Wallis in Beasts of the Southern Wild.

Drifting in from various film festivals on smoke signals of lavish praise, the unique, fascinating and ultimately depressing film called Beasts of the Southern Wild— a low-budget independent film by Benh Zeitlin about survivors of apocalyptic Hurricane Katrina, shot in the back swamps of Terrebonne Parish, La., using local nonactors instead of Hollywood extras—is now ready to engage the movie-going public in the darkness of a dream. There is no guarantee that the movie-going public is ready. I don’t notice any critics offering to pick up its deficit tabs in case it floats away from good reviews. But get ready anyway. Brilliant, compelling and powerful, this offbeat look at a part of a world we live in but know nothing about is not going to disappear without at first making a noise.

In a desolate, burned-out butt end of nowhere (the shrimp-trawling, blackened catfish, Cajun part of Southeastern Louisiana), a little girl they call Hushpuppy is left alone for days and nights on end when her desperately ill father disappears, forcing her to invent her own survival techniques. The setting is the emotionally parched and geographically designed cartographer’s view of hell called The Bathtub—what’s left of an area of makeshift cardboard and toothpick shanties that Katrina devastated, scattering the region’s population to the wind like dandelion fuzz. It lies low between the Gulf and the Mississippi River—a man-made wall has gone up on the dry side of the levee to protect against annihilating floods. This is where nothing grows, catfish and crawdads from polluted water are the only food, and stubborn Cajuns who refused to evacuate to higher ground when Brad Pitt and Sean Penn came down to rescue them on CNN News still live in the ultimate depths of poverty and ignorance. It’s the most sobering view of the uneducated and disenfranchised outcasts the world has forgotten since Precious.

Fueled by homespun philosophy she learned in a one-room schoolhouse that has since washed away, 6-year-old Hushpuppy (played with raw, largely improvised energy by a world-weary child named Quvenzhané Wallis) provides childish narration (“The whole universe depends on everything fittin’ together just right.”) that carries the action between scenes of day-in and day-out living while Hushpuppy and her sick father do whatever they have to in order to avoid being rounded up and sent to a homeless shelter. Nothing fits in Hushpuppy’s dismal, deprived world of a jerry-built trailer safely lodged in a tree just high enough off the ground to keep the gators and cottonmouth water moccasins away. Heating up cat food for dinner, she defiantly blows up the trailer, reducing her only home life to the rear end of an old truck bed, mounted like a barge in the bayou on floating oil drums. When the levee is dynamited to drain the diseased water out, Hushpuppy and her dying father, Wink (Dwight Henry), are at last processed into a holding facility for storm refugees. Equipped with food and medicine, they have a chance for a future at last, but all Daddy can think of is breaking out and wading home through the snake-infested swamps to the condemned mud, ruins and burial grounds of dead animals—the marshy swamp they used to call home. The children end up on a barge that takes them to a floating brothel in the Gulf, their only link to civilization the occasional whir of a helicopter hovering overhead, searching for survivors who don’t want to be rescued. Gnawing on a raw crab leg for nourishment, Hushpuppy is a resourceful and imaginative child, supplementing the harsh, cruel reality around her with occasional visits from mythical carnivorous boars from the Ice Age of Hushpuppy’s nightmares called “auruchs,” who descend on the toothless outcasts of The Bathtub ready to kill them with sharp tusks and eat them alive. The auruchs are pure creations of the kind of computer-generated technology denizens of the Louisiana tide basin have never even heard of, but they add a badly needed intrusion of action in the slow, actionless story of Hushpuppy and her fear of losing her father-protector. They also stand metaphorically as a link between the endangered species of another era and the last living human remnants of today’s lost civilization of the dispossessed. One of the saddest moments in the film comes near the end, when the child’s tear-stained eyes—a mirror to the chaos and terror in the misery around her—and forlorn face, masking resignation, need and the desperation to be taken care of, come together like a grownup, as she confesses to the camera that she cannot remember ever being hugged by another living person.

