Friday, December 29, 2017

What are the worst personal brands of 2017?


With 2017 rapidly coming to a close you are bound to see a bunch of bullshit on the web that essentially boils down to “new year new me” memes. Some people will talk about their goals, what they accomplished and where they came up short. Some people will gloat about personal achievements like getting married and having a kid, while others will wallow in their misery about their failures such as getting divorced or losing a job.

This got me thinking a lot about personal brands specifically one’s online brand, because you know who exactly to expect this type of shit from, the guy that truly has it all won’t force it down your throat all over social media. The woman who is crushing it professionally will typically be humble about her success…all of this then begs the question, which brand is the worst?

Some disclaimers: None of you should feel targeted by this list, and to prove it I will be including my own personal brand on this list which I’m sure you won’t find hard to figure out. 

Personally, I had a year of ups and downs, wins and near misses. I almost got a show on the air but simultaneously may have sabotaged my writing career. I had some life changing experiences but at the same time fucked up some relationships with people I care about but you live you learn, right? Who gives a shit about me, let’s attack some anonymous straw men!

The Fake Jet Setter
Look, unless you are my dad, everyone loves to travel. Traveling = vacation and vacation = drinking before noon. But also seeing new shit is cool! Experiencing new cultures is fun! But there is nothing worse than the person that goes to Europe once and suddenly achieves human enlightenment. You know exactly who this person is because they posted exactly 417 photos from their three day trip to Iceland, then four days after they got back they dropped 127 more under the caption “Missing Iceland.” Of course a barrage of TBTs and FBFs followed. WE FUCKING GET IT. 

What makes matters worse though is that this person will now say things like “Well in Europe…” or post things on Facebook like “A question for my fellow travelers: where should I go explore next?” (As if staying in a one star motel in Reykjavik makes you Jacques Cousteau)

Notable offenders: Anyone that has ever used the phrase All who wander are not lost, anyone that read the book Eat Pray Love, sometimes my mom.

The Debbie Downer
It has been said that misery loves company. What this paragraph presupposes is, maybe it doesn’t? Sure sometimes I am relieved when I realize that other people have problems too but I don’t want to fucking hear about it. My God sometimes I’ll scan social media and I’ll see something like “today was a bad day.” What kind of emo non-committal shit is that? At least if you’re going to whine, give me the deets. Did someone die? Did your SO cheat on you? Was it meat loaf day at the work cafeteria? When I’m sad I drink a bottle of whiskey and listen to a My Chemical Romance album. Guess what, I wake up with a headache so bad, I forget to be sad…my life now has purpose. Get a coffee and a breakfast burrito. 

Furthermore, the Debbie Downer loves to point out their lack of social life and at times might even take pride in their lameness. “How was your weekend Debbie?  “Oh you know me! Fell asleep watching Netflix at 830, it was PRETTTTTY crazy.” That’s not funny, it’s just depressing.

Notable offenders: People in their 20s going through a break up, me in 2015, lots of athletes when they’re playing poorly.

The Big Deal
The Big Deal has 4,000 instagram followers and got invited to go to a small indie movie premiere once. Now they feel like they are an ‘influencer.’ This person will go to any event that has one of those photo walls up and tag everything with shit like #redcarpet and #BTS. Big Deal also acted in a student film and even though they were only compensated with a Subway sandwich they sometimes introduce themselves as a thespian. 

They name drop constantly, have a bunch of friends that work at Buzzfeed and probably gave the shitty Hemsworth brother a handjob once. TBD totally knew Kevin Spacey was gay already and has heard a LOT of rumors about who is going to go down next. Did they mention they were backstage at a Haim show last night? LOLZ #backstage #music

Notable offenders: All the idiots that bought tickets to Fyre Fest, anyone that still lives in Hollywood and thinks it’s cool, Monica Morell

The Degenerate
Degenerate is just here to party man and you’re lucky to witness it. Stay tuned to that Instastory and you might just see a bag of blow pop up. EDGY. Degenerate doesn’t give a shit because he probably doesn’t have a job. Politics? HA! Both sides are wrong, let anarchy reign!
And do you know why degenerates don’t care about the future? Because they likely don’t have one. 

