Fearless

Film #25 on my '07 watch list was Jet Li's Fearless.

My NetFlix rating: 2 stars
Jamie says: Fearless? More like Plotless. Would be excusable if the fight scenes were transcendent, but they are mostly just okay.
RIYL: Sub-par Jet Li movies

Official Site
Rotten Tomatoes reviews
Wikipedia

King of Kong

Film #24 of my '07 movie list was also film #1 of my Seattle International Film Festival.

King of Kong is a documentary about Redmond, WA's own Steve Wiebe a former Boeing engineer set on breaking the world record for the arcade version of Donkey Kong. Along the way he encounters a delightfully evil advisary (Billy Mitchell) and a number of unbelievable obstacles. Avoiding the formulaic approach of similar eccentric competition-based documentaries, the film provides a fresh take on the genre. The result is a delightful film that was a big hit with the SIFF crowd.

Opens in theaters in August. According to director Seth Gordon a feature film version is in the works. I'm picturing Ben Stiller as Billy.

Official site
Another officialish looking site
Philly.com review
Geeks of Doom review

Chuck Klosterman IV

Book #19 of my '07 reading list was Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas.

A collection of previously published works, IV is classic Klosterman. If you love him and his crazy ways you'll love this collection, if you hate him then it probably makes for a good doorstop. Topics range from Britney Spears to Wilco, rock cruises to cover bands, Goth Disney to Johnny Carson and there's even a short story to top things off.

If you're cheap and/or technically inclined you can probably find a good bit of these pieces online. I'm just sayin'.

Searching For The Wrong-Eyed Jesus

Film #23 on my '07 watch list was Searching For The Wrong-Eyed Jesus.

My NetFlix rating: 4 stars
Jamie says: As accurate a depiction as you'll ever get of the back-woods Dirty South. Should give this one 5 stars just for having Harry Crews in it.
RIYL: Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner, Jim White

Official Site
Rotten Tomatoes reviews

Stranger Than Fiction

Film #22 on my '07 watch list was Stranger Than Fiction.

My NetFlix rating: 4 stars
Jamie says: A little rough around the edges, but I thoroughly enjoyed this one. Surprised me to see people slamming it as an unfunny comedy given that it seemed to be clearly a drama. Perhaps people just expected it to be funny because Will Ferrell is in it?
RIYL: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovich, The Truman Show

Official Site
Rotten Tomatoes reviews
Wikipedia page

What Light

Happy new Wilco album week! I got mines in Ballard while checking out the Norwegian Constitution Day Parade.

But I Like It

Book #18 of my '07 reading list was Joe Sacco's rock-n'-roll comic collection But I Like It.

But I Like It is a collection of Sacco's works drawn while on the road in Europe with The Miracle Workers as well as some assorted music related bits he's down for rock posters, Fat Possum Records, etc. My favorites were a series Sacco did for Agenda, a Swiss magazine, which included "The Rock Journalist" and "The Record Collector". As a whole the book is a bit of a mish-mash, but there's enough good stuff to make it a great library read.

Baseball Between The Numbers

Book #17 of my '07 reading list was Baseball Between the Numbers: Why Everything You Know About the Game is Wrong by the Baseball Prospectus folks.

Pure candy for the mathematically inclined fan of the game, Baseball Between the Numbers provides a great summary of the latest thinking in sabermetrics. With chapter titles like 'Is David Ortiz a Clutch Hitter?' (not really) and 'Why Was Kevin Maas a Bust?" (he had old player skills) each section takes on a different topic, proposes a way to study the issue and then breaks down the statistics that either back up or refute the original hypothesis. Geeky Bill James style goodness.

What is Baseball Between the Numbers?
USS Mariner review

Baseball Between The Numbers - Jonah Keri

What Happened To Kerouac?

Film #21 on my '07 watch list was What Happened to Kerouac?.

My NetFlix rating: 3 stars
Jamie says: Not much of a documentary so I'd only recommend this one to hard-core Kerouac fans. If you are a Beat junkie you'll dig the interviews with Ginsberg, Corso, Burroughs, and Snyder as well as the archived TV footage of Kerouac and the Neal Cassady clips.
RIYL: Kerouac

Rotten Tomatoes reviews