You take the good (Annette Bening’s Oscar-worthy performance in The Kids are All Right), you take the bad (Kate Plus 8), you take them both (Sandra Bullock’s Oscar? Good. Jesse James cheating on her with multiple women? Bad.) and there you have… Entertainment Weekly’s Best of 2010 issue! As always, EW has assembled a complete guide to the year in entertainment, including our picks for the best and worst of the year. To help get the festivities started, here’s a look at our critics’ choices for the top movie, TV show, and album of 2010.
Movies (Lisa Schwarzbaum’s pick): The Social Network With Aaron Sorkin spinning the words, the zippy-smart story encompasses a sharp meditation on the intersection of intellectual genius, business ruthlessness, male geekdom, and the sexual insecurities that drive everyone to do everything.
Movies (Owen Gleiberman’s pick): The Social Network It’s been a long time since we saw a movie that’s a zingingly scripted, boldly acted, intricately executed thriller for the brain and a brilliant topical riff on what’s really happening in America. Jesse Eisenberg, in the finest performance by an actor this year, plays Mark Zuckerberg as a magnetic jerk-hero who invents Facebook not just because he feels like an outsider, but because he has an idea to rewire who we are.
TV (Ken Tucker’s pick): Breaking Bad Breaking Bad is forever grappling with questions of morality and mortality, but not in the usual manner. There’s little in the way of redemption sought, or of a hero pulling himself together to do the right thing. Instead, it’s often about doing the next right thing… even if it means facing down awkward situations or, at the most extreme, death.
Music (Leah Greenblatt’s pick): Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy This Fantasy, in the end, is West’s alone: a dense, dazzling rap masterpiece — and a thrown gauntlet to all those who forgot, in the wild media rumpus, just how singular his talent is.
For the full best and worst lists in movies, TV, music, books, and more — and to see who we named 2010′s breakout stars — pick up the new issue of Entertainment Weekly, on stands Friday, December 17.
nice!
Is it being a remake have anything to do with it? Was it original?
I think those are at least 2 strikes against it?
What about LOST?! Its like everyone at this magazine completely forgot that that incredible show ever existed (and please don’t reply with that inevitable, “oh-so-clever” comment, “I wish I could forget that show ever existed, cuz that ending was stupid!” Please, just don’t; if you didn’t like the ending, “Let go.”)
Seriously!!! I was disappointed enough that it didn’t win the emmy for Best Drama, but not even getting the cover picture here… crazy. It was certainly one of the absolute best shows television has ever given us.
I was wondering the same thing. Should have won the Emmy and should have been nominated for at least 1 Golden Globe and SAG award. Whether you liked the ending or not, for 6 years this show was unlike anything that came before it.
Only reason I clicked and looked at it was to see if the LOST characters were on it. Nope. Oh well…..
@color…As I understand your comment… You are free to express your opinion, but anyone with a contradictory viw should keep silent? Is this it?
Same cover as last year. So who all made both covers? Gaga, Harry Potter, ?
Because Harry Potter’s amazingness knows no bounds!
Exactly – it’s last years cover minus Adam Lambert.
Why are the Mad Hatter and that dude from “True Blood” so prominently featured? Were they really that essential to this year? EW has some weird infatuations sometimes.
Well, Alice in Wonderland was the second highest grossing film of the year (second to Toy Story 3), so I would consider a character from it being essential to the year in entertainment.
Noticing how the wolves are well represented …
You know, as far as Twilight representation, they also made Lautner the prominent character on last year’s issue. Really? REALLY? I think Pattinson/Stewart would make more sense. Everyone knows Team Jacob only runs around 10%.
Hahaahahahahaha!! You do have a point. At least Joe has scruff. Come on, show some vamp love. Stephen, Alexander, Rob … did I mention Rob?! Is that Ian in the very back? How nice of them. Geez. At least Johnny is front and center.
KP, who is the redhead doing the redrum thing with her fingers? Is that Victoria?
Damn, I don’t think so, but it’s so tiny. From here it looks like it might be Lady Elaine Fairchild.
The red head in the back is one of the zombies from the walking dead.
10%? pshhh. Keep dreaming. 10% don’t make magazine covers sweetie.
I see Taylor Swift on the cover. Is she on the best or on the worst?
I think magazines should have an ” Annoying/overexposed of the year section”….of course they are the ones who did the over-exposing.
Conan’s got a gun!
If never again, as long as I live, do I see that horribly creepy face of Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, it will be too soon.
I assume Alice In Wonderland is under the ‘worst’ section?
The Last Airbender, The Last Song, Valentine’s Day, and The Bounty Hunter (along with others) deserve to be on that list before Alice. Come on now.
Katy Perry looks like her Ex-Lax just kicked in.
Natalie Portman should be on the cover! I guess at Oscar Time.
umm…shes right there
Look again. There is a black swan perched on Jon Hamm’s shoulder.
Sandra Bullock winning an Oscar was not good. I can tell this is gonna be a craptastic issue.
Oh, and Inception is the best movie of the year, not The Social Network. Just sayin.
as everything this is up to likes and dislikes, they are also “just saying” what they like, difference? they get paid for it, we don’t.
btw, ur right with inception
I agree, Sandra Bullock winning an oscar was not good. For me, the three best movies of the year were Inception, The Social Network and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Any of those at number one I would have definitely agreed with.
FRINGE???? come onnnnn
Yes, Fringe. The show is one of the best on television.
Interesting how EW put Taylor Swift and Kanye West right next to each other.
Yeh, but Joe Manganiello is there to break them up if they get into a fight. Or start making out.
Is Ms. Portman indeed on the Cover?
Damn, Jerry! You jumped in a creek for a burrito? What’d you do for a Klondike bar? Kill your wife?
I thought he got mugged…
Jerry, I don’t know how to begin to help you with this Natalie Portman thing.
they couldn’t put the two gay guys from GLEE together on the issue? That would have been much cuter!
Seriously.
A “Best of” cover without Kurt and Blaine is like a Christmas tree with no ornaments.
Is that Cee-Lo Green in the middle of Klaine, aka Chris Colfer and Darren Criss? Was that too edgy for EW to put the two of them together?
Social Network picked by both EW critics as best movie of 2010? Time magazine chooses Book-Face Zuckerberg as Man of the Year?? Can you say Time Warner is trying to remain socially relevant, and trying to mine some of the internet gold themselves?
Nope. ‘The Social Network’ is just one of the best films of the year, plain and simple. It’s also the year’s best reviewed film.
That it is. Inception was unlike anything we had seen before and I loved it, but The Social Network was simply brilliant and was the hardest screenplay to rival in 2010 to boot.
Time Warner “trying to remain socially relevant” is one of the more asinine comments I’ve seen. That’s like saying Microsoft, AT&T or Kobe Bryant are trying to remain relevant in their respective industries. “The Social Network,” alone, was the most socially relevant movie of the past year, at least.
cool cover! I always like my end of the year covers, I have a thing for pop culture collages. I really like Daniel in Front. Him and Rupert are really hot and manly in the new Harry Potter. I mean they always have been but They really are now.