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wellhalesbells · 5 years

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I see you reblogging some comic stuff an I was wondering if you have a favorite comic or favorite character or ship?

this ask is from so long ago but [DEEP BREATH IN] i’m finally going to answer it, nonny. finally. i kept wanting to read a little bit farther in my comics stack because.... maybe i’ll like that and will regret not having recced it, i just hafta--get--to it, see? and, honestly, i’m still there BUT, come on, i’ll never be caught up because that would mean comics would just have to stop coming out and i would be sad forever if that happened, SO

i’m not even going to pretend like i can narrow this down to one comic. (one ship? sure, that’s spideypool. one character? sure, that’s the merc with a mouth, the regenerating degenerate, wade motherfucking wilson. but one comic?!) there is just straight-up too much out there to make a definitive ‘yes, this is it, this is THE ONE ™ ’ statement. instead, uh, let’s break this shit down, yeah? (super special secret bonus round, will note all lgbt+ rep and standalone comics.) in no particular order, here the frig it goes!

HORROR

infidel, by pornsak pichetshote and aaron campbell. in case you haven’t seen this on every 2018 best list ever, here it is. and, yeah, it was good. a muslim-american main character living in a haunted apartment building where the entities feed off the xenophobia of its occupants. if that’s not a fucking modern horror story i don’t know what is.

spread, by justin jordan and kyle strahm. THIS IS ONE OF MY NEW AND ALREADY ALL-TIME FAVORITES. what an awesomely weird and epic story. the spread is an uncontrollable, unstoppable monster-making force that humanity accidentally unleashed by digging too deep. it infects everything it touches and basically all of humanity is running from quarantine to quarantine just hoping for the best. and speaking of hope.... she’s a baby, rescued by no, and the only thing that’s ever been able to stop the spread. also, no’s gay? and i just DID NOT see that coming. it seems like it’s going to be such a formulaic, bro-y story about the action hero who kisses the face off his girl (her name’s molly and she’s batshit insane and amazing) and instead, nope, it is not that at all. lgbt+ main characters.

the black monday murders, by jonathan hickman and tomm coker. hate capitalism? think all the rich and powerful are evil, soul-sucking monsters? [obnoxious, low-budget commercial sound effects] MAN, HAVE I GOT THE SERIES FOR YOU.

the beauty, by jeremy haun and jason a. hurley. i just started this recently but so far, oh my good golly gosh, i looove it. a sexually transmitted disease that makes you conventionally gorgeous.... at least before it explodies you. [wide, creepy smile] the art is gorgeous, the characters are aces and i am very, very pleased so far. lgbt+ minor characters.

the great divide, by ben fisher and adam markiewicz. this? was a COOL idea. the execution stumbled a bit but, gosh, was it neat. it’s post-apocalyptic where touching another person will literally kill.... one of you. the survivor then absorbs the memories of the person who dies, taking on a ‘rider.’ some people collect them, some people go mad, some form a bond, all have the side effect of dyslexia. like i said, neat as all get out. lgbt+ minor-ish/main-ish character. standalone.

revival, by tim seely and mike norton. a rural town in wisconsin experiences ‘miracle day,’ where the dead rise again.... except, they were kinda already mourned and buried and this is really just fucking up the status quo.

the woods, by james tynion iv and michael dialynas. a high school gets picked up and plopped down in an entirely new, and wickedly hostile universe. it’s all survival and alliances and seeing what you’re really made of when it comes down to it. lgbt+ main characters.

clean room, by gail simone and jon davis-hunt. a cult, a journalist and a clean room walk into a bar...

anya’s ghost, by vera brosgol. you think it’ll be a cute story of a girl and her ghost. HA HA THAT IS NOT WHAT HAPPENS AT ALL, OKAY.

FANTASY

rumble, by john arcudi and james harren. SCARECROW WARRIOR GOD, SCARECROW WARRIOR GOD, SCARECROW WARRIOR GOD!!! okay, first off, the art in this? pushes every friggin’ button i’ve got, and many i did not know i had. second, this book is so fucking fun. it’s mythology that’s balls to the wall ridiculous, funny, and features a main character whose life motto is basically: ‘do i have to?’ infinitely relatable and then some.

heathen, by natasha alterici and rachel deering. UGH, ONE OF MY FAVORITES. the art is just horribly, horrendously gorgeous and it’s LESBIAN VIKING MYTHOLOGY, OKAY. OKAYYYY??? lgbt+ main characters.

the wicked + the divine, by kieron gillen and jamie mckelvie. one of my favorite ever series right here. it’s a hella cool concept (gods reincarnating as humans every twelve years, and burning up their hosts in two), whip-smart and if you’ve ever met a human being who likes a pun more than kieron gillen i defy you to produce them. lgbt+ main and minor characters.

batgirl, by gail simone and adrian sayaf and vicente cifuentes. you know how people rave about gail simone? there’s a reason people rave about gail simone. honestly, i’ve never had much interest in babs. i don’t tend to go for superheroes who don’t kill and i have even less interest in ‘the killing joke’ story line and i am convinced only gail simone could’ve done the recovery on that and she did a GLORIOUS job of it.

red hood and the outlaws, by scott lobdell and dexter soy. (ignoring recent - and annoying - developments), this is my favorite of all the rebirths dc did. scott lobdell is the only writer to have gotten the idea down of: okay, we’re starting over, i assume you don’t know anything but i also assume there are a bajillion people reading who know everything, and hit the perfect medium between those two things. so if you want to start a jason todd run, you legitimately can here, and get all the found family, badassery, batman-teasing enjoyment there is to be had.

iceman, by sina grace and robert gill (covers by kevin wada). classic super-heroing here and bobby’s first solo title. he’s figuring out coming out while fighting (and flirting) with baddies. sina really gets his humor and how truly wonder-awful it is! lgbt+ main character.

spider-man/deadpool, by joe kelly and ed mcguinness. watch those names there, those are your guys right there, period. they looked at the void of a spider-man/deadpool series and filled it with absolutely everything you could possibly want for the pair (sans a hardcore make-out sesh, though they did get a few variant covers with some puckered up lips in there!)

limbo, by dan watters and caspar wijngaard. a fusion of 80s aesthetics, voodoo elements and a noir tone. just some remarkably cool shit in this. the ending, for me, left something to be desired but it was more than worth it to see worship via mixtapes. standalone.

hawkeye: kate bishop, by kelly thompson and leonardo romero. kate bishop is, apparently???, a super impossible character for a lot of writers. kelly thompson is not one of them. kelly thompson is my favorite kate bishop writer, actually, and the fact that she is ever not writing her is a gd travesty.

the unbeatable squirrel girl, by ryan north and erica henderson. honestly, i’m so tempted to just stick this under ‘contemporary,’ because it really does just feel very... normal. doreen’s navigating college, new friendships, and y’know... the squirrely-ness. this had every opportunity to suck and instead it’s funny as heck, never takes itself too seriously, and is just pure good-hearted entertainment through and through.

wolf, by ales kot and matt taylor. a paranormal detective and the-possible-antichrist go on a road trip. people hated this comic and i don’t know how you can hate a comic that has a character called freddy chtonic who has tentacles for a mouth???

ms. marvel, by g. willow wilson and adrian alphona. hi, you read ms. marvel because the world is a garbage fire and people are terrible and your cynicism is at an all time high and then kamala khan waltzes in and reminds you people generally want to help each other and the world improves when we work together and that thing optimists feel? you’ll feel that for as long as you’ve got the pages open and that’s a magical thing. lgbt+ minor character.

monstress, by marjorie m. liu and sana takeda. psychic links with monsters, matriarchal societies, magic and witchery, half-human/half-animal (and other ratios) characters, all through a steampunk lens. what’s not to like about that??

inhuman, by charles soule. i love this series, i love the idea of being a total average joe/joanne, getting smacked in the face by a cloud of mist and suddenly having to figure out how to live basically a whole new life. also, if you don’t fall madly in love with dante pertuz, i don’t even know what to tell you, my dude.

heart in a box, by kelly thompson and meredith mcclaren. break-ups suck, but only because of that whole pesky broken heart thing, right? so emma gives hers away. problem solved, no? standalone.

i kill giants, by joe kelly and j.m. ken niimura. i didn’t cry my eyes out or anything. did not. standalone.

sex criminals, by matt fraction and chip zdarsky. having sex = stopping time, which leads suzie and jon to the only logical conclusion: let’s rob some banks!

hawkeye, by matt fraction and david aja. honestly there are a lot of other artist combos in this run but the only ones that are worthwhile are the ones that have fraction and aja’s names on them - sorry not sorry.

