Oscars 2012 Preview: Someone Has To Win I Guess

Ready to win your Oscar pool? Want to sound smart while watching the Oscars? Want to kill an hour of your life you'll never get back reading an overlong, obsessive, and nerdy breakdown of every single category of what will surely be a dull and uninspiring Oscars cemermony celebrating winners you dont care about from one of the weakest years in film of my lifetime? Then the wait is over! Because my annual Oscar ballot breakdown is here.

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Live Action Short Film
What I imagine each of these five films is about based solely on their titles:

Pentecost - A hilarious comedy of misunderstandings when an everyday guy suddenly begins uncontrollably speaking in tongues

Raju - The story of a Japanese tomato sauce company

The Shore - A biopic of Lord of the Rings composer Howard Shore

Time Freak - A mini prequel to Time Bandits

Tuba Atlantic - Set in a futuristic society where a series of tubes span the Atlantic Ocean allowing a grown man to be reunited with his family in Africa that he was forcibly separated from as a small child. Or it's about a tuba.

Should Win: Five way tie, probably
Will Win: The Shore, maybe

Documentary Short
I haven't seen any of these but after reading a fascinating feature in Entertainment Weekly about Mother Dolores Hart I'm really pulling for God is the Bigger Elvis. Also because it's title is God is the Bigger Elvis. And after all do we really need yet another documentary about Pakistani women getting acid thrown in their faces by their family? Oh...we do? Okay, then Saving Face it is.

Should Win: Saving Face
Will Win: Saving Face

Documentary Feature
Cant say it was a banner year for documentaries. I love documentaries and make a point to see as many in theaters as I can, and even I am only vaguely familiar with a few of these. And I don't remember any of them getting wide theatrical releases. That's not necessarily a signifier of their quality, but still, it seems like a pretty slight lineup. A doc about a high school football team, a 3D dance film, and one called If A Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front? I mean even Fall Out Boy heard that title and thought it sounded ridiculous. So my best guess is Paradise Lost 3 because the West Memphis Three was the year's most prominent celebrity cause celebre. But at this point they've had more movies made about them than Abraham Lincoln, so everyone might be a little burned out on the whole thing. And it was really more of an HBO documentary than a theatrical feature. So who really knows.

Should Win: Paradise Lost 3
Will Win: Paradise Lost 3

Animated Short
Always go with the Pixar one.

Should Win: La Luna
Will Win: La Luna

Animated Feature
Speaking of which...you go over there and sit in the corner Pixar and think about what you did. Or rather what you didn't do. Which is even be nominated for an award that is unofficially known as the "Randy Newman Best Pixar Movie of the Year Award". I mean, a Shrek spin-off starring Antonio Banderas was judged to be better than anything you did this year. So you just sit over there and think long and hard about your decision to make Cars 2. And I need three new Brave trailers from you before you can come out of timeout.

Should Win: I Don't Know. I Don't See Non-Pixar Animated Films. It's Heresy.
Will Win: Rango


Sound Mixing
War! Horses! Things that make a lot of sound!

Should Win: War Horse
Will Win: War Horse
 
Sound Editing
I have no idea what sound editing is, but I do know Drive should have an Oscar. And this is the only one it's nominated for. So, you know, way to edit that sound people who made Drive!
(I'm apparently very excited about the mixing and editing of sound!!!)

Should Win: Drive
Will Win: War Horse

Original Score
I would say the score from The Artist is out of it, but after Roman Polanski's victory in 2002 there is precedent for rapists winning Oscars. Plus, I think we can all agree that Kim Novak was kind of asking for it.

Should Win: The Artist
Will Win: The Artist

Original Song
If you were to sit in a lab and try and come up with the most Oscar worthy song of all time - prominently featured in the movie, integral to the plot, catchy, memorable, well written, uplifting message - I would be hard to do better than "Life's a Happy Song". So of course the only song nominated from The Muppets is "Man or Muppet". Sometimes the Oscars make no sense.

Whatever. Bret McKenzie is winning and giving a charming and funny speech and is halfway to EGOTing (and if you don't think there's a Tony in his future you're insane). FOTC 4 EVA!

Should Win: "Man or Muppet
Will Win: "Man or Muppet"

Visual Effects
This is a makeup award for snubbing Andy Serkis in the Supporting Actor category. But how great would it be if there's an upset and the Hugh Jackman robot boxing movie becomes the Academy Award Winning Hugh Jackman robot boxing movie? (And by "great" I mean "a mockery of all things holy")

Should Win: Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Will Win: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Art Direction
Oh no, do you realize that according to my predictions here Hugo hasn't won any Oscars yet?? Time to fix that.

Should Win: Hugo
Will Win: Hugo

Costume Design
To quote myself from last year "As I always say, when in doubt go with either Colleen Atwood or Sandy  Powell". Colleen Atwood isn't nominated. Sandy Powell is nominated for Hugo. Hugo it is then.

