Now that the nominees for the 2019 Academy Awards have been announced, we can get down to the business of discussing the actual Most Good, Important, Kick-ass Movies of the Year.
No, it's not just the best list because it's mine.
. . . Ok, yes, it is. But you clicked anyway, so you may as well keep going.
Things are gonna be a little bit different this year. The usual suspects of 10 (or so) "Favorites" will be present, along with Disappointments, Surprises, and so forth. However, rather than ranking films in preferential order, I'll be going by release order, because this year was stressful enough without having to choose between children.
Additionally, this will be - as usual - a list missing some films that would undoubtedly make the cut if I'd had the chance to actually see them, but oh well. That's what the first category is for.
This One is Cheating:
PROFESSOR MARSTON AND THE WONDER WOMEN
Oh. Wow.
If you're at all familiar with the story of how William Moulton Marson got into the business of writing comics and specifically creating the character of Diana of Themyscira, the Wonder Woman, then you're in for a treat. Marston lived a complicated and controversial life, and the film acts as both a compelling drama about his work with his wife Elizabeth at Harvard as well as a tender and surprisingly funny romance between William, Elizabeth, and their research assistant and poly-amorous partner.
Marston's firmly-held beliefs that underpinned both the glorification of bondage and the superiority of the Amazonian society in the Wonder Woman mythos, and the dramatizaiton of these set against the highly conservative and reactionary time in which he lived would make for an engaging narrative even without the presence of such an icon of popular culture.
As it is, it's rather nice that 2017 gifted us with two genuinely great Wonder Woman films.
Biggest Surprise:
TEEN TITANS GO! TO THE MOVIES
I know what you're thinking, and yes - I'm dead serious. On the surface, TTGttM (look, I'm not typing that whole thing out every time) is basically "Deadpool for gradeschoolers," but it's actually a very damn good version of that.
Like any group of young upstarts walking in large footprints, the Titans just want someone to take their talent (if not their attitude) seriously. This big-screen adaptation of the cartoon show makes the concept of the titular heroes (Robin, Beast Boy, Cyborg, Starfire, and Raven) trying to up their superhero game in order to attain the brass ring of a big Hollywood film adaptation of their exploits work as a solid metaphor for their personal growth and team dynamics, it also has some razor-sharp commentary on the industry's obsessions with all things Batman, a hilarious musical number, and an extended time-travel gag that's easily the darkest thing I've seen in any "kid's" movie since Watership Down.
Look, trust me on this one. For all the kid-facing humor, this is a solid superhero comedy that does a better job of Deadpool-ing its genre than the actual Deadpool movie that released this year.
Biggest Disappointment:
SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY
This feels a bit harsh, because I didn't hate Solorigins. In fact, I found it a pretty fun little heist/western with some crackerjack casting (Donald Glover for life). Unfortunately, it still succumbs to the problem of its own concept, and as such it only ends up being the best version of a bad idea. . . under the circumstances. And it didn't have to be.
"A Young Han Solo Movie without Harrison Ford" was never a great idea, and the one element that truly got me intrigued from the start was the hiring of Phil Lord and Chris Miller (The LEGO Movie, 21 Jump Street, 22 Jump Street) as directors. But when the pair were unceremoniously fired most of the way through filming, things got more than a little dicey. There are still a few moments where what must have been some of their work shines through, and Ron Howard salvaged a fun romp from the pieces, but given Lord & Miller's talent for turning bad ideas into great films (and their involvement with another entry later in this list), it's impossible not to pine for what could have been.
At least we'll always have Donald Glover and his cape collection.
The 10 Honorable Mentions:
Game Night, Avengers: Infinity War, Blockers, A Quiet Place, Aquaman, Annihilation, Mandy, Creed II, Incredibles 2, Bumblebee.
