A ceasefire

"On Wednesday, after months of negotiations, Israel and Hamas reached a ceasefire deal. While it will become clear over the next days and months exactly what the contours of the agreement are, why it happened now and who deserves the most credit, it’s plausible that Trump’s imminent ascension to the White House was its own form of a red line. Early reports suggest the deal looks similar to what has been on the table for months, raising the possibility that if the Biden administration had followed through on its tough words, a deal could have been reached earlier, saving lives. 

[....]

Several experts told me international law is effectively discretionary for some countries. “American policy ignores it when it’s inconvenient and adheres to it when it is convenient,” said Aaron Miller, a career State Department diplomat who worked for decades under both Democratic and Republican presidents as an adviser on Arab-Israeli negotiations. “The U.S. does not leverage or bring sustainable, credible, serious pressure to bear on any of its allies and partners,” he added, “not just Israel.”

ProPublica: A Year of Empty Threats and a “Smokescreen” Policy: How the State Department Let Israel Get Away With Horrors in Gaza, January 15, 2025.

Links: 13/1/25

Politics:

It's not hard to predict what the long-term consequences of the increasing destruction of any kind of meaningful content moderation on the most popular social network platforms will be - we already live in a post-truth political environment, where opportunistic political parties make use of dis- and misinformation, dank memes, and the hollowing out of any idea of an Overton window of acceptable political subjects and arguments. Meta, Facebook and Instagram parent-company, will abandon content moderation and fact-checking for community notes, Meta arguing that this will be "a better way [...] that’s less prone to bias". Along with this step, Meta is also scrapping some of its restrictions on (essentially) hate speech (them is summarising the kind of speech that will now be allowed, and how it targets LGBTQ+ communities). Mark Zuckerberg has visited Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago, and revealed a list of things that he expects the incoming President to help him with in a conversation with Joe Rogan (fighting other countries that are policing his platforms, legislation with regards to AI). In addition, Meta will also eliminate its "diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs" (as have Walmart and McDonald's). So much for Timothy Snyder's call to not obey in advance to tyranny - Trump isn't even sworn in, and it is becoming clear that the billionaire class is all to eager to wring from the incoming government whatever profits it can. This is a great summary of everything that's happening and its context.

And as a further warning to what is coming, the prediction that the targeted, malicious campaign against trans people was never going to stop there, Idaho Republicans are urging the conservative Supreme Court to reconsider Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark ruling that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. 

"At first, he joked about Canada being an additional US state. Since, he has threatened to take back control of the Panama Canal. He also reiterated a desire from his first term to own the autonomous Danish territory of Greenland, which is not for sale.
The US is unlikely to take control of any of these regions. But these statements could indicate that Trump's "America First" vision includes flexing the superpower's muscle beyond its borders for US trade and national security interests."

BBC: Greenland and the Panama Canal aren't for sale. Why is Trump threatening to take them? 

I think this shows where we are right now, in this news environment where facts don't exist anymore and disinformation is everywhere: what does it mean when an incoming US President makes a joke about expanding US territory? The BBC, likely correctly, identifies the Canada one as a joke (as Canada is in turmoil after Justin Trudeau's resignation and will conduct its next election in the political context of Elon Musk's meddling), but it's a different story for Greenland (which has declared that its own long-term goal is independence from Denmark) and the Panama Canal (Panama was invaded in 1989 by the US to implement a "regime change").

Pop Culture: 

I enjoyed this Rolling Stone deep-dive into Jeopardy (my favourite quiz show) in the new era after the death of Alex Trebek.

We Were Dangerous

 

Josephine Stewart-Te Whiu’s We Were Dangerous is bookended by two escapes, one thwarted, one, perhaps mainly by virtue of ending the film in the right place, successful. The film begins in the Te Motu School for Incorrigible and Delinquent Girls in 1954 Christchurch. Nellie (Erana James, The Wilds), Daisy (Manaia Hall) and a third girl attempt to scale the walls of the school/prison, but are caught. In the fallout, the matron of the school (Rima Te Wiata) finds out that they will have to locate to a, presumably more escape-proof (and boy-proof, since one of the attempted escapees was expecting), island off the coast that used to house a leper colony. Before the viewers even witness what exactly happens at this school and how it fulfils its dictum to “Christianise, civilise, assimilate” its charge of girls, the power relationship between the matron (who is Māori, like many of the children under her control) and the suited men who command and supervise makes it clear that this is a profoundly colonial and bureaucratic project, with an ideological goal.

