Best of the Best: 2000

This poster would be perfect without their faces.

Year: 2000
Movie: Unbreakable
Game: Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards
Album: Demons & Wizards by Demons and Wizards
Song: Do Not Resuscitate by Testament (or 3 Days in Darkness by Testament)

So......to put it mildly, 2000 was an interesting year. It was the turn of the millennium. There was a big "Y2K" scare trumped up by news outlets and various businesses, making people think that some sort of glitch in computers' dating systems, was going to cause the entire modern world to just crash. Spoilers, that didn't happen. I even remember gathering some friends together that New Years' Eve ('99), so that we'd be together just in case shit went down, and then it didn't. It was another NYE just like any other. 2000 was the last half of my senior year of high school. I took my first couple of college classes to finish out credits I needed to graduate. I briefly worked my first (and only) fast food job that summer. I went to my first real concert (not just a local band), to see Anthrax and Megadeth live. I started the first chapter in my post-high-school, technically adult life. I started my first full college semester in the fall. Oh yeah, I also had my first real girlfriend. And that turned into a mess all it's own that is better not gotten into. I briefly gained an old friend back, lost a couple others. It was a very up and down year, that, due to said girlfriend, put simply, didn't end well.

BUT, as ever, there was always various mediums of entertainment there for me. On the film front, 2000 was actually still a pretty solid year for movies. I still went to see many. Though I for some reason also quite possible racked up a lifetime high score for most shitty movies I've ever bothered to see in theater in a single year. Movies such as Scream 3, Hollow Man, The Cell, What Lies Beneath, two very "MEH" films about missions to Mars, Leonardo DiCaprio's The Beach, Final Destination, etc. I suppose I should have known not to go see most of those crap-tacular horror films. I also saw Battlefield Earth, which while not GREAT, I surprisingly didn't hate as much as most seemed to.

Don Bluth's Last film for many, many years.

On the GOOD movie front, there was a lot to like. There were dumb but fun movies like Little Nicky, Dude Where's My Car?, The 6th Day and Ready to Rumble. There were some great martial arts/action films, like Romeo Must Die and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the latter of which I was really blown away by. I went to see it multiple times. It was full of not only amazing fight scenes, but also a gorgeous, haunting soundtrack, beautiful visuals, and deep philosophy. That one was honestly a very close runner-up for my "movie of 2000". There were other really strong films, like the Dennis Quaid film Frequency, and of course the 2000 blockbuster Gladiator. 2000 also marked the last year, as seen above, that a Don Bluth directed film would come out in theaters. He had a grand, epic concept, and wanted to do a serious, science fiction animated film, and in all honesty, it was pretty good, but as Hollywood is often wont to do, it was terribly mis-marketed, and thus really failed to find a big audience. The financial failure of the film caused Bluth, arguably the greatest animation director of all time (this side of Walt Disney and Hayao Miyazaki, of course), to tap out, and got out of the film business, which made me very sad.

But, as already long since spoiled by the first image of this article, while there were a few very strong candidates to consider, my "Movie of 2000", hands-down, was M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable. I had already become a fan of Night's work, as many did, due to his big hit from the previous year, The Sixth Sense. But this movie, for me, topped that one in every way. His strength as a director, to me, was obviously smaller scale stories, based strongly around character growth. He unfortunately became known for "twists" in his movies, to the point that people expected them, and got disappointed when some of his later films stopped having them, as if he was obligated to continue the same trick over and over. Some of his most recent films, also sadly, have not been up to par, mainly, I feel, because of his attempt to do bigger budget, large-scale "Hollywood" style pictures. I think he's still a great director, or can be, he just needs to scale it back down, and get back to the style of films he was best at. But to me, for my movie-going dollar, Unbreakable represents him at his very best. A heartfelt, even heart-rending story about an ordinary man, experiencing marriage and family troubles, unsure and unfulfilled with his place in life, a very strong drama all around, but wrapped in a wonderfully powerful and haunting "real life" look at the metaphors and themes found in superhero comic books. The movie addressed the core essence of comics so well, I thought, and even the "twist" at the end, to me, was more powerful on a narrative level, than any other he has done. This was his finest work, it remains my favorite film of his, and honestly, I'd probably put it somewhere in my Top 30 or 40 films of all time, easily. And trust me, that's a tough list to suss out.

Not amazing, but very fun.

Moving away from movies, on the games front, 2000 was far less prolific. At least to me. As mentioned before, I did not own a Playstation, nor a Sega Dreamcast. Though at one point I had intended to try and get a Dreamcast, which would have been the only Sega system I had ever owned at that point. But then the really neat looking 3D Castlevania game that had been in development for it got cancelled, and my interest in owning one eventually waned. Which is just as well, because, alas, Sega was not long for this world as a console maker (the officially gave up on the Dreamcast in 2001, after less than 3 years of being on the market, and went "third party", which led to the insanity of seeing Sega games on Nintendo consoles). The newest system I owned was just the Nintendo 64, and by 2000, there really weren't that many great games coming out for it anymore. At least to me. I was not into Banjo-Tooie (one of the worst game titles of all time), nor Zelda: Majora's Mask (I tried, but seriously, fuck that resetting-time mechanic). There were neat titles like Mickey's Speedway USA, WWF No Mercy and Paper Mario. Perfect Dark was okay, but the main thing I liked about Goldeneye 007 wasn't the single player, but rather playing the multiplayer with my friends. PD had the opposite thing going on, where the single player was more interesting, but the multiplayer, at least to me, wasn't as good.

So the game I picked as my GOTY for 2000, was HAL Laboratory's Kirby 64. It was the first "3D" Kirby, or rather, the first to feature polygonal graphics, instead of 2D sprites. That was a trend that everything in that PS1/N64 generation followed, which made me very sad as a gamer, because they had barely begun to scratch the surface of just how impressive 2D gaming could be, when most companies suddenly abandoned it for the new craze of polygons and "3D" gameplay. Kirby on N64 however was kind of a compromise, because it featured (for the time) fairly impressive 3D graphics, but gameplay that was for the most part still very much traditional 2D Kirby fare. The game featured a new element in the ability to "fuse" two different powers, to make additional powers. Not really revolutionary, but a neat added wrinkle to the design. I think the game was a tad short, it could have used at least one more world. But all in all, I still had a lot of fun with it, so it was likely my fav. game from that year.

