By Chris Ryall
December 26, 2005
The Year That Was, Part 2 of 2: Wherein Chris Ryall looks back at every month of 2005, offering awards for the good and bad pop culture moments in each of the twelve. Up first was January to June. Now, Independence Day to New Year's Eve.
To read The Year That Was, Part 1, covering January to June, click here.
JULY
Movies
The "I'd Rather Be Watching the Corman Version" Award: FANTASTIC FOUR. So of course a sequel is on the way. Hopefully a plot will be, too.
The "For Two Hours, I Forgot What a Loon Tom Cruise Is" Award: WAR OF THE WORLDS. Although it certainly had its flaws (yet another bad ending, Steven), the scene where the Martian walkers first arrived was enough to make this flick worth seeing.
The "Too Much Heart" Award: WEDDING CRASHERS, which got off to a good, crudely funny start but too quickly settled for the schmaltz. And less effectively than the funnier 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN (see: August).
The "Well, It Was Better Than Burton's APES Remake" Award: WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCLATE FACTORY. I liked the opening imagery and the acting, but it all fell apart inside the Chocolate Factory. The bits that were more loyal to the book added nothing, the characters were more annoying, the Oompa-Loompas and Danny Elfman's songs were surprisingly bad, and the tacked-on ending with Wonka's father was unnecessary. Depp was amusing, but still, he was no Wilder.
Comics
The "Box Office Gold" Award: TRICKED by Alex Robinson, beaten out only by Alan Moore's masterful TOP 10 graphic novel for best comic of the year. Delivers on the promise of his BOX OFFICE POISON.
The "Frank Miller Hates Batman" Award: ALL-STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN. Seriously, why does everythign Miller does for DC now feel like he's having a grand, highly paid, laugh at comic fans' expense?
The "Infinitely More Tedious Crossover" Award: Marvel's HOUSE OF M. In the overblown competition for comics fans' crossover dollars, DC's INFINITE CRISIS was the much better orchestrated ane executed of the two.
AUGUST
Movies
The "You Know How I Know You're Having a Gay Old Time" Award : 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN. A star-making turn for Steve Carell and Seth Rogen, and yet more solid work from the undervalued Paul Rudd (and Judd Apatow, too). The hands-down funniest movie of the year. Even if it did reduce me to using "a gay old time," an expression I haven't heard since the opening song on THE FLINTSTONES.
DVDS
The "Did This Really Deserve an Anniversary Release" Award:
THE JERK 26TH ANNIVERSARY, but only because it came out this month. I love the movie but these "special edition" DVDs like this, OFFICE SPACE's "Flair" version, AIRPLANE!'s "Don't Call Me Shirley" edition and THE BIG LEBOWSKI's re-release all feel pretty light on special edition-worthy extras. Packaging and bowling towels aside, no matter how good the movie itself is, these releases feel more and more like just shallow cash-grabs rather than special editions.
The "Looks Great Next to MY FREAKS & GEEKS DVD Set" Award: UNDECLARED, another outstanding but unwatched TV show. Never mind making new shows like LOST available on iTunes; rather, give me unjustly cancelled shows like this, F&G, THE BEN STILLER SHOW, and others. I could watch these episodes over and over again.
Music
The "Leave the Jesus and Mary Chain Alone" Award: BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB, whose mostly acoustic Howl was a welcome change from their J&MC-inspired previous releases.
The "Madness is Playing in Our House" Award: MADNESS and their The Dangermen Sessions, Vol. 1 release. Nice to hear Suggs and company still going strong two decades later, and their remakes of old reggae tunes was a perfect fit with their sound.
The "Most Overplayed By Me Disc of the Year" Award: SYSTEM OF A DOWN's Hypnotize/Mesmerize. Absolutely mesmerizing, and the one disc I couldn't stop listening to all year. Well, two discs.
The "Hey, Darkness, You Should Listen to This" Award: TURBONEGRO, whose new release continued to poke fun at rock conventions and lyrics, but did so with more style and originality than THE DARKNESS, whose shtick now sounds too much like schtick.
Comics
The "Top One Book of the Year" Award: TOP TEN: THE 49ERS. Alan Moore continues to just put everyone else in comics to shame with this outstanding read, the best thing I read all year. It didn't hurt that he was aided by Gene Ha, either.
The "Good Faux-King Comic" Award: GODLAND, by Joe Casey and Tom Scioli. At times retro and at times very modern, the end result is that it made for a fun read, something too lacking in comics this year.
SEPTEMBER
TV
The "Maybe Now You'll Let Him Play FLETCH" Award: Jason Lee's fantastic new sitcom, MY NAME IS EARL. This show, alongside the beloved but maligned ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT and Chris Rock's EVERYBODY HATES CHRIS, all showed that sitcoms don't have to be laugh-track trainwrecks. Not that I begrudge Jim Belushi from making a living. Much.
