Lists
Always Itemizing: Movieline's Year in Lists
Lists. Great for grocery shopping, even better for pop culture blogging. Come along now, as we list the best Movieline lists of the year. 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3 ...
Lists
Television's One-Season Wonders of the Decade
In the past ten years, a tragically short television life became a badge of honor for some television series; certain shows were just too smart, quirky or under-advertised to be appreciated by the mainstream. Like most rock stars whose early deaths made them icons, hasty cancellations have immortalized some of this decade's best programs. After the jump, seven series that flamed out too soon.
Lists
Comedian and Author Julie Klausner: My Fave Five of 2009
What's that you say? You've grown hopelessly addicted to our Fave Fives, printing them up and amassing them like some crazy lady in Kentucky who lives up to her waist in decades of accumulated trash, filth and dessicated cat carcasses? (Sorry -- we watched Hoarders last night and it's hard to shake off.) Well then, you're in luck! Next up is New York-based comedian, author and sexpot Julie Klausner, whose book, I Don't Care About Your Band: What I Learned from Indie Rockers, Trust Funders, Pornographers, Felons, Faux-Sensitive Hipsters, and Other Guys I've Dated, comes out on Groundhog Day 2010. Click on to learn what five pop culture moments Julie deemed 2009's most essential.
Lists
TV Host Dave Holmes: My Fave Five of 2009
Because you loved them so much last week, we're carrying our Fave Five feature through to the end of the year. Next up is one from former MTV VJ, television host and writer/comedian, Dave Holmes. What were his five biggest pop culture weaknesses of the past year? Let's examine the situation. (Lifts up shirt, flexes abdominals until they spell out "2009".)
Lists
The 8 Most Oversexed TV Characters of the Last Decade
Call them sluts, tramps, sexually empowered, "in touch with themselves," or whatever your bedroom religion permits. Still, it can't be denied that the past decade has bred a new kind of television floozy, thanks in part to Sex and the City gently escorting us into the 2000's with its bold bedroom dialogue. After the jump, Movieline recalls the 8 best characters who overindulged in the boudoir.
Lists
Human Giant and The League's Paul Scheer: My Fave Five for 2009
Next up in our cavalcade of celebrity Fave Five lists comes this one, from one of Movieline's favorite actors/comedians/cultural commentators/Lost fan-artists extraordinaire: Paul Scheer. Enjoy!
Lists
Pushing Daisies Creator Bryan Fuller: My Fave Five of 2009
Time now for another Fave Five list, this time from one of TV's most original and prolific voices: Bryan Fuller. After the jump, the former Star Trek writer and creator of such critically acclaimed (and sometimes tragically short-lived) series as Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls, and Pushing Daisies shares the five pop culture moments that sent him into warp drive in 2009.
Lists
The 10 Best Movie Twist Endings of the Decade
Our cornucopia of decade's end lists continues now with the Twist List: The best twist-endings and third-act mindf*cks from the last ten years. They're the cherries on your Manoj sundae, and they're after the jump.
Lists
7 Masterpieces of the '00s You've Likely Never Seen
Our outgoing decade largely earned its nickname as The Zeroes -- 10 long years of generally underachieving, unmemorable and/or distasteful popular culture. At the movies in particular, in the wide swath between the '00s' milestones and low ebbs, some pretty fantastic material wound up swept away in the cinematic tide: A few cycled in and out of the festival circuit before veering off to DVD, another wound up in international limbo, and yet others were imported to the US for all-too-brief theatrical runs. But all of them are among the most significant efforts of their years -- or any years this decade, for that matter. Here's hoping the '10s are kinder; it all starts with you.
Lists
Modern Family's Jesse Tyler Ferguson: My Fave Five of 2009
As the year draws to a close, Movieline has asked an esteemed selection of Hollywood pros -- writers, actors, producers, etc. -- to compile their five favorite pop culture things from 2009, which we'll be running throughout the week. To kick things off, we have the Fave Five of Jesse Tyler Ferguson, hilarious star of ABC's breakout hit Modern Family (which just so happens to be one of our favorite things of 2009). Click on to find out what movies, TV shows and musical performances rocked Jesse's world in the year that was.
Lists
Ten Inadvisable Movie Performances From the Past Decade
Stardom is like any great game of strategy -- it's both a combination of blind luck and a series of carefully calculated decisions. This decade produced several regrettable ones -- here's ten of the worst.
Lists
The Decade's Best and Worst Graphic Novel Adaptations
It's no wonder that graphic novels -- essentially pre-drawn storyboards featuring ultra-violent, supernatural plotlines -- are such an appealing sell. But caveat emptor, Hollywood-types: many come with fanatical fanbases that will make your lives living hells if you so much as get a single inkblot wrong on your anti-hero's mask. Even worse -- some are simply unfilmable. We round up for you now some of this decade's best, and worst, examples of graphic novel adaptations.
And a note for purists: The term graphic novel is being used here to also encompass limited comic book series that have later been published in volumes. OK! Let's begin...
Lists
What Were the Worst Hollywood Remakes of the Decade?
Of the many crimes foisted upon humanity by the faceless filmmaking syndicate known as Hollywood, perhaps none are as loathsome as the subpar remake. A practice that hearkens back to the dawn of cinema (little known fact: the Lumière Bros.' 1898 Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat was actually a remake of the far superior train-arriving-at-a-station movie Tout Abord le Choo Choo! from twenty years prior), it seems that the 21st Century has brought something of a Golden Era for truly craptastic, reconfigured cinematic entertainments. After the jump, we run through 11 of the best worst Hollywood remakes, and invite you to add your own in the comments.
Lists
In Honor of Leona Lewis's Avatar Song, 5 Proposed Blockbuster Power Ballads
It began with "Time For Miracles," the song sung by Adam Lambert that accompanies you as you exit 2012, pondering the true meaning of overcoming incontinence that director Roland Emmerich leaves us with after nearly three hours of skull-fracturing digital destruction. And with today's news that Leona Lewis, another reality TV singing sensation, will be recording a song for the Avatar soundtrack, it's all but official: the closing credits power ballad is back, and in a big way.
Let us sing its praises, then, with a tribute, as Movieline predicts the next five songs to follow the trend, and the artists who'll sing them.
Lists
'What is a Gronk?': 11 User-Generated Highlights From the Blackface War of '09
It's said that history is written by the winners. But as it pertains to this week's Australia vs. United States blackface-controversy culture-clash debacle, history is really written by hundreds of pundits, commenters and other blogger agonistes -- an international community for whom the appearance of "the Jackson Jive" on an Aussie TV special was the equivalent of setting global race relations back between 200 and 400 years (depending on whom you ask). Harry Connick Jr. started things off with his sincere complaint, but once the story hit Movieline's pages, it yielded an outpouring of angst we haven't seen since, like, ever.
It took a while to muddle through it all, but now, for posterity, here is your abridged tale of the Great Aussie/U.S. Culture War of 2009 -- the fury, the rationalizations, the name-calling and hopefully closure -- as told to Movieline by you. Table of contents after the jump.
