What entertained me on screen this year

I am not gonna write a top ten list of various categories of things, I don't really think I consume enough things to make a list that means anything, I don't know if I played any new video games this year and while I heard music I liked, it was on the radio and I don't know if I actually remember song titles or artist names.

I also don't think I really absorbed any good stuff this year, I tend to read and go to movies for escapism, and most Oscar-bait type stuff, character studies, explorations of identity, that sort of thing, just aren't what I am interested in, I usually am interested in detectives who are wizards, or seeing a monster fight another monster, or decapitations, that sort of thing. That said, here, in no particular order, is a list of stuff I saw this year that left a positive impression on me.

Avengers: Infinity War.

Lots of people are tired of super hero movies, particularly from Marvel, and those people are EXTREMELY TIRESOME folks who don't like JOY. I get it, they aren't high art, they are super-commercialized, other studios attempting to emulate the Marvel Cinematic Universe are failing and doing damage to otherwise interesting properties, but that doesn't mean you can't have fun, and I fuckin' love super heroes, flashy costumes and energy blasts and the good guys being good are perfectly okay once in a while.
The MCU gave us Black Panther, Ant-Man and the Wasp, and Infinity War this year, and they were all wonderful. Ant-Man was a refreshingly low stakes romp, Black Panther had a uniquely powerful impact and the only reason it isn't on my list is that I don't feel like I was the target audience to really get the most out of it, that isn't a complaint mind you, not everything has to be for me explicitly. But Infinity War, that was for me, the culmination of ten years of movies telling a storyline that I first read at around age ten or so. And it was different, if I have a complaint about comic book movies it is that you can basically ignore the last fifteen minutes or so of the film, you know, the part where the heroe(s) and the villain have the climactic showdown, by that point there are no more surprises, you are in for a blast of CG light and sound and at the end the bad guy will be defeated and the hero will have something witty or deep to say, queue credits and wait for the post credit teaser for the next one.
Infinity War, well, it had the big fight scene at the end, but for the rest, well, it didn't do that. I knew how it was going to end because I read the comic books, but it was still a punch in the gut and if my theater was any indicator most people felt the same seeing the results on screen.
My main complaint is that now Avengers: Endgame has a high bar to clear and I don't think it is gonna do it, because I mean, the heroes do have to end up winning in this one, but that is for the future. Today, Infinity War kicks ass.

Annihilation

A lot of folks missed this one which is too bad because this one was pretty darn neat. Based on a novel of the same name(by a Portland author even) this tells the story of an expedition into an area of the American Southwest that has been changed in unsettling ways in the years since something fell from space. Think "The Colour From Space" meets "2001" themes of evolution and self discovery are throughout, and it is creepy as all get out. In the end, we barely know more than when we started, and still have more questions. Which is fine! Not everything needs answers, all I really need is a decent narrative and fun stuff to look at, which this has in spades. In fact, were it not for another film on this list, I would say it is the most visually interesting thing I have watched in years refraction and reflection are themes in the story and they are reflected(heh) in the visual style, with shots often done through something else, a window, a glass of water, with an explosion of color through the mutated plant life of the world. Annihilation also is the first movie I have seen in which I really noticed the sound design, the soundtrack specifically kind of makes the movie. It might not have been the best film of the year, or on most people's best of lists even, but it stuck with me.

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

I can't say much about this honestly, I don't really think that guilty pleasures are really a thing, most times it isn't worth feeling guilty about stuff that gives you pleasure, but this show is kind of trashy. It surely isn't going to break any new ground for emotional storytelling, but fuck it, it's tons of fun and just cheesy enough. Shut up and embrace Satan.

Gotham

I've given this a full write up, and nothing to date has proven me wrong. Still the best show on TV and anyone who says otherwise is a coward. The final season starts this week and that gives me the first thing to look forward to in the new year.

Spider Man: Into the Spiderverse

I saw my first add for this almost a year ago and thought that it looked fun and I should keep my eyes open for it, then months went by and I sort of assumed it had already come out, being released to DVD and streaming or something, so I was surprised when trailers started popping up again a few months back. Remember that I love super heroes and Spider Man in particular so I was definitely on board for the big screen debut of Miles Morales but had no major expectations than my usual "have fun".

Into the Spiderverse is the best comic book movie to come out this year, possibly the best movie period to come out this year, and easily the best comic book movie that I have seen to date.

It's a breath of fresh air to the genre, I don't really know how to talk about it without going into plot details, Miles Morales is a kid in NYC from a lower class family struggling to fit into his upper class school, he stumbles across Spider Man fighting villains, runs away, is bitten by a spider himself, you know the rest, but then five other Spider people show up, stuff happens. It's pretty neat and I would watch a movie focused on any one of the characters in it, including Aunt May or Miles' uncle.

It looks goddamn amazing, like nothing you have seen animated before. I don't mean realistic, it is obviously a cartoon, more like, the platonic ideal of an animated comic book, if that makes any sense at all, it did in my head anyway, it looks like what goes on in your head when you read a comic book. I dunno, I am not doing a good job at this I think. I want you to go see it and then we can talk about it.

Those are the big ones on my mind as the year closes, tomorrow I will talk a bit about goals and things, and reveal why I am writing more, the answer may not surprise you.