2009: WORST MOVIE OF THE YEAR - THE INFORMERS

I hated this movie. Every last bit of it. If I had to choose the worst movie I've ever seen, this would be right at the top. It played at Sundance last year and I saw it in the press/industry room, which was packed. There was a lot of buzz going in, so I was excited to see it. Then it started and shortly after the bad dialogue and pretentious attitudes took over (which I'm pretty sure was right after the opening credits ended), people started leaving. Then more people. Then some more. Midway through the movie a little more than half the audience was gone.

Had I written this last January when I saw the movie, I could have listed at least 25 things that made me come to the "worst movie ever" conclusion, but it's been a year and I can't remember all of them. All I remember is how much I hated every single character and the fact that half of the ones that were introduced were never even given anything that could resemble a character arc. And the "That was the whole point. It's a snapshot of what life was like in LA back then." argument doesn't work with me.

The Informers could be compared to Rules of Attraction in a lot of ways. They both feature a myriad of characters, overlapping arcs and intertwining stories. The difference is that Rules of Attraction was a great movie because it kept things interesting. While all of the characters in that movie could be classified as 'bad people' they were at least entertaining and relatable on some level. They were given actual substance to work with and every actor was given enough direction that they ended up with at least one redeeming quality and while you knew what they were doing wasn't necessarily the right thing, you understood where they were coming from and why they chose to do what they did.

With The Informers you had a bunch of spoiled, rich pricks acting like spoiled, rich pricks. Not a single person had any charisma and none of the actors were talented enough to breathe any semblance of life into any of the one dimensional characters.

All that and the constant "Hey! Check it out! This movie is set in the 80's! Remember the 80's? Yeah you do! Hipsters love the 80's!" attitude didn't help.

I could keep going, but that would require me to watch it again. And that's not going to happen.

Worst. Movie. Ever.

ONE MORE TIME AROUND

Soundgarden is on the short list of bands that I've always wanted to see but never got the chance. Maybe now is that time. They announced today that they'll be getting back together in some capacity this year, but the details remain unclear. Maybe they'll pull a Rage Against the Machine and only headline huge festivals or maybe they'll do a full-on tour. Either way, I'm excited. The new album will probably be terrible, and I have little to no expectations about it, but if they come anywhere near Salt Lake City and I get a chance to hear Slaves & Bulldozers live, I'm taking it.

Billboard.com-- Soundgarden will reunite for concerts in 2010, according to a Twitter message from frontman Chris Cornell which directs fans to a new Web site, Soundgardenworld.com. The Seattle rock quartet -- Cornell, guitarist Kim Thayil, bassist Ben Shepherd and drummer Matt Cameron -- has not played live since splitting up in the spring of 1997.


Although no details have been announced yet, sources tell Billboard the group is weighing offers from several major U.S. and international festivals. But a tour routing is still a work in progress, due to Cameron's prior commitments to play with Pearl Jam in the spring and summer of next year.


Cameron has been Pearl Jam's permanent drummer since 1998; that group recently announced its first North American date of 2010 as part of the second weekend of New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (April 29-May 2), and will also play 10 European shows from June 22 in Dublin through July 10 in Oeiras, Portugal.


Also still amorphous are plans for some kind of Soundgarden best-of and/or reissues of its back catalog. In addition, Thayil and Shepherd have long discussed compiling a Soundgarden boxed set, which would include a wealth of unreleased studio material.


Read the rest.

CALIFORNIA DREAMIN'

I always take my video camera with me when I go out of town. Or I at least try to. That doesn't mean I use the entire time I'm gone, though. I took it with me every time Cherem went on tour, but it would spend 90% of the trip in the camera bag under the second bench. I would be all about it for the first day or two, but then I'd get sick of carrying it.

Last June, we went to California to see a band called Disembodied play a reunion show (The album pictured to the left is on my Top 10 records of all time list, by the way). There were about 10 of us on one flight and nearly two dozen more that drove down separately. I tried to take as much video as I could, but didn't get much. When I got back home, I immediately transferred all the footage to my computer and forgot about it soon after. I started cleaning up my hard drive this weekend and found it, so I threw it all together and released it to the Internets.

There wasn't a whole lot to work with, but I think it turned out reasonably well. And it will be fun for me to look back at in a few years. Probably won't be as much fun for anyone that isn't in the video.

I shot the first hour or so we were there on Friday, didn't shoot anything on Saturday and I ran out of tape at Disneyland on Sunday. This is what I was able to get out of that. Enjoy!

