4 Comics Characters Long Overdue for an Adaptation

It might seem that with all the superheroes populating screens big and small there are no comics properties left to be adapted.  Fortunately that's not the case.  There's still an abundance of opportunities waiting in the funny pages.  For every Spider-Man, Supergirl, Flash, Dick Tracy, and Deadpool there's an obscurity rife with potential.  They already have a built in audience, all they need is for some Hollywood mucketymuck to give them a chance.  I'm talking about comic strips.

Slylock Fox

Every generation of movie studio executives must ask itself "how much money can we squeeze from the fruit of the Giving Tree we call the public domain?"  Well, I'm here to tell you that the sweetest fruit of that tree has not yet dried out.  The modern age just does not have enough Sherlock Holmes variants.  Fortunately, there's a demographic not yet tapped by Sherlock, nor Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, nor Elementary, nor Mr. Holmes, perhaps not even Detective Pikachu, and that is children.  The youngsters are crying out for their own Holmes franchise and the time has come for Bob Weber Jr. to answer their pleas with "Slylock Fox."  An animated feature about the vulpine consulting detective and his murine accomplice Max Mouse could be a huge hit with the 10 and under crowd.  After that, perhaps a series on Netflix.  And think of the licensing!  What tyke wouldn't want a stuffed Shady Shrew to hug and squeeze at night?  I know a certain 7 year old in 1999 who would have loved a Reeky Rat action figure with kung-fu grip.

Funky Winkerbean

It's not often that award bait movies are based on comics but there's one property that is built for Academy chum.  There's nothing awards shows love more than comedies that are really sad except for dramas that are really sad.  For the past ten to twenty years Tom Batiuk's Funky Winkerbean has been so sad that no one can tell which category it belongs in.  There have been stories about cancer, teen pregnancy, cancer, gun violence, cancer, addiction, cancer, prisoners of war and cancer tumors.  (That's where suspicious tumors grow on top of cancer.)  It all started in the early 90's when the timeline jumped forward, then it went even farther in 2007 with another time jump.  The characters just got older and their lives got sadder and sadder.  Through it all the strip was still named after the character Funky Winkerbean.  Alcoholic, divorced, car crash surviving father of an MIA soldier Funky Winkerbean.  Cue the "wrap it up" music.

Beetle Bailey

Given the overwhelming unfunniness of Funky Winkerbean (aside from that spectacular name), it might seem like there isn't much room for jocularity in a topic as serious as the military, but what propels great comedies like Stripes and especially M*A*S*H is the idea that in the trenches a sense of humor can be a necessary survival tool, and when I say "great comedies" I mean some of the greatest comedies in history.  However, the troops have been woefully underrepresented in the modern comedy landscape with the exception of the horribly short lived Enlisted series.  Perhaps the time has come for a new military comedy and what better inspiration than Mort Walker's Beetle Bailey, a comic that has been around for over 60 years, since long before Alan Alda ever put on a Hawaiian shirt or Bill Murray sang "Doo Wah Diddy."  From 1950 to this day Private Bailey has been slacking off and running from his bullish platoon sergeant.  There's also a dog that wears clothes because it thinks its people!  A track record like that deserves a shot for something bigger.

Pearls Before Swine

There's a trend in modern comedy towards self awareness.  It likely started on TV with Community's reference/homage saturated rabbit hole.  Then it made its way to movies like 21 and 22 Jump Street which served as a tribute to the 80's TV classic as well as a satire of reboots and sequels.  It doesn't always work.  In 2015 Ed Helms promised in character as Rusty Griswold that "the new Vacation will stand on its own" before, I assume without having seen it, Richard Roeper walked onscreen and vomited for fifteen minutes straight in the shape of a pentagram then summoned a demon to take all the directors and writers and actors to hell set to a creepy music box rendition of "Holiday Road".  It might seem that self-awareness will reach its peak in February with Deadpool but there may be a way to take it a step farther.  Deadpool is known to address the audience in his comics but the characters in Pearls Before Swine have a habit of going straight to their creator.  Instead of crying "Why, God!" at the heavens when they experience a tragedy like a convoluted pun, Pig, Goat, and especially Rat have been known to express their discontent eye to eye with writer Stephen Pastis.  Sometimes Pastis is even the focus of an entire strip without  any appearances by anthropomorphic beasts.  What are the odds that director Tim Miller will have his own subplot in Deadpool?

