December 2020 - Media Binge

In December of 2020, I played the following:

The Castles of Burgundy (13)	Tash-Kalar: Arena of Legends (11)	Chess (8)	Lucky Numbers (7)	Dice Forge (4)	Welcome To... (4)
Santorini (3)	7 Wonders (2)	Carcassonne Big Box 5 (2)	The Castles of Tuscany (2)	Codenames (2)	Infinity Gauntlet: A Love Letter Game (2)
Kingdom Rush: Rift in Time (2)	Marrakech (2)	One Night Ultimate Werewolf (2)	Seasons (2)	Tobago (2)	Trails of Tucana (2)
A4 Quest (1)	Adrenaline (1)	Alhambra: Mega Box (1)	Amerigo (1)	Beasts of Balance (1)	Bonfire (1)
Carcassonne: Winter Edition (1)	Carpe Diem (1)	Checkers (1)	Connect Four (1)	The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine (1)	Crimes in History: H. H. Holmes' Murder Castle (1)
For Sale (1)	Haiclue (1)	In the Hall of the Mountain King (1)	Kingdomino (1)	Kingdomino Duel (1)	Kittin (1)
Letter Tycoon (1)	Mint Cooperative (1)	Near and Far (1)	Potion Explosion (1)	Saboteur: The Mother Lode Bonus Pack (1)	Santa Maria (1)
Small Islands (1)	Sons of Anarchy: Men of Mayhem (1)	Steampunk Rally (1)	Sushi Go! (1)	Tapestry (1)	Tekhenu: Obelisk of the Sun (1)
That's Pretty Clever! (1)	Tidal Blades: Heroes of the Reef (1)	Tinderblox (1)	Trismegistus: The Ultimate Formula (1)	Tumblin-Dice (1)	Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar (1)

Viscounts of the West Kingdom (1)

Yedo: Deluxe Master Set (1)

The Shipwreck Arcana (1)

This Month's Winners

Tash Kalar - Honorable Mention I've played this game... a lot! I often describe it as checkers on steroids. A game about building patterns that match those on your cards with your game pieces in order to "summon" stronger pieces. You can play this game in deathmatch mode where you attempt to destroy your opponent's pieces; or, you can play the high form variant where you try to complete specific public objectives for points. This is not a super popular game as far as I can tell but I think that's usually the case with abstract games of this nature. I wanted to include it on my list because it's one I've played 11 times in this month alone!

Yedo: Deluxe Master Set - 3rd Place This new edition of Yedo is a delightful euro game with a huge board, tons of new components, and so much more content than we ever expected. I really like how you can now customize your gaming experience by incorporating elements that match your preferred style of play (e.g. collecting resources, playing aggressively with others, etc.). This is likely going to be an evergreen title for us, especially now that we have this gigantic, deluxe version!

Trismegistus: The Ultimate Formula - 2nd Place I LOVE Daniel Tascini's games. Trismegistus is a chunky game about drafting dice and using them in a variety of different ways based on their colors and actual results. There are tons combo chains involved on this game and I need to get it back to the table soon so I don't forget how to play!

Bonfire - 1st Place Stefan Feld is our favorite game designer to this day! We own 20 something games with his name on them. Bonfire is the newest title released by Feld and... wow is it beautiful! This game offers some really interesting mechanisms, especially those used to help players select actions. This game is also very unique for Feld because it happens to be the first we have encountered with a solo mode (aside from dice/card versions of The Castles of Burgundy). I have it on my list of solo games to play in 2021 and will likely knock out another play in the next week or so

In December of 2020, I watched the following:

Godmothered Watching this film was painful. I LOVE Jillian Bell but not enough to have asked to watch this on my own. My wife seemed excited for it so we sat down to watch this Hallmark-style film about an aspiring Godmother determined to save her Fairy Godmother... school by taking on an assignment (i.e. a child's letter) only to discover that the young girl (Isla Fisher) is now a widowed mother of two. The effects in this feel unpolished, Jillian Bell looks uncomfortable, and the plot is so lazy that I'm not surprised that Disney dumped this on streaming, having only just filmed it in January of 2020. This is not as good as something like Enchanted but if you like Hallmark movies, this is only slightly better.

