Lisztomania: The Best Television of 2009

Maybe I'm being a bit finicky, but I have a problem with critics around the interwebs hailing 2009 as one of the strongest years for television in recent memory. (I'm looking squarely at you, Alan Sepinwall, Maureen Ryan and Tim Goodman.)

Quite the contrary: from where we sit, this year felt decidedly weak. Perennial favorites, like Lost, How I Met Your Mother and Gossip Girl were saddled by disappointing seasons. (Specifically Lost; even as a rabid fanboy, I was underwhelmed by the events of season five). Critical darlings, like Modern Family (Arrested Development minus jokes) and Sons of Anarchy, failed to strike my fancy. Even promising sophomore series, like Parks and Recreation and Fringe, took some major steps backward. And, hey, there wasn't even a presidential election to keep everyone occupied!

With all that being said, I was still able to find ten favorites—though, like with the year in movies, it was just a bit harder than it looks. Here's my list of the ten best television offerings from 2009.

Lisztomania: The Best Music of 2009

As the magical mystery tour of 2009 Best Of lists rolls on (check out my top-ten movies right here), I thought it would be fun to offer up my favorite songs of the year. This doesn't mean these songs are "good," of course (though some of them surely are), it just means they got more play on my iPod Shuffle than anything else over the last 12 months.

Without further adieu, here are my ten favs (complete with videos). Happy listening (and watching)!

Lisztomania: The Best Movies of 2009

When I started to look back on my favorite movies of 2009, I immediately realized two things. This year was a bellwether one for big studio productions (there are only three "indies" on my list, and they really aren't that indie at all) and, perhaps not coincidentally, it was also one of the weakest years of the decade. And while I've yet to see Crazy Heart, Nine, It's Complicated or Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, I feel pretty certain about that second point.

As you read through my top-ten list, you'll notice some obvious omissions. Of course there's the aforementioned Precious, which is a movie I hope to never see in all my life. Whether or not Lee Daniels' lightning rod film is the heartbreaking work of a staggering genius or racist minstrel show pornography of the highest order (or maybe a combination of both) is beside the point. In either case, it looks so unappealing that I'd rather just skip Precious altogether.

The Hurt Locker and A Serious Man, however, won't appear because of my opinion of them. Of the two, I certainly liked The Hurt Locker more, but that isn't really saying much. The film suffers from redundancy and hand-holding and, despite much so-called "tension," it plateaus at least an hour before a telegraphed conclusion. Kathryn Bigelow does an adequate job directing the action set pieces—though, truthfully, so much of her work is derivative of Michael Bay and Peter Berg—but Mark Boal's script offers her no favors at all. That anyone can sit there and call The Hurt Locker riveting filmmaking is laughable; this is a movie that tells you within the first five seconds what its thesis is (as the title card says, "war is a drug"), and then spends the next two hours underscoring the point without any further elaboration. It's The Kingdom for people who think they're smarter than you. Newsflash: they aren't.

As for A Serious Man, I don't even have that much to say about it other than the fact that I hated it with every fiber of my being. The Coen Brothers are a very hit and miss proposition and they rarely offer any middle ground. Their movies are either fantastic (Fargo, Miller's Crossing, The Big Lebowski, the first 95% of No Country for Old Men) or horrendous (Burn After Reading, the last 5% of No Country for Old Men). File A Serious Man in the latter category. The less said about that film, the better.

And, of course, you won't find Avatar on this list either, but you already know why.

Now that we've gotten all the housekeeping out of the way, onto the list of my eleven favorite films and some honorable misfires. Bear in mind, I reserve the right to change my mind on this order immediately after hitting publish...

Brave New World: Avatar Reviewed

Let me just state right off: if you're going to see Avatar, make sure you do so in IMAX. And not "fake IMAX" either. (Hey, Loews Theater on 34th Street: you can suck it.) I'm talking about legitimately overwhelming IMAX, complete with a 76' by 90' screen and uncomfortably large 3-D glasses. Your awe will be inspired.

