. . .

1980 - The Empire Strikes Back
1981 - Stripes
1982 - Fitzcarraldo
1983 - The Right Stuff
1984 - The Karate Kid
1985 - Rocky IV
1986 - Hannah and Her Sisters
1987 - Lethal Weapon
1988 - Die Hard
1989 - Major League
1990 - Goodfellas
1991 - Terminator 2: Judgment Day
1992 - Under Siege
1993 - Dazed and Confused
1994 - Pulp Fiction
1995 - Kicking and Screaming
1996 - Beautiful Girls
1997 - Boogie Nights
1998 - The Big Lebowski
1999 - Three Kings
2000 - High Fidelity
2001 - The Royal Tenenbaums
2002 - City of God
2003 - All the Real Girls
2004 - Kill Bill: Vol. 2
2005 - The 40 Year Old Virgin
2006 - Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
2007 - Zodiac
2008 - The Dark Knight

Labels: movies

As awful a year as 2008 was in most respects, TV was a rare bright spot. Some thoughts:

• The Shield was the best show on TV this year. I've had my doubts about the show before, specifically in the show's attitude towards Vic. Any show/movie/book that has an evil main character runs the risk of over-glamorizing that character.¹ Just look at the cult that's surrounded Tony Montana of Scarface.² Vic is a bad cop and thoroughly evil person, but since he's funny, charismatic, and his adversaries (Claudette, Dutch, Aceveda, etc.) aren't sympathetic, a good portion of the audience ends up rooting for Vic to succeed. Anyway, The Shield's season finale, where Claudette lays out Shane's confession and the crime scene photos for Vic to see, at least let me know where the show itself stood on Vic's behavior, even if that probably didn't convince any of the show's less thoughtful viewers.

• Mad Men, if you've never seen it but are considering watching it, is not for everyone. Remember how The Sopranos got towards the end of its run, with a lot of atmosphere and not much plot? Remember how there were still enough mob drama elements in it that it kept the casuals teased that something more was coming³? Mad Men is like that. Very little happening, but everything happening, if that makes sense.

• The Office:

  • • I really hate Jim. At the beginning, he had that emo-boy, unrequited love thing with Pam that made him pretty sympathetic, but now he's just a smug asshole, and has a completely unearned superiority complex over the rest of his coworkers. However, the show recognizes this and comments on it.⁴. Jim isn't awesome; he's a deeply flawed person, as opposed to a sitcom character.⁵

    • That's something I really like about this show – its willingness to let its characters be mediocre. In most other sitcoms⁶, when Pam went off to “art school”, she would have passed with flying colors. Instead, she straight-up flunked out and came crawling back to Scranton, her terrible receptionist job, and a married life with Jim in Jim's parents' house. The look on her face in that scene as she came to grips with her failure was sad and wonderful at the same time.

    • Michael, well really, Steve Carell holds this show together. I'm just in awe of his performance at times. If he ever leaves, they should just shut the show down, because no other actor could carry this thing.

    ---

    Footnotes:

    1. The reverse – “good” characters being hated by the audience – can also be a problem. The Jedi in various incarnations of the Star Wars universe are generally lame, forcing me to cheer for Darth Vader and the Emperor, and for George Lucas to turn Darth Vader into a irritating, lovesick little bitch in the prequels. Another example would be me rooting for that crackhead to kill David in that episode of Six Feet Under, or more precisely, for anything to happen.

    2. The Sopranos' creators noticed this problem but tried to solve it by making the entire show unwatchable for the last three seasons. Mission accomplished.

    3. Remember all the hilarious, hysterical speculation about how the finale was going to be so incredible, and then nothing happened? That was awesome.

    4. See the fake survey Kelly wrote up in “Customer Survey”, and also cokehead Ryan's criticisms of Jim when he was trying to force him out last season.

    5. Which he is, of course, but you know what I mean.

    6. Example: in How I Met Your Mother, how Ted is apparently some superstar architect, when he's really just an annoying douche.

Labels: TV

Explanations may come later. Note that this list is made up of things I saw/read in 2008, as opposed things that were released in 2008.

Movies
1. The Dark Knight
2. There Will Be Blood
3. The Rules of the Game
4. In Bruges
5. Once
6. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
7. Pineapple Express

Honorable Mentions:
Into the Wild, The King of Kong, Rescue Dawn, Rififi, Son of Rambow

Television
1. The Shield
2. Generation Kill
3. Mad Men
4. The Wire
5. The Office
6. Battlestar Galactica
7. Spaced

Honorable Mentions:
30 Rock, Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, Carrier, Dexter, How I Met Your Mother, My Boys

Music
1. Stay Positive / The Hold Steady
2. Brighter Than Creation's Dark / Drive-By Truckers

Books
1. Tree of Smoke / Denis Johnson
2. Watchmen / Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
3. Stalingrad / Antony Beevor
4. Game of Thrones / George R.R. Martin
5. Downtown Owl / Chuck Klosterman

Honorable Mentions:
Too many to list; see my Goodreads page.

Labels: books, movies, music, TEG, TV