Characters of 2010

People seemed to like my list of my favorite characters of the decade last year, so I thought it would be fun to keep it going with the best ones from 2010. Obviously, I don't have the perspective on these people that I did for most of the ones on the decade list, so I can't say for sure how many of them will really stand the test of time. All I can say is that these are the figures that had me most glued to the screen when they were involved, and when it comes to the ones that are still parts of ongoing series, I can't wait to see more of them. Again, these are in chronological order of their first appearance this year. And again, these are all men... but I blame this more on the number of strong female characters in male-focused entertainment than myself.

Abed Nadir
Danny Pudi - Community


"That's sort of my gimmick, but we did lean on that pretty hard last week. I can lay low for an episode."

Abed established himself early as Community's most entertaining character, although it wasn't until this year that I was sure it was more than just a gimmick. He sees himself as a supporting character on a TV show rather than a student at a community college, and while on one hand it makes him a strange and troubled man, on the other it makes him the only character who really knows what's going on. The way they play with that side of him provides some of the show's best comedic moments, but while he has some personality issues, he also has helped provide some of the series' best emotional content to date. The show would still be great without him, but it wouldn't be the same.

Harry S. Plinkett
Mike Stoklasa - RedLetterMedia


"Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones is the worst thing ever made by a human."

Like Abed, the Plinkett character was created before 2010, and first came into the public eye near the end of 2009 with his review of the first Star Wars prequel. But 2010 was really the year of Plinkett, as he came out with new looks at the other prequels, Avatar, Star Trek, and even Baby's Day Out, establishing himself as the preeminent humorous pop culture critic on the Internet. The content of the reviews themselves are always great, but it's the addition of Plinkett's weird homicidal tendencies and unique way of phrasing things that puts them over the top.

The Eleventh Doctor
Matt Smith - Doctor Who


"Bow ties are cool."

I wondered how well the youngest Doctor ever would fit the role so well handled by David Tennant for the last four years, but I was sold by the end of his first scene in the season premiere. Smith's Doctor has a bit more range than the other two since the show came back, perhaps the wackiest version yet but also possessing a certain angry conviction when it's called for. He helped prop up a season that was solid but lacked any truly transcendent episodes.

Creighton Bernette
John Goodman - Treme


"This is Creighton Bernette from New Orleans. Yeah, we're still here. I just want to say something to all y'all trying to figure out what to do about our city: blow me."

John Goodman was never officially a part of Treme's main cast, but his character was key to its first season. Creighton is something of a mouthpiece for the creators to speak their minds about how Katrina was handled, but it's easy to look past that with how entertaining the performance is. And on top of that, the end of his character arc helped provide a real sense of weight to the end of the season that it had mostly lacked. I think he was essential to my perception of the show being as positive as it was.

Big Daddy
Nicolas Cage - Kick-Ass


"Oh, child. You always knock me for a loop!"

Hit Girl got all the attention because it's so crazy to see a young girl swear and kill people, but I honestly found her father to be a much more interesting character. Nic Cage basically plays Big Daddy like Adam West played Batman, and while his career is starting to feel like some sort of Andy Kaufman-level genius joke, I really enjoyed his work in this movie. His one big action scene was probably the highlight of the movie for me, and his odd personality both with and without the secret identity was a lot of fun.

John Marston
Rob Wiethoff - Red Dead Redemption


"I left the gang after the gang left me."

Red Dead Redemption had my favorite story in a game this year, and its protagonist was a big reason why. John is a complicated man, with a generally good heart, but prone to a lot of poor decisions that put him and his family in a tough place. He's a killer, but he's also a family man who cares deeply about his wife and son. He's a guy you'd always want on your side if the guns ever came out. And his easy charisma when dealing with anyone new helped keep things interesting. He could also be a real son of a bitch if you wanted him to.

Kale Ingram
Arliss Howard - Rubicon


"The way you live is disgusting."

The villainous Truxton Spangler became the focus as Rubicon's only season came to a pretty solid end, but Kale was the guy who kept the show afloat when it was still trying to figure out what it wanted to be. Even to the end you never really knew what side he was on, but he was a big help to protagonist Will while he was trying to navigate the treacherous waters he found himself in. There's just a cold badassness to him that you wouldn't expect from a calm intelligence analyst. And the show played his homosexuality like it was just a simple part of his home life, which I liked.

Louie
Louis C.K. - Louie


"You don't like rape? You don't? That's really weird because you know that you wouldn't even exist if your mom hadn't raped that homeless Chinese guy."

It's hard to say where Louis C.K. the actor ends and where his character on his self titled TV show begins, and I'm not even sure if that's a distinction worth making. Either way, Louis is possibly the funniest stand-up comedian alive, who also happens to be really great at portraying the simple reality of being a middle aged, divorced father of two in New York. Plus the occasionally journeys into his youth or psyche are usually fascinating and informative.

Eames
Tom Hardy - Inception


"You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling."

