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2020 Awards

2020 awards

I had more free time in this pandemic year of 2020 but the morale was not always there to enjoy all this artistic production which only slowed down slightly. I have been fortunate to experience many films in theatres but going to live music is what I missed the most and I don’t see it happening again in the near future. I don’t know if it’s related but a lot of the best of this year is uplifting comedy and aplenty original creations.

Cinema

I watched 120,5 films this year (I caught up on the second half of Woodstock from last year) including 20 released in 2020.
But also so many great classics I recommend, mainly from the 80s: The Hunt for Red October, The Big Blue, Paris, Texas, Goodfellas, The Blues Brothers, Phenomena, Footloose, Mississippi Burning, My Own Private Idaho, The Bear, Brazil, The Grand Budapest Hotel and Network.

I had the weirdest experience in theatre watching the crazy Punch-Drunk Love film. I will always remember more the cashier running after us taking the ferry than the film itself :D

Jojo Rabbit

🏆 Jojo Rabbit

It’s just the funniest film of the year for me. The cinematography, editing and actors’ performances are top-notch.

Mentions

  • Tenet
    It’s funny that a film telling directly the spectators to feel it instead of trying to understand it generates so many reactions about the difficulty to make sense of it. I enjoyed it for the spectacular show it delivers in a theatre. The time reversed concept has one or two smart uses. The flaws are easy to spot (characters, dialogues, etc.) and often saw in other Christopher Nolan’s films.
  • 1917
    My only complaint is that the (fake) one-shot technical implementation is distracting a lot from the story and the emotion of the events.
  • Onward
    Better than what the trailer was advertising, Pixar surprised me again but I felt that this original world was underused.

TV

Ted Lasso

🏆 Ted Lasso

It’s so comforting to experience positive characters that are not naive. Ted Lasso is human, he has limits but he’s still trying to bring the best of every person and situation. I’m happy to see Jason Sudeikis getting some spotlight. It worths Apple TV+ subscription, at least for a month.

Mentions

  • Middleditch & Schwartz is the best comedy of the year, the best improved show I ever saw.

  • Dave

  • I loved the eerie San Francisco of Devs, the actors (Sonoya Mizuno astonished me again after Maniac) and the not-too-long story of this miniseries.

  • Avenue 5: I still don’t know if the humour is bad or it’s just my taste but it makes me laugh.

  • Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet
    Merely for the episode A Dark Quiet Death, the best episode of this year, thanks to Jake Johnson and Cristin Milioti. It’s a stand-alone episode so you can only watch this one.

  • Star Wars: The Clone Wars S7
    For this finale season, you can skip to the last four episodes, they received more care and are more sombre since they are happening in parallel to Episode III.

One trend I lament is the spread of early spin-offs: the beginning of the last season of Clone Wars on Disney+ was a setup for The Bad Batch spin-off.
Still on Disney+, Mandalorian season 2 starts two or three new spin-offs: Ahsoka, Rangers of the New Republic and The Book of Boba Fett.
Not far from Star Wars, Star Trek Discovery paused its season 4 with a double episode just to prepare Michelle Yeoh’s spin-off Section 31. Another spin-off is coming with characters from the previous season: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

My top on SensCritique

Podcast

By the number of hours listened in 2020, French-speaking podcasts only, déso pas déso:

  1. 🏆 Super Ciné Battle
  2. Le Cosy Corner
  3. 2 heures de perdues
  4. LOL Japon
  5. Capture mag
  6. Les Démons du MIDI
  7. Total Trax
  8. After Hate
  9. Torréfaction

Music video

K/DA Villain

🏆 ALL OUT EP videos by K/DA

After the amazing POP/STARS video from 2018, K/DA comes back with an EP of five songs and as many videos. Each video is not groundbreaking by itself, but the overall project is impressive. I will highlight the main one MORE: solid video and the song is a banger! The other ones received less budget as THE BADDEST is just a good motion typography video and VILLAIN is a more static but delightful 3D porn. DRUM GO DUM and I’LL SHOW YOU are just working.
Besides the videos, I also listened to a lot to the music I find well produced and very entertaining, K/DA should just disable the Caps Lock.

Mentions

  • The Strokes released four interesting videos for The New Abnormal album: At the door with some work from Ugo Bienvenu, Bad Decisions, Ode To The Mets directed by long-time collaborator Warren Fu and The Adults Are Talking directed by another regular Roman Coppola
  • 04:42 Still Free from Haven Original Soundtrack by DANGER
  • Whitsand Bay - Metronomy
  • Gorillaz released nine music videos all along the year for their last album Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez. They compromised the quality to produce as many videos but they are all different and enjoyable.

Music

My music obsessions of this year:

My Last.fm profile

Video game

Streets of Rage 4

🏆 Streets of Rage 4

Making a new entry in the mythic trilogy was a huge risk but they succeeded in respecting the previous games while updating and perfecting its gameplay. The soundtrack is a massively good surprise, it was impossible to redo SOR2 so Olivier Derivière did its own new thing and the guests (foremost Yuzo Koshiro and Motohiro Kawashima) are doing an excellent job.
But like every year, I didn’t play most of the 2020 games.

Mentions

  • A Short Hike (2019) was my first lockdown game, a lovely blue sky game. Wide Ocean Big Jacket was my second lockdown game. Nicely written, I believed and loved all the characters. Two perfectly paced short games to go camping or hiking from your bed.

  • Death Stranding
    There are a lot of things in this game, a lot of mishits and some great ideas. Super annoying interface. Surprisingly well paced for a long game, if you don’t abuse side quests. The world is so poorly introduced, it’s baffling. But the gameplay is good and the multiplayer part is fitting so well in the universe.

  • Hades
    Another roguelike? OK, this one is pretty visually and musically.

My top on SensCritique

Video game trailer

Watch Dogs: Legion Tipping Point

🏆 Tipping Point Cinematic Trailer for Watch Dogs: Legion, directed by Alberto Mielgo (pre-production of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, The Witness in Love, Death & Robots).

Mentions

Worst

The worst dub of the year award goes to a French trailer again, surely my mother tongue bias, but it’s even more unbelievable that the previous one:
Que la quête commence ! for Snack World : Mordus De Donjons — Gold contains nonsense lyrics, is it bad translation or cryptic jokes?
“comme les rebus de l'épicier du coin”
“la jeunesse plein de boules, accro au portable, c'est malsain”
“Trouvons des côtes de porc, dégustons les, mettons nous à l’aise”

Film trailer

The Batman

🏆 The Batman - DC FanDome Teaser

Mentions

Worst

The whole endeavour behind Justice League Snyder's Cut is upsetting, with the hashtag #ReleaseTheSnyderCut for example. I didn’t find if the finale version will be in black and white but the last trailer is, so much snobbery is hilarious.

Fin