The Emmys were last night and none of my favorites won, booo. Instead of moping about what should have been, let’s talk about other times I felt like throwing a shoe at my tv, ok? OK!\
10. Virtuality– This was a great pilot about astronauts in space, similar to ABC’s seemingly canceled Defying Gravity but so much better. It was written by Ronald D. Moore and directed by Peter Berg. That alone should have guaranteed a pick-up. But Fox passed on it, blowing a chance at having both a successful and critically acclaimed show on its network.\
9. Smallville– The first couple of seasons were entertaining enough, but the show never lived up to its potential, which I found extremely frustrating.\
8. Dr Who– Nine leaving broke my heart and I have never forgiven the show for it, even though Ten completely won me over within minutes of his first episode.\
7. Veronica Mars– Everything after S1 left me unsatisfied. The S1 finale was so great and contained a wealth of material for a follow-up mystery, yet S2 and S3 were mostly meh. Well, it was still better than most of the stuff on tv, but not as good as it should have been.\
6. Alien Nation– The show ended in a classic cliff-hanger as a bomb was delivered to the Francisco home. Fast forward a few years to the made-for-tv movie where the bomb was never addressed. Come on! Reward your loyal viewers. A throw-away line would have sufficed.\
5. Jay Leno on Prime Time. I can’t even stand all of the reality programs that have sneaked into the lineup. NBC giving up three to four hours of scripted tv (depending on how many Datelines it airs) just irritates me.\
4. Beverly Hills, 90210– Brandon and Kelly call off the wedding moments before it is due to start. I get that Jason Priestly wanted off the show, so of course they couldn’t get married. However, it’s the given reason with which I have a problem. They decided to not get married after Steve talked about how “all of life’s mysteries are over,” that their lives were forever planned out and nothing unexpected would ever happen again. Steve then made some lame-ass remark about having a one-night stand later while Brandon would be stuck with the same woman for the rest of his life. UGH. Only someone never married [for love] would ever utter such complete nonsense.\
3. Twin Peaks– The revelation of who killed Laura Palmer. It’s clear the writers didn’t have a clue who the culprit was and were just making things up as they went along. While the journey was fun, the resolution left me completely unsatisfied.\
2. Queer As Folk:US– This is one of my favorite shows of all time. It is campy, gripping, soapy, poignant, funny, topical, moving. (Seriously, you try watching Ted check in to rehab without crying.) I want to recommend the show to everyone I know. On second thought, scratch that, since I only know family members and this isn’t a show to watch with your family. But you, you all in land of the internet, should totally check out the show. The show grabbed my attention when the three guys started singing, “I love the night life” and I was hooked a few minutes later when one of the guys complimented a drag queen on her outfit, “Not everyone can wear tangerine.” Ha. I love the editing and the music and the acting. The show is flawed, sometimes tries too hard, preaches too much, but it is just so damn entertaining I don’t care about any of that. The great thing about watching the show on DVDs is the lack of hiatus and no waiting months for resolutions after cliff-hangers! But this list now is about moments that made me bitter, so I’ll stop praising the show and get to the point. The ending of QAF definitely deserves to be on this list. The finale seemed rushed, important developments were glossed over, characters became OOC (out of character), and most egregious: the lead character’s entire arc was sacrificed for some ideal about queer culture. Or something. I still don’t fully understand the reasoning behind it, I just know that I thought it was a cheap choice. (But even still, this show is in my top three favorites of all time!)\
1. Gilmore Girls– Lane’s “good” behavior results in bad sex. Lane was the the nerdy/quirky/cool girl who rebelled against everything her mother taught her except the belief of abstaining from sex before marriage. She gets married and finally gets to be part of Sex-Is-Great Club only to have horrible sex once on her honeymoon; it’s so bad she doesn’t want to do it again. She accuses Rory of purposefully lying about the pleasure involved. Later Lane finds out that her one time resulted in a pregnancy. With twins. Without ever getting to experience the good part. WTH? Nice message there, writers.\
Hey, internet: What are some tv moments that left you feeling bitter?\
Next time on TV Talk: Does an unhappy and/or unsatisfying ending ruin the whole viewing experience? (Think Sopranos, Quantum Leap, Angel, Seinfeld.)