Honorable Mentions:

Sally Forth
Zits
Jump Start
Frazz

Mad Men Report: The Magicians, Angie Tribeca, and Legends of Tomorrow

We're a few weeks into the new year and with it comes a new batch of TV shows, and guess what: they're all great, because it's just impossible to make a bad show now.  It's a miracle that CSI: Cyber exists.  It's such a breath of fresh air.  Bad writing, a contrived premise and lackluster acting.  It's terrific!  But not these shows.  No, these new shows are a stupid fire-trucking delight to watch and it just makes me want to stab my own eyes out with a pair of 90's TV "bunny ears" antennas.  Speaking of the past, as always the rating system for these shows is based on their potential to distract me from watching Mad Men.  

The Magicians

A troubled loner is thrust into a world of magic and only he can stop the oncoming evil.  The Magicians, which officially airs on Monday the 25th but is available online and on demand, bluntly addresses things like sex and violence and addiction and mental illness.  You could certainly see it as Harry Potter for adults, or you could see it as The Chronicles of Narnia funneled through Mr. Robot, but the best way to see it is as a brand new magical world that we haven't even begun to discover that occasionally satires other fantasy.  The first episode suffers from the translation of book to live-action, perhaps because it's rushing to get to the good stuff, but it's worth it because the good stuff is delivered.  It's strange, dark, mysterious, and as wonderfully cinematic as the best of TV.  Jason Ralph is swell as Quentin Coldwater, the graduate student who goes straight from the mental hospital to his new magical college known as Brakebills.  In a small moment the series reveals its potential when a spirit guide of sorts tells Quentin that he won't be at Brakebills for long.  The sooner he gets away from the Potter comparisons the sooner The Magicians can just be The Magicians, and that's when things can get really nifty.

Mad Men threat level: 9/10

Angie Tribeca

There's a very specific kind of silly comedy that has only been done well when Leslie Nielsen is involved.  He's passed on now so instead Rashida Jones is trying her gosh darn best and cunting fuck if that's not good enough.  She stars in the new TBS comedy Angie Tribeca that premiered and ended its first season earlier this week.  I like to think the late Mr. Nielsen wouldn't object to having his body exhumed and Weekend at Bernie's-ed for a good enough joke but that may not be necessary with Rashida's excellent supporting cast.  The consistently hilarious Deon Cole plays Angie's fellow detective DJ Tanner, the esteemed Jagger plays Tanner's partner David Hoffman and the legendary Alfred Molina works in the forensics lab for starters.  As if that weren't enough, they are accompanied by a bevy of fantastic guest stars including Lisa Kudrow, Adam Scott, James Franco, and Bill Murray.  On top of that, the series was created by the comedy power couple of Steve and Nancy Carell.  With the idiotic writing and neat deliveries of Angie Tribeca, it would be hard to find a better tribute to the late Nielsen.

Mad Men threat level: 7/10

Legends of Tomorrow

The "Arrowverse" that started with Arrow and expanded to The Flash just introduced a new character who brought with him a whole new world.  Time traveling rapscallion Rip Hunter has taken upon himself to save the timeline from the immortal Vandal Savage.  To help him on this mission he has recruited a troupe of heroes (both anti- and pro-) and a couple of villains who all first appeared on The Flash or Arrow.  Rip, played by Doctor Who alumnus Arthur Darvill, has a personal vendetta against Vandal, as do the star-crossed lovers reincarnate Hawkman and Hawkgirl.  However, the heart of Legends pumps the blood of lighthearted adventure, and on that front Caity Lotz's White Canary is the true star.  After dying and returning to life on more than one occasion like Arrow's own Phoenix, Sara Lance has a new lease on life.  When Rip takes the team to the 1970's Sara leads the charge to get groovy.  More than anyone else, including Brandon Routh's adorkable genius Ray "Atom" Palmer, Sara has made the decision to have fun on this temporal voyage and that makes her the soul of the show, whether she has one or not.

