2011: Retrospective

Now that we have taken in a few breaths of 2012, It is only appropriate that we look back on 2011. I have compiled a list of albums that held my attention for the better part of last year. In no particular order…

  Bon Iver-Bon Iver

Justin Vernon and crew heavily depart from the raw acoustic singer/songwriter vibe of 2008′s For Emma, Forever Ago. The Wisconsin collective colorfully coats each track with horns, organs and synthesizers without losing the intimacy of the first record. Each track is about a specific place Vernon has said. Lyrically this album can be a bit baffling but per the Bon Iver usual, lyrical meaning plays second fiddle to the emotional effect evoked by each word.

Bon Iver – Holocene

  WU LYF-Go Tell Fire to the Mountain

Anonymity, for the most part, has no place in the 21st century. Manchester’s Wu LYF do not subscribe to this notion. Go Tell Fire to the Mountain is proof that music does not have to be exploited through countless media outlets to be successful. The music just has to be good, and Go Tell Fire to the Mountain is just that. Good. The album parrallells the bands anonymity with emotion filled lyrics that are barely understandable. Ellery Roberts’ indie scrawl is the perfect compliment to the pounding percussion and riff heavy guitar instrumental. Protest music without a cause.

WU LYF – Heavy Pop

  Drake-Take Care

“I think I killed everybody in the game last year/ Man F*** it/I was on though” is the first bar utterred from the Toronto born MC’s mouth on his 2011 full length. It looks as if he has killed everybody this year as well. This Young Money embassador assembled this transcendent hip hop album by collaborating with the years brightest beat makers, MC’s and vocalists. Make no mistake, this is a Hip Hop record, but the brilliance of this record is its unique blend of R & B and ambient music to produce a genre defining sound that has the Hip Hop universe seething.

Drake – Over My Dead Body

  Girls-Father, Son, Holy Ghost

This year brought many throwback sounds. The 90′s alternative sound has seemed to cycle back around in independant music. What is so great about Father, Son, Holy Ghost is that while possessing a very throwback sound, the era is not clear. This record could literally have come out in the 60′s, 70′s, 80′s or now. This record is timeless in a sense that the sound is not period specific. Christopher Owens opens up even more lyrically on this record with songs to his mom “Honey Bunny” and “My Ma.” Musically the sound is more polished than the San Francisco Psych rockers’ previous releases. Owens incorporates backing vocals to help flesh out some of the tracks. All in all, this record is what we have come to expect from Girls. Fresh, innovative, exciting music.

Girls – Magic

  M83-Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming

Double albums are always a gamble. Many times a double album can come off fluffy, just like a film that runs too long. Given the electronic shoegazey disposition of M83, a double album did not entice me much until the Zola Jesus aided single “Intro” hit the web. Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming is galaxy big. Epic. Each track explodes with heavy electronic melody. Anthony Gonzales’ soft vocal offers a pleasing juxtaposition to the enormous arena filling instrumentals. This is electro-gazes Dark Side of the Moon.

M83 – Steve McQueen

  Destroyer-Kaputt

Muzak with a pulse. This record from the Canadian group seems a bit shallow upon the first listen because of its ambient nature. Bejar’s lyrics add depth and character to each synth heavy track creating a sound that would feel just as comfortable in a Members Only Jacket as it would in a pair of Skinny Jeans.

Destroyer – Savage Night At The Opera

  Fleet Foxes-Helplessness Blues

2008 was the year that Robin Pecknold and the Fleets released thier self titled debut that shook the independant music world. Soon after that release we began to see a shift in independant music towards a more folk rock driven sound. This of coarse set the tone for bands like Grizzly Bear and The Morning Benders. Helplessness Blues does not venture very far musically from thier debut but lyrically this album is its polar opposite. The Fleet Foxes replace the discriptive lyrics of the first album with a much more introspective approach to songwriting which gives this record an added sense of sentimentality that the first record slightly missed.

