Showing posts with label Television. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Television. Show all posts

04 January 2025

Stuff I've Been Consuming 2024

Can you believe it? My first blog post in five years! I'm back baby! I know it's been dead around here since 2020 but I've never stopped blogging--in my head. I've got years of stacked up posts--okay ideas for posts--stacked up and ready to go.

I'll lead off with the classic annual review of stuff consumed! My tracking for all consumption was in dire straits in 2022-2022, but I've got it all down from 2023 forward so maybe I'll move backwards. Nothing says "fresh" like years old recommendations! Let's gooooo!

Books

I’m almost too embarrassed by my lack of book reading to lead off with this subject. I technically logged about twenty books read but some of those were awfully short, some were semi-graphic novel, and some of them I’m just in the middle of them, but past the fifty percent mark.

Of those reads, I can only cite four as semi-recommends: 17 Things I’m Not Allowed to Do Anymore, Chokepoint Capitalism, Let’s Go Let’s Go, and The Vulnerables. Note, one of those is a children’s book—I like everything by Jenny Offill so far—and one of them is just a non-fiction book that I dip in and out of and still haven’t entirely finished.

With all my video game playing the past few years, I now think of everything in S-themed tier lists. I saw someone do theirs online and decided it was the way to go moving forward. So see the image attached for my books tier list.

Also, with a newfound dedication to making my life about books for 2025, I updated my long dormant Goodreads and will be tracking better as I go. My goal for 2025 is forty fiction books—discounting all the old “cheat” books that I would throw into fiftyfifty.me, including graphic novels, etc etc. That number will also disregard non-fiction books as well, as ingesting those is quite easy.

Also, I spent about a week reading about other people’s To Be Read system and despite some dalliances with more complicated systems, I’m just gonna go with a basic one: Throw up five books, finish them (or quit), before moving on to other titles. More about books on a different post. Let’s just move on…


Movies

With sixty-plus movies watched in 2024, there were only a handful worth recommending. In fact, maybe only four: Dune 2, Prospect, Wingwomen, and The Wild Robot. Dune 2 is self explanatory, it was great and can’t wait for the third one! We watched it again a few weeks later so I can assure you that it’s double great. Prospect is a 2018 sci-fi Western starring Sophie Thatcher and Pedro Pascal. With a minuscule four million dollar budget, Prospect manages to create a wonderful atmosphere and story about a father-daughter trapped on an alien planet.

Wingwoman, a French 2023 Netflix film directed by Mélanie Laurent—co-starring herself and Adèle Exarchopoulos—was a small budget action movie that delivered easy fun and laughs. Compared to most of the spectacle schlock I saw at the theaters this year, it was a gem. And then there was The Wild Robot, which was unexpectedly an absolute delight. While I didn’t enjoy the book (see below), the movie’s charming animation won me over immediately and in a shocker, I think The Wild Robot was the best movie I saw all year! Maybe not the “best” but definitely the most enjoyable.

Of course, I must also throw my heart at Wicked, but that is beyond biased as I’ve watched the Broadway show maybe a dozen times and was not going to be disheartened by any film adaptation. Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande were great—as was everyone else—and Wicked was definitely my favorite movie of the year, if not necessarily the best.

Some other notes: I decided I needed to pick a director to be a completionist and Wong Kar-wai was right there. His filmography isn’t that large—ten I believe—and I’ve seen most of it anyway but started again. Of the ones left to watch are As Tears Go By, Ashes of Time, and The Grandmaster (which I walked out on the time I watched it in the theater).

The Fall Guy was by no means great, or even good, but the Gosling and Blunt team up—my two favorite actor and actress basically—had to be seen and enjoyed. Gosling gets to Gosling and Blunt gets to be witty and fun. It was a blast! The last semi-recommend is Lady Snowblood, which Quentin Tarantino said directly influenced Kill Bill. Once you watch it you’ll see he just about lifted everything.


Television

It was a pretty great TV year actually, with nine series I’d wholeheartedly stand behind: Death and Other Details, Fallout, Pop Star Academy: KATSEYE, Shogun, The English, Under Pressure, We Are Lady Parts S2, X-Men 97, and XG Xtra Xtra.

You’ll note that two of the above are documentaries following k-pop groups. Of the two, Pop Star Academy is the heavily produced, slicker version, but XG’s documentary series—available on YouTube—was better because it followed the group over a span of many years. You’ll marvel at not only how hard the trainees work, but at the vision of Simon, who is the superproducer behind XG.

Of all the shows I watched this year though, it was The English that stole my heart, and I’ve watched it twice already. Emily Blunt and Chaske Spencer—of Twilight fame—star in this revisionist Western that was basically perfection. I tried to watch The English when it came out two years ago but kind of overlooked because of a slow beginning. This time around, I powered through the first twenty minutes and then was hooked for the next five and a half hours. Aside from the outstanding acting performances and breathtaking cinematography, Hugo Blick’s miniseries also (easily) takes the trophy for best woman-led Western. As I told my fellow Blunt enthusiast, “This is Blunt at her Blunt-iest, and being the best!”

A quick note about Death and Other Details, which stars Violett Beane and Mandy Patinkin as a detective duo. After suffering through quite a few not so good detective shows, this little seen Hulu show was the one that finally caught our attention. I tried to like Only Murders in the Building, I really did, but it didn’t scratch the right detective-y itch.

With 2023 in the rearview, I need to catch up on Scott Pilgrim Takes Off and Arcane S2 asap…


Games

I’ll separate these out as digital / video and board game. Of course, there’s a crossover here as Dune Imperium, which started life as a physical game but then transitioned to digital, which is how I play it. Fired up by Dune 2, we got into Imperium heavy and even though I’m still getting good at it, I loved it very much. The Rise of Ix expansion is out now too, so that’ll be exciting.

Successfully avoiding Balatro for most of the year, I made my friend download it for a weekend and he got so addicted he subsequently had to delete it. Nearly everyone says how addictive Balatro is so despite owning it on two platforms, I’ve yet to actually dig in much. But I can recommend it for sure.

A part of my summer was spent playing Call of Duty Cold War Zombie mode, upon the insistence of my friend. Many a night we stayed up late just trying to escape from zombie apocalypse. Then I got us into Cuphead and learned what frustration—and addiction—really was. Both of us were determined to beat the levels and had to set timers to limit ourselves for game play each night. Needless to say, with the game’s legendary difficulty, we are still not done with the game. One game that was a nice refresher between zombie and cups was Cat’s Quest 3. I’d played the two previous versions before and they were both a delight, but CQ3 was the best of them all. High high recommend for a fun time and cuteness overload.

