When it comes to movies and TV, I've found it to be a great year. Most of the media I loved the most came out this year (a rarity for me). This is, at least in part, because I've made an effort this year to watch a wide variety of things this year, both those trending and odd little indies.
Sinners
When the Smoke Stack twins return to Mississippi to set up a juke joint, a bar and dance hall where the local black community can come together, drink, and enjoy the blues, they receive uninvited guests in the form of vampires. Remmick, the head vampire, not only seeks to feed, but to rekindle his own history — and is willing to kill and turn everyone in the joint to get it.
Sinners is a stunning horror movie with a powerful evocation of history, tradition, and humanity — making it one of the best movies I've ever seen. It's beautifully filmed, powerfully acted, and rocks you to the core with its phenomenal music. Midway through the film is a one-shot set piece that is simply magic, representing a sequence that I'm sure will be taught in film studies classes for decades to come.
Scavengers Reign
Following an accident on the transport ship, Demeter, three groups of survivors — Sam and Ursula, Azi and her robot Levi, and Kamen — are left stranded on a beautifully strange and deadly alien planet. This is a world teeming with incomprehensible life across a diverse array of biomes. Any plant, animal, or natural formation could be useful, a threat, or both. The survivors face this planet with a sense of wonder and horror as they struggle to survive and find a way home.
Scavengers Reign is like nothing I seen before. The animation provides intricate, lush, and vibrant detail to illustrate a world that's truly alien in nature. It's stunning and, at points, terrifying — but always beautiful. It breaks my heart that the second season was cancelled.
Frankenstein
Guillermo del Toro's rendition of Frankenstein is everything I hoped it would be. Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) displays all the arrogance of a man who believes he can master the world and stop death, a man who believes a woman should be his just because he loves her, a man who lacks the patience and compassion to actually care for his creation once he's brought it to life. The Creature (Jacob Elordi) is at once empathetic and unsettling, and Elizabeth (Mia Goth) is ethereal and captivated by nature and the world. The costumes, set design, lighting, and cinematography are all moody, gothic, and beautiful. At the same time, the movie shows immense heart and feeling, making it one of my favorite adaptations of Mary Shelley's classic science fiction novel.
100 Nights of Hero
Set in a fantastical world with rigid gender roles, two men discuss women and wives over drinks. Manfred (Nicholas Galitzine) is convinced that because his wife was unfaithful, women are incapable of being loyal. Jerome (Amir El-Masry) counters that his wife, Cherry (Maika Monroe), is pure and would never betray him. So, they make a bet: Jerome will leave and grant Manfred 100 nights to seduce his wife. If he succeeds, then he wins the manor all the wealth and property that comes with it.
Aware of the precariousness of her situation (adultery means death for women), Cherry turns to her friend, confidant, and maid Hero (Emma Corrin), for support. Whenever she feels overwhelmed, Hero promises to tell her a story as a distraction, helping Cherry to pass the nights until her husband's return.
It's rare to find a movie that captures the earnestness of fairy tales, but Julia Jackman's directorial depbut 100 Nights of Hero does just that. It has a dreamlike quality in which time melts together, a sense of longing, and a belief in the power of stories to inspire.
Weapons
Following the mysterious disappearance of an entire class of students — all of whom go running out the front doors of their home into the night — a local town turns its suspicions to their teacher, Justine (Julia Garner). Struggling in the aftermath of these accusations, Justine begins to suspect something strange is happening with her one remaining student. As the story progresses, Justine and others in the town become entangled in a wild and strange series of events that unfold like a fable.
Weapons was a tense, stressful, delight of a horror movie, and at no point was I able to predict exactly what would happen next. I also found it to be funnier than expected and was both delighted and surprised by the absolutely unhinged ending.
Pantheon
Pantheon begins with a girl receiving a string of messages in emojis from a stranger online, who turns out to be her dead father. From this starting point, the show unravels a story exploring the possibility of uploaded intelligence (UI), in which humanity uploads their consciousness to a digital cloud. The ramifications of this technology are wide ranging, from the deeply personal aspects of trying to grieve the death of a loved one whose consciousness is not truly gone to how corporate greed and government organizations would try to twist its capabilities to its own ends. Season one is excellent, showing how the technology was set loose on the world, but season two is where the show really shines for me. I love how the show grows ever more expansive, revealing the impact of this technology on a global scale.
Murderbot
Murderbot (based on the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells) is about a socially awkward and chronically anxious and depressed security unit that just wants to be left alone to watch entertainment media (such a vibe). Instead, it has to spend its time preventing humans from doing things that are recklessly stupid and protecting them from dangerous fauna (and each other) on planetary missions.
Each episode is half an hour long, a reflection of the kinds of sitcoms and serials Murderbot likes to watch. The show is charming, heartfelt, and darkly funny, and I can't wait for the second season to come out. Read my review (written after the first four episodes).
Lake Mungo
Lake Mungo is a surprisingly subtle film about the horror of loss and the ongoing grief that comes after. In this faux-documentary, a grieving family begins to experience a presence in their house following the death of their daughter due to a tragic drowning accident. The movie rejects the typical horror spectacle of jump scares and gore, instead focusing on quiet, intimate interviews, and home video footage. Lake Mungo is an achingly sad and haunting movie, and I can’t recommend it enough. Read my full review.
Arcane
Following Jinx’s devastating attack in season one of Arcane, everything is wreckage. The Piltover council is shattered, the citizens of both Piltover and Zaun are shaken and struggling to make sense of this new reality. Some see Jinx as a terrorist who needs to face justice, other see her as a hero — but Jinx herself just feels broken and unsure of her place in the world. All of the characters, those seeking power or an end to grief or salvation, bring this story to a powerful and heartbreaking end. The animation remains gorgeous, the dialog and narrative powerful, and the action sequences top notch. Fantastic.
Andor
Many have said Andor is the best show from the Star Wars universe, and I am inclined to agree. I love the grounded take on the story, showing normal, everyday people living in the wake of oppressive control. At its heart is Cassian Andor, who begins his story just trying to survive. As he slowly starts to see the impact of the Empire on his community and the people he loves, Andor grows into a true rebel willing to do just about anything to enact change. Woven in with his tale are the stories of others fighting the Empire in their own ways — through politics or subterfuge or other means. I was swept up in the depth and brilliant storytelling of this series, which brings new weight to the events of Rogue One.
Bonus: 17776, Or, What Football Will Look Like in the Future
I'm not really where to put 17776, Or, What Football Will Look Like in the Future, a multi-media science fiction piece written by Jon Bois and developed by Graham MacAree. It has lots of text, but doesn't really fit on my books list. It's has videos, but can't really be called a movie or show. It's interactive, but not a game.
What I do know is that 17776 is a wild, beautiful, hopeful media experience exploring the future of humanity if there was no more death. Mostly told through the perspective of three space probes that have awoken into true artificial intelligence, the future full of thousands of year old humans is both vastly different and very similar to our world today, with humanity still engaging in forms of play. I don't want to say anymore, because it's worth exploring on its own, but I’ll leave you with my favorite lines, “They are creatures of play. They will be creatures of play until the end of time.”
What movies, shows, or other forms of media have you loved this year? What are you watching now that I should check out?
