(Thu, Jan 04, 2007)
- Best movie of 2006: Borat
- Best movie of 2006 (runner up): Children of Men
- Worst movie of 2006: National Lampoon's TV
- Most disappointing movie of 2006: Lady in the Water
- Most overrated movie of 2006: Superman Returns (and weeps like a little pansy boy)
- Most surprising movie of 2006: Casino Royale
- Best music of 2006: Mr. Beast, Mogwai
- Worst music of 2006: Gnarls Barkley
- Most disappointing music of 2006: Dunno
- Most overrated music of 2006: Ys, Joanna Newsom [blech!]
- Most surprising music of 2006: Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards, Tom Waits
- Best book of 2006: Against the Day, Thomas Pynchon
- Worst book of 2006: I hope to never know
- Most disappointing book of 2006: Against the Day, Thomas Pynchon [expectations were *really* high for this]
- Most overrated book of 2006: The Road, Cormac McCarthy [it's well written bad science fiction]
- Most surprising book of 2006: The Road, Cormac McCarthy [it's well written bad science fiction!]
- Best TV of 2006: The Wire [seriously, nothing really even comes close to it]
- Best TV of 2006 (runner-up): Sunrise Earth on Discovery HD [I could watch this stuff all day]
- Worst TV of 2006: The latest Ted Danson sitcom
- Most disappointing TV of 2006: Battlestar Galactica [although they picked it up a bit later in the season]
- Most overrated TV of 2006: Grey's Anatomy
- Most surprising TV of 2006: Dexter
- Best News of 2006: British airliner plot averted
- Worst News of 2006: Darfur
- Worst News of 2006 (runner-up): Amish schoolhouse massacre
- Most disappointing News of 2006: Israel Hezbollah "War"
- Most overrated News of 2006: Al Gore and his inconvenient preaching
- Most surprising News of 2006: Saddam Hussein executed only a month after being sentenced [here in Philadelphia we've had Mumia on death row for over twenty-five years]
- Most surprising News of 2006 (runner-up): Steve Irwin killed by a stingray
- Best Person of 2006: Time Magazine couldn't come up with one either
- Worst Person of 2006: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (two years running, and now even worse!)
- Most disappointing Person of 2006: Michael Richards [oh Kramer, why?]
- Most overrated Person of 2006: Barack Obama [The Dems are running out of anointing oil, please send another tanker]
- Most surprising Person of 2006: Fidel Castro [he's like Rasputin; can nothing kill this man?]
- Best Politics of 2006: Republicans spanked by their own base for not being Republicans
- Best Politics of 2006 (runner-up): The new National Space Policy
- Worst Politics of 2006: The Military Commissions Act of 2006 [aka Goodbye Habeas Corpus]
- Most disappointing Politics of 2006: Bill Frist's rider to the Safe Port Act effectively banning internet gambling in the U.S.
- Most overrated Politics of 2006: Querulous Charlie Rangel's bill to reinstate the military draft [98% bullshit]
- Most surprising Politics of 2006: Rumsfeld fired the day after the election [pissing off Repub candidates who were forced to defend him in their campaigns]
- Best announcement of 2006: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi introduced to a Guided Bomb Unit
- Worst announcement of 2006: 12 families of trapped miners erroneously told their loved ones alive
- Most disappointing announcement of 2006: Microsoft turns Novell SuSE to the dark side
- Most overrated announcement of 2006: NOAA predicts a 2006 hurricane season worse than last year's [it was like the best season ever]
- Most surprising announcement of 2006: Some dude succeeds in using the Internet to swap a paper clip for a house
- Best Show of Respect of 2006: Dunno
- Worst Show of Respect of 2006: Many Muslims toward freedom wrt Mohammed caricatures in a Danish newspaper
- Most disappointing Show of Respect of 2006: John Kerry and Chris Dodd toward Syria and Bashar Assad
- Most overrated Show of Respect of 2006: Gerald Ford funeral [a President, okay fine, but enough already]
- Most surprising Show of Respect of 2006: I've got nothing
- Best Organization of 2006: The New Orleans Saints [zero to hero thanks mostly to Sean Payton]
- Worst Organization of 2006: The United States Senate
- Most disappointing Organization of 2006: US Winter Olympic Team [can you say "suck"?]
- Most overrated Organization of 2006: The Iraq Study Group [of drooling geezers]
- Most surprising Organization of 2006: Dunno
- Best Country of 2006: USA
- Worst Country of 2006: Sudan
- Most disappointing Country of 2006: Russia
- Most overrated Country of 2006: Iran
- Most surprising country of 2006: North Korea
(Thu, Jan 04, 2007)
Check out the Blue Origin test flight -- it'll make you say "Whoa!"
