Category: Music

Once again, time for my round up of last year. In December, I had been thinking that I hadn’t seen many new films but now looking back at 2023’s list – I didn’t see that many new films then either in comparison to the years before (lol and I even mentioned that in my 2023 round up). Maybe films that I might have been interested in that were due to be released in 2023 and 2024 were affected by Covid and got delayed or cancelled. I guess we’ll see what 2025 shapes up like over the next year.

Films

As usual, in reverse order of how much I liked them:

• Return of the King: The Fall and Rise of Elvis Presley – I basically watched this because I was starting to thinking I wouldn’t hit 10 new films for the year. It was fine.
• Apollo 13: Survival – I’ve seen the film with Tom Hanks and read the book by Jim Lovell that that film was based on, so I don’t think I really learned anything new seeing this.
• Gladiator II – Went to see this because my Mum wanted to see it even though she didn’t remember going to see the first Gladiator film, which she would have actually have taken me to see in the cinema. It was also fine, but ehh maybe I am too familiar with the real people some of the characters are named after for it to really work for me.
• Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band – I don’t think I discovered anything new about Bruce himself from this film but it was good to hear more from the band members and what the process of touring is like for them.
• A Real Pain – I don’t often enjoy films where I just don’t think I would want to spend time with any of the characters in real life but this was good. There’s stuff that’s occurred to me now about the marketing of this film in the context of some of the stuff that I do for my job but lol, not getting into that on the internet.
• The Extraordinary Miss Flower – This was a good choice for my last film of LFF as it’s music video kind of a film and by that point of the festival, I need something different.
• Endurance – I enjoyed this because I do love a documentary but really this would have been better as a 3 episode mini series.
• Seeking Mavis Beacon – This was more about the journey and what happens when the destination is something that you’re explicitly never going to reach and where you can go from there, along with some interesting thoughts on identity, representation and yeah, why are all the helpful voices in our devices female?
• Pauline Black: A 2-Tone Story – In contrast to Seeking Mavis Beacon where the protagonists tell us about looking for someone, in this film Pauline Black tells us how she found herself, in her own words and that it’s in her own words is the most important draw.
• The Cats of Gokogu Shrine – Look. This is an observational film about cats. I’m not even a cat person and yet here it is, third on my list.
• Deadpool & Wolverine – I feel like this is a good film to end the Deadpool films on but I also feel like there will probably be more films with Deadpool as the main character. The Easter Eggs are extremely entertaining to spot, but are a nice extra rather than having to do the heavy lifting.
• Conclave – I was always going to enjoy a film that was “what if Agatha Christie wrote about cardinals being bitchy to each other” because I am fairly Catholic in an easy-going way (which I guess has to be a thing) but it’s not only that. The dishonesty of some of these men about their past actions and the thinking that they cannot be accountable for those choices because of their position is exactly what then disqualifies them from being elected. This, along with the lobbying and scheming for votes, is a big part of a film which at its heart is about honesty, faith and trying to do the right thing even at personal cost. It’s also a 2 hour long film but moves quickly and it felt like no time passed at all as it’s so engaging.

Music

I don’t remember any new albums I listened to last year. I know Dave Hause put out some mostly vinyl only stuff that I did buy and enjoy – but I remember it mostly because it was a record you had to go in person to a gig and buy.
Speaking of which, I did go to 7 gigs in the end.

• Dave Hause (where I picked up a copy of that album)
• The Gaslight Anthem (who I kind of went off of right around when they went on hiatus (possibly even for the reason that I think they went on hiatus))
• Alkaline Trio (who I really haven’t listened to much in recent years, but this gig was really enjoyable)
• Ásgeir
• Bedouin Soundclash (still thinking about how their support act doesn’t have any CDs or sell music on Bandcamp)
• Sleep Token (awesome)
• Electric Six (who I only really knew those three songs they put out 20 years ago and it turns out they have like 15 albums and a dedicated fanbase since they are very entertaining)

Electric Six was also one of those gigs where the queue for the ladies was non-existent and in an entertaining turn of events it was the other toilets with a queue. Plus the support act, Enjoyable Listens was really good and was kind of like if Gabriel Bruce was English and kind of eccentric.

Other stuff

I suppose if I wrote more about this stuff at the time it was happening I would remember more of it, but I guess I do ok. I went to Valencia because I needed to use a travel voucher and picked it because that’s where Formula E goes to do their testing (although after the huge flooding, 2024 testing had to be moved to Madrid). I saw the penultimate FE race of the season in London. I went to Margate so I could visit the Crab Museum and ended up also visiting other cool places like the Shell Grotto and Walmer Castle. Went on a short cruise visiting France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Went to Norfolk and stopped off at the Oliver Cromwell museum on the way. In sad news, that Uncle who kept swerving meeting up with us each time in the last 14 years that we’ve got on a plane to travel to the other side of the planet where he lives, did in fact die so I guess I was right that we’d never see him again. It is what it is. In happier news, one of my cousin’s daughters got married and I’m extremely pleased for her – her young man seems well brought up etc and I’m sure they will have many, many years of love and happiness ahead of them.

