Today is the first day of 2022. Time for me to look back at the previous year. This year started a bit tense with the January 6 insurrection, but Biden was eventually sworn in as President. Maria and I followed by our older boys all were able to get vaccinated in the first half of the year and we followed that up with a wonderful family reunion in Utah celebrating my parent's 50th anniversary. Unfortunately shortly thereafter a new COVID variant emerged slowing things down a bit. Then another new variant came out of nowhere and hit us all right at the end of the year with Jaden (who got vaccinated in November) testing positive for COVID and presumably the rest of the family has it too. For now, everyone feels like they have the flu and I'm feeling fine but also feeling the inevitability that it will get to me soon.
And with that out of the way, let's look at my favorite things I watched, listened to, played and read this past year:
Music
I continue to use Spotify as my main method for discovering new music this year. It found me several new interesting bands and songs this year. I usually listen to the random weekly recommended playlist each week and review the new releases on Friday. Then I'll try other recommended artists on occasion. I also watched a lot of "The Professor of Rock" on YouTube this year and discovered some new oldies as well.
First of all, though, before I post the songs and bands I liked this year, I made a new song arrangement this year for Christmas that I figured I'd share here. It's been a few years, so I was determined to finally do a new Christmas song this year. The song is "Il est né, le divin Enfant," a piece I arranged about 11 years ago as a duet with Spencer. This time I thought I'd make a fuller synth arrangement and have some more fun with it using a keyboard connected to my phone and GarageBand:
And now some of my favorite music this past year:
- Lickerish Quartet: "Threesome, Vol. 2" - According to Spotify, I listened to this ep that came out in January the most this year. And most of my listening was in January. Having such a head start at the beginning of the year, it very easily made it to the top of my list. This didn't have any standouts like the first ep, but all of the songs (except one) are nice and easy on the ears. I think there were supposed to be 3 eps, but the band has seemingly gone quiet after the release of this ep. Anyway, I don't know which song is my favorite, so here's one of the three songs, "Sovereignty Blues."
- Wooze - This was a band that randomly came up on my weekly Spotify recommend playlist with a song that sounded like Sparks mixed with the synths of Gary Numan and the noisy guitars of Blur called "I'll Have What She's Having." They've got quite a few songs, but no albums. Mostly just releasing singles and a few eps. They are definitely my favorite new band that I discovered this year.
- Silvertwin: "SilverTwin" - These guys sound like an easy listening 70s band with elements of Paul McCartney, Sweet, and late 70s disco-leaning ELO. This track, "Ploy," especially seems to borrow liberally from the chorus of "Last Train to London" but it that's not necessarily a bad thing:
- Gaspard Augé: "Escapades" - This is one of the guys from the band Justice doing a solo album but still sounding exactly like Justice. It's a great instrumental synthwave album.
- Berlin - "Like Flames" - This song is from back in 1986. I've only ever half-liked Berlin. Some good songs, some I don't care for at all, but I was introduced to this over-looked song by a "Professor of Rock" video earlier this year that he focused on Berlin and I was immediately taken by the song and sad that it took me 35 years to find it.
- Royal Blood - "Typhoons" - I heard this on SiriusXM's modern station just as I was parking so I had to go back and find it later. It has a very strong Muse style and it instantly hooked me.
- C Duncan - I think I discovered this artist from another random Spotify recommend. At the end of/ the year apparently Spotify told me this was my most listened to artist of the year. That was a bit surprising, but I did enjoy listening to him. I was also in his top .01% listeners for the year. The element that really stands out for C Duncan is very thick and lush vocals. I presume they are all him. Some songs are upbeat and quirky and others are very slow lullabies, but almost all are covered with harmonies. One of my favorites below is "Talk Talk Talk" from 2019:
Movies
So I started going back to movies this summer catching up on all the movies that were delayed from 2020. As of this moment, there are still several delayed 2020 movies that haven't been released yet so we're still catching up. Starting with "A Quiet Place pt. 2" at the end of May and finishing with "Matrix Resurrection" in December, I saw a total of 23 films in theater. That's way up from 9 last year, but much lower than the 56 I saw in theaters in 2019. In total I watched 232 movies in 2021 up from the 211 I watched last year, which is surprising given I was more housebound in 2020 so I would have expected some more movie watching to fill the time. Along with the 23 theatrical films, I watched 50 new new films (anything newly released within 3 years) at home, and another 70 new old films, and then 89 rewatches. Many of the rewatches were showing films to Jaden. We started the Marvel Cinematic Universe and got through the middle of Civil War on New Years Eve. There's still some really great films I'm excited to watch with him in Marvel and from everywhere else.
