The movies are kind of back? After filmmaking was ravaged by legitimate concerns for cast and crew safety, pandemic protocols, and studio delays, 2022 brought a breadth of excellent films, the quality of which hasn’t been seen since at least 2019.
year in review
The Top 10 TV Shows of 2022
The 10 best shows of 2022.
The Top 10 Movies of 2021
As Hollywood continues its systemic eradication of the mid-budget movie, most of what remains is micro-budget indies and mega-budget blockbusters. Some incredibly talented filmmakers managed to make the best of an increasingly binary industry in 2021.
The Top 10 TV Shows of 2021
The 10 best shows of 2021.
The Top 10 Movies of 2020
2020 saw an unprecedented number of titles delayed to 2021 and 2022 in response to COVID-19. Bond, Black Widow, and a host of other films that don’t feature European superspies were pushed to greener ($$) pastures. What remained was a surprisingly robust group of movies.
2020 Game of the Year: The Last of Us Part II
Santa Monica-based game developer Naughty Dog released The Last of Us in a nearly unrecognizable world in 2013. President Obama’s second term provided a backdrop of optimism—a serendipitous juxtaposition for austere art. Players controlled Joel (Troy Baker), the survivor of a zombie outbreak, as he trekked across the country with Ellie (Ashley Johnson), a girl immune to the pathogen. Joel and Ellie journeyed from Boston to Salt Lake City to deliver Ellie to a medical team that could turn her antibodies into a cure.
The Top 10 TV Shows of 2020
2020 was abysmal across the board. Well, except for television, of course. Because the one thing we all needed was more television.
2019 Game of the Year: Control
The end of a console generation usually signals a wave of indelible experiences. After years of learning a system’s capabilities, resourceful game developers craft the console’s grandiose swan songs.
The Top 10 Movies of 2019
Disney, the IP empire behind Marvel, Star Wars, and remakes of its own animated classics, was responsible for an asinine, unprecedented 80 percent of box office hits in 2019. The dominance of a single multimedia conglomerate is counter to the oligopoly that we’ve grown accustomed to in the entertainment industry (and, broadly speaking, the United States).
The Top 10 TV Shows of 2019
With stars like Mahershala Ali, Toni Collette, and Meryl Streep slumming it on the small screen, 2019 was another year dominated by miniseries, anthologies, and bite-sized seasons. Although a handful of new faces were able to enter the collective consciousness, the year’s best work came from familiar names and shows.
A Mixed Review 