The State of the Art: Movies 2020

These days, it's typical for the amount of television I consume to far outpace the number of movies I see. Getting out to the theater is (well, was) more of An Event than ever, and it was just easier to park myself on the couch. In 2020, though, they flipped. I still watched plenty of TV, but I saw way more movies than in other recent years. It's not hard to see why. COVID made at-home streaming the only way to see anything, and with a bunch of time freed up by not being able to go out and socialize, movies rushed in to fill the gap. 

That doesn't mean I got to see a lot of 2020 movies. Output was slim this year, so it was mostly older movies I was able to catch up with. Still, I did get to a handful of new releases, and picking a favorite was pretty easy. Palm Springs was a terrific new spin on the Groundhog Day trope. I didn't think it was possible to make yet another time loop story seem fresh, but thanks to hilarious performances from Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti, I was more than happy to watch them stagger through an uncomfortable wedding again and again and again. 

Here's the full ranking of 2020 movies:

Palm Springs (A)

Hamilton (A)
Soul (A-)
The Witches (B+)
To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You (B+)
Happiest Season (B)
Onward (B)
The Taste of Pho (B-)
The Willoughbys (C+)
Wonder Woman 1984 (C)

The internet was full of recommendations for things to watch during quarantine, and between those and the films that just caught my interest as a matter of course, my pre-2020 movie list was stacked:

Parasite (2019) (A)

Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) (A)
Singin' in the Rain (1952) (A)
A Star is Born (2018) (A)
Little Women (2019) (A-)
Three Identical Strangers (2018) (B+)
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) (B+)
Begin Again (2013) (B+)
Velvet Goldmine (1998) (B+)
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) (B+)
Hello, Dolly! (1969) (B+)
Shazam! (2019) (B+)
Gypsy (1993) (B)
Toy Story 4 (2019) (B)
Dolemite is My Name (2019) (B)
Downton Abbey (2019) (B)
About Time (2013) (B)
Bathtubs Over Broadway (2018) (B)
Save the Last Dance (2001) (B)
The Five Heartbeats (1991) (B-)
Set it Up (2018) (B-)
Frozen 2 (2019) (B-)
The Harvey Girls (1946) (B-)
Klaus (2019) (B-)
I Lost My Body (2019) (B-)
Cause for Alarm! (1951) (C+)
The Invention of Lying (2009) (C+)
The Good Dinosaur (2015) (C+)
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) (C)
Yesterday (2019) (C)
F for Fake (1973) (C)
Honey (2003) (C)
Polly (1989) (C)
Carmen: A Hip Hopera (2001) (C-)
Raise Your Voice (2004) (D+)

The State of the Art: Television 2020

When it came to games and books this year, I willingly sank into deep, introspective, and outright sad material. But when the TV went on, it was time for some happy escape. The television shows I went for this year were funny or comforting or both. Well, except for BoJack Horseman. Nobody could accuse that of being cheery. The other good news is that I didn't watch anything that didn't turn out to be fairly satisfying; nothing would score below a B- on the 2020 TV list. Even in an overall good year of television, though, there's got to be a standout, and picking my favorite was simplicity itself.

I haven't yet watched the original What We Do in the Shadows movie, but started on the TV show, and immediately fell in love. Season 1 was terrific, and far from a sophomore slump, this year's Season 2 was outstanding. Individual episodes dealing with the vampire family's encounters with witches and ghosts and small town girls' volleyball budget crises were hilarious, and if that weren't enough, they managed to weave in a seasonal arc about Guillermo's slayer calling and the Council of Vampires that wants the crew dead. If I said more, it'd just be me sitting here recounting full scenes. Hopefully, we won't have to wait too long for more vampiric adventures.

There were a handful of other outstanding shows as well. Both Los Espookys (Season 1) and A Black Lady Sketch Show (Season 1) would have had real shots at being favorite of the year, had they not come out in 2019. Curse me for getting to them late. As to 2020 shows of the year, Never Have I Ever (Season 1) had a very strong inaugural season, and likely would have gotten more attention were it not for, well, *gestures at the entire world*. There were some emotional and powerful ending seasons, too, as BoJack Horseman (Season 6) and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (Season 5) nailed their final bows.

