A year-end best list. Well, the ongoing pandemic has changed that. Instead of deciding whether I agree with any of my choices, or whether I should catch up with the picks I missed, I mostly sit here, utterly confounded, because I have no idea what came out this year. “Huh, I thought Minari would be on the list.” Nope, it came out last year. “I guess Dune came out too long ago.” Nope, I saw it in October. “What about Soul?” It was, in fact, on last year’s best list. So, I give up. I will now stumble around my house, secure in the knowledge that, good or bad, Nine Days was my favorite genre film of 2021…wait a minute. Oh ISHT. You and I are in the exact same boat. If it didn’t come out within the last two weeks, then for me, it’s all one jumbled cloud of “roundabout last year-ish.”
Cinema
The Green Knight
A mesmerizing take on the Gawain legend. A film that is gorgeous to look at and recognizes what it’s doing with the source material. Dev Patel is an inspired choice. His lead role in 2019’s The Personal History of David Copperfield already demonstrated (to my satisfaction anyway) that he can pick good scripts and “move the needle” just fine. I think it’s actually a good idea to read the original Green Knight before watching this, even though people are very spoiler adverse these days. Green knight’s pretty short (and public domain) and it hammers in one single theme so it helps going into this understanding how this interpretation differs and what themes they’re doing. It helps if you get that there’s a meta-framing where Gawain poet created a legend but we’re seeing the actual events depicted, that the poem glossed over a lot of the events here and they sort of color what is otherwise a very straightforward story.
Dune
At times it’s a great half-movie a.k.a. An excellent part one of two. For roughly the first hour and a half (it’s two and a half hours long), it’s a visual tour de force unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Those 80ish minutes are probably the closest I’ve ever come to the experience people continually describe about seeing Star Wars in 1977. I can’t tell you whether or not it will please Real Dune Fans™, but, personally, I can’t wait to watch the book end when it is completed.
The Spine Of Night
A very ambitious, animated adult fantasy that feels akin to Franzettas’ Fire and Ice. One that transports you back to a time when stuff like this felt dangerous. It knows what it is and is unapologetic for that. More art like this please.
Honorable mention(s): Summer Of Soul, The Velvet Underground, Nine Days, Judas and the Black Messiah.
TV/Streaming
Small Screen Marvel
Basically, these MCU Disney+ shows are just really long origin stories for their costumes. Except Loki. Loki, as it turns out, is the origin story for Kang’s costume which is why it needs second season. Seriously though, this first year of offerings show a lot of growing pains (“growing pains” or having to film and produce all of this in weird covid interruption time) for Marvel Studios trying to transition some things over to the smalls screen. The shows have so much stuff stuffed in them they have the opposite problem that the Netflix shows did; too much time, too short a season, vs not enough stuff, too long a season. There has to be some middle ground they should hopefully find, as each show felt like they could have used at least one or two more episodes to really flesh some things out or give other things time to breathe.
Overall I think Loki worked the best for me. It didn’t feel as though the story was on a ticking clock, so it could feel more relaxed and focused. It didn’t have several different side plots.
Then maybe WandaVision, but the SWORD stuff in that feels really half-baked, especially Monica, who starts off strong then just gets pushed through an origin story and mostly forgotten at the edges of the show. Hawkeye was fun, but again, could have probably used an episode before the finale that featured more Kingpin and Maya interactions, instead of speeding through that plot in this episode.
Falcon & Winter Soldier, sadly, is probably the worst. Mackie and Stan are fantastic, but the Flag Smashers are complete nothings, and even the thing they’re fighting against, the governments displacing people so the Bliped can get back to their lives, is barely a thing at all in the show. Zemo felt kind of wasted, especially when it came to trying to move him more towards his comics version. He puts on the purple mask for like 30 seconds to kill a couple guys and then takes it off and never wears it again. What was the point of putting it on in the first place? Then they add Sharon back in, who kind of felt sloppily added in, and the Wakandans, and Isaiah, and Walker and it just becomes too much for just six episodes.
What If? is hard to rank with the rest, due to its more anthology nature, even with the overall serialized Watcher stuff. It had ups and downs but I think mostly ended up with more ups.
However, Marvel has had some wonderful moments this year. Alligator Loki, The “Thanos Was Right” mug, Anthony Mackie carrying the shield, etc.
Let’s see how Ms Marvel, She-Hulk and Moon Knight fare. I’m such a fan of the talent involved in these properties … Tatiana Maslany, Oscar Isaac, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead. Etc.
The Underground Railroad
I remember hearing a novelist talking about a film-maker’s decision to show only blood splatter in the beheading scene of a child– not show the scene directly as had been done in the book. “We can’t bear to look at it directly,” he said. “What we can process reading is different than what we can process seeing.” So it is a real question whether the raw violence of the book could undermine its real power. Whitehead’s book so brilliantly and completely gets at the complex legacy of trauma caused by slavery. And in the first episode, it is Cora standing in a green creek on her way to the first Underground stop, burdened by fear, her experience, her mother’s disappearance, all of it, that conveys the trauma. Not the direct (though surrealistic) vision of Big Anthony being killed as the white people dance and the Black people seethe. We need to face it, look directly and look deep. I love this book, which I think is a classic work of American fiction, and it seemed maybe too early or difficult to bring it to film. What a burden for Jenkins. And how gloriously he has succeeded.
