#12: Children of Men – Top 25 Films of the Decade

Children of Men (2006)

Starring: Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Charlie Hunnam, Claire-Hope Ashitey, Pam Ferris, Danny Huston

Directed By: Alfonso Cuarón

The Sixth Annual Andy TV Awards – Drama Series

Here it is, the final entry in my 2011 TV Awards series, mere weeks after they were relevant. I must say, that save Dexter, the Academy actually nailed this category. If they simply replaced that with Justified (which was oddly absent despite nominations for Timothy Olyphant, Walton Goggins, and winner Margo Martindale), this might have been the best group of nominees I’d ever seen out of the Emmys. They chose four of my six nominees, with the fifth being the toughest omission I had to make in years.

In case you missed it, here are the other posts for the Sixth Annual Andy TV Awards:

• Introduction and Guest Acting
• Comedy Acting
• Drama Acting
• Comedy Series

Read on for the final award of the night, the winner of which also gets the title of “Best Show of the TV season”.

The Sixth Annual Andy TV Awards – Comedy Series

The acting awards are out of the way, time for the big ones. Of note, I don’t do the writing or directing categories, although I think them important, because it’s too difficult to pick six episodes out of the hundreds I see all year. Whole seasons? I can do. Individual episodes? Too much.

The Sixth Annual Andy TV Awards – Drama Acting

I’ve now covered the guest acting and comedy acting awards, time to move on to the drama awards. I pretty much watch all the dramas that matter besides Treme and Fringe, but the Academy went ahead and nominated some people from shows that don’t (or no longer) matter as well. Those include actors from Dexter, House, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Harry’s Law, and The Killing (which I believe I saw four episodes of). So while it’s possible those performers are doing bang-up jobs on shows I don’t want to watch, you won’t see them nominated here.

Read on to see who you will see nominated, and who would win in a perfect world. Yes, my definition of a perfect world is one where I am the sole authority on arbitrary media awards.

The Sixth Annual Andy TV Awards – Comedy Acting

Now that the intro and guest acting awards are out of the way, let’s get to some of the categories you may actually care about. Shows that the Academy nominated here I don’t watch include Glee, Two and a Half Men, Mike & Molly, Hot in Cleveland, The Big C, and Episodes, because I was too busy watching good TV shows. I have seen a few episodes of Raising Hope and enjoyed them, but not enough to nominate anyone from it.

Read on for my nominees and winners in the supporting and leading actor and actress categories.

The Sixth Annual Andy TV Awards

The most prestigious fake television award on this blog

With the Emmys fast approaching, I figured I’d better start posting my traditional Andy TV Awards, not that I have a hope in hell in getting it all done before the show. For the uninitiated, the Andy TV Awards are where I not only pick who should win awards in television achievement, but also where I show who should have been nominated in the first place. No sense in simply picking from the Academy’s flawed list of nominees, when they often can’t even be bothered to nominate the very best performances, much less the six best.

So what makes me more qualified to do this than the Emmys themselves? For starters, I actually WATCH television, so that puts me ahead of a lot of voters. For the 2010-11 season, I watched complete (or near-complete) seasons of 30 different comedies and dramas. So these choices will be fairly extensive. Of course, I still don’t watch everything, so here’s a list of some critically acclaimed shows that I don’t watch, and thus were left off my ballot: Treme, Dexter (gave up on it this season), Shameless, Glee, The Killing (gave up just in time), and anything from the UK. Shows that aren’t necessarily acclaimed (but did get some Emmy nominations) that I don’t watch include Two and a Half Men, House, Harry’s Law, The Big C, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

Read on for the ground rules and my nominees and winners for Guest Performances on TV. Stay tuned for Comedy Acting, Drama Acting, Comedy Series, and Drama Series.

My Blu-ray Collection – Family Films

I’ve decided to split out my family films from my blu-ray collection listing, both to shorten the posts up and to reflect the division I’ve made in the organization of the actual discs themselves. As the father of a little boy, this is easily the fastest growing segment of my blu-ray collection, because sometimes, you just want the little buggers to sit still for an hour or so (don’t worry, I also read to him and stuff).

Fidelity-wise, these are among the best blu-rays in my collection. Disney, who produced the majority of the films I own, are either the best blu-ray distribution house out there, or they’re a close second to Criterion. Of course, the Pixar transfers are amazing, with the full digital process used to make them. But equally impressive are the remastered versions of 60 year old classics, which are completely revitalized by the format. Films that had previously degraded to dull and murky on previous formats really pop on blu-ray. If you’re looking for reference material for you system, or a great argument for the format in general, look no further than the titles on this page (except for The Fox and the Hound, which is an insult to the format).

As an added bonus, most of these collections are BRD/DVD combo packs, which is excellent if you want to also keep your kid quiet in a room with a TV without blu-ray capabilities (I take him out to play all the time, I swear!).

Top 10 Movies of 2010

The only way this list will be helpful at this point.

Yes, this list is incredibly late. So late that there’s really no need to post it at all. Even if I allow myself to believe that there are people interested in my opinion on these things, I’d have to assume any such interest died months ago. Especially since I basically ranked my top movies months ago in my Oscar post. So why do it?

Well, I’ve done a year end movie list every year since I started blogging, so it feels incomplete to not have one. The Oscar one doesn’t necessarily fit the bill, given that I hadn’t even seen all ten films nominated at that point, plus my top ten includes at least a couple films that weren’t nominated for best picture (alright, literally, only a couple. What can I say? They did a good job this year. Plus, I didn’t see all that many movies). Mostly, this list is here not for now, but for years from now when I want to know what I liked in 2010 (so I have when I start another best of the decade list that I’ll never properly complete). Plus, I don’t really update this thing much anymore, so why not feed it with some new content, no matter how outdated?

