Last Seen Blogs
6ehind
6ehind Cl9sed D99rs
puninyan-wibwob
Punin the slime girl enthusiast
orangeamoeba
cas š
estesiti-blog
estesiti
greatcopcookiewombat
Untitled
Text
The best movies of 2022
I made a list of every movie I watched in 2022, ranked from least favorite to favorite. With the exception of the last three of four on this list, I basically liked every one of these. A pretty good film year, Iād say.
Iām gonna add little sentence punctuations to some of these, wherever itās fun to do so.
67. Blonde
Oh buddy did this movie suck.
66. Elvis
65. The Batman
64. Black Adam
63. Emily the Criminal
Weird to me that everyone liked this so much. It was a B action movie with a couple lines about student debt, and thatās apparently all it took for people to call it timely.
62. The Good Nurse
61. The Wonder
60. The Invitation
The worst thing I can say about this year is that the streamers started to feel produced by technology, but this one will stand out for me for being a great example of when the algorithm breaks. The program said people like vampires and British royalty, so letās mash them up.Ā Ā
59. Smile
58. Weāre All Going to the Worldās Fair
A very good movie I did not like at all.
57. Sick
56. Watcher
55. Guillermo del Toroās Pinocchio
54. Confess, Fletch
53. Argentina, 1985
52. Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
51. Vengeance
50. Prey
49. Bodies Bodies Bodies
48. The Fabelmans
47. Father of the Bride
46. Top Gun: Maverick
45. Hustle
44. Benediction
43. Dog
42. Nanny
41. Empire of Light
40. Causeway
39. Bros
38. White Noise
37. Living
36. Petit Maman
35. Ambulance
34. The Cathedral
33. Pleasure
32. Amsterdam
31. Spiderhead
30. KIMI
29. To Leslie
28. The Northman
27. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
26. Happening
25. The Whale
24. Women Talking
23. Saint Omer
22. Crimes of the Future
I might rank this higher on a future rewatch.
21. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
20. Bullet Train
Just so fucking fun.
19. Stars at Noon
The most curious film of the year.
18. Nope
This still feels like a throat cleanser to me, but I imagine thatās good for his career in the long term. Heās easily the most exciting director currently working.
17. Triangle of Sadness
I think time will vindicate this one, which is more a farce about society than a farce about wealth.
16. Armageddon Time
I wasnāt prepared for this to be as sharp or well-observed or frankly dark as it was.
15. Donāt Worry Darling
This movie rocked. Maybe one day people will give it a second chance.
14. Decision to Leave
No question the best made film of the year.
13. Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths
A disaster, but a gorgeous and ambitious disaster. The antidote to the Invitation problem described above.
12. Tar
Sort of the opposite of Bardo. A tight and exquisitely made film.
11. The Eternal Daughter
A really cool idea. I liked this one a lot.
10. X
2022 was a great year for horror.
9. RRR
Itās so cool to me that this ended up being a crossover hit.
8. Babylon
Iām honestly not sure why I rate this one as high as I do.
7. The Menu
2022 was a really great year for horror.
6. Aftersun
The one emotionally devastating movie I allow on a list like this of the year.
5. All Quiet on the Western Front
The best war movie since Dunkirk.
4. The Banshees of Inisherin
Great film.
3. Everything Everywhere All at Once
I suspect this will be the movie we associate with this year forever, and its worthy, though it is not my favorite.
2. Barbarian
Holy shit 2022 was a good year for horror.
1. Men
What an insane masterpiece. This is the one I want to hang on my wall.
0 notes
Text
The class of 2022 cont.
Hustle - Jeremiah Zagar
So Michael Bay has a recognizable authorial style, and turns out so does the Happy Madison team. Here are some qualities of a basic Adam Sandler movie--the main character at the center is beloved, the jokes are aimed at someone elseās expense but are mostly harmless, the villain gets punished in a silly way, and the hero wins. Hustle is essentially an Adam Sandler movie, but the heat is turned down to a cool temp suitable for adults, and it largely works. Even more than the basketball, which made me want to sign up for League Pass, the best part is the man himself. In a lot of his worst movies the Sandman is playing the pinnacle of his version of cool and living in a universe in which everyone agrees. Here heās traded that for a world weariness and a self deprecation that fits his age and stage of life. I credit this to the Safdies.
The Invitation - Jessica M. Thompson
Just easily the dumbest movie of the year, which honestly is heartwarming in an era when most movies feel like competently made assembly-line product. Naming the type of movie this is would be a spoiler, but suffice to say the twist actually makes this bad flick even worse. The dialogue is harder to sit through than any of the scary stuff. Watch it with six beers and have a great time.
The Eternal Daughter - Joanna Hogg
First off, this film looks like it was made in the 1970s. Itās not just the granular camera, its the way the soundtrack presents itself and the way its shot, with closeups and zoom ins on characters to emphasize certain moments. There are, I think, five actors in this movie, playing six characters, and two are only in it for a couple minutes. Itās very quiet and not much happens. The director lets the eerie and genuinely anachronistic tone sheās come up with linger for minutes at a time on scenes of Tilda Swinton staring at a mirror or typing on a laptop or talking on the phone or walking her dog, which is probably the main reason to cast Tilda Swinton. Nobody in Hollywood has a more interesting face or can hold the camera while doing nothing quite like her. There are ideas about memory and daughterhood sprinkled throughout, and the house-turned-hotel is at least a little bit haunted, but the main idea doesnāt come through until the end, and thatās when everything you just watched clicks into place. Iām so happy Iāve been keyed into Joanna Hogg. This is better than most movies Iāve seen lately.
Crimes of the Future - David Cronenberg
How in the hell did he get $27 million dollars to make this? I donāt know how much love Neon thinks David Cronenberg conjures, but I read it made about $4.5 million globally and that actually sounds like a win. I really like the way Cronenberg makes movies. The stakes in this are low, thereās not much by way of inciting incident or plot. He sets up a weird world and has people interact with each other in a way that feels surprisingly safe and warm, like theyāre all from the same tribe, and then creates a behind-the-scenes menace that keeps the story on edge. This movie looks decrepit and colorless in a way that suggests a fallen society, and the overt body horror stuff is, I guess a high point for people who like that kind of thing. The characters know more about the world than the viewer ever does. All that said, I was slightly disappointed in this. I think the idea is that some time in the near future humans are evolving into the next stage of development in what is otherwise a static and decayed society, but I never found this particularly clear or got into it enough to roll with it. Its a great three-quarters of a genuinely new piece of world building, but, in my opinion, it never gets all the way there.
The Wonder - Sebastian Lelio
A weirdly grody, unpretty movie. Itās shot in houses that look molded out of blobby green clay and Irish countryside that looks like arid purple coral. This has to be a choice, and I think a better movie could have brought out the inner mechanics of a small Irish town decimated by famine in the 1860s and coping with it in ways that are overtly harmful and seeded in a hermetic and impenetrable culture. Instead its more of an outsiderās takedown of a small, sad community given over to Catholic beliefs the movie outright states are false superstitions. The voice of reason is a British character, which feels particularly mean given how present the Potato Famine is to the story. Oh wow, I think I just talked myself into hating this.
Blonde - Andrew Dominik
Once upon a time a director took a giant shit on the floor and then looked you in the eye and saidĀ āI bet you canāt deal with this!ā The main character has no agency or personality or history, is dragged through sequence after sequence of gratuitous torture that is simpleminded beyond any plausible biography of Marylin Monroe, while the film congratulates itself for its own truth-telling like it just solved 21st century artistic mediocrity and also world hunger. Itās as factually unreliable as Elvis and a hundred times more proud of itself. This might be the worst movie Iāve ever seen.
