The Best of the 00's - Danny's Best Comics of the Decade!

And so my BEST OF THE DECADE series continues. If you haven't already, check out my previous post which listed the best TV series of the 00's. Now though, I'm going to turn my attention to the world of comics (or graphic novels, or sequential storytelling, or whatever you want to call it). So if you're a fanboy, fangirl, or just curious about the medium that's produced some of the biggest entertainment franchises of this decade, keep reading.

Safety goggles on? Geek credentials locked and loaded? Good, then let's get to it ...


THE BEST COMICS OF THE 00's:

- It's been a great decade, creatively, for comics. If anything, I'd characterize the 00's as a return to great storytelling from a medium that, in the 90's, nearly crashed and burned due to an overreliance on flashy art and gimmicks that tried to exploit the then-booming collector's market. In the 00's, comics once again became less about collectors and more about readers, and that was great to see. I think that, in a way, Hollywood reminded the comic book industry how great it could be. Throughout the 90's, DC and Marvel tried to lure in readers with headline-making stories that were more sizzle than substance. And that tactic resulted in short-term sales boosts, but ultimately led to a near-implosion of the industry. At the same time, Hollywood adaptations of Spiderman, X-Men, Batman, and others reminded fans and industry insiders alike that comics shouldn't be about sales gimmicks, but about great characters, classic stories, and exciting adventures filled with imagination and wonder. The resulting synergy between Hollywood and comics has had some measure of negative after-effects, but by and large it's resulted in a lot of great things. We've seen Hollywood-bred talent like Joss Whedon and Kevin Smith cross over into comics. We've seen established comic book talent like Neil Gaiman and Warren Ellis move into film and TV. And we've seen a new breed of talented writers - from Geoff Johns to Brian K. Vaughan to J. Michael Stracynski - who work in comics, movies, television, and even games. I love that comics are now a writer-driven medium. That's not to say that there hasn't been some stunning, spectacular art produced in the 00's though. It's been awesome to see old pros like George Perez and Jim Lee produce career-defining work, even as new and unique talents like Ivan Reiss, J.H. Williams, and Frank Quietly rose to prominence. In short, I think the story of comics in the 00's was twofold. Firstly, there were some amazing comics produced this decade, in a wide variety of genres, and from a diverse array of talent. There were fresh spins on old favorites, and all-new stories and characters that will go down as all-time favorites. We had great takes on Superman and Batman and The Flash, but you can add new characters like Yorick Brown, Mitchell Hundred, Elijah Snow, and Bigby Wolf to the mix as well. Secondly, comics infiltrated pop culture in the 00's in a way that they haven't since the Golden Age in the 1930's and 40's. New generations of kids and teens discovered comics and comic characters - in movies and TV, sure - but also from the books themselves. When I go to a Barnes & Noble now, I see giant sections of graphic novels and manga collections. Kids and teens are sitting in the aisles reading and talking. Websites like IGN and The AV Club and Ain't It Cool News, and even Entertainment Weekly, are covering comics now. People are reading the new stuff, and they're rediscovering the classics (I was floored by the number of people who seemed to be reading Watchmen earlier this year). Events like the San Diego Comic-Con erupted into pop-cultural tentpoles, and in recent years has been flooded by kids and teens, old fans and new, guys and girls alike. But amidist all that great exposure, I think it's important to acknowledge the books themselves. Because at the end of the day, there's nothing like curling up with a tangible object that you are holding in your hands, navigating the unique combination of words and pictures, and letting your imagination take you to new and uncharted corners of the world.

So here are the comics that most captivated me this decade. Rather than distinguish between ongoing series, miniseries, one-shots, graphic novels, etc., I'm just going to call out specific "runs" - basically a catch-all term that encompasses all of the above. Hopefully that lets me keep things pretty simple. And of course, the great thing about comics is that there is so much top-notch stuff out there that it's impossible for anyone to read all of it. There's always new material to discover, and there's clearly many great books from the last ten years that I haven't yet tried. Anyways, here are my picks ...


DANNY'S TOP COMIC BOOKS OF THE 00'S:


1. Y: The Last Man

- Y is a landmark comic book series for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it was an epic, memorable, genre-defining story. Writer Brian K Vaughan blended action, adventure, humor, and social satire to tell the tale of Yorick Browne, the last man on earth in the wake of a genetically-selective plague that leaves the earth solely populated (with one notable exception) by women. Building on the cinematic storytelling style of comics like Preacher, Y took full advantage of the medium's serialized nature, often ending issues with stunning cliffhangers. At the same time, Y is one of the most accessible comics ever, I think. If someone - be it a guy or a girl, a comics vet or newcomer - asked me for one modern comic to read and use as a potential gateway into the medium, I'd whole-heartedly recommend Y. It's a great story that's smart, funny, and filled with memorable characters. And in the last ten years, there was no comic I enjoyed reading on a regular basis moreso than Y: The Last Man.


2. The Walking Dead

- I was late to the party with The Walking Dead. I had heard about it, sure, but I didn't read it until one fateful day when I discovered a stash of the graphic novels at work, where they were being read by development execs considering turning this epic undead saga into a TV series. And imagining TWD as a TV series is no big stretch (and it's currently back on the development slate for AMC). It's an absolutely riveting story of post-zombie-apocalypse survival, that is so intense, so brutal, and so shocking that I tend to read each new graphic novel in a single sitting. Once I start, I simply can't put the book down. Writer Robert Kirkman has been one of the best new voices to emerge in comics in the 00's. His writing is deceptively simple - his character speak very plainly, and his plotlines often play off of well-established genre conventions. But Kirkman has a way of escalating tension to the breaking point. His characters don't feel conventionally comic-bookish, so when crazy things happen to them, the effect is that much more shocking. Kirkman is a master of writing about real-feeling people in absolutely insane situations, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the nightmarish, zombie-infested world of The Walking Dead.


3. Fables

- Fables is one of those great story ideas that would probably only have come out of the comic book medium. The premise? All the storybook and fairytale characters ever written about are real - they've been exiled from their homelands thanks to an evil Adversary, and now live secretly among us in our world. As written by Bill Willingham, Fables began with a bang, practically overflowing with imaginative concepts and intriguing plot twists. Part of the brilliance was how Willingham turned familiar characters upside down - Bigby Wolf was a gruff private eye, Snow White a take-no-prisoners businesswoman, and Prince Charming a sleazy-yet-charismatic womanizer. Featuring brilliant art by Mark Buckingham, and iconic covers by James Jean, Fables eventually escalated into a full-on war-story, as the exiled characters went to war to reclaim their homelands. Through it all, it remained (and remains) one of the most compelling concepts ever in comicdom. And by the way - titles like Fables and Y: The Last Man stand as a testament to the continued quality of DC Comics' Vertigo imprint, which remained a consistent source of top-quality, out-of-the-box comics in the 00's.


4. All-Star Superman

- It's hard to create vital new stories around a seventy-year-old character, but somehow, Grant Morrison and Frank Quietly created one of the all-time great Superman stories with All-Star Superman. Morrison's penchant for surreal weirdness can often prove to be a detriment when he tries to tackle conventional superhero storytelling, but somehow, he brought just the right amount of quirky retro-futurism to All-Star to make it work. It helped that the stylized-yet-iconic art from Frank Quietly was absolutely stunning. But All-Star, a self-contained story which tells of Superman's last days on earth, was both a celebration of Silver Age, high-concept craziness and a modernist look at the existential crises involved in being a super man in a not-so-super world. DC's All-Star line (meant to be iconic, self-contained reimaginings of its most famous heroes) never quite fell into place as planned, but All-Star Superman was never really about fitting into any kind of line or marketing push - it ended up simply being Morrison and Quietly's uniquely trippy, yet oddly definitive, version of the legendary Superman.


5. Green Lantern (by Geoff Johns)

- My first couple of picks on this list are all over the place in terms of tone and genre, and I think as a whole my top picks reflect some of the diversity that made comics in the 00's about a lot more than just superheroes-as-usual. That said, if you like straight-up, action-packed, operatic, superhero storytelling, than Geoff Johns is the writer for you, and his crown jewel thus far has been his epic work on Green Lantern over the last several years. GL in the 90's was one of the most controversial books in comics, as Silver Age standby Hal Jordan went insane, turned evil, died, and was replaced by a young upstart named Kyle Rayner. Kyle's solo adventures continued into the 00's, but the interest in the franchise generated by 90's-era controversy was beginning to wane. Enter Johns, and his unparalleled knack for polishing off dusty concepts and making them feel exciting again, all the while paying a meticulous amount of respect to prior continuity and storylines. With the GL mythos, Johns faced the supreme challenge of making Hal Jordan a hero again, making that work organically with what had gone before, and also keeping the interest of newer fans who came onboard during the Kyle years. Somehow, Johns not only accomplished this, but in doing so he (along with amazing artists like Ethan Van Sciver and Ivan Reiss) revitalized GL into a cosmic epic of Star Wars proportions. From Rebirth to the Sinestro Corps War and now with Blackest Night, Johns has crafted a gigantic superhero trilogy bigger and crazier than anything Hollywood could have dreamed up.


6. Planetary

- Before there was Heroes or Fringe, there was Planetary, a sprawling science fiction adventure from the mind of Warren Ellis, featuring the dynamic and realistic art of superstar penciller John Cassidy. There were a lot of factors that made Planetary - billed as a guide to the hidden secrets of the universe - one of the most fascinating and compelling comics of the decade. One was the mind-expanding mythology, which built on some of pop-culture's biggest characters and legends (Sherlock Holmes, Dracula, Doc Savage, Batman), claiming that all the great stories were true, and all the legendary characters existed in some form somewhere in the vast expanse of the multiverse. Planetary proposed that all of it was true - an outrageous concept - but also one that Ellis somehow made believable, thanks to his use of physics and hard science in his stories (a tactic later employed by Fringe). Planetary also beat Heroes to the punch in terms of a mythology that saw a defining millenial event create a new era of human evolution, in which all sorts of people began to manifest powers and abilities. One such person was Elijah Snow, the badass hero of Planetary. Paired with the amazonian Jaquita Wagner and the silent genius known as The Drummer, Elijah was our guide on a fascinating journey to the farthest reaches of the universe and back. Rarely have ruminations on quantum theory been this awesome.


7. Gotham Central

- When you talk about the best comics writers of the decade, two names are clearly on the shortlist: Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker. Both have done seminal works both for DC and Marvel and on the inependent scene, but perhaps my favorite work of either writer was their collaboration on Gotham Central - an outstanding series that followed the day to day lives of the police department of one of the roughest and toughest cities in all of fiction. Gotham Central was dark, moody, and had its share of action, mystery, and noirish crime drama. But at the end of the day, it was a landmark series due to its memorable cast of characters. Rucka and Brubaker gave life to a whole slew of cops and detectives - Renee Montoya, Crispus Allen, Josie Mac, and many more. They wrote great stories around established Bat-characters like Jim Gordon and Harvey Bullock. And they made the GCPD into a living, breathing corner of the DC Universe. If the idea of The Shield or NYPD Blue set in the Batman universe sounds intriguing, then check out Gotham Central.


