2009 Music & Movie Wrap-up
So far, I've (finally) set up my credit card account online so I can pay my bills that way. It's not something I ever objected to or disagreed with, so much as something I just never got around to doing. So this year I'll be saving a lot of paper, checks, and postage stamps. Other than that, I didn't do much of anything yet this year. My mom woke me earlier than I expected to remind me we had to go to church, and when we got back from mass I shoveled the snow in our driveway. It was already melting and we'd only gotten an inch the day before, although it made enough of a mess on my December 31st morning commute to cause my car to slide down a hill sideways toward an oncoming bus. After using the curb to finally stop my horrifying descent, it took me awhile to get out of there, as the bus and all traffic behind it stopped. I ended up having to turn the car around and drive back down the hill toward traffic, riding on the shoulder until there was a clear spot to get on the right side of the road. It was annoying that so little snow cause so many problems, but on Friday I was glad it only took me a half hour to clear everything. After that, I just sort of watched some movies and dozed off, sleeping through most of the day.
So yeah, I'm not off to a huge life-changing start here but, again, it's only been one day. I'm not ruling out any of the positive things on my ”maybe” list just yet. I did check some house prices and I was surprised how they've dropped since the last time I looked. So who knows? I do know that it will take some time to get used to 2010 and put 2009 behind me, a year that started terribly with my father's illness and ended being a year of running, partying, dancing, concerts, famous people, and more. Among the good things from 2009 were music and movies, so as I continue to slack off and procrastinate this year, I'm going to take one last look back at last year. We'll start with music:
FAVORITE SONGS:
The Airborne Toxic Event, "Sometime Around Midnight"
Muse, "Uprising"
Pearl Jam, "The Fixer"
Pearl Jam, "Just Breathe"
Pete Yorn and Scarlett Johansson, "Relator"
Weezer, "(If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To"
Kings of Leon, "Use Somebody"(Apparently from December 2008, but hit big in ‘09)
Alice in Chains, "Check My Brain"
Alice in Chains, "Black Gives Way to Blue"
U2, I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight"
Chris Cornell, "Long Gone"
Miike Snow, "Animal"
Linkin Park, "New Divide"
Green Day, "21 Guns"
Christopher Walken, "Poker Face"
Alex Borstein(as Marlee Matlin), "Poker Face"
And here are the movies:
FAVORITES:
9
Taken
Fanboys
District 9
Star Trek
Watchmen
Zombieland
The Hangover
Adventureland
Black Dynamite
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Monsters vs. Aliens
Inglourious Basterds
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
NOT BAD:
(some better than others)
Push
2012
Saw VI
12 Rounds
Fast & Furious
Drag Me to Hell
I Love You, Man
Madea Goes to Jail
The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard
DISAPPOINTMENTS OF VARYING DEGREES:
(some worse than others, ranging from below expectations to just plain bad)
Knowing
Friday the 13th
Observe and Report
Terminator Salvation
Crank 2: High Voltage
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li
If you don't see a movie on any of the above lists, chances are I just haven't seen it yet(such as Up or Where the Wild Things Are). So what you've seen in 2009, I won't see before 2010 at the earliest. Truth be told, you've probably seen things in 1999 that I haven't gotten to yet. It's just another reminder of how I can't expect to turn things around in the course of a single year. But, like all things, I'll get there eventually. It takes me longer than most, but better late than never.
Tortoise and the hare, brother truckers. Tortoise and the hare...
posted by MCF at 12:55 AM
3 Comments:
Nice formatting on the movie lists.
I can't imagine how much of a bummer the Transformers sequel must have been to a hardcore fan. I work with a few guys who are neck-deep in the Transformers, and I've been amazed at loony arguments they've come up with to convince themselves that it wasn't a bad movie. Bottom line, if it can't stand up on it's own, it's a bad movie. No immersion in Transformers backstory (beyond the first movie at most) should be necessary to enjoy it.
I had no idea Linkin Park was still around.
LOL, Linkin Park was on the TF2 soundtrack and I think their last popular song, which sounded very similar, was on the previous movie. And it was tough for me to put on that list, which is why I added the "of varying degrees" qualifier. Yes, the nods to the original cartoon like the Matrix and a certain death were perks to the fans, but I don't think they were key to people's overall enjoyment of the film. My problem is that Bay left TOO MUCH in it. Get rid of the Jar-Jar brothers. Don't make Jetfire, who was originally based on Macross/Robotech designs, into a flatulent old 'bot with an accent. And why was it necessary to add in The Forgotten? Megatron should be established as the baddest of the bad, and putting in someone above him marginalizes his role. I'm sure some genius was seeing an Emperor/Darth Vader parallel, but instead it created redundancy.
I would say TF2, and Terminator, which suffered from Bale's Batman voice and inexplicably wooden acting but still had cool effects and a good performance from Sam Worthington, are the two on that list with SOME redeeming qualities, but not enough to be on my favorites list. I expected better in both cases, as with Wolverine. Most of the others, like F13, Chun-LI, and Knowing, were plain TERRIBLE, and in most cases I wasn't surprised. G.I. Joe was also a big disappointment, with almost no redeeming qualities. Marlon Wayans wasn't bad, and I was one of the few who thought he wouldn't be, recalling his Requiem for a Dream performance, but the rest of that movie was a garbage plot and script that made the cartoon seem sophisticated. They should have followed the comics, which were always aimed at an older audience and even justified some of the more ridiculous characters like Serpentor, Mindbender, or Raptor.
Let's see what 2010 brings...
I'm glad to see that someone else remembers Marlon Wayans in Requiem for a Dream. And that film is a perfect contrast with the movies we're discussing here:
I just picked that up on blu-ray and it looks and sounds amazing. Requiem features my favorite original score of any film I've seen. And the intensity of the visuals, the effects, the editing and the music ... it's an effects-heavy film, but it still convey's human drama perfectly. Let it be a lesson to the Micheal Manns and George Lucases, et al ... it is possible to do a visual effects heavy film and still have viewers come away remembering the story and the characters even more than the visuals.
And, yeah, Waynes is great in his role. So is Jared Lito. Apparently Aronofsky can get a good performance out of anyone. Hell, even the refridgerator is menacing! But Ellen Burstyn is the heart and soul of that film. Dammit, she makes me cry every friggin' time I watch that movie.
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