Favorites of 2018 (and 2017)

L to R, top to bottom: Annihilation, Antony & Cleopatra,
Pelleas & Melisandre, Burning

Putting together "best of" lists in these times can feel frivolous, and last year I never got beyond a perfunctory list of my favorites. 2018 was a blur of more awfulness and protests, plus getting out the vote and progress in the Mueller investigation. It was also a damn fine year for cinema, and I got the list together. Here are my favorites in various categories (and 2017's picks at the end).

Movies

L to R, top to bottom: Blindspotting, Hereditary,
Burning, The Favourite, Annihilation,
The Death of Stalin

Annihilation: This movie reminded me of Under the Skin in several ways, including the audience's love-it-or-hate-it reaction. I loved it, but there was a lot of weird laughter at dramatic moments in my screening. Great special effects, and I preferred this contemplative, ambiguous film to director Alex Garland's debut, Ex Machina.

Blindspotting: With Black Panther, Sorry to Bother You, and Blindspotting, 2018 was a big cinematic year for Oakland. Directed by Carlos López Estrada and written by and starring Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal, tonal roller coaster Blindspotting looks at a contemporary, gentrifying Oakland and police violence.

The Death of Stalin: I watched this movie twice this year. Once in theaters, and then again after Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court. Totalitarianism is a cancer, but the way its aggrandizement and increasingly ludicrous untruths inevitably paint its loyalists into corners is ripe for satire. How else to capture the whiplash of absurdities and atrocities?

Hereditary: As in other A24 horror movie The Witch, a teenager must deal with not only a malevolent supernatural entity, but with guilt, grief, and the weight of the family's blame in the aftermath of a tragedy. Toni Collette and Ann Dowd are powerhouses.

The Favourite: I went into this expecting to be wowed by Olivia Colman, and was even more wowed than anticipated. Yorgos Lanthimos takes a historic event (Britain's withdrawal from the War of the Spanish Succession) and gives us a tightly wound story of politics, power plays, chronic illness, abusive relationships, and Mad Max: Fury Road's Nux in elaborate 18th Century finery.

Burning: Based on a short story by Haruki Murakami, this slow burn by Chang-dong Lee is a master class in cinematography and tension. It's also very much of the zeitgeist. In Burning, Seoul's underemployed millennials live in cramped, dark studios or their parents' houses and compete in the marginal gig economy while their 1-percenter peers lounge in the tony Gangnam neighborhood Psy made world-famous a few years back. The three lead actors (Ah-in Yoo, Steven Yeun, and Jong-seo Jun) are excellent.

Books (I read in 2018, not necessarily published in 2018)

Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz: This twisty post-Reichenbach Falls Sherlock Holmes novel deals with whether or not math professor/crime lord James Moriarty survived that incident. Includes my new favorite Moriarty origin story. (Fans of this sort of thing might also want to check out Professor Moriarty: The Hound of the D'Urbervilles by Kim Newman.)

Wonder Valley by Ivy Pochoda: Drifters, runaways, and cultists populate this contemporary Southern California noir.

The Charm Buyers by Lillian Howan: One of the highlights of 2018 was reading at Lit Crawl, an annual evening of literary readings across San Francisco's Mission District. After my group's reading, a few of us ended up at a reading where Lillian Howan read a short story so powerful that I had to look her up and order her novel. In The Charm Buyers, Marc Antoine Chen, a member of the Chinese Hakka community in Tahiti, has a loving extended family and is the heir to a fortune in black pearl cultivation. But Marc seems determined not to make life easy for himself, shunning his father's business in favor of his own illegal operations and falling for first his cousin and then an older French woman. When his cousin falls ill, Marc must decide whether or not to potentially sacrifice everything for her.

The Yonahlosse Riding Camp for Girls by Anton DiSclafani: Just squeaking in under the wire (I devoured this book over the holidays) is this Depression-set page-turner about a Florida teenager sent away to a remote girls' boarding school after a mysterious, scandalizing incident. Horses + a narrator who's a prickly but engaging addition to the "coming of age" genre.

TV

The Good Place and Kid Gorgeous at Radio City

While the movies I loved this year often starkly confronted our current times, I looked for laughs and comfort in other media. This year I finally started watching (and quickly got caught up on) The Good Place, which, despite being about death and Hell, is a warm blanket and cup of tea of a show. Honestly, few things have helped me with my anxiety as much as William Jackson Harper's Chidi.

John Mulaney's special Kid Gorgeous at Radio City is his best so far and a welcome respite as we try to deal with the horse loose in this hospital. Plus, there's a solid intro of Art Deco porn if you're into that.

Theater

The dancers of Fury

Pelleas & Melisandre: I attended all three of West Edge Opera's summer productions, and this Debussy opera directed by Keturah Stickann was my favorite with its lush, sensuous sets and costumes. For 2019, I'm most looking forward to Elkhanah Pulitzer's take on The Threepenny Opera!

Fury: A ballet based on Mad Max: Fury Road? It works!

Antony & Cleopatra: A National Theatre Live production with Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo as Shakespeare's hot mess couple? Yes, please! I bought this ticket impulsively on a Bad News day (I don't even remember which one), but it was well worth the drive to the Lark Theater in Larkspur.

Other

Randy Rainbow: Another year of the Trump Administration, another year of Randy Rainbow keeping us sane! Throughout the lows and lower lows of 2018, Randy was there with timely song parodies. My personal favorite this year was his Gilbert and Sullivan take on "a very stable genius," but other topics included Rudy Giuliani joining Trump's legal team and the ever-intensifying Mueller investigation. Can't wait to see him live with my mom in 2019!



