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Best and Worst of Entertainment 2018 Edition: The Lists Awaken


Clappy

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With all fairness, I don't hate "High Hopes" and whatever problem I've had with it, it wasn't for being what it was. I've been feeling a warm spot for the song because I found it to be overproduced, a problem in which I also found in most other tracks from "Pray for the Wicked." I've been wanting to like the song as well, just so I'd point out. While I feel like I could change my mind, "High Hopes" at the moment just doesn't really impress me.

Edited by Steel Sponge
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I love Brendon Urie and everything he's ever done, High Hopes is no exception and I'm so happy about its success.

On another note, I'm going to at least make a list of movies for 2018 even though I haven't seen everything I want to yet. Might do TV shows as well... probably not songs.

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On 1/5/2019 at 5:42 PM, 70s said:

I love Brendon Urie and everything he's ever done, High Hopes is no exception and I'm so happy about its success.

On another note, I'm going to at least make a list of movies for 2018 even though I haven't seen everything I want to yet. Might do TV shows as well... probably not songs.

I’m already excited.PCwjfdm.gif

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4 hours ago, Steel Sponge said:

With all fairness, I don't hate "High Hopes" and whatever problem I've had with it, it wasn't for being what it was. I've been feeling a warm spot for the song because I found it to be overproduced, a problem in which I also found in most other tracks from "Pray for the Wicked." I've been wanting to like the song as well, just so I'd point out. While I feel like I could change my mind, "High Hopes" at the moment just doesn't really impress me.

Wasn’t indirectly referring to you since I didn’t even know your thoughts on the song to begin with, but no worries.  Every one is entitled to their own opinion.

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So when I watch movies I generally try to stick to ones I think I'll like, so I don't really have a "worst" list. I also have way more than 10 movies I loved and would like to highlight this year. So instead of just a top 10, I decided to rank all 24 movies I saw this year. That also happens to work out perfectly for me to be lazy and make two separate posts, but don't consider this one my top 12 worst or anything because I really like most of them. There are only two movies this year I'd say I didn't like! So, naturally, let's start with those...

24. Sierra Burgess Is A Loser

So this movie looked entertaining and I was interested in the premise, and very interested in seeing more of Noah Centineo after To All The Boys I've Loved Before (more on that later) dramatically raised his profile. Despite that... this movie wasn't good, y'all. The premise was actually really creepy in its execution, there were some unfunny and borderline offensive jokes, the main relationship wasn't believable, and while I hate to say it, Shannon Purser just wasn't a very good actress. Honestly a disappointment all around.

23. Solo: A Star Wars Story

Speaking of disappointments! I wanted to like this movie so badly, I really did. I love Star Wars and despite all the on-set drama leading up to its release, I wanted to be optimistic and thought I would enjoy this. But it committed the biggest sin it could: it was boring and completely forgettable. Even the lighting of the movie was completely dull, to the point it was sometimes hard to really see what was going on. I will say there were some pretty good scenes and the cast did a good job with what they were given, but all around this was the first misfire of the Disney Star Wars movies for me. But bring on Episode IX!

22. Blockers

And now that we're done talking about the disappointments, let's talk about a pleasant surprise. I was not looking forward to this movie, the marketing looked... painful. But after it was released on demand and got a positive reception I decided to give it a shot and was really pleasantly surprised! A great cast, likable characters, and a fresh take on some stale teen comedy topics. It wasn't quite memorable enough to rank higher, but without hesitation I would recommend this if you're looking for a fun comedy.

21. Venom

Another pleasant surprise! Let's be real, this movie looked like trash. I was only somewhat interested because like any self-respecting gay I have a massive crush on Tom Hardy so I ended up seeing it. By no means is this a perfect movie, and I'm not even sure I'd call it a very good one. But it was a very fun time, and there were elements of it that worked spectacularly well. The relationship between Eddie Brock and Venom was well-developed and compelling and I totally want to see more of that. The movie around it... could use some work. I don't think the trailers before the movie did justice to how funny it was and did it a disservice in that, I hope the inevitable sequel leans more into that and the Eddie/Venom dynamic rather than Michelle Williams and her terrible, terrible wig.

20. Set It Up

Okay so... I hadn't heard of this movie before I randomly stumbled upon it on Netflix and decided to give it a shot. And... it was delightful? Charming, funny, and the leads had great chemistry. Definitely predictable but if you're in the mood for a harmless romantic comedy, definitely give this a watch.

19. Deadpool 2

I'm kind of shocked myself at how low this movie ended up on my list. Now, by no means is it bad. But does it come close to the original? Not really. I think it's a bit overlong and a good amount of the jokes just didn't quite land for me. I really enjoyed it in the theater but on rewatch it just didn't really hold up all that well. I don't have too much to say about it but I'm definitely still looking forward to seeing what the franchise has to offer next.

18. To All the Boys I've Loved Before

The year of the romcoms tbh? I watched this the day it came out because I already had a crush on Noah Centineo from watching him on The Fosters and I was so glad that the movie was as good as it was. Noah and the lead, Lana Condor, were both great and had very believable chemistry. It was also great to see an Asian as the lead in a romantic comedy (again, more on that later!). The third act conflict was a little unbelievable for me and the limited budget was pretty evident, but this was wonderful and I'm excited for the sequel!

17. Tully

This is a gem that seemed to go under the radar. I loved Charlize Theron's performance in this movie and am so happy she got a Golden Globe nomination for it! It was a really interesting character study, definitely recommend it.

16. Ant-Man and the Wasp

Poor Ant-Man, the most under-appreciated hero of the MCU... fitting, to be honest. After a fun but low-stakes original movie, Ant-Man delivered a... well, fun but low-stakes sequel. And it was just what the world needed after the huge event that was Infinity War. Paul Rudd remains as charming and likable as ever, I was super happy to see Evangeline Lilly get a more active role, and the action sequences are even more inventive and exciting than in the first movie.

15. Incredibles 2

When I first saw this movie, I thought it'd be so much higher on my list. But with a rewatch and more thought, it doesn't hold up quite as well as I'd like it to. Now, it's still an amazingly crafted movie that's visually stunning and tons of fun to watch. But I wish they'd done a little more new with it, in essence it's basically a rehash of the first movie with some slight tweaks. It worked well the first time and this movie made approximately 10 billion dollars so I don't blame them for that, but I think breaking from the formula a little more would've ultimately led to a more interesting movie. Still loved it!

14. Mission: Impossible - Fallout

Full transparency: I had never seen a Mission: Impossible movie before this one and only saw it for, well, this:

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But imagine my surprise at how great this movie was! The story had me on the edge of my seat throughout, and the action set pieces were stunning. I'm on board for whatever else these movies have in store! (And hope they include Henry Cavill but, um, anyway...)

13. Black Panther

Another movie that's a bit lower than I'd have predicted. Like Deadpool 2 and Incredibles 2, I enjoyed this slightly less upon rewatch. Let's start with the good: the story is very well-done, the world of Wakanda is extremely well realized, and the cast is fucking incredible. Absolutely no complaints about any of that and I hope the movie wins best ensemble at the SAG Awards coming up, it 100% deserves it. However, I do think it struggles with some slow pacing in the first act and some distractingly terrible CGI at the end of the film. Ultimately these are small complaints for an outstanding movie, and the first MCU movie that will be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. (First superhero movie? I don't know, I'm too lazy to look that up.)

That's it for now! 12-1 are coming tomorrow unless I get busy/distracted by watching the Golden Globes!

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Spoiler

damn... I would rank MI6 way higher for that Henry Cavill gif. js.

I'm glad you are also making a list 70s. :D

- Black Panther has some CGI issues indeed but the whole storyline, characterizations, themes, action and comedy were so incredible that I loved so much from the movie. Truly a unique and powerful superhero movie to me.

- Deadpool 2 wasn't as great as original and it had some pacing and comedy issues at times but most of the time, the movie gave me a big smile on my face and I liked the approach of making Deadpool a more tragic character.

- MI6 is awesome nuff said.

I didn't see other movies on your list but still I enjoyed your commentary on them. Great list so far. 

 

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And here's the second half of my list!

Spoiler

 

12. Creed II

Me watching movies from franchises I previously didn't care about because of thirst for a man is becoming a pattern... but one I'm at peace with. I had never seen a full Rocky film when I saw 2015's Creed, only bits and pieces and thought it wasn't really my thing. But when my family bought the movie on Blu-ray and I decided to join them and watch for shallow reasons, I was super impressed. With Ryan Coogler not returning to direct the sequel, though, I was concerned about its quality. I was very glad to be proven wrong. While the second installment didn't hit quite as hard (get it?) as its predecessor, it was certainly a well-made, worthy follow-up. I think this would be a satisfying end for Adonis Creed, but... I want more.

 

Spoiler

 

11. Bad Times at the El Royale

Another great under the radar movie, this is one I just happened to see at the theater when I was bored one night. I'm a huge fan of Drew Goddard's other film, The Cabin in the Woods, and this doesn't quite reach those heights but is still a great time. Stylistic and truly unpredictable with a perfect cast, I really couldn't wait to see what happened next. My only issue with the movie is that some plot points felt like dead ends, and I feel like that's intentional but it was still frustrating. Overall, highly recommend it.

 

Spoiler

 

10. A Simple Favor

Unlike a couple other movies I've mentioned on this list, I actually appreciated this one more with a rewatch. Fascinating mystery, fantastic performances, and most importantly to me, a great sense of humor about itself. This is a ridiculous movie and I love it to pieces. Anna Kendrick is predictably outstanding here, but Blake Lively was a real surprise in how great she was in this role. I don't want to say too much because there are lots of twists and turns, but I loved this mystery that didn't take itself too seriously.

 

Spoiler

 

9. The Hate U Give

One of only two movies on this list to actually make me cry, this was an unforgettable movie. When I went to see this it was only me and two other people in the theater, which is sad to me because I think this is a movie that needs to be seen by more people. My only complaint here is that I think at some times the dialogue tried a little too hard to be ~relatable to teens and ended up sounding... dumb.  Which, to be fair, is how teens sound sometimes. But there were only a couple instances like that in the movie, and overall this is easily one of the best, most powerful films of the year.

 

Spoiler

 

8. Crazy Rich Asians

I had never heard of the books this was based on and didn't love the trailer when I first saw it so I wasn't expecting much. And then this movie had to go and blow up the entire goddamn box office so I had to see it for myself, and I'm so glad I did. It was smart, it was stylish, it was everything. I'm so glad this movie with an all Asian cast did as well as it did, and I'm even more glad it was so good! I absolutely can't wait for the already announced sequels. And since I've been talking about hot guys...

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Hello.

 

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7. A Quiet Place

When I first saw this movie, I would not have believed you if you told me it wouldn't be my favorite horror movie of the year. But... we'll get to that soon. I was nervous about this concept when I first heard about this movie. Could a movie with minimal dialogue and just this "gimmick" really sustain an entire narrative? Oh, it sure could. John Krasinski's direction was amazing, and he and especially Emily Blunt delivered some of my favorite performances of the year. Are there plot holes? Sure, but with a premise this unique and well-realized I just don't care.

 

Spoiler

 

6. Avengers: Infinity War

Infinity War didn't manage to crack the top 5? Madness. I don't have enough good things to say about this movie, and it's probably my favorite theater experience of the year. You could feel the excitement of basically everyone watching this movie for the first time. Seeing so many of these characters I love interact for the first time was thrilling, especially seeing Thor interact with the Guardians of the Galaxy. Thanos was a compelling villain, easily Marvel's second best villain of 2018 (yes, I said that -- you can guess who #1 is and he's not from Ant-Man). As for snap heard around the universe, the scene was effective (especially Tom Holland's iconic "I don't wanna go") but the fact that most, if not all, of the deaths in these movies probably aren't final does undercut the emotional impact of it all. All told, this is half a story and if Endgame really sticks the landing I might like this one even more.

 

Spoiler

 

5. Bohemian Rhapsody

I saw this one on my birthday and what a present for me. I love Queen, I love Freddie Mercury, I love Rami Malek. I do wish critics loved this one as much as I did but based on the audience reception and box office numbers, it doesn't need the extra help anyway. There were some problems with the story and they definitely took plenty of creative liberties with the actual history of the band, but Rami fully immersed himself into the role of Freddie Mercury. I just said Infinity War was my favorite theater experience of the year but I might have already changed my mind, because this was an incredible movie to see in theaters. The music scenes were fantastic, especially the closing Live Aid concert scene that honestly has to be seen to be fully appreciated. If you missed seeing this one in theaters... I'm sorry. But I definitely recommend checking it out when you can, I'll certainly be watching it many more times myself. This was the definition of a crowd-pleaser.

 

Spoiler

 

4. Hereditary

And here is my favorite horror movie of the year. Honestly, since this is another criminally underrated gem and there's a lot to spoil, I'm not going to say much about the plot. I will say this is one of the most original, well-acted movies of the year. Toni Collette and Alex Wolff (yes, that Alex Wolff) both give amazing performances and it's one of the most purely scary horror movies I've ever seen without having to rely on cheap jump scares.

 

Spoiler

3. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Infinity War not my favorite superhero movie of the year? Incredibles 2 not my favorite animated movie of the year? Miles Morales came to snatch their crowns in what's quite possibly my favorite Spider-Man movie yet. That's saying a lot, as Spider-Man has been my favorite superhero since I was a kid and the first Raimi movie came out, and I absolutely adore Tom Holland (... and his version of Peter Parker) too. But this was bar none the most original, unique movie all year. It managed to take what should have been a messy, hard to follow concept and make it easy to digest. It was hilarious but still truly emotional when it needed to be, and the animation was breathtaking once I got used to it, which admittedly took a moment. They did so many things right with this movie, I can't give them enough credit.

 

Spoiler

 

2. A Star Is Born

The best trailer of the year, in my opinion. I was skeptical about the idea of a Bradley Cooper movie starring Lady Gaga. I hadn't seen any of three (!) other versions of this movie, but the idea that this was the fourth version along with Bradley Cooper's directing debut and Gaga's starring feature debut was... a lot to take in, and I wasn't confident. But when I saw that trailer, I had a feeling they managed to make something special. And I was definitely right. Does this movie reinvent the wheel? No, not really. Cooper and Gaga have the best on-screen chemistry of any couple this year, and he got an amazing performance out of her, all while giving an even better performance himself. Shallow is perhaps my favorite scene of the year, both of the two times I saw this movie in the theater I got chills. I've seen some discount Gaga because she's "playing herself" in this movie, and I have to say I really don't agree with that read on things at all. Especially when she's first performing and she manages to sell how nervous Ally is before gaining confidence and belting in the song... I was mesmerized. I feel the backlash for this movie already starting because of its Oscar frontrunner status, but personally I can't get enough of it. But I still liked one movie more.

 

Spoiler

 

1. Love, Simon

Aaaand here's the other movie that made me cry this year. As a young, confused little gay boy I so wish I had this movie growing up. It was so wonderful to see a gay romance in such a pure, happy light. Nick Robinson gave a fantastic performance as Simon, and the whole movie just felt so real. I couldn't believe I was actually watching it as I was seeing it. There might have been some flaws, I don't know, I am incapable of seeing them objectively. I loved every second of this and cried at least three different times. This may sound dramatic because obviously I've seen gay characters in TV and movies before, but for a major studio's mainstream romantic comedy to be centered on a gay teen... it just doesn't happen. Normally we get movies like Moonlight and Brokeback Mountain, which I love, but this was just such a breath of fresh air and I hope we get to see so many more movies like this about gay characters. If you haven't seen this yet... do it and tell me how much you loved it, thank you.

 

And that's every movie I've seen from 2018. There are still many more I'd like to watch, but then I wouldn't get to do this list until 2020 so I'm sorry to The Favourite, Eighth Grade, etc., maybe you would've ranked high.

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fantastical list 70s!

