Community:  Easily the least consistent show on the list (what’s aired of season 3 has been particularly spotty) but when it steps outside and goes for it (“Advanced Dungeons & Dragons,” “Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking,” “Critical Film Studies,” “Paradigms of Human Memory,” “Remedial Chaos Theory”) Community is capable of being the best comedy on TV.  ”Critical Film Studies” was billed as the show’s “Pulp Fiction episode” but that was merely a Trojan Horse allowing them to air an homage to Louis Malle’s My Dinner With Andre during primetime on network television.  That is the kind of show Community is capable of being.

Doctor Who: Community has spent a lot of time this season exploring Abed’s Inspector Spacetime obsession and it makes me wonder what percentage of its audience is familiar with the show it’s parodying, this show.  Given how much I enjoy Doctor Who and how exciting watching Doctor Who is I feel a bit guilty putting it this low on the list.  At its best I think Doctor Who functions as a paean to the strength of the human spirit, and this season is definitely the strongest since it rebooted in 2005.  The ending didn’t quite live up to expectations but it’s hard to complain given how good everything else was.

Game of Thrones:  HBO shows are so known for taking a few episodes to congeal that it sometimes feels like the term “slow burn” was created to describe the network’s dramas.  Even by HBO standards the patience Game of Thrones took in situating its characters and plotlines was ambitious.  I don’t think it was until episode 4 that everything was completely assembled.  It paid off though, everything building to one scene in the penultimate episode that answers the question the series seemed to be posing all along: can an honest man survive in a corrupt system?

Homeland:  This was probably the biggest surprise of 2011 for me.  Perhaps it’s just my bias, but I can’t say I expected a drama airing on Showtime, run by two ex-24 writers and starring Claire Danes to be particularly good.  Yet the first 6 or 7 episodes present a nuanced look at our surveillance state and the psychological effect captivity and torture can have on soldiers and their families.  There was a brief hiccup where it seemed like it might be sliding a bit too close to 24 territory for comfort, but it recovered and the distressingly bleak finale seemed to remember all the things the show was doing right early on.

Mildred Pierce:  This is kind of the odd one out on this list as it’s a miniseries, and is self-contained where the others are all unfinished pieces of a serial narrative.  It’s kind of hard to rank it alongside them but I think this is fairly accurate.  Todd Haynes adaptation of Mildred Pierce throws out the noir aspect of the iconic Joan Crawford film and ends up somewhere closer to Douglas Sirk directing Jeanne Dielmann.  It starts out establishing the day to day routines of it’s protagonist with an observational style that recalls Akerman’s classic and ends up with a heavily melodramatic opera performance and a climax that is high camp at its very best.  I can still hear the chilling cue from Carter Burwell’s score.

Friday Night Lights:  When Friday Night Lights came on the air in 2006 it was a breath of fresh air, a network drama that cared more about character than plot.  It stumbled a bit in its second season and NBC wasn’t very forgiving, fortunately it found a home on DirecTV’s channel 101 and gave us it’s three best seasons.  The fifth season is a perfect ending for the show as one could imagine.  I mentioned elsewhere this year that the show reminds me of the cinema of Terrence Malick, not in content so much as style.  The elliptical direction and editing aided by the natural performances and emotive scoring led to many moments that were greater than the sum of their parts.

Louie:  These next three shows could really appear in any order depending on my mood, and right now I’m questioning the mood that decided to place Louie at 4 rather than 2.  By now you’ve likely heard that Louis C.K. writes, directs, edits and stars in every single episode of this show.  It’s an unprecedented feat and that the show maintains the level of quality it does is kind of astounding in its own right.  But what I find truly unique about Louie is that you don’t know whether you’re going to get an uproarious vulgar episode, a sweetly sentimental one, or somber looks into suicide or the war in Iraq.  Regardless, it’s guaranteed to be both exceptional and thought provoking.

Parks and Recreation:  The fine-tuned hilarity is what brings me to Parks and Recreation every week, but the humanism and warm optimism leaves me with a heartwarming feeling at the end of nearly each episode.  2011 was easily the show’s best year as I’m hard pressed to think of an episode that was less than great.  I guess the consistency is what sets it apart from the other comedies on the list, and the large ensemble of lovable characters portrayed by talented performers.  Not just Leslie, Ben, Chris, Tom, April and Andy, but also Ann, Jerry, Donna and the recurring characters like Perd Hapley and Jean-Ralphio.  It has echoes of the Simpsons in it’s prime, which is high praise indeed.

Breaking Bad:  Every year the show is eligible it’s expected Bryan Cranston will win the Emmy for Best Actor, but this year the show’s star was Giancarlo Esposito in his performance of Gustavo Fring.    I’m at ends trying to decide whether I preferred the shows third or fourth season when taken as a whole (a rewatch would likely settle it) but there are three or four episodes in the second half of season four that I think are the best three or four episodes the show has ever done, including one or two that left me feeling physically ill, and I mean that as a compliment.  It’s unfortunate the series only has one more season left to cement it’s place alongside the top 5 or so dramas ever to air.

