Southern Fried Chicas – “He who believes the past cannot be changed has not yet written his memoirs.”

“He who believes the past cannot be changed has not yet written his memoirs.”

Published on January 19, 2011, by Tanya in Tanya's Posts.

Last year I listed my best and worst of 2009. So keeping with ‘tradition,’ here are my Best and Worst of 2010. BTW, my best and worst list is obviously limited to what I personally have seen, heard of, tasted or read. Also, the films I mention didn’t necessarily just come out in 2010. They’re just the ones I saw for the first time in 2010.

================================

BEST/WORST of 2010

Movies

Best: 2010 was a disappointment because there was nothing really that wowed me. So, if I had to pick something, I’d say Inception. The idea was unique, the execution while not flawless, was very good.

Honorable Mentions: The Town, Buried, The Book of Eli

Worst: The Last Airbender

Dishonorable Mentions: Legion, The Human Centipede, Alice In Wonderland, Chris Rock’s Death At A Funeral, The Last Rites of Ransom Pride, The Lovely Bones

Worst Disappointment: Two way tie — #1 The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. I’m not saying it was awful, but for me, it wasn’t as great as everybody claimed. In fact, I was quite bored with it. #2 Iron Man 2. It just wasn’t great. Didn’t live up to the first one at all. Not only that, while I love Don Cheadle, I think Terrence Howard was a much better Rhodey.

Best Surprise: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. The fact that Heath Ledger died before he was able to finish it and that other actors had to step in, led me to believe it would be a patched-together mess. But it wasn’t. In fact, it was surprisingly good. Even more surprising was that the scene transitions between all the actors playing the character of ‘Tony‘ actually made sense.

New To Me TV Series:

Best: Three-way tie between Spartacus: Blood and Sand, 24 and Heroes

Worst: Warehouse 13

———————-
———————-
———————-
———————-
Books

Best: Two-way tie between Something About You by Julie James & Bayou Moon by Ilona Andrews

Worst: I think I’ll keep that one to myself.

———————-
———————-
———————-
———————-
———————-
New Foods for me:
Best: Turkey Burgers

Worst: Caviar

———————-
———————-
———————-
———————-
———————-
———————-
Scandals of 2010:

Best: Three-way tie between The Duke F*** List, Bristol Palin’s 3rd place finish on Dancing With The Stars, Mel Gibson’s meltdown

Worst: Two-way tie between BP Oil Spill. (The Gulf will NEVER be the same!) & WikiLeaks

Dishonorable Mentions: Jake and Vienna’s explosive breakup; Shirley Sherrod debacle; LeAnn Rimes & Eddie Cibrian; Laurence Fishburne’s porn-star daughter Montana

Shows I Stopped Watching For One Reason Or Another:

Best: The Event; Glee, House
Worst: Gossip Girl

Celebrity deaths:

Most Shocking: Gary Coleman
Least shocking: Dennis Hopper

Most life-changing/altering personal event: My grandmother’s passing

================================

LOOKING AHEAD

Can’t wait to read: A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness, Demon From The Dark, Kresley Cole, Changeless by Gail Cariger

Can’t wait to re-watch: Felicity. I have the entire series on DVD and it’s been awhile.

Still can’t wait to play: American McGee’s Alice 2 The damn thing hasn’t come out yet. Won’t be until December!!! I’ve been waiting since last year. ARGH!

I want to eat: Same as last year. Lot’s of salad and sea food
Predictions: The odds for first time authors will diminish even more.

I’m looking forward to seeing: Beastly, I Am Number Four, Jane Eyre, Luther, Never Let Me Go, Twilight: Breaking Dawn, and Priest.

———————-
———————-

-———————-
———————-
———————-

Name your BEST and WORST of 2010

Share this on :

9 Comments.

9 Responses

Raine

January 21, 2011 at 12:00 am

Didn’t see a lot of movies, but “Inception” was yes, very good. And I finally got around to seeing “Avatar”, also very good.
Think the worst I saw was remake of “The Day The Earth Stood Still”.

The Gulf oil spill was heartbreaking. And the shootings in Arizona really shook me up.

