What's your 2018 pop culture gift to the world?
Image: Photo: Salt, Fat, Acid, HeatGraphic: Natalie Peeples Aux Features AVQ&A
As we approach the end of 2018, we are asking—as we do every year—one particular question of our staff and readers. Please let us know your responses in the comments to:
What’s your 2018 pop culture gift to the world?
Clayton Purdom
I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a show as much as Big Mouth, Nick Kroll’s majestically filthy Netflix cartoon about a group of teenagers attempting to survive the horrors of puberty. And they are horrible, here taking the form of a whole suite of Hormone Monsters, an army of anthropomorphic masturbation aides, and the season-two addition of a malevolent Shame Wizard. Like I said: It’s filthy, getting away with sight gags and provocations a live-action show couldn’t dream of. But it’s also profoundly human, sweet, and sex-positive, showing the ways these various emotional terrors bring out the worst and the best in horny people of all ages. The first season was great, but the second, released in October, is even better; you can blast through both in one of the most horrific and heart-warming weeks you’ll have all winter.
Alex McLevy
There’s a purity and intimacy to theater that I find to be one of the more affecting elements of any art form, so naturally one of my biggest joys is watching bloopers of said intimacy. Most of the time, they’re simple mistakes or pratfalls of the bemused-chuckle variety, but every once in a while I stumble upon one that gets me, that genuinely registers as the kind of “holy shit, that sort of mortifying public mistake would make me wish the earth would swallow me whole, had it been my error; I sincerely hope that person can laugh at themselves and shake it off.” And the one I found this year made me laugh so hard while at work, my colleague Clayton was wondering if there was something wrong. So I would present to all this eight-second clip of what appears to be a high-school musical theater production in which the singer not only can’t land the note, but her voice erupts into a horrifying possession-by-the-devil sound, like she’s channeling a black metal singer. Better yet, thanks to the mistake, the line she stumbles on sounds like “It’s a gift from me to HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLL,” which makes it so, so much funnier. We all do dumb things constantly, but we should be so lucky as to have our unintended screwups result in this much happiness. If I could find her, I would give her an award for creating something so wonderful from what would otherwise doubtless be another so-so stage production.
Laura Adamczyk
For the past two years, people I know have been dividing shows and movies and books into two categories: those that do or do not soothe anxiety. I get it. I’ve been doing it, too. A former coworker lent me a Michael Haneke box set a year ago, and save for watching The Piano Teacher, I haven’t exactly been itching to get into it. And yet I don’t want to value, above all else, a work of art’s ability to relieve anxiety. People, especially in this country, should feel anxious. It’s hard to feel anxious watching Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, based on the cookbook by chef and host Samin Nosrat. Watching it, I wonder, how is this person so uncomplicatedly joyful? Perhaps it’s part circumstance. Even Larry David might have a few moments of pure, unfettered pleasure if he watched some nonna making fresh pesto on the Italian countryside (before calling out the old lady for not taking more care in washing her hands prior to cooking). But Nosrat is such a genuine, curious person, and loves food so much, that her energy is infectious. The show becomes more than a salve, encouraging viewers to take care in what they cook and eat, one of the greatest things you can do for yourself and others. It’s comforting to think about.
Danette Chavez
BoJack Horseman’s “Free Churro” is the obvious choice for a season-five recommendation, as it’s the best episode of the season and one of the most ambitious of the series to date. And yet, as perfectly poignant as Will Arnett’s delivery of it is, presenting a 25-minute eulogy as a gift to you all might be a little too on the nose for me (and the holidays are hard enough as it is). “Planned Obsolescence,” on the other hand, offers some of BoJack’s best slapstick and a family reunion that, while not as heartrending as the one in “Free Churro,” is both moving and unnerving. Elijah Aron’s script is bedroom farce of the highest order, sending Todd (Aaron Paul), Yolanda, and the Buenaventura family (voiced by Natalie Morales, John Leguizamo, and Eva Longoria) flying through doors and sliding through antique lube so expensive it’s kept in a safe—and whose destruction prompts the line: “My grandmother’s sexily spinning in her grave!” But the passionate flurry of euphemisms and Brat Pack-inspired porn titles can’t obscure a profound revelations about Todd’s asexual-but-not-aromantic status, Mr. Peanutbutter’s (Paul F. Tompkins) new relationship, and BoJack’s growing feelings for his co-star, Gina (Stephanie Beatriz, the season MVP). Having said that, my favorite moment might actually be Todd describing the anatomical accuracy of a marzipan anus modeled after Mr. Buenaventura’s. The only thing that could have made it better would have been if the John Hughes porn parodist were named “John Screws.”
