just so, such that it carefully eases into view a new piece of the social puzzle each time, revealing bit by bit the manners and mannerisms of the house, the secrets and lies underneath. It’s a smart, beautiful film, bolstered by some great performances from a cast that reads like a who’s who of British film; I particularly love the slow burning tension and attraction between the Mary the maid (Kelly Macdonald) and Clive Owen's Robert.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001; d. John Cameron Mitchell)

The music is great – it’s hard to come out of it not singing the songs – the acting is great – John Cameron Mitchell is funny and heartbreaking and scary and scared and wonderful in channeling Hedwig – and it manages a lot visually on a low budget. I don’t have the words to describe this one, but this New York Times review by Stephen Holden basically articulates everything I wish I could.

What were your favourite/most memorable films from 2000 and 2001?

Tomorrow: Songs of the 2009 part 1