From The Tale of Silyan:
From “Cold at Night” by the Mountain Goats:
On the third day, you said you felt sick
I could hear the clock tick
Well, the first thing you learn is that there’s always a clock ticking somewhere
(The first thing you learn is that there’s always a clock ticking somewhere)
And the next thing you learn is how cold it can get at night
Previous “Juxtaposition” posts can be found here.
Like always I’m going to wait until Oscar night to post my Movie Year 2025 “top ten” (it usually actually includes 11-15 titles) list to give critically-acclaimed films like Father Mother Sister Brother and No Other Choice time to make it to Ithaca before I make my selections, but as has also become traditional, I’m happy to share my 2025: The Mixtape, Vol. 2 Spotify playlist in the meantime! Just as Vol. 1 highlights the music I listed to the most between January-June, these are the songs that sustained me throughout the past six months:
1. Lia Ouyang Rusli – Happyend Theme (Opening)
Rusli has acknowledged that the late Ryuichi Sakamoto, whose “andata” led off my 2017: The Mixtape, Vol. 1 playlist, was an influence on her terrific score for Happyend, and when I discovered that its theme was split into “Opening” and “Closing” tracks, I knew I had my bookends!
2. Bruiser Wolf feat. Harry Fraud – Heart Broke
The wordplay isn’t exactly kid-friendly, but references to crème brûlée, Chevrolet, and Lamar Jackson make this track something of a family inside joke.
3. Amanda Shires – Maybe I
The first time she heard this, my youngest (who is more of a hard rock kind of gal) told me to turn it off . . . until Amanda Shires started singing, which caused her to immediately change her mind.
4. The Mountain Goats – Cold at Night
There truly is “always a clock ticking somewhere.”
5. David Byrne w/ Ghost Train Orchestra – My Apartment Is My Friend
An anthem for all us homebodies.
6. U.S. Girls – The Clearing
The first track added to this mix and still one of the best!
7. Kelly Moran – Chrysalis
Reminds me of a reworking of the Tord Gustavsen Trio’s “The Longing,” which I included on my 2022: The Mixtape, Vol. 1 playlist.
8. HUNTR/X – Golden
If you don’t have kids the correct age in your life, I doubt you realize just how much of a phenomenon KPop Demon Hunters was with the elementary school set.
9. Doja Cat – AAAH MEN!
I was born in 1981, so yeah: that sample works on me!
10. Jonny Greenwood – Perfidia Beverly Hills
The best track from maybe my favorite movie score of the year.
11. Tyler Childers – Bitin’ List
As I tweeted in July, this song “is *begging* to be used in a movie, maybe over an opening credits montage depicting our hero driving around with their arm hanging out the open window of a pickup truck?”
12. Lola Kirke, Peter Dreimanis, Brian Dunphy, Darren Holden and Jack O’Connell – Will Ye Go, Lassie Go?
It seems perverse to choose a non-blues song from the Sinners soundtrack, but this is a stunning rendition of a classic.
13. Jonathan Richman – David & Goliath
Another one by an old guy who’s still got it!
14. Jordan Seigel – After Hours
In which one major influence on The Baltimorons is acknowledged by the title of a track that sounds like an outtake from the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s score for another.
15. ROSALÍA feat. Dougie F – Porcelana
Perhaps the most cinematic track on this mix, including all the ones from actual movies.
16. Alex G – June Guitar
It was once summer and will be again before we know it!
17. Aiyana-Lee – Highest 2 Lowest
My pick for the Best Original Song Oscar.
18. Brian Dunne – Fake Version Of The Real Thing
“Born with a sword made of Bethlehem steel” might be my favorite lyric of the year.
19. STOMACH BOOK – FUKOUNA GIRL
Full disclosure: I had to look this reference up . . .
20. Kathleen Edwards – Need A Ride
. . . but “people get worked up about someone’s dad/trying to teach his kid how to open a can” I got completely on my own!
21. David Fleming – Vito
Great theme from an underrated movie!
22. Neko Case – Destination
The latest from a charter member of my mixtape hall of fame.
23. Lia Ouyang Rusli – Happyend Theme (Closing)
See above.
