2013 So Far (Sep - Dec) Top 10 Pre-2013 Catchup

Today is marked by three quick recommendation posts, wrapping up the third segment of the year in cinema.

First up, of the 208 films released prior to 2013 seen for the first time during this four month period these are the 10 I enjoyed the most and all come very highly recommended. I've been a lucky boy.

10. The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) Dir. Joseph Sargent

9. Electra Glide in Blue (1973) Dir. James William Guercio

8. Nashville (1975) Dir. Robert Altman

7. F for Fake (1973) Dir. Orson Welles

6. Monte Walsh (1970) Dir. William A. Fraker

5. A Matter of Life and Death (1946) Dir. Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

4. For a Few Dollars More (1965) Dir. Sergio Leone

3. Black Narcissus (1947) Dir. Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

2. Blow Out (1981) Dir. Brian De Palma

1. Army of Shadows (1969) Dir. Jean-Pierre Melville

Top 10: 2013 Reads

I may as well give up pretending that this blog exists for any real writing purpose at the moment, so in the spirit of year end here's a list, lists are the easiest posts of all.

In 2013 I've read 122 books, not quite half of what I read last year but priorities change, so my Top 10 Reads of 2013 accounts for just under ten percent of the total. Noir has taken precedence over everything in my reading as well as my viewing but this list isn't all blacker than black. I promise.

10. Fierce Bitches by Jedidiah Ayres (2013)
Jedidiah Ayres' prose is sparse and his tale is bleak as fuck, mirroring the carefully constructed locale and the unforgiving sun baked desert that surrounds it. This appears to be his first novella but its written with the skill and voice of a much more experienced man to the point that I wouldn't be surprised if this was Jim Thompson still writing after faking his death back in '77. Most impressive is his use of the second person narration, a device that can horribly backfire in the wrong hands but in this case was so perfectly done that I hardly noticed it until the chapter was over.

9. London Under by Peter Ackroyd (2011)
Example chapter titles include Holy Water, Forgotten Streams, Buried Secrets and The Heart of Darkness and every page contains at least one moment of wonder to those uneducated yet enthusiastic readers (which is exactly the target audience for this work) like myself. For a chapter or two I thought it was going to take me weeks to read due the sheer quantity of google and wiki searches I was performing to acquire further knowledge of a proffered fact whilst reading before readjusting my mindset to just let the author entertain me with his seemingly endless supply of poetic historical tales.

8. The Pirates! In an Adventure With The Romantics by Gideon Defoe (2012)
If you were to take a poll of people reading you might find a lot of votes for great use of ham in a nautical setting, there may even be several readers who enjoy the excellent names created for the motley crew of pirates but guaranteed that majority will tell you that the best bit about reading a book about The Pirates! is all the running through that happens. Just ask Jeffrey Keeten about the time he ran a man through for daring not to wear a fencing cup in school colours if you are unsure of the unique pleasures a good running through can provide.

7. Pop. 1280 by Jim Thompson (1964)
This tale of small town America is littered with pimps, whores, crooked lawmen, private detectives, women no better than they ought to be, incestuous men, wife beaters, murderers, corrupt politicians, vindictive women, peeping toms, mentally challenged cuckolds, religious zealots and plenty of sex. Of course on top of that there's Sheriff Nick Corey, a noir protagonist the likes of which you may never have seen.

6. Eight Million Ways To Die by Lawrence Block (1982)
The fifth Matt Scudder takes a further dark turn in to a city plagued by demons and lawlessness, taking a pessimistic cue from the classic movie/TV show The Naked City this is the story of a dead call girl, of 2000 murders per year, of a private investigator, of an alcoholic on a path of self-destruction. During his investigation Scudder comes in to contact with all kinds of filth and degenerates, he makes acquaintances with a good cop, a good pimp, five hookers and a black albino informant. There's violence and paranoia, sobriety and alcohol related blackouts, it's a rocky ride and I shan't spoil it for you. Soon to be a Liam Neeson movie it could easily have been directed by Harmony Korine.

