5. The Decorations

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/52ac107564/jim-gaffigan-on-the-holidays-from-standupfan

One of the best parts of Christmastime is the way it breaks the monotony of the rest of the year. It’s like for for a little more than a month society gets together and goes insane but in a good way. The comedian Jim Gaffigan says holidays are filled with actions a drunk person would randomly do: cut down a tree and bring it into the house, hide eggs around the yard, you name it. The lights on the houses and the trees in the family room reinvigorate nostalgia and have an uncanny way of warming even a cold place up.

4. The Movies

I mean this in two ways. First off the holiday season, maybe because it is immediately preceding the Oscars, is host to a slew of spectacular theatrical film releases. This year Nov/Dec has given us Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours, Arronofsky’s Black Swan, and the Cohen brothers’ True Grit. Apparently there might be some substantial filmmaking to salvage in this all but pathetic year at the movies.

The second way Christmas movies rock is the way you probably had in mind. Movies about Christmas. The beauty of Christmas movies is that they are locked up and stored away until Christmas returns thus maximizing their yearly effect and nobody ever gets sick of them…actually television ratings and ABCFamily’s full out monthlong dedication to them suggestions people are ga ga for them. If you’re looking for a recent classic and haven’t seen it please watch Elf. Will Ferrell will have egg nog coming out your nose. It’s a Wonderful Life never gets old. And you can’t go wrong with one of the many renditions of A Christmas Carol, preferable Muppet and or Flintstone.

3.The Music

Eclectic yet unifying. You have to love the fact that the radio stations and the stores revamp their entire agenda spanning their songs from Bing Crosby to Stevie Wonder to the Flaming Lips. It’s like people put aside their staunch genre tastes as long as it has content packed full of holly and cheer. For a short span of time it becomes completely acceptable to rock out to crooners from the 40’s. I dare you to drive down a slushy street packed with your family with “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” and not feel like a six year old again.

2. The Food/ Candy

Are visions of sugarplums dancing in your head yet? Never had a sugarplum, but that’s what they look like above. I’d give it a try. Glazed ham, Irish potatos, green beans, mac n’ cheese. The actual dinner meals at Christmas are something to look forward to all year round. Gargantuan and decked out on festive holiday plates. The meal is nothing less than an event. But better than the meal is the candy. How awesome are candy canes? Peppermint sticks in the shape of a cane so you can hang them on stuff. Red and green jelly beans. Milk Chocolate. Dark chocolate. Milk and dark chocolate in the shape of little santas or stockings. 

1. Peace and Good Will Toward Man

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_truce

5. Blue Moon Belgian White

http://www.bluemoonbrewingcompany.com/

Cut a sliver of an orange, poke it through the bottle neck, insert thumb into bottle, tilt bottle so as not to spill but to unleash a bubble fusion of goodness. Brewed with coriander and orange peel, this beer has the filling taste of the hardier bills but the benefit of just a bit of crisp citrus bite yet it still ends with a smooth refreshing taste. It’s no wonder it was the first beer I actually enjoyed for the taste.

4. Great Lakes Christmas Ale

http://www.greatlakesbrewing.com/uploads/Beer/Profile%20Christmas%20Ale.pdf

This seasonal brew has been making the holiday rounds this year and I must admit I’ve fallen in love with it. On par with traditional Christmas brews the drink is made with malt, wheat, hops, and aromatic spices like honey cinnamon, and ginger. Just be careful, it has above 7% alcohol and nobody likes a sloppy holiday speech. Ahh, who am I kidding, be this year’s Fezziwig.

3. Grolsch Premium Lager

http://www.grolsch.com/index.php/content/home

I came across this drink while hiking the Grand Canyon with my brother. We offered an older international couple some of our firewood and long story short we ended up spending the evening with them over the fire, under the stars, and with Grolsch in our hands. The Grolsch bottles are as bizarre and fascinating as the couple we talked to. They have these old school metal hinges that allow you to reseal the bottle or even reuse it. The beer itself is outstanding as well. Smooth and satisfying. 

2. New Castle Brown Ale

http://newcastlebrown.com/#/the_pub/the_liquid

The brown color is from the mixture of English pale and Dark caramel which offers the taster with this refreshing and easy to drink taste. While the duration of the drink is creamy its sharp at the beginning and end giving your taste buds a ride.