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story - Eric Appel
A couple of jokes I really like here: Young Al Yankovic sneaking out of his parentsā house to a polka party, Dr. Demento hosting a Jack Horner-style poolside hangout where the vice of choice seems to be PG-rated jokes, the third act veering into a completely different movie just because it would be fun to do and because Walk Hard didnāt think of it. Here we have the Weird Al aesthetic converted quite naturally to film; itās basically a Funny or Die sketch spread to movie length, but the tone--knowingly silly, not really mocking anyone, a little violent, earnestly weird in the way a child could love--is the type of Al shit youāll recognize immediately if you grew up a fan. Another thing I thought is that I canāt even name the last time a big broad comedy like this came out. This movie is stuffed to capacity full of non-Apatow troupe comic actors--Patton Oswalt, Conan OāBrien, Jack Black, Will Forte, Rainn Wilson, Demetri Martin, I could keep going--and I realized those people have been showing up a lot less lately because no one is making movies for them anymore.Ā
The Cathedral - Ricky DāAmbrose
A very impressionistic, sort of fascinating movie about a family of mediocrities with a certain amount of and relationship to money. The camera and by the extension the story lingers on the most ordinary parts of life--a 40+ second scene of a guy removing painterās tape from a wall is a representative sample shot--to make the whole business of life seem boring and mundane, like the story of a single family as told by a blurb in a history textbook. Essentially this is a movie about a failure and the son he raised, who will turn out in some way that hasnāt been written yet (presumably he goes on to make this movie). Thereās a chilling inter-family feud somewhere in here, but mostly these people are regular, and small, and ultimately unlovable. Itās one of the more interesting films Iāve watched from this year, and the only reason I donāt rate it higher is because Iām not sure how much of the static impressionism was dictated by its budget, which couldnāt have been higher than mid-six figures. I canāt tell if some of the ideas are choices or limitations.
Aftersun - Charlotte Wells
Wow. What a sad, beautiful movie. A dad and his preteen daughter take a resort vacation in Turkey that neither of them want to end. Paul Mescal--unknown to me before this--is sad and soulful without ever really explaining anything about himself. I donāt have much more to say. This isnāt one I want to dig into. I just loved it.
Causeway - Lila Neugebauer
A perfectly nice movie about two people treading water above something dark and difficult under the surface who find each other and help each other, maybe forever. Brian Tyree Henry really is a good actor and sort of steals this from the one time world conquering star. More movies should take place in New Orleans, a photogenic and objectively amazing city.Ā
Sick - John Hyams
I choose to believe this is a movie about how the mask scolds were the biggest monsters of all.
Decision to Leave - Park Chan-wook
Headless voice recordings, images and language looping around and over each other, shots that serve as wordless exposition, visual and audio ideas that expand the story and explore its ideas. This is the best directed movie of the year. Imagine how good Bardo would be if Inarritu had Chan-wookās facility with cinematic storytelling. Plenty of movies are competently made. Some even expertly so. But itās a rare thing to see something so creatively inspired. Every decision he makes is not only interesting in its own right, but serves the final product. It doesnāt even really matter what the story is. I donāt know who else you could really say that about. Add another director to the canon.
The Batman - Matt Reeves
The only thing the young left hates more than grievous white men is conservative cops, so how many more reboots before they make Batman the villain? Why do we keep rebooting this movie? You had a good idea last time, man.
Happening - Audrey Diwan
I hate to compare the two most overtly feminist films of the year, but I see a lot of overlap between this and Women Talking. Both focus on dealing with the immediate issue in front of them rather than getting polemic about how shitty everything is (Blonde, easily the worst movie of 2022, prostrates on the ground to show you how much it hates the sins of men, while these two movies just solve their problems.) Happening doesnāt lose sight for one second about what its about--the main character never stops to reconsider her options, doesnāt waiver from her mission for even a single minute. It kind of diminishes the movieās effect as a movie, but itās a strong and effective way to make its own political point, which is, I think: The system was not built for us, letās deal with that the way we have to.
Living - Oliver Hermanus
Bill Nighy taps into the high class you assume comes as naturally to him as charm does to Matt Damon, but heās more reserved and sublimated here than youād expect. The same is true of the movie, which is smaller and grimmer than its title or plot description suggests it will be. Rather than go on a quest for the meaning of happiness, a lifelong bureaucrat whoās lifeās ambition was to be a part of the genteel British background takes a look at life and decides the best thing he can do with his short time left on earth is his job, because the ship has sailed on everything else. The camerawork and score are a little fussy--it is mid-century England--but its a surprisingly good looking film.
Smile - Parker Finn
This could have and should have been better, but plotwise he sticks to a script--this is basically the Ring--the thematic stuff is Horror Movie plug-in shit, and its not that scary. Thereās a scene where the demon thatās haunting the lead appears in her house and physically corners her against the wall, and then the movie cuts away to the next day. What the fuck is that?! We paid to see the goods!
Stars at Noon - Clair Denis
Thereās a richness here most movies donāt possess. This was an interesting one, and Iām not sure I got everything, but I have some takes. Like a lot of 2022 movies, Covid is a presence here, but the way characters take on and off their masks feels methodical. The movie has a breezy cool that reminded me of Soderbergh. The soundtrack is loose and jazzy, its naturalistic and unmannered, and it finds details and stories everywhere. A scene where a group of boaters is casually murdered and robbed by bandits is shot and then forgotten--just one of the hundreds of bizarre little things she comes across. The setting is Nicaraguaās turbulent political situation, which is responsible for the overriding sense of danger and is the locus at the center that dictates every decision the characters make. My only problem with this movie is that the love story at its center is the least interesting thing about it. The two leads never really seem to find any reason to care about each other, and while Margaret Qualley of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood fame is doing something genuinely interesting--she flits and floats around in rock bottom without any inhibition at all--their scenes together never really cohere. Except one. Iād be remiss if I didnāt mention there is one scene between them that works quite well.
Petit Maman - Celine Sciamma
Double bill this with Aftersun. Where that movie was about the impossibility of connecting with your parents at their level, this one is a fantasy about what would happen if you actually could. At a cool 73 minutes itās so slight it threatens to blow away in the wind, but itās sweet and tender. I was going to call it delicate, but itās actually pretty hardy, the way most kids actually are.
Benediction - Terence Davies
The positives: the screenplay. Some of the best dialogue of the year. One thing Iām a very big fan of is directors using the tools of their medium to try to reflect the abstract brilliance of great work in other mediums. This doesnāt exactly do this--cinematically it tops out at Sassoon reciting his poems over photos of WWI battles--but its a movie about a writer trying to hunt out languageās absolute truth told using absolutely some of the sharpest and most direct dialogue youāll find in a film. Jack Lowden is phenomenal as the lead--serious and direct and intelligent and sincere. This movie should have gotten no brainer Best Actor and Best Screenplay nominations that my mom rooted for except this type of Cradle to Grave Great Difficult Man biopic seems to be a few years past its prime in an Oscar era when the runaway favorite is the racoon in the chefās hat movie. This is clearer and more direct than all but the very best of its kind. When the main character is curdled and vicious at the end of his life, you know exactly why, rather than it looking like the blurred strains of a movie filling in itās subjectās final Wikipedia section, like most of these do. The negative is that the second half is slow as hell. This is a good movie, maybe a great movie, but itās not for me at all.
Saint Omer - Alice Diop
Add my name to the ring of people who took issue with the framing device. The story here is true crime event where a detached and isolated African immigrant in France has an affair with an older white man and then murders the child they conceive. Itās a stranger than fiction tale that would warrant its own New Yorker issue, with the moral that people are weird and life is murky and huge. But I guess the powers that be didnāt think this was enough of a film, or maybe it just wasnāt the story Alice Diop wanted to tell, so the movie hangs its central plot around another story about a pregnant African journalist whoās observing the trial and scared of how much she finds herself relating to the defendant. The movieĀ does as well as it can merging these two stories, and comes up with some pretty interesting ideas, but it never fully feels like it isnāt something tacked on--it never feels organic. Even so, I liked this a lot. Its simple to the point of feeling like docufiction, but in doing so lets the story and its characters get deep. It doesnāt judge or make statements at all, andĀ itās got great colors--yellows and tans and blues.
Armageddon Time - James Gray
This seems, to me, to be James Gray using facts of his biography to tell a story about how different tribes in America play the various hands theyāre dealt to try to achieve whatever their version of survival or success is. If plenty of other movies have looked at the same theme, only Widows, a personal favorite, comes to mind as doing it as well. They say the more personal you make something the more universal it becomes, and while Iām not sure how specific this movie is to its creatorās life, it gets at so many sociological truths without ever feeling like more than a personal memory. The family at the center has achieved enough comfort to begin to look outside of itself, but lives, or at least thinks it lives, in a precarious peace that can be taken away at any moment, which colors every decision it makes. A scene at the end where Jeremy Strongās tough loving father tells his son the ugly truth about what the point of it all is is one of the better scenes of the year. I was not prepared for this movie to be as good as it was.Ā
0 notes
Text
The Class of 2022
Bringing this feature back out. Some pretty good films this year.
