The Order of Things

As someone who is more qualitative than quantitative (why, oh god why, am I in the social sciences?), I find it odd that I so cherish best of the year lists. Critics seem to respond to these lists with the same skeptical (and suspicious) enjoyment. Every list is punctuated with numerous disclaimers, buttressed by similar prefaces distancing them from the artless practice of averaging and listing.

Beyond their obvious function of informing us of things we might have missed, lists, it seems, have a curious bonding function. In the purportedly subjective realm of art these rankings acknowledge a latent bedrock of standards among critics, providing a unified field of assessment while simultaneously recognizing our personal and idiosyncratic criterion. Metacritic assumes as much with its Galton-like series of averaging and tabulation.

I offer my own lists of the year for both myself - to help set my own arbitrary order to my opinions - and for you, so that you might gain a further, albeit vague and diaphanous, apprehension of myself (if you believe that what we like embodies part of our character - and I do, but then again, I am shallow).

And hell. As I mentioned before, because I secretly adore them.

Hopefully you do too.

Favorite Albums of 2005

1. The New Pornographers - Twin Cinema
2. The Decemberists - Picaresque
3. My Morning Jacket - Z
4. Kaiser Chiefs - Employment
5. Kate Bush - Aeriel
6. Ladytron - The Witching Hour
7. Sleater-Kinney - The Woods
8. M.I.A. - Arular
9. Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
10. M83 - Before the Dawn Heals Us

Ten Honorable Mentions (for CDs that couldn't make the list for some reason or another):

Annie - DJ Kicks
Basement Jaxx - The Singles
Bloc Party - Silent Alarm Remixed
Cirque Du Soleil - Delirium/Solarium
Fiona Apple - Extraordinary Machine (Jon Brion Version)
The Go! Team - Thunder, Lightning, Strike (American Version)
Goldfrapp - Supernature
Iron & Wine - Woman King EP
Kraftwerk - Minimum-Maximum
Kronos Quartet & Asha Bhosle - You've Stolen My Heart: Songs From RD Burman's Bollywood

Favorite Movies of 2005

1. Capote
2. Sin City
3. Batman Begins
4. Constant Gardener
5. Good Night, and Good Luck.
6. Grizzly Man
7. Junebug
8. A History of Violence
9. Munich
10. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

[Although it should be noted that this list is subject to change over the next couple of weeks due to Utah being severely ass-backwards and not releasing movies such as Brokeback Mountain]

Honorable Mention for a film that was released in 2004, but contained the best scene I saw all year: The Opening Balloon Sequence in Enduring Love.


And because 2005 supplied me with plenty of bile for my choleric personality, the worst films of the year - all of them shitstorms of the most Titantic proportions:

1. War of the Worlds
2. Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith
3. King Kong

A combined budget of over $442 million dollars. Way to go boys!

And judging by the trailer I saw before King Kong, 2006 - to use Dan Brown's favorite literary device - is going to be like a boot stamping on a human face--for ever!

Happy New Years!