Still like this cover.

So, now that I've gone and talked about the Year 2000 far more than I had intended to, I guess I'll wrap it up by talking a bit about music. There weren't an over-abundance of new albums that year that I really loved. Metallica dropped a new song for the fifth year in a row, "I Disappear", which was featured in the credits of Mission Impossible 2. Green Day came out with their new album "Warning", which I bought and liked, and it had some very good songs on it, though I didn't love it as much as the previous album "Nimrod". I had gotten into the group Apocalyptica back in 1998, which is a Finnish quartet of cello players, who originally got famous covering Metallica songs as instrumental cello versions, which is how I came to know them. They too put out a new album, "Cult", in 2000, and it had some good music on it, featuring for the first time mostly new original works by the band themselves. But when it comes to "best album of the year", for me, it was "Demons & Wizards". D&W was a side project that I had been highly anticipating, a collaboration between the prime players of two of my new favorite bands of the time, Blind Guardian and Iced Earth. To be specific, it featured the lead songwriter and guitarist of IE Jon Schaffer, and the lead singer of BG Hansi Kurch. It was a really great combo, for my money, and featured some really strong songs, including the explosive album opener "Heaven Denies".

As for song of the year.....well, I was listening to a lot of stuff around then, but one that I listened to a lot, both because I liked it, and also because I was by varying degrees at times in a very dark mindset, listening to the '99 Testament album "The Gathering". It had many strong, dark, angry songs that fit that mood, but the two songs that really "spoke" to me, were "Do Not Resuscitate" and "3 Days in Darkness". The first dealt with, as you might imagine, life becoming too much to bear, and just wanting out. A feeling and mindset I'm sad to say that I've been able to relate too far too many times in my life. The second, about the infamous "Mayan Calendar" prediction that the world would end in the year 2012, complete with a really bad ass instrumental outro that really did sound like the world was ending. So yeah. There's that. All in all, 2000 was another major year for me as a person, and in many ways, much like 1995, was a milestone year, because once again, my life would never be the same afterwards.

Best of the Best: 1999

One of the last great 2D animated theatrical films.

Year: 1999
Movie: The Iron Giant
Game: Wrestlemania 2000
Album: The Distance to Here by Live
Song: Higher by Creed

So 1998 turned into 1999, a new year, the last year of not only a decade, but a century....even a millennium. And I'm sorry to report that while it had it's collection of moments, 1999 was not all that kind to me a lot of times, and it was far from one of my favorite years. But as usual, amidst the drama and bullshit of real life, and having to deal with other human beings (who can of course make your life both a heaven...and a hell), various forms of entertainment were there to help me somewhat sooth my wounds and troubled spirit. To help me find some release and escape. 1999 was certainly not a BAD year for movies, but it was a markedly lesser year compared to '96, '97 or '98, for me. It still had it's fair share of movies I really enjoyed, among them October Sky, Office Space, The Mummy, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Ghost Dog, Big Daddy, Instinct, Detroit Rock City, The Sixth Sense, Man on the Moon, and Bicentennial Man.

There were a couple of candidates I had to consider for "best movie", one of them being Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. I realize, much like Metallica in the late 90s, that it's a popular opinion to have, that the Star Wars prequel trilogy, and that first movie in particular, are "garbage". I would like to point out that I have never felt that way. Were they flawed? Sure. Not AS good or as classic as the original movies? Absolutely. But I still always felt they were good movies, AND good Star Wars movies, even Phantom Menace. I never hated Jar Jar Binks, to me he was always just another goofy character like the robots, or like the Ewoks. I think a lot of people really just need to grow up. The movie itself was fine, and it had a lot of things to like about it, most especially the Jedi master Qui-Gon Jin, and the Sith warrior Darth Maul. And that epic song for their final confrontation, "Duel of the Fates", is still a great piece that I love to this day. The prequel movies are flashy, and they honestly should have used less CGI. But I still like them. However, upon really thinking about it, the movie that stuck with me the most from 1999, was The Iron Giant. It really has that Don Bluth type of vibe to it, even though he was not involved with it, and it was one of the last great traditionally animated theatrical film releases. A fact that makes me, as a huge fan of traditional hand drawn animation, very sad, as I wish it would make a comeback, a REAL comeback, in the United States. But Iron Giant is a really great story, a fun movie, and though many wouldn't know it, one of actor Vin Diesel's first real movie roles, as he did the vocal noises and eventual voice for the robot.

As for game? Well, looking back, '99 was the first year I ran into where it was honestly a little rough trying to pin down a favorite, as there were just less games that year that I really loved, the arcades had less releases, and I didn't own a Playstation or even the debuting Sega Dreamcast. Even though, the game Soul Calibur on Dreamcast WAS a game I immensely enjoyed, as I had very much liked it's arcade predecessor Soul Edge. I got to play it at a friend's house a bit, but not owning a DC myself, it's hard to really say it was my favorite game that year. And then I remembered, that I had gotten the wrestling game Wrestlemania 2000 for the N64 that year, and I DID happen to put a ridiculous amount of time into creating wrestlers and playing the game in general. So kind of by default, it wins game of the year on those merits. It was a decent game, though it doesn't hold up well now, too blocky and slow and clunky, but for it's TIME it was the best wrestling game out there.

SUCH a great album. The band's masterpiece.

