Top 21 Films of 2021

1. The Green Knight (dir. David Lowery)
2. Licorice Pizza (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)
3. Pig (dir. Michael Sarnoski)
4. Cyrano (dir. Joe Wright)
5. The Power of the Dog (dir. Jane Campion)
6. 
   
7. Worst Person in the World (dir. Joachim Trier)
8. Drive My Car (dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi)
9. The French Dispatch (dir. Wes Anderson)
10. The Tragedy of Macbeth (dir. Joel Coen)
    
11. Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar (dir. Josh Greenbaum

11. The Matrix Resurrections (dir. Lana Wachowski)
12. Dune (dir. Denis Villeneuve)
13. Nightmare Alley (dir. Guillermo del Toro)
14. Benedetta (dir. Paul Verhoeven)
15. Encanto (dir. Byron Howard and Jared Bush)

16. Shiva Baby (dir. Emma Seligman)
17. Zola (dir. Janicza Bravo)
18. No Sudden Move (dir. Steven Soderberg)
19. West Side Story (dir. Steven Spielberg)
20. JFK Revisited (dir. Oliver Stone)
21. The Last Duel (dir. Ridley Scott)
    

edit 10.5 :Bergman Island (dir. Mia Hansen-Løve)

Honorable Mention

The Tender Bar (dir. George Clooney)

Pas Pour Moi

In the Heights (dir. Jon M. Chu)

Spencer (dir. Pablo Larrain)

The Card Counter (dir. Paul Schrader)

Burn the Tape

Black Widow (dir. Cate Shortland)

The Many Saints of Newark (dir. Alan Taylor)

Spider-Man: No Way Home (dir. Jon Watts)

Being the Ricardos (dir. Aaron Sorkin)

Currently Watching

Summer of Soul (dir. Questlove)

Next Up

Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi)

Iron & Wine ARCHIVE SERIES VOLUME NO. 5: TALLAHASSEE RECORDINGS (2021)

butter your figs fellas. nice lil treat. love you guys

Iron & Wine WEED GARDEN (2018)

"We shall hear the angels, we shall see the whole sky all diamonds, we shall see how all earthly evil, all our sufferings, are drowned in the mercy that will fill the whole world. And our life will grow peaceful, tender, sweet as a caress…. You've had no joy in your life; but wait, Uncle Vanya, wait…. We shall rest."

Joel Grind MORTAL FIXATION (2020)

Night Train by Martin Amis
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

insufferable

Felix Vallotton "Sunset" (1918)

Yo La Tengo THE SOUNDS OF THE SOUNDS OF SCIENCE (2002)

Yo La Tengo have been an incredible band for my entire life. Lord preserve Ira, Georgia & James. God save Hoboken.

Fog Castle/Foglord/Fogweaver IN THE KINGDOM OF FOG (2020)

 

living in a foggy town, watching it creep down the hill among the pine trees and deer herd, it could hide madness or it could carry forgiveness, at its perfect holy buoyancy

Seize the Day by Saul Bellow
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

* spoilers* a powerful cautionary tale on the dangers of speculating in lard

Fogweaver SPELLWIND (2020)

 

your boy is just gonna lean in and go dungeon synth rn, it feels existentially appropriate 

In a Free State by V.S. Naipaul
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm not not harrowed

Fogweaver FOGWEAVER (2019)

 

 fogweaver, fogweaver, weave me a fog, find me a bog, catch me a nog*

 

The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Brilliant, wise, gentle book on on how love is an outlook and a lifestyle, a mode of being which requires care, dedication and practice. Fromm takes into consideration the ways that Western capitalism stacks the deck against this simple process of becoming the kind of person whom we all respect and treasure: one moves through life as an open sluice gate for the cascading grace of God. I. John 4:16.

*what the real heads call eggnog

Sam Amidon ALL IS WELL (2007)

i'm not an unreasonable man. the people of the world produce surplus, and they should have surplus. let it be so.

Sam Amidon BRIGHT SUNNY SOUTH (2013)

Sam Amidon THE FOLLOWING MOUNTAIN (2017)

pretty sad that kids get a better lesson in local politics from Batman than their teachers. what generation after generation with zero material analysis gets ya: agreeable diffidence. 

Sam Amidon SAM AMIDON (2020)

John Everet Millais "Mariana in the Moated Grande" (1851)

Sam Amidon LILY-O (2014)

 

lotta liberals out here raising police budgets and decrying fascism, truly too dumb to be liars.

  The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

A histrionic fever dream, entirely unhelpful to educating Americans, who can only recognize the most overt and cartoonish elements of fascism. Were Roth any sort of curious historian, he could have tackled how certain American and British financial elites helped fund the fledgling Nazi Party, or more importantly, could have written compellingly about the way we protected hundreds of Nazi officers and scientists from prosecution in order to use them against the USSR. Much of Nazi ideology was formed in the U.S. and it didn't disappear when they did. In fact, it was accelerated to destabilize any nation contemplating land reform, nationalizing resources, or operating outside U.S. hegemony. Instead of reading this, I beg you to read Umberto Eco's essay on Ur-Fascism https://www.pegc.us/archive/Articles/...

"Freedom and liberation are an unending task."

Sam Amidon I SEE THE SIGN (2010)

Sam makes a devastating cameo for a verse of a song in CYRANO, a daring triumph of a film. This collection of covers has been a comforting stand-by for me over the years, Relief being the song that puts me back on my feet when I think I'm down for the count.

The Weather Station HOW IS IT THAT I SHOULD LOOK AT THE STARS (2022)

 

something went wrong when we stopped hearing churchbells, when the hour first went unrung

  Driving on the Rim by Thomas McGuane
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

McGuane can craft a helluva sentence. Maybe books should be written in Montana but edited in Utah, if you catch my drift.