Entries in lists (4)
My Favorite Movies of 2009
Saturday, February 6, 2010 at 9:43PM | RyanSilb As of this writing, I saw at least 47 films eligible for this year’s Academy Awards, all but one of them in the theater. That’s well more than double last years total (yes, I’m obsessive about some things. I keep a list) and just reinforces to me that going to the movies is one of my favorite pastimes, even if popcorn is way too expensive.
I’ve managed to see nine of the ten Best Picture nominees in the theaters, though I’ll probably be skipping The Blind Side. That definitely meets one of my post-Oscar resolutions from last year, although this accomplishment may have more to do with finding a regular movie-going partner than anything else. The Oscars are the reason this post was delayed from December, because I don’t live in LA or New York, so I have to wait to see some of these films to hit the small town theaters of Philadelphia in order to see them. I’ll have an Oscar predictions post closer to the ceremony, but here are my favorite films of the year, regardless of whether they are touched by Oscar’s gold glow.
Best Movie of the Year: Inglourious Basterds
Basterds is my favorite kind of movie—Tarantino aside for a moment—it’s an action movie with a brain. The best action movies are not only smart in how they show action, but also that you care about the outcome and the characters. Not only is Basterds excellently written, with sharp dialogue, and an intricate plot, but what really makes this movie work is two things: One, the well-defined but not shallow characters, and Tarantino’s newfound mastery of suspense. As a total package, this was the best movie-going experience I had all year.
Most Gripping Performance (Actor): Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds
It’s no secret that Waltz is one of the major reasons why Basterds works so well. Every time he was on screen, the tension ramps up immediately, as everyone on screen and in the audience knows that they are in the presence of evil genius. Also, I feel bad to say this, but he even beat out Robert Downey, Jr. as having the best on-screen Sherlock Holmes this year, though his character is morally aligned with Moriarity.
Most Gripping Performance (Actress): Mo’Nique, Precious
All I have to say about Mo’Nique performance is that I left seeing Precious having to immediately acquire a new pair of pants.
Best Comic Book Movie: Watchmen
This pretty much wins by default, beating out the awful Wolverine and the rumored-to-be-worse Whiteout.
Best Action Movie: Sherlock Holmes
I’m so happy Guy Ritchie found something worthwhile to apply himself to, and Robert Downey Jr. once again makes it look easy to have fun at the movies.
Best Sci-Fi Film: Moon
This is exactly why I’m excited about the costs of technology coming down. Moon and District 9 both are shining examples of how this can lead to quality “hard” sci-fi at a low budget. What puts Moon over the top is the performance of Sam Rockwell, who basically carried the whole movie and pulled it off.
Most Overlooked Movie: The Brothers Bloom
I love con movies. And I love movies that feel literary. So a lighthearted literary con movie (featuring Rachel Weisz, one of my favorite actresses nonetheless) was too much to pass up. It’s criminal that this movie wasn’t more widely seen, and at the very least, I will force feed this movie to as many of my friends as possible. It’s my new favorite camel.
Best Actor: George Clooney
I’m stunned. Until this year, I’ve only liked Clooney in the Ocean’s movies and under the tutelage of the Coens. However, this year gave me three fantastic movies all starring George Clooney. First was Men Who Stare at Goats, a fantastic tour of the American military and psi-ops, then followed Fantastic Mr. Fox (more on that soon), and Up in the Air, another Jason Reitman triumph. He had a fantastic year. Runner up: Jeff Bridges for the aforementioned Goats and Crazy Heart.
Best Actress: Meryl Streep
Like Mr. Clooney, Meryl Streep had an excellent year, also with three movies that I very much enjoyed. Not only was she in Fantasic Mr. Fox (as the wonderful Mrs. Fox), but also Julie and Julia, easily the most delicious move of the year. It’s Complicated looks like an also-ran in this company, but it had a great cast, and I suspect part of my faults with it may be my age relative to the main cast.
