Top ten albums of 2012

Yeah, so I did my movies now on to music, this is mainly due to me feeling my favourite records haven't been represented this year in a lot of the end of year lists. I also did a Best of 2012 Spotify playlist with some of my other favourites of the year.
Apologies for the poor writing, I'm a little sleepy and hungover! Happy New Year to y'all!xx

1. Father John Misty - Fear Fun / I know, I'm eating my words about this one as I was less than receptive to "Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings" when I first heard it, but this record is just lush, why was this man hidden behind a drum kit for all these years? (he was the drummer in Fleet Foxes before making this record), makes me miss Los Angeles too, love this live video below, great dancing!


2. La Sera - Sees the Light / Katy Goodman (aka the girl from Vivian Girls with the lovely hair) doing a break up album in a Go-Go's esque sunny pop style. I love the Vivian Girls, but really Katy should just do this instead.


3. Chairlift - Something / The band made famous for their awesome song "Bruises" being used on this advert come back with a second album that eclipses their debut, awesome 80's production with nice drums, sounding synths, beautiful female vocals, a real gem.


4. Kishi Bashi - 151a / Lush orchestral pop from of Montreal violinist Kaoru Ishibashi, just lovely.


5. David Byrne & St. Vincent - Love This Giant / Bit of a no brainer really, it's so great when collaboration records don't suck.


6. Pegasvs - Pegasvs  awesome Spanish band!


7.  Still Flyin' - On A Bedroom Wall / TSWCYL's favourites, the long awaited second album, less of the regae-esque pop and more synths, this record was criminally unrecognised this year.


8.  Diiv - Oshin


9. Benjamin Gibbard - Former Lives / I'm a sad Death Cab fan so of course I was going to love this! Nice duet with Aimee Mann too, and this video is kinda funny in a bit of a goofy way.


10. Chain and the Gang - In Cool Blood / Chain and the Gang should rule the world!

2012 Movies...

So yeah, everyone else is doing it and I keep seeing lists of Best Movies of 2012 and thinking, urgh "Life of Pi" looks dreadful, why would I want to see this movie?  So yeah, these are my favourite movies of 2012, I don't expect you to like em all but hey, you could give em a shot, they even include two foreign language movies, check me and my world cinema out! In no particular order (tho The Muppets is deffo number 1)...

The Muppets
No brainer really.  I watched this film at the cinema in some hormonal, hungover, verge of tears wreck. I love The Muppets. I love Jason Segel. I love Flight of the Conchords. I even kinda love Amy Adams (Enchanted!), and they sang one of my favourite songs...



It's just a shame Jason Segel had to follow the movie with the truely appalling "Five Year Engagement". I guess with that movie it was nice to see Alison Brie and Chris Platt on the big screen, but it was just so bad. If the film had included puppets, it would have been better.

21 Jump Street
I admit I thought this looked dreadful in the trailers, but hey it's actually pretty good, great cameo from Mr Johnny Depp too. Jonah Hill may now be Oscar worthy material, but he's still able to write a good movie, go him! 21 Jump Street reminds me of a lovely night I spent in Victoria Canada with my friends Brad and Annika watching lots of the original TV series, shout out to those dudes!

The Imposter
I still think the mother killed the kid...

The Cabin in the Woods
Yeah, I thought The Avengers was ok, but this was way better.  Go Joss Whedon! Loved the bit with the unicorn at the end, and that Fred from Angel was in it. The film that polarised audiences, all I heard before I went to see it was bad things for some reason, which I don't really get (go to the cinema with low expectations and you will be rewarded).

The only way this could have been better would have been in Neil Patrick Harris had sang a song with some muppets in it.

Casa De Mi Padre
I'm probably going to like any movie with hotties Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal in it, add Will Ferrell speaking (and singing) in spanish and psychedelic stupidness, yeah Alice is happy.


Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie
It's not big, it's not clever but it's funny in a weird uncomfortable way. Great Spielberg cameo.  I went to see it with live commentary earlier this year, they seem like pretty normal people in real life. Peter Serafinawicz was there wearing some really odd hipster clothes.

Celeste and Jesse Forever
GOOD WORK RASHIDA JONES YOU ARE AWESOME! Such a sweet movie, with great performances by Rashida and Adam Samberg. Also great soundtrack put together by Sunny Levine who is part of the Quincy Jones family like Rashida. Sunny also produced "Before After" by Ariel Pink (yess, he's the reason why that record is so much better than every other Ariel Pink record) and plays in Alekesam who put out the best album that you can get for free on bandcamp this year.

Take This Waltz
Another movie about sad white people (one of my favourite genres), nice to see Seth Rogen doing another slightly more serious role and Michelle Williams wore some lovely clothes.

The Hobbit
Doh, I love hobbits, elves and wizard shit.