Mad Men threat level: 8/10

6 Marvel Characters that Should be on TV

In the next week DC and Marvel are both airing mid-season premieres.  DC's Legends of Tomorrow is making its debut and Marvel's Agent Carter is returning for its second season.  The former is a team show full of characters from The Flash and Arrow while the latter is heavily concentrated on the title lead.  In fairness, she is a great character on a fantastic show but it does represent a major difference between the two TV worlds.  When it comes to comic book character adaptation DC's TV has Marvel beaten by a mile (although there's always room for improvement).  That's largely because Marvel is part of a larger universe with its films and because their parent company Disney doesn't have access to the rights for The Fantastic Four and that deepest well of characters known as the X-Men.  Fortunately they still have plenty of options.

Just none from the X-Men's deep, deep well of characters.

Contessa de la Fontaine

When S.H.I.E.L.D. was created in 1965 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby it was obviously influenced by the James Bond films, with Nick Fury as its 007.  The third season of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is the best yet, partially because it has embraced the Bondness inherent in any spy fiction of the past half century.  Since they killed off the best love interest they've ever had in Constance Zimmer's Rosalind Price, it might be a good time to bring in a grade-A "Bond Girl" stand-in and from the early days of the agency no less.  Contessa Valentina Allegra De La Fontaine first appeared in 1967 and quickly became Nick Fury's leading love interest after deafeating him in a sparring match.  The Contessa was a European jet setter until she decided she wanted more from life and to follow in the footsteps of her late resistance fighter parents.  That's when she joined S.H.I.E.L.D. where she eventually became one of the organization's leading agents.

Jim Steranko

Brother Voodoo

One of the best parts of DC's short lived Constantine series was the voodoo practicing villain Papa Midnite because voodoo is the coolest kind of magic there is.  Marvel's chief voodoo priest Jericho "Brother Voodoo" Drumm is over ten years older than Midnite and a lot more powerful.  In 2009 when Doctor Strange lost his title of "Sorcerer Supreme" it went to Drumm who beat out every other magic user.  Jericho began practicing voodoo when his brother Daniel died and sent him to his mentor Papa Jambo.  Jambo trained Jericho and performed a ritual to revive Daniel's spirit and fuse it with his brothers'.  Together they defeated the sorcerer who killed Daniel in the first place.  Although he's traditionally based far from Hell's Kitchen in New York, Brother Voodoo would be more at home with Netflix's dark "Defenders" world than the family friendly espionage of Peggy Carter and S.H.I.E.L.D. Along with Iron Fist he would make an excellent expansion of the supernatural side of Marvel that will likely center on November's Doctor Strange movie.

Jefte Palo

Cloak and Dagger

Tandy Bowen and Ty Johnson have been hovering over the line between the B-list and C-list of superheroes since 1982.  They're interesting, beloved characters who just can't seem to get a permanent place in the limelight.  In canon, they met as teen runaways in New York, one a privileged white woman with detached, callous parents and the other a black man with a stutter that prevented him from saving a friend from an oncoming automobile.  Both having pure hearts despite their upbringings.  They became fast friends, but were exploited and given an experimental strain of heroin that awakened their superpowers.  Tandy can create "light daggers" and Ty gained a connection to a dark dimension he can send people to and that he can use to teleport.  Ever since the two have shared an unbreakable bond.  Aside from their somewhat flashy powers, there's nothing stopping Cloak and Dagger from being an excellent subplot or more on a Netflix series.