Some of these you can read up on on your own time (I'm still shocked that Creed II managed to be a better version of Rocky II, Rocky III, and Rocky IV than those actual Rocky movies), but these all make me happy. I'm amazed that Infinity War works at all, let alone that it managed to possibly be as big a cultural "moment" as the first Avengers movie (if not quite as good a film). Game Night and Blockers are both ludicrously funny comedies, but the former has both beautiful direction and an airtight script while the latter is shockingly emotional. A Quiet Place and Annihilation helped (in vastly different ways) to make 2018 a banner year for horror and sci-fi films with well-drawn characters and thematic heft about how we deal with trauma, Incredibles 2 actually managed to be worth the wait, and Mandy. . .
You know what, just go watch Mandy as cold as possible and thank me later. Especially if you're a fan of Nicholas Cage going "full Nicholas Cage." Because. . . he does.
Runners-Up:
BAD TIMES A THE EL ROYALE / MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - FALLOUT
On the surface, these two couldn't be more different - one a slow-burn thriller about a hotel straddling state lines and the guests who get more dangerous the more of them arrive, the other the 6th in a blockbuster franchise that's come to define itself by seeing what kind of ludicrous stunts it can have Tom Cruise pull off without literally killing himself on-camera.
But both films are examples of talented filmmakers working with killer casts creating ever-escalating tension and explosive release of tension in works of pop genre brilliance. Drew Goddard, director and co-writer of The Cabin in the Woods and screenwriter of The Martian, makes something like a deconstruction of Tarantino-esque films (but also "a Tarantino movie for people don't particularly like Tarantino movies," if that makes sense?) that puts a slew of pots on the stove, turns up the heat, and just when you think it's about to boil over, sets the whole kitchen on fire.
Whereas Christopher McQuarrie, hot off of the also-fantastic Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, arguably delivers the Dark Knight of the M:I franchise in a high-stakes unstoppable-force-meets-immovable-object game of chicken between Tom Cruise and Henry Cavill. From actual HALO jumps to bone-crunching brawls to actor-piloted helicopter pursuits, Fallout crafts the sort of practical spectacle-filled set pieces on a scale that used to belong to golden age epics like Ben-Hur while also finally delivering a fully-formed character for Cruise's Ethan Hunt.
And all of that's impressive even before you find out that much of this movie was written on the fly..
The Really Good Stuff:
PADDINGTON 2
The original Paddington is a damn-near perfect film, at once a beautifully kind treatise on tolerance toward immigration, a raucous family comedy, and a sublimely-paced adventure.
And somehow, the sequel is even better.
If you've seen the first film, you know how unlikely that is, but it's true Paddington 2 doesn't just feature the same deft direction from Paul King and precise set-up-and-pay-off writing from King and Simon Farnaby, but it's also got a banner performance from Brendan Gleeson and an absolute all-timer from Hugh Grant. It's a shot of pure joy from start to stop, crafting a world somewhere halfway between Walt Disney and Wes Anderson in terms of magical realism and oddball sensibilities, but with an enormous beating heart that couldn't be more real.
Remember, if you're kind a polite, the world will be right.
BLACK PANTHER
I knew that we were in for something special the moment Ryan "Creed" Coogler was announced for the job of directing MARVEL's royal Wakandan, but even I didn't expect Black Panther to blow the roof off of pop culture the way it did. This isn't just a great "superhero" movie, but it's a definitive argument for why they and blockbuster entertainment in general is just as good and necessary for the medium as anything else on this list.
As much as I've enjoyed the MARVEL Cinematic Universe, this absolutely raises the bar so that even mega-events like Infinity War feel like they're racing to catch up. Coogler created not just an intoxicating and beautiful world big enough to host a whole franchise of its own, he wove it from the threads of the stories and lives of the world happening around us right now. Black Panther is both a push back against the evils of the world trying to divide us today and an inspirational portrait of a better tomorrow.
Wakanda forever.
YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE
I'm not sure if "Art House Taken" as a pitch is a great idea or a terrible one, but holy crap does Lynne Ramsay ever write and direct the hell out of the best version of exactly that you could possibly want. If. . . if that's the sort of thing you'd want?