1. Dogfish Head Chicory Stout

http://www.dogfish.com/brews-spirits/the-brews/seasonal-brews/chicory-stout.htm

The production of Dogfish Head beer is one of those trivial joys in life that redeems all the pains and aches we humans have to face the rest of the time. Chicory Stout, to be precise, is everything good in the word bottled and fermented and then sold specifically in the November/December time frame. The brew is made with coffee beans, chicory and St. John’s Wort. It’s taste is like no other beer I’ve ever drank. It’s very dark and rich like a Guinness but the coffee gives it a bitterness that only compliments it’s taste. 

Maybe it’s because its exam week that I’m feeling a little freaky. Maybe its the mixture of Guinness and chamomile tea I just poured (Guinness apparently does not go well with everything, kids.) But I’ve decided to take a stroll off the conservative plank and let you glimpse into the eclectic soul of your humble narrator with a Fiv5 list of what I dub Neo-Native music. Neo, we all know from the first twenty minutes of Raiders of the Lost Ark, means New. And Native…well refers to Native music…like the kind you hear in an anthropology class or on Travel Channel. So in my mind Neo-Native music is that burgeoning genre of music in which the post-industrial world with our computers and what not entangle styles with characteristics common to indigenous African tribes, Aborigines, Amazonians, the Navi people of Pandora. You name it.

5. MGMT

http://www.last.fm/music/MGMT?ac=mgmt

They definitely have the native look. But the music speaks for itself. Even though the music is largely electronic there is still the precarious feel that each beat could take you somewhere else. The melodies are largely repetitive but in a way that leaves you feeling bewitched like a catatonic member of a shaman ceremony. 

If you haven’t heard them (odds are you have) check out ‘Time to Pretend’ or ‘Electric Feel’. And if you’re feeling freaky or just drank a Guinness-Chamomile concoction play it around old people.

4. Lord Huron

http://www.last.fm/music/Lord%2520Huron?ac=lord%20huron

As Mesmerizing and tantric as any old world Persian den. But with the fast-paced and almost locomotive ramblings of a Beach Boys song that every so often reminds you this stuff if American. They’ve only released a handful of EP’s but be on the lookout, they got spunk. Treat your ears to “Into the Sun”; treat your heart to “Mighty”.

3. Ruby Suns

http://www.last.fm/music/The+Ruby+Suns

If you like the hypnotic electro-jungle musings of the two above you’ll love percussive movement of Ruby Suns’ music. It’s the perfect driving music…if you are driving a submersible made of marshmallows. Just kidding. It actually is perfect for a night drive in the winter, whether in the city or the woods. “Closet Astrologer” is a nice taste of their recent work and “Tane Mahuta” captures their more African influenced music.

2. Yeasayer

Whereas The Ruby Suns are ideal driving music Yeasayer is great run until you collapse in laughter music. I’ve had the good fortune of seeing these guys in concert and they actually use the native-style mallets and large skin drums and all sorts of Apollonian instruments. Yeasayer’s strong suit is not just the full engagement in their experimental style but the raw talent of vocals they incorporate with the unorthodox melodies. You can’t go wrong with anything from their last Album, Oddblood. But if a maniacal Yeasayer fan has you at gunpoint and forces you to listen to one I’d opt for “Madder Red” or “Ambling Alp”.

1. Animal Collective

http://www.last.fm/music/Animal+Collective

Ahh, Animal Collective. Sometimes you scare me and sometimes you soothe me. Your songs range from neurotic nibbling on my ear drum to the palpitating/toe-tapping grooves to ambient soundscapes, often all in one song. With Animal Collective songs it seems like the music is less about the emotional resonance and more about the sensational journey the auditory experience takes you on. They sound cheesy to describe in words but that’s how nebulous their style is. If you haven’t heard them listen to…well you are going to hate them at first, so it doesn’t matter. But one day they will click and tastes will acquire and on that day listen to the entire Merriweather Post Pavilion album and go backwards album by album from their.

Dear George,

 We can call you George, right? I feel like after an eight year relationship with 300 million of us we are on that level. Sure, we had our ups and downs. In fact you were our favorite president and our least favorite for a while. But let’s face it…it’s been two years and we’ve moved on. There’s a new president in our life. And he’s black! Oh, I forgot race is a touchy subject with you. Haha, I heard what you said in your book, ya know, about Kanye saying you hated black people being the lowest point in you presidential career. Welllll, seeing as we had that eight year thing going on I could offer up a few other candidates for your low points…here they are. Hope you enjoy!

