Friday, December 18, 2009
12DC - Day 5: Friday is Holiday List Day
Even though it is infrequently observed, Friday
is list day, so here's a couple lists...
Not So Random 10
Holiday music generally gets overplayed, but let's see what comes up:
- Shostakovich - "Suite #2 For Jazz Orchestra - Waltz #2"
- Vince Guaraldi - "Linus and Lucy"
- Bobby Helms - "Jingle Bell Rock"
- Weezer - "We Wish You a Merry Christmas"
- John Lennon - "Happy Xmas"
- Tchaikovsky - "The Nutcracker Suite"
- Gary Hoey - "Carol of the Bells"
- Bruce Springsteen - "Merry Christmas Baby"
- Vince Guaraldi - "Christmas Time Is Here"
- Sufjan Stevens - "Come on! Let's Boogey to the Elf Dance!"
Yeah, so some of those are
reallly overplayed, but what the hey.
Holiday Link Dump
Well, that's all for now. Stay tuned for what passes as a Christmas tree around here as well as Egg Nog madness.
Friday, December 04, 2009
Friday is List Day When I Say It's List Day
This is probably the most uneven feature on the blog, but I like to make me some lists from time to time. It's just not predictable, I guess. Anyway, enjoy.
Not So Random Ten
I suppose an explanation is in order. Normally I start off a list day post with 10 random songs from my playlist. Lately, I've come to realize that my music selection has become rather stale. So I'm attempting to liven things up a bit, with
some help, of course. Any musical recommendations are welcome, though I suppose I can't guarantee I'll listen to everything... Anyway, what this means is that the selection below isn't quite as random as normal. Some of it is new, some of it is old, some I've heard before, some I haven't.
- Vendetta Red - "Shatterday"
- Arcade Fire - "Intervention"
- The Animals - "House of the Rising Sun"
- The Mars Volta - "Aberinkula"
- The Mars Volta - "Metatron"
- Sufjan Stevens - "Come On! Feel The Illinoise!"
- Sufjan Stevens - "They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back From The Dead!! Ahhhh!"
- Modest Mouse - "Paper Thin Walls"
- Rodrigo y Gabriela - "Hanuman"
- Sigur Ros - "Hoppípolla"
5 Annoying Things People Do When Playing NHL 10 Online
- Abandon A Game - This happens all the time, and it's really annoying. Picture this: You're playing a game of hockey online, and for once, you're doing really well. The puck is bouncing your way, you're putting up a pretty good wall of defense, and you're actually getting scoring chances. You're about halfway through the game, and you've just taken a 4-1 lead when... your opponent quits the game. Now, it can be intensely frustrating to play this game against someone who is a lot better than you, so I can sympathize, but at the same time, this is a douchey thing to do. Indeed, some of the Trophies you can earn are dependent on actually finishing the game (this happened to me for the Century Play trophy, a gold-level trophy I've been slowly chipping away at for a few months now). Of course, there are accidents. People lose connectivity, etc... But those are rare. This happens way too often.
- Watch All the Cut-Scenes/Highlights - Dude, come on, they're the same damn things every game. There's no reason to do this. None. It's a big waste of time. Sure, you want to watch a particular goal because you're amazed at how good I am (or you want to rub your talent in my face), fine, that's understandable. But that should be maybe once or twice a game, not during every goddamn whistle. Also related, but not a full-blown pet peeve, are the people who pause the game constantly for some reason. I'm assuming it's because they're fiddling with their lines or something, but that's still annoying. Real players can win with what they're given.
- Play With The All-Star Team - Look, if you're really that bad, maybe you should put in some time playing the CPU on Hardcore Superstar until you get better or something. Choosing the All-Stars as your team just pisses me off. It's bad enough that most people seem to choose amazingly good hockey teams like Pittsburg or the Canadiens, but there's at least a reasonable chance that those people are legitimate fans. I play with the Flyers. A good team, but nowhere near the best.
