Best of 2018, III: TV series.

From a total of 20 TV series I watched this year, my personal top 6 (I couldn’t trim it down to five this time), four animated shows (both Anime and US cartoons) and two docu-series. In no particular order:  

- She-ra and the princesses of power. One of two remarkable cartoon reboots in this list, and a fine example of taking an existing property and retooling it into something unique. Essentially a fantasy-action cartoon for the current era, with a charming cast and an engaging storyline that balances mystery with character focus. 

- Aggresive Retsuko (aka Aggretsuko). Technically a reboot as well, being a web-series spun-off into a TV series proper. A slice-of-life comedy (or perhaps dramedy), and one of the few animated shows that can be legitimately described as “relatable”. After a Christmas special this year, I’m looking forward to the second season. 

- Time of Eve. A quiet, vastly underrated sci-fi show that explores a future society composed of humans and androids from a pivotal place: A café where the two may mingle freely. Subtle and emotionally sincere. Looking forward to the movie. 

- DuckTales. The other remarkable cartoon reboot in this list, a series that managed to be both an homage to the past (not just the original DuckTales, but to decades of Disney Duck comics, movies and cartoons) and a brand-new artifact. An all-ages, extremely enjoyable blend of comedy and adventure. Looking forward to the second season. 

- Sat, Fat, Acid, Heat. A four-part documentary based on the book by chef Samin Nosrat, a tour around the world (Italy, Japan, Mexico —then back to the US) in search for traditional food and cooking methods. A feast for the senses, in several ways. 

- Explained. A collection of twenty information capsules that cover a wide variety of topics —from the world’s water crisis to the history of tattoos and exclamation marks, to eSports to the female orgasm and much, much more. A rare Netflix docu-series that aims to be informative rather than exploitative. Notable for both educational value and as a springboard for several necessary discussions. 

Best of 2018, II: Books in English.

I read a total of ten books in English this year, including prose and comics. Which gives us a top 5. I found this list MUCH more difficult to compile. Also, this year I read a lot of essays, almost without noticing. Once again, these aren’t so much the very best books I read this year, but those that made much more of an impression on me. 

Arranged in alphabetical order: 

1. Amphigorey. Edward Gorey. Gorey’s first fifteen… books? Comics? Illustrated books? Under the same roof. Very unusually for a chronological compilation, all of them already display the author’s themes, interests and virtues in full. A quintessentially Weird artist, in the sense of delving into unusual themes and techniques, very much for those looking for something original. He is about everything I had heard and a lot of things I had not. 

2. Bad Feminist. Roxane Gay. One of the best essay collections I read this year, at once candid and carefully researched. Gay’s voice is a delight to read even as she guides us through hauntingly dark torments, both personal and social. 

3. Before I fall. Lauren Oliver. One of the best current YA novels I have read yet. If the plot is quite familiar, this is one of those books that prove it’s all in the execution. 

4. Love is love. A powerful anthology of short queer comics, ranging from the tear-jerking to the thoughtful to the puzzling. The best way I can describe the impact this comic had on me, warts and all, is that it was one of the many factors that contributed to my actually attending the local Pride parade this year. 

5. So you’ve been publicly shamed. Jon Ronson. This is the one entry I wasn’t completely sure about. I definitely enjoyed reading this book and it did give me plenty to think about. At the same time, it does have a certain exploitative tone, being as it is primarily a collection of lurid cyberbullying cases wrapped in a cautionary warning. Yet it holds a fascination for me beyond the morbid, because of Ronson’s intimation that the problem is not the tool (the internet) but the ways in which we can use it to foster our worst instincts. Thought-provoking, for better, for worse and for something unexpected. 

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Comments are welcome.

Best of 2018, I: Movies in English.

I watched a grand total of 25 movies in English this year. 

From this, we choose a top five… not in order. These aren’t necessarily the absolute best five movies I watched this year; they are the five that made the most impression on me and that I find to be all fine movies in themselves. I don’t really think one is superior to the other (besides they are very different in terms of story, themes, style…). With one exception, these are all from the current century. So, in alphabetical order: 

1. A ghost story (2017). A tour-de-force journey through time and space presented via a deceptively simple image: A bedsheet ghost! The result is neither an horror movie nor a parody of the genre (even though it actually is both of those things sometimes), but a poetic exploration of the human soul. Genuinely haunting, as the best ghost stories are. 

2. Do the right thing (1989). The up and downs of a tightly-knit, diverse urban community during a cruel heat wave. Possibly the quintessential Spike Lee movie, as polarizing as the deep-rooted conflicts it portrays, with unforgettable sequences that range from the touching to the humorous to the disturbing. 

