{"id":92,"date":"2012-01-05T02:17:38","date_gmt":"2012-01-05T02:17:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beckinabox.com\/blog\/files\/new_year_2012.php#unique-entry-id-290"},"modified":"2012-01-05T02:17:38","modified_gmt":"2012-01-05T02:17:38","slug":"happy-new-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/?p=92","title":{"rendered":"Happy New Year&#x21;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Happy New Year everyone! 2011 was another great year for music, movies and tv! Well, some good TV, some great movies and a whole lot of great music! Here&#8217;s a wrap up of what I liked this year.<\/p>\n<p>First. Movies. My 2 favorite movies of 2011 are <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Midnight_in_Paris\" rel=\"external\">Midnight In Paris<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/50\/50_(2011_film)\" rel=\"external\">50\/50<\/a>. I&#8217;m a huge Woody Allen fan so I may be biased with my love for Midnight in Paris, but he has a movie out every year and they usually don&#8217;t make my list. I found Midnight In Paris to be very creative and intelligent. Maybe it&#8217;s because I&#8217;m an art major and anyone with an art history background will love all the references in it. Plus, it&#8217;s good to see a funny and entertaining film with an original idea and without all the toilet humor that&#8217;s so easy to do and so common in most comedies. My other favorite film of the year is 50\/50. Based on a true story. I found it very sad and very funny. I don&#8217;t normally like Seth Rogen. I think he&#8217;s an awful leading man, in supporting roles he&#8217;s always the deadbeat stoner and it&#8217;s just kind of annoying. He&#8217;s ok in very small doses. His character in 50\/50 was still a pot smoking hippie but there&#8217;s something that he has that was missing in his other films, charm. I found him charming and he was a great friend to the main character played by Joseph Gordon Levitt. It is a truly great film and I highly recommend it.<\/p>\n<p>I thought <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Melancholia_(2011_film)\" rel=\"external\">Melancholia<\/a> was amazing. The opening was visually and beautiful (similar to Tree of Life). The first part to the film was good. The second part was where this film really succeeds. That part was so damn interesting and has one of the most bleak and hopeless endings in any film. Very good. I also really like <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Tree_of_Life_(film)\" rel=\"external\">The Tree Of Life<\/a>. I think as far as movies go, you can&#8217;t find a better made and more gorgeous looking film than this. It&#8217;s all about life and death and it&#8217;s a very powerful film. Absolutely loved <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/A_Separation\" rel=\"external\">A Separation<\/a>. I loved all the twists and lies, great story, excellent film. I surprisingly liked the film <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Contagion_(film)\" rel=\"external\">Contagion<\/a>, I found it freaky scary and creepy. <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ides_of_March_(film)\" rel=\"external\">Ides of March<\/a> was decent. I believe <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Source_Code\" rel=\"external\">Source Code<\/a> was also 2011. I really liked that one too. Great pace, kept interest the whole time and left you thinking. I may update this entry again, I still really want to see <strong>The Descendants<\/strong>, <strong>The Skin That I Inhabit<\/strong> and <strong>Shame<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>TV. <strong>Curb Your Enthusiasm<\/strong> was hilarious. A lot of hilarious moments. Especially the Buckner episode. <strong>It&#8217;s Always Sunny In Philadelphia<\/strong> was also hilarious. I&#8217;ll never forget the imagery of what happened under the boardwalk at the Jersey Shore. It will always haunt me. <strong>Parenthood<\/strong> always has top notch acting. <strong>Breaking Bad<\/strong> had some excellent moments. <strong>Louie<\/strong> was very good. <strong>Falling Skies<\/strong> had some good moments. <strong>Games of Thrones<\/strong> was alright. <strong>Boardwalk Empire<\/strong> was ok. <strong>Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe<\/strong> and <strong>Oddities<\/strong> are always very good shows. Wasn&#8217;t crazy about the final season of <strong>Entourage<\/strong>. It felt forced. I liked James Spader&#8217;s character in <strong>The Office<\/strong>. I liked the mystery behind him but the show itself fell flat. The new season of <strong>Harry&#8217;s Law<\/strong> was much better than the first season. I look forward to more of that. <strong>The New Girl<\/strong> is starting to grow on me. Zooey Deschanel can grow on me anytime, he oh! Even though the new season of <strong>Beavis &#038; Butthead<\/strong> is completely immature I found myself laughing out loud at times, I&#8217;m embarrassed. <strong>Bored to Death<\/strong> was good, shocked that it was cancelled. Probably the best character Ted Danson has ever played. I loved the suits he wore in it. <strong>Dexter<\/strong> was very good, some great imagery this season but I really think they&#8217;re stretching too much. It&#8217;s time to wrap that show up, just like I&#8217;m going to wrap up talking about my favorite shows of the year.