Just finished reading Live from New York, an oral history of Saturday Night Live. Haven’t watched the show regularly in a long time, but the book reminded me how much I loved this show throughout most of my life. Every era has some great stuff, but as far as the book goes, the most interesting stories are (unsurprisingly) from the first five (best) seasons. Still, there’s some really fascinating stuff about Norm MacDonald’s “Weekend Update” and Janeane Garofalo’s bad experience with the show. The least interesting stuff is in the last chunk of the book—the Will Ferrel/Tracy Morgan/etc. years. While I enjoy a lot of that period of the show, most of them are pretty boring people comapred to Bill Murray or Phil Hartman. I’d love to see the book updated, since it’s ten years old now. Really fun read, and much, much better than the Simpsons oral history.
2011 in review
2011 was a year in which I consumed a lot less film, comics, television, and music than I have in years past. I made no real attempt to “catch up” in the last few weeks, so as a result, the following lists may have an incomplete feeling. Regardless, these were my favorites.
note: I only read one 2011 book in 2011 (Supergods by Grant Morrison—it’s good), so that explains the lack of a book section.
FILM
1. Hugo (dir. Martin Scorsese)
2. Midnight in Paris (dir. Woody Allen)
3. Tabloid (dir. Errol Morris)
4. Drive (dir. Nicholas Winding Refn)
5. Rise of the Planet of the Apes (dir. Rupert Wyatt)
Honorable Mentions- The Adventures of Tintin, Super 8, Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop, The Captains, The Muppets, Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Worst movie of the year- Larry Crowne (dir. Tom Hanks)
COMICS
1. The Unwritten by Mike Carey and Peter Gross
2. Batman, Inc. by Grant Morrison, Chris Burnham, et al.
3. Hellblazer by Peter Milligan, Giuseppe Camuncoli, et al.
4. Echo/Rachel Rising by Terry Moore
5. Daredevil by Mark Waid, Paolo Rivera, and Marcos Martin
Honorable Mentions- Action Comics, Spaceman, iZombie, Morning Glories, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Wolverine and the X-Men, Usagi Yojimbo, RASL, Justice League Dark, X-Men: Schism, FF, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Faith, Planet of the Apes
Worst Comic of the Year- Fear Itself by Matt Fraction and Stuart Immonen (feel my disdain in three different posts!)
TELEVISION
1. Community
4. Beavis and Butt-head
5. Curb Your Enthusiasm
Honorable mentions- 30 Rock, The Simpsons (These are the only seven shows I watched with any regularity, though I’d heartily recommend this past season of all of them.)
MUSIC
1. Watch the Throne by Jay-Z and Kanye West
2. Alone III: The Pinkerton Years by Rivers Cuomo
3. Belong by The Pains of Being Pure At Heart
4. EP/Camp by Childish Gambino
5. The King is Dead by The Decemberists
Honorable mentions- Milk by The Lunatic, Hey, There’s Tommy! Hey, Tommy… Where’s Mom and Dad? by Humming Bird, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds (self-titled), Castor, The Twin by Dessa, Take Care by Drake, Suck it and See by Arctic Monkeys, Submarine by Alex Turner
Parks and Recreation- “End of the World”
This show gets better and better. This episode may be my favorite. Tom’s party (“I am a party scientist. Welcome to my Laboratory.”), Leslie/Ben stuff, and April and Andy’s spontaneous trip to the Grand Canyon (not to mention the hilarious Burt Maclin/Janet Snakehole “action movie” with Jerry playing the villain). Season four was off to a slow start, but this episode has justified most of that slowness.
I started watching Parks and Recreation last week after a relatively long period of disinterest. I normally am not a big fan of “mockumentary” sitcoms, although I like the British version of The Office and a few episodes of the American version. It just seems like a gimmick that has long tired itself out. While Parks and Recreation doesn’t do much to change my view on that aspect of the show, it is incredibly funny, consistently. My favorite characters are definitely Tom Haverford, Ron Swanson, and Andy, but I’ve grown to like everyone. About halfway through season 2 right now. I’ll probably catch up to it over the break.
Started watching Cheers from the beginning on Netflix yesterday. It’s a show I’ve always loved, but I don’t think I had ever seen the pilot before. Unlike the majority of sitcom pilots, “Give Me a Ring Sometime” is pretty much Cheers, fully formed. Perhaps it’s because the basic premise of the show is pretty easy to set up, but it remains one of the best episodes of the ten I’ve gone through so far. Cheers pulls off a good balance of strong character moments and a mixture of subtle and broad comedy. It’s a classic show for a reason.
Note- Diane, who I never really cared about when I watched the show as a kid, is now pretty easily my favorite character. Shelly Long seems capable of pulling off any type of comedic acting. Also, Cheers probably has my favorite intro/theme sequence of any TV show, for whatever that’s worth.
