Introduction
I don't read enough books. I keep being mistaken for someone who is really well read when in fact I can only think about fifteen books I actually finished this year and most of those were about film. I read two fiction books this year and both were television spin-offs. I'm disappointed with myself because I want to be that person who is able to talk about their favourite authors and genres but anything I can contribute is secondhand knowledge based on reading reviews and interviews. I spend most of my time reading newspapers and magazines.
I know why the paperback shortfall exists. It's because I can be an extraordinarily slow reader. The time I devote to the pursuit on a daily basis is minimal, but also I tend to turn the pages at a snails pace not wanting to miss anything important. This stems to a degree from school when I used to read very quickly and ignored lots of important things I might have needed to know to pass exams. But the final tragic reason is that I have a horrifically low attention span. My mind is darting off in all kinds of directions all the time and I get distracted all too easily. It's for this reason I have a habit of starting personal projects and never finishing them -- there is always something more interesting happening.
It's with this in mind I've quietly realised why film is my art form of choice. I can go and sit in a darkened room with the screen flicker and provided people aren't talking whatever I can concentrate and get through to the end of the experience without interuptions -- I'm basically forced to pay attention, even if the film is bad. But there is also a narrative shorthand to film -- whereas a book will take days to read and so the story will effectively last that long, the incidents of a film are generally reach a satisfying conclusion in two hours. It's from these two realisations that this review of the year sprang. This is a project which I've felt I couldn't abandon. And it was a way for me to finally have a record of a year in my life.
Since the beginning of January I've been keeping a diary of every film, television programme, concert and theatre production I've made a point of seeing. Over the next six days I'll be posting the diary commenting on what I loved or hated and whether it's been time well spent. It's been an audacious task, especially since I've also included hyperlinks to explanatory websites, official and not.
Here is what I watched in 2004.
Before I began I set myself some ground rules which should make sense of what you're about to see. I would only make a note of anything I made a conscious decision to see. I watch the news headlines every day and might catch parts of programmes during meals but they're on a passive basis. Similarly I would only include things which I completed watching. If I didn't see the whole thing it wouldn't go in. Finally dvd extras (including audio commentaries) would generally be left off unless they were a coherent piece of art in their own right. This all undoubtedly stopped the diary from being a complete and true view of the year, but I wanted to reduce the noise and repetition. In the appendix at the end there'll be some notes outlining anything worth noting.
So we start with ...
January
03/01
Dawson's Creek: The Kids Are Alright [6.1/24] [tv, video]
Day and Night [tv, video]
04/01
The Shining [film, video]
05/01
Kes [film, video]
06/01
Lord of the Flies [film, video]
07/01
Drugstore Cowboy [film, video]
09/01
Touching The Void [film, celluloid]
10/01
Britain's Best Sitcoms [tv, broadcast]
11/01
Dawson's Creek: The Song Remains the Same [6.2/24] [tv, video]
12/01
Days That Shook The World: Chernobyl [tv, broadcast]
Cathy Come Home [tv, video]
13/01
Never Mind The Buzzcocks [14.2/10][tv, video]
14/01
1984 [tv, video]
15/01
Big Fish [film celluloid]
16/01
The Alan Clarke Diaries: March of the Grey Men [1/6] [tv, video]
17/01
Live Flesh [film, video]
Urban Soul [tv, video]
Later On ... Nu Soul [music, video]
India Arie Live [music, video]
18/01
Britain's Best Sitcoms: Black Adder [tv, video]
Aimee and Jaguar [film, video]
Marathon Man [film, video]
19/01
Quatermass 2 [film, video]
Rock Family Trees: Prog Rock [tv, broadcast]
20/01
Never Mind The Buzzcocks [14.3/10] [tv, video]
Dante Quartet : Mozart Quartet, K428 [music, live concert]
Dante Quartet : Szymanowski Quartet No. 2 [music, live concert]
Dante Quartet : Brahms Quartet Opus 51, No. 2 [music, live concert]
21/01
The Girl With The Pearl Earring [film, celluloid]
Lost In Translation [film, celluloid]
22/01
Time Shifts: Prog Rock [tv, video]
23/01
Doctor Who: The Creed of the Kromon [53] [audio play, cd]
Winged Migration [film, celluloid]
24/01
The Alan Clarke Diaries: The Lady [2/6] [tv, video]
75 Years Of The BBC [radio, cassette]
Good Food Bites [tv, broadcast]
Martha Meet Frank, Daniel and Laurence [film, DVD]
25/01
Dawson's Creek: 'instant karma! [6.4/24] [tv, video]
Throne of Blood [film, video]
Britain's Best Sitcoms: Fawlty Towers [2/10] [tv, video]
Blackadder Goes Forth: Goodbyee [6/6] [tv, video]
American Splendor [film, celluloid]
26/01
Last Resort [film, video]
Holidays In The Danger Zone: The Stans [1/2] [tv, video]
27/01
Holidays In The Danger Zone: The Stans [2/2] [tv, video]
Holidays in the Axis of Evil [1/2] [tv, video]
Holidays in the Axis of Evil [2/2] [tv, video]
28/01
Cats [musical, video]
29/01
e.r.: Dear Abby [10.3/22] [tv, video]
The Young Visiters [tv, video]
30/01
The Alan Clarke Diaries: Foreign Parts [3/6] [tv, video]
Garth Marenghi's Darkplace [1/6] [tv, video]
31/01
Final Demand [1/2] [tv, video]
I'm Dreaming of a TV Christmas [tv, video]
Dawson's Creek: The Imposters [6.5/24] [tv, video]
The Hour of the Wolf [film, video]
[Big Fish looks like a forgotten film -- which is a shame because time and again it offered magic. Cathy Come Home is still a devastating film all these years later, perhaps because although the social problems it examines have changed slightly, the human consequences have not. I'm still in two minds about Touching The Void -- it's undoubtedly a brilliantly made film, but I couldn't quite forget that this was life being needlessly put at risk -- they didn't need to be there. It's intriguing to consider that Scarlett Johannson is still one of the faces of the year even though the two films she's really known for appeared in January -- it doesn't take much to leave a long impression. On television, I'd forgotten about Garth Marenghi's Darkplace and seemed to at the time because unfortunately this was the only episode I saw. I was working my way through a backlog of Holidays In The Danger Zone at the time as well as new seasons of e.r. and Dawson's Creek. What were you watching?]
