Top 7 - My Favourite Things of 2019
Here we are gang, New Years Eve! This feels big and dramatic, or it would, were it not for the fact that due to time zones and social media algorithims, you probably won't read this until New Years Day and I'm writing a couple of days in advance. Regardless, time to reminisce at the end of the year, which makes this a good time to explain my process of best of the year stuff. Today, we're going to be talking about all the odds and sods, things that fit into categories that I wasn't going to do a full list on. In a month (just after all the Oscar stuff is over and done with) I'll break down my favourite films and TV of 2019 and then in August, we'll dedicate the whole month to the best of the decade, be it books, films or video games. For today though, we're just going to talk about some of my favourite things I wanted an excuse to talk about. Some of these are short films, some of these are video games, a couple are even YouTube videos, all are really worth your time and I will give a little explanation why on each. Plus, even more exciting, I've finally worked out how to embed stuff, so it's interactive for once, aren't you lucky? Let's get cracking with the honourable mentions!
I'm entirely upfront about my lack of interest and understanding of grime music, so while many were instantly moved by Stormzy's Glastonbury performance, it took this brilliantly written article by author extraordinaire Zadie Smith for me to finally get it.
YouTubers making music is often a worrying state of affairs but with Orla Gartland, a vlogger I had never heard of before this year, she broke her way into my heart with bangers like "Flatline" and heartbreaking ballads like "Why Am I Like This?"
In 2019, politics became more and more polarised (I was never so grateful to avoid Christmas dinner table arguments) but also more and more absurd, as this too good to be true gif proves. Nothing captures the freaky sitcom modern life has become better than this.
Watching Fallout 76 collapse in on itself all year has been a schadenfreude laden delight and while you could watch all of Jim Sterling's videos on it for a full catch up, this splendidly edited video runs down some of the greatest hits of one of the worst flops.
If you read about films this year at all, you almost certainly got dragged into the pointless "Are Marvel movies cinema?" debate but like the true class act he is, Marty himself wrote out a well considered and balanced response that should have killed the debate dead.
Look, the only reason this game isn't any higher on the list is because I only got it a week ago, as an exceptionally kind gift from a friend. From the few hours I've played so far though, I already feel in love with its noir trappings, existential dread and laboriously crafted dialogue options.
Those things were all great, but seven things were better than them, let's talk those seven things!
The rise of YouTube and video movie criticism has brought about many dire and bland movie channels (not naming any names *ding*) but it has also opened the floodgates for an overwhelming tidal wave of creativity from channels like Lindsay Ellis, I Hate Everything and Red Letter Media, which doesn't even include the myriad of channels that just put out traditional, video based movie reviews. One of my favourite though has been Your Movie Sucks (usually just shortened to YMS), who spends hours breaking down awful films, many of which you probably haven't heard of, as well as discussing brilliant works of cinematic art. As far as his best work though, that has to be his review of Spike Lee's Oldboy remake. It came out at the start of the year, is feature length in its own right (at one hour, thirty eight minutes) and I love it so much I've now seen it four times. Even if you haven't seen the 2013 Oldboy (which is clearly not recommended), Adam efficiently breaks the entire film down with ease, taking the piss and making genuinely insightful comments on the film making in tandem. Sometimes filmmakers have it out for critics but with this review, YMS showed that reviews themselves can be much better works of art than the films they discuss.
Just like Orla Gartland, dodie is most famous as a YouTuber, a YouTuber I never really watched. It's nothing personal but her twee style was part of that kind of "vlogpocalypse" back in 2013, where every vlogger (especially British ones in their early twenties) was making the exact same sort of video. It just wasn't for me and still isn't, but that's not important. What is important was her debut album from earlier in the year, called Human. It's a good album, with some lovely songs among some of the slightly weaker ones but it is absolutely immortalised by the song "She". I adore this song. The rest of the album is good, I'd still recommend listening to it, but this song is on another level. Like so many of the greatest love songs, it's a tale of unrequited love, of smells and tastes and the way they mix with sorrow. There is a casual queerness to it as well, which endears it more to me but is easily ignorable for the homophobically inclined. In eight months, when I get around to my best music of the decade list, expect this to make a strong appearance.
