5. Saga Continues

Saga appeared on my 2013 best of the year list, and as long as it continues to maintain this quality, I imagine it will have a parking spot on the top 5 list going forward. Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples intergalactic war story is simply put the best science-fiction tale of the year. It’s also one of the most moving portraits of starting a new family you’ll find in comics, or elsewhere.

If you still not reading Saga, just get going already.

4. Apocalyptic Stories that nearly wiped out humanity

This is basically my way of shoe-horning to great movies into one spot on the list: Snowpiercer and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

I love Snowpiercer (having fawned over it upon its release, I re-watched it recently and find no reason to retract. It’s thrilling and strange and ultra-violent. Some people had problems with Snowpiercer‘s ending, and I don’t begrudge that opinion. But given the 2 hours that precede it, I would expect nothing less than a jarring conclusion.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes was a surprise, too, though its success is built almost entirely on the technical accomplishment. The integration of CGI and live-action in Dawn is better than anything I can remember. And the distances we have traveled in motion-capture performances from actors is a marvel. What Andy Serkis does with Ceasar in Dawn makes his work as Gollum seem like a pile of garbage from the garbage factory.

3. Game of Thrones

There is so much great television on television that few must-watch prestige shows remain. After Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Wire, and a decade of appointment watching programs, only Game of Thrones remains in the consensus bucket of “shows you have to watch before you go back on the internet.” And Game of Thrones is definitely that show.

Season 4 was the best yet, more complex and rich and frustrating, but even more importantly: more entertaining.

Game of Thrones-in a way that Breaking Bad and The Wire never were-is just fun as hell; and when it screws up (and it does), it still manages to make its screw-ups interesting.

2. Equality Movements galvanize popular entertainment

Pop culture has long been a a place where injustice and inequality has been rooted. Restrictive power structures built on patriarchy and systemic racism have made Hollywood, Professional Sports, and much of our culture what they are. But these spaces-sports, Hollywood, etc-are also the source of some of the strongest challenges to inequality and injustice.

From Emma Watson’s invitation to feminism at the UN to Lebron James “I Can’t Breathe” pre-game warm up shirt, to Anita Sarkeesian, Brianna Wu and the women who challenged the Gaming industry, 2014 saw a lot of celebrity power galvanized towards change. Sponsorships and marketing should not cloud the voices of those who can lead; nor should celebrity be required to earn our ears.

A lot of powerful voices were heard this year, voices standing for something beyond sports and video games.

1. Richard Linklater’s Year

Richard Linklater is one of my favorites.

He’s a favorite director of mine, and his 2014 picture Boyhood is, in my estimation, the best film we saw this year. An massive project, shot for 12 years, Boyhood is a great, rare piece of film art. It is however, not the top of my list.

Linklater is also one of my favorite people. Reasons for this are many, but its hard to find a better reason than Bernie Tiede. Tiede is the man who killed the elderly Marge Nugent, which is the subject of Linklater’s 2011 film Bernie. Since making the film, Linklater has been campaigning for the release of Tiede, whose life sentence has been seen the subject of controversy.

This past summer, the hard work of many activists led to a judge commuting the life sentence of Bernie Tiede and releasing Tiede into the custody of Richard Linklater. Tiede now lives in Linklater’s Austin, Texas home.

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