Arsenal's back on top!

With the 3-1 victory at Manchester City this weekend, Arsenal have moved back atop the leaderboard in the English Premier League. Emmanuel Adebayor scored twice in the deciding win, and he is really in top goal scoring form at the moment for the Gunners.

Manchester Untied drew 1-1 to Tottenham this past weekend at White Hart Lane, allowing Arsenal to surpass them in the overall table. And Chelsea drew 1-1 to Portsmouth, leaving them 6 points off the pace and ending a 9-game winning streak.

This Sunday, United play City in a Manchester derby at Old Trafford, and Chelsea play host to Liverpool. And Arsenal host Blackburn on Monday at the Emirates. All are crucial games for each club as the season progresses and the title race heats up.

Songs of the Year!

Okay, disclaimer: this is completely random and thought up on the spot right now. I wanted to compile a list like this of my favorite songs of 2007, and since it's almost February, I'm a little behind the times. But here's what I liked in the past year anyway.

Feist - 1 2 3 4: The first song on the list is that semi-annoying but goddamn catchy single from the iPod nano commercials. This is also the best video of the year, by far. If you haven't seen it's full-sequined kaleidoscopic awesomeness, do yourself a favor and click here now. Yes, that was ONE take!

Amy Winehouse - Rehab: Well, this one was just so damn fun and catchy. The perfect song for the English addict.

Sea Wolf - You're a Wolf: Something about not fitting in or being a follower. Like sheep. Wolf's clothing. Okay, I don't know what it's about, but it has gypsies and it's a lot of fun. There.

Bloc Party - I Still Remember: I don't know if this song is technically from 2006 or not, but it's off the A Weekend in the City album that was released in 2007 (I think). It's on my list, so fuck off. Either way, I do not get tired of this song. And I've listened to it A LOT.

LCD Soundsystem - All My Friends It's like six or seven minutes long. It's incredibly repetitive. And it may just be the best song of 2007. Pitchfork seems to think so.

Radiohead - In Rainbows: Any song off this album is a single. So, I put the whole album on my list. Do something.

Spoon - The Underdog: Touted as "the greatest song Billy Joel never wrote" because the guitar riffs sound like Only the Good Die Young or something. I don't really care that people are saying that. It's the catchiest song off one of my favorite albums of the year.

Rihanna - Umbrella: She took an inanimate object and turned it into a sexual innuendo. The world fell in love with it. It's an amazing pop song, what can I say?

Simian Mobile Disco - I Believe: Catchy and dancy and on the FIFA 08 soundtrack. It's fun. And it has a positive message.

Kanye West - Stronger: Let's be honest. This song was huge. Just like all his other singles. I had to put it on the list just 'cause Kanye sure knows how to make hip-hop mainstream. And somehow he used Daft Punk to do that. Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds?

Arcade Fire - (Antichrist Television Blues): The whole album is amazing, and this is my favorite song from Neon Bible. I read somewhere that the narrator in this song was supposed to be Joe Simpson (yeah, that breeder of Ashlee and Jessica fame) but I'm not sure if that's actually true. It sure is fun to listen to when thinking about that though.

Band of Horses - Is There a Ghost: Atmospheric pop at it's finest. Their first song on Cease to Begin sets the album off to a cracking start. I think you can hear this on some car commercial or something.

Okkervil River - Our Life Is Not a Movie or Maybe: I don't really know why I like this song so much. I heard it a couple of times on Sirius 26 and it just sorta stuck. The album's not too shabby either.

Dinosaur Jr. - Almost Ready: A 2007 single straight out of 1989. This reunion did not miss a beat. So. Fucking. Cool.

Modest Mouse - Missed the Boat: Two of my favorite bands come together for this damn catchy single. The Shins front-man James Mercer croons the chorus parts in the background. I love this song.

Wilco - Impossible Germany: I could really pick almost any song off Sky Blue Sky, but this was the big single. It has something to say about the impossibilities of countries in and of themselves, but I don't know what that means. I just like listening to it.

Kate Nash - Foundations: Maybe more a song for 2008, but I first fell in love with it from a Paste magazine sampler CD a few months back. Turns out it's starting to get some decent radio play. An English potty-mouth pop singer following in Lily Allen's footsteps. If it wasn't so good, I'd have just called her a copycat. But do your thing, girlfriend (yeah, I just said that).

I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting like something from The National's Boxer or anything Bright Eyes or "the Boss" did in the last year. But I feel like I'm done here. I wish I could include youtube links to each of the videos of the songs presented here, but I just don't care enough. Or if I knew how to stream audio in this blog, I might just not care enough to do that either. Feel free to hunt these songs down to hear more or simply ignore me entirely.

Cheers!

Oscar noms announced!

This is always an exciting time of year for me, as the 2008 Academy Award nominations are out today. And my frantic journey begins to track down and see every movie on the list of who I think are the deserving candidates. Or is that "whom I think?" Ahh, screw it.