The rest of 2020 shows was a mix of farcical comedy, a couple of spooky mysteries, and as ever, the warmth and familiarity of everyone's favorite baking show. The ranked list:

Brooklyn Nine Nine (Season 7)
The Good Place (Season 4)
The Great British Baking Show (Season 8 (US), Season 11 (UK)
Superstore (Season 5)
The Haunting of Bly Manor (Season 1)
The Goes Wrong Show (Season 1)
The Great American Baking Show (Season 5)
Aunty Donna's Big Ol' House of Fun (Season 1)
Locke & Key (Season 1)
Indian Matchmaking (Season 1)
100 Humans (Season 1)

And then there were the catch-up shows, from 2019 and before that I finally had the time to get to. Here's the ranking:

What We Do in the Shadows (Season 1) (2019)
Dollface (Season 1) (2019)
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (Season 4) (2019)
iZombie (Season 1) (2015)
Always a Witch (Siempre Bruja) (Season 1) (2019)
Marvel Rising (standalones) (2018-2019)
Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories (Season 2) (2019)
Avatar: The Last Airbender (Season 1-3) (2005-2008)
Toast of London (Seasons 1-3) (2012-2015)
Nailed It! Holiday! (Season 2) (2019)

The State of the Art: Books 2020

Hey, guess what? It turns out when you're essentially confined to home for the better part of a year, you wind up having more time to read. Who'd have thunk it? In 2018, I had a lot going on, and only read 12 books. Pitiful. I did much better in 2019, putting away 24 books. And in 2020, it's bumped up again to 34. There usually seems to be a guiding theme for each year's books, and as with the games I played this year, the theme for 2020 appears to be "Dealing With Loss".

A lot of the books I read this year bear witness to their characters looking inward to explore a tangled web of painful memories, or grimly going about their business as the world falls to pieces around them. Some make peace with their demons, be they literal or metaphorical, and some are subsumed. 2020 has forced us all to ask some probing questions about the human condition, and to look for answers about just how the hell we're supposed to react when the invisible bonds of society fray and snap.

Not everything I read this year was a bummer, but even among the books that did have a melancholy bent, there were plenty of wonderful finds. Let's get to the ranking!

 

The Book of Speculation - Erika Swyler (2015) (A)

Atonement - Ian McEwan (2001) (A)

To Say Nothing of the Dog - Connie Willis (1998) (A)

Circe - Madeline Miller (2018) (A-)

The Just City - Jo Walton (2014) (A-)

The Last Policeman - Ben Winters (2012) (A-)

The Starless Sea - Erin Morgenstern (2019) (B+)

Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine - Sarah Lohman (2016) (B+)

My Sister, The Serial Killer - Oyinkan Braithwaite (2017) (B+)

Gods of Jade and Shadow - Silvia Moreno-Garcia (2019) (B+)

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore - Robin Sloan (2012) (B+)

The Ten Thousand Doors of January - Alix E. Harrow (2019) (B)

Sea of Rust - C. Robert Cargill (2017) (B)

XL - Scott Brown (2019) (B)

The Party - Elizabeth Day (2017) (B)

The Dreamers - Karen Thompson Walker (2019) (B)

Then She Was Gone - Lisa Jewell (2017) (B)

The Warehouse - Rob Hart (2019) (B)

The Dirge of Reason - Graeme Davis (2018) (B)

Did You Ever Have a Family - Bill Clegg (2015) (B-)

253 - Geoff Ryman (1998) (B-)

Becoming - Michelle Obama (2018) (B-)

Annihilation (Southern Reach #1) - Jeff VanderMeer (2014) (B-)

Long Way Down - Jason Reynolds (2017) (B-)

Ire of the Void - Richard Lee Byers (2017) (B-)

Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts - Kate Racculia (2019) (C+)

The Deep Gate - Chris A. Jackson (2017) (C+)

