2010

As the year we make contact comes to an end. Thought it may time to post my personal tastes on the best and worst things of the year. Well mostly best. I try my best to avoid stepping in shit, but sometimes your guard may be down and your foot lands in big stinking load. So any on with the lists:

TV - Lot of good TV this so lets get into it:

*note: Airdates are first screenings in Australia. Also there is a Top 10 episode list down there so if you fancy getting into any of the shows in the top 10 I suggest you look up those ones.

Best Comedy Show: Community
Honourable Mentions: 30 Rock, It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, Modern Family, The Inbetweeners, Family Guy, The IT Crowd. Psychoville.

Best Drama: Breaking Bad
Honourable Mentions: Mad Men, Sherlock, Dexter.

Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy: Dr. Who
Honourable Mentions: Lost, V, Caprica.

Best Unscripted/Variety Show: Top Gear
Honourable Mentions: Q.I, Tony Martin In A Conversation With..., Rockwiz, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report, Good Game.

Best Animated: Family Guy
Honourable Mentions: American Dad, Venture Bros., Archer.

Best Documentary: Life
Honourable Mention: Last Chance To See.

TOP 10 TV Episodes:

1. Road to the Multiverse - Family Guy
2. Bolivia Special - Top Gear
3. Ab Aeterno - Lost
4. The Getaway - Dexter
5. A Christmas Carol - Dr. Who
6. Fly - Breaking Bad
7. Shut the Door, Have a Seat - Mad Men
8. A Study In Pink - Sherlock
9. Modern Warfare - Community
10. Italian For Beginners - The IT Crowd

TV Quote of the Year: "A Fire! At a Sea Park!? - The IT Crowd

Worst TV show of 2010: The Event

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MUSIC - I must admit I was a bit slow with music this year. So slow in fact that I bought only one studio album from 2010. But here we go then. I can't do best or worst song because embarrassingly I can't name any. :P

Best Album (by default really): The Suburbs - The Arcade Fire

Best Movie Soundtrack (Composed): Inception - Hans Zimmer
Honourable Mentions: The Social Network - Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, Tron: Legacy - Daft Punk, Red Read Redemption - Bill Elm and Woody Jackson.

Best Live Performance: Muse, at Rod Laver Arena (14/12)
Honourable Mentions: The Mars Volta @ Big Day Out, Muse @ Big Day Out, Mastodon @ Big Day Out.

Best Comedy Album: Triple J's: The Blow Parade

Shit lets move on.
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VIDEOGAMES - Now hear is something I can do. Just a quick ranking. All PS3 games. Also of note I do have Call of Duty: Black Ops but today my PS3 got the Yellow Light of Death on the day I wrote this blog and I'm yet to play the game so that is why it's absent from the list below.

Best games of the Year:
1. Red Dead Redemption
2. Gran Turismo 5
3. WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2011
4. Madden 11
5 Fallout: New Vegas (frustrating game glitches prevented this from ranking higher on the list)

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MOVIES - Finally the last section. Now I have seen a few movies this year. But enough really. Being in Australia we don't get a lot of the really good movies until early 2011. So the following will have a bit of 2009/10 films in. I won't separate into categories like in TV (well in on case I have). First up is like the Oscars. Listing some best actors and directors and such before I count down my Top 10 for the year:

Best Actor: Jesse Eisenberg - The Social Network
Honourable Mentions: Ned Beatty - Toy Story 3, Ben Mendleson - Animal Kingdom, Jeremy Renner - The Town.

Best Actress: Jacki Weaver - Animal Kingdom
Honourable Mentions: Marion Cotillard - Inception, Chloe Moretz - Kick-Ass, Ellen Wong - Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.

Best Director - David Fincher - The Social Network
Honourable Mentions: Ben Affleck - The Town, Edgar Wright - Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, John Hillcoat - The Road, Christopher Nolan - Inception

Most Memorable Scene (For the right or wrong reasons): The Rotating Hotel Hallway Fight Scene - Inception
Honourable Mentions: 'That' Sex Scene - Splice, Scott vs. Todd - Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Hit Girl drops the C Bomb - Kick-Ass, Lisbeth's Revenge - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.


Film I'm Most Looking Forward To in 2011: Super 8
Others: Cowboys & Aliens, Thor, Captain America, True Grit.

Special Mention: Jackass 3D - Just wanted to included scripted movies in the top 10 . But I enjoyed Jackass 3D so I just give it a mention here.

Worst Film of the Year: The Wolfman - Ugh.,.Bad story, bad Sp/Fx (Rick Baker, what's happened!?) and not that interesting.

Top 10 Films of the Year!

10. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World - Was surprised with this one. Even though I like the the director, I was not expecting to like this one. Looked a bit too Hipster. But I really enjoyed it.

9. Up In The Air - Films that are released really early in the year are easily forgotten. But this film was good enough to last in my memory. Has brilliant first half, second half kind of tails off. But still good.

8. A Prophet - From France. Set in a prison about a small time crooks rise to power. Best Foreign Language film of the Year.

7. Shutter Island - Another great film by Martin Scorsese. Although I could see where it was going, it did not detract from a stylish film.

6. The Road - One of the most underrated films of the year. This adoption of the Cormac McCarthy post apocalyptic novel was although depressing and bleak it was a brilliant film. Way better then that Denzel Washington one.

5. The Town - Ben Affleck has found his place in Hollywood. After years of starring in some rubbish films. He has found his place behind the camera as director. This is his second directorial effort after the brilliant 'Gone Baby Gone'. OK he acts in this one, but still a great movie about Bank Robbers.

4. Animal Kingdom - If you go into my archives you will find a post were I slag off the Australian film industry for not being brave. Well they must of listened because this film must be one of the best Australian films I have seen since Bad Eggs (sue me, I liked it).

3. The Social Network - Yes I 'LIKED' this film. David Fincher continues his departure from the gritty dark films he made in the 90s and early to mid 00s with this surprisingly good bio flick on the creator of Facebook and all the enemies he made. Jesse Eisenberg as mentioned above is brilliant as Mark Zuckerberg. But the biggest surprise was pop pretty boy Justin Timberlake well being a good actor in his role as Napster founder Sean Parker.

2. Inception - Nice to see a fun and exciting movie that is also a original idea. Chris Nolan's story about people going to steal secrets or implant ideas is great. Great all round cast. Great characters. And it looks good. Can't wait for The Dark Knight Rises.

1. Toy Story 3 - That's it we now have the perfect trilogy (That's not based on a boo). A perfect way to end the trilogy. So good. So touching. Makes me feel bad now that I broke most of my Toys. Oh Skeletor can you ever forgive for putting you in a lit BBQ? Anyway Pixar can do no wrong. Cars 2 in 2011 and I'm sure it will be fun.

OK that's my opinion. Thanks for reading