The 25 Best Things of 2015

As sort of a personal record for myself, at the end of every year I like to write about my favorite bits of culture from the year. A time capsule if you will, of my thoughts on the best things from the year that was. I capped the list at 25 this year, so with deep apologies to Season 2 of You're the Worst, the cast of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Saiorse Ronan in Brooklyn, the escape scene in Room, the epilogue of Spotlight, and all the things from 2015 I haven't had the chance to experience yet (Making a Murderer, The Big Short, Cate Blanchett in Carol, etc.) here’s what mattered most to me in 2015, presented in no particular order:

1. Togetherness
So clearly I’m going to be biased when it comes to TV shows about people living on the Eastside of Los Angeles working in the entertainment industry and taking trips to Houston…but this show just might be perfect. It’s just so many things I love from my entertainment: complex yet recognizable characters and situations, quietly profound observations about life, subtly heartbreaking moments mixed with realistic happiness, wit and humor the way they appear in actual life, conversational dialogue that feels loaded yet lived in, a real connection to the way the world actually works, and most of all, four of the best performances on TV. Seriously, can we just give these four a collective acting Emmy and then just cancel the rest of the Emmys? Their work is uniformly awe-inspiring. It’s impossible to pick a favorite of the four.

On a broader note though this is exactly the kind of project that 10 years ago would have been made as an indie film. Even five years ago maybe. But the funding for films like this - subtle contemporary non-awards-bait character studies - just isn’t there anymore. So now these stories are moving to premium cable. And maybe we’re all better off for it. Imagine if this had only been a two hour movie, think of all the character development we would have missed. It would have been criminal.

Independent filmmaking is dead; long live independent filmmaking.

2. “Nashville” - Master of None
It makes sense that Master of None was inspired by the films of Hal Ashby and Woody Allen since high-end TV is the new auteur cinema. And if TV in the 2010s is where movies were in the 1970s, then the Nashville episode of Master of None is not only the best romantic comedy of the year, it might just be our Annie Hall.

3. Left Shark
Just as we all predicted, in 2015 the most profound and culturally resonant metaphor for the human condition would come from a guy at the Super Bowl dancing in a shark costume. #WeAreAllLeftShark

4. Aretha Franklin at The Kennedy Center Honors



Dropping the coat is the new dropping the mic. And no one will ever do it better.

5. Mad Men finale
Sure the final season lost the narrative thread of the series a bit. And sure, the finale was super fan-service-y. But also it was wonderful and they shouldn’t change a thing about it. Because really who doesn’t want to see all their friends get happy endings? And if you didn’t get emotional at Stan and Peggy I don’t know when you ever will.

But ultimately, in the end, as in the in beginning, this was Don Draper’s story. America’s story. Our story. The story of how we journey a very long way out of our way just to go a very short distance. Or maybe to go nowhere at all. The story of how we’re always pitching, always selling ourselves to the world around us, but never outrunning who we are and how we began. Like life, Mad Men was never about what it seemed to be about. But also it was. So of course it ended with a bang that felt like a whimper. Because that’s life. And I wish it could have gone on forever.

(Before we go here, we’re all going to collectively fund the Sally Draper spinoff series, right? Like, that’s definitely happening, isn’t it? It better be. And speaking of spinoffs…)

6. Better Call Saul
It’s shocking how much better season one of this show was than it needed to be. It was so good in fact, it makes me reconsider every opinion I thought I had about Breaking Bad.

I thought Breaking Bad was a terrific show, an all-timer, but as a ride-or-die member of #teamMadMen I also thought it was maybe more entertaining than great. More style than substance. And maybe it was. But maybe it doesn’t matter. Because with Better Call Saul Vince Gilligan definitively proves that there’s no one in the world better at the CRAFT of television. He’s not precious, or exacting, or tortured – he just makes great TV. I feel like you could just call out a suggestion, improv-show style, and he could make a great show out of it. Better Call Saul just FEELS like a great show. And it is. And it’s great in ways that seem both effortless and impossible in equal measure.

Vince Gilligan and his team are magicians.

7. Mad Max: Fury Road
It’s like George Miller took on the “why don’t they make the whole plane out of the black box material” question as a filmmaking challenge. He made a whole movie out of just the action sequences, and whaddya know - it worked! No real exposition or backstory or cumbersome plot – just "these people seem bad", "these other ones seem good", "water is scarce, women seem oppressed, the good guys are headed somewhere, and the bad guys are chasing them". That’s all we’re really told, and that all we need to know. Turns out audiences don’t need their hands held. A genre film that trusts its audience and itself shouldn’t feel like a miracle, but it does. And for as much has been rightly made about the feminism of Mad Max, for me what seems most revolutionary about the film is how old fashioned it feels. It hopefully is going to mark a turning point in the road back to practical effects, lived-in non-CGI production design, and minimalistic storytelling. Hollywood blockbusters can’t get any bigger or bolder at this point. As Mad Max shows, the only place left to go is to make them better.

8. Missy Elliott - “WTF” video 



Missy Elliot is so far ahead of her time we will never catch up.

9. The Late Show with David Letterman finale
I’ve written previously about how much The Late Show with David Letterman meant to me (still feels weird to refer to it in past tense) and as someone who often felt like Dave was a member of the family I can attest that final show of his reign was perfectly and totally him. Self-depreciating, understated, genuine, almost apologetic for its very existence, yet with a midwestern sense of respect and recognition for those who helped make it possible. After years of phoned in shows and general indifference it was Dave at his very best. And the closing montage made me weep more than some people who have lost actual family members. It closed not only chapter of my life, but a chapter of our collective history. And there will never be another quite like it.

10. The Jinx
The best ever murder mystery that wasn’t even remotely a mystery. And speaking of finales, it’s amazing that an ending that seems so obviously preordained could still be so shocking when it actually happens. It’s an ending that could someday be equaled, but will never be topped. It’s a landmark of televised non-fiction. And it’s incredible that it all came together like it did. It feels like a unicorn. More unicorns please.

11. The Community Series Finale Tag
Wow, what a year of series finales, and perhaps none was more “on brand” than Community ending its run with a season that no one knew existed, on a website that no one goes to, and capped off with an absurdist, high concept, deeply insider-y and self-referential “bit” examining the nature of reality. It’s as great and as weird as it sounds. And since I’m sure you probably didn't see it, go to Yahoo Screen now and watch the final three minutes of episode 13 of Community. Or just watch it here if it didn't get taken down yet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1Pf_X_mgwM

12.  3 & 1/2 Minutes, Ten Bullets
While we’re on the subject of things no one saw, in the proud tradition of Resolved and Hot Coffee, 3 & 1/2 Minutes, Ten Bullets is this year's superb, social relevant HBO documentary that should be required viewing for all Americans. In the year of #blacklivesmatter, Michael Dunn's phone calls, particularly his final one, sum up the racial problems in this country better than 100 think pieces ever could. It's this year's Fruitvale Station, and unless more people watch and address the issues it illuminates, versions of this film will be made every year.

13. Inside Out
Like all the best Pixar movies, I wonder if kids enjoyed this at all, because it certainly doesn't seem like it was made for them. A dive into the heartbreak and deep melancholy of growing up hardly seems like what kids want in their movie-going experience. But it is very much what I want. A movie that is funny and sad in equal measure, that feels deeply personal yet inherently universal, that is unlike anything you've seen before, that shocks and challenges its intended audience, that is incredibly smart and well constructed, that gets at something complex and real about the human condition, that has Oscar-caliber performances (in this case Amy Poehler and especially Richard Kind, as Bing Bong, the heart and soul of the film) - these are all the things I'm hoping to get when I go to the movies. And they are what Pixar delivers time and again. Good god I love them so.

14. John Hancock III – “Left Me”
This is without a doubt the greatest and most important thing anyone named John Hancock has ever had his name on.

15. Rachel Bloom on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend shouldn’t work for sooo many reasons and yet it does for one crucial one - Rachel Bloom. She is so watchable and likable and talented that she makes what should be a problematic mess into the most purely enjoyable show of 2015. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is Exhibit A in the value of giving brilliant people carte blanche to follow their muse wherever it takes them. Who knew The CW had it in them?

16. Black Cindy’s Judaism speech – Orange is the New Black
One of the best things about OITNB has always been its insanely deep bench of actors. If before this season you had been asked to name the ten best actors on the show Adrienne C. Moore probably doesn't make too many of those lists. And yet, now it would seem insane to leave her off. And a big part of that is not only increased screen time and great overall work, but her speech in the finale about converting to Judaism. It was not only incredibly well acted but it also summed up the OITNB ethos - a seemingly ridiculous and often comic premise taken to its humanist and moving conclusion. And for Adrienne C. Moore that conclusion could and should be the stage on Emmy night 2016.

17. Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck
This feels like cheating a bit because Kurt Cobain is one of the most fascinating subjects of the 20th century, but Montage of Heck really might be the greatest ever realization of documentary-as-art-form. Interviews, home movies, original animation, private audio recordings, found footage, stock clips - all blended together into something completely new – it really is a montage of heck. It all took Brett Morgan eight years to make, and it shows, in the best way possible. It’s a true work of art, not just a delivery system for information. It’s a story that lets you create your own narrative. By the end everything about Kurt Cobain and his journey seemed to make perfect sense to me, and yet also none of it made any sense at all, including the fact that he even ever existed in the first place. It’s all just so tragic and so beautiful. So profound and so meaningless. It’s an emotionally wrenching ride straight into the heart of genius, angst, alienation, and the last dying gasps of monoculture. 500 years from now when people want to understand my generation, this is all they need to watch. Note to the future: Keep the tissues handy.

