Farewell 2006
Sunday, December 31st, 2006It’s been a good year.
It’s been a good year.
It is clear from my list of most listened to from 2006 that I like listening to female artists almost exclusively (although I do have Midlake, The Beatles, Pet Shop Boys, The Smiths and Sparklehorse hovering in my top forty). I don’t know why I feel like I’m apologising for this when I have been listening to BBC 6 Music for several weeks now waiting for more than two female artists to be played in a row. It was only today that Stuart Maconie managed to do this (the sequence was broken by the news but still counts). To my dismay one of the artists was that “annoying woman” (thanks for the moniker, Adam) Joanna Newsom. I am utterly mystified by the acclaim and popularity of Joanna. Andy is majorly smitten (which really surprises me, Mr my-music-taste-is impeccable-and-remorselessly-non-mainstream loves this darling of the media) and I just don’t get it. I think I should like her: I’m a fan of Bjork and the Sugarcubes so I don’t have a problem with a strange voice, the orchestration is lush and string based which I am partial to, she’s a woman so that should really help but it’s all so precious, irritating, meandering, and long. It’s bizarre - who next? Victoria Williams and Mary Margaret O’Hara?
Now that I’m on one, just what is so great about The Decemberists, Sufjan Stevens and Cat Power? Metacritic’s Best of 2006 shows how out of step I am. However, thanks to that listing of lists I’m off to buy Leaves From Off The Tree.
my artists of the year are:
Paula Frazer and Tarnation are synonymous so combined they would beat Aimee Mann into second.
my tracks of the year are:

I have just finished Strangers in Paradise Pocket Books 2 and 3. They sat on a shelf for several weeks until I was ready to read them and I devoured them in two days. They are utterly compelling if a teeny-tiny tad far-fetched. I find it interesting that people who love the books don’t mention the Big Six but just talk about the triangle between Katchoo, Francine and David because that is what matters and makes these books such exciting, exhilarating and funny page turners. If I must complain then Francine is Hollywood fat like Renee Zellweger in Bridget Jones’s Diary i.e. not.

I have also read Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi which follows the mid-childhood of a girl at the time of the Iranian Revolution. The style is very simple but highly expressive which is not easy when nearly everyone is either dark-haired or wearing a head scarf. The final panel is heartbreaking.
Many reviews compare it with Maus which I think is a bit lazy because it implies that Maus is the only political graphic novel the reviewers have read (or heard of…) which is probably true because it is the only one I had read until Will Eisner’s The Plot. Anyway, here is one that doesn’t.
As the name of this blog suggests (other than what it literally suggests) one of my guilty pleasures is Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion which is not as daft and brainless as it first appears. Its miserable rating on IMDb versus its rating on Amazon.com shows…I dunno…that there are too many blokes on IMDb?
Plotwise, there isn’t much to it but it is propelled forward by the exceptional cast. Lisa Kudrow (BSc) and Mira Sorvino (magna cum laude) play dumb with great intelligence (not that getting a degree is a sign of intelligence - I have one). Janeane Garofalo slouches around swearing a lot; memorably summed up by Michele: “For me, it’s like I’ve just given birth to my own baby girl, except she’s like a big giant girl who smokes and says “shit” a lot. You know?”.
It is the mini-scenes that make it - any dance scene or exercise scene or Heather scene, or shop scene, or any scene when Romy and Michele are talking to each other, you know? (and the Ramon sex scene) are special.
Aside: Mia Cottet, one of Christy’s friends is also in Amber Benson’s Lovers, Liars and Lunatics (what an excuse for a link but turn off those lights, remove those frames and lower the price).
Finally, Mira is most definitely the Mary but only if you accept that Mary Tyler Moore is more attractive than Valerie Harper.
Moving away from sheer pleasure, may I take a moment to mention just how much I hated The Squid and the Whale (even more than The Royal Tenenbaums)? Both share angst filled middle class intellectual lives which are not worth spending two minutes contemplating, much less enduring the longest sub-80 minute film ever. And if Romy and Michele is superficial then what is there to say about the bloody awful scene with the school psychologist which is the definition of facile?

