A Country Boy Can Surmise

Besides one, I can't decide the order of my favorites of the year, so here they are in no particular order. There are lots of movies I still want to see from 2010 (especially Toy Story 3, The Social Network, Let Me In, A Piece of Work, and others) that I'm sure will go on this list, but for now, these are my picks... True Grit-I can decide that this is my favorite of the year. Based on one of my favorite novels, I thought this version perfectly captured the spirit of the book. I loved every single thing about it, but especially the score, the nuanced and subtle performance by Hallie Steinfeld, the cinematography, the trees, Little Blackie, and "the long ride" sequence that goes down in my list of my favorite movie moments. I was moved in every way by the whole movie. Black Swan-Natalie Portman's performance is incredibly powerful and the look of the film causes me to think of overused adjectives like "beautiful". Since the visuals were so origin...

There is so much good music happening today that I just cannot contain my list to a Top 10 or even a Top 20. I had to go with 21. And I love all of the albums so much that I couldn't rank them. So here they are in no particular order, all of them great pieces of art that gave me hours of listening pleasure. I’m sure I’ve forgotten some other great records, so feel free to point them out. But these were the ones that stuck with me the most, and I hope that you’ll check them out… A perfect Sunday morning record. Patty Griffin’s voice is church. Come Around Sundown-Kings of Leon Here’s another one I loved to drive to. The songs “Back Down South” and “Mary” are just as good on the five hundredth play as the first, and I ought to know. Both of these are the kinds of songs that go on my permanent “to-write-to” playlist. In fact, "Back Down South" became one of the central songs on the soundtrack to the novel I'm working on, Evona Darling . Infinit...