I'm not entirely sure anyone reads this blog, but, if so, you may have noticed that I've gotten a little behind with my attempts to log every piece of media I consume. I got hammered at work and then I just got overwhelmed with the backlog. For the last couple days I've been doing retroactive writeups, which are nearly complete (as I write this, Movies, Books, and Shows are all up to date). I'll be finishing up TV and Comics tomorrow, most likely.

Once that's done, I am going to try make a concerted effort to be more productive this year. I'm going to spend an hour a day doing some sort of work for myself - writing up my mini-reviews, working on screenplays, recording music, writing short stories. Once I have things done, I'll be posting them here, so you should see slightly more regular updates. If it looks like I haven't been updating regularly, please hassle me and make sure I'm keeping up with my plan.

Also, I'll be putting up my best of the year lists for albums and movies at some point in the near future, as well as selections from my ongoing attempts at alphabetical listening of my music collection (which also means that older selections from previous will be going away, so grab those if you haven't already).

I always assume I'm the last to hear about these sorts of things, but apparently two of contestants on So You Think You Can Dance? (a show my dad is unhealthily obsessed with and perpetually tries to get me to watch) performed a routine to "The Garden" by Mirah. This is pretty much the last place I expected to hear a Mirah song (or, really, any song that I would listen to by choice). I've almost gotten used to music I like showing up in ads (Helen Love? Chris Knox?), but, when my musical taste is showing up on dance-themed reality TV shows, there's something wrong with the world.

After the H's, any other letter was bound to be a disappointment. Not surprisingly, there are a lot of songs beginning with I, a good percentage of them by The Magnetic Fields. Still, a number of excellent tracks I'd never heard before.

Ricky Wilde - I am an Astronaut
I wasn't sure if everyone else already knows this one, but I figured it couldn't hurt. Anyway, Ricky (or sometimes Ricki) Wilde is Kim Wilde's sister and was groomed to be a preteen sensation in the early 70's. This was his first single, but he went on to record other singles, like "I Wanna Go To A Disco." Eventually, his sister's career became bigger than his, and he stopped recording until fairly recently. Anyway, this is a particularly weird song that fits in nicely with my excessively Anglophilic listening of late. I am especially fond of the kid's weirdly growly voice. He sounds borderline feral.

Apparently, the song was recently covered by Snow Patrol, which seems strange, as well as being covered twice by Swedish artists (once in the mid-80's and again more recently). None of them come as close to the original for strangeness and charm.

The Ballet - In My Head
When this first cropped up, I was pretty sure it was a Hidden Cameras song I hadn't heard before. They're not the easiest band to get info on, given the generic band name, but they seem well-connected in the indie world (Amy Linton of the Aisler's Set guests on a song on their album, Mark Robinson's remixing a song), so they'll probably be huge in the near future (if they're not already - I'm a little out of touch on such things). Regardless of any future Pitchfork love, this is a pretty great song, that reminds me not only of the Hidden Cameras, but Ballboy, Say Hi to Your Mom, maybe some Magnetic Fields? Very nice, regardless.

Electric Six - It's Showtime
The Electric Six are certainly not a band I'm unfamiliar with, but I don't find myself listening to their albums very often. A song here and there is very enjoyable, but listening to more than a couple in succession is draining. As a result, I haven't sat down and listened to their later releases, so I completely missed this one, which is the leadoff track from the excellently entitled I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me That Restricts Me from Being the Master. I don't really know what to make of this. I'm not entirely sure it's a song, really; it's more an excuse for Dick Valentine to scream showtime a lot and talk about putting mustard on it. But then the weird clarinet part comes in, which gives the whole thing a very different feel than anything else I've heard from these guys. It's very odd, but kind of great.

Imitation Electric Piano - I Mean Wow
Apparently this is a Stereolab side project that I've never heard of, which is perhaps not surprising since I stopped really paying attention to Stereolab after 1998 or so. I suppose I can kind of hear the similarity, but it sounds much more similar to various French and Spanish twee pop bands like The Magic Whispers. It's a little slow to get going, but picks up about thirty seconds in. I'm not sure I'm entirely sold on the bridge/breakdown, but the verse/chorus has an intriguing combination of driving beat and wimpy vocals that you don't hear very often.

The Chords - In My Street
Pretty fantastic mod-punk-powerpop from 1980. It was produced by Mick Glossop, who at the time was best known for working with PiL and Magazine. It's certainly in line with similar era Jam, with maybe a little more yelliness (maybe the way Sham 69 would sound with a producer really intent on making them sound polished and poppy?). Anyway, I'm a sucker for 80's powerpop, particularly if it's British, so this is a clear hit for me.

