Greg's Favorites of 2018

2018 came and went.  I'm always surprised this blog is still here when I pull it up a year later.

2018 was a pretty steady year for the family, with not too many changes.  With Maria's editing job helping out, we were able to finally afford to do a few things.  She and I went to Seattle for a 20 year wedding anniversary trip; the family flew to Utah for the summer particularly so the older boys could spend time before cousins started leaving on missions; and I got to fly to LA with my brother Jeffrey to see former Jellyfish band member Roger Joseph Manning Jr. in person for a Pledgemusic reward studio tour.  I also got to see my first Python member in person, John Cleese, who came through DFW on a Q&A tour and screening of Holy Grail.  And I got to see a couple performers I like in Vegas during a work trip, Piff the Magic Dragon and Tape Face (both former America's Got Talent contestants, but also both performers I was aware of before their AGT appearances.) I also started a new position at Lockheed, moving from my support (and all my world travels) of F-35 to full time F-22 engineering work.

Here are the things I liked in 2018:

Music

2018 was a step up over the past few years.  I actually found some great music and a few new bands that I really enjoyed.

• Roger Joseph Manning Jr: Glamping EP - As mentioned above, Roger released this EP through PledgeMusic this year.  My brother bought it for me as a birthday gift.  And then before the campaign was over we talked each other into buying a personal experience of meeting Roger at a studio and getting a personal tour of each of the songs by looking at every track in the recording and seeing how they were made.  Sometimes when you see how the sausage is made you lose your appetite, but other times it makes the sausage even more delicious.  The latter was my experience.  I enjoy these songs even more knowing what went into making them.
  

• Jukebox the Ghost: Off to the Races - I found this about the same time as the Roger Manning album was released, so they are both connected in my head.  This band has been around for a while but it wasn't until now that they got my attention.  Most of that was through the first two tracks on this album, especially "Jumpstarted" which is a delightful Queen-meets-Ben Folds Five piano-featuring piece.  It seems to jump all over the place, but after a few listens the disparate elements start to click together.
  


• Trevor Horn: "Sky Show" - This is just a single song from an otherwise mostly instrumental anime soundtrack "The Reflection."  This sounds like a long lost Buggles song and is a wonderful 80s synthpop throw back.
  


• Beck: Colors - Technically a late 2017 release, I originally dismissed this album after listening to one of the first singles, "Wow," which I found gratingly annoying.  But since Roger Manning plays with Beck in his touring group, I watched one of his TV appearances on a talk show and was intrigued by another song from this same album.  I finally listened to the full album and fell in love.  This is a great synthpop album, very heavily 80s influenced.  And there's a great music video for the title track by my favorite director, Edgar Wright.  Just skip "Wow."
  


• I Don't Know How But They Found Me: 1981 EP - I followed a random YouTube recommendation and found this song, "Do It All the Time," and this band with the awkward long name. I think the conceit is that they are a lost band from 1981. Whatever the case, the music is fun. They have a few other tracks on YouTube that aren't on the EP that I also enjoy, particularly "Nobody Likes the Opening Band."
  


• Muse: Simulation Theory - I enjoyed the new Muse album this year, but it didn't quite hit the way their last few did.  This was the one album I was looking forward to from last year and it was good, but not great.


• Marc Martel: Thunderbolt and Lightning - Queen was huge this year with the "Bohemian Rhapsody" biopic and a few other things.  This is a Freddie Mercury sound-alike covering Queen songs, but in new and interesting ways.  Such as Bohemian Rhapsody with a full orchestra.
  

A few other items worth mentioning: Sparks - "Hippopotamus" from late 2017 I finally got around to listening to, and enjoyed. V Sparks - "Moderne Life" was a really great 3/4ths of an album with an amazing Queen-style song, "The Game of Everybody Knows Its You." V Sparks is a great rock/glam band. I bought and listened to the entire V Sparks discography from Bandcamp. The Struts - "Young & Dangerous" - was an album I was very much looking forward to and it was...okay. The band sort of shifted from their rock direction to more shiny pop, and so even though every song is catchy, it's too sugary to last very long.