Also a nice shoutout for Disney Illusion Island, which is a simple platformer that was perfect for playing with my nieces. They have mechanics to help the players falling behind—namely throwing ropes down ledges—and that was helpful all around. Plus the art and animation are exactly as you’d want a Mickey and Donald game to be.

For real board games, we got into Detective Portal, upon the recommendation of an employee at Geeky Teas & Games in Glendale. It filled the niche of missing Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective nicely and it was fun to play a game where we could rely on any digital source. 

Follow ups to previous games we loved: Suspects Case 2 and Blowback, the second part of Enigma Emporium’s Predator or Prey series. These are postcard games that include puzzles of all types and while Blowback wasn’t as good as Wish You Were Here, we are certainly gonna stick around to do Parabola to finish out the arc.

And lastly, we quite enjoyed MicroMacro: Crime City, which is tiny characters moving around a huge map. I got us bigger magnifying glasses to use for the game and those magnifying glasses have come in good use for other games as well. MicroMacro’s series of hidden object crime solvers seem like consistent good fun, and playable for all ages!


The Quit List 🚫

The TV quit list was True Detective S4, Monsieur Spade, Mr and Mrs Smith, Grisse, and countless half episodes of stuff—many from Apple TV.

As for movies, I quit twenty-plus of them, with many being ones that were very highly regarded, so much so that I’ve lost all faith in reviewers and am now looking to go back to my old old system—following a single reviewer, and then calibrating off their taste.

Among those mega disappointments were American Fiction, Emilia Perez, I Saw the TV Glow, Shortcomings, and The Killer, which was not really a quit but we only suffered through it because we had already left one previous theater to watch it. See below for a new “which movies do I watch in theaters” strategy.

Also, as usual, I rewatch a ton of stuff unmentioned here—including a whole run of Robin Hood movies—but in mid-December we tried to rewatch Breakfast at Tiffany’s and it was putrid. Even accounting for Oriental Mickey Rooney, this classic film is pretty unwatchable. Prove me wrong…

For books, the quit criteria was similar to before: if I read over fifty percent, I could call it a “quit,” which we established back in the day of fiftyfifty.me, although that number has now been dialed down to twenty-five percent. Basically if I’ve gone past a quarter of a book, it can count as a “quit.” Among those were, again, a few critically acclaimed books that just flat out bombed for me: Ministry of Time, Chain-Gang All Stars, Incendiaries, Rejection (although I did enjoy some of it), Project Hail Mary, all of Sally Rooney, and The Wild Robot (loved the movie, but the book was too simple, which is not a fault but too childish for me). As I’m rededicating myself to reading in 2025, I hope to have a very full book section next year!

30 December 2019

Stuff I've Been Consuming 2019

Well, it's that new year's tradition, time to go over last year's consumption! Why isn't this spreadsheet more filled out and organized? Why isn't there an app for this?! I'm gonna go with final numbers of 57 movies and 20 books, give or take. That's um, not great. That's even down from last year's pathetic totals. Should there be a penalty for not hitting the goals? There should be right?

BOOKS: Well, this is just embarrassing. Despite being home most of the year, I only read very few books. After last year’s debacle of twenty-two books read, I think it’s safe to say that I am no longer a reader. The sum total of books read for 2019 was only twenty, plus six graphic novels. I think cutting out graphic novels in the count is probably the way to moving forward, because yes, I'm using them to pump up my weak numbers.

There were probably some other books I read for research but that’s just a pile of stuff sitting on my desk. Lots of how-to and craft books, along with many others that are related to the book I'm writing. So yeah, in my defense, I was working on a book most of the year and so had no time to read. Ahem. Okay that’s not true but let’s pretend it is. Twenty twenty, the year I'm ready to read again!

The good news is that our San Diego book club is starting up again -- the famed Celebrity Book Club -- because L has returned and that will spring us forward into the year new. Could our book club from a decade ago, Literary Urbanites also make a return? 🤞

I found out there was a Speaker for the Dead graphic novel and read it asap, dying to know what Lusitania’s pequeninos look like. After I read it online — all five issues can be found here — I bought the paper version just to have it. The other book I want to recommend is Six of Crows — and its sequel, Crooked Kingdom — by Leigh Bardugo, which just blew me away. Away! It was so good. (And here is Kevin Wada's character art, and again.)

And I kept seeing Carmen Maria Machado’s Her Body and Other Parties on my feed forever and finally got around to reading it. It’s fabulous and you can read the first story here: “The Husband Stitch” (2014). So yeah, books read this year, an embarrassing fail!

MOVIES: The biggest event of the year was Frozen II, which was about as expected. Better maybe? I dunno, I need to watch it again. The past month has just been me pushing Parasite onto anyone who would listen — strangers and friends alike, and also Knives Out if I think they’d be remotely into a whodunit. (If you watch it multiple times like I did, here’s the Rian Johnson audio commentary.)

But in my late year enthusiasm, I cannot forget that April brought me double bill of Go Back to China and then Swing Kids / Seuwingkizeu. I had a whole post in draft about Go Back to China but I guess I’ll wait on it since it was just bought of distribution and will be out in March 2020. The Emily Ting directed, Anna Kana starring, vehicle hit so close to home. I’ve moved to China before to work at the family factory and this film brought up so many personal touch points.

And then there was Seuwingkizeu, which was undoubtably my favorite film of the year. I mean, I gushed hard already. The sad news is that the official version lacks captions for the English lines, which makes it a tough watch — especially if I was trying to share it with non-native English speakers. Who does this? Offers subtitles but not through all the dialogue regardless of language?!

Overall it was a light year for movies, with fifty-six consumed. The Marvel auto-tens were Avengers: Endgame and Spiderman: Far From Home, with the other ones being Seuwingkizeu, Go Back to China, Parasite, Knives Out, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

2019 was also the year the Deadwood movie finally came out, which was mostly fan service-y but led me down a rewatch path. Still a top five show ever! And shout out for two Penélope Cruz films, Almodovar’s Pain and Glory and Farhadi’s Everybody Knows. It’s a tough call who I liked better as her co-star, Bardem or Banderas, so we’ll call it a tie. Actually on, it has to be Bardem, it’s always Bardem!