2009: FAVORITE COMIC - TIE - SCALPED/INVINCIBLE IRON MAN

Two very different books, but both equally great. I've been a fan of INVINCIBLE IRON MAN (and Matt Fraction, the guy that writes it) for a while now and this book just gets better and better.

My other favorite is SCALPED. This was the first of Jason Aaron's work that I read, and now I'm a huge fan. I've said it before and I'll say it again, this book is just spectacular.

Read them. Both of them.

2009: TOP 5 ANYTHING

These are the other three dudes that run GrudgeCityActivities.com with me, and we thought it would be fun to just add in whatever we felt like.

Mine starts around the 3:10 mark.

2009: BEST SLEIGHT OF HAND - TERMINATOR: SALVATION TRAILER

I fell for this hook, line and sinker. If the actual movie had been half as good as this trailer, it would have been probably the greatest movie ever made. But it wasn't. The actual film paled in comparison to this masterwork of a trailer.

SO IT'S COME TO THIS...

A couple of weeks ago I was really looking forward to putting together a bunch of different "Best of the 2009" lists. Then every single person with access to a computer started doing exactly that and I started to get sick of reading them.

And naturally, this made me not want to have anything to do with any "Best of..." lists at all. But now it's New Year's Eve, I'm bored and I've started thinking of different categories for things.

So here it is. The most random collection of half-assed "Best Of's" that I can think of.

Enjoy.

MARVEL VS. DISNEY

This is one of the better "mash-ups" I've seen. I think Scrooge is the best part.

'TIS THE SEASON

This is the only Christmas movie that matters. I watch it every year—sometimes more than once.

THE TRUE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS

It was two days before Christmas, so what did I do? Why, I went Christmas shopping of course.

Christmas shopping doesn't stress me out at all, for some reason. I usually get the most important stuff out of the way fairly early on, but I always, always, always leave the smaller stuff—brother, secret santa,etc.—until it's almost too late. If I can't find what I'm looking for? That's what Gift Cards are for.

Gift cards have three meanings, and I'm sure everyone on the planet knows what they are. But for the sake of filling space, I'll fill you in.

Meaning Number 1: I tried too hard to find something special, personable and just for you but I got frustrated when I couldn't, so I just got you a gift card. I really needed to get the hell out of the mall and be done with shopping. I promise you that I really did try.

Meaning number one accounts for roughly one-third of the gift cards purchased and you can tell when someone feels that way. The "I'm so disappointed in myself for actually handing you this envelope with plastic money" look on their face usually says it all.

Meaning Number 2: You have really specific taste and no matter what I get for you, there's an 85% chance you'll return it anyway. So here's a gift card. Buy yourself what you actually want.

This is another third of gift cards out there. It's usually accompanied with a shrug of the shoulders and a shake of the head. It's then met with a polite smile and an internal thought (like on Blind Date) that says, "Thank Christ I don't have to wait in that return line tomorrow."

Meaning Number 3: We're not really friends, but I'm obligated to get you something. This is me exerting the absolute least amount of thought or energy on your gift, because you really don't mean all that much to me.

Meaning number 3 is generally reserved for co-workers, rarely seen cousins, nephews, other relatives and old 'friends' on your "people I've been exchanging gifts with for years and I'm not quite sure how to get out of it" list. Everyone has at least one of them a year, and that's where that $10 Home Depot Gift Card that you can buy in line at the supermarket comes in handy.

I'm just as guilty as the next guy, because I buy a few a year. Most of mine fall under Meaning Number 1, but I think that's because I always wait until the last possible minute to go shopping.

I do this because I love people watching.

There are things that are far more entertaining, but people watching has to be one of my all time favorite things to do. And Christmas time at the mall is the absolute best place to do that. I have seen women get in shouting matches over the last something or other (which I thought only happened on bad sitcoms, but it's very, very real—and kind of awkward to watch). I've also seen men and women following other customers around the store, hoping they put down an item, because it's the last one and they were 10 seconds too late. Watching other people stressed out and upset is funny to me. Now that might make me a bad person, but as long as I'm entertained nothing else really matters.

And that's the true spirit of Christmas.

GARDNER'S TOP 5 OF 2009

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

THIS MAN SPEAKS THE TRUTH

"Writing a novel—actually picking the words and filling in paragraphs—is a tremendous pain in the ass. Now that TV's so good and the Internet is an endless forest of distraction, it's damn near impossible. That should be taken into account when ranking the all-time greats. Somebody like Charles Dickens, for example, who had nothing better to do except eat mutton and attend public hangings, should get very little credit." - Steve Hely - How I Became a Famous Novelist

That about sums it up.

