Lee Nau

I wrote 192 reviews on 50 Words in 2009. Of these, only 30 were reviews of things I saw, read, or listened to before 2009.

I’ll recap the year with four top ten lists, one bottom ten list, and a Nominee Project status. The books, TV series, and music I reviewed were all decent.

The Best Movies

1. Once (2006) – Grade: A+
2. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007) – Grade: A+
3. Milk (2008) – Grade: A+
4. No Country for Old Men (2007) – Grade: A+
5. The Double Life of Veronique (1991) – Grade: A+
6. The Dark Knight (2008) – Grade: A+
7. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) – Grade: A+
8. The Spanish Apartment (2002) – Grade: A
9. Before Sunrise (1995) – Grade: A
10. Juno (2007) – Grade: A

The Best Music

1. India.Arie — Acoustic Soul (2001) – Grade: A+
2. Sonny Stitt — The Good Life (1980) – Grade: A
3. Norah Jones — Come Away With Me (2002) – Grade: A
4. Dizzy Gillespie — Dizzy Gillespie Jam: Montreux ‘77 (1992) – Grade: A
5. DJ Sake1 — Fania Live 03 (2008) – Grade: A
6. Antonio Carlos Jobim — Live at Minas (2004) – Grade: A
7. Norah Jones — Feels Like Home (2004) – Grade: A
8. Take 6 — The Standard (2008) – Grade: A
9. Andy Caldwell — Late Night with Andy Caldwell (2005) – Grade: A
10. Aya — Strange Flower (2004) – Grade: A-

The Best Books

1. Daniel Coyle — The Talent Code (2009) – Grade: A+
2. Twyla Tharp — The Creative Habit (2005) – Grade: A+
3. Richard Bode — First You Have to Row a Little Boat (1993) – Grade: A+
4. Cormac McCarthy — The Road (2006) – Grade: A
5. Steven Pressfield — The War of Art (2003) – Grade: A
6. Pavel Tsatsouline — Enter the Kettlebell (2006) – Grade: A
7. Jim Johnson — The Sixty Second Motivator (2006) – Grade: A
8. Josh Waitzkin — The Art of Learning (2008) – Grade: A-
9. Karen Salmansohn — The Bounce Back Book (2008) – Grade: A-
10. Pavel Tsatsouline — Power to the People (1999) – Grade: A-

The Best TV on DVD

1. John Adams (2008) – Grade: A+
2. Carnivàle, Season 1 (2003) – Grade: A+
3. Roswell, Season 1 (1999) – Grade: A
4. Long Way Round (2004) – Grade: A
5. Roswell, Season 2 (2000) – Grade: A
6. Heroes, Season 1 (2006) – Grade: A
7. Californication, Season 1 (2007) – Grade: A
8. Long Way Down (2007) – Grade: A
9. Heroes, Season 2 (2007) – Grade: A
10. Roswell, Season 3 (2001) – Grade: A

The Worst Movies

1. You Don’t Mess with the Zohan (2008) – Grade: F
2. Treasure Island (1999) – Grade: D-
3. A Delicate Balance (1973) – Grade: D-
4. A Boy and His Dog (1975) – Grade: D
5. Nowhere (1997) – Grade: D
6. Darkon (2006) – Grade: C-
7. Timeline (2003) – Grade: C-
8. True Stories (1986) – Grade: C-
9. 10 (1979) – Grade: C-
10. Pizza (2005) – Grade: C

Nominee Project Status

• Total films: 2512
• Viewed: 740 (29.46%)
• Unavailable: 312 (12.42%)
• Left to see: 1460 (58.12%)

Review Stats

• Movies: 138 (GPA: 3.21 – B+)
• Music: 24 (GPA: 3.65 – A-)
• Books: 13 (GPA: 3.77 – A-)
• TV: 17 (GPA: 3.76 – A-)

• Total: 192 (GPA: 3.35 – B+)

Between January 1 and August 1, I wrote 128 reviews on 50 Words. Most of them are things I’ve seen, listened to, or read for the first time. Here are the highlights:

The Best Movies

1. Once (2006) – Grade: A+
2. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007) – Grade: A+
3. Milk (2008) – Grade: A+
4. No Country for Old Men (2007) – Grade: A+
5. The Dark Knight (2008) – Grade: A+
6. The Spanish Apartment (2002) – Grade: A
7. Before Sunrise (1995) – Grade: A
8. Juno (2007) – Grade: A
9. Cloverfield (2008) – Grade: A
10. The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) – Grade: A