18. Alessia Cara – “Here”
I love this song now, but it legitimately terrifies how many times I would have listened to this song if it came out when I was in high school. Like I might really never have left the house. Which is kind of the whole point I guess.

And if the song wasn't already great enough, Alessia Cara’s Tonight Show appearance is the greatest a-star-is-born late night talk show musical performance since Janelle Monae broke out with “Tightrope" on Letterman.

This one is gonna be with us for a very long time.

19. Show Me a Hero
David Simon doesn't make reality shows; he makes reality shows. Ones that sadly, still, no one watches. Their loss. Because in probably the greatest year ever for television this was hands down the best thing on it. Its a series I still think about daily. About Oscar Issac’s Oscar-caliber work. About Paul Haggis’ great direction (a sentence I literally never thought I’d say). And about David Simon’s peerless humanistic exploration of the real societal forces that make our world the way it is.

My other favorite TV writer Aaron Sorkin once penned the line “you can’t handle the truth”. But that’s all David Simon ever aspires to do. It’s just a shame more people don’t want to watch him try.

20. Wilco – “Name Generator”
In case you were wondering how white I am, this song was easily the most played song in my iTunes for 2015.  And in case you’re wondering why I love Wilco so much, I’m a person who still listens to music using iTunes, so I’m basically their target demographic.

21. Ryan Adams - 1989
This idea could have worked only half as well as it did and it still would have been my favorite album of the year. It was also the exact thing that Ryan Adams was put on this earth to do.

22. March 19th Daily Show segment – “Mighty Morphin Position Changers”
The Daily Show with John Stewart is the greatest television program of all time. It not only did a tremendous job of being entertaining, but it also had a vital daily impact on shaping the national political conversation. No TV show has ever, or in our increasingly fractured age, likely will ever be simultaneous as great at both things. It’s as though 60s-era Walter Cronkite was also the permanent host of 70s-era SNL. And now, post-Jon Stewart the show goes on, but it doesn't really. Now it’s just another show on the dial. Because as good as Trevor Noah may or may not be, it’s besides the point. No one else will ever have the respect, the moral authority, the voice-of-God-from-on-high nature that Jon engendered. And with that, it’s segments like this one that we as people have lost with his retirement. Sure, this exact piece could technically be duplicated by someone else. But the mic drop at the end of it has a power and impact that no other entertainer will ever be able to duplicate. A perfect message will now always have an imperfect messenger. The king is dead; the king is dead forever.

23. Kanye - “All Day” at the Brit Awards



“Kanye Awards Show Performances” is my favorite YouPorn category.

24. Bojack Horseman
As people have always said, the best way to reveal difficult truths about the nature of humanity is with an animated comedy about an anthropomorphic horse. This is not only my favorite TV show, it’s also my TV soulmate. It’s almost more than that - If I tried to imagine the perfect TV show for me personally, this is even better than the show I would have come up with. It’s a miracle it exists, and I’m gonna keep putting it on these year end lists for as long as they keep making it. #Bojack4lyfe

25. Hamilton
I’ll try and keep this brief…

This list isn't ranked in any way except for this: Hamilton will go down as the most lasting and impactful artistic creation of 2015, and I don’t think the competition is even remotely close. Like The Beatles of theater, Hamilton has transcended its art form and become bigger than everything else in its medium combined. It’s so big that the President of the United Sates can go see it, and the show itself can still seem like the bigger deal. It’s like a supernova, engulfing the matter of everything that should come in its wake. Its cast album topped the Billboard RAP CHARTS for gods sake. The viral videos it has spawned populate the Internet. It’s the ultimate status symbol in the ultimate status symbol town. But most importantly, it’s not just a mere phenomenon. It’s a new way forward. By using the contemporary music of the day to tell an epic story with a diverse cast, it connects musical theater’s past to its future. It has the power to single-handedly give new life to an entire art form that was virtually dead as a mainstream force. Hamilton is the defibrillator for the American Theater. And if that's not powerful art, then I don't know what is.

The Top Things 30 Of 2012

After one of the worst years for pop culture ever in 2011, 2012 was one of the best. So much so that I couldn't cut my annual "Best of the Year" list down to less than thirty, and thats even with leaving off things like Zero Dark Thirty, Perks of Being a Wallflower, "Tig Notaro Live at Largo", the final monologues of The Dictator and Killing Them Softly, Channel Orange, Louie, 30 Rock, and the cast of Happy Endings that I feel like would make this list only I either haven't had a chance to experience them yet or they are ineligible due to appearing on a previous year's list (gotta spread the love). So without further ado here are my top 30 favorite things from 2012, in relatively random order.

30. “We Found Love” at the Brit Awards

Questions:

Why werent there more people talking about this?
Have I not been giving Rihanna enough credit?
Have we all not?
Is this what raves are like?
Is this what dubstep is like?
Is this the solution to all the world’s problems? More dubstep raves?
It would appear so.
In that case...DUBSTEP RAVES 2013!

Also, why are all award show performances not like this?

29. Adele at the Grammys

Answer: Because some awards show performances are like this.

27. Liam Neeson on Lifes Too Short

I never actually watched this show which is something I never thought I would say about a Ricky Grevais project. But this one just seemed like a half-hearted attempt to redo Extras and I don’t need a poor man's Extras. Watched Extras, loved Extras, but I’m all good thanks. For five glorious minutes though Lifes Too Short was better than anything Extras ever produced. Yes, including the Ian McKellan bit.

Also, how did Liam Neeson not win an Emmy for this? Or did he? I really don’t know. But this is probably his finest work. Suck it Schindler’s List.

28. Kristen Bell’s sloth story on Ellen

Before watching this I had absolutely no opinion on Kristen Bell. In fact I wasn’t entirely certain that she wasn’t Kristen Chenowith. But now I know exactly who she is – she’s the greatest person on Earth.

(And who said talk shows were a dying relic, a vestigial limb from woebegone entertainment industry age? Oh, everyone? Okay then…)

26. fun. – “Stars”

I have a new answer for the question “what kind of music do you like”. And that answer is “Stars” by fun. Or more generally speaking, seven minute long Elton John-inspired ELO songs made by Kanye worshipping musical theater nerds. All of those songs.

A friend of mine once said that their favorite song was “Scenes From An Italian Restaurant” because “you get three songs for the price of one.” And there’s an element of that in my love of this song certainly. But still, all I know is that if I had heard this song at age 16 it would have blown my mind off. I would have gotten it tattooed on my face. Even at 30 I can’t fully believe it exists and I didn’t make it.

As with the shins and Phoenix before them I’ll gladly take down my “First!” flag with regards to fun. (I had a conversation about fun. with a friend the day BEFORE their FIRST EVER live appearance together as a band) and cede ownership of them to the masses for the greater good of the band and all mankind. So while this song is mine, it’s also everyone else’s.

But mostly it’s mine.

25. Searching for Sugar Man
This is why fact is better than fiction. Because there's no way you could make up this story if you tried. And if you somehow did there's no way it's climax could provoke as emotional a reaction from the viewer as the real thing does. I'd love to say more, but the less you know about this music documentary going in the better. Just know you wont have seen a more unbelievable story in a long long time.

(Semi-pseudo-spoiler: If you have seen the movie, or know the story, then I'd just like to add that one of my main thoughts is that with how interconnected the world is today a story like this one wouldn't be possible anymore. And if this story had instead unfolded the way it would today, would that have been a better or a worse thing for all involved? It's really hard to say.)

24. Girls

This show. This fuckin’ show.

What is there left to say about Girls? No seriously, because whatever there is left to say I’d like to say it. If you take all the articles about Girls off the Internet there’d be nothing left but cat videos and pictures of Ryan Gosling, and yet I still feel like we should be talking about this show more. I could talk til the end of days and still not be satisfied. Because this show isn’t just perfectly in my wheelhouse it’s in my Hearst Castle surrounded floor to ceiling with nothing but my wheels.

Let me just say though that with all the talk about this show the one thing I don’t hear near enough is how good Allison Williams is. “Revelation” feels too minor. Tour de force doesn’t really capture it. All I know is that she should win all the Emmys ever. And then Lena Dunham should win all the rest.

Now if you’ll excuse me I’m off to look into the legality of human/TV show marriage. Because I’m in love with Girls.

23. Anne Hathaway in Les Miz
My best friend adamantly believes that Anne Hathaway is the best actress of her generation. It's one of those statements that sounds crazy until you realize that it's totally not. Who else could, in the same year, be by far the best thing in both a Batman movie and Les Miz. And be as heartbreaking and unglamorous in one as they are sexy and funny in the other. Anne's "I Dreamed a Dream" will not only win her an Oscar, but it also got her officially named Prom Queen of Theater Camp. So step off haterz, cuz I'm ride or die Team Hathaway.

22. "Caine's Arcade"

This is the anti-"Kony 2012". A simple issue, a simple task, enormous sized joy and good. The world is indisputably better by mere virtue of this video’s existence. No further action required. And it’s exactly the kind of thing we should be using the Internet for.

More things like this please, Internet People.

21. "Gungan Style"

More things like this as well.

(Stick with it, it's not what it seems like at first)

20. Twitter's response to Clint Eastwood at the Republican convention

Continuing the theme of great things from the Internet, we now have the answer to one of the great questions of our lives: what would it have been like if twitter had existed when Dick Cheney shot that man in the face? Only this was even better because it lasted longer and unfolded in real time. It was the original "premiere of Liz and Dick" only more meaningful and universal (all words in this paragraph are being used loosely). It was twitter's finest hour. And it was the crowning achievement of my generation. 

