Mr Furious Heartily Endorses...

FOX's "Human Target." Pretty good show.

That is all.

Movies

The local DVD shop on the corner is running a drawing: Put down your Top 10 Movies of the 2000s and they will draw a winner—and you'll win copies of those movies. So, in order to enter, I had to sit down and compile the list...

Now the Top 10 Movies I'd actually like to own/win may vary slightly from the ten movies I thought were the best—so here's what I think were the ten best movies (in no particular order):

There Will Be Blood -- I'm actually not even finished watching it (1:51 into it) and I can write it down with absolute certainty. Mrs F and I will continue it tomorrow night. A tour de force for Daniel Day Lewis and P.T. Anderson.

Gangs of New York -- It is over the top, cringingly violent and possibly the most tension-filled movie I've seen in years. Daniel Day Lewis had me shitting my pants every time he appeared onscreen.

Casino Royale -- Best Bond movie ever—don't try to argue otherwise. In fact calling it a "Bond movie" sells it very short—it is the only one that is actually a great film. I need to make Mrs F watch this.

Amelie -- Great story, and one of the most visually beautiful movies I've ever seen.

Memento -- His first, and possibly best film. Christopher Nolan hasn't made a bad movie yet.

Pride and Prejudice -- What?? Yes. Thoroughly charming and engrossing. It's on our DVR and I can sit and get sucked in every time. Keira Knightley delivers some of the best dialogue of any film on this list.

Gladiator -- I just wanted to test the surround sound late one night after setting up the speakers...even though it was like 2:00 a.m. and I've seen it many times, and own the DVD, I sat and watched the whole damn movie. Again. Should go down as one of the great epic movies ever.

Lord of the Rings -- I'm counting them all as one spot to save space for other movies. Return of the King is the best of the trilogy if you make me pick.

The Dark Knight -- Heath Ledger's Joker is one of the best performances I've ever seen. He carries what is already the best superhero film to the next level.

Pan's Labyrinth -- Fantasy? Fairy Tale? Fable? Nightmare? All of the above and thrilling and scary too.

Honorable Mentions: Mystic River, Children of Men, O Brother Where Art Thou, Adaptation, Capote, No Country for Old Men, You Can Count on Me

The DVDs I'd want to win? Realistically, the only people in this house that watch the DVDs we own are the kids, so I should just write down the PIXAR catalog, but that's not the point of this exercise. So, accounting for Mrs F's tastes, and taking some of the above list out because we already have them, and those don't call for repeated, casual viewing (too much Daniel Day Lewis is bad for my blood pressure) allows me to add a few other favorites...

The Fellowhip of the Ring
The Two Towers
The Return of the King (pretty sure I need to separate them for this list)
The Dark Knight
Casino Royale
Pride and Prejudice (TiVo won't suffice, need a hard copy)
Memento (only saw it in the theater, and wold love to be able to dissect it)
O Brother
Star Trek
Amelie (We had the DVD, but I lent it out to everyone at my old job, and it's gone.)


Movies on everyone else's lists I have yet to see?
The Departed, Donnie Darko, Eternal Sunshine, City of God, Hurt Locker, Monster, Almost Famous, 25th Hour

Sunday Brunch Link Buffet

Since last week was a high-stress affair at work—with as-yet-fully resolved negotiations on the future of my career as a climax—and then a much-needed escape out of town with Mrs F and the kids, blogging took a backseat. In fact, for several days I never even went online. So some of this is out of date, or not fully-realized... but here goes:

WAKE THE FUCK UP
Andrew Sullivan (among others) really need to decide to shit or get off the pot when it comes to Catholicism. Im not one for organized religion in any form at this point in my life, but my experience with both the Catholic and Episcopal churches isn't even close. For Sullivan to remain a part of a church that wants to literally cleanse him and those like him from existence is the height of self-loathing behavior.

RISING AGAIN?
Not exactly, but Kevin Drum better not hold his breath waiting for the South to learn its lesson or its place.

TiVo Alert

TNT is currently airing "Into the West," a phenomenal miniseries from 2005. A historically-accurate story of two families—one white settlers, the other a Lakota—and how events of the day impact and intertwine each.

If you can, record them and watch them in order. The early episodes are especially compelling. Here is the trailer.

