MY FAVORITES OF 2021
January 5, 2022 – 6:02 am
Fifty years ago today, Beatle George told us that All Things Must Pass. Then he told us about Living in the Material World. For 36 years, BigO has been trying to keep the spirit and history of the music alive. Before all things pass, we still need your help to live in this material world. You can help us to do this with a kind donation. Please give what you are happy to give…
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By Joshua Frank.
I’m really not a big fan of these “best of” lists, but of all the new arts entertainment (or edutainment as KRS-One would say) I consumed this past year, here’s what helped me most in wading through the muddied waters of 2021.
FILMS
Power of the Dog, written and directed by Jane Campion.
C’mon C’mon, written and directed by Mike Mills.
Summer Of Soul (…Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised), directed by Quest Love.
Petite Maman, directed by Céline Sciamma.
Judas and the Black Messiah, directed by Shaka King, written by Will Berson, Shaka King, Kenny Lucas, and Keith Lucas.
Val, directed by Ting Poo, Leo Scott.
North Hollywood, written and directed by Mickey Alfred.
The Alpinist, directed by Peter Mortimer.
TELEVISION/SERIES
Reservation Dogs, directed by Sydney Freeland and Sterlin Harjo, written by Sterlin Harjo, Taika Waititi, Bobby Wilson, Dallas Goldtooth.
Mare of Easttown, directed by Craig Zobel.
1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything, directed by Asif Kapadia.
Genera+ion, created by Zelda Barnz & Daniel Barnz.
The White Lotus, directed and written by Mike White.
The Beatles: Get Back, directed by Peter Jackson.
MUSIC
Hand Habits, Fun House (Saddle Creek).
Dean Wareham, I Have Nothing to Say to the Mayor of LA (Double Feature Records).
La Luz, La Luz (Hardly Art).
Tyler, the Creator, Call Me If You Get Lost (Columbia).
Bachelor, Doomin’ Sun (Polyvinyl).
Mapache, 3 (Innovative Leasure).
Whitney K, Two Years (Maple Death Records).
BOOKS
Not a Nation of Immigrants: Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and a History of Erasure and Exclusion by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (Beacon Press)
Click here
Palestine: A Socialist Introduction, edited by Sumaya Awad & Brian Bean (Haymarket Books)
Click here
The Last Man Takes LSD: Foucault and the End of Revolution, by Mitchell Dean & Daniel Zamora (Verso)
Click here
A People’s History of Europe: From World War I to Today, by Raquel Varela (Pluto Press)
Click here
The Border Crossed Us, by Justin Akers Chacón (Haymarket Books)
Click here
Checkpoint Zipolite: Quarantine in a Small Place, Belén Fernández, (OR Books)
Click here
Note: Joshua Frank is managing editor of CounterPunch. His most recent book, co-authored with Jeffrey St. Clair, is Big Heat: Earth on the Brink. Email him here. You can troll him on Twitter @joshua_frank.
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