Originally published on 10 April 2023.
Last updated on 9 January 2024.
For six years now, I’ve been gathering my thoughts about the movies and TV series I watched. Every quarter I write them down hereabouts, and these are the entries covering 2023.
As always, you can find the entire list of all the movies, series and documentaries I’ve seen here.
2023 Q1
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)
Blue Period (2021, Season 1)
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
Ms. Marvel (2022, Season 1)
Sense8 (2015, Season 1)
Stutz (2022)
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)
The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf (2021)
Wednesday (2022, Season 1)
For a change, the entries are more-or-less in the order that I watched them.
Wednesday (2022) on Wednesday: What if goth Veronica Mars went to Hogwarts? It’s a question I never considered but this Netflix hit answers it, and I am here for it. Wednesday, the surly/snarky/precocious daughter of the Addams (Catherine Zeta-Jones, Luis Guzmán), is sent to Nevermore Academy, a boarding school for the likes of werewolves and sirens, and the Addams’ alma mater. Here she’s paired with a perky and positive roomie, must confront her parents’ legacy, the spirit of a murderous Pilgrim, and a terrible monster, all while navigating high school.
It also raises the question “how does Wednesday have all these people that put up with her shit and still want to be friends with her even though she treats them terribly”, but just when I was seriously asking this, the show spends an entire episode on it. Well played!
Tim Burton directs half of the episodes, Danny Elfman takes care of the music, Jenna Ortega’s Wednesday is perfectly snarky but also growing as a person, it’s my one biggest recommendation in a long while.
Blue Period (2021) on Blue Period: Our protagonist, a cool slacker in high school, sees a beautiful painting (in progress, no less) by one of his peers. In a typical anime teenager way he is suddenly determined that he too, should make beautiful art. This slightly ridiculous premise leads to a surprisingly effective 10-episode series which quickly but deftly ponders things like the nature of art, friendships, competitiveness in said art, talent versus hard work and determination, and even a dash of gender identity. Along the way we get a great-but-rushed crash course in the visual arts.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania: At this point, watching the latest Marvel movie in the theatre is more a habit (and a way to get some sure-fire dopamine shots) than an endorsement of their quality. The latest Ant-Man demonstrates this. Where this franchise-within-the-biggest-cinematic-franchise was once a refreshing palate-cleanser with the focus on smaller stuff (literally but more importantly figuratively), this latest instalment is rife with “save the universe / multiverse” stuff, setting up the inevitable sequel(s). The visual design is really cool (topping the Guardians and Dr. Strange stuff) and the cast is more than capable of delivering the interpersonal drama — it’s just that there’s so little of the latter.
Dear Marvel, you’ve got to step it up. You can’t keep delivering these mediocre movies. What happened to the mantra of first making sure the movie itself is good, and tying it to the MCU being a secondary thing?
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent: What is better than a movie with Nicolas Cage? A movie with two Nicolas Cages, obviously! Mr. Cage plays a fictionalised version of himself, who sometimes is visited by another fictionalised version of himself. Anyway... down on his luck, he is forced to attend a rich superfan’s birthday party in Mallorca to make some money. Said superfan (played by Pedro Pascal, who’s a busy man these days) is also involved in a drugs cartel. Or so the CIA claims, who force Nick to spy on him. Hijinks, as they say, ensue.
The result is much better than this kind of meta movie has any right to be. It has a lot of heart and the chemistry between Cage and Pascal is something to behold. Nicolas Cage is not afraid to target himself and his public persona, and ably walks the line between sharp parody and farce.
Sense8: On paper I should love this Netflix original series by J. Michael Straczynski, and Lana and Lilly Wachowski. It’s a globetrotting sci-fi-ish series with a neat premise: eight wildly diverse people discover they can share their senses and skills across the world. There’s a shadowy organisation trying to capture them, and our heroes need to deal with their personal stuff while evading capture and figuring out the bigger picture.
