Centropus colossus

MOVIES 2015

This was a great year for films, with a run of great Chinese movies at the start and great Japanese movies at the end from various film festivals.

In no special order, some of the most interesting films were Sunstruck (if you can imagine Wake in Fright as a children's film); Most of My Memoirs are Plagiarized (an absurd, possibly self-financed, deeply unwell film that seems to be a forgotten entry in the James Incandenza oeuvre), The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On (a disorienting documentary), and Eisenstein in Guanajuato (Greenaway's most surprising film for a long time).

Also mention of The March, a film I saw on TV as a child which haunted me for two decades, in which the poor populations of Africa march on Europe. Watching this in 2015 coincided with the Syrian refugee crisis and this film seemed pretty percipient.

I was hoping Sweden's A Pigeon Sat on a Branch would be the arthouse king this year but it didn't live up to expectations. Contrast that with Germany's The Scorpion's Sting, a portmanteau film dominated by a long 'short' film within, "Deep Gold", which while only 25 minutes long may have been the best thing I've seen for years. I saw it directly after Three Stories of Love, which may be the best feature film I saw all year.

Summer Time Machine Blues is a Japanese children's film which I saw on an aeroplane once and have loved ever since. It's like Back to the Future with all elements of romance erased. 

M1. 20,000 Days on Earth, 2014.

M2. loudQUIETloud: A Film about the Pixies, 2006.

M3. サカサマのパテマ ("Patema Inverted"), 2013.

M4. Sunstruck, 1972.

M4a. A Zed & Two Noughts, 1985.

M5. Monty Python Live (mostly) - One Down Five To Go, 2014. [DVD unedited version]

M6. 红高粱 ("Red Sorghum"), 1987.

M7. 大紅燈籠高高掛 ("Raise the Red Lantern"), 1991.

M7a. サマー タイム マシン ブルース ("Summer Time Machine Blues"), 2005.

M8. Most of My Memoirs are Plagiarized, 2014.

M9. This Body is Wrong for Us, 2011.

M10. Norman Lovett: Outside the Box, 2011.

M11. Kar korsanlari ("Snow Pirates"), 2015.

M12. Arj Barker: Balls, 2008.

M13. It's That Man Again, 1943.

M14. Bill Bailey: Part Troll, 2004.

M15. Jesus Camp, 2006.

M16. Mr. Mike's Mondo Video, 1979.

M17. Tunnel Vision, 1976.

M18. 绝响 ("Swan Song"), 1985.

M19. Utopia, 2013.

M19a. Finisterre, 2003.

M20. The Honourable Wally Norman, 2003.

M21. Dreams of a Life, 2011.

M22. Lee and Herring Live at the Cochrane, 1995.

M23. Disco ex Machina: The Movie, 2015.

M24. The Look of Silence, 2014.

M25. ゆきゆきて、神軍 ("The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On"), 1987.

M26. Eisenstein in Guanajuato, 2015.

M27. They Might Be Giants: Live in Berlin, 2015. (screen title: They Might Be Giants: Live in Berlin 2013)

M28. The Target Shoots First, 2000.

M29. The Queen of Versailles, 2012.

M30. Little Dieter Needs to Fly, 2001? (original film 1998, viewed version includes later postscript)

M31. The Legend of Leigh Bowery, 2002.

M31a. The March, 1990.

M32. Zero Dark Thirty, 2012.

M33. Nirgendwo in Afrika ("Nowhere in Africa"), 2001.

M34. Bliss, 2010. (Opera Australia broadcast)

M35. Alive Inside, 2014.

M36. Only Lovers Left Alive, 2013.

M36a. Bliss, 1985. (theatrical version)

M37. Overnight, 2004.

M37a. Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns, 2002.

M38. Parting Shots, 1998.

M39. Johnny English Reborn, 2011.

M40. En duva satt på en gren och funderade på tillvaron (“A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence”), 2014.

M41. Thai Die, 201X [undated].

M42. The Lobster, 2015.

M43. Hell House, 2001.

M44. Tanna, 2015.

M45. Lucky Miles, 2007.

M46. 日本のいちばん長い日 ("The Emperor in August"), 2015.

M47. 野火 ("Fires on the Plain"), 2014.

M47a. Kokoda, 2006.

M48. 駆込み女と駆出し男 ("KAKEKOMI"), 2015.

M49. 恋人たち ("Three Stories of Love"), 2015.

M50. Der Stachel des Skorpions ("The Scorpion's Sting"), 2014.

M51. Mad Max: Fury Road, 2015.

M52. 99 Homes, 2014.

M53. Home of the Brave, 1986.

M54. Bill, 2014.

M55. Suffragette, 2015.

