best of 2004

Now I get to move into the meat of what I do best, needless lists.

First allow me two introductions.

Lists are one of the things in life I thoroughly enjoy and am good at. If this was basketball (which I love and adore with all of my heart) I could dunk. I am not going to go so far as saying that I am on the level of LeBron or KG, but I would be in the NBA. Really, I am the Steve Kerr of lists. A guy who is never going to lead a team on his own, but he will be there to just come in and leave his mark on the games that matter most. (Remember the 2003 Spurs Mavs series where Kerr, 15 days before he retired came in and hit like 4 3's in a 2 minute span. ) Thats me. Not because I don't think I am better at most listers than most, but simply because I love the art of it. Kerr probably knows he is blessed because he was good at something he loved and got to to it for a living. I mean, LeBron loves to ball, I am sure, but I bet you he'd rather make that kind of money other ways.

That and I'm white. Just like Steve Kerr!

Second, this list is a year end litany of everything I thought worthwhile from 2004. I gave up making best of lists for years in both Music and movies in 2000. 2000 had 3 albums (Kid A, Stankonia and Doves's Lost Souls) I still listen to now and has like 2 movies (Wonder Boys and high Fidelity)

I gave up and just started making a list of everything great that happened that year. with the two best things of 2001 being Band Of Brothers and The World Series.

And now, onto the list for 2004.

Noticable abscences

Million Dollar Baby: Great film. Really great. But in the pattern of Mystic River, this is a film (and better than MR, I may add) that takes a simple story and does it with such great storytelling and presence to a fault where you don't forget it, but you won't remember it for as long as some of the others. The controversy over this one is one that will fade with time, and what we will be left with is a very good film with nothing really remaining for the ages. I mean, this is a great film, but are you going to watch it in 5 years, or ten. This isn't a character study like Raging Bull, or a feel good story like Rocky.

Napoleon Dynamite: I don't think that I didn't get this. But maybe I did. But I don't think so. This is NOT a good movie. The fact that everyone says they enjoy it more and more on subsequent viewings means to me that they are liking enjoying the cult of the movie, which is becoming very big. I get why some of this if funny, the actor who did Nap is very good, but it's an empty role. in the end, I view this as an attack on nerds, done with such precision it seems like a jock attack on nerds like Farenheit 9/11 was on Bush. I mean, these characters are not sympathetic, not likable, and most of all, NOT REALISTIC. I grew up with some of the worst nerds and dorks you would ever see, but none of them were ever this bad. They wanted affection, they wanted to be part of it all, and they would subject themselves to beatings for acknowledgement. They never asked (as funny as it kind of was) for tots. Oy. This movie makes me hate the viewing culture. Why didn't you like Rushmore this much, which at least had struggle and point. Or Harold And Maude, which had a resolution of sorts, and at least offered a glimspe into the world of outcasts. Or even Risky Business. Nerds got lucky in that one. AHHHHH, I'm sorry. No more.

Just off the list:

Green Day: American Idiot. Brilliant, but it; still lacking. I love the long songs and their structure, but it's the chord builds in the shorter songs that don't do it for me. I mean, I have heard Boulevard before, as with American Idiot. Love Jesus of Suburbia, Homecoming, and Wake me when sept ends.

The Grey Album: An Amazing concoction, but I still feel that both sources aren't at their best. Well, maybe it's just J, who seems to be limited by his production before the mash. God, please, help us have only one producer per rapper on an album. See how much better Snoop is with Dre or Pharell vs. anyone else. I hate hearing great beats laid on one track compared to a kayne work.

Loretta Lynn and Jack White, Van Lear Rose. Seriously, in terms of singles, this could top the list on only Portland, Oregon. Come on rockers, go back to blues! That's all zep did for 2 albums to start out with. Drinking, sleeping around and messing up, that's ROCK AND ROLL. Why is a septuagenarian woman out rocking 99% of the music today.

Handsome Boy Modeling School. White People. This is one of the few items on the list I doubt few people know about. Just go out and find a copy. You'll thoroughly enjoy it.

10. Secret Machines: Now Here is Nowhere. I keep thinking that rock is going the way of the Dodo. It's too old, and no one wants to believe in it anymore. The immediacy of hip hop beats in the singles is seemingly going to destroy the patience of old rock, where the build is essential and the reason why we raise our flames at concerts. This is a rock album that pulsates in it's singles, simmers in its' jams and wait for it's moment to climax in grand fashion. This is what Interpol should do for an album, just keep it going. Don't linger in the suffering unless there is a big bang at the end. Do the suffering, but don't wallow in it, bury it in sound. Thank god mainstream prog rock hasn't been limited to Radiohead.

