5 – Futurama
Yes, it’s an animated show that had a weird break in the show, but I love it. The humor is great in the show and for a show that is a comedy, there are so many heartfelt moments that tug at your heart strings, it’s very impressive. And for all of that, you still have Bender and Zoidberg who are generally just weird. I think what works so well in Futurama is that it feels like it relevant to life without taking time to bring up specific real world events. Other animated shows lose some of the timeless quality that Futurama has, because they try and talk directly about the real world instead of talking generally, over all, it’s a show that I can sit down and watch most episodes over and over.

4 – Supernatural
There have been a few seasons of Supernatural at this point, and I’m a few seasons behind at this point. But the fact they’ve been able to keep it going so long and while it isn’t always extremely new and fresh, they have done a ton of different things with the show. I like how it has transitioned between strong horror elements and then lighter episodes and seasons that are meant to be more self aware and goofy. I think it shows that the show has evolved over time, even if the characters seem to have stayed pretty similar throughout the whole show. Will I ever get caught up on Supernatural, who knows, but the episodes that I have watched, I really enjoyed the show, and that was around 10 seasons worth.

3 – Dark
I haven’t watched the second season of this yet, and I feel bad about that, but the first season was so amazing. I love the idea of time travel in stories, and sometimes they manage to get it right, Dark gets it right. This show is so extremely thematic and atmospheric that you get sucked into it from the very beginning. Downside is that I think it’s best with subtitles, not dubbed, but if you can get past that fact, the story is really engaging and weird. Definitely one that I need to get back to soon and start from the beginning and go straight through season 2. The downside to the show is that it is dark, so while I watched it in the later parts of winter, it can be a bit depressing to watch.

2 – Psych
Some of it as to why Psych has dropped is that there hasn’t been any new Psych, but we’re getting a new movie in 2020, so that might push it back up again. But Psych is a show that I can sit down and with the exception of the first season which I’ve seen so many times, I can watch and enjoy basically any episode. The humor is great, the stories are absurd and fun, and overall they just get the show right. The chemistry between the characters is really good as well. I also love the references to different bits of older pop culture that are strewn throughout almost every episode and different spoofs of movies and TV shows that they do in their episodes as well.

1 – Stranger Things
With three seasons under it’s belt, I can definitely say that this is my favorite show. Every season has been good, and I think through three seasons, I can only think of one episode that’s been bad. The kids on bikes aspect of the show as well as the other circles of people are really well done. The characters all have issues and flaws and the monsters are generally pretty disturbing. I like the 80’s feel of the show, and I really like how it takes horror tropes from that time and runs with them in interesting ways. Overall, it wasn’t close for my favorite show.

Kind of a weird combination of shows, let’s see if my honorable mentions help clear it up at all?

Honorable Mention:
Rain
The Simpsons
Grimm
Doctor Who
The IT Crowd

There are a lot of good shows out there which have just fell to the wayside for me. Killjoys was a ton of fun to watch, but I’m behind on that one now. The Mandalorian is coming out and while the show has been great thus far, it’s not even done with one season yet, so I couldn’t put it on my list. What are some shows that you really enjoy?

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5 – The Reckoners
The only YA (young adult) series on the list, and one of the two series by Brandon Sanderson. The Reckoners is a super power series, but done in an interesting way. Super powers became a thing, but they weren’t heroes, in fact, they were all villains. There is a team, called The Reckoners who are out there figuring out the weakness of bad guys and trying to take them down to basically free the normal people from being under the super powers thumbs. David, isn’t a Reckoner, but he desperately ones to become one. Is he going to be able to help them in a way to get into the group? It’s a well done series and while it’s a bit darker in how it handles super powers as compared to Marvel or DC, it doesn’t beat you down with bring dark.

4 – Stardust
The lightest book on the list in terms of tone, Stardust is just a fun romp through a wild and crazy fantasy world. I generally like Neil Gaiman’s works, but they can be pretty big and heavy, Stardust is a much smaller work, but tells an interesting and light story. The blend of the real world and this amazing fantasy and how they interact is interesting. There are a few lines that just crack me up when I read them in the book, and you really do feel the sense of adventure that is being created in the book. The movie, while different, is also not bad and keeps a similar tone to the book. If you want a lighter fantasy read, Stardust is a lot of fun.