Quinkana fortirostrum

I'll keep books and movies to separate posts from here on. Here are:

BOOKS 2015

B1. Glued to the Box, Clive James.
B2. Monsieur Linh and His Child, Philippe Claudel (tr. Euan Cameron).
B2a. Sabine's Notebook, Nick Bantock.
B2b. The Golden Mean, Nick Bantock.
B3. The Gryphon, Nick Bantock.
B4. Remainder, Tom McCarthy.
B4a. Tintin and the Secret of Literature, Tom McCarthy.
B5. One Hundred Apocalypses and Other Apocalypses, Lucy Corin.
B5a. C, Tom McCarthy.
B6. The Greatest Movies You'll Never See, Simon Braund (ed).
B7. The Shawshank Redemption, Mark Kermode.
B8. In the Memorial Room, Janet Frame.
B9. If You Like Monty Python... Here are Over 200 Movies, TV Shows, and Other Oddities that You will Love, Zack Handlen.
B10. 'Well, I heard it on the Radio and I saw it on the Television...', Marcia Langton.
B11. World Film Locations: Melbourne, Neil Mitchell (ed).
B12. The Barry McKenzie Movies, Tony Moore.
B13. Khaki and Green: With the Australian Army at Home and Overseas, "the Editors" (eds).
B14. The Bogan Delusion, David Nichols.
B15. Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture, Alice Echols.
B16. Loops, Issue 02, Lee Blackstone and Richard King (eds).
B17. Spaceballs: the Book, Jovial Bob Stine.
B18. The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2013, Dave Eggers (ed).
B19. The Metamorphoses of Tintin, or Tintin for Adults, Jean-Marie Apostolidès (tr. Jocelyn Hoy).
B20. Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, Jeanette Winterson.
B20a. Are We Alone?: Implications of the Discovery of Extraterrestrial Life, Paul Davies.
B21. The Outsider, Albert Camus (tr. Stuart Gilbert).
B22. Absolutely Fabulous 2, Jennifer Saunders.
B23. The Book of Strange New Things, Michel Faber.
B24. The Vivisector, Patrick White.
B25. The Boat, Nam Le.
B26. So, Anyway..., John Cleese.
B27. Ben Baker's Comedy Cash-In Book Book, Ben Baker.
B28. The Burst of Creamup , TVCream (eds).
B29. Drop Out!, Robin Farquharson.
B30. The Comedy Company Holiday Book, D MacLeod, I McFadden, M Fahey, G Robbins, P Herbert.
B31. Patrick White: A General Introduction, Ingmar Bjorksten (tr. Stanley Gerson).
B32. The Idea of Japan: Western Images, Western Myths, Ian Littlewood.
B33. Kill Your Darlings Issue 3 October 2010, Rebecca Starford (ed).
B34. Oranges are not the Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson.
B35. The Pleasure of my Company, Steve Martin.
B36. Glyph, Percival Everett.
B37. Sally Heathcote: Suffragette, M Talbot, K Charlesworth & B Talbot.
B38. The Buried Giant, Kazuo Ishiguro.
B39. The Games, John Clarke and Ross Stevenson.
B40. The Chaser Annual 2008, R Cooke, S Cubis, D Knight, C Licciardello, J Morrow, C Reucassel et al.
B41. Good News Week, Ian Simmons (ed).
B42. Ragworts, Bill Drummond.
B43. The Wordy Shipmates, Sarah Vowell.
B44. The Internet Police: How Crime went Online, and the Cops Followed, Nate Anderson.
B45. The Book of Jokes, Momus.
B46. Guanxi (The art of relationships): Microsoft, China, and Bill Gates's Plan to Win the Road Ahead, Robert Buderi and Gregory T. Huang.
B47. The Unknown Terrorist, Richard Flanagan.
B48. Leaving Paradis: My Expat Adventure and Other Stories, Sonia Harford.
B49. It is Written, Baby, Dave Graney.
B50. Peter Carey, Graham Huggan.
B51. Hatchet Job: Love Movies, Hate Critics, Mark Kermode.
B52. To the Is-Land, Janet Frame.
B52a. A Letter to Our Son, Peter Carey.
B53. The Go-Betweens, David Nicholls.
B54. Moving Tigers, Bob Franklin.
B55. The Bedroom Philosopher Diaries, Justin Heazlewood.
B56. The Truth, Michael Palin.
B57. An American in Oz, Sara James.
B58. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future..., Michael J. Fox.
B59. Ethel & Ernest: A True Story, Raymond Briggs.
B60. The Last Interview and Other Conversations, David Foster Wallace.
B61. You Never Give Me Your Money: The Battle for the Soul of the Beatles, Peter Doggett.
B62. The Eye of the Storm, Patrick White.
B63. A Poke in the Eye (With a Sharp Stick), Graham McCann (ed).
B64. The Curfew Tower is Many Things, Bill Drummond (ed).
B65. Imajine, Claudel Casseus.
B66. A Nice Night's Entertainment, Barry Humphries.
B67. Their Lips Talk of Mischief, Alan Warner.
B67a. Falling Towards England, Clive James.
B68. The Cockatoos, Patrick White.
B68a. Peter Carey, Bruce Woodcock.
B69. The Revolt of the Pendulum: Essays 2005 - 2008, Clive James.
B70. The Diaries of Donald Friend, Volume 1, Anne Gray (ed).
B71. Grand Days, Frank Moorhouse.
B72. The Bodysurfers, Robert Drewe.
B73. The Museum at Purgatory, Nick Bantock.
B74. Ogf, Keith Smith.
B75. Bliss: the Screenplay, Peter Carey and Ray Lawrence.
B76. Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead, Rick Meyerowitz.
B77. Science... For Her!, Megan Amram.
B78. The Poems of Ern Malley, Ern Malley (commentaries by Max Harris and Joanna Murray-Smith).
B79. Roald Dahl, Ann Alston and Catherine Butler (eds).
B80. A Fringe of Leaves, Patrick White.
B81. Papua New Guinea: Black Unity or Black Chaos?, Hank Nelson.
B82. The Further Tale of Peter Rabbit, Emma Thompson.
B83. The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorised History, John Ortved.
B84. The Adventures of Hergé, J-L Bocquet, J-L Frontal and S Barthélémy (tr. H Dascher).
B85. A Cup of Sake Beneath the Cherry Trees, Yoshida Kenko (tr. M McKinney).
B86. These Things Happen, Greg Fleet.
B86a. How I Escaped My Certain Fate: the Life and Deaths of a Stand-Up Comedian, Stewart Lee.
B87. Slade House, David Mitchell.
B88. The Diaries of Donald Friend, Volume 2, Paul Hetherington (ed).
B89. Stories of Manhood: Journeys in to the hidden hearts of men, Steve Biddulph (ed).
B90. The Peacocks and the Bourgeoisie: Patrick White's Shorter Fiction, David Myers.
B91. Big Toys, Patrick White.
B92. Brilliant Creatures, Clive James.
B93. Hillendiana, Donald Friend.
B94. From the Fatherland, with Love, Ryu Murakami (trs. R McCarthy, C De Wolf, G Tapley Takemori)
B95. Heat 13: Harper's Gold, Ivor Indyk (ed).
B96. Crazy Like Us: The Globalisation of the Western Mind, Ethan Watters.
B97. Wake in Fright, Kenneth Cook.
B98. A Wild Ass of a Man, Barry Oakley.
B99. Martini: A Memoir, Frank Moorhouse.
B100. Ayoade on Ayoade: a cinematic odyssey, Richard Ayoade.