Treme:  David Simon’s The Wire is my favorite television series of all time.  Few shows have the journalistic integrity, scope or insight The Wire posses and yet, there are some areas in which I feel his follow up, Treme, outshines its predecessor.  Which makes all the more inexplicable it’s absence on critics year-end lists following a second season that improved on the first in every conceivable way.  My sole hang up with the first season was its hip insidery winking and nudging and its occasional stacking the deck in favor of a city that doesn’t need any help proving the value of its unique culture.  That is more or less absent from season two.  People claim nothing happens, but that’s not entirely fair, we are watching characters change and grow in the wake of traumatic experiences, and the atmosphere is second to none.  Or maybe it’s just I can’t get enough of the music.  I don’t know, but there are few things as pleasing to me as David Simon’s aesthetic and I’m waiting with bated breath for season 3 (while simultaneously hoping HBO is generous enough to let David Simon see his four season vision through).

Honorable Mentions

In alphabetical order, by artist:

Brad Mehldau – Live in Marciac:  I used to do jazz album of the year, because I have such a hard time ranking jazz alongside pop music, but I’m just going to throw this in here for now.  Mehldau is consistently one of the best jazz pianists working today and with Live in Marciac, a solo piano follow up of sorts to 2006′s Live in Tokyo, does nothing to disprove that notion.  There’s not much more to say about him at this point.

Justice – Audio Video Disco:  Justice’s last album somehow slipped by me, a problem I was quick to rectify after hearing this one.  It’s markedly different from tthat album, they seem to be playing with the tropes of prog rock and hair metal.  Genres I’m not overly fond of, but which nonetheless work here in their hands.  Judging by Daft Punk’s last album or two I’d say Justice is the more vital of the French electronica duos right now.

Lady Gaga – Born This Way:  Despite Beyonce also putting out a completely solid album this year felt a bit light on pop music LPs.  This Gaga album is an exception that, despite a few obvious low points, proves she can do for the album form what she’s been doing for the single for some time now.  In fact I’m starting to question whether or not I should’ve found a spot for it on the list proper.

My Morning Jacket – Circuital:  Probably their most self-assured collection of tunes since It Still Moves.  Not quite as groundbreaking as that album, but perhaps a bit more consistent.  ”Wonderful” and “Holdin’ On to Black Metal” are highlights from opposite ends of the spectrum, still one of the best pure rock bands going today.

Tom Waits – Bad As Me:  It’s been what, 7 years since his last studio album?  He’s at the point in his career when you could start reasonably expecting some decline but Bad as Me makes it quite clear he hasn’t lost a step.  Setting aside the B-side collection Orphans, this might be my favorite work of his since the 90s.

The Top Ten Albums of 2011

Jay-Z & Kanye West – Watch the Throne:  A month ago this wouldn’t have made it on to my list.  I was initially somewhat disappointed with it (the lyrical content is noticeably thin) but it found it’s way into my car sometime around Thanksgiving and hasn’t left since.  Yeah, they’re talking about designer clothing, watches, and how awesome they are for the majority of it, but it’s clear they’re having a lot of fun with it and the excitement is kind of infectious.  Oh, and Justin Vernon does the bridge on “That’s My Bitch,” always a plus.

The Weeknd – House of Balloons:  Outside of artists like Erykah Badu and D’Angelo, who are perhaps more appropriately categorized as soul, I’m hardly what you’d call an R&B guy.  However, I found myself fascinated with both mixtapes The Weeknd put out in 2011 (the third one he announced, Echoes of Silence, has yet to surface). There is something seductively sleazy about his aesthetic, and the lyrical content makes you want to take a shower, but I keep coming back to it.

Wilco – The Whole Love:  Wilco is possibly my favorite band, and the title of this blog comes from a lyric of theirs, so I’m perfectly fine accepting the fact that there might be some bias here, but The Whole Love feels like the first forward-thinking thing they’ve done since A Ghost is Born.  Maybe not as cohesive as their last two, but certainly breaking more ground.   A feeling that carries through from the opener “Art of Almost” to “One Sunday Morning” which might be my favorite thing on the record.

Destoyer – Kaputt:  The last album I heard from Dan Bejar was Destroyer’s Rubies, which I remember enjoying, but apparently not enough to have really listened to it in the intervening 5 years.  He seems to have completely retooled his sound for Kaputt, going for a sax-heavy soft-rock sound that is surprisingly engrossing.  The lyrics are a strong point, as one would expect, and the album seems to improve and become cozier with each successive listen.

Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues:  In a lot of ways this feels like a collection of outtakes from their first record, which is both it’s biggest strength and greatest weakness.  Still a solid album, even if it’s not quite as consistent as the first.  I drove to South Carolina earlier this fall and played both their albums while passing through the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia as the sun was beginning to set.  One of my more cherished musical memories from 2011 and I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to separate their music from that landscape.

