MINING FOR MEMORIES: What did I listen to in 2012?

As I guess is now becoming my tradition, I am forgoing any top 10 or other rankings and letting statistics speak for me.

According to the LastFm, these are the artists bands, by the numbers, I listened to more than any other over the last 12 months.

Lots of older bands mixed in with newer releases, and one comedian. Blur and Suede both had big restoration projects in the last 18 months, and so there was som re-visiting of their back catalogue. The Beasties got a lot of play, unfortunately, due to the death of Adam Yauch. The top 4 acts all had new albums, though, as did many of the others.

The most-played song list, if presented at face value, would be skewed toward bands like fun. and the Vaccines whose albums I had on repeat for a while, so I am going to only list the singles and isolated cuts. "Losing You" by Solange was easily my favorite song of the year, though, so it's no surprise that it dominates with 57 total plays. Had she released more than an EP, and had it been earlier than in the last months of the year, Solange would easily have made the top 25 artists.

Interestingly, enough, despite being my most played artist and having a great new album, Elysium, none of the Pet Shop Boys singles ranked in the final tally.

1. Solange - "Losing You" (57 plays)
2. fun. w/ Janelle Monae - "We Are Young" (47 plays)
3. Michael Kiwanuka - "Tell Me a Tale" / fun. - "Some Nights" (33 plays)
4. Christina Aguilera - "Your Body" / fun. - "Carry On" (30 plays)
5. Paul Weller - "That Dangerous Age" / The Shins - "Simple Song" (28 plays)
6. Saint Etienne - "Tonight" / Frank Ocean - "Thinkin' About You" / The Vaccines - "Teenage Icon" / Fiona Apple - "Hot Knife" (27 plays)
7. Muse - "Survival" / Arctic Monkeys - "R U Mine?" (26 plays)
8. Muse - "Madness" / Frank Ocean - "Pyramids" / The Vaccines - "No Hope" (25 plays)
9. Michael Kiwanuka - "Home Again" / No Doubt - "Settle Down" / Blur - "Under the Westway" (23 plays)
10. Paul Weller - "When Your Garden's Overgrown" / Taylor Swift - "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" (22 plays)
11. Martin Rossiter - "Drop Anchor" / Of Monsters and Men - "Little Talks" / The xx - "Angels" (21 plays)
12. Brett Anderson - "Isolation" / Spiritualized - "So Long You Pretty Thing" / Bat for Lashes - "Laura" (20 plays)
13. Saint Etienne - "DJ" / Santigold - "Disparate Youth" / Nicki Minaj - "Starships" / Bloc Party - "Octopus" (19 plays)

Notable old songs that got played a lot include the Hollies "The Air that I Breathe" (28), Simon & Garfunkle "Kathy's Song" (26), Nico "These Days" (19), and Suede "Breakdown" (19).

Current Soundtrack: Billie Holiday, The Complete Commodore/Decca Masters

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

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"

HALF THE WORLD AWAY

2011 is half over. Here are the top 15 bands I've listened to the most so far this year.

1. Nicki Minaj
2. Elbow
3. Asobi Seksu
4. Alex Turner
5. Morrissey
6. Radiohead
7. Beastie Boys
8. The Chemical Brothers
9. Duran Duran
10. Underworld
11. Duffy
12. Christina Perri
13. Beady Eye
14. Mogwai
15. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

You know, because no one asked.

Current Soundtrack: Dean & Britta, "Teenage Lightning & Lonely Highways (Sonic Boom Remix)"

THE BIG ROAR

Teaser panel from Spell Checkers vol. 2

Our friends over at the Stumptown Trade Review have put Spell Checkers vol. 1 on their best of 2010 list. Thanks, guys!

Head on over to their site and listen to the podcast of their 2010 round-up!

Current Soundtrack: Stumptown Trade Review!

HIGHWAY 2010 REVISTED...AGAIN

A couple of more year-end links.

* First, the Online Film Critics Society has posted the final results of our voting. No big surprises. This is a pretty solid list of movies you should have seen last year.

Read the winners...

* Ultimate Spider-Man #150 was ranked #6 Single Issue of 2010 by iFanboy. This was, of course, the issue Joëlle Jones was a part of.

Ultimate Spider-Man had its best year in years, and this was the jewel on top of the crown, featuring spectacular guest art from Joelle Jones, Skottie Young, and Jamie McKelvie, in addition to regular artists David LaFuente and Sara Pichelli. The issue set the stage for the next stage in Peter's life, and did it in grand fashion.

