Planet Fitness
There is a gym in Seven Corners. It is behind some kind of “supercheap warehouse” establishment. It is almost always under-attended, and yet, only costs 10 dollars a month. That is all.
Carcassonne
The game of building French. Countryside. Or something.
Carcassonne is a brilliantly simple and clever board game that takes five minutes to learn and an hour to play (and lose at). Check it out.
David Attenborough Documentaries
Seriously, these things are great. Mele and I rented Life In The Undergrowth and Life Of Birds, and couldn’t be more pleased.
Justice
Justice put out their long-awaited album this year, and it tore up my iPod. After their eclectic remixes and D.A.N.C.E and Nazareth singles, I wasn’t sure what direction the full album would take, but it broke off and did something amazing. In a year when everyone wanted to sound like Justice, Justice wanted to sound like Super Justice, Italian film soundtracks and super-amplified synthesizers and face-melting rhythms and all. Dance music with no drums! Rock music with no guitar! On top of the album, Justice turned out (or Vice Records releases MP3s for) even more remixes this year, including a fantastic take on Daft Punk’s Human After All.
Youtube / Song link: Phantom Pt 1
Dan Deacon
Baltimore’s own seizure-inducing Dan Deacon blew our minds when he opened for Girl Talk in the Spring. Who is this man with the thick, red glasses, who insists on setting up his instruments in the crowd? What are these weird machines, relics from 80s TV production studios, sending his voice careening through the room at a dozen different pitches? Deacon makes hyperactive sugar-coated future-shock music, and he rocked the Ottobar (and a full album, brilliantly entitled “Spiderman Of The Rings”) way more than Girl Talk and Cex did when he appeared with them. One of his songs (the Mark Mothersbaugh-esque Pink Batman) even got some play at our wedding reception. We love Dan. Listen to him.
YouTube Video: Crystal Cat
Joanna Newsom
More like an “artist I forgot last year,” harpist/genius Joanna Newsom spent more time in my headphones in 2007 than almost anyone else. Ys only had five songs, but what songs they were: Joanna constructed five songs that should go down in history, five songs so deeply complex and engrossing that you can’t help but listen again after they end at the nine-minute mark.
YouTube Video: Emily (Live), which is nowhere near as amazing as the album version.
Chromeo
I sure did listen to Vice Records band Chromeo a lot this year. Part of it was due to remixes: Chromeo’s songs got fan-tas-tic remixes from the likes of Mstrkrft and Guns And Bombs this year, elevating simply silly pop songs to dance masterpieces. But part of it was due to Chromeo themselves, turning songs like Momma’s Boy into ridiculously great pop gems, full of weedy swagger and cheesy keyboards.
YouTube Video: Bonafide Lovin’
RIAA
And here I must plug RIAA’s brilliant and free album Dirt Bacharach, which rocked me like so little else this year. RIAA mixes the horror of late-90s-depress-o-rock with the horror of the mid-60s strings-and-flute pop cliches, and the result brings out the best of each.
A quick rundown:
Always Something Rollin’: A Limp Bizket song so bad that it was good, even upon initial release, mashed up with the orchestral overkill of Always Something There To Remind Me. Brilliant.
You Oughta Shut Up: Alanis Morrissette’s most irritating brilliantly leads into the Cranberries’ most irritating.
Falling Away From Bond Street: Korn’s absurdly over-the-top vocals vs. Bacharach’s ridiculous Bond Street. Fun ensues.
Magic Moments: One of the world’s sappiest songs, mixed up with inner-city kids talking about their lives. Beautiful.
Note: I did not see “There Will Be Blood” or “Juno” yet, so they are not on this list and also DO NOT SPOIL THEM FOR ME. Thanks.
No Country For Old Men
Best movie I saw this year, hands-down. No Country accomplished the rare task of burning nearly 50% of the dialogue directly into my mind on first viewing, as well as allowing me to vividly recall dozens of shots and scenes afterward. Everything in the Coen Brothers’ masterpiece is so tightly fitted and precise, and everything communicates exactly what it’s supposed to, in the shorted amount of time necessary. Javier Bardem deserves any award we can give him for his stunning Anton Chigurh, the survivalist killing machine that hunts Llewelyn (and anyone else he dislikes) across Texas. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.