The backbone of 2015's reading was working my way through late-period Patrick White while reading the diaries of Donald Friend. This heavy-going trammell through mid-20th century gay Australia needed frequent levity so there's a lot of light entertainment interspersed throughout - comedy scripts and funny books I leapt at during breaks from Friend's friends or White's characters drinking endless cups of pink tea and eating bread and dripping in dreary North Sydney rooming-houses.

The two books by David Nichols were picked up separately and looked interesting (one a history of the band The Go-Betweens, one a polemic about class in Australia) - it wasn't until months later, seeing them on my bookshelf, that I realised they were written by the same man.

Michel Faber's "The Book of Strange New Things" was my favourite (only?) new Australian novel, but Kazuo Ishiguro's "The Buried Giant" was my favourite new novel of the year. At time of writing (2018), "The Buried Giant" is probably still the strongest contender for my favourite novel of 2010-2020.

When I met Y back in 2003 she often mentioned a favourite book by Ryu Murakami which she called "The World in Five Minutes From Now". Unfortunately this book has never been translated into English. I subsequently avoided Ryu Murakami because it is apparent that only his more violent and disturbing novels have been translated in to English, with the more imaginative ones left in Japanese only - hey, violent and disturbing is fine, but I didn't want to get the wrong impression of his writing. However, "From the Fatherland, with Love" (written in 2004 while I was living in Japan) finally came out in English and the Japanese version was available at the Melbourne City library. So Y and I read the book simultaneously in two different languages, which was fun. In a conceit that would probably result in lawsuits in an English-language novel, the entire book is set in and around an identifiably real hotel in Fukuoka which is suddenly occupied by a hostile army, so you can put the book down, fire up Google Earth, and become intimately acquainted with the bushes full of snipers by the hotel's rear steps. Amazingly this book had three translators - I presume because of its length - and because the book was set in the future (published 2005, set in early-to-mid 2011) but not published in English until 2013, you get a strange alternative Japan in which 11 March 2011 ticks over without any fuss at all. 

The ventures into Frank Moorhouse and Barry Oakley are part of an effort to read the contemporaries of Peter Carey.

The Stewart Lee re-read came from having just finished Greg Fleet's autobiography. Somewhere there is a fascinating novel to be written based on when Lee and Fleet shared a flat in Edinburgh, or bummed around in Melbourne together. 

Fuscospora gunnii

Catching up through 2014, my third full year back in Australia. After the first year of slight instability after ten years away - coming home to a country you grew up in but has changed just as much as you have in your absence - and the second year of revisiting and reviewing all the Australian culture you missed greatly or had missed out on - the third year is where things start to be normal again and you can settle back into life.

