The Red Squirrel

A cryptic, somewhat dreamy, very European (Spanish, actually - part of the La Mirada film festival) tale of love, deceit and illusion. So-so.

(w/ Rob and Jade + Duc)

Dum Dum Girls - "He Gets Me High" ep

One from last year - also good. The highlight is the slashing cover of "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out".

Skyfall

This was very enjoyable - it actually had something of the feel of a Nolan Batman film, shadowy, physical and kinetic, and built around a series of fairly spectacular set pieces. (Incidentally, I think the first Bond film I've ever sat down and watched all the way through.)

(w/ Andreas)

The Master

I must admit, I found The Master rather opaque, much like its two central characters. It's wonderfully made, and there are some truly beautiful shots in it, but all up I wondered if it might just have been a little empty - not really about anything. Having said that, more than the much publicised Scientology element, I think that maybe the true subjects of this film are human relationships and human-ness, in light of which (and in light of the focus on character and identity as performed in those of Paul Thomas Anderson's other films that I've seen), the opacity may well be deliberate. I don't know how much I enjoyed The Master; I even felt a bit bored at times. And yet I'm inclined to watch it again.

30 Rock season 6

The balance of the show seems to have shifted in this latest season. You wouldn't say that 30 Rock is a show that particularly relies on character development, but Liz and Jack in particular have moved a bit - particularly their relationship with each other - over all five seasons, which continues in this sixth (most notably, Liz staying with the same boyfriend, James Marsden's Criss, for a whole season and the way their relationship develops), including a surprisingly touching season opener. Also, several of the regular supporting characters are less prominent (the writers, Cerie - not a great loss; Grizz and Dot-Com - which is a pity; Jonathan has gone altogether - neutral), their screen time taken up by a revolving cast of guest stars, including nearly every single guest or recurring character/actor of any significance from the previous five seasons. Kristen Schaal is a welcome addition; her character is a bit all over the place, but Schaal is delightful. Anyhow, it continues to be an excellent show - still smart, consistently funny, pleasingly meta, and showing the right amount of heart and snark.

"Negotiating this World: Contemporary Australian Art" (NGV Australia)

Some days one is open to art, other days not so much; last Sunday, when I dropped in for this exhibition, turned out unfortunately to be one of the latter. And so, in lieu of synthesis or exegesis, my notes verbatim (these were the pieces that struck me for one reason or another):

* David Rosetzky - "Self-defence (Sarah)" (2005)
- large digital print of a woman, cut out - tree branches
- tv screen - weather atmospherics
- projected on wall

* Tom Nicholson - "Drawing and correspondence 1" (2008-11)
- large charcoal drawing
-- mysterious
-- cave painting?
-- artist's book of emails/archival photos

* Rosemary Laing - "Welcome to Australia" (2004) - large photo - Woomera Immigration Reception and Processing Centre

* Siri Hayes - "Paper bag lovers" (2008) - photo

* Janet Laurence - "Botanical residues"
- colour transparency on transparent synthetic polymer resin
- six overlapping panes
- green, ghostly images of glasshouses

* Bill Henson - "Untitled 2009/10"
- photo of crowd looking at a Rembrandt at the Hermitage
- ghostly, can't tell at first

- another untitled Henson - 09/10 - foggy, island mound surrounded by water

* Mira Gojak - "Sung out of sight" (2008)
- suspended sculpture - wire, steel, copper, wool - automatism - flowing

* John Spiteri - "Hard rain" (2006)
- enamel on glass

Wild Surmise (Malthouse)

This one was quite good - a two-hander adapted from a Dorothy Porter that initially seemed as if it might be overly obvious in thematising/metaphorising its Large Themes through the preoccupations of its two protagonists, astronomy and poetry, but actually steered clear of those shoals and instead developed into a pretty engaging, nicely Melbourne-grounded piece on love, desire and relationships.

