Young Adult

In two minds about this one. It's no Juno, a film about which I still feel very fondly - but nor do Cody and Reitman set out for anything approaching that territory. Young Adult is a comedy of sorts, but it's just as much - if not more so - interested in character and behaviour, and it's unafraid to put a very unlikeable main character front and centre; it's one of those films that excels at awkward. Frankly, I was only lukewarm on it - there just wasn't anything in it that I really sunk my teeth into. Still, I liked the snap and grit of it, and it had enough moments to keep me going.

Laura Marling - I Speak Because I Can

Suddenly - it was probably a couple of years ago - everyone liked Laura Marling. I knew that she was folk, and assumed that plus her popularity meant that her style would be pretty, gentle, somewhat melancholy - nothing wrong with that, but there's plenty of it going around and not much that stands out. But it turns out that I underestimated everyone, because I Speak Because I Can, at least, is much tougher, and also better, than I'd imagined - hard strummed acoustic guitar and a frequently fraught air, along with just the right hints of backwoods weirdness and general sorrow, and songs that grow on repeated listens. Like.

Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi - Rome

The homage to Morricone is overt - apparently Luppi (a composer) and Danger Mouse (an itinerant genre-hopper and collaborator, evidently) tracked down many of the original instrumentalists and singers from those great spaghetti westerns and got them to record for Rome, but it would have been unmissable in any event. What's striking, though, and a bit surprising, is how successful the project is - the instrumental pieces are widescreen epics in miniature, while the tracks with vocals (three each featuring Jack White and Norah Jones, both good) function as both fragments within the record's overall scheme and self-contained songs in their own right.

"Summer of the Seventeenth Doll" (MTC)

I liked this - I wasn't familiar with the play before, but it felt like the production was playing it straight, with the result that the play itself came through well. Strong cast, good, simple set, a straightforward structure (and, in some though not all respects, plot and characters), but well put together, both on page and in performance. The development was clear; the themes resonant.

(w/ C, Sunny, a couple of Sunny's pals (DK/GR), and Steph C only for the first act)

Chairlift - Does You Inspire You

I picked this up cheap a while back, after hearing "Evident Utensil" on a mix cd, and have finally got around to listening to it over the last few days after noticing that Chairlift are playing at laneway festival this year. Most of the rest of the album isn't as loopy and chipper as "Evident Utensil" (although other highlight "Bruises" is) - most of the songs have a bit of a spacey feel, other components in the mix being some droney elements, dashes of slightly 60ish pop, a bit of 90s-type post-shoegaze indie (eg mid-period Lush, Feline, early Drugstore) - and overall it's a bit uneven, though it has its moments.

Arrietty

Nice - not a great Ghibli, but a good one. Doesn't aim for the epic, overflowing sense that suffuses the studio's more imaginatively widescreen offerings, instead sticking to the small (ha ha) details and wonders of the life of the central borrowers and the interactions between the titular character and the small, ill boy who discovers the hidden life of Arrietty and her family.

(w/ C)

Granta 117: "Horror"

The most striking thing about this issue is how few of its pieces are anything close to what one normally thinks of as horror; only a couple (Stephen King's "The Dune" and Sarah Hall's "She Murdered Mortal He") really fit the bill and, at a stretch, perhaps Rajesh Parameswaran's "The Infamous Bengal Ming", told with touches of whimsy, pathos, and subtle commentary on the nature of horror, from the point of view of an escaped human-killing tiger, plus a metafictional (meta-thematic) Bolano story about a zombie movie. That's to be expected, I suppose, from a high brow literary-plus journal perhaps engaging in a bit of self-conscious boundary-crossing in devoting an issue to a form that's often thought of as populist - and so we get a selection of fiction and reportage ranging across personal, domestic, international (war zone) and historical 'horrors' (albeit with a couple of interesting recurring sub-themes, most notably that of addiction), but little in the way of the supernatural, including from luminaries such as DeLillo and Auster - but the overall effect is of an edition whose title is almost a category error, or a concept stretched so far as to lose much of its definitional meaning/capacity, rather than of a genuine reappraisal or reshaping of the notion of 'horror'. It may be no coincidence that the most memorable of its pieces are those first, more recognisably horror-ish, three that I mentioned.

"The same feelings at opposite times": Feist - Metals

If there's such a thing as blue-eyed soul, maybe Metals is brunette soul...or something like that. I've liked both of Feist's previous lps, but neither really inspired me to repeat listenings; Metals is a step forward, a really strong and nicely balanced collection of likeable, interesting songs, and a more expansive effort than those previous records. Favourites: "The Bad in Each Other", "Graveyard", "Bittersweet Melodies" (the melody of which reminds me of Big Star's "Kangaroo"), "Anti-Pioneer".

Nick Hornby - High Fidelity

I saw the film before I read the book, both years ago, when the music/outsider stuff resonated a lot more. This was a re-read in the gaps between other things; it's an easy read.

Drive

A taut actioner with some neo-noir elements - and a good one, engaging and exciting throughout. I liked the 80s stylings, particularly the way the synth-heavy soundtrack was used to create (melo)drama. Gosling is convincingly taciturn; the violence, when it comes, has a real impact.

(w/ C)

Diva

Saw this one on a high school French excursion; I think that we saw Le bonheur est dans le pre on the same day (I remember classmates cheering when the main character got some on a sofa near the end - funny the things that stick in the mind), though maybe that's memory playing tricks. Anyway, it made an impression then, and rewatching it now, I can see why - this is a very cool movie, stylish, suffused in colour (mostly blue) and shadow, shot through with romantic impulses, littered with memorable images and shots, taking in opera, gangsters, warehouse apartments and a cute girl on roller skates.

30 Rock season 5

Keeps up the quality; Kenneth continues to stand out, and the relationship between Liz and Jack continues to develop, particularly in the extent to which they're willing to acknowledge it; of an impressive and enjoyable roster of guest stars and cameos, the stand outs are Robert de Niro's hilarious appearance reading out a list of ridiculous hypothetical future disasters and the all too brief reappearance of Will Arnett's Devon Banks near the end.

(1 & 2, 3, 4)

Fantastic Mr Fox

New year's day rewatch - still good.

(last time)