Thumbnails #9

Things are winding down / my brain is turning to mush, so it’s time to look back at some of the things I enjoyed in 2023!

Music

It’s been a lovely year for me and music. I went to see Belle and Sebastian with a bunch of old friends during the summer and it was extremely warm and nostalgic. And then a glorious matinee performance from King Creosote in November. Matinee gigs are magic.

Album of the year for me is between I Des by King Creosote and Javelin by Sufjan Stevens. Two lush albums that reflect on life and ageing, both products of Covid and the current state of the world that seek to find beauty and joy in continuing to exist in this life. I Des is a beautiful thing that had me almost in tears in Aldi. I recommend the album as a whole, but the standout for me is Burial Bleak which might well stand as an all timer favourite King Creosote song for me, but time will tell.

My Spotify wrapped was mangled for a second year in a row, partly by my kids occasionally sharing my spotify, and mostly from listening to a lot of atmospheric soundtrack music while writing, but I like to think my most listened to songs would be something like:

Blue Marbled Elm Trees - King Creosote // New Partner - Bonnie Prince Billy // Will Anybody Ever Love Me - Sufjan Stevens // Thank You For Sending Me An Angel - Talking Heads // Kiss Your Lips - Allo Darlin’ // I Don’t Believe You - Magnetic Fields // exile (feat. Bon Iver) - Taylor Swift

TV / Streaming

We got a few months free on Apple TV+ and have been blasting through a lot of their stuff, including Slow Horses, Severance and For All Mankind. I’d found Apple’s TV shows a little hit or miss before. I enjoyed both Ted Lasso and Mythic Quest but found it all a little dead-eyed and corporate, like all the rough edges and heart had been sanded off to leave something acceptably, mundanely pleasant.

And I’m not exactly saying that’s not been a problem with some of the shows I’ve watched this year, but all told it’s been some good quality entertainment.

For All Mankind is so exactly my sort of thing, I’m only surprised I didn’t watch it sooner. The core concept is, what if in 1969 the Russians had landed on the moon before the Americans. Out of this delicious alternative history comes (to-date) four seasons following what happens next, with each season covering roughly a decade of history, from the 1970s to the 2000s. It’s tense, paranoid, fascinating, and a nice mix of sociological storytelling and hard-sci-fi adventure. Good fun.

Severance was also extremely good. It’s about a company where employees have their mind ‘severed’ between a personal-life consciousness and a work-place one. One half of you is perpetually living your free-time, while the other half is stuck in an eternal, purgatorial workplace. It’s a brilliant premise, touching on questions of worker exploitation and identity, and works as an interesting pairing with Jordan Peele’s Us which similarly problematises the fact that capitalist society relies on an invisible, servile underclass to function.

At first I wondered if the whole thing would be better served by being a two hour movie, but it feels like a show with a lot of respect for the viewer’s time, using the extended runtime of a TV series to explore character and tone without ever feeling like ‘filler’. Just brilliant stuff from top to bottom.

Movies

I didn’t get out to the cinema that much this year, and struggle to keep up with the cinematic zeitgeist as much as I’d like, but there’s been some standouts, either new out or new to me.

John Wick: Chapter 4

I sincerely thought Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning was going to be my action movie of the year but it totally fell flat for me. John Wick: Chapter 4 on the other hand delivered on its promise. It lacks the gnarlier action beats of John Wick 3 (library, knife room) but more than makes up for it with the best character and plot in the franchise to date.

Keanu Reeves’ physical performance in this… People seem to think this franchise is about expertly choreographed fighting, but it’s Reeves’ attention to detail in his physical performance that make these movies so special. It’s his reactions, his weariness as the fights drag on, the moments you can tell Wick has entered a state of flow, and the awkwardness when that flow is broken. We’ve seen a thousand imitators since the first John Wick, but if you come for the king…

The Wrong Guy

Saw this little-known 1995 comedy raved about on Letterboxd, so I gave it a try and it didn’t disappoint. It’s the story of a man on the run for a crime he didn’t commit, except everyone else knows he didn’t commit it. Nice to see a comedy delivered with so much confidence and wit, calling to mind the best episodes of The Simpsons. A refreshing break from the lacklustre improv of modern Hollywood comedy, but maybe I’m just watching the wrong stuff.

Seems to be somewhat lost to history but the whole thing is up on YouTube right now if that’s any help!

