Some of mine…
Film:
- Let the Right One In (Sweden)
- Synechdoche, New York
- Tell No One (France)
- Milk
- The Dark Knight
TV:
- The Wire
- The Mighty Boosh (British import: DVD)
- Gossip Girl
- The Daily Show
- The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric
Music:
- Bon Iver: For Emma, Forever Ago
- Atlas Sound: Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel
- Learning Music: The Greatest Hits So Far
- Hauschka: Ferndorf
- Wolf Parade: At Mount Zoomer
- Honorable Mention: Sara Lov: The Young Eyes EP
Food:
- Oysters in Philadelphia or at Comme Ça
- Sushi anywhere, everywhere
- Dim Sum at Park Asia
- Pho at Hong Phat
- Steaks with Farrell and Trixie
Regretfully missed/neglected:
OK, top-fives are pretty manageable, I think… So what’ve you got?
Top 5 books I read in 2008:
The Cave
The Black Book
Never Let Me Go
The Golden Compass (though I am not finding the other books of the series to be quite as overpoweringly great as the first)
Top 5 movies I saw in 2008 (and look, I have a kid, most of the movies I watch nowadays are on the little screen; so most of these are not 2008 films ok?):
Milk
Stroszek
O Lucky Man!
Please Vote For Me
WALL • E
O sorry, I only listed 4 books because I lost count. I enjoyed In Hovering Flight a whole lot too, and as a bonus, that was even published in 2008.
My top five everything of 2008 is an easy list to write:
1. Barack Obama
2. Barack Obama
3. Keith Olberman and Jon Stewart
4. Katie Couric interviewing Sarah Palin
5. Pennsylvania going blue on November 4
I second swells, except maybe with Rachel Maddow at #2. To see a successful, articulate lesbian represented on television, reporting the news, is so validating, so gratifying…hey, is this what straight white guys feel like all the time?
Film:
The Wrestler
Slumdog Millionaire
Synechdoche, New York
Doubt
DVD: Hot Rod
Music:
MGMT: Oracular Spectacular
Hayes Carll: Trouble in Mind
TV on the Radio: Dear Science
The Go Team: Proof of Youth
Black Flag: Slip it In
(Yes, not all from ’08, but oh well)
Books:
The Idiots Guide series books 1-5 with an honorable mention for The Idiots Guide to Irony.
TV:
Crosswords, featuring Ruben Mancillas
Food:
2 AM Del Taco
J. Wood’s 7 layer bars
Bali’s Indian takeout (eaten while watching a Lakers game)
Patricia’s chicken mole
The Mesa Grill’s pig
Let’s be honest, the Couric interview was really the highlight of the year.
Although Maddow interviewing Blagojevich made Palin look like…Madeline Albright or something. Man, that guy is dense. And crazy.
Food:
The fried biscuits at Golden China
Those individual servings of juice in glass bottles at the grocery store
Dark Chocolate Chunk Granola Bars
Omelets with bacon, cheese, onions, tomatoes, and guacamole salsa
Lasagna with corn, tomato chunks, ground beef, and spinach
TV:
Fringe
Clean House
Amazing Race
Voyager on Spike
(technically 2009) Keeping Up Appearances
Books:
Astonishing Splashes of Colour
The Book of Flying
Wild Seed
The Tree
Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
(although books don’t really count because I can’t really rank them as most favorite. I can hardly remember what I did read in 2008)
Movies:
“In Bruges”
“12” by Nikita Mihalkov
“Che”
“The Dark Night”
“Kung Fu Panda” (what? I like cartoons)
Music:
Heidi Happy
Juliette Lewis “Hot Ride” (loved forever)
Natasha Khan “Sad Eyes”
Edith Piaf “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien” (rediscovered and much loved)
Linkin Park “Given Up”
Patricia Kaas “Mon mec à moi” (rediscovered) and “Mademoiselle Chante Le Blues”
Food
Oyster Shots
Escargot (discovered and appreciated for what it is and not desired to try again)
Tuna boat, extra spicy with blue crab, no imitation (discovered and eaten many times a week)
The real British Summer Pudding
Kalashnikov roll, again with blue crab
Books
Re-reading “The Master and Margarita” by M. Bulgakov, in English this time
“Body” by National Geographic
“Evolve Your Brain: The Science of changing your mind” by Joe Dispenza
“All Tomorrow’s Parties” by William Gibson
“Losers Start All Wars” by V. Panov (http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/eksmo/panov/)
TV:
Don’t watch unless it’s “Sopranos” or “Monk”, which don’t belong to 2008
CNN too, which does not belong
Ah, Steph, I love your list, of course, and I would agree with Rachel and add Maddow to that list. (With honorable mentions to both Tina Fey for her Palin channeling (?) and Ben Affleck for his Olbermann impersonation).
