New Films from Bruce LaBruce, Isild Le Besco and Christophe Honoré at Locarno Film Festival

The official line-up for the 63rd annual Locarno Film Festival was announced yesterday, including new films from Bruce LaBruce, Christophe Honoré, Isild Le Besco, Aaron Katz and Denis Côté screening in competition. Katz's Cold Weather, which IFC picked up for US distribution after its premiere at SXSW, is the lone American film competing for the Golden Leopard this year. French porn star François Sagat looks to be the unexpected star of competition line-up, appearing as the lead in both LaBruce's LA Zombie and Honoré's Homme au bain [Man in Bath], the latter co-starring Honoré's muse as of late, Chiara Mastroianni. LA Zombie, a porn-ier counterpart to LaBruce's earlier Otto; or Up with Dead People, screened in Berlin earlier this year and stars a handful of gay porn stars, as well as Tony Ward (who memorably played the object of desire in LaBruce's Hustler White in 1996), pin-up boy Trevor Wayne, rapper Deadlee and Project Runaway finalist Santino Rice (hello, St Louis). In addition to presenting Bas-fonds, her latest project as a director, actress Isild Le Besco can be seen in front of the camera in Benoît Jacquot's Au fond des bois [Deep in the Woods], which marks the sixth collaboration with Jacquot. Au fond des bois also stars Nahuel Pérez Biscayart of Alexis Dos Santos' Glue and will be the opening film in the Piazza Grande section.

Other films in the International Competition: Pia Marais' Im Alter von Ellen [At Ellen's Age], with Jeanne Balibar in the title role; Morgen, the feature debut of Marian Crişan, whose short Megatron won the Palme d'Or in the courts-métrages section at Cannes in 2008; Pietro, the latest from Italian director Daniele Gaglianone (I cento passi); and Curling, from Canadian director Denis Côté who won the Directing Prize at Locarno in 2008 for Elle veut le chaos [All That She Wants]. Elle veut le chaos is available to stream (in certain territories) on MUBI.

Also in the Piazza Grande section: the Duplass' brothers Cyrus, currently in theatres across the US right now; the second directorial outing from respected editor Valdís Óskarsdóttir (The Celebration, julien donkey-boy, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), entitled Kóngavegur [King's Road] which stars Daniel Brühl and Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson; L'avocat [The Counsel], from director Cédric Anger–who co-wrote Xavier Beauvois' Le petit lieutenant and Selon Matthieu and Werner Schroeter's Deux–starring Benoît Magimel, Gilbert Melki, Aïssa Maïga, Eric Caravaca and Barbet Schroeder; Quentin Dupieux's killer-tire film Rubber, which premiered during the Semaine de la Critique at Cannes this year; also from Cannes, Aktan Arym Kubat's The Light Thief, which played in the Quinzaine des Réalisatuers; and restored prints of Ernst Lubitsch's To Be or Not to Be and Francesco Rosi's Uomini contro [Many Wars Ago].

In the Cinema of the Present portion: Memory Lane, the "feature" debut of Mikhaël Hers, whose previous three films (Montparnasse, Primrose Hill and Charell) premiered at the Cannes Film Festival over the past few eyars and all clock-in around an hour-long; Ivory Tower, from first-time director Adam Traynor which marks the acting debut of musician Peaches; and Norberto apenas tarde [Norberto's Deadline], the directorial debut of actor Daniel Hendler, best known as Argentinean filmmaker Daniel Burman's cinematic persona.

And Out of Competition, a number of shorts from notable directors will be playing:

- Get Out of the Car - Thom Anderson (Los Angeles Plays Itself)
- Hell Roaring Creek - Lucien Castaing-Taylor (Sweetgrass)
- Low Cost (Claude Jutra) - Lionel Baier (Garçon stupide)
- Avant les mots - Joachim Lafosse (Nue propriété)
- Return to the Dogs - Lodge Kerrigan (Clean, Shaven)
- Where the Boys Are - Betrand Bonello (Tiresia)
- Pig Iron - James Benning (RR)
- Les lignes ennemies - Denis Côté
- Rosalinda - Matías Piñeiro (Todos mienten)
- Chef d'oeuvre? - Luc Moullet (A Girl Is a Gun)
- Toujours moins - Luc Moullet
- O somma luce - Jean-Marie Straub
- Corneille-Brecht - Jean-Marie Straub
- Joachim Gatti - Jean-Marie Straub
- Europa, 27 Octobre - Jean-Marie Straub, Danièle Huillet