- Gratuitous Fight Picking - This is partly the game's fault for allowing so much shenanigans after the whistle and there is a place for fighting in the game (among other things, it boosts your lines energy, etc...), but that doesn't mean we need to take EA up on the offer every time gameplay stops.
- Playing With A Slow Connection - Really? You want to play a game that's this choppy? Gimme a break. This is the one time I think it's acceptable to abandon a game (but you need to be sure you're not the offending party, in that case).
All that said, I am enjoying myself with the game. Now I just need to figure out the online league thing. I created a team and I have like 7 members on the team, but I can't figure out how to join a league or play a game. I guess some of my other members have to be online or something. Damnit.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
The 2009 Holiday Movie Season
I've noticed lately that people are starting to put out best of the decade lists. Me, I have a hard enough time putting out a best of the year lists, and this year is no exception. It's been a decent year; better than last year, but then, that's not saying much. 2009 still suffered from the tail end of the writers' strike, though that should be out of our system by now. And now we're beginning to approach the time of year when Hollywood tones down the explosions and starts putting out their prestige fare in the hopes of garnering an Oscar (with at least one notable exception)... but I have to say, i was much more intrigued by the movies being dumped off in August than most of those being released in December. That being said, there are still a few movies I'm interested in seeing:
- The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (November 20) - I'm a little disappointed that this isn't getting a wide release, as it's something that seems like a big barrel of weird fun. I mean, it stars an apparently unhinged Nicolas Cage and is directed by Werner Herzog. From what I've seen, I have this almost cognitive dissonance in my head that I can't quite reconcile, but that only really makes me want to see this more. I'm not sure if I'll be able to get to it, but it looks like fun.
- Fantastic Mr. Fox (November 25) - So this came out last week and I haven't had a chance to see it yet, but it looks fantastic. I'm really intrigued to see Wes Anderson tackle something outside his usual "quirky" wheelhouse (which has been getting a bit stale of late). It's part of a larger trend this year of young, trendy directors taking on children's stories (the other notable example being Where the Wild Things Are), which I found rather interesting. It's also interesting in that this year really does have a lot of different animation styles going on. This movie's got a very old-school stop-motion style, but this year you've also got the more advanced stop-motion of Coraline, the computer generated art of Up and even more traditional hand animated fare like Disney's The Princess and the Frog and Miyazaki's Ponyo.
- Up in the Air (December 4) - Jason Reitman's third film is garnering a lot of buzz these days. From what I've seen, I don't think it will overtake Thank You for Smoking as his best film, but I have hope. But then, from what I've heard, it's a bit of a downer. I'm hoping for some levity through funny cameos though...
- The Lovely Bones (December 11) - Peter Jackson switches gears to a (relatively) low budget drama about the murder of a 14 year old? I'm there. I haven't read the book and only have a vague idea of what it's about, so I'm excited for this one.
- Avatar (December 18) - I suppose this is the one exception to the traditional December fare, but despite my misgivings (this film is a charter member of the "Films I want to see even though I know they will suck" list (see the bottom of this post)), I am looking forward to the return of James Cameron. I have to admit that I'm not very impressed with what I've seen so far (the dialogue seems especially bad), but you never know and at the very least, it looks to have some breathtaking action sequences...
- Other Stuff: The Boat That Rocked/Pirate Radio, Ninja Assassin, The Road, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, and Sherlock Holmes.
- Stuff to Watch on DVD/BD: February 2 looks busy... I may have to delay my top 10 list until I see these two: Black Dynamite and The House of the Devil. I would also really like to see A Serious Man, but that's another film that only had a very limited release and I can't even find a date for the DVD/BD... I know nothing about Franklyn other than that it's apparently SF and already out on DVD, so it's in my queue. I missed Extract when it was in theaters, and it's coming on DVD in December. Perhaps less excited about 9, Pandorum, and Jennifer's Body, but they're also coming out soon...
