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.

Comedy Night Done Right: The 2011 Golden Globes on NBC

Every year the Golden Globes are about one thing: drunken Meryl Streep.
Meryl Streep giggling, rambling incoherently, and just generally being delightfully Streepian, is, as anyone who has ever read this blog should know, the highlight of the year nearly every year. But as Meryl Streep didn’t appear in a single movie in 2010 there was apparently no way the Hollywood Foreign Press could get her to show up to this year's awards. I firmly believe that all awards shows should be contractually obligated to include Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep in some form or fashion, but The Golden Globes wont heed my advice. Luckily this year though there was something else to improbably take Meryl’s place. Something to dominate the Golden Globes conversation. And that little globe of golden goodness was Ricky Gervais.

I wasn’t alive to see Bob Hope or Johnny Carson, but my earliest memories of awards show hosting were of Billy Crystal – a man cut from their same cloth. A man who told clever and well-crafted jokes about the nominated films more so than the nominated people. And even when he did he rib the stars he did it with a loving wink. It was always fairly funny, but also fairly safe and insider-y. And that was fine for its time. But we’ve changed as a society, and awards show hosting has yet to really catch up. With twitter and facebook and live-blogging, now the jokes the hosts tell seem weak and soft compared to the jokes we’re reading on our computer screens. They’re too polite and safe and nothing like the jokes you are simultaneously making with your friends. They are jokes told by insiders for the amusement of other insiders with the only problem being that the show is being watched by outsiders. Outsiders who no longer find Bruce Vilanch style one-liners particularly hip or funny. The Oscars have at least in the past decade seemed to acknowledge this problem and tried to get hosts from outside the establishment who could tell edgier jokes and get away with more biting material, but whenever they would hire a Chris Rock or a Jon Stewart the “establishment” would get cold feet and would neuter them to the point that a joke slamming Jude Law seemed so out of place that it caused a minor scandal. These young hip cutting-edge hosts never seemed like themselves in these situations. They seemed tame and safe and overly concerned with the feelings of the people in the room, which completely negated the point of having them there in the first place. And which made Ricky Gervais’s hosting gig last night seem so groundbreaking and buzz worthy by comparison. Because Ricky didn’t give a fuck. He told the jokes that we would tell. Jokes from an outsider intended to entertain an audience at home rather than a bunch of privledged celebrities we don’t know and will never even meet. Jokes with teeth and with a contemporary sensibility. And jokes that weren’t concerned with being nice but rather with, you know, being funny. He drank beer on stage, openly rooted for his favorite movie to win, and he spoke truth to power. He was one of us rather than one of them and in the process showed us what an awards show host can and should be in the 21st century. In today’s Everyone’s A Star Universe we no longer aspire to be one of them as much as we aspire for them to be one of us. Last night Ricky spoke for us and turned a thankless job into one we’re all thankful for. And even more importantly, he salvaged a Meryl-less Golden Globes.

Yes, Virginia there might not be a God but there is a Santa Claus.

Now on with the show….

-------

*What the fuck Christian Bale? That speech was supposed to be a fucking train wreck and yet it totally wasn’t. It wasn’t fucking amateur. It was really fucking good. But I’m trying to fucking do my job here, and how am I supposed to write jokes with you fucking being all fucking sane and reasonable and coherent? What the fuck is it with you? What don't you fucking understand? You got any fucking idea about, hey, it's fucking annoying having somebody deliver a good speech when you already have a good joke ready to go regarding their speech being a train wreck? Give me a fucking answer! What don't you get about that? So you can deliver a good speech - ohhhhh, goooood for you. I hope it was fucking worth it, because my well crafted joke - it's useless now, isn't it? So get it right at the Oscars okay? For fucks sake.

*Speaking of speeches, I have no idea who you are Chris Colfer but your speech warmed the cockles of my cold cold heart.
(Also, you know you went to a performing arts college if as soon as Colfer’s speech was done your facebook news feed blew up like 9/11.) (What, too soon?)

*Why is Michael C. Hall’s beard a completely different color than the rest of his hair? Is it a cancer thing?

*I’m pretty sure that those people who came up to accept the award for Boardwalk Empire were associated with it in some way, but it was hard to tell because none of them were naked.

*I love how NBC acts like its relevant what time its shows air. It’s quaint.

*Lord knows I’ve been wrong with my predictions before, but I feel pretty confident that they should just start describing Perfect Couples as The Single Guy meets Inside Schwartz already. It would save us all some time.

*Only the Golden Globes president would still be able to personally remember a time when movies weren’t taken seriously or considered a respectable form of entertainment. You know because people were too busy with their gramophones and books of sonnets.

*I’m pretty sure that the existence of the Best Original Song category is how Burlesque got greenlit.

*I wonder if Michelle Williams is pissed that Diane Warren stole her haircut?

*Also, Annette Benning, you’re never gonna win and Oscar with hair like that. Only Al Pacino can win Oscars with that hair.

*Also: Bieber.

*Charming though he may be, absolutely nothing Robert Downey Jr. said made any sense.

*Whenever I listen to Nine Inch Nails I’m always struck by how much Trent Reznor sounds like a potential Golden Globe winner, so I’m glad that that’s finally come to pass.

*I don’t really keep up with celebrity news but I would venture to say that Sandra Bullock’s hair is probably the worst thing to ever happen to her.

*Aaron Sorkin has a way with words. And even though he used his speech to do the least necessary damage control ever, I loved every minute of it. Smart girls really do have more fun.

*Hey, does anybody know if Johnny Depp has an animated movie coming out any time soon?

*The new Green Hornet ads don’t really advertise the movie as much as they advertise how shockingly well “Gangstas Paradise” has held up.

*I love how Helena Bonham Carter seems to view fashion as a dare

*Robert De Niro – King of Comedy
also,
Claire Danes – Awards Show Juggernaut
                    (and User Of The Phrase “Holla”)

*Speaking of The Robert De Niro Comedy Hour, I’m glad he mentioned Awakenings as I was just thinking how’s that easily the most unjustly forgotten movie on his resume. You should really check it out.

*Time has not been kind to Tim The Tool Man Taylor

*At awards shows over the next month David O. Russell is gonna really start to hate sharing a first name with David Fincher

*By the end of February Natalie Portman is officially going to be able to claim the award for biggest disparity between weight when acting and weight when receiving awards for said acting.

*Gays, Jack Kevorkian, Jane Fonda, and atheism – it sure was a big night for all my fellow liberal pinko coast-dwelling elitists

*Congrats Social Network - well deserved. As Ricky Gervais said, justice prevails. And it’s nice that my favorite movie of the year is the Best Picture frontrunner for a change. I could get used to this.

*Lastly, now that the Big 8 categories other than Best Supporting Actress and Best Original Screenplay have been locked in, the next six weeks are about figuring out the nominees, bitching about the impending Winters Bone snub, giving the front runners time to work on their speeches, and writing jokes about James Franco and facebook. Fredtheonlinejournal likes this.