SCIENCE FICTION

black bolt, by saladin ahmed and christian ward. saladin revived this character one hundred million percent. there is absolutely a reason this was parading around all over ‘best’ lists when it was released. it really, really did the damn thing.

saga, by brian k. vaughan and fiona staples. this is the comic you recommend to people who don’t even like comics because it is that good. like, my dad - who hadn’t read a comic since he was a pre-teen, eagerly awaits each new trade. the world-building, the characters, the care put into every single solitary bit of all the things? unparalleled. lgbt+ minor characters.

frostbite, by joshua williamson and jason shawn alexander. a post-apocalyptic story that has humanity dying from a plague that literally freezes you from the inside out. very neat, very cold, very readable. standalone.

descender, by jeff lemire and dustin nguyen. this had a rough start, for me, with the main character of the first trade being tim-21, an android who is literally incapable of having the depth to be a lead BUT that does not last through to the next trade, thank god. lots of space and found family and world-building in this to be had! but you know how people rave about jeff lemire? there’s a reason people rave about jeff lemire.

paper girls, by brian k. vaughan and cliff chiang. the 80s and time travel and lifelong friendships. it’s brian k. vaughan, you know it’s good, okay? why do i even have to sell you here, man? lgbt+ main characters.

injection, by warren ellis and declan shalvey. this is another one on my list that started out a little rough but really appealed to me later on. there was just a lot to absorb in that first trade but, once you’ve got it, the ride gets way, way smoother. lgbt+ main and minor characters.

black science, by rick remender and matteo scalera. this was a rocky start, because the main character is such an asshole but in a way where he can’t see he’s an asshole, he’s just a tortured genius who’s superior to all of you, don’t you know? but i am so glad i persevered because if that’s the set up? the rest of the series is knocking him back down. super scientist grant mckay finds a way to access the eververse, every possible reality the universe has on offer, and that’s really what causes every single problem that follows. hard to cause the apocalypse and be an arrogant prick, ya know?

CONTEMPORARY

giant days, by john allison and lissa treiman. this series is so funny and smart and warm. these girls are so kind to each other and relatable and failing at adulting regularly and often and i love reading about them. lgbt+ main character.

lumberjanes, by noelle stevenson and grace ellis and brooke a. allen. this is funny and ridiculous and kind and cool and all other awesome adjectives and you should read it, fact. lgbt+ main characters.

my brother’s husband, by gengoroh tagame and anne ishii (translator). this is such a sweet story about acceptance and family tbh. lgbt+ main character.

fence, by c. s. pacat and johanna the mad. i mean... i need to see nicholas and seiji hook-up, i need that, stat. stat means now! lgbt+ main characters.

WEB/INDEPENDENT COMICS

long exposure, by kam heyward. so mitch and jonas are my absolute faves and i love them to death and the author is so kind in that they actually put this up in print on indyplanet so i can read it the way i, personally, love to read comics (and - bonus! - support them with the monies). lgbt+ main characters.

modern dread, by pat shand and ryan fassett (editors). i’ve been trying to find more better horror comics lately so i’ve been kind of half-heartedly stumbling through kickstarter on the hunt and this was SUCH a great find. it’s an anthology but more cleverly done than any other kickstarter anthology i’ve read, with a main story line that seamlessly strings together the would-be-disjointed ones. this was really thoughtfully put together and really well done! standalone.

heartstopper, by alice oseman. a very sweet story about two high school-aged boys becoming fast friends, playing rugby and falling in love. the two characters are mentioned as an aside in the author’s book, solitaire, and she became so invested in them that she wrote their backstory as a free webcomic. lgbt+ main characters.

the pale, by jay fabares. JUST started this (like, just a day or so ago) but i’m enjoying it so far!

hotblood!, by toril orlesky. i mean... is it a webcomic about a centaur falling in love with his boss? it just might be. did i get a bound edition through a kickstarter campaign? maybe. maybe i did that. who’s to say? lgbt+ main characters.

the bay, by bbz. life on mars through the lens of three young professionals who form an odd but lasting friendship. lgbt+ main characters.

hard drive, by artroan. is it a nsfw comic about a dude and a robot? .... it might be a nsfw comic about a dude and a robot. [coughs] lgbt+ main characters.

seen nothing yet, by tess stone. a nsfw comic about two amateur ghost hunters. can’t imagine why i might be interested in that [coughs] lgbt+ main characters.

captain imani and the cosmic chase, by lin darrow and alex assan. i mean did i want a starship captain who can’t help but lust after the smuggler he’s chasing. i mean, maybe i did. maybe. lgbt+ main characters.

taproot, by keezy young. ghost falls in love with boy, boy falls in love with ghost, AND THEY LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER. lgbt+ main characters.

always raining here, by bell and hazel. just two boys falling in lurve. lgbt+ main characters.

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ubourgeois · 5 years

Text

Top 30 Films of 2018

I’m actually getting one of these out at a fairly reasonable time! I’m a champion.

Compared to last year, I would say 2018 had fewer films that I really loved, that shook me and immediately registered as important - but also, more films that have grown on me over time, that were clever and inventive in ways that convince me to look past their shortcomings (or reevaluate if they are shortcomings at all). Plenty of odd, perhaps imperfect movies made it far up the list, and I think I ended up privileging that weird streak more than usual this year. But hopefully that makes for interesting reading here.

I found making this list that a couple of the big arthousey hits of the year (Eighth Grade, Burning, The Rider, and others) ended up slipping into the basement of the top 50. Keep an eye out for a rejoinder post following this in a couple days where I hash out my thoughts on those. For now, top 30 after the jump:

30. Unsane dir. Steven Soderbergh

Remember when Tangerine came out and everyone was like, “wow I can’t believe this was shot on an iPhone” and it was a whole thing? Well, I can believe that Unsane was shot on an iPhone, and that’s really for the better. Ever the innovator, Soderbergh follows Sean Baker’s lead by taking full advantage of the logistical advantages and distinctive appearances of iPhone-shot footage, putting together a film that uses its hardware not as a flashy obstacle to be overcome but as a driver of its look and feel, proving at least for now that mobile-shot films are viable (though we’ll see how his next one turns out). The film itself is good too - Claire Foy gives a wonderfully prickly performance, and the claustrophobic visuals make for a great psychological thriller.

29. Cold War dir. Paweł Pawlikowski

Expanding on the aesthetic territory he explored with Ida, Pawlikowski brings another black & white, Polish-language period piece about identities split between different (religious, political) worlds. Cold War is the more complicated and perhaps less focused film, but also the more alluring one, with a luscious love story, incredible music (Łojojoj...), and great, showy performances from Joanna Kulig and Tomasz Kot. In other words, it’s luxurious, romantic Euro-arthouse fare. Probably best watched with a full glass of wine in hand.

28. Ready Player One dir. Steven Spielberg

A film that many accused of “pandering” to audiences for its many blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nods to 80s nostalgia and gaming culture, Ready Player One was on the contrary seemingly uninterested in anything of the sort. It managed to accomplish something more meaningful by packing the film so dense with nerd-bait that it becomes just texture and noise - Tracer popping up in the background of random scenes ends up being less of Overwatch reference and more of a piece of plausible set dressing in a VR social media hub. This contributed to RPO being not only a technically impressive but a visually overwhelming effects film, packaged around a seemingly knowing 80s blockbuster pastiche (the story, the character types, even the music cues were too old-fashioned to be on purpose). A film both smarter and easier to like than the discourse around it suggested.

