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Year in Review:

The presents are unwrapped, the trees are raining needles across the carpet, and our New Year's Day hangovers are in full force. As the new year dawns, we here at CS Weekly took a little time to look back over 2009 and remember the writing that we loved this year, that inspired us, or that just flat-out entertained us.  These aren't our picks for the Best Writing Of The Year (all caps)—for that pick up the new issue of Creative Screenwriting Magazine. These are just the films, the shows, and the books that we each loved the most this year, whether they'll be taking home any little golden statues or not.

Peter Clines Loved Chuck

Created by Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedak

You know what's been missing from television for a while?  Fun.  Yeah, there's lots of comedy, but until the second season of Chuck, I'd almost forgotten how much pure fun a show could be.  For the sadly uninitiated, Chuck (Zachary Levi) is your average underachiever who's ended up with the combined files of every American intelligence agency—the Intersect—programmed into his subconscious mind.   Until it can be removed, he's been given a pair of undercover handlers in the form of new co-worker Casey (Adam Baldwin, gleefully menacing as always) and the stunning-yet-lethal Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski), who's posing as his new girlfriend... or maybe not posing.  While the first season of this show had the usual issues with finding its legs and tone, in the second season it swiftly became the show I never wanted to miss.  It juggles comedy, espionage, action, and pop-culture without a hint of effort.  Better still, all the characters continue to grow and evolve across each episode.  While many shows would be based around the fumbling rookie trying to escape the danger-filled life that's been foisted on him, Chuck has reluctantly grown into his new role, becoming more and more competent as a spy.  As Sarah points out, he can't keep saving the world and then insisting he's not "that guy."  With the third season premiere less than two weeks away and a new Intersect upgrade in Chuck's head, I haven't been this excited about a show in a long time.

Jenelle Riley Loved Up

Screenplay by Bob Peterson and Pete Docter

Story by Pete Docter and Bob Peterson & Thomas McCarthy

Leave it to an animated "kids" film to deliver some of the most insightful, funny writing of the year. Up surely deserves points for its fanciful originality—the plot revolves around a house floating away on helium balloons, a pack of talking dogs, and a undiscovered species of bird—but it's the simpler, more human moments that resonate long after you've left the theater. How about the film's opening scenes, which in less than 15 minutes introduces you and makes you fall in love with Carl and Ellie, a couple destined to be together from childhood, then breaks your heart with a wordless sequence detailing their decades-long marriage, the heartbreak of not being able to have children, and ultimately Ellie's death? Pete Docter and Bob Peterson's flawless script is never heavy-handed or obvious. Take the moment when Carl realizes that Russell, his young stowaway, has been all but abandoned by his father. Worked in so subtly and organically, the audience is caught as off guard as Carl is. And let's not forget the laughs; what other film of 2009 could eke so much humor out of a word as simple as "SQUIRREL!"

Sarah Skilton Loved Columbine

Written by Dave Cullen

In April 1999, when 24/7 cable news was still a fairly new phenomenon, the tragedy at Columbine High School in Colorado unfolded in real time on television, and I couldn't turn away. A decade later, I've learned that most media coverage of the event, particularly speculation about the killers' motivations and intentions, was shockingly incorrect. Local journalist Dave Cullen spent nine years piecing together the definitive account of the shooting, interviewing key figures and reading through extensive, eye-opening, and hitherto unavailable documents. Despite several attempts in the film and book worlds to interpret and fictionalize Columbine (Elephant by Gus Van Sant; The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb; and the upcoming film We Need to Talk About Kevin, based on Lionel Shriver's book), nothing compares to the truth, which Cullen lays out in empathetic detail, with explanations for why the false narratives stuck so stubbornly in our collective consciousness. In many ways, the real story is even more sad—but also more hopeful. Reading this important book encouraged me to dig deeper in my own writing and to resist buying into the first wave of breaking news stories until time for context and truth has presented itself.

Adam Stovall Loved Adventureland

Written and Directed by Greg Mottola

When we're young, we Want. As a child, we see toys and they look fun—and without being able to articulate what about them looks fun, or even what fun is, we Want them. We get a little older, and people are the new toys. They're shiny and new and they look, well, fun. And while we haven't gotten any better at articulation, we have at least found that other people have Wanted as badly as we, and they've articulated their Want in songs and books and films. We adopt their words as a way to feel less alone in our quest to not be alone. My favorite part of Adventureland is a scene that happens about an hour and 15 minutes in. James has fallen in love for the first time in his young life, a young life he has spent as a romantic, yearning for someone to reciprocate the love he's so eager to give. To his surprise, he found this girl, Em, working at an amusement park. And to his further surprise, he has found Em emerging from the house of another guy. A lesser movie arms James with a soliloquy to unleash on Em in that moment, the thing the writer wishes he'd said to the girl who broke his heart, the girl he has now turned into celluloid. But Greg Mottola knows that in that moment there is no perfect response—there is only Want and Hurt. And no tools with which to articulate them. Adventureland is the kind of movie that makes you feel less alone. And when I die, I hope they call me Henry, too.

David Wharton Loved Sons of Anarchy

Created by Kurt Sutter

Kurt Sutter did his training in the trenches of The Shield, so it's no surprise that his first show thereafter is a quality bit of business. But while the first season of FX's biker drama Sons of Anarchy had more than its share of compelling characters and memorable moments—fans won't soon forget the catch-22 choice of "fire or knife"—this modern spin on Hamlet didn't truly hit its stride until this year's second season. While tensions between club leader Clay (Ron Perlman) and stepson Jax (Charlie Hunnam) increased to the breaking point this season, it was the addition of a worthy antagonist in the form of ruthless white separatist leader Ethan Zobelle (Adam Arkin) that truly threatened to spell the end of SAMCRO (that's "Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club Redwood Original" for the uninitiated). Sutter and his writers proved that the stakes had been raised this season with the brutal gang rape of Clay's wife, club matriarch Gemma (Katey Segal). That single act of violence hung over the rest of the season like a dark cloud, and its eventual resolution culminated in of the most powerful scenes of the year. Sons of Anarchy is funny, gripping, horrifying, and heartbreaking. It was the only show this year that consistently left me desperate to see what came next.

Chuck courtesy NBC

Up courtesy Walt Disney Home Entertainment/Pixar

Columbine courtesy Twelve

Adventureland courtesy Miramax Home Entertainment

Sons of Anarchy courtesy FX

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