Dark Revelations - Amanda Downum (2020) (C+)

Blood of Baalshandor - Richard Lee Byers (2020) (C+)

Murder in the Crooked House - Soji Shimada (2016) (C+)

To Fight the Black Wind - Jennifer Brozek (2018) (C+)

The Arrangement - Sarah Dunn (2017) (C)

You Know You Want This - Kristen Roupenian (2019) (C-)

American Panda - Gloria Chao (2018) (C-)

The State of the Art: Games 2020

It can be strange to describe myself as a "gamer", because that word carries connotations that don't apply to me. The general public hears "gamer", and assume I'm downing fifteen energy drinks and loading the latest shoot 'em up to murderize as many pixels as I can. And you know, some days I do feel like doing that.

Games can be so much more than that, though, and for 2020 in particular, the themes of this year's favorites are depth, thoughtfulness, regret, and sadness. The games I enjoyed the most this year are all about looking back, and trying to summon the strength to put the pieces of broken lives back together in order to move forward. And at the top of that bittersweet pile is... Spiritfarer.

 

In Spiritfarer, you play as Stella, who is accompanied by her cat Daffodil. Stella has taken over duties from Charon, and is now in charge of accomplishing the last wishes of her passengers before dropping their souls off in the Great Beyond. Charon managed his duties with cold efficiency, but that is not how Stella treats her charges. For Stella, her job is about compassion and empathy. The game itself is about resource management, as Stella cooks and gardens and runs errands and builds new rooms on her ship, all in service of making the souls she's accompanying feel more comfortable and ultimately, more understood. Inevitably, it is time to say goodbye, and this game left me in tears more than once. It's got beautiful visuals, beautiful music, and a beautiful message, and was exactly the game I needed this year.

 

The clear runner-up is similarly melancholy. Tell Me Why is a three-chapter game in which twins Tyler and Alyson meet again after many years apart to sell their childhood home. Tragedy in their childhood separated them, breaking the close bond they shared, and plunging them each into their own separate problems: Tyler going to a troubled youth facility as he deals with not only the complications of his transgender transition, but being blamed for the death of his mother, and Alyson remaining in their hometown and never breaking out of her shell. When the twins reunite, they begin to discover that there was much more to their troubled mother's story, and begin to dig up truths that the rest of the town would rather leave buried.

 

 

This game was extremely well-written and well-acted, and far from just being a point-and-click novel, included branching story decisions and fun puzzles. Clearly, 2020 game designers have as much on their minds as the rest of us. 

It wasn't all tears, though. The other big hit of the year was Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3?! which is no surprise, given how much I liked Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2. Time management games appeal to me for some reason, especially if they're food-themed, and this one is not only fun, but has amazing food art, and incredible music. One of the songs wound up legitimately being one of the year's biggest jams for me.

On the tabletop front, Tiddy and I continue to enjoy our horrific journeys through Arkham Horror, even taking part in an Ironman in which we played through the entire "The Circle Undone" campaign, which took literally all day. We've explored the Marvel Champions and Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth tabletop games as well, though we always seem to find our way back to Arkham.

As for the rest of the games I finished, am still playing, or at least tried out during 2020, here's a list, in the order they made the biggest impact on me:

Dungeons & Dragons (I'm so happy we've been able to keep this up virtually, but am looking forward to getting back to playing in person)
Zero Time Dilemma (Nonary Games #3)
Greedfall
Hidden Through Time
Disco Elysium
Overwatch
Dragon Quest 11
A Normal Lost Phone
Max Gentleman Sexy Business
Eliza
Octopath Traveler
Aviary Attorney
Your Royal Gayness
Dragonfire
Final Fantasy XIV

The State of the Art: Movies 2019

If there's a main criticism I have of myself when it comes to movies, it's that in the past few years, the majority of ones I see in the year they're released are superhero flicks. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with those, but I want to have a broader spectrum of the year's offerings come December. Happily, I did pretty well with that in 2019, though a lot of the credit has to go to streaming services, which allowed me to see new or original content without having to get out of my pajamas or deal with the dreaded public. When you mix in the non-2019 movies I watched, there's a healthy mix of genres, and a wide spectrum from critical darlings to popular-with-the-masses to utter garbage. (Listen, I have friends who love nothing more than loading up on snacks and riffing through the worst things Amazon/Netflix/Hulu have to offer, and I am here for it.) Goodbye, 2019! It's time to kick off a new decade of cinema. Let's hope it's a good one.