By the way, if you aren't keeping up with Joëlle's blog, you should start. Her latest routine of doing Daily Doodles is yielding some pretty cool drawings.

Current Soundtrack: Discodeine, featuring Jarvis Cocker - "Synchronize [Extended]

HIGHWAY 2010 REVISITED

* The fine folks over at Robot 6 have posed their annual year-end roundtable, asking different comics professionals what they thought of the past year, and also what we are doing next year. I joined in, praising some books, being stealthily incendiary about other stuff, and then plugging what I have coming over the next couple of years.

Read over the whole thing here.

The only mentions that may be "news" come in my last paragraph.

"Not much else is scheduled to be out from me in the immediate future. I have two Oni projects approved and they have artists attached, including one I’ve teased about on my blog that I created with Natalie Nourigat. The other is with an awesome artist named Dan Christensen that Oni brought to my attention. That news will likely be winnowing its way out as we have more artwork to show. They are both right in line with the kind of stories people like from me, but they also go in whole new territories, they won’t just be the same old thing. I want to keep surprising my readers–and myself! That should mean an even bigger 2012!"

* The DVD Talk crew have posted their picks of the best DVDs and Blu-Rays for the year, as well. It's a pretty good list, with some surprises and other not-so-surprises. I am not even sure there was a contest for what would win--Edgar Wright had it pretty well sewed up.

The full list of the Top Discs of 2010 here.

For anyone who keeps track of such things, I wrote the blurbs for the Alien Anthology, America Lost and Found: The BBS Story, Red Riding Trilogy, Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy, and 3 Silent Classics By Josef Von Sternberg.

Current Soundtrack: Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited

BOXES & LISTS: MUSIC 2010

Release dates feel so amorphous in the digital age, and since I am also extremely lazy, I am not going to dig through my music collection and figure out what actually came out last year. Rather, I'll let someone else's statistical tracking of my listening habits create a picture of 2010.

According to my LastFm account, the top 15 artists I listened to the most in the last 12 months are:

1. Christina Aguilera - 1,055 individual song plays
2. Gorillaz - 722
3. Brett Anderson - 614
4 Janelle Monáe - 577
5. The Trash Can Sinatras - 547
6. Brian Eno - 434
7. Rihanna - 378
8. Massive Attack - 377
9. Suede - 360
10. Charlotte Gainsbourg - 354
11. M.I.A. - 334
12. Paul Weller - 327
13. Ash - 321
14. Broken Bells - 303
15. The Roots - 300

To be fair, I should also note some of the most prolific listens from the last 3 months, accounting for late year releases who had to do some catching up:

Belle & Sebastian - 245
Nicki Minaj - 202
Bruno Mars - 197
Duffy - 164
Bryan Ferry - 154

As far as individual songs are concerned, the picture is cloudier, dominated by the artists who ruled the overall charts. Out of the top 15, four are Christina Aguilera, one is by Broken Bells, and the rest are Brett Anderson.

Top of the list is Christina's "Lift Me Up" at 59 plays, followed by "Not Myself Tonight" at 43, "You Lost Me" at 42, and a few slots down, "Birds of Prey" at 39.

Brett Anderson's "The Hunted" dominated at 40, and the rest of his Slow Attack album was right behind with plays in the 30s.

Broken Bells' "The High Road" had 37 plays.

Other big ones:
M.I.A. - "XXXO" - 35
Metric - "Black Sheep" - 26
Bruno Mars - "Grenade" - 21
Duffy - "Well, Well, Well" and "Endlessly" - both at 18
Belle & Sebastian - "I Want the World to Stop" - 15
Christina Aguilera - "Express" - 15
Rihanna – "Only Girl (In The World)" - 14
Nicki Minaj - "Right Thru Me" - 14
My Chemical Romance – "Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)" - 12

Most of those had the cuts from their albums hovering at numbers just below their main hit entry. Metric is really the only individual song that pushed through, and that is off a pretty killer soundtrack; there is no great one-off single lurking around, sadly enough.

I wish I had thought to record what my total play count was at this time 12 months ago so I could see how many songs I listened to this year. For posterity, in case we try again in 365 days, Last FM says I have listened to 165,017 songs in some digital format or other since June 18, 2007.

Current Soundtrack: Lily Allen, It's Not You, It's Me (I woke up with "Not Fair" stuck in my head)

DREAMT FOR LIGHT YEARS IN THE BELLY OF A MOUNTAIN: Cinema in 2010

"But I hate all that fucking listing of greatest films/greatest albums; Nick Hornby really has let the male species down. I’m a fucking man; I don’t go around making lists. A list is something you take to the supermarket." - Luke Haines

And yet, here I am making lists.

