Shooflypie

I'd started doing my traditional blog posts on the various pop culture things I loved...but my heart wasn't in it. Still, I want to share what I really enjoyed reading, watching, and listening to this year...so why not just do one big post? I'm not going to comment on anything but would be happy to share why I loved anything on the list with you if you ask. I hope you all found lots to love in 2015 and I'm sure we'll find more to love in 2016. MUSIC Courtney Barnett/Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit Sleater-Kinney/No Cities To Love Destroyer/Poison Season Dawes/All Your Favorite Bands Alabama Shakes/Sound and Color Jason Isbell/Something More Than Free Veruca Salt/Ghost Notes Telekinesis/Ad Infinitum Mac McCaughan/Non-Believers Foals/What Went Down El Vy/Return To The Moon Twerps/Range Anxiety Wilco/Star Wars Drive-By Truckers/It's Great To Be Alive! TV The Flash iZombie Adventure Time - I'm through Season 3 Brooklyn N...

I saw only 10 movies in the theater this year and only 9 of those were official 2014 releases. I didn't see The Grand Budapest Hotel or Boyhood . I didn't see Birdman or Gone Girl . I wanted to but I either didn't get around to them or they didn't come close to me. I will see them. Anyway, here are my five favorites of what I did see, plus a bonus... 1. Guardians of the Galaxy - I'll admit I was skeptical when Marvel put this on their slate. It seemed like an odd choice. When the first trailer came out, I got excited. Really excited. Then the movie finally came out and it was awesome. It is full of heart and humor. Chris Pratt is great as Peter Quill. Rocket Raccoon and Groot worked perfectly onscreen. The soundtrack is the glue that holds the whole thing together. The movie had such a perfect Star Wars feel to it and I left the theater with a grin on my face. So. Much. Fun. 2. The Lego Movie - Speaking of Chris Pratt and fun, I loved this movie as well. I w...

I have watched the trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens several times now. I realize that it shows a fraction of the footage that will be in a film that doesn't come out for over a year. I also realize that the prequels were not my favorite thing and this is not something for which I should get my hopes up. And yet... I like that there are new faces. I like that ball droid thing. I like that it sounds like Star Wars. I recognize that some people have a problem with that new lightsaber hilt but I think it looks cool. I like seeing X-Wing Fighters. I love, yes, love when the John Williams score swells at the exact moment the Millennium Falcon appears and engages some Tie Fighters. Did I mention how I love that last part? It thrills the part of me that Star Wars imprinted when I was 6 years old as well as the 43 year-old version of me typing these words right now. You know what? The trailer does what a trailer should do - get you excited to see a movie. That...

Every month brings new pop culture goodies to enjoy. Here is what I'm most looking forward to this month... The Magician's Land by Lev Grossman (8/5) - This is the final book in Grossman's Magicians trilogy. I liked The Magicians and loved The Magician King the first time around...that's right, I've decided to reread this series in anticipation of the new volume. I don't reread very often; in fact, the last time I reread a series like this was right before the final Harry Potter book was published 7 years ago. I'm finding my reading of the first book has changed my perception of it but that's probably a different post. Spoon/They Want My Soul (8/5) - Spoon is one of my favorite bands, so it's not a surprise I'm excited to listen to this album (you can stream it on iTunes right now but that's not my favorite option). I've liked the 3 songs that have surfaced so far - the classic stomp of "Rent I Pay," the sunny pop of ...

It's been quite a while since I posted something that was a Sunday Shuffle, Heavy Rotation, or Monthly Mix, which means it's well past time to get caught up with my pop culture intake... BAKER'S DOZEN Yes, I've read 13 books since last time I wrote about books. I'll try to keep my comments short... A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin - I took just over three weeks to read this, though I did read a couple others during that time as well. The first half of the book does great character work and the second half is full of big event after big event and made me leave any other reading aside. It's my favorite book of the series so far and the first half or so is being adapted into the current season of Game of Thrones , which I also recommend. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell - On the surface, I should have liked this a lot. It's a romance set in the 80s and the titular characters are into the things I was into - I was the same age during that ...

