Bryan’s Year In Review 2012

Articles | Dec 24th, 2012

Bryan's Year In Review 2012

It’s that time of year again when I try really, really hard to come up with a list of albums, movies, tv shows that I liked or remember liking. Plus, I compiled a bunch of other stuff as well like favorite concerts, funniest videos, words that need to go away, things I’ve learned and even something silly like Game of Thrones Reality TV Show titles. Enjoy!

Music

My Top 20 Favorite Albums of 2012:
1. The Levellers – Static on the Airwaves
2. Larry and His Flask – Hobo’s Lament
3. Alan Doyle – Boy on Bridge
4. California Wives – Art History
5. Hot Water Music – Exister
6. Nick Gill – Waves Are Only Water
7. Russ Rankin – Farewell Catalonia
8. Less Than Jake – Greetings and Salutations
9. Madness – Oui Oui Si Si Ja Ja Da Da
10. Jimmy Cliff – Rebirth
11. Pennywise – All or Nothing
12. Keane – Strangeland
13. The Gaslight Anthem – Handwritten
14. Tim Myers – Technicolor
15. Teenage Bottlerocket – Freak Out!
16. Dan Vapid and the Cheats – Self-Titled
17. Obi Fernandez – Confessions, Waves and the Garden State
18. Bruce Springsteen – Wrecking Ball
19. Robbie Boyd Band – Spring Generation
20. Molotov Jukebox – Bang

Reissue of the Year:
The English Beat – The Complete Beat

Best Box Set of the Year:
Great Big Sea – XX

Favorite Live Albums of the Year:
DeVotchKa Live with the Colorado Symphony

Albums That Could Have Been Better:
Band of Horses – Mirage Rock
The Shins – Port of Morrow

Albums I Should Have Included On Last Year’s Best-Of List:
Chuck Ragan – Covering Ground
Dave Hause – Resolutions
Chris Trapper – The Few & The Far Between

Top 10 Music Videos of 2012:
1. Mat Kearney – “Ships in the Night”

2. Joey Ramone – “New York City”

3. The Levellers – “We Are All Gunmen”

4. Alan Doyle – “Testify”

5. Great Big Sea – “Heart of Hearts”

6. Social Distortion – “Gimme The Sweet and Lowdown”

7. Stereophonics – “In The Moment”

8. Keane – “Silenced By The Night”

9. Tom Waits – “Hell Broke Luce”

10. The Gaslight Anthem – “45”

Guilty Pleasure Album of the Year:
Walk The Moon – Walk The Moon

Top 10 Bands/Artists That Were Played The Most During My Commute:
1. Carbon Leaf
2. The Levellers
3. Chuck Ragan
4. Mat Kearney
5. The Push Stars
6. Alternate Routes
7. Stereophonics
8. The Replacements
9. Young Dubliners
10. Pilfers

Band I Think Is Overrated & Kind of Boring:
Mumford and Sons

Favorite Concerts of the 2012:
The Levellers – Shepherds Bush Empire, London UK
Skalapalooza 2012 – Gramercy Theatre, NYC
Carbon Leaf – Mexicali Live, Teaneck, NJ
The Pushstars – Maxwells, Hoboken, NJ
Frank Turner / Larry and His Flask / Jenny Owens Young – Webster Hall, NYC
Mighty Mighty Bosstones – Webster Hall, NYC
Saw Doctors – Irving Plaza, NYC
Toots and the Maytals – Sugar Loaf, NY
John Williams – Boston Symphony Hall, Boston MA

Best Surprise at a Concert This Year:
Sting showing up for Indoor Garden Party with Russell Crowe, Alan Doyle and others

Best Live Band of the Year:
Larry and His Flask

New Song That Makes Me Want More New Songs!
Spirit of the West – “Bulembu”

The Song I played The Most This Year:
Chuck Ragan – “Nothing Left To Prove”

