Year In Retrospective Part Two: Ten Other Awesome Things

For someone like myself, who prides himself on his voracious consumption of pop culture, I had a bit of an off-year. I didn't see too many movies, I'm not really big into the whole "buying CDs thing," and I didn't watch a whole lot of television, really. So, what I'm going to do for my second Year In Retrospective post is to talk about 10 random pop-culture things that fascinated me this calendar year. Some TV, some movies, some odds and ends. It's kind of a potpourri post.

1. Season Three of "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia." This was the year I discovered the funniest show on television. The cast of Charlie Day, Rob McElhenny, Glenn Howerton, Kaitlin Olson, and Danny DeVito may be the best comedic ensemble right now. Most of my highlights from this season involve the aforementioned Mr. Day as "Charlie," whose antics included (but were not limited to) dressing up as Serpico while taping a huge recording device to his chest, huffing spray paint while writing homoerotic glam-rock songs, and becoming a fake-lawyer utilizing a clip-on tie and jargon lifted directly from marathons of "Law and Order." Trust me, it's awesome. My favorite television of the year.

2. Judd Apatow. "Knocked Up" and "Superbad" were both hilariously funny movies. It's hard to believe that, just a few years ago, Apatow was known largely for writing and producing wonderful television that nobody watched ("Freaks and Geeks" and "Undeclared"). Now, he's the acknowledged god of comedy as both director and producer - and, more importantly, his movies are pretty awesome.

3. The Perez Hilton backlash. Last year's guilty pleasure - perezhilton.com - has become this year's whipping boy, thanks largely to the aforementioned Mr. Hilton, who went from being a snarky underground blogger to an overexposed multimedia annoyance. This time next year, he'll be lucky to be on Celebrity Fit Club. This year, he's the answer to the question "What if Bruce Vilanch was a worse dresser and actually less funnier?"

4. The Onion AV Club - the best regularly-updated pop-culture site out there right now (avclub.com). Unlike most media outlets, the Onion serves up large, intellectual interviews and features in this section of their site, and maintains a certain wit and flair while doing so.

5. The "I'm Not There" Soundtrack, which is the perfect tribute album to Bob Dylan, authored in the name of soundtracking a movie about Bob Dylan which never once mentions the name Bob Dylan.

6. Independent radio. 90.7 FM in New York City. 97.7 in Amsterdam. 102.7 in Vermont. It's a beautiful world when you have the ability to listen to Belle and Sebastian and the Clash on your way into work. In an era of increasing media consolidation, these bastions of independent thought are absolutely to be cherished and patronized.

7. The cast of "Arrested Development" are, in lieu of continuing to create the most excellent show on television, making magic at the movies. Jason Bateman and Michael Cera reteam in the critically-acclaimed "Juno," Will Arnett made the funny in "Blades of Glory," and Cera struck comedy gold in "Superbad." Even the atrocious "Alvin and the Chipmunks" movie was redeemed (somewhat) by David Cross, who chose to chew up scenery as a hilariously slimy music mogul. (and yes, I saw it. God have mercy on my soul.)

8. "Werewolf Bar Mitzvah," by the "30 Rock" character Tracy Jordan. "Boys becoming men, men becoming wolves." Actually, pretty much anything on "30 Rock" this year was awesome. Except for the shameless "Bee Movie" pandering of Jerry Seinfeld.

9. The continued emergence of Steve Carell, who, if he continues to make the right choices, will be the next Tom Hanks. Mark ye my words.

10. Finally, as someone who abhors pre-packaged pop music, watching the freefall into chemical oblivion of stars like Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, and others has been nothing short of schadenfreude for me. On one hand, I know that they're just people with problems, which is sad. On the other hand, it's very, very awesome.