Favorite Movies of 2014

Happy New Year's Eve, folks! Now that 2014 officially has a few scant hours left in its life, I think it's safe to say that I won't be seeing any more movies this year, which means it's safe to declare my favorites without fear that some later release will grab a spot in my heart (as was the case with my Favorite Music feature—that D'Angelo album, y'all).

Just a technical note: the movies I've considered are ones that have had theatrical releases in the United States during the past year. Several of the ones I discuss here have earlier release dates, either in festivals or foreign markets, but still qualify because of their theatrical release dates in the US of A.

It's also worth noting that (per usual) due to time, release schedules, and simple apathy, I have not seen every single movie released this year, so if it's not on this list, there's a big possibility that I just didn't see it. A few notable gaps in my viewing that readily spring to mind include Inherent Vice (which won't come to Knoxville until January—c'mon, distributors!), Selma, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Gone Girl, Big Hero 6, and Whiplash, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Basically, it's been a great year for movies, so great that even with as many movies as I saw, it's been hard to keep up. So let's celebrate that.

Anyway, here are my favorites. Feel free to disagree; I'd love to hear what I missed!

Favorite Movies

1. The Grand Budapest Hotel
It's no secret that Wes Anderson movies can hold humanity at arms length, prizing affectation over pesky things like character motivation and recognizably human behavior. That's not at all true of his most recent feature, The Grand Budapest Hotel, which is Anderson's flat-out best since Rushmore. It's certainly the movie least constrained by the expectations of what a Wes Anderson movie should be since The Royal Tennanbaums, something it paradoxically achieves by making the movie even more Andersonian, with even the plot constructed like a fussbudget dollhouse. It's no small feat that a story this complicated also manages to throw enough dramatic heft to support poignant examination of nostalgia and storytelling, pet themes of Anderson's that feel more meaningful than ever here.

2. Bethlehem (בית לחם)
The best way to watch this movie is, I think, not to go in envisioning it a rich work of sociopolitical commentary on the relationship between Israel and Palestine (though it is that) but instead to see it as a heartbreaking picture of a relationship between two human beings, an agent and his star-crossed informant. First and foremost, this is a character drama in which, in a certain sense, the specifics of nationality are secondary. The movie isn't so much a political thesis as it is a mere empathic depiction, and with tweaking, the principal characters could be from any two states in conflict. The lesson here isn't "right vs. wrong" or "cops vs. robbers" or any such simple binaries that political lines imply; it's about human lives mattering and the sickening tragedy that arises when we're tempted to forget that.

3. Guardians of the Galaxy
I'm completely within the majority cultural sentiment here—I found Guardians of the Galaxy to be one of the funniest, warmest, and most winsome movies not just of 2014 but of the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, a franchise that has had no shortage of good movies but has taken until this year to find a true emotional core. Guardians is great fun, but what makes it even greater than its similarly fun Marvel counterparts is the presence of real emotional stakes for its characters, something previously gestured toward only in the Captain America movies. It's not belabored, but with its light touch, it's also genuinely moving. Oh, and there's also tons of '70s music. And the glorious and long-overdue ascendance of Chris Pratt as a top-tier movie star. Sounds like a winning combination to me.

4. Ida
There's a very real way that Ida is as much of a genre tribute as Guardians of the Galaxy. Only instead of Guardians's two-hour love letter to the space opera and adventure serial, here we have Ida professing undying affection for the austere, punishing, and altogether miserable world of '60s and '70s European art cinema. Black and white cinematography? Check. Self-consciously portentous framings of shots? Definitely. Frequent, pregnant pauses in dialogue? For sure. Unsmiling characters who wrestle with weighty philosophical concepts like selfhood, art, and the existence of God? Oh, you better believe it! I'm making this movie sound terrible, I know, and admittedly, its appeal may only be compatible with a certain type of person. But I'm definitely of that type, and I found it a fantastic experience.

5. Noah
It shouldn't be surprising that the most profound religious ideas in this year's cinema came from a biblical epic. I mean, it's biblical, right? Still, the depressing reality is that movies directly adapted from the Bible tend to have all the profundity dignified out of them. What's in part so wonderful about Noah is how undignified it's willing to be. Noah is one strange movie that doesn't worry one bit about ruining its ethos with, for example, a detour into an experimental rendition of the Genesis creation story. This is the rare (perhaps sole) occasion of a Hollywood film approximating the terrifying power of the Old Testament, and it's bursting with ideas, the most compelling of which being that humanity is more important than fundamentalism but not so important as to trump God Himself. Great stuff.

