Favorite new things of 2011

TV:

Episodes
Happy Endings (forgot about this when I was writing this list--thought it started in 2010)
Hart of Dixie
Homeland
Revenge
Downton Abbey (forgot about this too)

Not my favorite, but Once Upon a Time has potential.

Books:
I read a lot of great books this year, but the ones that stuck with me the most were the following non-2011 publications:

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Just Kids by Patti Smith
The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman (rec'd to two people)
Netherland by Joseph O'Neill

Movies:

I loved Attack the Block, but past that I feel like I didn't see a lot of movies this year, and, more importantly, none of them blew my brain back. I preferred Source Code, Limitless, Another Earth to Descendants, Moneyball, and Midnight in Paris, all of which I thought were good but am hard-pressed to imagine as Oscar winners.

I didn't really love anything I saw this year, but I probably enjoyed Crazy, Stupid, Love the most and Drive was probably the most striking. Bridesmaids was funny, but it didn't knock me out. Tower Heist, despite Brett Ratner's brazen dumbassery, was in my opinion a funnier film. The best female performance I saw this year was easily Keira Knightley in A Dangerous Method.

Again, I still have a lot of 2011 films to catch up on.

Music:
My favorite music of the year came from Florence + the Machine, Adele, the Black Keys, Foster the People, AWOLNation, Mumford and Sons, and The Naked and the Famous.

Other stuff:

ice skating -- I just skated for the first time yesterday, and now it's my New Year's resolution to learn how to really skate. Excited!

Studio City -- my dream has come true. I am now a Studio City resident.

Nicholl Fellowship -- 2011 I was a QF with my first-ever completed feature film script.

Trader Joe's dark chocolate rocky road bars -- I eat an insane amount of that now.

Portland, OR

Lisbon and Sintra, Portugal; Valencia, Spain

chocolate salami

Overall, it was a decent enough year. Let's just hope 2012 is better.