Knives Out (A)
Jojo Rabbit (A-)
The Farewell (A-)
Booksmart (B+)
Lego Movie 2 (B+)
Avengers: Endgame (B)
Happy Death Day 2U (B)
Always Be My Maybe (B)
Captain Marvel (B)
Spider-Man: Far From Home (B)
The Perfect Date (B-)
Isn't It Romantic (C+)
Wine Country (C+)

And the ranking of all the pre-2019 movies I caught up on:

The Favourite (2018) (A-)
Paddington 2 (2018) (B+)
Roma (2018) (B+)
A Simple Favor (2018) (B+)
The Little Prince (2015) (B+)
Blockers (2018) (B+)
Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018) (B)
Incredibles 2 (2018) (B)
Mary Poppins Returns (2018) (B-)
Tea with the Dames (2018) (B-)
50 First Dates (2004) (B-)
Aquaman (2018) (C+)
Never Been Kissed (1999) (C+)
Mini Witch (2010) (C+)
Like Father (2018) (C+)
April and the Extraordinary World (2015) (C)
Avengers Grimm: Time Wars (2018) (F)
Oh My Ghost 2 (2011) (F)

I've said this for essentially every area of pop culture, but picking a favorite movie of the decade was extremely difficult. Not only are there too many great movies to choose from, but I'll have had a favorite comedy, a favorite drama, a favorite documentary, a favorite musical, and on and on and on. So, I went for one that made my jaw drop with happiness in the theater, and still delights me to this day. I post GIFs of it. I quote it. I'm always in the mood for it. From Knives Out to Knives Chau, it's...

Scott Pilgrim vs.the World (2010)

This movie is almost tailor-made to my tastes. I know there are more highbrow movies out there, drowning in Oscars. I know there are more crowd-pleasing movies out there, earning huge box office numbers. But when it comes to the movie that filled me with the most joy this decade, it had to be this.

The State of the Art: Books 2019

It's strange. I certainly didn't have any additional free time this year, but somehow, I managed to pull myself out of the depths of my terrible track record from last year, and finished a decent amount of books. It was probably affected by finally finishing that 1100-page behemoth, but whatever the reason, I'm glad I got to immerse myself in more literature in 2019. A theme tends to emerge in every year, and looking over the titles I read this year, it's fairly clear that 2019's theme is "Anywhere But Here". The books I read tended to embrace the fantastical, the magical, and the faraway. It's pretty obvious I was in no mood to be reading things about our current society.

As ever, it'd be too restrictive to limit the list to only books published this year, so I've included everything I read. Let's get to the ranking!

Only the Strong - Jabari Asim (2015) (A)
Sourdough - Robin Sloan (A)
How Long 'til Black Future Month? - N.K. Jemisin (2018) (A-)
The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue - Mackenzi Lee (2017) (A-)

Horrorstör - Grady Hendrix (2014) (B+)
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian - Sherman Alexie (2007) (B+)
How to Stop Time - Matt Haig (2017) (B+)
The Shepherd's Crown - Terry Pratchett (2015) (B+)

So Close to Being the Sh*t, Y'all Don't Even Know - Retta (2018) (B)
The Immortalists - Chloe Benjamin (2018) (B)
Tales of H.P. Lovecraft - H.P. Lovecraft (collection published in 2000) (B)
The Queen of the Night - Alexander Chee (2016) (B)
The Hunting Party - Lucy Foley (2019) (B)
The Unexpected Heiress - Frank W. Butterfield (2016) (B)
Hour of the Huntress - Dave Gross (2017) (B)
Final Girls - Riley Sager (2017) (B)
Rosalie Lightning - Tom Hart (2016) (B)
Die Volume 1: Fantasy Heartbreaker - Kieron Gillen (2019) (B)

