Monday, December 31, 2012

Most memorable books, films, and music (2012)

Here's a list of some of the books, films, and music that made an impact on me in 2012. I've avoided compiling a Top Ten or Best Five type of list. As with most years, I read, listened and watched a lot of stuff, and trying to select then rank them all is time-consuming and of little interest to anyone but me.

Nor is this a "Best of" kind of list. Instead, I decided to compile a quick list of art that - though perhaps more flawed than other books, films, and/or music -  were highly entertaining and, for whatever reason, left an impression on me.

Films:

Prometheus was a flawed but highly ambitious movie. Yes, they should have simply run to the side to avoid the spaceship about to roll over them. But if you can ignore these flaws, it was a bodacious and highly-envisioned movie.


Looper was such a rollicking ride that you really only noticed the plot-holes afterward. Still, it was a time-traveling movie, and you almost have to cast aside logic with the time-traveling genre because otherwise, as noted in the movie, "it will fry your brain." A transportive movie that had one of the best endings in movie history.

Books:


Evil and dark, yet clinical and factual at the same time, People Who Eat Darkness shone light to the underbelly of Japanese society and culture.


Evocative, pitch-perfect language, Ivey's wonderful The Snow Child was not so much a book you read as a world you experienced. 

Music



Monsters Calling Home is the group I discovered before they hit it big with a performance on the Jimmy Kimmel Show. They've recently changed their name to River Run North, but they will always be Monsters Calling Home to me. Their music is unreal, their lyrics bone-shattering, their uncompromising artistic vision inspiring. I thanked them in my Acknowledgements of my upcoming The Prey.





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