Top Ten(s) of the Year
Movies
This year, at the time of this writing, I have had first viewings of 114 movies. I’d say new, or new to me, but there’s something else to the idea of a first time vs. new. A new movie, a new release, is something that exists in the present, and while the overwhelming majority of the ten movies listed below came out within the last year or two, I didn’t watch them because they were new, I watched them because I hadn’t seen them yet.
The following movies are in some kind of hierarchical order past making the cut to be on this list.
The Novice
This is a movie about a college freshman who joins her school’s rowing team, and who self destructs in all manner of ways. Full of brutal and bleak emotional and physical self-destruction, this movie was a wonderful, small story that is not an easy watch.
Evil Dead Rise
We all know that the Evil Dead franchize takes place in cabins in the woods (or back in time, or in that town in Ash vs. The Evil Dead) but what this instalment supposess is, what if it took place in a delapedated apartment complex.
A fun, bloody afair that has a grussom scene with a cheese grater, and a lot of good gore. Also, the 2013 Evil Dead is a good watch too.
The Storied Life of AJ Fikry
An indie movie set in a new England town, centered on a widowed book store owner, it’s a story about book, love, death, parenting, and teh collapse of brick and mortar retail. This is another small movie that tells a very human story… and has Joan from Mad Men in it too!
Tar
Cate Blanchete plays a manican classical music conductor, and she threatens a nine year old girl in German. This is a big time ACTING! movie full of Cate ACTING!! so if you want to watch like 3 hours of her ACTING!!! you’ll love it.
M3gan
A girl’s life sized robot friend goes full Skynet and starts killing people who hurt, scare, threaten, or otherwise make uncomfortable the girl she is friends with. Full camp, full murder.
Theater Camp
My most recent watch on the list, Theater Camp tells the story of a theater camp whose founder and operator, played by Amy Sedaris, goes into a coma after having a light induced seizure while watching a preoduction of… I wanna say Hello Dolly… Anyhow, if that sentence tickles your funnybone, this movie is for you.
It’s a mockumentary, or more accuratly a documentary style comedy fileld with familiar faces, tons of big theater kid energy, some buffoonery, and solid to outstanding jokes.
Fool’s Paradise
Written and directed by Charlie Day of It’s Always Sunny in Philidelphia fame, this is the story of a man with a developmental disorder (Day) who is cast out of the institution he was living in, and just so happens to look just like a difficult method actor. This leads to a non-stop comedy of errors and commentary about entertainment, and society, and friendship.
The Doom that Came to Gotham
Based on the comic by Hellboy creator and artist Mike Mignola, The Doom That Came to Gotham transplants Batman into the 1920s where he comes face to face with the Cthulu mythos, and cosmic horror ensues.
The quality of the animation is better than the new DC animation house style, the adaptation is both true to the comic while also building on it, and like the best pf the annimated adaptations of comics, it uses its format for maximum value and effectivness.
This is a horror story, there are deaths, body horror, and more!
Iron Claw
Based on the true story of the Von Erich professional wrestling family, Iron Claw is an above average sewrious drama about a family business… that business being “The Business”, which is what pro wrestlers refer to pro wrestling as.
This is not a spoiler, Fritz Von Erich, who rose to prominance by playing a Nazi rassler whose finishing move was “The Iron Claw”, a manuaver where you grab someone’s head and squeeze, fathered six sons, and 5 of them died, 4 from being in the wrestling business, 2 of those 4 from suicide.
Iron Claw is so intense that the director left out one of the sons, but does a wonderful job of both showing and implying how terrible a father Fritz was, and how grueling the wrestling business is. I say IS not was, because while it’s not as bad as it was in the 80s, it’s still a terrible industry.
Anyhow, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie.
The Menu
My favorite movie I watched of the last year, The Menu tells the story of a sex worker who is hired to go to an exclusive resteraunt and dining experience full of horrible people. As she was not supposed to be there. she is not included in the pre-arrangened punishments and tortures the chef and his cult had devised, and as murder, violence, and the blackest humor unfolds, the movie serves (see what I did there) a series of observations and critiques about art, artists, and fandom.
