2005 Music Rankings

I've said this several times now, but this was really a great year for music. I really like all 15 of these albums. I've added comments for the top 10.

15. Notwist and Themselves - 13 & God
14. Jens Lenkman - Oh, You're So Silent Jens
13. The Decemberists - Picaresque
12. The Game - The Documentary
11. Common - Be

10. Bloc Party - Bloc Party - This is Trafton's favorite album of the year, and his description is better than anything I could come up with:

I used to listen to this CD while biking too and from work and it would make want to do all sorts ridiculous/impossible things like hop over small cars and careen into uncharted forests at full speed. I started wearing a bike helmet for the first time in my life but eventually gave up and stopped using this as my commuting theme-music.

I've only heard this one a few times, but I can see what he meant. I expect this will appear on my work-out mixes for years to come. I'll put it at number 10, and add that it might've been higher if I'd heard it earlier in the year.

9. Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake It's Morning
Whenever I listen to someone like Bright Eyes, I'm subconsciously interviewing them as an Elliot Smith replacement. No one has been hired yet (probably never will be), but Bright Eyes at least warranted a call back <>. So, yeah, he's no Elliot Smith, and honestly, the album's sound is definitely a little homogeneous, and maybe even a little hokey, but I still think it's good. He's got a great voice, and a few of the songs (Lua, Landlocked Blues) really succeed in putting you in his shoes.

8. The Clientele - Strange Geometry
It doesn't have the stand-out tracks that some of the higher ranked albums have, but it might be the most coherent album on the list. It also wins the award for best album title without any real competition.

7. Stars - Set Yourself on Fire
I had this at number two on my previous version of this list, but on second thought, I think it belongs a little lower. This CD reminds me of a lot of bands I really like (Notwist mainly, but also Yo La Tengo, Broken Social Scene and others), but it never really reaches the heights that those guys frequent. I listened to it back to back with Neon Golden yesterday, and there's really no comparison. There are some really good songs, and it ends strong, which I appreciate. I'm just not sure I'll be listening to it a few years from now.

6. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
5. Wolf Parade - Apologies to the Queen Mary
These two get lumped together because a few songs off of each really stand out. The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth by Clap Your Hands is the best rock song I've heard in years. The rest of the CD is pretty good too, but that's the song that keeps me coming back. I was really confused about why the Wolf Parade album is so damn inconsistent until I read that there are two songwriters who composed alternating tracks for the record. Well, odd-numbered-track guy wins, hands down. Grounds For Divorce (Track 3), Fancy Claps (5) and I'll Believe in Anything (9) are all wonderful, even if some of the surrounding songs aren't so hot.


4. Broken Social Scene - Broken Social Scene
I loved You Forgot It People, but I definitely had my doubts about Broken Social Scene's ability to follow it up with anything similar. Well, they didn't really make anything similar, but they definitely made another great record. It's odd because they've got a very dense, layered sound which usually turns me off, but it works perfectly for them, and I find myself singing along constantly. Of course, I have no idea what the hell I'm singing about. In fact, if someone caught me singing along to this with my headphones on they'd probably commit my ass.

3. Kanye West - Late Registration
Yeah, Kanye's rapping is questionable sometimes, but the samples are so smooth, the guests incorporated so seamlessly, the production so perfect that I rarely notice. Really, commercial Hip-Hop just makes commercial Rock look sad. Jay-Z vs. Staind, anyone? Outkast vs. System of the Down? Kanye vs. Nickleback? Pssh, get real. I can't even think of people for Eminem, The Game, and 50 cent to fight.

2. Iron and Wine - Woman King EP / In The Reins EP
Sure, it's cheating to slap 2 EPs together and call them the number 2 album of the year, but any list without Iron and Wine near the top wouldn't really represent the new music I've been listening to this year. Fourteen months ago I'd never heard of this band, and now I'd be hard pressed to think of anyone making new music that I like more (maybe The Shins). If you've never listened to them before start with Our Endless Numbered Days from 2004, but you really can't go wrong with anything that they've put out. It's all damn good.

1. Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
Man, singer/songwriters in the top two spots, I really am getting old. I suppose it's logical that it turned out this way since, in general, lyrics make and break albums for me. If you can't sing along at least a little bit, then why bother. Illinois goes a step beyond that; it doesn't just get lyrics stuck in your head, it gets whole stories stuck in your head. The songs run an incredible emotional range. Listening to this CD can change my mood from good to depressed and back to good in one sitting. This is hands down the best album from a very good year for music.

2005 Movie Rankings (Preliminary)

Update (12/26/05) - I was suprised by the number of "Bad" movies I've seen this year, so I thought I'd add categories to the rankings.

Bad (Less than 5 on my scale):
30. A Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
29. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
28. The Island
27. Fever Pitch
26. Me, You and Everyone We Know
25. March of the Penguins
24. Millions
23. 4 Minutes
22. The Lion the Witch and The Wardrobe

OK (5+):
21. Mr. and Mrs. Smith
20. Sin City
19. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
18. A History of Violence
17. Jarhead
16. Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire
15. Coach Carter
14. Batman Begins
13. Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith
12. Proof

Good (7+):
11. War Of The Worlds - This was a very tense movie.
10. Wedding Crashers - My honorary top 10 comedy
9. King Kong - Move over Jerry Bruckheimer, Peter Jackson is the new king of the action movie.
8. Constant Gardener - A good, if somewhat quiet movie.
7. Cinderella Man - Paul Giamatti and Russle Crowe were both very good.
6. Howl's Moving Castle - As good as Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke.
5. Good Night and Good Luck - Well made and suprisingly timely.

Great (8+):
4. Walk the Line - It's similar to Ray in a lot of ways, but might end up with twice as many best acting Oscars.
3. Capote - Saddest movie I've seen in years. Incredible performace from Phillip Seymore Hoffman.
2. Crash - It's a rare multi-threaded movie where just about everything works.
1. Syriana - Similar to Crash in a lot of ways, but I think it handles it's topic in a slightly more reasonable fashion.

* - I still plan to see - Munich, The Squid and the Whale, Brokeback Mountain, 40 Year Old Virgin, Aristocrats, Broken Flowers.

Movies, Movies, Movies

I've seen 7 movies in the last week. Five in the theatre. They were:

• Harry Potter
• Walk the Line
• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
• Syriana
• King Kong

I'll have reviews and a preliminary 2005 Top 10 up sometime before Christmas.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - 5.5

Goblet of Fire is easily my favorite book in the Harry Potter series. It's long and detailed and contains Rowling's best action scenes to date. The movie version is enjoyable enough, but doesn't come close to living up to it's source material. The fight scenes are a good example. They get a lot of screen time in the movie, but are mostly ho-hum. I suppose the dragon scene captures a little bit of the excitement from the book. Harry sitting in his tent waiting for the fight to start builds tension beautifully, but the "oh no I dropped my broom and now I'm hanging on to a ledge gimmick" is painfully weak, and kind of kills that excitement. The rest of the fight scenes were pretty forgettable, but I wouldn't say they were outright bad in any way. The thing is, these pedestrian fight scenes are probably the best part of the film. The love story plot is poorly laid out and offered no insight into the characters unless you already know the story. The mandatory class-room scene didn't accomplish much. The quiddich was short and slightly sub-standard also.

The main reason I'm a little disappointed with the mediocrity found here is that the third movie was so good. Prisoner of Azkaban is the only one of the four films that tried to stretch the borders of the book a little bit, and for that it clearly remains the best movie of the series. Goblet of Fire plays like an abridged version of a good book that everyone in the theatre has already read. It evokes memories of a great story, but it fails to tell the story itself. The first 2 movies in the series did the same thing, so I'll lump it in with them, all sitting a big step behind the third film. Goblet of Fire is fun, and I'd say, worth watching. Just be sure to go in expecting pop-corn cinema instead of real quality movie making.

