Looking Ahead to Next Year

I'll be posting best of lists for music and film sometime by the new year, but it's never too early to start thinking about next year.

Music:
It looks like I'll be spending a lot of money next year catching up with some of my favorite artists. New albums are solidly slated to come out by The Shins (1/23), Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (1/30), Bloc Party (2/6), Ted Leo (3/20), The Stooges (3/20), The Arcade Fire (Feb/Mar), The Cure (May), Idlewild (February), Rufus Wainwright (May), and Wilco (May).
More nebulous are: Art Brut, Andrew Bird, Built to Spill, Common, Dinosaur Jr., Jose Gonzalez, Interpol, the Magnetic Fields, the New Pornographers, Pinback, The Postal Service, Radiohead, Rilo Kiley, Spoon, Tegan & Sara, John Vanderslice, Wolf Parade, and The Wrens.
Very up in the air, but rumored are albums by The Fugees, The Pixies, and Smashing Pumpkins, as well as Guns 'n' Roses, which I definitely won't be buying.

A very credible source tells me that The Shins album (Wincing the Night Away) is great, and fortunately not very Garden State-ish. However, it's not such a departure that, if you like the band, you'll likely be in love with the new album. Bloc Party's newest effort, however, is mediocre.

Film: Some Oscar-bait films won't be getting wide release until January/February, but you'll know about those as soon as the Oscar nods come out.
Unfortunately, because the studios put out all the movies they think are good in the last few days of the year to qualify for Oscars, Jan/Feb is a dumping ground. However, The Lives of Others and Days of Glory are two foreign films which will be getting limited release and which should both be very good. The Number 23 could be ridiculous (Jim Carrey in a satanic-themed thriller), but the trailer looks oddly very good. Black Snake Moan pairs Samuel L. Jackson and Christina Ricci, which is at least interesting. Breach has a very good cast (Chris Cooper and Ryan Philippe) and, if you're spy-ed out from The Good German and The Good Shepherd in the next few weeks, could be a good choice.

From March, things get a bit better: Zodiac has a great trailer, 300 looks... unique, Sunshine is a sci-fi film directed by Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later) and thus will be completely awesome, The Lookout stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt who has picked only amazing films for the past year and a half or so, Will Ferrell is back spoofing a new sport (ice skating) in Blades of Glory (and with Napoleon Dynamite--let's hope it's better than Talladega Nights), and Werner Herzog directs a non-documentary (Rescue Dawn) starring Christian Bale. I am so there.