The 20 Best Things of 2014

I think most people would agree that 2014 was not a great year, but that doesn't mean it didn't have its highlights. Here are mine, bearing in mind, as always, that there are plenty of things from this year I'm sure I'd love that I just haven't gotten around to experiencing yet (Whiplash, Obvious Child, Alt-J, Bleachers, Getting On, etc., etc.). Also, with regards to TV I try not to list shows that I have listed in previous years. Gotta keep things fresh.

Without further ado...
(In random order)

1. “Get Lucky”/“Same Love” at The Grammys

This is why we need the Grammys. Ridiculous, over the top, calculated, and edging up against cheesy - all things that popular music should always be. In an age when it’s not cool to try too hard, thank goodness that the Grammys stay old school in their desire to let us see them sweat.

2. Dumb Starbucks

Regardless of how it turned out, for a moment it was a shooting comet of monoculture. A true happening. A genuine phenomenon in an era when that no longer seems possible. And it moved at the speed of the Internet. It appeared on a Thursday, by Saturday it was the epicenter of the world, and by Monday it no longer existed. The cultural life-cycle of the Internet Age in its purest most distilled form. And the fact that it happened a few blocks from my house didn’t hurt.

3. The Lego Movie

Why can’t all movies be like this? That's a serious question because it doesn’t seem like it should be that hard.

A comedy packed wall-to-wall with jokes. Jokes that respect the intelligence of the audience. Jokes that don’t seem like they had to pass through ten levels of corporate approval first. Jokes that don’t stop for the “story” or the “message” because the jokes are part of the story and the message.

I walked away thinking “how did they get away with making that” and also “how does everyone not?” Because The Lego Movie is awesome. And wouldn’t it be nice if everything was?

4. Spoon - They Want My Soul
Has there ever been a more appropriately named band than Spoon? You never really think about spoons but they're an essential utensil. Without a spoon you can't eat cereal, or soup, or ice cream. Spoons help us get sustenance and happiness, yet how often do stop to consider their importance? Almost never. Spoons are always just there. Yet you can get by without a fork and without a knife, but not without a spoon. 

In 13 years Spoon the band has never released a bad album. They've never topped the charts or headlined music festivals, but they have put out more consistently great music than any other band during that time. Metacritic ranked Spoon as the top overall artist of the decade for the 2000s, yet people rarely mention them when discussing great bands. Spoon is, at this point, largely taken for granted. It's not trendy to say that They Want My Soul is the best album of the year or that "Do You" is the year's best song, but it's also not NOT trendy. It just is. Two decades in and Spoon produces the finest work of their brilliant career, yet almost no one noticed or cared. 

I think it's time we started giving Spoon(s) their due.

5. Lupita Nyong’o

Lupita Nyong'o will not be a star. I sadly have no faith that Hollywood will know what to do with a dark-skinned black actress with an unconventional name who seems interested in playing challenging roles in movies for adults. But regardless of where Lupita goes from here we will always have this glorious awards season. The speeches. The dresses. The sense of possibility. The triumph of merit. Like the first flush of love always does, this will all fade. But it was a wonderful ride.

I happened to be in the lobby of the Dolby Theater the night of the Oscars, and when Lupita’s name was called the place went wild. Jaded executives who hadn’t looked up from their phones all night stared with rapt attention at the monitors as she gave her perfect speech. And theater employees stared at her with recognition, solidarity, and awe – “another old white men’s club has accepted someone who looks like me”. In the moment the world felt a little smaller, a little more inclusive, a little better place. And then as soon as it ended, as always, a commercial for Pepsi.   

6. "Too Many Cooks"

The popularity of something this purposefully weird and off-putting makes me deliriously happy. In a deeply divided country that can't agree on basically anything, who knew that all it took to bring us together was a twelve-minute-long repetitive and absurdist theme song parody video featuring a serial killer slowly murdering everyone on screen. Too Many Cooks 2016!

7. Birdman

Ironic that movie ostensibly about a superhero would leave me yearning for a spinoff movie, but wow what I wouldn't give to watch a Before Sunset-like movie featuring Emma Stone and Edward Norton's characters. This movie though is about superheroes the way Lord of the Rings is about jewelry. Birdman isn't a movie I would recommend to, say, a plumber. But to anyone involved in a creative, artistic field or endeavor, Birdman is holy scripture. It's self-important, naval-gazing, elitist Hollywood masturbation and I can't remember the last movie that felt so relatable and true. As an artist you always wonder - are you flying or are you falling, or is it basically the same thing? At last there's a film that says (among other things), maybe you're living, maybe you're dying, whatever, at least you're a bird, man.

