Level Orange

Although I find it lots of fun to read through ‘em, I normally don’t care to make end-of-year entertainment lists. I find that things usually get slanted to what I’ve been into recently as opposed to the entire year.

However, I figured I’d go ahead and try something a little different and just go by what I remember most and what ”stuck” during 2008, no matter if I it’s strictly from 2008 or not. Let’s see what happens…

Top 5 songs

• “Chasing Windmills” by Heavy D - A pleasantly surprising reggae spin from Heavy D. In fact, the whole album “Vibes” is pretty solid.
• “Just a Little Bit Closer” by Bungle - What I imagine drum’n'bass would be if it ever became mainstream. Soulful and effervescent.
• “Flashing Lights” by Kanye West - A killer track with a killer video, not to mention the fact that I spent many days in GTA IV driving around blasting it.
• “Pro Nails (Rusko Remix)” by Kid Sister - The original mix with Kanye (video) is all right, but this remix is the shit that make ya speakers bump.
• “Wildstyle” by Dz - “This is music I’ve been waiting all my life to hear. And I didn’t know it.”

Top 5 movies

• Cloverfield -  The first movie I was truly anticipating coming into 2008. Even if audience reaction was mixed, I enjoyed it a whole lot. Maybe it’s just me, but I’d go back for Odette Yustman too.
• The Dark Knight - While the hype was unbelievable after Heath Ledger’s death, I had been excited about this film ever since watching Batman Begins. More epic and intense than I ever expected and a fitting follow-up to the first film.
• WALL•E - What I’d call one of Pixar’s absolute best efforts to date. Classic.
• King of Kong - After hearing so much about it, I finally had a chance to watch this documentary about two men going after the Donkey Kong world record high score. I never thought I’d care so much about nerds playing arcade games.
• Naked Fear - A low-budget flick I caught on Netflix about a reluctant stripper who’s set loose naked  in the New Mexico landscape and hunted for sport. Sounds horribly misogynist, I know, but I was enthralled nevertheless. I could’ve done without the ending though.

Top 5 TV shows

• LOST - Season 4 was a sight to behold as the series went in an all-new direction and built up to an unbelievable season finale. I can’t imagine what’s going to happen with Season 5.
• Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - With the unique circumstance of having two seasons in one year, TTSCC started off a little wobbly, but built to a great Season 1 ending point. Season 2, on the other hand, started off strong and despite horrible ratings, Fox ordered a full season of episodes. Now I just hope people start watching.
• Life on Mars - A great period cop show with a great cast that mixes drama and comedy and sci-fi. Hopefully, pairing the show with LOST when it returns in 2009 will bring in more viewers to this show.
• Surface - I went back and watched the one and only season of this 2005 NBC series on Netflix recently. I got a kick out of revisiting Miles, Nim, Rich and Laura and only wonder what a Season 2 would’ve looked like.
• The Office (UK) - I’ve missed so much of the US series that I just went back and watched the UK series instead. Still a great show.

Top 5 games

• Call of Duty 4 - I played enough COD4 to hit Prestige mode a few times over and so much so that I felt no need to pick up Call of Duty: World at War.
• Portal - Even though I had little interest in the rest of The Orange Box, I absolutely loved Portal.
• Battlefield: Bad Company - An interesting new entry in the Battlefield franchise from EA. Loaded with attitude and humor, I think I actually enjoyed the single player campaign over the often chaotic multiplayer experience.
• Ace Combat 6 - In an effort to get away from first-person shooters, I picked up the most recent Ace Combat game and enjoyed it quite a bit. Only after finishing the game did I realize that I was, in fact, still playing a first-person shooter.
• Mass Effect - A game I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy or not, but actually had a lot of fun exploring, even if I did eventually get stuck on one boss battle and never went back to it.

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Every year, the US Library of Congress selects films of importance for its National Film Registry film preservation project. This year, classic films like The Asphalt Jungle, In Cold Blood, Deliverance, Sergeant York, and others from the early 20th century were added to the list, guaranteeing their physical preservation and a place in national history as significant contributions to our national culture. 

Perhaps the most intriguing of the selections, was James Cameron’s The Terminator from 1984. It’s the only film of this year’s selections that still has an active following, including a third sequel due next year and a great (albeit-struggling) TV series airing on broadcast TV. While most sci-fi fans would easily consider the low-budget, visionary flick a classic, it says a lot that the federal government considers it a national treasure worth preserving for all time. I mean, that’s, like, forever.

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With all the deals to be had on Black Friday this past November, I couldn’t help but be tempted to finally jump into the Blu-ray format. Ever since HD DVD fell by the wayside earlier this year, I had been resigned to simply watching movies on DVD as I had been for the past decade. I had placed my bet on a fledgling technology and simply lost out, so in a fit of disappointment, I found that I was fine with kicking it old school for the foreseeable future.

There was the matter of the investment I had already made into HD DVD, including the add-on for my Xbox 360 (which at the time was the cheapest way to get into the format) and a growing collection that stopped at 35 titles. Maybe more importantly, there were the underlying principles behind the rival HD formats and their backers–Toshiba and the HD DVD Consortium versus Sony and the Blu-ray Disc Association. In my mind, these corporate giants were slugging it out for different reasons and ultimately, I think the interests of Hollywood and Silicon Valley won out over that of consumers and end-users.

