I’ve grown uncomfortable with the ideas of “Best Of” lists for the year, because… well, what the fuck is best, anyway? Don’t get me wrong. I used to do “top ten” lists and shit, but over time, you realize that it’s only so valuable a metric when every schmoe with a blog can tell you what he thinks are the Most Bestest Films, Games, Books, or Bowel Movements of the year. Best is too subjective. One guy thinks that Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist is the best. Next guy in the blogline thinks Paul Blart: Mall Cop is the best. Neither’s wrong, because you can’t be wrong about things you thought were awesome.

Further, it also demands that one experience a product the year in which it was produced. I work like that sometimes, but hey, I’ll catch movies late, I’ll pick up a video game off the used shelf from a year ago, and I’ll most certainly visit books from outside the current year. Further, it only seems fair to talk about the “best” of the year if you’ve actually absorbed all the releases in said year. I haven’t seen every movie. If I’d seen Zombieland, would it be on this list? Probably. But I didn’t. And books? Sheesh. My schedule doesn’t leave tons of room for fiction reading, so you’re lucky you’re even getting a list from me, dangit.

Thus, it’s kind of nonsense.

So, what I’m doing here is offering you a simple list. You might call this list:

I Liked This Shit In 2009. A Lot. And Now I’m Telling You About It. High-Five!

Or something. Let’s swoop in for the kill.

Games

Batman: Arkham Asylum — I’ll admit, the game’s character design almost had me saying “nuh-uh” before I even bought the game. The roided-out, hulkamuscle freakshow is sneerworthy(Christ, Jim Gordon looks like he could power-bomb somebody, and Harley Quinn looks like a dude); good thing I looked past it. This game kicks ass. It swoops down on dark wing and puts a boot in your chest. I don’t have room in this thing for a formal review, but you get to play Batman. And not in a bullshit, namby-pamby way with bad controls and dumb moves. No, no. You get all the moves. You get all the gadgets. You get all the Batman-flavored goodness. Further, the game straddles the perfect line between “Batman the detective” and “Batman the action hero.” You hunt for clues one minute, and the next, you’re running from a gargantuan Killer Croc. Two complaints: the boss battles are too formulaic, and in this day and age we should no longer be relying on dull, insipid boss moves (“Okay, the boss will stop shooting rapid rabid squirrels at you long enough to bend over and pick up the Skittles he spilled, and when he does, he exposes his butthole, and you have to fire a laser beam right into his winking stink-eye”). Second, hey, game? We get it. Batman’s parents died. Batman has to be more than the sum of that single moment. Has to be. Stop relying on it as the one crutch. Or I’ll punch you.

Modern Warfare 2 — Knock this game all you want, it is the perfect action game. I have never before felt like I was the goddamn star in an action movie. The game has left some of the verisimilitude of war behind and gone full-bore batshit with some action setpieces that border on the unthinkably retarded, but who cares? It’s really a blast. Level design is hot. The unfolding events occur with you as a part of them. The sound is great. The graphics are unparalleled. The story is… interesting, though at times a little incomprehensible (unforgivable in a film, forgivable here). Just getting into multiplayer now, and that’s a rush, too, especially with the RPG-like “leveling up.” Two complaints: I’d like to see some women. That’s a little unrealistic, perhaps, given that you play soldiers across the world, and generally, women don’t get to fight. But I could’ve used a female presence, at least. Second… Christ, stop killing me. I don’t mean in the, “I dicked up the level and now I’m dead,” I mean, “Your reward for properly beating this level was to get shot in the face by the bad guy.” That’s effective once. It’s less effective twice. But I think it happens like, 74 times in this game. Its dramatic punch is now just a doughy slap to the shoulder.

Braid — I know. It came out in 2008, but eff it, I played it in 2009. Once or twice a year, a game comes about that can only be beaten when my wife and I join forces. Me on the stick, her on the brain. Portal was one such game. Braid is another. If I would’ve played Braid on my own, I would’ve taken the controller, shoved it up my ass, turned the TV on its side, and cannonballed into the screen as if it were a kiddie pool. This game is fucking hard. At least, it’s hard for an idiot like me. I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s like Super Mario Brothers meets logic puzzles plus lots of LSD. Also, if ever a game says, “Hey, Roger Ebert, games can totally be art, shut up,” it’s this one. But seriously, it’s hard enough to make you want to punch your own mother just because she brought you into a world where a game like this exists. And yet, I loved it. Go figure.

World of Goo — Yup, again, another 2008-release that I played in 2009. Shut up. This game is an even better analog to Portal, because it’s a game you think is about one thing and does one thing, but then it turns out to have a really cool little story and it starts moving in some fucking wacky-ass directions. Basic gist: take blobs of goo and build structures with them. But it goes well beyond that. By miles. By thousands of miles. Buy this game above all others. It’s lovable and strange.

