As 2010 wends its way to its eternal pasture, we can reflect on the movies and television we so hotly anticipated back in the early suckling days of this year. Some, like Toy Story 3 and The Walking Dead, turned out even better than we had hoped. Others, well, others were Alice in Wonderland. But like Charlie Brown, we can't help but line up in front of the football again and again, each year, because maybe this time will be different. Here are my picks for the 13 Most Anticipated Movies and TV Shows of 2011.
X-Factor
Simon Cowell's new TV venture has a lot riding on it. Will people really watch two very similar talent shows? Will it outperform American Idol? Will Paula be there? Either on the panel or wandering around the parking lot in a ether-soaked daze, I mean.
Skins
MTV imported this bleeding-edge teens-behaving-badly show from the UK where they can freely curse, drink, drug and screw their limey brains out on TV. But MTV has to deal with the hordes of American busybodies and schoolmarms who flipped their collective shit when they saw a split second of a black nipple. Can MTV produce a show that's true to the raw teenage experience while still selling ads for Coca-Cola and XBox?
Shameless
And its kissing cousin in filthy behavior is Shameless, another Brit import, which follows the Gallaghers, a dirt-poor family that shows the Bundys what it's really like to be a dysfunctional family that nevertheless loves each other. The original launched James McAvoy's career, and the American version has the advantage of both being on Showtime (swear away, bitches!) and having some real acting firepower in the form of William H. Macy and Joan Cusack.
Parks and Recreation
The Amy Poehler-led mockumentary was MIA for the Fall season but is off the bench come January 20th. Combined with 30 Rock, the Office and Community, NBC's Thursday night is trying to re-establish itself as the premiere place for laffs. I'll just be happy to get some Pawnee-love back in my life.
Game of Thrones
The Pacific and Rome showed that HBO handles big-screen style spectacle just as well the more mundane adventures of city-bound shopaholics. But in Game of Thrones, HBO takes on a beloved fantasy epic that's equal parts Sopranos and Lord of the Rings. But if there's a network that's equal to the challenge, it's HBO. Well, maybe also Showtime. Probably AMC, too. But HBO's still good!
Episodes
Much like his fellow Friend Lisa Kudrow's The Comeback, Matt LeBlanc's new show spotlghts the absurdity of Hollywood and how hard it is to get your concept past the guardians of middle-of-the-road mushheaded network executives. But extra points for LeBlanc to playing himself, desperately scratching around for his own comeback.
Captain America: The First Avenger
The lynchpin of Marvel Studios' ballsy Avengers strategy comes out on July 22nd. We've seen the ridiculously muscular Chris Evan photos, but will the movie pack the same kind of punch? Director Joe Johnston has a mixed record when it comes to period adventures--on the one hand he did the wonderful Rocketeer. And on the other hand is the abominable Wolfman . Keep your fingers crossed, True Believers!
Contagion
Steven Soderbergh's sprawling epic about the breakout of a deadly disease, you can think of it as Traffic with a soupçon of 28 Days Later. Soderbergh by himself would be reason enough to mark your calender for October 21st , but check out the cast he's assembled: Matt Damon, Marion Cotillard, Kate Winslet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, Laurence Fishburne and Bryan Cranston. This could be the Ocean's 11 of movies where people bleed from their eyes.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2
The last chapter of the Harry Potter saga pulls into Platform 9 ¾ July 15, and the great experiment started by Warner Brothers ten years prior will come to a successful end. Throughout the series there have been high points (Prisoner of Azkaban, Order of the Phoenix) and low points (Half-Blood Prince, The Christopher Columbus years), but Part 2 of Hallows finally promises the emotional money shots we've all been waiting for. Harry confronts Voldemort! Hogwarts in ruins! Dead wizards! Frankly, I've been dying to hear Julie Walters give us that powerful "NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!" for three years now.
Super 8
After the sleek, sharp whizz-bangs of the Star Trek reboot, JJ Abrams goes back to his muddy, you-are-there Cloverfield roots for Super 8. And that's all I can really say! It's been so secretive that the only news is fuzzily defined--there's a monster, maybe? Perhaps from space? And a bunch of army guys spoiling for a fight? Consider me intrigued, Mr. Abrams.
Hugo Cabret
Whenever Martin Scorsese releases a new film, it's always worth noting (even if it does turn out to be Gangs of New York), but this December release has something else going for it as well: Hugo Cabret will be Scorsese's first movie to be shot in 3D. As someone who has roundly despised all but one live-action movie that was shown in 3D (thanks Jim Cameron!), I'm dying to know what it might look like in the hands of a master director like Scorsese.
The Muppets
Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie and the rest of the felt band return in December thanks to the persistence of star Jason Segel, who also wrote the story of the old gang reuniting to save the Muppet studio from the wrecking ball. As a big Muppet fan, I'm hoping that it'll reintroduce them to a whole new generation - when I asked, my 14 year old brother had no clue what a muppet was. Friends and readers, this is a tragedy that cannot go uncorrected!
The Green Hornet
I'm approaching this with equal measures of dread and elan, so "anticipated" isn't quite the right word. More like "joyfully apprehensive/nervously excited." I saw about four or five minutes of 3D footage at ComicCon this year and it looked terrific. Director Michel Gondry did some wonderfully bizarre pop-art things with the technology that no other director has. But then couple that with the leads shilling for chicken fingers at Carl's Jr, and well, I just don't know. We'll all find out come January 14!