8. Supreme Power

- Deconstruction of classic superhero archtypes has been a staple of comics since the 80's, when Alan Moore and Frank Miller ushered in the era of grim n' gritty comics with books like Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns. By the 00's, those types of stories were already something of a cliche, and the overall trend was more towards classical, straight-forward heroes following the foil-embossed hype machine of the 90's. That said, Supreme Power, expertly written by the acclaimed J. Michael Stracynski, was a cinematic, totally badass update on another 80's deconstruction project - Squadron Supreme - Marvel's more-realistic version of DC's Justice League. With Supreme Power, JMS reimagines Superman, Batman, and other classic characters in a grittier, more real-world setting. How would our government react to an alien, superpowered being? How would a street vigilante operating outside the law actually be dealt with by the authorities? Supreme Power tackles these questions with style and gravitas (and awesome artwork from Gary Frank to boot).


9. Manhunter

- Manhunter is a character that dates back to the 1940's, and is perhaps best known from the classic Archie Goodwin-written stories from the 70's. But in the 00's, Manhunter was updated for the new millenium, thanks to breakout writer Mark Andreyko. In this new version, Manhunter was Kate Spencer, an LA-based lawyer and single mom who grew increasingly frustrated with the criminal justice system. Upon discovering a secret cache of discarded, superheroic weapons and armor, Kate took up the storied mantle of Manhunter, and took to the streets as a hardcore, take-no-prisoners vigilante. Andreyko wrote the series with the wit and sophistication of the best TV dramas, and Kate was easily one of the best new hero characters to emerge this decade - flawed, aging, coarse - yet still tough as nails. The series also had a great supporting cast of characters, featuring unexpected ties to past DC Comics continuity, and fan favorites like Cameron Chase and the Department of Extranormal Operations. In addition, the sleek art of Jesus Saiz was moody and realistic.


10. The League of Extraordinary Gentleman

- For whatever reason, the 00's saw a number of comics that reinterpreted classic literary characters, many of these comics surprisingly great. I've already talked about Fables and Planetary, but how could I leave out one of the great Alan Moore works of this decade? Please, forget all about the crappy movie adaptation, and go back and read the graphic novels on which they are based. Because what Alan Moore does with The League, as only he can, is to create a living, breathing, literary world that is also a rip-roaring adventure. Mind-bending, vulgar, funny, and complex, The League is everything you'd expect from one of the most legendary minds in comics history. Yes kids, this one is proof that comics can be fun AND educational.



THE NEXT BEST:

11. Superman: "What's So Funny About Truth, Justice, and the American Way?"

- This one is unique on my list in that this spot goes to a single issue of Action Comics, #775, written in March, 2001 by Joe Kelly. While Joe Kelly's run as a contributing writer to the Superman comics was a distinguished and noteworthy one, it is this single issue that stands out as a superlative story in the history of Superman. In the oversized story, Superman has a climactic confrontation with the group of antiheroes known as The Elite, led by the charismatic Manchester Black. On live TV, Superman and Black duke it out as Black berates the decidely old-school hero for being old-fashioned and obsolete. In one of the most powerful moments in Superman history, Superman proves that there's nothing old-fashioned, outdated, or funny about truth, justice, or the American Way.

12. DC: The New Frontier

- Darwyn Cooke's monumental superhero saga was a powerful, nostalgia-fueled look at a bygone era - namely, the Silver Age - that period that ran from the late 50's through the 60's, that produced a new breed of space-age heroes and cold warriors. Just as James Robinson did in the 90's with his landmark work The Golden Age, Cooke uses New Frontier to put a modern spin on the Silver Age of comics. He takes the prominent heroes of the era - iconic names like Superman and Green Lantern, and more obscure characters like The Blackhawks - and places them within a grittier, more true-to-life political context that reflects America's forward-looking yet paranoid state of mind at the time. The New Frontier is simply one of those classic works of comic book deconstruction, and Cooke mixes big ideas with bold storytelling, bringing his concepts to life with his distinct, iconic art style. In the end, The New Frontier is one of the real, timeless superhero classics to come out of the 00's.


13. 100 Bullets

- A mysterious man approaches you, hands you an atache of one-hundred untraceable bullets, and begs of you to do with them what you will, consequences-free. When the people he makes this offer to are people with thoughts of revenge, survival, or greed - how will they react to such a strange but enticing offer? This dark and provocative premise was the driving force behind 100 Bullets, Brian Azzarello's now-classic crime-noir series, which was one of the Vertigo imprint's defining titles of the 00's. What made the premise work was the vibrant cast of characters that Azzarello created - and it was his knack for moody dialogue, gripping plot twists, and thrilling mystery that made 100 Bullets a landmark title of the decade.

14. Empire

- What if the villain won? That was the tantalizing premise of Mark Waid's early 00's miniseries about a megalomaniac who actually did what he set out to do - take over the world. After so many noted works in the 90's (The Flash, Kingdom Come), Mark Waid got a bit experimental in the 00's and, along with his frequent collaborator, artist Barry Kitson, crafted this smart, dark, and page-turning tale. Empire was an ultra-solid read, and there was much demand for a sequel after its release. We never got any more tales in the Empire universe (at least we haven't yet), but it remains one of the great "what-if?" style stories of modern comics.

15. Ex Machina

- Brian K. Vaughn's other major work of the 00's, Ex Machina is a smart, exciting, and brilliantly drawn (by the great Tony Harris) look at politics, through the eyes of Mitchell Hundred, the enigmatic Mayor of New York City, in an alternate version of history in which one superpowered man was able to prevent 9/11, and use his newfound clout to become one of America's most influential politicians. Ex Machina is a great example of how comics can tackle big social issues head-on, but in a unique manner that you won't find in any other medium.


16. JSA (by Geoff Johns)

- Before taking the reigns of huge franchises like Green Lantern and The Flash, Geoff Johns proved himself a capable steward of DC Comics lore when he took over as writer of JSA. The venerable Justice Society of America, the classic team of heroes first founded pre-WWII, had had a rough time of it in the 90's. The team's adventures had come to a halt, and its founding members had been aged and retired to make way for a new generation of flashier, more extreme heroes. But there was something comforting about the idea of an older generation of heroes from America's Greatest Generation, still out there fighting the good fight and training new recruits in the ways of heroism. Johns latched onto that romantic notion, and restored the dignity to the JSA, while creating dozens of great new legacy characters to fill the roster as well. Without much flash or hype, JSA came out of nowhere to become the best super-team book of the 00's.


17. The Flash (by Geoff Johns)

- Hey, I told you that Geoff Johns has been *the* superhero scribe of the 00's - and it was his work on The Flash that first thrust him into the spotlight. It's amazing too, because while other projects saw Johns pick up the scraps of previous failed stories to create something special, his run on The Flash followed the great 90's run of Mark Waid, so in this case, Johns had big red boots to fill. But fill them he did. Johns teamed with great artists like Ethan Van Sciver and Scott Kolins to pen a number of memorable adventures for Wally West, as well as a tidal wave of supporting cast members and villains new and old. Some of the most memorable issues were the spotlights on The Rogues, The Flash's gallery of blue-collar villains. Even after the series ended, Johns continued telling Flash stories, with Rogues' Revenge, Blackest Night, and Rebirth.


18. Identity Crisis

- One of the most influential "event" storylines of the 00's, Brad Meltzer and Rags Morales' work on Identity Crisis created shockwaves through the DC Universe that reverberated throughout the rest of the decade. The premise was brilliant - novelist Meltzer penned a murder mystery in which someone had killed beloved hero Ralph Dibney, and the questions of who and why left fans rabidly anticipating each new installment. As the tale unfolded, we learned that many iconic heroes were not quite the boyscouts that we thought them to be, and the overall emotion and intensity of the story was then-unparallelled. Identity crisis not only set the stage for years worth of storylines, it also redefined the limits of what a mainstream superhero story could be.


19. Pride of Baghdad

- Brian K. Vaughan's graphic novel examination of the Iraq War was a stirring and resonant look at the high price of modern warfare. At a time when many were still gung-ho about the war, while turning a blind eye to the sacrifices it required, Pride of Baghdad employed a unique device in which we saw the carnage from the perspective of a group of lions, who were suddenly freed from the confines of a Baghdad zoo due to US bombing raids. The story is beautifully illustrated by Niko Henrichon, and is a must-read for even non-comics fans.


20. Seaguy

- Grant Morrison's tendency towards trippy, non-linear storytelling can be problematic when it exists in tandem with a story that also has more traditional narrative elements. In the last couple of years, it's at times grown frustrating to see Morrison interrupt the flow of ongoing storylines by taking characters like Batman into his own version of The Twilight Zone. But when Morrison is free of the contraints of continuity and shared universes, the same qualities that were once annoying instead serve as a reminder of why, in fact, he's one of the premiere writers in comics. Case in point: Seaguy. It's one of the craziest, most off-the-wall stories you'll ever read - a mind-trip journey into a world of pop-culture parody and metatextual comic book commentary. When reading Seaguy (and marveling at the art of Cameron Stewart), you may have no idea what the hell is going on, but you'll likely develop a keen appreciation for the sheer fun of getting caught up in Morrison's work of mad genius.


21. Batman (by Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker)

- In 1999, Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker made their first marks on the Batman legacy via the epic No Man's Land storyline, which ran throughout the Bat-titles that year. But luckily for Batfans, NML was just the beginning. What followed was a great era for Batman and his supporting cast. And I know, it's cheating a bit to lump many different stories into one entry, but it's hard to choose a specific tale from this acclaimed, early 00's era of Batman comics. There was Batman/Huntress: Cry For Blood by Rucka, which gave the Huntress character a memorable, Godfather-esque origin. There was Rucka's devastating Ra's Al Ghul story - Death and the Maidens. There was Brubaker's run on Batman and Detective Comics, and his acclaimed, noirish run on Catwoman. My favorite story of the Rucka / Brubaker era? Bruce Wayne: Murderer - a story that saw Bruce Wayne jailed and accused of heinous crimes. Under the guidance of Rucka and Brubaker, the Batman mythos became an ongoing dark crime thriller, and also high drama.


22. Checkmate (by Greg Rucka)

- Greg Rucka carved out his own little corner of the DC Universe in the 00's, and following his work on Batman, 52, and a plethora of quality miniseries and other assorted projects, Checkmate served as Rucka's own little playground. Rucka mixed characters of his own creation, like Sasha Bordeaux, with established favorites like Amanda Waller and Alan Scott, to create a dark, deep, and riveting tale of espionage and high adventure in Checkmate. Checkmate was a great example of Rucka at his best, and the great characterization mixed with explosive action made this an incredibly solid read week in and week out.


23. Seven Soldiers

- Few would accuse Grant Morrison of lacking ambition, and Seven Soldiers proved that Morrison has absolutely no fear when it comes to tackling a giant-sized, multi-layered project of unprecedented size and scale. Seven Soldiers was a massive series, consisting of seven seperate but interraleted miniseries bookended by two oversized specials. Each mini offered a new take on an established DC property, and the bookends linked the character together in an epic, universe-spanning adventure. The sheer number of great characters and concepts introduced in Seven Soldiers is staggering (my favorite is Morrison's Shakesperian take on Frankenstein), and it's hard to believe how consistently entertaining each miniseries turned out. Plus, there was some stunning art along the way, including memorable work by JH Williams on the bookends.