William Hughes
Another year, another installment of me dumping a podcast into the world’s collectively waiting stocking. This year, though, it’s one you’ve almost certainly tried before, but might have fallen off of: Serial, which came back in 2018 with a third season that was not only significantly grippier than its interesting-but-esoteric second outing in 2015, but which felt, at times, like an attempt to correct the course of the true-crime podcast juggernaut that the show itself helped launch way back in the day. Centering not on a single crime, but a single place—the Cleveland Justice Center, where judges are mercurial and cruel, and plea bargains are the language of the land—Sarah Koenig and company dive into the thousands of crimes that happen every year that aren’t singular mysteries that captivate a nation’s attention, speculations, and hearts. But despite the shift from true-crime to true crimes, the show is no less compelling or heartbreaking, as in the second episode of the season, which introduces us to the monstrous, condescending, unconsciously racist judge Daniel Gaul. Listening to the breakdown of Gaul’s evils, it slowly dawns on you that Serial didn’t become a mega-hit because the case of Adnan Syed was some uniquely fascinating occurrence; it’s because Koenig and her team are just better at this storytelling than almost anybody else out there, including any number of competitors who they’ve now left in their wake.
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As for me, I got all the Nero Wolfe novels read, started working through the works of Margery Allingham, Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie, started reading P.G Wodehouse (courtesy of a collected edition containing The Code of the Woosters, Uncle Fred in the Springtime and some utterly hilarious short stories) and finally — finally! — started watching Breaking Bad (two seasons in, awesome!). In terms of my own humble contributions to the world, I dunno if I’d call it pop culture (more like “upvoted by about ten people at most” culture, amirite folks?) but I saved up enough to buy a new camera and started uploading some of my (hah!) best shots to various photography-based social media sites, and took a short writing course that should hopefully get my creative juices simmering once again.
Lou Jacobi
As someone who couldn’t hit the more important notes of “Suddenly Seymour” in his high school production of “Little Shop of Horrors”, that 8 second clip hit me where I (used to) live. It’s also goddamn hilarious and will watch it far more often than I should.
Here is the full compilation. It’s amazing:
i had to sing “you’ll never walk alone” in high school & the music director refused to lower the key despite the end being way too high for me. my solution? start crying. worked like a charm. the audience wept with me every performance.
For me it’s Into the Spider-Verse’s Post-Credit scene:…..SPOILERS…..I never thought I’d ever see Miguel O’Hara in the Spider-Verse movies considering that his origin involves him being turned into a drug addict by Alchemax and his attempt to cure it by rewriting his own DNA caused him to gain his powers. But there he was pointing at Earth-67 Spider-Man. I actually cheered when Miguel appeared.
I laughed so goddamn hard at that, and it’s definitely my favorite post-credits scene. “That’s not *normal pointing.*” That and his little frustrated hop at the end killed me.
That was completely over my head. Didn’t get it at all.But the movie itself was fantastic. It’s stuck with me for days. There are places here and there where it slips a little too much into standard issue comic book issues, but there are too many places to count where it soars above all that. It’s crazy fun.
James Robinson’s amazing run on DC’s “Starman”. I finally got the last of the older, out-of-print trade paperbacks, and devoured them in a weekend. Groundbreaking, exciting, funny, heartbreaking, and gloriously illustrated (especially the issues drawn by co-creator Tony Harris), it’s a 90s-era comic that transcends – hell, it outright IGNORES – all the trends that were crippling the industry at the time, and delivers an incredibly personal 80-issue saga that just happens to have some superheroics in it. I wish to God Above that DC would get off their asses and finish off the paperback omnibuses (they stopped with Volume 2), so the rest of the world could discover (or re-discover) just how awesome these comics are.
Derry Girls snuck in just at the last moment, and I’ve been pushing it on everyone I encounter. Great show.