You would be shocked at how the idea of nuclear war becomes a bit more appealing when your friends are all crushing it at Fortune 500 companies and your most recent grocery store purchase was two bottles of Boone’s Farm and a box of Mac n Cheese! I mean to be fair, the degenerate has been training all of his life for a post apocalyptic America…sleeping in bushes, building up resistance to harmful substances. Hell one time he survived an entire week on potato chips and Four Loko

Notable offenders: Me, my roommates, most people between the ages of 16-23

Before we get to the worst online brand of 2017, some honorable mentions:
Oversharers, race baiters, people that post old memes and say ‘so true!’, The Star Wars is problematic crowd, MRAs, overt self promoters, people seeking validation and anyone that writes too much in a short form medium (if you regularly use all 280 characters I hate you)

And a few brands I really enjoyed in 2017: Cutting sarcasm, shameless nostalgia, hipster nerd, people that are earnest about being basic, Black Twitter,
And now the worst brand of 2017…

The Political Guru
Whether it’s a redneck MAGA pede or a smug member of ‘the resistance’ there is nothing more nausea inducing than someone dumping volumes of their political beliefs online as if they are going to change your mind with a clever #fakenews post. Browse this person’s timeline and it will be either full of snarky Trump Tweets with the facepalm emoji or a bunch of Breitbart articles talking about how great the economy is. 

What neither side seems to grasp is that I am purely on social media to see if my ex girlfriends are still hot, so I implore you to take your thoughts on Trump, Global Warming, basically any issue that causes people to argue and save those for when you’re drunk and with your family. I know you listened to Pod Save America once and now feel super enlightened, but honestly, I would rather look at pictures of your stupid kids than see one more post about healthcare or tax cuts.
“But it’s your privilege not to care about pol-“ One more fucking word and I will name you in my suicide note.


Notable offenders: Every millenial, R/The_Donald, your senile uncle Dale, The President

Friday, December 22, 2017

The Truth About Cats and Dogs

"Do you want to have sex with us?"

This was the question posed from the back of the Uber as we drove up the PCH on a sunny Saturday in November. What had previously been an idyllic moment in Malibu, my head slightly tilted out the window, blond locks fluttering in the breeze, was now shattered. As I stuttered out a deflection of an answer, I looked in the rear view mirror to see a shit eating grin creep across my neighbor Monica's face.

This was not an offer of course, though had a trip to Malibu wines turned into a daytime foursome this would likely be a much more entertaining blog.

No, it was a philosophical question. Do you perceive your opposite sex friends in THAT way? And although this is one of the most tired romantic comedy tropes, let's get into it...do you low key want to fuck your platonic best friends?

It sets up an existential crisis. Even though it's a trope in 70% of romantic comedies, and even though I've done it dozens of times, it is NOT POLITE CONVERSATION TO TELL YOUR FRIENDS YOU WANT TO BED THEM.

Malcolm Gladwell states in his book Blink that we make thousands of assumptions in the first few seconds we meet a new person. I think it's safe to say that one of the assumptions I make is 'do I find this person physically attractive' and by proxy 'would I be interested in taking this person home?'

Of course there are a million other factors: kindness, humor, intelligence, creativity. But during those first few seconds I'm making a decision purely on the physical product, similar to album art work or a Jackson Pollack painting.

What I'm trying to say in so many words is yes, I've THOUGHT about hooking up with every single one of my female friends even if only for a split second.

While it is natural to have these thoughts; human intellect is what separates me from say an actual lion or Harvey Weinstein. It is also in my nature to show restraint and consider other factors like respect, responsibility and commitment. And though some of that restraint is lowered after I've spent 12 hours drinking, I'm reminded by something my drug education teacher told me in high school. "When you're fucked up you don't do things you would NEVER do, you do things you wouldn't normally do." This is why when drunk I won't start physical fights but I might say something mean or try to make out with you. Being mean and leading with the tongue is just a part of my personality I suppose.

