TV Shows
I was lucky to see some outstanding tv shows this year. Although this is not a comprehensive list, I've tried to list out as many as I could remember.
1) Scrubs - Season 7
2) Numb3rs - Season 1
3) The Simpsons - Various Seasons
4) The Tudors - Season 1 & 2
5) Heroes - Season 1,2,3
6) The Sopranos - Season 1-6
7) 30 Rock - Season 1,2,3
8) Mad Men - Season 1
9) The Twilight Zone - Random Episodes
I'd been watching Scrubs for the last three years and Season 7 was as much fun as the rest. Numb3rs first season was pretty impressive. I'm a big fan of The Simpsons, so I'm not gonna say much. The always kick butt. Homer's the man!
The Tudors was well produced with great sets and costumes capturing the Tudor era very well, but the storyline was very melodramatic. The only thing that kept me hooked was King Henry's sexploits! Heroes was the biggest disappointment of the year for me as far as tv shows are concerned. Remove Hiro Nakamura and you can shut down that show. The Sopranos. Ah... THE SOPRANOS! Now that's something. No no. That's THE thing! The best television drama ever made. It is simply outstanding. If you've not seen The Sopranos, you've missed something good in life. 30 Rock was the surprise hit of the year for me! I totally fell in love with all the dysfunctional characters in that show. Tina Fey, Tracy Morgan and Alec Baldwin are amazingly funny. 30 Rock was my daily dose of cheer for a whole month. Mad Men's another latest television show that created quite a stir with it's authentic 60's look and the interesting bunch of characters belonging to an ad agency on Madison Avenue.
Although The Sopranos is the best tv show I saw this year, The Twilight Zone is what I'm gonna vote for. This was created in 1959. A half hour, black and white, science fiction show. Rod Serling redefined television viewing with his simple, gripping plot lines and that mesmerizingly stylish narration! Almost every episode is available on youchoob. Go watch as many as you can. I can assure you, it'd be the best spent half hour of the day.
Movies
I saw a whole lotta movies this year. But I'd started keeping track of them only around May so this list below is incomplete. And I'm not including the regional movies in this list. Simply because I don't remember how many of those I saw. Most of them don't deserve a mention is another story altogether.
Midnight Cowboy #
Across the Universe
Ocean's Eleven
Juno #
Persepolis
21
Sex and the City
Brick #
Do the right thing #
Atonement
Batman - Gotham Knight
Graduate
Donnie darko
About a Boy
Death at a funeral
Perfume: The story of a murderer
No Country for Old Men
Sleuth (1972)
Sleuth (2007)
In Bruges #
Bring me the head of alfredo garcia
The Orphanage #
My Blueberry Nights #
Blood Diamond #
YPF
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
The Lookout
The Holiday
Redbelt
Superbad
Vision of Light
The Naked City (1948) #
Interview
Eternal Sunshine #
Ghost World
There Will be Blood #
The English Patient
The Lives of Others #
The Wild Bunch
Saving Pvt Ryan #
My Own Private Idaho
World's Fastest Indian
Spiderman 3
The Doors
Polar Express
Shakespeare Wallah
WALL-E #
Burn After Reading
Iron Man
Thank You for Smoking #
Ed Wood
Saving Pvt Ryan #
Kung-fu Panda
Speed Racer
Last Tango in Paris
Philadelphia
Snow Angels
Stranger Than Paradise
Pickpocket
Dancer in the dark
Flashbacks of a Fool
The Fall (2006) #
Casino Royale
Quantum of Solace
Be Kind Rewind
Horton hears a Who!
Pineapple Express
Breakfast Club
Boy A #
The Blue Umbrella
Cloverfield
Knocked Up #
Mongol #
The Darjeeling Limited
Chop Shop
The Great Debaters #
Michael Clayton
My Winnipeg
A Complete History Of My Sexual Failures
Tropic Thunder
Slumdog Millionaire
I'm Not There.
---------------
That's the list. I liked almost all the movies I saw this year. Mainly because I downloaded most of them myself and I chose to get only those that had good reviews. There were a few i like more than the others. Those are maked with a hash symbol next to them #.
