1. Wallace and Gromit. Excellent movie. On the one hand, I think the shorts are far more inventive, and the love interest & villain weren't all that interesting. On the other hand, I could have watched Gromit react to things for another couple hours, regardless of who else was involved. And there were some really funny gags. The comic timing was as good as the puns were awful. I don't find myself punning as often as I did in my youth, so to be immersed in vomit-inducing puns for 90 minutes was fun (the vegetable security team failed to "turnip" on time, and so forth).
2. Takk by Sigur Rós. This album floored me. It's the musical equivalent of a hurricane. It conveys as much drama as an opera, without a single lyric in English. They are the antidote to one of my favorite rants about current rock: whereas so many songs nowadays build towards a Good Part that never comes, failing to deliver on their promise, Sigur Rós delivers it.
3. You Could Have Had It So Much Better With Franz Ferdinand. Unlike its predecessor, this album has some eminently skippable songs. (The only reason Eleanor should put her boots on is to get away from that shitty song.) But the original also sagged towards its conclusion, which is understandable after 11 essentially identical songs, and ultimately revolved around the desert-island single "Take Me Out." You Could Have Had It So Much Better, on the other hand, finishes as strong as it starts, and features several distinctive, energetic, lovable singles, none of which overshadow the others. On top of that, their drummer proves he can play more than one beat; having him shake things up from song to song gives each song much more personality. It may not have the same white crunk sound that Kanye loved so much, but it's comfort enough to know that FF is more than the once-in-a-lifetime sound on their debut.
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