Should Win: Hugo
Will Win: Hugo

Makeup
Pretty sure the J. Edgar makeup team was just a front organization set up by the Iron Lady makeup team to make them look brilliant by comparison. If so, well done.

Should Win: The Iron Lady
Will Win: The Iron Lady

Film Editing
Okay, so confession time: I don't really know what an editor does. I mean I know what an editor does. They're probably the most important person the entire film making process. But I don't know how much of what the editor does is the director and how much is them. And unless the movie has really obvious editing like Moulin Rouge, or The Bourne Ultimatum, I really have no idea how to judge the quality of an editor's work. So while this award is probably going to The Artist because of the usual correlation between this Best Editing and Best Picture, Girl With the Dragon Tattoo felt the most edit-y to me of the nominees. But what do I know? (Nothing)

Should Win: Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Will Win: The Artist

Cinematography
LUBEZKI VS. KAMINSKI BITCHES!!!!!!!!

In either a statement on either the overall uninspiring nature of the rest of this year's nominees or on my level of Oscar-nerddom, but this is BY FAR the category I'm most looking forward to on Oscar night. I've been thinking about this one for months. Since well before the nominations even came out. (Okay yeah, I'm gonna lean more towards the major Oscar-nerd angle.) But seriously what more would you want out of a contest? The two best non-Roger Deakins cinematographers working today. Both at the absolute top of their games. Duking it out mano-a-mano. Okay yes, there are technically other nominees. And actually both Robert Richardson for Hugo and Guillaume Schiffman for The Artist have legitimate shots here (no pun intended). But even if theres a mini-sweep for either of those movies I don't think the voters will be able to deny the overwhelming beauty of the colors and lighting and compositions of War Horse and Tree of Life. In the end, I think (and pray) it will be Lubezki, because no matter what someone thought of Tree of Life any person who saw it would have to agree that it was visually stunning. And also because its a crime that Lubezki has never won. His losing in 2006 for Children of Men is right up there with Crash over Brokeback and Hooper over Fincher on the list of great Oscar injustices of the past 10 years. So (fingers crossed) TEAM LUBEZKI FTW!!!!!

Should Win: Tree of Life
Will Win: Tree of Life

Foreign Language Film
A Separation was the highest profile, highest grossing and most critically acclaimed foreign film of the year. It's from the political hotbed of Iran. It's the only nominee here to get a wide release. It was on nearly every critic's year end top 10 list. So it's probably losing to the Polish Holocaust movie

Should Win: A Separation
Will Win: In Darkness

Adapted Screenplay
Hardest race for me to call in years. My gut and heart say Moneyball. Logic and evidence say The Descendants. My brain says "what the hell was Tinker Tailor Solider Spy even about". And absolutely no one anywhere is saying anything about Ides of March.

On paper its not actually hard to call at all. Based on precursor awards The Descendants is a borderline lock here. And this is historically the place to reward the movie that everyone in the Academy liked but found a little too "indie" to vote for for Best Picture. Normally the screenplay awards are kind of the silver medals of the night, but even though I think Hugo is coming in second place in the Best Picture race there doesn't seem to be any real affection for its screenplay. And even as someone on Team Hugo I would it's screenplay isn't really its strongest element. Which is why I'm pulling for Moneyball, a great movie in which its script was its strongest element. Also, Sorkin! And also I refuse to believe I live in a world where The Descendants is actually a hugely beloved masterpiece. But mostly, Sorkin!

But alas, the world often makes no sense. Speaking of which, can someone please explain Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy to me? That shit made Tree of Life seem like "See Spot Run".

Should Win: Moneyball
Will Win: The Descendants (by a hair)

Original Screenplay
A race between a movie where people don't talk like real people, one where people don't talk at all, and one where people poop in sink.

Without looking, how many Oscar nominations do you think Woody Allen has for screenwriting? If you said 15 you were probably cheating, but you'd also be right. And yet despite being by far the most nominated writer of all time I would argue he still doesn't know how to write realistic sounding dialogue. Now "still doesn't know" isn't quite fair because once upon a time he did somewhat. Annie Hall is my favorite movie of all time. And the dialogue there all rings true in terms of sounding like believable human speech. But as the way people talk and the things they talk about have changed Woody just hasn't kept up. Its why his best screenplays form the past 20 years (Bullets Over Broadway, Sweet & Lowdown, the time travel sections of Midnight in Paris) were all movies set in the past. Because then the highly mannered and jarringly unmodern dialogue wasn't distracting and out of place. But at this point, when Woody Allen tries to write contemporary characters they all wind up sounding like bizarro David Mamet characters only, unlike Mamet, in Woody's case its not a purposeful stylistic choice. He really seems to think that's how people actually talk. I guess thats what happens when the only place you've been in America in the past 30 years is the Upper East Side of Manhattan, which as a former longtime UES resident myself I can attest is TOTALLY representative of the mainstream contemporary America.