I don't know exactly how Kerrigan's Return to the Dogs relates to his experimental Grace Slick feature Rebecca H. (Return to the Dogs) which played in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes in May. And finally, there will be a special retrospective of director Ernst Lubitsch at the festival this year, as well as a new, restored print of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's little-seen Ich will doch nur, daß ihr mich liebt [I Only Want You to Love Me], which was made for German television. The 63rd Festival del film Locarno runs from 4-14 August. The full list of films in competition is below:

- Bas-fonds, d. Isild Le Besco, France
- Beli, beli svet [White White World], d. Oleg Novković, Serbia/Sweden/Germany
- Beyond the Steppes, d. Vanja d'Alcantara, Belgium/Poland
- Cold Weather, d. Aaron Katz, USA
- Curling, d. Denis Côté, Canada
- Homme au bain [Man at Bath], d. Christophe Honoré, France
- Im Alter von Ellen [At Ellen's Age], d. Pia Marais, Germany
- Karamay, d. Xu Xin, China
- LA Zombie, d. Bruce LaBruce, Germany/Canada/USA
- Luz nas Trevas, a Volta do Bandido da Luz Vermelha, d. Helena Ignez, Ícaro Martins, Brazil
- Morgen, d. Marian Crişan, Romania/France/Hungary
- Periferic, d. Bogdan George Apetri, Romania/Austria
- La petite chambre, d. Stéphanie Chuat, Véronique Reymond
- Pietro, d. Daniele Gaglianone, Italy
- Saç, d. Tayfun Pirselimoğlu, Turkey/Greece
- Songs of Love and Hate, d. Katalin Gödrös, Switzerland
- Winter Vacation, d. Li Hongqi, China
- Womb, d. Benedek Fliegauf, Germany/Hungary/France

The Decade List: Otto; or Up with Dead People (2008)

Otto; or Up with Dead People – dir. Bruce LaBruce

Partially a remake of his own brilliant Super 8½, Bruce LaBruce’s Otto; or Up with Dead People is a shockingly affecting effort from Canada’s most engaging queer provocateur. In place of Super 8½’s Bruce (played by the director), a stubborn, egotistical porn artiste and occasional “butt double,” and Googie (Stacy Friedrich), the lesbian underground filmmaker who’s exploiting him for her documentary, we have Otto (Jey Crisfar), a gay, hoodie-donning, once-vegan boy who believes he’s a zombie, and Medea Yarn (Katharina Klewinghaus), who could best be described as a science experiment morphing Gudrun from The Raspberry Reich, Maya Deren and a Saturday Night Live spoof of Anne Rice into a single person. LaBruce steps away from himself with Otto, focusing instead on Medea’s dueling film projects: one a political zombie gay porn epic Up with Dead People, the other an invasive, self-serving exposé of Otto.

I often underestimate the way in which LaBruce, like Gregg Araki, punctures a searing truth and sadness through a well-practiced brand of sympathetic and condemning disposition. Medea, assisted in her agenda by her brother Adolf (Guido Sommer) and girlfriend Hella Bent (Susanne Sachße), is a curious figure, something of an art terrorist who uses manipulation and greed to push her generally noble, leftist cause(s). “Americans produce enough garbage… to buy 82,000 football fields six feet deep,” she lectures to Otto. “Although I can’t think of a better use for football fields,” she adds.

There’s something different though about the character of Otto. To Medea, his zombie act is the perfect metaphor for consumerism and political ambivalence, but for Otto, his somnambulist, undead state isn’t an act. LaBruce never interferes with either character’s belief about whether or not he’s an actual zombie, which pushes forth a different idea of what has brought about this state. Otto thus becomes a metaphor for the crippling ennui, disillusion and dehabilitation of contemporary youth. Otto; or Up with Dead People is an effective balance between these varying metaphors and cultural criticism, more shocking in its piercing depth than in its over-the-top provocations.

