My Unsung Movies

Since the Oscars are coming up this Sunday, and since I only got 60% of my Oscar picks correct, I am catching up on my Oscar nominated movies. So far I have seen Slumdog Millionaire, Milk, and Frost/Nixon. (In case you cared, my favorite so far is Frost/Nixon), which means I have to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and The Reader by Sunday.

The great thing about great movies is that it makes you remember all the other great movies you've ever seen. And while I could go and list my top 150 movies of all time, I won't do that. Instead, I'll give out a few of my favorite movies that few people know about. And away we go!

SPRING FORWARD, 1999. (Director: Tom Gilroy) Imagine if The Shawshank Redemption didn't take place in jail. That's kind of what this movie is like, but so much more than just that glib description. Liev Schreiber and Ned Beatty are Paul and Murph, respectively. Murph is recently out of prison, and Murph is an aging landscaper. The two of them do manual labor all day long. At first they start out as young punk and old grumpy veteran. But through every scene -- mostly while picking up trash and hauling logs and such -- their friendship grows and evolves, until they have a special kind of friendship by the end. The movie is almost all dialogue, but there is not one second of sentimentality or bathos to be found. I don't know of a single other human being who's heard of this film, but it's one of the great hidden gems I've found.

BUFFALO '66, 1998. (Director: Vincent Gallo) The fact that I am a Western New York native and a long-suffering Buffalo Bills fan probably makes me biased to loving this movie, but I still think that I would love it no matter what. It's the story of a real loser who is just getting out of jail, and his plot to kill a Scott Norwood-like retired football player, whose missed field goal in the Super Bowl made it necessary for him to go to jail. Gallo is the writer, director and star of this movie, and his Billy Brown is a unique character. He is a grown child: petulant, undeveloped, selfish. But when he kidnaps a girl named Layla (Christina Ricci), to make her pretend to be his wife for the benefit of his incredibly dysfunctional parents. The odd love affair that grows between Billy and Layla is organic, real and most refreshingly of all, doesn't culminate in some kind of earth-shaking fornication. It's one of my favorite movies, because it's funny, quirky and ultimately redeeming.

ILLTOWN, 1996. (Director: Nick Gomez) Before he directed the extremely underrated Drowning Mona, he directed this slightly supernatural dystopian story about rival street gangs. It is as if the film Kids were directed by Martin Scorsese. It is brutal and unpredictable. And the best part: it contains Tony Danza's best-ever performance as a gay drug lord. (Seriously!) I haven't seen this movie in almost a decade, so maybe it doesn't hold up the way I wanted it to, but I remember it being an intense crime drama.

THE SALTON SEA, 2002. (Director: D.J. Caruso) Proof that Val Kilmer can act, and that he has the weirdest-looking elbows I've ever seen. This fantasia about crystal meth addicts is quirky, strange and tense in spots. Vincent D'Onofrio plays a yellow-skinned thug named Pooh Bear with no nose. When you have a movie filled with "Tweakers," interesting characters are bound to show up, and other than Glenn Plumber's horrible brief performance, this one is a weird good time.

ANIMAL FACTORY, 2000. (Director: Steve Buscemi) Imagine if The Shawshank Redemption took place in a prison that looked like "Oz." And Red was constantly threatening to sodomize Andy Dufresne. Such is the compelling, surprisingly funny film directed by Buscemi. Willem Dafoe plays mentor to new fish Edward Furlong (in Furlong's only good performance), and a cast of cons who are trying to get him out of there so that he never has to come back. But Furlong's self-destructive tendencies keep hurting his chances of ever getting out. Again, like many of these movies I'm noticing, there is a natural bond between the two main characters. And when Furlong's fate is finally sealed, you are a little happy and a little sad.

MATEWAN, 1987. (Director: John Sayles) You wouldn't think that a movie about West Virginia coal miners would be a nail-biter, but this one really is. Imagine if There Will Be Blood had a plot that included unionizing, racism and an old west-style gunfight. The movie is deliberate, but never slow. And it has a multiple Oscar-nominated cast (Chris Cooper, David Strathairn, Mary McDonnell) and the guy who plays Warden Norton in Shawshank! (Shawshank comparisons all over the place!) The bad guys are baaaad, and the resolution, though a tad abrupt, is satisfying and intense.

DAYS OF HEAVEN, 1978. (Director: Terence Malick) This is the movie that allowed Malick to retain legendary status despite making self-indulgent, overrated movies like Badlands and The Thin Red Line. If a poem could be put on film, it would be this movie. There is almost no dialogue at all, and the dialogue that does exist is mostly spoken in the background and hard to hear. It's a series of snapshots, almost like a beautiful music video without the pop music. The plot -- about a love triangle between Richard Gere, Brooke Adams and Sam Shepard -- is less interesting than how the film is constructed, which is with quick scenes and little explanation. It's a moving impressionist painting, and it's incredible.

SMOKE/BLUE IN THE FACE, 1995. (Directors: Wayne Wang, Paul Auster) These two films can be considered the Thalia and Melpomene of the same storyline: Smoke is a sometimes funny drama about the owner of a smoke shop and his customers, and Blue in the Face has most of the same main characters, but is all comedy. You could easily see one without the other and garner the plot, but they are better viewed (first Smoke, then Blue in the Face) as companion pieces. Where else can you see a touching scene where Harvey Keitel pretends he's an elderly black woman's grandson, as well as Michael J. Fox going on a diatribe about taking a dump? A real landmark of 1990s indie cinema.

