Mark Graham’s Top 12 Legends of Lockdown 2020

Thanks to her turns in the Amazon Prime original series ZeroZeroZero (my #1 show of the year) and Brandon Cronenberg’s Possessor (my #2 movie of the year), I don’t think that anyone can lay claim to having a more exceptional year as an actor than Andrea Riseborough. (The only possible exception is Jessie Buckley.) If you fell for Riseborough thanks to her spellbinding turn in Mandy, you’re only going to get more obsessed once you see the work she did this calendar year. She’s a completely captivating presence on-screen, whether she’s playing an international drug lord or frightening assassin, and there’s no emotion you can ask her to deliver that’s out of her arsenal. She’s got the goods, and it’s gonna be a god damn blast watching her OWN the ’20s.

Watch ZeroZeroZero on Amazon Prime

Anya Taylor-Joy has one of the most interesting, unusual faces I have ever seen. In many ways, she resembles the Splice, thanks to the way her large, deep brown eyes are set at an almost unnaturally wide angle. Her alabaster skin looks as if it has never once encountered direct sunlight, and the rest of her facial features — those cheekbones! those lips! — are striking, to say the least. In short, she’s got a captivating look that is alluring and impossible to ignore whenever she’s on-screen. When you add in the fact that she’s quickly developing into one of the best actors of her generation, thanks to her turns this year in Emma and The Queen’s Gambit, it’s no hyperbole to say that audiences will be following her every move on-screen for the next 30 or 40 years, easy.

Watch Emma on HBO Max

Watch The Queen's Gambit on Netflix

Bret Easton Ellis, former enfant terrible of the NYC literary scene of the ’80s and ’90s, has found new life in the medium of podcasting. Bret hasn’t published a new novel since 2010’s Imperial Bedrooms; but his primary creative outlet has been his eponymous podcast (The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast), which is available to paying Patreon subscribers (starting at $2/episode). He’s one of the elder statesmen of Generation X, and his podcast covers a limited but unfailingly interesting range of topics: movies (both new and old), books, his “millennial socialist boyfriend,” and, more often than not, a celebrity interview (author Bruce Wagner, actress Justine Bateman, and bad boy screenwriter Nic Pizzolatto are but three of the people he interviewed this year).

People have been trying (unsuccessfully) to cancel Bret for a good 30+ years now, and this is reflected in his delightfully world-weary approach to popular culture. He dubbed his real-time reflections of the early days of the coronavirus as “The Season of the Virus”; his general distrust of the MSM provided an effective counterpoint to the fear and hysteria emanating from reactionary cable news channels all year long. He’s quite proudly not everyone’s cup of tea, and while I find myself laughing at him almost as much as I’m laughing with him, I’ll continue to be a satisfied Patreon subscriber of his for as long as he continues podcasting.

Learn more about The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast on Patreon

Joe Pera is not for everyone. Let’s get that out of the way, right away. His Adult Swim show, Joe Pera Talks With You, is not for everyone, either. Each episode runs about 11 minutes long, and features the slow-talking, amiable, simple-minded character “Joe Pera” —he’s kind of like the millennial Chauncey Gardiner— walking the viewer through a rather mundane life task, like going on a hike or to the grocery store, or giving you piano lessons. If you’re jonesing for exciting TV, look elsewhere. However, those who find themselves drawn to his magnetic, hypnotic rhythms will encounter a show so full of empathy, warmth, and indelible, poignant moments that you can hardly believe it actually exists.

Where to watch Joe Pera Talks With You

Karina Longworth’s You Must Remember This podcast is, as her description relays, “dedicated to exploring the secret and/or forgotten histories of Hollywood’s first century.” YMRT has been an essential listen for movie lovers dating all the way back to 2014, but Longworth’s exceptional passion project reached a new apex in 2020 with her series “Polly Platt: The Invisible Woman.” Over the course of 10 episodes, Longworth documented the exceptional life and career of Polly Platt, one of Hollywood’s most influential muses and unsung creatives of the ’70s and ’80s, drawing largely from Platt’s unpublished memoir and gleaning invaluable insight from Platt’s daughters and myriad collaborators. It’s a high-water mark in the podcast medium, marrying Longworth’s first-class reporting and research skills with her unsurpassed storytelling abilities and production work.

Listen to You Must Remember This

Looking back at 2020, the month of April sure felt like the nadir. The novelty of the lockdown that began in earnest during the second week of March had long worn out, and the realization that the coronavirus wasn’t going “disappear … like a miracle” had firmly taken root. Which is why it was so surprising that Post Malone, of all people, would be the one to show that maybe, just maybe, there was some light at the end of a very long tunnel. On April 24, Posty — armed with a healthy supply of smokey treats and frosty Bud Lights — teamed up with Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker, guitarist Nick Mac, and bassist Brian Lee and ripped off a ferocious hour-long livestream consisting solely of Nirvana cover songs from the living room of his Utah manse. It was raw, it was filled with fury and anger, and Posty’s channeling of Kurt Cobain provided some much-needed catharsis for the 15 million people that eventually watched the set. Oh, and it raised over $7MM for the World Health Organization, too.