This is lacerating stuff, not remotely ready to be embraced by a wide audience beyond critics and hardcore movie buffs, but it has haunted me so profoundly that I want to see it again. Filmed with blood and sweat by Benh Zeitlin, and based on a play by his co-writer Lucy Alibar, Beasts of the Southern Wild combines undeniable elements of global warming, of Robert Flaherty’s poetic documentary The Louisiana Story and grass-roots heroism, while telling a harrowing coming-of-age story set in a forgotten time and place the world knows about only from newspapers. Poetry and history come together in a unique, two-fisted kidney punch that lands with the force of a magic wand.

Don’t miss this one. A brave and inspired antidote to time-wasting mainstream movies, it is unlike anything you’ve seen before or will likely ever see again. In short, it is unforgettable.

rreed@observer.com

BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD

Running Time 91 minutes

Written by Lucy Alibar, Benh Zeitlin

Directed by Benh Zeitlin

Starring Quvenzhané Wallis, Dwight Henry and Levy Easterly

3.5/4

This is a pie chart (NBC)

1. The Office will be getting yet another season.

2. The network has ordered a Dane Cook comedy, Man Time.

3. Whitney is getting a second season.

4. Renewed: Parks & Recreation, Up All Night, and Community.

5. Canceled: BFF, Bent, and Are You There, Chelsea.

Answer: #2. Dane Cook IS getting a show, but it's name is The Caller, not Man Time. Sorry to bum everyone out with this horrible news; we were all rooting for #3 to be false, too.

Donald Glover on '30 Rock's webisode

Now that Community is on hiatus and with an uncertain future (although he always has his rap alter-ego to fall back on), Donald Glover has gone back to where his career started: on 30 Rock.

On a recent webisode of The Jack Donaghy Files, Mr. Glover auditioned as Childish Gambino for Jack Donaghy, alongside Ryan Adams and Michael McDonald from The Doobie Brothers.

We could write this off as a bit of NBC cross-promotional backscratching...if Community was still on. As Mr. Glover started out as a writer for 30 Rock straight out of college before moving out to L.A. to take the part of Troy in Community, one could read this reunion as a winking alumni reference to audience members who knew that Mr. Glover wrote for the show. Or it could honestly be promoting Childish Gambino.

But we'd like to think that this is Mr. Glover's way of hedging his bets: if Dan Harmon's awesome sitcom doesn't go back on air, maybe there's a place at TGS for a new character (especially once Alec Baldwin leaves and the show will need all the fan-love they can get).

Watch Donald Glover's other 30 Rock cameos:

But we found them all right—they were all wearing felt facial hair, one of the many references to the show they implemented in their protest. As we walked over we heard another. "Six seasons and a movie!" they chanted, barely audible over the Christmas cheer. It was a chant used by one of the characters.

"These fans are not only here but they're rabid," a young fan enthused. "Community is one of the smartest and most funny shows on television."

"Was!" someone shouted.

Then the group was moved to song. Their rendition of "Oh Christmas, Troy," was the third and final reference to the show (unless any more went over our heads). Meanwhile, The Observer spoke with another fan about the turnout.

"It's a little disappointing but I think we've got enough attention," he said.

hkrempels@observer.com

Ms. Brie, of course, acts on the two best shows on television -- Community, as Annie Edison, and Mad Men, as Trudy Campbell -- and when we asked her which designers best epitomized her characters' styles, she thought hard. "That's such an intense question!" she said. "You know, Annie actually wears some Milly. Lela Rose, actually, I feel like is a ... more mature Annie type of thing. Like Annie in five years is going to be wearing Lela Rose all the time. Mad Men, you know, it's kind of hard because it's its own thing. I feel like Michael Kors was actually designing some stuff that's along that beat. I'd love to assign DVF to everything because she's so fabulous."

"Wouldn't you just love to be dressed in Diane Von Furstenberg all the time and call it work?" 

With all that being said, however, we were still able to find ten favorites—it was just a bit harder than it looks. Here's our list of the best television offerings from 2009.

#10: "I'm On a Boat," Saturday Night Live

There have been more popular Digital Shorts produced by The Lonely Island—"Dick in a Box," "Motherlover," and "Jizz in my Pants" come to mind—but, for us, none top the unbridled joy of "I'm On a Boat." Besides the fact that it's hilarious, catchy and has T-Pain on backup vocals, "Boat"—which debuted during the February 7th edition of Saturday Night Live—has the temerity to name check Leonardo DiCaprio, Kevin Garnett and Poseidon in its lyrics. We don't want to sound obsessive, but there's a good chance we watched "I'm On a Boat" five times over the course of this paragraph.

