PEOPLE'S INSTINCTIVE TRAVELS

NEW TO THEATRES...

* Le Havre, Aki Kauirsmäki's newest has a familiar quirkiness, and not necessarily in a nourishing way.

* The Man Nobody Knew: In Search of my Father, CIA Spymaster William Colby, a documentary as unwieldy as its title. Colby remains as much a mystery in the end as he was at the start.

UPDATED TO CRITERION CONFESSIONS...

Two by Luis Bunuel...

* Belle de Jour, a classic with Catherine Deneuve is now on Blu-Ray. (Also at DVD Talk.)

* The Exterminating Angel, a surreal critique of blind faith and class-based hubris.

* Sid and Nancy, Alex Cox's punk-rock biopic. (Also at DVD Talk.)

* Traffic, Steven Soderbergh's complex, entertaining drug drama. (Also at DVD Talk.)


THIS WEEK IN DVD/BD REVIEWS...

* The Big Country, a uniquely masculine western with Gregory Peck and Charlton Heston.

* The English Patient, a sweeping epic spanning two timelines, though the one with Juliette Binoche is better than the more famous romantic storyline.

* Film Socialisme, Godard's most recent intellectual puzzler.

* Love Story: If love is never having to say you're sorry, but I hated this movie, doesn't someone still owe me an apology?

* Outrage: Way of the Yakuza, Takeshi Kitano enacting a bloody chess game with all the boredom of real chess.

* The Piano, Jane Campion's literary romance, starring Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, and a young Anna Paquin. (Get prepared to feel a little creepy, True Blood fans!)

Current Soundtrack: The Colbert Report, special guest Terry Gross

e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * Midi-Confessions123 * Criterion Confessions * Live Journal Syndication * ComicSpace * Last FM * GoodReads * The Blog Roll [old version] * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

All text (c) 2012 Jamie S. Rich

LEARN TO LOVE ME AND ASSEMBLE THE WAYS

The folks over at SpazDog Press are doing a second Unite and Take Over anthology, collecting comic book stories inspired by Smiths lyrics.

For this volume, I have written a script suggested by the song "Well I Wonder," and the amazingly talented Christopher Mitten has drawn it.

Here is a sample page:

The publisher has a Kickstarter campaign going to help support the book. Here is the page. Please look it over and, if any of the rewards offered strike your fancy, consider donating to get this comic off the ground. There is also a full list of contributors and the songs they are tackling, and plenty of good people are involved.

Current Soundtrack: Teenage Fanclub, Shadows

FELT AS FRESH AS THE PAINT IN THIS NEW FLAT

As 2012 progresses, there will be many announcements to come, but I am stoked to get started here with the revelation that the short story Megan Levens and I have been working on for quite some time, "Two Wheels, Two Feet," will be seeing the light of day via the Double Feature comics app.

Double Feature is an exciting platform created by Tim Seeley alongside Mike Norton and others. For the past year or so, they have been presenting themed-issues featuring their own characters and contributions from other like-minded creators. They sell the comics via the iPad app or you can buy the pdf direct at a mere $0.99. Turns out that February is going to have a special "Romance Issue" for Valentine's Day, and when Mike asked me if I wanted to contribute, it was as if the perfect opportunity presented itself.

Megan and I originally started this story for a print anthology that never happened. We had intended to finish it eventually and find either an online venue or print it ourselves. In the meantime, we have been circling the idea of doing something more. 

Now both are happening. We're developing other ideas, looking ahead to see what we can bring together.

In the meantime, check Megan's take on the same subject over at her blog, and make sure to check out her own webcomic Somewhere in Between while you're there.

Current Soundtrack: The Vaccines, Tuck and Roll; Rose Elinor Dougall, The Distractions EP [free download]

THREE HEARTS, SEVEN SEAS, TWELVE MONTHS OF MOVIES

The Online Film Critics Society posted the results of our annual awards voting today.

