Movie
I’ve already talked this year about how much I love Nope, so I want to highlight a favorite from before the blog started: Everything Everywhere All At Once, written and directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert. This movie rightly took spring of 2022 by storm: it is an explosion of talent and creativity, often literally. It balances family tragedy and existential dread and rediscovered joy and romance and–something often taken for granted, but it is impressive–genuine disgust and utter ridiculousness.
The one thing I want to highlight, something I’ve rarely seen praised in the horde of deserved praised it has received, is how the movie handles the order of information. Yes, really, the order in which information is presented to us. Somewhat boring, I know! Yet the absolute chaos of this movie showcases more distinctly how important this aspect of writing is: how it maintains a clear story, even if the other parts are clamoring for attention, and how it perfects a good story. Despite the noise of EEAAO, the film can continuously build on itself because it has already introduced the necessary pieces beforehand. These building blocks are often hidden by jokes (obvious, like the butt-plugs, and seemingly throwaway, like Racacoonie) or sheer presentation (Jobu Tobaki) or even emotion (the looming divorce papers). It’s a way to surprise the audience and elevate the writing, plot- and joke-wise. It allows for the movie to always pull back and focus on the central story being told even when it wants to get weird. This simple writing trick is what allows the movie to go full-force in every other regard, and it works beautifully. It is by far one of the standouts of the year.
TV Show
I will admit it: I am somewhat of a TV purist. A thirty minute episode of TV is a comedy; a 45+ minute episode is a drama. But with our supposed “golden age of TV” comes experimentation and outright upheaval of the old rules. And with The Bear, a 30-minute show cut down tightly to increase the frenetic pace of a food-service kitchen, I am happy to be proven wrong.
Much of the show’s praise has focused on how “realistic” the show is, how accurately it portrayed the chaos and frustration of the food service industry. Yet The Bear is not good solely because of accuracy–it is good because it makes these real lives dramatic, compelling TV, because it makes us care for these workers no matter how they snap. It does so by pulling us so close it feels as though we are part of the kitchen ourselves, by making us understand these characters intimately. It is not the way they julienne vegetables or simmer their meat that makes it real; Sydney’s simmering frustration is what makes it real, the weight of Carmy’s cutting grief is what makes it real. The edits and camerawork are, quite literally, in your face and working to make you anxious. But the writers still want you to understand how funny these lives are, how rote and stubborn and joyous. We can feel the heat in the kitchen, literally and figuratively. We can even taste it. That’s why we care.
Music
“Look at you, you can’t handle me,” begins the track “TOMBOY,” the first song and thus the first lyric of the entire album of I-DLE’s first full album, I NEVER DIE. After becoming embroiled in scandal in 2021 when one of their members was accused of bullying and subsequently kicked from the group, it is an understatement to say this album needed to be strong. I NEVER DIE shows they had nothing to prove: they are talented, creative, and explosive, and they arrived to make a statement, not simply to garner popularity.
“TOMBOY,” their title track, is a feminist pop-punk anthem decrying and resisting their treatment by male society: “Do you want a blonde barbie doll? / It’s not here, I’m not a doll.” Their solution is more radical than the usual feel-good feminist pop song: by claiming “I’ll be the tomboy,” and “it’s neither man nor woman,” they outright reject gender binaries that restrict them. Beyond their message, the music is abound with creativity and versatility, from the pop-punk “Never Stop Me” to the soft R&B hit “ALREADY” to the more ballad-esque track “ESCAPE.” What begins to stand out thematically is the difference between their public personas and their private life. “Like dolls without emotion, no need to fake smile,” they sing in “LIAR.” Or in “VILLAIN DIES,” a dark, introspective R&B track where Soyeon spits, “You put me down and want me dead / In fact you don’t even know me that well.” The final track, “MY BAG,” could rival the title track “TOMBOY” in terms of sheer force of will and power: a straight hip-hop flex track where each verse highlights not wealth or brand shoutouts but the specific talents of each member. It is a song only I-DLE can make; no other group can imitate it. As a group that writes and produces their own music, in the end, they prove their own words to be true when they state simply: “Alright, write / Never die.”
Video Game
The reason video games are such a distinctive medium is how it makes the player an active participant in the story or world. Enter Stray, the 2022 sci-fi puzzle game that asks players: would you like to be a cat? The unanimous answer is yes. It helps that the story’s visuals are so appealing (your classic neon-light-clustered-city cyberpunk fare) and that the story outside of the puzzles is straightforward and compelling.
The brilliance of this game is the use of perspective. Yes, the developers of the game nailed the movement, attitude, and viewpoint of the cat, even when placed in an unfamiliar setting. Yes, we can make the cat meow, curl up next to someone, or nudge items off various shelves. But what the game captured most is humanity, even with no real humans present in the world of the game. Humanity at its worst, creating exclusionary class systems and maintaining a brutal police force; and humanity at its best, creating bonds with different types of creatures, developing distinct personalities as the robots do, and fighting to see a better world. It reminds us that’s all you ever need to revamp a genre: a little heart and a new perspective.