Zodiac
David Fincher’s on-and-off streak continues with Zodiac. The sequence has been: Alien 3 (off), Seven (on), The Game (off), Fight Club (on), Panic Room (off), and finally Zodiac, a strange, beautiful movie that tells the story of the reporters and lawmen who hunted San Francisco’s most notorious serial killer. Instead of becoming a crime movie, Zodiac slowly evolves into a slow-burning character study about the three people torn apart by their obsession with the killings, and uses Fincher’s precise directorial work and clever visuals throughout.
Hot Fuzz
So many funny movies this year, but Hot Fuzz was my favorite by far. Structured almost like a mystery film, Hot Fuzz managed a complex plot filled with great running jokes, great characters, and sharp pacing for such a blend of genres. If the dumb action/comedy marketing turned you off this film, I urge you, reconsider.
Note: As I only have an outdated Playstation 2, my games list will be of little importance to most people. Feel free to ignore.
Bully
Bully was this year’s escapist guilty pleasure for me; a private school to take over, a town to explore, numerous interesting characters to interact with, and tons of side missions and bike races. The environment and surrounding people have the breath of life Rockstar always endows games with, and it makes the whole thing so much less like a game and more like a micro-lifestyle.
Rockstar Games (the guys behind Grand Theft Auto) released Bully late last year, to a small roar of parental anger over the subject matter. It turned out to be mostly benign: The worst parts of Bully simply reenact scenarios already in kids’ movies like The War, giving the lead the opportunity to punch opponents or knock them silly with a potato gun. What parents should’ve known is that Bully is a game that encourages kids to go to school: It requires the player to maintain a strict schedule of class, lunch, class, evening shenanigans, and an early bedtime in order to effectively achieve goals. As in GTA, players are given the free will to do what they please, but with the implications of truancy cops, fatigue, and unstoppable adults, “free will” transforms from a anarchist sandbox into a true simulation.
Call Of Duty 3
The mother of all WWII games for the PS2, COD3 dispenses of silly things like health packs (and a health meter altogether), instead crafting a full experience around realistic squad combat and copious amount of explosions and people yelling at you. Far more fun than its predecessor, COD3 is also much longer, and playing it on Hard mode is a worthwhile and memorable experience.
Odin Sphere
This Penny Arcade best sums up Odin Sphere, a bizarre super-hybrid of gameplay types, mixed with the hand-drawn gorgeous graphics of old-school Neo Geo fighting games. It’s quite literally a side-scrolling role-playing-game where you feed plants with the souls of enemies and use them to make pastries that you eat so your health bar can “gain experience.” Oh, and did I mention that you can combine objects, but their “numbers” multiply each other, and the destruction of objects with higher numbers and the correct second digit releases soul energy? I guess I didn’t.
Despite what sounds like complexity, Odin Sphere is actually a focused, simple delight: Fast-paced 2d-combat with beautiful enemies and a longggggg storyline.
Portal
I didn’t even PLAY this game, but I must name it one of the best games of the year on principle. The concept itself, the videos of gameplay, and the delicious closing credit song make Portal one of the most original games to hit consoles in years.
And here is where I regurgitate the tops of this year’s CSS galleries, filtering for “complexity” rather than “simplicity.” Maybe next year, enough memorable, mainstream/high-info designs will come out, and I will include them on this list. Another note: As far as I know, these are all designs implemented in 2007, but I could be totally wrong.
Dara’s Garden
A simple trick and some clean typography make this one. Dara’s Garden uses the standard flourishy background here, but at a super-size combined with great botanical illustrations. Pair this with great detail through (look at the fun line on the hover state of the Photo Gallery!), and you’ve got a great little site.
Fuze Creative
Fuze’s site has a number of little touches I wish I could pull off. The paper-layout stuff I do quite often, and am almost tired of, but I love the decision to puts strips of color swatches in the header and footer.
Visit Cascadia
On here for the sheer effort involved. Cascadia uses a great illustration for the header, fantastic retro layouts throughout, and unique applications for each section. Note: Even though I thought this was a tourism site when I first saved it, I realize now that it’s about selling trucks. Hmm.
Uniquely Knoxville
Sure, it’s busy! BUSY AND FANCY. This Knoxville site (I’m not sure if the many TN Vacation sites are related or not) crams a lot of stuff into a little space, and uses all kinds of ridiculously fun embellishments. It’s also got a great footer, which is rare even among the best web designs. Note: This was designed by the same guys who did Dara’s Garden, although the sites seem oddly absent from their portfolio.
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