ReadWrite-grogsgamut

This is my first Friday Night Relaxer for a while… since June 2011 to be exact. They used to be among my favourite blog posts to write and to be honest since stopping writing them I have never really felt like a “blogger”. A blog has to have that personal element to lift it from just a collection of columns (or in my case, graphs).

So I’m going to try and get back into the swing. I’m also going to try and restart my “Flick of the Week” Posts, because the last one I did of those was .. ahem… 108 weeks ago.

This weekend Triple J is doing its hottest 100 of the past 20 years.

It’s kind of an odd music period for me. For the first 10 of those years I was fairly well invested in music, but the past 10 years old-cootdom fairly well mugged me and had me switching over from Triple J to your more easy listening stations. To be honest I was probably in that potion well before then, but that was the time I stopped even trying to resist.

Oddly, because my daughters like music and my wife still refuses to settle into the rut which I have so nicely made, I probably know more music now than I did 5-10 years ago. Most weekends we have V on listening to the Top 40. The good things is V is guaranteed to have a top 500 of the 80s and 90s running most weekends, so I’m fairly safe from the dangers of knowing too many of the lyrics of the top 10.

When I did my first draft of this list I realised I am terribly middle of the road, even when I am trying to be edgy. I re-did the list to try and pretend to be more edgy. I ended up with the same list, but with one more U2 song. So, yeah that was a fail.

And with that here’s my list. Mostly I came up with by looking at the Hottest 100’s of the past 20 years, and a few others that I just like. I left out a few that I nearly put in to look coolish – like Amy Winehouse, “Rehab”, and I left out Powderfinger's “My Happiness” because I guess I felt it was a bit too middle of the road and I already had enough of that in there.

There’s nothing from Oasis, which back in 1995 would have seemed impossible. No Smashing Pumpkins or Nine Inch Nails. No Jeff Buckley either, because I couldn’t chose a cover version to be one of the best songs. Nick Cave’s “Into my Arms” was in the list, then out. I’d probably change the list next week, but oh well here it is (no particular order… I think)

1. Pulp – Common People

Look, just don’t even argue with me. This is the song of the 1990s. It just is.

Sure Smells Like Teen Spirit might be the song of the early 1990s, or perhaps Losing My Religion, or perhaps Creep, or maybe… look. Forget it, none of them are as atypical 1990s as this. The only one that comes close is Pulp’s Disco 2000. This song is the most listened song on my itunes playlist. Mostly I think that is because when I go grocery shopping I put my iphone on and this song invariably is in the genius mix of any song I choose (the same applies to The Smiths “This Charming Man”).

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this song.

2. Hole – Doll Parts

I don’t particularly like Courtney Love, I never bought a Hole album. In fact if I was forced at gun point to even hum another of their songs I’d be in strife; maybe “Miss World”. Probably I’d start out humming it and end up humming this song.

I don’t care that this song was written and recorded before Kurt Cobain died, the lyrics are brilliant and to me they capture the grunge era as good as any song.

I love a song that seems to wear its heart, spleen and lungs on its sleeve and yet also contains the line “I fake it so real, I am beyond fake”,

And when she absolutely howls, “And someday, you will ache like I ache/Someday, you will ache like I ache”, then Love is either finding as much deep pain to reach that sound as any singer before her, or is she one of the best signers at faking it. Either way I don’t care. 

3. Radiohead – Paranoid Android

Part of me really wanted to hate this song. When it came out I read so many over the top orgiastic mentions of it in Q and other music mags that really. Vomit. Please.

I am not really a Radiohead fan. I didn’t even try too hard to like Kid A. And well after that I tried even less.

But geebus this song has it all. Given in my view the greatest song of all time is The Beatles, “A Day in the Life”, it’s little wonder I love this song. It feels about 3 songs slammed together with no sense of care that they fit, and yet fit they do in a glorious amalgam of pain and joy.

And geez, “When I am king you will be first up against the wall” is a line that wins me over with every listen. 

4. Greenday - Good Riddance (Time of your life)

For crying out loud, really Greg? This 2:30 min piece of treacly pap?

Yes. Maybe because it reminds me of the last episode of Seinfeld. Maybe because it also reminds me of the last episode of the first season of The Panel. It’s a song that make you want to go through your photos and make a movie with this as the backing track. Who gives a stuff that it’s about a break up.

This isn’t a song I search for on my playlist. But when it comes on I never give it a skip. And at 2:30 min it doesn’t wear out its welcome either.

5. Arcade Fire – Wake Up.

I won’t lie. I had no idea about this song until I heard it on the trailer for “Where the Wild Things Are”. Maybe I’m including it just to prove I have listened to at least one new song in the past 10 years. There’s not much rock music anymore that deserves to be put along side anything written before 2000, but this one has a great rhythm to it.

6. The Shins – New Slang

Yep, I came to this through “Garden State” – a not very good film with a very good soundtrack.

Do the lyrics mean anything? Probably not. I’m pretty sure I’ve been singing them wrong these past 5 years. I’m not a big one for getting the lyrics right. I still sing the wrong lyrics to Kids in the Kitchen “Current Stand” and I got that on a tape for Christmas 1985.

But this song just is a wonderful, lazy, languid, easy sound. It reminds me of when I was at university, and that’s pretty impressive given I left university 8 years before this song was released.

7. U2  - Beautiful Day

Yes it’s U2 and you all hate U2.  Stuff you. I don’t. I threw in my lot with them back in 1986 and I’m not about to change now. When this song comes on the radio I turn it up and I start smiling.

Look I could keep going, but there’s no way I’m convincing anyone. This is my list so get your own.