We still live in an inner suburb of Melbourne, so have a lot of access to film festivals, and a wealth of second-hand bookshops. This year I ramp up the number of new books to 100, contrary to my earlier conviction that it is ridiculous and unsustainable. I maintain this conviction - but I did it anyway.

BOOKS 2014

B01. The Paper Chase, Hal Porter.

B02. Am I Black Enough for You?, Anita Heiss.

B03. Meanjin 1/1992: Women's Knowledge.

B04. A Hard Day's Night, John Burke.

B05. Sandman in Siberia, Steve Abbott.

B05a. Fat Chance, Simon Gray.

B06. Birth of the Motion Picture, Emmanuelle Toulet (tr. Susan Emanuel).

B07. Black & Violet, Jason Andrew Updike.

B08. What Did You Expect?, Ben Baker.

B09. Fun at 1: The Story of Comedy at Radio 1, Tim Worthington.

B10. Quarterly Essay 22: Voting for Jesus: Christianity and Politics in Australia, Amanda Lohrey.

B11. Poll Dancing: The Story of the 2007 Election, Mungo MacCallum.

B12. Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, David Sedaris.

B13. The Tree of Man, Patrick White.

B14. A Cry in the Jungle Bar, Robert Drewe.

B15. Storyteller: The Authorized Biography of Roald Dahl, Donald Sturrock.

B16. North Face of Soho: Unreliable Memoirs Volume IV, Clive James.

B17. Comics: A Decade of Comedy at the Assembly Rooms, John Connor.

B18. Fawlty Towers: The Story of the Sitcom, Graham McCann.

B19. Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators in The Mystery of the Whispering Mummy, "Text by Robert Arthur".

B19a. Seven Little Australians, Ethel Turner.

B20. Art of McSweeney's, the Editors of McSweeney's.

B21. I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution, Craig Marks and Rob Tannenbaum.

B21a. No Shitting in the Toilet: The Travel Guide for When You've Really Lost It, Peter Moore.

B21b. My Uncle Oswald, Roald Dahl.

B22. Loot, Joe Orton.

B23. Herge: The Man who Created Tintin, Pierre Assouline (tr. Charles Ruas).

B24. The Pillow Fight, Matthew Condon.

B25. Lennon Remembers: The Rolling Stone Interview, Jann Wenner.

B26. Monty Python's Flying Circus: Complete and Annotated ...All the Bits, GC JC TG EI TJ MP et al, annotations some twat.

B27. Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to its Own Past, Simon Reynolds.

B27a. Voss, Patrick White.

B27b. Mister Roberts, Alexei Sayle.

B28. A Hostile Beauty: Life on Macquarie Island, Alistair Dermer and Danielle Wood.

B29. This Accursed Land: Douglas Mawson's Incredible Antarctic Journey, Lennard Bickel.

B30. Funemployed: Life as an Artist in Australia, Justin Heazlewood.

B31. Quarterly Essay 6: Beyond Belief: What Future for Labor?, John Button.

B32. Clockwise (aka Clockwise: A Screenplay aka Clockwise: Original Screenplay), Michael Frayn.

B32a. The Bedtime Leunig, Michael Leunig.

B32b. You and Me, Michael Leunig.

B32c. Eat the Rich, P. J. O'Rourke.

B32d. Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the Information Highway, Clifford Stoll.

B33. Loveless, Mike McGonigal.

B33a. The B'stard File (aka The B'Stard File: The New Statesman aka The B'Stard File: The New Statesman Expose), Rik Mayall (text by L Marks, M Gran, N Hornick, J Cutrara, T Bagley).

B34. Pilcrow, Adam Mars-Jones.

B35. The Silent Cry, Kenzaburo Oe.

B35a. Monty Python: the Case Against, Robert Hewison.

B36. Take the Cannoli: Stories from the New World, Sarah Vowell.

B37. The Funky Squad Annual, S Cilauro, T Gleisner, J Kennedy.

B38. All Windows Open and Other Stories, Hariklia Heristanidis.

B39. Facing the Other Way: The Story of 4AD, Martin Aston.

B40. Patrick White, Geoffrey Dutton.

B41. Cedilla, Adam Mars-Jones.

B42. Dark Horse: The Secret Life of George Harrison, Geoffrey Giuliano.

B43. The Family Law, Benjamin Law.

B43a. Paradoxical Undressing, Kristin Hersh.

B44. No More Curried Eggs For Me, compiler Roger Wilmut.

B45. Readings from International Conference on Humour: A Special Issue of the Australian Journal of Comedy; 1997, v. 3, no. 1, G Matte et al.

B46. The Longest Cocktail Party: An Insider's View of the Beatles, Richard DiLello.

B47. Super Expanded Deluxe Edition, Tim Worthington.

B48. American Hoax, Charles Firth.