Klown
Don't watch this with a real grown up, it is absolutely hilarious in an insanely inappropriate way, with the most uncomfortably funny ending.  Also as it's in Danish, you're reading the filthy subtitles which will make you blush. They are apparently remaking this in the USA with Danny McBride writing and starring in it and Todd Phillips (who directed The Hangover) directing it, so I guess you can kinda imagine what it's going to be like. I recon that will be pretty good but still check this out first so you can show off to your friends when the remake comes out and is massive. There's a Von Trier connection too, he wrote one of the episodes of the TV series that came before the movie.  See, I'm recommending you classy world cinema!

Looper
Despite having Emily Blunt in it (I don't like her, and yeah I don't rate The Devil Wears Prada, deal with it) and Joe Gordon Levitt pulling really odd "Bruce Willis" faces, I liked this movie.  Kinda preferred the first half of the movie where it was all futuristic nonsense, second half less good, probably cause there was more Emily Blunt, tho the kid was pretty bad ass. What you didn't see it?

Safety Not Guaranteed
Mark Duplass, Jake Johnson and Aubrey Plaza, the three of them are so awesome in different ways. Jake playing up that slightly on edge desperate thing he does in New Girl so well and Aubrey playing a character very similar in some ways to April. Mark Duplass is nothing like his character in The League, and plays this kinda weird guy who has built a time machine.  Kinda a cute, mystery, sci-fi, love story, that makes it sound bad, it's not, it's bad ass, well as bad ass as a movie about feelings and time travel can be.

And also Jeff Who Lives at Home and Wanderlust which I wrote about here and here.

Movies I'm looking forward to see...
This is 40 - the sequel-ish to Knocked Up, Apatow-tastic! (oh yeah pick up the latest Vanity Fair, Judd Apatow is the guest editor so it's all comedy stuff and there are some awesome pictures of the Freaks and Geeks cast in it)
Save The Date - Lizzie Caplan, Martin Starr, Geoffrey (Mr Christina Hendricks!) Arend and Alison Brie do another movie about sad white people. Come on release it in the UK or just let us legally download it, come on!
This is The End - It feels like we've been waiting for this movie for forever, it better be good, it could be bad cause Emma Watson is in it!
OZ, The Great and Powerful - I like stuff with wizards in and James Franco.

I'll try and do my TV round up in the next week or so too, there has been some mega telly this year!

Hope you have a lovely Christmas!
Alicexx

I don't want to fall in love

Well we've been busy, OMG we actually finished the Freaks and Geeks zine, I know, check us!

Check out our lil tumblr for it which has lots of Freaks and Geeks videos and photos I have posted for my own amusement and you can buy a copy of the zine straight from us here.

I've also been watching an insane amount of Buffy, now on season seven which is whoa! I loved the Aimee Mann cameo "I hate playing vampire towns", and did you know that Warren from Buffy is in Common Rotation, the band part responsible for the Martin Starr/Hall and Oates rap that we've talked about before. People off the telly, they all know each other!


I'm so pleased that Weeds is back, I missed Andy so much! Everyone else got excited about the return of Breaking Bad, I got excited about Weeds. Weeds is my preferred "parents gets into drug dealing" program, and it was around first. With the cancer thing, Breaking Bad is like a cross between Weeds and Season 2 of "Party of Five", tho thankfully without Jennifer Love Hewitt.  I do actually like Breaking Bad, just I'm a season behind everyone else, I'm still angry at Walt for letting Jayne (Krysten Ritter) die like that, and I still have to point out "Weeds was first!".

And I loved Burning Love, especially the unexpected cameo in episode 2. I don't want to spoil it for you. It's so good. Just watch it if you haven't.

So a while back I did a thing about actors being in pop videos, now I though I'd look into people we know more as actors that have done music...



Volcano, I'm Still excited!! Band names, with punctuation in them, yes it's kind of annoying! (hey man it's two explanation marks)
Yes it's Mark (what an unfortunate photo to have plastered all over the tube these past few months) Duplass of those Duplass brothers fame, and bless brother Jay made this video, they've just been working with each other for ever. From this quick listen, I like 2nd Gun, reminds me of Wolf Parade, I guess I'm glad that they decided to mainly stick to movies tho, like Jeff... that I reviewed the other month.

I did watch "The Puffy Chair" the other week and it has the most indie-est sound track ever (yep, Death Cab, of Montreal, you got it!), it was kinda a sweet movie, yet again involving a brotherly relationship, aw bless them Duplass brothers and their brotherly love!

Listen to the LP on Spotify... Volcano, I'm Still Excited – Volcano, I'm Still Excited

Did anyone else find this story about Jason Batemen pretending to be tweeting from the "Arrested Development" set hilarious this week?  It was almost as odd as finding out in January that co-star Alia Shawkat covered bloody Chris Isaak with some dude that used to be in Chairlift that hangs out with the Knowles sisters wasn't it? Turns out Alia has been busy playing jazz shows in New York, singing Bob Dylan, hanging with Landon Pigg, being in a Best Coast video with Troy from Community and also playing a hand in this video...


