My Year in Lists, Part 3: TV, Movies, and "Be Seeing You"

"My Year in Lists" by Los Campesinos!

This is the first New Year's Eve in years that I've actually been a functioning person and not just a depressed blob. Yay me! Although that "functioning" part only goes so far: despite my obvious love for television, I cannot for the life of me make a coherent list of what I liked watching this year. I can try, but it's really difficult. Behold, the fruits of my effort:

FAVORITE SHOW OF 2010

 30 Rock

Obviously. The latter half of Season 4 and everything shown of Season 5 so far has been wonderful. From the introduction of CAROL, to the rapid-fire and insane jokes, 30 Rock this year was pretty consistently perfect. Sure, there were definitely some clunkers (I for one would prefer to never see that episode guest-starring John Slattery ever again), but I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say this was the funniest show on TV in 2010.

Best episodes: Season 4's "Don Geiss, America and Hope" and "I Do Do," Season 5's "When It Rains, It Pours," "Live Show," "Reaganing," and "College"

Honorable Mentions: Adventure Time, Regular Show, and Flapjack on Cartoon Network. The latter had a really terrible series finale though. Why did it even have to end?! Regardless, Cartoon Network is in the middle of a mini-Renaissance here with its new cartoon block. Adventure Time, Regular Show, and Robotomy (NOT MAD, bleck) made for a solid hour of Monday night TV this year. It was the most consistently entertaining slew of shows this side of Thursday Nights on NBC. Check out these episodes: "The Duke" (Adventure Time), "The Unicorns Have Got to Go," (Regular Show), "All Hands on Deck" (Flapjack)

The Fonzie For TV's Most Improved: Parks and Recreation; Community. I went from cringing every time these shows were on to laughing at them much more than I was laughing at The Office, which I was watching voluntarily. Okay, that isn't hard, but Parks and Recreation and Community both had great seasons this year. While Parks and Rec was relegated to a mid-season replacement (Thanks Outsourced...) Community has been rocking it all Fall long. I recommend marathoning it on Hulu as I did recently. 

Stupidest Reality Show That I Actually Watched Weekly: Pathetically I basically watch NBC comedies, cartoons, and MTV docu-reality shows and that's kind of it. The worst of the latter was easily Teen Mom. I don't think I need to even explain this choice. It's obvious. Even I got tired of it and I don't think I'll be watching it again next year. Runner-up is this season's Project Runway, which gets the title solely because GRETCHEN DID NOT DESERVE TO WIN AND I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO STRESS THIS ENOUGH. TEAM MONDO FOREVER.

Most Surprisingly Great Reality Show: Tie between Work of Art and Top Chef: Just Desserts. Why don't you read my posts about them and find out for yourself how entertaining they were? Those Magical Elves really know their stuff and had a really strong year, and with the repeatedly awesome Top Chef: All Stars continuing its season into the New Year it's looking like 2011 will be great for them, too. 

Obviously, I need to start watching Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, and every other show you like. I will!

THE MOVIES I SAW THIS YEAR*

*The reviews are ones I published on my Flixster. Yep.

How to Train Your Dragon

AWW. IT WAS SO GOOD. It was really adorable and well-done in just about every way. The celebrity voice acting was actually quite good and I didn't even realize that it was all done by celebrities until the credits at the end. The story of Hiccup and Toothless was really sweet. I thought it was kind of annoying that all of the other kids started to like Hiccup when he showed dragon taming prowess, seemingly ONLY because of this talent, but by the end I barely minded. Also, the animation was of a very high quality; I think it was Dreamworks' best looking film to date. Highly recommended!

Also had the most surprising yet perfect ending to any movie I saw this year. I have to watch this again (on my Blu-ray :]) soon.

 Exit Through the Gift Shop

Movies like this are the kinds of documentaries that I like. Cool and interesting.

 Since that review is utter nonsense, read my post about the movie instead.

Please Give

The acting was good, but the story was meandering and ultimately pointless.

I think this was my least favorite of all of the movies I saw this year. I'm surprised that it got so many good reviews. This movie was largely forgettable; if it weren't for the excellent Rebecca Hall (who is on her way to making it really big; see: The Town), then I think I would have liked this movie even less. Rebecca Hall made it worth watching, even though I feel like her character became less and less interesting as the movie went on. Oh, and the girl playing Catherine Keener and Oliver Platt's daughter was great, too.

