Soap&Skin – Narrow

No update for the 15th and this update is just over a day late. This week I’m working on my novella, you see. There will be an update for the 25th and a bonus update on that rarest of days, 29 February.

When logging into the Avenue, I noticed the Soap&Skin concert review was this week’s most visited but one. Not without a reason: Anja Plaschg has just released an EP, Narrow (Europe only – the rest of the world will have to wait until March). One of the songs is a cover of “Voyage Voyage”, in a way you instantly decide not leaving home may be the better option.  “Did I just watch a concert or an exorcism?” was the question I asked myself after the concert and that is still a good way to describe Anja in action. (Don’t believe me? Then watch her in action during her cover of a Clint Mansell track.)

The “single” (if that is an appropriate title) of the EP is “Boat Turns Toward The Port”. For days Anja’s cry/chant has been hollering in my head. Much like many of the other tracks of the EP, by the way. If four stars indicate a masterpiece, Narrow deserves at least three. And the missing star is left out because sometimes the tracks seem a bit too arty, too created – but accept my apologies for what’s up next: I don’t know if that’s a bad thing. The world of Soap&Skin isn’t always like the world of us, mere mortals. Opening track “Vater” is an elegy to her deceased father and we don’t know too many that have lines like “I drink thousands of bottle of wine in your honour, but I preferred to be a maggot”. Much like we don’t know too many artists who have chocolate as merchandising, especially this kind: “Black cumin is hiding under a cream of white poppy seeds and white incense, followed by a jelly of dense red wine. In the centre an antique pink beetroot ganache with pig’s blood. The blue flowers (cornflowers) come to rest next to black sesame on a blanket – of dark chocolate, manufactured in the tradition of the American Indians whose cocoa was very carefully processed and not heated.”

Any two-word summary of Soap&Skin should contain the words “extraordinary” and “intense”.

Forward tales to tide
The boat turns toward the port
With fire and mud stained sky
Bright aft time
Bright aft time
My whole burden is laid down
Stay here
Stay here
Stay

Great moments in cinema: Moby Dick 2010

Occasionally, the Avenue treats you to a scene from a movie that is so awful it can only make you laugh. Often those films tend to be from yesteryear, adding to the myth that older films tended to be crappier. This is of course not true and to prove this, here is a scene from 2010. The film is the latest remake of Moby Dick and the first time I watched a clip of this, erm, “film”, I had to be convinced that this wasn’t a parody. This film has genuinely some of the worst effects I’ve seen in a long time and I don’t mean that in any way positive or even endearing. Don’t believe me? Well, here are just 80 seconds of this spectacular. Next time you go to your local dvd store, look at the bargain bin: somewhere near the bottom of the barrel, you’ll surely find a copy if you desire one.

WATCH A CLIP
(embedding wasn’t available)

P.S. Below there’s a trailer. Barry Bostwick is credited as a Golden Globe winner. I don’t recall him being nominated for this movie, though…

13 Frightened Girls

Every now and then your eye glances over the number of movies you’ve seen, especially if you rate movies on the IMDb. Not that this should be more than an indication – I’ve only kept a score since early in the naughties and have tried to work my way back as good as possible – after a couple of years this still boils down to a serious number of watched movies. 13 Frightened Girls by William Castle was film number 4998.

William Castle shouldn’t be a stranger to regular readers of the Avenue: we’ve put some of his films into the Kurtodrome Vault after all. Hideously overlooked by most anthologists because of his pulp status, there shouldn’t be a canon without the man who tried to lure audiences into cinemas with his gimmicks. For Macabre, he let cinemagoers sign a contract that would earn them a million bucks if they’d die from fright during the movie. During House on Haunted Hill he kept a skeleton behind a curtain so that, at the moment a skeleton would appear on the screen, the skeleton would also be pulled over the audience’s head in the threatre. In The Tingler the touch of a monster felt like an electrical buzz and there are no points for guessing what Castle had invented for that movie, but let’s just say it’s safe to check your seat if you ever wanted to watch that film in a theatre. And Homicidal had the fright break, a clock ticking away for 45 seconds just before the film’s climax: too scared to watch the conclusion of the film, then this was your cue to leave the cinema. (And in case any smartasses just wanted their money back on a repeat viewing, Castle let the cowards stand under a spotlight in the Coward’s Corner and only after everyone had left the theatre and mocked the cowards, their money would be returned.) Sure, those gimmicks may not have been groundbreaking novelties, but if 3D glasses are worth a mention in the canons, then The Tingler and some of Castle’s other antics deserve to be in there too.