Dog - Reid Carolin and Channing Tatum
If a movie about a damaged guy getting saved during his darkest night by a dog doesnāt make you weep, you donāt have a dog.
Barbarian - Zach Cregger
This movie slaps so fucking hard.
Donāt Worry Darling - Olivia Wilde
Basically I think this one was killed by its press tour. I think the critic class decided liking this wasnāt worth the risk so collectively expelled it, but going in without any idea anything had even happened I thought it was the best movie so far in the nascent Deconstructing Toxic Masculinity genre thatās become one of the few acceptable avenues for mainstream films. I donāt want to spoil anything, but the twist is so much more interesting than the Stepford Wives aura that hangs over this suggests it will be. And itās a pretty good looking flick.
Bros - Nicholas Stoller
A very sexually explicit, funnier than average romcom. Allisonās take: I canāt tell if heās making fun of romcom tropes or just using them.Ā
The Banshees of Inisherin - Martin McDonagh
More than any movie heās ever made, this one invites interpretation. Iām still working on it, and I donāt imagine thereās a definitive explanation, but right now the one I like is that this is a movie about death. Iām not sure whose death. I look forward to watching this several more times.
Confess, Fletch - Greg Mottola
Has there ever been a talented actor worse at understanding his gifts than Jon Hamm? The dude is an unknowable phantom with the face of Adonis, not an Apatow comedian. This is not a bad movie, but the guy at the center of it doesnāt fit and never feels natural. They would have been better off with just about anyone else. Even an unknown would have worked better than our man.
Amsterdam - David O. Russell
For awhile this movie has a Thomas Pynchon quality to it, where a ragtag group of goofuses stumble into an evil global shadow conspiracy theyāll never defeat or understand or even directly encounter. Its so good for a minute that I wondered if Thomas Pynchon was somehow involved (maybe he is, I didnāt look into it). The end wraps everything up too neatly to really spin into anything great, and it ends up as an enjoyably forgettable ride, which I guess befits David O. Russellās late career stage as a guy living in the purgatory of Netflix after missing a bunch of Oscars he still canāt believe he didnāt win.Ā
Prey - Dan Trachtenberg
I donāt know. Itās solid, I guess.
Emily the Criminal - John Patton Ford
This is a B action movie that caught extra attention because it stars Aubrey Plaza. A lot of people liked it. Iām happy for them.
Nope - Jordan Peele
Letās see here. My first take was that it was his weakest movie because it didnāt have any neat core conceit at its center. Get Out was a revelation, and Us was I thought basically a perfect movie, a really cool idea from a filmmaker very good at realizing his cool ideas. Nope is more of a regular old flick. But the more I thought about it the more I saw that as a strength. I think most movies are not as good as Us, but itās ultimately kind of a very expensive Twilight Zone episode. This movie is doing something he hasnāt done yet, which implies heās going to continue to grow and get more ambitious. I still think thereās something a little undercooked about this one, and the mystery at the center is a little less cool than I think he wanted, but its beginning to seem very clear that greatness awaits.
Men - Alex Garland
If this guy wants to spin conceits out for awhile and then have his movies devolve into lunatic madness, Iāll come out for it every single time. The title and current political moment made me think this would be more of an indictment of the gender, another in the series of aforementioned Deconstructing Toxic Masculinity movies, and itās sort of that, but its much more elemental, personal, and bizarre. I fucking love this director.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery - Rian Johnson
Like most sequels, some of the plot points go over the top as the movie attempts to outdo the original, and the billionaires are actually dumb plotline feels ripped directly out of leftist Twitter, but as long as Rian Johnson and Daniel Craig are involved Iāll watch every Knives Out movie they make. This is what happens when you let talented people do their jobs. Also as far as I know this is the first movie that includes Covid as a central life event. I love that for some reason. It is a central life event, its like making a movie about World War II.
Bodies Bodies Bodies - Halina Reijn
Iāll be honest, I was pretty drunk when I watched this on a plane. So this will be an impressionistic review. I thought it was pretty fun. Thereās one scene that feels like it was written by people outrightly mocking woke culture. Pete Davidson is in it.
Everything Everywhere All At Once - Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert
For the first hour I thought this was the Matrix, and wished that, as a movie about the literally unlimited nature of the universe, it was a little more creative. The second hour changed that thought. It is basically the Matrix, but while that movie was drab and minor key (by design) this movie is colorful and kaleidoscopic and wild and never ever ever not fun. The moviest movie Iāve seen in a long time, by which I mean a piece of art that could only be a movie, and one that pushes into new places what a movie can and should do. Itās big and beautiful and weird and exciting, and at 139 minutes it whooshes by. Weāre in a weird place with representation at the moment, but this movie doesnāt feel like its correcting an error about who gets to star in Kung Fu movies, instead the Chinese heritage of the family is a natural part of the plot and makes the movie more than it otherwise would be. Itās hard to imagine this isnāt the best film of the year.
The Northman - Robert Eggers
The verisimilitude alone is worth the price of admission. I canāt think of a movie thatās setting feels so real since the Revenant. This is, and I guess I mean this as a compliment, the most normal movie Robert Eggers will ever make. If the Lighthouse was pure uncut Eggers, just a gonzo madhouse of his shit, this is basically Gladiator with a couple of spirit visions, which come to think of it Gladiator also had. I looked into it and learned that his compromise with the studio to make a big budget picture was to sacrifice final cut, which makes a ton of sense in retrospect and which Iām guessing is responsible for the movieās worst parts, like when the main character monologues to himself about his motivation and plans for no reason. This is my take: the whole time I watched it I wanted it to be weirder. But as a bloody Viking flick, itās a good movie.Ā
The Menu - Mark Mylod
A movie about a great chef who got so tired of cooking for shitheads that he went insane. Pitched at a tone that, for me, made any level of insanity make sense. The characters in this movie arenāt unlikeable so much as they are urgently deserving of death. And youāre never, for a minute, worried they arenāt going to receive it. Itās been a good year for fun horror flicks.
X - Ti West
Except for the obvious reason--theyāre both primal feelings--itās never been fully apparent to me why these movies are always structured to be one half sexual titillation then one half slasher-horror. But while in the 80s they just pumped them out cuz they made money, now weāre getting all sorts of deconstructions and meta commentaries and sex as terror merges. Anyway, this is the most cerebral sexĀ ānā death horror movie Iāve ever seen; the most knotty, the most intellectualized, the most constructed in its creatorsā heads. I felt a sourness at first--Barbarian and The Menu are two brilliant horror movies that do something genuinely new rather than comment on the old method in increasingly myopic ways--but thatās gone now. The things this movie does are just too fun and smart. I guess every one of these flicks is in one way or another punishing you for enjoying the T&A it gave you in its first hour, but this is the first to make you watch its monsters actually fuck. The final line is both a compliment to the movie Iām not sure it deserves, and an objectively fantastic last line.
White Noise - Noah Baumbach
Nothing says Fuck It Netflix money quite like the existence of this movie, an admiring adaptation of a book thatās essentially a novelization of Jean Baudrillardās ideas. I remember liking the novel a lot, and finding it, for a book about mass hysteria over everyday life, oddly soothing. This movie is mostly faithful to the book, but it isnāt soothing. Baumbach uses chaos and claustrophobia to convey the storyās existential anxiety rather than the artificial feeling of meek contentment that is DeLilloās chosen mode. The movie is noisy and full of static and incredibly ugly, like watching an 80s sitcom through a fishbowl. Interesting choices, but not pleasant ones, which matters when youāre watching a movie. But Noah Baumbach is an obvious fan, and he understands the ideas heās working with. He even gets in some pretty good Noah Baumbach jokes. Itās an amazingly timely story too, as we head into the fourth year of a global pandemic that has foregrounded our collective anxiety and shrunken our worlds to a degree that canāt not be causing long term damage. Thereās a scene here where a guy in a quarantine camp riles the crowd by demanding his fear not only be recognized but made the center of the publicās attention, which if anything is quaint when put up against what the MAGA mutants in this country actually want. But hereās what I kept thinking about while I watched a movie that I liked but that never truly distinguished itself from its very good source material: in 1985 Don DeLillo wrote a book about the fear of death as a uniquely modern condition of our sad and shrinking reality. These days, that condition gets called anxiety and we validate it on social media. Our culture sucks now.
Father of the Bride - Gary Alazraki
Shit! I watched this right before I got married. I didnāt realize it was a 2022 release. Itās pretty good! Nice and warm. Andy Garcia is a boss. Recommended for right before you get married.