When it comes to music, '99 was a weird time. In the late 90s in general, rap and "hip hop" had gradually become more and more mainstream and popular, and at the same time, an often rap-hybrid style of rock called "Nu Metal" (because they couldn't just spell new correctly) also got real popular. And of course pop music, what with Brittany Spears and Christina Aguilera and the Backstreet Boys, etc., was just getting worse. Though I had no way of knowing that shit would be awesome to listen to compared to how much worse pop music would continue to get. But there was certainly still much for me to enjoy as well, as I continued to get more into metal, discovering other bands and albums. One of those that I really got into in '99, was Sevendust, as I discovered their album "Home" by hearing the song "Denial" on VH1 randomly, and then later on the radio, and I really dug it. So I went out, got the album, and eventually wound up really liking it overall. Another big music moment for me also came from VH1 in '99, as they broadcast part of Metallica's amazing "S&M" symphony concert. And let me tell you, that to me was heaven in that moment. My favorite band, along with classical music which I really love, it as like peanut butter and jelly (or chocolate). And to my delight, they later came out with the concert on CD and DVD, which I of course eventually got both of. One of the two new songs they did for that concert, "No Leaf Clover", also wound up becoming one of my favorite Metallica songs, and was a decent candidate for my song of '99.

I also really liked the Creed album "Human Clay". I had gotten into Creed back in '98 actually, in the second half of my shit-tacular sophomore year. Their first album "My Own Prison" also really helped me through those tough times. Creed is of course, ironically, another band that many people shit on, but fuck 'em, I liked the first three albums at least (was not a fan of their recent reunion though). They were, at one point, considered one of my favorite bands, because I really resonated with some of their lyrics (because of the singer Scott Stapp's Christian religion, there were some Christian undertones to some of their songs, but thankfully, most of the time, they were fairly ambiguous, so non-Christians could also really relate). Well, "Human Clay" was one I really had to consider for my "best album" of the year, as I more or less loved the whole album. But really putting it to thought, and trying to "feel" which album meant the most to me, I decided to go with Live's "The Distance to Here" instead. In some sense, both albums held equal sway with me back then, but Distance was just so.....inspiring. Not every song is amazing, but the album as a whole is, and there ARE amazing songs on it, such as "The Dolphins Cry", "They Stood Up For Love" and "Dance With You". So it's my pick for album of
99. I also. however, decided to give it to Creed for my song of the year, with "Higher". It just really spoke to who I was and how I felt about the world back in my late teens (still do to some extent). To some I'm sure they felt the song was talking about the afterlife concept of "Heaven", but to me, it spoke more about dreaming of a better world, here on Earth.

Best of the Best: 1998

Such a great movie, such a legendary actor.

Year: 1998
Movie: Patch Adams
Game: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Album: Nightfall in Middle Earth by Blind Guardian
Song: Dust in the Wind by Kansas

The first half of 1998 was rough. A horribly shitty time for me, in fact, as issues with my mother and school and everything else all just kind of came to a head, and I was absolutely miserable, to put it mildly. By the summer, however, things took a turn and started to brighten somewhat, as I got to live with someone else, got my first ever official summer job, and headed into my junior year in high school (back in home study by choice) in the fall, with at least for the time being, things seemingly looking up. The summer of '98 especially had many good times, dicking around with friends, etc.

Many great movies, again, came out in 1998. Some of my favorites were The Wedding Singer, Dark City, My Giant, Almost Heroes (Chris Farley's last film), The X-Files movie, Lethal Weapon 4 (my first exposure to the great Jet Li), There's Something About Mary, Ever After, The Avengers (I had never seen the old show, but I loved the movie), Wrongfully Accused (great Leslie Nielsen film), Rush Hour, Pleasantville, and The Waterboy. But the three that stood above and beyond for me, were also films that touched me or spoke to me in some deep way. The first was The Truman Show, which was technically still kind of a comedy, but it was also the first real taste of Jim Carrey's considerable dramatic acting ability. And it spoke to me on the level that, it was honestly a satire on our very society, the way we go about our daily lives, and to my 16 year old mind at the time, it totally made me think "My god, what if I actually live in a little plastic universe too?" Plus it was just damn entertaining. The other two are both Robin Williams films, diving right into his late 90s "touching but serious films" phase. One was What Dreams May Come, which is equal parts heartbreaking and inspiring. Even though by this time in my life I was no longer the Christian I had been raised to be, the movie was very ambiguous and even universal in it's approach to the afterlife and all of that, and it was just a really deep, beautiful film.

But the movie that was the cream of the crop, for me, was Patch Adams, not only because it was a great movie somewhat inspired by a very awesome real life person. But also because, for me, the story and the things it had to say, about people, about life, and about what COULD be, instead of merely what is, really really touched me deeply and spoke to me. I simply cannot do justice with words to how much this movie impressed me. It was flawless, and it's concepts were enormous to my mind, and really got gears turning in my own head, with massive inspiration and ideas. It, of course, has the one major flaw, THAT scene, which some writer came up with, which never actually happened at all in Hunter Adams' life, and was absolutely unnecessary to give the movie a manufactured sense of drama. It already HAD it's own drama and tension, it didn't need that crap. And that kind of thing might bring a lesser movie down...but the rest of the film was SO strong that it thankfully survived that shit (and I really, truly hate that scene, in one of my otherwise favorite movies of all time). It is just a great movie, and in some very powerful ways, it quite literally changed my life, and had a big hand in my own personal evolution.

Da da da DAAAAAA!!

The game of the year, for me, and for many people, was of course Ocarina of Time on N64. There were many other good games in '98, not the least of which was Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on the original Playstation. That game was one of the last great fully 2D games that came along, for years, before the indie scene really popped up within the last decade. And it was just a fantastic action game with a nice rpg-lite type system in place. It heavily "borrowed" elements from the Super Nintendo classic Super Metroid, putting it mildly, but it put those elements to great use, and gave birth to what many gamers now refer to as the "Metroidvania" style of game. But, Zelda was where it was really at.

