A Look Back at the 10’s - Your Highlights of the Decade

[HexMachina]

So we have our little awards thread and @PetyrPunkinhead usually does an annual thread for your best *insert list* but I thought a thread to post your entertainment highlights of the past decade would be quite nice. Not going to list a load of categories because if you are anything like me you’ll end up ignoring most of them. But go for broke, what entertainment really wowed you, or spoke to you this decade? I’m talking sporting achievements, films, TV, video games, apps, music, social media, whatever. I guess probably don’t include books and comics as they would be better placed in the Literature forum.

Some of mine:

Some great TV series: Orphan Black, Penny Dreadful, The Americans, The Expanse, Fargo (S1), Peaky Blinders (S1+2), Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

(if you think there seems some recency bias here you are likely correct, i didnt watch so much TV at the beginning of the decade and its a bit of a hazy memory to be honest)

Film highlights: Mad Max Fury Road, Carol, The Favourite, Star Wars TFA and TLJ (these are personal highlights, i’m not suggesting anything i say is necessarily a ‘best thing ever’)

Acting highlights: Eva Green in Penny Dreadful, Keri Russel and Matthew Rhys in The Americans, Tatiana Maslany in Orphan Black

Music highlights: The ever lovely Florence and the Machine - going to limit myself and choose two of her four albums, High as Hope and Ceremonials. Wolf Alice, My Love is Cool album. Arcade Fire....I can’t choose, their entire decade.

And of course this decade brought Ramin Djawadi and his beautiful scores to the public eye, or rather ear. 

Sports: Not an avid follower of sports really but i think there have been so many great sportspersons in all fields lately. Personally, I have loved seeing the British gymnasts show such improvement (both the men’s and women’s teams). And of course Simone Biles is really something else. Overall the skill level in gymnastics over recent years has just been raised higher and higher and i love it. 

[polishgenius]

I'm a lot less musical in my habits than the average person but for me the musical highlight of the decade was grime hitting the UK mainstream and UK rap in general starting to provide some great albums (something it hadn't consistently done) in the second half of the decade.


Sportswise the story of the decade is pretty unquestionably Leicester City winning the premier league having gone into the season as favourites for relegation and 5000-1 at the bookies to win the thing.
Me personally over the decade I got very into boxing (and have recently started, sort of, writing about it) and into MMA. 


Film of the decade is unquestionably Fury Road overall, but for me personally it's Beasts of the Southern Wild. And the realisation overall that I like brilliantly shot tiny-budget films, since Monsters and Florida Project are also among my favourites, and I should watch more of that kind of thing.

Event-film wise, Marvel took over the show of course. But the Fast and Furious films becoming a behemoth are a highlight for me. Genuinely love the shit out of that series.



Favourite actor of the decade has to be Mads Mikkelsen.

[Annara Snow]

I'm gonna be that person and point out that the decade is still going on and will until 31 December 2020.
Why do people keep forgetting that there's no year zero in the calendar we're all using?

[Corvinus85]

19 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

I'm gonna be that person and point out that the decade is still going on and will until 31 December 2020.
Why do people keep forgetting that there's no year zero in the calendar we're all using?

I refuse to follow the Gregorian calendar.  

It's really because most people are excited about changing the 3rd digit in the year value, and are looking for discussion topics.

[Heartofice]

I feel like this has been the decade where cinema, especially big budget mainstream cinema has really started to become pretty moribund and my most memorable moments have occurred in tv shows.

I suspect that movies have to do a lot more to be profitable these days, the rise of streaming and the internet means that it takes a lot for people to go out to see a movie. Internet buzz and trailers seem to be far more impactful than good reviews. Risks have mostly stopped being taken, this is the decade where almost everything was a remake, sequel or adaptation of something else. Marvel and Disney have absolutely taken over and, yeah while there are some great Marvel movies like Infinity War, Winter Soldier and Ragnarok, most of them feel bland and safe. Not to mention that this was the decade that Disney inflicted its remakes of classics on us!

Thats not to say there haven't been some great movies along the way. Fury Road which I love (but still feel never bettered its own trailer), movies like Whiplash, The Witch, Nice Guys, Edge of Tomorrow, The Lobster and Arrival were some of my favourite of all time. But it does feel like that list is getting smaller. 

TV has been great though. Now there is simply too many great tv shows for me to watch.
The Americans, Fargo, Halt and Catch Fire, Breaking Bad, Rick and Morty and The Leftovers really stand out as absolute classics that blew me away. Have to also mention this is the decade of Game of Thrones, it has been with me this whole decade and I've watched it grow from my obsession, the thing I thought about all day every day, to being a show I can barely stand and had to force myself to finish. I can also peg my decade along the lines of which season of GoT was out at the time.

Music has been a bit of a strange one. I went from listening to music constantly to barely listening at all. I'm not sure what happened. I used to love so many bands, Alt J, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Black Keys, Tame Impala, Jamie XX, Metronomy.. but its been a long time since I found anything new that I liked. I must be getting old. Or music has changed, I suspect there is something in that.