Sims 3 — I maybe wanted a little more from this sequel, but even still, it’s the Sims formula damn-near-perfected. I love creating my weird little Sim dudes and letting conflict take hold. The fact you can now let them freely wander a town is a big bonus. The fact you can send them into dungeons is even awesomer. I see that there exists an expansion pack? Where you really go into dungeons and such? Might need to look into that.

Films

Hurt Locker — If this doesn’t earn a Best Picture nomination, I’ll eat my own boots. This is the perfect modern war film. Jeremy Renner as a cowboy bomb tech is balls-out awesome. Kathryn Bigelow shows us how this amped-up version of modern warfare is a drug to those who participate. The film highlights the chaos and madness, and it gives real consequence to the participants and victims of war. Plus, it’s tense as shit. All the sphincters in my body are still tightened to tiny asterisk puckers. That whole thing about Hitchcock showing you the bomb under the table for 15 minutes? Bigelow shows us the bombs over and over again for two hours.

District 9 — This is the “anti-Avatar.” I don’t mean that in a bad way, not for either film, but where Avatar is a big-budget tech-fest putting forth easy morality, District 9 is almost the same movie approached from an entirely different angle. The Na’vi are beautiful elf-natives. The Prawns are dumpster-diving space crustaceans. Jake Sully is a lunk-headed noble marine who makes all the right choices. Wikus van de Merwe is Michael Scott from The Office, making all the wrong choices. In Avatar our alien representative is a beautiful and sexy goat-alien. In District 9, our alien representative is a gurgling, chittering space-cricket with the given name “Christopher Johnson.” This might be my favorite movie of the year, by the by.

Drag Me To Hell — Equal parts “unofficial sequel to Evil Dead” and “morality play about the American economy,” this psycho batshit hell-ride from Sam Raimi is grotesque, amped-up, old-school horror. Sometimes, you think it goes a little too far… but when you see the ending, you see that it had to go that far, and had to take you on this trip. I’d eventually like to see the R-rated version of this.

Up — Did I say that District 9 is my favorite movie of the year? Ehhh. It might be this one? Damn you, vacillating brain, damn you. I don’t know what to tell you about Up that you don’t already know? It goes places I didn’t expect. It’s surprisingly sweet, but not cloying. It’s also fun and adventuresome, in a pulp style that Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull aims for but fails to achieve, in my mind. It’s a hoot. And don’t go for the “kids don’t like it” crap. The kids at our showing ate it up. Reports from a friend are that it’s his kid’s favorite movie. If not my favoritest film of the year, it’s definitely the most surprising. None of the previews geeked me for this. That was my fault. Once again, Pixar has raised the bar and created a better film than the last.

Adventureland — Imagine Superbad, except made real. An authentic, non-satirical approach. (Mind you, I like Superbad just fine, but it fails to register in a real way. Ironic, then, that Mottola, who directed Superbad, wrote and directed this one — almost like it’s an alternate version of his own film.) Not so much a coming of age story as it is a finding your way story? For some reason, the film failed to register with audiences, but do yourself a favor and track this down. Watch it. Love it. (It’s also fascinating to me that Jesse Eisenberg stars in this, and then Zombieland. Will there be a third -land film in his future? Just for completion’s sake, he must. I demand it. I demand it! Don’t make me fling poo, Jesse Eisenberg.)

Books

Mister Slaughter, Robert McCammon — I’m a goddamn time-traveler is what I am, because this book’s not even out yet. Which means I probably shouldn’t even have it on this list, but you know what? My blog, my rules. Two men enter, one man leaves. Or something. Anyway, I’ll let my earlier review do the talking on this one. I will say that it’s doubly exciting that McCammon is not only writing the sequel to this, but is also tackling something new (“The Five?”).

Fool, Christopher Moore — For me, Moore is at his best when he’s working with original material rather than rehashing old characters for fan-demanded sequels. But, I’m okay with those as long as he switches it up; that way, everybody gets what everybody wants. If you don’t know the schtick, here Moore tackles King Lear in his own Moore-ian style, and the result is predictably hilarious — but also a little touching. He handles Shakespeare in his own weird way, and it’s an excellent read. (Plus, he modifies the plot of the original work to suit his own madhouse needs, and you’ll be glad he did.)