8. The White Stripes – The Hardest Button to Button

Was a toss up between this and 7 Nation Army, but I like the beat on this better. And the video. Maybe I also like that The Simpsons parodied it. Maybe it’s here because I don’t want to appear as old as I really am.  This or the Arcade Fire would probably be the first one to drop.

9. James – Laid

This came out in my final year at uni, and it’s about the most fun song ever written. Is it a “great” song? Nah. But it was a great one to dance to and sing loudly with your friends when you’re up late, young and have had just enough to drink to make you think life will always be this fun.

10. Augie March – One Crowded Hour

Like Bolero it just keeps building that same rhythm over and over. The intensity of the song continues to build and by the end all the emotion of the song is laid bare. Love it.

And so there you go. That’s my 10… I think…

So the latest trailer is out for Les Miserables.

The first one had me hooked – I was feeling pretty confident that they weren’t going to stuff it up. This second version is almost a summary of the film. Whereas the first only featured Anne Hathaway singing “I Dreamed a Dream”, this one shows most of the lead actors getting a chance to show their stuff (pretty much the only ones we don’t hear are Sasha Barron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter – though we do get to see them).

And OK. I’m in. I am fully invested in this. If this sucks as a film, then I’m likely to be seen on TV being dragged out of some cinema by the authorities on Boxing Day screaming “You bastards!! You ruined it!!! Damn you!! Damn you all to hell!!!”

Because this trailer has me completely in. All the actors look the goods. Russell Crowe doesn’t sound like Philip Quast but I’m still confident he’ll be fine, and the line we hear him sing from “One Day More” is not a great one to show off any singing – his real test will come with “Stars” and “Javert’s Suicide” (sorry if that title is a spoiler for anyone!).

Lock in Anne Hathaway for a Best Supporting Oscar. Just lock her in. There is no way she will lose. She acts, she cut her hair, she sings and she’ll make every person in the theatre bawl their eyes out. She gets the gold statue.

Amanda Seyfried looks rather like Cosette – which is pretty much means she comes off as perfectly nice and perfect. The role is a tough thing given everyone really loves Eponine, and in that role I’m happy to see Samantha Barks, because if she flubbed “On My Own”, things would get rather sad (and not in a good way). Given she sang the role for the 25th Anniversary Concert, we know she can hold the tune, and when she tells Marius that the girl’s name is Cosette and then looks down and knows all is lost, well, I’m with her.

And I pretty happy with Hugh Jackman as the bloke to carry this film: Jean Valjean spent 19 years in prison so he’s can’t be Mister Nice but you have to like him, and you have to think he could be the type of guy who could spend 19 years in jail and come out not be full of hate. He also needs to do a fair bit of singing. We don’t see much of that in the trailer, and I’m interested to see how “natural” he goes. While I love the idea of the live singing as opposed to miming a standard Broadway cast score, I think there is a danger in going “too natural”. At the end of the day (to quote a song) it’s still a musical.

But anyway. Well done to the trailer makers because you got me. I’m there Boxing Day:

A couple months ago I wrote a piece for the Walkley Magazine on 10 Things You Need to Know to Blog Your Way to Success (success, obviously being a pretty flexible term).

Rule Number 5 was Be regular 

Ironically, since writing that I have probably been less regular than I ever have in the past 2 and a half years (3rd anniversary comes up in July). The regular irregularity continues tonight, as this post was meant to be a piece on some favourite novels of mine. Life, as it always does, intrudes and so I shall have to hold that over till another week. I wanted to post something however if only to arrest the irregularity of posts. 

And so instead I shall direct you eyes to this rather wonderful idea that someone I follow on Twitter (by the name of Crackers_76) linked to today.

It is the page by a guy known as “Cee Gee” who has redone album titles as though they were books. It is one of those genius ideas that you come across every now and then on the internet.

Now I am on record as believing you truly do and should judge a book by its cover. I’m also pretty strongly into analysing  movie posters. But record covers have never held much magic for me. Perhaps because we never had a record player growing up and so it was just the small cassettes that I had, which never really conveyed a great sense of art.

But if you had to tie me down and get me to answer the question though, I would have to say my favourite record cover is “London Calling” by The Clash:

It just conveys everything you need to know in that one picture. The referencing of Elvis Presley is perfect, but combined with the absolute riotous anarchy of the guitar about to be smashed, it is rendered perfect.

Just as with Presley in 56, this one in 1979 was a real you either get it or you don’t cover.

You’re with us or against us.

And when it comes to The Clash, I’m most certainly with them.

But as I say, record covers have never grabbed me like book covers or movies posters.

I can see an old edition of a book I read in High School and will get a rush of memories more than I would if I saw a record cover from the same period. Probably it is because I am rather obsessive about books and movies, but less so about music (I think I saw those who were music obsessives and knew I could never match them!)

However this idea of turning album covers (or more correctly the album titles) in to books is genius. And I recommend you go to the guy’s page and have a look (and check out as well the cool photos has has taken featuring people holding album covers).

Here are my favourites. I think they perfectly capture what could easily be the spirit of the album’s name (especially when he used the real names of the singers as he does with David Bowie and Prince).

          

Have a good weekend – I’ll try to get back some regularity soon!

I am not by nature a hoarder. Sure I have never thrown out a novel, but that is more due to my book addiction than anything else. I’m not one for keeping too many things “just in case”. If I haven’t thrown out something old and long since unused, it is more likely due to my laziness at walking the approximately 23 steps to the wheelie bin outside than to any hoarding tendencies.

Pretty much the only collections I have are of books, DVDs CDs and magazines.