Whatever. Woody is still winning this thing because they're not giving it to the comedy with the sink pooping, and they're not giving a writing award to a script with maybe four total pages of written dialogue. And clearly, as the 15 nominations should attest, there's a ton of affection in the Academy for the Woodman. And yes, Midnight in Paris was his best film in years. And sure it was incredibly slight and not really awards-worthy, but in the year of The Artist "incredibly slight and not really awards-worthy" seems to be the name of the game. So Midnight in Paris it is.

Should Win: Woody Allen - Midnight in Paris
Will Win: Woody Allen - Midnight in Paris

Supporting Actress
Okay now that we're into the acting categories you're gonna here a lot of "ugh"s from me. But UGH is Octavia Spencer really going to win an Oscar for her work in The Help? The answer is yes, as I well aware, but why? What does she do in The Help that is awards worthy? What does she do that's even believably human? Bug her eyes out really wide? Act like a cartoon version of a sassy black maid? You know how everyone says that Viola Davis brings a much needed level of elegance and restraint to The Help? Well Octavia Spencer's performances is what they're saying that in response to. Its like her and Viola are in completely separate movies. Viola is in a serious drama about real people facing serious problems and Octavia is in a broad slapstick Adam Sandler movie. So why is she the runaway favorite for ths award? What am I missing here? It must be her long storied history of great work. That's probably it right? Well good, because if she didn't have that going for her then I would worry that maybe Octavia Spencer having an Oscar might seem Roberto Begini-levels of ridiculous in 10 years. Thank goodness that wont be the case here!

Should Win: Janet McTeer
Will Win: Octavia Spencer

Supporting Actor
UGH. These are all fine performances. I like them all. But none of them really generate any enthusiasm. And it's strange to me that someone (specifically, Christopher Plummer) will win an Oscar for one of them. But I guess after Alan Arkin won an Oscar for his role in Little Miss Sunshine all bets are off. So even though at no point while watching Beginners did I think, "Christopher Plummer is giving a Academy Award-worthy performance right now!", things could be worse. And though I'm sad to see probably the best four year stretch of Supporting Actor (or maybe any category ever) winners in Oscar history end, I guess a long overdue Christopher Plummer doing fine work in a super awards-bait-y role in a great film is as good a place to end as any.

Should Win: Christopher Plummer
Will Win: Chistopher Plummer

Actress
So much was said about Bridesmaids this year that the fact that it was a banner year for women dramas was really overlooked. But this is one the best group of Best Actress nominees ever. I mean most years they have trouble coming up with even five deserving nominees. Yet year I Tilda Swinton, Charlize Theron, and Elizabeth Olsen could all lay claim to the term "egregiously snubbed". Only I don't know who you would bump out of the five nominees to make room for them. (Rooney Mara. You would bump Rooney Mara). There are plenty of years where Glen Close would be the heavy favorite. And this year she'll do good to come in 4th place. Really enough cant be said about what a strong group of nominees these are and about how far superior they are to their male counterparts (I'll get to them in a minute).

That being said, I don't really have a strong opinion about who should win. Viola Davis is the best I guess, but it seems weird that Best Actress is going to go to what feels like simply a very big supporting role in a a movie like The Help. Meryl Streep would win in a walk if The Iron Lady just focused on Margaret Thatchers older dementia years. Unfortunately Maryl isn't quite as good in the Margaret Thatcher being Margaret Thatcher stuff, and the movie itself is pretty awful. If it was even 40% better I think this race would be a lot tighter than it is. Also Meryl will be back next year for August: Osage County, which if you thought dementia-ridden Margaret Thatcher was an awards bait role, then you aint seen nothin yet.

If you had asked me three months ago I would have said my pick was Michelle Williams, just because I was almost laughably skeptical of her ability to play Marilyn Monroe and yet she completely won me over. I also would have put down a lot of money on her pulling an Adrien Brody style upset. But the more distance I have from seeing the movies, the more Viola Davis' work has stayed with me whereas Michelle Williams' has faded a bit. And Viola Davis also seems to have definitely pulled away from the pack enough that I think an upset is highly unlikely. She's a very respectable choice, and a person who is easy to root for, and someone whose career will be greatly helped by winning an Oscar. And the allegations of racism hurled unfairly at the Academy last year certainly don't hurt her chances. So I'm good with her winning. I just wish she was winning for something a little less middlebrow than The Help.

