Best of 2008

This has taken about two days to write. A lot to account for in such an epic year. Personally, it's been the craziest year ever, planning a wedding and getting married to my best friend, creating my first feature film, electing a president and so forth. Anyway.

Events:
- joined Twinhead
- went to New Zealand
- tornado hit our future neighborhood (I was in East Atlanta and drove through rubble to get Katie)
- made Loaded Guns: The Movie
- moved to Cabbagetown
- Donkey Punch
- first and best vacation ever with Katie's family
- Twinhead's 5th
- Wedding!
- Honeymoon in Paris
- started at Aurora
- elected Barack Obama president
- ran 26:55 at Romp and Stomp
- Choose Your Adventure

Places:
- Los Angeles
- Auckland and Christchurch, New Zealand
- Charleston and Isle of Palms, South Carolina
- Paris, France
- Blue Ridge, GA

CDs (faves near the top):
- Fleet Foxes self-titled
- TV on the Radio - Dear Science,
- Sigur Ros - Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust
- Deerhunter - Microcastles (funny, I didn't realize the LP I got for Katie had Weird Era Cont. inside of it. The friggin disc is thinner than Bradford Cox (what a hip joke))
- MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
- Mountain Goats - Heretic Pride

Books:
- Harry Potter and the
-Prisoner of Azkaban
-Goblet of Fire
-Order of the Phoenix
-Half-Blood Prince
-Deathly Hallows
- Turn of the Screw
- Watchmen
- The Road

Movies...I haven't come close to seeing the films I wanted to see from last year. For now, I will just list my favorites that I did off the top of my head, in a rough order:
- The Dark Knight
- Pineapple Express
- Tropic Thunder
- Doubt

That's really about it, sadly. This year is not so hot for smaller films, but I have to say that it's the first time ever I've listed, and will probably keep, films as broad and mainstream as The Dark Knight, Pineapple Express, and Tropic Thunder, not because I've been an ass before, but because these kinds of movies were finally good!

Overall, I did slightly better keeping up with music and did incredibly better reading this year. I'm really proud of the amount of reading I did, but looking back it doesn't seem like so much. However, these are all seriously vast improvements over the last few years. I can't see going backwards in 2009, but only doing better. If anything I lagged a little in the film department, but I did rent a fair amount this year. Let's not forget, I was also planning a wedding.

Films have been a bit off this year, but who knows what I'll think after I see Frost/Nixon, Revolutionary Road, The Reader, Valkyrie, Snow Angels (on dvd), Let the Right One In, I've Loved You So Long, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Wrestler, and maybe Slumdog Millionaire and Gran Torino. Still seems weak, weak, weak. Music was incredibly good, with some solid releases from some faves and some amazing debuts (Fleet Foxes and MGMT). I wish I could've heard more, but I'm glad I'm actually staying current and not playing catch-up like in years past. I'm looking forward to the new Mastodon album, which is already sounding obtuse and wonderful.

I was really happy with everything I read. "Turn of the Screw" was a bit boring, but still worth reading some classic text. I absolutely loved HP and "The Road" and "Watchmen," all amazing experiences. I'm looking forward to next year's slate which includes:

- The Audacity of Hope
- John Adams
- Outliers
- The Last Lecture

I hope to squeeze in a few classics that I managed to avoid reading in high school, like Great Expectations. Anyway, here's to a great year.

The shape of things to come

I wonder what we could all achieve if we just focused on it.

In a strange confluence of events, being slightly drunk and having just watched Dazed and Confused for the first time, I'm finding myself in an incredibly reflective mood. I think to the times of achievement in my life, getting into GHP, getting in shape, making certain films, and at some of those times, I was incredibly focused. More focused than ever, thinking back. Not that robot obsessed kind, but just really involved in whatever was at hand.

Today, I sometimes find myself so scattered that I tend to fall back into vices to compensate, e.g. eating too much, not reading enough, drinking too much, not running. What if I really tried? Why do our minds, or maybe it's just some people, stop focusing on what we want? I got Katie the latest from Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers. In yet another book where he breaks the macro level down to a sort of broadened mechanism, he talks about success and those who achieve and those who don't. I can't wait to read it. The topic fascinates me right now. We have the ability to possess incredible focus, and yet we don't always...why?

What occupies my mind these days? Wanting to be wont. I need to do. Why not? I've not been exhausted from doing a lot of nothing, so I should do more. Do until I'm well into my own mind. I'm not sharp, I've been doing badly at crosswords lately.