Les Diaboliques

This was part of our horror focussed October, and while it’s creepy, it’s not exactly Hallowe’en fare. But what a revelation! It’s rare for a movie to chill me, but there’s a moment in this that I could feel the film walking over my grave. Iconic. 

The rest is a perfectly pitched psychological thriller, carried by absolutely believable performances and a delightful streak of dark humour. The kids in this are a riot. 

Unsurprised to hear that Hitchcock wanted to make this, but Clouzot nails it, and then some.

Something in the Dirt

Two men discover a strange supernatural force in one of their apartments, and try and document it on film. This movie is something special… messy and funny and warm and delightfully uneasy. A film about being untethered from life and gravity, and trying to find meaning even when it threatens to untether you further. 

A perfect post-pandemic movie that makes no reference to that historical moment but is totally informed by it. 

I could watch these guys be friends and bicker all day long.

*If you liked reading my thoughts on movies, come follow me on Letterboxd.

Gaming

It’s been a year of playing BIG GAMES, with some wee ones sprinkled in between.

Tears of the Kingdom

The standout of course was The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which Nintendo tells me I spent 266 hours playing since it came out in May. It’s an elevation of most of the mechanics from Breath of the Wild and the new additions are delightful to play around with. But just as strong as the gameplay is the sense of tone - the wonder generated by moments big and small. I didn’t think revisiting the map from BotW would still feel surprising, but somehow Nintendo have made the old new again. Perhaps even better, the sense of revisiting a changed land is something only possible because we all spent hundreds of hours in it already.

Cyberpunk 2077

Since completing TotK, I’ve moved on to playing 2023’s comeback kid, Cyberpunk 2077. I felt personally embarrassed in 2020 when this came out and became the laughing stock of everyone due to a rushed release riddled with bugs. See, all the way back in 2018 when this game was getting hyped, I wrote a panel for Gamish using the (still to be released) game was an example of an immersive, memorable video game world. I figured the game would be out around the time of Gamish getting released, and this would be a perfect example of a more recent game in the book amongst older examples (how long ago does 2018 feel now?).

Anyway, the game came out a few weeks before Gamish did, and I buried my head in my hands as I saw the reviews pouring in. Sure it was ‘unforgettable’ but for all the wrong reasons.

Anyway, cut to today, and my unearned vindication! Cyberpunk 2077, though a little vapid in parts, is in fact a good game. The core loop of carrying out a series of heists using your character’s cyborg upgrades is very, very fun, and there are loads of options for catering the playstyle to your own tastes. My one big nitpick is the world itself is a little uninspiring, mostly hampered by the fact that it’s built around a strangely quiet network of roads - designed to allow you to open up in a souped-up car or motorbike - to me antithetical to the images of polluted, overcrowded cyberpunk cities in pop-culture.

Wee Games

The vast majority of my other gaming this year has been over on Board Game Arena, the ‘can’t-believe-this-exists’ Netflix of board games. With a free account you can play a huge library of games right in your browser (including on your phone), and for an extra fee you can get access to a larger library and support the service and game makers who provide their board games to the platform.

It’s been an awesome way to keep up with new releases, and try out games I want to consider adding to my collection. Me and some old friends have been playing throughout the year. Some top picks from this year’s gaming:

• Ark Nova: Build your own zoo and populate it with animals which each bring their own special powers when added to your zoo. Very dense and complex but satisfying once mastered.

• Pandemic: Classic cooperative game where you fight back against diseases spreading across the globe.

• Hanabi: You have a hand of cards in front of you which you can’t see. Working with the other players, you give each other cryptic clues of what to play, aiming to play all the cards across your different hands in the correct order. Fiendishly difficult.

• Wingspan: Build your nature reserve by adding birds to three different ecosystems. It’s beautifully illustrated and always pleasant building up your menagerie, even if you’re losing!

Next Year

Next year’s going to be a big one. I’m working on a new book, still to be announced! It’s on a tight turnaround and I’ll be busy for the first few months of the year getting it done, but hopefully I’ll have a chance to post some work in progress along the way!

But for now…

If you’re looking for a last minute gift for the movie or film lover in your life, you can’t go too far wrong giving them a copy of my books Filmish: A Graphic Journey Through Film or Gamish: A Graphic History of Gaming. It might be too late to order one from me and get it on time, so go support your local indie bookshop!

And if you haven’t already, please consider subscribing to this newsletter! It’s the best way to keep in the loop with all my work…