13 Frightened Girls didn’t use such a gimmick. For this film, Castle pulled off a trick prior to shooting one scene. In an attempt to ensure as much of an international audience, Castle held a worldwide audition for a role in the film. Wanted to be one of the 13 girls making up the girls in an international boarding school for girls, then why not audition?
For two reasons this was a classic touch of Castle. Not only was there hardly any screentime for the international girls, the title was also misleading as hell. Whereas there may have been thirteen girls in the film, most of them didn’t get a chance to be frightened. The story is all about the American girl Candy, a diplomat’s daughter, with a lifelong crush on Wally, the diplomatic spy. Wally’s star hasn’t exactly been rising lately and in an attempt not to have her favourite man fired, Candy decides to leak the information she comes across by chance (because none of the diplomats feel the need to hush their voices when teenage girls are around). Soon, Wally (Murray Hamilton) has his glorious reputation restored, but equally soon everyone starts looking for that mysterious spy Kitten (Candy’s nickname – because she has a white kitten). Candy may lose her friendship with Mai-Ling (who after all is “from Red China”) and even her life if her secret is revealed.

Candy (Kathy Dunn) and Mai-Ling (Lynne Sue Moon) may be the only girls to get some decent screen time (and their individual names on the credits), but this didn’t really land them a wonderful career in the movies. By comparison, Alexandra Bastedo (who briefly appears as the British girl) did rise to fame: she was the female lead in the ITV spy series The Champions (made in the late sixties) and one of her bigger roles was in The Blood-Spattered Bride. She also had more acting talent than the two girls who did get a starring role in 13 Frightened Girls.

This film definitely had a better gimmick than screenplay and, combined with some less convincing acting, didn’t turn this film into a success. As a piece of fluff, it should appeal to those who liked the Nancy Drew movies or indeed completist fans of Castle. While the man should become at least a footnote in the big book of cinema, this film shouldn’t be remembered as more than a footnote in his career.

A Dangerous Method

No ashes, no coal can burn with such glow
as a secretive love
of which no one must know.
Sabina Spielrein’s diary (February 22, 1912)

Worrying reports reached us: Keira Knightley‘s performance as Sabina Spielrein was a serious disappointment in the latest movie by David Cronenberg, A Dangerous Method, based on the book A Most Dangerous Method (as adapted for the theatre by Christopher Hampton). Meanwhile, Michael Fassbender said of the shooting scenes that there was a great atmosphere on set and that noone was prepared more than Keira Knightley. Which leads to the question: who should we believe more, the actress who did research for her role or reviewers and moviegoers who might not even be able to name Spielrein’s “disease”? Answers on a postcard to the usual address, please.

And while we’re on the subject of questions, here’s another often asked: is A Dangerous Method a typical Cronenberg movie? The answer is: why not? Sure, the poster which told us this film was by the same director of Eastern Promises and A History of Violence may have just focused on the allegedly “new” direction in Cronenberg’s career, but the fanboys who claim that the man doesn’t film like Rabid or The Fly any longer, are leaving out examples like Fast Company or M. Butterfly. Most of Crash wasn’t exactly body horror either (apart from you know which scenes). Cronenberg has always been interested in the mind, take Scanners which wondered what would happen if humanity lost its control. But if you prefer remembering it as the movie with the parasite in the bathtub, be our guest.
So if there’s someone who should make a movie about the psycho-analysts, who better than a director of the mind? Freud’s obsession with the link between mind and sex looks like a decent meal for Cronenberg and who better to stage the sex scenes between Jung and Spielrein than the director of Crash. After all, Cronenberg shot a scene where someone has sex with a wound and made it bearable to watch. Take that, directors of Hostel and the likes. The sex scenes are very much Cronenberg, shot in a clinical way that makes you the psychologist observing two volunteers in a sexual and psychological experiment. But don’t expect this film to be saucy: there are only a couple of sexual scenes.