It's easy to make sense of it in my opinion. I generally surround myself with attractive people because I think I'm naturally drawn to them. I have a decent looking crew of both men and women. It's not like I did it intentionally, it just kind of shook out that way. So in a perfect world all things equal I suppose if I find all of my friends attractive, one could assume I want to have sex with all of my friends, yes?

No!

Because all things are not equal and sex makes everything complicated.

The original question was do you WANT to have sex with us, and to answer that we have to get into the messy stuff...the potential fall out.

Let's look at an outcome tree on what can happen if you become romantically involved with one of your friends.

The good:
You realize that you've been in love all along, become a couple, everyone is happy for you and the wedding is off the chain. (The rom-com ending)

The meh:
You guys hook up for a while and mutually decide that it would be best to going back to just friends. (The somewhat unrealistic outcome that everyone thinks will be super attainable)

The bad:
Things go south, it's weird, someone was more into it than the other, jealousy emerges, friend groups fracture, unfriending on Facebook, awkward encounters at parties, rumors spread, total chaos. (The most likely ending)

Anyone with half a brain can see that the risk is very high in attempting this friend to lover conversion. And that doesn't even take into consider other external forces. What if someone else in the group is in love with her, what if someone else in the group is in love with you? It turns into a soap opera much quicker than you would imagine.

But while the risk is astronomical, so too is the reward. It is so difficult to find a partner in this world, there is an app for everything, but dating is hard, people don't say what they mean, wouldn't it be a thousand times easier to take a person you've already spent years vetting, some person whose quirks you are one hundred percent in tune with and just...flip a switch?

I believe it was the great Michael Bolton who said 'How can we be lovers if we can't be friends?' I think a far more poignant question to ask would have been 'How can we be lovers if we CAN be friends?' A break-up with a lover is relatively easy, a break up with a friend is not.

I'm certainly not the first to opine about how men and women relate to one another and I'm sure I'm not alone in that I play with fire far often than I should in playing in the gray area between lover and friend. I'm sure I've shared a dance floor make out with at least 10% of the people reading this as we speak, I just wish it was easier to distinguish between a non-committal make out (NCMO) and real suppressed feelings.

Maybe the answer is to put yourself out there, maybe it's best to take the Royal Tenenbaums approach and just be secretly in love with each other for the rest of your lives. But perhaps just because it's Christmas (and at Christmas you tell the truth) maybe it's time to just go for it and deal with the fall out later.




Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Best Movies of 2017


Hi there, I have something to get off my chest. My 2016 movie list was trash, like legitimate garbage. Ok maybe it wasn't THAT bad, but seriously, fucking Fences? That movie blows. I mean it's not bad, bad but if I ever had to sit through it again I would probably carve out my eyes with a kitchen knife.(That's a reference to another 2016 movie that didn't make the list.)

I also overrated the 174 hour OJ doc so please move that down to number 8, remove Fences and the new number 2 for 2016 is Everybody Wants Some!! a fun flick that paired with number one on this year's list has inspired a new feature that I'm writing. A great movie doesn't necessarily need conflict, it can be a breezy stroll through a fun time period with likable characters, at least that's what I'm banking on. So everyone look forward to my next script that is essentially Before Sunset on the last day of college in Bloomington, Indiana in 2009.

Before I get to my top 10, I want to mention that I didn't LOVE a lot of movies in 2017, there were a lot in the good to decent range including these honorable mentions that I would all give a 7/10: Bladerunner 2049, Star Wars, Ragnarok, Spider-Man, Wind River, Lego Batman, Baby Driver, Logan and Wonder Woman. Ok off to the list.

10. American Made
Drugs might not be cool, but movies about drugs are fucking awesome. Well at least the first two hours are awesome. Goodfellas, Scarface, The Wolf of Wall Street, all movies with phenomenal first and second acts, but then they have to teach me some sort of moral lesson and show the main character's downfall. I am not here for that. I am here for Leo drunk crashing his helicopter into his backyard with absolutely no consequences at all.