Elvis - Baz Luhrmann
- Hereās a movie I thought of when I was watching this one that I think would be good: young Elvis spends all his free time watching the black people in his town make the music he loves. Most of the movie takes place in churches and after-hours clubs. Itās musical performance heavy. It ends right as heās being discovered.
- Hereās what I assumed this movie would be: A shy kid with a lot of talent gets discovered by a sleazy manager. He rises to the top, meets a girl, then money, fame, ego, and the influence of shady characters bring him down. A lot of musical performances.
Baz Luhrmann likes his spectacle, but I canāt believe how shoddy and lazy this movie actually is. Thereās no structure, no real story, no actions of consequence. It's a three hour montage of events I donāt even believe really happened. Did Elvis really feel strongly about Bobby Kennedyās death? I sort of doubt it. Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman were trite, but hereās a director looking his audience in the eye and saying āI know you hogs like this shit.ā
Tar - Todd Field
This movie is such a slow burn I didnāt even realize she kept two houses until it was almost over. It doesnāt tell anything and it takes its sweet time showing. Some of its early scenes feel largely pointless. I wasnāt sure why at first, other than the fact that itās a type of storytelling, but upon consideration I get it: the movie is told in the first person. It doesnāt tell you anything for the same reason I donāt wake up every morning and tell myself the address of my house. This is the story of a monster told from her point of view, and as the movie progresses you start to see the cracks in her self-image. Its slow and controlled and quiet, with an intensity hovering offscreen that peaks its head in just enough to let you know its there. Because of the narrative style thereās a ton of stuff I missed, and more than any other movie Iāve seen this year I look forward to watching this again.
All Quiet on the Western Front - Edward Berger
It felt for awhile like we were done with old fashioned war flicks, and modern war movies would all have some kind of stylistic or thematic bent. But this is about as simplistic and plain a story as you can come up with. So maybe the lesson is you can do whatever you want as long as you do it really well. This is an incredibly effective movie. A battle scene where the French close in on the Germans like an unfeeling horde of aliens will stay with me for a long time. A scene at the end which exposes the brutal evil of men who control the lives of other men will as well. Maybe Iām getting softer, but this is the most haunting and disturbing war movie Iāve ever seen. We can do terrible, unspeakable things to each other, and we can do them for no reason. One way of understanding this movie is that itās about the humanity of a nothing special enlisted man, and follows him until he finally loses it. Itās also about the machinations of power that control his life from afar without any humanity at all. Also, it looks and sounds incredible.
The Fabelmans - Steven Spielberg
At this point, you should know what youāre getting from Spielberg. His movies are impeccably made, stories told seamlessly with warmth and craftsmanship. Heās the ultimate major key filmmaker, with an intuitive understanding of how to compel audiences that the movie says heās had since he was a kid. The Fabelmans is, for better or worse, a Spielberg movie. My sense is that how you feel about it will be determined by how you feel about him. If you think heās the best to ever do it, youāll probably appreciate this career retrospective about how he discovered the power and joy of cinema. If youāre cooler on him, maybe youāll wonder why he gets to do it but Martin Scorsese or Federico Fellini, two guys who also probably grew up with cameras attached to their hands, donāt. I guess the obvious answer is that those guys never would, which is probably one of the reasons I like them more.
Black Adam - Jaume Collet-Serra
Jaume Collet-Serra is responsible for two of the best schlock masterpieces of the century, the Shallows and the Commuter, so I am hopeful heās just paying his dues now before theyāll let him go back to cooking those up, and not that heās been swallowed by the Comic Book Movie Industrial Complex, which really does gobble up everything cool or interesting or unique about filmmaking. That said, like most of them are, this is a perfectly fine beer watch. The Rock, who is straight up one of the most likeable people on the planet, has been a real life superhero ever since he didnāt care what your name was.
Triangle of Sadness - Ruben Ostlund
I got big The Lobster vibes from this one. Both from the structure--part 1 takes place in a hospitality center, part 2 takes place in the wilderness--and from the overt strangeness that keeps you on your toes the entire time; both movies could goĀ anywhere.Ā Ostlund makes so many choices that are so fun; one highlight being a drunken mock debate over economic policy between the shipās raging alcoholic captain and a Russian oligarch who accidentally became incredibly rich and now lives with an acutely Russian nihilistic joie de vivre. The movie begins as a pretty open satire of wealth and grows increasingly hysterical until it suddenly transforms into something else--something smarter and more deft. A bunch of seemingly useless rich people are all forced to pivot into a society where none of their material gifts will benefit them at all, and do better than expected. What is Ostlund saying? Iām not sure. But another way he reminds me of my man Yorgos is that he sets up a wild premise and then explores it as he thinks it would go in real life. Its a fun way to make movies.
Bullet Train - David Leitch
So youāre an excellent filmmaker, just dripping with talent, but youād rather make snappy action flicks than three hour Capital-F Films about classical music conductors (I loved Tar, just making a point). I canāt believe how good this movie is. Fast, witty, bouncing through timelines and stories with a throughline that keeps expanding and gets fuller and more fun as it chugs along. This is like if Guy Ritchie took better drugs, or if Tarantino didnāt have final cut. Brad Pitt is one of the best actors on the planet if you can find interesting things for him to do. Here he plays a reformed underworld professional who speaks almost entirely through New Age self-improvement jargon as he tries to find a new life path for himself. And thatās maybe the fifth best thing this movie does.Ā
Argentina, 1985 - Santiago Mitre
This is a pretty downbeat movie. The dialogue is spoken at a low tone, the color palette is dark and brown, it never gets too loud. Knowledge of the countryās history would help--I needed Google for things every Argentinian already knows. Otherwise this is a very straight trial movie, all the way down to the verdict resting on the prosecutorās ability to give a sufficiently inspiring speech. Most of the movie takes place in the courtroom or a law office. One of the protagonists comes from a comfortably fascist background and at one point has to attend the worldās worst family gathering, but otherwise thereās very little on the periphery.
Nanny - Nikyatu Jusu
The structure is fucked. This movie takes ages to get started and then rushes its ending. It feels very messy and less clear than it wants to be. I'll need to chew on it some more, but I think the idea here is the titular immigrant nanny is carried through a consuming anxiety about the family she left behind by an African spirit that is committed to her survival but isnāt necessarily benevolent. Itās really not a horror movie, and the beats it hits in service of the genre are largely unnecessary and fairly lame--I think we can go ahead and put a period on scary dream jump scares. But despite its flaws, which are all just novice direction shit, I really liked this. It looks great, and it has a control over its tone that makes it consistently engaging even if it doesnāt ever really cohere. Iām starting to think the reason why there are so many good horror movies now is because theyāre cheap to make and arenāt beholden to existing IP--essentially theyāre a bush league for promising young filmmakers. I suspect Jusu is more interested in exploring the African experience in America than she is in the genre. It will be interesting to see what she does next.
Weāre All Going to the Worldās Fair - Jane Schoenbrun
I should say that the Internet didnāt invent loneliness, and things like these online sinkholes are just a new outlet for an old problem. If more people are isolating and detaching from reality, that has more to do with our culture and our politics (which the movie knows. A shot of a boarded Toys āRā Us is as grim and unsettling as any of the webcam freakout scenes.) This is an incredibly effective film about a culture I donāt understand and have anxieties about. It seems pretty documented that more people are in fact isolating and detaching, and if theyāre leaning into the type of solipsism that creates this stuff, thatās a fertile topic for new filmmakers. Maybe too fertile. Jesus Christ, this movie.
To Leslie - Michael Morris
The thing is, sheās really good in this! Sheās not a sympathetic character for most it, sheās a full on addict, using the people who care about her and taking advantage of the Samaritans dumb enough to feel empathy for her. Sheās resentful of the help she needs and then livid when people stop helping her. This is a movie I would not have heard about were it not for the insurgent Oscar campaign, but am glad I saw it. Sometimes its nice to watch small, universal stories play out. The third act redemption maybe comes a little too easily, and Iām not sure I buy what inspired it (a Willie Nelson song, apparently), but Iām just noting that for my own memoryās sake. This is a good one.
Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths - Alejandro Inarritu
Thereās a scene here where the main character climbs up a giant pile of dead bodies until he reaches the top, where Spanish conquistador and founder of Mexico Hernan Cortes is waiting for him, and they get into a conversation about heritage. Itās a ripe scene, and its been set up perfectly, but the conversation isnāt as profound or layered as it could be, or that the height the director is reaching for suggests it should be. Then after a few minutes, some ash from Cortesās cigarette falls on one of the dead bodies, who sits up to complain about it, and itās revealed the whole thing is a scene from a film someone is making. Its not the first time and not the last time you want to throttle Inarritu. Youāre one of the best filmmakers currently working, why do you keep fucking up your own good ideas with this jokey shit?!
I want to take my time with this movie because it deserves to be carefully considered. It is, without hesitation, the most ambitious movie of the last few years. My theory on Alejandro is that his lifeās goal is to be Fellini; both this and Birdman shoot for the same surreal modernism that the Italian legend mastered back in the ā60s. This one doesnāt get there the same way Birdman didnāt, and one of the reasons, at least in this case, is that he keeps telling us what heās thinking instead of showing us. This film looks incredible, and the camera moves with the same fluidity it did in Birdman, but he runs out of tricks sooner than he should. His ideas could be conveyed visually, but instead he just has his characters say them out loud.Ā
All that being said, I loved it. I loved it more than I loved Birdman when I first saw it, before I decided it was a failed version of 8 1/2. This is also a failed version of 8 1/2, but itās playing with a different set of ideas. Instead of being a satire of the industry, itās considering Mexican identity, and its ultimately more interested in mortality than in the morass of being alive. Itās incredibly rare to get a director who swings this hard, whoās given the space to work out his ideas like this, or who even has the balls or vision to try. A lot of this movie doesnāt work. But the parts that do are incredibly good, and his visual sensibility is unparalleled. This should be a -10,000 lock for best cinematography, but it wonāt win because no one saw it. Which is to the detriment of the discourse. This movie deserves to be debated and raged over. It deserves to have partisans and detractors who crucify each other online. The culture would be infinitely better if we got three of these a year.
Vengeance - B.J. Novak
Parts of this movie are so good I had trouble believing the bad parts could be as bad as they were. A New York journo douchebag goes to deep west Texas for the funeral of a hookup he barely remembers because sheās told her family that theyāre in a serious relationship, then stays because he thinks heās found a podcast. The parts about Texas are fantastic; his dialogue is sharp and interesting--down here we donāt have police, we have Mike and Dan--and incredibly well observed. During a scene at a rodeo somebody is eating a giant barbecue chicken leg, someone else is eating potato chips covered in queso. But B.J. is playing a guy so cartoonishly dopey it feels beamed in from a different, much worse movie (sample dialogue:Ā āHave you ever been in a fight?āĀ āLike a real fight, or like a Twitter fight?ā) Scenes where heās on the phone describing the story to his incredulous producer give off Hallmark Christmas movie vibes. Itās so much worse than the stuff around it that I figured it had to be intentional. Maybe heās the villain or something. But no, he just learns to love these simple people and their small town. One other thing, Ashton Kutcher, playing a sort of deep Texas ghost, is legitimately amazing here. Easily the best thing in it. If people had seen this heād have been nominated. Itās that kind of performance.
Babylon - Damien Chazelle
Damienās learned how to direct. Watching the guy whoās floundered (in my opinion) ever since his his tiny little arthouse flick about ambition put him on the map get these giant scenes to work makes me legitimately happy for him. Thereās a moment during the party scene at the beginning where he turns the bacchanalia into an organized dance sequence, which feels like a guy making a choice; weāre going to stick classic film elements in the middle of this chaos, because we like them and we can. As far as I can tell the idea here is simple--turn the end of the silent film era into the fall of Babylon, or the Weimar Republic, or Vichy France, or any other era of decadence that was always going to be on borrowed time. Was it really like that? Is this a story that needed to be told? Who knows? And who cares? Unlike with First Man, heās justified his decision by doing it well. Thereās a scene here where a cruel and careless death cuts to a giant party, and its more effective--drunk and sobering--than when Scorsese did it in the Wolf of Wall Street.
RRR - S.S. Rajamouli
Maybe Iād feel differently if I was better versed in Bollywood; as it stands this film represents the entirety of the industry to me. Maybe this is like showing a person whoās never seen an American movie before the Avengers, andĀ an Indian friend who liked it tells me it is not representative of Bollywood. But it ultimately doesnāt matter. First of all, I think itās genuinely awesome that this has become such a crossover sensation, and that more people are getting exposed to world cinema. Second of all, this movie whips so much ass. It took me a minute to get used to the style, but once I did I was all the way in. The first film ever to get me pumping my fists in my living room. And a thing Iāve always believed is that being good at dancing is incredibly manly.
KIMI - Steven Soderbergh
There are two ideas in this that I like a lot: 1. what would the kind of trauma most thrillers like this are about do to a person after the movie ends?, and 2. what does a corporation that has to pretend it cares about ethics after #MeToo and Believe Women even though it obviously doesnāt look like in the year of our lord 2022? More than any other top shelf filmmaker I can name, Steven Soderbergh doesnāt seem to have any throughline other than that his movies are all made with a certain level of quality. Thereās no thematic cohesion that I can find, other than a healthy dislike for companies and governments, and not really any stylistic one either, other than that his movies are all really neat and tidy. And while he used to get nominated for Oscars, for the past few years heās seemed to be content pumping out genre flicks like a gun-for-hire Woody Allen, which I wonder if is just him being prescient about the state of the industry now. This is a quick little film, something that comes out by the truckload in the era of Netflix, but if you watched it without knowing who Steven Soderbergh was youād be surprised by how good it is.
Watcher - Chloe Okuno
Didnāt really respond to this one. The actingās not great, the pacing is off--she gets pretty scared pretty quickly--and beats that should hit hard land harmlessly. High point: Bucharest seems like a cool city.
Guillermo del Toroās Pinocchio - Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson
Guillermo is very good at putting the things he likes in movies that are ostensibly pretty one-for-them--some of these images belong on his highlight reel. Thereās also a sweetness here thatās got his name all over it. This was apparently a years in the making passion project, and I have no doubt the animation is a triumph, but its a status as a Kids Movie papers over some storytelling messiness that bothered me as a person who doesnāt care about kids movies. At its best this movie makes me wish heād gone full tilt into del Toro creature madness. Fuck the kids, man.
Women Talking - Sarah Polley
My take on this movie was that itās the first piece of art to explicitly lay out the tenets of modern feminist philosophy, like a No Exit for the 21st Century American leftist political moment. I have never felt less equipped to give my opinion on a film, but suffice to say I liked this and thought it was intellectually interesting. Hereās the best I can do: this is an interesting one. Less interested in anger or revenge than in compassion and the value of forgiveness, and by value I mean worth, as in what do we gain by forgiving and what is the toll that forgiving will take on us? Itās that kind of a movie, managing emotional states with a philosophical detachment. Deal with the problem first, figure out how we feel about it later. Every atrocity visited upon these women is described in a matter of fact way. Nothing is shown.
The Good Nurse - Tobias Lindholm
This is firmly in Movie of the Week territory, all the way up to a soundtrack and establishing shots straight out of Law and Order, elevated slightly by its inclusion of two of our better actors.
Top Gun: Maverick - Joseph Kosinski
Loses points with me because it sags in the middle; I donāt care about Maverickās guilt over his friendās death or his romantic life. Itās great when heās in the air. This whole movie should take place in a plane. Late period Tom Cruise is beloved by many, but not by me. I feel like he should have more to say at this point in his career than lying about his age.
The Whale - Darren Aronofsky
A very strange film. Iām not sure what to say about it. I wouldnāt call it pleasant, exactly. The main characterās morbid obesity seems almost like body horror at times. The plot seems simple enough; a guy makes the decision to remove himself from life after he loses a loved one, but itās never quite that movie. Iām not sure if heās a good person or not, or if heās meant to be. He left his wife and daughter for someone else and was never in their life afterwards, though if you listen to him, he tried to be. I wondered if heās someone that seeks out the good in others and extends that to himself even if he doesnāt deserve it. But if thatās the case, why is he killing himself? Thereās also a religious element that fits in somewhere, but Iām not sure where. I thought about this movie the whole car ride home. Iām still working on it.Ā
Empire of Light - Sam Mendes
Sam Mendes makes almost comically beautiful movies. This one, about a ragtag group of theater employees in England in 1981, takes place mostly in a movie theater, which is lit up and shot to look like a museum exhibit. This is a perfectly decent flick. Itās well paced, a simple story told well, emotional in the right places without being manipulative.Ā Itās pleasant when its over. Not gutting, but pleasant.