6. Boyhood
As has been remarked before, "Boyhood" probably isn't the best title for Boyhood—"Parenthood" (already taken, I know) or particularly "Motherhood" might have suited it better, if only by virtue of its most interesting character. Poor Mason, protagonist though he may be, lingers a little too closely to blank slatehood for audience projections, and really, there's no more powerful line reading in any film on this list as Patricia Arquette's "I just thought there would be more." That moment resonates on several levels, but the most meta one is the way it functions as a duel commentary on both life and the nature of Linklater's newest masterpiece: they slip by without warning, without montage, only the flow of everyday mundanity marking time. It's a beautiful premise beautifully executed.

7. Interstellar
I've talked a lot with my friends about Interstellar: its themes, its special effects, it soundtrack, its acting, its leaps in logic and plot and characterization. I've usually entered those conversations with a comment like, "It's a flawed movie, but..." And you know, it is a flawed movie. BUT when all is said and done, Interstellar works in a big way for me. It's not just the effects, which are surely some of the best, most awe-inspiring space visuals we've seen this side of 2001; it's not just the surprisingly uncondescending treatment of astrophysics; it's not just the mastery of montage and cross-cutting, which recalls none other than Intolerance in its scope. No, it's McConaughey's Cooper watching twenty years in one fell swoop, his kids drifting away from him into adulthood. That, as they say, is all the feels. And feels work.

8. Particle Fever
And for a companion piece to Interstellar's feels, look no further than here. It's a cool quirk of this list that the two films that use complicated science as a platform to explore people ended up in adjacent spots. I'm a huge dork for quantum physics, particle physics, cosmology, and all that good stuff, but even if you aren't, don't worry; a large part of what makes Particle Fever such a great doc is how it's less about the science (though it's there) and more about the people who are enthusiastic enough about the science to test it out. With the physics that reaches us through textbooks, it's easy to forget that hardworking people hinge their entire life's work on these theories, and that there are real emotional stakes involved with even the most esoteric studies. Hopefully Particle Fever ensures we don't forget again.

9. The Immigrant
If this movie hadn't gotten in my Top 10, it surely would have won the "Greatest Difference in Quality Between Poster and Actual Film" award. What an ugly poster, but what a great movie. Around Oscar season, we see a lot of period films, and something that trips a lot of those pieces up is that their period trappings serve more as a projection of our modern society on history than history itself. It's only one of The Immigrant's many strengths that it avoids this trap. This is a movie set in early 20th-century New York, and with everything from the dialogue to its lush mis-en-scène, this movie immerses itself in that environment wholly. It's period done fantastically right. And that's to say nothing about the phenomenal cast or the gorgeous cinematography. Don't judge a film by its poster.

10. Grand Piano
I think the best way to describe this movie is to call it live-action Looney Tunes. Slapstick, zany action, and classical music combine with an energy here that suggests a darker take on the best of Bugs Bunny and company (in particular, "Rhapsody Rabbit"). Grand Piano is not a film to be taken straightly, despite its opening fifteen minutes of glowering Elijah Wood, a concert pianist sticken with a paralyzing case of stage fright, and by the time Wood's character is dodging bullets while simultaneously playing an "unplayable" piano piece, it's clear that neither reality nor sobriety are chief concerns. Before anything else, this movie is fun. Emotional stakes and insightful depictions of the human condition are great and all, but sometimes it's nice to see a film just kick back and have a good time.


Appendix: Miscellaneous Movies Also Worth Noting

Best Inheritor to Both Groundhog Day and City Lights: Edge of Tomorrow—This movie is so good that it's probably the best inheritor to several more movies, too. It definitely would have been #11 on the Favorites List up there, had the list gone on one entry more. Regardless, the Groundhog Day comparisons are hopefully obvious enough: dude relives one day of his life over and over (this time on a battle-strewn, alien-invaded Earth instead of Punxsutawney, PA). The Chaplin comparison is maybe more dubious, but that final scene and Cruise's smile in particular are totally right out of City Lights's legendary ending. And oh boy, is it perfect.

Best Movie, Animated Category: The Lego Movie—More accurately: the only animated movie I saw. Still, it's nice that even when Pixar takes the year off, American animation still has at least one honest-to-goodness great animated feature up its sleeve (the verdict is still out on The Boxtrolls and Big Hero 6 for me, since I regrettably haven't seen either). Everything is awesome indeed.

Best Movie, Agitprop Category: Snowpiercer—This film absolutely kicks butt, and it does so while wearing its politics in flashing neon lights on its bleeding sleeve. I don't mind it so much because there's a secret part of me that sometimes wants to be an angry anarcho-Marxist who blows up a train and stuff, though I do concede that it's heavy-handed as all get out.