GOOD NEWS! American Made is just the first two hours of a drug movie. It's awesome, it features cocky Tom Cruise just kinda hand waving the whole Iran-Contra scandal while he runs cocaine for Pablo Escobar. He evades about 12 government agencies while getting rich as shit and operating an airport out of his backyard. How cool is that? The character's entire comeuppance lasts 5 whole seconds and takes place off screen! A fan edit of all drug movies that ended at minute 120 would greatly improve an entire genre of film.

9. The Florida Project
If you read my best tv of 2017 column last week, I clearly stated that I like shows about rich people doing rich people things, but I also have a soft spot for movies about precocious poor kids growing up in the south. The Florida Project is kind of like Beasts of the Southern Wild except instead of Louisiana swamps it takes place in a shitty motel outside of Disney World.

I can't really relate because I always stayed at dope hotels in Disney World and I will now power rank them for you.
1. Grand Floridian
2. Contemporary
3. Polynesian
4. Swan and Dolphin
5. Beach Club
6 (tie) Wilderness Lodge
6 (tie) Animal Kingdom Lodge
8. Yacht Club
9. Boardwalk Inn
10. Coronado Springs
11. Caribbean Beach
12. Port Orleans
13. All Star Movies
14. All Star Music
15. All Star Sports

That's not really a review for the movie, I just wanted to remind everyone that I love Disney World.

8. The Trip to Spain
Here is a movie you definitely have never heard of...and good news, it's available on Netflix! The Trip to Spain is the third in a series of road trip movies featuring Steve Coogan (Hamlet 2) and Rob Brydon as they travel around Europe getting drunk on wine and doing Michael Caine impressions. If that doesn't do it for you, I don't think I can help you. I'm sorry I found that more interesting that a movie about a stressed out seamstress.

7. The Lost City of Z
Charlie Hunnam is the largest enigma of an actor working today. He is so laughably bad in movies like Pacific Rim and Crimson Peak but they he is shockingly competent in films like Green Street Hooligans and The Lost City of Z.

The film is a sweeping epic adventure film that follows the true life of British explorer Percy Fawcett who was sent by the British Government to find an ancient lost city of gold in the Amazon. Hilarity ensues...I'm just kidding he gets attacked by Indians and shit and it's super dope. Robert Pattinson also kicks ass as his assistant. It's currently available to stream on Amazon.

6. Dunkirk
There isn't much left to say about Dunkirk at this point. It's a breathlessly stressful 100 minute look at the realities of war. Wear a Fitbit during this one because my heart was exploding out of my chest. Sure, Christopher Nolan movies may lack heart and even interesting character development, this flick barely has any dialogue BUT it does have Tom Hardy as a fighter pilot and I could watch that for the rest of my life.

Also: Harry Styles, not a terrible actor!

5. Three Billboard Outside Ebbing Misourri
Let me give you the set-up of this movie. It's about the mother of a girl who was raped and murdered seeking justice for her daughter. Also it's a comedy. Let that sink in a little bit.

I mean maybe it's not fair to call the movie a straight up laugh fest, if you're familiar with any of McDonagh's previous work you'll understand. The performances in this film are among the best of the year: McDormand, Harrelson and especially Sam Rockwell absolutely knock it out of the park. The movie is shockingly violent, surprisingly hilarious and somehow after all that...heartwarming? I'll let you make up your own mind about it, it's not a traditional murder mystery but a character study of a small town and how it deals with tragedy.

4. The Big Sick
I am of the opinion that Kumail Nanjiana is a painfully unfunny comedian so I was prepared to hate this movie. But it turns out he's a pretty good writer and actor! Another "comedy" that isn't what it seems (what's more hilarious than falling into a coma?) this is really a movie about relationships between families and how they interact. Kumail's traditional parents are the fucking worst, Ray Romano's character is deeply flawed and Holly Hunter's character is holding on to anger from the past. It's fascinating to watch all of this go down during a medical emergency.

Hunter and Romano deliver Oscar worthy performances but my favorite relationship in the film is that between Kumail and the parents of his ex-girlfriend (specifically Romano) it's a true testament to how extraordinary life events can drive people together. Basically what I'm trying to say is if the last girl I had sex with slipped into a coma, I don't think I would handle it this well.

