Virtual Fools

The Virtual Fools are proud to present the “best” of 2007. The judging criteria has been quite rigorous: “pick your favorites of the good stuff that you actually got to watch/read/hear/play/experience.” Read on!

Best Film

Kevin - The most touching film I saw this year was The Savages (directed by Tamara Jenkins). Despite the fact that it virtually oozed “indie” and felt similar to many recent vintage pop-indie films during key scenes (especially Little Miss Sunshine), it was by turns serious and funny. This will probably go down as the year of Philip Seymour Hoffman – though each of the last two years could also have that distinction – what with this and Charlie Wilson’s War. The Savages probably affected me as much as it did because of certain autobiographical resonances, but does not deserve the totally best-of distinction.

What does deserve this accolade, as Bobby will confirm, is Hot Fuzz. I saw it several times in the theaters. But the DVD has really defined the experience for me. Let me put it this way: I watch Hot Fuzz when I don’t know what else to do. It is able to simultaneous affirm (which is to say, successfully mimic and include) the main conventions of several genres (not the least of which are the contemporary action film, the horror movie, the buddy cop movie, and the murder mystery) while inverting, subverting, and flat-out making fun of them. It is funny, scary, gross, heart-warming, entertaining, and very unique.

Bobby - I saw Hot Fuzz three times in the theater this year. I never see movies more than once in the theater. Hell, I rarely see movies once while they’re on the big screen. Written by Edgar Wright of Shaun of the Dead fame and starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost of the same, Hot Fuzz is a buddy-cop action-horror-thriller set in a small British village with a suspiciously low crime-rate. Hot Fuzz is the perfect film: It’s clever writing and comedic delivery is accented by the fact that it’s both a great action film and suspenseful. Most movies have a hard enough time getting just one of these right, but Hot Fuzz skillfully executes all three. I mean, how many comedies can you actually say you need to see on the big screen? And how many movies have cameos from Stephen Merchant and Steve Coogan? And one last question: Is it true that there’s a point on a man’s head where if you shoot it, it will blow up?

Best Documentary or Small Release Film

Kevin - I was able to see a good number of smaller-run films in 2007. One of the best – a film of interest to most of VF’s readership – is The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (directed by Seth Gordon). This documentary follows the back and forth struggle between the world’s two best Donkey Kong players. The battle manages to assume epic proportions while at the same time revealing the very human strengths and flaws of the central players. Though focused on the rather well-publicized controversy over the official high score, the movie also provides crucial back story for and documentation of early video game tournament/competition culture, talks about the rise of Twin Galaxies, and showcases interesting archival material. Though far from glossy, it gives due attention to a different kind of hero.

Bobby - Unlike my educated colleague, I am but a philistine and did not see anything like this. I have dishonored the Virtual Fools name.

Best Book

Kevin - Though maybe not the most important book of 2007, Michael Palin’s Diaries: 1969-1979 has been the most enjoyable thing I’ve read in a long, long time. Edited down from thousands and thousands of pages of a personal diary (regularly kept since the year that Monty Python’s Flying Circus first aired), Palin’s personal world becomes yours. Sure, there are the inevitable laundry lists of what he ate during particularly good or bad days, lots of regretful notices of having drank too much the night before, and several instances of straight-forward malaise. Despite the few details too many, the diaries are refreshingly personal, revealing the honest opinions of a forthright and funny man. In addition to Palin’s personal world (his views on parenting and on taking care of his ailing father are especially poignant), he provides inside, gritty detail on the social and artistic world of the Monty Python troupe. He also chronicles his first shot at film stardom (Jabberwocky) and his personal struggle to see the completion of his and Terry Jones’s series of Ripping Yarns.

Bobby - I must recuse myself from this one as the only two books that I bought this year that were released this year were Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which I read about half of before getting caught up in school work, and The Exploit: A Theory of Networks by Alexander Galloway and Eugene Thacker, which I just got for Christmas. The beach is where I usually get my reading done, but I only spent one week in Jersey this summer and my accomplishments illustrate that. At least this keeps me on par with the rest of the country.