HEAVY, 1994. (Director: James Mangold) I have a thing about movies that take place in small towns, and in this one, an overweight cook named Victor in a diner lives a humdrum life, with a dying mother and a lot of loneliness. That is until a young Liv Tyler enters his life as a waitress at the restaurant. There isn't much "plot" here, other than the arc that Victor's infatuation takes, as well as the after-effects on the rest of his life. It's shot in a naturalistic, unassuming way, and the characters are real and three-dimensional. It's a little downbeat, but ultimately not depressing.

THE FOUNTAIN, 2006. (Director: Darren Aronofsky) Aught-six was a good year for my man Hugh Jackman, at least as far as I'm concerned, because he was in two of my favorite movies, The Prestige, and this surreal masterpiece. I would have to say this is probably the most romantic movie I've ever seen. (Granted, I saw it by myself but I was still a gentleman.) Jackman is Tom Creo a man trying to both cope with the illness of his dying wife, and simultaneously find the cure. But Tom's journey/battle takes place on three fronts: the present, the distant past (Conquistator-era) and the distant future (where his life takes place in a self-contained bubble with a dying "tree of life"). It's a sublime, wholly original work, and its beauty overflows: in the visuals, in the music, in the story. Much like Days of Heaven above, it transcends just words and ideas, and goes into an astral dimension where the ideas of love and the pursuit of eternal life are universal.

Well, if you are sick of the same old crap in theaters (and I must say, we are in a bad time period for movies right now), maybe take a flier on one of these movies for something off the beaten path. Plus, it's nice to have your own little secret coterie of movies to pontificate about every so often.

Happy Birthday Lance!

Today, Lance Berkman (full name: William Lance Berkman), switch-hitting outfielder for the Houston Astros turns 33 years old.

Lance made his MLB debut in 1999. To date, he has hit 288 home runs and has amassed a respectable .302 batting average.




His 41 home runs in 1997 at Rice University were the third most in history.

In 2001, he came in 5th in MVP voting. It was also his first of five seasons in which he was named an All-Star. The following season, he hit 42 home runs.

Berkman hit an 8th inning grand slam in the 2005 Divisional Series against the Atlanta Braves, in the longest game in Major League Baseball playoff history (October 9, 2005).

He has the most single-season extra base hits in Astros history (94 in 2001) and the most single-season RBIs in Houston's history (136 in 2006).

In 2006 he came in 3rd in MVP voting, and in 2008 he came in 5th.

His nickname is "Big Puma"!

He is tied for 130th on the list of home runs in MLB history.

So to Lance Berkman, we wish you a happy birthday and a great 2009!

Short Circuit

Among the carnage of the recent economic meltdown was Circuit City, a company that is a model for how not to run a business on a macro AND micro scale.

First, the macro. In the late 1990s, Circuit City launched a new movie format called DIVX/Digital Video Express. The way it worked was that you could rent a movie, and from the time you started it, you had 48 hours to watch it. Afterward, it would become unplayable. But it wouldn't play in a regular DVD player: you had to buy a specific DIVX player. The format was owned by Circuit City, but they were not exactly forthcoming about their new format. They presented it as a compatible service to DVD, and not a competing format.

Eventually, internet chatrooms caught hold of the scam and, in a grassroots effort, started sites like FightDivx.com, which played a part in the format's demise around 1999. (They lost $114M on DIVX.)

But the company was known for all sorts of underhanded tactics. Lots of examples are available. Circuit City had to pay the state of New Jersey over $170,000 in a class action suit over false advertising.

In California, the unfortunately named Muammer Gonlugur, an employee of Circuit City, successfully sued the company for unfair arbitration practices. It doesn't sound sexy, but reading the court document is to read the very definition of predatory hiring.

Basically, the way Circuit City treats their employees makes Wal-Mart look like Wegmans.

My own experience with Circuit City wasn't horrifying or really that memorable. But it was indicative of how they do did business. It was Christmas 1998, and I wanted to buy my dad a portable CD player for Christmas. (This was the Christmas after college when I was living back at home and wasn't paying rent so I had money to burn for the first time ever.)

I saw an ad in the paper selling portable CD players for $39.99 (at the time that was a bargain-basement price), and it was a brand name. So I ran to Circuit City. When I got there asking for the cheap players, oh surprise, they were all out. But, if you're still interested, we have a few more players over here you can look at. Long story short, I walked out of Circuit City with a wonderful portable CD player -- for $119.99. A classic bait and switch, and I fell for it. But after the buyer's remorse I felt, I stopped blaming myself and started blaming Circuit City for luring me in.

The more I read about them throughout the years, the less surprised I got. And now they are reaping what they sowed. They chose the quick buck instead of earning their customers' trust.

And so if there is anything positive about the tens of thousands of people who lost their jobs, it's that maybe the next business that comes along to fill Circuit City's empty spaces will be one of integrity and honesty.

And if not, they, like MCI/WorldCom and Enron before them, will collapse into rubble as well. Here's to the demise of shitty business!

Meditations On .... Okay Fine, On Meditation

When I was a junior in college I was kind of a mess. I was in a deep deep funk and wasn't really sure if there was a way to get out of it. I was annoyed by everyone and everything pretty much all the time. So when my classes were over, I used to come back to my room and try to get away from things for a few hours, usually until the boys from the 5th floor would round me up for dinner time.

Since I was in a depression, I would sometimes take a nap, but that got kind of old and messed with my sleep cycle. So to decompress, I would play solitaire on my roommate's computer after class and listen to the Beatles.

Until 1997, I hadn't listened to any "white people's music." My record collection consisted of about 500 rap tapes and CDs (mostly tapes, since I was cheap and they were easy to copy). So when I got the Beatles Anthology 3 album that Christmas, I was only really familiar with their well-known singles, and The Magical Mystery Tour, which isn't one of their better offerings, but my mom had it on record and we used to play it slow to hear the cartoon characters say "smoke pot, smoke pot, everybody smoke pot."