27. Widows dir. Steve McQueen

I do really wish that McQueen would go back to making demanding, brutal films like Hunger, but if he simply has to become a commercial filmmaker I guess I don’t mind this. Surely the ensemble film of the year, with the entire cast firing on all cylinders - Daniel Kaluuya as the sadistic enforcer/campaign manager in particular impresses, though naturally Viola Davis, Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo, and even Colin Farrell make for compelling characters in this twisty, nervy heist film. The action scenes are all impressively mounted (if a bit few and far between) and there are enough McQueen-esque florishes to keep things interesting in the interim (that long car scene!). Great moody popcorn stuff.

26. An Elephant Sitting Still dir. Hu Bo

Elephant has gotten a lot of press for two reasons: its nearly four-hour length and its director’s untimely death shortly after its completion. The length is important because it beats you into submission, forcing you to accept its rhythm and smothering you in tight focus on its main characters until you feel like it’s your own POV (I wasn’t really into it until, uh, the two hour mark, but then somehow I was hooked). Hu Bo’s death is important because knowing that, the sensation of being trapped, pressured, and disoriented by the Current State of China (ever the popular subject matter) feels all the more palpable and, maybe unfortunately, grants the film some extra layer of authority, or at least urgency. If I ever have the time or energy, I would love to revisit this film - I expect it will one day be seen as a landmark.

25. Make Me Up dir. Rachel Maclean

A bizarre little bit of sugary pop-feminist techno-dystopia, pulling off a sort of cinematic cousin to vaporwave by way of Eve Ensler. What unfolds is pretty insane, involving dance numbers, incomprehensible lectures on dodgy gender politics, and sets that look pulled out from a cheap children’s TV show. It’s definitely a marmite film - how well you connect with this will depend heavily on your tolerance for clearly-fake CG, well-trodden feminist talking points, and pastels - but for those with the appetite for this brand of political kitsch then this is just about the best version of itself imaginable.

24. Liz and the Blue Bird dir. Naoko Yamada

Naoko Yamada out Naoko Yamada-s herself. A standalone spinoff of Hibike! Euphonium that focuses on members of the secondary cast, Liz makes good on the sensitive, subtly-executed love story that the show ultimately failed to produce (not quite Adolescence of Utena-tier course correction, but we’ll take it). This is a film propelled by the tiniest gestures - a hand tensing behind the back, a nervous flicker of the eye, a cheerful bounce in the step - in that way animation can provide that seems not incidental but hugely, blatantly filled with meaning. While A Silent Voice was a great breakthrough for Yamada as an “original” feature, it’s Liz that feels like the more mature film, and a promising indicator for what lies ahead.

23. Sew the Winter to My Skin dir. Jahmil X.T. Qubeka

Maybe the most surprising film of the year is this, an action-biopic about John Kepe, a South African Robin Hood figure, that almost entirely eschews spoken dialogue in favor of visual storytelling, physical acting, and clever audio design. But this is not some pretentious, austere arthouse film substituting gimmicks for actual character; Sew the Winter to My Skin is an engaging, fascinating, and unexpectedly accessible historical epic, prioritizing mythic bigness over simple recitation of fact. While it demands some patience at first (with no dialogue, it takes a bit for the film to properly introduce its cast), it quickly shows itself to be an inventive, exciting, and occasionally funny adventure that proves Qubeka as a truly exciting voice in South African cinema.

22. Mom and Dad dir. Brian Taylor

Forget Mandy, THIS is the crazy Nic Cage movie of the year. A slick, rapid-fire horror comedy that feels almost like a music video at points, Mom and Dad has what’s surely Cage’s best unhinged performance in years as well as a great, more restrained turn by Selma Blair. The violence is ludicrous, the premise is nutty, and the sense of humor is utterly sick - that the film manages to squeeze out a surprisingly coherent commentary on suburban family life on top of this is a minor miracle (a scene where Cage destroys a pool table proves strangely thoughtful). For all the broadly acclaimed “serious” horror films in recent years, like this year’s kind of boring Hereditary, groan-filled A Quiet Place, and mostly incoherent Suspiria, I more appreciate this breed of deranged, funny, and tightly focused effort. It doesn’t need to be that deep.

21. Good Manners dir. Marco Dutra, Juliana Rojas

I’m going to mark this write-up with a **spoiler warning**, as I think it’s basically impossible to talk about this film without giving the game away. Good Manners has one of the best genre switcheroos in recent years, starting off as a proper Brazilian class drama (think Kleber Mendonça Filho) with a lesbian twist before explosively transforming into a horror movie that reveals a hidden monster-coming-of-age story that’s nearly unrecognizable as the same film from an hour before. As delightful as this bit of narrative sleight of hand is, it can’t justify a good film alone, which is where the great lead performance by Isabél Zuaa and the mesermizing, inventive matte paintings of the São Paulo skyline come into play, making this fantastical, genre-bending film a true original of the year.

20. The Miseducation of Cameron Post dir. Desiree Akhavan

There’s a tendency in the queer teen film genre to sometimes drift towards miserablist portrayals of growing up; to emphasize the hardship, nonunderstanding, and isolation to the expense of other experiences. Cameron Post manages to avoid this path even as it explores the dreadful premise of life in a conversion camp by balancing the solidarity, humor, and defiant joy hidden along the edges of the camp experience with the cruel, dehumanizing nature of the place. The film works, then, not only as a statement against conversion therapy and the real harm it does to all participants, but also as a lively, triumphant teen movie that feels more powerful than the lazy, doom-and-gloom approach.

19. Minding the Gap dir. Bing Liu

Few films capture the particular small city Midwest atmosphere quite like this one, a very raw documentary that feels very much like the first feature it is - but in a good way. Cut together from years of Liu’s amateur footage as well as new material of its subjects (the director and two of his old friends), a documentary that at first seems to be about the local skateboarding culture stretches out to many other topics: domestic violence, race relations, middle-American economic anxiety. The film, perhaps because of its closeness to the director and his relative inexperience, manages to take on a quick-moving scattershot approach, weaving stream-of-consciousness from one topic to the next, while still giving each the time and weight it deserves.

18. The Green Fog dir. Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson, Guy Maddin

A hard film to sum up, though at its heart not a terribly complicated one. Ostensibly a very loose reconstruction of Vertigo using clips from other material shot in San Francisco, from The Conversation to San Andreas to Murder, She Wrote, this new, uh, thing from Maddin and the Johnsons is a short, sweet, and really quite funny collage less interested in slavishly reenacting its inspiration than making funny jokes with movie clips. Some highlights include Rock Hudson carefully watching an *NSYNC music video on a tiny screen, a long sequence admiring Chuck Norris’ face that doesn’t seem to match any particular part of Vertigo, and a number of scenes of dialogue with all the speech cut out, leaving only awkward pauses and mouth noises. It’s high art!

17. Sorry to Bother You dir. Boots Riley

Boots Riley’s transition from long-standing underrated rapper to breakout auteur has been wild to witness. Sorry to Bother You is certainly one of 2018′s most original and distinctive films (what other film is it like, exactly?), and any complaints about unsubtle politics or overpacked narrative can be easily counterbalanced with the film’s sheer verve and oddball energy. Like Widows, it’s another of the great ensemble pieces of the year - Lakeith Stanfield and Tess Thompson are great as usual, and of the supporting cast Armie Hammer emerges as the standout with an incredibly funny halfway-villainous turn, plus a great bit of voice casting with David Cross. Leading candidate for this year’s Film of the Moment.

16. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse dir. Robert Persichetti Jr., Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman

The problem with comic book movies a lot of the time is that they’re somehow too embarrassed to own their source material. Into the Spider-Verse succeeds because it emphatically embraces its roots, not only visually (the cel shading, impact lines, and even text boxes that make up the film’s look) but also narratively, by adopting the multiverse concept in earnest and milking it for comedic and dramatic effect. It’s an incredibly innovative (not to mention gorgeous) animated film that not only raises the standard but expands the scope of superhero films, giving new hope to a genre that has been stuck spinning its wheels for years. Plus, it has probably the only post-credits scene actually worth the effort, which is a very special sort of victory.

