For the fifth year in a row, I present my “Year in Review” in which I consider only the movies I watched and the books I read. In terms of numbers, I’ve kept pace with previous years, though my numbers for 2011 are slightly down from last year.
I saw 50 movies in 2011, about 70% of them on DVD and the rest in theaters or on TV or on Hulu. This year I attempted a breakdown by genre. Here is what I came up with: Action/Thriller – 7, Animated – 1, Comedy – 10, Documentary – 4, Docu-Drama – 6, Drama – 17, Sci-Fi/Fantasy – 5. As I mentioned last year, I’m finding it difficult to pick the “best of,” so this year I’ve come up with a different take. The following 6 movies, in alphabetical order, are the ones that I think are most deserving of being better known than they are:
- Biutiful
- Blue Valentine
- Green Zone
- Hereafter
- The Town
- White Meadows
I read 46 books in 2011, of which 25 were fiction and the rest non-fiction. As with the movies, I’ve come up with numbers for the different genres: Biography or Autobiography – 9, Classic – 1, Cooking (these are not cookbooks but books about food or cooking or chefs) – 5, Detective – 2, Fantasy – 3, Fiction – 18, Juvenile – 1, Science – 4, Social History – 2, Stories – 1. Here are the 6 books that I think should be more widely-read than they are, in alphabetical order:
- Antarctica on a Plate – Alexa Thomson
- The Bond – Wayne Pacelle
- The Book Thief – Marcus Zusak
- Fate is the Hunter – Ernest K Gann
- Olive Kitteridge – Elizabeth Strout
- The Tiger’s Wife – Téa Obreht
So what else can I say? Just see the movies, just read the books!
Click here for the complete lists.