Should Win: Viola Davis
Will Win: Viola Davis

Actor
I think this is probably the weakest group of Best Actor nominees in my life time. If None of The Above were an option on the ballot I bet it would win in a landslide. I dont sense any real enthusaism for any of these nominees from anyone. If I HAD to pick I'd go with Michael Fassbender, but, oh wait, he's not nominated because the Academy doesnt like penises. My second pick would be Leonardo DiCaprio but he's also not nominated (I know, I know, but once you get past the makeup and the Clint Eastwood factor, I think its actually Leo's best work). So of the nominees the performance I liked the best was Brad Pitt. But theres no way thats an Oscar winning role. I know if I liked it the best then its silly to say its not the most desreving, but what I responded to in the performance was how easy and effortless and real it seemed. "Easy" and "effortless" should not be the first two adjectives used to describe what we are going to be holding up to future generations as the finest acting work produced in the year 2011. Mister Congeniality this award is not. And yet we're about to give it to Jean Dujardin for essentially being charming and French and in the movie we liked the best.

Demian Bichir probably did the best acting job here, but his was basically a glorified supporting part and no one saw his movie. And why Gary Oldman is even nominated is beyond me. I've seen wallpaper be more engaging than he was. And we can't really give George Clooney an Oscar for playing George Clooney. At no point in the movie did I believe that he wasnt George Clooney. At least with Brad Pitt I bought him as a completely differenet person. And that seems kind of like the whole point of acting right? Which brings us back to Jean Dujardin. He was clearly acting. He used his face and body to express emotions. He played a person who, since we've never seen him before, we can convince ourselves was unlike himself. I believed him as a human being. He danced at one point. That's a difficult skill to learn. Pretty sure I remember a scene where he cried. He's handsome. And French.

OSCAR IT IS!

UUUUGGGGHHH

Should Win: Ugh, Jean Dujardin, I guess?
Will Win: Jean Dujardin

Director
Important fact: this award is called Best Director not Person That Directed The Best Picture Winner. It's actually a whole separate thing. And if there was ever a time to treat it as such it's now. Because whle Michel Hazanavicius did a fine job, he was merely copying the styles of filmmakers past. Terrance Malick on the other hand created something totally new. Something with a clear personal style. Something that couldnt have been made by anyone else. When I went to see Tree of Life at the Arclight it was introduced as Terrance Malick's Tree of Life, so strong was his personal stamp on it. You could maybe argue that The Descendants and Midnight in Paris bear their creator's stamp just as strongly, but I'd argue that's more a function of their scripts than of their visual styles. And Hugo is clearly a Martin Scorsese film. But also it's totally NOT a Martin Scorsese film. In many ways thats whats most interesting about it. Plus he just won. The Artist though could have been directed by anyone with a film school education and few months to research old silent films. But Michel Hazanavicius won the DGA and directed the Best Picture favorite which means he's got this thing in the bag.

UGH.

At least he's not Tom Hooper.

Should Win: Terrance Malick
Will Win: Michel Hazanavicius

Picture
I've made my peace with The Artist winning. I did it while walking out of the theater in fact. I was outraged over Crash, confused over Slumdog, unenthused by The Hurt Locker, and disheartened by The Kings Speech, but by now as long its not something terrible or defeats something FAR more deserving I'm really worn down by caring about this stuff to care much any more. The Artist is a perfectly fine movie. Its a lighter-than-air instantly forgettable triffle. It's not about anything, has nothing to say about the world, and doesn't in any way reflect the time in which it was made. But it's well done and likable.

As Ive made clear elsewhere I thought Tree of Life was by far the best movie of the year. It was moving and beautiful and original and it tackled big questions and ideas in big thought-provoking ways. It was challenging and visionary and like nothing else I'd ever seen. So of course it has no chance to win.

Of the nominees with a realistic shot of winning I much preferred Hugo to The Artist. It had more weight, more emotion, more skill behind it, and a grander more Oscar-worthy sweep. But it's hard for me to criticize The Artist for not being about anything important or reflecting its time and then make a big case for Hugo. So fine, The Artist it is. Removed from the novelty of "hey its a silent black and white movie in 2011!" there's no way The Artist holds up even ten years from now. 50 years from now when people do rankings of all the Best Picture winners in history The Artist is going to easily be in the bottom 20. And if it achieves "somewhat amusing afterthought" status in the annals of film history I think that's its absolute best case scenario. I think more likely people very will look back at the 2011 Oscar results and think, "WTF, were we all drunk when we decided The Artist was the very best movie of the entire year?" But you know what, if in the moment, a well made and charming black and white silent movie winning Best Picture is the best way to encourage the film industry to take chances then I'm okay with that. A French silent black and white movie about old Hollywood may not have anything relevant to say about our world today, but it winning Best Picture does. And at this point that's really my bar for Best Picture satisfaction. And hey, maybe in the year of Mitt Romney The Artist winning Best Picture is even more relevant than I think.

GO UNENTHUSIASM!!! You're the best!