8. Emma Stone Lip Synch on Fallon

While we're somewhat on the topic of Emma Stone, I should mention that Emma Stone is a perfect human. Everything she does is perfect. And somehow this lip synch is even more perfect than her performance in Birdman. Which is really saying something. Remind me again why she’s not the biggest star in the world?

9. McConaughey’s True Detective monologues

These monologues are my spirit animal. Which probably doesn’t reflect well on me since Rust Cohle is a possibly sociopathic nihilist. But, you know, a fun sociopathic nihilist whom you root for. Which really, to state the obvious, is so many people on TV today. Nothing is going to seem stranger to future generations than the fact that the TV anti-hero was a thing that had to be invented and not just a thing that always was. And our storytelling is going to seem so artificial and primitive to them with its insistence on black and white, good and bad, and order where none really exists. That's why True Detective is such a landmark, because it’s also almost the platonic ideal of the television medium. It was all written by one person at one time. All directed by one person. Only the length that it needs to be. Knows exactly the story it wants to tell from beginning to end before the first frame is ever shot. And therefore has the ability to challenge its audience and take its time unveiling its secrets to them. Ten years ago a TV show couldn’t have spent a significant chunk of its running time every week to dark existential monologues. But TV has now evolved to where it’s always been destined to be. It’s fulfilling its potential at last. TV is no longer the new film; it’s now the new literature. Art is a flat circle. Speaking of which...

10. Serial

Radio is the new TV! (Apparently the band TV on the Radio was ahead of their times in more ways than one.) Because the hottest weekly show of 2014 was one you listened to in with your ears. Yes, thats right, 1948 called and it wants its form of popular entertainment back. Serial was just like Little Orphan Annie only if it had ultimately left unclear whether Annie was actually ever really an orphan or not. Also, imagine Annie was a real person.

True-life serialized podcasts are inevitably going to be coming out of the woodwork in 2015, but nothing will every be able to capture the zeitgeist like Serial has. 2014 will always be the year that we were riveted by listening to strangers spend ten minutes discussing the possible existence of a pay phone. And who knew that what we were all collectively yearning for was detailed descriptions of public parks? But that's the thing - reality is in the details. And after years of reality TV, Serial finally made actual reality a star.

11. The casts of HBO’s Sunday night comedy block (Veep/Silicon Valley)

A great TV show ensemble is like a truly great sports team. There are no weak links, everyone has a clear role and they execute it flawlessly, and it's almost impossible to pick a favorite player/character because they are all equally great in their own way. All of these things are more than true for Veep and Silicon Valley, and with Parks and Rec going off the air they are now in a dead heat for the best ensemble on TV. Watching the cast of Veep play off each other so effortlessly you often forget you're not watching real people. And the cast of Silicon Valley is like one of those albums where every song on it has at one point been your favorite. This hour block of comedy magic really proves the old adage that good directing is 90% good casting. And it's a true testament to the power of putting great people together and then getting the hell out of the way.

12. Last Week Tonight's net neutrality segment

Since sometime in 2004 I have missed maybe ten total episodes of The Daily Show, if that. In the years before it was available online, my bedtime, and often my social life, was dictated by what time The Daily Show came on. The "religious views" section on Facebook for years read simply "Jon Stewart". If I had to choose my one favorite "thing", the one most essential artistic creation in my life, it would without question be The Daily Show. So it's not to be taken lightly when I say that the instant this segment ended I knew I would never be able to watch The Daily Show the same way again. It was like watching first episode of The Sopranos the night it aired, or the hearing "Smells Like Teen Spirit" for the first time - I knew the game had changed in an instant and that nothing would ever be the same. Whenever The Daily Show eventually goes off the air, it will be easy to pinpoint this exact segment as the beginning of the end. Last Week Tonight is now unquestionably the most vital half hour on television, reaching heights nearly every week I didn't even know were possible. The Daily Show, even at its best now, feels almost like a relic of a different time. Enjoyable, but muted and inessential. Because theres no way that it could ever produce a segment like this.

Nothing will ever be able to erase or take away from The Daily Show's monumental contribution to our culture and the role that it has played in altering political discourse, but it's best days are now officially behind us. Brought down by a former member of the team. The pupil has become the teacher. The apprentice the master. The king is dead; long live the king.