Fleet Foxes – Grown Ocean

Radiohead-The King of Limbs

It is no secret that Thom Yorke is an electronic music fan. His 2006 solo debut, The Erasure, was cloaked in electricity and Radioheads’s 2008 release, In Rainbows, continued in the same manner. The King of Limbs departs further from the traditional Radiohead sound and ventures into full fledged electro territory. TKOL abandons the traditional drum and guitar for synthesized percussion and melodic keyboards. Yorke’s falsetto vocals are plastered atop heavy percussive instrumentals giving Radiohead’s faithful a taste of of the old along with a heavy helping of the new.

Radiohead – codex

  Shabazz Palaces-Black Up

The last couple of years have seen a resurgence in Hip Hop. I equate it to the early 90′s when the Hip Hop industry was just beginning to make a major name for itself. The early 90′s gave birth to mainstream gangsta rap. The mid to late 90′s really defined the geographical differences in Hip Hop with a definite East Coast and West Coast sound. Ishmael Butler aka “Palaceer Lazaro” formerly of jazz hip hop fusion group Digable Planets, created a new geographical Hip Hop sound. Outer Space. Black Up is the future for independent Hip Hop. Each beat floats over heavy melody giving Black Up a certain atmospheric quality that can only be described as stellar.

Shabazz Palaces – Are you… Can you… Were you_ (Felt)

  Danny Brown-XXX

XXX was 2011′s best mix tape. Detroit MC, Danny Brown, tears through each track with a fierce shrill flow that is boastful and self deprecating all at the same time. XXX is brutally honest. XXX does not apologize and is not afraid to admit its love of mind altering substances. But beneath all of that, this mix is forward moving. Brown uses obscure samples and utilizes some of the industries hottest beat purveyors to flesh out his dirty rhymes. I would expect nothing less from the Motor City.

Danny Brown – XXX

Jayp

Young Adult

Charlize Theron has developed into one of those actresses that morphs into each one of her characters so convincingly that you quickly lose sight of the beautiful “Charlize” within mere minutes of the story unfolding. Ever since she caught my eye in 1997′s The Devils Advocate Theron has been becoming one of the best actresses working. Her Oscar-Winning turn as the mentally and physically damaged killer in Monster showed audiences that she could not only play anyone, but embody the characters mind, spirit, soul, and physical presence. She approaches her roles with such fearless bravado that even if the film falls short as a whole that her exploration and transformation of the character, most times, is worth the price of admission. So is the case with her latest film Young Adult. The film doesn’t fall short by any means, but the story would’ve seemed so much less without her.

Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) is the popular mean girl from high school who went on to mild celebrity as a successful ghost writer for a young adult fiction book series. Think Harry Potter meets Sweet Valley High. When she discovers her ex-boyfriend Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson) has married and recently had a child, she feels the sudden urge to make the trek back home to Minnesota Suburbia to pay Buddy a visit to win him back. Somehow this will validate her empty hollow life. Mavis spends most of her time in her drab Minneapolis apartment downing jugs of Diet Coke, on-line shopping, and pulling out pieces of her hair. When she arrives back to her childhood home she befriends a former outcast from school named Matt Freehauf (Patton Oswalt). For some reason Freehauf cares for Mavis and continuously reaches out to her; trying to get her to realize that Buddy is a happily married man and that she should stay away. Freehauf is just about the only one. Mavis is not likable. She’s ugly on the inside and her self-centered universe isn’t necessarily one that you care to be in for too long… but that’s the uncanny thing about this film where nothing much happens. It’s a formula breaker in the fact that the lead character doesn’t ever get better from the first act to the last. I never started to have compassion for Mavis, but yet I never wanted to stop watching. A lot of it has to do with a sharply written screenplay by Diablo Cody, but most of all Charlize Theron and Patton Oswalt’s fearless performances are what to watch for here. Young Adult won’t be for everybody, but if you tend to like cynical, dry humor this is right up your alley.