Spiderhead - Joseph Kosinski
Quick, self-contained, well made, not too expensive, fun and kinda trippy, with a neat little twist at the end. I remember watching The Discovery a few years ago and thinking it was going to be the ur-text of a new genre called the Netflix Movie, and buddy was I right. These things now are being assembly-lined out by the dozen, and most of them are largely decent if a little bloodless. Sooner or later theyāll feel so packaged AI will start writing them, but until we get there Iām fine recommending a movie like Spiderhead. Itās a little bloodless in a way the similar genre grind-out KIMI isnāt, but itās eerie while still being fun, holds its tone almost the whole way through, and includes the best Chris Hemsworth acting Iāve ever seen as a jocky nerd charming sociopath.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - Ryan Coogler
The first one isnāt perfect, but like a lot of people I walked away from it thinking Iād just seen Marvelās highwater mark. This one is even better. While the original stood above the rest by looking at real racial politics through the lens of a comic book movie, this one doubles down by bringing in a second superhero-ized colonized civilization with its own ideas about how to respond to the world at large and has the two of them meet and discuss. It even throws in for good measure a complex political dynamic at the top of the Wakanda power structure where every argument makes sense and is defensible. And while my biggest issue with the first one was that it could have used more world-building, some of the scenes here look genuinely great. All the standard Marvel movie objections apply--the dorky jokes, the dumb action scenes, the weirdly dark color palette these things are apparently mandated to have--but Ryan Coogler is possibly the only director franchised into the MCU who seems interested in making or allowed to make real movies.
Pleasure - Ninja Thyberg
A thing I learned the other day is that the movie Deepthroat was one of the highest grossing films of 1975. It is amazing to imagine the families of America lining up en masse to watch a movie, the premise of which is that a woman was born with her clitoris inside of her throat. I wouldnāt call Pleasure a return to a more sex positive past, exactly, but itās explicitly sexually graphic in a way Iāve never really seen before outside of an actual porno. Parts of it are about the dark side of the porn industry, but other parts are about the light side, or the harmless side, and most of the characters are basically decent people. In fact one case this movie is making, maybe unintentionally, is that the ugly parts of the porn star life arenāt really any different than the ugly parts of the Hollywood life, or the sports life, or the investment banking life. The cost of success in this economy is your humanity, whether that means getting double-raw dogged in the ass or outsourcing a factory to Pakistan.
Ambulance - Michael Bay
Worth watching. Pretty fun. Basically incoherent. I will use this space for two observations: 1. Michael Bay has a fully singular visual style that if I had to give name to I would call Saturday afternoon barbecue full of hopefully not racist white men getting weepy after the fifth round of Coors Light, but its his, and as far as I can tell he created it, which means he fits my definition of an auteur. 2. Jake Gyllenhaal might actually be my favorite actor. He is incredible in this movie. I want to call it my second favorite performance of the year after Cate Blanchett in Tar. Heās not the most naturally gifted actor, it will never come as naturally to him as it does to, for instance, Cate Blanchett, but he makes up for that by going completely in on every role. He slips into raw nerve-ending panic within the first five minutes of being on screen in this movie. I think he also might be one the smartest actors in Hollywood. He has one particular line reading in this about a collection of plush flamingos that is so good, and so indicative that he knows exactly what heās doing and what makes what heās doing good, it singlehandedly bumps the movie up a letter grade.
0 notes
Text
Cheap Trick
Heaven Tonight - 1978
āSurrenderā is easily one of the best pop songs of the 70s. These guys very definitely perfected a type of hard driving pop rock songāāAuf Wiedersehenā is the kind of unheralded gem this project was meant to uncoverābut the average song on this record is incandescently dumb. Not bad,āabsolutely not ever badābut adorably and brilliantly inane. Maybe itās a mostly filler record, or maybe they were talented airheads. A mystery lost to time.
0 notes
Text
The Beatles
Rubber Soul - 1965
If youāre under the age of like, 65, and you tell me your favorite Beatles record is anything that came out before Revolver, Iām going to assume its either because you used to listen to the old stuff with your dad before he died, or youāre trying too hard to be hip. The early sixties stuff has no staying power, just like everything else from the early 60s. But the songwriting on the album after this one makes me think their fluff songs were just them doing their jobs. The jump between their early period and their late period is just too pronounced. Anyway, this one is very much their transitional record. Itās amazing they only needed one, but this is as far away from, I donāt know, āLove Me Doā as it is from Revolver. Itās fine. āDrive My Carā makes the case as well as anything else that the Beatles were the only serious band from their era that knew how to have fun, and āIām Looking Through Youā rocks pretty hard for a song from 1965. There was obviously something to this record, and they are the tightest band you will ever hear, but there are still a bit too many āooh-la-lasā for it to really be part of the pantheon.
Revolver - 1966
I surrender to this album. Thereās some fat, for sure. I donāt think Iām a George Harrison fan. But the songwriting is undeniable. āAnd Your Bird Can Singā is an example of how Paul could just pump out pop songs on deadline that were better than any of his competition. āShe Said She Said,ā which as far as I can tell is about a guy who doesnāt want his girl to get too deep on him, is probably my vote for John Lennonās single best song. I donāt know that the Beatles get enough credit for their lyrics, but thereās warmth and wisdom to these songs. I think one of the reasons Iāve downgraded this band in my head is that they arenāt cool. For songs that rock Iāll go with the Rolling Stones every time. But the Beatles wrote pop songs, and they did it with more warmth, depth, and beauty than anyone else. I still think Sgt. Pepper is too mannered, and the White Album has too much nonsense on it, but they were a great band, and this is their best album.
Magical Mystery Tour - 1967
Well, this is just about the best Side Two youāll find anywhere. āBaby, Youāre a Rich Manā is one of the few songs on this record that is new to me but has easily earned a spot as one of my favorite Beatles songs. āAll You Need is Loveā is more profound, beautiful, and earned than any harder-cracked revelation anyone else was putting out. I donāt know what to say, they were obviously great. Iām going to use this opportunity to write down my thoughts on John Lennon. I think his ego got the better of him. By this point in his career heād become a brilliant soundscaper, but he writes like a genius in his own time, and his lyrics are mostly meaningless. When he says āNo one I think is in my tree/I mean it must be high or lowā I suspect he knows that he means high, but really heās just really fucked up on acid, right? He was a visionary and at his best he was deeper than his cowriter, but when I go back to Paul Iām always surprised by how subversive and hip he wasājust right here, āYour Mother Should Knowā is a great exampleāin addition to being the chief pop architect. And when I go back to John, I think by 1967 heād started to get a little high on his own supply. He was a gifted enough artist that his songs were never bad, but letās face it, he needed Paul as much as Paul needed him.
0 notes
Text
Bob Dylan
John Wesley Harding - 1967
I think I can say with confidence this is not a good record. I wouldnāt call it lazy exactly, I think the descriptor I want to use is mad. Like he didnāt want to record it and was annoyed that he had to. Most of the songs are in a from-on-high judgmental modeāBobby D warning against greed and avarice and whatever else rich folk heroes like to pretend theyāre aboveāwith no levity or warmth or fun. The title track is a one-dimensional ode to an outlawānever hurt an honest man, eh?āthat he should be better than. This is basically just 37 minutes of Bob being a dick. And worse, because all my favorite artists were dicks, the songwriting is not good. Thereās not a single song on this record that is particularly fun to listen to. The whole thing just feels kinda listless. Again, not lazy, I donāt that itās that, just catching him in a really pissy mood.
Nashville Skyline - 1969
To me the three greatest artists of this periodāletās call it the first generation of great popāare the Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, and Bob Dylan. And if the Stones are the greatest group of the era and Vanās just some leprechaun with a pipeline to the angels, that makes Dylan the greatest songwriter. This is a funny album to use to make that case, but not a bad one. Ten country songs, 26 minutes total, it almost seems deliberately slight, just another lark from an artist who built his post-fame career toying with the audience that made him into a god. But like the Rolling Stones heās effortlessly great at what he does. Each one of these songs sound like theyāve existed for centuries; immediate members of the country western canon, written by lonesome cowboys in the mountains and passed down to us.