Our grandparents may have defeated the Nazis, but we made perfectly crafted jokes in 140 characters or less about those very same grandparents. Suck it Ghost of Hitler! #greatestgeneration

19. Episodes 4-13 Of Mad Men season 5

After starting out slow, season 5 of the second-greatest TV show of all time went on one of the greatest run of episodes television has ever seen. Nearly every week the episode would end and I would think “that was the best episode Mad Men has ever done” only to feel the exact same way the very next week.

With all due respect to Breaking Bad, a show I dearly love (because I am a human being with a brain), what separates Mad Men from the other Sub-Wire Greats is that it’s actually about something. And not just "selling meth will corrupt you", or “the mafia is a metaphor for America” but about us. All of us here in America. Our shared past. Our social structures. Our morality, our aging, and our lives. In the past few weeks alone I’ve referred to someone as “his Meghan”, wondered out loud if my experience of listening to dubstep is what Don felt when he heard “Tomorrow Never Knows”, and compared Mitt Romney’s failed presidential campaign to Joan Holloway.

Because of Mad Men I can never look at the past the same way. Which means I can never look at the present the same way. Or the future. Which means I’ll always expect Mad Men to hit the same heights in did the last half of season 5. So good luck Matthew Weiner.

18. FUDS menu

I’m often prone to hyperbole but I feel confident that this is not one of those times: I have never laughed harder at anything in my life than I laughed (and continue to laugh) at the FUDS menu. I laughed so hard I couldn’t see straight. I laughed so hard I was actually falling out of my chair. I laughed so hard I had to stop reading several times because it was hurting too much. I literally couldn’t take it. If I could travel back in time to do one thing, I wouldn’t stop the Holocaust, I would read the FUDS menu again for the first time. This is the Citizen Kane of 21^st century menu parodies. This. Is. Comedy.

17. “Hot Cheetos and Takis”

It’s everyone’s favorite after-school-program-produced snack-referencing hip-hop uber-hit!

I know it’s been said ad-nauseum at this point, but the rapping on this thing is so good it almost feels like HAS to be ghost-written. Yet it’s so clearly authentically from a tween’s perspective that there’s no doubt it wasn’t.

But seriously, lines like “I’m on point like an elbow/hands red like Elmo” and “boatloads of them skittles starburst fritos and Doritos/but nothing can compare to the H-O-T Cheetos” and “I look and I said ‘no ma’am’/I go HAM in the grocery store”? Rick Ross hasn’t ever written anything even half as good as any of those and he "scoop Emmy winners like kitty litter".

Mr. Holland only wishes his kids could produce an opus like this.

16. Usian Bolt
One of my earliest clear memories is of watching the 1988 Summer Olympics. And yet I recently had to Wikipedia who exactly Jackie Joyner Kersee was. In the summer of 1996 my life revolved around the Atlanta Olympics, yet I recently couldn’t recall what events Michael Johnson ran. And although I watched every night of coverage of the Sydney Olympics I was legitimately stunned to read that Nastia Lukin won overall gold that year and not Shawn Johnson. The point is that even being the best of the best at something that the whole world watched, being an icon, being a national sporting hero doesn’t mean you’ll be remembered very long. But I know with absolute certainty I’ll remember everything about Usain Bolt until my dying day.

Usain Bolt is why we sit through the millions (billions?) of hours of often boring and meaningless and forgettable sporting events. So that every once in awhile we will see perfection. See a human being do something that literally leaves us speechless. See something that we know we will never see again and will remember always. Usain Bolt makes it all worth it.

Perhaps the greatest thing I can say about Usain Bolt is not that when faced with the greatest 100m final field of all time there was absolutely no doubt he would win, or that no one in history has ever made greatness look so effortless, or that he made winning one race seem like a much bigger deal than winning the most medals in Olympic history. It’s that I and every other non-Jamaican on the planet were/are such big Usain Bolt that we were actively rooting for him against our own countries. If one of the US sprinters had beaten him I would have actually been angry with them, not proud. I doubt we’ll ever have that experience again in our lifetimes. Which is the very sentence that keeps us watching sports. So thanks Usain Bolt. We’re now all off in search of our next fix.

Speaking of which…

15. Linsanity

Sometimes sports are perfectly imperfect.  They’re euphoric, and uniting, and heartbreaking, and messy, and unsatisfying in all the ways the life truly is. And like the first weeks of true love, or landing a dream job, or selling that first screenplay, or holding a newborn child in your arms Linsanity was magical and blissful and made being alive the only thing you’d ever want to do forever. But it couldn’t last because nothing does. Love becomes routine, and the job is stressful, and words get changed without your consent, and your kid needs things and talks back and it’s all still good, but now it’s real, and real is less fun. But also it’s the most fun there is. Because what other than reality could give birth to an event like Linsanity? 

Now that it's over, maybe we’ll run into each other at a party, Linsanity and us, and it will seem strange that we were ever together. Like some half remembered dream that happened to someone else. But we’ll reminisce about old times and smile, because those were the days weren't they? And no matter what else might pass between us we’ll always have the Laker game.

14. Mark Harris' "Oscarmetrics" columns for Grantland
One of my favorite writers writing for my favorite website on my absolute favorite topic? It’s shockingly not too good to be true.

In an alternate reality writing this exact column is the exact job I have, only I don’t do it half as well. I would be mad at Mr. Harris for stealing so many thoughts straight out of my head, if only they weren’t so enjoyable to read. Plus, I beat him in Oscar predictions so it all evens out. 

13. Japandroids – “House That Heaven Built”

This is the sound of speeding down a nearly empty freeway, either heading to or coming from an epic night out.

It’s the sound of The Hold Steady covering an Andrew WK song.

It’s the sound of my ears bleeding with joy.

12. "Eye of the Sparrow: A Bad Lip Reading of the First 2012 Presidential Debate"


This shouldn't be on the Internet; this should be in an art museum.

11. Bobby Cannavale on Boardwalk Empire
Sometimes I feel like I'm living in an alternate reality from everyone else. Watching Boardwalk Empire is one of those times. I watch Boardwalk Empire and I see a perfectly crafted, well written, expectly acted show that's only the slightest step down from the Greatest TV Drama Mount Rushmore level. And yet the world at large treats Boardwalk Empire like an empty, unremarkable slog that no one cares about. And I, for the life of me, cant figure out how I and the world at large are watching the same show. 

Never has that been more clear than in the case of Bobby Cannavale. In a cast full of great actors Bobby Canavale burst onto the scene this year and from his first appearance on screen towered over all of them with a Pacino-in-his-prime intensity. I thought no actor alive could top the dearly departed Michael Pitt, but Bobby Cannavale made me forget he even existed. Watching Bobby Cannavale this year I saw a superstar giving one of the all-time great TV performances. And yet his mainstream buzz was minimal at best. Just like the show itself.

Wake up people. The new Sopranos is happening in front of you and you're looking right through it.

10. SNL - "Dylan McDermott or Dermot Mulroney"
Another case of "Are We Watching The Same Thing?". I've seen multiple "Best Of 2012 SNL" lists and this sketch hasnt been on any of them. But to me it's clearly and indispuatbly one of the best post-More Cowbell sketches the show has done. There's nothing about it that's not perfect.

9. “Fight for Your Right to Party” – Coldplay, Hollywood Bowl

I’m always a sucker for earnest white person covers of hip hop songs, but this is a whole ‘nother level. I’ve watched this far more than any other YouTube clip this year, and yet no matter how many times I watch it, when the crowd all yells “Beastie Boys” together it gets me every time. Every single time. It’s magic and it’s Coldplay’s finest moment and it’s the best MCA tribute that will ever exist.

Thank you Chris Martin.

8. Felix Baumgartner

The most 2012 thing to happen in 2012 is that a man jumped from outer space. A MAN JUMPED FROM OUTER SPACE. We may not have flying cars or hoverboards, but a man jumped from outer space and we watched it live on the internet. Welcome to the future.

7. PSY - “Gangnam Style”

Looking back, it was quite the year for YouTube-fueled pseudo-novelty pop song phenomenons. Or maybe that’s just how the music industry works now. Perhaps, at long last, video finally HAS killed the radio star.

I’ve often made the case the lyrics don’t really matter. I mean good ones can enhance a song, obviously. But so can a good sax solo. And bad lyrics can ruin a song, as every Black Eyed Peas song ever can attest. But really, they don’t matter all that much. And Exhibit A in defense of that theory is “Gangnam Style”, a song with exactly four English words, which was nevertheless a huge hit.

Pretty crazy that one of the biggest new pop stars of 2012 was a 31 year old slightly pudgy very average looking South Korean guy. It’s almost like ANYONE can be famous these days…

(If at this late date you're still interested in further reading on "Gangnam Style" this article from the Atlantic is pretty great: "Gangnam Style, Dissected: The Subversive Message Within South Korea's Music Video Sensation")

6. The processing scene in The Master
The movie itself was kind of a mess. A lot of sound and fury signifying what I'm not quite sure. But it was worth the price of admission and then some for the acting in this scene alone. Philip Seymour Hoffman is the best non-Daniel Day-Lewis actor alive, and he's at the apex of his powers here. And Joaquin Phoenix transcends classifications like "good" or "not good" and operates in this scene on a level where I actually fear that he himself is mentally not well. Like the eternal question - "would you want to be able to paint like Van Gogh if it meant that you would be so unhappy and unstable that you would cut off your own ear" - I almost don't know if I would want to be able to give Joaquin Phoenix's performance in this scene. Because being able to act that well would likely mean that I was insane. And I dont think any art is worth my sanity. But then I think about the scene again and it's so incredible that I think "maybe it would be worth it...". So while I cant say for sure whether his performance is "good" or not I can say that it makes me seriously question the value of sanity. And if that's not high praise then I don't know what is.

