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Best Album: Bruce Peninsula’s A Mountain is a Mouth

Albums released early in the year often fade out of memory and miss out on well-deserved slots on end-of-year lists. Bruce Peninsula’s A Mountain is a Mouth, however, was just too remarkable to forget about. Here is what we said about it back in March:

Bruce Peninsula is one of my new favorite artists.  I heard their song, “Steamroller” on WERS at like 1:00 in the morning last week and immediately went to their website to buy their debut album, A Mountain Is A Mouth.

Bruce Peninsula is folk that isn’t afraid to get loud and noisy.  Singer Neil Haverty’s voice isn’t necessarily pretty, but it’s unmistakably earnest and entirely unignorable.  The most immediately noticeable element, however, is the gospel choir that instantly gives each song an epic quality.

I know that 2009 is still very young, but I honestly believe A Mountain Is A Mouth is a solid contender for album of the year.

Honorable Mention: Mew’s No More Stories…

Best Movie: Fantastic Mr. Fox

Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou are two of my very favorite movies, but 2007’s The Darjeeling Limited left me wondering if Anderson had peaked with Tenenbaums. Fantastic Mr. Fox, based on the children’s book by Roald Dahl, is Anderson’s first stop-motion film, and the visual presentation is simply gorgeous. This, combined with Dahl’s endearing writing-style (not just for kids) and Anderson’s hilarious retro quirkiness makes this my favorite movie of 2009 and one of the best moves I’ve seen in a very long time.

Best TV Show: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (season 5)

Anyone still mourning Arrested Development’s untimely demise should find solace in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s dysfunctional family. Dennis, Mac, Charlie, Dee, and Frank (played by Danny DeVito) are all varying degrees of manipulative, incompetent, pathetic, and vain and manage to find new and hilarious ways to engineer their own downfall each episode.

Honorable Mention: 30 Rock (season 4)

Best Video Game: New Super Mario Bros. Wii

I always get a little nervous when someone tries to remake any kind of classic with a modern twist, but Nintendo has pulled it off beautifully with New Super Mario Bros. Wii. The key update was not to graphics or level design—frankly, they could have just as well left those the same as the NES or SNES Mario games. Rather, the most important inclusion is the 2 to 4-player simultaneous cooperative gameplay, which is both super-fun and relentlessly addictive.

Honorable Mention: Smash Bros. 64 (rereleased on Wii Virtual Console)

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