LIKED

– Someone in the requests post asked for a general investigation into what I like and don’t like in music, and that’s coming later this week, but for the meantime? I really got into listening to Orishas this week. I really like hip-hop combined with traditional musical forms and Orishas do it very well, mixing Spanish rhyming (which admittedly I can’t follow, but their flow and performance is excellent even without understanding the words) with Cuban rumba- and salsa-style beats. “El Kilo” is probably my favorite single of theirs so far, but “Bruja” isn’t far behind.

– I’m really enjoying Then We Came To The End by Joshua Ferris. It’s funny and clever and hard to put down, and that’s what I want out of a light novel.

– I’ve always had an inherent fondness for poker-dice type games, and Lock N’ Roll is one of the best I’ve seen in quite some time. Current high score is 7622, for those interested in beating me.

MEH

– I got Britannia this week at a discount, which is great, and of course the new Fantasy Flight edition of the game is gorgeous in most respects. My complaint, however, is that this is a game with eleventy billion tokens, and the plastic insert which is supposed to store the pieces is entirely random and doesn’t actually have anything to do with the various types of pieces, so you end up kind of mixing things together in untidy clumps. This isn’t a small deal, because Britannia is a looooong-ass game, and anything that can reduce its playtime – like, say, simplifying the storage of it – is welcome.

– I finally got around to reading all of Jack Staff this week and… it’s not bad, I suppose, but I don’t see why this comic gets so many raves. It’s a perfectly average, okayish superhero comic. If it was a Marvel or DC book it would be completely unmemorable. Paul Grist’s art gives it an additional sort of original character, sure, but I was expecting an A-plus book and got maybe a B-minus. Is this like Walt Simonson’s Thor – is it one of those comics everybody else jerks over and I just read it and think, “eh, whatever?” (Other than Beta Ray Bill, of course.)

DIDN’T LIKE

– Whenever I see one of the old Big Books that Paradox Press used to print (The Big Book of Death, The Big Book of Hoaxes, The Big Book of the Weird Wild West, et cetera) in a used bookstore, I make a point to pick it up because they’re out of print and they’re always awesome: clever stories about real, obscure things, people and happenings. However, The Big Book of Urban Legends is just terrible, because it is full of boring stories about fake things that never happened that you have already heard half a dozen times. It’s like reading a book of knock-knock jokes when you’re older than eight; you know them all already, so it’s not fun or cool. It’s just bad.

LIKED

– Bloody Confused! by Chuck Culpepper is a great little piece of sportswriting – a journey alongside Culpepper during his time in England as he lives there for a few years and, being a sports fan generally, settles in and picks a football team to cheer for (in his case, Portsmouth), and in the process discovers why he likes sports. It’s engaging and intelligent and is readable both for the fan (for whom it will illuminate many of the reasons non-soccer fans have trouble understanding or appreciating the game, and how to get past those issues), and the nonfan (for whom it will illuminate both the joy of being a fan generally and the joy of being a soccer fan particularly).

– Punisher #6 is actually the execution of a pretty good idea: namely, bringing back everybody Scourge ever killed from the dead, and siccing them on somebody. That it is the Hood siccing them on the Punisher just makes it even better, because the motivations all make sense (the Hood wants a no-cost plan to kill or at least inconvenience the Punisher, the villains want to not go back to being dead once the spell runs out, and the Punisher wants what he always wants). All this, plus the return of Death Adder (probably one of the coolest minor Marvel villains ever), and hopefully the promise of getting, however briefly, into the mind of Turner D. Century.

– Caught up (finally) on the back end of Friday Night Lights‘ third season, and oh man does this show ever get bad? Other than last season’s “Tyra and Landry kill a guy” plot (which was dealt with in a mature enough fashion that its sensationalism was forgiveable), this show just doesn’t make missteps, not ever. Plus this is the first season where they’ve actually had enough stability to set up the fourth season, with a brilliant hook (forcing Coach to take over the just-reopened decrepit poor high school’s football team and letting the uber-successful Dillon Panthers now be the nemesis rather than the scrappy underdog). With the show’s cast set to change drastically next season (only Matt and Julie of the kids set to stick around, and one hopes that Matt Saracen will finally for once in his damn life catch a fucking break and pull a Smash by the fourth episode or something) the show needed exactly this sort of tactic to remain the powerhouse that it is.

DIDN’T LIKE

– Dance of the Dead turns out to be a real disappointment, a movie that can’t decide if it’s a zombie comedy movie or a zombie parody movie and by extension mostly fails at both. It’s not funny. It’s not clever. It’s not even internally consistent. (This is a movie that seemingly can’t decide between “slow zombies” and “fast zombies,” instead going with the truly retarded decision of “both.”) Large chunks of it are really stupid. Large chunks of it are really predictable. Practically none of it is entertaining. And the obvious societal commentary that could be done with zombies plus prom is almost completely ignored. I know this was a low-budget movie, but you don’t need a high budget to make a good zombie movie – that’s one of the plusses of the genre, for crissake.

