2013 Favorites

A roundup of some of my favorite things in 2013.

1- Books:
Favorite Stand Alone Book: Azazel by Youssef Zeidan

I started this book late in December 2012, and finished reading it two days into the next year. It is a piece of historical fiction that follows a Coptic monk named Hepa through his journey from Egypt to Syria, and then onto further lands. The plot is laced with religious thoughts and the beliefs of the early Christianity vs the beliefs of what followed 500 years later. The book has won the Arab Booker prize a couple of years back, and the reasons it won are clear. The dialogue is as heavy with provocative ideas as the narrative in this novel. The events seem very historically accurate, when reading I sometimes forgot that this is a work of fiction and not a memoir. A notable mention goes to the beautiful word choice in this book. The Arabic language is beautiful, no debate there, and the author has used it here to his advantage. Some sentences in the dialogue flowed like honey, but the narrative was the true star of this book.

Favorite Book Series: Saga by Brian K. Vaughn, artwork by Fiona Staples

Without a doubt, Saga would be on this list. It was a refreshing breath of air compared to the usual fantasy books I seem to have picked out lately. The plot was interesting and both character and event driven. The graphics were beautifully executed. More than anything I liked the dialogue in the novels, it was light, witty, and thoughtful.

Honorable books mention: The short story No Free Lunches by Jeffrey Somogyi

2- TV & Movies:
Favorite New TV Show: NBC's Hannibal

Hands down. I've made a lengthy post on TV shows I started in 2013 but haven't finished. Hannibal is one of three I actually am still interested in, and by far the most captivating. I've written a post about Hannibal here. Just go watch the show.

Favorite Season of a Returning Show: AMC's Breaking Bad

IMDB's rank of the show is 9.5, it is the most watched show on Netflix, and all for good reason. The best TV show I've ever watched, and the last season was better than anything else returning to TV this year. Season three of Game of Thrones was such a disappointment I couldn't finish my weekly recaps. Basically, no other show is even on the same level.

Favorite Movie: Pacific Rim

This was a bit of a tough one. I was hesitant as I really liked The Great Gatsby and Electrick Children, but both had some elements missing to make either of them my favorite.However, Pacific Rim was absolutely perfect. Although neither its science nor logic would hold up under close inspection, its whole is much greater than the sum of its parts, and those parts have giant robots. It's straight up good original movie that doesn't try too hard and isn't scared of making fun of itself. More of this Hollywood, less dark past prequels.

Favorite Anime: K

I haven't watched much this year, but this was REALLY good. It reminded me a lot of the Japanese shows I watched as a kid on Spacetoon, but multiplied in the quality of the graphics and the complication of the story.

Honorable TV & movie mentions: Brooklyn Nine-Nine and World War Z.

3- Internet:
Favorite Youtube Show: Bravest Warriors on CartoonHangver

I usually am not interested in these types of shows. Don't get me wrong, the graphics are cool and all, but you get nothing out of this type of show. I guess eventually that is what got me into it. You get nothing out of it. It is just a good show to watch when you are bored and are "on a break" from what you are supposed to be doing. Each episode is about 5 minutes and some of the characters -namely, catbug- are pretty cute.

Favorite Website: www.87daysbefore.com

I first discovered Rachel Whitehurst on Youtube in the summer of 2012 when I was searching for videos about what to bring to your dorm room. Ever since then I've been a faithful subscriber to her channel. She's absolutely gorgeous, smart, and funny. Her videos are personal, which is amazing because her personality is beautiful. Her website shows who she is and what she cares about very well. It it where I get news about new products and techniques. I love it.

Favorite Blog: www.dalalid.com

Dalal AlDoub is a Kuwaiti fashion and beauty blogger. I first found her on the Instagram popular page. I love her blog because her entries are short and fun. Her style is refined and classic, yet has a touch of modern styles. She recently launched a Youtube channel in which she films makeup tutorials using the same blog name.

Favorite Phone app: Cracked Lite

I only installed the Cracked app in December because I didn't know it existed, but it has quickly become my favorite app. The layout is perfect. There is a huge difference between viewing Cracked on your phone browser and viewing it on the Lite app. The content, as usual, is awesome.

Honorable internet mention: The David Pakman Show on Youtube and Cracked's After Hours on Youtube.  
 

New TV Show Review: NBC's Hannibal

I watched the first episode of NBC's Hannibal. I'm going to quickly explain the plot, then do a quick review through screencaps.

The show -or at least the first episode- is about special agent Will Graham. Except he isn't really an agent because he has a mild case of autism, they don't state exactly how severe his autism is, they just slightly mention that he has it. Graham's character doesn't show any development from the flashback at the beginning of the episode and the present day after the intro. He just kind of slides out of and into place again in the FBI without any change. He even wears the same jacket.

The role of Hannibal is iconic enough that it reached a point where it is completely fine for me to see someone other than Anthony Hopkins play him, anyone but Gaspard Ulliel. Gaspard Ulliel is the worst.

As for the show it self, the cinematography is great, and you can see that every frame is thought out and executed well. There is room for improvement in some scenes but I'm optimistic that it will get better as the season progresses.

A couple of the good frames

The special effects in this show are beyond any crime-drama on TV right now, as far as I can tell. The way Graham's beautiful mind sees things in reverse in the crime scene and his terrifyingly vivid dreams are very well made and are beautiful in color and contrast.

crime scene blood "unsplattering" the walls.

Slightly unsettling but very beautifully executed

As far as the other characters go, there are two female characters which are your typical police dramas female characters. One is strong, and bad-ass, and doesn't even care about anything.The other is a soft-spoken academic who may or may not be in love with the lead character.

Can you guess which is which?

There were a couple of scenes that were really good and others that didn't make much sense or fit with the story, but I'm pretty sure this will get better as the series goes on, as do all series.

Also, can I just throw in a pitch here, NBC?
I think it would be really awesome if the transition frames from scene to scene were actually Hannibal cooking or eating. It's creepy and cool. It's perfect.

I thought lungs were more sponge-like

Lecter's basic food groups: tomatoes, lettuce, and human kidneys.

As for some of the scenes I'm dying to comment on, here:

a) this gem of a scene. I think this might be my favorite scene of the entire episode. Graham suspects the girl is dead inside her room and tries to stop the dad from entering. When the dad refuses and enters behind him, he collapses onto himself. Graham holds him up with his arms and continues to stare blankly just behind the man's head. It shows that while he is close and distant from the people's emotions around him, he is willing to be in an uncomfortable position to help others.

b) The scene in the men's room where Graham is like, "waaa I quit" and then the FBI guy comes in and the FBI boss is like "you can't sit with us". I liked i.

c) The fact that Graham rescues stray dogs and keeps them in his house and feeds them and takes care of them. I almost cried. It is so touching.

d) You're swapping evidence for DNA. why isn't your hair covered? I'm sick of this recurring mistake in police dramas.

e) There was this one scene in the autopsy room where the dead girl is lying on a table and Graham concludes from the lab staff's comments that the killer of these girls doesn't keep body parts as trophies, he keeps them as lunch. I bet this was a plot twist for all those 13 year olds who randomly watched this show.

I will not look at this naked dead girl. no sirree.

f) There was this one VERY stupid and unnecessary scene where they call up a technician of some sort to like at the phone wires of a neighborhood and tell them if it was tapped. He flashes his light on the wire, turns around, yells "It's tapped!", and SCENE!

Fun game to play while watching, count how many times Graham pulls this face during an episode.

final rating: 4/5