And that about covers it. Will any of these make my top 10? There is certainly a chance, but I don't see more than 1 or 2 making it on the list (provided I manage to see all these, many of which I predict I won't be able to due to annoying limited releases and lengthy waits for DVD/BD).
Friday, November 13, 2009
Night of the Friday is List Day
So yeah, it's been over a year since the last List Day. I figure we're due.
Random Ten:
- Mike Oldfield - "Tubular Bells Part Two"
- Nine Inch Nails - "9 Ghost I"
- Mew - "Why Are You Looking Grave?"
- The Who - "Welcome"
- Clint Mansell, Kronos Quartet - "Winter Overture"
- Soundgarden - "The Day I Tried to Live"
- Jimi Hendrix - "Stop"
- Steroid Maximus - "'Pusher' Jones"
- Fantômas - "Investigation Of A Citizen Above Suspicion"
- Dave / Del tha Funkee Homosapien / Handsome Boy Modeling School - "The Projects (Pjays)"
5 Interesting Documentaries Available on Netflix Instant Viewing
In honor of Netflix's newfound PS3 support, I've been watching a bunch of stuff this week, including these documentaries.
-
- Overnight: Wow, Troy Duffy (of Boondock Saints fame) is a tremendous douchebag.
- Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired: A little too sympathetic to fugitive child rapist Polanski, but that's a tough line to walk and the movie does a reasonable job in spite of that. Apparently a sequel covering recent happenings is in the works.
- Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film: It's a fun film for fans of the genre (I wrote about this before).
- Revolution OS: Seems to be a reasonable overview of the rise of Free Software, Linux, and Open Source. Like most movies about technology, it's out of date, but still interesting.
- Zombiemania: I don't even really like Zombie movies that much, but I love watching documentaries about movies, so this was fun.
5 Other Documentaries I Want to Watch
That's all for now. I doubt this will be the regular feature it once was, but you never know...
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Link Dump: Top 10s and Some Nitpicking
Time is short, so here are a few links to end of the year movie lists and the like. Still not sure when I'll get to my top 10, but it probably won't be this week.
- The 2008 Top Tens - Movie City News collects and aggregates 286 top 10 lists, ranking the movies by number of list mentions and a weighted version that considers how high on each list a given movie was ranked. The top 5 movies on the list are WALL-E, The Dark Knight, Slumdog Millionaire, Milk and The Wrestler. Not a bad list, though at most, only two of those will be appearing on my list. One nitpicky frustration - why on earth did they put all the data in images? It makes it a lot more difficult to find a movie you want to know about.
- The 19 Best Movies That You Didn't See in 2008: An interesting list of the underdistributed, sometimes underrated films of last year. Except for Speed Racer, which was horrible. Honestly though, this year's list isn't as good as last year's list, which I take as just another sign that 2008 was not a particularly good year for movies.
- jim's ten best favorite movies of 2008: the movie - Jim Emerson's top ten is presented in the form of an 8 minute montage of clips from his favorite movies. I was able to name 4 of them (probably because I haven't seen the other 6, and I have to say, I didn't see anything in his clips that indicated that I was missing anything). Kind of a stereotypical critic's list... but I'm greatly looking forward to his 2nd annual Exploding Head Awards (that's a link to last year's awards - he hasn't posted this year's yet).
