Favorites from 2011 (aka, the 2011 Davie Awards)

I always post a "best of" for each year, where I rank my favorite movies, albums, TV shows, etc.  This year it became too much of a drag, and I put the whole thing off.  I've decided to just post some lists, without rankings--although you could view it as a rough, but not definitive, order--of some of my favorite media released in 2011, as well as some pre-2011 items that I experienced for the first time last year.  Enjoy.  Happy very belated 2012.


Music:

• Mogwai - Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will
• The Horrors - Skying
• Tom Waits - Bad as Me
• The War on Drugs - Slave Ambient
• The Black Keys - El Camino
• Low - C’Mon
• Wilco - The Whole Love
• Megafaun - Megafaun
• Foo Fighters - Wasting Light
• The Joy Formidable - The Big Roar
• Meat Puppets - Lollipop
• The Kills - Blood Pressures
• Real Estate - Days
• The Feelies - Here Before
• Wussy - Strawberry
• My Morning Jacket - Circuital
• Destroyer - Kaputt
• PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
• Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring for my Halo
• Radiohead - The King of Limbs
• Justice - Audio, Video, Disco
• Fleet Foxes -Helplessness Blues
• Bill Callahan - Apocalypse
• The Field -Looping State of Mind
• Deer Tick - Divine Providence
• Russian Circles - Empros
• The Strokes - Angles
• Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972
• Boris - Heavy Rocks
• Wire - Red Barked Tree
• Danger Mouse & Daniele Lupi - Rome
• TV on the Radio - Nine Types of Light
• Wye Oak - Civilian
• Mastodon - The Hunter
• We Were Promised Jetpacks - In the Pit of the Stomach
• Ladytron - Gravity the Seducer

Favorite Movies of 2011:

• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
• Drive
• 13 Assasins
• Senna
• The Descendants
• Winter in Wartime
• Midnight in Paris
• The Muppets
• If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front
• Everything Must Go
• Paul
• Our Idiot Brother
• Horrible Bosses
• Conan O'Brien Can't Stop
• Forks Over Knives
• Bridesmaids

Favorite TV Shows:

• The Wire* - which obviously isn’t from 2011, but I finally watched it last year, so it deserves being mentioned, because it’s one of the best shows I’ve ever seen.
• Breaking Bad
• Game of Thrones
• Parks & Recreation
• Community
• Boardwalk Empire
• Louie
• Sherlock
• Homeland
• Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations / The Layover
• Top Gear
• 30 Rock
• Modern Family
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Favorite Books Of 2012:

• Bossypants by Tina Faye
• Zone One by Colton Whitehead
• Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me by Ian Morgan Cron

Ten Favorite Non-2011 Books I Read This Year:

• Your Money or Your Life
• The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
• No Logo
• Tender is the Night
• Cat’s Cradle
• A Confederacy of Dunces
• A Moveable Feast
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
• The Great Shark Hunt
• The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway

30 Favorite Non-2011 Movies I Saw For the First Time:

• Zodiac
• Chinatown
• The Thing
• Les Triplettes de Belleville
• L’Illusionniste
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind
• Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
• Yojimbo
• The Corporation
• Le Samourai
• The Deer Hunter
• True Grit (2010)
• The Muppet Movie
• Mesrine: Killer Instinct
• Mesrine: Public Enemy #1
• Mystic River
• Insomnia
• Beer Wars
• Dog Day Afternoon
• Amelie
• All the President’s Men
• The French Connection
• The Conversation
• Why We Fight
• Crazy Heart
• Lemmy
• No End in Sight
• Raging Bull
• Blue Gold
• The Iron Giant