Megan Ellison & Annapurna Pictures are the best thing happening in movies right now.

A couple of years ago, Megan Ellison, mid-twenties, heir to a fortune, set up a film production company Annapurna Pictures, with the intention of producing daring films by unique filmmakers.

This resulted in the recent releases, Killing Them Softly, Lawless, The Master and Zero Dark Thirty. While a couple of these films have garnered acclaim and good box office, they are all far from blockbuster material. But the trend remains the same with upcoming projects such as Wong Kar Wai's The Grandmasters and Harmony Korine's gonzo road movie Spring Breakers. Ellison seems to have taken the longview that legacy is more important than profit. These films, once seen, will not easily be forgotten, regardless of their commercial success.

I've seen the four films Annapurna has released to date, and if they're not all great, they're not far off. Killing Them Softly is this close to being a masterpiece, Lawless had one of the best casts of recent times and some stunning sequences, The Master is a film which felt a little cold at first viewing, but which lingers so vividly I'm keen to visit it again, and Zero Dark Thirty ranks as simply one of the best procedurals I've ever seen. Their reputations will do nothing but grow in the coming years.

The most interesting thing about these films is that they were all on my radar while in development. I keenly awaited the arrival of their posters (and they've had some great ones- just look at these things), I looked forward to the premiere of their trailers, and I all but marked their release dates in my calendar. I ended up seeing their first three films before I even realized they all had the same production company. Now I'm keeping tabs on their upcoming projects because their track record is already so good. This is the kind of enthusiasm I usually reserve for a particular filmmaker, not a production company.

 

Recent exciting news is that Annapurna are currently producing new films from Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Where the Wild Things Are), David O Russell (Three Kings, I Heart Huckabees, Silver Linings Playbook), Bennett Miller (Capote, Moneyball). They have also recently acquired the rights to the Terminator franchise, which is hopefully a signal that the the series will return to its innovative genre roots rather than continuing to overly complicate its time travel narrative with unnecessary twists and turns. Let's hope.

Annapurna Pictures is steadily becoming shorthand for original, intriguing viewing. If they continue on this track, essential may be added to that list. In the meantime, I'm enjoying the fact that Megan Ellison and Annapurna Pictures are making the kinds of movies I can't wait to see.

Phoenix: Entertainment single

After the huge artistic and commercial success of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart nearly four (!) years ago, Phoenix finally return with a new track Entertainment, from their forthcoming record Bankrupt!, and they deliver big. From the exclamation point in the new album's title to the immense production on this new single, it looks like Phoenix have decided to kick it up another notch for 2013.

Favouring a looping synth and pummeling drums to back up Thomas Mars' typically cool vocals, this first single suggests a bolder, more playful version of the band. Lyrically, things are as oblique as ever (with the grammatically curious 'Is everything they long together' a particular highlight) and it seems like the band are fully embracing it now. The video accompanying the single features the lyrics displayed in a crude script, complete with glowing light that illuminates in time with the verse, like the opening credits of The Thing from Another World coupled with a haunted karaoke video.

Phoenix have been steadily moving in this direction with each album, developing a stunning symbiosis between their innate pop sensibilities and more elaborate flourishes. It's clever, engaging music that is also effortlessly fun, and it hints at another yet another exciting record from this great band.

Atoms for Peace: AMOK

Released today in Australia
25 February in Europe/26 February in US

Stream it:
http://amok.atomsforpeace.info/


When Thom Yorke released The Eraser in 2006, it was revealed to be an interesting project, not too far from the recent experiments being conducted in Yorke's full time band Radiohead, but also not as complex or innovative as any of that band's releases. It was comprised of small songs awash in electronic glitches and flourishes. It was obviously a solo record, put together in Yorke's spare time with help from Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich. So it had a cohesive if ethereal atmosphere, and a few tracks stood out enough to prompt return listens.

So now, nearly 6 years later, Yorke returns to the same territory, bringing along the band he threw together to perform The Eraser songs live. And what a band it is. Made up of Yorke, Godrich, Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, session drummer extraordinaire Joey Waronker (who's recorded with REM, Beck, Paul McCartney, Bat for Lashes) and percussionist Mauro Refosco (who's worked with David Byrne and Brian Eno), the newly christened Atoms for Peace (awful name) have dropped AMOK (great title).

And it's a little disappointing. And it's entirely the fault of my expectations.

When the The Eraser arrived, I didn't expect a whole lot, so when it delivered an interesting, but somewhat slight experience, I was pleasantly surprised. After all, Yorke pretty much did it by himself.

And now, with the promise of a full band augmenting Yorke's modest compositions, I expected something more revelatory, or at least a little grander, than what has arrived.  I can't hear the augmentation, is what I'm saying. For the most part, it still sounds like Yorke and Godrich tinkering in the basement. The additional three gifted musicians appear to be largely absent.

I haven't read any liner notes (the physical album has only become available today), but I'd be shocked if the entire band plays together on more than a single song (and that song would probably be Judge,Jury and Executioner- where you can actually hear Fleas's fingers sliding along the bass strings). The shame is that that sense of group dynamism is what seems to be missing from most of the album.
 
