Whilst all the various old and new media publications predictably caught their annual bout of end-of-year-retrospective-list-mania, we here at Les Flâneurs wondered aloud about the point in trying to order items of popular culture from best to worst. So, trying to be all pretentious and different, we present to you instead a small ‘collection’ or ‘grouping’ if you will of some people, things and stuff that happened this year which might not get the look in they deserve elsewhere. You may think that this ‘collection’ looks suspiciously close to a ‘list’ of some of our favourite stuff of the last twelve months but it’s not. It’s definitely not a ‘list’. If anything its our handouts of awards for that year that just left. Obviously, our recipients of these precisely titled awards are not winners, are not ‘The Best of 2010′. We’re just saying ‘Well done. You existed in 2010 and we noticed.’
So, without further ado:
Most hipster director with the talent to back up the style: Xavier Dolan
He made his first film I Killed My Mother when he was just twenty years old and it was shown at Cannes in 2009. He returned to La Croisette this year with Les Amours Imaginaires (Heartbeats in English) which he wrote, directed, edited and starred in. He looks like he’s straight out of the viral anti-hipster hit Being a Dickhead’s Cool except this young Quebecois actually has a mass of filmmaking substance with which to back up his style.
Most blog-focused German literary copyright case: Axolotl Roadkill
Another precocious young artist, 17 year-old Berliner Helene Hegemann, who already had a play and a film to her name released her debut novel Axolotl Roadkill this year. The story about a 16 year-old girl exploring Berlin’s club and drug culture after her mother dies was a literary sensation in Germany on its release, finding its way on to best seller lists and nominated for Best Novel at the prestigious Leipzig Book Fair. But the hype was dampened when she was accused of plagiarising whole pages from a little-known novel Strobo by Berlin blogger Airen. In defence she declared that she was part of a generation that has grown up with copyright infringement on the internet, people taking other people’s work for free and then using it for their own new purposes. In her view, this wasn’t stealing but literary mixing as it were.
Most underrated album by a band whose singer resembles the love-child of Hollywood comedy star Jack Black and World Cup winning midfielder Andrès Iniesta: In Evening Air by Future Islands
Future Islands are not a trendy band. They may come from the hipster loved city of Baltimore but they lack the model looks of fellow Baltimore-based Beach House, and subsequently the press attention. They are just a bunch of portly white geeks in bad t-shirts. Unfairly, this has meant that their latest release In Evening Air has been somewhat overlooked. This is a cruel shame as their mix of atmospheric synths and strong basslines with heart-wrenching, big-man soul vocals makes the album one of the most emotive of 2010.
Most intriguing (yet still quite clichéd) vodka financed internet film project of the year: I’m Here by Spike Jonze
Financed by Absolut vodka, this short by Jonze could be watched on the website imheremovie.com as a virtual trip to the cinema with your friends by logging on to facebook. Although it suffered from some of the similar grating dialogue that his full-length feature of last year Where The Wild Things Are did, like that film it looked great and mixed CGI facial expressions with live actors in suits. Is this the type of promotional online feature we will be experiencing more of as studios go bust through online piracy and independent filmmakers try to make a living?