Best Film Based on a Children’s Book: The Fantastic Mr. Fox
I love this movie. It’s completely wonderful in every way. Funny, heartfelt, touching, suspenseful, and artfully made, as well as boasting a great soundtrack, it may be Wes Anderson’s best movie, and features a great cast of Anderson Players and newcomers. A complete joy to watch. Runner up: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
Best Romantic Comedy: (500) Days of Summer
A great film that dances around and through genre tropes with death-defying ease, bolstered by the charming performances of Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel. I haven’t seen this movie in six months, and I still think about scenes in this movie on a weekly basis.
Best Movie I Had to be Talked into Seeing: The Informant!
I went into this movie completely expecting not to like it, but I came out positively raving. Matt Damon’s performance as Mark Whitacre was severely overlooked this awards season. Runner up: Julie and Julia
Best Franchise Movie: Star Trek
Such a venerable franchise had fallen by the wayside until JJ Abrams gave Trek it's groove back. Playful, sexy, and fun, this is a Trek I can't wait to take again. This is how you do a reboot. Enough fan fodder to make it feel like the property, but ground-floor enough for everyone else.
Here’s my Top Ten:
10. An Education
9. Julie & Julia
8. Whip It!
7. The Hangover
6. Up in the Air
5. Up
4. (500) Days of Summer
3. The Brothers Bloom
2. Fantastic Mr. Fox
1. Inglouriuous Basterds
My Favorite Movies of the Past Decade
Sunday, January 3, 2010 at 11:27PM | RyanSilb Here are my favorite movies of the past ten years. In alphabetical order:
Children of Men
Easily the best sci-fi movie of the past decade, this movie took the dystopia and made it feel real. Alfosno Cuarón is an amazing director, and manages to balance the movie’s realistic and gritty feel with it’s sci-fi elements and deeper themes, like a fantastic Christian allegory. The action is also shown in a great way, and the chase shot alone is something to be studied. Brilliant.
High Fidelity
One of the more serious movies in the “chick flicks for dudes” genre, High Fidelity is one of the best movies I have ever seen about love and loss. In this movie based on the book by Nick Hornby, Rob Gordon (John Cusack) recounts his “Top Five” breakups in a quest to figure out why he is aging and miserable. Along the way, he discovers that he isn’t miserable because of his relationships, but because of how he feels about his own life. Rob owns a record store, so the movie has an awesome soundtrack, and a wonderful caricature of record store workers in Todd Louiso and Jack Black’s Dick and Barry.
The Incredibles
Half of this list could have easily been Pixar output, but the reason this reigns supreme is that it’s the best superhero movie of the decade, and manages to do the Watchmen story on screen better than the movie that straight-up adapted the comic book. It’s the best Fantastic Four movie ever made, with both nonstop action and heart through and through.
Inglourious Basterds
I think Brad Pitt’s character Aldo Raine sums up this movie perfectly. Towards the end of the movie he says, “I think this might just be my masterpiece.” This is Quentin Tarantino’s masterpiece. It combines perfectly his mastery of dialogue with the building of suspense in such a way that makes this film a Hitchcockian thrill ride from start to finish. It’s a Bingo!
The Italian Job
I love heist movies. Especially smart ones, and there are few smarter ones that 2003’s remake of the Italian Job. What really shines here is the excellent ensemble cast led by Mark Wahlberg and Charlize Theron, allowing the movie’s thriller and comic tones to work equally well.
Lord of the Rings
Making the most epic novel in existence into a film is something only a crazy man would attempt. And Peter Jackson is crazy. Lucky for us, he also happens to be a filmmaker of the highest caliber. Pulling this all together and doing it all so well may be the single greatest achievement in film of the past decade.
O Brother Where Art Thou
What I love about this film is that it is about so many things all at the same time. The Odyssey, the South (politics, culture) in the 1930’s, Americana, etc. Featuring great performances from Coen Bros. staples, this is a vision of a film. And features the best (and most important) soundtrack of the decade).
