WHAT I’M DIGGING

musings on music, film, books, art, and pretty things.

2021

A few December picks

  1. 8-Bit Christmas (film)

  2. Deck the Halls (film). Matthew Broderick & Danny Devito dueling decorating neighbors setup. Not classic. But worth a once-see.

Five picks from September 26-October 10

  1. Chvrches’ 2021 dark, bouncy concept album Screen Violence (thank you, Brian V, for alerting me to their latest album, somehow it came out under my radar).

  2. Manic Street Preachers keep putting on a clinic for making poppy political anthems with this year’s The Ultra Vivid Lament.

  3. Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell (book).

  4. I See You. A terrifying, slow-building thriller from 2017. Don’t watch the trailer. Don’t read anything. Thank you, Jeremy Long, for the recommendation.

  5. The Squid Game (Netflix) Yeah, I’m watching it too, although it’ll probably take me two months longer to finish than the rest of the world.

    October 02 - A Three Song Sunday Playlist

    Baby Shark - Pinkfong
    We Are Young - fun. featuring Janelle Monáe
    In the Middle, In the Middle, In the Middle - They Might Be Giants

Nine picks from September 18-25

  1. The Prada Ocean ad running incessantly on Spotify with the relentless O Fortuna-channeling music that has Jake Gyllenhaal on a yacht. Little embarrassed to say I’m completely mesmerized by it still.

  2. Coldplay’s Lovers in Japan from 2008.

  3. Belle & Sebastian’s Sleep the Clock Around from 1998.

  4. Stevie Wonder’s I Believe from 1972 (and the High Fidelity soundtrack from 2000).

  5. Jake Bugg’s Hold Tight from this year.

  6. Ted Lasso season 2

  7. Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man short story from 1951. The kind that makes you shiver and check the windows. Also: started Something Wicked This Way Comes. Take those shivers and triple.

  8. Worth, the Amy Ryan-Michael Keaton-Stanley Tucci drama about the process for calculating survivor benefits after 9/11. How do you calculate the value of a human life?

  9. Brahms’ Hungarian Rhapsody from the late 1870s. My go-to kick off morning blast the last couple weeks.

July August 2021

Only Murders in the Building. Steve Martin and Martin pairing up as NYC true crime aficionados starting a podcast? Expected brilliance. Adding Selena Gomez and making a trio? Total left field. And it works. Thank you, Jeremy, for the recommendation.

Attack the Block. 2011 British alien attack movie with good dialogue, good beats, and a post-Guy Ritchie frenetic pace that works. John Boyega is in fine form as a grim-faced rascal.

Xavier Rudd’s Stoney Creek. It’s gonna be a tough climb to top this one for track of the year. Beautiful, and one of my new favorite videos to accompany the soundtrack.

The Mysterious Benedict Society on Disney+ with the kids. Droll, character-driven piece with Wes Anderson sets and precocious kids - think: distant Baudelaire cousins from Series of Unfortunate Events - out to save the world. Tony Hale pulls double duty as Svengali-ish twins on opposing sides. Fun, and makes a good case for the hipness of tetherball being the new soccer.

May June 2021

Badlands (film, 1973). Finally got around to to seeing the Terrence Malick classic. So much has been said about it already, starting with the cinematography. Gorgeous. The lingering poetry of absorbing you into both relationships of both people and place. A slow burn that stays with you. 6-15

Notting Hill (film, 1999). How do you not love Julia Roberts on the basis of this movie alone? For that matter, Hugh Grant? First time with our Older kids, and I enjoyed this rom-com as a second viewing about as much as any I’ve seen. Rhys Ifans almost steals the show as Spike the Flatmate. The supporting cast is wonderful as well. And the chemistry and lovely little English scenes are…lovely. 6-13

Mare of Easttown (HBO series, 2021). Flat out one of the finest limited run series I’ve seen. Kate Winslet in top form, along with fellow castmates in slow-building, mesmerizing small Pennsylvania town detective investigation that digs deep into family, relationships, and grief to grip you tightly and intelligently.