Best Book Read (Not Necessarily Released this Year)

Kevin - This is a pretty-well impossible category for me. I generally read a book per week (more during the height of the school year). Forgoing academic film studies books, I’ll just throw a random title out there: The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy. If you have not heard of it, look it up. Honestly, it was not the most fulfilling read of the year, but it was the longest and one of the most canonical. Thus, “Longest Book Read this Year” award goes to The Forsyte Saga, a massive undertaking of 3 books and two bridge stories which shows the transition from Victorian to Edwardian to Second World War era England.

Bobby - Most every student I’ve talked to who took John Haidt’s Psych 101 class at the University of Virginia has been unabashed about professing their love for the man. There’s a Facebook group called “If John Haidt Started a Cult I Would Join it Immediately.” During the year I took the course we got to read some draft chapters from his upcoming book The Happiness Hypothesis. At the beginning of the semester I tacked the tradeback edition onto an Amazon order to get free shipping. I highly recommend it because it’s an easy read from the field of positive psychology: a discipline that says that psychology doesn’t just have to fix problems, it can also take people who are feeling fine and make them feel any better. Haidt uses plenty of colorful examples to illustrate concrete psychological facts that can help improve your life: things that you can think about so the world doesn’t bog you down. It’s helped me and maybe you can find something in it for you too.

Most Consistent T.V. ShowKevin - Entourage! See below.

Bobby - TV categories are difficult because you have to decide whether you want to look at the end of the Spring shows or the Fall line-up. The Sopranos ended with a… something, but I didn’t care about it any more. I couldn’t begin to tell you how 24 ended this year. Season 3 of The Office was awesome. The first season of Heroes, which I didn’t start watching until this Fall, was fantastic. Veronica Mars, which concluded its series’ run in the Spring stayed strong despite its rocky relationship with the network. But these should really be classified as last year.

This Fall featured a lot of inconsistent shows. The two I made the effort to watch weren’t the best ever. The Office had its ups and downs and Heroes had a generally downward trajectory. The writers’ strike hasn’t helped things either. Now that there are no new episodes of anything I’d want to watch, I’ve stopped watching any live television that doesn’t include the letters NCAA or NFL.

So, instead, I will turn to this summer for a show that never ceased to entertain: Entourage. Entourage has maintained its quality by playing on the strengths of the characters, the spectacle of Hollywood, and story arcs that are interesting enough to create some coherence between all the little ridiculous plots. This award is all about consistency, and Entourage was the only show I watched that delivered it.

Best “New” Show

Kevin - Though it first reared its head in 2006, I am going to consider Clark and Michael, the internet parody serial created by Michael Cera and Clark Duke, to be a “new” show. Having had my own hand in the internet serial business (as a multi-tasker on John Kenneth Muir’s The House Between), I know the charms and limitations of the format. Clark and Michael brushes that line between fact and fiction, self-parody and self-actualization: Michael and Clark play aspiring writers and actors working the Hollywood circuit in pursuit of their T.V. show. Cameos and absolutely off-the-wall events are the norm. Though Michael Cera has recently achieved something approaching stardom (Juno and Superbad have the world singing his praises), Clark and Michael shows him at his most candid, raw, and true.

Bobby – I need to phone this one in because I just tried to publish the story, got an error, and realized when I went back that it hadn’t saved the newest version of our article. I wrote a nice piece about how I didn’t watch any new TV because I didn’t want to make time for it. My lengthy explanation is now gone and I don’t feel like rewriting it. Basically it boiled down to: ‘there are a ton of talented people working in television, TV is not dead, and 2008 will be about how we watch as much as what we watch.’ Maybe then I’ll have a favorite new show.

Best Album

Kevin - I’ll go with another cheat: best “archival” release. For my money, the most important (as well as most interesting, challenging, and out-of-nowhere) jazz release (partially a re-lease…sorry about all of these qualifying statements) is Webster Lewis – The Club 7 Live Tapes. Lewis was mostly known for his compositions in the disco era and into the early 1980s. This set, culled from performances in Oslo, Norway in 1971 tastefully mixes soul, acid jazz, funk, and danceable beats. Lewis covers “It’s Your Thing” to great effect, but the real gems are the original compositions. Extended, jazzy, out-there, soulful….wish I had been at Club 7 back when these were recorded!