* * *
In August I was moved to compose my first “All-Time Top Ten Favorite Movies” list in more than a decade when I suddenly realized picking one film per decade for the 1910s-2010s minus the 80s gave me something that looked more or less correct. I guess whatever neurons are involved in such an exercise just needed a wake-up call, because they were firing again less than a week later when I found myself wondering if I should switch Stalker out for The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes. Believe it or not people actually do ask me for these titles, including as recently as just a week ago, so I’ve decided to update it annually as part of this post. Which as you will see below has re-liberated me from the overly proscriptive model trap, so: hurrah! In alphabetical order:
First runner-up this time around was probably The Long Day Closes, but obviously the films I had to leave off to make room for the two newcomers were close too, as were All That Heaven Allows, Citizen Kane, The Searchers, and Kiki’s Delivery Service. I’m looking forward to seeing how this list continues to evolve now that I’m revisiting it on the regular!
* * *
As I said at the conclusion of my final “Drink & a Movie” post, I’m going alcohol-free for the duration of 2026, which makes further resolutions seem a bit superfluous. I do have a couple of goals for this blog, though, that I mention there as well. One is to edit that series into a self-published book. Another is to “keep up my pace of one illustrated longform post about movies per month on average.” The key word here for me is actually “illustrated,” not “longform,” since what I’m specifically hoping to preserve is being greeted with lots of screengrabs from my favorite films whenever I scroll through the landing page, but it will likely amount to about the same thing. I’m also going to try to be less of a MOVIE snob and watch a few TV series with My Loving Wife. Last but not least I intend to make a point of being less stingy with likes and comments to let everyone I enjoy reading know I appreciate them. So that’s what I’ve got going on. Thanks for stopping by, and Happy New Year!
Links to previous mixes I’ve posted about can be found here. Previous top ten lists can be found here.
From Burial Path:
From “I Saw Another Bird” by Mount Eerie:
I can’t remember having crossed a threshold
Between the dust and the alive
So when a raven starts a convеrsation
I just stand there and blank out
But I’m wrong!Therе is another world inside this one
It shines:
These birds trying for my attention
And my wordless reply
Previous “Juxtaposition” posts can be found here.
I was worried that I wasn’t going to have enough material for my 2025: The Mixtape, Vol. 1 Spotify mix before the end of June as recently as just a few weeks ago, but then: bam! Ringo Starr’s latest album Look Up hit me the right way on a third listen, I liked Hayden Pedigo’s I’ll Be Waving as You Drive Away and Alexandre Desplat’s score for The Phoenician Scheme right from the start, and the end credits for The Life of Chuck were set to a creative interpretation of maybe my favorite song ever by Gregory Alan Isakov. Problem solved! Here, then, is an annotated track listing:
1. Nels Cline – Inner Wall
Has a similar ominous vibe to the track “Accident” from Justin Hurwitz’s score for Whiplash, which appears in a scene that isn’t a bad metaphor for what the first half of 2025 felt like at times.
2. Car Seat Headrest – The Catastrophe (Good Luck With That, Man)
A new one by an old favorite.
3. billy woods feat. Preservation – Waterproof Mascara
As I recently said on Bluesky and X, this song is my favorite horror film of Movie Year 2025 so far.
4. Morgan Wallen feat. Post Malone – I Ain’t Comin’ Back
In which Morgan Wallen and Post Malone finally resolve the question of whether or not they are Jesus. Someone needs to introduce these boys to Compass Box’s The Peat Monster!
5. Lucy Dacus – Ankles
Phantom Thread, The Musical.
6. Aesop Rock – Snail Zero
A description of what a breeding pair of black mollies are doing to my fish tank at home right now.
7. Alexandre Desplat – The Jungle Unit of the Intercontinental Radical Freedom Militia Corps
From my favorite original score of Movie Year 2025 so far.
8. These New Puritans – Bells
The songs on this particular mix skew shorter for some reason, so this is a welcome exception.
9. Alan Sparhawke w/ Trampled by Turtles – Stranger
Or: The Blogger’s Dilemma.
10. Takuro Okada – Taco Beach
And if the world does turn, and if London burns/I’ll be standing on the beach with my jazz guitar.
11. Lady Gaga – How Bad Do U Want Me
When I played this for My Loving Wife recently, she said it sounded like the opening credits song from an 80s movie.
12. Ringo Starr feat. Billy Strings – Breathless
Not a film reference . . . or is it?
13. Beirut – Garbo’s Face
Elegantly wistful, like the title says.
14. Tobacco City – Autumn
Features some of the year’s most evocative songwriting: “Jimmy and his niece/Scrambled eggs and country ham/Runnin’ from police/Drink the cream for free with Valerie”
15. Bonnie Prince Billy – Boise, Idaho
The first song to earn a spot on this mix, and still one of my favorites.
16. Salem 66 – Across the Sea
Okay, fine, this isn’t technically “new music.” But it’s new to me and I dig it!
17. Julien Baker & Torres – “Tape Runs Out”
Probably the most predictable selection on this mix?