Also, it’s a movie where the sex worker is the hero. That’s not a spoiler.
TV Shows (no pictures or trailers or scenes for this list)
The shows listed below are not all new, nor are they shows that had thewir best season this year. They are a combination of old and new, and my top show of the year is bueyed by the fact it’s my top show of the last three years.
My love of cartoons is evident in thos list, and while Bob’s Burgers is always great, and The Simpsons has had a very late in life resurgence in quality, they are not included.
Scooby Doo Mystery Inc.
I’m not a big Scooby guy, never have been, and tended to really ony watch it when nothing else was on, or when Batman was on it. This show, a 2 season, serialized story powered by monsters/mysteries of the week, was an enjoyable watch, and a great background show for while I was working.
There’s a fair amount of mystery, solid jokes, and good narrative payoffs… even if the higher ups wouldn’t let Velma be the lesbian the writers were angling her to be.
Adventures of Brisco County Jr.
While far from a new show, and far from the first time I’d seen episodes, I sat down and watched all of it this year (via Itunes/Apple TV), and it was as delightful as I remembered it to be, and even more so on regular occasions. Strong jokes, good action, a lot of space for Bruce Campbell to shine as a leading man, and even when it was dated it was bare minimum quaint, and never particularly jarring.
Animal Control
Joel McHale’s latest sitcom, one set in Seattle (he’s from the east side, not Seattle…), it is a charming, no impact workplace comedy full of what you’d expect. Unrequited love, larger than life shenanigans, it’s all pretty rote, and it’s anchored by a strong cast. Worth watching if what you want is 21 minutes of classic sitcom goodness.
Honorable Inclusion: Welcome to Flatch
While we’re talking about sitcoms, Welcome to Flatch, a mocumentary about the small Ohio town of Flatch, remains a charming, heartfelt, and hilarious watch. It is at times a pure sitcom, a dark comedy, and a dramedy. It’s smart, funny, and has solid joke strucrtures and payoffs.
Last of Us
What if someone took genre entertainment and decided to focus on telling human stories with actual characters? What if you could have speculative fiction full of action, but that action was consequential, and character driven? That’s what you get with Last of Us, a show based on a game (I didn’t play, because I’ve gotten my fill of deep narrative gaming…), made by the guys who made Chernobyl…
Ok, so I finally watched that show too, and within the first ten min of the first episode I was making Lane Price from Mad Men jokes. My girlfriend sat me down to watch it when I told her I’d skipped it, and it was a better viewing experience than if I’d fired it up on my own.
Anyhow, what last of Us does from a dramatic and narrative character driven perspective is about what I expect of genre movies/TV… not specifically the dire and the R rated, but the considred and emotionally grounded storytelling.
Lower Decks
I’m not a Trekie, and I know more about Star Trek than I should based on how much of it I don’t and didn’t watch… which makes Lower Decks just perfect for me. A comedic cartoon about the non-bridge-crew members of a small/mid-sized starship. It is a fantastic joke machine full of great voice acting, deep cuts, and the capacity to go full tilt into capturing the best of Stark Trek at the drop of a hat.
Wolverine and the X-Men
A one season (cancelled) cartoon adaptation of Marvel’s X-Men, this is possibly the best adaptation of the comic to date. If you like the X-Men, like cartoons, and haven’t seen it, you should give it a go, it’s good stuff.
Craig of the Creek
The fourth cartoon on the list, Craig of the Creek is a show about a gang of kids that hang out at a creek. The creek itself is full of all kinds of different kids, has different areas, its own economy, and the show captures the joy of childhood and imagination. Episodes are generally only 10 min or so, and if you’re a parent, give the show a look because it’s inclusive, positive, exciting, and affirming.
The show is very episodic, while having season long thru lines, mythology, and character continuity that is deeply rewarding and engaging.