I'm actually a participant in three different lists this year. The DVD Talk Top Releases are still being compiled, so I can't link to that, but today the Portland Mercury put out their issue where myself and a bunch of other locals picked three films from the year that we felt all should see. You can read all the picks on their site. Of course, I went long, so Erik Henriksen had to edit me down, but here is my full text just for the hell of it:

* SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD
Much of the best cinema of 2010 was about nerds triumphant, and though I can count myself amongst their geeky numbers, Scott Pilgrim was about nerds so different from me, it was almost like watching a Natural Geographic documentary. Fun, witty, stylish, and emotionally honest--Edgar Wright’s adaptation of the Byran Lee O’Malley comic was more movie than all other movies this year combined.

* BLACK SWAN
In my DVDTalk.com review, I suggested The Black Swan was The Red Shoes as directed by Roman Polanski. It’s also a little Hitchcock by way of the Dardennes. Darren Aronofsky manages to synthesize whatever influences he began with into something singularly his own: a gonzo metaphor for artistic obsession, and I’m a little obsessed with how it all turned out.

* MOTHER
Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-Ho never steps in the same cinematic river twice, and though his latest has some genre similarities to his breakthrough Memories of Murder, his choice to follow the mom of the accused killer rather than the cops makes for an unexpected, suspenseful drama. Kim Hye-Ja’s lead performance should be in the top actress category at every awards show in the coming months. Should be, but likely won’t.

I don't subscribe to the idea that this was any crappier a year for film than any others. I had no problem coming up with a good list of movies I liked. I would, however, maybe cotton to the notion that it's a year where the choices for the top slots were far too obvious, making most voting predictable.

Take, for instance, the final voting ballot for Online Film Critics Society. We all got to vote for our top five choices in the various categories, and the picks were compiled and, well, there aren't many surprises. Nor would I even argue that there were really any underdogs to be championed or even anything left out, even when my picks were different than the final results. (Okay, I would argue that Hailee Steinfeld was a lead actress in True Grit, not a supporting player, but that's different.)

Our final voting results will be out next week, but in the meantime, here are my picks in each category. Look at this like if I were to make the Oscar ballot. These are actually in order of preference, so the head of each list is my #1 (and bolded for easy identification). I will also link to my reviews of the movie the first time the title appears.

Supporting Actor

Jim Broadbent, Another Year
Brandon Routh, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Andrew Garfied, Social Network
Sean Combs, Get Him to the Greek
Bill Murray, Get Low

Update 1/10/11: Having finally seen The Fighter, I would amend this to join the chorus of putting Christian Bale in the top slot. He is amazing. It's particularly remarkable once you see the footage of the real person he plays; he's dead on the money.

Supporting Actress

Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit
Chloe Moretz, Kick Ass
Cecile De France, Mesrine: Killer Instinct
Scarlett Johansson, Iron Man 2
Ellen Wong, Scott Pilgrim

Cinematography

Black Swan
Scott Pilgrim
Social Network
The American
I Am Love

Original Screenplay

Black Swan
Greenberg
Another Year
Inception
Somewhere

Adapted Screenplay

Social Network
Scott Pilgrim
True Grit
The Town
127 Hours

Editing

Scott Pilgrim
127 Hours
Black Swan
Get Him to the Greek
Social Network

Foreign Language Feature Film

Mother
35 Shots of Rum
Lebanon
A Prophet
Mesrine: Killer Instinct/Public Enemy #1

Documentary

Exit the Gift Shop
Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno
Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg & the Pentagon Papers
Art of the Steal
Thorn in the Heart

Lead Actor

Jeff Bridges - True Grit
Ben Stiller - Greenberg
Casey Affleck - Killer Inside Me
James Franco - 127 Hours
Joaquin Phoenix - I’m Still Here

Lead Actress

Hye-ja Kim - Mother
Anna Mouglalis - Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky
Giovana Messogiorno - Vincere
Sally Hawkins - Made in Dagenham
Natalie Portman - Black Swan

Director

Edgar Wright - Scott Pilgrim
David Fincher - Social Network
Darren Aronofsky - Black Swan
Coen Bros. - True Grit
Christopher Nolan - Inception

Honorable Mentions
Joon-ho Bong - Mother
Mike Leigh - Another Year
Noah Baumbach - Greenberg
Anton Corbijn - The American
Sofia Coppola - Somewhere

Best Film

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Social Network
True Grit
Inception
Black Swan

Honorable Mentions
Mother
The American
Greenberg
Another Year
The Town

Had I not put Mother in both film categories, Toy Story 3 would have probably nestled in that last slot. I didn't actually see enough of the animated movies this year to vote, oddly enough. I also wish I had seen more documentaries.

