A December Dispatch
The great end-of-year catch-up has begun
Since my last instalment, I’ve been toying with ideas and notes for longer essays but none have quite materialised (watch this space). In fairness, life has become hectic. Most of that has been good, including a very sunny holiday to see my family in Texas for the first time in five years.
On the other hand, it feels difficult and frivolous to write about them during a genocide (keep resisting hate and apathy! Keep writing to your MPs and Senators!), the crumbling of arts and journalism industries, and ever-changing immigration legislation (my husband and I are luckier than most, but knowing the rules can change in a heartbeat – and rip apart families already settled in the UK – is great for one’s sense of stability). But the arts and arts criticism are vital and relevant and must remain so; longer essays will now be saved for another time in this worst of post-holiday blues.
But I wanted to write something before the end-of-year round-up, and what I have greatly enjoyed reading this year – possibly more than anything else – are people’s monthly and/or bimonthly round-ups of their favourite books, films, articles, and music. In this spirit, here is a collection of short thoughts on what I’m reading, watching, and recommending. The 2023 catch-up is well underway…
What I’m listening to
I have a hard time with podcasts – I’m quite picky about the type of people I want talking to me and the subjects I want to hear about (good scripts, minimal banter – You Must Remember This might be my benchmark, and no one in the business as a voice like Karina Longworth’s). I’m also an immense scatterbrain, and one side note by a host can send me on a mental tangent and leave me clueless when my focus returns to the podcast, which isn’t really fair to any podcast… At any rate, my top podcast this year according to Spotify Wrapped was Blowback, a new-ish discovery exploring a foreign affairs disaster spearheaded by the US Military each ten-episode season (Iraq, Cuba, Korea, with many more seasons planned). It’s not happy listening, but it’s informative, excellently constructed, and equal parts outrageous and outraged. The fourth season, on Afghanistan, is currently being released week-on-week for free on Spotify (it is available to subscribers in its entirety).
Behind the Bastards is the most recent discovery and made it to third place on my Wrapped. Like Blowback, it can be heavy going – each episode focuses on a ‘bastard’ from distant or recent history and looks at all the terrible things they’ve done, but the hosts find a balance between the truly awful and the ridiculous. Since the episodes and episode blocks are standalone, it’s a good one in which to skip around and find a topic that interests you (unlike the more serialised seasons of Blowback or You Must Remember This). I’m currently in the middle of the six-parter on Henry Kissinger, appropriately timed. For anyone who has an eye on the A24/Lionsgate release of The Iron Claw, the only other six-parter the show has done – on WWE exec Vince McMahon – is engaging and enraging even for wrestling newbies.
A shameless plug for my friends at The CineSkinny, The Skinny’s fortnightly film podcast. Each episode is around 45 minutes long and talks about two current releases and then usually discusses films around a specific theme, and the analysis and banter are both excellent. It’s been a required resource while I’ve been working through films before my final end of year list.
Now back to music: My Spotify Wrapped told me nothing I did not know about myself, but for the second year in a row The Mountain Goats were my second-most listened to artist (they’ve always been beat by the lead singer of the one musical theatre album I get obsessed with each year, usually around February time, which wrecks my entire Wrapped). Jenny from Thebes is a sequel / spin-off to the characters of All Hail West Texas and it merges the band’s more modern sound with lyrics that hearken back to earlier character-driven works (recently, many of the band’s albums have seemed more thematically linked, which is also fun, but there’s something special in watching a story play out in your mind). I’ve also listened to the 2015 album Beat the Champ quite a bit recently (wrestling research for Behind the Bastards, of course).
I can’t believe it took me a couple months to realise Hozier had released an album, Unreal Unearth, based on The Divine Comedy. It took me a couple days to become obsessed. The search for goodness and truth in a hostile world, paralleling a refutation of all laws of god and man that stifle love, perfectly fits Hozier’s soulful rock sound world. And in the best stroke of luck this year, I saw the Glasgow leg of his Unreal Unearth tour last night – a stadium united in warmth on a cold December evening.
What I’m reading
Milk Fed: anything about faith and food and love being reflections of the same theme is going to get me good.
Minor Detail: harrowing and heartbreaking in subject matter, and even more so in author Adania Shibli’s de-platforming at book festivals around the world. A must-read.
Study for Obedience: the protagonist of Sarah Bernstein’s second novel overwhelmed me with the fundamental selfishness of trying to be less. The deliberate obliqueness was frustrating at times, but the extraordinarily limited perspective made the uncanny and extraordinary cross over into reality.
Lucky Red: a genuinely fun and sexy novel despite what could be a grim setting (sex work in the Old West). I have previously complained about books that feel like they’re written to be film or television adaptations; this one is a novel through and through in pacing, characterisation, and evocation of time and place. It would likely make a great screen adaptation, but it does not need one to work.
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd: never doubt Agatha Christie! This has one of the best introductions to Poirot that I’ve read (granted, my Christie reading is only moderate), and the twists and turns properly took me on a ride.