With: Jey Crisfar, Katharina Klewinghaus, Marcel Schlütt, Susanne Sachße, Guido Sommer, Christophe Chemin, Gio Black Peter, Stefan Kuschner, Mo, Kembra Pfahler
Screenplay: Bruce LaBruce
Cinematography: James Carman
Music: Mikael Karlsson
Country of Origin: Germany/Canada
US Distributor: Strand Releasing

Premiere: 19 January 2008 (Sundance Film Festival)

All My Friends: Millennium Mambo, Take 2: Damion Clark

Damion and I met when he was hosting a Queer Film Blog-a-thon two years ago at his old blog Queerying the Apparatus. While I miss visiting his blog, we kept in touch, and he helped me with some source material for my undergraduate thesis last year. He's working on his Ph.D. in English Language and Literature at the University of Maryland. If you're wondering, a mutual love for Bruce LaBruce and PJ Harvey is always a great starting point for a friendship. Thanks, Damion!

Films

01. There Will Be Blood, 2007, d. Paul Thomas Anderson, USA
02. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 2004, d. Michel Gondry, USA
03. Mulholland Drive, 2001, d. David Lynch, France/USA
04. Bad Education [La mala educación], 2004, d. Pedro Almodóvar, Spain
05. Far from Heaven, 2002, d. Todd Haynes, USA/France
06. No Country for Old Men, 2007, d. Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, USA
07. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days [4 luni, 3 săptămâni şi 2 zile], 2007, d. Cristian Mungiu, Romania
08. Requiem for a Dream, 2000, d. Darren Aronofsky, USA
09. Hedwig and the Angry Inch, 2001, d. John Cameron Mitchell, USA
10. The Royal Tenenbaums, 2001, d. Wes Anderson, USA
11. Dancer in the Dark, 2000, d. Lars von Trier, Denmark/Netherlands/Germany/France/USA/UK/Sweden/Finland/Iceland/Norway
12. Kill Bill, Vol. 1, 2003, d. Quentin Tarantino, USA
13. The Departed, 2006, d. Martin Scorsese, USA/Hong Kong
14. Children of Men, 2006, d. Alfonso Cuarón, UK/USA/Japan
15. United 93, 2006, d. Paul Greengrass, UK/USA/France
16. Mysterious Skin, 2004, d. Gregg Araki, USA/Netherlands
17. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly [Le scaphandre et le papillon], 2007, d. Julian Schnabel, France/USA
18. The Squid and the Whale, 2005, d. Noah Baumbach, USA
19. Let the Right One In [Låt den rätte komma in], 2008, d. Tomas Alfredson, Sweden
20. Good Night, and Good Luck., 2005, d. George Clooney, USA/UK/France/Japan
21. Volver, d. Pedro Almodóvar, 2006, Spain
22. Shortbus, 2006, d. John Cameron Mitchell, USA
23. Where the Wild Things Are, 2009, d. Spike Jonze, USA
24. The Raspberry Reich, 2004, d. Bruce LaBruce, Germany/Canada
25. Secretary, 2002, d. Steven Shainberg, USA

Albums

01. PJ Harvey - Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea (2000)
02. Amy Winehouse - Back to Black (2006)
03. Morrissey - You Are the Quarry (2004)
04. Gossip - Music for Men (2009)
05. OutKast - Stankonia (2000)
06. Antony and the Johnsons - Antony and the Johnsons (2000)
07. Coldplay - Parachutes (2000)
08. Radiohead - Kid A (2000)
09. New Order - Get Ready (2001)
10. Johnny Cash - American IV: The Man Comes Around (2002)
11. Jay-Z - The Black Album (2003)
12. Depeche Mode - Playing the Angel (2005)
13. The Killers - Hot Fuss (2004)
14. M.I.A. - Arular (2005)
15. The Bravery - The Bravery (2005)
16. Kylie Minogue - X (2007)
17. Keane - Hopes and Fears (2004)
18. Madonna - Confessions on a Dance Floor (2005)
19. Christina Aguilera - Stripped (2002)
20. Muse - Black Holes and Revelations (2006)

All My Friends: Millennium Mambo, Take 1: Jason Huettner

Jason and I established a cyberspace amity based on two great mutual obsessions: PJ Harvey and queer cinema. He's my go-to man when it comes to PJ news and rumors, a job of no small importance for someone like me. He currently resides in New York City. I'm happy to have Jason as the first entry in this series. Neither of his lists are in preferential order.

