Rated some important movies

Four movies all in a row, all seven or above... doesn't happen every day.

Grizzly Man, 7/10, 16th best movie of 2005, 424th best movie of all time.
Not ranked particularlly high I know, but still one of the higher documentaries on my list. I guess I thought this movie was more intruiging than good. The movie tackels fairly deep issues about man's role in the world and his place in nature. I really appreciated that the director Herzog chose as his subject a man (Timothy Tredwell) who he strongly disagreed with on many of the issues this film tackeled. I also got the feeling Herzog didn't evan particularlly like Timothey (I know I couldn't have standing talking to him for more than 3-5 minutes if I had met him). I personally disagreed wholeheartedly with Tredwell and Herzog but liked the movie anyway. Even if your not it for the philisophical junk the shots of the Alaskan wilderness are beutiful and Bears are just plain fun. It's no Murderball but its good... go see it!

Oldboy, 9/10, 5th best movie of 2003, 97th best movie of all time. This makes it the best movie I had seen since Sin City which makes it the best movie I had seen in about 9 months (that's rate I liked it better than A History of Violence). This is now the second highest ranked forign film of all time after only City of God. Just a wonderful movie... great action scenes, great plot, freaky as all hall, brilliant twist. Good enough to make me want to check out some other Korean movies. I heard that the American version is supposed to come out this year. I am simultaneously excited to see it, and fairly sure it will suck... still, I can't wait to see who they cast in it.

Munich, 8/10, 3rd best of 2005, 132nd best movie of all time. This movie fell only three spots short of a 9/10. I really liked this movie, probobly one of the fairest war movies I've ever seen. There have been movies before that refuse to take sides. But in those movies it mostly seems that they try to make the message, "everyone is evil, there are no good guys, everyone just wants to kill everybody." This movie is more on the side of saying that everyone is pretty okay. All these people involved in terrorism or anti-terrorist espeonaige or killing or war... they aren't fighting cause they want to kill people, they all have something to fight for, something that's extremely important to them. This movie doesn't really attempt to answer any of the important questions in the mid-east crises, but that's not its job. Wonderful movie, good characters, and most importantly.... I never got bored.

Boogie Nights, 8/10, 6th best movie of 1997, 158th best movie of all time. I suppose most of the people that are going to see this movie have seen it already, but I'll review it anyway. This movie manages to be simultaneously brilliant and very fun. I'm sure its under drama at the video stores but you could just as easily put it under comedy (especailly John C. Reily's character). Although it is extremely sad to see Mark Whalbergs character go from an extremely nice if somewhat stupid young man into a total asshole jerk, but at the same time I'm sure that transition is what made the movie so fun to watch, and I suppose that is the most likely thing to happen in this situation. Well I realize this movie came out nearly a decade ago, but you know what that means... you can rent it for about dollar.... go get it!

Had an awsome day with Shannon on friday

So friday afternoon Shannon came over and asked me if I wanted to go for a hike in the bluffs. We drove over there and it looked extremely snowy. So, as we are prone to do, we gave up. But we did not go home. We drove to the bridge and than walked over to Wisconsin... Latch Island to be exact. While we were there we made a snowman (perfect snowman/ball/fort snow). While we were building it a random dog came and hung out with us for about an hour. Basically the coolest dog ever. Although it had a collar, and I have nowhere to keep it, I vaugly considered keeping it. Perhaps my mistake was naming it... he was Oreo.

Went all out sprucing up my appartment

Well... my room anyway.
1. I cleaned. My room was messy... not kind of messy. I couldn't see my floor. I than picked up all the cloths... and I could see a little of the floor. It took me about three hours... yeah.
2. I got a plant. It's green and fairly big. I have named it Robert Plant. I think it's dying.
3. I got a fish. It's a Betta fish. His name is Joey Cusack. He won't tell you that though. He claims to be Tom Stall. But we all know the truth. He's Joey Cusack... I know you are... aren't you... Joey!
4. Shannon made got me a very nice picture for my birthday. It is of us eating tortilla chips. It's in a nice frame. It's decorated.

So anyway my room pretty much kicks ass now... like it didn't already.

Went Home for the Birthday

Yeah, didn't you hear, I turned 22. Anyway after going out for my birthday on friday I went back to good old Sun Prairie on Saturday. Pretty good time really. My aunt, a grandma, and a couple cousins came up. Played some games, ate some Chinese food, yucked it up, really good time all around. Oh, I also got some pretty good stuff for my birthday too. A few graphic novels, couple video games, some highly rated movies (including Hard Boiled which I have been asking for for some time). Plus I got some money which I have been spending carelessly, as I am prone to do. Basically, ho-ray for birthdays!

I don't know what I've been up to lately

Well, I haven't written about anything that I've done in the past ten days. I think we all know that I have no idea whatsoever I was doing ten days ago.... ten hours ago is tough. Well I will just do my best. If I don't remember it probobly wasn't that important anyway. Okay let's face facts... what I do write won't be important either.