5. This is 40
Any money over zero dollars that this movie made was a minor miracle. It’s a comedy without “jokes”, it’s depressing and “slow”, and it’s target audience is like maybe 1,000 rich middle-aged couples who live on the west side of Los Angeles. Yet my main complaint was that it was too commercial. The whole time I kept wishing that Judd Apatow had had the balls to go all the way and completely do away with the concept of plot altogether. Plot is only holding him back at this point. He should release himself from it and fly free, before he has to veer back in a more conventional direction in order to make enough money to pay for his daughters’ sure-to-be-massive therapy bills. Which will be a shame because the more he alienates his audience, the more interesting his movies get. I’d rather watch forty This is 40s than one 40-Year-Old Virgin. I only wish it had been 40 times longer. I’m probably alone in that but whatever. If Judd Apatow is our Woody Allen this is his Manhattan. And I can’t wait for his Interiors.

4. Lincoln

Movies never live up to the hype. But sometimes they do. Sometimes they exceed all expectations.

Strangely Lincoln feels nothing like a Spielberg movie, yet it also totally does, in the absolute best way possible. Tony Kushner somehow beat Aaron Sorkin at his own game by writing the best episode of The West Wing ever made. Tommy Lee Jones somehow made me totally okay with him likely beating out a career-best Philip Seymour Hoffman performance for an Oscar. And Daniel Day-Lewis was somehow, improbably, able to make "Daniel Day-Lewis playing Abraham Lincoln" even better than "Daniel Day-Lewis playing Abraham Lincoln" sounds on paper. Is Daniel Day-Lewis the greatest film actor of all time? Is that a legitimate question? Or is it not even a question any more?

Most importantly though, before I saw this movie I always thought Abraham Lincoln was overrated as a president. Now I think he might be one of the greatest and most interesting human beings who ever lived. 

The power of drama at its finest.

3. Kanye ft. Big Sean and Jay-Z - "Clique"
By Kanye standards, it wasnt a huge year for Kanye, but nevertheless "Clique" is a worthy winner of this year's "Best Thing By Kanye West Of The Year" slot on my year end countdown 

2. The Daily Show, 11/15/2012
And the winner of this year's annual "Best Thing By The Daily Show of The Year" award is this!

1. “Call Me Maybe”
Lastly....

It’s a "Call Me Maybe" world, we just live in it. It’s a world in which we are now subservient to our Canadian musical overlords (lordesses?). A world where Carly Rae Jepsen’s #occupyyoureardrums movement united the 99% in a show of solidarity not seen since “Hey Ya” (btw, in this case the 1% was deaf people). Resistance was futile. And also un-American-Canadian. It’s a world where a mainstream pop song was the biggest thing to happen to the Internet since cats. It’s a world I never want to not live in. And I know that from here on out whenever I hear “Call Me Maybe” it will always be 2012.

Hey Carly Rae, you got the ability to single-handedly revive mono-culture? Well, then call me definitely.

The Top 20 Things of 2010

Hey remember 2010? It was full of angry people, and economic depression, and a general malaise so thick that it seemingly sucked the hope and optimism out of anything it touched. It was also a terrific year for art and culture. It was packed to the gills with great things more so than any other year in recent history. When trying to compile lists of the year’s best albums and movies and shows and moments and pieces of cultural ephemera, in almost every case, I needed way more than ten slots. In fact it might have been the best year for "best things" ever. Both in quality and quantity. So while in many ways it might have been the worst of times, it was also the, well, you know…

But the whole thing was all SO a few weeks ago so I can’t blame you if you’ve already forgotten about it. So to help you remember the very recent past I've narrowed my "best of" lists down to one master list of the very best of 2010. And I’ve tried to rank it all from there. It’s an impossible task but I’ve never been one to shy away from a challenge. So here goes nothing…


The Top 20 Things of 2010

20.) Snoop Dogg

Trying to explain to our kids that Snoop Dogg was once a respected and feared gangsta rapper for the label Death Row Records will be like when our parents try to explain to us how Burt Reynolds was once the sexiest man in the world. It’s also similar to the problem we’ll have with Ice Cube. But while Ice Cube’s transformation seems tragic, Snoop's seems amazing. And that’s because Ice Cube’s selling out has happened in a very predictable, linear, and obvious way. Snoop Dogg’s has been all over the map. Because he doesn’t just make kids movies, he also tries to rent Liechtenstein. He makes raunchy sex jams about characters on True Blood and songs for Prince William. He pays top dollar for new tracks by Swizz Beats, and yet also submits guest verses like the one on "California Gurls" that to call phoned-in would be an insult to telephonic communication. He appears on shows on CBS, but gets banned from music festivals in The Netherlands (The Netherlands!). He runs a youth football league and is featured on a song called "Kush" and gets away with doing both at the same time with nary a complaint. And those are all things that happened just in the past year alone. At this point there’s literally no story I could read about Snoop Dogg that would remotely surprise me. He’s shattered the unintentional comedy scale, only its quite possible that he’s done it all intentionally. Because all he really cares about is making money, having fun, and being famous, and all of the things he did in 2010 can all be traced directly back to those three goals. So it makes sense of course that he’s way more famous now simply pursuing those few basic things than he ever was when he has making actual art. Because his goals are now our goals. He is The American Dream. And the fact that he personifies it so well makes him an absolute national treasure.

19.) Louis C.K. on Leno

I'm going to say something controversial: I didn’t care for Louie.
To make up for that I'm going to say something completely uncontroversial: Louie C.K. is the best standup working today.

I'll always have a place in my heart for Chris Rock, but no one is spitting more truth in a more public way these days than Louie C.K. There’s any number of talk show appearances I could have posted here, but for my money this was the best one of the year. While I may greatly prefer Lucky Louie to plain old Louie, I can agree with the masses that Louie C.K. is comedy at its finest circa 2010.

18.) Emma Stone in Easy A

Christian Bale in The Fighter was the best performance of the year. This is clear and indisputable. But with apologies to Mr. Bale (along with Colin Firth, Ryan Gosling, Natalie Portman, Jeremy Renner, Sam Rockwell, Geoffrey Rush, Amy Adams, and the entire cast of The Kids Are All Right) the performance this year that more than any other made me sit up in my chair, eyes glued to the screen, and say “holy fuck who the hell is this person I am watching?” came from a deeply flawed and only mildly popular teen sex comedy. Christian Bale’s performance was revelatory, but Emma Stone herself was more revelatory than anyone this year. And if she can’t get an Oscar nod for this then The Academy might as well just issue a decree stating that comedy is not a valid genre. But ultimately it doesn’t matter, because like Tom Cruise in Risky Business or Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, Emma Stone’s work in Easy A transcended the labels of "good" "bad" and "award-winning" and moved to the level of "star-making". Hell, "supernova-making". Because if the 60’s and 70’s produced anti-establishment stars, the 80’s produced beefy action heros, the 90’s produced relatable everymen and women, and the 00’s produced idiosyncratic multi-ethnic actors, then hopefully the future of the 10’s has been revealed to us – funny smart women. And Emma Stone shall lead them. I just hope she remembers that with great power comes great responsibility. Something tells me though that she wont ever be able to forget that…

17.) Janelle Monae on Letterman
Speaking of "a star is born", when Janelle Monae stepped onto The Late Show stage to perform "Tightrope" on the night of May 18th, 2010 she was practically an unknown, but by the time she was done she was the biggest star in the world.

Okay so maybe that didn’t exactly happen per se, but if that old showbiz cliché were ever to be true, it would have been this performance that would have made it so. Apparently though delivering the year’s best album (non-Kanye division) and its best live performance (non-Kanye division) isn’t enough to make someone a huge star anymore. There is no justice in the world. But you already knew that.

16.) “Neil Young” on Late Night Jimmy Fallon
At first the idea of Jimmy Fallon hosting a late night show seemed Chevy Chase-level bad. And then the show premiered and it seemed like lasting six months would be a great accomplishment. Now, it’s not unreasonable to think that one day we'll be viewing this "Neil Young" video the way our parents viewed that clip of Ed Ames hitting the outline of a man’s crotch with his tomahawk on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Because for all the Conan fever, no late night host owned the internet more in 2010 than Jimmy Fallon. And sure, David Letterman may not be jealous of this clip, but Antoine Dotson probably is. And these days isn't that more important. Speaking of which...

15.) The last week of The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien
There was a lot of debate this year over whether or not late night talk shows are still relevant or still matter. While they undoubtedly aren’t as relevant as they once were, as three of the four prior spots on this list can attest they certainly still matter. Matter enough for people on the internet to choose to rally behind and passionately fight on behalf of a not-that-attractive, awkward-seeming, smart, dorky, comedy nerd who was being bullied and picked on by slick mainstream hustlers. The people on the internet cared about The Tonight Show THAT much. Their efforts were motivated purely by their concern for the sanctity and importance of the show as an institution. And nothing else. And by responding the way they did they helped make The Conan Saga THE entertainment industry story of 2010. It was a compelling human drama, and almost as importantly, it made for a truly memorable and iconic week of television - Conan wasting NBCs money, his already legendary final speech, and a whole week of must-hear monologues. For a brief moment in time it was like it was 1964 again and The Tonight Show was the biggest thing on TV. Even somewhat tangentially related things like David Letterman’s jokes, and Jimmy Kimmel’s balls of steel appearance on Leno’s "10 at 10" segment probably could warrant their own spots on this "best of" list. And all of it was possible because of the efforts of Team Coco. So to anyone who says that the internet is a vapid wasteland that isn’t living up to its potential as a agent for activism, the spread of information, and social change, just know that this year it helped get Conan a new late night show and Betty White a hosting gig on Saturday Night Live. Also, it helped many people to become aware of the existence of breast cancer. So quit your bitching people of Haiti. It’s interfering with my blog writing and my enjoyment of this TBS talk show I’m not watching.

