My best from 2018 (part 5 – Theatre/Musical/Live Show)

Initially sceptical, The Girl from the North Country turned out to be immensely enjoyable. The press-ganging of so many songs into the service of the story was not always convincing, indeed there were a couple that should really have been there, but the sensitivity of the performers and the wonderful musical arrangements just made it work.

Hands down, David Byrne is the most brilliant performer in the rock/pop genre I’ve ever seen. That was true 40 years ago with Talking Heads, it was true in his various solo guises and it was true in spades with this year’s American Utopia Tour. A class act.

My best from 2018 (part 4 – Art)

Two incredible shows, one early in the year and the other in December, will remain in my memory for some time:

All Too Human, Tate Britain

Robert Blomfield: Edinburgh Street Photography An Unseen Archive, City Art Centre

My best from 2018 (part 3 – Films/TV)

As there seems to be too much of everything, it can be hard to be discerning and not feel that you’ve given your time to something that doesn’t merit it. well, none of that here:

The Florida Project A bit like looking under the carpet at some of the muck of America, with wonderful performances by the children.

Phantom Thread Beautiful, twisted and memorable.

La Casa de Papel Simply the most addictive TV series ever.

Lucky Here, too, America puts it’s worst foot forward and reminds us of the poverty and hardship faced by so many. But here with extraordinary humanity and the presence of the late, great Harry Dean Stanton. Unmissable.

Mi Obra Maestra A thoroughly engaging, off-beat comedy from Argentina.

The Children Act Almost as good as the novel, it deals with a number of very real conundrums with standout performances by Emma Thompson and Stanley Tucci.

Better Call Saul Series 4 The slowest-burning TV series ever, with the least attractive central character but impossible not to want to see where it ends up.

Cold War The communist misappropriation of popular culture is the backdrop to a variation on the “only story” theme, but what stands out is the aesthetic. I could watch this film over and over with the sound down.

Ozark (Seasons 1 & 2) Dark and improbable, but wonderfully acted.

My best from 2018 (part 2 – Music)

A good year in music for me, with a profusion of new and old. What is quite bizarre was that two of the top three in The Guardian’s list of the top albums of the year were already on my list. So, either The Guardianhas become irredeemably middle-of-the road or I am cooler than cool! As usual, not in order, here are some of the best things I heard this year:

St Vincent Masseducation I first came across St Vincent a few years ago when she was touring with David Byrne, a recommendation in itself. While I liked her previous work this seems to me to absolutely take things to another level. Inventive, provocative and alluring.

James Blake The Colour in Anything As the support act to last year’s Radiohead tour I didn’t pay much heed to his set. Big mistake, this thoughtful album won’t have you dancing in the streets but it will seem into your soul.

Ry Cooder The Prodigal Son If I could play the guitar like anyone, it would have to be like Ry Cooder. Here he proves. yet again, that he has become more radical with age, while maintaining his incomparable taste and feel for the traditions of American folk, blues and popular music. The man is a genius.

Melody Gardot Live in Europe One of the performers I most want to see live played two dates hereabouts this year but, unfortunately, I was on holiday. So this went some way to compensating for having missed her.

Janelle Monáe Dirty Computer So, with my cooler-than-thou hat on, this, if anything, would be my album of the year. Great grooves, really gutsy and challenging. I don’t imagine I’m in the target for this but I absolutely love it.

Bob Dylan More Blood, More Tracks For Dylan junkies this is as close as it gets to the ultimate high. Six CDs of outtakes, rehearsals and alternative versions of one of the greatest albums ever. The Holy Grail, thank you!

Christine and the Queens ChrisAnother cool-daddy selection, this young French singer, songwriter and producer has generated some of the best pop music I’ve hear in a long while.

Fantastic Negrito Please Don’t Be Dead This is pretty cool too, though quite different. A bit bluesy, very rock and somewhat off-beam, another album to make you feel younger!

Hailey Tuck Junk This is debut collection of mostly familiar covers is in a voice that you feel you’ve heard before, but actually haven’t. Marketed as alt-jazz, whatever that is, she is definitely one to keep an eye on.