Jason Reitman proves again that he knows how to bring quirky comedy to the screen with a certain style and ease. From Juno to Up in the Air, to now the oddly anti-climatic Young Adult, Reitman continues to surround himself with amazing writing and acting talent that always comes out as a nice piece of humor with a lot of real-life bite.

-JB

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Put the little kiddos to bed because The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is not your normal holiday fare. No visions of sugar plums here, just mystery, sex, murder, and all of it shrouded in secrecy and darkness. If you like whodunnits with twists and turns you should enjoy this masterful combination of story, actors, and film makers.

Journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) is hired by millionaire Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) to come stay on his island and discover who murdered his niece Harriet over 40 years ago. Blomkvist, fresh off a libel conviction and losing out in the court of public opinion decides to take on the seemingly dead-end case. He could use the break and use the money too. The island is inhabited by Henrik’s seedy family and all the suspects are within earshot of the meddling journalist and Blomkvist quickly uncovers that there is more to the case than he originally was told. All the while we see the story of the title character unfold. Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) is a mentally unstable goth girl who’s had a rough life, but can always get the job done by hacking into any computer system. She’s a research assistant that just happens to get recommended to Blomkvist to help out with the Harriet Case. Before she takes on the case, we see her defend herself against a mugger, fight back against her sadistic case worker, and even though she normally keeps to herself, when she speaks Lisbeth doesn’t mince words. Let’s just say she won’t be up for any Ms. Congeniality awards anytime soon. As the puzzle starts to piece itself together and danger feels closer and closer the actors dig in and we are reminded of each of the leads’ dark paths that led them both here as they try to uncover the Vangers’ dirty laundry. Robin Wright, Stellen Skarsgard, and Yorick Van Wageningen provide great supporting turns, but the pulse of Dragon Tattoo is Craig and Mara’s pitch-perfect performances. Craig, may at times look like a dapper James Bond, but is careful to never make Blomkvist anything but the reluctant hero. Mara’s physical transformation into Lisbeth is astonishing and it may indeed make her a star. She embodies Salander’s tortured soul, ready to roar back against evil at any moment. The film shows sexual violence in such a graphic nature that it may not be for some, but stick around because those scenes depict those gritty occurrences just as they are to set up a nice payoff half way through the film. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is an intelligent thriller for grown-ups and if you enjoy it you should definitely give the Swedish version a Netflix que, it’s close to if not better than this one.

The movie is based on the international best-selling books that have already spawned a series of exceptional Swedish films. David Fincher was the perfect film maker to take on the American re-make. He not only had the confident hand to paint this mystery, but his knack for using broad strokes of black bring dark stories to the screen is a natural fit here. Fincher is at the top of his game with The Social Network followed by this. Salander and Blomkvist are anti-heroes that Poplular American Cinema will hopefully welcome in with open arms. I can’t wait to see the next two American versions…hopefully with Fincher in the driver’s seat taking us into the mouth of madness.

-JB

Mission:Impossible – Ghost Protocol

The main thing I see with big action films today is that they are so focused on giving the audience what they supposedly “want” over and over and over, that they lose sight of moving the story along in new and exciting ways that keep you wrapped in for the duration. Mission:Impossible – Ghost Protocol is a surprise rarity in a genre that generally stays bloated and bland these days. It’s a movie that not only has action that hums along brilliantly from set piece to set piece, but also locks you in for two hours never letting you get sidetracked from the fact you are being entertained.

