Children of Misery: 2020 Sounds & Visuals

 

Didn’t get around to doing the annual summer mixes until year’s end, so they’re fairly indicative of what I was listening to. Only did two this time (a road trippin’ theme never felt right for obvious reasons): bbq and cruisin' jams.

Lots of stuff from the cutting room floor was in constant rotation. Listened to a ton of Nikki Giovanni and Audre Lorde. Plenty of ha has from Jay Jurden Y’all, Who the Hell is Dwayne Kennedy? & Weakness is the Brand. Open Mike Eagle lived my (and I’m sure many others’) dream by interviewing Prince Paul for an entire season of podcast eps. Was also great to learn about Toshi Reagon’s love of Octavia. And I’m always a sucker for fresh Mike Davis content, so this trillbilly chat was a treat.

The best thing I saw—not just in 2020, but in a while—is a generation of youths have a collective lightbulb moment about our carceral culture. Fucked up, f’sure, but happy they have a better sense of how off-course the ship is and where they need to steer it towards.

Otherwise, I didn’t see much worth writing about. We didn’t have the pandemic experience of tucking in and learning new skills or some shit. The main things I ‘watched’ were listenable (and, quite often, tried & true) videos that I would turn on as comfort listening while doing chores. So, loads of Desus & Mero (only the occasional wormhole detour) and talking to myself あっきーさん. john powell & bell hooks came correct. Ocean Vuong is ridiculously talented—and he’s sharing a stage w/ Jacqueline Woodson. Sophia Leung ftw. Btw, I still think Problem Areas season 1 should be required viewing for anyone that comes with that Defund the Police = socialism shit. And thank the content gods for giving us druncle ‘Kiss on the ‘gram.

Screentime generally meant family time, so we had lots of アルプスの少女ハイジ, しまじろうのわお, Molly of Denali, Dr. スランプ, 忍者ハットリくん, ドラえもん, テラスハウス, Hilda, ハイキュー!!, SLAM DUNK, Harvey Girls Forever!, はたらく細胞, からかい上手の高木さん. We exported びじゅチューン！ clips (all of Inoue Ryo’s work is highly amusing) to our constant delight.

Crazy and Asian, Still Not Rich: 2018 Sights

For the first time in many years, I don’t spend the majority of my day in front of a screen, so my visuals time has dipped. It’s for the best.

One weekend this summer when free time and availability converged and I saw Eighth Grade, Sorry to Bother You and Blindspotting. Boots’ film bore the worst of this marathon, because it’s the film that deserves to be watched more than once. He needs to make more films, if only to streamline his ideas. Sorry is bursting at the seams with them.

Caught up on more anime, the best of which being 5 Centimeters Per Second (秒速5センチメートル) and Children Who Chase Lost Voices (星を追う子ども). Couldn’t read the manga quick enough, so I opted to watch One-Punch Man and Attack on Titan. Funny then to watch Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse receive all the acclaim about its animation. So many bells and whistles, comparatively speaking.

Atlanta is the only television show worth thinking about. This is what I'll forever remember Childish Gambino for.

Silly, but fun kudos to Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Death of Stalin, Train to Busan and Terrace House. Because, everyone needs kiwi bildungsroman tales, dark political satire, zombie thrillers, and gentle slices of life in their lives.

I’m obligated to mention Crazy Rich Asians. I love Constance Wu and wish her all the best. But this is a year that started w/ Isle of Dogs. So, I’ll pay attention when there is genuine structural change made to encourage diversity of thought, storytelling, casting, etc.

...until then, my 2018 APA vote goes to Ali Wong’s Hard Knock Wife. Because I relate more to a pregnant Californian APA who walks out to Wu-Tang.

Kid Flicks
しろくまカフェ
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Mary Poppins Returns

ARRRGGGHHH 2017

[Posted Dec. 2018]

2017 was a fucking mess. I never finished my lists. I’m posting what I wrote, unfinished, unedited.

One exception: I added a list of albums/songs.