Spoiler

- Oh I'm definitely watching Crazy Rich Asians just for that guy mmmmmm

- Bad Times at the El Royale for Chris Hemsworth

- I may do a 2018 list for movies or not but If I do, here are some potential candidates on your list

Spoiler

I can tell so much that I love A Star is Born, Infinity War, Spiderverse, Hereditary, A Quiet Place. UGH. <3333333333

 

 

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Year after year this tradition passes me by. Year after year this season rolls around and I think "I could make a list... I could check it twice". Finally, after who knows how long of telling myself I could do that thing that other people do, here I am. Proving that I ingest just as much garbage as everyone else does. So, at last, here we are. The culmination of at least one year of thinking I know more than everyone, as well as at least one year of sitting on my ass and not doing anything to prove that I know anything at all. There was a lot I experienced this year. My first real heartbreak. My first almost near-death experience via potential carbon monoxide poisoning. My first long island iced tea. My first bluegrass concert. I may have taken in quite a lot of stuff this year, however, comparatively, I let out quite little. Shockingly little. If a sort of alien HR department took a census of Earth's population, they'd be hard-pressed to find anything that would actually speak to my humanity and might instead put me down in the "miscellaneous" or "sickly looking tree" category. However, through no fault of my own, this list began to take shape, and here we are. It looked bleak at first, and I thought I might never get this done, but as I thought about it I came to the realization that, well, I've got nothing else going on right now, so I may as well write this.

SOME MOVIES RANGING FROM ALRIGHT TO PRETTY GOOD THAT TERMINOOB WATCHED THIS YEAR INSTEAD OF DOING ANYTHING PRODUCTIVE OR FULFILLING CONCERNING HIS LIFE, CAREER, OR OVERALL HAPPINESS

 

HONORARY MENTION FOR BEING SORT OF ORIGINAL AND SORT OF ENJOYABLE BUT OVERALL SORT OF NOT ALL THAT GOOD

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ANNA AND THE APOCALYPSE

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Haven't heard of this? Maybe you saw part of the trailer? Perhaps you wanted to see it but it wasn't playing anywhere near you? Couldn't care less? Very understandable. I think there were maybe six people in the theater when I saw this on opening night (in the heart of Manhattan, for reference). British Zombie-Christmas-Musical is a very niche genre (shocking, I know), and from what I could tell it didn't really make that big of a splash here. I first saw the trailer play in front of Bad Times at the El Royale, and I remember being totally smitten with the concept. I saw Bad Times with my girlfriend, and for those two minutes she was dead to me. This was my new love. For the months leading up to release I'd been daydreaming about taking this movie home to meet my family and if my family would approve (it's not like they're a very musical-loving family, after all - Christmas is our favorite holiday, and zombies they could manage, but musicals? That's a hard sell). Where our wedding would be (I was thinking either a graveyard or an apple orchard). The kids we'd have (three, actually - a boy, a girl, and a zombie). It was perfect. This was the movie in my eyes. It was - literally - music to my ears.

Then my eyes actually saw the movie. And my ears? As ears often are, they weren't too far behind.

I give it points for ambition, and in an ever-increasingly saturated market of reboots, remakes, sequels, Squeakuels, threequels, prequels, remasterings, restylings, remixes, and Rhiannas, I have to give it some sort of mention here for going absolutely all out and trying to do something different. However, much like the zombie horde of high schoolers and n'er-do-wells rising up in Britain, this is plagued with quite a few problems.

The cast of main characters has little depth to them. They all appear to be some form of movie shorthand for a specific stereotype. The main rebellious girl, the sensitive and hopelessly-in-love-with-the-main-girl best friend, the asshole, the geek, the weirdo, the transplant. The movie didn't bother setting up the roles of these characters or developing them beyond their basic tropes and cliche personalities that we all know by now - and, actually, I normally wouldn't have given much thought to the writing of these characters. I'm here for three things. I'm here for 1) Zombies, 2) Christmas, and 3) Musicals. I don't need to care about these characters. At the outset, using these cookie cutter characters is a perfect introduction and view into this world. It should've given the audience a chance to sit back and allow themselves to be bombarded with some kind of craziness for an hour and a half.

Unfortunately, the movie chose to make the risky decision of making us try to care about what's happening to these characters, which is where things get dicey. The development just isn't there. The emotional attachment we should be having isn't strong enough to carry a movie. The movie doesn't appear to even try to rectify this; it just assumes we know the story beats before they even happen, and, in doing so, assumes that we should care about those beats because, well, why wouldn't we? Anna goes through a rather intense coming-of-age experience, but the movie never took its time to really dig into her life trajectory so it doesn't feel earned when she leaves her dad at the end of the movie. Her best friend is killed in what was basically a throwaway scene in any other movie (however, I will add that her best friend was a "girls never date nice guys like me!" character, and seeing him killed first in such an unceremonious fashion was very cathartic and just about one of the only things the movie did right when it came to addressing certain tropes).

At times this movie feels like a commentary on social media and millennials (there's plenty of pointed dialogue about how millennials rely on cell phones and social media too often and how we're totally incompetent without access to them - there's even an entire musical number where the choreography revolves around how oblivious millennials can be), at times it feels like a satire of romcoms and feel-good movies (with the movie kind of constantly shitting on the best friend, as well as having a coming of age story set during a zombie apocalypse), and at times it feels like the type of movie it's trying to satirize by making the same points it's trying to comment on.

It's a disjointed, uneven, and rather sloppy attempt at something that should've been much more interesting than it ended up being. However, the musical numbers and choreography were entertaining, it's full of heart, it totally leans into its premise about as much as it possibly could, and it's basically totally original (adapted from a short that had a similar premise, but otherwise, you know, totally original). If nothing else, this ends up being a more appealing 2018 holiday movie than Illumination's Dr. Seuss' The Grinch, so if you've gotta see one or the other, see the one with an unhinged bearded high school principal delivering a musical number very reminiscent of Be Prepared while letting zombies feed on his student body and faculty rather than... that other one.


I SAW THIS ONE TOO LATE AND DIDN'T KNOW WHERE TO PUT IT BUT YOU SHOULD WATCH IT IF YOU HAVEN'T

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BLINDSPOTTING

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Unfortunately my list was already locked and loaded and there was just no room to squeeze this onto the """""""""official""""""""" list. However, if you haven't seen this movie, or haven't heard of this movie, or got put off by the trailer, let me tell you that you need to see this movie, you need to hear about this movie, and you need to never let a trailer tell you what to do because that's no way to live your life.

The movie takes place over the course of three days (roughly ) - the last three days of probation for the main character, Collin, who tries to stay out of trouble so he can move out of his halfway home, end his curfew, and just get on with his life. The movie delves into themes of gentrification, stereotypes, profiling, and the preconceived notions we may have of the people around us because we just aren't socially intelligent enough to know the full picture.

Parts of this movie struck me as very similar to Get Out, in that a lot of the white characters really wished they could be part of Oakland's culture without actually realizing what that meant because they would never face the downside of being part of Oakland. There's a scene at a party where a hipster transplant reveals he has the same Oakland tattoo as Miles, one of the main characters (who had been living in Oakland all his life), because he felt "at home" in Oakland even though he'd only been there a year - the irony being that Miles is subsequently called out for acting like a transplant not five minutes later because he tries too hard to hold onto the culture that he grew up around instead of embracing the changing area.

The tone of this movie struck a near-perfect balance between comedic and dramatic. It never felt too outright goofy but never took itself too seriously; the satire worked as a way to showcase the difference between Collin and Miles as we see Collin embrace what Oakland is becoming while Miles begins overcompensating as a way to distance himself from change and prove that there's only one true Oakland, and the comedic chemistry between Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal helped the movie float right along at a breezy pace as we watch them try to make it as lowly workers for a moving company. That's not to say it's an out-and-out comedy, though - it knows when to shut up when it needs to. One of the opening scenes of the movie is Colin witnessing a black kid get shot to death by a white cop - a scene that ends up slowly permeating itself into Collin's psyche (and manifesting itself visually as various nightmares and daydreams) throughout the rest of the movie and becomes a driving force for him to better himself (if he wasn't already on that track to begin with).

The movie came across as rather... on the nose here and there, which is about as negative as I can be when it comes to critiquing anything about this. There's a scene toward the end between Collin and his ex-girlfriend Val that is, more or less, only there to explain the title of the movie. No other characters are on-screen, and it's not even framed as a normal shot - they're on the phone, with Collin taking up one half of the frame and Val taking up the other. Having gone in with basically no knowledge of what this was going to be and without having seen any posters, I have to say that I'm probably exactly who that scene was targeting and while I'm grateful for learning that the title meant something, the scene felt unnecessary - even moreso due to a freestyle rap that Collin performs toward the end of the movie where he namechecks the title about three times. While the scene between him and Val was for the audience's benefit (almost certainly to serve as an explanation for the freestyle that follows) and the freestyle was an actual scene that took place in the world with other characters, the overabundance of the word "blindspotting" was clunky and sort of jarring. However, I thought the message and themes of the movie were more than enough to make up for some awkward dialogue here and there.

Overall this was a really incredible movie that seemed to go under a lot of radars, and I'd urge everyone to seek it out.


I'M STARTING THE LIST RIGHT AFTER I GIVE ANOTHER MENTION TO ANOTHER MOVIE I COULDN'T FIT IN BUT WAS STILL AMAZING

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SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE

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I don't think I need to reiterate what everyone else is already saying, so I'll try to keep it short. Man oh-man, was this the Spider-Man movie of my life. This is the type of movie that reignites my passion for superhero movies (something I've lost years ago), as well as the type of art that reignites my passion for animation (something that I really don't find most western movies are able to do). This movie had such weird artistic talent in the concept stage and it makes me so giddy to see this very mainstream movie respect really bizarre styles and actually take risks. This is incredible, and everyone should go and see this. They were able to stuff in about five different Spider-Man comic storylines into one movie and also make their own completely unique universe with characters like Liv (and, I mean, holy shit, what an incredible design choice) and have all of these really great looking character designs. It's able to be extremely goofy most of the time but isn't afraid to actually let the serious moments breathe instead of trying to turn everything into a joke. This movie actually felt like it had stakes and that even though everything was going to turn out alright it was still actually exciting and tense to see it all be resolved.

Something that I really loved that most people probably won't care too much about is how they decided to characterize Miles, because for years now he's just been living in the shadow of Peter Parker and has yet to really find his own identity or have any kind of defining personality trait, and I thought this movie did such an incredible job at taking the conflict presented in Miles' origin story and actually doing something cool with it. I've been on board the Miles train from the jump and to see him actually be realized as a character was so nice (and such a crazy contrast to Insomniac's game where I thought Miles was completely unneeded and easily the most boring character to me).

If you haven’t seen this yet, then cancel all your plans. Helping your friend move can wait. The groceries can wait. The Bachelor season premiere can wait. That dental cleaning can wait (but not too long - make sure to reschedule that soon). Make this your priority.

ACTUALLY HOLD ON I REMINDED MYSELF I NEED TO WATCH THE SEASON PREMIERE OF THE BACHELOR SO I'LL GET BACK TO THIS LATER

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56 minutes ago, terminoob said:

Year after year this tradition passes me by. Year after year this season rolls around and I think "I could make a list... I could check it twice". Finally, after who knows how long of telling myself I could do that thing that other people do, here I am. Proving that I ingest just as much garbage as everyone else does. So, at last, here we are. The culmination of at least one year of thinking I know more than everyone, as well as at least one year of sitting on my ass and not doing anything to prove that I know anything at all. There was a lot I experienced this year. My first real heartbreak. My first almost near-death experience via potential carbon monoxide poisoning. My first long island iced tea. My first bluegrass concert. I may have taken in quite a lot of stuff this year, however, comparatively, I let out quite little. Shockingly little. If a sort of alien HR department took a census of Earth's population, they'd be hard-pressed to find anything that would actually speak to my humanity and might instead put me down in the "miscellaneous" or "sickly looking tree" category. However, through no fault of my own, this list began to take shape, and here we are. It looked bleak at first, and I thought I might never get this done, but as I thought about it I came to the realization that, well, I've got nothing else going on right now, so I may as well write this.


SOME MOVIES RANGING FROM ALRIGHT TO PRETTY GOOD THAT TERMINOOB WATCHED THIS YEAR INSTEAD OF DOING ANYTHING PRODUCTIVE OR FULFILLING CONCERNING HIS LIFE, CAREER, OR OVERALL HAPPINESS

 

HONORARY MENTION FOR BEING SORT OF ORIGINAL AND SORT OF ENJOYABLE BUT OVERALL SORT OF NOT ALL THAT GOOD

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ANNA AND THE APOCALYPSE

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Haven't heard of this? Maybe you saw part of the trailer? Perhaps you wanted to see it but it wasn't playing anywhere near you? Couldn't care less? Very understandable. I think there were maybe six people in the theater when I saw this on opening night (in the heart of Manhattan, for reference). British Zombie-Christmas-Musical is a very niche genre (shocking, I know), and from what I could tell it didn't really make that big of a splash here. I first saw the trailer play in front of Bad Times at the El Royale, and I remember being totally smitten with the concept. I saw Bad Times with my girlfriend, and for those two minutes she was dead to me. This was my new love. For the months leading up to release I'd been daydreaming about taking this movie home to meet my family and if my family would approve (it's not like they're a very musical-loving family, after all - Christmas is our favorite holiday, and zombies they could manage, but musicals? That's a hard sell). Where our wedding would be (I was thinking either a graveyard or an apple orchard). The kids we'd have (three, actually - a boy, a girl, and a zombie). It was perfect. This was the movie in my eyes. It was - literally - music to my ears.

Then my eyes actually saw the movie. And my ears? As ears often are, they weren't too far behind.

I give it points for ambition, and in an ever-increasingly saturated market of reboots, remakes, sequels, Squeakuels, threequels, prequels, remasterings, restylings, remixes, and Rhiannas, I have to give it some sort of mention here for going absolutely all out and trying to do something different. However, much like the zombie horde of high schoolers and n'er-do-wells rising up in Britain, this is plagued with quite a few problems.

The cast of main characters has little depth to them. They all appear to be some form of movie shorthand for a specific stereotype. The main rebellious girl, the sensitive and hopelessly-in-love-with-the-main-girl best friend, the asshole, the geek, the weirdo, the transplant. The movie didn't bother setting up the roles of these characters or developing them beyond their basic tropes and cliche personalities that we all know by now - and, actually, I normally wouldn't have given much thought to the writing of these characters. I'm here for three things. I'm here for 1) Zombies, 2) Christmas, and 3) Musicals. I don't need to care about these characters. At the outset, using these cookie cutter characters is a perfect introduction and view into this world. It should've given the audience a chance to sit back and allow themselves to be bombarded with some kind of craziness for an hour and a half.

Unfortunately, the movie chose to make the risky decision of making us try to care about what's happening to these characters, which is where things get dicey. The development just isn't there. The emotional attachment we should be having isn't strong enough to carry a movie. The movie doesn't appear to even try to rectify this; it just assumes we know the story beats before they even happen, and, in doing so, assumes that we should care about those beats because, well, why wouldn't we? Anna goes through a rather intense coming-of-age experience, but the movie never took its time to really dig into her life trajectory so it doesn't feel earned when she leaves her dad at the end of the movie. Her best friend is killed in what was basically a throwaway scene in any other movie (however, I will add that her best friend was a "girls never date nice guys like me!" character, and seeing him killed first in such an unceremonious fashion was very cathartic and just about one of the only things the movie did right when it came to addressing certain tropes).

At times this movie feels like a commentary on social media and millennials (there's plenty of pointed dialogue about how millennials rely on cell phones and social media too often and how we're totally incompetent without access to them - there's even an entire musical number where the choreography revolves around how oblivious millennials can be), at times it feels like a satire of romcoms and feel-good movies (with the movie kind of constantly shitting on the best friend, as well as having a coming of age story set during a zombie apocalypse), and at times it feels like the type of movie it's trying to satirize by making the same points it's trying to comment on.

It's a disjointed, uneven, and rather sloppy attempt at something that should've been much more interesting than it ended up being. However, the musical numbers and choreography were entertaining, it's full of heart, it totally leans into its premise about as much as it possibly could, and it's basically totally original (adapted from a short that had a similar premise, but otherwise, you know, totally original). If nothing else, this ends up being a more appealing 2018 holiday movie than Illumination's Dr. Seuss' The Grinch, so if you've gotta see one or the other, see the one with an unhinged bearded high school principal delivering a musical number very reminiscent of Be Prepared while letting zombies feed on his student body and faculty rather than... that other one.