- Speaking of Jim Emerson, he's been doing some spectacular nit picking (don't miss Part 2) on The Dark Knight, particularly with the first sequence in the film which culminates with a school bus merging with other school busses. If you still haven't seen The Dark Knight, don't read his posts! They will put you in the wrong frame of mind to watch the movie (or any movie, for that matter - at least, any movie you're watching for the first time). Now, these are nitpicks, but I do believe that Emerson has a point. I love the movie, and I'm sure regular readers wouldn't be surprised that it will be my top movie of the year, but it isn't perfect. There are several sequences that cheat in one way or another, whether it be through editing or awkward camera angles or any other number of filmmaking tricks. Emerson's argument boils down to a question of whether the filmmaking tricks employed in TDK impair suspension of disbelief. I would say that when I view a movie, I have a certain sense of moviegoing goodwill. When I watch a movie, I want it to be good, I want to be sucked in and immersed in the world a film creates. But sometimes there are things that happen in a movie that are simply unbelievable. These movies knock you out of the movie's world and force you to recognize that you're actually sitting in a theater (or on a couch, or whatever). These moments work against my moviegoing goodwill. Usually a single moment won't do it - it's a culmination of things. After a while, my goodwill runs out and the movie simply can't recover. The Dark Knight obviously grated on Emerson. He found himself wondering about all the details of the various things that were being presented to him. He claims this was a sorta unconscious effect. He knew he didn't like the movie, but couldn't explain why until he'd seen the movie a few more times on DVD/BR, where he could really dig into it. That's when he started noticing all of the shots or edits that worked against his suspension of disbelief. Now, I didn't have that problem. Indeed, I've seen the movie 5 times since it came out, and while a couple of things jumped out at me during my first and second viewing, I didn't really start to think about it until the 5th viewing, at which point some of the imperfections became more clear. But even then, it wasn't enough to ruin my moviegoing goodwill. Even reading Emerson's well thought out objections, I find that I can see his point without granting that it ruins the movie or the suspension of disbelief that is required to watch it. I'm interested by this sort of thing, because I think people like the movies they like for less rational reasons than we're willing to admit. There are a lot of great movies that I can nitpick to death, but still love anyway. So when I find myself trying to explain why I dislike a movie with something like "Well he fired 8 shots out of that there revolver! You can't do that!" or "...giant humanoid robots really don't make any sense" I think what I'm really trying to say is that the movie did not pull me in and immerse me in it's own world. The frustrating thing about this is that I think this can be dependant on mood. Context matters, and there are certainly times when I'm muchmore willing to suspend disbelief than I would normally be... and vice versa. Well, I've babbled on long enough, so I'll just leave it at that for now.
Didn't mean to get off on that tangent there. That last subject is perhaps something I'd like to revisit at some point, but it will not be tonight...
Friday, June 27, 2008
Friday is List Day
Another Friday, another list day.
Random 10: The Guitar Hero Edition
Ok, perhaps not random, but 10 songs from Guitar Hero III that I like
- Social Distortion - "Story of My Life"
- The Strokes - "Reptilia"
- The Killers - "When You Were Young"
- Weezer - "My Name Is Jonas"
- Muse - "Knights of Cydonia"
- Kaiser Chiefs - "Ruby"
- Senses Fail - "Can't Be Saved"
- Naast - "Mauvais Garçon"
- Backyard Babies - "Minus Celsius"
- DragonForce - "Through the Fire and Flames"
Incidentally, I was finally able to actually complete "Through the Fire and Flames" on medium difficulty this week with a whopping 68% of notes played. I'm not sure if I'm really any better at Guitar Hero so much as I've memorized the songs and developed muscle memory, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to give myself arthritis if I keep playing the game a lot.
10 Favorite TV/Movie Robots
In honor of
WALL·E, here are 10 great movie robots (not necessarily great movies though:P) Ok, I cheated and put some cyborgs on the list. In no particular order:
Friday, June 20, 2008
The Friday is List Day Caper
It's been a long time since a proper list day, so here's a few lists. First off comes a
meme from Aziz that will take the place of the usual random ten songs:
Seven Songs I Am Into Right Now
- DragonForce - "Through The Fire And Flames"
- Weezer - "Only in Dreams"
- Tool - "10,000 Days (Wings Pt 2)"
- The Heavy - "That Kind of Man"
- Radiohead - "Bodysnatchers"
- UNKLE - "Nursery Rhyme / Breather"
- Mr. Bungle - "Carousel"
So basically, I need to start listening to some new music. Heh.