Joaquin Phoenix gives the performance of his career as Joe, a traumatized veteran who keeps the demons at bay rescuing kidnapped and exploited girls until one job turns out not to be much more than he bargained for. The atmosphere of the film wraps around its story like a splintered fever dream - the "action" is never heroic or cathartic or even hardly ever in frame, Johnny Greenwood's music is atonal and jarring to reflect Joe's fractured mood (only to find tune and rhythm when Joe gains the focus of a mission), and the entire film manages to both capture the transitory nature of existence while leaving an indelible impression upon the viewer.
You Were Never Really Here packs so much hurt and heartbreak and healing into 89 minutes that it almost make me embarrassed for longer movies. It can be a rough experience, but by the end it feels like breaking through to something transcendental.
WON'T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR?
And just in case you needed something to pick up the pieces after that last entry (or the entirety of last year), here's a documentary about Fred Rogers that - well, okay, that's probably gonna make you a sobbing mess too, but maybe the good kind?
There are few figures in modern popular culture with the immediate and unassailable cache as Fred Rogers, and the deep cynicism of our modern era would lead one to assume that any conclusive documentary would "have" to unearth or attempt to semi-manufacture a controversy or a dark secret or some sort of arc that adheres to the staid structure of "rise, fall, and return" of most documentaries or biopic engineered 3-act structures. Which Won't You Be My Neighbor could not care less about.
Which isn't to say that there's not a story here, in that every life lived is a rich narrative of its own - it's just that it turns out that, almost completely, what you saw on the "Mr. Roger's Neighborhood" show was exactly what you got, and the track that this film chooses to take is simply to take the voices from his life and tell the story of his passion for television as a teaching tool, for early childhood education, and his desire to leave the world a better place than he found it.
And this is where the film delivers those emotional wallops, simply by telling these incredibly sweet beats of people who's lives were changed for the better by this man, made only all the more valuable by the melancholy truth that a single life couldn't change more.
SORRY TO BOTHER YOU
Ok, if you haven't seen this, drop what you're doing right now and go watch it. It's available to rent on Amazon Prime, it's free to stream on Hulu, the disk is cheap right now, just watch it.
It's rare to see such an explosive combination of the singular voice, insightful commentary, and brass-tacks talent on display in Boots Riley's debut film from a first-time director. On the surface, Sorry to Bother You is about a young telemarketer working the grind who catches a break because of an uncanny talent on the phone that he turns into a meteoric rise through the ranks of his corporation, and about the questionable choices that he makes along the way. But it's also about race and class, about worker's rights, and about the commodification of people in our society.
There's also a turn at the end of the second act that will either totally put you off the film or hook you completely into the film's world and intent. If nothing else, it's absolutely unforgettable.
BLACKkKLANSMAN
The only thing about this film that'll piss you off more than the fact that it took this long for Spike Lee to finally get a Best Director nomination is, by design, the ending of this film.
BlacKkKlansman is very loosely-based the true story of police officer Ron Stallworth, the first black officer and detective in Colorado Springs, and his infiltration of the Ku Klux Klan, and it both feels like a bit of a genre experiment for Lee while also being a furious exclamation point to a lot of the themes that he's been exploring during his career. It's one part semi-biopic, one part period exploitation throwback action/black comedy, and several parts cultural critique of issues of the time that have been depressingly pervasive to this day.
While the "taken from dramatized real-life events" structure can be a bit janky at times, Lee's master of the pinballing tones and the absolute stomping that the actors are doing in their roles (especially Adam Driver and John David Washington) carry this immeasurably. But the film's unwillingness to let the audience off the hook for modern troubles is one of this movie's biggest buttons, and it pushes it and holds it down for nearly the entire run-time.
Because this is not just a story of "what happened back when," it's a "back when" narrative that tears down the comfort of distance to be explicitly about the cycle of hatred and persecution that continues to this day.
CRAZY RICH ASIANS
I love romantic comedies. I consider Clueless to be a bone-fide classic, I adored Netflix's To All the Boys I've Loved Before, and I've watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding an embarrassing number of times, so I was already a bit of a mark for Crazy Rich Asians.
But then it went and had to be amazing.