Anthology 3 covered the Beatles' "third period," (The White Album, Abbey Road and Let It Be), which was a period with which I was not familiar. At the time, my image of the Beatles was "she loves you yeah yeah yeah" Ed Sullivan era stuff, so when people talked about how influential they were, I assumed it was a bunch of aging hippies reluctant to let go of their lost youth. Little did I know that the Beatles were my gateway to music with singers, instruments and melodies.

So anyway, while these revolutionary sounds played in the background, I absently played like 30 different versions of solitaire. (Those games were awesome, I wish I could find them.) And though I didn't realize it at the time, I was giving myself therapy. Because while my conscious mind went through the mechanics of placing the correct cards in the correct spots, my subconscious mind was in a trance, taking in the music that I couldn't believe was 30 years old.

I was completely obsessed with this music, and started omnivorously collecting as much info as I could about them. So for several months, I would come home from class, let my brain fork off in two different directions.

As I got familiar with the works of the Fab Four, I stopped listening as actively, and started zoning out even further than before. And though I didn't realize it was happening, I was working out all my problems in my head. I wasn't staring at a wall, which would have been depressing. Instead, I was keeping my brain occupied -- like giving a child a toy and putting him in the corner for a few hours -- while my subconscious worked things out. To say that I was cured of all ills might be pushing it, but I was slowly, gradually, unwittingly pulled out of my quicksand of melancholy.

Flash forward to 2009.

I read about a set of albums called Disintegration Loops by William Basinski, and though it doesn't sound like my cup o'tea, I take a flyer on it and download the whole 4-disc set.

The album is a collection of several songs, ranging in length from 10 to 90 minutes. They are on an endless loop, and play the same four or five seconds of music over and over. It drones on and on and on for upwards of 20 minutes or more at a clip. But there is a twist.

The loops were originally created (I'm guessing on a reel-to-reel tape) in the early 1980s. When Basinski decided to convert the tapes to a digital media in 2001, he noticed that they tape started to erode -- flake off, practically -- with every pass. He realized that the tape was literally disintegrating -- dying -- before his eyes. He decided to let the tapes play over and over until they couldn't play anymore due to decay. (The story continues that he completed these recordings on the morning of September 11, 2001, and that he and his friends watched the twin towers collapse with these playing in the background, providing a fitting soundtrack of destruction.)

This is not the kind of artsy music that I generally find myself drawn to. I like things that are catchy, melodic ... Beatle-esque, you might say. I get bored with The Police because their choruses go on too long, and that's usually like a minute and a half. This is sometimes 45 minutes of the same sound over and over.

But much like those Beatles tapes before them, these are hypnotic. I've been listening to them while I go to sleep for the last few nights. And at first, it's a little annoying and boring. But after a while, it sort of becomes something else altogether, kind of like an audio version of one of those "Magic Eye" posters. And unlike something even as dense as, say, a 14-minute Ornette Coleman free-jazz piece, there is nothing new to latch on to, other than the gradual hissing, buzzing and crackling of the tape being stripped down, layer by magnetic layer.

But by that time, I have gone into la-la land. Strangely, I have found myself in a sort of waking-dream state, almost like being hypnotized. Before I have drifted off into full-on sleep mode, brief but lucid movies are playing themselves out in my head. I can hear voices and sounds and see colors and details. It's a delicate tightrope walk, because the slightest sound or change in the music can wake me right back up, but maybe my subconscious is going back to working itself out again. I think I have finally experienced a "Zen" state of mind via the death throes of a BASF tape.

So I'm not sure what to make of the fact that I find myself entranced by both the most accessible music in the history of the world, and the least accessible music in the history of the world. But I do know that God forbid I fall asleep to a Creed album, my brain will probably explode.

Super Bowl Recap

I still only recognize four Steelers Super Bowl wins.

Olney in New York!

Dear Buster Olney,

Stop being such a fucking baby.

So Joe Torre writes a book (with your own colleague Tom Verducci, no less) and whoops pow surprise! It turns out that Brian Cashman is a company man and A-Rod is a faggot. What a shock.

You think everyone didn't already know that A-Rod is a prima donna shitdick who cares more about P.R. (and I don't mean Puerto Rico, folks) than about whether his team wins or not? Did you think he was fooling anyone with his "I want to be a Yankee" friend-of-the-workingman shit? Just because Torre confirmed it doesn't mean that everyone didn't already know.


So Torre had "the scowl," as you call it, where he would chastise yellow journalists for bringing up sensational stories in press conferences. What the fuck did you expect him to do? Openly comment on these kinds of stories when he is still the manager of the team? And did you expect him to have any loyalty to Cashman or the organization after the way they unceremoniously booted his ass?

Maybe in your feeble little Yankee-lovin' mind, this is going to go down in infamy as Torre's own "I'm not here to talk about the past" moment if he doesn't fess up to writing all this stuff. But you have to remember one thing.

THE REST OF THE FUCKING COUNTRY DOESN'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THE YANKEES AS MUCH AS YOU DO, BUSTER.

And maybe if you left your fucking cubicle once in a while, you might realize that there are more things out there in the world than the Yankees. And sorry, not every book written about the Yankees can be a sanctifying ode, like your own book The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty, in which you swoon over "[Derek] Jeter's confidence, [Paul] O'Neill's intensity, [Tim] Raines' humor, [Joe] Girardi's professionalism."

And why do you give your boy Verducci a pass? You mention several times in the article that he wrote the words, but that Torre had to sign off on it. Why not chastise him for allowing his good name to be sullied by such depraved dreck?

