This is knotty, relatively diverse 21st century prog. Like much 21st century prog it’s filtered through at least some musical innovations that occurred after the first wave of prog rock, though that depends on the song. “Soothsayer,” for example, feels more traditional to me, a little more like the neo prog of the ’90s.
Tag: 2012
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012, Peter Jackson)
This nearly 3 hour film is the first part of a preposterous adaptation of a 310-page novel. I have no idea why anyone thought a novel this short needed to be adapted into three films, none of which are less than 2 hours and twenty minutes in length. It’s one thing to make an epic-length …
The Up Documentaries (1964, 1970, 1977, 1984, 1991, 1998, 2005, 2012, 2019)
When I first was trying to figure out how I would sum this up, I said “probably the most ambitious documentary project ever.” I should have said “in English” as this idea was actually not invented by this series. Rather, the Germans beat the British to it by a few years. Due to typical Anglo …
Parks and Recreation (2009)
This is a good-hearted but often hysterical situation comedy that it took me entirely too long to watch. I’m not sure exactly why but I guess I was at least slightly aware that it was a little bit wholesome and I’m pretty sure I wasn’t into wholesome in, like, 2011. Anyway…
Magic Mike (2012, Steven Soderbergh)
This is an entertaining and engaging comedy drama about male strippers during the financial crisis. It’s sort of an oblique comment on the consequences of the financial crisis and it’s fascinating that Channing Tatum wanting to star in a movie about his life as a stripper before he got famous turned into this film.
Coast Modern (2012, Mike Bernard, Gavin Froome)
This is a pretty but quite brief documentary about modernist domestic architecture on the West Coast of North America. If you like The World’s Most Extraordinary Homes or similar shows, you may like this. This is a lot more philosophical, as you might expect, but there are similar amounts of house porn.
How To Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So kids Will Talk (1980, 2012)
Full disclosure: I have no children, I am not a teacher and I spent virtually no time around children. So I am not the book’s audience. Why did I read it? Because my father recommended it me for as a good tool for communicating better.
Chronicle (2012, Josh Trank)
This is a pretty great idea, though hardly a new one, which is marred a great deal by the found footage conceit, which feels stupid and completely of its time. One wonders if they could only get the film made because of how trendy found footage was in the aughts. SPOILERS
Riley’s Best Films of the 2010s
I am an avid movie watcher. I have seen something like 5,000 movies in my life as well as countless hours of movie-quality TV. But my pace has slowed somewhat in the last decade, as life has gotten in the way. Moreover, because I see so few movies in theatres outside of my annual TIFF …
Toast of London (2012)
This is a very, very stupid show about an arrogant and not very good actor and his foibles trying to stay employed in London. But it knows it’s really dumb, and it leans into it fully; it can be very, very funny.
China Heavyweight (2012, Yung Chang)
Basically the Chinese boxing equivalent of Hoop Dreams, this film follows two boxing coaches and two boxers over a couple of years or so as they attempt to use boxing to get out of rural life in China and as one coach decides to come out of retirement.
Can’t Stand Losing You: Surviving the Police (2012, Andy Grieve, Lauren Lazin)
This is a fascinating and compelling documentary about guitarist Andy Summers’ life, focusing mostly on his time in The Police.
Call Me Kuchu (2012, Katherine Fairfax Wright, Malika Zouhali-Worrall)
This is an absolutely devastating documentary about the situation for LGBTQ people in Uganda and the fight to make homosexuality legal again (as it wasn’t illegal until 1984 for me and 2000 for women). SPOILERS (though that’s obviously a relatively silly thing to say for a documentary about something you can just google)
Byzantium (2012, Neil Jordan)
This is a fascinating revisionist vampire film that takes a different approach to an over-done genre in more than one way. It’s not a great movie, necessarily, but it’s a neat twist on a tired genre and it’s worth watching if you are interested in vampire films that don’t follow the tired old movie formulas …
The Bob’s Burgers Music Album (2017)
Much like The Simpsons (at least back when I watched it) music plays a very significant role in Bob’s Burgers. In fact, it plays an even more significant role, given the singing propensities of multiple characters in the Belcher family. This album collects the featured songs from the show, as well as a few covers …
Brooklyn Castle (2012, Katie Dellamaggiore)
Brooklyn Castle is a film about a year in the of a particularly successful junior high school chess team. The film follows a few of these students of different ages as they compete in chess tournaments. At first glance, it feels like one of the innumerable “kids competing” documentaries that spread up in the wake …
AJA (2012) by The Darcys
All art and all pop culture has sacred cows, things that many (or even most) people think should be left alone because they were “perfect” (usually because they have a particular emotional pull to these people, not because they’re “perfect”).
