Sportspanda presents a brief overview of noteworthy musical releases from the year that was 2008. It’s a podcast! Featuring The Chap [thechap.org] / Zoot Woman [zootwoman.com] / Junior Senior [myspace.com/juniorsenior] / Cut Copy [cutcopy.net] / XX Teens [myspace.com/xxteens] / My Bloody Valentine [mybloodyvalentine.co.uk] / Let’s Wrestle [myspace.com/letsfuckingwrestle] / The Wedding Present [scopitones.co.uk]. Those that didn’t make the cut but were pretty top too include Foals, These New Puritans, Eagles of Death Metal, Santogold, Maybe It’s Reno, The Ting-Tings, N.E.R.D., The Notwist, Friendly Fires, The Breeders and Ladyhawke.

[Download MP3]

Like Music a couple of years before hand, the act of watching films became kinda fragmented this year. It was hard to know what you were meant to be looking at with cinemas, dvds (bought or rentals delivered straight to your door), online media layers (such as iPlayer [bbc.co.uk/iplayer] — every country should have one — and Criterion’s new website [criterion.com]) and a whole cacophony of formats to download all vying for our attentions. Knowing what to watch and where became a science in itself, so we enlisted the help of friends and friendly critics to guide us through the cine mire like the Little White Lies reviewers, with their 3-teired reviews system [littlewhitelies.co.uk/reviews] or dyed-in-the-wool cinegeeks like Mark Kermode [bbc.co.uk/fivelive].
 
Mainstream cinema started loosing out, just as the record industry had before it, to people with minds of their own making choices outside the narrow margins of the over-marketed Hollywood bilge spewing forth from the multiplexes. Cinema became more and more about personal journeys and sharing these with yer mates. I delved into the realm of narrated documentaries about London. The film I got most excited about in 2008 was Patrick Keiller’s London [iMDB].
 
I always find the ‘funest’ thing about watching any mainstream Hollywood film is in etching out it’s sociological subtext. What with Hollywood spending less on innovation and seeming to lock down cinema distribution even more this year, America’s core propaganda machine (cause most Hollywood film are essentially propagating American’s narrow world view) only helped highlight the slow crappy death throws of the last of the ’super powers’ — a term the country invented and then gave it to themselves to let everyone know that’s what they were (note past tense).
 
Anyhoo, subtext and blatant anti-mainstream Americanism aside Fantasy was huge this year. Gone were the bleak dystopian visions of previous years (V for Vendetta, Children of Men etc) in favour of grander, glitzier and altogether more ‘jolly’ vistas… stand up Wall•E and Nunu’s The Day the Earth Stood Still. 2008 saw the preview of a new type of British film too that followed similar themes involving grand dystopian fantasies although in a completely unique way. If Franklyn isn’t the film mainstream cinema-goers are flocking to see when it’s finally released this year, then that’ll be your proof something seriously rotten going on with cinema distribution in the UK.
 
And now, in an effort to keep the waffle to a minimum – oops too late, here is the list…

Franklyn [YouTube]
— The time for British film to step out of the shadows of it’s American counterparts is long gone but Franklyn is a exception to the rule. It may be mimicking Hollywood’s love of CGI heavy fantastic fantasy pieces but it’s a film imbued with enough appropriate style, intelligence and complexity to stand out from it’s peers. Plus it’s great to see the gritty and gothic old London town that tourist flock to see turned up to eleven.

Other films I caught this year that I’d like recommend to you and yours include: No Country for Old Men — Natch / Jar City — Wierdy beardy Icelandic policeman eats whole sheeps heads. Eewwe! / Happy-go-Lucky — She’s mostly annoyingly happy but her driving instructor is decidedly not. Nice companion piece to… / Naked — Re-released on DVD this year. Must see Mike Leigh. Warning: It will make you feel bad / The Diving Bell & The Butterfly — Not for the weak willed – not even my usual fare – but rewarding nonetheless / The Children — Everyone loves evil children don’t they? Especially when Mum and Dad are sad sack Waitrose-a-holics. But they can’t help it. They’re ill. / Phase IV — Saul Bass’s 1970s foray into ant-based science fiction. Just. Plain. Weird.

It may seem like hard work to see past an end-of-year mired in so much doom and gloom (I’m hoping that it’s an exclusively UK view of the last weeks of 2008 but I don’t know) so there’s no better reason to launch a review of the last 12 months of cultural life on this weird little planet to remind us that good things happened too… or at least we still managed to find things we were happy to distract ourselves with. Over the next few weeks I’ll be attempting to knock into shape so highlights from the realms of Cinema, TeeVee, Music, Reading Matter, Graphic Design and Stuff. So consider the Linefeed 2008 Survey underway. More here real soon…