Skip to main content

Treasure Huntin'

Normally, I object to a website or magazine posting the best things about this year a month, week, or even a day early, but I just got struck on the head by the mallet of mediocre inspiration, so I'm going to go ahead and write this. This year has been really cool for me and I'm sure it has been for a lot of you people out there, too. Then again, maybe it hasn't been for you, but there are some cool things to always celebrate. I made a list(ish) of my favorite things I found this year:

1. The Internet
Weird, huh? The Internet has been around for most of my life, but it took this year for me to really appreciate it. This year, I discovered all sorts of neat things (yes, I still use the word neat). Stuff like Rookie (http://rookiemag.com/), a cool site for girls that talks about literally everything intelligently, and HelloGiggles (http://hellogiggles.com/), described on their about page as "the ultimate entertainment destination for smart, independent and creative females. Everything hosted on the site will be lady-friendly, so visitors need not worry about finding the standard Boys Club content that makes many entertainment sites unappealing to so many of us." Turns out that there's really funny and interesting stuff on YouTube, too, like S*** Girls Say (starred because my mom reads this) and Diablo Cody's Red Band Trailer interviews. I'm also newly obsessed with Twitter (@absolutewannabe) and podcasts like WTF with Marc Maron. So, in my sphere, the Internet has had a stellar year.


2. Music
I'm not going to name off a huge, weird list of bands and artist that I've "discovered" this year (you can pretty much click on any post and find some), but I will say that I've found some cool stuff this year thanks to record stores, BBC Radio 1, Alt Nation, and Sirius XMU that have helped me remember that music isn't really dead.


3. TV
I love TV, and this year I've been able to watch and appreciate one season wonders (Freaks and Geeks, Jack and Bobby, My So Called Life), classics (Buffy, The Golden Girls), and awesome new shows (New Girl, 2 Broke Girls, Ringer). GO WATCH TV!!!!


4. Young Adult
Go see it!!!! NOW!!!!!!!!!




Anyway, that's my list of things I have loved and found in these past 364 days. Now I'm worried I'm going to cure cancer or something tomorrow and this is going to be meaningless...

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Talking to Myself in the Mirror

I think it's a pretty safe bet that a lot of aspiring actors/writers/directors/filmy people practice their future Oscar speech in the mirror as kids. I did. Who am I kidding? I still do. It comes with the territory. My mirror talks go, ahem, went (who am I kidding? go) further. Sometimes, I do my makeup while talking to Barbara Walters. Other days, brushing my hair turns into a podcast interview. Most of the time, though, I rehearse what I'm going to say to my heroes. These hypothetical moments are incredibly important, and I can't afford to say anything stupid, so car rides, showers, and mornings getting ready are devoted to preparation. This probably makes me sound crazy. The word "narcissist" may also come to mind. I think one of my heroes would have appreciated both the crazy and the narcissism in this bit of oversharing, though, but we lost her this morning. One of my first posts on this blog was a tribute to Carrie Fisher. I read it over this afternoo

Cameron Crowe Ruined My Life

Believe me when I say that it pained me to type out the title to this post. Cameron Crowe is one of my very favorite filmmakers. To me, a guy who can write teenagers who are real people, really capture the full spectrum of human emotion, and incorporate a great soundtrack into his work is a real genius. Though it initially made me feel warm, fuzzy, and hopeful, a recent late night viewing of 2005's Elizabethtown  ended up making me a little nervous. I realized that Crowe was just like everybody else. Now, this probably doesn't make sense to those of you who admire his work. As a writer and filmmaker, Crowe definitely has a unique voice and vision that helps his work connect with all kinds of audiences. That's precisely the problem. Last week I wrote a post about how movies are only a reflection of life and not actually true to life itself. In the post, I mentioned that filmmakers are just one person with one perspective, and that is absolutely true of Crowe. In Crow

The Film List Project #2: MASH

Did you know MASH was a movie before it was a TV show? I didn't. Maybe that's a well-known fact. Maybe I'm very out of the loop. Anyway, I watched MASH this week. I'm just discovering Robert Altman, the director of the film. He made a movie in 1975 called Nashville , which I sort of felt obligated to watch since that's my hometown. I loved the film, especially because it had so many interesting characters mashed together. MASH  charmed me for the same reason. I've never been one for war films (this is set during the Korean War), but I was fascinated by the band of arrogant, witty surgeons in the film. It really didn't feel like a war film, to be honest. It felt like the Korean War was just where they happened to be. That feeling makes sense when you realize that these men and women are just trying to feel that way themselves. I don't have any personal experience with war, but I have read a few books about the subject, fiction and nonfiction, and