18. Hayden Pedigo – I’ll Be Waving As You Drive Away
Not all goodbyes need be sorrowful!
19. Sharp Pins – I Can’t Stop
As Pitchfork‘s Shaad D’Souza wrote, “it’s likely to remind you of whatever music felt most romantic to you when you were growing up.”
20. Patterson Hood – Last Hope
Springsteen-esque.
21. Gregory Alan Isakov – The Parting Glass
I discovered “The Parting Glass” through Shaun Davey’s score for Waking Ned Devine and it was fun to encounter it again in a different movie. Isakov’s version is as understated as that one is grand
Links to previous mixes I’ve posted about can be found here.
I’m going to wait until closer to Oscar night like I always do to pick my ten favorite movies of the year, since many of the top contenders (including The Brutalist, Hard Truths, and Nickel Boys) haven’t made it to Ithaca yet. I am, however, happy to usher in 2025 by sharing my 2024: The Mixtape, Vol. 2 Spotify playlist and new year’s resolutions for the blog! As usual, the songs which made it on the former shouldn’t *necessarily* be regarded as my choices for the “best” new music that has been released since I published Vol. 1 in June, but this is what I’ve been listing to on heavy rotation, so there’s a lot of overlap with any such list I might make. Here’s the track listing:
The mix begins and ends with songs from the soundtrack for Twisters, which I still think is the year’s best, and I’m using them to try to set up a rough double narrative: tracks 1-10 have an otherworldly The Wizard of Oz/The Man Who Fell to Earth vibe, while tracks 11-20 chart a path from disillusionment and anger to acceptance and determination.
As far as new year’s resolutions go, my ones for 2025 are pretty straightforward. If I publish thirteen Drink & a Movie posts over the upcoming twelve months like I’m planning to, I’ll be just one away from my ultimate goal of 54, so that’s my top priority. I’d also like to figure out a long-overdue social media strategy of some sort which preserves my desire to not spend too much time online, but exposes me to content from the people I want to follow who have migrated from X to Bluesky, Threads, and other platforms. On the personal front I’m boringly going to try to run more, drink less, and not fiddle so much with my fantasy football team. In other words, I’m fortunate enough to be in a pretty good spot in my life right now and am hoping to keep on keeping on!
Thanks for reading, and Happy New Year!
Links to previous mixes I’ve posted about can be found here.
From The Mother and the Whore:
From “Brick” by Ben Folds Five:
Driving back to her apartment
For the moment, we’re alone
Yeah, she’s alone, and I’m alone
And now I know it
Previous “Juxtaposition” posts can be found here.
Although about a week remains in the first six months of 2024, I’ve already found 80 minutes worth of new music that I like enough to finalize my 2024: The Mixtape, Vol. 1 Spotify mix. Here’s the track listing with brief notes on why I picked each of these songs:
1. Vampire Weekend – “Connect“
As I mentioned on X a couple of months ago, this song reminds me of Michel Legrand’s score for my February Drink & a Movie selection The Young Girls of Rochefort.
2. Future Islands – “Give Me the Ghost Back“
Baltimore 4 life!
3. Beyoncé – “TEXAS HOLD’EM”
Automatic addition to my 54 (it include two “jokers”) track poker mix, so how could I leave it off this one?
4. Lyrical Lemonade feat. Juice WRLD and Cordae – “Doomsday”
5. A.G. Cook – “Britpop”
I’m a child of the 90s, what can I say?
6. Norah Jones – “Staring at the Wall”
This songs sounds like something you might hear at the Roadhouse!
7. Elyanna – “Ganeni”
Something with a beat you can dance to.
8. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross – “Yeah x10”
From the original score for Challengers, the clubhouse leader for my favorite sports film of Movie Year 2024.
9. Iron & Wine feat. Fiona Apple – “All in Good Time”
A song for the middle aged.
10. Myriam Gendron feat. Zoh Amba – “Berceuse”
Brechtian distancing works best when you want to be swept away!
11. Pissed Jeans – “Everywhere Is Bad”
12. Bladee feat. Yung Lean – “I DON’T LIKE PEOPLE”
Because it’s an election year.
13. Chappell Roan – “Good Luck, Babe!”
This one reminds me of the movie Aftersun.
14. Sloppy Jane feat. Phoebe Bridgers – “Claw Machine”
I have no idea what the eligibility requirements are for the Best Original Song Oscar, but if this one can win an award for I Saw the TV Glow, I’ll be rooting for it.
