Embracing the Tiger - 2009 In Review

For the majority of 2009, I felt very much like I was treading water. As in 2008, throughout the year I worked towards completing several Teaching Company classes, in the interest of forming a finite body of knowledge that would enable me to finish my screenplay, Golden Gate. And though I absorbed volumes of new knowledge, and read literally STACKS of books, I never felt quite prepared enough to complete the screenplay. It didn't make any sense.

It wasn't until the final third of the year that I realized my process of writing the screenplay was a microcosmic indicator for the momentum of my entire life. If I continued to use this model of exhaustive self-schooling to dictate the end of the script, it would never, in fact, get done. When I finally sorted this all out, and was able to disconnect the screenplay writing process from my other academic studies, the future immediately began to reveal itself, as something that I could have never predicted.

By November I had sold my professional HD video camera on ebay and renounced any future plans of becoming a career film director, a goal I had been holding onto since I was in high school. But while I expected to feel sad about this sudden break, I instead felt instantly better, the moment the camera was out the door, and I began to look upon my life with fresh eyes.

This whole academic endeavor I've taken on over the past few years, while I've welcomed and enjoyed it, was a unconscious attempt to stave off any creative projects, films or otherwise, in the interest of delaying a future that I didn't want anymore. By letting go of old, long burned out dreams, I freed myself from my own bounds, and I can now see the near infinite scope of my creative interests- things that have been smothered for close to 10 years. Admittedly reading existential philosophy like that of Nietzsche, examining the life Leonardo da Vinci, as well as beginning to study Tai Chi and Taoist thought, has helped me tremendously to get to this point.

What I see for the year 2010 is not the same, tired routine of "one day everything will be great", but an entirely new landscape waiting to be explored. As my friend Kyra K. says, it's The Year of Making it Happen. I'm equally terrified and excited to get started. But either way, here I go.

Top Ten Things Learned or Reinforced in 2009:

10. Less is more.

9. Seek stillness in motion.

8. True harmony is in opposites, and equilibrium, by definition, is death.

7. Greater comfort is found stretching beyond the bounds of your comfort zone.

6. In order to strike out towards new discoveries, you need a very good launch pad. (I love you Sadie!)

5. The world is more complex than we can and will ever possibly be able to conceive.

4. The daunting complexity of the world is no reason to give up trying to understand it.

3. Our conceptions of who we are will torment us if we don't allow them to change.

2. The proof is in the pudding, but things are not always as they seem.

1. Change is the only constant.

Best Movies of 2009:

Up

Add Up to the slowly growing list of emotionally complex but equally entertaining stream of animated film coming out of Pixar, standing right alongside last year's Wall-E. I first watched Up while stuck at home on a sick day, and it just made my day so much better. The first montage totally broke my heart- I found myself thinking- "Jesus... isn't this a cartoon???" No. It's far more than that. This is a tale of growing up and accepting the reality of change in one's life. It's about sons dealing with absent fathers and a rediscovered sense of adventure behind the guise of just another grumpy old man. It's about letting go of old bonds and making new ones. And on top of all that, it's hilarious!

Pixar continues to push beyond the bounds of the Disney, Looney Tunes-infected paradigm of animated films of the late 20th century and is creating entertainment that is continually able to touch and move us, young and old, in truly human ways. A must-see.

Inglourious Basterds

Quentin Tarantino has now thoroughly proven himself in tackling such a wide variety subject matter within his cadre of out-there cinema, rarely failing to please- whether it's hit men and cheeseburgers (Pulp fiction), sword-wielding samurai mommies (Kill Bill), demented homicidal stunt drivers (Death Proof), and in the case of his latest film, Inglourious Basterds... the demise of Nazi power in Europe. The film depicts an alternate ending of WW2, where a heavy southern drawl-bearing Brad Pitt leads a group of rag-tag Jewish-American special forces soldiers (appropriately called "The Basterds"- misspelling intentional) to decapitate the upper echelon of the Nazi regime and force an unconditional surrender, before the Allied Forces can step foot on the beaches of Normandy. Of course they have only one chance to get it right.