24. 52

- The prospect of a weekly, year-long comic book series seemed so ambitious that it was easy to imagine it being doomed to fail. And yet, if anyone could pull it off, it was the all-star team of writers Geoff Johns, Greg Rucka, Grant Morrison, and Mark Waid (plus Keith Giffen doing plotting and layouts). This comic book supergroup not only made 52 work, but they made it *the* must-read comic each and every week for fifty-two straight weeks. Unbelievable, especially in retrospect, when you look at the number of subsequent attempts at weekly series that tried and failed to emulate 52's success. 52 took B and C-list DC Universe characters like Booster Gold, The Question, Steel, and Ralph Dibney, and gave them some of the most compelling storylines they'd ever been a part of. 52 also slowly created a tapestry out of these various plotlines, culminating in an epic finale that saw the onset of World War III, the discovery of a new multiverse, and countless new characters and concepts introduced. The icing on the cake was the series of stunning covers by artist JG Jones, each one pinup worthy.


25. JLA / Hitman

- One of my favorite comic writers is Garth Ennis (Preacher), and I wanted to be sure to mention him on this list. Ennis had a number of notable projects in the 00's, following up on the breakout success of Preacher in the 90's - Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, Enemy Ace, War Stories, The Punisher, and The Boys - but perhaps my favorite work of his in recent years was his return to Hitman, one of the characters that put him on the map in the 90's. Teaming the hard-drinking, foul-mouthed Hitman with the straight-laced Justice League made for one hell of an entertaining story. It was funny, action-packed, vulgar, and surprisingly emotional - in short, all the things that make Garth Ennis comics great.


26. Birds of Prey (by Gail Simone)

- Birds of Prey was already a hit series going into the 00's, thanks to the work of writer Chuck Dixon. Dixon had created a unique, all-female team of adventurers who embarked on a number of globetrotting missions. There was even a short-lived, and not-very-good Birds of Prey TV show in the early 00's. But as good as Dixon's run was, the book got a much-needed shot in the arm thanks to a then-inexperienced writer named Gail Simone, who took the book to new heights. Simone deepened the chemistry between the lead characters - Oracle, Huntress, and Black Canary - and created some truly epic storylines as well. There's something to be said for a very successful comic book featuring kickass female leads, written by a highly-regarded female writer, that was, week in and week out, one of the most solid reads out there.


27. Hourman

- Written by Tom Peyer, and featuring kickass art from then-breakthrough talent Rags Morales, the Hourman series that began in 1999 and which ran through 2001 is a personal favorite - a time-travelling epic that was nonetheless one of the most personal and heartfelt tales you'll find in mainstream comics. Hourman was the story of an android from the future, sent back in time to prevent a coming crisis. But Hourman was also a story about what it means to be human - it was funny, hip, and darkly satirical. Part of the genius of the series was that Hourman was paired with Snapper Carr, a former joke of a character who was reimagined as a hipster slacker with a dark and tragic past. The two made an awesome team, and helped make Hourman into one of the great underrated books of the 00's.


28. Fallen Angel

- Fallen Angel was one of the most stylishly atmospheric comics I've ever read. It was the perfect book to read just before drifting off into sleep, after getting immersed in the book's noirish world of shady characters and hidden agendas. Fallen Angel told the story of Bette Noir, a mysterious city that seemed to exist on the very edges of reality. Its residents were all outcasts, sinners, exiles, villains. But hope existed in the form of Lee, the city's protector. Writer Peter David had a lot of fun with the fact that this once-celestial being was now tied to this city that was essentially hell-on-earth, and made Lee an angelic being who was, nonetheless, hard-drinking, foul-mouthed, and not someone you wanted to mess with. David made Fallen Angel a great read by mixing ongoing drama with a great sense of mystery and dread. You read it not so much to see plotlines resolved, but simply to once again enter the dark and foreboding world of Bette Noir.


29. Jonah Hex

- Jonah Hex, one of comics' iconic Western heroes, got one hell of a revival in the 00's thanks to the writing team of Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti. The two have done a kickass job of boiling down all the essential elements that make Jonah Hex such an enduring character, and have done so without watering him down whatsoever. The series is dark, violent, at times bleak and uncompromising. But most importantly, the monthly adventures of the famed, feared, scarred bounty hunter of the Old West are a consistent source for gripping, memorable, and badass stories. Suffice it to say, it's going to be tough for the upcoming feature film to measure up.


30. Superman: Red Son

- Mark Millar (Wanted, Kick Ass) has been one of the most popular writers in comics this decade, and one of the works that first put him on the map is Superman: Red Son. The story tells an alternate-universe tale in which Superman's rocket didn't land in Smallville, Kansas, but instead touched down right in the heart of Communist Russia. Red Son goes on to tell the fascinating story of a Russian Superman who helps Russia win the Cold War and triumph over all those who would oppose it. In turn, the story recasts familiar characters like Batman as freedom fighters looking to topple to oppressive regime, and the result is some truly epic throwdowns. Mark Millar is known for his cinematic, bombastic storytelling style, and Red Son has that, but it mixes the big action and "holy-$#&%" moments with a really interesting, thought-provoking story.

OTHER FAVORITE WORKS:

Jack of Fables
WE3
Batman: Hush
Batman: Lovers and Madmen
Booster Gold
Secret Six
Swamp Thing (by Brian K. Vaughan)
Invincible
Kick Ass
Destroyer
Action Comics (by Geoff Johns)
Infinite Crisis
Final Crisis: Requiem
Detective Comics (by Greg Rucka and JH Williams)
Detective Comics (by Paul Dini)
Captain America (by Ed Brubaker)
Astonishing X-Men (by Joss Whedon)
Arkham Asylum: Living Hell
Green Arrow (by Kevin Smith)
Green Arrow (by Brad Meltzer)
Green Lantern Corps (by Peter Tomasi)
Black Adam: The Dark Age (by Peter Tomasi)
Sweet Tooth
War Stories
Adventures In the Rifle Brigade
Enemy Ace: War In Heaven
Formerly Known as the Justice League
The Last Days of Animal Man
Teen Titans (by Geoff Johns)
Wolverine: Origin
Stars & S.T.R.I.P.E.
Superman: Emperor Joker
Superman: Secret Identity

- Alright, True Believers - stay tuned for further updates in the BEST OF THE 00's series!

Vay Victis for INVICTUS...? Also: FRINGE, THE OFFICE, 30 ROCK, GLEE, and MORE!

First of all ... Happy Hanukkah!

Hope all of my friends and readers of the Jewish persuasion have had a great holiday so far. For me, this weekend was pretty packed with Hanukkah celebrations (which took me from Rodeo Dr. in Beverly Hills, where rapping robot rabbis MC'd Hanukkah festivities, to Valley Village, courtesy of Valley Ruach), and hey, we've still got plenty of crazy nights left to go.

As an update, I'm hard at work at soon-to-be-posted installments in my BEST OF THE DECADE series, and I hope that everyone read my BEST TV OF THE 00's post from last week. It's been really interesting to read some of the end-of-decade lists that have been coming out. While some are pretty iffy, others have made me rethink some of my own choices a bit.

For example, over on Hitfix, there's a pretty convincing case made for why The Simpsons was, in fact, one of the best of the 00's despite a drop in quality from its 90's heyday. I considered giving The Simpsons a special mention, but the reality is that there are maybe, at most, 20 - 25 episodes this decade that could be considered great. That's one seasons' worth of episodes, out of TEN seasons. So while the show remains capable of producing pleasant suprises and bits of inspired comedy, there's no way I could rank it alongside shows like The Office, where the hits have far outnumbered the misses over the last several years.



And that's the first of many TV-related items I've got to talk about ...




TV STUFF:



- Okay, the big item on my agenda is FRINGE. Last Thursday's Fall finale had to be big, because yes, the stakes were high. Not only has the show struggled to attract viewers in a tough Thursday night timeslot, but creatively, it felt like it had been far too long since the show delivered the kind of huge, mind-blowing episode that put it on the map in Season 1. After several weeks of quiter, more standalone eps, I and, I think, most Fringe fans were ready for a slam-bang finale. And I'm happy to say that the show delivered. Last week's episode dove deep into the show's fascinating mythology, and explored the history of Walter Bishop and his extradimensional adventures to gripping effect.

Simply put, even after his great work in the previous week's Walter-centric ep, John Noble positively ruled it this week. I've talked before about how few, if any, other actors could pull off what Noble is doing here and not have it come off as cheesy, and there was a scene in this one that pretty much blew me away in that regard. All episode long, as we saw mentally unbalanced patients have their sanity restored, I kept saying that it would be lame if Walter were to suddenly be made sane. Not only is the whole greatness of the character predicated on his fragile psyche, but I just couldn't imagine how they could do a "Walter becomes normal" scene and keep it from being totally campy. And yet ... wow ... the moment in this ep where Walter had his full brain function restored turned out to be a classic. The look in Noble's eyes, the subtle differences in his speech, in his posture. It was just a stunning sequence, and if Noble doesn't get some kind of award for his work on this show then there is no justice in TV Land.

But yeah, I was unsure about the plotline of this ep at first, but when the payoff resulted in sequences like the one mentioned above, it worked. The premise was that, following Walter's otherdimensional experiments decades ago, the information he had discovered was deemed so earth-shattering and dangerous that he and William Bell (Leonard Nimoy), decided to perform a modified lobotomy on Walter, literally carving out the memories of his work. These experiments resulted in Walter's fractured mental state. But they also led to the memories actually being hidden within other people's minds. The race to recover and exploit Walter's secrets was the driving plotline of the episode, and it was exciting, interesting stuff. In fact, this episode had all the things that make Fringe great -- mind-bending pseudo-science, big action (who knew Olivia was *that* good of a shot?), and great character moments. There were some great scenes between Walter and Peter, and their father-son relationship has really taken on some interesting dynamics of late. I also have to give a shout-out to Lance Reddick as Broyles. The guy is just super-badass, and he had some gravitas-infused moments in this ep that you had to smile at.

If anything, my one complaint is that there is still a feeling of ambiguity in terms of Fringe's overarching mythology. Especially given that it had been so long since we had a mythology-heavy episode, it would have been nice to get some reminders of who the major players are as well as their motivations. So far we've seen otherdimensional shapeshifters, rogue scientists, Massive Dynamic goons, and, in this ep, stranded warriors from "the other side." All of this stuff is cool, but it's yet to fully gel into one cohesive narrative. I don't like heavy-handed exposition or dumbed-down storytelling, but I do think Fringe could benefit from an episode or two that puts all its various factions and characters into a slightly more clear context.

That said, this was a damn good episode of Fringe. Can't wait for new episodes in 2010, and I can only hope that FOX gives the show whatever support it needs to thrive for a long time to come.

My Grade: A-


- I was also really happy with the Fall finale of GLEE. In it's last couple of episodes, Glee really felt like it was beginning to settle into a great rhythm, finding the right balance in its tone and storylines. It felt like this finale was, in many ways, the culmination of all the growing pains that the show has endured so far - not only did things work out for some of the key characters on the show, but things came together nicely for the show in general. So many episodes of Glee have been all over the place in terms of tone - this one balanced humor, heart, drama, and darkness to make for an episode that hit all the right chords. There was a lot of well-earned emotion in this one - from Will and Sue's intense yet at-times-hilarious exchanges to Will's joy at hearing the glee club perform at sectionals, over the phone, without him actually being there to guide them. Rachel's moment in the spotlight was well-handled, and Kurt continued his streak of having some really funny background moments as well. Jane Lynch brought big laughs to an otherwise fairly serious episode, and I think the show has done a great job of figuring out how her humor fits into the show over the last few weeks. At the same time, the big kiss between Will and Emma felt like the big, grand moment it should have. Even if the whole thing was a little rushed due to Teri's fake-pregnancy scam being exposed so late in the game, the buildup within this episode was really well done. The whole episode had so much momentum and such a big, sports-movie like emotional undercurrent that it would have felt off if their wasn't that big happy ending. In any case, I think Glee has always been one of those shows that had all the potential in the world, and it was probably only a matter of time before it really began to click. Last week's episode was a really positive sign for things to come, and a great wrap-up to the first run of one of 2009's most unique and buzzworthy new series.

