The End of Year Tally

2008: nice knowin' ya. Here's what your saucy trails left behind.  

Best in Show

 DRAMA

Mad Men.

Oh, Mad Men. How do I love thee? Let me inappropriately hit on the ways. In its second season, everything about Mad Men I loved was warped and rendered impotent: the changing times made youth the new buzzword and the old guard looked rigidly traditional, the excessive drinking got once-ballyhooed employees quietly fired, and his wicked ways nearly cost Don his home, his wife and his suit as he went on a bizarre pilgrimage to California (actually, the part where he was kind of naked was pretty awesome; also awesome was all that completely hot!bad!wrong! sex he found himself having. Oh, I am a fan in so many, many ways). And in the end, we were back at the beginning- with Betty and Don together, Pete without Peggy or a prayer and those things left unsaid loudly exposed- but it had changed imperceptively yet distinctly, like a party dress worn the next day. The end of season two was a quiet riot that'll ripple into the next. 

 Dexter

In other news, Michael C. Hall continued to confuse my delicate sensibilities as the inexplicably attractive sociopath Though, I suppose next to the overbearing Jimmy Smits, a potted plant would be sexy (future note, Jimmy: “yelling” is not a synonym for “acting.”). Its third season had an excruciatingly slow start, but once it took off, it went running. But once again, it does tend to fall back on its own worn-in tropes: Dexter is given a seeming soul mate only to be forced to exterminate them; La Guerta has poor taste in friends and feels betrayed; Harry Morgan is a douchebag. 

For the win: Mad Men, because at least its sociopaths have an attractively human veneer.

COMEDY

How I Met Your Mother

I remember the announcement of How I Met Your Mother in the din of other sitcoms that would ultimately prove a disappointment. It sounded stupid: a father relays the entire story of how he met the mother of his children to said kids. But check this out: How I Met Your Mother is, dare I say it, amazing, sweet, hilarious and heart-rending. It only gets funnier with time and repeat watching. It corners that nebulous period in between leaving your natural family and starting your own, when your friends and lovers are the only family you need, and pinpoints the exact bittersweet tinge of this gradually evolving lifestyle. It’s a show that blows continuity out of the water (a gag set up in one episode may not pay off for three) and doesn’t waste one of its considerably talented cast members.

30 Rock

30 Rock, on the other hand, corners a far more specific 30 something: the neurosis-fuelled, post-Oprahfied single woman. Skimming the footsteps left by her more obvious ancestors (from Mary Tyler Moore to That Girl--which yes, I remember despite being a ‘maybe someday’ in my mother’s vocabulary at the time of its release), Tina Fey rocks the single girl instability with more candor and honesty than her spiritual foremothers. Plus, here’s Alec Baldwin at his most sexually confusing to tide you over! (WHY AM I ATTRACTED TO HIM?!?)

For the win: How I Met Your Mother. Anything that puts money directly into the bank account of the ridiculously talented comeback kid Neil Patrick Harris is the winner of basically everything.

Best in Suit: Um, even having a category suggests there's anyone other than Don Draper who could take this distinct honor. And I’m insulted by the possibility.

Best in Buff: Is it just me, or should Daniel Craig, Robert Downey Jr. and Kate Winslet just never wear clothes again? It seems like such a waste of effort on their part. Or at least wear as little as possible.  OR! Just make a series of 1930s throwback pictures where they lie around smoking and bantering in various states of undress. NOTE: this is probably one of my better ideas. 

Honorable mention: Chace Crawford, if you’re not going to take off your shirt, at least help your friend and co-star Ed Westwick do so. Honestly. Do I have to do everything around here? Because I’m okay with that.

 Most Bittersweet Inevitability: 

 Best in Film

 The Dark Knight: Hype that’s well-earned, for once. Bless the socks of anyone in this film whose name doesn’t rhyme with “wreath,” because they were overshadowed by his powerhouse, celluloid-shaking turn as the Joker. There’s not much to say that hasn’t been said already.

 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days: Nuanced, gripping and tedious in a way that feels like friendship, this little film about repressed liberties haunted my synapses for way too long.

 Frost/Nixon: I just…I just can’t deal with the fact I’ve placed a Ron Howard film on any list of mine, so I’ll leave it at this: YAY SAM ROCKWELL. 

 Vicky Cristina Barcelona: Charming, frothy and still thought-provoking, Woody Allen granted me the mercy of making Javier Bardem attractive again. Woody: thank you for this. No, seriously.

 Iron Man: Look. Ain’t no better time onscreen than watching Robert get his Downey Jr. on. The marriage of superhero and cool have never blended so logically; in the past, it was a relationship that needed work and a lot of special effects, but in Downey’s hands it becomes an afterthought. His Tony Stark is snickering at us the whole time: “You thought that was cool? Give me two seconds. Ha. See? I know. I’m awesome.”

  

The Spielberg Award for Artistic Echo 2008

 An award that goes out every year to the filmmaker that most clearly exhibits a trademark fascination with a certain subject, movie after movie. Named for Steven Spielberg, who likes to fall back on his artistic themes like a junkie falls behind on the rent, this award commemorates those in filmmaking who, though they do it well, do it often.

 Previous winners include Adrian Lyne (“Hey everyone! I like adultery! Ask me why!”), Sam Mendes (“The suburbs blow—permit me to demonstrate.”), and Stanley Kubrick (“Dear human race: FUCK YOU.”).

 This year’s winner is…

Steven Spielberg, for a stunning return to extraterrestrials! Just when you thought he got it out of his system, folks, it crops up again in the latest ode to B-movie serials, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (sidenote: did someone get paid by the letter for that title?). All those madcap caper flicks and serious dramas couldn’t distract him forever: Steven has a serious thing for the otherworldly, the unexplained, the big-headed and eight-fingered. Steven, darling—I love you. But you really need to get over this little fixation on outer space. It’s beginning to embarrass us all. Out of his entire filmography (both as director and producer) I counted no less than 12 films with either explicit or implicit connections to aliens. Steven, this is too many. Admit it--deep down, if you could have found a way to blame Jaws on little green men? You would have.

 Oh my God. You did, didn’t you? Oh, Steven.

 Extra points awarded because  The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull  managed to straddle at least two more of Spielberg’s old standbys. First up, the unresolved daddy issues: Shiiiiiiiia LeBeouf (goddamn, I love that kid) shows up to give Indy a chance to muse on the disappointed daddy syndrome left dangling by The Last Crusade. Marion is such a whore. Anyway, it’s a big thing with Spielberg: guys and their dads. Never growing up. Etc, etc.

 That being said, Shia LeBeouf is awesome. The fact that his entire character is a thinly veiled attempt to piss off Marlon Brando’s already pissed off ghost made my decade (ps. The Wild One called—it wants its DVD cover back).

 Which leads me to item two: pop culturbation. Steven knows his pop culture, that’s for sure. Between the ode to 1950s greasers (the only time I actually enjoyed myself in the entire running time) and the thwarted attempt to capture the golden age of campy sci-fi, Spielberg had the outlines of something real good. Which brings us back to the insertion of aliens, and the unfortunate fixation therein. Oh Steven. You may be a broken record, but it’s one I like to listen to.