The whole cast of this movie was excellent, but I don't think there's much argument that Tom Hardy was the breakout star, playing the team's "forger", which mostly meant he disguised himself as other people to manipulate the target. He had an enjoyable humorous banter with all the other characters and Joseph Gordon Levitt's Arthur in particular, and was also possibly the best action hero, basically single-handedly keeping the team alive when they got deeper into the nesting dreams-within-dreams they found themselves in. Definitely looking forward to more of his work.

Sherlock Holmes
Benedict Cumberbatch - Sherlock

"I'm not a psychopath, I'm a highly functioning sociopath. Do your research."

I almost don't want to watch or read any of the period Holmes stuff now, because the writing and performance of this modern day Sherlock was so good that it just seems like canon now. There's something very off-putting about Cumberbatch's know-it-all-ness and dismissal of anyone intellectually inferior to him (read: everyone), but he's just flawed enough that you love him anyway. Really looking forward to seeing how they expand on this interpretation of the character.

Richard Harrow
Jack Huston - Boardwalk Empire


"And then they'll tell us if we're normal or not. They're interested in what's in our heads so next time, we'll fight better."

There are a lot of interesting figures on this show, both historical and otherwise. But none were as immediately interesting and disturbing as the war veteran-turned-gun for hire with half a face played by Jack Huston. He grunts a lot and talks with a gravelly voice, and you hang on every word because you know he'll only say them if there's a good reason. We only got a few scenes with him in season one, but he figures to play a bigger part in 2011.

Rooster Cogburn
Jeff Bridges - True Grit


"I do not know this man."

I reject Cogburn as the film's main character, but not as its most fascinating one. It's again a mix of writing and performance, as the Coens used the novel to create a unique take on the grizzled old lawman archetype and Bridges breathed full life into it. Rooster drinks too much and he doesn't always follow the law exactly and he's probably killed more than a few men in cold blood. But he's still a force for good at his core, and what he goes through to see Mattie's job through the end is above and beyond the call of duty. An appropriate hero for a somewhat atypical western.

Treme - Season 1

If you go in to Treme comparing it to David Simon's last series, The Wire, you're probably going to be disappointed. Not through any fault of the show's, but through impossible expectations. By the end of the season, I was fully prepared to call Treme a great drama, it's just not great on the easily-the-best-thing-on-TV-right-now level of The Wire. It's less centrally focused, feeling more like several narrow stories of living in post-Katrina New Orleans that happen to frequently connect and intertwine rather than a vast overview of the whole city. The many different main characters cover a lot of ground, depicting all sorts of situations and showing as many sides and points of view as they can. Sometimes I felt like the show was preaching at me a bit too much about the whole situation, but Simon has made it his business to expose the truth about things with his projects and it has resulted in shows worth watching for more than their entertainment value. Taking place in New Orleans, there's obviously a lot of music, and it's handled quite well, whether its classic stuff being played in the background or something original being played right on camera by the cast, which frequently features real-life musicians. Music is one of the show's strongest elements, with practically every song effectively conveying the mood and also tending to be genuinely enjoyably performed.

The show lives or dies on its characters, and most of them are good ones. John Goodman guest starred all season long, being the most directly political character and frequently entertaining in his rantings. He also played heavily into the moment where the show went from good political commentary to a legitimately brilliant TV show, so it's a character I'll remember for a while. Steve Zahn plays a DJ/aspiring musician/political revolutionary, and his story tended to be the series' comic relief while still having things to say, and it's another performance I quite enjoyed. Several of the main characters are played by veterans of Simons' other HBO shows, and they cement themselves into the roles well, amazingly avoiding the common fate of Wire actors where I can't see anyone from that show without thinking about it. Wendell Pierce plays a trombone player who lives day to day off any gigs he can get, and is another source of levity on a show that could have easily gotten overbearing. Khandi Alexander is his ex-wife, a bar owner looking for her missing brother and frequently featuring one of the best "Are you shitting me?" faces in history. Clarke Peters plays a Mardi Gras Indian chief who tries to keep his tribe together after the storm and also ends up having some run-ins with the law. He's basically the opposite of the kindly Freamon from The Wire, intimidating in his unerring dedication to his beliefs.

The season finale surprised me by featuring a glimpse of the past, showing a little bit of what the various characters were going through on the day of the storm. It was a powerful eight minutes or so, really putting you into what it's like to live somewhere where true disaster is never that far away. It left me truly wanting the next season to begin as soon as possible instead of just fondly anticipating it, and was a great way to help bring the show's first year to a close. HBO's been a bit on the weak side since some of its best series ended, but with Treme's success, True Blood continuing to evolve into something genuinely entertaining, and stuff like Boardwalk Empire and Game of Thrones on the horizon, it might not be long before it's unequivocally on top again.