Best Use of Enormous Eyeballs: Nightcrawler—I suppose it's worth mentioning that I haven't seen Big Eyes, the most obvious contender in this category. Still, I somehow doubt that that film, even with Chrisoph Waltz, will top the utterly riveting, utterly horrifying turn Jake Gyllenhaal makes as the gawky protagonist in this film. A lot of the credit should go to the lighting, which does a great job accentuating the already gaunt features (particularly those peepers, jeepers creepers!) on Gyllenhaal's character.

Movie I'm Least Likely to Forget: The Final Member—It's a documentary about, wait for it, two men competing to be the first human donation to the world's only penis museum. Believe it or not, it's actually kind of moving.

Most Regrettable Waste of Stellar Leads: The Amazing Spider-Man 2—Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone are so good reprising their roles as Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy (respectively, of course—although... there have been worse ideas...) that it's a shame that the movie feels the need to follow a half-baked plot that makes Gwen Stacy do her Gwen Stacy thing instead of just letting those two actors improvise the whole time. It would have been ten times the film, if only by the sheer charm of their chemistry alone.

Best Movie Overshadowed by Its Charismatic Younger Brother: Captain America: The Winter Soldier—Yeah, Guardians of the Galaxy gets all the Top-Ten love, but that's no negative reflection on Marvel's other cinematic outing this year. In a year that turned out to be hugely damaging to my personal trust in the American government, The Winter Soldier gave me catharsis by speaking to that exact distrust. It's not the most sophisticated investigation of our government ever, but when many films these days seem to go out of their way to avoid making a political point, The Winter Soldier feels essential.

The Kids Aren't Alright Award: Palo Alto—It's impressive how committed this film is to showing just how utterly terrifying and hopeless adolescence can feel. Most teen-oriented movies lean heavy on the self-actualization, which is fine, but man, Palo Alto is not interested at all in softening the teen nihilism with any kind of lesson or "coming-of-age." It's all the better for it, too.

Come for the Movie, Stay for the Music Award: Only Lovers Left Alive—I'm not in love with this movie as a whole (I've found that Jim Jarmusch films, this one included, tend to leave me cold), but the soundtrack is absolutely aces. All vampires should listen to drone metal.

The "I See What You Did There" Award: Locke—It's a cool technical achievement to have the entire movie take place in a car with a single character, so let's give a round of applause for that. You know what's also a cool achievement? Actually making your movie interesting instead of just a filmmaking exercise. Sorry, Locke.

The "I Don't See What You Did There" Award: Under the Skin—Look, I'm all for arthouse, and I'm even more for arthouse sci-fi, but I just do not get this movie. Points for weirdness and cool implosion effects, I guess, but other than that, I feel like the main feat here was aggressively keeping me at arm's length. Feel free to attack me for my thickheadedness.

Obligatory "Hey, Remember How Nicholas Cage Is a Good Actor?" Award: Joe—It's a bleak movie, which doesn't mean it's a bad one (it's quite good), but the only real source of joy here is that it showcases that rare beast of a measured Nick Cage performance. In the year of Left Behind, we needed that.

My Fair Lady Award for the Worst Ending to an Otherwise Enjoyable Movie: Magic in the Moonlight—File this under: Woody Allen loving his protagonists too much. There is nothing in the preceding 90 minutes that justifies Firth's character getting a happy ending. But there it is. The lesson is apparently that being a patronizing jerk will help you find love (a lesson unfortunately common in rom-com world).

Best Non-2014 Movie I Saw for the First Time in 2014: The General—I already wrote this one up for my AFI project (you can read the entry here—when everything was said and done, it was my favorite movie I saw for the first time through the project, though The Apartment came close), but other than what I already said there, I can now add that this movie introduced me to the wonderful world of Buster Keaton, the artist behind a veritable cornucopia of silent comedy masterpieces. I probably saw more Buster Keaton than any other filmmaker this year.

And that's it! Hope everyone has a wonderful new year! Don't forget to let me know what you think about this year's movies.

Until next year.

Rev., Christianity, and the Best TV of 2014

 
This time of year, you hear a lot about the best of the past twelve months' culture—the best movies, books, new species (?), etc. I've even gotten into the fray myself with my previous post on my favorite music of the year. 'Tis the season for list-making, after all.

Because I'm a helpless dork for that kind of arbitrary coding of pop culture, I've been reading a lot of these lists. In particular, I've been interested in seeing what the various culture makers are putting on their Best TV of 2014 lists. And as good and interesting as the selections on those lists have been[1], I've noticed that one of my favorite shows of the year has been absent from most of them, so I just wanted to take a moment to give it some much-deserved praise on this blog. That show is Rev.