15. Museo dir. Alonso Ruizpalacios

A playful, thoughtful heist film that gets the actual heist out of the way as soon as possible. Two suburban twenty-somethings pull off a daring robbery of Mayan artifacts from the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City, then set off on an ill-fated roadtrip to fence the goods. There’s a certain magic to this film, in its approach that is at once totally reverent and mythologizing but also eager to take the piss out of everything (the recurring motif of Revueltas’ The Night of the Mayas suite does both), and in how it turns this story into something of a love letter to the history and geography of Mexico. Very mature, well-balanced filmmaking in Ruizpalacios’ second feature.

14. BlacKkKlansman dir. Spike Lee

The best Spike Lee joint in a long, long time. It taps into the freewheeling, confrontational energy of his best work, but almost as a career victory lap as he makes a game out of outfoxing Klan members. There’s plenty of humor and tension here, with a great, dry leading duo in John David Washington and Adam Driver, and a funny turn from Topher Grace (!) as David Duke. Even if it does play it a bit safe with an easy target and wraps up a bit too easily (a quick flash-forward to Charlottesville as a postscript notwithstanding), it should be fine, I think, for a film to indulge in the simple pleasure of overcoming obvious villains in a glorious fashion. For all the recent films that give nuanced and serious takes on racism in America, one ought to be about the joy of blowing up the KKK.

13. Mirai dir. Mamoru Hosoda

Since he’s started making original features, Hosoda has been taken with relatively high-concept storylines, from his “debut” The Girl Who Leapt Through Time to Wolf Children, but Mirai is certainly his most ambitious yet. Nearly every choice about the film is a bit weird: from the unusual, compact layout of Kun’s home to Kun’s very believable, nearly alienating (to an older audience) childish behavior to the simply bizarre logistics and metaphysics of Kun’s fantastic adventures. The time- and space-travel antics Kun and Mirai get up to never seem entirely literal or entirely imagined, somewhere between childish fable and psychological sci-fi, a mixture that culminates in a surprisingly existential climax for an unabashed children’s film. After the quite safe The Boy and the Beast, it’s exciting to see Hosoda branch out into such a complicated and strange project, certainly the most daring animated feature of the year.

12. Support the Girls dir. Andrew Bujalski

A bubbly, sensitive, and lightly anarchic workplace comedy in that most essential of American institutions: the Hooters-flavored sports bar off the highway. Bujalski continues to prove himself an observant and funny writer, putting together a fascinating ensemble of characters brought to life by a perfectly-cast ensemble (Regina Hall is flawless as advertised, and Haley Lu Richardson brings us one of the most adorable characters in cinema). I don’t think I’ve seen a more charming film about workers’ solidarity and the lively communities that find their niche in liminal spaces.

11. First Reformed dir. Paul Schrader

Edgy priests are in a certain way low-hanging fruit; the tension is automatic, the contradiction inherently compelling. It’s a lazy symbol that can be milked for cheap profundity when employed, if you will, in bad faith. That’s why it’s so important that First Reformed, for all of its alcoholic, violent, libidinous angst packed into Ethan Hawke’s (masterfully interpreted) character, is also a great, genuine film about faith besides. It’s a Revelations film if I’ve ever seen one, about facing down the apocalypse with no way of understanding God’s plan, about living on the precipice of a collapse of belief, about accepting mystery. It’s the only film I saw this year that communicated actual dread, but even then still, somehow, bizarrely hopeful.

10. Birds of Passage dir. Cristina Gallego, Ciro Guerra

Ciro Guerra (now with partner Cristina Gallego co-directing) follows up the excellent Embrace of the Serpent with another powerful portrait of an indigenous community that, under the pressure of colonial influence, gradually devours itself. In the new film, however, this takes the form of a traditional gangster film, from the humble beginnings and runaway success to the explosions of violence and crumbling of an empire. Birds of Passage shows the origins of the Colombian drug trade with the native Wayuu people (a counterpoint, Gallego explains, to the much-celebrated Pablo Escobar narrative), and in doing so still finds room to organically and respectfully depict the traditions of the Wayuu, as well as showcase their beautiful language, which makes up much of the film’s dialogue. Best film in the genre since at least Carlos.

09. The Favourite dir. Yorgos Lanthimos

Though I really admire Dogtooth, I’ve found myself increasingly disappointed in Lanthimos’ output since that film. Alps was fine but clearly minor; The Lobster started strong but fizzled out; Killing of a Sacred Deer was ultimately too self-consciously bizarre. With The Favourite, we’re finally back in exciting, unsettlingly weird territory, Yorgos having found that his very mannered style of English dialogue works superbly in a costume drama context. He also gets great, uncharacteristically emotive performances (compared to, say, the last two Colin Farrell outings) out of his central trio of Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz, and Emma Stone, with especially great work coming from Stone, who I think has discovered that all of her best roles take full advantage of the fact that she looks like a cartoon character. It’s wonderfully perverse, incredibly funny stuff, with one of the great, inexplicable endings of the year - fair to call it a Buñuel revival.

08. Bisbee ‘17 dir. Robert Greene

A documentary that tackles a shocking forgotten chapter in American labor history - a group of strikers deported from their mining town and left for dead in the desert - as well as the potential of historical reenactment to act as communal therapy. Greene moves a bit sideways from his usual performance-centric subject matter to show a different kind of performance meant not to affect the audience but the performers themselves, breaking through decades of near-silence on Bisbee’s tumultuous small town history. It’s also a remarkably multi-faceted film; though it would certainly be easy to side fully with the strikers, Greene makes sure to document the perspectives of current Bisbee citizens who sympathize with or even celebrate the decision to deport, complicating the emotions and politics of the reenactment in genuinely interesting ways. A powerful, important documentary.

07. Asako I & II dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi

Unwieldy and annoying English title aside (especially considering all the possible translations of Netemo Sametemo), Asako seems on the surface like nothing more than a cheap TV romance. It hits many of the same beats and adopts much of the visual style associated with this vein of visual media, particularly in the music video-esque, almost-supernatural meet-cute that opens the film. But hidden beneath these affectations is a shockingly cold un-romance, a story with an inevitable bad end that you’re tricked into thinking might not come to pass. By employing so many stylistic and even verbal cliches, Hamaguchi reveals how these internalized these storytelling devices are, and how they not only can’t prepare us for the complications of actual relationships, but even shift our expectations away from reality. It’s an absolute gut-punch of a film, covered in a seductively sweet carapace.

06. Sweet Country dir. Warwick Thornton

In a fairly large shift from his previous Samson and Delilah, Thornton has put together one of the best and most unusual Westerns in recent years. Featuring great, earthy performances from its nonprofessional cast (plus a bit of Sam Neill and Bryan Brown for good measure) and a weird, almost Malicky flash-forward structure, the film explores a not-widely-depicted history of exploitation of indigenous Australians. It’s a sad film, showing a fairly exciting lead-up to a somewhat deflating moment of unjust violence - but of course, many of the best Westerns aren’t about good triumphing, either. It’s the film on this list that most grew on me over the course of the year, having not impressed me at first but then blowing me away on a second viewing.

05. Leave No Trace dir. Debra Granik

For all the buzz surrounding Winter’s Bone - a film that still holds up after so many years - it’s a bit surprising that it took Granik eight years to put out a follow-up, but I guess it’s worth the wait. Unlike Bone, Leave No Trace is a kind, gentle film, leaving behind the edgy Ozarkian drama of its predecessor for a similar but more forgiving setting of woodland communities in the Pacific Northwest. It initially seduces you with Ben Foster’s outdoorsy survivalist lifestyle, cut off by seemingly uncaring state officials, but gradually revealing, through the second thoughts of his daughter (Thomasin McKenzie, in a shall we say Lawrencian turn), the downsides and flawed motivations for their lifestyle choice. It’s a quiet and thoughtful film, melancholy and optimistic in equal measure. Makes one hope Granik can get another project off the ground sooner.