Claire Denis' 35 Shots of Rum is on the Best Foreign list, and I still haven't seen White Material, otherwise that would have likely had to fight it out for top Denis.

By the way, as I close here, the music I am listening to now was picked by Brett Anderson as his favorite album of 2010. Worth a listen.

Current Soundtrack: Warpaint, The Fool



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

All text (c) 2010 Jamie S. Rich

THREE CHEERS FOR SWEET REVENGE

Floating World Comics, my local comic book store, has released their top 25 best sellers for 2009.

The top 3 in terms of dollar amount are:

1. SCOTT PILGRIM VOL. 5 (Oni Press)
2. WATCHMEN TP (DC/Vertigo)
3. YOU HAVE KILLED ME (Oni Press)

That's right, we were #3, and in pretty good company.


See the whole list here.

And congrats for the #17 spot being snagged by the The Caterer #3. It's a comic book created by Jeff Lint and published by Floating World. It's a completely whacked out throwback to the greatest comic you've never heard of. Read a little bit about it here, including how to order it. It's totally worth it.


Current Soundtrack: The Smiths, Meat is Murder


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

All text (c) 2010 Jamie S. Rich

OH, I BURIED YOU TODAY II

* Tim O'Shea included You Have Killed Me on his top 10 of the year list, alongside books I also really liked, such as Roger Langridge's The Muppet Show, Greg Rucka's run on Detective Comics, Matt Kindt's 3 Story: The Secret History of the Giant Man, and Evan Dorkin and Jill Thomspon's Beasts of Burden.

See Tim's list, alongside the rest of the lists from the Robot 6 crew, here.

By the by, I think it's all kinds of wrong that Joëlle Jones' amazing cover for You Have Killed Me, designed up nice by Keith Wood, hasn't been making the lists of the best covers of the year. That's all kinds of wrong.

And speaking of wrong...

* Depeche Mode should maybe be awarded the song of the year, as this more than any other summed up the zeitgeist of 2009 for most of the people I know:

According to my LastFM account, the band was my third most played of the year, too.

1. The Beatles
2. Morrissey
3. Depeche Mode
4. Lily Allen
5. Leonard Cohen
6. Brett Anderson
7. Dot Allison
8. Asobi Seksu
9. Pet Shop Boys
10. Elbow
11. Scott Walker
12. The Trash Can Sinatras
13. Franz Ferdinand
14. Moby
15. Mareva Galanter

Current Soundtrack: Depeche Mode, Sounds of the Universe

OH, I BURIED YOU TODAY

A couple of things for the last day of the year.

* First up, a new review of the Love the Way You Love: Side A trade paperback over at the "I Just Read About That..." blog.

"I’ve always liked Jamie Rich’s stories. He’s written some full-on fiction in addition to his comics. And they’re both solid, romantic works. Ellerby’s drawing style is rather cartoony (big eyes and often outlandish hair, but it works in context). This is especially so since this story is about teens/post-teens and rock bands....

Rich makes his characters full, with a wide emotional range. The secondary characters are also quite good, especially Lance, Tristan’s younger brother, who wears a cool hat and has some of the best lines in the book."

Not bad! I'll take it. (More, obviously, in the link.)

* Second, in case you're not sick of best-of lists yet (I've avoided most, and it's still like a lot of white noise to me), here are a few more after someone's ingenious mash-up of the movies of 2009. It's like a trailer for the whole year.

* DVD Talk's writers voted on their Top 20 DVDs of 2009, and this is what we came up with. I wrote the blurbs for Wings of Desire, Up, and The Human Condition. I should've staged a walk-out, though, when Watchmen's name even came up.

* Jason Bailey posted his Top 10 Theatrical Releases of 2009 on his Fourth Row Center blog. Note how great his first 3 are, though a little backwards. (Compare to my list, in other words.)

* Christopher McQuain has added his Best Films of the Decade to Facebook. (Why not your own blog, hepcat?)


Current Soundtrack: The Raveonettes, In & Out of Control

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

All text (c) 2009 Jamie S. Rich

THE BEST DAYS WE USED TO HAVE: MY TOP 15 MOVIES OF 2009

I had every intention of avoiding the list-making impulse again this year. Every time I see one of those lists of lists, the ones that bloggers like Largehearted Boy make gathering together every "best of" they can find in one place, I disappear to some kind of quiet happy place. There are just too many. What does it all matter anymore? And this year it goes double, since we're also getting decade round-ups.

