Top Records of the Year

It’s time for my annual Year In Review! Now, normally I write about the top three concerts, albums, books, and movies that I experienced this year, but I’m going to be honest- there hasn’t been much competition in the last two categories, and in the first two, there is no way I can decide between all of them. So I’m going to log all 27 of the newly-released albums that I listened to this year, ranked in order of favorite to least favorite, with some standout tracks highlighted.

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Books I read in 2019

As with the previous list of records I heard in 2019, I’m finding it too difficult to rank the books I read in order of favorite (although for the opposite reason as the records, meaning that none of them really stood out to me), so I’m just going to list them all because my Goodreads list is inaccurate and that annoys me. Asterisk next to the ones I’d read before.

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Movies I Saw in the Theater in 2019

I think I’ve seen even fewer good movies this year than the few good books I’ve read. So, to narrow it down instead of trying to sort through a sea of mediocrity, here’s a look back on all the films I saw in the theater:

Rocket Man

John Wick Chapter Three: Parabellum

Downton Abbey

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

I also saw the new Little Women, but not in the theater (don’t ask).

…yeah, it has been a dismal year for my interest in movies.I’m only looking forward to two of them coming out next year (The King’s Man and TENET), and not necessarily because I’m excited about the plots, but because I feel obligated to see them due to my love for the Kingsman series and Christopher Nolan. Strangely, I got into TV a lot more than movies this year, even though that’s always been my least favorite storytelling medium. To lengthen this post, here are the shows I discovered and got into this year:

Westworld

Good Omens

Better Call Saul season 4

Barry

Cowboy Bebop

Now that is quite an assortment. Conveniently, Westworld and Barry both air on HBO and there are actually two other programs on HBO that I’ve been meaning to check out, so I’m actually going to sign up for a TV service for the first time in my life. Cannot wait for Better Call Saul season 5 (which I hope will be the final season). And technically I haven’t finished watching Cowboy Bebop, so I’m hoping the second season (which I haven’t seen) is as enjoyable as the first. I also really want to catch up on and finally finish Arrested Development (I’m assuming the season they released this year is the last one), and have been meaning to check out the Netflix original Living With Yourself, which just from reading the premise is giving me the same wacked-out vibes as one of my favorite shows from last year, Maniac. I hope Netflix makes a strange sci-fi dark comedy every year, I would really enjoy that. Lastly, I need to find a place to pirate The Mandalorian because I am not paying for Disney+ and yet I am morally obligated to watch that show thanks to coworkers complaining about it (and baby Yoda is precious).

Best Concert Moments of 2019

In 2019, I saw roughly 48 musicians perform at 26 different shows. For this list, I’m narrowing the shows down to only the big-name touring artists that I saw, and picking out three moments from each show that stood out to me, as there’s no way I could rank them in order of enjoyment. All were special shows in their own ways.

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I went to see a screening of Back to the Future tonight, which is one of my favorite movies ever. Despite the children around me talking, plus a guy who kept laughing and applauding at nearly every single scene (though tbh I don't blame him because the movie is a masterpiece!! just keep it down so we can enjoy said masterpiece, okay?), it was great. Exactly what I need to start off the new year! The whole thing with George and Marty being inspired to pursue their respective dreams resonated deeply with me, especially considering my new year's resolutions (but I'll make another post about that).

Last night we were discussing celebrity deaths that might occur in 2020 (it was part of an even more fucked up conversation, consider yourself lucky that this is the only part of it I'll repeat), and some big ones that were named as particularly heartbreaking, should they occur, were Betty White, Anthony Hopkins, and Clint Eastwood. I really don't have a personal connection to any of those people, but I realized tonight that one celebrity death that I just know will hit me hard is Christopher Lloyd. I love Michael J. Fox so much, and I love him as Marty McFly, but honestly, from Christopher Lloyd's very first scene in BTTF, he straight-up steals the movie out from under MJF's nose. I've only seen him as Doc Brown and Judge Doom from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but I truly think he is a gift to this world. (At least, Doc Brown certainly is.)

This time watching the movie, I got to thinking about George and Lorraine's relationship. It's interesting to me that they stayed together in the second timeline that Marty inadvertently created, seeing how George was so much different, personality-wise. It definitely seemed to make them happier- the scene where the McFly family is having dinner and Lorraine is watching George laugh at the TV and she just seems so low-key regretful always gets me, like she's as ashamed of her husband as he is of himself. She didn't really know him when she claims to have "fallen in love;" she just felt sorry for him and wanted to act as a mother hen, plus I'm sure her rebellious nature made her more eager to take up with a boy as soon as possible. So when he turned out to be, well, a wimp, and she wanted a strong man to protect her, it makes sense why she'd eventually be disappointed with her life. In the second timeline, her attraction to George began because George was precisely the kind of man she was looking for, and I just can't help thinking about how drastically that must have changed their relationship. Really, when you think about it, it's surprising that so much of their future stayed intact, at least regarding the kids. Could the changes in George & Lorraine's relationship have affected their decision to have kids? What if they'd decided to have them earlier or later in life? What if they'd decided to only have two kids, and Marty was never born at all? Obviously in the movie is didn't affect them, but hypothetically, could that affect someone's future? I love George and Lorraine, they're a cute couple, and I wish we could see a little more of them. The BTTF comic books thankfully satisfied this need, with one comic about George & Lorraine, where George says "I'm your density!" as a couple's inside joke and it's the cutest thing ever. Plus I like thinking about the McFly siblings and how they probably think Marty's a nutcase after he comes back from 1955 the first time, but they love him and want to help him no matter what strange things he's going through.

Also, I realized what's interesting about this series is how part of the first movie's message has George becoming more assertive/gaining more confidence by accepting traditional masculinity- sure, Biff really deserved it, but it's interesting how the day/Marty's life/the entire future is saved by George knocking Biff out with one punch, as if violence will solve all problems- but then the next two movies deconstruct that by showing the negative repercussions of being unable to let go of one's pride and walk away from a fight. This is what leads me to believe that the Marty in the second and third films has been affected by the new future he created in a ripple effect way, because Goerge probably taught those values to his kids and Marty took it to heart.