Category: entertainment
The Best Music of 2009 – So Far
Sound Opinions’ most recent podcast listed their favorite albums of the year so far. I did this last year, and there’s been so much good stuff so far this year, it’s time to do another one. So, here’s my list of the best albums of 2009 so far:
- Hazards of Love by The Decemberists: I love everything on this album. The fact that it’s basically a Rock Opera only helps. It’s great on a lot of different levels, but my favorite thing about it is that it’s great at many volumes. Turned up loud in the car or through headphones, the fantastic guitar work comes through. When quieter, the lovely vocals and lyrics are the stars. Really, you should get this before you do anything else.
- Hombre Lobo by Eels: Another rock opera from one of my all-time favorite bands, this one doesn’t disappoint at all. It’s got the sad ballads, and the ass kicking rockers that the band does so well. Fresh Blood is now my second favorite Eels song of all time (after Saturday Morning). The whole album is great, and it was hard to choose which album to be at one or two, but this album could have easily been number one.
- Eating Us by Black Moth Super Rainbow: Silly band name aside, this band is amazing. They’re somewhere between Zero 7, Massive Attack and Holy F*ck. Great analog techno, fantastic beats – this is an awesome headphone album.
- Lost Channels by Great Lake Swimmers: Ongiara is one of my all-time favorite albums, and this one picks up where it left off, adding some new sounds, but generally keeping the masterful folk ballad front and center. I love the addition of harmonies and some of the new instruments, but the heart of their sound is the lyrics.
- Dark Was the Night by a bunch of great people: I don’t normally get compilations, but this has a ton of my favorite artists on it, so I couldn’t resist. This album is worth the price just for Grizzly Bear‘s heart-breaking Deep Blue Sea and The New Pornographers‘ Hey, Snow White. The album is solid throughout, and the collection of bands they got to perform on it is staggering.
- Hospice by Antlers: This is firmly in Massive Attack territory, so I’m going to instantly perk up at anything that follows in one of my all-time favorite bands’ footsteps. It’s melancholy, atmospheric and so layered, it took me a dozen times through it with headphones on to pick them all out.
- Fantasies by Metric: This album is a little uneven, but the high points are worth the price of admission. If you like The Breeders or Luscious Jackson, you’ll love this album.\
There are a few albums that came close to making the list that are still good, but not quite good enough for the list. The latest from Vetiver, Malajube (I liked their previous album more), Sunparlour Players and Portland Cello Project are all worth checking out as well.\
What are your favorite albums of 2009 so far? Come on, share!
Gorgeous Animated Short
Via BoingBoing (cuz it was on boingboing tv, silly me). I absolutely love everything about this short, the music, the animation, the story… all of it. It reminds me a little bit of Mirrormask.\
In other news, if you’re looking for totally painless online backup, I highly recommend Dropbox (yes, I get some free space if you sign up, but really, it’s fantastic). I have it installed on both my laptop and my home machines and it painlessly syncs everything in my dropbox on all three machines. If I get new music I want to make sure gets added to iTunes at home, I throw it in the dropbox. Purchase new apps or a book on PDF? It goes in the dropbox. It’s awesome.
Save Chuck!
A campaign to save a tv show that actually might work.\
I am not going to link sources. If you really care, google it and I’m sure a dozen will pop up.\
The season finale for Chuck is on Monday on NBC. Kevin, my awesome husband of 11 years and no, you cannot have him, really likes Chuck. It’s smart, funny, and heartwarming. But Chuck is in danger of cancellation. The solution? Prove that people are watching! The idea has been proposed that fans buy a footlong sub on Monday from Subway, a major sponsor of the show, before the episode and then gnosh out while watching. (This is so much better than sending in bottles of hot sauce (Roswell), yes?) When Subway sales go up for Monday, The Powers That Be will have their proof. Money talks, so what are you saying? Spread the word!\
Whether you watch Chuck on tv, tivo, nbc.com, Hulu, or some other means, make sure you buy a footlong sub on Monday from Subway. Or just buy a footlong sub on Monday from Subway because they are yummy and this is a neat experiment!\
I think I am going to get a turkey, tomato, and lettuce on wheat with green pepper, for a fresh crunchy kick, sprinkled lightly with salt and pepper and a bit of mayo. What are you going to get?
