The Real Ben Cohen

Just Another Jewish Comedy Writer in New York

[therealbencohen-blog]

My Favorite Movies from 2014 After I finally fucking saw Birdman and was so thankful so you can now all get off my fucking ass

I haven't seen everything yet, particularly international films, but I've now seen enough to decide that more or less these were my favorite 10 films from 2014.

Also, since it's about to be 2015 and we're at the halfway mark in this decade, below also includes my favorites for the last 5 years. Those lists have understandably changed as I've seen many more films, taught many more films, and regretted several of my earlier opinions (namely on Chris Nolan and Judd Apatow). 

2014 was a great year for TV and actually, a pretty good year for films. Only a couple of the films on my list were Studio films, but sadly only one this year was foreign. This is not because there weren't tons of great international films but my broke ass was living off WGA screeners and Netflix all year. I'll be sure to catch more over the next few years. Also, if you know me, you know I rarely watch Documentaries. Nothing personal, I just run out of time between fiction films, TV, and comedy shows. Also, sometimes I have a life (not often). 

I bumped Whiplash into the other films I liked category because, well, I'm old-fashioned and I like the auteur theory. If Chazelle makes more awesome films, I'm sure I'll put it back in. It was great, if not completely and utterly uncomfortable. 

Also, as much as I'm an indie comedy filmmaker, I'm also a nerd and tend to like a couple big fat fluffy Blockbusters every year. This year just happened to be Apes and Sondheim. 

This list basically has three categories beginning with the Ice Cream films...

10. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes  - Matt Reeves

I thought I would bump this off the list, but the more I sit with it, the more I'm glad we have a fun dystopian franchise that, to steal from my cult UCB's curriculum, plays to the top of its intelligence. The first Planet of the Apes reboot was awesome and surprising as was this one. Lifting music and choreography from 2001: A Space Odyssey and crafting a Dystopian war film from the roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict (am I off base here?), Dawn is just a fun smart Sci-Fi film that probably won't get due credit cause it's a reboot about apes. Cesar felt more real than any other big Hollywood character I've seen recently and to be honest, more real than many flat indie characters I've seen the last few years too. Between this, Star Trek, and The Dark Knight, I'm starting to think reboots are okay as long as the right smart people are doing them.

9. Into the Woods - Rob Marshall

Another surprising big studio production. I get why we demonize Disney as everything that's wrong with American capitalism and stuff but as a company, they could have a much worse track record and could easily put out lighter content. Many people I personally know were concerned Sondheim and Lapine's glorious musical would be turned into vanilla in the hands of Disney. Shouldn't we remember who murdered Mufasa and destroyed all of our childhood souls? Who killed Bambi's mom? Who made the librarian have a stockholm syndrome relationship with a giant reclusive man beast? Disney gets dark. 

Sure, Into the Woods doesn't have a sex scene but outside of that, what did they cut? The musical is a fun weird clever dark fairy tale mashup that follows the stories even past the "happily ever after" moments. Rob Marshall's direction is visual and fun and emotionally rich like a good Fosse movie. Meryl Streep and Anna Kendrick are great. Johnny Depp is not but do any of us care anymore? 

Disney allowed Lapine and Sondheim to adapt their own work with a director they trusted. It's not West Side Story, but it's fun. 

8. Gone Girl - David Fincher

  I don't know what the shit this pulpy dumb crime movie starring Ben Affleck and Tyler Perry is supposed to be but it's insane and super fun. No, seriously, like, I don't know the point of this movie but holy shit it is really dark and fun. I won't write any more. I'm just mad Fincher made me like a Tyler Perry-Ben Affleck movie. 

Moving on to the second category, the darker indie films (still financed by big Hollywood studios)...

7. Selma - Ava DuVernay

Things I tend to hate in cinema: Hollywood Biopics (see: Get on Up). Films that "correct" history (see: The Newsroom). Films that attempt to get mainstream audiences to feel things about history through the eyes of white liberal guilt-ridden characters instead of those disenfranchised (see: Amistad, Schindler's List, Sandra Bullock). 

Selma does none of those things. Selma tells the story of MLK Jr.'s landmark protest preceding the federal voting rights act. The film is careful. MLK is not a saint and is just as concerned with media representation and legislation as he is with his great speeches we now mostly known him for. The film very personally and authentically captures the stakes we also mostly forget about the civil rights movement--people got fucking killed for it. Many of them. 

Visually, the film takes risks. Extreme low angles, POV, and montage--things we're more accustomed to seeing in bolder biography filmmakers like Spike Lee and Scorsese. Like Chazelle, I have no clue if DuVernay will continue to make good films, but for the sake of all of us, I really hope she does. 

6. Nightcrawler - Rob Gilroy

I think this will be the most underrated movie this year. Jake Gyllenhal stars as an LA freelance crime TV videographer. Sharing more with Taxi Driver and Network than anything, Gilroy has made a very specific and relevant sociopath. Does anyone not see the ending of the film coming an hour before it comes? I doubt it. But didn't we all know where Breaking Bad was going for like, years? This film is a smart journey into the dirty sensational LA local TV world, but unlike Network, broadcast news is dead in this film. 

Also Bill Paxton BASICALLY plays his evil twin from Twister. So.

5. A Most Violent Year - J.C. Chandor

Here's a filmmaker I didn't really appreciate last year when I saw All Is Lost. I still am yet to see his first film, but after seeing these last two, I now see the risk taker he is as a filmmaker. I don't know if something is in the air recently or if it's just the age of all the filmmakers but there seems to be an extra strong influence of mid-70s films going around right now. This one, a thriller about a fucking gas company, feels more like The Godfather than anything. Some of that may be Oscar Isaac (you all know how partial I am to him now) and his resemblance to a young Pacino.

The film follows the rise of crime in a corrupt war amongst gas companies in the very early 1980s during New York's Detroit phase. I often bark at my students that their dramas are too bleak, their comedies too light, and their thrillers about too little. Obviously, this is a difficult task that I'm not equipped to handle as a writer, but Chandor seems to be. Between Albert Brooks and Jessica Chastain, the film has a light familial comedy to it. The chase sequences feel more like The Shining or Psycho. Yet, the film never loses its pretty singular theme of empire-building. I think I may have been wrong last year and more importantly, I think J.C. Chandor will make many more great films for all of us.

And the last category, 4 of my favorite filmmakers who have now put together an absurdly consistent body of work in small-medium budget independent cinema...