My best from 2018 (part 1 – Books)

However tough things get, we are fortunate indeed to have the consolations of art. As a way of wishing you all the best for the coming year, here are some of the best things I encountered in the year that is ending:

The Only Story Julian Barnes Once again, in his inimitable style, Julian Barnes explores the central question: the meaning of love.

Waiting for the Last Bus Richard Holloway Perhaps the most moving thing about this book is the way in which sound of the author’s voice is on every page. And what a voice, what a man, what an inspiration.

Modernists & Mavericks Martin Gayford I suppose you have to be already persuaded of the importance of the contribution of the figures in this book, though if you’re not, it could well convert you. Thorough.

Other Men’s Daughters Richard Stern A contemporary and friend of Philip Roth, this is a wonderful evocation of the period, the 1960s, and a remarkable portrait of a marriage.

Asymmetry Lisa Halliday Another book with a Roth connection, but perfectly titled. Asymmetrical in every sense, it is, finally, an experimental (the trendy description would be metafictional) novel; and the experiment works.

Warlight Michael Ondaatje Here too, we are on familiar territory where, in this case, the central question is: what is memory? An amazing novel that really does allow you to inhabit a gone world.

The Power Broker Robert A. Caro This Pulitzer-winning doorstop of a book will not be to everyone’s taste but it does what it says on the tin and provides a portrait of power at work and, incidentally, tells us how the New York of today came to be the way it is.

The Flame Leonard Cohen A posthumous collection of, mostly, incidental pieces that I don’t think will do much to enhance his reputation. For true believers, as I am.

The Life of Saul Bellow Love and Strife 1965-2005 Zachary Leader The second volume of Leader’s monumental biography of, for my money, the greatest American writer of the 20^th century. But oh how one’s heroes can charm, enthral and disappoint, in the space of a single page! Again, really just for the faithful.

My best for you (part 4)

After the depredations of another dismal year, let’s take heart from what’s good and enduring – with best wishes for 2018 and a return to some kind of normal

TV

The relentless rise of Netflix continues.

Apart from Howards End (BBC) – a wonderful adaptation of a wonderful novel, and Long Strange Trip (Amazon) – an illuminating history of The Grateful Dead, all the others are Netflix productions. Should we be worried?

Spike Lee’s remake of his 1986 film She’s Gotta Have It is funny and bewildering, sometimes linguistically challenging, but in the end it’s impossible to judge or dislike the central character, the lovely Lola Darling. And the soundtrack is just amazing.

The People v O.J. Simpson is incredibly gripping, even if I basically knew the outcome, with an incredible performance by John Travolta.

The Crown goes against all my instincts but is so brilliantly done, I can’t say no. Ozark is a bit like Breaking Bad with white in-breds in place of the nasty Latinos.

The Joan Didion documentary The Center Cannot Hold is probably for fans, but I was one anyway. The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) is really a film, but is quirky, intelligent, very New York Jewish, sad, funny and very watchable (not totally sold on Emma Thompson in this role, but the others are outstanding).

My best for you (part 3)

After the depredations of another dismal year, let’s take heart from what’s good and enduring – with best wishes for 2018 and a return to some kind of normal

FILMS

It was hard to resist the sincerity of Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight, delicate and challenging in equal measure.

Apart from what must be an Oscar-winning performance by Gary Oldman, Joe Wright gives a depth to this telling of the Darkest Hour that was entirely (and surprisingly) missing from Christopher Nolan’s clunky Dunkirk. It also offers a timely reminder of just how devoid of sentiment and common decency the Tory party has always been.

Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled was just that; beguiling.

Aquarius, by Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho, is a local version of a global problem; rampant, de-humanising greed and corruption with a remarkable performance by Sonia Braga.

Franz, by director François Ozon, is a really captivating piece of work. The initially irritating shifts between monochrome and colour eventually proving pertinent. And, remember the name of Paula Beer, we’ll be hearing more from her for sure.

