Correspondence From Limbo

Well, we made it. It is December, the end of 2023, and the new year is approaching. It is the time of year when anyone and everyone who writes about media and culture starts putting together their top 10 lists of things they watched, listened to or read over the past 12 months. You know the ones; “The top 10 films of 2023”, “The top seven TV shows that made us laugh, cry and really think”, “Here are all the ways you’ll keep yourself up at night regretting every decision you’ve ever made”. Light, easy stuff.

The last 12 months haven’t been great for me. I’ll probably talk about it more elsewhere, but suffice it to say, things have been pretty difficult and I haven’t had either the time or money to watch or play as much of what I would have liked to. But there have still been many things that I have enjoyed this year which have brought me comfort, made me think, or have deeply impacted me. Here are just a few of them.

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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3:

This has been a great year for big-budget studio films marketed as comedies, making me cry out. Okay, I saw two films this year that could fit that description, but that’s still quite a high number. I’ll get to the other one later (it may surprise you!) but for now I want to focus on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, a film that blew me away when I saw it, to the point where, upon exiting the cinema, I was excitedly telling me friends just how much I loved it. Like many people, I’ve grown increasingly tired of the Marvel experiment, but Guardians 3 felt like a breath of fresh air – no easy feat since it’s the final part of a trilogy – and what a trilogy. It has done some amazing things, taken us to strange places, and made us care about a talking tree, a genetically engineered racoon, and, most surprisingly, Chris Pratt.

But as much as I praise Guardians 3, I found it difficult to watch. The main villain of the piece, Chukwudi Iwuji’s High Evolutionary, is a nightmarish psychopathic scientist, conducting horrifying experiments on captured animals. I lost my cat at the end of 2022, and six months on it was still upsetting to see animals in pain – the scene where Rocket flatlines and sees his friends in the afterlife almost caused me to cry my eyes out in the cinema. Ultimately, Guardians 3 was a powerful work, and a fitting end to my time with the MCU.

The Record – Boygenius

Gosh, this came out this year?! Yep, according to Wikipedia, The Record was released at the end of March, although considering the number of times I’ve listened to this album and how quickly it has become part of my regular rotation it feels like it has been out much longer. I won’t dwell too long on this album – it’s been nominated for tons of awards and is appearing on other top 10 lists across the internet, you know it’s good – but I still want to write a bit about why it is so great. Even if that blurb is mostly to convince you that, no, I’m not only including this so Julien Baker can be on this list despite her not putting out any solo work this year. Hush.

The Record is a genuinely great album. Baker, Lucy Dacus and Pheobe Bridgers have already proved themselves to be singers and songwriters without compare on their various solo projects, as well as their self-titled EP in 2018. The super-group brings their trademark tenderness and sadness to their songs, but there is also a newfound joy to them as well. Howling held notes give way to uplifting choruses on what represents a real evolution of their sounds.

Sing it with me now – “I don’t know why I am…”

The Bear Season 2:

There is only one thing more stressful than having to cook for dozens of people, and this is watching a show about having to cook for dozens of people. The first season of The Bear was something of a surprise hit, delving deep into the personal and professional life of Carman “Carmy” Berzatto as he returns to run his brother’s restaurant in Chicago. At the risk of sounding somewhat cliched, the series explored the pressure-cooker environment of The Original Beef of Chicagoland as egos clash and the stress of hitting deadlines and serving customers cause the worst impulses of the staff to rise to the surface.

The second series follows the staff as they attempt to turn their run-down sandwich shop into a new fine-dining establishment, encountering more problems along the way. Ebraheim can’t handle the increased pace of the workload, Richie is having a crisis of confidence, and after Carmy reconnects with an old flame Sydney finds herself having the manage the entire restaurant renovation by herself with almost no guidance from her mentor. As the opening date gets closer, the pressure increases, until it looks like everything is going to fall apart at the last moment.

I won’t spoil how the series ends, but I do want to draw attention to the sixth episode of the second season, Fishes. A flashback to a Berzatto family Christmas, the episode is an exercise in stressful escalation – everything that can go wrong will go wrong, leading to a climax that is as horrifying as it is shocking. Dominating the episode is Jamie Lee Curtis as the Berzatto matriarch Donna – the episode frames her as a monstrous figure, occasion cutting to her in shadow, a cigarette clamped between her lips or in her manicured fingers. Harsh words give way to horrifying actions as she prepares dinner, driving away any offers of help before complaining that she cooked the food unaided. It is a masterclass performance for Curtis, and the episode itself is incredible – although considering how stressful it is, I doubt I will ever watch it again. Onwards to Season 3!

Past Lives:

Celine Song’s directorial debut has stayed with me long after I saw it. The tale of two childhood friends reuniting in New York, the film is a delight. The way it uses language is incredible – exploring how different languages can connect or isolate us, how learning a language and speaking it can be an act of love. But the main triumph of the film is how it uses silences, often to heartbreaking effect.