The Best Music

1. India.Arie — Acoustic Soul (2001) – Grade: A+
2. Sonny Stitt — The Good Life (1980) – Grade: A
3. Norah Jones — Come Away With Me (2002) – Grade: A
4. Dizzy Gillespie — Dizzy Gillespie Jam: Montreux ‘77 (1992) – Grade: A
5. DJ Sake1 — Fania Live 03 (2008) – Grade: A
6. Norah Jones — Feels Like Home (2004) – Grade: A
7. Take 6 — The Standard (2008) – Grade: A
8. Aya — Strange Flower (2004) – Grade: B+
9. DJ Rumor — Fania Live 01 (2007) – Grade: B+
10. John Tejada & Arian Leviste — The Dot and the Line (2004) – Grade: B+

The Worst Movies

1. You Don’t Mess with the Zohan (2008) – Grade: F
2. Treasure Island (1999) – Grade: D-
3. A Delicate Balance (1973) – Grade: D-
4. A Boy and His Dog (1975) – Grade: D
5. Nowhere (1997) – Grade: D
6. 28 Up (1985) – Grade: C-
7. Darkon (2006) – Grade: C-
8. True Stories (1986) – Grade: C-
9. 10 (1979) – Grade: C-
10. Pizza (2005) – Grade: C

A little over 18 months ago, I posted here about The Nominee Project. Recently, I finally got around to adding the nominated movies of the 2009 Awards shows to the database.

Since that post a while back, I’ve added two years worth of nominees to the database. As is obvious from the frequency I post here, I’m not Johnny-on-the-spot with updates. I’m trying to rectify that in the future.

Today, the tally stands as follows:

• Total films: 2512
• Viewed: 723 (28.78%)
• Unavailable: 316 (12.58%)
• Left to see: 1473 (58.64%)

Since last time, I’ve seen 104 nominees. That’s about 1.3 per week. I’m never going to knock out the back log at that pace. Thankfully, the nearby public library supplements my Netflix queue. Check your local public library. They probably let you check out DVDs. Just watch the due date.

I wrote 122 reviews on 50 Words. Most of them were things I listened to or saw for the first time. I’ll round up the year with three top 10 lists: the best movies, the worst movies, and the best music. I’ll skip the worst music list, since none of the music I reviewed on 50 words rated a grade lower than C+. As for the books and TV categories, top 10 lists are useless if there aren’t more than 10 items in those categories. I’ll try harder in 2009.

The Best Movies

1. Unforgiven – Grade: A+
2. Mongol – Grade: A+
3. Downfall – Grade: A+
4. There Will Be Blood – Grade: A
5. Iron Man – Grade: A
6. Zodiac – Grade: A
7. The 40 Year Old Virgin – Grade: A
8. 3:10 to Yuma – Grade: A
9. The Good Shepherd – Grade: A
10. Into the Wild – Grade: A

The Best Music

1. Eva Cassidy – Songbird – Grade: A++
2. Bill Evans – Waltz for Debby – Grade: A++
3. Charles Mingus – Mingus Ah Um – Grade: A++
4. Jim Croce – Photographs and Memories – Grade: A+
5. John Coltrane – Live at Birdland – Grade: A+
6. Jim Croce – Have You Heard – Grade: A+
7. Tina Dico – In the Red – Grade: A
8. Om: Summer Sessions – Grade: A
9. San Francisco Sessions, vol. 6: Inland Knights & Olivier Desmet – Grade: A
10. Bargrooves: Members Only – Grade: A

The Worst Movies

1. September Dawn – Grade: F
2. Dahmer – Grade: D-
3. The Love Machine – Grade: D-
4. Mad Dog Morgan – Grade: D-
5. The Children of Sanchez – Grade: D-
6. Fellini’s Roma – Grade: D
7. Moonraker – Grade: D
8. Federal Hill – Grade: D
9. Square Dance – Grade: D
10. Balls of Fury – Grade: D

I seem to be superb at neglecting this blog. I haven’t written anything here in six months. I’ve still been posting, just mostly on 50 Words. We’ve now passed 550 posts over there. Here are the bests so far in 2008 (at least the ones I’ve seen/heard for the first time in 2008).

