2010 Movie List

By far, 2010 has the fewest amount of films on a year-end Listmaker list. I have my work cut out for me in the next 10 months to add more 2010 films before my self imposed deadline of the end of the year. I'll continue adding to it as I see more films.

Final Update: 12/31/11
47 movies

My Least Favorite Film of the Year
Please Give

Not Good
Greenberg

The Kids Are Alright

Good Enough

How to Train Your Dragon

Shutter Island

The King's Speech

Race to Nowhere

The Ghost Writer

The Runaways

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Blue Valentine

Pretty Good

Despicable Me

Inception

White Material

Somewhere

The Illusionist

A Film Unfinished

Very Good
When You're Strange: A Film About the Doors

Smash His Camera

Everyone Else

Catfish

Mother

The Oath

Last Train Home

A Prophet

Winter's Bone

Still Walking

Top Notch

Enemies of the People

The Fighter

Valhalla Rising

Rabbit Hole

Inside Job

Exit Through The Gift Shop

Carlos

The Social Network

Restrepo

Another Year

True Grit

127 Hours

Black Swan

Machete

Best of the Best

Animal Kingdom

Dogtooth

The Square

My Favorite Film of the Year
Toy Story 3

Hanging Out With Huey Lewis is Becoming a Regular Occurrence For Me

Last week, I saw Huey Lewis and the News for the 7th time. The first 3 times were in the 80's and those were glorious days. The 4th time was during my senior year of high school and that already felt like it was for nostalgia purposes.

In 2003, I saw them twice - once at Bowery Ballroom. And of course, in 2008, I saw them at Coney Island and met them for the first time.

At the Bowery show, I was a bit disappointed because I wanted to hear more hits than I did. I wrote this in my 2003 music writeup.

An Open Letter to Huey Lewis

Dear Huey,

The year began with high hopes. It ended with dashed dreams. I need to take 2004 off from you. Two shows within a week of each other in August will do that even to me. The Bowery show was a lot of fun to be so close to my idol from my childhood. I knew that I shouldn't expect too much and when you did most of your most recent album "Plan B", you lost me. I'm sorry Huey, even though my dad once described that record as a "stone groove", it is not very good. I respect that you are still playing new songs in a club setting, but come on, not for an hour. We want the hits. And when you finally delivered them, I was happy. The Wolf Trap show with my family seemed particularly uninspired. So unless you plan on playing my wedding, I need a break.

And what is up with no Chris Hayes, "The Kid", in the band anymore? You can't just lose your guitar player like that and expect me not to care. I mean, you already lost Mario "Bad Boy" Cipollina on bass a few years ago. And why is Bill Gibson on drums not wearing those tighty white shorts anymore as he pounds on the skins? Sean Hopper on keyboards is not looking so hot these days, is he? At least, Johnny Colla on saxophone is still super fine. Your name is Huey and you've just heard the news. Happy 2004.

Yours truly,

A disappointed fan

A lot has changed since I wrote that bitter letter. Hell, I've met the man twice now. Plus, Hot Tub Eric told me that he had heard that his recent Memphis show was all Stax stuff until the encore. So I was knew what I was getting myself into when Dave and I went to go see them last week at the Gramercy Theatre - a fairly small venue for an act that can sell out Wolf Trap.


Not even close to the great drink specials SHR concocted for the big tribute show that I put on 3 years ago.

The show was good - he did an hour of Stax stuff which was fun. And then an encore of 6 songs including 5 fan favorites that you'd expect to hear. All told, it was a fun night.

But then the night got much better. I had a chance to chat with him again! Granted, this wasn't nearly as random as running into him at the Nick Lowe show at The Bell House. Brendan had given me an after show party pass. So it was easy. Still, meeting one's childhood idol never gets old.

I needled him about not playing during I Knew the Bride When She Used to Rock and Roll at the Nick Lowe show. I teased him about always having a harmonica in his pocket so he should have played. He didn't think it was funny and assured me that he didn't have a harmonica and that Nick Lowe probably didn't even know he was there. Um .... I quickly changed gears to baseball and we spoke about whether or not Barry Bonds should go to the Hall of Fame.