My Grade: A



- MODERN FAMILY had a nice little Christmas episode, which had some very funny moments up there with some of the series' best to date. At the same time, the episode was extra schmaltzy, although given that it was a "very special" holiday episode, I'm willing to cut it some slack in that regard. But yeah, Phil's problem of overthreatening his kids was hilarious, and his eagerness to un-cancel Christmas made for some great moments. "We're going ... to ... Italy!" was a great punchline to the whole bit. The Manny stuff wasn't quite as good, but it was pleasant enough. The storline about Cam taking in a homeless guy was the only real clunker of the night, but still, not enough to derail the episode. Overall, this was another enjoyable ep of Modern Family.

My Grade: B+


- THE OFFICE also had a Christmas-themed episode, as is their tradition. The episode was a bit uneven at first, but like a rolling snowball of hilarity, it seemed to get funnier and crazier as it went along. I mean, it was hard to get too excited about Michael's battle with Phyliss over who gets to be the office Santa, but Michael took it to such crazy extremes that it soon became pretty interesting. When Steve Carell came out dressed as Jesus Christ, that was the moment that the ep won me over - I mean, wow ("His last name is Christ. He has the power of flight. He can heal leopards”). Meanwhile, there were a couple of fun subplots going on in this one as well. The best was probably the whole Andy - Erin thing. Andy's increasingly awkward attempts to woo Erin once again made for some pretty funny moments. I also liked Dwight's ruminations on his "diabolical plan" to ruin Jim. Great stuff. The episode also, perhaps surprisingly, ended on a big beat of Michael and everyone else finding out that Dunder-Mifflin was about to be bought out, meaning that everyone's jobs could be in jeopardy. Should be interesting to see where things go from here.

My Grade: B+


- 30 ROCK, meanwhile, had a really good episode that was probably one of the better overall episodes this season. Julianne Moore did a really nice guest spot as an old high school friend of Jack's, and it was fun seeing the two try to form a new connection despite the different paths that post-high-school life took them on. While Moore's Boston accent was a bit jarring at first, there were still some excellent scenes between her and Alec Baldwin. Their whole online courtship, made possible by "MyFace," was a pretty funny satire of Facebook culture ("she just changed her status to 'weirdzies'."), and at the same time, there was an oddball sweetness to the whole thing. Meanwhile, I laughed a lot at the subplot in which the writers trick Kenneth into thinking they belong to some obscure new religion with lots of esoteric rules. Kenneth's gullibility was pretty funny, but the best part was when the made-up religion was exposed as a fraud, causing Kenneth to question all religion. As the man who opened up Kenneth's eyes, Tracy had some totally hilarious lines ("Why don't Catholics eat meat on Fridays? I'll tell you why. Because the pope owns Long John Silver's!"). Overall, a really good ep of 30 Rock.

My Grade: A-


- PARKS & RECREATION also had a pretty funny episode this past Thursday, with Leslie accused of a sex scandal with a skeevy, John Edwards-esque councilman. There was a lot going on in this one, but Amy Poehler was in fine form, and the way the scandal escalated with no factual basis to go on made for a number of funny scenes. On the negative side, I thought the Leslie / Officer Dave plotline sort of came out of nowhere. We haven't even seen Luis CK on the show in a while, and so the fact that he was moving to San Diego didn't have quite the impact it should have. He and Leslie still seemed to be in the courtship phase of their relationship (we haven't even really seen them on a date yet), so it seemed pretty abrupt for him to ask her to move cross-country with him. This episode also suffered a bit from a lack of great Ron Swanson moments, although it did have some funny/awkwardly sweet moments between Andy and April.

My Grade: B


- As always, I went into THE SIMPSONS this week somewhat hopeful, but as is often the case, I came away feeling like the episode was pretty "meh." This week's actually had some real potential, story-wise. I liked the idea that Bart was jealous of the sisterly bond between Lisa and Maggie, and therefore tried to procure a kid brother for himself. At first, he tried to convince Homer and Marge to have another baby. When that didn't work, he went to an orphanage and somehow snagged a boy to be his new little brother. This is actually a pretty cool idea for an ep, one that we haven't seen all that often. But for me, the episode just didn't pop in that the jokes were off and the humor never really clicked. Plus, as has been the trend several times this season, the ep was never given time to simply focus on one story. A whole episode about Bart having a kid brother would have been cool, but the orphan storyline was over and done with within a matter of minutes, and the ending was abrupt even by Simpsons standards. That combined with the flat humor made this an episode that never came close to realizing its potential.

My Grade: C+


- FAMILY GUY, meanwhile, continues to just be tough to watch at times. This week's ep just felt so disjointed and uneven. It didn't help that Peter's relationship with his snobby father-in-law isn't exactly one of the show's best sources for great comedy. Still, there were some funny moments when Peter took over the Pewderschmidt company. And there was an extended Scooby Doo chase scene parody that was kind of amusing. And there was ... well, I guess that was about it. Sorry, but that Hugh Laurie stuff was just lame.

My Grade: C


- Okay, enough TV - time for a movie review ...




INVICTUS Review:

- I am of two minds when it comes to Clint Eastwood. On one hand, he's a living legend, and, clearly, one of the all-time great badass actors in cinema history. The Man With No Name, Dirty Harry ... anytime that Clint Eastwood is in a movie in which asses are kicked, I am there without reservation. But there is the other Clint Eastwood, the prestige director Clint Eastwood - the guy who makes movies that are very serious and very Oscar-friendly. Don't get me wrong, Eastwood has directed some great films. Unforgiven is a classic. Last year, Gran Torino was sheer, grizzled, badassery on film. But last year, Clint released two films, the other being Changeling. And that movie was emblematic of where Eastwood can go wrong as a director. I think that Invictus is a better film than Changeling, but I also think it's problematic in a lot of ways. It never really grabs you. It never earns the level of emotional involvement it seems to want from the audience. Most glaringly, it never gets us invested in the characters in any meaningful way. Eastwood presents a fascinating true-life story as pretty straight-up narrative. That is to say, the way the film unfolds, we may as well be watching a History Channel documentary. Granted, most History Channel docs don't feature Morgan Freeman in full-on "give me that damn Oscar" mode. But still, I was disappointed that a movie filled with such a decorated ensemble of talent turned out to be so dry and flat. At the end of the day, Eastwood brings no unique point of view or insight to the table with regards to the events chronicled in the movie.

Invictus tells the story of the immediate aftermath of Nelson Mandela's election as Prime Minister of South Africa. Apartheid had ended, but racial tensions still loomed large, and the country was still very much a divided one. One interesting source of conflict was the national rugby team - for years, the black population of South Africa had actively rooted against their own country's team, seeing the squad as a symbol of oppresion and division. To that end, there was a large movement for Mandela to eradicate the team in its then-current form. However, Mandela knew that doing so would only anger the segment of the population who had long followed the group with pride. Rather than causing further divides, Mandela embraced his country's rugby team, and made a concerted effort to get all of South Africa, black and white, to rally behind them as they made a run in the 1995 World Cup tournament. To some extent, Mandela's play at national unification did indeed have a profound affect on the national spirit, and the rugby team is now viewed as a key cultural influence in helping to rid South Africa of the spectre of Apartheid.

Like I said, it's a pretty great story. And as expected, Morgan Freeman is great as Nelson Mandela. He brings a quiet dignity and understated depth to the role that, in a way, really carries the movie. That said, Freeman does a stellar job with what he's given to work with, but he never *really* gets to have that great, Oscar-caliber moment that you want in a movie like this. As I watched Invictus, I thought back to last year's Frost/Nixon, and thought of the memorable moments that Frank Langella had in that movie as a similarly iconic historical figure, Richard Nixon. In that movie, we really got a feel for Nixon, got insight into the man behind the myth. Here, for all of Freeman's great acting, Mandella remains something of a blank slate. We never truly get a sense of what makes him tick. We hear hints about his troubled family life, but never really delve into it. We hear anecdotes about his life inside an island prison, but never truly understand the kind of pain he felt as a captive. Again, in a movie that lives and dies by getting us invested in the triumph of the moment, the emotion of unity and victory, I was pretty puzzled by the blandness of our main characters.

Even worse is Matt Damon as Francois Pienarr, the star player of the South African national rugby team. Damon does nothing wrong in the role, but he has absolutely zero to work with. Honestly, I felt like he had a page or two of dialogue, total, in the whole movie. And that's a problem. So much of the film is supposed to be about the willpower of Pienarr to push his team to victory, and his determination to be a positive symbol for his country. And yet, we never get inside his psyche whatsoever. All we know is that he hangs out a lot with his still-racist parents, occasionally with his barely-there girlfriend, and is really good at rugby.

On that note, the rugby itself is boring as hell in this movie. True, as an American I know practically nothing about the rules of the sport, but still. Movies should be able to make anything suitably dramatic (hell, The King of Kong made Donkey Kong into the most exciting thing ever). And yet, the climactic rugby scenes in Invictus have almost no emotion or intensity behind them. We get a decent sense of the physical toll the game takes on the players, but, other than that, well, this ain't no Mighty Ducks. And when I say that, I'm only semi-joking. I mean, seriously, the entire plot of the movie hinges on a big rugby game, and I found myself basically just waiting for the final score to show that (spoilers!) South Africa wins. There was never a single moment of movie magic where I was on the edge of my seat, biting my nails in anticipation of what the outcome might be.

And I guess some will make the argument that this isn't that type of movie. It's a *Clint Eastwood Drama*, and therefore it isn't about flash or melodrama, but about quietly telling a chapter of history with dignity and restraint. Okay, sure, but that's no excuse for making an exciting story so lifeless, and it's no excuse for presenting potentially fascinating characters to the audience yet never bothering to make us care about them. Invictus does have its moments. Most of those involve the little quirks that come out of Mandela's first days in office, or the awe and respect with which Mandela's colleagues, advisors, and the country at large hold towards their new leader. And it felt like *that* was the movie Eastwood might have liked to make. Instead, he was saddled with this whole rugby story, and you never get the sense that Clint was ever all that into it.

My Grade: B-


- Okay, Happy Hanukkah once again, and stay tuned for more entries in my BEST OF THE 00's series!

The Best of the 00's - Danny's Best TV of the Decade!

Alright. Here it is. The beginning of my BEST OF THE DECADE series. Stay tuned for further entries in the coming days, but to start, here is my list of ...