Okay, so there were better games that came out this year than My Friend Pedro. Many of them I didn't play but even Disco Elysium, stuck in the honourable mentions section, is clearly a better game than this. Why is a game about a banana making you shoot people so high on the list? I think that question answers itself. No, this is hardly a technical marvel of a game but it's silly fun perfected and in video games, this is pretty much all I ask for. The barebones of a story rear their heads every now and then but otherwise, it is a game whose core mechanic is shooting people in slow motion, in rapid succession. That combo meter on the bottom of your screen is running out so you had better run and gun as fast as you bloody well can. My Friend Pedro isn't a huge game, I finished it in about two hours, but I keep coming back and replaying it. That's only been helped by a recent update where modifiers like super slow-mo and big head mode were added, making a silly game even sillier. I love it with all my heart and if it keeps getting updated, I will keep playing it until the end of time.
Anyone who had the misfortune of hanging out with me this year before August has likely had one of the many delightful trailers for Hobbs and Shaw pushed on them, for which I do not apologise. While Hobbs and Shaw is undeniably the greatest film of the year, a cinematic masterpiece that redefines the medium, the trailers were works of art unto themselves. In compiling this list, I made sure to rewatch the trailer you have above this paragraph and holy shit, it is still incredible. Despite not having seen it in months, I could still recite just about all of it, not even word for word, but sound effect and accompanying visual for sound effect and accompanying visual. I forget who tweeted it but there was someone online who wrote that after seeing this trailer, they understood why cults existed; it's just that bloody good. In a time when most trailers are accused of giving away the whole film, the trailers for Hobbs and Shaw absolutely did that too, but no one cared because of how much fun they were having.
The stars didn't quite align for it but I almost wrote a whole blog post about my love for Sayonara Wild Hearts. It's a game recommended by my dear friend and editor over at Exepose Screen, Jacob Heayes, which is unlike any other game I have ever played. I will describe it now, just promise me you won't scroll down once you read how weird it sounds, okay? Okay. Sayonara Wild Hearts is the story of a bi-sexual woman whose heart is broken, tasked to reunite a fractured land by taming the wild hearts using her motorbike and sword, all while learning how to love herself again. Yup, it's batshit, but it's amazing. The gameplay is super simple, you just move across a screen to collect hearts and press buttons when prompted, but the way it's set to music is what sets it apart. This music, by Daniel Olsen, is sensational. It's the kind of music that, when I boot the game up in the middle of the day and blast that shit loud, my flatmates actually compliment it. Like My Friend Pedro, this game is super short, only about an hour, but I don't regret the £12 I spent on it. As part of Apple Arcade, you may not even need to spend that much to play it but regardless, it's a game worth experiencing, for the sheer, surreal bliss it exudes. In teaching me how to love myself better, I only fell deeper in love with the game.
These last two entries are very similar and while I plan on doing a full dissection of them in the future, I'll do some light contrasting as I lay them both out. I Am Easy To Find is an album by a band called The National, a band I was entirely unfamiliar with until finding this. It's a solid album but it isn't the album I'm choosing, it's the accompanying short film, directed by Mike Mills, he of 20th Century Women acclaim. The short film is very strange, showing an entire life just through the performance of Alicia Vikander and I do mean just the performance. There's no old age makeup, no hair changes, not even any costume change, just her embodying a life. When that is paired with music from the album of the same name, it comes together to form something with an irresistible alchemy. I've seen it twice now and the second time, I was brought to tears. If you want a perfect example of the simple power that films can release, even in just forty minutes, I Am Easy To Find is almost the best you can do this year. Almost.
I became a little bit obsessed with Anima this year. I watched it five times and loved it each and every time. Again, there's an album that has garnered much attention, by Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke, but it's the accompanying short film that I fell in love with. It really is a short film, only coming in at 15 minutes, but it is worth every one of those minutes. Anima is directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, deity to film bois everywhere, especially ones called Harry Goodwin. It stars Yorke himself in a dystopian society, in which he plays a Keaton/Chaplin-esque figure trying to return a lunchbox to a woman he saw on the train. The train is five minutes, a comedic/performance art set piece takes up the next five minutes and then the final five minutes are "Dawn Chorus". From the very first moment I heard this song, I fell helplessly in love. "Dawn Chorus" is the kind of song that is epic yet intimate, encompassing every emotion in the world in a very brief time. On its own, the song is immense but paired with that final five minutes, it becomes utterly transcendent. I simply cannot put into words why it works or what feeling it has on me but the good news is, I don't have to. Anima, the greatest thing of the year, is only 15 minutes long and on Netflix. Quite frankly, you have no excuse not to watch it. The only caveat is that you need to watch it on as big a screen as possible, as loud as possible. It is gorgeousness and gorgeousity made celluloid and I will come to all your houses and physically force you to watch it if I have to. Without a shadow of a doubt, this is the best thing of the year... That isn't a film or a TV show.