Tom Cruise is back as IMF agent Ethan Hunt. After a small team of agents bust him free from a Russian Prison, Ethan Hunt, seemingly much more calm, cool, and collected from the hot-headed agent from the first 3 films, learns that his next mission is to infiltrate the Kremlin. Easy enough for Ethan, right? He gets a helping hand from computer expert Benji (Simon Pegg), IMF Analyst (Jeremy Renner), and the leggy secret agent Jane (Paula Patton) as they chase the evil Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist) through Moscow, Dubai, then to Mumbai to try and stop him from sending the world into nuclear war. The scene that sticks out the most and will probably be what this film is ultimately remembered for years from now is the sequence in Dubai that involves Hunt dangling from The Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. Cruise supposedly performed all of his own stunts making Jackie Chan look like small potatoes. The scene, shot, blocked, and edited to an adrenaline laden perfection, is one of the most intricate and exhilarating action sequences in recent memory. That’s not the only thing to look forward to with MI4 though. Several other elaborate scenes that pit the IMF crew against the odds trying to stop international espionage chaos are worthy of a second and third watch. You can tell that the entire cast take their roles seriously and their solid performances coupled with all the big blow ups and energy catapult MI4 to one of the best films of the year. This is an action film’s action film; the genuine article.

Brad Bird (The Incredibles, Ratatouille) was a bold choice to direct this film. But why not? Just like his beautifully crafted animated films, MI4 gives the audience a reason to be in their seat; to get blown away with 100% unadulterated fun. Bird captures the spirit of Brian DePalma’s first Mission film and launches with lighting speed just where J.J. Abrams left off with the solid third installment, adding his own concisely planned out style along the way. Brad Bird and Tom Cruise were a match made in secret-agent heaven. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol ends up being the most exciting, entertaining, and well-made film of the series. Get to your local IMAX, buy your popcorn, and buckle up. I highly recommend this film.

-JB

Hugo

Scorsese makes a children’s movie? Yes. It stars Gandhi, Borat, and Hit Girl? Yes. It was shot in 3-D, one of the most hollow, gimmicky mediums in film? Yes. Okay well you had my price of admission at Scorsese, but how would the legendary film maker fare trading the mean streets of New York in for a magical tale on the street s of Paris? The short answer is that the audience continues to be in good hands with Scorsese at the helm no matter what the subject matter.

Hugo (Asa Butterfield) is an orphan living inside the clock of a Paris train station. He gets caught stealing by George Melies (Ben Kingsley), the grumpy old owner of a toy shop. He is forced to work at the Toy Shop for his penance and that is where he meets a curious young girl named Isabelle (Chloe Moretz). Hugo and Isabelle form a friendship that gets them into quite a bit of mischief, including sneaking into the movies to watch an old Harold Lloyd silent film and running from the station inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen). It is the station inspector’s goal in life to put every kid on the street in the orphanage and the scenes where he gives chase to Hugo through crowds and secret corridors make for some of the most visually stunning and light-hearted moments of the film. There are a handful of pacing lulls where I felt like more of Sacha Baron Cohen’s comic relief would’ve fit in nicely. When its discovered that the Automaton that he and his late father (Jude Law) had been working on could be the key to unlocking a great secret, Hugo pieces together Melies’ mysterious past as one of the first great film makers. That was the aha moment for me, Scorsese makes a glorious film to tell the story of the creation, history, and preservation of film. For cinephiles and film historians Hugo will appeal to the eyes and hearts. Melies’ story of the rise and fall of a film maker told through a brilliantly gorgeous montage proves to be the climax of not only the third act, but the entire film. Will it work for a generation of kids who are used to dumbed down, force fed movies? That remains to be seen, but I don’t think it would hurt kids to have to play with a wind-up toy versus a video game every once in a while.

Martin Scorsese shot Hugo in 3D and it is one of the best looking films I’ve seen in a while. The opening tracking shot of Paris and the train station rivals Scorsese’s best; coming in the back door of the Copa in Goodfellas. It’s good to see that Hollywood did something right for a change. If you are going to spend millions of dollars on a big picture with lots of huge sets and 3-D, put it in the hands of an artist who will use those resources and technology to further the story, like Mr. Scorsese does so eloquently and with such exuberant and passionate energy with his films.

-JB