The Late Late Awards Show

As anyone who knows me well, or a little bit, or has only had one impression of me hurrying into a room, I’m usually late.

Yes, most people have best of lists done before Christmas, yes this blog is so outrageously tiny I really can’t afford to put this up so late, and yes there will be a tremendous number of holes in my knowledge.

Sidenote: First, I missed a lot of stuff this year, I’m not a professional reviewer nor do I have limitless income, or limitless student loan as it were, so there will be monstrously huge gaps here. I would not be surprised if all of my winners could be ousted by something I missed. Secondly, after some debate internally, I have decided to go with my favourites, not what I consider to be the “objective” best. Third, and finally, this will be some fun awards I came up with for stuff I liked, then my honourable mention plus winner for the hotly contested prize of best film, tv show and game. That being said, lets go!

I’m not a total trashfire, although I Iz always late

Biggest Disappointment: Game of Thrones Season 7

You know what I’ve become?

That fucking guy.

“Oh, I’m not so excited for season 8 because season 7 was such a let down, oh I don’t like the lack of travelling, oh I don’t like all the fan service and nods to the audience.”

I hate that guy. I hate the guy that seems to take joy in being miserable about something everyone else loves.

But I love it too.

I didn’t grow up with Lord of the Rings, it never quite seemed my thing, and I just sort of decided to watch Game of Thrones because it was all the rage. I didn’t love it immediately, but by the end of season 2, I was hooked, and hooked hard. I now adore each season, and although I do think there are flaws and errors throughout the show, there was a few big central things that really make it something special. First, the bending of tropes, Tyrion and Arya, Jaime and Oberyn, characters that either I had never seen the like of before, or thought I had, but then revealed themselves to be so much more. There’s the death, call me psychotic but I love the murder, losing beloved characters unexpectedly, it makes the show so much more real. Sure I basically have to take a few days to recover whenever I see Oberyn’s gorgeous face smeared across the ground, but that’s because it really matters to me, and that’s great. Then there is the plotting, the deliberate painstaking build-up, that it really does feel like a world, where small actions, (Rickard Karstark’s son is killed by Jaime Lannister, so he is desperate for vengeance, kills Lannister boys, gets sentenced to execution so the Stark’s lose the army, so they have to gain favour with the Frey’s, so the red wedding happens, so the war is ended), could have big consequences. It all created this incredibly rich and real place. where I really do worry for the safety of my favourites, Tormund and the Hound FYI, and constantly question where it will end up

Do I have a joke caption here? No. Should you just go back and rewatch this scene, or better yet the whole of season 4? Yeah.

I’m less of a fan of the Jon Snow generic fantasy land thing that season 7 is.

Yeah, that was an awful petty whiney fan boy thing to say, but hear me out. Jon Snow feels completely unkillable now, which, fine I can live with, but I have started actively routing against my two favourites, as previously mentioned, because I want something that feels shocking too happen. This season felt a lot more generic, handsome hero trying desperately to save the world, and less a clash of powers with a lot of bad and some good on each side. Yeah, the white walkers were always the end game threat, but did that mean it had to become this, this much smaller feeling, much more generic, much more disposable show? Season 6 ended magnificently, and it’s all wasted, the realism which was so much of the appeal, gone, the role reversal of women having the power and probably eventually going to save the world or bring it down, gone, Tyrion being a character with a point, gone. I still think it really is a great show, truly, but I am no longer sure it can be the great show, for me personally, and that’s just shit.

The Most Wonderfully Divisive Role: Mark Hamill: Luke Skywalker- The Last Jedi

Yeah, I didn’t grow up with Star Wars.

Sure I like it well enough, I really do have a great deal of enjoyment and good feelings attached to it, but it most certainly not my be all and end all, last word in entertainment like it is for so many people (That privilege belongs far more to a space traveller wearing a dressing gown and a towel than one travelling with a wookie)

So no, The Last Jedi was something I was interested in not rabid for. Having seen it, having really thought about it, having taken a good time to think, in my mind it is a really great film with maybe a few more missteps than one would hope, but far more risks that pay off and that for me means more. Sure, you can have reasonable criticism, and we can disagree but for my money it’s a pretty damn good film.