The full list is located at OSCAR.com, so feel free to peruse for yourself and make your own assessments.

I've only seen two of the Best Picture nominees (Juno and No Country for Old Men), so I have my work cut out for me to see the rest by the end of February. Especially Michael Clayton which is no longer in theaters. But that's all part of the fun, isn't it?

The reason I read superhero comics

So, I just finished reading Mark Millar's and Bryan Hitch's Ultimates 2 hardcover last night. I couldn't put it down and read it until 2:30 in the morning.

I go through these phases where I start to tire of the same-old, back-to-status-quo superhero comics that flood the shelves these days. I mean, let's be honest with ourselves, most of them are just unnecessary reads. We only read them 'cause we like the creators or the characters. Do we really need 12 Batman titles and 5 solo Wolverine books? Of course not.

But every once in a while something comes along that gets me back into superhero comics hardcore, and this is it. I fell in love with the first volume of Ultimates back when I was reading it monthly, but I managed to avoid any spoilers for the last 4 or 5 issues of this series, since those are the only ones I haven't read. What a goddamn pleasant surprise. I can't even explain to you how geeked out I was with all the cool shit they did with Thor. It's 2:00 in the morning and I'm sitting on my bed with a big-ass grin on my face reading the Avengers re-imagined. I don't need you to tell me how much of a dork I am, but I defy you to not do the same when one of these hefty hardcovers are put in your hands.

God damn! I'm still thinking about this book and if it weren't for the fucking tower of trades and graphic novels I have piled on my floor to be read, I'd read this thing again right now. It's just. So. Cool.

The DARK Knight

The official trailer is out. It is very dark. The Joker looks freakish. I could not be more excited.

Watch it. Press play.

"Call it, Freind-O"

"McCarthy and the Coen brothers have just collaborated on a movie version of McCarthy's novel No Country for Old Men, a thriller about a serial killer and a busted drug deal. It's a searing, shocking movie that plays like a eulogy for the great American West. It also features the best scene ever filmed of a dog chasing a guy in a river."

The above quote is from a Time magazine article located here. It's pretty much just the goddamn coolest single paragraph review of a movie ever. The men in question above are Cormac McCarthy, the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winning author, and the Coen brothers (Joel and Ethan), renowned filmmakers of American classics such as Fargo, Raising Arizona, and Miller's Crossing. And simply speaking, they've just made the best movie of the year.

I've been wanting to see this film since I first saw any press about it. I knew about the book, and had already read some of McCarthy's work prior to any knowledge of this film. Well, needless to say I tracked down a paperback copy of No Country, plowed through it in a week, and have been counting down the days until November 21. Did the film live up to my generous expectations? Very much so. I loved the book and loved the film. Some scenes, if not most, are taken directly from the novel. And I mean directly... dialogue and all.

I seem to have this attraction to films that deal with violence in such an unflinching manner. The Departed. History of Violence. Fargo. The types of films that don't just use gratuitous violence as a backdrop for some shitty overproduced action movie, but the kinds of films that almost use these "grotesqueries" of the human psyche as future talking points (look at me with the made-up words). Almost as minor characters in the film, for lack of a better term. Why am I so attracted to these films? I don't know, maybe it's because we secretly all want to be serial killers and throw our bosses out of 30-story office buildings, and murder our wives in their sleep with dull, over-used kitchen knives. Or maybe it's just 'cause these films are so fucking good. Yeah, I'm sticking with that one. Otherwise I have nightmares.

One other thing I'd like to note is the "non-use" of any real score in the film. I'd really have to see it again to appreciate everything fully, but it seemed as if the Coen brothers used the background sounds of each location as the music for their film. Cascading winds through the Texas countryside. Ambulance and police sirens following brutal shootings. Dogs barking. Televisons blaring. It really is an interesting way to present a movie. Obviously it left some sort of impact on me if I picked up on it. And that's really all that can be asked of a filmmaker, isn't it? To leave an impression. And this film does so in spades.

Watch it. You'll be glad you did. Or maybe not.

How can the train be lost? It's on rails.

So, I saw The Darjeeling Limited today. What a great piece of film making. It's touching, it's funny, it's honest, it's uncomfortable at times, it's soul-searching, it's everything a Wes Anderson film should be. Possibly his best film yet. If I wasn't so incredibly in love with Rushmore maybe I'd be able to say that on further viewings.

Do yourself a favor and see it. Laugh... cry... witness Owen Wilson being nasally endearing, Jason Schwartzman in his doe-eyed glory, and Adrien Brody's freakish gangly-ness.

And Bill Murray does make that ridiculous cameo I had so hoped for. Yay for me!

By the way, the above widget-jobber-thingie I found on the movie's official website was so fucking cool, I just had to imbed it here. Scroll over it with your mouse and well... things happen. Make with the clicky.