Earl Grey Books

I’ve been really enjoying putting together my watching & listening posts every month, and I thought it’d be fun to have a quick look at some of the best things I watched this year.

Looking back at it now, a lot of the things I loved this year were things I was revisiting like Jumanji, the Mummy and the Indiana Jones series. I decided not to include those on here, so while this list is small, everything here was new to me in 2020. With that said, let’s get into them.

Fleabag

Like so many other people this year, I discovered Fleabag and was instantly in love with it and Phoebe Waller-Bridge. I actually watched this on my flight to London back in January—maybe that was a bad idea because I did end up crying but I also had to wait like five hours before I could talk to anyone about that ending. I won’t wax poetic about this too much because I’m sure you’ve all seen it yourselves, and if not you’ve at least heard about it. I think Phoebe Waller-Bridge is definitely going to be a writer/actor that I’ll continue to follow as she brings out new things. I’ve already watched her first show, Crashing, which I also really loved though will forever be disappointed that it was never renewed. Where would we all be without Fleabag though, huh?

Love Life

I watched this series back in June and just completely fell in love with it. I was already a big fan of Anna Kendrick—I generally like the movies she’s in, and she usually makes me laugh. But this? This one I loved. This isn’t the sort of thing I’d usually watch, but it just feels so real. The characters feel like real people with real problems and by the end of the series, I really felt like I’d been on this journey with them and like I knew them. I don’t often feel like that about characters in shows or movies—that’s a big part of the reason that I’m a reader because I do often get that feeling from books. But this was different in that way. I believe there’s meant to be a second season to this at some point, but don’t quote me on that. Either way, this is a definite favourite.

Love Alarm

I go through periods where the only thing I can actually get through are kdramas. Just like historical romance, kdramas feel like a safe space and I often find some kind of comfort in them. Love Alarm is one of the best ones I’ve seen—it’s adorable as hell, but it also deals with some serious topics. It was one of those shows that I started on a whim and then suddenly I’d watched the entire season and didn’t know what to do next. This follows a few teenagers after an app called Love Alarm is released which basically tells you if someone nearby ‘loves’ you. How that works exactly I don’t know, but it does make for some adorable and heartbreaking moments. The first season ended on such a cliffhanger, and then, of course, season two was delayed because of COVID. I am so, so excited to see where the next season will take these characters so I hope it’s as enjoyable as the first.

Birds of Prey

I know some people don’t like this movie, but honestly, they’re wrong. I’m not a DC fan—I’ve literally only seen this, Suicide Squad and Wonder Woman. And until Batgirl gets a solo film, I’m probably just going to stick with Harley Quinn and Wonder Woman. So why did I love this film so much? Well for one, Margot Robbie is incredible—that’s a known fact, right? It’s also just a straight-up fun movie—it’s a little ridiculous, and it’s bright and colourful and wild but it’s so good at it. One of my absolute favourite things about it is the costumes. I spent days drafting this post working out how to say what I want to say and still don’t have anything, so instead, I’m going to link you all to this incredible article from Jessica Toomer on Syfy about why these costumes are so important to the movie, and to the great discussion of female superheroes and so forth.

So those are my favourites for 2020, what are yours?