Entertainment in 2009

Films & Television

• Best recent films I saw in 2009: The best film I saw was probably Slumdog Millionaire (2008). It was more compelling than anything else, although Star Trek (2009) beat it in pure entertainment value. However, I really enjoyed District 9 (2009), The Prestige (2006), Aliens vs. Monsters (2009), Into the Storm (2009), Hear and Now (2008), Up (2009), Avatar (2009).
  
• Best classic films I saw in 2009: Adam's Rib (1949), The Thin Man (1934), and Arsenic and Old Lace (1944). Classic movies are the great untapped resource of entertainment. My older boys watched Arsenic and liked it.
  
• Best innovation to Home Video: Redbox. Super simple and convenient. Lots of free rental codes. One dollar per night, otherwise.
  
• The worst film I saw in 2009: Age of Innocence (1993); perhaps I was in a sour mood that day but normally an Oscar-winning historical piece, Martin Scorsese, and Daniel Day-Lewis would capture my interest. Instead I was bored silly. Transformers 2 (2009) or G.I. Joe (2009) was a more entertaining sort of brain-deadness. Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World (2005) wasn't funny at all and made me feel sorry for finding Nemo's dad, Albert Brooks.
• Recent films I wanted to see in 2009 but will have to rent in 2010: Ice Age 3, Night at the Museum 2, Public Enemies, The Informant, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, 9, The Hurt Locker, Red Cliff, Coraline, Moon.
  
• Films I didn't expect to see or like in 2009 but really did: Nim's Island (2008), The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007), Run Fatboy Run (2007). Brad Pitt gave an incredible performance as Jesse James, so much better than Benjamin Button. Nim was just a good family show and Simon Pegg, well, it's Simon Pegg.
  
• Best television show: "Survivor: Samoa." The last few seasons have been consistently excellent but this last season's evil genius, Russel, is perhaps the best player I've ever seen. Honorable mention: "Star Wars: the Clone Wars", "Mythbusters", "Dirty Jobs", and "the Office."
  
• Best Canadian TV show: Thanks to WGN and YouTube we watched 107 episodes of "Corner Gas" this year. That said, a lot of sci-fi gets made in Vancouver, so maybe Stargate or something should go here.
• Worst Anticlimax on TV: the final episodes of "Battlestar Galactica." Good drama and great sci-fi can be derailed by poor show-planning. You never want an ending that requires selective re-invention of the show's characters and mythos.
  

Books, Games, & Miscellaneous

• Best fictional book I read in 2009: Watchmen (Alan Moore, 1986), and The Noticer (Andy Andrews, 2009). I also read and re-read The Shack (Wm. Paul Young, 2007) but I'm still not sure how I feel about that one.
  
• Best non-fiction book I read in 2009: The Undertaking (Thomas Lynch, 1997). How could you not like a book about death, written by a poet/funeral director? I also liked Heaven (Randy Alcorn, 2004), The Forgotten Man (Amity Shlaes, 2008), and Legacy of Ashes (Tim Weiner, 2007).
  
• Books I wanted to read in 2009 but will have to read in 2010: Liberty and Tyranny (Mark Levin, 2009) and An Appeal to Reason, (Nigel Lawson, 2009). That and the growing stack of 25 or 30 books that continue to tower over me.
  
• Best board games I played in 2009: Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride. Catan has more depth while Ticket is more accessible and quicker to play.
• Best video game I played in 2009: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2006). Zelda games are almost always the best crafted, well-balanced games out there. I also liked Punch Out Wii, Mario Kart Wii, and Super Mario Bros Wii, largely for their nostalgic factor.
  
• Best new Gaming Platform: My iPhone. I really enjoyed "Eliminate" and "I Dig It" but for easy mindless fun, I must of played 1000 hours (five minutes at a time) of "Flood-It!"
  
• New favorite restaurant in 2009: bd's Mongolian Barbeque in Overland Park. Perhaps the only place I could go to everyday and not eat the same thing.

What did my kids do for entertainment in 2009? They played all of the Lego games on the Wii and, late in the year, Brennan and Tanner picked up the Nintendo DS. Brennan began to show interest in RPG games and longer puzzle solving games. Elijah came into his own on the Wii, playing a lot of Warioland Shake-it and other platformer-type games. They all were desperate to play the Rock Band games, but the cost and some of the content prevented us from investing in it.

My older boys loved the television show Star Wars: the Clone Wars. They're also fans of idiot shows like Sponge Bob and Chowder, etc. They watch these shows to undo the gains from homeschooling.

Here is last year's list: Entertainment 2008