5. Bit of a Blur: The Autobiography by Alex James (2007)
From the opening lines I was impressed with his ability to write, weaving together a series of interesting and entertaining anecdotes with an infectious enthusiasm, granted if you can't have enthusiasm for your subject when you're writing about yourself you may as well give up writing altogether, but James is erudite and witty and incredibly frank about his occasionally abhorrent behaviour. I was enamoured from the start and James (and obviously a great editor) didn't let me down, becoming, by quite some margin, my favourite autobiography/biography that I've ever picked up.

4. The Boy Detective Fails by Joe Meno (2006)
A deep melancholy permeates the pages of The Boy Detective Fails, a magical little book that asks questions about growing up and growing old, the death of innocence and imagination, loss and grief via the story of an adult boy detective. People reference something called Encyclopedia Brown plus the usual suspects of The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, popular characters from an American childhood that seemed too Other to me as a young man in small town England. I preferred the much more English series, The Mystery Kids, myself. But anyway take those kids who had magical crime busting adventures and crush their spirit and enthusiasm and send them out to solve the mystery of death and you've got the essence of The Boy Detective Fails. And in his straight-faced magical realist style of writing he crafted something of a Lemony Snicket for adults, something smart and haunting, laced with real pain and sorrow and wit and heart and situational humour. It's a truly surprising piece of work that deserves to be lauded and paid homage to with countless imitators who just don't have the skill to get past the original surface gimmick and imbue their novel with actual life.

3. Wake In Fright by Kenneth Cook (1961)
You know, from the opening paragraphs, that this book is going to stay with you as only the most powerful books do. Cook captures the essence of the vast emptiness of the desert, the punishing effect of constant heat from sun up to sun down and the isolation of man in a place he doesn't belong, and wraps it up in a tight little novel that suffocates the reader. I felt almost claustrophobic whilst reading, the pressure and closeness of the heat described transferring itself to me on my nice air conditioned bus. 

2. The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George Higgins (1972)
It's all fly on the way stuff with dialogue feeling so authentic you have to retune your brain to the sounds of criminal class Boston, the kind of stuff Elmore Leonard is widely praised for but better. When not in conversation TFOEC is narrated with the kind of matter of fact attention to detail you might find in a Martin Beck or 87th Precinct novel for example, it's dry in itself but the subject matter isn't. The action might largely appear to be happening in between these chapters of conversation but the combination of dialogue and narration create a portrait of the life of these people, their criminal actions, the lifestyle choice, that will certainly serve as an anthropological study and an entertaining crime read for future generations.

1. The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley (1978)
Crumley writes this stuff better than just about anyone I've experienced to date, the way he took hold of the genre, seemingly educated himself on Chandler, Hammett, Willeford, Thompson et al and crafted this masterpiece is a remarkable thing to have witnessed, it is a true shame that he isn't more widely known and respected. Having said that it is only through the praise lavished on his work from the fourth generation of hard-boiled and noir writers who claim to be in his debt that I stumbled across this work. People like George Pelecanos and Dennis Lehane have described this book as one of the best pieces of fiction written in the past fifty years. Very high praise indeed and in my experience fully justified.

How about you guys, any favourites from amongst these? How about your favourite discovery of the year? Tweet me, comment, send me a letter, whatever.

2013 So Far (May - Aug) Top 10 Pre-2013 Catchup

Continuing to assess my year in cinema this is the first of three posts looking at the films viewed between May 1st and August 31st.

Of the 236 films released prior to 2013 seen for the first time during this four month period these are the 10 I enjoyed the most and all come very highly recommended.