Love Sculpture - In the Land of the Few
I certainly should have heard this one before, since it's well-collected (showing up on one of the Nuggets comps), but it never really registered with me. I can sort of see why. Nice enough intro, but then has some very heavy-psych verses, which aren't really my thing. What really sells it is the chorus, which is just fantastic. I have no idea what this song is about, but that chorus kills me. I can almost place the piece of classical music that uses the same chord progression, but not quite. Apparently, Love Sculpture had a pretty successful career other than this song, with one of the members joining Rockpile. And it seems John Peel was a big fan, so I guess I'm not entirely wrong-headed on this one.

As always, if you have any comments on these songs, let me know. I've once again included a poll, so let me know your favourite track from this batch.

I realized I never got around to posting the most recent Script Frenzy result here, so, if there's anyone who is so inclined, it's now up for your enjoyment. Bear in mind, it was written in a handful of days, and I haven't gone back to edit it (or even re-read it), so it's likely horrible.

I should also point out that, if you're the sort of person who finds this site disgusting instead of funny, you probably shouldn't read this script.

Also, if anyone wants to read the script I did last year, that one is also available. Comments on either are certainly helpful (though I'm aware the A-story second act in last year's script is a mess as is the overall pacing of this year's script).

So, AFI released their 10 Top 10 lists yesterday, and these sorts of things are total catnip to someone like me. I figured I'd be better off writing up these thoughts than just yelling them at my computer screen, so here's a breakdown by genre.

Animation: (Percentage Seen: 70%)
It seems a little weird that there wasn't one slightly non-mainstream choice in here. One would think Spirited Away would be well-regarded (#57 overall on IMDB) enough to have slipped in here.

Romantic Comedies: (Percentage Seen: 80%)
Man, do I hate City Lights! I know people love it, but I just found it so tedious and impenetrable. There are some significant omissions here; most notably the lack of anything by Hawks, Wilder, or Lubitsch. Including both When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle seems gratuitous. And, really, doesn't Some Like It Hot routinely make the list of best movies ever? How did it not end up here? Not romantic enough? How about The Graduate? Anyway, this list has maybe 20% crossover with my top 10 picks in the genre, with the significant caveat that I haven't seen either It Happened One Night or The Philadelphia Story. I should take care of that.

Westerns: (Percentage Seen: 80%)
I routinely cite The Searchers as the most over-rated movie ever, so I'm not entirely pleased to see it show up here. I'm not a big fan of Unforgiven either, but I at least understand why people find it interesting. It seems a little odd none of the Leone ones made the list, since they seem to be widely beloved. I don't like them much myself, so I'm not going to argue their merits - just seems surprising. I suppose this list could be much worse; they could have included Dances With Wolves.

Sports: (Percentage Seen: 80%)
Given that the mere mention of Breaking Away makes me want to stop what I'm doing and watch Breaking Away, I think it's pretty clear that that would be my pick for the top of this list. I'm not a big fan of Raging Bull, but, compared to, say, Jerry Maguire it's fantastic. Maybe Jerry Maguire was only included because they couldn't come up with a better football movie. I'd probably take The Longest Yard or Heaven Can Wait (I love Heaven Can Wait, but it's only tangentially a sports film). Heck, I'd probably rather list Wildcats than Jerry Maguire. Also, why no similar tokenism for hockey? Slap Shot? Youngblood? Actually, it's kind of surprising When We Were Kings isn't on here. I guess perhaps they were avoiding documentaries (and already had two boxing movies).

Mystery: (Percentage Seen: 100%)
Now we're talking. I don't really like Chinatown, but I'm aware I'm in the minority on that one, so I can't complain much. I'm pleasantly surprised to see Laura show up on this list. It's not better than The Third Man by any stretch of the imagination, but it's still quite good. Rear Window isn't my favourite Hitchcock mystery, and I'm not sure North by Northwest really qualifies as a mystery, but, overall, no big complaints with this list, unless you consider Touch of Evil a mystery, in which case its omission is sacrilegious.

Fantasy: (Percentage Seen: 80%)
They're certainly stretching the bounds of the genre with this list. I don't really think of King Kong and Big being in the same genre at all. I guess this category is "fantasy and films with a supernatural plot device." I have to assume they tried straight fantasy first and ended up with a list that included Red Sonja so had to broaden the genre requirements. Maybe if they really get desperate for more AFI specials, we'll start seeing things like "AFI's Top Barbarian Movies" (which would lead to a career resurgence for Peter and David Paul). But, I digress. As far as this list goes, I'd pick Return of the King if I had to pick a Lord of the Rings selection. I'd also put Beauty and the Beast (1946) pretty high up there. Actually, now that I'm looking at this list, is it American films only? That would explain some of the significant omissions. Though, they included Lawrence of Arabia, which is British, so I don't know. Ah, yes. Here's the press release. "America's 10 greatest films in 10 greatest genres." Weird. I mean, I'll accept it, but seems like cheating to include Lawrence of Arabia. But, back to fantasy. If I'm constrained to American films only, this is certainly a rough list to put together. I guess that's why Big is in here...