THE BEST TELEVISION OF THE 00's:

- In many ways, this is both the easiest list for me to write, and the most difficult. It's easy because, while I can fiddle with the exact order of shows on this list, I didn't have to think too much about the shows that would comprise it. For a couple of years now, here on the blog, I've talked endlessly about my favorite TV shows, so a lot of the shows that will be covered here are old hat for me to write about. Others, I caught after the fact on DVD, and may not have ever covered regularly in the blog. But that has been the state of TV in the 00's - there's been an embarassment of riches, and it's impossible for even the most hardcore TV watcher to keep up with everything as it airs. And that brings me to why this list also proved difficult to write - I talk about this every year in my Best Of the Year posts, but the same holds true when looking at the entire decade: I'm only one man and can only watch so much. In fact, it's only in recent years - thanks to DVR, digital downloads, and DVD's - that I've been able to check out as much quality material as I have. HBO series I've had to catch up on post-air and on a case by case basis. Sometimes, I've gotten lucky, like when I studied in England in college and was first exposed to great stuff like The Office and Ali G. On the other hand, I also went through a couple years at Boston University in which my roommates and I relied on antenna signals for all our TV needs, since cable was outlawed in the BU dorms (yep, akin to cruel and unusual punishment, I know). What it boils down to is this: I've seen a lot of great TV, but I haven't seen everything. I haven't seen The Sopranos, or The Wire, or Dexter, or Mad Men. I missed out on the whole Buffy thing, and yeah, I realize that that in and of itself practically invalidates this list for some of you (I'll catch up one of these days, I promise!). But for now, here are the shows that excited me, that inspired me, that pushed me from humble college student to film and television major to would-be Hollywood bigshot. Some of them started in the 90's, but remain, nonetheless, defining shows of the decade. Others only recently debuted, and have shown a ton of promise in a relatively short span of time. These are my top shows of the decade (scripted only, for those keeping track) and I hope you enjoy the list.



DANNY'S TOP TV SHOWS OF THE 00's:



1. 24

- When I think of the show that was *the* must-watch show of this decade, I think of 24, a show that blasted onto the scene in 2001 and changed the face of television forever. The show was action-packed, heavily-serialized, and tailor-made for the emerging world of TV on DVD. It was a show that reflected the nonstop, 24/7, constantly-connected lifestyle of the 00's, not to mention our emerging fears of domestic terrorism. When the show debuted, America was sorely in need of a hero who could kick ass and take names while defending our country, and we got that hero, albeit a fictional one, in Jack Bauer. Most importantly, 24 was and is the one show that, as a fan, you *cannot miss*. It's the show you gather together to watch and call your friends to talk about. It's a show that defied the conventions of network TV, becoming darker, more brutal, and more intense than any show before it. So here's to 24, the best show of the 00's. And certainly, the one with the most (dammit all) gravitas.


2. Freaks and Geeks

- This instant-classic series debuted in 1999, but the majority of its episodes aired in 2000 - and what's more, its influence was absolutely enormous throughout the decade. This little show that could kickstarted what would become the Judd Apatow comedy machine, launching the careers of Apatow, Seth Rogen, James Franco, Jason Segal, and many others. At the end of the day though, it was simply a phenomenal show. No other series, ever, has presented a funnier, more memorable, or more awkwardly funny look at teen life. Whether you were a freak, a geek, or none of the above in high school, the characters on this show were so well-drawn, so real, that you could always, somehow, relate to them as they navigated through a perilous teenage wasteland. Freaks and Geeks lasted only one season, which is a shame, but the upside is that we never had to watch these characters graduate or grow up. Preserved in amber (or just the best-selling DVD box set), the freaks and the geeks will always be there to remind us that for most of us, no, high school was not the best years of our lives.


3. The Office (UK)

- When I first saw the original, British version of The Office, I was continually surprised, with each new episode, at just how invested I had become in the lives of these sadsack cubicle-dwellers. The Office is absolutely hilarious - one of the funniest and most quotable shows ever - but it's also a surprisingly epic journey. The Office plays quite the trick on us - it lulls us into thinking of David Brent as just a goofball, a loser, a jerk. And yet, somehow, we start to root for the guy, along with his office-mates. It's brilliant writing from Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, and a one-of-a-kind performance from Gervais. The Office was a comedy that dared to be naturalistic, dark, awkward, and authentic. Taken as a standalone work, the British Office is a bonafide comedy masterpiece.



4. Lost

- Lost premiered with one of the most captivating pilot episodes of all-time, and it was clear from Episode 1 that this was no ordinary show. 24 got the ball rolling in terms of movie-like, serialized TV dramas, but Lost ushered in the age of the TV franchise. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it was Lost that cemented the mid-00's as a new golden age of television, because Lost burst onto the scene and declared that the biggest and best, the most cinematic and most innovative storytelling was, in fact, on primetime television. Lost was and is a show for the digital age - it played on-air, online, on DVD and blu-ray. It went viral. It became a multimedia franchise, launching books and websites and merchandise. Finally, Lost was damn good TV - *the* water-cooler show of the decade. It was smart sci-fi, filled with great characters and intriguing concepts. It kept us guessing, and inspired all manner of speculation about its endlessly trippy storylines. The final season of Lost awaits in January, but its place in TV history is already cemented.



5. Malcolm in the Middle

- Perhaps one of the great, underrated shows of the last ten years, Malcolm paved the way for quirky, single-camera sitcoms like Arrested Development and Modern Family. It was also just a great, brilliantly-written, and oftentimes hilarious show. FOX's ever-rotating primetime schedule in the early part of the decade often hurt Malcolm's visibility, and eventually its ratings. But as its profile dimmed, it was all-too-easy to forget just how critically-acclaimed and revolutionary Malcolm was when it debuted in 2000. And it was easy to overlook the fact that, as the years went by, the show's quality never really dipped. It was a remarkably consistent show, really, really funny year in and year out. The show's humor could be random, surreal, and sometimes over-the-top, but the relationships between the core family members were some of the most honest and realistic on TV.



6. Futurama

- Futurama debuted in the late 90's at a time when The Simpsons was finally starting to drop in quality, and fans were eager for a show to come along and claim the title of animated comedy king. Futurama quickly displayed the kind of sharp writing, quotable humor, and great characters that made The Simpsons a classic, and it wasn't long before it surpassed its predecessor, becoming *the* must-watch gem of FOX's fabled Sunday night lineup. It's funny though, FOX's inept scheduling basically killed Futurama, so the show didn't really get the love it deserved until after its cancellation, when it became one of the first shows to find a huge audience on DVD. In fact, the show became such a huge home-video hit that there were constant rumors of a revival, which eventually resulted in a series of new direct-to-DVD films and still-ongoing talk of new episodes. Regardless of how and when one first saw it though, there's no denying that Futurama's mix of humor, heart, sci-fi satire, and kickass animation made it an all-time classic series.



7. Curb Your Enthusiasm

- Seinfeld was at or near the top of the heap in terms of TV comedies of the 90's - no question. And Curb Your Enthusiasm, as Seinfeld's older, more curmudgeonly, R-rated, just-as-neurotic cousin from LA, now stands as one of the very best comedies of the 00's. Larry David, simply by projecting his unique brand of observational Jewish humor onto the screen, has crafted a modern comedy classic - a show that still stands as one of the flat-out funniest and most talked-about on TV. Like Seinfeld, Curb is endlessly rewatchable, and the joy in watching it comes mostly from the little moments that make the show so hilarious. The interactions between Larry and his motley crew of just-barely-friends-and-family. Larry's constant stubborness, and the constant battles he picks over his many grievances, small and large, with social convention and the universe at large. Larry vocalizes the everyday anger and frustration we all feel towards the seeming ineptitude of our fellow man, and for that, we love him.



8. Arrested Development

- Arrested Development stands as one of the funniest TV shows ever made. For me, it was probably the show that once and for all killed the viability of the traditional sitcom. Because after watching a show as layered, smart, and self-referential as AD, there was no going back to canned laugh tracks and stale one-liners. AD was simply brilliant comedy, not because it addressed any great issues or tackled any pressing politics, but because it was simply great at bringing the funny. The characters were awesome. The cast was top-notch, with spot-on comedic timing. The writing was sharp and the jokes payed off. Few shows have been so packed with so many hilarious moments. I mean, come on!



9. The Office (US)

- I've talked about this on more than one occasion, but it still amazes me how the American version of The Office transformed itself from a pale imitation of the original into one of the great comedies of this decade. Somehow, everything began to click, and the ultra-talented ensemble of actors created characters that were uniquely hilarious, and some of TV's most fun to follow week in and week out. I see The Office as a show that's constantly had to fight to maintain its creative vision. You can practically see the network execs cringing whenever the show gets too dark or too awkward. And yet, The Office has managed to pull back whenever things threaten to get too schmaltzy. At the same time, I love that the more realistic storylines are balanced out by the sheer insanity of characters like Dwight. It's a potent combo, and the formula has made the show the most consistently funny network series of the last few years.



10. Veronica Mars

- One of the most unique shows of the decade, Veronica Mars combined high school drama with film-noir mystery to make for a smart, sophisticated, and ultra-stylish series. With a talented cast, featuring a star-making turn from Kristen Bell as the titular lead, VM was a show that couldn't be pigeonholed, but that usually won over anyone brave enough to give it a try. There was just so much about the show to like - the fact that it had a smart, cool, and badass female lead, the complex mysteries that kept you guessing throughout the season, the film-noir aesthetics, and yeah, even the impossibly catchy theme song. Veronica Mars is one of those shows that almost makes you sad about the state of TV. It was lucky to premiere at a time when all the networks were taking chances on out-of-the-box, high-concept dramas. Only a few years later, so much of that quality TV has been wiped away in favor of cheaper and more disposable crap. So here's to Veronica Mars, a cult-classic that was one of the true gems of TV's 00's heyday.



THE NEXT BEST:



11. King of the Hill

- Never flashy, never the center of attention, KOTH was simply a consistently entertaining, often unexpectedly heart-filled series that was also one of TV's longest-running. The show premiered at the end of the 90's, but it was also the rare show that kept getting better as the years went on, arguably reaching its creative peak several years into its run. It was a sad day indeed earlier this year when Hank Hill and company said their final "yep's" and rode off into the animated sunset.



12. Gilmore Girls

- I became a fan of GG a couple of years into its acclaimed run, and it was a show that really surprised me. I didn't think I'd ever grow to love Gilmore Girls - the very idea seemed ridiculous. And yet, it turned out there was room for both Jack Bauer and Lorelai and Rory Gilmore in my TV viewing. The fact is, Gilmore Girls is one of the best-written shows ever, with bouncy and vibrant dialogue that is just plain fun to follow. It was also, very often, a hilarious show, with a huge cast of quirky characters that fleshed out the world of Stars Hollow. Not only that, it was smart, sometimes emotional, and told one of TV's best coming-of-age stories.



13. 30 Rock

- Another season or two of awesomeness, and 30 Rock could end up higher on this list. As it stands, 30 Rock started as a show that nobody thought would last, and ended up as one of the funniest and most critically-acclaimed comedies of the decade. At its best, 30 Rock has the same kind of clever, outlandish, and satirical humor of The Simpsons in its prime. You can talk about the great performances from Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Tracy Morgan, and the rest, but really, 30 Rock works because it isn't afraid to be random, weird, and just plain insane.



14. Flight of the Conchords

- This was a show that I discovered on DVD and which, almost instantly, became one of my favorites. The awkward interactions and random conversations between band members Brett and Jermaine, and their manager, Murray, absolutely cracks me up. If the show was just a standard comedy featuring these characters, it'd still be on the short list. But FOTC combines its unique brand of humor with original musical numbers that are themselves memorably hilarious. The Conchords rock, plain and simple.



