MATTEO BITTANTI

CHART: 2024_MY FAVORITE CINEMATIC EXPERIENCES (RANKED)

Disclaimer I have still not seen as of Dec 31 2024 (mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa): All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia) The Brutalist (Brady Corbet) Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhang-ke) Chime (Kiyoshi Kurosawa) The End (Joshua Oppenheimer) Grand Tour (Miguel Gomes) Hard Truths (Mike Leigh) Kneecap (Rich Peppiat) Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola) Misericordia (Alain Guiraudie)... Read more →

CHART: 2024_MY FAVORITE SHORTS (RANKED)

Highlights Best Secret Place (Caroline Poggi, Jonathan Vinel): Video games are not interactive movies. Video games are lucid dreams. Poggi & Vinel explore gaming culture's fascination with death and violence, guns and destruction with irony, gore, and gusto. Fallout 4 references, Easter eggs, power ups, and glitches. There's also full machinima, around 30 minutes in, as well as shorter gameplay... Read more →

CHART: 2024_MY FAVORITE DOCUMENTARIES (RANKED)

TL:DR: 2024 was a great year for game video essays and pop culture nostalgia. Disclaimer: At time of writing, I have not seen Daughters (Natalie Rae and Angela Patton), Last Things (Deborah Stratman), Pictures of Ghosts (Kleber Mendonça Filho), Porcelain War (Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev), Intercepted (Oksana Karpovych), The Bibi Files (Alexis Bloom), Plastic People (Ben Addelman and Ziya... Read more →

CHART: MY FAVORITE PODCASTS OF 2024

The very best voices I heard in my head throughout the year: Shell Game, hosted by Evan Ratliff is, without question, the standout podcast of 2024. While it flirts with untapped Kaufmanesque potential - hinting at layers of meta-narrative that never fully materialize - it remains a brilliant exploration of its subject. Sharp, engrossing, and expertly crafted, it’s a masterclass... Read more →

CHART_2023 MY FAVORITE CINEMATIC EXPERIENCES (RANKED)

Disclaimer In 2023, I missed so many crucial movies, I decided to make a list. You can find it here. In 2023, I was so puzzled by the verdicts of the criticariat, I decided to make a list. You can find it here. Random notes 2023 belongs to Kristoffer Borgli, hands down. Rodrigo Sorogoyen and Alex Heller and Carlos Vermut.... Read more →