#and plasma's still kind of a shit counseler even if hes a great friend

[lunaremy]

guy thats going through hell and back in the present vs guy that went through hell and back in the past except guy 1's issue is "im so tired of protecting people please let me rest" and guy 2's issue was "i hate people so fucking much please let me kill people"

[mattpayton]

Matt Payton’s Best Of 2018 Brought To You By MoviePass

Thank you for helping to make 2018 a huge success for all of us here at MoviePass, a company that is definitely housed in some sort of building with desks and not some trust fund kid running this thing from a Panera Bread before going to a court-ordered rehab program every morning!

When we heard Matt Payton was making his annual best-of lists for 2018 we thought this was a great partnership opportunity and told him we would be handling all the write ups this year. Technically this counts toward our 6,000 hours of community service that we owe after accidentally blowing up the scooter factory we were interning at, so let us all take a moment to reflect on the joys of giving back.

Let’s see some of his favorite releases from the past year, shall we? We only ask that you refrain from looking at this until March, as this is considered “peak list time” and it will cost an additional $14.95 a minute. We apologize for any inconvenience but sometimes we have to make hard decisions to keep offering you so many lists per month that you definitely want to read and have heard of!

MATT’S FAVORITE ALBUMS OF 2018

1. Cloud Nothings Last Building Burning

This album is a supercharged loud burst of frustrated energy that sounded great over our speakers until the repo man came in and loaded them into his truck. He called back later to say that the whole album slaps in between tirades asking us how we sleep at night. Super passionate guy!

2. Pusha T DAYTONA

We played this one at our party celebrating 1 million subscribers and our unpaid intern/CFO/in-house counsel was so taken by the album’s focused drive and straightforward production that he opted not to testify against us in the civil suit brought forth by our investors. I mean, we’re not talking about ongoing legal matters here, bump this shit at your next get together with your totally legit and above-board friends!

3. Parquet Courts Wide Awake!

Every one of our employees was given a copy of this album for taking a pay hiatus from February-December to show our appreciation for their sacrifices and access to their plasma. The ones who survived reported that the many styles attempted on this record were pulled off with aplomb!

4. No Age Snares Like A Haircut

At our quarterly board meetings we would usually need a fast, droning album to get things going after the sifter of China white would get depleted. We’ll be goddamned if this didn’t do the trick each time until we switched over to an audiobook on how to successfully steal someone’s identity without having to answer a bunch of e-mails. 

5. Snail Mail Lush

The arrangements on each of the songs are so rich that you can always appreciate something new with each listen just like the media can always appreciate how Netflix is the respectable behemoth on the scene even though they’re $20 billion in debt and put out mostly crap, but our heads are in the clouds because we wanted to give people affordable movie ticket prices. I just don’t get why we’re the assholes and people don’t talk about her vocal range on this record more. 

6. Earl Sweatshirt Some Rap Songs

Just breathe and do your exercises, your work doesn’t define you. There’s still time to open that fountain pen store you’ve always thought about. You can offer people unlimited ink for 5 years if they just give you 30 bucks up front. Then you could, oh this album is in a whole other realm and you want to stay there, just get some money...

7. Dilly Dally Heaven

...To stay afloat until the real customers kick in and they’ll pay for the ink as they go at full price. The initial free ink people will be grandfathered in but they’ll be offset. Wait, what if they just tell the other customers they got the hookup? Okay we’ll have to, sorry, these riffs will be stuck in your head for days and there’s no fat on the whole album, it sets a mood for sure, put something in the ink... 

8. KIDS SEE GHOSTS KIDS SEE GHOSTS

...That will slowly poison the people who paid so little for it so eventually everyone will be paying the full price and the huge profits will make up for the beginning losses. Phew! Glad I solved that pickle. The fact that the production style is kind of all over the place is actually this album’s strength, I don’t know, it’s good, okay? I got bigger fish to fry right now.

9. Vince Staples FM!

Like how do I keep the poison ink separate from the regular ink without tipping off one of the employees? I guess I could just work by myself in the store every day, but what kind of life is that? I could be like Vince Staples and make a product that gets more rewarding the more you engage with it, but I also need some me time.

