==pla|\|ing lakes==

Saturday, January 01, 2005

disquiet's favorite discs of 2004

In 2004, new records by many old favorites, like Squarepusher (Ultravisitor), Beastie Boys (To the 5 Boroughs), John Adams (On the Transmigration of Souls) and DJ Krush (Jaku), albeit very fine in their own right, didn't demand concerted, continued, curious listening. Admittedly, no single netlabel release seemed to hold its own against these, though two on the Stasisfield label, John Kannenberg's Four Painters and Raemus' Stream Studies, certainly came close; the gap is narrowing quickly. Still, there was a bounty of good work.

I can recommend the Stasisfield titles, and most of what Marc mentions is worth a listen at least.

I'll list what I liked best this year soon.

10:41 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

The New Ugly

Texas to be paved over completely

1:14 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

HNY!!!

Welcome 2005!

1:03 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

California sets fines for spyware

12:51 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Friday, December 31, 2004

Movies watched (all the way through, in chronological order) in 2004

Quai des Orfèvres*
The Return of the King*
Le cercle rouge
John Huston: The Man, The Movies, The Maverick
The Work of Director Michael Gondry
Gosford Park (r)*
Northfork
The Scarlet Letter (1925)
Merci pour le chocolat
Gian jui (The Eye)
Black Narcissus*
The Big Lebowski (r)*
The Servant
Ringu
The Goose and the Gander
The General (1998)
Bob le Flambeur*
Insomnia (1997) (r)*
The Endurance
W C Fields Shorts
The Pelican Brief (r)
The Big Steal (r)*
Cure (1997)*
David Copperfield (1935)*
Executive Suite
Day of the Outlaw*
To Live and Die in L.A. (r)*
The Others (r)
Speaking Parts*
Lightning Over Water
Capturing the Friedmans*
Thirteen (2003)*
Midnight (1939)
My Life as a Dog (r)*
Kukushka (The Cuckoo)*
The American Experience : John Brown's Holy War
You Can't Cheat an Honest Man (r)
Man on the Train
Heroes for Sale
American Splendor*
It's a Gift! (1934) (r)*
The River (1951) (r)*
Lost in Translation*
Maîtresse
American Experience: Tupperware!
Intolerable Cruelty
Hiroshima Mon Amour*
Cambridge Spies*
Sylvia (2003)
Runaway Jury
In Search of Shakespeare
Jesus' Son (r)*
Shoot the Piano Player
The Mothman Prophecies (r)*
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (r)*
Last Year at Marienbad
The Second Woman
Impact (1949)
Matchstick Men
Pieces of April*
Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood*
Decasia
Hitler's Search for the Holy Grail
School of Rock
Blow
Dr Akagi
High and Low (1963)*
The Directors: John Frankenheimer
Outland (r)
Baran*
Les Carabiniers*
Platoon (r)*
Slaughterhouse Five (r)*
The Duellists
Ministry of Fear
Repo Man (r)*
Heart of Glass (r)*
A Decade Under the Influence*
Knife in the Water*
Dirty Pretty Things*
Mona Lisa Smile
Shattered Glass*
Nightmare (1956)
Shakespeare in Love
Suddenly (1954)*
Onibaba*
demonlover
Madigan (1968)
The Truman Show (r)
The Killing (1956) (r)*
Devil in a Blue Dress (r)*
Something's Gotta Give
Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance
The Directors: William Friedkin
Klute
Prey for Rock N' Roll
On Dangerous Ground (1952)
Once Upon a Time in Mexico
The Major and the Minor (r)
The Cell (2000)*
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy*
32 Short Films About Glenn Gould*
Talk to Her*
Spoorlos (The Vanishing)
Man on the Moon
House of Sand and Fog
The Source (1999)*
The Black Hand (1950)
The Late Show (1977)
Empire of the Sun
Tokyo Story*
Play Misty for Me (r)
Love Me or Leave Me
Le Petit Soldat (r)*
The Miles Davis Story
The Last of Sheila*
Calendar*
Saboteur (r)
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Scorpio
Independent Lens: The Weather Underground*
Love Actually
Dollar (1938)*
La Dolce Vita*
3 Women (r)*
10.5
Finger of Guilt
Criss Cross (1949)*
Phantom Lady
Elephant (2003)*
The Triplets of Belleville
