2010: The Year That Was

Happy new year everyone!! We can say goodbye to 2010 (thank god) and say hello to the promise and potential of a new year. After the year I had, I was cheering very loudly when that crystal ball fell last night on Dick Clark’s special... after, of course, watching the Backstreet Boys pair up with the New Kids on the Block in one of those “is this really happening?” moments that only television can truly bring to us. Then I completely embarrassed myself by knowing the names of every one of the NKOTB. Sigh.

As I’ve done in the past, I’m not going to offer top 10 lists, but instead just ruminate on some of my favourite things in the past year, pop-culture-wise. On January 1 of a brand new year, I no longer want to focus on the stress 2010 brought to me on many levels, but instead the good things it brought. Thanks to Lost, I was on page A1 of USA Today... I guest-hosted Space... I brought Finding Lost to a close and finished the final volume of the series... I met many of you at a couple of Nik at Nite meet-ups that I will always remember... my final book was blurbed by Jeff Jensen and David Lavery. And outside of Finding Lost, I got to travel to New York, London, Mexico, and Florida... my kids are beautiful and healthy and happy... I delivered a paper at an academic conference that was a success... there’s a lot to be happy about. May 2011 bring about much health and happiness to all of us!

And now, on to some of my favourite things from 2010!

Favourite book trilogy:
The Hunger Games. I read the first two volumes of this book in the summer of 2009 when a friend of mine lent it to me. So I did... and was hooked about 10 pages in. The Hunger Games is a riveting story of Katniss Everdeen, who lives in a post-apocalyptic society where the population of North American (now Panem) has been reduced to thousands and she’s in one of the 12 remaining colonies that is ruled over by a tyrannical government. To keep the colonies in line, every year the government chooses two children, ages 12 to 18, from each colony and puts them into an arena, where they fight to the death and only one is left standing. And yes, this is a Y/A novel. The first book is brilliant, the second book is amazing, and I had to wait several months to read the third book, which I finally got around to reading a couple of months ago, and I was satisfied with how the series ended (although I think the first is still my fave). I recommend this to anyone (and I bought the trilogy for both of my sisters-in-law, so I’m eagerly awaiting their take on it!)

Favourite TV Show watched on DVD:
Breaking Bad. I know I already gushed about this once on here when I finished the second season, but the third season was ASTOUNDING and I cannot recommend this enough to people. I went from one family Christmas to another (we have large families, so there are MANY) saying to aunts, cousins, and uncles, “OK, so it’s about this high school teacher who finds out he’s dying of cancer and he has to leave a nest egg for his family, so he hooks up with a former student who’s a drug dealer and they begin cooking meth and... hilarity ensues!” And the looks I got in response were about the same as when I used to say, “Oh my god you HAVE to watch this show, it’s called Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and... um... where are you going?” Or how about, “So it’s about these people who crash-land on an island, right? Only it’s not just any island, it’s totally inhabited by these crazy people? And there was this group of people who were also on the island doing experiments for years? And... I think the island itself might be alive... and there’s this smoke monster who comes through the jungle and... um... where are you going?” Anyway... if you’re not watching Breaking Bad, WATCH BREAKING BAD.

Best Hour of Television
I’m torn on this one. I loved the season 3 Breaking Bad episode, “The Fly,” where Jesse and Walter are chasing a fly around the lab to hilarious and devastating results, where Walter admits something about himself and realizes the negative effects his very existence has had on the world around him. It’s an amazing episode.

But then there was “The Suitcase,” the season 4 episode of Mad Men I already raved about, which was a set-piece featuring Peggy and Don as they both sit in his office all night, trying to come up with a marketable ad for Samsonite luggage. Don has hit rock-bottom and has found out that the only person he believes truly knows him is about to die, and he can’t bring himself to phone the family for fear they’ll tell him she’s already gone. It’s Peggy’s birthday, and she eventually tells Don off, but with some booze, outpourings of feelings, and hours of soul-searching, these two discover a lot about each other and what makes them tick – and in doing so, both become stronger characters for the viewer. It’s unbelievable television.

