Best of 2010 – Movies, TV, etc

I needed to wait a while to make this post because I don’t think I had seen a movie worth of a Best of 2010 label until December 24th. I will admit that I missed out on some movies I probably should have seen, like The Social Network, but I digress.

The best movie of 2010 was Black Swan. I saw it on Christmas Day with my family (yes, that was a little awkward, but only a little). I went in having heard that it was a very slow building movie and that the last 30-45 minutes were nuts. I heard right. The first hour or so was pretty boring with few highlights, it felt weird as I was watching it because I knew it was about to start getting crazy but I couldn’t see how it would get there. I’m not going to spoil any details, but it went off the rails pretty quick after the first hour or so, and I was on the edge of my seat for most of the 2nd half of the movie, and that more than made up for the boring start. It is no surprise that Darren Arronofsky left some things open to interpretation. I have my opinions on what some of the things meant and what happened, but that’s not something that should be posted here.

What separates good from great movies is being unpredictable. There are some exceptions to this rule but a predictable movie is boring to me. This is the reason I thought Inglorious Basterds was the best movie of 2009. Black Swan didn’t make my heart race like IB did, but it was still the best of this year’s bunch.

A few honorable mentions:

True Grit – I saw this one day before Black Swan, and it was undoubtedly the second best movie of 2010 and I had to think for a few days about which I liked better. It’s hard to go wrong with the formula of Coen Brothers + Jeff Bridges + Western. The problem with this movie, and it wasn’t the Coen’s fault, was that unlike Black Swan it was extremely predictable and it always seemed like there would be a happy ending, so it was obvious that in the stickiest of situations, the heroes would somehow find a way out. Of course anyone who had seen the original version already knew this, but I hadn’t. Still, just the fact that it was a re-make of a John Wayne movie was proof enough that there would be a happy ending. The difference between this movie and No Country For Old Men was that in NCFOM it seemed like anyone could die at any time and that everyone was in danger for pretty much the whole movie. That wasn’t the case here. All that said, it was very well written, Jeff Bridges and even Matt Damon as well as the girl turned in great acting performances, and there were a handful of good action scenes and plenty of laughs thrown in.

Cyrus – Jonah Hill and John C Reilly in a movie together. Enough said. It was hilarious. Definitely a weird movie for both of them, it was certainly a comedy first but there were plenty of dramatic elements. At one point Jonah Hill (who plays the title character) makes an album called Isotopes: The Study Of 2s and 3s, and that pretty much wins every award ever created for anything. Another huge bonus to this movie: Marissa Tomei. Oh lord. Ever since I saw My Cousin Vinny I’ve had big-time major league hots for her.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World – A very visually pleasing and hilarious movie. This was the first movie I ever saw that I wish had been 3D. Very cool concept and they did it well. Michael Cera played Michael Cera for the 50 billionth time, but it seemed better and fresher this time. I’m not sure why, maybe it’s because he was a bit of a bad ass. Plus this movie had the Marissa Tomei of our generation, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, in it. Replace my statement above about My Cousin Vinny with Die Hard 4.

Well that’s it for my movie coverage, now on to…..

Best TV Show –

Breaking Bad – Hands down, no competition. I hadn’t seen this show until this year. When the 3rd season start my friend Schwartz kept talking about it, and so I got the first season from Netflix. I was hooked right away, to the point that I ordered the 2nd season blu ray on Amazon after I watched the first few episodes because I only get 1 disc at a time from Netflix and didn’t want to wait. I caught up with the 3rd season a few episodes before it ended and had to wait for Sunday night to get a new one just like the rest of youse guyse. The 3rd season is the best season of any TV show ever. I’ll go out there and say it. If Black Swan made me piss my pants in suspense, Breaking Bad Season 3 made me full on diarhea poop-squirt all over myself (metaphorically speaking, of course).  I don’t need to get into details and spoil anything for ya, but this season was nearly perfect, aside from the Fly episode, but even still, I haven’t seen anything that can touch this. The Wire Season 4 is the next closest. Favorite episode: Impossible to pick between the final 2, so I won’t.

Honorable Mentions:

Delocated – I was absolutely thrilled when Jon Glaser got a shot on Cartoon Network last year. Delocated is a fake reality TV show, and the Cartoon Network show of the same name is like a behind the scenes of that show. The first season was 7 15 minute episodes and while there were a few extremely funny episodes (Rage Cage and the last episode stood out), it felt like there was a lot of untapped potential. That’s where Season 2 comes in. Glaser really knocked it out of the park with this one. Not only did the show switch to half hour episodes, there were more than 7 – I’m not sure the exact number but I think at least 10. So many quotable lines and amazing puns. Some new characters really brought some new life into the show, my favorite of them being the show’s new producer Mighty Joe Jon The Black Blonde (played by the always funny Jerry Minor) and of course the great comic genius of Todd Barry helps too. Sergei, who was brought in to help Eugene Mirman kill “Jon”, also added a lot of darkness and drama to the show that helped keep the story interesting.  Favorite episode: Dog Mayor

Archer – This is a great new cartoon show on FX about a dysfunctional spy agency. The title character is voiced by H. Jon Benjamin, who like Glaser I have a very large man-crush on. His mother runs the spy agency and looks like and is voiced by Arrested Development’s Jessica Walter (Lucille Bluth) . The writing is great and there are a lot of laughs to be had. I am looking very forward to the second season that starts in January. I don’t have a favorite episode because I only saw each of them once and now Netflix took it off instant streaming, so fuck Netflix.

As a bonus, here is the video of perhaps the greatest stand up comedy performance of all time, that features both Jon Glaser and Jon Benjamin. I had already heard of Benjamin when I saw this the first time, but Glaser was new to me. Enjoy.

Whoopsie-Doodle-Music Awards

It struck me as I was listening to Roy Ayers last night that I completely forgot about 2 great concerts that would have definitely cracked my top 10 in my previous post about music. So I will talk about them here.

Thanks to Britni West, I was able to go to a few shows at The Dakota Jazz Club for free this year. Those shows were Roy Ayers and Dr. John. Both were amazing, beautiful displays of music put on by living legends. It was an honor to be so close to them and hear them in such an intimate setting. I liked Dr. John a little more, which surprised me at the time because I’d never really listened to him and I’m a big fan of Roy Ayers. Dr. John could barely walk but man-oh-man, he could get DOWN on that piano. Another cool part about the Dr. John show, we sat at motherfucking Prince’s table!!! He obviously wasn’t there that night, but the table had some curtains that could be pulled out around it to make it private, and that’s where Prince sits when he visits.

That’s all for now! Stay tuned for a Best of 2010 – Life post later today!

Bobby