15. Prison Break

- Okay, here's where the hipsters reading this post snub their noses at me and declare "worst list ever." (if they haven't already). To them I say: grow a pair. If you like your TV action-packed and gloriously pulpy, then Prison Break rocked your world in the 00's. What started as a sort of companion piece to 24 quickly blossomed into a great show in its own right, with some of the coolest heroes and most vile villains on TV. When it was firing on all cylinders, PB and the weekly adventures of Michael Scofield were downright intense, and the lineup of great character actors who contributed to the show's iconic rogues gallery made the adventure that much more compelling and fun.



16. Da Ali G Show

- Ali G, Borat, and Bruno absolutely blew me away when I first discovered them. Shocking, hilarious, and downright wrong are some of the words that come to mind. Yeah, Da Ali G Show was a comedic revelation, and a revolution in shock-tactic TV that went on to explode onto movie screens and into pop culture. But Da Ali G Show is where it all began, and from day one it was obvious that Sacha Baron Cohen was a twisted and brilliant comedic mind who was doing a whole new kind of TV that mixed reality and scripted comedy to achieve hilarious results. Cohen's early work with Borat and co. remains some of his funniest and most provocative material of his career.



17. Eastbound & Down

- If anything, we've seen a tidal wave of fresh comedic voices in the 00's, and some of the best new talent to come along has been the creative and very funny minds behind Eastbound & Down - a dark, twisted, and absolutely hilarious show that aired this past year on HBO. Jody Hill and Ben Best, the creative team behind The Foot Fist Way and Observe and Report wrote the entirety of the series, and the show shares the same offbeat sensibilities as those films. Like The Office, it's an awkwardly funny, yet dark and surprisingly epic story - about a washed-up, disgraced baseball player who has deluded himself into thinking that he's going to get one more run in the majors. Danny McBride, a frequent collaborator of Hill and Best, is awesome in the lead role as Kenny Powers. So far, only several episodes of this series have been produced, but to its credit, I already consider it one of the funniest shows ever aired.


18. Extras

- It was inevitably going to be hard for Ricky Gervais' second act in television to live up to his brilliant debut with The Office, but Gervais nearly pulls it off with Extras. Extras is a great show in its own right, but it's also a fitting companion piece to The Office - there is that same sensibility at play in which awkward humor combines with real pathos and great characters to create comedy that also has moments of real dramatic weight. Extras is also notable for its string of high profile guest stars, including many serious actors - from Ian McKellan to Patrick Stewart - who gamely mocked themselves and created many memorably funny moments in the process. Extras wasn't quite the home-run that The Office was, but it's right up there with the best shows of the last several years, and it cemented Ricky Gervais as one of the biggest breakout talents of the decade.


19. Pushing Daisies

- Pushing Daisies was another one of those shows that you almost knew from the get-go - it was too good for TV. Maybe not earlier in the decade, but PD debuted during the Writer's Strike-shortened season in which a number of shows got cut short and lost large chunks of their audience in the process. The series never really recovered in the ratings, and it ended up as a costly and low-rated show at a time when TV was becoming more and more about creating content on the cheap. But man, PD was such a vibrant, well-written, well-acted show that was virtually overflowing with imagination. The story of a young piemaker who with a touch could bring the dead back to life was a joy to watch week in and week out. The facts are these: Pushing Daisies was among the most unique and entertaining shows of the decade.


20. Andy Richter Controls The Universe

- Yet another series foiled by FOX's terrible scheduling and promotion, Andy Richter was nonetheless a great comedy that was the precursor of sorts to out-of-the-box sitcoms like Arrested Development. The show combined an authentic-feeling look at an imaginative guy trapped in a boring workplace with a wacky sense of humor that manifested itself via Andy's oddball daydreams. Andy Richter himself got the short end of the stick many times throughout the 00's, with a string of TV vehicles that were either awful (Quintuplets) or poorly promoted (Andy Barker, P.I.). But ARCTU is Richter's best-ever TV work, and it embodies the sense of earnest yet madcap humor that he and Conan O'Brien are known for. When a DVD of the series was *finally* released this past year, it solidified the show's legacy as a true cult-classic comedy of the 00's.


21. Undeclared

- Hot off the heels of Freaks and Geeks, Judd Apatow went on to create Undeclared, an extension of many of F&G's themes and sensibilities, except transplanted from high school to college dorms. The show was more of a traditional sitcom than Freaks, but it was really funny and witty in its own right. In fact, I got a particular kick out of the show as it aired while I was a sophomore in college, so many of the characters' issues felt pretty familiar to my friends and I. Undeclared is another testament to Apatow's ability to capture the humor in everyman characters - his protagonists feel real because they are everyday geeks, not glamorized Hollywood types. Unfortunately, Undeclared is also another example (ugh!) of the inability of FOX to properly program or promote any of its great comedies throughout most of the 00's. Like Freaks and Geeks, this was another Apatow show that ended too soon.


22. The OC

- Here's another pick that some may question, but think back to when this show first debuted, and consider just how huge it was at the time. The OC was *the* buzzed-about show during its first season, and that was no fluke. The show was simply a great prime time soap, with classic characters and numerous twists that kept you glued to the TV set. I also think that The OC was a game changer, in that it acknowledged some of its goofiness with a self-referential sense of humor that went hand-in-hand with all the melodrama. Thanks to the show's talented creator, Josh Schwartz (who went on to do Chuck and Gossip Girl), The OC could have real heart, but it also knew when not to take itself too seriously. And personally, I love the fact that The OC created Seth Cohen - a character who basically broke the mold for teen soaps. He was an awkward, funny, and unabashadly geeky nice Jewish boy who was also inexplicably kind of cool. Geeky Jewish guys everywhere are forever in this show's debt.


23. Stella

- The State stands as one of the funniest TV shows ever made, and it was always going to be hard for its alumni to live up to the legacy of the now-legendary sketch comedy series. However, in the years since The State ended, Michael Showalter, Michael Ian Black, and David Wain have had a pretty successful run as Stella - an all-Jewish trio of absurdist comedians who gained their own cult following for their uniquely hilarious live shows. Stella's oddball humor came to TV with a short-lived but pretty awesome Comedy Central series that contained some of the weirdest and most random humor I've ever seen. It was unique to say the least, but man, nobody does this kind of stuff like Michael, Michael, and David. In the 00's, there was a lot of great comedy that was ultimately reality-based. But when it comes to pure, off-the-wall zaniness, Stella is king.


24. Chuck

- I remember reading the pilot script for Chuck a couple of years ago, and thinking to myself: "finally!". Here was a show that didn't conform to any of the standard genre trappings of your typical TV show. It felt fresh, it felt new, it felt like something actually written by and for people from my generation. I immediately loved Chuck's unique sensibilities - its mix of action and humor and serialized drama. But it took a while for me to really love Chuck. Somewhere in its second season though, Chuck went from being a pretty good, enjoyable show to a must-watch series that was downright kickass. The show had heart, it had soul, it had humor, it had geeky-cool references a-plenty. There's a good reason why people love Chuck, and it's a great example of a new-generation show that is converting fans well outside the usual demos. Throw out your Nielsen ratings when it comes to Chuck. This is a show that is watched online, on game consoles, on iPods, in college dorms and in cubicles via Hulu. Why? Because Chuck is one of the few shows that reaches out and grabs the younger generation, the ones who've given up on TV in favor of videogames and Facebook. To that I say: awesome.


25. Fringe

- Something strange happened to me last year. I realized that it wasn't 24 or Lost that I was rabidly anticipating every week. Sure, I was still into those shows, but for a period of several weeks, the one show that kicked my ass on a consistent basis was Fringe. JJ Abram's post-Lost TV series, Fringe only mildly impressed me at first. It felt like X-Files lite, and that is a stigma that the show has continued to struggle with to some extent. And yet ... during the latter half of Season 1, Fringe went nuts. It morphed into a freakazoid sci-fi serial about invading armies from alternate dimensions, and, zap-bang, I was hooked. The absorbing plotlines combined with increasingly stellar acting (John Noble in particular is amazing as the mentally-unstable Dr. Walter Bishop) made for can't-miss TV. If Fringe can recapture some of that same Season 1 magic in 2010, it stands to build on its already-impressive legacy.

OTHER FAVORITES:

- The Mighty Boosh
- Aliens In America
- Swingtown
- Gossip Girl
- Jack & Bobby

GREAT TALK SHOWS:

- Late Night With Conan O'Brien
- The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
- The Colbert Report
- Inside the NBA


SPECIAL MENTIONS:

a.) The X-Files

- The X-Files will forever be associated with great TV of the 90's, but I would argue that the show continued to be one of the best series on TV into the 00's. Season 7 had some classic episodes, even if there was an overabundance of cheesiness and self-referential humor by this point in the show's run. That said, Season 8 of the X-Files got darker and more serious, and was often flat-out great. Robert Patrick emerged as a great new character in the X-Files universe, and Mulder's extended absence paved the way for David Duchovny's dramatic return towards the end of the season, leading to some classic episodes pairing Doggett and Mulder. I absolutely love the Season 8 finale - it would have made for an incredible series-ender, and is an all-time classic episode in my book. The show ended up continuing into a ninth season, however, one which was a pretty mixed bag. Despite that, it's hard to deny that for the early part of the 00's, The X-Files was still some of the most intense, imaginative, and captivating drama on television.

b.) Smallville

- Smallville is a tough one. As a whole, it's had more downs than ups, and it's sometimes been a tough task to remain a faithful viewer through the good times and the bad. Still, some of my favorite TV moments of the 00's happened on Smallville, and there have been times when the show has come close to achieving greatness. I want to acknowledge that, but I also can't muster as much enthusiasm for the show as I'd like to. Given all the crappy plotlines and unending cliches we've had to wade through to get to the good stuff, Smallville is lucky to have one of the all-time classic superhero stories on which to fall back and draw inspiration from.

c.) Justice League Unlimited

- It was tough to figure out where this one would fit in on the list, so given that it was an animated, non-primetime series, I'll give it a special mention instead. The fact is though that JLU was the culmination of one of the greatest animated adaptations in TV history - that being Paul Dini and Bruce Timm's animated DC Universe, a world that began with Batman: The Animated Series in the 90's, and continued on in numerous incarnations into the 00's. JLU told epic animated superhero stories that had a real adult edge to them. There were a number of great episodes in the series run, and some episodes that beautifully wrapped up storylines and continuity that had been building since Batman debuted more than a decade earlier. With top-notch voice talents like Kevin Conroy contributing to the series, JLU was top-quality work all the way - classic superhero storytelling done right.


THE UP-AND-COMERS:

- There are a couple of series that could very well have made the list if given more time to blossom and grow. The obvious one to mention here is MODERN FAMILY. If it continues to improve and bring the laughs, MF has a chance to be one of the greats. Another candidate is GLEE. The show has been a rollercoaster ride so far, but there is so much raw energy to the show, and it's so unique, that it too has a chance at greatness. The final new show I'll mention is PARKS & RECREATION. The show faltered in its first season, but has made a miraculous recovery in Season 2, now approaching the level of quality of mainstays like The Office and 30 Rock. We'll see if Parks can really advance to that next level of comedy cannon.


And there you have it, my best of the 00's list for television. Stay tuned for the next installment in the BEST OF THE DECADE series, coming soon.

Danny Cannot Fit His Life Into Carry-On Luggage, But He Can Review UP IN THE AIR!

