January 1, 2010
Part 1 of the Top 10 Entertainment of the '00s was posted yesterday and featured a bit of everything. Today, Part 2 concludes the Top 10 and is about as varied as the Part 1, although it's probably a bit more predictable. Enjoy the list, and Happy New Year!
5. The Dark Knight
When Christopher Nolan took over the Batman franchise, the previous movie had released eight years prior and was widely considered as the worst superhero movie of all time. Batman & Robin was a caricature of itself, playing up the camp aspects of its television predecessor featuring Adam West. It failed miserably (critically) and rightfully so, but, as a result, the franchise fell out of the limelight while Spiderman took over. Nolan brought Batman back at full force and afforded it the seriousness it deserved. Batman Begins was the beginning of a fresh way to look at Batman in film, a way that Brian Azzarello, Alan Moore and Frank Miller had portrayed it in their comic versions. The Dark Knight took it a step further, offering a complex superhero movie that felt more like a crime epic than a caped melodrama. In the process it gave viewers the most compelling villain in comic-movie history. It is the best superhero movie ever.
4. The Sopranos
When the first episode of The Sopranos aired in 1999, it was just a one-hour drama with high ambitions. It felt more like a mini-movie than a television show and as that first episode ended, you knew something great had begun. The Sopranos was a pioneer of television drama, proving that television could be as high-quality as film and didn't have to serve as cheap entertainment. It was a sincere look at mafia culture and is about as good of an education on organized crime as any TLC documentary. In fact, it's much less stylized. There were episodes of The Sopranos where absolutely nothing happened and that's why it was great. It didn't adhere to the classic television format where a problem was introduced and resolved in a single episode. It felt real, as if the show moved at a real-time pace. It eventually led to numerous great television shows such as The Wire and Mad Men, and for that alone we should be thankful.
3. Untrue, Burial
Burial is unique in the fact that most people who love his music listen to nothing else like it. That is, not many know anything else in the genre which he is commonly placed, dubstep. Dubstep is an interesting genre with deep roots in the UK and is just now becoming popular in the United States. Burial is at the forefront of this gradual recognition, having made two of the best albums of the decade, most notably Untrue. Untrue is an album full of pitched vocal samples from artists otherwise unbearable, leading the force over deep and dark synth, bass, rain and crackle. Untrue is the type of album that detaches the listener, capturing an effect that seems music was most intended for.
2. There Will Be Blood
There Will Be Blood is an adaptation of Upton Sinclair's Oil and, unlike many adaptations, gives you the feeling that there is no point to read the book after you've seen it. You figure Paul Thomas Anderson perfectly captured the essence of Sinclair's novel and that reading it would only allow your imperfect imagination to tarnish what is as much a beautiful piece of art as it is a great film. It's a visual masterpiece complete with a view of the expanding Wild West that so many Westerns fail to fully capture. Daniel Day Lewis gives possibly his best performance ever in what is a spacious, slow-paced film that ends up becoming uncomfortably intense because of it. Not many movies are approached this way, without concern for conventional format or the need to entertain. In the end, There Will Be Blood is a complex, layered film that becomes better with each viewing and ensuing discussion.
1. Kid A, Radiohead
Radiohead's Kid A is typically regarded as the turning point in the band's sound, a sound that had previously been described as space rock or something of that nature. Kid A effectively dumped the rock part and became full-on space, introducing instruments, effects and gadgets into the band's repertoire. The album explores sounds from genres of all types and eras including jazz and electronica, and it comes together in a work that continues to unravel with each listen. Kid A, like most things on this list, is a pioneer and yet is still unmatched. That's the sign of a great work of art, as Kid A continues to influence and shape music today without a parallel. In the chronology of Radiohead, a band that reshapes itself with each album, Kid A placed the band in the narrative of great music history, right at the top with legends the likes of The Beatles and Led Zeppelin.
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