My TV on Blu-ray Collection

A Moment in Song: “Fake Empire”

The National - Fake Empire

Welcome to a new feature on the blog, “A Moment in Song”, where I analyze some of my favourite moments in some of my favourite songs. Music can work on many levels, with the best songs featuring a combination of lyrical content, musical arrangement, tempo, vocal stylings, and just a little bit of magic to create something memorable. But sometimes within a song is one transcendent moment that stands out, a moment that hits you the first time you hear it and every moment after that. That moment may only be seconds long, but it’s what you always remember when you think of the song. This feature focuses on such moments to try and highlight all the little things that make music such a special experience.

The Song: “Fake Empire” by The National from Boxer LP (2007)

(To download, right click on this link choose Save Link As: http://andythesaint.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/01-fake-empire.mp3)

A Moment in Song: “The Good That Won’t Come Out”

Rilo Kiley - The Good That Won't Come Out

Welcome to a new feature on the blog, “A Moment in Song”, where I analyze some of my favourite moments in some of my favourite songs. Music can work on many levels, with the best songs featuring a combination of lyrical content, musical arrangement, tempo, vocal stylings, and just a little bit of magic to create something memorable. But sometimes within a song is one transcendent moment that stands out, a moment that hits you the first time you hear it and every moment after that. That moment may only be seconds long, but it’s what you always remember when you think of the song. This feature focuses on such moments to try and highlight all the little things that make music such a special experience.

The Song: “The Good That Won’t Come Out” by Rilo Kiley from The Execution of All Things LP (2002)

(To download, right click on this link choose Save Link As: http://andythesaint.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/01-the-good-that-wont-come-out.mp3)

Top 20 TV Shows of 2010

This would make my TV watching so much easier.

I had big plans for my year end TV post to finally dive into podcasting to discuss my list with my TV viewing-and-life partner. I did a good amount of prep so we wouldn’t stumble around the whole time, gave my wife the hard sell to convince her to humour me (a pattern in our relationship), and set aside a night to record (cutting into valuable TV watching time). We talked for about 2.5 hours, going over the greatness of the year in TV, each of the top 20, and a little bit about different shows that missed the list. Sure, that’s a long podcast, but with editing and splitting, I think it would’ve been a fun two-parter. It was all pretty cool… until I realized that I completely screwed up the recording (largely due to the high potentiality that I forgot to hit the “record” button before we started).

We’d thought about redoing it, making it shorter in the process, but never got around to it. Now we’re over two months past the end of the year, which is a little late to be talking about the previous year of a continuous medium like television. Not only are we past the point of relevance for such a list, the past two months for fresh content makes it pretty difficult (how do you talk about a show in terms of 2010 if it’s continued to run new episodes since then?).

But… I already made the list. And the internet isn’t going to break if one more list is added to it, even one that’s a little late to be relevant. After all, I didn’t spend my time watching all or at least a majority of 41 different shows to not tell people what I think of them. So even though it’s entirely unlike me to do so, I’ll be posting them without comment, since I’ve already spent 2.5 hours sharing my thoughts with my number one reader on these, in addition to thoughts I already typed in last year’s Andy TV Awards and thoughts I’ll share in this year’s awards. But I’d love to discuss any show here if you’re interested, so leave a comment and we can chat.

And now, the list.

Critically Speaking Picks the 83rd Academy Awards – Part Two

Now for the awards you've heard of...

I issued 12 fake awards in the first half of this post, but now it’s time for the lead acting, director, and best picture awards… along with a little bit of filler. On with the show!

Critically Speaking Picks the 83rd Academy Awards – Part One

When will I be named a member of the Academy already?

In years past, one of my favourite posts to make was the Andy Awards, where I chose not only who I thought should win awards in the various movie categories, but also who should have been nominated in the first place. After all, why pick from a flawed list put together by Academy members influenced by various politics and what not? Plus, if you’re interested in reading my opinions, then you’d probably want me choosing from my own opinions, not from someone else’s.

But, now I have a son and a lot less time to watch movies. Gone are the days where I could compile unique choices of nominees from the dozens of qualifying films I’ve watched. Last year, I did a quick selection of winners tacked on to a year end list. This year, I’m giving in and picking from the Academy’s list of nominees; largely because I haven’t seen many movies from 2010 other than the ones that were nominated. Of the films to score major nominations, the one I haven’t seen yet but wish I had is 127 Hours. I’d be interested in seeing Rabbit Hole if I thought I was capable of handling it, but as a father of a young son, I don’t think I could. I almost watched Animal Kingdom the other night but didn’t, while I’m comfortable skipping Biutiful (Iñárritu films leave me cold).

To clarify: this is a post of who I think should win each award, not who I think will win. Oscar predictions are all over the net, and basically are no fun unless you’re in a pool. It’s become an annoying side business that distracts from the real discussion of what is worthy when all anyone wants to talk about is the various campaigns and tea leaf readings trying to predict the hive mind of members of the Academy. Also, I’m only going to be picking categories where I seen enough of the nominees to have at least a partial basis for an opinion (which probably puts me ahead of many members of the Academy).

Top 10 Albums of 2010

This is a list by Critically Speaking.

For the past three years, I’ve done a Top 20 Albums list. I could’ve easily done the same with this year, as there were double that many albums I was into this year. But as I was compiling the contenders for the list, I realized that there were only 15 I felt strongly about. If I took more time, I’m sure I’d feel that way about at least five more (especially ones released later in the year). But taking more time is something I really need to do less of on this blog (as followers of my top films of the decade list will attest. Only 12 more to go!). So a top ten with five honourable mentions made the most sense, but don’t take that as an indictment of the quality of music in 2010, which was generally high.