Visuals
Okja, Bong Joon-jo (Netflix)

Wonder Woman, Patty Jenkins

American Masters: Maya Angelou, (PBS)
Something for everyone in this pithy overview of Angelou. Strong balance of talking heads providing warm and detailed insights into her life and work -- particularly from her son Guy Johnson and friends/colleagues like Cicely Tyson, Louis Gossett, Jr. and Alfre Woodard -- as well as clips of her being interviewed, performing, and just being in front of a camera from throughout her robust life. I’m hardly an Angelou expert, but there are plenty of lovely insights, like the impact of Guy’s car accident on their lives, her love of cooking, her approach to running a film set. I hadn’t watched her reading of “On the Pulse of Morning,” probably since it aired over 20 years ago. The work is bone-chilling, especially in light of what happened about a month prior on those same steps.

I Am Not Your Negro, Raoul Peck (Amazon Studios, 2016)
I took the description of this film at face value -- as a literal telling of James Baldwin’s unfinished manuscript, Remember This House. Structurally, the film does accomplish this, but it is so much better for being more about the feeling of Baldwin, rather than his work and life. Like many Baldwin fans, I’ve watched many Baldwin clips and was familiar with large chunks of the film’s archival footage. Peck edits these brilliantly with a tasteful balance of contemporary images and b-roll. The end result is one of the closest visual representations of Baldwin’s love, passion, frustration, fear, and sense of humanity.

Sidewalk Stories, Charles Lane (Island Pictures, 1989)
Hadn’t rushed the Kid into television or film-watching, so the Kid’s media endurance is pretty low. We watched a Doraemon movie, which was an hour and change. Then we watched Singin’ in the Rain in two or three parts. I felt conscious of the sorts of characters and faces the Kid was seeing, so the next option I introduced was either Chaplin’s The Kid or Lane’s Sidewalk Stories. I described Lane’s film as “the New York one,” which may have been the winning tag. We watched most of it in one sitting and the Kid was pretty rapt.

A Face in the Crowd, Elia Kazan (Warner Bros., 1957)
The most infuriating sentiment post-Election 2016 has been the incredulous hand-wringing . It reeks of exceptionalism to think, “How could America have done this?” The truth has been telegraphed for many years by the not obscure writings or Orwell and even the not-so underground films of Judge. Add Kazan and writer Budd Schulberg’s A Face in the Crowd to the very visible list of foreseers. The film’s distinction is, unlike 1984 and Idiocracy, AFITC focuses less on the mechanics of autocracy, but more on the individual who would ceases that power. Sure, the film is largely about the advent of television and how an entire ecosystem of A&R (Patricia Neal’s Marcia Jeffries), platform (TV) and content (Percy Waram’s Gen. Haynesworth) all conspire to make Andy Griffith’s “Lonesome” Rhodes a star. But Griffith’s cavernous laugh and suffocating personality are clearly the oxygen to their spark. Asking if this sounds familiar is simply offensive.

Moana, Ron Clements and John Musker (Walt Disney, 2016)

Eden, Mia Hansen-Løve (Broad Green Pictures, 2014)
Was real bummed to miss seeing this in the theater. A lovely love letter to music, youth and growing up. Any film that opens with “Plastic Dreams” and “Follow Me” already has me from the jump. Those tracks were my entry points to house.

The Revenant, Alejandro G. Iñárritu (20th Century Fox, 2016)
Really loved the sound design of this film. Refreshing to hear a modern film not saturated in soundtrack. The emphasis on breath and wind was more than enough. Very fitting to have Ryuichi Sakamoto do the score.

Chi-Raq, Spike Lee (Roadside Attractions, 2015)
Lysistrata is pretty dated. Updating it w/ 2-hours of shitty slam poetry is pretty unbearable.

Point Blank, John Boorman (MGM, 1967)
Another film I watched years ago and completely forgot. Disturbing (yes, it truly is a “leer and peer” film, hahaha) and brilliant. The commentary with John Boorman and Steven Soderbergh is really useful (minus the leering over Angie Dickinson’s quasi-nude scene). The ambiguity of Walker and Fairfax’s existence and relationship with each other adds layers of storytelling to an otherwise bland revenge tale. Is Walker actually dead? If so, is this a chickens-come-home-to-roost story? If it is, then the psychedelic and narrative hiccups become that much more surreal. Yes, the treatment of women and gay men is bad, but the rest of the film is overwhelmingly strong.

