CliqueClack

2012 movies – a few of my favorite things

As 2012 comes to a close without the apocalypse “predicted” by the Mayans and Roland Emmerich, it’s time to look back on some of my favorite movies from the past year. Now this is by no means a comprehensive list of the Best films of the year, simply because there are many Oscar hopefuls that have yet to play in my neck of the woods (Baltimore is not regarded very highly by the studios as one of those “select” cities some movies open in first before getting a wider release). And with several writers here at CliqueClack covering movies, we don’t all get to see the same movies for reviewing purposes. So, while Zero Dark Thirty and The Impossible have yet to open in Baltimore, my 2012 list will consist of the movies I simply enjoyed the most this year. So let’s take the plunge and see if we can find something that was entertaining, if not great (i.e. Oscar caliber). The following list is in no particular order … except the order in which I saw them.

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Things I learned about TV-related things in 2012

There’s not much good on TV. Likely there are several of you who’d disagree with me on this, but I found the quality in television programming strongly lacking in 2012. Some shows I’ve been a fan of for years simply haven’t appealed to me as much as they had before. How I Met Your Mother. Leverage. Burn Notice. American Horror Story. Castle. Dexter. Supernatural. They may not have had a terrible year, but they certainly didn’t cause me to sing their praises from the rooftops. Likely my disappointment has much to do with my age and the fact I can barely keep my eyes open past 11:30 PM on weeknights these days, so I’m extremely picky with how I spend what little TV watching time I have. This isn’t to say there were some good shows in 2012: Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead, for example. This item relates to the next two items on my list. …

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Our top-trafficked posts of 2012

Sometimes it’s quite obvious what posts are going to get lots of visitors, yet other times we sit about the CliqueClack HQ offices scratching our heads over them. Alright, we always scratch our heads over stuff at CliqueClack HQ, but mostly in that WTF-is-going-on way and not that I-need-a-shower way. Here are the top ten trafficked posts in 2012, even though the post may not have been written in 2012:

1. HIMYM – What’s the difference between peanut butter and jam? (2009) — This happens to be our reigning champion every year since it was posted, and it’s our number one post overall. At this point I think we’re all a little shocked we haven’t yet made the entire Internet-connected world aware of this joke’s punchline at this point.

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Californication: The Fifth Season – DVD giveaway

I’m casting pride aside and publishing some giveaway posts today to nudge my post-count numbers into the four-digit mark. Look for at least one more giveaway post later today.

For this one, we’ve got one copy of Showtime’s Californication: The Fifth Season, and we’re giving it away to a random commenter to this post.

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Any day is Saturday with Korg and Bugs Bunny

When I was a kid in the 70s, I lived for Saturday morning and my cartoons. You had to drag me out of bed during the week to go to school, but I was up at 7 AM on Saturday to get the day started. In 1974, we had favorites like Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? and The Bugs Bunny Show plus cartoon versions of live action, prime time sitcoms like Jeannie, Partridge Family 2200 A.D., The Addams Family and The New Adventures of Gilligan. Sid and Marty Krofft began to change the Saturday morning cartoon landscape with their live-action/puppet shows like Sigmund and the Sea Monsters and Lidsville, and Hanna-Barbera decided to jump on the bandwagon — and compete with the Krofft’s hit Land of the Lost — by producing their own prehistoric Saturday morning series, Korg: 70,000 B.C.

Korg debuted in the winter of 1974 to a general disinterest among adolescent viewers who were busy with Land of the Lost and Hanna-Barbera’s own animated knock-off of that show, Valley of the Dinosaurs. The failure of Korg can probably be tied directly to the lack of one word: dinosaurs. Instead, Korg: 70,000 B.C. went for a more “realistic” tone in its depiction of Neanderthal man in a time when there were no dinosaurs, only wildlife very similar to what you would find in the wild today (okay, exactly the same as you would find today — deer, rabbits, lions and elephants), and the struggle of these early ancestors to just stay alive while battling the elements (fire, drought) and disease, as well as other aggressive tribes. Continue reading 'Any day is Saturday with Korg and Bugs Bunny' »

Start off the new year with Justified and more TV on DVD

It’s a very slow week for new TV shows on DVD and Blu-ray, but as the new seasons of Justified and Being Human are about to begin, now is your chance to catch up on the previous season. In addition to those two shows, January 1 also sees the release of the TV movie I Dream of Jeannie … Fifteen Years Later, which reunites the cast of the classic 60s sitcom with one notable exception — Larry Hagman, who was tied up with Dallas at the time (Tony Nelson was played by Wayne Rogers in this and the follow-up TV movie). There are only two other releases this week, so have a look at our shopper’s guide for the full list, and click on a link to get more information about a title or to make a purchase. We wish you a very happy new year!

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Looper kicks off the new year on home video

The new year on home video gets off to a slow start with only one major theatrical hitting DVD and Blu-ray, Looper. Robert Pattinson’s attempt to break out of the Twilight franchise, Cosmopolis, was seen by a handful of people but could garner a wider audience on home video. The rest of the week’s release is made up of small indie and direct-to-video movies and a couple of classics. To see everything due out on January 1, 2013, have a look at our shopper’s guide and click on a link to get more information or to make a purchase. Any purchase made through a link will help support our efforts here at CliqueClack, and for that we thank you. Have a very happy new year!

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2013 mid-season TV premiere & return schedule

To subscribe to the below schedule in iCal, copy this link and paste into the “Subscribe…” menu item in iCal. You can also just click it to open iCal or even click to add to your iPhone calendar. The same link will work in a Google Calendar as well! Or see the calendar as a web page (also embedded at the bottom of this post). The calendar will update as new shows are added/changed.

* All times are in EDT PM, unless otherwise mentioned.

* New series premieres are in Bold Italics

SERIES PREMIERES/RETURNS

JANUARY

Tuesday, January 1

9:00 Dance Moms (Lifetime)

9:00 Dual Survival (Discovery)

9:00 Emily Owens, M.D. (CW)

10:00 Parenthood (NBC)

10:00 Storage Wars: New York (A&E)

10:30 Double Divas (Lifetime)

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Django Unchained is exactly the bloody, hyper-progressive explosion you’re expecting

If this movie was thirty minutes shorter, it might be the best of the year. If you don’t mind beheadings and touchy subjects, that is.

Director Quentin Tarantino is back to mix pastiche and homage with complicated topics and revenge fantasies in Django Unchained. This time, it’s a spaghetti western set against pre-Civil War Southern slavers, and the movie does not shy away from showing difficult and hard to watch aspects of slavery. Torture, inhumanity, racial epithets, and racism stretching from casual and unconscious to virulent and self-defeating. The movie is split in two, of different sorts of perspectives and styles. Bounty hunter from Germany (Christoph Waltz, going the heroic way this time) Dr. King Schultz is searching for for his bounty, two slavers — but is unable to find them. So he tracks down Django (Jamie Foxx), who had been owned by those slavers — and then Schultz makes a deal with Django. Django will help Schultz find his bounty, and in return will get his freedom and Schultz’s assistance in finding and rescuing Django’s wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington). The first movie in the movie is this journey of self-actualization, while Django discovers his potential and bonds with Schultz. This part is exciting and amusing, with dark jokes and snappy dialogue — and plenty of classic Tarantino stylized violence. Then the movie shifts.

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Happy Holidays, from all of us at CliqueClack

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