And 2017:

Theater:
SF Ballet Frankenstein
SF Ballet Salome
Cyrano de Bergerac - Livermore Shakespeare
La Traviata - SF Opera
Girls of the Golden West - SF Opera

Books:
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James
The Decameron by Boccaccio

Movies:
The Florida Project
Paterson
Call Me By Your Name

Favorites of 2015

Clockwise from top right: Mad Max: Fury Road, South Park, Pericles,
Mr. Burns, Gotham, and Bluebeard's Castle

Not a comprehensive best-of list; just my personal favorites from all sorts of media in 2015.

Books

The sun comes out after a good book.

Billie by Anna Gavalda: It rained all the first day of a family vacation, but I didn't mind, because I'd brought this book. This little gem of a novel (translated from the French) chronicles the relationship between two childhood friends determined to break away from their white-trashy town and make it in Paris. The two stick together through classroom awkwardness, homophobic violence, and a potentially fatal hiking accident - the immediate aftermath of which finds Billie telling their story to a star. Gavalda's skill shines in her use of Billie, an inarticulate girl who's bold but lacking in confidence, as narrator. Like Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami last year, this was just the right book at the right time for me.

Horse Medicine by Doug Anderson: I'm a sucker for dead horse poems. Although that's what first drew me to this book, the collection encompasses Anderson's reflections on not just horses, but religion, war, and aging. My favorite lines come from "What the Angel Said": "Who are you to think/ you will not have to/ live history/ out all the way/ to the consequences/ and beyond?"

Paper-Doll Fetus by Cynthia Marie Hoffman: In this poetry collection, a rock falls in love with a goat placenta, and it makes sense. With fearlessness and compassion, Hoffman dives into the female reproductive system, exploring miscarriages, stillbirths, phantom pregnancies, and the traumas and joys of childbirth. There are poems told not only from the point of view of the aforementioned rock and the titular doomed fetus, but from a strap used to inhumanely restrain laboring women and a lamb who dies shortly after being born. Periods still suck, but I appreciate them a little bit more having read this book.

The Good, the Bad, and the Furry by Tom Cox: Yes, Cox writes cat books about a famous twitter handle, @MYSADCAT, but his books transcend cat books and twitter books. They're thoughtful and funny reflections of the English countryside, parents, nature, music, and yes, cats.

Favorite Old Books I Read or Re-read

King John's Prince Arthur and Hubert in Laslett John Pott's engraving.

Dangerous Liaisons/Les liaisons dangereuses by Choderlos de Laclos: I finally read this French epistolary novel, and despite this being a cliche...yes, something written in 1782 can still be scandalous in 2015. Bored aristocrats the Marquise de Merteuil (a wealthy widow) and her best friend and former lover the Vicomte de Valmont (a bachelor and libertine) manipulate others sexually for fun and revenge. But what starts as a quotidian (for them) ruining of others' lives slowly turns into a battle of wills. Of particular interest are Merteuil's ruminations on the strict gender roles of the time and how she's gotten around them.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë: I do a lot of my reading on the bus, and re-reading for the first time since high school this epic about an extended family who needs to get the mix of incest just right in order to heal always made me sad to reach my stop. It's too bad E. Brontë gets accused of romanticizing bad male behavior, because that's not really what's happening. Heathcliff and Cathy are weirdos who need to do their Heathcliff and Cathy thing, not a template for all heterosexual relationships. After reading, I watched three different adaptations (what Wuthering Heights really needs is a mini series that shows all generations at the correct ages) and listened to Kate Bush's song about the novel about a million times.

 King John by Shakespeare: I read this lesser known drama as just another stop on my way to reading all of Shakespeare's plays, for better or worse...but I really liked it and don't see why it isn't performed more. It's basically a less powerful Richard III, but I can see how it would be entertaining on stage. It has a central character audiences are somewhat familiar with (John is the mama's boy lion in Disney's animated Robin Hood), a great comic relief character in Richard the Lionheart's bastard son, a crazy mom meltdown, and a kid talking his way out of a hot poker to the eyes. How is this not a hit?

Movies

Patricia Velasquez leads Liz in September's cast.

Mad Max: Fury Road: This thrilling action movie had style, substance, and heart.

Liz in September: This beautiful tearjerker from Venezuela is the country's first lesbian romance movie.

Tom at the Farm: This tense, arty Quebecois rural noir finally got a limited run in the US.

Cartel Land: The drug cartels of Mexico have been a subject of fascination and horror for years. While 2015 saw fictional characters in Sicario tackle the US's involvement in the violence, Matthew Heineman went on the ground in this documentary about local efforts to quell the reign of terror. The film is an absolute gut-punch, although not in the way you'd necessarily expect: one grassroots group of courageous locals starts out as the lovable underdogs peacefully standing up to the cartels; later, Heineman pans his camera around the now-powerful group's new headquarters as individuals they've detained wait to be tortured. It's a crushing statement on moral corruption and the complexity of fighting evil.

One disputed artistic decision Heineman made was to include scenes of a self-appointed anti-cartel group in the US - basically gun aficionados in camo parading consequence-free around the border. Some critics felt like Heineman was giving this group legitimacy and supporting their cause, but I read the inclusion as ironic. The American group's belief that they're brave soldiers fighting a battle is shown to be a delusion of grandeur when juxtaposed with the citizens of Mexico who are actually dealing with the deadly reality of the cartels.

