A Year in Review: My Favourite Things

Films

Notes on films:

- This list is all "first-watches".

- I rewatched Uncle Boonmee for the first time since my first viewing in 2013 (which I watched on a terrible 360p stream) and I think it's maybe my favourite thing i watched this year. Watching it again this year, I realized how much of an impression the visuals of the film left on me even despite the murky pixelation of the stream. Maybe it's growing up with a fear of the "sasquatch"  but the images of the apes in the foreset are indelibly seared into my brain as beautiful and terrifying - entirely sublime.

- Everyone should watch Michael Clayton. A perfect film. I watched it twice this year.

- Laura is on here specifically because the twist caught me so off guard that I genuinely felt like the film had entered a liminal reality. It's a great film regardless but the feeling of reality wobbling is what has stuck with with me.

- May December is the funniest film I watched this year. Well - maybe that under-sells Dog Day or Theatre Camp. They're all funny.

- I don't remember much of Smiley Face but I had a really great time watching it (weed is legal in Canada, ok?)

- The Quiet Girl is devastating.

- Lover's Rock casts a spell over you.

- All That Heaven Allows is going to be a film I eagerly rewatch. Hypnotic visual blocking in rich, otherwordly, saturated technicolour. An incredible script. Just a classic.

- I could maybe take Heat off of this list and not miss it but I do love me some Michael Mann.

Books

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Having and Being Had by Eula Biss

Ways of Being by James Borden

Notes on Complexity by Neil Theise

The Argonauts/On Freedom by Maggie Nelson

On Doing Nothing by Emily Ogden

Mutual Aid by Peter Kropotkin

The Social Instinct by Nichola Raihani

Wanderlust by Rebecca Solnit

Islands of Abandonment by Cal Flyn

Chainsaw Man by Tatsuki Fujimoto

Eyeshield 21 by Yusuke Murata/Riichiro Inagaki

Phoenix by Osamu Tezuka

Notes on Books:

- This was a big year for non-fiction for me. Other than "To The Lighthouse", i didn't read a single fiction book. I don't have an explanation other than not really being in the mood for what I normally read. Regardless, it's been extremely gratifying reading about our world and also defining/finding myself, more confidently, politically.

- Virginia Woolf continues to be my favourite writer.

- I don't remember if I first read Chainsaw Man in 2022 or if it was this year. It rules though.

- I apologize that I do not read more comics. Please be kind to me and remember that i hated comics for like half of the year after finishing my book :o)

- I havent finished all of the volumes of Phoenix yet but it's really breathtaking stuff. I find Tezuka's humour ocassionally pretty off-putting though (referencing his own work or suddenly making a pop-culture references). As always with manga, I can't help but wish I knew who the assitants were and what they drew! Tezuka obviously deserves credit but so do those assistants. I'm sure I could find out but it shouldn't be information we have to dig for.

- I played american football in high school so Eyeshield 21 has always been a favourite. Despite that, I never finished it. I started the series over this year and it's been a lot of fun. I'm 27 volumes in and it's lost *a lot* of steam but...I'll keep going. The scans I have are terrible and the translation sucks.

Games

Windwaker

Minish Cap

Baldurs Gate III

Tears of the Kingdom

Notes on Games:

- honestly, I spent way less time gaming this year. During the lockdowns it was my primary source of entertainment and, now that things have 'opened up' again, I find myself too restless to sit for long periods.

- Windwaker is the only game from this list that I finished. It's a perfect game. I'd meant to play it since its release (which is now a majority of my life). I’d always loved the look of it but I didn’t have a GameCube growing up and even once I got a GameCube a decade later, for whatever reason I never popped the disc into the console. Now that I’ve finally played it, I can confirm it’s one of the great games. The aesthetics are ageless. The whole time I was playing it I kept saying to myself, “Games could look like this!”  It just plays so well! I couldn't help but get excited imagining what a modern sea-bound Windwaker style Zelda would look like.

- I’m maybe two dungeons into Minish Cap but, even above BG3 and TotK, it's the only game I currently feel compelled to continue playing. Alas, I left my hacked PSP in Vancouver so I’ll have to wait. It's such a charming and straightforward (positive) game. Starting it while I was thinking about Brambles was kismet. There's just something about the GBA era of pixel art that just does it for me - undeniably gorgeous spritework that brings me right back to my childhood.

- I played a shit-ton of BG3 in September after I finished packing up our place for the move. It’s a great game but I haven’t felt compelled to hammer through the final act since arriving in London. It's just...so big (a negative, personally)! A great time though!  My character is a drow "Oath of Vengeance" Paladin. She rules. I accidentally made my guardian so hot that I genuinely get flustered when I have to interact with him (pictured below).

- I have a sickness that makes me feel like I need to 100% most games I play. I’ve gotten better about it - I didn’t feel compelled to do so in Windwaker, but my desire to play most critical story stuff has made BG3 that much longer of an experience for me. It's not been less fun because of my compulsion but it definitely makes arriving at the titular city feel incredibly daunting.

- I love Tears of the Kingdom but, after 50 hours, I’ve not felt pulled to go back to it yet. It’s a me problem - I don’t think I am in the headspace for open games right now.

TV Shows

How to With John Wilson

Bad Batch

Ashoka

Adventure Time

Malcolm in the Middle

Notes on TV Shows

- a mostly embarrassing list.

- It takes a lot to make me commit to a multi-season show. I know I miss out on “good television” because of this but I just can’t really be bothered.

- I am, unfortunately, a Star Wars guy. Well, I entered the escape pod and avoided Season 3 of Mandolorian and Boba Fett. Regardless, I’ve watched all of the Filoni-verse of Star Wars and tend to be a bit of an apologist for it. Bad Batch and Ashoka were much better than I ever anticipated they could be. After Andor, Bad Batch is my favourite Star Wars since the original trilogy. Ashoka is just a fun and pulpy time. Star Wars is the only big franchise that I would love to write a story in.

- How to With John Wilson feels so human. I could watch it endlessly. It’s a shame it’s over but…what a ride.

- I finally finished Adventure Time. Completely blown away by the consistency that show maintains and by the fact it has a satisfying ending. Even if the show didn't wrap up well, I woulda held it up as an all-timer but what a feat that they managed to satisfyingly tie off a show that is absolutely spaghettied with plot threads and questions. Adventure Time does something I aspire to within Blind Alley which is to build up the world and characters, subtlety, sorta to the side of the main action of whatever we are looking at, with questions. The mystery builds until the questions can no longer be ignored and, even then, the answers are usually somewhat inconclusive and open to interpretation. Just a brilliant show.

It's also insane to me how many of my favourite alternative cartoonists worked on the show.

- My partner and I put on an episode of Malcolm in the Middle just out of a curious nostalgia and we both wanted to watch more. It’s so funny! The family feels real and messy in this way you don’t often see on television.