Y2K, no big deal

I contributed a short essay to Newsweek's 2010 project for the Overblown Fears list: Y2K.

Despite the media hype, the biggest story about the Y2K computer bug is that nothing happened. Trains didn't spontaneously derail. McDonald's didn't roll back to turn-of-the-century pricing (no Happy Meals for a ha'penny). And the banks didn't lose all of our money; we'd have to wait another eight years for that.

Farhad Manjoo recently did a 2-part piece on the lessons of Y2K for Slate.

Movie originality and success

Prompted by my post about how few non-adapted/sequel/franchise films there are on the list of the top-grossing films of the 2000s (9 out of 50), kottke.org reader Keith took a look at the Best Picture Oscar nominees for the decade and noticed that the percentage of original properties was actually lower (7 out of 45). From his email:

This leaves 7 that are original. Gladiator, Gosford Park, Lost in Translation, Crash, Babel, Little Miss Sunshine, Juno, and Michael Clayton.

You'll note that 7/45 (15.556%) is worse than 9/50 (18%). So it seems that the box office appreciates originality more than the Academy. Take from this what you will. I might suggest that this is a poor way to truly gauge originality, as the top 50 box office grossers of the decade is a pretty high bar (500 million+), and seems to demand some kind of familiarity in order to attract the rapid widespread viewing needed for a big theatrical run. Alternately, it builds into the argument that most creativity is follow-on. I would venture a guess that if we dove deeper, into say, every movie that made at least $100 million in the decade, the ratio of original properties would be a bit more palatable.

Thanks, Keith! Also interesting is a comparison between the top grossing films of the 2000s and those for the 1990s and the 1980s. You don't have to delve too far to see how much has changed. Of the top 15 films in the 1990s, 7 are original properties: Independence Day, The Lion King, Sixth Sense, Armageddon, Home Alone, Ghost, and Twister. For the 1980s, a consensus on the top 10 grossing films is difficult to come by, but using the Wikipedia one yields 5 original properties out of the top 10: ET, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ghostbusters, Beverly Hills Cop, and Back to the Future (other lists I saw included Top Gun and Rain Man but also Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (adapted)).

Clearly sequels, adaptations, and franchises ruled in the 2000s much more than in the 1990s or 1980s. But if you go back to the 1970s, only 2 or 3 of 10 top-grossing films are original: Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and perhaps The Sting. So maybe the 2000s were a return to old ways for Hollywood?

Paste Magazine's best of the decade

They've got lists for books, movies, documentaries, video games, memes, comedians, and more.

The 2000s according to Wikipedia

Wikipedia gets into the 2000s roundup game with a main article and a number of topic-based summaries, including fashion, film, and sports. From the fashion page:

In hip hop, the throwback jersey and baggy pants (popular in the '90s to 2004) look was replaced with the more "grown man" look which was highly popularized by Kanye West around the year 2005.

If you say so. More interesting is the chart of the 20 highest grossing movies from the film page (the top 3 each grossed $1 billion+ worldwide):

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
3. The Dark Knight
4. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
5. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
6. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
7. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
8. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
9. Shrek 2
10. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
11. Spider-Man 3
12. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
13. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
14. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
15. Finding Nemo
16. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
17. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
18. Spider-Man
19. Shrek the Third
20. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Only one movie on the list was made from an original screenplay: Finding Nemo...the rest are all sequels or adapted from books, TV shows, amusement park rides, etc. Out of the top 50, only nine are not franchise films.

From Wassap! to Obama, a decade in review

As part of Newsweek's extensive 2010 project (more on that next week), they've produced a 7-minute video showing the highlights from the past decade.

Wassup! Wassup! What a decade. (thx, jr)

Top movies of the 2000s

From The Times in the UK, the top 100 films of the decade. Before you look, see if you can figure out which one of the following is not in the top 5:

Grizzly Man
Cache
No Country for Old Men
Team America: World Police
There Will Be Blood

I've seen 58 out of the 100.

Best music of the 2000s

From Largehearted Boy, a roundup of lists of best music of the 2000s.

Summing up the 2000s

The blog You Aught To Remember is counting down all the of the memorable people, ideas, and trends of the 2000s. Some recent entries include the demotion of Pluto, World of Warcraft, the Red Sox winning the World Series, and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

Music videos of the decade

Antville has a list of the 100 best music videos of the decade, the first 50 or so are embedded right on the page. (via fimoculous)

This decade's lost species

From the Guardian, a list of species that became extinct or critically endangered during the 2000s. (via @ettagirl)

Best NBA players of the 2000s

I'm not exactly sure what I expected from such a list, but this wasn't quite it. Kobe at #3 and Shaq is #6? Hrm.

The top 200 albums of the 2000s

Pitchfork continues their look back at the 2000s with the top 200 albums of the decade. Here are the top 20.

Pitchfork's songs of the decade

As part of their review of the music of the 2000s, Pitchfork listed the top 500 tracks of the past decade. Here are the top 10:

10. Arcade Fire, "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)"
9. Animal Collective, "My Girls"
8. Radiohead, "Idioteque"
7. Missy Elliott, "Get Ur Freak On"
6. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, "Maps"
5. Daft Punk, "One More Time"
4. Beyonce [ft. Jay-Z], "Crazy in Love"
3. M.I.A. [ft. Bun B and Rich Boy], "Paper Planes (Diplo Remix)"
2. LCD Soundsystem, "All My Friends"
1. OutKast, "B.O.B."

Be sure to click through for the extensive explanations. It would easy to nitpick specific selections, but that's a pretty good top 10.

Gorilla vs. Bear also shared their top songs and albums of the decade.

The 2000s, summed up

Momus is first out of the gate with a summary of the 00s, what he calls a "mister narrative of the decade"...a one-man master narrative.

Other things that looked dead or dying this decade: I personally stopped going to the cinema. Why sit behind someone's head in a fleapit when you can download all you need to see and project it at home? Copyright effectively died, overtaken, de facto, by events on the internet. Magazines and newspapers ended the decade looking very unhealthy indeed, although books seemed strong. Young people got a lot less interested in cars, leading some to label Japan a post-car society. Detroit pretty much collapsed. The polar ice caps melted rapidly; climate change is a fact. Banks -- having invented what they thought were clever ways to spread risk around, and play with planet-sized sums of entirely fictional money -- looked pretty shaky.

Embedded in Momus's post is a video called Rise of the Rest, the title of which was borrowed from Fareed Zakaria.

From the video:

In ten years, the number one English speaking country in the world will be USA India China.