Should Win: Tree of Life, but also Hugo
Will Win: The Artist

The Top 20 of 2011

A year end list in February? Yes. A year end list in February. If you can't handle that then don't read it on my free blog that I write for free. But I've been busy, and better late than never right? (Don't answer that.) Bottom line is I like writing these things every year so that then in later years I can go back and reread them and remember what that given year was all about. It saves me from having to remember all the things that moved and affected me and inspired me and excited me every year so that I can save that brain space for things that TRULY matter. Like the name of Grover Cleveland's first daughter (Ruth). And now you can use this to do the same.

Let's get started

(Two quick notes:
-Unlike in years past these are not ranked in any way. The order is totally random.

-There are plenty of things I didn’t get the chance to experience but would have probably made the list - Book of Mormon, Bossypants, the Watch the Throne tour, to name a few - so if your favorites arent here don't be outraged. I probably just haven't gotten around to them yet)

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1. The chorus to “Pumped Up Kicks”
Try to get it out of your head. I dare you.

2. Hot Coffee
This might shock you, so I hope you're sitting down, but there are corporate interests in this country who are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into keeping you misinformed and uneducated enough to vote against your own best interests. And politicians are involved in this "conspiracy" as well. Who ever heard of such a terrible thing!

This superb HBO documentary about the woman who sued McDonalds for her coffee being too hot, but really about the entire issue of tort reform, did the exact thing that all documentaries strive to do - educated and impassioned me about a very important issue that I previously knew almost nothing about. And what little I did know was completely wrong. For example, that lady who sued McDonalds for her coffee being too hot - not only was her lawsuit not frivolous, but she deserved every penny. And then some.

If you want to be outraged and learn how totally fucked you already are right now at this very moment without even realizing it, then I urge you strongly to watch Hot Coffee. It's like a jolt of hot liquid to the crotch.

(Sorry. I had to.)

3. Ricky Gervais at the Golden Globes
In an age when even "reality" is scripted, the chance to turn on an event as normally staid as an awards show and see something clearly unplanned, unscripted, and real is a monumental event. Its what we're often promised but NEVER receive. And for once we actually did. Were the jokes actually that good or edgy? Not really. But it wasn't about the jokes themselves per se, it was about the fact that he was telling them. We live in a world where everyone is so petrified of saying anything even remotely controversial or doing anything that isn't carefully choreographed and planned by a phalanx of PR people first, so the simple act of not giving a fuck felt like a revolutionary act. And sure he couldn't, or wouldn't, follow it up. But for a brief shining moment it seemed like maybe we were headed for a future where people said real things to people's faces in public.

It was fun while it lasted.

4. TV on the Radio - Nine Types of Light
I'm going to say something wildly controversial here: sometimes hipsters make no sense.
Hipsters used to love TV on the Radio. They were THE hipster band. Now they make what is, to my ears, their best album and it gets almost no love whatsoever? I mean I didn't see this thing on a single year-end top 10 list. And yet I dont remember there being widespread disappointment with it either. It just sort of came and went without notice. That absolutely baffles me. What, because TV on the Radio aren't a brand new band they dont matter anymore? What did TV on the Radio do to you hipsters? Other than make great music? I never thought this would be a "different" opinion to have, but a TV on the Radio album was my favorite album of the year. Deal with it.

(Oh no...being defensive about unorthodox opinions that go against general mainstream consensus? Maybe now I'm the hipster...)

5. Charlize Theron in Young Adult
Speaking of things that were inexplicably unjustly overlooked...

Now I recognize that this isn't exactly the type of performance that gets nominated for awards. And I'm actually okay with that. But I didn't even feel like it was in the discussion. And maybe that's more to do with what a great year it was for actresses (not a sentence I get to type very often), but it still seems unfair to poor Charlize who really did a remarkable brave thing here. How many actresses of her stature and beauty would be willing to play the part of Mavis Gary as fully comittedly as she did? Its the sort of performance Cameron Diaz often thinks she's giving when really she's always standing slightly outside the character subtly commenting that "no, but really I'm actually an attractive and likable person, this is just a role I'm playing".

Mavis Gary is role that a man wouldn't think twice about playing. It wouldn't even be an issue. Yet so much of the talk around Young Adult seemed to be if people are willing to watch a woman who is so unlikable. And based on box office results the answer is no. And that's why, to me, one Mavis Gary is worth five Bridesmaids. Because for all the talk of what a breakthrough it was, Bridesmaids was basically just a (well done) gender twist on a movie we've all seem 100 times. (Which was really the key to its success.) But a movie about an unlikeable character who doesn't learn anything or change in any way? And also happens to be a woman? Well that's showing us something fresh and new about the human experience. That's expanding the range of roles available to women. And Charlize Thereon pulls it off in a way that I don't think any other actress today could or would. So with all due respect to Viola Davis, Michelle Williams, Brad Pitt, Carey Mulligan, Jessica Chastian, and Janet McTeer, this was my favorite performance of the year.

6. Colbert performs "Friday" on Jimmy Fallon


This is why the Internet was invented.