On Music: "I hate lists that are aimed at developing some kind of consensus about art. Here are ten albums, in no particular order, released in the 00's that are essential to my 00's experience. This list isn't definitive at all (plenty of other 00's albums that I love).. but all are quality and have sentimental value. The music speaks for itself."

Life Without Buildings - Any Other City (DCBaltimore2012, 2001)
Diamanda Galás - Guilty, Guilty, Guilty (Mute, 2008)
Various Artists - Give Me Love: Songs of the Brokenhearted - Baghdad, 1925-1929 (Honest Jon's, 2008)
Scott Walker - The Drift (4AD, 2006)
Mayyors - Deads 12" (self-released, 2009)
A Frames - "1" (S-S Records, 2002)
Quasimoto - The Unseen (Stones Throw, 2000)
Stars of the Lid - And Their Refinement of the Decline (Kranky, 2007)
The Thing (with Joe McPhee) - She Knows... (Smalltown Superjazz, 2002)
Power Douglas - Pentecostal Fangbread (FiveSix Media, 2008)

On Film: "Again, sentimentality plays a big part here. Picking just ten is hard. I am prone to alarming lapses of taste in films."

Bad Education [La mala educación], 2004, d. Pedro Almodóvar, Spain
Brick, 2005, d. Rian Johnson, USA
Children of Men, 2006, d. Alfonso Cuarón, UK/USA/Japan
Dancer in the Dark, 2000, d. Lars von Trier, Denmark/Netherlands/Germany/France/USA/UK/Sweden/Finland/Iceland/Norway
Eastern Promises, 2007, d. David Cronenberg, UK/Canada
O Fantasma, 2000, d. João Pedro Rodrigues, Portugal
Mulholland Drive, 2001, d. David Lynch, France/USA
Notre musique, 2004, d. Jean-Luc Godard, France/Switzerland
Pan's Labyrinth [El laberinto del Fauno], 2006, d. Guillermo del Toro, Mexico/Spain/USA
The Proposition, 2005, d. John Hillcoat, Australia/UK
The Raspberry Reich, 2004, d. Bruce LaBruce, Germany/Canada
The Royal Tenenbaums, 2001, d. Wes Anderson, USA
Strange Circus, 2005, d. Sion Sono, Japan
There Will Be Blood, 2007, d. Paul Thomas Anderson, USA
Waltz with Bashir, 2008, d. Ari Folman, Israel/Germany/France/USA

The Decade List: Albums/Singles (2008)

The lesson I've learned about myself in going back and reassessing the best music of last year is that a year is about the length of time it takes for me to catch up. I posted a half-assed list in December of last year, naming Goldfrapp's Seventh Tree, still a great album, the best. While Seventh Tree certainly improved upon the duo's previous dance floor oriented albums, it was not the best of the year. With an additional eleven months to play catch up, I finally got around to picking up Deerhunter's two albums and gave both Fleet Foxes and Hercules and Love Affair the chance to grow on me (while Lykke Li began to grate).

This doesn't make the eventual 2009 Music list, of which I already have quite a few favorites, look too promising... but we'll see. While some might argue 2008 was Beyoncé's year (and, yeah, it kind of was despite releasing the horrible "If I Were a Boy" as the first single off I Am... Sasha Fierce, though I always give kudos to the proper use of the conditional verb tense). While "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" cemented her occasionally wobbly position in the ranks of pop greats (the following singles, even the ludicrous "Diva," are all quite good), 2008 in retrospect made me appreciate Bradford Cox, lead singer of Deerhunter and the man behind Atlas Sound, providing three of the year's best albums.

It's quite possible that the include of Foals' Antidotes on the best albums of the year list is where skepticism comes in. Like nearly every band that consists of young straight-ish dudes with expensive haircuts, I'm never able to separate myself from enjoying the music to really look at it objectively and critically. Maybe it's the Daydream Nation guitar work on "Big Big Love (Fig. 2)" or the sadness that's matched in Yannis Philippakis' vocals. I've always been a sucker for melancholy dance punk. If you remove "dance" from the equation, Vivian Girls' self-titled works in the same way. An honorable mention to Lindstrøm's Where You Go I Go Too, which missed the cut only out of my forgetfulness in including one of the top 5. The 20 albums (I placed the two Deerhunter ones together) are listed in vague preferential order.

