January 1, 2015

Happy new year to one and all! Here is my annual list of pleasurable cultural products I encountered last year. Hope you will be able to enjoy some of them.

Thanks for all your past suggestions. Please keep them coming! And best wishes for a great upcoming year (and those beyond).

Aaron Caplan

MOTION PICTURES

The Dog (2014)

Documentary about the amateur criminal who got famous robbing a bank to pay for his lover's sex change operation. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for people who liked Dog Day Afternoon (which should be everybody, right?).

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
Attila Marcel (2014)

Two giddy views of a Europe filled with dowagers, elaborate sets, and idiosyncratic pacing. Grand Budapest Hotel is one of the few Wes Anderson movies to work all the way through. Sylvain Chomet's previous movies (The Triplets of Belleville and The Illusionist) were animated, but had a similar rhythm: people did things that seemed peculiar, but if you stuck with them you'd discern an impeccable inner logic. It translates well to live action in Attila Marcel, a story about a mute pianist.

Birdman (2014)

Go for the cinematography and the acting, stay for the score.

Boyhood (2014)

A number of movies make fun of a film maker who wants to stop churning out mere entertainment and instead make art about real life and big issues. Think Birdman and Top Five (on this year's list) and also Sullivan's Travels, Stardust Memories, and Barton Fink. Turns out Boyhood is the movie about real life they wanted to make (or should have wanted to make). But no big issues, unless you count growing up.

Only Lovers Left Alive (2014)

There's no ennui like an immortal hipster vampire's ennui.

The Babadook (2014)

Which is scarier: being a single mother or living in a haunted house?

All Is Lost (2013)

Which is scarier: a leaky sailboat or a leaky life raft?

Honorable Mentions

Bad Words (2014)
The Cabin in the Woods (2012)
Dom Hemingway (2014)
Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
Gone Girl (2014)
Happy Accidents (2001)
Top Five (2014)
X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

MUSIC

For when your favorite song just isn't long enough, this website will find seamless edits to keep it going and going. Some of my favorites have been Five O'Clock World, Call Me Maybe, Feel Good Inc, Rock the Casbah, The Theme to The Benny Hill Show, How Soon Is Now?, and (aptly enough) Here It Goes Again. Or upload your own, like I did!

Trombone Shorty

Novel Musical Instruments

Please don't rush the stage.

TECHNOLOGY

The Whirly Pop

This is really good at making popcorn. Not a single old maid, and you don't even need to wash it. I have no idea why I waited so long to get one.

Beautiful Chemistry

Here's a nice set of chemical reactions, filmed very carefully by the photographers at beautifulchemistry.net

INTRIGUING METADATA

In early 2014, I received some spam with a suspicious-looking link that I didn’t click. But just before deleting it, I noticed that there was a bunch of text in the body of the email in a very light gold font, too faint to read. I copied it and pasted it into another program where I could safely read it. Here is what it said:

The west wing and hall still have early an 17th century staircase and fireplaces and some 17th century panelling. Baroque period, where a small group of solo instruments was set against a larger ensemble. G Corporate, had a registered mortgage over the assets of Bentley Smythe Mortgage Fund No 1. Fooled into thinking the sun is about to rise, the spirits flee back into the earth leaving the last temple unfinished. Pope and sought refuge in the Papal States. It can be classified in floating label security models. Allied guerrilla operations in Timor. Diving airplane about to hit the side of a warship. An extended fight scene between Brodie and Shannon Hamilton, in which Hamilton tells Brodie to forget Rene. July 1860 Major, East India Co. It was the first free parliamentary election in Latvia since 1930s. Russian realist tradition both in essence and in form. A soldier has their stomach blown open by a shell burst. Drafting of Emails

It could be a hell of a screenplay.