And, Rachel, I just went and watched that Blago-Maddow interview, and while he came off better than I anticipated, it still made for really incredibly fascinating viewing–he kept saying one thing after another that seemed like such total BS (it’s like that time I had a student who continued to deny plagiarizing an entire paper, despite being presented with actual tangible evidence)… I love Tivo, which leads me to another top-five…
Technology acquired/purchased:
1.) iPhone
2.) HD TV
3.) Tivo
4.) A/C unit
5.) Xbox
I’m feeling too scattered to make any top-five lists right now, but here’s an early jump on top five videos for 2009.
Books:
Aside from textbooks, the only one I was able to crack open was James Frey’s new one, Bright Shiny Morning.
TV:
1. Dexter
2. Election coverage (including parodies)
3. The Office
Music:
1. Alkaline Trio – Agony & Irony</a
2. MGMT – Oracular Spectacular
3. The Airborne Toxic Event – s/t
4. Cansei De Ser Sexy – Donkey
5. Nujabes – Modal Soul Classics
Honorable mentions:
Q-Tip – The Renaissance (“What good is an ear if a Q-Tip isn’t in it?”)
H2O – Nothing To Prove
The Streets – Everything Is Borrowed
Movies:
1. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
2. The Bank Job
3. The Dark Knight
note: These are the only movies from 2008 that I watched last year; and from home at that. I think the last time I went to the theater was for Walk The Line…
Food:
1. Agora
2. Fiesta Grill
3. Sushi On Fire
4. Z Pizza
5. Oki Doki
Best of:
1. Barack Obama! (check the photo in this link!)
2. Best waves: El Salvador (shown: Punta Mango)
3. Best show: Common with guest appearance by Kanye (at the Anaheim HOB!), 2/14/08
4. Best new bar: The Crosby (owned by a couple’a friends)
Worst of/Most disappointing:
1. Dad’s stroke
2. Prop 8/Momos
3. OC fires
4. Construction in downtown Huntington Beach
5. New Kanye album
6. Starbucks’ new permanent fixture Pike Place
7. This a-hole
Aww…I made a list and it didn’t post. Let’s try again…
Additions to the lists above:
FILM
Burn After Reading
Funny games
TV
Chuck
Boston Legal
MUSIC
She & Him – Volume One
FOOD
Steak (It’s already mentioned above, but it’s too good not to mention twice)
Wow… No idea how the links ended up as they did. Looks like the problem with most of them is that quotes need to be removed from the end of the link. Not the case for the Obama photo, however. Check that one here:
http://kgmb9.com/main/images/stories/2009_01_20_ObamaShaka.jpg
Jane, I just watched Funny Games the other night on TV and liked it but wasn’t crazy about it. Did you see the original (by the same director, Haneke)? I didn’t, but I was curious about the difference/s. Btw, have you seen Cache or The Piano Teacher, two other amazing Haneke films?
Disturbing, all of them.
oki doki! i totally forgot about that place. thanks, cannon.
Hey there Jeremy. yes, those are some great lists of things. All of those look very close to how my own lists would. As for music, I mentioned my faves in last weeks post, but I forgot how much i played Atlas Sound and Bon Iver quite early in 2008. They would surely be in my top 10. And the Haushka is growing on me. Thanks for that.
A few more random things that made 2008 fun:
1.) Amy Poehler on SNL. She was the funniest thing left on the show after Tina Fey left last year. Her Palin rap was genius.
2.) Fun Home–the book, I finally read it this year. And didn’t read anything else as great. Out Stealing Horses was good.
3.) Walt Wit beer
4.) GTA4
5.) A Macbook
6.) Facebook
7.) New apps: Shazam, Wikipanion, Stitcher, Urbanspoon, Zippo, what am i leaving out?
Oh, and flip cameras.
Jeremy,
I didn’t see the original Funny Games, though I read that the new one is shot-for-shot off the original, only in English. I actually thought it was one of the best horror films I have ever seen because it WAS truly disturbing (a task very few horror films actually achieve). I loved the fact that we never really saw any violence, we only heard it and lived it through the reactions of the other characters. And the casting for the two boys was superb. SPOILER ALERT: I also liked that evil conquered in the end. Not often to we get to watch a horror film where every main character dies, and the killers move on to the next victims. It’s brilliant and so real.
I did see Cache, and I loved that film as well, but I have yet to see The Piano Teacher. I guess I’m going to have to rent it.
Modesto Kid – keep going on the Pullman books – Subtle Knife may feel like an interlude, but the last book is amazing – at least for me.
Five things from last year that I keep thinking about:
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
Ditto on Let the Right One In
Dorothy Gale’s Freeway post: http://www.greatwhatsit.com/archives/2634
Being sad about Heath Leger
BBC TV
(sorry no links – I can’t figure it out on this new format – poor Dave, more emails tutorials)
LP, it’s a cool video. I also liked “Run Lola Run,” music video correlates with your theory, doesn’t it? Has anyone seen the movie?
Also, cool artists discovered recently:
Lane Twitchell
Marijo Readey
PB — zeeOhmygod you are correct about Amber Spyglass. This book is better than almost anything else. (Right now we are reading the portion where the main characters journey to the underworld.) It is just taking my breath away with the power of its imagery.