Also Mark Hamill is phenomenal as Luke and also its Luke’s best role and also it makes perfect sense for the character, haha come at me.

I never really realised how good an actor Mark Hamill was. I knew he was a brilliant Joker, I knew he was great in the original trilogy, but his inclusion felt more as a fan thing, he was hardly going to take the film to the next level except oh look he completely does exactly that.

Luke’s arc is believable, its interesting, and best of all its awesome to watch play out. Hamill is simply brilliant, lending depth, humour, and inner conflict. The role and the acting work to create my personal favourite bit of the Last Jedi. None of this was meant to be inflammatory, but I guess what I’m saying is if you don’t like Luke you’re an idiot (You’re not, although maybe you are)

Mark Hamill seems like a cool guy, and that was before he rinsed Ted Cruz

Also I like Kylo Ren more than Darth Vader, hahahahaha have fun with that one guys.

Best one off: The U.S.S Callister- Black Mirror

This one is hard to write about. In a good way. However it is hard to write about. So that’s bad. So it’s good bad, but the episode is just straight up good, although it’s about bad stuff and it concerns a bad guy, and some not great guys really, but it is really good, just not good to write about, it’s bad to write about.

I hope the bullshit I just wrote seems clever.

I don’t have much to say. As is the case with most stuff I will recommend, please experience it completely fresh, and to help you with that I’m not going to go into intricacies.

The whole cast is great but I really love Jesse Plemons in the lead role.

The concept is my favourite in all of Black Mirror.

It is really, really, brilliantly darkly funny.

Uh oh I’m running out of ways to sell it and not spoil it.

The sets and costume design are awesome.

It raises some really interesting questions on sentience, consciousness and AI.

It has one of my favourite ever cameos.

Ok yeah, I’m done, it’s not a very complex prize, I bet you’ve already seen it, but just in case you haven’t please, give the U.S.S. Callister a chance to fly.

Everyone’s already stopped reading cause of Star Wars haven’t they.

I’m neither Trek or Wars, I’m hard-core Hitchhiker’s Guide, bitch.

Please Don’t Watch This Thing I Like Award: Dirk Gently Season 2

As you may have picked up with many subtle hints throughout this piece, I’m a bit of a Douglas Adams fan.

Strange to say then, that a lot of the strengths of this, in my opinion, very good show, has little to do with him. The writing is a fairly big departure from his, the acting obviously has nothing to do with him and the music clearly isn’t his either, but in my opinion all of these are especially strong. Jade Eshete, Fiona Dourif, and Hannah Marks as Farrah, Bart, and Amanda are stellar in particular, and I really hope they all get more work.

Just not on Dirk Gently.

Yeah, I really enjoy it. No it absolutely shouldn’t get anymore of anything.

Why?

Because we shouldn’t be giving Max Landis anymore work in anyway.

The MeToo movement sweeping across the world is fantastic, and honestly there are far better and more qualified people to talk about it. What seems important, to me anyway, is that it doesn’t lose steam. It can’t stop being a big story, it can’t stop being important, these people need all the help possible, and a razor focus on the perpetrators.

Max Landis has been accused, repeatedly, of some pretty foul stuff. There is no doubt in my mind that he is certainly guilty. In response, he slunk off twitter and ignored it all, hunkering down hoping he could wait it out in hiding.

Nah.

Look, I used to like Max Landis, I really do think his writing on Dirk Gently at least, is excellent, and none of what I just said matters. Until he owns up, take the blame, apologises, takes a break, faces the consequences, until he actually makes amend, well, there is absolutely no question in my mind, he should not be anywhere near anything.

So yeah, I only watched Dirk Gently when I knew it was cancelled, until I knew I couldn’t give him any more work. If, if, it was possible to get a Landis-less season3, I’d be all over it, but no, I’m not signing any petition, and I am using my tiny echo chamber to tell anyone who listens, do not give this guy any work. Full Stop.

Music’s still fucking great though.

Please give the cast, the costume designers, the musicians, literally EVERYONE but him, work, please please please

Favourite Discovery: Hbomberguy

Haha this is such a horrible article to write.