Now the magazine collection I have however is pretty limited. I don’t keep every magazine I buy. A Who magazine will find its way to the trash pile just as quickly as will yesterday’s newspaper. But I do find it hard to throw out movie or music magazines. I keep them because I find them fascinating sources of popular history. The New Weekly types of magazines are for the most part instantly trashable (and to be honest they rarely find their way inside our house in the first place), but magazines like Rolling Stone, Mojo, Empire and the dearly departed except for on the web, Premiere, offer wonderful snapshots of culture through my lifetime. I keep them not only because I will occasionally flick through them (though this is rare) but more so because I figure my daughters may one day like to read them. I know I would have loved to read old magazines of my parents about The Beatles or The Rolling Stones, or the latest release film from the 1963.

I don’t know if they even had such magazines, but if they did I would have liked them to keep them. And so even when I was in my early 20s and in no way thinking about having children I kept these magazines. It was actually a precipitous decision because when in my early 30s I did a PhD on Hollywood satires, I actually cited some articles from my old collection of Empire and Premiere magazines.

I don’t buy the Empire magazines anymore – I did buy about the first 20 of the Australian edition, but found it was a bit lightweight, and too much a fan boy mag. There’s only so often you can talk about how great is Star Wars… And Rolling Stone? I can’t remember the last time I bought it – 2003 maybe?

The other magazine of my teenage and early 20s was Time. Before the internet, this was my best source of international news, and when I lived in Japan for a year in 1989, each week I used to catch a  train to the next town over which had a large bookshop that sold English magazines, and got my copy. I didn’t keep that many, which is a shame because 1989 was a year in a 100.

Do you know where you were when you heard the Berlin Wall came down? I remember exactly.

It was at the Isehara train station in Japan. I was there waiting to meet a Canadian mate who was fellow exchange student. We were off to Tokyo for the night (Shinjuku to be precise). When he got off the train he had a copy of The Japan Times (the best English newspaper, in my opinion). I asked him if there was any news. He said not really; talked a bit about the hockey scores, mentioned some info about the lasted Sumo tournament, and then, “Oh yeah, the Berlin Wall came down”.

As two fairly politically aware teenagers who took life and world affairs oh so very seriously we then proceeded to shout and scream and jump up and down celebrating right there on the platform of the train station, with Japanese staring at us and edging ever so slightly away from where we were.

We then spent the rest of the evening drinking Kirin Beer and talking about what it all meant. (Is there anything better than to be young and oh so very serious?)

That week I bought this copy of Time, and knew I was never going to throw it out. Growing up I couldn’t conceive of the Wall coming down, and given what had happened in China only a couple months earlier that year, it still seemed inconceivable. This cover still bring out the giddy, politically serious youth in me. It is an odd feeling as well, because I had always wanted to get to Berlin and see the Wall, and at this point I knew that dream was never going to happen.  What is stunning now is that the Wall had been up for 28 years, and it has now been down for 21. That means there are people at university who were not alive when there was a thing called the Cold War. Amazing.

It also reminds me of another thing I thought back then – those Berlin youth take their fashion very seriously. These guys on the Wall could have been getting ready to pose for a Benetton advert. The citizens of Cairo this week will never have a hope of being so well dressed!

I bought the People magazine on the right from Camp Zama Army Base. I was there as guests of a couple Americans who had got us passes to watch an American Football game played between the base team and a local team (the score was not close). I bought it at the PX – which might as well have been a 7-Eleven in America – not one bit of Japanese merchandise was for sale.

At the time I thought the 80s were the greatest decade ever. The 60s? Pah, get in your box, baby boomers. Looking back I now prefer the 90s (because of course you need to rank these things) – but that is more because my life was more interesting in the 90s (oh and the music was better).

I kept this mag and re-read it quite often, and could never bring myself to throw it out if only because it had lots of trivia about the 80s – such as the fact that in 1980 only 37,000 Walkmans had been sold, but by 1988 there had been 25 million sold. I mean honestly, how can you throw out something like that?

It is now an historical relic, and thus I keep it tattered cover and all. And how scary is it that of the people featured on the cover, Donald Trump is the one who has arguably had the best last 10 years?

Ah Madonna.

Now I have to say growing up I was huge a Madonna fan. And in 1991 she turned it up a notch an outraged the censors (well sort of).

The Hot issue of Rolling Stone that year featured her in a photo series taken by Steven Meisal that saw her doing all sorts of outrageous things – dressing as a man and dancing with a woman! How decadent and boundary pushing!!!

What is most sad though is I probably bought this magazine as much for the article on Ratcat as I did for the Madonna interview with Carrie Fisher.

Oh Ratcat, you just never really kicked on did you?

Pity.

Looking at he charts at the back of this issue I see the top 5 albums that month were Ratcat “Blind Love”, James Reyne “Electric Digger Dandy”, Jimmy Barnes “Two Fires”, REM “Out of Time” and Daryl Braithwaite “Rise”. Ahem.

It was August 1991, Nirvana’s “Nevermind” would be released in September, and the music world would be changed.

This issue is thus like a last gasp of the 1980s. But it also gave us an insight into the future with an article on Philips latest new thing – the Digital Compact Cassette: “DCC is a thoroughly researched project with high consumer appeal and a pile of potential in the marketplace” . Yep. Good luck with that.

My God the world changes in 16 years.

Back then, there’s fresh, all jokey Mel Gibson bringing on the laughs behind the set of Maverick. How’s that image going Mel?

I started reading Premiere in 1993, but I can’t find the first copy I bought which featured a cover story on the movie Hero starring Dustin Hoffman and Andy Garcia.

I loved the issues that came out featuring the summer movie preview. They used to try and work out which films would be hits, and which would bomb. Rather bravely they would rank 20 films according to their predicted box office.