Yep words fail me, but guys.... at least it's not Glee.

Anyway, I'm gonna get going, but let me know if there's other actors that make music I should check out, and before you say anything I'm not going anywhere near Juliette Lewis!

Bye
Alicex
PS USA, if you have any sense, watch the new season premiers of Children's Hospital and NTSF:SD:SUV tonight.

Just go ahead now

Saturday afternoon at the movies, I can't imagine a better way to spend a saturday than with Jason Segel, girl talk, and wasabi nuts, I'm a girl of simple pleasures, what can I say?

Jeff who Lives at Home is the fourth movie written and directed by brothers Mark (familiar looking dude and also in The League) and Jay Duplass, their most notable movie being Cyrus which I mentioned briefly a while back cause my dear friends Still Flyin' were played in one of the scenes.

The film focusses upon Jeff (that's Jason Segel) and his obsession with the movie "Signs" and his conviction that everything happens for a reason, which leads himself on an adventure day following Kevins and helping his brother Pat (Ed Helms, yep the dude from The Hangover) out, saving marriages and lives.  

It's a sweet film about brotherly relationships and how siblings interact and relate with each other when they are both very different types of people, I think it's super cute that the movie was written and directed by two brothers.  It actually made me think a lot about my relationship with my brother, though I'd like to hope I'm not as square as Pat!  The film also touches on what happens in the aftermath of a parent dying, how it affects the family, you see how their mother (played by the AWESOME Susan Sarandon) is still struggling to move on properly and how that has affected how she treats Jeff.

Musically, this is the second movie I've seen this year with The Spin Doctors in it, the first being Wanderlust.  What is that about?  I'd not felt the need to think about The Spin Doctors for 18 years, and I thought I was doing pretty good.  According to the internet (I google The Spin Doctors so you don't have to) the band reformed last year as it was the 20th anniversary of The Album featuring The Song. The singer has also been recording with a band called The Time Bandits.  I kinda hope that they would be ok seeing as they named themselves after a truely awesome movie, but undoubtedly they suck.  Sorry, it's beyond the call of duty for me to listen to the band at this moment in time.

The music was kinda pretty and was written by Michael Andrews who as well as doing the music for Freaks and Geeks (I've got to work on posts that don't mention F&G), Bridesmaids and a load of other films that we all like and he did the music for that Gary Jules version of "Mad World" in Donnie Darko. 

Donnie Darko, now that was a sweet film, all the music sounded amazing in it, though I have to say I probably never need to hear that version of "Mad World" again.  The main reason being that about 7 years ago I went to the Emmaboda Festival in Sweden, which is a fun festival full of lots of beautiful and slightly insane drunk Swedish kids.  They found us English people very amusing and enjoyed talking to us in cockney accents, I spent a lot time being confused as to whether they were taking the piss or not.  At the festival there was a tent that someone had spray painted "Mad World" in big letters on it, and morning, noon and you could hear Gary Jules' "Mad World" being played from the tent on repeat.  I must have heard that song a gazilion times that weekend. I'm so glad I wasn't camped near them, I think I would have gone crazy.  This was quite a few years after Donnie Darko came out so I'm still a bit confused as to why they wanted to have a "Mad World" tent, or why they would want to ever listen to that song again, crazy Swedes!

Real Tears For Fears is better than covers, this was my favourite musical moment in Donnie Darko...

(Can you spot Seth Rogen?)

Anyway, go check out Jeff, Who Lives At Home if you get a chance, Jason Segel and Ed Helms are both pretty awesome in it, and for optimal enjoyment don't forget the wasabi nuts!

Alicexx

geeky dancing

Ha, was just reading back through an old post about Yo Gabba Gabba and I hadn't been able to find the video of the Geeks from Freaks and Geeks dancing on the show.  Well we stumbled across it recently whilst doing research for the Freaks and Geeks zine that me and my girl Kate are writing.
Check it out...



What do you think?  Personally I think it is terrifying!

"Go Crazy!"

Hopefully the Freaks and Geeks zine will be finished soon, it should be epic, I feel like I know every fact about Freaks and Geeks now! We even spotted the Omri Katz cameo, though I do think that only me and Kate are the only people who get excited about stuff like that.   I also got overly excited this week when I found out that Harris from Freaks and Geeks now writes RPG computer game reviews for Vice Magazine. Yep sad TV nerd me.


If you want to know more about Freaks and Geeks check out these extensive interviews with Mr "Freaks and Geeks creator and snappy dresser" Paul Feig.