7. Louie
Not to compare Louie to the Beatles, but here it goes. The Beatles were a group without an established lead singer, and where all members of the group contributed songs that they had written individually. The Beatles are the best group of all time. They revolutionized music. And yet no group I can think of has ever really tried to duplicate that formula and approach. This has always baffled me. In a copycat world, where any successful idea gets ripped off in a thousand different directions, people have tried to copy every aspect of the most successful and popular musical act of all time, EXCEPT FOR THEIR FUNDAMENTAL APPROACH TO MAKING MUSIC.

Which brings us to Louie. Louie was the best show on TV last year. It's probably the most original and idiosyncratic show I've ever seen. It's ostensibly a comedy, but I don't think I laughed one the entire season. It's definitely not a drama, yet it's probably the most moving and heartbreaking and true thing on the air today. It has no precedent and it's not remotely comparable to any other TV show on the air. And its so astronomically better than all of them that it seems unfair to even compare them. It's like its playing a completely different game. In a totally different league. Just like The Beatles.

So will TV executives now start duplicating the approach that makes Louie great - giving money and complete and total creative freedom to incredibly talented people so that they can make a TV show completely by themselves with absolutely no notes or input of any kind? Well...we're still waiting for the next Beatles aren't we?

8. Grantland
Here's what I wrote the day Grantland was launched:

"I am convinced that Grantland is the result of someone scanning my brain to determine the answer to the question, “hey you, if you could create your dream website from scratch what would it be like and who would write for it?” Because The Dream Team aint got shit on Grantland. In fact The Dream Team might have to turn over rights to their moniker. I mean look at this lineup: Bill Simmons, Chuck Klosterman, Dave Eggers, Mark Harris, Katie Baker, Molly Lambert of This Recording, Lane Brown of NY Mag’s Vulture blog, Malcom Gladwell of Malcom Gladwell fame. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg

Now I finally know what God was up to on the 8th day.

Well, goodbye productivity, it’s been fun. And goodbye entire rest of the internet. If you need me, I’ll be at Grantland.com."

Eight months later and that all still holds true. The only thing I would add is that Mark Harris' ongoing Oscarmetrics feature is probably the best thing in the history of the written word. So, you know, suck it Bible.

9. The Muppets
Did you know that the best comedy and the best musical of the last five years were both the same movie? And that that movie was a "kids movie"? It's true. Long after the end of the second golden age of Disney, The Muppets came along and outdid them all. Argue all you want nerds about Jim Henson, or Frank Oz, or fidelity to the characters or what have you, but as someone with no particular personal interest or childhood connection to the Muppet universe, if I had had a Best Picture vote I would have seriously considered using it here, as arguably no movie in 2011 did a better job of executing its specific vision than The Muppets.

Did you also know that is was HUGELY out-grossed by The Smurfs?

The children are hereby no longer our future.

10. Beyonce on The Billboard Awards


I hate Beyonce and think that she and the praise given to her and the way that she is viewed by society are the very essence of much of whats wrong with the world, and even I loved this.

More like this please.

12. Tebowmania
The original Linsanity. Linsantity 1.0 if you will. Although the new version is better in every way - more unbelievable, more well-scripted, more uplifting, more culturally resonant, better setting, etc. - Tebowmania shouldn't be ignored.

Whenever something incredible in sports (or to a lesser extent in life) happens the most common refrain you hear is always "it's like out of a movie". And it usually is. Only better. Because in any movie or book or TV show or piece of entertainment anywhere other than sports, you pretty much know whats going to happen. And even if you dont, you know the narrow range of possible outcomes. With Tim Tebow though he could overthrow a wide open receiver by ten yards or he could complete a perfect 80 yard game winning bullet. He could beat the Steel Curtain defense in the playoffs or look barely competent against Kansas City. Sometimes sports make sense. But more often than not they make no sense at all. And that's why we tune in. Because there's no other aspect of life where that is true. Other than life itself.

11. The direction of Drive
If you are ever wondering what difference a good director makes, then you should probably read the screenplay for Drive. Because I imagine its fairly awful. 99% of the time this material is a forgettable B-movie or goes straight to DVD or both. Luckily, Nicolas Winding Refn is the 1%.

Normally I wouldn't be a fan of such a style over substance movie, but HOLY SHIT WHAT STYLE. If making boilerplate material into the most visually iconic movie of the year isn't an example of good directing then I don't know what is.

This is one for the time capsule.

13. World Series, Game 6
You know something was good when I didn't even see it and it made my list. And when it involved the team I was rooting for losing.

So many times in talking about culture, and especially in regards to sports, we rush to declare things The Best Of All Time. Major League Baseball has been around since 1869. In that time hundreds of thousands of games have been played. It's a game all about history and tradition and days gone by. So what are the odds that at this relatively late day a game could occur that could legitmately be considered the Greatest Game Ever Played? (Warning: another Sports As Life metaphor ahead) But that's the thing with baseball - despite what the odds might say, you really just never know.

