2020 Pop Culture Wrap Up

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Normal People: Based on a Sally Rooney novel. Young Irish lovers. Connell’s chain. The chemistry! The Queen’s Gambit: Anya Taylor Joy (who I also loved in Emma) is a Chess wunderkind. The coats. The friendship with her school’s custodian. That kid from Love Actually... GBBO: The Bake Off came at a much needed time. They bubbled up at the tent just to give us a soothing, funny, and weird season. Matt Lucas’s first season as host was a success!! Final episodes of The Good Place: oh my GOD what a perfect show.

The Half of It: A nerd ghostwrites love notes for a football player to his crush, whom they are both in love with. Directed by Alice Wu. Class Action Park: An eccentric billionaire, Wet Hot American Summer sentimentality, and an examination of what it meant to be viewed as tough in the ’80s. Birds of Prey: The only good DCU movie?? But also! Fantastic on its own merits. Stylish, funny, compelling, anchored by Margot Robbie (as star/producer). Should honestly be in awards conversations, which I know sounds crazy.The Old Guard: the two best superhero movies this year were directed by WOC. Also, Palm Springs.

Taylor Swift: A woman who really knows how to turn a phrase. She’s in a true creative flow right now. Off her recent drop evermore, my favorite song is ivy. A fairytale and yet still somehow autobiographical in its own right. Fiona Apple: Fetch the Bolt Cutters. Rhythm, dolphin noises, and unbridled self-expression. Tame Impala: The Slow Rush. Bands aren’t cool anymore. You know who’s cool? Tame Impala.The Chicks: Gaslighter: I will fight Adrian Pasdar myself.

“Ivanka was my best friend. Now she’s MAGA royalty.” Lysandra Ohrstrom for Vanity Fair. Trump’s commentary on the writer’s body as an adolescent and also that moment when Ivanka blames a fart on another classmate. “Emily Ratajkowski on Reclaiming her own image.” I may have underestimated her. She takes an emotional theft and reclaims some of her dignity with a physical purchase. An entitled photographer is held accountable for his treatment of a young model. Alright, Alright, Alright: An Oral History of Dazed and Confused. Melissa Maerz wrote my dream book. I love a good oral history, and this one’s no different. Still thinking about the Dracula twitter thread I read at the beginning of quarantine honestly. "She wanted a freebirth with no doctors.

Plus: Guy Fieri, HILARIA OBVIOUSLY, Mulaney, Good One, Harry & Meghan, The Last Dance, and The Vow.