But after much thought, I simply have to say the second hour of the Lost series finale was the one that did it for me. I’ve seen Lost on very few top 10 lists for show of the year, and have found it more often on “Biggest Disappointments of 2011,” and that saddens me. That second hour of Lost made me cry, laugh out loud, made my chest hurt, and made me feel like I was losing actual friends and family. The season had its ups and downs, but it also had gems like “Ab Aeterno.” And the finale was perfection. I will never, ever forget the feeling that washed over me when the camera zoomed in on Jack’s eye closing, the screen went white, and that final violin string plucked quietly. I’ve said it before, but I remember dropping my written notes on the floor and burying my face in my hands and just sobbing and sobbing. It was beautiful, it was perfect, it was satisfying (to me, anyway)... and it was an incredible catharsis. Damon and Carlton have had to brave their share of criticism for the past few months, but I, for one, want to thank them for giving me the single most memorable television viewing moment of my life.

Favourite Movie
I actually haven’t done too badly with movies this year! I used to go and see three or four movies a week... I was a movie addict, much more than a television one. Even when I wrote my first couple of books, I still didn’t watch a lot of TV and spent far more time at the movies. Every year my best friend and I would go to the film festival and do the 30 films in a week thing, writing reviews and “oh my god you’ll never believe what we overheard in the lineups” write-ups and send our musings out to a group of friends as a newsletter... we were blogging before blogging was cool! I always wanted one of those Cineplex cards that VIPs have where you can get into any movie for free, and even bid on one in an auction. But alas, it didn’t happen. And then... I had kids. Now going out to the movies requires finding the time to do it, finding people to watch your kids at specific times, no dinner beforehand, no chit-chat after because the person you’ve gotten for the evening only has about 2 hours to spare, so it’s rush to the movie, watch, rush home, and that’s that. And of course... three years ago my husband, who is a newspaper reporter, got one of those damn cards AFTER we had children and couldn’t really use it. It was like fate was having a field day at my expense. This year was our last one with the card, and we still barely used the thing, but I did much better at watching movies than before. I’ve seen many of the films touted as being Oscar contenders, have watched The King’s Speech with suspense, watched Black Swan with puzzlement and joy, enjoyed True Grit as much as every other Coen Brothers film, thought The Ghost Writer was a little overwrought, and thought Winter’s Bone had several of the best performances of the year.

But my favourite movie of the year was Toy Story 3. I was a HUGE fan of the first one. I saw it when I was still an undergrad at university, and it instantly became one of my all-time favourite movies. I saw Toy Story 2 just before I got married, and loved it as much as the first one. I STILL can’t watch that scene where you see Jessie’s backstory with Sarah McLachlan singing “When She Loved Me” without my eyes welling up with tears. And so, when people told me Toy Story 3 was going to make me cry, too, I braced myself. And it was perfect. I’m so glad the movies were staggered the way they were. Now I’m a parent, and I wouldn’t have had the same reaction to the film if I were still an undergrad at university, or newly married, as I did as a parent. Considering Andy is heading off to university in this final instalment, he’s the age I was when I watched the first movie and he was still a kid. I watched the scene of the Daycare of Insanity while laughing hysterically, thinking of my son’s daycare and how those crazy toddlers are unleashed on those poor toys day after day. I ADORED Ken, especially when he was trying on clothes, because... gulp... it was a 1970s Ken like mine and he had many of the 1970s and early 1980s clothes that my Ken dolls had. There’s a scene at the very end when he comes out in a white disco suit with a purple shirt showing underneath... my Ken TOTALLY had that outfit (mine had shiny white shoes to go with it because he was THAT stylish... oh yeah, baby, he sizzled... ssssst!). But the best moment, for me, was the ending. I watched it in the movie theatre with my six-year-old daughter, who thought the end scene was thrilling and wonderful, because she was watching it from the perspective of the little girl who was getting all of these fabulous toys and was just beginning her adventures with her beloved playthings. I, on the other hand, remembered being Andy, giving my toys away and realizing some of them were harder to lose than others (my favourite doll went to my daughter and every night when I find that doll upside-down behind the couch or stuffed between couch cushions, I pull her out, pat down her hair, kiss her, and gently put her back with the other toys). But more importantly, as Andy drove away and waved goodbye to the toys who shaped his childhood, and, in turn, himself, I saw him as one of my children, who will one day no longer want Webkinny the not-so-pink-anymore poodle or U.S. Open Bear, the stuffed teddy that my son drags around with him everywhere. Some day they’ll toss those aside and won’t need them, and will drive away from them – and me – and head off to college or lives of their own. And just as Andy’s mother did in the one scene, I sat in the theatre with the tears rolling down my face. I find that the Toy Story movies have always hit the nail on the head when it comes to understanding our emotions, and this was no different. On Christmas Day I gave the DVD to my daughter, and we all watched it again (my husband saw it for the first time, and laughed hysterically during the daycare scene) and I loved it as much the second time as the first.