The film succeeds in presenting this inherently violently project of disciplining and shaping girls into a preconceived notion of femininity from the perspective of the girls themselves, who experience it in the lessons they are given in class, the shocking and surprising moments of violence when they transgress (the matron freely beats them for minor infractions), the glimpses they have of the bigger project that is happening on this remote island, where there are no adults for them to trust. A gentle caretaker, played by Stephen Tamarapa, seems like he might be able to help, but in the end, they are left to their own devices to figure out how to resist what they encounter. The film shows us what little it takes for the system to decide that they are “incorrigible” – Nellie and Daisy have ended up there through no fault of their own, because they’ve fallen through the cracks, Nellie sent to the big city after a meat processing plant has closed in her hometown and made feeding all the children impossible, with plans falling through once she arrives, Daisy, who is only 12, after escaping the abuse in multiple foster homes and landing on the streets. Their only crime is stealing to stay alive, and their deep care for each other (at one point, they try to explain the kinship model of cousins that goes beyond familial bonds) stands in stark contrast to the alleged care of the reform school. Newcomer Louisa (Nathalie Morris, Bump) is an outlier – the Pākehā daughter of a doctor, arrives at the island late, after her dalliance with her female math tutor is discovered by her family.  

On the island, the girls are put to work. They whitewash and clean the abandoned huts, with Nellie, Daisy and Louisa assigned the most rickety one among them, with a leaky roof. Louisa is at first regarded with suspicion by the two other girls, but proves her usefulness when she fixes the roof with a raincoat. They bond – Louisa becoming a second source of care for the young Daisy, and something more complex for Nellie, even if the film doesn’t have the space or run-time to explore the feelings developing between the two.
The dynamics between the three, the occasional joy of all the girls (a spontaneous haka, lifting the mood with dancing, all promptly shut down by the matron) is in stark contrast to the educational programme of the island: the stated goal is to reintegrate them into white society, even though it soon becomes clear that all the classes are preparing them for is a life of servitude. A ridiculous lesson in manners and elocution makes it clear that the end goal is to send them to white families as domestic helpers, at best prepare them for marriage, even though that is more like a carrot dangled in front of them. Any expression of Māori culture is punished and forbidden, a sign in the classroom stating that only the use of English is allowed, while the matron holds forth on the civilising power of Christianity. The matron is a fascinating character herself. Raised by nuns, she seems to be making up for coming to religion late with extra fervour, as if her identity as a Māori woman is a moral deficit she must make up for, and punish in the children.

The situation escalates when the already questionable system of schooling, in no way meant to actually educate them meaningfully (Daisy, who can’t read, is repeatedly ridiculed by the matron and punished instead of actually taught), is supplemented with an ominous pamphlet that Nellie finds on the matron’s desk: a pamphlet titled The Fertility of the Unfit, based on an early 20th century publication by a eugenicist. The film never explicitly states what this means in combination with the looming and terrifying medical hut, the arrival of men who take a girl into the hut and perform an unnamed procedure on her, but it’s clear that this is about forced sterilisation. This measure failed in the New Zealand Parliament in the 1920s, but these girls are on a remote island and vulnerable to experiments so far from view, and the matron is unlikely to be sympathetic or understanding. Louisa attempts to appeal to her father in a letter, but it is intercepted by the matron. Left to their own devices, Nellie and Daisy decide that they must destroy the medical hut and escape the island. Louisa seems hesitant to partake in this, and appears to switch sides, becoming a teacher’s pet and even slapping Nellie when she transgresses. Later, the film reveals that all of this is a ploy – in a true heist movie fashion, a flashback reveals that the girls have come up with a plan to collect the necessary ingredients to build a Molotov cocktail, and Louisa’s access depends on being trusted by the matron. For the period of the time that the film makes it seem as if she has betrayed her friends, and especially Nellie, it distinctly feels like this is going to a darker and more hopeless place than it all eventually ends up in – with a successful destruction of the hut, the building of a raft, an escape to the sea, with all three girls united and ready to rely on each other for the care that the system refuses to provide.

