Oh, man! Unbelievably funny! With great rewatchability! Had HBO NOT renewed this series, I honestly think I would have blown up their headquarters (wherever that is)
Some decent dvd releases this year of movies nobody round here seemed to mention but worth a rental:
Stranger than fiction
Lucky number slevin
The Last Mimzy(warning terrible ending and corny humor attempts but genuinely chilling premise for a "kid's movie")
Sunshine
Must Have:
Heroes Season one; despite its despicable popularity level with teens, its still the best show to come around in a while and the only american show to successfully utilize the method of mythic proportion storytelling as that of Japanese anime series. In other words the entire show comes off as one big movie and a good one at that.
2007 was a bad year for movies on the big screen
best movies:
Knocked up(most funny and also most relevant; the 2 seldom go together; I was convinced)
Bourne Ultimatum(the one summer action triquel everyone wasnt panting for or figured theyll wait for on dvd came out and was the best action flick in ages; actually made Matt Damon cool again after his impotent "two-faced faggot" character in The Departed)
Pan's Labyrinth(Alice in Wonderland except the queen of hearts is a Nazi bastard who smashes your face in with a beer bottle. How could this not be great?)
Hot Fuzz(Best parody ever. Those clever brits; they get your brain to laugh before your mouth gets a chance to and then they're already on the next joke and so you sit thru the whole movie thouroughly if quietly amused)
28 weeks later(unstoppable hungry monster-people unafraid of anything chasing you, running. How scarier can you get?)
300 (best eye-candy movie and reminder of what a slick century we live in; It is to Gladiator what the Matrix is to Star Wars)
Grindhouse(Quentin instills me with nostalgia for things Ive never been nostalgic about. And he does it so well it doesnt matter that the representation is fake. The feeling evoked is genuine enough in of itself: its like the psychological equivalent of buttered popcorn)
Zodiac(hooray to Fincher for growing up and making a movie with real substance thats more unnerving than anything in Seven's cheapshots.)
I'm going to check out Flight of the Conchords. Never heard of it before until I heard them on NPR a month or so ago.
Hey Bossy,
quite a complete list there. May have to check out Heroes. The last network show I actually totally dug on DVD was Lost.
Your other choices are interesting, but I'd have to go for Grindhouse as being the top of that bunch and most original. I loved Deathproof in the theatre, but found the DVD to be rather boring. Planet Terror on the other hand, stood up to not one, but two second watches on DVD, plus time spent on the special features.
The DVD's released as "Grindhouse Presents" give me hope that perhaps they will make some sort of series out of it - let some other directors make a 'grindhouse' project. Sorta like Showtimes "Masters of Horror" series, but well, you know, grindhousey. (Re: Masters of Horror: most of them or sorta lame, but tolerable - but I highly recommend everyone here to go rent the episode, "Imprint" directed by Takashi Miike)
I did find 28 Weeks Later surprisingly good, as my expectations were pretty low. The others, there's really not much to say that hasn't already been said.
I think the final season of the Sopranos is sort of a milestone. Watching Bobby die in the final episode was probably the hardest hitting the show has been in a few seasons - probably since Adriana was killed. The ending was what it was - certainly, though, when compared with the final ten minutes of say, Six Feet Under, it falls waaaay short. Will miss the Sopranos gang - even Pauly Walnuts.
Found an older movie called "Baracka" from the 90's lying on the video store shelf and gave it a try. Anyone here with a kickass HD-tv and soundsystem might give it a try. Definitely a movie that was ahead of its time as the home theatre equipment available at the time of its release couldn't nearly do that movie justice. Also highly recommend for any pot-smokers in the audience.
I'd have to agree with alot of those on your list bossy except Heroes and 300... It may have something to do with me being a comic book fan with family from a country that people in the US consider the middle east. That combination made 300 too much propaganda for me to take and Heroes seem like a poorly acted comic. I did like Heroes for the first couple episodes, but then the terrible acting of the guy who played Sylar with his childish tantrums (maybe the goal was to make him look childish but they didn't have to make it so obvious... I mean laying on the ground and beating your fists and kicking your feet?!?) and non-believable bad guy acting combined with the girl who played Niki's terrible acting was just too much for me at times (She's no Willem Dafoe). It did have some stand outs I think young Hiro was great along with his sidekick, I liked Peter Pretelli, the cheerleader was decent and the story was enough to keep you watching for what you really wanted, crazy ass powers and the "gotta catch 'em all" aspect. The show I'm really looking forward to seeing back on Air now that people mentioned HBO series is The Wire... maybe my favorite drama series ever.
Movie wise I'd have to go with the Grindhouse and to add another category the straight to DVD award goes to Bender's Big Score Futurama is in my opinion the best cartoon out there, the Simpsons were my number 1 for a while (of course) but recently I'm beginning to appreciate Futurama much more after watching re-runs for so long and not losing interest.... especially if they can come back and pump out some more qualities with their up coming movies and series renewal on comedy central.
