January 3, 2010
Happy New Year to all, from your beachside correspondent. Come visit sometime soon to help me watch the pelicans and surfers.
Here are some pleasurable cultural products I encountered last year. Thanks to those who pointed me towards many of them -- keep those recommendations coming. And best wishes for a great year!
Aaron Caplan
A Swedish twelve-year-old tries to figure out how to stop being pushed around by bullies while he falls slowly in love with a vampire. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Documentary about an aging heavy metal band from Canada that makes one last desperate lunge for stardom. And if that doesn't work, they will make one more last desperate lunge for stardom. And maybe another one after that. Full of wonderful moments, including the guitarist who waves around a giant dildo on stage quitting his day job as a telemarketer because he was raised to be more polite. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
I loved the teaser ad campaign, which added some pleasant discombobulation to the day when you would see "For Humans Only" signs at the bus stops and benches around LA. Well worth seeing for the character of the luckless and clueless bureaucrat at the center of the story.
Intriguing battles of will in a French high school, where the students wonder -- understandably enough -- why they are expected to care about the subject matter.
The darkest days after the French Revolution, played as a tough-guy film noir.
Defusing bombs can be nerve-wracking.
If Kafka were to adapt the book of Job into a screenplay on my family, I suppose he would make it about midwestern Jews and include a fair number of college professors, dentists, doctors, lawyers, and clergy.
Adventureland (2009)
The Brothers Bloom (2008)
Drag Me To Hell (2009)
Duplicity (2009)
Elevator to the Gallows (1958)
(500) Days of Summer (2009)
The Informant! (2009)
Little Children (2006)
9 (2009) (the animated one with the sock puppets)
Saved! (2004)
Star Trek (2009)
Waltz With Bashir (2008)
Whip It (2009)
Read in conjunction with the illustrated Genesis, Big History shows how those stories might fit within the story of the human species. For example, the expulsion from the Garden of Eden becomes a workable metaphor for the end of the fat-and-happy life of the hunter-gatherer and the beginning of the toil of agriculture. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
From Petra Haden Sings: The Who Sell Out, which includes a life-enriching versions of "Mary Anne With The Shaky Hand" and "Tattoo," among others.
For those still puzzling over that fuzzy line between punk and bubblegum, consider this animated children's version of "Ça Plane Pour Moi." It features an Elvis impersonator on a Vespa, so of course I could relate. If you need more background, here is the original version by Plastic Bertrand (or so it was claimed at the time -- a dispute raged over whether the fellow you see lip-syncing here on Top of the Pops actually performed on the record.) For those needing lyrics, here is a careful translation and exegesis. Or you could just watch a karaoke version (without penguins).
A mash-up of a song from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. For those not familiar with the music, you should watch this original version, or this faithful rendering using nothing but Legos.