Patton Oswalt's Favorite Things

Still riding the wave of Ratatouille publicity, Patton Oswalt talked to Pitchfork recently about all the pop-culture-y things he's been really into lately. I find these little interviews infinitely fascinating because if you believe, like I do, that what we choose to consume via music, movies, and television can often help paint a fuller picture of who we are, then, well, Patton is my new best friend.

Asked about television, Patton declared what many do---that The Wire is the best show on TV. But then he turned around and gushed about my dear Friday Night Lights:

Friday Night Lights is so fucking good! Oh my God, when that show came out I was like, "Football in Texas? Pass!" And all these people that I respect all came to me with the same thing like "Dude, this is going to sound really weird, but one of the best shows on TV right now is 'Friday Night Lights'." God damn. It looks like a show that should be on HBO. It's so complex and grey-area and unforgiving and nothing's ever resolved, everyone's good and evil, the stories are really complicated. They really capture-- you think it's just about jocks and high school, but it's like a novel. It's so rich, and they start off the first episode just about a football game, the homecoming game and the team, and then as the season goes on they just keep expanding wider and wider and wider and taking in more of this town and more of the people in it, and you realize it's just about middle America. Someone described it really well: it's not about, "Hey, America is great," and waving the flag and playing a Toby Keith song; it's about, "Please tell us we we're not the ones who did Abu Ghraib. Please tell us that, because we really want to believe in our country but things are testing our belief all the time." I can't stress to you how good that show is.

By the way, it got the worst ratings of any of the new shows but the higher-ups at NBC brought it back because they love the show so much. Nobody watched it. And all the critics were like, "I can't believe no one is watching." Well actually no, they can, because it's a very complex, difficult, non re-assuring show. And they deal with people like you and me, like, music culture geeks. Imagine growing up in a small town like that where football is king, and how do you survive?

And they rehearse the show, but they don't block it. It's all hand-held cameras and sometimes people just wander off-screen and the camera has to whip around and try catch 'em. It's the closest thing I've seen to a Dogme 95 film on television. It's fascinating. It should be so much bigger than it is, and it should be especially big with the Vice Magazine, Pitchfork Media guys. They should so get into this show. Dark, difficult, funny. Ah, brilliant...Sorry about that, I get really evangelical about shit that I love.

Aw, that's okay, Patton. So do I (obviously).

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