Sorry Torre shitted on your squad, Buster, but he was only reinforcing what everbody ALREADY KNEW. You love the Yankees, you feel personally hurt by Torre's words ... we get it. How dare someone spit in the face of Yankee Universe?!?

Quit crying like a baggy-eyed little fruit and be a man, you fucking nerd.

Super Bowl Kerfuffle!

Considering that this year's Super Bowl teams have two of the douchiest theme songs on record, it's hard to choose. Behold:





Personally, I'll take the Cards just because they don't have that eardrum-exploding Picksburg accent.

Oscar? I Barely Know'er!

There are two things I love above all others: wasting time and making spreadsheets. I found a way to kill two proverbial birds with one hypothetical stone, by combining these with the Academy Awards.

There are cynics among you who will say that the Oscars are pointless, and that awards should not be given out for art. I kind of agree with the latter part, but as for the Oscars themselves ... well yes, they are pointless. But I like to go into them relatively well-informed. This will not be one of those years, being that I've seen about 3 movies this year, none of which will be considered for the Academy Award.

Why has your humble cineaste fallen so behind in his moviegoing? Well, going to the movies is on the expensive side, and it's hard to find someone to go with me. Also, let's face it, for the most part in the last 5 years or so, movies have ... well, completely sucked ass.

Gone is the scintillating era of the mid-1990s, where even Pulp Fiction ripoffs were fun and exciting. (And if you have to copy a movie, I'd rather have they do it with Pulp Fiction than these goddamn Sons of Saw III.) From about 1989 to about 1998, there was a torrent of innovative and well-crafted films, that also happened to be popular. Look at the list: Boogie Nights, Fargo, L.A. Confidential, sex lies & videotape, GoodFellas, The Usual Suspects, Glengarry Glen Ross, just to name a few. While not perfect, these films were a testament to storytelling innovation, outstanding dialogue, and most importantly, SUBTEXT.

Subtext is sorely lacking in modern cinema. We have movies like Crash, Brokeback Mountain, Million Dollar Baby, Babel, and Ray (again examples) that bat you over the noggin with exactly what they want you to know about their movies. They don't challenge like they once did. And even when the films of the 1990s were not challenging you with their meanings, they were usually challenging you in other ways, such as structure and conflicted characters.

Right now we are in a period that is similar to the 1979 to 1987 period in cinema, where precious little interesting or innovative films were being made. It's why we are seeing two major phenomena: big-time movie actors having their films go straight -- or at least very quickly -- to DVD (Nicholas Cage, Samuel L. Jackson, Al Pacino, Matthew McConaughey); and established movie actors going to TV (Laurence Fishburne, Tim Roth, Kyra Sedgwick, Gary Sinese, Alec Baldwin).

For the latter, it's not that actors are slumming it; they are smart. TV is better now than it's probably ever been, and movies are at their nadir. So why wouldn't an actor get a job with steady work on shows that are far better written than most of the movie crap that comes out. Compare the writing of shows like "The Wire," "The Sopranos" (even with all its flaws), "30 Rock," "The Office," "Mad Men," "Battlestar Galactica" and the like to Uwe Boll's latest reel of cinematic excrement.

Anyway, that is all neither here nor there. Since movies have been so shitty lately, I have naturally become nostalgic for the last two decades of films, waiting for the next great wave of moviemakers to come along. And I'm going to do something rather revolutionary. I am going to correctly predict all five of the Academy Award Nominees this year, before they are announced.

There is a methodology to my madness, and it is this: every Academy Award nominee of the last 20 ceremonies fall into one of ten categories. They are...

1. Feel-Good Movie:
This is a movie that has a happy, uplifting ending. It forces you to leave the theater with a grin on your grill and a song in your heart. (Examples: It Could Happen To You, Muriel's Wedding, A Christmas Story, It's a Wonderful Life.)


2. Quirky:
It's a little offbeat, and a little strange. It might have weird camera angles, wacky characters or some kind of goofy voiceover. It is usually slightly funny, often in a twisted or macabre way. (Examples: Spanking the Monkey, Buffalo '66, Barton Fink, Boogie Nights, Citizen Ruth, Harold and Maude, Fight Club.)


3. Period Piece:
No, it's not about a teenage girl, it's a movie that takes place in a different time, and sometimes in a different country. It harkens back to a more romantic era, and is usually hinged upon a romance. (Examples: Chinatown, Amadeus, Avalon, Ragtime, The Great Gatsby)


4. "Message" Film: 
It tells gives you a lesson at the end, hopefully one you will take with you when you leave theater. Sure it entertains you, but it also makes you think!!!! Often takes the shape of a courtroom drama. (Examples: 12 Angry Men, To Kill A Mockingbird, Judgment at Nuremberg, The Long Walk Home, The Best Years of Our Lives, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.)


5. Liberal Agenda:
Different from a message film in that it pushes forth a liberal agenda, rather than one of universal truth. Not always strictly liberal; sometimes just hippy-ish. (Examples: The Contender, A Few Good Men, The American President, Coming Home, Easy Rider, The Ghosts of Mississippi, Dances With Wolves, Amistad, The Cider House Rules.)


6. Epic:
By definition, longer than two-and-a-half hours, but often with the scope of several years or decades. (Examples: Lawrence of Arabia, Gone With the Wind, Heaven's Gate, The Godfather.)


7. Inspirational:
Makes you want to stand up and cheer for he who faced the odds and beat them! (Examples: The Shawshank Redemption, My Left Foot, The Pianist, Hotel Rwanda, A Beautiful Mind.)


8. Weepie:
If you walk out of this one without a tear in your eye, you haven't a heart in your chest. (Examples: The Color Purple, Old Yeller, Love Story, City Lights, Sophie's Choice, Kramer vs. Kramer.)