-Fiv5 and the rest. ; )

5. No Child Left Behind

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=invKzk3vaRI

A for effort, George. But in historical retrospect it seems that you were really only pushing a piece of legislature like this in order to push a piece of legislature (non-military legislature at least). Seeing as I was a child at the time that this bill passed I know the inner workers of this little diddy. I appreciate the initiative to ensure that children who are struggling academically do not fall through the cracks but maybe instead of holding back, lets say for argument’s sake inner city black kids who are struggling with State stipulating tests because they don’t have books or chalk in their classrooms you actually hack up the money to get them the materials they need. Look at that ^! A run on sentence. Tisk tisk, looks like NCLB didn’t even work on me.

4. Oil, Oil Everywhere

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1872229_1872230_1872237,00.html

Come on, Dubya, it’s like you didn’t even try. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like the other guys in White House past were tree huggers but even Nixon pushed some pretty progressive Energy policies. Even if global warming holds no weight you promised us that you were out to defend the middle class yet in 2008 we saw the highest priced gas ever. Maybe saving a few extra bucks at the pump might have compelled us to “GO SHOP!”

3. Let’s Talk About Waterboarding

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjUasA6xeVc

[Sound of crickets.]……Oh sorry, George. I find it hard to be even tongue n’ cheek funny when it comes to torturing another human being. All I have to say is what makes us better than the enemy when we revert to their tactics and lower ourselves to their level.

2. Tax Cuts For the Wealthy. The Reagan Empire Strikes Back

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1872229_1872230_1872234,00.html

Dutch ate jellybeans and talked about Star Wars. You choke on pretzels and talk about starting wars. So leave the Reaganomics in its time and place and recognize that the uber-laissez-faire usually doesn’t work. A top marginal tax rate of 35% is no where near proportional to the middle class paying a 28% rate.

1.  911 Bullhorn Speech

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7OCgMPX2mE

Congratulations, George. This might take the cake for low point post-industrial America, not just our time together. See, rather than displaying grace under pressure and the sophisticated decision making an innovative and tremendous country like the US should have you took the opportunity to be the rabble-rouser. You got on your bullhorn and promised vengeance. Not unity and introspection. But division and expansion. You might as well been a 3rd century viking barking through…well a bull’s horn.

5. Don Delillo

A little Delillo for ya:

This is the nature of modern death. It has a life independent of us. It is growing in prestige and dimension. It has a sweep it never had before…We’ve never been so close to it, so familiar with its habits and attitudes. We know it intimately. But it continues to grow, to acquire breadth and scope, new outlets, new passages and means. THe more we learn, the more it grows.

There’s a lot to love about Delillo’s writing. Any fan of Hemingway or Raymond Carver will enjoy the clear way in which Delillo cuts to the chase. His sentences are typically concise and minimalist but pack a lot of underlying commentary about the story and American culture as a whole. Like some societal psychologist the content of his writing tends to present the neurosis of being American to us on a platter. Through his dialogues we catch a more transparent sense of the  paranoia and fear-based mind of the American individual but especially the Animal that is the group mentality.

Read: White Noise

4. Bret Easton Ellis

A little Ellis for ya:

A great numb feeling washes over me as I let go of the past and look forward to the future. Pretend to be a vampire. I don’t really need to pretend, because it’s who I am, an emotional vampire. I’ve just come to expect it. Vampires are real. That I was born this way. That I feed off of other people’s real emotions. Search for this night’s prey. Who will it be?

Personally, my favorite Gen-X writer is Alex Garland, writer of The Beach (later adapted into a horrible DiCaprio movie). But props for the preeminent Gen-X writer is Bret Easton Ellis. You might know the film adaptation of his book, American Psycho. And while that novel is rather representative of Ellis’ trademark narcissism and nihilism of the 80’s on it’s a bit more of a political spin on Reaganomics and Wallstreet than his others. Most of his work focuses on the decade following high school. But his characters and plots aren’t as starry-eyed and nonconformist as a Salinger or Kerouac work rather they point to the awkward post-teen transformation. His work is haunting in the way it focuses on the…”What now? This whole life thing has gotten boring…and the future looks lame.” feeling that besets a person as youth recedes and adulthood approaches. 

