2022.01.04
Movies at the Cinema (0 (-2))
Movies on Video or Streaming (49 (-4))
Death to 2020, The Social Dilemna, Clue: Highschool Edition, Rosemary's Baby, Oh Hello On Broadway, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Saving Private Ryan, We're the Millers, Life is Beautiful, The Intouchables, City of God, The Notebook, The Prestige, Run Lola Run, Bad Trip, The Comeback Kid, Kid Gorgeous, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, St. Vincent, Bo Burnham: Inside, Back to the Future, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Summer of Soul, Bottle Rocket, Tenet, Joker, Real Steel, The Big Lebowski, The Suicide Squad, Evangelion: 1.11 You Are (Not) Alone, Evangelion 2.22: You Can (Not) Advance, Loving Vincent, Evangelion 3.33: You Can (Not) Redo, Nobody, Hamilton, Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time, Hocus pocus, Smoke Signals, The Closer, Indie Game: The Movie, , Crisis on Two Earths, , Poltergeist, The Death of Stalin, Vader Immortal Episode 1, The Matrix: Resurrections, Jim Gaffigan: Comedy Monster, Death to 2021, The Animatrix
I finished off a "100 movies you must see"
scratch-off poster, which led me stuff like "Life is Beautiful" and "The Intouchables". Glad to have finally seen "Hamilton", which was more emotionally resonant than I expected. I'm sad to see the new Matrix isn't more highly regarded: while it lacked some of the visual punch of the original trilogy, I thought it made up for it in really fleshing out some of the ideas the earlier movies set up.
TV Show Seasons (11 (-5))
Those Who Can't (random episodes), Pretend It's a City, Party Down Season 1, Party Down Season 2, Love, Death & Robots Season 2, Fleabag Season 1, Fleabag Season 2, Ted Lasso Season 1, Ted Lasso Season 2, Squid Game, Loki Season 1
It's funny what a bigger investment in time tv shows are than movies. Anyway, "Fleabag" was the real standout here - such good dark comedy, with the themes of sex and relationships.
Books (31 (+1))
Why Buddhism is True, Tao Te Ching, Situation Normal, The Water Dancer, Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain, The Divided Brain and the Search for Meaning, Don Giovanni, You Look Like a Thing and I Love You, Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, Probably Impossibilities, The Vanishing Half, The Big U, When They Call You a Terrorist, Tuck Everlasting, No One Is Talking About This., Deacon King Kong, Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It, The Master and His Emissary, The Body Is Not an Apology, The Decameron Project, Frankenstein, How to Change Your Mind, More Die of Heartbreak, Quiet Pine Trees, God Human Animal Machine, Several People are Typing, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Rationality, Jumpers: A Play, A Carnival of Snackery, Ishmael
Hm. Not sure how I feel about how so much of my reading was for my Science and Spirituality or my Anti-Racism reading group, but to be fair a LOT of my reading time for the year was sunk into "The Master and his Emissary", a book about the two hemispheres of the brain that took me like 5 months. (And rereading Garrison Keillor's short story "Don Giovanni" - I snuck a copy online or check the great audiobook reading.)
Audiobooks/Podcast (10 (-6))
How Did This Get Played,
My Brother My Brother and Me, Retronauts, Daring Fireball, Baby Geniuses, Poetry Unbound, Three Bean Salad, McGST Podcast, The Talk Show with John Gruber, Oh Hello
So podcasts aren't usually "finished" in the way other media are. "How Did This Get Played" is by far and away my favorite this year... I binged the whole backlog, it's just the perfect mix of funny people and video games. Actually it's so good that the time it took to binge it makes me less tolerant of other podcasts.
Comic / Graphic Novel (14 (+/- 0)
Slaughterhouse Five, Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword, Bird & Squirrel: All or Nothing, The Secret to Superhuman Strength, Lucy & Andy: Neanderthal, Clumsy: A Novel, Be A Man, The Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, Unlikely, Any Easy Intimacy, Hell Was Full, No More Shaves, Introducing Jung: A Graphic Guide, Tonoharu
Ryan North's graphic novel adaption of "Slaughterhouse Five" is truly first rate. I always love Alison Bechdel and "The Secret to Superhuman Strength" was all about her relationship with exercise and her body. A lot of the other 4-stars are me rereading Jeff Brown, I do love his autobiographical stuff.
Video Games(13 (+1))
Save Them All, GTA V, Bird Alone, Bowser's Fury, Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist,
Golf on Mars,
Warioware: Get It Together, Carrion, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (Definitive Edition),
Smashy Road: Wanted 2,
BOTW: The Champions Ballad, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Boy half of these are repeats - I "had" to replay Breath of the Wild to rebuild my character after accidentally losing the save. I guess sometimes I get bummed I don't engage with games the way I used to. Smashy Road: Wanted 2 and Golf on Mars are both great diversions on mobile.
Live Concert
Enkidu: Accept your flaws, you'll feel better. It worked for me.
Gilgamesh: You've accepted your flaws?
Enkidu: No, I accepted yours.