Top 10 Worst Films of 2018 (That I Saw):

Another year's worth of insufferable films...here goes:










1.Show Dogs: (directed by Raja Gosnell)—yet another unfunny film that pairs animals with the worse possible vocal work to go with the most shameful set of predictable action pieces.






2. The Happytime Murders: (directed by Brian Henson)—is this what the Henson name has sunk to?






3. Venom: (directed by Ruben Fleischer)—a box office hit because the comic book genre is gold but how did the shabby villain seriously get to be even made in such a poor state?





4. Samson: (directed by Bruce Macdonald)—noble idea but for all the crazy Christian resources out there why’d it have to look, feel and sound so cheap?






5. 7 Guardians Of The Tomb: (directed by Kimble Rendall)—I love me some Kelsey Grammer but not even he can turn this B movie around when everything else is literally shit.






6. Overboard: (directed by Rob Greenberg)—the usual crassness Anna Faris can find herself in.






7. Acrimony/Nobody’s Fool: (directed by Tyler Perry)—I’m still #TeamCookie but Perry is unable to maximize on it and as for Tiffany Haddish’s turn in the latter, it’s just all downhill from she enters the screen.






8. Slender Man: (directed by Sylvain White)—as the credits rolled I kept watching because surely what happened before then was merely a preview. I was wrong.






9. Gotti: (directed by Kevin Connoly)—no doubt Travolta felt this was a redemption but everything here felt third grade.






10. The Clapper: (directed by Dito Montiel)—um, aren’t comedies supposed to be happy?

The Top 30 Worst Songs of 2018:

Listomania gets started with the fun list...a look at the absolute crap that passes for music. Each year I try to identify the trends at this year two stand out: the expansion of the Youtube star and the globalization of dancehall. Both are phenomena poles apart but it doesn't take a genius that they're inching towards some mega hybrid that, up to this point, hasn't produced much greatness but many shabby imitators.


This year's list proves it in wild varying degrees as the top 8 songs on the list fall into either camp.


A few superlatives: 7 of the artists here are repeat offenders to the point where, overall, they have had at least 5 spots since the time I have been doing this list. And there is no slowing down for them apparently.

2 former year-end "champions" are back. The overall tally now has clear daylight between the top two artists...both prominent this year again.

Here is the list:









1.Six Figures (Justin Roberts feat. Mini Jake Paul): the absolute worst trend in pop music now is the continued rise of the Youtube star: mostly untalented white males who have nothing going for them except theirv whiteness and a speedy internet connection. Roberts doesn’t even have sensible lyrics going on in this dud.






2. Moo (Doja Cat): when literally some chick singing the line, “moo” repeatedly becomes at internet hit that’s how you know how far we’ve slid as a human race.






3. Dey Call Me JJFish (IceJJFish): his absolute worst so far.






4. Hold On (IceJJFish): his revolving door of grossness continues.






5. Under Fire (Spice): um, no…interchangeable crap.






6. Gum (Spice): because clearly she has a super pussy, as if we haven’t been bombarded with it for years now.






7. Shrimp Patty (Govana): really, in 2018 and we still have this dated shit around?






8. My Type (Popcaan): yet another dancehall star takes on the “tight pussy gyal” idea. Yawn.






9. Richard Mille (Soulja Boy): only he intentionally does shitty branding tracks in search of long-term relevancy.






10. Yacht Club (Lil Yachty feat. Juice WRLD): fast becoming a repeat offender, from the Soulja Boy tribe.






11. Check The Statistics (Wolfieraps feat. Ricegum): you can’t do a diss track and it ends up being worse than the track you targeted.






12. My Teachers (Jake Paul feat. SUNNY & AT3): everybody dreams of revenge on teacher but when the track is this ludicrous then I guess teacher was right all along.






13. Woo (Soulja Boy feat. Chief Keef): how does he manage to slur an entire song then barely utters the chorus? New level lazy.






14. New Freezerr (Lady Leshurr): one wonders when the well of her mediocrity will run dry.






15. Everybody Hates Me (The Chainsmokers): sometimes the song titles truly explain themselves.






16. Duffle Bag (Spice): you know when your country cousin comes to the city and starts twanging? Yea, that’s what is so shitty about this track.