Theater

Nadine Sierra and Brian Mulligan in Lucia di Lammermoor.

Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play - A.C.T.: Anne Washburn's Simpsons-inspired meditation on storytelling and human resolve is one of the most polarizing plays I've seen. Full write-up here.

Swimmer - San Francisco Ballet: Yuri Possokhov, SF Ballet's choreographer in residence, based this ballet on a John Cheever short story. The loose plot is that a philandering businessman swims through neighbors' pools, glimpsing others' lives. But when he returns to his own suburban home, he finds his nuclear family is gone. The piece is a celebration and examination of the American mid-century modern aesthetic, and is visually stunning. However, while the video projections sometimes added a lot, they weren't always necessary (example: in the final scene, it was clear from the dancer's pantomime that he was flailing in the water; the added video footage of a man flailing in water was superfluous).

Pericles - Oregon Shakespeare Festival: I'm so glad I got a second chance to see the play that made Pericles good!

Lucia di Lammermoor - San Francisco Opera: I was lucky to share in a friend's complimentary tickets to this opera with rising star Nadine Sierra (excellent as Musetta in last year's La Boheme at SF Opera). The set for Enrico's office was breathtaking and properly imposing, and the famous "mad scene" was especially visceral.

Other theater favorites this year: Dan Clegg unexpectly stole the show as Edmund in California Shakespeare Theatre's King Lear; Berkeley Rep scored one of the top Eponines, Samantha Barks, for Amelie; and I finally got to see The Book of Mormon!

TV

Mikhail Petrenko and Nadja Michael in Bluebeard's Castle

Great Performances at the Met: Bluebeard's Castle: I caught the second part of this PBS double feature by chance. I turned on the TV, intending to veg out to the hot twins show on HGTV or something else other than a two-person Hungarian opera, but the channel was set to PBS, and the very first frame arrested me. By the end of the day, I had watched several other versions of the opera on YouTube* and added the music to my iPod.

At its most literal, Bluebeard's Castle (by Béla Bartók and Béla Balázs) is about a woman gradually realizing, and finally admitting out loud, that her new husband is a serial killer. But it's also about what we keep hidden within ourselves and the competing desires to deny or investigate in the face of unpleasantness. Mikhail Petrenko's and Nadja Michael's performances; the Met's minimalist yet dramatic staging in black, gray, white, blue, and red; and the skillful cinematography of this stage performance make for an hour that is almost unbearably tense, but too captivating to turn from. 

*Sadly, it looks like there's no DVD of the Met's production available yet. Other productions available on YouTube include Michael Powell's 1963 movie; this modern, noirish version; and the UC Davis Symphony Orchestra's performance (in English).

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy Schmidt joined the heroines of Mad Max: Fury Road and Room by also escaping her Bluebeard in 2015. While Fury Road told the tale as an action movie and Room used stark realism, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt did a risky take - humor - and succeeded.

Better Call Saul: The prequel is off to a good start with this concise first season. While it shares characters and the gorgeous New Mexico setting with Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul is developing its own brand of dark humor and character drama, and has its own breakout stars in Rhea Seehorn and Michael Mando. A highlight of the season was finally learning what happened with ex-cop Mike in Philadelphia in an episode that ended with a bravura monologue by Jonathan Banks. I'm hoping a future season will reveal the similarly hinted at dark past in Chile of Giancarlo Esposito's Gus.

South Park: South Park continues its high note as it nears drinking age. The satire in season nineteen was topical and withering without over-the-top seething. Targets included both politically correct ideology and reactionary conservatism, online advertising, gentrification (most notably in a stomach-churningly accurate condo commerical), and America's gun lust. And there was a nice break from the heaviness of real-world problems in a meta episode acknowledging one of the curiosities of the fandom: certain fans' obsession with the imagined romance between minor characters Tweek and Craig. The hilarious episode included musical montages set to fanart submitted by viewers.

Gotham: The pre-Batman Batman show hit its stride in the second season, leading with stellar performances by Cameron Monaghan (I will be so mad if Jerome's not in Indian Hill!), James Frain, Erin Richards, and the rest of  the regular cast. The intertwining of Gotham society's underbelly became more insidious than ever: Jim Gordon's relationship with Penguin's criminal enterprise became even deeper steeped in blood, Ed (the future Riddler) and Penguin became murder-buddies and roommates, and Wayne Enterprises was revealed to be working with Arkham Asylum on a series of inhumane medical experiments.

Besides the Jerome thing, my main complaints are the premature end of Sarah Essen and the unremarked upon absence of Renee Montoya. I hope Montoya's back in the second half of season two, which will feature the great BD Wong as Hugo Strange.

Art

A Robert Dighton work from Luminous Worlds

Janet Delaney: South of Market at the de Young: SOMA is probably the best example of San Francisco's gentrification and housing bubble, so 2015 was the perfect year to look at Delaney's photos of the neighborhood as it was in the 70s and 80s.

Luminous Worlds: British Works on Paper at the Legion of Honor: Tucked away in one of the farthest corners of my favorite museum, this exhibition of physically delicate works by Turner, Beardsley, Blake, and more was truly luminous.

Time|less: Kappy Wells, The San Francisco Gallery: Working with sheetrock and charcoal, Wells captured the magnificence of the glaciers we are losing to global warming. 

Let's Speculate on Gotham's Probably-Joker's Amazing Wardrobe

And. Here. We. Go.

