"Bill O'Reilly's Right to Privacy", from Monday night's Daily Show. Love it. The End.

I had the opportunity to contribute to DVD Talk’s Oscar picks and predictions piece, which got me started thinking about last year’s movies and how I hadn’t gotten around to making an end of the year list. Frankly, I wasn’t that worked up by this year’s movies. Looking over this year’s Best Picture nominees, I have to say, it’s kind of an underwhelming group of flicks. I’ve seen four of the five (I just can’t make myself see The Reader, and I don’t know of one filmgoer or critic who is enthusiastic about it; we appear to have the re-emergence of the bought-by-Weinstein nomination there) and they’re all very good films. But none of them are great films. Frankly, 2008 was populated by an abundance of very good films, pictures that were expertly executed and marvelously acted but which never gave this audience member that kick, that thrilling feeling of watching a truly great film unspool. In fact, I only saw two really great movies this year, but of course neither of them were nominated for Best Picture, because one of them was a cartoon (Wall-E) and one of them was a superhero movie (The Dark Knight). And of course, both of them were more than that, so much more than that, but there you have it.

(Oh, and of the films that were nominated, Frost/Nixon is my favorite. But Slumdog Millionaire will win.)

Anyway, here’s my end of the year list, a month late, if you care.

1.  The Dark Knight
2.  Wall-E
3.  Frost/Nixon
4.  The Wrestler
5.  Slumdog Millionaire
6.  Appaloosa
7.  Man On Wire
8.  Standard Operating Procedure
9.  Snow Angels
10.  Synecdoche, New York
11.  Ballast
12.  Changeling
13.  Doubt
14.  Rachel Getting Married
15.  In Bruges
16.  Smart People
17.  Stop-Loss
18.  Burn After Reading
19.  Forgetting Sarah Marshall
20.  Shine A Light

The End.

The good news, obviously, is that as of Monday we finally have a President who inspires confidence, projects intelligence, can assemble a sentence, doesn't suck, etc. Hooray for that.

The bad news is a little more personal. Many of you probably met our cat Chloe at some point over the last several years; those who had seen her recently knew she had gotten increasingly thin and frail in recent months. Well, she apparently developed a blood clot at some point over the last few weeks, which caused her frame and overall health to deteriorate to such a point that she had a stroke Sunday and couldn't even get around the apartment anymore.

I took her in to the vet Monday afternoon and he found that her circulation was so poor, he couldn't even take her blood pressure. Treatment wasn't really an option (for a variety of reasons), so we agreed that it would be best to end her pain. So yeah, it was a pretty tough afternoon.

And I know, she's just a cat, blah blah blah. But hey, people get attached to their pets. I'd been living with that cat for seven years-- longer than I've been living with my wife, for God's sake.

So, yeah. That shook me a little. But she was a good girl, and we miss her already.

The End.

We were back in Kansas for a total of 12 days, and my ego is nowhere near bloated enough to image you're actually interested in a point-by-point walk-through of the week. Instead, here's some of what happened in that almost-two-weeks, in handy-dandy list form:
1. Had four Christmases (Rebekah and I both come from divorced homes) and, in the ultimate life-meets-art twist, we spent part of our fourth Christmas watching the movie Four Christmases.
2. Went to B&C and ate bar-be-que. Only the once, unfortunately, but it was quality.
3. Hung out with my brothers, who are becoming all sorts of awesome.
4. Hung out with Rebekah's brothers, who continue to be all sorts of awesome.
5. Went to The Donut Whole and ate donuts. Only the once, unfortunately, but it was quality.
6. Had lots of nice people buy us meals, including stepdad-in-law John, old Orpheum boss Mary, and Dad & Cathy.
7. Got an assload of great Blu-Rays, books, clothes, and vinyl from a variety of marvelous relatives.
9. Saw Benjamin Button at the Warren East and enjoyed Freddy's both before (dinner) and after (desert).
10. Saw W. at the Palace and tried to imagine how many movies I'd seen at that place.
12. Went to Planet Sub and had Yelo Subs. Only the once, unfortunately, but it was quality.
13. Checked out and ripped some DVDs and CDs from the Wichita Public Library, which my wife finds absoutely ridiculous.
14. Gave Rebekah's dad a gloriously fat cat.
15. Ate my new favorite desert, a kind of reverse-Oreo drop thing that my Aunt Hetty made. Had many, many, many of these.
16. Weighed myself for the first time in over a year, and decided that it's time to diet or excercise or get lipo or something.
17. Had to have Uncle Dave sell some DVDs to Buyback's for me, since they require a Kansas driver's license. Yeah, cause I'm the guy running the big six-discs-at-a-time, New-York-to-Wichita, bootleg pirate DVD ring.
18. Realized that there is a lot about New York that I miss when I leave it for two weeks.
19. Realized that there is a lot about Wichita that I miss in general-- mainly, the people I'm lucky enough to have in my life.
All in all, a good trip. Happy New Year, kids.
The End.

