But the New Year always has a funny way of - if only for a little while, putting a hopeful glint on otherwise dour endings. In the immediate aftermath of my break up, I took up a hackerspace membership, a gym membership, sought a therapist, a writers group, an improv program, and regular volunteer opportunities; started helping a new friend co-host his Youtube program, reconnected with old mates and even started doing standup.
Truth be told, many of these branches of activity have fallen by the wayside but others are still being maintained and others still have bared fruit. I’ve lost about 40 pounds this year which has given me the energy to be more present and physical. Therapy has gotten me off the precipice of despair and nudged me in a more positive direction. And while standup has yielded little aside from notice from the occasional open mic MC’s, my improvement in this field has led me to believe the art form is a worthwhile pursuit for its own sake.
Throughout each challenge I have been propped up by some of the most generous and caring souls I’ve ever known. I am forever grateful to my friends, especially my older friends who have been patient enough with me to digress through the past before creating new memories and hopes for the future. I shirk to think how much harder life would be like without them.
Then there are the movies. Comparatively, I have seen precious few this year than years prior due to all the upheaval. Most of my celluloid bliss has been spent in a cocoon of nostalgia, re-watching such seminal feel-good classics as Billy Elliot, Four Lions, 3 Idiots and Groundhog Day. Still I did get around to seeing 108 films about a third of which were in theaters. I regret not seeing so many films I’ve been told are excellent including Roma, A Star is Born, First Man, The Favourite, Hereditary, Shoplifting; though I’m glad I missed out on Truth or Dare?, The Hurricane Heist and Death Wish.
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| ...and another bloody Robin Hood movie! |
Rest assured this coming year will see me going to the movies more. Not sure if I’ll be consuming media at quite the rate I was last year and the year before, but for the sake of sanity I will try to write more.
Anywho, here’s the annual yearbook:
2018 Superlatives
Best Movies I Probably Should Have
Seen Sooner
 |
| You Can't Take It With You (1938) / Easy Living (1937) |
I like sitting down and watching the
occasional “classic,” and this year saw quite a few. I finally managed to see
early Best Picture Winner, Grand Hotel.
I rented Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps,
the largest Hitchcock oversight on my ever shrinking list of Must-See’s. Later
cinema history darlings to make the short list include Arthur Penn’s Night Moves and Bergman’s familial epoch
Fanny and Alexander. This is all not
to mention I finally got to see my first Paul Robeson movie The Emperor Jones. Though out of all the
biggies I should have seen sooner, none are arguably as surprising (at least to
me) is Mitchell Leisen’s Easy Living
and Capra’s You Can’t Take It With You.
You Can’t Take It With You stars Jean
Arthur as a doey-eyed secretary who engages a good-natured rich kid played by
good ‘ol Jimmy Stewart. Complications ensue when their families meet in a Meet the Fockers-esque (yes that is an
apt if pedestrian comparison) clash of class.
Easy
Living is a depression era screwball
comedy also starring Jean Arthur. Here she plays a stenographer (what can I say
she has range), who accidentally comes into the possession of an expensive fur
coat. As a result, the world around her begins to suspect she’s the mistress of
an important banker played by Edward Arnold leading to all sorts of chaos.
Bollywood Sweethearts
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| Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011) / Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015) |
Due to my previously mentioned knack
of co-hosting a movie reactions channel on Youtube, I’ve been watching a lot of
Hindi/Urdu/Tamil films as of recent. I sat through 90’s classic Dil Chahta Hai, sports dramas Chak De! India and Sultan as well as the
controversial Padmavaat.
Ultimately my two favorites this
year were road trip adventure Zindagi Na
Milegi Dobara and lost child saga Bajrangi
Bhaijaan. Both were a ball to watch with Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara leaving a particularly great impression on
me. What starts as a simple tale of three friends going on a road trip before
one of them is to get hitched, turns into a winding story of catharsis and melodrama.
Of course that’s not to say it overwhelms some of the truly inspired moments of
comedy. As for Bajrangi Bhaijaan,
what can I say; I have a soft spot for kids in peril movies.