3 – The Stormlight Archive
Another series, I kind of feel like I’m cheating by putting them on the list, but I feel like sometimes the whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts, and if I were to talk about it separately, it wouldn’t fully tell the story. The Stormlight Archive is an epic fantasy story by Brandon Sanderson. You get prophecy, you get visions, intrigue, and so much more, but it’s all put together well. Sanderson is probably better known for Mistborn, but I like Stormlight Archive considerably better. The scale is just so big, but the story is well done, and the characters are flawed. You’re going to see this as a theme, characters who are flawed who feel more real, and in Stormlight Archive, you have heroes who do great things, but they are still flawed characters.

2 – IT
I love Stephen King. And IT is my favorite out of the books that he’s written. The structure of interweaving the kids and adults stories together works well. It’s an interesting horror story but also has an epic story as well. Pennywise is a great antagonist. I sometimes, also, have an issue with Stephen King’s work because he doesn’t always land the story as well as he could in the end, and I think in IT, you get a good complete story. Again, with complex characters who have flaws and because of those flaws you care about them more. Now, IT is a beast of a book to read and is definitely weird and disturbing, so it isn’t going to be for everyone, but if you are interested in trying horror, I highly recommend it

1 – The Dresden Files
I’ve talked about this series before, and I’m completely caught up series finally this year. Thus far, there are 15 books in the series, and it’s a ton of fun to see the series come together. The start of the series is a bit more of a stand alone, but when Jim Butcher hits his stride, the story is quite complex and well written. It’s a massive fantasy world with interesting characters and flawed characters, which I think really makes the series work. Harry Dresden is a good guy in general, but he has his flaws and you get to see the character grow in realization without fixing all of his problems. To me, that’s what I want in good story telling, good depth of character and characters who feel real. The series, since it is so long, does have a hiccup or two in the storytelling, but as a whole, it is telling a very interesting story.

Nothing new to this year, besides finishing off The Dresden Files this year, but let’s see in the honorable mentions?

The Wheel of Time
Harry Potter
Ascend Online
Lord of the Rings
Daughter of Smoke and Bones

Any books from my top reads that you love? Any that you’ve been wanting to check out? Let me know in the comments below.

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Will any of those movies make my list, you’ll have to see, but the big movies this year, for me, were primarily Marvel movies, and with #10MinMarvel podcast, I might like Marvel a little bit.

5 – Tucker & Dale vs Evil
What happens when a group of college students go out to a remote cabin to have a fun weekend? Clearly, the locals are going to attack them, but Tucker & Dale vs Evil does a fun twist on that. If you want a horror comedy film with some over the top deaths, this is a great film. Tyler Labine and Alan Tudyk do amazing work in this film being the locals in this film, and how everything happens around them is great. I think that even if you don’t love horror, this is a film that it’s so on the edge of everything that you’ll like this film. If you do like horror, you’ll appreciate the tropes that they use throughout the film and how they subvert them often.

4 – Dog Soldier
Probably the least well known movie on my list, but one that I enjoy a lot. This is from Neil Marshall who directed the battle of the wall in Game of Thrones, or at least one of the episodes around that. He also has done The Descent which is really good as well, but Dog Soldier is my favorite. It’s not a big budget film, but it does horror well. What works well in this film is that it creates a limited area for the characters to interact with the world. So they are cut off, but more than that, they are stuck in a small area, and I think when horror films go too big with the world, it makes it less of a horror film, and that’s actually a trope that another film I like picks up on, see the honorable mentions below.

3 – John Wick
This was a new to me movie this year, and it was a lot of fun to binge through the series of movies quickly. But the first one is my favorite of them. The world in this movie and the sequels is cool, but what everyone is there for is the gun fu/gun kata action, and John Wick has some great action. There’s a scene at a club where there is a gun fight that goes across several floors and it works really really well. This film doesn’t have an extremely heavy plot, but it works well enough to get you into the action and Keanu Reeves is a lot of fun in this film. If you are looking for a straight up action film, this is one of the best that has come out recently.