1998 was also the first year I could afford to buy my own brand new game console and games by myself, and the N64 was the first system I ever bought myself, that summer. And Ocarina quickly became the highlight of my collection when it released. The game has not exactly aged super well, even though it's still great, but at the TIME, let me tell you, it was mind blowing. As much as Mario 64 had been mind blowing in 1996, "Zelda 64" was far more-so in 1998. It had (almost) everything you could want, it was very cinematic, it had a great soundtrack, it was one of the first  games to REALLY do 3D gaming right, because it controlled and played very well (for the most part). There was an epic story going on, and the game was just fun to play. I think the only major complaint I had about it, even at the time when I first got it, was that when they were developing it, they had done a lot of vague talking up, insinuating that the game world was going to be massive, and that you were going to be able to go exploring like in the old Zelda games, and there would be all these villages you could encounter, etc. etc.....and then what it actually was, was a "hub" (Hyrule Field), in which you could go to different levels, basically like Mario 64. But in spite of that limitation, I still poured a ton of hours into this game, and enjoyed it very much (except for that goddamn Water Temple).

SUCH a great album. And just look at that cover art.

1998 also happened to be, thanks in large part to my first ever summer job, the year that I really started both getting more into heavy metal music, but also just getting less into radio, and more into actually buying and owning albums. There were many great bands and albums that I discovered in '98, such as Metallica's "Garage Inc." (an album of cover songs), Megadeth in general but especially their albums "Cryptic Writings" and "Countdown to Extinction", Iced Earth's albums "Burnt Offerings" and "Something Wicked This Way Comes", Testament's "Souls of Black", other classic Metallica albums like "And Justice For All" which would go on to become my favorite of all time, and Rob Zombie's "Hellbilly Deluxe". But when I think back to albums that specifically came out in '98 that I got into, one really stands out the most, and that is Blind Guardian's "Nightfall in Middle-Earth". I can't do the album justice just using words to explain it, but let me just tell you, it's epic, and it's artistic, and it's fucking awesome. The album tells a good half or more of the tales from J.R.R. Tolkien's posthumous Silmarillion, which was something of a history and creation myth of Middle-Earth. I first discovered this band, and album, as I did many bands in 98, on an old site called "MP3.com", which you could listen to many songs for free to sample them. The song that did it for me, for Blind Guardian, among others, was "Nightfall", which tells of the first ever case of murder among the Elves, and their downfall into madness as they pursued the Jewels of Light (The Silmarils) into Middle-Earth. The entire album is just fantastic, playing out something like a metal "opera" of sorts, though not operatic vocally. And I must say, as a personal aside, Brian May of Queen is my favorite guitarist of all time, because the tone and texture of his lead guitar work is SO smooth and lyrical, and the lead work of Blind Guardian's Andre Olbrich is obviously heavily inspired by May, and that is never more evident than on his amazing work on this album. As a further side note, the album was produced by the Danish producer of the great Metallica 80s albums, Flemming Rasmussen, and it shows. If you've never heard it, even if you're not really into metal music, check it out, it's worth it.

BUT, as an odd bonus, my SONG of the year for 1998, was not even from the same decade. For some insane reason, even though I had grown up hearing various classic rock, there were many classic rock bands, and songs, that I just never heard. And as crazy as it seems, among them, was another band that would (along with Metallica and Queen) go on to eventually become one of my top favorite bands of all time, and that was Kansas. And the song, specifically, that won me over, was their biggest hit, "Dust in the Wind". Now, the irony was that I was just having lunch with my uncle one day, and the radio at the restaurant started playing the song, and it caught my ear and sounded amazing, and I asked him "Who's this?", and he replied "I think it's Kansas". It was game over after that, I went to Harold's house sometime later, and while his family stepped out to go get food or whatever, I looked up Kansas, and that song, on his computer. I'm pretty sure I found it on MP3.com or wherever, and started listening to it. And I listened to it on repeat for like, seriously, half an hour. It was that good, and it just hit me like a tidal wave.....it's simplicity, it's enormity, it's beauty and profound message. Plus that fuckin' sweet Robby Steinhardt violin solo. Sufficed to say, it instantly became one of my favorite songs that I had ever heard, and would eventually settle as my TOP favorite song ever made, of all time. That's right, my favorite band ever is Metallica, but my favorite SONG ever is by Kansas.

Best of the Best: 1997

Karting perfection? Close enough.

Year: 1997
Movie: Conspiracy Theory
Game: Mario Kart 64
Album: ReLoad by Metallica (or The Black Album, by Metallica*)
Song: Good Riddance by Green Day (or The Unforgiven by Metallica*)

Now, by 1997, shit had started to change. I was slowly growing up, one of my new best friends, Brandon, had moved away in December '96, my high school experience was getting gradually worse, and relations with the mother I "had" to live with, were also getting worse. But thankfully, while shit was genuinely getting pretty rough (and would only get worse in the following years) for young Jesse, there was still some pretty great entertainment of various kinds to help distract me somewhat from the pain and crap that real life can (and will) often dole out on you. 1997 was honestly a better year for movies, all around, than 1996 had been, and there were many that I really loved. Some of those were Beverly Hills Ninja starring the late, great Chris Farley, Liar Liar, Austin Powers, The Lost World (Jurassic Park 2), Con Air, the original Men in Black, Contact, Kull the Conqueror, etc.

But when it came down to what I thought the BEST movie of that year was, it was a battle between The Fifth Element, and Conspiracy Theory. While Element was a bizarre, fun ride with some cool mystical (even spiritual) undertones, and I REALLY loved it at the time, looking back now I have to give it to Conspiracy. I mean it's directed by Richard Donner (one of my fav. directors), stars Mel Gibson before he went a little nutso, as well as the gorgeous and classy Julia Roberts. And it was just a really really great film, fantastic story, amazing turn as a sinister as fuck bad guy by Patrick Stewart, you name it.

