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Enjoyed the constant, doomed turmoil of Gravity? Then you might like the constant, doomed turmoil of All is Lost, which takes to the sea rather than outer space, but is no less tense and horrifying for it. Outside of an opening voiceover and a few sparse curse words, Robert Redford's character - who remains nameless - barely speaks throughout, but the perpetual intensity on his physicality, as his damaged boat is accidentally damaged and he struggles to stay afloat, is every bit the equal of Sandra's efforts in space. Adrift in a a deserted ocean, Redford's solitude is as haunting as anything, and J.C. Chandor's impeccable film is a bravura of streamlined filmmaking.

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I promise, this is the last harsh survival story on the list! This extraordinary 1924 documentary was restored and re-released by the BFI this year, and it was quite the cinematic experience. While the opening titles tell us that it was filmed using a revolutionary telephoto lens, the power of the film is more the sheer audacity of how far this camera crew was able to ascend along with the explorers on a tragic mission to conquer Everest. As it was made in the silent era, no words are spoken, and indeed, barely any faces are seen, but the beauty of the images and the descriptive honesty of the intertitles makes it hard to be enthralled. Add to that Simon Fisher Turner's gorgeous new minimalist score, and this really is an unmissable treat for anyone wanting to see a slice of history.

Matthew Goode Stoker is on my To-Do list, looks amazing.

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Sofia Coppola always makes beautiful films that seem to implicitly criticise their own allure, and The Bling Ring is perhaps the most explicit exploration of that dynamic yet. This bunch of young thieves are selfish, vapid, self-obsessed and privileged, but damn if I wasn't drawn into the dangerous excitement of their activities and how attractive they all look. This is a film for a generation that is so self-aware that it sees all these issues, and almost doesn't care. Life is hollow, and maybe only the thrill can fill it up.

Matthew Goode Stoker is on my To-Do list, looks amazing.

 

I've never liked him much before but he's so creepy-attractive in it, I died.

I've never liked him much before but he's so creepy-attractive in it, I died.

 

I've had a minor obsession since he was in Leap Year :wub: that movie is just.....awesome.

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Shell (Chloe Pirrie) is a young woman living and working at a petrol station in the remote Scottish highlands, with only her father (Joseph Mawle) and the battering winds for company. It becomes increasingly clear that Shell’s relationship with her father has become confused by her having to care for him. Pirrie’s watchful, immensely sensitive performance is the pearl inside this shell – her glassy brown, almost beetle-like eyes make opaque emotions that her very mobile face make apparent, crafting in Shell a complex, unpredictable character. Graham unfolds the subtle, ultimately devastating shades of the central relationship through the sparse dialogue and a close, often uncomfortable sensual visual style. Shell is a quietly brave debut from a very promising British filmmaker and actress.

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Terrence Malick is a divisive filmmaker, for sure - you're probably either going to be entranced by his dazed, elongated shots of corn fields and sunsets, or you're going to tear your hair out with boredom. Obviously, I love it, and while To the Wonder has a more ordinary narrative than his masterpieces (The New World being my favourite), it still, in true Malickian style, makes these romantic aches transcendental. Olga Kurylenko is particularly superb, but it's Malick and his wizard cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki who make the film such a lush, enthralling experience.

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Few films this year have been as joyful as this, which always comes with the background story of it being the first Saudi Arabian film to be directed by a woman. Gasp! Such is the situation there that Haifaa Al-Mansour had to direct from inside a van in the public places they filmed in - although this was also the first film entirely shot in the country, and cinemas were entirely banned until recently. How wonderful, then, that the story is so defiantly, willfully feminist, and so full of cinematic history. The eponymous young girl wants a bike so she can play with her friend (a boy!), but her mother would never think of such a thing, especially as she's focused on trying to stop her husband taking a second wife. Wadjda, then, turns to her school's Qur'an recital competition for the prize money. A deft, engaging and passionate look at Saudi Arabian culture, the spirited lead performance from Waad Mohammed and the quiet rebellion of the filmmaking make for an unforgettable gem.

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The third in my most favourite series of films, Before Midnight is much darker than its predecessors, and the brutal honesty that is traded between Celine and Jesse in the film's second half is a hard thing to take for someone who's looked to these films for the ideal of romance and love. But what's always been so superb about these collaborations between Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke is their commitment to presenting the beauty and the ugliness of these characters, and showing us how they present themselves to one another. This time, after nine years together, the romantic pretensions of their early meetings have worn off, and life together has progressed, off-screen, in the tangle of emotions any relationship comes with. There's the black of the midnight approaching here, but also the moonlight coming up. I hope we get to go back nine years later, but even if we don't, they've left us with a satisfying tease nonetheless.

hardly seen any of these but gotta say i was NOT impressed by 'The Bling Ring' in the slightest. I thought it was quite awfully done!

 

 

(buffy :wub:)

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Anchored by a superb performance from furlong fave Brie Larson, Short Term 12 is set at a foster care centre, where the carers are barely older than the kids, and, as we learn through Larson's Grace, often equally as f***ed up. It's a bit schematic, but the beauty here is in the naturalism of the dialogue and performances, with adults and kids alike bringing warm humour, dark tragedy and everything in between to a story that is compelling with being overly manipulative.

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The main reason this is so high is the scene pictured, in which Rin Takanashi's character sits in a cab and listens to the dozens of voicemails her grandmother has left for her. Director Abbas Kiarostami films this all in one still take, as she stares out at the passing Tokyo skyscrapers, either uninterested or dispossessed. The beauty and the emptiness of the world passes across the screen as the taxi journey unfolds, the aching disconnection between two relations playing out on the soundtrack. It's another film about the difficulty of intimacy in the modern world, but Kiarostami's sharp visual sense brings this theme to greater fruition than any other this year.