Sideways
Not since Annie Hall has this movie deconstructed nerdish maledom in mid-life so well. Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church play not only well-rounded male friends, but absolutely believable as real people. The relationships between the characters feel vibrant and real, making this one of the best depictions of real people on film.
Stranger Than Fiction
I have watched this movie upwards of 10 times, and there are still metaphysical questions to be answered. This from a quirky rom com starring Will Ferrell, Dustin Hoffman, and Maggie Gyllenhall. This movie is funny, poignant, and deeper than it first appears.
Unbreakable
M. Night’s best film, and the best superhero origin deconstruction ever put to film. Before Chris Nolan ever decided to take on the Dark Night, M. Night imagined what superheroes would look like in our world without loosing the iconography that makes them superheroes. Highly underrated, with excellent character performances by both Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson.
end of the decade, lists, movies in Lists Albums of the Year 2009
Sunday, November 29, 2009 at 12:53PM | RyanSilb Here are my favorite eight albums from this year:
8. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
;)
Most people are not shocked that I had never heard of Animal Collective until a month ago. This is because most people have not heard of Animal Collective. Briefly sampling their back catalogue via the Interwebs, I know why. Most people don’t like avant-anything. This is why MPP is a revelation. After apparent years of experimenting on the fringes of pop music, Animal Collective ride back from the wilderness on biomechanical creations—like Terminators that are made to love and dance.
Listening to the album is a good experience, and it’s not in-your-face so much as in-your-mind. The album functions on a fairly deep level, with synth and bass lines swirling around steady vocals. This is the kind of thing that makes me love End of the Blank Lists, because without them, I still would not have heard of Animal Collective. Thank you, music media prophets. This makes up for your obsession with Grizzly Bear.
Key Tracks: “My Girls,” “Summertime Clothes,” “Brother Sport”
Summertime Clothes - Animal Collective
There are not enough good bands with lead female vocalists, although this decade’s biggest trend—bands with vocal leads of both genders (Arcade Fire, The Hush Sound, Silversun Pickups)—is a welcome move. Alongside the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Metric’s Emily Haines is like a mother hen of indie rock. She leads the pack from the rear, often worrying more for groups other than her own. More guitar driven than their previous work, this is a welcome shift.
Fantasies opens with “Help, I’m Alive,” and “Sick Muse,” both have extremely well constructed hooks and driving guitars, which in turn shape the baseline of the album. The syth still sparkles, especially on “Satellite Mind,” and “Twilight Galaxy,” which leaves you with a bright and happy feeling. Despite some of the feelings expressed on the album, seeing Metric at a show this past week, you can tell Haines and Co. have a blast playing these songs. What some “serious indie bands” forget is that music is fun, and that’s exactly to what this album aspires. I could write a several pages long pontification about how the lyric “Who would you rather be/The Beatles or the Rolling Stones?” is a metaphor for different kinds of relationships, but it could easily just be the fun kinds of questions us Rob Gordon-types ask each other.
Key Tracks: “Help, I’m Alive,” “Gimme Sympathy,” “Twilight Galaxy”
6. Mastodon - Crack the Skye
Mastodon may be the most important metal band of today, and this is not because Crack the Skye may be the first modern metal album I have truly loved. Simultaneously a throwback to the days of progressive rock and a torch leading the way to metal of tomorrow, Crack the Skye exists apart from the ‘thrash metal’ that dominated the post-hair metal hard rock scene. Bringing in Brendan O’Brien as producer on this disc was a very wise move. His trademark is texture, and helps make the layers of sound work towards a higher purpose, as well as making the vocals truly shine (a rarity for metal bands today, IMO). Everything was accessible if you were in the right state of mind. Or maybe two tracks longer than ten minutes on an album doesn’t bother me because I listen to Rush.