Part of why this film works so very well - apart from being a window to a culture that too few audiences get the chance to either feel see on film or feel represented by in their entertainment - is that it plays in the expected rom-com sandbox while steadfastly refusing to fall into the familiar holes when it comes to character conflicts that drive the genre. The story of Rachael Chu discovering that his boyfriend, Nick, is heir apparent to Singapore's wealthiest family and the gauntlet she runs as she meets her family overseas is not a the usual story of lover's quarrels and secrets and lies revealed that are almost always used to manufacture drama for a Lead Couple. Nick and Rachael are loving and supportive of each other and the drama all comes from external, but still very human and well-defined, characters.
The central of which being Michelle Yeoh as Nick's iron-willed mother, Eleanor, in a performance that could have been (and evidently was, in the novel) a stock Mean Mom character but is instead a multi-layered, heartbreaking and even understandable character. Eleanor and Rachael's relationship is given as much care as the central romance in most rom-coms, told in sumptuous visuals and emotional encounters that culminates in an already-iconic Mahjong game.
SEARCHING
And now for something completely different!
Where nearly all the other entries on this list are notable for their command of traditional cinematic language, Searching is a film that slyly redefines what that much of that language can even be. Chronicling the efforts of a distraught father trying to help the police solve the mystery of his missing daughter, Aneesh Chaganty's tells a story completely through computer screens - webcams, video calls, search windows, spreadsheets, and even calendar managing are the tools John Cho's semi-estranged father David uses to try to piece together hidden bits of his daughter's secretive life through her social media presence and online hobbies.
Now, pulling this off while telling a solid story would be an accomplishment in its own right, but Chaganty not only manages to wring shocking emotional weight from what could otherwise be described as static or impersonal digital mechanics, he uses the multi-media digital language of "everything is connected, all phones sand computers are also TVs" to convey an incredible amount of information at once. Searching is 100 minutes long, but has enough subplots, red herrings, side characters, and detours that - if you'd filmed it more traditionally - if could have easily run 2 1/2 hours.
Instead, Chaganty genuinely changes the game for the possibilities of visual storytelling while also serving up a barn-burner of a leading performance from John Cho. In his first feature film.
THE NIGHT COMES FOR US
So, some of you are aware that I'm quite the fan of The Raid and The Raid 2. Indonesian martial arts films have exploded during the last decade, and The Night Comes For Us reunites two of the leads from The Raid by pitting Joe Talsim as an ex-enforcer against Iko Uwais as his ex-partner. Timo Tjajhanto (hot off of working with Iko Uwais in Headshot) crafts a heightened reality of crime lords, heroic ex-cons, mysterious operatives, and assassins all chasing down an innocent girl.
Talsim and Uwais both get to flex some new muscles here, as well as showcasing their jaw-dropping talent for beating the hell out of rooms of people, which - boy oh boy, are they ever good at. The Night Comes For Us is violent even by the standards of similar films, setting up a situation where most of the major players are essentially Michael Myers and Jason Vorhees, wreaking havoc on waves of meat-sacks and on each other.
If you don't have much of a stomach for violence, this is not for you. But if you like a heavy dose of red in your martial arts movies, the kinetic character work, narrative through action and the sheer abandon with which the actors and stunt-people handle themselves here is every bit as much a spectacle as you'd get in a film with ten times the budget.
SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE
Ok, when I said this list wasn't exactly ranked?
I kinda lied.
Into the Spider-verse is my favorite film of 2018. It's my favorite film featuring the wall-crawler, and if you think that's a steep hill to climb, I also think it might be, full-stop, my favorite superhero film ever made. I love this movie, from its striking art style and bold animation choices to its of-the-moment soundtrack to its unapologetic melding of comic book and cinematic visual storytelling to its riotous and heartwarming characters - especially Miles, who emerges as one of the most sympathetic leads in a genre built on putting yourself in a hero's shoes.
There are better and more qualified writers who can tell you why Miles racial background and cultural heritage are important - not just to young viewers who will see their own faces in his even as his reflection is superimposed upon the face of one of the most recognizable characters in modern popular culture, and not just to families who hear him switching between multiple languages in his home and community without even the crutch of subtitles. But at the end of the day, we need Miles to be different from Peter Parker because that also accents how much they're alike. Vulnerable but strong, good-natured but ill-mannered, brilliant but scattered, and above all, choosing to do the right thing instead of the easy thing.