Underwhelming: Uncut Gems, Hustlers, The Farewell, Beverly Hills Cop 1/2/3 (I’ve been listening to a lot of Rewatchables so we’ve been watching a lot of old stuff), and the truly awful The Dead Don’t Die, which pretty much almost killed a new friendship before it had a chance to fly, because I recommended it and we had to suffer through it together.



TELEVISION: The hits were Sex Education, True Detection S3, Russian Doll, Mindhunter S2, and Watchmen. I’m not even done with the latter as it just needs to be slow dripped. Also I quite liked The Boys and The Society (also unfinished). I guess I didn’t watch that much TV this year actually! I really wanted to like Umbrella Academy but ultimately lost interest, and with Netflix throwing out some Taiwanese movies and series, I was sure A Thousand Goodnights would be a hit with my mom but it wasn’t good, like at all.

And even though this is a yearly staple, I need to mention the most recent season of MTV’s The Challenge. It was called War of the Worlds 2 and featured a US team versus a UK team. We bought the entire season on Amazon to go ad-free and it was a great decision. Even better, we suckered AMR into watching it with us and he led us to an Alliance Reality Bites victory. It was thrilling. Also I got my friend a Cameo from Johnny Bananas himself, which was truly a highlight. Bananas!


GAMES: I played many a game this year, the product of being homebound and also having a Switch. Lichtspeer is a fun two-player game that can be challenging but also meditative. I loved the art and action of Guacamelee 2 but have yet to finish it. Actually I’ve yet to finish any of the games I’m about to talk about because, well, I guess that’s just what I do?

Most of my Switch buys are for local co-op and of there were two throwbacks that were wonderful: New Super Mario Bros. U is a Wii rerelease but it features simultaneous four player action. Yes, that means classic Super Mario action with four players at once!

And then there’s River City Girls, which is a semi-follow up to one of my favorite games of all time, River City Ransom. Playing as Kyoko and Misako, the girlfriends of Kunio and Riki, makes River City Girls even better than the original. I mean, teen girls punching and kicking their way through malls and squads for cheerleaders? Bring it on!

Oh, also Marvel Alliance 3, which is kind of a throwback. I’ve already spent many hours on this game and will continue to play it over and over, leveling up Spider-Gwen and her friends. All of the old X-Men Legends and Alliance series were great and this one is more of the same. Am I lacking three friends to come over and play with me all the time? Yes, I am, but I push on. Other good co-ops: Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker and Yoshi's Crafted World.

To start 2020, I will be continuing on my quest to catch them all. After some debate between Sobble and Scorbunny, I chose Scorbunny to start, a decision I haven’t regretted. Oh and I got Shield because well, I need Galarian Ponyta. Need! I’ve spent more hours organizing my various Pokemon boxes than actually catching Pokemon, but that’s just setting the foundation for a beautiful Pokedex.

For iOS, I kept buying games but not playing them, but of the few that I did, Meteorfall sucked me in the hardest. I spent a week trying to perfect a particular strategy — at one point even throwing my phone down on the couch with some force, which for me is a huge display of disrespect to my phone. When I finally beat the Lich King on hardest difficulty with Queen of Shadow Rose, I felt like I had conquered Everest. It’s the small victories my friends…

Two wonderfully meditative and beautiful games: Alto’s Odyssey and Sky: Children of Light, Apple’s game of the year. We were taken with Alto’s Adventure when it came out and then AMR started playing the follow up, Odyssey, which is basically the same thing but still splendid. And Sky, from the makers of Journey, was just magical. You meet friends and wordlessly join them in traversing the world, flying and twirling around. The only communicate is by emotes and hand holding and I think I made many deep connections to people who helped me along the way. You’ll be forever in my heart, random helpers of the internet!

Also, this was a big moment for me in my LOL career. H-U-G-E. Taliyah forever...
EVENTS: I must have done something between January and August right? Well, the records tell me a resounding "no!" So I guess it was just a Carly Rae concert in August, followed a few weeks later by a Kacey Musgraves show, and then Poolside right around Christmas. Oh and a Todrick Hall, I can't forget that! Very dancey concert, as expected.

I apparently only saw one musical this year, The Book of Mormon in Mexico City, which was super fun mainly due to sitting right in the first row -- with nobody else around us. Being close to things is the way to go. We were a few rows back for Carly and that was life changing. The lesson to be learned is to be very close to things...and to Carly. Fave song off Dedicated: "Too Much."


PODCASTS: I was on the community panel for Self Evident, a new Asian American podcast that debuted this year. Episode one came out in May and the season ended a few months later. Hosted by Cathy Erway and featuring an experienced and ultra-competent team behind her, Self Evident should have another season coming soon!

I swore my cousin introduced me to The Empty Bowl, “a meditative podcast about cereal.” Alas, it was not her I should thank for this gift. The deep dives into cereal life are indeed meditative, if you can believe it.

For months, writer and all everything Mary HK Choi was making daily minipods with "a focus on mental health and creativity," as part of her Hey, Cool... banner. As a fan of Mary HK, it was like getting her piped directly into my life. The mini format was interesting and I was sad when the episodes got less daily. I would love to see more people do this sort of thiung.

And then there’s Deadline City, which is Dhonielle Clayton and Zoraida Cordova’s new bookish podcast. I listen to quite a few YA podcasts and this one has a friend and is just super fun!

Michael Lewis’ Against the Rules was great. And while this isn’t exactly a podcast, Gladwell’s Talking to Strangers audiobook is pretty much exactly that and I heard that his audiobook was outselling his physical and ebook, and it’s probably because the audiobook is just a podcast. If that makes sense.

10 March 2019

Ranking: EW’s GoT Collector’s Edition Covers

There was a time when I might have wanted to collect all sixteen Entertainment Weekly covers for the final season of Game of Thrones. I used to have boxes and boxes of archived EW issues hoarded away, until the great Kondo-ing of ‘09 —aka my mom made me do it. Nowadays I prefer to save digital images on my desktop and these are the five I’ve selected as the absolute best.
First off, after perusing the collection, most of these covers aren’t good, for reasons I’ll detail out below. All of the major characters get their own cover, including a frightening Night King, but why the solo Bran? The rest of the cast gets split up into some fun pairings but overall I wish the covers had the actors in more casual, or fun, poses instead of being all in-character. But I’m not an art director so what do I know.

Let’s start with the fails. The Bran one is completely unnecessary. While he could be a huge part of Season 8, nobody needs Bran as a collectible cover. Isaac Hempstead Wright should enjoy this career high. (Comment from the internets: "I like Bran's bowl cut; it looks very appropriate for the aesthetic of the show.”) And while I love Varys and Jorah, the composition of their cover just seems off and definitely needs some re-centering.