As for 2019, I have no idea what's on the horizon.  Not sure if it will be too soon or not, but Roger Manning promised more music soon and was working with Eric Dover and Tim Smith on a new project.

Movies

This year I joined, then quit, MoviePass.  I signed up at a weird moment around my birthday in April when it was only 3 movies a month instead of unlimited, but after the three months that I signed up for ended, the entire company seemed to fall apart.  So I jumped ship and joined AMC A-List, which allows for up to 3 moves a week.  Needless to say, I saw quite a bit more movies in theater this year than I ever have before.  However, changes to routine at work and home, I saw less movies overall. I saw 49 movies in theater, up from 30 last year.  I saw 48 more new release movies (2017-2018) at home or on planes down from 74 last year.  I saw 101 older movies for the first time, down from 164 last year.  And I rewatched 68 movies, down from 72 last year.  In total I saw 270 movies.

Here are some of my favorite movies of the year:

• A Quiet Place -  This was such a surprise.  Watching this in a theater you suddenly become aware of every tiny noise around you.  Such a simple concept, but it worked wonderfully.
• Mission Impossible: Fallout - I originally came out of this movie disappointed.  It was a little more serious than the last movies.  It didn't have the big heist element that the last few did.  But after listening to more than 6 hours of director's interviews and maybe as many hours of podcast discussions, my appreciation of this movie grew much, much higher.  Especially understanding how much work went into all of the stunts and set pieces and how Tom Cruise pretty much did everything you see on screen for real.
• Paddington 2 -  One of the first movies of the year, and one of my favorites.  It was just delightfully crazy and serenely calm at the same time.  
• Crazy Rich Asians - Just unique, charming, and funny enough to make this one of the more satisfying romantic comedies in years.
• Game Night - A studio comedy that I actually found funny.  It's been a while since that has happened.
• Avengers: Infinity War - I almost feel like I have to put this on my list, though I really feel like I need to see Avengers:Endgame to have a full opinion of this movie.  But it was quite the spectacle.
• Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse - I *adored* the animation style of this movie and the boundaries it pushed.  I was less in love with the overall story.  It was fun and crazy, but it still felt like another origin story to me.
• Deadpool 2 - Silly.  Funny. That's was all I needed and it was that.
• Overlord - Not the first Nazi Zombie movie, but crazy enough to stand on its own.  It did everything that The Predator tried to do this year but better.
• Bumblebee - What? A Transformer movie that was good?  I know.  I'm still trying to wrap my head around that.  I consider all the other Transformers movies to be cinematic travesties, but this one was the best movie I saw released near Christmas.
• Bad Genius - Asian kids heist movie where they plan to cheat the SATs.  
• Upgrade - A more successful, lower budget version of the "Venom" movie.

Disappointments, movies I hated, and other films of note:

