I tried to make separate lists of “Favorite Movies” and “Favorite Video Games” and such, and it just didn’t work, so now I’m trying something new: a Master List of all my favorite art from 2019, in order. I’m not gonna worry about hitting an arbitrary number of things or separating into kinds, I’m just gonna think about the stuff I loved this year. Sound good? Good. Let’s go.
13. MINDHUNTER SEASON TWO (TELEVISION): I loved this show because it balanced the clinical precision of the first season with a gripping, high-stakes manhunt, giving the episodes some lean-forward “pop” that was missing previously. It’s the same show, but tighter, sharper and better in every sense. It matured from good to great. If there’s a better resolution to a “find the killer” narrative in television history, I’m not aware of it. The fact that it’s based heavily on a true story baffles me.
12. PARASITE (MOVIE): I loved this movie because, like a lot of Korean cinema, it was absolutely fearless in following the story wherever it needed to go, genre be damned. From social satire to screwball comedy to thriller to horror film to generational tragedy, “Parasite” zigged and zagged and flattered its audience that they could handle some ambiguity. I wish Western cinema, which is often rigidly monochromatic in tone, would learn this.
11. WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? (ALBUM BY BILLIE EILISH): Billie Eilish’s debut album sounds nothing like what an international pop star is “supposed” to sound like: it’s dark, bass-heavy, minimalist, abrasive, mean, cold, difficult and relentless. And yet, in one of those beautiful shining moments where quality is all that matters, she became a pop star anyway. Absolutely everyone likes Billie. Teenage girls love her because she’s real, grown men and women love her because she deploys wall-shaking nightmares.
10. EXHALATION (BOOK BY TED CHIANG): This collection of science fiction short stories walloped me with its fusion of mind-bending logic and hot-blooded emotion; most writers can only accomplish one or the other. A few of the stories were just okay for me, but the ones I liked (which was most of them) changed me as a person. I can’t stop thinking about them.
9. SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME (MOVIE): This flick won my heart because it’s so much better than it needed to be. I love movies that overachieve. Most people who see it will probably go in (like I did) assuming it’s a nice little digestif to help “Endgame” go down, a coda at best. But it’s so much more than that. It’s the best live-action Spider-Man adventure ever, with the best villain, the most emotional journey for Peter Parker, and the most jaw-slams-into-the-floor action that Marvel has ever produced. Jon Watts, the mastermind behind the amazing “Cop Car” and the excellent “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” is etching his legacy in stone here. He makes whip-smart, entertaining, joyful cinema.
8. CRIMES (SONG BY GALLANT): I’m in love with this song because of its biting lyrics, buttery vocal delivery, and stop-start rhythm that makes each drum beat land like a hammer. It’s the sonic equivalent of warm, worn leather, tough but also smooth. And I love that sly Trump dig late in the bridge when he bitterly calls his ex a “stable genius.”
7. PEOPLE (SONG BY THE 1975): I can’t get over how brave this song is. The 1975 are known for melodic indie alternative, and here they are bashing out a post-punk, screamo thrasher about global warming and millennial apathy. Their fans must hate this thing, but I adore it. It confirms them as the best alternative rock band working at the moment. They might not have the track record of classic albums that Radiohead can boast, but Thom Yorke and company aren’t even touching this level of genre experimentation and vitality. Nobody this year has written anything close to “Our generation wanna f*ck Barack Obama, living in a sauna with legal marijuana.” I also love the chilling chorus–“People like people, they want alive people!!!” The rage at the center of the song is the band’s disbelief that they even need to state such an obvious, simple idea. But these are the times we live in.
6. THE IRISHMAN (MOVIE): I just can’t get enough of this movie’s rich conversations. It’s three hours of the world’s greatest actors sitting across from each other, bargaining, threatening, cajoling, sweet-talking, spitting venom, and so on. Screenwriter Steve Zaillian gave his guys potent ammunition and let them loose on each other. Some people say it’s too long. I say: how can you ever get enough of this? Director Martin Scorsese took a lot of heat for saying superhero movies aren’t cinema, and he is wrong about that, but he’s also right that this kind of movie is what we’re losing as Marvel stomps its way into omnipotence, and we should all see that as a tragedy.