17. Man Don’t Dance (Big Shaq): Man Don’t Have Good Lyrics…let’s leave this laughable effort right there.






18. Cartier Vision (Jake Paul feat. Jitt & Quan & AT3): I guess ripping off Cardi B is fair game but why’d it have to be Paul who is among the worst out there?






19. Black Madonna (Lady Leshurr feat. Mr. Eazi): her ridiculous rapping dialect now paired to electronic beats. Yawn.






20. One And Move (Govana): no doubt a dancehall anthem but the litany of low-energy wordplay is, frankly, tiresome.







21. Malibu (Chad Tepper feat. Jake Paul): yet another mediocre Youtube white boy rap effort.






22. Bad Breath (Willie Nelson): lyrically fine but who in their right mind does a song about halitosis though?






23. Hopeless Romantic (Wiz Khalifa feat. Swae Lee): the definition of lazy rapping.






24. Sick Boy (The Chainsmokers): when bad bands try to be earnest but still flunk the grade,






25. Black Panther (Lady Leshurr): leave it to the shameless Leshurr to try and cash in on the on-going movie mania while trying to hash through Missy’s “She’s A Bitch”. Ugh.






26. Supplies (Justin Timberlake): not sure when Timberlake was heading with this country/hip-hop hybrid that was produced by The Neptunes. It’s at turns disjointed, confused and plain awful.






27. Nasty One (Lil Kim): this is what happens when a hip/hop titan stubbornly tries to convince everyone that they still have juice. Unfortunately, Kim sounds like Grandma Kim…it’s that dated and repetitive.






28. Bill And Jill (Kodak Black): the latest trend amond mediocre rapping talent now seems to be mumbling inane lyrics over hooks. This is one such blueprint.






29. Can’t Dance (Meghan Trainor): at what point will Trainor realize that even with decent beats and groovy backing vocals, the weakest link is her one-note vocal delivery that, no matter how hard she tries, can’t fake funk.






30. Girls (Rita Ora feat. Cardi B, Bebe Rexha & Charli XCX): rightfully bashed by the LGBTQ for shamefully trying to shop its corny lyrics as some sort of gender-relevant feminism.

Be The Cowboy (Mitski) (2018)

Perfect Union Notions



Two years ago Mitski Miyawaki became an indie star with the release of Puberty 2, her fourth studio album. It featured on virtually every year-end best albums list put out by critics and soon she was supporting The Pixies on tour. Another tour with Lorde and a short film appearance followed. It wasn’t hard to see why everyone suddenly wanted a piece of her because Puberty 2 cleverly played around with the notion of a second skin emerging from an artist, one who had honed her aesthetic and wasn’t afraid for the world to see her brain ticking with blissful ideas.

Sure enough, immense pressure was put on its follow-up and while Be The Cowboy is no sophomore slump, it comes up short of matching Puberty 2. In a way, it had to yet criticism of its mere being will be a case of one’s discerning ear nitpicking an artist still at the height of her creative powers. Mitski’s approach to music is akin to St. Vincent: both ride tremendous emotional crests that translate to fantastic emo-pop music that questions itself as it entertains. It’s the eternal questioning that makes them fascinating. But at moments, when they get what they want, things that naturally trigger their creative process slow to a dithering, unsure beat.

Be The Cowboy finds its few moments of success when Mitski questions, or at least pushes some hesitancy into, the idea of what represents perfect union notions. The opening two tracks work well in this nebulous unison: Geyser unspools like an application for her lover’s heart with her own self-imposed terms while Why Didn’t You Stop Me? lashes out at said lover for allowing her to succeed.

And it’s exactly at that point—after track two—that she runs into headwind that baffles her and, in turn, the listener. It’s as if she comes up blank in this involvement that she’s wanted her entire life but it within its own confines wasn’t anything remarkable to begin with. She acknowledges this nakedly on A Pearl (‘nobody told me it ended/ and it left a pearl in my head/ and I roll it around…’).

Unlike its superior predecessor, Puberty 2, Mitski isn’t tackling her own multiple-personalities here but rather her new identity and the Other. It’s hard to give rhyme and reason to the Other while trying to separate from it and lyrically it shows the longer Be The Cowboy goes on. Even when she utters the line you’ve heard everyone cite in their review, (‘cause nobody butters me up like you/ and nobody fucks me like me…’) you can hear the conflict tearing at her. It’s as if she’s lingering over found happiness slipping away and unable to halt the slide. This damage is pretty cool to hear her ticking time bomb approach to it: from that protracted sigh before Me And My Husband begins to Two Slow Dancers quietly playing out over the credits of this train wreck.