Deerhunter - Microcastle / Weird Era Cont.
Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
No Age - Nouns
Hercules and Love Affair - Hercules and Love Affair
Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles
Atlas Sound - Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel
Goldfrapp - Seventh Tree
Vivian Girls - Vivian Girls
M83 - Saturdays = Youth
Beach House - Devotion
Grace Jones - Hurricane
Sigur Rós - Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust
Gang Gang Dance - Saint Dymphna
Portishead - Third
Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours
Tindersticks - The Hungry Saw
Brian Eno & David Byrne - Everything That Happens Will Happen Today
Foals - Antidotes
Department of Eagles - In Ear Park
Fuck Buttons - Street Horrrsing

Assorted James for the Year 2008

I really tried to find a different song to place at the top of the singles list, but I couldn't. I also tried not to include MGMT on the list period, but despite the fact that I never find the desire to listen to them any more (or really after last summer), "Electric Feel" was a blinding flash in that pan, so it stayed. My iffy attitude toward Lady Gaga, respectable on several levels and lame on just as many, didn't prevent her from showing up in the additional 100 tracks, but I typically consider a night on the town where I'm not forced to hear her a successful one.

As for the great videos of the year (I'm debating coming up with a Decade List for music videos, but I may be even more out of the loop on that subject than simply music... plus Pitchfork's Music Video Decade list covered a lot of the greats), check out Sigur Rós' Ryan McGinley-inspired "Gobbledigook," that particular Beyoncé song that pays tribute to Bob Fosse, Alison Goldfrapp as Goldie Locks in "A&E," the two Flight of the Conchords videos which are naturally taken from their TV show, Eagles of Death Metal's "Wannabe in LA," No Age's "Eraser," all of the Hercules and Love Affair ones, Grace Jones' "Corporate Cannibal" (really, eat your heart out, Lady Gaga), Air France's "Collapsing at Your Doorstep" and Crystal Castles' "Crimewave" if only for the odd use of clips from Bruce La Bruce's Otto; or Up with Dead People. The Top 35 are in order of preference, the remaining 100 are not.

The Top 35

Beyoncé - "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" [I Am... Sasha Fierce]
Deerhunter - "Agoraphobia" [Microcastle]
M83 - "Kim & Jessie" [Saturdays = Youth]
Crystal Castles - "Crimewave" [Crystal Castles]
Atlas Sound - "Recent Bedroom" [Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel]
Fleet Foxes - "Blue Ridge Mountains" [Fleet Foxes]
Fuck Buttons - "Sweet Love for Planet Earth" [Street Horrrsing]
Portishead - "Hunter" [Third]
Grace Jones - "Well Well Well" [Hurricane]
Antony & the Johnsons - "Another World" [Another World EP]
Deerhunter - "Saved by Old Times" [Microcastle]
Vivian Girls - "Never See Me Again" [Vivian Girls]
Foals - "Big Big Love (Fig. 2)" [Antidotes]
Hercules and Love Affair - "Time Will" [Hercules and Love Affair]
No Age - "Teen Creeps" [Nouns]
Sébastien Tellier - "Pomme" [Sexuality]
M83 - "You, Appearing" [Saturdays = Youth]
Aeroplane featuring Kathy Diamond - "Whispers" [Whispers single]
The Magnetic Fields - "The Nun's Litany" [Distortion]
Lykke Li - "Little Bit" [Youth Novels]
Sigur Rós - "Ára bátur" [Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust]
Goldfrapp - "A&E" [Seventh Tree]
Gang Gang Dance - "House Jam" [Saint Dymphna]
Beach House - "Wedding Bell" [Devotion]
TV on the Radio - "Halfway Home" [Dear Science]
Ladyhawke - "Back of the Van" [Ladyhawke]
Brian Eno & David Byrne - "Strange Overtones" [Everything That Happens Will Happen Today]
Jenny Lewis - "Pretty Bird" [Acid Tongue]
MGMT - "Electric Feel" [Oracular Spectacular]
Cat Power - "Ramblin' (Wo)man" [Jukebox]
Santigold (formerly Santogold) - "L.E.S. Artistes" [Santogold]
Cut Copy - "Nobody Lost, Nobody Found" [In Ghost Colours]
The Black Angels - "You on the Run" [Directions to See a Ghost]
Tindersticks - "Come Feel the Sun" [The Hungry Saw]
Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - "Seafaring Song" [Sunday at Devil Dirt]

