Eight Favourites from 2010

The year is rapidly grinding to a hault and before the remainder blurrs I figured I’d post my favourites of the year that has been; the films & music that has inspired me on both a creative and personal/emotional level… While it can appear as lazy journalism in a generic sense, I always enjoy reading the best of lists from sources that I trust & respect (eg The Wire magazine’s REWIND series eg 2009 & 2006 & 2004) as they often point me to projects that I either totally missed or didn’t persevere with enough to fully appreciate them… And to provide some perspective, IMDB lists 8,813 films released in 2010, so its not like we lack for choice…. Anyway here are the eight films (in alphabetical order) that reminded me why I so dearly love cinema as an artform….

 

 

image credit

 

EIGHT FAVOURITE FILMS OF 2010

Enter the Void – IMDB + trailer
Exit through the Gift Shop – trailer + IMDB
Fish Tank – trailer + IMDB
Greenberg – trailer + IMDB
MicMacs – trailer + IMDB
Poetry – trailer + IMDB
The Housemaid – trailer + IMDB
Thirst – trailer + IMDB
Uncle Boonme who can recall his past lives – trailer + IMDB

Yet to be released here, but can’t wait to see them:
Norwegian Wood – trailer + IMDB
Sound of Noise – trailer + IMDB

And if there was some kind of annual Music of Sound awards:

Best Feature Film 2010: Uncle Boonme Who Can Recall His Past Lives

Best Sound in a Feature Film 2010: MicMacs

As a sidenote: for me the true test for a film (or an artwork of any kind) is how long it stays with me. Many films are hugely entertaining but have no real residual value – they are empty calories, don’t ask me to name names because the list is long and already forgotten… I thoroughly enjoyed MicMacs on every level but I am haunted by the memory of Uncle Boonme in a strangely beautiful inexplicable way – it was deeply effecting. Go out of your way to see it, but do not go expecting to see The Matrix 4, Bond 27 or Transforminators 5…

 

 

 

EIGHT FAVOURITE ALBUMS OF 2010

I’m going to split these between the lovely quiet albums:

Amiina – Puzzle
Aus – Light in August, Later
Eluvium – Similes
Hauschka – Foreign Landscapes
Jonsi – Go
Minamo – Durée
Olafur Arnalds – And They Have Escaped The Weight Of Darkness
On (Sylvain Chauveau & Steven Hess) – Something That Has Form And Something That Does Not

 

 

 

And the louder, more percussive albums:

Clubroot – II: MMX
Grad U – Spectral Decay
iTAL tEK – Midnight Colour
Lukid – Chord
Mount Kimbie – Crooks and Lovers
Pulshar – Inside
Quantec – Thought Experiment + Leap in the Dark
Roots Manuva – Dubmix

 

 

 

EIGHT FAVOURITE SITES OF 2010

This category was the hardest of all to wrangle, but then I thought: if I deleted all my rss feeds except 8, which would I keep? hmmmm…. I couldn’t actually answer that question, so I changed it to eight from each category… Still difficult, 28 would be easier!

SOUND:
designingsound
the duc
filmsound.org
gearslutz post forum
socialsounddesign
sonic-terrain
and all the individual field recordists sites:we are all the richer through your efforts!

MUSIC:
create digital music
disquiet
dubbhism
matrixsynth
muffwiggler
new music box
tokafi

VISION:
ektopia
erasing
ffffound
pugsfly
this isnt happiness
vvork
wooster collective
yimmyayo

FILM:
cinematical
greencine
guardian.co.uk/film
house next door
indiewire
koreanfilm
nipponcinema
slashfilm

 

 

 

So what films & music will you carry with you into 2011 & beyond?

 

 

 

Rest in Peace:
- the Kong boat from Miramar wharf
- Dennis Hopper
- 29 Miners in Greymouth, NZ

 

Relatedly, reading the death notices on Wikipedia makes for some strange imagined backstories – the abbreviation of a life to a one line entry leads to odd interpolation. A balloonist whos death date is estimated, as thats when his body was found (where was he/she going? what happened?) A p0rn actor who died of a heart attack? (on the job?) A mexican professional wrestler, shot? An american corporate raider who died in a boat collision? (is that a metaphor?) I’m not being disrespectful, its just such an odd shift… Moral of the story? An Aldous Huxley quote: “It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one’s life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than ‘Try to be a little kinder.”

 

So let that be the final sound advice for the year: