10. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (Disney+)
9. Hawkeye (Disney+)
8. The Wheel of Time (Amazon)
7. WandaVision (Disney+)
6. Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO)
5. Loki (Disney+)
4. I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson (Netflix)
3. MacGruber (Peacock)
2. Squid Game (Netflix)
1. Succession (HBO)
Although the eighth season of Curb Your Enthusiasm lacked a strong central storyline like the show had in previous years, it was still strong enough to be one of the show's best, just by pure funniness. Larry David still has story credit on every episode, but this is the first time he's shared it with anyone, and I think a bit of help coming up with ideas, plus having the character be completely free from marriage and thus able to be as big an asshole as possible, just made it the right situation for some of the best laugh-out-loud material in the series' run. The lack of a plot holding the show together made it more obvious when threads would come out of nowhere just for a gag, sort of like we were looking behind the scenes at an unfinished version where it hadn't all been properly tied together yet. The primary goal of the show though is to be funny, and in that, I think season eight did better than at least the couple that preceded it.
If you're just looking at Larry's performance, I think this was his best work. He managed to be as big a jerk as ever, but it was about things that didn't really matter, so it seemed harmless, in contrast to some of his other actions. He's just kind of mastered the angry indignation at meaningless minutiae that we've all come to love about him, and he's just fun to watch bumble through life. It was a great year for J.B. Smoove's Leon, too, getting more screen time than I think he did last season, and reestablishing himself as the king of foul-mouthed rants that almost, but don't quite make sense. The one real story thing that happened this year was Larry moving back to New York for a couple months just to get out of spending time with disabled children, and while leaving LA for half the season meant no Richard Lewis or Marty Funkhouser during that time (Ted Danson was unfortunately nowhere to be seen at all), it did provide opportunities for great appearances by people like Ricky Gervais, Michael J. Fox, and Mayor Bloomberg. Larry has always seemed pretty enigmatic about the show, never sure if he wants to keep making it or not. I suspect it will come back at least one more time, maybe in a couple years, and I expect it to be as enjoyable as ever.
One more to go after this one. Man, this really is TV heavy, isn't it?
Haruhi Suzumiya
Aya Hirano - The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
"Feelings of love are just a temporary lapse in judgment. Like a mental illness."
I might actually like mild-mannered narrator Kyon more, but the show's about Haruhi, and unlike the vast majority of characters, the universe really does revolve around her. She has a unique, eccentric personality that can make almost anything fun to watch, and is the sort of leader whose followers always wonder why they do what she says but do anyway. And there are enough glimpses at her normal, affectionate side in between world threatening crises that she's inadvertently responsible for that she comes through as a person and not just a cipher for the writers' wacky ideas. I guess I like that kind of character a lot, don't I?
Dexter Morgan
Michael C. Hall - Dexter
"Harry and Dorris Morgan did a wonderful job raising me. But they're both dead now. I didn't kill them. Honest."
In a lot of ways, Dexter is a flawed show. It's frequently predictable and there's way too much time spent on supporting characters and subplots we never actually care about. It's easy to keep watching though, because Hall's work is so good. I admit to being a little tired of his dry narrating style at this point but he can still carry the series through any low points. Until very recently he's been one of the best actors I can think of who only works in television, but he's really damn good at it, finally getting recognized by the Golden globes recently (although that award's tainted because Bryan Cranston wasn't even nominated), and is why I gave Six Feet Under a shot, which turned out to be a good decision. He somehow finds a way to sell the sympathetic serial killer angle, and still be menacing when required. All you could ask for from a lead.
Dr. Steve Brule
John C. Reilly - Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!
"For your health!"
Reilly is supposedly a very good serious actor, although all I've ever seen from him is his brilliant comedy work. His best role is most pathetic, as the befuddled and under-qualified local news correspondent Dr. Steve Brule. He's good for a few appearances per season, and they're routinely pure gold. In addition to his terrible advice and wacky outtakes, there are a lot of things about the character that make him endearing in a sad way like his chronic loneliness and crush on married news anchor Jan Skylar. He's getting his own show soon, and I can't see how it won't be fantastic.
Juno MacGuff
Ellen Page - Juno
"Nah... I mean, I'm already pregnant, so what other kind of shenanigans could I get into?"
Juno's a really divisive movie. Some appreciate its uniquely goofy dialogue and moments of indie cuteness, while others can't stand it. I'm with the former, and a big part of why the movie works for me is Juno herself. She has a unique vocabulary for a teenager, but I'm not selective on what I allow films to be fanciful about, and she really sells the whole teenage girl with problems thing that I usually can't stomach for very long. In a movie I saw for Jason Bateman and Michael Cera, Ellen Page is the one who impressed me most.
Leon Black
J.B. Smoove - Curb Your Enthusiasm
"Barack Obama! I'm the President of hitting that ass!"
Probably the least scripted character on this list. In a show where everybody just says what comes to mind during the scene, Leon takes it to the extreme. He can make any topic funnier than should be possible, from the proper way to respond to an insult to the appropriate amount of discretion required when discussing a friend's wife whose ass you're hitting. I enjoyed seeing Smoove pop up in an episode of Castle and hope to see him get more opportunities, but to me he'll always be Leon.
Emerson Cod
Chi McBride - Pushing Daisies
"Bitch, I was in proximity!"
After watching the rather bad previews for Human Target, I almost decided to give it a shot. That's how much I like the whole cast of Pushing Daisies, and I liked Emerson most of all. While the show lived off its saccharine sweetness, Cod was the bitter one who kept it from floating off into space. He's a perfect foil for pretty much everyone else, and his combination of intuition, wit, and resourcefulness made each case into a classic film noir. The show made strides to humanize him during its short run with love interests and a missing daughter, but it probably didn't need to. He's the kind of guy who'd be a pleasure to watch visit the DMV.
GLaDOS
Ellen McLain - Portal
"That thing you burned up isn't important to me. It's the fluid catalytic cracking unit. It made shoes for orphans. Nice job breaking it, hero."
Portal was already a unique and brilliant mind-bending puzzle game, but GLaDOS made it something that every gamer should try. Just one of the funniest and best executed character arcs in the medium. Encouraging at first, the artificial intelligence guiding you through a test facility you never quite understand slowly becomes more sinister over time, and downright hostile after a certain point. But she never loses her sense of humor, logging one of the best percentages of successful one liners in history (I just made that up, but it sounds right). Plus the song at the end is just icing on the cake. I just made myself groan.
Anton Chigurh
Javier Bardem - No Country for Old Men
"Would you hold still please, sir?"
It's rare to see such an intimidating force of nature in a film. Compared to the other people in the story, Chigurh is almost a caricature, a flesh and blood Terminator that will stop at nothing to accomplish his task. He also sort of rips off Two-Face's gimmick, although he pulls it off better. It's sort of his lack of humanity that makes him work though, taking the movie from being a solid, off-beat thriller and making it into a pretty impressive, unique work that stands alone. I'm not sure if it's exactly a brilliant performance, but it's certainly exactly what it needed to be.
Nathan Drake
Nolan North - Uncharted series
"I didn't think that far ahead!"
As video game protagonists were getting too grim and gritty, Nate came along and reminded people that heroes are allowed to be likable. Sure, his carefree attitude doesn't quite work with his near-genocidal kill count after only two games, but work with me here. It's shifted the tone of a lot of modern action games, and there's been so much demand for North's voice work that the Internet backlash is already well underway. It's clear from some of his roles that he has a good deal of range, but his classic sarcastic good guy voice is what people want, and I'll forever associate it with the first and still most interesting character I heard it from, Mr. Drake.
Daniel Plainview
Daniel Day-Lewis - There Will Be Blood
"One night I'm gonna come to you, inside of your house, wherever you're sleeping, and I'm gonna cut your throat."
I think my favorite single adjective I've heard used to describe Day-Lewis' work in this film was when Quentin Tarantino called it "volcanic". It just fits, doesn't it? There's really not much I can say about it that hasn't been said better by people who have a deeper understanding of acting. I just know that I've never been more impressed while watching somebody in a film. From his silent actions in the very beginning, to his dark charisma as his business gets going, to his increasing madness as the film continues and to the final scene which is both funny and startling, there's not a moment that could have been obviously improved. I won't forget it any time soon.
Walter White
Bryan Cranston - Breaking Bad
"We are going to make a good product that does what it is supposed to, as advertised. No emulsifiers, no baking powder, no bleach, no chili powder."
Despite the Golden Globes' continued negligence (Seriously, Avatar's the movie of the year? Why did I even look up the results?), even the slightly less maligned Emmys managed to see what everyone else has the last couple years with Cranston's great work on Breaking Bad the last two years. Watching a man learn that he was dying, turn desperately to crime to help his family, go back and forth hope and despair, and ultimately lose sight of what's important in his life has been a really eye opening experience. We always knew Cranston could be funny, but I've been a lot more impressed by this. I can only wonder what Walter will do next.