14.) BPGlobal PR Twitter feed
While we’re on the topic of big media stories and the internet, nowhere did those two things intersect more than the rise of the trashcan of thoughts that is twitter. 2010 will likely forever be listed in the history books as the year twitter officially took over. It likely signifies the beginning of the end for the human race, the canary in the coal mine of enlightened thoughtful discourse. But if you’re going to try and mount a defense of twitter then the BPGlobalPR feed is your exhibit A. Because it masterfully highlighted how the anonymity of the internet allows average citizens to go after powerful corporations in ways that would have seemed inconceivable a generation ago. And the immediacy and accessibility of twitter gives it power and cultural currency that something with the density of WikiLeaks lacks. Now true, twitter too often turns into a simple forum for jokes, but humor, when used correctly to speak truth to power, can be the most powerful tool we have at our disposal. And BPGlobalPR allowed us this year to hold that tool in a new way. I would say more about it but I’m almost out of characters.

13.) Michael Pitt in Boardwalk Empire
For a Sopranos-quality show, with Sopranos pedigree, Boardwalk Empire didn’t get anywhere near Sopranos-level love. Which I continue to find inexplicable. Did people for some reason just not watch this thing?

Remember how The Sopranos changed the face of mainstream television forever and remains arguably its finest product? Remember how one of the guys who made that show went on to create Mad Men, another critically acclaimed show that you absolutely love? And remember how a guy who was even more integral to the success of The Sopranos than that Mad Men guy announced that he was doing a show with Martin Scorsese, yes that Marin Scorsese, for HBO and how excited that made you? Well apparently not, because after the premiere it felt like this thing had almost no buzz. I didn’t hear or read people talking about it and it was almost an afterthought on critics' top 10 lists. Which is strange considering it was the best show on television in 2010 (full disclosure I haven’t seen the most recent seasons of Mad Men or Breaking Bad).

More egregious than a lack of buzz for the show itself though is a lack of buzz for Michael Pitt. His work in this show is absolutely electric. In fact it redefines electric. If his work here mated with Ryan Gosling’s work in Blue Valentine then everyone else in the world would have to stop acting because someone would have finally won at acting. Also, the earth might explode. Perhaps its self-preservation that people aren’t watching this show since when Michael Pitt is onscreen in it you can’t take your eyes off the screen. And sometimes we have to take our eyes off of the screen. You know, to check twitter. People should recognize though. Because this is some Marlon Brando-in-Streetcar level work Michael Pitt is doing and yet no one is talking about it. And that’s just the Pitts.

12.) The Pacific
Speaking of unjustly ignored HBO shows, why has The Pacific not been an awards show and year-end list juggernaut of John Adams-ian proportions? Perhaps because like last year's similarly brilliant Generation Kill it was somewhat slow and often hard to watch. Perhaps people saw the names Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg and thought, since when have they ever done anything good? Perhaps it’s because no one watches anything anymore that isn’t on AMC. But whatever the reason, The Pacific never seemed to permeate the popular consciousness the way it deserved to. Between this, Boardwalk, Eastbound and Down, The Life and Times of Tim, a flawed but great Treme, a buzz-worthy season of Real Time, great seasons of Real Sports and Hard Knocks, another great year of documentaries, the continuing brilliance of Curb Your Enthusiasm (and the impending end of Entourage) HBO is experiencing a mini second golden age. A few years back I considered cancelling my subscription. Now, other than live sports, HBO is the only reason I still own a TV. And part of why their resurgence has made me so happy is that they’re the only network with the resources and cache to make something as big and sprawling and well-done as The Pacific. I thought there was nothing left to say about World War II and no way to still make it resonant, but boy was I wrong. Cheesy as it sounds it made my love my grandfather even more and he had absolutely nothing to do with the war. But his generation, what they did, who they were, what they represent, it makes all of us that have come since look really bad in comparison. They really were the greatest generation, and the least they deserve is for us to watch this powerful and entertaining show about their sacrifices. Unless of course it's re-airing opposite Top Chef, in which case fuck it.

11.) Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson
After hearing hype about this show for years I had two thoughts immediately after seeing it at the Public Theater Off-Broadway this spring.
        1.) There’s no way that thing is not transferring to Broadway
        2.) There’s no way that it won't close there in less than six months.
Much like Passing Strange before it Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson is simply too smart and hip and young and good to sustain an extended Broadway run playing in front of families and tourists and nursing home groups. This of course is the problem with Broadway, and perhaps the whole of American theater, but that’s a discussion for another time. What we’re discussing here is the best show of 2010 and a major step forward for mainstream commercial American musical theater. Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson is hilarious, and moving, and extremely political and relevant, without ever being overly topical or partisan. Is it attacking the Bush years or the Obama ones or both or none of the above? Hard to say, and that’s a large part of its brilliance. The fact that many of the lines in the show have been in the script since well before the current events that they would seem to be referencing is a testament to the show and also to the cyclical nature of history. Above all its other virtues though, this show rocks. Rocks in a way that hasn’t been heard on a Broadway stage before. Rocks so hard that my seat was literally shaking. Rocks so hard that it made the 40 year old couple on the row in front of me seem like they were about 85. Rocks in a way that makes the songs in American Idiot and Passing Strange seem like hoary old Broadway chestnuts. For years Broadway has been producing so-called rock musicals. This is the first one that truly qualifies for the description. Who knew all it took to make history was simply to present it?

10.) Ke$ha's lyric “Don’t be a little bitch with your chit-chat / just show me where your dick’s at”
There are no words Ke$ha.
There are no words...

Okay, here are a few: This was such a great year for so-bad-they’re-good lyrics that it’s going to at some point warrant it own blog entry, but suffice it to say the lyric above was the very best of the best/worst bunch. It’s the Citizen Kane of so bad-they’re-good-lyrics. It's the Ulysses of shit. When Will.I.Am heard that lyric for the first time it was like the first time Brian Wilson heard Revolver, or the first time Clapton heard Hendrix play guitar. So thank you Ke$ha. Thank you for a lyric that will never be topped. A lyric that speaks to the great human truth that dicks, anatomically speaking, are indeed often hard to find. A lyric that will hopefully be engraved on your headstone. A lyric above all others. Blah, blah, blah.

9.) Winters Bone
In a year when 3D took over, it's ironic that that most fully-immersive movie experience of the year was a good ol’ fashioned 2D Ozark meth noir. The kind of noir about violent meth-cooking Ozark hillbillies your parents used to watch. Only difference is this one was superlatively good. It has a great script, great direction and a flawless cast. Jennifer Lawrence may be getting all the buzz, but John Hawkes and Dale Dickey were even better. And as 2011 already begins its overwhelming onslaught of sequels and remakes, it's nice to be able to reflect back on a movie that took us to a place and a culture and life that were all stunningly fresh and new and compelling. So put that in your pipe and smoke it. (Or actually, on second thought, don’t)

8.) Community - "Modern Warfare"
After an off-year, the newest season of 30 Rock has rebounded brilliantly. The Office has seen better days, specifically, all of them, but I can’t complain too much as long as Holly Flax is in my life. And Parks and Recreation has become the show it always was - perhaps the best half hour on TV. The fact that’s its entire cast doesn’t already have 200 million Emmys is an absolute travesty. But the first show I hulu every Friday morning is always Community.

If you wanted to attack Community for being a meta-, pop-culture parodying, too smug and cool for its own good, joke delivery machine you wouldn’t necessarily be wrong. But you would also prove that you don’t really watch Community. And that you definitely don't GET Community. Because while on a superficial level it is somewhat all of those things, it’s also an incredibly smart, deeply felt, character driven, old-fashioned sitcom. It also happens to be the funniest thing on TV. For those who don’t GET it perhaps it's because the world has never quite seen anything like it before. It's so close to being so many things and yet it's none of them. Ultimately it winds up feeling like the first network TV show created by and for the Internet Generation. And I mean that in best way possible. This is the past, redone for the future. And "Modern Warfare" is its finest hour.

7.) Old Spice - "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like"



Okay, okay, I hear your groaning. And sure I know that we're all sick of this commercial at this point. But that doesnt make it any less great. And if every drunken frat boy and their mom are going to being saying "Hello ladies" in a deep baritone for the next 10 years like its the new "WAAAAAZZZUP", well thats not Isaiah Mustafa's fault. He's just the man The Most Interesting Man in the World wishes he could smell like. And his charisma makes Billy Mays seem like Stephen Hawking. So maybe you're groaning at his commercial's inclusion here, but seriously, watch it again and then tell me - where's the beef?

6.) The Social Network trailer



It's hard to know whats more incredible - that a trailer this moving, this chill-inducing, this well-crafted exists, or that the movie it's advertising actually lived up to it's promise. If they gave out Academy Awards for trailers this thing would win in a landslide. But alas, they'll have to just settle instead for a well deserved Academy Award for Best Picture.

And a billion dollars (give or take nine hundred million).