3. IT
I haven't had more fun at a movie all year than I did at IT, which is basically just an R rated Goonies with a bunch of 12 year old kids making dick jokes. I think I was primed to love this movie because I read the book (which is approximately 600000 pages) and went to the haunted house in Hollywood the week before it comes out, but I think the mix of nostalgia, violence and Finn Wolfhard using the phrase "Go blow your dad you mullet wearing asshole" really pushed it over the top for me.
Despite losing True Detective season one helmer, Cary Fukunaga, early in production, IT managed to be the rare mid budget studio horror film that works (and reignited everyone's absolute fear of clowns)

The cast is wonderful, the film manages to be truly terrifying yet funny at the same time and has be super excited for what Argentinian director Andy Muschietti has next. Check out his last film, Mama, which was scary as shit. Also check out this ridiculous Wikipedia article about the clown sighting scare of 2016. People are weird.

2. Get Out
GET OUT IS A PROPAGANDA FILM ARGUING FOR THE GENOCIDE OF WHITE MEN. Lol jk, I was just doing my best r/the_donald alt-right impersonation. Get Out is dope on its face just as a movie, also I appreciate that it has something to say about society. That said I'm not going to get into its message because I'm not a 'woke' film critic for The Atlantic. Nay, I would like to praise the performances: Alison Williams proves she can do more than just get her ass eaten, Daniel Kaluuya breaks through to American audiences and oh my god does Lil Rel Howery become a star.

There's been a lot of controversy as to why the Golden Globes chose to classify this film as a 'comedy' and I will now teach you about the politics of awards. Studios choose what to submit their film for. The good folks at Blumhouse likely thought they had a better chance of winning best picture - comedy at the Globes therefore raising awareness for their film ergo more people will see it...or perhaps they were all just drunk from making 250 million on a 4.5 million dollar budget. That's a classic 5000% return on investment, holy shit!

1. Lady Bird
Lady Bird is about an awkward girl trying to be popular at her high school in a shitty city in the year 2002, BOY DO I KNOW ABOUT THAT. The film nails teen angst on such a visceral level that it made me uncomfortable a few times, but it's perfect. Go see it, trust me. I'm going to take the rest of this review to talk about something very important to me: A defense of Dave Matthews.

Yes, much of the discourse around Lady Bird has been about it's quirky and 'uncool' soundtrack that prominently features the Dave Matthews Band, specifically the song 'Crash into me.' Now while I will agree that 'Crash' is one of Dave's weaker songs, if you do not like DMB writ large, you can go straight to hell. Central Park is a perfect album, I have made out with at least 17 different girls while the song '#41' played at Deer Creek in Noblesville, IN. Dave is an integral part of my childhood.

I mean just look at this night two set list from 2004, it's unfuckingreal! I remember night one I got so drunk that I didn't make it off the party bus, but night two? Night two was magical! We all got to spend the night in Paige Goodwin's basement which was a big deal because we were 17 having a co-ed sleepover. Did you ever have co-ed sleepovers in high school? They were the shit. People would go into closets and make out. People would drink really terrible booze like Parrot Bay and Malibu and get absolutely thrashed but then the parents would still order us pizza because we were suburban kids in Carmel, Indiana and that's what parents did.

Upon further examination, maybe Indiana wasn't that bad.

Hope y'all enjoyed my list. Tell me how much of an idiot I was on Facebook and we can spend the next two days arguing.

Thursday, December 14, 2017

Best TV of 2017


2017 was a phenomenal year for television from sweeping epics like the most recent season of Game of Thrones to the equally captivating unaired pilot for The Radio Disney Mash-Up on Disney Channel (LOLZ)

Actually, while I was making this list I realized I didn't love a lot of TV this year, but I did watch a ton of it and since I'm stuck in an office building on Wilshire until 5 o clock today, fuck it I'm making a list. Go ahead and argue with me in the Facebook comments and call me an idiot for not liking The Leftovers.

