2018 In Review: Music

**** Essex Green, The - Hardly Electronic
*** Albert Hammond Jr. - Francis Trouble
*** Amy Rigby - The Old Guys
*** Beths, The - Future Me Hates Me
*** Bird Streets - Bird Streets
*** Brian Jonestown Massacre, The - Something Else
*** Charlatans, The - Totally Eclipsing
*** Chills, The - Snow Bound
*** Courtney Barnett - Tell Me How You Really Feel
*** Elvis Costello - Look Now
*** Gretchen's Wheel - Black Box Theory
*** KT Tunstall - Wax
*** Laura Veirs - The Lookout
*** Lemon Twigs, The - Go To School
*** Liminanas, The - Shadow People
*** Metric - Art Of Doubt
*** Pete Yorn & Scarlett Johansson - Apart
*** Richard Thompson - 13 Rivers
*** Tres Oui - Poised To Flourish
*** We Are Scientists - Megaplex
*** Wild Nothing - Indigo
*** Decemberists, The - Traveling On EP
*** Django Django - Winter's Beach EP
** Alex Chilton and Peter Holsapple -The Death Of Rock
** Antarctigo Vespucci - Love In The Time Of Email
** Beach House - 7
** Belle & Sebastian - How To Solve Our Human Problems
** Breeders, The - All Nerve
** Charlotte Gainsbourg - Take 2
** Frontperson - Frontrunner
** Great Lakes - Dreaming Too Close To The Edge
** Hinds - I Don't Run
** Inara George - Dearest Everybody
** Johnny Marr - Call The Comet
** Kate Nash - Yesterday Was Forever
** Kooks, The - Let's Go Sunshine
** Pavlov's Dog - Prodigal Dreamer
** Pinkshinyultrablast - Miserable Miracles
** Sam Phillips - World on Sticks
** Shins, The - The Worms Heart
** Superchunk - What a Time to Be Alive
** Eleanor Friedberger - Rebound
** Jeff Tweedy - Warm
** Neko Case - Hell-On
** Rays - You Can Get There From Here

2018 In Review: Movies

**** The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs
**** Roma
*** A Quiet Place
*** Annihilation
*** The Favourite
*** First Reformed
*** Isle Of Dogs
*** Mamma Mia! Her We Go Again
*** The Other Side Of The Wind
*** Unsane
*** Widows
** Crazy Rich Asians
** I Feel Pretty
** Incredibles 2
** Mowgli: Legend Of The Jungle
** The Spy Who Dumped Me
** You Were Never Really Here
* Bohemian Rhapsody
* Ready Player One
* The Nutcracker And The Four Realms
* The Old Man And The Gun

The Favourite (2018) ***

Not as twisted (or direct) as his previous films, but entertaining and well made.

Roma (2018) ****

Directorial tour-de-force about an upper class family coming apart in early '70's Mexico City. Lots of long one take sequences which boggle the mind as to how they were accomplished.

The Other Side of the Wind (2018) ***

Can be interpreted in many ways, but this final Orson Welles picture is as ambitious as any previous. Lots to admire, lots to think about.

Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle (2018) **

Well made but succumbs to the tired Hollywood script "beats" and ends up quite like another film.

First Reformed (2017) ***

Nicely directed character study that takes a turn. Beautiful, minimalist production design and a very good performance by Mr. Hawke.

Performance (1970) **

I paid attention but couldn't figure out the point. Enjoyed the actors and the cinematography though.

Brief Encounter (TV Movie 1974) **

Superbly shot drama with Ms. Loren never lovelier.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) ****

Superbly crafted anthology film featuring the trademark Coens' humor, irony and detail. Well played by a great cast.

You Were Never Really Here (2017) **

Gritty and violent neo-noir has some interesting moments and admirable narrative restraint. Joaquin Phoenix holds it together.

Watching the Detectives (2007) **

A case of low expectations being rewarded, the flick is enjoyable thanks to the able cast and quick pace. Formulaic rom-com.

Stephen Hillenburg Dead: SpongeBob Squarepants’ Creator Was 57 – Variety

Hillenburg graduated from Humboldt State University in 1984 with a bachelor’s degree in Natural Resource Planning and Interpretation, with an emphasis on marine resources. He then became a marine biology teacher at the Orange County Marine Institute (now the Ocean Institute) in Dana Point, California. This interest, combined with his artistic talent and love of the sea and its creatures, led him to write and illustrate stories as teaching tools with characters that would later become the denizens of SpongeBob’s home, Bikini Bottom.

One of the best television shows ever made. Expertly crafted, tightly written, absurdly imaginative, humane and hilarious.

Widows (2018) ***

Nifty noir-heist-thriller is well paced and chock full of stars. Once the setup is complete, the second half takes off.

Nicolas Roeg, director of Don't Look Now and Walkabout, dies aged 90 | Film | The Guardian

Having risen through the ranks and devised his own, unique film language, Roeg held firm convictions in cinema as a distinct art form. “Movies are not scripts – movies are films,” he said in a 2006 interview. “They’re not books, they’re not the theatre. It’s a completely different discipline, it exists on its own. I would say that the beauty of it is, it’s not the theatre, it’s not done over again. It’s done in bits and pieces. Things are happening which you can’t get again.”

Purple Noon (1960) ***

Well directed Highsmith thriller with a knockout ending. Beautiful people in beautiful places doing not very nice things.

Jeremiah Johnson (1972) ***

Exceptional flick marred by an obnoxiously intrusive score. Pollack's most beautifully shot and composed film.

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018) *

Bad CGI fest masquerading as fantasy. Unfortunate because the art direction is pretty good.

Camille Paglia:It’s Time for a New Map of the Gender World - Quillette

My substitute for religion is art, which I have expanded to include all of popular culture. But when art is reduced to politics, as has been programmatically done in academe for 40 years, its spiritual dimension is gone. It is coarsely reductive to claim that value in the history of art is always determined by the power plays of a self-referential social elite. I take Marxist social analysis seriously: Arnold Hauser’s Marxist, multi-volume A Social History of Art (1951) was a major influence on me in graduate school. However, Hauser honored art and never condescended to it. A society that respects neither religion nor art cannot be called a civilization.

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) *

Laughably cliched and simple minded biopic of Queen, focusing on the trials and tribulations of Mr. Mercury who was quite the annoying diva.