Got a lot of Rating Done Last Night

So last night I finally caught up on a huge back-log of ranking things. Anyway here's what I got:

Movies:
I rated about ten movies but it was nothing exciting, mostly high 5's and low 6's (the most boring possible rankings)
Only one real ranking of Note:
Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - 8/10, 7th best movie of 2005, 207th best movie of all time.
Note* I am extremely excited about my next movie ratings. I most commonly rate back-logged movies in sets of four. My next four rankings are four Grizzly Man, Oldboy, Munich, and Boogie Nights. I expect (but am by no means certain) that my rankings of these movies will result in a 7, an 8, and two 9's. Which poses the question, "Are these the highest rated set of four consecutive movies that I ever watched for the first time in my life. The answer is probobly not since I watched all three old star wars movies in a row the first time I saw any of them. But I'm getting off topic here.

Books:
That book I told you I finally finished, "The Roaches Have No King" by Daniel Evan Weiss came in at 61st best book of all time. I know I don't talk about books as often so I will mention that My Ultimate Book List currently contains 110 entries. So the book was rated as (ok, not great). However I would like to mention that as a whole I tend to like the average-ranked books on the list much higher than I rank the average-ranked movies on the movie list. This is most likely because if I hate a book and don't have to read it for school I stop reading it. Where as if I hate a movie I'm still fairly likely to finish it. Thus (much like the music list) The book list is mostly filled with books that I liked.

Music:
Nothing to earth-shattering here. It is however noteworthy that of the last 6 songs that I added to my computer 5 of them made the top 600. I could attribute this to good luck in finding good music lately, but I think I'm just becoming more picky about what I put on my computer.
Anyway heres the rankings:
Shut up and Get on the Plane, Drive By Truckers, 207th
People Who Have Died, Jim Carroll Band, 263rd
Date Rape, Sublime, 488th
Kentuckey Fried Flow, Armand Van Helden, 535th
World Destruction, Public Image Limited, 574th

TV:
I remembered a couple of shows that I liked enough to put on the list. (This is the problem trying to make a list from memorey)
Anyway I added these two shows to the top 50:
Cheap Seats, 33rd
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 41st

Also upon watching a DVD's worth of episodes of "Mr. Show with Bob and Dave" I moved them up from 36th to 22nd.

Never Mind I don't have that notebook

Yeah, sorry I don't have my notebook for that class with me. So there will be no lists. I suppose I could go back and delete that post... nah, than I'd have to stop this one, and I would be out 2 posts... that simply won't do.

A Back-log of Lists

I have been creating a lot of lists in my Age of Jackson Class (It's a small room and I sit up front so I feel bad reading in there). So I figure I'd post them here for your reading enjoyment. I have been limited in my list making to catagories where I can think of every possible candidate... here's what I have so far:

Birthday Party this Friday

Hey, I turn 22 on Saturday but will be going home to Wisconsin on Saturday. If anyone on earth would like to go out to the bars on Friday night please go to Shydes, I will be there from 9:00-11:00.

You... Are Invited!

I took the hardest test since I got into college

And it was in an introductory Geography class with mostly freshman in it. The main reason that it was difficult was that there was no review sheet, he didn't really tell us what to study, it covered 6 chapters in the book, and out of the 75 questions on the test I wold guess roughly 15-20 of the questions ever came up in class. Most of the answers I did know I knew from high school or other college classes. I don't know if I passed it and I'm positive I would have failed miserabally if I had taken this test my freshman or sophmore year. I really hope he tells us the class average for the test, my guess is something around a 45-50.

Just so you know the half hour has been up for a while

I wrote the last two or three during my Chemistery class that I'm in write now. Right now were practicing writing Lewis Bonds. Does anyone know how to write the bond for CH^2Cl^2? I need the answer in the next 4 minutes.

Got locked out of my house Yesterday

So I was over at Shannons without me keys yesterday. When I went back to my house I was locked out. As it turns out Zach had gone to the Twin Cities and Jeff had gone to Iowa. Thus I was forced to go back to Shannons. Well she had to go to work for two hours so I hung out at her house by myself. This gave me a wonderful chance to catch up with my good friend television. I even got to watch the show Cheap Seats, always good for a ripping good laugh. Than Shannon came back and made me lunch. In conclusion: getting locked out of your house kicks ass.

Saw that Vagina Play About Vaginas

So I went to see that Vagina play on monday (I saw it was the day Shannon and I were celebrating St. Valenteins Day so decided to buy tickets). It was pretty good on the whole. I think with the style of the play it really hinges on good acting, and it was done very well for a college performance. I must admit I did get a little bored at times, mainly towards the end, and my mind did start to wander.
However, on the whole I was impressed that I enjoyed it as much as I did. I ussually become very suspecious of groups, shows, or performances that focus on a single demographic and demand that it be respected or impowered. I've never really felt the need to respect whites because they are white or Asians because they are from Asians because they are from Asia or Tall people because they are tall or in this case women because they are women. I think people sould be respected because of the human being that they are. Ive always felt that anyone who defines themselves primarilly by a demogaphic that they are in are doing so at the expense of an actual individual personallity.
But that didn't really seem to be the crux of the argument for the V-M's. It was more about talking about the things women have to deal with, which I'm sure is a lot. On the whole I'd say that if you like plays, and you have an hour and a half to kill, I'd say, "Yeah, what the hell, go see the Vaginas."