There were three special movie watching experiences that I enjoyed more.
The Dark Knight
This was a movie I'd been looking forward to and I managed to catch it in the theatres. I saw it twice. And was completely blown away both the times. I've been spouting The Joker's lines ever since. But my fav line of the movie is Morgan Freeman's! "Like a submarine, Mr. Wayne. Like a submarine." :)
The films of Akira Kurosawa
I dint add these to the list partly because I'd seen some of them already and partly because I wanted to write a li'l bit in detail about it. This was a particularly enlightening film watching experience. I'd got hold of a two books - Something Like an Autobiography by Akira Kurosawa and The Emperor and the Wolf: The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune by Stuart Galbraith IV. I read both of them and simultaneously watched all the films of Kurosawa starting from The Drunken Angel (1949) to Ran (1985) over a period of one week. I had also downloaded the Criterion Collection Extras of some of his better known films, a series titled Akira Kurosawa - It's Wonderful to Create.
This is something I'll cherish for long, to read about the Emperor and watch his films and get interesting insights into the works of one of the best filmmakers. It was so much fun to learn what an obsessive perfectionist he was.
I'd already seen Seven Samurai twice and I think it's definitely one of the greatest film ever made. After seeing High and Low (1963) I am now convinced that it matches Seven Samurai. The screenplay and the way he handled the subject was just great and I'm still in awe of the movie. High and Low (1963) IS the best film I saw in 2008.
Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!
This was another super fun film watching experience. A friend of mine and I bought ten rupee tickets at Inox and saw this superbly crafted, hilarious movie by Dibakar Banerjee sitting in the first row! Wow. What an awesome movie. We were rolling on the floor laughing our asses off! And the best part was there was noone else sitting in the first row! It was almost like a private scrrening exclusively for us. This is one of the good films to come out of India this year. This decade actually.
Books
I read a good number of books this year thanks to Shelfari and the 50 book challenge community. In fact, I managed to read a 100 books. Plus I'd discovered the world of Graphic Novels only this ear and I went mad downloading and reading some of the best works. My total tally read thus:
58 comics/GNs including 5 big series
42 Novels including 18 Indian works
58 comics/GNs including 5 big series
42 Novels including 18 Indian works
Here's the list in chronological order.
1) Tuesdays with Morrie - Mitch Albom
2) One Hundred years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez #
3) The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
4) Second Turn ( Rendamoozham) - M.T. Vasudevan Nair #
5) Oliver story - Erich Segal
6) Today (Indru) - Asokamitran
7) Three uses of the Knife - David Mamet
8) A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini
9) Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez #
10) Katha Prize Short Stories Vol 1 - (Rimli Bhattacharya & Geeta Dharmarajan)
11) Waterness (Neermai) - Na muthuswamy #
12) Memories of my Melancholy Whores - Marquez
13) Surrendered Dreams - Indhumathi
14) Temple Elephant - P S Sri
15) Twice Born - Vijay Raghavan
16) Into the heaven of freedom - Indira Parthsarathy
17) Fire and Rain - Girish Karnad #
18) Persepolis 1 & 2 (Graphic Novel) - Marjane Satrapi #
19) Blankets - Craig Thompson #
20) Batman - The Killing Joke - Allan Moore & Brian Bolland
21) Ghost World - Daniel Clowes
22) Maus I & II - Art Spiegelman
23) Fortune and Glory - Brian Michael Bendis #
24) Pride of Baghdad - Brian K Vaughan
25) Bridges - Sivasankari
26) Barabbas - Par Lagerkvist #
27) Bone (Vol 1 - Out from Boneville) - Jeff Smith
28) Sleepwalk: and Other stories - Adrian Tomine #
29) Summer Blonde - Adrian Tomine
30) Shortcomings - Adrian Tomine