Mastodon blows right past accessible and shoots for cosmically epic. There’s something beautiful in the texture of this album. The pounding drums and the spinning riffs on the opener “Oblivion” meld into something not unlike chunky peanut butter, smooth and crunchy at the same time. This goes the same for “Divinations,” as well, which is easily my favorite song on the album. The guitar solo on here sounds like Muse’s “Knights of Cydonia” or perhaps more true—Satriani’s “Surfing With the Alien,” and is a more ethereal version of space-surf. This is a band unafraid to sing about the Czar and Rasputin for ten minutes. This is a metal band that is unafraid to have a banjo open a single. And no fear is good. Very good indeed.
Key Tracks: “Divinations,” “The Last Baron”
I didn’t hear this Band of Skulls until I heard the soundtrack of the year, but their debut album quickly become one of my favorites of the year. I love this band for two reasons: 1) The album itself dances across a range of styles and 2) This is exactly the kind of band I would aspire to be.* Their roots are obviously in British blues rock ala Cream and Led Zeppelin, but like those two other bands, they are willing to stretch beyond that beginning. “Light of the Morning” revels in it with Jack White-esque vocals, “I Know What I Am” pushes it by a guitar riff seemingly borrowed from Franz Ferdinand, and “Blood” breaks it back down to the basics. All of this (and more!) on one record.
This is a band that goes from intimate and introspective (“Honest”) to anthemic heights (“Pattern” and the Gary Glitter’d “Hollywood Bowl”) in one song, and more importantly, does both well. Also, I strongly suspect this band as no idea how good they are. This of course, would make them the inverse of the Arctic Monkeys, who know all to well how good they are and abuse it. Band of Skulls just rocks.
*A third reason is that women who play bass are hot. See also: Silversun Pickups.
Key Tracks: "Light of the Morning," "Honest" "Patterns"
4. U2 - No Line on the Horizon
In their third album of the decade, U2 move slightly back toward a “European” sound almost absent from their previous two albums. It’s an album that doesn’t hit you hard with Edge’s guitar, rather showing you the breadth of the U2 sound and the depth of Bono’s lyrics. I wasn’t particularly impressed the first time I listened to this album, but subsequent listens revealed the album’s strength.
Lyrically it is an attempt by Bono to stop outside himself and sing from the vantage of other people. Honestly, I’m not sure if I can tell the difference. Sonically, this album is expansive, like a plane soaring over the ocean. It is certainly evocative of The Joshua Tree this way, and at times it sounds like the follow up album people were expecting in 1990. “Moment of Surrender” is almost on par with “With or Without You,” and is easily the best song on the album. Answering this expansion is the second half of the album, quieter and more inwardly contemplative, though the contrast isn’t as stark from a sound perspective.
Key Tracks: “Moment of Surrender,” “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight”
Moment Of Surrender - U2
3. Green Day - 21st Century Breakdown
This is a fantastic album that will always be overshadowed by American Idiot. Like U2’s All That You Can’t Leave Behind, AI took a band perched on the edge of non-relevance and pushed it back into the forefront of modern rock. That’s why 21st Century Breakdown was Green Day’s best debut ever, and even better, the album is damned good, remaining in my car’s CD player for a solid month or two after it’s release.
The most fascinating thing about this record to me is that is both intensely political as well as intensely personal, and manages to be both at the same time. Their sound has also deepened, mirroring The Who’s career arc in a very agreeable way. Green Day was maybe the first band I listened to that my parents didn’t, and I’m shocked that not only am I still listening to them, but now my parents are too. Green Day conquered the world through punk rock, though they never seemed like they were setting out to do so.
Key Tracks: “Know Your Enemy” “East Jesus Knowhere” “Last of the American Girls”
2. Monsters of Folk - Eponymous
The motto of this album may as well be that sometimes the sum of parts is greater than the whole. There’s nothing particularly groundbreaking about Monsters of Folk (except for the opener, “Dear God, (Sincerely M.O.F.)” being trip-folk gospel), but that’s exactly what makes it so great. Many of these songs make you feel like you’ve heard them before, in the backgrounds of movies, on out-of-area radio stations you only listen to on road trips, each track a gem on a compilation you picked out of the bargain bin because you liked the cover art.