4. The Grand Budapest Hotel - Wes Anderson

Let me say this, I don't believe I have ever really liked a Wes Anderson film upon first viewing. Maybe it's the shock of it being a "Wes Anderson" film or maybe it's just the specific cuteness that jars me every time. Yet, on the second viewing, every time (minus maybe Aquatic and Bottle Rocket), I am floored by how fucking great his films are. You could say they're all the same but would you not then have to say that about John Ford, Peckinpah, Scorsese, Woody, and Hitchcock? Anderson has a very specific style, yet he always finds a new theme, genre, and adventure.

Does this film bite off more than it can chew, sure. Did I buy the early Nazi references, not so much. Is it funny, exciting, and kind of challenging to traditional gender roles? Totally. Also, come on, Jeff Goldblum. 

3. Two Days, One Night - Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne

Now for the great films. The Dardenne Brothers have made a handful of films and for almost every film they've made, they have a Palme D'Or to go with it. This is not without cause. The Promise, The Child, The Son, Rosetta, The Kid With a Bike, and now this film with Marion Cotillard. They each center around working class and lower income Belgian families struggling with one specifically odd decision. A dying immigrant's request to a teenager, a juvi convinct who sells his baby, a hairdresser who adopts an abandoned teenager, and the depressed Marion Cotillard who will lose her job if she cannot convince her coworkers to forgo their bonuses. 

Pulling from Verite, Bresson, and Italian NeoRealism, the Dardenne Brothers never lose an expression, a decision, or a realization, but they never pull a Crash and beat us over the head with it (the bad Crash not the car-fucking Crash). I think I also respond so well to these filmmakers because they have a little bit of a Raymond Carver touch to them. In this film in particular, upon Marion Cotillard's request to a coworker to forgo her bonus, she inspires her coworker to get into a serious marital fight. There's this interconnectivity that everyone's decisions impact everyone else's, almost like an Altman film. 

Anyway, blah blah blah arty foreign Ben Cohen film school blah blah, go see the Dardenne brothers films. If you haven't seen them, see The Promise, The Son, The Child, Rosetta, The Kid With a Bike. 2 Palme D'Ors and a Grand Prix at Cannes. 

2. Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance - Alejandro Gonzalez - Inarritu

So I didn't want to know very much about this film before I saw it. I've long been a fan of Alejandro Gonzalez-Inarritu and anyone who knows me knows that I've revered Michael Keaton my whole life. This is no more evident than the year I spent in my early 20s telling people at bars that Michael Keaton was dead just to see their reaction. This sounds cruel and unusual and kinda sick (it was), but I did it out of affection and never wanted to create a hoax but rather remind people of the actor they grew up with--Beetle Juice and Batman. 

I should also note, largely due to Robert Altman's adaptation of his work in Short Cuts, I am a huge fan of Raymond Carver. He may be my favorite author. Add that to a gorgeous and neurotic New York City backdrop and the always electric Emma Stone, this film seems like a perfect fit for my tastes. 

Gonzalez-Inarritu has always played with perspective, form, alternative structures (through amazing Arriaga screenplays), and in his last two films, some Surrealism. Birdman definitely takes this to Bunuelian territory with fantastical dreams and infusions of magic throughout the film, all building to the crumbling of Michael Keaton's Michael Keaton-esque character, losing his mind while adapting a Carver play. 

Does it share things in common with Aronofsky's Black Swan or Powell&Pressburger's The Red Shoes? Sure. I was reminded of those films but the emotional core of this film is so honest and simple--a celebrity finally confronts his confusion of admiration for love. Constant references to social media, blockbuster films, and a wide cast of needy and character constantly seeking validation, this film doesn't hide its theme. Like a good Carver story, it explores it in the smallest moments. Whether it's a truth or dare game on a roof, an extra beer in a dressing room, or just a passive reaction to otherwise positive moment, the film feels true to the spirit of Carver but totally the voice of Gonzalaz-Inarritu. 

This doesn't even mention the camera/editing work which takes Rope, Russian Ark, and Gravity to a new level. I'm sure I'll be teaching this film in the future. If you don't know Gonzalez-Inarritu's work, go back and watch Amores Perros, 21 Grams, and Biutiful. And see Birdman. 

1. Boyhood - Richard Linklater

So this one wasn't difficult. You all know what this is about and how it was filmed and why it's groundbreaking. The thing that surprises me about this film is how universal the reception seems to be (minus one of my colleagues who I had a 30 minute argument with about it). Richard Linklater is a weird filmmaker. He began his career with the hero-less Slacker, followed it up with an art film disguised as a stoner comedy, then went on to begin the painful and simple Before Sunrise series. Boyhood seems like a culmination of his experiments and also seems strangely new and fresh. 

Many students and friends have said things to me like, "yeah but what's the story?" I was lucky enough to attend an interview with Linklater where he basically answered that question. I can't quote it but he basically said there is a 3-act time structure, but not necessarily a hero's journey because our own lives have impactful and memorable moments that aren't always the most dramatic. Who doesn't remember sitting in a house, drinking beer, and talking about virginity? Maybe a lesser filmmaker would make this scene boring or cheesy or just dumb. What does Linklater do in the film? He makes it honest. It's still a character reveal moment. We learn how our protagonist reacts in social situations where his masculinity is challenged. We learn how he adapts to new environments. Will this be relevant to the story later in the film? Yes, he's constantly finding new environments, having his masculinity challenged, and indeed, finally having sex. 

Linklater is a personal filmmaker. He writes from his life. If you've ever heard me rant about the dangers of running away from cliche and blah blah blah, you know that I use Linklater as an example of how to attack a cliche and make it your own because your own life isn't cliche, it's truth. If you have lived an interesting life and if you have something to say about it, we'll relate. For people who like Linklater, I think that's what they like about him. I know it's what I like. 

If you don't know Linklater films, go back and see Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight, Dazed and Confused, Slacker, Waking Life, and more. 