15. The Decemberists – “Don’t Go to the Woods”
16. Eiko Ishibashi – “Evil Does Not Exist”
Those of you who have seen Evil Does Not Exist: see what I did there?
17. Kelly Moran – “Butterfly Phase”
I think of this as the end to a song cycle which begins with track 13 and ends with this one–it’s something like the story of “Little Red Riding Hood.”
18. Cloud Nothings – “Final Summer”
Cloud Nothings might be my favorite band, because I’m in awe of the way they keep reinventing themselves without ever losing touch with who they are. . . .
19. Waxahathcee – “365”
. . . but this is my favorite song of the year so far.
20. Heems feat. Lapgan – “Bukayo Saka”
Name drops Slavoj Žižek and the Mahabarata and includes multiple food references. Yes please!
21. Shaboozey – “Highway”
22. Kacey Musgraves – “Cardinal”
I was worried that this mix didn’t have a proper ending, but I think these two songs together do just fine, yeah?
Links to previous mixes I’ve posted about can be found here.
Happy Mother’s Day to all who celebrate! As children of the 80s and 90s, mixtapes played a prominent role in my courtship of My Loving Wife Marion. Or rather, mix CDs did. One of the first ones I gave her included the song “Under the Milky Way Tonight” by the Church as track nine. We later chose it for our first dance at our wedding, which took place on August 9. I’ve made it the ninth track on every mix I’ve given her since then, which I try to do at least once a year, usually on Mother’s Day or her birthday. With her permission I’m posting the track listing for the one she received this weekend, since it’s more indebted to the movies than usual. Although: films are often are the way I discover new old music these days and the mix I made her last year was heavily influenced by movies as well, so maybe this is the continuation of a trend? Anyway, the other convention I honor is limiting the mix to just 80 minutes worth of music, since that was the length of the CD-Rs that got this tradition started. Without further ado, here’s what is included on Marion’s 2024 Mother’s Day mix along with notes about the films that inspired each selection:
Enjoy!
Links to previous mixes I’ve posted about can be found here.
As longtime readers of this blog know, I stubbornly insist on waiting until Oscar night to write about my favorite films of the Movie Year (as I call it) since I haven’t had an opportunity to see critically-acclaimed titles like The Zone of Interest and The Taste of Things that haven’t opened in Ithaca yet, but will before March 10. I am, however, happy to announce the track listing for my 2023: The Mixtape, Vol. 2 Spotify playlist:
You know it has been a good six months in music when a new Mountain Goats album comes out and nothing from it makes the cut! I’m not sure I have a ton else to say about this batch of songs, though, except that I like them. I attended college in Pittsburgh from 2000-2004 and have memories of listening to Yourself or Someone Like You on overnight bus trips over the holidays, so it’s maybe a bit more backwards-looking than usual? The “Losing My Religion” cover and presence of a Beatles song would support this reading as well, but there’s also plenty pushing against it–Lankum and Sofia Kourtesis are both new discoveries for me from this past year, for instance, and Park Doing is an Ithaca-based musician. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this mix as much as I do! Links to previous bi-annual mixes can be found here.
* * *
In other news, the publication of my January Drink & a Movie post saw that series reach its halfway point. As I have mentioned previously, I’m thinking of this project as gradually constructing a year-long weekly film series: my idea is that once I’ve written about 53 movies, I can self-publish a book with an introduction that people can use to make themselves a seasonally-appropriate cocktail and settle in with a good film every Friday night. At the risk of sounding immodest (and maybe delusional if you disagree), I’m pretty happy with how they’ve been turning out lately! More importantly, I’m learning a lot about what exactly I value in movies and enjoying collaborating with My Loving Wife (who has been killing it on the photography front all year) on a creative endeavor. A full list of the 27 entries we’ve completed so far can be found here. I’m still behind schedule because of the holidays, so it might be awhile before things start going up on the first of the month again, but I’ve got a “bonus” post planned for February 2.
Cheers!
We aren’t even halfway through June, but I have already discovered enough great new music to finalize part one of my semi-annual celebration of everything I’m listening to! My favorite song of 2023 so far is probably Gary Gunn’s opening theme for A Thousand and One. My cinephilia may also be showing in the inclusion of Róisín Murphy’s “The Universe,” which is here in large part because it reminds me of Triangle of Sadness, and “Testing” by Lonnie Holley, director (with Cyrus Moussavi) of I Snuck Off the Slave Ship. Other highlights include John Cale’s first appearance in this series and new work by regulars The Hold Steady and Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit. But obviously I think *everything* is great! Here’s a full listing of all the tracks included on this Spotify playlist I created:
The Prodigal Cinephile 