The cast is sympathetic (and commendably diverse), the different locations and personal stories keeps it fresh, so I’m not sure why it didn’t work for me. Maybe it’s its pacing, which is rather slow, especially in the first half of the season. Maybe it’s the fact that not all of the main characters have interesting stories on their own. Maybe its because the shadowy corporation never really coalesces into a clear threat?
The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf: We didn’t necessarily need an origin story for Vesemir (Geralt’s mentor in the main series), but Nightmare of the Wolf is one and it’s actually pretty good. This animated movie has an interesting story that is appropriately Witcher-esque: the world is dark and grim, normal people are victims of larger forces, everybody’s morals are grey. I don’t think the lore and world-building quite matches what is told in the books or the live-action series, but it honestly doesn’t really matter: we could always handwave it away as the result of unreliable narrators or imperfect information.
The movie is made by Studio Mir, the same one that delivered Dota: Dragon’s Blood, and some of its excellent voice cast overlaps.
Stutz: “I’m making this movie because I want to give therapy, and the tools I’ve learned in therapy, to as many people as possible, through a film.” This is the mission statement as given by Jonah Hill, director, producer, actor and instigator of this documentary on psychiatrist Dr. Phil Stutz. The latter is not incidentally Hill’s therapist.
There’s a lot to unpack here, even before we get to a therapist talking about his methods on camera. There’s Jonah Hill the Actor, the roles he’s played, the public persona he’s cultivated. There’s this project: a seemingly well-intentioned vanity project about a person Hill clearly holds in high regard, which took years to get to the finish line. There’s also Hill seemingly opening up and being vulnerable, in a documentary he’s producing himself. There’s Hill being a biographer to his shrink, and a shrink to his shrink.
In other words, I’m not quite sure what I’m thinking about this. Whether you’ll find it worth your time probably depends heavily on your opinion of Jonah Hill and your level of familiarity with mindfulness.
Everything Everywhere All At Once: I can see why so many people were hyping this movie. I don’t think it’s quite “7 Oscars worthy”, especially with the somewhat slow and rough start. On the other hand, there’s a lot of heart in this movie, great performances, and it’s an experience. There is so much going on (everything, everywhere, all at once — natch), it draws on so many predecessors (like The Matrix), it’s such a neat jigsaw — you’d better lean back and let it all wash over you.
Ms. Marvel (2022) on Ms. Marvel: As mentioned above, the last few Marvel movies have been somewhat disappointing. They’re never actively bad, but they’re lacking panache and heart. Or maybe I’m just a jaded old fart.
But then there’s last year’s Ms. Marvel, a sparkling fresh, punchy 6-episode season of TV, and I’m reminded of what Marvel can be.
It’s featuring Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), a female teenager from New Jersey, who’s Captain Marvel’s biggest fan, and more importantly, member of a Muslim Pakistani family and community. Seriously, this series took this premise and runs with it — it informs every scene and every character moment. In a way it resembles The Falcon and the Winter Soldier: it looks at a sizable American community and how it is formed, what its history is, and how it’s part of the bigger (American) picture.
My biggest complaint is that the pacing is somewhat uneven. There’s a lot that feels rushed because it all needs to fit in six episodes. In a weird twist, this is pretty much the reverse of Netflix’s Marvel titles, where they had too little content for too many episodes.
2023 Q2
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022, Season 1)
Marvel Studios: Legends (2021, Season 1)
Voices Rising: The Music of Wakanda Forever (2023, Season 1)
Werewolf by Night (2022)
I Am Groot (2022, Season 1)
Suzume (2022)
The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special (2022)
Director by Night (2022)
The New Mutants (2020)
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)
Deadpool 2 (2018)
Jungle Cruise (2021)
Bones (2005, Season 7)
Stan Lee (2023)
Another list in the order that I watched its entries.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023) on Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves:
I assume that the total lack of quality of the first Dungeons & Dragons movie (2022) and its sequels were the reason that it took until this year that we got a new version. I mean, this should’ve been the easiest assignment ever for a bunch of capable writers: “Take this beloved franchise, which tropes have firmly been incorporated into the mainstream, and has hundreds if not thousands of stories. Take it, and make a fun movie out of it that’s appreciated both by its fans and an audience that grew up on the Lord of the Rings movies, Game of Thrones and The Witcher.” (Okay, it might not have been the easiest assignment ever.)
