spasticrobot

Some Things I Would Like To Do This Year

At this time of year I typically list a number of New Year's resolutions. These are usually big goals. Generally speaking, I accomplish some but not all of them, or just portions of them. This year I'm changing things up by posting a list of things I would like to do in the New Year. Some are big, some are small, but all are important.

In the spirit of determination I have written these as commands to myself.

Spend as much time as possible with your family
Discover new things
Listen to new music, pay close attention to artists and recordings you've overlooked in the past
Cook at home more often
When you do eat out, don't always eat at the same restaurants
Write, often. Every day would be a really good thing.
Publish something new
Change your website
Ride your bike 3 times per week, MINIMUM
Always be learning
Make time for your friends
Keep in touch with people who are important to you
Save your money
Edit your RSS subscriptions
Plan 1 really solid family vacation
Start Netflix again
Cancel at least half of your cable package
Have boys night more often
Less Facebook / Twitter / Typepad, more Tumblr.
Read everyday (the Internet doesn't count)
Make an iPhone app
Start a new big project
Lose some weight

Delightful Listening

Before I get into the rest of my "Best of the Decade" foolishness I have to list some records that I'm loving right now.

Atlas Sound - Logos
Animal Collective - Fall Be Kind EP
Deerhunter - Microcastle
Bibio - Ambivalence Avenue
DJ Sprinkles - Midtown 120 Blues

Soundtrack of the holiday season so far.

The Decade in Review: Cinema

These are my 10 favorite films of the decade:

In the Mood for Love

Wong Kar-wai’s masterpiece is set in 1962 Hong Kong and focuses on journalist Chow Mo-Wan (Tony Leung) and secretary Su Li-zhen / Mrs. Chan (Maggie Cheung). The pair move into adjacent apartments with their respective spouses, both of whom are engaged in extramarital affairs. Mrs. Chan and Mr. Chow are drawn together in the absence of their spouses and begin a long, tense romance. The dark, brooding romantic tension between Cheung and Leung mixed with the atmospheric direction of Wong is a heady cocktail. What makes this film really work for me is that Wong frames a time and a place that are distant which he brings to life with touching humanity. This is a classic film about transience and longing that casts a spell on me each time I view it. I’m a sucker for atmospheric period dramas and this is near the top of the list, right below Barry Lyndon. It is also my favorite film of the decade.

The trailer does a pretty good job of evoking its heart wrenching glory.

Caché

Caché is my favorite of Michael Haneke’s films. George Laurent (Daniel Auteuil) and his wife Anne (Juliette Binoche) are a bourgeois Paris couple whose lives are disrupted by the appearance of video cassettes filming the exterior of their home. The cassettes become increasingly creepy with attached childlike drawings of chicken beheadings. George begins to suspect that the videos are being produced by Majid, the child of his parents servants who were murdered by police at an pro-Algerian rally in the 1960’s. Through flashbacks we learn that when Majid’s parents died he was to be adopted by George’s family. Through cruel manipulations George had Majid sent to an orphanage instead. As George investigates the origin of the cassettes it leads to a grim outcome. The film is an intensive study in post-colonial anxiety as well as public / private personas. It works on every level.

There Will Be Blood

Daniel Day Lewis gives the performance of the decade as Daniel Plainview, the personification of greed and immorality. “I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!”

Children of Men

Alfonso Cuaron’s lovingly crafted adaptation of P.D. James’ dystopian novel is the best Science Fiction film of the decade. The direction and cinematography are outstanding and the performances are real enough to make this terrifying future seem imminent. Michael Kane steals the show as Jasper - a dope growing hippie dropout who acts as the film's moral center.

The Royal Tenenbaums

It was difficult for me to choose which Wes Anderson film to add to this list but upon recent viewing The Royal Tenenbaums rises above all the others. The writing, amazing performances, art direction, and Anderson’s hyper-detailed touch are among the best work in any of his films.

Dogville

Lars von Trier’s stark Brechtian study of cruelty is at times unbalanced, but amazing performances by Nicole Kidman and the rest of the cast make up for it. By the time David Bowie’s “Young Americans” plays over photographs of American despair you’ll feel like you’ve lost a few years of your life. It’s worth it.

Lost in Translation

Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson light up the screen in Sofia Coppola’s jet lagged Summer / Autumn near-romance. I loved the atmosphere in this film.

City of God

This Brazilian drama follows the lives of several inhabitants of a heinous Rio favella from nearly innocent childhoods to their adult lives as gangland druglords. Everything about this movie is stunning.

The Departed

The idea of remaking the great Hong Kong crime drama Infernal Affairs as an Irish Boston crime drama was brilliant. In Scorsese’s hands it becomes a tense, nearly schizo thriller. Alec Baldwin and Mark Wahlberg give memorable performances in small roles.

Talk to Her

Classic Almodovar; slow, emotional, passionate, and melodramatic.

A Decade in Rear View

What can you say about a decade that doesn’t even have a widely accepted name. What did we ever decide to call the decade that contained the years 2000-2009? The aughties? The naughties? The early 2000’s? None of those terms even comes close to evoking what those years were like. The decade’s morphological challenges are indicative of its core values; confusion, complexity, decline.

This was the decade where the future finally arrived. We danced in the streets in the wee hours of January 1st, 2000 as the much hyped Y2K dematerialized. An election was stolen. Our nation was directly attacked in a shocking act of terror. The president responded with unprecedented unilateral preemptive action abroad while placing the most invasive policies in this nation’s history on the American people. The world's information was indexed by Google and Wikipedia. Millions of people worldwide embraced modes of production that allowed them to broadcast their every thought and action through blogs and social media. Levees broke. Cities flooded. American citizens were cast out into the streets. Our economy finally broke down, maybe permanently. We elected the first African American President of the United States. 

On a personal level the past 10 years have been some of the most difficult and rewarding of my life. I passed from the simple naivety of my mid 20’s into the bittersweet reality of my mid 30’s. Along the way I got married, survived a Hurricane and the subsequent flooding, advanced my career, made a ton of work, scribbled obsessively, sired a child, and I read, watched, ate, viewed & listened to thousands of amazing things.

Over the next few weeks I’ll post some of my favorite cultural ephemera from the past 10 years. These artifacts were my constant companions through all of these crazy and amazing years. 

It’s been a wild ride.

Gestation Fever Pandamonium

Who Dat Nation

Atlas Sound - Logos

Maker's Mark

Hanging with me hearties

The Fantastic Mr. Fox

Friday Night Lights

Giving Thanks

Umberto Eco, "We like lists because we don't want to die."

The American Sector

Donald Link's Real Cajun

Richard Kelly's absurd science fictions - terrible yet fascinating

The end of another decade; "We are ALWAYS living at the End of Days." - Jorge Luis Borges