Most Creative Movies
 |
| Sorry to Bother You (2018) / The Happiness of the Katakuris (2001) |
Creative can mean anything from
playing with themes and character such as Phantom
Thread, narrative such as I, Tonya,
the visual artifice such as Eighth Grade,
challenging the very definition of a bad movie R.I.P.D.. But in my view there are two movies that really stand out
from the rest. The Happiness of the
Katakuris - a rollicking black comedy/family movies/zombie musical; and Sorry to Bother You - a radical, singular
vision bursting from the screen to the point of being called dangerous.
Happiness
of the Katakuris is a Takashi Miike joint that
weaves a sing-songy tale of an isolated family trying and failing to run a bed
and breakfast, because their tenants have a nasty habit of dying. The movie
mixes over-the-top visuals with an energetic story ably handled by some pretty
bizarre performances all around. Then there’s Sorry to Bother You which has a fledgling telemarketer played by
Lakeith Stanfield plunge into a surreal world of absurdity and exploitation.
Honestly I can’t remember the last time I had that much fun in a movie theater!
Movies That Restored My Faith in
Humanity
 |
| Won't You Be My Neighbor? (2018) / Miracle in Cell No. 7 (2013) |
Won’t
You Be My Neighbor? is a detailed documentary about the
life of kid’s TV personality Fred Rogers. For more than thirty years Mister
Rogers’ Neighborhood would light up TV sets around the country, entertaining
and educating its preschool audience on everything from numbers and words to
how to manage complex feelings like sadness and anger. To honor a man who
dedicated his life to the healthy development of children, director Morgan
Neville and Co. developed a singularly enriching experience in Won’t You Be My Neighbor? and I beseech all
those who didn’t see it to check it out now!
This holiday season I sat down and
watched Miracle in Cell No. 7, a
Korean movie about a mentally challenged man named Yong-Gu (played by Ryu
Seung-Ryong) who is wrongfully convicted of murder. Facing the death penalty,
the Yong-Gu’s only hope lies in the innocence of his young daughter (Kal
So-Won), who is smuggled into the prison with the help of his cellmates. While
it may wind up being melodramatic for many, Miracle
in Cell No. 7 is arguably the perfect movie for the holiday season and
ranks up there with some of the best Christmas movies out there.
…Then Crushed It
 |
| You Were Never Really Here (2017) / Manderlay (2005) |
You
Were Never Really Here is a
bleak, austere movie about a hired gun played by Joaquin Phoenix who is tasked
with a discreet rescue mission of a little girl. What otherwise sounds like a Man on Fire retread, You Were Never Really Here feels more
like an exposed tendon quickly pulsing to the beat of outsized panic. This
movie is anxiety driven to an almost unsettling degree so only watch if you
feel like getting a panic attack.
Manderlay on the other hand is despairing for an entirely different
reason. A spiritual successor to Lars Von Trier’s Dogville, Manderlay tells
the story of a gangster’s daughter (Bryce Dallas Howard) who discovers a plantation
in rural Alabama that still practices slavery 70-years after the end of the
Civil War. With the help of hired guns, Grace stays on the plantation to
transition the inhabitance from slavery to freedom realizing only too late that
the task is easier said than done. While certainly a lot more problematic than Dogville, Manderlay holds on to its predecessor’s pessimism of humanity while
also maintaining an avant-garde artifice. There are no walls or outdoors in Manderlay but minimal theatrical sets
and boundaries formed in chalk. Yeah it’s weird but it’s strangely affective.
Most Romantic Movies
 |
| The Way He Looks (2014) / Crazy Rich Asians (2018) |
Reeling from everyone’s fascination
with Call Me By Your Name last year,
I explored Netflix to try to find a comparable gay romantic drama with a
slightly less creepy age disparity. And wouldn’t you know it; I found a much
more satisfying movie in The Way He Looks
– a coming-of-age drama anchored by a relationship between the blind Leonardo
(Ghilherme Lobo) and new kid Fabio (Pablo Carvalho). What could have come
across as melodrama actually comes across as a sweet and tender love story with
a light touch. The acting is fantastic and the chemistry between the two leads
is palpable.
And of course in this segment it
almost seems sacrilegious to not include Crazy
Rich Asians. While I personally found the film a wee bit stale, there’s
little denying Constance Wu and Henry Golding had immediate chemistry that
elevated all material that wasn’t directly handled by Michelle Yeoh. Also the
wedding scene…very cool.