Rev. is a British show that aired its third (and probably final) series this past summer. It's about Adam Smallbone, an Anglican vicar (Tom Hollander, who also co-created the series) who is put in charge of a small inner-city London church after spending several years in a rural parish. That's a premise that might as well be the setup for a typical fish-out-of-water sitcom, and nominally, Rev. is a sitcom, with its half-hour format, goofily framed secondary characters (of which my favorite is Archdeacon Robert [Simon McBurney], Adam's wry and antagonistic supervisor), and comedy-of-errors plots. The show is often very funny, especially in its first series, where it leans most heavily on its sitcom proclivities.

It's also a show that, for all its humor, has considerable dramatic gravitas, which is part of the series' greatness—we have plenty of funny sitcoms, British and otherwise, but the list of those that are also interested in serious dramatic stakes for their characters is much shorter. St. Saviour in the Marshes (the London church Adam works at, and yes, I'm jealous I don't go to a church with that name) is a parish struggling to maintain attendance and financial stability, problems that affect in serious ways not just Adam and his wife but also the few steady church members, many of whom (being in the inner city) live in poverty and homelessness. Though its examination of these problems are often told through jokes, the show treats them and the characters with dignity and compassion. There's a real sorrow for a broken world at the heart of the series.

But even more than that sorrow, what I think makes Rev. truly great is its handling of the Christianity at the center of its characters' lives. When most contemporary Western pop culture deals with Christianity (or really, any religion, but, being Western, it's most often Christianity that's dealt with), it does one of two things that I consider problematic.

The first is that it starts from the premise that belief in the religious supernatural is inherently foolish and/or destructive. See: the works of Woody Allen, for example (though much of that deals with Judaism), Stephen King, and mid-though-late-career Ingmar Bergman. Works that start with this premise are often excellent at analyzing the types of crises that can lead people away from faith or can cause organized religions to hurt people, but they often stumble in depicting with compassion and nuance sincerely faithful individuals[2]. When your story grows from a belief that a religious reality is false, it's difficult to have insight into religious belief without condescending from that premise.

On the other hand, there's also the second problem that pop culture tends to run into, which is that it assumes that the existence of the religious supernatural (and often a very particular brand of religious supernatural, too[3]) is self-evident. Admittedly, this problem is almost exclusively the property of the Evangelical stable with the likes of Courageous, Facing the Giants, and God's Not Dead, but it's the loudest counterpoint to the first problem and therefore worth discussing. Only cynical blindmen and villains can possibly doubt the existence of God/the power of prayer/the holiness of the Church once the right theology has been explained thoroughly enough, these works often say[4]. As a result, Christianity tends to be seen through rose-colored glasses, with the redemptive elements of faith and church community emphasized (often to the point of accidental self-parody) and the possibility that living according to religious beliefs can sometimes be a really, really hard thing to do downplayed. With these artistic endeavors, it's difficult to have insights into religious belief because that belief is assumed to be stable from the start.

Rev. belongs to an exceedingly rare class of art that not only avoids those two issues but also presents a meaningful and compassionate view of humanity through its depiction of Christianity. Its characters are devoutly religious people who pray, believe in miracles, and serve in church, and the show's depiction of that is neither condescending (there is never the suggestion, for example, that it's anything less than intelligent for Adam to pray to God when he needs guidance) nor self-satisfied in that faithfulness. Adam wrestles with doubts about the nature of his faith, God, and his church duties, but that wrestling is shown as a natural part of his existence, not a catastrophe (as it surely would have been in Evangelical art) or a step toward secular enlightenment. Neither is Adam (or any other character) perfect; he bumbles and makes mistakes, sometimes grave ones. He's a human being, after all, and his existence is peppered with the same moral struggles (deception, infidelity, anger, selfishness) that all humans encounter. The Church of England, being made of humans, isn't perfect either here. It's corrupt, it's petty, it's greedy, it's complicated by bureaucracy, but it's also never dismissed outright. Adam's parishioners gather, worship, experience joy and beauty and hope through the mechanism of that Church, and that's something the series never forgets.

Beautifully, Rev. posits that even though the Church is imperfect, it is worth caring for. Much the same goes for the show's view of the human race. I said above that it was more the treatment of Christianity than the sorrow for brokenness that makes Rev. great, but perhaps what I should have said is that its greatness lies in the way its sorrow for brokenness informs its depiction of Christianity. More than almost any piece of pop art I can think of, Rev. recognizes that the problems in organized religion are rooted in the same problems that inform human nature. The show's view of Christianity is something that grows out of its larger humanist spirit, the one that sees worth in showing compassion to even the lowest characters. The characters and their church aren't all good, but there's something at their core that absolutely is. Deep inside the human experience, whether it's the experience of day-to-day life or of Sunday worship, is something that can be redeemed.

