Wednesday, January 14, 2009

20 reasons to live for yet another year



Okay, let's stop dwelling on 2008 and look ahead to 2009. The following things on my pop culture radar are what I'm anticipating most in the coming year.

Music
  • Lily Allen's It's Not Me, It's You Her debut was one of my favorite albums of 2007 (as well as 2006, for that matter), so I'm really looking forward to hearing her follow-up.

  • John Wesley Harding's Who Was Changed And Who Was Dead This album by one of my favorite singer-songwriters doesn't officially come out until March, but I already have my copy (he's selling it early on his site). Get it. It's great.

  • D'Angelo's James River While it's not set in stone that my fellow Richmonder's long-awaited album will be released this year, it's been hinted. Come on, D. I need some new music to play while I sex up the womens.

  • Depeche Mode's new album Playing the Angel was a nice return to form for the band. Let's hope they can maintain that level of quality.

TV
  • The Pacific HBO's Band of Brothers is the single greatest thing ever produced for television. This miniseries - chronicling the Pacific theater of WWII - has a lot to live up to.

  • "Flight of the Conchords" While the second season's first episode is already up online, I'm waiting until this Sunday to watch the premiere properly. I'm really hoping it brings the funny, like last season.

  • "Breaking Bad" March sees the second season of this show about an unfulfilled high school chemistry teacher who turns to cooking crystal meth after finding out that he's been diagnosed with cancer. I've always enjoyed Bryan Cranston's work (Watley on "Seinfeld," Hal on "Malcom in the Middle"), but he's operating on a totally different level here.

  • "The Office" (kinda/sorta/not really) spin-off I still don't have much of a clue as to what this is all about, but I'm there.

  • "Important Things With Demetri Martin" One of my favorite comedians working today debuts his own Comedy Central show this February. That's enough to get me to tune in.

  • "Curb Your Enthusiasm" The long wait in between seasons (the last new episode aired in November 2007) is only making me jones for this painfully awkward comedy even more.

Movies
  • Inglorious Bastards Quentin Tarantino's long-in-the-works World War II movie is finally coming out. Can't wait.

  • Dead Snow Nazi zombies. Do you need to know any more? And the fact that it's subtitled means that it's art.

  • Watchmen For years I've heard that this is the greatest graphic novel ever, so I've got some catching up to do before the movie comes out. If it comes out, that is.

  • X-Men Origins: Wolverine It had me at X.

  • Untitled George Romero Zombie Movie Let's face it: Diary of the Dead sucked. But Romero's earned enough goodwill for me to always give his (zombie) movies a gander.

  • The Fantastic Mr. Fox Sure, the fact that it's a Wes Anderson movie will get my butt to the theater, but what I'm really looking forward to is Jarvis Cocker's music.

  • The Year One I'm an unabashed Judd Apatow junkie, so I'm looking forward to seeing his take on Biblical times.

  • Untitled Bruno Movie Borat was a hoot. Bring on Bruno.

  • Star Trek I am by no means a Trekkie (heck, I've never seen a full episode or movie), but two people will get me to pay money to see this: Simon Pegg and Diora Baird.

Video Games
And two reasons to push back your suicide attempt until 2011:
  • The Arrested Development Movie Michael Cera seems to be the only holdout. I say, make the movie without him, as I have no doubt that Mitchell Hurwitz can find a way to credibly write out his character. This world needs some new Bluth family hijinks. Now.

  • The Expendables Sylvester Stallone writes and directs this action film featuring himself, Jason Statham, Mickey Rourke, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Forest Whitaker, and possibly Sir Ben Kingsly and Sandra Bullock. An early account indicates that this will be a Big Ball of Awesome. After this film's release, the universe will surely collapse in on itself.

That should keep you entertained for the next 12 months.

4 comments:

spydrz said...

Pegg's in a Trek movie? Hmmm. I thought he was more of a Star Wars fan...after he announced on SIARPC that he wrote a university paper on the film.

Micah said...

I guess he's a part of that rare breed that's a fan of both series. Me, I'm a Star Wars guy.

Anway, Pegg plays Scotty in the new flick.

Anonymous said...

I must have my George Michael! Come on, Michael... give something back to the franchise that birthed your career, you ungrateful bastard.

Micah said...

Unless there's some scheduling conflict (for a movie that hasn't even been written yet), I don't see why he wouldn't do it. But he seems to be the biggest star from that cast nowadays and maybe he's adopted a diva attitude to match.

Speaking of giving back to what made you famous, Bruce Willis wants to do a "Moonlighting" TV movie. Serioulsy. That's pretty cool of him. I like it when our betters (i.e. celebrities) remember where they came from.