B49. An Angel at my Table (Autobiography 2), Janet Frame.

B49a. 'Rommel?' 'Gunner Who?', Spike Milligan.

B50. Tango: My Childhood, Backwards and in High Heels, Justin Vivian Bond.

B51. Black Postcards, Dean Wareham.

B52. Mr Manchester and the Factory Girl: The Story of Tony and Lindsay Wilson, Lindsay Reade.

B52a. Holidays in Hell, P.J. O'Rourke.

B53. The Embassy of Cambodia, Zadie Smith.

B54. The Bridegroom Was a Dog, Yoko Tawada (tr. Margaret Mitsutani).

B55. Bonjour Tristesse, Françoise Sagan (tr. Irene Ash).

B56. Petit Mal, DBC Pierre.

B57. Tirra Lirra by the River, Jessica Anderson.

B58. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Yasutaka Tsutsui (tr. David Karashima).

B59. Traditional Molvanian Baby Names, S Cilauro, T Gleisner, R Sitch.

B60. Monanisms, The Museum of Old and New Art.

B61. Real Wild Child, Narelle Gee.

B62. Riders in the Chariot, Patrick White.

B63. The Crucible, Arthur Miller.

B64. The Daylight and the Dust: Selected Short Stories, Janet Frame.

B64a. The Lost Goon Shows, Spike Milligan.

B65. Fraud, David Rakoff.

B66. [Untitled children's story], Kit WIlliams.

B67. The Bone Clocks, David Mitchell.

B68. Under Stones, Bob Franklin.

B69. A Bit More Fry & Laurie, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie.

B70. Quarterly Essay 52: Found in Translation: In Praise of a Plural World, Linda Jaivin.

B71. The Burnt Ones, Patrick White.

B72. TATP: Talk About the Passion, Ben Baker and Tim Worthington.

B72a. Scarcely Relevant: Writings from The Scrivener's Fancy, Tony Martin.

B73. The Good Soldier Schweik, Jaroslav Hasek.

B74. Whoops Apocalypse: A State of the World Report, Andrew Marshall & David Renwick.

B74a. The Hippopotamus, Stephen Fry.

B74b. Dancing on Hot Macadam: Peter Carey's Fiction, Anthony J Hassall.

B75. Joseph Anton: A Memoir, Salman Rushdie.

B76. The Road to Mars, Eric Idle.

B77. The Floating World, John Romeril.

B78. Goon Abroad, Harry Secombe.

B79. The ITMA Years, Ted Kavanagh et al.

B80. The Avocado Plantation: Boom and Bust in the Australian Film Industry, David Stratton.

B81. Contemporary Australian Television, Stuart Cunningham & Toby Miller.

B81a. Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby, Donald Barthelme.

B82. The Crystal Bucket: Television Criticism from the Observer 1976-79, Clive James.

B83. Moon Lake, Eudora Welty. (Penguin Mini Modern Classics)

B84. Hal Porter, Mary Lord. (OUP Australian Writers and their Work series)

B85. Frank, Jon Ronson.

B86. A Point of View, Clive James.

B87. The End of the World, Paddy O'Reilly.

B88. More Please, Barry Humphries.

B89. To the Islands, Randolph Stow.

B90. Australian Literary Studies, Volume 19 No 2 1999.

B91. People, Alan Bennett.

B92. Nagasaki, Éric Faye (tr. Emily Boyce).

B93. A History of Capitalism According to the Jubilee Line, John O'Farrell.

B94. A Bone of Fact, David Walsh.

B95. Acorn, Yoko Ono.

B96. Higher Than the Sun, Tim Worthington.

B97. Three Stories, J M Coetzee.

B98. Not on Your Telly, Tim Worthington.

B99. The Hell of it All, Charlie Brooker.

B100. L'Amour, Marguerite Duras (tr. Kazim Ali and Libby Murphy).

B100a. The Solid Mandala, Patrick White.

In 2014 I am slowly working through Patrick White, while also reading a lot of books for what I consider the final time as I decide to discard them. A fascination with the more forgotten spatterings of English pop culture is given strong representation by all the Tim Worthington books: these excavations of cultural crannies were always interesting as a foreigner in the UK - though to be fair by 2018 and ensconced back in Australia I don't find myself going back to much of it.

I can strongly recommend Donald Sturrock's authorised biography of Roald Dahl, which authorised or not is unflinching on Dahl's inherent shittiness. I also wish all popular biographies were as densely detailed as this is.

I considered updating the details of the annotator of B26, but it is truly so awful I feel obliged to (a) not embarrass the man by naming him, and (b) warning any potential reader to avoid.

B66 is a puzzle picture book by the author of Masquerade; one of the puzzles was to establish the name of the book. I was unable to solve this so have left the title blank.

MOVIES 2014

M00a. The Parole Officer, 2001.

M01. The Battle of the Sexes, 2013.

M01a. The Best Bits of The Late Show Volume Three, 1994.

