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 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.