So let's talk movies. As per usual at this time of year, there are waaay too many prestige pictures coming out in a very short span of time. This coming weekend alone, we've got Invictus, the Lovely Bones, and The Princess & The Frog. And between next week and the end of the year, there's Crazy Heart, Avatar, Sherlock Holmes, Nine, and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Yikes. I'm only semi-interested, at least right now, in The Lovely Bones and Nine, but the rest I'm eagerly anticipating.

The one everyone is speculating on is Avatar. Some are already predicting that it will flop and collapse under the weight of its own hype. Considering the costs of the movie, a Watchmen-style box office that is decent, but consists mostly of pre-sold fanboys, will not really be sufficient for success. It's hard to say how it will do, but I think it's going to have a really hard time being a Dark Knight-level blockbuster. I mean, TDK was unusual in that it managed to attract a sizable female audience that went well beyond the target demo. I wonder if Avatar will just come off as too sci-fi-ish to really attract a mainstream audience. I know that, anecdotally, all of my film geek friends are super-excited for the movie, but everyone else seems kind of "meh." That said, the x-factor could be kids. I could see a lot of younger boys going to see this one and, hey, if it's good, it could be the same kind of badass yet formative film experience that something like, say, T2 was to kids of my generation. You never know. Then again, it could be the next Titan A.E. Okay, I don't think it will be that bad (and I *like* Titan A.E.). Personally though, I remain optimistic. At the end of the day, it's about having a great story, and few others in cinema have been able to marry cutting-edge f/x with epic stories like James Cameron.

My other big hope is that, as people start thinking about Oscar picks and Best of The Year lists, they think back to some of the great movies that came out earlier this year that may not have had quite the hype machine as some others. I mean, people are already talking about how the Oscar race this year is boring. Why? Because the best movies of the year weren't huge, splashy Oscar-bait pics? If THE HURT LOCKER wins best picture, for example, it will be well-deserved, and same goes for Kathryn Bigelow if she were to win for Best Director. But also, I hope that people check out and acknowledge movies like MOON, ANVIL: THE STORY OF ANVIL, OBSERVE & REPORT, and A SERIOUS MAN.

But anyways, one of the early favorites for Oscar gold this is the movie I'm about to review, the latest from Jason Reitman ...


UP IN THE AIR Review:

- As I've been increasingly immersed in the corporate world over the last few years, I've become more and more familiar with the type of guy that George Clooney plays in Up in the Air. Clooney's character, Ryan Bingham, is someone who thrives in a way of life that most of us would never embrace. He spends his days flying from city to city, taking great pleasure in mastering the nuances of air travel. I mean, how does anyone like air travel? I guess the experience is better if you're flying first-class, but still - you immediately wonder what kind of sadist loves airports, lives for accumulating frequent flyer miles, and keeps his whole life neatly folded into a carry-on suitcase. Ryan Bingham is that guy. The guy that to most of us, we look at him and think "I don't care if he has nice suits and flies first class ... I *never* want to be *that* guy." But that's not all. Bingham's up-in-the-air, minimal-human-connection lifestyle would be depressing enough if he were just some corporate stooge. But his job is the kicker. He is a guy who flies to random companies across the country, and is essentially a hired hatchet-man who breaks the news to employees that they've just been laid off. Because for some reason, their own bosses didn't want to tell them, so they've hired Bingham's firm to do their dirty work for them. And this, my friends, is Up in the Air - a funny, thought-provoking, and well-acted film that nonetheless makes it hard to ever fully connect with its characters. That said, I do think that this is likely among the year's best - it's a movie that feels very current, very relevant, and one that is another testament to Jason Reitman as one of the more talented directors working today.

Up in the Air is a really high-quality film, but it's one that may prove tough to talk about. Let me try to explain ... this is one that, as the credits rolled, I was thinking "wow, great movie." My immediate reaction was very, very positive. I was impressed with the fine acting and the overall progression of the storyline. But for a while there, I was shaky. Because as it goes on, Up in the Air threatens to devolve into a pretty by-the-numbers sort of romantic comedy. And the thought of that made me slightly cringe, because for its first half the movie is anything but formulaic. It's darkly funny, and also refreshingly unapologetic about its lead character. But as the movie went on, it seemed to be going down a pretty questionable path towards typical Hollywood schmaltz, and then ... well, I don't want to spoil anything, but there is a twist that righted the ship and declared that all that apparent sunshine and roses stuff had, in fact, just been a clever ruse. The way the movie wrapped affirmed my faith in it as a great character study and as a critique of a certain way of life. Like I said, when the credits rolled, my immediate reaction was that I had just seen a damn fine film.

The more I thought about it though, the more some things about Up in the Air didn't quite sit right with me. I wondered if the twist really made sense or if it just came out of nowhere. I also wondered about the tone of the movie. At times, it is dark - a black comedy. It can be moving too, because the pain of all the nameless people who lose their jobs resonates in these tough times. But the movie can also be bouncy and light, and sometimes it does seem to glamorize its characters rather than deconstruct them. It's also hard to know quite what to think of George Clooney in this movie. It's an enjoyable and even iconic performance, sure, but I also wondered if Clooney could really convey the dark side of his character. The thing with him is ... do we ever really feel that bad for Clooney when he fails at love and life in a movie like this? You can't help but think that his next romance is just around the corner, and that if he really wants to, he can quit his job, find a new one, and basically be a happy, successful guy. It's why I wonder if the movie could have been harsher, darker, more extreme in its portrayal of Ryan Bingham. If it had gone that route, it could have been more than just very good, but truly great.

As it is though, this is a really good turn from Clooney, up there with movies like Michael Clayton as one of his best dramatic roles to date. To his credit, Clooney's movie-star charisma puts an interesting twist on the Bingham character - because it forces us to look past that and see what's on the inside. Clooney also makes a great sparring partner for Anna Kendrick as his fresh-out-of-college protege. If anything, this movie is a breakthrough for Kendrick. Her character, Natalie, just felt real and authentic. She reminded me of people I know and work with. As a twenty-something still relatively new to the working world, I really enjoyed seeing the rare character on-screen who actually reflected some of the real conflict and clash of ideologies that Gen Y is faced with in the workplace. Vera Farmiga is also pretty excellent as Bingham's frequent-flyer, would-be-soul-mate. Even when the relationship between her and Clooney starts getting a bit cliched, it's still entertaining because the two do have that old-school, old-Hollywood sort of chemistry.

Honestly though, some of my favorite moments in the movie - the moments that really put the film over the top for me - came from the great supporting cast. Jason Bateman (who covered some similar ground in Mike Judge's Extract) shows up as Clooney's boss, but the real scene stealers include J.K. Simmons as one of the men Clooney is forced to fire, Danny McBride as his soon-to-be brother-in-law, and the great Sam Elliot as, well, I don't want to spoil it. Suffice it to say, Elliot has his most smile-inducing role here since The Big Lebowski.

Meanwhile, Jason Reitman does a fine job directing, and he remains a director who is at the short list of accomplished new talents to come out of this decade. I was a fan of Thank You For Smoking, a big fan of Juno, and am also impressed with Up in the Air. I guess my worry is how much sentimentality seeps into what is really a pretty unsentimental story. I'm not saying that Up in the Air should have been the modern version of There Will Be Blood, but still ... the tone sometimes seems to take a safe middle ground rather than going all the way.

Like I said, Up in the Air is a tough one, and as you can probably tell, I'm using this review, to some extent, to sort out how I feel about it. I want to sing its praises unequivically, but a couple things ultimately bug me about it. Still, I feel pretty willing to overlook those complaints, because at the end of the day this is a movie whose central message has stuck with me. Even if the tone is somewhat safe, there's still a resonant and somewhat poignant message about the world we live in today - where corporate culture has dehumanized us and made us forget how to actually act and think like human beings. I appreciate that sentiment, and think about it daily. In fact, I think this is a central question and concern for Gen Y - in an age where so much individuality can be expressed and encouraged, how then do we fit into a stifling corporate culture as established by previous generations? In the end, Up In the Air is an effective cautionary tale of one man from the old generation's failings, and the lessons that the new generation can learn from his mistakes. Despite some reservations, I still rank this movie very highly for the fact that it exists to comment on this big generational issue. So I'll have to stick with my initial reaction - that being: "great movie."

My Grade: A-


- And with that, I'm out. Stay tuned for my BEST OF THE DECADE series, coming soon!

Fantastic Mr. Blog: a FANTASTIC MR. FOX Review, Plus: Fringe, and an almost-Rant-of-Doom!

Hmm, okay, so ... where did we last leave off? Oh, right, I was supposed to be off to embark on an exciting weekend of fun-filled adventures with my old BU roommate, Chris A, who was in town from Phoenix. And that did happen. Chris and I and some other friends of his who made the journey from the Valley of the Sun had a great weekend. We hit up Hollywood, Long Beach, and relived the good ol' days when we were naive young freshman at Boston University. All in all, it was a really fun couple of days.

So as you read that, I'm sure you were waiting for the other shoe to drop ... the proverbial "but," if you will. Well, the short version is that we were *supposed* to get in to see a taping of The Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien, but it fell through. It wasn't really anyone's fault except for the security guards at Universal Studios, who for some reason had a major stick up their @$$ on this particular occasion. Suffice it to say, I wasn't able to park where I thought I'd be able to park, and wasn't able to talk to the people with whom I thought I'd be able to talk. So basically, my hopes that I'd scored last-minute guest-list tix to see Conan were quickly and harshly dashed. I am sorely tempted to go on one of my trademark RANTS OF DOOM as I write this, but out of respect for The Tonight Show and the people who work there I will not. In fact, it's because my friends and I are such huge fans of the show that we were all the more disappointed not to get in to the taping, and really, the reasons why have more to do with the crazy red tape that you have to deal with when working at a studio with multiple lots and locations, in which security is trained to be ultra-strict and stubborn. And then there's the Charlie Brown factor ... for whatever reason, I have terrible luck with these types of situations. Any situation that requires dealing with authority figures on a high horse or power trip, I just can't deal. And for some reason, despite being a certified Nice Jewish Boy (it says so right here on my blog!), people always seem to want to pick a fight with me. All I can say is ... dammit all.

Anyways, despite all that, like I said, it was a fun weekend with Chris and co. For one weekend only, the band was back together!

And by the way ... in the midst of our crazy Friday afternoon, we somehow had an insane number of celebrity sightings in the span of a few hours. We saw Courtney Cox pulling out of the Uni parking lot, followed by Penn and Teller walking to their car, and later, Adam Corrolla walking into my building. Sweet!


TV STUFF:

- Mercifully, the wave of new TV episodes is finally starting to slow down a bit as we head towards the holidays. Still, I wanted to talk about this past Thursday's episode of FRINGE, which I wasn't able to get to in my last post ...