1Q84 - Haruki Murakami (2009) (B-)
Leah on the Offbeat - Becky Albertalli (2018) (B-)
Neither Snow Nor Rain: A History of the United States Postal Service - Devin Leonard (2016) (B-)
The People We Hate at the Wedding - Grant Ginder (2017) (B-)

Press Start to Play - Edited by Daniel H. Wilson and John Joseph Adams (2015) (C)
Get in Trouble - Kelly link (2015) (C)

And the books I abandoned partway through:

Shaker - Scott Frank (2016)
Made to Kill - Adam Christopher (2015)

As to my favorite book of the decade, it's an almost impossible choice; I've read so many amazing titles over the past ten years! Once I sat down to consider which one I've reread the most often, or the one I catch myself thinking about the most, or the one that still captures a magical atmosphere better than any other book I've ever read, one definitely stood out.

The Night Circus (Erin Morgenstern, 2011) casts a spell that's impossible to break free from, and makes you feel as if you're actually wandering the winding paths alongside its mysterious characters. If you haven't read it, make sure you do, but with the proviso that you should read it during chilly weather.

The State of the Art: Television 2019

Articles, reviews, and conversations with friends have begun to take on a common theme when it comes to the subject of television: How should this show we're talking about be curated? Is it a "You have to see this NOW NOW NOW" show? Is it a "Yeah, it's on my list, and I'll catch up on it at some point" show? There is so much content right now that if a show doesn't fall into one of those categories (and frankly, even some of them that do), it will completely fall through the cracks. As of this post, I've seen 13 movies (you know, those things that are few hours maximum) that were released in 2019, and...23 full seasons of 2019 television. Insane.

With all that television to choose from, though, chances are always good that some of those shows will triumph as the best pop culture of the year across the entire spectrum, and some of those 23 shows blew me away. Others, not so much. Let's focus on the positive for now, though. One of the inherent dangers of year-end lists is that I'll overvalue things I loved that I just saw recently over things I loved that I saw several months ago. It can be tough to take a step back and really do a fair comparison. There was no such problem this year, because my top show essentially kicked off 2019.

Russian Doll is fantastic. It's weird and smart and mysterious and sad and funny and cool and addictive. I certainly wasn't the only one to think so, because while I can't imagine what a Season 2 will even look like, the show was so popular that it's getting picked up. Even if it turns out to be terrible, we'll always have this season, which follows Nadia (Natasha Lyonne), trying to figure out what's happening to her as she keeps inescapably dying and waking up at her birthday party. I'm already looking forward to rewatching it. In the meantime, though, let's go to the full 2019 ranking! All of the shows in this first chunk would earn a full A or A- on the grading scale:

Russian Doll (Season 1)
Undone (Season 1)
Fleabag (Season 2)
Derry Girls (Season 2)
A Series of Unfortunate Events (Season 3)

Of the other shows (some of which straddle from 2018), there were plenty that were pretty damned entertaining, or at least decent, ranking from a B+ to a B on the scale:

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (Seasons 2 & 3)
Brooklyn Nine Nine (Season 6)
Black Mirror (Season 5)
Carmen Sandiego (Seasons 1 & 2)
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (Season 4)
Bob's Burgers (Season 9)
GLOW (Season 3)
The Great British Baking Show (Season 7)
Superstore (Season 4)
The Dragon Prince (Season 2)
Tuca & Bertie (Season 1)
Good Omens (miniseries)
Nailed It! (Season 3)
Astronomy Club (Season 1)

And the ones that couldn't stick the landing:

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Season 4)
Agatha Christie's "The ABC Murders" (miniseries)

Lest we forget, there are also the shows from previous years that I managed to catch up on:

Fleabag (Season 1) (2016)
Derry Girls (Season 1) (2018)
Maniac (Season 1) (2018)
Castlevania (Season 2) (2018)
Salt Fat Acid Heat (Season 1) (2018)
Search Party (Season 1) (2016)

