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2016 in Review

30 December, 2016

It's been a rough year. Globally – but also personally. My home country and my adoptive country appear to be falling apart. The international uncertainty around Brexit and the election of a demagogue in the U.S. makes me wonder what 2017 has in store. Closer to home, we've had a strange year. We started and ended the year looking for jobs – and in between worked at a startup with people who I respected and enjoyed working with thoroughly.

We're starting 2017 with new jobs, in New York. It's a big move, but one we've wanted to make for a while. We're sad to be leaving San Francisco, and excited to see what New York has in store for us.

Anyway, onto my lists. I feel like we've had a bumper year in terms of film, TV, and music. It was a lot tougher picking a top three for most things I had last year – so I separated out TV and music into two categories apiece.

Films

  1. 10 Cloverfield Lane
  2. The Witch
  3. Arrival

Honourable mentions: Green Room and Captain America: Civil War.

TV

I enjoyed a lot of TV this year. So much so that I split the TV section up into two: episodes and shows. I couldn't pick a favourite episode from the shows listed.

Episodes

  1. Battle of the Bastards (Game of Thrones, S06 E09)
  2. The Bicameral Mind (Westworld, S01 E10)
  3. Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster (X-Files, S10 E03)

Shows

  1. American Crime Story: The People vs OJ Simpson
  2. Stranger Things
  3. The Crown

Books

Again, I've been terrible with reading.

Albums

We've been spoiled this year with great albums from great artists. This list is pretty standard, but here you go.

  1. A Moon Shaped Pool – Radiohead
  2. Lemonade – Beyoncé
  3. Blackstar – David Bowie

Songs

I tried to pick songs off albums not on my best-of list. Otherwise, Burn the Witch and Formation would be numbers 1 and 2.

  1. Ivy – Frank Ocean
  2. Ugo – Dead Pirates
  3. Nobody Speak – DJ Shadow feat. Run the Jewels