Shadow and Bone
This series actually improved on the novel. I think if you’re already confident this will be your kind of YA fantasy world (perhaps due to watching the Netflix version), then you should start at the beginning with Shadow and Bone, and simply look forward to Six of Crows as a heist-y highlight later. And you can also look forward to the writing just getting better and better. If you’re really not sure about the world, then sure, Six of Crows being the highpoint will serve as a good sampler without really spoiling anything.
Honorable mention(s): What We Do In The Shadows, Invincible, The Beatles: Get Back, The Witcher S2.
Music
Madlib (Arranged by Kieran Hebden)- Sound Ancestors
Madlib is a musical genius. From Lootpack to Shades of Blue, from Quasimoto to Freddie Gibbs, from Medicine Show’s to YNQ and crazy jazz with Karriem Riggins. This man has made some of my favorite albums. Madlib has always blended so well with his collaborators — now we have the paradox of his latest collaborator (Kieran Hebden/Four Tet) letting Madlib’s genius shine through as if he were a solo artist. The new album, Sound Ancestors, is brilliant and beautiful.
“Road of the Lonely Ones” dropped first (as a teaser) and the excitement started building. Perfect haunting soul-echoey goodness. The track is constructed around a late-sixties soul gem by the Philadelphia group the Ethics. I am in awe at the minds behind this work. Every sound has a specific intention. This is rare nowadays. Madlib has an excellent ear. He functions as a kind of John Peel for black music, only with better taste. If Madlib samples something you should track it down because it’s worth hearing.
DJ Format- Devils Workshop
Right here you have a musical box of tricks. A dark, moody instrumental album reminiscent of early DJ Shadow. An LP where headphones are recommended to ensure you are not disturbed. I dare say, you’ll be taken on an introspective journey that makes you take time out to think.
Vince Staples – Vince Staples
Possibly Vince’s best album yet and shows his crazy versatility. It’s amazing to see him tone down his mood and volume and still have impactful verses while riding these different beats with ease. Vince just has a way of painting his demons in such a captivating way. The topics are intimate and self reflective which is exactly what you’d expect and hope for out of a self titled project. Short and sweet, way too underrated.
Honorable mention(s): Rome Streetz & DJ Muggs- Death and the Magician, Nick Cave/Warren Ellis- Carnage, Nas- Magic & Kings Disease 2.
Books/Comics
The Nice House on the Lake- James Tynion Iv/Alvaro Martinez Bueno
This one balances the relatable and the horrifying, the structured and the surreal. The first issue is a mesmerizing opening and does a lot of work setting the stakes of this world and the horrors it entails. It also leaves a ton to the imagination about what’s next with an expert sense of when to twist the knife.
A Psalm for the Wild-Built – Becky Chambers
The novella is set in a world where robots developed agency. Optimistic and hopeful, kindness instead of cruelty, abundance instead of scarcity, etc. om its dedication — “For anyone who could use a break” — to its meandering spirit, the novella is a perfect read for anyone who wants to slow down a bit. I look forward to seeing where it goes from here.
The Many Deaths of Laila Starr – Ram V/Felipe Andrade
A series is about the Goddess of Death (kind of) coming to grips with the meaning of life and the value of death. It sounds heavier than it is, and it’s rendered extremely well with light humor as well. Despite the subject matter, it’s also a quick read.
Video Games
Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart
As the 17th Ratchet & Clank title, Rift Apart is a fun adventure that doesn’t overstay its welcome. I don’t want to get spoilery: The graphics are mind blowing, the characters are memorable and amusing and it felt great to be back again with old friends. The long running series still feels fresh, interesting and exciting and is a definitive next-gen experience.
Inscrytption
I had an absolute blast with Inscryption and had a hard time putting it down during my playthrough. The idea of the haunted video game is a common creepypasta trope. However, it is brilliantly handle here. A very detailed and immersive care game. The sound design is SO satisfying. More games should take big swings like Inscryption does.
The Forgotten City
The writing here is aces. It had me thinking in overdrive. I’ll just leave this here … Virtue is like wisdom in that you can only BE wise or BE virtuous. You cannot posses virtue, and morality is often used for the very goal to contain and define concepts of right and wrong through some sort of cosmic absolutism. “To live a moral life” is a strange notion, especially if the root of ones concept of what is moral is merely a belief rather than a known feeling and experience. You cannot contrive virtue, and so any attempt cling to morality or virtue is to be without it. Many terrible things have been done in direct contradiction of what moral virtue supposedly motivated the actions in the first place. Its not something you can know claim or contain in your mind or by your thinking. Virtue or “morality” is something known and felt only through the heart. Play this game.
Honorable Mentions: Returnal, Deathloop, Sable
The Next-Est 2022
Films
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Part One
The Northman
Knives Out 2
Everything Everywhere All At Once
Nope
Infinity Pool
Men
Disappointment Blvd
Killers of the Flower Moon
Television
Andor (Disney+)
The Lord Of The Rings (Amazon)
The Last Of Us (HBO)
Obi-Wan Kenobi (Disney+)
Moon Knight (Disney+)
She Hulk (Disney +)
Ms Marvel (Disney +)
The Renew-est
Stranger Things S4
The Boys S3
The Mandalorian S3
Russian Doll S2
Atlanta S3
Video Games
Have A Nice Death
Stray
Haiku the Robot
Elden Ring
Starfield
The Sequel-ESTS
Horizon: Forbidden West
God of War: Ragnarok
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge.
Novels
Moon Witch, Spider King by Marlon James
Gallant by VE Schwab
The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi
A Prayer for the Crown Shy by Becky Chambers
The Memory Librarian by Janelle Monae