9. Gritty:
Raw, sometimes violent. Doesn't blink or let you off the hook. (Examples: GoodFellas, Narc, Saving Private Ryan, Reservoir Dogs, Se7en, Mean Streets, American History X, Requiem for a Dream.)


10. Surprise Hit:
This is a movie that no one expected to be this good or this popular, and therefore warrants a spot on the list. (Examples: Pirates of the Carribean, Moulin Rouge, The Sixth Sense, Babe, Little Miss Sunshine.)

Now, if you are interested in how the last 20 Oscar races have come out, HERE IS THE SPREADSHEET. It breaks each of the five nominees down into their categories -- and sometimes more than one -- for 1988-2007. That is 20 years of research. The numbers don't lie!

But based on that, here are what the five Oscar nominees WILL BE this year:

• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (aka the Epic/The Weepie)
  
• Frost/Nixon (aka the Period Piece)
  
• Revolutionary Road (aka the Message Movie/Period Piece)
  
• Slumdog Millionaire (aka the Surprise Hit/Feel-Good Movie)
  
• Vicki Cristina Barcelona (aka the Quirky Comedy)

This WILL BE the list. Mark it down now and bet the house on it.

[UPDATE:

Wow, I blew that one. Three out of Five (The Reader and Milk instead of Vicki Cristina and Revolution Road.) But I'll get 4/5 next year. Write it down and bet the house on it!]

1/19/09

Tonight the Bush presidency saw its final sunset.

2008 Media Recap

A rundown of my media consumption this year...don't worry it's for posterity charity

Best Albums I Discovered (didn't necessarily come out in '08):

• Shearwater - "Palo Santo" and "Rook" - Dense, heavy folk music
  
• Bon Iver - "For Emma, Forever Ago" - Folky folks music
  
• Nerina Pallot - "Fires" - Great voice, catchy piano pop
  
• Stephen Malkmus - "Real Emotional Trash" - His best non-Pavement album ... except for "Pig Lib."
  
• MGMT - "Oracular Spectacular" - I first heard of them in 2007, but never thought they'd get big.
  
• Vampire Weekend - "Vampire Weekend" - I was late to jump on this train but it's a very good album.
  
• Panic at the Disco - "Pretty. Odd" - Not at all the type of album I'd like, but yet I did. What is happening to me?!
  
• Fleet Foxes - "Fleet Foxes"
  
• Tobacco - "F**ked Up Friends"
  
• Oh No - "Exodus into Unheard Rhythms" (2006) - Hip Hop in a time capsule from 1993.
  
• Switches - "Lay Down the Law"
  
  Best Shows:
  
• The Sarah Silverman Program
  
• Battlestar Galactica
  
• 30 Rock (although the 2008-09 season has started a little lackluster)
  
• The Venture Brothers (it's from a few years ago but it's probably the densest and most culturally-savvy show since the Simpsons)
  
• It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia (I finally got caught up and it's great)
  
• The Colbert Report
  
• Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father - devestating, mesmerizing
  
• Summer Heights High - The UK version of The Office directed by Christopher Guest
  
  Best Movies:
  
• The Dark Night
  
• Iron Man
  
• My Winnipeg
  
• Tropic Thunder (for the first half hour or so)
  
• Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
  
• The Prestige - I know it came out in 2006, but I've been a little behind. It's one of the best mystery films I've ever seen. Ever. Seriously.
  
• The Bourne Ultimatum - I thought the other two Bourne movies were just okay, this one kicked some serious ass.
  
• Manufacturing Dissent - the best documentary out there exposing the fraud that is Michael Moore
  (it was a seriously weak year for movies)
  
  Two concerts I went to:
  
• Iron & Wine in Buffalo; Glen Hansard in Massachussetts
  
  Biggest Disappointments:
  
• Ben Folds' "Way To Normal" - All the things that have irked me about his songs the last few years have culminated into this steaming pile of shit.
  
  
• The Foot Fist Way - Indie cinema is dead, and if it's not, I will now have to kill it after this sporadically funny but ultimately sloppy farce.
  
  
• The Wire, Season 5 - It was still good -- still the best show on TV, in fact -- but it was the weakest season of the series; the "serial killer" angle was something out of a bad Al Pacino crime procedural.
  
  
• From the Earth To the Moon - yes the 1998 Tom Hanks NASA miniseries. Some episodes were pretty good, some really boring (especially the one with the device of a filmmaker following everyone around), but ultimately it was just a TV movie. I don't know what I expected, just something a little better I guess.
  
  
• The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - It was a great concept and pretty interesting at times, but ultimately it suffered from the same aimlessness that has plagued French cinema for decades.
  
  
• Amy Poehler on SNL - She is just not all that funny, and her Hillary Clinton impression -- though iconic -- sounds absolutely nothing like Frau Cankles herself.
  
  
• Dane Cook "Rough Around the Edges" - the first chink in the Dane Train's armor; too dirty, too inside and just not funny enough. With this and his shitty movies, we may be seeing an epic shark-jump.
  
  Websites:
  
• Deadspin - Not as much as I used to since I don't read it at work anymore, but it's still the best place to find the "comedy pyramid"
  
• Politico, Talking Points Memo, Five Thirty Eight, RealClearPolitics, Wonkette, Pollster.com and just about any other left-leaning website in the universe this past year.
  
• BeerAdvocate
  
• BeerJanglin'! - naturally...
  
• Google Reader - now all my unhealthy obsessions in one easy-to-read interface!
  
• MP3Sale dot are-you. We'll keep it our own dirty little secret.
  
• Last.fm and Pandora - since I am too lazy to read about music and need someone who will tell me what to like.
  
• Wikipedia - the best site in the history of the internet, errors be damned!
  