(Thu, Jan 18, 2007)
The only rational congressman, Ron Paul is taking another shot at the executive office, this time as a "Republican" (whatever that means). I might have to go register myself as a Republican in order to vote for him in the primary. I wonder if I could survive that...?
(Mon, Jan 22, 2007)
Check out this wonderful essay on how R2D2 secretly overthrew the Imperial Empire. It's like a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead for Star Wars.
(Tue, Jan 23, 2007)
Apocalypto - I don't know about Mel Gibson -- he seems like an annoying wacko -- but he sure makes a damn good movie every once in a while. Apocalypto is vivid, exciting, intense, and set in a place rarely visited in cinema or literature. Absolutely awesome!
Beerfest - Funny but extremely stupid. Super Troopers was better.
Borat - This movie is so funny it became literally painful to watch: there was too much laughing going on, atrophied laugh muscles cried out in agony, tortured lungs struggled for a spot to smuggle a breath in.
Casino Royale - Possibly the best Bond film since From Russia With Love. (But how could a dude with such a terrible tell ever get anywhere playing poker?)
Children of Men - A bit over the top here and there, but it's full of surprises and sudden shifts, like a chase scene moving ever deeper into a noisy labyrinth until a climax most startling for its quiet. More or less a beautiful film with several Holy Shit moments. And nothing beats a good Holy Shit moment, hey?
Clerks II - It's funny but it's not Clerks. Kevin's "Evening with Kevin Smith" programs are better than his films, so watch those instead.
Flags of our Fathers - Mostly concerning three Marines sentenced to propaganda detail as they travel the country trying to sell war bonds, highlighting the vast gulf between combat veterans and their politician masters and everybody else in the lives they attempt to rejoin. Yawn. The message has been presented more powerfully and eloquently elsewhere. The war scenes are good but disjointed, presented as flashbacks, and there's really no story on Iwo Jima. The result is mainly a boring movie.
Idiocracy - Mike Judge's much-tortured science fiction comedy with what I fear is a dead-on extrapolation from current trends (i.e. everybody in the future is really really stupid). But something tells me this movie should have been a lot better than it is, that all the studio bullshit it had to go through diluted and thwarted it. Still very funny if you can tolerate a lot of extreme stupidity.
Prairie Home Companion - Like the radio program it pays homage to, this movie is more or less just a very comfortable, cozy, relaxing place to be for a couple hours. There's nothing really to tell about it; rather like an evening at home with close family or something, I don't know. It skipped the News from Lake Wobegon though, which was disappointing.
Rocky Balboa - Better than the previous several Rocky sequels, it's still mostly just packaging for the big fight scene at the end. It all feels worthwhile though when that music kicks in as Rocky climbs the ropes back up to his feet and you know the other guy is doomed.... Familiar but fun.
Beerfest - Funny but extremely stupid. Super Troopers was better.
Borat - This movie is so funny it became literally painful to watch: there was too much laughing going on, atrophied laugh muscles cried out in agony, tortured lungs struggled for a spot to smuggle a breath in.
Casino Royale - Possibly the best Bond film since From Russia With Love. (But how could a dude with such a terrible tell ever get anywhere playing poker?)
Children of Men - A bit over the top here and there, but it's full of surprises and sudden shifts, like a chase scene moving ever deeper into a noisy labyrinth until a climax most startling for its quiet. More or less a beautiful film with several Holy Shit moments. And nothing beats a good Holy Shit moment, hey?
Clerks II - It's funny but it's not Clerks. Kevin's "Evening with Kevin Smith" programs are better than his films, so watch those instead.
Flags of our Fathers - Mostly concerning three Marines sentenced to propaganda detail as they travel the country trying to sell war bonds, highlighting the vast gulf between combat veterans and their politician masters and everybody else in the lives they attempt to rejoin. Yawn. The message has been presented more powerfully and eloquently elsewhere. The war scenes are good but disjointed, presented as flashbacks, and there's really no story on Iwo Jima. The result is mainly a boring movie.
Idiocracy - Mike Judge's much-tortured science fiction comedy with what I fear is a dead-on extrapolation from current trends (i.e. everybody in the future is really really stupid). But something tells me this movie should have been a lot better than it is, that all the studio bullshit it had to go through diluted and thwarted it. Still very funny if you can tolerate a lot of extreme stupidity.
Prairie Home Companion - Like the radio program it pays homage to, this movie is more or less just a very comfortable, cozy, relaxing place to be for a couple hours. There's nothing really to tell about it; rather like an evening at home with close family or something, I don't know. It skipped the News from Lake Wobegon though, which was disappointing.
Rocky Balboa - Better than the previous several Rocky sequels, it's still mostly just packaging for the big fight scene at the end. It all feels worthwhile though when that music kicks in as Rocky climbs the ropes back up to his feet and you know the other guy is doomed.... Familiar but fun.