And that's why it's my favorite TV show of 2014[5]. I totally recommend seeking it out if you get a chance; as of the writing of this post, all three series are streaming for free on Hulu, so there's really no excuse, right?

Until next time.


1] We're at an interesting point in television history where, following the endings of several elder statesmen of TV's "Golden Age" (Breaking Bad and 30 Rock, to name two, not to mention the impending end of Mad Men in the next few months), there's no longer as much monolithic critical consensus surrounding "elite" shows as there used to be during the high-classical era of Tony Soprano and HBO's mid-2000s output. Television is more fractured than ever, and that means there's equal room for everything from Over the Garden Wall to Louie.

2] This is less true of Ingmar Bergman's films, which are nothing if not nuanced and compassionate toward every single human being ever. But I don't think there's any doubt that his later films are also very much within a post-Christian mindset which restricts its depiction of faith to misery and wishful thinking.

3] Hint: it rarely includes transubstantiation.

4] I'm exaggerating a bit for effect, but the core idea is there.

5] Tied with Mad Men, Louie, and Over the Garden Wall, that is, but hey, those are already getting plenty of love elsewhere.

Favorite Music of 2014

It's list-making time again in the pop culture world! Barring possible album releases from Kendrick Lamar and Chance the Rapper, I don't think I'll listen to much more new music this year, so hopefully this list will remain accurate for the remaining few weeks of December.

I won't weigh this post down with a long preamble this time around (does anyone read those anyway?). As always, I'd love to hear your own ideas about the year's best music—what did I miss? What did I like that you didn't? Let me know! Anyway, here's the list.

Favorite Albums:

1. Sun Kil Moon: Benji
There's a real chance that Benji is the most human record I've ever heard. I can only imagine that sentence sounding like hyperbole to someone who hasn't listened to the album, because with Benji, Mark Kozelek has captured the sprawling messiness, the pain, hilarity, and complexity of human nature with a depth that's rarely been achieved before—think John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band; In Utero; The Wall. This album would be a masterpiece if its only song were "I Watched the Film The Song Remains the Same," an opus that ranks among the all-time great singer-songwriter moments. But that's not it; there are eleven in total, all in the same spirit of confession and compassion.

2. St. Vincent: St. Vincent
Let's get this out of the way first: St. Vincent is not as good as Strange Mercy. It's not nearly so sonically adventurous, it's thematically looser, and it's the first time in Annie Clark's career that a new release hasn't signaled a significant expansion of her sound. All in all, St. Vincent is a lateral move. But here's the thing about lateral moves: their laterality doesn't matter one bit when they're as confident, winsome, and blisteringly virtuosic as St. Vincent's is. Clark's not just the guitar wizard we've seen in the past—she's a master songsmith whose pop precision is formidable enough to make even the weirdest effects sound tightly melodic. Just ask "Birth in Reverse."

3. The War on Drugs: Lost in the Dream
A large part of the pleasure of Lost in the Dream is the rather dorky gratification of seeing a good band turn into a great one. The War on Drugs have taken an enormous leap in quality from their previous album, Slave Ambient, and it's one of those rare moments that geeks like me relish—Bleach to Nevermind, The E Street Shuffle to Born to Run. With this one, the War on Drugs have taken their Dylan/Springsteen/Dire Straits influences and crafted them into the fullest realization of their potential, a sound that's both huge and personal. For evidence, look no further than "Red Eyes," which is one of the best "broken heroes on a last-chance power drive" songs the Boss never penned.

4. Against Me!: Transgender Dysphoria Blues

The problem I have with a lot of punk is that it tends to be a little one-note, emotionally. Aggression and devil-may-care self-righteousness  can only go so far before they wear thin, so thankfully this latest album from Against Me! is as rich as any album in any genre this year. Lead member Laura Jane Grace sings about the struggles of coming out as a transgendered woman with intensity, confusion, hurt, and vulnerability. "You want them to notice the ragged ends of your summer dress," she sings on the opening title track, and it's a sentiment so sweet that the revelation that "they just see a faggot" hits all the more heartbreakingly.

5. Spoon: They Want My Soul

Spoon is a weird band to write about. On the one hand, there's almost nothing to say besides, "Well, they've made another great album." On the other hand, as I've just proven right now, that unremarkable consistency actually is quite remarkable. So, here it goes: they've made another great album. There's nothing here that's significantly different from the band's previous output (though "Outlier" seems to have picked up a few cues from singer/guitarist Britt Daniel's Divine Fits side project), but the album also has that wonderful Spoonian quality of sounding both familiar and fresh. In this humble blogger's opinion, Spoon's rarely been better.