You can read all of our picks here. I think the only ones I actually voted for myself were the wins for The Tree of Life (including Jessica Chastain as Best Supporting Actress) and also Cave of Forgotten Dreams (which I reviewed for the Mercury). Which isn't a gripe, I don't have any problem with any of the choices here. Had I seen We Need to Talk about Kevin earlier than yesterday, I might have debated voting Tilda Swinton over my personal choice for best actress, Kirsten Dunst in Melancholia. Rango is really the only film I didn't like as much as my colleagues, but it wasn't a knock-out year for animation, honestly. (I voted for The Adventurs of Tintin.)

Since in one stage of voting I had to organize my top 3 favorite films, I thought I'd go ahead and list them here, with links to my original reviews:

1. The Tree of Life: A film that only grows more glorious the more time you spend with it. My second viewing was actually on an iPad while traveling, and it lost none of its power. In fact, the second time, what seemed hard to grasp on first look gels and it becomes even more obvious that Malick is 100% clear in his intent. It's a powerful movie that reaches back through the dawn of the ages and connects man and his condition to the very spark of life before taking us beyond our own petty concerns into something far more majestic.

2. Melancholia: Lars von Trier's movie is as dour as Malick's is hopeful, yet both recognize the lesser impulses that mar human existence. Both films see life as being full of pain, but whereas Malick encourages us to struggle against the tide, von Trier's end of the world scenario suggests we should discard our delusions and embrace the emptiness. Oddly, there is as much comfort in his finish as Malick's, it just depends on what kind of oblivion you prefer.

3. Drive: This one is just bad ass. I can layer on my existential philosophy and argue about its deeper themes of pure love, but screw it, it's just bad ass. Nicolas Winding Refn channels Jean-Pierre Melville into a Paul Schader script, and builds his nasty little crime drama with an exceptional cast. Ryan Gosling, Albert Brooks, Carey Mulligan, and Christina Hendricks are all great and fit perfectly into Drive's desolate pulp world. Tough-minded and yet, like all the films here, desperately human.

Films still not seen this year: Carnage, Corialanus, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Le Havre, The Iron Lady, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Pariah, A Separation, War Horse, Young Adult. 


Current Soundtrack: Common People are People at Turntable.fm

LOOK OUT, HERE COMES TOMORROW

Robot 6 asked me for my most anticipated comics of 2012, as well as to share a little of what I have going. That means sneak peeks of art from upcoming comics.

Natalie Nourigat!
Megan Levens!
And what's this...Mike Norton?! Why yes. Mike Norton.

You didn't know that, did you? In fact, the last script I wrote in 2011, finished on Thursday night, has charged Mike with drawing pink smoke and, essentially, a big fart. And they aren't the same thing!

Click over to CBR and scroll down; it's a huge list and I am a bit down the way.

And for all you people, how about a little snippet of 2013. Here is Dan Christensen:

And don't forget Nico Hitori de! Spell Checkers vol. 3 is deep into production.

And there will be some all-new work with Joëlle Jones, too, but that's still way undercover...and it's easily going the best thing she and I have ever done together, so you really can't wait. Trust me.

Current Soundtrack: The Who, Quadrophenia deluxe version disc 4

e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * Midi-Confessions123 * Criterion Confessions * Live Journal Syndication * ComicSpace * Last FM * GoodReads * The Blog Roll [old version] * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

All text (c) 2011 Jamie S. Rich

POLICE & THIEVES

UPDATED TO CRITERION CONFESSIONS...

* Hunger, Michael Fassbender stars in Steve McQueen's harrowing portrait of the IRA prisoners' hunger strike in the early 1980s.

Three gonzo crime films from the uniquely crazy Japanese filmmaker Seijun Suzuki:
* Take Aim at the Police Van (1960)
* Tokyo Drifter (1966)
* Branded to Kill (1967)

THIS WEEK IN DVD/BD REVIEWS...

* The Art of Getting By, a predictable but solid Young Adult story, with fine performances by Emma Roberts and Freddie Highmore.

* Behind the Mask, a mid-40s misfire that attempts to turn the popular Shadow radio serials into...light comedy?!

* Crime Story: The Complete Series, the Michael Mann police drama set in the 1960s but made in the 1980s.

* A Farewell to Arms, Frank Borzage's masterfully melodramatic adaptation of Ernest Hemingway.

