Thanks a Lot: Pop Culture’s Finest Moments of 2009

(By: Wired.com)


From comedy to sci-fi, 2009 dosed us with a healthy mix of the cerebral and the surreal. There’s much to give thanks for over the Thanksgiving holiday, so let’s reminisce about the people, places and things that made this year memorable.
Stephen Colbert’s hyper-real genius
Is there a braver comedian, or journalist, on television? Stephen Colbert’s nightly merge of news, hilarity, social commentary, wit and shameless plugs for everything from his painting in the Smithsonian to his marketable man-seed have fully turned the pop-culture’s self-obsessed mirror upon itself. In 2009, he successfully invaded Iraq, the International Space Station, the iPhone and much more. But The Colbert Report has yet to unseat The Daily Show for an Emmy? Prankster, please! A postmodern personality with two separate Wikipedia entries for the same name, Colbert is Earth’s most relevant living cultural critic, and deserves his own network. –Scott Thill

Director Duncan Jones has plenty to smile about: His indie movie Moon is a 2009 sci-fi standout.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

Duncan Jones’ Moon shot
Indie filmmaker Duncan Jones delivered an instant sci-fi classic with Moon, his big-screen debut about a helium miner working solo with his trusty robot helper on the dark side of the moon. Jones’ movie, bolstered by old-school miniatures and an amazing performance by actor Sam Rockwell, proved once again that brainy ideas are more important than big budgets when it comes to sci-fi flicks. —Lewis Wallace
Innovative iPhone games
In June of 2008, we confidently predicted that iPhone games were going to be awesome. A powerful processor, a unique interface, motion sensors, location awareness, a camera and net connectivity — what could go wrong? OK, the launch lineup was barely better than the Nokia N-Gage. But 18 months later, the iPhone is home to some of the most innovative, unusual and addictive games out there, making it a perfect experimental platform for indie developers. It’s also changing the way we pay for games. –Chris Baker
RIP Battlestar Galactica, viva Caprica
Battlestar Galactica finally touched down in March with a series finale that left fans alternately outraged and awed. In true Galactica tradition, this WTF closer raised as many questions as it answered while thoughtfully exploring the nexus between man and machine. Then, the pilot for Galactica prequel Caprica teased with its own heady mix of religion, race and Cylon intrigue, giving us yet another reason to look forward to 2010. —Hugh Hart

Final Crisis
One of the most dizzying comics narratives ever, cerebral comics prankster Grant Morrison’s sprawling 2008 apocalypse was finally collected and released in hardcover this June for those of us who like to read tomes from beginning to end without waiting for the industry’s next monthly pamphlet. Exploding into strands that touch esoteric comics history, as well as astronomical mind-benders like M-theory and brane cosmology, Final Crisis killed Batman and other heroes, while upping the narrative ante in pure Morrison style. Rather than having villains assault cities or planets, the Scottish auteur has them destroy reality itself using Wi-Fi, laptops and other ubiquitous technology. Reading Final Crisis from cover to cover packs so much creative stuffing into your brain that it might feel as if it’s going to explode. —Scott Thill
Amazing August at the movies
Usually a dead zone for inert flops, 2009’s final month of summer yielded a rich crop of daring features. District 9 took a thoughtful, gritty look at aliens as immigrants and introduced a talented new voice in first-time feature filmmaker Neill Blomkamp. In Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino demonstrated his golden ear for dialogue and propelled uber-Nazi Christopher Waltz toward a Green Hornet starring role and beyond. 9 provided DIY filmmaker Shane Acker with a big-budget canvas for his “stitchpunk” story of burlap-clad robots soldiering through a denatured landscape. —Hugh Hart
Big games from big names
Contemporary gaming’s greatest iconoclasts released games this year. Tim Schaefer dropped Brutal Legend. Keita Takahashi befuddled with Noby Noby Boy. And Jeff Minter dosed us with Gridrunner ++ Their offerings may have been flawed, or in the case of Suda 51’s reissue of Flower, Sun and Rain, straight-up bad. But these videogame visions were unique, undiluted and mandatory. —Gus Mastrapa
Fringe’s winning formula
With no letdown in sight, prime time’s smartest sci-fi show powers through Season 2 with a formula that pushes humor, global conspiracy, gore and hard science to absurdly entertaining extremes. —Hugh Hart
Up and Pixar’s ongoing magic
Amidst another summer of mediocre blockbuster movies, there was Up. Entertaining, creative, insightful and inspiring, you’ll rarely find a film that so effectively balances humor, adventure and pathos. But rather than just celebrate one film, why not give thanks for Pixar Animation? Where else in all of entertainment do you find a company that never makes failed products? Some Pixar films are better than others, but they’ve never made a bad movie. There’s more genuine creativity and heart in a single Pixar movie than in 10 average studio flicks. Up should bag Oscar noms for Best Picture and Best Animated Picture. —John Scott Lewinski

Obsessed Artist, Part 1: Imaginary naturalist Scott Musgrove
In The Late Fauna of Early North America, Seattle artist Scott Musgrove produces a study of fantastical wildlife in the vein of James Audubon’s famous frontier illustrations. Who needs Darwinian evolution when you’ve got alternative visions like this? —Hugh Hart
Obsessed Artist, Part 2: Willard Wigan
When skillful artisans go down the rabbit hole with single-minded focus, the results can be mind-blowing. Witness Willard Wigin, who sells microscopes to his customers so they can actually see the tiny eye-of-a-needle sculptures he’s crafted from motes of dust and eyelashes. —Hugh Hart
Jody Hill’s black humor
The director of cult comedy classic The Foot Fist Way dropped not one but two outrageously funny projects on an unsuspecting public in 2009. Eastbound & Down, an HBO series about a burned-out baseball player returning to his hometown, gave actor Danny McBride a perfect platform to pitch Hill’s unflinching, politically incorrect humor. Then, mall-cop comedy Observe & Report turned geeky star Seth Rogen into a “super antihero.” More like these, please. —Lewis Wallace