14. Mayer Hawthorne – How Do You Do
You know those albums where when the first song comes on you think "this is my favorite song on the album" and then the next one comes on and you think "no, THIS is the best song on the album" and so on until the very last song. (No, but really the last song on How Do You Do really is the best. I think.) Well this is one of those albums.

How was Amy Winehouse a huge star, while Mayer Hawthorne has now released two stellar albums in relative obscurity? Maybe sports really are onto something with this whole "life makes no sense most of the time" thing.

15. Breaking Bad
Before we all get carried away let's just all be clear that Breaking Bad is no Wire or Mad Men. It's not really about anything other than the dangers of selling meth (please spare me the college courses on the exploration of relative morality through the character of Walter White, the crisis of conscience, the darkness that lies in all of us, yadda yadda yadda). So while it may not scale the heights of those titans in terms of "importance" it probably beats them both in terms of "being a well made TV show". If you need something to make you think deeply about life, go elsewhere. But if you just want pure entertainment, masterful plotting, great acting, edge of your seat thrills, and can't look away yet MUST LOOK AWAY suspense then there's never been anything better than the latest season of Breaking Bad. Also, don't get involved in the meth trade.

16. The NBA Finals
Hey, remember two sentences ago? When I said "if you just want pure entertainment, masterful plotting, great acting, edge of your seat thrills, and can't look away yet MUST LOOK AWAY suspense then there's never been anything better than the latest season of Breaking Bad"? Well I lied. Because the NBA Finals were better in every way in all of those categories. Every TV writer ever would kill to write something half as good. And half as compelling.

And remember six paragraphs ago? When I said how what makes sports great is their random, chaotic, anything can happen nature? Well I lied there too. Because of their chaotic nature, whats best about sports is actually when they magically somehow find a way to give us EXACTLY what we want: Good vs. Evil. Right vs. Wrong. The original and most primal human drama stripped down to its starkest most black and white terms played out over six games for all the marbles. With the right side winning, order being restored, and justice being served.

I don't think the nation was as united the day after 9/11 as it was during the 2011 NBA Finals. If before the series had started the Mavericks had told the country "we wont win this series unless the budget gets balanced, free health care is given to everyone, and all foreign wars are stopped immediately", then we'd all be living in a utopia right now. As Ive always said, in times of great national crisis its always best to turn to a charismatic German...

17. Kate Upton does the dougie

As someone that also runs a feminist music blog, part of hates to blog about something this Maxim-y, but also, contrary to popular reports, I am human.

I wouldn’t have guessed that this generation’s answer to Marilyn Monroe getting her skirt blown up would be a YouTube video of someone doing a novelty dance craze at a sporting event, but I probably should have. The good folks at Wikipedia should just put this clip and the elevator scene from Drive under the entry for “sex” and be done with it.

Resistance is futile.

18. Parks and Rec – "Fancy Party"
Comparing Parks and Rec, Louie, and Breaking Bad is like comparing apples and pomegranates and meth (Community would be the kiwi in this analogy). But while its hard to say one is better than the other, Parks and Rec is just as groundbreaking and new in its own way. Throughout the history of time there's been one way and one way only a network TV show handles the marriage of two of its main characters: months of build up, mountains of hype, and a hugely publicized episode right in the middle of sweeps. But here's how Parks and Rec handled it: a random understated mid-season episode with no hype or advance notice. Thats right, the evolutionary Office took the Jim and Pam proposal to the next level. And they did the wedding episode itself with their usual truth, humor, and commitment to the reality of the characters and world that they have worked so hard to create.

The Very Special Episode is dead; long live the very special episode.

19. Tree of Life
If you didn't like Tree of Life I'm not going to say we cant be friends. I get that's its not for everyone. And this is a case where I can totally respect opposing viewpoints. If you complain that it was too slow, or boring, or confusing, or strange, I get that, and fine, so be it. But you cant then ever complain that all studios ever make are sequels and remakes and that there are no original ideas and Hollywood is creatively bankrupt and that they don't make movies for adults and why don't they just once not treat us like we're all either 12 year boys or idiots or both. Because Tree of Life is the exact opposite of all of that. It's the antidote to all those ills. And its why in a world where Transformers: Dark of the Moon is the second highest grossing movie of the year I'm Team Malick always and forever.
#occupyHollywood