Good to know as Netflix keeps recommending it to me.
It’s definitely worth a look.
YESSSSS. My husband and I thought, “Sure, let’s pop on an episode to kill off the evening” and kept going for four or five more. It’s a reminder of being teens in the ‘90s, but also just has a wonderful humor that is relatable and refreshing.
Sister Michael is fucking great.“Sadly, I am unable to come on this one, as I despise the French.”
12 Monkeys ended and it was awesome, is that ‘my’ gift? Because everyone who is into time travel stories or the movie should definitely watch it.
Finally! Another Watcher of the Witness! That was, hands down, one of the BEST sci-fi/time travel/based on a movie shows EVER!And it got nary a mention on AV Club or io9.
Seriously! It’s right up io9’s alley and they didn’t say squat about it. Four seasons of tight tv that wrapped up really well and nothing on AVClub? I have to imagine syfy didn’t pay them for mentions or something? All the acting was great and it had Emily Hampshire and Kirk Acevedo!
And yet they keep reviewing The Walking Dead every week, wtf?
I loved the first season but haven’t kept up. I’ll have to try to find it on streaming. Guessing Hulu since it’s not on Netflix.
It gets so much bigger after the first season too.Hulu has seasons 1-3 but not 4 for some reason:(
I recorded the last season when it aired several months ago and I keep meaning to watch it but I just haven’t. I enjoyed the previous seasons a lot so I should get to it.
You absolutely should! They did a hell of a job wrapping it all up:)
Thanks in part to last year’s Paperbacks from Hell by Grady Hendrix (itself based largely on his Tor.com review entries), this year I became aware of Ken Greenhall’s brilliant, inexcusably undervalued novels. I’d seen and admired the dark (daaark) French comedy Baxter (1989), unaware that it was an adaptation of Greenhall’s book Hell Hound, but can now attest that the novel is a somehow even more disturbing masterpiece.
But it was Greenhall’s first novel, Elizabeth (originally published, like Hell Hound, under the pen name Jessica Hamilton) that truly blew me away. If you’re a fan of Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle (or films like Shadow of a Doubt or Stoker [which struck me as a combination of “Castle” and “Shadow”]), you’ll love Elizabeth. I’ve never read anything so saturated with perverse sexuality — but where it’s all between the lines rather than on the page, which makes it even more perverse and sexual.
Like those two aforementioned novels, Greenhall’s almost-as-good Childgrave was recently reissued and is recommended, but his final novel, 1998’s Lenoir, an ambitious picaresque story about a slave turned artist’s model in 17th-century Holland, is another masterpiece bookending a small but outstanding body of work.
Sketch for Numbers, 1957Graphite pencil on coated paper10 3/8 × 8 ¼ in. (26.4 × 21 cm)Work on paper (Drawing)Last week was in Houston visiting family for the Holidays & saw the Jasper Johns Drawing Exhibition ‘The Condition of Being Here’, the inaugural show at the new Menil Drawing Institute, part of the Menil Collection. Also spent time in the Cy Twombly Bldg & the Rothko Chapel in addition to the Main Collection. Was a very mind-blowing, spirit uplifting, & exhausting afternoon. The Jasper Johns show is up till Jan. 27th, 2019.
Target Sketch, 1959Graphite pencil and crayon on paper11 × 8 ½ in. (27.9 × 21.6 cm)Work on paper (Drawing)****https://automotive-acne.kinja.com/cy-twombly-gallery-the-menil-collection-1831211899https://www.menil.org/exhibitions
And free admission. The Menil is a wonder.
I went to the Rothko Chapel a couple years ago and that was a seriously amazing experience. Sometimes when I travel, I hop from one touristy thing to another and honestly don’t remember much from them. This, however, continues to stick with me.
Cupcake and Dino was one of my favorite series of the year. Just good fun. Also, the Big Fat Quiz of the Year is a BBC comedy trivia show that never disappoints. The most recent one just aired and features Michelle Wolf. Check it out, along with other British panel shows like Would I Lie to You and 8 out of 10 cats does countdown all on youtube.
Netflix’s Norsemen.I’ve got my entire workplace hooked on it. The best way to describe it is Vikings meets The Office, and even that’s way too derivative.