In fact, that it’s Cronenberg who’s helming this film may be a blessing. A lesser director would have felt the need to beautify Spielrein’s situation: once she’d got her degree, you’d see her appear fully “normal”. But not here, between the lines you still see the woman who was brought to the hospital because she was hysteric. If that doesn’t suit you, your local videostore – if those still exist: another one bit the dust this weekend over here – will probably still have a copy of She’s All That or go for an Ugly Betty marathon: oh, when she takes off her glasses, this freakish nerd really becomes a genuine extravert beauty. Who would have guessed?

Or watch Water for Elephants. That is the movie Christoph Waltz left A Dangerous Method for. Now it’s not much of a secret that we’re not big fans of Ta****ino and Waltz’s sudden rise to fame because of that overrated movie didn’t necessarily make him more loved at the Avenue, but any idiot who leaves a Cronenberg movie will most definitely end up in our hatelist. Not even a year has passed and I can’t even remember what Water for Elephants was about (something to do with thirsty animals?), so kudos to Waltz for making such a wonderful career choice and even more congratulations to Viggo Mortensen who stepped in and did a marvellous job as Freud. Meanwhile, it’s Michael Fassbender (the only actor to upstage Gosling in number of interesting productions, it seems) who has the task of being Jung. Jung isn’t the most dynamic character and it may be more interesting to think about his “dangerous method” than to watch it unroll in front of your eyes. Of all the principal roles, Jung is the blandest to play and Fassbender managed to control his character. That doesn’t make this the most dynamic movie Cronenberg has ever made. Overlooking his career, this is closer to M. Butterfly. Your thought processes during the film become a more essential part of the viewing. Nevertheless, with a bland character it is hard to make an enticing film and this isn’t grand cru Cronenberg. Which does not make it a bad movie: a lesser Cronenberg is still better than most of the rest you could watch in the cinema that month. The best reference here is A History of Violence, which was also a Cronenberg movie that didn’t truly feel like a Cronenberg movie but where you could understand why the director had chosen that project. Is that a recommendation? Maybe not, but a couple of lines earlier the real recommendation was already mentioned: I looked at the films that were showing this week and not many were as intriguing as this one. Are we really only in it for the entertainment?

7.5

The Wilhelm Scream

And with the Top 10 of 2011 well behind us and the traditional short pause of one update equally behind us, this may be as good as any moment to thank you for reading the Avenue – in the past months a couple of people have subscribed to these reviews and that truly makes a difference, but it’s a bit awkward to write such statements into an entry, so that’s why I’m doing it now. Because there is a full week between 30 January and 5 February, the Avenue will add an extra update on 1 February, so stay tuned if you want to hear our thoughts on the latest Cronenberg movie.

However, sometimes you read about something and a name catches your eye, but without any reference you don’t pay any attention and quickly forget about it. In our case, that was what happened to the “Wilhelm scream”. Then – about the fourth time the name popped up – we read the story and thought it was worthy of sharing.

The Wilhelm scream is a sound effect that first popped up in 1951. Originally it was just called a “scream”, but in the third movie it was used, the character who was wounded was called Wilhelm and that’s where it got its name from. Ever since, it’s been used as an effect as well as an injoke for movie maniacs and it’s quite remarkable to hear the same scream pop up in various movies. As you can watch and hear in this compilation:

Film 2011… and the winner is…

Nothing left of 2011 but a couple of memories and some of them included movies. In a year where I wasn’t able to catch a lot of films selecting a Top 10 is without a doubt an even more subjective affair than in ‘regular’ years, but does that stop us? Of course not. The idea that we might not have even watched two dozens of recent movies proved wrong when compiling the list (however, what does it say if you can’t recall what you’ve just seen?). Choosing a winner proved to be a piece of cake, it’s the rest of the top 10 that was trickier to rank. Some serious shoehorning later, this is the result:

1. WINTER’S BONE
And the winner is… oh yeah, you already know. “Because Jennifer Lawrence, Ree in the movie, has a doe-like quality that [...] wonderfully clashes with the toughness of her character and the film’s setting. They say nature can be relentless… well, so are the people who have to live in the woods. The movie is also excellently shot and almost every scene where the nature settings are present are small tableaus, but one where beneath the soft blowing of the wind danger seems to loom.” Full review: here

2. LE GAMIN AU VÉLO
Ultimately, what at the time seemed a flaw, has won us over. This may not have been the most logical film by the Dardennes, but life isn’t always easy to explain. For no apparent reason whatsoever, a woman takes a boy into her custody. Add some small time crooks and a huge amount of personal problems and you’ve got yourself a movie that is almost poignant as Rosetta, but easier to watch. (Original review here)

3. CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE.
Which movie should become the runner-up, CSL or Gamin? That was the hardest decision of this top 10, but this one finally bowed its head. Because for some reason a lot of movies with Ryan Gosling popped up in 2011? Because this blog shares a nationality with the Dardenne brothers? Possibly and no. Because the period at the end of the title is getting on our nerves? Perhaps… (welcome to the only blog where interpunction may cost you a spot) Fact is that this is one of the very few recent comedies that has no problem standing in the same pantheon as classic screwball comedies. And it would be a couples of bridges too far to rank Emma Stone‘s comment on Gosling’s six-pack (“Seriously, that’s not photoshopped?”) next to “Because I just went gay all of a sudden”, but it is one of the few movies that manages to pull off two climaxes, one of which is a teary-eyed Hollywood cliché book, but one with a nice twist at the end. (Full review)

4. CONFESSIONS
How to take revenge at the school kids who’ve killed your daughter? Well, if you’re a teacher, it’s easy: confess you’ve spiked their milk with HIV-positive blood and enjoy the aftermath. Includes beautiful slow motion scenes and a couple of twists. A burning look at the human condition until the very end. Read more about it here.

5. BLUE VALENTINE
The mid-section of this top 10 is very much the cheeriest thing you’ll have read: if you’re not pleased with mentally torturing the murderers of your child, you may want to watch how a relationship dissolves. Blue Valentine might have ended up higher in the list, but the interweaving of how the relationship ends and the happier times didn’t grip us as much as it should have done. Starring Michelle Williams and a debuting actor called (wait, we’re looking this up) Ryan Gosling.

6. MELANCHOLIA
And what if we could tie the death of a relationship to the end of the world? Step forward Lars von Trier and Kirsten Dunst. There was something about a press conference on this film at some film festival where someone said something that didn’t really go down well with the rest of the world, but we forgot the details. Meanwhile, the mysterious 19th hole (a.k.a. the part where reality doesn’t make sense or ceases to exist) as well as the review itself were the most read and sought after items at the Avenue. We’ve already mentioned that this featured Dunst in great form, but we shouldn’t forget that the slow motion prequel to the movie were extremely beautiful to watch. Not the best film of the year, but the one with the most beautiful shots. (Full review: here)

7. CARNAGE
More relationship joy? Polanski’s play on film ended up on the seventh spot. Why not higher? “Because the film was written by Yasmina Reza and it was based on her play Le Dieu de Carnage. And this film is very much a film version of a play. Is that bad? No, but throughout the film I wanted to see the reactions of the other people while someone was having a dialogue or monologue and here – by definition as it’s a film (unless you count experiments like Timecode by Figgis) – you’re bound to watch what’s happening through the vision of the director.” (Original review)

8. BLACK SWAN
We really should take some happy pills: more psychological destruction, but this time it’s self-inflicted. You all know about this Darren Aronofsky film starring Natalie Portman, so why bother with a lengthy review? Let’s just say this wasn’t as fulfulling as we’d hoped, but while this wasn’t the case, it didn’t disappoint enough to keep it out of the top 10.

9. SIMON WERNER A DISPARU
School outcasts, a mysterious disappearance, the nineties and a soundtrack by Sonic Youth. “Cult fans (especially those who’ve watched a giallo or two) will not be surprised that it isn’t always the most likely suspect who’s responsible for a (possible) crime. If that worries you, Simon Werner says more about you than about the 1990s. There’s lots of gossiping in the film and eccentric or asocial characters are just ready to be served as scapegoats. (Just like Alice seems born for the role of femme fatale.) And that is the true story behind Simon Werner’s disappearance. A simple whodunit, this is not. Good movie, good soundtrack and a fair bit of nostalgia for the previous century. Are we content? Yes, we are.” (Read more here)

10. TOMBOY
After fifteen minutes you find out the couple that has just moved in don’t have a boy and a girl, but two girls. Gender confusion galore as Laure (Zoé Héran) pretends to be Michaël. Things don’t improve when Lisa falls in love with “him” and after a fight Laure’s mother thinks the best option to show everyone Michaël doesn’t exist is by forcing Laure into a dress. The second movie written and directed by Céline Sciamma, whose Naissance des pieuvres (Water Lilies) we still fondly remember.