Other Films I Liked:

*Whiplash (Damien Chazelle), Guardians of the Galaxy (James Gunn), Captain America: Winter Soldier (Anthony & Joe Russo)

My Revised Favorite Films Each Year 2010-2014

2014:

Boyhood (Richard Linklater)

Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance (Alejandro Gonzalez-Inarritu)

2 Days, 1 Night (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)

The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson)

A Most Violent Year (J.C. Chandor)

Nightcrawler (Rob Gilroy)

Selma (Ava DuVernay)

Gone Girl (David Fincher)

Into the Woods (Rob Marshall)

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (Matt Reeves)

-------------------------------

*Whiplash (Damien Chazelle), Guardians of the Galaxy (James Gunn), Captain America: Winter Soldier (Anthony & Joe Russo)

2013:

Inside Llewyn Davis (Joel & Ethan Coen)

Before Midnight (Richard Linklater)

Her (Spike Jonze)

The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese)

Nebraska (Alexander Payne)

Mud (Jeff Nichols)

The World's End (Edgar Wright)

Blue Is The Warmest Color (Abdellatif Kechiche)

12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen)

All Is Lost (J.C. Chandor)

-------------------------------

*Captain Phillips (Paul Greengrass), Fruitvale Station (Ryan Coogler), Blue Jasmine (Woody Allen), Spring Breakers (Harmony Korine)

2012:

Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson)

Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino)

Bernie (Richard Linklater)

The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson)

Zero Dark Thirty (Kathryn Bigelow)

The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Steven Chobsky)

Take This Waltz (Sarah Polley)

Looper (Rian Johnson)

The Cabin in the Woods (Drew Goddard)

The Avengers (Joss Whedon)

-------------------------------

*Lincoln (Steven Spielberg), Life of Pi (Ang Lee), 2 Days in New York (Julie Delpy)

2011:

The Kid With a Bike (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)

Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen)

The Skin I Live In (Pedro Almodovar)

Take Shelter (Jeff Nichols)

The Descendants (Alexander Payne)

Shame (Steve McQueen)

Win Win (Thomas McCarthy)

Hugo (Martin Scorsese)

Jeff Who Lives at Home (Mark & Jay Duplass)

The Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Rupert Wyatt)

-------------------------------

*Bridesmaids (Paul Feig), The Muppets (James Bobin), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (David Yates)

2010:

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (Edgar Wright)

Blue Valentine (Derek Cianfrance)

Biutiful (Alejandro Gonzalez-Inarritu)

Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky)

The Social Network (David Fincher)

The Illusionist (Sylvain Chomet)

Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich)

Exit Through the Gift Shop (Banksy)

True Grit (Joel & Ethan Coen)

127 Hours (Danny Boyle)

-------------------------------

*Winter's Bone (Debra Granik), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (David Yates)

[therealbencohen-blog]

My Favorite Movies from 2014 With Full Understanding I Haven't Seen Birdman So Leave Me The Fuck Alone

As the title suggests, this is one of my more incomplete year end lists. I've yet to see Birdman, The Imitation Game, Still Alice, or Chef. Also, since it's about to be 2015 and we're at the halfway mark in this decade, I'll repost a my favorites for the last 5 years. Those lists have understandably changed as I've seen many more films, taught many more films, and regretted several of my earlier opinions (namely on Chris Nolan and Judd Apatow). 

2014 was a great year for TV and an okay year for film with the top two films I saw this year being totally amazing and great. Only a couple of the films on my list were Studio films, but sadly only one this year was foreign. This is not because there weren't tons of great international films but my broke ass was living off WGA screeners and Netflix all year. I'll be sure to catch more over the next few years. Also, if you know me, you know I rarely watch Documentaries. Nothing personal, I just run out of time between fiction films, TV, and comedy shows. Also, sometimes I have a life (not often). 

10. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes  - Matt Reeves

I'm sure when I see more films, this will be the first bumped off the list, but for now, I don't know, I liked it. The first Planet of the Apes reboot was awesome and surprising and so was this one. Lifting music and choreography from 2001: A Space Odyssey and crafting a Dystopian war film from the roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict (am I off base here?), Dawn is just a fun smart Sci-Fi film that probably won't get due credit cause it's a reboot about apes. Between this, Star Trek,  and The Dark Knight, I'm starting to think reboots are okay as long as the right smart people are doing them.

9. Into the Woods - Rob Marshall

Another surprising big studio production. I get why we demonize Disney as everything that's wrong with American capitalism and stuff but as a company, they could have a much worse track record and could easily put out lighter content. Many people I personally know were concerned Sondheim and Lapine's glorious musical would be turned into vanilla in the hands of Disney. Shouldn't we remember who murdered Mufasa and destroyed all of our childhood souls? Who killed Bambi's mom? Who made the librarian have a stockholm syndrome relationship with a giant reclusive man beast? Disney gets dark. 

Sure, Into the Woods doesn't have a sex scene but outside of that, what did they cut? The musical is a fun weird clever dark fairy tale mashup that follows the stories even past the "happily ever after" moments. Rob Marshall's direction is visual and fun and emotionally rich like a good Fosse movie. Meryl Streep and Anna Kendrick are great. Johnny Depp is not but do any of us care anymore? 

Disney allowed Lapine and Sondheim to adapt their own work with a director they trusted. It's not West Side Story, but it's fun. 

8. Whiplash - Damien Chazelle

Now for the indie arty dark movies. A Sundance hit and a total fucking nightmare, Whiplash follows a Jazz student getting verbally assaulted and degraded by his instructor for 100 minutes. As someone who works in a creative field and teaches, I couldn't help but cringe throughout this entire film--and that's a compliment. 

Full disclosure: I do not teach like this man teaches nor have I had (or rather kept) any teachers that do since High School. In High School, I absolutely had a teacher like this who walked the same dark fine line between manipulation and discipline. This film is probably the weirdest and most accurate depiction of this style of teaching I've ever seen, shattering any Good Will Hunting, Dead Poets, Karate Kid mentor-mentee cliches we've grown accustomed to viewing. 

On a cinematic level, somehow, Chazelle pulls more from Raging Bull and Requiem for a Dream than I expected for a Jazz film. Blood dripping off symbols, sweat flying in the air, bandages on fingers--the film has a disturbing and visceral quality to it. I'm usually really hesitant to add newer filmmakers to my top tens (as if it matters or I matter *makes jerkoff motion*) as I have no clue if that filmmaker will continue to make great work. Simply put, I really hope Chazelle continues to make great work. 

7. Selma - Ava DuVernay

Things I tend to hate in cinema: Hollywood Biopics (see: Get on Up). Films that "correct" history (see: The Newsroom). Films that attempt to get mainstream audiences to feel things about history through the eyes of white liberal guilt-ridden characters instead of those disenfranchised (see: Amistad, Schindler's List, Sandra Bullock). 

Selma does none of those things. Selma tells the story of MLK Jr.'s landmark protest preceding the federal voting rights act. The film is careful. MLK is not a saint and is just as concerned with media representation and legislation as he is with his great speeches we now mostly known him for. The film very personally and authentically captures the stakes we also mostly forget about the civil rights movement--people got fucking killed for it. Many of them. 

