Memorable happenings of the past year...
Showing posts with label year in review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label year in review. Show all posts
Friday, January 14, 2022
Thursday, April 29, 2021
The 9th Bernel Zone Awards for Big Screen & Small Screen
I thought last year’s Bernels was the latest it would ever be. Well, this year’s edition – the 9th
already! – actually turns out being much later than that. To be fair, though, I usually do this around
the Oscars season. And since this year’s
Oscars was just a few days ago, this Bernels is, in a sense, just on time. Lol. Without
further ado, let’s jump into it…
Best Movie Hero: Joel Dawson (Love
and Monsters)
A weakling with a big heart who undergoes a compelling character
development that turns him into a perfect hero for the post-apocalyptic, monster
world of Love and Monsters.
Runner-up: Mickey Pearson (The Gentlemen)
Best TV Hero: The Mandalorian (The
Mandalorian)
Just as The Mandalorian gets
the top spot for my annual “top 10 TV shows” list for the second year in a row,
its eponymous character wins this award for the second year in a row. His two-season-spanning character arc was
immensely beautiful and satisfying.
Best Anime Hero: Anos Voldigoad (The
Misfit of Demon King Academy)
No one since One Punch Man’s
Saitama has there been such a hilariously and awesomely overpowered character
like Anos.
Monday, January 25, 2021
Top 10 Movies of 2020
For quite some time now, I’ve
done a “top 20” list of my favorite movies each year in this blog. However, I’m only doing a “top 10” for 2020,
since I didn’t get to see that many movies.
The amount of 2020 films I saw by December 2020 is just about half of
the amount of 2019 films I saw by December 2019. A huge reason is that many scheduled releases
were cancelled and theaters were closed for most of the year because of the
pandemic. Another reason is that I wasn’t
as enthusiastic about watching a whole lot of movies in 2020 as I was in previous
years (same case with TV, actually). So,
even though there were still a lot of new movies that became available digitally,
it wasn’t very often that I was in a movie-watching mood. Thus, with me having a smaller pool of seen movies
in 2020, a “top 10” list feels more apt than the usual “top 20.”
10.) Ride Your Wave
“…my most favorite Masaaki Yuasa anime to date. It’s not only a smart, gorgeous, entertaining, and moving film, but it can also stir you to reflect deeply about your life so far, your present relationships, and your legacy.”Click here for the full review.
Monday, January 11, 2021
Top 10 Anime Series of 2020
2020 didn’t feel like a particularly strong year for anime – at least,
when compared to previous years. A big
reason for this is likely the ‘rona, which pushed the release schedule for many
big-name titles into 2021 (and that’s why Winter 2021 is pretty loaded. In fact, it’s looking like I will be watching
at least 15 anime shows this season).
Nevertheless, 2020 still delivered a couple of notable anime, and here
are my most favorites.
Honorable Mentions (in no particular order): Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle, The Misfit of Demon King Academy, Aggretsuko (season 3), Kakushigoto: My Dad’s Secret Ambition, Fire Force (season 2), Smile Down the Runway, Haikyu!! (season 4)
10.) Fruits Basket
I liked season 1. But season 2
I utterly loved. This anime, as I wrote before, is a melodrama masterwork.
Friday, January 08, 2021
Top 10 TV Shows of 2020
Compared to previous years, I didn’t watch that many TV shows in
2020. Also, I wasn’t able to watch all
the shows that I had meant to watch. I intended
to get into Dark and Money Heist – at least, one of the two –
but I never got around to catching up with either one. I also intended to watch the K-drama Start-Up before the year was over, but
failed at it as well (I’m still determined to do so this month). But
from the stuff that I got to actually watch in 2020, here are my favorites.
10.) Star Wars: The Clone Wars
“Star Wars: The Clone Wars – or at least its essential episodes – has long been a splendid, must-see chapter of the Star Wars saga. However, season 7 absolutely doubled its repute.”Click here for the full review.
Wednesday, January 06, 2021
2020 Recap in Pictures
Here are the highlights and lowlights of 2020 that got retained in my mind...
Friday, March 20, 2020
The 8th Bernel Zone Awards for Big Screen & Small Screen
Yeah, this year’s edition of the
Bernels is extremely late already – the latest it has ever been. But better late tha… you get the point. No sense in breaking tradition now. Anyway, the
“categories” here aren’t as many as last year’s, but this will do.