3. Dream Boat (2017). A documentary of a week-long gay cruise which becomes a snapshot of the international gay community of the current era. Mixing interviews with party chronicles, it achieves an almost symbolic quality (case in point, a nighttime party is almost dreamlike, as befits the title). 

4. I, Tonya (2017). Less a biography or a reconstruction of a real-life event than an exercise in film that highlights the unreality of what we think of as “fact”. A movie that is by turns hilarious, spectacular and very thought-provoking, anchored by terrific performances and a delightfully sardonic script. 

5. Kinky Boots (2005). A comedy loosely based on a real-life anecdote (it’s interesting how fiction is nourished by reality, without needing to be an exact copy of it). But what makes this movie shine is the use of a simple detail (shoe-making) to illustrate the changing attitude of entire societies around complex issues (blue-collar workers grappling with novel concepts of gender and sexuality, which often challenge their own assumptions). And it manages to tackle these subjects without needing to be overtly dramatic nor heavy-handed. 

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Thoughts and commentaries are welcome. 

Aquaman.

- Aquaman (2018, dir. James Wan). The son of an Atlantean queen and a human lighthouse guard, Arthur Curry (alias Aquaman) is required to reclaim his throne as the rightful heir of Atlantis —before an alliance between the seven seas (well, what is left of seven underwater kingdoms, really) wage a huge war against the surface world. Unfortunately, Arthur has no interest in the throne or in Atlantis. Fortunately, he is interested in a globe-trotting adventure…

A superhero movie that is at once silly and spectacular, occasionally problematic and often loads of fun —so the quintessential Superhero story, really. Opting to ditch the dour cynicism of previous DC-based movies (“Superman vs Batman”), this one opts for a simple story that serves mostly as an excuse for adventures, spectacular fights and stunning landscapes, both above and below water. 

What makes it silly? It’s a movie that presents with all sincerity such sights as an armored shark roaring like a trained circus lion, an octopus beating war drums (something of a live-action interpretation of Disney’s version of The little mermaid, indeed!), a woman feasting on live goldfish and more. And that is fine, really —there is plenty of merit in daring to be silly. 

What makes it problematic? The tired cliché of a fantasy race (Atlantean) that consist almost exclusively of white people, while the one black person in the story (Black Manta) is the villain. The movie goes to great lengths to try to humanize Manta, but in a movie where most of the characters sound and act like they stepped out of an episode of “He-man and the masters of the universe”, it only makes the problem even more obvious. Add to that the casual destruction and unacknowledged massive death toll that is common to the genre and you have a movie that refused to learn the basic lesson: There is a lot wrong with being problematic due to slavishly following genre rules that were never meant to be followed at all. 

And yet, aside from elements that leave a really bitter taste on your mouth, the rest of the movie is still unabashedly entertaining, with grandiose overacting (on purpose) from a talented cast and a neat sense of spectacle and wonder. 

The american meme.

- The American Meme. (2018. Dir. Bert Marcus). Assorted internet influencers (amongst them Paris Hilton, Kirill Bichutsky and Brittany Furlan) are interviewed about their methods for capturing a huge online following --and in the process wind up revealing the genuine horrors of a soulless existence. 

What starts as something of a vanity project (Hilton is one of the producers) becomes a fascinating exploration of the pitfalls of celebrity adoration and a certain cultural equivalent of fast-food joints (amusing, satisfying once in a bit, but astoundingly dangerous if you make them a regular part of your life). The portrayals of each online personality feel genuine, in that all admit to catering to the lowest common denominator in order to gain attention --enough that they can monetize their quickly-consumed (and quickly forgotten) antics. At times the documentary borders on exploitative as it beings to portray what come across as profoundly self-destructive personalities (at least two of the persons interviewed state numerous times that they want to die but their followers won't let them go). Even Hilton, whom the director attempts to portray as a tragic figure ultimately comes off less as a victim of media and more as a person trapped in a hole of despair of her own making. Her final decision is both reminiscent of a "Black Mirror" episode and borderline surreal: To quite literally live permanently on the Internet, building herself an online world where she's to spend most of her waking hours. 

But seeing this documentary merely as a freak show would be missing the point: There is an understated warning about the dangers of online addiction. How many people do we know who state the same lament many of the interviewees say: "I don't know how to be alone with myself." 

To be sure, the documentary itself remains manipulative. No attempt is made to present a more responsible use of online distractions, nor of the ways in which the Internet itself can be used for more humanitarian causes (say, grassroots campaigns. Say, distribution of urgent information. Say, reaching out to the more communication impaired). In that respect, it's an interesting, provocative and thought-provoking film, but that needs to be balanced with further research on the viewer's part.