The Jaime and Arya covers are just plain bad. Jamie’s has a lot of unnecessary fog that makes the bottom of the cover look desaturated while Arya’s photo is set at an angle for some reason. Perhaps it’s to show off her new Valyrian steel dagger — bye Needle! — but still, why the tilt? Arya’s asymmetrical coat and skirt combo are amazing though. Where can I get this outfit?

Literally nobody cares about Euron and Theon, and their cover seems entirely unnecessary. At least throw Yara in there if you’re going to give us Theon. As for the best couple in all of GoT, the Gilly and Sam cover pulled at my heartstrings until I realized that they left out little Sam. Entertainment Weekly does not care about family. Biggest missed opportunity, a pairing of Drogon and Rhaegal. Isn’t that just obvious? Oh and Tormund, I would have liked to see some Tormund. Perhaps paired with a 🧸?

Honorable Mention
The Clegane brothers cover seemed great at first glance due to the fact that these two would never pose together in real life / show life, but then the terrible banners in the background caught my eye. Somebody should’ve just Photoshopped those uneven red borders out. Sorry Greg and Sandy, you deserved better.

5) Jon Snow
This is the best Jon Snow has ever Jon Snow-ed. Kit Harington has the perfect amount of fierce on his face and looks clearly like the Prince Who Was Promised. Spoilers: Maybe.

4) Daenerys Targaryen / Sansa Stark
These two close-ups are gorgeous and both actresses are luminous. The photographer clearly took care to make sure that the backgrounds enhanced the characters' looks. The same can’t be said for most of the rest of these photos. Frankly, I would have preferred close-up shots of each individual character taken by this photographer, and then I would have considered buying all sixteen to display on my office wall House of Black and White / Hall of Faces style.


3) Cersei
Everything about her pose, expression, and outfit is perfect here. Queen Cersei would never be just hanging out on a castle stoop like this but Lena Headey sure would! Cersei looks more regal here than seated on the actual Iron Throne.

2) Brienne
Has Brienne ever looked better? This is Brienne as Vogue cover model and Gwendoline Christie looks incredible. She manages to maintain Brienne's rigid warrior-like presence while giving her face a gentle softness. And again, this is a pose Brienne would never actually do in the show, just like Cersie's above. Absolute perfection all around. This is the author photo I would strive for had I armor and a sword.


1) Missandei / Grey Worm
Sorry I was too hasty earlier in dubbing Gilly and Sam the “best couple in all of GoT.” These two are the real OTP and here they are in the perfect couple shot. That’s a wedding invite right there, let’s just fire them up and print them! While some of the aforementioned covers might be technically better, this is definitely the one I would buy to display because I'd want people to think Missandei and Grey Worm were my friends.


If you've made it this far, consider playing fantasy GoT with me at Fantasora, and yes our very unexciting death pool is still going... Someone please die this season. Just not Gilly please!

30 December 2018

Stuff I've Been Consuming 2018


So I made this brand spanking new Stuff I Consumed spreadsheet, to track everything I consumed — inclusive of books, movies, TV shows, music, games, podcasts, and events — and then promptly didn’t really update it as I got lost in the swirl of traveling and, um, not updating. So I find myself scrambling to figure out how many books I read and how many movies I watched in a nod to Fifty Fifty, even if we had retired it for this year. In the end, I watched approximately 62 movies and read 22 books, a far cry from last year. Still, on with the recommends!

BOOKS: Despite starting strong with a string of good books earlier this year, I really faltered down the stretch. I can still readily recommend The Girls and Annihilation — which I endorsed in my lone 2018 issue of Cool It Now — and I can add to that two more. The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen was fantastic, and I liked it much better than The Refugees. I also enjoyed Gene Luen Yang’s Boxers and Saints, a two-book companion graphic novel set about the Boxer Rebellion.

And then there’s my long time friend Dhonielle’s solo debut, The Belles, which came out in February and has a sequel, The Everlasting Rose, coming out in March. It’s a thrill to see friends publish, especially people that you were friends with way before the writing thing. The Belles hit the New York Times Bestseller list right out of the gate and deservedly so!

MOVIES: I feel like I missed almost all the major “good” movies this year, so much so that I just made a list of things to catch up on for the beginning of next year. So Burning, Shoplifters, Roma, First Reformed, The Rider, Skate Kitchen, Wildlife, The Favourite, Shirkers, I’m coming for you!

I changed my film rating system from A-F to 1-10 and ended up with only four ten-score movies: Avengers: Infinity War, Crazy Rich Asians, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, and A Star is Born. Clearly three of those four were auto tens and A Star is Born blew me out of the water. I wanted to drag my sister to go see it on the big screen but she just wouldn't go with me! Ultimate sibling fail.

There were only six movies that netted a nine and they were Go-Go Sisters, Sicario: Day of the Soldado, All the President’s Men, First Man, Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse, and this lovely Japanese movie I saw on an airplane, Kako: My Sullen Past. Still, to be honest, I can’t wholeheartedly recommend any of these for everyone as they seem pretty genre specific.

Of course, I’ve dedicated my life to watching every remake of Go-Go Sisters so I guess I’d recommend that, but only if you are open to teenage tales that’ll make you cry. So far I’ve seen the original Korean Sunny, the Japanese remake, and Go-Go Sisters twice on the big screen on two different continents. Plus I watched 1995’s Now and Then for research. My favorite remains the Vietnamese version.

My big downvote? Minding the Gap, which is a documentary that is getting lauded everywhere but I found mostly unwatchable and not compelling in the least. Nice skate scenes though. But overall, bleh.


TELEVISION: I finished ten TV series and most of them were so-so, but I really loved The End of the F***ing World (again), Succession, and Maniac, which we haven’t even finished yet. A special shout out for Jean-Claude Van Johnson, which was a nostalgic, and unexpectedly fun, delight.

Oh and if you’re looking for some Taiwan/American romcom, Netflix is carrying A Taiwanese Tale of Two Cities, about two women who swap locations. It’s not for everyone but the Taiwanese cultural stuff and overall FOB-ness is spot on and hilarious.