– You know, I’ve often said that Padma Lakshmi, the host of Top Chef, is a wooden self-important she-jackal. And this is true. But Kelly Choi, host of Top Chef Masters, makes Padma Lakshmi look like Julia fucking Child.

– Maksim instead of Kupono? Really, Nigel? (And you know this comes down to Nigel.) Are you trying to utterly invalidate the entire concept of dancing for your life? Because when Kupono A) dances like shit in his competitive dance and then B) pulls out a crappy, distracted solo, while Max A) dances well in his competitive dance and then B) nails his solo, your preferences become obvious. Yes, Max looks like a Russian mobster, but that’s not his fault. He is Russian, after all. (And now, lay odds on the new Kupono/Kayla pairing to get a contemporary routine next week so Kayla, obviously one of Nigel’s favorites, can make top ten.) Also, Ashley danced better than Kaitlyn did and similarly should not have gone, but they were both chaff anyway so it’s more forgivable.

Some weird and awesome bookcases.

LIKED

– Pixar films, at this point, are either an A+ (Wall-E), an A (Ratatouille) or an A- (Cars). On this scale, Up is a solid A – not quite reaching the peaks of Pixar but definitely not one of their “lesser” efforts (where “lesser” is something just about any other filmmakers would kill for). Ed Asner’s voicework fits his character perfectly (and if you don’t at least sniffle in that first ten minutes, what are you made of?) and the little kid character steals just about every scene without feeling forced. The second great summer film of a thus-mostly-starved 2009.

– Panic Breakout is really only fun the first one or two times, but what a one or two times!

– Finally got around to reading Jennifer 8. Lee’s The Fortune Cookie Chronicles and really enjoyed how a treatise on the history of modern Chinese food could serve as commentary on globalism, cultural mutation, immigration, racial attitudes, appropriation and reconcilation. Fascinating, and also brings with it a number of “oh, must try that” food ideas.

DIDN’T LIKE

– Mental is a terrible case of medical-procedural-by-the-numbers, pretending to be daring because it’s dealing with mental illness, but come on – using special effects to make schizophrenia more exciting is both overdone and tasteless. Chris Vance, in the lead, is particularly ill-equipped to handle his role; of course, even if he were a great actor, he’d still have a boring “look I’m kooky and nontraditional for no explicable reason” character to deal with, but he’s not a great actor; half of his work feels like a weak Hugh-Laurie-as-House impersonation minus the balls that makes House so interesting.

– “The Princess and the Dragon” expansion for Carcassonne? Oh my god, is it bad. Mutates one of the best board games of all time into an unrecognizable, not very-fun mess. Avoid. Do not get this expansion.

– Man, what a terrible set of audition episodes for So You Think You Can Dance this year. I went back and speed-rewatched the most recent set of Australian audition episodes for a comparison, and then last year’s Canadian and American auditions, and it’s not just me; this year’s American auditions focused more on jokey bad auditions that were supposedly funny much, much more than average, and the American show is the only one that still even bothers to show many bad auditions at all; in the Aussie and Canuck versions you can literally count the number of joke auditions on one hand, which ironically makes them funnier because they stand out in sharp relief to all the really great dancing. I’m honestly a bit nervous about this season now because I can’t help but wonder: did they not have enough good dancing to showcase?

“Lord Vetinari is subtly training Sam Vimes to be the next Patrician.”

versus

“Lord Vetinari is subtly training Moist von Lipwig to be the next Patrician.”

Discuss.

Also: Hobbes. Magic tiger or imaginary friend?

Top comment: Wait… Hobbes wrote Leviathan?? Then he IS real!! — Al

My good friend (and occasional commenter) Charlotte has started a fine and interesting blog devoted to books here, which I highly recommend to any bibliophile, because girl can write about books.

FLAPJACKS: So first you did those Fighting Fantasy gamebooks.
ME: Yes.
FLAPJACKS: And then you did all that nerd-lit from years gone by.
ME: Yes.
FLAPJACKS: You realize there remains only one true realm of nerd-bookery left to you.
ME: Unfortunately.
FLAPJACKS: A final frontier, if you will.
ME: Yes, very clever.

“Pork and Beans” by Weezer and “So What” by Pink. 2008 was a really great year for “fuck you” songs, as the general frustration of the world with stupid bullshit finally hit its boiling point, and these were two of the best. Weezer’s song was “Fuck you, I’m a nerd” and Pink’s was “Fuck you, my marriage didn’t work out and who are you to comment.” They both had fantastic hooks (Pink’s “na-na-na-na” in particular will burn itself into your brain) and great musicality, and while Weezer’s video might have been a love letter to internet geeks, Pink’s video had Pink dancing naked and chainsawing down a tree, so at best the “best video” contest between these two is a wash.