This year in 1994, they believed that True Lies would be Number 1 (it came 3rd), The Lion King to come second (it did), and Maverick to come 3rd (it finished the year 12th). Worse still it had the stinkers, I Love Trouble, Renaissance Man and City Slickers 2 to come 4th, 5th and 6th. They ended up 44th, 57th and 32nd).

The Number 1 film that year, Forrest Gump, they had coming 11th, with the suggestion it could be “the summer sleeper”.

One of the main reasons I kept the issue, and re-read it often, was the excellent article by Peter Biskand on the making of Chinatown. The article would later be reproduced pretty much word for word in his book, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls. It was brilliant journalism, and the lack of that type of writing is why I don’t bother with film magazines anymore.

As the character in the dreadful Generation X film, Reality Bites, played by Winona Ryder says with great understatement, “Melrose Place is a really good show”.

Of course it was. No, I’ll go further: it was THE great show of the early to mid 1990s. Before Friends and Seinfeld took over the zeitgeist, you needed to watch this show. A spin off from Beverly Hills 90210, it was such a guilty pleasure that it even crossed over into Seinfeld, with the great episode where Jerry takes a lie detector test to try and prove he has never watched it (tip from George – “It’s not a lie if you believe it”).

Many a Monday night (OK I’m guessing there, I am pretty sure it was Monday night) was spent with friends watching it and bagging the show the whole time. It was a show that demanded to be watched with a group of friends. Oh Alison, you useless pushover! Give up, girl, Billy is never going to want you. Oh Michael, you’re so bad. Jo? C’mon, Jake is not for you. And Oh. My. God. Did you just see the scar on Kimberly’s head??!!!

My sister during the early-mid 90s lived in London, and in my letters to her I used to give her updates on MP – in fact I think they were the only reason she wanted me to write. In the years before the web and sites like Television Without Pity, my relating the adventure of “I-need-a-man-Amanda” (played by Special Guest Star, Heather Lockear) and the others living at the apartment complex were the only way she could keep tabs on her favourite show. It truly is a different world now.

That issue also listed the Hot Actor and Actress of the 1994 as 19yo Leonardo di Caprio (hard at work on The Basketball Diaries) and Gwyneth Paltrow. The Hot Band was Green Day. I guess you can say they were on the money there.

Looking at my collection of magazines, I see it pretty much runs out around 2004, the time when I had my first child. I guess my kids can use the internet to find things from the past, but for me, these have been with me now for so long, that even if all of the articles within can be found online, they’ll be staying on my shelves. Tattered and dog-eared memories, yes; but precious all the same. 

By the way, for those interested, Time does have all its old copies online – all the covers can be found here.

Have a good weekend.

This week I was going to write about the Hottest 100, but someone did that.

I was then going to do a list of things. But Ben Eltham wrote in Crikey today that lists are stupid. So I’ll wait a week, before doing another one.

And thus I am a tad bereft of ideas for a Friday night post (aside from the two I have already written). So I shall fall back on some fun little nuggets thrown around this week on Twitter.

The first comes via Stephen Murray who found this pretty well known advert for Tim Tams from the 1990s. It is probably the only Tim Tams’ advert I can actually remember (I can’t even think of what is the current advert for Tim Tams). What I didn’t realise was that the actress was none other than Cate Blanchett.

Pity the poor blokes who are in it with her - no doubt their careers were at the same stage; one has gone on to slightly better things… They must look back and think, well at least I can say I starred opposite Cate.

The second is from Red Bakersen. It’s a trailer for a film that imagines what Pixar’s “Up” would have been like if it had been made by Disney back in the 1960s. The version presented – as one of those films that so often used to crop up on TV in my youth as a Sunday matinee – is quite spot on, I thought. The casting of Spencer Tracey is perfect.

Finally, from the venerable David Paris, comes a version of Cee Lo Green’s “F**k You” (Number 7 on the Hottest 100) done in sign language. If for nothing else, it is good watching because it let’s you know how to swear in sign language, and you just never know when that kind of knowledge will come in handy.

Have a great weekend!

Last year a first occurred in American cinema going. The animated film, Toy Story 3 came number 1 at the box office. But that wasn’t a first – animated films have been number one quite a few times – going all the way back to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937, and more recently Shrek 2 was number 1 in 2004. No, the first was that not only was Toy Story 3  in the top 10 box office, but so too were Despicable Me, Shrek Forever After, How to Train Your Dragon and Tangled.

Half of the top 10 most watched films in North America were animated. It was much the same story worldwide – four in the top ten (and Tangled came 11th).

If you think there have been a few more animated films around of late, you’d be right. Here’s a look at how many animated films have made it in the American top 25 since 1980 (I could do Australia but the US data is freely available so I’ll stick with that, and plus we broadly have the same tastes – though I’ll do a post on that one day perhaps))

As you can see, back in the 1980s there was a bit of a dearth of animated films. Disney had all but shut up shop after 1981’s The Fox and the Hound, and the one film in 1983 and 1987 were re-issues of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

In 1989 there was The Little Mermaid, and this was followed in 1991 and 1992 by Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin (Aladdin was the number film in ‘92). But even despite the money and the awards that came with those films, animation still didn’t kick off.

In 1995 an animated film again came number 1 at the box office, but this time it was not a traditional Disney film with a score by Broadway composers or Elton John (like The Lion King which came second in 1994). The film of course was the Pixar computer animated film, Toy Story. 

It changed an industry.

Yes it took a while (the development time of such films is pretty lengthy), but by the time its follow up A Bug’s Life came out in 1998, Dreamworks had joined the party with Antz. Then in 2001 came Shrek- and became the first animated film to beat a Pixar film at the box office – Shrek came 3rd, Monsters Inc, 4th), and there was no turning back for Hollywood. 