The Pink Panther (film, 1963). The kids’ first time seeing the original classic. Now, I really enjoyed the two Steve Martin remakes of this. Extremely different flavors. Enjoying the original with Peter Sellers takes a certain amount of…getting into the tone and the style of humor. Really neat to see the kids find and appreciate different aspects of it. 6-11

Shoplifters (film, 2018). Japanese comedy-drama about families that choose each other. Oh, and steal stuff. Sweet, beautiful, melancholic. A reminder to think about what the meaning of family really is.

Those Who Wish Me Dead (2021) Smokejumping, fires, and Angelina Jolie trying to keep an 11-year old boy alive from assassins. Decently done version of a thousand 90s action movies, including the song that starts playing at the end. 6-3

The Terminal (film, 2004). An underrated Spielberg/Hanks film about a man caught between countries at the airport, and his resilience and resourcefulness. Not perfect, not on the A-list of either, but a delicious little treat of a movie that’s better than I remembered.


March 2021

Book of Eels by Patrik Svensson. Can’t put it down. I mean…I do, because I have to. But it is so good. About eels, and the previously-unknown to me centuries-old scientific fascination with them, due to their mysterious existence, reproductive patterns, life cycles, and what they say about metaphysics and the gap beyond what we can observe, prove, and know.

Promising Young Woman, 2020 dark, dark, yet sometimes funny, sad, infuriating, bleak revenge thriller that sweeps you up in emotions and will stay in your head. It’s…unlike what you might think it’s going to be.

February 2021

First good album I’ve heard of 2021 : The Hold Steady’s Open Door Policy. Craig Finn’s nifty yell-speak-melodics that treat every track like an anthem and every moment one worth writing about. Classic deep left field guitar rock & roll.

Juliet, Naked. What a delight. A 2018 comedy full of romance and hilarity, often smart, often clever, and often full of wonderful chemistry. Rose Byrne begins a…correspondence with her boyfriend’s obsession: a genius musician who released only one album decades previous, and now is off the map. Played by Ethan Hawke, and full of life. Loved. (2-14-21)

Gattaca. Yeah, pretty much only watch Ethan Hawke films in February. Been waiting to introduce this one to our older kids. Stands up well. Still my favourite tagline of all time : “There is no gene for the human spirit.” (2-14-21)

The Waterboys’ underappreciated ode to the poet from 2011, An Appointment With Mr. Yeats.

January 2021

Clue, 1985 mystery-comedy based on…the board game! Yes, in the old days, moviemakers would lift ideas from board games, rather than theme parks or video games. Madcap, scary, funny, and sharp repartee. An underrated mid-80s classic. And if you didn’t like Tim Curry before…you probably won’t like him after seeing this either. But if you want Tim Curry doing some of his best Tim Curry, then watch this. (1-24-21)

Our son is super into Ray Bradbury, so of course I thought a good kick-off of his old television series, Ray Bradbury Theatre, would be the adaptation of his famous story Sound of Thunder. So we curled up and watched the classic tale of time travel gone…wrong. Not up to par with the story, but still a chilling and thought-provoking rendition.

Glasvegas and Antlers albums from 1981

First Cow, 2020 western drama. A slow-moving ode to friendship in 1820s Oregon, with a tiny bit of suspense. I’m still unsure how I feel about it. But there are portions and ideas I appreciated. (1-16-21)

Such a Fun Age, the 2019 debut novel from Kiley Reid dealing with class, race, and a babysitter without an Instagram account. Thought-provoking in the most entertaining manner; heartbreaking and funny and maddening. I like how the chapters are sequenced and the way Ms. Reid starts each one by overlapping the previous slightly, but with a different characters’ viewpoint.

Cobra Kai season 3 on Netflix. I wish it would wrap up. Not because I don’t enjoy it - I do, very much. But it feels like an arc that could have and should have been completed in three seasons. Nevertheless, it continues to be a wondrous, entertaining, yet also thoughtful tale of people’s capacity to change and the way that people’s environments and relationships shape who they become.

The Whistlers (2020 Romanian crime caper involving a whistling language)

Rachel Held Evans’ Faith Unraveled. I have needed to read this. One to dog ear, write up, and bookmark. Her premature passing is a tragedy on multiple levels.

Casablanca (1942) with our older kids for the first time. Still holds up sooo well.

Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman’s duet of Con Te Partirò. Still so beautiful.

09 - Listening to Joseph Arthur - Nuclear Daydream