Read: Less Than Zero

3. Jorge Luis Borges

A little Borges for ya:

A man sets out to draw the world. As the years go by, he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and individuals. A short time before he dies, he discovers that the patient labyrinth of lines traces the lineaments of his own face.

Borges is the king of imagery. Just skim that passage again. He pumps his writing with powerful nouns that evoke senses and ideas that carry the reader through the story. His content, like reality, is always teetering on the unbearably mundane/ sometimes over-the-top magical nature of existence. There’s something ineffable about the sincerity that comes through in his writing. Despite some of his fantastic material, the passion with which he writes makes you almost believe it’s true.

Read: The Aleph & Other Stories 

2. John Irving

A little Irving for ya:

When someone you love dies, and you’re not expecting it, you don’t lose her all at once; you lose her in pieces over a long time — the way the mail stops coming, and her scent fades from the pillows and even from the clothes in her closet and drawers. Gradually, you accumulate the parts of her that are gone. Just when the day comes — when there’s a particular missing part that overwhelms you with the feeling that she’s gone, forever — there comes another day, and another specifically missing part.

Irving doesn’t really belong on this list and by that I mean he should be taught to us in high school. He’s definitely the most substantial American novelist of our time. With a blend of sexual and violent pulp, masterful prose, and even more engrossing themes he crafts one book after another. In a self-proclaimed emulation for Charles Dickens, Irving’s writing typically focuses on the life of one character but each one is rich with a colorful and emotionally wielding cast. 

Read: The World According to Garp

1. Vladimir Nabokov

A little Nabokov for ya:

Let all of life be an unfettered howl. Like the crowd greeting the gladiator. Don’t stop to think, don’t interrupt the scream, exhale, release life’s rapture. Everything is blooming. Everything is flying. Everything is screaming, choking on its screams. Laughter. Running. Let-down hair. That is all there is to life.

I will go out on a limb and say Nabokov is the greatest writer ever (period). He is genius. The man spoke a thousand languages and wrote in them all. He had a strong belief that there was a perfect combination of words to form a sentence with and only that would do. Nothing could be more evident when you read Nabokov. Every sentence is this succulent strip of words of poetic prose. Only Nabokov could write a story about a pedophile and make you almost sympathize with the bastard. He truly understood the power of words.

Read: Lolita

So bad..they’re good.

5. Repoman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLGrXGEMOSo

Before he went on to his fine role as Coach Gordon Bombay of the Mighty Ducks a young Emilio Estevez was Repoman. The film follows his character, a dead-beat punk learning the ropes in the repossession profession. He has picks up a nympho girlfriend and everything is looking up for him until he has the misfortune of repossessing a radioactive car from outerspace. Highlights of the movie are the glow of the car accomplished with a less than stunning inverse color effect on the film and Razzi-worthy acting from the dying guy in the market.

4. Real Genius

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUKi0h5ZwPg

Did you look twice at that still? Yes those are children frolicking in a sea of popcorn in the suburbs (might I add, to “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”). Just one of the many tastefully awful moments in Real Genius. Again we find another famous actor at the bud of their career with Val Kilmer. Kilmer plays a nihilistic party-boy who just so happens to be the smartest guy in college, that is until the school recruits a younger smarter genius. This new bookworm was brought in to put a little fire under Kilmer as the two complete a satellite lazer-beam for a greedy Professor secretly planning to sell it to the government. Don’t worry, Kilmer teaches the new kid that sometimes having fun is the smartest option. Highlights of this gem include: ice skating on instant-forming ice in the dorm hallways, convincing the protagonist he’s insane by implanting a radio in his teeth, and who could forget the aging Uber-Genius who secretly houses an extensive lab in Kilmer’s closet wall.

3. Evil Dead

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8Bi9mGv1J8

 You’ve probably heard of/seen Evil Dead. Writer/Director Sam Rami went on to direct the Spiderman movies and is rumored to be directing the Hobbit Films. But long ago in the surrounding forests of Michigan State with a minimal budget he produced this little diddy. The plot is everything you think it is…college kids go camping, college kids come across enchanted evil book with the power to resurrect demons, college kids battle said demons while being possessed themselves. The gallons of fake blood and over-the-top costumes blur the line between horror and comedy. Highlights: Girl getting raped(?) by possessed trees and anytime in which Bruce Campbell talks.