Visually, the film takes risks. Extreme low angles, POV, and montage--things we're more accustomed to seeing in bolder biography filmmakers like Spike Lee and Scorsese. Like Chazelle, I have no clue if DuVernay will continue to make good films, but for the sake of all of us, I really hope she does. 

6. Gone Girl - David Fincher

I don't know what the shit this pulpy dumb crime movie starring Ben Affleck and Tyler Perry is supposed to be but it's insane and super fun. No, seriously, like, I don't know the point of this movie but holy shit it is really dark and fun. I won't write any more. I'm just mad Fincher made me like a Tyler Perry-Ben Affleck movie. 

5. Nightcrawler - Rob Gilroy

I think this will be the most underrated movie this year. Jake Gyllenhal stars as an LA freelance crime TV videographer. Sharing more with Taxi Driver and Network than anything, Gilroy has made a very specific and relevant sociopath. Does anyone not see the ending of the film coming an hour before it comes? I doubt it. But didn't we all know where Breaking Bad was going for like, years? This film is a smart journey into the dirty sensational LA local TV world, but unlike Network, broadcast news is dead in this film. 

Also Bill Paxton BASICALLY plays his evil twin from Twister. So.

4. A Most Violent Year - J.C. Chandor

Here's a filmmaker I didn't really appreciate last year when I saw All Is Lost. I still am yet to see his first film, but after seeing these last two, I now see the risk taker he is as a filmmaker. I don't know if something is in the air recently or if it's just the age of all the filmmakers but there seems to be an extra strong influence of mid-70s films going around right now. This one, a thriller about a fucking gas company, feels more like The Godfather than anything. Some of that may be Oscar Isaac (you all know how partial I am to him now) and his resemblance to a young Pacino.

The film follows the rise of crime in a corrupt war amongst gas companies in the very early 1980s during New York's Detroit phase. I often bark at my students that their dramas are too bleak, their comedies too light, and their thrillers about too little. Obviously, this is a difficult task that I'm not equipped to handle as a writer, but Chandor seems to be. Between Albert Brooks and Jessica Chastain, the film has a light familial comedy to it. The chase sequences feel more like The Shining or Psycho. Yet, the film never loses its pretty singular theme of empire-building. I think I may have been wrong last year and more importantly, I think J.C. Chandor will make many more great films for all of us.

3. The Grand Budapest Hotel - Wes Anderson

Let me say this, I don't believe I have ever really liked a Wes Anderson film upon first viewing. Maybe it's the shock of it being a "Wes Anderson" film or maybe it's just the specific cuteness that jars me every time. Yet, on the second viewing, every time (minus maybe Aquatic and Bottle Rocket), I am floored by how fucking great his films are. You could say they're all the same but would you not then have to say that about John Ford, Peckinpah, Scorsese, Woody, and Hitchcock? Anderson has a very specific style, yet he always finds a new theme, genre, and adventure.

Does this film bite off more than it can chew, sure. Did I buy the early Nazi references, not so much. Is it funny, exciting, and kind of challenging to traditional gender roles? Totally. Also, come on, Jeff Goldblum.

2. Two Days, One Night - Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne

Now for the great films. The Dardenne Brothers have made a handful of films and for almost every film they've made, they have a Palme D'Or to go with it. This is not without cause. The Promise, The Child, The Son, Rosetta, The Kid With a Bike, and now this film with Marion Cotillard. They each center around working class and lower income Belgian families struggling with one specifically odd decision. A dying immigrant's request to a teenager, a juvi convinct who sells his baby, a hairdresser who adopts an abandoned teenager, and the depressed Marion Cotillard who will lose her job if she cannot convince her coworkers to forgo their bonuses. 

Pulling from Verite, Bresson, and Italian NeoRealism, the Dardenne Brothers never lose an expression, a decision, or a realization, but they never pull a Crash and beat us over the head with it (the bad Crash not the car-fucking Crash). I think I also respond so well to these filmmakers because they have a little bit of a Raymond Carver touch to them. In this film in particular, upon Marion Cotillard's request to a coworker to forgo her bonus, she inspires her coworker to get into a serious marital fight. There's this interconnectivity that everyone's decisions impact everyone else's, almost like an Altman film. 

Anyway, blah blah blah arty foreign Ben Cohen film school blah blah, go see the Dardenne brothers films. 

1. Boyhood - Richard Linklater

So this one wasn't difficult. You all know what this is about and how it was filmed and why it's groundbreaking. The thing that surprises me about this film is how universal the reception seems to be (minus one of my colleagues who I had a 30 minute argument with about it). Richard Linklater is a weird filmmaker. He began his career with the hero-less Slacker, followed it up with an art film disguised as a stoner comedy, then went on to begin the painful and simple Before Sunrise series. Boyhood seems like a culmination of his experiments and also seems strangely new and fresh. 

Many students and friends have said things to me like, "yeah but what's the story?" I was lucky enough to attend an interview with Linklater where he basically answered that question. I can't quote it but he basically said there is a 3-act time structure, but not necessarily a hero's journey because our own lives have impactful and memorable moments that aren't always the most dramatic. Who doesn't remember sitting in a house, drinking beer, and talking about virginity? Maybe a lesser filmmaker would make this scene boring or cheesy or just dumb. What does Linklater do in the film? He makes it honest. It's still a character reveal moment. We learn how our protagonist reacts in social situations where his masculinity is challenged. We learn how he adapts to new environments. Will this be relevant to the story later in the film? Yes, he's constantly finding new environments, having his masculinity challenged, and indeed, finally having sex. 

Linklater is a personal filmmaker. He writes from his life. If you've ever heard me rant about the dangers of running away from cliche and blah blah blah, you know that I use Linklater as an example of how to attack a cliche and make it your own because your own life isn't cliche, it's truth. If you have lived an interesting life and if you have something to say about it, we'll relate. For people who like Linklater, I think that's what they like about him. I know it's what I like. 