  Odds and Ends:
  
• Hard N Phirm - the "Pi" song is a corker
  
• Tori Schulman from "Movie Up"
  
• "Firefly" the TV series and its movie follow-up "Serenity"
  
• POTUS '08 on XM Radio - my obsession for about 10 months until Election day
  
• The Vice Presidential Debate - the epic battle between the MILF and the Mouth
  
• Brian Regan's "The Epitome of Hyperbole" - finally a TV special that captures the genius of the greatest stand-up comic of our time
  
• Rock Band and Rock Band 2 - don't drink the haterade, it's a real hoot.
  
• Opie and Anthony and Li'l Jimmy Norton - outside of their Jill Nicolini phase, they did some great stuff this year. FRUNKIS! It's still my go-to radio show, even though I get Howard now too.
  
• Giants beating New England in the Super Bowl. What a wonderful wonderful moment in human history. Of course, no one in the LIBERAL MEDIAL will mention that in three consecutive seasons the Patriots have a) blown an 18-point lead to lose the AFC Championship, b) blown a perfect record to lose the Super Bowl and c) missed the playoffs (yeah yeah, I know Brady was out, cry my a river). Choke much, Bill Belicheat?
  

So there you have it, 365 days of me sitting on my ass. Hope you enjoyed it.

Oh the Minutes I've Wasted!

My 525,600 minutes? Most of them were spent:

• Drinking awesome beer
  
• Sleeping
  
• Not getting laid
  
• On the shitter
  
• Blogging
  
• Driving
  
• Pretending to work
  
• Eating delicious foods that were bad for me
  
• Clearing out my DVR even though I wasn't in the mood to watch the shows on it
  
• Calling other motorist "c--ts" and "c--ks--kers"
  
• Calling the Bills "a--holes" and "f--king d--chebags"
  
• Calling Republicans "f--ggots" and "motherf--kers"
  
• Sitting on a train
  
• Texting Willie with great/awful puns
  
• Not cleaning my apartment
  
• Not paying my bills
  
• On the computer
  
• On the computer
  
• On the computer

And the rest of it was just wasted. Ba-dum-BUM!


Happy New Year everybody!

The Year In Review in Word Clouds

Here was my blogging year in a nutshell, or rather a Word Cloud. Looks like I wasted a whole year writing it.

JANUARY


FEBRUARY


MARCH


APRIL


MAY


JUNE


JULY


AUGUST


SEPTEMBER


OCTOBER


NOVEMBER


DECEMBER

What Bill Told Scarlett

Lost in Translation is one of my favorite indie movies of the 2000s. Not just because it has Bill Murray and a young heartthrob named Scarlett Johansson (now Mrs. Ryan *spit* Reynolds, and no it won't last more than 5 years absolute TOPS).

The movie is about two Americans who meet each other while temporarily stationed in Tokyo. They are both in unhappy relationships, and though they are very far apart in age, they strike a connection that blossoms into a very subtle romance. So subtle, in fact, that it isn't really considered an "official" romance until the last 30 seconds or so of screen time.

The film is a metaphor for finding a connection with another person in a world where you don't feel you are understood. There are lots of shots of these characters isolated, in their hotel rooms, or sitting by themselves. Lots of static camera angles and slow, deliberate -- some would even say boring -- scenes. In fact none of the Japanese dialogue in the film is subtitled, further adding to the sense of alienation and solitude.

It's only when these to serendipitously find each other that the film begins to "pic up," both in pace and in tone.

The climax -- and one of the more intriguing scenes in recent film history -- is the very last scene of the movie. Bill Murray has to catch a flight back to his home in Los Angeles (coincidentally also where the Johansson character lives), but before he leaves, he tracks her down. He hugs her, but before he goes, he whispers something in her ear. It is pretty much inaudible (and yes, I watched it with the subtitles on just to be sure my ears weren't going bad).

In the video below, someone digitally altered the sound and figured out what he said to her. And it's not some jokey, fake "gotcha" in case you were wondering. You can actually hear him say it. And what's great about it is that you could basically tell in the movie that this is roughly what he said, but it was so much better that they kept it a secret.

If you haven't seen the movie, you may want to skip this video... but go out and rent it. If you've always wondered, here it is.

Freestyle Rap Battle: Translated

This is goddamn brilliant!

A Christmas Terrell

Santa brought me an early Christmas gift: a Terrell Owens interview where he gets to cry about how unfair life is.

Is anyone else getting sick of this asshole? He is perpetually instigating and causing trouble, and then he is constantly complaining about how he's unfairly criticized. He doesn't seem to realize that it's easy for anyone to just disappear into quiet life. And you can't be universally beloved when a) you are constantly drawing attention to yourself, because anyone well known will be disliked by a certain segment of the populations, and b) you are a complete and utter dick.



One thing I will give Owens credit for, however, is his command of the King's English. Behold.

"There were reports that myself, Roy and Patrick all got together, you know, and I'm the head honcho of all this."
- Owens on the meeting he had with his teammates. I think it's telling that Terrell doesn't really understand what the term "head honcho" means. He also uses the tried-and-true method of attempting to make himself look more intelligent by referring to himself in the first person as "myself." Well played.

"It seems like every time something happens or arises, I'm the blame. I'm the pitfall for everything."
- Owens on how everyone is so mean to him. To me, the phrase "I'm the pitfall" is one that should enter the English lexicon, and NOW. To say "I'm the fall guy" would assume that Owens has any cultural awareness or basic knowledge of colloquial idioms.

"We're trying to make a playoff push, and every game, thereafter, is critical for us!"
- Owens, talking about the Cowboys needs to right the ship. Again, Owens -- by using the word "thereafter" -- attempts to polysyllabically get himself out of looking like a dummy. (He does the same thing a few sentences later when he uses the word "amongst.")