M02. The Reluctant Fundamentalist, 2012.

M03. The Wolf of Wall Street, 2013.

M04. The Trip, 2010.

M04a. Cremaster 1, 1995.

M04b. Cremaster 2, 1999.

M04c. Cremaster 3, 2002.

M04d. Cremaster 4, 1994.

M04e. Cremaster 5, 1997.

M05. 風立ちぬ ('The Wind Rises'), 2013.

M06. L'Année dernière à Marienbad ('Last Year in Marienbad'), 1961.

M07. Biba! One Island, 879 Votes, 2011 (including 2013 postscript).

M08. 12 Years A Slave, 2013.

M09. Blue Jasmine, 2013.

M09a. The Best Bits of The Late Show Volume One, 1993.

M09b. The Best Bits of The Late Show Volume Two, 1993.

M10. Half / ハーフ, 2013.

M11. 百合子、ダスヴィダーニヤ ("Yoshiko and Yuriko"), 2011.

M12. A Life Exposed: Robyn Beeche, 2013.

M13. Carts of Darkness, 2008.

M14. Winter's Bone, 2010.

M15. Philomena, 2013.

M15a. キューティー　ハニー ("Cutie Honey"), 2003.

M16. The Grand Budapest Hotel, 2014.

M17. American Hustle, 2013.

M18. The King's Speech, 2010.

M19. The Book Thief, 2013.

M19a. The Tulse Luper Suitcases 1: The Moab Story, 2003.

M19b. The Tulse Luper Suitcases 2: Vaux to the Sea, 2004.

M19c. The Tulse Luper Suitcases 3: From Sark to the Finish, 2004.

M20. The Zero Theorem, 2013.

M21. Alexei Sayle's Pirate Video, 1982?

M22. Under the Skin, 2013.

M23. Les Creatures ("The Creatures"), 1966.

M24. リアル ("Real"), 2013.

M25. Sans toit ni loi ("Vagabond"), 1985.

M26. ドールズ ("Dolls"), 2002.

M27. Snowpiercer, 2013.

M28. Believe in Me, 2007.

M29. Little Noises, 1991.

M30. Hross í oss ("Of Horses and Men"), 2013.

M31. August: Osage County, 2013.

M32. Dallas Buyers Club, 2013.

M33. The Tempest, 2010.

M34. Hořící keř ("Burning Bush"), 2013.

M35. Dylan Moran: Monster, 2004.

M35a. Down Among the Z Men, 1952.

M36. Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, 1982.

M37. Tom a la ferme ("Tom at the Farm"), 2013.

M37a. Backbeat, 1993.

M38. Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, 2010.

M39. Monty Python Live: One Down, Five To Go (90 min TV edit shown on SBS), 2014.

M39a. Spies Like Us, 1985.

M40. バトル　ロワイアル ("Battle Royale"), 2000.

M41. Bjork: Biophilia Live, 2014.

M41a. Brazil, 1985.

M41b. The Draughtsman's Contract, 1982.

M42. Down Terrace, 2009.

M43. 小さいおうち ("The Little House"), 2014.

M43a. Barry McKenzie Holds His Own, 1974.

M43b. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 2004.

M44. Mad Dog Morgan, 1976.

M44a. Erik the Viking, 1989.

M45. Red Dawn, 2012.

M46. Tomorrow, When the War Began, 2010.

M47. Harry Brown, 2009.

M48. Wired, 1989.

M49. The Mule, 2014.

Tingamarra porterorum

I have been neglecting this blog, but has it really been five years since I updated my reading/watching lists? Yes it has. So here's what I read and watched in the year 2013.

Once again, numbered entries ("B1") were books/movies I had never read/seen before. Italicised entries with an a/b/c appended ("B1a") were books/movies I re-read/watched, for pleasure or punishment. The list is in the order that I finished each.

BOOKS 2013

B01. The Friends of Emily Culpepper, Ann Coleridge and Roland Harvey.

B01a. Hello Sailor, Eric Idle.

B01b. A Book of Milliganimals, Spike Milligan.

B01c. Silly Verse for Kids, Spike Milligan.

B01d. Puckoon, Spike Milligan.

B01e. Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall, Spike Milligan.

B01f. Sex, Drugs & Mum in the Front Row, Evan Kanarakis.

B02. Cash for Comment: The Seduction of Journo Culture, Rob Johnson.

B02a. The Man in the Rubber Mask, Robert Llewellyn.

B02b. Thin He Was and Filthy-Haired: Memoirs of a Bad Boy, Robert Llewellyn.

B03. Cook'd and Bomb'd Annual 2013 (aka The Cookd Book 2013, aka Waxwork Rene Preservation Society Annual 2013), various.

B04. 1001 Australian Nights, Dave Graney.

B05. And The Ass Saw The Angel, Nick Cave.

B05a. The Wacky Top 40, Bruce Nash and Allan Zullo.