I was totally prepared to hate Jerome. The premise of Gotham is/was "Gotham before Batman," with Bruce Wayne as a recently orphaned tween and Jim Gordon as a rookie cop. Seeing a city steadily decay and burn over the years to the point where a high-tech vigilante dressed as a bat seems like a reasonable solution sounds like a great prequel.

But either the writers or the studio or both could not help themselves, and tons of established Batman characters have been crammed into the show already, despite Bruce Wayne being a child at this point. I was hoping they could at least refrain from blowing their Joker load, but near the end of Season 1 came the extremely unsubtle teasers that the mythology's #1 scene-stealer since Batman #1 would be appearing.

If Batman pursues us, we'll step into a 21+ establishment.

I didn't like the lack of restraint; I didn't like the cloying campaign; and I didn't like that assuming this is Joker and not an obnoxious bait-and-switch, he has a known background (he's not a John Doe, his name is Jerome, and he grew up in future-Robin's grandpa's circus being forced to listen to clown sex).

But alas, Cameron Monaghan won me over with a virtuoso performance of a monologue delivered in the presence of Inara from Firefly and Uncle Hector from Breaking Bad. I'm not an actor, but my advice to young actors would be that when performing a monologue for an audition, definitely do it while flanked by Inara and Uncle Hector. Maybe Kaylee and Skinny Pete in a pinch.

Anyways, like the 1960s Batman series, Gotham's best assets have been good actors having the time of their lives as flamboyant villains (RIP Jada Pinkett Smith's Fish Mooney), and previews of Season 2 (premieres Sept. 21) suggest we'll be getting a lot of Monaghan's Jerome, who appears to be high on the "I'm not a carny anymore" life. Joker-fashion focus has been on Jared Leto's version, but Monaghan, finally out of that blue sweater, is also getting a lot of fabulous costumes. What do they mean? Let's speculate.

This screenshot is from this clip, where Jerome and Barbara do some flirting in Arkham Asylum. Barbara is clearly the fashion standout here thanks to her clever re-purposing of the traditional convict stripes to form a cute summery dress, which is apparently allowed, but Jerome's not looking bad either, showing off his undershirt in a Stanley Kowalski move. This isn't a dynamic we've seen before, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it plays out (and how and if Barbara ends up back with Jim to produce Batgirl). If she's not the one, Jerome, don't worry: Arkham remains a great place to meet your significant other.

Rampant speculation: Jerome is so going to be future-serial-killer Jim Gordon Jr.'s biological dad.

These pics from Just Jared show Jerome in what seems to be the world's most fashionable and least effective straitjacket. It looks great, but there do not seem to be any arm restraints, which I think is the only point of a straitjacket? To be fair, arm restraints would make it harder to hijack that bus and thus pay homage to The Dark Knight and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Rampant speculation: Jerome's clearly Arkham's problem child from Day 1. Here he incites rebellion when the questionable asylum rents the inmates out as backup dancers for a Lady Gaga video.

Why is Jerome dressed like Hugh Hefner? It looks like he's out of Arkham at this point, unless Arkham is holding some sort of inmate smoking jacket competition, maybe as an attempt to make amends for the Lady Gaga incident.

Rampant speculation: Ok, this is actually interesting. In the clip showing the above scene, Jerome appears to be coached by Season 2 newcomer Theo Galavan, who some think might actually be Ra's Al Ghul. This still doesn't explain the Hefnerwear, but oh well.

Jerome is already causing havoc in stolen uniforms, seemingly another nod to the Joker's actions in The Dark Knight. Does Gotham realize at this point just how much of the city's annual budget will be dedicated to dealing with this guy?

Rampant speculation: At the end of the season, Jerome goes good and becomes an upstanding GCPD officer. He is such a great cop that Batman is never needed.

My Favs of 2014

I also really like the polka dot duvet cover I got on sale.

This is by no means a definitive "best of 2014" list. I have not read, watched, or looked at enough things to make such a list. Just a few of my favorite things I read, watched, and looked at in 2014.

Books

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami - My absolute top favorite piece of media in any medium this year. After the unwieldy 1Q84, some worried Murakami had lost his touch. But this year we got a translation of his latest novel, which is also one of his best. A shy young man's life is upended when his close-knit group of friends mysteriously abandon him. Many lonely years later, he finds the courage to confront them about what happened. The novel also handles a tough topic (that coincidentally became an explosive topic in 2014) with compassion and intelligence.

The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide - Man doesn't consider himself a "cat person." Then he meets a cat. I also read Tom Cox's Under the Paw, a book about a man who considers himself a cat person and obtains lots of cats. (Ironically, the above Murakami was uncharacteristically catless.)

A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver - This collection is likely the swan song of this great poet. A Thousand Mornings is no American Primitive, and I admit I thought her poems about her late dog Percy were overwrought (until my own elderly cat passed away). But it did include one of my new favorite lines ever, in "Out of the Stump Rot, Something": "If you like a prettiness,/ don't come here./ Look at pictures instead,/ or wait for the daffodils."

Other favorites that are not from 2014 but that I read for the first time in 2014:

The Savage Detectives and Amulet by Roberto Bolaño - I went on a Roberto Bolaño binge this year. Like Balzac, Bolaño works with a large cast of characters who span the globe but are mostly rooted in Mexico City. Of these, my favorite is Auxilio Lacouture, a middle-aged drifter and literary devotee from Uruguay who calls herself the "mother of Mexican poetry." In one chapter of Savage Detectives, she tells her story of staying in a bathroom during the army's 1968 takeover of the University of Mexico. In the novella Amulet, we get a fuller picture of her hardscrabble, poetry-filled life.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn - I don't usually read thrillers, but when I saw the incredible trailer, I knew I needed to read the book ASAP or I would look up spoilers. Even if you know some of the twists, it's still a tense "in one sitting" read. (Warning: there will be some spoilers in my ramblings on the movie version below.)