The Incredible Hercules. Let’s face facts: 2008 was a remarkably shitty year for Big Two superhero comics. Other than the tail end of All-Star Superman‘s glorious twelve-issue run, what was there? “Event” comics repeatedly failed to impress (something which, at this point, should surprise absolutely nobody) and most superhero comics held up as this year’s exemplars of the form (Jason Aaron’s Ghost Rider, say, or Geoff Johns’ work on Green Lantern, or Abnett and Lanning’s writing on Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy) are barely more than what should be expected out of the form – competent, entertaining storytelling that isn’t particularly revolutionary. The one bright light in all of this was Incredible Hercules, a comic which takes the mythological scope of Walt Simonson’s Thor and marries it to a humourous style not unlike that of Giffen and DeMatteis’ Justice League International (with the same core of pathos that that latter title had). Constantly wonderful and only getting better with time.

WALL-E. The single best film Pixar Studios have ever made – and considering this is the studio with Toy Story 2, Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc. and The Incredibles under its belt, that says something. Confident enough to wed most of its storytelling to physical comedy – and physical comedy created by a junky little robot no less – the scope and ambition of WALL-E is only more breathtaking. Yes, Andrew Stanton and company walked it back in public, claiming that it wasn’t “about” consumerism and the ecological destruction of the planet. The rest of us knew ass-covering bullshit when we heard it.

Nation by Terry Pratchett. Nobody knows how many swings at the plate Pratchett has left in him at this point, so that makes this home run of a book all the more glorious; a book which manages to be horrifying without being gory, romantic without being crass, sad without being melodramatic, spiritual without being moralistic, and praiseworthy of science without being annoyingly self-satisfied. As it is a Pratchett book, it is of course also very, very funny and clever throughout, and its message – of the possible comingling and even necessary interdependence of science and religion – is timely and welcome.

Leverage. God, how did John Rogers pitch this and ever have any trouble? “It’s Ocean’s Eleven versus evil corporations who screw over the little guy.” Why did it take so long for someone in Hollywood to throw money at him to get it made? But finally it happened, and this show is a glorious triumph – funny, exciting and most of all you never, ever have to watch it in Idiot Mode because the characters are doing stupid things for stupid reasons. Leverage is a show where the characters, at their worst, do smart things for stupid reasons. Or stupid things for smart reasons. And that makes all the difference.

Furr by Blitzen Trapper. I like music with energetic beats and operatic ambition, so the fact that I’m putting simple, folky, gentle Blitzen Trapper on my “best” list should serve as notice to how brilliant this record was. The title track is a love song about a werewolf, for crissake – just saying that should prepare you for some of the shittiest filk imaginable, but instead Blitzen Trapper makes it work, avoiding cute jokes and writing pure, eloquent poetry, and sounding all the while like a young version of Bob Dylan backed up by The Band. Just fantastic.

Berlin: City of Smoke. Jason Lutes’ epic continues to be absolutely fucking staggering. You should read this comic. Enough said.

In Bruges. Tanked at the box office, as people expected from the shitty advertising campaign that it would be another Lock, Stock-lite English gangster caper film, but instead this was by turns a funny and solemn story about two gangsters (in Bruges) taking cover after a crime gone horribly wrong, a crime that left scars. The comedy comes from razor-sharp dialogue; the pathos from absolutely brilliant work by Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes, and a story that inverts the usual heh-heh-we’re-gangsters tropes and unabashedly, without moralizing, points out that the criminal life really, really sucks at your soul. The best directorial debut of the year, by a country mile.

Northlanders. Brutal, vicious, and utterly fantastic Viking stories that only served to once again remind comics fans of why Vertigo still matters if you’re not interested in medium-dark fantasy (along with the equally fantastic Scalped). Totally hard-ass and uncompromising about both the virtues and flaws of the Viking world, and the lack of an overarching supernarrative means that Brian Wood can do what he does best – stories more connected by theme than by plot. (With Vikings in them.)

Fallout 3. Everybody else has already said everything that could be said about this game, so I’ll just throw in a backhanded compliment: the game is so crazily chock-full of content that I maxed out at level 20 when I was less than a third of the way through the main plot. Dear Bethesda: please to patch game to give more levels please.

Bob on Survivor. You have to love it when a 57-year-old physics teacher (and clearly still a very fit one) dominates the competition challenges over people half his age and invents multiple realistic-looking fake immunity idols to keep himself in play. Bob was the runaway fan-favorite of Survivor: Gabon and easily one of the most dominant players in years, his only failing being an early willingness to trust the wrong people (which merely made him all the more sympathetic).

The Boys. The next time somebody tells me that Garth Ennis just likes to take the piss out of superhero comics and that’s the only reason he’s writing The Boys, I will make them read #15, wherein Annie, undergoing a severe crisis of faith, demands that God give her a sign He exists, and leaves the church disappointed and on the brink of collapse when nothing happens – and then promptly runs into Hughie, who of course is exactly the sign she asked for. Then I will beat them to death with a lead pipe because I am sick to fucking death of people whining about shit that isn’t true. Be forewarned.

