2008 Music, Non-2008 Films, My Film, Etc.

It seems the year has been passing pretty quick, and now we're at the two-thirds mark of 2008. I felt like making some Lists, but then I realized I've yet to see a single film released this current year. There have been a few aborted attempts to see The Dark Knight at the IMAX, but frequent sell-out shows have thwarted said attempts.

That said, here are the best movies I've seen this year for the first time:

• Two-Lane Blacktop
  
• O Lucky Man!
  
• Control (the film about Ian Curtis/Joy Division)
  
• Juno

I have, however, kept up my casual music semi-hipsterness (e.g. listening to what Pitchfork tells me to listen to). So, my favorite albums of the year, listed in order of preference:

• No Age - Nouns
  
• Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer
  
• Girl Talk - Feed the Animals
  
• The Hold Steady - Stay Positive
  
• Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend

Also, The Hood Internet's vs. Chicago thing has been getting a ton of play lately, but since I'm a rock nerd I don't think I can count that as a full-on separate entity. Different rules apply to Girl Talk, I think.

Today is the second day of test shoots for my latest film project. I've been intentionally vague about it in case I get sick of the whole thing and give up in a fit of, most likely, laziness. That, and if I described the bare-bones plot, I'd probably generate a negative amount of hype and set into motion the inevitable backlash (and, by extension, the backlash's own backlash). However, here's the rough, perfect-world plan for it, so all of you can get ready for its piecemeal release or something:

• Shooting parts in September, October, and November.
  
• Editing sometime in that timeframe, depending largely on when I can scrape together the skrilla to buy a Mac and Final Cut. (Did I just say skrilla?)
  
• Releasing nine little chunks over the course of nine weeks in late 2008/early 2009; sort of like a TV show, if a TV show only came in ten-minute installments and was filmed on a five-year-old Canon GL2 30i mini DV camera and mixed on a pirate copy of Cool Edit Pro.