10. Jess + Moss (2012) Dir. Clay Jeter

9. Dogtooth (2009) Dir. Giorgos Lanthimos 

8. Lorna's Silence (2008) Dir. Luc Dardenne, Jean-Pierre Dardenne

7. Police, Adjective (2009) Dir. Corneliu Porumboiu

6. Atmen (2012) Dir. Karl Markovics

5. Damnation (1988) Dir. Bela Tarr

4. Wake In Fright (1972) Dir. Ted Kotcheff

3. The Colour Wheel (2012) Dir. Alex Ross Perry 

2. Weekend (2011) Dir. Andrew Haigh

1. Unforgiven (1992) Dir. Clint Eastwood

Anyone got a 100% success rate with these ten? How's your year going for great films? Tweet me.

Top 10: 30 Countries Project

It's a wonderful feeling, the sense of achievement in completing something. In May I completed two feature script writing projects, my first two in five or six years, and the 30 Countries Project as mentioned at the start of the month. I'm not saying that watching 30 movies from 30 countries in 30 days is on a par with the other achievement but by the time the credits rolled on Esma's Secret on Friday morning I was well and truly pleased with myself.

The concept of the challenge/project was put forth on Letterboxd in late March and whilst there were several dozen participants interested in exploring cinema from around the world only a handful of us seem to have completed it, further proof that I have accomplished something I feel,

I consider myself relatively well watched when it comes to cinema but actually putting a foreign language film in my player had become something that I found excuses not to do, thanks to this challenge I got past that block in style and ended up seeing a lot more than 30 non-English language films in May, more than I had watched in the previous 18 months in fact.

It has been documented in various social mediums that I have been discouraged from watching Eastern European cinema because it is so bleak but the quality of those I discovered last month was so high that I find myself drawn to them instead of my usual easy access Hollywood mindless nonsense. Yes, my relationship with Leah has suffered slightly over these petty disagreements on cinema about abortion and Communist era lifestyle and now I plan to help dismantle your relationships too, here are my Top 10 discoveries of the 30 Countries Project, with my highest recommendation to you.

10. Reprise (2006) Dir. Joachim Trier - Norway

9. Home (2009) Dir. Ursula Meier - Switzerland

8. Cache (2005) Dir. Michael Haneke - Austria

7. Festen (1998) Dir. Thomas Vinterberg - Denmark

6. Sonbahar (2008) Dir. Özcan Alper - Turkey

5. Soldier of Orange (1979) Dir. Paul Verhoeven - The Netherlands

4. Lorna's Silence (2008) Dir. The Dardenne Brothers - Belgium

3. Dogtooth (2010) Dir. Giorgos Lanthimos - Greece

2. Police, Adjective (2009) Dir. Corneliu Porumboiu - Romania

1. Wake In Fright (1972) Dir. Ted Kotcheff - Australia

Right well there you are, feel free to let me know how your loved ones react in the comments or tweet me @bbbgtoby but please don't cite me in any divorce papers that get filed. Thanks.

2013 So Far (Jan - Apr) Top 10 Pre-2013 Catchup

With the first third of the year flying past in a haze of movies I thought I'd assess my viewing in an attempt to make end of year list compiling a little easier and actually post something film related on this blog.

In the first four months of 2013 I've seen over 230 films for the first time, for my first trick these are my favourite 10 of the year so far:

10. Extreme Prejudice (1987) Dir. Walter Hill

9. Peacock (2010) Dir. Michael Lander

8. The Laughing Policeman (1973) Dir. Stuart Rosenberg

7. No (2012) Dir. Pablo Larrain

6. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007) Dir. Cristian Mungiu

5. The Day of the Locust (1975) Dir. John Schlesinger

4. The Border (1982) Dir. Tony Richardson

3. Take Shelter (2011) Dir. Jeff Nichols

2. Metropolitan (1990) Dir. Whit Stillman

1. You, The Living (2007) Dir. Roy Andersson

Seen any or all of these? What was your favourite film of the past 4 months? Comment below or tweet @bbbgtoby with #pre2013.