In One Wind – How Bright a Shadow!:  A confession, I saw these guys in… 2009 I think? and I wasn’t terribly impressed.  They just sounded a bit too chaotic and overwhelming for my ears.  That’s an impression that carried over to the first track of How Bright a Shadow! but had started to fade away by the second song and once I got to album-highlight “Water’s Looking Fine” it was smooth-sailing (sorry!).  It’s gotten to the point that when I put this record on I wonder how I ever felt an aversion to their syncopated rhythms and odd-meter melodies, and seeing them in Pittsburgh this September was one of the best concert experiences I had this year.

tUnE – yArDs – w h o k i l l:  If it wasn’t for the next album on this list I would call Merril Garbus my favorite musical discovery of 2011, and she still might be.  In an era when a lot of artists create their sound by looping layers upon layers her loop-wizardry sounds completely fresh, and there is an agit-pop edge that really pushes things over the top.  Hearing the conviction in her voice as she declares “there is a freedom in violence, that I don’t understand.”  As I’m typing this post I’m feeling an urge to listen to “Gangsta” and “Bizness.”  Over and over again, for the rest of the night.

Gang Gang Dance – Eye Contact:  Really good, palpably modern-music.  So much so that I’m kind of struggling to come up with things to say about it.  I keep coming up with boring, generic statements like ‘It’s full of energy, and there isn’t a weak spot on the disc.”  Maybe you should just listen to it for yourself?  I don’t think you’ll regret it.

Bon Iver – Bon Iver, Bon Iver:  I’ve been head over heels for Justin Vernon’s music since I heard the first bars of “Skinny Love” some time ago.  I’ve followed his career pretty closely since then and still I can’t say I was prepared for the artistic leap that is in evidence on Bon Iver, Bon Iver.  I suppose it’s a product of moving from the stripped down demo-like recordings of For Emma, Forever Ago to a studio with complete control over every aspect of the sound.  Still, it’s thrilling, from the opening bars of “Perth”, through the quiet depression of “Holocene”, to the Hornsby-esque keyboards on “Beth/Rest.”  I can’t wait to see where he goes from here.

St. Vincent – Strange Mercy:  Speaking of artistic evolution, Annie Clark could’ve easily remained in the mode she occupied on 2009′s Actor and had a fine career.  Actor in some ways felt like a refining of the disparate ingredients present on Marry Me, but with Strange Mercy she is taking off from there and blazing new trails.  In some ways it feels like a “guitar album” but I think boxing it in like that is doing her artistic vision a huge disservice.   What I can say is St. Vincent used to merely be one of my favorite musicians, but now I feel she’s one of the most exciting artists working in any medium.  The way she uses form to embody emotion is kind of unparalleled in mainstream music right now.  If there’s someone out there doing it better I want to hear it.

Honorable Mentions

In alphabetical order, by artist:

Joanna Newsom – Have One On Me:  This could’ve made the list but it’s so overwhelming it’s hard to get a bead on it.  Clocking in at over two hours and spanning three discs the few times I tried to listen through I had grown a bit tired of it by the end.  Individually, many of the songs are as good as anything on Ys, though she frequently forgoes the folk song structures that populated that album for more conventional song structures.  This album literally contains more than enough great music to keep you busy.

Of Montreal – False Priest:  This is Of Montreal’s most consistent album and in many ways that is it’s biggest shortcoming.  It’s much easier to listen to than 2008′s schizophrenic Skeletal Lamping and the P-Funky pleasures it provides aren’t to be scoffed at, which is why it is listed, but towards the end you start to yearn for the genre-defying madness of Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?

Titus Andronicus – The Monitor:  One gets the impression listening to Titus Andronicus that they truly don’t give a shit.  Their music is weird, messy, frequently out of tune and all the more charming for that.

Walkmen – Lisbon:  This album could’ve easily made the list proper if only I had more time to spend with it.  Unfortunately other albums’ more immediate pleasures vied for my attentions and I haven’t had time to fully digest Lisbon.  Based on what I’ve heard so far I have no reason to believe I won’t come to love it as much as I love Bows + Arrows and You & Me.

The Top Ten Albums of 2010

10. Sufjan Stevens – The Age of Adz:  Just when everyone things they have Sufjan figured out he disappears for five years and returns with an album that sounds more like Nine Inch Nails than anything on Illinois.  His ear for melodies is as good as ever it’s just now it’s set over a bed of glitchy noise.  This could be higher if I had had more time to spend with it.  The 25-minute auto-tune heavy “Impossible Souls” is one of the more impressive tracks of the year.  As he says on I Want to Be Well he’s not fucking around.

9. Arcade Fire – The Suburbs:  Mark 2010 as the year that I finally “got” Arcade Fire.  I liked Funeral enough, but never got the ‘best album of the decade’ hype, and Neon Bible didn’t do much for me at all.  The poppy rhythms of The Suburbs are more up my alley than anything they’ve done to date, and while there are some weak points and it feels a few tracks too long, there are so many highlights I can’t even pick a favorite track.  It’s either The Suburbs, Rococo, We Used to Wait or Sprawl II depending on my mood.