I’m happy to report that writers John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein (Spider-Man: Homecoming, also serving as directors) and Michael Gilio understood their job. This is a fun adventure movie set in the Forgotten Realms. It has a cast with chemistry, a clear story, a character-driven plot, OK special effects. What’s more, it doesn’t take itself too seriously and has brilliant moments that had me going “yeah that’s totally what a roleplaying character would do!”
Hoping for sequels, or a TV-series spin-off — live-action or animated, it’s all cool.
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law: It seems like Marvel’s Disney+ series give their creators the space to do stuff that the movies don’t. She-Hulk has 9 half-hour-ish episodes and is a legal comedy. It introduces us to Jen Walters, a thirty-something lawyer and Bruce’s cousin. They get in a car accident, Jen’s infected with Bruce’s blood and boom, instant She-Hulk. Don’t worry, this is barely a spoiler as this origin story is taken care of in the first episode.
During the rest of the season, each episode introduces a new case for Jen, and we see her struggle with balancing Jen and She-Hulk. There are a lot of cameos (Bruce! Wong! Daredevil! Abomination!) — so many that they sometimes overshadow the delightful supporting characters. Also, She-Hulk breaks the fourth wall as easily as Deadpool does. Not all of the breakage really works for me, but the final one is easily reason enough to indulge in this aspect of the character.
Marvel Studios: Legends: Bunch of short “previously, with this character” montages. Good to get back up to speed before the next Marvel movie or TV series. Don’t watch them before you’ve seen everything of that character, though, since they’re full of spoilers.
Voices Rising: The Music of Wakanda Forever: Three-episode mini-series about how the music for Wakanda Forever came about. Neat if you’re into that kind of thing.
Werewolf by Night: Marvel didn’t (doesn’t?) produce only superhero comics, they also had horror comics. This short movie is a classic ’70s horror flick, complete with black-and-white photography and hammy line delivery. A nice change of pace for the MCU, but not sure if we need more of this.
I Am Groot: Five short animated vignettes about the talking tree growing up. Fun and funny.
Suzume (2022) on Suzume: From the writer/director of Your Name and Weathering with You, Shinkai Makoto, comes another modern fable with a lot of similar themes as his earlier works. A young strong-willed heroine goes on a quest to save Japan from a primal force that causes earthquakes. Beautiful animation, interesting characters. Unfortunately it loses a bit of momentum in the third act.
The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special:
Drax and Mantis go on a quest to save Christmas for Peter Quill — by kidnapping the great hero Kevin Bacon. Hijinks, none of them particularly funny, ensue. It feels that Drax and Mantis, much like the rest of the Guardians, work best in little doses and in a larger ensemble.
Director by Night: So Werewolf by Night was directed by Michael Giacchino, a seasoned film composer who created the music for a lot of Pixar and Marvel movies (including Ratatouille and the Spider-Man trilogy). He was offered the director’s chair by Feige, and chose Werewolf by Night. I guess it helps if you have friends in high places. This documentary is supposed to be a “behind the scenes”, but it’s more about Michael and his brother Anthony. The latter is directing the documentary, and is apparently an Oscar-winning documentarian? Anyway, it’s a vanity project if I ever saw one, which wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t boring too.