GAMES: I bought a Switch this year, mainly to play Overcooked 2. I’ve been afraid to jump into more games because well, I’m bad at regulating my time with games. So more on this next year. In the meantime, for iOS games I can wholeheartedly recommend Antihero, Polytopia, and Soul Knight, the latter of which is a free-to-play rogue like dungeon crawler that works seamlessly for local co-op. High recommend for all three! And although I’ve yet to play it on any platform I’ve bought it on, Stardew Valley for iOS dropped and I can’t wait to get into it.

EVENTS: I didn’t get to that many events this year, but did see Katharine McPhee on Broadway in Waitress and then an absolute highlight of the year, Taylor Swift’s Reputation tour, which is now showing on Netflix as a concert film. My friend offered me two free tickets that morning and a few hours later I was out in the rain, singing along to Tay Tay!

PODCASTS: As for podcasts, I already gushed about Night Call, and I’ll add Shedunnit to the list, "storytelling podcast that unravels the mysteries behind classic detective stories.” I had been following Caroline Crampton’s No Complaints newsletter and her podcast was a real thrill. Plus I’d like to push my cousin’s podcast, APT 504, which is Ashley and Emily talking about their pop culture and celebrity obsessions. I also love their tagline: "It's time for pillow talk.”

31 December 2017

Stuff I've Been Consuming: 2017



I bought forty or so books this year, starting with Kiersi’s Shy Girl & Shy Guy at the beginning of the year and ending with The Creative Tarot by Jessa Crispin during the last week of December. Two finds: A huge coffee sized book, Tenements, Towers & Trash: An Unconventional Illustrated History of New York City, by my longtime favorite Julia Wertz. And also a book published in German, Kunstblut, by Alexandra Kleeman. I’m always gonna get a Kleeman book, even one I can’t read, but the fabulous cover also dovetailed nicely with the colors in my house, so it’s really a decorative piece.

But let’s not bury the lede here, in 2017 I read 45 books and watched 85 movies. Yes, that’s right, I almost made 50/50 this year! Of course, clearing the marks would have been nice, but this is the best I’ve done on the books side in years. But enough self congratulations for a job not quite done. Let’s just get to it, shall we?


BOOKS: I started off the year on a fast pace, jamming in about a dozen books in two months. I was sure fifty was gonna be reeeeeal easy. Unfortunately I slowed down a lot in the coming months and it wouldn’t be a lie to say that I haven’t quite finished all of these books. But anything I went over 75% or so on, I’m counting. To be honest, some of these books were just great so I’m savoring them.

I’ve already talked about my three books in three nights binge reading of Anne Patchett. But I also wanna throw in recommends on Dom Casmurro, I Am a Magical Teenage Princess, Sour Heart, all of the The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede (I had only read the first one or two before), and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, which has been twenty years in the waiting from Arundhati Roy.

And who would I be without plugs for friends’ books such as Malinda Lo’s A Line in the Dark,  Cindy Pon’s WANT set in a near future Taipei, Maurene Goo’s I Believe in a Thing Called Love, Nova Ren Suma’s The Walls Around Us, and Dhonielle and Sona’s follow up to last year’s debut, this one is called Shiny Broken Pieces.

Something I wasn’t into, the highly acclaimed and recommended series by Patrick Rothfuss, The Kingkiller Chronicle. I finished the first one, The Name of the Wind, and wanted to love it, but was really just annoyed at Kvothe’s over-competence in everything. Maybe I’ll try the series again since I would love a fantasy world to obsess over, but this wasn’t it. Also, I read most of Sarah J Maas’ Throne of Glass series, which my YA book club is super into. I’m a little more "eh," but they do get better as they go, and are quite addictive.


Speaking of book clubs, I joined a local young adult book club in 2017, and they were probably single-handedly responsible for pushing my book numbers higher this year. I spent many a Saturday night cramming in the monthly selection just so I could show my face at the next day’s meeting. And I love how everyone in the book club are voracious readers, with plenty of recommendations, and geeky interests to share with me. Thank you Children's and Young Adult Literature Book Club: San Diego! Also, the selections they picked were often not ones I would have naturally gravitated towards, so overall the experience was a very interesting insight into what mainstream YA fans are into.

I think I’m gonna have to give up the fifty books goal next year, although I’m considering just high diving into this year’s Tournament of Books, and going straight down the eighteen book list. Basically the other key to success this year was to just read read read, who cares if I was in the mood or liked what I was flipping through, just keep going!

MOVIES: Despite watching 85 movies, and reading that 2017 was a great year for film, I can’t say I saw that many amazing things. Nothing I was even super passionate about, now that I look over the list. The seven straight-A films were: 20th Century Women, Abacus: Small Enough to Jail, Lady Bird, Logan, Mon Mon Monsters, OJ Made in America, and Thor Ragnarok. Taking out the two Marvel movies -- albeit legit non-fan goggles good ones -- and we’re at a mere five A-ranked films. Add in the A-minus movies and we’re looking at only maybe a dozen films I really truly liked. Recommends: The Babysitter on Netflix, which was just hilarious, so fucking hilarious. Actually that’s like my top recommend for the year for an unexpectedly fun throwaway movie full of useful quotes and high rewatchability.

For some reason the past couple of years I've been seeing my favorite movie of the year in January, and this year was no different, as I saw Mike Mill's 20th Century Women pretty early on. I need to rewatch it though to confirm my love for it. But I fear it was like Lady Bird, which I really really admired -- it’s no coincidence Greta Gerwig was in/behind two of my favorites -- but I think I still liked Beginners better so it’s hard to be as passionate about 20th Century. And oh yeah, I almost cried watching Sho Tsukikawa’s The 100th Love With You, which is a contemporary Japanese romcom that involves time travel. I can’t tell if it was the plane watch that got me so emotional, but I think it would have hit me the same either way.

As for disappointing films, the list this year was long. Very long. I went through a stretch of such horribly disappointing (much hyped) films that I thought I was going to have to take a movie break to cleanse myself. There was a back-to-back hopping of Dunkirk and The Beguiled that almost killed my friend and I. Dunkirk was fine, but not anywhere near great, and thank goodness there was nobody else in Beguiled with us because we were trashing it as we watched. Loudly. Sorry Sophia, Beguiled was just awful, and I ranked it my worst movie of the year, which is saying something since I also saw the new Pirates.

Also, this year I volunteered to help program for SDAFF, San Diego Asian Film Festival. From March until November or so, we watched a ton of shorts, and some features -- that I didn’t always count on the sheet unless I theatred it. Through this process, I actually did find a film that I super loved. It’s a twenty-seven minute short but so packed with genius that I couldn’t stop showing it to anybody within range. So yeah, my favorite film of the year is Makoto Nagahisa’s And so we put goldfish in the pool ／そうして私たちはプールに金魚を. Luckily for you, you can watch it right here right now, just click on the link!