<\/p>\n<p>Onto the music. I&#8217;m going to try something differently than I&#8217;ve done in the past. I just mentioned my favorite albums (and a few EPs) of the year with usually a little talk about my top favorites. This time I think i&#8217;m going to make a list in a general order of preference. Here&#8217;s my top 50 albums of the year. There is a lot of good stuff that didn&#8217;t make the list and I feel bad but, hey, it just didn&#8217;t make the list!<\/p>\n<p>1. <strong>Panda Bear<\/strong> &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Tomboy_(album)\" rel=\"external\">Tomboy<\/a> <em>(The track &#8216;Last Night at the Jetty&#8217; might be my favorite track of the year)<\/em><br \/>2. <strong>Planningtorock<\/strong> &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/W_(Planningtorock_album)\" rel=\"external\">W<\/a><br \/>3. <strong>tUnE-yArDs<\/strong> &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Who_kill\" rel=\"external\">W H O K I L L<\/a><br \/>4. <strong>Tim Hecker<\/strong> &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ravedeath,_1972\" rel=\"external\">Ravedeath, 1972<\/a><br \/>5. <strong>St. Vincent<\/strong> &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Strange_Mercy\" rel=\"external\">Strange Mercy<\/a><br \/>6. <strong>James Blake<\/strong> &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/James_Blake_(album)\" rel=\"external\">James Blake<\/a><br \/>7. <strong>Youth Lagoon<\/strong> &#8211; The Year of Hibernation<br \/>8. <strong>M83<\/strong> &#8211; Hurry Up, We&#8217;re Dreaming<br \/>9. <strong>Gauntlet Hair<\/strong> &#8211; Gauntlet Hair<br \/>10. <strong>PJ Harvey<\/strong> &#8211; Let England Shake<br \/>11. <strong>The Weeknd<\/strong> &#8211; House of Balloons<br \/>12. <strong>Destroyer<\/strong> &#8211; Kaputt<br \/>13. <strong>Niki &#038; The Dove<\/strong> &#8211; The Drummer<br \/>14. <strong>Gang Gang Dance<\/strong> &#8211; Eye Contact<br \/>15. <strong>Cold Cave<\/strong> &#8211; Cherish The Light Years<br \/>16. <strong>Peaking Lights<\/strong> &#8211; 936<br \/>17. <strong>Lykke Li<\/strong> &#8211; Wounded Rhymes<br \/>18. <strong>Saint Saviour<\/strong> &#8211; Anatomy<br \/>19. <strong>James Blake<\/strong> &#8211; Enough Thunder<br \/>20. <strong>Memory Tapes<\/strong> &#8211; Player Piano<br \/>21. <strong>Cults<\/strong> &#8211; Cults<br \/>22. <strong>Grouper<\/strong> &#8211; A I A : Alien Observer<br \/>23. <strong>Emika<\/strong> &#8211; Emika<br \/>24. <strong>John Maus <\/strong>&#8211; We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves<br \/>25. <strong>Timber Timbre<\/strong> &#8211; Creep On Creepin On<br \/>26. <strong>A Winged Victory For The Sullen<\/strong> &#8211; A Winged Victory For The Sullen<br \/>27. <strong>Nicolas Jaar <\/strong>&#8211; Space Is Only Noise<br \/>28. <strong>Austra<\/strong> &#8211; Feel It Break<br \/>29. <strong>Puro Instinct<\/strong> &#8211; Headbangers in Ecstasy<br \/>30. <strong>Zomby<\/strong> &#8211; Dedication<br \/>31. <strong>Grouper<\/strong> &#8211; A I A : Dream Loss<br \/>32. <strong>Holy Other<\/strong> &#8211; With U<br \/>33. <strong>Oneohtrix Point Never<\/strong> &#8211; Replica<br \/>34. <strong>Grimes<\/strong>\/<strong>D&#8217;eon<\/strong> &#8211; Darkbloom<br \/>35. <strong>Kate Bush<\/strong> &#8211; 50 Words For Snow<br \/>36. <strong>Holy Ghost!<\/strong> &#8211; Holy Ghost!<br \/>37. <strong>Washed Out<\/strong> &#8211; Within and Without<br \/>38. <strong>Cascadeur<\/strong> &#8211; The Human Octopus<br \/>39. <strong>Lana DeL Rey<\/strong> &#8211; Video Games<br \/>40. <strong>Toro Y Moi<\/strong> &#8211; Underneath The Pine<br \/>41. <strong>Anna Calvi<\/strong> &#8211; Anna Calvi <em>(you must hear her cover of &#8216;Surrender&#8217;)<\/em><br \/>42. <strong>Tom Waits<\/strong> &#8211; Bad As Me<br \/>43. <strong>Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross<\/strong> &#8211; The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo <em>(soundtrack)<\/em><br \/>44. <strong>Current 93 <\/strong>&#8211; HoneySuckle &AElig;ons<br \/>45. <strong>Blue Sky Black Death<\/strong> &#8211; Noir + Violet<br \/>46. <strong>Bj&ouml;rk<\/strong> &#8211; Biophilia<br \/>47. <strong>David Lynch<\/strong> &#8211; Crazy Clown Time<br \/>48. <strong>The Antlers<\/strong> &#8211; Burst Apart<br \/>49. <strong>SBTRKT<\/strong> &#8211; SBTRKT<br \/>50. <strong>Zola Jesus<\/strong> &#8211; Conatus<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Happy New Year everyone! 2011 was another great year for music, movies and tv! Well, some good TV, some great movies and a whole lot of great music! Here&#8217;s a wrap up of what I liked this year. First. Movies. My 2 favorite movies of 2011 are Midnight In Paris and 50\/50. I&#8217;m a huge &#8230; <a title=\"Happy New Year&#x21;\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/?p=92\" aria-label=\"Read more about Happy New Year&#x21;\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-john_beck","wp-image-borders"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6XpZy-1u","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":133,"url":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/?p=133","url_meta":{"origin":92,"position":0},"title":"Happy New Year&#x21;","author":"John Beck","date":"January 4, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Happy New Year! 2010 was a great year and here's a few of my favorite things that were released in movies, television and music!I haven't seen many new films this year. I still haven't seen Tron: Legacy which I have been wanting to see. My three favorites were Enter the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;John