04. Roma dir. Alfonso Cuarón

I mean, what else can we say about Roma? It’s about as good as claimed, beautifully shot, framed, written, acted, whatever. It’s at its best, sort of ironically, when Cuarón breaks up the quiet personal drama for some of his characteristic action-y set pieces (a Children of Men-esque protest sequence and the climax on the beach are particularly memorable), but he also shows his talent in handling relatively uneventful family scenes, using the layout of the house to facilitate some surprisingly interesting camera movements. I’m happy that Cuarón, who could easily transition into a more boring prestige Hollywood filmmaker if he so chose, is using his industry clout to pull together neat little films like this.

03. The Old Man & the Gun dir. David Lowery

What a completely pleasant film. A film that walks a dangerous tightrope - one of nostalgia, roguish charm, and incessant aw-shucks optimism - that can easily fall into twee, navel-gazing hell, but that miraculously pulls it off, resulting in a genuinely spirit-lifting character study of an almost folkloric figure. Robert Redford’s good in this, but of course he is - that’s the whole point. Perhaps more appropriate to say that this film is good for Robert Redford, that it rises to the occasion of celebrating his career in full and pulls it off without appearing trite or disposable. As good a (reportedly) final outing as anyone could ask for.

02. I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians dir. Radu Jude

A nearly three-hour, densely conversational, nakedly didactic examination of the historical effects and contemporary sources of fascism and ethnic nationalism that somehow flies right by. Radu Jude, a relative latecomer to Romanian cinema’s rise to international prominence, makes a strong argument for being his country’s best and most important filmmaker, taking on complicated, controversial, and infrequently discussed subject matter about Romania’s troubled past. If you can get past Barbarians’ sort of user-unfriendly exterior (Iona Iacob opens the film by introducing herself and explaining her character, which tells you the sort of thing you’re getting into), it should prove to be a remarkably stimulating and even fiendishly funny ride.

01. Shoplifters dir. Hirokazu Koreeda

If you’ve spent the ten years since Still Walking wondering what exactly Koreeda is trying to do anymore, then this is your answer. He’s spent most of the last decade pumping out the same nonconventional family drama over and over again (everything from I Wish to After the Storm, at least) so he could hone his skills like a weapon and create the perfect, ultimate version. With a pitch-perfect cast (Koreeda regulars Lily Franky and Kirin Kiki are the standouts, but Sakura Ando, Mayu Matsuoka, and the two child actors more than hold their own), and probably the perfect expression of the chosen family, spots and all, that has consumed much of Koreeda’s career, Shoplifters is one of its director’s career-best films, showcasing all of his talent for depicting delicate, intimate moments and bringing smart, complex ideas to seemingly straightforward premises. The most exciting Palme d’Or winner in years and easily the best film of 2018.

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theundergroundarchives · 4 years

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Rap Beast: Here comes the up-and-coming artiste, ASYRFNSIR, the spellbinding KL-hailed musician who recently puts out the antidote rap track “VIRUS”

You might not want to miss out on this one because this artiste right here is about to blow up and become the next big thing inside the music industry. He’s ASYRFNSIR (pronounced as Asyraf Nasir). Having been recently crowned as the champion of RapStar ERA, where he toppled down other equally prodigious contestants in front of the music industry virtuosos as the judges, the climbing moves for the effervescent rap star doesn’t stop just there. In an introspective interview with writer Ainaa Amirrah, ASYRFNSIR lets us in on the analytical facet of him and his first commercial single “VIRUS” which is collaboratively produced by Def Jam South East Asia and Universal Music Malaysia. Could be, “VIRUS” is all about the current pandemic that we’re being faced with right now? This is where the “secrets” get revealed.

Words by Ainaa Amirrah

When was the first time you realized that you're into rapping?

I’ve always been into hip hop since I was in school. The first rap song I heard was “I’ll Be Missing You” by Puff Daddy (his name at the time la) and I just got hooked into the genre ever since. But taking rapping more seriously started three years ago when I decided to join this video making competition about a potato snack with an old classmate I had not seen since I left high school! I randomly decided to go makan (eat) very late at this mamak stall I have never gone to around the neighbourhood and bumped into him. He shared with me that he does video editing full-time and so, I recommended him to tag along for the competition. We had to lip sync the words and while filming the scenes, my friends was saying how I should try writing actual songs because zaman sekolah dulu (during the high school years) I liked to do parodies! Long story short, we won and managed to meet SonaOne for the first time because he was the jingle for that video competition. Pretty overwhelming considering that was the first time I won anything before! After that my friend tried to convince me to rap for real, and the deal he made was that he’d shoot every music video I do for free to help build my career. And damn, I guess here we are! Crazy times. I owe a lot to this guy, if not, I might have not taken that step to start. Much love to you, Nicholas Bong!

How does it feel like being crowned as the champion of RapStar ERA?

Surreal. That is the best word that I can think of. Okay, so I’m going to be honest and say that none of the participants expected that this thing was going to be that big! I saw the poster online and thought it was just a standard challenge where you have to upload a 1-minute video of you rapping and boom! Done! Sadakallahul'azim, finish already and we have found a winner. But no man, from the ‘Gram we had to go for live auditions and from there it was an intensive 2-week journey with daily challenges! Every day we had to write fresh 16 bars on a new beat and memorize it for the next day! If this was another ‘upload video on Instagram’ thing takpe la (nevermind), but we had to perform in front of actual judges in the music industry! (Fariz Jabba, Joe Flizzow, Navigator, SonaOne). Dah la (What’s more) we had the finale show some more, and it was a legit concert! So to put it simply, very overwhelming because the journey was very competitive and the hype about the whole competition was building up along the way so the pressure for me personally, was high. My whole family for the first time came to see me perform live kot that night of the finale! What made me join the competition by the way, is of course the opportunity to work with Def Jam South East Asia, but also, I always try to participate in any rap challenges on Instagram. I feel like it pushes myself to continue to come up with materials creatively (because you have to make videos too kan) and personally I feel like if you want to get anywhere, we just have to take every opportunity we can to showcase our skills you know? We can’t be too picky and selective on what we want to take part in, because the true fact is that how you perform will determine the outcome.

Now that you’ve become the RapStar ERA champion, what plans do you have in mind for the next phase? Are you still going to actively produce more of free verses posted on your Instagram, or perhaps, we could expect an extended play or an album coming from ASYRFNSIR?

Writing never stops. Since RMO started, I’ve been coming up with this series called #Quarantingz where I would come up with a fresh verse every two days, based on the stories of other people during quarantine! I enjoy putting up content and it challenges my writing capability to explore new flows, so yeah, you can expect more free verses! I’ve had plans of coming up with an album by the end of this year, but RapStar ERA happened, and right now, I just want to recalculate my steps for a solid game plan you know? We’ll see.

You've significantly been known to have always included your personal trademark of "#AYangLuMinati" in your bars. Perhaps you could enlighten us about the meaning behind the words?

“AYangLuMinati” was a completely accidental tagline. So my hand sign which is the shape of an ‘A” was interpreted by a lot of random kids who said that I’m showing ajaran sesat (heresy) and promoting the Illuminati agenda whatever that means. But I wasn’t mad or anything, I just thought that it was hella funny on how the internet can have so many different interpretations. So what I did was put up in my Instagram stories of the ‘actual’ or common Illuminati hand signs or symbols and show that it clearly is very different. And this is where the tagline came about, I put a poll that said: “What do you see in this hand sign?” A) Illuminati. B) A-luminati. C) A-Yang-Lu-Minati. From what I thought was a very lame pun, people actually voted and responded to C! So instead of taking all the concerning comments [and teguran (reprimands) in DMs too] as a form of negativity, I embraced it and turned it into my trademark. Also, Altimet used to refer to himself as ‘A’ a lot in his music. And one of the last few words he mentioned in an interview before he retired from performing was telling the new rappers to “be better than me”. So I guess as a personal interpretation, I wanted to strive and be better than the OGs in the game eventually in my journey to the top.