More gigs already planned for 2025, along with one small trip so far and another London e-prix.

While February 2023 feels like it was only a few weeks ago and I’m sort of wondering what I could have done all year, I also know that I did do some stuff.

I spent Eurovision week in Norfolk and another couple of weeks in Malaysia. I saw Loveless (twice), Asgeir, Dave Hause, Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox, Hozier, ThxSoMch and Sleep Token play live (and have already bought tickets for a few gigs next year). I went to the penultimate e-prix of the season in London and saw FE cars whizz about making their souped-up milk float noises (affectionate).

I did not really see that many new films – last year there were 25 and this year there are only 13. Partly, I feel like there just wasn’t a lot I felt like seeing at the London Film Festival but also, I did have kind of a general meh feeling about going to my local cinema. Was there even anything I might have seen in another year? I can only think of “The Marvels” and maybe there wasn’t anything else or I just didn’t hear about other films to make me go and see them.

Anyway, those 13 films in reverse order of how much I liked them, as is customary for such things:

• The Monkey King – I get that Monkey is kind of annoying, but I’d thought other interpretations had a kind of loveable scamp quality to him on occasion that this one just didn’t have. It was kind of limp.
• Unknown: Cosmic Time Machine – This was just an hour long documentary about the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, which did its job and told me about that but you can see how The Monkey King had to be poor to be less liked than a film that was merely efficient and functional.
• Behind the Mountains – There’s some weird pacing choices and the main character just kind of gets angry sometimes and doesn’t really seem to talk to anyone about why he does the stuff he does.
• Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny – Kept things going at a reasonable pace but might have benefitted from reusing stuff from previous films a bit less.
• Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre – I saw this on the flight back from Malaysia, so I expect I must have seen an edited version but this is the same airline that edited out the word “Jew” from Sandman but not the word beginning with C meaning vulva. I don’t think any edits would have made too much difference in all honesty since this film delivers everything you’d expect from a Jason Statham film directed by Guy Ritchie.
• The Pigeon Tunnel – John Le Carré does have a very interesting life story, and is an excellent storyteller as you might expect from someone who has written so many popular books. I’m not sure I’m entirely sold on Errol Morris’ interview technique generally, but the contrast between them was entertaining at least.
• One Life – I already knew about the Kindertransport and Sir Nicholas Winton before I saw this film and I’ve seen the relevant clips on youtube a few times – so nothing happens in this film that I did not expect but it was still worth seeing how some man just slogging away at paperwork managed to impact so many lives.
• The Book of Clarence – Since this one is related to Jesus, I took my Mum to see it at LFF and she had a great time, particularly since the director was there to talk about the film. I liked the choice to make it in that 50s/60s biblical epic style.
• Fingernails – This was good, but like I’ve said elsewhere, I never want to see it again. I also feel like not everyone in the screening I saw was expecting a science fiction kind-of-dystopia setting.
• Barbie – I mean…she’s everything.
• John Wick: Chapter 4 – For a lot of the year, this film was at the top of my 2023 list and it’s only because I saw two outstanding films in October that it’s in third place. Like the previous films, this is full of deeply satisfying action, beautifully shot and exists in a universe where you don’t need to question how John Wick gets to the places around the world that he shows up in, he just does.
• COPA 71 – FIFA are literally the worst and these footballers are absolute legends. The amount of archival footage was fantastic, especially since the entire event basically got deleted from football history.
• The Taste of Things – I could live in this film. Ok, not literally in that time period because I do enjoy having a microwave, but just put me at those dinner tables. A film about love, that feels like the smoothest, most velvety chocolate ganache and I would absolutely devour it, if you could make the experience of a film tangible.

Definitely see that last one.

As I noted in November, I didn’t post my 2021 films for some reason and I still don’t remember why but here they are.  Shang-Chi was pretty great.

Did I do anything this year? Did I go anywhere? I feel like I did visit Walsingham but don’t remember anything about it – oh, I remember now. I actually went on holiday to Ipswich and then drove to visit Walsingham on one of the days I was there and that’s why I don’t remember staying in Walsingham.

I also attended one of the London e-prix and had the great idea of staying the night before in a hotel nearby because lol I am not waking up early to get there. That was also about the time I fell on my car and smacked my shin so hard on the doorframe that it got infected and I had the exciting opportunity to “enjoy” two different rounds of antibiotics. It’s still not the right colour, but that’ll get better in time.

I saw Daði Freyr at the Roundhouse, an event that I bought the ticket for over a year in advance thinking “the whole pandemic stuff will be gone by then” and it’s not really but it turns out that I’m one of those people for whom wearing a mask tight against my face for hours isn’t a hardship (even though I wear glasses and now that I’ve got a pair with the arms that curl round my ears rather than being straight, I’m less likely to have them just fall off my face). Sort of related – I’m pondering going to see Måneskin next year but am extremely ambivalent about the O2 Arena AND it’ll be when I have a week off and maybe I will want to go somewhere that week.  We’ll see. Maybe if there are tickets still on sale closer to the time, I’ll decide then.

