| 23/1/2019 Late enough as I can get away with, so on with the awards. Best Movie: A Quiet Place This movie is so good, I saw it twice. Even on the second time and with slightly too much noise in the cinema, the intense part was intense! I also appreciate that the ‘bit where everything goes wrong’ was not triggered by the thing I was expecting. Best Effort at a Movie: Alpha Beautiful scenery, simple story, I felt the developing relationship between the boy and the wolf-dog was too quickly developed. Also, half the time I felt it would have worked better animated. Ah well. Biggest Movie Shock: Avengers: Infinity War That ending man. The whole theatre was stone quiet when the credits rolled. Highlight at the movies: After seeing Widows (also a great movie) we left the cinema to be greeted by staff in very clear English, stating their sincere apologies for not cleaning up the theatre room before the movie had started, so we all received a voucher for a free movie viewing of our choice. Odd moment at the movies: I saw ‘Aquaman’ on Christmas Day. The theatre was half full. Best runner-up: Black Panther. It’s nice to see a strong, proud, advanced African country for once (even if Wakanda’s not real). Now for the TV awards…oh boy, I watched so much TV this year. Return to form: Doctor Who. After 13 years from re-launching it FINALLY feels like Doctor Who. Not a fanfic Doctor Who, not a re-imagining of Doctor Who, authentic Doctor Who. I was also taken aback at how good the special effects look in this iteration – it’s not goofy, campy or cheap, and the solid casting and scripting make it feel like a real science fiction show (as opposed to the genre-of-the-week format that the reboot usually felt like). (Side note: I owe Jodie Whittaker an apology. The idea of a female Doctor has been bandied about for decades but I had honestly felt the timing was too convenient and ham-strung, like it’s a publicity stunt as opposed to inspired casting. But nope, scripting has been solid, characters are likeable and Jodie has infused multiple personality facets from several previous incarnations.) The ‘sigh’, I give up and I admit it’s good award: Stranger Things. Season 2 came out this year, so I count it. The strongest element of this show is that no one acts like a moron, so I’m even able to tolerate the hysterics of Joyce as even she is using her smarts to figure out what’s going on. Best Feminist Show: GLOW While it is definitely a love letter to the insanity of the Wrestling industry, there is a lot of discussion of the nature of entertainment as an industry in the 80s. There’s the agent who tells a very talented (but not that conventionally pretty) actress that she just uses her in casting calls to prove to directors they don’t want anyone outside of the mould, there’s the said actress who bemoans the fact that women don’t have the option to become directors, there’s the other actress who outright states the “rules of the industry” when it comes to women…it certainly makes you think and appreciate how far we’ve come that one of last year’s big hits was Wonder Woman, directed by Patty Jenkins. Best British Show: ‘Bodyguard’ Now if only Netflix can stop advertising it as an original production, it’s a BBC show dammit! Show I want to see: Deutschland 86 I got several recommendations for Deutschland 83, including from a French colleague and…it’s great. I can’t find any uploads online for its sequel though. The TV show everyone should watch: Brooklyn 99 Show’s next season that I’m really looking forward to: Orville The ‘real’ Star Trek sequel ;) I played no video games this year, so I have already begun 2019 by playing ‘What Remains of Edith Finch’ and downloading 2 games on reduced price on the PSN. So yay! More stuff to look forward to. |