I don’t want to appear, overly desperate to curry favour with certain people, but yeah, I watched a lot of this guy’s stuff this year. Mr Bomberguy, if that is his real name (This is sarcasm) has a gift I love in people I follow, an ability to talk at length and in depth about the stuff I really care about/ am interested in, and do it far more informatively and cut far deeper than I ever think I could, and when I say I love this ability, I of course mean I am cripplingly jealous of it.

We may disagree on many obvious things, (If you’re reading this, which you aren’t, but if you are Harris, which I hope it’s ok to call you, how is making drinking estus slower a good move, I know you explained it but this is a rhetorical question and not very funny ok I will stop now) but the sheer joy I get from watching the carefully crafted takedowns of the “Alt right” is so magical that you could declare Community shit an I’d keep watching.

Ok actually I really wouldn’t because having opinions is great and having out there opinions is great but it’d break my heart please don’t please plea-

I just reread this whole piece, realised it fundamentally needed horrendous editing, but have decided to capture my weird breakdown for posterity and because I tragically won’t write anything better.

I’ve been eating soy so long I skipped right past Beta straight to Omega

Now I guess we move on to the real awards, followed by my favourite piece of art from this year, ho boy…

Film of the Year: Honourable Mention- Get Out

Having just said I was picking my favourite films, Get Out wasn’t my second favourite film of the year (Dunkirk, which I also think might well be the best film I’ve seen this year, was). No, Get Out was THE movie of the year, in that it was more than a movie, it was an event, an insight into some of the politics and issues of the time it was made in. Wonder Woman was also an event movie, and what it represented was wonderful, but Get Out was more brutal, more biting and a flat out brilliant movie along with it. Get Out made me look at myself, my comfortable liberal lefty non offensive self, and really think about how racism creeps in and is prevalent across so much of society. Truly, I can’t do justice to the film and its message with my piece, so please just watch the it. It’s buoyed by fantastic performances, writing, and cinematography, and it comes together to make Get Out a topical, important and flat out fantastic film, easily deserving of all the accolades it’ll get and more.

I’d have given you three honourable mentions if I could

Film of the Year: It

Yeah, it has big issues. Mike doesn’t have nearly enough to do, the kiss bit at the end is mind bogglingly dumb, and the rock throwing is just laughably bad. However, the kids are far more fleshed out than most movies manage, vital for a horror film because you’re supposed to care when they’re in danger, the film is gorgeously shot, Denny really has a personality, the gorgeous exterior hiding something fundamentally terrifying just beneath the surface, and its a very funny film giving it a real rollercoaster quality. But if I’m honest their is one reason and one reason alone that this is my favourite film of the year.

I’m a sucker for a villain

HIS EYES CAN MOVE IN DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS WITHOUT SPECIAL EFFECTS HE CAN JUST DO THAT THIS MAN WAS MADE TO BE PENNYWISE AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Bill Skarsgard is simply miraculous. The original television mini series has supposedly aged badly, bar a fantastic Tim Curry performance, so Skarsgard’s job had already got harder, but from the very first trailer it seemed apparent he had nailed it. Pennywise isn’t just scary, he’s downright disquieting, terrifying and creepy, weird and skin crawling. Yes, the rest of the movie is pretty damn good but it is elevated to something special by Skarsgards Pennywise and FOR GODS SAKE DID YOU SEE HIS DANCING!

Television Series of the Year: Honourable Mention- Bojack Horseman Season 4

Weird that this isn’t my favourite “people with animal attributes using this weird funny world to explore much deeper and darker themes” thing of the year.

I remember catching a bit at a friends house, and wondering why something that really wasn’t very funny was so popular and well loved. I was an idiot and wrong of course, why break the habit of a lifetime, but this is a cartoon where there’s far more to it than “being funny”.

Bojack is a very real show, a very real show where a bridge is built to Hawaii from L.A. and Hollywood is now Hollywoo. Sure, I am a sucker for the animal celebrity pun names, “Quentin Tarantulino” is my favourite, and it all really is very funny a lot of the time, but so much of the funniness has a bite.

Wrapping up biting satire in an animal skin is inspired, and for my money, this season was easily the best. I get more out of it every time I watch it and the plotlines and points are just brilliant.

The penultimate episode really hit me hard, harder than maybe anything else has this year, apart from that, and there’s so much more to the season than just that episode, from personalities running for office, to the gun debate and women’s writes, a lot of ground is covered, and covered well.