Shawn McGuan

Doc Samson

In addition to Rosalind Price, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. also lost its primary source of psychobabble this season when Agent May's ex-husband Andrew Garner (Blair Underwood) was slowly transformed into a murderous beast beginning shortly after their reunion.  Fortunately the Marvel Cinematic Universe already has an established psychiatrist who is more than capable of protecting himself without giving in to genocidal tendencies.  Dr. Leonard Samson was Bruce Banner's ally who was given super strength by exposure to gamma radiation.  Admittedly, the Leonard Samson played by Ty Burrell in The Incredible Hulk is pretty far removed from the muscular man with long green hair from the comics, but the Hulk himself was recast long ago and Burrell is likely too busy with Modern Family to take on another series.  If nothing else, Samson could offer an interesting change to the visual language of S.H.I.E.L.D. with his imposing figure and bright green hair.

Jack Kirby?

Jessica Drew

Before Spider-Man joined the MCU there was a rumor going around that Spider-Woman would be used in his stead, since they have similar names and no other connection whatsoever.  Fortunately that's not necessary because Jessica Drew is so much more than a Spider-Man clone, especially since she isn't really a Spider-Man clone at all.  Her origin involves radiation and spiders but the similarities end there.  Later she was brainwashed by the evil organization HYDRA and sent to kill Nick Fury, at which point she realized she had been used until HYDRA captured her again and hypnotized her.  At one time or another she joined The Avengers, S.H.I.E.L.D. and the extraterrestrial focused agency S.W.O.R.D.  Jessica Drew is a good friend to Jessica Jones and there is likely a place for her on that series, especially if she changes her first name, but she would also be at home on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. with her espionage background.

Alex Maleev

Runaways

Runaways is perhaps the most original idea and best source of new characters to come from Marvel or DC in decades.  The story, created by Saga scribe Brian K. Vaughan and Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan) artist Adrian Alphona, is about a group of teenagers who discover their parents are all part of an evil cabal dedicated to bringing about the end of days.  They leave their homes and fight off their parents in the process, developing new skills, gaining weapons, and learning about their parents and themselves.  That sounds a little cheesy but it's really a fantastic comic, and all that is just the beginning.  More than anything else on this list, Runaways has the most potential to be its own TV series or even a movie.  An adaptation has been in the works since 2008 and its unlikely that anyone has forgotten about it.  It could be only a matter of time.

Adrian Alphona & David Newbold

What to Expect from Superheroes in 2016

With all the talk of the "superhero bubble" and this primary colored steamroller of a fad which may or may not come to an inevitable end, there weren't actually a lot of superhero movies in 2015.  There were only three; and two of them weren't very good.  Avengers: Age of Ultron was disappointing for reasons that are hard to pin down but let's blame it on Thor's dumb cave plot line.  Fantastic Four completely went down in stones and sank like a man made of flames.  Fortunately, Ant-Man turned out to be a down right delight, despite some behind the scenes difficulty when director Edgar Wright left the project due to creative differences.  2016 promises to be a better year for the genre, if by quantity alone.  DC and Marvel are planning a combined seven movies this year.  In a way, many of them are following Ant-Man's precedent in that they seem too strange and cool to be true.  Whether by confidence or desperation, the studios are pushing past the boring stuff into the bottom of the barrel for their superhero stories and pulling out a lot of untapped potential, even if many of the films are sequels.

