The Last Post of the Year

Well, it's the end for 2011, and I'm coming upon two years writing this blog and sending my thoughts out into the online void. I thought it would be a good time to sit back and take stock. Here's some random factoids and highlights from the year in Miss Media Junkie

- There were three posts that attracted more attention and hits than anything else I wrote, and got linked around quite a bit. All were meta analysis/news items. In third place was Why Does "Arrietty" Have Two English Dubs, where I looked at the different release strategies of the American and British versions of the animated Ghibli movie. In second, was "Once Upon a Time" + "Grimm" = "Fables"?. When the two fairy-tale themed shows premiered in the fall, as I expected there was a good deal of debate over how much resemblance they had to "Fables." But by a huge margin, the one article that got the most traffic was Guys Like "My Little Pony," and That's Okay. Apparently the popularity of the ponies with young male audiences continues to confound a lot of people. The search terms pointing people toward my blog constantly include phrases like "Why do guys like 'My Little Pony,'" and "Is it okay for boys to watch 'My Little Pony'" and the like.

- As of two days ago, I wrote my 300th post for the blog this year. I've slowed down a little since last year, what with a new job to worry about and less free time in general. However, I've managed to meet my goal of writing twenty-five posts a month. Next year I plan to start adding tags for some of the regular features I've been doing like "My Favorite (Insert Director) Movie," the follow-up posts, liveblogs, lists, media business trends, trailer and marketing analysis, and the social justice pieces on race and gender. Also, I definitely need a nostalgia tag for the navel-gazing. I don't have any major plans to change how I've been writing the blog for next year, but I am hoping that I can find the time to edit and catch mistakes more regularly before the posts go up. Also, looking at my own media consumption habits, I really should be writing more reviews and general posts about older films, because I watch way more of them than recent films.

- I wrote roughly sixty movie reviews this year, the majority of them based on rentals. I have many, many 2011 films left to see before making up my final list sometime next autumn, but right now if I had to make a top ten list, my choices would be Midnight in Paris, The Tree of Life, Win Win, The Artist, Project Nim, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Drive, A Better Life, Meek's Cutoff, and Hugo. The worst film I saw was probably "Rio" or "Priest," which I wasn't expecting much from anyway, but the most disappointing was definitely Cowboys & Aliens. The best surprise was Captain America. As for the movies I watched that didn't come out in the last year or two, more to come soon.

- On the television side of things, Community, Breaking Bad, and Game of Thrones were the highlights. On the flip side, I regret sitting through every episode of Torchwood: Miracle Day. Best surprise was the new Thundercats reboot. I really don't watch much live television anymore, well comparatively, and I expect that I'm going to look back on 2011 as the year I finished both "Babylon 5" and "Farscape," thereby upping my geek cred. Next up, maybe "The Sopranos" and "The Wire"?

- And finally, I leave you with some of my favorite meta and analysis pieces:

Are the Disney Princesses Growing Up?
Meta on Fan Documentaries and "Star Wars Begins"
"Akira" Casting and Racebending Redux
Why Hello There, Transmedia
What Do CinemaScore Grades Mean?
The Obligatory Royal Wedding Post
I Figured Out the Problem With Romantic Comedies
The First Rule of Fanfiction Is...
New Movie Ads in Old TV Reruns?
What's in a Movie Title?
Starship Memories
The End of Film
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