But then I was out the other night having a drink with Joëlle and she noted that based on the Golden Globes, it seemed like a bad year for movies. I said I didn't think this was true, and she challenged me to come up with my top 3. I vacillated a little, came up with a basic top 3, but said I really needed to look at everything I saw. Which I did, confirming that the guesses I made at the bar were, in fact, my faves. Once I started looking, though, it was all downhill, I couldn't stop.

There are a few movies I haven't seen. Crazy Heart, for instance, has not shown up in Portland yet (though, check Jason Bailey's review). It's one of the few I can think of that might have a slight chance of cracking this block, but I feel pretty confident that I've got a solid list here. All of the links go to my reviews of the films, so no real need to write short blurbs.

Okay, without further ado...

Jamie S. Rich's Top 15 Theatrical Releases of 2009

1. Where the Wild Things Are

2. Up
3. Up in the Air
4. An Education
5. The Informant!
6. Inglourious Basterds
7. A Single Man

8. The Fantastic Mr. Fox
9. The Hurt Locker
10. A Serious Man
11. Moon
12. The Messenger
13. The Brothers Bloom
14. Star Trek
15. Treeless Mountain

If I had to give out a special award this year, it would be to Steven Soderbergh, who entertained me not once, but three times. Though Che was technically a 2008 starter, I saw it in 2009, and alongside The Informant! and The Girlfriend Experience, the filmmaker delivered a lot of entertainment this year.

Then again, Sandra Bullock also made three movies this year, none of which I saw. What happened to you, Sandy?! I used to love you!

For a fantastic summation of 2009, I recommend A.O. Scott's intro to his own list over at the NY Times. He finds the common themes of the year, and I think is very astute. His picks are pretty good, especially his #1. Great minds...

DVD Talk is also currently working on their list rounding up our reviewers' opinions on the best DVDs of the year. This means the best packages of the best movies, not just the quality of the film itself. Below is essentially what I voted for, though I hadn't watched Tora-san yet when I voted. I swapped it with Up, since it had already made the theatrical list.

Jamie S. Rich's Top 10 DVD Releases of 2009

1. Wings of Desire - Criterion Collection

2. Mad Men - Season 2
3. Wendy & Lucy
4. Magnificent Obsession - Criterion Collection
5. The Human Condition - Criterion Collection
6. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Criterion Collection
7. Scott Walker: 30 Century Man
8. Harlan Ellison: Dreams with Sharp Teeth
9. Funny People - 2-Disc Unrated Collector's Edition
10. Tora-san: Collector Set 1

I believe the full results of the DVD Talk poll will be posted sometime next week.

Current Soundtrack: Pet Shop Boys, Yes: Special Edition


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

All text (c) 2009 Jamie S. Rich

ON THE SURFACE I'M A NAME ON A LIST

DVD Talk has posted its top 20 of 2008. I was part of the voting panel and I think we came up with a pretty good consensus.

The Top 20 DVD Releases of 2008.

For the curious, I actually wrote the blurbs for Persepolis, Mishima, Touch of Evil, and Bonnie & Clyde.

Current Soundtrack: The Very Best of Badfinger

SINCE YOU WENT AWAY A YEAR AGO AT CHRISTMAS

It's the year end round-up yet again, and no, I'm not doing my list. Too many lists in this world. Why is mine going to stand out?

That said, when asked to take part in a year-end feature by other venues, I must comply. The DVD Talk "best of" that I voted in and contributed to will be up some time next week, and in the meantime, some comics sites have started taking polls.

Tom Spurgeon at the Comics Reporter took a different approach by asking people to contribute five personal moments that will make them remember comics in 2008.

Go look to check out answers by guys like Paul Pope and Jeff Smith, but for those who are totally Jamie-centric, here is my list:

1. Laying Madman Atomic Comics #9 end to end and seeing the single continuous panel
2. My pal Joëlle Jones redesigning the X-Women for the hell of it.
3. Realizing that Secret Invasion and Final Crisis were the exact same book, full of sleeper agents spreading like a virus and working on the premise that "evil wins" (albeit, the victories come at separate points in the story).
4. Losing Dave Stevens, as well as many other wonderful people.
5. Comics folks taking a chance, getting political, and talking about the world, including the community effort of www.comicsindustryforobama.com

The excellent Daily Cross Hatch blog has a bunch of people's choices for "The Best Damned Comics of 2008." The list is alphabetical by last name, so you can scroll down to R to read my explanation, but for the lazy among you, the list of five I chose for them (yes, five, you fucking cheaters who had to add extras and have "honorable mentions"--another reason I hate lists: greedy people who can't make decisions), sans explanation, is as follows:

Local by Brian Wood & Ryan Kelley
Skim by Mariko & Jillian Tamaki
Tamara Drewe by Posy Simmonds
Token by Alisa Kwitney & Joëlle Jones
The Umbrella Academy: The Apocalypse Suite by Gerard Way & Gabriel Ba

Marc Ellerby and I actually agree on Skim. He lists it as his top comic, among others, at Forbidden Planet.