Binged this about a month ago. Pretty damn funny.
I watched The Terror only last week but now I can’t shut up about it and recommending it to people. It also unearthed an interest in old timey ship stuff.But also, Infinity War was the fucking most insane thing this year, a movie that requires you to see 10 years of movies beforehand and it’s actually good!? Insane.
Even though it came out in 2017 I just came around to seeing ‘Bad Genius’ and it was absolutely brilliant. It was exciting, suspenseful, hilarious and a great look at class politics. A movie in which they heist not money but information. Available now on Netflix.
Despite being a looooong time fan of the movie Akira, I’d never actually read the much MUCH more in depth 38 issue manga. Well, I finished it last night. It was incredible.
The Order of the Stick.It’s legendary within it’s little niche genre of D&D webcomics. But it’s also largely unknown outside of that niche. But I would suggest to all of you that if you haven’t seen it before, take the time to familiarize yourself with it. In it’s own way, it’s actually a better, deeper fantasy story at this point than Game of Thrones, and certainly far funnier:
OOTS is a fucking gem
I’ve found Burlew’s erratic publishing schedule to be deeply frustrating, which is maybe the highest praise that can be given in these distracted and media-oversaturated times.
this cracks me every time i find an opportunity to use this. 😀
In that vein, I help make a webcomic which some people seem to read and like and I also sponsor a lot of others on Patreon and that’s a bit more help for other people make theirs as well.
One movie and one book, both not of this yearThe movie:Somehow this slipped by me in 2017, and am so glad that it came to my attention again in 2018. A beautifully shot and scripted story of loss and the outward expression of that is what is inside and how we can translate it in order to communicate.The Book:A two-generational story about addiction and compulsion, drive, desire and failure set in the Mathematical discipline. The first half led to the ramifications and brilliant prose of the second. This had been on my list of “to read” for some time and am so happy that i got around to it this year.
So, it isn’t new to 2018 but new to me this year: Primitive Technology on YouTube.The gist is that a dude in Australia makes a bunch of stuff using just local plant life and other tools (rocks, mud, etc.) Some stuff he makes is relatively basic (bow and arrow), but some of the projects are much larger (tiled roof hut). The host never speaks; he just shows you what he does. A partner I started dating in June introduced me to it, and I am simultaneously fascinated, relaxed and jealous by each video.
After chasing low-quality rips all over YouTube, I was thrilled to finally be able to point people towards Hulu so they could also partake in the absurdity that is Letterkenny. After five months of having just the first two seasons available, seasons 3-6 just landed yesterday. To me, it’s one of, if not the, best shows not named The Good Place.
BoJack Horseman’s “Free Churro” broke me. I have never had a show have that much of an emotional roller coaster effect on me. When that episode ended I just have to stop everything and sit there and just take it in. I laughed, i cried. It was amazing television.
I love stories about people growing as people and becoming better, and Schitt’s Creek does that so well and it’s so funny, too. Ditto The Good Place.
Mine is the Video Nasty Project – where a handful of horror fans look at all of the movies on the infamous DPP 39 banned and censored list. I launched it back on New Years and did an episode a week until Halloween. We’ll be kicking off the back half of the list here in a couple of days. Here, check out the trailer:https://youtu.be/_QROMXGiMAw
If you already don’t know, I’m giving y0u Big Joanie. They started off a bit DIY rough (their punk version of No Scrubs is cool thought), but they got good really fast. Here’s “Fall Asleep” from their new album.
I replied to a writer soliciting info on movie theaters that show interesting stuff before their films. Turns out his article was for the New York Times. So I introduced Jacksonville’s local indie, Sun-Ray Cinema, to the country!
Oh, hey, I contributed to their crowdfunding years ago despite living on the opposite end of country! Good to hear they’re still going.
Kudos to you. They’re going strong – added a room, built a festival, and now acquired a new theater in another neighborhood.
I rarely watch anything that I don’t know at least something about already, but my roommate and I were trolling through Hulu last spring and discovered “Letterkenny”. We went through the first two seasons in that one night, laughing uproariously the entire time. I promptly told my friends and family about it, and now we can’t get through a conversation without quoting it in some way.I enjoyed “Letterkenny” more than anything else I watched last year, and I’m a Vegas Golden Knights fan.