Because our world is very much in need of someone who will make that choice, and like the film says - "We are all Spider-Man. And we're counting on you."
No, it's not just the best list because it's mine.
. . . Ok, yes, it is. But you clicked anyway, so you may as well keep going.
Additionally, this will be - as usual - a list missing some films that would undoubtedly make the cut if I'd had the chance to actually see them, but oh well. That's what the first category is for.
This One is Cheating:
PROFESSOR MARSTON AND THE WONDER WOMEN
Oh. Wow.
If you're at all familiar with the story of how William Moulton Marson got into the business of writing comics and specifically creating the character of Diana of Themyscira, the Wonder Woman, then you're in for a treat. Marston lived a complicated and controversial life, and the film acts as both a compelling drama about his work with his wife Elizabeth at Harvard as well as a tender and surprisingly funny romance between William, Elizabeth, and their research assistant and poly-amorous partner.
Marston's firmly-held beliefs that underpinned both the glorification of bondage and the superiority of the Amazonian society in the Wonder Woman mythos, and the dramatizaiton of these set against the highly conservative and reactionary time in which he lived would make for an engaging narrative even without the presence of such an icon of popular culture.
As it is, it's rather nice that 2017 gifted us with two genuinely great Wonder Woman films.
Biggest Surprise:
TEEN TITANS GO! TO THE MOVIES
I know what you're thinking, and yes - I'm dead serious. On the surface, TTGttM (look, I'm not typing that whole thing out every time) is basically "Deadpool for gradeschoolers," but it's actually a very damn good version of that.
Like any group of young upstarts walking in large footprints, the Titans just want someone to take their talent (if not their attitude) seriously. This big-screen adaptation of the cartoon show makes the concept of the titular heroes (Robin, Beast Boy, Cyborg, Starfire, and Raven) trying to up their superhero game in order to attain the brass ring of a big Hollywood film adaptation of their exploits work as a solid metaphor for their personal growth and team dynamics, it also has some razor-sharp commentary on the industry's obsessions with all things Batman, a hilarious musical number, and an extended time-travel gag that's easily the darkest thing I've seen in any "kid's" movie since Watership Down.
Look, trust me on this one. For all the kid-facing humor, this is a solid superhero comedy that does a better job of Deadpool-ing its genre than the actual Deadpool movie that released this year.
Biggest Disappointment:
SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY
This feels a bit harsh, because I didn't hate Solorigins. In fact, I found it a pretty fun little heist/western with some crackerjack casting (Donald Glover for life). Unfortunately, it still succumbs to the problem of its own concept, and as such it only ends up being the best version of a bad idea. . . under the circumstances. And it didn't have to be.
"A Young Han Solo Movie without Harrison Ford" was never a great idea, and the one element that truly got me intrigued from the start was the hiring of Phil Lord and Chris Miller (The LEGO Movie, 21 Jump Street, 22 Jump Street) as directors. But when the pair were unceremoniously fired most of the way through filming, things got more than a little dicey. There are still a few moments where what must have been some of their work shines through, and Ron Howard salvaged a fun romp from the pieces, but given Lord & Miller's talent for turning bad ideas into great films (and their involvement with another entry later in this list), it's impossible not to pine for what could have been.
At least we'll always have Donald Glover and his cape collection.
The 10 Honorable Mentions:
Game Night, Avengers: Infinity War, Blockers, A Quiet Place, Aquaman, Annihilation, Mandy, Creed II, Incredibles 2, Bumblebee.
Some of these you can read up on on your own time (I'm still shocked that Creed II managed to be a better version of Rocky II, Rocky III, and Rocky IV than those actual Rocky movies), but these all make me happy. I'm amazed that Infinity War works at all, let alone that it managed to possibly be as big a cultural "moment" as the first Avengers movie (if not quite as good a film). Game Night and Blockers are both ludicrously funny comedies, but the former has both beautiful direction and an airtight script while the latter is shockingly emotional. A Quiet Place and Annihilation helped (in vastly different ways) to make 2018 a banner year for horror and sci-fi films with well-drawn characters and thematic heft about how we deal with trauma, Incredibles 2 actually managed to be worth the wait, and Mandy. . .