NMH

When I was a freshman in college, I told Ted that pretty much all of his music sucked, but over the years, I've come to like everything he was listening to at the time. I came around to Dismemberment Plan first. Built to Spill and Modest Mouse and Spoon followed. Until today, Neutral Milk Hotel the last hold out. Being the jack-ass that I am, I probably listened to one song once, and decided I didn't like his voice and then decided to be stubborn about it for 8 years.

Well, I just listened to In the Aeroplane Over The Sea for the first time ever (yes, I know this is high Indie-rock treason, but whatever). Do you ever wish that you hadn't heard an album that you really love, so that you could hear it again for the first time? That's where I'm at right now. I'll post an mp3 when I get home.

Best Books of 2005 (and late night ramblings)

I don't think I've personally read anything published this year except for the new Song of Ice and Fire and some articles about cockroach allergens, but Matt Compton has read lots, and these are his favorite books of the year. He also links to some critics' best of lists (scroll down a bit).

Saturday by Ian McEwan seems to pop up a lot, so I think I'm going to give that a shot once I wake up from the nap I'm planning after I finish this test. I'm currently sitting at 30 pages. I've been working fairly steadily for the last 16 hours, and I've still got 2 of 12 questions left to do. On the bright side, after 20 years of doing math for grades, this could quite possibly be the last time I ever pay someone else to let me do some random calculation that I don't really care about. Starting mid-January, the cash-flow reverses direction, and I must say, it's about damn time.

Time To Go

When it comes to pop culture, it's better to burn out than to fade away. So, I'm going to have to agree with this article about the plight of Arrested Development:

"Instead of plodding on for 10-plus seasons and retiring in a comfy haze of nostalgia and clip shows, maybe [Arrested Development] should live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking, and very funny, corpse."

Forward Wildfiring

Starting sometime within the next 24 hours, www.wildfiring.com should be pointing you here. Any suggestions for a cheap host with good FTP access and a DNS server so that I can move the blog over to that address permanently?

Another Sashaism

"I'll call you boy, B-O-I. It's email-ese ."
-Sasha, who speaks only email-ese while on the telephone. 12/11/05, 10:37 p.m.

Quick Reviews

Movies:
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - 3.0 - Maybe it's because I wasn't paying much attention, but the movie seemed dumb, and not even funny-dumb. It was bad-dumb. The special effects looked hokey. The dialogue alternated between forced and nonsensical. I guess they were trying to capture the tone of the book, but if that is the case, I can only conclude that pulling off deadpan is easier in print that it is with mediocre actors and bad-looking special effects.

Shawshank Redemption - 9.0 - Freeman and Robbins both give near-flawless performances. It's not a groundbreaking movie, but it's a masterful version of a simple story. It deserves mention in any conversation about the best movie of the last 20 years.


TV :
Rome (Season 1) - 7.5 - It started slow, and sometimes it seemed like the sex was there more for ratings than for plot advancement, but there were 3 or 4 very compelling characters and the last third of the season was very strong. It doesn't rank with the opening season of Sopranos or the Wire, but it's a worthy addition to HBO's amazing library, and there is definitely a lot of potential going forward.

Scrubs (Season 3) - 5.5 - I've decided that the best word for scrubs is pleasant, and I mean that as a backhanded compliment. It's rarely laugh out loud funny. The main characters are kind of annoying. I find my self siding with the antagonist Janitor who torments everyone. Yet for some reason I can't seem to stop watching it ... Maybe I need a hobby.

Ovary boy

Robyn - Be Mine (Download)

Jon's ovaries are probably rubbing off on me (ewww), but this song is the catchiest thing I've heard since Hey Ya, and Lord knows I love me some Hey Ya. Listening to it back to back with Kelly Clarkson makes me feel like ... well, Jon, but who cares. It's a fun song, and I like it. (discovered via Said the Gramaphone)

Update: Upon first hearing the song, the first words out of Alexa's mouth were, "Hun, are you sure you're not gay?" so there you go.

