Idiot's Best of 2018 - Take Back The Love

March 29, 2019 john lichman

Here’s to another goddamn new year.

The top grossing films of 2018 were related to comic books (Black Panther, Avengers Infinity War, Deadpool 2, Venom, Aquaman), horror films (Insidious 4, The Nun), adaptations (Ready Player One, Crazy Rich Asians, The Grinch) and franchise legacies (The Incredibles 2 , Mission: Impossible Fallout). On the lower end of the AMC A-List you had a year peppered with some of the strongest documentaries that broke convention (Hale County, This Morning This Evening; The Road Movie, Minding the Gap, Bisbee ‘17, Caniba), box office (RBG, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, Free Solo, Three Identical Strangers) and release format (They Shall Not Grow Old [3D], Burn the Stage: The Movie). Audiences were also given a return glimpse of the Paul Schrader that has been hiding in the world of DTV/VOD/SVOD over the last eight years along with a few strong films that snuck into mainstream conversation (The Rider, Thoroughbreds, Unsane, Cold War [‘18], Annihilation). And, like every year, everyone ignored a film except for Bilge Ebiri (Where is Kyra?).

2019 seems to be on track for about the same with whatever holdouts we’ll get from major festivals and the Spring releases of Chinese indies An Elephant Sitting Still and Long Day’s Journey Into Night. And we’ll have to figure out how we’ll ever get around learning comic book characters can die and come back to life in the same release year but I’ve got faith in audiences.

All films I chose vaguely follow the M’DA school of having at least a one week theatrical release in New York and a domestic U.S. release in 2018. I was an idiot and didn’t see Minding the Gap until the very end of the calendar year but I stand by my assembled ten favorites/stand-outs/pointless numbering. On with the wrong opinions…

A mining town in Arizona gets together to understand what happened over a hundred years ago when owners of a mining company deported the workers that attempted to unionize. Today (in 2017) Bisbee has a population just north of 5,000 and what’d you’d expect to find: a downtown strip, craft beer and a vibrant community that still wants to explore what happened all those years ago.

Greene and his crew record the town’s preparations for the re-enactment from meeting actors, staging musical numbers and crafting a narrative within a narrative about how new transplants and families deep roots deal with their legacy. One of the near perfect characters involve a family whose uncles were separated (one deputized to make arrests during the event, one actively unionizing miners) and died without ever seeing each other again.

Image/Illustration: Cinetic Media/jl

Caniba (2017)

Dirs. Véréna Paravel & Lucien Castaing-Taylor

“A documentary about Issei Sagawa” seems like it should involve a Vice bumper but instead we’re given the Havard University Sensory Ethnography Lab’s glimpse at what life with Sagawa is through a series of slow, dream-like interviews. Assisted by his brother and a cosplaying nurse, Sagawa legacy is explained and even the morbid lengths such a celebrity can be taken from an autobiographical comic book to a snippet of an extreme fetish video he was featured in.

Less traditional talking head doc than a surreal display of light and bokeh over actually explaining what’s happened to the Sagawas over the years. As Issei is content to pass himself on (as a meal, natch) it is his brother Jun who reveals that his brother, Issei, inspired him to accept the more fringe aspects of both their personalities. It doesn’t hurt that a live-in maid is also a cosplayer, ending in a wordless sequence that’s as surreal as Sagawa himself is terrifying even as a frail, withered man.

Image/Illustration: Grasshopper Films/jl

First Reformed.jpg — First Reformed (2018)

Dir. Paul Schrader

Assembled in block letters on a sign outside First Reformed Church is a simple and poignant question for all: “WILL GOD FORGIVE US?”

Reverend Ernst Toller (Ethan Hawke) grapples with this and nearly a year later audiences still debate whether He did or not. Struggling with advancing his own comprehension of faith and spirituality, Toller is asked by a new constituent (Amanda Seyfried) to check in on her husband (Philip Ettinger) who doesn’t want to bring his child into the world. The conversation between Hawke and Ettinger is one of the best moments this year as Toller reveals he too was a father and the consequences of what he did to his child turned him to the church.

A bit of good timing saw Mubi program Paul Schrader’s 1992 Light Sleeper last fall and it Dafoe’s “John LeTour” is a wonderful preview of how he evolved his “man in his room” must keep going toward something more than getting lost in his journals.