Short Stories

"Someone in the Room Will" by Falcon Miller in The Rag - Even when I'm fortunate enough to get a contributor's copy of a literary magazine, I'm still convinced my piece was the worst piece. My favorite piece, however, in my contributor's copy of The Rag #6, was Falcon Miller's clear-eyed but empathetic portrait of a woman who is just not going to make it in society.

"River So Close" by Melinda Moustakis in Granta - Another story told about people at the fringes, "River so Close" in Granta #128 tells the story of a younger, sharper woman who is a seasonal worker at an Alaskan cannery where danger takes many forms.

Art

For the Sake of Being(s), Katy Horan and Katherine Rutter at Gallery LeQuiVive in Oakland - I'm a longtime fan of Horan, but this joint show focusing on nature and dark femininity was my first introduction to Rutter's work.

Modern Nature: Georgia O'Keeffe and Lake George, O'Keeffe retrospective at the de Young in San Francisco - The giant flowers were there, but this exhibit showed off the artist's range of subjects, from abstract, modern cityscapes to landscapes far removed from her well known desert scenes.

Movies 

It was a great year for Marvel actors doing arty genre pieces.

Snowpiercer - A cruelly topical, claustrophobic, existential nightmare in which director Joon-ho Bong somehow seamlessly includes slapstick humor and kick-ass action. After the human-caused apocalypse, Earth's only survivors live on a socially stratified train doomed to circle the globe continuously (Marvel Person Count: 1, Captain America. Tilda Swinton: Yes. John Hurt: Yes.)

Under the Skin - This "alien has moral crisis on Earth" movie directed by Jonathan Glazer is...not for everyone. I had to reflect on it for a while before I even knew if it was for me. It's a contemplative film with beautiful visuals and little dialogue. Several people in the viewing I attended walked out, most memorably some guy who apparently decided he just could not watch Scarlett Johansson slowly, slowly, slowly, ever so slowly eat cake. That was where this unknown man drew the line. (Marvel Person Count: 1, Black Widow. Tilda Swinton: No. John Hurt: No.)

Only Lovers Left Alive - The main characters are vampires in this Jim Jarmusch film, but this is less of a "vampire movie" than it is a funny, moving family drama that takes place in deserted Detroit, USA and vibrant Tangier, Morocco. A sunny, earthy woman and her younger musician husband deal with his depression and her reckless little sister. (Marvel Person Count: 1, Loki. Tilda Swinton: Yes. John Hurt: Yes.)

Gone Girl - I read the book so I wouldn't look up spoilers for the movie, and then I had to wait for what felt like forever for the movie! I enjoyed this David Fincher adaptation - I'm sure it helped that Flynn did the screenplay. Some see Amy Elliot Dunne as the ultimate "men's rights activist" strawwoman, but I think she's her own great villain, and Rosamund Pike was excellent in this role (favorite moments: competitive miniature golf, post-murder hair-flip, and that grin at Ben Affleck from the examination room). Although true to the source material, the movie managed to add to a lot of dark humor. Missi Pyle as fake Nancy Grace was a great bonus. (Marvel Person Count: -0.5, with 0.5 for Daredevil and -1 for Batman. Tilda Swinton: No. John Hurt: No.)

Captain America: The Winter Soldier & Guardians of the Galaxy - with a topical political thriller and zany-cute space comedy, Marvel proved it can keep their millions of superhero movies fresh. (Marvel Person Count: check with payroll. Tilda Swinton: No. John Hurt: No.)

TV

Gotham - This prequel series is cheesy and trying to cram in too many famous characters, but I love it. Robin Lord Taylor is an absolute breakout as Oswald Cobblepot (better known as the Penguin) steadily working his way up the ranks of the Gotham underworld. Jada Pinkett Smith, as new character Fish Mooney, is over-the-top and entertaining as a villain who mixes deadliness with the camp of the 1960s series.

South Park - Who knew 18 was a lucky season? The show, which began as a crudely animated short in 1992, found new life in 2014 by drawing inspiration from Silicon Valley, gluten, and pop-star/middle-aged geologist Lorde.

Comics

And...the Rainbow Brite theme song's in my head.

Loki: Agent of Asgard - The Asgardians had quite a 2014, which should provide the foundation for a great 2015. Except for Thor, who lost the power to wield Mjolnir and was replaced by a new Thor (popular new name for old Thor as suggested by Katie Schenkel: Snortblat). Loki: AOA started in February, and then led to a mini-series, Thor & Loki: the Tenth Realm, where the brothers met their long-lost older sister, Angela, who then got her own book, Angela: Asgard's Assassin. And a new Thor has begun telling the story of the still-unknown woman who has taken Snortblat Thor Odinson's place as Thunder God.

Loki: AOA has been my favorite, though. Continuing the extreme identity crisis and self-hatred that Kieron Gillen launched for him at the end of Journey Into Mystery, AOA finds Loki living in New York, singing in the shower, playing video games, grilling salmon, and making yet another take-no-shit platonic female friend. But of course, drama finds him. With clever writing by Al Ewing and art by Lee Garbett, highlights have included a guest appearance by Doctor Doom and goddaughter Valeria, the most determined band of juggling-themed supervillains ever, and an obnoxiously heroic Loki who can turn into Thor AND a unicorn.