Top Ten Movies

1. Downfall – Grade: A+
2. There Will Be Blood – Grade: A
3. Iron Man – Grade: A
4. Zodiac – Grade: A
5. 3:10 to Yuma – Grade: A
6. The Good Shepherd – Grade: A
7. Into the Wild – Grade: A
8. I Am Legend – Grade: A-
9. The Savages – Grade: A-
10. Charlie Wilson’s War – Grade: A-

Top Ten Albums

1. Eva Cassidy – Songbird – Grade: A++
2. Charles Mingus – Mingus Ah Um – Grade: A++
3. Jim Croce – Photographs and Memories – Grade: A+
4. John Coltrane – Live at Birdland – Grade: A+
5. Tina Dico – In the Red – Grade: A
6. Om: Summer Sessions – Grade: A
7. San Francisco Sessions, vol. 6: Inland Knights & Olivier Desmet – Grade: A
8. Bargrooves: Members Only 2 – Grade: A
9. Chuck Love – Bring Enough to Spill Some – Grade: A-
10. Bliss – Quiet Letters – Grade: A-

Nearly two years ago, I decided to undertake a monumental task to diversify my cinematic literacy (to coin a phrase). I haven’t written about it here before. As awards season for the 2007 films approaches, it is a good time to review my Nominee Project, which I originally mentioned on my old blog.

The Nominee Project

My goal is to watch every movie nominated for an Oscar, Golden Globe, and Independent Spirit Award — during the course of my life. I was born in 1971, just before the Oscar ceremony. So, this list includes any film nominated for one of those three awards from 1971 until now (no matter when it was filmed or released).

Not every movie gets to be on my master list, though. I decided I could exclude movies for one of three reasons. I think this is a fair exclusions list.

Exclusion Reasons

1. Best Original Song — If a movie was nominated only for “Best Original Song”, it’s excluded. I don’t need to see a Disney sequel because Phil Collins won a Grammy.
2. Short Subjects — I’m not going to go running around trying to find nominees of “Best Documentary Short”, “Best Live Action Short”, or “Best Animated Short” categories on 8mm. Short subject films are really difficult to find, especially old ones.
3. Unavailable on DVD — I don’t currently own a VHS or have access to a sufficiently diverse video cassette rental place. DVDs that are likely to be released in the future are generally savable on Netflix. I’m not going to track down movies on weird formats.

How many is that, anyway?

Not including the recently announced Golden Globes, Academy Awards, or Independent Spirit Awards, my database says:

• Total Films: 2344
• Total Viewed: 619 (26.41%)
• Unavailable: 319 (13.61%)
• Left to See: 1406 (59.98%)

How long will it take?

I suspect that I will be working on this list for a very long time. There are currently 477 movies in my Netflix queue, but the four at my house right now have been sitting here for a few weeks. I am hoping to be all caught up with the current year by the time I turn 50. That’s 13 years from now. It’s not a full-time project, though.

How to follow along

Since I decided to undertake this project a while ago, I’ve been writing reviews of everything I watch, whether it’s new or not, as well as everything I listen to, on 50 Words — my blog of reviews, each of which is exactly 50 words long (no more and no less). 50 Words started before I came up with this project, but it has helped me focus and track my progress.

I listened to a lot of really great music in 2007 and reviewed 97 albums, almost all of them jazz, on 50 Words. Ignoring albums I’d heard before, but never reviewed, that still leaves a whole lot of really phenomenal music that came through my headphones in 2007. Many of these albums I’d heard excerpts of, but never listened to the album all the way through. While very few of them were horrible, a few of them were just not that great (although some of the albums in the “worst” list were still albums I graded above a C). A lot of them, in contrast, were superb.

I guess I have a higher tolerance for bad movies than I do for bad music.