#9: Bored to Death

Proof that sometimes all you need is chemistry. With its trendy locales and hipster slant, Bored to Death should have been the twee-pocalypse. But because of Jason Schwartzman, Ted Danson and 2009 Breakout Star of the Year^TM Zack Galifianakis—all three giving award-worthy performances—Jonathan Ames' soft-boiled detective series overcame the flaws inherent in its premise.

#8: Desperate Housewives

Sometimes it feels like we're the only ones still watching Desperate Housewives. That's a shame because the soap opera continues to offer audiences deliciously twisted cliffhangers—witness the fall finale's plane crash—and Eva Longoria-Parker, who might be the funniest actress on television.

#7: Party Down

A closer sister to the British version of The Office than its American counterpoint, Party Down was, at times, too much like Ricky Gervais' iconic series. But it hit all the right notes of awkward poignancy and, thanks to Adam Scott's beyond deadpan delivery, managed to get some of the unctuous contempt right as well.

#6: Community

We'll say it: Community has the best chance of any comedy currently on television to become the next Arrested Development. It won't, of course—except for maybe the cancelation part—but there are moments when this show is that funny. Why aren't you watching it again?

#5: 30 Rock

When it comes to 30 Rock, the perfect is the enemy of the good. If Tina Fey's hilarious funhouse of television satire doesn't give us the best episode ever, we get antsy and start writing e-mails to friends that begin with "30 Rock isn't funny anymore!"  But, then an episode like "Dealbreakers Talk Show #0001" happens and reminds us that no other show can make us laugh as hard or as loud (just ask our neighbors). So all you haters: sit back, relax and smile... with your mouth.

#4: Glee

Nothing on Glee should work: it's corny, silly, and obvious and features so many hateful characters that you might need an attendance sheet to keep up. That it does work, however, is a credit to both creator Ryan Murphy and the cast, which is top-to-bottom amazing beyond Jane Lynch's already iconic performance as Sue Sylvester. As an added bonus: Glee's fall finale was one of the best episodes of any show this year.

#3: Chuck

The show that lived only so television critics could feel good about themselves! Chuck was famously on the bubble for much of its second season only to be given a last minute reprieve that may or may not wind up serving the better angels of the series itself. Put us in the camp that Chuck should have ended after a near-perfect second season that was filled with enough unrequited love, geeky references and super-spy intrigue to last a lifetime.

#2: The Office

At this point, calling The Office "a comedy" is probably a bit misleading. Much has been written about how this season has been more depressing than seasons past, but, while true, this turn has just made everything feel more legitimate. These are depressing times, people! The tone aside, has any series ever so effortlessly found ways to use its ever-growing cast of characters? Witness Andy and Erin (Ed Helms and Ellie Kemper as the uncool versions of Jim and Pam), who have gone from also-rans to the MVPs of Dunder-Mifflin in just one season. Well into season six, the most striking thing about The Office is that it manages to keep getting better. 

#1: Mad Men

If a top-ten list exists without Mad Men ranked first, does it cease to be a top-ten list? When it comes to Mad Men, there isn't much left to say—how many times can you read about Jon Hamm's brilliance or the show's impeccable writing without going cross-eyed—except for the simple truth that Matthew Weiner has even outdone his mentor David Chase. The third season of Mad Men was better than any season of The Sopranos. There is currently nothing even close to this good on television.

Anyway, with 289 minutes to fill for the rest of the day—229 minutes if you watched The View, not that we have or anything—we thought it might be a good idea to offer a viewing guide to Thursday's overloaded evening festivities (can't the networks spread some of these shows out?). Please note: this is only possible if you have two DVR machines and a whole lot of willpower. Attempt at your own risk.

8:00 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.: Community (30 minutes total)

If done right, you won't have to watch another show live (with commercials) for the next four hours. And hey, it could be worse: not only is Community hilarious (why this is on at 8 p.m. is a mystery), but you also get to see which companies are foolish enough to actually spend their advertising dollars on NBC. Win-win.