My mind is screaming at me to write. Katie's indulged that by getting me some notepads to carry in my back pocket. If only I had a pen. But there are always pens. No more excuses, eh? No more fast food, boozin', brushing aside. I've been reading Money by Martin Amis (courtesy of ol' Stephan two years ago at Secret Santa), and the character of John Self is excess incarnate. And it gets in your blood. You have to be careful. I think I've definitely gained weight since I've started reading that book. But it's gotten to the point where he acknowledges that he should be dead, and I have to reassess what's in my life.

I'm 24 now. Young, aging, full of aspiration, nothing concrete yet. Gotta give all of this a shot, may as well be disciplined. I think the best compliment I've gotten lately was that a coworker mistakenly thought I was still in school, because I was so, how did she put it? I can't remember. It was either "studious", "disciplined", or "driven", but I think it was either none or any of those, and I want to keep up those appearances.

I think by Wednesday I will have my new annual tradition of lists. I can't wait.

Blogs don't age

So this is foreign, writing on here again. I've finally posted all of those blog posts I did over at CHUD. Getting married, it's overwhelming, and that being overwhelmed seems to seep into everything and carry on for a while. We're still recovering from the whole thing, trying to slow down. I think it's getting better.

About those CHUD posts. They are definitely geared towards that audience, so there's probably a bit more cursing and direct references to the site, which isn't that good. I've never understood it's organization and layout, though some of the writers are pretty good. And I thought the whole gig was sweet at first, but then I quickly realized that I was one of many, many goateed film geeks with nothing to do but blog all day. They all have really bad pictures, I just don't get it. These guys don't understand what makes a good picture, and they can't write either. Anyway, my point was that my style's a little bit different in those posts, which I've retro dated so they're fitting with the chronology of the year. I forgot about a lot of those movies I saw. I guess that's why blogs are good.

I think I've also returned here to collect thoughts. Time moves quickly, and thoughts and ideas and zeitgeists get lost in that rigmarole. I look back fondly at the recap of last year I did. So I wanted to make sure I get situated on here to do that again. The number of movies I have to see is growing as the awards season approaches. If I hurry, I'll see everything that's currently in theaters worth seeing.

Christmas is fast approaching, and since it's the Hawkins-Gaars' first Christmas, we're trying to generate some traditions. We took a walk to view the sparse lights and decorations in Cabbagetown, but it was lovely nonetheless. I'm going to figure out how to make cookies from scratch this week. We have Secret Santa coming up, which is quite a lovely tradition of its own. We need more holiday cocktails around the house.

The strange thing about the passage of time is that you forget what doesn't change. The chalkboard in our kitchen, for example. It had the same message on it for a long time, and I just erased it and now it's great again. New ideas, things to do, new colors and messages. For a while, it just started to blend into the wall. And when I clean up, I often don't clean what needs it the most, whatever's been so unaffected for so long that it doesn't even register. Like my drawer in my nightstand. I just emptied it the other day, uncloseably full of books. And there were receipts in there from last Christmas. We have to make sure we affect what's important or we'll forget it's there. Our bodies are part of that too. We just get into eating habits and get used to our bodies without thinking of changing them. Our minds, too. We have to explore new avenues or we'll forget to. Constant care and attention. That's the only way to make time slow down.

This blog is a good example of that. I'm glad to jumpstart it again. I'm excited about talking the new music I've been catching up on lately. And the films, once I actually see them. We just saw Milk. It was good, not great though. And we FINALLY saw the Lives of Others, which Santa brought last year. I still have movies from three, four Christmases ago to watch. Those DVD shelves need some attention.

CHUD: Revisiting Sideways

To be brief, I have not blogged in a long time because I am getting married. I will probably not blog for another three weeks. You understand.

In any case, a night of drinking and needing something to not really pay attention to, we decided on Sideways, a curious film by Alexander Payne. My favorite of Payne's work is his short that concludes Paris Je t'aime, for its incredible honesty and empathy. I haven't watched Sideways since before I was of legal age to drink, so three years later, it's quite the film to revisit, in terms of oenophilia and maturity.

The vernacular and vocabulary of the film is fun to be reacquainted with, both through times of pretension and legitimate understanding. I can see his obsession with the fruit and flavor and the other sensual qualities offered from wine. But at the same time, I found myself perpetually annoyed by Miles. His character is incredibly pathetic, and his authority as a connoisseur of wine really provides his only outlet in which he excels: his intelligence. He has the capacity to expound and pontificate, but he only teaches English to 8th graders. How much authority does he really have?