5. DEATH STRANDING (VIDEO GAME): “Death Stranding” is a game that invites you into adventures. Adventures which are completely unique to your playthrough of the game, created by interlocking systems that push you into danger but don’t dictate how you get out of it. The best open-world games do this, they empower you to make interesting choices that tell emergent stories, and that’s what DS excels at. It’s also a more or less entirely new kind of game, fusing elements from stealth-action and “Euro Truck Simulator” (no, really) into a post-apocalyptic delivery game that is like nothing else on Earth. I relish playing a game where my objective isn’t to kill anything, but to unite people, to reconnect a broken world. The story is nonsense, but the art direction, and the sheer originality–at this budget scale–is awe-inspiring. I’ve never been a Hideo Kojima fan, but I think I finally appreciate why he’s so special.
4. HAIL STAN (ALBUM BY PERIPHERY): Leave it to Periphery to write and record as good a metal album as I’ve ever heard and then give it the dumbest name imaginable. Periphery’s genius is in how they humanize and de-scene-ify metal, marrying technicality and fearsome power with classical songwriting and a rich emotional palette that frankly embarrasses their peers, who are mostly stuck in one gear, doing concept albums about Norse gods or sci-fi whatever for the millionth time. Sure, Periphery does the odd Viking war theme, but they also tackle love songs, songs about the loss of friendship and growing wise with age. They can be funny, they can be devastatingly scary, all while blasting out master-level musicianship and agonizingly catchy choruses at will. It ain’t as easy as they make it look.
3. CHERNOBYL (TELEVISION): “Chernobyl” absolutely riveted me because it was smart, hyper-obsessed with details, and crushingly emotional in its own muted way. I was overjoyed at how deep into the weeds the show went, both in its technical appraisal of the disaster and its examination of the human cost. The suffering they depict is horrific, but the lessons they draw from it–the dangers of institutional groupthink, the high cost of civic duty–are incandescent. This isn’t a nihilistic story, in fact it’s quite the opposite. “Chernobyl” is a nightmare that makes you a better person. It’s grim and horrible and beautiful and perfect.
2. KNIVES OUT (MOVIE): I just loved, loved, loved every second of this movie. I loved its wit, its heart, its dizzy pace and constant rug-pulls. I loved its stacked roster of A-list actors chomping at the bit to play against type. I loved the brilliant, logically airtight machine of a plot at the center of it all. And I loved its sweet, sincere message about decency triumphing over Machiavellian self-interest. I saw “Knives Out” twice and both times I walked out with a full heart and a grin on my face. This is why I love movies.
1. CONTROL (VIDEO GAME): Throughout this list, I’ve talked about things I loved and explained–with confidence–why I loved them. “Control” is in the number one spot because I have no idea why I love it so much. To be clear, it’s objectively a great game: tight combat, varied level design, beautiful graphics and art direction, etc. But “Control” is more than that to me. It shook me and I’m not sure I really understand why. From the first moments I picked up the controller, I felt like this game was tuning to the frequency of my subconscious and jacking up the volume. Images would hit me so hard I’d have to pause the game and just stare at them. The story’s surreal, dreamlike quality kept me in a state of confusion, awe and terror that only David Lynch, Stanley Kubrick and Shane Carruth had achieved in me before. I had dreams about it while I was playing it.
Even now, when I look at the trailer above, I just… feel. Maybe it’s because the setting reminds me of the government buildings my parents worked at when I was growing up. Maybe it’s because the violent shade of red they splash over everything is my favorite color. Maybe I love its vaguely horror, vaguely supernatural thriller tone. I could keep guessing, but that’s all I’d be doing, guessing.
I have an overreaction to this game. It makes my heart flutter and glues my eyes open. I don’t think I blink very much when I play it. I have about as much success explaining my feelings about it as I do explaining why I love the people in my life. How do you verbalize emotional absolutes?
Any person who gets into the arts surely dreams of creating this effect. This is the top of the mountain, when you bedazzle someone so thoroughly they can’t even untangle themselves to explain what you did or why they liked it. Will you react this way to “Control?” I don’t know. Maybe not. But I’m not the only one who’s in love with this thing, so it isn’t just me. “Control” is (to use its own concept) a place of power. Remedy Games have been digging in the mine of surreal sci-fi melodrama for a while, but this time it’s different. There’s something here that I’m not sure anyone could create on purpose. I’m still trying to figure out what it is.
I’ll get back to you.