* Incident in an Alley, a middling early 1960s crime film based on a Rod Serling short story.

* Seven Chances, an hilarious Buster Keaton short where the great comedian plays a man in desperate need for a wife.

Current Soundtrack: The Cowboy Junkies, The Trinity Sessions; NME's Best of 2011 playlist on Spotify


e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * Midi-Confessions123 * Criterion Confessions * Live Journal Syndication * ComicSpace * Last FM * GoodReads * The Blog Roll [old version] * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

All text (c) 2011 Jamie S. Rich

MAKE SOME NOISE: 2011 MUSIC

This year's music for me was dominated by reissues and reunions, if my LastFM scrobble list is anything to go by.

My top 15 bands, judged by the amount of listens from January 1 to December 31, 2011 are as follows:

1. Suede
2. Nicki Minaj
3. Radiohead
4. Brett Anderson
5. Elbow
6. Asobi Seksu
7. Morrissey
8. Beastie Boys
9. Alex Turner
10. Christina Perri
11. Duran Duran
12. Pet Shop Boys
13. Duffy
14. The Raveonettes
15. Arctic Monkeys
16. The Beatles
17. Underworld
18. DJ Shadow
19. Low
20. The Horrors

The Suede posting was definitely the double-disc reissues of all five of their albums, while the Duran Duran listing was a combo of All You Need is Now being released and getting my hands on their double-disc reissues for the early albums, as well. Morrissey flooded the market with compilations and dredged-up rarities, and The Beatles had the Anthology series come out again. New efforts from both the Beastie Boys and Pet Shop Boys also sent me into their back catalogue a little.

Alex Turner gets a special note since the Submarine EP was just an EP, and so it took more dedicatied listening on my part to get those numbers. If it came down to it, that soundtrack would easily be my album of the year, and "Piledriver Waltz" was my favorite song. It showed up in a different form on the Arctic Monkeys album Suck It and See, which narrowly missed this list, giving Turner another boost.

I quite like this solo performance of the song from French radio:

Other notable songs in terms of how many times they got spun around here (a couple obvious holdovers from 2010):

Elbow - "The Night Will Always Win"
Christina Perri - "Jar of Hearts"
Brett Anderson - "Brittle Heart"
Kanye West, Rick Ross, Jay-Z, & Nicki Minaj - "Monster"
Nicki Minaj - "Right Thru Me"
Asobi Seksu - "Trails"
Beastie Boys - "Make Some Noise"
Mogwai - "Rano Pano"
Duffy - "My Boy"
Beady Eye - "Four Letter Word"
The Strokes - "Under Cover of Darness"
The Horrors - "Still Life"
The Joy Formidable - "Austere"
Little Dragon - "Ritual Union"
Desire - "Under Your Spell"
Miles Kane - "Come Closer"
Cults - "You Know What I Mean"

SPECIAL NEW YEAR'S INCANTATION FROM NICO AND THE REST OF US ON TEAM SPELL CHECKERS

ANIMALS STRIKE CURIOUS POSES

NEW IN THEATRES...

* The Adventures of Tintin, a surprisingly fun 3D adventure from Steven Spielberg with all the appropriate nods to Hergé.

* The Artist, a loving and entirely accurate tribute to the silent era of cinema.

* A Dangerous Method, Jung and Freud meet David Cronenberg.

* We Bought a Zoo, an effective new feature from Cameron Crowe...but is it any good?

THIS WEEK IN DVD/BD REVIEWS...

* The Birth of a Nation: Deluxe 3-Disc Edition, D.W. Griffith's historically inaccurate epic is an important piece of cinema, but that doesn't stop it from being racist and boring.

* Nothing Sacred, a slight bit of entertainment from 1937, directed by William Wellmen and starring Carole Lombard and Frederic March.

Current Soundtrack: Drowned in Sound's Top 120 Singles of 2011 list on Spotify


e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * Midi-Confessions123 * Criterion Confessions * Live Journal Syndication * ComicSpace * Last FM * GoodReads * The Blog Roll [old version] * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

All text (c) 2011 Jamie S. Rich