Anyway, onto the new films I saw in 2022, from least favourite to most favourite as is customary:

• The Middle Ages -I saw two films set during the pandemic lockdown season and this was the worst. It seemed like an interesting idea at the time I put it on my “to watch” list but it just wasn’t fun.
• Our Lady of the Chinese Shop – I am, obviously, a big fan of Catholic-adjacent tat and this film is named for that. Felt like it wasn’t finished.
• Blind Yellow Sunshine – Knowing something about the Rime of the Ancient Mariner improves this, but since I knew nothing while I was watching – at least it was short.
• Roary – it says something that 6 minutes of the MGM lion just… roaring was better than the first 3 films on this list.
• The Estate – Unfunny. Which is a shame because the cast were doing their best.
• Crows Are White – The director/main character’s wife is a literal saint and must super love him to put up with his shenanigans.
• Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power – Interesting documentary, but weird that the director’s films are irreproachable masterpieces and all other female filmmakers’ work is infected by the male gaze.
• Inside the Mind of a Cat – I’m not a cat person, but it was interesting to see all the cat people and was a frothy light hour or so of viewing when that was what I needed.
• Geographies of Solitude – Turns out documentaries about scientists doing research in remote places is a thing I enjoy.  The sporadic bits of film processed on the island with bits of the island added a good contrast of texture.
• The Blue Rose of Forgetfulness – I liked some of the individual works more than others but thinking about them now I don’t know that I can remember any but Alcestis.
• God Said Give ‘Em Drum Machines – I didn’t know anything about the history of techno music so this was educational. I can recognise the nerding out about synthesizers in musicians I know now.
• See How They Run – I think maybe this film was trying to capture that Knives Out vibe but just doesn’t manage it because they were reading from the “how to Wes Anderson” instruction manual.
• Unicorn Wars – Did I see this just because it was teddy bears going to war? Yes.
• My Robot Brother – I feel like I’m getting closer to the top 10 because I’m starting to get to films that was actually “good” rather than just “I watched them.” Has kind of the feel of those educational TV series we used to watch at school like “Through The Dragon’s Eye” if that had been turned into a film solely for entertainment.
• Staging Death – 8 minutes of Udo Kier’s death scenes cut together. The highlight is recognising all the ones you’ve already seen.
• After Sherman – This was another film telling a part of the director’s personal experience and this one has the extreme benefit of not having a deeply frustrating director that sabotages his own life.
• Jill, Uncredited – Anthony Ing manages to weave a story out of a selection of clips of the thousands of Jill Goldston’s appearances as an extra in film and TV which really illustrates just how many productions she was a part of to make that possible (and there were many appearances that just didn’t make the cut on top of these). Jill was at the screening I saw and it was a delight to hear just how much she loved being part of these films and had the best experiences doing them.
• The Wonder – Not sure about the framing device, but this was a good watch.
• Corsage – I discovered that a whole bunch of films was made recently about Empress Elisabeth of Austria and I want to check them out.  It works better if you know a bit more about the real Elisabeth.
• Thor: Love and Thunder – I did think when I saw this film that it would be higher up the list and yes, it is good and enjoyable (even when you’re familiar with the comics so there’s less surprise). I think it’s a combo of “this film could have been better” and “I saw a number of satisfying films this year.”
• Living – This was great. I saw Aimee Lou Wood in Uncle Vanya and she was a delight in that and she’s great here too.
• Into The Ice – This is the other scientists doing research in remote places film I saw and seeing all of the giant holes in the ice was just wild and mindblowing.
• Meet Me in the Bathroom – Documentary about the New York music scene in the early 2000s and yes I was only there for Interpol, whose first album is the only CD I ever wore out, but it was fascinating to hear about the other bands too. Was weirdly like someone did a time-travel to shoot the early 00s footage, but obviously they just recorded video at the time and it’s wild to think that in 10-20 years there could be something like this built out of band’s insta/tiktok videos.
• Hidden Letters – I knew some stuff about Nushu already so hearing from some of the women who have kept this language alive was interesting and touching. “Loved” that moment where some man asked how they could make Nushu, a language that had survived in secret for hundreds and hundreds of years, continue to survive without commercialising it in the cheapest possible way and only saw that as an option.
• Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery – I am so glad that loads of people have now seen this because I have been waiting for months, MONTHS, to hear about people’s enjoyment of this film. This takes the thing I love about Columbo and Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple and Poirot (i.e. helping the little guy obtain justice and sticking it to the man) and just SLAPS IT RIGHT DOWN ON SILLY OLD MILES BRON’S FACE. The thing I took away from seeing this in a cinema was that I was surrounded by people who did not know who Yo-Yo Ma is and that was in my top 3 cameos in the film. Re-watching it now that it’s out on Netflix has only improved it because I can spot the things I didn’t spot on the first viewing AND I have the benefit of seeing things that other people who know stuff have picked up on. Knives Out was my 2nd favourite film of 2019 and it’s deeply satisfying that this one was so enjoyable.