The Battlestar Galactica board game. An ingeniously designed board game, featuring the standard cooperative-survival mechanics one would expect given the setting, but with a brilliant twist: some of the players are actually Cylons and they are secretly trying to destroy humanity. The game’s system is designed to make hiding and striking against humanity a thing of subtlety and play-skill; if you’re really good you can even set up other players to take the fall for you, framing them as Cylons using nothing more than your own ability to lie. Similarly, it takes true observational skill to ferret out a really good Cylon player, as well as time your incarceration of them properly. Yes, it’s kind of a shame that Boomer sucks compared to most of the other characters, but other than that this game is seriously just about perfect in its execution.

Chuck. With a promising mini-season start last year, Chuck was already a solidly entertaining little show, but now? Far and away the most improved show on television; the plots are more clever, the dialogue snappier, the action higher quality and the unrealized romance between Chuck and Sarah satisfyingly boiling away behind a thousand actually-good reasons for them to not be together. Also good: the elevation of the Buy-More supporting cast to credits-level importance. Last season I was worried Chuck might waste them in favour of the annoying guy who plays Morgan. This season – well, less Morgan! That’s a start.

Metropolis by Janelle Monáe.

I trust that was self-explanatory, but if it wasn’t – that blend of nu-funk, futuristic soul and utter batshit craziness (it’s a concept album! Set in 2719!) is like what I think Legion of Super-Heroes should be if it were transposed into musical form. And she’s an obvious music nerd. Any other P.Diddy “discovery” diva-lite would want to be all pretty and sexified in their debut video. She wants to be Robot James Brown. How awesome is that?

(Part one here. Part two here. This was originally supposed to be a three-day block of posts, but, well, we all know what happened there.)

(NEW READERS: Part two here. Part three here.)

Most everyone I know who is a fan of Terry Pratchett in specific or a fan of somewhat nerdish literature in general was at least dismayed and typically devastated by his announcement that he had early-onset Alzheimer’s-based dementia. Pratchett is beloved on a scale most other fantasy authors never reach, not simply for his frequently brilliant writing but for his well-known level of personal warmth and generosity, and that such a figure could be handed one of the most horrific medical fates one can get, and further at such a relatively young age, seemed cosmically unfair. (If you haven’t read it, Pratchett’s own account of what living with his disease is like is worth reading. Fair warning: have a hanky ready, unless you are made of stone.)

This makes new books from Pratchett all the more precious because, unlike most other authors where the inability to write comes either long after they’ve finished their creative output or suddenly with death, Pratchett is stil an active writer, and the sense that the universe is stealing new Pratchett books from us, books that were deserved and merited, is far more active. He was supposed to write a new book every year for at least the next ten years, or at worst die in a freakish accident involving a motorcycle and a blimp that nobody could see coming, so we could get used to the idea of no new Pratchett more easily. That was the deal.

That is the bad news. The good news is this: Nation, Pratchett’s new novel (and the first non-Discworld book he’s written in quite some time) is easily one of the best books he’s ever written. There is a strong argument that it is the best book he has ever written, period. Given that the last couple of Discworld novels (Wintersmith, Making Money) have been in the “decent but not staggeringly good” range, it is thoroughly refreshing to be treated to Pratchett writing at the top of his game once again. This is, at the absolute very least, his best book since Night Watch (which remains the best of the Vimes novels). And frankly, it’s a lot better than that one was.

And this is the thing of it: Pratchett’s illness informs every page of this novel, not just in the reading of it but in the writing. Nation is, at its core, a story about how people respond to tragedy, and how religion and science can, each in their way, assist us in dealing with the cruel and random nature of the universe. There is precisely zero doubt in my mind that Pratchett’s experience has not shaped the writing of this book; it is simply not possible. There is so very much of Pratchett’s personal belief system and experiences infused into the writing that this is easily his most personal work to date.

It never seems forced, not even for so much as a paragraph. Pratchett’s story – about an alternate Earth where a young British girl and a South Pacific island boy, each the only survivor from their respective cultures of a devastating tidal wave, rebuilding society one task at a time – isn’t about Alzheimer’s, not on its face. Aging and dementia are never mentioned. What is mentioned is the palpable sense of loss that tragedy brings, and Pratchett never overplays this nor wallows in it because he recognizes that his characters don’t have the luxury to do that – they have to shove their fear and dread and grief down and get on with doing what’s necessary to go on living. But it remains there, everpresent in the novel, at times bubbling to the surface when a character can’t take the silence any more, and at no point do these moments feel gratituous or unearned.