St. Valentiens Day was Nice

So I celebrated St. Valentiens Day on monday instead of Tuesday (which was good because nothing was busy). This was the first Valentiens Day I have acctually had a serious girlfriend for, so it was a somewhat new experience. One funny thing that happened is that a week before Valentiens Day Shannon and I went to a liquor store where they had a free wine tasting. Shannon said she really liked one of the bottles of wine so later I went and bought it for her. On St. Valentiens Day I found out Shannon had gone back and bought the bottle of wine that I said I liked. I must say it was faily adorable.

Went to a party where we knew no one

So friday we went to this party at Jeff's friend's Will's house. We got there just as Will was walking out the door. We than learned the fact that we knew absolutely nobody who was there. However: Jeff and Phil had already opened there beers so we were forced to stay there for a while. It was very strange, there house was clean. The things they owned looked expensive. I had no idea what the hell was going on. Anyway we ended up leaving fairly fast, but it was very strange being there, and thinking that some people go to parties like that all the time.

Watched 9 hours of Royal Rumbles this Weekend

So I haven't watched any wresteling in about 6 years. However, I remembered how much I always enjoyed royal rumbles and thus attempted to see if I could find any on-line. I found 9. And proceeded to watch all of them in 2 days, including six in a row on saturday. The amazing thing is that I even really enjoyed watching royal rumbles 2004 and 2005 where I knew almost nobody that was in them. It was cool though becuase I knew maybe 8 out of the 30 of them, and than I automatically had somebody to cheer for, which was pretty sweet.

Sapranos season 4 starting off well

I watched the first 6 episodes of Sapranos season 4. I love the Sapranos but for some reason decided to wait 3 years in between seeing seasons 3 and 4. What's the deal with that? Anyway its looking really good, and I can't wait to see more episodes. As a bonus this new season has already introduced me to 2 new songs that are likely to make my Top 600:
"World Destruction" - Public Image Limited
"Kentucky Fried Flow" - Armand Van Helden

Finally finished that book I've been reading forever

So I finally finished "The Roaches Have No King" by Danial Even Wiess. It took me forever to read. I don't know why, there was nothing wrong with it, I was just never really able to get into it. It's funny how you can get into a book and read it in a day, or stagger it out over a period of months. And I can't really think of ta thing wrong with the book. To be honest I'd reccommend it if you like books that try to use shock/gross-out humer in a somewhat intelligent way (The books mostly aout sex, drugs, racism, and cochroaches).

Jet Lee might be a decent actor

So I saw Unleashed a few days ago and Jet Lee acctually seemed to act pretty well. It was more or less what you would expect from a Jet Lee movie. Lot of cool fight scene, plot kind of cool in a cheesey way, but what surprised me is that a lot of the scenes where Jet Lee wasn't fighting anyone were pretty good. The one thing that wasn't explained was why he had an aisan accent when the plot explained that he was raised in Great Britain, but whatever.

I have about half an hour

Let me try to catch up on the last ten days. I haven't really so much been "busy" as I have been "lazy" and "Unwilling to sit up to type out a blog entry" So I'll give catching up a shot.

I Believe I am Winning the Battle Against my own Hubris

When I posed the question as to why I had made extreme adjustments to my schedule in order to get nearly all of my class on Tuesday, I really had to think. Than Zach answered the question for me... hubris. He than predicted that like Oedipus, Antigonie, Oddeysus, and Icharus before me (they paved the way really) I would also fall victim to my own hubris and be destroyed in a massive wave of boredom and assignments. Well I am no into my fourth Tuesday and things are going reasonabally well. My first class I decided to skip (first of that class I've skipped so far... no big deal) My second I spent the entire class reading The Shining (it's starting to get good). And now I have spent this third class on the computer (I'd read but he's showing a slideshow {Who still shows slideshows}). Anyway, I'm most of the way through the day and I'm still doing fine. Wait a minute... I'm not almost done... I still have five hours left. Nnnnnnnnooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!! Help Me!!! HELP ME!!!! Why! Why! Why!

Music List Update

I have just spent a very long time updating my song list and band lists. I have added close to a dozen songs, and I submit to you only the most important of these additions.

Songs:
Beer For Breakfast, The Replacements - Number 106
I Hung My Head, Johnny Cash - Number 120

Bands:
The addition of "I'm Against it" by The Ramones moved them up from number 18 to number 14
The addition of "Breed" and "Ain't No Liquor in This Town" moved Steve Earle from number 26 to number 22.

No that I have all of these songs out of the way I can begin the pain-staking process of listening to many of Zach's CD's and adding the best songs among them to the list. Expect some relatively big changes coming up.