Toy Story 3

This was THE single most perfect ending I've ever seen to a trilogy in my life. The Toy Story series is my favorite of all time, the first one being my favorite movie ever, and this one is now most likely my second favorite. Definitely in my Top 5. I'm not that much of an emotional person but I was sobbing while watching it. It was EXCELLENT. Hilarious AND beautiful. You need to see this. Now. NOW. GO NOW.

 Yes, this is one of my favorite movies of all-time, and easily of the entire year. Really just perfect.  I need to watch my fancy Blu-ray of it soon...

Inception

Okay, I'll be honest - the last 1/3 of the movie was a little weak. I'll try to avoid spoilers but it just was confusing and went on too long. That aside, this movie was a perfect action movie - exciting, fun, smart, and keeps you on the edge of your seat. It seems complicated - it is. But it all starts to make a ton of sense until you start worrying that your life may be but a dream, too. (Well, the last part's confusing, but ignore that for now.) The acting was awesome and the story was the bomb. SEE IT.

 Also see my mini-review here.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

I liked it a LOT more than I thought I would. It was by no means perfect, but it was FUN, and that's what it needed to be. It wasn't a completely faithful adaptation, and there were definite problems, but the sum of its parts were wholly satisfying. WHOLLY. SATISFYING.

 CAPITAL LETTERS. Read my mini-review here.

Summer Wars

It was quite good. It reminded me a lot of Digimon: The Movie -- in a good way! It was very hardcore and sometimes unbelievable but still a lot of fun. Great characters. I must say though, overall I liked The Girl Who Leapt Through Time better. But this was still great.

 This movie is now out in select theaters in English, so go see it if you can! (Not that it wasn't great in Japanese. Subtitles, though, aren't for everyone.)

The Social Network

I enjoyed the dialogue. Aaron Sorkin's a master. I also liked Andrew Garfield and Armie Hammer (great name) as the Winklevi, tee-hee. Jesse Eisenberg made Mark Zuckerberg into this disturbing, depressed, awkward, uncomfortable to watch tragic (tragicomic?) figure, and I think his performance was so subtle that I didn't realize how good it was until the last scene. The last scene really brought it all together for me. That's when I knew that Mark was indeed our hero, or anti-hero. I had thought it was Eduardo all along. While Eduardo wasn't a villain perse, it's clear that Mark is our poor unfortunate soul of a very, very rich main character. Man, that guy's rich. But, um, yeah, do believe the hype, because this movie is very good.

I look forward to hearing this film's name called for nearly every category at next year's Oscars. I look even more forward to it winning several awards (maybe even Best Picture?).

Catfish

I got a very cool opportunity to watch this movie at a screening that had a Q&A afterwards with the directors + Nev. VERY cool. And since I'm a kid and there were other kids there and kids are just awesome, Nev and Rel stuck around for an hour (maybe even more; they were still talking to other people 20 minutes after I left!) and took more questions and talked to us. Very cool. All of the other girls were fawning over Nev but my friends and I talked to Rel, who was similarly very nice (but not as...not charming, but obsessed with the ladies). So, very cool. Although Henry disappeared. I wanted to talk to him, too. Oh well. It was cool talking to/shaking the hand of a filmmaker.

 Ah yes, my non-review. This movie was almost as much of a thriller as Inception was, and in that regard, it succeeded. Sure, it may be a bit dubious morally, but it was a heck of a ride.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I

I think I may be closer to a 4.5 on this one, but I really did love it, and would rank it up there with 1 and 3. It did feel like there was more "exposition" (even though these movies abandoned trying to re-familiarize audiences with the overarching plot about 3/4 movies ago, which is both good and bad) than actual action but I enjoyed it as a more character-driven story than other movies were. I really love the interaction between our main gang, especially Harry and Hermione and Ron and Hermione (I just love Hermione), and it was nice seeing pretty much all of our favorite characters again, even briefly (LUPIN HI LUPIN...WAIT WHERE ARE YOU GOING COME BACK AND BE IN THE WHOLE MOVIE PLEASE he looked really good in this movie, I feel like he's decreasing in age or something). This movie was SO BEAUTIFUL, I really felt like saying "wow" the whole time. The colors and the locations were great. Those HP kids better be grateful that they got to see all of these amazing places. The ending felt a bit odd; "No, Harry, I can't help Dobby, we haven't reached our death quota yet! And also it would be a perfectly sad way to end this movie! So let's end it now! Predictably! But let's also remind people that this is TBC by showing Voldemort! Yay!" Also I haven't read the book since it came out so the movie was a bit hard to follow at times, but even so this felt like one of the most succinct (despite its running time) films in the series, as well as the most engaging, and I'm SO READY for Part 2!