The motif of culture clash also serves as a useful vehicle for Pratchett’s personal moments, when he wishes to expound (although of course he never breaks character to do so). Having two characters with wildly different backgrounds – who at the start of the book don’t even speak the same language – allows Pratchett to explain what he thinks about death, and life, and loss, and gain, and tragedy and triumph, and why all of these things are necessary to the human experience, and what the human experience even is. He does it subtly, and with good jokes, and the result is a work that is wholly elegant, with a deft, light touch.

It really is one of his finest books, and for that we can be thankful that the lion, moving through winter though he may be, is still capable of great things. Indeed, the writing of this novel in a way makes the point of Pratchett’s story all over again. Because this is a story about getting up after you’ve been knocked down [1], and getting on with things rather than wallowing in sorrow. It’s inspirational both in story and in its creation. You really have to read it.

[1] Much like Chumbawumba’s “Tubthumping,” but not nearly so annoying.

(this post by Non-MGK author Dan Solomon)

Hey, you know who’s still a douchebag? That James Frey asshole who wrote A Milion Little Pieces.

I read a Vanity Fair article about the guy a month or two ago and thought, you know, maybe he’s not so bad, he probably deserves a second chance. And then I opened this week’s issue of TimeOut London and saw that there was an interview with him in the books section, read it, and had confirmed for me- yup, still a douchebag. But don’t take my word for it- take it away, Frey-guy:

"no book has ever been investigated or picked apart the way mine has, before or since."

No book? Ever? People investigated your book more than they did The Bell Curve, or The Population Bomb, or Holy Blood, Holy Grail? Or, I dunno, fucking Mein Kampf? I know that his point is that most memoirs don’t get the same sort of scrutiny that his did, but the way he talks about it makes it look like he thinks he’s the most specialist writer in the whole world who just got picked on so unfairly.

"if you look at memoirs in general, any one of them that’s readable is going to have the same issues that mine had."

Well, not exactly. When Frey started publishing, he tried to pick a literary fight with Dave Eggers, so let’s compare A Million Little Pieces and A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius. Okay, A-1, Eggers’ book’s central concept, that a twenty-something kid had to suddenly raise his little brother after the deaths of both of his parents, is true. Frey’s book’s concept, that he got so fucked up on drugs that he ended up in jail and then met a bunch of strange characters in rehab, including a girlfriend who killed herself, is untrue. So no, any readable memoir can exist without wholesale fabrication of the events of the author’s life. Furthermore, Eggers (who isn’t the first author to do this) included in the paperback edition of the book a full appendix of errata, explaining where the facts of reality differ from those of the book. Voila, even Frey’s literary nemesis was able to write a memoir without those "issues".

"A Million Little Pieces was written as a novel, and its intentions were all literary, all artistic. It was meant to be an insult to self-help books, and somewhere along the line it became one, and I was really uncomfortable with that. I was like, this is me spitting on self-help books… I got put on this pedestal as a recover and addiction superhero, and that was not at all what I wanted… I don’t want to be a guy on TV talking about addiction. Fuck that."

The incredibly douchey thing about this statement is that it makes it seem like all of that shit was just stuff that happened to him, rather than things he actively sought to do. He didn’t get ambushed by Oprah in the middle of the night and forced to appear on the show to talk about addiction and recovery; he didn’t have to turn his book into a brand for a certain school of self-help; he jumped on that pedestal the second it was offered to him. Which is telling, because addicts who haven’t taken any responsibility for their addiction do the exact same thing. Claiming that all of the things that happened to you just happened, as opposed to being stuff you did, is a telltale sign of an unrecovered addict. Which is pretty funny, considering who it’s coming from.

"most of the writers I love were notorious writers: Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Hemingway, Celine, Bret Easton Ellis, Mailer…"

Yeah, but guess what those guys are notorious for? Hint: it’s not lying to Oprah. I get that the guy needs to tell himself that he’s some rebel outlaw, but be real- do you think Celine would have ever taken the Oprah’s Book Club stamp on the cover of Death On The Installment Plan? Mailer wasn’t "notorious" because he fabricated events and got caught- shit, Mailer was steadfast in his dedication to keeping fact and fiction distinct. He didn’t try to pass off The Armies of the Night as straight non-fiction, and he was happy to call The Executioner’s Song and Harlot’s Ghost and Marilyn novels. Trying to pass yourself off as an heir to that when the very thing you’re notorious for flies in the face of what he was all about? Douchey, douchey, douchey.

"one of the joys of this being classified as a novel is that none of it has to be accurate or real, and if people want it to be, they can fuck off… I saw the book being discussed on ‘Newsnight Review’ and one of the guys was like ‘well, this information better be real, I feel like he’s conning us again,’ and I’m like, ‘you fucking dumbass. It’s a fucking novel. None of it has to be real.’ Frankly, he reacted just the way I hoped."