SxSW 2009 Music: Best of the A’s
Every year, SxSW posts a ton of free mp3’s from the artists that showcase at the music festival. And every year since 2004, I’ve downloaded all of them. This year, though, instead of just letting them take up space in iTunes, I’m going to try something. Between now and whenever I get through them, I’m going to try to listen to a letter a day (the playlist is alphabetical by artist) and do my best to rate every song. Then, I’m going to post my top ten songs from each letter here. Here are the A’s:
- Gardenias and Cigarettes by Ana Silvera – 5 stars – I love this song. It’s a classic gin-drenched torch song.
- The River by Anathallo – 5 stars – Another great ballad. If Bloc Party were acoustic piano rock, they’d sound like this.
- The Thief & The Heartbreaker by Alberta Cross – 4 stars
- Si Pero No by Alex Cuba – 4 stars
- Amanha eu nao vou trabalhar by Alexandre Grooves – 4 stars
- Government Meat by Ali Eskandarian – 4 stars
- To All Tiny Creatures by All Tiny Creatures – 4 stars
- Leeds United by Amanda Palmer – 4 stars
- One More Day by Amy Wadge – 4 stars
- Set The Bears Free by Anchorsong – 4 stars
- Oh, The Boss Is Coming by Arkells – 4 stars – I have to say, these guys sound a lot like The Constantines, which may be why I dug this song so much.
- These Flowers of Ours by The Asteroid #4 – 4 stars – Reminds me a lot of The Dandy Warhols.\
This is totally unscientific, and I probably missed rating some songs (I do need to work during the day), but here are the A’s. I’m listening to the B’s today. And yes, I know there are more than ten, but they’re alphabetical within the number of stars, so I decided to list all the 4 and 5 star songs.
The First Round of Dailies from Max’s Movie
Unnamed Max Lawver School Project – Dailies Day One from Kevin Lawver on Vimeo.\
Max is making a movie for school, so we’ve turned the front room into a jury rigged animation studio. Max is making all the models, backdrops and I’m making him move the models when we film. I take the frames and will help with iMovie when we get there. We’re using iStopMotion, which is going pretty well so far. It even supports my Nikon D80 in PTP mode. We tried that for a couple test shots, but I don’t have a real macro lens and the table is too short to do it right, so we’re sticking with the iSight for now.\
We’re going to try to film the other two scenes tomorrow and Monday. We’ll post dailies each day and then, of course, the final product.\
Here’s a shot of the “studio”. You know, where the magic happens:
Quirk # 82
After telling Kevin that I really enjoyed the first season of HBO’s True Blood but that I doubt I will watch it next season, he exclaimed, “You always do that! It’s like you have one-night stands with tv shows.” Ha! It’s totally true, I do. After the first seasons of Big Love, Pushing Daisies, Chuck, and Eureka, just to name a few, I said the same thing. They were all good, but I couldn’t imagine the show going anywhere interesting. (Most viewers agreed with me about Pushing Daisies, and it was canceled. Sorry, Kev!) After only watching the pilot of Breaking Bad, which made most critics’ Best Of List, I was satisfied enough with the character arc to not even bother with the rest of the season.\
In conclusion, watch HBO’s Generation Kill!\
And How I Met Your Mother\
That is all.
My Favorite Song of 2008
This is kind of cheating, because according to iTunes, the album was released in 2007, but I discovered them this year (again, thanks to CBC Radio 3). According to iTunes, I’ve listened to this song 85 times since I added it at the end of April. It may not sound like a lot, but for me, that’s huge. What is it? It’s Holy F@ck‘s Lovely Allen!! Here, listen:
How awesome is that? It never fails to make me bop my head and get the chills. It builds and builds until it reaches a fantastic crescendo of sound that just makes me happy to be alive. It’s not often I find a song that does that, and that does it every time I listen to it.