Huey paused when I asked him the question and really thought about it. We both are in agreement though -the man deserves to be in. We talked a bit about steroids and Mark McGwire. I said that without steroids, McGwire was Darrell Evans to which Huey replied, "Darrell Evans should be in the Hall of Fame."

He mentioned that Tony La Russa was his good friend and I asked him how people like La Russa acted like they didn't know what was going on. He mentioned that they all had their blinders on. You tell 'em Huey! I think I might have made a bad joke about him being on steroids when he recorded Sports and Fore! but I can't quite remember the context. Oh yeah - I forgot the best part. When I first went up to him, he said, "We've met before right? You look really familiar."

For the record, I have no idea who the guy in the middle is.

Huey marveled at the fact that he got to hang out with Dave twice in a 3 month time frame.

And because I didn't post this before, check out this bit on Jimmy Kimmel. Hilarious stuff.

If You Hear Something, DON'T SAY SOMETHING

My class this year has been a little bit more, um, let's say rambunctious than other classes I've had. One thing I've resorted to doing which I've never really had to do before is to send students in the hallway to gather themselves before coming back in (hopefully) ready for class. I've never really liked having to do this but it has been something that has been necessary this year.

Recently, I've decided to hold them more accountable for their actions and now they have to fill out a "Hallway Cool Off Sheet." It consists of two easy questions to fill out before coming back to the classroom. If a student receives three of them in a week, he or she has to bring them home to show a parent.

Most are pretty standard offenses for non-stop talking on the rug, etc but some are pretty great. Here are some of my favorites from the past few weeks.

-- I was disruptive during class because: Boy Who Likes Poker Chips asked me to shake his neck.

My strategy to help me before I go back into the class is:
Tell Boy Who Likes Poker Chips to not ask me to shake his neck.

-- I was disruptive during class because:
Boy Who Likes Magic shaked my neck.

My strategy to help me before I go back into the class is:
To tell Boy Who Likes Magic not to shake my neck.

--I was disruptive during class because:
Someone was playing with my hat.

My strategy to help me before I go back into the class is:
Take deep breaths.

-- I was disruptive during class because:
I was fooling around with a hat.

My strategy to help me before I go back into the class is:
Focus.

-- Earlier in the week, Boy Who Was Playing With Someone's Hat was sent out for an infraction that he clearly did not know what he was guilty of.
I was disruptive during class because:
I heard something.

My strategy to help me before I go back into the class is:
Take a deep breath.

-- I was disruptive during class because Boy Who Likes Magic said I was a teacher's pet when I was trying to keep my spelling work to myself.

My strategy to help me before I go back into the class is:
Take deep breaths.

-- I was disruptive during class because:
I put a raisin in my friend's cup.

My strategy to help me before I go back into the class is:
Not fool around.

Oh Terry

It's been way too long since I've written in this space and it's been even longer since I mentioned my fascination with Terry Gross.

But I think this exchange sums up a typical Terry Gross interview. What used to infuriate me now amuses me to no end. It's all there. The giggles are the best part of course.Either that or the lack of a real question. I love that the transcript mentions the laughter. But there were at least 2 or 3 other moments of nervous giggling and stammering as she led up to asking the question (or non-question).

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Thanassis Cambanis, and he's the former Middle East bureau chief for the Boston Globe. He now writes the foreign policy column for the Globe. He teaches at Columbia University and is the author of the book "A Privilege to Die: Inside Hezbollah's Legions and Their Endless War Against Israel."

Now you covered the war between Lebanon and Israel in 2006. You continued to cover Lebanon after that. You've covered the entire Middle East. So, Hezbollah is now an important part of the picture in terms of how the Middle East is changing in such a rapid way. Hezbollah now controls the government in Lebanon. So let me start by just asking you to connect the dots a little bit. Since you're looking at the region, I'm not sure what my question is here, so...

Prof. CAMBANIS: I have an idea of what the answer might be...

(Soundbite of laughter)

Prof. CAMBANIS: ...or the beginning of the answer.

GROSS: Okay. Then just take it. Go ahead.