Best Movie Hero: Iron Man (Avengers:
Endgame)
The godfather of the MCU secured
this award by having one of the most glorious, instantly iconic heroic deaths
in cinema history.
Best TV Hero: The Mandalorian
a.k.a. “Mando” (The Mandalorian)
Best Anime Hero: Tanjiro Kamado (Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba)
Thursday, March 12, 2020
Top 10 Memorable Moments in 2019 Cinema and TV
There’s no longer enough time for
me to make separate “most memorable moments” top tens for the movies, TV shows,
and anime of 2019 like I did for 2018.
It’s in the middle of March already.
Still, I want to do at least one such list So here are what I found to be the top ten most
memorable moments from all the stuff I saw from both the big screen and small screen in 2019.
Honorable Mentions: Batman’s
“Illuminati” is revealed to be pulling the strings from behind the scenes (Young Justice: Outsiders; Mandalorians rescue
the Mandalorian (The Mandalorian);
Tanjiro (with Nezuko) vs. Rui (Demon
Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba); Ash finally wins his first ever Pokemon League championship (Pokemon: Sun and Moon)
10.) Kristoff’s “Lost in the
Woods” Song Number (Frozen II)
One can argue that, by itself,
“Lost in the Woods” is a beautiful song that wonderfully encapsulates the
emotion and state of Kristoff’s arc at that point of the story. Maybe.
That’s one way of looking at it.
But the lyrics and style of the song are really reminiscent of
old-school, over-sentimental rock love songs like Peter Cetera’s “Glory of
Love.” The filmmakers might have
realized this, and thus, proceeded to present the song number, tongue in cheek,
as a cheesy, overdramatic 80’s-style music video. Thus, it ended up being the most hilarious –
and most memorable – scene in the movie.
What makes it funnier is that Kristoff’s voice actor, Jonathan Groff,
took it seriously. In one interview, he
said, “We were completely genuine when we were making that song. There was nothing funny about it at all and
then the animators did such crazy things.” LOL!
Saturday, February 15, 2020
Top 20 Movies of 2019
This is the latest an annual movie
list of mine has ever been. But I
wrote before that there were films I wanted to see first before I could
comfortably assemble my top 20 movies of 2019, and I’ve just recently finished that task.
So, without further ado, here are
my favorite films of 2019…
20.) How to Train Your Dragon:
The Hidden World
“…for me, the runner-up… for greatest animated film trilogy ever is How to Train Your Dragon. The Hidden World has made sure of that.”
Click here for the full review.
Sunday, January 26, 2020
Top 10 TV Series of 2019
The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance is a technical masterpiece, and
deserves a slot in this list. The
problem is, when the show was released back in August 2019, I only managed to watch its first two episodes, and since then, I haven’t found the time to watch the rest . So, for now, it gets a shout-out
here. And once I get around to finishing it, we can retroactively say that it’s part of this top 10 (Lol).
Anyway, among all the TV series whose 2019 runs I got to see in their entireties, here are my top 10 favorites...
Monday, January 20, 2020
Top 10 Anime Series of 2019
I haven’t reviewed any of the new anime shows from the fall season yet, nor have I made my final rankings for
them. But since none of them actually made
the list, I think it’s okay to present my “top 10 anime series of 2019” ahead
of my evaluations for those fall 2019 anime.
10.) My Hero Academia
Saturday, January 11, 2020
Sunday, March 03, 2019
The 7th Bernel Zone Awards for Big Screen & Small Screen
It’s once again time to tie up
with the awards season – most specifically, the recently finished Oscars – with
this own blog’s set of random, informal awards.
For this edition, since I made separate lists for last year’s anime instead
of lumping them with TV shows in general, I also made separate awards for
them. So now, for the awards…
Best Movie Hero: Ethan Hunt (Mission: Impossible – Fallout)
Best TV Hero: Jack Ryan (Jack Ryan)
Best Anime Hero: Rimuru Tempest (That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime)
Monday, February 04, 2019
2018 Recap. In Pictures.
We're already a month into 2019. But let me still present my (very late) recap of 2018.
Thursday, January 31, 2019
Top 10 Memorable Movie Moments of 2018
From all of what I saw from 2018
cinema, here are the top ten moments that had been most memorable to me.
