Eighth Grade
I made a point of going to movie theaters more in 2018, and it was extremely satisfying. Please consider ditching the couch and keeping big-screen cinema alive. Some of these movies wouldn’t have been half as wonderful at home. These 11 films opened my mind or made my heart explode. They aren’t in order. Don’t make me do that.
Boots Riley’s surrealistic satire didn’t make nearly as much money as Black Panther or get as much attention as Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, but its sharp critique of capitalism and racism had more staying power for me. And how wonderful is it that we have more than one movie made by black filmmakers this year? Lakeith Stanfield plays an Oakland garage dweller who takes a job in a dingy telemarketing firm. He is rewarded handsomely after he learns to use his “white voice,” and discovers a dastardly plot to exploit slave labor by a company called WorryFree, led by a coke-snorting, orgy-hosting CEO Steve Lift (Armie Hammer, relishing the role).
This deliciously wicked and super-weird palace farce features a trio of strong women, scheming and conniving in 18th century England. A gout-ridden and needy Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) looks to her longtime friend and lover, Lady Sarah (the marvelous Rachel Weisz), for advice in navigating the politics of war with France. A disgraced servant, Abigail (Emma Stone), arrives, and all hell breaks loose as she cozies up to the Queen. It’s directed by Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster), and it’s going to win awards, big time. But you’re too cool to care about that: See it because it’s so rare to see such strong and complex female characters on the big screen.
Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
This big-hearted documentary about the extraordinary Fred Rogers screened to a sold-out crowd at this year’s Wisconsin Film Festival. Mister Rogers made everybody feel special, and this loving film shows him succeeding at what he did best: listening to children. He managed to be quietly radical — much more than I knew before seeing the film. Won’t You Be My Neighbor? contrasts footage of white racists pouring chemicals on black kids in a swimming pool with Fred, sharing a foot bath in a kiddie pool with Officer Clemons (Francois Clemmons), who is black. As Clemmons tells the audience: “When you meet this man, something is going to draw you in, in a way that nobody else ever drew you, and will pull you.”
4. RBG
Now that I’m verklempt over Fred Rogers, it’s time to mention a standout film about another American hero that premiered at this year’s Wisconsin Film Festival. Those initials stand for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the notorious “Bubbie” whose long tenure on the Supreme Court has inspired cartoons, workouts, and endless social media memes. The film shows her personal life and her mile-long list of glass-ceiling-busting career moves — and her quiet determination to change the world, one decision (or these days, one dissent) at a time. RBG: Please stay alive.
An evocative second feature from director Debra Granik, who made the terrifically brutal Winter’s Bone, Leave No Trace is a simple story of a relationship between a father and daughter. Will (Ben Foster) and his adolescent daughter (Thomasin McKenzie) live hand-to-mouth, and illegally, in a park outside Portland, Oregon. The movie has very little backstory, and sparse dialogue, as the two forage and cook together, moving around to avoid authorities. The two actors share a remarkable chemistry, and Granik reflects a world where gentleness, trauma and peril exist in equal measure.
Three Identical Strangers
6. Three Identical Strangers
The approach to this film is a bit sensationalist, but the story is absolutely stranger than fiction. It follows the reunion of identical triplets who were separated at birth and find each other as adults. As a mother of twins, I am partial to stories of reunited wombmates, but anyone with a heart will be touched and horrified by the way this story unfolds. It is too wild to be missed.
7. Bisbee ’17
Remember reading in the history books about that time when white sheriff’s deputies herded 1,200 striking copper workers, mostly Mexican and European immigrants, onto cattle cars and left them in the New Mexican desert to die? Yeah, me neither. And I was a history major. Bisbee ’17 is a documentary recounting this horrific act of racism and union busting, which occurred in 1917. The film is a reenactment of the events 100 years later (by people with ancestors on both sides), an anthropological study, and a work of restorative justice. It’s sad and spooky, and a story we should all know. It showed as part of MMoCA’s excellent Spotlight Cinema series.
8. Isle of Dogs
When Wes Anderson’s delightful stop-motion movie starts, all the dogs are living on a trash heap after being banished by Trash Island. They are led by Chief (voiced by Bryan Cranston), a stray with a backstory. The animation is jaw-droppingly beautiful, the music evocative, and the whole time you’re just rooting for the pack. It’s Wes at his best. Good boy!
9. Eighth Grade
Bo Burnham’s low-budget debut feature stars Elsie Fisher as a painfully shy girl finishing up her final week at a suburban middle school. It’s super-cringy and puts you right in her shoes as she tries to navigate the world of shifting allegiances, sex and social media. I think a lot of us can relate.
10. A Star Is Born
What else needs to be said? You can read 14 million reviews elsewhere, but if you want to know, I was looking for reasons to dislike this blockbuster. And I just couldn’t. I’m crushed out on Bradley Cooper and absolutely head-over-heels for Gaga after seeing this tragic romance unfold on the Silver Screen. Goosebumps.
Roma
11. Roma
Alfonso Cuarón’s poignant black-and-white masterpiece is a Netflix release, and sure to be an Oscar contender. It’s a meditation on the filmmaker’s childhood in Mexico City, and in particular, with his middle-class family’s complicated relationship with their domestic servant, Cleo. I don’t know if it will get a theatrical run in Madison, but if it does, promise me you’ll see it on the big screen. If I have to, I’ll take a bus to Chicago to see it.
