2018 truly had something for everyone. It was a year that resuscitated superhero films, romantic-comedies, teen thrillers, among others, giving them a breath of new life. If you claim that there wasn’t enough variety, than you clearly didn’t see the right films. And as I compiled this list, I was sure of myself how it would turn out, dead-set on what would take the top spot… up until the very last minute.
Here are the 10 best films that made our year worthwhile.
It’s funny to think that, given the amount of tours, one-off shows, reunions, and festivals this year, that this list would seem kind of arbitrary. Could he possibly have seen every live show this year? Is he making this list out of a vacuum? Well, of course this list has not come out of a vacuum, and naturally, I couldn’t have seen EVERY SINGLE live event from 2018. But with ambition, confidence, and enthusiasm for discovering something new and memorable, I did my best. Here are the best live acts of 2018.
There were many versions of this article. When I began writing about one aspect of this film and thought I was certain, the thought redefined itself, and I found myself rewriting. And yet it happened again, and again…
It’s been asked and echoed for almost two decades now. And yet, the conversation has yet to leave the table. Hundreds of musicians have declared it so. Even Gene Simmons, the epitome of “rock icon,” has officially declared Rock ‘n’ Roll dead.
You’d think that after 13 years without releasing new music, System of a Down would start to show their age, maybe even slow down. With only five-six dates on this year’s “tour,” and by only playing sparse one-off shows in recent years, one would think their heyday has past.
What’s to say about them? Honestly, there’s not too much to say. Not traditionally a “band,” but they operate in the same way as one – each member bringing something to the table, approaching the content from a different angle with a different viewpoint. But what about them that sets them apart? Well, the best way to become an object of obsession, is to give yourself some shade of mystery. Not knowing too much about an artist is key to feeding this fire. You look at Aphex Twin who people say owns a tank and a submarine and used to live in a bank vault. Whatever you don’t know about an artist, your mind somehow magically fills in the missing spaces. And that’s where Boards of Canada’s image comes in.
There was once a German experimentalist composer by the name of Karlheinz Stockhausen in the mid-20th century. He believed that man harnessed an inner power to reach the next phase of human existence through off-beat, arrhythmic music. He refrained from dabbling in symmetric, accessible 4/4 beats in favor of more complicated time signatures and melodies in order to explore this phenomenon, revealing that once humans wrapped their heads around complex rhythms, we’d be able to adapt and hear different rhythmic patterns in nature, thus bringing us to a new level of heightened awareness in hopes to make contact with the higher beings who created us.
Radiohead have always had a knack for capturing the intangible, whether it’s the over-looming mysticism of Ok Computer or the ever-fleeting regrets in their latest work A Moon Shaped Pool. And when they translate it into live form, their soundscapes conjure up a transcendental feeling that far overcomes any live environment, whether it be main stage at Coachella, an arena like Madison Square Garden, or a small club in Hollywood like the Fonda. Once you enter the venue, or even the vicinity of it, the excitement becomes palpable.
The 2004 Sundance Film Festival marked a huge year for independent film. It was a year that saw the premieres of Saw, Garden State, Super-Size Me, Napoleon Dynamite, among other notable titles. And yet, the winner that year came out from nowhere. A film with a budget of $7,000 about two amateur scientists who accidently invent time travel, which 80% of takes place in a garage, was the film that took the top prize. It was awarded to a 30ish year old former software engineer, Shane Carruth, who later admitted that he didn’t even plan on attending the closing ceremony that year. It was a year that began to show the increasing accessibility to resources young filmmakers now had, and Primer was the film that celebrated the true spirit of independent film. You can only imagine how giddy they were upon accepting the award.