This film is carried by the outstanding performances of the leads, with James, Morris and Hall creating an emotional centre to the film that stands in contrast to the horrible things they are confronting. Abuse in state-based and faith-based care was prevalent in New Zealand (as well as in other British colonies interacting with First Nations people) and investigated by a Royal Commission in the 2020s, but what the director and writer of We Were Dangerous accomplishes here is something surprisingly hopeful and elating, a successful act of resistance against an all-powerful institution that attempts to dehumanise those caught up in it.

2024, directed by Josephine Stewart-Te Whiu, starring Erana James, Nathalie Morris, Manaia Hall, Rima Te Wiata, Stephen Tamarapa.

Das Lied zum Sonntag

Horsegirl - Julie (on Phonetics On and On)

  

Do you have the same dream three times a week?
Favors too big for you to keep

Reading List: December.

Non-Fiction: 

 

Erik Larson: The Demon of Unrest.

Amitav Ghosh: Smoke and Ashes. 

Becca Rothfeld: All Things Are Too Small.

 

Fiction: 

 

Richard Powers: Playground.

Paolo Bacigalupi: Navola.

Sofia Samatar: The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain.

Asako Yuzuki: Butter. 

Jane Pek: The Verifiers. 

Jane Pek: The Rivals. 

Gabrielle Korn: The Shutouts.

Michelle de Kretser: Theory & Practice.

Monika Kim: The Eyes Are the Best Part.

 

Films: 

 

Smile (2022, Parker Finn).

Smile 2 (2024, Parker Finn).

National Anthem (2023, Luke Gilford).

Des Teufels Bad (2024, Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala).

Heretic (2024, Scott Beck, Bryan Woods).

Conclave (2024, Edward Berger).

Juror #2 (2024, Clint Eastwood). 

The Green Knight (2021, David Lowery).

The Wild Robot (2024, Chris Sanders). 

 

Shows: 

Black Doves, Season One.

Squid Game, Season Two.

Shows of the Year

Best new show:

Shōgun

Shōgun sends British navigator John Blackthorne (a great Cosmo Jarvis) to "The Japans", a country closed for trade to anyone but the Portuguese, who have been busy converting the local population to Catholicism. As soon as he arrives, the complexities of power and culture perplex him, but his abilities put him right at the centre of a power struggle between the five regents who are leading the country after the death of the Taikō, since his son is still too young to rule. Shōgun 's writing is staggering, especially when it portrays women who are struggling to carve out a little power for themselves in a world that affords them little. Anna Sawai, Blackthorne's assigned translator, is fantastic (she has the greatest arc of the show), as are Moeka Hoshi as Usami, grieving the death of her child but assigned to Blackthorne as a companion, and Fumi Nikaido as Ochiba no Kata, the consort of the late Taikō and mother of his son, who is scheming to control the regents for her own causes. 

X-Men '97 

I didn't grow up watching the original run of the animated X-Men show, so I went into this without any expectations: and then, like maybe a lot of other viewers, was deeply surprised by how ambitious and sad this first season was, how serious in tackling the traumatic destruction of a whole community, and the different reactions to it (how midway through, the show reaches the verdict that "Magneto was right"). Of all the Marvel offerings I've watched over the last few years (and I didn't even dislike The Marvels, which was sheer absurdism), this feels like the best and most mature. 

Blue Eye Samurai

What a great year for animated shows this has been. Blue Eye Samurai is a tale about revenge, and about what it costs, in terms of humanity, to be so determined to avenge a past wrong. Blue Eye Samurai's protagonist is hunting three white men who have circumvented Japan's Shogunate era ban on their presence - one of them raped her mother. The animation is beautiful - this is the same Japan shown in Shogun, a few years in the future - and it is the rich cast of characters that makes the story so compelling, from courageous and true companion Ringo to the complex Akemi and Taigen, drawn into Mizu's quest. This is also a compelling tale about what heroism means and how shame limits and torments. I hope we'll get more seasons. 

