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It was a pretty good year, the movies were solid, and the TV was great. I saw so many movies in 2011 that were just generally great in a way that I didn’t expect them to be based on the trailers, and my number one choice was a movie that I didn’t even expect to make the list at all. In terms of TV, it was so awesome, almost every show I watch was on the top of its game this past year, and to anyone that knows me number one won’t come as a surprise.
Movies
10. Source Code
Source Code was a movie that I just got on demand one night because I had nothing better to do, and it blew me away. I didn’t expect anything from it at all, and what it gave me was a movie almost as intricate and as Inception. Not to mention it’s great seeing Jake Gyllenhaal in a good movie again.
9. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
The Mission Impossible series has always been entertaining. They’ve never been “great” movies even in terms of their own genre, but they’ve always been entertaining. What Brad Bird (Director of The Incredibles) did with MI:4 is take everything that was good about the Mission Impossible series and multiplied it by 1000. Everything about it is massive. The stakes are huge, the action is huge, the scale of the movie in general is huge. It was a very cool movie to watch, especially in IMAX.
8. The Muppets
The Muppets is one of those movies that had a massive amount of hype surrounding it. Everyone loves the Muppets, and they haven’t been around for an upwards of ten years. They’ve been gone long that a lot of kids in general are not entirely sure what the Muppets are. So, if you’re going to make a movie to try and reintroduce the Muppets to the mainstream, it has to be good. And it is. Everything that everyone loves about the muppets is in this movie, the cameos, the songs, the fourth wall jokes, and the random references. Everything about it works, and they even do it in such a way that they manage to strike a chord on an emotional level, in that pixar sort of way that Muppets movies generally hadn’t done before. It was a fun movie that everyone would love.
7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II
The End of a ten year long film franchise, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows just may have been the best out of all of them. To be perfectly honest, I don’t like David Yates as a director of the Harry Potter movies, and I personally think he failed miserably with Order of the Phonix and Half Blood Prince. All things considered though, he finally figured it out with these last two movies, and delivered and ending that was satisfying, emotional, and epic.
6. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
When I found out David Fincher was doing The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, I was pretty pumped. The guy that gave us Se7en, Fight Club, and Zodiac adapting one of the most awesomely horrifying books I’ve ever read? Perfect. And he didn’t disappoint. What he gave us was a weird but awesome combination of Se7en and Zodiac, and what makes it work is that Fincher captures the techy-grittiness of the book through Rooney Mara who is amazing as Lisbeth Salander the title Character, and makes the movie that much better than it already is otherwise.
5. Drive
Drive is sort of a weird movie in a way. There’s not much to it really in any way. The story is simple and the acting is subtle, but the director Nicolas Winding Refn, takes this simple story and does it so artfully that it’s amazing to watch, and he takes things that most directors would think to do in an artful fashion and takes a scene of someone getting violently curb stomped to death by Ryan Gosling, and makes it, for lack of a better word, art in such a way that Quinten Tarantino tries to be with his violence, and I love Quinten Tarantino. Because it’s so different in that way, and because the rest of the movie works so well, it’s just an all-around great movie.
4. Super 8
I love Super 8. I really do. JJ Abrams is one of my favorite directors, and what he does with this movie is brings the world back the Summer Blockbusters of the Spielbergian 70s and 80s, movies like ET, and the Goonies, and Stand By Me. I know a lot of people who hate this movie, are their reasons founded? A little bit. I mean this movie does have its issues but the sincerity of the cast and the story that you don’t really get from movies like this anymore (and Spielberg himself having not made a good movie like this in years), more than makes up for any issues with the movie in general.
3. The Artist
Why would someone want to make a silent black and white film in 2011? Why would someone go out and see a silent black and white film in 2011? How can a silent black and white film made in 2011 possibly be a good movie? All of those are irrelevant questions, because The Artist was surprisingly pretty phenomenal. They take the silence and they use it to get so much humor out of it, and because of the way it’s filmed it’s endearing and it just helps to embolden what The Artist actually is, and what it is, is a love letter to the art of film. It was a movie made by people who love movies and it was a very fun movie to watch.
2. Midnight in Paris
Midnight in Paris is one of those movies that I watch it, and I’m just genuinely happy the entire time while I’m watching it, and it was very very close to being #1. It’s just such a fun witty movie, and I honestly love everything about it, the writing is great, the music, is great, the performances are great, and the scenery is amazing to look at, and arguably adds to the fact that the entire movie is a commercial for a Parisian vacation. I love the dialogs between the postmodern authors and artists, and picking up on the inside jokes from their works that Woody Allen laidens the script with, and I love that the movie makes me want to be Ernest Hemmingway, not be like Ernest Hemmingway, but BE Ernest Hemmingway, because he’s that cool. It’s a fun, funny movie that I’m so happy I watched.
1. War Horse
I thought I was going to hate War Horse. Just watching the trailers and commercials for it, the whole thing seemed to be begging me to care about it, when I really didn’t because I didn’t think it had a lot going for it, World War 1 isn’t a subject matter that interests me, I don’t particularly love horses, and on top of all of it before this movie I don’t think Steven Spielberg has made a good movie in 10 years. But I decided to see it because I had no reason not to, and everything about it put me into a state of awe, of what I was watching. As soon as John Williams’ score kicked in, I was in, and a stayed in for the whole ride. The music is phenomenal, the direction almost makes me want to take back everything bad I’ve said about Spielberg’s more recent work, the performances were great, and the extent to which he gets you to care about this horse is amazing. It’s one of those movies that just makes me feel completely content and happy with all of humanity humanity in general after I see it, and there’s a sense of satisfaction that sets in that is usually only reserved for Pixar movies. Go see War Horse, you won’t be sorry you did.