Girl With a Pearl Earring*
Blondie Live by Request
Exotica (r)*
Party Girl (1958)
Midnight Cowboy
Prime Suspect 6*
Pennies From Heaven (1981)
In America*
The Murder Man
Murder in the Private Car
M*
Frontline: The Killer at Thurston High
The Old Dark House
Act of Violence*
Warm Water Under a Red Bridge
Bright Lights, Big City (r)
Okie Noodling
The Cooler (2003)
Smiles of a Summer Night
Frontline: The Jesus Factor
The Best Years of Our Lives
Prime Suspect 2*
Go Tell the Spartans*
Dead Ringers (r)*
Comfort and Joy
The Counterfeit Traitor
Julius Caesar (1953)
Wild Reeds
Bunny Lake Is Missing
Second Sight 1 (1999)
Cary Grant: A Class Apart
Breaking In (1989)(r)*
Nosferatu (1922)*
The Andromeda Strain (r)*
Stalker (r)*
The Animal Kingdom (r)*
The Parallax View (r)*
No Questions Asked
Drowning By Numbers
Saigon: Year of the Cat
Earth (1930)*
Salem's Lot (2004)
The Secret Agent (1996)
Shadow in the Sky
Night Falls on Manhattan
Scanners
Love Field
The Laughing Policeman
A Matter of Life and Death (aka Stairway to Heaven) (r)*
Zabriskie Point*
The Subject Was Roses
Crisis (1950)*
Year of the Gun
Q & A
Spartan*
The 4400 (pilot)
The Company
Bad Santa*
The Asphalt Jungle (r)*
The Station Agent*
Atlantic City (r)*
The Days (debut)
Downtown 81
Lost in La Mancha
For All Mankind*
Danger Signal (1945)
My Life to Live (Vivre sa vie)
La jetée*
Eye Like a Strange Balloon*
The Carey Treatment
Welcome Back, Mr McDonald
Siddartha
The Politician's Wife
Gun Crazy (1949)
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (r)*
The Horse's Mouth (r)*
Stray Dog (1949)*
Let It Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles*
Don van Vliet: Some YoYo Stuff
A Story of Floating Weeds*
They Live By Night*
Prime Suspect 3*
A Mighty Wind (r)*
In the Mirror of Maya Deren*
Love Serenade
Winged Migration
After Hours (1985) (r)*
Dead Like Me (pilot)
Uzumaki
El náufrago de la calle de Providencia
Prime Suspect 4*
Night Gallery (Season 1 - disc 2)
One Is a Lonely Number
55 Days at Peking
Lone Star (1996)(r)*
The Big Easy (r)
Naked Lunch (r)
The Sorrow and the Pity
The City of No Limits
Goodbye, Lenin!*
The Parson's Wife*
The Puppetmaster (Hsimeng Jensheng) (1993)*
Waking Life*
The Lathe of Heaven (1979)(r)*
Tomorrow We Live
THX 1138 (r)*
Fight Club (r)*
Spring Summer Fall Winter . . . and Spring again*
Strange Illusion
Day of Wrath (1943)
Bon Voyage (2003)
Ordet (1955)*
I lived, But (Ozu doc)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind*
The Big Picture (r)*
Good Men, Good Women
Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy - Working With Time*
The Decline of the American Empire (r)*
Saved!
Donnie Darko (r)*
The Scent of Green Papaya*
Gertrud (1964)
Noises Off!
Early Summer (Bakushû)*
Painted Lady (1997)
Wire: On the Box*
Daria: Is It College Yet? (r)*
Laurel Canyon (r)*
Secret Honor*
Conspiracy (2001)*
The Return (Vozvrashcheniye)*
Cloak and Dagger (1946)
Mr Moto's Last Warning
Don't Die Without Telling Me Where You're Going
The Day After Tomorrow
Close Your Eyes
Quicksand (1950)
Arlington Road (r)*
Festival Express
Benny & Joon (r)*
Facing Windows*
Below
Magnolia (r)*
California Split*
L'Atalante*
What Time Is It There?*
Wonder Boys (r)*
Ram Dass: Fierce Grace*
Bill Hicks Live!*
Mystic River
Iris
Croupier*
Twilight of the Ice Nymphs
Phantom (1922)*
L'Age D'Or (r)*
Get Carter*
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban*
A Home at the End of the World*
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
Personal Velocity*
Carnivale: Season One*
Yi Yi*
Jandek on Corwood*
Forgotten Silver
The Shop Around the Corner (r)*
The Office: The Second Season*
Kitchen Stories
Tipping the Velvet
How to Draw a Bunny*
The Manchurian Candidate (2004)
Scrooge (aka A Christmas Carol) (1951)*
The Flower of Evil (Le Fleur du Mal)
Out of Time (2003)
Ed Wood (r)*
Goodbye South, Goodbye
Code 46*
Go (r)*

(r) = seen it before
* = particularly worth seeing

Selections to follow...