Bobby - I maintain that anybody who says music sucks right now isn’t trying hard enough. We have unparalleled access to back catalogues and increasingly varied access to new music. Even the “bad radio pop” that people complain about isn’t all that terrible—it’s just not to many discriminating tastes. Last year kicked off the start of my expanding music taste and this year was a barrage of new things to listen to. I could probably name ten albums off the top of my head that I thought were great this year. Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible, Les Savy Fav’s Let’s Stay Friends, Radiohead In Rainbows, Spoon’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, The National’s Boxer, Person Pitch by Panda Bear, Sounds of Silver by LCD Soundsystem, or even scary-lady Amy Winehouse’s soulful Back to Black… just a handful of what I can think of right now and that doesn’t even count the stuff I haven’t heard. And the stuff that I recognize as good music but is just not my taste. And the stuff I listened to that I loved but wouldn’t consider for the list. A hard decision to make. Oh, and sorry Kanye, I thought you CD was very mediocre.

In the end, I’ve decided to go with M.I.A.’s Kala. There’s so much going on in each song that I discover something new on each listen. It integrates a huge variety of global influences and shows maturation from her first album. It’s an album that I can both study with and party to. The M.I.A. music video aesthetic is fascinating too. She’s a great artist that everyone should give at least one listen to.

Best Album Discovered (Not Necessarily Released this Year)

Kevin - I’ve discovered sooooo many good albums this year (see my favorite internet service of the year). I will just say that Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s Brotherman in the Fatherland is one of the most amazing things I have ever heard. Everything on the jazz spectrum done better, with more style, and more verve. Getting away from jazz a bit, Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain is as close to essential as you can get. For novelty value, try Psychedelic Shack by The Temptations. You will never think of them in the same way again.

Bobby - Kevin showed me a documentary earlier this year about a band most people have forgotten. It’s the other quartet of mop-headed Brits: The Rutles. From Rutland, England, the Rutles have a spread of music that sounds similar to counter-parts The Beatles. So similar in fact, that you’d think they just copied them… Hmm…

Actually, for those who don’t know, The Rutles is a parody group of The Beatles created by Monty Python writer/actor Eric Idle and songwriter Neil Innes. Unlike parody groups that just make fun of their source material, The Rutles are more a style parody. While the movie highlights just how ridiculous some of the things in the lives of The Beatles were, the songs are every bit as catchy as the originals. More than parody, the songs are tributes to the McCartney and Lennon style. So The Rutles’ self titled album takes top accords this year. Do I have to spell it out? C-H-E-E-S-E-A-N-D-O-N-I-O-N-S.

Best Game

Kevin - 2007 was a good year for games. I liked a good deal of what I saw, excepting the repeated themes and relative lack of thematic expansion. The most fun I had , despite my trepidation with the genre, was with Rock Band. Perfect multi-player bliss. Simple, addictive, fun for the hardcore and the novice alike. Plus, it is a game for which usual taboos and barriers are easily broken down. Though Rock Band was probably not the best game of the year, I can’t speak with the same authority as Bobby. My gaming lies in the recent past!

Bobby - A flurry of games came in at the end of the year, as usual. I’m not enjoying Super Mario Galaxy as much as I expected. I mean, it’s a fun play, but it’s a Mario game. I think I expected to be blown out of the water by the use of the Wii’s controls and instead am just satisfied. Not that that’s a bad thing, but it just puts it in top 2-5. BioShock also deserves a spot in the top 2-5, along with Puzzle Quest and Rock Band.

That means #1 goes to Portal. I choose Portal instead of Orange Box in general because two of the things had been released before, I still haven’t played Half-Life 2: Episode 2, and while amusing I don’t think of Team Fortress 2 as anything spectacular. But Portal was the only game this year I just never wanted to stop playing. Annoying Internet obsession with Weighted Companion Cubes and Cake aside, the portal mechanic was compelling and the puzzles were engaging. I felt a great sense of satisfaction from solving the puzzles and even more when I started to think outside the straightforward solution and tear my way through levels. It was also fairly ‘subversive’ as it did interesting things with gender and violence. The most interesting game I’ve played in a long while.

