Happy new year and welcome to 2014. On a personal level 2013 was wonderful: Bridie and I got married in San Francisco and travelled up the coast to Vancouver, which was truly wonderful, absolutely perfect.
Artistically it was a hopeless year spent waiting for other people to do things. I felt like I could move neither forwards nor sideways. My own fault too, for getting in that situation. And why couldn’t I get on with something else in the meantime? Anyway, lessons learned and mercifully the Spearmint album is now ready to go and will be released on 12th May.

It is a bit different to previous efforts (‘sounds the same to me’ you will probably say). And we will do a couple of gigs around that time too. More details soon.

Here, about a year later than planned are our favourite films of 2012. 2013 will follow in a week or two once we have managed to catch ‘The Great Beauty’, which is proving strangely elusive for us, the moral being ‘go and see it at the time’. As ever this is a joint list, so some of mine are lower than they would be, and some of Bridie’s are higher than they would be!
‘Margaret’ really sneaked up on both of us, staying with us long after watching. I think it’s a bit of a classic that’s been missed by a lot of people. It’s so ambitious in a quiet way with wonderful cinematography of New York and fabulous use of music (the thing I notice most in a film). It’s admirably ‘not straightforward’… there must be a word for that… what is the opposite of a synonym? An antonym. So what is an antonym for straightforward? Complex? Difficult? Indirect? None of these are quite right. What I mean is that, like in life, sometimes random things happen which then determine the path your life takes – it’s not that things are complicated, they are linear, but just not straightforward. I can understand why you might not like this film, and it is quite upsetting, but we loved it. I think it had been in the can for a few years, and preceded Paquin’s stint in True Blood.
Looking back at this list now, I wonder why the Woody documentary, American Mary and Haywire ended up so low, as I remember them fondly. I remember the year at the cinema as one of being constantly confronted with close-ups of Apple laptops – do people really have to take that money? Presumably this is starting to recede now… I also remember 2012 being a year of Rodriguez: first the albums, then the movie, then the live show.

1 Margaret
2 Marina Abromavic The Artist Is Present
3 The Master
4 Amour
5 Frankenweenie
6 Holy Motors
7 Searching For Sugarman
8 Take This Waltz
9 Moneyball
10 Sightseers
11 Looper
12 Sound Of My Voice
13 Moonrise Kingdom
14 The Grey
15 Martha Marcy May Marlene
16 God Bless America
17 The Hunger Games
18 Dark Shadows
19 Cabin In The Woods
20 Magic Mike
21 Cafe De Flore
22 The Muppets
23 Beasts Of The Southern Wild
24 The Pact
25 Young Adult
26 Shame
27 Berberian Sound Studio
28 The Hunter
29 About Elly
30 Margin Call
31 The Descendents
32 Silver Linings Playbook
33 Hit So Hard
34 Lovely Molly
35 The Raid
36 Once Upon A Time In Anatolia
37 Woman In Black
38 Argo
39 Cosmopolis
40 Life Of Pi
41 War Horse
42 21 Jump Street
43 Ruby Sparks
44 Gregory Crewdson Brief Encounters
45 Sing Your Song
46 If A Tree Falls – The Earth Defence League Story
47 Killer Joe
48 Twilight Breaking Dawn 2
49 Jason Becker Not Dead Yet
50 The Inn Keepers
51 Chronicle
52 Ted
53 Big Miracle
54 Woody Allen: A Documentary
55 Kid With A Bike
56 The Imposter
57 The Dark Knight Rises
58 Tiny Furniture
59 American Mary
60 Skyfall
61 Jack Reacher
62 Your Sister’s Sister
63 Into The Abyss
64 Snowtown
65 Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World
66 Carnage
67 Damsels in Distress
68 Boy
69 Five Year Engagement
70 This Must Be The Place
71 The Woman In The Fifth
72 Now Is Good
73 Paranorman
74 Sinister
75 To Rome With Love
76 The Vow
77 The Island President
78 Red Dog
79 Haywire
80 Queen Of Versailles
81 Pitch Perfect
82 House AT The End Of The Street
83 Tabloid
84 Madagascar 3
85 Dark Horse
86 Forks Over Knives
87 Detention
88 Like Crazy
89 Gone
90 Rock Of Ages
91 Hope Springs
92 Headhunters
93 We Bought A Zoo
94 Marley
95 2 days In New York
96 Safety Not Guaranteed
97 Cane Toads The Conquest
98 Red Lights
99 Rampart
100 Les Giants