Things I Liked in 2021
1 January 2022
A few years ago I tossed out any attempts at “best of” lists at the end of the year in favor of highly subjective and thoroughly non-comprehensive lists of things I liked. Over the past two years, as the world turned up its difficulty level, my year-end lists evolved even more away from value judgments and more towards simple appreciations. And so I present, without further context, a bunch of stuff from the past year that I thought didn’t suck.
-
Films from 2021 I liked include: Pig, The Green Knight, Zola, Shiva Baby, Drive My Car, Licorice Pizza, Nightmare Alley and Undine.
-
I watched a ton of older new-to-me films but the highest highlight was finally being able to see Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession.
-
There were a lot of great new horror films, but I made them their own list.
-
I watched so much television. Limited series I liked: Midnight Mass, Brand New Cherry Flavor and WandaVision. Shows with 2021 seasons I liked: Mythic Quest, Ted Lasso, What We Do in the Shadows, Wellington Paranormal, A.P. Bio, Girls5Eva, Hacks, Dickinson, The Great, Physical, The White Lotus, Loki, Kevin Can F*ck Himself and Only Murders in the Building.
-
Books from 2021* I liked include: The Turnout by Megan Abbott, A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers, Billy Summers by Stephen King, Dream Girl by Laura Lippman, My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones, The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix, Experimental Film by Gemma Files, Killer, Come Back to Me: The Crime Stories of Ray Bradbury by Ray Bradbury, First Person Singular: Stories by Haruki Murakami and Tarot for Change: Using the Cards for Self-Care, Acceptance, and Growth by Jessica Dore. * Some books here came out in late 2020 but I read them in 2021 so I threw them in.
-
Two classics I finally read in 2021 and enjoyed greatly: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë and The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins.
-
I listened to a lot of older podcasts this past year, but the new standouts were: The Left Right Game, You Must Remember This, Gossip Girls: Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper, The Opportunist: Sherri Shriner, Murder in Alliance, Radio Rental and Phoebe Reads a Mystery.
-
Similarly to podcasts, I tended to listen to older music rather than new (plus I haven’t had my finger on the musical pulse in decades). But some 2021 albums I liked: Blue Banisters by Lana Del Rey, Daddy’s Home by St. Vincent, star-crossed by Kacey Musgraves, In These Silent Days by Brandi Carlisle, Open Door Policy by the Hold Steady, The Path of Wellness by Sleater-Kinney, Carnage by Nick Cave & Warren Ellis and At My Piano by Brian Wilson.
-
I liked starting to read comic books again, after many, many years away.
-
I liked being able to get back to museums. (Photo below of the freshly installed Hartwell Memorial Window at the Art Institute of Chicago.)
-
I liked being able to go back to school for a degree I long abandoned, I liked being able to travel a bit more than last year and I liked being able to make goals for this year.
-
And I liked, and continue to like, vaccines.
(If you really like lists, you can also read what things I liked in 2020.)