SUNDANCE 2010

Last year, I was the editor of Red Pulse, which is the now-defunct University of Utah A&E magazine that everyone hated, apparently. Oh well. I liked it, but then again, it was geared largely towards my tastes, interests and things that I thought other people should be checking out. Apparently my tastes were very different than the rest of the campus population, because people loved to talk shit about me through the great anonymity of the Internet. But I had fun, it was a good learning experience and I had a lot of good writers that helped me out. I can't complain too much.

One of my favorite issues was our coverage of the Sundance Film Festival. It was the first time I'd ever had a press pass and it was a lot of fun. I didn't get to see any celebrities or directors or anything like that, but I did see a lot of movies. The only downside was that I was only able to get up there three times and I missed a lot of what I wanted to see.

This year will be different though. I was able to get a press pass again for the 2010 Festival and this year, that's all I've got. I don't have class or a newspaper to help lay out or Ed Board meetings to attend. Plus, I can afford to take a couple of days off work and see as many movies as I possibly can.

This is what I plan on catching for sure.

"The Runaways" - The band biopic starring Bella. No idea how it'll be, but worth a shot.
"Howl" - James Franco as a young Alan Ginsberg? Sure. What the hell.
"I'm Pat ____ Tillman" - The NFL player that died in Afghanistan under mysterious circumstances.
"Douchebag" - It's a comedy, and I'm seeing this thing based on title alone.
"Holy Rollers" - A Hesidic Jew that becomes an Ecstasy smuggler.

There's bound to be more, but those are the ones I'm looking forward to as of now. I'm sure once things get closer I'll have a whole list.

Suggestions?

FORGET Y2K, IT'S ALL ABOUT 2KX

I've been trying to listen to as many albums (got The Blueprint 3, new Muse and Them Crooked Vultures yesterday) and see all the movies I can (waiting on Avatar and Up In The Air) before the end of the year, simply because I want to make a 'Best of 2009' list. And that way, my blog will be just like the other 40 billion people out there with access to the internet. Mine will probably be exactly the same, but maybe a tad bit funnier than some. At least, that's what I'd like to think.

But I've been so focused on 2009, that I just barely realized we're entering a new decade in a couple of weeks. That means I'm going to have to do a 'Best of the Decade' list, too. And that one is going to be much harder.

This didn't hit me until the new issue of Rolling Stone showed up at my house. It's the best of the 2000's issue and I haven't opened it yet. I can almost guarantee that I will not agree with 75% of what's in there. I can see Arcade Fire or TV on the Radio somewhere close to the top and the Jonas Brothers on the list because they have to be. They'll probably praise one or two shitty Britney Spears songs because she made a "comeback" too.  I'm already disappointed with their poor selections and I haven't even read the issue yet.

But at least they did it.

I don't even know if I'll be able to. I'll most likely spend way too much time thinking about all the different categories and aspects of such a task and not be able to come up with anything. And somewhere around the end of March I'll have a definitive list that I'm ready to post, only to realize that I'm almost four months late on it and just give up.

That's the most likely scenario.
How do you even choose the best of the decade? That's probably how I'll spend winter break. Staring at my computer screen, silently debating the merits of whether the three (sometimes four) insanely brilliant Muse songs make up for the other seven forgettable tracks that everyone will skip over (as is the case on every album they put out) makes them a better band than, say, Crime In Stereo.

This is what I'm worried about this holiday season.

(edited to add: Flipped through the issue. Arcade Fire is no. 6, TV On The Radio is 48 in albums. Britney Spears - "Toxic" is no. 44 in songs. No Jonas Brothers on the list, thank Christ.)

A QUEST FOR LITERARY GREATNESS

I've been trying to read a lot more lately. Sure, I still read 5 or six comics a week but I'm trying to get back in the swing of reading more actual books.

That's not to say that comics aren't books, because some of them are better written and more creative than half the novels on the shelf at Barnes & Noble. But still. I used to plow through one a week, but that was during the time when I only worked two days a week, didn't have school or a million other things occupying my time.

I'm back on it now.

Just finished this -

I really liked it. Definitely not as good as some of his earlier stuff and this one is a little bit more pretentious, but still an entertaining read. The Terminator 2 chapter was the best.

Now, it's on to this. Hopefully it lives up to the hype.