Favourite trend in films:
Seeing Toronto exist as... Toronto! Do you know how many times I’ve been walking down a street in Toronto and there are lines of yellow cabs on the street and you realize they’re filming a scene, and Toronto is standing in for New York? Well... with the Canadian dollar at parity right now, it doesn’t happen as often anymore, because they’re not getting a break on the price. But you can always spot Toronto pretty quickly in movies, even when it’s pretending to be something else. (My favourite was one a few years ago when two people were standing on a beach in “Chicago” or something, and in the background you could see the CN Tower, haha!)

But thank you, Scott Pilgrim, for letting Toronto just be Toronto! I loved that movie, and if you haven’t seen it, please do. And better yet, after you’ve seen it, go out and get the six-volume graphic novel series, which I read AFTER seeing the movie (I can’t believe I hadn’t discovered it earlier) and the movie hadn’t altered my enjoyment of reading them at all. It actually might have enhanced it. There are tons of inside jokes for Torontonians that had me in stitches (on one page... which is not in the movie... Scott challenges one of the exes to a race through Honest Ed’s to see who can get to the other side of the store without going blind from the fluorescent lighting – if you’ve ever been in Honest Ed’s, you were probably laughing hysterically in that scene. Seriously, you need SUNGLASSES in that place it’s so freakin’ bright) and it was just so great to see that they stayed true to the book and ate in Toronto places and there were plenty of Toronto landmarks throughout the film.

And then there was the usual Toronto not being Toronto, which was in Kick Ass, another superhero film I really enjoyed this year. If you’ve seen the film, there’s a great scene where Kick-Ass is first filmed jumping these two guys trying to mug someone, and that was entirely filmed in the parking lot of the Dip-n-Sip donut store near the place where I work. For 15 years I’ve driven by that place on the way to work, and it was kind of crazy to see it in the movie. (The place sucks, by the way, and I can’t understand how it’s still there. OK, I’m a little biased... I stopped there once with a toddler who was potty-training at the time and went in and asked to use the washroom, and as my daughter was bent in half, jumping from one leg to the other, desperate to go pee, the woman behind the counter simply sourly crossed her arms in front of her and said, “You must make purchase first!” I said I’d grab something on the way out. “No. You must buy first, THEN bathroom.” I bought a bottle of water, and the woman slowly counted out my change and then gave me the key to the bathroom. I remember at the time thinking that I should have just said, “OK, honey, you know what? You’re wearing a skirt, just go pee right here. Squat a little so it doesn’t go in your shoe and go right here. I’m sure this nice lady won’t mind mopping it up.” But I didn’t.) But anyway, all that aside, it was weird to see a place I drive by almost every day featured for a very long scene in a great movie!

Best TV line:
Yikes. A tough one. But I think, despite all the brilliant Roger Sterling zingers on Mad Men, it belongs to Jesse in “The Fly,” when he tells Walter they need an assistant who would be at their beck and call, and he imagines himself bellowing, “Gatorade me, bitch!” My husband and I have used that line a few dozen times since seeing that episode.

Favourite album:
Another tough one. The new Arcade Fire is pretty amazing, and when I saw them right before the album’s release, it was one of the best times I’d seen them. (That's a pic of me and Mr. Nikki Stafford at the show... I'm not sure if I've ever shared a photo of him, but there he is!) I do adore Sleigh Bells’ “Treats,” if for nothing more than the feeling of having melodic noise wash over you and just take away the stress of the day. It’s like listening to a bunch of cheerleaders on meth. If you haven't yet heard them, go listen to the opening track here. (I was thrilled to see it listed in the acknowledgements of the final Scott Pilgrim graphic novel, where he always thanks the music that helped him write the books.) When I was writing the finale chapter in my book over a few days, I wore headphones (even though I was the only person in the house) and listened to Henryk Gorecki’s “Symphony No. 2” over and over and over and over again. (That’s not an album that came out this year, but is one that affected my writing a lot... especially the John Locke section.) And I was blown away by Jonsi’s solo album (Jonsi is the lead singer of Sigur Ros, one of my favourite bands). “Go” is extraordinary, and if you weren’t already amazed by what this man can do with his vocal cords, this album will take you to new heights. Just listen to "Grow Till Tall" and be as swept away as I've been.

