Downtime
In my spare time I mostly enjoy watching movies and listening to music, but I squeeze in some fiction reading, video gaming, and other activities on occasion. Listed below are the titles I've enjoyed most in 2008. (You'll find last year's favorites listed here.)
Movies: 20 Favorites
Links in this list are to Rotten Tomatoes. An ill-advised (and still ongoing) redesign nearly wrecked the site, but the content there remains informative and helpful.
The Best
The Rest
- Dan in Real Life
- The Great Debaters
- Get Smart
- Gone Baby Gone
- Hellboy II: The Golden Army
- In Bruges
- The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
- Live Free or Die Hard
- Once
- Premonition
- Ratatouille
- Reign Over Me
- The Savages
- Talk to Me
- 3:10 to Yuma
Music: 20 Favorites
Links in this list are to allmusic. Well written reviews with extensive meta data are your reward if you can slog through the ads and other crud that litters the site.
The Best
- Beauty & Crime (Suzanne Vega)
- So-Called Chaos (Alanis Morissette)
- Stop Drop and Roll!!! (Foxboro Hot Tubs)
- These Days (Vince Gill)
- The Very Best of Sheryl Crow (Sheryl Crow)
The Rest
- Bittertown (Lori McKenna)
- Carnival Ride (Carrie Underwood)
- Chase This Light (Jimmy Eat World)
- Funk This (Chaka Khan)
- Growing Pains (Mary J Blige)
- Music (Madonna)
- Nine Lives (Steve Winwood)
- Revelations (Audioslave)
- Shenanigans (Green Day)
- Solo Acoustic, Vol. 2 (Jackson Browne)
- Time on Earth (Crowded House)
- Waking Up Laughing (Martina McBride)
- Walking Wounded (Everything But the Girl)
- Way Back Home: Live from New York City (The Wreckers)
- Wild Hope (Mandy Moore)
Books, Games, Etc.
Book links below are to Amazon.com and game links are to allgame. Neither site is very thorough, but both offer good starting points for exploring new titles.
Books
- Die Trying (Lee Child)
- Killing Floor (Lee Child)
- Point of Impact (Stephen Hunter)
Games
- Dragon Quest VIII (PS2)
- Soul Calibur III (PS2)
- Virtua Fighter 5 (PS3)
Etc.
- This summer, for no apparent reason, I watched all 21 (official) James Bond films (40+ years of mayhem and misogyny)