Other Films I Liked:

*Guardians of the Galaxy (James Gunn), Captain America: Winter Soldier (Anthony & Joe Russo)

My Revised Favorite Films Each Year 2010-2014

2014:

Boyhood (Richard Linklater)

2 Days, 1 Night (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)

The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson)

A Most Violent Year (J.C. Chandor)

Nightcrawler (Rob Gilroy)

Gone Girl (David Fincher)

Selma (Ava DuVernay)

Whiplash (Damien Chazelle)

Into the Woods (Rob Marshall)

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (Matt Reeves)

-------------------------------

*Guardians of the Galaxy (James Gunn), Captain America: Winter Soldier (Anthony & Joe Russo)

2013:

Inside Llewyn Davis (Joel & Ethan Coen)

Before Midnight (Richard Linklater)

Her (Spike Jonze)

The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese)

Nebraska (Alexander Payne)

Mud (Jeff Nichols)

The World's End (Edgar Wright)

Blue Is The Warmest Color (Abdellatif Kechiche)

12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen)

All Is Lost (J.C. Chandor)

-------------------------------

*Captain Phillips (Paul Greengrass), Fruitvale Station (Ryan Coogler), Blue Jasmine (Woody Allen), Spring Breakers (Harmony Korine)

2012:

Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson)

Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino)

Bernie (Richard Linklater)

The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson)

Zero Dark Thirty (Kathryn Bigelow)

The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Steven Chobsky)

The Cabin in the Woods (Drew Goddard)

The Avengers (Joss Whedon)

Looper (Rian Johnson)

Take This Waltz (Sarah Polley)

-------------------------------

*2 Days in New York (Julie Delpy)

2011:

The Kid With a Bike (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)

Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen)

The Skin I Live In (Pedro Almodovar)

Take Shelter (Jeff Nichols)

The Descendants (Alexander Payne)

Shame (Steve McQueen)

Win Win (Thomas McCarthy)

Hugo (Martin Scorsese)

The Muppets (James Bobin)

Jeff Who Lives at Home (Mark & Jay Duplass)

-------------------------------

*The Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Rupert Wyatt), Bridesmaids (Paul Feig), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (David Yates)

2010:

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (Edgar Wright)

Blue Valentine (Derek Cianfrance)

Biutiful (Alejandro Gonzalez-Inarritu)

Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky)

The Social Network (David Fincher)

The Illusionist (Sylvain Chomet)

Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich)

Exit Through the Gift Shop (Banksy)

True Grit (Joel & Ethan Coen)

127 Hours (Danny Boyle)

-------------------------------

*Winter's Bone (Debra Granik), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (David Yates)

[therealbencohen-blog]

Ten TV Shows I Liked in 2014 Because Real Life Was the Worst

If you know me you know I don't exactly like, "doing things." I have a dog and I like my apartment and I like watching TV. These are ten shows I really liked this year.

Last year I wrote that 6 of my favorite shows were ending. This year I watched only one emotional series finale (2 including Colbert) but several shows for the first time. 

This was the year I discovered Archer and The Good Wife and we all discovered Abbi & Ilana. 

This was also the year I quit The Walking Dead and Homeland. I also tried and failed to watch Scandal. 

I haven't seen half the big movies this year still so I'll post those in a couple weeks.

10. Boardwalk Empire - Terence Winter

It's rare, but sometimes a show seems unbearably overrated and sadly underrated. Boardwalk had one of the largest and most electric rollouts of any show when it debuted. Many of us watched it looking for a methadone come down from The Sopranos finale. But it was a different show. Slow, labored, obsessively attentive to detail and intricate in plot. I enjoyed the show over the years, particularly Michael Pitt, Buscemi, and that glorious year with Bobby Cannavale. 

Yet only the last two seasons did I really get excited about episodes. This final season was short, quick and used a gigantic time leap with many gaps for us to fill in. It finally felt like the show we had been promised all along and I mean that as a compliment. Slow and meticulous but rich with subtext and an odd warmth between characters. There was levity this year to ground the violence. The politics of prohibition, the rise of the FBI, the birth of sound cinema, and the death of the gangster made a solid and somber setting to an electric finale. I will miss this show and hope we get something more from the writing staff over the next few years. 

9. The Americans - Joe Weisberg & Joel Fields

I mentioned The Sopranos above. The Americans is another fitting descendant of the show. Two KGB agents undercover in America, struggling to be good parents and secret agents. It sounds like a dumb (but hilarious) Disney show. Yet the pilot to this show begins with Fleetwood Mac playing to a manipulative Keri Russell blowjob. 

Set during the Reagan Administration and in the final years of the Cold War, The Americans really fucks with American hero identification and materialism. AKA this is a 21st century show set when Back to the Future came out. I liked few shows more for character this year. 

8. Fargo - Noah Hawley

Okay obvious points. It's an adaptation (sequel) of a Coen Brothers classic (not directed by them) starring Sling Blade (not an insult just a solid reference).

For comedy nerds, the cast includes: 

Dennis from It's Always Sunny, Key & Peele, Martin Freeman, and Bob Odenkirk. 

That's 4 of the most solid participants in 4 of the most solid comedy shows of all time. 

So, how is this show one of the most effective black comedy-detective-dramas TV's ever seen? It's fucking nuts. Time jumps, Hitchcock references, massive and shocking misdirection, and of course brutal murders over precious white snow. The Coen Brothers' film is one of my favorite films of all time and no, this does not rival the film but it is a wild and fun experiment to watch a series take place in the same world and really explore. It reminds you how much work The Coens put into universe building in each film and how much fun Hawley had expanding it. 

7. Game of Thrones - David Benioff & D.B. Weiss

Tyrion. 

Tyrion's dad taking a shit.

Geoffrey.

Finally stuff makes sense on this show.

Tyrion. 

6. Archer: Vice - Adam Reed

So adjustment to all my favorite shows lists from past years. Archer is fucking great. I spent years pining for more Arrested Development and didn't even realize that there was this amazing show that is basically Arrested with Spies. 

This season was ridiculous. Not my favorite of the show and certainly the fucking weirdest, ditching the base premise of the show in favor of a Scarface year but it was still absurdly fun. Also apologies to anyone I screamed "LANNNNNNAAA" at this year. 

5. Louie - Louis C.K. 

Louie is a short filmmaker who got a TV show where he does short films about his life where basically nothing matters and everything matters and his daughters are hilarious. Last season, Louie got ambitious with the Parker Posey manic pixie story arc and Rocky VII: Louie Vs. Letterman situation. It was awesome and amazing and inspiring. 

This season, outside of the glorious Fat Girl episode, Louie did a series of feature films spread across multiple episodes. I would love to put this show as my favorite show of the year for his middle school pot film (sadly originally intended for Phillip Seymour Hoffman). Yet, Louie also did that weird slow and not that exciting Hungarian mute woman storyline situation thingy. I'm not mad, I'm still jealous and thrilled there's a show like this with a man who experiments and takes risks in comedy the way Louie does. So thanks for existing, Louie. 

4. Mad Men - Matthew Weiner

I guess this show has been on too long because all my friends (my brother included) dislike it now eventhough the writing just gets more thrilling and interesting as the 60s march towards David Bowie. 

