Freelance

This week marked the beginning of a new era for me. I am officially a freelance writer and cinematographer.

My review of M. Ward’s Hold Time was published in the online magazine Patrol about an hour ago. And last week my video collaboration with Lisa Nguyen on Blo Dry Bar was posted online for BC Business.

In other news, I started working for Vancouver Magazine as an editorial intern last week. Hurrah for another four months of unpaid work! (I also landed a paying gig at Indigo/Chapters to stay afloat.)

Top 5 Films of 2008

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button dir. David Fincher

After a career of creating films that explore serial killers (Se7en, Zodiac) and the male psyche (Fight Club), David Fincher shows his heart in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The film has its flaws, but there are some truly breathtaking moments in this 3-hour epic that make it one the year’s best.

The Dark Knight dir. Christopher Nolan

It’s a rare treat for a film to be well executed and meaningful as well as popular. The top grossing film of 2008 at nearly $1 billion, the second installment of the reincarnated Batman series stretched beyond a good-guy/bad-guy tale to become something larger than itself: speaking on terrorism, the nature of chaos, and the role of morality among the masses.

My Winnipeg dir. Guy Maddin

In this docu-fantasia, Guy Maddin, “the mad poet of Winnipeg,” explores his love/hate relationship with his hometown. Casting actors to reenact key moments from his childhood, Maddin explores the role of myth in the Canadian conscience while playfully ignoring the line between fact and fiction in his signature, black & white melodrama style.

Rocket Science dir. Jeffrey Blitz

Rocket Science is the quirky comedy of the year: a boy with a stutter joins a debate team in pursuit of a girl. Awkward hilarity ensues. Eef Barzelay creates a pitch perfect soundtrack to backdrop Jeffrey Blitz musings on teenage confusion through an ensemble of idiosyncratic characters: from desperate adults to ambitious oddballs.

Slumdog Millionaire dir. Danny Boyle

Danny Boyle – whose eclectic mix of films includes Trainspotting, Millions, and 28 Days Later – creates a love-letter to Mumbai with his crowd-pleaser Slumdog Millionaire. The story tracks Jamal Malik from the slums to his turn on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? The premise sounds cheesy, but this film is bursting with so much colour, life, and love that its fairy tale roots become real.

Best Utterly Depressing Foreign Film:

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days dir. Cristian Mungiu

It’s hard to recommend this Romanian film, but I am still in awe of its execution. Setin Communist era Romania, the film follows two college roommates who try to arrange an illegal abortion. Oleg Mutu’s filming is stark and subtle, lingering far beyond comfort on the frightened protagonists as their decisions drive them into further peril.

Top 5 Albums of 2008

Elephant Shell by Tokyo Police Club
When Tokyo Police Club were making waves a few years ago with their debut EP, I vowed to purchase their first full length album upon its release(I just don’t do EPs). Lo and behold, when April 22nd rolled around, Elephant Shell was in my grasp. I’ve given the succinct, 27-minute gem easily over 100 spins since. An addictive, catchy album that never tires.

Fleet Foxes
For a while I thought that Fleet Foxes was my own private discovery. But that was while I was in Tanzania, and when I got back to the Western world I learned that the secret was out. Their debut album resounds as if sung through an empty forest, evoking a timeless, eerie connection to nature.

Go God Go by Fred
Yes, their name is ridiculous. Their music, on the other hand, is incredibly accessible. Spanning too many genres to count, these lovable Irishmen make delicious pop melodious. I read one review that compared them to “ABBA, if ABBA were an indie rock band from Ireland.” I couldn’t say it any better.

Viva La Vida by Coldplay
I’ll be honest, I was pretty disappointed by X&Y, and was downright sick of Coldplay a few years ago. But Viva la Vida banished my skepticism. In spite of their over-popularity, this album is just too good not to love. Abandoning the traditional verse-chorus-bridge formula, the songs on Viva escape on their own sonic journey across symphonic landscapes.

You & Me by the Walkmen
It’s generally a good sign when a band can win me over despite an initially unappealing vocalist (see Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, Cold War Kids). The Walkmen did just that, and now I can’t get enough of frontman Hamilton Leithauser. Organs, whistles, and guitars that explode like fireworks carry these “hazy tales of reckless vacations.”

That’s So 2007:

Armchair Apocrypha by Andrew Bird
Andrew Bird has a new beast coming out in just two weeks, but I am still in love with his two-year-old. Bird brushes aside the silliness that flawed most of his previous efforts, taking himself seriously on Armchair Apocrypha. The result is a cohesive collection of his most beautiful and enduring songs that remain definitely Bird: layered violins, whistles and sampling.

Top 5 Books of 2008

Anagrams by Lorrie Moore

When I discovered Lorrie Moore on a cross-continental flight, I believed she was writing just for me: depressed, witty, and hopeful. Her debut novel is structured in a way that makes meaning flexible, a recapitulation of character. She believes that if circumstances change, we are still the same soul. We are not a collaboration of events, but the unfolding of some small, fiery truth.

The Breakdown So Far by M.A.C. Farrant
Local author M.A.C. Farrant’s collection of 70+ witty shorts – “for those of us who have lost both our way and our attention span” – are a delight. Mixing the mundane with the fantastical, she creates a cast of enduring characters who fumble through attempts to make a meaningful existence.

The Principles of Uncertainty by Maira Kalman
Full of imagination and love for the little things of life, artist Maira Kalman offers proverbs from her abundant life. The book is worth the cover price just for her photo essay, a series of pedestrians walking away. Uncertainty was one of those books that I savoured: only reading when I was relaxed and undistracted.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Road is a horrific, tender and holy book. I don’t believe I’ve read or seen a father/son relationship as convincing or beautiful as this before. Cormac McCarthy’s stark prose offers soil for hope to rise up out of the violence and oppression of this post-apocalyptic world.

The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuscinski
I learnt as much about Africa from Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski’s book as I did by living in Tanzania for four months. Spanning four decades of African independence wrought with violence and growing pains, Kapuscinski relays his wisdom on the world’s most diverse continent through a collection of vivid stories.

The Unlikely Runner-Up:

In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan
A self-help book that is actually helpful, Michael Pollen explains good eating in layman’s terms: why what we’re eating is no longer real food, and what we can do to start eating right again. Full of practical, down-to-earth information, In Defense of Food is a quick, easy read.

Christmas Eve

I think I enjoy Christmas Eve more than the 25th of December.

On Christmas everything zips by in a flash. It’s all too exciting, too incredible, too good to be true: the gifts, the family, the food. I wake up too early from anticipation and then feel sleepy all day, living through a dream.

There’s a peace to Christmas Eve, a calm before the storm. The presents sit beneath the tree in their perfection: larger than life and filled with a myriad of possibility. I’m usually organized well enough to have the majority of my gifts wrapped, so the day is mine. I read a Christmas story in the morning, work on a puzzle in the afternoon, surprised by the patience that fills me. In the evening comes my favourite part of holiday season: the candlelight service. I love the reverence of the old hymns, the solemness of minor keys sounding in the darkness. The glow from the candles never cease to still me. It always feels holy. In that moment, nothing is wrong.

I am at peace with the world.