Enjoy
Alicexx

Don't treat me like a tourist

My my, life has been busy recently, I just got back from Paris where I had a lovely time with my girl Normandie, we saw the AWESOME of Montreal play on Friday night.  The floor was bouncing so much from people dancing it made me feel sea sick! I had the most un French weekend ever, we had burritos and vegan cupcakes, and did an insane amount of thrift store shopping, it was so much fun!

Earlier in the week I saw Kishi Bashi play his first show in London, Kishi Bashi plays violin in of Montreal, so on their break from touring he played a special solo show at The Waiting Room in Stoke Newington.  His record has been one of my favourites of this year, beautifully crafted orchestral pop music, with yes hella violins.  His live show is kinda bonkers, he onlys plays violin and sings and uses a looping pedal and effects to manipulate the sound. See for yourself...


Check out his latest pop video featuring a bunch of Kay's of Montreal band mates, apparently some of the people who helped with this video work on that show The Walking Dead too, though sadly Egg from This Life was not in it (he'll always be Egg even with that southern accent).



And yes, also buy his record, cause it is bloody brilliant, ok?

Now, we've talked about Yo Gabba Gabba on this blog before, but I can't really finish this post without mentioning of Montreal's catchy contribution to the show's musical output (and the show's striking similarities to the band's colourful live performance!).  Check out the following videos...
Brush your teeth!


Eat your healthy food!


Wow, of Montreal are full of really good advice!

Now please let me talk TV for a bit...

OMG last week's Parks and Recreation was one of my favourites, when Leslie gave the speech at the end I almost cried, I am such a loser.  Paul Rudd was great in it too, he plays Leslie's political rival and is such a dunce.  As well as the show I am also enjoying these Parks and Rec and Ben Wyatt gifs.  You can never have too many animated gifs in your life.

Also check out Paul Scheer's (The League, NTSF:SD SUV, Human Giant) Breaking Bad animated gif's site.

"Apparently I’m stepping on toes. But haters going hate and I’m going to GIF create!" Paul Scheer 

Hell yeah!

There should be more animated gifs involving pizza juggling.

I am so loving the show "Girls" too, I just watched episode 3, and I like how it's going. It's been interesting reading the backlash against the program, but with all that hype, there are always going to be some people who want to take them down.  I am in awe of Lena Dunham!

I'm also enjoying "Don't Trust The Bitch in Apartment 23" too, it's great to see Krysten Ritter having a lead role, I loved her in Veronica Mars and Gilmore Girls, I'm not sure about the blonde girl, but I guess her character is meant to be whiney and annoying?

Apart form Michelle Williams, I never liked Dawson's Creek, but James Van Der Beek is pretty funny in it, as he plays himself and makes a ton of Dawson's Creek jokes. Come to think about it, he was pretty funny in "How I Met Your Mother" too. Maybe he's actually all right it's just that Dawson's Creek was so awful?

Well I best go, but if you're about in London town next Monday, why not come to this show and see my band Cosines play, I mean what else are you going to do right? (OK don't answer that)

See ya
Alicexx

Let's pretend we're bunny rabbits...

So yeah, I haven't posted for a while, I guess partly because I went to see The Shins, and they were so awful that I was like "I have to change the name of my blog!"  I've decided not to, cause well I can't think of a better name! I've also been busy making music with my new band Cosines, why not take a listen to one of our songs? (shameless plug over).

Anyway, what has prompted me to blog this time? Well in Gossip Girl this week in between the double crossing, Blair and Dan getting it on in an elevator, William Baldwin being angsty, Serena pouting, Nate looking broody and a bit confused, good old "Indie Rock Dad" Rufus went to see The Magnetic Fields. I laughed solidly for 20 seconds when Lily proclaimed that he couldn't miss going to see them to go to an Upper East Side party, cause he had been looking forward to seeing them so much.  I hope he enjoyed the show, I saw them at ATP and they were so awesome. Check out their tour blog it is very funny (and where the lovely photo on the left came from). They're playing in London at The Royal Festival Hall later on this month, there could be tickets left if you hurry!

Ahh Gossip Girl, it may be an absolutely dreadful program, but they really do do good with the inane teenage drama and indie references that I feel compelled to watch it, hell they even played Veronica Falls at the end of this episode!

I can't find the video online of them name checking The Magnetic Fields but I found this video instead, hmmm Chuck and Nate?



And yeah that new Veronica Falls tune is pretty awesome too, check out the video below.



Veronica Falls are playing Indietracks this year (a festival that I help organise), we've just confirmed The Vaselines to headline one of the nights, I AM SO EXCITED!!! There are loads of other awesome bands playing this year too including Allo Darlin', Go Sailor, Girls Names, Orca Team and The Language of Flowers, you may as well get your ticket now right?

Hope you have a fun Easter weekend!
Alicexx