I SAW THIS ONE TOO LATE AND DIDN'T KNOW WHERE TO PUT IT BUT YOU SHOULD WATCH IT IF YOU HAVEN'T
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BLINDSPOTTING
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Unfortunately my list was already locked and loaded and there was just no room to squeeze this onto the """""""""official""""""""" list. However, if you haven't seen this movie, or haven't heard of this movie, or got put off by the trailer, let me tell you that you need to see this movie, you need to hear about this movie, and you need to never let a trailer tell you what to do because that's no way to live your life.

The movie takes place over the course of three days (roughly ) - the last three days of probation for the main character, Collin, who tries to stay out of trouble so he can move out of his halfway home, end his curfew, and just get on with his life. The movie delves into themes of gentrification, stereotypes, profiling, and the preconceived notions we may have of the people around us because we just aren't socially intelligent enough to know the full picture.

Parts of this movie struck me as very similar to Get Out, in that a lot of the white characters really wished they could be part of Oakland's culture without actually realizing what that meant because they would never face the downside of being part of Oakland. There's a scene at a party where a hipster transplant reveals he has the same Oakland tattoo as Miles, one of the main characters (who had been living in Oakland all his life), because he felt "at home" in Oakland even though he'd only been there a year - the irony being that Miles is subsequently called out for acting like a transplant not five minutes later because he tries too hard to hold onto the culture that he grew up around instead of embracing the changing area.

The tone of this movie struck a near-perfect balance between comedic and dramatic. It never felt too outright goofy but never took itself too seriously; the satire worked as a way to showcase the difference between Collin and Miles as we see Collin embrace what Oakland is becoming while Miles begins overcompensating as a way to distance himself from change and prove that there's only one true Oakland, and the comedic chemistry between Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal helped the movie float right along at a breezy pace as we watch them try to make it as lowly workers for a moving company. That's not to say it's an out-and-out comedy, though - it knows when to shut up when it needs to. One of the opening scenes of the movie is Colin witnessing a black kid get shot to death by a white cop - a scene that ends up slowly permeating itself into Collin's psyche (and manifesting itself visually as various nightmares and daydreams) throughout the rest of the movie and becomes a driving force for him to better himself (if he wasn't already on that track to begin with).

The movie came across as rather... on the nose here and there, which is about as negative as I can be when it comes to critiquing anything about this. There's a scene toward the end between Collin and his ex-girlfriend Val that is, more or less, only there to explain the title of the movie. No other characters are on-screen, and it's not even framed as a normal shot - they're on the phone, with Collin taking up one half of the frame and Val taking up the other. Having gone in with basically no knowledge of what this was going to be and without having seen any posters, I have to say that I'm probably exactly who that scene was targeting and while I'm grateful for learning that the title meant something, the scene felt unnecessary - even moreso due to a freestyle rap that Collin performs toward the end of the movie where he namechecks the title about three times. While the scene between him and Val was for the audience's benefit (almost certainly to serve as an explanation for the freestyle that follows) and the freestyle was an actual scene that took place in the world with other characters, the overabundance of the word "blindspotting" was clunky and sort of jarring. However, I thought the message and themes of the movie were more than enough to make up for some awkward dialogue here and there.

Overall this was a really incredible movie that seemed to go under a lot of radars, and I'd urge everyone to seek it out.


I'M STARTING THE LIST RIGHT AFTER I GIVE ANOTHER MENTION TO ANOTHER MOVIE I COULDN'T FIT IN BUT WAS STILL AMAZING
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SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE

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I don't think I need to reiterate what everyone else is already saying, so I'll try to keep it short. Man oh-man, was this the Spider-Man movie of my life. This is the type of movie that reignites my passion for superhero movies (something I've lost years ago), as well as the type of art that reignites my passion for animation (something that I really don't find most western movies are able to do). This movie had such weird artistic talent in the concept stage and it makes me so giddy to see this very mainstream movie respect really bizarre styles and actually take risks. This is incredible, and everyone should go and see this. They were able to stuff in about five different Spider-Man comic storylines into one movie and also make their own completely unique universe with characters like Liv (and, I mean, holy shit, what an incredible design choice) and have all of these really great looking character designs. It's able to be extremely goofy most of the time but isn't afraid to actually let the serious moments breathe instead of trying to turn everything into a joke. This movie actually felt like it had stakes and that even though everything was going to turn out alright it was still actually exciting and tense to see it all be resolved.

Something that I really loved that most people probably won't care too much about is how they decided to characterize Miles, because for years now he's just been living in the shadow of Peter Parker and has yet to really find his own identity or have any kind of defining personality trait, and I thought this movie did such an incredible job at taking the conflict presented in Miles' origin story and actually doing something cool with it. I've been on board the Miles train from the jump and to see him actually be realized as a character was so nice (and such a crazy contrast to Insomniac's game where I thought Miles was completely unneeded and easily the most boring character to me).

If you haven’t seen this yet, then cancel all your plans. Helping your friend move can wait. The groceries can wait. The Bachelor season premiere can wait. That dental cleaning can wait (but not too long - make sure to reschedule that soon). Make this your priority.

ACTUALLY HOLD ON I REMINDED MYSELF I NEED TO WATCH THE SEASON PREMIERE OF THE BACHELOR SO I'LL GET BACK TO THIS LATER

Hey termi, good to see you again :)

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Blindspotting is an excellent film that more people need to see.

But more importantly, glad to see you finally jump in on this fad man.  Can't wait to read more from you.

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Hello everyone. Man, usually I post my lists during New Years Eve but due to me being lazy, this list came out later than it should be. Ngl, I wish I would catch up to a few more shows I've left behind in previous lists and not every show from the previous list I've watched made the list sadly (Doctor Who, iZombie, Jessica Jones) but 2018 was a year of recurring tv shows staying consistently good or better and brand new tv shows I've discovered ended up being so damn good. So lets dive into it, shall we?

Honorable Mentions:

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Adventure Time (Cartoon Network): I really, really wished I would put this show on the list, I mean it. 2018 was the end of Adventure Time and sadly last season didn't live up to my expectations and the season finale could have been so much better. Nevertheless, the episodes that did air in 2018 were still pretty good and the finale was very satisfying, even if it had some issues. I wasn't as big fan of Adventure Time but this was a show that I truly admired and loved when it did its best and It's sad that the show that saved CN is gone now but it had a truly good run.

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (ABC): Surprised to see this one being so low after how I put it on top 5 in 2017? Yeah, unfortunately, season 5 didn't exactly wow me considering how season 4 was one of my favorite seasons of TV ever. The budget cuts made the season be a two parter, instead of three, so season 5 had some pacing issues and some out of character moments for me but the season delivered some high points for the series including a great 100th episode, as well as a emotional and powerful conclusion and Coulson's arc in full circle. Even if it wasn't always great, I appreciated the theme of making hard decisions for the better into this season. Even if seaosn 5 wasn't always great, it was still a very good season that I can't wait for what more Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. will deliver to us.

The End of the F***ing World (Netflix): MFW I thought this was about the actual end of the world. Silly whobob.

 I've heard nothing but praise about this series that I wanted to give it a try. Sadly I didn't get to enjoy it as much as others did because at times it tried so hard to be edgy and dark and it was off-putting to me at times, as well as humor of the show didn't work for me sometimes. What it did well was having a really original and interesting concept of a boy who thinks he's a psychopath and a dysfunctional girl having romance. I know it's based on a novel but you don't get wild and crazy premises like that, especially in coming of age stories. The story and character study captivated me and the conclusion of the story was jawbreaking. I really wish the show wouldn't have a second season because it ended perfectly but we'll see how season 2 will go. Until then, this was such a compelling coming of age tale.

Luke Cage (Netflix): If there's a superhero that doesn't deserve this much dislike is Luke Cage. Granted it's not an amazing show but I appreciate the show dealing with the black communities, gangs and racism. First season, despite suffering in second half, still managed to tell a compelling story of a guy who doesn't wanna become a superhero but has no choice but to defend his neighbourhood. Second season tooks the show into a more comic book lore with giving its villains names, having some small amount of magic and sci-fi in it, having a superhero team up and expading its mythos. I know what everyone loved most about this season was the Power Man (Luke Cage) and Iron Fist team up that made Danny Rand as Iron Fist fun and trust me, I loved it too but the season's way of exploring its villains and even expanding them was so interesting and giving Luke Cage the name "the hero for hire" made the season much better than first season and it's such a shame that Netflix had to cancel this and Iron Fist, who also had a big boost in second season. Maybe hopefully Disney's new streaming service will revive them and give them definitive conclusions and have Heroes for Hire series for those two because they deserve much better than endingin cliffhangers.

South Park (Comedy Central): Yeah, I include this show to my honorable mentions but what can I say? I still admire the show for being bold and finding new ways to make me laugh. I know people really didn't like the serialized structure of newer seasons and trust me, I had issues as well and the focus of Trump in last two seasons made the show lose touch. So, welcome to season 22 where every episode are distinct from each other, yet they are still connected with referencing each other and having a big narrative of people's neglence over world problems and the show no longer having the same impact when it comes to offending people. The season started off rough with a poorly made episode on gun shootings but every single episode after that were either good or so great. Hell, the show went as far as apologizing to their previous criticisms to the world and its 22nd season delivering an actually satisfying conclusion to its narrative. South Park is a show that doesn't always get its commentaries and the season had a few of them as well but for the most part, it still teaches me a lot of life and people themselves and If this is the way the show wanna end after no renewal and season 22 dropping cancelation hints, the show had a hell of a run indeed and they are still strong.

Black Lightning (The CW): This show was such a breath of a fresh air after getting tired of Arrowverse myself and it having no connection to it save for a few name drops, made the show stand on its own and have no worry of crossovers, even if crossovers are mostly fun. The show doesn't do much new stuff when it comes to its themes. We've seen superhero shows and movies tackling family issues, corrupt politicians, racism and experiements on humans but the show delivers these messages in a respectful way, while keeping it so much fun. It can be funny when it wants to be but it's also mostly good at delivering drama (which is ironic in CW's superhero shows that have so much unnecessary drama) and it's a great show about a principal trying to protect his family and be a good father, while trying to save his neighbourhood with electric superpowers. Sometimes the show does fall into some of same tropes I'm tired of seeing in Arrowverse but it's still a fun and gripping superhero show with no fillers and likeable characters.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (The CW): Speaking of another show that way very high on a previous list but ended up being on honorable mentions. I still love this show so damn much to the point it's close to becoming one of my favorites but 2018 wasn't exactly as big of a year for this show as I wished itself to be. It still had some heavy hitting moments but not as much before and some plots didn't go anywhere imo. Nevertheless, the show keeps developing its characters to be better people, especially our main lead Rebecca and I hope the show's final season will go out with a bang.

The Venture Bros (Adult Swim): I'm not the biggest fan of this show, despite me liking it but season 7 managed to keep the show fresh and memorable to me. After 7 seasons, you would wonder when will the show start explaining some character backstories and season 6 was getting into that but unfortunately ended too soon. season 7 continued plots season 6 dropped and it gave them much better resolutions as well as giving new stories such as villains having closure with their archnemesis, conflict of good vs bad in a debate room, learning to be villains etc. The season did a great job with developing Monarch's character, as well as Hank and Dean and it gave us one of the most intimidating characters voiced by Clancy Brown. I wonder if season 8 will be the last season but they are certainly wrapping up some of their stories and I've loved what season 7 did with it stories and characters.

Star vs The Forces of Evil (Disney X D): The show didn't end up being on top 10 sadly but this is a show that ends up being better than ever. Season 3's second half was quite awesome and surprising with its stories and twists. Making Star focus more on her homeworld and its conspiracies and the show expanding its lore further made season 3 and the show as a whole must watch. I'm so happy that they mostly dropped the fillery episodes but still keeping the show energetic, goofy and hilarious. That's all I'm gonna say and I'm hyped for what's next.

Steven Universe (Cartoon Network): This show again? The one that people stopped caring for good reasons? Not gonna lie, my patience over Steven Universe has run out so quickly in 2017 so much that It did not even appear on honorable mentions, yet it was this close to making in my 2018 list. How? What changed? I remember being so damn impatient with how season 4 being such a slow season that taking so long to focus on its main stories and having some episodes that were so bland to me. Then season 4 finale happened and season 5 started and i gained my invesment to this series again but it wasn't enough. Early 2018 episodes were still sort of middle of the road for me but after finally getting into some Diamond history and continuing on with it made me love this show once again. Some characters returned and they made everything for the better, the show delivered more emotional stakes, gave some praise worthy action scenes and it never lost focus of its main plot that finally started after 4 seasons of wait. Unfortunately I doubt this will bring everyone who dropped the show back but it'll drive some fans to watch the show again. I hope the show will do great job with its next special called Battle of The Heart and Mind and its upcoming movie because right now, the show's on fire again.

DR. WHOBOB'S TOP 10 BEST TV SHOWS OF 2018

 

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#10 Castlevania (Netflix)

Finally! After how unfinised and short season 1 was, the show finally got the plot it always wanted to tell from the beginning in its second season. It's more character driven, bloody, action-packed and humorous than it ever was before. Granted, I can see some complaints of the main 3 protagonists having little to do with this season aside from last few episodes but the new characters they introduced in Dracula's castle managed to carry the show just perfectly and how they set up the climax and delivered it was so enjoyable to sit through. Not only this is a great video game adaptation, this is a breath of fresh air for more variety in adult animation. Oh did I mention the animation of this show is so gorgeous? I'm finally on the Castlevania hype train and I hope they deliver more excitement ot me in its third season as well.

 

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#9 DC's Legends of Tomorrow (The CW)

Once again, the peak of DC shows is on the list with more comedy, more compelling characters, more crazyiness and more magical. The cast of the show continues to switch up and manages to keep themselves fresh  with new character dynamics as well as making me enjoy my life. I had worried when the show was gonna add Constantine to season 4 since he's usually a lone wolf that causes trouble for others in his comics but my worries were gone when they decided to keep him still a messed up character that doesn't wasnt anything to do with Legends besides helping them fix the magic problem, while always being a bastard that Constantine is in comics. Oh did I mention Constantine is finally bisexual like he always meant to be? That's more plus to me. Seriously, do not sleep on this show, it continues to be one of the most over the top and crazy show ever, in a really good way.

 

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#8 The Good Place (NBC)

Oh hey, this was the show that everyone is talking about right now. And the show's worthy of being talked about, I already love this show, despite the fact that I don't think it's as perfect as anyone says it is. It's just this show is such a joy to watch even with all the darkness lies in its themes. I have no idea how it manages to keep itself so lighthearted and funny, while diving into philosophies of life and death. I do think the show could do better with a certain character that I'm not always fan of watching him but the character dynamics and their flawed personalities, yet them trying to be better people makes the show such a cool serialized comedy show for me. It's also a very good show to binge. 13 episodes and 22 minutes, pretty damn good time to finish the entire show in a week at most and I can tell you, it would be a great week for you.

 

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#7 My Hero Academia (Funmation)

Tired of superheroes? Well, I can understand that just fine. But...this show rocks. A show that literally is a Harry Potter for supeheroes shouldn't have a chance to actually be unique and impressive but here we are. The show doesn't go deep with the common world problems like many other superhero shows do these days, instead it explores the themes of how what is being a hero or a villain means in a world of people with superpowers. The show doesn't shy away from society's views on them and our main characters' desires to be heroes on their own. It doesn't just explores common tropes of superhero stories, it goes beyond it with making the hero vs villain situation in a more grey era than it should be. Action is exciting, character study is superb, villains are so much fun to watch etc. Season 3 was nothing but an exciting journey for the main lead Midoriya and how he's one of the most unique superheroes I've come across to. If you are a diehard superhero fan like me, definitely give this one a show, it deserves every praise it has gotten for sure.

 

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#6 G.L.O.W. (Netflix)

I don't give a fuck about wrestling at all and I love this show so much. Perhaps that it has more to do with just wrestling. I watched the show, expecting to be just a comedic take on wrestling and the show does that but I never expected it to be so rich with its drama and how the characters are so three dimensional. I didn't expect to have emotional moments and heartbreaking arcs. This show could have been just a fun wrestling show and I wouldn't even mind that but it went beyond my expectations. It's on second season and the show finds new ways to top itself with having one of the most gutpunching sequences ever and at the same time, having a super hilarious experimental episode that parodies silly sitcoms and soap operas. The show is more than just gorgeous ladies of wrestling, it's a show of messed up characters that wants to make something out of their lives and it's so intriguing. to watch that.