I realise I have managed to write a lot while saying very little, but the long and the short of it is, if you haven’t already you should really give (Warning, hot take) Netflix’s best original a chance by now.

Yeah Stranger Things is really good too.

But it doesn’t have Cameron Crowe, as a raven does it?

The universe will never be as bad to him as he is

Television Series of the Year: Rick and Morty Season 3

All the memes, all the entitled fans, all the repugnant news surrounding it, all the bile, all of this awfulness surrounding Rick and Morty should not detract from one thing.

It’s just absolutely brilliant

It’s again, hilarious, weird and so utterly confidently its own thing that it really feels so special. Rick is a character I love, but not like, a complete asshole, but a brilliant one to watch. Morty really grew this season, his was the arc I was most interested in and most excited to see continue. Special mention must also be given to the rest of the Smith family, each far more fascinating and three dimensional than I’d originally thought.

Rick and Morty had already struck gold, season 3 did not need to take the risks it did, it did not need to change the formula like it did. The changes were so bold, the character exploration so fantastic that I really did feel the week drag by between episodes. Gone was Monday night for Game of Thrones, no, now Rick and Morty ruled the roost. How do you make an emotional and heart rending episode about the main character transforming himself into a pickle? How do you write a joke as funny as the “squirrel one”? How do you rip up the established roles and keep everything fundamentally Rick and Morty?

How do you write the best episode of TV ever?

The Ricklantis Mixup is the best episode of anything that I have ever seen. I don’t want to write about it here, I want it to be as unspoilt as possible and I want to do a proper piece on it at some point, but yes, for my money, it is the best thing ever committed to the small screen. (Better than Ozymandias, shhh)

I swear I don’t have opinions like this to be divisive, I just do it because I’m right.

Ricki-ticki-tavi, BITCH

The best TV villain, fight me

Game of the Year: Honourable Mention- Dark Souls 3 DLC The Ringed City

I know its not a full game, but it is my favourite gameplay experience of the year bar one, and its not the one that wins game of the year.

That needlessly confusing enough for you?

I love the Souls series, even if I haven’t played Demon Souls or the Original Dark Souls, its still very special to me. and seeing it end was really an event. For my money, it pulls it off, but in a very specifically excellent way.

First, and most important, the story is fantastic. Choosing to make the ending linked in to the end and beginning of it all was sorta obvious but it really works. Making it about “the dark soul”, about going to the end of the world, to where it all began, well, explaining the lore to this thing isn’t what I’m good at but its very involving and well, epic.

The design is awesome, the new enemies are pretty good, the landscape is bleakly stunning, and the new music really accurately captures the despair and majesty, but all of this would be for nought, if not for one thing.

The bosses.

Imagine you’re designing a bedroom. You order the best possible furniture, you make sure the windows are well spaced and let in a good amount of light, the wallpaper perfectly expresses your tastes, you have made it perfect for you.

Not much good if you have to sleep on the floor right?

Dark Souls without good bosses is like a bedroom without a bed, sure its pretty, its great, its nice to stand in, but you me and everyone else knows its missing what makes it really work. What I’m saying is, sleeping on the floor is like having a bad boss in a videogame that i like.

Ahem.

The Ringed City has three of the best, and in my opinion, out of what I have played, the best, bosses in Dark Souls. They accurately portray they’re world, they are challenging and interesting in the way end game Dark Souls bosses have to be, they make you want to skip through the brilliantly designed world to get to them each time, which I guess is counterintuitive?

I really could, and will, write pages and pages about all of the aforementioned three, but I have to say, that fighting Slave Knight Gael is one of the single best experiences I’ve ever had in a video game, and I could write more, but do I really need to?

Hand it over. That thing. A page like.

Game of the Year: Injustice 2

Ah the year of the loot box, fitting that my game of the year has loot boxes, and indeed, micro transactions, neither of which I’m happy with, but they are not micro transactions for loot boxes, and they aren’t as predatory, and that makes all the difference.

I don’t really like fighting games, I prefer Marvel to DC easily, and by far my favourite DC character, the Joker, isn’t exactly well known for his fighting, so Injustice 2 was hardly a slam dunk on any of those fronts.