8:30 p.m. - 9:14 p.m.: FlashForward on DVR (74 minutes total)

Normally, it takes a series a few seasons before becoming a rote obligation. Not FlashForward, which accomplished the feat in just seven episodes. Watch this while you check your e-mail (multi-tasking!) and just remember to pay attention to the cliffhangers that happen before each commercial break. They're important. Or something.

9:14 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.: The Office/30 Rock on DVR (120 minutes total)

The only downside here: you'll eventually catch up to 30 Rock and be forced to sit through promos for The Jay Leno Show. But that's a small price to pay for watching two of the best comedies on television as close as possible to when they air live. That way you don't get spoiled when you check Twitter and see all the funniest lines already posted.

10:00 p.m. - 11:28 p.m.: Grey's Anatomy/Private Practice on DVR (208 minutes total)

If you squint hard enough during these 88 minutes, you might fool yourself into thinking Kate Walsh is still on Grey's Anatomy.

11:28 p.m. - 12:12 a.m.: Fringe on DVR (252 minutes total)

Time to bust out that second DVR! Because Fox foolishly put Fringe up against Grey's Anatomy, The Office/30 Rock twofer and CSI (though, really, are you still watching that?), it is not only impossible watch Fringe on Thursday nights, but to DVR it as well. Great programming, guys! Anyway, this show is actually very good and it'll give you an added scare if you watch it during the witching hour.

12:12 a.m. - 12:34 a.m.: Parks and Recreation on DVR (274 minutes total)

We're pretty sure that at least part of the reason why the second season of Parks and Recreation is so much funnier than the first has to do with the fact that we're watching it through sleepy eyes. To be fair though, Amy Poehler and her cast of Merry Men (Aziz Ansari, Louis CK, Paul Schneider and Nick Offerman) are hilarious even when seen while fully awake.

12:34 a.m. - 12:49 a.m.: Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (289 minutes total)

As you ready for bed, you could watch Seinfeld reruns—or, heaven help you, The Jeff Dunham Show on Comedy Central—but why not give Jimmy Fallon another try. Spoiler alert: he's gotten much better since you last saw him and his contagious charm will put you in a good mood as you fall asleep.

Happy viewing!

Halloween might be over, but that doesn't mean the scares have to stop. We wouldn't go so far as to call Vertigo a "horror movie," but Master of Suspense Alfred Hitchcock ratchets the tension to such unbearable levels that parts of it are more terrifying than anything you'd see in whatever torture porn is defiling theaters in a given week. Of course you've watched Vertigo before, so we aren't going to tell you anything new—Bernard Hermann's score is fantastic, Jimmy Stewart is perfectly obsessive, Kim Novak is the epitome of cold, blah, blah, blah—but did you know that Turner Classic Movies is now available in HD for Time Warner subscribers? It's true! If you thought Vertigo looked great before, wait until you see it now. [TCM, 8 p.m.]

Tuesday: By the People
Because what you need is more opportunities to watch Barack Obama on television, here comes By the People, a new HBO documentary produced by Edward Norton (who presumably took time out his busy schedule of Modern Family watching and New York City marathon preparation to do so.) By the People is a behind the scenes look at the 2008 presidential campaign, which should be fun, if only to remind us that just a year ago we were so much more optimistic than we are now about the future of America. It'll be nice to see now-president Obama once again telling us that yes, we can. [HBO, 9 p.m.]

Wednesday: The Girl Next Door
If a movie came out today starring Emile Hirsch and Paul Dano, chances are you would expect it to be some serious indie drama directed by Sean Penn. But back in 2004, the movie they co-starred in was a teen sex comedy about a high school senior dating a porn star, and it did so poorly at the box office, you probably forgot it even existed. Not us though! You can write off The Girl Next Door as trite and silly, but Luke Greenfield's film is kinda brilliant—funny, smart, poignant and raucous. And if nothing else, you can just watch for the music cues. Does anything go better with coming of age angst than "Baba O'Riley" and "Under Pressure?" We didn't think so. [FX, 8 p.m.]

