MOVIES

1) Meek’s Cutoff
A slow-motion picture by anybody’s estimation, with lots of long takes where nothing much happens, that is nevertheless filled with tension. Reichardt gives the audience choices. Do you care about these people enough to feel anxious about what will happen to them? Does the hubris of the whole American enterprise render them unsympathetic? Are strangers to be generally trusted or feared? The final scene offers a conundrum that is as politically relevant as anything I’ve seen this year.

2) Drive
Stylized to within an inch of its life. Every element in harmony. That the soundtrack and the costumes already have a life of their own says something about the potency of the vision here – this is one that’s going to stick around for a while, one that will instantly garner a cult.

3) Tree of Life
Saw this one in the front row of a packed movie theater. Near the end of the film I was closing my eyes frequently because it was all too much, I was overwhelmed with emotion. Staggered out of the theater 2+ hours later feeling like a veil had been put over my eyes, or maybe lifted from them – the world looked different for a good while, my perception had been altered.

4) Weekend

5) Cedar Rapids

Good not great: Melancholia, Tabloid, The Skin I Live In, Take Shelter, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, Bridesmaids

Need to see: Margaret, The Future, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Carnage, Win Win, Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory, We Need To Talk About Kevin, Young Adult, Fright Night, Our Idiot Brother, Another Earth, Kaboom!, We Were Here

MUSIC
(in no particular order)

Smith Westerns, Dye It Blonde: Listened to this one maybe more than any of the others this year. Every single song is good.

Black Lips, Arabia Mountain

Dum Dum Girls, Only in Dreams

Papercuts, Fading Parade

Crystal Stilts, In Love With Oblivion

R.E.M., Collapse Into Now

Real Estate, Days: I resisted this band for as long as I could, cause every time I tried them out it sounded so bland. But I think the blandness is sort of the point. This is easy-listening music for ***sters, and it doesn’t come much lovelier (and it sounds a lot like Felt).

Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Belong: Mostly for this song.

Cults, s/t

1. Dum Dum Girls – I Will Be: I listened to this album more than any other this year.
2. Deerhunter – Halcyon Digest
3. Frankie Rose and the Outs – s/t:   Songs that aren’t really songs but moody, catchy, frequently beautiful experiments. Self-aware, too:  ”Think about the empty space…”
4. MGMT – Congratulations: Hated their last album.
5. Wavves – King of the Beach: Didn’t bother with their last album.
6. Let’s Wrestle – In the Court of the Wrestling Let’s

Also liked:
Charlotte Gainsbourg – IRM
Arcade Fire – The Suburbs
OK Go – Of the Blue Colour of the Sky
The Chemical Brothers – Further

Songs: “When I’m With You” by Best Coast; “Tightrope” by Janelle Monae; “The Drug” by Royksopp; “My House” by Ganglians; “I’m Aware” by Clinic.

MOVIES

I didn’t see any movies this year. Well, not really. But I hardly saw any. I liked The Social Network (which I wrote about here), The Kids Are All Right (which depicted Mark Ruffalo’s meaty, thrusting ass), and Everyone Else (which was a twisty and unusual depiction of a failing relationship).

Still want to see: Burlesque, Enter the Void, Life During Wartime, Winter’s Bone, Black Swan, Dogtooth, Toy Story 3, Blue Valentine, Another Year.

Hated hated hated: Alice in Wonderland

1. Wendy and Lucy

This came out last year, but I saw it in ’09 and no other movie affected me as much.

2. Coraline

3. Adventureland

4. Ponyo

5. House of the Devil

6. Up

7. Drag Me To Hell

I’ve slacked off on movie viewing this year.  Still need to see:  Antichrist, Avatar, The Girlfriend Experience, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Humpday, District 9, A Serious Man, Where the Wild Things Are, Precious, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, The White Ribbon

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Music :

1. Papercuts, You Can Have What You Want

Songwriter Jill Sobule said this year, “I think today, instead of everyone being famous for 15 minutes, everyone will be famous for 15 people.”  Papercuts have toured with some of the most acclaimed and popular indie bands around – Grizzly Bear, Beach House, Camera Obscura – yet even modest popularity eludes them.  There’s pleasure in liking things nobody else knows about, of course, but that’s not why this is my favorite album of the year.  It’s the music.  I’ll take this over any of the bands I previously mentioned, some of which have showed up on multiple best-of-09 lists while this album has been largely forgotten.  Guess I’m one of the lucky fifteen.

Instead of listing other albums I liked this year, I’m doing individual tracks:

Annie:  ”I Know UR Girlfriend Hates Me,” “I Don’t Like Your Band,” “Songs Remind Me of You”

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart:  ”Ramona,” “The Tenure Itch”

Washed Out: “New Theory”

Atlas Sound: “An Orchid,” “Sheila,” “Criminals”

Deerhunter: “Disappearing Ink”

The Hidden Cameras: “He Falls to Me,” “Colour of a Man”

Here We Go Magic:  ”Fangela,” “Tunnelvision”

Cass McCombs: “Dreams-Come-True-Girl,” “Don’t Vote”

Grizzly Bear: “Two Weeks,”  ”Cheerleader”

Animal Collective: “Summertime Clothes”

Air: “Bee a Bee”

The Flaming Lips: “Watching the Planets”

Girls: “Lust for Life,” “Hellhole Ratrace”

Camera Obscura: “James”

Phoenix: “Lisztomania”

Vitalic: “Poison Lips”

Black Moth Super Rainbow: “Tooth Decay”

Jarvis Cocker: “Pilchard”

Books:

All I read is old stuff, though I did enjoy Dennis Cooper’s Ugly Man.