31) 3 Mistakes of my Life - Chetan Bhagat
32) David Boring - Dan Clowes
33) A Sort of Homecoming - Damon Hurd, Pedro Camello
34) Cartoon History of the Universe Vol 1 - Larry Gonick
35) The Poor Bastard - Joe Matt #
36) Ghostwritten - David Mitchell
37) The Pregnant King - Devdutt Pattanaik #
38) Fair Weather - Joe Matt
39) Torso - Brian Michael Bendis, Marc Andreyko
40) Spent - Joe Matt
41) About a Boy - Nick Hornby #
42) Perfume: The story of a Murderer - Patrick Suskind
43) Batman: Year One - Frank Miller, David Mazzucchelli #
44) Batman - The Dark Knight Returns - Frank Miller
45) Goodbye, Chunky Rice - Craig Thompson
46) Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck #
47) I Never Liked You - Chester Brown
48) Sloth - Gilbert Hernandez
49) Batman: The Long Halloween - Jeff Loeb, Tim Sale
50) Bone Volume 2: The Great Cow Race - Jeff Smith
51) The Golem's Mighty Swing - James Sturm. #
52) Watchmen - Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons #
53) 300 - Frank Miller, Lynn Varley
54) Kanthapura - Raja Rao
55) Love Fights Vol I - Andi Watson
56) Batman: The Cult - Jim Starlin
57) Love and Longing in Bombay - Vikram Chandra #
58) Batman: Arkham Asylum (A Serious Place on Serious Eearth) - Grant Morrison, Dave McKean.
59) By the Sea (Kadalpurathil) - Vanna Nilavan
60) Carnet de Voyage - Craig Thompson
61) Y: The Last Man (Issues 1 - 60) - Brian K Vaughan, Pia Guerra #
62) A Complete Lowlife - Ed Brubaker #
63) Wanted - Mark Millar
64) Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
65) Alias 1-28 - Brian Michael Bendis, Michael Gaydos
66) The Pulse (14 issues) - Brian Michael Bendis
67) Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art - Scott McCloud #
68) Red Earth and Pouring Rain - Vikram Chandra #
69) Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic - Alison Bechdel
70) The Dreamer - Will Eisner
71) Houdini: The Handcuff King - Jason Lutes, Nick Bertozzi
72) Exile and the Kingdom - Albert Camus
73) In Cold Blood - Truman Capote #
74) Fell 1-9 - Warren Ellis
75) Whiteout - Greg Rucka, Steve Lieber
76) Whiteout: Melt - Greg Rucka, Steve Lieber
77) One Bad day - Steve Rolston
78) That Salty Air - Tim Sievert
79) Embroideries - Marjane Satrapi
80) Arrival - Shaun Tan
81) Something like an Autobiography - Akira Kurosawa #
82) On Directing Film - David Mamet
83) Preacher (1-66 + 6specials) - Garth Ennis, Steve Dillon. #
84) Complete Adventures of Feluda II - Satyajit Ray (trans - Gopa Majumdar) #
85) Omerta - Mario Puzo.
86) Maigret and the Reluctant Witnesses - Georges Simenon
87) Mother Courage and her Children - Bertolt Brecht #
88) Stuck Rubber Baby - Howard Cruse
89) Originals - Dave Gibbons
90) Batman: Dark Victory - Jeph Loeb, Tim Sale
91) The Book of Lost Souls 1-6 - Michael J. Straczynski
92) The fall - Jason Lutes, Ed Brubaker
93) Scene of the Crime - Ed Brubaker #
94) Bone (The complete series 1-55 including specials) - Jeff Smith
95) Lone Wolf and Cub Vol I The Assassin's Road - Koike & Kojima
96) Lone Wolf and Cub Vol II The Gateless Barrier - Koike & Kojima
97) Chasing Rainbows in Chennai: The Madras Diaries - Colin Todhunter
98) The Thin Man - Dashiell Hammett #
99) Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri #
100) Purple Sea - Ambai
Again, I liked most of the books I read this year. Some were downright bad but they were few and far apart. The ones I liked better are marked with a #
I also had to make a list of ten best books I read this year for the 50 book challenge community. In no particular order,
Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Pregnant King - Devdutt Pattanaik
Second Turn - M.T. Vasudevan Nair
About a Boy - Nick Hornby
Something like an Autobiography - Akira Kurosawa
Watchmen - Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons
Blankets - Craig Thompson
Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi
Y: The Last Man - Brian K Vaughan, Pia Guerra
I Never Liked You - Chester Brown
Special mention/Jury award/ People's Choice award - Brian Michael Bendis.