 

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#5 Atlanta (FX)

This show man, It know what it's doing. After 2 years of wait, the show arrived once again to excel at mix of both surrealism and realism in a way no show could ever do. The show's imagination and its focus on each main character surpasses this season more than the already successful and amazing first season. This show not only gave a good narrative on Earl's struggles of living, it gave us more to do with Paper Boy's own struggles and it gave us such a suspenseful episode of exploring Darius' own character and telling an interesting story on damaged artists. Van doesn't get to do as much as first season but she's still so much fun to watch. Atlanta has become a more experiemental and hilarious show than ever before and I hope they go even beyond in season 3. Good job Glover with this wonderfully executed show.

 

Spoiler

Gonna do deeper to talk about this show's last season, so If you don't want the themes of it (not any plot points or spoilers, just overall narrative the season is telling) to be revealed to you, I suggest you skip to read #3 and come back later for

#4 BoJack Horseman (Netflix)

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to quote what I said in 2017 list.

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I'm so happy that a show like this exists to remind me I'm not alone that suffers with depression, disappointments and screw ups and it makes me thankful I have people who are always there for me.

Ah, how much of that have changed since then. Now that this is my mood: I'm so happy that a show like this exists to remind me that I shouldn't be okay with my problems and use the show as an excuse to justify bad behavior of mine and others alike. BoJack Horseman didn't get to reach #1 in 2018 sadly because I felt like the episodes felt so distinct from each other when it comes to narrative of the season and it didn't give me same emotional gut punches season 3-4 did but the show is still amazing at even more deep exploration of Hollywoo(d)'s toxic nature like people's attempts to rehire sexual assaulters, people using feminism to make themselves look holier than thou and overuse of drug and alcohol. This season was a great meta commentary of how people use the show and the entertainment as a whole to justify their bad behavior. It's a big middle finger but it's the big middle finger people needed to see, including myself. One friend of mine did mention how America (especially Netflix...well, that's more of bias than anything else imo) likes to make bad actions look okay in people's eyes and influence them badly. Even though I don't agree with him that people should point at fingers for tv shows for simply being entertainment, it's true that one way or another some stuff like entertainment does influence us for better or worse. So the show's telling of never making your bad actions look okay was a great way to say you shouldn't use this show or any other show for our flaws (Anyone who wants to be like Rick Sanchez or Walter White or Punisher or especially BoJack Horseman, I'm so sorry). The season isn't gonna gain love from everyone compared to other seasons due to certain changes they did and I understand that criticism but I thought it was necessary. Seriously, this show shouldn't be skipped at all. It's still one of the most human and thoughtful shows ever.

 

 

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#3 The Expanse (SyFy)

Oh wait, SyFy canceled the show but it's gonna be on Amazon Prime from now on. Yay!

What I love more than anything in the world, besides ice cream, lasagna, cheeseburger, comics and sleep.., is that I love a good sci-fi. It has to have engaging characters, mindblowing stories and most importantly HAVE GREAT VISUALS. This show has all three of those. The visual effects of the show make it look like a fucking movie stretched in a season, characters are some of the most morally grey and complex characters I've dug into in a while, stories are compelling, interesting, powerful and marvelous. I have had so much fun watching this show. It made me thrilled and I was wowed by its creativity. Even the political plots in the show are actually fine on their own because characters and acting really carry the stories. I was so pissed off by SyFy's decision to axe the show but luckily Amazon Prime took it. Hopefully it'll remain same quality as previous seasons because the show keeps getting better and better.

 

Spoiler

#2 The Haunting of the Hill House (Netflix)

Speaking of loving stuff, I love a good horror as well. Would ya look at that? Not gonna lie though, the show didn't exactly scare me compared to other people. There were still some sequences that frightened me but I wouldn't exactly call it a scary show. Why this show is to damn high on the list is because it's one big complete story on a haunted house that actually has a unique concept and the family that is effected by it in the future makes it such a great tale. I love the progression the family gets and the show's suspense never slows down a bit. It tackles many dark topics beyond just ghosts and that's what kept me invested in it so much. Characters are actually smart, especially for a horror story but they are also damaged people that need help. This is what horror genre needs this badly. Clever tales coming from overused horror ideas, great character study, good suspense if not good scares and a fine ass conclusion that doesn't make you confused. I don't know if Netflix will make another season of this but I hope they don't cuz these characters' stories are complete and I'm perfectly happy with it. I don't always follow directors but Mike Flanagan has a good grasp on making great characters on horror movies and him making a web series was just as a great idea and I personally think this is his best work ever (even moreso than Oculus and Gerald's Game). Check this show out horror movie fans, you won't regret it.

and now, da number 1 is

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#1 Daredevil (Netflix)

WTF, an actual superhero show made it on my #1? That's so insane. As if there are not enough superhero shows on this list/honorable mentions already. What can I say? I love superheroes, I love Daredevil. Superheroes and Daredevil itself were at their peak in 2018. I'm so mad at Netflix for canceling this wonderful show. This the peak superheroism tale that made me appreciate Daredevil and his own world. Never thought I would actually be interested in seeing Wilson Fisk as Kingping again but they made him more and more personal antagonist for Matt Murdock aka Daredevil. Daredevil's seek for redemption and love has made the show have great stakes in it beyond world ending/take over senarios. Action continues to top itself in each season. Daredevil's supporting characters get plenty of time to shine, especially Karen who is actually much better than she was treated in the comics (sigh...Frank Miller). The new villain Bullseye was so compelling without making him a sympathetic villain and his scenes were just disturbing. Storylines were connected well and the season's usage of 13 episodes worked out so well. I binged this show with my brother and this was honestly the best experience I've had with tv shows in 2018. Not a single show last year made me go WAAAAAAAAAAAAAA as much as Daredevil did, despite the fact that the show got showrunner changes in each season. I can happily say that this is my favorite Netflix Marvel show now and I'll never forgive Netflix for axing so much potential in this iconic hero. You were my favorite show of 2018.

 

Thank you all for reading this list. I had a good time writing this and I hope you did too by reading it.

sooo... will I do best movies of 2018 list? we'll see.

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Am I too late to make a best songs of 2018 list? Does timing really matter with these sorts of things? Am I writing this to avoid doing my biology homework on a Sunday night?  

All of these questions are going to be ignored! It's...

Homie's Top Ten Songs* of 2018!!

*amount of promotion received by said song does not matter in the context of this list. album cuts have just as much room for inclusion as anything else. no i didn't listen to every single song released this year for inclusion. yes this makes me biased. 

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10. Fall Out Boy - Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea 

It's no secret that the ill-advised, delay-ridden sixth album from Fall Out Boy "MANIA" was a hot mess riddled with questionable musical decisions, mediocre lyrics, and served as nothing but further evidence that Fall Out Boy have absolutely no idea what their core audience actually wants to hear anymore– the answer, of course, is not EDM or shitty "Save Rock & Roll" retreads. What FOB really needed in 2018 was a song above 100 BPM that showed that there's still someone with hook-writing capabilities in the group, and they certainly proved themselves here. Patrick Stump does his best here to sound badass (a major problem with MANIA in general, if we're being honest) but the strongest part of this track has nothing to do with Stump and everything to do with the backings which essentially drown him out at every turn anyway. There's no saying what Fall Out Boy's future has in store for them, but I wouldn't mind for a second if it's more tracks like this (it's not.) 

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9. BLACKPINK - Forever Young

The very moment that the awful tropical house sound entered the Korean music scene was the same moment that half of Korea's musical output stopped giving a shit about sounding interesting and immediately latched onto that obnoxious squealing "tropical" sound, to very minimal musical success. Fortunately for us all BLACKPINK's songwriters still have some semblance of an idea how to actually write a hook properly so the girls manage to incorporate the tropical sounds into the mix in a way that actually fits the rest of the arrangement, giving the whole thing a sense of atmosphere without being solely reliant on one high-pitched noise to carry the track. Of course, in typical YG fashion, the song caves in on itself in the final quarter and completely shifts gears into something else, a trick that's gotten old after approximately 30 different iterations, but one that BLACKPINK sells fairly well compared to their contemporaries. I have no idea why YG is unable to release a song with a proper conclusion, but at least this one fits the rest of the narrative. 

 

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8. Post Malone and Swae Lee  - Sunflower

Noted for catchy hooks and somewhat half-hearted delivery, rap’s biggest star (to not actually be a rapper) Post Malone delivers on this mid-tempo quasi-ballad, a song that finds itself far above the usual quality of Malone’s work, something that's aided along by easily Malone's greatest hook yet. Much of the success of Malone's work rests on catchy hooks which  tend to allow the rest of the song to just float along like driftwood, but Sunflower fixes this issue by doing the right thing and ending right before any needless garbage can be tacked on. Also the Spider-Verse soundtrack is fucking cool and I highly recommend the entire thing, particularly the Denzel Curry and Vincent Staples tracks. 

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7. Kacey Musgraves - High Horse

Yeah, as if this wasn't going to happen. Musics greatest melodic takedown since "You're So Vain" was delivered by easily the best country-pop crossover star in ages, something which would be of no surprise to anyone who stanned for "Pageant Material" back in 2015 but was apparently a surprise to everybody else. Since Carly Rae Jepsen decided to sit this year out quality-wise, it was however a surprise to see her style basically be uprooted and then done better by someone else. I've never been as opposed to country music as a lot of people seem to be, and I firmly believe that Kacey here lays down the blueprint for what direction country music should be heading in. Oh yeah and that sparse bridge section leading into the final chorus is absolutely gorgeous. Some of the best ambiance in pop music last year, by far. 

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6. Grimes - We Appreciate Power

It seemed to be the case in 2018 that the messier your private life was, the far sharper your musical output, and that's something that can easily be applied to Grimes who produced some of my absolute favorite tracks throughout the year. While the solo effort "We Appreciate Power" isn't quite her strongest release of the year, its still a ferocious effort building off of her production on Poppy's "Am I A Girl?" album with thundering guitars, disorganized song structures, random screaming, lyrics about submitting to technological overlords-- all the regular stuff you could expect in a release this year. The song reaches it's climax right at the end with Grimes' constant repetition of "submit" over those killer backings, easily the highpoint of the song that's naturally left until the very end. Grimes utilizes every single second of this nearly six-minute descent into madness in the best way possible. 

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5. Poppy - Time Is Up (ft. Diplo)

Speaking of computers, Poppy did the unexpected this year and released an album that positively shits on every single other album released this year by a mile. I have no idea where this random compulsion to be the strongest, most unique while simultaneously most underrated artist currently releasing music came from, but I'm entirely for it if it means more songs like this... and like every other song she released this year, really. "Time Is Up," a song sung from the perspective of an AI watching the Earth essentially implode on itself due to the negligence of humanity in environmental matters, works for two reasons: Poppy's monotone works to an advantage here, with dryly-delivered lines like "Oh my God, you don't even know" being as comical as they are poignant, and Diplo's production being exactly the high-budget escapade Poppy needed to propel herself into the upper echelons of this list. Even the strongest songs on Poppy's debut album were hindered by the clear budget restraints, so it''s nice to hear Poppy's work mastered by someone who can actually afford to make things sound cool. This wasn't Poppy's best song this year–we're getting there, definitely–but it's the one that easily defined the strengths of Poppy's work this year. Other songs I recommend you check out that won't be featured here are "Aristocrat," "Hard Feelings," and "Metal," a Gary Numan cover. 

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4. MGMT - Me and Michael

Essentially everything on "Little Dark Age" would be worth mentioning here,  but Me and Michael remained the standout to me on repeated listen purely for the fact that it encapsulates everything that made the record great in the first place--synths that carry the song effortlessly, a chorus that effortlessly straddles the line between MGMT's usually fare and a heavenly synthpop utopia, and purely musical sections with little in the way of vocals that show how excellent the production here really is. Now let's all hope we get another album before 2024, thanks. 

 

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3. The 1975 - How To Draw / Petrichor 

It goes without saying that the latest release from The 1975 kicked ass, everybody is aware of this fact and I doubt anything I add here to kiss Matthew Healy's ass further about the album would really just be a waste of space, so instead I'm going to say that the vocal effects on this song are jarring as fuck and everything would work a lot better if Healy actually shut the fuck up for once and let the backings do the talking here because as expected they steal the show here. The transition into "Petrichor" is seamless and gives the song an actual reason to be split into two halves, something that I rarely find to be the case for most songs like this (not even Lorde managed to convince me that "Hard Feelings" and "Loveless" needed to be on the same track) but here the instrumentals work in such tight conjunction that the transition is absolutely gorgeous and refined and OH GREAT HERE'S MATTHEW HEALY AGAIN WITH HIS SHITTY MALFUNCTION VOCALOID GARBAGE, JESUS CHRIST SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LET THE INSTRUMENTAL SPEAK FOR ITSELF SIR. Oh yeah and the outro is really great and ties the whole thing together, the juxtaposition between the piano with the cochlear assault before is absolutely gorgeous. 

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2. Kero Kero Bonito - Swimming

Unlike the despicable load of phallus known as Matthew Healy, Sarah Midori Perry has a gorgeous voice that I'd probably listen to no matter what she's singing, but it helps that there's some gorgeous backings behind her to tie the rest of the song together anyway. KKBs musical output has always seemed like a mishmash of random musical ideas, so it's nice that they finally made a coherent album this year and it's also nice that it simply sounds better than anything anyone else did this year. Well, except for my #1. 

 

Spoiler

1. Poppy & Grimes - Play Destroy

If you know me at all in any capacity, this really shouldn't be a surprise to you at all. While I absolutely love Poppy's "X" as discussed at length by Hal, I've always found Play Destroy to be the superior companion song between the two, a song that starts out as an assault on the senses and does not fucking let up until the very last note. The cute interactions between Poppy and Grimes are really quite metal when you realize what was really going on behind the scenes, and really the best music is always made by people who hate each other anyway. Case in point? Slash. Case in point again? Tupac and Biggie. Case in point again? "Play Destroy." Seriously, just listen to it. There's really nothing else to say here. Poppy owned this year. 

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This was a tough one to write this year more so than ever.  Why?  Because I can’t really complain about this year. 

 

It was actually pretty good for the most part.  I had to really stretch to find bad movies that were even worth talking about.  Take the example listed above in this preamble?  Was Venom really that bad?  I mean it was bad, but it was pretty fucking funny at times.  I hate what Venom represents more than anything else because Sony is trying so hard to keep Spider-Man universe character rights so they are building a forced universe just to do that.  But that's besides the point of this preamble.

2018 was a vast improvement in terms of my cinema going experience.  Honestly a majority of the worst list worthy movies from this year solely came from streaming services...mostly Netflix.  Which is why I'm making a sub entry for this in the next week or two, stay tuned for that.  But yeah, 2018.  Major improvement over 2017.  Let's hope the quality stays on the right track.

That doesn't mean I didn't see some bad movies this year.  That goes without question.  Want to see what this tasteless idiot sat through this year?  Sit down and let's find out!

 

Dishonorable Mentions:

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The Predator (2018)

Of course it’s easy to talk about where it all went wrong publically for this movie.  Hiring a known sexual predator to be a part of your movie with a woman who is very vocally strong about the #MeToo movement.  And yeah, Shane Black fucked up big time by not doing his research.  But if we look at the movie itself, it was just awful period.  Shane Black is excellent at implementing comedy into action movies, he’s done it well in the past.  I’m just shocked that nothing about this movie worked the slightest bit.  Hell, The Predator itself is just a butt ugly movie to look at.

 

Peppermint

I’m surprised this wasn’t a better movie.  There is a market out there for a female-led action movie that is super similar to the Taken franchise.  Jennifer Garner use to be a great action heroine back in her prime.  But as I sat there and watched this, it’s clear to me now that Jennifer Garner just isn’t trying anymore.  I think she is perfectly fine collecting paychecks for her Capital One commercials and being a mother.  It just pisses me off to know that she is capable of being a good actress again but just doesn’t want to try.