Image/Illustration: YouTube - A24/jl

Have A Nice Day.jpg — Have A Nice Day (2017)

Dir. Jian Liu

One of the better crime dramas out of 2018 (sorry Den of Thieves) follows a small town dealing with a robbery that leads to a chase that leads to an assassin that leads to an internet cafe that leads to a brief moment of national song and it all wraps up because of bad drivers. I was surprised this had a nice semi-wide release and knew nothing about Liu but had heard of his 2010 animated feature Piercing I.

His use of a stiff but hyper realistic animation forces attention to the audio cues and conversations unfolding over this hellish day. It also comes in as one of the shortest features in 2018 at 77 minutes, which puts an emphasis to keep moving from character to character until it comes to pull a Paul Haggis.

Image/Illustration: Strand Releasing/jl

Oh Lucy!.jpg — Oh Lucy! (2017)

Dir. Atsuko Hirayanagi

Setsuko (Shinobu Terajima), a middle-aged salarywoman, is begged by her niece to adopt the debt of a (obviously) shady English course and in the process becomes enamored with her teacher John (Josh Hartnett). Thinking she’s found a new outlet out of her dead-end secretarial job, Setsuko becomes Lucy and looks forward to her ongoing lessons.

But when her niece runs off to America with John, it’s up to Setsuko and her sister to straighten out their family and fight along the way with the most dramatic leap of faith from 2018.

Image/Illustration: Film Movement/jl

The Road Movie.jpg — The Road Movie (2016)

Dir. Dmitrii Kalashnikov

Released in 2018 in the U.S. by Oscilloscope, The Road Movie takes the premise of Dean Fleischer-Camp’s Fraud and strips away the faux-narrative: this is just raw footage shot across the roads and streets of various Russian locations. There’s the drunk woman that runs screaming toward a car, banging on the hood and windows, the crash of a meteor and a driver turning a corner to find a tank trying to align itself in the middle of the street. What Kalashnikov captures is like Short Cuts taken to its extreme as people in a country record everything simply to prove their real lives are stranger than fiction.

One thing to note is The Road Movie serves as a time capsule according to the credits where Kalashnikov documents and sources the clips he uses. One of them, impossible to tell which after an initial viewing, has been deleted from the Internet. And now it lives on in DCP.

Image/Illustration: Oscilloscope Laboratories/jl

What a great year for Soderbergh to be overshadowed in two different projects. Mosiac, his series that ran both on HBO and as a companion mobile-and-desktop app, tasked its audience to unravel a story as they saw fit and let bias be their own whether by accident pushing forward through a “binge-watch.” And then there was Unsane, the strongest performance from Claire Foy when she was kept grounded in First Man and no one seemed to watch The Girl In the Spider’s Web.

As Sawyer, Foy is all nerves and close-ups as she lives in fear of her stalker David. Finally having enough of her own paranoia she opts to go in for free counseling—and then becomes trapped in a doctor-appointed hold for a 24-hour stay that accrues more time after lashing out at an orderly she mistakes for her stalker. And then the next day her stalker, David (Joshua Leonard) is handing out pills inside the hospital.

You may also know this for being “the movie Soderbergh shot on an iPhone [7 Plus].” More than an advertising gimmick it is a neat concept at seeing what our phones are capable now when partnered with a few thousand dollars worth of gimbals, anamorphic conversion lenses and cradles. One of the final sequences set inside a padded room show off just how much creativity this new camera can give someone like Soderbergh who’s willing to push fames into awkward and voyeuristic angles.

Image/Illustration: YouTube - Bleecker Street/jl

The Rider.jpg — The Rider (2017)

Dir. Chloe Zhao

A day or two after I saw this I had an impromptu conversation with someone who said The Rider would’ve been great if two scenes had been shown in opposite order. But it’s easy to play Monday morning quarterback after you’ve witnessed the ongoing trials of the Blackburn family (played by real life family members Brady, Tim and Lilly Jandreau) and Brady coming to terms with his life-long dream being over.

Zhao and her DP Joshua James Richards treat South Dakota as an expansive purgatory for Brady as he recovers from his injuries and puts off the question of whether he’ll ever ride again over being forced into retirement. The Rider’s somber message stresses that the most important lesson is knowing when your dreams are over and whether you’re strong enough to find a replacement.

Image/Illustration: Sony Pictures Classics/jl

Where Is Kyra?.jpg — Where Is Kyra? (2017)

Dir. Andrew Dosunmu

If you want to be cute, this is the darkest film of the year next to Solo: A Star Wars Story.

It’s also one of the strongest independent films of the year that went unappreciated and unseen despite a very terrifying reality.

