Happy New Year! Amazingly enough, this is the 21st edition of this annual holiday greeting card in the form of a favorites list. (Don't believe me? Just look at the archives.) If this list were a person, it would be old enough to drink! Yet despite its advanced age, it is shorter than usual, which is saying something because I never once have made it a "Top Ten" list. But since lack of quality never stopped me before, here are some things I enjoyed in the last year that you might, too.
Let me know what I should seek in the future!
Aaron Caplan
How happy should you be that your girlfriend's parents seem abnormally pleased that you're dating their daughter? Especially when they've got white privilege and you don't? From Jordan Peele, who once asked if the Make-a-Wish Foundation should be a little more careful whose wishes they grant (see below). HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
As with Get Out, the heroes in these movies leave home and find themselves in close quarters with people they have to decide whether to trust. In 10 Cloverfield Lane, it's a survivalist with a bomb shelter who might have good reasons not to go outside. In Safety Not Guaranteed, it's the guy who publishes a classified ad (remember those?) that says "WANTED: Someone to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. You'll get paid after we back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before."
Wes Anderson's stop-motion animated feature is now my favorite movie version of any Roald Dahl book. I love how the animals are more dapper than the humans ? until they start eating, when they turn into all elbows and teeth. Sort of like my spouse. (She told me to write that.)
'71 (2015)
Alien: Covenant (2017)
Au Revoir Les Enfants (1987)
Baby Driver (2017)
Big Hero 6 (2014)
The Big Sick (2017)
Dunkirk (2017)
Heaven's Gate (1980)
I Don't Feel At Home In This World Anymore (2017)
Logan (2017)
Morgan (2016)
T2 Trainspotting (2017)
Usually when I have so few entertainment recommendations, I offer up a recipe as a consolation prize, as happened in 2001 and 2012.
So here are instructions for making roasted beet gnocchi, courtesy of the good folks at Fine Cooking magazine. They are pretty, tasty, and they made me learn how much fun it is to drive your own gnocchi board.
And here is an improbable but yummy barbecued chickpea salad discovered in, of all things, a Humane Society magazine in the doctor's waiting room. The recipe comes from a book called Salad Samurai that has not yet let us down.
Debuted on September 4, 2017, on the occasion of the 83rd birthday of Eduard Khil. (I hadn't heard of him either, but he's the guy who does this.)
