Sunday, January 22, 2006

The Best Of...

Hey, why not. Everyone else is doing it. Every magazine, web site, and critic on Earth is busy compiling their list of "The Best of 2005". And since list columns are the only thing more lazy than Random Thoughts columns (except yours Kel, which are FABULOUS), I'm all in. I will note that these are hardly comprehensive. I see a lot of my stuff on dvd and since they release all the "Oscar contender" movies about 2 days before the end of the year, I haven't seen them. No Brokeback Mountain, no Syriana, no Capote. Deal with it.

Anyhow, here goes for this year...

LAN 2005 Best Movies (theatrical)
1. King Kong- Peter Jackson delivers again. I hate remakes on principle and this is still my best picture.

2. Sin City- What every comic book movie should be. Great stuff that looked like it was ripped straight off the page.

3. Walk The Line- Johnny Cash is one bad mutha. And the movie's great too. Bonus points for letting Shooter Jennings play his dad.

4. Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire- The rare series that gets better with age. I fear the kids may be eligible for free coffee at Denny's by the time they make all 7 movies, but I'm looking forward to seeing where they head.

5. Star Wars Episode 3- Lucas brings it home after bobbling the first two.

6. Mirrormask- Bizarre, but I liked it. Neil Gaiman (of Sandman fame) wrote the script. Definitely the most imaginative thing you'll see all year.

7. Corpse Bride- I love Tim Burton and claymation.


LAN 2005 Best Movies (DVD) aka "stuff that came out last year that Gryph didn't see until they hit video."

1. The Woodsman- I've seen a lot of horror movies in my life. I like them. Horror movies don't scare me. This did.

2. House of Flying Daggers- My wife has resigned herself to the fact that, although we are now married, I retain my severe crush on Ziyi Zhang. Beautifully shot, beautifully acted, and Zhang's not hard on the eyes either.

3. Million Dollar Baby- Even with it winning all the awards, I was surprised how much I liked it.

4. Kung Fu Hustle- Stephen Chow's a funny guy.

5. March of the Penguins- Proving that Morgan Freeman could narrate the phone book and make it cool.

6. Murderball- Surprisingly fun doc about quadraplegic rugby players.

7. Hidalgo- Brainless but entertaining. Viggo Mortensen is looking to be one of those "watch everything he's in" types.

8. Finding Neverland- Another Oscar contender from last year that I didn't get around to until this year.

9. An Evening With Kevin Smith- Almost 4 hours of clips from speaking tours. Just a guy standing on stage answering questions. But it sure was fun. His story about trying to write the Superman movie for Warner Brothers ("we don't want a cape. Or flying. Or the suit...") is worth the price of admission alone.


LAN 2005 Not-so Best Of Movies (aka "movies I went to expecting more and was disappointed).

1. Phantom of the Opera- I always thought I enjoyed Phantom (having never seen it but having a couple of albums with music from it). This made me question that. I think I may just like Michael Crawford. This movie made me sleepy.

2. National Treasure- I heard such good things. What I got was Jerry Bruckheimer's "Da Vinci Code For the Retarded".

3. Sahara- People kept telling me I should read Clive Cussler's books. I may still one day but if it's anywhere near as idiotic as this movie, I'll want my money back.

4. Elektra- I'm one of the three fans of the Daredevil comic who enjoyed the Daredevil movie. I went into this one expecting the same. Two hours later I wondered how it all could have gone so wrong in a year...


LAN 2005 Best of Television

1. Dead Like Me- The unfortunately now cancelled series' second season was orders of magnitude better than the first, which was pretty damned good. Thank you Showtime for cancelling this to give us "Barbershop: The Series".

2. Deadwood- Nobody does tv shows like HBO, as you'll see throughout my list. Deadwood was the best of the best this season.

3. Rome- Yet another HBO entrant, and a new series to boot. Beautifully shot, excellent acting, and a "hook you in from moment one" plot. It's so expensive ($100 million for the one season) that I'm not sure it can ever make the ratings needed to make it profitable, but it's fun while it's lasting.

4. Six Feet Under- This was their last season and they went out with a bang. I'll miss The Fishers, if for no other reason than to be reminded that there is a family (fictional or not) that's more screwed up than mine.

5. Entourage- I hate HBO comedies almost universally. This is the exception. Jeremy Piven is a genius and easily the slimiest character on tv today.

6. Iron Chef America- I'm a sucker for Iron Chef. I tivo it daily. The American version isn't nearly as good as the original, but it's not bad. Alton Brown is a virtual encyclopedia on commentary. Mario Batali and Masaharu Morimoto are geniuses in the kitchen. Cat Cora I can live without but I felt the same way about Sakai in the original series as well. I just try to forget Bobby Flay is even involved...

Ok. I've got some more best and not-so best lists but it's my bedtime so they'll have to wait until tomorrow. Debate amongst yourselves until I return.

Until then...

-Gryph

Monday, January 09, 2006

Random Thoughts

Ah, random thoughts. The haven of the blogger with nothing else to say...

