Best Films of 2020
#9 – Let Them All Talk
Steven Soderbergh’s Let Them All Talk is the unlikeliest film on this list. This largely-improvised, thinly plotted, micro-budgeted movie is the sort of thing Soderbergh throws together on a whim when he sees a short opening on his calendar.
But when you cast Meryl Streep, Candice Bergen, Dianne Wiest, Gemma Chan and Lucas Hedges in that movie, the chances of striking gold increase exponentially.
We’re in March of 2021, and yet 2020 feels like it will never end. But it’s finally time to wrap up at least one aspect of the year from hell. Over the next two weeks I will count down my top ten movies of 2020.
For the purposes of the list, I’m using this year’s Academy Awards definition of 2020 as January 1, 2020, through February 28, 2021. That allows me to include movies that had to skip the usual “one week in New York and Los Angeles” qualifying period before opening wide earlier this year. This isn’t much different than any year, where I don’t catch up with many Oscar contenders until January or February.
Today’s track is from Pistol Annies’ debut album, and was penned and performed by Angaleena Presley, the least-famous Annie.
This tongue-in-cheek tune explores the life of a hunter’s wife, and throws in enough hunting jargon to weigh down an 11-point buck.
It got me thinking… what came first, country music’s music or its lyrics?
I remember liking Bleachers’ debut album, 2014’s Strange Desire. This was Jack Antonoff’s first solo effort after finding success with fun., and before he became the most sought after producer by the most talented women in modern music.
‘Rollercoaster‘ is a brilliant song, and I’m quite fond of ‘Shadow,’ ‘Wild Heart’ and ‘I Wanna Get Better.’
I didn’t know what to expect when I embarked on this monthlong exploration of Joni Mitchell’s discography.
I knew no more than a handful of her songs very well and had zero knowledge of the ebbs and flows of her 40+ year career. I understood that she is an iconic singer-songwriter who inspired a generation of artists, but I didn’t know exactly how or why.
After dozens of hours listening to every one of Mitchell’s studio albums, I now have a pretty well-formed picture of her wild path. But I still don’t know exactly what to make of it. It is certainly a far more unpredictable and uneven journey than I imagined.
Meet Me In Montauk 