Yeah, yeah, yeah I know...it's kind of a lame excuse to do a two month late listing of those typical "Best of..." lists that people are oh so prone to create at the beginning of a new year. But honestly I'm not really big on putting a strict number ranking on subjective works of art such as movies and music and other than those lists that deal in a specific non-mainstream genre and thus wander a bit outside of the box, they really don't interest me at all in the least bit in any way at all interesting or in any way are or have ever been interesting to me -- and by association those nearest to me in terms of an aesthetic sympathetic unity and not a physical locality -- and thus typical results in my complete lack of disinterestnessness. Sorry...kind of panicked at the end of that last sentence.
Anyhoo...typically I like to cowardly just retreat to the more comfortable world of just listing some fun favorites and though my interests tend to be more geared towards the arts and thus will heavily be steeped in artsy fartsy thingies, I'll try to throw in some type of gaming stuff since I guess I'm kinda on a gaming site and all. Well let's see what kind of junk I was fairly thrilled about last year and ignore all the life-destroying stuff from my personal life this time out.
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Favorite Gamespot Moment - E3 Bulletstorm After Hours
If you stuck with Gamespot during last year's E3 show and committed to watching EVERYTHING they put out you might have noticed a couple of slightly odd experiments they did. One was allowing one dedicated employee to run around with a big shoulder camera desperately trying to cover everything whilst multi-tasking quite a lot of things, and the other was Tonight On the Spot otherwise known as the crazy people meet at a bar, drink quite a bit, and play video games. Bravely dodging grumpy bar owners attempting to throw them out, our stalwart Gamespot team wandered around the after hour get togethers trying to get some scoops.
On one particular glorious night they ran into the Bulletstorm folks featuring Tanya Jessen. Now...I'm not saying everybody was really, really, drunk as I'm not a doctor...but let's just say that everybody looked and acted very loose, excited and friendly. This clip only shows a tiny bit of what happened that night, but if you watched it live you know what happened. Basically the meeting just devolved into a great play session in which everybody swore like sailors while they relished in the game's delicious carnage. It was an amazingly compelling demo and was in stark contrast to Miss Jessen's appearance the next day at the official Gamespot floor show which was strictly professional.
Dear Gamespot -- more games n' alcohol demo sessions please!
Also don't think I'm not bitter over not be awarded my two missed badges for watching all the Tonight On the Spots and all EVERY DAMN SHOW you so graciously produced.
Favorite Album - Blood Red Shoes - Fire Like This
Oh sure I s'pose there were quite a few albums that blew me away on a technical level or had me screaming like a little baby that they finally made a new album (thanks Superchunk and Versus), but dammit if Blood Red Shoes didn't continue to make the catchiest bit of boy/girl jangly noise rock with their 2010 release! Blood Red Shoes has continued to be a fairly obscure band in the U.S. as they pretty much ignored this side of the world whilst their contemporaries slid fairly quickly into view with Stateside releases and single play in the various alternative markets.
But for whatever reason they've decided to do so as I've always been too lazy to check, they just don't seem to care all that much and only came out here for an incredibly brief tour coinciding with their sudden and quite pleasing appearance on the Scott Pilgrim Saves the World soundtrack -- which of course suddenly got them noticed by a lot more people. Will their popularity climb at all here in the U.S.? Who knows but I just don't care so much about that stuff anymore now that record stores have died.
Favorite Blu-Ray release - Star Crash (1980) by Shout! Factory.
Once again even though that sure, sure, the Kino edition of Buster Keaton's Steamboat Bill, Jr. was the bees' knees and was truly a glorious sight to behold, but the ultra cheesy Star Crash had been out of print for decades and has never even had a proper DVD release much less a Blu-Ray edition and I had somewhat given up on ever being able to watch it again except on some old crappy full frame low quality video tape. Then suddenly those lovely folks at Shout! Factory that brought us the excellent Blu-Ray of Death Race 2000 brought out Star Crash not just out on DVD but also Blu-Ray and lo did they pack it full of as many goodies as they could find! I was so happy that after I bought it I immediately watched it three times just because I could. God though I am a big old film snob I do love my trashy cinema so very, very, much!
Favorite New Theatre Film Release - The American
2010 was an incredibly good year for interesting and high quality films and Anton Corbijn's The American really blew me away. I went into it aware that the trailer was highly misleading and was not in fact an action film but a slowly paced character study. But I was not familiar with Corbijn and being a person that loves art and photography I find myself sometimes easily swayed towards film that lean heavily in that particular aesthetic. Similar to painter turned director Peter Greenaway, Corbijn utilizes his personal artistic sensibility to create a visually arresting movie, although since Corbijn is a photographer he does things such as framing many shots to the rule of thirds as opposed to Greenaway's tendency to create a unified balance.
But visual splendor aside, the film is chock full simple but effective uses of highly symbolic characters and locations along with an incredible performance by George Clooney who although an effectively empty and somewhat lifeless character, is able to tell you volumes about himself with just the tiniest of movements and facial expressions. Needless to say this film really impressed me on all fronts.
