Figured I'd drop a quick note to end out the year. I'll drum in the year 2003 with a thrown-together "Best of 2002" list:
Best List of 2002:
The Onion AV Club's Least Essential Albums of 2002


Best Albums of 2002:
Bright Eyes -- Lifted or The Story Is In The Soil, Keep Your Ear To The Ground
Beck -- Sea Change
Coldplay -- A Rush of Blood To The Head
Doves -- The Last Broadcast


Best Films of 2002 --
The Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers
The Bourne Identity
Catch Me If You Can (with the exception of Tom Hanks' horrible Boston accent)
(I haven't seen Punch Drunk Love, Adaptation, or Confessions of A Dangerous Mind yet, so bear that in mind)

Just some opinions to get the ball rolling on next year. I'll soon put out a far more exhaustive list.

I went to see The Two Towers yesterday at 11 a.m. Do I have my nerd credientials in order or what?
Seriously, it was great. Because it was the first show of the day (with the exception of the midnight screening), we got to choose our seats about a half-hour early and sit and watch the slides over and over. No standing in line for us!
But there were some serious, big-time nerds in the hizzy. I overheard someone say, "Guys, we should form our own fellowship!" Plus there were some people dressed as Frodo, a few cloak-wearers, and various other scarily dedicated folks.
But the movie itself was magical. Never have I sat so rapt in a theater for three-plus hours, except for maybe the first installment. I agree with the AV Club's Keith Phipps when he says that director Peter Jackson makes filling three hours of film so effortless. Not having read the trilogy in its entireity, I wondered before seeing the first one if I would get what all the fuss was about. I got it, and I still get it. The Two Towers simply blew me away. The best movie since Goodfellas.

Is it a strange, albeit positive personal development when you'd rather read about TV shows than actually watch them?
Sure, when I actually watched all the shows I would still read about them, but it was more of a timewasting device than anything else. Now, I find most TV shows (network and selected cable shows, mostly) so preachy, pedantic, and otherwise pathetic (!) that I can hardly watch.
Oh, there are exceptions. I watch 24, mainly because Keifer Sutherland is on it. I have warm fuzzies for him because of movies like Young Guns, Stand By Me, and other celluloid from my youth; also, I think he fills the small screen pretty well. Maybe he can't hack it in movies anymore, but he towers head and shoulders above most TV stars.
I used to watch a ton of TV, in my lonely big-city livin' days. The list, at its peak, included such dreck as Dawson's Creek (giving props to hometown girl Katie Holmes), Boston Public (dear God!), Survivor(which has, like The Real World, become a parody of itself), Friends (can hardly bear to look anymore), and various other crap.
When I lived in Chicago, I didn't have cable, so I had to make do with network TV. Perhaps that's why I watched so much junk. Now that I have cable, I tend to watch more History Channel, Discovery, and (gulp) Court TV.
But I'll still tune in for Law and Order. Doesn't hurt that, in its various incarnations, it's on almost 24 hours a day.
As you can see from the links above, I like Television Without Pity. Good writing, funny people, and they don't pull punches. Their motto (hope I don't get in trouble for printing this)? "Spare the snark, spoil the networks."
Classic.

Yeah, it's official, I guess. John Snow, Bush's nominee forTreasury Secretary, is from Toledo!
Hella props for Northwest Ohio! Read all about it here.
OK, so we here in the wasteland get excited when one of our own gets some elevation. It's easy to be from some place cool, like New York, LA, Boston, or what have you. It takes real work to get and stay cool when you're from, say, Topeka, Saskatoon, Indianapolis, or Toledo.

The best music top ten list (and then some) of the year is up over at The Onion AV Club.
The guys (and gals) over at the AV Club are the warmest, most responsible, and most accurate film, music, and book reviewers writing today. And they're damn funny, which is a plus.

Confidential to Mike: Happy now, you smug...ah, forget it.

Here's a question for all you movie buffs out there:
In Darren Arronofsky's Requiem For A Dream, who is supposed to be the most sympathetic character? Or, to put it another way, which character's life works out the best? Is it Jennifer Connelly, because she gets her fix, even though she has to do unspeakable things to get it? Or is it Tyrone, because he's only in jail, not the nuthouse or the hospital, down most of an arm?
Who, then, gets the shortest end of the stick?
Anyway, what a powerful film.
The first time I saw, I think my jaw hit the floor. I saw it on Thankgiving Day, 2000, at the UA Cinema at Union Square. It was the first Thanksgiving I didn't spend with my family (couldn't get the next day off work, so couldn't go home to Ohio from NYC), so needless to say I was depressed. The movie did not lift my spirits. Plus I felt bad for my friend Tiffany, because she came with me and I didn't know the last half-hour or so would be so brutal. It was like the time a girlfriend saw A Clockwork Orange sitting on my shelf and asked to watch it. She had heard that it was good. I said, "Well, it IS good (my favorite of all time, in fact, except for Empire Strikes Back), but I'm not sure you'll like it." Sure enough, after 15 minutes, she left sobbing, me chasing after her explaining myself. But I digress.
But, as I am sometimes wont to do, I saw it again, just to see what my not-initial reaction would be. I have a theory on movie-watching: if you're an astute filmgoer who pays attention, etc., your first reaction to a film is probably the one the director wants you to have. You need to view it again (and again) if you want to think objectively about it.
Anyway, I saw it again a year or so ago (still alone), and liked it quite a bit more, or at least wasn't bummed out by it. At first, I thought, "Wow, what a depressing drug movie. At least Trainspotting gave the viewer some folks to pull for. This is just a bummer." On second viewing, I thought it looked great and did the anti-glamorization thing well.
On third viewing (just last night), I got all philosophical and shit. I figured out that the "dream" was that great summer, and the "requiem" was the hellish slide thereafter. I didn't loathe the characters anymore -- in fact, my reaction to them as people/characters was perhaps as sympathetic as one could feel. I felt something the first time, but mostly it was, "Well, I guess they got what they deserved."
But no. I was moved this time. Plus the DVD extras are great.
Anyway, just a thought.