• Black Panther - It seemed like I was the only one who didn't care for this movie.  It was boring, long, and had an uninteresting lead character.  It also ripped off an entire scene from James Bond's Skyfall.  I would rank it just above the Hulk movie and maybe Iron Man 2 at the bottom of my Marvel movie rankings.
• Ready Player One - I enjoyed watching it, but it was a huge disappoint for me.  It should have worked better with the players involved (Spielberg in particular.)  It just veered wildly from kids movie to a teen movie to an adult R-rated horror and back to silly kids movie.  Who is this film for?  I can't figure it out.  How do you go from brazenly bombing a crowded neighborhood with real deaths near the beginning to a full recreation of the Shining in the middle to a slap fight with a villain at the end? It left me scratching my head.
• Solo: A Star Wars Story - Take a Star Wars movie that no one wanted and fill it with terrible choices all the way through (see: Solo gets his name) and then film it so dark that you can barely tell what's happening in the film.  Hit picture? I held off going to this movie until I got to Utah for our family trip to be able to see it with everybody and I could only convince one person of my large family to see it with me.  This movie was a failure all around.
• Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom - Who wants to see dinosaurs go from rampaging in a park on a big island to bumping into walls in a large house?  Also, how is selling invaluable, resurrected dinosaurs for a few million each in any way profitable?  Surely it cost more than that just to send the party to go rescue the few they could from the island, let alone all the research costs to create them in the first place.
• The Predator - Wow, this was incoherently bad.  See comments above for the movie "Overlord" for a better experience.
• Venom - Wow, this was incoherently bad.  See comments above for the movie "Upgrade" for a better experience.
• The Crimes of Gindelwald - I audibly sighed 3 or 4 times during this movie.  I have never done that in a movie.  I was exasperated and bored.  What a terrible film, and they are planning at least 3 more of these?  Nothing in it makes sense.  Why send a guy who only cares about magical animals--and barely any people--on an illegal mission to hunt down a man he knows barely anything about in foreign country he's not allowed to go to?  Why would he accept?  Why do we care about babies switched at birth we've never met before?  Why is Dumbledore even in this movie?  Why did they undo the one Muggle's memory sacrifice at the end of the of the last movie, the one heart-tugging element of that film?  Why are we supposed to be invested in a relationship where one person drugs the other and takes them against their will to another country to marry them apparently against their will?  Why is this movie?
• Mary Poppins Returns - I give everyone credit for really, really trying.  Everyone wanted to make a movie that stood up alongside the original and I applaud their efforts.  But they made a movie that ultimately is just a poor copy of the original.  The songs were unmemorable--I don't think I could hum a single one as I exited the theater.  I couldn't understand what was happening most of the movie or why or what they were singing about.  And in the end I felt like I was attending a school musical or recital but without a program so I had no idea how many more musical numbers I had to endure until the finale.

As for 2019, I'm looking forward to Avengers: Endgame to see how everything is resolved (or not.)  Disney is going all-in with their live-action remakes with Lion King, Dumbo, and Aladdin.  I'm not looking forward to them, I'm just pointing them out.  Toy Story 4, It: Chapter 2, and Star Wars: Episode 9 are all movies I'm cautiously looking forward to.  Shazam probably has the potential to be the most fun Superhero movie.  We'll see.

TV

It's getting harder to distinguish TV from movies this year with more things on Netflix.  Is it a movie?  A series?  A mini-series?  A special?  How do you classify it if it's on TV but all comes out at once?  I probably watched less shows this year than I ever have in the past and part of that is less interesting stuff on networks and more things on streaming services.

Here are a few shows of note I watched in 2018:

• Christmas Carol Gone Wrong - Watched this on January 1st and it was still my favorite thing I saw by the end of the year.  
• Cobra Kai - How dare they do a sequel TV series/reboot to this classic movie!  And yet they did and it was amazing!  I really enjoyed how they honored the original movie by both mirroring and subverting everything about it.
• Saturday Night Live - I never watch it live, but I always hope I have time Sunday morning to watch it.  If not I catch it as soon as I can.  The closest to "appointment television" I still have.
• Last Week Tonight - Probably second after SNL for a show I try to catch quickly after airing.
• America's/Britain's Got Talent - Both remain my favorite variety competition series
• Penn & Teller Fool Us - My next favorite variety series.  Both this and the above are a great place to see magic on television.
• Derren Brown: The Push/Sacrifice - Derren Brown continues to come up with amazing fake realities to make people suffer through.
• Wrecked - The third season of this "Lost"/"Survivor" parody series has the survivors engaged in a Hunger/The Most Dangerous Game scenario.
• Cunk on Britain - A British faux documentary series that I thought was pretty funny.
• Wellington Paranormal - A TV spinoff series from "What We Do in the Shadows."  A bit like a cross between Cops and X Files, but done with the dry New Zealand humor.
• Haunting of Hill House - Some really interesting creepy stuff in this Netflix series.
• MST3K - Didn't completely finish, but continue to enjoy the new season.
• Black Mirror: Bandersnatch - the last show I watched for the year.  Of note because it is played as a "Choose your own adventure" style game on Netflix with multiple paths and endings.
• The Vietnam War - Not a favorite thing I watched.  But noteworthy because of how huge and long and thorough it was.  I just need to note it here so I can get some kind of credit for watching it.
• Arrested Development - Just putting this here to remind myself I watched a new series from this show this year, but I've forgotten it already.