The Other 100

Gang Gang Dance - "Vacuum" [Saint Dymphna]
The Black Ghosts - "Some Way Through This" [The Black Ghosts]
Santigold (formerly Santogold) - "Creator" [Santogold]
Foals - "Red Socks Pugie" [Antidotes]
Deerhunter - "Operation" [Weird Era Cont.]
Flight of the Conchords - "Business Time" [Flight of the Conchords]
Hercules and Love Affair - "Athene" [Hercules and Love Affair]
The Bug featuring Warrior Queen - "Poison Dart" [London Zoo]
Goldfrapp - "Eat Yourself" [Seventh Tree]
Cut Copy - "Lights & Music" [In Ghost Colours]

Kaki King - "Life Being What It Is" [Dreaming of Revenge]
Air France - "Collapsing at Your Doorstep" [No Way Down]
Fleet Foxes - "White Winter Hymnal" [Fleet Foxes]
Janet Jackson - "Feedback" [Discipline]
TV on the Radio - "Golden Age" [Dear Science]
Jamie Lidell - "All I Wanna Do" [Jim]
Adriana Calcanhotto - "Seu Pensamento" [Maré]
The Magnetic Fields - "Please Stop Dancing" [Distortion] (sorry for the vid)
Crystal Castles - "Vanished" [Crystal Castles]
Lykke Li - "I'm Good, I'm Gone" [Youth Novels]

Beyoncé - "Halo" [I Am... Sasha Fierce]
Invisible Conga People - "Cable Dazed" [Cable Dazed / Weird Pains EP]
Department of Eagles - "Phantom Other" [In Ear Park]
Eagles of Death Metal - "Wannabe in LA" [Heart On]
Hercules and Love Affair - "Blind" [Hercules and Love Affair]
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - "Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!" [Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!]
Lil Wayne - "A Milli" [The Carter III]
Sébastien Tellier - "Look" [Sexuality]
Hot Chip - "Ready for the Floor" [Made in the Dark]
Atlas Sound - "River Card" [Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel]

No Age - "Eraser" [Nouns]
Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - "Come On Over (Turn Me On)" [Sunday at Devil Dirt]
Grace Jones - "I'm Crying (Mother's Tears)" [Hurricane]
Crystal Castles - "Magic Spells" [Crystal Castles]
Spiritualized - "Soul on Fire" [Songs in A&E]
Poni Hoax featuring Olga Kouklaki - "The Soundtrack of Your Fears" [Images of Sigrid]
Neil Halstead - "Oh! Mighty Engine" [Oh! Mighty Engine]
Vivian Girls - "Tell the World" [Vivian Girls]
Flight of the Conchords - "The Most Beautiful Girl (In the Room)" [Flight of the Conchords]
Erykah Badu - "Me" [New Amerykah Part One (4th World War)]

Antony & the Johnsons - "Shake That Devil" [Another World EP]
Estelle featuring Kanye West - "American Boy" [Shine]
Fleet Foxes - "He Doesn't Know Why" [Fleet Foxes]
Amadou & Mariam - "Sabali" [Welcome to Mali]
Kanye West - "Love Lockdown" [808s & Heartbreak]
Atlas Sound - "Quarantined" [Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel]
Solange - "Sandcastle Disco" [Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams]
Passion Pit - "I've Got Your Number" [Chunk of Change EP]
Shearwater - "The Snow Leopard" [Rook]
The Black Ghosts - "It's Your Touch" [The Black Ghosts]

Hot Chip - "One Pure Thought" [Made in the Dark]
Brendan Canning - "Churches Under the Stairs" [Something for All of Us...]
French Kicks - "Said So What" [Swimming]
Hercules and Love Affair - "You Belong" [Hercules and Love Affair]
Foals - "Balloons" [Antidotes]
Mariah Carey - "Touch My Body" [E=MC²]
Cut Copy - "Hearts on Fire" [In Ghost Colours]
Sigur Rós - "Íllgresi" [Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust]
Lykke Li - "Melodies & Desires" [Youth Novels]
Animal Collective - "Street Flash" [Water Curses EP]

of Montreal - "Gallery Piece" [Skeletal Lamping]
Lady Gaga - "Poker Face" [The Fame]
R.E.M. - "Supernatural Superserious" [Accelerate]
Friendly Fires featuring Au Revoir Simone - "Paris (Aeroplane Remix)" [Paris EP] (again, sorry for the video)
Portishead - "The Rip" [Third]
Adem - "Bedside Table" [Takes] (This Bedhead cover is the only one I care for on Adem's cover album)
The Dodos - "Fools" [Visiter]
Poni Hoax - "Antibodies" [Images of Sigrid]
Cat Power - "Metal Heart" (Jukebox Version) [Jukebox]
Terry Lynn - "System" [Kingstonlogic 2.0] (Beware of the video; it's really unsettling... but the song is awesome)