Most Human Movies
 |
| Short Term 12 (2013) / Le Promesse (1996) |
Short Term 12 is one of those
amazing movies that hit a bit too close to home. It tells the story of a group
of young supervisors to a group home for troubled teenagers as they struggle to
hold everything together amid constant transition. Years ago I worked in a somewhat
similar place, making the best out of an objectively terrible situation. Thus
Short Term 12 wasn’t an easy watch but it was well worth it if for no other
reason than it stars Brie Larson, Lakeith Stanfield, Rami Malek and John
Gallagher Jr. before they became big.
La Promesse is my second exposure to
Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne’s filmography and if this and The Unknown Girl are
any indication, I think I’m going to love their work. La Promesse is a deeply
moving and painfully human story about a boy whose father traffics and exploits
illegal immigrants. After helping to cover up an accidental death, Igor (Jeremie
Renier) tries to help the surviving family of immigrants against the express
wishes of his father played by Olivier Gourmet.
Biggest Disappointments
 |
| Tag (2018) / Simran (2017) |
Okay, call me dense for thinking
this but I did expect a lot more from Tag.
The trailer seemed solid and the premise, with its real story bona fides felt
like it could have been great with the right cast and crew. Unfortunately one
little chink in Tag’s armor unraveled
the whole yarn and was left with a lot of balls in the air…okay I’m mixing my
metaphors here. Truth is this movie went somewhere it shouldn’t have and
stepped on its own rich premise as a result.
Speaking of rich premises – Simran;
the true story of a Georgia girl who became infamous for getting in deep with
the mob and robbed banks…what’s not to love? Well apparently a lot. The movie
had a markedly condescending tone that treated the protagonist like a silly
little girl. Actress Kangana Ranaut does her best to elevate the script but can’t
help but seem out of place in a story that pulls one too many punches and
treats the whole affair like a modern Grimm fairytale – sexism intact.
Best Looking Films
 |
| Annihilation (2018) / Loving Vincent (2017) |
Ah Annihilation – the Tarkovsky inspired creature feature that somehow
takes a story about a group of scientists waltzing through an alien force field,
and turns it into a rumination of identity and trauma. Natalie Portman stars as
a cellular biology professor who’s missing and presumed dead husband appears
out of thin air. Moments later the Army descends on their abode and she’s suddenly
tasked with studying a phenomenon her husband had been observing before his
disappearance. I don’t really want to say much more as to prevent spoilers –
lest to say it’s a unique and gorgeous looking film that you really shouldn’t
miss.
Loving
Vincent is a speculative biography
investigating the final days of Vincent Van Gogh before his untimely death.
What differentiates Loving Vincent
from other movies however is it’s an animated movie where every frame is an oil
canvas painted in the Van Gogh style. What results is a movie that at once
feels modest in its goals but grand in its execution. In other-words it’s a
work of art.
Political Movies That Should Have
Been Better
 |
| Vice (2018) / Chappaquiddick (2018) |
Seriously though, with subjects as
immediately polarizing and juicy as Former Senator Ted Kennedy and Former Vice President Dick Cheney, you’d think
you’d have better movies. Alas while Vice
and Chappaquiddick did have great
lead performances, the scripts were strictly pedestrian and lacked that certain
depth that was needed. Oh well.
Best Episodes of MS3TK
 |
| Mac and Me (1988) / Atlantic Rim (2013) |
Yes I watched this season of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and yes I
do count those movies towards my total…fight me. Anywho favorite movies and favorite episodes were definitely Mac and Me and Atlantic Rim. Atlantic Rim is a quicky mockbuster that tries to
recreate the grandeur of Pacific Rim
on a budget of zero dollars. The results are awkward and hilarious.
Mac
and Me on the other hand is a downright
legendary clone of E.T. that will
live in infamy for its cheesiness, remarkably stale special-effects and shameless
plugging of McDonalds merchandise. Seriously this thing is a treasure even
without the movie riffing…check it out!