Podcasts and Online

I spent a lot of time on YouTube this year, which is partly why my movie count was down from last year.  I spend a lot of time on weekdays streaming talk show segments from the night before.  Here's what I watched and listened to this year:

• Talkshows:  Stephen Colbert's monologue and guests if they are interesting.  Seth Meyers "A Closer Look" is often the first thing I watch in the mornings."  I'll occasionally watch Jimmy Kimmel and much less often James Cordon and Jimmy Fallon.  
• News channels: I also find myself heading to CNN or MSNBC to see what crazy headlines are happening every other day or so.  
• ScreenJunkies has a daily show that I usually watch, plus Movie Fights, Charting, Honest Trailers, and more.  
• RedLetterMedia's "Half in the Bag," "Wheel of the Worst," "Review," "Best of the Worst" and others also continue to hold my attention.
• We Hate Movies: I actually subscribed to my first Patreon for these guys this year because I've enjoyed their show.
• How Did This Get Made: Continue to enjoy
• Empire, Movie B.S. with Bayer and Snider, Now Playing: All movie-based podcasts I regularly listen to
• James Bonding, Star Trek: The Next Conversation, Smegheads (Red Dwarf), Monkey Tennis (Alan Partridge): All shows that focus on specific movies or TV series that I listen to.
• Piff Pod, Magician's Podcast, MagicOrthodoxy: Two magic/magician themed podcasts I found this year, and a YouTube magic review channel.

Video Games

I played a lot this year on my phone, Switch, and XBox One.  Here are a few of my favorites:

• Super Mario Odyssey - What an amazing Mario game.  I pretty much completed everything I could on this game.
• Gardenscapes/Homescapes -  A couple similar matching games that I played way too much on my phone this year.  Way too much.
• Nintendo Labo - Jaden and I built both the first, misc. items pack, and the third vehicles pack and really enjoyed them.  I love the construction/model-building aspect and the super inventive ways of using the Switch controllers.  Even when you understand how the piano works, it still seems like magic.
• Bloons TD 6 - Really enjoyed this new installment of the Bloons series.
• Overcooked/Overcooked 2 - This was a really fun cooperative cooking game on the Switch.  Makes for a great party game. 
• Cooking Craze - After enjoying the Overcooked games, I found this cooking game on the iPhone that has me currently addicted. 
• Dead Cells - An interesting rogue-like Metroidvania game.  I've played quite a bit but haven't completed yet on the Switch.

Of  note: I finally stopped playing the Simpsons Tapped Out game this year.  After playing it for quite a few years.  I got to a point where I was just collecting and stashing things and there was too much to be able to organize nicely any more.  (Plus I ran out of donuts and the free donuts methods of the past were no longer an option.)

Books

I read one book.  "I, Alan Partridge."  Maria read 567.

2019

So looking ahead to next year.  We're hoping for a family trip back to Disney if we can fit it in.  It may slip to 2020 depending on school and schedules.  I expect most things to continue as normal with jobs and work and schools.  I'm looking forward to the move to 2-hour church block and interested to see how that affects me with my current piano accompanying jobs.  I got a whole lot of new magic tricks for Christmas.  A *whole lot*.  I'm performing for the primary kids in a few weeks.  I hope to find more opportunities to perform elsewhere in the year and beyond.  I continue to crochet here and there.  I also still intend to get back to writing music sometime.  And I guess that's it.  Happy 2019 everyone!