Fleet Foxes - "Your Protector" [Fleet Foxes]
Beach House - "Gila" [Devotion]
The Verve - "Love Is Noise" [Forth]
Ladyhawke - "Paris Is Burning" [Ladyhawke]
Ray LaMontagne - "Meg White" [Gossip in the Grain]
DeVotchKa - "The Clockwise Witness" [A Mad & Faithful Telling]
Cold War Kids - "Mexican Dogs" [Loyalty to Loyalty]
The B-52's - "Pump" [Funplex]
Robin Thicke - "Magic" [Something Else]
The Virgins - "Rich Girls" [The Virgins]

The Walkmen - "In the New Year" [You & Me]
Jenny Lewis - "Acid Tongue" [Acid Tongue]
Chairlift - "Planet Health" [Does It Inspire You]
Women - "Black Rice" [Women]
MGMT - "Weekend Wars" [Oracular Spectacular]
Crystal Castles - "Alice Practice" [Crystal Castles]
Beyoncé - "Ego" [I Am... Sasha Fierce]
Beck - "Gamma Ray" [Modern Guilt]
Does It Offend You, Yeah? - "Being Bad Feels Really Good" [You Have No Idea What You're Getting Yourself Into]
French Kicks - "Carried Away" [Swimming]

Vivian Girls - "I Believe in Nothing" [Vivian Girls]
The Pussycat Dolls - "When I Grow Up" [Doll Domination]
The Radio Dept. - "Closing Scene" [Freddie and the Trojan Horse EP]
Poni Hoax - "Wanda's Loving Boy" [Des jeunes gens mödernes Compilation]
Emmanuelle Seigner featuring Brett Anderson - "Les mots simples" [Les mots simples Single]
Sigur Rós - "Gobbledigook" [Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust]
Vampire Weekend - "A-Punk" [Vampire Weekend]
Cat Power - "New York" [Jukebox]
Ryan Adams & The Cardinals - "Stop" [Cardinology]
Antipop vs. Asia Argento - "Vampy" [Antipop vs Asia Argento, Archigram & Friends] (It's actually kinda terrible/kinda wonderful)

And a very special mention to one of the worst songs of 2008, Madonna's "4 Minutes" featuring Justin Timberlake, produced by Timbaland. The song, which has Madonna uttering the offensively stupid lyric "Sometimes I think what I need is a you intervention" and Justin repeating "Madonna" as if he were on an episode of Wayne's World, and the video, which features Madge and JT (slowly) running and (poorly) dancing away from The Nothing from The Neverending Story, are both dreadful... but it's that trainwreck I can't look away or cover my ears from. Agh.

The Decade List: The Raspberry Reich (2004)

The Raspberry Reich - dir. Bruce LaBruce

In the years following the pinnacle of New Queer Cinema, the description "aggressively queer" doesn't come up very often. While both Todd Haynes and Gregg Araki graduated to "serious" fare (Far from Heaven and Mysterious Skin, respectively), Canadian artist/photographer/filmmaker Bruce LaBruce (Hustler White, Super 8½ and No Skin Off My Ass, which was reportedly Kurt Cobain's favorite film before he died) held onto the tradition, best exemplified in The Raspberry Reich, a hilarious indictment of sexual politics, the far left and "terrorist chic." Certainly in the same vain as Godard's La chinoise or Fassbinder's The Third Generation, LaBruce presents a hapless group of urban guerrillas, headed by the insolent Gudrun (Susanne Sachsse), attempting to carry on the torch of the Red Army Faction.