Brave (2012, Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman, Steve Purcell)
I’m glad movies like this exist. I can’t imagine how hard it was to be a girl in the past (or present) who had a mother (or a mother and a father) who believed that she should grow up to be a Lady. I think men had their struggles with male archetypes too, but it …
The Broken Circle Breakdown (2012, Felix van Groeningen)
This is a well-meaning, and well-acted film ostensibly about the breakdown of a relationship but equally about the clash of science and faith in the 21st century. It is, in my opinion, too ambitious, as well as too arty, for its own good. There’s plenty of good stuff, but the whole is less than the …
Turning Pro (2012) by Steven Pressfield
At this point, Pressfield has made a second writing career out of inspiring others to write. This is the third book of his I’ve read, and they get less effective each time I read a new one.
Mad Men (2007)
I watched Mad Men over an even longer period than most of you, so my memory of the individual episodes is not perfect. I know there were some weaker ones in there, and there even parts of seasons – perhaps even whole seasons – that I didn’t enjoy on the level of the best parts …
Humperdinck: Königskinder (2012) by Frankfurter Opern- und Museumsorchester, Chor der Oper Frankfurt, conducted by Sebastian Weigle et al
My initial impressions of Humperdinck were not great, even though I started with his most famous work. This one though, the opera version of a “melodrama” he wrote in 1897 – because the author of the original story wouldn’t consent to an opera – is really great. All the attempts at “big tunes” with the …
Danger 5 (2012, 2015)
I can find no news of a third season of Danger 5 so I will review it here. If another season comes along then by all means I will watch it.
Hindemith: Kammermusik (2012) by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Claudio Abbado, et al.
This set collects Hindemith’s Kammermusik compositions – two are actual chamber music pieces, seven are concertos – and for reasons I may not ever understand, pairs them with a violin sonata and an incomplete work.
The Company You Keep (2012, Robert Redford)
So, the first thing that’s off with this is the ages: Redford is significantly too old to play his character – he would have been in his thirties when he is supposed to have committed these terrorist acts – and most of the other (admittedly fine actor) friends of Robert Redford are also slightly too …
Niagara Falling: Tales for the Stage III (2012) by Carla Kihlstedt, Matthias Bossi
This is an EP rounding out Kihlstedt’s and Bossi’s “stage” music. It’s sparse and different from their usual stuff, but there’s not a lot here (and some of the running time is taken up by the creators of the performance piece) and it really isn’t essential. Only of interest to Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and Kihlstedt …
The Place Beyond the Pines (2012, Derek Cianfrance)
This is the kind of idea that really used to intrigue me when I was younger. It’s the kind of thing that might have blown me away in my mid twenties. SPOILER ALERT
Boardwalk Empire (2010)
SPOILERS!!!
Simplicius Simplicissimus (2012) by Karl Amadeus Hartmann, performed by Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Netherlands Radio Choir, Juliane Banse, Petermarsch, Will Hartmann conducted by Markus Stenz
From the very opening bars it’s clear that this is no ordinary opera. And though that’s true of the most path-breaking and challenging operas of the early 20th century – I am thinking chiefly of Berg’s work – this one is perhaps more shocking given the (seemingly) more traditional stance of the composer.
End of Watch (2012, David Ayer)
This is a found footage film mixed with a cop drama that is regularly ready to abandon its found-footage conceit – a good thing and a bad thing in these types of movies – and which appears to treat serving in the LA PD as serving in the military. (Gyllenhaal appears to be playing a …