What movies did I see in 2011?

Inception
I love you Phillip Morris
Adjustment Bureau
Heathers
Win Win
Source Code
Giglia
My Perestroika
Winter's Bone
Gods & Monsters
Saved
Gattica
Harry Potter VII part 2
Howl
Into the Wild
We Were Here
Tomboy

There were not a ton of movies to see in 2011 in my opinion. Some of the movies I saw were really old ones, but I'd just never seen them before. Adjustment Bureau had a great premise, but didn't follow through and crapped out with a lame religious allegory. I love you Phillip Morris was hysterically funny and also really bad. I liked Source Code, it made me think and wonder about how things fit together after the movie ended. Again though, I wonder what is up with these filmmakers. They can come up with a brilliant idea that makes you think, makes you ask questions and makes you want to watch, but they don't commit to it and the endings never live up to the promise of the concept. Is imagination just dead in American cinema?

What did I read in 2011?

Hard Times	Charles Dickens
Travels in Siberia	Ian Fraizer
Resurrection	Leo Tolstoy
Absurdistan	Gary Shetyngart
Red Mars	Kim Stanley Robinson
Pattern Recognition	William Gibson
Moby Dick	Herman Melville
Birdbrain	Johanna Sihsalo
The Lifecycle of Software Objects	Ted Chiang
Exhalation	Ted Chiang
Zoo City	Lauren Beukes
Moxyland	Lauren Beukes
Kraken	China Mieville
Beyond Oblivion	CM Harris
Chasm City	Alastair Reynolds
The Russians	Hedrick Smith
The Sociopath Next Door	Martha Stout
Embracing the Wide Sky	Daniel Tammet
Little Brother	Cory Doctorow
The Grace of Silence	Michelle Norris
Significant Others	Armistead Maupin
Something Wicked this Way Comes	Ray Bradbury
11/22/63: A Novel	Stephen King
Freedom	Jonathan Franzen
Bossypants	Tina Fey
The Handmaid's Tale	Margaret Atwood

I didn't read as much as I'd have liked to this year.Chalk it up to a combination of laziness and too much driving instead of taking the bus to work. A couple of books in the list were audio books that I did manage to listen to while on the bus and mowing the grass.Bossypants was especially good as an audio book, because Tina Fey was reading it.

New Year's resolutions coming up in the next post...

When babies cry

Yeah, I said it. Last post, in the comments. Hush, I have no issues. I just hate film. And mirrors. And Newt Gingirich. He really sucks.

Hard to Believe

But I actually ordered holiday cards. I never send any because I'm a Scrooge and also organizationally impaired. I also worry about setting a precedent. Will I be able to keep it up? I have no idea. Don't look too hard at the link below or you'll spoil the surprise.

Stationery card

View the entire collection of cards.