Now gaming, as you can plainly see by the pic above, 1997 had it's share of really good games too, across many consoles, like SNES, N64, Playstation, and of course arcade. And my friend Harold and I specifically rented a LOT of games on Nintendo 64, some we really wanted to try, and others just because why not. But out of all of them, the two that stood tall above anything else that released that year, to us anyway, were both because of the great N64 4 player multiplayer action. And those were Mario Kart 64, and Goldeneye. But while we played the SHIT out of both on many many nights with our friends, or just against each other, and while the 007 multiplayer was and is still arguably the best multiplayer first person shooter ever made, I had to ultimately give it to Mario Kart. That game is just a blast, whether it's single OR multiplayer. The tracks were awesome, the battle arenas were awesome, it was fully 3D, yet it still had cool looking 2D prerendered sprites for the racers. And it still to this day remains my favorite Mario Kart of all time, arguably my favorite racing game of all time.

So controversial to some, but SUCH a good album.

Now I have to speak about Metallica. When I first moved to my new town in '95, and for probably the next year+ afterwards, my favorite band, so I said, was Green Day. But the truth is, I didn't really HAVE any one band yet that I absolutely loved, and had a huge passion for. Well, that all changed in 1997. I borrowed a copy of "The Black Album" from a friend in high school, and that album in a very real way "changed my life". It sounds hokey sometimes when people say that, but it's the truth. I finally got around to discovering that album at a time in my life when shit was getting worse, and I really needed it. I half-jokingly referred to it as my "Bible", and most of the songs on the album are very deep, and some spoke to me in some very personal ways, that really helped me cope with a lot of the hard shit I was progressively having to deal with. Well, THE song out of the entire album that really really spoke to me, was "The Unforgiven", and I succinctly said then (and I must say, in some respects it's still true), that that song was the "story of my life". I listened to that song on repeat more times than I can tell you. But it really did speak to me, and it really did help me.

So I don't clearly remember whether or not I got "Load" in 1996 when it came out, because I had heard the song "Hero of the Day" on the radio/MTV and really liked it, or if I got it in 1997, but either way, while many people really shit all over that album, I on the other hand REALLY loved it. A lot of old hipsters and metal fans shit all over Metallica in general in the late 90s, which was hard for a young me to deal with as well. It felt somehow shitty and "unfair" that a band I was JUST getting into, and loved SO much, both their old 80s thrash music AND their mellower (but still heavy) 90s output, was getting so much hate from so many people. Like, it literally became the popular opinion to have to say "Metallica sucks", even for people who probably had never really even heard them, old or new. Regardless, fuck everyone else, I loved them, and when ReLoad came out in November of '97, I loved that album too. In fact, I was staying briefly with Harold's family at the time, and it's funny how certain songs or albums you'll associate with other things you experienced while first listening to them sometimes, and for me, that was Duke Nukem 64. Harold had just gotten the game around the same time I got the album. So we would sit in his room, and he would play while I would blast ReLoad, and those were some pretty good times.

BUT, in the midst of all that Metallica love, another great album by my PREVIOUS "favorite" band (and honestly they still are in my like Top 10 or 20), Green Day, also released in '97, the album "Nimrod". And off of that album, one song in particular also spoke to me, and I listened to it countless times on repeat, and that was the song "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)". Now I picked that as the initial pick for Song of 1997, because it actually came out that year. If we're talking songs that mean more to me overall, all time, I'd probably pick "The Unforgiven". But "Good Riddance" would also be very high on that list, so I'll just say fuck it and pick both.

Best of the Best: 1996

"Well, how many dragons do you know?"

Year: 1996
Movie: Dragonheart
Game: Killer Instinct 2
Album: Load by Metallica
Song: Comedown by Bush

So 1996 was my first full year in my new town, with new friends, and relative teenage autonomy. In some ways, I "went wild", understandably, but I was never a "bad kid", never really got into drugs, or parties, or criminal activity, or any of the stupid shit that I easily could have. Nope...I was still largely into the same things I had been into as a kid: movies, cartoons, games, comics, music etc....just more of it, because I now had more access. When it came to movies, as I said, I saw quite a lot of them at this point. And of those I saw, many were really good, even great. Some of those were fun comedies like Black Sheep and Happy Gilmore, big epics like Independence Day and Escape From LA, and dumbass shit that I for some reason still liked at the time, like Beavis and Butthead Do America.

But the movie that stood head and shoulders above the rest that year, was hands down Dragonheart. Starring Dennis Quaid as the "black knight" Bowen, and the great Sean Connery as the voice of the dragon Draco, it was just a really wonderful film that spoke to me on a lot of levels. It actually had a semi-profound affect on me, from the perspective of the "Old Code of King Arthur" and the mythology of the dragons and all that. It was just really cool stuff, and I didn't yet recognize it at the time, but I think it spoke to the part of me deep down that was already starting to transition into what would become my rather "pagan" beliefs by my late teens. Plus it was just a lot of fun, the dragon was great SFX for the time, it had a great soundtrack, a good balance of action and humor, etc. Dragonheart would actually remain my top favorite movie for many years afterward.

"Fight On"

So when it came to gaming in 1996, there was certainly a lot to like. I had finally, after many years of wanting one, gotten a Super Nintendo as a hand-me-down from a cousin for Christmas '95, so I finally had access to the 16-bit world in my own home, and thus I rented and played various SNES games. But the game that truly was my "game of 1996", was an arcade game, Killer Instinct 2. In the months that I lived fairly close to the mall in my new town, I spent an awful lot of time there, specifically in the old arcade it used to have, called "Tilt". I was there for a lot of new games arriving, and possibly the biggest, to me personally, was the morning I just happened to stroll in, when no one else was there, and they were setting up KI2. I'm about 95% certain that the cool guy that worked there (there was, naturally, also another guy who was a jerk), put in some free tokens to let me try it out after he finished setting it up. And of course, to a 14 year old boy who loves video games, that was amazing.