Stealth-edit. (how could I forget this movie?!?!)

BOOM. MOVIES OF THE YEAR. RIGHT THERE. Sort of.

Movies I wanted to see but didn't but will see soon: Black Swan; The King's Speech; 127 Hours; True Grit; Greenberg; The Kids Are All Right; Easy A; Winter's Bone; Waiting for "Superman"; Somewhere; Tangled; The Illusionist; Blue Valentine. Yeah, I don't get out much.

Alrighty then. There you have it. 2010 was a pretty decent year for me in many ways. 2011's going to be extremely scary, but I'm going to be cautiously optimistic. Optimism! That's new for me.

So, be seeing you in 2011, then!

I liked it a LOT more than I thought I would. It was by no means perfect, but it was FUN, and that's what it needed to be. It wasn't a completely faithful adaptation, and there were definite problems, but the sum of its parts were wholly satisfying. WHOLLY. SATISFYING.
clear rating

The acting was good, but the story was meandering and ultimately pointless.
clear rating

Caution: Disturbing Golden Globes Nominations Rant/"Analysis" As Maddeningly Typed Out by Newly 17-Year-Old Below

I'm an awards show junkie. I believe I've established this?

Yeah. Unfortunately the Golden Globes are widely regarded ("widely" = by me, and maybe only me) as the worst of the big shows, but they are the most perfect fodder for my constant girlish rage at all things movie/TV-related so by gum, I shall watch them! And I shall obsess over the freak show nominations that the HFPA makes! And I shall force you to endure this obsession via posting about it in capital letters! AHA! Also I'm obligated to watch the Golden Globes and all of the above and everything because Ricky Gervais is hosting (again) and that man deserves my constant attention. (I'm of the teeny tiny camp that believes that Extras is better than The Office, but I hold this view only because I find the former funnier. The Office is more significant and I will never deny that. 'Cuz I know you care so much?)

So, let's start with the Big Ones:
Best Motion Picture: Drama

• Black Swan
• The Fighter
• Inception
• The King's Speech
• The Social Network

Okay, actually, there isn't much to rant about here. This list seems to be pretty standard as far as this awards season is going, although the inclusion of Inception really does sort of confuse me. I REALLY liked the movie, but I don't know. It had problems. Maybe they're nominating it because, like me, the HFPA loves Leo and JGL? Hmm? Maybe? Yes? But other than that, actually, this category is alright. I'm betting on Social Network, which was great, although I haven't compared the reviews between it and Black Swan, The Fighter, and The King's Speech enough to be sure. (Although I think Speech is really its only true competition.)

Best Motion Picture - Comedy

• Alice in Wonderland
• Burlesque
• The Kids Are All Right
• Red
• The Tourist

This. Category. Is. A. Load. of. AWFUL HORRIBLE TERRIBLE-NESS-NESS-NESS I MEAN AAAGH WHAT? WHAT? WHAAAAAT? (Here be the Caps Lock abuse.) HOW IS ALICE IN WONDERLAND A COMEDY OR WORTHY OF ANY SORT OF "MAIN" AWARD? BURLESQUE GOT MIDDLING REVIEWS SO HUH? WHAT? SINCE WHEN WAS THE TOURIST A COMEDY? AND RED OVER SOMETHING WITH MORE CONSISTENTLY POSITIVE REVIEWS LIKE SCOTT PILGRIM? Okay, Scott Pilgrim was divisive and those foreigners at the HFPA, I could see them not "getting" it. BUT STILL. I think it was the funniest movie I saw this year SO OBVIOUSLY THAT SHOULD MEAN SOMETHING CONSIDERING THIS IS "BEST COMEDY" RIGHT? AAAAAH. This is the WORST slate of noms in ANY category that I've seen since maybe the 2008 Oscars when Ben Button was considered a serious contender despite the fact that it wasn't that great and Slumdog Millionaire won over Milk which, in my opinion, was MUCH better. UGH. I HATE THIS.

