2009

I need to get cracking on the end-of-decade stuff (crammed in the last 24 hours with TV shows -- five episodes of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and ten episodes of Friday Night Lights, along with finally seeing Up), so I'm going to quickly throw out my awards for what was a fairly lame year. It went by quickly and the best thing you can say is that, after January 20 and other than Michael Jackson's death, the biggest thing that happened was that the economy wasn't quite so catastrophically awful as it had been. So, here:

• Athlete of the Year: Joe Mauer. He put up ridiculous numbers and nobody else really stands out.
• Team of the Year: New York Yankees. It has to be, unfortunately.
• Moment of the Year: The Inauguration. Being there was amazing.
• Not-As-Big Moment of the Year: Michael Jackson's death. Everything stopped for a while, very eerie.
• Joke of the Year: Kanye interrupting Taylor Swift. Sure, the Tiger Woods thing has legs, but there hasn't been one joke that has been run into the ground as much as "I'ma let you finish..."
• Best New TV Show of the Year: Community.
• TV Quote of the Year: "I'll spend the rest of my life trying to hire you." (Don Draper on Mad Men) Honorable mentions include: "Very good, happy Christmas." (Lane Pryce on Mad Men) "Danny Duberstein knows two things: math and f***ing." (Leon on Curb Your Enthusiasm) "There are only two ways to hurt your neck..." (Larry on Curb Your Enthusiasm)
• TV Episode of the Year: The season finale of Mad Men, among the best single episodes of any TV drama ever. Honorable mentions to the season premiere of House, the vacuum-sealed plastic episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, and the season finale of Lost.
• TV Show of the Year: I suppose, in light of the previous two categories, that it must be Mad Men. Surprise!
• TV Comeback of the Year: 24. Risen from the dead like Jack himself has done so many times.
• Movie Acting Performance of the Year: Christoph Waltz as the Jew Hunter in Inglorious Basterds. Honorable mentions include: George Clooney in Up in the Air, Matt Damon in The Informant!, Vera Formiga in Up in the Air, Robert Downey, Jr. in Sherlock Holmes
• Movie Moment of the Year: The theater scene in Inglorious Basterds. That's going to challenge for movie moment of the decade. Honorable mentions include: the photo montage at the end of The Hangover, the first fifteen minutes of Up, the first scene of Inglorious Basterds.
• Worst Movie of the Year: The Goods and nothing comes close (with the caveat that I haven't yet seen the three movies from 2009 on that Worst of the Worst list).
• Prettiest Movie of the Year: I needed some way to put Avatar in here and say again: Go freaking see it in 3D!
• Top 5 Movies of the Year (from #5 to #1): Up, The Hangover, District 9, Up in the Air, Inglorious Basterds. Honorable mentions include: Avatar, Star Trek, A Serious Man.

I'm probably forgetting things because I sped through this with little prep time. More to come this week.