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This vibrant, spry film apes 1980-style video footage to tell the story of the ad campaign for the defeat of Pinochet in the 1988 Chilean referendum. The marriage of gaudy advertising to political drama is a fantastic match - both humour and humanity mingle in this story, all with the rush of immediacy through the camerawork and with a great cast led by world cinema giant Gael Garcia Bernal.

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The joy of Greta Gerwig reached its highest point yet this year. It helps that Noah Baumbach is, perhaps, tempered in his usual bitter taste by the freewheeling spirit of Gerwig as co-writer, as they work together on a film that captures the confusion of twenty-something life perfectly. It isn't begging for attention or a solution; instead, Frances is simply trying to find her place in life, trying to cling onto the people that shift towards and away from her, and trying to find the joy and creativity in herself. It's quite possibly a film of its time, but that means that I'll always be able to cherish it, remember where I was at that time and remember how special life can be, even when you don't understand it.

IN EASY LIST FORM

 

TELEVISION

 

00 Buffy the Vampire Slayer

 

01 Enlightened

02 Mad Men

03 Orange is the New Black

04 Masters of Sex

05 Veep

06 Elementary

07 The Returned

08 Girls

09 American Horror Story: Coven

10 Orphan Black

 

CINEMA

 

01 Frances Ha

02 No

03 Like Someone in Love

04 Short Term 12

05 Before Midnight

06 Wadjda

07 To the Wonder

08 Shell

09 The Bling Ring

10 The Epic of Everest (re-)

 

11 All is Lost

12 In the House

13 Byzantium

14 Stoker

15 Our Children

16 Floating Skyscrapers

17 The Conjuring

18 I Wish

19 Spring Breakers

20 Gravity

 

And I'll be back after Christmas with the music. B Y E

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025 Washed Out - Paracosm
024 Glasser - Interiors
023 The Naked & Famous - In Rolling Waves
022 Janelle Monáe - The Electric Lady
021 Tegan and Sara - Heartthrob
020 Small Black - Limits of Desire
019 London Grammar - If You Wait
018 Jagwar Ma - Howlin
017 Arcade Fire - Reflektor
016 HAIM - Days Are Gone
015 Cut Copy - Free Your Mind
014 Selena Gomez - Stars Dance
013 Lorde - Pure Heroine
012 Justin Timberlake - The 20/20 Experience Part 1
011 Burial - Rival Dealer EP

We start the multi-song release countdown (that is, mostly albums and a couple of EPs too good not to give their due; what is the "album" these days anyway) with a bunch of albums that were almost all in my head as top ten contenders. That's how fine this year has been, that the first part of Justin's comeback is only this high, when for about half of the year it was almost my favourite release; I still have unqualified love for most of that album, with the intoxicating rhythms that go on too long but are good enough to justify it; it's groovy and sweet and sexy all at once. That's how fine this year has been, that London Grammar's sumptuous debut is only this high; Hannah Reid's haunted vocals have been a wonderful solace this year, and the album even surprised by having some rhythmic moments of levity among the sorrow. That's how fine this year has been, that 2010 top tenners Janelle and Arcade Fire find themselves outside - with fellow alumna Laura Marling not even featuring this year - as do 2008 favourites Cut Copy, while Washed Out can't measure up to their number six debut in 2011. Selena Gomez makes the albums chart for the first time, ditching 'The Scene' and providing the finest pure pop release of the year, and The Naked & Famous make major strides forward from their debut. Debutantes HAIM, Lorde, Glasser and Jagwar Ma have bright futures ahead. And then there's Burial, whose last-minute, three-song EP just misses out on the top ten, but has only just started digging its way into my heart.

Hello lovely :heart: (*films also added to watchlist)

 

Was supposed to listen to 'Interiors' but kept forgetting. Liking 'The Electric Lady', 'If You Wait', 'Pure Heroine' and 'The 20/20' - definitely expected that a bit higher as you said!

 

Having listened to the Burials EP i see the hype kinda, not "#1 for all the LDN crew charts except mine" hype but definitely feeling it. Will give it more of my time.

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The air raid siren that kicks off Salute sets the perfect scene: this is an album set to attack, a stunning package from a girl group who have reached a welcome zenith long before expected. We're long past the days of the Spice Girls' individuality - what this is more reminiscent of is the arrival proper of the Sugababes, whose lead sophomore 'Freak Like Me' has the same timbre of fierce, brutal sound as does the eponymous opening track here. The album covers the ever-trodden ground of boys and romance - though even those songs are refreshing alive, whether with the kicking swagger of 'Move' or the devastating defeat of 'Good Enough' - but it's when the girls rest on self-empowerment ('Little Me', 'Stand Down') that Salute really feels like a pop album worth surrendering to.

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When the crunching, oscillating beat of 'On Sight' began, I was already bowing to 'Ye on high; I've always been a fan, and after his previous album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy landed the top spot in its year, expectations were always going to be high for its successor. Yeezus is too short, almost, for West's self-made loftiness, but it sizzles with arrogance, power, danger and purpose, often scarring the ears with screeching cries and jarring noises, never being less than compulsive and fascinating in its direct confrontation of complex images of black history, celebrity and power. That makes him a valuable figure in modern society, regardless of your feelings towards him, and thankfully, the quality of his music remains an easy qualifier for his presence to remain.