Sasha's End of the Year Awards 2024
Influenced by maia crimew's things of the year list over at it's website maia.crimew.gay i've decided to give my awards out for things that I think notable of the year. Let us begin the award ceremony, Sasha's End of the Year Awards or Seotya for for short
Game of the Year - Balatro
I like many others have become hopelessly addicted to this game. I think it just manages to exploit the primal number go up mentality to a new level, similar to other breakout hits like Vampire Survivors, which I'm also fond of. I think the most satisfying thing about it is the sounds of the shuffling of cards.
While I've not played too many card games I think that can be a key in the feel of a card game video game like that, the sound and virtual feel of the cards themselves. The colors are also very vivid, looking quite pleasing on my Steam Deck. It definitely deserved its many awards and nominations that it recieved and I look forward to the upcoming update to the game.
Movie of the Year - I Saw The TV Glow (2024)
I can't even summerize it better than with this meme I made about the movie and a specific passage that resonated with me. The movie was made by a trans director Jane Schoenbrun who is trans-fem and nonbinary. Being nonbinary myself and this being a film both about that lived experience but also the feeling of not transitioning early in life but later in life. I'm pushing 30 and what my gender identity is and whether or not i'd be happier transitioning is something I go back and forth on. I often describe myself as either genderfluid or nonbinary.
I had heard about this movie and its themes of fiction and transness and I thought this quite interesting so I gave it a go. Aside from the haunting imagery and just vibes that ooze out of every scene the acting of Justice Smith who I quite like having seen him in his earlier film Detective Pikachu his perfomance of Owen is so great and I find myself relating to Owen a lot. Someone who doesn't fully grasp their gender identity, someone who is not that interested in sex but gets hassled for percieved queerness due to a lack of interest in the opposite sex. Someone who feels at times suffocating by existing in their own body. Whilst my dysphoria is never that bad, it still exists. It just I feel, lingers.
When the movie was over, I had held it together pretty well but I cried. I cried for an hour after watching that movie. I cry when I remember specific scenes. My eyes are watering just writing this review of it. It's a very raw emotional rollercoaster and trans or not I think it should be seen by more people, if only for the visual spectacle.
Few movies make me able to sit through them and then break like that once the credits rolls but I Saw the TV Glow is one of them.
Album of the Year - The Dancefloor At The End Of The Universe
I've listened to Tom Cardy for a while now, having discovered him on youtube. I think it was his song Red Flags, about a date where a guy finds out his date has an unhealthy obsession with the film Human Centipede.
Tom's type of humor gels with me but I think his way of creating stories and narratives within his songs are why I enjoy his songs so much and his third album showcases it so nicely. Loosely themed about space and the transcendental nature of existing, but in a fun way it collects a lot of his recent music as well as providing some new ones.
The titular Dancefloor at the End of the Universe is a chacha song about a multidimensional dance club and is quite a catchy tune and the music video accompanying it has some really lovely animation with all sorts of aliens dancing. It's a bop to say the least.
I think my favorite is Level Clear! about Mario having an existential crisis as he realizes without bowser his life has no meaning just respawning over and over again. It's both good as music, comedy and introspection about the nature of placing too much of one's identity into living goal to goal. I recommend to listen to it and perhaps buy it on bandcamp, here.
Video Essay of the Year - The Skill Issue
Now I watch a lot of youtube video essays, its become a thing I love doing, the longer the better in fact. I just find myself fascinated by a lot of things and I've started to build up my attention span by watching these.Now there were a lot of video essays released this year but I landed on giving the Essay of the Year award to The Skill Issue, or: How I Learned I Could Learn, and So Can You! (also capitalism is a disease) by Sane Retry
In this the youtuber goes over the idea of learning skills and how until later in life it was a foreign concept to him and tells the story of his grandmother, grandfather and mother in order to make a point about not only skill but capitalism.
It's quite interesting, well presented and uses bethesda gameplay to illustrate his storytelling along with a bunch of clips from media he talks about but its done really well.
I was already anti-capitalist going into it but seeing this hour and a half video like, not only did i gain a new appreciation for all skills, including my newfound drawing and 3d modeling skills which I've tried to get better at this year.
The later half of the video I gained a new level of disgust towards capitalism that I did not before. I had never considered that angle and now I'm just, mad, like properly angry at the institutions that allowed it to get to the state its currently in.
Highly recommend giving it a watch, you won't regret it.