Picking a favorite show of the decade is a nearly impossible task. The Great British Baking Show has brought me immeasurable happiness, but can I really call a competitive reality show my favorite of the past ten years, no matter how gentle it is? Probably not. If this was a "Best Of" list, something critically-acclaimed like Mad Men might be in the discussion, but this is about favorite, not best. Shows that live as a gem of the past, like Community, Futurama, or Parks & Recreation are definitely worthy of consideration. When it all comes down to it, though, I have to pick a show that not only topped my list in the past, but is still going strong, and that doesn't only work as a TV show, but as a musical soundtrack, a t-shirt that I love, and a cookbook I'm anxious to explore:

The Simpsons definitely dominated in past eras, and if there's any show that can be said it's passed the torch to, it's got to be Bob's Burgers. Delightful visual gags, terrific writing, incomparable voiceover work, and fun new songs on a weekly basis have kept me laughing, quoting, and singing to myself for years now.

The State of the Art: Games 2019

I love gaming, but unlike pop culture arenas like TV or books, I generally don't seek out the newest and buzziest titles. I stick with the classics (or spend the entire year trying to catch up with recommended games from the year before). In looking over my list for 2019, I only played four new games (three video games, one tabletop). At least nobody can accuse me of sticking to one genre, as my 2019 video games were an RPG (The Outer Worlds), a choose-your-own-adventure-style mystery (Erica), and... Well, an explicit gay farming simulator (Morningdew Farms). If I had to pick a favorite from among those, Erica would easily take the top spot. It was well-acted and well-written, and as a lifelong fan of both mysteries and FMV games, how could I not enjoy it? Especially given that I controlled the action from my phone, which was novel.

In fact, if there was an overarching theme of the year, you don't need to be a detective to realize that it's Mystery:

Erica (2019)
Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors - The Nonary Games #1 (2017 re-release)
Virtue's Last Reward - The Nonary Games #2 (2017 re-release)
A Case of Distrust (2018)
The Shapeshifting Detective (2018)
Ace Attorney #1 (2001)
Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments (2014)
Murdered: Soul Suspect (2013)
Return of the Obra Dinn (2018)
Everyone's Gone to the Rapture (2015)
Contradiction: Spot the Liar (2015)
The Council (2018)

The next time someone complains that gaming is just a bunch of mindless shoot 'em ups, point them to the list above and explain that every single one of them are won using logic, exploration, and conversation.

Cooperative video games are rarer for me, but Tiddy and I did manage to make our way through Trine (2009) and part of Trine 2 (2011), as well as teaming up in Dungeons & Dragons Online (2006). Cooperative tabletop is much more my speed, and this year brought a lot of fun experiences via Mansions of Madness - 2nd edition (2016), the Path to Carcosa expansion of the Arkham Horror card game (2017), Gloomhaven: Forgotten Circles (2019), Apocrypha (2017), and two campaigns of the Pathfinder card game: Rise of the Runelords (2013), and the one we're playing now, Skull and Shackles (2014). If I'm not allowed to pick my wonderful D&D gaming groups as my favorite tabletops of the year, the honor would have to go to Path to Carcosa. Lola and Sefina almost made it to the end before succumbing to madness!

If picking a game of the year was difficult, picking a favorite game of the decade was simplicity itself. There were some strong contenders from all over the map, from BioShock Infinite to Dragon Age: Inquisition to The Stanley Parable. When all is said and done, though, how could it be anything but Portal 2 (2011)? It can't. Graphics that still hold up today. Challenging but not impossible puzzle design. Writing and voice-over performances beyond compare. A co-op version that is actively wonderful. The cake may have been a lie, but this isn't: This game is perfect.

The choice of my favorite tabletop of the decade was similarly simple, as long as I'm allowed to pick a game family. The Fantasy Flight Arkham Horror series has absorbed countless hours of my life, and I don't regret a single one of them. A couple of the games may be duds, sure, but Eldritch Horror (2013) and the Arkham Horror card game (2016) are such endless fun that they've spun me off into other areas, like reading a short story collection about the investigators and designing a tabletop RPG around them. Turns out trying to prevent the apocalypse is actually pretty damned enjoyable.