13. Richard Sherman’s NFC Championship game interview

This made headlines and trended on twitter for days afterwards but really the story at its essence was just "entertaining athlete does something entertaining". So the strong reaction to this interview was far more damning to our sports culture today than it was to Richard Sherman. Muhmmad Ali used to do this kind of thing on a weekly basis and he's an icon because of it. But as our culture has gotten coarser it's also gotten safer and more sanitized. This interview was an antidote to all that, a throwback in the best way possible. By the end of the year NBA players were wearing "I Can't Breath" T-shirts at games and speaking their minds on social issues. Is that a direct result of Richard Sherman becoming a star by not giving a damn about decorum or his media training? No. But they're also not NOT connected.

14. The World Cup

Patriotism is dumb and insidiously harmful. Sports are ultimately meaningless diversions. Soccer is far from my or America's favorite game. Yet for one month every four years my entire life revolves around watching the World Cup. It's fascinating to watch how a country's soccer team reflects the country itself (Germany is efficient, Switzerland plays very defensively, America tries REALLY hard, etc.) and how that creates strong built-in rooting interests, even for people that know nothing about the sport. Also it's great to have a reason to drink in bars with big groups of people at odd hours of the day. And most of all it's incredibly compelling to know that possibly billions of people all over the world are watching the exact same thing at the exact same moment. This is why sports exist. Because for better or worsen there's nothing that can connect the globe and remind us how interconnected and similar we all are quite like watching grown men kicking a ball around. 2018 can't come soon enough.

15. The imagination on display in Snowpiercer

Snowpiercer isn’t a perfect movie by any means. It’s got plot holes galore. The special effects look like they were made using MS Paint. And tonally it’s a bit of a mess. But that’s just the point. It’s not trying to be perfect. It’s just trying to be itself. And it’s refreshingly allowed to follow its own muse. At a time when the rough edges get sanded off anything intended for mass consumption, Snowpiercer, despite the best efforts of Harvey Weinstein, is all rough edges. And that’s exactly what is so special about it.

Not to spoil anything, in the very likely chance you haven’t seen it yet, but there’s a moment in the film where just before a huge fight the bad guys cut open a fish and dip their axes in its blood. It’s a long, drawn-out set piece that ultimately means nothing. It’s never again referenced, repeated, or explained. And the very fact that it’s so seemingly unnecessary is what makes it so exciting. Because it’s exactly the kind of thing you don’t expect to see in a sci-fi action film starring Captain America and two Academy Award winners. In summer movies that sort of scene is always literally the first one to go. For instance I’m positive there’s no fish blood scene in the next Avengers movie. But there should be. Because whatever is going to happen in the next Avengers movie we will all have seen some variation of a million times. And we’ll watch it, and maybe we’ll enjoy it, and then we’ll go on about our lives. But with Snowpiercer there are so many weird, imaginative, idiosyncratic choices on display that it’s anything but disposable. Maybe the film is too strange or bloody or implausible or over the top for you. But there’s also a chance at least that it could be a movie that stays with you the rest of your life. So memo to Hollywood: Less super heroes please, more fish blood.

16. Boyhood

At a time when it seems like everything has, to some degree, already been done, it’s truly rare to see something totally original and unique that you know you will never see the likes of again. It’s rarer still when the execution of such an idea exceeds that idea itself. The hook of Boyhood – literally watching a boy age before our eyes - is what made it so powerful, but the way the material was handled is what made it transcendent. When you hear the concept of the movie you go in expecting a certain narrative – first day of school, trouble with friends, trouble with parents, first kiss, first love, first heartbreak, first drink, getting into college, etc. – because that’s what we’ve been conditioned to expect from coming-of-age stories. And those beats all happen to some degree, but never with the narrative momentum you’re expecting. They just kind of happen. And then the next thing does. And then the next. Because in real life, unlike in movies, there is no narrative. Life isn’t a story; it’s just a collection of things that happen. A series of moments. And nothing has ever captured that better than Boyhood. Boyhood is something totally new, something that is neither fiction nor documentary - Boyhood is life.

(And for me particularly that statement is especially true since like Eller I grew up in Houston. So Boyhood, was in many ways literally the story of my boyhood. Going to Astros games, rolling down the hill at the Miller Outdoor Pavilion, going camping with my Dad at Perdenalas State Park, going to Austin on my first unsupervised trip with a member of the opposite sex, and the list goes on - these are all very specific things that were also a part of my real life. So I think it’s safe to say that no work of art will ever be more personally relevant and resonant to me than Boyhood. Just a surreal thing for me to watch with strangers.)