Since I don’t understand the rules of this-and rules were meant to be broken anyway-I’m going to gift you with a movie suggestion that I discovered this year, but was released…I dunno, sometime ago:Lake Mungo.
My Brilliant Friend is the best thing I saw on TV this year, beating out several other exceptional shows.
This might be cheating, since the original run on the CBC ended in 2017 but I sincerely hope that everyone who caught X Company on Ovation in the US this past year loved it as much as I did.
I take this more literally. MY pop-culture-gift-to-the-world this year was the first album by my band, The Brutalists, called The Brutalists.
We are on a small label (Cleopatra) so couldn’t make the cut to get reviewed on American websites, (most of whom just make up the bands they review anyway), but the English got it and we did a quick tour over there in October.
This is from classic rock:
Took a screen shot so I can check your band out tomorrow, are there any videos on YouTube or are you on Spotify by chance?
I think we are on spotify…I know we are available via Alexa.
There are a couple of boring photo montage vids on youtube, then trashy as fuck videos from bars, as we on the fucking Hollywood dive bar scene…Redwood, Maui Sugar Mill, Rinse, repeat.
Here’s a song of the rekkid with a boring, but appropriate vid. The song is literally about living in brutalist housing in the seventies and the government lies that got you there.
Here is live from the redwood…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueKCdWrYXx4
Stones cover from London:
Hunh. The headline made me think “What did you personally contribute to pop culture?”Anyway, my personal pick was the Smash Bros. banner trailer, which lacked any music, allowing people to edit in whatever song they wanted, and they almost all fit extremely well, as I found out personally:
How bad is it? It’s bad. Cobra (1986) Blu-ray for $3 at Big Lots! George P. Cosmatos commentary. Topping that I also got Tango & Cash Blu-ray for $3.https://thedissolve.com/features/forgotbusters/749-cobra-gave-the-1980s-the-dirty-harry-knockoff-it-d/
My pop culture gift to the world would be the books I’ve written about Laurel and Hardy, who have given the world a pop culture gift for 90 years. (If anyone’s interested, there’s info at bonaventurepress.com )
My gift for anyone who frequents this site is that Kinjamprove is back and with an improved design. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kinjamprove-continued/mcoeilbaljapapgpnokmhdgnmgdbimgo
My gift for anyone who frequents this site is that Kinjamprove is back and with an improved design. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kinjamprove-continued/mcoeilbaljapapgpnokmhdgnmgdbimgo
My gift for anyone who frequents this site is that Kinjamprove is back and with an improved design. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kinjamprove-continued/mcoeilbaljapapgpnokmhdgnmgdbimgo
My gift for anyone who frequents this site is that Kinjamprove is back and with an improved design.https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kinjamprove-continued/mcoeilbaljapapgpnokmhdgnmgdbimgo
No other show inspired me more this year than “A Place Further than the Universe”. If you need a good cry, it will do that too.
And yes it’s an anime but it’s also an incredible coming-of-age series.
T.R. Pearson published a couple of novels in 2018, and since he is one of my favorite authors, I gift them to you. (Plus, if you never read Polar, do so now.)
I know it wasn’t everyone’s jam (for reasons that vary from “agree to disagree” to “you’re being a fucking turd”) but I was *floored* by Hereditary. I saw it theatrically 4 times and anxiously await a special collectors edition Blu in the future. It has given Evil Dead II a run for its money as my favorite film.
My gift is Game Makers Toolkit, a great YouTube channel with some insightful essays about game design- namely what works and what doesn’t work in today’s most popular titles. All of it is good, but the three-part, Designing for Disability series really puts some great perspective on how to make videogames better for people with certain handicaps.
The Queer Eye reboot was certainly a gift to the world. JVN is a treasure I would watch do anything, and Antoni is just beautiful to look at (whatever your feelings on his culinary skills).
https://moonrevenge.bandcamp.com/Perhaps I’m a little biased because I’m acquaintences with the lead singer from a community music group but I love this band. Most of the members were in a previous group called “Secret Cities,” which was amazing as well. It’s hard to categorize into a neat genre, indie/art rock, prog, psychadelic. Whatever it is, it’s just really great music.
So the concept here is you recommend extremely popular things?