Thursday: Community
And now we interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you a weekly plea to watch Community. For reasons that we cannot figure out, this show hasn't caught on the way it should. The ratings are poor (despite a full season order from NBC, Community averages just under 6 million viewers per episode) and, worse, there seems to be quite the negative stigma attached to the series. People don't want to like! When we tell friends it's funny, they get a look on their face like we're telling them to watch Family Guy. Wake up, everyone! Whether or not Community makes it longer than one season remains to be seen, but what we have on our hands is the quickest and snarkiest show on network television since Arrested Development. Seriously, the jokes fly out at a clip that would make even 30 Rock jealous. That you aren't watching this on a weekly basis is borderline criminal. [NBC, 8 p.m.]

Friday: The Darjeeling Limited
Wes Anderson made quite a stink in the blog world last week when he (facetiously?) wondered to the New Yorker why Slumdog Millionaire was the India-based movie that hit with the populace and not his 2007 travelogue of ennui, drugs and broken familial bonds. And as you read that description, perhaps you can figure out the answer. In the oeuvre of Mr. Anderson, The Darjeeling Limited sits somewhere towards the bottom, but it's never terrible thanks almost totally to Adrian Brody, Owen Wilson and Jason Schwartzman who play the least believable-looking set of brothers we've ever seen. Whenever the three are allowed to riff off each other, The Darjeeling Limited is quite fun; when it bogs down with sentimentality and spirituality, it's not. Still, the real problem is that unlike Slumdog Millionaire, there isn't a dance number during the credits. Next time, Wes. Next time. [More Max, 4:15 a.m.]

Halloween might be over, but that doesn't mean the scares have to stop. We wouldn't go so far as to call Vertigo a "horror movie," but Master of Suspense Alfred Hitchcock ratchets the tension to such unbearable levels that parts of it are more terrifying than anything you'd see in whatever torture porn is defiling theaters in a given week. Of course you've watched Vertigo before, so we aren't going to tell you...

It might only be the middle of September, but we still feel confident in calling Joel McHale the breakout star of the fall television season. The snarky host of The Soup is so perfectly on-point in Community—premiering tonight at 9:30 on NBC, before moving to 8:30 when 30 Rock returns on October 15—so comfortable and engaging, that it seems impossible to envision a scenario wherein he doesn’t become one of the biggest stars on television. That’s high praise, sure, but we don’t consider it hyperbolic; he’s just that good. And thanks to Mr. McHale, Community manages to deliver the funniest comedy pilot since 30 Rock debuted.

From executive producers Joe and Anthony Russo (the two brothers cut their teeth on Arrested Development) and Dan Harmon (The Sarah Silverman Show), Community follows Mr. McHale’s disgraced lawyer, Jeff Winger, as he attempts to gain a college diploma at the local community college. (When Jeff’s former client–cum–professor asks about his supposed degree from Columbia, Mr. McHale replies: “And now I have to get one from America.”) Whereas we’ve been conditioned to expect television comedies to rely on either the faux-documentary conceit or cutaways and digressions, Community is fairly straightforward with its humor. There is no wall breaking, no wacky situations; it’s an old-fashioned comedy, but produced for current sensibilities—hence, the absence of a laugh track and one subtle-yet-funny 9/11 joke. The brothers Russo and Mr. Harmon, who wrote the pilot, keep the show hellzapoppin’ with enough cultural references to make Josh Schwartz jealous. To wit: The pilot features a lengthy homage to The Breakfast Club and also shout-outs to Dirty Dancing, Meatballs and Stripes. It’s like Chuck, but on steroids.

The Stripes reference is fitting, of course, because Mr. McHale is so clearly channeling Bill Murray that, at times, it becomes scary. Truth be told, Mr. McHale seems much nicer than everyone’s favorite misanthrope, but that doesn’t detract from his deadpan delivery and timing (it makes us wonder how long it will be before Mr. McHale gets cast in Ghostbusters 3). That Community pairs him with Chevy Chase—playing a supporting role much smaller than the advertising would have you believe—is a delicious irony when you consider how much Messrs. Chase and Murray once hated each other (and still might). They famously came to blows during the second season of Saturday Night Live, when Mr. Murray called Mr. Chase a “medium talent,” one of the great burns of all time. Mr. Chase is funny enough in Community—as is the rest of the supporting cast, a mish-mash of Breakfast Club–like archetypes—but he is indeed the medium talent on Community. This is Joel McHale’s world and everyone else is just trying to keep up. Thanks to him, Community is a winner. The first great new show of the fall has arrived.