I try not to get too sentimental here. But I mentioned in my last blog how much It's A Wonderful Life got to me this year; it really wrecked me, and I think it's only going to get worse as I get older. Because as much as I loved that movie when I was growing up, I understand it more and it means more as you live more and experience more of a life, like George Bailey did.

It's a beloved Christmas movie because it takes place at Christmas, yes. But that's superficial; if every movie that takes place at Christmas were a beloved Christmas movie, then we'd be watching Jingle All The Way every year (God help us all). No, it's about what Christmas is about (to me, anyway)-- realizing the value of those you love, your family and your friends.

"Remember, George: no man is a failure who has friends," writes Clarence in his book at the end. This, I know now more than ever, is true--not just because of how much my friends mean to me, and how much I hope I mean to them, but because of my best friend, my wife, and the value of our relationship (the genuine love and romance of their relationship was more palpable to me on this viewing).

This is written right around the time that Harry, his heroic kid brother, hurries in to the improptu party at the end of the film, raises a glass, and says, "A toast to my big brother George: The richest man in town." When I was young, I'd laugh at this line; all the money they'd raised to cover the debt makes him the richest man in town, ha ha ha. Now I know what that line means--he's rich because he is so valued, and values so many others. I understand that now, and I get a little misty just typing that line.

The other night, I met someone who has never seen It's A Wonderful Life, and it made me sad. They don't know what they're missing. If you're one of those people, or if it's been a while, well, that's what makes the Internet great.

Merry Christmas. The End.

First and foremost, here's the DVDs I've reviewed for DVD Talk since my last update:

The Ultimate Pink Panther Collection
The Women (2008)
The Longshots
Paris Je T'Aime
Garden Party
Wu: The Story of the Wu-Tang Clan
Brave New York/Sway
Victor Borge Classic Collection
Come Together: A Night for John Lennon's Words and Music
Here's the movies and docs I looked at in the last month or so; not a great bunch, really. I don't think any got any higher than the weak-ish "Recommended" rating. That Pink Panther box is a good $200 on Amazon, though, so getting that for free (in spite of how many of the weak Panther flicks are in it) was pretty cool.

The Wire: The Complete Series
Freaks and Geeks: Yearbook Edition
Saturday Night Live - The Complete Fourth Season
Home Movies 10th Anniversary Set
Live From Abbey Road: The Best of Season 1
As I mentioned earilier, watching discs for review ending up being mighty time-consuming this month, thanks to the inevitable holiday box sets. All of the above TV sets (with the exception of the slim Live From Abbey Road set) are ones I would have liked to have purchased anyway, so it's cool to get them for free-- especially The Wire set. That review was a bitch to write, but I think the time I took (and pressure I imposed on myself to get it right) paid off; this is probably the piece I'm happiest with so far at the Talk.

Frost/Nixon
The Wrestler
Che
Milk
Nothing But The Truth
And here's the ones I've reviewed theatrically, through a combination of seeing things right away and having a marvy wife who gets screeners at her cool job. All are worth seeing, but Frost/Nixon and The Wrestler are probably on my 10-best list for the year.

Doubt
So is John Patrick Shanley's searing, beautifully executed adaptation of his award-winning play, performed to the hilt by Meryl Streep (in one of her finest and most memorable performances), Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams. The dialogue is terrific, the subtext is thick and tangible, and it's got atmosphere to spare; my only real complaint is with its very last beat, featuring a line that even Streep can't quite sell. Aside from that (very minor) quibble, this is a terrific picture.

It's A Wonderful Life
Bad Santa
Every Christmas, I try to watch both of these movies; as far as I'm concerned, the present the yin and yang of holiday flicks (we're still gonna try and watch another Christmas fave, the original Die Hard, before the holidays are out). This year we watched the "director's cut" of Bad Santa which, contrary to the norm, is actually shorter than the original theatrical version. It's a little darker (dropping the opening narration and getting a little more graphic during a murder scene), and loses some entire scenes, both for the better (I was never crazy about the scene where he tries to teach the kid to box, due mostly to the lame-ass crotch-punching) and for the worse (the running bit with the advent calendar is missed). An interesting (slightly tighter) alternate version. As for Wonderful Life, well, it totally wrecked me this year; I don't know if I'm just getting more sentimental or if that's a film that gets richer as you get older, get married, etc. Either way, Jesus, what a great goddamn movie.

The End.