The New Mutants: A victim of corporate shenanigans (Marvel taking over Fox) and the outbreak of COVID-19, this X-Men horror spin-off has some great parts. Most of the cast is good, the smaller stakes and haunted house atmosphere work for me. The plot isn’t so great there are some big holes in it, even for movies of this kind. Apparently this was set up originally as the beginning of a trilogy. That trilogy never happened, what with the aforementioned shenanigans, and it’s a pity.
Re-watch: X-Men: Days of Future Past - The Rogue Cut: I somehow found out that X-Men: Days of Future Past had a different version, the so-called “Rogue Cut”, with additional scenes. The scenes add a nice subplot (mainly giving Rogue something to do), and the movie is quite good. In my memory, this instalment wasn’t great, but somehow it’s the highest-rated X-film after Logan and Deadpool. I wouldn’t quite agree with that (there’s something to be said for the simpler first two movies), but yeah, it’s good.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3: James Gunn returns to wrap up the trilogy that he started in 2014, and delivers the best Marvel movie in quite a while. (Some say since Endgame but I wouldn’t go that far.) We’ve seen these characters a lot of times, the actors are very comfortable with them, and Gunn is the writer who knows them best. He once again walks the fine line between comedy and drama, and pivots deftly between them. Well, mostly. I must admit that at times I got fed up with the doofusness (that’s apparently not a word, but now it is, sue me) of Drax. I understand that you need some comic relief, but this is not the way to do it.
Gunn is also a director with a colourful visual style, and his design team really outdid themselves on some of the sets.
Drinking game: take a shot if there’s a slow-motion hero walk.
Deadpool 2: How do you top a surprise R-rated hit with a very ’90s comics character? Well, you make it more ’90s, by adding characters like Cable (Josh Brolin) and Domino (Zazie Beets). You revisit some of the original cast, but quickly move on to do new stuff. You try, but can’t quite catch that lightning again.
Jungle Cruise (2021) on Jungle Cruise: Like the Pirates of the Caribbean movies before it, Jungle Cruise is based on a Disney Park ride. It tries to capture the good-natured energy of genre predecessors like Indiana Jones, Romancing the Stone and The Mummy (the Fraser/Weisz one), and actually succeeds quite well. The Rock and Emily Blunt have good chemistry, there are some nice action set pieces. I’m not sure why there aren’t more films like this, I could do with one every two years. Apparently this is what Disney is also thinking, because a sequel is in the works.
Bones: It’s a shorter season due to Emily Deschanel’s pregnancy. As before, the series is running on the chemistry between the two main actors and the supporting cast. The “young couple struggling with pregnancy / parenting” storylines are not the best, but the episodes concerning the Big Bad totally make up for it.
Stan Lee: It’s not as if Marvel is going to say anything negative about their late “chairman emeritus”. His image is part of their brand, and Disney is very particular about their brand. Still, even given that, this is a very uncritical “documentary” about the man and the artist Stanley Lieber. It’s no coincidence that pretty much everything is narrated by the man himself, even 5 years after his death. As such, it reignites the struggle for recognition of the contributions of the late Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko.
Dune (1984) on
Re-watch: Dune (1984, Alternative Edition Redux): As long-term readers probably know, I’m a fan of the Dune books, and their adaptations in movies, TV series and games. In 2018 I wrote about Jodorowsky’s Dune, a documentary about the bonkers aborted movie by Alejandro Jodorowsky, and in 2021 I rewatched the TV series in preparation of Denis Villeneuve’s Part I. Now, with Part II to be released in November, was a good time to watch the 1984 movie by David Lynch. Not as the Theatrical Version or the Extended “TV” Version, nope — I watched the “Alternative Edition Redux”, a “fan edit” by a mysterious figure only known as “Spicediver”. Critically acclaimed (in the niche communities that care about these things), it’s a new version, laboriously and lovingly edited together from the aforementioned versions and some deleted scenes. Specifically, it’s Spicediver’s third attempt! (You can find all the details here on Fanedit.org.)