TV Shows
10. Chuck
Initially I was not very impressed with the penultimate season of Chuck. It had almost gotten me to the point where I thought creatively the show may have hit a dead end and there was no coming back, and then Timothy Dalton showed up, and made for one of the most awesome villains I’ve ever seen on TV, and finished out the season stronger than any season prior. (Best Episode: Chuck Vs. The Cliffhanger)
9. The Walking Dead
I was not a huge fan of season 1 of AMC’s Zombie Drama the Walking Dead, I thought it was alright, but I found that I didn’t really care about any of the characters, and that took me out of it a bit. But then this season came back, and the S— hit the fan and it was amazing. Things went nuts (then slowed down a little bit), and it made for exciting, and more often than not, genuinely frightening show, and began to really flesh out their characters at the same time, while doing things that in general most shows are afraid to do. Walking Dead pushes boundaries and I can’t wait for it to come back in the spring. (Best Episode: Pretty Much Dead Already)
8. Dexter
Going into season 6 of Dexter (now the third to final season), I was just about fed up with the same story repeating itself year after year, and I decided that if this season wasn’t good then I was going to be done with the show, and this season really took me by surprise. Looking at the promos for it, it looked like Dexter had finally jumped the shark, but once it started, it quickly became one of the best seasons of the series up with. It takes questions of faith and turns them sideways and it makes for the great dark and unsettling show about America’s Favorite Serial Killer, that we’ve come to know and love. (Best Episode: Nebraska)
7. Fringe
Fringe is nearing the end of its life on television, by no fault of its own. Just not enough people are watching it. But if it has to go out, it’s going out with a bang and it knows that. The show spent last season bouncing back and forth between the parallel world Fringe created a dual storyline where you weren’t exactly sure who you want to root for, and it made for very interesting storylines and situations, that only continue into this current season. Fringe may be on its way out, but it’s gonna be a great ride before we get there. (Best Episode: The Day We Died)
6. Doctor Who
Since David Tennant’s exit as the Doctor early in 2010, the show itself wasn’t bad per say, it was just noticeably weaker than it once was. That fixed itself this season. Steven Moffat’s use of overarching storylines and smaller character arcs, which never really played much of a part in earlier seasons of the show made this season amazing, and it got to a point where every episode was better than the one before it. Matt Smith is hilarious as the Eleventh Doctor, and the stories are fun and interesting, in a way that I can only hope continues in the future. (Best Episode: The Doctor’s Wife)
5. Parks and Recreation
I had never seen Parks and Recreation prior to this year, and I’m so happy that I finally got into it. I can say with no reservations that it is as good as The Office was, back when the office was at its best, and I feel as though it feels more heartfelt in it than The Office ever did. Amy Poehler as Girl Scout civil servant Leslie Knope has really come into her own as an amazing and hilarious character and has proven time and time again that she isn’t just Blonde Michael Scott. It’s one of the funniest shows out there and everyone should watch it. (Best Episode: The Fight)
4. Community
Community is, without exaggeration, not only the funniest show to currently be on television, but also the funniest show to be on television since Arrested Development. Everything about it just works, and this past season especially. They tell their stories in type of sardonic and tongue in cheek way that current sitcoms just don’t do (ie pretty much every sitcom on CBS). The cast is amazing and what makes them work so well is the fact that unlike the majority of sitcoms, if you remove any one of them from the equation the story ceases to work. Which is the way it should be, characters (on sitcoms anyway) shouldn’t be disposable (just looked at how well it worked for The Office). Community may be struggling ratings-wise, but not in any other way shape or form. (Best Episode: Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking)
3. Homeland
Homeland is the standout best new show of the season. It takes the basic plot of the Manchurian Candidate, and makes it into everything that 24 aspired to be. Anchored by Clare Danes’ epic return after several years of obscurity, it’s an intense layered show that blurs the lines between capitalism and terrorism, and leaves you in a position where you aren’t exactly sure who you’re supposed to be rooting for, or if the one you’re rooting against is everything they appear to be. It keeps you guessing and peels back layers with every passing episode. (Best Episode: Crossfire)
2. Game of Thrones
When I began watching Game of Thrones in March, I watched two episodes and then stopped for multiple reasons, I was busy, I wasn’t that into the story, etc. However, months passed and the season ended without me watching another episode, and people kept telling me “You have to get back into it,” and “How do you not watch it? It’s like, such a Jimmy type of show.” So I broke down and started it up again, and then I proceeded to watch 8 episodes of Game of Thrones over the course of 36 hours. It’s like the Godfather meets Lord of the Rings. It’s epic, it’s huge, it’s layered, and each ending to each episode is more ridiculous than the episode before it. It’s pretty much everything that I love in a show. I’d be telling you to watch it, but pretty much everyone already does. (Best Episode: Baelor)
1. Breaking Bad
Breaking Bad is the best show on television, and the best show to be on television in a very long time. It’s probably the only show in the history of television in which the protagonist starts out as one type of personality, and by the point the show is at now, he is hardly recognizable. There is a reason why Bryan Cranston has won the Emmy for Best Actor in a Drama Series every year of the show’s existence. He has taken a character who is essentially Bill Nye the Science Guy, and he’s turned him into Michael Corleone, in this season finally crossing the threshold from misunderstood guy doing bad things with good intentions, to full blown evil, and it’s amazing. The series wraps up its run this coming summer, and I can’t wait to see where it goes. (Best Episode: Crawl Space)
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