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Best of 2023

  • Writer: Jack Eureka
    Jack Eureka
  • Feb 9, 2024
  • 6 min read

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ALBUMS


Albums felt a liiittle light this year. Nothing really floored me in its wholeness. Then again, I can't recall being put on my ass by an entire album since GLOW ON a few years back. Maybe expecting a track-by-track barrage like that is a little lofty, though. Half-endorsements aside, these are all still quite good and in no particular order.


Each album is linked on title.




Kelela Raven




crushed extra life




100 gecs 10,000 gecs







Olivia Rodrigo GUTS




Nation of Language Strange Disciple




Hotline TNT Cartwheel




Danny Brown Quaranta




HEALTH Rat Wars










George Clanton Ooh Rap I Ya




JPEGMAFIA, Danny Brown SCARING THE HOES



FILM


I'll have a write up on the films actually from 2023 for the Oscars, but here are my favorite first-time watches this year. Again, no particular order.


Excerpt is from full review, which is linked on title.






He is only picture and tragedy. His sister's assumptive punchline to his status and its application to his (orphaned) children. Because that's all war really gives us. Orphans.



Beau Travail (1999)



Lyrical, oftentimes a ballet of fatigues. Creating relational lines of extremism only identified by outside force. Camaraderie amplified to levels of homoeroticism. Irritation mounting to the extreme order: hate.



La Haine (1995)



A film so fully formed it causes aphasia. Like looking at the Eiffel Tower and trying to articulate how to build it alone, your head gets scrambled in that kind of awe. Kassovitz, Cassel, and Koundé hitting atmospheric highs via talent, fate, or divine hand — I don't know. But I do know it's a miracle.



Possession (1981)



One of the most extreme examples of "love will make you do crazy things", and testimony to a rephrasing with heightened adverb. Of the communions we make and how they blur the lines between right and wrong. Harm to all involved with seen and unseen knives.





The aggregate a loop on the title's operative word: alone. To experience it as youth and hold onto optimism, or to be burned and scarred by the world and carry it into "old" age. Is the youth wasted on the young? Beauty wasted on the ugly? Power on the evil? A poem of interpretation.





A rejected child knows better than anyone how to do one thing as they move through life: reject. Surrogates, lovers, friends, animals. All fair targets to those who experience this confusion turned eternal bruise. Whose arms are tired from pushing people out of doors. And what may hurt the most is, these shadows that supplied nothing more than the colors of hairs and eyes, are in them more than they'd ever want to admit.



After Yang (2021)



This shares data with those techno-scared before it, but Kogonada applies his own spin to it. As if one of those other tales was proofread by the sage version of himself. A version that knows the value of presence and the danger of nostalgia. A version that appreciates time.



THE REST


The Greatest Living Americans update for 2023 is unchanged from 2022:

3. Marshawn Lynch

2. Dolly Parton

1. Paul Rudd




My TV habits are operating at about a 10% clip compared to the rest of the world (seemingly). So, while I didn't watch nearly enough to constitute an entire section here, I did enjoy a few. In totality, The Bear and Beef definitely stand at the top. It's quite unreal for The Bear to keep the momentum from S01, let alone arguably get better. Plus, using Reznor's music at a pivotal arc moment garners immediate inclusion in any year. Speaking of music, Beef features what could be one of my favorite needle drops in anything in some time. Yeun and Wong rule.


A tier below those two sits Black Mirror and I Think You Should Leave. Due to each's anthologic nature, they oscillate anywhere between sublime ("Loch Henry", "The Driving Crooner", "Jellybean", "Beyond the Sea", "Summer Loving") and solid entertainment. Hey, they can't all be Zipline Ronnie.


Also: the final season of Ted Lasso put a fitting bow on the series. And while I didn't watch the 2023 output from the show, I did watch an obscene amount of Taskmaster. Leading to a full write up earlier in the year.




How about some quickfire from TikTok:




YouTube is an eternal wellspring, essentially my replacement for TV half the time. Worse for the attention span though, I'm sure. Anyway, the series output from Hot Ones is solid every year and the John Stamos episode was my favorite for '23. A man I would've dismissed in any other interview forum at face, so I do apologize for being unfamiliar with his game.


Also great in the interview phylum: Joe Burrow's Sundae Conversation. "Right, but just walk us through it" he demands, as I fall to the floor.


This Chungking Express edit makes me happy on a level that's borderline embarrassing. Which is as good a time as any to say: if you've never seen that film, get the fuck outta here immediately and watch it.


Settling into a (bit) more serious territory, the YT video I undoubtedly watched the most was Ari Aster's Konbini visit. I could listen to him talk about films for hours and hours. In that same spirit, Roger Deakins breaking down his career to GQ is fantastic. One of the medium's greatest talents and most precious treasures, that man.


Some extremely good breakdowns: Great Art Explained on Goya (Part 1, Part 2), WatchingtheAerial on Hitchcock taking over a California town, Eyebrow Cinema on the much discussed topic of A.I. in cinema, and kaptainkristian on late '90s horror.


And finally, some interesting dives into consumption from Horses. In an age of very low media literacy, a look into pretentious art and why it's important. And the ever-present-and-always-actually-ignored issue of content addiction.




And now quickfire from Twitter:




Last but not least: books. Now, I'm not a prolific enough reader to keep up with the yearly best of's, but I will note two here that I finally got around to. A Confederacy of Dunces fully lives up to its reputation. Unbelievably funny book that never lets up. Ignatius is a one of a kind character.


And Oblivion: Stories, which floored me. Each story within fantastic on its own two legs, as a collection a masterpiece. Good luck ever forgetting "Incarnations of Burned Children" or "The Soul Is Not a Smithy". Great encapsulations of DFW's style. But what truly got me on a marrow-level unseen in some time, and what could be my favorite piece of writing ever, is "Good Old Neon". A towering work that I will not spoil, outside this excerpt I leave you with:


"For example, I told him about going from genuinely loving ball, loving the smell of the grass and distant sprinklers, or the feel of pounding my fist into the glove over and over and yelling 'Hey, batterbatter,' and the big low red tumid sun at the game's start versus the arc lights coming on with a clank in the glowing twilight of the late innings, and of the steam and clean burned smell of ironing my Legion uniform, or the feel of sliding and watching all the dust it raised settle around me, or all the parents in shorts and rubber flip-flops setting up lawn chairs with Styrofoam coolers, little kids hooking their fingers around the backstop fence or running off after fouls. The smell of the ump's aftershave and sweat, the little whisk-broom he'd bend down and tidy the plate with. Mostly the feel of stepping up to the plate knowing anything was possible, a feeling like a sun flaring somewhere high up in my chest. And about how by only maybe fourteen all that had disappeared and turned into worrying about averages and if I could make All City again, or being so worried I'd screw up that I didn't even like ironing the uniform anymore before games because it gave me too much time to think, standing there so nerved up about doing well that night that I couldn't even notice the little chuckling sighs the iron made anymore or the singular smell of the steam when I hit the little button for steam. How I'd basically ruined all the best parts of everything like that.”

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