Favorite New Restaurant - Wako Donkasu
Although currently it's all the trendy rage to eat out of those traveling moving trucks fabulously decorated and serving all kinds of foreign cuisine, I still like to go and sit down in a nice place that's not fancy but serves basic yummy dishes. A friend of mine who is good at sniffing out fairly unknown but great little places found this place near Koreatown in L.A. called Wako Donkasu that's just awesome. It's a Korean place that serves Japanese tonkatsu dishes and not only is their food delicious, but their sauce is awesome! After you sit they give you a bowl full of sesame seeds and a pestle and you have to grind the seeds into a fine powder yourself after which a server will come by and pour their yummy sauce into it so you have simply the freshest and tastiest dipping sauce I've ever eaten!
Favorite Video Game - Bayonetta
I always like me a good action game but it seems like they're either pleasant but overly easy diversions or super cheating hardcore games that follow the Japanese axiom that if you're suffering then it must be good. Bayonetta managed to straddle that fine line by making an accessible game that was fun to play, cool to look at, and that would challenge but not abuse you. Sure there were some frustrating moments which tried my patience, but usually it was just because I was approaching an enemy the wrong way or needed to come back to a certain task at a later date when I had better abilities or items. Although there were some low moments like the far too long two vehicle riding sequences especially the second one which is immediately followed by a rather difficult boss.
Despite the Bayonetta character being initially a bit of an eye-rolling spider-like piece of sexual eye candy, I found myself warming up to her personality quite a bit especially as she started to become more and more reluctantly attached to the little girl she comes across. I wished they had come up with more practical uses for some of the weapons such as the whip, but there was enough variety that I found myself approaching certain tasks very differently than my friend who was also playing the game. But despite some tiny issues I enjoyed the game so much that after I finished up my PS3 version and platinumed the game all up, I bought a copy for my 360 and got 1000 for it as well just for heck of it. But as my friend says there's really just one singular thing that you get to do that makes the game oh so very, very, awesome in the final boss battle.
You become a giant and punch God into the sun to win the game. :shock:
Favorite Downloadable Game - Lara Croft and Guardian of Light
Not much to say but wow I could not stop playing this game for quite some time as it was so addictive. Much like Bayonetta I ended up buying this for both systems and besides accomplishing all the goals, acquiring all the goods, and getting all the trophies/achievements I did something I've never bothered to do -- I topped the online scoreboard. In fact I was even ranked #1 on the PS3 board for a couple of weeks and when I got bumped down I fought back and captured the top spot once again. Of course as usually happens the board got cracked eventually and so goes all the fun but oh well..I had my fun and the strange sort of fame one gets being the best along with the fallout of people leaving me messages wanting me to play the game for them or some such weird thing.
Favorite Graphic Novel - Love & Rockets: New Stories #3
Love & Rockets was the best comic of the '80s but since those halcyon days of small publishing greatness the creators haven't put out a lot of material. They have made a few limited series every now and again, but although these were greatly welcomed, they really didn't quite reach the heights of the '80s era material. Well this all changed recently with the release of the third collection of new Love & Rockets stories and specifically Jaime Hernandez's "Love Bunglers" and "Browntown" stories which are just heartbreaking but truly great reading.
Favorite Animated Series - Archer
I wasn't sure what was going to happen with Archer when I first found out about the series. First it was going to be on FX of all places and second of all it was created by Adam Reed who was the co-creator of the very good but vastly underappreciated and generally ignored series on Adult Swim called Frisky Dingo. They tried one spin off and it died immediately so although it obviously looked very much like Frisky Dingo and obviously had the same comedic sensibilities, I really wasn't sure how it would be received. Luckily though it somehow has acquired a solid audience and a lot of critical praise so much to my delight it not only stuck around for an entire season but it's currently in the middle of its second season. Oh yeah...it's like Frisky Dingo but a hundred times more awesomer.
Favorite TV Show - Luther
A very odd little crime show out of Britain which stars Idris Elba as Detective John Luther who starts the show off allowing a serial killer he's been relentlessly chasing to fall hopefully to his death. Unfortunately the man survives and is currently in a coma and though John is under suspicion he is allowed to return to active duty as he is a genius level profiler. His first case is a woman named Alice Morgan (Ruth Wilson) whose entire family has been horribly slaughtered. But upon interviewing her he realizes that she in fact killed her entire family but because she herself is a genius level killer he can't legally prove it. Intrigued by John's ability to suss her out so easily where others could not, she finds herself drawn to him time and time again. At first she wants to torment and toy with him, but despite her nihilistic outlook, she slowly finds herself needing him in her life and thus creates a very odd TV couple.
A very interesting show with characters that really drew me in Luther was fun while it lasted but unfortunately it ran far shorter than it should have and ended on a completely insane note which tied several major characters together in a very unexpected manner. Word is out that it finally got the go ahead for a new season, but sadly I'm going to have to wait until the 4th quarter to get any more episodes.