The Dead Don't Die This was the most boring zombie "comedy" I've ever seen. I fell asleep twice during my stream of this film so I don't have much to say about the plot. All I know is that a UFO appears at one point and that zombies spew a black cloud when injured. The humor is deadpan and, at times, that works. However, the large chunks of monotone dialogue between characters just made me feel like I was watching a film between takes.

We Are The Champions This was a hilarious series of oddball competitions of which I was largely unaware, including: a race downhill while chasing an 8-pound cheese wheel, competitive frog racing, chili pepper eating, fantasy hairstyling, etc. Netflix randomly suggested this series for us via their "Play Something" feature and I'm really glad they did. This was a welcome distraction to binge on an afternoon.

Terminator 2: Judgement Day My wife turned this film on one night. I've seen T2 a few times but not recently. Edward Furlong is so obnoxious in the film that I have to wonder what critics thought of him back when this film was initially released. Maybe I'm being to hard on him because I'm sure everything about his character was more acceptable given the times. I know this film was revolutionary for its special effects but we laughed the first time that the T-1000 is shot, resulting in a cheap-looking silver cone glued to his shirt. The concept behind the T-1000 is responsible for every subsequent film's attempt to make the NEXT terminator more sophisticated and dangerous. I have to wonder what this franchise might have been if the T-1000 was never created. What would be the point of revisiting these characters?

Manhunt: Deadly Games - Season 2 My wife turned this on one day and I became invested in the story because of the heartfelt performance of Cameron Britton as the real-life security guard, Richard Jewell, a man falsely accused of planting a bomb that he aided in uncovering at the 1996 Olympic games in Atlanta. This show shifts midway through the season to another storyline that, while necessary, felt like a chore to get through. This season was a few episodes too long but still entertaining overall.

Big Mouth - Seasons 1-3 This show is hilariously filthy. I don't typically enjoy cartoons, regardless of the subject matter but, as a fan of Nick Kroll, he really shines in this show as the voice of several key characters. This show is an extremely crude look at puberty, young love, social pressures, and a variety of other obstacles the kids face during adolescence. There are even friendly hormone monsters! This show is excellent and a big recommendation. Just be warned that the content can be graphic!

Sound of Metal This is a film about a traveling drummer and recovering addict who suddenly loses his hearing. Riz Ammed does an excellent job at portraying the mix of emotions he is feeling throughout his journey, including his initial denial about the severity of his situation, his efforts to cope and remedy the issue, as well as the efforts of others to help him learn to live with his hearing loss. This film was heartbreaking for a number of reasons that I can't share for risk of spoiling the film. However, I will say that it ends on a somewhat optimistic note, depending on how you feel about the events leading up to the ending.

Soul This movie was excellent! The trailer left me wondering how the story could progress about a musician who finally gets his big break only to fall to his apparent death at shortly after the movie begins. This film carries a heavy theme about becoming consumed with purpose and the impact this has on your relationships with others as well as your own sense of self-worth. Disney and Pixar do amazing work, especially with their short films. Soul feels more similar in tone to those short films. It has a lot of heart while still managing to deliver enough silliness with its talking cat and cute little squishy soul bodies to keep kids entertained. This is truly one of the best films I've seen all year, giving Jojo Rabbit and Sound of Metal a run for their money!

Letterkenny - Season 9 My wife and I binged the first 8 seasons of this show in record time only for it to end on a cliffhanger! The way this season addresses the ending of the previous season was kind of disappointing. You don't get to actually see the scene played out; rather, they summarize what happened through some sort of spoken word poetry and a time jump. This season may be the weakest in the entire series. I'm not entirely sure what didn't work about it though. Some jokes were beaten to death without any real hook to justify their screen time. Maybe they were funnier on paper? I still love this show and welcome any new content in this terrible year that we've had. If anything, this season has made me want to go back and watch the whole series over again!

Wonder Woman 1984 This film was rightly released just before the end of the year. In short... it was not good. The characters were over the top, the action was boring, and the story was all over the place. At one point, a tornado of wind appears in a room because people around the country are making wishes? What?? I don't have much else to say. This film is, sadly, very forgettable.

Wonder Woman I remember thinking that this film was the best of those released within the DC universe in a long time. Having watched it again this year, I'm not as impressed. Gal Gadot's delivery of lines is very cheesy at times but I don't think that she was ever chosen to play this role because of her acting chops. The first 2/3 of this film are pretty good but the final act is so silly... I just feel bad for DC whenever a Marvel movie is released.