I can’t say that I really knew how the original movie was, but this Redux version seems to flow a lot better, has less exposition-heavy voiceovers and is more coherent.
2023 Q3
Astartes (2018, Season 1)
Barbie (2023)
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)
Oppenheimer (2023)
Secret Invasion (2023, Season 1)
The Last Duel (2021)
The New Shock of the New (2004)
The Shock of the New (1980)
The Witcher (2019, Season 3)
Again, in the order of having finished them:
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One: Just like Top Gun: Maverick a year ago, the latest Mission: Impossible shows that Tom Cruise still has it. Even though he was in his late 50s while filming this, he’s an actual action movie star. Of course, the actual plot makes little sense (there’s an AI on the loose or something) but that was never the draw of the Mission: Impossibles. (Missions: Impossible?) It’s a welcome return of Vanessa Kirby, and Hayley Atwell is finally given her due as an action star. She has excellent chemistry with Cruise.
Oh, and there’s a scene that’s very reminiscent of Uncharted 2’s train scene.
Secret Invasion: You’re hoping for some sneaky plot twist that frames things differently, that makes sense of all the previous “dumb” and puzzling things. The twist is that that moment never comes. For a spy thriller it has a surprising amount of ineffective spycraft. There’s some good acting, but no one except Olivia Colman rises above the material that was given.
Barbie: This Greta Gerwig-helmed, candy-coloured message about female empowerment starts off really strong, with funny, sharp meta-aware lines. Said message is delivered with little subtlety, and is having the cake and eating it too: Barbie apparently can be a toy commercial, a child-focused money-making scheme in a capitalist society that undervalues women and an example of female empowerment in a post-MeToo environment at the same time. Flounders a bit with the actual plot, which is rather thin. Ryan Gosling’s character has the most interesting arc, which is ironic. 3 Sex Education cast members star in supporting roles.
Astartes: A fan project set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, this is a short movie. It’s technically a “season”, because it’s delivered in 5 mini-episodes, but it’s barely 13 minutes long. Why so much hassle? Because this is a one-man project! The author, Syama Pedersen, did everything himself: writing, storyboarding, modelling, animation, lighting, sound design, editing, etc. It’s stunning that one person can make this. Games Workshop promptly hired the guy.
Oppenheimer: The other half of the Barbenheimer cinematic event of the summer, Oppenheimer was never going to “win”, as it’s a movie about the creator of the atom bomb. But we, the audience, won, because both Barbie and Oppenheimer are great movies, although in rather different ways.
This one takes three hours, but is surprisingly fast-paced (especially the first half). The big bang happens two hours in, and what follows might not be as interesting to you as it appears to think it is. There’s a star-studded cast, this time with Nolan-regular Cillian Murphy ably taking the lead role. Beautiful, intense, mechanistic, playing with time. Stop me if you’ve heard this before while talking about a film by Christopher Nolan.
The Last Duel: Another lavish historical movie by Sir Ridley Scot. While Gladiator and to a lesser degree Kingdom of Heaven were historical epics, this is a slow-burning Rashomon study of characters. Takes some time to get going, but the second half is certainly worth the investment.
The Shock of the New (1980) on The Shock of the New: This 43-years-old documentary is “a definitive eight part series on the rise and fall of the modern art movement”. It was written and presented by the late art critic Robert Hughes. Erudite, well-spoken and outspoken, the gentleman made the best explainer of modern art and art movements that I ever saw. It covers everything from Impressionism to Surrealism, and not just painting and sculpture, but also architecture and the social movements that gave birth to these expressions. Well-structured, easy to follow and (mostly) dodging the kind of vague pretension that haunts many discussions about art. I certainly put the accompanying book on my wanted list.
This gem is entirely viewable on YouTube, in all its VHS-recorded, blurry glory.
The New Shock of the New: Robert Hughes returns and takes stock of the evolution of art since 1980, and really doesn’t like what he sees — especially the lack of craft and message in the work of the likes of Jeff Koons. A bit more personal in that Hughes does interviews with some of the artists he discusses, like Paula Rego and David Hockney.