B06. Cook'd and Bomb'd Annual 2012, various.

B06a. Illywhacker, Peter Carey.

B06b. The Penguin John Lennon, John Lennon.

B07. The Thick of It: The Missing DoSAC Files, A Iannucci, J Armstrong, I Martin, S Blackwell, T Roche.

B08. True History of the Kelly Gang, Peter Carey.

B08a. Monty - His Part in My Victory, Spike Milligan.

B08b. 3 Beers and a Chinese Meal, Helen Razer and Mikey Robins.

B08c. Losing the Light: Terry Gilliam and the Munchausen Saga, Andrew Yule.

B08d. Mussolini - His Part in My Downfall, Spike Milligan.

B08e. Where Have All the Bullets Gone?, Spike Milligan.

B08f. The Wit of Sir Robert Menzies, comp. Ray Robinson.

B09. Larva: Midsummer Night's Babel, Julian Rios (tr. Richard Alan Francis).

B09a. Stranded: The Secret History of Australian Independent Music 1977-1991, Clinton Walker.

B09b. Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, William Blake.

B10. Four Dubliners, Richard Ellmann.

B11. All Souls, Javier Marias.

B12. Matilda, My Darling, Nigel Krauth.

B13. The Specialist, Charles Sale.

B14. Amplified Silence, Stephen Jones.

B15. The Lucy Family Alphabet, Judith Lucy.

B16. Cowra, Teruhiko Asada.

B17. McSweeney's Issue 42.

B18. A Golden Age of Freedom, Rupert Murdoch.

B19. Goodbye Again: Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, ed. William Cook.

B20. Ten Sorry Tales, Mick Jackson.

B21. Brodie's Notes on Patrick White's The Tree of Man, Jean Herd.

B21a. Being There, Jerzy Kosinski.

B22. Bears of England, Mick Jackson.

B23. Scarcely Relevant: Writings from The Scrivener's Fancy, Tony Martin.

B24. The Widow's Tale, Mick Jackson.

B24a. Goodbye Soldier, Spike Milligan.

B24b. Gas Smells Awful: The Mechanics of Being a Nutcase, Helen Razer.

B24c. Peace Work, Spike Milligan.

B25. The True History of the Black Adder, J F Roberts.

B26. Eight and a Half Women, Peter Greenaway.

B27. Plays, Oscar Wilde.

B28. Austen Tayshus: The Merchant of Menace, Ross Fitzgerald and Rick Murphy.

B29. Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi, Bob Woodward.

B30. Come in Spinner, Dymphna Cusack & Florence James.

B31. The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture, Ruth Benedict.

B32. All My Friends Are Still Dead, Avery Monsen and Jory John.

B33. Bad Monkey, Carl Hiaasen.

B34. The Call of the Weird, Louis Theroux.

B34a. A Field Guide to the British, Sarah Lyall.

B35. All My Friends Are Dead, Avery Monsen and Jory John.

B35a. Rainbow Rabbits, Dee Huxley.

B35b. Anno's Three Little Pigs, Mitsumasa Anno and Tuyosi Mori.

B36. Young Kangaroo, Margaret Wise Brown.

B37. Storm Boy, Colin Thiele.

B37a. Now We Are Six, A. A. Milne.

B37b. A Nest of Occasionals, Tony Martin.

B37c. Online Diaries: The Lollapalooza '95 Tour Journals of Beck, Courtney Love, Stephen Malkmus, Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo, Mike Watt, & David Yow.

B38. Let the Credits Roll: Interviews with Film Crew, Barbara Baker.

B38a. Unconquered Countries, Geoff Ryman.

B39. Ninety 9, Vanessa Berry.

B39a. Superman's Song: The Story of Crash Test Dummies, Stephen Ostick.

B40. High-rise, JG Ballard.

B41. Meanjin 2/1986.

B42. Strangers, Taichi Yamada (tr. Wayne P Lammers).

B43. The Instructions, Adam Levin.

B44. Homer and Langley, EL Doctorow.

B44a. Adam's Navel, Stephen Jay Gould.

B44b. The 'If You Prefer a Milder Comedian, Please Ask For One' EP, Stewart Lee.

B44c. Unreliable Memoirs, Clive James.

B44d. Vaughan Oliver: Visceral Pleasures, Rick Poyner.

B45. Saint Hiroshima, Leigh Kennedy.

B46. Crooked, Kristin Hersh.

B47. Norstrilia, Cordwainer Smith [Paul Linebarger].

B48. The Gifts of War, Margaret Drabble.

B49. Sex, Madonna.

B50. The Escape, Adam Thirlwell.

B51. Happy Valley, Patrick White.

B51a. Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas: Not the Screenplay, Terry GIlliam & Tony Grisoni.

B51b. Geoffrey the Tube Train and the Fat Comedian, Alexei Sayle and Oscar Zarate.

B52. The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band who Burned a Million Pounds, John Higgs.

B53. Flood, S. Alexander Reed and Philip Sandifer.