UPDATE: The menu on my DirecTV isn't explicit about the order of the episodes. This is the proper chronological order:
Episode 1 - Wheel to the Stars
Episode 2 - Manifest Destiny
Episode 3 - Dreams and Schemes
Episode 4 - Hell on Wheels
Episode 5 - Casualties of War
Episode 6 - Ghost Dance

New Music: My Old, Familiar Friend

Brendon Benson has a new album coming out in two weeks, but you can hear the whole thing now on NPR. As co-frontman of the greatest band alive, obviously I'm a fan of Benson, but his solo work is different from the Raconteurs—and depending on your tastes, better. Benson is arguably a stronger songwriter/lyricist than Jack White, and it's his influence that makes the Raconteurs so great as a sum of already excellent parts.

Anyway, check My Old, Familiar Friend. I haven't listened yet...But I'm going to now.

UPDATE: It rocks.

Paying It Forward.

Ezra Klein said simply, "Because it's Friday and I want you to have a good weekend, I insist you look at this unbelievably wonderful link.

He was absolutely correct. Enjoy.

Mr Furious Heartily Recommends...

PINEAPPLE EXPRESS Freaking hilarious. I was worried this would be to much insider pot humor for a guy who did less inhaling than Bill Clinton, but this quickly develops into a buddy / action flick that hits all the right notes. Rogan and Franco are great—Franco as Sol the pot-dealer is the best stoner since Brad Pitt as Floyd—and the supporting cast is strong as well. Even Ed Begley, Jr., and I HATE Ed Begley, Jr.

A KNIGHT'S TALE Another flick I was nervous to pull the trigger on. Picking dud movies is a capital offense in our house since our opportunities are few and far between. It was on cable recently, so I TiVo'd it. It's a bit off-beat, what with the contemporary music and dialogue, but a thoroughly engrossing and entertaining flick.

Worst. Video. Ever.

But it's a fantastic song. Mike Doughty's "Put It Down" from Golden Delicious...



[h/t Angelos]

Worse Than Detroit*

Awhile back, I added Sweet Juniper! to the blogroll and gave particular love to the haunting photos taken by that blog's proprietor, James Griffioen. The latest installment is jdg's story of returning to one of the decaying abandoned schools in Detroit and salvaging some books for his daughter and trying to get SOMEONE to do something about the offices filled with confidential student records...

I am haunted by what I found in one office: hundreds of file folders containing student psychological examinations complete with social security numbers, addresses, and parent information. I sat and thumbed through them. Many contained detailed histories of physical and sexual abuse, stories of home lives so horrifying I still can't get them out of my head: sibling rape, torture, neglect that defies belief. The detailed reports explained emotional impairments, learning disabilities. There was another box full of IEPs. The dates revealed that many of these students are still in the school system somewhere. I found several of their faces in the 2007 yearbook.

These aren't 20-year-old files, this is a school that just closed at the end of the 2007 school year. The names and stories belong to still-little kids shuffled to some other Detroit school.

His photos and a brief essay documenting those schools in Detroit appear in the U.K. magazine, Vice.

--

This post tells about an afternoon James spent giving a TIME magazine reporter a tour of the city for a story...His Flickr page reveals that TIME then turned around and screwed him by hiring some NY photographer to come to Detroit and recreate his photographs. Assholes.

*Title of a fantastic Robert Plant song. After contemplating this story its hard for me to imagine a place that actually is...

Tool Time

After yesterday's successful project, I once again felt the urge to heartily recommend some of the unsung heroes of the tool world. Perhaps I should turn it into a recurring feature...

[Yeah, I know. Really exciting]

Anyway, yesterday's hero was my drill.


I finally bought a real drill when we moved after years of struggling with a gutless rechargeable drill that couldn't bore through a loaf of bread without needing a battery change. Installing that oven with my old POS Black & Decker would have been a nightmare...that thing would've shit its pants when I broke out the 2" hole saw.

Hitachi D13VF 9 Amp 1/2-Inch Drill $100-125. I can't recommend this thing highly enough. It's maiden voyage was to punch a 6-inch hole in the side of the house to vent a dryer, and it hasn't looked back since. Awesome.

Mr Furious Heartily Recommends...

The Raconteurs "Old Enough"


Entertaining enough as a music video, but I really think this song is the best single—by anyone I've heard—in years. At least back to My Doorbell. The best part? I love the organ. The keys are the unsung hero on this second Raconteurs album—promote that guy to full band member status already.

As if I hadn't made this clear by now—Buy. This. Album.

Mr Furious Heartily Endorses…

"The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane"
by Kate DeCamillo
Quite simply the finest children's book I've ever read. Period. Phenomenal story, breathtaking artwork, extravagant print-production. So good I would recommend this story to anyone, whether or not they have kids. Like so many other children's stories (The Velveteen Rabbit leaps to mind), this tale is centered around the "life" of a toy, but it is so much more. An adventure, or more accurately a mis-adventure, but mostly an emotional journey.