This is in response to a question about his new book being full of facts and history that are totally made-up. And yes, he’s technically correct, a novel does not have to have any true things in it if the author doesn’t want it to. But check it out- if you’re making up the history of Los Angeles  and the facts about the city, then you’re not writing about Los Angeles. You’re writing about a made-up place that exists in your imagination. You might as well be writing about Metropolis. If you have to reimagine the place in order for it to fit into your novel,  then your novel is not actually about LA.

And the douchiest thing in the interview? It comes as a response to a question about whether he wished he’d been more emphatic about how A Million Little Pieces and My Friend Leonard were meant to be classified.

"there were mistakes made, sure."

For a writer who’s not really known for using the passive voice, this is a pretty unique statement. Mistakes were made? Who made them, James? You know, what’s funny about this is the whole construction of the sentence is pretty familiar. Pretty much any time someone fucks up and doesn’t want to admit that it was their fuck-up, they’ll dip into the passive voice for a response like that. Check out the number of Bush administration dickheads who used it to explain the Iraq War, the attorney firing scandal, civilian bombings in Afghanistan, etc- General Richards, Richard Perle, Alberto Gonzales, George W Bush himself, and even John McCain– and you’ll see how powerful a linguistic device it is for people who want to avoid admitting that they fucked up.

So in a single-page interview, Frey manages to avoid admitting responsibility for the lies in his books, treat himself as a victim for having appeared on Oprah, complain about all the unfair scrutiny his made-up memoir received, argue that everybody else does it, so who cares, equate himself with Norman Mailer because he got famous for something that violated one of the main principles of Mailer’s writing, and giggle about the dumbasses who expect that a novel that’s set in Los Angeles be about the real LA and not the Narnia-LA that the author needed to create for the narrative to work. So, yeah- in case you were wondering, James Frey is still a douchebag.

In no particular order:

A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF AMERICAN EMPIRE BY HOWARD ZINN: I haven’t seen anybody on the comical interwebs really discuss this at all, but I picked it up yesterday and it’s really very good; it’s meant to be a more easily read and accessible version of Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States and mostly succeeds. It’s not funny or cute, but it’s compelling and hits its points thoroughly, and the occasional divergences into sorta-memoir by Zinn (acting as the book’s narrator) give it a nice personal touch. Also, it’s pretty cheap considering the size of the book. Recommended. (SPOILER: Woodrow Wilson is a Skrull.)

IRON MAN THE MOVIE: Excellent, probably better than any superhero movie in recent memory other than maybe Batman Begins. By this point you’ve already read at least two dozen glowing reviews all saying the same things, so I will simply add my two cents and mention that what far and away got the most enthusiastic reception out of my audience was Tony Stark’s robots in his lab – biggest laughs, biggest cheers, biggest “wows” all went to Tony, in his lab, building the suit with the funny robots. This continues to confirm my theory that the best superhero movies have some form of comic relief in them, usually a sidekick, or as I like to call it, Alfred-Gets-All-The-Best-Lines-Syndrome.

DC UNIVERSE NUMBER ZERO: I wouldn’t have paid fifty cents for what’s essentially an advertising flyer even if it is written by Grant Morrison, but I got a copy for free. And… it’s an advertising flyer written by Grant Morrison. Worse, it’s an advertising flyer that’s really, really bad at advertising its product to the supposed new readers to which a comic sampler thingy like this should be advertising. If I had no idea what was going on in the comics, this sampler thing would not help in the slightest. Heck, I read some issues of Grant Morrison’s Batman and I’m still not sure what “Batman, RIP” is about, other than the obvious. Ditto the Wonder Woman thing. And I only understand the “Legion of Three Worlds” teaser because I’m a giant DC nerd; were I not, it would be as impenetrable as all the rest, albeit with George Perez art making it at least tolerable.

BRINGING BACK BARRY ALLEN: My word, it’s like comics are being written by and for people essentially opposed to change!

Incidentally, on a related note, will people stop saying things like “the new storytelling model on Flash is terrible and doesn’t work?” Because it’s not true; it’s a direct lift from The Incredibles, which is one of the best and most successful superhero movies ever, and if you’re going to argue otherwise then tell me with a straight face that you would skip Return of the Incredibles, Trial of the Incredibles and The Incredibles Versus The New Superions. The new concept on Flash is just fine, and honestly it’s not like the comics post-Wally’s-return have been bad; they’re just tainted by DC completely mishandling the franchise for the better part of a year and a half. “Wally And His Super Family” is a good idea.

(People seem to forget that Flash: The Fastest Man Alive was easily one of the worst single runs of comics in the last decade if not longer: mean-spirited, incoherent, ugly, boring and just the antithesis of fun. Fans were stoked for a new, bold reign on Flash, which is why the debut sold so high, and then they dropped it in droves because it was total dogshit. I’d say it’s now the textbook example of how to actively destroy a fanbase.)