Image/Illustration: YouTube/jl

Nicholas Cage is the most unpredictable 10-sided die in the world. Over the year we got critical roles with Mom and Dad (“Brent Ryan (Dad)”), Spider-Man Into the Spider-verse (“Spider-Man Noir”) and Teen Titans Go! To The Movies (It’s actually too good to ruin who he plays). In the same year we got roles that seemed to edge disastrously close to fails (Looking Glass, 211, Between Worlds) and then there was “Red Miller” in Mandy.

Through Cosmatos’ direction (and his co-writer Aaron Stewart-Ahn), Cage inhabited a broken down loner that found a reason to go home at the end of the day to the Crystal Mountains and Mandy (Andrea Riseborough). Like a superhero hiding in retirement, Red spent his nights along side his partner thinking up cosmic comic book rivalries and watching old horror films that could never become real. And then the end of his world happens led by a charismatic man-child and commanding the four horsemen (or just some dudes on enough LSD to think so) and Red Miller goes for the closest thing to help him suit back up to take on the bad guys in one of the best scenes of 2018: Pantless, bloody Nic Cage in a bathroom and making a subtle motion from the opening into unleashing his “hero” once again into a twisted landscape.

Image/Illustration: RLJ Entertainment/jl

OTHER STUFF FROM 2018:

Best Film That Got Stealth Dropped The Weekend Before The End of the Year and Is One of the Funner Films of 2018: Clara’s Ghost

First Film of 2018: Molly’s Game

Last Film of 2018: Minding the Gap

Total Number of Films Watched That I Remembered to Log on Letterboxd: 192

Best Netflix Film We’ll Come Back Around On One Day: Mute

Best Video Game That Ate Up Too Much Time: Dead Cells

Best Video Game I 100 Percent Completed And Then DLC Came Out So I Did Not Have It 100 Percent Completed: Marvel’s Spider-Man

Most Underrated Use of Nic Cage (live-action): Mom and Dad

Most Underrated Use of Nic Cage (animated): Teen Titans Go! To The Movies

Most Repeated Viewings of a Film: Mandy (six times between September 2018 and December 2018: one theatrical, four digital, one BD)

A Guide to Surviving AFI DOCS (2018)

June 14, 2018 john lichman

"Thumbs Up From The Doc-mobile Outside AFI Silver"

Hello, friend!

If you're reading this you're probably coming to wonderful Washington, D.C. to experience the 2018 edition of AFI DOCS (formerly SILVERDOCS) from June 13th through June 17th. The Nation's Capital, not to be confused with the Capitol Building, is a wonderful place where it never cools off during the summer and every tourist is equally pissed that not all white houses are The White House.

AFI DOCS continues to take place at two traditional venues (Landmark E Street and the AFI Silver Theater) for the main slate along with the Newseum for opening night, four of the Smithsonians for special screenings and a free, first-come-first-served screening of Kinshasha Makambo at the United States Institute of Peace. While it seems like everything is centered in downtown D.C. it's important to know AFI Silver and Landmark E Street aren't remotely close to each other—more on that later!

Now there is a slight chance you've booked your accommodations correctly and are inside what is locally known as "D.C. Proper." That means you're staying near the fun-sounding sections of Penn Quarter, Metro Center, Convention Center or U Street/14th Street. This little sub-section of the city is fairly decent for tourists and loaded up with an assortment of Pret A Mangers, Five Guys, Walgreens and a handful of places to go out with the rest of the tourist crowd. Maybe you're wealthy and staying in Georgetown, once a notable shopping district now is home to countless empty storefronts and an Apple store.

But what if you were sold on something more affordable and told to spend your nights sleeping in Crystal City or Pentagon City? Or maybe you want to stay closer to the AFI Silver theater? Well then you're still in D.C., friend—"D.C. Metro" that is. Just like how folks from Los Angeles and New York can be insanely territorial about which part of the city you're in, D.C. has that except with Northern Virginia and Southern Maryland. This isn't an issue, per se, because it's just as easy to get into Downtown D.C. from Virginia or Maryland. So what can you expect?

Northern Virginia

If you're here you're probably in the faux-city known as Crystal City or Pentagon City. Made up of dozens of looming towers and underground pathways, these sister cities have exactly jack going for them aside from being the corporate home to Bloomberg News, Boeing, WETA and the DEA Museum. There's also the Pentagon nearby but don't confuse that with Pentagon City—they're split by the highway. Or you're over in Rosslyn, a city built around defense contractors and the original site of DARPA. Rosslyn is what grows when you keep building efficiency condos for $3,000/mo and convincing large-scale companies to convince their workers to be closer to work. It's also deceptively hilly.

