C*nts Are Still Running the World

Jarvis Cocker released a new version of his 2007 track Cunts Are Still Running the World just in time to "celebrate" the election in the UK. And I thought this song rang true twelve years ago? Meet the new boss, bigger slag than the last boss.

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Currently immersed in collating all the year-end stuff I want to spread the word about. This coming Saturday, The Horror Vision will be recording our "Favorite Horror of 2019" episode, but what about just a general "Favorite Films" list? Well hell, Chewy, I haven't done one of those in at least five years. I always want to do one, but never really feel like I see everything in the end-of -year Oscar release schedule that I want to, or perhaps that I feel I need to in order to make a well-informed list. This year? Fuck that. Here's my three favorite, non-horror films of 2019. My plan is to see Knives Out on Sunday, and I'm assuming I'll be able to add that to the list.

Also, despite the venomous oath I swore two years ago upon walking out of The Last Jedi to never see another Star Wars film again - actually, it was to never even watch the old ones again - I will be going to see the new Star Wars film in a few weeks, but only for the same reason I vote. So I can feel justified in complaining.







Joker is the only film in years that I have seen twice in a theater upon original release, and seeing it in 70 mm at the Aero Theatre with Director Todd Phillips in-house for a post viewing interview was one of the theatrical highlights of a year with quite a few theatrical highlights.

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Playlist:

Carpenter Brut - Trilogy
Brittany Howard - Jaime
NIN - Ghosts I-IV
The Atlas Moth - Coma Noir
Boy Harsher - Careful
Revolting Cocks - Beers, Steers and Queers
Federale - No Justice
The Misfits - Static Age
The Misfits - Earth A.D./Die, Die My Darling
Preoccupations - New Material
Balthazar - Fever
Cave In - Final Transmission
Meg Myers - Sorry
Black Pumas - Eponymous
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross - Watchmen Vol. 3
Blood Red Shoes - Get Tragic

2019: February 23rd

There's a new album from Tamaryn on the way. This is a performer I know nothing about. Somewhere are 2010-2011, her debut album Waves ended up in my iTunes - no idea how it got there, which is a story/theory for another time - the point is when I listened to I fell for the album hard. That's it; I know none of her other music. When this came up in my youtube feed this morning I was interested. Sounds very Cure to me, so a departure from that first album, but pretty cool nonetheless. You can pre-order Dreaming the Dark, out on DERO Arcade March 22nd, from Tamaryn's bandcamp HERE.

K and I went to the movies for the first time in forever last night and saw Green Book. Wow. Here I've been down about the fact that there's pretty much no big Prestige films this year, a sad fact when last year was jam-packed: I, Tonya; Three Billboards; Phantom Thread; Shape of Water. I'm sure I'm forgetting some others as well. This year... not so much. But I'd heard Green Book was good, and Viggo Mortensen is always great, and Mahershala Ali has been blowing me away in True Detective, so we gave it a shot.

FANtastic film. Seriously, it won't be in theaters much longer, but if you can, go see Green Book. Some will say it has a touch of schmaltz, but don't believe them. Life-affirming, and it introduced me to the music of Dr. Don Shirley:



Okay, so I never do Favorite Film list anymore. Probably not in five years. Why? Well, A) I never see everything I want to before the end of the year. And B) at some point I went back and looked at my list for 2012 and basically no longer trusted myself to remove the viewing experience and all its facets from the quality of the film, because in 2012 I ranked Argo over both The Master and The Dark Knight Rises. Nope. I call bullshit on you, sir. The reason for this was a fantastic theatrical viewing experience, at home in Chicago with my parents - a family bonding moment - and although I haven't seen Argo since, there's just no way it's better than those other two I ranked below it. It's good. Great even. But not that great.

So I began to consider myself an 'unreliable narrator' when it came to ranking films.

My favorites of the last few years seem more solid choices: Three Billboards in 2017, a tie between LaLa Land and The Witch in 2016, Hateful Eight in 2015, and Whiplash in 2014, but I never get around to seeing everything I feel I need to in order to make an educated assessment. This year, however, since there haven't been many movies I felt I needed to see, I'm a little bit more assured that my opinions are accurate. So here then, is my 'best of' list for film in 2018:

Best film: a tie between Hereditary and Green Book, sort of both ends of the spectrum, but both affected me immensely.

Best Actress: Toni Collette - by a fucking landslide; the fact that she didn't get nominated for an oscar proves how pointless the award is now, and was the impetus for my never capitalizing the award's name again. Forever.

Best Actor: Mahershala Ali -  Viggo's up there as well for Green Book, but Mahershala also has his performance in True Detective factoring in, because like I said earlier, he has me in awe. Juxtaposing the two performances, I hadn't seen a cast list for Green Book before the credits rolled at the end of the film, and I questioned whether it was him or not for the entire movie. In fact, I had pretty much deduced it wasn't him, and was curious to see who played the part of Dr. Don Shirley. There's a physical difference between Ali in the two roles, some of which comes down to the aging make-up in TD, but some of which is Ali's ability to manipulate his mannerisms, stature, and poise.

Favorite movie: Mandy - the reverberations from my initial theatrical viewing the night of the film's release at the Egyptian Theatre still surround me, coloring my thoughts with excitement. This is the film I struggle not to watch every day, so as not to sap its power.


Playlist from 2/22:

Beck - Odelay
The Goat - Puppy
Jaye Jale - No Trail and Other Unholy Paths
C-Building Kids - Shitting in the Urinal
Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Mature Themes
True Widow - AVVOLGERE
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Windhand - Eternal Return
Don Shirley - Waterboy

No card today.