SATURN GIRL TALKING DIRTY: A minor kerfuffle over this at Chris Sims’ joint, where some people said “god, that’s creepy” and other people said “wait, a girl expressing sexual desire is creepy?” Which of course misses the point, because it’s a superhero comic which is ostensibly marketed to all ages last I checked, even if that’s only a convenient fiction at this point in time, and in an all-ages work of fiction, yes, it’s a little bit creepy, because even if it is PG-ish in actual vocabulary it’s R-ish in spirit.

Let me put it this way: if ostensibly romantic dialogue would sound creepy in, say, an episode of Gilmore Girls, it will probably be somewhat out of place in a superhero funnybook. That’s all I’m saying.

SECRET INVASION: So far, so good. Yes, it’s a wildly silly concept that requires a lot of handwaving to work (I particularly appreciated the scene in New Avengers where the Skrulls explained their newfound ability to transform and be totally undetectable by any means available with a short speech basically summing up with “well, we used science a lot!”), but so what, these are superhero comics and the point of the sausage is not how is it made, but that it is delicious with mustard. And Secret Invasion thus far is hitting what it needs to hit, which is little green men invading in dangerously sneaky ways and creating an enjoyably paranoid atmosphere.

One of two in a series.

Many things in 2007 were good. These are some of the most good bits.

Ratatouille

As has been said elsewhere, it’s really nice that once a year, Pixar puts out a movie, and the best case scenario is that it’s a timeless classic and the worst case scenario is that it’s just a really good, fun little movie. Ratatouille is firmly in the middle ground of Pixar releases – better than Cars or A Bug’s Life, but not as fully realized as The Incredibles or Toy Story 2. (Which makes it only about ten times as good as most movies at a bare minimum.) Brad Bird – a likely candidate for the best animation director alive, and yes, I’m counting Hayao Miyazaki when I say that – brings a relatively simple story of a rat-turned-chef to life with a minimum of fuss, a wonderful turn from Peter O’Toole and a sweet, widely applicable moral.

Civilization IV: Beyond The Sword

The deepest computer strategy game there is – period – gets its second extension, and god, what more can they pack in if they decide to create a third expansion pack as rumoured? A ton of clever new mods, new units, the addition of corporations and advanced espionage rules, a crapload of new civilizations (including the Dutch, Sumerians, Byzantines and the Holy Roman Empire – but, sadly, no Canada), and of course the chance to play as Abraham fucking Lincoln. The game just keeps getting deeper and more complex with every expansion, and the best bit is that the learning curve can be as slight or as tough as you want. And it’s so deeply moddable a game – if I were inclined to mod games, this would be it. Civ IV as applied to the Wheel of Time world? As applied to Tolkien? Heck, even Eddings. (Eddings wouldn’t be hard, you’d just take the appropriate equivalent existing civilizations and change the names.)

The Immortal Iron Fist

Unlike, for example, Chris Sims, I have no particular fetish for the curious remnants of 1970s Marvel comics, and I had no expectations of an Iron Fist series. The man wore slippers for god’s sake, little yellow kung-fu booties. He kicked people, which in and of itself is not really that amazing or impressive. (I mean, Karate Kid kicks people, and just look at Countdown.) In short: a third-tier superhero with a small, dwindling fanbase is, generally speaking, not something about which I really look forward to reading. But then Matt Fraction and Ed Brubaker decided they wanted to write a complete kung fu epic, only really tangentially related to the Marvel Universe, and they got superb art from David Aja and a host of others, and thankfully they got rid of the booties. The result is quite simply the best superhero comic available at present: a non-angst-ridden story-driven work, stuffed to the buns with top-quality action, a wealth of backstory applied smartly, and whip-smart dialogue. And again: it’s Iron Fist. Who woulda thunk?

Don’t Mess With The Dragon by Ozomatli

Their best album so far, and when you’re dealing with a band with a discography like Ozomatli’s that is no small thing to say. Some music critics dismissed the album as “admirable, but unfocused.” This is Music Critic for “not all of the songs sound the same so I have trouble writing up the album in one paragraph. Please make all of your songs sound kind of alike.” Ozomatli cannot do this, though, partially because they are a nine-piece band, but mostly because they are simply too damned awesome, with their melange of funk, hip-hop, salsa, rock and jazz fusing together into an improbable, wondrous whole. And as a bonus, this is far and away their most danceable album yet.

“30 Rock”

Quite possibly the funniest television show of the new millennium – all the sharp, venomous wit of Arrested Development combined with the quotability of the best seasons of The Simpsons and a surprising amount of heart to boot, and topped off with performances that any other show would kill simply to have one of. In most shows, Judah Friedlander’s fat nerd writer would be the go-to joke character; in 30 Rock, he’s not even in the top three, not when you have Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin and – I can’t believe I’m typing this – Tracy Morgan, who prior to this was my second-least-favourite SNLer of all time (beaten out only by the truly talentless Horatio Sanz). But especially Alec Baldwin, who finally gets to display the savage comic ability that was only hinted at by his numerous guest appearances on SNL, and who should be on this show for the rest of his natural life if they can manage it.