Zadie Smith's article about Stormzy's Glastonbury performance
I'm entirely upfront about my lack of interest and understanding of grime music, so while many were instantly moved by Stormzy's Glastonbury performance, it took this brilliantly written article by author extraordinaire Zadie Smith for me to finally get it.
Orla Gartland - Why Am I Like This? EP
YouTubers making music is often a worrying state of affairs but with Orla Gartland, a vlogger I had never heard of before this year, she broke her way into my heart with bangers like "Flatline" and heartbreaking ballads like "Why Am I Like This?"
That gif of Greta Thunberg staring across the room
— Jeffrey Guterman (@JeffreyGuterman) September 23, 2019
In 2019, politics became more and more polarised (I was never so grateful to avoid Christmas dinner table arguments) but also more and more absurd, as this too good to be true gif proves. Nothing captures the freaky sitcom modern life has become better than this.
Internet Historian - The Fall of 76
Watching Fallout 76 collapse in on itself all year has been a schadenfreude laden delight and while you could watch all of Jim Sterling's videos on it for a full catch up, this splendidly edited video runs down some of the greatest hits of one of the worst flops.
Martin Scorsese clarifies his stance on Marvel movies
If you read about films this year at all, you almost certainly got dragged into the pointless "Are Marvel movies cinema?" debate but like the true class act he is, Marty himself wrote out a well considered and balanced response that should have killed the debate dead.
Disco Elysium
Those things were all great, but seven things were better than them, let's talk those seven things!
7. Your Movie Sucks reviews Oldboy (2013)
The rise of YouTube and video movie criticism has brought about many dire and bland movie channels (not naming any names *ding*) but it has also opened the floodgates for an overwhelming tidal wave of creativity from channels like Lindsay Ellis, I Hate Everything and Red Letter Media, which doesn't even include the myriad of channels that just put out traditional, video based movie reviews. One of my favourite though has been Your Movie Sucks (usually just shortened to YMS), who spends hours breaking down awful films, many of which you probably haven't heard of, as well as discussing brilliant works of cinematic art. As far as his best work though, that has to be his review of Spike Lee's Oldboy remake. It came out at the start of the year, is feature length in its own right (at one hour, thirty eight minutes) and I love it so much I've now seen it four times. Even if you haven't seen the 2013 Oldboy (which is clearly not recommended), Adam efficiently breaks the entire film down with ease, taking the piss and making genuinely insightful comments on the film making in tandem. Sometimes filmmakers have it out for critics but with this review, YMS showed that reviews themselves can be much better works of art than the films they discuss.
6. She by Dodie
Just like Orla Gartland, dodie is most famous as a YouTuber, a YouTuber I never really watched. It's nothing personal but her twee style was part of that kind of "vlogpocalypse" back in 2013, where every vlogger (especially British ones in their early twenties) was making the exact same sort of video. It just wasn't for me and still isn't, but that's not important. What is important was her debut album from earlier in the year, called Human. It's a good album, with some lovely songs among some of the slightly weaker ones but it is absolutely immortalised by the song "She". I adore this song. The rest of the album is good, I'd still recommend listening to it, but this song is on another level. Like so many of the greatest love songs, it's a tale of unrequited love, of smells and tastes and the way they mix with sorrow. There is a casual queerness to it as well, which endears it more to me but is easily ignorable for the homophobically inclined. In eight months, when I get around to my best music of the decade list, expect this to make a strong appearance.
5. My Friend Pedro
Okay, so there were better games that came out this year than My Friend Pedro. Many of them I didn't play but even Disco Elysium, stuck in the honourable mentions section, is clearly a better game than this. Why is a game about a banana making you shoot people so high on the list? I think that question answers itself. No, this is hardly a technical marvel of a game but it's silly fun perfected and in video games, this is pretty much all I ask for. The barebones of a story rear their heads every now and then but otherwise, it is a game whose core mechanic is shooting people in slow motion, in rapid succession. That combo meter on the bottom of your screen is running out so you had better run and gun as fast as you bloody well can. My Friend Pedro isn't a huge game, I finished it in about two hours, but I keep coming back and replaying it. That's only been helped by a recent update where modifiers like super slow-mo and big head mode were added, making a silly game even sillier. I love it with all my heart and if it keeps getting updated, I will keep playing it until the end of time.