Sci-Fi: (Percentage Seen: 100%)
Not a bad mix of films here, actually. ET doesn't belong here, but I suppose it couldn't be left off the list without complaints. I've finally come around to the opinion that Blade Runner is pretty much an awful film with fantastic design elements, so I'd argue that it shouldn't be here either. I probably watch more sci-fi than I should, so my list is very different than theirs, but I can't argue too much. This is pretty much what I'd assume is the mainstream sci-fi canon (though, A New Hope vs. Empire Strikes Back seems kind of odd).

Gangster: (Percentage Seen: 73%)
I've only made it about a third of the way into Scarface (1983), so clearly it's not one of my favourites. I'm not sure about Goodfellas coming in at #2. I'd probably put Godfather Part II in first place, but at least they didn't try to wedge Casino in here.

Courtroom Drama: (Percentage Seen: 30%)
I think I'd argue against this being one of "America's 10 Great Genres." The three of these I've seen were all pretty hard to sit through, but I can't really offer any better options. I like to think of myself as being pretty open minded about films in general, but I clearly have a strong bias against courtroom dramas.

Epic: (Percentage Seen: 70%)
Again, they seem to be stretching the genre definition a bit here. Titanic seems a little out of place compared to The Ten Commandments. Once again, I would argue that Lawrence of Arabia is not an American movie, so probably shouldn't be in the top spot. Also seems odd that they'd pick Saving Private Ryan as a war epic, but not Apocalypse Now. Aside from that, this is another genre I don't tend to particularly get excited by, but I am pleased by the inclusion of Reds and the exclusion of Passion of the Christ.

Feel free to argue about me with any of these in the comments. I'd write up my own lists, but the idea of having to come up with 10 American animated films I actually enjoy (let alone 10 courtroom dramas) is just too daunting.

Strangely, "H" was, by far, the best letter I've listened to since I began. I'm not sure why that was, but I had a really hard time picking the five or six best tracks I hadn't heard before. Usually my candidate list is about seven or eight songs, but H produced a stunning seventeen awesome songs I own, but had never heard before. I tried to cull this down as much as I could, but I could only, in good conscience, trim it down to seven songs. Sadly, this means you miss out on some really bizarre Thai 60's pop and some great doo-wop, but these are the best of the bunch.
Also, I finally got around to setting up a poll, so please let me know which of these you liked.

Dennis Linde - Hello, I Am Your Heart
Dennis Linde's big claims to fame are the hits he wrote at the beginning and end of his career ("Burning Love" for Elvis and "Goodbye Earl" for the Dixie Chicks, respectively), but he had a long and healthy career as a Nashville songwriter for a good three decades (also writing "Bubba Shot the Jukebox," which was one of my dad's favourite songs during his country-listening days and a couple songs of Grease 2). He recorded a few albums of his own material in the early 70's. This one is the lead-off track from his second or third album (from what I can tell, his second album never actually came out), and pretty clearly deserves to have been a hit single. Linde's version did nothing, chart-wise, nor did subsequent covers by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band or Manfred Mann, but it's a great song and Linde's version has some pretty odd production touches (like the overall noisiness toward the end that sort of sounds like a sledgehammer on metal) that distance it from a lot of the 70's singer-songwriter stuff.

3 Teens Kill 4 - Hut/Bean Song
You know, this probably shouldn't even be in this list, but, since the two songs are joined together, it makes it into the H's. "Hut" isn't great - minimal synth new wave with lots of spoken word and yelping noises. It's all right, but nothing special. "Bean Song," which starts at around 4:20, is fantastic. It's sort of like a proto-!!! song - funky basslines, drums, repeated chants of absurd phrases interspersed with lovely sung versions of the absurd phrases. Highly recommended.

Happy Supply - Health Place
Happy Supply were apparently a very short lived Chicago indie pop group. I've spent quite a while trying to pin down who they sound like, and it just now clicked that the vocals are reminding me quite a bit of Sissy Bar. I was never the biggest Sissy Bar fan, but this song is excellent. And it's about being committed, so hard to go wrong.