Blood on the Tracks - 1975
What I think weāve got here is a breakup album. The opening track is, I suspect, a song in the first person about someone who is not Bob Dylan but who is actually in fact Bob Dylan. The second song is in the third-person and also about Bob Dylan. Both are detached, sober examinations of an emotional state one might find oneself in after a breakup. āTangled Up in Blueā mostly just lays out the fact of the relationshipāshe was married when they met, they bumped into each other again later, started dating, and then something happened, and he left. āSimple Twist of Fateā is even simpler, just a guy feeling sad after a loss. Then we get to āIdiot Wind,ā which is very much in the first person and about Bob Dylan. The first time I heard it I thought it was the tantrum of a spoiled millionaire, just a guy with a platform screeding against a girl without one. But now I think itās great, and even kind of brave. We all have moments of the most abject and pathetic self-pity, even if we can also be sober and detached about reality. Then we get to āLily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts,ā which might be my favorite Bob Dylan song. Itās certainly my favorite lyric.
0 notes
Text
Johnny Cash
At Folsom Prison - 1968
I donāt know, I feel like Iām supposed to love this record. Iām not saying itās bad, and Iām not fucking with the classicsāI mean in the right setting this album slaps, but it slaps with an asterisk. Nothing dates faster than cool, and these are very old songs.
Man in Black - 1971
This is a really good record. I guess these guys were just pumping records out back in the day, so thereās a breeziness and a directness to this one while Johnny Cash lays out the things he cares about: Jesus, social justice, and his wife, mostly. But the songwriting is there. And thereās a real warmth to him that belies his progressive political opinions. These country stars were so decent!
0 notes
Text
Dolly Parton
Coat of Many Colors - 1971
Big fan of this one. Her richest of the three Iāve listened to, both musically and lyrically. āIf I Lose My Mindā slips in a darkness I didnāt know she had in her, āShe Never Met a Man (She Didnāt Like)ā is dealing with a more complicated emotional scenario than is her standard, āTraveling Manā is a hell of a story, āHere I Amā gives off Van Morrison vibes, and āA Better Place to Liveā describes a vision of utopia she earns because her simplicity and sincerity come to her honestly. Her superpower is how warm she is.
Jolene - 1974
Iām starting to understand country music. Itās deliberately simple, the songs are short, the records are sub-30 minutes. The subject matter is pretty much love and loss. I can see it being a little mysterious at its best, a little ethereal, a little ghostly. Dolly is not those things. Instead sheās warm and almost perilously humble. My favorite songs on this record are the simplest, the ones about love and loss.
All I Can Do - 1976
Thereās a little more gospel in this one than there is in the last one, which makes the album a little fuller. Dolly is so humble that even in the song where she leaves, its only because she knows heās fallen out of love with her. The only song I donāt like is āShattered Image,ā which is just a little too pat, otherwise this is just another collection of songs that go down easy.
0 notes
Text
Jefferson Airplane
Surrealistic Pillow - 1967
Theyāre a good band, so this isnāt a bad record, but Jefferson Airplaneās saving grace is that they sound like their hiding an evil, and other than the two songs the band is famous for, thereās no evil on this record at all. So itās mostly hippie nonsense.
After Bathing at Baxters - 1967
There are limits. The non-Grace vocalists are basically useless, and a lot of the harmonies just donāt sound good; I canāt shake the notion this is a bit of a silly band. But the album is very rarely less than interesting musically. Youād expect a nine-minute instrumental on a record named ostensibly after an acid trip to be all guitar freakouts, but this one mostly takes place in the rhythm section.
Volunteers - 1969
A thing about Jefferson Airplane is that theyāre a fantastic band. One of the better ones Iāve listened to so far. Dig the way the rhythm section kicks in on the intro of the first track. The songs are pretty uniformly excellent, and the guitarist, who seems to have been given the green light to do whatever he wants, consistently wails. Hereās the problem: thereās an evil in this band that it doesnāt indulge enough. The hippie stuff is dated to the point of being parody, but it also doesnāt seem like what theyāre good at. Grace has the voice of an ice queen fascist, not a flower child. When she says ābacks against the wallā she should be talking down to us, but the next line is ātear down this wall,ā and you realize sheās talking to some nebulous establishment, and the song is really about some hippie bullshit.
1 note
Ā·
View note
Text
The Band
Music From Big Pink - 1968
āThe Weightā is a masterpiece, as good as any of Bob Dylanās very best songs. Its lyrics are as expansive and meaningful as Dylan but entirely in keeping with The Bandās subject matter and style, and the music is simple and grounded the way they are at their best. Rather than trying to be their idol they screwed up all their talent and verve and matched him. I want to love this band so much, and some of the songwriting on this record is so richāthe way the guitar comes in on the opening line of the first song kills me. But their songs can be just a little more trite than I wish they were. Damnit guys.
The Band - 1969
Most bands donāt have their gift for rock or melody. Levon Helmās voice is nearly God tier, and their ājust a workinā bandā vibe is so cool to me. The only thing keeping this from being an A+ is that itās too workmanlike. The artlessness certainly fits the brandāthis damn band calls itself The Bandābut after a while some of the songs start to sound too pipe-fitted together. One thing to note: this is a band whose most popular songs are absolutely their best songs. āThe Night They Drove Old Dixie Downā is the best song on this album. āThe Weightā is the best thing they ever wrote.
The Basement Tapes - 1975
This is the record that made me surrender to Bob Dylan. Heās actually being kind of a pillāhe spends the entire album in fucking around modeābut The Band songs are pretty uniformly great, songs I always want to listen to, songs Iād vouch for to anyone, and Dylanās are just better, even at their most frivolous. Thereās a casual mastery to him that makes him the best. Iām not done with this record, Iād like some more time with it, but its fantastic. They hit an Americana that doesnāt sound like anything else, messy and intimate, sorta country but really its own thing, dusty and dirty and timeless.
0 notes
Text
Van Morrison
Blowinā Your Mind! - 1967
For exactly one album, Van was going to be a blues singer, and a fucking brilliant one. Covering āMidnight Specialā (brilliantly), writing āGoodbye Babyā and āRo Ro Roseyā and āWho Drove the Red Sports Car;ā only an Irish could do black American music this well. If this had been his career heād still be in the Hall of Fame, and heād deserve it. āCome on in out the rain!āĀ
But āT.B. Sheetsā makes it clear his charge was to dance with God. A ten-minute song about a guy who is begging to leave the hospital where his friend, lover, someone, is dying. He coats himself in the armor of the coolest blues he can coordinate, then drags her for crying, demands someone gives him water, complains about the light in the window. But he doesnāt leave. Crying, begging, wanting more than anything to just get out, he instead sits there and lives with something too painful, too awful to name. And so we do too.
Moondance - 1970
This album is so fucking good that āInto the Mysticā isnāt even the best song on it. How in the hell could an album be so good that āInto the Mysticā isnāt its best song? Thereās no way he isnāt the greatest of all time. I canāt think of another artist whose ambition was so great and who so consistently hit his mark. This isnāt even his best album! This fucker recorded Astral Weeks! The dude is trying to touch God every time he comes out, and every time he basically does. Turn it up, little bit higher, turn it up, thatās enough.
His Band and the Street Choir - 1970
I had a thing for a minute about how this album was a little more quotidian and a little more musical than his other stuffāāGive Me a Kissā is basically a doo-wop song, āSweet Jannieā is pretty straight blues and āIāve Been Workingā is a sort of blues-jazz hybrid nobody other than Van Morrison would get right. But Iām not even confident I like that takeāthereās as much mysticism here as there was on Moondance. In fact maybe the best way of encapsulating Vanās mode is that he has an intuitive grasp on how to combine the corporeal and the spiritual. He also writes songs that are just better than everyone elseās. āDomino,ā āCrazy Face,ā āVirgo Clowns,ā āSweet Choir.ā This is as good as his last record.
Saint Dominicās Preview - 1972
The bad: āGypsyā is what we might call filler if Van was the kind of guy who did that sort of thing, which we of course know he isnāt. And āListen to the Lionā is sort of a whiffāif this is his return to Astral Weeks form than his first transcendental riff is probably a bit sillier than he intended, he spends the second half of the song basically grunting. The good: everything else, really. āJackie Wilson Saidā is as good a pop opener as āBrown Eyed Girl,ā and the record ends with three standouts, including āIndependence Day,ā the second transcendental riff that as far as I can tell is just a collection of pastoral images, but gorgeous. This isnāt Astral Weeks because thereās nothing wrenching here, heās not digging as he deep as he did there, but he retains his gift for beauty, for pauses, for conveying feeling.