Best Television Series - Drama

• Boardwalk Empire
• Dexter
• The Good Wife
• Mad Men
• The Walking Dead

This category irks me. I'll get to Comedy in a second (or minute or ten minutes) but why does that have 6 nominees and this 5? Asymmetrical! Asymmetrical! Why Boardwalk Empire and not Breaking Stinkin' Bad, man? When everyone who knows anything in TV knows that this season was one of its best? For that matter, which seasons of these shows are the nominations based on, considering that seasons end in May and start in September? Are they based on last season? End of last and beginning of the current season? It's extremely non-sensical. Thankfully, I don't really care too much about drama other than a couple of things so this looks otherwise normal. I believe that this will become the standard and we'll see Walking Dead nom'd at the Emmys next year. But we're not seeing Boardwalk Empire, I know that's for sure... Who knows though?

Best Television Series - Comedy (and Musical)

• The Big Bang Theory
• The Big C
• Glee
• Modern Family
• Nurse Jackie
• 30 Rock

I still don't get it. Nurse Jackie is a comedy? Huh? I really need to get Showtime. I thought The Big C wasn't supposed to be very good? And again: six nominees? Really? Was that necessary? Glee won last year and if it wins again I don't think I'll ever watch the Globes ever again. Really. That's just wrong. Glee is a fun guilty pleasure, not a serious awards contender. As always I'm rooting for 30 Rock, which has been consistently wonderful all season-long. Plus I bet the HFPA is in love with Matt Damon (Carol! CAROL!) so come on, guys! Do it for Matt!

Best Animated Film

• Despicable Me
• How to Train Your Dragon
• The Illusionist
• Tangled
• Toy Story 3

Toy Story 3. Easily. I LOVED How to Train Your Dragon but Toy Story 3 was one of the best movies I've ever seen. It really was. I am madly in love with that movie. I felt like this was an especially strong year for animation, so I'm sad that the Oscars are going to only nominate three films. I think this is a great list, covering all of the bases.

So the big categories are sort of lopsided, obviously...Motion Picture Comedy is so wretched, and TV Drama is weird...but other than that, these noms are safe and as expected.

Acting is a whole other story.

DRAMATIC PAUSE.

That's an overstatement. It's really not that bad. It's just the Motion Picture Comedy category again...

Best Actor in a Motion Picture - Comedy

• Johnny Depp for The Tourist
• Johnny Depp for Alice in Wonderland
• Paul Giamatti for Barney's Version
• Jake Gyllenhaal (TWO A'S) for Love and Other Drugs
• Kevin Spacey for Casino Jack

Okay. Okay. WHAT. IS. THIS. OHOHO JOHNNY DEPP VS. JOHNNY DEPP HOW FUNNY. I assume that's where the "Comedy" in the title comes from, yes? Because THESE MOVIES ARE NOT COMEDIES. MY GOD. Okay, well, perhaps Barney's Version and Casino Jack are, but considering that NEITHER ARE OUT IN THEATRES YET, it's hard to tell. I'm getting a feeling that the HFPA gives preference to movies that premiered at foreign film festivals or something because that's the only way this can work. I mean. Dayum. And what the freak, isn't Love and Other Drugs about how Anne Hathaway has Parkinson's Disease or something? Huh? Jake Gyll! Explain this to me! BLAAARGLE.

Yes, I know this blog is well-written/articulate, never resorting to childish nonsense words. Thank you for noticing.

Some other things of note because I'm getting tired of re-typing the ENITRE list for each category again:

• Piper Perabo for TV Supporting in Covert Affairs: what the crud is this doing here?
• Katey Segal for Sons of Anarchy in TV Supporting: very nicely done, HFPA, very nicely done.
• Scott Caan for Hawaii Five-O in TV Supporting: ...um
• Julia Stiles for Dexter in TV Supporting: Julia Stiles is awful. Awful.
• No Armie Hammer for The Social Network in Motion Picture Supporting: what the what? He was so good though! (At least we've got Andrew Garfield.)
• Halle Berry for Frankie and Alice in Best Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama: I consider myself reasonably aware of what's going on in the industry but I can't say I've ever heard of this movie, so obviously I'm confused. 

You know what's annoying? This post isn't even that long but it took me an hour and a half to write. I'm sure that "half" comes from just trying to find the list in a properly formatted way, so thanks to IMDb for being the only place that organizes the nominations properly.