The fighting and the reward are what matter here to me, pairing a really thoroughly enjoyable fighter with a good cast of combatants with reward system that makes it all feel worth it truly is a match made in addict heaven. I played this game for so long and so fully it would be frankly irresponsible to give anything else the title of Game of the Year.

The story too, was far better than it had any right to be, better than any DC film bar maybe Wonder Woman. Superman is an interesting and complex villain, as opposed to the single most BORING character ever conceived like he normally is. No, it’s not massively complex or clever, but it’s engaging and great fun to play through, and letting you pick Batman or Superman at the end is well, on brand, and good fun.

Is this game revolutionary, is it perfect, is it an amazing capture of the zeitgeist at the time? Nah. Is it great, great, fun, incredibly playable and harder to put down than anything else.

No I didn’t play Mario or Zelda, yes I imagine one of them would have one this award instead.

Doesn’t stop this game being excellent, and the inclusion of the Ninja Turtles fucking cool though.

Favourite playable character, as their Joker seems to be trying to do a crap version of Leto’s crap Joker

Uh so

Yeah, this is my big award

I was giving it to Rick and Morty, obviously, obviously I was giving it to Rick and Morty.

Then as I browsed the PS4 sale section, a game I vaguely remembering Hbomberguy recommending in a tweet appeared, so I watched the trailer, and made a risky purchase, hoping it would be worth it.

I’d say it was, wouldn’t you?

Best Release of 2017: Night in the Woods

You know how the negative reviews often say whatever they’re writing about is “disposable”, while positive ones go the other way, saying the art is “important”?

Night in the Woods isn’t important, it’s vital, it isn’t moving, it’s life affirming. It truly is so much more than a game, and honestly I can’t begin to do it justice.

To give a quick overview, you are Mae Borowski, embittered twenty year old who returns to her small hometown after dropping out of university, to discover thing’s are changing, and her friends seem different. Now, many would say that as I am an embittered twenty something, at university from a small town, I would find this very relatable, even if I do lack any friends to come home too. This is true, but this isn’t enough to carry a game.

What carries the game is the fact I have never, in anything, seen a world more real, more realistic, more palpably viscerally human. Even if all the people are human animal people.

Night in the Woods has dialogue that some would call believable, and I would call frighteningly real. The talent on show, to write something that feels like I am peeking behind the curtain to look into the live of a person, a person that has lived a life without me and grown into the real character I see now is so profoundly rare I don’t think I have seen it in anything.

Night in the Woods explores… issues. A lot of these issues are ones I may have faced in some capacity, it does a disservice to how personal they are to me and how well they are addressed in game to talk about them here, but they have been addressed by other media, so why is it different now? Well. This is not simply recognition a problem like poor mental health, or the failings of capitalism, or difficult family dynamics exist, this is a game that builds a world, a world you care about, and then as time progresses you realise that this world is so tangibly real, that the problems they address, they are coming up so naturally and organically just like in you know, real life, that you recognise them as something you have experienced, so how they’re looked at is so, so, much better than I have ever seen it done before. and oh my god please play this game for god’s sake I really cannot do its brilliance justice with some poorly worded paragraphs. People are people in this game, they’re people you like and want to help, so when you realise they have problems, or what their problems are, it feels so human, so wonderfully human, that it helps you come to terms with those issues you may have in real life, whatever they may be.

I would be amiss if I didn’t mention

The art design

The animation

The music

The writing

The writing again

The writing for a third time

The inhumanly humanly good writing

The world design

The plot and pacing

The characters, which are written

The well written character

The writing, which is brilliant, which brings characters, that are brilliant, to life

And the crimes

If you play or watch anything from this article, let it be Night in the Woods. The odds are very high you won’t get as much out of it as I did, and that means it will only be outstanding in your eyes, not life changing (Hyperbole I know but well earned hyperbole). For me, when I thought about it, if I could only have one thing have come out in 2017, it would undoubtedly be, Night in the Woods.

Every single character is really relatable in some way to me except they are funny and likable and also a literal animal

Hello! Hope you enjoyed that rather ridiculously long article, big shout outs to Jim Sterling and Hbomberguy as people that keep inspiring me to write this stuff. I was SansSanity, please give us a follow, have a good year!

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