It’s been an eventful year here at The Sacramento Press. We said bittersweet farewells to some key staff members and welcomed new ones to the team. We will be sharing our New Year’s resolution with you later, but for now let’s take a look at what had readers clicking in 2012. In case you missed anything, or if you’re just looking to take a trip down memory lane, here are 2012’s hottest items from The Sacramento Press: 12.) Broderick: stiff drinks, big portions coming to West Sacramento by Jared Goyette In another food truck/concrete establishment match made in heaven, Chris Jarosz and Matt Chong from Whicked ‘wich food truck joined forces with Steve Hamm, Marvin Maldonado and Thaxter V.

Taken 2 Directed by Olivier Megaton When “Taken” opened, it came as a surprise for assorted reasons. The basic plot about a man who fights to free his kidnapped daughter was extremely simple, as simple as, for example, the original “Die Hard” about a cop in the wrong place at the wrong time. Both movies featured a favorite theme of mine – the reluctant hero, the person who finds themself in an unexpected and undesirable situation that requires their action. But “Taken” was also quite different from many other films of that nature in that while the hero is an ex government operative with prodigious skills, he’s also a father worried only about his daughter’s safety. Most heroes in most fi

INTERVIEW: DIRECTOR JOE CARNAHAN AND ACTOR FRANK GRILLO [NOTE: THE INTERVIEW CONTAINS SOME MILD PLOT SPOILERS FOR “THE GREY”.]   Recently, in San Francisco, I had a chance to chat with co-writer and director Joe Carnahan and actor Frank Grillo about their new release “The Grey” which opens this week. The film, which is reviewed in a separate article, tells the story of a group of oil workers whose plane crashes in the Alaskan wilderness, where they find themselves stalked by a pack of almost mythically large wolves. Joe is a Sacramento native and we’ve known each other for several years through the local film community and the Sacramento Film and Music Festival. As we were setting up f

The Grey Directed by Joe Carnahan The promotional materials for “The Grey” would probably cause you to believe that this is a “Jaws”-like adventure, with sharks replaced by wolves. And that’s certainly an easy way to sell a movie – but the truth is somewhat more complicated and worthy of greater respect. This isn’t just a movie about men and wolves, and the conflict between them after a plane of oil industry workers crashes in the Alaskan wilderness. Underneath that surface, it’s more about life and death and our ability to determine our own fate. Liam Neeson plays Ottway, a man whose job is to shoot wolves and remove other threats to the men who work in this desolate place. But he’s als