10. GLOW
I watched the entire season of Glow after being at a warehouse party until 5 o clock in the morning the night before. During that five hours I ordered pizza from Domino's two separate times, ate an entire party size bag of Kettle brand Jalapeno chips and threw up once. It was a great day. When the season was over I watched all of Wrestlemania 17 on the WWE network, honestly I'm shocked this didn't make it higher on the list.

Anyway, Alison Brie is probably my favorite working actress in 2017 and I have a soft spot for any period piece that has at least a tertiary connection to cocaine. Marc Maron was phenomenal, Chris Lowell's Bash was shockingly accurate to every trust fund burn out I know, and I'm a sucker for any show set in LA because it's the best city in the world.

9. Riverdale
In 2004, I bought the OC season one DVDs on a Black Friday special. I started watching the following Sunday, skipped school Monday and Tuesday and finished the 27 hour season early Wednesday morning. Since then I have watched the first season probably 10 times all the way through, tried multiple times to start an OC podcast and once hit the earthquake button in an elevator at Manhattan Beach studios to trap an OC producer in there and forced him to tell me stories from the set.

I'm not as much into Riverdale but Camila Mendes is a bigger star than Mischa Barton and Rachel Bilson combined. She plays Veronica Lodge, one of the main love interests of the show's protagonists Archie Andrews and she steals every scene she is in even if she isn't central to the plot at that moment. If you gave up on the CW when you turned 18 (or 30) give it another shot. The show is sexy, fun, and often times silly. They took an old comic and turned it into the next great teen soap, in fact the biggest shocker of the series is that it isn't written by Josh Schwartz.

8. 13 Reasons Why
Look guys, spoiler alert. This list isn't going to include Handmaids Tale. Sex slavery is just something that goes a little too far for me, but teenage suicide? SIGN ME THE FUCK UP. Honestly, it's shocking that anyone was able to get this show made, but I think it had a lot to say about bullying and the angst of being a teenager. I think we look back on that time in our lives with rose colored glasses and think how great it was, but guess what? IT WASN'T. 

Barstool ran this poll yesterday: Would you rather live life 8-18 again or 18-28? The answer is 18-28 easily because during that period of time you get lots of one night stands, lots of Taco Bell without getting fat and you discover alcohol and MDMA. I would rather die than live 13-15 again, just a bunch of me sitting by the phone hoping someone would invite me to do something. That's what makes 13 Reasons why so tragic; Hannah was so close to living 18-28.

7. Ozark
Fun fact! My extended family owned a condo in the Ozarks for 15 years when I was growing up and I loved going there. It is so delightfully tacky, it's the Branson of large lake communities. There are probably 45 mini golf courses (the cool ones, with ramps and gimmicks and shit) 18 Go kart tracks and 17 floating restaurants that you boat up to and then leave completely fucking trashed because BUIs aren't a real thing.

You can imagine my horror then when I realized the show doesn't shoot on the actual Ozarks. Whatever, it's a decent enough Breaking Bad rip off. While watching the pilot I realized how much I love a show when someone gets thrown off a building as an extreme act of brutal violence, it's so metal. Think Martin Sheen's death in The Departed, The Comedian in Watchmen or DB Woodside in Romeo Must Die. Anyway, fun show! That Jason Bateman can sure direct.

6. Love
Welcome to Dave's Hollywood corner, I will now tell you a story about Love that you can use at abrs to impress your friends. Love was co-written by real life married couple Paul Rust and Lesley Arfin. They conceived of the show as a starring vehicle for themselves. Finally Judd Apatow got his hands on it and told them that he could get it made at Netflix, the only caveat was that Lesley had to be re-cast, this made her irate but she went along with it because creating a TV show is hard. Anyway, she was such a jerk to Gillian Jacobs on set that Netflix BANISHED HER from set season 2. Also Lesley might be a racist so maybe creating a show isn't all it's cracked up to be.

ANYWAY, the show is so easy to write that I decided to make it my spec for when I applied to all the minority fellowships this spring. (Yes I know I'm a white guy that just got back from Aspen but I thought maybe they would forget to check) My spec was about the four main characters going on an impromptu trip to Coachella and crashing an influencer event at the General Mills party. It was awesome! Except for the plot twist when I found out Love wasn't on the acceptable spec list 24 hours before the submission deadline.