8. Robyn – Body Talk:  You have to applaud Robyn’s ambition if nothing else.  Releasing three EPs in a year, two of them longer than several albums.  On top of that Body Talk’s high points make for some of the best pop singles of the last few years.  The only caveat is that they can be a bit uneven, particularly Volume One.  After Volume Two was released I said I wished she had just put out one solid album, and when she did that instead of releasing Volume Three on it’s own the track selection didn’t feel right (None of Dem instead of Cry When You Get Older?  No acoustic Indestructible? Do we really need Don’t Fucking Tell Me What to Do AND We Dance to the Beat?).  But we can all agree that having a surplus of Robyn music in 2010 is not a bad thing.

7. Big Boi – Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty:  That Body Talk and The Son of Chico Dusty are in the bottom half of this list just underlines what a great year for music 2010 has been.  This is the best Outkast related project since Stankonia and in some ways I may even prefer it to that.  So much funky swaggery goodness.

6. Marina & the Diamonds – The Family Jewels:  For some reason I considered putting this in the honorable mentions, and then I came to my senses.  There’s no denying how much I love Marina.  I love her voice, I love her attitude, I love her goofy style and I love her music.  While Body Talk might have slightly higher highs, this is about as consistent as pop music got in 2010.

5. LCD Soundsystem – This is Happening:  Just when I thought James Murphy couldn’t top Sound of Silver, he comes along with This is Happening.  If this really is his last album I’ll be sad to see his brand of dance music go, but at least he went out on a high note.

4.  Janelle Monae – The ArchAndroid:  The ArchAndroid is a staggering debut.  Who else would kick off a career in pop music by releasing Suites II & III of a four part opus loosely based on Fritz Lang’s Metropolis?  Nicki Minaj could’ve taken a lesson from Janelle, but the difference could also be a matter of talent.  She effortlessly jumps from style to style handling hip-hop, R&B, soul, funk and jazzy ballads with equal aplomb.  Watching her electrifying performance of Tightrope on Letterman hooked me, and it’s a great song, but for me it doesn’t get better than Cold War.  If the album flags a bit in the second half, well, who can fault her ambition?

3. Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Fantasy:  This could quite easily, and perhaps should, be number 1.  According to iTunes I listened to this album more than any other this year, and it’s only been out for a month.  Maybe the iconoclast in me wants to put a different album than everyone else at number 1.  Maybe I can’t think of anything to say about it that hasn’t already been said.  In fact I think I’ll quote Carrie Brownstein here, who summed up the album quite well “This album is as self-aware as it is self-aggrandizing; it’s boastful and brainy; it’s celebratory, but only because it’s seen desperation. Not many records can sound like a “greatest hits” album on the first listen — that’s raw power.”

2. Beach House – Teen Dream:  I liked this album when I heard it back in January and I seem to like it more with every subsequent listen.  If there is an album I listened to this year more than Kanye’s this would be it.  I love Victoria Legrand’s voice and I love the soothing melodies that back it.  I’m not sure what exactly makes Teen Dream so much better than Beach House’s first two records, but they feel so much more assured here.  I don’t see myself ever growing tired of this album.

1. The National – High Violet:  Kanye’s album could just as easily be number 1 and this album number 3 so take the rankings for what they’re worth, but High Violet cemented The National’s place as my favorite current band.  They meld the anthemic sound of Alligator with the minimalist aims of Boxer and make what is likely their best album yet.

Mad Men A+:  I think Mad Men is pretty clearly the best show currently on television, perhaps the most impressive thing about it is that every year they find a way to outdo themselves.  In terms of plot development, this may have been the least substantial season yet, but it gave way for great character based episodes like “The Rejected”, “The Suitcase” and “The Beautiful Girls”, among the best episodes of television I’ve seen from any show.  There were weak points, like the voiceover narration in “The Summer Man” and the absence of plot for much of the season led to an episode or two towards the end that felt a bit too plot-driven, but the finale was wonderful and the way things are going there’s no reason to believe next season won’t be even better.

Breaking Bad A:  If season 2 of Breaking Bad was perfectly plotted, season 3 often felt like it was flying by the seat of its pants.  That sounds like a criticism but with a show like Breaking Bad I think it’s a good thing.  Walt and Jesse are often making it up as they go along and it feels right for the writers to be doing the same.  Continuing a turn that began in the latter half of season 2 Jesse has become the audience surrogate and Walt in many ways is becoming a villain.  It’s a more intriguing dynamic than the one the show began with and I can’t wait to see what they do with it in season 4.

Friday Night Lights A:  The jump in quality between seasons 2 & 3 on Friday Night Lights is kind of shocking.  I’m not sure what to attribute it to, but what was merely an entertaining drama has become one of the best shows on television.  Season 4 does nothing to change that.  Mad Men might be the most intellectually stimulating show on TV and the one most attuned to my pleasure centers, Breaking Bad is certainly the most suspenseful show on TV, but when it comes to melodrama and perfectly crafted moments designed to trigger emotion, I’m not sure there’s anything as good as the last two seasons of Friday Night Lights.

