For the last post of the year, I offer my list of favorite things seen, heard, and read in 2010. The items on the list didn’t have to be released in 2010, I merely had to experience them for the first time this past year. There isn’t a 2009 list because I was apparently lazy last year. These lists are in no particular order. Anyway, here it goes.

Movies

Inception (d. Nolan, 2010)
Toy Story 3 (d. Unkrich, 2010)
True Grit (d. Coen and Coen, 2010)
The 400 Blows (d. Truffaut, 1959)
The Hurt Locker (d. Bigelow, 2009)
A Serious Man (d. Coen and Coen, 2009)
The Social Network (d. Fincher, 2010)
Sanjuro (d. Kurosawa, 1962)
Sketches of Frank Gehry (d. Pollack, 2005)
Millions (d. Boyle, 2004)

Television

Lost
Modern Family
Thirty Rock

Recorded Music

Age of Adz (Sufjan Stevens, 2010)
All Delighted People (Sufjan Stevens, 2010)
The Suburbs (Arcade Fire, 2010)
Scratch My Back (Peter Gabriel, 2010)

Live Music

Peter Gabriel, The New Blood Tour, Hollywood Bowl, May 7, 2010
Sufjan Stevens, Paramount Theatre, October 26, 2010

Books (Fiction)

Bridge of Sighs (Richard Russo, 2007)
Home (Marilynne Robinson, 2008)
The Brothers K (David James Duncan, 1992)

Books (Non-Fiction)

The Sickness Unto Death (Søren Kierkegaard, 1849, trans. Alastair Hannay, 1989)
Into Thin Air (Jon Krakauer, 1997)
Pastor (William Willimon, 2002)
1776 (David McCullough, 2005)
Simply Christian (NT Wright, 2006)
Reaching Out (Henri Nouwen, 1986)
Proper Confidence (Lesslie Newbigin, 1995)
Ad Hoc at Home (Thomas Keller, 2009)

Best of All Media for 2010ish

Lost
Consider this listing as a congratulations for six seasons of some of the most-inventive and challenging television ever produced. I enjoyed the final season, including the controversial finale. When I saw the first season of Lost, I told friends that it made me angry to an extent because it showed me just how good television could be and I realized how flaccid most television series are—even the ones often considered good or ground-breaking. I’m not sure we’ll ever see a show like Lost again. It vacillated between science-fiction and metaphysics, it took its time revealing its plot, it developed characters over years, it had the courage to leave some questions unanswered. Go back and watch the wonderful pilot episode and be amazed by how well-developed the characters already are and yet those characters change and grow in amazing ways over the six seasons, if they survive that long. True, some episodes and even some seasons were stronger than others, but for a show that was really out there, it never jumped the shark. I cannot fault a show that swings for the fences every hour. Lost never played it safe and when great artistic risks succeed, they are special to behold. It might be time to rent all six seasons again.