Farquahr - Holy Moses
I don't know what happened to my musical taste last month. Usually I have a very low tolerance for a lot of the 70's classic rock sound, but, between Dennis Linde and this, it seems to be reverberating with me right now. It's very odd. Anyway, this is very classic rock-sounding - somewhere between CCR and Ocean. I only half-noted it the first time I heard it then, to my surprise, it ended up running through my head at around 3 in the morning on some sleepless night (though, of course, I didn't know the lyrics, so it kept drifting into the theme song from Supervan). I went back and listened to it a few more times and now I'm pretty into it, classic rock associations be damned.

Hanky and Panky - Hurray!
Hanky and Panky and Panky may have leapfrogged ahead of the competition in the "twee-est band in existence" race. Every song is sung in the same wimpy falsetto that makes identifying the gender of the singers completely impossible. The lyrics are kind of hard to make out but I'm about 90% sure the chorus of this song starts with the line "You are my hero/You are my cat." I'm not sure if that beats the Smittens' "I love my mom so much/I give my little pony a perfect haircut/every time" chorus, but it's up there. Really, what sells this song, for me, is the shouted "hurray" in the chorus. I have spent weeks yelling "hurray" in the wimpiest possible voice thanks to this song.

Salon Music - Hunting on Paris
I don't have a lot of other 80's Japanese new wave bands to compare this to, but I feel safe in saying this is possibly the best Japanese new wave song ever recorded. I am, obviously, biased in that this band is trying pretty hard to sound like Sparks. Given how great Sparks are, I'm not why there weren't/aren't more bands who go for that sound (other than, obviously, Queen). Anyway, great song that (as far as I can tell) is mostly about trying to pick up French girls. The weird field recording stuff at the end was apparently the gimmick of the comp this came from - each track has some Walkman-recorded street noise, since this was the supposed to be the sounds of the street or somesuch.

The Pipkins - Here Come De Kins
All right. You all know the Pipkins. Even if you don't think you do, you do (or at the 2:30 mark here). "Gimme Dat Ding" is odd, but "Here Come De Kins" is orders of magnitude stranger. While the first had the weird Wolfman Jack bit as an intro, this is pretty much just a growled proto-rap number. There are strange "jokes" inserted between the "verses" but they're obtuse and dramatically unfunny, but mostly it's just the Wolfman Jack voice and the falsetto shrieking alternating. It's very odd, but worth listening to at least once. I imagine it would be quite good for clearing out a room, if you ever have need of such a thing...

The script's done. It's certainly not good, but it's done. 101 pages. Written in 5 days. Not nearly as much fun as last year. Having a bedridden spouse for half the month and a massive work project for a third of the month certainly made things more difficult, as did my mid-month decision to dump my first script (which I still want to write, but I don't have the plot quite down). I'll probably take some time to clean up this script before I post it, but I will post it at some point, should any one want to read such a thing....

As you might remember, last year I participated in the first ever Script Frenzy. For those who aren't familiar, this is organized by the same people who do National Novel Writing Month and is roughly the same idea. They've made a few adjustments to things this year - most notably the length of the scripts have been dropped somewhat (from 20k words to 100 pages, which is more reasonable), the whole thing's been moved back to April, and the type of script has been broadened (last year was only stage and screenplays - now TV and graphic novel scripts are okay). All good changes, I think.

Anyway, I'm not likely to post a whole lot on any of these blogs during April, as I'll be working on my screenplay. I think I've got a fairly good idea of how the story is going to progress, since I'm cannibalizing my most recent failed NaNoWriMo attempt, so hopefully this will be a slightly more successful attempt than last year (in which I met the 20k word requirement, but didn't really feel like I ever figured out how to hit all the marks the story needed to). Once again, I'll post the script once I'm done, in case any of you are interested in reading it.

I know I've managed to convince a few people to sign up to do this as well, but, if you're so inclined, be sure to add me to your friends list.

After the last couple songs I recorded, I got a little dispirited, since they came out very, very badly. This one is much better, I think, though there are a couple things you should probably know for the song to make much sense.

First off, like the first verse explains, my friend Ricky wrote a batch of songs about his stuffed bear, Kuma (which you can listen to here and here). At one point we were discussing my troubles in figuring out what to write songs about, and he suggested I write some about any stuffed animals I might have.

Which leads me to Wally, the stuffed walrus I've had since birth. Prior to living with me, he belonged to someone else who brought him to college with him. As a result, Wally smelled like stale beer until I was about 7 or so. And, somewhere along the line, he suffered some sort of tusk injury, so was completely tuskless by the time I got him. So, this song is about his stint as a hard-core binge drinker and the unfortunate side effects.

Wally Goes to College

I should probably note that I'm playing everything on this song except the drums, which are from the giant directory of loops I've got on the hard drive. I'm not actually sure where these are from - possibly a Suzy Quatro song....

