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