4. Hobbs and Shaw trailers
Anyone who had the misfortune of hanging out with me this year before August has likely had one of the many delightful trailers for Hobbs and Shaw pushed on them, for which I do not apologise. While Hobbs and Shaw is undeniably the greatest film of the year, a cinematic masterpiece that redefines the medium, the trailers were works of art unto themselves. In compiling this list, I made sure to rewatch the trailer you have above this paragraph and holy shit, it is still incredible. Despite not having seen it in months, I could still recite just about all of it, not even word for word, but sound effect and accompanying visual for sound effect and accompanying visual. I forget who tweeted it but there was someone online who wrote that after seeing this trailer, they understood why cults existed; it's just that bloody good. In a time when most trailers are accused of giving away the whole film, the trailers for Hobbs and Shaw absolutely did that too, but no one cared because of how much fun they were having.
3. Sayonara Wild Hearts
The stars didn't quite align for it but I almost wrote a whole blog post about my love for Sayonara Wild Hearts. It's a game recommended by my dear friend and editor over at Exepose Screen, Jacob Heayes, which is unlike any other game I have ever played. I will describe it now, just promise me you won't scroll down once you read how weird it sounds, okay? Okay. Sayonara Wild Hearts is the story of a bi-sexual woman whose heart is broken, tasked to reunite a fractured land by taming the wild hearts using her motorbike and sword, all while learning how to love herself again. Yup, it's batshit, but it's amazing. The gameplay is super simple, you just move across a screen to collect hearts and press buttons when prompted, but the way it's set to music is what sets it apart. This music, by Daniel Olsen, is sensational. It's the kind of music that, when I boot the game up in the middle of the day and blast that shit loud, my flatmates actually compliment it. Like My Friend Pedro, this game is super short, only about an hour, but I don't regret the £12 I spent on it. As part of Apple Arcade, you may not even need to spend that much to play it but regardless, it's a game worth experiencing, for the sheer, surreal bliss it exudes. In teaching me how to love myself better, I only fell deeper in love with the game.
2. I Am Easy to Find
These last two entries are very similar and while I plan on doing a full dissection of them in the future, I'll do some light contrasting as I lay them both out. I Am Easy To Find is an album by a band called The National, a band I was entirely unfamiliar with until finding this. It's a solid album but it isn't the album I'm choosing, it's the accompanying short film, directed by Mike Mills, he of 20th Century Women acclaim. The short film is very strange, showing an entire life just through the performance of Alicia Vikander and I do mean just the performance. There's no old age makeup, no hair changes, not even any costume change, just her embodying a life. When that is paired with music from the album of the same name, it comes together to form something with an irresistible alchemy. I've seen it twice now and the second time, I was brought to tears. If you want a perfect example of the simple power that films can release, even in just forty minutes, I Am Easy To Find is almost the best you can do this year. Almost.
1. Anima
I became a little bit obsessed with Anima this year. I watched it five times and loved it each and every time. Again, there's an album that has garnered much attention, by Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke, but it's the accompanying short film that I fell in love with. It really is a short film, only coming in at 15 minutes, but it is worth every one of those minutes. Anima is directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, deity to film bois everywhere, especially ones called Harry Goodwin. It stars Yorke himself in a dystopian society, in which he plays a Keaton/Chaplin-esque figure trying to return a lunchbox to a woman he saw on the train. The train is five minutes, a comedic/performance art set piece takes up the next five minutes and then the final five minutes are "Dawn Chorus". From the very first moment I heard this song, I fell helplessly in love. "Dawn Chorus" is the kind of song that is epic yet intimate, encompassing every emotion in the world in a very brief time. On its own, the song is immense but paired with that final five minutes, it becomes utterly transcendent. I simply cannot put into words why it works or what feeling it has on me but the good news is, I don't have to. Anima, the greatest thing of the year, is only 15 minutes long and on Netflix. Quite frankly, you have no excuse not to watch it. The only caveat is that you need to watch it on as big a screen as possible, as loud as possible. It is gorgeousness and gorgeousity made celluloid and I will come to all your houses and physically force you to watch it if I have to. Without a shadow of a doubt, this is the best thing of the year... That isn't a film or a TV show.
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