I think what I enjoyed the most about this film was not only Tarantino's to-be-expected formulation of truly memorable characters and great dialogue exchanges, but also his ability to make such a oft-visited cinematic subject matter his own. "Basterds" is something you haven't seen before. No heart-to-heart soldier trench-talks "first thing when I get home I'm going to..." here. No view of the day-to-day horror and struggle to stay alive inside the Nazi concentration camps. This has all been done before, and done well, by various directors. Instead, this is an insane, hilarious, brutally violent, Nazi-hating dark comedy, the likes of which Tarantino is alone capable of directing.

Up in the Air

I don't think I had ever really seen a movie where I've so thoroughly enjoyed a George Clooney performance before I saw Up in The Air. Helmed by Jason Reitman, director of last year's uber-popular "Juno", comes this well-crafted comedy/drama whose main character Ryan Bingham (Clooney) makes a living as a business "consultant" who flies all over the country, hired by different companies to assist in massive staff layoffs. Simultaneously he writes books and holds seminars which tout the triumphs of a transient, desire-less lifestyle, and how your personal "baggage", which contains all of your material belongings as well as the relationships you hold with others, is much easier to carry when it is "empty". Throughout the film, Bingham presents and reaffirms the commitment to his personal philosophy to everyone around him, including a fantastic scene where he lectures his young work-travel partner Natalie (Anna Kendrick) about how to most efficiently pack a suitcase, and to pass through an airport TSA checkpoint.

Bingham runs into a few snags when he is presented with some difficult family situations later in the film, as well as several encounters with an attractive fellow traveler (Vera Farmiga) who he meets on the road, calling into question his entire worldview. As in Juno, this is not your typical run-of-the-mill holiday Hollywood fodder. This is truly great filmmaking that will make you laugh, and will stick in your head while so many other films dribble out the other ear.

District 9

I wanted to hate this film. Everything from LOTR director Peter Jackson blessing the vision of a fanboy, to the hype and the annoying ad campaign, made me turn up my nose. Maybe I was just jealous. But after so many proof-positive recommendations from respected parties, I broke down and finally saw it.

Simply, it rocked. While there are plenty of action scenes and tons of visual effects, the story was what really got me engaged in this one. When I found out later that the treatment by humans of the refugee space aliens in the film was meant as an allegory for the South African Apartheid, I had an even deeper respect for D9's integrity. A great performance by Sharlto Copey as the idiot-bigot turned freedom-fighter Wikus, and some of the most creative creature animation I've seen in a long time in a live action film, married with the documentary style (but luckily not motion-sick inducing) cinematography puts this film in the running to become a sci-fi classic.

Avatar

When I saw the first trailer for James Cameron's Avatar, like many, I was extremely disappointed. You'd think that after working professionally in the motion picture industry for nine years, I wouldn't judge a movie by its trailer. Maybe it was because my expectations were so low was the reason I liked Avatar so much- but I really, really did.

Avatar takes place on a distant alien world, where a profit-hungry, high tech corporation is trying to exploit the indigenous population for the extraction of a rare element, humorously referred to as Unobtainium. This isn't the first time James Cameron has approached these types of themes, pulling from movies he directed almost 20 years ago, namely Aliens and Terminator 2. But this is a whole different ball of wax. In this film, an indigenous population of giant blue humanoid creatures known as the N'avi fight back against the human occupiers and certain humans they refer to as "dream walkers", who are able to inhabit a host body that looks and acts just like one of the N'avi. The humans refer to these surrogate bodies as Avatars.

The N'avi worship and have an intimate relationship with all of natural things that surround around them. As scientist Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) explains, not only is it a spiritual connection, it's a biological one, that connects the entire planet together as a single organism. I love this idea. Many books I've read over the last year on both complexity and holistic philosophy muse at this idea in their own ways- that all things in the universe are connected together in a meaningful way, and that this connection can and will be proved through science eventually. So it was rewarding to have this idea reflected in popular culture, in what very may well be the highest grossing film of all time. If not, certainly the highest grossing SCIENCE FICTION film of all time, which, being a huge science fiction fan, tickles me to think about.