6. Ex Hex: Rips
I'm not going to say that guitar rock is extinct or even that it's rare (heck, at least half of the albums on this list could easily be considered guitar rock), but it's still a distinct pleasure to encounter a record rocking as unquestionably hard as this one. There's a straightforward, upbeat energy to Rips that you hear less and less these days in riff-heavy music, making it a record that actually rocks without being tortured or ironic (something that actually is rare). That's not to say that Rips is emotionally simple or anything like that—songs like "I Don't Wanna Lose" and "War Paint" contribute plenty of complexity—but it's also brash and loud and fast and unapologetically fun. Party on, ladies! 


7. Badbadnotgood: III
Full disclosure: I've no idea what's going on in the jazz world these days. The most recent full-on jazz album I have any familiarity with is Brad Mehldau's Elegiac Cycle from 1999, and even that one's a throwback, as I understand it. Fuller disclosure: I've little idea of what's ever been going on in the jazz world; I've listened to plenty, but if you want me to spout definitions or trace its history Ken-Burns style, I'll have to see myself out. What I do know is Badbadnotgood makes excellent music. III is less rambunctious than its predecessor (I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss the Kanye West and My Bloody Valentine covers), but it's also BBNG's most sophisticated, atmospheric work yet. 

8. tUnE-yArDs: Nikki Nack
I never listened to tUnE-yArDs' (try typing that five times fast!) debut, but if this one's any indication, I need to seek it out pronto. Nikki Nack's a phenomenal work of progressive traditionalism, a purely pop album at heart thrown cockeyed by a terrifically fun infusion of the weird. Polyrhythms surround flourishes of psychedelia and chants, electronic whistles swoop in and out of the mix, and a "Modest Proposal"-esque skit takes a 1.5 minute break from melody and song structure altogether. And yet, somehow, none of this stops "Water Fountain" and "Real Thing" from being among the most infectious songs of the year. A high-wire act, but tUnE-yArDs pull it off gloriously.

9. White Hinterland: Baby

In the year of St. Vincent, it's tempting to label Baby as simply "indie art pop that isn't as good as St. Vincent," but of course that's not fair. This is a work with way more heart than Annie Clark has ever displayed; for all of St. Vincent's virtues, there's no getting around that moniker's iciness. While White Hinterland certainly shares some of that iciness around the edges, it also bares a sloppy, beating core—foremost is the harrowing title track, where singer Casey Dienel cries raggedly, "Is this my weakness?" over and over, even when the instruments falls away. It's about as emotionally naked as they come.

10. U2: Songs of Innocence
In my book, it's U2's strongest album since at least All That You Can't Leave Behind, and I say that as someone who, to varying degrees, likes How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb and (especially) No Line on the Horizon. Like those last two albums, Innocence slumps in its middle third; unlike those albums, though, there's an urgency and lyrical complexity that recalls the band's early post-punk years by way of their '90s darkness. The latter stages of the record shine in particular with their War-meets-Pop fervor. And I'll be darned if "The Troubles" isn't one of the best album closers of the year.



10 Great Songs Not on These Albums:

Chance the Rapper & the Social Experiment: "Wonderful Everyday: Arthur"—Remember Arthur? The suspiciously humanoid aardvark who taught us kids to laugh and play and get along with each other every weekday on PBS, 4/3 Central? Well, Chance the Rapper turned that show's theme into a soulful concert staple this year, and the results are lovely. Bonus nostalgia points for folks like me who grew up with the show.

Coldplay: "Magic"—Ghost Stories isn't my favorite Coldplay album, but I appreciate the quieter approach after the booming, often garish Mylo Xyloto. "Magic" is the best recipient of that approach. The melody blooms beautifully from the initially sparse production, and by the time Chris Martin's singing falsetto, it's Coldplay perfection.

Father John Misty: "Bored in the USA"—Despite the Springsteen allusion of the title, this song is most indebted to the singer-songwriters of the '70s, only a version of those '70s icons that recognizes how self-obsessed and solipsistic they could be. It's dark and funny and sad, and it's got me pumped for the full album next year.

Ariana Grande: "Problem (feat. Iggy Azalea)"—By the end of the summer, I was at risk of getting sick of this song. Thankfully, Meghan Trainor swooped in with a song of her own for me to get sick of, and here I am now, still digging "Problem." The Iggy verse still sucks, but the rest is great pop and a wonderful showcase for Ariana Grande's vocal flexibility. Her full-length is pretty good, too, if any of y'all are looking for more of that four-octave range.

