How Do I Blog?

Let’s hope it doesn’t go quite like that; although who knows what this year has in store for us. After all, 2011 was the year of the Occupy movement (is it a grassroots movement as strong as the hippies of the 60s? No, but bless them, they tried) and the year in which renewed crises gripped our financial markets, with portents of economic doom lurking in every headline and forecast.

And I turned thirty… wait, I didn’t just conflate my ageing with the GFC Mark II, did I? … I guess I did. But as the world calculated the deferred costs from living in perpetual excess, I quietly realised that age too comes with a price. I’m not speaking exclusively here of the obvious concerns like your relative perception of time (both that midnight is now “up late” and there isn’t enough of it anymore), or health (where the hell is it going and where is that gut coming from), or that the big worries in life don’t go away, there’s just an act break for a costume change (focus shifts from debt to nestegg, from infants to children to mini-grown-ups, and so on). No, I’m talking about the idealism of your 20s that can give way to a worryingly permanent ennui. That is, unless the slump is arrested by a cool, level-headedness analysis of your long term goals.

To wit: “We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.”

While I’m taking the quote out of its original context, I don’t think it’s a stretch to repurpose it into a statement of malcontent intent for the Gen Xs & Gen Ys today - both of which it seems I apparently have voluntary subscription to given my late ‘81 birthdate, but I digress. Instead of being “very, very pissed off” and taking it out on “the man” (like the occupy types did), I think this presents an opportunity for people to reassess their goals on their own terms rather than those created by a lifetime satured in media and glorification of excess.

Being rich shouldn’t be the goal, feeling rich should be. It’s nice to have nice things, but it’s nicer to know that you aren’t in need of things. What I mean here is that having a level of income that feeds a realistic and healthy determination of a “desirable lifestyle” should be the main aim. And if it were that easy, I would be able to claim relative success in this regard, but therein lies the inexorable rub of humankind - relativity. One man’s riches are another man’s trash. The contexual appreciation of richness comes from what you have known - so if you’ve grown up priveleged, that’s the baseline from which to improve without any notion of relativity to the rest of the world - and therefore, no matter how hard you try, when you achieve a new level of comfort (for want of a better term), you immediately begin to crave the level above that. Think Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs … on steroids.

All of which is why I think 2012 will be an interesting year. There is a global deleveraging that has to occur which will cause considerable pain for those who have not measured their success relative to their peers (or to use another popularist term, “the 99%”) and as they lose their floating buffer of credit that has afforded them (ironic usage) an unrealistic lifestyle, they will find that their loss of “essentials” (smart phones, touch screen devices for every possible function, internet service providers, pro-sumer electronics, luxury food and alcohol, internatonal travel) is all but one tiny incremental downgrade on a global hierarchy of needs. Those who have nothing will notice little, those who struggle will continue to struggle, those who are lucky should realise as much and think before they complain.

Which is why I think that hitting a pivotal age in this time is a benefit rather than a hindrance, I’ve escaped my 20s with some of my youthful spirit entact - I love to travel, I still dream of achieving things that I’m unlikely to ever achieve, put me in the right situation with the right amount of alcohol and I will dance with abandon and talk foolishly until the wee small hours - however, I’m at an age where I’m forced to be wiser about where I am and where I’m going. This forces a self-perception circle that loops around until you either throw your hands up in despair and give up that you’ll never “get rich”, or you shrug your shoulders and say “shit, I feel rich”.

It’s time to realise that not every idea might result in an action, but it’s time to make those remaining actions count … while we have the time, that is.
Shit, I lost it. Nearly had it, but it’s gone. Oh well, nevermind.

Raging Bull

It’s tougher than you might think coming at these critically-renowned and much adored movies for the first time as so often now we - the cynical, seen-it-all, late-alphabet-letter generations - are prepped to react to praise and, for want of a better word, “hype” with an exaggerated gut-reaction. Watching the slow-motion, shadow-boxing introduction backed to classical music, my cynical side began to wonder if all the classics required was an air of pretension. It’s a beautiful sequence, but on its own you could call it ponderous.

However this scene quickly gave way to the shocking sight of a fat and portentous De Niro talking to himself (not so shocking if you know your movie trivia, but I wasn’t expecting to see that straight off the bat) and just like that the introduction served its purpose - the direct contradiction presented in the two scenes; the graceful, balletic La Motta in his prime and the obese, buffoonish La Motta in his disappointing twilight sketches the outline of a man that will be filled in throughout the next two hours. It’s also nice to say that the use of the black and white is both visually appealing and appropriate given the characters’ many shades of grey.

La Motta in that scene is rehearsing an act and an act of comedy at that - though not as comic as the caricature that he had become by this stage, though we, the audience, don’t yet know that. An unrepentantly self-destructive and, beneath it all, incredibly vain man, La Motta makes for an appealing showcase character and that touches on what I want to talk about. Some classics are given that status due to the expansive themes they touch on or the epic productions that tell stories spanning decades of civilisation or re-enact the great (and grotesque) moments of human history. They almost always have the ability to make a deep emotional impact while telling a story be it sweeping or small in scale, and there are moments of artistry so profound that they change your view of how cinema and all its elements operate.

In Raging Bull, while the direction and cinematography are indeed superb, the script honed in on the story it wants to tell with minimal fuss or divergence, the art direction and sound marry together to provide the perfect stage for this story to play… in the end it boils down to one central performance. When I think of movies that are defined by a performance, Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood comes to mind (a modern classic, for sure), Brando in On The Waterfront, Pacino in The Godfather, Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, or even as recently as Natalie Portman in Black Swan (not in the same league but the performance is genuinely brilliant). There aren’t many movies that fit into this category, but when you do start to think of them De Niro’s name pops up with surprising regularity: Taxi Driver, The Deer Hunter, and arguably The Godfather Part II.