10. Kurt Vile Bottle It In

If my mind isn’t sharp how will I develop a poison ink that slowly kills you without ingesting it? Maybe the smell could be so strong that you breathe it in and eventually collapses your lungs like coal. You see, this is why I need some time off because I just thought of that off the top of my head and I haven’t worked on MoviePass since October. I just appear laid back like Kurt Vile so no one realizes how intricate and consistent our output is that they almost start to take it for granted. 

Honorable Mention:

Anna Burch Quit The Curse

Jay Rock Redemption

MATT’S FAVORITE SONGS OF 2018

1. Parquet Courts “Total Football”

A rousing, mission statement type of song that’s so good you’ll just stay home and listen to it for months instead of going to the movies, allowing the company paying for said movies to get back into the black. 

2. NoName “Blaxploitation”

A song that will make people think and therefore distract them as they gather outside of your headquarters wielding pitchforks and lit torches to light your image in effigy. 

3. Pusha T “The Games We Play”

The type of song you’d want to drive around to, particularly if you’re fleeing the country with several briefcases containing IOUs and user agreements. 

4. Cloud Nothings “Leave Him Now”

Put this song on a mixtape for someone who you were interested in or legally has to tell you that they’re a cop before going on a backpacking trip through Europe with you.

5. Snail Mail “Full Control”

Lush by Snail Mail

This song would really work in a movie trailer provided that you had a movie membership that paid the cost of such things instead of giving you enough money to sneak in 70 minutes into the movie when the ticket seller goes on break.

6. No Age “Cruise Control”

A good song to put on when trying to set up a new IP address to illegally download a movie with Lithuanian subtitles because you’re certainly not going to be able to see it in a theater with our options. 

7. MGMT “Little Dark Age”

A song to play for that special someone who you’ve become close with thanks to the prison pen pal program as you’ve blown all your seed money on a Potsie from Happy Days scheme.  

8. Ty Segall “The Main Pretender”

Embed this song in an e-mail to your customers next time you explain to them that you sold all of their personal information to the Assad government and your DOB/SSN will be the passcode to detonate an explosive device.

9. Titus Andronicus “Number One (In New York)”

This song is so good you’ll only want to listen to it once a year, which is the same frequency you should see movies, preferably on a Tuesday morning not during a holiday week. 

10. Kurt Vile “Loading Zones”

The perfect song to play while screaming, “I was just ahead of my time!” into a mirror in the middle of the night while holed up in the remains of your childhood home you’ve mortgaged to the gills. 

MATT’S FAVORITE MOVIES OF 2018

1. First Reformed (Paul Schrader)

Now we’re on the movie side, our area of expertise! This came out when we were still offering our services without any strings attached. But after getting a glimpse into the persecuted mind of Paul Schrader we decided to put our customers through their own self-lacerating baptism by fire. Very inspirational movie for all of us!

2. The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos)

When this movie came out the only movies we made available were industrials from the 1920s that advocated to leave behind the children in the factories who got their fingers stuck in the bobbins. It was very funny and visually striking but not as informative as Pop Go The Weasels. 

3. The Death Of Stalin (Armando Iannucci)

This is the first film that Mr. Payton used our membership and it set him up with a false hope that going to the movies was going to be this easy and joyous from this point on. Much like the movie, we started showing all the backstabbing and deceit available to mankind shortly after the inciting incident.

  4. The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs (Joel & Ethan Coen)

This movie was seen at a theater using our service but at this point in the year people were so beaten down from lowered expectations that the Coen brothers sued us for stealing their themes of trying to make the best out of a life where you’re damned before you’ve begun. 

5. Leave No Trace (Debra Granik)

While we were still technically thriving when this movie came out, we soon took inspiration from the main characters of this movie and went off the grid for quite some time. When we came back and greeted the creditors who were roasting marshmallows over the burning remains of our ledgers they politely verified our identity before punching us in the solar plexus. 

6 Sorry To Bother You (Boots Riley)

This movie’s class conscious critique of capitalism made us nervous until we offered customers a time-share zamboni ownership for getting 12 friends to sign up for our service. That’s the kind of collective organizing we like to encourage!