17. Taylor Swift – "Style"

So look, "Shake It Off" is a perfect pop song, and "Out of The Woods" is great, and "All You Had to Do Was Stay" is a perfect driving song that makes me glad to be alive, and "Blank Space" is very well produced, and "This Is How You Get the Girl" and "I Wish You Would" are super underrated, and “Clean" is kind of fascinating, and "Welcome to New York" is a song that exists, but for me all I really want to talk about and listen to and obsess over is “Style". I feel like “Style" is not only maybe my favorite pop song since "Teenage Dream" (or maybe even since "Since U Been Gone") but that it is the perfect Taylor Swift song. By that I mean that it’s about something very specific and personal, but yet somehow feels totally universal. That’s when something is great, right - when it’s about something that has never happened to you but still totally FEELS like it has? I mean it’s a song that is pretty explicitly about very specific things that happened between Taylor Swift and Harry Styles, yet somehow it feels like it’s about my life. It feels like growing up or being young or something like that, yet the content and tone of “Style" are not remotely what my actual life was like growing up. But it evokes some primal archetype of being young and hormonal and wild and careless that is so hardwired in each us from movies and TV and AMERICA that I feel like I can deeply relate to “Style" even though I pretty clearly can’t. And it does that by being so personal that it somehow comes out the other side as universal. Which is the magic trick that has made Taylor Swift the biggest pop star in the world. A trick that is never going to go out of style. (Sorry, I had to.)

18. The Roosevelts
"Ken Burns' Documentaries About The Roosevelts" should be a YouPorn category. I just can't imagine anything that would excite me any more than that. Seeing such human greatness brought to vivid life was exhilarating. Washington and Lincoln get all the love but I've always maintained that the Roosevelts were both equally as great, so it was great to see them get their due. This series could have been twice as long and it still wouldn't have been half as long as I wanted it to be. #TeamRoosevelt4Lyfe

19. Louie – "In the Woods"
I know I've written about Louie here before but theres just too much to talk about from the show this season – the "fat lady" speech, a six-episode arc about a hurricane and falling in love with a lady that can't speak English, Charles Grodin, etc. - for me to leave it off my list. It was the most singular season of an already seminally singular show. But for me the ultimate embodiment of the Louie ethos, and finest hour (ok, hour and ten minutes) of television this season, was this short film masquerading as a two-part television episode. It was a straight up drama on a "comedy" show. It barely featured any of the main series cast. It was the most touching, tender, and shatteringly heartbreaking thing on TV this year, yet it came from a series that started its season with episodes about a guy hurting his back shopping for a vibrator and accidentally punching a woman in the face during sex.

If Louie CK had added an extra twenty minutes on and released this in theaters it would have been one of the best feature films of the year. But he didn't need to because all he cared about was making exactly what he wanted in exactly the way he wanted to make it. Medium be damned. And in the process he proved once and for all that the only rule on TV these days is that there are no rules at all. We live in exciting times.

20. Bojack Horseman

Speaking of exciting times, Bojack Horseman could not have existed any time before this year. Binge watching and Netflix, the acceptance of cartoons that are made specifically for educated adults, and the dissolution of the notion of genre all had to happen before Bojack Horseman could possibly exist. There are a thousand different precedents for the elements of the show, but absolutely no precedent for the show in totality. It's an entirely original creation - something there are simultaneously less and more of every passing day.

Perhaps my favorite perspective on art is best expressed by a line in the musical title of show: "I'd rather be nine people's favorite thing than a hundred people's ninth favorite thing". Bojack Horseman definitely has no interest in being anyone's ninth favorite thing. It's an animated show about a anthropomorphic horse that is actually a deep exploration of the nature of depression. It is packed with silly visual gags about animals and absurdist pop culture jokes, yet it ultimately builds to a heartbreaking monologue about the nature of human goodness. It's the singular vision of a singular creator and as such it's certainly not for everyone. But as a longtime fan of Raphael Bob-Waksberg I had a strong feeling I personally would love it. Yet it exceeded even my highest expectations. So if you haven't seen it yet, as many people haven't, please watch Bojack Horseman. It just might be your new favorite thing. It sure was mine.