I've written about this show over and over and talked about it so much I just feel the need to say, I still love it. I love Matthew Weiner as a writer and personality and I love the show's challenge to traditional narrative and ability to get so damn absurd and never lose tone or purpose. So thanks Matthew Weiner for the nipple, for Cooper, for the threeway and for still making my favorite show since The Sopranos (third reference, boom). 

3. The Good Wife - Michelle & Robert King

I will be the first to admit that I did not watch this show for the longest time because CBS. I denied myself Julianna Marguiles and Alan Cumming and Michael J. Fox and probably the strongest, most realistic (albeit cynical) and most interconnected political show since The Wire. It doesn't have Simon's ability to connect thematically and build over long periods of time, but the Kings' show has a character sensitivity and specificity that few other shows have. Everyone feels real even as the stakes are consistently more heightened than anything we ever encounter in our everyday lives. 

This year was the most surprisingly and most thrilling year for reasons I can't say without spoiling, however the show keeps taking risks with a clear arc for Alicia Florrick. For the show's sake, I hope there's only two more seasons. For my sake, I could watch 10 more years of this. 

2. True Detective - Nic Pizzolatto

It was the Serial of TV in 2014. 

1. Broad City - Abbi Jacobson & Ilana Glazer

Remember when we were al like, "Hey Lena Dunham is us and she speaks our voice and is funny." Then we realized none of that is true. Broad City is the show we were really hoping for. At least, it's the show I was hoping for. 

Full disclosure:

Yeah this show was born out of our UCB improv and sketch comedy community here in NYC. Yeah I'm biased because I recognize people on the show and respect the performers and writers on stage just as much as on screen. Yeah, they're Jews doing silly stuff in New York and talking about 90s hip hop all the time. YEAH I FUCKING GET IT, THIS SHOW WAS MADE FOR ME AND NOT EVERYONE LOVES IT BUT LIKE SERIOUSLY I LOVE IT. This is my favorite sitcom in years. I haven't related to a show this well since Curb came out. Yes, we Jews have done well in comedy and entertainment but I still feel like something's missing when we don't have a great neurotic and sarcastic show on television. I love that the show gets to be that plus all the diversity Seinfeld and Woody Allen got criticized for lacking. Season two is about to premiere next month. If you haven't seen season one yet, get at it. Abbi and Ilana are super fun physical comedians and Hannibal Burress (The Cosby destroyer) and Chris Gethard steal every scene they're in. Not to mention great cameos from Janeane Garafalo, Rachel Dratch, Shannon O' Neil, and Amy Sedaris and more.

*Other Shows I Liked: 

Then are some other Shows I watched and liked but didn't love for various reasons. Parks has been on too long. Community is missing half a cast. House of Cards makes cheap (yes ep 1) decisions even though it's fun and glorious pulp. 

*Shameless, Orange is the New Black, Community, Parks and Recreation, Veep, Silicon Valley, Episodes, Garfunkel and Oates, Masters of Sex, Sherlock, House of Cards.  

And of course, other shows I didn't watch regularly but what I saw I loved because these are all great long running (or soon to be) institutions. 

*South Park, The Simpsons, The Daily Show, Colbert, Seth Myers, John Oliver, Conan, Fallon, Key&Peele, Amy Schumer, SNL, Cosmos, Anthony Bourdain.  

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This is winning all the critics awards but my dear WGA did not even nominate it for best screenplay. Normally, I don't care about this stuff, but this is a thing. 

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Top Ten TV Series of 2013 Or I Watched Too Much TV. I Liked It. I Was Good At It.

"TV is better than Movies." - Probably somebody at some point this year.

I think this quote I just paraphrased out of thin air is bullshit. Absolutely, we have more Television channels and platforms than ever. Amazon, Hulu, and (gloriously) Netflix jumped into the premium cable foray this year. Most cable packages now come with like 200 HD channels plus these internet-based channels. Out of those hundreds of options, there's still a 98% chance you're watching some variation of Duck Dynasty. 

Yet, with that 2%, Television has given us another year of mind-bendingly cinematic serials with full season arcs, character nuance, cultural discussion, and guest directors like Todd Haynes, Rian Johnson, and David Gordon Green. 

2013 did some amazing things for serial storytelling. It brought back the greatest TV comedy of all time, solidified the binge model, and either gave us the last gasp or the new frontier of communal Sunday watching and subsequent Monday water cooler talk. 

And of course, as great as Leo, Bale, Adams, Phoenix, and McConnoughey were this year, the best performances were all on the smallest screens this year. Needless to say, Cranston, Paul, Hamm, Kartheiser (Pete Campbell), Dern, Elba, and Dreyfus were canon worthy.

On that note, remember I am a New York comedy nerd and prefer stories where people sit around and talk and somehow politics, history, and culture get satirized as often as possible by people with receding hairlines. 

Also, 6 of these series will never be on Television again. 6 of them. Holy shit. With that...

10. Veep - Armando Iannucci

Okay, I wasn't sold by season 1 either. I love Armando Iannucci and In the Loop is a Strangelove-esque masterpiece of comedy. An Italian who primarily worked in Britain joining HBO and Julia Louis Dreyfus for a show satirizing our United States seems a little off. I'm not being close minded,  I just don't think I'd have as much luck writing the Berlusconi comedy on Italian television. This extra challenge, really, is just what makes this show so damn special now. 

The concept of the show is simple: A female Vice President too in love with herself to foster anything other than a weak Machiavellian (see, Italian!) organization of political incompetence. In the wake of Dick Mussolini Cheney (see, Italian!) and Joe Gay People Are Almost As Good as Trains Biden, it seems odd to have a show about an ineffectual VP. 

Whatever, I'm over worrying about that. Politics are nonsensical in this country now and I don't just say that because it's the present and we all bitch about the present. I'm thrilled there's less war and I finally have healthcare, but jesus fucking christ we have a disastrously vain political class right now. Veep has found the central artery to satirize this through small PR mishaps and cases of both real and bizarre sexism without ever forgetting the self-love and insecurity each character emits like a firefly. 

From Dave Foley as a Finnish prince grabbing the Vice President's breasts to Tony Hale's desperate pleas for approval, Veep hit its stride this year and I am glad I stuck with it. The spot of political satire sitcom written by geniuses and performed by a comedy master could easily belong to Parks and Recreation again. I still love that show. Whatever, there's a lot of good TV. Lay off me. 

9. Luther - Neil Cross

For the record, I'm the first to role his eyes when people talk about how much better British television is. But Idris Elba in Neil Cross's Luther is so good you forget he ever responded to the name, Stringer Bell. And that is saying something.