In terms of sport, England being decent at a world cup was something I won't forget. Leicester winning the prem is a once in a lifetime event. 
 

[Corvinus85]

The development of streaming services and likely the beginning of the end for traditional cable. (at least in the US)

 

[Nictarion]

As a big fan of horror I was happy this decade saw a great return to form with movies like Hereditary, Midsommar, The Witch, The Babadook, It Follows, Get Out, etc. It gives me hope for the genre moving forward. 

My other love is crime dramas, and we had plenty of great ones this decade as well. Taylor Sheridan’s Frontier Trilogy (Sicario, Hell or High Water, Wind River), Scorsese’s long awaited gangster epic The Irishman was well worth the wait. Loved Refn’s Drive. Nightcrawler. The Italian crime film Suburra. Ben Affleck’s The Town.

Action I’d go; Mad Max: Fury Road, the John Wick movies, the Raid movies, Logan, The Revenant.

Comedy; What We Do in the Shadows, This the End, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Wolf of Wall Street, even if it’s more of a dramedy (the lemon scene probably made me laugh more than anything else this decade). 

As for TV, The Leftovers was the most emotionally effective show I’ve seen since Six Feet Under. Obviously Breaking Bad. Gomorrah is a top notch Italian crime series. GoT even if it didn’t stick the landing. True Detective S1, Justified, The Americans, Mad Men, Boardwalk Empire (*see GoT). Best comedy series for me would be It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Veep. As far as streaming goes, I mostly like a lot of their crime stuff; Ozark, Narcos, Mindhunter. Also Dark and The Haunting of Hill House are both pretty great. 

[Which Tyler]

2012 olympics - all of it; from opening ceremony of the main event, to the close of the paralympics

[BigFatCoward]

A lot of love for Fury Road. I thought it was awful, I didn't even finish it. 

Sports - 2012 olympics and leicester winning the title as previously mentioned, this was also the decade I really got into Biathlon and XC skiing as spectator sports, both of which saw the end of true greats careers and the emergence of new all time superstars. No music blew me away, there was no TV show as good as the wire and no films that would make my top 5 all time. 

GOT as a cultural event was pretty cool though, as was the angst from the nerds about how it didn't end the way they wanted.

This was also the decade I became a grown up, met wife, bought first house, got married and had child. This has probably got something to do with me not being as into tv, music, films as i used to be. I dont have the time and realised that they arent that important anyway.  

[Nictarion]

17 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

A lot of love for Fury Road. I thought it was awful, I didn't even finish it. 

Sports - 2012 olympics and leicester winning the title as previously mentioned, this was also the decade I really got into Biathlon and XC skiing as spectator sports, both of which saw the end of true greats careers and the emergence of new all time superstars. No music blew me away, there was no TV show as good as the wire and no films that would make my top 5 all time. 

GOT as a cultural event was pretty cool though, as was the angst from the nerds about how it didn't end the way they wanted.

This was also the decade I became a grown up, met wife, bought first house, got married and had child. This has probably got something to do with me not being as into tv, music, films as i used to be. I dont have the time and realised that they arent that important anyway.  

What a miserable post.

[HexMachina]

1 hour ago, Which Tyler said:

2012 olympics - all of it; from opening ceremony of the main event, to the close of the paralympics

I meant to mention this too. Feels a lot more special in hindsight actually when you look at our broken and divided country now. Obviously there was still much to criticise and worry about then too but it was a brief moment of unity and happiness for the country and filled with incredible sporting achievements

@Nictarionthanks for the Wes Anderson reminder. GBH was a real gem of a film for me

[Which Tyler]

May I just mention Russel Crowe's Valjean, seeing the end to ActorsNotSingers being cast in musicals...

Looks at the reviews for Cats...

Nevermind

[HexMachina]

I feel like there should be at least an honourable mention of the monumental cock up at the Oscars that was “the winner is LaLa Land.” I still find myself chuckling at it sometimes.

Whoever mentioned the rise of streaming services, good call. Undoubtedly one of the biggest game changers in terms of the film and television industry in recent years

[The Last Storm]

A lot of scandals. I think that’s what I’ll remember most.

[Winterfell is Burning]

Sports wise, the highlight for me was in November last year my team, Flamengo, winning the Copa Libertadores with two goals in the 89th and 91st minute, then winning the Brazilian league less than 24 hours later due to other results. The greatest sporting weekend any club, in any sport, ever had

Culture-wise, I have to agree that the rise of streaming was the big game changer.  Personally, probably nothing moved me so unexpectedly as The Act of Killing, the greatest film of the decade, IMO. TV had many great highlights, but I'd say Mad Men and Breaking Bad sticking the landing was pretty awesome, and the best series released on this decade (and another that finished very well) was The Americans. The greatest WOW moment was in the 13th episode of The Good Place, though.

