It's That Time of Year

Paloma Faith

Because we feel we have great taste here at Cafe Drake, we loyally ape habits of the erstwhile print and online press and present annually our our Year's Best lists. Here goes.

FILM

Not every one of these films were made in 2012 but were - at least in the US - released this year. Only a half-dozen or so achieved the sublime heights of 2011's Best (i.e. Bellflower, Tabloid, The Future, Drive) but the following kept us enthralled and inspired to go ahead with the day. If you miss any, you're a fool. In absolutely no particular order:

Looper
Cloud Atlas
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Sound of My Voice
Cabin in the Woods
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
Moonrise Kingdom
Beasts of the Southern Wild
The Kid With a Bike
Monsieur Lazhar
The Raid:Redemption
Carol Channing: Larger Than Life
Undefeated
Blue Like Jazz 
The Road (Filipino horror film, not the C. McCarthy celluloid debacle)

The Snowtown Murders 
Shame (soundtrack also one of 2012's favorites)




MUSIC

Here we know of what we speak/type. Carefully cultivated playlists daily stoke the kitchen fires of Cafe Drake!

(Of Course) Matthew Dear's album Beams. No surprise and not much to say without gushing embarrassingly.

Eugene McGuiness' Invitation to the Voyage - Hands Down Cafe Drake's most treasured musical release of 2012. Again, words fail us.

 Um, can anyone say ALT-J? Bombarded by a dozen tunes from Alt-J this year "Breezeblocks" has been officially crowned our most all time forever favorite song from the always inventive group.

Singles: "Myth" - Beach House / "Emmylou" - First Aid Kit / "Genesis" - Grimes / "Royal Countess" - Boy Eats Drum Machine / "Would That Not Be Nice" - Divine Fits

Artists on Constant Rotation in 2012: Austra, Jane Jane Pollock, Tennis, Youth Lagoon, Twinsy, Icona Pop, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Death in the Afternoon, Niki and the Dove, Grimes, How To Dress Well, Purity Ring, Cheek Mountain Thief, Twin Shadow, The Helio Sequence, Tame Impala, Black Prairie (sort of an obsession), Moonface, Paloma Faith (now thas a REAL obsession), Bright Moments

Most Played Track: "Go Go Goliat" by King Melodies


BOOKS

And here we digress into a treaty on our own reading habits. Basically, we grab and devour whatever sounds good, pirouetting from linked author to similar genre to shared ideologies. Doesn't matter to Cafe Drake when it was penned, vaulting as we do in a reading fortnight across two centuries. Having said that pretentious mouthful, our favorite book of 2012 was published in this same year - Peter Cameron's gorgeous Coral Glynn, steeped in the tradition and subject matter of perennial Cafe D. fave authors such as Barbara Pym, Jane Austen and Penelope Mortimer. If you read nothing else in the next 12 months please please PLEASE consume this novel.

What Also Kept Cafe Drake Up Too Late in 2012 on 1200 T.C. Sheets: 

Dear Husband / Sourland / Black Dahlia, White Dahlia, all 2012, all by J. C. Oates

The Greatcoat by Helen Dunmore

Anything by Shirley Hazzard 



TV

Not our favorite medium. But, well, we watched Don't Trust the Bitch in #3B, Criminal Minds, Dexter, The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Guys With Kids, Misfits, Two Broke Girls, American Horror Story, Modern Family, Revenge, 666 Park, The Office, Parks & Recreation and Nashville.