Mick Jenkins: "Jazz"—So, this song's from Mick Jenkins's mixtape The Water[s], which is a concept album about (you guessed it) water. It's kind of goofy in theory, but in practice it's a striking listen that does some cool thematic work with its central concept. I've heard it derogatorily described as "honors student rap," and that's definitely true of some of the album's more heavy-handed moments. But then you get songs like this, which, with its namedropping of John Coltrane and Charles Mingus, is definitely honors-y but also completely fresh in its comparison between hip-hop culture and jazz culture. Plus, the jazzy production used throughout the album is never more appropriate than it is here.

Kendrick Lamar: "i"—Kendrick Lamar songs have a way of shifting meaning when placed in the context of their albums (ever try listening to "Backseat Freestyle" without the rest of Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City?), so who knows what this track will sound like once the rest of the album is released. Right now, though, it's an uncharacteristically upbeat track, a moment of optimism and self-actualization in the face of disenfranchisement that, after the depths plumbed by his previous album, feels rather beautiful and redemptive. Plus, Kendrick's instrumentation doesn't get much more lush than it is here.

Taylor Swift: "Shake It Off"—When this song first dropped, there was this weird thing among some critic types where they called it a mortal error of Swift's, one that perhaps signaled the end of her pop dominance. 2.5 million sales of 1989 later, I think we can all agree that those critics were dead wrong. Besides, c'mon, this song's awesome.

Sharon Van Etten: "Your Love Is Killing Me"—Van Etten is usually an intense presence on her albums, but before this year, I sure didn't think she had this level of intensity in her. It's a monster track, six minutes of self-effacing fury that hits its climax early and somehow keeps building.

Yellow Ostrich: "Shades"—Unfortunately, Yellow Ostrich is no more; the band dissolved a near the end of the fall. I've been following these guys from their DIY Bandcamp days, and I'm sad to see them go. However, they did leave a very good swansong in this year's Cosmos, and "Shades," with its Krautrock-on-speed riffage, is a highlight. It's Yellow Ostrich at their off-beat best, throwing in some new-found (an, as it turns out, short-lived) guitar rock chops for flavor.

Thom Yorke: "Nose Grows Some"—The more Thom Yorke drops solo material, the more it becomes apparent that, for all Yorke's ostentatious frontmanship, the magic of Radiohead is built on the alchemy of all five band members in collaboration, not just the manic genius of the singer/lyricist. That being said, Thom's BitTorrent-released album this year, Tomorrow's Modern Boxes, is pretty strong stuff, and this song's the strongest of the bunch. It's a piece that approaches the sensuality and sublimity of The King of Limbs while still maintaining the austerity of Yorke's driving aesthetic, flowing organically from the song suite that closes the album.

The New Profanity

Disclaimer: This post talks a lot about profanity, and as such, it uses quite a few profanities itself. The profanities are there for evidence of social issues and analysis of those issues, but still, they're profanities nonetheless. Just wanted to let everyone know up front that this post will be a bit saltier than the normal post here at the blog, in case anyone out there has gentler ears than I do.

 
The other day, I was watching Cheers, and at one point during the episode, Frasier angrily called Lilith, his wife, a slut. After seeing the interchange, I was surprised to discover that the moment had mildly shocked me—not because Frasier was angry at Lilith (she was having an affair with another man, which, given their marital trouble over the previous few seasons, was not really a shocker) but because he (and the writers) had used that specific word, "slut," to describe her. Which is weird because I can't remember the last time I've been shocked by "strong language" in a film or TV series, and yet there was the old feeling rearing its head in the middle of Cheers, of all shows, over the word "slut," of all words.

Okay, so, I realize that using a personal anecdote as evidence for broader social analysis isn't great form, academically, but I think there's something about my little Cheers moment that connects to a broader cultural issue I've been thinking about for a while now, because apparently I've got nothing better to do than to think about cuss words. The question: since it seems like all conventional swears (fuck, hell, bastard, etc.) are losing their offensive power in contemporary society, what will happen once they cease to be offensive at all? Will some new profanity rise up to take the old words' place?

I think my entirely subjective and not at all scientific Cheers experience may have given me a possible answer to that question. What I'm beginning to think is that "slut" (along with "faggot" and maybe "retard" and a few other slurs) may be among our culture's new profanities. Obviously, these words aren't new to the English lexicon, but it seems to me that in recent years, they have accumulated a taboo power among the culture at large that they've never had in the past. Take the Cheers example; Frasier's use of "slut" was greeted by uproarious studio audience laughter. When the episode aired, the word was apparently perceived as innocuous enough that it could be used to punctuate a joke on a relatively tame network comedy (it's also used to a similar effect in the slightly older, edgier film, Tootsie), but now, only twenty-two years later, I can't think of a single show that would use the word in such a lighthearted way. Maybe I'm just watching all the wrong shows, and if so, please correct me. But as of right now, the only context in which I can imagine "slut" appearing on modern-day television is one that would involve great offense to the female recipient of the word and absolutely no studio laughter.