[Ramsay B.]

On 12/29/2019 at 1:43 AM, Nictarion said:

As a big fan of horror I was happy this decade saw a great return to form with movies like Hereditary, Midsommar, The Witch, The Babadook, It Follows, Get Out, etc. It gives me hope for the genre moving forward. 

Yup. So many good ones that I’ll name some more for the hell of it. Kill List, The Wailing, The Blackcoat’s Daughter, The Cabin in the Woods, Insidious, Under the Skin, The Autopsy of Jane Doe, Mandy. Penny Dreadful being amazing was fun too, even if it did end prematurely.

True Detective S1 might be my favorite season of tv ever. The Witcher 3 is most likely my favorite video game too. 

The powers that be doing Thanos justice on the big screen was another personal highlight. He’s been my favorite comic character since I was a kid, and it was awesome seeing a movie basically focused on him fucking everyone up. Good times. If only my 11 y/o self could’ve seen it. 

[Zuzu Bolin]

On 12/29/2019 at 8:49 AM, HelenaExMachina said:

I meant to mention this too. Feels a lot more special in hindsight actually when you look at our broken and divided country now. Obviously there was still much to criticise and worry about then too but it was a brief moment of unity and happiness for the country and filled with incredible sporting achievements.

Had the word Brexit even been invented in 2012? Feels so long ago now.

Highlights of the decade for me was GOT naturally, Breaking Bad and Broken Mirror in TV

The Joker and Inception in film

For sports I'd go with 2012 obv, Redzone, Frankel and Andy Murray winning Wimbledon

 

[Annara Snow]

On 12/29/2019 at 8:16 AM, BigFatCoward said:

A lot of love for Fury Road. I thought it was awful, I didn't even finish it. 

Sports - 2012 olympics and leicester winning the title as previously mentioned, this was also the decade I really got into Biathlon and XC skiing as spectator sports, both of which saw the end of true greats careers and the emergence of new all time superstars. No music blew me away, there was no TV show as good as the wire and no films that would make my top 5 all time. 

GOT as a cultural event was pretty cool though, as was the angst from the nerds about how it didn't end the way they wanted.

This was also the decade I became a grown up, met wife, bought first house, got married and had child. This has probably got something to do with me not being as into tv, music, films as i used to be. I dont have the time and realised that they arent that important anyway.  

So, to sum up:

- you hated everything 

- you mocked people who hated GoT for turning into a steaming pile of dung.

[HexMachina]

10 hours ago, Zuzu Bolin said:

Had the word Brexit even been invented in 2012? Feels so long ago now.

Highlights of the decade for me was GOT naturally, Breaking Bad and Broken Mirror in TV

The Joker and Inception in film

For sports I'd go with 2012 obv, Redzone, Frankel and Andy Murray winning Wimbledon

 

Had to do a quick google. Cameron’s promise didnt come until 2013 but Brexit was in use, albeit sparingly, from around May 2012

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37896977

[Iskaral Pust]

I’ll share my own personal high points rather than guess at what was or should be the objective best. 

Streaming TV was the stand-out entertainment story of the decade, although it has already matured from excellence to spamming dross.  The highest points for me were The Wire, Breaking Bad and The Sopranos — yes, they all started before this decade, but I only watched them first in this decade thanks to streaming.  True Detective S1, Justified, Gomorrah, The Americans, rewatching Band Of Brothers, Veep, Mad Men (started last decade), Peaky Blinders S1-2 were all very good.  And some oddball British comedies like In-Betweeners and Derry Girls were available too by streaming. 

My highlight in sports has to be Jurgen Klopp’s tenure at Liverpool, rebuilding the team and club, reaching three European finals in four years, including winning our sixth European Cup/Champions League, and now hopefully on course for our first league title in 30 years.  The 2013-4 season when Liverpool almost won the league through the mercurial, devilish genius of Luis Suarez was a highlight too; ecstasy but then ultimately agony.  I also had some improbable good luck with my local sports teams: the NY Giants won their second flukey Super Bowl in the Eli era (I was there for their first too, by that was before this decade).  The Seahawks reached two Super Bowls and won one (after I left Seattle, but they’ll always be one of my local teams).  The BlackHawks success in the Stanley Cup probably qualifies as a full-blown dynasty, and the Cubs won the World Series for the first time in a century.  That was a very good decade for local sports teams for anyone outside of Boston, albeit assisted by me moving between cities. 

In film, I’ll remember this fondly as the decade that Star Wars returned to the big screens.  Setting aside their flaws, it was a ton of fun to have new films and I eagerly looked forward to each one for months.  My wife made me see The Force Awakens five times in the theater alone (she’s a huge SW nut).  I know Marvel dominated the box office for the decade but only a few  were good movies, and none were great.  But I watched far fewer serious films than ever before as prestige TV filled that role instead.