Especially fun because it shows some sketches from Hockney based on famous Andalusian landmarks that I saw myself. This is also viewable on YouTube.
The Witcher: After a promising but scattered first season, and a strong second season, I had high hopes for this third season. Unfortunately, I have no idea where the showrunners are going with the story or its characters, and I’m not convinced they themselves do, either.
We dig a bit deeper into the relationships between Geralt, Ciri and Yennefer, which is welcome. There’s also a lot of scheming between the wizards, the kings, their spymasters, the Nilfgaardians, the Elves, and it’s all very important and momentous and slow and ponderous. Much like in the books, the monsters and Witchering is taking a backseat to continent-spanning politics, and for me it doesn’t work. I was going to give bonus points for the multiple points-of-view episode which worked quite well, but I immediately had to retract those because of the mind-numbing tediousness of the penultimate episode.
Much like Henry Cavill, I won’t be returning to Season 4.
2023 Q4
Enter the Dragon (1973)
Euphoria (2019, Season 1, Specials)
Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts (2022)
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)
Making of 'The Last of Us' (2023)
Sicario (2015)
The Last of Us (2023, Season 1)
The Wire (2002, Season 1)
This quarter I got an HBO Max subscription so that colours the results. In order of viewing:
Re-watch: The West Wing:
To nobody’s surprise, the first thing I watched with my new subscription was The West Wing. One of my all-time favourites, and I can rewatch this every few years. The writing, the characters, the dialogue, the topics, the cast: it all works so well together. If you still haven’t seen anything, do yourself a favour and watch the first episode. If you’re not convinced at the end of the episode, well, nothing will convince you.
Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts: That’s right, apparently it’s been more than 20 years since the first Harry Potter movie came out. HBO Max decided that it was a good time to remind everybody they own the franchise by bringing out some of the original cast and directors, including the golden trio of Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, for some nostalgic reminiscing. Shot in part with the original sets, it’s a nice warm comfort blanket while giving some nice behind-the-scenes looks. Obviously, not a single voice of discord is raised. Nice if you’re a fan of Harry Potter, and if you’re not, why are you even considering watching this?
The Wire is one of those series that often turns up in “best ever TV series” lists, so I had high expectations. Unfortunately, the first season of this gritty crime series couldn’t quite live up to those. In a post-9/11 Baltimore, a misfit band of police officials have to work together to battle a drug dealer and his gang. In the meanwhile they also have to fight corruption in law enforcement and politics. It’s a slow burn with a wide cast of believable characters, most of them expertly acted — but not “the best ever”, for me at least. Maybe that’s because it’s only the first season, maybe it’s because its themes and structure have been adapted by later series (I can already see a lot of this in Narcos, for example)? Time will tell.
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome: Hunting for inspiration for our upcoming post-apocalypse RPG campaign, I finally watched the third of the Mad Max movies. Made with American backing this time, it’s a disjointed effort which is in stark contrast with the lean focus of the first two instalments. The start is strong with the iconic location of Bartertown and its Thunderdome fight arena. Then we move to an entirely different kind of movie as Max ends up in a tribe of feral kids straight out of The Goonies, before we end on a trademark chase scene. Not recommended.
The Last of Us (2023) on The Last of Us: I started the original 2013 game twice, but never got very far — distracted by other games, and hindered by the intensity of the game’s atmosphere and themes. Video game adaptations can be terrible, but Neil Druckmann (creative director and writer on the game) and Craig Mazin (Chernobyl), together with their crew and cast, create near-perfection. It probably helps that the original game was already “cinematic”, and its plot is actually quite straightforward. The story often leans heavily into the tropes of post-apocalypse media, but it’s delivered with confidence and expertise. If leads Pedro Pascal (Game of Thrones, Narcos, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent) and Bella Ramsey (Game of Thrones) don’t get all the awards there will be riots.
