This Can't Be Broccoli

This list is a little more casual, because I'm not exactly a music critic and I certainly don't listen to as many podcasts as I'd like to listen to (even though I'm currently juggling around seventy-four), so I didn't bother ranking.  This is essentially just...a list of stuff I liked listening to. You're still welcome to call me an idiot in the comments section, however, so have at it. My Favorite Albums Be the Cowboy , Mitski Bloom , Troye Sivan A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships , The 1975 By the Way, I Forgive You , Brandi Carlile Caution , Mariah Carey Dirty Computer , Janelle Mon á e (Okay, but this would be my favorite album of the year if I was ranking.) Encore , Anderson East Everybody Wants , The Struts (This would be a close second.) Free Yourself Up , Lake Street Dive (This would be #3) Golden Hour , Kacey Musgraves A Good Thing , Leon Bridges Honey , Robyn It's About Time , Nile Rodgers and Chic Jake Shears , Jake Shear...

The theme of this year in television was-- You win some, you lose some. There aren’t many shows that nailed it from start to finish.  Most had truly inspired moments, but a lack of consistency. My message to television creators is this-- We agreed to let you do twelve episodes instead of twenty-two solely based on the condition that you could produce twelve knock-out episodes a year, so get on that.  No more filler, no lousy subplots, no excuses. (If the producers of The Haunting of Hill House had just given its entire cast acting lessons, it would be in the top three.) I love Glow , but it’s focus was a little uneven in the second season.   Sharp Objects was amazing when it was slogging through its own pretentiousness, which was too often.   Bojack Horseman is fantastic, but there still needs to be more art in the line in terms of the writing and cleverness.   Maniac was stunning, but also--sorry for this, but--manic. Some sh...

Well, like a REAL movie fan, I have waited until the very first day of 2018 to write my Top Ten List, and there are still some I haven’t seen that might need to be on this list. If Beale Street Could Talk , Destroyer , At Eternity’s Gate , and Ben is Back have not landed in Rhode Island yet, and one of them has Julia Roberts in it, so this list already feels pretty inauthentic, because it’s January 1st, so I’m going to go ahead with it anyway. Time --the magazine, not the concept--had its list ready to go as soon as Thanksgiving was over, which is ridiculous, because more and more movies aren’t being screened early for critics, and some really good movies are kept locked up until the very last minute.  I know it’s tradition for year-end lists to come out in December, because we all want to leave the previous year behind as soon as we can, but it just doesn’t seem right. But enough about all that, let’s get to the list. Before we start though (fake-out) I should mention...