This season of Fargo was a crushing disappointment, but I will always be thankful to Noah Hawley for introducing Salvatore Esposito to American audiences. Esposito first rose to fame on Gomorrah, the Italian crime drama that HBO Max imported this summer, but pulled a Lin-Manuel when he decided that he was not throwing away his shot after Noah Hawley gave him his first English-speaking role in Fargo Season 4. Esposito played Gaetano Fadda, hot-headed brother of Josto Fadda (Jason Schwartzman), and delivered a virtuoso performance that was bursting with bug-eyed energy and operatic flair. His maniacal facial expressions and Farley-esque physicality made any scene he appeared in stand-out (“In the land of taking and killing, Gaetano is king!”) and he successfully stole the show from one of the more talented ensemble casts in recent memory. Can’t wait to see what this true king does next.

Watch Fargo Season 4 on Hulu

Search Party is my favorite comedy on TV, so much so that I watched Search Party Season 3 from beginning to end … TWICE! Of course, the main cast (Alia Shawkat, John Early, John Reynolds, and Meredith Hagner) is a Murderer’s Row of comedic chemistry, but during each of my viewings of S3, I found myself totally mesmerized by Shalita Grant’s scene-stealing performance. As Cassidy Diamond, Dory’s defense attorney, Grant delivered such a masterclass of comedic acting that I’m shocked that Master Class itself hasn’t asked her to be their official comedy correspondent. Every element of her character was exquisitely realized, from her vocal fry to her fashion to her mannerisms. Grant could have easily overplayed her hand here and turned Diamond into a one-note dilettante, but she instead she created a fully three-dimensional character that I hope, beyond hope, comes back for Search Party Season 4 come January 2021. (Also, shout out to Louie Anderson, her frequent scene partner; these two made me LAUGH in ways that I desperately needed during this dismal year.)

Watch Search Party on HBO Max

I’m a 46-year-old man. I have a wife, and two small kids, and my days of going to sweaty house parties are firmly in the rearviewmirror. And while I’d rather be bow hunting than attend anything resembling a party these days, few things made my pulse quicken this year than Steve McQueen’s Lovers Rock segment of his Small Axe series. At no point in my life was I ever remotely cool enough to attend a party like the one he depicts in this exquisite time capsule of 1980 West London, but thanks to the sensual, hypnotic manner in which McQueen filmed this movie, an old guy sure can dream.

Watch Lovers Rock on Amazon Prime

I’m a stan for Taylor Swift. (Before you ask, yes, I’m a 46-year-old man who has zero reservations about stating this publicly.) Folklore is the best album of Taylor Swift’s career —although Red and 1989 are close— and the songs from this album will forever be my personal soundtrack for the Great Lockdown of 2020. I listened to more Taylor Swift this year than any other recording artist, and I’ve watched The Long Pond Studio Sessions three times in full. (I might even have time to squeeze in more viewing before the year’s up.) I’m obsessed with this LP, so much so that I haven’t really been able to devote any mental bandwidth to sampling Evermore yet. I can’t wait to listen to it a hundred more times.

Watch Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions on Disney+

The cancel crowd has had their sights set on Vince Vaughn for a few years now thanks to his unapologetic conservative streak, but the wokesters forgot the lesson that Omar tried to impart on us all in The Wire: “When you come at the king, you best not miss.” Vaughn has been giving classic screen performances for 25 years now, and he’s not going to let some idle snowflake slams take him down. He’s teamed up with S. Craig Zahler on a few corkers over the last few years (Brawl In Cell Block 99, Dragged Across Concrete), but his turn as the Blissfield Butcher in this year’s Freaky is one of the best performances of his distinguished career.

Vaughn stands a good 6’5″ or so, which gives him the requisite physical presence to convincingly inhabit a murderous psychopath, but where this movie succeeds is by letting Vaughn show off his considerable comedic chops when his character is caught up in a body switch scenario with a teenage girl (Kathryn Newton). There are a thousand ways this role could have gone wrong, but Vaughn resists the urge to give into clichés and instead delivers a memorable turn that is equal parts hilarious and heartfelt.

Where to watch Freaky

Ahhhhh, what a show! In a year where I rarely ventured out of the four walls of my house — let alone the four walls of my bedroom — I really really REALLY came to rely on the cast of Industry to deliver me vicarious, visceral thrills. And did they ever deliver! Everyone on this show (save for Ken Leung from Lost) is a new face to me, which means I went into this show with zero attachments to anyone, but now they’re all tied for my favorite actors and characters on the show. I am so geeked that Industry scored a second season renewal; I can’t wait to see where the Pierpoint rookie class of 2020 goes next!

Watch Industry on HBO Max

MARK GRAHAM’S 10 FAVORITE SHOWS OF 2020

1. ZeroZeroZero (Amazon Prime)
2. Raised By Wolves (HBO Max)
3. Cheer (Netflix)
4. Industry (HBO Max)
5. Ted Lasso (Apple TV+)
6. TIE: Joe Pera Talks With You (Adult Swim) / How To … With John Wilson (HBO)
7. The Queen’s Gambit (Netflix)
8. Tiger King (Netflix)
9. Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO)
10. Lego Masters (Fox)

MARK GRAHAM’S 10 FAVORITE MOVIES OF 2020

1. The Vast of Night (Amazon Original)
2. Possessor (Uncut)
3. Emma
4. The Trip To Greece
5. The Wolf of Snow Hollow
6. Invisible Man
7. Portrait of a Lady On Fire
8. Fatman
9. The Rental
10. Lovers Rock (Amazon Original)