The Great
The third, and I assume final season of Hulu’s The Great aired this year, and it went hard. Elle Fanning plays a fictionalized version of Katherine the Great, and Nicholas Hoult (hey, he plays a dickhead in The Menu…) plays her dickhead husband Peter, in a show full of sex, casual murder, fantastic vulgarity, and brutal, bleak hilairty… while also being surprisingly moving at times.
The Great is… GREAT and if you missed it, now’s the time to give it a watch.
Warrior
HBO saved this period action drama about kung fu gangster shit, and season 3 just aired this year. The fights are fantastic, the characters are interesting, and the show is overtly about immigration, outsiders, and labor in America… and kung fu gangster shit.
To circle back to the fights for a moment, every fight scene and all the choreography is intensly character driven, and every action beat builds on and reveals character. It’s not a perfect show, but it’s fucking rad.
Reservation Dogs
While the third and final season of this show about a group of Indigenous kids living on a reservation in Oklahoma was its weakest, it was still an impressive, overwhelming, and deeply human. I’ve used that phrase a few times now in the lists and I should explain it, I think.
Humanity in art is the ability to focus on and capture emotional truth, and barring truth then at least emotional honesty.
Reservation Dogs is beautifully human and honest, and its weakest episode is still fantastic storytelling.
Reservation Dogs is the best show of the last 3 years.
Other Favorites
I could also list out top tens for books, video games, etc. but instead I’ll share my favorite misc things.
Book
The Outpost by Jake Tapper.
This year I read a good number of books (I read read, not listen read, and if you listen read that’s fine… reading and listening are different activities, not better or worse, just different… they use different sensory inpuits, they’re not the same thing), including a bunch of Robin Hobb, and 5 books from The Expanse series.
I also read a 600 page book about the war in Afghanistan, focused on one stupid idea that compiunded into an untenable position that led to lots of needless death and violence… which, you know… sums up war as a whole.
Anyway, I read the book (which got turned into a pretty good little movie, a kind of Budget Hawk Down) after re-reading Black Hawk Down, then Band of Brothers, and it was an interesting, long read. The book is a commitment, and culminates in a battle that took place in 2009… you know, 11 years before the war ended, so there’s nothing bittersweet about it, it’s just a fucking downer.
It’s a good book though.
Video Game
Kena Bridge of Spirits.
Kena feels like two different games that were smashed together. One is a punishing and demanding action adventure game (with some challenging and punitve design mechanics), and the other is an adorable and heartbreaking story game about death, grief, and letting go.
In the game you play Kena, a young woman whose duty is helping guide spirits to the other side, and to accomplish this she befriends tiny little adorable helpers (see the cover image for this article) that give her enhanced magic powers for combat and puzzle solving.
I openly wept during every narrative climax and became unsustainabley angry with the game’s ultimately unrealized combat ambitions… often setting the game down for days at a time before coming back to try again.
This game combines my love of video games, cute animal friends, and my personal relationship to grief and death!!!
Podcast
The podcast I spent the most time listening to this year was Teen Creeps. Hosted by Kelly Nugent and Lindsay Katai, the theme of the show is the to of them reading and reviewing YA pulp, from horror to melodrama, mainly focused on books from the 80s and 90s.
The reality of the show is two women exploring the reality of existence, trauma, and the inability to stop doing bits.
Both are comedic performers, actors, writers, etc. and their best episodes are when they find something in the book to sink their teeth into either very good or very bad… or when a bit takes over the show.
If all of this sounds utterly exhausting, then you don’t know what it’s like to want to/need to be always on in your day to day life. Onbviously this is a show, so they are in a performative space, but their human reality of seaking out bits and schtick will be deeply relatable to anyone who is or tries to be “funny”.
So yes, with all their shit they bring up all the time, and their particular way of being ‘always on’, I deeply relate to their show personas… plus while I was never a big YA pulp reader, I love hearing about these books.
Did you know that Sweet Valley High is bonkers?