Top 5 Heist Movies
- Ocean's Eleven (2001): Probably the most purely entertaining films of this century, and very well made too.
- Heat: Michael Mann's brilliant cops and robbers story contains some of the more memorable realistic heists, including one of the best gunfights in film history. Perhaps a little long and a little unfocused, but it all works for me.
- (tie) Bob le flambeur and The Good Thief: Yes, I'm cheating, this is a tie. However, The Good Thief is a remake of Bob le flambeur, and they're both pretty good examples of the heist genre. The newer film has more of the modern conventions of heist films (and it does a good job subverting them as well), while the original helped establish the conventions of heist films (the original is a little slower than the remake, but still worth a watch). The ending of both approaches what Roger Ebert describes as "cosmic irony."
- The Killing: Before Stanley Kubrick made a name for himself, he worked on a couple of genre pics, this being one of the finest examples of film noir and heist films.
- The Bank: Underrated Australian caper flick that might be a little out of place on this list, but I wanted to put it on because almost no one has seen it and it's worth a watch...
This was hard, there are lots of movies I wanted to put on the list, but fell off for various reasons, including
The Usual Suspects (the capers really aren't the focus of the film though),
The Asphalt Jungle (pretty much the blueprint for the modern heist film),
The Killers (not really a heist film, though it does feature a heist shown with a great tracking shot),
Heist and
Die Hard
Top 5 Heist Movies I should Have Seen Before Compiling the Above List
Interestingly, it seems that most of these films are on Filmspotting's next marathon. Score.
5 More Good Heist Movies I forgot to mention earlier
Ok, so now that I've mentioned 20 heist films (without mentioning
Dog Day Afternoon!), I guess I should stop.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Friday is List Day: Oscars Edition
The Oscars are this weekend, so here's a few lists for your enjoyment including some movie related ones. Oh, and of course, I'll be liveblogging the Oscars (as I did
last year, and even a
few years before that). Feel free to stop by and play along!
Random Ten
- Eels - "Rock Hard Times"
- Guster - "I Hope Tomorrow Is Like Today"
- Weezer - "The Good Life"
- Mr. Bungle - "Egg"
- The Who - "Pinball Wizard"
- The New Pornographers - "Twin Cinema"
- Mansun & 808 State - "Skin Up Pin Up"
- Tool - "The Pot"
- KMFDM - "Blame"
- Radiohead - "Bodysnatchers"
Top 5 3 Oscar Pseudo-Blunders
Everyone does Oscar Blunders lists, but there are some that I've always thought were being a little too harsh. Were the below wins really a "blunder"? Probably, but I think it's worth considering that the films that won...
- Rocky beats 3 classics - I think Rocky's sequels have irrevocably ruined the reputation of the first film, which is a lot better than most people seem to give it credit for. On the other hand, is it really a better film than Taxi Driver, Network, and All the President’s Men (other nominees that lost)? That's a tough lineup to beat, to be sure, and I'm conflicted. Taxi Driver is indeed one of my favorite films, but so is Rocky and if I had to watch one of them right now, I'd probably pick Rocky. It's perhaps not objectively a better-made film, but subjectively, I could definitely see Rocky winning.
- Titanic wins best picture: This movie gets unfairly maligned, I think, because it just didn't go away. The film was in theaters for months, we had to listen to that stupid song for months, and we had to watch all those teenage girls swoon over Leo. Nevertheless, Titanic is a good film, and it didn't have much in the way of comptetition. The only other nominee that puts up a fight is L.A. Confidential, which I agree is a good film, but is this really a huge blunder?