Captain Fantastic, Matt Ross (Bleecker Street Media, 2016)
Also not as bad as I thought it would be. The conceit tickled me plenty: a send-up of progressive values. The film did an excellent job of showing how the arc of both progressive and conservative extremism bends toward each other, to the point where the two connect and become indistinguishable. The ending was fucking sophomoric though. Wish they had skipped the fucking twee GNR karaoke and just skipped straight to the toilet flush.

Birth of a Nation, Nate Parker (Fox Searchlight, 2016)
Not as bad as I read it would be. But very strange storytelling choices. Considering Parker’s understanding and seeming interest in the vivid religious visions Turner allegedly confessed, there should have been ample dynamism in shooting largely off of the Confessions of Nat Turner. Why he took that detour into rape revenge is bizarre and makes unnecessary fantasy of Turner’s legacy.

Aural
Jay Som Everybody Works
This record got us through a rough year. We listened to it on our daily commute, riding around, at home… It’s romantic, weary, DIY, feminist, and hooky-as-fuck. Melina FTW.

SZA CTRL
Part of me thinks TDE should be embarrassed over all the delays behind this record, but it also came at just the right time for me. DAMN, f’real. Left Eye would be so into this.

Thundercat Drunk
The ghost of Austin Peralta still weighs heavy. Modern blues in bite-sized nougats.

SOB x RBE
Why’d it take so long for there to be a modern-day Wu-Tang?

Tyshawn Sorey Verisimilitude
So glad I got to see this young man perform before I left. What an amazing talent.

Scarface “Black Still”
Does this count as Conservative Rap Coalition muzack?

Open Mike Eagle Brick Body Kids
OME deserves an A for sticking to themes.

Joey “Coco” Diaz Sociably Unacceptable
He’s been around forever, but he made some content videos to get the new jacks onboard. This is him operating at about 60% and it’s still más fuego than most anything else out there.

Wadada Leo Smith Solo: Reflections and Meditations on Monk
Smith hasn’t slipped in years. What an incredible run of albums.

Jackie Kashian I Am Not the Hero of this Story
Like being wrapped in a warm blanket of hahas.

Cécile McLorin Salvant Dreams and Daggers
Down is up because I’m listening to vocal jazz.

Ella Fitzgerald Ella at Zardi’s
Twelve Nights in Hollywood already exists, so is there need for more small room Ella? STFU. This recording is from 5 years earlier. Nowhere near as much confidence and swagger, but it’s still peak Ella tossing off runs left and right.

G Perico 2 Tha Left
Needs to collabo w/ Quik.

Downtown Boys Cost of Living
Yeah, I really wish No Skills did this.

Mac DeMarco This Old Dog
Dad shit.

Ali Wong Baby Cobra
So, so, so happy for her. What a talent.

Hurray for the Riff Raff The Navigator
This is the Bruce Springsteen record I always wanted to hear.

Beaches Second of Spring
Perfect road trip music.

Neal Brennan 3 Mics
#beatlife

Buffy Sainte-Marie Medicine Songs
AARP punk.

Juana Molina Halo
Still pays to experiment with a few ideas at a time.

Farruko “Krippy Kush” (Feat. Bad Bunny and Rvssian)
Mi introducción al Conejo Malo.

Future Future
Pretty happy he’s slowed down in 2018, b/c keeping up at this pace is asking for burn-out.

J Hus Common Sense
As close to UK rap as I’ll get. And stop.

Demi Lovato “Sorry Not Sorry”
Pretty cool flip of the Brenda Russell riff. RIP Big Pun.

Lil B Black Ken
Probably the second-most unnecessary reissue/late-issue, but kinda welcome at the same time.

Prince and The Revolution Purple Rain reissue
The remastering wasn’t necessary, but official releases from the Vault are welcome.