2. Class of Nuke’em High

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRtnvvXbG8g

How is this the first movie to have a school torn asunder by a batch of weed grown in nuclear waste? I’ll be honest..written word does little to justify the absurdity that is this film. Here’s what you need to know, the honor’s society have now become the sociopath bullies, a chick gives birth to some little tadpole monster which happens to flourish in the school’s waterways and grows into a mutant monster whose character is a matter of ethical question. Enough? Watch the trailer. Drink a little. Then watch the movie. Drink a lot. Then watch the sequel.

1. Toxic Avenger

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27E4Qfj7iEY

Horribly perfect. The Troma Team, that lovable studio that brought you #2, is to thank for creating the single greatest most aweful film I have ever laid eyes on. Toxic Avenger is about some tactless nerdy janitor who upon falling for a prank falls from a window into a toxic vat, conveniently left open on the back of a truck being driven by coke addicts. This toxic waste gives our protagonist a most disfigured face. But with the help of his new-found strength he seeks revenge on his enemies, justice for the city, and finds the love of a blind-girl. Just some of the endless highlights are: Re-using the same actors as different roles, the creative ways in which badguys are maimed, the Toxic Avenger’s voice, when a hooker angrily claims the only reason she is with her pimp is because he was going to take her to a David Bowie concert. Enjoy.

Preface: These are not my favorite bands. These are the bands that have had the greatest impact on music, culture, and humanity as a whole.

1. Nickelback

Just kidding. They make my ears vomit.

5. Buddy Holly 

http://www.last.fm/music/Buddy+Holly

What a dork. But he’s our dork and we love him. I doubt most people could name a Buddy Holly song these days, if they even know who he is but he is important none the less. He and the Crickets not only were the first mainstream band to successfully implement the Fab Four format. He is also allegedly the reason artists #1 and #4 claim to have picked up guitars in the first place. That alone solidifies his spot on the list.

4. Robert Zimmerman..I mean Bob Dylan

http://www.last.fm/music/Bob+Dylan

E.E. Cummings, Bukowski, John Cage…step aside. The real poet of the last half of the century is Dylan. His lyrics are so emotionally penatrable and heartfelt they have been covered time and time again by so many great artists. Yeah, he can’t sing. No need to comment on that. But do smooth vocals a musician make? Dylan’s gravelly broken voice strengthens the themes of his poetry all the more. Themes like abandonment, loneliness, abuse and pride…both in terms of social inequity and in love. Dylan is timeless in his philosophies and his music.

3. Led Zeppelin

http://www.last.fm/music/Led+Zeppelin

A music-loving friend of mine battled valiantly for Led to be 3 positions down from here but they belong at three. Don’t get me wrong. The infamous post-aviation poster of the band is on my wall as I type and they are unashamedly my first musical affair. They’re on the list because…well as my friend finally had to say, “The just rock!” It’s true. You’d be hard pressed to find a red-blooded male in the Western World who didn’t go through a Led phase. It’s the liberating spirit of their style and sound that gave birth to rock. The virility and passion of their tunes has the stylistic mastery of Junior Kimbrough’s blues (see Black Keys’ influences) and the head-bashing energy of the legions of metal and punk bands to follow. 

2. Michael Jackson

http://www.last.fm/music/Michael%2520Jackson?ac=michael%20jac

The last decade was not so kind to MJ yet the impact of his death on humanity was resounding. It was like the entire world took a gasp when they realized that Jackson despite the status he attained was capable of death. His originality, vocals, and stage presence are unrivaled. Most musicians are the musicians of their time and place. Sinatra had the forties. Madonna had the eighties. Nirvana had the nineties. Jackson is a lifetime of art. Not only is his music culturally pervasive but in the 80’s when proverbially, video was killing the radiostar, Jackson entwined his musical talents with his love for film and gave us dozens of memorable videos. Who doesn’t love a dancing zombie?