Gudrun, named after one of the founders of the Baader-Meinhof Gang, concocts a scheme to kidnap Patrick (A. Stich), the son of one of Germany's key industrialists. At the same time, she instills something of a martial law on her gang of insurgents, forcing them to "liberate" themselves from their own "heterosexual repression," insisting "No revolution without sexual revolution. No sexual revolution without homosexual revolution." She, being the only female in the group, does not ask the same of herself but contends that all of the men, including her boyfriend Holger (Daniel Bätscher), join her homosexual intifada.

The Raspberry Reich is, for those familiar, totally LaBruce: hysterical, brash, fetishistic, porn-y, reflexive and even unexpectedly poignant. In recognizing LaBruce's signature brand of criticism and sympathy, one senses his empathy toward Gudrun's cause which intends to combat capitalism and the heteronormative modes of thought that prevail within it. And yet she's still portrayed as a dictator, an unshakeable creature who speaks in propagandistic slogans ("The revolution is my boyfriend!"), cites direct passages from Raoul Vaneigem's The Revolution of Everyday Life as if they were her own and condemns everything from masturbation, corn flakes and Madonna as being counter-revolutionary. And still, she's not completely oblivious to her own contradictions. At one point, she tells Holger, after instructing him to have sex with fellow comrade Che (Daniel Fettig), that if he doesn't follow her orders she won't have sex with him later that night.

LaBruce's main concern relates to the conflict between political, sexual and personal idealism and the governing truths regarding them. Styled like a propaganda film, with various slogans and texts flashing across the screen, The Raspberry Reich brilliantly satirizes one of commanding fears of the Christian right: that "sexual deviants" can recruit others to their lifestyle. Gudrun's experiment, which is what it ultimately amounts to, fails with each of her recruits. When one of the members (Anton Z. Risan) runs off with Patrick, who becomes the gang's Patty Hearst, to take up robbing banks à la Bonnie and Clyde, they violate Gudrun's firm stance against bourgeois monogamy ("Marriage is licensed prostitution," she tells Holger. "I don't want you to be my pimp!").

To call The Raspberry Reich mere pornography would be a rather facile deduction (to be fair though, German production company Cazzo did release a version of the film called The Revolution Is My Boyfriend with longer, less restricted sex scenes). Certainly, most of the sex in the film is unsimulated and most of the actors, other than the amazing Susanne Sachsse, are porn stars, but The Raspberry Reich is more than just the thinking person's blue movie. In keeping with the tone of the rest of the film, the sex exists in contradiction to itself. Sometimes it's a parody (guns often go beyond being just phallic symbols), while, other times, LaBruce obstructs the fucking with text and strobe light editing. It's sexual exploitation against the exploitation of innocent people, and despite the film's numerous incongruities, it does adhere to Gudrun's notion of making revolutionary love, not imperialistic war.

The use of actual sex may ghettoize The Raspberry Reich from a larger audience more than your average gay film (I don't use the term "queer film" because that really doesn't apply much these days; Vicky Cristina Barcelona is queerer than Brokeback Mountain). In my eyes, that's a shame, but really, a film as radical as The Raspberry Reich, like Dušan Makavejev's WR: Mysteries of the Organism from which LaBruce drew considerable inspiration, would never have mass appeal. LaBruce followed The Raspberry Reich in 2008 with the fantastic existential zombie film Otto; or Up with Dead People in 2008, continuing his streak as one of the most exciting voices in aggressively queer cinema.

With: Susanne Sachsse, Daniel Bätscher, A. Stich, Anton Z. Risan, Dean Stathis, Daniel Fettig, Gerrit, Joeffrey, Ulrike S., Stephan Dilschneider
Screenplay: Bruce LaBruce
Cinematography: James Carman, Kristian Petersen
Country of Origin: Germany/Canada
US Distributor: Strand Releasing

Premiere: 17 January 2004 (Sundance Film Festival)

There's Nothing Worse Than a Staunch Woman, Nothing

Slowly, I'm crawling out of my grim movie-watching blackout, and it's been with surprisingly pleasant results. I bucked up and watched the HBO Grey Gardens with Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange as the imitable Beales thanks to a Facebook recommendation from Bruce LaBruce. And quickly, all of my reservations about the project evaporated quickly.

In addition to Grey Gardens, I found myself wildly amused by Armando Iannucci's In the Loop, a viciously hysterical political satire, and the omnibus Tôkyô!, in particular Leos Carax's middle segment with Denis Lavant. I think the horizon is becoming clearer... let's hope it remains that way.