***

Portland has been under siege by snow the last couple of days. You've never seen a city more ill-equipped for bad weather than this here "City that Works." Yes, that's this burg's slogan. You just know they can't live up to it.

If one more person asks me where my hat is, I am going to scream. I don't own a hat. Get over it.

The best, though, was the person who asked me how come I wasn't wearing hiking boots.

"Why the fuck would I need hiking boots? For the one time a year it snows?"
"No, to go hiking."
"I reiterate, why the fuck would I need hiking boots?"
[Read the "why the f--?" like John Malkovich in Burn After Reading]

The funny thing was, running errands this morning, I ran into someone I knew who was walking to work. I splintered away from him twice, including mailing packages at the post office, and subsequently caught up with him and his big boots both times without even trying. In chasing a bus, me and my inappropriate shoes outran the other two people in more sensible footwear also chasing the bus. Yeah, me and my little dress shoes. Deal with it!

Current Soundtrack: Tom Jones, "Not Responsible;" the Decemberists, "Please, Daddy, Don't Get Drunk This Christmas;" something dissonant by Ludus; something quiet by Peter Moren; something very Stereolab-like by Stereolab; the Jam, "Pity Poor Alfie/Fever"

e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * Criterion Confessions * Live Journal Syndication * My Corporate-Owned Space * ComicSpace * Last FM * GoodReads * The Blog Roll * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

All text (c) 2008 Jamie S. Rich

MONEY-GO-ROUND

Some of the writer's of The Daily Show (and one regular correspondent) put together their version of the kind of routine that the program might be doing on the Writer's Guild strike were they on the air.

While it does prove how valuable a guy like Jon Stewart is when it comes to delivery, the point is extremely valid. I imagine the folks at YouTube love it.

It's been a pretty heavy work week. Missed a conference call with DC, but have been so buried in manga and manhwa that I had to stop fretting and let that roll off my back. In the last three days, I've been working on the third volume of Magical JxR for Udon, and the second volume of a book for Tokyopop. I'd link to that, but I can't find a damn thing on their confusing website and don't know if the book has been officially announced. I didn't script the first volume, though, so I am having to get up to speed.

It looks like this is just the beginning of the return of this kind of work for me. A lot of my older titles appear to be starting up again in the new year.

Speaking of that impending new year, I've noticed people have already started posting their top 10 lists for 2007. Are "Top 10s" the new "Christmas Decorations" in that we're going to be putting them up earlier and earlier every year? Is it posturing to show off how much more in the know these people are than the rest of us that they've seen and heard and read everything that is coming in the next six weeks? I, for one, have decided to abstain this year. It's too much. What does it really mean anymore? There are just too many random opinions floating around, no consensus, no logic. If someone asked me to contribute to a round-table or voting or something, I'd probably do it, but as far as on my own, it's like whistling in a wind tunnel. Too much air at once, I can't breathe!

Current Soundtrack: shuffle: Faye Wong, "堕落;" the Roots, "Boom!";New Order, "Age of Consent;" Architecture in Helsinki, "It's Almost a Trap;" Cornell Campbell, "I Will Never Let You Go"





Current Mood: buried

e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * Criterion Confessions * Live Journal Syndication * My Corporate-Owned Space * ComicSpace * Last FM * GoodReads * The Blog Roll * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

All text (c) 2007 Jamie S. Rich

MEMUS INTERRUPTUS: EVERYONE ELSE IS DOING IT, WHY CAN'T I?

I'm enjoying seeing this on other journals, so why not here? Let's see if anyone gets all 10 right off the bat. I could have been way more obscure than this, but I tried to pick stuff more commonly seen, than say, The Cranes Are Flying, which you should so totally see. I did make it hard, though. I'll be surprised if someone gets them all. First person that does, maybe I'll send you a burn of Cranes. (Never mind--the 10 are guessed. Answers in the comments section.)