- Annie Hall beats out Star Wars: On a personal subjective level, there's no way Star Wars should have lost to Annie Hall. But now that I'm older, and now that I've had the Star Wars franchise knocked down a peg or two by the prequels, I think it's fair to say that, you know, the first Star Wars film was poorly made and it pales in comparison to The Empire Strikes Back. But then, I really don't like Annie Hall at all. I recognize it as a well made film and it did make me laugh a few times, but hell, we're talking Star Wars here! Ok, maybe this is a huge blunder.
Alright, so this list didn't go so well and I can't think of any more. Fleh. See you Sunday.
Friday, November 02, 2007
Friday is List Day: Book List Meme
Looks like there's a
book meme making the rounds:
Read it?
Bold it.
Start it, but didn't finish it?
Italicize it.
Hated it?
Strike it through.
As you can see, there are few books that I've started and not finished (and the ones I have were only started due to some sort of school assignment that didn't require a complete reading). I also don't hate many of the books, but perhaps that's just because I think hate is a pretty strong word. (I have no idea where this list of books came from - it's a mildly ecclectic mix of old and new. I guess Sara just made it up? Strange.)
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi: A Novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveller's Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault's Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
To the Lighthouse
Oliver Twist
Tess of the Dubervilles
Gulliver's Travels
Les Miserables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela's Ashes
A People's History of the United States : 1492-Present
The God of Small Things
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake: A Novel
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity's Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood
Treasure Island
White Teeth
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers
And Roy's additions:
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Maus
War of the Worlds
The Invisible Man
Time Machine
Old Man and the Sea
Bluest Eye
The Republic
The Bible
Alice in Wonderland
Wizard of Oz
Return to Oz
Ender's Game
It
Misery
The Chronicles of Narnia
Beowulf
The Stranger
Animal Farm
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
Lord of the Flies
Naked Lunch
The Confessions of Nat Turner
Rabbit, Run
As I Lay Dying
Snow Crash
The Sound and the Fury
The Great Gatsby
Watchmen
Charlotte's Web
The Giving Tree
Good Night Moon
A Wrinkle in Time
The BFG
I suppose I could add some books, but there's no real limit here and there doesn't seem to be any sort of theme, so I'll just leave it be.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Bride of Friday is List Day
It's been months since I've posted one of these, and even Roy isn't doing this anymore, but I figure, why not?
Random Ten
- The Secret Machines - "Road Leads Where It's Led"
- Yoko Kanno - "Too Good Too Bad"
- Guster - "Red Oyster Cult"
- Mike Oldfield - "Tubular Bells Part One"
- UNKLE - "Bloodstain"
- Weezer - "Hash Pipe"
- The New Pornographers - "The Bleeding Heart Show"
- Modest Mouse - "People as Places"
- Steroid Maximus - "Aclectasis"
- Jimi Hendrix - "Machine Gun"
5 Underappreciated or Unknown Horror Movies
- Mute Witness: Perhaps not strictly a horror film, but it's a very tense thriller, which is close enough in my book.
- Bay of Blood: A great openeing sequence, lots of inventive death sequences (most of which were lifted by American films, notably the Friday the 13th series), and an ending so absurd that I'm still not sure it actually happened.
- Parents: I haven't seen this in years and it probably doesn't really count as horror, but I think I'm one of about 6 people who've ever seen this. It plays it's story straight, but it's almost kinda funny.
- Bubba Ho-tep: I don't know if this counts as overrated, but Bruce Campbell as an aging Elvis (who had faked his death) fighting a mummy in a Texas old-folks home (alongside a black JFK). What more can you ask for?
- Manos: The Hands of Fate: Heh, just kidding.
Friday, August 03, 2007
Friday is List Day
If Friday really is list day, I should really be doing this every week. For some reason, I sometimes don't get around to it, but really, how hard is it?
