2015 has been filled with stellar pop culture moments, including plenty of impressive debuts: from HBO’s The Jinx to Star Wars Battlefront’s epic release to Mr. Robot‘s unexpectedly great first season, the past eleven months have been filled to the brim with things we’ll remember well past 2016. These moments in film, TV, music, and video games are what define us so please join us in telling us your favorites.
But first, our staff wanted to weigh in…
Jason Tabrys
Charlotte Rae’s The Facts of My Life
Spencer Lund
Netflix Panels
Frank Miller and B.M. Bendis (potty humor still deserves a hat tip when intellectualizing superheroes) may have been born a decade apart, but some of their best storytelling in comics reached an apogee with the Netflix-produced seasons of their seminal works. Dark and deep is how their Manhattan heroes captured the imagination of kids and adults, but it’s not corny deep, like a mid-cult mention of Sartre as a bad guy eats Matt Murdoch’s knuckle. Their characters and stories kept their gravitas on Netflix. The world isn’t pretty and both writers deftly showed that during their runs on Daredevil and Jessica Jones, respectively. And while Miller’s Westies-run Hell’s Kitchen explicitly differs from Bendis’ gentrified, though still-scared version of Manhattan after a thwarted alien annihilation, I don’t feel as juvenile when I write that or say that out loud. That’s because of the smart Netflix adaptations.
Panels work on the small-screen, and they can be done without Stan Lee’s smiling visage nauseatingly triggering a Floyd homage to capitalism. Now lets hope the Hollywood bro bros don’t f*ck up Preacher.
Matthew Rothstein
I’m thankful for two things above everything else — Mad Max: Fury Road and Currents by Tame Impala. The former is a needed rejection of every bad habit in modern action movies, and one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen. The latter is one of the most perfect albums I’ve ever heard, soaked in the sweetest honey and without a false note to speak of. They are two of the things that have made me happier than most everything else this year.
Dariel Figueroa
The Netflix original series Daredevil and Bloodline stole many hours of my life this year, and I’m a better person for it. Ben Mendelsohn deserves every TV award ever imagined for the rest of his natural life for his performance in Bloodline. I consider myself a distant relative of the Rayburn clan…just with less boozing and murder.
Jamie Frevele
I am thankful for two standup comedians who inspire me to write and make me laugh on an incredibly reliable basis, and those people are Amy Schumer and John Mulaney. The latter is an adorable man with unbelievably hilarious delivery who deserves all the success he’s earned this year even though his show was canceled. I want him to have another shot so we can all see what else he can do. I also want tickets to “Oh Hello.” And as a female human who has never doubted that she’s funny, I’m so thankful that the entire world has accepted Amy Schumer as not just a funny woman, but just as a straight-up comedian who can write, act, and also conquer entertainment. She’s so smart, sharp, and honest, and I cannot get enough of her. And she makes me want to get the f*ck off of social media and write some original material of my own, but damnit, it’s a really good way to keep in touch with people I’d rather not see in person but need to qualify my existence.
Honorable mention: Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell and company for bringing back Evil Dead, the former for granting me the interview of a lifetime.
So, what piece of pop culture are you thankful for?