But my favourite album of the year is by a Montreal band called The Besnard Lakes. “The Besnard Lakes Are the Roaring Night” is an extraordinary work, filled with orchestral guitars and beautiful voices, and is mainly the work of the husband-and-wife team that front the band. While I love Arcade Fire, I find that Regine’s voice is often thin, and you can tell that she’s taken some sort of lessons on the latest album because her voice was a lot better. But live, not so much. Olga Goreas, on the other hand, has a gorgeous and very strong voice, and her husband, Jace Lasek, often sings in an incredibly high falsetto, so the two voices together are gorgeous. Pick up this album if you get a chance. Check out the opening two tracks and you'll get a sense of the album.

Best SNL Musical Performance:
I PVR Saturday Night Live so I can zip past all the sketches that go on about three minutes longer than they should and lose the funny pretty quickly. So the week that Jay-Z was the musical guest, I was watching it the Sunday morning after the performance... and I think I watched it 15 more times that day. Rather than doing two different songs, as musicians usually do when they’re guesting on the show, he did one 10-minute medley of his hit songs, and he performed them to perfection. I’ve seen SNL all the way back to the 1970s, and I’ve never seen anything like this performance. Unbelievable.

Shows I need to catch up on in 2011:
I’ve seen The Good Wife on tons of top 10 lists, and my best friend tells me it’s amazing, so I really want to see it. I’ve been watching Supernatural on DVD (slowly) and have only gotten through season 1 so I really need to speed things up there. Everyone in my office watches The Vampire Diaries except for me... I think I’m up to episode 9 or 10 of season 1 and I’m waiting for it to grab me, and since many of the people whose opinions I most respect when it comes to TV tell me that it’s good, I really need to watch it (I saw it on TV Addict’s top 10 list, and since my tastes have always been very close to his, that made me need to see it even more). I made a big deal about watching Doctor Who because I was certain my husband would watch it with me, being a big Doctor Who fan when he was a kid. But now that he’s an adult (ahem), he’d rather watch big-people shows and is not watching it with me, and since my chances at watching TV without him sitting there are pretty low, I think that’s the main reason why I haven’t gotten very far with it. I will make a new and concerted effort with it in 2011. And I’m starting to catch up on season 2 of Community now after many of my readers and friends have told me to watch it. I know there are other shows I need to be watching.

What I’m looking forward to in 2011:
Game of Thrones on HBO, and the Great Buffy Rewatch! I can’t wait to see what my venerable group of writers come up with week after week to keep you entertained. (The first post goes live on January 4 so I hope you’ve begun watching season 1!)

What I’m least looking forward to in 2011:
The end of Friday Night Lights. Every episode of season 5 has been a simultaneous joy and a stab through the heart because it means I’m one hour closer to the end. I can’t imagine saying goodbye to these characters. A character who’d left the show made an appearance a couple of weeks ago and I was so happy to see him, it actually caused me to weep with joy. I can’t think of another show that’s ever done that to me. This show sits next to my heart in a way few shows ever have. I know what the end of Lost did to me, and strangely enough, I didn’t love those characters as much as I do the ones on Friday Night Lights (don’t hate me for saying that!) So I think I’ll be gutted for a few days after that one makes its final bow. And I’ll drown myself in my Explosions in the Sky music collection.

Favourite gadget of 2010:
I’m not a gadget girl, but I got an iPhone in May and have been pretty addicted to it ever since. And I’m someone who carried a cellphone only for emergencies and never, ever turned it on, much to my husband’s chagrin. I think three people in the world had the number. Now I have the iPhone, and while I love it, I do find it causes me to check email all the time, even on weekends and in evenings, so I’m never really away from work at all (not like I ever was). But the flip side of this is Angry Birds, which is crazily addictive... and Blue Block, which has a setting that allows my daughter to play with it, too (you can always tell when an iPhone belongs to a Mom; there are more apps for kids than for adults on there). And the other day I discovered a voice memo function... I am SO going to start recording people when they least expect it!! I love my iPhone. I hate the camera (it has no flash!! And I find the flash on the new iPhone is so damn bright it washes everyone out and makes them look like they’re made of porcelain) but the rest of it is pretty awesome. Humanebean has been bugging me for some time to switch to Mac (yes, I’m a PC gal) and the iPhone may have been the thing that did it for me.

And that’s almost it... except for my favourite experience of 2010. I began writing it on the end of this, and then it ballooned into its own monster, so I’ll post it separately tomorrow. But let me know some of your favourite things of 2010, and I hope you check out some of mine! And happy new year, everyone!