B54. The Living and the Dead, Patrick White.

B55. Life Kills, Miles Vertigan.

B56. Murder in Mississippi: the true story of how I met a white supremacist, befriended his black killer and wrote this book, John Safran.

B57. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman.

MOVIES 2013

M01. Hawking, 2004.

M01a. He Died with a Felafel in his Hand, 2000.

M02. Stephen Merchant: Hello Ladies... Live!, 2011.

M02a. A Cock and Bull Story, 2005.

M02b. DAAS: Dead and Alive, 1993.

M03. Cloud Atlas, 2012.

M04. Django Unchained, 2012.

M05. Hitchcock, 2012.

M05a. Vertical Features Remake, 1978.

M06. Judith Lucy: Nothing Fancy, 2012.

M07. Anna Karenina, 2012.

M07a. Ross Noble: Fizzy Logic, 2006.

M08. Argo, 2012.

M09. The Secret Policeman's Ball [2006] ("The Ball in the Hall"), 2006.

M09a. Finisterre, 2003.

M10. Holy Motors, 2012.

M11. The Impossible, 2012.

M12. Flight, 2012.

M13. Threads, 1984.

M14. Reign of the Fallen, 2006.

M15. The DC3 Supported by ROOT!, 2013.

M16. Silver Linings Playbook, 2012.

M16a. The Bed Sitting Room, 1969.

M17. Song of the South, 1946.

M18. Derek and Clive Get the Horn, 1979.

M19. Deconstructing Dad, 2012.

M20. Like Someone in Love, 2012.

M21. Felicity, 1978.

M22. First Position, 2011.

M23. The League of Gentlemen: Live at Drury Lane, 2001.

M23a. Not Only But Always, 2004.

M23b. Les Patterson Saves the World, 1987.

M23c. TISM: A Film by Antonionioni (aka Save Our TISM), 2004.

M24. Barry McKenzie Holds His Own, 1974.

M25. 陽炎座 (Kagerou-za), 1981.

M26. The Edinburgh Years, 1990.

M27. So Wrong They're Right, 1995.

M28. Patrick, 1978.

M28a. Shaun of the Dead, 2004.

M29. The Look of Love, 2013.

M29a. District 9, 2009.

M30. Steve Coogan as Alan Partridge and Other Less Successful Characters, 2009.

M31. Jerry Springer: the Opera, 2005.

M31a. Band à part ("The Outsiders"), 1964.

M32. (Lenny Henry in) So Much Things to Say..., 2004.

M33. 時をかける少女 ("The Girl Who Leapt Through Time"), 2006.

M34. おくりびと ("Departures"), 2008.

M35. 田園に死す ("Pastoral: To Die in the Country"), 1974.

M36. 3X3D, 2013.

M36a. Tideland, 2005.

M36b. Drowning by Numbers, 1988.

M37. The World's End, 2013.

M38. 김동무는 하늘을 난다 ("Comrade Kim Goes Flying"), 2012.

M38a. Les Amants du Pont-Neuf ("Lovers on the Bridge"), 1991.

M39. După dealuri ("Beyond the Hills"), 2012.

M40. Stewart Lee: Carpet Remnant World, 2012.

M40a. Stewart Lee: Stand Up Comedian, 2005.

M41. Elysium, 2013.

M41a. TISM: Gold! Gold!! Gold!!!, 1998.

M42. Siesta, 1987.

M43. Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, 2011.

M43a. Prospero's Books, 1991.

M44. Sir Henry at Rawlinson End, 1980.

M45. L'écume des jours ("Mood Indigo"), 2013.

M46. The Misadventures of Margaret, 1998.

M47. The Tundra Book, 2011.

M48. ALWAYS 三丁目の夕日 '64 ("ALWAYS -Sunset on Third Street- 3"), 2012.

M48a. An Angel at my Table, 1990.

M48b. Bob Roberts, 1992.

M49. Shell, 2012.

M49a. Jabberwocky, 1977.

M50. The Sunnyboy, 2013.

M51. Creation, 2009.

M51a. The Baby of Macon, 1993.

M51b. The Pillow Book, 1995.

M51c. 8½ Women, 1999.

M52. 座頭市物語 ("The Life and Times of Ichi the Masseur"), 1962.

M53. 桐島、部活やめるってよ ("The Kirishima Thing"), 2012.

M54. Бумажный солдат ("Paper Soldier"), 2008.

M55. しとやかな獣 ("Elegant Beast"), 1962.

M56. 舟を編む ("The Great Passage"), 2013.

M57. 手をつなぐ子等 ("Children Hand in Hand"), 1947.

M58. Kill Your Darlings, 2013.

M59. On the Beach, 1959.

M59a. MEMORIES, 1995.

M59b. Four Lions, 2010.

M60. Scumbus, 201?.

M61. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, 2013.

M62. Astérix et Obélix contre Caesar, ("Asterix and Obelix Vs. Caesar"), 1999.