By now the studios had really caught on to the money pit that can be good animated films. Audiences had come to see them as perfect family fare – films kids will love, and films parents not only don’t mind seeing, but also love as well. And then came the flood. From 2003 the rolling 5 year average has gone from two animated films in the top 25 to now over five. Twenty per cent of the most watched films each year are now animated. Since 2001 there has also been a Best Animated Feature category – something that would have been thought absurd only 10 years earlier.

The reason for all this of course is Pixar. Sure Dreamworks have come along to be the Rolling Stones to Pixar’s Beatles, but had not the computer animation and story telling of Toy Story worked, movie studios would still be wondering how they could replicate the popularity of TV shows like The Simpsons on the big screen.  The Simpsons of course is also the grandfather of all of this. The smart humour of The Simpsons taught adults to not be embarrassed about watching animation – it was seen as not just Disney schmaltz. And while Aladdin had some of that attitude, it wasn't until Toy Story (and yes, Shrek) that it really caught hold in cinema.

Since 1995 anyone who has dismissed animated films as ‘just for kids’, has missed out on some of the best films of the past 15 years. The number of critics who put Toy Story 3 as their best film of the year – ahead of The Social Network or The King’s Speech – is testimony to this fact. You don’t need to be a kid or even have kids to enjoy Pixar films – in fact given the sophistication involved in their scripts and storytelling, being an adult is an advantage.

All this is a long way round to introduce my ranking of the Pixar films. I could have done a top ten of animated films, but I’ll just stick with Pixar – it’s a tough enough task. So here we go from bottom to top:

Number 11:  A Bug’s Life

The film about an ant who saves his colony is nice, but far too kid targeted. The same year, the less popular Dreamworks Antz came out – I prefer that – if only because Dreamworks realised that ants have six legs and not four. The ants in A Bug’s Life were just far too “Disney” for me.

Kevin Spacey as the evil leader of the grasshoppers, “Hopper” and Richard Kind as his brother “Molt” are fun. The work of David Hyde Pierce (of Frasier fame) as the stick insect is also good. But Julia Louise Dreyfus and Dave Foley as the lead voices are pretty bland – much like the film.

Verdict: Ants have six legs not four!!!! Given the attention to detail of later Pixar films this is a travesty really.

 

Number 10: Cars

Perhaps the most disliked of the Pixar oeuvre. This was the first Pixar film I didn’t bother to see in the cinema – it just sounded stupid. I saw it when visiting some relatives, and my 4 year old daughter at the time just loved it. I mean LOVED IT. Suddenly we had Lighting McQueen merchandise everywhere. And I have to admit the film is not horrible.

It has some nice parts and I do get involved in the story (and the movie-tie in computer game is excellent!). But you can’t get away from the fact that they are talking cars! This is the only Pixar film that exists in a made up reality. Hang on, I hear you say – what about.. well every single other one? Well all the other films are set in the human world – even Monsters Inc is linked to the human world. In Cars there are no humans, never have been, and never will be. This fact for me loses something important. I can imagine the world of Monsters Inc, or even Toy Story, but a world where cars have jobs, go to the toilet and need lawyers? Nup. A sequel out this year. I do not have great expectations.

Paul Newman is perfectly cast as the old racing car “Doc”, and the two Italian cars, Luigi and Guido are good comedic fun.

Verdict: Look nothing is really all that bad, but it’s just a bit… you know... why?

Number 9: Wall. E

OK, this is obviously a travesty on my part. This film won an Oscar and has some wonderful animation – the character Wall. E was compared to Charlie Chaplin! The thing is, I just find the story boring. So humans have left earth and live on space ships not moving any muscles, and they have machines do everything for them. Well wonderful, but it was a tad laboured. Also none of the humans really connect with me. Wall.E and Eve’s romance is great – their dance scene is beautiful. But I am a dialogue man, and this just doesn’t have it for me.

Verdict: Love the robots, but the people are lifeless.

Number 8: Ratatouille

The story of a rat in Paris who is also a brilliant chef. Yes the story is slight, but the animation in this film is just heaven.

I also must admit that this is the Pixar film I have seen the least (because we only recently bought the DVD).

Directed by Brad Bird the scenes in the restaurant kitchen are just gorgeous to watch, and the story does have an emotional kick. My daughter didn’t want to get this one on DVD because the scene where the food critic, Anton Ego, tastes the ratatouille and is taken back to his childhood was too sad for her. This is a scene that lasts about a minute, has no dialogue, and yet it affected her deeply. It does me as well. Pixar films do that better than anyone.

Verdict: Beautiful beyond words, but the human characters lag behind that of the rats – we don’t really care too much about Alfredo and Collette’s romance.

Number 7: Monsters Inc

A great idea – monsters coming out from the cupboards – from another dimension (the monster world) – in order to collect the screams of kids to use as energy. The “scream shortage” aspect of the story was again a bit laboured (Pixar do best when they stay away from political messages), but the voice cast is brilliant. John Goodman and Billy Crystal perfectly match their characters Sully and Mike – Crystal is a basically an eye, how can an eye look like a person? And yet amazingly it seems like it is Billy Crystal. And Steve Buscemi is a great bad monster, Randall.

Some of the animation, such as when Sully and Mike are chasing Randall on the doors is breathtaking. But the story? Again – getting a scare quota? Meh, who cares really. We mostly care about Sully and the human girl, Boo – the monsters’ world is great, but only in the way it is connected to our world. 

Is it too scary for young kids? Well yeah – it took my daughter till she was seven before she felt she could cope with it. But she loves it now.

