Filed under: Randomness
Best Christmas song ever.
I’m not a big fan of all the Top 10 lists that come out around this time of year. I have trouble with lists and ‘best ofs’ in general – I don’t have an answer to the “Top 5 albums” or “Top 5 Songs of All Time” question. How is it possible to pick favorites when 2 things I might like have nothing in common with each other? So here’s just a list of stuff I was really into in 2007. I won’t call them ‘best ofs’ (because who really gets to decide what’s best), but it’s stuff that floated my boat.
Albums, in no particular order, that I really loved this year (and don’t hate on me if any of these weren’t technically released in ‘07 – it’s the year I embraced them):
Feist- The Reminder
Arcade Fire – Neon Bible
The New Pornographers – Challengers
Rufus Wainwright – Release the Stars
Wilco – Sky Blue Sky
The Shins – Wincing the Night Away
Elvis Perkins – Ash Wednesday
And some other stuff I really enjoyed:
Andrew Bird – Armchair Apocrypha
The Decemberists – Crane Wife
Cold War Kids – Robbers & Cowards
Iron & Wine – The Shepard’s Dog
Seen any good movies recently? I sure have. I’ve been spending a good portion of my free time trying to see as many movies as possible. I love the time of year when all the Oscar movies are released. It’s so refreshing to have many good options when heading to the theater.
My favorites so far this year are (again, in no particular order):
Juno
Michael Clayton
Once
Into The Wild
Ratatouille
No Country For Old Men
Finally, the award for “You’ve made me change my mind about you” is split this year between two actors:
Casey Affleck for The Assasination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford & Gone Baby Gone and Josh Brolin for American Gangster & No Country For Old Men.
They both blew my socks off.
Did I forget anything?
The Golden Globe nominations were announced this morning and Pushing Daisies was nominated for Best Comedy/Musical TV Series. Lee Pace was nominated for Best Actor in a Comedy TV Series and Anna Friel was nominated for Best Actress in a Comedy TV Series. That’s a grand total of 3 nominations, and it’s the only new network series to see any real action. Pretty great.
I was also excited to see Mad Men get its due – if you missed it on AMC this year try to catch the re-runs, watch it whenever it comes out on DVD, or you can download it from iTunes. It’s far and away the best thing that’s been on TV in ages and I can’t wait for the 2nd season.
A full list of the nominations can be found here.
The most obvious thing about the nominations this year is that clearly most of what’s interesting on TV is on cable – or at least that’s what the Hollywood Foreign Press seems to think. Perhaps the networks will take note and mix it up a bit more. I’ve had my fill of doctor-lawyer-cop shows, that’s for sure. Although what do I know – all the procedural cop shows do amazingly well, even if they don’t get awards. Which of course is not unlike our movie industry what with average Oscar movie hardly being the biggest box office draw.
And that’s a conversation for another time – I’m saving all the movie talk for another post…
Filed under: Movies, Travel | Tags: The Day the Earth Stood Still, Vancouver
Hey everyone – apologies for my absence – I haven’t much been in the mood to write recently what with being unemployed and general not-up-to-much-ness. However, it seems I now have a new job. I’ll be working on the remake of “The Day the Earth Stood Still” and because it’s shooting in Vancouver I’ll be ‘on location’, as they say, for the next 3 months. And I’ve just now noticed that the scheduled release date is a year from today: Dec.12th, 2008. Which means I’ll have a job for some time, a blessing when there’s no end to the writers strike in sight.
I spent a long weekend in Vancouver once and quite enjoyed the Aquarium. Those beluga whales are really the greatest things ever. I first discovered their existence when I worked on an Animal Planet show and have a had a mild obsession ever since. They’re really just so cute:
Am I right or am I right?
I also thought Stanley Park was all it’s cracked up to be and intend to explore it further. I realize that considering I’ll be there from this Sunday until the middle of March (with a break for the holidays) chances are I’ll be doing this exploring with an umbrella in hand, but at least I’ll be able to wear what little winter clothing I have after over 13 years in Los Angeles.
Anyhow, any suggestions for the city, from touristy stuff right on down to dive bars, will be gladly accepted. I’m hoping that my weekends will be free – the editor’s wife & 5 yr old son are going with him so I’m optimistic. At any rate, I’ll need plenty of things to keep me and my rental car busy. The notion of being in a city where I know virtually nobody is both exciting and frightening. Lets hope there aren’t too many “I’m lonely” posts on this here blog.