Black Cats for October

A few years ago I did a post on black cats for Friday the 13th, which looked at kitties from art and literature. With their traditional connection to bad luck and the fact that they're not as "flashy" as other kittens, it's always a little more nerve-racking than usual giving a black foster kitten back to the shelter for adoption. Since it's the month of black cats appearing in decorations (often with witches), here are some more stellar examples of that much maligned, Halloweeny animal.

Bear

Won't someone give him a cuddle and listen to his poems?

18-year-old Bear is the subject of owner Tom Cox's many books about being a crazy cat man, but he's become so widely known because of cat's best friend: the internet. Photos of the melancholic Bear and the reasons for his sorrow are paired on his hit Why My Cat Is Sad twitter account, which currently has 172k followers. His persistently heartbroken little face just demands you pick him up for a hug and kiss. Fortunately, despite having a rough history, Bear is adored by his family. And understandably, Cox is a black cat advocate.

My cat is sad because life has given him many, many lemons & he cannot use them to make lemonade because he is a cat. pic.twitter.com/PhAVk905EI
— WHY MY CAT IS SAD (@MYSADCAT) September 17, 2014

Isis

Not THAT Isis.

Batman sometimes-villain, sometimes-hero Catwoman is the undisputed queen of the felines. Fans of the classic, stylish Batman: the Animated Series might remember Isis, a sleek black cat who matched Catwoman's sleek black cat costume. Selina Kyle has been portrayed as having different "main" cats over the years (Hecate, for example, in the 1966 Batman movie, aka the best movie of all time), but Isis from the various animated shows is the definitive one for me.

Forget the diamonds, Isis has canned food!

Shorty

Shorty is appalled or stoned.

Half of popular YouTube cat duo Sho Ko, fluffy, cuddly, energetic kitty Shorty is also an advocate for black cats everywhere. (Except when sidelined by her addiction to catnip bananas.)

Cole

Good, 'cause I always need hair ties.

Like Shorty, Cole is the older half of a YouTube kitty pair (Cole & Marmalade). And like Shorty's owner, Cole's owner has a soft spot for black cats. Good news for this formerly tiny rescue!

Salem

...

Like Isis, here's another black cat the intersection of comics and television - and a witch's black cat at that. Salem, the cat of Archie Comics' teenage witch Sabrina, was once a sorcerer who tried to take over the world. His punishment? Being turned into a cat. And then sharing a bed with a teenage girl. Salem reached top popularity on the 90s sitcom, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, where he was voiced by Nick Bakay and portrayed by both real cats and a terrifying robot cat. Since then he's starred in Sabrina, the Animated Series, made an appearance in gritty smash hit Afterlife with Archie, and has even gotten his own origin comic about his adventures before living the Humbert Humbert dream.



Image Sources:
Vintage cat: The Graphics Fairy
Bear: Bear's twitter
Isis: DC Animated Universe wiki
Isis again: DC Animated Universe wiki
Shorty: Shorty and Kodi's Facebook
Cole: Cole and Marmalade's Facebook
Salem: from Afterlife With Archie #1, illustrated by Francesco Francavilla

Gale Boetticher's Sing-Along Fun Time

Confession: I can't watch this without tearing up.

Wow. So. Well. Are you vomiting and shaking right now? I have leftover cheesecake and I don't even know if I can eat it. I thought things were tense during last week's shoot-out, but holy shit, that was some laser tag compared to tonight. I don't even...how are we supposed to cope until next week? How are we supposed to process two more episodes?

Deep breaths. Let's relax.

So...how 'bout some comic relief and a reminder of the fun that can co-exist with this show? Sometimes? When things are not horrific? Four of these are even Gale-approved music-and-dance...oh, God, I don't even know if this will make it better or worse.

Breaking Swift

It turns out the turbulent relationship between Walt and Jesse is a perfect fit for the perpetual break-up songs of Taylor Swift, even if Tay-Tay has never (yet) watched a romantic rival choke to death on vomit or SPOILER sent an ex off to be tortured by goddamn neo-nazis. Geezus, I'm never recovering from that. Anyways, taking on the moving setpieces concept of Declan Whitebloom's video for Swift's "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together," Teddie Films chronicles the drama surrounding Walt and Jesse's (then) latest falling-out. Major props to Eddie King for nailing Jesse's stoner voice and to the guy playing Hector for managing to look so darn deadpan throughout.

Breaking Bad: The Middle School Musical

How freakin' charming is this mini-musical by YouTube greats Rhett & Link? With its faux DIY aesthetic and super-talented kids, it looks like Breaking Bad as directed by Wes Anderson. See if you can manage to not start laughing manically during mini Gus Fring's musical number. Oddly, both these first two videos change one small plot point by having Walt not spare Jesse the horror of putting Drew Sharp (aka dirt bike boy) in the acid barrel. I guess when these videos were made, Meth Damon wasn't enough of a breakout to bother parodying. 

Breaking Bad Thanksgiving

Jesse and Walt have a cooking show (apparently shot in a Google kitchen), but instead of Blue Sky, they're making pumpkin pie and turducken. Mark Douglas of Barely Political does the angry "Jesse!" hiss, and of course there's a montage with unexpected music choices and POV shots. And even Fake Jesse gets all the best lines.