Funniest Films
 |
| Obvious Child (2014) / The Death of Stalin (2018) |
Obvious Child stars Jenny Slate as a
comedienne scrapping by in New York City. After a one night stand, Donna
discovers she’s pregnant and decides to get an abortion; a task that is
complicated when the guy reappears in her world. Gillian Robespierre is one of
those incredibly gifted writer/directors that have flown under-the-radar for
me. Both Obvious Child and last year’s Landline had that rare quality of being
touching, understated, witty and wise. I’d probably peg Obvious Child as the
lesser of the two but there’s no denying its quite a hilarious, fun little
ride.
Death of Stalin is a remarkably
darker comedy which retells the story of…the death of Stalin…you know I don’t
have to spoon feed you everything, you can kinda infer through context clues.
The film stars Jeffrey Tambor, Jason Isaacs, Rupert Friend, Michael Palin, Paddy
Considine and Steve ‘f**king’ Buscemi as Nikita ‘f**king’ Khrushchev! Additionally
the film is written and directed by Armando ‘I did Alan Partridge, The Thick of
It, and f**king Veep’ Iannucci so honestly if you can’t see any humor in that,
you’re probably dead.
Most Underrated
 |
| 12 Strong (2018) / Hurry Up, Or I'll Be 30 (1973) |
Okay so it wasn’t a technical
achievement or a dramatic milestone, but within the narrow confines of what it
set out to do 12 Strong is pretty
much what it’s supposed to be. It’s a wholly exaggerated war action-adventure
about a group of he-men who propelled into Afghanistan, Lawrence of Arabia the crap out of the local area and led the U.S.
Army to its biggest success in the early days of the Afghanistan War.
Considering that most movies about Afghanistan or Iraq are about either back
room stratagems or psychological scars, it’s just nice to see a movie that went
a different route with it.
So I’m going to let my hipster flag
fly on this one and say, you probably haven’t heard of Hurry Up, or I’ll Be 30. Also known by the title I Am Waiting No More, the film stars
John Lefkowitz as a down-on-his luck New Yorker who struggles to accept his
lack of success and puts himself in awkward situations as a result. It’s a
movie about anxiety, impostor syndrome, learning to fit in and trying
unsuccessfully to be more of an adult. As a recent 30-year-old myself, I can definitely
relate to this movies protagonist to an almost scary degree.
Wordiest
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| Six Degrees of Separation (1993) / On Golden Pond (1981) |
Makes sense both recipients of this
superlative are based on plays doesn’t it? Six
Degrees of Separation stars Stockard Channing and Donald Sutherland as a
well-to-do couple who fall for a con man’s ruse (exuberantly played by Will
Smith). Entranced by his wit and clever yarn about being Sidney Poitier’s
bastard son, the Kittredges soon realize the stranger had repeated his story
several times to members of high society forcing them to reflect on their
choices and effects on others. The play and subsequent screenplay was written
by John Guare who is known for his tragic wit and wordy lucidity. Yeah, that’s
how I’d describe this screenplay for sure.
On Golden Pond stars Henry Fonda and
Katharine Hepburn as an elderly couple who spend their summers along an idyllic
New England lake. Their estranged daughter and grand-son come to visit along
with her new fiancé testing the family’s testy relationships. The film won both
leads Academy Awards back in 1982 as well as an Oscar for Best Adapted
Screenplay. Still doesn’t help the fact however that Ernest Thompson’s
adaptation occasionally feels tortured in its prose.
Biggest Misfires
 |
| 15:17 to Paris (2018) / Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) |
I’ve been told director Clint
Eastwood has since redeemed himself with The
Mule but d**n 15:17 to Paris the
true tale of a foiled terrorist attack was just awful. I’d say it was a mistake
to hire the actual guys the story was about to play themselves but I honestly
think it was a bigger mistake to let Eastwood direct this specific property.
Guess some directors can coach non-actors and some just can’t
As for Jurassic World 2: Electric Boogaloo – I
mean we all saw this disaster coming. And yet we did nothing!
Best Doc (That’s Not Won’t You Be My
Neighbor? *gush*)
 |
| Dolores (2017) / Three Identical Strangers (2018) |
In case it wasn’t clear earlier, Won’t
You Be My Neighbor? has the key to my heart when it comes to docs. But it
already got a superlative so I have to kind of spread the love. And in
fairness, this year was pretty good for documentaries. My personal picks
however: Dolores and Three Identical Strangers.