Like most James Cameron films, the major conflict is the backdrop for a separate love story that runs throughout, this time a John Smith/Pocahontas relationship between one of the N'avi females and ex-Marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), one of the humans living connected to the N'avi world through an Avatar. Even with it's blatant retelling of classic hero myths and love stories, it still managed to remain engaging throughout its near three-hour running time. It's difficult to write a movie based on a "hero saves the world and gets the girl" concept and retain some kind of freshness these days, but Avatar seems to have done it. Likable (and hateable) characters along with exposition that was well-paced and seamlessly integrated with the action sequences are what truly made the film sing- a winning combination that Cameron is famous for.

While none of the acting performances stand out in particular (though having Sigourney Weaver back in a sci-fi film is enough to get me more than a little excited), the visual fx technology is, I can safely say, the most advanced ever seen by the human eye. Congratulations to Weta, ILM and the other houses that were able to participate in such a groundbreaking exercise. I'm kind of bummed I didn't get a chance to work on it, but then again most films I work on are hard to enjoy after having been directly involved. So in this case, I was happy to take the loss if it meant making the movie enjoyable.

I think the stereoscopic treatment of Avatar, or so-called "3D" that requires you to wear special glasses in the theater, was the least gimmicky in the films I've seen that feature it. That said, it's still a gimmick, no matter how hard they try to repackage it. I really didn't see this particular attribute as paradigm-changing, and it won't be, until filmmakers can create something you can experience without special glasses and present in a way that won't pull you out of the film. I do understand that in a modern technological landscape with high definition home theater experiences, that Hollywood needs something to keep people coming back to the theater, but 3D is just not that thing.

Overall, this was definitely a film to be experienced in the theater. If you missed it, catch it quick! IMAX it if you can. Though I think it will also look pretty amazing on blu ray. I'm not sure if you could quite call it a "classic" just yet, but I think it has all the indications that it might be. Only time will tell. There's talks of it becoming a trilogy, which is certainly a tantalizing idea, but only if James Cameron is in the director's chair. The man has yet to make a bad movie (post Terminator at least).

Favorite Albums of the Year:

Imogen Heap - Ellipse

I first heard Imogen Heap back in 2002 as part of a Frou Frou track on the independent radio station KCRW while I was driving through L.A. I remember grabbing a pen and writing down the name of the group on the back of my hand, and though I didn't know her by name at the time, and never went as far as to pick up the Frou Frou album, I always remembered the very distinct sound of the singer's voice. She reminded me of a contemporary version of Annie Lennox, whose work I highly respect and throw on once in a blue moon. In 2004 I heard the Frou Frou track Let Go over the credits of the movie Garden State and I instantly recognized it as them. But even though I liked the song, and I watched and rewatched Garden State in the years afterward, I still hadn't picked up the Frou Frou album.

It wasn't until this year, 2009, that I was surfing the net and a picture of a woman with wild dark hair flashed onto the front page of the subscription music service Rhapsody.com. The words below it declared: "Imogen Heap - Ellipse - New album just released! Click to hear it now!" "Image-who?", I thought. I of course didn't click to hear it now. It took me several more days, and visiting Rhapsody many more times and seeing Imogen's face over and over again before I finally I broke down and said, "Okay, who the HELL is Imogen Heap?!" I dumped Ellipse into my playlist to see what all the fuss was about.

I liked it right away. It was very much in the style of some of my favorite music: solid, female-driven pop/symphonic electronica, with great hooks, eclectic instrumentation and creative lyrics. It wasn't until the second track that I thought "Wait a minute- she sounds REALLY familiar." So I clicked on her bio page on Rhapsody and sure enough, this was the chick from Frou Frou, whose voice I'd always dug, and whose rise into the mainstream over the last few years I had somehow completely missed. And since then all of her work has been in constant rotation at work, at home, on the headphones... everywhere and all the time.

Ellipse is Imogen's third solo studio album, and starts out with the track First Train Home, a rather lighthearted but firm declaration of her constant urge to return and work in her home music studio, perhaps at the expense of whatever romantic interlude that happens to stand in the way. The album progresses with the soulful Wait it Out, which hearkens back to the style of her last album's global hit Hide and Seek. It's followed by a group of tracks that range in emotional complexity, from the sweet and gentle Little Bird, to the largely comedic Bad Body Double and Aha!, to the quietly sentimental and instrumental The Fire, to the heavy-hearted final track Half Life. My favorite track on the album by far is 2-1, whose odd lyrics I can't quite decipher, but whose epic nature and screaming emotional intensity leaves me breathless every time I hear it.