TELEVISION: Just like last year, I started tracking the TV shows I was watching. Actually, with so much television, it’s almost just as fruitful to track the series I wanted to watch but haven’t dived into yet. Can you believe I haven’t seen Sherlock S4 or Orange is the New Black S5 yet? I’ve been waiting for the right binge moment I guess. Some of the things I did want to watch but haven’t gotten around to yet include Legion, Preacher, the revamped Twin Peaks, Mr. Robot, Broadchurch, and The Keepers.

However, there were some great things I saw this year, namely finally getting into The Wire, which I spent most of January running through -- I skipped S2 because I read that was okay to do. I also loved Brown Nation, Riverdale, American Vandal, The Young Pope, Attack on Titan, and Terrace House: Aloha State. In fact, getting into Terrace House in the fall of this year is contributing directly to my wanting to go live in Japan next year. “A love worth dying for…."

Also I have to push two series I just crammed in December: Alias Grace and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Sarah Polley adapted Margaret Atwood’s book into a miniseries, writing all six episodes herself, and Alias Grace is better than Handmaid’s Tale to be honest. I haven’t actually finished Handmaid’s but I’m gonna just take a swing and say that Alias was better. And then there’s the insanely delightful Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, created by Amy Sherman-Palladino of Gilmore Girls fame. And well, I’ll stop right there. “Of Gilmore Girls fame…” should be enough of a recommendation.

Absolute trash: 13 Reasons Why. Sorry, if you liked this show I’ve already judged you. It's problematic on just about every level and I couldn't even finish hate watching it. And I wasn’t very high on Dear White People either, which was exactly like the movie: the title was the best part with everything else being pretty disappointing. I quit a lot of shows this year actually.

Anyway, here’s to going into 2018 like Lenny Belardo... what a fantastic opening credits scene right? And here's the Young Pope "you'll never forget" track: "Recondite" by Levo.

If you've read this far, you're clearly interested in my new and revamped Stuff I'm Consuming spreadsheet, which is not only much more detailed and customizable, but also about to have some fancy auto-stats once my spreadsheet wizard gets done with it! Try out a beta version!

03 March 2017

Stuff I've Been Consuming: Jan - Feb


Listening to: “Shut Up,” Anna Marina. From Riverdale’s soundtrack, which is superb.

So San Diego is cooooold! Who knew! I haven’t been back for a San Diego winter in awhile and it’s all I can do to stay in sweats and blankets all day. Toward that end I’ve been reading, watching, and listening to tons of things — and some writing too. Off the top I’m heavyweight obsessed with Riverdale right now. George and I grew up reading Archie comics and this CW version — described as Twin Peaks meets The O.C. — is not only good but heavily nostalgic. Throwing in a murder mystery and noir feel to Archie was just what an update needed. And the casting for Archie, Betty, Veronica, and Jughead is spot-on. Plus, Luke Perry plays Archie’s dad...!

Additionally I’ve been following NBC’s Emerald City very closely, waiting for Ozma to ascend the throne. I’m not sure this Game of Thrones-y version of Wizard of Oz will get a second season but it’s been great to me so far. However you feel about the admittedly erratic plotting and sometimes sparse characterizations, there’s no argument that the sets and costuming are amazing. For example, Emerald City is now literally Park Guell and the show uses a lot of other beautiful Gaudi locations.

The entire first season of Emerald City is directed by Tarsem Singh (The Cell, The Fall) and while his movies can be messes, there’s no arguing they’ve got visual panache. So yeah, Emerald City! If there was ever a crossover between two things I love, Emerald City with Oz and Barcelona has it in spades. (Plus a Faruiza Balk 2.0 in Ana Ularu, who plays a delicious Wicked Witch of the West.)
While I’ve seen about twenty movies in the past two months, the only one I can wholeheartedly get behind is Mike Mill’s 20th Century Women, which I absolutely loved. I'll have to rewatch Beginners again to see which one I liked more, but Mike Mills is just wow. I'm still getting my head around how well Mills writes female leads and then I think about his relationship with Miranda July and suspect that he's probably the only male director capable of doing it. Or maybe I'm overstating his on-pointness. Either way, Mike Mills!

And obviously I loved the shit out of La La Land, which means I was/am on the wrong side of "it's some white people shit," and I haven't been on that side for something popular culture in awhile. I can't defend La La Land against any of its racial downfalls but find myself wanting to celebrate its musical-ness and Gosling-ness first and foremost. So reading all the anti-La La Land posts and seeing people (rightly) savage the film has been quite the novel experience. Something you like so much, hated by so many you respect, how does that change your take on it you know?

 Anyway, onto reading! I’m up to fourteen read books this year, which is huge considering where I usually am. And while I’ve read a few really good things, I have to go out of my way to discuss Ann Patchett. I really loved Patchett’s Truth & Beauty, a memoir about her intense friendship with Lucy Grealy, back in 2012. Truth & Beauty immediately vaulted itself onto my all-time favorites list but I hadn’t gone to any of Patchett’s fiction yet — I did read The Getaway Car, but that was a short memoir about writing.

Well, in three don't-sleep-till-I-finish nights I ripped through three of Patchett’s books. First it was Commonwealth, then State of Wonder, and then Bel Canto. I literally haven’t read nonstop like that in ages, and much less back-to-back-to-back of just one author's work. I couldn't stop or gush enough to other people and now I want to make everyone read Patchett.

I'm not sure how to push her though. Literary Michael Crichton? That’s how I'd sell State of Wonder I guess. Aside from her instantly engaging writing, Patchett is brilliant at plot building and throwing incongruous things side-by-side. For example, Bel Canto is about a terrorist hostage situation, plus opera. State of Wonder is a bit more straightforward, with a scientist who goes into the Amazon to recover a wonder drug, but it also has multiple surprises. And then there's Commonwealth, which has no high concept at all and focuses on just one (extended) family. Overall, I just can't recommend Patchett's stuff highly enough. Go read her now, thank me later.


 Also, my friend Kiersi’s middle-grade horse series just came out, and of course I read them all right away. Kiersi’s one of the most prolific writers I’ve ever met -- plus genre spanning -- and her published stuff is just starting to come down the pipeline. When I was young I read every horse-related book I could get my hands on so getting a chance to read Kiersi’s horse books has been a delicious throwback. If you've got middle-grade aged people in your life, check out the Quartz Creek Ranch series!

