Top Ten Lists 2008: Music and Movies

Everyone's been bitching about how very "meh" a year 2008 was for music, and I am forced to agree. I think it was a long-tail year: lots of interesting new artists and quirky new sounds that caught the attention well-tuned ears throughout the intertubes, but not too many knockout champions or shoe-ins for No. 1. Idolator sums it up in reviewing Pitchfork's list today, which placed Fleet Foxes in the No. 1 spot:

I will just chalk its absurdly high placement up to "yet another reason why this year needs to be put out to pasture ASAP.

There's a bit of variation on most of the lists this year, save for a few staples. But there is something that needs to be said, so I'm going to say it: TV on the Radio can eat my ass. They're just okay . Got it? They're certainly not the new goddamned Radiohead where they can do no wrong.
Rolling Stone, Spin, and everyone else who fawned over Dear Science and Return to Cookie Mountain: please let's all just relax, take a breath, have a Fresca, and calm down. Hell, I liked "Dear Science," and the band is fine with me overall, especially if you're into listening to songs that sound like they're the intro to other songs and you like staying rivetted to the speakers as you keep waiting for the damn thing to kick in already.
They can be just okay. We forgot somewhere along the way that bands are allowed to be decent musicians without either being the second coming of Hipster Jesus or a tragedy to all sounds ever made that warrants cutting off your ears and shutting down iTunes.

That said, here's my completely unscientific, unreliable, poorly vetted, terribly thought out and ultimately indefensible list.


10.MGMT - Oracular Spectacular*










9. Lupe Fiasco - The Cool











8. Fleet Foxes - s/t











7. Lil Wayne - Tha Carter III










6. Bitzen Trapper - Furr










5. Okkervil River - Stand Ins










4 Santogold - s/t










3. She and Him - Vol. 1











2. Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours








1. Vampire Weekend - s/t

I was reluctant to put VW at the top of the list, but it's hard not to argue that it's the most innovative album that came out this year, with afro-pop sounds and undeniably catchy rhythms that managed to maintain replay value even in the face of all the hype. The [ed not: as I'm typing this, they started playing Mansard Roof at Gorilla Coffee in Park Slope. Point illustrated] album is summery party music for the neo-Paul Simon set, and I don't see any problem with that. Also, the Columbia boys are helping to stem our nation's tragic dearth of songs about esoteric punctuation terms, and I think we should be grateful.

*Also hesitant to put this on the list since we all got it back in 07, but I guess we aren't counting non-Radiohead digital releases yet.

Movies- In which I realize I didn't see nearly enough good movies this year:

1. The Dark Knight
2. Wall -E
3. Slumdog Millionaire
4. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
5 Iron Man
6. Frost/Nixon
7. Pineapple Express
8. Cloverfield
9. Zack and Miri Make a Porno

I was really tempted to call Wall-E the best movie of the year. It certainly was the most endearing love story movie since Before Sunset, and it didn't even have any damned speaking for half the film. But Dark Knight was just too jawesome to deny.


[RELATED: here's the column I wrote last year about the rules for making a top 10 list. Follow it or be subject to weeks of angry sneering glances shrouded in ironic mustache coming at you from under American Apparel hoodies.]

Hi I'm a Mac, and I'm soaking wet

Turns out Chris the Giant and I were in the same showing of Slumdog Millionaire last night with Justin Long, BKA the Mac guy. This accounts for my first celebrity interaction in the city (well, after Common, I guess). But more importantly, my degree of separation from Jonah Hill is now down to 1.

Here's what happened. We attended a late showing at the Angelika Theater on West Houston Street last night, amid a torrential rain storm that proved, despite what your science teachers and Jim Cantores of the world have told you for years, it can be well into the 20s and still refuse to stop raining. I went to the bathroom after the movie and when I returned, Giganti said, "Hey, I think that's the guy from the Mac ads over there. Also from Live Free or Die Hard."

Where? I asked, immediately arming my archers of skepticism to shoot down his presumptions. This had happened before of course, with Giganti once (and still adamantly to this day) making the absurd claim that he saw Lauren Ambrose drunkenly stumbling down the streets of Savannah about two years ago.

"He just walked out the door." So we followed and to my surprise it was indeed Justin Long, hunching his shoulders into his coat as he headed out into the cold rain. So I ran up and talked to him briefly. The following conversation ensued:

Me: Hey, can I ask what you thought of the movie?
Justin Long: Yeah, sure. I thought it was really great. I really enjoyed it. It was amazing.
Me: Cool man. My name's Tim.
Justin Long: Justin, nice to meet you man. (I wonder if a lot of people probably think his name is "Mack," I thought. We shook hands).
Me: Dude, can I just say, Accepted is a totally, totally underrated movie.
Justin Long: Oh thanks man. Yeah, we worked really hard on that one so I appreciate it.
Me: It doesn't get the credit it deserves. But just know that a bunch of us out there dig it.
Justin Long: Thanks man, thanks a lot.
Me: Keep it up.
Justin Long: Sure -- thanks, take it easy Tim.

He was with some girl, very much not Drew Barrymore, though in honesty I probably still would have been more interested in talking to him even if he was with Drew Barrymore.

The weirdest part about running into him last night was that on Wednesday, I pretty much had my mind set all day on going to the Barnes and Noble in Park Slope to see John Hodgman , aka "PC," speak about his new book. But then I got a migraine and took one of those pills that are either 80 percent placebo or 100 percent concentrated Nyquil-lined opium, and passed out for two hours. But either way, those pills work blackout good.

And, FYI, Slumdog Millionaire is gigantically well done.

I was pretty disgustingly wet by time I got home last night, so much that I had to drape clothes over the space heater. But even in the worst storm, it's usually worth venturing out into the rain to see what New York has to offer that night.

"Back off man, I'm a Scientist"

I am newly convinced that Ghostbusters is the greatest movie of all time. Seriously. Watch it again with your adult eyes.


That is all.


(Oh yeah, and Ghostbusters 2 is great too. I was only recently made aware that there was an undercurrent of hate towards this movie, not dissimilar to the feelings that surround Caddyshack 2 and Major League 2. You are wrong if you feel this way. I don't know how to tell you this any other way.)