Additionally, Payne as a filmmaker treads both insight and cliche. The awful montage of Miles and Jack visiting vineyards before getting to Buellton reeks of middle-aged guffawing, crappy lounge music and split-screened kooky imagery. And yet, the scene where Jack, Miles, Maya, and Stephanie have dinner contains poetry, an ode to a night of belabored drinking. Miles indulges into self-pity through each glass of wine, only to dissolve through numbness to make a telephone call to his ex-wife. It's a profound sequence and insightfully executed. It's the drunkest cinema because it has the most clarity.

Cheater

Yes, sorry Blogspot. I've been cheating on you with CHUD. I'm going to repost all those film reviews I've been doing here. I'm kind of sick of writing them.

After reading some of the older posts, I'm impressed with how well written some of them have been. I'm going to have to post a recap of things soon. For posterity.

CHUD: Man on Wire - There is no "why"

I'll begin by alleviating any curiosity that Man on Wire is somehow a play on Man on Fire. It is not. The phrase "man on wire" is what's used in the police report under "Details" for Philippe Petit's trespassing and disturbing the peace charges. The buzz of the world that day, no more details needed to be given as to who this man was.

Man on Wire details Petit's illegal feat of walking a tightrope between the World Trade Center towers in 1974. Petit himself was destined to be in a documentary: a fucking rocket blasting off, animated, passionate, charismatic, driven. American Movie and Rock School come to mind with their idiosyncratic protagonists, except here, Petit is incredibly self-aware, having had his life to reflect on his passion. He's able to examine his life in the most objective of ways, and share his story with brutal honestly and whimsy all at once.

The film boasts an incredible amount of stock footage, which is combined with impeccably shot reenactments. In fact, the quality of stock footage is such that it was actually confusing for a moment in figuring out if this was Petit or an incredible look-alike. It's amazing that they documented so much of their progress at the time, and only more amazing is the condition and quality of the work.

Petit describes planning "le coup" as tantamount to a bank robbery; his girlfriend at the time recalls him watching endless heist films into the night. And indeed, director James Marsh very clearly sets out to envision this. His reenactments are, again, immaculate, with several shots recalling the camerawork from a Kubrick or Paul Thomas Anderson film. There's immediacy and danger to these scenes, and Marsh fuses the animated urgency of Petit's storytelling (as well as other members of the group) with the black and white images to create very tense retellings. But there's also a great deal of comedy and whimsy that all seemed to be part of the plan.

The film never loses sight of the poetry of what Petit accomplished. There is weight and finality once it's accomplished, an understanding that something so great has just happened, that the way things were could never be the same. These people all gravitated towards this one singular moment, which occurred before the world, and what else is left? When you finish a book, there is a sense of loss, and in this same way, when Man on Wire ends, you feel as if this apex of achievement ended a lot of friendships and relationships. People had to move on.

I commented to my friend after it was over that the story itself was so great and spectacular that the movie just had to tell it well to be great itself. The story stays with you more than the film itself, but I'm trying not be ungrateful by keeping in my mind that the film was great as well.

CHUD: The Wackness

I tend to not pay attention to Sundance as it happens. It hurts too much, knowing I can’t be there. I’ve never been, but I would love to.

So, the only film I’d really heard about coming out of Park City was The Wackness and some movie about a Cuban playing baseball, or something like that. Good reviews and buzz and a blurb on an NPR podcast etched the film in the back of my mind. So, one lazy Saturday morning, I ventured off to the nearest matinee showing.

Eh, it’s…it’s alright.

I feel like the one word to describe the film is uneven. But the film’s so well written at times, and nothing feels forced. It’s a shame it gets so much right, except the film couldn’t handle its own whimsy.

There are few moments of real whim that call attention to themselves, but when they arrive, they’re great. Josh Peck is absolutely awesome in the role, as he holds back too much at times and expresses too much at others. He’s incredibly convincing, and reminded so much of someone I’d met once before that it felt that much more grounded. And the moments when his character, Luke Shapiro, dictates to dance on the pavement like Michael Jackon’s “Billie Jean” video, you buy it and love it as it happens.

But the film never really finds that balance with the rest of itself. Dialogue steeped in the mundane, the poetics of teenage angst (although it calls itself on it; “That was real cheesy, what you said back there,” Ben Kingsley admits), musings on the era. That’s my other chief complaint: the film is set in 1994, and boy does it never cease to remind us. A Forrest Gump ad on a bus was all I needed, and the Cobain references and Notorious B.I.G. soundtrack works, but it crosses the line, I think, when Kingsley, having been spotted by the cops smoking a joint, pumps the pumps on his Reeboks.

But the film is raw in its truths and efforts, and I feel like it worked rather well most of the time. It’s funny and touching and knows its subject matter.

Now, I’m off to see The Dark Knight again, though I suppose I will have to atone for this later.