Craziest Set I Saw:
Tom Morello – Occupy Wall Street Anniversary Concert, NYC

Biggest Letdown of 2012:
Tom Waits & Anti Records building up for just a music video when everyone thought Tom Waits was going to finally tour again

Bands or Musicians I’m anticipating new albums from:
1. Carbon Leaf
2. Young Dubliners
3. Griffin House
4. Alternate Routes
5. Babylon Circus
6. Mad Caddies
7. Stereophonics

Top 5 Favorite Film/TV Scores:
1.Howard Shore – The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
2. Hans Zimmer – The Dark Knight Rises
3. Ramin Djawadi – Game of Thrones: Season 2
4. John Williams – Lincoln
5. David Arnold and Michael Price – Sherlock: Series 1

Top 3 Movie / TV Songs:
1. Neil Finn – Song of the Lonely Mountain
2. The National – Rains of Castamere
3. Adele – Skyfall

Movies

My Top 10 Favorite Movies of 2012 (that I’ve seen):
1. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
2. The Avengers
3. The Dark Knight Rises
4. Argo
5. Skyfall
6. Looper
7. 21 Jump Street
8. The Campaign
9. The Hunger Games
10. Marley

Movies I Haven’t Seen Yet That I Will Probably Like:
The Master
Lincoln
Wreck-It-Ralph
Django Unchained
West of Memphis
Seven Psychopaths

Favorite Documentary of the Year:
Marley

Top 5 Documentaries I’m looking forward to seeing:
1. West of Memphis
2. Riot on the Dance Floor
3. Pennslyvannia Harccore: A Documentary
4. Salad Days: The Birth of Punk in the Nation’s Capital
5. Bones Brigade

The Worst Movies of the Year:
To Rome With Love
Three Musketeers
Casa De Mi Padre

What The Fuck Moment In A Movie:
Hearing Bane speak for the first time

Bane Sounds Like:
Baron Werner Ünderbheit & Sean Connery

Entertaining but Stupid:
Cabin in the Woods

I Liked The Movie But Could Have Been Better:
Brave
The Dictator
The Watch

Movies that look awful based on the Movie Poster:
Battleship
Journey 2
That’s My Boy

Funniest B.M. Scenes Of The Year:
Friends with Kids – Kid shits on the wall
American Reunion – Stifler shitting in the cooler

Funniest Cameos of the Year:
Sam Jones in Ted
Johnny Depp in 21 Jump Street

Top 3 Unnecessary Remakes of 2012:
1. The Amazing Spiderman
2. Red Dawn
3. Total Recall

Stupidest Movie Title of the Year:
Salmon Fishing in Yemen

Most Annoying Movie Characters This Year:
Vince Vaughn in The Watch
Ellen Page in To Rome with Love

Most Quotable Movies of the Year:
21 Jump Street
The Campaign

Best Movie Quotes of the Year:
“Tough Titty, I fucked her too” – Tom Hanson (21 Jump Street)
“It’s worth a google” – Marty Huggins (The Campaign)
“I put a firefly in my butthole.” (The Campaign)
“Fuckin’ alien came on my face. ” (The Watch)
“I’m fixin’ to fuck ya” (Wanderlust)

Not As Bad As The Critics Say:
John Carter

Scene Stealers in 2012:
The Hulk (The Avengers)
Justin Theroux (Wanderlust)
Anne Hathaway’s Ass (The Dark Knight Rises)
Gollum (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey)

Most Anticipated Movies of 2013:
1. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
2. Star Trek Into Darkness
3. Anchorman: The Legend Continues
4. Man of Steel
5. Kick Ass 2
6. Iron Man 3
7. The Lone Ranger
8. Monsters University
9. Thor: The Dark Worlds
10. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Movie that Looks Hilariously Bad in 2013:
Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters

TV

Favorite TV Series of the Year:
1. Game of Thrones
2. The Walking Dead
3. Homeland
4. The Big Bang Theory
5. Person of Interest
6. Louie
7. Modern Family
8. Castle
9. Californication
10. Don’t Trust The Bitch in Apt 23
11. Justified
12. South Park
13. Burn Notice
14. The Layover
15. The Aquabats! Super Show!