Honest Trailer: Breaking Bad

We joke because we love, right? This entry in Screen Junkies' Honest Trailer series is heavy on the honesty, particularly with fans' obsessive behavior (cough) and the show's sometimes uncomfortable racial politics (this was before this half of the season's white power prison gang plot). But seriously, have you seen this show? How about we just watch the pilot? I promise you'll like it.

Joking Bad

And here is Jimmy Fallon's Breaking Bad love letter, a 12+ minute parody set in the cutthroat stand-up world. With painstakingly reproduced shots and Breaking Bad's trademark callbacks ("no end"), this long skit was clearly a labor of love.

Walter White and the Amazing Blue Crystal Meth

But really, who stops at under 13 minutes for a Breaking Bad parody? And doesn't even include musical numbers? A rat, that's who. Low budget and joyous, this hour-long musical by Jackie Johnson and Nadia Osman is a fan magnum opus. And there's a Gale song! There are also interpretive dance murders, a pretty hot Jesse, and terrible bald caps. It's at least 96% pure fun!

Weird Al's Albuquerque

Weird Al Yankovic and Breaking Bad go together. Ok, not really. But Aaron Paul did portray Weird Al in Funny or Die's Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. And then Slacktory went and used Breaking Bad clips to meticulously craft a music video for Weird Al's appropriately weird lengthy ode to Albuquerque. Lydia is the girl of everyone's dreams (especially Todd's).



There. Wasn't that fun? Don't you feel totally better now? Jesse? Jesse?

Jesse, we're paging Captain America and Magneto right now. Then we'll do go-karts.

Dry Decadence: Breaking Bad and Art

Frida Kahlo, Without Hope, 1945

I started watching Breaking Bad recently. I don't watch many TV series. Sopranos, Mad Men, Game of Thrones...I know of them and what generally has happened through word of mouth (that Red Wedding was brutal, right?), but have never actually watched them. Breaking Bad was one of those for me. But then I saw the "I am the one who knocks!" monologue on YouTube. Now it's taking all my self control to not completely drive my friends and family insane with talking about my new obsession, which is pretty much why I started this blog in the first place.

I love just about everything about the series, but one aspect I really appreciate is the visual. Its frames are art, and the show and art have intersected quite a bit. Art - from stock hospital wall watercolors to Walt Whitman's "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer" - has been important in the series. (Update 8/7: Kara Bolonik's "Leaves of Glass" further explores the Walter White/Walt Whitman connection, and a recent Breaking Bad teaser is Bryan Cranston reading Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias.") Gallery 1988 did a Breaking Bad themed show, more of the work from which can be seen here. And FaceoftheEarth on Etsy made the news with her Breaking Bad terrarium.

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

While watching the show's breathtaking shots of the New Mexico skyline and its smaller, tenser, human scenes, different art pieces came to mind, and I decided to start putting them together. For example, the above Frida Kahlo painting, with its desert, Dia de los Muertos imagery, physical suffering, and inner sickness, seems to me a perfect fit for Breaking Bad.

Place

I admire how at one with its setting the show is. While many shows' sense of place is tenuous (Monk's supposed San Francisco, with its front yards and ample street parking, could have been any suburb), Breaking Bad could not happen anyplace else - no more than Twin Peaks could have happened in Orange County or Arrested Development could have happened in the Pacific Northwest. Breaking Bad is firmly in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a sweltering city surrounded by endless desert. The ruggedness of the desert that stretches across the state and into northern Mexico is beautiful, but dangerous. Its vastness allows for cooking meth and testing nuclear weapons far from prying eyes.

This landscape famously captivated and inspired longtime New Mexico resident Georgia O'Keeffe - she of the "vagina paintings" Jane showed Jesse at Santa Fe's Georgia O'Keeffe Museum (maybe Jesse would've preferred this one). Her paintings of New Mexican landscapes and animal skulls bring to mind the beauty, heat-induced confusion, and sense of foreboding of the desert.

Georgia O'Keeffe, Ram's Head with White Hollyhock and Little Hills, 1935

The desert also inspired O'Keeffe contemporary Ansel Adams, whose famous photographs capture the dramatic place where people are dwarfed by land and land is dwarfed by sky.

Ansel Adams, Clouds, New Mexico, 1933

But nature, while powerful, is not untouched in New Mexico. The suburbs and desolate fringes of Albuquerque bring to my mind the sparse paintings of Chris Ballantyne. The dull houses, parking lots, and swimming pools in his work feel intrusive, but precarious. It's easy to imagine the land casually swallowing them up.

Chris Ballantyne, Plateau, 2009

Breaking Bad's interior spaces have their drama too. For me, the show's quiet scenes echo those moody tableaux of Edward Hopper. Skyler, often left to her thoughts and loneliness, especially comes to mind. Her working late to avoid Walt reminded me of Hopper's Office at Night.

Edward Hopper, Office at Night, 1940

Drugs

And you can't have Breaking Bad without drugs! Specifically: blue sky, the blue-tinted ultra-pure meth that is Walter and Jesse's specialty. But there are plenty of other drugs to be had - and not just heroin, cigarettes, and alcohol, but money and power.

This scene takes place in the outskirts of Paris in the late 1800s, not Albuquerque in the early 2000s, and the drug of choice is absinthe, not meth or heroin, but there are definite similarities between it and scenes of addiction in Breaking Bad. The two addicts haven't reached the zombie-like state of the denizens of the rancid flophouse from which Walt rescued Jesse, but they're certainly not doing well. Self-exiled to the sparse city borderlands, only the absinthe matters now.