Fox is taking big steps to expand their X-Men universe with two stand-alone "hero" movies and a team movie.  First in February there's Deadpool, about a violent, crass, unhinged mercenary who sees the fourth wall as more of a revolving door.  It's something of a pet project for star Ryan Reynolds, who is due for a good superhero movie after bombs like Blade: Trinity and Green Lantern, and playing a not very Deadpoolish Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

In May, Bryan Singer is following up the time travel epic X-Men: Days of Future Past with Apocalypse, putting the team in the 1980's with a villain named Apocalypse and all that implies.  Supposedly, Channing Tatum will star in his own pet project Gambit in October.  However, the movie about a Cajun thief who loves playing solitaire and blowing stuff up had a change of directors last year.  It turned out alright for Ant-Man but Channing Tatum is not the leading man Paul Rudd is.  So far there hasn't been any promotion for the film, not even so much as a leaked set photo, which does not bode well.

As for the other Marvel Universe, the one with Avengers instead of X-Men and Kick-Ass playing Quicksilver instead of Kick-Ass's goofy friend, they have one and a half solo movies planned.  In May, Captain America will be joined/opposed by his fellow Avengers in Civil War.  The directors Joe and Anthony Russo are following up their political thriller masterpiece Winter Soldier by pitting Cap against Iron Man while the rest of the Avengers are forced to take sides.  The action will likely be instigated by Cap's friendship with the newly debrainwashed Bucky Barnes AKA the Winter Soldier.  It will also be the long awaited live-action debut of the Black Panther and the first appearance of Spider-Man 3.0.

However, the Sorcerer Supreme likely won't show up until his movie, Doctor Strange, releases in November when Marvel's go to Master of the Mystic Arts will get his origin as played by Benedict Cumberbatch. If they've got the guts to follow through, this could be Marvel's first foray into the supernatural since explaining away Thor as a sci-fi alien masquerading as a mythical deity.

With Batman V Superman, DC is also returning to their shared universe for the first time since it began with 2013's Man of Steel.  (In the interest of full disclosure it's worth noting that I'm the kind of Superman fan who abhor's Man of Steel but I'll try to be objective with an optimistic lean about this.)  The dynamic between Superman and Batman has been a mainstay of the comics for the better part of a century but in March the two will face off in live action for the first time.  Then in August a group of villains, including the Joker and a crocodile man named Killer Croc, will team up in the Dirty Dozen inspired Suicide Squad, which has been a comic book fan-favorite since the late 80's.

The powers that be are taking some bold moves with their superhero films this year.  The biggest risk of this assortment is Deadpool.  The character is not at all family friendly and it requires Ryan Reynolds' face to be horribly scarred and covered with a mask for much of the movie.  X-Men: Apocalypse is the safest bet.  It's Bryan Singer's fourth movie with the mutants and he has yet to disappoint.  The Russos aren't nearly as tested but Winter Soldier is one of the best superhero movies in this "golden age" of the genre, so Civil War will likely be either miraculous or slightly underwhelming.  If superheroes really are going the way of the Western, this will be the year that makes all the difference.  Either way, superhero movies won't disappear from the face of the Earth.  As I've pointed out before, that's not what happens when a genre bubble bursts.  If it is, someone forgot to tell a certain octuplet and their ursine friend.

"Hey, friend!"

The First Annual _Thony Awards

The year is over and a new year has begun.  Now it's time to look back at 2015 and celebrate excellence as defined by some guy.  It's not like I'm much less qualified or objective than any of the magazines or award shows or whoever is deciding what's best around this time.  (Sure, Rolling Stone, "Can't Feel My Face" is the best song of the year.  That sounds about right.  Teens will totally think you're relevant now.)  So I'm sending out the year the only way I know how, with dumb lists.

Best New TV Shows

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

30 Rock left quite an impression but its creators Tina Fey and Robert Carlock managed to follow it up spectacularly.  Their show about a young woman newly released from an apocalyptic cultists' bunker immediately proved to be more than just a gimmick with a ridiculously catchy theme song.  It has the sharpest, smartest jokes in the business told to perfection by Ellie Kemper's Kimmy, her new roommate Titus, and their landlord and Kimmy's boss played by Carol Kane and Jane Krakowski respectively.