You know what, just go watch Mandy as cold as possible and thank me later. Especially if you're a fan of Nicholas Cage going "full Nicholas Cage." Because. . . he does.
Runners-Up:
BAD TIMES A THE EL ROYALE / MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - FALLOUT
On the surface, these two couldn't be more different - one a slow-burn thriller about a hotel straddling state lines and the guests who get more dangerous the more of them arrive, the other the 6th in a blockbuster franchise that's come to define itself by seeing what kind of ludicrous stunts it can have Tom Cruise pull off without literally killing himself on-camera.
But both films are examples of talented filmmakers working with killer casts creating ever-escalating tension and explosive release of tension in works of pop genre brilliance. Drew Goddard, director and co-writer of The Cabin in the Woods and screenwriter of The Martian, makes something like a deconstruction of Tarantino-esque films (but also "a Tarantino movie for people don't particularly like Tarantino movies," if that makes sense?) that puts a slew of pots on the stove, turns up the heat, and just when you think it's about to boil over, sets the whole kitchen on fire.
Whereas Christopher McQuarrie, hot off of the also-fantastic Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, arguably delivers the Dark Knight of the M:I franchise in a high-stakes unstoppable-force-meets-immovable-object game of chicken between Tom Cruise and Henry Cavill. From actual HALO jumps to bone-crunching brawls to actor-piloted helicopter pursuits, Fallout crafts the sort of practical spectacle-filled set pieces on a scale that used to belong to golden age epics like Ben-Hur while also finally delivering a fully-formed character for Cruise's Ethan Hunt.
And all of that's impressive even before you find out that much of this movie was written on the fly..
The Really Good Stuff:
PADDINGTON 2
The original Paddington is a damn-near perfect film, at once a beautifully kind treatise on tolerance toward immigration, a raucous family comedy, and a sublimely-paced adventure.
And somehow, the sequel is even better.
If you've seen the first film, you know how unlikely that is, but it's true Paddington 2 doesn't just feature the same deft direction from Paul King and precise set-up-and-pay-off writing from King and Simon Farnaby, but it's also got a banner performance from Brendan Gleeson and an absolute all-timer from Hugh Grant. It's a shot of pure joy from start to stop, crafting a world somewhere halfway between Walt Disney and Wes Anderson in terms of magical realism and oddball sensibilities, but with an enormous beating heart that couldn't be more real.
Remember, if you're kind a polite, the world will be right.
BLACK PANTHER
I knew that we were in for something special the moment Ryan "Creed" Coogler was announced for the job of directing MARVEL's royal Wakandan, but even I didn't expect Black Panther to blow the roof off of pop culture the way it did. This isn't just a great "superhero" movie, but it's a definitive argument for why they and blockbuster entertainment in general is just as good and necessary for the medium as anything else on this list.
As much as I've enjoyed the MARVEL Cinematic Universe, this absolutely raises the bar so that even mega-events like Infinity War feel like they're racing to catch up. Coogler created not just an intoxicating and beautiful world big enough to host a whole franchise of its own, he wove it from the threads of the stories and lives of the world happening around us right now. Black Panther is both a push back against the evils of the world trying to divide us today and an inspirational portrait of a better tomorrow.
Wakanda forever.
YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE
I'm not sure if "Art House Taken" as a pitch is a great idea or a terrible one, but holy crap does Lynne Ramsay ever write and direct the hell out of the best version of exactly that you could possibly want. If. . . if that's the sort of thing you'd want?
Joaquin Phoenix gives the performance of his career as Joe, a traumatized veteran who keeps the demons at bay rescuing kidnapped and exploited girls until one job turns out not to be much more than he bargained for. The atmosphere of the film wraps around its story like a splintered fever dream - the "action" is never heroic or cathartic or even hardly ever in frame, Johnny Greenwood's music is atonal and jarring to reflect Joe's fractured mood (only to find tune and rhythm when Joe gains the focus of a mission), and the entire film manages to both capture the transitory nature of existence while leaving an indelible impression upon the viewer.