5.) ESPN's 30 for 30
If you watched one basic cable sports documentary series in 2010 I hope you made it ESPN’s 30 for 30. Now granted I’m a non-fiction nut who would probably watch a documentary about paint drying if it got even halfway decent reviews, but the fact is that these documentaries made HBO’s sports docs seem bland and overly conventional by comparison. Which is really saying something. This series not only revolutionized the TV sports documentary, but it completely made me rethink ESPN as a network and even the nature and power of TV networks as a whole. I mean, who knew that “give talented people the means to make projects that they are passionate about and then get out of the way” might be a production model worth pursuing? Hopefully the artistic and critical success of these 30 sports documentaries from 30 different filmmakers will have a lasting impact on the way television and film projects are created, but even if not, at the very least they are guaranteed to forever alter the perception of their respective subjects. The Best That Never Was has given second life to Marcus Dupree, no one who sees Run Ricky Run will ever look at Ricky Williams the same way, and even something as seemingly familiar and tired as the OJ Simpson trial is given shockingly new perspective by the transcendent October 17, 1994. And it wasn’t just sports history these documentaries gave me new perspective on. By watching the series I gained great insight into the world of Columbian drug lords, the ethnic conflict in the former Yugoslavia, the national self-image of Canada, and the racial tensions in eastern Virginia (the mean streets of Virginia – who knew?). But above all, these are simply human stories. Stories about obsession, and friendship, and prejudice, and ecstasy, and community, and power, and love. More so than any other item on this list I strongly urge you to check out any and all of these you might have missed (other than the awful Marion Jones: Press Pause). The Two Escobars is indisputably the best and a great place to start, but the fact that’s its literally impossible for me to rank them from there is a great testament to the series. CHECK. THEM. OUT.

4.) Cee-Lo – “Fuck You”
There are certain seminal historical events that you’ll always remember where you were when they happened: 9/11. The OJ verdict. From what I’ve been told, the Kennedy assassination. And now you can add to that list the first time you heard "Fuck You" by Cee-Lo Green.

As I vidily recall, my first reaction was "that’s the greatest thing I’ve ever heard". And my second reaction was, "I can’t wait to see what happens with this song considering its clearly the best pop song of the year and should be a massive 'Hey Ya'-sized smash yet it can't be played on the radio. It could serve as a referendum on radio, on the way we consume music, on what popularity even means and how it is measured in today’s world. It could be a real turning point for our culture." And my third thought was "play that shit again!"

My highest hopes for the song as a cultural discussion point never really came to pass, but that doesn’t dampen the song’s brilliance. Because ultimately what kept it from being the "Crazy"-level smash it deserved to be was the very thing that made it so crazy good – its title phrase. Fuck You. Never before has a profanity seemed so inconsequential, yet simultaneously so integral to a song’s success. The radio edited "Forget You" topped out at #9 on the US Billboard charts, but it might as well have not even existed at all. It’s the exact same song with just one word changed, and yet it’s like they’re not even related. When "Fuck You" comes on I turn it up; when "Forget You" comes on I turn it off. The lesson, as always, is never underestimate the power of a good fuck.

3.) The Daily Show team
Publish a bestselling book? Gather thousands of people on The National Mall for a piece of political theater that is looking more and more prescient and seminal by the day? After ten years still be able to produce segments that are in the running for your finest ever? Get an actual piece of legislation, yes an important and life saving real-life law, passed by Congress?

All in a year’s work for the team at The Daily Show.

So thank you guys and gals. Because when the economy is in the tank, our hope is gone, and the world around us is going to shit, our nation turns its lonely eyes to you. And boy did you deliver.

2.) Landon Donovan's goal vs. Algeria in the World Cup



In maybe the best year ever for best things this is unequivocally the best thing of the year (non-Kanye division). It combines my three loves – the World Cup, the internet, and unbridled joy and enthusiasm. And I’m not ashamed to say that this wasn’t only the high point of the year, but one of the best moments of my life. I can only hope that 2011 holds something even half as wonderful as this.

1.) Kanye

Where to even begin?

For just the "Runaway" video alone he would have topped the list. The album itself would have topped any list ever. His awards show performances and his two songs on SNL completely transformed what those mediums and venues could be. As did his twitter feed. But combine it all and you have a year of achievement so over the top, grandiose, and completely insane that maybe only Kanye himself could comprehend it. And certainly he alone could pull it off. Because in our micro world, Kanye is macro. Singles are where music is at? Then he'll make an Album with a capital A. Songs are getting more simple and minimalist? He’ll add eight vocalists as many instruments and sounds as he can find, give it an intro and an outro, hooks on top of hooks, and make it all combined eight minutes long. Consensus is dead? He'll top the rankings of everything from Time Magazine to Pitchfork, from Rolling Stone, Vibe, and Spin, to USA Today, The Washington Post and Entertainment Weekly. Being indie is where it’s at? Kanye will try and get bigger than The Beatles. And it’s no coincidence that My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and The White Album were released on the exact same day 42 years apart. This is the art we'll be telling our kids about.

In the end Kanye wasn’t just the best thing about 2010. He was 2010.

On Demand

I have a new favorite day of the week.

It’s Monday.

Sure Friday starts the weekend. And Sunday is the Lords Day or whatever. And Wednesday is referred to as Hump Day, which is always fun to say. But Monday trumps them all. I know this is a controversial position to take, but allow me to explain:

Monday is the day the HBO changes their On Demand offerings.

Wow, that was actually a rather short explanation.

Now you may think that HBO changing their On Demand offerings hardly qualifies as the highlight of a week. That it hardly is worth looking forward to the way one would look forward to Christmas. That one should not lose sleep the night before because they are too giddy with anticipation. But then clearly you do not have HBO on Demand.

Now on the other side, there are perhaps some of you who have advanced beyond HBO On Demand and moved onto the orgiastic ecstasy filled utopia that surely is TiVo or DVR. For those lucky few of you I must say that I envy you with every fiber of my being. I might soon join your ranks if only I can find a way to afford to pay for food and also DVR for you see I am a poor starving artist who despises any form of work which thus means I will forever be trapped in my current financial plight. Plus I do have serious concerns that if I ever got DVR I would never leave my house. For real. So as my life stands now, my only on demand experience with TV is HBO On Demand. And it has forever changed my life.

----------------------------------------------------------

Many of you have probably been complaining loudly to your friends and family recently about how I never write anymore. Well I have a very good excuse: I’ve been watching TV.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock the past few years you’ve probably heard the argument that we are currently living in the golden age of TV. People always lament the fact that music, and movies and the world in general aren’t as good as they used to be. That we missed out on all the best stuff, and that art today isn’t what it used to be. And that my be all well and good, but what they are neglecting to mention is that television today is better than its ever been. People in the future will look back on TV of the '00s the same way they look back on movies of the '70s or music of the '60s. This is because finally, after fifty years, TV’s potential as an artistic medium is for the first time being fully realized.

Quick: name the first great TV drama from before 1990. One that you have actually seen and marveled at and that holds up today. Can’t think of any? That’s because they didn’t really exist. TV was the home of great comedies, not great dramas. Now I’m sure they made good dramas before the '90s, but for they didn’t make great transcendent ones. And they didn’t make ones that stand the test of time. Comedy ran TV not drama; and the dramas that did exist were intended as mass entertainment and not “art”. Because TV was an entertainment medium not an artistic one. But in the past ten years TV has rapidly shed its long held reputation as an artistic ghetto, a place where second rate actors and directors worked because they couldn’t crack the movie business. Sometime in the not so distant past, as the line dividing TV and movies began to blur and artists were able to cross between the two with greater ease, great minds begin to see the medium's true storytelling potential. The ability to tell drawn out complicated stories filled with tons of characters and that could unfold slowly over weeks, months, and even years. You could do things, tell stories, create emotional connections with characters that you could never do in a two to three hour movie. Creative people finally realizing and taking advantage of the potential of television as a dramatic storytelling medium has allowed TV to stop being seen as the redhead stepchild to movies and, in many ways, become equal to movies, if not superior.

I read an interview the other day with Jason Lee in which he claimed he didn’t watch TV and it made him sound like an ignorant backwater ingrate who needed to get with the times. People didn’t have those kinds of reactions to non-TV watchers even five years ago. But as some guy might have said at one time or another, the times they are a’changin. A-list actors now turn down movie work for TV work. Quentin Tarantino directs episodes of CSI. David Mamet writes The Unit. And most of the biggest stars in the world regularly appear on TV shows or even attempt to star in or produce their own. The divide between TV and film is disappearing to the point of insignificance.

People are lamenting the death of the sitcom and to some degree it has “died’ because TV is now shooting for art and not entertainment. It’s being used as a storytelling medium and not a diversion. TV is now ruled by drama. As is TNT apparently. Many of the “comedies” (Entourage, Desperate Housewives, Weeds, ect.) today are ostensibly dramas with some levity mixed in. Reality TV now plays that role that sitcoms used to. And for cheaper. And even it has complex storylines to follow and a huge cast of characters to keep up with. And sure you can still “veg out” in front of the TV, but more and more television is something that requires intense thought and commitment. And, as has been well documented, HBO has played a huge role in all this.