I read this to Kid after we gave it to her for Easter, and I could hardly put it down. There are moments in this story I thought were a bit too much for her five-year-old sensibilities, but they were easily "edited" in my recitation. I think this story really benefits from being read aloud to a child, but an older kid would love to read it to themselves as well.

Here is the NY Times Book Review—but don't read the review, they give FAR too much of the story away, but along the sidebar there is a link to read, or listen to the audiobook version of the first chapter.

UPDATE: A blogger's review that does a better job than I describing the wonder of this story. ALERT: Unlike the NYT review no details are revealed, but certain things are revealed here, so if you like to go into a story totally cold, stop reading now and just go get the book...

NOTE: I bumped this back to the top, because I didn't want another Hillary post above the fold for the next 18 hours...so sue me.

Coming Soon

Since I need a breather from the politics (clearly) and movies have been a hot topic over the last week, I thought I'd point to a few films I am eagerly anticipating...

IRON MAN
There have been a LOT of comic-based movies over the last several years, and in nearly ALL cases the trailers look cool. Unfortunately the payoff hasn't been there for most of them. I'm hoping Iron Man follows through. The armor looks awesome, the music is rocking and Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark might be the best casting for any character ever. RDJr is Tony Stark—rich, smug, alcoholic, substance abuser, wiseass...




THE BANK JOB
If nothing else, this movie gets my seal of kickassness for the best poster I've seen in years. I freaking LOVE this poster (click to embiggen). I haven't actually seen Statham in anything but "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" but I've seen trailers for everything else plus this and something tells me I'm a big fan waiting to happen. See the trailer here.

STAR TREK
Like I need to write anything else here? Teaser.

IN BRUGES
I must be a sucker for the Euro-caper movies. Trailer

HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY
Why the hell not? The first one was supposed to be good...Trailer

THE VISITOR
Looks very good, but don't watch the trailer...spoiler.

Mr Furious Heartily Endorses…

Three albums curently making the rounds in my iPod and car stereo...

Brendan Benson
Alternative to Love
Benson came to my attention as the not-Jack White guy from the Raconteurs. This is one of his solo albums from the pre-Rac days, and it is great. At first it reminded me of the previously endorsed "Girlfriend" from Matthew Sweet mixed with a bit of Michael Penn. But the more I listen to it (which is often) the more it reminds me of old Squeeze. And that's a very good thing. You can hear two songs from Benson at his website here, but they are not from this album. Just go to iTunes and grab "Alternative to Love." If you like any of the artists I mentioned, you won't be disappointed.

Rodrigo y Gabriela
Rodrigo y Gabriela
I'm late to the party on this one, but I cannot say enough about how infectious this album is. I put this on in the living room, and no one in the house can stay still. Baby and Kid F start bopping around and the next thing you know we are all doing the flamenco. Literally. You may have heard of this Mexican guitar duo by way of Dublin as they had a radio hit last year and some notoriety for covering "Stairway to Heaven" and Metallica on this album. Highly recommended for both aural pleasure and cardio benefits.

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss
Raising Sand
The most recent acquisition, it has gotten the fewest listens, but this sounds like a keeper. A haunting yet melodic collection of blues and folk standards with some Tom Waits thrown in, produced by T-Bone Burnett. Each vocalist trades solos and harmonize amazingly. As I type this I am cursing myself for not bringing the CD in to put on my work computer.

FLASHBACK BONUS: Not really "making the rounds" but just brought out for an encore...

Paul Simon—Graceland
Yeah, I know this is twenty years old, and probably seems like you heard it enough times for a lifetime, I recommend pulling it out and giving it a listen. I put it on the other day, and it was perfect Saturday afternoon music as we went about our business in the house. Every bit as good today as it was when I bought it as one of my very first CDs.

Mr Furious Heartily Endorses…

God knows I've got a backlog of Obama v. Clinton shit to dish, but I don't have time at the moment, and I think I need to mix things up a bit here anyway. Let's "put aside our differences" and "reach out and agree" about what I tell you kicks ass...

'INTO THE WILD' SOUNDTRACK
I gotta stick this in here as well. Very solid album from Eddie Vedder. There are a couple songs from this on the radio that are very good, "Guaranteed" and "Hard Sun," but this is a solid (if abbreviated) solo debut from Vedder start to finish. I haven't seen the film yet, but listening to this album makes me all the more anxious for the video release.

