Pop Culture Favorites of 2021

Well... That was a little better. I guess? Maybe not. Anyway... to the list!

The Pretty Damn Goods of 2021

Reservation Dogs

Reservation Dogs is peek through a window into a world we rarely, if ever, see in popular culture. It’s a zany, hilarious and deeply affecting drama that, even though depicting a specific way of life in a specific time, touches on three fundamental aspects of what it is to be human: family (or lack thereof), love (or lack thereof), and loss. It’s refreshing to see a story that’s honest delivered with honesty. Sometimes you never need anything more than that. A little touch of the supernatural also doesn't hurt. The cast and its performances are impeccable. By the way, it's about time someone gives Zahn McClarnon (Officer Big) his own show. The guy is just about the best part of everything he's in. And shouts to Bill Burr, who has become the guest-acting equivalent of an all-star reliever.

MLB at Field of Dreams

For one hot August night in 2021, American society was in unanimous agreement on one thing: the Field of Dreams game was awesome. Never has an American sport so actively embraced a piece of popular culture that had become so embedded in its very existence. From Costner hamming it up by emerging from the corn and gazing ponderously at the horizon to the players themselves emerging, it was all over-the-top, but it worked. The game itself could’ve been boring as hell and the night would’ve been a success. But it wasn’t boring. It was incredible. Up and down, back and forth. Yankees are down 3 in the top of the ninth, come back to go ahead by one, and Tim Anderson walks it off for the White Sox while the fireworks go off in center field. It’s poetic that this all happened because of a movie, because you could not have scripted the night any better.

Pond - 9

My favorite Aussies put out an album this year that doesn't have a single hiccup. As I've said in the past, I feel dumbest when I attempt to talk or write about music. The highest praise I can give is that this album has my four favorite songs of the year, and none of them sounds like the other. I hardly keep up with new music in a given year, so take that for what it's worth. Long live Pond.

Stath Lets Flats

Finding this show was the greatest accident of the year. I was browsing what else Natasia Demetriou (Nadja from What We Do in the Shadows) had been in that I could stream. I came across Stath Lets Flats, created by and starring her brother Jamie, and saw it was streaming on HBO Max. I saw on IMDb that it had gotten significant acclaim in the UK but its user rating wasn't very high. I gave it a shot. In the second episode, I laughed harder than maybe any other moment in my life. I had to pause it  and could not dry my eyes for a good five minutes. I was completely blindsided by this show and have never seen anything like it. The eponymous Stath is the (touched?) son of a Greek immigrant who runs a lettings agency, which I came to understand is basically the UK middleman between landlords and tenants. Stath speaks an unusual kind of English that almost borders on its own language. It's so hard to describe, you've got to see it to understand. He is objectively awful at his job and only has it because his dad owns the place. The supporting cast are also hilarious in their respective comedic lanes. I am unable to stomach a lot of cringe comedy, but this show was right up my alley. The third season came out in 2021, so this entry may be cheating a little bit since this is a piece of praise for the show as a whole. Give it a try if you haven't. Subtitles are encouraged.

Alana Haim in Licorice Pizza

Licorice Pizza is an odd movie. It’s a mess, really. It’s unfocused, meandering and feels like the first draft of something that could have been great. I’m a mark for Paul Thomas Anderson, but the last 60 or so seconds of Licorice Pizza is maybe the most baffled I’ve ever been by something, not to mention the most disconnected I’ve ever felt from an artist’s perceived intention. Not really talking this up as a favorite, am I? Well, that’s because I’m also a mark for HAIM. While watching the movie a second time, it seems as though PTA himself wasn’t sure who the lead of his movie was, and by the time they started shooting, it was obvious it should be Alana Haim’s movie, but by that point it was too late. I don’t know if she wants to be a star, but she absolutely could be. She runs away with this movie quickly. Alana the character is as much of a child in spirit as Gary is as a person. She’s still trying to figure out her life at 25(?) while jealous that he’s moving from one business to the next at 15. She keeps getting used, acknowledges that fact, and continues to make poor decisions. I just wanted to reach through the screen and give her a hug. This Oscar season is somehow stranger than the Covid one in that, in my opinion, there is hardly a standout performance nominated in any category. Meanwhile, Alana Haim hangs out on the sidelines, better than all of them.