He is, by far, the most entertaining writer I've read this year.
I did write brief reviews as and when i finished these books. You could take a look at those at http://www.shelfari.com/groups/10773/discussions/21065/Naresh---2008-List
1) Tuesdays with Morrie - Mitch Albom
2) One Hundred years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez #
3) The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
4) Second Turn ( Rendamoozham) - M.T. Vasudevan Nair #
5) Oliver story - Erich Segal
6) Today (Indru) - Asokamitran
7) Three uses of the Knife - David Mamet
8) A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini
9) Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez #
10) Katha Prize Short Stories Vol 1 - (Rimli Bhattacharya & Geeta Dharmarajan)
11) Waterness (Neermai) - Na muthuswamy #
12) Memories of my Melancholy Whores - Marquez
13) Surrendered Dreams - Indhumathi
14) Temple Elephant - P S Sri
15) Twice Born - Vijay Raghavan
16) Into the heaven of freedom - Indira Parthsarathy
17) Fire and Rain - Girish Karnad #
18) Persepolis 1 & 2 (Graphic Novel) - Marjane Satrapi #
19) Blankets - Craig Thompson #
20) Batman - The Killing Joke - Allan Moore & Brian Bolland
21) Ghost World - Daniel Clowes
22) Maus I & II - Art Spiegelman
23) Fortune and Glory - Brian Michael Bendis #
24) Pride of Baghdad - Brian K Vaughan
25) Bridges - Sivasankari
26) Barabbas - Par Lagerkvist #
27) Bone (Vol 1 - Out from Boneville) - Jeff Smith
28) Sleepwalk: and Other stories - Adrian Tomine #
29) Summer Blonde - Adrian Tomine
30) Shortcomings - Adrian Tomine
31) 3 Mistakes of my Life - Chetan Bhagat
32) David Boring - Dan Clowes
33) A Sort of Homecoming - Damon Hurd, Pedro Camello
34) Cartoon History of the Universe Vol 1 - Larry Gonick
35) The Poor Bastard - Joe Matt #
36) Ghostwritten - David Mitchell
37) The Pregnant King - Devdutt Pattanaik #
38) Fair Weather - Joe Matt
39) Torso - Brian Michael Bendis, Marc Andreyko
40) Spent - Joe Matt
41) About a Boy - Nick Hornby #
42) Perfume: The story of a Murderer - Patrick Suskind
43) Batman: Year One - Frank Miller, David Mazzucchelli #
44) Batman - The Dark Knight Returns - Frank Miller
45) Goodbye, Chunky Rice - Craig Thompson
46) Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck #
47) I Never Liked You - Chester Brown
48) Sloth - Gilbert Hernandez
49) Batman: The Long Halloween - Jeff Loeb, Tim Sale
50) Bone Volume 2: The Great Cow Race - Jeff Smith
51) The Golem's Mighty Swing - James Sturm. #
52) Watchmen - Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons #
53) 300 - Frank Miller, Lynn Varley
54) Kanthapura - Raja Rao
55) Love Fights Vol I - Andi Watson
56) Batman: The Cult - Jim Starlin
57) Love and Longing in Bombay - Vikram Chandra #
58) Batman: Arkham Asylum (A Serious Place on Serious Eearth) - Grant Morrison, Dave McKean.