Anyway, comments are certainly welcome. I think I did better on this song than I did on the last two, so that's something.

Once again, I've finished another chunk of songs in my effort to listen to my music collection in alphabetical order by title. "G" was actually a pretty enjoyable letter. No words or languages dominated disproportionately, leading to a nice, balanced playlist.

Soda Fountain Rag - Give Yourself a Break
These lists tend to be a little over-dominated by Swedish pop, so here's some variety with a little Norwegian pop. Very minimal pop here - guitar, vocals, handclaps, an occasional glockenspiel, maybe an organ back there? Anyway, it's a song about mitigating self-pity with mocking of discombobulated alcoholics and advocates baking "a super cake" to cheer oneself up, which is pretty great.

The Kinsmen - Glass House Green, Splinter Red
One of the things that derailed my attempts to get through the G's was the discovery that the extremely twee, extremely British style of 60's pop I enjoy actually has a name and there's a lot more of it than I realized. The folks at Marmalade Skies put together a list of the top 119 Toytown songs, which I've been listening quite a lot lately. This one actually cropped up in my alphabetical playlist just before I found that list, so it ends up here. Pretty great and cheery for a song about a tragic gardening mishap.

Dave Dudley - Give Me 40 Acres (To Turn This Truck Around)
I really love 70's truck-themed country songs. I own a half dozen or so C. W. McCall albums. I don't really know how I've never previously listened to Dave Dudley. I don't think Dudley was the first to record this one, but, from the research I've done, he's apparently one of the kings of trucker songs. Anyway, as someone who's had to make use of a massive vacant lot to negotiate a truck with a car trailer in the past, I can certainly sympathize with the protagonist of this song. I wasn't going to include this song, but, after I spent a week or so waking up in the morning with this song in my head, I realized I had no choice.

Billie the Vision and the Dancers - Good and Bad
All right, here's some Swedish pop for you. I was sort of on the fence on this one. Something about the production and orchestration is a little too slick for my taste, but, after a few listenings, I started paying more attention to the lyrics, which are pretty odd. We get one verse about a mother who nearly dies from a heart attack, then makes a fortune in the casino business which she shares with her kids (this would make her a good mother, according to the song). Next we get a verse about a bad mother, who leaves her husband and child. Then a verse about the mother wanting the narrator to have kids because their family is so good. The last verse totally throws me, though. I'm not sure what "normalization" means in Swedish, but, from context, it sounds like some sort of Ludivico process to teach him basic morality. Maybe someone can explain it to me.

Incidentally, the title of the album this song comes from - I Was So Unpopular In School and Now They're Giving Me This Beautiful Bicycle - is pretty fantastic.

The Blades - Ghost of a Chance
Yet another selection from the awesome Little Hits blog, this is an excellent piece of New Wave. They're apparently Irish and certainly power poppy (though more in a 20/20 way than in an Undertones way). If you like that sort of thing, you'll probably like this one.

Loudon Wainwright III - Glad to See You've Got Religion
For reasons I'm not entirely clear on, it's taken me years to check out Loudon Wainwright III's discography. I think I hate "Dead Skunk" so much that even his excellent acting work of late wasn't enough to get me to go back and actually listen to his universally well-spoken of albums. This song is actually the first thing I heard off his first album, and it pretty much killed me. I don't really want to spend too long talking about it, but I will encourage anyone who hasn't heard it to take a listen. Maybe I've just had enough conversations with people who've adopted some sort of terrifying new mindset that this song really hit home.

As always, would be much appreciated if you'd leave a note in the comments if you listening to/liked any of these.

UPDATE: Man, I completely forgot a song. I had been using last.fm's playlist builder to keep track of interesting songs as I found them, but it seems to have been deleting items from my playlist at random, so I lost a few this time. Including this one, which is one of my new favourites:

Ephemera - Girls Keep Secrets in the Strangest Ways
More Norwegian pop. Very slick, but incredibly catchy. I probably should have started with this one, as it seems like it might go over all right with people who like the more mainstream-y Scandinavian pop stuff (like, say, the Cardigans).

Usually, in December, I tend to be listening to Christmas-music full-time, but this year I decided to alternate that with a conscious attempt to listen to more things that came out this year. Of course, this push didn't really help much, since my top five list is pretty much exactly as it was before I did that, but it did remind me of some albums from earlier in the year that I really liked. Given that most of my musical discoveries of the year were recorded about a decade before I was born, I'm pretty pleased I managed to come up with ten albums I really liked (and actually had to make some tough decisions about what to cut). It certainly helped that we went to a lot of shows (17!) this year.