LARPs - Season 1 & 2 I saw this on Amazon Prime and thought I would check it out (because I would never try the hobby myself! The acting in this was surprisingly well done for a clearly indie production. I can't exactly put my finger on WHY I continued watching through 2 seasons aside from the episodes being very short. I did find some of the characters to be entertaining but I was mostly just curious about how the hobby works. I'm still firmly on the side of "never gonna play that" myself but I can see how this would appeal to those who enjoy theater, creative storytelling, and cosplay.

Galavant - Season 1 & 2 This show has got to be the most entertaining musical I've ever seen. I bought the "complete" series for my wife for Christmas now that these 2 seasons can't be streamed anywhere anymore. The writing for this show is excellent, the lyrics are hilarious, the characters are constantly breaking the 4th wall (e.g. acknowledging the likely doom of their show continuing on due to its lack of a substantial audience), etc. I wish this show would be picked up by Netflix or another major streaming platform. From what I read, the writer for the show had 7 seasons in mind and the last episode definitely ends in a manner that suggesting they were hoping to return. I urge everyone to check out some clips of this show on Youtube and to find yourself a copy of the series if you can!

In December of 2020, I read the following...

The Dark Tower - The Journey Begins This book reintroduces us to an older version of Roland, 12 years after the events of the last book. This book featured some flashbacks to Roland's early years, before the events of the first 5 books. Overall, this book was a bit slow. I am hoping that things pick up as Roland searches for the dark tower.

Y: The Last Man - Volume 1 I borrowed this book from a friend who borrowed it from a coworker. I had heard about this comic series during my research on "must read" comics. I really liked the way this story starts out, utilizing a very cinematic approach. We are immediately informed that all men and male animals are dead before jumping back to hours before the pandemic hits. As this issues continue, we are prompted with time updates that serve as a dramatic countdown. The story focuses on a magician named Yorick and a monkey he is fostering (I didn't know that was even a thing?) who finds himself separated from his girlfriend who has temporarily relocated to Australia for some sort of project. When the pandemic hits, Yorick's singular focus is on getting to his girlfriend. However, with his mother as the newly appointed President of the United States, Yorick is convinced that his survival as the last man alive was of greater importance than his reunion with his girlfriend. We are introduced to a faction of women known as the Amazons who have fully embraced this pandemic. I'm not sure how I feel about them yet but I am interested in further exploring this series.

Y: The Last Man - Volume 2 This book did an excellent job further expanding on how the world has quickly adapted to a society without men. We learn more about the terrifying Amazons, a cult-like group of man-hating women who have seemingly removed one of their breasts voluntarily. There are a ton of hints sprinkled throughout the issues within this book concerning other factions, plot points, etc. The primary storyline of this book focuses on a small town of women who have seemingly established a functioning but secretive community. The reveal about this group of people was kind of easy to predict but only because it seems like something I've seen before in similar films about post-apocalyptic events. I'm very much interested in continuing to read this series if future books continue to move Yorick across the country, encountering new groups of people with their own twisted back stories.

Y: The Last Man - Book 3 This book was much stronger than the 2nd in the series. The group heads towards a secret military base where a team of astronauts (including two surviving men) would be landing after running out of supplies in space. The group runs into trouble with a foreign military group insistent upon bringing the last surviving man back to their country. There is also a side story concerning a theater group of women putting on a play about the last man on earth after discovering Yorick's male monkey, Ampersand. I love the little bits of information we are fed about these characters. I am invested in this story because I want to be able to say that I predicted the ending. However, this usually leaves me disappointed in movies/shows because the writing rarely ends up being as satisfying as the narrative I've crafted in my head!

Y: The Last Man - Volume 4 This book was my favorite in the series so far. We learn a bit more about some of the characters traveling with Yorick and see them face considerable threats, including additional mini-militia groups along the way to California. I'm hoping to finish this entire series in the next few weeks!

Y: The Last Man - Volume 5 I really liked seeing Yorick's morality start to slip given his unique circumstances as the only man left alive on Earth. I really liked a character he meets in a church during this issue. I doubt we will see her again but I really thought she was well-written. Not much else to say about this volume. On to the next!