Obnoxious naming of the decade aside, this was tough to trim to only ten (see: honourable mentions) and impossible to then place in any sort of order. So instead here they are, unsorted, with my reasoning for each choice:
Tag: netflix
THE WITCHER s01 (2019)
Takes a bit to come together properly, and in the end mostly establishes itself as a good base for more interesting seasons to come.
Cavill is pitch-perfect as the titular Witcher, the gruff and stoic Geralt of Rivera, and this would have worked well enough as a monster-of-the-week style creature feature show.
Better, then, that there is a whole dense world’s worth of politics and history and intrigue and lore running in parallel to all the magic and monsters, even if the arrangement of the first season sees parallel timelines come across a little jumbled.
If you’re a fan of swords and sorcery this is worth a watch, though be aware that it’s far more unabashedly fantastical than say, GAME OF THRONES is, so your mileage will vary based on your taste there.
Good action, mostly solid effects, brilliantly realised background/landscape artwork.
I liked it, I think it will get much better too. Lots of potential.
I LOST MY BODY (J’ai perdu mon corps) (2019)
Strange, surreal, beautifully animated — a winding, dreamlike and often darkly fatalistic trip.
Worth jumping into blind, it’s up on Netflix now. Highly recommended.
LIVING WITH YOURSELF s01 (2019)
What if MULTIPLICITY but Paul Rudd?
Feels like a drawn out BLACK MIRROR episode erring on this side of existential terror. It’s good, but didn’t delve into the scifi/identity crisis aspects as deeply as I’d have liked in any ways that haven’t been explored with more complexity elsewhere.
Still, worth a watch with potential for developments in seasons going forward.
TUCA & BERTIE s01 (2019)
Basically what would happen if you gave BROAD CITY a bunch of mushrooms and speed and then cast it with animated birds.
A rare thing to have a show about modern friendship told in such an irreverent, hallucinatory way that also highlights what’s possible with an animated medium when you skew hard for an adult audience.
It’s disappointing then that T&B didn’t get renewed and will remain a single season gem so full of energy and promise.
It’s fun and weird and really good and you should watch it.
BOJACK HORSEMAN s06 (2019)
As BOJACK goes this is by a wide margin the most existentially optimistic season, taking the time to explore each of the characters at turning points in their lives where they’ve mostly grown out of their old selves but are still feeling out where to go next and who they now are.
And knowing BOJACK one can’t help but feel uneasy, that this is the calm before some terrible storm, that all the work that’s been put in for everyone to pull themselves out of their black pits and to make genuine, earnest, earned progress… that all of it might be the setup for an even bigger fall. For a riotously funny show about anthropomorphised animals behaving more humanly than humans it always feels like it’s dangling over the edge of the abyss. It’s frequently a masterful exploration of the darker aspects of humanity and modern life, and a little reprieve from the earlier seasons’ heaviness is welcome.
So this season was emotionally hopeful, and if it ended here that could be enough in many ways. But, being BOJACK, something dark is waiting when the final stretch of episodes lands early next year. There are still consequences due.
IN THE TALL GRASS (2019)
Another one for the Golden Age of Stephen King adaptations.
Two siblings hear a voice calling for help from within the long grass by the side of a road, but stepping in they suddenly find they can’t get back out.
Really minimalist and strange, as to be expected from director Vincenzo Natali (CUBE). Some of the CG is wonky and I feel like they could have gone even more minimal and not lost anything of value.
Was kind of expecting a bit more of a twist to the end to really drive home some cruel irony inherent to the story, but even lacking that it was an entertaining, trippy 100min.
It’s on Netflix now.
EL CAMINO: A Breaking Bad Film (2019)
Poor, poor Jesse Pinkman.
Of everyone in Breaking Bad he really got it the hardest, and while his final moments in the series were of a kind of ecstatic, cathartic release after all he’d suffered his story was still always overshadowed by Walt’s.
Great then to spend some more time with him both as a retrospective on what made BB such a brilliant show and as a way to give Jesse and a handful of the supporting characters one last moment in the sun.
If you’re a fan of the show you’ll probably have already watched it like everyone else this weekend. Highly recommended.
BIG MOUTH s03 (2019)
Feels a little more refined in its exploration of middle school life, having stripped back a few of the more superfluous characters (Coach Steve) to give more screentime for the good hormone monsters and the changing friendship dynamics of the core group.
Still a better sex ed class than anything I remember from highschool, funny that such a crass, gross show would also manage to be very much progressive and open in discussing the change to adulthood and all the mess that comes with it. Some sidesplitting gags in there and some hilariously inappropriate musical numbers.
If you didn’t like the prior seasons you might find this one a bit less weird for the sake of weird and a bit more focused, if you liked the previous two seasons you’ll enjoy this one too.
Felt like it’s been readying itself to step up to bigger things or evolve and grow with the kids, I’d be interested to know how they’re aiming to approach future seasons.
IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON (2019)
Promises a complex mythos of a time-travelling serial killer early on and then just sort of shoves it over the line in the end — having someone explain the pretense to you in two mintues will probably stimulate the same amount of intruigue as the whole two hour runtime.
For a time travel movie it’s incredibly linear, and too shallow in its rules and consequences. Figured out the plot about 20min in and none of the other stuff was really fascinating in its own right.
It’s fine, but PREDESTINATION is still the gold standard for this sort of movie and you should watch that instead.
NERVE.SQUID.PILOT 