Some of my favorite and or remarkable films of the 2021 are:
- Spider-Man: No Way Home/Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings/Suicide Squad - These three superhero films were among my favorites of the year. With each being entertaining, surprising, and memorable. On the other side, Black Widow was okay but too late, Venom was unnecessary and exhausting, and Eternals is my new least favorite Marvel film coming in solidly at the bottom. It's a shame because I can see where a good film could be there but it failed on too many levels including just being boring.
- Free Guy - This movie reminded me a lot of the new Jumanji film where it has fun with video game tropes and embraces the ridiculousness of a life in a video game. I wish so much hadn't been spoiled in the trailers, but this was my favorite original movie of the year.
- Dune - I'm mad this was marketed as "Dune" rather than "Dune pt. 1." Nobody said this wasn't a whole movie. That being said, this is a good part 1. The 80s version took me years before I was able to make it all the way through. This is just as deep and hard to understand, but somehow is sugar-coated enough that I could swallow it easier. I just wish more than Jason Mamoa was having fun in the film.
- Last Night in Soho/The Sparks Brothers - I have to mention the two films from my favorite filmmaker, Edgar Wright. "The Sparks Brothers" was an interesting if overlong look at the band Sparks with lots of recognizable talking heads telling me how good the band was. "Soho" was atmospherically really cool but ultimately a failure. I feel like the movie unforgivably lies to the viewer in a very significant way to pull off a twist that wasn't earned. If the mystery were more organically revealed in the movie, I probably would have loved the film.
- Ghostbusters Afterlife/Matrix Resurrections - The first of these I liked the second I did not care for at all. I group these together because these movies exist entirely to say "Hey, do you remember that first movie?" Ghostbusters was able to weave a bit of an original story into it, but still hit most of the same beats as the first movie. Matrix almost felt like a clip show flashing back to the original and referring back to it so much that it didn't have anything new at all to say and was just a waste of time. Halloween Kills was another film that seemed way too fixated on the original Halloween movie to come up with it's own reason to exist.
- Zak Snyder's Justice League - This was very interesting. The theatrical Justice League movie was pretty bad. But supposedly it fixed all the stuff Zak Snyder tried to do to ruin the DC movies. Now seeing the film as the original director intended, I gotta admit that it was way better. STILL A BAD MOVIE, but it works so much better. And it's really interesting to see how to different directors can assemble the same movie and make it completely different.
- Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar - This type of weird, quirky surreal comedy just doesn't get made any more. It fits in alongside Anchorman, Hot Rod, or Pee Wee's Big Adventure. The kind of film that can have a musical number in the middle and it doesn't feel out of place. I'm not saying its as good as those other films, but it would fit in well together in one of those Wal-Mart multi-movie DVD collections.
- The Mitchells vs the Machines - A great animated movie about an apocalyptic robot war and a family on a road trip that ends up saving the world. Quite funny.
Some other films of significance that I watched: I saw the Beatles first two films, "Hard Day's Night" & "Help!" It was a coincidence that then I saw the "Get Back" documentary at the end of the year. I really got a greater appreciation of the Beatles this year. I didn't have time to rewatch all the Bond movies like I've done before each of the previous new movies came out. I did rewatch all the Daniel Craig films leading up to "No Time To Die." I think "Casino Royale" and "Skyfall" are the best Craig films. "Quantum" and "Spectre" are the worst. "No Time to Die" falls right in the middle. You really need to have all the Craig films in your head with the last movie to understand a lot of what happens. And even then you won't be able to understand everything because the film makes a lot of weird choices that don't make sense. Ultimately it's an okay movie with some amazing parts that is too long and makes some really weird choices with it's antagonist and finale that aren't quite satisfying enough to make it a good movie.