Beck&quot;","block_context":{"text":"John Beck","link":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":194,"url":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/?p=194","url_meta":{"origin":92,"position":1},"title":"Happy New Year&#x21;","author":"John Beck","date":"January 1, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Happy New Year! 2009 has come and gone and has left us with many great memories.My favorite film of the year was Inglorious Basterds. I also really enjoyed Moon. Sure I haven't gotten to the movies that much this year but those two were my favorite.I have watched a whole\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;John Beck&quot;","block_context":{"text":"John Beck","link":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3067,"url":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/?p=3067","url_meta":{"origin":92,"position":2},"title":"Craig&#8217;s Movie Madness: A Tournament of Our Favorite Films","author":"John Beck","date":"July 3, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Back in May 2024, I launched my own version of a March Madness-style tournament\u2014but instead of basketball teams, it was all about movies. The idea was inspired by my friend Craig, who had started something similar a few years ago, but his version never made it past the nomination round.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;John Beck&quot;","block_context":{"text":"John Beck","link":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/beckinabox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/bracket.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/beckinabox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/bracket.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/beckinabox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/bracket.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/beckinabox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/bracket.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/beckinabox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/bracket.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/beckinabox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/bracket.png?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":270,"url":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/?p=270","url_meta":{"origin":92,"position":3},"title":"Favorite TV shows of the week: April 26th to May 2nd","author":"John Beck","date":"May 5, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"1) My Name Is Earl - \u201cInside Probe\" +42) Breaking Bad - \u201cBetter Call Saul\u201d No Change3) 24 - \u201cDay 7: 3:00 AM to 4:00 AM\u201d -24) The Office - \u201cCasual Friday\" -15) Fringe - \u201cMidnight\" +16) 30 Rock - \u201cThe Natural Order\" -27) Family Guy - \u201cStew-Roids\u201d +18) Lost\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Favorite TV Shows&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Favorite TV Shows","link":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/?cat=6"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2439,"url":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/?p=2439","url_meta":{"origin":92,"position":4},"title":"One Horse House media room","author":"John Beck","date":"April 14, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Last summer, I moved into my buddy\u2019s historic three-story home in Roebling, NJ\u2014known around town as the One Horse House. It's the only house in the village that was ever relocated from its original spot, supposedly hauled by a single horse (hence the name). History lesson aside, the third floor\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;John Beck&quot;","block_context":{"text":"John Beck","link":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/beckinabox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_4728-2-scaled.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/beckinabox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_4728-2-scaled.jpeg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/beckinabox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_4728-2-scaled.jpeg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/beckinabox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_4728-2-scaled.jpeg?resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/beckinabox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_4728-2-scaled.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/beckinabox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_4728-2-scaled.jpeg?resize=1400%2C800 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":204,"url":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/?p=204","url_meta":{"origin":92,"position":5},"title":"Let It Snow&#x21;","author":"John Beck","date":"December 6, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I haven't been leaving many personal blog entries lately. My entries the past couple months have been my Favorite TV Shows of the week list, SNL Digital Shorts or just music videos. I've got a day off and thought I'd finally give some updates. I was actually hoping to go\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;John Beck&quot;","block_context":{"text":"John Beck","link":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=92"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=92"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=92"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=92"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}