Can you tell us a bit about your first single “VIRUS” produced by SonaOne of Def Jam South East Asia? Could be, is it about the current Covid-19 pandemic that’s happening right now?

A lot of people assumed that it is about the Covid-19 before the song was released, but I’m afraid that it is absolutely not related at all. This song was made before the RMO and I think the pandemic only just started to slowly spread in Malaysia. In the spirit of current news, I thought it would’ve been fun to use that as a reference in the song as a means of saying that my music is contagious. But then, the more I thought about it, this song is going to be my first introductory single into a wider audience in the music industry. I needed to make sure that this leaves a memorable mark in everyone’s minds. Thus, I embraced myself to be the ‘virus’ itself. Hoping to ‘infect’ the eardrums of listeners who had just heard of me for the first time, leaving them wanting for more. As much as this ‘spreads’ as a ‘virus’, it is also an antidote to ease everyone who’s been deprived of a good hit during the quarantine period. So without mentioning Covid-19, if you analyse the lyrics, there’s a lot of keyword elements about bacteria, hygiene etc. But they are interpreted as life lessons instead.

Could we also expect any forthcoming projects of you with Def Jam South East Asia after this?

Well, I don’t know yet. (No really, I don’t!) But if God wills, if “VIRUS” achieves its goal, let’s hope you guys will be addicted for more! So stream it everywhere and stay tuned! Regardless, my promise to you is that I’m definitely going back into the lab and continue writing more bops for you guys!

I’m pretty sure that the fans out there are curious about the cash that you won from participating in RapStar ERA. What was the first thing that you bought using the money?

Well, so far, I haven’t used the money yet. But this has always been my thing since I started performing, which is that whatever I earn from music, I try to put it back to the growth of my music. The first few pay checks I got from my early gigs, I used them for buying a new studio mic and headphones for better quality. So I won’t spend it on other material items but instead, probably build my home studio or channel it back into my future music video productions!

What are the reasons that especially keep you motivated and positive in pursuing your dream of becoming a successful artiste?

What keeps me motivated is honestly, the scene itself. I feel like listening to great materials by other rappers, both old and new, keeps me fired up. It’s like collecting the great energy around and channelling it into your own you know? Also, the goal is to share the good stuff I have because I would like to believe that I’ve got materials and a style that the world would want to pay attention to.

So it seems like you’ve been venturing more into trap music as heard in your discography. Would you one day, like to any other genres in showcasing your rap ability?

I’m actually flexible in different sounds, I guess my recent releases have been more into trap but I’m more open to trying out other genres as well! People always think rap needs to only be in hip hop, but rapping is just a skill like singing. If you can sing in other genres, surely rapping can apply too, no? Break the barriers! If not, we wouldn’t have Rage Against the Machine! Linkin Park! Old Town Road by Lil Nas X!

What do you really hope the world sees in ASYRFNSIR’s music?

The energy I bring in every track. I always try to associate myself with good vibes and good tunes for people to have a good time you know? The message will come together of course, and it may be about other issues instead of my own story. You can give my first release a listen called “Sunshine”, which is an ode to all women in conjunction of International Women’s Day. Plus, I don’t curse in my lyrics so you guys can bet your 3-year-old niece to listen to my music too.

Any hope for the local music scene in Malaysia?

A lot. I have so much hope and expectations from the music scene in Malaysia. We got young blood filled with talent who’s just trying to do what they do best you know? Some of these newer acts also have crossed borders and gained fans in our neighbourhood countries like Midnight Fusic. GARD is also one of the gems we have in the hip hop scene. Have you heard his EP with WUZGUT titled CPR (Club Perenang Rohani)? So yeah, I think we’re headed the right direction. Just let the people do their thing! And do your part in showing support as well. Also, one more thing I want to add, I feel like in order for us to push the standards, we should remove ‘local’ when we announce our talented musicians. For example ‘local singer’ or ‘local rapper’ or ‘local music’. An artiste is an artiste, and if people can take out the ‘Malaysian’ label in our artistes, we can finally improve the mind set of putting these people on the same pedestal as other international artistes.

QUICK TRIVIA Q&A WITH ASYRFNSIR!

Be rich or be smart? Smart. Smart people always have ways in making money. Boom.

Be handsome or be famous? Famous. Looks alone may not get you anywhere. Fame can help give you a greater voice of influence. It’s a great tool to create change in less fortunate communities and the lives of others as well.

Have a song with Eminem or Tupac? Tupac. The values and messages he carries in his rhythm and poetry.

Beat SonaOne or Joe Flizzow in a rap battle? Hmm, okay in RapStar ERA, Joe Flizzow was the judge for one of the rounds we had which was a rap battle. No disrespect, but if you could be the judge, then damn, they should just give you the crown already.

Live in Paris or Japan? Japan! Have always admired the Japanese lifestyle and values they have. They’re also very innovative! Constantly levelling up! Amazing. I can imagine living there.

Have 9 lives like cats or own 9 Porches? 9 lives man. Create a new legacy in every life you’re given. Boom! Also, you got 9 Porches for what? Parking susah guna Grab jugak. (At last, you’re going to be using Grab anyways because of parkings.)

1 million dollars to save in your bank account or give it away to charities? Invest in things to help yourself first and the people around you. Only then use the tools and influence you have to help the less fortunate. I am sometimes sceptical on donating money to charities, because you don’t handle the accounts so you don’t know where the money goes and what is spent on.

Eat pizza for your whole life or rendang instead? PIZZA FOR LIFE!

Listen to ASYRFNSIR’s latest single, “VIRUS”:

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sciencevsromance · 5 years

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2018 Index: Film

I usually hold off on these for a couple weeks into the year to allow myself time to catch up, but it turns out that I saw almost everything I needed to before the end of the December. Since then, with few exceptions, my ranked list remained very stable since about mid-November.

In general, I think 2018 was a very good film year. I saw and liked a whole lot of movies. However, it might speak less to the quality of 2018 than to the exceptional slate of movies in 2017 to say that I honestly don’t know how many of this year’s favorites would’ve found a spot in last year’s top twelve.

Below, lightly edited versions of things I’d previously written, posted, or tweeted about the dozen films at the top of my charts.

Roma: Alfonso Cuarón’s semi-autobiographical recollection of his nanny in a well-off home in the titular district of Mexico City is shot-for-shot the most cinematically gorgeous movie of the year. Although this is one of Netflix’s showiest acquisitions and may soon be available on your televisions, it deserves to be seen and heard on the biggest screen and most exceptional sound system you can find. Working without his usual cinematography collaborator Emmanuel Lubezki, Cuarón shot the film himself in lustrous black and white. Each frame bursts with life, both from the compositions and from the tremendous performances, in particular from newcomer Yalitza Aparicio. I’ve seen this twice and feel like I could watch it dozens of times. In that respect, I guess that it’s nice that it’s sitting there on Netflix waiting for me whenever I want to dip back into these rich waters.

The Rider: I can’t begin comprehend how this movie is so good. Chloé Zhao found something truly special out west with Brady, his family, the horses and the gobsmackingly beautiful landscapes. Elegiac, yet vibrating with life, sorrow, and hope. By the end, the confrontation with these real lives and their tough choices was deeply moving; and I’m not even that much of a horse- (or people-) person.

Free Solo: Free Solo captures, in vertiginous detail, Alex Honnold’s superhuman attempt to summit Yosemite’s legendary El Capitan. Walking into this movie at Telluride, I naively imagined that climbing a 500-foot summit was itself the impossible challenge. But I quickly came to understand that Honnold was going to try it alone. Without any climbing ropes. Panic and stress weeping ensued, with the following 90 minutes among the most anxious I have ever been in a movie theater. The only things that kept me from fleeing the scene to avoid a massive anxiety attack were a beer and the knowledge that (spoiler) Alex at least survived to be in town to promote the film. Aside from the stunning footage documenting his preparations and climbs, co-directors Jimmy Chin and Chai Vasarhelyi also document his budding relationship, friendships with other climbers, and interrogate the ways he weighs the very serious risk of certain death that would result from one missed foothold. It is an utterly thrilling film and deeply satisfying to watch with a crowd.