The Best

1. Dizzy Gillespie & Charlie Parker — Town Hall, New York City, June 22, 1945 (2005) – A++
2. Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane — At Carnegie Hall (2005) – A++
3. Bill Evans — Complete February 1972 Paris ORTF Performance (2006) – A++
4. John Coltrane — A Love Supreme (1964) – A++
5. Miles Davis — Kind of Blue (1959) – A++
6. Clifford Brown — Clifford Brown Memorial Album (1953) – A++
7. Dave Brubeck — Time Out (1959) – A++
8. John Coltrane — Live European Tours (2001) – A++
9. Sonny Stitt — Personal Appearance (1957) – A+
10. Eric Dolphy — The Illinois Concert (1999) – A+

The Worst

1. Eric Dolphy — Wherever I Go (2000) – D-
2. Dave Valentin — Come Fly With Me (2006) – C
3. Andy LaVerne — Double Standard (1993) – C
4. Oscar Peterson — A Jazz Portrait of Frank Sinatra (1959) – C
5. Bill Evans — Eloquence (1982) – C
6. Ella Fitzgerald — Ella By Starlight (1993) – C+
7. Charlie Parker — Congo Blues (1993) – C+
8. Stan Getz — At the Shrine (1955) – C+
9. Stanley Jordan — Stolen Moments (1991) – B-
10. Various Artists — Spike & Co: Do It A Cappella (1988) – B-

I saw a lot of movies in 2007. I am a huge movie fan, with 480 movies in my Netflix Queue. Since early 2006, I’ve been writing reviews of everything I listen to, watch, or read over on 50 Words. To recap 2007, here are the ten best and ten worst movies I saw for the first time in 2007. As an added bonus, I’ve included the ten best documentaries at no additional charge!

The Best

1. The Simpsons Movie (2007) – A+
2. The Lives of Others (2006) – A+
3. Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) – A+
4. 300 (2006) – A+
5. Au Revoir, Les Enfants (1987) – A+
6. Paris, Je T’aime (2006) – A
7. Akeelah and the Bee (2006) – A
8. The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) – A
9. 3-Iron (2004) – A
10. Letters From Iwo Jima (2006) – A

The Worst

1. Forty Shades of Blue (2005) – F
2. Little Man (2006) – F
3. Happiness (1998) – D-
4. Palindromes (2004) – D
5. Last Days (2005) – D
6. All the Vermeers in New York (1990) – D
7. Bugsy Malone (1976) – D
8. Keane (2004) – D
9. Acts of Worship (2001) – D+
10. Ambrose Bierce: Civil War Stories (2006) – D+

The Documentaries

1. Sicko (2007) – A
2. Maxed Out (2006) – A
3. Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price (2005) – A-
4. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005) – A-
5. Why We Fight (2005) – A-
6. March of the Penguins (2005) – B+
7. Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser (1988) – B+
8. Wordplay (2006) – B+
9. Colors Straight Up (1997) – B+
10. Who Killed the Electric Car? (2006) – B

Sometimes, when we’re engaged in a new undertaking, we try to build a habit by doing this new hobby or routine every day. And sometimes, we fall off the wagon, get distracted, or let it slip our minds. Sometimes, we know we should do this thing today, but we procrastinate or make excuses. This causes us to give up more easily.

This is what I’m doing here. A month and a day ago, I wrote about Thanksgiving here. I’ve also, during the rainy and cold evenings lately, missed three workout days in the last week. When you’re on a routine, it’s really tempting to try to scramble and catch up.

Here’s what I do when I fall off the wagon. I’m no paragon of productivity or self-actualization, so this is just one guy talking.

1. Don’t try to “make up” missed days. Pick yourself up off the sidewalk, promise to do better, and don’t kick your own ass too hard. Don’t figure that you owe yourself to add another session to a later day (“I’ll go twice on Saturday” or “I’ll spend four hours writing on Sunday to make up for the three other hours I missed during the week”).
2. Don’t apologize. It’s your project. Get off the sidewalk and march on. Don’t explain or make excuses or apologize or feel bad. Just promise yourself to try to stay on track in the future. We’re human. Sometimes, we trip on the sidewalk.
3. Don’t think you’ve blown everything. I am a neurotic obsessive nutcase when it comes to my log books and my projects. Now, with these missed days (or this missed month, in the case of this blog), my record is no longer perfect. I can’t brag that I’ve written a song every day or that I learned 50 new French words a week without fail. Oops.
4. Don’t sell off your own stock so frivolously. You’ll have down days and up days. Try to trend upward and your stock is still worth buying. Start to trend downward and realize that it might be time to reorganize. Sometimes, we just don’t feel like composing, learning, or working out today.
5. Don’t make it a big deal. Kicking your own ass about it or trying to make up the “absences” will make you dread resuming your project. Building a new habit is really hard. You might as well not make it any more difficult. Are you ahead of where you were a month ago? Good. No big deal. Now, let’s go.