7. Burning (Chang-dong Lee)

We did not make this movie available for our service so Mr. Payton had to pay a regular ticket price to see it. We made it up to him by automatically renewing his membership for the next 10 years, by which point we will be a chocolate of the month club. The movie also starts out as one thing and turns into quite another. So you’d think he’d admire us for it. 

8. Support The Girls (Andrew Bujalski)

This came out during the period where we would make movies available one day and then the next have nothing to offer and what an exciting time to be alive! Much like the characters had to do in the movie, you never knew what was going to come at you and make things extremely frustrating for no reason whatsoever. That’s why they call this a business and not just something I’m doing to prove to my dad that podiatry school would’ve been a waste of time.

9. Shoplifters (Hirokazu Koreeda)

We have a lot in common with this movie as it won the top prize at the Cannes film festival in France and we’re not allowed in the country since we tried to sell low-cost accordions to street urchins as part of our senior thesis at the Wharton School. But no one had any vision for these kinds of subscriptions services way back in the spring of 2017. 

10. If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins)

The movie was touching and funny and full of great performances and if you happen to be interested in any investment opportunities for the love of god don’t talk to your financial advisor or fucking wife and just head down to the Embassy Suites off route 10 and meet me in the conference room after the sun goes down tonight. The prospectus will be written in invisible ink but the cookies will be made with the best Burry’s Fudge Town has to offer!

Honorable Mention:

Cold War (Pawel Pawlikowski)

A Quiet Place (John Krasinski)

Lean On Pete (Andrew Haigh)

Blaze (Ethan Hawke)

Filmworker (Tony Zierra)

MATT’S MOST OVERHYPED MOVIES OF 2018

1. Eighth Grade (Bo Burnham)

I’m glad you could make it here today and again, we don’t need to turn on the lights. The lady at the front desk said it would just disturb the other guests here. 

2. BlacKkKlansman (Spike Lee)

No, you don’t need to ask her. She definitely knows we’re in here and even asked if I’d go on a date with her earlier. She said something about having a hot cousin who is lonely if you want to double. 

3. Game Night (John Francis Daley & Jonathan Goldstein)

But that’s not the point right now, I have the investment opportunity of a lifetime here and the fact that you’ve read this far down on the best of the year list shows you’ve got what it takes to rake it in over the long haul. 

4. Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Marielle Heller)

Why yes, I wouldn’t mind speaking more clearly into the flower on your lapel. My, what a lovely fragrance that is! Panasonic, you say? I’m unfamiliar with that type of bouquet. 

5. Roma (Alfonso Cuarón)

So anyway, you just give me the money and I’ll come back with triple the amount after a few months! If you want to reinvest at that point, it’s up to you. Hey, what’s that taped to your chest? 

6. Isle Of Dogs (Wes Anderson)

Oh I get it, you’re a movie bootlegger. That’s why you wanted in on the ground floor of this. You wear audio equipment into theaters and you need a man on the inside of the business to gain more of a foothold. 

7. You Were Never Really Here (Lynne Ramsay)

Damnit! I knew this was too good to be true. I’m sorry, I’m going to have to ask that you get back into that car outside waiting for you with your two friends wearing sunglasses and matching jackets in the front seat that’s still running. 

8. First Man (Damien Chazelle)

No! You know what? I said 2019 was going to be the year I started trusting my gut more and I have a good feeling about you. Because a successful business needs a good idea and vision, which I have taken care of. It also needs money, which is where that extremely light suitcase I helped you carry comes in. 

9. Vice (Adam McKay)

So you have a passion for movies that occasionally has you bending the law to spread them to friends and loved ones? I’d rather have a partner who cares and has vital blood pumping through their veins than some old lifeless, rule-following bureaucrat. 

10. Widows (Steve McQueen)

I’d love to shake your hand to finalize this deal as soon as you’re done talking into the underside of your wrist. Let’s just wait until these gentlemen crashing through the windows make their way over to the concierge desk and we can sign this thing. Do you have a fountain pen? 

Just Plain Worst Movies:

Bohemian Rhapsody (Bryan Singer)

Chappaquiddick (John Curran)

Mute (Duncan Jones)

Ready Player One (Steven Spielberg)

Previous Years In Review