If Beale Street Could Talk: No one films people looking at each other quite like Barry Jenkins. This adaptation of James Baldwin tries and does a whole lot, but mostly it just sings.

Paddington 2: Last year’s The Shape of Water left me cold. Throughout it’s Oscar run, I felt like a monster for never really finding myself invested in Sally Hawkins’s fishman relationship, but now I’ve seen her mother a bear and maybe everything’s OK with my internal emotions processing systems. This is nose-to-tail the most charming movie of the year. Hugh Grant is a delight with disguise work. No you’re crying through PADDINGTON 2. Who am I and how did this happen to me?

The Favorite: Like his previous films, this court drama is wickedly funny, off-kilter, visually arresting, strongly acted, but it’s also maybe the first Yorgos Lanthimos joint that I have felt comfortable recommend widely without fear of reprisal.

Shoplifters: Kore-eda Hirokazu won this year’s Palme d’Or at Cannes with a deeply compelling investigation of the meaning of family. The film opens with a father-son duo performing a cute-ish bit of supermarket thievery to supplement the menu for their very crowded multi-generational household on the outskirts of Tokyo. Things become more interesting when the group rescues an abandoned young girl from the neighborhood on a cold evening. In turns meditative, insightful, and surprising, the humanistic portrait is ultimately a revelatory achievement.

Cold War: Loosely about music shaping identity—traditional, national, personal, romantic—Cold War is a bit light on plot, but with images, songs, and performances this strong it really doesn’t matter. Pawlikowski’s camera sure adores Joanna Kulig; her ambitious rise through the state music system and romance with Tomasz Kot, spans decades and countries, all in ravishing black and white.

Eighth Grade: First time director Bo Burnham captures an early-teen sense of isolation and loneliness with such earnest specificity that I was squirming with recognition as breakout lead actress Elsie Fisher bravely forges her way through a last regret- and nostalgia-filled week of middle school, filming motivational YouTube videos for an audience of none (or rather, herself), constantly scrolling through Instagram, and navigating the minefield of a charity invitation to a popular kid’s pool party. This could’ve gone wrong in so many ways, but none of the (many) cringes are played for cruel laughs and the sincerity is brilliantly calibrated. I suppose all of that explains how I feel such residual fondness for something that made me want to chew off my own face out of sympathetic anxiety as the slim ninety minute running time felt like decades.

Leave No Trace: In her follow up to Winter’s Bone, Debra Granik again focuses her lens on families struggling to survive in the face of poverty. This time, it’s an ex-military father with PTSD (Ben Foster) and his daughter (outstanding newcomer, Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie) who have illegally set up camp in wild and wooded public park the outskirts of Portland like a realer, poorer, less insufferable version of Captain Fantastic. I expected something that would be hard, but rewarding, to watch. I was right, but not in the ways that I suspected. A story like this could’ve been filled with melodramatic external obstacles — creepy people in the park, cruel indifference of social workers, or any sorts of dire jeopardy. Instead, the wise and insightful script is one in which almost all of the conflict that they face is internal. The daughter is generally well cared for, incredibly smart, and as well-adjusted as you could ever expect from someone raised in the woods and always on the move. The people they encounter along the way are almost universally kind and generous within reason. All of this serves to emphasize the harsh reality of the utter insolvability of her father’s unspecified PTSD that has kept them essentially hidden from society for much of her life. The resolution is both heartbreaking and a tiny bit hopeful.

Support the Girls: Easily Andrew Bujalski’s very best film. Regina Hall is a wonder as an over-subscribed, too-invested, manager of a Hootersesque bar on a particularly rough day.

Burning: Of the films in my top 12, Burning is among one I saw (second) most recently. When I initially logged it on my ranked list, it was somewhere on the edge of my my top 40. Yet each time I tinkered with the ordering, it moved up little by little, the indelible images and mysterious plot refusing to let go, increasing my esteem for it with each passing week. I think I know what’s going on, but its a testament to Steven Yeun’s supporting performance that I may never know whether his character was just a wealthy chill techbro or Korea’s answer to Patrick Bateman.

#2018 annual report #film #best of 2018

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funnythingshere0-blog · 6 years

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Variety Critics Name the 12 Best Movies From Cannes 2018

New Post has been published on https://funnythingshere.xyz/variety-critics-name-the-12-best-movies-from-cannes-2018/

Variety Critics Name the 12 Best Movies From Cannes 2018

The 71st Cannes Film Festival may have gotten off to a bumpy start, underwhelming audiences with Iranian director Asghar Farhadi’s Spanish-language “Everybody Knows” and taking several days to serve up anything that felt universally praised (eventual Palme d’Or winner Hirokazu Kore-eda’s “Shoplifters”), but by the end, even those who had arrived skeptical seemed to agree that the overall quality of this auteur-thin, American-light edition was higher than usual. Looking back on 12 days of discovery, here are a dozen films that most impressed Variety chief critics Owen Gleiberman and Peter Debruge.

BlacKkKlansman

Spike Lee has made three extraordinary films that toss incendiary racial firecrackers: the classic “Do the Right Thing” (1989), the majestic “Malcolm X” (1992), and the wild (and insanely underrated) black-face satire “Bamboozled” (2000). Here, for the first time since then, he creates a scalding zeitgeist spectacle of American bigotry laid bare. Set in Colorado Springs in the early ’70s, “BlacKkKlansman” is an undercover thriller, at once light-fingered, ominous, and deeply funny. It casts John David Washington as Ron Stallworth, a rookie cop as furtive as Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, who infiltrates the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan by impersonating a white racist over the phone. Adam Driver, as his fellow officer, joins the chapter in person and hoodwinks these small-town haters, who are so open about the ugliness of their “Keep America white!” paranoia that they could almost be…the voices of the alt-right today. The story is ingenious but slightly cracked, never more so than when Stallworth bonds with David Duke (Topher Grace), the KKK Grand Wizard who puts a civilized face on racial terrorism. “BlacKkKlansman” is another Lee firecracker, and when it comes out this summer you’d better believe it will detonate. — Owen Gleiberman

Birds of Passage

After leading audiences into seldom-seen recesses of the Amazon jungle with “Embrace of the Serpent,” Oscar-nominated director Ciro Guerra and creative/life partner Cristina Gallego (here billed as co-director) show us a side of Colombian history that has somehow never reached the outside world, revealing how the indigenous Wayuu people were drawn into the early days of the country’s drug problem — a period known as “la Bonanza Marimbera,” when impoverished natives tempted by a chance for illicit wealth found themselves caught up in the marijuana trade, which in turn sparked outbursts of violence that devastated the community. If that sounds like the setup for a formulaic drug-trafficking epic, think again. Mixing established actors with wonderfully authentic-looking nonprofessionals, Guerra and Gallego go out of their way to document the Wayuu traditions, giving the entire story a visually stunning, hyper-surreal quality that reinforces how such criminal activity directly threatened an almost mystical way of life. — Peter Debruge

Climax

Gaspar Noé’s latest plunge into the forbidden zone is a drug-shock party movie, and for 45 minutes it’s mesmerizing. We’re in a rehearsal studio that looks like a bomb shelter, where 20 young dancers perform a double-jointed krump-in-overdrive EDM ensemble number that’s one of the most astonishing dance sequences you’ve ever seen. Noé then draws us into who these people are — at least, until the LSD in the spiked sangria they’re drinking kicks in. At that point, the movie becomes a descent into hell that’s both gripping and numbing; by the end, less has become more. Yet as bad trips about The Beast Within go, this one remains an experience, which is why it may have been the most buzzed-about movie at Cannes. — OG