Bryan Mills
Liam Neeson - Taken
"That is what happens when you sit behind a desk. You forget things, like the weight in the hand of a gun that's loaded and one that's not."
What should have been a simple revenge-driven action movie ended up being pretty brilliant thanks to to lead's increasing willingness to abandon reason or sympathy in his quest to get his daughter back. More movies should just put guns in the hands of respected veteran actors and see what happens, because it totally worked out here with Neeson. In some ways it's a bog standard thriller, it's just that extra 10% of gravitas and brutality that makes it one of my favorite films ever of the type. Why exactly did they sit on this for a year before releasing it in America?
Concluded tomorrow.
Curb Your Enthusiasm's sixth season had some good moments, many of them provided by Larry David's housemate Leon, but I was a bit disappointed by it. Two years later, Larry has finally redeemed the show. It's a return to form as Larry bumbles his way through socially awkward situations and one of the show's best long term stories. The premise this time is a reunion episode of Seinfeld, which Larry initially rejects but changes his mind about after scheming to get back with his ex-wife by writing her into the show. Before that can get off the ground though, he has to figure out how to break up with his current girlfriend who may or may not have cancer. Not exactly the best thing a person can do, but at least he's less despicable about things in general this time. He still gets himself into pretty bad spots, especially when he starts seeing a woman in a wheelchair, it's just things worked better this time.
There's plenty of good material in the first half, with a few moments among the series' best, and it only gets better once rehearsing and filming for the reunion gets underway. The whole main cast is back, along with some supporting characters like Newman and George's mother, and there are even a few finished scenes from what such a reunion could look like, which are pretty enjoyable. The real reunion though is just the one in the show, with the actors playing themselves and inadvertently foiling all of Larry's plans. The season ends the way it should have, with a nice moment and a payoff for one of the season's better gags of the sort that always come to fruition unexpectedly, and the finale could either serve to end the show or set the table for yet another season, whichever Larry decides to do. I'd be fine either way, great comedy is always nice but he's already given us more than anyone could possibly ask for.
Compared to the show's past, the sixth season isn't quite at the same level. It's still funny, it's just that there are some noticeable differences in character which bothered me a bit and they messed with the normal relationship dynamics. This is fine in a show that's purpose is telling a story, but in a sitcom, the familiarity of the setting is usually comforting, and most of the changes didn't improve anything. On the first point, Larry's always been a little rude when common courtesy didn't make sense to him, but he never really did anything that bad on purpose either. He seemed to get in trouble more often in season six, and the things he did were often deliberate and out of character. Would Larry really steal flowers from a roadside memorial to help apologize to someone? I'm supposed to like a protagonist who does things like that?
The two storylines in the sixth season are the Davids taking in a black family (who happened to be named the Blacks, leading to a few uncomfortable moments) that was left homeless by a hurricane and Larry's wife leaving him after the straw that breaks the camel's back. I liked the Black subplot because it brings in one of the show's best characters, Leon, who's always good for a hysterical exchange or two per episode, but I really didn't like the other one. It presented some interesting opportunities for comedy to show Larry back on the dating scene, but the whole second half of the season just seemed to continually pile crap on him (a contrast with the first half) for no reason and the resolution is not what I thought or hoped would happen. It's not that the show wasn't funny anymore, in fact I may have laughed out loud more than any previous season, I just didn't like what was happening so much. We'll see where he takes it if he comes back for another run.
You notice how my posts are always longer when I have something to complain about? Much easier to be wordy when I get bothered.
The fifth season of Larry David's farcical look at how people interact is about as good as any other. You have to figure he'll run out of ideas eventually, but for the time being he still knows how to come up with ridiculously convoluted plots that almost always come together in the end, putting a nice bow on each encounter. Most of the first few episodes I actually ever saw were from this season, and they still hold up, doing even better when watched in order so you get the whole picture.
The two intertwining stories this time are the true nature of Larry's parentage and his friend Richard Lewis' need for a kidney. The former manifests with him hiring a private investigator to find out if he's adopted, which always seems to wiggle its way into other events. Larry takes a test and finds out he's a match to give Lewis his kidney, but still goes out of his way to find any other source so he doesn't have to do it himself. The extended finale resolves both of these issues well, featuring a great scene that I won't give away but will say includes great appearances by Dustin Hoffman and Sacha Baron Cohen. The sixth season is the most recent one, and I've already jumped into it. It's a quick, fun watch.