“I Am Number Four” has interesting previews. Will see. “Luther” sounds psych-detective intriguing.
And they’ve really done another remake of “Jane Eyre”? Hmm.
BernardL

January 21, 2011 at 8:20 am

Human beings make mistakes with catastrophic results sometimes as with the BP oil spill; but the incredible engineering feat of sealing it may be the most significant achievement in our time. The damage turned out to be minimal thanks to human creativity in plugging it.

I gave up on the ‘Event’. I’m losing interest in a slew of TV shows I thought were good at first. ‘Glee’ has some great song and dance stuff but they’ve made it so loony I have the fast forward in hand for most of it. I’m with Raine on ‘The Day The Earth Stood Still’ remake. Wow, what a piece of crap.
Tanya

January 22, 2011 at 1:46 pm

Raine,

Didn’t see a lot of movies, but “Inception” was yes, very good. And I finally got around to seeing “Avatar”, also very good.

Loved Avatar too. I hear there’s going to be a sequel. 

Think the worst I saw was remake of “The Day The Earth Stood Still”.

That was a waste. I mean, if you’re going to do a sequel at least make it better than the original.

The Gulf oil spill was heartbreaking. And the shootings in Arizona really shook me up.

There is a real need for more comprehensive mental health coverage because we’ve got a lot of untreated/undiagnosed crazies out here.

“I Am Number Four” has interesting previews. Will see. “Luther” sounds psych-detective intriguing.

I saw a preview of Luther on Amazon. It’s been on my Netflix queue since forever. Anything with Idris Elba in it, is an automatic rental for me.

 

And they’ve really done another remake of “Jane Eyre”? Hmm.

Yeah, you’d think they would stop, right? I mean, how many times can they retell the same story? I know of six off the top of my head, but I’m a HUGE Michael Fassbender fan, so I don’t care. It looks like it’s going to be darker than any of the others. I may be wrong, but trailer had a supernatural feel to it.
Tanya

January 22, 2011 at 1:48 pm

Bernard,

<

Human beings make mistakes with catastrophic results sometimes as with the BP oil spill; but the incredible engineering feat of sealing it may be the most significant achievement in our time. The damage turned out to be minimal thanks to human creativity in plugging it.

I’m no tree hugger, but I realize the media isn’t giving the American public the hard truth. I honestly wish the damage was minimal, but it’s really not. If anything, the cleanup (dispersants) only made matters worse.
And it doesn’t look like it’ll get any better any time soon. People and wildlife are still suffering from the effects there and beyond. The Louisiana Environmental Action Network just conducted a study and found alarming levels of toxic chemicals (Benzene,Ethylbenzene, Hexane etc) in the blood streams of random test subjects. There are hundreds of accounts of the health challenges folks in the gulf are facing. There’s also the impact on the sea life on the east coast.

And here is a testimony from two women who’ve lived there all their lives:

Here are some links to a few others. There are literally hundreds more.

I gave up on the ‘Event’. I’m losing interest in a slew of TV shows I thought were good at first. ‘Glee’ has some great song and dance stuff but they’ve made it so loony I have the fast forward in hand for most of it. I’m with Raine on ‘The Day The Earth Stood Still’ remake. Wow, what a piece of crap.

I gave up on the event after Simon was found to be alive and they switched the story arch to Sophia (who bores me to tears) and Simon (another uncharismatic character). The stories just aren’t compelling enough, especially now that they’ve started the stuff with draining the life out of the children. The makeup looked like something from the 1950′s Outer Limits show. Glee got to be too much of the Rachel show. It turned me off, so I stopped watching. I wanted to see the other cast members. TDTESS was very disappointing and boring as well.
Tanya

January 22, 2011 at 1:53 pm

Bernard,

Human beings make mistakes with catastrophic results sometimes as with the BP oil spill; but the incredible engineering feat of sealing it may be the most significant achievement in our time. The damage turned out to be minimal thanks to human creativity in plugging it.

I’m no tree hugger, but I realize the media isn’t giving the American public the hard truth. I honestly wish the damage was minimal, but it’s really not. If anything, the cleanup (dispersants) only made matters worse. And it doesn’t look like it’ll get any better any time soon. People and wildlife are still suffering from the effects there and beyond. The Louisiana Environmental Action Network just conducted a study and found alarming levels of toxic chemicals (Benzene,Ethylbenzene, Hexane etc) in the blood streams of random test subjects. There are hundreds of accounts of the health challenges folks in the gulf are facing. There’s also the impact on the sea life on the east coast.

