John Hughes, one of America’s great film directors and a man who through out the eighties imbued the American teen with heart and humanity has died recently of a heart attack while walking through Manhattan’s west side.

A great champion and sympathizer of all things youthful, irreverent, adolescent and bittersweet, Hughes helped the young people of their 80s understand themselves by casting teenagers in movie roles that were not just funny, but nuanced and dramatic.

Among the films that hit Berlin this summer, two of them received a great deal of attention: Quentin Tarantino's fetishist, furious and fun-addicted Nazi-killing Inglorious Bastards and Lars von Trier's eerie, disturbing and sexually explicit Antichrist. But as these two attention-grabbers attracted slews of people, a German production was also running in theatres, its modest poster conspicuously different from the pompous and menacing advertisements that accompany the former films, though the story it tells is just as compelling.

Claire Denis’ 35 Shots of Rum opens with pensive shots of slow moving trains. We see them glide along sunlit rails and disappear beneath dark tunnels – only to appear again moments later to the daylight. There is a rhythm of light and dark, actively driving and then passively watching. In this rhythm, we are introduced to Lionel (Alex Descas), a working-class train conductor and his college-aged daughter, Joséphine (Mati Diop), as Lionel’s workday ends and he arrives home for dinner.

Chelsea's pair of dark shades looks perfect with her hip-hugging skirt and sleek top. The pink of her lip-gloss glistens the way her silkily straight hair shines. Not only is she sexy and beautiful, she is refined and graceful. Look how she listens, talks, chews her food. She would be the perfect girlfriend for anyone. And for anyone willing to pay, she is.

 

Chelsea (who sometimes goes by Christine) is the high-end NYC escort in Steven Soderbergh's The Girlfriend Experience, the story of a classy prostitute who offers the city's most moneyed individuals both physical pleasure and intimacy (or pretensions thereof). Soderbergh has dealt with the subject of sex before, most notably in his explosive and in-your-face Sex, Lies and Videotape (1989), but this time he takes a slower, more methodical approach and in doing so fashions something even more sensual.

The world is jumping into 2010, but old garage rock habits still die hard. San Francisco’s The Fresh & Onlys keep things simple on their self-titled debut; concentrating on rock’s bare necessities. It’s like a buffet: The dishes are simple, but there’s a lot of diversity.

Earlier in the year a band from the UK, Wild Beats, bombarded listeners with their debut album Limbo, Ponto – a jumpy, fiery, impulsive album that was a challenge and surprise to people who took the time to listen. Some were turned off by the loose and ambitious record, which was largely defined by front man Hayden Thorpe’s shrieking, purring and bellowing falsetto. For the listeners who could accept the excessive flailing and spent time with the record, it was clear that Wild Beasts was a band worth paying attention to.

Released at the 5th of May by the British label 4AD, this is the second album by St. Vincent (A.K.A. Annie Clark). Produced John Congleton, the album is much like her past efforts a delicate blend of jazz and pop sensibilities framed by her quirky yet feminine vocals.