The closing five tracks save for standout Washing Machine Heart and the aforementioned Two Slow Dancers cause the most damage. Mitski gets caught in two minds and neither helps the other to decide how to forge ahead. It’s clear by this point she has conceded that the union she’s spent so much time fantasizing about has ended but faced with loneliness or the status quo, Be The Cowboy keeps its head down, muting the fireworks of emotion we got from Puberty 2.

We’ve been down this road with her before, alas, to a more stern examination in spite of the mess. Maybe the point Mitski makes then is that it takes several of these messes to create the bonds of love and compatibility. Maybe loneliness is something we can’t escape or bury into the time we spend trying to fit perfectly into someone else. It’s these few moments of unguarded emotion, the sheer relapse she drowns in, that seeps too much into this otherwise solid project. In the meanwhile, while she sorts her shit out so we never have to suffer silently through tracks like Come Into The Water or A Horse Named Cold Air again, I’m still #teamMitski.

RATING: 7/10

RIP QUEEN...

no matter your interest musically, one has to acknowledge the passing of Aretha Franklin...

THE TOP 10 BEST FILMS OF 2017...

Hardly a watershed year but the films included are stunning in personal grasp on human emotion. Here goes:






1. GET OUT: you know a film is special when it carries Oscar buzz a year ahead of the actual nominations. But many are still trying to come to terns with what exactly makes this horrific satire so special--and well, part of the reason is that it didn't start out to be special but just gathered moss as it went along. The originality of the plot twinned with the paranoia that blacks rightfully feel in America is genius as is the need to literally inhabit the very skin being persecuted 21st century style. All i know is that Jordan Peele made a hell of a debut film!





2. GOD’S OWN COUNTRY: lazy critics will quickly call this the British version of Brokeback Mountain but what God's Own Country dishes out better is its in-the-soil approach to the murky life of Yorkshire residents and their quiet, closed-off way of life. Once Gheorghe arrives though and we see the cultural differences clash--his almost sensual approach to farm-handing and love vis-a-vis Johnny's thuggish brutality---the film strikes a defiant tone of accepting reality and letting ages-old prejudices go.





3. HEAL THE LIVING: through a medical transplant, three stories and several lives get interwoven in this French-Belgian drama. Based on the novel Réparer les vivants (Mend the Living) by Maylis de Kerangal, the film treats tragedy as quick turn of event from which you stare unblinkingly and move on.





4. CALL ME BY YOUR NAME: even if the coming-of-age film consisted only of Michael Stuhlbarg's heart-breaking speech towards the end and Timothée Chalamet crying silently into the flames, Call Me By Your Name would still be a triumph. Director Luca Guadagnino has managed a stunning trick: shows us the reception of the evolving relationship between the two males through everyone else's eyes, oblivious to them but as the viewer you can watch, judge, note, or do whatever it is one does observing others in love.






5. THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI: the premise sounds so simple yet the beautiful thing about the film is how it shows a town's bias while reconciling that a very bad thing was done. Frances McDormand, surely Oscar-bound, plays a tough mother who wants justice for her daughter and nothing will get in her way. McDormand is so blistering that we get no softening at all. It's left up to everyone else to come full circle, even the dastardly Dixon (brilliantly played by Sam Rockwell).





6. BLADE RUNNER 2049: meticulously crafted by Denis Villeneuve, Deckard returns to complete a touching arc of life, family and the end of things.






7. THE BIG SICK: passed over mostly this current awards season but not forgotten by critics and movie-goers, The Big Sick is inspiring because instead of blowing up the cultural differences between Kumail and Emily, it allows them to stumble towards a loving truce that's hard-fought, you know, like in real life.






8. DUNKIRK: at times disjointed but always immense in scope, Nolan's look at the personal peril of war connects.






9. THE POST: Streep and Hanks at last...in a Spielberg film--quite a mouthful just to behold and to watch the two acting titans hurl off each other, especially given the subject of press freedom and a woman trying to assert herself in a man's world, proves extremely satisfying.





10. LADY BIRD: I keep hearing how great Greta Gerwig's directing is and, at last, I can partake in that notion. Buoyed by a strong Saoirse Ronan turn, the film takes its precious time to work out the female angst of growing up.