In a weird cross between a Phillip Marlowe story and an episode of Dexter (when it was good), Luther follows a vigilante copper through the streets of London as he solves all the slimiest serial killer stuff. Okay, I know, this sounds like the SVU CSI NCSI murder porn our parents watch like there's no tomorrow, but I promise, this is a character series about an angry man with a need for self-endangerment in the face of mindless government bureaucracy--Shit, this sounds like all the today-is-my-last-day cop movies from the 80s. 

Okay, I can't explain it, but like the British Neil Jordan screenplays of the 80s, Luther seems to walk up to the line of predictable and consistently pull us away with reckless energy. Each Luther series is fairly standalone, but this seems to be the true finale this time. Because of Elba's blockbuster Hollywood success, he'll probably be leaving the BBC behind until Downton writes in a storyline where he gets to bone Maggie Smith. Maybe then, I'll start watching Downton. Did I spell that right?

  8. Treme - David Simon

As Tina Fey says in her swan song season, "Treme gets good if you stick with it!" 

Truth, Tina. After The Wire, most fans I've spoken with are pretty dissatisfied with Treme. If you're curious, it's like all those quiet aimless scenes from The Wire that just seemed to capture Baltimore...for five seasons. There's no real central plotline or protagonist here, just a stunningly rich Altman-esque portrait of one of America's most interesting sub-cultures--New Orleans. Yes, the show covers corruption in the police force, Jazz, poverty, food, Jazz, Mardi Gras, Katrina, Katrina, Katrina, Jazz, and food, but that doesn't do the show justice. 

People get together, people break up. People experience tragedy, people move on. People leave, they come home. People reveal themselves, and people hide. Some characters stay in the show's center core, some get married, get boring, and leave. Simon somehow seems to be both better than and the epitome of all things television. He lets us return to the fictional lives of people we find interesting every week. He takes us away, but not too far. He's a filmmaker I can't really pin down because his work exists like life itself. I'll miss this show for teaching me about a city I've long revered. I'll miss this show for not trivializing or fetishizing the very real and recent tragedy that was is Katrina. I'll miss this show for Steven Zahn's depiction of the boyishly charming little brother to the universe, DJ Davis. I'll miss this show because I'll miss this show. 

7. Eastbound & Down - Danny McBride, Jody Hill, Ben Best

Okay, the finale episode wasn't perfect and seasons 2 and 3 needed work, but man you have to give these guys credit for creativity. They set out to do a show that never felt the same. They wanted a show that could be outrageous and play the anti-hero to the 20th degree. When asked how they wrote Kenny Powers, McBride said they'd ask themselves, "Which 80s movie Kenny does think he's in each moment?" It's a roughly similar formula to Michael Scott, but instead of someone begging to be liked, Kenny is someone who demands it.

Like the trashiest combination of Charlie Sheen in Major League and Rambo, Kenny Powers said goodbye to us this year, but not before leaving us with some of the most lasting memories we'll ever have on television including but not restricted to: The Jet Pack Water Ski Fight, Taters and Tits, the phrase "Feex-ins," and the phrase, "50 shades of Gross." 

Yet the glory of Eastbound isn't just the outrageousness. It's the comedy anti-hero who just keeps pushing for our identification. The endlessly-redeemable racist who shines a big fat mirror in our faces for the way in which we respond to sports, rap culture, capitalism, and laziness. Like Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin before him, Kenny expresses our worst and most materialistic desires and at the zero hour, makes the appropriate change. 

Plus the thing was shot in the south, so represent. 

I'll miss this show from a place of sentimentality and that is a sick thought. 

6. 30 Rock - Tina Fey & Robert Carlock

If 30 Rock is number 6, it must've been a fucking awesome year for TV. 

I've read all about Tina Fey's long days and Tracy's real life insanities and Alec Baldwin's ability to make any compound word with "fag," and it remains so amazing to me that this sitcom was so good for so long. You can say you got tired of it or that it wasn't as good since season 4, but the fact remains that for 6 seasons, Tina Fey gave us 22 episodes a year that said something. Shows like Friends and Cheers, I love all day long, but you're crazy if you think those shows said anything more than, "It's tough being white with disposable income/time." 

Regularly, 30 Rock hit North Korea, Global Warming, the Iraq War, Feminism, Racism, Tracy Morgan's Homophobia, the Supreme Court and so on and so on. Remember, all of this happened at about 9 pm on NBC. Not on SNL near midnight. 

I'd compare Liz Lemon to the Mary Tyler Moores and Murphy Browns, but let's be real. She's her own category of silly, self-deprecating, political midwestern glory who also found time to rap with Childish Gambino? 

The ending of a low-rated, almost canceled sitcom shouldn't be a big deal, but somehow, it feels like Tina had very real pressure in the name of feminism to not pull a Lost and give us an ending that not only made sense for Liz, but for women. 

And they nailed it. Also, clear dishwashers. Brilliant. 

5. Enlightened - Mike White

Mike White's second and final season of Enlightened consistently made me ask, "Is this terrible writing or amazing? Is Laura Dern giving the worst performance or the best?" The nature of this gloriously quiet and weird satire on corporate culture in Southern California hits a note I've never seen any show even attempt to pull off. It's satire without being silly. It's socially awkward and sincere. We don't have an antihero or a hero but a protagonist who's self righteous and right. She isn't ever entirely right or wrong. It's sweet and hopeful, but desperately sad and weak. It's everything Mike White's been working towards in his prolific, yet relatively short career. Although I used to joke about wanting to just watch two hours of Laura Dern in any movie (largely because of Wild at Heart), her performance here should remind us that even through her father's current accolades (see: Nebraska), she's the Dern you really can't look away from. 

I'm sad to see this show go, but also thrilled White got to write a full season 2 arc with no real loose ends. It's kind of what TV should be: a couple of series with one clear arc. There's no risk of it outstaying its welcome unlike its used-to-be-the-best-then-ended-like-wait-that's-still-on-why-is-everyone-so-sentimental-this-blows-chunks sitcom counterpart, The Office. 

4. Orange Is The New Black - Jenji Kohan

The fan favorite of 2013, Jenji Kohan's Orange is the New Black was just fucking awesome. In a year in which 6 of my favorite shows are retiring, the arrival of this show is a breath of fresh air. 

I was an avid fan of Weeds for the first four seasons, but like many, was terrified of another Kohan project after Weeds shot blanks for 3 years. After watching OITNB, I'm convinced it was inevitable Weeds turned sour as television is like food--it has an expiration date. Most networks struggle to figure out when it is. Showtime in particular keep shows alive well into life support phase (see: Californication, Dexter). 