1. The Beatles

http://www.last.fm/music/TheBeatles 

Come on, are you surprised? Half of you is staring at the screen, nodding your head in approval the other half is rabble-rabbling. To you rabblers… let’s take a step back from the deluded world you have crafted for yourself and really ask why The Beatles are in the one seat. World Influence. Broken molds abound.  When these guys found music it was no more than a sonic experience. After a few years with The Beatles it evolved into a sprawling global phenomenon oozing with re-invigorated sound, style, and a contagious world view. I was in Honduras a few years back staying at High School. When I started whistling “I Want to Hold Your Hand” a handful of schoolgirls finished the beat. 40 plus years after the song was released… in a Spanish speaking country. Only The Beatles. Who else could make those outfits work?

These are shows that are still in the works. Otherwise all 5 of these would be Arrested Development.

5. The Office

The Office audience has tapered off in recent years but I’m still glued to its characters. I was first taken with The Office due to its nice mesh-up of quirky characters ebbing their way through the minutia of life. The show is especially funny for anybody who has had the inopportunity of working in an office and has seen the inner-workings of the all too common awkward moments. But The Office is so great in the way that it not only lampoons and highlights these daily occurrences but illustrates how relationships are influenced by them. Yah, Jim Halpert’s pranks and Michael Scott’s self-destructive naiveté can and have become old to some people but its the investment in the relationships of the characters that keeps this puppy going strong season after season.

http://www.nbc.com/The_Office/

4. No Reservations w/ Anthony Bourdain

A buddy asked me if I could be best friends with anyone in the world who would it be. See picture above. There’s a lot of travel/food shows floating around the mediascape these days yet only one has the key that puts No Reservations at 4 on my list…Bourdain. His snarky rock-star personal mixed with his curiosity of global cultures electrifies the show. Aside from the cinematically crafted footage of places and people afar that can take you anywhere but your couch the writing is a poignant view of the rest of the world through a badass pair of eyes (so much so it won an award for writing at the Emmy’s). 

http://www.travelchannel.com/TV_Shows/Anthony_Bourdain

3. The Daily Show w/ Jon Stewart

Here it is, Mr. Stewart, your moment of zen. Everybody’s seen Stewart and his crew in action, but not everybody watches it every night it’s on. They should. I’m thankful for shows like The Daily Show because the thirty minutes of it’s air time redeems the 23 1/2 hours of pontificating bullshit we have to endure everywhere else. Stewart and his fellow comedians hold a mirror up to our leaders (both political and media) and does the only sane thing one can, laughs at them. In a recent interview on NPR’s FreshAir Stewart summarized the goal of his show as:

I’m less upset about politicians than the media. I feel like with politicians there is a certain inherent-you know the way I always explain it is you go to the zoo and a monkey throws its feces… it’s a monkey. but when the zookeeper is standing right there and doesn’t say ‘bad monkey!’ somebody’s gotta be the zookeeper.

Whether he is zoo-keeping or not, its funny stuff.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/?xrs=sem_b_tds_daily_show_jon_stewart

2. True Blood

What started out as a guilty pleasure is now simply a pleasure. For those of you who have averted from True Blood (I see you hiding out there, cover your webcams) because of its alleged resemblance to Twilight, throw that idea to the side. True Blood is an outright bloodbath romantic adventure. If The Daily Show is the ultimate insight into reality Trueblood is the acme of escape. Its so easy to pick up a favorite character and watch their lives build up in fall apart in whatever sick paranormal way the creators envision for us from week to week. The makers of True Blood have also perfected the art of cliff hanger so much so that each episode is more or less a fix for a lot of the fans I know. Go ahead and watch one full episode and tell me you aren’t craving to see the other side of the cliff on the next episode.

http://www.hbo.com/true-blood

1. Mad Men

Perfection. This show…I wish there was a better word for it because it’s more like a massive movie… is the ideal blend of stylistic art/ nostalgic reality and believable character development. The groundbreaking creator of The Sopranos is raking in a loyal fan-base along with 3 consecutive Emmys for Best Drama with Mad Men. The show is set in the early 60’s and is so accurate in its depiction of the period has picked up a generation of older viewers for nostalgic purposes. If reminiscence of times passed isn’t your thing, how about watching a handful of Madison Ave. kings manage the trials sobering with the inevitable changes of age and time. The stories protagonist, Don Draper, is a man who you can’t help but love. Or maybe you hate him. Well…  episode you hated him, this episode you love him, next episode you’ll pity him. The realistic personality of the different characters we encounter in our own lives can’t help but seep through the gray suits and paisley dresses.

http://www.amctv.com/videos/mad-men/

Testing one, two. Testing. Okay.