Best Game Played (Not Necessarily Released this Year)

Kevin - Let’s take a trip back 5+ years to when Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind was THE game. In my mind, games have long shelf-lives and often work best after fine aging. While Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is “better” in almost every regard, I could very easily play Morrowind on my computer without overtaxing everything. Though the world currently loves MMORPGs, I find that in my gaming world, hell is often other people. What better way to escape from their grasp than to plunge into a nearly endless world. Though I can’t bring myself to beat the game – and at 100+ hours, I really should – I can confidently say that Morrowind has given me my best experiences of the year. As I just purchased a PS2, I am pretty sure that next year might be a year of console exploration. But for now, shut your friends out of the house, sit back, and get re-acquainted with the single player PC RPG experience.

Bobby - I finally finished up Final Fantasy XII in October. It’s by far my favorite entry in the series to date and ranks as my third favorite RPG and second favorite PS2 game. It did everything I want out of a role-playing game. I found the gambit system to work extremely well, taking the monotony out of constant menu-commands and improving the pacing of battles. The story left a little to be desired, but its competency was complimented by some of the best voice-acting I’ve heard to date. I could listen to the woman who voiced Fran talk and Balthier make snide comments all day long. It’s a good sign when you don’t want to strangle the main male protagonist—Vaan is 100x better than Tidus. I had a great time with the game and would enjoy playing it again if I didn’t have so many other titles on my plate. I am now playing FFXII: Revenant Wings for the DS, though, which is like a temporary fix for my FFXII habit.

Best Hardware Release

Kevin - NOT GONNA LIE. My 80 gb Zune is pretty much just what the doctor ordered. Holds what I need it to, can be used for video (though that is not my scene – I own a 32 inch television for a reason), and is relatively small and space-compact. For those of you who have not heard it personally, my desire to embrace the Zune stems from my intense distaste for iTunes. It uses too many resources when it runs, it is too big on the screen, it ruthlessly overwhelms and takes-over one’s music collection. Though the iPod is a great little device, it means transporting my eMusic and Winamp loving self over to a standard which I am very much against. So, for 2007, the monstrous 80gb is a winner.

Bobby – That iPhone is pretty nifty, but its just a fancy phone. My hardware release choice is a little generic, but it’s meant to capture a growing trend. That would be the affordable notebook computer. The OLPC (one-laptop per-child) project aimed to create a $100 laptop that could be sold or donated to developing countries so that children in those education systems would at least not be so far behind the digital curve that first world countries were blazing along. The whole thing is complicated, but the gesture is nice. Everybody who wants access to computers and the Internet should be given a chance. And while the OLPC missed its mark by about $100 dollars, it had smart minds at MIT on the job. Then there’s the Intel Classmate, which has received decidedly better reviews than the OLPC and has been picked up in more countries. Even inexpensive lightweight laptops are coming on the consumer front: ASUS’s Eee PC rocks a build of Linux to do basic computer tasks starting at just $300. And have you seen low-end Dell and HP laptops lately? If all you want is a working computer, you can get an extremely cheap mass-market laptop. Basic technology should be affordable and I hope it becomes even more so in 2008.

Best Internet Service

Kevin - I have sung its praises elsewhere, but eMusic.com has become my go-to place for all things music. They are limited – only a relatively small selection of labels, incomplete catalogs for some of their holdings, and relatively weak classic rock holdings – but provide a great venue for discovering the new and the different. Since I started on eMusic in November of 2006, I’ve discovered many favorite artists (The Pharaohs, Piero Umiliani, Eric Dolphy, Gazzara, The Cinematic Orchestra, etc) and have filled in my knowledge of previous favorites. I have found several all-time favorite versions and tracks. I pay $20 a month for 10+ albums, an addiction which would cost over $100 if I were still doing it the old fashion way.

Bobby – More than anything else, I’ve enjoyed using Tumblr this year. Tumblr is a microblogging service that allows the user to post really simple entries either from scratch or other websites using a simple javascript bookmark. You can post links, quotes, chat/IM logs, pictures, and videos. Say you’re on YouTube and you find a video you want to share with your friends. You just click the special bookmark button and it will automatically pull out the video, embed it, link to it, and allow you to comment if you wish. You can also have it import feeds automatically, like your Twitter updates or Google Reader shared items. It’s a fast and easy way to get interesting material out there. Quick to post, quick to read, and generally clutterless. One of the things I like about it is that it’s built to work for people who aren’t signed up for the service, but adds another layer of functionality if you befriend other people using the service.