I remember when The Sopranos came out years ago and the press went on and on about how the freedom from having to break for commercials and the ability to say and do whatever you wanted allowed for a rich, realistic quality of storytelling that TV had never been able to achieve before. And that episodes of The Sopranos each had the quality of hour-long films. The popularity of The Sopranos and other HBO programs then led to an explosion of other cable networks creating their own original programming and soon the competition was so fierce that the broadcast networks realized that they couldn’t just put on the same old crap anymore and expect people to watch it. They had to improve the quality of their shows if they wanted people to watch because now people had options. The reason TV has been so good throughout so much of our lifetime is that, as they say in business, increased competition leads to increased quality for the consumer. And now as a consumer, there’s so much quantity that its easy to find some really great quality. There’s so much great TV on today that is impossible to keep up with it all. Luckily TV on DVD has helped with that problem. But even better than that is TV on Demand. I’ve been paying for HBO on Demand for almost two years now but it wasn’t until about six months ago that I realized I even had it. At first I didn’t use it much, but then slowly Entourage become my gateway drug of sorts and now my life literally revolves around it. I’ll watch anything they put on Demand. I swear if they put a show called Watching Paint Dry on demand I would probably give it a shot. And it has interfered with my regular TV watching now too. I now get angry when watching non-On Demand shows that I can’t fast forward or rewind them. And if I have to sit through that Nick Lachey Clix Body Shots commercial one more time I will seriously kill someone. And it seems completely unreasonable to expect me to watch shows only at the time and date that they are aired. I mean who do they think I am? Someone with no life who can just plan his schedule around what time certain shows air?
That question was intended to be rhetorical.
Anyway, as someone who has now become an official TV addict I thought it was time to share with you some thoughts on the shows I waste my life with. Most are on HBO but some are on regular old TV. And it’s worth noting that some of the shows I mention as being On Demand are no longer there. I made some of these notes like a month ago, but it’s too hard to tear myself away from TV to actually write. If you’d like to hear from me more, find me a day job where I can sit at a desk with a computer. In the meantime you’ll have to deal with thoughts about shows you probably didn’t see and now can never see. Nothing like reading pretentious drivel about stuff you’ve never heard of before. Well except for reading reviews on Pitchfork. And yes that was just a convoluted excuse to take a dig at Pitchfork. But seriously though, Pitchfork sucks.

Entourage:
-Unfortunately they just took the most recent season of Entourage off demand and replaced it with the first four episodes of the series. If you’ve never seen the show before I would recommend not using the first four episodes as your introduction to it. They aren’t very good, compared with the most recent season and they might potentially sour you on the series as a whole. Plus Entourage is really not a show you need to start watching from the beginning to appreciate or understand. And I say that as someone who is insanely anal about not coming in on TV series midstream. But I came into Entourage halfway through Season 2 and was able to appreciate it just fine. If you have the intelligence of a mildly retarded chimp you should be able to pick up on the characters, basic premise and all the major storylines just from watching any random 5 minute segment of any random episode. So if you’re new to the show just wait until they switch up the On Demand offerings and give some more recent episodes. But for those of you who DO watch Entourage:

-I buy Vince being a huge Ramones fan about as much as I buy him as a believable human being. Or as much as I buy that he would actually be friends with “E”. Which is to say I don’t buy it at all.

-If I told you that if Martin Landau doesn’t get nominated for an Emmy next year that I will personally go the Emmy Headquarters and just start opening fire, would that be something that you would be interested in?

(As a side note if you have never seen Martin Landau in Ed Wood do yourself a favor and rent it tonight. One of the most well deserved Oscars of all time.)

-You know you might watch way too much Entourage when your first reaction upon seeing Matt Dillon interviewed is, “hey that guy looks just like Johnny Drama”.

-HBO seems to really specialize in great shows with terrible acting.

-And on that subject, yes I am conflicted about the fact that I love Entourage and yet it is basically the male Sex and the City and that I loath Sex and the City with every fiber of my being and think that it is the cause of all that is wrong with the world. It’s hard to reconcile or even understand this hypocrisy within myself. It’s actually hard to understand why I like Entourage in the first place. Its two leads are probably two of the worst actors ever on TV. In fact, everyone except Turtle, Drama, and, of course, Ari, are dreadful actors. I mean where do they find the god awful actors for the bit parts for that show? The BA program at Marymount? (Oh, stop with the hate mail, I kid because I love.) In addition, the show is shallow and not that well done. And, I don’t know if I mentioned this, but it’s the male Sex and The City. And yet I know that the first thing I did after coming back from New Hampshire, before even unpacking, was to watch the new episodes I had missed of Entourage. What can I say; this past season they really perfected the whole cliffhanger at the end of every episode thing. And the writing was actually really strong too. Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself to help myself sleep at night.

-Has anyone ever been more valuable to a show than Jeremy Piven is to Entourage? I don’t think Martin Short is as integral to the success of Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me as Jeremy Piven is to Entourage. Without him the show is literally unwatchable, but with him, it’s must see TV. I know I’ve said it before but it bears repeating. No one has ever deserved an award more than Jeremy Piven deserved his Emmy.

-Whether it’s TV on the Radio or Queens of the Stone Age, Entourage always has the most kick ass music to end the show. It’s like the testosterone version of Greys Anatomy. It’s becoming to new music today what The O.C. was to new music four years ago. And even though its not new, might I suggest “Begging You” by The Stone Roses as closing credit music on an episode next season? You can thank me later.

-Seth Green’s posse is/was like my favorite thing ever. Thought that was worth mentioning.

Real Time With Bill Maher:
I don’t think its possible to be more conflicted about someone than I am about Bill Maher. I think he’s a smug, misogynistic, unlikable prick who is to the left what Fox News is to the right. He’s an extremist who is not actually that smart or well informed but don’t you dare try and argue with him. And yet I love his show. I think it's great. It’s some of the best political discourse on TV and it's always informative and entertaining to watch. I think my feelings are best encapsulated by this: I finished reading an interview with him in Rolling Stone recently and I thought "wow, I really hate that guy", and then immediately sat down and watched two episodes of his show back to back.

-Why do we consider unreasonable yelling extremists on the right to be wacko evil nut jobs, but unreasonable yelling extremists on the left to be brave geniuses who "tell it like it is"? Something to think about.

-If you want to see Bill get put in his place and also watch a lesson for how to be an effective conservative guest on his show then watch the episode with Christopher Hitchens. After seeing it, Hitchens is my new favorite person. I even found myself siding with him against Bill at times. He made some great points which, although I may disagree with, I still respect and think are valid. It’s what political discourse should be like. But instead Hitchens got booed mercilessly and wound up walking out of the show at the end. Of course that might have something to do with the fact he flicked the audience off, but still.

-On the opposite end of the spectrum on the “how to be a conservative guest on the show” is Sandy Rios. Watching her and Bradley Whitford shout over each other was just painful. And she came off like an insane wacko. Which she is. But that’s beside the point. The point is, two people shouting over each other for 30 minutes is not good TV.

-I think the way to solve a lot of this would be if they would remove the studio audience. I think the same thing applies to The Daily Show. I feel very strongly that the quality of both shows would improve if there wasn’t a highly biased audience there to applaud every remotely liberal comment and boo every remotely conservative comment. It makes it hard to have a real conversation about anything because the conservative guest feels uncomfortable and on the defensive the whole time and the liberal host is given a heightened sense of superiority.

-New rule: don’t cut to the shots of the panelists laughing during New Rules. They’re always fake over-laughing. It’s like going to a comedy club with Tom Cruise.

The Comeback:
-Has there ever been a good show that was less enjoyable to watch? I mean if you thought the British Office was painful to watch at times, that show makes The Comeback look like, I dunno, something unpainful to watch. The level of embarrassment you feel for Valerie is just off the charts. No wonder the show only lasted one season. I can’t believe it even lasted five episodes. Who would possibly want to watch a show where the likable main character is so constantly embarrassed and humiliated in such a painfully honest way? Unlike David Brent, Valerie was such a good person and so likeable that I would often find myself having to fast forward through almost entire episodes because they were too hard to watch. But yet I kept watching episode after episode. I guess I just like pain. That’s should have been their slogan. “The Comeback: The show for masochists”. I kept coming back though because it is a really great show. Lisa Kudrow did an absolutely outstanding job. And it gave some great and brutally honest insight into the acting world. I just don’t know who at HBO ever thought this would find an audience. It definitely has to be one of the least commercially viable shows ever to be put on the air. But props to HBO for doing so.

Lucky Louie:
-I know everyone in America and in the television criticism industry piled on this show and said it was the worst thing since Homeboys in Outer Space or whatever, but I really don’t see what the big deal was. Sure the acting was dreadful. Sure Louie C.K. made Jerry Seinfeld look like Laurence Olivier and Jerry Minor made Adrian Grenier look like Marlon Brando. And sure there was always the sense that the show wasn’t living up to its potential. And sure it was rarely laugh out loud funny. But I liked what they were trying to do. And there were some really smart moments. The characters were just regular folks like you almost never see on TV, and their problems were incredibly honest and true to life. It was like Seinfeld in the way as it dealt with flawed characters and the minutia of life, but only the minutia of life for a lower class working family instead of rich New Yorkers. And some of the episodes, like "Flowers for Kim", dealt with relationships as honestly as anything I’ve ever seen. But ultimately none of this really matters because it’s canceled and chances are you never saw it. And despite all its virtues it’s not really worth renting or seeking out. So just forget we ever had this conversation.

When the Levees Broke:
-As someone who has seen more than my fair share of documentaries I think I can safely say that this is the best and most important documentary of all time. It’s a big statement I know, but I don’t know what else to say about it. After seeing it, it only deepens my belief that Katrina is as big and important a tragedy as 9/11 and yet was not, and has not ever, been treated as such. Just watch this movie please. You’ll be glad you did.

Dane Cook: Vicious Circle:
-Watching Dane Cook is like stepping into some alternate universe.
See I barely know who Dane Cook is. If I fell on Dane Cook in the street I wouldn’t recognize him or care. I mean last I had heard of Dane Cook he was the fourth guy mentioned in the ads for Dave Attell’s Insomniac tour. And then I watch his stand up special and there’s like 10,000 people going insane over his every non-funny utterance. Its like theyre in some cult or something. They even have their own hand sign. It’s like some crazy world where Dane Cook is the most popular and talented man in existence. I mean he was getting a standing ovation after every line! And, here’s the key part, none of the lines were remotely funny. Who are all these people who like Dane Cook? Where did they come from? How did they get here? How, why and when did he get so popular? And for the love of God could someone please explain to me how anyone in their right mind could find him funny? With so much great standup out there how does this guy get two HBO shows in three months? I feel like I would be angry about this if I could at all comprehend it.