Another year provided another ten episodes of one of the funnier shows on television. I don't think the fourth was quite as strong as the last couple perhaps were, but it was a lot of fun just the same. The fictionalized version of Larry David is a really interesting character because of the conflicted feelings he brings up. He's a good person at heart and usually just has terrible luck in social situations, but you often get annoyed by his refusal to play by society's rules and just accept what's happened. At the same time, the people who's deals with, despite usually being "right" in the social sense, are also usually jerks who make a bigger deal out of things than necessary. Almost everything that happens is a real misunderstanding that turns into an absurdly huge mess, and part of the humor is just the semi-believability of his predicaments.
The two main pieces of the fourth season's plot are Larry being selected by Mel Brooks to play the lead in The Producers on Broadway despite him not even being a real actor, and his wife Cheryl giving him a chance to sleep with another woman for his tenth anniversary gift. As can be expected, he gets very close to achieving the latter multiple times before blowing it at the last second (sometimes his fault, sometimes not). The former comes to a head in the excellent season finale which includes lots of tipping problems, a run-in with Stephen Colbert, and a plot twist filled with plenty of meta-humor. It's pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good.
The show continues to come into its own, with deeper, more connected plot lines and laughs enhanced by the attention to detail. Larry David is a comic genius, and he knows how to surround himself with other funny talent, either playing fictionalized versions of their real life personae or made up characters that fit the story. The dialogue's still mostly improvised and the whole cast deserves credit for how entertaining it is, but David's always at the center being the butt of all the jokes and driving the story.
The main plot thread this time is Larry and some other people investing in a restaurant, as they come across problems like uniforms for the waiters, the possibility of someone buried under the floor, and Larry's seeming inability to be satisfied with any of the chefs they find. This last point comes to a head in the finale, in one of the funniest ways to end a season I've ever seen. It's pretty vulgar, but supremely enjoyable nonetheless. There are a couple other intermingling plot points as well, like his manager's allergy to the dog, Larry having a part in a Martin Scorsese film, and getting one of his wife's pubic hairs stuck in his throat. You don't have to watch Enthusiasm from the beginning to enjoy it, although doing so, or at least starting at the beginning of a season, yields a lot more satisfaction.
The second season of Larry David's highly self-referential, mostly-improvised, foul-mouthed, comedic television program is as consistently funny as the first. Most episodes end with something bad that's been set up by earlier events happening without much real closure, and a couple of them in this block of episodes aren't that funny or well-executed. But in general, I'd say it's overall a little higher quality than the first run, thanks to the increased elaborateness of the trouble Larry gets in. The first time around it was mostly a funny but often disjointed sequence of unfortunate events, while everything seems better tied together here.
A big part of it is the introduction of an actual story arc that runs through the whole season. While the ideas in the first year could be seen in almost any order, they established a bigger focus on continuity this time that runs up through the most recent episode. The story in this season is Larry's quest to pitch a new show, first with Jason Alexander and then with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and how he manages to screw up every opportunity he gets. The real cleverness comes from how the idea for the show completely mirrors what's actually happening in the show, in a similar way to Jerry and George's idea for a show in Seinfeld. There's a lot of little stabs at HBO and things like that, and I really enjoyed the meta-humor along with the crazy situations and plentiful shouting that carried over from the first season.
Larry David made millions as the executive producer of Seinfeld and comic mastermind behind many of the best episodes, and now he has the spotlight with his own show on HBO. Enthusiasm has a similar feel and premise to Seinfeld with the whole thing basically revolving around nothing happening. At least in the first season, Larry never has much to do besides a few meetings about writing stuff for various people, and all of the conflict comes from everything that can possibly go wrong during the day. Missed appointments, bad directions, pretty much anything that can be messed up will be to great comedic effect.
I think the Seinfeld comparison is valid in terms of the general construction of most episodes, although the way it's actually done is notably different, with much more improvised dialogue, more freedom to be vulgar being on HBO, and filmed with one camera instead of on a set with an audience. George Costanza was more or less based on David's personality, and he's a unique, entertaining leading man. He's likable even when he screws up and his frequent shouting matches with people he angers or who anger him are always a treat. There's already been six seasons, but it's the kind of show that can keep on going for a long time.
