Colin Wessman

I love those oldies and hoagies, give me some beefcakes and cheesesteaks

Colin’s Top Ten Movies of 2020

I’ll be honest. I was pretty checked out on new movies for basically all of 2020, though I suppose so was America. It was a bad year for movies, just as it was a bad year for any industry that relied on large groups of people coming together. So looking at my list, I think I saw 80% of these in the last month, though it’s true that most years cram a bunch of their best movies into the end-of-year award cycle period. Still, because all of these are new to me and because I didn’t get to see any of them in a theater, I can’t say I’m all that attached to them. Though that’s not to say that they weren’t worth catching up with, as I’m certainly glad I did. Continue reading →

The Ninth Annual Mildly Pleased Awards

2020 was a year that was anything but mildly pleasing, but nonetheless, we return once again to our yearly podcast celebrating excellence in pretty good-ness. Despite all the tragedy and chaos last year, there were still plenty of things that didn’t make us sad, but also weren’t necessarily great enough to get us out of bed in the morning. This episode’s a long one, perhaps because we had a lot to get off our chest about an unprecedented year, or maybe this awards podcast is always long… I can’t really remember. But either way, if you want to take a look back at 2020 without being depressed, look no further. Now… onward! Continue reading →

Colin’s Top Ten TV Shows of 2020

Most years, I usually try to make excuses for why I didn’t get around to watching as many TV shows as I wanted to. This year, those excuses didn’t really exist. After all, what else was there to do last year than sit at home and let hours upon hours of television whisk you away from an ever darker reality? Yet, there was something about this endless time to sit around and watch TV that made the medium just a little less enticing. It’s hard to look at TV as an opportunity to slow down and enjoy something after a long day when it feels like everything had already slowed down and any sort of enjoyment was hard to come by. That said, I was somehow able to find a bunch of enjoyment in the shows listed below.

Also, I usually include a list of shows I wish I’d caught up with from the past year, but Better Call Saul’s really the only one I have for 2020, which I blame AMC for. Like, why even have an app for your network if it doesn’t have the only show anyone cares about? Continue reading →

Colin’s Top Ten Albums of 2020

2020 sucked and we all know it. So there’s not much reason to belabor the point now that the year is over. Still, there was some good stuff to come out of 2020 in the form of the music, movies, TV, and video games that we were able to enjoy while huddled in our homes all year. We’re starting our Top Ten lists a little later than usual this year, due to our need to catch up with a lot of movies (since movies basically didn’t come out in theaters last year). While it feels a little self-flagellating to extend 2020 any longer, hey, at least the media appearing in our Top Tens will provide us with things to remember from 2020 while the rest of it I’m sure will be easy to forget.

As for music, I thought 2020 was both a very good year for music as well as one where I was able to stay pretty on top of music throughout the year. This was mainly because I was just stuck at home all day and had nothing better to do, and similarly was working an at-home job that allowed me to listen to music all day. The year was filled with a lot of artists I already knew and loved releasing albums that either met or exceeded the expectations I had for them, so if you know my taste in music, this list is probably going to be a little boring. But let’s get going anyway… Continue reading →

The Pick: Paddington and Paddington 2

Well, I hope anyone reading this had as nice a holidays as anyone can have under the circumstances. This week we’re doing double duty (despite the fact that we should probably be taking it easy) by reviewing both Paddington and Paddington 2. We all thought these might be holiday movies going into them, though they’re more just winter movies about family and togetherness. This perhaps makes them good movies to watch in the days preceding Christmas, so why not take a peek at these delightfully British films just as we did? Continue reading →

2020 Music Resuscitated: Live Forever

Bartees Strange – Live Forever

Speaking of more traditional indie rock, here’s an artist acutely aware of how to turn indie’s status quo on its head. Yet at the same time, Bartees Strange also seems just as aware of the power of a rip-roaring rock song, as most clearly demonstrated by “Mustang”, easily one of my favorite songs of the year. Much like Phoebe Bridgers’ “Kyoto” from earlier this year, it’s the kind of song that brought me back to a simpler time (like, say 2010) when an indie artist could have a crossover hit. I’m sure I would have been pretty pumped for just an album full of songs like this, but I’m just as intrigued by all the different genre-bending detours on Live Forever. Continue reading →

2020 Music Resuscitated: Impossible Weight

Deep Sea Diver – Impossible Weight

Most of the albums I’ve been giving shout-outs to or will end up on my Top 10 have received a decent amount of national attention, but for today’s review, here’s a more local favorite. Not that Deep Sea Diver doesn’t deserve to be a little more nationally known, but it’s hard to say I would have heard of them if it wasn’t for Seattle indie station KEXP championing this Seattle-based artist. Also, it’s a little hard to call anything from the Emerald City “local” at this point, since the pandemic has caused this year to be the longest period I’ve spent away from the Pacific Northwest. But listening to the always-reliable KEXP online has been a nice way of staying connected to the region, which for all its changes in the past 10 years can still churn out great indie rock from time to time. Continue reading →