The game itself was amazing to me at the time, with prerendered graphics by Rare, the same company that made Donkey Kong Country on SNES, that looked more advanced than anything I had ever seen. The soundtrack was bad ass, and the gameplay, to me, was refined and improved over the original game. I liked KI1, but I fell madly in LOVE with KI2, and my favorite character was easily the werewolf guy you see up there, Sabrewulf. Ironically, my fav. character from KI1 was the girl opposite him in that pic, Black Orchid, though they totally changed her moveset for the sequel, and I didn't like her as much. But Sabrewulf was my "guy", and though I got pretty good with other characters, I more or less mastered him. Though in a twist of irony, when it came to my favorite games of '95 and '96, with UMK3, I was really good at versing other players, and I got a fair share of wins, but that game was a son of a bitch to actually try and beat. Especially because the last boss, Shao Kahn, is a royal motherfucker, the cheapest of the cheap. Whereas with KI2, I actually beat it quite regularly when I would play, and managed to beat it with several characters, but because of the more intricate combo system or whatever it was, I was not nearly as good as versing other players.

As for music? Well, also ironically, my "jam", my favorite song in both '95 and '96, were songs from albums that had originally released in 1994. In this case, it was "Comedown", by Bush, though I also really REALLY liked another song from that album, "Glycerin". But 1996 was also a year in which I first had a CD player, and thus very very slowly started to acquire CD albums. I picked "Load" by Metallica, because while I don't think I actually owned that album yet (I may have, don't quote me), it was certainly, looking back, my favorite album that came out that year.

Best of the Best: 1995

So over on Retro Revelations, early last year, I decided to undertake a ginormous project entitled "Best of the Best: 20 Years in Life and Entertainment". It was my attempt to outdo the simple "Best of the Year" type stuff that many people do, and in typical Me fashion, go overboard, by doing 1995-2015. I think, overall, it worked out pretty well. However, it was done in four articles, MEGA-articles, each covering roughly five years of stuff, and not only did they take a LOT to research and write out, but I'm sure they were daunting pieces to sit and read for many people as well.

If I had thought it out better back then, I likely would have done a bunch of small articles (uncharacteristic for me, and for Retro Revelations), doing one year at a time. That way, it's easier to write, and far easier for the average reader to consume. And quite frankly, I think those articles, and sharing my thoughts, feelings, and memories on those years and the happier (and not so happy) things they brought, is too good to NOT share with more people.

SO, with that in mind, for the month of March, I'm going to endeavor to break those MEGA-articles up into just that: 20 separate years chronicled, each year going over my picks for favorite movie, video game, music album, and song.

Without further adieu, here is the first year: 1995

"It Has Begun....."

Year: 1995
Movie: Mortal Kombat
Game: Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
Album: Burnt Offerings by Iced Earth*
Song: When I Come Around by Green Day

As stated, in the fall of 1995, we moved from the town I had spent many years of my childhood in, to my current town which was about a half an hour away. It was a major turning point in my life. We moved because my grandmother was basically dying of lung cancer, because she had spent most of her life smoking like an oil refinery. She passed away shortly after we moved, in September. So the Fall of 1995, in a very real way to me at the time, could rightly be called my "First Fall of Freedom"...because I was more or less free, after a life of absolute control, to for the first time essentially do whatever the hell I wanted.

But before that, in the late summer of '95, while I had previously gotten to see Power Rangers: The Movie and Batman Forever, the first movies in theater I had been able to see since I was probably about 4 years old, I got to see the first film in theater that would actually "impact" me, on a personal level. And that movie, was Mortal Kombat. As explained in this article, I had in the early 90s loved (to the point of obsession) Street Fighter II, and when the original Mortal Kombat arcade game first debuted, I kind of acted like I hated it, because all the kids flocked to it, and said it was "better" than SFII, because it had "real" graphics, and blood, and silly fatalities, etc. I didn't REALLY hate the game, but I sure as shit loved me some SFII, and would defend it vigorously as being superior. But when MKII came out, that game, with it's mystical "Outworld" setting, started to win me over more. And by the time the movie came out in '95, MKIII was already out, and I got swept up in MK fever. Not that I loved Street Fighter any less.....just that I finally relented and thought MK was also cool.

And when it came to the movie, while I saw many other cool movies in late 95, such as my first ever Jackie Chan film Rumble in the Bronx, as well as the awesome Robin Williams film Jumanji, nothing really "touched" my 13 year old mind, more than MK. It wasn't just that I had come to like the games. It wasn't just that it was a VERY well done and exciting martial arts/action flick (though it was). It was a lot of fun, it felt like an event, and beyond that, it really brought to the fore more than ever, the mythology and backstory of the game. The actors were great in their roles and really brought the characters to life in an organic way. And the themes of honor and fighting to defend life, are what original eastern martial arts are all about. The movie just kind of had everything, and while it certainly affected teenage me far more than it does jaded, grumpy adult me now, I DO still think it's an awesome film (which is amazing because I kind of hate the director).

It's the Ultimate Showdown, of Ultimate Destiny.

As for my favorite game of 1995, well, it wasn't as if I was obsessed with the MK franchise THAT much...but I certainly got swept up in the fever, as I said, and while I thought the original version of MKIII was neat when it came out early that year, it was lacking, especially missing the popular ninja characters. So in the fall, when they released a better "Ultimate" version that returned the ninjas and added cooler backgrounds, I just loved it. Especially because the night it was first put into the mall arcade I would frequent for many years, my friends and I got there right as some guy was playing it, playing one of the "new" characters (the female ninja Jade), and he was somehow awesome at it. A huge crowd gathered around as he beat it on the hardest tier, and proceeded to pick the "Supreme Demonstration" as his reward, which of course shows ALL the finishing moves in the game, for every character. The crowd, my friends and I included, ate it up, and it was just a really fun time, and a good memory.

When it comes to the album, you'll notice there's an asterisk next to it. That's because I actually wasn't yet into "album music" in 1995. I had a few tapes, yes, but for the majority of my childhood any new music I knew was from the radio, or something like MTV or VH1. So I decided to pick that album retroactively, because after looking at albums that came out in 1995, I like that one best, as it really is one of Iced Earth's best. A classic piece of heavy metal. Plus, I mean, it ends with the 16+ minute epic based on Dante's Inferno. And as for the song, well it wasn't a NEW song that year, but "When I Come Around" by Green Day was absolutely my JAM of 1995. I loved that song, it really spoke to me for some reason. Still does.