Top 10 Albums of 2007

1. BOAT - Let's Drag Our Feet (Magic Marker)

There's no question as to my #1 spot. I've been pretty much listening to this album constantly since it came out. It lives in our car and is pretty much the soundtrack every time we leave the house. Not every song is absolutely perfect, but every song contains at least one passage that is awesome and will end up stuck in your head at some point.

2. Fishboy - Albatross: How We Failed to Save the Lone Star State with the Power of Rock and Roll (Happy Happy Birthday to Me)

I really liked Fishboy's last album, but even I have to admit it wasn't the most cohesive album. They completed resolved that problem here in the most obvious way possible: by writing a kickass rock opera. Now, I'm a big fan of rock opera in general, and a raucous indie-pop rock opera about bank robbery, Buddy Holly's ghost, attempts to redeem Texas, etc. is just about ideal. Even setting aside the greatness of the narrative, almost every song of the album could work as a single. I can't think of a lot of rock operas this free of filler.

3. Tullycraft - Every Scene Needs a Center (Magic Marker)

I had a hard time getting into this album at first, but, once I came up with the strategy of skipping the first three songs, I ended up really liking the album. Though the idea of a seven-minute Tullycraft song (with strings!) still strikes me as weird, it's a great song. This album would probably place higher had it just started with the fourth track.

4. The Get-Arounds - Get Around! (Self-released)

All right. It sort of feels silly to list this band, which is my friend Ricky's successful attempt to complete National Solo Album Month (and I seem to have been roped into becoming the drummer for the live incarnation of the band), but I'm a pretty big fan of his band The Galactic Heroes, and this is as good as any of their albums, so it certainly deserves to make the list. For those who haven't heard it yet, grab it here.

5. Fred Astereo - Don't Break My Heart (Lost and Lonesome)

I'd heard maybe one song by this guy before seeing him open up for The Lucksmiths. Live, he was charming if maybe a little thin-sounding, but it got me to listen to the album a few dozen times. Really nice, quiet pop with the slightly disparate influences of Buddy Holly, vaudeville, and cheesy orchestral pop.

6. A Sunny Day in Glasgow - Scribble Mural Comic Journal (Notenuf)

They get a lot of My Bloody Valentine comparisons, which I can kind of hear, but, really, I can't remember the last time I heard a band that's this into studio effects and guitar wash that still has a personality. It certainly helps that their live show is stunningly good, but, even on record, all the noisy weirdness is way more compelling than a lot of their competitors.

7. Saturday Looks Good to Me - Fill Up the Room (K)

As I've mentioned before, I was a couple years late on getting into SLGtM, but I think that may have helped me enjoy this album more than other fans of theirs did. Since I actually started listening to Fred Thomas' solo stuff before listening to the band, I had no real attachment to the female singers than handled most of the vocal duties on the previous albums. Many of my friends found the sudden predominance of Fred's vocals a little jarring and wrong-sounding, but I'm pretty fond of his voice, so the album worked nicely for me.

8. Loney, Dear - Loney, Noir (SubPop)

Significantly less cutesy than the sort of Swedish indie-pop I tend to like, almost landing more on the singer-songwriter side of things. I'm not sure what it says about my tastes that this beat out any of the more twee Swedish indie-pop albums released this year. Maybe I'm just getting old.

9. Rock Plaza Central - Are We Not Horses? (Yep Roc)

Ever wonder what a Will Oldham concept album about robot horses would sound like? Clearly, I'm a sucker for concept albums, and a concept album about mechanical horses is pretty hard to beat, but the songs stand pretty well on their own.

10. Battles - Mirrored (Warp)

I'm kind of surprised to find a math rock album on my list, but this is such a weird album I can't really ignore it. I'm particularly fond of "Atlas" with its bizarre synthesized elf vocals. I just know had this come out twelve years ago (and on an indie label) I would have played this on my radio show every week.

I clearly failed to finish up the Audio Advent Calendar, but, judging by the lack of comments, I suspect noone noticed. I'll leave the audio links up until Epiphany in case anyone missed them and needs to stockpile a few tunes for next year.

One of the few efforts I actually finished this year (aside from successfully finishing my Script Frenzy attempt and hitting my 50 pound weight loss goal) was to keep better track of things I'm watching, reading, attending, etc. One of the benefits of this is that I can now actually look at the data and see what I've been doing this year as well as making it relatively easy to put together some end of the year lists.

Total Movies Watched: 189
Movies from 2007 Watched: 27-30 (Depending on if you count The Host and Revolver and if Grindhouse counts as 1 or 2)

Top 10 Movies from 2007 (So Far)

1. Southland Tales

As I've said before, this movie's a complete mess. It shouldn't really work. And, in many ways, it doesn't. But it's got enough of the Pynchon-by-way-of-Jerry-Bruckheimer feel that it makes it completely different than anything I've seen

2. The Darjeeling Limited

I continue to be a sucker for Wes Anderson, and this film's portrayal of people trying to figure out how to actually get away from the trappings of childhood relationships and actually try to be adults really hit home with me.

