MEDIA MONDAY
Sorry for the slow posting lately. Took a bit of a holiday and figured you weren't staring at your computer anyway for all of the sugar-highs and salt seizures your snacking has given you. I may have to eat a little broccoli myself this week to make up for it.

Interview with Crichton
From the author that brought us the rampant horror of female sexual harassment of males in the workplace, his new novel takes on the lie of global warming. An interview with UK's Sunday Times.

Article 19 Film Review
Meet the Fockers
******** (8 out of 19)
Blah

Hitchiker's Guide on Film?
I saw the preview. Watch it here. How the heck will a film verson work?

NYT on Coupland
Douglas Coupland's new novel, "Eleanor Rigby" gets a not-so-good review in the Times.

Article 19 Film Reviews
From the past week:
The Life Aquatic:
************ (12 out of 19)
Seu Jorge nearly steals the show for me as a Greek chorus figure, singing the songs of David Bowie in Samba-laced Portugese. No, really. But the film seemed a bit empty and static compared to Anderson's last 2. May be a victim of high expectations. If I had never seen Rushmore and the Royal Tenebaums, would I have loved the Life Aquatic? Maybe.

White Chicks (don't ask)
**** (4 out of 19)

Hoping to see Aviator and Sideways this week. Anyone seen them yet?

Films of 2004
A.O. Scott of the NYT thinks Sideways is overrated. I still haven't seen it, but he makes an interesting point: it's not a comment on the film as much as it is on the pack mentality of film reviewers. I know there are far more CD releases in a year than film releases, but notice how much more variety there is in top 10 lists for music of the year than for films.

For a cool compilation of 462 top ten film lists across the country, click here. Eternal Sunshine is #2! That's more like it.
--2:00 pm

Music of 2004...to be purchased in 2005
My new purchases hardly qualify me to comment on the "best of '04." But honestly many of my '04 buys were things that had made "best of '03" lists. I got them to try to keep up, and of course lost track with '04 in the process. It's not a bad system, though, and keeps me from wasting much money on the bad stuff.

If you want to know what you should be buying over the next few months, there are best of '04 lists all over. Q Magazine's list of the top 50 albums is here. And, NPR has one, with the advantage of listening links, though it's a mesh of all their music reviewers, not a list from a single perspective. Still there may be something in there worth picking up in '05 if you don't already have it. Downbeat Magazine named Lisa Sokolov's Presence the best of the year.

Also, metacritics.com provides its list of the 30 best-scoring albums of the year, based on at least 7 reviews, and scroll down to see the top ten lists of many critics.

Finally, altweeklies.com links to several "best of" lists in alternative papers around the country. My non-scientific survey of several of them reveals the following artists to have made the biggest 2004 splash with reviewers of alternative press (in no particular order): Brian Wilson, Franz Ferdinand, Wilco, Green Day, Drive-by Truckers, A.C. Newman, Arcade Fire.
--12:00 am