My Best of 2022

Jill Pantozzi | December 31st, 2022

It's an image of me from the waist up from the Star Trek Lower Decks character creator. I've got big bushy red hair and am wearing a science uniform. I'm inside a blank holodeck room and you can see the exit door to my right. — I made a Star Trek: Lower Decks version of myself in the official character creator!

It’s been…a weird year (That’s something we say every year now, right?!?). Although I didn’t really have to consume any entertainment for work in 2022 I obviously still consumed a ton anyway. Take a gander at my best of movies, television, video games, and books lists below.

While a lot of my “best of” items are from 2022, you’ll notice there are a few older titles here and there. That’s because I took my decompression time to catch up on some other recent (and some not-so-recent) pieces of media I’d been meaning to check out for a while. These lists are in no particular order and vary in length. Please feel free to share what you enjoyed this year in the comments. Happy New Year, all!

Movies

Encanto
Passing
Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar
The Harder They Fall
RRR
Bob’s Burgers: The Movie
Fresh
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
Prey
Nope
Watcher
Marcel the Shell With Shoes On
See How They Run
The Lost City of D
Everything, Everywhere All at Once
Honorable Mention: The Cat From Outer Space (This film from 1978 had been sitting in my queue for ages. It’s great, silly fun.

Why yes, my husband and I did make Nope costumes for Halloween this year! Check out my silly one in motion here.

My husband and I posing in our Halloween Nope costumes. My husband is the creature, he's wearing a large grey circular object on his head with black fur trim around where his head sticks out in the middle. He's holding a small plastic horse and has party flags hanging from the hole. I'm sitting in my scooter, you can't really see me besides my legs in black pants. I'm dressed as one of the blow-up, dancing car dealer figures. The costume is all red with extra large arms, googly eyes, and a wide open mouth sticker. — My husband and I dressed up for Halloween as things featured in Jordan Peele’s Nope, one of the best movies of the year and one of the most unique sci-fi horror ideas in ages.

Television

Pushing Daisies
Search Party
Peacemaker
Yellowjackets
The Great
Bob’s Burgers
Bordertown
Our Flag Means Death
Star Trek: Picard
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
She-Hulk
Abbott Elementary
Severance
Better Call Saul
Obi-Wan Kenobi
Ms. Marvel
Somebody Somewhere
Barry
Bee and Puppycat
Andor
The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself
A League of Their Own
EDIT: I somehow forgot about the outstanding Interview With the Vampire
Honorary Mention: Killing Eve (The final season was great but they boffed that ending HARD. I’m basically pretending that bit didn’t happen.)

A gif I made from the Star Wars series Andor featuring the prison bridges. One prisoner is using a form of sign language to communicate with another in another far off bridge. The inside of the bridges are stark white and all inmates wear a white top and pants with a thick orange stripe down the sides. — How I am communicating with friends now that I’m off Twitter.

Video Games

Alan Wake
The Room 1, 2, 3, and 4
Darkside Detective
It Takes Two
Unravel 2
Sable
Resident Evil Village
Rain on Your Parade
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga
Roki
Little Nightmares
Stray
Inside
Syberia World Before
AER Memories of Old
Goat Simulator 3
Honorable Mention: Quantum Break (I really liked the idea behind this one—which had some great actors involved—and the mechanics were really fun to play around with but the live-action pieces were a boring slog.)

A photo I took of my TV while playing Goat Simulator 3. My goat was giant-sized at the time and is purple with green, blue, and purple on the chest area. Its wearing a bullhorn on its head and blue and pink fairy wings on its back. It's sitting next to a church and on a pile of ashes. — Goat Simulator 3 is one of the most bizarre games I’ve ever played but oh so much fun.

Books

Her Fierce Creatures by Maria Lewis
The Long Way to the Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
Ahsoka (note animated story) by E.K. Johnston
Star Wars: Leia, Princes of Alderaan by Claudia Grey
Star Wars: Phasma by Delilah S. Dawson
The Druid by Jeff Wheeler
The Wretched of Muirwood by Jeff Wheeler
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
The Paper Magicians by Charlie N. Holmberg
The Keeper of Happy Endings by Barbara Davis
Honorable Mention: House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (Ok, so I started this one but had to set it aside many times because it’s such an exhausting read—what with all the turning the book upsidedown and going back and forth for references.)

Speaking of Ahsoka…in case you missed it, I finally got the tattoo of her that I’ve been wanting for YEARS. This gorgeous work was done by @szablasta.

It's my right arm facing outward featuring my new Ahsoka Tano tattoo. It's done in bright blues, pinks, and more and sees Morai on the very top of my shoulder followed by Ahsoka with her lightsabers, and finally a lothcat at the very bottom. All figures are alight from the glow of the sabers. — MY GIRL!!!

FYI: I’ve been mostly off Twitter (for obvious reasons) for the last while but have signed up for some of those newfangled social media sites. You can always look to my LinkTree for the official stuff.