- FRINGE on Thursday was interesting. Over the last few weeks, I've been complaining about the decently-entertaining yet frustratingly inconsequential standalone episodes we've seen of late from Fringe. The wait between mytharc-centric eps has been a long one, and even the Observer episode from the other week didn't seem to add all that much to the show's overall sense of forward momentum. This week, we got another freak-of-the-week ep that *could* have been one more merely okay installment, save for one thing: the focus on Walter Bishop. I mean, the thing that's kept Fringe afloat these last several weeks has been the great character stuff that makes the show a pleasure to watch, even when the plotlines aren't firing on all cylinders. This week though, the show really zeroed in on Walter, and it was a veritable showcase for the awesomeness of John Noble, and a testament as to just how much humor, range, and yes, gravitas, he brings to the character of Walter. Walter's fragile mental state was one of those fundamental story points of the show's premise that I had huge concerns about going into the pilot. I just didn't know if it could come across on screen as anything other than goofy. But man, Noble has hit this one out of the park, and this episode was a fine showcase for Walter's central struggle - how to maintain his dignity while bearing the burden of his past sins? The main plot here was pretty forgettable - sure, there were some nasty-looking parasite creatures that used humans as vessels to produce a parasitic super-drug (!) - but it was mostly good for a few gross-out moments. The real draw here was Walter trying to establish his independence from Peter, and in doing so getting himself into more trouble than he bargained for, and seriously endangering Astrid in the process. This was dramatic, moving stuff, and I like it because it makes the stakes that much higher and more personal when the big sci-fi storyline stuff inevitably goes down. I do still think that Fringe needs to refine its standalone episode formula though. This one worked because it was so character-centric, but it still annoyed me that the monster-of-the-week, and the characters behind it, felt so underdeveloped and glossed-over. Without compelling villains or threats, it's hard for these kinds of eps to really make that much of a lasting impact. That said, please ... just give John Noble his freakin' Emmy.

My Grade: B+


- No FOX Sunday night TV this week ...


- I've been continuing my mission to watch some of the best films of the 00's that I've somehow missed. My latest was AMERICAN PSYCHO, which I've actually owned on DVD for a couple of years now, but somehow never got around to watching until now. I really enjoyed the film, particularly for Christian Bale's breakthrough performance as yuppie serial killer Patrick Bateman. At the same time, I felt like the movie itself was pretty messy (and not just in the obvious ways ... ahem). I actually went online to read up on the movie and the book on which it's based, because I was left with so many questions after watching the movie. I think there was an odd balance where the movie was trying to be artfully ambiguous, yet never quite went deep enough. Rather than having a Usual Suspects-style "everything you thought you knew was false" moment, the movie constantly makes you wonder what's real versus what is simply the product of Bateman's potentially-delusional mind. It gives the movie a loose, semi-surreal tone, but it never completely worked for me. Still, it's a phenomenal performance by Bale, and I could easily see how someone watching it thought that the guy would make an amazing Batman. When a third Batman movie gets made, I'd love to see Bale really mine the same kind of psychological depths that he does in this one.


- Okay, I've got a couple of movie reviews that I've been chomping at the bit to write, so here's my longtime-coming look at Wes Anderson's latest ...



FANTASTIC MR. FOX Review:

- I'm a big Wes Anderson fan, and unlike many, my appreciation for his work has only grown with each new movie. Rushmore and The Royal Tannenbaums are, of course, the films that made me sit up and take notice of Anderson's unique sensibilities, but it was the Life Aquatic, which debuted to decidedly mixed reviews, that made me a bonafide fan. I was even a big proponent of The Darjeeling Limited, which I think took Anderson's quirky style to its logical extreme. In any case, I guess my point is that I was excited for Fantastic Mr. Fox, but wasn't looking at it as a potential return to form, as some others surely were. Instead, I was hoping for Wes Anderson to continue his streak of quirky quality films, and perhaps branch out to new stylistic territory thanks to this movie's unique medium (stop-motion animation) and subject matter (being adapted, of course, from the classic Rohl Dahl book of the same name). The end result is a movie that's definitely unique and fun and interesting, but one that also, to me, feels like a weird mashup of classic Wes Anderson with standard kids-movie fare. While I enjoyed the movie, I also felt like it didn't 100% work either as a great Wes Anderson movie or as a great kids movie. What it is then, is a refreshingly original film that nonetheless never fully comes together as it should.

The first thing you have to talk about here though is the amazing visuals. Fantastic Mr. Fox is a movie that you could almost just sit back and watch sans dialogue. Everything has a hand-crafted, meticulously-detailed quality to it that makes it a sort of bright, furry, hipster cousin to The Nightmare Before Christmas. It's funny though because the bright colors, multi-layered sets, and eccentric, quasi-retro look of previous Anderson movies has been fully transplanted here. I highly doubt there's ever seen an animated movie that bears so many of the trademarks of a director's live-action works, but here it is. But yeah, the detail of the sets, the personality of the characters, the pop and liveliness of the visuals really is pretty remarkable. I've never seen an animated movie that looks quite like this one.

But even as the visuals mirror Wes Anderson's live-action movies, so too do the dialogue and characters, and the larger themes of the narrative as well. As soon as you hear some of the familiar actors from the Anderson troupe doing voices (Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson ...), you can't help but think "yep, this is definitely a Wes Anderson movie." I should mention though that the voice acting is really good. That is to be expected with the likes of George Clooney and Meryl Streep and the aformentioned actors like Murray and Schwartzman, but they really do a quality job in giving a spark to the fast-paced, bouncy dialogue.

With the unique visuals and stellar voicecast, you'd expect that this one would be a sure-thing, can't-miss movie. It almost is, but as I alluded to, thematically it falls a bit flat. The tone feels too angsty and detached to really work as a movie for kids. At the same time, the basic premise of the story is too cutesy and light-hearted to fully work as a proper Wes Anderson movie. It's an odd combo. Honestly, the movie's best scenes are the ones that work on a purely visual level. That's when the film really shines - when it just has fun with the stop-motion characters and gets playful with the uniqueness of the medium. But other times, the movie is sort of boring. The nature of the visuals leaves us wanting more of fun and fast-paced action. But instead, there is A LOT of emo-riffic talking and philosophizing and quasi-hipster brooding. And that stuff tends to work in Anderson's live-action films, but here, it just felt out of place. Sure, you can have all that as subtext, but when you have such awesome stop-motion animation to play with, it seems a waste to have so many scenes that just trudge along.

It's weird, a certain contingent of critics have been fawning all over both this movie and Where the Wild Things Are. Both movies to me suffered from trying to cram a bunch of teenage and adult-appropriate angst into stories that are really meant to connect with kids. That can work when the process is seamless (check out most Pixar movies for how to do it right), but in a movie like Fantastic Mr. Fox, you end up with a disconnect between the basic concept of the story and the voice of the filmmaker.

Still, I did enjoy the movie and I do think it's worth checking out. There are some funny moments, and the visuals alone are worth taking in on a big-screen. I think this one will ultimately prove semi-forgettable though. Personally, I look forward to seeing Wes Anderson make movies that will instead, like his best films, leave a lasting impression.

My Grade: B



Alright ... next up: a review of UP IN THE AIR!

Quick Comcastic Thoughts on: Glee, The Office, 30 Rock, and MORE!

As a great man once said, it's been a long time since I rapped at ya'.

It's been a pretty crazy couple of days, that's for sure. At work, it's been nuts for various reasons, not least of which is the big COMCAST takeover of NBC Universal. I've been watching and speculating on the news just like everyone else, so I'm curious to see where things go from here. It seems like the general consensus is that it will be several months before any substantial changes occur and the deal is actually closed, but hey, you never know. I do think the opportunity to work with Comcast cable nets like G4 is exciting though, and, yeah ... never a dull moment here in Hollywood.

Anyways, despite my current state of semi-exhaustion, this weekend is shaping up to be a memorable one. My old BU roomie Chris A is in town from Phoenix, and we are scheduled to hit up today's taping of THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH CONAN O'BRIEN. Believe it or not, I've never been to a Conan taping before. Sure, I interned at Late Night, but I've never actually been there as just a regular member of the Conan audience. So yeah, I'm psyched.

BTW, if you didn't see Conan's tribute to Comcast, check it out here:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/112785/the-tonight-show-with-conan-obrien-comcastic-spectacular

Otherwise, lots of movie and TV items to talk about, so, here we go:


TV STUFF:

- I really liked GLEE this week. To me, this was really an episode that fired on all cylinders, and it may very well have been the best overall episode of the show to date. For once, it felt like all the elements that make Glee pop were present in a single ep. There was the high school drama of Quinn and Fynn and Rachel, the long-running and semi-problematic fake pregnancy storyline finally came to a head, and Sue Sylvester had some great comedic moments to boot. Seriously though, it was so satisfying to see Will finally wake up from his slumber and figure out that his wife was not actually pregnant. The confrontation scene was really well done - some fine acting from Matthew Morrison. This was a great example of how serious and dark Glee can be when it wants to, but at the same time, Jane Lynch was 100% on her game in this one, and had some hilarious scenes with Will and Quinn (the fact that she had her tear ducts removed, because she didn't need 'em anymore? hilarious!) Plus, the whole "Jump" cover was fun - Van Halen on Glee is never a bad thing in my book. So yeah, something about this episode clicked for me - the balance between real drama, humor, darkness, and fun seemed right. If Glee can maintain this tone and really ramp up some of the big storylines going forward (and it looks like they'll be doing just that in next week's fall finale), then I will definitely be on-board as a longterm fan.

My Grade: A-

- Man, I thought last night's episode of THE OFFICE was downright brilliant. I love episodes like this that give the finger to the conventions of network-TV comedy and dare to be out and out dark and $%#%-ed up. I mean, the premise of this episode was incredible - we learn that ten years ago, Michael Scott made a promise to a group of underprivelaged kids knowns as the Scott Tots. His promise? That he would pay for all of their college tuitions. Yeah, seriously. Michael deluded himself into thinking that in ten years' time he'd be a billionaire, and the kids deluded themselves into thinking that this guy was legit. In any case, the fact that Michael is apparently poorer now than he was ten years ago, and now had to own up to his decade-long lie, made for absolutely hilarious and oh-so-wrong comedic moments. Michael's combination of joy and embarassment as the kids sung songs, danced, and gave speeches in his honor was just classic. The fact that Michael tried to appease the kids by buying them laptop computer batteries ("they're lithium!") was the icing on the cake. Meanwhile, the subplot back at The Office was a little hard to swallow, but at the same time made for some very funny moments, as Dwight engineers a plan to get Jim in trouble. Dwight convinces Jim to institute and Employee of the Month program based on merit, which works out so that Jim ... unknowingly makes himself Employee of the Month. The whole debacle turns the office squarely against Jim, and ties nicely into Dwight's diabolical scheme to take Jim down. While the office members did come off as a bit dense for buying into Dwight's plotting, the crew doubting Jim made for maybe the funniest line of the night: Creed popping up and asking "do we even know if Pam is really pregnant?". Creed = awesomeness. I also liked the ending scene, with Ryan joining forces with Dwight to form an unholy alliance of douchebaggery. Really though, this was an episode about Michael Scott plumbing new depths of idiocy and self-delusion. The sheer audacity of the premise has me smiling just thinking about it. Great stuff.

My Grade: A-

- And how about 30 ROCK? Well, I thought it was a pretty decent episode, although the main storylines didn't have quite the comic bang I was hoping for. I mean ... Tracy trying to quickly become an "Egot" (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) winner in order to convince his wife to have another baby? Sort of hilarious, but only a few awesome lines came out of it where I was expecting several moments of comedic gold. Similarly, I liked Liz Lemon's inner "performer" coming out as she prepared to host her own talk show. The Excorcist-like demonic side of Performer Liz was pretty amusing, as was Frank's unwitting transformation into a psuedo-Liz when he assumed the reigns of head writer for TGS. It was a funny ep, sure, but just didn't quite hold up to The Office episode before it.

My Grade: B


Okay, got to run, but coming up next: FRINGE thoughts, and a review of Fantastic Mr. Fox!

Have a great weekend!