Jean-Francois Raffaelli, The Absinthe Drinkers, 1881

This painting by Camille Rose Garcia from her Ambien Somnambulants series, with its horror, childishness, and offbeat beauty, reminds me Jane and Jesse's drug-induced downfall. Add a little meth and heroin, and their superhero-creating playfulness turns to petulant beaker-throwing, pissy blackmail attempts, and feverish plans to paint castles in New Zealand. You are not bien, here, Jesse. You are not bien at all.

Camille Rose Garcia, Animals Talk at Midnight, 2008

People

With superb writing and superb acting, Breaking Bad's cast of characters is one of TV's finest. Before watching the show, I knew Bryan Cranston had won a lot of Emmys. After watching the pilot, I was like, "damn, give him all the Emmys." Now that I'm almost caught up, I want to pelt the entire cast with Emmys (and, in fact, Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, Jonathan Banks, and Anna Gunn were just nominated today).This is by no means a complete list, as it would otherwise become way too long and nebulous (though I totally want to show Marie this dress), but just whatever art most came to mind with a character. I'd love to know what art has a Breaking Bad character connection for others.

One character might even be getting his own spinoff: lawyer Saul Goodman, whose slime is only matched by his unflappability. The sleazy lawyer character is hardly new (even a cat can do it), but Bob Odenkirk nails it. His Goodman is the Thenardier of this story - incredibly entertaining despite the fact/due to the fact that you'd hate him in real life.  Sure, this painting is of a politician, not a lawyer, but the man's overeager facial expression and calculated lean-in and hand gestures - as well as the two constituents' varying levels of skepticism - remind me of Goodman. If the new show doesn't work out for him, he should consider starting up Goodman, Loblaw & Flynn LLP.

George Caleb Bingham, Country Politician, 1849

The figures in this piece by David Choe might sport boobs, but it feels very Jesse-ish to me. Looking at it, you can imagine the sort of life - sometimes boring, sometimes desperate, sometimes happy - he might have had with pals Badger, Combo, and Skinny Pete had Mr. White never come back into his life.

David Choe, 99 Cent Store

And while we're gender-bending, how about Tuco's vicious, stylish, quietly determined assassin cousins? They'd be worthy opponents for Hellen Jo's trademark badass ladies. (Sorry, bros, but I'm putting my money on Jo's girls. I bet they never even had a "tepidly shoving at your uncle while he drowns your sibling" phase before ascending to ruthlessness.)

Hellen Jo, Shit Twins, 2013

It's hard not to see Walter Jr. in this painting by Manet. He's often at the breakfast table, caught between his two parents: an earnest but strained mother and a manipulative father. Here, the mother looks at the son with concern. The somewhat shady-looking father looks away. The son turns from both of them for the moment.

Edouard Manet, Luncheon in the Studio, 1868

Of course, the driving force of Breaking Bad is its protagonist, Walter White. Greed, fueled by long-standing jealousies and the frustration of powerlessness, has twisted him. This odd painting by James Whistler depicts a wealthy client who stiffed him, and it reminds me of the growing ugliness in Walt - all the sadder when you remember the video he made for his family in the pilot episode.

James Whistler, The Gold Scab: Eruption in Frilthy Lucre, 1879

But while that revenge painting highlights the pathetic side of greed, it can be terrifying as well. Bit by bit, we've seen Walt's transformation from a man who would sacrifice anything for his family to a man who might sacrifice his family. His obsession with his vicious, powerful Heisenberg persona has taken him a long way away from Mr. White, caring father and teacher. He's going down, but will he take his family with him? Will he even care if he does?

Eugene Delacroix, The Death of Sardanapalus, 1827

Sandwich

There are a lot of sandwiches in Breaking Bad, and they're quietly emotional affairs. Walt thoughtfully cuts the crusts of a sandwich he has made for Krazy-8, the drug dealer he has imprisoned in the basement and whom he must kill. Walt seethes while making himself a sandwich in his apartment's kitchen during his and Skylar's separation. Later, Walt cheerfully makes a sandwich and puts it in a brown paper bag labeled "Walt" to take with him to work at his shiny new meth lab. When Walt returns (forcefully) to his family, he treats Walter Jr. to a delicious-looking grilled cheese sandwich. We see Jesse, too, make a sandwich for the neglected toddler who has interrupted Jesse's attempted intimidation of the boy's drug-stealing parents. Making a sandwich in the Breaking Bad universe can be a symbol of survival or a sign - even if faint - of the continued existence of parental love in a vicious world.

This Thiebaud painting seems like the perfect way to end this post. A humble peanut butter sandwich on American white bread. Unfinished, or perhaps just open-faced, against a stark white background.

Wayne Thiebaud, Peanut Butter Sandwich, 2009

Images:
Kahlo: WikiPaintings
Terrarium: Etsy
O'Keeffe: Wikipedia, Brooklyn Museum
Adams: SFMOMA
Ballantyne: ArtSlant, Hosfelt Gallery
Hopper: iBiblio, Walker Art Center
Raffaelli: Legion of Honor
Garcia: Camille Rose Garcia, Adam Levine Gallery
Bingham: WikiMedia Commons, de Young
Choe: David Choe
Jo: HELLLLLEN
Manet: WikiPaintings, Neue Pinakothek
Whistler: de Young
Delacroix: Wikipedia, Louvre
Thiebaud: SFGate, Paul Thiebaud Gallery