The Face of Hypocrisy

It is high irony, that so many third wave feminists defend Islamic culture SO vehemently, when Islamic culture is literally THE single most anti-feminist, and MOST oppressive to women, on the entire planet. That isn't even just opinion. That is fact. That does not mean ALL Muslims act that way or feel that way, surely. But it is the ONLY culture/religion on Earth (these days, Christianity and Judaism used to be about as bad), that often demands women cover entire bodies, and either their hair, or their entire FACE, because, you know, seeing pretty women is just too distracting and tempting to good Muslim men, right?

The "Western World" obviously has a lot of it's own problems, and one of them is how females ARE often still treated/mistreated. I don't think anyone with true intelligence and compassion would really bother trying to argue that fact. BUT, when these feminists put SO much effort into demonizing Straight White Men (the devil who causes ALL evil on the planet, obviously), but in the same breath defends Muslim culture from any and all even CONSTRUCTIVE criticisms, because "how dare we attack those poor people", it's laughable.

I've known Muslims who are good people, and even some who do NOT subscribe to the often very Misogynistic ways of the Quran. But I'm sure that THOSE people would likely be inclined to agree, that the way many Islamic countries treat women is abhorrent. For third wave feminists to outright IGNORE that, while constantly railing against their OWN western culture that, with a handful of admittedly SHITTY exceptions, in point of fact in MOST ways that matter, treat them like 100% equals to men, is not only absurd, it comes off as incredibly disingenuous to their own alleged cause.

You don't see them over in Middle Eastern and African Islamic countries, protesting for women's human rights that are ACTUALLY being abused and oppressed, on a daily basis. No, instead you see "Free the Nipple" rallies, and "Gender Pay Gap" protests, and online boycotts or petitions based around the silliest, most shallow shit, like female video game characters, or casting in Hollywood films.

I am not going to sit here and argue or denigrate those issues. But I AM going to call blatant bullshit and hypocrisy, on how many of them constantly attack Straight White Western Men, as in ANY of them, no matter whether they EVER personally "oppress" women or not, no matter whether they are genuinely good people or not (which by the way is sexist bigotry in and of itself), yet they rarely if ever call bullshit on Islamic issues that genuinely harm and mistreat women, worldwide.

Let's just propose, for the sake of argument, that a new Right Wing movement rose up in the US, where white Christian women started completely covering their bodies, head to toe, and wore the equivalent or Hijabs or even Burkas, because in THEIR view, it is indecent and sinful for women to expose anything more than their faces, or even just their eyes. Guess what? Western third wave feminists would have a field day with that. They would attack it, immediately, calling those women "traitors" to feminism and womankind, and attacking the white Christian men who OBVIOUSLY are forcing these poor, oppressed female victims, to cover their natural beauty.

I could almost guarantee that would be the basic reaction to such a phenomenon. And yet, that is exactly how women in many Islamic countries are treat, and worse, on a day to day basis. On the one hand, yes, I can understand the point of defending a woman's right to CHOOSE to dress how she wants, including wearing a headscarf, or even mask/veil. But on the OTHER hand, as a egalitarian and humanist myself, I will not just sit by and pretend that the religious/cultural reasons BEHIND the use of those things on women, is innocent or something worth protecting.

I am not religious, but I say these things being part Middle Eastern myself. And I'm sorry, but forcing women to cover their natural beauty, their skin, their hair, even their FACES, is ridiculous and and ignorant as it gets. Even full-body nakedness, even covering up so-called "indecent", "sinful" private parts. The fear and demonization of the human body, especially the female body, has NEVER had anything to do with God or spirituality, at all. It was wrong when Christians and Jews treated women and the human body that way, and it's STILL wrong that Muslims treat women and the human body that way. And the TRUE irony, is that many of these same feminists will be the FIRST in line to agree and attack western white Christians for that kind of treatment towards nudity and women in general. But again, usually not a peep when it comes to other cultures "we have no business talking about".

Except that humanitarian causes and human rights issues, ARE everyone's business. And practices that harm or actively oppress people (as in ACTUALLY oppress), SHOULD be railed against, and stopped. If women want to wear Hijabs and Burkas...whatever. But to me, it is a "SIN" to COVER human beauty. There is no "Virtue" in making women hide themselves, so as not to "tempt" men, or "distract" them with their natural femininity. As a "straight" male myself, I can in fact attest to beautiful females catching my attention and "distracting" me. It happens. That's Nature. But why should we avoid it, or condemn or oppress it?

Regardless, the Hijab and Burka are only symptoms of the larger issue, on a cultural level that many Islamic countries treat their women as lesser humans, who in some cases aren't allowed to vote, or drive, or own their own property, etc. They are "owned" by the men in their lives, basically, just as it was in Medieval Christian Europe. As an aside, the vast majority of PRE-Christian European cultures did not treat women that way. For that matter, many PRE-Muslim Middle Eastern cultures didn't treat women that way either. If you actually do the research, beyond religious/historical cover-ups and demonizations, MOST "Pagan" cultures were MUCH more egalitarian, in fact. But that's a story for another day.

I don't deny that there are most certainly ways in which women in the West, even in America, are NOT always treated as Full Equals to men. There ARE still sadly some ways in which women are treated "lesser" or "different", and that sucks, and needs to change. There ARE feminist causes worth fighting for in the West. But so much of what third wave feminism parades around these days, stinks of manufactured outrage, IE FINDING things to be mad and indignant about, and a LOT of it also stinks of (to coin their own terms) "White Female Privilege". Yes, that does exist. In fact, straight up "Female Privilege" exists.