Words
Doug Stanhope, Digging Up Mother: A Love Story

Kid Flicks
Trolls (both w/ Saul and at home while sick)
The Jungle Book > The Lion King
となりのトトロ (in theatre, albeit dubbed)

Kid Books
Cece Bell, El Deafo
Hena Khan, Golden Domes and Silver Lanterns
Andre Marois, The Sandwich Thief

Clear Eyes: 2016 Sights

Moonlight
The “Hello Stranger” scene made me feel like a freshman again, but the whole movie is fantastic. Aching story that expands in depth as Little grows into Chiron and up to Black. Beautifully paced and shot like Ozu or Hsiou-hsien.

Kerry James Marshall: Mastry (Met Breuer)
Reunited and it feels so good. What a treat to see all these works together. You wan' know how good is this show? Marshall's selections from the Met's collection is the art equivalent of a mixtape. And the Rythm Mastr pieces are next door. Major thing happening here.

아가씨 (The Handmaiden)
Why isn't this playing everywhere?

君の名は (Your Name)
Why isn't one of the highest-grossing films in Japanese cinema not playing everywhere?

The 13th
Visual Cliff’s Notes of The New Jim Crow. Required watching for the new school heads, and a supplementary to-do list for those knee-deep in the game.

Roots
Sometimes the best sequels are the ones you least expect. No, not that one. Or that one. No, not that one either. Bringing back this seminal mini-series was the only essential rewind.

Fences
Pittsburgh is a frequent character in August Wilson's plays, but I never clearly felt it in Fences.  Denzel does a fantastic job in the film bringing the city to the surface. He also finds a nice balance of this exterior world and the yard that is the heart of the play, the home that Troy Maxson feels trapped inside of and that everyone else attempts to build and expand. The reunion of the Broadway cast (with the exception of Cory and Raynell) really sells this film, but the true highlight isn't even Washington's meta-rife performance, but the killer Viola Davis. She breathes visceral pain, truth and reality into Rose. Troy by design eats up all the oxygen in every scene, so it's easy to overlook Wilson's acutely sensitive take on Rose. When Rose gets a chance to blow, Davis makes sure everyone remembers that Troy does not get the last word. Troy didn't fall over and die one day; Davis/Rose ended his reign of terror.

O.J. Made in America
And sometimes the best miniseries are superficially about the topics you have the least interest in revisiting. Edelman rightly avoids the procedural aspects of the trial and instead focuses on the racial divide it aggravated. The People v. O.J. Simpson gets the lion’s share of the pop attention—rightly so for that Rick James snap—but MIA.

What Happened, Miss Simone?
Let’s not speak on that other film. Or, maybe we should. Because so much of what Garbus does right here—allowing her subject to speak for herself—is why that other film was so wrong. Better still is that Garbus doesn't try to answer the titular question.

Lady Snowblood: The Criterion Collection
How the fuck did I miss this?

The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution
Donate to PBS.

Atlanta
Denzealots refer to Denzel as having Denzelishness. In a similar vein the bulk of Donald Glover's pop persona can be described by a certain Donaldishness. Frankly, it's nice to see it grow the fuck up. The tension between youth, aspiration, race, and the plain awkward is in full bloom in Atlanta.

Agnes Martin (Guggenheim)
The West always finds a way to reach me, even out here. I've only seen a handful of her works at LACMA, so seeing Wright's spiral filled with her spirit was pure manna.

Hell or High Water
Glad to see Ben Foster putting that Lone Survivor training to good use. It makes that entire MacGyver scene semi-plausible. Oh. And calling out banks for taking advantage of clients makes the casting of Chris Pine as a blue collar brain a shade believable.

Mingus Eyes: Best Moving Visual Stuff of 2015

Stuff I watched (under a half hour)
Honey Cocaine “Honeydick”
What Si Mane Price said.

Charli XCX “Famous”
Probably the most literal thing from either Tim or Eric (up there with Decker? Or On Cinema?)

Dr. Yen Lo (Ka) - “Day O”
Prog-rap? Noir rap?

Stuff I watched (under an hour)
Master of None
Really, it’s the Parents and Race episodes that stand out. Overall, the show hits a lot of great casting points. Slate already covered this, but it does a standout job of showing people of different races, sexual orientations, genders -- IDENTITIES -- interacting with each other like human beings. It’s all a bit perfect, so it works as a sitcom, but it’ll do. Happy that Ansari got this show made. The Parents episode is my favorite. The structure of showing both Dev and Kevin’s father’s respective trips and how they are both similar and stand-alone is remarkable. And done in record time in a half-hour sitcom!