11:52 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Websites allow gift card recipients to swap cards

10:02 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Books read & completed 2004

Firedrake's Eye - Patricia Finney
Mr Timothy - Louis Bayard
W C Fields: A Biography - James Curtis
The Immoralist - André Gide
Solaris - Stanislaw Lem
Down There - David Goodis
Ocean of Sound - David Toop
The Parrot Trainer - Swain Wolfe
The Long Winter - John Christopher
Sacred - Dennis Lehane
Gone, Baby, Gone - Dennis Lehane
Prayers for Rain - Dennis Lehane
Empire of the Sun - J G Ballard
The Cloud Atlas - Liam Callanan
The Zenith Angle - Bruce Sterling
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon
The Diehard - Jon A Jackson
The Chronoliths - Robert Charles Wilson
Broken Angels - Richard K Morgan
Over the Shoulder - Leonard Chang
The Mexican Tree Duck - James Crumley
The Blind Pig - Jon A Jackson
Shutter Island - Dennis Lehane
Popular Music from Vittula - Mikael Niemi
Cronenberg on Cronenberg
Fierce People - Dirk Wittenborn
Outerbridge Reach - Robert Stone
Skinny Dip - Carl Hiaasen
Only Apparently Real - Paul Williams
Ambient - Jack Womack
The Transmigration of Timothy Archer - Philip K Dick
Country of Origin - Don Lee
In the Shadow of No Towers - Art Spiegelman
The Ordinary - Jim Grimsley

All but the last 7 or so were read before my new job started in July. Been watching films more than reading since then. netflix makes it all too easy.

But I wasn't getting much out of reading anyway. Needed a change of perspective.

I enjoyed Mr Timothy, Ocean of Sound, The Chronoliths, Popular Music from Vittula and Fierce People the most.


9:34 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Thursday, December 30, 2004

Excellent-sounding exploration of pedophilia: The Woodsman, with Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick and newcomer Hannah Pilkes

Particularly impressive (and emblematic of the movie as a whole) is the way in which [first-time director Nicole Kassell] conveys exactly what it is that Walter (Kevin Bacon) -- a serial molester, newly released from prison -- likes to do to little girls. The audience needs to know because we need to know whom we're looking at. At the same time, an explicit exposition would be inartistic and unwelcome. And so Kassell finds a way to communicate the information wordlessly and gracefully and yet with a clarity that's unmistakable.

That's The Woodsman in a nutshell, tasteful but not compromised. Walter leaves prison after serving a 12-year sentence, and it doesn't take long for us to realize that he has precisely the same sexual impulses that he had a dozen years before. The only question is whether he'll be able to keep those impulses in check, every minute of every day for the rest of his life. It's a daunting challenge.

10:57 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Positive Newsday review of new Sean Penn pic The Assassination of Richard Nixon

10:49 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Restored print of Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin to be shown at next month's Berlin Film Festival

10:46 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Wednesday, December 29, 2004

New Kiln EP sounds pretty good, only heard half of it so far

More electronics after ampday's emphasis on Love Tractorish (?) guitars.

Still like their eponymous first EP the best of their recordings. I got the first 2 discs from insound, whose search engine is down right now. But Kiln's music is probably not too hard to find.

One of my favorite acts.

9:00 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

New index of literate American cities [Refdesk]

8:32 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

New label for music/artists who combine field recordings with other sound [disquiet]

They've even branded a field recordist logo...

The site is in German mostly, but not hard to dope out.

8:28 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Sunday, December 26, 2004

R.I.P. Agnes Martin

Just downloaded a piece inspired by her at stasisfield though I've never studied her work. More on her here and here.

I think I have to see her paintings up close, net pics won't do.

12:06 AM - [Link] - Comments ()