An indie-rock supergroup if there ever was one, MOF is Jim James of My Morning Jacket, Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis from Bright Eyes, and M. Ward. All of these are fantastic balladeers in their own right, but together they produce an album that can’t help but echo the Traveling Whilburys. A mostly mellow, well-thought album, it will certainly be in heavy rotation for summers to come, perhaps as I sip lemonade on a porch. Ahh.
Key Tracks” “Dear God (Sincerely, M.O.F.),” “Say Please,” “The Sandman, The Brakeman and Me”
1. Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Perched at the crossroads between Daft Punk and classical music, synth-rockers Phoenix crafted a breakthrough. It’s a record that is infinitely danceable, and sounds good over headphones walking downtown, or cruising on the highway. Dancing is something rock has been missing for much of the grunge and post-grunge era, and leave to some French dudes to help further the dance-rock Renaissance. Unlike too many other records, the synth here only adds to the music, never distracts from it. Although the craftiness here rivals Merriweather Post Pavilion, WAP is able to retain the urgency of sound and lyric lost in being too precise.
What I love about this album is that it borders on being too much, but after the towering bliss of “Lisztomania,” “1901,” and “Fences,” a mini synth suite comes in to bring the record down to earth again only to soar again afterwards. The sound itself is at once so contemporary and so retro it sounds like it could have only come from a movie made in the past about the future (like if Blade Runner had happiness). And besides, the lead track is about the first teen idol, 19th century composer Franz Lizst.
Key Tracks: “Lizstomania,” “1901”
1901 - Phoenix
The Eight Best Albums of 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008 at 12:02AM | RyanSilb 
I got this album shortly after it's release in January and I've listened to it consistently ever since. A fantastic debut featuring an original sound that traces back to the original Western classical melodic/African rhythm fusion at the foundation of rock music.
2. Fate - Dr. Dog
From my hometown of Philadelphia, I discovered Dr. Dog this year with this new album. A harkening back to the 60's progressive pop bands like the Beach Boys and the Band, they have a rich round that is both laid back and exspansive, like a folksier version of Arcade Fire.
3. Evil Urges - My Morning Jacket
Another band I discovered this year was My Morning Jacket, and this album has a fantastic range. the title track is great, and how can you dislike a song which includes the line "peanut butter pudding surprise" in the chorus? Also, "Sec Walkin" sounds like vintage James Taylor, which amazing to pull off.
4. H.A.A.R.P. - Muse
Everyone I know who has seen Muse in concert has proclaimed their amazing performances, and this live album recorded at Wembly Stadium lives up to this reputation. Featuring many cuts from their 2006 album, Black Holes and Revelations, this is the closest thing to being there as each song soars.
5. Modern Guilt - Beck
I mentioned prior that "Gamma Ray" was my retroactive summer anthem, but the rest of the album is no slouch either. "Chemtrails" is breathtaking, and the contributions by Cat Power seem organic and not forced. "Youthless," streamed below, is my second favorite cut.
6. Day & Age - The Killers
I recently reviewed this album, and three songs, "Human," "Dustland Fairytale," and "Spaceman."
7. Accelerate - R.E.M.
Many high-profile comeback records this year, including AC/DC, Metallica (a CD ruined in production) and the long-awaited Chinese Democracy (would be #10, but this is an 8 item list), but I feel that R.E.M.'s was the best comeback of the year. Close to vintage while showing growth and new life, this is the new Exhibit A on how to do a comeback the right way.
8. Juno - Various Artists
The soundtrack from the little movie that could is a fantastic record, filled with simple arrangements and the demented charm of Kimya Dawson. It's a great 'puppy love' album, full of mostly naive-sounding ("if you were the castle, I'd be your moat") hand-holding Beatles love that makes for great summer afternoons with lemonade. Plus, The Kinks, Sonic Youth, and Mott the Hopple. Best soundtrack of the year.
2008, lists, music in Uncategorized