Vanilla Ride, Joe Lansdale — I don’t know how many times I have to tell you people: read Joe Lansdale. If you have, high-five, pat-on-the-back, a butt-rub while standing at the urinal. If you haven’t, then… you know what? Just get out of here. Go. Shoo. Exit stage right. Go get a Lansdale book. Read it. Then come back here and we can resume our conversation. Anyway. Vanilla Ride is the next in the “Hap and Leonard” series, and that’s really all you need to know. Okay, you want more? Fine. Hap and Leonard as a character pair were always great, but the last couple books were getting a little tired and over-the-top what with the midgets and such. Lansdale refocuses and once more centers the piece on the crazy-violent and crazy-hilarious crime world of these two most upstanding gentlemen, but washes it in grit and blood and ice-cold reality. Say what you want, but these two dudes are some complicated characters: Hap is a Good-Ol-Boy liberal, and Leonard is the funniest and ass-kickingest gay black dude you’ll ever meet. They make a perfect pair, and their friendship is palpable. By the way, any year that Lansdale, Moore and McCammon have new books is a year where I am likely shellacking my underpants with squee-juice.

Emergency, Neil Strauss — Basic gist? Guy experiences existential dread and realizes he’s a modern white male with no survival skills for WTSHTF (When The Shit Hits The Fan). So, he takes us on a journey as he learns how to save his own ass and the asses of his loved ones in any crisis. Funny to watch his transformation, but this is serious stuff, too. You can even learn a thing or two. Non-fiction, in case you missed that.

Good Eats: The Early Years, Alton Brown — Best. Cookbook. Evar. Sure, Michael Rulhman’s Elements of Cooking is pretty great, but it’s so serious. Not Alton Brown, boy. What I love about this is how he takes you on a tour of ingredients — it’s less about rote memorandum of recipes, and more about understanding what goes into each recipe. You feel armed with information. It’s not Tab-A Slot-B cooking. Plus, the book is big, robust, and full of artwork and trivia. Not just a companion piece to Brown’s show — this book stands on its own.

TV

Community — I think Joel McHale is the snarky comedy god, but really, this isn’t purely his show. He is but one part of its majesty. Does it have the guy from the butt-dialing commercial? Yes. Does it have the guy from Bro Rape and Mystery Team? It does. Does it have that cute little hot pixie girl from Mad Men, Alison Brie? Indeed! And Chevy Chase? And Ken Jeong as Senor Chang (clip!)? Somehow, the show straddles the line between “snarkily profane” and “actually sweet.” I don’t know what to tell you besides: watch, watch, watch. Please, support this show. Watch these clips for more awesomeness: clip, clip, and the bestest clip ever.

Modern Family — Man, if you told me that I had to pick one show, Community or Modern Family, and the other would die a horrible death in obscurity, I don’t know which one I’d pick. Because somehow, this show hits in me the exact same tickle-spots as Community. It’s profane, it’s ludicrous, it’s… well, it’s actually sweet, and actually says something. See, I loved Arrested Development. Still do. But it wasn’t often a sweet show; it was too satirical and snarky (ala 30 Rock) to really go beyond that. And I wouldn’t have wanted it to. But Modern Family does, and hot damn, it works. Ed O’Neill is awesome. So’s his adopted son. So’s the gay couple (best gay couple on the tubes). So’s everybody. Fuck it. Stop listening to me and go watch it. First, clips! Clip, clip, and… clip and… another awesome clip (“Did that come from space?) and one more for good measure (“Manny Delgado is a man of action.”) It’s the perfect half-hour comedy. Perfect! Just perfect.

Burn Notice — I’m actually not caught up on the current season, but who cares? Burn Notice is easily one of my top ten shows. Of all time. CIA spy with an authentic, real-world Macguyver-slash-A-Team approach to the world? Bruce Campbell? Miami? Action? Excitement? A moral center? I’ll let Bruce Campbell tell you the rest.

Psych — I’m at the point where I don’t even know what to tell you. Psych is the best show ever. That may be an exaggeration, but the show — like Burn Notice — has easily moved into my “favorite shows ever” list. What did they put in the water over at USA? Anyway. Don’t take my word for it: enjoy the sweet sassy psychic snark — clip, clip, aaaand, the Internet doesn’t have nearly enough Psych clips, so go watch the show.

Dexter — It should probably be Mad Men that I put here, but then, boom, John Lithgow comes along and rocks one of the freakiest, grimmest seasons of Dexter yet. I’ll spoil nothing, but it’s a rough row to hoe for our lovable serial killer, and the season ends in such a way that they either just Did Something Brilliant or Jumped Over A Dozen Sharks.

Leverage — Hey, screw it, I was keeping this to “five items per,” but again, my blog, my lordly decrees. I can break ‘em if I want. I’ll keep it short, though: Leverage. TNT. Find it. Love it. Rub its heisty goodness against your bare chest and bottom. You’ll thank me.