So, what's so good about Orange is the New Black? The fact that I don't have to tell you because if you're a human reading this, there's an incredibly high chance you've already watched it. 

And that's what's amazing. It's a well-written hour-long comedy written, directed, and starring almost all females and it's this fucking popular. That shouldn't be a surprise, but it is. I wish sexism in media weren't such a big thing, but I've had agents and producers tell me to my face that women can't carry a mainstream piece. To that, I'm glad Orange is the New Black says, "Fuck all of you, this is how is you do ensemble storytelling." 

Structured like Lost, toned like Weeds, and steadily ripping the American Justice System to shreds, Orange is the New Black is a character investigation of the highest level featuring a helpless white girl turn anti-hero. It's nothing new in the world of Kohan, but it's fresh and honest and what TV needs right now. 

3. Arrested Development - Mitchell Hurwitz

Admit it, you turned it off after 3 episodes. Your hype was bigger than you expected and you're mad you took the day off work to watch it on Netflix. 

How could it not be as great or memorable as the first series which you watched over and over and over again and memorized it all? Why couldn't it immediately have that resonance? How come the structure was convoluted and nonsensical? What happened to Lindsay's face? 

It's okay, this is how most of us felt. 

I've watched Season 4 of Arrested Development twice and I'm convinced it is absolutely on par with the rest of the series. Yes, it's complicated as shit and some of the episodes are too long, but wait really? We've begged for it to come back for almost ten years and we're bitching about it being a little fatty? I could spend hours with Hurwitz's verite surreal image of the Southern California upper class Jew not Jew family. 

The greatness of Season 4 lies in the fact that it's NOT like the other seasons. We loved the initial seasons for being risk takers and we're being rewarded with more risks and rewards.

I'd discuss it more, but there's no comedy in which people get touchier about spoilers than AD. If you haven't sat through it, just wait for the Maebe episode and then feel the payoff through the end. Anything bad you've heard about the show being esoteric and too inside-joke happy is just a fallacy. 

2. Mad Men - Matthew Weiner

What is becoming the Lebron of TV, Mad Men continues to amaze.

I cannot believe how carefully, comically, and originally Matthew Weiner's staff continues to write Don Draper and the Sterling Cooper world. So easily, when writing about the late 1960s, this show could devolve into a Lee Daniels' The Butler esque review of the times. Especially where we find ourselves this season in 1968. MLK, RFK, the DNC, Vietnam, and drugs, and yet this season thrived on the crumbling of cultural masculinity. It was about broken people no longer hiding. Don can't continue to hide Dick (so many puns intended). Pete can no longer hide the hairline.

And this season was really about Pete. Don's always been the culture creator and Pete the follower. Don's the Bogart. The genius with a disturbed past who sets the tone because everyone else is too dumb/sober to find it themselves. Pete, however, has always been a weak product of his time. He lives in Connecticut because that's what you do when you have a family. He speaks like a commercial because that's what people want to hear. He cheats on his wife because getting married was the decision he was supposed to make. He feels weak and ineffectual because he believes his masculinity is supposed to be like Don (a character we, in turn saw wrapped in a fetal position this year). Pete isn't everything wrong with the old generation of Americans, but rather someone who wants to be everything wrong with it because he is so unbelievably insecure in himself. And sometimes he's right. He's pro civil rights as a marketing decision, after all.

This year, where we finally saw truly reckless cowardice from Don, we saw true liberation for a character my friends and I have championed for years. I wish I were joking, but this GIF captures everything right about Mad Men.

If you watch the show, you'll agree. This show isn't over yet, but if this is what they did with 1968, I can't fucking wait for Watergate.  

1. Breaking Bad - Vince Gilligan

Where were you when Breaking Bad ended? 

I was in a bar in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. As the show began, the bar fell silent. A perfectly nice, happy family walked through the front door and simply said, "Oh no, it's Breaking Bad." The whole bar looked at them in silence. The door slowly creaked shut. And like that, they were gone. 

Yes, Vince, Bryan, Aaron, Anna, Bob, you nailed it. Was the final season of Breaking Bad perfect? Of course not. Yet, when was the last time it was truly a cultural even that a small screen series ended? Sopranos? Sex and the City? Seinfeld? 

I have students who still won't let me talk about the ending because they're "still catching up." 

So let's talk about why it was amazing. Beyond the best acting that's ever happened on the small screen. 

Wait, let's reread that sentence.

Yes. The best acting that's ever happened on the small screen. 

This show filled us with more suspense, more morally questionable capers, and more intense raw emotion than anything I've seen since The Sopranos. Like Leone, Lumet, Coppola, and Scorsese at their best, Gilligan gave us something we'll never forget. 

I refuse to wax poetic any further on this show. If you watched it, you know. If you didn't, you will or you won't. 

I watch a lot of movies and television. I write and direct films and I teach filmmaking. After all the hours of media I ingested this year, I will confidently say, I think film is in an amazing place right now. Even through the 98% of television garbage and the millions spent on Tyler Perry presenting Adam Sandler as Bad Babysitter, I think there's a plethora of great artists saying great things. We said goodbye to a lot of great shows this year. Thank you all for entertaining us for so long. We liked it. You were good at it. 

Other TV Shows I Liked In 2013: Parks and Recreation (Michael Schur), The Simpsons (Al Jean), Southpark (Trey Parker & Matt Stone), Boardwalk Empire (Terence Winter), Game of Thrones (David Benioff & D.B. Weiss), Shameless (John Wells), House of Cards (Beau Willimon), Masters of Sex (Michelle Ashford), Episodes (David Crane, Jeffrey Klarik)

[therealbencohen-blog]

I know the world's going to shit, but the weather's nice and I'm totally fucking stoked to go home next weekend. 

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Because I have no clue how to react to Boston outside of pop culture critiques of Al-Qaeda. If we discover they are responsible, I stand by this image. If not, WHOEVER DID THIS HAS A TINY PENIS. 

[aparemfaton]

“You can’t take a bad picture of Debbie Harry.” — Bob Gruen

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Comedy Movie Hall of Fame

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http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lz8hwp1GNL1qln1wzo1_500.gif

The GIF that made me want to make Romantic Comedies. 

[therealbencohen-blog]

Finally, a TV show about the 90s. My biggest pet project for the last 3 years, Godamsterdam now has a full length TV pilot. Tell your friends and they'll tell 2 friends and they'll tell 2 friends and so on and so on and so on...

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