2 – Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
I really enjoy this film in terms of a dumb pulp sort of film. You get a convoluted plot where you have a giant mystery that ties everything together. I really like the performances in this movie. Robert Downey Jr. does a great job especially in this film, and it’s before Iron Man. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is a lot of fun. It isn’t a deep film, but probably my most watched film of all time. I also like that this is a satire of the buddy cop genre of films as well, and done really well that way.

1 – Avengers: Infinity War
Now, as you’ve seen, I don’t have Endgame on the list. I think that the two movies are tied together so closely, that it felt a little bit odd putting them both on there. For me, Infinity War is the slightly better film. Some of it is that it doesn’t have that superhero ending, you end up in a bad place, and that is really interesting, without it being a super dark and depressing again, for a superhero movie. So you get something you’re very familiar with because it has that heroic feel, but at the same time, it subverts expectations. While it might not be the Marvel movie I want to watch the most, but for me, it’s the best Marvel movie.

There are so many good movies, I could easily do my top 5 Marvel movies and it would be pretty close to my top 5 movies of all time. I didn’t want to repeat anything on the list, but that’s what honorable mentions are for.

Honorable Mention:
Cabin in the Woods
Avengers: Endgame
Thor: Ragnorak
Dr. Strangelove
The Fifth Element
The Last Witch Hunter

As you can see, I really love the highly critically acclaimed movies, outside of superhero movies. My taste is really all over the place, but most of the time I just want to sit down an watch a movie that is fun, and not have to think about things too much, so that’s why t hings like The Fifth Element and The Last Witch Hunter make my list.

What are some of your favorite movies? Is there any crossover with my top 5 list?

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I’m kicking it off with video games, now, these don’t have to be games that I played in 2019 or are from the year 2019, but just games that I really enjoy.

5 – Diablo III
Now, I played this when it came out, and it was basically unplayable. Things were horribly out of balance and they were changing it up seemingly every couple of days to try and balance things out, so you could play one session and things would be nerfed, and then the next session your character would feel OP, if you weren’t playing every day. They have fixed that and now everything is more stable, and I’ve had a lot of fun in this hack and slash or magic loot based game. It’s a pretty fast game once you get into it as you can just run around and destroy, especially when not playing on a high level.

4 – Tales from the Borderlands
The first of two Borderlands titles, this is not the classic looter shooter style of the other ones, but a story based choose your own adventure type of game. The plot is fun and funny as it matches up with the humor from the looter shooters. The choices that you have to make are interesting, and I’ve played through it twice, which isn’t that common for a video game. The whole game plays fast, though, and for that reason I was able to get it back to the Xbox. And, even with that, I feel like there are branches of the story that I haven’t really explored yet, which makes me interested in going back to it.

3 – Myst
This game I haven’t played in a long time. Maybe I’ll stream a playthrough of it on the Malts and Meeples Twitch channel as I have it for Steam. But I really loved it growing up, and I have fond memories playing it with my siblings and cousins as kids trying to figure out all of the puzzles. I don’t remember a ton of the story of the game or anything about the puzzles, but I remember how interesting the world was and how difficult some of the puzzles could be. It’s a classic game that sticks out in my mind and probably helps me love of puzzles in general.

2 – Borderlands 2
The best Borderlands thus far, I haven’t played through all of 3 yet, Borderlands 2 is just a fun and silly looter shooter. Every time they release a new Borderlands game, it’s always about what insane guns you have and can use. And there is a plot as well, which is generally quite good, which it definitely is in Borderlands 2. I also like the level of character customization in this game with the skill trees. A fairly open world game, but it does a solid job of keeping you on track.

1 – Dragon Age: Origins
This game has been high on my list for a while and one of the few games that I’ve completed multiple times. It’s open enough to give me interesting choices, but focused enough to keep me from feeling like there is too much to do. I like the story and while it is pretty straight forward, it always feels like there is a lot to do in the game. I also really like the dialogue and humor in the game.

I almost did a top ten, but since it’s been the top 5 for a couple of years now, I kept it that way, that, of course, means that we’re going to get some honorable mentions:

Dragon Age 2
Borderlands Pre-Sequel
Heroes of Might and Magic
Mario Kart (Switch/Wii)
Alpha Centauri
Need for Speed

What are some of your favorite video games of all time? Any crossover with me, or do you prefer a different genre of video game than some of my preferred?

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