Favorites Website/Blog

Kevin - The internet has no shortage of film blogs. One of the very best is Greencine Daily. Greencine is a service which is comparable to Netflix but positions itself as being aimed at the the world cinephile. Though I’m not a member of the service, I like the fact that the content is backed up by very passionate people. The “Daily” blog over at Greencine contains festival reports and roundups, condensed news (beyond celebrity gossip), notices of new books, links to reviews, and much more. It is well written, generally brief, and quite comprehensive. I recommend it to all film enthusiasts.

Bobby - Thanks to Google Reader and RSS feeds, I read more stories and articles this year than probably the last five years combined. Granted, I tore through some at a blazing pace just to see a headline or the gist of the article, but anything that piqued my interest I took the time out for. It should come as no surprise that video game blogs account for at least half of the stories I read: Joystiq, Kotaku, GameSetWatch, GameSpot, Destuctoid–all great, but I did have one favorite. Chris Kohler’s Wired Games blog Game|Life was consistently interesting, well written, and had a good mix of personal and professional flavor. Most of the articles from the year are by Kohler and Susan Arendt, but even the newer contributing writers have maintained the same level of quality. The nice thing about the blog is that it doesn’t feel it has to post on every single story that comes out. You can continue to go to Joystiq or Kotaku to make sure you don’t miss a beat, and turn to Game|Life to get a couple quality stories a day. Keep up the good work in ’08, Chris and Susan.

Life-Saving Technology/Software of the Year

Kevin - We’ve got gadgets and gizmos aplenty. In all honesty, there has been nothing new in 2007 that I didn’t have access to in 2006. I will venture that one bit of technological brilliance that I discovered this year (though it has been around for a while) is Extract Now. Simple, elegant, compact, this program cleanly and effortless extracts compressed data. I still wake up nights in a cold-sweat dreaming about the terrible days of yore in which I had to use awful programs like StuffIt and WinZip on my Mac. Ugghhh.

Bobby - The Gmail Java application for my phone is actually something I don’t think I could live without. It loads my mail quickly, giving me on-the-go access to important information. Some people do this with fancy phones and e-mail services, but to be able to do it on a crappy Motorolla phone is what makes it so special. Combined with IM forwarding from AIM, my cell phone became a more useful piece of communication technology this year. I’ll e-mail myself directions or phone numbers I might need when I’m out and about. It helped keep me in touch with all the people I was e-mailing about housing when I was moving down to Atlanta. I’m not the kind of person who feels they need to be tethered to their e-mail, but I do like having the option of being there when I want to.

2007 Will Go Down as the Year…

Kevin - …of the “bad idea.” Lots of things that were started in previous years have been found to have been terrible ideas. Americans finally realized that their mortgages, which seemed too good to be true, really were too good to be true. Political discontent (with no viable outlets, just a public fiasco of an election) ruled the day, HD broadcasting ruled the night, and consumerism worked around the clock in its upward spiral to outdo itself. If this warning sounds pessimistic, it is for a reason. Out with 2007. Towards 2008. Onwards!

Bobby - …of the microcosm. Technology once shrank the Earth. We could get to far new reaches of the world in boats. We could send letters across the seas and land. We could telegraph and then call. We could transmit images and information via satellite. Then we laid a network of phone lines and Internet lines which could connect every computer to every other computer. Then the consumer got bored with expanding their horizons and turned inward. And the content producers said, “we want to keep you here so we can have your undivided attention.” I’m as guilty as anybody else, I’ll admit it. I have the news I want to read delivered to me directly and ignore the rest. I use a ton of web services that operate independently of each other. I use Xbox Live which only talks with Microsoft products. I instant message and chat with far fewer people these days than in the past. I even wrote an article talking about the need to break up the conflation of Facebook and MySpace. This wasn’t the first year of the microcosm, obviously. But it will probably be a good average year when we look back on it. Here’s to the future, whatever it may bring.