Hang up and Listen (Josh Levin, Mike Pesca, Stefan Fatsis)
Slate's sports podcast is the highbrow version of all the ESPN podcasts that where you hear either the most obvious or the most outrageous commentary and analysis imaginable. It sounds like it should be on NPR, which is no surprise, given that two of the three panelists also work for NPR. If you want discussions of what happened on fields the week before, this is generally not for you. HuaL usually talks about bigger issues rather than individual games or events and does so intelligently. There's also a weekly trivia question that is usually so convoluted that no one should be able to figure out the answer without extended research. To put it bluntly, HuaL is Nerds talking about Jocks, but not dismissively, more like they are something worthy of scientific inquiry.
TV Show
The Newsroom (Aaron Sorkin)
Here is where my Top 5 seriously deviates from what you will probably find in TV critics' Best of 2012 lists. Where Mad Men and Breaking Bad are critical darlings, The Newsroom' first season quickly turned into a critical punching bag. Yet here it is, square in the middle of my Top 5, and somehow I feel the urge to justify myself, which is plainly silly, because it is my Top 5 and practically no one is reading and even if someone is they don't care and even if they do so what?
And yet.
The show is basically the same as every Aaron Sorkin show except The West Wing, i.e. it's about the making of a TV show, in this case a cable news hour. Every episode deals with a real world event and how this fictional show dealt with its coverage. And here we encounter the first complaints. Hindsight is 20/20 and of course these guys'n'gals know better than the actual news coverage of the day. Speaking of the gals, they're all stupid or hysterical or silly or etc pp. And then we've got protagonist Will McAvoy, who we're all supposed to believe is a saint and that rarest of beasts, a card-carrying Republican that publically stands up to the bullshit of his party's fringe and speaks truth to power to boot.
I can see all these flaws. The thing is, they don't bother me all that much. The things Sorkin does well, he does really well. I, like pretty much everyone, love to listen to his characters talk. Even though he comes across as a pompous ass, I happen to agree with most of his politics and so it doesn't annoy me too much when his characters get up on a soapbox and preach. At least his shows do not consciously try to pander to the lowest common denominator. I usually also enjoy his workplace romances, even when all the characters involved act like morons. What can I say, I have yet to encounter a Sorkin show I didn't enjoy and, yes, that includes Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.
And yet.
The show is basically the same as every Aaron Sorkin show except The West Wing, i.e. it's about the making of a TV show, in this case a cable news hour. Every episode deals with a real world event and how this fictional show dealt with its coverage. And here we encounter the first complaints. Hindsight is 20/20 and of course these guys'n'gals know better than the actual news coverage of the day. Speaking of the gals, they're all stupid or hysterical or silly or etc pp. And then we've got protagonist Will McAvoy, who we're all supposed to believe is a saint and that rarest of beasts, a card-carrying Republican that publically stands up to the bullshit of his party's fringe and speaks truth to power to boot.
I can see all these flaws. The thing is, they don't bother me all that much. The things Sorkin does well, he does really well. I, like pretty much everyone, love to listen to his characters talk. Even though he comes across as a pompous ass, I happen to agree with most of his politics and so it doesn't annoy me too much when his characters get up on a soapbox and preach. At least his shows do not consciously try to pander to the lowest common denominator. I usually also enjoy his workplace romances, even when all the characters involved act like morons. What can I say, I have yet to encounter a Sorkin show I didn't enjoy and, yes, that includes Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.
Book
When you are engulfed in Flames (David Sedaris)
When you are engulfed in flames is a collection of essays by American humorist David Sedaris. They deal with various different situations from Sedaris' life. I read it in the bathroom. It made me laugh.
Movie
The Hunger Games (Gary Ross)
The movie is higher on this list than the book was on its. This is not unusual for me. I liked the film version of Fight Club better than the book, same with Wonder Boys, and I liked both those books just fine. Before I give you the primary reason why this film is my #3,let me say this. This film could have been a disaster and it wasn't. It could have screwed up the world, it could have screwed up the games, it could have screwed up the characters and it did none of these.
The reason, however, why I like this film so much is very simple: Jennifer Lawrence is fantastic. She is the only actor/actress that is on my Top 5 list twice.She hadn't made much of an impression on me in X-Men : First Class but her role in Winter's Bone - where she plays a character not dissimilar to Katniss - prepared me for what she could do and she carries this movie. There really isn't mch more to say. I like the premise of the story and its execution on-screen, but it is her performance that puts it over the top for me.
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