Batman: The Brave and the Bold, “Mayhem of the Music Meister”:

Watch Batman The Brave and The Bold Mayhem of The Music Meister in Animation  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

After decades of taking the animated Dark Knight deeper into the shadows, Warner Bros. lightened things up with this bright series, which is resiliently clever. Nowhere is its broad, demographic-crushing appeal more brilliant than in this musical episode, which features the vocal acrobatics of the resurgent Neil Patrick Harris as the Music Meister, a villain who can send humanity into a trance by singing (mostly about himself). Ranging from outright cheese to subversive comedy, “Mayhem of the Music Meister” found Batman hitting the high notes, literally, while beating back a horde of ballet-dancing supervillains and superheroes, all while sampling iconography from Milos Forman’s Amadeus to Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. Best animated hero worship of the year, hands-down. —Scott Thill
Videogame console excellence
Time was, if you bought the wrong videogame console at launch, you’d be SOL right about now. But Wii, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 have all found large audiences, all of which have games to be thankful for this year. Besides Halo, most of the hottest holiday games (like Assassin’s Creed II or Modern Warfare) can also be enjoyed on Sony’s platform. No, you can’t play them on Wii, but you knew that when you bought the thing. Wii Sports Resort and New Super Mario Bros. are no slouches, though. —Chris Kohler
Glee’s theater geekery
For years, geeks of the show-choir variety have waited patiently for a show that spoke to them, while their sci-fi-loving brethren got everything from Star Trek to Battlestar Galactica. Enter Glee. Like Freaks & Geeks but with more outrageous musical numbers, Fox’s delightfully off-beat (but never off-key) comedy gives a new band of high school losers a chance to shine. And while almost any theater nerd can find at least one Gleek to relate to, the ballads of these Lima, Ohio, musical misfits should ring true for any outcast. When superior-but-sweet gay kid Kurt (played by Chris Colfer) laments, “We are in glee club. That means we are the bottom of the social heap. Special-ed kids will get more play than we will,” members of everything from the Chess Club to the Mathletes hear a familiar tune. (Non-theater people can just bask in the awesomeness of Jane Lynch as sadistic cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester.) With upcoming episodes slated to feature covers from Madonna’s catalog and directing by geek guru Joss Whedon, the hearts of theater nerds everywhere are sure to be filled with, well, glee. —Angela Watercutter

Joseph Fiennes gives FlashForward a shot of intensity.
Photo courtesy ABC

FlashForward’s flashy sci-fi conspiracy
Sci-fi TV’s rookie of the year deftly juggles a huge ensemble cast through a thrilling soap opera of global dimensions powered by a can’t-miss proposition: If you know your destiny, can you — or should you — try to change the future? Despite some soggy secondary characters, FlashForward’s Joseph Fiennes keeps you guessing as the alcoholic FBI agent in charge of unraveling the so-called Mosaic conspiracy. —Hugh Hart
Robert Downey Jr.’s wild streak
Mouthing off in welcome defiance of Hollywood’s safe-talking PR machinery, Robert Downey Jr. says what he wants, when he wants, how he wants, judging from his bravura July press conferences at Comic-Con International in San Diego. More important is Downey’s acting. Debonair, witty and brooding when necessary, he offers hope for the future of broadly entertaining-yet-not-stupid movies thanks to his Dec. 25 title performance in Sherlock Holmes and next summer’s Iron Man 2. —Hugh Hart
Comic-Con International’s Hall H sneak peeks
Each year, San Diego’s geekfest gets bigger, better — and more crowded. The giant Hall H venue allows Hollywood studios a chance to give 6,000 or so fans a look at must-see movies on the horizon. In 2009, that meant advance peeks at James Cameron’s 3-D stunner Avatar and Jon Favreau’s badass superhero sequel, Iron Man 2. Now, if Comic-Con’s operators can just do something about those horrible lines. —Lewis Wallace

Josh Freese sells his album Since 1972 with amazing packages, like a $20,000 mini-golf game with his rock-star friends.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

Josh Freese’s amazing marketing
While the record biz sat around wringing its money-stained hands over dwindling sales, this Southern California drummer/songwriter dreamed up a genius marketing plan for his new record, Since 1972. Freese concocted a freaky list of “freemium” deals, including a $20,000 mini-golf package that had a Florida buyer rubbing shoulders with rock stars. As a result, Freese enjoyed a killer combo of sales and press attention. Brilliant idea, flawless execution (and the record was pretty damn good, too). —Lewis Wallace Great downloadable content
Attention, GameStop: No, we don’t want to buy a used copy of yesterday’s new release for a $5 discount. In fact, we don’t really need you anymore. Between Trials HD, Shadow Complex and ‘Splosion Man on Xbox Live and Fat Princess and Final Fantasy VII in the PlayStation Store, inexpensive downloadable games are becoming as engaging as their disc counterparts. There’s a new Excitebike on WiiWare! And Telltale’s episodic adventures. And … —Chris Baker