20. The cast of Happy Endings
After just going on a rant against the laziness and lack of originality in Hollywood, allow me to contradict myself completely by saying that there should be a law requiring some network (possibly even all of them) to remake Friends every 15 years. By taking a hit show and completely remaking it from scratch periodically it can stay fresh and the cast can better reflect the times (a gay "bro"! an interracial couple! a food truck owner! Casey Wilson!). And the "spend half an hour hanging out with hilarious, witty, and extremely likable young people who all seem to genuinely love each other" concept is one that should never go out of style. But if you're going to make that the hook of your show then your casting (like on Friends 1.0) better be impeccable. And on Happy Endings indeed it is. Adam Pally seems to be considered the breakout star from the show, yet I would argue he's only the 4th best member of the cast. But then that seems unfair to him. But also true. But also I don't know. Trying to pick a favorite is a literal Sophie's Choice. By which I mean that trying to decide who is better, Damon Wayans Jr. or Eliza Coupe, is LITERALLY the same as trying to decide which of my two children to save from extermination by the Nazis. (Eliza Coupe for the record). This cast is so good it has even made Elisha Cuthbert funny. Elisha Cuthbert! If you're not watching this show you really should. It's a-MA-zing. (Little inside joke between me and my Friends...)

The One Where Dan Harmon Doesnt Bite The Apple

"But when you’re in your first season, your goal is to get a second season, and when you’re in your second season, you just don’t believe you’ll get a third. Nobody up top believes that statistics are on your side. This is where it usually ends. If we have to promise free ice cream to get to a third season, then we will and then we’ll deal with it." - Dan Harmon on Community

With apologies to Mad Men, Breaking Bad (two shows whose most recent seasons I haven’t seen), Boardwalk Empire, and Parks and Rec, Community is the best show currently on TV and the one that is doing the most to innovate and move the medium forward. So it’s surprising to hear its creator, a man who seems to come from outside "the system", echo the long-standing sentiment inherent to television production in this country - that deep down the core mission of his show is simply to stay on the air and keep people watching.

But also, it’s not surprising at all.

-----

The night before reading the Dan Harmon interview from which that quote was pulled, I saw The Tree of Life, or as the woman introducing it at the Arclight Theater called it - "Terrence Malick's Tree of Life". Throughout most of the running time of the movie I found myself acutely aware of the fact that I was in a theater filled with other human beings all watching this same strange, beautiful, challenging piece of ART unfold. How did something this ambitious, this innovative, this personal, this difficult, this uncommercial ever get made is the question I kept thinking to myself. But sure enough it did. And it filled me with hope and inspiration and joy that it not only saw the light of day but that actual people paid actual money to sit there and watch it with me. And whether they loved it, or hated it, or thought that the Sean Penn stuff was pretty unnecessary, and that the disparate parts of the movie weren’t integrated as well as they could have been, and that the ending was probably a little more drawn out than it should have been but that ultimately it was one of the most beautiful, original, ambitious, thought-provoking, well-made movies they are ever likely to see, all that really matters is that The Tree of Life is a movie that exists. It was allowed to be made. And I can pretty much guarantee that at no point in its making did Terrence Malick ever think – “I hope this does well so that I can make another movie. In fact, what can I do to make sure that people will like this movie? Whatever it is, I will do exactly that.”

Now I realize that it’s unfair to compare an established director making an art house movie to a first time show runner making a network TV sitcom. And I also don’t mean this as any slight on Dan Harmon who in his own way is as creative and innovative and genius as Terrance Malick is. It’s not his fault that the “product for product’s sake” mentality is so deeply entrenched in the very fiber of American TV production that there is perhaps no way around it. With that in mind though, it is fair to ask if TV will ever be able to truly compete on the same artistic level with film. Because while there are a great many film directors who worry a great deal about the commercial success of their movies and make the audience their primary concern (probably most film directors do in fact) there are also plenty that don’t. Just down the hall from the theater showing Tree of Life was one showing Midnight in Paris. And if you think Terrence Malick don’t give a fuck about his audience or how his movies do commercially, Woody Allen makes him look like Ron Howard. And there are plenty of more directors like them. The film industry is massive soul-sucking corporate money-making machine, but it also still allows true artists to lurk on its fringes making their personal passion projects that aren’t remotely concerned with box office or audience approval. They make movies only when they want to and entirely on their terms or they don’t make them at all. The fact that these difficult, provocative, challenging, uncommercial movies exist is what makes film an art form rather than just an entertainment form. Visual art, dance, theater and music all have whole movements and styles and genres devoted to being, in addition to all of those other qualities, openly antagonistic towards their audience. But other than (occasionally) The Sopranos, name a TV show that could even be described as “difficult and challenging”*, let alone antagonistic towards its audience. Twin Peaks? John From Cincinnati? Homeboys in Outerspace?

There are certainly TV shows that have great artistic merit. And there are shows that are clearly labors of love for their creators. And there are shows that aim to provoke, to challenge, to push the medium forward. But as of yet there is no real TV equivalent to The Tree of Life.

For all their walking, they're not getting any closer to the light.




(*The Wire is of course the exception to all this. But it doesnt count because it's its own thing. Also because it would invalidate my whole arguement. So let's just pretend like it doesnt exist. Everyone involved in TV production seems to...)