Wavelength - 1978
At the ripe old age of 33, Vanās voice has filled out. Heās still got pipes, but heās not yipping anymore. His voice has hit a deeper register. Nothing lasts forever, and even by Saint Dominicās Preview he was getting a little self-righteous (even by Moondance, really). Hereās my take on Van Morrison: from 1967 to 1972 he ripped off a series of untouchably brilliant albums and came closer to the ineffable transcendence of what music can be than anyone else alive. He might also have been a bit of a crank. Heās such a great songwriter that even the joyless bullshit heās currently pumping out on Spotify sounds pretty good, but the late-night mysticism that made Astral Weeks such a force started to slip nearly as soon as he found it. Anyway, this is a good record full of good songs that I want to hear. The last three songs in fact slay. But itās just a record, not a religious experience.
0 notes
Text
Paul Simon
Paul Simon - 1972
Because his speed really is tranquil, thoughtful, bittersweet songs, his bangers donāt really register. āMother and Child Reunionā and āMe and Julioā are less essential than a thousand other pop songs by any number of more exuberant artists. And āRun That Body Downā is Paul at his worstādomestic and satisfied in a way that doesnāt say or mean anything. But the songwriting here is consistently creative and sharp, and thereās a nomadic quality that I like a lot. āDuncanā has its protagonist lose his virginity to a preaching woman in some encampment in some town somewhere. āArmistice Dayā has him coming to DC to yell at his congressman. Elsewhere he examines a hobo living in Detroit and his own travails living in New York.
There Goes Rhyminā Simon - 1973
A perfect record for an early morning. This album might be most indicative of Paul Simonās status quo as a thinker and songwriter. He isnāt a brash guy; heās introspective, a bit diminutive, but he has a unique point of view, and he can be more direct and more thoughtful than anyone else I can think of. My favorite songs are the two most domestic: one where heās pleasantly surprised by how good he has it, and one where he puts his kid to sleep.
Still Crazy After All These Years - 1975
Iām really coming around on Paul Simon, but maybe heās ultimately a collaborative pop artist. āMy Little Town,ā co-starring Art Garfunkel, and āGone At Last,ā featuring Phoebe Snow hit a pop immediacy that heās never really gotten on his own. But otherwise this is a more disjointed and unfocused record than the last one, starring a sadder, more despondent Paul Simon. āHave a Good Timeā sounds like the last words before a nervous breakdown, and where on Rhyminā Simon he was confused and a little distraught over the good fortune that allowed him to find love, on āYouāre Kindā he leaves the object of his affection altogether.
One-Trick Pony - 1980
As a guy whose great quest seems to be for domestic simplicity, Paul risks being boring every time he comes out, but this is the first time an album of his seems to be aiming for the middle. His sense of identity, which was already a bit dubious by this point in his career, is threatened by an easy-listening jazziness that could have been released by anyone in the industry with studio backing. Itās pleasantly inoffensive, but too often itās pap. Highlights include āLate in the Evening,ā which continues his tradition of sticking his bounciest song at the top of side one, āOne-Trick Pony,ā which is particularly pleasant easy-listening, āOh, Marion,ā which is slightly (slightly) darker than the rest of the record, and āAce in the Hole,ā which furthers my theory that his pop songs only really take on life when he collaborates on them.
Hearts and Bones - 1983
After spending the last decade tracking the tranquilities and turbulences of his own romantic life, Paulās now writing with distance about the lifespans of other peopleās relationships. This is Paul Simon as the poet of bittersweet and unexceptional loves, which is my favorite Paul Simon. And while the last album was pretty MOR and the one before that pretty disjointed, this is just a collection of ten pleasant easy-listening songs. Maybe his most consistent record yet. Heās not trying too hard, there are no formal innovations, just a career musician doing what he knows how to do.
Graceland - 1986
More than anything else this is a record about money. I want to call it his lyrical peak, but I donāt think it is. It actually seems deliberately vagueāevery song hints towards interesting ideas, mostly about money, but all of them fizzle out into generalizations in a way his best self usually avoids. This is more of an observation than a criticism though. In fact one explanation could be that he realized heād hit musical gold and didnāt want to jeopardize it by leaning too hard into a lyrical concept. Iāve spent way too much time thinking about Paul Simon lately, but Iāve come to think of him as a decently talented artist who spent his career coasting through the ebbs and flows of celebrity. This is obviously his best album. Itās one of the best pop records ever recorded. I just wish it was a little more realized. It could have been a ten. But whatever. Most artists would kill for songs this good. And noting for posterity: āGracelandā is its peak, a fully realized song about continuing after a loss. If only every song was as good.
1 note
Ā·
View note
Text
Madonna
Like a Virgin - 1984
The purpose of this project is to write down my thoughts on records from very famous artists I missed in college. I wanted to try Madonna because I thought she would give me some perspective on Prince, an artist whose true home is the club and therefore not exactly my home base. My goal is to just write down my thoughts without forcing a take, which means listening to a record several times until I come up with something original thatās worth keeping. But that means I have to listen to each record, intently, three or four times. I donāt want to listen to this again. Itās fine. Iām sure it sounds good in the club. My only real complaint about Prince is that heās too poppy, but Madonna makes Prince sound like Gil Scott-Heron. Prince wins, heās better.
0 notes
Text
Little Feat
Sailinā Shoes - 1972
So my guess is this is probably one of hundreds of bands whose workās ambition was to be the Rolling Stones. I found these guys off a Spotify recommendation and idly played them one night. I now think they might be the greatest band of all time. BasicallyāI thinkāLittle Feat was a blues band from Los Angeles who figured there were worse ways to spend your career than by trying to emulate the Stonesā dirtiest and blackest-sounding music. The lead singer sounds so much like Mick Jagger heās even doing a British accent. But a thing Iāve always believed about art is, if youāre going to try to copy the greats, you just need to be awesome. Most bands are not this awesome. Additional point: the cover art is masterful.
0 notes
Text
Lynyrd Skynyrd
(Pronounced āLeh-āNerd āSkin-āNerd) - 1973
The best way of understanding this record is that itās a genre album in the same way there are genre movies, but if thereās a better southern rock album out there I sincerely hope to hear it one day. These tunes consistently wail. The guitarist rules, the singer is sleepy (a compliment), the band knows exactly what itās doing. āFree Birdā and āSimple Manā stand atop the southern rock pantheon. āI Aināt the Oneā should be playing on a loop in my car forever. āTuesdayās Goneā is straight up one of the best songs of the 70s.
Second Helping - 1974
A little murkier than the first one, and not quite as transcendent, but these are eight songs you can jam to in your car or bar or wherever your jam location of choice is. Itās bluesier than the last one too, and southern blues is called boogie music. This is a boogie album.
0 notes
Text
Steely Dan
Canāt Buy a Thrill - 1972
There are some pretty good songs here! Anybody that delivers āYou been tellin' me you're a genius since you were seventeen/in all the time I've known you I still don't know what you meanā with the full weight of their righteous disgust deserves to be taken seriously. Even āDo It Again,ā with its slinking mambo jazz instrumental, has started to work for me. But Steely Dan has very much invented a soundājazzy, meticulously constructed, harmonic, keyboard heavyāthat sounds like everything I start to tune out once weāve been on the Sirius 70s hits station for too long.
Pretzel Logic - 1974
Great album title, perfect cover art, but this is a collection of everything I donāt like about 70s rock. The disco-adjacent groove, the guitar noodling, the omnipresent harmonies, the melodies you know in your heart arenāt any good, and there isnāt even really a banger anywhere on here to put on a playlist. Maybe some things just belong in the past.
0 notes
Text
The Rolling Stones
Exile on Main Street - 1972
I guess I should be annoyed that the greatest rock band of all time chose to use their gifts to contemptuously mock us for taking them seriously. I mean, a whole generation of fans basically paid these guys to fuck their girlfriends for twenty years. Does anyone think āLet it Looseā or āShine a Lightā are actually expressing any kind of real sentiment? Is āTorn and Frayedā not slagging the travails of its poor subject? Is āSweet Black Angelā not a halfassed claim to broad minded hipness thatās actually just racist? Is there a single song on this album where Mick isnāt being a dick? Guess what, it doesnāt matter. I just listed four perfect songs. I could have picked ten different ones, conservatively. This is the best record of the 1970s.
0 notes