With Bob & David
Perfect because I really didn’t ever expect more Bob and Dave? Also great, b/c it’s such a short run and fulfills just enough. Lots of room for great support players.

Inside Amy Schumer
“Friday Night Lights,” “Last Fuckable Day,” the entire “12 Angry Men Inside Amy Schumer” ep, Amy’s increasingly orange legs on the “Cliffely Lately” show

Last Week Tonight
Translators.

Better Call Saul
I had no interest in watching this show, let alone in its existence. I liked Breaking Bad, but simply never felt engrossed in the show. The storytelling was always compelling and entertaining, but the back-and-forth between gravitas and absurdity never clicked. Also, I fundamentally don’t think it brought any more nuance or interpretation of the drug trade which does in fact impact the country. Which probably explains why I actually like Saul, possibly more than BB. Gilligan is an excellent storyteller and Jimmy McGill’s story is a classic tragedy. It is an excellent use of a classic storytelling motif set in a modern, distinctly American context. Plus, Odenkirk, Odenkirk, Odenkirk. When Mike, a character that I thoroughly enjoyed, has one of the weakest storylines, you know you have something very compelling.

Daredevil & Jessica Jones
Daredevil has major ethics problems. The whole post-9/11 tension feels dated. It has shit views on race. But good action. Though that Oldboy knock-off still puzzles me. Who was that aimed at? Kids too young to have seen Oldboy, but need a version sans hammer?

Jessica Jones has shit action. But the themes are more relevant. And there’s interracial boning. But what is up with casting David Tennant to just do the rapist version of the Doctor?

The Americans
I think this is a sign that I’m settling into middle age. This is a pretty ridiculous show, but I’m happy to throw down for Felicity. And that’s probably the root of my problem.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
In spite of its shit title, the music is on point and (generally) well-written, the premise of a JAP chasing after a Filipino-American dude is (sadly) revolutionary (for our times), and the cast is filled with a variety of normal looks, body types, etc. but big on comedy chops.

The Last Man on Earth
“Boom!”
“Oh, farts…”
“Hi, Phil’s penis.”

Kroll Show, Broad City, Key and Peele
They're all good.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Why isn’t this show called the Unbreakable Kimmy GIF?

Show Me a Hero
This may be the only thing the Crash guy has done that I can tolerate. Maybe that’s the strength of David Simon’s scripts? The pairing (and the mini-series format) is welcome, b/c it condenses a number of Simon’s ideas. Great, condensed and entertaining storytelling of a subject that would normally turn off mainstream viewers (ok, not sure how well this series performed).

Stuff I watched (over an hour)Inside Out
I have some problems with the film’s model of the function of emotion and memory (Nerd Writer goes into much more detail about this), but I can appreciate its overall message of embracing all types of emotions.

The Punk Singer
My entry point to Bikini Kill and Kathleen Hanna is admittedly Beastie Boys and Grand Royal. Oddly, this film sort of completes that circle by fleshing out Kathleen and Adam’s relationship. And, yes, I recognize that is hardly the point of this film.

Broadcast News
I really like the film’s grasp of the mechanics of telejournalism. It’s a shame this is really a bread-and-butter romance drama. Still worth it for some stellar performances from Holly Hunter and Albert Brooks.

What We Do in the Shadows
Everything I wished Only Lovers Left Alive was. The Real World vibe of bickering roommates is pretty inspired.

Chappie
The homie Tridential going, “Cha-ppeeee!!” Oh boy. Can’t recall the last time I saw HAM this porky.

Bernie
So simple and charming. I still really love Shirley Maclaine. Jack Black’s swishyness is a bit broad, but he’s understated overall. And that’s a good thing.

White Lightning
I should rewatch this now. Something about Bert’s smarm and Donald Trump’s asshole schtick. Hardly cut from the same cloth. But Trump makes me that much more nostalgic for Bert Reynolds’s era of asshole. Oh, and the cars are pretty neat, too.

The One I Love
aka, Take my wife, please (h/t wifey).