MATTHEW SWEET's "GIRLFRIEND"
Don't know why I picked this album out of hundreds the other day, but boy, what a fantastic flashback. Phenomenal album. Power pop/songwriting at its very best. Sweet put it all together for this breakout (relatively speaking) effort, and never quite repeated the success or quality of "Girlfriend." He had his best studio band working here, featuring the stellar guitar work by Television's Richard Lloyd. there are videos on YouTube, but here is a sample of one of the standout tracks, "Evangeline." (follow the link and click the album art to start the player)


THE SINATRA GROUP
The Greatest SNL Skit Ever. Bar None. "Am I right, Steve and Eydie?" Swing!.

BOB CESCA
Found him at Blondesense, checked out Bob Cesca's Goddamn Awesome Blog! Go! (yes, that actually what it's called) and discovered he writes good stuff at The Huffington Post too.

PAIN AU CHOCOLAT
Trader Joe's is a cool store. Not great for everything, but one thing they excel at is prepared frozen stuff. And nothing is better than Trader Joe's Chocolate Croissants. They are so freaking delicious it is unbelievable. And not too horrendous for you (as compared to, say, a Pillsbury Grand cinnamon roll). Go to TJs now and buy them. You have to put them out to rise the night before, but the next a.m. you throw them in the oven while you make your coffee, and in 20 minutes be ready for the finest baked product your oven has ever given you.

SHRINK WRAP
Yeah, the stuff on you food is nice, but I'm talking about windows. We are freezing our asses off in a ninety-year-old house with old double-hung windows. Supposedly adding up all the cracks and seams on just one of those windows is the equivalent of a six-inch hole in the wall. No fucking kidding. But if you put this stuff on you windows, it makes a dramatic difference. You can tell when you get ready to secure the last corner and all the leaking air is concentrated to that one spot and it feels like goddamn fan. I've been doing this for years in my old apartments in NY and it has been a godsend in our house. Do a good job, and you can't even tell it's there. I prefer the ACE brand over 3M. Cheaper, and the tape is easier to work with.

Mr Furious Heartily Endorses…

ARCHER FARMS™ APPLE STREUSEL PANCAKE MIX
Run, don't walk, to Target and buy a box of this mix and whip up the greatest pancakes you've ever tasted. I'm not kidding around. They make my customized Bisquick apple pancakes taste like a damn joke. So good they don't even need syrup. I divided the mix and we split the box over two mornings...

"FAST GLASS"
In the parlance of photography that means a lens with a wide aperture that allows for a faster exposure and also gives you a really shallow depth of field. I bought one as an early Xmas gift for our trip to Disney last month, and I have been going crazy with it. The pancake shots are taken with it. I love the look of the focus rapidly falling away and having things in the background blurry...Great for still-lifes and portraits in particular. If you have a Nikon or Canon digital SLR you can buy a 50mm f/1.8 fixed (non-zoom) lens for about a hundred bucks. Best photography-related money you'll ever spend.

WHITE TRASH
The most addictive snack concoction known to man. Our neighbors have made this and delivered a bag every year—until this year. I was really looking forward to it, but it failed to materialize for some reason*...so we took matters into our own hands. We made our own. A double batch. When we had eaten approximately nine pounds each in about an hour, we decided we better get rid of it. So, we brought a tin to Christmas dinner at Mrs F's brother's (where Mrs F and myself proceeded to devour almost all of it) so when we returned home we bagged up the rest and left on neighbors' stoops.

Mrs Furious has the recipe in the comments here.

* when Mrs F delivered our bag to the neighbors who introduced this crack to the 'hood, they confessed that they had made it, but eaten all of it before they could give it away—You cannot fucking stop. It's that good.

USING A PET-SAFE ICE MELTER
This is a no-brainer if you are a dog-owner, but even if you aren't, one of your neighbors probably is. If you put salt down on the sidewalk it can burn a dog's paws, or sicken them if they ingest it. Plus it's bad for everything—plants, grass, kids, water runoff... Ditch the old-school salt for SafePaw™, PetSafe™ or similar products.

The Year in Review Review

Because Mr. Furious can never get enough hatred and harsh judgement...

• Bill Maher compiles his "Dickheads of the Year" in a Rolling Stone photo-essay. Best line? "We had a pretty nice house when this Cat in the Hat of presidents came in and made the mess of all time"

• The Beast has a brilliant, hysterical and hard-hitting list of "The 50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2007"

• I only did six "Dick of the Week" posts this past year—and certainly not due to lack of Dicks—you can review them here and vote in the comments for who deserves the top spot.

More traditional "Best/Worst" and "Top 10"-style lists...

• Peter Travers' Best and Worst Movies of 2007 Of course, I haven't seen any of them (Best or Worst) but I want desperately to see every one of his "Best" picks except "Sweeney Todd" and "I'm Not There."