And somehow Kiersi presciently knew that the Falcons would make it to the Super Bowl but then become ultimate losers. I read that section a few days after the Super Bowl collapse and um, let’s just say it hurt. Deeply.

30 May 2016

Every Rose Has Its Thorn

I have never seen a season of the Bachelorette but due to following many Grantland / Channel 33 podcasts, I know more than my share about the shows. And while it’s fun listening to Juliet and Co. break down the contestants, I’ve decided that I’m going to follow the Bachelorette even more closely: by watching it.

I’m in because there’s a hole in my summer programming — the NBA playoffs are ending soon — and also because I hear good things about this season’s Bachelorette, Joelle “Jojo" Fletcher. She’s supposedly down to earth, goofy, a good hang, funny, and pretty real, by reality standards.

Oh right, if you don’t know how the show works, and really, congrats on avoiding the mega-franchise all these years, one lucky guy or gal gets sequestered in a house with twenty-plus members of the opposite sex and then they go about a process of dating, elimination, and heartbreaking to win a chance at eternal love. Currently only a few Bachelor/Bachelorette couples have made it all the way through to a successful post-show relationship, but hey, that’s just math isn’t it?

The popular parlour game is to ask your friends if they’d go on a show like this. Most sane people would say “hell no!” but really, when you think about it, when else are you presented with twenty odd people who are all vying for your attention? Sure, most of them have ulterior motives and some of them are total douchebags, but chances are you’ve probably never had so many people working so hard to get to know you.

Having now caught up on the premiere episode, here’s what I noted from EP1 of the twelfth season of the Bachelorette.

• There’s a meet and greet when the guys first get to the house. They emerge from a limo and have a few minutes to make an impression on Jojo. As one of the guys in the house succinctly puts it, there’s two types of guys in the house: classy dudes who project confidence, and then the ones who try too hard, were super nervous, and trotted out the gimmicks. The latter type sometimes got a laugh but when the jokes fell flat and the gag flopped, it just left the contestant in shame, on national television.

While there were a lot of shockingly horrible entrances, bad puns ("I must-ache you a question, but I'll shave it, for later”), and cheesy lines, the ultimate fail grade goes to Jon, the hapa contestant who actually said, "I’m half Chinese and half Scottish. But luckily for me, I’m half Scottish below the waist…” Whut?! Jojo was not amused. And while we can bag on Jon for his awful line, the fact that everyone else in the house ragged on him for wearing a “skirt” was even worse. Get over it, it’s a kilt. (Oh yeah, by the way, most of the Bachelorette contestants are total douchebags, even from the go, and I wouldn’t want to hang out with more than one or two of them for longer than five minutes.)

• Most everyone gave Jojo some variation of “you’re so beautiful, sweet, beautiful, etc.” A few contestants came out sincere, with move like "I didn't come here for a rose, I came here for a relationship.” The one was my favorite, “I love that you have a really good sense of self, that you're grounded, and that's super sexy.” I don’t know if this kind of stuff works, but it’s probably better than just saying how stunning Jojo looked all the time. Seriously, Jojo must have been gorgeous in person because all the guys were drooling over her.

• And there was one guy’s job description that was simply “hipster.” Unfortunately, a show like The Bachelorette has no idea what a hipster is and Brandon simply has longer hair than the other guys — and a weak chin. He confessed to having no idea about this show, or Jojo in general, and I was shocked to see stick around until next episode. (At the end of EP1, six contestants are sent home.)

• One guy also came out of the limo and greeted Jojo with a cheery, "How's it going girlie?” The use of “girlie” irked me to no end and it seemed so condescending. Tell me, is it condescending or not? Especially when the guy using it had just awful hair.

• Who knew All-4-One wasn’t a group of white guys? They came out to sing “I Swear” for one of the contestants and I was like shocked. All those years of George playing the song over and over and I had no idea they were a diverse group. In my defense, I didn’t know Billy Ocean was black until at least fifteen years ago.

• When in doubt about what to say, repeat Jojo’s mantra: “I’m so excited you’re here, we’re gonna have so much fun!” This will be my new go-to line in awkward situations. The best thing about Jojo was her absolute lack of a poker face. You could tell when she was into someone and when she was simply confused or put off. And that’s when watching her fake interest in stuff got 200% more exciting. To her credit, Jojo was really good about being game for everything the guys threw at her. Including sitting on an ex-Marine’s back while he did push ups. Who does push ups to make an impression? Oh right, little dudes with a Napoleon complex.

• So the big loser move of the night had to go to the guy who did the origami fortune telling thing and the “prize” was a kiss. After Jojo gave him a half-hearted peck, he asked her if it was a sympathy kiss. C’mon! If you have to coerce someone into a first kiss then you’re doing awfully wrong. Especially when you’re doing it elementary school style.

• Let’s talk about touching. Like is it normal for guys to touch a girl so much on a first date sort of thing? Technically the contestants weren’t on a date but they each had a few minutes alone with Jojo and the camera really zoomed in on how certain guys were so touchy with her. Caressing her hair, rubbing her back, holding her hands, etc. Is this okay? I feel like guys who are touchy feely off the bat are so gross. Who’s with me?!

• The Canadian guy with the creepy stare. Was, creepy. And then he got drunk and took off his clothes and started poking people in the belly button. And then he jumped in the pool. That is why you definitely need to meet your dates quickly in the process, otherwise a perfectly nice looking guy could turn out to be a total creepster. It's all in the eyes!


• Dating tip: If the best thing a girl can say after meeting you is “he’s so sweet,” you’re in trouble. Most of the guys who got the “sweet” kiss of death made no impression and were swiftly kicked out. Maybe nice guys don’t finish last in reality, but on reality TV they certainly blend into the background.

• Aaron Rodger’s younger brother, Jordan, is on this show. There’s no question he had the best chemistry with Jojo, both physically and emotionally, and he really put her at ease while most of the other guys were tense and nervous. However, there’s already drama about him as Jordan’s ex-girlfriend has taken to the interwebs to call him out for cheating. "Riding the bench [Jordan used to play in the NFL] doesn't get in the way of a relationship, but cheating does.” Oh snap! There’s also allegations that he’s on this show for exposure and not “in it for the right reasons.” While all of this may be true, it’ll be a major upset if anyone but Jordan wins Jojo’s heart.