Ellipse, upon countless replays, is so full of nuance, emotion, and innovative musical prowess, that it has become not only my favorite album of the year, but has placed Imogen Heap among one of my favorite artists of all time. Listen and listen again. I can't recommend her highly enough.

I also had the distinct pleasure of catching Imogen live at The Fillmore here in SF (easily the best music venue in the city) back in October. Her stage presence is kind of hysterical, actually, or at least it was for our show. Whenever she used a new instrument or piece of equipment, she described and demonstrated it in detail. The highlights were the tiny wireless microphones she had glued to each of her wrists (so cool!). Throughout the show, like a mad scientist, she ran around the stage, fiddling with exotic instruments, tweaking knobs and pressing buttons, while mumbling to herself how nothing was quite working properly. It was fabulous.

She also described the creative process of Ellipse and the theme represented in each song she played. The album largely lays out the soundscape of her everyday life in her childhood house in England. As an adult she personally bought and moved back into the house, converting the basement into her new recording studio, where the creation of Ellipse took place. The house itself is actually elliptically shaped, hence the name for the album.

Overall the show at The Fillmore was among the most personable I've been to. Imogen had the audience feeling like we were old friends of hers, having perhaps come over for dinner and then for drinks in the studio afterwards, where she showed off her insane musical creations. This type of show may only be possible in intimate venues like The Fillmore, but I highly recommend the experience if she comes around again in the Spring of 2010.

Melody Gardot - My One and Only Thrill

Melody's story is one of tragedy and triumph. In 2003 she was riding her bicycle through Philadelphia, PA, when an SUV ran her off the road. She sustained several serious debilitating injuries, requiring her to spend the better part of a year in the hospital, and afterward that she walk assisted by a cane. She has also problems with her short term memory, and her eyes are so sensitive to light that she has to wear special tinted glasses at all times.

While she was in the hospital, not able to sit up in her hospital bed to play the piano as she was classically trained to do, she instead took the time to teach herself how to play guitar. When she emerged from the hospital she was a completely new being than when she entered. The cover of Melody's second album, My One and Only Thrill, pictures Melody, a striking woman with flowing long blond hair, wrapped in a dark jacket, with her dark rimmed glasses with a subtle smile. But it doesn't do her justice, as my wife Sadie and I found out when we caught Melody in concert at the Palace of Fine Arts this fall. And what a Thrill it was.

The show started out with the stage enveloped in dim red light, almost like a photographer's dark room, leaving only the outline of a microphone stand. Melody arrived onstage slowly, sauntered over to the microphone stand, gingerly wrapping her hand around the microphone, and began to hum a sweet, bluesy tune, accompanied only by finger snaps and the occasional pounding of her heel upon the stage. Several bars into this stellar A Capella rendition, she gestured to the audience to help her keep the rhythm going with our own finger snaps. You could still only make out her silhouette as she sang and swayed back and forth, soaking the hall in her ethereal voice.

Ms. Gardot's presence onstage throughout the show, though she eventually emerged into slightly more revealing light and was joined by several band members, continued as smoothly and serenely as she had arrived. In between her songs, she shared anecdotes and answered quips from the crowd with the language and sense of a mature, articulate, and veteran jazz musician- like someone on her 20th world tour; not someone who was just starting out. Sadie and I were shocked to find out later that Melody is in fact only twenty-four years old. Seeing her in concert, you would never know it. She purveys at once the charm of Nina Simone and the prestige of Billie Holliday, while at the same time remaining her very own.

Melody's musical repertoire is a mix of jazz standards and original compositions, ranging from symphonic ballads to Latin-laced lounge; from the care-free boisterousness of young love to the quiet pain of the blues. My One and Only Thrill covers this full range of emotion, and at its darker points calls to mind Billie Holliday's Lady in Satin, one my all-time favorites. Though it is a stellar accomplishment and is among my most favorite albums of the year, I think that one will have to look to future projects of Melody Gardot to see where she will go next, which I for one wait for, with eager anticipation.