I’m trying to follow these guidelines myself. I’m really good at making big drama about nothing. Are you?

Since I was very young, I have been studying foreign languages. I will not name all of the languages I’ve studied, but there are nearly ten on my college transcript. Once in a while, I get bitten by the bug to jump into another language. So, it’s off to the bookstore with me to peruse the stacks.

There are a wide variety of language books in whatever you’re trying to learn. I’ve recognized that certain patterns emerge in the tone of these books. Let’s lump them into three categories (and a limited fourth one).

1. Business Travel – “I’m going to Abroadia next week for business and I’d like to be able to tell the taxi driver in passable Abroadian which hotel I’m staying at.”
2. Cultural Enrichment – “I’m ethnically Abroadian, but I grew up in America. Learning to speak some Abroadian might help me connect with my roots.” or “I’ve always been curious about traveling to Abroadia and learning more about her people.”
3. Language Student – “I want to become as fluent as possible in Abroadian, learn as much of its grammar as possible, and be able to read newspapers and websites in Abroadian, carry on conversations with people who live in Abroadia, and learn vocabulary that makes me an independent communicator.”
4. Public Service – This narrow category is generally geared toward law enforcement, health service, and legal professionals. “I’m a police officer, nurse, or lawyer and I need to be able to ascertain the needs of immigrant Abroadians living in my community.” In my local bookstore, this is primarily for Spanish and, to a limited extent, Chinese.

I place myself squarely in the third of those categories. When I’m shopping for language books, I’m always looking for the ones that have as much of the core of the grammar and vocabulary as possible. I’m actually interested in the grammar and how sentences are constructed. In shopping, there are several indicators that tell me whether or not this is going to be a book I’m likely to outgrow very quickly or whether it’s going to give me enough information to be able to read a book, even if I have to use a dictionary to translate some of the words.

Here’s a list of the things I like to find in the index of any book I, as a language student, would consider essential.

1. Broad Vocabulary – The vocabulary, reading examples, and conversations cannot be limited to tourism / travel topics.
2. Verb Conjugations – In Indo-European languages, verbs tend to have endings that vary with person, number, tense, and mood. In particular, I look up pluperfect, subjunctive, imperfect, irregular verbs, and Gerundive or gerund. Without these (regular and irregular), a language book instructing a language that has these is incomplete.
3. Noun Declensions – In most Indo-European languages, nouns, adjectives, and pronouns decline (or change endings) by person, gender, and number. Many languages have nominal cases like nominative, accusative, dative, genitive, and locative. There should be areas in the book that describe how these are used for various functions.
4. Reading Material – In addition to simple conversations, there should be some short multi-paragraph or even multi-page stories, potentially culture-related, to accustom the student to reading printed material in the target language. There’s only so long I can be entertained by limited dialogue practice.
5. Vocabulary in Chunks – I like chapters to have between 50 and 100 new words. There should be lots of exercises to allow me to use the new grammar and vocabulary. It should challenge me, but not hold my hand too protectively.
6. Cultural Material – I enjoy language instruction books that give examples and anecdotes here and there, talking about the people who speak the language. For very widespread languages, I prefer some diversity in the cultural material presented. For example, a French book should give some dialogues, stories, and culture notes about Paris — as well as the rest of France, Quebec, Monaco, Belgium and the other places where the language is used. I have an old Spanish book that assumes its readers are primarily talking to Spaniards (the word Mexico is only in the book twice). The cultural material should also be reasonably recent.
7. Interesting Content – Some instructors that write language manuals are really boring and present their material in an uninteresting, difficult-to-grasp way that loses us in a few short lessons. This is also true for language tutors or teachers. Don’t give up trying to learn German because this instructor, book, audio course, or podcast is boring.

There are a few titles I look for especially, but I’ll let the reader of this lengthy column research their needs.

One more point before I go, though. Don’t give up. As humans, we have varying degrees of interest in one topic or another. We make big strides during one period of time and are stymied in our studies during another. When we are stymied, it’s tempting for us to think we’re not intelligent or dedicated enough to master this language (or any language). Set it aside for a while and come back to it later. Any language that you care to study was around long before you were born and it will certainly outlive you. The noble people of Abroadia will wait for you.