 

Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation

I liked the first two just fine.  And the third one’s animation is equally as lively as the others…too bad the story is absolute utter garbage enough to end up on this list.  Please end this franchise before it gets any worse.

 

The Nun

I get what Warner Brothers is trying to do here.  Making cinematic universes is all the rage these days.  Making one specifically about The Conjuring movies makes sense since it’s easily the most original horror movie franchise of the 2010s.  And The Nun is the most terrifying part of those movies so let’s give her her own movie.

The Nun exemplifies why I’m absolutely done with jump scares as they are utilized in modern horror movies.

 

The Nutcracker and The Four Realms

Don’t act like you didn’t forget this existed before I mentioned it.  It felt like everyone involved took a giant collective shrug while making this because Disney adapting classic material is making them a shit ton of money right now, so why not The Nutcracker?  This was Disney’s one true misfire this year and while it was tempting to placing this on the list proper, I just don’t care enough to really hate it.  Just like Disney didn’t care enough to really make a good Nutcracker movie.  Next.

 

Once Upon a Deadpool

Look I like Deadpool 2 fine enough.  Not enough to make my best list or honorable mentions this year, but it was fine.  Rereleasing the same movie in the same year, months apart from each other though is infuriating.  I get it was for a good cause and that’s the only thing keeping this from placing this on the worst list proper.  But neutering Deadpool to a PG-13 rating with a forced marketing gimmick of re-enacting The Princess Bride between Fred Savage and Deadpool though was pushing it for me.  I don’t know if this was Fox’s idea to make extra money because the studio is clearly in need of every last cent they can get or if it was Disney’s idea to test the market to see if they should try to force future Deadpool movies to be PG-13.  It’s a flat out “NO” across the board.

 

Peter Rabbit

It sure is easy to forget that this came out this year.  Furthering the proof that James Corden is not funny.  Seriously, am I missing the appeal of this guy?

 

Show Dogs

Should be on the list proper because it’s another awful family movie with talking animals.  That alone is a subgenre that has long worn out its welcome.  But unlike, say Nine Lives, it’s inoffensive boring garbage that doesn’t outright piss me off enough to warrant a place on here.

 

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

I don’t know who to blame for this awful sequel.  Warner Brothers for trying to make as much money off of anything Harry Potter related?  J.K. Rowling for being the sole screenwriter?  The blame is equally shared by both for me.  And here’s the thing.  The first movie was not that bad.  It wasn’t good, but it was perfectly forgettable.  This was the movie that made me give the middle finger to whatever is going to happen with this franchise.  I don’t give a fuck.  This movie is a spectacular trainwreck.

 

Welcome to Marwen

Consider this my honorary number eleven for this list.  This is the sort of awards bait disasters that flat out piss me off.  Trying to tell a heartwarming tale about someone who suffers from a serious issue (PTSD) but just falls flat on its face for being an absolutely incompetent movie.  Robert Zemeckis has been making movies long enough to know better than this.  But modern day Robert Zemeckis focuses way too much on trying to make stand out visuals and that was the main catch with this movie.  These dolls that Zemeckis animates of all the empowering women in Carell’s characters life are butt ugly.  But they play such a key component to this movie that it takes away from the story itself.  The only thing saving this from being on the list proper is Steve Carell put on a great performance.  I almost want to say nominate him for Best Actor for carrying an absolutely shitty movie.

 

CLAPPY'S TOP TEN WORST FILMS OF 2018

 

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It really pains me to place a director I actually think has huge potential on this list.  Practically everything Ava DuVernay has made, I really like.  And hell, the visuals from this movie are really good too.  But man…where do I even start with how much this does not work.

 

10. A Wrinkle In Time

 

For starters, can we please stop trying to adapt this book into a movie?  How many times have they failed now?  Two?  Three?  Some stories just don’t translate into full length motion pictures and this is one of them.

I think the problem this movie mostly suffers from is that it has no real identity.  Admittedly, the visuals are really good and I can definitely appreciate some of the acting.  But I just feel like the focus of this was just all around befuddled and confusing.  This is one of the few movies on this list that I’ve tried watching multiple times to better understand it and not once do I get any sort of idea as to what they were trying to go for.  Female empowerment?  Holding on to your childhood?  The children are the future?  I get hints of all that, but nothing that fully capitalizes on its attempt at being a statement.

What we get is just a head scratching mess.  We get a huge amount of emphasis that the three Sisters here are all going to play such huge crucial roles in this movie.  They don’t.  Honestly, they are just plot devices more than anything else.  The pacing is all over the place.  At one point we try to understand our main lead’s backstory a bit only to jump to a different dimension and then we try to learn more about her little brother, only to go do something else quickly before we can establish their bond.  This movie just seems to feel so disconnected from being human to a fault.

At the end of the day, the best comparison I can give this too is another big budgeted Disney flop, 2015’s “Tomorrowland”.  Recognizable directors, big named superstar leads, adapted off a well known property, visually stunning budgets, messy screenplays.  And while the former was at least mediocre at best, it had a clear message.  This is just an over-budgeted Hallmark movie that has no idea who it’s for.

 

Spoiler

Look I love this franchise to death.  But I don’t know how many more shitty sequels I can sit through.

 

9. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

 

I’ve given this movie the nickname Fallen Kingdumb for a reason.  This is seriously one of the stupidest movies this franchise has ever spawned and I saw The Lost World and Jurassic Park 3.  Jurassic World may have been pretty stupid in hindsight, but at least it’s ambitiously stupid.  It wants to recreate the magic of the first movie so badly and it actually has three of the best sequences in its franchise’s top ten moments.  Which automatically makes it the best sequel/quasi-reboot of the bunch.  Meanwhile, this is easily the worst.  Somehow topping the supremely shitty standards of the overlong bore that is The Lost World.

Deep down, I think Universal, Steven Speilberg, and whoever else is responsible for these movies have this philosophy that the general public will eat up these movies just because there are dinosaurs involved.  It doesn’t matter how recycled these sequels are becoming, how rehashed these characters come off…as long as the t-rex has an iconic roar sequence, people will pay to see more.  I don’t necessarily think they are wrong to think that.  But I do think they aren’t giving the general public enough credit for not catching on.  This movie is basically The Ethical Lost World with all its half assed ethics on if dinosaurs deserve to live or die and human cloning or knowing when to let go.

Me personally?  I hate these characters.  I think there is nothing interesting about Owen, Claire, and company.  The acting in this one is incredibly phoned in as you can tell they are just doing this movie for the check.  I think the new assistants are both fucking awful.  Especially Justice Smith as Franklin, who’s scared nerd character gets grating the first minute he’s on screen.  And don’t even get me started on these villains.  They are Saturday morning cartoon character levels of “evil”.  All of them.  Whether it be Rafe Spalls playing the greedy rich tycoon who is so obviously the villain the first moment he comes on screen as an old friend with a mission for our heros.  Or Ted Levine as the mercenary who has an odd fascination for dino teeth.  Or Toby Jones as the science nerd who does sciency nerdy things because that’s his character in every movie these days.

This movie has no idea what it wants to be.  Does it want to be a horror movie?  Does it want us to question the ethics of living beings?  All I do know is that last scene of dinosaurs roaming the open world actually setting us up for a potential final chapter of an actual Jurassic World is going to sucker me out of another ten dollars.  Fuck you Jurassic World franchise.

 

Spoiler

So as I’m writing this, awards season is in full swing.  The Golden Globes were as cringeworthy as ever with Bohemian Rhapsody winning multiple best of the night awards, including Best Picture.  Look it’s easy to hate on Bohemian Rhapsody right now since it was such a huge crowd pleaser because there is a market out there for Queen nostalgia and it is in peak swing.  But it’s not going to make either list.  Let’s get it out of the way right here right now.

Look there is a reason I hold out on these lists until I check out as many of the awards bait movies I can get ahold of.  Otherwise, I would miss out on absolute shit like this.

 

8. Green Book

 

Bohemian Rhapsody wasn’t the biggest winner of the Golden Globes.  This was.  And even before it won all three prizes for the night and will probably go down as a huge favorite for multiple Academy Awards, I fucking hate this movie.  This is the sort of white bread shit that the Academy Awards will eat right up.  Granted, the Academy is now trying to get young and hipper, so I could potentially be wrong.  Please prove me wrong, but with all the old white people who love these sorts of movies with narrow minded views of black culture, I have my doubts.

Now is it all irredeemable?  I don’t have a problem with our two lead actors.  They put on as good a performance as you’d expect Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali to have.  Everything else about it is just god awful.  The screenwriting sucks…why did this win best screenplay?  Our main lead learned to become tolerant by learning and realizing nothing.  The direction is as vanilla as ever.  Seriously there is nothing special about this.  Peter Farrelly, one half of the infamous Farrelly Brothers (they made There’s Something About Mary and that’s the only good movie of theirs amongst a huge pile of shit), is just another director filming an awards bait movie biopic.

But it’s seriously on this list just for how badly they botched their message about racism.  If your ideal views of black culture are soul music and having a white man introducing a black man to fried chicken, your movie fails at teaching morals.  Thankfully, the backlash on this one is starting to heat up.  Let’s hope it continues, fuck this movie.

 

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This is a rare first you guys.  An entire trilogy making my Bottom 10 movies of the year list.

 

7. Fifty Shades Freed

 

I’m done.  I’m done talking about this absolute nothing of a movie franchise.  I’m done talking about these actors not even trying.  I’m done with talking about this awful screenwriting.  I’m done questioning what people even find remotely sexy about these movies.  If you guys want actual analyses of what I think of this turd of a franchise, go back to previous years.  Absolutely nothing has changed about these movies over time and this is my personal favorite because I actually felt joy at the end knowing they aren’t making any more of these movies.  Hell I think the actors are even trying less because they know these movies are done.  Next.

 

Spoiler

I’ve seen in some film circles that this movie is considered potentially as The Biggest Bomb of 2018 alongside Solo. 

http://www.dorkly.com/post/86558/why-solo-might-be-the-most-impressive-bomb-in-box-office-history

Push the breaks a bit guys.  Solo was a disaster financially, no doubt about that.  But the movie itself was…mediocre.  I mean we can all agree that this movie makes us want a Lando Calrissian movie starring Donald Glover.    

Sorry.  Wanted to get that off my chest.  What was I saying?  Oh yeah, the other biggest bomb of 2018.  Well, they aren’t wrong.  This is an absolute disaster.

 

6. Mortal Engines

 

I know he wasn’t the director behind this movie, but can we please stop holding Peter Jackson on a pedestal just because he made one of the best cinematic film trilogies of all time?  The Lord of the Rings movies are over fifteen years old and I JUST FOUND A GRAY HAIR ON MY HEAD THIS MORNING AND….

*one existential crisis later*

…where was I?  Oh yeah, Peter Jackson is proving that his name is not a seal of quality.  I’ve sat down and rewatched a few of his post LOTR films and I’m honestly not impressed anymore.  2005 King Kong was a bloated mess, The Lovely Bones has some great acting but a mess of a script, and The Hobbit trilogy definitely should have been condensed down to one movie, not three.

Notice how I haven’t talked about the movie yet?  Because this movie is super dull.  The characters are flat, the story is super underdeveloped.  This feels like the third movie of a trilogy, but the first two obviously don’t exist.  Like god these visuals and costume design are absolutely wasted on this gigantic turd because the script is just so god awfully written and these characters feel like moving set pieces.

My fiancé said after watching this that it felt like an awful live action version of Howl’s Moving Castle…and god I can’t unsee that comparison now.

 

Spoiler

Let’s talk about a genre that is in desperate need of a revival.  ARE YOU READY TO LAUGH!?!

Because the last few years we certainly have not.  Comedies are becoming extinct critically and financially in this day and age.  I don’t know if it’s because of the dour mood popular culture is in right now…you know what?  I don’t think that’s it.  Because people are still laughing in the movie theaters at jokes in movies.  Hell, you want proof?  The Marvel Cinematic Universe has integrated plenty of comedy into their movies and people are still paying to go see those.

No, my personal belief is that the genre hasn’t been trying as hard as of late.  Otherwise, we wouldn’t be getting utter crap like this.

 

5. Holmes & Watson (2018)

 

You guys have no idea how hard it was coming out of this movie incredibly disappointed as I was.  Will Ferrell and John Reilly have collaborated countless of times in the past and have often succeeded.  Hell, one of my favorite comedies of the last ten years was Step Brothers and one of the main things that had going for it was the comedic chemistry.  So much so that these two are frequent collaborators because studios know how well they work off each other.

And that’s literally the only thing this movie has going for it.  The chemistry between Ferrell and Reilly is still there after all these years of not collaborating as often as they used to.  Because nothing else about it works.  I can literally point out every single element of this movie that didn’t work, but I’m not going to do that.  Everyone involved in the making of this didn’t try so I’m going to try something different.  I read the reviews about this movie going into it and one review stuck out in particular:

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/holmes-and-watson-2018

I literally cannot top that in my own analysis of this movie.  This movie really did feel like that someone took the outtakes from the end credits and stretched them out into a full length feature.  Sorry if you guys were expecting more out of this entry, but clearly I expected more coming out of this movie.  So you get as much as you are provided to work with.  Next.

 

Spoiler

But hey, if you want to look for unintentional comedy, look no further than cheaply made horror movies for that.

 

4. Slender Man

 

At one point in the summer, I was absolutely ready to name this the worst movie of 2018.  Everything about it was so bad.  Badly acted, badly written, badly directed, and most importantly, not scary.  I’m beyond done with counting “jump scares” as true horror because 99% of the time, they are so easy to call.  And that’s what I did when I sat through this.  I correctly called every attempt at a jump scare.

But as I sit back and look at this with new eyes, I just can’t come to bring any real rage about it.  I mean it’s a horror movie based off a creepypasta internet meme.  What did I expect?  For it to genuinely be scary.  And then I did the unthinkable.  I literally looked at it with new eyes by rewatching it.  It’s still very much a bad movie, but I laughed at it.  A lot.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not calling a spade a spade.  This was absolutely a heaping pile of dogshit that deserves to be classified as one of the worst movies of this year.  But it’s at least a funny one at that.

 

Spoiler

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/21/amsterdam-paris-train-gunman-france

Often a source for movies comes from real life news stories.  And why shouldn’t they be?  The stories about real life heroes doing something spectacular and either saving lives or making contributions to societies need to be told so more people know about the life behind the heroes.  Sometimes the movie ends up translating that well.  Other times, you get messy interpretations.  And boy…what a mess this next entry was.

 

3. The 15:17 to Paris

 

Like I said before, this is a great story that needed to be told.  But the reason this is as bad as it ended up being is because of one person.  Clint Eastwood and his direction.  He went to the studios and specifically wanted the real life heroes casted as themselves.  Because he felt they could tell this story far better than he could have directed it.

And there lies the problem.  This isn’t the first time this stunt has been pulled in a real life movie based off true events.  And every time I’ve seen this stunt pulled, it translates into an awful movie.  Mostly because the men and/or women who play themselves aren’t paid to act.  Our three real life heroes here are no exception as I spent a good 80% of this movie cringing at their acting.  And somehow their bad acting manages to drag down some of the other good actors alongside them in this movie.  Judy Greer, Jenna Fischer, Tony Hale, P.J. Byrne?  All good actors who just can’t manage to put on a good performance because of their interactions with our main leads.

Look I know a feel good story about real life heroes should be welcomed in these dark depressing timeline we are in.  But when the acting is as bad as it is here, there is no excuse for this movie to have happened.  Next.

 

Spoiler

So for the past few years, I’ve been complaining about the lack of original ideas lately.  I think we are starting to see somewhat of an uptick in terms of people trying to make new-ish ideas.  Sure we are still going to get a crap ton of sequels, reboots, remakes, and what have you because movie studios aren’t stupid.  They know what makes them money.  But I think studio executives are at least willing to try new ideas out.  Well if there are big wigs out there that read my year end lists…all negative seven of you.  Can I at least make one suggestion?  STOP MAKING ROBIN HOOD MOVIES!

 

2. Robin Hood (2018)

 

Seriously.  Has there been a good one in the last thirty years?  The closest I can think of is the comedy/musical from the 90s with Cary Elwes and that’s it.  Because the rest are overlong bores that are simply not interesting.  And this new one is by far the worst Robin Hood movie ever.  This is just an incompetent disaster all across the board.