Treme B+:  David Simon’s much anticipated follow up to The Wire was met with a fair amount of criticism in the wake of it’s highly praised pilot.  The complaints I most often heard lodged where that nothing ever happened and it lacked a unifying thread.  The latter is easier to combat than the former, as the focus of the show is clearly the city of New Orleans; the music, the food, the culture.  If it’s not as dramatic as the latest reiteration of the CSI/Law & Order formula, well, that’s perhaps for the better.  I think there’s plenty of day to day drama, people struggling to get their lives together and survive in a city that suffered a near-death experience.  I found a lot to love in the first season and I’m looking forward to revisiting it when it hits DVD, I’m also looking forward to season 2.

Rubicon B-: It’s a shame that Rubicon was cancelled because it wasn’t until the final third of the season that it really found it’s footing.  AMC fired series creator Jason Horwitch early on and that’s evident when watching the show.  The first few episodes are much more concerned with crazy conspiracy theories and they move at a glacial pace, even by AMC standards.  There was a Miranda Richardson plotline that took up a third of every episode but seemed unrelated to everything else going on.  It becomes a much stronger show when things start coming together and they focus more on the day to day at API and the conspiracy angle is moved to the background.  The show really found a groove in the last few episodes and then was met by cancellation.  It’s unfortunate that The Walking Dead is getting a second season and Rubicon wasn’t given a chance to flourish.  It had some great characters (particularly Kale Ingram) and some of the best cinematography on TV, but as it stands it’s hard to recommend investing the time.

Boardwalk Empire C:  Given Boardwalk Empire’s pedigree I’m disappointed to find it a completely average show.  It has great performances (the performances are frequently more memorable than the characters themselves) and the direction is usually exceptional but it feels like the writers don’t know what kind of show they want to make.  For much of the first season it seemed to punctuate boredom and aimlessness with bursts of stylized violence and copious amounts of nudity.  And then there’s Michael Shannon’s Van Alden, who is so awash in quirks and idiosyncrasies that it’s hard to remember there is a human being buried in there somewhere.  It did seem to come together a bit during the final few episodes, as Van Alden continued to feel more and more out of place, and the finale seems to narrow things down to a core group of characters and sets up some rivalries that should give season 2 the focus that season 1 often lacked.  There’s a lot of potential here, which I suppose is what keeps me watching.

The Walking Dead D:  If I wasn’t sure whether Boardwalk Empire or The Walking Dead should take the lower spot on the list their respective finales decided it for me.  While The Walking Dead has perhaps been more consistently entertaining, it’s flaws are too many to overlook.   The acting and directing are about what I’d expect to find on a direct-to-video horror film, but it’s the writing that has been the shows weakest point.  Whether it’s an ill-advised racist rant by a redneck character, a character that abuses his wife and daughter and in nuance is lacking only a mustache to twist, a stereotypical latino gang that are just good guys trying to protect their grandparents, or a crazed scientist who is hell bent on confining people in a blast chamber for no apparent reason, the season wasn’t exactly lacking when it came to bad writing.  And while with the six episode season things often felt rushed, it also felt like they were treading water.  Episode long detours that have no apparent value when it comes to theme, plot or character development.  The good news is that Darabont has apparently canned the entire writing staff, and while this could backfire, I can’t imagine it making the show much worse than it already is.  I’m hoping new writers and a 13 episode season will help Darabont & Co. work out the kinks, but if not I won’t hesitate to jump ship.

Keeping Up With The Kardashians:  Let’s face it.  The only reason I watch this show is because it’s as close as I’ll ever get to dating Kim.  I can be such a 14-year-old girl sometimes.  It’s a sad life but someone’s gotta live it.  And hey, at least I’m not watching Jersey Shore.

I haven’t been watching a ton of film over the last few months.  I took the Halloween season as something of an excuse to go on a horror binge.  I watched 21 films in the last two weeks and while I made several awful choices I do think the top ten are all worth watching, several of them being exceptional.

From worst to best:

21. The Stendhal Syndrome (Dario Argento, 1995) – There is a good film buried in here somewhere, I’m just not sure where.  The examination of the lasting effects traumatic events have on people is interesting as are the few times it touches on the Stendhal Syndrome itself.  Aside from that and Asia Argento’s performance (the reason I watched the film), there’s not really anything to recommend.  The screenplay is a mess, the acting is awful and even Argento’s direction bears little of his trademark flair and color.

20. The Phantom of the Opera (Dario Argento, 1998) – A more cohesive and mannered film than The Stendhal Syndrome though there is less to remark upon.  The direction is a bit better but despite having a script that doesn’t feel like several disparate ideas thrown into a blender, the ideas here are worse and the story is flat and lifeless.

19. Black Sabbath (Mario Bava, 1963) - Elegant camerawork and great use of color, but the stories are rather generic and it never feels like there’s anything at stake.