Films I love are one thing that I won’t be able to number down. It’s like a parent picking their favorite kid. So In no particular order I present the five movies you should see, have seen, or those that will cause you a world of guilt for never seeing:

Seven Samurai

If you’re one of the numerous folks who has some xenophobic disdain for foreign films and claims to they “watch movies” they don’t, “read subtitles” this is the movie to pop your foreign film cherry. While the script-writing is superb Japanese directing legend, Akira Kirosawa, has a way of dissolving the international borders and unifying his audience through imagery like that in the still above-seriously how often do you get the photographic intensity of the war-torn and duty-bound psyche like that. For those of you who haven’t been blessed enough to see it…the plot follows the struggle of a small Japanese feudal village attempting defend itself from a yearly bandit assault by enlisting the aid of a band of shady samurai. The story is so enchanting and universal it later was remade into an American flick by the name of The Magnificent Seven.

The Godfather

A lot of people (I was once one of them) stray away from The Godfather or at least roll their eyes at it due to a long history of adorning the walls of frat houses in poster form or being more often then not considered by critics the greatest thing to touch celluloid since Citizen Cane. But I dare those eye-rollers and my past self to point out one flaw in the film. So what if Coppola ended up directing Jack-fun fact. The Godfather is overflowing with a classic chiaroscuro cinematography that goes hand-in-hand with the double-edged sword that is the American dream. The cast includes film icons Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, James Caan, Diane Keaton. These guys only strengthen the already engrossing character development. Vonnegut said the key to creating a good character was for the audience to not know if they wanted to love them or kill them. That’s every character in this movie. I’ll be sure to ask Vonnegut what he thinks in the Athiest’s wing of Heaven.

Star Wars

If The Godfather is The Beatles of the movie world Star Wars has gotta be the Stones. I’d like cheat and include the entire first trilogy if I could but I’ll stick to the first (which later was retitled A New Hope). Say what you want about Lucas and his recurring sin of re-visiting his work—stay tuned for all 6 Star Wars revisiting a theater near you in 3-D form. No joke—but the man did more for cinema than anybody I can think of. Star Wars came out in a time when low-budget was the way and shitty characters who you couldn’t help but hate littered the screen. It reintroduced the monomyth while reinventing the technology of film. That’s like some giant oxymoron. A giant, fun, sci-fi/fantasy cornerstone oxymoron. I could go on about how great the film is but the true triumph of Star Wars is its birth of Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). ILM was the set production and special effects studio of the flick and would later spin off into Pixar and multiple video game  companies.

Wall-E

Yep, I just did that. Wall-E is on a top 5 movie list. If you haven’t seen Wall-E stop reading my blog and get on Netflix or go rob somebody with taste. Pixar Studios has fathered a good deal of the honorable mentions on my top movie list but this one takes the cake. It uses the guise of a children’s animated feature to be both simple and complex at the same time. If making you forget that the tale of unrequited love you are so engaged in is happening between two robots doesn’t speak for Wall-E and some of the most thoughtfully crafted cinematography does nothing for you the underlying messages of the movie might. The setting of Wall-e is literally waste of a planet humanity has left behind in the distant future. Throughout the movie the little robot encounters video recordings of the former leader of humanity. Not a political leader, but the CEO of a Global Conglomerate. Kudos to writer/director Andrew Stanton for possible the most realistic reflection of our society…in playful children’s cartoon form of course.

Titanic

My roommate and fellow movie addict was down for the other four but when I showed him Titanic on the list he wasn’t too keen with support. Okay, so maybe Titanic has a certain “chick-flick” stigma to it but doesn’t 11 Academy Awards have to say something about a movie. I mean 1 or 2 here and there could be a so-so movie…but 11? Of course politicking the academy in all the right places (cough*James Cameron*cough) isn’t the reason this movie is top five material. It just does everything right. Like The Godfather, I dare you to point out a flaw in this film. You’ve gotta love the intensity with which Cameron’s production crew wove together a period piece out on the sea. Young Leo DeCaprio was giving us a bit of foreshadowing to his acting prowess to come. It may be long and cumbersome with a bit of chick-flick dashed here and there but the epic is worth it.