Jan 5, 2008
MY FUCKING FAVORITES OF 2007: Movies, Songs, Albums, and More!
My 8 Favorite Movies
1) No Country for Old Men
2) Once
3) The King of Kong
4) Superbad
5) Juno
6) Bourne Ultimatum
7) Breach
8 ) Planet Terror
A lot of my friends dig at No Country for Old Men, calling it skilled but emotionless. I don’t fucking get it. I started crying during the scene between Javier Bardem and Kelly MacDonald near the end of the film, and couldn’t stop for a good hour and a half after the movie was over (and, honesly, I’m getting choked up now just thinking about it.) The movie starts with Tarantino-like violent fun and leads us into someplace far bleaker, more moral, and heartbroken — and it’s one of the greatest novel adaptations ever.
Why only 8 films? Because after this you move into films I like a lot but don’t love — like Eastern Promises, 3:10 to Yuma, and There Will Be Blood — three movies with an incredible first two acts which, for me, fall apart a bit in the third. Or Michael Clayton, which I liked a whole lot… but I don’t know if I liked it as much as the three films with the weird third acts. Whatever, it was a big jump to 9 so I just decided to keep it pure. It’s all arbitrary anyway.
Also, in the interest of full disclosure, I have seen less movies this year than any year of my life. I went a few months where I was too distracted to even sit down and watch a film. Because of this, I’m sure I’ve missed some gems (and I’m sure you cocksuckers will point them out to me in the comments below).
My 6 Favorite Movie Scenes
1) Naked Viggo Mortensen fights two dudes to the death in the shower in Eastern Promises.
2) Glen Hansard teaches Marketa Irglova how to sing Falling Slowly in the music store in Once.
3) (EDITED – I forgot about — ) The entire opening of 28 Weeks Later.
4) The very end of The Savages.
5) Javier Bardem and Kelly Macdonald discuss her future in No Country for Old Men.
6) The opening sequence in There Will Be Blood.
My 25 Favorite Songs
1) Tears Dry on Their Own – Amy Winehouse
2) Falling Slowly – Glen Hansard & Market Irglova
3) Fluorescent Adolescent – Arctic Monkeys
4) Stupid for You (Acoustic Version) – Marie Digby
5) When Did Your Heart Go Missing – Rooney
6) Lies – Glen Hansard
7) I’ll Kill Her – Soko
8) Same Old Drag – The Apples in Stereo
9) Mindy (Le Findy) – For Ex-Lovers Only
10) I Was Never a Normal Boy – Nightmare of You
11) The Mesopotamians – They Might Be Giants
12) Once and Never Again – The Long Blondes
13) Can You Feel It – The Apples in Stereo
14) Right Moves- Josh Ritter
15) Say It to Me Now – Glen Hansard
16) Cruel Girl – The Red Button
17) Hang Around – Ice Cream Hands
18) Password – Morten Richter
19) My Home Town – The Innocents
20) Potential Breakup Song – Aly & AJ
21) All in Your Head – Rooney
22) Umbrella – Marie Digby
23) I Taught Myself to Grow Old – Ryan Adams
24) Nothin’ No – David Vandervelde
25) All In the Way You Found Me – Richard X. Heyman
I have made an iTunes list of these songs for your pleasure at – http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewIMix?id=271206627.
It was a great year for individual tunes — my top five are the kind of songs that I repeat six or seven times when they come up on my iPod. I really agonized over whether to include the Once songs, since many of them were previously recorded with The Frames or Hansard solo (and, yes, agonized is the right word — I’m just that fucking neurotic). But, because they were new recordings for the film, I included them.
My 5 Favorite Albums
1) Calling the World – Rooney
2) Once (Music from the Motion Picture) – Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova
3) New Magnetic Wonder – The Apples in Stereo
4) She’s About to Cross My Mind – The Red Button
5) Back to Black – Amy Winehouse
It was a hard call between Rooney and Once for the top spot — but, in the end, I love every track on that damn Rooney album and I couldn’t deny it 1.
My 3 Favorite TV Dramas
1) Lost
2) The Wire
3) Dexter
My 3 Favorite TV Comedies
1) The Office
2) 30 Rock
3) Flight of the Conchords
My Favorite Magazine
Mental Floss
My Favorite New Animal
The Crow
Well, okay, it’s not a new animal. But the Crow now stands besides my other favorite creatures – the platypus, the hippo, and the dog. Why? Because they’re so fucking smart. Earlier I posted a video of a crow forming a tool to get food. Just as good is this portion of a David Attenborough BBC documentary –
My Favorite Viral Videos
Strong Kids, Safe Kids!
Yes, I’ve posted it here before. But it’s so beautiful, it’s worth seeing again, isn’t it?
My Favorite Novel
I Love You, Beth Cooper by Larry Doyle
My 5 Favorite My Own Blogs
1) 50 Ways to Call Someone a Cocksucker in a Compliment (July 24, 2007)
2) Secrets of Amsterdam’s Red Light District (May 1, 2007)
3) Demo Derby: The Threequel (October 25, 2007)
4) My Day at the Derby and the L.A. County Fair, in Pictures (October 2, 2007)
5) The Creepiest Things You’ll Ever See (September 26, 2007)
© 2008 – 2009, Just Linda. All rights reserved.