{"id":4557,"date":"2015-12-28T18:53:06","date_gmt":"2015-12-29T00:53:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/?p=4557"},"modified":"2015-12-28T18:53:06","modified_gmt":"2015-12-29T00:53:06","slug":"the-year-in-awesome-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/?p=4557","title":{"rendered":"The Year In Awesome: Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You didn&#8217;t think I would let the year end without offering my annual and entirely unsolicited take on my favorite slices of pop culture from the past year, did you?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>TV:\u00a0<\/strong>Even I had a difficult time keeping up with the overwhelming quantity of\u00a0scripted and unscripted television that networks and streaming outlets produced this year. It&#8217;s an embarrassment of riches, but I wonder how long this can go on before\u00a0economic forces catch up with the ambitions of creators and executives. As in past years, shows like <em>Game of Thrones<\/em> and <em>The Walking Dead<\/em> kept me thoroughly entertained, even if the writers made some questionable plotting decisions along the way. Amazon&#8217;s <em>The Man in the High Castle<\/em>, a visually stunning adaptation of\u00a0Philip K. Dick&#8217;s alternate history novel, is a grim look at life in an occupied America. \u00a0Netflix&#8217;s <em>Jessica Jones<\/em> took a minor character from the Marvel universe and delivered a gripping noir that addresses the lingering aftermath of sexual assault and challenges our traditional notions of villainy. And Stephen Colbert made <em>The Late Show<\/em> his own, demonstrating that his wit and intelligence could thrive beyond the confines of the character that he played for the past nine years.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Movies:\u00a0<\/strong>I had a lot of fun at the opening day of <em>Star Wars: The Force Awakens<\/em>. While the script calls out the first movie in ways both obvious and subtle, this is definitely a Star Wars film for the 21st century. The younger cast members, particularly Daisy Ridley and John Boyega, are a pleasure to watch and I can&#8217;t wait to see what the next episode brings. But the movie that captivated me the most this year was <em>Mad Max: Fury Road<\/em>. The title is misleading because Max isn&#8217;t the movie&#8217;s focus; it&#8217;s the young women escaping a predatory tyrant and their champion, Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron). This is their story and Max is quite literally along for the ride. And it&#8217;s a ride that is brilliantly executed by director George Miller, a demented car chase through a Technicolor wasteland that features actual cars careening into each other. Also, a flame-throwing electric guitar.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Later this week: music and books!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You didn&#8217;t think I would let the year end without offering my annual and entirely unsolicited take on my favorite slices of pop culture from the past year, did you? TV:\u00a0Even I had a difficult time keeping up with the overwhelming quantity of\u00a0scripted and unscripted television that networks and streaming outlets produced this year. It&#8217;s <a href='https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/?p=4557' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pop-culture","category-11-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Iwau-1bv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4557"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4558,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4557\/revisions\/4558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}