Baby Driver offers not much more than a great night out. Thrills, spills and outsized cartoon characters, along with a terrific soundtrack.

My best for you (part 2)

After the depredations of another dismal year, let’s take heart from what’s good and enduring – with best wishes for 2018 and a return to some kind of normal

BOOKS

It was impossible to miss George Saunders novel Lincoln in the Bardo. lauded as much in Italy as elsewhere. A curious, challenging but ultimately rewarding read. Richard Ford’s memoir of his parents Between Them is a journey to what now seems a far-away world of technological simplicity, social repression and tight-lipped emotion.

I have long regarded Martin Amis as a heavy-handed purveyor of fiction and a superlative writer of criticism, both social and literary. When he’s flying high, as he does so often in this new collection The Rub of Time, he’s pretty well untouchable.

Both Philip Roth’s non-fiction Why Write? and the Paul Simon biography Homeward Bound are for the already converted, but if you’re one of us, both are illuminating and unmissable.

The Kent Haruf trilogy – Plainsong, Eventide and Benediction – was by far my most incredible discovery of the year. Wonderfully written stories of ordinary lives and extraordinary humanity. Beautiful, moving and hopeful.

My best for you (part 1)

After the depredations of another dismal year, let’s take heart from what’s good and enduring – with best wishes for 2018 and a return to some kind of normal

Music

Solange Knowles, better-known as just Solange, is the younger sister of the Beyoncé, but, for my money she is more subtle and interesting than her megastar sibling. This album (A Seat at the Table) has an honest and layered feel, along with great grooves.

Beck does it again with Colors. An exuberant and exciting mix of intelligent and rooted hard pop. Uplifting and dance-able; an elixir for these troubled times.

What can I say about the great Mavis Staples? Seems like she’s always been there, and all her recent albums (with Ry Cooder and Jeff Tweedy producing) are brilliant.

I know this may seem insufferably trendy, but you just can’t ignore Kendrick Lamarr. For old troopers like me DAMN. is unquestionably challenging and sometimes excessive, but there is real life here and abundant justification for his current high-standing.

If it’s good old-fashioned “real” music you’re after, there’s all-you-can-eat on Sharon Jones’ Soul of a Woman.

The film Baby Driver (will it prove to be Kevin Spacey’s last appearance?) is basically a cartoon, but a lot of fun. And the soundtrack makes it all work.

Best wishes for 2017 from the hole that was 2016 (part 2 films & TV)

The best things I’ve seen all year (films)

There are still a number of this year’s films that I haven’t managed to see that would probably have made my pick (the three Isabelle Huppert films, for example, only one of which I saw and while she was, as always, the real thing, the film itself was a bit of a damp squib). So these were the best of what I did see. I wasn’t a big fan of Tom Ford’s first film, which I found a bit too glossy. The aesthetics of Nocturnal Animals are similarly elevated, but the feel is more satisfyingly, even grippingly, noir. While frequently moved in the cinema, I’m very rarely moved to tears. The food-bank scene in I, Daniel Blake was so shocking that tears seemed the only response; tears of anger, shame and guilt. What I liked about Spotlight was the depiction of journalism, that much-maligned profession, doing – when not constrained by media owners’ or megalomaniac editors’ personal agendas and bad faith – what only journalism can; ferreting out the truth. The Italian film Perfect Strangers has been optioned for a number of foreign adaptations, and rightly so. The central premise is that the selves we preserve on our mobile devices are more than enough to render us strangers, even to, or perhaps especially to, our nearest and dearest. A party game not for the faint-hearted.

 

The best things I’ve seen all year (TV)

Even if you haven’t seen Breaking Bad, the (not entirely connected) prequel is a must. Better Call Saul! is another witness in the case for the rising narrative supremacy of long-form television. What was great about both The Night Manager (BBC) and The Crown (Netflix) was the sumptuousness of the locations and the acting. The former, a Bond-ish tale of good vs. evil, was gripping, sexy and fast paced, while the latter, as someone else observed, is a bit like watching fish in an aquarium; nothing happens but you are transfixed.