Hello Towelites!

I hope you are all enjoying your holidays and are getting ready for 2013.  Has 2012 been a good year to all? I sure hope so.  Personally, it’s been very good, and I know I say this every year, but this one seriously went by super fast.  Maybe time just goes by faster as you get older.

As we close out this year, we look upon the great many movies, games, shows and albums that have crossed our path.  The forgettable ones have already been forgot, the mediocre ones are vaguely there, and the great ones are enjoyed and thought of past the years end.

Best-of-2012

“Best Of” is such a relative term.  It’s a personal opinion, always biased not only to your character and tastes, but to what you are comparing it to.  Sadly, I only saw so many movies, played so many games and listened to so many albums for me to create my own opinion.  But for what it’s worth, here is what we got…

FILM

2012, like every year before it, has had its set of disappointing movies.  From the horrible Wrath of the Titans, to the badly produced Lockout, to the vomit educing Twilight: Breaking Dawn (which sadly actually made money – and oh how happy I am that p.o.s. series finally ended).  Total Recall was another disappointment, along with Underworld: Awakening (though I will give it the credit of saying that it was probably the best of it’s series).

But amongst all the dung, we’ve had some pretty decent ones.  Prometheus, which FAILED to live up to its anticipation, was still entertaining (mind you, by entertaining, I do not mean “good”).  Bourne, though lacking the heart of the original trilogy, was also entertaining.  Having missed Argo and Lincoln, exclude it from my judgment, but rumor has it, they were great, and I cannot wait to get to see them.  The Amazing Spider-Man was very good, as was The Dark Knight Rises (despite it’s lack of capturing “who” Batman was, I still considered the movie in itself very good).  Chronicle I thought was great, and so was Moonrise Kingdom; and  21 Jump Street was hilarious.

On top of those, we did have some amazing movies.  I really enjoyed Looper, and consider it one of the best of the year.  I feel the same way about Skyfall… I was never a Bond fan until Daniel Craig took over, and Skyfall now has me wanting to collect the entire series just so I can see the evolution of Bond into that magnificent movie.  On the very top of the list though, I have the Avengers and Django Unchained.  Unfortunately, I have not seen The Hobbit, which I am sure would be up here – so decision is pending on that.  Simply put, the Avengers was the perfect comic book movie.  It had that “magic” that comics have, it was produced excellently, the effects were amazing, the 3D was astonishing, the cast (built from its previous films) was great and the action was fantastic.  All in all, it was nearly perfect.

BUT… my favorite of the year goes to Django Unchained.  I can’t pinpoint why I loved this…  This is where I become biased.  Tarantino is one of my favorite directors, and movies like this is why.  The music he selects, the way he cuts and edits his films, the dialogue, the shots, the cast and acting, the way the stories are told… As much as I loved so many movies – as much as I might have found some of them more “entertaining”, it is Django that I give credit to for a quality movie.

Django Unchained is my BEST FILM of 2012.

Django-Unchained

GAMES

Games are a less of a selection.  I am a fan of playing old favorites over (as I went through RE4 for like, the 6th time, and I do enjoy going through the Dead Space series ever so often), and I just stick to the ones I anticipate and know will like.  Most of my year was taken by the late 2011 game, Skyrim (and for those of you who know it, know why it’s taken most of the year).  I am only 1/4 way through it, and decided to go on hiatus to enjoy some other games.

I did get a chance to play Asura’s Wrath, which was very original and entertaining.  The Walking Dead game was amazing (and I’m still on chapter 4), and now I’ve been focusing on another amazing 2011 game, Batman: Archam City.

But amongst the many “arcade classics” that I played, and all the oldies that I rehashed, there were 2 that made me appreciate “gaming” for what it is.  Resident Evil 6 is one of them.  I know the majority disagree, but that game was extremely fun.  Most people where annoyed at the action and the “movie” cuts, but it was the reason I liked it.  And, unlike 5, the action was done well.  Don’t get me wrong; I don’t think it was a Resident Evil the way RE4 was… it clearly lacked a lot of that.  Though Leon’s campaign did possess some of it, and I loved it for that.  Point was, a “classic” resident evil is needed, but if they make it, I have to say I enjoyed 6 enough where I would hope they include some of that in as well.