• My friend Des is in a Bachelorette pool at her office so I'll be exclusively cheering for Chase, Derek, Robby, Chad Jordan, and Christian. The promos suggest Chad becomes a physically dangerous maniac so luckily Des crossed him off her initial list. I will be cheering extra hard for Christian, who seems like a stand up guy, and more importantly, is biracial and would be a nice reprieve from the complete whiteout of the previous Bachelorette winners. Oh yeah, there's so many basic dudes on this show it's like a documentary for me. David Attenborough presents Planet Earth: White Guys. Then again, most reality TV is full of these types so maybe it'll be nothing new.

• So far it has been interesting to see the guys size each other up, get jealous, sweat in nervousness, and generally try to create a pecking order. I'm hoping this type of shenanigans continues and I'll be taking careful notes all season long about what tips I can glean from Bachelorette.

04 March 2016

2043

Listening to: Grimes, Art Angels, the entire album. And also watching all her accompanying videos. Start with "Kill V. Maim."

We just wrapped up 12 Monkeys, the TV show on Syfy, now Netflix. In the series, James Cole (as played by Pyro from the X-Men movies) is tasked with stopping a biological apocalypse that dooms the world in 2017. He starts off about thirty years from then starts hopping backwards in an attempt to stop the plague.

At first, I was concerned that the show wouldn’t compare to the movie — which I loved to the point of almost obsession. However, after finishing the first season, I almost like the TV series better. Blasphemy, I know! Sure, there’s no Bruce Willis, or Brad Pitt, or Terry Gilliam’s mad genius around but the extended TV format allows this 12 Monkeys to bring in more characters and sub-plots. Some of the side pieces felt a bit dragged out for no reason and there are currently too many new characters around but by the last three episodes of Season 1, I was already anticipating the start of Season 2 in early April.
"Where are you right now? Somewhere warm? Safe? Next to someone you love? Now what if all that was gone, and the only thing you could do was survive? You would, right? You'd try. You'd do things, horrible things. Until you have that last thing you have left: yourself. But what if you could take it back? All of it. A reset switch. You'd hit it, right? You'd have to. Even if you didn't want to. Because sometimes the choice isn't even yours, it's fate.”
-12 Monkeys Season 1 Finale Review: May the Circle Be Broken-
Back in college I sat around theorizing a lot about what was really happening in 12 Monkeys. The Internet was around then but it wasn’t yet the repository of fan theories so it was left to us lone idiots to puzzle out what had happened. It’s the kind of thing you do in your twenties I guess. “We need to figure out what is happening, and if it makes sense!” A good time travel movie is catnip for anyone trying to prove their intellectual prowess. Sidenote: If you want to get into a serious time travel movie, try Primer by Shane Carruth. The post-movie deep dive can go on forever for that one. All the charts and graphs and explanations, it’s wild.

Non-spoiler spoiler alert for 12 Monkeys, the movie: Basically I thought that no matter what happened, James Cole’s mission would be a success because each successive failure could just be fixed the next time around. I assumed we were just watching one version of Cole’s journey. And if there were a 12 Monkeys sequel or something that he would eventually save the world. Of course, that’s not accounting for the fact that Cole might die or that the time machine could run out of power. Both of those factors means that there aren’t an infinite amount of jumps available to fix things.

And let’s make this entire post monkey-themed. We also recently saw Zootopia, which opened out here before the States. My friend who saw it said simply, “It’s going to be huge.” After watching it, I have to agree. I don’t think I’ve giggled so much through a movie since Cloud With a Chance of Meatballs 2. Zootopia is whodunit set in a world where anthropomorphized mammals rule the earth. Minus the humans. And any primates. At the end of the movie I was just listing animals that weren’t in the movie. Like dogs, and cats. And marsupials. It’s hard to disagree with leaving monkeys and man’s best friend out of the movie — they already get enough shine — but if you’re going to use some more obscure animals like a Fennec fox, why not go all out and use cool mammals like a platypus or something? Anyway, go see Zootopia, it opened bigger than Frozen and if there was a good song attached, it would probably dominant the airwaves too.

Last thing, Vainglory, the iOS game I pushed last year, is still in my daily routine. They recently released a special map and character skins to coincide with Lunar New Year. Included with that was a new character, Ozo, who is basically like the Monkey King-lite, but this version carries around a giant golden ring as a weapon. It’s a dragon ouroboros, which also coincides with the name of my fantasy football team: Hungry Hungry Ouroboros. A big life decision was if I should purchase this Ozo character and fulfill my destiny.

I mean, do you believe in fate or not? Happy Year of the Monkey, I guess.

10 September 2014

My Whole Life Became Like Divided

We interrupt this non-regularly scheduled programming to bring you this important announcement: My So-Called Life turned twenty this year. And that deserves an entire post dedicated to the MSCL links and articles that have been going up, especially over at Vulture.

I clearly must read them all, and then carefully parse through this "MSCL: Ranking the Episodes" list. (Already "Self-Esteem" at #13 is criminal.) This could call for a special podcast episode actually. And I already know who I would tap as special guests. If there’s one thing that can make me insta-friends with someone, it’s a shared obsession with MSCL. So come along best friends, and let's leave the non-MSCL watchers behind!

My So-Called Life remains my favorite show to this day, even if I concede that better teen-centric shows have come out since then. For example Freaks & Geeks is objectively a better and more consistent show. Still, MSCL rules all. Angela forever! It feels weird that my favorite TV show will likely never change until the day I die. Like my TV watching peaked at sixteen. But really, what could top MSCL? Please just play that little "and danced by the light of the moon" outro during my funeral pyre. Thanks.
"And that’s where My So-Called Life had the secret ingredient every other show about teenage life was lacking: the agelessness of insecurity. What no one tells you when you’re younger is that that painful inner monologue never quiets down, and all that really changes between the time you leave high school and become an adult is that you have a job to work and bills to pay. You never stop doubting yourself. You never stop feeling those awkward cringes that make you want to collapse in on yourself like a camping chair."
My friend, while getting her MFA in musical theater, had Winnie Holzman as her advisor. That basically meant I was only one degree away the genius behind Angela. Not that I ever got to meet her but still, this semi-closeness to Holzman buoys me, especially when I'm dancing in the dark by myself.

Also, while we're here: "'Everybody Wants to Live': An Oral History of Party of Five’s First Season." Not a pantheon show but I watched a boatload of Party of Five too. Wednesday nights and Stucchi's ice cream. It was tradition.

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