Shoplifters

Unlike much of the Western world, theft is so uncommon in Japan that people often leave their bicycles parked unchained. Culturally speaking, that suggests just how deep the shame must be for a clan of petty criminals who rely on shoplifting to survive in Hirokazu Koreeda’s deeply humanist family drama. “Whatever’s in a store doesn’t belong to anyone yet,” reasons the gang’s ersatz father figure, and in a strange way, that logic extends to the abandoned little girl he finds starving and shivering on his way home one evening. Because her parents clearly don’t want the child, the man essentially adopts her (others might say “kidnaps”), setting up the director’s most sensitive look yet into the meaning of family. As Sakura Andô’s character heartbreakingly asks toward the end, “Is giving birth enough to make you a mother?” Turns out the answer isn’t anywhere near as simple as we thought. — PD

The Image Book

Jean-Luc Godard’s momentous new film feels like a bulletin. It’s the rare work of his that has the aura of a horror film (it’s suffused with images of violence, intertwining old movies and new atrocities), and the world he’s looking at through his color-saturated semiotic kaleidoscope is one that’s spinning out of control. Godard, who has now come around to ditching actors entirely, works in a free-associational collage mode that suggests MTV meets the Beatles’ “Revolution 9.” He rips images out of context, crashing together bits of music, old film clips, and video footage of terrorist murders to let us see and hear each one anew. The political killers seem to be carrying out a degraded — or maybe heightened — version of what the movies taught them. On the soundtrack, speaking to us in a voice so low and sonorous and croaky with import that he sounds like Charles Aznavour crossed with Gollum, the 87-year-old Godard says, “War is here.” He means that it’s here, and that it’s coming. —OG

Burning

In much the same way that binge-viewing has ruined the television experience, film festivals subvert the way movies should be seen by forcing audiences to cram multiple screenings into the same day, sinking their teeth into the next ambitious artistic statement before fully digesting the last. Consider this a partial explanation for my not immediately “getting” South Korean master Lee Chang-dong’s “Burning,” although no film has stuck with me more at Cannes — in part because it grapples with a poor, powerless character’s desire to find meaning in an unfair and often senseless world, meticulously teasing certain possibilities while denying easy explanations at every turn. What begins as a light romance inexorably builds to something much more complex — an existential thriller, of sorts — as an insecure writer fancies himself the protagonist in a mystery of his own imagining, one that may not actually exist, and whose irreconcilable ambiguity still haunts me a dozen screenings later. — PD

Bergman — A Year in a Life

Jane Magnusson’s portrait of Ingmar Bergman in the pivotal year of 1957 (though it covers his entire life and career) is one of the most honest and overflowing portraits of a film artist you’re likely to see. It captures Bergman as the tender and prickly, effusive and demon-driven, tyrannical and half-crazy celebrity-genius he was: a man so consumed by work, and by his obsessive relationships with women, that he seemed to be carrying on three lives at once. It was in 1957 that he first ascended to the iconic plateau of his creative power and fame, and Magnusson shows how his insatiable workload was about creating a bubble of alternative reality he lived inside: a neurotic fairy tale that never had to end. What got left in the lurch were his children and families. Without fail, Bergman’s films were about himself (they turned out to be the one place where he could be entirely sincere), and “A Year in a Life” captures his hunger and genius, the stories he needed to tell, and something else — a moment in the 20th century when a great many people got hooked on movies that turned the darkness of our hidden hearts into drama that wounded and cleansed you. — OG

Cold War

After struggling in near obscurity for the first part of his career, director Pawel Pawlikowski surprised everyone by making a risky black-and-white art film called “Ida,” earning the foreign-language Oscar for the gamble. Now, after having discovered an approach that earned him the respect he craved, it takes considerably less guts to make a second film in the same format, and yet, “Cold War” is more accomplished and satisfying in many ways, relaxing the Bressonian austerity somewhat to deliver an elegant film noir about the impossible relationship between a Polish musician (Tomasz Kot) and the beautiful young singer (Joanna Kulig) he recruits with the clear intention of seducing. The film was not only set but also written in a pre-#MeToo state of mind, and yet, as in “Ida,” Pawlikowski has not only created a formidable female role, but discovered a star in the process. — PD

Arctic

A quiet and captivating slow-build adventure film, starring Mads Mikkelsen as a researcher-explorer who has crash-landed in the frozen wilderness. It’s the first feature directed by Joe Penna, the Brazilian video auteur who became a sensation on YouTube, so you might expect it to be made with a touch of 21st-century flash. On the contrary, Penna tells this solo-survival story with an austerity that makes it feel, at times, like you’re seeing an ice-cap remake of “A Man Escaped.” There are no cut corners, no overly obvious only-in-the-movies gambits. This stranded man has little to rely on beyond his will, so we feel at every step that he could be us. The film is built around the gruff mystique of Mikkelsen, whose acting, like the filmmaking, never betrays a hint of showiness. His height and stalwart presence fill the frame, but his face looks inward and outward at the same time; it’s tense, focused, ravaged. The movie, in its rough-hewn, trudging-through-the-tundra, one-step-at-a-time way, is the anti-“Cast Away,” and that’s what’s good and, finally, moving about it. — OG

Girl

It was a good year for LGBT cinema at Cannes, with two gay films in competition (Christophe Honoré’s “Sorry Angel” and Yann Gonzalez’s “Knife + Heart”) and another four outside-the-box offerings sprinkled throughout the lineup. Both the Queer Palm and the Camera d’Or (awarded to the best first feature) deservedly went to Belgian director Lukas Dhont’s sensitively made debut: an intimate, infinitely relatable look into a 15-year-old’s uphill battle to become a ballerina, complicated by the fact that the aspiring dancer in question was born into a boy’s body. The filmmakers held an open casting call to find their star, cisgender actor Victor Polster, who juggles the role’s many demands, while literally embodying the film’s conflict — which isn’t conservative parents or homophobic bullies (virtually everyone is supportive here), but an internal one, where the young character’s transformation isn’t happening nearly as fast as she’d like. — PD

Whitney

Kevin Macdonald’s documentary about the life and death of Whitney Houston is entrancingly well-done. You can’t watch it without hoping that somehow, the beautiful enraptured young singer you’re seeing will find a way to defeat her demons, that they won’t drag her down. Cocaine addiction, of course, is an insidious monster, but to see Houston’s life story is always to be buzzing with a single question: Why? Why did the most astonishingly gifted singer of her generation go down a road of darkness and self-sabotage? The most knee-jerk answer is that she should never have gotten involved with the lightweight B-boy smarm-dog Bobby Brown. There’s truth to that, but as “Whitney” captures it’s too easy an answer. Macdonald pays tribute to the goose-bump bliss of Houston’s sound, but mostly he creates a multi-faceted portrait of Houston that allows us to touch the intertwined forces that did her in. It’s all capped with a smoking gun: Mary Jones, Whitney’s aunt and longtime assistant, claims there was a sexual abuser in her family, and that Whitney, as a child, was one of the victims. In a charged moment, Jones names the abuser: It’s the singer Dee Dee Warwick (who died in 2008). This is the missing piece in a potently plausible vision of how, and why, Whitney Houston couldn’t accept who she was. As a singer, she was graced with a gift that could heal the world. But she lacked the greatest love of all. — OG

Happy As Lazzaro

As diverse as the 21 films in Cannes’ official competition were this year, none seemed more surprising than Alice Rohrwacher’s third feature, which begins as a fanciful modern fable and ends as a wrenching critique of those overlooked and exploited by contemporary capitalism. Adopting a style that recalls Italian filmmaker-poet Pier Paolo Pasolini, the director mixes rugged realism with a dash of the supernatural, presenting a hard-working young sharecropper named Lazzaro who, in his wide-eyed naïveté, could be the Chauncey Gardiner of a tobacco estate in decline — a little soft in the head, but graced with a kind of magic. Though you never know where this movie is headed, something especially unexpected happens at the midway point that sets the already-unique tale on an altogether new course. Some audiences check out when the story shifts, although it is here that as relatively new voices go, Rohrwacher proves she has something fresh to say. — PD