Dolores is a biographical documentary
on Dolores Huerta the legendary farm workers organizer which among other things
originated the phrase “Yes we can”. The film tells of her efforts with the UFW
and consensus building with the Civil Rights movement, the LGBTQ movement and the
Women’s Rights movement.
Three Identical Strangers tells the
impossible story of a trio of triplets who separated at birth and reunited by
sheer happenstance as adults. What starts as a sensational feel-good story soon
turns into an investigation of dark secrets held by a shady adoption agency. To
whit the movie indirectly deals with the age-old nature versus nurture question
which keeps you very interested throughout.
Biggest Surprises
 |
| A Quiet Place (2018) / The White World According to Daliborek (2017) |
Boy, who knew such a singular
premise could yield such a richly layered and absorbedly creepy horror film. A Quiet Place stars Emily Blunt and John
Krasinski (who plays double duty as director) as a couple who must keep their
family safe in a post-apocalyptic upstate New York. In order to survive, they
must avoid making any sound lest a race of blind monsters hear them and turn
them into minced meat. Told with abundant style and an acute sense of drama, A Quiet Place is one of those rare
filmic works that thrills and keeps you at the edge of your seat. Good stuff!
The
White World According to Daliborek
is one weird, surprising ride. I walked in knowing only two things: one it was
Czech, and two it was “unconventional”. I recommend you walk in knowing only
that as well to get the requisite jollies out of this movie. It’s basically
about a vainglorious white supremacist that goes about his days spreading hate
however he can, often coming across as foolish and ignorant in the process. Just…just
watch it, I promise you won’t regret it.
Most Overrated
 |
| Fanny and Alexander (1982) / Osaka Elegy (1936) |
It took me three tries to watch this
movie! Granted first time I was very tired but the other two times, I just had
to take a break and walk away. The film is a semi-autobiographical work about a
large family in Sweden whose two younger children struggle to adjust to a
strict step-father. Look, I love Ingmar Bergman. Very few filmmakers so fully
encapsulates such incessant ennui and eternal questioning as austerely and as
poised as Bergman. But man 312 minutes?! Dude, I really do have other things to
do.
Yet while Fanny and Alexander is overall engrossing, that cannot be said of
Mizoguchi’s Osaka Elegy. I’ll chalk
it up to it being an earlier work of the great Japanese master as I loved Sansho the Bailiff and Ugetsu. Osaka Elegy tells the semi-tragic tale of Ayako (Isuzu Yamada), a
telephone operator who reluctantly becomes a mistress to a wealthy business
man. Considered his first serious work, you can see a lot of the signature
camerawork that would become the norm for Kenji Mizoguchi. That said however,
the version I watched was grainy and the sound was poor leading to an overall
lackluster experience.
Best in Show
 |
| Los Olvidados (1950) / The Teacher (2016) |
Luis Bunuel is probably my favorite
international director. His surreal early work like Un Chien Andalou and L’Age d’Or
were works of a mad genius while his Spain and French period stuff kept pushing
the envelope of good taste and effective satire. Los Olvidados is only one of two films from his Mexican period that
I’ve seen though it’s a top five contender if there ever was one. Los Olvidados, translated as ‘the
forgotten’ tells the sordid melodrama of slum children living in Mexico City in
the 1950’s. Noted for its realistic depiction of extreme poverty, Los Olvidados is a tragic but immovable masterpiece
that shouldn’t be missed.
The
Teacher is a little known Slovakian film
that takes place in the Soviet Era circa 1983. The film tells the story of a
corrupt school teacher who uses her pupils to garner special favors from their
parents. As leverage she is the leader of the local party which keeps her colleagues
in constant fear and suspicion. Meanwhile kids who refuse to grease the wheels
or are not useful to her; she bullies and torpedoes their grades. Zuzna Maurery
stars as the downright scaly Ms. Drazdechova, and man does her performance just
glitter. Imagine Dolores Umbridge but somehow more conniving and syrupy. She
along with a talented ensemble cast of kids and parents make this movie not
just a political satire, but an effecting morality tale. Check it out for sure,
it’s a must see!
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