Unfortunately, your awe is the only thing that will be inspired. Despite the effusive praise being bestowed upon James Cameron's first feature film since a little something called Titanic (whatever that was), Avatar winds up being nothing more than a portfolio of whizbang special effects and groundbreaking technology. Whenever there is anything running, flying or exploding, Avatar is awesome; whenever there is anything talking, it's not.

The Golden Globes: Or, When Irrelevancy Matters

You have to love entertainment writers and critics: while simultaneously slamming the Golden Globes as totally irrelevant, they've spent the entire day chattering on about them as if they mean something (for reference, see David Poland and Alan Sepinwall). This is truly ouroboros at its finest.

In the end, the Globes matter as much as any award given out for artistic merit matters. By which I mean, they don't, but they still kinda do. And while maybe they're not as highly regarded as the Oscars or the Emmys (when was the last time you saw a television show or motion picture advertised as "Golden Globe-winning"), they're still kinda cool and quirky in their own way. After all, what other awards show will offer its attendees a bunch of booze, while simultaneously giving viewers the chance to revel in Ricky Gervais' biting one-liners? Answer: none.

Like everyone else with a platform, I wrote about the Globes over at the Observer earlier today. And I even appeared on The Ron Reagan Show to discuss (read: stammer) them as well!

After the jump, check out some more of my thoughts on the awards.

Tranny Claus: Recapping the 4 NBC Thursday Night Comedies

Christopher Hitchens would have really hated the Thursday night comedies on NBC this week. Because with the exception of Parks and Recreation, the other series (30 Rock, The Office and Community) were written by some very, very funny women: Tina Fey, Mindy Kaling and Liz Cackowski. (You haven't heard of Liz Cackowski unless, like me, you're a total fangirl of The Jeannie Tate Show.) And, wouldn't you know it, those three happened to be light years better than the tin-eared episode of Parks and Recreation.

Regardless of the politics of this--in reality, when it comes to comedy, gender shouldn't matter, Hitchens be damned!--it brings up a good point about NBC: they have fully embraced this decade's abundance of funny women, both in front of the camera (Fey, Amy Poehler) and behind. And with Kaling possibly lined up as the network's next sitcom star (before it was purchased by Comcast, NBC signed a development deal with everyone's favorite Twitterer), it looks like they'll continue to be at the forefront of this movement. Dare I say: NBC has finally done something right.

As for the each of the series, well, these episodes were typical of the recent spate: 30 Rock and Community were neck-and-neck in terms of hilarity, The Office was at its awkward best and Parks and Recreation ran a distant fourth. I'll get to why it has gone from "hey, this show isn't bad!" to "I love it!" to "I'm about done with watching it!" shortly, but, suffice it to say, I'm underwhelmed.

Anyway, in light of detailed recaps, here are some quick hits lengthy treatises on the last episodes these four comedies will air in 2009.

Destination: Horror: The Fall Finale of Glee Recapped

Before I cue up Kelly Clarkson on my iTunes, a brief moment to direct some well-deserved rage at Time Warner Cable.

As anyone who lives in Brooklyn, Queens and, possibly, Manhattan knows (judging from Twitter), the final 15 minutes of Glee were cut off last night due to a glitch with the Fox HD channel on Time Warner. Of course, this isn't the first time that's happened to Fox HD. My friend Kris accurately points out that at least twice during episodes of 24, the audio cut in and out, making it almost impossible to watch (I say "almost" because as we all know, sound is totally unnecessary at this point when it comes to watching the redundancy that is 24).

But that it happened before doesn't make it any less acceptable or understandable. Cable is like the subway service: you don't notice that the subways are working because they work all the time. But one screw up and you'll be throwing fists to the heavens and contemplating writing scathing e-mails to the MTA (just me?).

