50 Things You Must Do by the End of the Year at Hollywood.com

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50 Things You Must Do by the End of the Year

By Lien Ta, Hollywood.com Staff | Friday, October 03, 2008

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Philip Seymour Hoffman as Caden Cotard as Sony Pictures Classics' 'Synecdoche, New York'
21. Synecdoche, New York
It'll be nuts. It's Charlie Kaufman! The first-time director leads Philip Seymour Hoffman, a frustrated director of a local Schenectady, N.Y., theater with a mysterious condition that is turning off each of his autonomic functions one by one (Eternal Sunshine fans wait with bated breath). Yet, he's dying to impress the wife that's just left him (Catherine Keener) by … moving his ensemble cast into a warehouse, creating a full-functioning New York City, and having everybody just play out their day-to-day lives. Thus, manufacturing super-real stuff. By definition, "synecdoche" is a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole (e.g. warehouse as Manhattan) or the general for the specific — which, still, only partially defines it. (Oct. 24)

22. Mystery Science Theater 3000: 20th Anniversary Edition
Responsible for lampooning the most horrendous movies in life, Joel Hodgson and Mike Nelson, your favorite TV show hosts of 1988-1999 (and the 1996 feature film, of course!), have orbited Earth and back so that you can fete their 20th anniversary with their four most requested episodes of yesteryear: First Spaceship on Venus (1960), Laserblast (1978), Werewolf (1996) and Future War (1997). This limited-edition tin-box special will include a 2008 Comic-Con reunion panel featuring Joel, Mike and the gang, plus the original film trailers, six versions of the theme song, four lobby cards and an exclusive figurine of Crow T. Robot. (Oct. 28)

23. Saturday Night Live Presidential Bash
Tina Fey's impeccable roast of Sarah Palin was Saturday Night Live's most-watched episode — not-so-dumb NBC will, of course, milk this electrifying Presidential campaign till the ballots are finally whipped out. The Monday before Election Day, SNL will showcase its quadrennial poli-satire, featuring Fey's Palin, Fred Armisen's Barack Obama, Amy Poehler's Hillary Clinton, plus some weaving-in of a few former-Prez classics like Chevy Chase's Gerald Ford to Will Ferrell's Dubya. In addition to this last hurrah, NBC will bring "SNL Weekend Update Thursday," a kind of "Weekend Update" of 30 poli-savvy minutes on Oct. 9, 16 and 23. (Nov. 3)

24. The Complete Batman Animated Series
Spread your Saturday morning cartoon fix over many, many Saturdays (heck, even Sundays) and relish your favorite caped crusader in over 35 hours of Gotham crime-fighting — 107 episodes in 17 discs. The Emmy-winning series is available in this limited-edition collection, and in addition to the cartoons, there are eight in-depth featurettes, a bonus-disc documentary (Shades of the Bat: Batman's Animated Evolution), a 40-page collector's book, and commentaries on 12 episodes with the animators. You can always pretend it's your favorite Dark Knight, Christian Bale, fighting the Joker, Penguin and Mr. Freeze … (Nov. 4)

25. Chris Cornell, Scream
Cornell, modern rock's best aching lungs behind Soundgarden and Audioslave, thought, why not a little R&B for his third solo album? Somehow, singing over Timbaland's hip-hop beats seemed an awesome idea, and according to the two collaborators, it's the best music of their careers (sorry, Justin Timberlake). If the first single, "Long Gone," is any indication, the album will feature an electronification of Cornell's vocals over futuristic keyboard tunes, a singer-songwriter piano, and of course, Timbaland's signature stuttered-club beats. Dumbfounded fans of Cornell might find this pairing controversial, but Cornell thinks you're ready for … let's call it a Missy Elliot touch. (Nov. 4)

KEEP READING: Surviving Election Night, plus will Viggo live?