My Favorite Things - 2011 Edition

As 2011 closes and we look towards a shiny new 2012 I want to take a look back at the previous year. Which means it’s time for my favorite things of 2011. Please remember that this is only my opinion and I’m only one guy that has a full time job, so I can’t watch everything.

Movies

I didn’t get to see as many movies as I normally do this year. In fact I haven’t seen any of the “Oscar” bait films that usually come out this time of year. But there are two movies I saw this year that really stuck in my mind.

The first is “X-Men: First Class” this has instantly become the best of the X-Men films. Both James McAvoy and Michael Fastbender put in great performances as Xavier and Magneto. The film captured the spirit of the 60’s while at the same time giving us a great action/superhero movie.

The second is “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.” Now as a movie I have found the past 4 Harry Potter movies to be badly made movies. They do their job of portraying Harry Potter on screen well, but I think as a movie by themselves are not that good. But for getting all 10 of these movies out and having the same vision throughout the film makers should be commended. It was truly an astonishing feat.

Television

TV this year has continued the trend of the past several years where the cable channels are producing bigger hits than the network shows. But there has been a lot of good television this year, it seems to me that television is on the rise while movie quality is starting to dip down.

“Parks and Recreation” remains the best comedy of the year. With the addition of a love interest for Leslie in the form of Ben Wyatt the show has reached a new level. Nick Offerman as Ron Swanson is the funniest character on TV. The show has created a living town in Pawnee that is beginning to rival Springfield on the Simpsons. Unfortunately no one is watching it.

Speaking of TV no one is watching, “Community” has also fully embraced their status as a TV show that is about TV. This has elevated the laughs on the show, but has probably alienated a lot of their audience. Glover and Pudi as Troy and Abed is the best duo on television. The two of them are the best duo since Turk and J.D.

Finally the best new comedy this year was “New Girl.” Zooey Deschanel is truly adorkable. But the funniest stuff from this show comes from Schmidt. They could fire everyone else and just have The Schmidt Show and I would tune in to watch it. Hopefully they can keep the funny up for the rest of the season.

From a drama perspective there are only two that I get really excited for. The first is “Fringe” this show has a lot of ups and downs. Last year ended on such a great note, but this year has started out really slow. But, I’m invested in the show until the end.

Since “Mad Men” wasn’t on this year it leaves a spot open for my favorite show of the year. It still goes to another AMC show though, “Breaking Bad.” The whole season was focused on the confrontation between Gus and Walt and the final resolution was spectacular. The acting, the tone and the story were all just perfect for this season. AMC has some of the best television available right now.

Music

This year belonged to Adele. With the release of her album “21” we got great songs such as “Rolling in the Deep” and “Someone Like You.” Both of these are great songs. Kelly Clarkson put out a great new album and we got some solid work from the Foo Fighters. But we also got some great new artists like Hot Chelle Rae, LMFAO and Fitz and the Tantrums. It was a great year for music and I am looking forward to what comes out next year.

Comic Books

Before September, comic books sucked this year. Well, not completely we got the end of Snyders “The Black Mirror” saga in Detective Comics. This was one of the creepiest tales I have ever read. The build up of Jim Gordon Jr. as a villain was so well done that he is instantly a classic Batman rouge now. In addition to this “The Dark Angel Saga” in Uncanny X-Force was also brilliant that was able to use X-Men history very effectively. But the big moment was the New 52 from DC. The relaunch was great and injected a lot of new energy into comics with some great new titles launched like Animal Man and Swamp Thing. It made me more excited for comics than I had been in a long time.

Books

I usually don’t read many new books, but this year I started “A Song of Ice and Fire” by George R. R. Martin which is what the “Game of Thrones” television show is based on. The books are dense and require you to pay attention and remember a lot of details. But the read is fun and the books are really good. If you love The Lord of the Rings trilogy and feel like you can take something a little denser, I would try these out.

Video Games

I don’t have the time to play all of the new games as soon as they come out. I currently have a stack of “Skyrim”, “Arkham City” and “Assassin’s Creed: Revelations” sitting at home waiting for me to play. I mostly played “Fallout: New Vegas” and “The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.” Both of these are great games. Fallout gives you a new wasteland to explore, if you liked “Fallout 3” you’ll love this. Zelda is just more Zelda. If you want to play more from that great series this is the game for you.