2019 entertainment Top 10: Raconteurs, Tame Impala, 'The Deuce,' Murals in the Market - Detroit Free Press

2019 entertainment Top 10: Raconteurs, Tame Impala, 'The Deuce,' Murals in the Market - Detroit Free Press

Steve Byrne Detroit Free Press

Published 6:00 AM EST Dec 29, 2019

Putting together year-end Top 10 lists has always felt like a ritualized exercise in futility to me. That’s partially because ranking art is inherently ridiculous, but more specifically because my job as an entertainment editor is necessarily generalized. Even though I take in a lot, I never see, hear or experience enough to be truly authoritative in this sort of evaluation.

So what lassos all this stuff together? Is there any sort of theme? If I’m being honest: Not much, and no way. It’s a hodgepodge across mediums and genres, tied together only by the flimsy string of the person who wrote it.

So here goes …

Tame Impala at Mo Pop

Effervescent, mind-tingling psychedelia had the throngs in figurative ecstasy at the Sunday-night closing set at the summertime Mo Pop music festival on the Detroit River. Propulsive, hypnotically melodic crowd favorites like “The Less I Know the Better” and “Let it Happen” aimed for the nighttime sky but still kept feet moving on the ground. The Australian act led by Kevin Parker is headed to Little Caesars Arena in 2020, and there’s not much doubt the longtime indie favorite will command that space, too.

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‘American Factory’

This engrossing Netflix documentary has essentially unlimited access as a massive Chinese auto-glass maker takes over an abandoned Dayton-area General Motors plant — and then rehires many of the laid-off GM workers and schools them in its company-first approach to 21st-century manufacturing. Filmmakers Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar shot over the course of three years — without management interference — and the result is at turns funny, thought-provoking and profound. Perhaps best of all, with its subtle, yet unblinking approach, “American Factory” mostly trusts its audience to make up its own mind about what it all means. 

Sturgill Simpson, ‘Sound & Fury’

Simpson has been wowing critics for several years with a take on country that feels both timelessly classic and instantly now. But even the stylistic diversity and rock touches of previous discs like “Metamodern Sounds in Country Music” and “A Sailor’s Guide to Earth” couldn’t prepare you for hell-and-brimstone sizzle of “Sound & Fury,” which is not only ferociously poetic but also often downright grooving. Move out of the way. This guy’s got a sledgehammer and he’ll swing it in whatever direction he likes.

‘The Deuce,’ HBO

Yes, there were HBO shows with more buzz (“Succession”), HBO shows with more hotly discussed finales (“Game of Thrones”) and HBO shows with more social currency (“Watchmen”). But the third and final season of “The Deuce” again brought the seedy side of New York City to vivid if unsettling life — its mafia men, wayward cops, pornographers, hustlers forever on the make. The action (multiple meanings) moved from the ‘70s to the mid-’80, but the soul of the show remained the conflicted female leads, including Maggie Gyllenhaal as the skin-flick filmmaker with feminist aspirations, Emily Meade as the actress yearning for something more and Margarita Levieva as the bartender who seems more aware than anyone of the environment’s failings. It’s the latest example of creator David Simon’s deftness at weaving multitudes of characters, plot points and larger social rhythms into a deep emotional tapestry.  

Murals in the Market

The fall street art festival’s fifth’s year saw it again expanding beyond the beyond the borders of Eastern Market, the home base where its artists have added more than 100 murals to warehouses, businesses and other structures since the festival’s inception in 2015. You might wonder if this event will at some point literally paint itself into a corner. But for now, the canvases that the market provides and the energy of organizers 1xRun and the commissioned artists — local, national and international like — make that feel unlikely. The one night where the festival coincides with the Eastern Market After Dark event is annually of the city’s most vibrant evenings — art, fashion, music, food, drink and tons of people commingling with Technicolor vitality.

‘Echo in the Canyon’

Jakob Dylan exhibited a slightly unsettling, distanced vibe as the host of this documentary about the remarkable run of folk-tinged pop produced in California’s Laurel Canyon in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. That said, Dylan assembled a crackerjack team of musicians – past and present day – who made clear the timeless nature of the tunes of the Byrds, the Beach Boys, the Mamas and the Papas, Buffalo Springfield and more. The freshly recorded versions of “Monday, Monday,” “Questions” and “Go Where You Wanna Go” were on repeat in my brain for weeks.

Joaquin Phoenix in ‘Joker’

The film was problematic in many ways, including the unrelenting grimness, overreliance on homage and relatively predictable story line. But Phoenix was can’t-look-away mesmerizing as the put-upon comedian who becomes the Joker, anchoring him firmly in reality in a way Heath Ledger purposefully dodged with his take in “The Dark Knight.” Ledger’s interpretation of Batman’s arch nemesis was such a gold standard that it was hard to imagine anyone would even enter the conversation, but Phoenix danced the stairs and bared his gums into history.

Raconteurs at Masonic Temple

If forced to rank the three Raconteurs albums, this year’s not-entirely memorable “Help Me Stranger” would finish a pretty solid third for me. But that’s not to say it wasn’t a welcome return for the band led by former Detroiters Jack White and Brendan Benson, whose previous disc arrived more than a decade previous. The group’s two-night homecoming stand at the Masonic Temple in July was muscular evidence of the power of an engaged Jack White — and this style of ‘70s-style, blues-tinged rock. White really seemed to be enjoying himself (and the hometown love), exhibiting a freewheeling energy that hasn’t always been evident at his White Stripes and solo shows. Sweaty, crackling and bone-shaking.

‘Black Bottom Street View,’ Detroit Public Library

This haunting exhibit upstairs at the Detroit Public Library main branch brought to life one of the disturbing episodes of Detroit’s 20th Century — the sanctioned destruction of the once-thriving African-American neighborhood known as Black Bottom to make way for I-375 and other urban revitalization projects in the early ‘60s. Exhibit creator Emily Kutil used overlapping, oversized photographs to replicate portions of the neighborhood, stationing them in rows so viewers had the feel of walking down Black Bottom streets. Like the best journeys to the past, it felt entirely rooted in the present.     

‘Maiden’

This story of the first all-women crew to sail in Whitbread Round the World Race plays like a classic Hollywood underdog film – a female “Hoosiers” on the high seas. But “Maiden” is actually a documentary, told in a thrillingly visceral way thanks to ocean-sprayed footage shot during the 1989 competition. But as physically grueling as the 32,000-mile journey was, this is just as much a story of psychological conflict, as the crew led by Tracy Edwards battles internal bickering, old-school chauvinism and waves of self-doubt. It’s must-see for anyone who fears — or has been told — they don’t have what it takes.

Steve Byrne is the arts & entertainment editor at the Detroit Free Press.

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2019-12-29 11:00:00Z
https://www.freep.com/story/entertainment/arts/2019/12/29/2019-entertainment-top-10-raconteurs-tame-impala-deuce-steve-byrne/2751226001/
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