Tim Exile - The Listening Tree

Tim Exile was one of the opening acts for Imogen Heap's show at The Fillmore that I caught in October. While The Listening Tree is a sarcastic and simultaneously complex electronic dance album, the real gem is Tim Exile's live performance setup. His use of technology, including Native Instruments "Reaktor" system, enables him to treat electronic music in a highly creative and organic format, that is a far cry from the "two dudes with a laptop" bands of the earlier part of the decade. When he opened up for Imogen, within his circa 20 minute set he managed to perform several songs from his albums, as well as to venture out into the crowd and take voice samples of various audience members, after which he returned to his console and was able to instantly whip together some great composition, based solely on the samples he had gathered. It was truly inspiring, the way he melded himself so seamlessly into his equipment. Hopefully Mr. Exile become a trend-setter for newer, subsequent live electronic acts.

Best Books I Read This Year

I can barely count the number of books I read parts of or in their entirety this year. The ones I list and review below are chosen because out of everything that I read, they were the ones that managed to completely change way I look at the world. I couldn't recommend them highly enough.

Wired for War by PW Singer

PW Singer, author of such books as (Corporate Warriors and Children at War) has a broad expert knowledge of the military, the current state of globalized conflict and how it relates to technology now and in the coming ages. You can tell by reading the interview-rich pages of Wired for War (not to mention its massive notes section and bibliography) that Singer has done his homework. From current uses of unmanned Predator air-drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the bomb-disarming Pack Bots used against Iraqi IEDs, to the future use of robotic surveillance against the fledgling terrorist networks that seek refuge in failed states like Yemen and Somalia, Singer covers it all. He also considers the asymmetrical counter-tactics of insurgent groups and the philosophy and ethical dilemmas behind the warfare of man versus machine, also known as the "distance problem" of technological warfare. An incredible portrait of a world addicted to technology and the resulting changes in the landscape of warfare, with deep insights into what the future may hold, Wired for War is a treasure trove of information, and by far the best book I read this year.

This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin

Dr. Daniel J Levitin has a Phd from Stanford in Neuroscience, though he got his start as a session studio musician, engineer and producer for such acts as Blue Oyster Cult, Steely Dan, Santana and The Grateful Dead. So it makes perfect sense that he might choose to write a book that attempts to explain the strong emotional response we have to the veritable ocean of available music in our modern electronic lives. Dr. Levitin answers many of the long-sought questions regarding such a fascinating topic, and explains why music is such an essential part of the human experience- from to the ancient tribal rites of passage to our current culture of instant-gratification via internet downloads. With a thorough analysis of the most cutting-edge brain experiments to date, as well as entertaining anecdotes and a personable style, this lean but mean volume will leave you clamoring for more.

The Science of Leonardo by Fritjof Capra

I covered this in depth in a previous post, Leonardo da Vinci: Scientific Revolutionary?. In the book Dr. Capra lays the groundwork for an ideology of holistic philosophy and champions the polymath sensibilities that spring forth from the life of the great Leondardo Da Vinci. The Science of Leonardo is an inspiring and enlightening call to arms for a new generation of possible Leonardos, that need only to know his path to begin follow in the footsteps of the original Renaissance Man.

Is God a Mathematician? by Mario Livio

While I'm not a math nerd per se, this was a book that came out just at the right time, when the direction of my personal studies pushed me to ask this very question. Dr. Livio, an astrophysicist heavily involved with the Hubble space telescope, covers this topic succinctly and exhaustively, taking the reader through the long history of mathematics while simultaneously representing the views of those skeptical to its usefulness and effectiveness. A truly enlightening read that puts into simple terms so many unnecessarily complicated ideas, and strips away the academic snobbery and illusory mystique of the "divine language" of mathematics to expose it for what it truly is- an extremely effective tool for interacting with the universe that surrounds us, and that deserves reverence and appreciation for what it has brought our civilization.

Happy 2010 Everyone!!! Best Wishes to you and yours.

-Nowell