A year has came and passed. As I say goodbye 2007, I can not help but reflect on the great ups and not so many downs of the year. I wasn't going do these cheesy lists, but watching TRS do their lists, I had to do a list of my own. In the upcoming days you will see lists for:
Here is a list (in order) of my top movies of 2007. Please note I am the FARTHEST thing from a movie critic and I encourage everyone to comment below and give your own list.
Ratatouille was a blast seeing in theaters. The film is nothing short of what we all have come to expect from the imagineers working their magic at Disney. The CG was breathtaking and amazing to watch all on its own. The voice acting by the superb cast is what brought the CG to life. Couple that with a great story and heart and you got yourself a film that is #5 of on my list. I loved this movie and even more reason to look forward to Wall-E.
This movie was drop dead hilarious. The comedy was right up my alley. The ups and downs of the relationship portrayed in this movie had basis in reality. This, and Seth Rogen's charming demeanor, gave the movie a sense of heart that I find rare in comedies. This movie made me realize that their finer grains of comedy out there and gave me a better idea of the comedy that I preferred.
I came into this movie with absolutely no expectation what so over. I came out of the movie with a tear or two running down my cheek. This movie is nothing but fun and adventure from start to finish. People describe Indiana Jones has some great adventure film. I never understood Indiana Jones to tell you the truth, but that description fits what I see in Stardust. It was hard to find a movie as much fun to watch in this list than Stardust.
I saw this flick at the closing hours of 2007. It was suspenseful from literally start to finish. The casting could not have been any better each one seemingly bringing to live the characters that they were meant to play. It had me on the edge of my seat from start to end. Javier Bardem played a sadistically creepy antagonist that made the film as good as it was. There isn't much to say about this one but I enjoyed it and you should too.
It was brought to my attention during a TRS episode that Children of Men is was released in early January. This movie was absolutely breathtaking. The camera work and visuals of this film left me utterly speechless. The storytelling was absolutely brilliant through in and through out. Children of Men easily takes top spot without a doubt and is highly recommended to anyone.
As of late, I haven't been much of a gamer. My time is filled with other things. With a lack of any quality time to devote to games, I have self-categorized myself as a casual gamer. With that being said, I only have a top 3 list.
Guitar Hero was definitely my gateway drug. The songs were addicting. The game was an absolute blast to jam, jump up and rock out. I thought playing this game made me a rock star and I had reached rock star nirvana. Apparently that wasn't the case as you'll find out soon.
Planet Puzzle League is a recent development thanks to Jacob and playing it nearly everyday. I have played the previous versions of this game from way back on the SNES system. The touch screen makes the controls finally feel right. The game bring out my competitive nature and definitely makes for a wonderful multiplayer game for you and your homies to compete in puzzle leaguing each other.
This will probably come to no surprise to anyone. I love Rock Band. This is the one game I have played in recent memory where I actually have fun and it isn't about the challenge of finishing the game. Now this game actually makes me feel like a rock star playing in front of a large crowd. I love this game!
This list was the most difficult to make there was a lot of good music and and equal amount of bad music out there that I have sampled this year. Cutting down this list to only 5. Without further to do here's my top 5 albums discovered in 2007.
It had been two years since the release of the highly heralded Thunder, Lightning String. When this album got released, I rushed to the torrrenting sites and downloaded the album. I think my expectations were too high because the album wasn't at the level of their debut album.
Girls Can Tell is one of my all time favorites. One of their follow ups to Girls Can Tell was Gimmme Fiction which I hated. So thank god that Ga Ga came back to form and it's amazing.
Listening through Led Zeppelin I, II, III, IV this year I fell in love with the raw sounds produced in Led Zeppelin I. The bluesy tracks (You Shook Me and I Can't Quit You Baby) leave me kicking back my head taking in the genius that is Led Zeppelin I everytime these songs come on. This album will probably be one of those on permanent rotation. It is an amazing album that I should have discovered a LONG time ago. I look forward to tearing up these albums throughout the years like I have teared up the Beatles' albums.
Every week on MTV they pimp an artist during the preview of their upcoming episodes. One week it was Kenna. This may be the only time I will ever say this, but thank god for MTV. Kenna has an extremely catchy album with a great voice behind it. The dance tunes comes from none other than the Netpunes guys. If you hated the Neptunes then steer clear of this album. Kenna has a well sounding voice that was missing on most of the Netpunes tracks. This album makes for great workout music.
Jens Lekman is by far the best album that I have listened to in 2007. I can attribute this album to pitchfork. Lekman is the most lovesick sweedish kid I know. His lyrics are heartfelt, poignant and hopelessly romantic. He sings his heart out to a get-get-off-your-ass disco beat that doesn't stop until you drop. I love Jens Lekman
It is very rare I come across a music video that surprises and wows me.
Who hides their drugs in their hair?