If there’s one thing detracting from my enjoyment of the series, it’s the constant use of hand-held cameras, which got old very fast and didn’t really add much.
Sicario: I didn’t know much about this movie, except that it had a good reputation and that Denis Villeneuve made it. The two movies of his that I’d already seen were Blade Runner 2049 and Dune. Both are beautifully shot, and, for lack of a better word coming to mind, vibe-y. Guess what? Their older sibling Sicario is very much like that. A thriller in which an FBI agent working to catch drug criminals (an excellent Emily Blunt) is asked to join a CIA team, by its leader (an excellent Josh Brolin). She’s hesitant, but after she’s promised that she’ll have a chance to get revenge on the people who are responsible for killing her teammate, she accepts. She quickly finds out that the modus operandi of her new team is very different, and that she was asked to join under false pretences. And who’s the team’s silent “contractor”? (That would be Benicio Del Toro, turning in another excellent role.)
Enter the Dragon: A grooovy martial arts film featuring the legendary Bruce Lee (he died a month before its release) with shades of the burgeoning blaxploitation genre. The plot is thin and nonsensical: our protagonist is invited to a martial arts tournament organised by the evil former apprentice of his sensei. Nobody cares about all of this, because Mr. Lee oozes charisma and features in amazing fight scenes. (The “martial arts tournament” setup was of course used in a lot of fighting games like Mortal Kombat.)
Euphoria (2019) on Euphoria: “A look at life for a group of high school students as they grapple with issues of drugs, sex, and violence.” It’s not exactly a description that fires up the imagination, but I’d heard some good buzz about Euphoria, so I gave it a spin. It’s a typical high school series, but this time it’s describing the trials of Gen Z. “So, it’s like Sex Education?” you ask? Well, no, because while Sex Education has a sunny outlook, Euphoria is cynical and grim and everybody is broken in various ways. Starting with our point-of-view character Rue (Zendaya), who is a relapsing opioid drug addict.
At a certain point I was wondering whether the show had anything to say beyond “kids these days sure are messed up, and do a lot of drugs and have sex all the time”, and whether I was just being distracted by the beautiful cinematography, the excellent acting (Zendaya and Hunter Schafer are amazing) and the sheer amount of sex, drugs and violence depicted.
I’m still not sure, but the two Special episodes (bridging the gap between the first and second season) were so impressive in their handling of difficult topics (drug addiction, codependency, trans identity) that they led me to give Euphoria the benefit of the doubt.
This quarter’s list is not that long, and one of the reasons for that is that I’ve been watching a lot of Youtube clips. There’s a lot of good content if you can find it. That’s a big “if”, so let me give you some pointers.
The first recommendation goes to Corridor Crew’s “VFX Artists React”. In this series of weekly episodes, well, visual effects artists react to visual effects shots: old and new, good and bad, million dollar productions and small indie projects.
The series’ start is already strong, with our hosts apparently really enjoying what they’re doing, and having fun together. Their enthusiasm is palpable and along the way you learn a lot about visual effects. As the series progresses, the editing gets better, the segments longer. Moreover, professional artists from top tier visual effects studios (like Weta Digital and Digital Domain) start joining our hosts, and their insights into the process and the industry are amazing. With 163 episodes (and counting) you’ve got plenty to catch up on.
The second recommendation is Patrick (H) Willems, a filmmaker that makes amazing video essays on cinema. He really knows his stuff, his production values are top tier, and his delivery has the perfect amount of dry wit and energy for me. He’s been doing this for 12 years, and the last few years he’s been raising the bar consistently. This year he gave us a “how to get into Bollywood movies” with I Went To India To Learn About Bollywood, and a one-two punch with Everything Is Content Now and Who Is Killing Cinema?
These are all long-form essays, so get yourself a beverage, sit yourself down and put your feet up.