The Carmichael Show

The Carmichael Show wasn't promoted as a successor to the work of TV legend Norman Lear but the similarities were apparent from the first episode and the results are spectacular.  Not since Lear's heyday of All in The Family and The Jeffersons has a comedy this good so deftly confronted social issues while honestly attempting to offer a variety of grounded viewpoints.  It certainly helps that some of those viewpoints are represented by terrific actors like David Alan Grier and Loretta Devine.

Mr. Robot

I usually have a pretty good idea of what's going on in the TV world but somehow Mr. Robot snuck up on me.  I just happened to see a commercial after the show had already aired three episodes.  I had the same reaction I imagine everyone has when first exposed to Mr. Robot.  "That looks pretty good.  It seems a little out of USA's wheelhouse.  Hey, is that Christian Slater?"  We were right on all three counts, if a little understated.  The show about a troubled young hacker turned revolutionist proved to be very good, very out of its channel's wheelhouse, and that certainly was Christian Slater at his Christian Slater-est.

Best TV Shows

The Leftovers

The best part of The Leftovers is that it makes no sense.  No one knows what's happening but you know how the characters feel about it and that they feel it hard.  The central concept is that 2% of the Earth's population vanished instantaneously for no discernible reason.  Everyone else just has to continue living their lives knowing that they're all subject to the whims of a random universe whether they allow themselves to see it or not.  In the second season the central characters, namely the Garvey family, move from Mapleton, New York to Jarden, Texas, a town that was entirely spared from the "Sudden Departure."  Because of its good fortune Jarden is actually affected more than anywhere else.  In their search for security the Garvey's wind up in a world even stranger and more compelling than the one they left behind.

Game of Thrones

Of the many staggeringly cinematic shows that make up "The Golden Age of Television,"  Game of Thrones is the most breathtaking.  Every episode has at least one moment that is so tremendous it seems too good to be true.  In some ways it is.  Game of Thrones is easily the most expensive show currently on TV and one of the most expensive of all time.  It faces another problem in that it is moving too fast for the source material to keep up.  This year the show moved farther away from the books it is based on than ever and only time will tell how that will pay off but so far it hasn't been too bad.  Books or no books, we can rest easy knowing there will always be dragons, sex, and violence on Game of Thrones.

Billy on the Street

It's hard to say what is the greatest testament to the strangeness of New York: the giant with a microphone running around yelling at people about pop culture or the fact that he ever finds people willing to play along.  Either way, the real stars are the normal people with appropriately flabbergasted responses.  Billy Eichner represents an entertainment obsessed generation with too much stimuli and not enough leftover free time to express their excess of opinions about it all.  He's a hero to the kind of youth who complain about television being too good.  He has absorbed too much all at once so he directs it at others who are faced with the same challenge and the only reasonable response is "Oh my god!"

Best Movies

Mad Max: Fury Road

Every post-apocalyptic wasteland since 1979 owes something to the Mad Max franchise.  They're beautiful, well acted films full of fiery car chases, but ironically the first couple move a little slow for a modern audience.  That's not a problem with the latest entry.  It retains the Western themes and imagery of the originals but Silver never moved at this pace.  Fury Road is an amped up cokehead fever dream with terrifically stoic performances from Tom Hardy, replacing Mel Gibson as Max Rockatansky, and Charlize Theron as the appropriately named Furiosa as well as Nicholas Hoult as one of the villain's devotees.  What's more, it looks magnificent and the script is fantastic.  Every single piece works perfectly to create a well oiled machine.

Creed

Sylvester Stallone has been trying for decades to get the Rocky series back to its artistic, Oscar winning roots.  It turns out all he had to do was hand the reigns over to a new generation of hungry young artists.  Director Ryan Coogler and star Michael B. Jordan introduced the world to Adonis, the son of Rocky Balboa's rival turned ally Apollo Creed.  In many ways Adonis' story is similar to Rocky's.  He's a nobody fighter until Apollo Creed posthumously pushes him into the limelight and gets him a chance at the title.  But where Rocky was largely about the Italian-American experience of the 70's Creed is about being black in the 10's.  Coogler's direction is fantastic and Jordan proves that despite a speed bump this year he's still one of Hollywood's most talented young stars.  Like the man said, "life's not about how hard you hit, it's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward."