A video game acted out on real life bringing the whole family together.
Watch this first
Then
I bought Denise an ipod touch several weeks ago and last weekend we managed to make our way up to San Francisco. While there we managed to get ourselves lost on a few occasions despite having maps in hand. The one thing that really saved us was having her ipod touch in hand and the google maps application on there. We were both truly impressed how useful the ipod touch came in handy. It came in especially handy with the wifi location google maps thing.
Given a full weekend of stress testing Denise's ipod touch, I am fully convinced that the ipod touch / iphone is the wave of the future today. I feel that the ipod touch and the iphone are a true extension of your computer. Apple really got what Palm and Windows Mobile have been trying to do since forever. Everything in these devices are tightly woven together. I can search for a starbucks near me, and add that Starbucks as a contact to map again or call in one swift motion. Try doing that on a windows mobile phone and get back to me.
With the release of the SDK coming closer and closer, these devices will become a true mobile computer that fits in your pocket. For example, with the SDK one can have a mobile Quicken that can keep track of all your expenses in real time and sync with your computer's Quicken.
I love the ipod touch / iphone. I can't wait for the 3g iphone. If someone high up there in apple or at&t is reading this, make it happen. I assure you I will be the first to purchase such a product.
I got a company issued iphone last week and I have been living what people would call the "iphone lifestyle". I love the iphone and I love its integration with itunes. I love the fact that I can plug it in to my computer and simply forget about it. The iphone is snappy and quick which is a far cry from my slow and stagnant windows mobile phone. The user interface is extremely intuitive and I am able to interact with a phone like I have never been able to before. The multi touch gesture of the iphone really makes sense.
The iphone does have its fallacies. The recessed headphone port makes no fucking sense to me. It seems like Apple is being a dick just to be a dick. Not everyone can fit the crappy iphone headphones. I would also like to see the iphone run on the 3g network. Edge is painfully slow if you a hit a site not optimized for the iphone. I would also like to see wireless syncing to your computer which would make the whole process of syncing that much more thoughtless. I would also like to see more memory in the iphone. Of course with more memory people are able to carry more of their music collection with them. Putting that aside, in general you are able to carry more of your digital life given more memory. I would also like to see a better camera on the iphone.
In general I would also like to see more cloud computing integration. With more bandwidth being given to mobile devices, I would like to see the ability to keep all my documents, pictures, music and hopefully movies one day in the cloud and pull it down on demand as if I was having it on my iphone, computer or ipod.
The iphone has really become the mobile life that computer geeks have dreamed of. The iphone really feels like an extension of my computer. I have never been able to say that about anything I have carried around before.
Denise was kind of enough to watch Wall-E for the second time and take me to watch it. Wall-E is easily the most visually stunning film I have ever seen. It was gorgeous throughout.
I immediately fell in love with the characters, especially Wall-E. To have identifiable human traits in a robot slices right through me. I ended up smiling through 1/2 the film because the characters were delightful without pushing the 'cute' factor a la Curious George.
Looking back upon the movie, I could tell that this movie felt like a huge risk. When's the last time there has been a children's movie that contained very little dialogue? In my opinion, the risk payed off and display emotion without words.
I absolutely loved the movie and highly recommend it to anyone of any age or background.
One day I am cruising around on netflix streaming when I come across Avatar: The Last Airbender. I vaguely remember someone saying somewhere that maybe this show was somewhat decent. So under the premise of my foggy memory, I go ahead and add the first season to my queue. On a very lazy and un-eventful saturday, I casually watched a couple of episodes. Before you know it, I was torrenting the remaining two seasons. I would watch a 1/2 season pers a sitting. After finishing the whole series, I am ready to present my thoughts on this show.
Let's start off with the obvious, this is a kids show. There's no way around that. There is no gory deaths or anything to that sorts. They keep things on a PG rated scale. Even though this is true, the action sequences are intense as they are ever going to get for any PG rated anything. I was on the edge of my seat at the amazingness they were able to accomplish without any cartoon blood being spilled.
The writers of the show were able to create an immersive world that I was able to get sucked into the world that was created. The only fictional world I was able to get sucked into was the world of Harry Potter. I loved the little attention to details that the show took to accomplish this effect.
Throughout the wonderful journey, I fell in love with the characters. They were all relatable, unique and charismatic. Each character was given time to grow and become in a non-Rocky type of way. I don't know if this is weird or not, but the show was extremely funny when it had to be. Does that mean I have the sense of humor of a 9 year old boy?
The one huge gripe I had with the show was the dealing of the finale of the show. The show is a PG rated show and no one was killed or hurt or anything in the finale. I wanted a very similar good but dark ending that Harry Potter had. Nothing happened and I was left very unsatisfied with the finale.
If I had watched this show when I was 10, I would have eaten this shit up. I am not 10, and I still thoroughly enjoyed the show.