9. Lost. It's not real. These people are not really on an island. It's something else, something of a great reveal yet to come. This is a great example of a world where everything is familiar but nothing is as real as it seems. Drawing from countless texts before it, Lost still seems fresh. This is what postmodernism should be, a reference from other texts that we all know, but a spin that none of us could fathom. Lets hope it doesn't go downhill. But these first 15 eps have been, if nothing less, an experience.

8. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It's not a love story. This is an examination of how we fall in love, and it's done in such a compelling way that it's both fascinating and heartbreaking in the process. It's not about falling in love, it's about being in love, one of the first films to ever illustrate so well.

7. Before Sunset. You don't have to see the prequel, per se, but it helps. But this is a film about lost loves, and facing up to them years later. Is it all as you remembered it as. Were they worth hanging all one's definition of love upon. And moreso, would it still be the same.

Would it still be the same?

Isn't it worth finding out? That's this movie, and the entire film is summed up in the ending line "Baby, I know" The audience isn't told, but we can only look to out life to our answer. I say yes. I know others who say no.

6. Arrested Development. Just go out and buy the DVD. It's a show that is so subtle that you laugh at jokes after the episode, and later than when they happened. I mean days later. It's not that you don't get the joke at the time, it's that the show is so layered, sometimes they wait four episodes for a punchline, or even longer. (For instance, Gob's way of making the chicken noise is a great example of why this show is a slow burn) Just see it before it goes bye bye.

5. The Fiery Furnaces - Blueberry Boat. This is one of the most difficult albums I have ever heard. It's so rapidly changing and ever permeating that it's hard to get until a mass of listens. And that's part of the joy. It's surprising, it's funny, it's heartwarming, and it's always changing. It may be overdone for the casual listener, but at the same time, it's the only way for a person sick of the formula of modern rock ( I mean, was anyone surprised when Hoobastank said the reason... was... you! I didn't think so.) If this album was a real life event, it would be a fashion show of the best themes of the last 30 years. They come out, wow you, make a statement, and then are replaced with another of the same vein.

4. Sideways - I think it's a little long. And it meanders a bit. For me, comedies should not be beyond 105 mins. That said, few films I have ever seen kept me laughing about scenes I had fogot, like Paul G. running out of a house in the sunrise, or T. Church getting beat up, like this one. It's also a great drama about dealing with tough breakups and growing from them even when you don't want to. I keep thinking about this movie not because of any great storylines, jokes, scenes, or other typical movie simplicity, but because of how it's told, with a brutal, human honesty that is hard to watch but easy to relate to.

3. The Red Sox coming back from 0-3 to then go on and win the world series. Good things will happen to those people who keep believing. Anything is possible. There is good in this world, and it's worth fighting for. I now work with people how like Sox and grew up with them. And most of the time, they taint the memory for me, as I was simply a guy who loved the team for being losers who always got close but never won. I didn't choose them because they were part of my area, but because like me (and my other team, the cubs) they always seemed to lose in the worst ways. I liked knowing that there was an entity that represented the suffering of life. The fact that they came back from near death. I mean, before game 4 they were 94.4% dead., In the bottom of the ninth of game 4, before they came back, they were 99% gone. And then, they did it. Writing those last words just makes me happy. All of those people who love sports and hope for good to overcome will have that moment, when simply, the impossible happened.

2. The Arcade Fire - Funeral. This is essentially the structure of E.T., It's a Wonderful Life, and a little bit of the last act of A New Hope put into music. It is a series of songs that continues to beat you into the ground with the sadness of real life. They are filled with hard truths about living in this era, some lyrics:

Love is made to forget it

My Family Tree is losing all it's leaves

You pray for rain, I pray for blindness

It's so dark its devastating, and the music compliments it. And you remember it. But what you don't expect, and what you don't forget is how it takes you out of the sadness. The album takes you down, and then musically, it just lifts you to happiness. It's E.T. coming back from the dead, it's George Bailey saying merry Christmas, it's Han Solo saving the day, just when you think it's lost, the great thing happens and it makes the movie, album, your day. It's item #3 in musical form. Go out and d'l crown of love, or better yet, just go buy the album.

1. The Incredibles. I will not waste words. I am not going to tell you why I think this is amazing. This is the best film since Saving Private Ryan. It's a masterpiece, and the only film of the last 6 years that will both astound and charm you in the same moment, boundaries of genre be damned.

David