There Are More Things: eloquent and elegiac, full of poetry and rage as it chronicles the year 2016 through the eyes of two young Brazilian women in London.
The Idiot: the real idiot is me, for reading Either/Or, Elif Batuman’s sequel, before her first entry into the life of a navel-gazing Harvard student obsessed with linguistics and Russian literature. They’re both alright – not revelatory, but certainly relatable.
What I’m watching
The tragedy underlying Fremont – creating a life after war, in the country (US) that largely caused the mess in your home country (Afghanistan) in the first place – is explored through the absurdity of the immigration system as well as everyday kindnesses and gentle observations that help build new futures.
Scrapper is a candy coloured delight – slight as hell, but so much fun.
How to Have Sex (coincidentally, the directorial debut feature of Scrapper’s DOP Molly Manning Walker) tore me apart. What a luminous turn from Mia McKenna-Bruce.
Saltburn: deeply silly, in a frustrating way. Scenes feel designed to shock but in a way that seems self-aware, constantly turning to the audience to check that they are shocked rather than seeking true subversion. But full credit to the cast for committing fully to the material.
The award for most unwieldy title of 2023 must go to The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. The Hunger Games was my personality defining media franchise in high school, and the first film was also the first I a) dressed up for and b) saw at its midnight release. So of course I was there on opening weekend for The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, a rapidly produced adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ prequel book (which, despite its relative lack of suspense, I thought was actually quite good for its refusal to give easy answers or explanations for a younger readership). It’s very good! It might be a bit more sympathetic to Snow, though it doesn’t occlude his heel turn, and it’s appropriately grim – the packed cinema was flinching throughout the Games.
May December: it is a black comedy and full-on melodrama, but I don’t think it should be in the Golden Globes Musicals or Comedy section! Skin-crawlingly uncomfortable, quietly heartbreaking, and scripted with an eye to the most mundane violences of suburban idylls and true crime. Charles Melton should win all the awards.
Napoleon: hell yeah!!!!!!!!!! Ridley Scott can do whatever he wants! Joaquin Phoenix delivers some of my favourite line readings of the year! Can’t wait for the 4 hour cut.
Anatomy of a Fall: a film that impresses through the meticulousness of its construction and the naturalistic raft of performances.
Triangle of Sadness: half an hour too long and somewhat wasted whenever Harris Dickinson and Dolly De Leon are not on screen, but it is impressively gross, and the vomiting symphony while idealogues argue over the comms system is masterfully done.
The Killer: love to watch a guy have one job and then fail!
Every time I look up a film that has a great release in the US and a botched release in the UK, it seems to be distributed by Universal Pictures. The Holdovers, which I caught on my last night of holiday in Texas, is no exception. This is going to be a new classic Christmas film to return to time and time again – exquisitely written and colour graded; celebrated veteran Paul Giamatti, under-sung veteran Da’Vine Joy Randolph, and newcomer Dominic Sessa playing off each other with ease and grace – and it’s going to be released in January in the UK. It is still so worth seeing, but I’d love to hear the thought process of the Universal marketing and planning teams.
Maestro: ...unsurprisingly, I have so much to say (Bradley Cooper better than expected! Carey Mulligan worse than expected?), but it’s so deeply strange that a dual Bernstein biopic is so deeply depoliticised. It’s going to win lots of awards (derogatory). More anon…
Scarface: Now I understand that one Mountain Goats song (also, under-eye bags king Al Pacino will always be first in my heart)
Parallel Mothers: I wonder what the film would be like without its score. Lesser, certainly.
I’m Not There: this is the ideal biopic form, when the subject is never mentioned by name and played by six different actors. Society has moved past the need for the traditional biopic.
The American Friend: a cowboy hat is a good look for both Tom Ripley and Dennis Hopper.
What I recommend
Shameless plug for some recent film reviews, all titles worth seeking out! What Doesn’t Float for Screen Queens, Is There Anybody Out There? and Fallen Leaves for Take One, and Femme for The Skinny.
On that note, no one has better taste than the film team at The Skinny! We’ve released our (frankly immaculate) Top 10 of the year, as well as a fantastic collection of personal Top 10 lists and write-ups of underrated/overlooked 2023 releases.
With the release of Saltburn, my status as a Promising Young Woman apologist is back out in the open. This piece by Olivia Giovetti for the LA Review of Books ties Fennel’s first (and still best) feature to the great operas and their suffering women.
My favourite interview this year (ever?) was conducted with Thomas Schubert, star of Afire (my #4 film of the year), and shared a few issues ago. Recently I found this interview Schubert gave to Take One at the 2023 Edinburgh International Film Festival, and it’s a delight to read.
A lovely personal reflection on music, the intrinsic value of creation, and anxieties around AI by Dr Leah Broad.
VAN Magazine is a perennial favourite and the lovely team there are releasing a NEW edition of their Cards Against Classical Music with a subscription! Worth it for anyone who wants the best and least reverent classical music chat in their inbox weekly.