18. Flesh for Frankenstein (Paul Morrissey, 1973) – I really don’t even know what to say about this film.  I was planning on pairing this with Warhol & Morrissey’s Blood for Dracula but after Frankenstein I’d decided I’d had enough camp, perversion and weirdness (this coming from someone who is generally a fan of camp, perversion and weirdness) to last me well into next year.

17. Blood and Black Lace (Mario Bava, 1964) – I found this to be a completely average slasher, and the average slasher is not very good.  I’ll admit that some of my apathy could be due to the DVD I watched having an awful transfer and a dub that was out of sync, but I didn’t see enough to warrant giving it a second look with a better print.

16. Survival of the Dead (George A. Romero, 2009) – I’m starting to think that no matter how awful the film I’m constitutionally incapable of not enjoying a Romero zombie film.  This one is significantly better than Diary of the Dead but the concept is much less intriguing and even less plausible.  Still, I can think of worse ways to spend 90 minutes than watching Romero dispose of zombies.   Disclaimer: I liked Land of the Dead.

15. Mother of Tears (Dario Argento, 2007) – Like the above Romero there is little to set this film apart from the swamp of average horror films that threaten to overwhelm us, but it is at least consistently entertaining.  The acting however is quite bad and it pains me to say that that even extends to the lead performance of my beloved Asia Argento.

14. The House of the Devil (Ti West, 2009) – Solid but unexceptional.  There are flashes of style and it’s nice to see a new horror director who is aware that holding a shot can do more to create suspense than a flurry of cuts and jump scares, yet despite enjoying the atmosphere early on I left the film feeling underwhelmed.

13. Eyes Without a Face (Georges Franju, 1960) – Speaking of underwhelming, I had really high expectations for this one.  The story is thought provoking and the image of Christiane donning her mask is appropriately unsettling but I found the storytelling and direction so blasé that it seemed like I was checking to see how much time was left every few minutes.  It is less enjoyable than the previous three films on the list, but I’m willing to concede it’s more impressive.

12. Black Sunday (Mario Bava, 1960) – An improvement on the prior Bavas on the list but it still left me wanting, like those films it just feels so hermetic, it never evokes any feeling at all.  Even Barbara Steele’s performance left me cold.  I’m not sure what separates this from the several classic Hollywood horrors it seems to emulate.  Occasionally impressive on a technical level but completely devoid of feeling.

11. Three… Extremes (Fruit Chan, Park Chanwook, Takashi Miike; 2004) – Like all anthology films this one is a bit of a mixed bag.  The Fruit Chan segment is the one I was looking forward to least and the one I ended up enjoying most.  The direction is fantastic, undoubtedly aided by Christopher Doyle’s cinematography, and the story is disturbing in a subtle and effective way.  The final shot!  Park Chanwook’s segment I felt was trying a little too hard but it oozes style.  Takashi Miike’s feels like the least fully conceived of the three but I preferred its dreamlike eerieness to Park’s hyperbolic attempt to shock.  Had I watched Dumplings on it’s own it likely would’ve placed in the top 4 or 5.

10. Black Christmas (Bob Clark, 1974) – I was disappointed by this one after having heard it praised in several circles.  But I can’t deny that it is a lot of fun.  One of the better slashers I’ve seen and worthy of being mentioned alongside Halloween and others.

9. The Fly (David Cronenberg, 1986) – I’m kind of ashamed to say this is the first Cronenberg film I’ve seen that didn’t start Viggo Mortensen.  It’s a hell of a lot better than his two most recent films.  Jeff Goldblum is an endlessly engaging screen presence and his character’s deterioration is the one thing from any of these films that left an unmistakable trace of itself in my nightmares.

8. Trouble Every Day (Claire Denis, 2001) – Another film that didn’t quite live up to my expectations but is still a very accomplished piece of cinema, and really, who would expect anything less from Claire Denis?  Vincent Gallo is convincingly creepy (what range!) and the iconic scenes featuring Beatrice Dalle are memorable.  Despite the shock of those scenes, like most Denis, the film is wonderfully subtle.

7. Hour of the Wolf (Ingmar Bergman, 1968) – I really need to give this one another look.  The first half of the film left me rather cold,  but I found the final third so engrossing that it earned it this high spot on the list.  I think I would appreciate the film more were I to watch it again but perhaps it would only further impress the feeling of lifelessness it had early on.

6. A Tale of Two Sisters (Kim Ji-Woon, 2003) – I can’t imagine Korean horror gets much better than this.  It’s subtle and deliberate like so many of my favorite Asian films but it builds to a thrilling conclusion.  There is a series of scenes towards the end as everything comes together that left me speechless.  It’s only possible weakness is that it’s overly reliant on a rather cliched plot twist, but I think it handles it significantly better than most films do.