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters 

I hadn't seen a single of the new Monsterverse films before starting Monarch, a show that follows the history of the secretive organisation tracing Godzilla, Kong and others, but fell in love with it quickly. The vibes remind me of the unfortunately cancelled Gotham Knights, a show that was great because of its focus on the dynamics between the core group and less so for its place in a wider mythology (maybe there is a soft spot in my heart for shows that have holes, that you can't probe too deeply with logic, but that are filled with newer variations of the Scooby Gang). Monarch is set in two different timelines - the 1950s, at the advent of Monarch, and in 2015, a year after what happens in the 2014 Godzilla that wreaked havoc on US soil. Both timelines have triangles - in the 50s, two scientists work together with an army officer and become the foundation of Monarch, in 2015, two half-siblings (who didn't know about each other) team up with a genius hacker (Kiersey Clemons, very good in Hearts Beat Loud) and uncover well-kept secrets. Both timelines are queer in their own way (dads! so much subtext!). I did catch up with the films and was surprised by how little they resemble the action fare that I was used to from watching in the late 90s/early 2000, how much these films are about perpetually missing or dead parents, structures confronted with something greater than them that they cannot fathom and inevitably meet with brute force, scientists deeply fascinated by what they find but thwarted by the military (if your only tool is a hammer, etc). I even felt a subtle connection between this and Scavengers Reign, another show about a group of people confronted with an overwhelming situation that reveals how individual people cope with a non-conquerable (and deeply unfamiliar) nature differently (awe/violence/pragmatism). The final episode of the first season is also one of the most moving episodes of television this year, carried profoundly by the performance of Mari Yamamoto, whose Keiko is the emotional centre of the show.

Fallout

Best one-season show:

Scavengers Reign

This animated show is some of the best science fiction storytelling that I've watched maybe since The Expanse. The Demeter, a cargo ship, gets into trouble in orbit and some people evacuate in escape pods to a planet with a thriving and profoundly different ecosystem. The show tracks the progress of different groups who all have a diverging approach to the fauna and flora they encounter. The greatest thing about the show is how detailled its depiction of this weird world is, how it pictures animals and plants existing in an occasionally horrifying balance that creates a kind of otherworldly bodyhorror (especially Kamen's fate). This world is decisively not built for humans, and whether characters decide to make the best of it or fail in trying to conquer it decides their fate (again, not too unlike the polar regions!). The voice actors, from Wunmi Mosaku, Bob Stephenson, Sunita Mani to Alia Shawkat voicing a robot who begins to synthesise with the environment in interesting ways (my first good cry about television in 2024) are fantastic, as is the completely surprising appearance by Sepideh Moafi's (who has been great in everything she's ever been in) as Mia.

True Detective: Night Country

Agatha All Along 

There have been a few moments in the last few years where Marvel films and television shows have surprised me. I'm a proponent of the earlier TV shows that didn't have to tie in with the films (Jessica Jones, Runaways, Cloak & Dagger) and that went to darker and weirder places than you'd maybe expect (especially Cloak & Dagger's final season was a trip and a half, in a good way). More recently, my enjoyment of Marvel stuff has entirely depended on how I felt about the main characters: I liked the Hawkeye TV show, Echo, and have a soft spot for She-Hulk because of how great Tatiana Maslany is. What I didn't expect was that a Marvel TV show that is meant to tie into the films could stray so far from what I had thought the conventions were post one big universe: Agatha All Along is a perfect, self-contained nine episodes of television, it's queer (and not in a subtextual way, for a change), it embraces the complexities of a villain (hard to call someone running a murder con anything else). Kathryn Hahn has been great for a long time (I think I first saw her in Crossing Jordan but the first time she really got stuck in my brain for how great an actress she is was in Transparent, in a small role that she made incredibly emotionally impactful with her talent), and she's the reason why Agatha All Along works (and was made in the first place), but the incredible thing about the show is how Joe Locke keeps pace with her perfectly without being overshadows by her or Aubrey Plaza (who is doing the most in a role that allows her to do so). The supporting performances by Sasheer Zamata, Ali Ahn, Debra Jo Rupp and Patti LuPone (!) are oustanding. Surprised and delighted by how much care Jac Schaeffer has put into this, but also cautious about what anyone else would do with these characters once they have to fit into the wider universe.