"We know what kind of usplosive offense we have, and we know we have a lot of capable players ... of making plays."
- Owens, advancing the spoken word.

"Just say give this incident, for example."
- Owens, clearly meaning to say, "For instance...."

And yet the cold hard fact is that he makes more during a bye week than I will make over the next twenty years.

Of course, Stephen A. Smith likes to get into the act to saying that someone in the Cowboys organization "evidently said something to him along those lines, essentially to sully your name," not only doing a great impression of the Damon Wayons character on "In Living Color" who used to use big words he didn't understand, but also to imply that somehow the name "Terrell Fucking Owens" hadn't been sullied like seven years ago.

I love this new hero worship by our sports media. Makes me definitely not hate ESPN or sports in general at all.

How's This For Depressing?

Well not for you, but for me.

I just looked at a calendar, and it turns out that the next time my birthday falls on a Saturday will be in 2018. That is over 9 years from now.

My 2012 Birthday (#36) will be on a Friday; due to leap years, my 2013 birthday (#37) will be on a Sunday.

It will be my 42nd birthday.

That will be the next time that my birthday falls on a Saturday. The next time I am able to both sleep in AND stay up late on my birthday will be #42. And by that time, I'm pretty sure I will naturally get up at 5:30 AM and fall asleep at 7:30 PM.

We're basically looking at a full decade before I get another Saturday birthday. Think of all the things that will have happened by then:

• Obama will have completed both of his presidential terms, and we will be in the midst of the midterms of the Tim McGraw presidency.
  
• The Bills will have missed the playoffs for the 19th consecutive year.
  
• Zac Efron will have won that elusive third Oscar.
  
• Guns-N-Roses' "Chinese Democracy II" will only be three years from release.
  
• VH-1 will complete their "I Love the 2010s" series... apparently.
  
• Cancer will be cured; male-pattern baldness will still haunt me. I will have the same amount of grey hair that I do now.
  
• I will get around to organizing my magazines.
  
• I will still be adorable.

So if you happen to see me on a Saturday, and it's my birthday. Buy me a beer.

I'll be dead shortly after.

Tobacco Addict

I am down with this new band guy called Tobacco, and their his album "F**ked up Friends." He is part of the group Black Moth Super Rainbow, a group that has a similar sound, but is way more "normal" I suppose.

Tobacco sounds like a combination of Boards of Canada and a 1970s PBS kids show. And the videos are insane, mostly clips of exercise videos and possibly even 1980s porn. I think I love it. Rather than doing the post-modern irony thing favored by, say, The Beastie Boys or Beck, they just abandon the usual MTV quick-cuts and let each video play out for a few seconds in all its kitschy glory.

Check out of some of their videos, and by all means, enjoy... although don't do it at work, just to be safe. Might not be your thing (music or videos) but to me they are mesmerizing.

STREET TRASH


TRUCK SWEAT


HAWKER BOAT


SIDE 8


BERRIES THAT BURN


GROSS MAGIC


LITTLE PINK RIDING HOOD


BACKWOODS ALTAR

Awesome Show Alert: Summer Heights High

To call Summer Heights High (on HBO for 8 episodes) an Australian version of the British version of The Office wouldn't be doing it justice. On its face it sounds like kind of a gay idea: have one guy play three different characters that attend one school, and see what happens.

It sounds like a bad Mike Meyers project, I know. But trust me, this show is goddamned hilarious.

The three characters are: Mr. G, a super-effeminate music and theater teacher who is as oblivious as The Office UK's David Brent but maybe even more selfish; Ja'mie (pronounced ZHA-may), a transfer student from a ritzy high school who tries to ingratiate herself with the "cool kids" at the new school; and Jonah, a Tongan thug who hangs around with other Tongans and gets into all sorts of trouble.



If you didn't know better, you would think that Mr. G was gay, Ja'mie was a real girl, and Jonah was really 13 years old. But what makes the show isn't the parlor trick of having one person play all the parts, Peter Sellers-style. It's the writing.

For example, the third episode featured a junior student dying of a drug overdose. Mr. G responds by writing a musical about the girl's life called "One Girl, One Pill." Most of the songs talk about how the girl was a slut and a drug addict. I couldn't possibly do it justice. In the first episode, one particular line made me laugh for about 5 minutes: all I'll say is "Tsunamarama."

I use the Office UK comparison only to give an idea of the style of humor, since it's very subtle, with no laugh track and lots of quick jokes that hit you and then immediately switch to another scene, just like Ricky Gervais's masterpiece. Though it's Australian, it bears little-to-no resemblance to Flight of the Conchords, but is more like a Christopher Guest miniseries.

So even if you can't stand Australians, comedy, actors playing multiple parts, high school or Tongans, give this show a shot. You know you can trust me.

Two Awesome Videos

There are two really cool videos on the internet right now.

The first is the new trailer for Watchmen, which comes out 03.06.09 and is probably gonna be awesome. The book is great, and the original trailer is badass too. Here's the original (which doesn't give you much idea of what the movie is about, but is very atmospheric and moody):



The new trailer actually gives you an idea what the movie is about, although if it's anything like the book, any expectation the beginning of the movie gives will be shattered by the credits. The movie is being directed by Zack Snyder, who directed 300, a movie that I expected to hate and dismiss as an all-flash-no-substance visual extravaganza. Needless to say, 300 is one of the most badass movies ever made. Anyway, here's the new trailer:



The second is a bunch of "sport-stackers" (also known as "cup stackers") who take a bunch of plastic cups and then stack them and unstack them. Doesn't sound that complicated until you see these kids do it. Behold...