You Were Never Really Here packs so much hurt and heartbreak and healing into 89 minutes that it almost make me embarrassed for longer movies. It can be a rough experience, but by the end it feels like breaking through to something transcendental.
WON'T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR?
And just in case you needed something to pick up the pieces after that last entry (or the entirety of last year), here's a documentary about Fred Rogers that - well, okay, that's probably gonna make you a sobbing mess too, but maybe the good kind?
There are few figures in modern popular culture with the immediate and unassailable cache as Fred Rogers, and the deep cynicism of our modern era would lead one to assume that any conclusive documentary would "have" to unearth or attempt to semi-manufacture a controversy or a dark secret or some sort of arc that adheres to the staid structure of "rise, fall, and return" of most documentaries or biopic engineered 3-act structures. Which Won't You Be My Neighbor could not care less about.
Which isn't to say that there's not a story here, in that every life lived is a rich narrative of its own - it's just that it turns out that, almost completely, what you saw on the "Mr. Roger's Neighborhood" show was exactly what you got, and the track that this film chooses to take is simply to take the voices from his life and tell the story of his passion for television as a teaching tool, for early childhood education, and his desire to leave the world a better place than he found it.
And this is where the film delivers those emotional wallops, simply by telling these incredibly sweet beats of people who's lives were changed for the better by this man, made only all the more valuable by the melancholy truth that a single life couldn't change more.
SORRY TO BOTHER YOU
Ok, if you haven't seen this, drop what you're doing right now and go watch it. It's available to rent on Amazon Prime, it's free to stream on Hulu, the disk is cheap right now, just watch it.
It's rare to see such an explosive combination of the singular voice, insightful commentary, and brass-tacks talent on display in Boots Riley's debut film from a first-time director. On the surface, Sorry to Bother You is about a young telemarketer working the grind who catches a break because of an uncanny talent on the phone that he turns into a meteoric rise through the ranks of his corporation, and about the questionable choices that he makes along the way. But it's also about race and class, about worker's rights, and about the commodification of people in our society.
There's also a turn at the end of the second act that will either totally put you off the film or hook you completely into the film's world and intent. If nothing else, it's absolutely unforgettable.
BLACKkKLANSMAN
The only thing about this film that'll piss you off more than the fact that it took this long for Spike Lee to finally get a Best Director nomination is, by design, the ending of this film.
BlacKkKlansman is very loosely-based the true story of police officer Ron Stallworth, the first black officer and detective in Colorado Springs, and his infiltration of the Ku Klux Klan, and it both feels like a bit of a genre experiment for Lee while also being a furious exclamation point to a lot of the themes that he's been exploring during his career. It's one part semi-biopic, one part period exploitation throwback action/black comedy, and several parts cultural critique of issues of the time that have been depressingly pervasive to this day.
While the "taken from dramatized real-life events" structure can be a bit janky at times, Lee's master of the pinballing tones and the absolute stomping that the actors are doing in their roles (especially Adam Driver and John David Washington) carry this immeasurably. But the film's unwillingness to let the audience off the hook for modern troubles is one of this movie's biggest buttons, and it pushes it and holds it down for nearly the entire run-time.
Because this is not just a story of "what happened back when," it's a "back when" narrative that tears down the comfort of distance to be explicitly about the cycle of hatred and persecution that continues to this day.
CRAZY RICH ASIANS
I love romantic comedies. I consider Clueless to be a bone-fide classic, I adored Netflix's To All the Boys I've Loved Before, and I've watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding an embarrassing number of times, so I was already a bit of a mark for Crazy Rich Asians.
But then it went and had to be amazing.
Part of why this film works so very well - apart from being a window to a culture that too few audiences get the chance to either feel see on film or feel represented by in their entertainment - is that it plays in the expected rom-com sandbox while steadfastly refusing to fall into the familiar holes when it comes to character conflicts that drive the genre. The story of Rachael Chu discovering that his boyfriend, Nick, is heir apparent to Singapore's wealthiest family and the gauntlet she runs as she meets her family overseas is not a the usual story of lover's quarrels and secrets and lies revealed that are almost always used to manufacture drama for a Lead Couple. Nick and Rachael are loving and supportive of each other and the drama all comes from external, but still very human and well-defined, characters.