Southern Maryland

Welcome to Silver Spring, soon-to-be-former home of Discovery Communications! Surrounded by almost nothing except a questionable outdoor mall, the former location of Piratz Tavern (now Lina's Diner and Bar) and a very expensive carnivore option. But don't let that get you down as Silver Spring has a motley collection of eating options (Pollo Campero, a Guatemalan chain that first spread into the U.S. through the D.C. Metro area; Tastee Diner, a small chain diner that still features horse racing). But once you leave the main drag of Georgia Avenue and Colesville Road you'll notice things tend to turn into massive apartment buildings and minor desolation. In fact, your decision to stay here is almost insane and now you'll slowly starve to death as you watch documentary films.

Foggy Bottom Is Blurry.JPG — So you've scheduled your films and have been assured it is easy to get from the Landmark E Street to AFI Silver Theater to meet your showtime. Well, you're wrong. If you order an UberX right outside of E Street to go to Silver you're looking at a minimum 30-50 minute drive.

Even if you hauled ass over to Metro Center for a straight shot to Silver Spring station on the Red Line that is at least a half hour on a good day. It is never a good day in Washington, D.C. on the Metro.

For the duration of AFI DOCS you can expect delays on the Blue, Yellow, Orange, and Silver lines. If you're unfamiliar with public transportation that means giving yourself at least an extra 30 minutes if you're going to Landmark E Street from Virginia; make that an 70 minutes if you're going to AFI Silver. The Red Line is scheduled to be normal functionality which means if you're going between E Street (Metro Center or Gallery Place Chinatown) and AFI Silver (Silver Spring).

If you're taking Metro, now is the time to tell you about our fun, insanely unfriendly user interface. To ride the train or bus comfortably, you need a SmarTRIP card. These are available at any Metro station before getting on the train. Now for the fun part: SmarTrip cards! A required resource to ride the Metro, SmarTrip cards are a pain in the ass to get. The Wikihow is surprisingly relevant. The other fun part of D.C. Metro is the fare system, which is different for every station. Rather than have a base fare, each station is an increment of $2-5 dollars. On average, it'll cost you $3.65 to go from Metro Center to Silver Spring during peak fares. And bus transfers aren't free. Metro sucks but it's air conditioned in the train cars.

So, you want to eat something besides Pret A Manger and Cosi while you're here.

You want to really get a feel for what it takes to survive in the nation's capital. Well, okay!

AROUND LANDMARK E STREET:

Lincoln's Waffle Shop (504 10th St NW):

This place is a true double-edged sword. On one hand, it is the best diner in the area for the food it will serve you. But it is also the de facto spot for throngs of tourists waiting to get into their prix fixe at Hard Rock Cafe or waiting for their timed ticket at Ford's Theater to be served. If you have time to kill before your screening at Landmark E Street and want food that isn't shitty cardboard rectangular pizza nor Qodoba then this is your best choice. Closes 4:30 pm weekdays, 3pm weekends.

Harry's Restaurant (436 11th St NW):

This is where you come to eat if you secretly want to drink four beers and then eat an absurdly large sandwich. By day it attracts a mix of tourists, day drinkers and the occasional full-time bathroom occupant who will be done in a few minutes in an hour or two. As night approaches it's a mix of local workers, office folks and again people who would rather have four beers but swear they're getting dinner soon. Everything's slightly sticky and the children may look terrified but it's the single halfway decent place within a block.

Ollie's Trolley (425 12th St NW)

"THE SINGLE GREATEST HAMBURGER IN ALL OF WASHINGTON, D.C."- a thing locals have ingrained in their head. Ollie's is a stand-out as it's attached ass-to-ass to Harry's Restaurant. In lieu of Harry's more dive quality (but not dive prices) Ollie's is the Circus Circus of hamburgers. Random tsotchkes are everywhere and refills are extra. But Ollie's burger and fries are satisfying despite not being cheap. You want an Ollieburger with Ollie sauce and a side of fries (they arrive caked in Old Bay, no exceptions). Everything else on the menu is a Bob's Burgers-style of constant experimentation that can be approached if you like to gamble with your guts. Cash only and roughly $14-17-a-person but it's Ollie's.