Under the Bridge

I have a very low tolerance for true crime shows, but this one is a stand-out, maybe because it isn't that far off from the great Sharp Objects. Based on a book by Rebecca Godfrey, played by Riley Keogh in the show, it focuses on a group of mostly girls in 1997 Victoria who severely bullied and killed a teenager, starting a panic about mean girl violence. The stand-out is Lily Gladstone (fresh off of some kind of year), playing the acerbic cop on the case who cares more than her police department (made up of adoptive family members) - and the complex history she has with Godfrey and the history of her adoption as an indigenous child into a white cop family. Later episodes also feature stand-out performances by young Javon Walton as Warren, who forms a bond with Rebecca as she writes about the crime, and the always great Archie Panjabi, who plays Reena's grieving mum. I'm a bit on the fence on whether it is fair to use a real tragedy and shape it into something else for a TV show that takes a lot of licence with the original story, but it's hard to resent the chemistry between Gladstone and Keogh. 

Death and Other Details

I'm not sure if it is aging or just the specific pop-cultural conditions of Covid-times that make gentle mystery/detective shows so appealing. It feels like a 2020s version of Columbo or Murder She Wrote - between Rian Johnson's Poker Face and Knives Out/Glass Onion, Only Murders in the Building and Kenneth Branagh's Hercule Poirot adaptations (which do sometimes veer delightfully weirder and darker), there's plenty to choose from. Death and Other Details is a locked room mystery set on a cruise ship filled with rich people and those who make their lives easier (the upstairs-downstairs aspect of guest vs crew is interesting to consider, maybe even a little bit of an homage to Agatha Christie, the queen of exactly that kind of mystery). The ship itself is a marvelous setting - it the lovingly restored obsession of owner Sunil (Rahul Kohli - forever Owen from Bly Manor to me, even after playing a diametrically opposed character in House of Usher, and therefore difficult to consider as a suspect). Washed up private detective Rufus Cotesworth (Mandy Patinkin, always great) is trying to make up for the greatest error of his life, letting down young Imogene (played by Violett Beane as an adult), whose mother's murder he could not solve. There' something about the diverse cast that seems to be having a great time, and the emergence of a Scooby club (Angela Zhou and Pardis Saremi are delightful) of amateur detectives once some of them successfully manage to prove their innocence in a new murder on board. I was hooked when the show used a Poliça song, which felt like a wink that we are among friends here.

The Brothers Sun

Goodbye, Sweet Prince.

Best show:

We Are Lady Parts

Interview with the Vampire 

I'm not entirely happy with how the show ended, how it revealed a greater betrayal and attempted to redeem a character, but Interview with the Vampire remains a fascinating, queer reclaiming of Anne Rice's original text, delivering on the potential that never quite came to fruition in the original. I loved Claudia's arc this season (Delainey Hayles takes on the mantle perfectly), who is desperately looking for community but is deeply disappointed (and constrained) once she finds it. There is also an interesting undercurrent here about complicity in violence in the aftermath of WW2 and the holocaust.

Industry

Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin

Babylon Berlin

I've only managed to watch the fourth season of the show this year because it has been difficult to track down from abroad, and what a season it is! Somehow, Babylon Berlin always has so many balls in the air that it's impossible to see how it will all fit together in the end, like a storytelling version of the dance-athon that begins the season, or the grizzly methamphetamine experiments (reference: Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich) that Gedeon's brother is running. The underlying horror is always the fact that it is difficult to see how most of the characters will still be alive in ten years - what is coming is becoming more and more obvious, the mask is coming off, and it is becoming more and more obvious how undermined the institutions of the shaky German democracy truly are. War-hungry German nationalists cooperate with the rising national socialist movement, there is a fight within the movement between the bullies of the SA and the SS, there is rising outright antisemitism and racism (I dare anyone not to be deeply moved by one of the final scenes of the season - when Charlotte's half-brother, in the boxing ring, covers himself in chalk to respond to the racist bullying of the Nazis who are ringside, and KOs his opponent). It's an utterly breathless season yet again. 