59) By the Sea (Kadalpurathil) - Vanna Nilavan
60) Carnet de Voyage - Craig Thompson
61) Y: The Last Man (Issues 1 - 60) - Brian K Vaughan, Pia Guerra #
62) A Complete Lowlife - Ed Brubaker #
63) Wanted - Mark Millar
64) Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
65) Alias 1-28 - Brian Michael Bendis, Michael Gaydos
66) The Pulse (14 issues) - Brian Michael Bendis
67) Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art - Scott McCloud #
68) Red Earth and Pouring Rain - Vikram Chandra #
69) Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic - Alison Bechdel
70) The Dreamer - Will Eisner
71) Houdini: The Handcuff King - Jason Lutes, Nick Bertozzi
72) Exile and the Kingdom - Albert Camus
73) In Cold Blood - Truman Capote #
74) Fell 1-9 - Warren Ellis
75) Whiteout - Greg Rucka, Steve Lieber
76) Whiteout: Melt - Greg Rucka, Steve Lieber
77) One Bad day - Steve Rolston
78) That Salty Air - Tim Sievert
79) Embroideries - Marjane Satrapi
80) Arrival - Shaun Tan
81) Something like an Autobiography - Akira Kurosawa #
82) On Directing Film - David Mamet
83) Preacher (1-66 + 6specials) - Garth Ennis, Steve Dillon. #
84) Complete Adventures of Feluda II - Satyajit Ray (trans - Gopa Majumdar) #
85) Omerta - Mario Puzo.
86) Maigret and the Reluctant Witnesses - Georges Simenon
87) Mother Courage and her Children - Bertolt Brecht #
88) Stuck Rubber Baby - Howard Cruse
89) Originals - Dave Gibbons
90) Batman: Dark Victory - Jeph Loeb, Tim Sale
91) The Book of Lost Souls 1-6 - Michael J. Straczynski
92) The fall - Jason Lutes, Ed Brubaker
93) Scene of the Crime - Ed Brubaker #
94) Bone (The complete series 1-55 including specials) - Jeff Smith
95) Lone Wolf and Cub Vol I The Assassin's Road - Koike & Kojima
96) Lone Wolf and Cub Vol II The Gateless Barrier - Koike & Kojima
97) Chasing Rainbows in Chennai: The Madras Diaries - Colin Todhunter
98) The Thin Man - Dashiell Hammett #
99) Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri #
100) Purple Sea - Ambai
Again, I liked most of the books I read this year. Some were downright bad but they were few and far apart. The ones I liked better are marked with a #
I also had to make a list of ten best books I read this year for the 50 book challenge community. In no particular order,
Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Pregnant King - Devdutt Pattanaik
Second Turn - M.T. Vasudevan Nair
About a Boy - Nick Hornby
Something like an Autobiography - Akira Kurosawa
Watchmen - Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons
Blankets - Craig Thompson
Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi
Y: The Last Man - Brian K Vaughan, Pia Guerra
I Never Liked You - Chester Brown
Special mention/Jury award/ People's Choice award - Brian Michael Bendis.
He is, by far, the most entertaining writer I've read this year.
I did write brief reviews as and when i finished these books. You could take a look at those at http://www.shelfari.com/groups/10773/discussions/21065/Naresh---2008-List
Short Stories
I also want to list out some of the best short stories I read this year. Although most of them figure in the list above, some of my favs don't. Hence the separate list. But this is mostly off the top of my head.
Interpreter of Maladies & A Temporary Matter - Jhumpa Lahiri.
Patol Babu, Film Star & Bhuto - Satyajit Ray.
Kama (featured in Love and Longing in Bombay) - Vikram Chandra
Neermai (Waterness) & Battlefield (PadukaLam) - Na Muthuswamy
The Pomegranate Lady and her sons & Shemiran Bus - Goli Taraghi
Bomb Scare, The Connecting Thread & Hawaiian Getaway (Optic Nerve) - Adrian Tomine
Houdini: The Handcuff King - Jason Lutes, Nick Bertozzi
Of these, Bomb Scare, PadukaLam, Kama and The Pomegrante Lady totally blew me away! And I'll always remember Patol Babu.
I discovered a treasure trove of short stories from around the world at http://www.wordswithoutborders.org/ which I visit often when I am in the mood for a nice piece of short fiction.
Well, that's about it.
Super year, No? :)
