Fabio's 2008 Best Of List
Strenth Through Failure With Fabio can be heard each Wednesday on WFMU from 8PM - 11PM. The archives are here.
MOVIES:
Still Life - Director: Zhang Ke Jia (released in China 2006). Citizens return to a flooded town to salvage what they can and say good-bye to things they lost.
4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days - Director: Cristian Mungiu - Romania. Drama about a woman who assists her friend with arranging an illegal abortion in 1980s Romania.
Mister Lonely - Director: Harmony Korine. By turns wacky and sublime, this film changed my mind as to the relative merits of Korine as a filmmaker.
Encounters At The End Of The World - Director: Werner Herzog. Typically great poetic documentary by one 
of the world's greatest living filmmakers.
Mad Detective - Director: Johnny To, Hong Kong. A rookie cop teams up with a former detective with a supernatural gift to hunt down a serial killer.
Man On Wire - Director: James Marsh.
A Girl Cut In Two - Director: Claude Chabrol, France. Psychological thriller from one of France's masters of the genre.
Bruce Connor Tribute At New York Film Festival - Views from the Avante Garde. A great loss this year with the passing of a true American original. The films were only one part of his art: a body of work which was broad both in scope and depth, intelligent and thoroughly beautiful.
Synecdoche, New York - Direct
or: Charlie Kaufman.
Let The Right One In - Director: Tomas Alfredson (Sweden). Nice twist on the vampire genre. Dark, moody, and not cliched in the way one might expect of a genre film.
Tatsuya Nakadai retrospective at Film Forum (various films, including: HAKARI, Goyokin, Yojimbo, KWAIDAN, SANJURO, SAMURAI REBELLION, HIGH AND LOW... etc. GREAT retro).
RECORDS:
Circle-X - Prehistory CD (Drag City - re-issue)
Simon Wickham-Smith - Lamentation CD
Arthur Lipsett - Soundtrack lp
Maja S.K. Ratkje - River Mouth Echoes
Kluster - Admira CD
Fennesz - The Black Sea CD
Yoshi Wada - Off The Wall CD (re-issue)
Ignatz - III lp
Ian Helliwell - Expo 67: A Radiophonic Collage CDr
Mudboy - 5608 (Cassette)
Vallerio Cosi - Heavy Electronic Pacific Rock CD
Expo '70 - Black Ohms CD
Sitaar-Tah - Semimimimimin cd
Kemialliset Ystavat split with Sunroof - split Series #19 lp
Philip Jeck - Suite. Live In Liverpool. Ltd. ed. lp
OTHER STUFF:
2000 BC: The Bruce Connor Story, Part II - (The Walker Arts Center)
Jacob Holdt - United States 1970 - 1975 (Museum Folkwaang Essen - Steidl)
Gary Panter - Gary Panter (Art Pub Inc)
William Eggleston - Democratic Camera - Photographs and Video, 1961 - 2008 Whitney Museum (One of the 20th century's great artists, and still going.)
"Rheinmetall/Victoria 8" - Rodney Graham's installation at MOMA, originally constructed in 2003 (spring / summer 2008)
Lary 7 & Tony Conrad (together), and The Moth performances at 32008 Electric Eclectics Festival Canada
Leif Elggren performance at Issue Project Room, Brooklyn
Michael Evans & Ken Montgomery performance at Issue Project Room, Brooklyn
Click here for more 2008 WFMU Top 10 Lists.
Great list, Fabio, & you always include interesting "other stuff."
Posted by: Bob | December 09, 2008 at 04:24 AM
That yellow type for the titles is an unfortunate choice for the RSS readers, because it apparently doesn't carry over the black background for the readers.
Posted by: JJZ | December 09, 2008 at 09:12 AM
That yellow typography problem was my fault, as I'm the one who posted Fabio's list. Thanks for the heads up on the problem, which has now been corrected. I think. But let me know if I'm wrong. (The yellow font was used because I noticed that his list from last year used yellow font for the film titles and I was going for the same effect).
Posted by: Listener Greg G. | December 09, 2008 at 10:03 AM
nice blog...
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Posted by: rachmadww | December 10, 2008 at 12:38 AM
nice blog...
Global exhibition info & tips, please visit us at http://planet-exhibition.blogspot.com
Posted by: rachmadww | December 10, 2008 at 12:40 AM