BEST OF 2015

BEST OF 2015

by Alexis Faulkner

The worst movie I watched on an airplane: Entourage. Watched it on the plane ride back home from Hawaii via Los Angeles.

The best movie I watched on an airplane: Amy. A fantastic documentary about Amy Winehouse. I was amazed at the amount of raw footage of her that exists, including lots of recordings made before she was famous and didn’t think it possible that she could make a career of singing. I’d like to note that she wasn’t putting herself down as a singer, she just didn’t think of it as something she could do as a career. It made a fan out of me, though I only took so long to appreciate her music because I hadn’t much previous exposure.

The best place I went: Kauai with my mom & sis. The island is overflowing with elaborately colored roosters and many chickens. My mom convinced me the bushes were overflowing with eggs, but I didn’t check.

Best food: Cart food or maybe cheap sandwiches, $3.50 at a deli near me. DELIS! CARTS! Chicken over rice, man. *When I say cart food, I mean hallal, specifically. I want to make special mention of the delicious food available at the Barclays Center. It is fancy and well prepared, and they have lots of Kosher options, too.

Best Holiday Occurrence: Cooking most of the Thanksgiving dinner while drinking Kahlua and coffee and then later adding vodka having it all come out pretty okay.

Best date: This goes over the course of a couple of dates, actually. I went out with one person several times and they kept explaining how a potentiometer works. It was super interesting.

Best venue visited: I went to 3 sports arenas that I hadn’t visited previously in 2015, and that’s a personal best as far as visiting new sports arenas goes. Some friends and I drank Coors Lite on the Finnerty’s gamebus on the way to Citi Field, and even though we watched the Mets beat the Giants (may the Mets championship dreams rest in peace) it was great fun. Without being terribly rowdy, and attracting far less attention than I expected, a whole sections’ worth of San Francisco fans- mostly expats- sat together and cheered not only the Giants, but the Golden State Warriors, too. The Dubs were playing game 4 of the finals that night, and the game started while we sat in a muggy summer sweat that marks baseball in June on the East Coast. The stadium itself was very clean and easy to navigate, though not particularly charming in terms of architecture. Perhaps the character will come with time.

Yankee Stadium, where I saw the Yankees beat the Mets, was also very clean, well organized and full of particularly edible arena eats. And also very concrete and stale. A nice place to see a baseball game, but with few particularly attractive features, save the fact that you can see the train going by from most seats in the park. It’s nice to know that you are nestled neatly in the Bronx, right there in the mix. The Barclays Center in Brooklyn was my favorite.

This choice was difficult, as I much prefer baseball over basketball, however, the Barclays Center has a very interesting design, with its circular strip of screen that you can see while standing underneath the open structure in front of the entrance gates. The outside of the structure itself is a raw-looking metal that is covered in copper rust, and it has mossy greens covering part of it, as well. The seating inside arena goes up very high, the nosebleed sections are steep indeed, but it seems you can see the action well from any seat. They played good music during the game, lots of 90s hip-hop, among other crowd pleasers. There was a lot of Jay-Z too, which was probably just a coincidence since he no longer has a stake in the arena. The worst thing about the Barclays experience was their sound system. The music sounded awful; the tracks sounded blown out and the volume was low at times. This was highly surprising, considering the newness of the venue and the typical auditory fanfare that goes with live sports events. A final exciting note about the game I attended specifically: about half the audience was wearing blue and gold. There were audible cheers for Stephen Curry, there was applause, and it was not just in our bay area gamebus section. I am so thankful that I got to witness a game during the Warriors historic season starting streak of 2015.

Best change: Leaving Whole Foods Market after four solid years of working there. Grateful for the friends I made, grateful to be creatively explosive upon leaving. New Beginnings, that’s what happened.

Best annoying thing I did: Make out in subway stations, at the bar, on the train. All over town, basically. At some point during 2015 a New York native told me that New York is a sexy town, and I think he was right. I see more public displays of affection than back home, that’s for sure.

Best movie: Love & Mercy. I saw it with my mom and I think it was a little dark for her. The story was inspiring and very sad and Paul Giamatti was very twisted and terrifying. John Cusack, who plays Brian Wilson as an adult, did an excellent job of talking in that fairly shy yet halting manner while still managing to highlight the humanity in a diseased mind through an evolution of a loving relationship. Paul Dano, with delicate execution, showed us the genius of Wilson’s musicianship, particularly as an arranger. He too was quite good at showing the internal pain and confusion as his disease first unfolded.

This is just one of three movies that Paul Giamatti starred in this year. Dr. Eugene Landy certainly was his finest roll. Playing a somewhat similar musical handler of sorts in Straight Outta Compton, he was a much more subtle villain, but still convincing, and in San Andreas he was a weak nerd.

Best album release: Marilyn Manson- The Pale Emperor. Just kidding, I haven’t even heard that record. But I like the name because it’s ridiculous. That man loves bein’ freakin’ pale. And since I don’t like Drake and I wish that band UFO was more interesting, I will go with Justin Bieber’s Purpose. Also, I’m really thankful that Snoop Dogg went back to such a name after being Snoop Lion and starring in hot pocket commercials. ***Really though, Dave Rawlings Machine record was cool.

Best celebrity sighting: None. There are no celebrities in New York City. ALTERNATELY: I recognize no one outside of my own family and I refuse to answer this question. Actually, I suffer from face blindness.

Best NY chillers: Thankful to all of the people who came out to New York and made a point to say hi. This includes my sister, my dad and his girlfriend, Eden, Derek, Mark and Crystal, Scott, Sam and Maggie, Nikos, Walter, Lynne, Victor and Hannah (thanks for taking me to Yankee Stadium), Christine before she moved to New York officially, running in to Anthony on the street in Williamsburg, Talia. Can’t wait for Kat to get here on New Year’s Even— you’re gonna love it here.

Best concert: Thee Oh Sees with Zs as their opener at Warsaw in Bushwick, Brooklyn. This took me by surprise, since I’ve never been a huge fan of this SF originating band. However, their sound has changed quite a bit since I’ve last listened in. Perhaps their move to LA did them some good. They were tight and groovy with a big, rowdy, double drum set set-up. Zs was great, very interesting, but I was so infuriated and distracted by the rudeness of the audience that I feel ill-equipped to critique their set. The echo of the audience talking over their performance is what I remember most.

Most entertaining TV moment: Steve Harvey announced the wrong winner for the Miss Universe competition. He had to correct himself on live tv, leading to an extremely awkward moment whereby the crown had to be taken from Miss Colombia and given to Miss Philippines. Harvey compounded this mistake by offering an apology via a (since deleted) tweet in which he misspelled both countries. He was a great host up until this moment and I loved watching him anyway. 


Alexis Faulkner is Unicorn Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.