A Surprisingly Good Show:
The Aquabats! Super Show!
Episodes

Shows I Bailed On This Year:
Fringe

Show That Needs To Be Better:
True Blood

Best New TV Series:
Don’t Trust The Bitch in Apt 23
The Aquabats! Super Show!

Best TV Show Intro of the Year:
Game of Thrones

Least Favorite TV Show Intro:
Homeland

My Wife’s Least Favorite TV Show Intro:
The Aquabats! Super Show!

Best Episode Of Any TV Series This Season:
Game of Thrones – Blackwater

Best Political Shows of 2012:
Real Time With Bill Maher
The Daily Show
Colbert Report

Top 5 Favorite TV Shows I watched on HBO/other apps for the First Time This Year:
1. The Wire
2. Curb
3. The In-Betweeners
4. Veep
5. Deadwood

TV Series I Tried To Watch But Didn’t Like:
Freaks and Geeks

TV Series I’m Getting Back Into:
The Simpsons

I Will NEVER Ever Watch:
Here Comes Honey Boo Boo
Glee
Jersey Shore
Real Housewives of [insert city]
Dancing With The Stars
Two and A Half Men
B
Keeping Up With The Kardashians
Duck Dynasty
Storage Wars

Guilty Pleasure to watch on Weekends:
Property Brothers

Unintentionally Funny Commercial:
The Hobbit Dennys commercial

Best Late Night Talk Series:
Conan
Jimmy Kimmel Live

Mobile

Best Mobile Apps:
HBO Go
Netflix
Max Go
Showtime Anytime
Angry Birds Star Wars

Apps That Are Close To Screwing Things Up Bigtime:
Instagram

I’ll Give This App A Shot:
EyeEm

Mobile Apps That Need to Improve:
Team Coco (still doesn’t have full episodes and not widescreen!)

Apps that needs to come to Droid (with full episodes):
The Daily Show
The Colbert Report

Internet & Other Random Stuff

Favorite Podcast of the Year:
Nerdist

Favorite Web Video Series:
Nerdist All-Star Bowling
Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee

Funniest Comedians of the Year:
Louis CK
Bill Burr

Funniest Meme of the Year:
My own: Chris Christie Eats!

Top 5 Favorite Books I Read In 2012:
1. A Dance with Dragons – George R.R. Martin
2. Here Comes Everybody – James Fearnley
3. Life After Death – Damien Echols
4. The Walking Dead Compendium Vol. 2
5. The Lost Symbol

Great Book But Ending Sucks:
The Lost Symbol – Dan Brown

Biggest Assholes of 2012:
Gary Bettman
Donald Trump
People who care more about their guns than the people that got killed in a shooting
Tan Mom
Sandusky
Wayne Lapierre
Chris Brown
The Idiot on jet ski during Hurricane Sandy

People that need to go away now:
The Kardashians
Kristen Stewart
Lindsey Lohan
Kanye West

Phrases/words that still need to go away:
Mitt
Fiscal Cliff
Really?? Really??
Seriously?
Just saying…

Titles of Game of Thrones Reality Shows:
The Real Housewives of Westeros
King’s Landing Got Talent
Lannister Dynasty
Slaver’s Baby Shore
The Vale
Winterfell Pickers
Walder Frey’s Sister Wives
Who Wants To Marry The Knight of Flowers?
Bronn & Imp
Dorne Idol
KINGSGuard
Extreme Takeover
The Bachelorette: Daenerys
Spike’d
Growing Up Greyjoy
Jon & Ygritte Plus 8 Wildings
Iron Islands Chef
Westeros Next Top Model
King Joffrey’s Queen Swap
Casterly Rock of Love
Hardcore Flaying
I’m a Greyjoy…get me out of here!
Harrenhale’s Kitchen

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