Live Bands

This list is more for my own record keeping purposes, but it goes along with my previous post. These are the bands that I have seen live in concert. The first list are the bands I saw willingly. These are bands I like. I've ranked them in the order I enjoyed the concert.

1. Ludo (x3)
2. Bowling for Soup
3. Mury (x2)
4. Sum 41
5. The Offspring
6. Madina Lake (x2)
7. Without a Face
8. Social Distortion
9. Single File
10. The Airborne Toxic Event
11. Unwritten Law
12. Green Day
13. Blink-182 (x2)
14. Linkin Park
15. The Higher
16. Billy Talent
17. Jimmy Eat World
18. The Starting Line (x2)
19. Say Anything
20. Madison Lights
21. The Used
22. Alkaline Trio (x2)
23. The Graduate (x2)
24. Just Surrender
25. My Chemical Romance (x3)
26. The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
27. Tommy and the High Pilots (x2)
28. There for Tomorrow
29. 30 Seconds to Mars (x2)
30. Victim Effect (x2)

This second list is for the curious folks who like to know what bands opened for the bands above that I was forced to listen to in order to get to the good stuff. These bands range from mediocre to terrible. In no particular order:

Manchester Orchestra
The Architects
Stamps
Sparks the Rescue
MuteMath
Neon Trees (x2)
Amber Alert
Escape the Fate
King Niko
Drive By
Coheed and Cambria
Chiodos
Eye Alaska
Schoolyard Heroes
Street Dogs
Allred (x2)
Blackhounds
Franz Ferdinand
Taking Back Sunday
Chester French
Broke City (x2)
Billy Boy on Poison
Cursive
The Dear & Departed
Oh, Be Clever

Best Picture Nominees 2010

Since the Academy Awards had decided to raise its nomination count to include ten movies, it seems like the perfect chance to rank them according to quality!

1. Up
2. Up In The Air
3. Inglourious Basterds
4. District 9
5. The Blind Side
6.An Education
7. Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire
8. The Hurt Locker
9. A Serious Man
10. Avatar

And, in case you were wondering since they are not all on my top of the year list, all but the last two deserve the nomination.

Best of the Oscar Shorts 2010

Here is a ranking of the 2010 Academy Award nominees for best dramatic short films (live and animated) in order of best to worst:

1. La Dama y la Muerte
2. Wallace and Gromit in 'A Matter of Loaf and Death'
3. The New Tenants
4. French Roast
5. Istället för Abrakadabra
6. Miracle Fish
7. Kavi
8. Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty
9. Logorama
10. The Door

Biggest Snub:
Partly Cloudy

Sundance Film Festival 2010

Best Movies of 2010

1. True Grit
2. Tangled 3D
3. Inception
4. How to Train Your Dragon 3D
5. Black Swan
6. Countdown to Zero
7. Let Me In
8. The Ghost Writer
9. The King's Speech
10. The Square

Worst Movies of 2010

1. Pirahna 3D
2. Repo Men
3. The Wolfman
4. Clash of the Titans 3D
5. Salt
6. Robin Hood
7. The Last Airbender
8. Jonah Hex
9. Paranormal Activity 2
10. Double Take

Best Movies of the Decade - '00s

This was a heartbreaking work of staggering genius. We have reached the end of another decade and so many magazines and shows were putting together top ten lists for the decade and I decided, why not take a whack at it? It was not even anywhere remotely near easy. When I looked down at the bloody victors at my feet after I had so ruthlessly hacked away at the thousands of films that I have seen over the past ten years and the hundreds that deserved a spot on this list, there were so measly few remaining standing, but that number was still 35. I had to still deny 25 masterpieces eternal glory to reach the arbitrary number of "top ten". It was like killing babies. So I apologize to all the movies that didn't manage to make it to the final roundup. It was nothing personal.

Now, a word about how I made the list. I hate people who make lists and then choose their spots not by which movies they liked better than another, but rather which was the best of a genre, or some other capricious rule. For example, "I need to pick a Pixar movie on my list, which was the best?". If all ten of the best films of the decade happen to be made by Pixar, that is no reason to punish Pixar by canceling itself out of contention. It is very tempting to do, but categorically unfair. I started with a list that was nothing but a list of the films I liked best and narrowing it down using a bracket-like system until I had what I deemed the best. I was as surprised as anybody possibly could be.

So without further ado:

1. Children of Men (2006)
2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
3. Hot Fuzz (2007)
4. There Will Be Blood (2007)
5. Finding Nemo (2003)
6. Letters From Iwo Jima (2006)
7. Crash (2005)
8. Brokeback Mountain (2005)
9. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
10. Frozen River (2008)