What up, people of Internet? It’s 5:30 a.m. (as of this writing), my insomnia’s doing great and I’m feeling just a little punchy. I think it’s all the fatigue toxins goosing my synapses. So let’s proceed right into my Yearly Reckoning, in which I dump out some random opinions on your unsuspecting boots. In current news, another Malaysian plane has gone missing: AirAsia QZ8501 has vanished in heavy weather between Singapore and Indonesia with 192 passengers on board. Cue the satellite hunters and conspiracy mongers.
1. HEY, ARE YOU GUYS JUST GOING AROUND SHOOTING UNARMED BLACK PEOPLE? This appears to be the question that America finally asked its police forces in 2014, after decades of this sort of thing happening. From Michael Brown to Eric Garner and beyond, it seems that the American public is unwilling to accept the status quo in which young, unarmed black men can be shot on the street and left in the sun like modern versions of lynching victims. Meanwhile, the NYPD might want to think about what it stands to lose by pulling stunts like turning its collective back on Mayor de Blasio.
2. HEY, WHO’S KILLING INDIGENOUS WOMEN? This appears to be a question that the Harper government is still unwilling to answer, because as far as our Skinwalker-in-Chief is concerned, indigenous Canadians aren’t real people and may be dismissed if he shakes his head hard enough. Of course, he’s terrified of shaking his head lest his human face come flying off in public.
3. ACTUALLY IT’S ABOUT ETHICS IN GAMING JOURNALISM By far the most pathetic and embarrassing story of the year: Gamergate, a crusade of misogynistic basement dwellers dedicated to ensuring that women don’t make games and that games aren’t made with women in mind, because nothing’s more unethical than diversity or inclusion or catering to the actual gaming market.
4. POPE FRANCIS, YOU SO COOL Pope Francis continues to make good on his image as a reformer with a wingdangdoo of an address to the Holy See. In a blistering speech, he laid out the ailments plaguing the Catholic Church hierarchy, including “spiritual Alzheimer’s.” He also singles out “working too hard” as a problem, which, good thinking. Francis also promised to bring financial reform to the Vatican, which will probably win him few friends among the Church bureaucracy.
5. BEST THINGS OF 2014
BEST TV OF 2014 Yes, yes, give me your True Detectives, your Hannibals and your Fargos – all of which were excellent, excellent television. But I’m going to propose a few alternates: the hilarious squalor of Broad City, a dirty weed-fogged riff on Girls; Rick and Morty, a deranged stack of inventive madness from Community creator Dan Harmon; and The Affair, which started off as a minutely observed character drama about infidelity and devolved into a fantastically trashy soap opera in only ten episodes. Oh, and from The CW, there’s The Flash, which is the most fun you can have watching a man run fast in red tights, and The 100, which began life as Post-Apocalyptic Hot Teen Soap Opera and is now a frantically paced game of escalating stakes between ridiculously good-looking people on a devastated future Earth. What’s not to like?
BEST MOVIES OF 2014 So many excellent films this year. Under The Skin. The Lego Movie. Boyhood (probably). The Babadook. Snowpiercer, except for the overlong ending. Guardians of the Galaxy. Two Days One Night. And more. Definitely not The Equalizer, unless “Denzel Washington killing randos with home & garden supplies” is the new criterion for great cinema.
DUMBEST MOVIES OF 2014 THAT PEOPLE THINK ARE GOOD BUT THEY’RE NOT Freaking Gone Girl. It’s ridiculous. Okay? And with apologies to Jorge, Interstellar is a movie about a guy who sails beyond the stars to spy on his teenage daughter. It’s creepy. People eat corn, they cry in space and it’s creepy.
BEST SPORTS OF 2014 Over Christmas I watched a lot of football at the in-laws. Then I went to my parents’ and watched an imperial ton of soccer. That was my sports for the whole year, and it was fantastic. I can’t wait for Xmas 2015.
BEST MUSICS OF 2014 Lots of people have opinions, but mine is the one that counts here. LP1 from FKA Twigs, whom I can only describe as an erotic trip-hop anxiety performance artist, is the best thing to hit my ears this year. D’Angelo’s Black Messiah is indisputably great, but you can’t shake my heart. Don’t go shaking it. To give you a sense of what to expect, as Greg Beatty might say, here’s the single “Two Weeks.” Lyrics are a trifle NSFW, but phrases like “higher than a motherfucker” never sounded so sweet and lyrical.