The Best Music of 2008
I’ve been trying to write this post for almost a week now, and just couldn’t decide how to pick my “favorite” albums of the year, since there are a bunch of them. But, iTunes has rescued me and taken any and all opinion out of it, and given me a way to empirically prove which albums I consider my favorites this year. How? I created a Smart Playlist in iTunes where Year was 2008 and then sorted by Play Count. I then picked the albums from the list with the songs with the most plays and ta-da, I’m done.\
So, in order of plays, here are my favorite albums of 2008:
- Kensington Heights by The Constantines – This is their best album yet, solid throughout with two or three songs that are destined to be all-time classics (New King and Time Can Be Overcome in particular).
- Everything That Can Happen Will Happen Today by David Byrne and Brian Eno – This album is just plain gorgeous. In fact, I’ve already declared it the best album of the year. Of course, my formula has proven me wrong, but that’s OK.
- Accelerate by R.E.M. – I haven’t listened to it much in the past couple months, but it was on constant repeat for a while there, hence its position at the top of the list.
- Earth to the Dandy Warhols by The Dandy Warhols (duh) – I love this band without guilt or any shame at all. Yes, they’re kind of poppy and weird, but they’re also full of awesome. They fly all over the spectrum and their latest album is just more of it, but better. Love Song is my favorite track on the album, followed quickly by Talk Radio.
- Parallel Play by Sloan – A full-on rocker, there’s no guesswork involved in this album. It’s just good ass-kicking rock and roll.
- These are the Good Times People by The Presidents of the United States of America – This one sort of rocketed up the charts, seeing as I only bought it this week, but two songs are already on my empirical list. The playlist doesn’t lie, people. Sharpen Up Those Fangs may be a perfect pop song.
- The Odd Couple by Gnarls Barkley – Three songs put this album in the top ten: Going On, Run and Blind Mary
- Med sud I eyrum vid spilum endalaust by Sigur Ros – It’s not my favorite album by the band, but it’s more good stuff from them, and that’s fine with me.
- Parc Avenue by Plants and Animals – Another great band discovered through the CBC Radio 3 podcast.
- Anything by DJ Earworm – Really. He’s the best mashup artist around and doesn’t get the credit he deserves. Girl Talk gets all the press, but Earworm’s the real thing.\
2008 was a great musical year. There are albums released last year that I listened to a lot this year are LP by Holy Fuck (yes, mom, that’s really their name), Challengers by The New Pornographers, Live from Austin, TX by The Polyphonic Spree, anything by The Shins and recently rediscovering The Wrens. Now that I work for a music company, I’m listening to a lot of stuff and always on the look out for new music to sink my ears into.\
I can’t wait to see what comes out next year.
Have you heard?
There is a national protest against Prop 8 on Saturday, November 15, being held in almost one hundred cities across the nation. This is, at heart, a civil rights issue and it is unconscionable that we are still treating some people as second-class citizens given that this is “the land of the free” in the 21st century.\
We’re roadtripping down to Jacksonville for tomorrow’s protest. YAY for roadtrips! Ooh, I should make a couple of new mix CDs. I bet Kevin would love that. Our power will be out tomorrow, so I’ve put off grocery shopping and we are out of milk (the unopened jug in the back was from 2 weeks ago- oops), which means no cereal, no eggs, no pancakes, no toast for breakfast. I am going to make “breakfast” bags of pb and j sandwiches, apples, and juice boxes that we can eat in the car.\
Kevin suggested I blog about tv shows you should be watching, so here it goes. Watch Friday Night Lights! This season feels a lot like the first. It is so heart-warming and just wonderful. It’s unlike anything else on tv right now. So, watch it! For those without the special Direct Tv hook up, you can watch in January. Also watch How I Met Your Mother! It’s funny and also heartwarming. Apparently I am in the mood for warm fuzzies lately, though I do have to admit that the Terminator show was totally KICK ASS this week. Umm, that is all, continue about your business [making plans for tomorrow’s protest].