The Holidays

I hope all of you had some good old fashioned holiday fun. My family managed to avoid the emergency room this year, so I think we are ahead in making 2007 a good year(last Christmas Eve, my youngest brother James was stricken with horrible stomach pain at the Redskins/Giants game - it turned out to be appendicitis - and we all took turns at the hospital until he returned on the 27th).

My girlfriend stayed with me up until this morning, when she left to go back to New York. It seemed we spent most of our time either at my parent's house, her mom's house, or travelling to one of those places. We did manage to get in some quality alone time somewhere in there, but the holidays sure can drain away from that.

We saw so many movies: Apocalypto, Rocky, Blood Diamond and Night At The Museum. Apocalypto was a very good adventure movie, though it has noted historical inaccuracies. It was still very well made and visually stunning. A lot has been made of the blood and gore, but it's really not that bad. Maybe people are more affected because this depicts things that have actually happened in human history, but I think that's giving people too much credit. It's because of Mel Gibson, and despite that Apocalypto isn't nearly as gruesome as Passion Of The Christ(Side Note: I first saw the trailer for this movie at a theater near 86th street on the east side of Manhattan, when I saw The Departed with my girlfriend; the audience hissed it incessantly and then booed when Mel Gibson's name appeared).

Rocky is the feel-good movie of the season. Don't listen to the naysayers, they are all cynics who still hate the Academy for giving Rocky I the Best Picture Oscar in 1975(despite the fact that the sequels did diminish the franchise, that movie deserved the Oscar - yes, even considering the other nominated movies like All The President's Men, Network, etc.) Stallone is excellent, the supporting cast is excellent, and the entire movie just feels right. People cheered when I was there. I can't remember the last time that happened at a movie I was at.

Blood Diamond is exhibit B in Leonardo DiCaprio's case for the Best Actor Oscar, with The Departed being exhibit A. In both movies, you forget that DiCaprio is playing a character. Diamond's other leading man, Djimon Hounsou, is also excellent. Maybe it was residual enthusiasm from Rocky, but when Hounsou's character finally gets some measure of revenge, I was pumping my fist.

Night At The Museum was really, really forgettable. Fun, but...eh. Everyone else seemed to really like it.

I haven't been writing much about music lately, but you can see more of my reviews at BigYawn. Specifically, my reviews of Don't You Know Who I Think I Was? the best of The Replacements, Food & Liquor by Lupe Fiasco, and Shine On by Jet. Two more reviews, of Mastodon's Blood Mountain and The Coup's Pick A Bigger Weapon, should be posted soon.

I hastily put together my official Top 10 of 2006 for BY, but I wish I could have devoted more time to it. Holiday related activities and work(which had a late holiday push) and took up most of my time the last few weeks, so the Top 10 I'll write here before the end of the year may be different than my "official" BY one. Really, there are just a few albums I wished I could have listened to more(or at all) so I could have made a better list: Once Again by John Legend, Let My People Go by Darondo, The Information by Beck, Return To Cookie Mountain by TV On The Radio, and The Greatest by Cat Power. Some of these I've had and just neglected, some were delivered to my desk just a few minutes ago. Now that I write for an established website, I should be able to get some free copies of new releases, and staying timely won't be so hard(on me and my wallet).

I spent a lot of time the last two weeks scanning old family photos, mostly Christmas related. My mother wanted a slide-show of them on a CD to show the family. I one-upped her and put it together on my MacBook and made it into a DVD instead, along with a bonus slide-show of non-Christmas family photos showing how much we have all changed(to the tune of John Legend's "It Don't Have To Change"). It was fun, and I'll admit a little tear-jerking, to spend time with all of those old photos. A lot has changed, but our love hasn't. I also put together a slide-show with photos of my late grandmother, on my mother's side, for my mom and aunt.

My family loved all of them, especially the bonus show. That felt real good after putting a lot of time and effort into picking out photos, ordering them, and finding good music to go with them.

I need a digital camera. That's my one New Year's resolution, buy a digital camera.