Zoikes! At nearly a month, this is my longest lag between blogs in basically ever. I've just been crazy busy lately, and now I'll tell you all about it. And lucky for you, some of this has been long enough ago that I'll have to just be vague and general, instead of going into an assload of boring details.

I should actually start by going back to even before I blogged last; in looking back, I realized I never followed up my never-ending series of politicial rant-blogs with any kind of commentary about how, for the first time since '96, my guy won. It was pretty amazing, at risk of sounding like some kind of a corny schmuck (I posted some photos of Reb and I voting on Facebook). It was pretty cool to be at work that night too, all up in the thick of it as the results came in, as the speeches were made, and so on. Now that we're in this weird waiting period, I'm just ready for him to take over and get Dipshit Magoo the hell out of there.

Then came jury duty. I looked back and laughed at my first blog about jury duty, in which I wrote (and now I quote myself) "they told us about the case, and since (according to them) it would be a relatively straight-forward and short trial (couple of days max) I immediately hoped I'd get on the jury." Hahahahahaha. Hahaha. Ha. Ha. Yeah. Fuckers.

Long story short: We had a trial that run just under two days (Friday and most of Monday). We had four days of deliberation before the judge believed our third claim that we were deadlocked and sent us home. It was FUCKING RIDICULOUS. Here's the long and short of it: It was a weapons possession case, in which a gun was found near the defendant and another guy (who was released), so the actual possession hinged on a cop's testimony that he saw the guy drop the gun. And 10 of us listened to that cop and believed him, and 2 others listened to that cop and didn't. And that was pretty much that, and there was nothing anyone could do to change anyone else's mind. So for four days, we had most of the testimony read back to us, examined the exhibits, and basically said the same things and over and over and over and over again. It was probably the most irritating week of my life.

On Friday, we realized that we again weren't going to come up with anything, bu it had been less than 24 hours since we told the judge we were deadlocked and he sent us back in (giving us a speech that boiled down to "clear your heads and try harder!"), so we sat around and shot the shit the rest of Friday morning, ate our free lunch, and then sent the note again. Judge Alan Arkin brought us in, told us that it certainly didn't appear that we were giving up for lack of trying, and sent us back to our normal lives ("Well, your regular lives. Whether they're normal is something I can't speak to..."). We got our notes and went home, and now I don't have to do that again for several years, THANK JESUS.

It was around this time that the dam started to break with my new writing gig at DVDTalk. You see, it's the holidays, so there's a lot of box sets coming out, and I put a lot of them on my wish list. Well, then the time comes when you have to watch all that stuff and write something intelligent about it. The first one was the six-disc Victor Borge Collection, followed by the eight-disc Freaks & Geeks Yearbook Edition, the 12-disc Home Movies 10th Anniversary Collection, and then the 23-disc Wire: Complete Series. Now, I haven't watched every moment of every one of these-- we'd watched the Freaks & Geeks series itself (six of the eight discs, minus bonus features) a while back, but that still left the two full discs of bonus material and all the features sprinkled across the others, which I took in over Thanksgiving weekend; we had watched the first four seasons of The Wire over the last few months, leaving only the fifth season and bonus features on that one. But I watched all six hours of the Borge thing, and all four seasons of Home Movies (plus bonus features), so, yeah, I've been watching some TV-- basically, staying up late nights and getting up earlier than usual and spending every free moment I've got watching TV. I posted The Wire review this morning (here it is), so my last big box of the season is The Ultimate Pink Panther Collection, which consists of 9 of the Pink Panther films (including ones I never intended to see, like the Steve Martin one and the Roberto Begnini one) and 9 discs of the Pink Panther cartoons (just between you and me, I might kinda skim through those.)

Work has been interesting. I can't remember if I've mentioned my promotion, but I got one; I'm now the lead producer on weekend evenings. The bad news: that means Rebekah and I no longer share the same weekend, it's way more stressful (especially since that also means I'm the evening weeknight fill-in-- and I filled in all last week), and my big raise for the effort comes out to about $25 more a week, after taxes. The good news: Um, I guess my resume is better now?

In other news... we wrapped on the last "Karl & Bernie" short (for now, anyway); it's sitting in the computer waiting to be edited, which I haven't had a chance to do cuz, you know, BOX SETS. But I'll get started on that next week, and hopefully push it out before Christmas.

And speaking of that... we finally got our holiday tickets booked. Lack of seniority in the news biz means we'll be sticking around NYC and working on Christmas and the days immediately after, so we're flying to Kansas on New Year's Eve day (god, it always sounds stupid when you put those words together like that) and then heading home on January 11th.

Hey look, all done. Oh, but one more thing: please enjoy Slate's Mamet-esque one-act play on the Illinois governor corruption scandal, Glengarry Rod Blagojevich. It's my favorite thing in the world today.

The End.