The Best Stuff of 2022
published on2022 is over! What a fucking year. I'm sure 2023 will be normal.
The best books of 2022: a tie!
I can’t decide here. My two favorite books from this year were wild, very different novels.
The Doloriad by Missouri Williams is a post-apocalyptic fever dream in which a dangerously insular family tries to survive in the ruins of the old world. But the matriarch of the family, who has spent decades enacting her vision through violence and incest, finds her power waning in this new one, where even language has become unfamiliar to those who remember the past.
When We Lost Our Heads by Heather O’Neill, in contrast, is a firmly historical novel, following the obsessive relationship of two women in 19th-century Montreal. In addition to being relentlessly gay, it is a study of how art and politics interact; of the limits of art as activism, of the power of desire; and of how great change can come about through less-than-pure intentions.
Last year: Pity the Beast
Runners-up
- We Do What We Do in the Dark by Michelle Hart – Mallory, a freshman in college, starts an affair with a female professor that ends up shaping much of her early adulthood, for good and ill. A novel about loneliness, and the stories we tell about ourselves and others, and what happens when those stories aren’t true.
The best film of 2022: oops lol
Literally the only 2022 movie I’ve watched is X, and the only good part of that was Mia Goth. Maybe next year I’ll remember to actually see TÁR.
Last year: Titane
The "best" show of 2022: BIRDIE WING MOTHERFUCKERS
“I’m going to kill you, in golf.”
I've talked before about the "unclassifiable derangement" of certain anime, but none reach the levels of derangement and genre heresy that Birdie Wing: -Golf Girls’ Story- does. The elevator pitch – an orphan girl from the world of illegal underground golfing falls in love with the daughter of two legends of professional golf – is insane enough, but then the show switches gears halfway by killing off one of the main supporting characters with a casual ruthlessness I haven’t seen since Madoka, at which point the show pivots seamlessly into a high school sports anime. I was sure something this impossible and gay could never get a second season, and I’ve never been more delighted to have been proven wrong.
(No, I haven't watched Andor yet. Who cares.)
Last year: N/A
The best album of 2022: UGLY DEATH NO REDEMPTION ANGEL CURSE I LOVE YOU by Ada Rook
I HATE THAT STUPID MOUSE
Runners-up
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Heaven Come Crashing by Rachika Nayar – What if Explosions in the Sky, but more guitar, and also better.
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Void by SCALPING – Is grungy the right word for this? Whatever, it’s incredible. Music to get rowdy about.
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Hymn To The Woeful Hearts by Pure Wrath – Anger is sometimes very beautiful.
The best game of 2022: Elden Ring 😔
How did this happen??? I very nearly didn’t finish Elden Ring at all, because Radabeast sucks so much. Now I’ve just passed 420 hours played. Nice ;_;7
This is a remarkable, frustrating game. The open world transforms the traditional Souls paradigm, making it both more accessible (it is by and large easier than previous games) but also more opaque (there is so much more to miss out on if you aren’t a very persnickety explorer). But the consequences of these changes are clearly understood, and used by FromSoft to create a game that asks questions about knowledge, belief, and agency.
Also can someone tell Hyetta to be normal for five seconds?
Last year: a group victory for drifty car games
Runners-up
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Pentiment – If every game developer tried to copy Pentiment instead of whatever fucking AAA flavor of the month, [utopia meme].
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The Centennial Case – Fuck yes. Bring back FMV games in 2023. If you’ve played 428 Shibuya Scramble, then all I need to tell you is that this is Koichiro Ito’s new game. If you haven’t, then play them both. The Centennial Case is a brilliant mystery, delightfully acted, and unexpectedly moving.
