Oscar Predictions (2021-2022 Awards Season)

 I enjoy following the Oscars, as stupid and meaningless as they are. So I'm just gonna post this here, before the SAG and BAFTA nominations come out. No edits on this post allowed.

Taskmaster Contestants Ranked (all 12 seasons + NZ)

I think it's already been established by my previous Taskmaster contestant ranking list that I'm a pretty huge fan of the show, but as a fan of the show that doesn't mean I'm always right about everything with it, or that my opinions can't change. That being said, you'll undoubtedly notice there are a few placements on here that will be about (or just about) the same as the last time, and several others that will be pretty different. That's one of the things I love about making lists like this, seeing how much my opinion changes makes me happy and is a reminder of how I'm a living person capable of growth and change.

Before I get on with the list, there are a couple big changes to this post that I feel need to be addressed before I go any further. For one, this is obviously a list that will include contestants from the 12th series of the show, as that has (at least as of the time of me writing this intro) just finished. Additionally, thanks to the wonderful 2nd series of the (also English-language) New Zealand version of the show, I will be including contestants from both of the seasons of that version as well as the 60 from the UK version. So, basically, this list will be bumped up from the 55 of the previous version to a total of 70 people. That's a lot to write about/order, so don't expect this to be a super polished and perfect list. I will do my best to let it reflect my actual opinions though, so let's get on with it!

Manga Rating System

I have used tons of different rating systems over the course of the last decade I've been writing reviews, so I thought I'd go back to a pretty standard and stripped down one for manga. As this is a form of entertainment that I'm incredibly new to, I wouldn't have the confidence to go into a great amount of detail on my reasons for the ratings I'm giving, so having more than just a few base ratings would be a little presumptuous and difficult for me. That being said, I do like keeping my enjoyment and perceived quality within fairly loose placements, because opinions change and I don't want to have to justify a rating down the road that wouldn't hold up after a little while. Also, I generally give positive ratings, so I've kind of compressed all the bad into one or two stars, with the other 3 possible scores being all varying levels of good/great. So let's get into the details.

Manga review: Uzumaki

'Uzumaki' by Junji Ito

3 volumes, 19 chapters 

1998-1999

The first manga I read, and a pretty disturbing and ultimately unforgettable experience for more than just that reason alone. The story is more or less conceptual in its entirety and lacking any real characters or depth, but this isn't a manga that hinges on likability or long-winded story arcs. All packed into a couple hundred pages (and easily found in a single collected book-form), Junji Ito is excellent at making you terrified to turn the page but incapable of resisting finding out what horrible thing will happen next. The artwork is just the right level of detailed, with a majority of the emphasis placed on the full-page spreads and the individual shocking moments that have since become legendary within horror manga. This isn't the most amazing looking thing I've read, but it holds up due to the surreal and insanely inventive illustrations and ideas. 

Manga time

 As people who've spent a decent amount of time reading the stupid crap I write on this site might be well aware of, I have a pretty wide variety of interests when it comes to media. Though I never got into comics and I've never written about my few brief spells of reading traditional books, reading has always been on a bit of a backburner for me; something I intended to get into after I'd exhausted all other entertainment options. But then after trying to get my wife into watching anime, and realizing we'd  had Uzumaki by Junji Ito on our shelf for close to 2 years, it seemed like the right time to give manga a try. And while I haven't loved everything I've read, I'm absolutely loving it.

Malignant - my probably-only review of 2021

The best kind of movies are the ones that stick with you in one way or another. I've long felt that the worst thing a piece of entertainment can be is forgettable, and in that way Malignant definitely succeeds. While a good portion of reviews and comments I've seen from people in regards to this movie boil it down to "this sucked" or the like, what I think a good deal of people are missing out on here is the meta narrative at play. 

For the first hour or so, this movie plays out exactly as you'd expect any run-of-the-mill supernatural horror movie might, with awful sound editing, spoooooky dark visuals, and all the other usual cliches firmly in place. But when that final act bursts in, everything you've seen beforehand begins to re-contextualize in the most maddening way, really putting the audience in the unique position of having to decide for themselves how much they're willing to give the movie in return for their time. Watching this movie at home on HBO with my wife, I was probably driving her nuts as I loudly pointed out all the issues I was having with it for about 80 minutes, after which I found myself laughing even harder both at the movie and myself for the trick it pulled on me. Is this a brilliant movie or a terrible one? Why not both?

Taskmaster contestants ranked (all 11 seasons)

(December 10: UPDATE RELEASED! I'll throw the link to the updated countdown right here if anyone is interested in my opinions on the 15 other full-series contestants and seeing how much my opinion has changed over the past several months, but I'm not changing a single word of the post that follows to reflect any of that. I would find it dishonest to change the list once it's out there, so if you disagree with me on this post, maybe the other one will suit you better. Better look at both, I guess. But there you go, hope you enjoy reading/browsing!)

 Over the past several months, I have become completely obsessed with the British game/panel show Taskmaster. To those of you who don't know what this is, but are still here reading this post for some reason, Taskmaster is a show that's been running for 6 years and 11 seasons released so far and is all built around comedians Greg Davies and Alex Horne (the latter of which is the creator of the show), who set up bizarre objectives for a panel of five comedians each season to complete, and then reward them all points based on how well they've done the task. At the end of each episode, the most points for that episode takes home a bunch of prizes brought in by each contestant at the start of the episode, and at the end of the season (which range from 5-10 episodes each), the point leader wins a terrible gold bust of Greg Davies' head. 

On the surface, this is indeed a fairly standard game show, but when you take into account the contestants are all (or at least mostly) comedians, the points given are based on Greg's opinions more than any objective right or wrong solutions, and the tasks themselves are incredibly absurd and often humiliating, the results definitely out-measure the sum of its parts. This is a ridiculous show that manages to reveal far more about the contestants than you might expect, both mentally and physically. 

This isn't just a show you passively watch, it is a strangely interactive experience that gets you hooked into the points/scoring system, with you as an audience member tallying your own scores up to see how they stack up against the views of Greg and the tyrannical caricature of himself he has created. You find yourself thinking what you would do with each task as they come up, and when someone else does the thing you were thinking, you feel like a genius...at least until Greg gives them 1 point and calls them an idiot. Additionally, over lockdown the YouTube channel for TM has uploaded a series of "home tasks" for viewers at home to do and post online. It's a lovely diversion, but doesn't hold a candle to the main series.

Jeff's Favorite Movies of 2020

 Wow, what an odd year that was for movies. I genuinely found it difficult to put together a list of things I really enjoyed (hence the late release of this countdown), but this is, I think, mostly the fault of the Oscars, who allowed January and February releases to be made eligible for the 2020 awards. What that ultimately did was push back the releases of the kind of Oscar-oriented movies that normally would pop up in November and December, so a good chunk of the stuff that might have normally slid in just in time for a list like this had to sadly be passed up. Basically what I'm saying is that my 2021 lost is going to be a lot better, even if all the lockdown business is still happening for the rest of the year. 

Anyway, I'm not going to babble on forever, I'll just get into the list. What I've done is singled out the 15-20 movies from 2020 that have stuck out to me the most, and while there aren't any undisputed 10/10 picks in here, I'm still mostly satisfied with these picks. I do really like all the movies on this list, even if it took me a while to come around on some of them.

10s of 2020 (pt. 5)

I'm a little late on this update, but here we go.