Music
The "Where's My 100 GB iPod?" Award: To me, who helped pad iTunes' coffers by buying new releases from TRACY CHAPMAN, BLUES TRAVELER, ELIZABETHTOWN,
ARIZONA AMP AND ALTERNATOR, GREG DULLI, JEFF KLEIN, RICHARD HAWLEY, B.B. KING, BUDDY GUY, SIGUR ROS, GRANDADDY, and RYAN ADAMS & THE CARDINALS all in a 30-day span.
Comics
The "I Would've Paid More" Award: Ben Templesmith and Warren Ellis' Image comic, FELL. The best work Ellis has done in years. And as much as Ben says he dislikes the 8-9-panel grids, he seems to thrive under those conditions. The best thing about this 16-page, $2 comic is that it doesn't feel short.
DVDS
The "Do I Have to Wait 10 Years for JERSEY GIRL X?" Award: MALLRATS X. The only way my deleted scene in JG is ever going to surface is on one of these eventual anniversary releases; I just hope it's JG V instead of X.
OCTOBER
Movies
The "Cut Out Susan Sarandon and You've Got a Great Movie" Award: ELIZABETHTOWN, which was chopped down from its Toronto Film Festival running time for its big-screen release, but would benefit from another good 20 minutes cut out of it. Somewhere in there is a good movie. But not when Sarandon is doing her tap-dance number.
Music
The "Freed Fiona" Award: FIONA APPLE and her Extraordinary Machine release--the official release, I mean, which was better than the Jon Brion-heavy bootleg, and one of the best discs of the year, even if I don't ever listen to the whole thing straight through.
The "I'm Wide Awake, It's MORNING" Award: MY MORNING JACKET's Z, further strengthening my opinion of them. If you liked their tunes in ELIZABETHTOWN, you'll dig this.
Comics
The "Best Gamma Ray-Related Comic Published by Marvel" Award: SHE-HULK. Yeah, that's right, the title is still ludicrous, really, but that doesn't change the fact that Dan Slott, the book's writer, is the best thing going at Marvel right now, and this comic is largely the reason why (see also: Dan Slott's THE THING and his GLA/GLX books).
The "More Than Meets the I" Award: IDW's THE TRANSFORMERS return; yeah, it's shameless of me to mention it, but I'm proud of what we did to relaunch the title, so there you go.
DVDS
The "Shermer, IL's Favorite Son" Award: The John Hughes BRAT PACK COLLECTION. Sure, you can catch these movies on TNT or USA every weekend, and the accompanying CD wasn't exactly full of songs I'm anxious to hear again (no offense, SIMPLE MINDS or PSYCHEDELIC FURS), but there's still something nice about having all these discs in one collection.
GAMES:
The "Marvel Games Are So Good, No Wonder Comic Readership is Down" Award (tie): HULK: DESTRUCTION and ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN, both great, engaging games.
The "Now My PSP Was a Great Investment" Award: GRAND THEFT AUTO: LIBERTY CITY for the PSP. Plane flights never felt so short. Just improve the volume on the next-gen PSPs, huh, Sony?
NOVEMBER
Movies
The "Cash in Hand" Award: WALK THE LINE, one of the best movies I saw all year, and I'd be saying that even if the overall slate of movies for the year wasn't disappointing.
The "Harry Potter and the Hours of Boredom" Award: HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE. Somehow, it just didn't have much of the magic (for us viewers) that the previous movie contained.
DVDS
The "Best Movie I Waited for the DVD" Award: CRASH, an award-worthy movie if ever there was one.
Music
The "Think About My Reality Show Idea, Rick Rubin, You Know It's a Good'un" Award: NEIL DIAMOND's 12 Songs, another excellent Rubin-produced revival.
The "Makes Me Like Their Last Studio Release More Now" Award: WILCO, who sounded better live on Kicking Televisions-Live in Chicago than they did on the recorded A Ghost Is Born.
Comics
The "One More to Watch" Award: Sean Murphy, based on his Oni Press tour-de-force, OFF-ROAD.
The "War is Hell, But Some War Comics Aren't" Award: Brian Wood's intriguing, entertaining and well-thought-out Vertigo title, DMZ.
Books
December
Movies
The "400-Pound Gorilla" Award: KING KONG. Man, critics are rough on movies like this, and very undeservedly. Amazingly, the quiet scenes in the movie were far more resonant than the action scenes. Naomi Watts sells the movie, but the wonderful KONG, courtesy of Andy Serkis and an excellent CGI team, leaves you in tears.
Music
The “How Many Discs Can He Release in 12 Months?” Award, Part 3: RYAN ADAMS’ 29. Don't listen to the complainers, man, just keep releasing music. There've been good things on each one.
Comics
The "More Love for Brian Wood" Award: LOCAL, from Oni Press. Anyone missing DEMO and looking for something that very much retains that same flavor, only with more local color, here you go.
Next Time: Back to the (Hopefully) Great and (Not-So) Secret Show. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone. Thanks for hanging with us for another year!
/chris
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