My Favorite Album of 2011

Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues

In some weird way, I feel like the Fleet Foxes have been underrated. This sentiment might seem strange since the album, Helplessness Blues, have been on many top five 2011 lists around the internet, but whenever I read their reasoning and analysis behind there decision, it feels off. Many people write off Helplessness Blues as full of folksy songs written about 20-somethings trying to find their way in the world. That analysis isn’t completely off, with lyrics such as “I'd rather be a functioning cog in some great machinery” might come off as naïve and something written by a person not yet acclimated to the world of adults that is beginning to surround them. There are also other lyrics one could list off to try and prove that the album is about young men becoming adults, but I feel like that is kind of missing the point of the whole album. Helplessness Blues isn’t about 20-somethings writing songs about how hard their life is, the album is about adults looking back and writing songs about becoming an adult.

It may seem like a bit of a distinction only in semantics at first, but it is the difference about this being a good album, and being a great album. It is the sort of awareness and clarity that the music and lyrics bring together that make this album great. Take for instance the title song “Helplessness Blues.” Sure, it is about a child realizing the realities of becoming an adult, but that last line “Someday I'll be like the man on the screen,” takes the song that at first seems like a sort of innocent, genuine sentiment and covers it with the sort of self awareness that perhaps this pure sentiment is also a sort of lie the narrator is telling himself. The whole album has little moments like that, where the Fleet Foxes give little glimpses of the sort of real darknesses and complexities that arise in even the simplest ideas of trying to be happy can contain. That is what longer songs like The Shrine/An Argument are all about; painting this collage of music and words that communicate how sort of helpless and alone a person can feel, and then how that person ends up dealing with it. The music is so filled with hooks and interesting instrumentation that even if there were no lyrics, it would still be one of the best albums of the year. Best album by Fleet Foxes and my favorite album of the year.

Runner Up:

Nier Tribute Album: -echo-

Seeing as Square Enix recently withdrew all its music from the iTunes store, it seems that this album will probably fade into real obscurity in the US. Well, it doesn't help that it is an arranged soundtrack of an obscure game, and that most video game soundtracks are already pretty obscure to begin with, so I feel an obligation to give this wonderful CD some props. Nier is an obscure 360/PS3 game that was rather good (in my opinion) but the real highlight of the game was its music. Then Square Enix got together a bunch of obscure (seeing a trend here?) Japanese electronica artists and they put together some of the most eclectic and fun set of music I have heard all year. How the CD bounces from drum and bass, to polka, and then to house music would shame even some of the best mix CDs. An extremely fun album if you are into something  strange, different, and really good.

My Favorite Movie of 2011

The Artist

To be honest, ever since college, I have not liked movies as much as I used to. I used to think of movies as this ultimate medium of expression and that could not be matched. It is easy to look at a list of great films, and perhaps agree that movies are the best, but the more I studied them and watched more with a scholars eye, movies as an expression of art began to fall apart for me. Movies have become just the expression of the “passive onlooker”; which is to say that the audience serves as this kind of awkward silent protagonist in a world that most of the time does not acknowledge them. Directors like Hitchcock and Kurosawa took advantage of this “passiveness,” but most films I see now a days make so many assumptions about the audience that most modern movies are more about emotional manipulation than about trying to genuinely move somebody via beauty or art. These sentiments I had made watching movies something I do with friends and family rather than something I might do by myself. That is, until I saw The Artist.

The Artist is a modern film, but it chooses to forego most of the in movie’s diegetic sound and goes for a “silent movie” style. The movie has an orchestrated soundtrack, but all the noises and voice one would take for granted in a normal modern movie have been taken out. There are even title cards for dialog when characters are talking. While a lot of the cinematography and camera work is clearly modern, the movie stays pretty loyal to movies made before the 1930’s. Already, it is an interesting experiment about how someone might make a silent movie with almost 100 years of progress in the medium. What makes it more than an experiment and how it became my favorite movie of the year is the success of telling a fun, compelling tale using practically anachronistic way of making films. Without all the over-stimuli of most modern movies, The Artist is able to shine through its heart and charm. Granted, “heart and charm” may be words that are so cliché that they might not mean much anymore, but perhaps that what makes The Artist so great: before the cynicism and clichés of the current way of making movies, a movie had to be legitimately good in order to get any attention. Maybe my own cynicism for cinema had me appreciate the struggle of George Valentin and trying to hold onto the world of silent movies that he knew. If there is anything The Artist taught me it is that sometimes you have to be silent in order for anyone to listen to you, for a wise man is silent while a fool can be heard for miles.

Runner Up:

Red State

I feel like this movie being able to get to audiences without the help of big studios (especially in the light of this whole PIPA/SOPA debacle) is already enough to get onto anybody's “Best of” list, but what really makes it shine is how it takes what any other writer/director would just make into a black and white thriller about the evils of Christian cults and floods it with grays. Kevin Smith brings both his unique takes on dialog and cinematography and finally cements himself as both a great writer and director in my eyes. It is a must for anyone who really loves movies, if only to see the potential of true independent films.

Both these movies also reminded me how much I love John Goodman. Such a good actor.