Verdict: It’s excellent, it just lacks that bit of real care for the monsters that we have for the toys in Toy Story

Number 6: Up

An old man, Carl, lifts his house up with a multitude of balloons and goes in search of his childhood dream place – Paradise Falls. Along the way comes Russell – a boy scout caught on the house when it took off. They find the falls and also find that Carl’s childhood hero, Charles Muntz, is a bit of a bastard.

Again, more gorgeous to look at than any film deserves to be, but I always find the story gets a bit dull once Carl and Russell meet Muntz.  Dogs piloting planes? Yes, Pixar, you can imagine us things that never were, but you still need to keep within the realms of the world in which you have created – and this is the real world, not a made up place like that of “Cars”.

But for all of that, I love it if only for the opening scenes with young Carl and his best friend Ellie. And even better is the depiction of Carl and Ellie’s marriage. If you are not crying at the end of it, go out and see a doctor, because you will likely find you no longer have a pulse.

Verdict: The real emotional oomph is at the start – it’s so good, that everything after struggles to match it.

Number 5:  Toy Story

The first.  Thank God it was good. I write about it here – in which I suggest that it should have won Best Picture in 1995.

Verdict: Oh the dialogue!:

Woody: All right, that's enough! Look, we're all - *very* impressed with Andy's new toy.
Buzz: Toy?
Woody: T-O-Y, t-oy.
Buzz: Excuse me, I think the word you're searching for is "space ranger".
Woody: The word I'm searching for, I can't say, because there's preschool toys present.

Buzz: You are a sad strange little man. I pity you. Farewell.

Number 4: Toy Story 2

They did the impossible – they improved on the original. Sending the toys on an adventure to save Woody was a brilliant way to break the confines of the the bedroom. Even better though was the story that Woody actually doesn't want to be saved. Some great laughs, excellent jokes, wonderful imagination, and amazing heart.

Pixar films aren’t known for their songs as are the old Disney films, but “When She Loved Me” sung by Sarah McLachlan is an absolute gem. How in the hell it lost to Phil Collins “You’ll Be in My Heart” (from Tarzan) I’ll never know – and no, you’re not alone, I couldn't hum a bar of it either, but “When She Loved Me”? – I’m tearing up just thinking of it.  

Verdict: best sequel since The Godfather II.

Number 3: The Incredibles

Brad Bird’s first Pixar film is a brilliant adult delight. It may be loved by kids, but this one really is about adults. Bob Parr (otherwise known as Mr Incredible) longs for the past when he was a somebody. From there the film goes where really no other Pixar film does – not surprising given it was first developed to be made by Warner Bros. Bob Parr’s wife for example thinks he is having an affair; we also see Bob working in an insurance firm – where the life of the cubicle worker is as brilliantly rendered as in the film Office Space. It even has Samuel L Jackson invoking some of his character from Pulp Fiction when he calmly asks to have a drink of water.

This ain’t kid stuff. But wow, do kids love it – maybe because it features two very fully rendered kids – Violet the shy teenage girl and Dash the boy who is more Bart Simpson than any Pixar character has been.

Verdict: The film takes the super hero genre, kicks it around, turns it upside down, and has a lot of fun with it (“no capes!”).

Number 2: Finding Nemo

Prior to Toy Story 3, this was Pixar's most successful film at the box office, and it is not hard to see why. This is a film about a parent trying to save his child (who happens to be a fish), it doesn’t need to milk the emotion, the emotion is already there. But what makes Finding Nemo so magnificent is the main characters: Marlin the clown fish who isn’t funny, voiced by Albert Brooks is brilliantly uptight and Ellen DeGeneres steals the movie as Dory, the fish with short term memory loss. Together they are the perfect odd couple for us to accompany on this long adventure.

The animation is of course, amazing – the water actually looked like water – for fun watch The Little Mermaid after this, and laugh at how unreal the water looks in that 1989 film.

Maybe this film has more of an impact on me because my wife and I went to see it just after our first child was born, and we were both feeling incredibly connected to the story (in that over the top way that recently first time parents are connected to any parent-child stories.) My only quibble is the character of the the pelican voiced by Geoffrey Rush: it is not a pelican the likes ever seen in Australia – having grown up on the River Murray where pelicans are plentiful, I couldn’t believe they got it wrong.

One thing about this movie – my daughter has never seen the start – she always skips it as it is too upsetting for her. I am quite glad she does, as the death of Marlin’s wife Coral and most of their “babies” is pretty tough going – a brave start for a supposedly “kids’ film”, but Pixar are never scared to push boundaries.

Verdict: even the DVD menu dialogue is great:

Marlin: [introduction to the main menu of the first disc of the DVD] Where is it? Where is it?
[the menu appears]
Dory: Oh there's the menu, I knew it was around here somewhere.
Marlin: [beginning of menu loop; Marlin talks to the viewer at home] Okay, you've got a lot of choices here. You can watch just the movie *without* the commentary...
Dory: [interrupting] Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! I'm so excited! I've always wanted to see... "The Little Mermaid"!
Marlin: Good. Well this is "Finding Nemo".
Dory: Oh, well that sounds nice, too. Maybe we should watch *that* one.
Marlin: We're watching that one! This is "Finding Nemo"!
Dory: [sounding flattered] Oh you shouldn't have switched just for me!
Marlin: Unbelievable...
[pause]
Dory: I've always wanted to be in a film.
Marlin: You were in a film. THIS one. "Finding Nemo"!
Dory: No way! I'd remember that.
Marlin: No you wouldn't...
Dory: Yes I would.
[excited inhalation sigh]
Dory: Being in a film would be so glamorous!
Marlin: [nonplussed] Really?
Dory: Oh my. Fabulous! Where's my trailer? I need water!
Marlin: Dory...
Dory: Fill my trailer with water!
Marlin: Something's wrong with you.