Favorites of 2021

10. Mare of Easttown

I’m no sucker for a murder mystery. I think the public fascination with murder investigations ala the central characters in Only Murders in the Building (a very nice watch, actually) is frankly disgusting. In fact, there were a few times in Mare of Easttown where I actively rolled my eyes. There’s a sense very early on that the creators are actively manipulating you. Whether or not it’s “fun” is up to the viewer to decide. You don’t have to be manipulative to tell an engaging story, but Mare of Easttown somehow does both effectively. What keeps it from veering off into melodrama is the earnestness of the performances. These characters are worn out from the jump. Nothing has come easy for any of them. Even though every episode has a “Uh oh, looks like the killer might be THIS person now!” ending, when the actors are doing as outstanding a job as Kate Winslet, Evan Peters and Jean Smart are, you can get past most all the nitpicks. (Evan Peters holds the championship belt for Most Authentic Drunk performance of all time. If he was not actually drunk in that scene in the bar, it’s the best embodiment of a sad drunk I’ve ever seen.) Whether or not we can leave a good thing alone and allow Mare of Easttown to be the one-off it was supposed to be remains to be seen (looking at you, Big Little Lies), but even if market forces demand more episodes that inevitably disappoint, they will not sully the original ones we got.

9. Jared Leto in House of Gucci

House of Gucci is not a good movie. It’s entirely too long and the argument could be made that every single role is miscast. It’s more serious than it needs to be and not as fun as it ought to be. Maybe that’s because Jared Leto is having all the fun. I have never in my life encountered a performance in a movie that’s as divisive as Leto’s playing of Paolo Gucci. Say what you want about the accent that sounds somewhere between Mario and Christopher Walken, or that he’s chewing scenery like it’s his last meal, but the dude is having a great time. He makes wild choices and just goes for it. It’s clear that he’s acting in a completely different movie than everyone else, and it likely would have been better than the one we got. 

8. Belfast

Movies like this, potentially indulgent semi-autobiographical tales by auteurs, usually strike me as top-tier cornball fare. But Belfast charmed the hell out of me. Much like aforementioned aspects of Reservation Dogs, such as depicting life in a specific time and place, the desires of different generations are what stood out to me the most in Belfast. Granny and Pop, to me, are the heart of the movie. Their descendants are struggling with the idea of leaving Belfast, and it’s something they never had the means nor the will to consider themselves. They had to make the best of what fell their way in the turn of the 20th century. Now that that’s a possibility for their descendants in a chaotic time, the grandparents must consider that their loneliness is what might have to be sacrificed for the betterment of their child’s and grandchild’s lives. There are certainly plenty of nits to pick, such as the strictly Van Morrison soundtrack, but despite those nits, the movie really sticks the landing.

7. Mavis Staples and Mahalia Jackson performing

"Precious Lord" in Summer of Soul

Midway through Questlove's fascinating documentary about 1969's Harlem Cultural Festival, Mavis Staples tells a story about Mahalia Jackson asking for her help before taking the stage to sing "Take My Hand, Precious Lord." Mavis hadn't planned on singing the song, but Mahalia basically asked her to open the song because she wasn't feeling well. So Mavis goes up there and belts what, as I was watching the documentary, was the most rousing gospel performance my ears ever heard. Then Mahalia Jackson comes up and immediately outdoes it. Gospel music is something I don't really get down with, but when the two of them were going back and forth on the mic, my hands unconsciously went in the air. I had chills. It felt like I was there. The documentary itself is solid, but live performance does not get any better than this moment.

6. Troy Kotsur in CODA

CODA was one of those Sundance darlings that I fully expected to spend the entirety of its length rolling my eyes. A hearing daughter in a deaf family wants to be a singer. Any seasoned watcher of stories can map exactly where CODA is headed, but it doesn’t even remotely matter. The execution is almost perfect. There are some questionable choices in the script, but the performance from Troy Kotsur as the patriarch of the family is the most affecting of 2021. As someone who’s had to spend his entire life depicting emotion through the language of his body, every moment he’s on screen is a joy to watch. A particular scene in which he’s communicating with his daughter’s potential suitor is the hardest I laughed in a movie last year. Lastly, it has been a very long time since any movie moved me to tears. This one got me, and it got me good. Kotsur may not win an Oscar on Sunday night, but no one this year is more deserving.

5. The White Lotus

At multiple points during each episode of The White Lotus, I found myself saying, "I have no idea why I'm into this but I think I love it." It's fascinating in ways that are difficult for me to articulate even after two full viewings. I have to admit that I could not remove from my mind the world in which the show was created. As I understand it, HBO asked creator Mike White for anything, and what he came up with was malaise in paradise. The result is a stroke of genius; he created a show in which he and his cast had free reign over a five-star resort in Hawaii during Covid-19. The show itself is about three sets of people on vacation and the people who are there to serve them. All of these people are in paradise, but not one of them can get over themselves enough to enjoy a single moment. The White Lotus provokes nuanced thought about a lot of things, chiefly status, or lack thereof. Maybe most of these characters suck, but the show doesn’t have contempt for them. I would assume most viewers found themselves thinking at some point, “How the hell could you be at a place like that and be so ungrateful?” But as the series plays out, you glean that going to a paradise doesn’t automatically enable you to ignore every issue in your life. It doesn’t matter if you’re a rich asshole, or someone who dropped a couple months’ pay to experience a few days in paradise, or someone who works to serve people in that paradise; if you don’t have yourself sorted out, it’s impossible to enjoy anything. 