The Big Lebowski

I was watching this again with friends last night, for the first time in too long. While there are films I would name as superior artistic achievements, I really can't think of any that I love more. Few movies hold up to repeated viewings as well as this one, and there are only a small handful of flaws that keep it from being perfect. There's something special about it, like you could try to replicate its success with the same amount of talent both behind and in front of the camera and never find the same magic in a hundred years. Instead of pontificating on why it works, I'll just start listing little details you might not notice the first couple times but help show why it's such a cult favorite. It really is the epitome of that sort of thing, failing when it was in theaters, but it's hard to find someone in my age group who hasn't seen it at this point.

- There's a lot of stuff with shirts that's fun. Most people have noticed that Donnie's bowling shirts never actually have his name on them, but fewer know that between their first and second scenes, Jackie Treehorn's two thugs decided to switch what they were wearing.
- It's fun to think about how people became friends. Walter and the Dude get along but really don't have much in common, leading us to think they were put in a situation where they were forced to find common ground, like they went to college together and were roommates or something. Neither one seems to care much for Donnie, but you can see how they saw his bowling talent and befriended him so they could use him on the team, and him being so weird accepted the only friends he could get.
- A bit more mysterious is how the Jesus and Liam became bowling buddies. The best theory I've heard is that the latter is the former's parole officer.
- Not really a fun fact, but Philip Seymour Hoffman is fantastic in this movie. And it's the only time I've ever seen something make Tara Reid useful.
- When he's discussing the toe with Walter in the diner, the Dude gets angry and dumps some change on the counter to pay for his coffee. It's easy to miss that he picks up a joint he accidentally grabbed with the money before he shuffles out of the place a bit too quickly.
- Walter's inappropriate references to Vietnam are great, but I might like his flashbacks even more. It only happens a couple times, but he'll forget where he is for a minute.
- Have you ever made note of how many times the movie could have ended if the Dude just stayed out of things? Eventually he gets in too deep, but if Walter never told him to go see the other Lebowski, or if he didn't take that specific rug from the place, and so on.
- It's gotta be common knowledge for fans at this point, but it's great how much of the Dude's dialogue is taken from what he's heard other people say and how all the elements of his dreams come from somewhere else in the film. Perhaps the best instance of this is when he tells Larry he's going to castrate him.
- How sad is it that Donnie's bowling buddies are the only ones at his funeral. Does he really have no family at all? I assume they knew him well enough to contact them if he did.
- The entire arc of Jackie's pornographic doodle is great. For one thing, it's a great drawing. For another, why is he drawing that while he's on the phone? What the Dude does is one of his smartest moments, but he gets nothing out of it, and of course it's the only thing in his pockets after he's arrested besides his Ralph's card.

I'm running out of steam here, so I'll wrap it up. Like I said, there are some issues with the movie and I'll touch on those. When the Dude gets thrown out of the cab and Bunny zooms by, the shot lasts too long and the Dude's expression of bewildered dismay ends up looking artificial. It's a very small problem, but again, we're talking about one of my favorite movies ever. Another thing is that I think there's only one scene in the movie that doesn't feature the Dude, the very brief snippet where we see the nihilists ordering breakfast. It's not really necessary because the other scene shows Bunny's toes intact, and it would have been nice if you could say there is no scene in the film without its protagonist. It's a stylistic thing, and when you're that close, you might as well go for it. These are both minor quibbles of course, small bumps in what is still one of cinema's most enjoyable experiences. I don't doubt that I like the movie just a bit too much, but I'm okay with that.

Barton Fink

Barton Fink is perhaps the Coen brothers' oddest film, and that's saying something. It's not the silliest, but there's a strange, symbolic thing going on through the whole movie, and by the end it takes over the actual story. It's about a playwright from New York played by John Turturro who is brought to Hollywood to write for motion pictures, and who struggles when brought out of his comfort zone and forced to write in a genre he doesn't understand. The movie is very slow to get started, and doesn't really get entertaining until about half an hour in. The fun comes from the people Turturro meets in the new city, who provide the sort of dialogue we've grown used to from the Coens - crisp, clever, and unique. The acting is quite strong all around, as everyone besides Turturro gets two or three good scenes to show off their chops, and they're all up the task.

Before the Coen brothers were winning Oscars, this movie took home a hat trick at Cannes, including the Palme d'Or. It's definitely the sort of thing voters at film festivals would go for, the most of any of their work. There's an unusual structure to the film, and as it goes on the viewer's comprehension can only drop as strange things being happening without a ton of resolution, culminating in the climax which brings a metaphor completely to the forefront and a final scene which recalls a repeated image throughout the story, without actually saying anything obviously meaningful. There's a strange mystery to the whole thing, and I'm not sure how much of what happened was supposed to be real. The movie's definitely enjoyable whenever people are speaking, from Buscemi's chipper bellhop, to Goodman's ambiguous salesman, to the fast talking detectives investigating something, and everyone else. Still, I might not recommend the movie to anyone who doesn't already like their work or appreciate more unusual films, because it would be easy to be left unsatisfied by how it all ends. Definitely an odd film.