I’m getting out in front of the pack and doing a roundup of media I’ve loved this year.

BBC Crush

1. Doctor Who Season Four

With no expectation of romance with a companion this time, the Doctor faces a number of his personal demons–struggling to save the humans, struggling to not change fixed points in history, and losing/finding and relosing/refinding those he loves. This is the second to last season of David Tennant, so enjoy it while it lasts. The new Doctor has not been announced yet.

2. Torchwood Season Three

Captain Jack’s past comes back to haunt the entire team, which ends in a dramatic finish. I loved James Marster’s explosive entrance, as well as the ongoing dynamic between Gwen & Jack.

Sucker for political/spy thrilers…

3. The State Within

A political thriller of the best kind–smart, edgy, with unexpected relationships and subtle acting by some of the US and UK’s best television actors. Jason Isaacs turns in a particularly good performance for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe. I would love to have seen these characters continue on in further stories.

4. MI-5

Known as Spooks in the UK, I watched the first few seasons as part of my crush on Matthew Macfadyen.

5. Burn Notice

As if a spy show with Jeffrey Donovan wasn’t hot enough, they had to add Bruce Campbell. Have you seen Bruce Campbell in anything? Sure you have. He’s That Guy. You should read the interview where he says:

“Because,” he explained, “low-budget movies aren’t released, they escape”.

So while the show is a good watch for its plot and its spy operations, it’s a great watch to see Bruce Campbell at his best.

6. My Own Worst Enemy

I’m really disappointed that NBC has decided to cancel this. For the first time in a long time, there’s a decent  drama wrapped inside an insidious JJ Abrams-style twists & turns thriller. I couldn’t get into Lost, and I dropped off the Alias train only to not be able to get back on. Christian Slater plays both super-spy, super-lover, super-arrogant Edward Albright and boring, family guy Henry Spivey who is struggling with keeping his marriage together and connecting with his kids. While the spy plot is compelling, it’s really the drama of Spivey figuring out who he can trust and Albright trying to fit into a world he’s clearly not cut out for that makes this show succeed. Apparently not enough other viewers thought so though, as NBC announced they won’t be ordering any more episodes after the original nine.

Music

7. Vampire Weekend

Favorite album of the year. Seriously bummed that they only came to town for Austin City Limits and didn’t play a small show. I hope they come back again soon!

8. Panic At The Disco!

Second favorite album of the year. This is the one I put on when I need to get happy fast.

9. Sigur Ros

Third favorite album of the year. I’ve only just gotten it, so I am sure I will come to love it more.

Tech

10. Hulu

We got rid of our TV over the summer, but we’ve been able to keep up on The Daily Show, Bones, and some of the other shows that I like. I especially like not having to watch a lot of commercials – a vast improvement over the DVR even.

11. Twitter

This was the first year I used Twitter, and I love the short format. The pressure’s off to write a big long blogpost, like Media I have Loved This Year.

What have you loved? What have I missed? What should I see? Hear?

I returned from New York, had a relaxing weekend, and promptly developed a nasty case of bronchitis, from which I am still recovering. My first full week off the job and I had to spend it on the couch, barely awake and feverish!

While sick, I watched the entire set of “Bleak House” DVDs.  Highly recommended! I also started to work with the photos I took for a trial run at HDR processing. The $99 cost of Photomatix gave me pause though.

I’ve been slowly pursuing leads for a new job. I hate the question, “How’s the job hunt going?” I’m still unemployed–how do you think it’s going? It seems that my timing is off just about everywhere. I woke up this morning thinking about it, which is never a good sign.

I find Westerns to be cheesey in their fake earnestness and highly stylized plainspokenness. This is not true of all Westerns, but more than most. More importantly, I have a hard time, typically, accepting the premise of the film and this dooms it.

Giant. 30 minutes. There is no way that the handsome but rich Rock Hudson would still be single and there’s no way that Elizabeth Taylor would have given up life as a potential ambassador’s wife to go be a rancher’s wife. Why is this film on the AFI list?