Elephant & Castle (1201 Pennsylvania Ave NW)

Welcome to the British-themed version of TGI Fridays. The Chicken Tikka poutine is the most unique thing here and can be consumed quickly at the bar, which will be filled with a mix of midwestern tourists and the occasional college sports fan. "Why include this," you ask. This is food for the person that wants a bar but actually wants to eat a meal. It is the only bar/restaurant that actively tries to kick you out if they notice you're alone so you can be in and out under 20 minutes.

Central Michel Richard (1001 Pennsylvania Avenue NW)

Dinner only during the week, brunch on weekends. Big mix of policy wonks and first dates looking to impress each other by only ordering three of the top shelf whiskies while droning on about what their shitty day job is. Gets very crowded fast and impossible without reservation to walk in. Sitting at the bar and eating is the best option and the great equalizer while listening to someone tell someone else what a big deal they are. The $11 fried cheese balls and $26 fried chicken are surprisingly worth their inflation.

Mackey's Public House (1306 G St NW)

This is legitimately the shittiest place you could choose to eat and the farthest walk from E Street. By walking here you've passed not only a McDonalds, a District Taco (the local meh version of a Chipotle), but an entire food court made up of 80s-throwback grease traps. All of these are better. The only reason this place exists is because of nearby lobbying/ad firms crammed with kids who believe this bar is a "dive" and not just cheap because they throw ice in urinals after demanding $11 for a cup of hummus. The only reason I include it is because if you ever want to see the low-end of the "movers and shakers" inside Washington's various jerk-off lobbying firms here they are enjoying overpriced hummus and being told to fuck off by the staff from Waiting... .

AROUND AFI SILVER:

Panera Bread (literally next to AFI Silver):

You don't want to eat here. It is literally the closest meal near the theater but it is never not crowded. No matter the day nor time there is always a line. Imagine every awful coffee shop you've ever walked into where no one moves and everyone tries to charge their phone at once. This is that same place but with bagels.

Anything Across The Street from AFI:

Seriously all of it is good. From tapas, ethiopian food, thai and a Pollo mf'in Campero. If you're in the need for something fast look no further than Pollo, the Guatamalan chain of lightly fried and baked chicken is the greatest gift you can give yourself. There's also a Chik-fil-a around the corner but Pollo Compero is by far your best cheap and fast chicken choice.

Red Lobster (8533 Georgia Ave)

I mean you do you.

Quarry House Tavern (8401 Georgia Ave)

It looks like a dive but really it's a very nice, accommodating bar with food options and people having strong opinions on how to drink beer. It is worth the walk past the other options inside the Silver Spring mini-mall near AFI.

What are the theaters like? Glad you asked.

LANDMARK E STREET

All theaters are underground after a short escalator or elevator ride. There is parking nearby if you're brave enough to rent a car for this trip. Unfortunately the screenings will be happening in Theaters 1, 6, 7 and 8. Theater 1 has the largest capacity while 6, 7 and 8 are some of the smaller screens. AFI likes to pack screenings and you will be sharing space with a

E Street also offers a full bar with a vast selection of beer, cocktails and spirits. If you're not imbibing that there's also the normal fare (soda, popcorn) mixed with alternate choices (fruit slushee, coffee, tea, stuffed crab pretzel). Once you're downstairs, though, you'll be effectively cut off from any data or phone calls. Also the only bathrooms are near where the escalator leaves you off, which is a good five minute walk from the farthest theater (8).

AFI SILVER

Three theaters make up the almost 18-year-old theater and you won't be in the best (Theater 1) unless you're going to the June 14th screening of Bathtubs Over Broadway. Theaters 2 and 3 are your standard multiplex raised seating and have no issues in the audio or visual department. They are, however, deceptively smaller than Theater 1 and roughly seat 70-90 with Theater 2 being the smallest.

AFI Silver has a selection of beer, wine and general snacks that rank itself a bit higher than your local multiplex (hummus! Whole Foods brands! Maybe hot dogs?). They do have some of the best popcorn in the area.

SMITHSONIANS/U.S. INSTITUTE FOR PEACE

A caveat!

While AFI and Landmark are always movie theaters the other screening locations are not (with the aforementioned caveat). Some Smithsonian entrances have mandatory metal detectors (like Air and Space) while others require manual bag checks for anything ranging from a purse to a messenger bag (nearly every other one). If you have any type of messenger bag or backpack, you have to wear it in front of of you.

Otherwise welcome to this shitty, shitty place. Also try the Half-Smoke.