Like Eraser, there are some standout tracks. Default builds upon a distinctly Burial-inspired loop to become a beautifully layered crescendo of vocals loops and synths. And Ingenue sounds like Yorke recorded a lullaby to tape and then ran it backwards (it's a good thing).

The album may prove a grower (in fact, the more I write about it, the more I find to like) and I imagine that these songs, performed live with a full band, would be far more immersive than on this recording (anyone who has seen Radiohead in concert knows how startling a live rendition of a glitchy ballad can be).

Don't let my expectations put you off- this is just a cautionary word that you should keep yours in check. If Thom Yorke was releasing Eraser II: Return of Eraser: The Reckoning, you'd likely be really happy with this record. As it is, you may only be happily disappointed.

The Machine Men are coming!

After huge success performing their Catalogue 12345678 career retrospective in Dusseldorf, New York and in London, the always-on-the-ball Fergus Linehan and crew have made a major coup by securing Kraftwerk as headliners for this year's Vivid festival.  Over the course of 4 nights in May, the band will perform each of their 8 full-length albums, accompanied by 3D visuals drawn from their iconic artwork and performances. It's a rare opportunity to see one of the most influential bands of the last century.

But who knows if you'll get to go? The organisers are instituting a new ticket allocation system for the Kraftwerk shows whereby you enter an application with your list of desired performances. Once the entry period has closed, entries will be drawn at random and tickets issued to those selected. This is done in the name of fairness and as an effort to alleviate pressure on the Sydney Opera House website. Which, frankly, is fair enough.

For a long time the Sydney Opera House has had the best ticket buying system running for seated events. The ability to manually select your desired seats without scrambling to find an event-specific seating map or needing to transcribe low-res CAPTCHA graphics has been, by and large, a pleasure to use. Recently they have eliminated some of this functionality for the online sale of bigger shows, only allowing users to select a ticket price or seating area and then allocating them whatever was available. This has presumably been an effort to ease stress on the back-end of the system, but from a user perspective it merely resulted in site crashes, time-outs and unclear seating availability information. I'm hopeful that these are teething problems and that in future the Opera House's innovative manual selection process will be enhanced to cope with those high-traffic sale dates.

It's a gross abuse of, and by, any music fan to resell a concert ticket at an inflated price. So any effort to make ticket buying easier, and fairer, is a plus. While I'm also sure no one would want this cumbersome ticket allocation system to be instituted for events other than the Kraftwerk shows (all other Vivid events will be sold in the usual method - hopefully with manual seating selection available), it does seem apt that in order to attend the live show of the band that pioneered the creation of art through automation, we ourselves must surrender control to an automated, random ticket selection process. (As long as those online applications work!)

The Blindspots of a Wallflower

Of the following musical acts, how many do you know?

Ok. Now considering that, does anyone not know who this is?

If there is anyone out there who knows the first three acts, but doesn't know the fourth, I'd like to meet you. Because you are a fictional character. And not a very convincing one.

Which brings me to my point. In the film version (I haven't read the book, but I'd love for someone to tell me if it's the same) of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, the lead characters, a group of high school kids in the early 90s, who are totally into music, have a revelatory moment as David Bowie's Heroes plays on the radio. None of the kids know the song. Nor do they know it's David Bowie. It takes a year for any of them to figure it out.

This would not be a big deal if, a little later in the film, the kids didn't talk passionately about the tracks on a mixtape, rattling off the names of the first three acts listed above: "The Smiths! Nick Drake! The Shaggs! Wow, you have great taste in music".

No scenario exists where this could actually happen. There is no person alive who knows who these aforementioned acts are, but does not know David Bowie or Heroes. It's simply impossible (or it's some Brechtian trick to make you realise you're watching a movie, not real life).

No big deal you might say, but this is akin to writing a programmer who boasts about SEO and search analytics, but who draws a blank when someone asks them to 'Google it'. It makes accepting the reality of the film a tad difficult.

The most bewildering thing about this whole scenario is the film is adapted and directed by the author of the book. The producers gave it to him to direct, so I'd assume he wasn't forced to give into a studio looking to wring a few more dollars out of Bowie's hit.

And that's the shame of it all. The movie is actually really good. It feels honest and warm and hits the right notes so often that this glaring error left me feeling so baffled and unsatisfied that this is now the one thing I talk about when talking about The Perks.

Anyway: I still recommend this movie.

Newsletter, newsletter Expanded.

I'm going to give this a try.

For years I've been writing and distributing Newsletter, newsletter, a little email that started as an effort to get people to come to see live music with me and evolved into an actual newsletter (with html and everything), informing everyone on the mailing list about great, decent and half-decent acts that were coming our way.

I got to say what I wanted, make a few jokes and pass on some worthwhile recommendations.
It provided a neat little outlet for occasional scribblings, jokes, recommendations and, maybe, insights.

This site will be my attempt to expand the field beyond the touring bands and a few musical recommendations (though these will still remain, as indeed will the newsletter itself).

I'm going to try and write about the things I find worthwhile, which means it'll mostly be movies, tv shows, music and books. The good stuff.

If nothing else, it'll be a chance to get some of my thoughts down before they flitter away into the ether with everything else. I hope you find something here you like.