Looking ahead to 2022, there's a bunch of Marvel films including "Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness," and "Thor: Love and Thunder." New "Mission Impossible" movie, a franchise I really love. There's "The Lost City" with Sandra Bullock looking like an updated "Romancing the Stone." "John Wick 4" could be good. Jordan Peele has a new movie, "Nope" with no plot details yet. And maybe we'll have a new "Avatar" movie? Let's see.
TV
Notable series and specials I watched this year:
- Taskmaster - Like last year, I'm still in love with Taskmaster. This year started off with a New Year's special, and then had two series in the spring and fall. Also New Zealand began their own version which is almost as good (other than I don't know anyone on it,) and had two series as well.
- Lego Masters - This was one of the few shows that we watched together as a family (Maria, Jaden, and me.) We really enjoyed the projects and challenges the show came up with.
- Wandavision/Loki/Marvel's What If.../Hawkeye/Falcon and the Winter Soldier - I really enjoyed all the Marvel TV series that Disney spread through the year. Wandavision had the best concept that made it unique for TV. The rest I enjoyed in the order I listed above. "Falcon" was the only one I was bored with. I just didn't have the fun that most other Marvel shows normally had.
- British panel shows: Hypothetical, Would I Lie To You, QI, Rhod Gilbert's Growing Pains, Alan Davies As Yet Untitled, Mel Gedroyc's Unforgivable, 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, Big Fat Quiz of the Year, and more. I'm a sucker for British panel shows. Comedians saying funny things with a British accent makes me happy.
- Squid Games - This started out way stronger than it ended, but it was captivating enough that I had to get up in the middle of the night to keep watching because my mind wouldn't stop thinking about it.
- Dave Gorman specials: Are You Dave Gorman?, Googlewhack Adventure, Important Astrological Experiment - I was introduced to Dave Gorman as an early contestant on Taskmaster. I discovered he had emerged from a series of TV specials in the earlier 2000's where he took and ran with some crazy ideas such as trying to meet as many other Dave Gorman's in the world as possible or taking his astrological advice literally every day for a month and acting on it. Very fun and funny.
- The Beatles: Get Back - as I mentioned up in movies, I watched a lot of Beatles stuff this year and capped things off with this amazing, over-long, voyeuristic documentary. There was too much, but it was great to see the moment Paul McCartney "invented" the song "Get Back." As well as seeing the song-writing and creation process at work. I have a stronger respect for my least-favorite late Beatles album. And I had no idea just how much Billy Preston contributed to the music. His arrival really boosted all the songs they were working on.
- Wheel of Time - I should have loved the "Wheel of Time" series that is 30 years in the making, instead over two episodes (have not watched it all) it was over-serious with almost no interesting characters except for an over-focus on a secondary character who happens to be more famous than everyone else so they somehow (at least at the beginning) became the star of the show.
For 2022 I'm looking forward to more releases on Disney+. Marvel TV: Moon Knight, She-Hulk, Secret Invasion, and Ms. Marvel. In Star Wars there's Book of Boba Fett that just started, and Obi-Wan Kenobi. And more Taskmaster and other British panel and comedy shows.
Media
This is for non TV YouTube and Podcasts. I was able to let go of many of the politically edged channels this year since the successful regime change, so most of what I partook in was more entertainment oriented.
- Movie Podcasts: We Hate Movies, How Did This Get Made, Filmcast - Sitting at home working meant listening to less podcasts, so I'm way behind on many many of these, but these are still my favorites.
- Taskmaster Podcast - Because of course I'd listen to the official podcast of my favorite TV show.