5. Game of Thrones
All the best of lists I'm reading this year are leaving off the recent season of Game of Thrones because it was a down year. Instead critics are opting for wacky newcomers like Marvelous Miss Maisel. Really guy? You think some woman in a fun outfit trying to do stand up is better than fucking dragons roasting alive a guy named Dickon? They're wrong. Game of Thrones is the only appointment television in the country, the only show you must watch every Sunday at 9pm to stay culturally relevant.

Also Jon Snow and Dany fucked. That was cool.

4. American Vandal
If I would have spent a tenth of the time in college being creative that I spent trying to score invites to every top tier sorority dance I probably could have been Jimmy Tatro. But that's fine, now he has a hit tv show and I have a Zeta barn dance 2008 shirt. They're just as cool if you ask me. TV shows are finite, college popularity is forever.

The show, which is a mockumentary style prolonged dick joke over 10 episodes was probably the most surprising show of 2017 and as someone that listened through Serial twice I'm probably the target audience for a show making fun of bros, Oceanside and true crime. Give it a shot if you're looking for something different to check out this holiday season.

3. Big Little Lies
I'm just going to get this out of the way. I like rich people. I like doing rich things. I plan on marrying up. I posted seven times from Aspen because I wanted you motherfuckers to know that I ski and have a certain degree of family wealth. (Or at least a time share with enough points to get an off peak weak at the Hyatt Vacation Club!) I detest phrases like woke and privilege so if you give me a show about a bunch of rich white women sipping expensive wine in Monterrey I am ALL the way in.

The show which takes its story from an Australian novel (which I read because I'm interesting) is a snap shot of #firstworldproblems over seven extravagant hours of sunsets, 12 million dollar mansions and fake niceness. Reese Witherspoon is a completely believable bat shit crazy mom struggling to maintain her grip on reality, but the performance you stay for is Nicole Kidman. I was never a huge fan until this show, she is electric on screen playing a battered woman and I could now spend the rest of my life watching her awkward award ceremony cutaways where she nervously kisses Keith Urban.

2. Bojack Horseman
It was a weird year for Hollywood. Basically all of our fears were confirmed and everyone is a monster. And while comedies about people behaving badly are starting to run thin on their shtick (Always Sunny, You're the Worst, Curb) leave it to a talking horse to absolutely skewer an entire industry with the most biting satire of the past 20 years.

Raphael Bob Waksberg is one of the sharpest writers in Hollywood and in four years some may think that he is starting to lose a little speed on his fastball but Bojack continues to have one of the most interesting perspectives making it not only one of the best animated shows on the air but one of the best shows period.

Honorable Mentions: Mind Hunter, Red Oaks, Narcos, The Keepers

And apologies to the shows that I haven't watched yet...Black Mirror (Dec 29) (almost put it number 2 on trailer alone) Peaky Blinders (Dec 22)  and Dark (Dec 15)

1. Master of None
Ok so after I found out Love wasn't an acceptable spec I had 24 hours to write one on the approved list, I chose Master of None. In my spec Dev and Arnold travel to Italy in a Planes, Trains and Automobiles influenced romp in order to stop Francesca's wedding to Pino. (Road trip movies are the best) I took 40 mg of Adderall and finished the final page 19 minutes before the application was due.

Master of None is the show that Girls wanted to be, it perfectly expresses everything it means to be a Millenial without all of the holier than though pretentiousness that made me want to throw myself off a bridge every time Lena Dunham opened her mouth. There is a scene in episode five of Master of None season 2 where there is a static shot of Dev in the back of a cab for five minutes bemoaning the fact that he didn't have the courage to tell a girl that he was in love with how he felt. It is a perfect scene, I've been in that exact moment for about the past two years. It's brutal. There are some rumors swirling that Aziz maybe isn't the greatest person IRL but this show is perfect and if it turns out he's a huge creep I'm burning down Los Angeles and moving to Aspen to spend the rest of my life as a ski lift operator.

Thanks for checking out my list guys, feel free to share your thoughts or make recommendations!