If I wrote some of my year-end lists today, things would be a little different...and I'm sure that will continue to be the case. Not much to do about it, really, except maybe write about it. So... I finally saw Lincoln yesterday. I'd meant to see it when it first came out but it just never quite worked out. Had I seen it before the end of the year, it definitely would have been on my list of the best movies of 2012. I  love how it focused on just a few months of his life- the battle for the 13th Amendment and the brief aftermath. It really is a movie about political machinations - the realities that were present back then and are still present today (unfortunately). The period detail feels real to me, specifically in the lighting and the fact everyone wore coats or blankets because there was no central heating. The movies is full of great performances - I thought Tommy Lee Jones was fantastic as Thaddeus Stevens and James Spader brought charisma and levity with his perform...

I saw 19 movies in the theater this year and a handful more on DVD/Blu-Ray. Here are the ones I enjoyed the most... 1. The Avengers - My expectations were high for this movie...not only had the movies leading up to it been quite good but Joss Whedon was at the helm and I'm a huge Joss Whedon fan. The movie delivered. It was the perfect super-hero on the screen movie, full of great action, character, and humor. And then there was the Hulk. So much fun. 2. Django Unchained - Speaking of high expectations, I always have them for a new Quentin Tarantino movie. Here again, my expectations were exceeded. No one puts a film together the way QT does - such a perfect marriage of visuals, soundtrack, and dialogue. Christoph Waltz was fantastic and Samuel Jackson chewed the scenery so perfectly. Leonardo DiCaprio was a perfect villain and Kerry Washington showed why Broomhilda was worth saving. And then there was Jamie Foxx, who was perfect in the title role. I loved this movie. 3. Wr...

My son and I have made the decision to see a late show of Wreck-It Ralph in a little while (it'll be his second time seeing it and my first), so I thought I would kill some time and mention a few things... MINI-POSTS I decided to do a little more with my Tumblr and made some small posts about songs I somehow missed. The nice thing about Tumblr is that I was able to post the songs as well (or links to them, anyway). They popped up on my Facebook timeline and Twitter feed as I posted them but here are links to all five... Nina Simone's "I Put A Spell On You" Grandaddy's "Jed the Humanoid" Hüsker Dü's "Makes No Sense At All" Darkness Falls' "Timeline" Ty Segall's "Thank God for the Sinners" A NEW MILESTONE Today I finished reading One of Our Thursdays Is Missing by Jasper Fforde, which was the 47th book I've read this year. I started keeping track of how many books I read every year back in 200...

Time for another patented (not really) catch-up post... OLD FAVORITES While I'm always excited when one of my favorite creators puts out something new, I do admit to an undercurrent of trepidation. Why? I wonder what I will think of them if the new isn't as good as the old that I love. Like I said, it's only an undercurrent and I mostly can't wait to digest the new. Here are some recent examples... Crackpot Palace by Jeffrey Ford - This is Ford's fourth story collection and I had only read three of the stories prior to its release (all from anthologies; no stories here were published in F&SF, which is where I first discovered his work), so I was ready to dive in. I was not disappointed. There's love and optimism in the face of a repetitive day in "Polka Dots and Moobeams"; the knotty issue of faith in "Relic"; the classic fantasy gone awry of "The Coral Heart"; the brilliant strangeness of "The Double of My Double Is...

We went to see Looper last night and while I liked it, I'm not quite ready to write about it yet. The good news is that there is a loooong article about the movie by Film Crit Hulk , who is one of my favorite internet presences. He talks not only about the movie but all sorts of issues in the film industry as well as about and to the people who made the movie. It is well worth reading; you can find it here . I made the mistake of not recording the Louie season finale at its regular time the other night so as to have TV flexibility. While that should not have been a problem, the subsequent re-airs were not quite at the times FX promised and the DVR didn't get the whole show. So far, it's not on demand yet either. Regardless, Todd VanDerWerff wrote a smart "For Our Consideration" piece a few days ago about the revolutionary the show is; read it here . Finally, I mentioned in a recent post that I'd started watching Cheers on Netflix a few weeks ago. It tu...

My pop culture consumption has slowed considerably over the past few weeks, what with school in full swing and swimming lessons running once again plus football games (my son is in the marching band this year) and the Popcorn Festival. Obviously, I haven't been talking about what I've managed to consume so I thought I'd do some quick hits here... FOUR SIXTHS I finally bought a copy of the 4th volume of Jonathan Hickman's Fantastic Four run, which is titled "Three" because one of the FF dies within. Now this is a story I've known the outcome of for quite a while but that didn't change how much I enjoyed these issues. Hickman's character work is strong, not just with the FF but others who are pulled into the story, from the arrogance and confident flirting of Namor to the enigmatic Galactus and the fearful but dangerous Doom. The issue where Ben Grimm takes the potion the kids of the Future Foundation created to help him return to human form was...

I know we're already a week into August but I mention a few things I'm looking forward to this month... Crackpot Palace by Jeffrey Ford - Ford is one of my favorite writers and his three previous story collections are all fantastic. I don't think I've read many of the stories collected here and I can't wait to sink my teeth into them. (8/14) One Last Thing Before I Go by Jonathan Tropper - Tropper's last novel, This Is Where I Leave You , was one of my favorite books of the year back in 2010 and I have high hopes for this one as well. Tropper is funny and full of heart. (8/21) Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend by Matthew Dicks - This novel is from the point of view of a child's imaginary friend and that concept is enough to make me want to read it. (8/21) It Girl & The Atomics by Jamie S. Rich and Mike Norton - I was a big fan of Mike Allred's Madman Comics back in the 90s but I lost the thread with the series and its subsequent incarnations...

A few weeks back I talked about some summer projects that I would like to do on the blog. You may have noticed that there have been no Fringe Fridays posts, no talk about Unwritten Month, and no entries for Film School. That's because I haven't watched an episode of Fringe , have only read 3 issues of The Unwritten in 8 days, and have not watched a movie. Why? Game of Thrones and Catching Fire , the 2nd book of The Hunger Games trilogy. I watched Game of Thrones as it aired last year and thought they did a great job adapting the book, which I read right before the series started. I told my wife she should watch it but she didn't. When Season 1 came out on Blu-Ray a couple months back, our friend picked up the series and over the last couple weeks we've convinced my wife to watch it. Of course, she loves it. It's been interesting to watch it again and see how much they foreshadowed where the story was going to go. My favorite characters remain the same this seco...

I have a few ideas for consistent content this summer... Fringe Fridays - I started watching Fringe this past season, its 4th, and have since acquired the first 3 seasons. Since the show airs on Fridays, I thought I would post about the episodes I managed to watch in a given week on that day. I hope to have a true introductory post up this coming Friday. Unwritten Month - When I decided this spring that I was going back to consuming my comics in collections, I went back and bought all 5 trades of The Unwritten . I read the contents of the first 4 volumes as they were coming out monthly but the 5th volume is all new to me. As the story is fairly complex, I thought I would read each trade again and write about it. The 5 volumes collect 30 issues, so I thought I would write about an issue a day in June. Could be an interesting experiment. Film School - This list of movies I haven't seen is quite long, longer than one might expect from a pop-culture nerd, but I've al...

I thought I'd tackle TV and movies in the same post this year. As usual, I watched a ton of TV and didn't see very many movies (only 24 combined in the theater and on DVD). The latter is something I'd like to change in 2012 but we'll see. As for the former, I'm not going to stop watching TV. I love the medium so much (and still have a bunch saved between the 2 DVRs). Anyway, here are my favorites things I watched on a screen this year... Breaking Bad - Very few shows have ever had a perfect season but Breaking Bad did just that this year in its 4th season. The story, acting, and direction came together for 13 episodes of exquisite tension. Just amazing television. I also spent the year getting caught up on previous season, having abandoned it during the 2nd season. Yes, I know what a mistake it was. I've made amends and was given the gift of this show. Only 16 more episodes left and what a ride they will be. Parks & Recreation - This is my favorite si...