Ten movies and between four to six to remember. Probably more, but time wasn’t on our hands, so for now, we’ll have to do with just the reputation of Rundskop, Never Let Me Go and The Artist. Maybe next year?

Two movies that didn’t make it into the top 10, but deserve a mention:
Easy A
The Ides of March

Winter’s Bone

If you’re the sort of person who thinks a top 10 focuses too much on the number 1 and not enough on numbers 2 to 10, then you’re in luck. This year the Avenue reveals the number 1 one post before the rest of the Top 10 and the winner is… Winter’s Bone. No surprise (because we already revealed that in the title) and quite possibly a surprise because it might have been a 2010 film in your country. Not in Belgium though (release date: 19 Jan 2011) and since that’s where this blog is coming from, it’s a 2011 movie.

And it’s by Debra Granik, whom we’d never heard of. Not that amazing, given that this is only her second feature-length movie. In Winter’s Bone we follow 17-year-old Ree on her trail for her lost dad. Either the man shows up for his parole or Ree’s family may end up evicted. Given that the family exists of Ree, her two younger siblings and her sick mother, that isn’t much of an option. Soon it becomes clear that those who might know where her father is don’t feel like sharing information. Not too bad because Ree is a tough cookie. Bad because the neighbourhood is at least equally tough.

So why did this get Film of the Year? Because Jennifer Lawrence, Ree in the movie, has a doe-like quality that not only works magically with the Dutch language (the Dutch word for “doe” is “ree”) but also wonderfully clashes with the toughness of her character and the film’s setting. They say nature can be relentless… well, so are the people who have to live in the woods. The movie is also excellently shot and almost every scene where the nature settings are present are small tableaus, but one where beneath the soft blowing of the wind danger seems to loom. And this time we’re not talking about bears. Talking just causes witnesses, the tagline explains and that is very much true: the voluntary silence seems to become the actual protagonist of the film and it’s nearly as lethal as a gun. Occasionally unpleasant to watch, but never below good, the best film of 2011 is: Winter’s Bone.

The Thing (Pingu version)

Not the highly anticipated – okay, maybe not – Top 10 movies of 2011 for two very good reasons (1. I suddenly had to finish an assignment and 2. One of the movies is on my digicorder and that’s blocking). The top 10 will be scheduled for 20 January and, in an attempt to take all the anticipation away, the N°1 will be posted earlier.

So what’s today’s plan then? Well, nothing less than an exciting remake. You see, these days remakes seem all the rage: while Cronenberg’s The Fly 2 wasn’t exactly received with open arms by Fox, he is planning Eastern Promises 2 and Ridley Scott wants to do something with Blade Runner again. And that’s just the example of two directors.

The Thing also got two remakes recently. There’s that one movie we don’t really feel like discussing here – much like a lot of reviewers didn’t seem to think the 1951 The Thing From Another World was worth mentioning as the actual “original” movie – and then there’s this: The Thing once more, but now starring Pingu:

And, because we’re really into movies, here‘s the Behind the Scenes documentary.

Carnage

One movie you won’t find in the Avenue’s Top 10 of 2011 is The Help, which was released on 28 December and is therefore eligible for appearing in the 2012 list (where it’ll face some tough competition: it’s week 1 and we already have a Cronenberg and Kaurismäki released in the local cinemaplex). In the next update you’ll find out the top 10 (n°1 is easy, finding the right balance between the nrs 2 to 5 will be tougher), but today you’ll read why Carnage is not on the number 1 spot.

Make no mistake, Carnage is a good film. Roman Polanski is a great director and he shows that here from time to time. Carnage is about a couple who come to say sorry to the parents of a boy: their son knocked out two of the other boy’s teeth. Apologetic as they may try to seem, there’s also a crisis in the real world (the father of the ‘culprit’ is the lawyer of a pharmaceutical firm and news has just leaked out that their medicine isn’t exactly harmless). At one point, another phonecall disrupts the conversation once again and while we watch him (Christoph Waltz) talking in the background, we see the impatient hand of his wife (Kate Winslet) tapping on the sofa in the front of our screen. That is the definition of a great shot, everyone, and Polanski – who briefly cameos as the neighbour – is a great director.

