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.
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