he's alright, from the bottom to the top!
somewhat of a best of the year list
I have mixed feelings about end of year lists. I usually love getting my Spotify Wrapped but this year all it did was remind me of that two week period where I must have been a bit sad because I listened to way too much Elton John. And I’ve received about ten different versions of a 2023 wrap up, from my grocery rewards to my streaming services. I don’t want to be reminded that I’m a good little consumer and need to have my annual activity incentivised and categorised!
So rather then a top ten list of the best of the year, I tried to reflect on the stand out cultural moments that made me feel optimistic and energised and most of all were audacious, which is becoming my most trusted metric of whether something is worth my time.
One of my two best experiences at MIFF this year was seeing Passages - find yourself a group of friends who will literally clap with glee every time Franz Rogowski’s gorgeously chaotic bisexual character enters the frame in another slutty little outfit.
The other was seeing May December, and again, I implore you to find friends who will immediately do their best impression of Natalie Portman’s iconic “she’s not that kind of snake” line on their way out of the Forum. And I have to also mention the scene-stealing performance of Cory Michael Smith, whose “electrified man-child” in this film made me laugh as much as his gorgeous work in the film 1985 (which I only saw for the first time last month) made me cry.
Both films are so good because they are so sure of themselves tonally and visually, and their beautiful characters are so ruinously manipulative in a way that is delicious to watch.
Which is a quality shared by Benny Safdie and Nathan Fielder’s newish series The Curse, which has made me cringe and scream with laughter in equal amounts. It distils so much about the complexity of this moment; acting as a microcosm of the absolute lack of reflection in the class of people who desperately need that awareness the most.
I got swept away by two incredible concert films, one old and one new - the 40th anniversary IMAX screening of Stop Making Sense, and Renaissance at ACMI for a long overdue Diva Watch.
These films will take you on a spiritual journey. Right at the end of Renaissance Beyonce says she has evolved into a different animal and that feels like the perfect summation of what we witness of her as a performer, a woman, and a mother to us all, at the height of her powers.
And in the iconic Talking Heads concert film, which I have seen multiple times over the years but never with such clarity and surround sound - David Byrne’s cheekbones have never looked so sharp, his cool and collected charm (and that of the whole band) so plain, his powers so righteous. The film continues to reveal different shades and to me, and the whole middle section of Found A Job into Slippery People into Burning Down the House is a revelation.
I also continued to be obsessed with the deep beauty and mystery of outer space and rewatched some favourites - Apollo 11 and First Man - with some equally as appreciative friends at IMAX.
I’ve already written about First Man so I won’t go into it that much here, but there is something about Justin Hurwitz’s eerie score that perfectly maps the simultaneous triumph and tragedy of the fate of the Apollo 11 pilots that I don’t think has been captured as well in any other media about the same subject.
And seeing Apollo 11 again, writ large on the IMAX screen, I was struck by all of the 60mm footage of the observers of the launch. It acts as a perfect crystallisation of the fashion of the late sixties: coloured by the conservatism of the fifties still but with hints of the patterned and textural shift that was approaching in the seventies (something that Mad Men also captured really well). Just look at these hats that were handed out to the crown in Cape Canaveral! It is terribly hot, please wear your fold out RCA hat sir.
Starstruck (ABC iView) continues to be the best romantic comedy on TV, with the third season knocking it out of the park and showing how to best (alongside Bridget Jones’ Diary of course) modernise the Austen blueprint. Annoying but lovable friends who interfere with your love life - check, handsome tall love interests who have trouble communicating what they want because of pride and class differences - check, funny and relatable heroine who can’t get her shit together but whom we love despite or probably because of that - check!
Honourable mention to two Swedish shows with a similar warm, lived-in feel, more coming-of-age but also romantic, that I highly recommend - Tore (Netflix) and Thunder in My Heart (SBS on Demand).
I saw some excellent gigs this year but the final one was definitely the highlight; seeing Caroline Polachek in a crowd of adoring fans as she effortlessly moves across the stage in slick latex one-shouldered concoctions in a manner not quite bound by the laws of mere mortals, making noises that I guess is the closest to what shipwrecking sirens would have conjured.
Polachek also delivered one of my two favourite TV performances of the year, premiering Dang with a delightfully obtuse slideshow. My other favourite was an SNL performance of All American Bitch by Olivia Rodrigo, who I think is a contender to be the next big pop diva - its the Veruca Salt theatre kid attitude, on top of the early 2000s pop-punk throwback energy that I very much enjoy.
Merry holidays to you all, see you on the other side of this lazy liminal period.
xx