The 25 Best Things of 2015

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

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

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

Independent filmmaking is dead; long live independent filmmaking.

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

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

4. Aretha Franklin at The Kennedy Center Honors



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

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

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

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

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

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

Vince Gilligan and his team are magicians.

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

8. Missy Elliott - “WTF” video 



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

The 20 Best Things of 2014

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

Without further ado...
(In random order)

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

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

2. Dumb Starbucks

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

3. The Lego Movie

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

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

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

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

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

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

5. Lupita Nyong’o

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

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

6. "Too Many Cooks"

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

7. Birdman

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

8. Emma Stone Lip Synch on Fallon

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

9. McConaughey’s True Detective monologues

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

10. Serial

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

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

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

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

12. Last Week Tonight's net neutrality segment

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

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

13. Richard Sherman’s NFC Championship game interview

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

14. The World Cup

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

15. The imagination on display in Snowpiercer

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

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

16. Boyhood

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

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

17. Taylor Swift – "Style"

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

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

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

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

20. Bojack Horseman

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

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