Ok, we’re almost done with our multi-month long onslaught of lists. While making my list, it became apparent that my list is not going to be that exciting because I seem to have the taste in movies of your average unadventurous film critic. Still, every single movie on my list does have some sort of special significance for me, even if a lot of them were critical consensus favorites when they were released. I was hoping to rewatch all of the movies on my list before constructing my top 10, but didn’t quite get there. I’m sure my list will not be the same a few years from now, especially considering the most recent year was such a good year for movies that I’m having a hard time contextualizing it in the grand scheme of the decade. Anyways, on to some movies I guess… Continue reading →

Making my best of the decade list for TV was both very frustrating and very easy. Frustrating because unlike an album or a movie, you can’t easily rewatch a whole TV series in the name of research. So instead of spending hundreds of hours rewatching these shows, I’m doing this all from how well I remember them. Which, of course made things all very easy, considering the lack of research and reassessment involved in writing this. So… let’s just hope these shows are still as good as I remember. Continue reading →

The 2010s were a complicated decade for me, musically speaking. It was the first decade where I felt like I was more or less in touch with new music for the entirety of the decade, and yet it was also the first time that I truly felt old while discovering new artists that were younger than me. It was a decade that saw countless albums that I loved, and also in many ways felt like a decade where two of my favorite things — albums and rock music — seemed to decrease noticeably in cultural relevance. It was the decade where I eventually took over as “the music guy” at Mildly Pleased, and thus spent a lot of time writing about the kinds of albums that’ll be appearing on my list. Well, let’s take one last gander at them. Continue reading →

I think there’s little disputing that 2019 was a great year for movies, and I’m not sure I have much to add to that sentiment. It was a great year for movies if you wanted to see something small and artsy, it was a great year if you want to something mid-budget and weird (thanks A24), and it was a great year if you wanted to see something grand and spectacular at your local multiplex (sans a disappointing Star Wars conclusion). I felt like I stayed fairly up-to-date with all the movies worth seeing this year, and yet there’s still a few I wished I’d been able to cram in. But hey, that’s not a bad problem to have. Continue reading →