M: 2012 Year in Review

I love what Jenn did with her Year in Reviews, so-- my turn!  However, I'm going to simplify it a bit for myself.  Besides, if I did a movie review like Jenn's, a good chunk of my comments would be similar. :)

Movies from 2012:
I think I did a decent job on my movie resolution this year, which was to watch at least one newer release movie each month.  I think I hit every month, whether it was in the theater or watched later in the year on a plane. I listed the movies roughly in the month they were released in theaters rather than which month I watched them just to make it easier on myself.
January: Saw both Joyful Noise and We Bought a Zoo on the plane. The latter was really, really good.
February: Month of romances with The Vow in the theater and This Means War (plane). First was predictably sad, second was silly.
March: Was super excited for The Hunger Games, which I enjoyed and thought brought the book to life well. Less excited for Mirror Mirror (plane), which lived up to my low expectations.
April: Was quite surprised by how much I enjoyed and laughed during The Five-Year Engagement (plane). It helped that most of the movie was set in Ann Arbor (Go Blue!).
May: Caught up on The Hulk and Captain America in anticipation of The Avengers, which I enjoyed a lot.  Had no expectations of What to Expect When You're Expecting (plane) and it was just okay.
June: Only movie I saw in theaters this month was Brave, which as Jenn described was way different from what I thought it was about (but good!).  Saw on the plane: Snow White and the Huntsman (meh!), Rock of Ages (cheesy), and Your Sister's Sister (loved, loved, loved!).
July: Lotsa movies in the summer that I saw in the theater: The Amazing Spider-Man (was okay and I think it sets up a new direction for the Spider-Man franchise), The Dark Knight Rises (one of the best ends to a trilogy ever), Step Up Revolution (gratuitous dance movie that hit all the right notes for me!).
August: Think I was still watching July movies in August, but I did catch one later on during a plane ride -- Celeste and Jesse Forever. Surprisingly enjoyable.
September: Saw The Perks of Being a Wallflower with Jenn. Enjoyed it a lot but it was really annoying listening to Emma speak American English.
October: Saw Pitch Perfect and enjoyed every moment of it; so much so that I want the DVD!
November: Saw Skyfall and it was fine.  Most of my plane movies were watched this month and in August.
December: Les Misérables, which was everything I hoped it would be. Rise of the Guardians, which was surprisingly a lot of fun!
Movies I still want to see: Cosmopolis; Argo; Anna Karenina; Looper; The Bourne Legacy; Silver Linings Playbook; The Hobbit; This is 40

Music from 2012: 
This year I actually listened to some new music and can talk about some new favorites.
Bands I liked: Of Monsters and Men, Imagine Dragons, The Lumineers, Walk the Moon, Grouplove, Mumford & Sons, AWOLNATION, Foster the People...
Favorite song: "Demons" by Imagine Dragons
Favorite CD: My Head Is an Animal by Of Monsters and Men

TV from 2012:
Dropped: Beauty & the Beast (not great); The Mindy Project (didn't keep my attention); The New Girl (got grating); Grey's Anatomy (fell behind); Private Practice (fell behind); Parenthood (lost motivation to stay caught up); Two Broke Girls (fell behind); Hart of Dixie (forgot about it); Hawaii Five-O (fell behind); Secret Circle (got canceled); Chuck (ended so this doesn't really count); GCB (got canceled, I think); Smash (forgot about it); 666 Park Avenue (did not like); Switched at Birth (got annoyed); Jane By Design (got canceled, I think); Pretty Little Liars (cut myself off); The Lying Game (not sure if it's still on but cutting myself off); Fairly Legal (this upsets me because I love this show, but it was CANCELED.)
Picked up: Nashville (trashy drama? I'm in!); Arrow (surprising how much I enjoy this show); Go On (quite a bit behind, but enjoyed what I've seen so far!)
Still Watching: How I Met Your Mother (can't believe I'm still watching this!); Revenge (still one of my favorites); Glee (has its ups and downs and many more downs than ever, but I'm still watching); Once Upon a Time (similar to Glee); Amazing Race (love it); SYTYCD (less "new" and exciting than previous seasons, but still I love it); Nikita (quite a few episodes behind, but still enjoy it); Covert Affairs (same as Nikita)

Books from 2012: 
Failed on my resolution to read books off my bookshelf.  I did use my Kindle a lot, though! Not much worth mentioning, unfortunately.

Conclusion: Quantifying my resolutions (SMART goals?) did not help me achieve them, really!

Jennifer's Fall TV Grid

My TV schedule for this fall is relatively light compared to years past -- most of the new shows (in pink) I included are ones that I'm planning to check out at least once but I expect that I won't keep most of them. There are also quite a few shows that I still need to finish the last season of (in yellow)...

Bunheads: First Impressions

A show on ABC Family by Amy Sherman-Palladino (of Gilmore Girls) about dancing?? Yeah, of course I need to watch Bunheads! Kelly Bishop (from Gilmore Girls) is in it and fantastic, per usual. Additionally, I'm amused by the fact that Kelly Bishop's character is named Fanny and think it's fitting she's playing this character as she was a trained American Ballet Theatre dancer. (Fanny owns and runs a ballet studio.)

