But Seriously...

2012: My Favorite Things

For the past couple years, I usually write up a huge post detailing my top 10 films, music, songs, etc. and write about each thing. It takes a long time, not many people read the whole thing, and since I was on a break I missed the prime time to post something like that. This year, I’m just going to write about my favorite thing in each category and then list the runner(s) up in no particular order. Quick and easy… maybe.

Favorite Film: The Cabin in the Woods

This was a real pleasant surprise. It didn’t get a whole lot of marketing so so I wrote it off as just another horror movie. Then months after it was already out on video I saw that Joss Whedon was involved, mandating that I check it out. It was one of the most fun a movie I have seen has been. It tears down cliche horror tropes while still employing them and making it interesting. I don’t really want to talk about the plot because that would ruin some of the fun. Runners up: Chronicle, The Avengers, Moonrise Kingdom, Zero Dark Thirty.

Favorite Film Moment/Scene: The raid in Zero Dark Thirty

I knew what was going to happen, I read multiple accounts after it went down, but this whole section of the film kept me on the edge of my seat and blood pumping for the entirety of it. Add to that, the last shot of Jessica Chastain at the end which perfectly communicates the moral questions of the whole film. Runners up: Javier Bardem’s single shot introduction inSkyfall, the nonchalant conversation at the end of The Cabin in the Woods, Bilbo and Gollum’s first meeting.

Favorite Album: Every Time I Die, Ex-Lives

I can think of two things that had a major change on Every Time I Die’s sound: Keith doing a stint with his side project The Damned Things, and a new drummer. This new album managed to be both more melodic and more brutal than any of their past releases. This was the only rock album last year that absolutely blew me away, and it showed because I spent much of last year listening to other genres outside of my normal musical taste. Runners up: Frank Ocean Channel Orange,Good Old War Come Back as Rain, Circa Survive Violent Waves, Fiona Apple Idler Wheel…, Anberlin VItal.

Favorite Song: The Weeknd, “Wicked Games”

This is kind of cheating since technically the song came out in 2011, but he didn’t release it as a single until 2012 and I didn’t discover these albums until the end of 2011. If this is where R&B is headed in the future, count me in. Between him, Frank Ocean, and Subtrkt, new style R&B dominated my playlists in 2012, and this song is the epitome of it. I can’t even describe the awesomeness of this song, you just have to listen. I just wish he would perform it regularly instead of the acoustic version whenever it’s played live. Runners up: Further Seems Forever “Rescue Trained”, Every Time I Die “Revival Mode”, Usher “Climax”, Good Old War “Better Weather”, Fiona Apple “Werewolf”, The Darkness “Concrete”, Kid Cudi “Pursuit of Happiness (Steve Aoki Remix)”.

Favorite Book (that I read, not that was released): Star Wars: Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn

No one can even come close to reading all the books released in a given year so this is my favorite book that I read for the first time, and it happens to be timely with Star Wars getting new movies in a few years. This is the start of what most people hoped the sequel trilogy would be and I definitely failed as a nerd by not reading it before now.

Favorite Comic: Batman by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo

I finally got a tablet this year and with that was my inevitable fall into comic book addiction. I now have around 30 titles that I read monthly. I like all of them (obviously) but none of them has the same effect as reading Batman. It’s the only one that I wait up until midnight the day of its release to read it digitally. In the future, Snyder’s storylines will definitely be referenced alongside books like The Dark Knight Returns, Year One, The Long Halloween, and Death in the Family.