And here is a testimony from two women who’ve lived there all their lives:

Here are some links to a few others. There are literally hundreds more.

I gave up on the ‘Event’. I’m losing interest in a slew of TV shows I thought were good at first. ‘Glee’ has some great song and dance stuff but they’ve made it so loony I have the fast forward in hand for most of it. I’m with Raine on ‘The Day The Earth Stood Still’ remake. Wow, what a piece of crap.

I gave up on the event after Simon was found to be alive and they switched the story arch to Sophia (who bores me to tears) and Thomas (another uncharismatic character). The stories just aren’t compelling enough, especially now that they’ve started the stuff with draining the life out of the children. The makeup looked like something from the 1950′s Outer Limits show. Glee got to be too much of the Rachel show. It turned me off, so I stopped watching. I wanted to see the other cast members. TDTESS was very disappointing and boring as well.
Melissa Blue

January 22, 2011 at 4:22 pm

I’m a diehard gossip girl (TMZ, Necole Bitchie, Perez Hilton are my regular haunts) and there is too much scandal that went on last year. But what got my worst was Mariah Carey remaking Ol’ Friends Forgotten for New Years (don’t know the real name, but the song that plays at the end of When Harry Met Sally).

Also, I actually liked Alice in Wonderland. Tim Burton was on my *sideeye* list after the Willy Wonka disaster.

Really can’t comment on much else on movies and cable tv shows. I live a sheltered life. But I can say I’ve also discovered turkey burgers. Yum. And that’s saying something coming from me.
BernardL

January 25, 2011 at 11:11 am

I think there will be a slew of BP oil spill anecdotal stories to rev up the lawyers. How many are true or just our sue happy society I don’t know. What I do know is how much worse it could have been if human engineering hadn’t plugged it.
Tanya

January 25, 2011 at 12:31 pm

Mel,

I’m a diehard gossip girl (TMZ, Necole Bitchie, Perez Hilton are my regular haunts) and there is too much scandal that went on last year.

You know, I think I soured on GG because of the constant break-up/make-ups. I couldn’t keep up with them. I also didn’t really like the blond who was what’s his face’s little sister? I can’t remember her name. But Serena, Chuck and Blair are still my favorites.

Also, I actually liked Alice in Wonderland. Tim Burton was on my *sideeye* list after the Willy Wonka disaster.

I think I’m biased because I actually wanted Alice In Wonderland to be a bit darker. LOL See, there had been rumors going around for years that American McGee’s game version was going to be made into a movie. Sarah Michelle Geller was supposed to star in it, but it never happened. Sadly…. Anyway, that’s probably why I didn’t care for Burton’s version.

Really can’t comment on much else on movies and cable tv shows. I live a sheltered life. But I can say I’ve also discovered turkey burgers. Yum. And that’s saying something coming from me.

I made a new recipe for turkey burgers that is so good, my DH is trying to get me to market them. I’m serious! He actually has me considering it.
Tanya

January 25, 2011 at 12:37 pm

Bernard,

I think there will be a slew of BP oil spill anecdotal stories to rev up the lawyers. How many are true or just our sue happy society I don’t know. What I do know is how much worse it could have been if human engineering hadn’t plugged it.

We will just have to agree to disagree, because as far as I’m concerned, this is way beyond “anecdotal.” I actually have friends and family there and they are reporting the same things. Their friends are reporting the same things. And I believe them. They have no reason to lie. The issues folks are still facing are all over the internet for anyone who has a mind to look. The fish kills are real. The illnesses are real. The impact to the environment is real. This is not going away any time soon. The Exxon Valdez oil spill (10.8 million gals) happened over 20 years ago but it is still affecting the environment, the natives and the clean-up crew, who according to a CNN panelist are almost all dead. She said the average lifespan for an Exxon Valdez clean-up worker was about 51 years. This reminds me of all those 911 workers that are coming down with cancers and other terminal illnesses. They’re still suffering too. And now, considering BP’s spill (more than 172 mil gals) may be the worst man-made disaster in US history, yeah, it sure is a good thing they got that thing plugged … nearly 90 days later. Unfortunately, the total brunt of the spill’s impact won’t be apparent for years if not decades. My sympathies are with those who still live there. I have none for BP or Exxon. They have their billions to comfort them.