Jeff "Jmunney" Malone's Self-Styled "Expert" Thoughts on Movies, TV, Music, and the Rest of Pop Culture
April 22, 2021
Best in Film 2020, Best of 2020, Cinema, Oscars 93rd Academy Awards, Academy Awards, Jeff Malone Academy Awards, jmunney Academy Awards, Oscars, Promising Young Woman Leave a comment
Promising Young Woman fulfilled plenty of promises for me this year (CREDIT: Focus Features/YouTube Screenshot)
If I were in charge of unilaterally selecting the Oscars, here is who would be selected. Nominees are listed alphabetically, winners in bold.
Best Picture
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
Da 5 Bloods
The Invisible Man
Promising Young Woman
Tenet
January 22, 2021
Best of 2020, Best of Music 2020, Music Ava Max, Bakar, Best Coast, Best of 2020, Bishop Briggs, Bruce Springsteen, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, Cannons, Doja Cat, Dua Lipa, Hayley Williams, KennyHoopla, Lady GaGa, Miley Cyrus, Pearl Jam, Run the Jewels, Shaed, Smashing Pumpkins, Tame Impala, Taylor Janzen, The 1975, The Weeknd, twenty one pilots, U.S. Girls Leave a comment
CREDIT: YouTube Screenshots
Damn, there were plenty of songs that made me go “Damn” in 2020. Check ’em out below!
1. U.S. Girls, “4 American Dollars”: What can I say, I love a good song about economic enlightenment that you can totally shake your little butt to.
2. Miley Cyrus, “Midnight Sky”: Miley is a rock star for the ages. It’s 100% official.
3. Doja Cat, “Say So”: Pure neon-soaked euphoria.
4. Cannons, “Fire for You”: Listen to the words she’s using: “I was on fire for you.” It feels like that to some of us sometimes, doesn’t it?
5. Dua Lipa, “Don’t Start Now”: Oh wow, that’s a lot of disco in the top 5. It’s back, baby! “Don’t Start Now”? More like “Don’t Stop Ever!”
More
January 20, 2021
Best of 2020, Best of Music 2020, Music Ariana Grande, Best of 2020, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, Dua Lipa, Elvis Costello, Fiona Apple, Haim, Hayley Williams, Miley Cyrus, Neil Young, Paul McCartney, Pearl Jam, Run the Jewels, Tame Impala, U.S. Girls Leave a comment
I didn’t listen to every new album that was released in 2020 – DON’T LET ANYONE TELL YOU OTHERWISE! But I did listen to a few dozen; some were rockin’, some were poppin’, some were hippity-hoppin’, and a few even had some jazzy freakouts. Here are the 15 that most satisfied my ears and my tapping toes:
January 15, 2021
Best in Film 2020, Best of 2020, Cinema American Utopia, Bad Education, Best of 2020, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Da 5 Bloods, Promising Young Woman, Shirley, Swallow, Tenet, The Invisible Man, The Trial of the Chicago 7 Leave a comment
Clockwise from Top Left: Promising Young Woman (Focus Features); The Invisible Man (Universal Pictures); Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Amazon Studios); Da 5 Bloods (David Lee/Netflix)
Cinema has always been an escape, and that escape was sorely needed in 2020. Unfortunately, it was often difficult to get that full immersive experience in a theater during a pandemic. In fact, only one of the movies that made my top 10 list this time around was viewed that way, while the rest I took in at home while doing my best to ward off distractions. So with that in mind, I’m in the mood to just celebrate what I loved most about the movies that I loved that somehow found a way to arrive into the world in the past 12 months. So get ready for a tidal wave of enthusiasm as you read ahead!