A similar thing happens when watching old John Hughes movies, such as Sixteen Candles, and their use of "faggot." In Sixteen Candles, it's clear that neither the film nor the characters treat the word with the offensive power that it has for modern viewers. Sure, it's not a nice word, but it's also not a word that seems particularly forbidden in Hughes's world, either. Nowadays, though, I'm struggling to think of a movie from, say, the past five years that's used the word without the dramatic or ironic distance of acknowledging that a character is committing a sin by saying "faggot"—not because it's "unkind" in the way that calling someone fat is unkind but because the word itself is deemed improper because of its social connotations. "Faggot" isn't a stinging quip anymore; it's an obscenity[1].

A brief linguistic field trip that I promise relates to this post: Back when I was an undergraduate, I wrote a paper for my History of the English Language class about the history of profanity[2] and the role of movies and television in de-stigmatizing traditional profanity (yes, I'm totally committing the insufferable sin of citing my own paper—apologies... sort of). In the paper, I make the kinda obvious point that the profanity of various words is determined by whichever groups hold the moral authority within a society. "Shit" is a more offensive word than "poop," for instance, because someone in authority (probably the Norman conquerors back in medieval England, who considered French to be superior to the common Anglo-Saxon language [from which we get the word "shit"] spoken by the English peasantry) shaped culture in a way that made it more offensive.

The reverse happens, too—when a group loses authority, its power the maintain certain words' offensiveness diminishes. For example, the decreased role of Christianity as a moral authority in America has lead to religiously themed profanities being considered less offensive by society at large. The profane use of "hell," "damn," and "God," for instance, no longer holds as much power over the average American as it used to because not as many people hold views (or care about the authority of those who hold views) that would take offense at the irreverent use of their theology.

Here's the connection to Cheers (and, fair warning, I'm about to make some wild generalizations): the past decade or so has seen the beginnings of a pretty big shift in moral perception in the United States regarding identity (specifically gender and sexual identity, though disability and ethnicity have been in there, too). The values of those in moral authority—including certain film and TV makers—in our society are much more concerned with the things that positively and negatively affect one's self-conception (see: the recent body-identity controversy over Meghan Trainor's "All About That Bass"). One effect of this new value of protecting identity seems to have been the intensification of objection to words that actively attack one's gender or sexual identity—Exhibit A: "slut" and "faggot." This also could explain the continued taboo of "cunt," a word that attacks gender identity and has, if anything, gained offensiveness over the years.

Previous moral authorities were concerned with things that affected either propriety (which emphasized the offensiveness of "fuck" and "shit") or religious beliefs (emphasizing "Jesus Christ," "damn," etc.), and those concerns are still around—hence the disclaimer at the beginning of this post. What's interesting to me about this new crop of profanities, though, is that it's the first wave of cuss words formed around politically progressive values. Propriety and religion are largely conservative issues, so the hundreds-of-years-old swears that our society has been using have all been indirectly based on attacking conservative values. If these identity-based slurs actually are becoming full-blown obscenities, then (I think) it's the first time in English history that profanity has attacked progressive values.

Of course, all of these ideas rely on several assumptions, the greatest of which is that I actually know what I'm talking about. Honestly, folks, I don't; I have little formal linguistic training, and my application of American-based ideas of "progressive" and "conservative" could be totally misguided. Additionally, this whole post is pretty much based on anecdotal evidence I've accumulated from existing in society and watching sitcoms, so there's a very real likelihood that I'm just plain wrong about everything. Even if I'm not entirely wrong, I'm sure there are plenty of nitpicks and technicalities to smooth out. And even then, maybe all my points are glaringly obvious and have already been talked to death while my back was turned.

That being said, thanks for reading! Let me know what you think!

Until next time!


1] Please note that I am in no way saying that twenty years ago, words like "slut" and "faggot" were okay or innocuous or that they didn't hurt people tremendously. They've always been hateful slurs. However, it only seems to be in the past decade or so that the cultural consensus surrounding these words shifted from their being just "unkind" or "mean" words to their being actual obscenities that hold significantly more offensive power than their simple denotative meanings. Again, dealing with broad cultural consensus here, not individual experiences.

2] As in my paper, I might as well mention that I realize there are technical differences in definition between the various terms we use for "bad language." Profanity, for instance, refers specifically to the irreverent use of a concept deemed important or holy—for example, shouting "Jesus Christ" when you smash your thumb with a hammer. However, for the sake of not turning this post into a semantic nightmare, I'm just going to go ahead and establish that when I say "profanity," "cursing," "swearing," "cussing," et al. words for "bad language," I'm just referring the the popular definition that includes the entire pantheon of English strong language.