One of the most powerful shots of the film is of protagonists Nora and Hae Sung as they silently wait for the taxi that will take Hae Sung to the airport to return to South Korea. They stand quietly, saying nothing, the short gap between them appearing as a massive gulf. There are things they both want to say, but can’t – and then Hae Sung’s taxi arrives and he’s gone. The camera lingers on Nora as she slowly walks back along the street to the door of her flat and her waiting husband, breaking down from the weight of it all as she greets him. There is nothing left to say.

I hope Past Lives wins all of the awards that it is nominated for. It is simply that good.

On Poverty and Comfort – Paul Dean:

Paul Dean is one of my favourite writers currently working, and On Poverty and Comfort is one of his best works.

A sequel to his 2014 piece On Poverty, Dean’s new work is unflinchingly honest in just how strange the world of capitalism is, an exploration into the massive rift between the haves and the have-nots all through the lens of the cost of clothes in an expensive department store. The piece starts out heartbreaking, before becoming increasingly angry, filled with a righteous rage at the state of the world.

I implore you to read it if you can, along with Dean’s other works. On Poverty and Comfort is deeply affecting, relevant and resonant, enlightening and heart breaking. It is so, so important that I find it difficult to put into words.

“It is happening again.”

The works of Noah Caldwell-Gervais:

Also known as “Fuck you, this is my list and I’ll include what I want.”

I first came to Caldwell-Gervais’s work with his excellent video essay Home, Home on the Console, wherein he explored videogame Westerns all the way from Red Dead Revolver to the then-recent Red Dead Redemption 2. I’ve followed his work since then, with stand out works being his full-franchise explorations of the From Software games from Dark Souls to Elden Ring to his incredibly expansive retrospective on the Resident Evil games and his wonderful deep-dive into Disco Elysium.

This year Caldwell-Gervais has continued to create some amazing essays, including a continuation of his Real Life Landscapes of Fallout, this time focusing on Fallout 3, Fallout 4 and Fallout 76, as well as a remastered franchise retrospective on the games. He also published an extensive travelogue where he drove across the Lincoln Highway from one end of the USA to the other. His work is incredibly well-written, with a unique voice that I find utterly compelling. As I slowly return to my own writing, I hope that I can one day find my voice too.

Barbie:

I went through a break-up this year. I find break-ups to be difficult experiences, one moment someone means the world to you and the next they are gone, unlikely to ever be in your life again – at least in the way that you want them to. I found my break-up quite a difficult experience, one that I’m still working through. It’s also the reason why Barbie ended up affecting me as much as it did.

I was unsure whether or not to include Barbie on my “best of “ list. I can’t remember that much of the film itself, it hasn’t stuck in my mind the same way that Past Lives or Asteroid City did. I also have major problems with the film and its worldview, which can be best summarised by the video essay The Plastic Feminism of Barbie by the YouTuber Verity Richie. I’ve spoken to friends who have also had issues with the film and its politics. Overall, the movie feels like a product designed to sell other products.

But, despite this, the film hit me like a gut punch when it first came out. At least part of that is the central relationship between Margot Robbie’s Barbie and Ryan Gosling’s Ken. When Ken ends the film crying that he doesn’t know what his life is like without Barbie in it, I felt that, deep in my heart and soul. When he says he will have to take time to find himself and heal, I accepted that too. It might take a while, and it will probably suck, but one day I will be enough.

Barbie is a lot of things to a lot of different people. It is a scathing critique of men’s rights activists and misogynists. It is a somewhat flawed feminist picture. It is a masterclass in camp. Due to its shared release date with Oppenheimer, it is a major meme. It exists as a toy commercial for one of the most recognisable brands on the planet. But most importantly, to me at least, it is a film that made me cry.

Retry: Elden Ring:

Let’s finish off with a fun one.

I’m pretty sure I’ve written about Retry before, the flagship series for the boys at RKG. Well, this year they have gotten more and more ambitious, hoping to put out the complete and definitive playthrough of one of the biggest games of 2022. More power to them. Watching the videos put out by this terrific trio over the last year has brought me a lot of comfort over the past year. Retry: Elden Ring is the most ambitious project they have ever published, and watching new episodes as they are released every Saturday is a highlight of my week.

I’ve been rewatching the first few series of Prepare to Try, Retry’s spiritual successor, while working on this piece, and the way the show has evolved while keeping the core concept is honestly a delight. While the boys have experimented with different AfterEffects flourishes in the past, the new series brings them together in a way that shows a marked evolution and culmination of their previous series of work. I can’t wait to see the continued adventures of Rory, Krupa, Gav and, of course, Aunty Finchy. Praise the Slugs.