For those of us who love TV, this time of year is a dead zone. Your favorite series are either running reruns or not returning for months to come. But here’s some exciting news: 2011 is bringing in more exciting changes than we usually see — and we’re not just talking about the fact that American Idol is moving to a new night for the first time in a decade. From a handful of promising looking British imports to a new HBO series that’s being referred to as “The Sopranos with swords,” after the jump we’ve rounded up 10 of the most interesting new shows that we could find. Add anything that we’ve missed in the comments.
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Today at Flavorpill, we got a sneak peek at SNL’s Fred Armisen and former Sleater-Kinney guitarist/vocalist Carrie Brownstein in IFC’s new comedy Portlandia. We wondered how @anncurry feels about having the most powerful tweet of the year. We learned that Jon Favreau will not be directing Iron Man 3. We watched a clever montage of 270 films from 2010 in just six minutes. We decided that this video should be required viewing for all journalism majors. We were surprised by the reading levels of several websites — including the nytimes.com. We giggled over the tasteful use of laser beams this Tron-inspired photo spread for Playboy. We thought that these minimalist examples of scientific concepts were awfully pretty. We wished that we lived in Pharrell Willliams’ art-filled home in Miami. We watched a $130 doll — handmade by a doula and her four friends — give birth. We wanted to eat off of these unofficial Royal Wedding commemorative plates. And finally, we got our daily dose of James Franco, who recently stopped by the 92nd Street Y to talk about Howl.
Indie guitar goddess Marnie Stern has been busy making T-shirts to match her Best Coast/Wavves headlines, all while wrapping up a US tour in support of her self-titled third LP. But let’s not forget the hammering, trilling guitar powers she wielded to make it happen in the first place. Stern had some time before trekking to Europe to work with Flavorpill on her top ten list of female guitarists — pleasantly surprising in light of her tongue-in-cheek track “Female Guitar Players are the New Black,” which she explains was written in response to “being asked so many times what’s it like being a female guitar player and having the focus be my gender.” Click through to find out who made the cut.
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In all his bearded glory, The Shins frontman James Mercer comes out of indie obscurity and stars in a film that tackles the equally obscure question, “Why do the good times go by so fast while the difficult times always seem so sticky?” Writer/director Matt McCormick’s Some Days are Better Than Others attempts to find an answer through “awkward characters who maintain hope by inventing their own forms of communication and self-fulfillment.” Don’t worry, it’s not awkward in the Michael Cera-ian sense. Trailer and screenshots after the jump.
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