2006

2006 in review kind of


Best Movie
Based on what I’ve seen this year, regardless of when they were made. No gyp please if your favourite is not on the list. Also no gyp if your taste is more sophisticated than mine. Only movies I have seen are eligible. If I didn’t see it it is not included. Plus it’s all off the top of my head. I may forget my own favourite movie.
My halcyon days of the mid nineties are long gone, when I would see upwards of 50 movies in a year. These days I tend to focus more on quality than quantity. Historically I also seem to have a spidey sense about good movies, and seldom see bad ones.
Contenders include, ‘Good bye and good luck’, ‘Children of Men’, ‘V for Vendetta’, ‘Casino royale’, ‘Out of the Blue’, ‘Talladega nights’, ‘The 40 year old virgin’, ‘Walk the line’, ‘The smartest guys in the room’, ‘Munich’, ‘Snakes on a plane’, 'Batman begins', ‘Metallica: Some kind of monster’.
But the best I think was ‘The Departed’. It reminds me of ‘Heat’, a really good ensemble crime epic, with all involved giving career best performances. Plots pretty good too. (I know it’s a remake of ‘Infernal affairs’, and that ‘Infernal’ is probably way better etc etc blah blah blah….. I haven’t seen ‘Infernal affairs’. I have seen ‘The Departed’).

Worst Movie
Contenders:
‘9 songs’. You’d think a movie with concert footage and non-faked bedroom scenes would be more interesting
‘My super ex girlfriend’. Should have been better.
‘Grease’ (invoking my seen this year rule). I was looking forward to the car race at the end, but even that was a let down. They drive so sloooooowly.

Winner:
‘Loose change’. Dire on all fronts, almost actually offensive at times, rather than just relentlessly insulting my intelligence.

Wierdest:
‘Hedwig and the angry inch’. Good weird though.
‘Lady in the water’ gave it a good run for its money.

Favourite movie line
Bartender: “Will that be shaken or stirred sir?”
Bond: “Do I look like I give a damn?”

Dumbest fan campaign
The campaign against the new bond as being too ‘Blond/tall/short/smart/dumb/not Sean Connery etc etc’


Best TV that I made an effort to watch (I don’t really watch a lot of TV)
‘Top gear’, ‘Family guy’, Sky1 showing hours of Simpsons and Futurama re-runs on Sunday mornings, ‘Mythbusters’, ‘Globetrekker’, ‘Eating Media Lunch’.
‘Cold Case’ was good for a while, but seemed to run out of ideas


Worst TV
‘CSI’, ‘NCIS’, or anything with an abbreviation in the title. ‘CSI’ is the worst. Crap science selling itself as good science. If I worked in a lab that dark I’d go blind.
‘NZ Idol’, ‘Rockstar INXS’, reality TV in general.


Best Party
My 30th. Rocked. Almost worth getting old for.

Best sports event
The mist shrouded Super Fourteen final. I loved every vaguely discernable minute.
The Red Bull Air Racing on TV from Perth was awesome. Kinda like pod racing but real.

Most fun personal sports moment
Receiving the looong pass from Morgue downcourt with almost no time on the clock and then landing the basket for 2 from well downtown.
Also twice landing 2’s after opposition players dared me to ‘Go on have a shot, bet you can’t sink that etc etc”. Best way to shut them up.

Least fun personal sports moment
The opposition at Petone who confused personal insults with trash talking, then got really wound up when we showed them that good players don’t need to trash talk by beating them.

Worst sports event
The continuing idiocy that is beach volleyball. Not the sport, the costumes. Guys wear shorts and T’s, girls wear basically nothing. Stupid.

Best new thing I did this year
This blog. Oh yeah, and buying a house.

Most cathartic thing I did
Cut off all my hair on my 30th birthday.

Best roadtrip
The Big Day Out/Whakatane/White Island jaunt a year ago. Although the Queens Birthday Kapiti Coast Comedy Cruise came close. The Pinnacles camping was fun as well.

Most fun new thing I did
Jetboating in Taupo

Most fun new thing I didn’t do
Skydiving in Taupo

Best gig
The Go Team at the Big Day Out. Narrowly rivalled by The Shatsuns last weekend.

Best CD I bought
Nah, not even going to try that one, the numbers are too big (meaning I can’t remember what I have bought).