While that aspect of it all is probably the hardest pill to swallow, I’ve been able to look past it and consider what’s really the heart of the matter–being able to enjoy movies in high definition again. There was simply no other choice for building an “ultimate” collection of movies that didn’t revolve around (or at least involve) Blu-ray.

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Today Disney announced a new high-profile promotion for their Blu-ray titles, marking a big end of year push for new adopters of the high-def format. The price-dropping promotion, which lasts from December 26, 2008 until January 10, 2009, includes some of the studio’s biggest hits like Cars, The Chronicles of Narnia series, the Pirates Of The Caribbean series, Ratatouille, Sleeping Beauty: Platinum Edition, The Nightmare Before Christmas: Special Edition and Wall·E.

I know I’ll be looking for some of these, especially The Nightmare Before Christmas and Wall·E, which have apparently been deemed to of the best Blu-ray releases of 2008.

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Design firm Turner Duckworth announced today that its work on the packaging for the latest Metallica album “Death Magnetic” has been nominated for a Grammy award. Yes, a Grammy. For packaging. Turner Duckworth, known for its work with Coca-Cola and Motorola, made some unconventional design choices in the face of traditional music packaging, including the ambiguous/not-so-ambiguous cover image and a rather intrusive die-cut that pays no mind to photos or text in the liner notes.  

I’m not sure what’s more surprising for me; the fact that Metallica is still bothering to put out music or that they turned to a design firm to build and market their “brand” or that there’s even a Grammy award for packaging design. Anyone recall who won last year or the year before that?

According to Variety, Relativity Media is working to get its hands on rights to The Crow license, with plans to bring self-exiled director Stephen Norrington (Blade, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) to reboot the franchise.

Boo that that shit, I say. While I can understand that the death of Brandon Lee was tragic and unfortunate, I honestly think it made The Crow stronger and far more poignant, to the point where I don’t see why anyone would ever want to remake the film. Sure, Lee wasn’t exactly a star like The Dark Knight’s Heath Ledger, but just like with Ledger, there’s something to be said for leaving a man’s legacy–the one truly excellent film he made in his career–intact. Don’t let his death be in vain, Hollywood.  How about just putting together another sequel, but this time like you give a damn?

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Can you imagine the magical fields of sweet mystery that must be Michael Jackson’s mind these days? Just when you thought you could identify a celebrity kid toucher, he goes and turns all Hamburglar on us. Beware kids, danger lurks out there. And it brings with it a phat Barney mixtape.

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For years, anyone who wanted solid recommendations on movies usually took the question up with a local video store clerk. I should know. I used to be one.  When you’re around so many movies and hear so many customers’ feedback, it’s easy to know what people really look for in their purchases. These days, as people buy and watch movies online, it becomes a one-way street, making it sometimes difficult to get a real human-based recommendation on what else is out there.

Created by Reel.com founder Stuart Skorman, Clerk Dogs is looking to fit that bill and do it with an unprecedented amount of human input, including hand-picked recommendations by thousands of video store clerks themselves. Even the site’s Mash It tool relies on real connections as suggested by people, not some collaborative, taxonomy-based algorithm. Check out this video of how the service works or just give it a spin and see what you think.

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GET TO WORK.

That’s right. If you have work to do and are super-concerned about getting it done, that’s the only practical piece of advice I can offer.

Lately, I’ve been catching up with sites that claim to offer tips and tricks to stay productive and make your workload a bit easier and less stressful. You know, the kind of stuff that falls into the Getting Things Done mantra (you do know GTD, don’t you?). Sites like Merlin Mann’s 43Folders provide some excellent insights and perspective on what it means to be a responsible, highly-productive worker. Designer types like myself can go to Fuel Your Creativity or Smashing Magazine and find out how to get better at this or easier ways to do that. The tech-savvy can hop over to LifeHacker or TechieBuzz and find all kinds of ways to get the most out of their computers and technology.

These sites offer some really great advice and can be a big help whenever you’re in a pinch, but it seems like everyone’s got tips on how to do stuff. Even when I try to skim my way through a lot of it, I’ve found myself more enthralled by reading about how to be productive than actually being productive.

And so that’s where my three magic words come into play. I still like to find ways to make my computer faster or some nifty Photoshop tutorials as much as the next guy, but as far as getting things done, I come from the school of “Don’t talk about it. Be about it.” So the next time you find yourself being not-so-productive, try not to look to others for ways to do your work. Just get to work. You pansy. You’re welcome.

After Universal Studios decided to put a leash on what DVD rental kiosk vendors can do with their titles, Redbox not only filed suit back in October, but has now stocked over 100,000 copies of Universal’s big upcoming DVD release Wanted.

Even with Universal’s new attempts to regulate how its titles are handled now in effect, Redbox has done its customers a solid and found alternative (albeit costly) ways to stock the DVD on release day. And since Redbox is sticking to its $1/day rental fee, that means they’re doing it on their own dime. How’s that for putting the customer first?