Honorable Mentions: the Brachiosaurus’
death scene (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom), Cash raps in his boss Steve’s party (Sorry to Bother You), Disney Princesses save Ralph (Ralph Breaks the Internet), Teen Titans
time travel to prevent and then un-prevent the origins of superheroes (Teen Titans Go! To the Movies)
10.) Giant Oprah
Let’s start with an unforgettable
moment for the wrong reasons. A Wrinkle in Time was probably the worst
movie I saw in 2018. And there’s one thing
from it that I will never forget (or two, if we count the most insufferable
child actor/character in movie history): the hilariously terrifying image of gargantuan Oprah – a most unsettling titan this side of, well, Attack on Titan.
Sunday, January 27, 2019
Top 10 Memorable TV Moments of 2018
Just like every year, 2018 had a
lot of noteworthy moments on TV. And
once again, I’ll be enumerating in this list, not necessarily those that entertained me best, but those that retained in my memory the most. Here are ten:
10.) The Winchester Brothers Meet
the Scooby Gang
I don’t follow Supernatural, but I was compelled to
watch the 16th episode of its 13th season,
“Scoobynatural”, because it involved Sam and Dean getting sucked into the Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! episode “A
Night of Fright Is Not Delight.” It was
such a bizarre, hilarious, delightful, smart crossover that I just have to put
it in this list.
Friday, January 25, 2019
Top 10 Memorable Anime Moments of 2018
Since I separated anime from my
TV shows list of 2018, I will also have this separate list for anime moments. So here are the top ten moments that I think
really stood out from anime 2018.
10.) Android 17 Wins Tournament
of Power MVP
To be fair, the entire Tournament
of Power arc – arguably the peak of Dragon Ball Super, and even the entire franchise – is probably what I have in my mind for this spot, and I’m
just letting its final moment represent the whole. Nevertheless, a second-tiered (maybe even
third-tiered) character like Android 17 being the last man standing was still
an unexpected turn, and a perfect way to cap an arc that was filled with exciting
and surprising moments.
Sunday, January 13, 2019
Top 20 Movies of 2018
I wasn’t able to see every movie
I had been meaning to see in 2018. And
some of those unwatched movies – particularly Bohemian Rhapsody, Anna and
the Apocalypse, Creed II, and Mirai – would have likely ended up being
strong contenders for this list if I had seen them. Nevertheless, from among those that I did get
the chance to watch, here are my twenty most favorite.
20.) Ready Player One
“…one of the geekiest movies of all time, and it’s designed to be rewarding to those who have been invested on huge amounts of varied pop culture properties in their lifetime… It has set itself to be a feast for our inner child to relish, and it triumphantly delivers.”Click here for the full review.
Saturday, January 12, 2019
Top 10 TV Shows of 2018
Since I’ve already made a
separate list for anime series, this list is exclusively made up of just shows from
the West, both animated and live-action.
I had seen tons of shows in 2018.
By mid-year alone, I had watched twice the amount of shows I usually had
by that time of the year (and, at that point, I had not yet seen the majority
of the anime shows I had seen in 2018).
Still, I feel that 2018 deserves just a “top 10” list instead of the
usual “top 20” – not because there were only ten shows I found worthwhile and
enjoyable, but because I want to focus on what I think were the cream of the
crop.
10.) The Venture Bros.
Friday, January 11, 2019
Top 10 Anime Shows of 2018
While constructing my list for
top 20 TV shows of 2018, I noticed that it was being dominated by anime. It’s because 2018 was the year in which I had followed the most amount of anime shows as an adult (I also caught up with a couple of old ones), and with 2018 being considered by the consensus
as one of the best years of anime – if not the best – it’s only logical why. Thus, instead of the usual “top 20” list, for
2018, I decided to make a separate “top 10” list for anime series in order to make
room for more non-anime (i.e. West-produced) shows to be covered in the “TV
shows” list.
Alright. Let’s jump into it…
Honorable
mentions: Goblin Slayer, Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai,
Overlord, A Place Further than the Universe
10.) Steins;Gate 0
“In a nutshell, the entire series involves waiting for the dispirited Okabe Rintaro to ‘resurrect’ Hououin Kyouma. It takes most of the episodes to get there, and it can be sometimes chore-like… However, the great anticipation for the endgame and exemplary storytelling amply enable the audience to push through, and once it finally arrives at the eventual return of Hououin Kyouma, it’s such a glorious, spine-tingling, fist-pumping moment that it makes the somewhat tough journey toward it well worth it.”
Click here for the full review.
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