Out of all the movies that have brought upon a change in action movies, was 300 really THAT movie?  Yeah I thought it was super cool when I first saw it back in high school (god I’m getting old) but it has not held up well with how many movies are doing exactly what that movie did in terms of direction.  Too many to count.

Taron Egerton is a rising star and I think he has all the potential in the world, but he is awful in this movie.  He looks absolutely embarrassed to be playing this part.  Hell, his character isn’t even named Robin Hood.  His name is Rob and he goes by Rob instead of the iconic name.  What?  I would be more embarrassed with the wardrobe he is wearing in this movie.

 

RHO_D059_26871_RC.jpg

 

Seriously, this is laughable.

Jamie Foxx is also in this as Little John and yeah Little John is not the mentor character at all.  I usually love him as well, but he’s over the top annoying.  Yeah, I might as well just say all the acting is really really bad.  Ben Mendelsohn plays another big bad villain, he’s becoming typecasted super quick.

This came super close to topping the list for being such an incompetent mess, but I can’t help but feel a little embarrassed for it.  It tries way too hard at times for it to be my worst list of the year.

 

Spoiler

So as we have gone through this list, we’ve covered a variety of bad.  We’ve had big budget blunders to failed blockbusters to shitty sequels.  I feel like this has been a rather ecliptic list of shit.  But my number one is a pretty strange choice.  Especially since I mentioned earlier about how I’ve been longing for new ideas.  And at first, the trailer for this filled me with so much hope that this would be excellent.  Then I saw it...and it just failed in such unbelievable fashion.  So for one last time….

ARE YOU GUYS READY TO LAUGH!?

 

1. The Happytime Murders

 

I can’t believe this ended up being as bad as it is.  I’m still astonished to this day.  A R-rated Muppet movie from Jim Henson’s son?  This had all the potential in the world to be really good.  Hell, it even has Melissa McCarthy.  I’m not a fan of hers all the time, but with the right script and right premise, she can show that she’s talented.

God I really can’t emphasize enough how little effort was put into this.  If you look back at the thread I made for this, the trailer was supremely accurate about the movie itself.  It’s like watching a ten year old edge lord being able to do cuss and make crude jokes just because he/she can without any real point.  And that’s this movie.  Look at the muppets fuck.  Look at the muppets get violent.  Look at the muppets be crude.  All because it hasn’t been done before.  Too bad it already has been done.

 

 

I take back anything I said about this and originality.  Team America already beat Henson to the punch.  These puppets were crude, violent, and fucked.  But at least there was some sort of context in this movie besides being edgy.  What sort of context is there in Happytime Murders?  There is some briefly examined flirtation with muppets being treated as second rate citizens, but that’s all there is.  Flirtation.  It doesn’t go further in depth than just spitting out a line or two about this without any sort of context.

There was a good idea somewhere in this movie, but at the end of the day, nothing pisses me off more than squandered potential.  And that’s what The Happytime Murders was.  Unfunny, uninteresting, awful squandered potential.  Sign me off Statler and Waldorf.

 

 

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Couldn't have said it better myself...wait, what?

 

Best list in the works.

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So, how about 2018 in pop music? What? Am I already too late to share my own lists? At the very least, I’m not doing these too early like all of the Toddroids that have been swarming around YouTube. Anyways, my feelings on 2018’s Hot 100 year-end list is like this, in a nutshell: it’s one of those lists where it just felt like pop on autopilot, a similar feeling that I’ve had towards the pop music that represented 2014 and 1997 in their respective year-end lists. And just like every other even-numbered year of 2010s pop that I had to skim through, the bad music easily overshadows the good ones.

For two reasons, I’ve made myself wait to get my two lists out. One, I was already preoccupied with writing out my long overdue top 10 list for animation in 2014 and second, forming both lists was not easy for me. To reiterate what Claps and Wumbo have said of their worst songs of the year, I didn’t care so much about most of the songs on my bottom 10 to discuss every one of them at length, and that’s partially because most of my choices are, well…easy targets. That’s not to say, however, that I do not have any outrageous choices on either list of mine, so be on the watch for those.

Before I start counting down to my bottom 10, what I’m actually not going to do is list my dishonorable mentions from 2018’s year-end list. My rankings are exclusive to the official year-end list, but I’m going to make do with one particular trend from the Toddroids as I thought it would be more fun if I go beyond the year-end list and talk about the bad music that didn’t rack enough points than to try and elaborate on why I still hate “Shape of You,” why Maroon 5 and XXXTentacion continued to disappoint me and so forth. So, here are some dishonorable mentions to some particular hit songs that just couldn’t hack it, but yet still got under my skin:

Dishonorable mentions:

Spoiler

 

“broken” – lovelytheband

I was surprised that this song ended up getting caught in-between years and I’m glad that it did. I’ve already expressed my own feelings towards this song on my Alternative Songs rankings, so I’m not going to repeat myself here. Although, while it’s gone on the pop charts, it still refuses to go away on the Alternative charts (it’s on its 64th week as of this writing and it’s already on its way to beat the longevity records previously set by Cold War Kids and Rise Against, both acts in which are miles better than lovelytheband). It is not a good sign and it is only making me hate this song slightly even more.

“I’m a Mess” – Bebe Rexha

Had this earned enough points before the end of the 2018 tracking period, we could’ve had to rank two Bebe Rexha songs. In fact, this would’ve been the one song from her that could’ve made my bottom 10, so no, “Meant to Be” is not on my bottom 10. The song is appropriately titled “I’m a Mess,” as Bebe’s narrative on her own self-esteem falls apart for its tone, making it sound hardly self-empowering as it’s trying to be, and for its interpolation of “Bitch” in the chorus, which only makes me want to go back to that Meredith Brooks song.

“…Ready for It?” – Taylor Swift

I’ll admit it. I’ve overwhelmed my negative feelings on “Look What You Made Me Do.” I still stand by my opinion of the song being one of the worst hits of 2017, but after looking back on this particular follow-up a few times, I have come to the realization that Taylor Swift could only do so much worse than that. “…Ready for It?” got caught in-between years and thank goodness for that because while Taylor doesn’t come across as likeable in songs like “LWYMMD” and “End Game,” where she flaunts about her bad reputation, but at the very least, I could tell that she was at least having some fun in playing the villain in both songs, but “…Ready for It?” is just a concept of a song centering on Taylor’s bad reputation, but with barely anything fresh or interesting to back it up. The song itself is, simply put, “Bad Blood” and “Wildest Dreams” put in a blender and on steroids. It’s just a pure mess of a song.

“All Girls Are the Same” – Juice WRLD

Once again, just to spoil my bottom 10 a bit, “Lucid Dreams” isn’t as bad of a song that I thought it was from the first few listens. It’s whiny as all hell, but it’s got a serviceable melody (which is mostly courtesy of the Sting sample) and it captures the essence of emo in emo hip hop pretty well. On the other hand, “All Girls Are the Same” is anything but memorable and makes me question Juice WLRD’s maturity in his songwriting more. “All Girls Are the Same” is a whiny breakup ballad on a similar level of melodrama to that of Simple Plan’s, to the point where it wouldn’t feel out of place if it were written by a teenager judging the title alone, yet Juice was like 18 or 19 at the time of writing this.

“Roll in Peace” – Kodak Black featuring XXXTentacion

I’m not going to bother saying so much to justify my hate for this song. This pretty much existed to generate shock value, but even then, it’s still an audio trainwreck from two people who have committed some inhumane acts.

“Lost in Japan” – Shawn Mendes (Zedd remix)

Just so I could myself perfectly clear, this not about Shawn Mendes. This is about the remix. His original version of “Lost in Japan” is a legitimately great, danceable, and mature pop song in my opinion and I was a little disappointed that it was hardly promoted as a single. Then he decided to re-release it as a remix, which isn’t entirely a bad idea, but of course, of all people he decided to turn to for the remix, it was Zedd. Sometime after listening to “Stay,” I’ve since developed a huge allergic reaction to Zedd and his music before I came to the point where I felt like his music was mostly never good. “Stay,” “Clarity,” “Starving,” “Beautiful Now,” “Break Free,” I’ve disliked all of these songs of his and there’s a major reason for that.

My biggest gripe with Zedd’s music is that he has the ability to waste the talents of any singer of his choosing. Jon Bellion, Troye Sivan, Foxes, Hayley Williams, Alessia Cara, Ariana Grande, heck while Selena Gomez is definitely not one of the greatest personalities in the current pop landscape, even I think she deserved better than to become as bland as she was in “I Want You to Know.” Likewise, the problems I’ve had with Zedd’s remix of “Lost in Japan” are some of the same problems that I’ve had with his other hits. The charm from the original is abandoned in favor to make some parts of Shawn’s voice sound artificial and to back it up with a generic-sounding drop. To make my long review short, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. Don’t think that this is the last you’ll ever see of me having to talk about Zedd, however.

“El Farsante (remix)” – Ozuna and Romeo Santos

Latin pop music can be great when it’s done right, but some of the most popular Latin pop songs of 2018 were pretty terrible, like this one for example. With the language barrier, “El Farsante” might be a heart-wrenching breakup ballad. Going past that barrier, however, the song is about Ozuna and Romeo wallowing in their regret for their failed relationships, calling themselves phonies, and saying whatever other whiny things in the process. This sadfest is the type of music that just doesn’t bode well with me. Yet, when it comes to Latin pop breakup songs in 2018 as a whole, this isn’t the worst case that I have to cover…

“Coming Home” – Keith Urban featuring Julia Michaels

I knew Keith Urban has been selling out before his most recent album. Regardless, 2018 was still not a good year for him. This particular song is what really got me asking “This is a country song???” the most out of any other country song that reached the top 50. The most glaring issue on “Coming Home” is the reoccurring guitar riff, which is actually a Merle Haggard sample. It sounds so choppy and it doesn’t fit within the tone of the song at all. Julia Michaels is there to back Keith up, but that hasn’t saved her from being a non-presence and it surely hasn’t helped curb my feelings towards the song. Whether it’s a country song or a pop song in disguise, it blows either way you brand it.

“Everyday” – Logic featuring Marshmello

I usually tend to really like Logic’s music as well, but “Everyday” is an exception for me. Logic’s sing-rapping on here just doesn’t work for me at all and its coupled with lyrics that don’t bring anything interesting to the table. Marshmello is also apparently a part of this, and the most of what I could really say about his production work on "Everyday" is that it just doesn’t vibrate to me as a Marshmello production compared to his usual future bass works while the production for said song itself is pretty standard for trap.

“Kamikaze” – Eminem

I’m closing these dishonorable mentions with a song in Eminem’s catalog that proves his dip in quality. 2018 is the only year that can be seen as a big one for Eminem and yet he did not have a single song land a spot on 2018’s year-end list. Yep, not even Ed Sheeran, who was everywhere on the radio over the course of 2017-2018 couldn’t help save him a spot. It’s merely a deep cut from Eminem’s most recent album, but regardless, it peaked in the top 20 and it is still one of those moments where Eminem is at his worst, with its painful songwriting and its grating production work. This won’t be the last time I’ll get to talk about Eminem, but for now, fack on this.


 

Steel’s Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2018

Spoiler

 

10. "Wait" / Maroon 5

Is it just me or have this band become to pop music like what Family Guy is to mainstream television? I say this because the more that M5 continues to make bad music, the less contempt that I feel like giving towards them (and I’ve also used up a lot of my anger towards the group for “Cold.”) and because yet while it has now become a chore to talk about why I dislike this group, they’re still finding ways to earn a spot on my personal bottom 10. This isn’t “Cold” levels of awful, but it still earns a spot on my bottom 10 as it is bad in terms of how very interchangeable it is. As usual, Adam’s vocals are pitchy and the songwriting is ridden with overblown angst. I have nothing else to say about this besides the thought that this may be one of the last few times that I’ll ever have to talk about M5 if their Super Bowl halftime performance is of any indication that the band’s career is officially dying (that is, after “Girls Like You” ever decides to go away from the Hot 100).

 

Spoiler

 

9. "Eff-Arr-Eye-Ee-En-Dee-Ess" "FRIENDS" / Marshmello and Anne-Marie

This one is very easy to rag on, but that doesn’t excuse this song from being so irritating to listen to every time. Besides all those little things like the chorus whereas Anne Marie literally and consistently spells out “friends,” the 1-2-3-4-5-6000 times” bit, and the bleep during the bridge, the lyrics showcase a pretty bad judge in character. If the subject in the song was desperately trying to get be your lover by showing up by your house in the pouring rain at 3:00 AM, why would you still consider him a friend and not some creepy stalker, Anne-Marie?

Oh, and how about the fact that it brands itself as the “official friendzone anthem” so proudly? Seeing that etched in with the song’s title sometimes makes me want to put on a very whimsy voice and say something like “You just got friendzoned!” or “Uh-oh, it’s the friendzone song!” If I have to be so obvious and perfectly clear, this song is oh-en em-why el-eye-ess-tee.

 

Spoiler

 

8. "Gummo" / 6ix9ine

I am not comfortable having to talk about this guy as much as everyone else. It’s an understatement to say that 6ix9ine is a controversial human being who has done some incredibly nefarious acts. Of course, 6ix9ine himself is not the main reason why “Gummo” is on my bottom 10. “Gummo” as a whole just makes me feel sick to my stomach for its songwriting and 6ix9ine’s aggressive vocals.

For a while, I’ve felt like this could be my only proper #1 worst hit of 2018, but my thoughts on this have since dwindled because I can’t take any part of it seriously anymore and I can at least see why it exists. It is generally agreed that 6ix9ine is a shock musical artist, and if this song is just meant to generate shock value, then I say that it has done a good job at that. Even while I’m not a big fan of 6ix9ine’s intimidating rapping style, it at least gives him personality. If it’s not already telling, 6ix9ine’s musical career only gets worse from there. It’s not the most definite worst hit contender like I thought it was, but I still feel uneasy listening to it, hence why it’s on my bottom 10.

 

Spoiler

 

7. "Freaky Friday" / Lil Dicky featuring Chris Brown

I am completely aware that this song is only meant to be taken as a joke, but the worst thing that you can do as a comedic musician is make a song that is, in simplest terms, a bad joke. Now, I don’t dislike this song just because I find it painfully unfunny. Like what Todd said before on his own thoughts towards the song, “Freaky Friday” delves into problematic territory and it mostly has to do with the role that Chris Brown plays in the song.

The most glaring issue starts where the song begins where Lil Dicky glorifies Chris Brown while he is in his body and spouts racial expletives now that he is black and therefore has complete freedom to do so. Second issue is where Chris Brown’s, in Lil Dicky’s body, verse comes in and mentions how he’s not being judged for his controversial past, which I say is rather a controversial laundry list of wrongdoings that he’s still adding up to. That’s just one detail that’s so hard not to dwell on. Third issue is at the very end of the song after Lil Dicky wastes a couple cameos until he’s now in Kendall Jenner’s body and then sings about his new genitals.

Top that off with the self-serving nature in Chris’ case that this song was very likely going for, and you got “Freaky Friday,” a strong contender to my bottom 10. At the end of the day though, this song is still a joke. It's still got its fair share of problems, but it's not worth so much frustration over.

 

Spoiler

 

6. "I’m Upset" / Drake

Because 2018 was such a phenomenal year for Drake (let alone the 2010s as a whole being phenomenal for him), I couldn’t form my bottom 10 list without inserting at least one of his songs in it. “I’m Upset” is probably the closest contender to being my most hated Drake song. The biggest issue that I have with it is the massively inflated ego that Drake displays. He also tries to get us to sympathize for his miserable life as a big name musical artist who has to pay a woman’s bill & etc. and I just can’t ever see myself sucking into whatever he says. Lastly, compared to every other single that Drake released from Scorpion that has more energy or at least has some energy, “I’m Upset” pales in comparison to them all. Indisputably, this song is Drake at his most droning. In other words, it’s a frustrating listen from beginning to end. I’m upset, Drake.

And because I can’t talk about this song without acknowledging the music video, let’s talk about that for a brief moment. It had that Degrassi: Next Gen reunion that redeems the song a bit for some folks and I’m sorry, but I’ve had no feelings towards it. Although, that should come across as a surprise to no one since I am strictly an animation reviewer.