Air Guitar Nation

Everybody making best-of movie lists this year gives the nerd-doc props to The King Of Kong (and understandably), but by god do not overlook Air Guitar Nation, which like that other doc works the “competition” storyline by having one rock-steady hero (the incomparable C-Diddy) and one egomaniacal ass (the deeply strangleworthy Bjorn Turoque), who are both extremely good at what they do. The fact that what they do is cavort around on stage rocking an imaginary guitar is at first hilarious, but then eventually becomes life-affirming and wonderful (and hilarious), and when the film progresses to the World Championships of Air Guitar, somewhere in rural Finland (no, really), and the crowds cheer for the devoted air guitarists – well, it is entirely possible that a small portion of Heaven is like this. A fairly weird portion. But a portion.

Team Fortress 2

When it comes to the Orange Box, Portal understandably gets all the hype, because it’s clever and original and funny. But Portal only lasts a few hours. The real meat of the Orange Box comes with the involving, easy-to-learn-but-hard-to-master online gameplay of Team Fortress 2, a game with animation and visual design reminiscent of The Incredibles and a sense of humour from, well, pretty much the same place (the Heavy Weapons Guy’s pseudo-Slavic commentary alone is worth the price of admission, but don’t discount the Scout’s Bronx taunts, the high-pitched German screaming of the Medic, or the muffled yells of the Pyro – because the Pyro wears a mask, you see). The gameplay is simple and elegant, and always extremely easy to follow: “snapshots” freeze-framing the guy who killed you not only help you identify who killed you but help newcomes get an idea of how. Plus, they helpfully label the pieces of your dead body when you get gibbed.

“Kings of New York: A Year Among the Geeks, Oddballs, and Geniuses Who Make Up America’s Top High School Chess Team” by Michael Weinreb

Recommended particularly for nerds, and I estimate my readers are, oh, ninety-eight percent or so nerds. (Wave your freak flag high.) Even if you aren’t a chess fiend particularly (and I, personally, am at best an average player – although if we’re talking speed doubles chess, that’s different strokes right there), this book will resonate, because – come on – it’s about nerds surviving high school by doing their own thing. It’s just that in this case, “their own thing” wins them big-ass trophies.

Killer of Sheep

I first saw Killer of Sheep when I was 20, taking an American Cinema course. The prof had a bootleg copy, which is how I got the rare chance to see a movie that, though made in 1977, only got released this year due to conflicts over the music rights. Killer of Sheep is amazing – a lot of people liken it to Italian neorealist cinema like The Bicycle Thief, but I always thought of it as having a more Cassavetes sort of a feel, despite the film’s essential lack of continuous narrative – it’s bleak and honest but doesn’t lack heart, and indeed I would argue it almost has more because of that bleakness. It’s on DVD along with Burnett’s second feature and a number of his shorts, which are likewise brilliant. Rent or buy, either way.

The video for “1234” by Feist

The song alone would qualify for this list, but the video is the sort of thing that births superstars – delightful low-fi wonderment, relying on showmanship and pure filmmaking skill to pull off (trust me when I say that I can tell the focus pulling for the shoot was nightmarishly difficult just by looking at it), and effortlessly communicating sheer joy in a way that isn’t entirely common, to say the least. A thousand thousand high school girls just got their first girl-on-girl musician crush this year because of this video. (Tori Amos would be proud.)

The Spirit

Step 1: Get Darwyn Cooke to write and draw something.
Step 2: Fuck yeah.

Bioshock

A perfectly excellent first-person shooter, notable for both the character improvement system imported from the old (and fantastic) System Shock games, and the gorgeous, completely immersive 1940s Art Deco-ish visual design, brought to life with graphics both gorgeous and surprisingly interactive. (The opening, where your plane crashes in the middle of the ocean, and you get to swim around as you watch it sink – amazing.) Oh, and of course there’s the fact that the main plot boils down to “Atlas Shrugged, except it all goes wrong and people become zombies.” I am honest enough to admit that the game’s hearty “fuck you, Ayn Rand” ethos tickles me greatly.

Yau Man on Survivor: Fiji

Yau Man was easily the coolest player to come along in quite a while on Survivor – a canny late-fifties math teacher with a knack for practical survival and for playing the game to a brilliant inch. Plus, he was funny. Unfortunately, Yau Man made the critical mistake of thinking that somebody named “Dreamz” was intelligent enough to realize when he had precisely zero shot at winning the game outright, or that giving “Dreamz” a car would be incentive enough for the jackass to walk away happy rather than compromise his much-vaunted integrity in the hopes of winning a million dollars he would never actually win. On the bright side, the next season of Survivor, starting in February, is a “hardcore fans versus top Survivors” show, and you have to bet that Yau Man qualifies as a top Survivor – if he wants to go for a second round, that is. Yau Man might not, because he’s just that cool.

Upcoming: The stuff that did suck.