January 11, 2013

Silly me, I thought that whole deal with the end of the Mayan calendar would spare me the need to write a new year's greeting. Fortunately we are still here, so I offer this hastily-prepared and ill-conceived list of pleasurable cultural products I encountered last year. Thanks to all of you who directed me to many of these -- keep those recommendations coming!

Best wishes for a cataclysm-free year!

Aaron Caplan

MOTION PICTURES

A Separation (2011)

A fantastic portrayal of the things people disagree about, how they try to resolve them, and whether going to court helps. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Looper (2012)
The Lookout (2007)

I was planning to pair The Lookout with The Aura (recommended a few years back) to make a "Guys With Brain Injuries Stumbling Into Bank Robberies" Film Festival. And it would be a good one! But it pairs just as well with this year's Looper, the time-traveling hit man movie, because it creates a "Joseph Gordon-Levitt Seeks Redemption, With Jeff Daniels Co-Starring" Film Festival.

The Sound Of My Voice (2012)
Chronicle (2012)

These combine for a satisfying "How Low (Budget) Can You Go" Science Fiction Film Festival. The secret: pick a premise that explains the production values. The time-travel cult in The Sound Of My Voice meets in a suburban basement, so the set can be a suburban basement. The telekinetic teenagers in Chronicle are filming themselves on cheezy video cameras, so it's all supposed to look cheap and grainy. Problem solved!

Training Day (2001)

I had always assumed Denzel Washington's Oscar for this role was a consolation prize for being stiffed over Malcolm X. But he is terrific as the corrupt cop (even if his co-star is miscast).

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (2011)

Documentary footage from Swedish TV reporters visiting the USA. Stokely Carmichael interviewing his mother is worth the price of admission all by itself.

Honorable Mentions

Argo (2012)
The Avengers (2012)
Balls of Fury (2007)
Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)
How To Train Your Dragon (2010)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)
Lincoln (2012)
Magic Mike (2012)
The Master (2012)
Prometheus (2012)
Renaissance (2006)
Robot and Frank (2012)
Tell No One (2008)

Dishonorable Mention

Grassroots (2012)
It's official - any movie based in whole or in part on events that I ended up litigating is not worth sitting through. Even with popcorn. Although I am pleased to report that Grassroots is more tolerable than Battle in Seattle (shudder). Cf. Cogswell v. City of Seattle, 347 F.3d 809 (9th Cir. 2003), Menotti v. City of Seattle; 409 F.3d 1113 (9th Cir. 2005).

CLIP ART

I spent quite a few hours this year with Christian Marclay's The Clock, where watches and clocks from various movies are edited together as if in real time. It's an expanded version of his Telephones video, which edits together movie clips of people interacting - tensely - with their telephones. It seems also to have inspired others, including this item labeled "Sit Down and Shut Up: The Supercut." Enjoy!

MISBEGOTTEN VIDEOS FOR GOOD SONGS

These two songs stuck in my head for weeks on end - in a good way. But when looking for a way to share them here, I discovered that there's a lot to be said for those YouTube videos showing a record label or perhaps even less.

Sylvie Vartan: Cette Lettre-La (1965)

I used to know her only from her Scopitones twisting away to a translated version of "What'd I Say." Here she performs an overly-literal staging of "That Letter." Letters, get it? Like the alphabet, right?

Robert Plant & Alison Krauss: Gone, Gone, Gone (2007)

Great song - pity about the first two set designs. (Click here for the Everly Brothers performing it on Shindig! with a less obtrusive set - but more obtrusive choreography.)