There's a lot going for the show to make it a perfect Mira-formula show: the dialogue is quick (typical Amy S-P), the characters are quirky (typical Amy S-P), and the show is set in a quaint town (à la Gilmore Girls)... Bunheads is a show about a former trained ballet dancer, Michelle (played by Sutton Foster, of Broadway fame). Michelle is a Vegas showgirl who feels her life has hit a dead end and impulsively decides to accept a marriage proposal by an ardent admirer, played by Alan Ruck, and moves to Paradise, Oregon. Landing in a sleepy town with no movie theater, she learns that her new husband still lives with his mother, Fanny, who is conveniently the owner and teacher of the town's ballet studio. She quickly establishes a rapport with the girls in the advanced level ballet class, starts to build a relationship with a mother-in-law who had no warning of her arrival, and well, becomes a widow.

For the three reasons highlighted earlier (dialogue, quirky characters, quaint town), I will probably continue to watch the show. Two things that disappoint me about the show right off the bat, though: 1) I really was prepared to like Alan Ruck's character, Hubbell, and am really sad that he was killed off like that! 2) I'm not fully sold on Sutton Foster. There's something about her that's very stilted to me and not natural, maybe it's the Broadway thing. And when she dances (and so far it's been non-ballet), she's just so skinny and gangly that it really doesn't look like good dancing... The moves she had the girls doing looked so awkward and dorky, and actually looked way better when the high school girls were dancing it!

Regardless, I'll watch Bunheads, cuz, well, I'll watch almost anything on ABC Family. I just hope that Sutton Foster grows on me because she is the main character and all.  

Spring TV: Smash

Mira already posted some thoughts on Smash but I thought I'd do a quick review as well. I watched the preview on Hulu Plus and was really pleasantly surprised by it. I soured on Glee pretty drastically and was wary of any show that was trying to ride its coattails, but actually this is actually a show about theater from real theater people. Actually it's kind of funny that there haven't been any TV shows about this before -- it's really interesting to see how an original Broadway musical comes together.

Anyway, one of the biggest surprises for me was Debra Messing. I was not really a Will & Grace fan but she's super great when in sitcom over-acting mode. She plays Julia, one half of a successful Broadway writing team, along with Tom. I gather that she primarily works on the "book" (script) and Tom does the music and lyrics. Through some random conversation with Tom's new assistant Ellis (racing his way to becoming one of the more unlikeable characters on television), they come up with the idea to do a musical about Marilyn Monroe.

Vying for the part of Marilyn are Ivy, a Broadway veteran who is currently in the ensemble for Tom and Julia's last musical, whose looks and stage experience make her a logical choice, and Karen (American Idol's Katharine McPhee, who I never really liked but is actually okay here), a newcomer to the city from Iowa (of course). There's also Derek, the director, and Eileen (Anjelica Huston, who I find really...smiley? I've found her scary in the past but she's pretty likable here), the producer, and various other supporting players, both in the musical and off.

There are quite a few songs in each episode, but not all are part of the Marilyn musical (I think they'd run out pretty fast if that was the case). They're kind of a mix of Ivy or Karen singing in other situations and fantasy/dream sequences, but nothing too out there like on Glee. None of the musical numbers have really blown me away but it's believable enough. I remember one of the things that ruined Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (another behind-the-scenes kind of TV show) was that the supposedly hilarious skits on the show-within-the-show were just not funny at all.

One thing I really do like about the show is that the focus really is on the women. Julia, Ivy, Karen, and Eileen are very much the principals, with the men in their lives being the supporting players instead of the other way around.

A promising beginning!

Spring TV: Awake

This was one of the shows I was most looking forward to from last year's upfronts and I was disappointed that they decided to push it to midseason especially because I feel like it kind of already has an uphill battle to fight. It kind of has shades of last year's critically acclaimed instant failure Lone Star (it comes from the same creator, Kyle Killen) but at least this is on NBC, which is a bit less hasty with the ax than FOX is.  

Awake stars Jason Isaacs (um, Lucius Malfoy! Looks completely different without the long blond hair) as Michael, a police detective who is in a terrible car accident with his wife, Hannah, and his son, Rex. After the crash, Michael finds himself switching between two realities every time he goes to sleep: one where his wife survived the accident, and one where his son did. He returns to work in both realities, and has different partners (Steve Harris and Wilmer Valderrama), and also begins to see a therapist in each (Cherry Jones and B.D. Wong). Michael is unable to tell which is real and which is a dream, and doesn't necessarily want to find out as that would meaning losing either his wife or son forever.  

This sounds pretty depressing, and the gritty camera filter only adds to the grim atmosphere (everyone's pores look huge!) but the cast already has some great chemistry and I there's definitely story to tell. It looks like the show is going to have a procedural aspect to it, with Michael working on a case in each reality that for some reason share clues and details. I have no idea what this means, whether this is going to have any science fiction or fantasy leanings or not, but I'm curious to find out. 

M: some quick thoughts on Smash

Too lazy to flesh out a real post, so here are just some bullets on my impressions based on the pilot episode...
- Like it already!
- Too many characters, what are their names?
- Not a huge Katherine McPhee fan, but this is a good outlet for her.
- Love, love, love the musical numbers -- a combination of existing songs and songs written for the musical. Proof that there can be musical theater on TV without exaggerated lip syncing. (Ahem, GLEE.)
- Where will they go past season 1? Create a different musical?
- Will they exploit potential success of the show and actually create a Broadway musical? The song numbers and storyline should already be ready to do so.
- There are a lot of very perfect and supportive significant other's (ie. Debra Messing's husband, Katherine McPhee's boyfriend) but it really looks like they're planning on messing with those relationships -- that already pisses me off!  Is Katherine McPhee's character going to be one of those girls who just can't resist a guy with an accent?
- NBC is putting a lot into this show and the show itself is exciting to watch. I hope it doesn't disappoint!