BUT… the game of the year – the one that just made me feel something special for gaming like no other game has ever done… ever, is Journey.  Journey’s “artistic” look, it’s serene game play, its music, its innovative online interaction… it blew my mind.  I smiled, got the chills and literally emotionally attached to this game like no other game before it.  It had a meaning behind the meaning that just… I know it’s pretty extreme to say it, and I don’t mean it literally, but the best way to describe this game is that it was a videogames equivalent to enlightenment.  The game, at its simplest form, is “magical.

Journey on PS3 is my BEST GAME of 2012.

journey-game

TV SHOWS

I’m going to keep this one short.  I don’t watch that many shows cause television is mostly full of crap.  I like a number of comedy/sitcoms, but I’m a drama person and I wont make any of those best of (despite always, and I mean always, loving Futurama).

Top shows to me would be Walking Dead and Game of Thrones.  And as much as I LOVE Game of Thrones, and HBO’s excellent production of it, I have also read the book, so they lack the suspense of what will happen.  Still good enough to be one of my best shows though.  And that fact is what pushes it to #2, makes The Walking Dead the best show of the year.

Count it any season you want… season 2, season 3, or maybe the 2nd half of 2 and 1st half of 3 (which actually aired in 2012) – that show is simply great.  It has suspense, drama, character development, shock, and ZOMBIES.

THE WALKING DEAD is my BEST SHOW of 2012 

The-Walking-Dead

MUSIC

To me Music is the most biased of the selections.  Hundreds of albums come out every year, the diversity of taste varies so much that it’s just impossible to say what was best.  And are we judging just albums, or how they are live.  Cause I thought the new album from Hot Chip was pretty good, but they were FREAKING AMAZING live.

To simplify things though, lets stick to album releases.  Hot Chip was good, as was Passion Pit (much better then their fist).  The new Stars album was fantastic, and Metric was even better (despite many not thinking so) – not to mention she’s a f’ing rockstar live.  Seriously… she could out-drink me, out-drug me and out-f me… to the point where it’s intimidating.  The new How To Destroy Angels wasn’t anything special, but it gave me a little more Trent Reznor, which I consider my favorite.  Journey’s soundtrack (the PS3 game) was also another amazing album – which shows how great that game was.

Deep down though, as many of you already know, I like the dark and depressing and dramatic.  I am, and always will be, a fan of the emotional.  And for that, on the top of the list is Snow Patrol.  But the one I will give my vote for is a smaller band most people don’t even know.  A band I’ve followed since the beginning (2 albums before this one).

Sea Wolf.  Their latest album just clicked for me, the way Tarantino does in film.  Their 3rd album, Old World Romance, isn’t different then their other albums… They’re still “Sea Wolf”.  But its like they found their rhythm… they perfected their style.  I’ve been listening to their album non-stop since its release in September, and I still find myself lost in their songs.

SEA WOLF- OLD WORLD ROMANCE is my BEST ALBUM of 2012.

Sea Wolf - Old World Romance

And these are my selections for 2012.  Long winded as this post was, I could delve into the details of my feeling for each release to the point of writing a book.  It would mingle my thoughts and blur the distinctions of what is really my best.  And as I watch movies and listen to albums and play games that I have yet to play, my opinions might change.  For now though, it is what it is, and this is what it is.

Towelites?  What is yours?  We here at DFAT write there for you!  We would LOVE to know what you think and what you love.  It would also help us know what you like to hear about as well!

So, here we are.  At the end of 2012.  I really hope it’s been a good one.  And here, typing this, with a glass of scotch in my hand, I say “Cheers!  Here is to a great 2012, and more importantly, to a better 2013.”

Have a happy New Year everyone!

~mozeus