There are MANY circumstances under which women in the West have stark ADVANTAGES over men as well, such as when it comes to how harshly the law treats them for the same crimes as men. Or how social programs often treat women versus men. Or how workplaces often make allowances for pregnant/parent women, but not men. Or domestic violence (or violence in general) towards men not being taken anywhere near as seriously as against women.Or how men are required by law to pay child support and sometimes even alimony but women are not. Or how the vast majority of child custody cases go in favor of women over men, even if the men are the more capable parent. These things are not some silly, whiny "Men's Rights Activist" talking points, to be justifiably dismissed and scorned, as they so often are. No, these are REAL issues and disparities that exist, for women OVER men, in American society alone, and they are just some examples. There are in fact MANY ways in which women have distinct and even stark advantages over men, in Western/American society, that often get ignored or pushed aside, as if they don't exist or don't matter.

But the POINT in all of this is, Hypocrisy. Something I have always loathed and railed against. I hate hypocrites the same as I hate liars, because to me, BOTH are one and the same, BOTH are forms of Dishonesty, which stinks of Dishonor and Cowardice. And I hate Hypocrites and Liars, regardless of gender, creed, ethnicity, economic status, or anything else. A Liar is a Liar, and a Hypocrite is a Hypocrite, no matter what. And I see extreme hypocrisy in the way many Western/American third wave feminists act TOWARDS the West/America, versus how they often act (or rather, don't act) towards OTHER parts of the world that ACTUALLY treat women badly, without exception, on a daily basis. There is something extremely disingenuous, and spoiled, and even sickening, about hearing Western women talk about stupid shit like "Mansplaining" and "Manspreading", as if these are end of the world issues, while not paying even token lip-service to women who are ACTUALLY oppressed, beaten, and otherwise mistreated every day of their lives in other countries.

There are feminist issues here in the West that are worth discussing and fighting for. But those issues are not unique to the West, and you can't just care about Human Rights issues here at home, but NOT care about them elsewhere. You don't get to be a Fair Weather Humanitarian. You either are, or you aren't. You either care, or you don't. And NOT caring, about the outright oppression women in many Islamic cultures go through, and defending them against attacks or criticism from "Evil White Men" in the West, because somehow we're "oppressing" the oppressors by pointing out bullshit, is just that: Bullshit.

Quite frankly, in my opinion, while it is also a topic for another day, ALL of the Monotheistic, "One God, One Truth" religions of the world, who profess to be "God's Only Chosen", and claim that THEY know the only "Real Truth", and that everyone ELSE who believes differently is an evil Heathen condemned to Eternal Damnation, have done profoundly more harm than good. That isn't even up for debate, that isn't a subjective opinion, it's objective fact. All you have to do is pick up a history book, or turn on the news, to see the Truth of that. And that is not an attack on religious people, it is simply the sad, terrifying truth of the existence of such religions in the human world. There has not been a greater cause of massive destruction, suffering, and death in this world, in the entirety of human history, than these monotheistic religions. Don't get me wrong, there WAS war and strife and atrocity before they existed. But those things have escalated by an incredible degree SINCE they took a foothold in the world over the last 2000+ years. There are many GOOD people of ANY of those such religions, many who do NOT agree with many of the messages, attitudes or interpretations, that have LEAD to such horror and atrocity. But I think history and the current state of the world, attest more than any one person or group ever could, to the fact that the genuinely GOOD and PEACEFUL super-religious of the world, have NOT been the voices most heard, have NOT had the most influence over world events. And that is sad, because if Islam truly WERE, universally, a "Religion of Peace" as it is often claimed to be, or if ALL Christians, universally, actually acted "Christ-Like", the world would be a MUCH better, cleaner, friendlier and less terrifying place right now.

The Face of Hypocrisy, is that you don't get to choose to attack ONE group for a dangerous and destructive view or behavior, but NOT others who share similar views and behaviors. Many third wave feminists DO attack Christianity about these kinds of things. A LOT in fact. But, many of those same people, as stated, sometimes outright REFUSE to attack Islam over the EXACT same things. Because that's "Not White Culture", so we don't have a "right" to comment on it or interfere in it. Even though Christianity literally exists in almost every nation on Earth, in some regions outright dominating populations of entirely non-white humans. Even though in many cases, the way Islam abuses human rights or spreads hateful outlooks, is even WORSE than what modern Christianity does. It is every BIT as bad as Medieval Christianity was. The key difference being, that modern "radical" Muslims, have weapons and technologies and means to do greater harm on a greater scale. That isn't to say that Christianity isn't ALSO still doing harm, for indeed, it still holds firm influence over many political and military agendas in many Western countries, not the least of which being the United States. In fact there are people in power in American government as I type this, who would love nothing more than to provoke what they, just like the "Radical Islamists", feel would be a "Holy War", worldwide, between Christian and Muslim nations, with all of the rest of us, and all life on Earth, caught in the crossfire. That isn't hyperbole, that is a nightmare reality that I have READ many claim to be "waiting for" or even WISHING for.

You have to care about ALL atrocity, ALL abuse, not just some of it. So, to self-proclaimed "Social Justice Warriors", if you truly want to BE Warriors, then carry yourselves with semblance of Honor, and don't just pick and choose which issues, real or manufactured, that you wish to protest in the comfort of your own country. Go out there and fight the good fight for people who ACTUALLY need your help, and ACTUALLY need saving. Ultimately, an issue such as the way Islamic countries and culture treat women, or even the issue of radical terrorism, it really isn't possible to be changed by outsiders. It can ONLY be changed by the people THEMSELVES, condemning and ultimately fighting to CHANGE those things. The West cannot beat Islamic terrorism, certainly not with weapons and wars. The only way that is ever going to stop, is if MUSLIMS as a whole, take a VERY public stand against it themselves, and make it clear that killing in the name of their culture and religion, is NOT acceptable. Because, as many SJW's and third wave feminists like to point out, "Silence Is Often Approval", inaction is often the same as condoning atrocity. But while Western feminists perhaps CAN'T directly go into these countries and cultures and MAKE change themselves, as outsiders, they CAN direct their energies towards changing attitudes and viewpoints, and inspiring THOSE people to take up the cause and make the change THEMSELVES.