We’ll look at TV and movies today while tomorrow will focus on music and books.
Best TV of 2011: Breaking Bad In some alternate universe where Breaking Bad doesn’t exist, I might have chosen the superb Game of Thrones, which presented a fantastical story firmly rooted in human frailty. But this season of Breaking Bad stood above all contenders. It’s now obvious that Walter White’s story will end in tears, but this fourth season showed White finally embracing his destiny as a criminal–and perhaps even a villain. White knows he’s damned, but he refuses to enter the abyss without pushing a few others over the brink first. And if Giancarlo Esposito doesn’t win an Emmy for his masterful portrayal of the meticulous and quietly raging underworld mastermind Gus Fring, a terrible injustice will have been committed.
Best Films of 2011: Melancholia and Super 8 I couldn’t make up my mind between these two cinematic polar opposites, so I’m exercising blogger’s perogative and listing both. Melancholia is a cold, beautiful film about damaged and petty people behaving badly as a rogue planet bears down on Earth. Only the clinically depressed Justine (Kirsten Dunst) is able to confront the imminent catastrophe with anything approximating dignity. The images from this movie stayed with me long after I saw it.
Super 8 is a love letter to the films that captivated me as a kid–Close Encounters, E.T., and the like. It intertwines a sweet coming-of-age story and a raucous monster movie to create the best kind of popcorn entertainment. It’s even got the requisite Spielberg face moment. Super 8 probably won’t be remembered as a great film, but of all the movies I saw this year, it had the most heart.
