January 11, 2014
Happy new year to one and all! Here is my annual list of pleasurable cultural products I encountered last year. Particularly memorable was the surprise appearance by Stevie Wonder at a free concert co-sponsored by the public library. And although I wasn't able to see it in person, I was cheered to learn that a small-town kid with a dream of being a sign language interpreter for international government functions can't be kept down just because he doesn't know any sign language. It's a world of opportunities.
Thanks to all for your past suggestions. Please keep them coming in the new year!
Aaron Caplan
Extremely well-scripted and well-acted stories of people interacting with their technology. Although the premises could lead themselves to farce, these did better by playing it straight with no snickering. Her shows us an operating system falling in love with a human (or maybe with all of them). Black Mirror is a British anthology series, currently available from DirecTV's Audience Network. The episode "The Complete History of You" explores instant replay of everything you experience. Turns out it's not so good for anyone with obsessive-compulsive tendencies. In the episode "The National Anthem," a terrorist (more of a performance artist, actually) holds a princess for ransom, demanding no money but insisting that the Prime Minister do something really humiliating on live TV. The episode tracks the calculations at Downing Street, and also the ones at every corner pub and in every room with a smartphone: should you watch? HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Documentary about art and fandom, where street artist Banksy learns to reconsider his usual advice that his fans should go make some art of their own. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Two chilling documentaries about overzealous policing. The Act of Killing takes you inside the minds of death squads who murdered millions in Indonesia in 1965, letting the killers direct their own a movies about the events - in which they paint themselves as thoroughly heroic. (Turns out death squad leaders are partial to lavish fantasy sequences, one of which features a deceased Communist returning from heaven to thank his murderers for killing him before he could cause any more trouble down here on earth.) Let the Fire Burn reconstructs the disastrous Philadelphia Police Department seige of MOVE headquarters in 1985. As a college senior living a safe 25 blocks away at the time, I didn't exactly witness it, but the event has always left me nervous when I hear helicopters, and this film shows you why.
David O. Russell film festival.
The standard Hitchcock plot (bland guy gets in over his head) improved by Danny Boyle and Steven Soderbergh, respectively.
A funny feminist parable about a little-considered niche in the movie business: narrating the trailers for coming attractions. (Speaking of trailers, consider these re-imagined trailers that kinda missed the point: a frightening Mary Poppins and a high-minded Monty Python and the Holy Grail.)
Two sketch comedy shows that are hilarious when they click.Key and Peele (subject of this homage in the New Yorker) specialize in guys who are never quite as cool as they want to be, like the slow-motion assassins, this the conscience-stricken insult comic, the poor schmo who had the bad luck to follow Martin Luther King's speech at the March on Washington, or these guys:
Amy Schumer's not-safe-for-work skits include the friends competing to see who brings the best presents to a bridal shower, an expose of sexism at the CIA, and some guys who get the most from their group therapy.
12 Years A Slave (2013)
20 Feet From Stardom (2013)
Captain Phillips (2013)
Dallas Buyers Club (2013)
Iron Man 3 (2013)
Nebraska (2013)
The Secret of Kells (2010)
The Spectacular Now (2013)
Stoker (2013)
The Way Way Back (2013)
The World's End (2013)
1/2 cup water
1 1/2 cups seedless green grapes
2 1/2 cups fresh spinach leaves
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves
1/2 of a peeled orange
1 cup mango cubes
1 cup ice cubesWhiz together at high speed.
And here's the sound from the side of the road:
With any luck, the critters who have been swimming down the street from me (described below by breathless local newscasters) will be equally friendly!