Apparently this has been around since the early 1980s, but is taking on a life of its own. I only found out about it a few weeks ago, but man is it cool. I wonder how someone could get involved in something like that.

Okay bye.

My Musical Week

Some odd music-related stuff from this week...

***********

Last night I went to see Iron & Wine in Buffalo, NY at a place that is now a concert venue but was an old church, and is apparently owned by Ani DiFranco. It was a very cool venue, and we sat in the upper balcony area on the stage right side.

Iron & Wine's first album, The Creek Drank the Cradle, might be my #1 favorite album of all time. It's one of the few albums I own where EVERY song is good or great. In fact it might be the only such album in my catalogue. What's striking about the album is its simplicity; it was recorded on an amateur basis on a 4-track for Sam Beam's own personal use, and it was given (without his knowledge) to a record company -- Sub Pop, which some of you hipsters might recognize -- and it became and underground sensation.

When people say about an album, "it changed my life," I know what that means because of this album. It's not that it made me a better person or that I suddenly could shoot webs from my wrists, but it opened me up to a musical world I never would have thought to explore. Sam Beam's lyrics are some of the greatest ever written, and he is one of the only songwriters in the world whose lyrics could be printed out and be considered a stand-alone poem. Well anyway, I introduced my buddy Bruce to I&W about four years ago, and we both just fell in love withe the guy, his style, his voice, his beard. Everything.

Last night's concert was really strange, though, because that first album grabbed me so much with its lo-fi, DIY approach that I had been lamenting his later albums which were much more highly produced and had lost some of the intimacy of the first album. So when Sam came on stage alone, I knew he was going to have a band, although he did the first couple songs all by himself -- including "Upward Over the Mountain," my favorite song from Sam and one of the few songs that almost makes me cry every time I listen to it.

Weird thing was, his concert, usually so low-key and subdued, turned into an all-out jam, with 6 total instrumentalists all rocking hard and doing extended versions of old hits. His overproduction, about which I had complained so many times, breathed new life into some of his all-too-familiar songs. Awesome guy.

*********

I played the game "Rock Band" this week, and to say that it's an obsession might be pushing it, but goddamn is it fun. I have been playing the bass mostly, but every once in a while I'll grab the mic and belt one out. (My favorites are "Nine in the Afternoon" by Panic! At the Disco and "Aqualung" by Jethro Tull. And though I'm not a fan of Bon Jovi, per se, "Wanted Dead or Alive" is a great goddamn song to belt out.)

My friend Christian and I were going through some of the songs available for download on the Xbox, and there were some really great ones on there. It was very cool to go down a list of songs and listen to 30 second clips and take a flyer on some crap you don't know if you'll even like in a four-minute version. It must have taken developers forever to create that game, not to mention all the royalties.

***********

I have long been a proponent of satellite radio, but now that XM and Sirius have merged, I am a little pissed. Yes, it's cool that I can now get Howard Stern (although Opie and Anthony are still funnier, if much dumber) and all the NFL games in the country. But one thing that has made me super pissed off is that they eliminated The Rhyme, the old-school rap channel. It was #65 on the XM dial, but now there is no #65. Sirius had Backspin, which basically served the same function, but instead of merging the two channels into one, they eliminated the format altogether. The rap that they play on the two remaining stations (Hip Hop Nation and Shade 45, a channel run by Eminem) are all playing shit like T-Pain, Paul Wall, etc. The Rhyme was never a great channel (it always played way too much "old school" stuff from Newcleus and Kurtis Blow, as well as too many "pop-rap" songs from Biggie and Salt-N-Pepa, as well as their strange Tupac obsession), but it was the best that was available, and they did have some great shows like Subsoniq Classix. I will really miss that channel, and if they don't bring it back, I'm going to write them once a week -- Andy Dufresne style -- until they bring it back.

************

I made myself a mix-cd for my trip to Buffalo, and I really like it. The last one I had made wasn't all that great in my estimation. (I did give it another listen on the way home and it was actually pretty good after all. Amazing how distance can do that.)

Here is the track list:


On this disc is my current obsession on track #16 -- "Hail, Mary" by Shearwater.

I have a weird, obscure taste in music, some say, where I basically shun almost any songs that are played on the radio (in the playlist above, you will notice Boz Skaggs and AIC noticeably excepted). I actually threw one of my own creations and one of my buddy Bruce's songs on there too, just for the hell of it. But every six months or so, I will get obsessed with a song to the point where I will listen to it over and over again. I rarely listen to an album more than once in a given week, but some songs just grab me by the cojones and get inside my head so that I have to listen to them over and over. Some past examples of these songs include:

• "Ghostwriter" by RJD2, which was my ringtone for about a year
  
• "Fireman So Cold (A-Trak Blend)" by Li'l Wayne
  
• "Jacksonville" by Sufjan Stevens
  
• "Dirtywhirl" by TV on the Radio
  
• "Big Bang" by Aesop Rock
  
• "My Heart" by The Blow
  
• "Can't Face Up" by Sloan
  
• "Any Major Dude Will Tell You" by Steely Dan
  
• "Way Down in the Hole" by Tom Waits (probably because it reminds me of The Wire)
  
• "Avril 14" by Aphex Twin

I now have a feeling that this damn song is going to be added to the list. It's very folky and atmospheric, before building into a crescendo that comes crashing down. I'm not sure what it's about, but to say it is dark is a classic understatement. I don't mean to build it up, because it might not "wow" anybody else, but it just hit me the right way at the right time. If you want to see a video of it, click here.

****************

So yeah, I know it's not interesting, but it's weird how music kinda ruled my life this week. Hopefully next week my life will be ruled by something more cool. Doubtful.