5. Opera (Dario Argento, 1987) – It’s not Suspiria but, you know, it’s not that far off either.  An engaging slasher that is hamstrung only by the use of awful heavy metal during the murder scenes.  The swooping steadicam shots from the killer’s POV may be cliche at this point but these are among the best and most effective I’ve ever seen.  I also really loved the final shot of Betty lying in the grass.

4. Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary (Guy Maddin, 2002) – I will never tire of Maddin’s aesthetic but this one feels a bit minor and he makes some questionable decisions (most notably the use of color, especially the hideous yellow intertitles) but it’s still probably my favorite retelling of the Dracula myth and I feel like my criticisms would melt away with another viewing or two.  I love how he works in the ballet in a way that feels completely organic.  It never feels like you’re watching a filmed ballet or anything but A Guy Maddin Film.  Which is exactly why I liked it so much.

3. The Girl Who Knew Too Much (Mario Bava, 1963) – I may be alone in thinking this, but if Bava is capable of making a film like this why did he spend so much of his time making generic horrors like Black Sunday and Black Sabbath?  This is filmmaking that is thrilling, vivacious, and, most notably in comparison to the other of his films I watched,  Alive!  I found the ending to be a bit hamfisted but it does nothing to take away from the hour plus of virtuoso direction and unrelenting suspense that precedes it.

2. What Have You Done to Solange? (Massimo Dallamano, 1972) – Quite easily my favorite slasher film.  I was taken in by this film from the very first shot.  It’s backed by a Morricone score that, unlike the ones that accompanied The Stendhal Syndrome and The Phantom of the Opera, is memorable and most importantly feels like a Morricone score.  Also notable is the film’s mise-en-scene which is wonderfully suggestive without ever drawing undue attention to itself.  It does so many little things right.  Every shot feels necessary and composed with care.  The story is a bit salacious but I think that’s part of why it’s so effective.  It feels a little bit wrong.  It’s an Italian Horror that is capable of holding it’s own with Suspiria, it might be better than Suspiria.  This would quite easily be the number one film on the list if I hadn’t seen…

1. Don’t Look Now (Nicolas Roeg, 1973) – A masterpiece.  Roeg has been on the edges of my cinematic obsession for awhile but this is the first time I’ve given in and given him a shot.  I’m afraid that after Don’t Look Now it’s going to be hard to find subsequent films anything but disappointing.  Everything is pitch perfect.  The direction is consistently engaging, Venice has been the setting for films so many times but I don’t think it’s ever been used or shot so well.  The leading performances from Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland are top notch.  Roeg’s editing is nothing short of breathtaking from the opening sequence that instantly had me in the film’s thrall to what might be the best sex scene I’ve ever had the pleasure of viewing.  I sound like I’m gushing, and really, I am.  It’s just that good a film, the first horror I’ve seen in a long time that I feel comfortable mentioning alongside The Shining as an example of what I look for in a great horror film.

Films:

Toy Story 3 - Another great Pixar film.  I don’t even know what to say about them anymore.  This is one of the films I felt compelled to write about, as the subtext is worth examining, but the moment has passed.  Perhaps I’ll revisit it when it hits DVD.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World – 2 hours of pure fun.  Wright manages to translate the feeling the comics have of capturing the Id of a generation, most notably our proclivity to relate to one another via pop culture, but the formal innovation is what keeps the film having the stagnant feeling of most adaptations.  He manages to seamlessly blend the video game and comic book aesthetics into the cinematic form in a way that feels completely fresh and original.

Stolen Kisses – I’ve never been a huge fan of Truffaut, so to say this is my favorite of his films may not be the high praise it sounds like.  It’s still a wonderful film.

Showgirls – I err towards the side of those that feel this film is a Masterpiece rather than the Worst Film Ever.  I wonder how it would’ve been received if it was directed by David Lynch and not Paul Verhoeven.  The heightened performances feel positively Lynchian as does the simultaneous embracing and deconstructimg of the American Dream.  And it’s funny and entertaining on a surface level, if you’re willing to embrace the Las Vegasness of the whole thing.

Books:

Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy was the running theme of my summer.  Supplanted by Kafka’s novels, Salinger’s stories and some unremarkable detours into non-fiction.  The Trial, The Castle and All the Pretty Horses are all essential reading.  I’m currently nearing the end of Nick Flynn’s Another Bullshit Night in Suck City to be followed by Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom which I will hopefully find compelling enough to write something about.

Music:

Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs and Of Montreal’s False Priest have so dominated my listening over the last month and a half that I’m hard pressed to think of anything else worth mentioning.  More about both to come in my annual Music write-up.

TV:

I filled a chink in my Joss Whedon fan armor by working my way through Angel which is, in it’s own way, as compelling as Buffy, if not quite as memorable.  I finally got around to Breaking Bad, in which Bryan Cranston earns every bit of praise he’s received.  I’m currently in the process of catching up on Friday Night Lights and hasn’t this season of Mad Men been absolutely amazing?

After a time you notice you are completely content.  Any worries you may have brought with you concerning your work, money, your future or your health have melted away.  You are enjoying the song on the radio, the beauty of the evening sky, the feeling of the air, the smell of the trees and flowers.  As soon as you realize this it goes away, but for a moment you knew what it was to feel at peace with the world.

