Don't Look Back in Anger -- 2008 in retrospect

Given that a blog reviewing the past year is neither original nor particularly thrilling, I won't pretend that it is and instead try to keep this one fairly compact. I love lists, probably due partly to my organized-by-nature personality, probably also partly because I've found it's the best way to sum up a number of events or thoughts into one coherent package. Also because it gives me a sense of accomplishment, when in reality all I've done is actually put down, in a way that I can fully grasp, all the things that were swirling around in my head. Cathartic, really.

I decided to only do a Best of 2008 because there's too much to whine or complain about how hard the year was and I'm so over it. So without further explanation, behold:

BEST OF 2008*

Best album of 2008: Vampire Weekend, Vampire Weekend
Honorable mentions: Coldplay, Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends
Metallica, Death Magnetic
Lenka, Lenka
Weezer, Red Album
The Ting Tings, We Started Nothing
Ray LaMontagne, Gossip in the Grain

Best song of 2008: Santogold, L.E.S. Artistes (XXXChange remix)
Honorable mentions: Pink, Sober
Little Jackie, The Stoop
The Ting Tings, We Walk
Lenka, Chance (although it's not on her album, sadly)
Zigmat, Between Bullets
Coldplay, Lovers in Japan
Vampire Weekend, Walcott
Innerpartysystem, Don't Stop

Best movie of 2008: Slumdog Millionaire
Honorable mentions: Milk
Tropic Thunder
Iron Man
Kung Fu Panda
Burn After Reading
Cloverfield
In Bruges
No Country for Old Men
Shine a Light
Wall-E

I didn't see nearly as many movies as I would have liked in 2008, so if something is missing from the list, it might not be a diss as much as it is a "never got a chance to see it".

Same with the books read list. Never enough time to read other stuff when you are working on a script.

Best books read during 2008: How Not to Write a Screenplay (ironically enough)
Honorable mentions: The War of Art
Best American Poetry, 2008
Hyperion
The Fall of Hyperion
Eat Pray Love (again)
Religous Literacy
The Saint Plays
Three Uses of the Knife
The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke
The Soul of Rumi
Vectors, Aphorisms, and Ten Second Essays
The Book of General Ignorance
Simply Organic (cookbook)
And my script. Over and over again.

Best TV show of 2008: Battlestar Galactica. Hands down.
Honorable mentions: Pushing Daisies, RIP.
Lost (When I didn't want to kick its ass.)
Sarah Connor Chronicles
Robot Chicken

Best TV show moment of 2008: All of the first half of this year's season of Battlestar Galactica.
Honorable mentions: Season premiere of Sarah Connor Chronicles, with Shirley Manson singing "Samson and Delilah" as Cameron climbs out of car wreckage.
Season finale of Lost.
Robot Chicken's Star Wars episode

Best film moment in 2008: The "disappearing pencil" trick the Joker performs
Honorable mentions: The entire film of Slumdog Millionaire, to be honest, but specifically the opening credits and closing credits. And, ok, everything in between.
The "dancing" scene from Wall-E
Just about anything Robert Downey Jr. does in both Iron Man or Tropic Thunder. Take your pick.

Best film performance in 2008: Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, Milk
Honorable mentions: Heath Ledger as the Joker, The Dark Knight
Angelina Jolie (shocker!) in The Changeling

Best film soundtrack of 2008: Slumdog Millionaire. God Bless Danny Boyle.

Best webseries in 2008: Dr. Horrible. No arguements.
Honorable mention: The Guild.

And for some personal bests of 2008:

Best restaurant of 2008: Granville. You can't beat lobster quesadillas or really good stew.
Honorable mentions: Burning Bonzai
Danielle's Pizza
Lotus Vegan
Fred 62's

Best website of 2008: Wikihow
Honorable mentions: A Softer World
Evil Needles
Etsy
Wikiquote
Epicurious
Cha Cha
Rules of Thumb
xkcd

Best moments of 2008: Getting my mom a kitten for Christmas
Honorable mentions: just about everything else; the friends, the families, the memories, the airplane rides, the meals, the laughs, the cries, the shows and picnics and parks and sunsets, the handshakes and hugs, the dinner parties and the double feature movie nights, the walks in cemetaries and the surprise birthday parties, the barbeques, the inside jokes, and the beginnings and the endings.

Best hike of 2008: Eaton Saddle in the San Gabriel Mountains

Best injury of 2008 (c'mon guys, it's ME): me and my guy are watching Kung Fu Panda, trying to figure out who the voice is of the kung fu master, when it occurs to us at the same time and we whip toward each other as we both yell "Dusin Hoffman!" and then we accidentally headbutt. And you guys thought nothing could compare to my 2007 "walked into a tree and gave myself a concussion" story.
Honorable mention: all the sexy, sexy bruises I get from getting hit repeatedly by other people while learning escrima, kung fu, and knife fighting. And walking into coffee tables.

Best concert of 2008: Flogging Molly. By FAR.

Best surprise of 2008: Tickets to go to Boston with my guy, given to me on my birthday
Honorable mention: The entire meal at the Ninja Restaurant in New York

Best thing I did in 2008 for my career: hmmm, starting this blog? :) Oh, and that webseries I shot, which premieres in less than a month....

February 13th, people. Stay tuned.




*purely my opinion, so try not to argue too much.