So the director is good, did the story suck? No, not in the least. The parents of the “culprit” have a tough time apologizing as the parents of the “victim” (John C. Reilly and Jodie Foster) are not exactly their cup of tea. And it doesn’t take long before the smooth lawyer and the art writer of a book on Darfur (Foster) are driving each other insane. There’s a subtle hint that she’s a former alcoholic, but this isn’t fact-checked in the film. (Again, why should every detail always be explained?) And while this may give you a chance to feel more sympathetic towards Reilly and Winslet, they’ll lose your sympathy before too long as well. Note how this forced conversation plays with etiquette codes (just watch their use of first names, last names and nicknames) and enjoy the film even more.

So the director is good, the screenplay is good and the actors are good… why isn’t this the film of 2011 then? Because the film was written by Yasmina Reza and it was based on her play Le Dieu de Carnage. And this film is very much a film version of a play. Is that bad? No, but throughout the film I wanted to see the reactions of the other people while someone was having a dialogue or monologue and here – by definition as it’s a film (unless you count experiments like Timecode by Figgis) – you’re bound to watch what’s happening through the vision of the director. In a way this is odd, given that it’s been ages since I last saw a play (the last two involved spitting and cutting each other and an overbearing sense of “look at me, I’ve studied art), but I genuinely I felt during the film I’d enjoyed this more in the theatre. Add the same director and actors and you’re watching one of the best plays of the year. Then again, given the sheer amount of pretentious garbage that’s often domineering the theatres, a lot of people wouldn’t have discovered Reza’s play because they were still paying their psychiatris to get over that trauma of the last play where that actor took a dump on another actor’s face (agreed, I made this up, but I’m sure somewhere in the world this will have happened on a stage as an astute metaphor of how we’re dealing with the environment).

Looking at the Wikipedia page, it looks as if the play has already had its fair share of good casts, but Polanski assembled maybe the best version. But most of the credit should go to Yasmina Reza, so we’ll name her again. (However, I found a review that mentioned the film adaptation upstaged the Broadway version, so I thought I’d just mentioned that as well.)

One thing is definitely wrong about the film and that’s the ending. Sure, it may have been tough to find an ending for this piece, but the way Carnage ends seems like Polanski didn’t even care about a finale. (A possible suggestion: what if the film ended with the exact moment, only with a shot where the camera zoomed out and retreated, as if we’d also given up on these four people? Anyway, that’s all for today’s edition of “Let’s play Polanski”.)

And this is the moment where I try to finish the review, but maybe we’ll take Polanski’s lead and end it now.

8/10

Best of 2011: part one – the book

It’s 3 January and time for a bonus update. Not only that but also a chance for me to wish all of you a wonderful 2012: Happy New Year! Back to business: it’s the annual tradition of picking your favourites and the Avenue will tell you which were the best liked books, films and music of the year. Today: part 1.

Picking a book of 2011 sounds like an odd thing. Alright, several years ago I was studying literature at the university, so it wasn’t that exceptional I managed to read 108 books in 12 months (my record, so far). 2011 was a bit of an abysmal year compared to that: I clocked off on a tenth of that number (didn’t manage to complete that 11th book). Worse even, my book of the year is one I glanced through but didn’t get the time to read in full (yet – yes, 2012, you know what’s in store), but I’ve decided to label this as my Book of the Year 2011 for two reasons: 1) none of the read books jumped out anyway and 2) I’m already looking forward to reading the rest of this book and I know I’ll like it.

In an earlier post (In time) I already mentioned the British satirical magazine Private Eye existed 50 years. One of their writers made a wonderful book about it and the best reason not to have this on your coffee table is that the thing might collapse. The book is far more than some of the other Private Eye book publications, which were sometimes nothing more than a “best of”. This book features a lot of covers and jokes which were published in the magazine as well as give a detailed A to Z of the past 50 years. The book is stylish and informative and even if you haven’t heard of the magazine (or are not a big fan) you’ll like reading the book – unless you’re Piers Moron.

Furthermore, in a year that was so warped, a satirical non-fiction book might be the most deserving of our crown Book of the Year. Especially in the UK, where superinjunctions and the phone-hacking scandals domineered the headlines, 2011 was very much a year of the press anyway.

So Private Eye: the first 50 years – an A-Z by Adam MacQueen is our book of the year and here’s the writer himself on Canadian television to tell you more about it:

Next up: the movies of the year and you’ll read more about those on 10/01.