(By the way, if through some freak accident you have never seen Ellen DeGeneres: Here and Now, it’s currently available on HBO On Demand. I cannot urge you strongly enough to watch it. Other than Bigger and Blacker it is definitely the stand up special I quote most often. I would do the whole thing for you myself but Ellen’s delivery is like 60% of the humor. So watch it. Now.)

Wait ‘Til Next Year:
-This is the Cubs documentary that’s currently available and I encourage you to check it out. It’s really great, and that’s coming from someone who thinks the Cubs are the Antichrist. But seriously, if you’re anything like me you’ll cry (during the end of the ’84 collapse segment), you’ll laugh (at the old blind guy at the end because he’s probably going to die without ever seeing the Cubs win the World Series) and you’ll realize that you’re probably going straight to hell. I just have two other things to say on the matter: 1.) They kind of rushed over the ’03 saga which was one of the best memories of my life. 2.) While watching the documentary you may start to feel sorry for Cubs fans and that’s okay. It’s only human. But just don’t forget, there’s a reason the Cubs haven’t won in 98 years and that’s because the Cubs don’t deserve to win because they are a terrible team and their fans are terrible people. And yes I do take baseball a little too seriously, but we all already knew that didn’t we?

Three non-HBO shows:
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip:
- We can all agree to just call it simply Studio 60 now right?

- If you thought I wouldn’t have some comments about Studio 60 then you must have never met me. So here they are: I think it’s a great show. I really enjoy it. But it’s no West Wing. At least not yet. I don’t even know if it’s Sports Night, but that’s slightly unfair because this is the only Sorkin show I’ve ever had to wait a week for new episodes of. Not being able to watch the whole season on DVD in 3 days makes it feel harder to get into. Still though a late night TV show doesn’t have the same gravitas as the fate of the free world. And while we’re at it a late night TV show somehow doesn’t seem to have the gravitas as a cable sports program. Speaking of which…

-So it seems that complaining about the quality of the show within the show on Studio 60 has replaced complaining that Sam’s Town is no Born to Run as the new hipster pop culture complaint du jour. And I have to say I agree. Although I don’t know how much the poor quality of the show within the show actually bothers me and how much I’ve just been influenced to think that it bothers me. But nevertheless it is a problem. The show within the show on Sports Night was what a sports show in an ideal fantasy world would be like. The president on The West Wing was what the president in an ideal fantasy world would be like. The show within the show on Studio 60 is what a sketch comedy show on a third rate CBS would be like. And that’s a problem. But not as big a problem as…

-Amanda Peet, I have seen Allison Janney, and you my friend are no Allison Janney. Nor are you Felicity Huffman. Hell, you’re not even NiCole Robinson. In fact, you may be the worst actor to ever appear on a Sorkin show. And remember, Dule Hill was on The West Wing. If Studio 60 has a fatal flaw, Amanda Peet is definitely it. I just honestly can’t figure out how she got cast. I mean how could the man who wrote and perfectly cast six of the greatest female TV roles of all time (C.J. Cregg, Donna Moss, Ainsley Hayes, Dana Whitaker, Natalie Hurley, and, especially, Amy Gardner) possibly make such a huge mistake. On the bright side I can now do at least one really good celebrity impersonation. And so can you. Ill teach you how. Open your eyes wide, give the slightest of smiles humanly possible, and stare completely blankly ahead into space no matter what happens. There, you’re doing a spot on Amanda Peet! Congrats!

- If there was ever a network show that should probably be on HBO instead, Studio 60 is it. I’m already worried about its ratings. I’ve never gotten attached to a show that got canceled before, but really how in the hell does NBC think this is going to find a mass audience? The lighting alone should alienate like 3/4th of America. Does this show take place in the dark ages or something? And no I’m not complaining, I’m just saying.

-One of the strengths of Sorkin shows is how good all of the characters are. Every person on screen is somehow interesting and unique. On Studio 60 so far we have two outstanding hall of fame characters, one decent if slightly one dimensional character, and one good character with nothing to do. Everyone else kind of seems a bit like dead weight. And as outstanding as Bradley Whitford and Mathew Perry are, the show really suffers when they’re not on the screen. And I don’t know if the charisma and chemistry of two characters is enough to carry an entire show, especially one with a cast this size. Hopefully they’ll give Timothy Busfeld or Nate Cordry more to do soon. Or bring in Joshua Malina.

-After having Felicity Huffman in the pilot I’m praying they’ll bring in more people from previous Sorkin shows. Its not like they have a shortage of actors to choose from in that regard. I feel like if/when Janel Moloney ever pops up I might just wet myself. Wait, did I just admit to that out loud?

-And since it seems like I’ve been doing a lot of hating I do have to balance that out by saying that Mathew Perry is fucking FANtastic. He’s the Jeremy Piven of Studio 60. To take nothing away from Bradley Whitford, but Matthew Perry’s work is making his other “Friends” look like Peter Scolari to his Tom Hanks. Before all is said and done he might just be my new favorite person ever.

Greys Anatomy:
-Speaking of unappealing lead female characters…
Has there ever been a show before where the main character was the least likeable person in the cast? Meredith Grey isn’t just setting women back 50 years, she’s setting all of humanity back 50 years. It’s really just becoming embarrassing at this point. Plus now her face looks plastic. Literally plastic. I guess the mildly attractive version of E.T. look from last year just wasn’t working for her anymore. And no it’s not even remotely plausible at this point that two guys would be fighting over her. But whatever.

-Speaking of implausible….has there ever been a less believable couple than George and Callie? I mean, besides the fact that they’re completely incompatible and have absolutely no chemistry, she’s like three times his size. And when did George go from being likable to a mildly annoying whiner?

- I worry that the Friends syndrome is already starting to happen. And by that I mean that the characters are starting to become slightly one-dimensional caricatures of themselves. And don’t tell me you don’t already see it starting to slightly happen. From a cast that did such phenomenal work last season I would really hate to see it occur.

- To put this as nicely as possible: I don’t think Chris O’Donnell needs to worry about preparing an Emmy acceptance speech.

- They really should give Alex Chambers more to do. He seems like a really good actor, but it’s hard to tell because he’s being severely underused.

- Speaking of underused, can they hurry up and get Izzie back the hospital again? If there are Meredith guys and Izzie guys I’m 180% an Izzie guy. Of course, assuming that there are guys who are fans of either, assumes that there are straight guys other than myself who watch Greys Anatomy. And that might be assuming a little much.

The Daily Show:
-I don’t think anyone has ever tried to push anything that the American public was completely indifferent about as hard as The Daily Show is pushing John Oliver. I thought John Hodgeman was supposed to be the new Cordry? What happened to that? And where’s Demtri Martin? I mean I get excited now for a fucking Jason Jones piece. That’s how bad the correspondent situation has gotten. Seriously, nothing against John Oliver, but he’s just so mediocre it gets old seeing him every single night of your life.

-I think its about time to put an end to all this The Colbert Report is better than The Daily Show nonsense. Seriously what is with all you hipsters? Cut it out. You’re wrong. Sure The Daily Show is going through a bit of a rough patch, but The Colbert Report is not a very good show. You know what my reaction is when The Colbert Report comes on? “Time to go to sleep”. The other night I wasn’t tired enough to go to sleep and wanted to keep watching TV after The Daily Show went off, and I was only able to watch The Colbert Report for about five minutes before changing the channel. I wound up watching a show about turtles. And I don’t even like turtles! So seriously people stop with all this Colbert Report nonesne. Colbert is a great and funny guy and his speech at the Correspondants Dinner was one of the greatest moments for comedy in my lifetime. But saying The Colbert Report is better than The Daily Show is like saying the news show on the public access station is better than CNN. I just hope The Colbert Report backlash starts soon.

And finally I think it’s worth noting that I finally took the plunge and now have in my possession Season 4 of The West Wing. I’m not even halfway through it yet but it’s thrilling to be back in the world of The West Wing again. I have a few parting thoughts on it:

-Winnie Cooper! Someone should have told me she was in this! And Amy Adams was in the first episode of the season as well! This show really has the greatest casting of all time. It’s unreal. I’m speechless.

-I would say something about how much I love Amy Gardner but I can’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t make me sound like an insane stalker. I think at this point its probably worth noting that Amy Gardner is a fictional character and that Mary Louise Parker isn’t actually like that. Or at least that’s what my therapist keeps trying to tell me. But still, if I ever run into Billy Crudup on the street it would be seriously hard for me to restrain myself from punching him in the face while yelling “Claire Danes!?! Claire fucking Danes!?!? Are you out of your goddamn mind!!!” I mean I know he was Russell Hammond and all but COME ON. Who the hell dumps Amy Gardner for Claire Danes? No one who doesn’t deserve to have their ass kicked that’s for sure. Maybe Ill scrounge up the money go see Coast of Utopia after all.

And speaking of intelligent women: here’s my new favorite quote courtesy of Bruno Gianelli: (in reference to female voters) “Anyone who has a five point majority and still doesn’t control the agenda might be spending a little too much time too much time reading about how to get a man to get over his fear of commitment.”
Amen to that brother. Sometimes I don’t know if I feel like such a feminist BECAUSE most of my friends are girls or DESPITE it.

Anyway, until next time, stay classy San Diego.


Top 3 & 1/2 of the Week:
1.) THE DEPARTED!!
2.) Did I mention The Departed yet?
3.) Time Out New York
3 & 1/2.) NetFlix

Thought of the Week:
If you were Patrick Wilson in Little Children how could you possibly choose between Jennifer Connelly and Kate Winslet? That like making Meryl Streep choose which child she wants to save and which one she wants to let die in Sophies Choice. I mean its just an impossibly hard choice.