Ex Machina

In an age when having 6 Fast 6 Furious on your resume gets you a job directing Star Trek it's nice to know that there's still a place for smart science fiction.  Ex Machina has no aspirations of blockbusting but instead offers subtlety and nuance in a story of isolation and humanity in our modern technological times.  Coincidentally, two thirds of the main cast also appears in Star Wars: The Force Awakens which is quite a credit to their range.  All three of Ex Machina's leads, two humans and an android, are wonderfully grounded and tender as they face their own irrelevance in a rapidly progressing world.

Best Comic Book Series

Uncanny/All-New X-Men

Marvel's top gun writer Brian Michael Bendis had a great year.  Two different shows based on his work premiered for streaming.  However, he's a comic book writer first and foremost and this year he finished his monumental run on the sibling X-Men books Uncanny and All-New.  The stories of mutants young and old, the architects and insurrectionists, came to a close in spectacular fashion.  Scott Summers' revolution especially had a grandly tragic climax with a wonderfully optimistic denouement.  Nothing happened and it was beautiful.

Batman

Whatever your feelings on comic book deaths are, few teams could handle the(a) death of Batman better than writer Scott Snyder and artist Greg Capullo.  In the four years since the New 52 reboot Snyder and Capullo's Batman has been one of the most consistent books in the DC Comics line-up.  Since Batman apparently met his end at the hands of The Joker late last year, Commissioner Jim Gordon has been struggling to find his footing as a new kind of crusader.  Meanwhile at a humble youth center , Bruce Wayne has been building a new life without any memory of the old one.

Spider-Gwen

A world where Gwen Stacy and Peter Parker switch roles sounds too gimicky to be interesting but writer Jason Latour and artist Robbi Rodriguez took the opportunity to create a fresh and exciting look at the Spider-Man mythos.  Spider-Gwen's Marvel Universe is a punk rock world full of garage bands and graffiti artists.  Latour's scripts are strange, funny, and affecting and pair perfectly with Rodriguez's radiantly raucous art.

Best Albums

To Pimp A Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar

Any music fan will tell you Kendrick Lamar is one of the best young artists alive if not some kind of hip hop messiah.  To Pimp A Butterfly is his greatest album yet, complete with everything that makes the genre great.  Lamar's poignant poetry wends over the rocky seas of the jazzy/funky music.  Even the most pop song on the album, "i," has a beautiful undercurrent of pain.  The album aims high but it's perfectly accessible, which is quite an asset for one of the most important works of music of the decade.

Tell Me I'm Pretty by Cage the Elephant

Maybe I'm a little biased.  Cage the Elephant has been my favorite band since I was 16.  However, I've never shied away from admitting when my favorite things fall short of expectations and in seven years Cage the Elephant has never disappointed.  This time, by teaming up with producer/Black Key Dan Auerbach they've struck gold.  Tell Me I'm Pretty is the most polished CtE has ever been, only to allow the listener to more precisely hear their rowdy energy.

California Nights by Best Coast

Best Coast have been making their name in the alt-rock world for about as long as Cage the Elephant but I never quite got the appeal.  With California Nights they've broken through and created my favorite album of the year.  The vocals are more melodic and the guitars are heavier.  Together they create a crystal clear sound that's less beachy and more anthemic.  No matter where you are or how you listen, when California Nights is playing it rumbles from the walls divinely.

Also

Wasn't gay marriage legalized in the U.S. this year?  That's pretty cool, right?  Feels like that's not a big enough part of everyone's "year in review" stuff.  So many people fought for that for so long.  As long as we're looking back at the year that seems like something worth celebrating.