Number 1: Toy Story 3

There probably should be a rule on not allowing me to choose the most recent one, but bugger it. Toy Story 3 is without doubt the great 3rd film in a trilogy ever.

Period.

Everything is perfect, everything is true to the spirit of the series, and everything ends the series as it should. I haven’t seen it in 3D, and maybe that improved the emotion and wonder, but I can’t possibly see how, because it already has more emotion and impact than any other film I have seen for many a year.

How good are Pixar? [Spoiler follows] At the near end, when the toys are in the junkyard smelter and look like they are going to all be melted, I was sure that was what was going to happen. My brain was trying to tell me that this was a kid’s movie and there was no way in hell that Pixar would destroy Woody, Buzz and all the rest, and yet there it was – the toys looked at each other, held hands, accepted their fate and waited to die together. Here is a film about toys, and we see them waiting to die – and their deaths seemed inevitable and real. Achingly real – as real as the end of Peter Weir’s Gallipoli.  

I could not believe this was going to happen, and yet on one level it also felt like this was a way the film and series should end – toys do end up in the tip, and do end up melted down. It would have been horrible, and I would have ripped out the DVD and thrown it across the room, but Pixar treat their audience with such respect – they in effect treat them as adults – that such an adult ending seemed not only plausible, but also correct.

But thank God the toys don’t end up dying. Pixar may push boundaries, but they aren’t stupid! Woody, Buzz and the gang needed to end happily – they had earned this ending. And when they get their happy ending we get there with them, and rejoice. We know as well that, like Andy, we can leave them behind.

Verdict: Perfect.

So that is my ranking. It is of course my opinion, and is thus wrong or right depending on your own. For what it’s worth, here is the ranking by a much more discerning and knowledgeable critic than myself, my 7 year old daughter:

1. The Incredibles
2. Toy Story 3
3. Ratatouille
4. Monsters Inc.
5. Up
6. Wall. E
7. Toy Story 2
8. Cars
9. A Bug’s Life
10. Toy Story
11. Finding Nemo

Have a great weekend.

The great thing about music is that because there is so much of it, unless you are an absolute maniac who works in Championship Vinyl you will never be able to know all of it.

Films are different. There’s only a finite amount of films that can get released in cinemas so even if it comes out and bombs, there’s a good chance you will have heard of it – and generally if they bomb (and I mean really bomb) it’s not because it couldn’t find an audience, it’s because it was no good. But music? even before iTunes there was a seemingly infinite number of albums released in such a range of genres that an overwhelming majority never see the warmth of the Top 1oo, but which has absolute zero reflection on their quality.

As such it means any good music listener can have an obscure favourite. A song that they like, but which most people have forgotten, never heard of, or just didn’t think much of it when it came out.

When I was younger my obscure favourite was Prefab Sprout’s “Cars and Girls”. It was a song that in 1988 got a bit of airplay, but didn’t chart. So by the early 90s I could mention it and my friends would give me a vague look of understanding, but also a query as to why I liked it. And that’s music: sure there are those who like films that are not all that good – heck I wrote a whole post on dumb-fun films but if I say – hey Sahara is on, let’s watch it. You might question my taste and/or sanity, but you won’t be asking “Sahara? Never heard of it”.

The key to a good “obscure favourite” is it can’t have charted – and if it did only very briefly, and only very minimally. One hit wonders cannot be obscure favourites. You get no points for saying, “Oh wow “Drops of Jupiter”, I love this song!”. But you could possibly pick say Jerry Harrison’s “Man With a Gun” – it only got to 17 on the charts, but pretty quickly disappeared. You can’t even download it on iTunes Australia (but you can from the US iTunes – geez I hate that about iTunes). But even still you’re on shaky ground, after all it was quite popular – a bit too popular to be obscure.

You also can’t pick an album track of a popular band – it doesn't matter whether or not Dylan, The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, Led Zeppelin, U2, R.E.M or The Clash released a song as a single or not – they’re out. There may be exception if the song is better known by its cover – such as Bruce Springsteen’s version of “Blinded by the Light”. You possibly could also pick an obscure cover – such as Magnet and Jemma Hayes version of “Lay, Lady Lay” but it was on the soundtrack for Mr and Mrs Smith, so that pretty much kills it’s obscure status. Ditto the version of Buddy Holly’s Everyday by Rogue Wave, because that has been in a couple films now, and don;’ even try with the version of “Radiohead’s “Creep” by Scala and Kolacny Brothers that was on the trailer for The Social Network (soundtracks are murder for obscure favourites)

You also can’t pick a song which was popular to a sub-set of the population – especially uni students. So that pretty well rules out anything by Tism. And try not to be too “ooh look at me, I know music” about it – so saying you love “Yeh Jo Halka Halka Suroor Hai” by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan is great, but it is a tiny bit wanky (there’s always that danger though with obscure favourites)

But you have to be careful not to go too obscure. You can’t for example pick “No New York” by 1980’s Japanese band Boowy, because unless you were an exchange student in Japan in the 1980s you’re unlikely to have come across it, so that’s kind of cheating. And besides it’;s 1980s Jpop so you’re unlikely to get anyone thinking, wow that is cool (and that is kind of the whole point of obscure favourites)

Similarly you can’t pick a band which put out a CD that was available in about three shops in Adelaide in 1995. Because while Aunty Raelene may have been a great uni band, unless you’re able to go back in time to Adelaide Uni Battle of the Bands circa 1991, you’re not going to be able to hear them belt out “World Bank” so it;s not much use having that as your pick.