Also: Abbott Elementary, Only Murders in the Building, Hacks, The Bear, Pachinko

Saddest Goodbyes:

 

Somebody Somewhere 

 

The existence of this show is a marvel. A beautiful, low-key comedy drama set in Kansas, starring a fantastic Bridget Everett, who by all rights should be in many more things - a show that centres trauma and community, and never shies away from the awkwardness of life, finding meaning in friendship.

 

Evil

 

I'm late to the show, having watched some of season one and then never returned, but this is a companion piece to the also great Servant, both shows who seem unconstrained in terms of how weird they can get, and how much they are allowed to embrace unlimited creative freedom, which is such a rarity in the contemporary TV landscape. The main team of three is the driving force behind everything (a dynamic that reminds me of the lovely Leverage).I wish Andrea Martin, playing Sister Andrea, was more recognised for what can only be described as a stand-out performance in a show filled with them.

 

Arcane

 

It's sad that Arcane was cut short, as the second and final season likely arrived at the same finishing point as a much longer run would have, which results in many storylines being rushed or cut for length - but this is still one of the most beautifully animated show I have ever watched, and a harrowing tale about the cost of a world divided by class. I wish that we had gotten more time to see the struggle between Zaun and Piltover (but what a time to show what an occupying force does to a terrorised population). Hailee Steinfeld, Ella Purnell (whose rise to stardom is obvious this year) and Katie Leung are fantastic as always.

 
And: 

 

Alia Shawkat is so good in The Old Man! It's maybe a truism that great actors who started off in comedies are likely to succeed in dramatic roles more than when the shift happens the other way (and Search Party was such an interesting showcase of her acting with how many different genres the show straddled across its seasons). She has a much more central role in the second season, where she has to make difficult choices after finding out her true identity. I'm also kind of amused by the fact that the dynamics of this show weirdly mirror Only Murders in the Building (which is also a riff on Grumpy Old Men).

 

American Rust is a very solid thriller/crime show, situated somewhere between The Sinner, Hightown and Ozark. I didn't really expect it to have a second season, and the stand-outs in terms of performance are David Alvarez and Julia Mayorga, playing siblings coping with the death of their father and their community as it deals with the arrival of a fracking company eager to make profits. I've loved Maura Tierney since ER, and Grace Poe is one of those characters for the ages, always caught between doing the right thing for everyone and caring for herself, a decision the show argues inevitably leads to moral greyness. 

Beacon 23, a show that seems to have artistic freedom beyond what should be possible in 2024, makes full use of it in the second episode of the second season: like a futuristic, AI-version of Severance, Harmony (a fantastic Natasha Mumba) gets stuck in in an increasingly horrifying office environment after the death of her human (who might just be the ghost in the machine back in the Beacon, or one of several). Always on board with fax-based horror. 

You can feel about Ryan Murphy's expansive work since leaving high school one way or another (I've seen very little of his since Popular), but the acting in the second season of Monster is astonishing. Cooper Koch's tour de force in the fifth episode - an almost single-shot take that recounts the abuse his character suffered at the hands of his parents - is the kind of harrowing experience that transcends television. I would like to read a piece on how Murphy's gone from writing about the hellmouth of high school to the worst real and imagined horrors of the world.

2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023

Films of the Year

I Saw the TV Glow (2024, Jane Schoenbrun) 

Kaibutsu (2023, Kore-eda Hirokazu)

Pamyo (2024, Jang Jae-hyun) 

Les chambres rouges (2023, Pascal Plante)

Janet Planet (2023, Annie Baker)

National Anthem (2023, Luke Gilford)

The Zone of Interest (2023, Jonathan Glazer)

Good One (2024, India Donaldson)

Lee (2023, Ellen Kuras)

Monkey Man (2024, Dev Patel)

Gojira -1.0 (2023, Takashi Yamazaki)

Drive-Away Dolls (2024, Ethan Coen)

All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (2023, Raven Jackson)

Shayda (2023, Noora Niasari)

Heretic (2024, Scott Beck, Bryan Woods) 

The Wild Robot (2024, Chris Sanders)

2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023