The central of which being Michelle Yeoh as Nick's iron-willed mother, Eleanor, in a performance that could have been (and evidently was, in the novel) a stock Mean Mom character but is instead a multi-layered, heartbreaking and even understandable character. Eleanor and Rachael's relationship is given as much care as the central romance in most rom-coms, told in sumptuous visuals and emotional encounters that culminates in an already-iconic Mahjong game.
SEARCHING
And now for something completely different!
Where nearly all the other entries on this list are notable for their command of traditional cinematic language, Searching is a film that slyly redefines what that much of that language can even be. Chronicling the efforts of a distraught father trying to help the police solve the mystery of his missing daughter, Aneesh Chaganty's tells a story completely through computer screens - webcams, video calls, search windows, spreadsheets, and even calendar managing are the tools John Cho's semi-estranged father David uses to try to piece together hidden bits of his daughter's secretive life through her social media presence and online hobbies.
Now, pulling this off while telling a solid story would be an accomplishment in its own right, but Chaganty not only manages to wring shocking emotional weight from what could otherwise be described as static or impersonal digital mechanics, he uses the multi-media digital language of "everything is connected, all phones sand computers are also TVs" to convey an incredible amount of information at once. Searching is 100 minutes long, but has enough subplots, red herrings, side characters, and detours that - if you'd filmed it more traditionally - if could have easily run 2 1/2 hours.
Instead, Chaganty genuinely changes the game for the possibilities of visual storytelling while also serving up a barn-burner of a leading performance from John Cho. In his first feature film.
THE NIGHT COMES FOR US
So, some of you are aware that I'm quite the fan of The Raid and The Raid 2. Indonesian martial arts films have exploded during the last decade, and The Night Comes For Us reunites two of the leads from The Raid by pitting Joe Talsim as an ex-enforcer against Iko Uwais as his ex-partner. Timo Tjajhanto (hot off of working with Iko Uwais in Headshot) crafts a heightened reality of crime lords, heroic ex-cons, mysterious operatives, and assassins all chasing down an innocent girl.
Talsim and Uwais both get to flex some new muscles here, as well as showcasing their jaw-dropping talent for beating the hell out of rooms of people, which - boy oh boy, are they ever good at. The Night Comes For Us is violent even by the standards of similar films, setting up a situation where most of the major players are essentially Michael Myers and Jason Vorhees, wreaking havoc on waves of meat-sacks and on each other.
If you don't have much of a stomach for violence, this is not for you. But if you like a heavy dose of red in your martial arts movies, the kinetic character work, narrative through action and the sheer abandon with which the actors and stunt-people handle themselves here is every bit as much a spectacle as you'd get in a film with ten times the budget.
SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE
Ok, when I said this list wasn't exactly ranked?
I kinda lied.
Into the Spider-verse is my favorite film of 2018. It's my favorite film featuring the wall-crawler, and if you think that's a steep hill to climb, I also think it might be, full-stop, my favorite superhero film ever made. I love this movie, from its striking art style and bold animation choices to its of-the-moment soundtrack to its unapologetic melding of comic book and cinematic visual storytelling to its riotous and heartwarming characters - especially Miles, who emerges as one of the most sympathetic leads in a genre built on putting yourself in a hero's shoes.
There are better and more qualified writers who can tell you why Miles racial background and cultural heritage are important - not just to young viewers who will see their own faces in his even as his reflection is superimposed upon the face of one of the most recognizable characters in modern popular culture, and not just to families who hear him switching between multiple languages in his home and community without even the crutch of subtitles. But at the end of the day, we need Miles to be different from Peter Parker because that also accents how much they're alike. Vulnerable but strong, good-natured but ill-mannered, brilliant but scattered, and above all, choosing to do the right thing instead of the easy thing.
Because our world is very much in need of someone who will make that choice, and like the film says - "We are all Spider-Man. And we're counting on you."
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