"Head to IMDB.com (or imdbpro, if this is your career), and look up ten of your favorite movies. List three plot keywords for each movie, and then see which of your friends can guess what movie you're talkin' bout. NO cheating, now..."

1. Cracker Jack/Interior Decorator/Based on Novel
2. Bad Teeth/Lovers on the Lam/Evil Witch
3. Game Show/Nonlinear Timeline/Male Nudity
4. Writer/Android/Gambling
5. Face Slap/Homosexual Subtext/Statuette
6. Heart Disease/Ice Hockey/Baboon
7. 1920s/Irish American Politics/Hat
8. Famous Entrance/Temptress/Character Name In Title
9. Ballet/Subjective Camera/Jealousy
10. Atmospheric/Karaoke/Butt

If you want to try to guess without seeing what other people picked and what I've confirmed, make your list before going to the comments page. And if your name is Jennifer, I ask you to once again tell us which Jennifer you are when you comment, since no one listened last time. (Though, I think I only know one Jenny, so she's in the clear.)

Current Soundtrack: The In Crowd: Ultimate Mod Collection 1958-1967

Current Mood: michievous

THIS FILM'S CRAP, LET'S SLASH THE SEATS

TOP MOVIES 2006

I saw most of the films I wanted to see this year, with a few exceptions (Babel, The Fountain, and When the Levees Broke immediately spring to mind), so for once I feel pretty secure in making my choices. The movies that make up my top 25 would be hard to kick out of their slots. A lot of good stuff came out in 2006.

Since I reviewed most of these for DVD Talk, I'm going to go ahead and link to those reviews for the bulk of the list. If there is no review, or if further explanation is needed, you will find a short blurb here.

1. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, dir. Larry Charles
2. Marie Antoinette, dir. Sofia Coppola
3. Pan's Labyrinth, dir. Guillermo del Torro

4. Dave Chappelle's Block Party/Science of Sleep - Michel Gondry is the first of five directors on the list to score big by putting out two movies in one year. In this case, they are very different. Block Party is a documentary of a musical event, and Science of Sleep is a surreal journey into the mind of a manchild. Both convey a real joy in art, however, even when the fictional film gets a little dark in tone.

5. Manderlay, dir. Lars von Trier
6. Flags of Our Fathers/Letters from Iwo Jima, dir. Clint Eastwood
7. The Departed, dir. Martin Scorsese
8. The Prestige, dir. Christopher Nolan

9. Brick - Writer/director Rian Johnson created a movie mash-up. The script is classic film noir, the setting is 21st century high school. It's amazing how well the melding works. A labyrinthine plot pushed along by tough-guy dialogue and the hottest femme fatale to come alone since Rita Hayworth went down in Lady from Shanghai.

10. Curse of the Golden Flower/Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles - Zhang Yimou showed his range with an elaborate historical drama and a far more down-to-earth contemporary story about family.

11. Three Times, dir. Hou Hsiao-hsien

12. Stranger than Fiction - A real surprise, this one. At the urging of a couple of lit nerds I know, I went to see this. I was convinced the writer element would turn me off and that the film would have no idea how to deliver on the concept. The trailer was also really not funny. Well, that's because they tried to dress it up as a silly Will Ferrell vehicle, when really it was so much more. For fans of metaficton or smart, reality-bending comedies a la Charlie Kaufman's scripts (though, not in that league, it should be said), then do yourself a favor and give this one a go.

13. Volver, dir. Pedro Almodovar

14. The Good German/Bubble - Like Zhang Yimou, Steven Soderbergh did two movies that were vastly different in tone and timeframe. German is a period film with style in excess, while the modern-day murder mystery, Bubble, was an experiment in the Neorealism theories of post-WWII Italian directors using current technology. Bubble isn't entirely successful, but you've got to admire Soderbergh for trying.

15. Dreamgirls, dir. Bill Condon

16. Inside Man - Spike Lee goes all commercial and creates a smart, energetic heist picture starring Clive Owen and Denzel Washington. You're going to be wondering how Owen is going to pull it off right up until the end, and Washington is great as an easygoing detective who is putting more sweat into it than he's willing to show outright.

17. V For Vendetta - An example of how to do a proper adaptation, changing just enough of the Alan Moore and David Lloyd graphic novel to make it feel contemporary and work as a movie. The action is exciting, the story intriguing, and Hugo Weaving proves you can give a nuanced performance without ever showing your face.

18. Jackass 2.0 - What can I say? I laughed from when the lights went down to when they came back up. My face hurt when it was all over.