 

Spoiler

 

5. "I Fall Apart" / Post Malone

Hey guys, Simple Plan is back! …Or at least the pure essence of the group. First of all, I’m not a fan of Post Malone. IMO, his biggest hits this year ranged from mediocre to flat out awful, like this one in particular. I’ve been trying to get the appeal for his singles from Beerbongs & Bentleys, but no matter what, I cannot get the appeal for “I Fall Apart.” From what I know, this was released as a single from his first album after a performance of it went viral…during the same timeframe where “rockstar” was released as a single to his second album.

I have my limits when it comes to breakup ballads. If it’s done right, however, I can see myself liking it. “I Fall Apart” is an example of almost everything wrong in writing and singing a breakup ballad: a done-to-death and overblown song to the point where it’s not funny to me. I could be milking it a little too much with this comparison, but I really feel like I’m listening to a Simple Plan song through Post Malone’s overemotional delivery. Nothing here works for me. It’s just an overzealous mess of a song, simple as that.

 

Spoiler

 

4. "SAD!" / XXXTentacion

Just like everyone else, I’m not comfortable having to talk about this guy. X is not for everyone and most of his music is certainly not for me. Like 6ix9ine, he has also garnered a good amount of controversy as a person. I’m not going to talk about the awful things that he has done, but I’ll at least say that he did not deserve to be murdered and to die young. I don’t think he should be martyred for his actions, but when he has a massive and dedicated fanbase, what could I do? Since X’s death, his tracks from his ? album gained a very strong push, and it was enough to bring his lead single to number one.

Yes, “changes” was apparently not the one song from X that got under my skin the most and instead it was “SAD!,” so why is that? There’s something about this song that I find somewhat insulting, and it includes the whole judgment surrounding it. Because this song became a #1 hit in the wake of X’s death, we’re forced to let this strongly represent X’s career, and we’re forced to put this on such a high pedestal, because according to the esteem that the song had since received, “SAD!” is about X’s struggles with depression. …In reality, “SAD!” is about X threatening to commit suicide if the girl addressed in the song leaves him. Do I seriously have to dignify this?

In other words, this song is high up on my bottom 10 for its disproportionate narrative. Not only that, and I know X is an experimental type of rapper, but “SAD!” also suffers from a problem that I’ve had with some of his other tracks from ? like “changes” where it felt like a half-baked rough draft for a song than a completed product. Case in point, 85% of “SAD!” is the chorus. So, I can’t see myself putting this any higher when it’s so lacking in any more detail. #4 is reasonable enough for me. As long as the dude behind “Tuesday” doesn’t keep trying to profit off his death, I shouldn’t have to talk about XXXTentacion again. Then I would be GLAD! (bad pun, I know)

 

Spoiler

 

Well, I didn’t think you would be able to do it Zedd, but congratulations! You have made the most processed, paint-by-numbers pop song since Hot Chelle Rae’s “Tonight Tonight.” And when I say that this is worse than my #1 worst hit song of 2011, you know something’s going down here…

3. "The Middle" / Zedd, Maren Morris, and Grey

I know what kind of reactions I’m going to get here. “Seriously, Steel? You think this is worse than “SAD!” and “changes?” “…worse than “I’m Upset?”” “…worse than “GUMMO?” Well, truth be told, I could write a very long piece detailing why I’ve dreaded “The Middle,” and that’s what I’m going to do right here, right now.

One of the problems that I have with the song always comes down to Zedd. I’ve already expressed how I felt about how he gives his featured artists little to no personality. I’ll get to the singer featured in this song in a moment, but I’d like to point out that his production work doesn’t usually come off as redundant as it does on here. “The Middle” is basically a retool of his very previous hit single “Stay.” Do those clock sounds strike a familiar chord on you? That’s because they were present on “Stay.” How about the structure in the chorus? That almost sounds exactly the same as the chorus in “Stay.” FFS, even the subject matter is no different from the narrative in “Stay!”

Then there’s the singer that he chose for the song, Maren Morris, and the way that Zedd utilizes her for the song just adds insult to injury. First thing to point out, I am very much aware that this is not a country song, nor does it try to associate itself as one. On the other hand, Maren Morris, even I’ll admit at times that she can feel like a pop singer in disguise of a country singer, but at the end of the day, she’s a country artist – and an incredibly interesting one at that. Almost every single she had released from her debut album, I have adored. “My Church,” “I Could Use a Love Song,” “80s Mercedes,” you name it. There’s a major reason as to why I feel as such towards Maren Morris. She has quite a lot of personality packed into her, and most of all, she has a really great singing voice to back up with. In “The Middle,” her voice sounds so artificial to the point where you could make her out as literally any other female pop star, which explains why I hate this song for the way it reduces her to something so painfully generic. Yet that might just be Zedd and Grey’s intents. Why do I say this?

Maren Morris wasn’t clearly Zedd’s first choice for his collaborator. It’s a matter of fact that “The Middle” cycled through not one, not two, not three, but twelve, TWELVE different female singers before Zedd landed on Maren Morris! That immediately suggests how very clinically designed “The Middle” was to be a hit song. Zedd just didn’t want a female vocalist for his song. He wanted a voice that he thought would be ideal for it. It could’ve been anyone, and they could’ve sounded like anyone else too.

And because this song was deliberately designed to be so safe and accessible to pop radio and designed to be used for commercials, like how the music video was played during the Grammys and was made in promotion with Target, another one of the worst things about “The Middle” is how much we all bought into this. It was and probably still is inescapable on pop radio. It got nominated for Grammys. It is one of the top ten biggest hits of 2018 on the year-end list. For several reasons, this is my #3 (as well as probably my most controversial choice on my bottom 10), but if there’s at least one reason why it’s not my most hated hit of 2018, it accomplishes in being a pop song. I can at least understand it having an audience and understand that it got so big because of how (painfully) accessible it was. After wasting so much of my vitriol on this one song, I’ll conclude my thoughts by saying that Maren Morris deserves better than this and if Zedd keeps making the same mistake that he has made several times, then I say he needs to disappear from the pop charts sooner than later. ”The Middle” is commercialism at its finest and I would be happier to see less songs such of the like on the current pop charts.

 

Spoiler

 

2. "Fefe" / 6ix9ine featuring Nicki Minaj and Murda Beatz

Now here’s a song that isn’t actually worth so much commentary from me, because what else could be said about this that virtually everyone else who had put this song on their personal lists haven’t said already? “Fefe,” in a nutshell, goes to show that sometimes the worst way to leave your audience stunned is to not be shocking at all. “Fefe” is a completing droning, flavorless trap song from beginning to end. 6ix9ine at least added a lot of attitude to his voice to try and back up his earlier songs, but on “Fefe,” 6ix9ine sounds so lifeless and monotonous, making the song feel so dull and uninspired in the process. That and it also outrageously wastes the talents of Nicki Minaj and Murda Beatz as it must feel embarrassing for both artists to have played a part in this. Now if we may, let’s wipe away all of our memories of 6ix9ine for good. He clearly isn’t someone who deserves to be looked back on.

 

Spoiler

 

For a while, I thought I wouldn’t be so hard-pressed to find my ideal #1 worst hit song of 2018 after “Gummo” became a hit. However, sometime after the 2018 chart season continued to roll over, but sometime after my thoughts on “Gummo” cooled, I ultimately decided that this one particular song would be my strongest contender for my #1 worst. For those who didn’t recall me condemning the remix to “El Farsante” earlier in my review, I’ve disliked it for being just another melodramatic breakup song. This particular song is quite similar, but be warned. There is whining about being broken up…and then there’s whining AND flexing about being broken up…

1. "Te Bote" (remix) / Nio Garcia, Darell, and Casper Magico featuring Bad Bunny, Nicky Jam, and Ozuna

Of all of the 100 biggest year-end hits, I had zero patience and zero tolerance for a seven minute long breakup/diss anthem that is backed up by a dull and repetitive piano melody. Furthermore, there is legitimately nothing that I find salvageable about this song. This couldn’t have gotten so high on my personal bottom 10 for two reasons: the language and cultural barriers. I do not speak Spanish and I’m not Hispanic or Latin myself. Perhaps because I am not part of the culture represented in the reggaeton and Latin trap genres, there is perhaps some sort of unconventional behavior that I’m supposed to get from the song that I’m missing. My reasons for making this my #1 mostly stemmed from when I’ve gotten past the language barrier…and suffice to say, it’s not a pretty picture.

First thing’s first, the title of the song translates to “I Dumped You” in English. Just to repeat myself, this song is a breakup anthem, as well as a kiss-off anthem to those evil, abusive exes that made their lives a living hell…one could assume. There’s a huge part of me that finds it so difficult to sympathize for these reggaeton boys when it comes to the songwriting. Courtesy of Billboard providing the English-translated text, here are a few “pleasant” examples of their collective burns:

To hell I sent you… and I sent you
I threw you out of my life, and threw you out
(mind you, this is the chorus.)

 

And I nailed your friend, I nailed her
Fuck you, bitch

 

What a mess how your world went backwards
I messed with her

 

I no longer suffer for love, now I break hearts, and I have lots of $100 rolls
You broke my heart
Without meaning and without reason
But I have a new ass who gives me a lot of affection and fucks me real good

I’m not going to make these out like they make up the majority of the song. A good chunk of this remix revolves around the artists’ self-pity in their respective breakups. I’m not going against how each of them are trying so much to express their self-pity, but my main reason for disliking the remix to “Te Bote” is that, as a kiss-off anthem, it is just so very immature to me. These people are going on about how they’re moving on, but at the same time, they’re bringing so much attention to their old flames and they are consistently displaying the “FEEL BAD FOR ME!” type of behavior. While I’m still on the topic of consistency, what’s even more annoying is that each of these verses is hardly even distinguishable. Each verse from all these collaborators is nothing more than the same “I’m trying to forget my love for you, but I can’t, I want you to go to hell, I’m feeling better now that I’ve dumped you, I’m moving on,” type of narrative to me.

That’s not all. There’s also one moment in the song in which I would consider as my complete breaking point, which is near the end in Nicky Jam’s verse:

I’m taking advantage of this remix with Ozu to send you to hell also

That right there is straight up narcissism. Then again, that appropriately sums up this 7 minute long remix as a whole. There’s nothing else that I need to say at this point. “Te Bote” is an all-around ugly song that puts the Latin trap and reggaeton in a bad light. Give other artists like Becky G a deserved push and I’ll feel so much happier to look forward to a Latin crossover hit.

 

That wraps up my bottom 10 countdown. I’ll unveil my top 10 soon and I’ll try to get that out before the end of this month.

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So yeah, I don't care what the narrative says.  2018 for film was awesome!

 

The public mood may have been dour all year long, but one format of media decided to take this to its advantage and remind us to lighten up now and then.  Film was my escapism for most of the year as it tuned me out for a hour and a half at a time just to remind me to turn my brain off.  And honestly, I did that a lot more this year than I did in years past and I enjoyed the movies this year a lot more because of it.  One of the more memorable movie years in recent memory challenging 2016 and possibly surpassing it as one of the best of this decade behind 2012.  So enough rambling, let me share with you all some of the best of the best this year in my eyes.  You know it's a great year when I had to cut myself off in regards of honorable mentions.

 

Honorable Mentions:

Spoiler

Skyscraper

Probably the least conventional choice to make my best list this year, but I can’t help it.  It’s a shameless rip-off of Die Hard.  Well news for you guys, but Die Hard is one of my favorite movies of all-time.  I wish popcorn movies would try to replicate what made that movie work.  Also helping it is one of the most charismatic actors today being in this.  This movie would be so much worse without The Rock.

 

Blockers

Comedy may be a dying genre, but there are still some really good ones being made out there.  Seriously, I want to see a revival for this genre soon.  Also, this is the movie that officially made me take John Cena's acting career seriously.

 

Creed II

Not as good as the first, which was my runner up best film of 2015.  But still a really good follow-up.  I love how this played as a continuation of the lowkey great Rocky IV.  I had a feeling they would touch upon the Drago/Apollo fight at some point with this rebooted franchise, but not as soon as we got it.  Definitely lived up to my expectations even if the film itself was a step back from the gripping original.

 

Halloween (2019)

Who would have thought that it would have taken the guys who made The Pineapple Express to be able to save the Halloween franchise?  Strange timeline we are living in.  Oh and this is also the best Jamie Lee Curtis has been in over twenty years.  She should start getting real acting roles again instead of making yogurt commercials.

 

Ant-Man and The Wasp

Marvel Studios seriously can’t do no wrong as of late.

 

Aquaman

The DC cinematic universe is getting better.  It provided one of the best climax action scenes of the year.  Progress.

 

Bumblebee

And the Transformers franchise has new hope as well.  Even if it means borrowing heavily from 80s family movie clichs like E.T.  I’ll still take it because this was a franchise that always had such bigger potential than Michael Bay ever gave it credit for.

 

The Incredibles 2

I thought for sure after seeing this that this would be a lock for my Top 5.  And I get the unpopular opinion that I think this movie was equal to the first in terms of quality, but I still stand by it.  The family dynamic is stronger, the animation is slicker, Jak-Jak vs the raccoon is one of the top three best scenes of this year.  I can gush about this movie forever.  But let this be a sign as to how strong I thought this year really was that this didn’t even make the list proper.

 

Crazy Rich Asians

You know what genre seems to be getting a back end of the decade revival?  Romantic comedies.  The quality seems to be upticking more often than not as of late.  This movie was great.  The chemistry between our two leads was excellent.  The screenwriting was top notch.  Also Constance Wu is quickly becoming a celebrity crush of mine.

 

Would You Be My Neighbor?

Documentaries are rarely ever my cup of tea, but Fred Rogers was someone I grew up watching and this documentary about him is just straight up great. 

 

The Hate U Give

Amanda Stenberg's career is only going to keep rising meteorically from here.  What a phenomenal performance.  I still can't believe it's only been six years since she stole my heart as Rue from The Hunger Games.  

 

Mission Impossible: Fallout

Christ.  I don’t even have room for the best Mission Impossible movie of all time on my best list?  Is it too late now to make this a Top 20 best films list of the year?

 

Blindspotting

Terminoob says you all should go see this.  He’s not wrong you know.  I saw this in second run at our local cheap theater and it’s really good.  It’s a buddy comedy with seething amounts of social commentary.  Would have made the list if it wasn’t for the sometimes cringy dialogue.

 

Hereditary

Of all the excellent movies that were painful cuts from this best list, this was probably the most painful of them all.  This was just a flat out excellent year to be a horror movie and Hereditary manages to tell a moving yet terrifying story of a family being haunted by disturbing occurrences.  If it wasn’t for an awful ending, this movie would have been surely up pretty damn high.  But I’m not going to let the last ten minutes withhold it from being amazing from start up until that point.  It should be recognized for being one of my many favorites from this year.

 

And those were only the previews.  Time to sit back and enjoy the show.

 

CLAPPY'S TOP TEN BEST FILMS OF 2018

 

Spoiler

It may be number ten on my list, but this is without a doubt, the biggest movie of 2018.

 

10. Black Panther

 

This was the movie of the year.  The biggest earner.  The most talked about.  The most debated.  It broke industry records.  It set new standards for superhero movies.  It became the first superhero movie ever nominated for Best Picture.  Black Panther set the bar supremely high when 2018 started and it’s still being talked about today for everything it accomplished.

As for me, personally?  It’s pretty great.  Not as amazing as I initially first thought it was.  But this was definitely the best original MCU superhero movie since the first Iron Man ten years ago.  Yeah it had its fair share of problems like the CGI being hit or miss, especially in the climax.  I didn’t like the death fake out upon rewatch.  Why even bother with that when you’re advertising him to be alive for Infinity War?  Use your heads Disney.

But the positives heavily outweigh the negatives in many ways.  First off, Wakanda is absolutely breathtaking both visually and as a statement on the whole.  I love how beautiful they made this country just so they can tear it down critically in the movie.  Watching T’Challa call his father and other ancestors a nation of cowards for not opening themselves up to the world.  That just resonated with me with modern times where we have a president that wants to close ourselves off by building walls and kicking out immigrants.  Not since The Dark Knight has a superhero movie confronted modern political agonies in complex and resonant ways. 