Robert De Niro as Jake La Motta absolutely enlivens the screen with every moment, every gesture, every line, and is truly what Raging Bull is all about. As a man who lives by his impulses, often violent, the performance by the actor and the character/personality become one in a frighting verisimilitude. There is a tension to scenes where anything can happen when La Motta is in the room, and often it does but not always as you expect. There is no grand sweep to this story, there is no epic scale to this man’s life, he was just a petty man driven by urges and impulses who battered his way through life and hurt those around him. In this it’s very much the “downfall of a man” mould that is revisited in many films, but hardly with such veracity and intensity. I have little beyond this to say about the movie, it’s a visual tour de force - Scorcese commends his direction by pairing with an excellent cinematographer that give the boxing matches their own unique visual language, but he also knows that the virtuosity can’t be relentless and when to tone back on the kinetic. Scorcese allows the smaller scenes play out simply and the claustrophobic scale of the domestic sets give rise to an visual obvious metaphor for a caged wild animal, where the audience is often on the edge of their seat wondering which direction La Motta will charge in next.

Watching a movie like this and reflecting upon the storied career De Niro held until the 90s, it’s sad to see how far he has fallen in the past 20 years - Pacino is just as guilty of this transgression though he never stooped as far as De Niro for a paycheque - and in many ways this is a sad case of life imitating art. De Niro mugging at the camera in Little Fockers is almost as damning an indictment of how far a person can fall as La Motta reciting his ad-libbed Shakespeare and shadow-boxing in the dingy dressing room of a comedy club.

Been a year where I’ve really dipped back into soundtracks more than anything else, been some really good stuff on that front this year, but also some good indie rock (my usual flavour).

Top Picks

The National: High Violet
The first National album that’s truly resonated with me, ironic that it coincides with Interpol taking a step backward musically as the two are often compared for their moody reflective rock stylings. The lyrical journeys this album takes you on are unlike anything I’ve ever listened to, to hear the struggle of celebrity played off against the normalcy of middle aged ennui described as zombification is really something I have to take my hat off to (that’s my interpretation anyway).
Top Tracks: Conversation 16, Anyone’s Ghost, Afraid of Everyone, Lemonworld

Daft Punk: Tron Legacy OST
A fusion of string orchestral sensibility and serious electro creates a unique hybrid soundscape that I’m interested to see mesh against the interesting visuals of an otherwise terrible looking movie. Pity it’s not silent. Nice to see the Daft Punk boys confidently trying a new style of music, some people seemed miffed this wasn’t full-on electro but I think the helmeted duo found an excellent balance.
Top Tracks: The Game Has Changed, Adagio for TRON, Outlands, Derezzed

The Morning Benders: Big Echo
I listened to this album a lot in the past 12 months, a more mellowed out and upbeat sound comparable to the Grizzly Bear set but still with a fair bit to say.
Top Tracks: Hand Me Downs, All Day Day Light, Promises

Vampire Weekend: Contra
The sophomore release got so much airplay in the early half of this year that I’m somehow amazed I nearly forgot about it - an eclectic mix of great songs that are very replayable. I think the first album’s probably still got the edge in that it was newer and fresher and they didn’t expand that sound overly much.
Top Tracks: Cousins, Diplomat’s Son, Californian English

Hans Zimmer: Inception OST
BRAAAAAAAAAAAAHM BRAAAAAAAAAAAAHM became the sound of summer for me as I plugged myself into the soundtrack for Nolan’s latest, the quieter themes don’t really stick with me the same way as the bombastic pieces but that’s probably reflective of the movie’s highlights.
Top Tracks: Dream is Collapsing, 528491, Dream Within a Dream, Radical Notion

The Rest

Interpol: Interpol
A self-titled album seems to me a sign of one of two things, an introduction of sorts or purposeful reinvention. The two are not mutually exclusive of course, because reinvention could just be reintroducing everyone to the sound that once defined you. I think that’s what every Interpol fan secretly hoped for here, as every album since TOTBL has progressively weakened some aspect of their initial release of atmospheric and introspective rock. And, to be controversial, the best tracks of this album do just that in my opinion. Therein lies the rub, these tracks are so few and far between, peppered throughout an album that contains some of the worst songs of Interpol’s career.
Top Tracks: The Undoing, All the Ways, Success, Lights

Hot Chip: One Life Stand - The first half of this electro-dance album rocks my world, but after that it kind of disintegrates and there are songs I flat-out dislike, but that first half- whoo-boy.
Top Tracks: I Feel Better, One Life Stand, Hand Me Down Your Love

The Black Keys: Brothers - An overly long effort from the bluesy rockers, as a result the output is of variable tone and quality. The best efforts take their sound to a pulpy and cartoonish level with lots of exaggerated riffs and grunts from the singers.
Top Tracks: Ten Cent Pistol, Tighten Up, Sinister Kid, I’m Not the One

Trent Reznor: The Social Network OST - This is one of those scores that works perfectly on the screen but only functions in isolated segments played singularly. The tracks that do play well are dripping with intensity, a curious mix of orchestral, distorted guitars and electronic cues.
Top Tracks: In Motion, Intriguing Possibilities, In Motion, Painted Sun in Abstract

The Roots: How I Got Over - A mixed album for me, I find a lot of the songs to be lazy and repetitive, I like a lot of the beats and the mixing but it just doesn’t hang together in the same way that some of their previous did for me.
Top Tracks: Dear God 2.0, Walk Alone

A few I’m still getting my teeth into (Deerhunter, LCD Soundsystem), a few I’ve not heard yet (Arcade Fire, New Pornographers, Royksopp). And I need to look up the guys below on the basis of that:

Bonus - Awesome Music Video Ok Go: This Too Shall Pass