I first heard my obscure favourite on Triple J (the home of obscure favourites) in a car one day in 1994. I didn’t catch the name of it, but it just clicked in the way that only songs can click. I didn’t hear it again for about three years but I could remember some of the lines, and the opening few bars. And then one day (I remember very clearly) I was driving back to my place in a mate’s car and we were flicking through the channel on the radio when once again Triple J were playing it. I stopped the flicking of channels told my mate “I love this song"!” and he listened all the while I know thinking, “umm yeah… it’s…great”.

And of course the DJ did not say the name of the song.

Fortunately by now the internet was around and so I was able to search for the lyrics (before Google so it was a bit trickier) and thus I discovered that my obscure favourite was “Screenwriter’s Blues” by Soul Coughing.

Soul Coughing’s music style is described on Wikipedia as “a willfully idiosyncratic mix of improvisational jazz grooves, oddball samples, hip-hop, electronics, and noisy experimentalism (described by Doughty as 'deep slacker jazz').”

So yeah, they have Top 50 written all over them.

“Screenwriter’s Blues “doesn’t have a video (a good tip that it is obscure enough) and tells a bizarre story about life in Hollywood/LA. I’ve only been to LA once – back in 2001 for a week. We stayed in a very dingy student hostel just off of Hollywood Bldv. I have to say walking around the fairly unglamorous part of Hollywood Blvd late at night felt like Screenwriter’s Blues was playing in my head. It perfectly captures the mood of late, late night seedy LA. It also has a great jazz rhythm.

It’s my obscure favourite.

Late last year when I was thinking about coming up with a 1995 song for my series of “A Song a Year” I was talking with my sister and she mentioned that for her, two of the albums that brought back the 90s were Oasis’s (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? and The Beautiful South’s Carry on Up the Charts. I looked at her blankly, wondering who was this band The Beautiful South.

My sister during the mid 90s was doing her stint as a good Aussie of living and working in England (something I regret I never did), and the greatest hits collection Carry on Up the Charts hit Number 1 there in December 1994, and also in January 1995. In Australian it didn’t even chart – I don’t know if it was even released. 

This type of thing could happen a lot back in the old pre-internet, pre-itunes age. I can recall in the 80s watching the Grammy Awards and wondering who the hell were half the bands getting awards. Now music travels much quicker, and is thus more homogenised. There are the odd exceptions, but I’d argue now there are less bands that are successful in the UK or US that don’t get a good run here. The UK definitely has a different taste in popular music to Australia – the current number one album there is Paolo Nutini’s Sunny Side Up, which only made it to Number 22 here, and the previous number 1, Florence and the Machine’s Lungs, peaked in Australia at Number 12.

But this aside it is harder now for a band to completely slip past the radar as did The Beautiful South for me in the 1990s. Back then my sister may have mentioned them in a letter but so what? I would have had to go to a record store and buy the CD to find out whether or not I liked them (that’s if I remembered to bother to go looking for it). Now of course, were the same to occur, she could email me a link to some of their songs on youtube, and while sitting at my desk (or wherever if I had an iphone) I would be able to hear their music, and buy it if I so desired.

When she did mention the band to me last year I did go on youtube, I did listen to their songs, and I did download an album from itunes, and all the while I kept wondering how the hell did I miss this band?

For those who were ignorant like me, The Beautiful South was formed in the late 1980s by former member of the band The Housemartins (thank you wikipedia).

The key to their music is songs with wonderful sweet melodies that counter the incredibly sharp and often spiteful lyrics. They were in effect the forerunner to Lilly Allen.

Their lyrics (mostly written by Paul Heaton and Dave Rotheray) are often spectacular and sarcastic. Take this from “A Song for Whoever”:

I love you from the bottom of my pencil case
I love the way you never ask me why
I love to write about each wrinkle on your face
And I love you till my fountain pen runs dry

Deep so deep,
the number one I hope to reap
Depends upon the tears you weep,
so cry, lovey cry, cry, cry, cry

Oh Cathy, Oh Alison, Oh Phillipa, Oh Sue
You made me so much money,
I wrote this song for you
Jennifer, Alison, Phillipa, Sue, Deborah, Annabel, too
I wrote this song for you
Jennifer, Alison, Phillipa, Sue, Deborah, Annabel, too
I wrote this song for you

I absolutely love the first line, and melody is such that it sounds like a love song, and it’s only on listening to the words do you realise the cynicism of the song. Similar is their great song about break ups – “A Little Time”. The song is sung by a man and a woman. The man talking about needing a little time, and the woman responding.

I need a little time
To think it over
I need a little space
Just on my own
I need a little time
To find my freedom
I need a little...

Funny how quick the milk turns sour
Isn't it, isn't it
Your face has been looking like that for hours
Hasn't it, hasn't it
Promises, promises turn to dust
Wedding bells just turn to rust
Trust into mistrust

The tune is so sweet that you wonder if some foolish couple has ever thought it a good song to dance to at their wedding reception.

One of my favourite songs of theirs – “Don’t Marry Her” (about a women trying to convince a guy not to marry another woman by describing the horrible life he would have if he did) contained the line:

She'll grab your sweaty bollocks
Then slowly raise her knee

This was deemed too offensive for radio (as was the refrain at the end of each chorus of “Don’t marry her, f--k me”), so they changed it for the radio and video version to “She’ll grab your Sandra Bullocks”. Such humour is the key to The Beautiful South; when they broke up in 2006 they sighted “musical similarities”.

So no, they won’t ever be a band that will bring back memories for me, and I can’t say they changed the face of music. Other bands like The Pixies I missed as well – but mostly because I couldn't stand the people who kept banging on about how great were The Pixies. But The Beautiful South certainly are one band that I discovered late, and am glad I did.

Below are the video clips for “A Little Time” (truly, an amazing representation of a break up) and “Don’t Marry Her”. Enjoy