Ranking Every TV Show of 2020, Part I: #s 124-110

Jeremy BeckTV Rankings
Sarah Paulson in Ratched; Gemma Arterton in Black Narcissus; Steve Carell in Space Force; Matt Berry in Year of the Rabbit; Harriet Walter in Belgravia

2020 was a terrible year for the world. It was also a spectacular year for TV.

These two truths are complementary, not contradictory. To begin with, many of the TV shows that aired in 2020 were filmed pre-pandemic, so the continued flow of high-quality comedies and intense dramas from sets to homes was simply a function of the pipeline’s normal operations. But beyond that, once COVID-19 upended our daily lives and thwarted even the most basic aspects of communal experience—the play dates and restaurant outings, the long trips to see relatives and the short visits to the theater, the subway commutes and water-cooler conversations—the normally private world of television became a shared haven. Powered by our natural craving for interaction, it morphed from a naturally recessive space into a digital cooperative; it was where we went to find each other, to eagerly debate the best premieres and the worst finales, to collectively laugh and cry and cheer and bicker and maybe just distract ourselves from the all-too-real horrors of the world raging beyond our screens. Forget about cancel culture being a phony grievance; in 2020, TV culture was virtually the only thing that wasn’t cancelled.

Of course, some of us participated more than others. I myself watched 124 different TV shows in 2020, a truly absurd number (and a personal record, up from 108 in 2017) that also seems weirdly low, given how COVID amplified my already-hermitic tendencies. This means that I definitely watched more than you did, but given the sheer volume of #content available over the airwaves (or through the interwebs), it also means that I didn’t watch everything you watched. As ever, I do not care; I am constitutionally incapable of being shamed for not watching a particular series because, in case you hadn’t noticed, I already watched 124 fucking shows in a single year. Match that number, then maybe we can talk. Read More

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Wonder Woman 1984, The Midnight Sky, and the Christmas of Flops

Jeremy BeckReviews
George Clooney in "The Midnight Sky"; Gal Gadot in "Wonder Woman 1984"

On Christmas Day 2019, I attended one of the most memorable double features of my life: Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, followed by the Safdie Brothers’ Uncut Gems. Forget the visual and verbal audacity of both pictures (not to mention their, er, tonal differences); what I remember most now is the sensation of sitting in a jam-packed auditorium. Neither of those films is conventionally crowd-pleasing, but I don’t think I’m manufacturing a memory when I recall the communal thrill that swept through the audience when Saoirse Ronan delivered an impassioned speech, or when Adam Sandler placed yet another dubious bet. What could better distill the holiday spirit—the anticipation, the laughter, the shared cheer—than watching a movie with total strangers?

Suffice it to say that Christmas Day 2020 unfolded a little differently. But even though the COVID-19 pandemic prevented me from spending my holidays at the movie theater, it didn’t prevent me from spending it watching movies. The clear highlight of the season was Pixar’s Soul, which I’ve already reviewed, but Christmas also brought us two other high-profile streaming releases: Wonder Woman 1984 (on HBO Max) and The Midnight Sky (on Netflix, and technically released on December 23). Both have received fair-to-middling reviews, though I’d argue that one is rather underrated. Read More

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Soul: It’s All About Goals. Or Is It?

Jeremy BeckReviews
Jamie Foxx in Pixar's "Soul"

There may not be a venue explicitly called Imagination Land in Pete Docter’s latest feature, but there’s still plenty of innovation and ingenuity. Soul, the new movie from the Pixar standout, is another triumph, an inspired mix of vibrant animation, rich storytelling, and powerful themes. It asks big, probing questions—about life and death, art and commerce, work and pleasure—while also making generous room for ticking-clock suspense and broad comedy. This is a sweeping metaphysical adventure tale, complete with fart jokes.

The signature achievement of Soul is its conception of the Great Before, a vast supernatural laboratory of sorts where human personalities are forged before birth. Advancements in technology have allowed animators to pack the frame with infinite minutiae, but Docter’s approach here is spare and restrained. The realm he’s conceived is gently pastoral, a luminous land of rolling hills, peaceful meadows, and placid lakes. The blue-and-purple color scheme is similarly serene, smoothly shifting between various hues of turquoise and lavender. And the world’s essential openness—its sense of being permanently incomplete—feels not like a failure of vision, but like a gift from creator to viewer. Some fictional environments are overwhelming in their detail. Docter lets you fill in the blanks. Read More

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Mank: Citizen, Stained

Jeremy BeckReviews
Gary Oldman in "Mank"

There are two artistic geniuses wrestling for control of Mank, and neither of them is Orson Welles. The first is the film’s subject, Herman J. Mankiewicz, the co-writer of Citizen Kane, which has long been labeled the greatest movie ever made; the second is its creator, David Fincher, the director of a handful of masterpieces in his own right. As played by Gary Oldman, Mankiewicz (for his preferred sobriquet, refer to the title) is an intuitive creature—brilliant, yes, but also slovenly, undisciplined, and erratic. Fincher is none of those things, save brilliant. He is an impeccable craftsman, one who wields his tools with finicky precision and absolute rigor. The animating force of Mank—the fascinating dissonance that’s responsible for much of its power, as well as some of its shortcomings—is the inherent tension between its central personalities. This is what happens when an Order Muppet makes a movie about a Chaos Muppet.

The narrative of Mank is alternately gripping and muddled, but when it comes to technique, no amount of turmoil could ever overwhelm Fincher’s mastery. As a matter of sight and sound, his latest picture is a characteristic wonder to behold. Shot by Erik Messerschmidt (Mindhunter) in luminous black and white, its images nevertheless feel suffused with color and vibrancy, light and shadow playfully dancing with one another throughout the frame. (This is undoubtedly the most beautiful black-and-white Netflix release since, er, two years ago.) The costumes and production design meticulously recreate 1930s California without preening, while the score (from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, naturally) bubbles with percussive urgency yet never overexerts itself. In tone and texture, Mank feels both pleasingly classical and thrillingly new. (Fincher should probably cool it with the phony cigarette burns, though.) Read More

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Streaming Roundup: Hillbilly Elegy, Happiest Season, Run

Jeremy BeckFeatures, Reviews
Sarah Paulson in "Run"; Kristen Stewart in "Happiest Season"; Amy Adams in "Hillbilly Elegy"

To paraphrase a seven-time Oscar nominee: There are bad terminators—like, say, the COVID-19 pandemic—and there are good terminators—like the streaming services that keep pumping out new movies. Let’s focus on the good, shall we? Here’s a quick look at three recent releases:

Hillbilly Elegy (Netflix). Early in Hillbilly Elegy, Ron Howard’s diverting and facile adaptation of J.D. Vance’s memoir, a promising student at Yale Law attends a soirée, hoping to impress firm recruiters. He’s a smart and sympathetic kid, but he’s quickly overwhelmed by the trappings of luxury—calling his girlfriend in a panic, he asks, “Why are there so many fucking forks?”—and his charm offensive stalls. Then someone refers to West Virginians as rednecks, he bristles in response, and suddenly an evening of schmoozing has disintegrated into a sullen and awkward standoff between rich and poor. Read More

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