4. Dune

As it turns out, Dune was never truly “unadaptable”, as many have claimed over the decades. All it needed was someone with vision and passion. Denis Villeneuve has said that it had long been his dream to adapt Dune for the big screen. He’s spent the last decade, with movies as intimate as Prisoners and as epic as Blade Runner 2049, establishing that he has a distinct vision. All of that finally culminating with the finished project of Dune (Part One) is the ultimate catharsis for fans of the source material. The worlds of Dune on screen look truly lived in. The walls of Arrakis bear the wear that the desert storms have wrought for centuries. The stone structures on the prison planet Salusa Secundus bear the terror that the prisoners have experienced. And the shores of Caladan are pristine. Seeing Dune in IMAX might be the most exhilarating cinematic experience I’ve ever had. The sound system felt like it was going to knock my heart out of its rightful position. This is sci-fi cinema that, much like the book, will stand the test of time. I expected greatness, and greatness was delivered.

3. The Green Knight

I did not expect greatness, and greatness was delivered.

You never know what hand you'll be dealt from a new A24 movie. You can never trust critical praise, and there's never unanimous audience response. But from the opening seconds of The Green Knight, I knew this movie was for me. The visual flourishes that pepper the entirety of this movie are some of the most inspired and creative I've seen in recent years. It's an old school adventure that's been dosed. It's a movie that lives or dies by its lead, and Dev Patel soars. Perhaps it makes the kinds of choices that would make Arthurian purists get up and walk out. Perhaps it makes the kinds of choices that would make anyone walk out. As reflected by its 50% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes, The Green Knight is not for everyone. I have endless respect for projects and artists that are willing to take those chances and swing big. If reactions to a movie are "that was a masterpiece" or "what a piece of shit" with nothing in between, it commands interest. I thought The Green Knight was a masterpiece and, in part because it caught me off guard, my favorite movie of the year. 

2. Kieran Culkin in Season Three of Succession

In the back half of 2021, it seemed like there wasn’t any area of cultural conversation that went without mentioning Succession, and quite right. Sometimes when people talk incessantly about a show being the best thing on television, they’re correct. While every corner of cultural commentary, near and far, has praised Succession to no end, there was a specific part of the show, a performer, that I could not get out of my mind. Everyone talks about Jeremy Strong and his Daniel Day-Lewis level of commitment to a role that really doesn’t call for it, but Kieran Culkin is the best actor I saw on television last year. Season three reveals more layers and complexities to the character of Roman Roy, giving us occasional fleeting glimmers of hope that he could actually be the one Roy with a heart. He is a Roy, so, yes, he is part monster. The abused becomes abusers. It’s a tale as old as time. He can’t help his innate impishness. Whatever havoc Roman wreaks, he genuinely loves his father. He may be the only Roy that loves his father. (SPOILERS BEGIN) And when you witness his accidental text to his dad in the penultimate episode, once you recover from painful belly laughter, you see the look on his face that reads like he’s ruined absolutely everything he worked to arrange. And you genuinely feel bad for him. (SPOILERS END) In a show that may already be on the Mount Rushmore of the best-written shows of all time, every actor in it is throwing 100-mph heat in every episode. Many times over, Roman Roy has instilled revulsion and abhorrence. His defensiveness is so relentlessly offensive because when he allows himself room to get hurt, he hurts hard. Sympathy and sorrow for the same character were feelings I never anticipated, and no actor’s face has worn those emotions in recent memory as effectively as Kieran Culkin in season three of Succession.

1. Bo Burnham: Inside

"Daddy made you your favorite, open wide."

There's no contest; nothing last year was better than Inside. God knows how many pieces came out analyzing the brilliance of Bo's one-room special, and I won't add to them. Pick any glowing review out there and apply it here. It's silly, profound and tremendously sad. Like many others, I've followed Bo since YouTube's infancy, and there's simply no one like him. From writing and performing to editing and directing, the case can be made that he is the most complete package of creative talent we've ever had. I feel fortunate to have been a witness. Is the messianic fervor a bit much? Perhaps. Who cares? Praise be to he.