2020 in media

[beer_good_foamy]

During lockdown, while many other artists are doing mini-concerts from their homes, I thought I’d do you all a favour and not.

— James Blunt (@JamesBlunt) March 25, 2020

My 2020 in media. The good thing was, we all had a lot of time to watch and read. The bad thing was, it was hard to do anything but just rewatch and reread old favourites. But still, here goes.

10 new movies I really liked this year:
First Cow
Bacurau
Dick Johnson Is Dead
Never Rarely Sometimes Always
Possessor
Wolfwalkers
Babyteeth
Relic
Ema
Deerskin

5 TV series that did really good things this year:
She-Ra And The Princesses of Power: A final season that has Chekov's guns firing every 30 seconds. This and The Good Place shows what you can do when you write towards an ending.

The Queen's Gambit: It's not about chess, it's about obsession. And also chess. I've yet to see Anya Taylor-Joy not impress in anything. The ending has some issues, but up until then, wow.

Tales From the Loop: Brilliant adaptation of Simon Stålenhag's books of retro small-town sci-fi to an American setting; takes the look and then expands it into a slowly unfolding, character-driven story.

What We Do In The Shadows: Season 2 was a huge improvement on a season 1 that was already really good. I mean, the open stage episode alone...

The Good Place: TGP ended in January 2020?!? It feels like five years ago! It was a good ending, whichever decade it happened.


5 TV series that occasionally did worthwhile things this year:
Warrior Nun 
The Haunting of Bly Manor
Rick and Morty
Lovecraft Country
Wynonna Earp

10 songs I loved this year:
Zombie Girl - Adrienne Lenker
Under the Spell of Joy - Death Valley Girls
Pulling the Pin - Run the Jewels feat. Mavis Staples & Josh Homme
For You - Laura Marling
The Prettiest Song in the World - Man Man
Told You Once In August - Dion (who, at 81 freaking years old, is sounding way too good)
A Hero's Death - Fontaines DC
r(E)volution - Sa-Roc
Murder Most Foul - Bob Dylan
I Know the End - Phoebe Bridgers

Five new-ish books I loved this year:
The Mirror and the Light, Hilary Mantel
Taking Izmail, Mikhail Shishkin
Lost Children Archive, Valeria Luiselli
The City We Became, NK Jemisin
Harrow the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir

Five old-ish books I loved this year
The Emperor of Portugalia, Selma Lagerlöf
The Dispossessed, Ursula LeGuin
The Exploits of Moominpappa, Tove Jansson
Babel-17, Samuel R Delany
Invisible Man; Ralph Ellison