Fantastic news: an interview with Joss Whedon about the season eight of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in comic book form. Can it be as good as The Chosen? Only if he performs the miracle Jet Wolf worked on Kennedy. And only if Anya’s death is treated more respectfully than Tara’s (like having some people other than Willow actually miss her).
An update with some of the confirmed writers including the very funny Jane Espenson (a classic entry: “My parents got a new puppy this week. She’s a teeny baby Bichon Frise whom they have named Zia. Can you believe these are the same people who came up with “Jane”? I suspect I’d've had a different life if I was named Zia Espenson. Not better, but different.”).
Passion (Ty King)

Ty King wrote two episodes of BtVS, this and Some Assembly Required. At first thought, there doesn’t seem to be any connection between them, particularly in terms of quality but as I wrote the best thing about SAR was Jenny and Giles’ relationship and this has excellent interactions between the two. I have a lot of sympathy for Jenny – her loyalties must lie with her family and her betrayal of Buffy and Giles had to happen because of that.
I’ll say it again but I love how much fun David B is having as Angelus. His taunting of Spike is hilarious and Spike’s fury is building up nicely.
Clearly, Willow hadn’t bonded with her fish when she fed them despite them not being in the tank at all because they were in an envelope. The shot of the two girls on the bed surrounded by garlic with Willow looking nervous (“Although for the first time I’m glad my parents didn’t let me have a puppy”) is very funny.
I imagine the scene when students (one of whom is Jonathan) actually want to use the library is an acknowledgement of the unrealistic emptiness of the library (later reflected in the Scooby meetings at the Magic Box) where serious discussions about supernatural Sunnydale just couldn’t happen,
Xander’s indignation in the “Hey, how come Buffy doesn’t get a snotty “once again you boil it down to the simplest form” thing?” is not misplaced.
Willow is delighted to take Ms Calendar’s class (but how likely is that?) and I find her enthusiastic for potential punishment (“Will I have the power to assign detention?”) rather disturbing.

Joyce’s denial can’t last much longer but I do like the conversations Buffy and she have when she’s right but so wrong at the same time. Despite knowing the outcome of Angelus’ conversation with Joyce I still feel very anxious for her as she fumbles with her keys and he tells her things about her daughter she isn’t ready to hear.
The inane gibberish of I Robot, You Jane didn’t bother me in the least but the gibberish in Passion does. That’s because it wasn’t important in a fun throwaway episode like IRYJ but here it is very important. I just don’t understand why programme makers are so inept at showing basic IT on screen, it’s not like they never use PCs, is it? Jenny saves to her floppy disk in no time at all, Angelus destroys the monitor and not the hard drive and, as we subsequently find out, Willow finds Jenny’s lesson plans on her computer (which also throws up the question of why not the translation too).
The problem with rewatching and recapping is the discovery of flaws and the subsequent nitpicking (which is one of the reasons I love Who Are You? so much is that despite the many many times I have watched it, I think it is practically perfect). Why does Jenny bother to ask Angelus how he got in? It’s a public building. Why did he lock the classroom door (or is it actually locked)? It opens quite easily when Jenny is thrown against it. Why is Jenny unable to open the fire escape doors? How does he get ahead of her? Anyway, none of that matters because HE BREAKS HER NECK LIKE SHE’S NOTHING.

It’s just unbelievable that it happens – it’s just not fair but we had better get used to that sort of thing happening in the Buffyverse.
The scene between Willow and Giles as he wonders whether he should intervene is sweet and funny and the juxtaposition of humour and horror just shouldn’t work but the fantastic thing about BtVS is that is does – often.
The sequence when Giles arrives to find Jenny’s body is heartrending and beautifully directed and edited. (Nitpick alert – just when was Angel invited into Giles’ apartment?)
And finally, this dialogue stops me from being angry at Buffy:
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t kill him for you…for her…when I had the chance…I wasn’t ready…but I think I finally am.”