My Favorite Video Game of 2011

Portal 2

I could go on about Portal 2’s clever and funny story about the politics of a crazy make-shift society of robots, or how Portal 2 takes possibly head-numbing puzzles and makes them both accessible and fun, or how Valve (makers of Portal 2) have been able to create a beautiful and full world without having to have a super computer to run it, but I want to focus on the sound design. Sound and music in most video games is usually something so far in the background of most games that people will barely consciously notice them. People only seem to notice when something is off, like when a gun fires and it makes no noise, or if an explosion happens and there is no bang. Portal 2 takes the objects and a movement usually marked with some sort of generic sound of a laser or machine clank and replaces those with effects that both are noticeable and beautiful. Take the light bridge; most other games would just give a bridge like that a little hum, barely noticable, but Portal 2 gives the light such musicality that I found myself surrounding myself with light bridges and just listening to the music they emit. Lasers, when they hit their intended target, let out an instrument in a minimalist symphony that, when all targets are hit, fill the puzzle room with music. It is that sound design that gives the game world a weight that makes every minute you are spending playing the game a joy.

Layer on the sound design with the good atmospheric music playing in the background, some crazy recording and/or robot reacting to your progress through the puzzles, and possibly the finest musical moment in a game in the finale (it even has a great song my the National! Listen to it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-Vg2YS-sFE) and you have what I think is the greatest game of the year, and one of the greatest games of all time. Everything about Portal 2 is polished to a fine shine, and putting portals to get from one place to another in order to solve puzzles is both fun and fresh. The story of powers vying for supremacy in a lab abandoned long ago is both funny and even a little heartbreaking in the end. The way the game made me care about these crazy robots still surprises me (though I do love robots). Portal 2 is my new standard of how great games can be and how far they have come.

Runner Up: Minna no Rhythm Tengoku

Minna no Rhythm Tengoku is possibly the most fun I have ever had with a rhythm game. It is not just because it is incredibly charming, filled with catchy music, and is so fun that I found myself playing a segment over and over again because it never ceased being fun, but it is because unlike most rhythm games, Rhythm Tengoku is about teaching the real skills and joys of music. Rhythm Tengoku takes the basics of music, keeping in time, playing with the group around you, when to stop a note short and when to extend it, and frames them so well that it doesn’t even feel like you are being taught anything. Rhythm Tengoku is the most pure attempt of taking the joys of music and trying to give them to both people who know that feeling and people who are unfamiliar. Only reason why this is not my favorite game this year is because previous entries in the Rhythm Tengoku series have done similiar things, and despite having “minna” in the title (“minna” means “everyone”) the multiplayer options are lacking. I would recommend picking it up now, but the US release is actually early 2012 so people might went to check that out too (it will be called Rhythm Heaven Fever, which I am sure will still be great, but unfortunately they will most probably strip out all the Japanese voice and replace it with a dub, which has never been as good in the past).

My Favorite Book of 2011

You Think That’s Bad

You Think That’s Bad is an odd title for a book, but it actually works for what the book is trying to do. Jim Shepard puts together 11 short stories about people in various places around the world and various times in history and puts the reader in their shoes. The one unifying aspect of all these people is that they are all pretty miserable. With the title of the book and the various protagonists, it implies a Canterbury Tales-esque meta-narrative that perhaps somehow all these people are stuck in some inn somewhere that is beyond time and space with each person telling their own stories of woe (of course, interrupting the previous story teller with “you think that’s bad!”). Or maybe these stories are somehow all connected with some sort of reincarnation thread and they are the same soul going from unfortunate fate to unfortunate fate, imprisoned by their karma. Either way, the short story construction of each tale gives a slice of the life of somebody in a pretty bad situation. Whether it is a woman trapped in the desert searching for the citadel of the Assassins, an engineer trying not to be drowned in the Netherlands, a lonely man defending northern Australia from the Japanese in WWII, or being a servant to a serial killer and rapist in 15th century France, none of the stories really start or end with happiness. But while none of the stories really gives the complete picture of any their unfortunate protagonists, what makes You Think That’s Bad great is how each story adds a piece of the puzzle and creates a tapestry of human suffering about how  humanity deals with its heavy load.

What also makes this tapestry compelling to read is how the book takes real events and people and weaves them into those stories. The biggest highlight is how Mr. Shepard takes Eiji Tsuburaya, the man behind the visual effects in Gojira (aka Godzilla), and creates the best some of the best historical fiction based in Japan since James Clavell’s Shogun. The amount of both real historical knowledge and genuine human emotion injected in each story makes each tale of human suffering a treat instead of a trudge. Though beware, this book gets into so many real depressing truths in the world that I would recommend only reading one story at a time. Though to be honest, I found the book so good, that I found it often hard to stop at just one story. The ability to be both soul-crushingly depressing and yet so compelling to read is what makes this my favorite book of 2011.

Runner Up: Bossypants

Memoirs are a dime a dozen it seems like, but Tina Fey’s Bossypants is one that nobody should miss. It is equal parts funny, introspective, and it is a great case for Tina Fey being one of the funniest people in America today. Reading about her struggles growing up and becoming the successful person she is now is inspiring, but the hilarious way she makes fun of herself and the world around her is fantastic. Perfect book to wrap up this winter and give a read.