The State of the Art: Music 2019

I usually don't write a State of the Art post for music, but am tossing one up this year, because it's not only the end of a year, it's the end of a decade. I've been looking over those retrospective lists about the best songs and albums of 2010-2019, and while music is, as ever, my cultural weak spot, there are definitely some standouts.

If there has been one defining feature of my taste in music, it's that the songs I enjoy the most are the ones that successfully straddle the line between the thoughtfulness of indie music and the catchiness of pop. That said, with the world being in a constant state of bad news recently, I've lately shifted towards the more joyous aspects of pop. When everything sucks, a funky backbeat cures many ills. Let's get to it!

Favorite Song of 2019: "Juice" (Lizzo)

Talk about having a year. Lizzo is on fire, sometimes literally. Her ability to blend modern sensibilities with the funk style of yesteryear is infectious, and I don't want the cure.



Favorite Song of 2010-2019: "Thunder" (Gold Fields)

How do you possibly pick a favorite song over a ten year span? Well, you could pick the song you've listened to the most in that time. You could pick the song special enough to merit a rare individual mention. You could pick a song that exemplifies that bridge between indie and pop perfectly. So I did all three.



Favorite Performer of 2010-2019: Carly Rae Jepsen

I always love when I dismiss someone as a flash-in-the-pan, only for them to stealthily turn into someone with a phenomenal track record. I liked "Call Me Maybe" (2011/2012) a lot as a fluffy pop trifle, but never imagined that the girl singing this flirty little ditty would have such range. Never have I been happier to be wrong. The '80s-inspired Emotion (2015) and Emotion Side B (2016) albums turned me into a true convert, and Jepsen has shown she has a healthy sense of humor, recording one of the tracks in Simlish. Even at the tail end of this ten-year span, she continues to impress, with Dedicated (2019). Here's to another decade of CRJ. Long may she reign.

The State of the Art: Television 2018

As streaming services take on more and more content, television has taken on a bigger and bigger chunk of my pop culture pie chart. As much as entertainment outlets were touting the "peak TV years" of prestige basic cable dramas, I feel like we're in a much more interesting time now. Shows have gotten increasingly diverse, which allows people to find things that are even more tailored to their tastes. I'm no exception, and the TV I enjoyed this year was all over the map. Here's the official ranking!

The Haunting of Hill House (Season 1)
Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories (Season 1)
The Good Place (Season 2)
Lovesick (Season 3)
Nailed It! (Season 1)
American Vandal (Season 2)

All of the shows above would get at least an A- on my grading scale, and were all in contention for my favorite show of the year. The Haunting of Hill House took top honors, but I also want to make special mention of Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories, which was more about atmosphere than plot. The simple stories of the patrons of a late night Japanese diner were neither happy nor sad, but a fascinating series of slice-of-life tales.

There were also plenty of other highly entertaining shows that would nab at least a B+ on the scale:

The Great British Baking Show (Seasons 5, 6, and Holiday)
Bojack Horseman (Season 5)
MST3K: The Gauntlet (Season 2)
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (Season 3)
Black Mirror (Season 4 and "Bandersnatch")
The Dragon Prince (Season 1)
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (Season 1)
A Series of Unfortunate Events (Season 2)
Superstore (Season 4)
Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Season 5)
Ordeal By Innocence (Miniseries)

Then there are the shows that were pleasant enough to watch, but couldn't edge their way into the top echelons:

Bob's Burgers (Season 9)
Black-ish (Season 5)
Angie Tribeca (Season 3)
Nailed It! (Season 2 and Holiday)
Hilda (Season 1)

And the shows that ranged from simply okay down to waste of time:

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Season 4)
Big Mouth (Seasons 1 & 2)
One Day at a Time (Season 2)
13 Reasons Why (Season 1)
Making a Murderer (Season 2)