Got my mp3 player in this weekend. Unlike the fancier (and more expensive) ipod type players, this one has no hard drive of its own. Instead it has a place for a USB flash drive to plug in. It also has an FM transmitter to play over your car stereo. It's almost like being in radio again. No more sitting through the mind-numbingly generic crap the local Clear-Channel owned classic rock station plays. No more selling my soul to listen to the dj-less local JACK station, thereby putting my brethren out of work. No more classical music on NPR once the news ends. Now it's an endless stream of Led Zeppelin, John Prine, Todd Snider, Dr. Hook, and Muddy Waters. Now if I can just get my car working correctly so I have somewhere to listen to it...

Am I the only one annoyed by the television networks these days? It's not the vapid programming that upsets me but that fact that every network seems to have adopted the "little flying graphic in the corner of the screen" technique. Not the little semi-transparent logo. That annoys me but I'm used to it and at least I can see through it. The worst offender is, unfortunately, also the network I watch most, Food TV. While I'm trying to watch my daily dose of Iron Chef, food network seems to feel it is necessary to constantly bombard me with moving non-transparent graphics advertising whatever the show of the month they're promoting is. Normally this is just an annoyance but Iron Chef, being a japanese program, is partially subtitled. Stupid little graphic = can't read the subtitles. Very annoying.

I'm looking forward to the Colts-Steelers matchup on Sunday and hope my Colts don't follow their usual pattern of choking when it's on the line.

A recent editorial in the Nashville City Paper lamented the fact that technology is so prevelant now that no one has time to "stop and smell the roses" anymore. I'd have an opinion on that subject, but I'm busy blogging...

I finally, at my wife and a couple of friends' nagging, finished the Harry Potter books. Not bad. I'm not sure it's worth the cult-like fervor that has arisen over it, but it's definitely not bad. Anything that gets kids to read 900 page books is ok with me.

After year spent mostly going "eh" at the movies coming out (did we really need a remake of Bewitched?), Hollywood has come on strong at the end of the year. Too strong. Where were all these movies when I had money to see movies during the summer? King Kong is everything it was hyped to be. Narnia was a mostly-faithful rendition of the books (not as good as the Rings movies but then Narnia was never Rings), Walk the Line was simply amazing, Harry Potter once again topped itself in quality. I don't know if they'll manage to end the series before the kids turn 40, but so far so good. All in all a good winter to follow a clunky summer with a few gems (Star Wars, Corpse Bride). I look forward to my annual (although, sadly probably cross-coastal) Oscar handicapping with Darth Kel. Just for the record, Kel, my early pick is Brokeback Mountain to win everything in what will be more a salvo at the Bushies than any measure of the film's quality.

Christmas is finally over and I am very happy. That said, TAKE DOWN YOUR FRACKIN' LIGHTS! This means you. Now. Right now. Leave the blog and go do it. Now.

-Gryph
"A clown puts his makeup on upside down
so he wears a smile even when he wears a frown"
-John Prine
NP: Anthrax "Be All, End All"

Damn You Murphy

I'd like to say right up front that Murphy is a rotten bastard...

You know Murphy. The guy with the law. "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong." That one. In my case, the law goes "A man who finally tops off his emergency fund will soon have an emergency."

In my case, these emergencies take two forms. Automotive and medical.

Just a few weeks ago, Joan and I made a trip to open our new savings account and FINALLY get our emergency fund to the $1000 recommended before starting to whittle down our debt. We've had an emergency fund before. Prior to the wedding, I made sure we scrimped and saved so we'd have that $1000 in the bank just in case. So began the cruel ministrations of Mr. Murphy.

First the wedding cost us a bit more than we expected. Not a lot but just enough to get us a bit below that magic number. Murphy's major offensive was saved for when we returned from our honeymoon to discover that Joan's car, which had been limping along on its last leg, had decided its week-long vacation was an excellent time to take a permanent one. Exit our entire emergency fund (and the majority of our wedding gift money) to buy another car.

Unfortunately, that car apparently spoke the old one because soon after bringing it home, it began to exhibit the symptoms of a sickly vehicle. Little stuff. $100 there, $300 there, just enough to keep me below that magic threshold.

Finally, the demon car appeared to be exorcised. Finally we began to have a few extra dollars to spare. Finally we topped off our emergency fund and began to whittle the debt again.

But we didn't kill Murphy. Like Jason Vorhees in those old Friday the 13th movies, he rose from seeming death to kill again. Not content to settle with breaking our car, he decided to break me. My foot actually. A stress fracture. Doctor bills, prescription fills.

This weekend, apparently not content to beat up Joan's car or my extremities, Murphy has decided to zero in on my car. It goes under the wrench tomorrow. Additionally, Joan has also recently been battling some lingering medical issues which keep piling up doctor's visits but don't seem to be piling up any cures.

So, here we are. My poor emergency fund gets emergencied into extinction once again.

Someday I'm gonna find that guy Murphy... And when I do, he'd better watch out.