February
01/02
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind [film, dvd]
On The Waterfront [film, video]
Hard Eight [film, video]
02/02
Stealing Beauty [tv, broadcast]
03/02
Stephen Hough: Liszt and Hummel [music, live concert]
04/02
Pet Shop Boys: It Couldn't Happen Here [tv, video]
A Mighty Wind [film, celluloid]
05/02
Ten Minutes Older: The Cello [film, celluloid]
e.r.: Shifts Happen [10.4/22] [tv, video]
06/02
The Alan Clarke Diaries: Defence of the Realm [4/6] [tv, video]
Sea of Souls [1.1/2] [tv, video]
Sea of Souls [1.2/2] [tv, video]
Friends: The One After Joey and Rachel Kiss [10.1/18] [tv, broadcast]
08/02
Angels in America [1/2] [tv, video]
09/02
Angels in America [2/2] [tv, video]
10/02
School of Rock [film, celluloid]
The Runaway Jury [film, celluloid]
Love Actually [film, celluloid]
Time Shift: Hard Drive Heaven [tv, video]
Trigger Happy: The Irresistible Rise Of The Video Game [tv, broadcast]
Tetris: From Russia With Love [tv, broadcast]
11/02
Sea of Souls [2.1/2] [tv, video]
e.r.: Out of Africa [10.5/22] [tv, video]
12/02
Sea of Souls [2.2/2] [tv, video]
The Dreamers [film, celluloid]
13/02
Bertolucci Makes The Dreamers [tv, video]
Run Lola Run [film, DVD]
Friends: The One Were Ross Is Fine [10.2/18] [tv, broadcast]
14/02
Dawson's Creek: Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell [6.7/24] [tv, video]
Apocalypse Now Redux [film, dvd]
15/02
Jonathan Creek: The Seer of the Sands [5.1/3] [tv, video]
The Alan Clarke Diaries: Into The Wilderness [5/6] [tv, video]
Être et Avoir [film, video]
The Orange Bafta Film Awards 2004 [tv, broadcast]
16/02
Time Team: The Big Dig
The Man Without A Past [film, video]
Never Mind The Buzzcocks [14.5/10][tv, broadcast]
17/02
Kandahar [film, video]
Belleville Rendez-Vous [film, video]
18/02
BBC Four World Cinema Awards 2004 [tv, video]
Le Regle Du Jeu [film, dvd]
19/02
e.r.: The Greater Good [10.6/22] [tv, video]
Scene by Scene: Le Regle Du Jeu [tv, dvd]
The Alan Clarke Diaries: Leaving Home [6/6] [tv, broadcast]
20/02
Friends: The One with Ross's Fake Tan [10.3/18] [tv, broadcast]
Sex and the City: The Cold War [6.17/20] [tv, broadcast]
21/02
Take Care of My Cat [film, video]
Sea of Souls [3.1/2] [tv, video]
Sea of Souls [3.2/2] [tv, video]
Jonathan Creek: The Chequered Box [5.2/3] [tv, broadcast]
22/02
Head Over Heals [film, video]
Amores Perros [film, video]
Fail Safe [tv, dvd]
Brief Encounter [film, dvd]
23/02
Battlestar Galactica [tv, video]
Never Mind The Buzzcocks [14.6/10][tv, video]
24/02
Hustle [1/6] [tv, video]
25/02
Three Sisters [theatre, video]
26/02
On An Average Day [theatre, video]
27/02
Friends: The One With The Cake [10.4/18] [tv, broadcast]
28/02
e.r.: Death and Taxes [10.7/22] [tv, video]
House of Sand and Fog [film, celluloid]
Bring It On [film, dvd]
29/02
Jonathan Creek: Gorgon's Wood [5.3/3] [tv, video]
Platoon [film, dvd]
We Were Soldiers [film, dvd]
Saving Private Ryan [film, dvd]
[Sea of Souls billed itself as a British X-Files and although it was intriguing in patches, overall it felt a little tired, presumably because Mulder and Scully had taken their flashlights there first. Much better was Hustle which managed to be entertaining in the right places without that feeling of a need to try and say anything important which ruins similar shows. The Alan Clarke Diaries completed its run without a misstep and I managed to sit through all six hours of Angels In America feeling as long as everyone of its 360 minutes. It was a busy time at the cinema with the excellent A Mighty Wind, School of Rock and The Runaway Jury (and Love Actually spoiling it for everybody). I just want to point out two entries, for Bertolluci's The Dreamers and Renoir's Le Regle Du Jeu. The former engaged an interest in French New Wave films which would continue for the rest of the year, and the latter was my first dvd rental by post the means by which I'd end up seeing all those Parisian films.]
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