19. Water, dir. Deepa Mehta

20. The Devil Wears Prada - Anne Hathaway stars as the idealistic reporter sucked into Meryl Streep's fast-paced, image-conscious world of high fashion. While its moralistic streak is a little off track, the movie looks great and is incredibly fun. Stanley Tucci steals the show as the top art director at Streep's magazine. Though, why don't they ever say he's gay? For a movie about fashion, Devil Wears Prada is ridiculously straight.

21. Match Point/Scoop - Woody Allen does two films that center around a murder: one the frothiest of comedies, the other darker and more emotional. Many counted him out, but the old guy is back on form.

22. Russian Dolls, dir. Cédric Klapisch

23. The Proposition - Nick Cave penned this dirt smeared Australian western about family ties and revenge. Not for the feint of heart, because it's violent and bloody, but the gutsy among you will appreciate how The Proposition pulls no punches. Plus, a fantastic score by Cave and violinist Warren Ellis.

24. The Good Shepherd, dir. Robert De Niro
25. The Black Dahlia, dir. Brian De Palma

Current Soundtrack: PJ Harvey, The Peel Sessions 1991-2004

Current Mood: judgmental

AREN'T I BETTER THAN A BOY WHO CAN'T READ?

BOOKS I READ 2006

While I feel comfortable picking my top movies and albums in a given year, I’m not nearly well read enough to do the same for books. So, instead, I will list the comics and books I read over the year that I would recommend to others. Granted, this means I read more than what is on here. Also, I read more comics than are here, but if it was in issue form, I only listed series with significant amount released in the year (at least six issues). I also didn't list short stories (read many by Cornell Woolrich out of Night & Fear) and poems (lots of Baudelaire).

12 Days by June Kim
The Abandoned by Ross Campbell
Batman & the Monster Men/Batman & the Mad Monk by Matt Wagner
Batman: Year 100 by Paul Pope
Benkei in New York by Jinpachi Mori & Jiro Taniguchi
Bonjour Tristesse by Francois Sagan
The Book of Fate by Brad Meltzer
Breaking Up by Aimee Friedman & Christine Norrie
Bumperboy & the Loud, Loud Mountain by Debbie Huey
Casanova #1-5 by Matt Fraction & Gabriel Ba
Chewing Gum in Church by Steven Weissman
Comics & Sequential Art by Will Eisner
Complete Dennis the Menace: 1951-1952 by Hank Ketcham
DC SOLO: Mike Allred, Teddy Kristiansen, Brendan McCarthy
DE: Tales by Gabriel Ba & Fabio Moon
Demo by Brian Wood & Becky Cloonan
Ex Machina vol. 1-3 by Brian K. Vaughan & Tony Harris
Five Fists of Science by Matt Fraction & Steven Sanders
The Girl I Waned to Be by Sarah Grace McCandless
Gray Horses by Hope Larson
Gun for Sale by Graham Greene
Immortality by Milan Kundera
Kamikaze Girls by Novala Takemoto
Lady Snowblood vol. 1-3 by Kazuo Koike & Kazuo Kamimura
Local #1-6 by Brian Wood & Ryan Kelly
The Long Hot Summer by Eric Stephenson & Jamie McKelvie
Making Comics by Scott McCloud
Miss Misery by Andy Greenwald
Monster vol. 1-2 by Naoki Urasawa
Noble Boy by Scott Morse
Now and On Earth by Jim Thompson
Off Road by Sean Murphy
Path of the Assassin vol. 1-2 by Kazuo Koike & Goseki Kojima
Past Lies by Nunzio DeFilipis, Christina Weir, & Christopher Mitten
Pride of Baghdad by Brian K. Vaughan & Niko Henrichon
"The Rape of Lucrece" by William Shakespeare
Sexy Chix comics anthology
Scott Pilgrim & the Infinite Sadness by Bryan Lee O'Malley
Shojo Beat manga magazine (year 2)
Side Scrollers by Matthew Loux
Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata
Solstice by Steven T. Seagle & Justin Norman
Summer Crossing by Truman Capote
The Ticking by Renée French
Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
Usagi Yojimbo #90-99 by Stan Sakai
Wet Moon: Unseen Feet, vol. 2 by Ross Campbell
X-Statix Presents: Dead Girl by Peter Milligan, Mike Allred, & Nick Dragotta

Current Soundtrack: Border Radio: Criterion Collection, director's commentary with Allison Anders and Dean Lent

Current Mood: intimidated (by all I haven't read)

e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * The Website * Live Journal Syndication * My Corporate-Owned Space * The Blog Roll * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

All text (c) 2006 Jamie S. Rich