Random Ten
- Faith No More - "Hippie Jam Song"
- Pigface - "The Greenhouse"
- Skinny Puppy - "The Killing Game"
- Gypsy Kings - "Baila Me"
- Stabbing Westward - "Control"
- Aerosmith - "Big Ten Inch Record (unplugged)"
- Radiohead - "Life in a Glasshouse"
- Einstürzende Neubauten - "Sie"
- Yoko Kanno & Seatbelts - "Rush"
- Coheed and Cambria - "Coheed and Cambria / XI"
Five Podcasts I Listen To
That's all for now.
Friday, July 13, 2007
List Day is Friday
Strange night. I'm mildly drunk right now, so these lists should reflect that.
The Random 10:
- Mr. Bungle - "Goodbye Sober Day"
- Barenaked Ladies - "Alcohol"
- Propellerheads - "Cominagetcha"
- Louis Armstrong - "What a Wonderful World"
- Nine Inch Nails - "A Warm Place"
- UNKLE - "Lonely Soul"
- Genesis - "Hairless Heart"
- Tool - "The Pot"
- Tweaker - "Crude Sunlight"
- Willie Nelson - "Gotta Get Drunk"
5 Great Beers I've Recently Drank
I had three of these tonight, and all of them within the past couple of weeks. Good stuff.
Friday, July 06, 2007
Friday is List Day: Second Time In Two Weeks
Well, what do you know. Maybe I can do list day more than once a month.
Screenshot game update: We're on
Round 4 folks. Hop to it!
Random 10
- Lynyrd Skynyrd - "Free Bird"
- Eels - "Trouble With Dreams"
- Crystal Method - "Keep Hope Alive"
- U2 - "Where The Streets Have No Name"
- Mansun & 808 State - "Skin Up Pin Up"
- Cake - "Italian Leather Sofa"
- Clint Mansell & Kronos Quartet - "Summer Overture"
- Radiohead - "Paranoid Android"
- Pearl Jam - "Deep"
- Moby - "God Moving Over The Face Of The Waters"
6 Cartoons I Loved When I Was a Kid (Off the top of my head)
- G.I. Joe
- Batman: The Animated Series
- Tiny Toons/Animaniacs
- Voltron
- Duck Tales
- Thundercats
That list could probably keep going on for a while...
Posted by Mark on July 06, 2007 at 11:18 PM .:
link
:.
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Link to Someone New: Top 100 Movies Edition
A quick note: after a promising start, the
screenshot game has stalled a bit.
Alex posted a screenshot (update:
new screenshot posted, and we have a winner!), but I have no idea what it is, and apparently neither do his readers. If you've got a keen cinematic eye, go check it out and see if you can answer it (if you get it right, you get to host the next round!) When I started the game, I was a little worried that something like this would happen. One of the perils of trying to start a meme on a low traffic blog, I guess. That's why my screenshot was so easy. I bet this could take off if it ever hits a reasonably high traffic blog.
In any case, it's time to make another attempt at escaping the echo chamber of blog reading that I've constructed around myself by linking to people I've never linked to before. The theme here is Top 100 movie lists.
- Edward Copeland's Top 100: Inspired by the recently revised AFI list, Copeland tries his hand at putting together a top 100. Excellent work, complete with screenshots and even goes the extra mile by putting a description for each film. Excellent.
- Damian's Top 100: Another top 100 list, also inspired by AFI and others like Ed Copeland. A very good list.
- Lazy Eye Theater: My Hundred: Another great list and contains a lot of films that you probably wouldn't find on other lists (though several will definitely be on my list).
Also worth noting is
James Berardinelli's All-Time Top 100, but I've linked him before. Compiling a top 100 list is a daunting task. I think I'll give it a shot, but reading lists like these always makes me realize how many of the "great films" I haven't seen. I've seen enough movies that I think I can put together a decent Top 100 list, but I've got a lot of backfilling to do if I want it to be as authoritative as some of these other lists...
The other challenge is how subjective to be. There are a lot of incredible films in terms of film techniques or
innovation, but do they really belong on my list?