- Ryan George/Pitch Meeting - Still really love this guy's take on movies. He really finds the ridiculousness of most Hollywood films in a few minutes more than any lengthy in-depth analysis video.
- RedLetterMedia - Bad movies, move reviews, retrospectives, and just weirdness. I love everything these guys do on YouTube.
- With Gourley and Rust - An "easy listening horror" podcast. I really enjoy these guys going through horror series (Friday 13th, Aliens) and then themed series (Christmas, Sharks). I was introduced to Gourley through his James Bonding Podcast and followed him to here.
- Professor of Rock - This guy is excited about anything that came out between 1965 - 1990, but he really has an encyclopedic knowledge about nearly every song and band that came through the rock era. I often learn something new about a song or band I thought I knew everything about, or get introduced to something I somehow overlooked, or gain a new appreciation for something that I may not have exactly cared for originally.
Video Games
Most of my playing this year was between casual iPhone games, a few Steam games, and occasionally the Switch.
- Tabletop Simulator - With the pandemic still coming in and out, this was still the main way I played and/or learned tabletop games this year.
- Legendary DXP 007 - This is a digital implementation of my favorite deck builder game, "Legendary James Bond." But rather than being an exact port of the game into an app, they really took advantage of the digital experience allowing cards to be modified and manipulated in a way you can't do on a tabletop, making this digital game completely different from the physical game despite using the exact same art assets and basic gameplay. I loved this so much that with the initial release being super-buggy, I jumped onto the company's Discord server to become an unofficial beta tester and bug reporter and record and report every issue I discovered so they can hopefully fix and improve (which they have and continue to do.)
- Dicey Dungeons - This Steam game was a really unique Dungeon Crawler mixed with dice builder, with a bunch of different fighters that all play completely differently.
- Pop! Blitz - I was having a lot of fun with this new matching game that I found until I rage quit after three weeks in a row trying to get all the blind-boxed apps in a set and failing.
- Return of the Obra Din - This game is a few years old, but I discovered it this year and really found myself intrigued by the non-chronological telling of the story and actually feeling like a real detective, using very subtle cues and clues to determine the fates of each of the passengers of an ill-fated ship back in the 1800s. The art style is entirely unique, the gameplay is entirely unique, and the experience is, yes, entirely unique.
- Oculus Quest 2 - Not a game, but a Virtual Reality unit that my oldest son amazingly gifted the family at Christmas. Since he took his own VR system away, he replace it with this stand-alone system that requires no extra wires or PC to connect to. It's totally stand alone and a ton of fun. We really haven't had a chance to explore it completely yet, as I'm currently awaiting shipping some upgrades to make it a bit more comfortable to use.
Next year "Breath of the Wild 2" is my most anticipated game and the Steam Deck, a portable switch-like gaming device that plays Steam Games, is my most anticipated new gaming device.
Board Games
Most of my game playing this year was solo, on-line, or with family. I backed a lot of games on KickStarter and purchased or was gifted a lot more games. Sadly, it's still a bit of a struggle to get anyone to play with me. :( I played 277 recorded games in 2021 (down from 346 in 2020.) Those 277 were across 76 different games with at least 55 of them being new to me this year. I played with Jaden the most (76 times) then Colin (37) and Maria (33). All my top players were people in my house this year. I played in 7 different locations, with 47% at home, another 47% online, and the rest split between a few friend homes, hotels, and extended family locations while traveling this year. Here are some games of note for the year:
- Legendary James Bond - Not just one of my most played games on my phone, this was the most played game of the year for me, with 41 recorded plays of both my physical version and the TableTop Simulator (TTS) version. I love this system (Legendary deck building) and feel like James Bond is the best version of it.
- Legendary Deck Building Games: Marvel, Alien, Buffy, Big Trouble in Little China - I started buying expansions for Legendary Marvel this year which is a dangerous thing because there are a *TON* of them. The best ones are the ones that are self-contained rather than large sandboxes. Usually they modify the rules enough thematically that they become their own unique game.
- Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion - I had a ton of fun playing this virtually on TTS. Then I purchased the physical version from a friend and played about half of the scenarios with Colin. Since he's moved out, it has made it difficult to keep playing. I bought the full Gloomhaven giant box game as well to play some day.
- Cubitos - This was my favorite new release of the year. It's a dice builder rather than deck builder and is a really fun racing game with a lot of varieties of dice abilities, and tracks that each game can play completely differently.
- Dice Throne Adventures - This was my most anticipated game for the year and arrived early in the year from backing it on Kickstarter. Unfortunately, it's very difficult and long. Despite starting two campaigns (one with my son Jaden and the other with a friend Ron and his son) we've barely made progress in either. One lasted 3 games and the other 4.
- Micro-Macro: Crime City - This is a very unique game in which you are presented with a giant mat and you have to search to find clues of crimes that have been committed throughout the city and trace them back and forth in time to find out who did it and why. Jaden and I played most of the games online where we could more easily zoom in and around the giant city without getting in the way of each other or messing with the physical logistics of bending over a table and trying to find things.
- JustOne - I bought this for my brother when I was in Utah during the summer and played with his family and mine then. Then we played it at the family reunion. Then with a good price, I got it for our family at Christmas and we had a fun time playing with a full set of players. It's one of those simple premise word guessing games that is fun enough you don't have to play the formal game, just keep going around the table and have a great time.
Next year I'm looking forward to the next Legendary James Bond expansion(s), the next Space Base expansion (will I be able to fit it in the "Big Box"?) as well as quite a few Kickstarters: Dungeon Drop expansion, Tiny Epic Dungeons, Um Actually game, and the Shivers pop-up game.
Books
I actually did a bit more reading this past year than I have in recent past. Part of that was having something to do while sitting in a secure lab while traveling for tests for work where I'm not always 100% involved and need something to do.
- The Martian - I'd seen the movie but had heard good things about the book so I picked it up to pass the time in a lab trip. I really enjoyed it, but it's pretty much exactly the movie.
- Project Hail Mary - Lots of people were saying if you like the Martian, this spiritual follow up from the same author (Andy Weir) scratches the same itch. I'd say, yes it does. It also scratches the same itch that Michael Crichton used to provide of blending science with science fiction. I highly recommend this book if you like the Martian, just don't read too much about it ahead of time, there's some mysteries and twists that I really didn't expect and was glad I went in blindly.
- James Acaster's Classic Scrapes - Just a series of little stories from a British comedian who always seems to find himself in entirely unique situations. Enjoyable.
- Whitehead histories - My parents last year sent several family history books including a compilation of Orville & Della Whitehead Family Reunions, life history of Orville Whitehead, life history of Della Eva Gledhill Whitehead, and another with the story of Eileen and Charles Whitehead, and then for Christmas a scrapbook of our family reunion this summer for Mom & Dad's 50th wedding anniversary.
- Monty Pythons Flying Circus: Hidden Treasures - For the most part this book just told the story that I was already familiar with. However, it was true to its word and detailed several things that the comedy troupe had done that I was not aware of. Most I was able to look up and find on YouTube and so here I was 50 years after some of this was made and 35 years after first devouring Monty Python that I found myself watching completely new (to me) Monty Python sketches! That was a treat.
- Pop Culture kids books: We discovered a whole bunch of illustrated children's books (Pop Classic and Little Golden Book style) that Maria got me for Christmas: Goonies, Back to the Future, Haunted Mansion, Ghostbusters, Labyrinth, Karate Kid, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Universal Monsters, Parks and Recreation, and more.
2022
Last year we were waiting for the vaccine. It came and we thought things might get back to normal. Now we are once again breaking records for COVID cases and wondering when anything will be "normal" again. So for now we have no 2022 plans. It's mostly a take things as they come until we can start looking ahead again. So while I have hope for 2022, for now it continues to blend with 2021 and 2020! Hopefully I can look back at this post next year and think "You are in store for some great things in 2022!" Here's hoping! See you next year.
Comments