The Americans

30 December 201823 February 2019

2018 in Pixels

By Source, Fair use, Link

Enjoyed on the big screen:

Ice King: John Curry
Juliet, Naked
Jusqu’a la garde (Custody)
Lady Bird
Lady Macbeth
Mystery Road
Puzzle
Small Town Crime
Wind River
You Were Never Really Here

Honourable mentions: The Shape of Water; Isle of Dogs; A Little Chaos.

By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, Link

And on the small screen:

Alias Grace
Cobra Kai S01
The Casketeers S01
Barry S01
Five Came Back
Godless
The Handmaid’s Tale S02
Peaky Blinders S01–04
Sharp Objects
The Thick of It S01

Honourable mentions: Condor; Haunting of Hill House; Ozark S01–02; Six Feet Under S01–05.

And here’s a new “How the heck do they stay so damned good?” category for returning titles that threaten to clog up my annual top ten: The Americans S06; Better Call Saul S04; The Expanse S03. I do miss the suburban adventures of ~~Elizabeth and Philip Jennings~~ Nadezhda and Mischa but all good things come to an end.

1 January 201717 January 2017

2016 in Pixels

Okay, I’ve been a bit laggardly on the fitness and health side of things but that’s okay: I’ve been investing those ‘lost’ hours in my televisual research (145 titles totalling 496 hours, up a respectable amount from last year).

By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, Link

Enjoyed on the big screen were:

Mississippi Grind
Deadpool
45 Years
The Hunt for the Wilderpeople
The Nice Guys
La Isla Minima
Keanu
The Accountant
Blood Simple
99 Homes

Honourable mentions: Beach Boy Brian Wilson biopic Love and Mercy, unexpectedly affecting Rocky spin-off Creed, the unlikely and uncompromising Young Adult, the ridiculously fun Central Intelligence, and Florence Foster Jenkins which I was totally prepared to hate but couldn’t because it was so well executed.

By DreamWorks Television and/or FX – The Americans, Season one episode five “COMINT“, Public Domain, Link

The small screen offerings held their own:

The Americans S01–04
The Expanse S01
Getting On (UK, 2008) S01–03
Better Call Saul S02
Low Winter Sun (UK, 2006)
Animals Pilot
Westworld S01
Game of Thrones S06
Catastrophe S02
The Good Wife S07

Honourable mentions: low key sci-fi robot drama Humans S02, an happy bonus season of Offspring S06, and Transparent S02 which continues to make me scratch my head after each ep but unable to stop pressing the Next button for the next episode.

(I’d actually already watched the first two seasons of The Americans but made the mistake of introducing the Goddess to the pilot. It was a hard slog rewatching those first two seasons, I tell you.) (It wasn’t a hard slog — it’s a damned good show.)

Bring on 2017!

30 December 20158 January 2016

2015 by 4K and 720p

Ay caramba, that was quick.

“Sicario poster” by Source. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

Enjoyed immensely on the big screen:

A Most Wanted Man
Top Five
Ant-Man
Love is Strange
Inside Out
Amy
Sicario
Exit Through the Gift Shop
Spotlight
Steve Jobs

“Top Five poster” by Source. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

Honourable mentions to John Carpenter‘s remake of The Thing which was enjoyed with a bunch of millenials who were genuinely freaked out by Rob Bottin‘s 1980s-era SFX, Cartel Land, The Guest, and Warrior which I finally watched after years of ravings by the inestimable Mr Fyers.

Devoured with great pleasure on the small screen:

Justified S06
Transparent S01
The Americans S02
Game of Thrones S05
Mr Robot S01
Nurse Jackie S07
Catastrophe S01
The Good Wife S06
Arrow S02–03
The Flash S01–02

“Catastrophe (2015 TV series) title” by Source (WP:NFCC#4). Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

Honourable mentions to the CW’s one-two combo of Arrow S03–04 and The Flash S01–02, the not particularly innovative crime-fixer show Ray Donovan S03 which is made compelling by Liev Schrieber, Eddie Marsan and Jon Voight, Humans S01, and The Walking Dead S06E01–06.

“MrRobot intertitle” by Source (WP:NFCC#4). Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

So much good television and so little time…