3. The Last Winter

I wish I'd seen an actual print, but this was still the most interesting use of a horror movie structure since, well, the last film Fessenden made.

4. Eastern Promises

While the fact that the film approach its subject matter from the wrong (or, perhaps, "non-standard" is a better word) direction and avoids falling into some hoary genre cliches, it's that brutal fight scene that really makes the movie into something memorable. I'm not sure calling something "The French Connection of fistfights" is really a compliment, but it's that level of bar-setting.

5. Revolver

I think this might have been on my list last year, and, to be fair, I haven't seen the American cut of the film (with it's Deepak Chopra explanation over the credits). Still, I doubt the film could be re-edited enough to dilute its essential strangeness - it's a Guy Ritchie gangster movie that's really more of a meditation on Kabbalah and the destructive nature of ego. Also, it features a lot of a ultraviolet-lit Ray Liotta in a tiny bathing suit. Occasionally with spittle flying from his mouth.

6. We Own the Night

This movie's grown on me more every day since I saw it. I don't think I've seen another film that works so hard against its own narrative since Starship Troopers. Films that function as hostile critiques of themselves are some of my favourite films.

7. Death Proof

Yeah, this film is pretty clever, and it's pretty interesting to write a film in which the genre itself runs into its own datedness, but the real appeal here is just watching Kurt Russell. He's been one of my favourite actors since I was about eight, and this was the best use of his persona in years.

8. The King of Kong

I still have some reservations about the moral aspect of this film, but it's pretty much impossible to argue with the film's effectiveness as a crowd-pleaser.

9. The Host

I'm pretty pleased that there's a sudden revival of interest in the monster movie lately (which will presumably pick up somewhat if Cloverfield's a hit), but I suspect few will be better than this one.

10. The Boss of It All

I had a hard time picking this slot. It could easily have gone to Sunshine or Gone Baby Gone, but I saw this one recently and found it eminently enjoyable. Also, as I just stated, I like films that attack themselves. There's no better way to defuse criticism (though, in this case, a lot of Von Trier's statements don't entirely reflect what's actually going on in the film).

There's at least a couple films I haven't seen yet that are likely to work their way onto this list (No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood both seem like contenders), but this is how it stands for now.

Bottom 5 Movies from 2007 (So Far)

1. The Number 23

I don't even know where to begin describing how wrong-headed this film is. I guess the fact that the film basically ran out of material about fifty minutes in, so just went for a forty minute explanation of the first fifty minutes.

2. Knocked Up

I strongly believe that Judd Apatow has no idea how to make a feature film. His films run way too long, to the degree that any positive feelings they might have engendered in the opening forty minutes or so are replaced by outright hostility and resentment (at least from me).

3. Planet Terror

Yeah, I know it was a deliberately bad movie, but still generally unenjoyable. The best I can say about it is that it made Death Proof so much better by comparison.

4. The Messengers

Not so much bad as it was painfully derivative. Actually, no, it was both derivative and bad.

5. I'm Not There

My hostility toward this film has diminished some since I watched this. It's certainly a technically impressive piece of pastiche (which Haynes has been doing since Poison), but I'm still not sure of the value of the thing. Not to mention the fact that the Heath Ledger storyline is bad enough to merit showing up on this list

I was planning to do the rest of my year-end lists, but I've sort of lost momentum here, so they will have to wait until tomorrow.

Audio Advent Calendar 2007: Day Nine

Just a quick heads-up to let any regular reader(s) know that I'm taking off work Monday and Tuesday so will likely not be posting the next song until Wednesday.

Cyndi Lauper - Minnie and Santa

This song is perhaps my upper limit for how raunchy a Christmas song I can accept. Not to give away too much, but it tells the story of Cyndi's older (and possible desperate) co-worker who ties a big bow on herself and lies on a bearskin rug waiting for Santa to come ravage her. Clearly, the ploy works, as she ends up running off to with Santa (as a second wife? Mistress? The song is unclear on this point). All of this is told is Cyndi Lauper's fairly thick accent and is backed up by a very deep-voiced chorus. And a cheap-o drum machine. I think perhaps this was not the most expensive Christmas album to produce.

Audio Advent Calendar 2007: Day Eight

It's kind of odd that I consider certain versions of Christmas songs recorded by hundreds of artists as the definitive version. "Sleigh Ride" is one of them. I know there are plenty of versions, but I compare them all to the Johnny Mathis version (usually unfavourably).