• Slate.com's Good Riddance 2007 includes the usually excellent Dahlia Lithwick with a disapppointing review of The Bush administration's dumbest legal arguments of the year."

• More of a "Before and After" or "I told you so," here are two columns from the incomparable Charles P. Pierce. The first, when he explains in September why "the enraged Patriots will go undefeated," and the second when he tells you "The Patriots are great. Deal with it." Even if you are sick to death of the Patriots, Pierce is one of the finest sports, political, or just plain writers around. Read.

I'll add more as I find them...

Reading Assignment

No, not my laborious Mitt Romney post below—though I would appreciate if you read it—please go and check out Kos contributor Devilstower's post, not on Romney, but on JFK, our current religious/political hypocrisy, and the greater pathetic strategies on all sides. It's the best thing I've read in along time.

'With God On Our Side'

It's too good to snip, just go read the whole thing.

MeTube

Deep in an unrelated thread (on sleep) at Toast's place, the topic of television was raised. It started with "Greatest Sitcom of All time" and became a general debate on television in general. I thought I'd sit down for a moment and throw my thoughts down.

First of all, it should be noted that between my Kids' Bedtime Duty, and my freelance workload, I hardly watch television at all right now. Even with the Sox in the Series, I am TiVoing, and/or catching games online, not always live. So any judgements on current television are going to be speculative or based on year old data (at best).

Sure-fire shows I would watch if I had the time: The Daily Show, Colbert Report...um...that's about it.

Shows I enjoyed recently, but may have slipped: The Shield, Rescue Me, Definitely Slipped: Grey's Anatomy, 24, Scrubs, Without a Trace

Shows I've heard really good things about that I wish I could see: The Wire*, The Office, Heroes, Deadwood*, Battlestar Galactica, 30 Rock, Prison Break, Jericho

Fantastic (recent) shows I mourn the loss of: Arrested Development, Firefly (which I never saw, but I loved "Serenity"), actually good Simpsons

Recent guilty pleasures: Everwood, Bones, Grey's Anatomy, Dancing with the Stars

Shows that seem to me to be utter crap/overrated: South Park, Family Guy, CSI: Miami, Entourage

All-Time Favorites: Homicide, good Simpsons, The X-Files, Seinfeld, Star Trek (original and TNG only)

*I imagine all these HBO-type shows are good, but I will NEVER pay for them, so if I ever see them, it will be on DVD from the library.

So that's all I can think of off the top of my head. Feel free to have at it in the comments, and I will add things as they occur to me...

Mr Furious Heartily Endorses…

PINK PANTHER
The old-school Pink Panther cartoons are great stuff. Stumbled across these a month or two ago on Boomerang™. Saturday mornings at 11 are a date for me and The Kid. A pleasant childhood flashback for me, sure, but in may ways they're even better than I remember—great Mancini soundtrack, classic sound effects, inspiring graphic design and typography and, best of all, the slapstick violence absent from the neutered 'toons of today. The pure, unbridaled laughter that rolls out of Kid Furious during these cartoons is just so fulfilling. Throw in an "Ant and Aardvark" or "The Inspector" to keep things interesting and you're talking pure entertainment. Plenty of these on YouTube—but stick to the ones from '60s...


HOSTESS 100-CALORIE PACKS
It's a documented fact that the greatest snack food on Earth is the classic Hostess cupcake, but those bastards are like 500 calories or so. But now there are these 100 calorie packs that contain three mini cupcakes (they're about the size of those Mini Muffins if you've ever had those) that are pretty damn good, and plenty satisfying. I'm a fan of all these new 'portion control" products. That's my problem—I am completely unaware of how much I eat in the moment, and could easily pound down six cookies (or whatever) and the accompanying 600 calories without even knowing it. These products give me a finite quantity and a stopping point.

EVERY MAN JACK FACE LOTION
Early results on this are good. I've only used it one time, but I love it—the best post-shave product I've ever used. I'm loving the packaging/design as well. Get it at Target.

LAUNDRY-PURE
It fucking works. Mrs. F lobbied for one of these after reading about it around Earth Day, and I was pretty damn skeptical. Well, we got one, and it's a success. For everyday laundry, we simply don't use detergent anymore, and clothes come out totally clean and fresh. For tougher laundry we stain-treat or use a small amount of detergent, but this thing rocks. No, we will never save enough on detergent to make the thing cost-effective, but if you can afford it, it's a good move environmentally and supposedly really good for your clothes as well. No detergent means no abrasives, which (additional bonus) also means almost NO lint in the dryer.