I get that this is a no-win game for Time Warner in that regard. But still, with the prices they charge and their complete lack of customer service (try getting an appointment within a month if you happen to lose your cable), it's no wonder that cable will soon be a thing of the past. Situations like this are why people have migrated to watching "television" on their computers. I missed the ending of Glee last night, but I had no problem watching it early this morning on Hulu.

When discussing the Comcast/NBC merger yesterday, I proposed an on-demand way to watch television, with new episodes going live at 12:01am on the day that they would "air," available for a small fee. I'd much rather spend $0.99 cents for piece of mind than over $150 dollars on my cable bill for a headache.

Unfortunately, for now, that's exactly what I have to do.

Still, I think I can speak for everyone when I say: screw you, Time Warner.

With that out of the way: how about Glee?!

Sheinhardt Wigs: What Does the NBC/Comcast Merger Mean for Consumers

Man, this proposed merger between Comcast and NBC Universal is the biggest thing to happen to mergers since Sirius and XM!

Err. I mean, AOL and Time Warner!

Huh.

Suffice it to say, massive media mergers don't really get the blood pumping. But while the nuts and bolts of what happens now that a behemoth cable company like Comcast owns a television network like NBC are above my pay grade, speculating on what it means for us consumers is not.

I got to participate in an online discussion about this very subject over at the New York Times' Room for Debate blog. Look! An excerpt!

And that’s where this is all headed: viewer convenience. The quickness with which information spreads over the Internet has given us A.D.D. of the highest order; if a Website doesn’t load in two milliseconds, it’s considered broken. So why can’t that happen to how we watch television?

Not bad, right? You can read the rest right here!

Shy Ronnie: Blake Lively and Rihanna Make Beautiful Music on SNL

The only thing consistent about season 35 of Saturday Night Live: its utter lack of consistency. With few exceptions—the wholly worthless January Jones episode, which was so horrible that it calls into question Ms. Jones’ bonafides on Mad Men—episodes have careened wildly from inspired to lame from sketch-to-sketch. There are reasons for this, of course: the cast—despite possessing talent from top-to-bottom—doesn’t have a breakout star; the writing has sagged without an election to cull jokes from; and the hosts have been largely uninspired. Add that together and you have the perfect recipe for Saturday Night Live mediocrity or worse.

Leave it to Blake Lively and Rihanna to make me remember why I still DVR the show in the first place. From the cold open—featuring Tareq and Michaele Salahi—to the bizarre final skit that featured Ms. Lively, Will Forte and Jason Sudekis literally screaming about potato chips in Southern-fried accents (naturally this ended with Mr. Sudekis regurgitating a chip into Mr. Forte’s hand), the episode packed laughs in with surprising muscle.

All that said, the night belonged—as so many do—to Andy Samberg and his Lonely Island-approved Digital Short: “Shy Ronnie,” featuring Rihanna. I could go into any number of reasons why this was quite possibly the second funniest song—obviously behind “I’m On a Boat”—Mr. Samberg and his crew have produced since coming to Saturday Night Live, but you should just watch to see for yourself.

And to answer your question: yes, Rihanna does make everything 78% better.

Gone Ghetto: Tiger Woods and The White House Party Crashers Remake Reality TV

Since the week after Thanksgiving is traditionally slow for news—this might have something to do with all that excess tryptophan in the atmosphere—it should come as no surprise that the two biggest stories from the past weekend are hanging around like that Tupperware filled with leftovers in your refrigerator. (Don’t worry: despite protestations from your finicky dad, they haven’t gone bad just yet!)

All people want to discuss are Tiger Woods and Tareq and Michaele Salahi, the White House Party Crashers (of the latter, a cursory Google search of “White House Party Crashers” nets over 1.2 million hits). And while on first blush they don’t seem to be inextricably connected, their twin statuses as headline grabbers have pushed America past a certain tipping point that I never thought we’d reach. The era of reality television might be over.