January 11, 2021
Best of 2020, Podcasts A.P. Bio, A.P. Bio: The Podcast, Advanced Community Studies, Apartment 303, Best of 2020, Blank Check with Griffin & David, Comedy Bang! Bang!, Communication Studies, Community, Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend, Cool Abed Films Chat, Cult Movie Cult, Dead Eyes, Dead Times, Dom and Andre in the Morning, Drag Her, Fighting in the War Room, Fluffy Town, Good Morning Greendale, Good One, How Did This Get Made?, Inside Conan: An Important Hollywood Podcast, Judge John Hodgman, MetaMeta, Newcomers, Oh Hello the P'dcast, Podcasts, Pop Culture Happy Hour, Pop Mom, Save Greendale Committee, Shipping Room Podcast, Six Seasons & a Podcast, That's Auntertainment, The Anonymous Advice Podcast, The AP Bio Rewatch Podcast, The Community Rewatch Podcast, The Darkest Timeline, The Greendale Seven Podcast, The Record, The Ron Burgundy Podcast, U Talkin' Talking Heads 2 My Talking Head?, Unspooled, Welcome to Greendale, You Can't Disappoint a Podcast Leave a comment
Any ranking of the best entertainment of the year is necessarily incomplete and represents the personal proclivities of the ranker, and that’s especially true in the case of podcasts. I listen to more podcasts than anyone I know personally (by a wide margin), but that’s still less than approximately 0.0001% of all the podcasts out there. So for my Best Podcasts of 2020 feature, I decided to make it particularly personal by listing ALL the podcasts that I listened to in the past year, because they’re all special, and all worth shouting out. I’ve organized them into a few categories: 2020 Debuts, Veterans, a few specialty categories that you’ll discover when you get to them, and Podcasts That I Host.
January 6, 2021
Best of 2020, Best of TV 2020, Television A.P. Bio, American Dad!, Animaniacs, Beef House, Best of 2020, Better Call Saul, Big Mouth, Dispatches From Elsewhere, How to with John Wilson, Joe Pera Talks with You, Killing Eve, Middleditch & Schwartz, Never Have I Ever, PEN15, Rick and Morty, Search Party, The Baby-Sitters Club, The Mandalorian, What We Do in the Shadows, Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist Leave a comment
(CREDIT: FX/YouTube Screenshot)
When making Best Episode lists, some TV critics limit themselves to one entry per show, but I never operate by that self-imposition, as certain shows are just masterful when crafting a single hour or half-hour (or whatever runtime they feel like using), and that ought to be reflected in the ledger. So you’ll find that several shows have wound up more than once in this list, and those tended to be the ones that also fared the best on my Best Shows of 2020 list. You’ll also find at least one program that didn’t make my Best Shows list, as it’s possible to have one excellent outing within an otherwise disappointing season. So forthwith, if someone who missed all TV in 2020 asked me for a refresher, here is where I would direct them:
January 4, 2021
Best of 2020, Best of TV 2020, Television A.P. Bio, American Dad!, American Housewife, Animaniacs, Aunty Donna's Big Ol' House of Fun, B Positive, Beef House, Best of 2020, Better Call Saul, Better Things, Big Mouth, black-ish, Bob's Burgers, Bojack Horseman, Devs, Dicktown, Dispatches From Elsewhere, Earth to Ned, Fargo, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, grown-ish, His Dark Materials, Holey Moley, How to with John Wilson, Jeopardy!, Joe Pera Talks with You, Last Week Tonight, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Match Game, McMillion$, Mike Tyson Mysteries, mixed-ish, Mrs. America, Muppets Now, Nancy Drew, Never Have I Ever, Normal People, PEN15, Rick and Morty, RIverdale, RuPaul's Drag Race, Saved by the Bell, Search Party, Sex Education, Solar Opposites, Stargirl, Superstore, The Conners, The Eric Andre Show, The Goldbergs, The Good Fight, The Good Lord Bird, The Last Dance, The Last O.G., The Mandalorian, The Masked Singer, The New Pope, The Plot Against America, The Twilight Zone, The Unicorn, Three Busy Debras, Unorthodox, What We Do in the Shadows, Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, Whose Line is it Anyway?, Wilmore, Young Sheldon, Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist 2 Comments
Clockwise from Top Left: What We Do in the Shadows, Never Have I Ever, Better Call Saul, How To with John Wilson (CREDIT: YouTube Screenshots)
Last year, I decided to rank as many TV shows as I felt like recognizing in my year-end list, and that worked out so well that I decided to do it again for 2020. So welcome to my ranking of the 67 Best TV Shows of 2020! Not every show is accompanied by a blurb, just the ones that I felt like I really needed to say something about.
I worked with a self-imposed rule that I had to have watched at least 50% of a show’s 2020 output for it to be eligible, but there were some shows that I’ve only just begun to watch that I wanted to recognize as well, so they’ve got their own Honorable Mention section. And there were also some shows that aired relatively few episodes in 2020 to the point that I didn’t think they should be eligible either, so they’ve also got an Honorable Mention section. And then there’s one more show that’s managed to establish its very own Honorable Mention section, and that’s where we start.
Jmunney's Blog 