bevedog

I love year-end lists. Often I’m not really keeping track, paying attention, keeping up in any given year, so the December list are my chance to play catch-up. I like the big lists from well-known sources, and the niche lists from fans and randos. Way back in the day the blog Fimoculous would compile and aggregate a list of year-end lists, like this one from 2009 and I loved it. I’d love to see your reading list your Spotify thing, whatever.

So that’s what you should expect from me this month.

Watched

I have felt like I should watch more TV, more movies for a few years now. I spent way too much time watching people play games on Twitch, and thought that watching actual art would probably be better for me.

Once the pandemic started, Shanon and I started watching TV together most nights for an hour or two as a way to keep evening-time anxieties at bay. So I watched way more stuff this year than in years past. Way more. Here’s a mostly complete list with comments where I felt like it. I’d love to talk more about any of these in the comments or email or whatever.

Movies and shows Shanon and I watched together

Galaxy Quest

The Expanse (4 seasons): The central character, James Holden, is a bit of a snooze and too close to a “chosen one” for me to really like, but so many of the other characters are great that I really enjoyed the show.

Death of Stalin

Devs (miniseries): Fun to see Nick Offerman in a very different role, and I liked the central science fiction “what if” of the plot. Really good.

Hail Caesar

Avatar: The Last Airbender (3 seasons): I’m very relieved that this held up over time. I remembered it as being so much fun with such rewarding character growth over three seasons, and I enjoyed it almost as much the second time around.

The Manchurian Candidate (1962): Shanon and I talked a lot about how weird this movie is in the way it veers between more realistic and surrealistic styles. Great film.

The Leftovers (3 seasons): One of the best things we watched this year, and one that I’m sure I’ll associate with the pandemic from now on. I admire the way all three seasons are very distinct and different from one another, but that they hold together in a way that has integrity.

Hamilton

The Last Dance (documentary miniseries): When I see the title I always forget what this was—it’s the Chicago Bulls documentary about their last season with Jordan. Mostly notable for showing what a petty bastard Michael Jordan is (like “He said to me ‘hi Mike’ so right then I knew I had to destroy him”). And this is with Jordan’s full approval, so you can just imagine what the unauthorized version would be like.

Bonus: probably the best moment from The Last Dance when a reporter (Craig!) asks a confrontational question of Jerry Krause.

Doom Patrol (2 seasons): I love comics, but don’t usually like superheroes much. The Grant Morrison run on Doom Patrol from the early 1990s is an exception. This show does an excellent job of using Morrison’s material (and, I think but am not sure, earlier Doom Patrol stories) as a source and inspiration and building it into something new like a good adaptation should do. And of course I love Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man, aka Steve Larson.

What We Do In the Shadows (2 seasons): I could just spend the rest of this post quoting all the ridiculous things they say in this series. Maybe the most straight-up enjoyable thing we watched this year.

Mr. Robot (4 seasons): A re-watch for Shanon this is another series that I’m sure I’ll always associate with the pandemic, given some of the issues that come up here. I wore my black hoodie most nights we watched in honor of Elliot. I was most captivated by the first and second seasons—I like the protagonists as anarchists and the conspiracy undefined best—but thought it held up for the whole series, thanks to the strong cast as much as anything.

Ex Machina

American Utopia

The Queen’s Gambit (miniseries): I really enjoy Anya Taylor-Joy and thought she was great in this. As were her costumers and the set designers. The life of the game-obsessed traveling competitor rang very true with what I know about competitive Magic: the Gathering and, uh, “One Night in Bangkok”: One town’s very like another /
When your head’s down over your pieces, brother.

The Good Lord Bird (miniseries): I read a long biography of John Brown after watching this, so yeah it’s compelling. I admire the way Ethan Hawke plays Brown totally over the top with no perceptible wink.

Thoroughbreds: An Anya Taylor-Joy movie that I saw in the theater when Luke wanted to see it (I have no idea how he knew about it since it didn’t get a huge amount of buzz) and then re-watched with Shanon after The Queen’s Gambit. I think this is an excellent movie, one of the most memorable films I’ve seen in recent years. Taylor-Joy is great, her co-star, Olivia Cooke, is even better. The movie draws comparisons to Heathers (a movie I loved at the time that I now… don’t) because they both involve teen girls planning murders, but where Heathers is teen movie as black comedy, Thoroughbreds is a tight 90 minute thriller with a wicked sense of humor.

Get Out: So much has been written about Get Out that you probably don’t need my take. I’ll just say that I’m glad none of the white characters were exempt, and that LaKeith Stanfield is one of my favorite actors (as in Atlanta, below).

Widows

Atlanta (2 seasons): Another real favorite, I love this show’s sense of humor. When I started watching, I expected something a bit more like the last few episodes of the second season, with a more serious look at people scrapping to get by as rappers. The show is that sometimes, but it’s also very funny, often off-kilter and sometimes outright surreal. All the actors are excellent, but LaKeith Stanfield as Darius is now one of my favorite TV characters of all time.

Sorry to Bother You: A re-watch from me, I told Shanon that this movie starts out kinda normal gets weird, and then gets really weird, and I stand by that description. Enjoyed LaKeith Stanfield’s performance even more now that I know him more as an actor. The Michel Gondry influence is obvious and commented on in this movie itself, but I thought another influence/ancestor might be Repo Man.

Stuff I watched by myself

13th: I thought that I didn’t like talking head documentaries, but this was a very good explanation of the roots of today’s mass incarceration in nineteenth century and the 13th amendment.

Robocop

Starship Troopers: I watched both Robocop and Starship Troopers mostly because of David Roth’s article in the New Yorker, How “Starship Troopers” Aligns With Our Moment of American Defeat. I don’t really recommend them, though Robocop is more entertaining.

I Am Not Your Negro: Of course I knew who James Baldwin was, broadly speaking, but I hadn’t read or listened to him before this excellent documentary. When I did read Baldwin later in the year, I heard his voice and documentary narrator Samuel L. Jackson’s voice interchangeably in my head which is kind of strange given how different they are.

True Detective (season 1 only): Shanon bailed out of this one when the two protagonists were having a brodown about how one of their wives smelled, and I don’t blame her. It’s true that the attitudes in that scene weren’t meant to be admired, but the show very much suffers from a virgin/whore/women-in-refrigerators problem (not to mention the Deliverance problem—really this show is problematic as hell). I still found both Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson’s performances compelling, and loved the show’s atmosphere and creep factor. I like weird stuff that stays weird, and while a lot of thought and detail went into the iconography of the show—enough to allow/encourage articles like this one—I was glad that not every little thing got explained.

Akira

Django Unchained: This movie is not good. Christoph Waltz is very good and clearly having fun, and Samuel L. Jackson is dependably excellent. But Jamie Foxx isn’t given much to do besides look badass, and watching Leonardo DiCaprio is like watching a very good high school actor: it’s cute that he’s acting so hard.

Die Hard: Never seen it before. It’s good.

The Fifth Element: Not a good movie. Boring, pointless, some cool and fun design & effects stuff.