Citizen Kane is an incredible film, and on any objective list, it should probably be somewhere near the top. But should it be on my list? I recognize the greatness of the film, and I got into it while watching it, but in the end, I didn't really connect with it the way I do with some of the films that will be at the top of my list. On the other end of the spectrum, I have an inexpicable love for
Phantasm. While undeniably creepy at times, it's also a pretty bad film. Should either of those films be on my list? Who knows? Maybe filling up 100 slots will be harder than it seems, but I have a feeling that I'm going to have lots of honorable mentions...
I doubt I'll be able to compile a good list by Sunday, but you never know. Maybe I should start with the
cinecast confessions list: Movies I Can't Believe I've Never Seen.
Friday, June 29, 2007
One Friday A Month Is List Day
Apparently I only ever really find time to do a Friday is List Day post once a month. In any case, here you go:
Random Ten:
- Guster - "One Man Wrecking Machine"
- Pink Floyd - "Fearless"
- KMFDM - "Brute"
- Beastie Boys - "Song for the Man"
- The Chemical Brothers - "Let Forever Be"
- Handsome Boy Modeling School (DJ Quest/DJ Shadow) - "Holy Calamity (Bear Witness II)"
- Mike Oldfield - "Ommadawn On Horseback"
- Eels - "Somebody Loves You"
- UNKLE - "The Knock (Drums Of Death Part 2)"
- Isaac Hayes - "Run Fay Run"
5 Unread Books I Own
- The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon: Just purchased this and want to read it based mostly on the awesome title. I like Chabon too. And the book is getting good reviews.
- Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell: This has been out for a while, so I'm behind the trend, but I just picked it up recently. I like Gladwell a lot. Even if I don't agree with something, he's usually pretty interesting and thought provoking.
- Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War by Robert Coram: Based on what I've read of OODA loops, I decided to check out this biography. Boyd seems to have lead an interesting life, not to mention that his ideas appear to be playing a major role in current world conflicts.
- Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace: This one takes the award for longest on shelf without being read. I've had this book for at least 5 years, but can't bring myself to open it up. Firstly, it's around 1,000 pages, and from what I've heard, it's one of those Pynchon-like post-modern footnotes-within-footnotes type of book. After finishing Gravity's Rainbow, my interest in such works has waned considerably.
- The Marble Mask by Archer Mayor: My uncle gave me several of Mayor's detective/mystery books for Christmas last year. I've read a couple of them and while I haven't read much in the genre, he seems to be pretty decent (if not especially brilliant). I think this would have made good airplane reading, if I hadn't been engrossed by Neal Stephenson's Interface.
5 Upcoming Movies I Want To See Even Though I Know They'll Suck
- Hitman (October 2007): After some initial distaste, I've grown to love the video game and even considered just writing a script myself based on the concepts (just for fun). Movies based on video games don't exactly have a good track record though, and I can't say that the no-name makers of this film inspire confidence. Also, there's this quote from IMDB: "he's being groomed as the ... I don't know ... the next Paul Walker?" Still, the trailer is pretty decent and they've retained one of my favorite parts of the game: the Ave Maria.
- Transformers: God help me.
- The Simpsons Movie: I stopped watching the show a while ago, as I found myself watching an entire episode without laughing even once. Maybe they'll reignite for the movie, but it will probably suck.
- I Am Legend: I loved the book (well, the book is a bit of a downer, but it was good), but I'm not too confident that we'll see a good translation here. The book's study of isolation and grim irony doesn't appear to have made it to the screen. I guess there's hope, but previous attempts to bring it to the screen have meddled with the story significantly (infamously and inexplicably, a recent script made no references to Vampires, instead using the term Hemocytes. At least the upcoming release avoided that trap...)
- The Bourne Ultimatum: This one's cheating, I guess, as I think Greengrass is awesome and I'm pretty sure it won't suck. But the #3 movie in a series is a tough one, as evidenced by other summer sequels, and I'm pretty sure this will disappoint.