(w/ Julian, Jarrod, Farrah, Cass and Trang)

Bored Nothing instore @ Polyester Records

Jon gave me a head's up about this guy and the timing (6pm at Polyester in the city) fit well with how my Friday night was shaping up, so I went and saw most of it with him. Pretty good - reminded me a bit of Girls, although maybe more 90s-ish. Would listen to more.

Norwegian Wood

What I liked about this film: the general mood; the effective way it conjures sadness; the fact that it's an adaptation of a Murakami book; the way that it has a meaningful narrative and character arc for its central character, if not for the others.

What I wasn't so taken with, causing me to be only lukewarm about it as a whole: it's slow...very, very slow (probably unavoidably so given the source material); the occasional jarring editing and music; and, particularly, it doesn't quite pierce in the way that it could have, and maybe nearly did.

The Antlers - Hospice

The Antlers had been highly recommended by a couple of people, but Hospice hasn't done much for me. It has its moments and I like the drama, but overall it just hasn't really struck me.

Sarah Blasko - I Awake

Looking back over what I wrote at the time about each of Sarah Blasko's previous albums, What the Sea Wants..., The Overture & the Underscore and As Day Follows Night, it seems like there's a bit of a pattern - I liked them all in those initial days/weeks of listening, but hadn't yet realised how much the music on each of them would stick with me, haunt me even, over time...her music is the kind that lingers.

And now I Awake, which makes four from four seriously good lps - maybe it's even the best of the four. Delicacy and a clear, strong vision are in perfect balance, and the songwriting is wonderful, confidently ascending to swoons and swirls like those that highlight "New Country" and "Illusory Light" and often bathed in strings and a cinematically dramatic air (say on "An Arrow"); elsewhere, there's a lovely, light touch on songs like the classicist pop of "Fool"...Blasko is something a bit out of the ordinary.

The xx - Coexist

Two things have been a bit surprising about Coexist for me - first, that it's been a bit of a slow burn, taking a fair few listens for me to get into it (surprising because I loved their first one and had high hopes for the follow-up), and second, that what opened up the album to me was playing it loud one day (surprising because the xx's music is so hushed, and would've seemed likely to neither need nor benefit from the volume).

Even now that it has opened up to me, Coexist remains a mistier, more muted record than that astonishing debut, its standout moments quieter, its turns in different directions (say the steel drum-touched, depressed-Knife dance track "Reunion") more subdued. It's good, though, repaying the repeated listens.

Justin Cronin - The Passage & The Twelve

More post-apocalyptic vampires.

(First read of The Passage.)

The Avett Brothers - Emotionalism

I like things to be perfect, enough so that I honestly think it might be a character flaw; that goes for most things, including art, music, albums. Now, Emotionalism, the first Avett Brothers record I've listened to (I saw their name while trying to find out more about their former labelmates the Everybodyfields), is far from perfect - it's over-long and a bit all over the place, and the kind of record that you feel you can see the seams of (deliberately, I suspect). And yet I like it a lot, for a whole lot of reasons but mostly because it's so joyfully full of music and its possibilities, so that the sprawling feel of the record and its very imperfections work to its favour, registering more as the band's ideas and enthusiasm spilling over into any available space rather than as laziness or a lack of discipline or control.

In some ways, all of this is encapsulated in "Pretty Girl from Chile", an almost six minute long country-ish "Bohemian Rhapsody" in three divergent suites: modern banjo-led country ballad; hard-strummed Calexico-styled Mex-americana breaking in at the two and a half minute mark; (answering machine message bridge); electric guitar rock-out finale. Like a lot of other songs on the album, it works both as a genre-defying, stick-in-the-mind-y piece of songcraft, and as something that often literally makes me smile at its wryly humorous musicality and sheer song-ness. (I didn't want to compare them to anyone, but at times they make me think of a far more country Neutral Milk Hotel.)

The Shadow in the North

Pleasant, unremarkable; a thoroughly modern heroine.

(The Ruby in the Smoke)