It’s a feeling that used to be easier to come by, when I was younger and my biggest concern was whether Maribeth had a crush on me or just wanted to be my friend. Now as I take my evening walk it’s more often I find trace elements of former contentment than contentment itself.  I walk past Josh’s parent’s house and think back fondly on the many nights I sat with him and others around a campfire, illegally obtained beers in hand, talking about whatever came to mind, completely at ease with who and where we were at that moment in time. Or the time when I laid on his back porch into the early morning hours while everyone else was sleeping, watching shooting stars dance across the sky.

I cling to moments such as these a bit too firmly.  My friends have moved away and gotten married, they have kids.  Yet I sit still hoping that if I wait long enough everything will come back.  Meanwhile my life is passing me by, just like this train.

To begin, a note on the title.  Taken at face value, it may seem a bit redundant as most people would be willing to concede that anyone who writes and performs their own music is in fact the author of that music.  There are a few reasons I chose the title, let’s begin with the most superficial; it sounds good and it feels right.  Two, one could argue, in the spirit of the term’s original conception, that even if someone is performing songs they didn’t write they manipulate them to fit their artistic vision, I would claim this is true of many pop stars and thus the term isn’t completely useless in regards to music.  Third, and most importantly, I think there is a corollary between the way, say, Michelangelo Antonioni communicates his ideas via mise-en-scene and the way Annie Clark communicates her ideas musically on Actor, which is the point of this piece.  Moving on.

St. Vincent’s debut album, Marry Me, was a promising debut.  It has its problems, the first half of the record is noticeably stronger than the latter and it seems to lack of a strong thematic whole.  In interviews Annie has claimed the songs were written over several years at various points in her life.   I think the record belies that, it comes off less as a carefully conceived opus than a portrait of the artist as a young woman, which isn’t to say it’s not an impressive statement of purpose.  It is, it contains several great songs, such as ‘Now, Now’ and ‘Your Lips Are Red’ which has gone on to be a centerpiece of her live shows.

As impressive as it can be there is little on Marry Me that signals the artistic growth she would show on Actor. It isn’t an album that won me over instantly.  My first impression of it was that it was a competent but unexceptional record, I enjoyed it but never got much further than that.  However, like many of my favorite records, it planted a seed in my mind and I found myself returning to it again and again and eventually I started to uncover things in it I’ve grown to love.

What most impresses me about Actor, as I mentioned in the first paragraph, is the way in which Annie Clark weaves the themes and emotions present in the lyrics into the very fabric of the songs.  It stretches beyond composing a sad song as a ballad in a minor key or a happier song in a major key with an upbeat tempo; there are bursts of distorted guitar erupting out of Disneyfied tableaus belying the idea that maybe everything isn’t as cheery as it seems on the surface, the mechanical heartbeat lurking behind the precise riff that defines ‘Marrow’ creates an aura of roboticism and echoes the helplessness the narrator of the song expresses in feeling she’s not completely in control of herself.

It’s this sensibility I’m not sure is present on Marry Me that makes Actor a truly exceptional record.  It’s not unprecedented, certainly classical composition has a history of relating stories and ideas musically, but it’s hard to overstate how rare it is to see this sensibility so fully realized in popular music, which since it’s inception has used the lyric as the primary means of communication.  There were two other albums in 2009 I would consider exceptional Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest and Dirty Projectors’ Bitte Orca, I’m not sure either of them work at the same conceptual level.  Certainly there is something to be said for the feeling of disconnection Dave Longstreth’s disjointed melodies create on the latter, a feeling that is also present in his lyrics, and Grizzly Bear’s album may be more satisfying on an emotional level but I don’t feel either of them is as intellectually robust as Actor.

Actor is a fitting title for the record as false fronts and the ability of appearances to deceive seems to be one of the key thematic drives behind it.  From the first song what’s on the surface is questioned and we are asked to question what’s underneath.  There’s also a feeling of anxiety arising from the dissonance between who we are and what we project.  An underlying need to break free and express ourselves while our fears of what others will think induce a form of paralysis.  It’s a feeling that seems more and more relevant and it’s rarely been expressed as viscerally as it is on Actor.

To bring things full circle, there is a cinematic feel to the record.  In interviews Annie has stated that several of the songs were composed while watching her favorite movies on mute.  There are moments when it feels like it could serve as a score to your favorite Disney masterpiece, others that feel more suited to a Kubrick film.  This cinematic air is jokingly brought to light by the title of the last song ‘The Sequel’.  The previous track ‘Just the Same But Brand New’ feels like it should be the end of the album, but then we are treated to a snippet of song that seems to cut out right when it should be building to a climax.  Is this an attempt to whet our appetites for Annie’s next album? Most likely it’s just a clever joke, but I will be looking forward to it with the anticipation I reserve for the films of The Coen Brothers, Olivier Assayas and Claire Denis.  All of them auteurs.