Top 10 CDs of 2005

Yay for December, the official month of year end lists. It's been a great year for music. Here are my 10 favorite albums released this year:

1) Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
2) Stars - Set Yourself on Fire
3) Wold Parade - Apologies to the Queen Mary
4) Kanye West - Late Registration
5) Iron and Wine - Woman King EP / In The Reins EP (2 EPs makes an album, right?)
6) Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake It's Morning
7) Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Self tilted
8) Broken Social Scene - Self titled
9) Common - Be
10) Decemberists - Picaresque

Honorable Metions:
The Game - Documetary
The Clientele - Strange Geometry

That is a damn fine top 5, better that the last few years I think. I've only listened to the Broken Social Scene record a few time, so it might be higher if/when I update this in a few weeks. I also want to listen to MIA, the Constantines, the Castanets and any other 3 sylable C-bands that I may have forgotten.

I'm playing around with a mix of my favorite songs of the year, so maybe I'll post that sometime in the next few weeks. My Christmas present to the internet.

Sashaisms #4 and #5

"I haven't figured out how to wink yet ... I get stuck."
-Sasha

"All guns are firing on Empty"
-Sasha


Bed now, real captions later.

Sashaism #3

"I think the court is smaller, or maybe I've grown."
-Sasha, who doesn't go to many basketball games for a reason.

Sashaism #2

"Give him the rock!"
-Sasha, into dead silence several seconds after Bobby Frasor traveled at UNC-Cleveland State game.

Sashaism #1

I guess I should post the new Sashaisms, lest the infidels gain ground on me. How about this, every time I get bored with my Demography homework I'll post on of the five new Sashaisms. Over/Under for time of completion is 3:30 a.m. God knows I'm bored now, so here's the first one:

"Because I'm their only son ... except for my brother."
-Sasha, when asked why his parents wanted us to hang out at their house. 11/27/05, 8:00 p.m.

Failing Out

The 911 commision issued a report card for terror preparedness. Appropriate reading for dusk on a rainy 38 degree Monday in December.

IMPOSTER!

There is another Sashism site (!!!!!!!!!!!) ... And their Sasha is a girl ... And they allow Sashaisms from people not named Sasha ... And it is snowing on the fake sashism site ... And I just stayed up until 5:37 playing civ4 (again) ... And I just got an email from Sasha (the real one, not the girl) that called me a "Yoga slayer and website killer", whatever the hell that means. Ok, I should probably go to sleep if I want to make it to class in 5 hours. This wasted night kicked off my last ever busy week of school, so expect high volume posting.

My Girlfriend vs. Pamela Anderson

I recently discovered googlefight, and officially deigned it the official arbiter for, well, everything. They also have a list of funny fights. This one is my favorite.


p.s. - Alexa would beat that bimbo down. Silicon a-flyin'.

Jarhead - 5.0

Jarhead is a movie about the first Iraq war from American Beauty director, Sam Mendes. Honestly, the movie didn't elicit a lot of strong emotions from me. The opening section of the film was a prototypical Full Metal Jacket-wannabe boot-camp montage that was fairly amusing but, in the end, unremarkable. The second half of the movie was set in Middle East, and was just as exciting as the actual war ... Not very. The acting was fine. Gyllenhaal didn't annoy me, which is more than I can usually say; Jamie Foxx was pretty good, but not Ray good and Chris Cooper, who I always like, had a nice little supporting role as a general. My favorite part of the movie were some very cool visuals from the burning oil fields. With pillars of flame and black rain falling from the sky, it was really a pretty eerie scene. I just wish the movie could've captured more of those moments that made the war unique instead of focusing all of the normal stupid dicking around shown in so many movies about life as a soldier.

I've read complaints about a lack of subtlety in American Beauty (I myself HATED the scene with the bag video), and Jarhead has a ham-fisted moment or two also. The most egregious blunder came towards the end of the movie when the soldiers are celebrating victory around a campfire in the desert and one says to another, "Thank God this is over. We'll never have to come back here again." Ugh, that line alone drops it from a 6.0 (ok) to 5.0 (so-so). In general, I feel like I am damning with faint praise here, but faint praise is exactly what Jarhead deserves. It was technically adequate, but the movie isn't saying anything new, so really, why bother?