Then you have the acting where everyone is great.  Chadwick Boseman, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Letitia Wright…look, Kat said it best in the thread by pointing out how excellent this cast is.  And I agree.  When Marvel casted their first predominantly black cast, they literally grabbed the best people to play these parts.  But in case you haven’t noticed, I left out one name and it’s the villain that steals the entire movie.  Michael B. Jordan is a revelation as Killmonger.  His motivations aren’t as evil as you’d initially expect.  He spent his whole life learning about his roots and knows that there is a greater power in Wakanda and that it’s not being utilized to its full potential.  Knowing his backstory, we know why he has a harsher view on life and understand why he wants to do what he wants to do.  Every scene he’s in, he fucking steals and slays.  I love his performance.

Look, I’m not going to sit here and give you a multitude of a think pieces about the cultural significance of this movie.  I just love this movie and what a first impression Black Panther left.  Definitely looking forward to Black Panther being a focal point of the Marvel Cinematic Universe for years to come.  Especially if the quality is as excellent as this.  Wakanda Forever!

 

Spoiler

 

As you all know by now, I have a soft spot for teenage coming of age movies.  John Hughes movies were films I grew up on.  And the fact that we keep getting a new classic year after year lately shows that there are people out there who were influenced from Hughes movies growing up too.  My movie going experience thanks them for that.

 

9. Love, Simon

 

From the very first moment I saw this trailer, I was sold and knew that this was going to be special.  This is a first of its kind for mainstream studios to make a romantic teen comedy about a gay teen.  But you know what’s special about this movie?  It doesn’t want you to feel sorry for Simon because he’s hiding the fact that he’s gay.  It wants you to relate to him hiding a secret from the world.  You could have focused the movie entirely on us feeling pity for him and I don’t know if this would have worked nearly as well as it did.  Because they emphasized how happy he was with his life through his friendships, the love he has for his family, and just being a normal every day teen; it worked so much better as a movie because of it. 

That’s where I bring up the John Hughes elements.  It’s all in the way this movie is written and performed.  If John Hughes wrote a LGBT coming of age movie about inclusion, this would exactly be how I imagined it.  How this movie is written is excellent outside of the only problem I had with this movie (and we’ll get to that shortly).  I lost track of time just watching Simon and his friends interact with each other as well as Simon investigating amongst his friends which one was Blue.  And then the amount of times I teared up watching Simon come out to his parents just broke my heart.  The performances are all top notch, with of course Nick Robinson as Simon being the best of the bunch.  This kid is going to be a huge star, mark my words.

My only problem with this movie was how it handled the antagonist, Martin.  Martin does some cruel, outright terrible things to Simon in an attempt to blackmail him.  You keep expecting him to get his comeuppance and it just never comes.  I mean he does humiliate himself at one point, but that’s not enough.  Hell at the end of the movie, he goes one good deed without any sort of realization that he was being a toxic asshat for a majority of the movie.

Otherwise, this is one of my favorite genres and I can forgive it’s only problem enough because the rest of this movie is just such a welcomed breathe of fresh air.  I love Love, Simon and I hope we keep getting more Hughes-esque movies for a new generation.

 

Spoiler

You know what’s an overdone year end list analysis, cliché?  I hope this turns into a cult classic.  I hear that phrase way too much to the point that it just feels overdone.  We, as a society, need to come up with better analysis.

Anyway, I hope this next one turns into a cult classic.

 

8. Bad Times at the El Royale

 

This flew under a lot of radars this year as it got lost in the fall release schedule shuffle.  I don’t know how because the trailers for this were just fantastic for it and immediately had me sold.  It underperformed at the box office like Drew Goddard’s previous film, Cabin in the Woods.  And I hope this ends up having the same fate as that because this was just a good time all around.

I love this movie.  Probably more than I did Cabin in the Woods.  Mostly due to the fact that I love mystery thrillers.  They are such an underrated genre that we don’t get enough of anymore.  If we can get one of those revivals soon, that would be great.  Also I don’t feel like Drew Goddard wrote himself into a corner like he did with Cabin. 

The best comparison I can give to it is this.  Imagine if Quentin Tarantino directed a pure popcorn movie with some of his trademark touches like graphic violence and a retro soundtrack, but added in some social subtext.  Everything else on this list got its fair amount of praise this year, but to me this is the most underlooked movie of 2018.  Go see it.

 

Spoiler

7. Searching

 

 

No preamble for this one.  Just going to get straight to the point.  I love it when films try to experiment with new ideas and while this idea has somewhat been done before with Unfriended; this one is filmed entirely with smartphones along with computer screens, browser windows, and surveillance footage.  But instead of focusing entirely on jumpscares like the aforementioned horror movie, this is just a natural thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat the entire movie.

And how does it do that?  By investing you from the very beginning.  You see that David is a widowed father who has a distant relationship with his daughter Margot.  And the moment he realizes that she actually is missing, you see his world starts to crumble…and yeah, from that point on, the extremities he goes to feel natural.  You see him explore through her laptop via Skype, Facebook, and what have you just to find out any sort of possible lead to locate his daughter.

But you know what exactly made me decide this was one of the best movies of the year?  How the story progressed from all of Margot’s classmates talking about how little they knew about her near the start of this search up until the moment news broke that Margot died and you see those exact same classmates post YouTube videos, Facebook and Instagram posts, tweets about how close they were to Margot for some pity likes and retweets.  THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR CALLING OUT THIS BULLSHIT, SEARCHING!  YOU HAVE MY UPMOST RESPECT.  I know too many people like that on social media who act like they were super close with the recently deceased.  They just want attention and that’s such a horseshit way to grab it.  Searching is the only movie I’ve seen tackle this issue and I can’t praise it enough for calling out that bullshit.

Even with that note in mind, Searching is an excellent movie that flew under a lot of people’s radars.  Go do yourselves a favor and check this one out.

 

Spoiler

So I don’t know how many toes I’ll be stepping on with this coming statement, so I’ll just flat out admit…I’m not the biggest fan of period pieces. 

 

I don’t know what it is about them.  Maybe it’s that most of them aren’t all that compelling.  Honestly, it’s mostly because I think so many of them exist because it is a surefire way for actors and actresses to get nominated for acting awards.  I call them “awardsbait movies” for a reason.

These movies have their tropes just as recurring as any other genre and unlike other genres, period pieces tend to bore me more often than any other because they don’t try anything new.  Well this year, I managed to find a period piece that actually manages to subvert my expectations from the genre.

 

6. The Favourite

 

I’ll get to the gushing over how great this movie was in a minute, but first some slight context as to what made this my favorite period piece in quite some time (and no it’s not specifically Emma Stone’s involvement).  The main reason this works is because of the director, Yorgos Lanthimos.  He’s not well known yet, but I hope this movie does elevate more people to check him out.  His most recognized work before this was a black comedy from 2015 called The Lobster.  It’s about a man who has 45 days to find true love, otherwise he will turn into an animal.  That’s the kind of director he is.  Making really unconventional movies.

And that’s why I bring his previous film up.  Because this is not a conventional period piece.  It’s actually pretty funny to go alongside its usual drama, but even then, the drama isn’t as conventional as your typical period piece.  It’s about Queen Anne having a secret affair with her adviser Sarah and then another secret affair with Sarah’s cousin Abigail.  Now I don’t know how historically accurate any of this is since my knowledge of Queen Anne is admittedly a big zero, but progressive representation of LBGT in your historical period pieces like this are rare at this point and time.

But yeah let’s get to the acting.  All phenomenal around the board.  Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz are probably on their ways to supporting actress nominations, but I would like to highlight lesser known Olivia Colman, someone give her more major roles.  She’s a future star in the making as Queen Anne.  This Best Actress race is going to be tough to call with all the great candidates to choose from.

Perfect example as to why I do these film lists late.  Otherwise, I’d miss absolute surprises like one of my new favourites.

 

Spoiler

d5f.png

 

…yeah I can’t believe this either.

 

5. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

 

That meme literally says it all.  The drastic improvement from where Sony Animation was this time last year in my eyes to where they are now, after ONE movie, speaks volumes.  It speaks volumes as to how Phil Lord and Chris Miller can literally do no wrong.

Okay let me give everyone else their due diligence too.  The animation team who made this gets a lot of the credit too.  This movie is beautiful to look at.  I just want to sit back and watch without analyzing it.  It’s breathtaking watching these characters interact, go from scene to scene, watching Miles go through New York City in his new suit, the climax against Kingpin, anytime Prowler is on screen….I could go on and on.  So many visuals.

But even with the amazing animation, I just love how this movie is a love letter to everything Spider-Man.  From the easter eggs to all the different cinematic sagas, to all the multiple and accurate backstories to all these Spider-people, to all the obscure pop culture items like that disgustingly designed Spider-Man popsicle I had as a child, to even re-enacting this meme:

giphy.gif

This movie was a love letter to everything Spider-Man.  Which is a perfect way to introduce Miles Morales into the cinematic picture.  Miles Morales has been rumored to appear on the main screen for some time now and while I still would like to see him in live action someday, making him the star of the animated universe Sony is creating is great.  They made Miles a super relatable character that has so much depth that I can’t wait to see where they go with him.

 

Spoiler

I feel like I’ve talked about this a lot in the back half of the 2010s, but the horror genre is on the upswing in quality.  The honorable mentions list had more horror movies on it alone than I’ve had on best lists in general over the past few years.  Unfortunately, I only had room for one on this year’s list.  And it comes from…

giphy.gif

…Jim Halpert?  No…this can’t be right….

 

4. A Quiet Place

 

…okay, this is the second year in a row where the best horror/thriller of the year comes from a comedic television personality.  I guess we should keep our eyes peeled for that April Ludgate involved remake of Child’s Play that is coming out this year.  Actually, rewind a bit.  We should have seen this coming.  John Krasinski has been doing a lot of directing and producing behind the scenes the past few years now.  A major movie studio was going to give him a chance one of these days.  But good lord, I didn’t expect it to be this great.  So great that Netflix was going to basically remake this at the end of 2018.

A lot of people I’ve talked to about this play it off as a great popcorn horror flick.  And yeah, I can turn my brain off and see it as that too and it will still do the job for me.  But I would like to focus on how it uses silence to world build.  It’s no secret that John Krasinski relied so heavily on this as the gimmick for his horror movie.  For years, I’ve commended him during his time on The Office to even the movies he’s been in for one thing in particular: expressive silence.

giphy.gif

I mean take a look at that GIF above.  His facial expressions are telling.  Look at this movie.  The silence speaks volumes literally.  If you speak, you’re dead.  If you make noise, you’re dead.  And how it all ties back to this tale of this family is heartbreaking. Who are we if we can’t protect our children?  What defines a family and what does it take to preserve it?

Just like with what I said with Jordan Peele last year, I eagerly anticipate what John Krasinski does next.  I’m invested.

 

Spoiler

 

Yeah you all saw this coming from a mile away.  I adored the hell out of this movie.

 

3. A Star Is Born (2018)

 

After being in developmental hell for years and being passed down by three other directors, I can’t even begin to imagine any other way this modern update would have been made.  I had my fair amount of skepticism as to how Bradley Cooper would have transitioned into the directorial chair, but yet again for the umpteenth time over the past couple years, an actor turned into a great director.  Jesus how many more times will I have to reuse this compliment?  But I think Bradley Cooper will fall more into the career path of Clint Eastwood with this one movie that is if he wants to continue to direct.  He has that strong of a knack for doing it all.

If you want to look at my best actor and actress frontrunners, look no further.  Both Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga transcend with these performances to the point that I thought these two were actual people and not just characters.  From the moment these two met to their relationship and personal problems to the self-sacrificing ending, it all hit me so hard that I teared up; even though I saw it all coming since this is the fourth adaptation of this movie.  But you know what?  This is hands down my favorite version.  For starters, it’s relatable and doesn’t make either one of these characters out to be unlikeable asshats like the Streisand version for example.

And the music.  Good lord the music.  Outside of the (what I feel is) purposely uninteresting pop music, the country/rock songs on this are fucking great.  I love every single one and based off its staying power, “Shallow” has a great chance at making the 2019 Year End list for Billboard.  Stay tuned there.

Hollywood, please never remake this movie ever again.  It may be a story that is timeless enough to do over and over again, but you have your penultimate version right here.  Don’t ruin a great thing.

 

Spoiler

tenor.gif?itemid=12978287

Nearly a year’s worth of being held in absolute suspense.  Causing me to think about what’s going to happen to my favorite heroes nights upon nights.  Do I have to go on dammit?  Because I will...

 

2. Avengers: Infinity War

 

 

I’m going to keep this one relatively shorter than the rest because I’ve done one too many posts on this site analyzing my thoughts about this movie.  Is it perfect?  Hell no.  It’s got so many problems.  But can I picture this movie being done any other way?  Absolutely not.  Marvel nailed it.

One of my many complaints about this movie is how they handle all the heroes.  But after seeing this movie more than any other this year, it’s easy to see why The Russos did what they did.  We’ve gotten plenty of movies to understand all these Marvel heroes.  We got next to none about Thanos.  He needed to be the focal point of this movie.  Marvel has spent six years building up to his arrival and after being considered practically a snippet for all these years, audiences had to understand why Thanos was such a significant villain in Marvel comic lore.  And they fucking succeeded in that regards.  Thanos is supremely complex as a character.  More so than any other villain before him.  Everything he does, we follow and understand, even if we don’t necessarily agree with him.  That’s why when I saw this movie again, I couldn’t help but feel more of an attachment to him amongst all the others, outside of maybe Thor, who also has his own set of focus in this.  I actually kind of rooted for him to succeed this time around just because we got to understand his character so much to the point that you could actually feel a bit of sadness in watching himself sacrifice the only other thing he had left to love in this world.

And of course, we have to talk about the most iconic movie moment of the year.

tenor.gif?itemid=12289822

If I’ll remember one iconic pop culture moment of this year, it will be those fucking fingers snapping.  And sitting there watching all these heroes I’ve grown to love, vanish right in front of my teary eyes.  Even though I know they are going to be back in a couple months, my mind is still frantically racing through every single theory I can remotely think of on how they will be brought back.  Folks.  That’s what you call the perfect cliffhanger.  Way to fuck with my emotions Marvel.  I love you.  Wait...this isn't my number one?  What say you @Thanos?

 

Spoiler

For most of this year, I thought for sure Infinity War was going to take the top spot on this list.  It’s the penultimate movie from a studio that has taken the industry by storm over the last ten years.  And as a lifelong Marvel comics fan and now a huge Marvel Studios fan, this was my most anticipated movie in quite some time.  It would have been hard pressed for something to take that number one spot from it.  But then, a movie came out towards the end of this year.  And it was honestly one of the last films from 2018 that I caught before I started publishing these lists.  It took my breath away as I sat there for a quite bit in just pure fascination and adoration.  What sort of studio produced such a breath taking masterpiece?

netflix-comedy-special.gif

Of course this all comes full circle with all the bashing I did this year.  Thank you Netflix.

 

1. Roma

 

Roma also barely qualifies for this list because it did get a limited theatrical release.  And I’m so glad that it did because it deserves to be in contention for awards season.  After all, it comes from one of my favorite directors working today, Alfonso Cuaron.  And as I’m writing this, he is the favorite to win the best director award for the second time in his career.  And rightfully so because this might just be the best movie he will ever make.

For those who don’t know, this is Alfonso Cuaron’s lifelong passion project.  He’s been trying to get this movie made for many years as this is a personal story about a maid from his childhood growing up in Mexico City in the early 1970s.  And you can just tell how personal this story is to him because every shot, every scene, every performance is just moving.  This is a movie made by a man who has enthralling command over his visual craft.

Honestly, I don’t want to write a long thorough analysis of this movie.  I just want to sit back and watch.  It’s just one of those movies that exist to remind me why film has been such a lifelong passion of mine.  No need to pirate this movie guys.  It’s on Netflix right now.  Do yourselves a favor and stream this.

 

And those are my 2018 year end lists.  I'm still doing that Netflix worst original movies list, so they aren't getting off the hook that easily, but it won't be on this thread.  As always guys, thank you for taking time out of your day to think what this tasteless goof likes.  I always appreciate it.

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