Once Upon a Time in the West. Stunning plotted death of the traditional Western. I bought into the crazy vision of a lonely single father, trying to hit it big and provide for his family. I bought into the idea that this guy would go to New Orleans and pick up a whore to be the mother of his kids, after one too many lonely nights in the middle of nowhere without another adult to talk to. I bought into that woman, stuck now in the middle of nowhere and not wanting to go back to her old life without something to show for it, exacting revenge. I bought into Charles Bronson spending his whole life preparing for revenge and Jason Robards getting too old to keep running any more. Every character and their arc in the film was completely plausible and the film itself moves through those arcs with the awareness that it’s nailing the coffin of the traditional overwrought, good guys in white hats, staged barfight, John Wayne ride off into the sunset Westerns. Why isn’t this film on the AFI list?

The AFI Film Viewing Endeavor took a big hit over the summer, summer being a time of explosion films and The Rock and not of quaint yet “important” films from the 40s.

Of the Top 100 AFI Films,  I’ve watched the following in the last 90 days (according to the Netflix queue):

• West Side Story – I watched the first 30 minutes of this–the most I give any intolerable film. I get the gist of why it’s important. What’s up with the jazz hands though?
• The Third Man – While I haven’t been “humming the zither theme for weeks” as promised, this is one of the better AFI films I’ve watched so far. I especially like the restraint of no-happily-ever-after at the end and the two main characters.
• Network – “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this any more!” As or more relevant today as it was in 1977, this film is brilliant. The film itself is a meta-statement, with its stylized dialogue and unrealistic relationships forced to a conclusion consistent with our need for a happy ending. Paddy Chayefsky rules.
• Stagecoach – 30 minutes. I can’t stand John Wayne. Why does he speak so slowly? This film is the precursor to nearly all hostage films, so it’s fairly predictable how it all works out in the end.
• The Best Years of Our Lives – Captures the conflict between the optimism of the time and the soldiers’ need to heal but inability to publically despair in post-WW2 era America. Long, sometimes exhausting with its cliches. But it never veers into fake cheeriness without acknowledgment of underlying depression and difficulty re-entering non-war life.
• The French Connection – Had a long chat about this with B. this morning. There’s no way a story-based film like this would make it into the cinema today. It’d be so focus-grouped and unrealistic, with handsome cops who always do the right thing in the end while wearing stylized wardrobes, and not the wicked, dirty, gritty, violent, by-any-means-necessary film this was. Michael Bay remade this movie; it’s called “Bad Boys” and it’s the perfect example of why The French Connection will never be a great model for modern film and why actors like Gene Hackman would never have made it in today’s movies.

 

Where I’m at on the Top 100 Movies List…

(more…)

Yo ho ho! It was Talk Like a Pirate Day recently and I completely missed it, having to spend half of the designated day on a train to the City of Brotherly Love and back, which unsurprisingly did not feel piratical, brotherly, or lovely.

Since then, I’ve been trying to catch up on my reading and my working and my sleeping and Pop Tart acquisition. They don’t sell Pop Tarts at the Whole Foods, which is a crime, frankly. There is a whole food in each and every crazy goodâ„¢ silver packet of sugary goodness; it’s just not organic so the ecofood warriors are all bent. They have organic “toaster pastries”, which lack the frosting (as if!) and are made with real fruit. Real fruit! Can you believe it?

While I work out how to sue them for shelf space on behalf of Kellogg’s, I wanted to mark down for all posterity (or until the end of Web 2.0) some links. First up, there is the Salary Search at Indeed.com [via Lifehacker]. The average salary of a pirate in Washington, DC, is $55,000; the average salary of a cat is $58,000. Clearly, I am in the wrong line of work.

I should have been a magician ($39,000). Or beter yet, the girl who gets sawn (sawed? ewn?) in half! Instead, I must be content to be enamored with them, especially when they look like Christian Bale or Hugh Jackman in The Prestige or if they read like Glen David Gold’s Carter Beats the Devil or Susanna Clark’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.

Allow me to show you the full shelves of Organic Toaster Pastries at Whole Foods. And now, *poof* those shelves are empty… and awaiting fresh s’mores Pop Tarty goodness! Thank you, thank you!

Art: Hieronymus Bosch, “The Conjurer”

“I’m a vital force to be reckoned with. I still have great ideas. Call your article ‘Evans Reloaded,’ ” Mr. Evans declared at his home in August.

From No Kid, but Robert Evans Stays in the Picture (NYT)

(If you haven’t seen The Kid Stays in the Picture, go add it to your Netflix queue now for gems like this: “There are three sides to every story–my side, your side, and the truth.” )

In an endearing expression of his Normal Guy personality, Bill Murray watches COPS while doing an interview.