Also, I'm really upset about the lack of Yogi Bear, The Nutcracker 3D, and Marmaduke nominations. I was so sure that those three were going to sweep the categories! 

p.s. misleading title is misleading? discuss

I Feel Like I Don't Have Much To Say

today. I just can't think of anything to write about.

I'm pretty obsessed with How to Train Your Dragon right now, so let's talk about this:

This year so far has been pretty terrible when it comes to movies. The Top 5 best-reviewed films of this year so far include 4 movies that were only released in limited and Toy Story 3. While the Top 5 at the end of the year does sometimes look a lot like this, by the summer months, we should be seeing more films that people have actually heard of in the Top 5 - at least one more. Toy Story 3 was amazing (it's probably going to be my pick for the best of the year/decade/my life, etc.)

Look at the Top 10 though - only one of them came out in wide release, too, and that was How to Train Your Dragon, coming in right after TS3 at 6th. The other four were Exit Through the Gift Shop, which I saw, the movie that won Best Foreign Film (so technically it came out last year, anyway), and two other films that most people have never heard of this.

The Oscars expanded the Best Picture playing field to 10 films last year so that wide releases would get attention and they'd get more ratings. Sadly, in a perfect world they would do this because there are 10 very deserving films. Back in the 90s, 80s, 70s, etc., people had heard of the Best Picture nominees. People had SEEN them. Does this mean movies are getting worse in general, or does it just mean that Hollywood productions are starting to lose steam? I'm thinking the latter.

Another thing: when the two best wide releases of the year (so far, but I might wager that they still will be in December) are animated films, I think that means that we need to start giving more credence to the animation genre. Animation is SO GOOD. Every year my top film is usually animated. Last year, it was Up. The year before that? WALL-E. Most widely-released animation isn't as good as Pixar, but every Pixar film is just as good, if not better, than the live action films that come out around it. Same with the limited-release Miyazaki films (I think Tales of Earthsea is this year; last year, it was the pretty good Ponyo), which always place in my EXCLUSIVE "Best of the Year" list. (It's exclusive because it only exists in my head.) DreamWorks either is really good (HTTYD, the original Shrek, and I guess Kung-Fu Panda even though I thought it was boring with AMAZING animation) or really horrible (every other film they've made except Shrek 2, which I for one liked). I almost didn't see HTTYD because the ad campaign was so horrible; they were selling it as yet another pop culture-referencing, stupidly kiddy film, which it isn't, AT ALL. People need to understand that animation is not just kid's fare anymore, and even when it is targeted towards kids (like Ponyo), most animation studios don't seem to get that "kid's film" does NOT equal "idiot's film."

This summer, the movies have been pretty lackluster, TS3 aside, obviously. This has been griped about a lot lately, mostly in passing, apparently, because I can't seem to find many articles. Here's one. Every movie that people hoped would be good turned out to be horrible or mediocre. Iron Man 2 had high expectations and fell flat, critically. I heard a LOT of people say that it was awful. Robin Hood was bad and failed commercially, too; Prince of Persia, The A-Team, Jonah Hex. The only summer film to come out that's gotten good reviews (ONCE AGAIN OTHER THAN TS3 I WILL REITERATE THIS OFTEN) is The Karate Kid, another "kid's film."

The only movies coming out that I'm excited for this summer now are Inception and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Nothing else seems like it's going to be worth the money to me. Despicable Me's been getting good reviews; The Kids Are All Right's supposed to be good, although that's in limited. The Sorcerer's Apprentice (starring Hiccup!) looks like it could be pretty decent. But even though the word on these movies may be good right now, it's more likely than not that they'll end up being the same old dreck that's been pumped out all year. I call it the MacGruber effect: a movie gets positive early buzz but ends up having a negative consensus. But I guess we'll see.

I hope this summer picks up in terms of movies, but I don't see that happening.

(On a side note - does anyone want to get an email saying that a new post has been published? Let me know and I can sign you up for that.)

A Quickie: Toy Story 3

I just saw Toy Story 3. I could honestly write an extremely long post about it, but I don't think I really need to. All I need to do is tell you that you have to go see it yourself as soon as possible. It was one of the best films I've ever seen in my life.

You think I'm being hyperbolic? You're wrong. You need to go see it and find out for yourself.

If you want to read them, here are some links to reviews. But I suggest you not read them until you've seen the movie:

By A.O Scott (The New York Times)
By David Edelstein (New York)
By Richard Corliss (Time)
And a negative review from the most hated man in film criticism, Armond White (New York Press)