Johnny Desmond - Sleigh Ride

This version doesn't come close to assuming Mathis' rightful spot as the canonical version of "Sleigh Ride" but it sure is jolly, right from the very get-go. The song opens with a chorus of people encouraging the narrator to "Come on, Don!" which is a little odd, since the singer's name isn't Don. At first I thought this was just a fun rhyming expression (like "see you later, alligator") that had fallen out of favour, but at the end we get a "Gesundheit, Don!" so I guess Johnny Desmond either goes by "Don" or felt a need to establish a little Brechtian distancing between himself and the narrator of the song. Once the song starts, Desmond sounds like he's about to start laughing on pretty much every line. He's having a great time. And his rendition of the "yoo-hoo" line is just plain goofy.

I should also point out that Johnny Desmond feels that "Currier" is pronounced identically to "courier."

Audio Advent Calendar 2007: Day Seven

The Flashcats - December Twenty 5

I usually try to only post Christmas songs of the highest quality here, but I have to make an exception for this one. As you might have guessed from the title, it's a Christmas-themed version of Lou Bega's dreadful 1999 version of "Mambo No. 5." That would be bad enough, but, to really drive home the datedness of the song, the band starts shouting out the phrase "Drop the Chalupa" towards the end (possibly addressed at Santa Claus, as they say the offender is fat enough as it is). I'm not sure I know any Christmas song that's as painfully dated as this is.

Audio Advent Calendar 2007: Day Six

I missed Monday, for which I apologize, but hopefully this track will make up for it. As I may have mentioned last year, "Baby, It's Cold Outside" is one of my all-time favourite Christmas (or at least winter) songs. There are very few American standards that allow for such levels of lechery.

Sammy Davis, Jr. and Carmen McRae - Baby, It's Cold Outside

This is a particularly weird one. After a little clowning at the beginning, Sammy goes with an exceedingly sleazy rendition for the first verse or two, possibly rivalling Dino's version as far as portraying an air of date-rape-in-progress. He suddenly wises up and remembers that's not really his schtick and goes for an all-out comedic version. It's a weird choice, but it's pretty fun to listen to.

Audio Advent Calendar 2007: Day Five

You know, I could probably do the whole month with just renditions of "Jingle Bells", but I suspect there's only so many versions normal people can handle. While I would normally try to space them out a little, but this one came up on shuffle this morning, and I pretty much had to put it up as soon as possible.

Little Bobby Rey - Rockin' J Bells

This track is from the generally excellent Mambo Santa Mambo collection, but is less a mambo version than it is sort of a rockabilly guitar/sax take on "Jingle Bells." Highly recommended.

Audio Advent Calendar 2007: Day Four

The Wee Turtles - Benjamin, Santa's On To You

For reasons I'm not entirely clear on, I have multiple Christmas compilations containing tracks by the Wee Turtles (this one's from the 2nd Kindercore Christmas comp), but nothing else. Based on their Christmas songs, they're a pretty fun-sounding indie pop band with a pretty significant disregard for traditional rhyme and meter, which is always a good thing in my book. This song tackles an aspect of Christmas that doesn't get enough attention in song - the desperate attempts of a child to avoid being placed on the naughty list. Even the narrator of "I'm Getting Nuttin' for Christmas" assumes that he'll be getting nothing. Benjamin here is clearly casting around for any way to avoid his terrible fate, which I think is a memory all of us can relate to.

Audio Advent Calendar 2007: Day Three

Since this is the first day of Hannukah, I'd like to post a good Hannukah song, but I'm having a hard time finding any I really like (aside from the Tom Lehrer one I posted last year). I've grabbed a few albums from the library, but nothing that's really excited me (though, I'm on the hold list for Rachel Buchman's Hannukah album which contains the promising-sounding "Who fought Antiochus?"). Anyway, until I find something Hannukah-appropriate I like (recommendations are always welcome), we'll stick with the Christmas tunes and hopefully I'll find something good by next week.

Herb Alpert - Jingle Bells

This starts off pretty much as you'd expect a Herb Alpert rendition of "Jingle Bells" would go. Lots of Tijuana Brass-y jauntiness, all of which is quite nice, but then we get some nice backup singers that make this a keeper. Sure, they don't compare to the Esquivel singers, but it's a nice version nonetheless.

Audio Advent Calendar 2007: Day Two

The Magic Whispers - Groovy Heart Attack

It's not entirely clear this is a Christmas-themed song until you get about 2/3rds of the way through, but it's often best to go slow when getting into Christmas things (particularly with the outright religiousity of yesterday's post). The lyrics on this are a little odd, but it's a pretty catchy indie pop number. And it mentions Christmas, so that's good enough for me.