#would I love for it to be a Zama suit? Yes. would i lose my mind if it was Zacian? Also yes

[deerdeardarling]

Every day we get closer to the galar villain arc in Pokemon Masters and every day we get closer to a Hop sygna suit

[ryanmeft]

My Favorite Films of 2018, Part 2

Part 1 is right here: http://ryanmeft.tumblr.com/post/182987886772/my-favorite-films-of-2018-part-1

They Shall Not Grow Old

The documentary can be a pretty static form of film making. You talk to witnesses, research subjects, check your facts, find footage, and compile your movie. What to do, though, when the subject comes from the very beginnings of film, before color, sound or halfway decent film stock? If you’re Peter Jackson, obsessed with World War I, and also a little bit certifiably insane, here is what you do: visit actual locations to colorize old footage the way it would have looked, hire lip readers and scour old documents to determine what the silent soldiers were saying, and spend four years with your team restoring the visual records of The War To End All Wars until it almost looks like it was filmed yesterday. Rare scenes of actual battle are less important than those of men in the trenches awaiting their last stand, or audio of them discussing simple pleasures like cigarettes and fresh underwear. Done for the hundredth anniversary of the war’s end, Jackson and company are keenly aware that these century-starting events, and the people who lived them, are being swiftly forgotten as a new century rolls on it. And he’ll be damned if he’s going to allow that.

The Favourite

An acid-tongued look at royalty that is as darkly comedic and disdainful of courtly privilege as most Anglophile movies are worshipful of it, Yorgos Lanthimos’s film about a mentally ill woman surrounded by vipers in human suits is sharp enough to cut bone. Starring Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz and Olivia Colman in a triptych of roles that are highlights of their already sterling careers, there’s no chivalrous honor or ladylike poise to be found here, only manipulation, resentment, cunning and ambition. Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara’s screenplay is a devilish delight of double entendres, threats veiled and open, and wordplay more venomous than a pit of snakes. Witness the fantastically brutal interactions of Stone and Weisz as they seek to make each other bleed without weapons. Robbie Ryan’s camera passes on the normally grandiose portrayals of English courts, and Fiona Crombie’s production design focuses on shadowed, claustrophobic halls and gritty detail, with the result that it all feels like the dark, crowded, petty place it would have in life. Perhaps it took a Greek director to puncture the stuffed shirt of so many British period pieces.

Zama

The man sees himself only in his own mind. To him, he is a diligent, brave, upright servant of the Spanish Empire, enduring the unimaginable hardship of being given an assignment far from his family. To the South American locals, he is a pompous stuffed shirt who may not do much real harm, but isn’t good for anything particularly useful, either. To the revolutionary bandits who roam the countryside, he is both a simple of the oppression of their unasked-for Spanish overlords, and simply a pigeon whose pockets are ripe for the picking. Fiction often portrays the imperialists who forcibly colonized the world as evil racists, and that’s not far off the mark. Lucretia Martel goes in for something a little more understated, looking at a minor imperial functionary through the lens of his dull life and duller aspirations. That may not sound exciting, but Rui Pocas’s choice of shots drenches the viewer in a world of unending color and beauty, contrasting starkly with the gray and pointless place Don Diego sees. A perfectly measured performance by Daniel Gimenez Cacho completes this meditative work.

First Reformed

I’m not gonna lie to you all: this is probably my Inside Llewyn Davis for the year, the movie I’ll still be bringing up in five years as proof that people don’t actually want to see original films. Ethan Hawke turns in the performance of his career as a disillusioned Reverend relegated to a tiny tourist church in a multi-million-dollar religious empire, whose encounter with a radical environmental activist leaves him shaken. It’s been called a Taxi Driver for the modern age, but Paul Schrader’s film is much more than that. The Reverend’s faith is genuine, while the pain of his past, his attraction to a dead man’s widow, and his newfound passion for the planet are also completely genuine. Ernst Toller is a man who can hold multitudes, and Hawke brings them all to life. The final shot leaves us to puzzle out which is most powerful for ourselves. Schrader’s film is about a world in which we are almost always asked to choose expediency over ethics, even if we wear a frock that claims to say otherwise.

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

If there’s one thing you can reliably expect from the movies, it is that they will romanticize the creative arts. On the screen, writers who are good are always successes, and not having put out a book in ten years never results in losing your beachfront home. Then there’s the true story of Lee Israel, who coped with her vanished success by forging letters from famous authors. Israel, played by Melissa McCarthy in a role you didn’t know she had in her, is clearly the hero of the story: her goal is not to get rich but to pay the bills, and most people don’t really feel too broken-hearted when the kind of person who pays thousands for a signature gets ripped off. Marielle Heller and screenwriter Nicole Holofcener don’t rely on simple distinctions, though. Israel herself is only sporadically likable, with the only person who will endure her being a drunken and irresponsible gay friend played by Richard E. Grant. It’s hard to sympathize with writers when Hollywood casts them all as wealthy and alluring. McCarthy’s role is anything but; Israel is an abrasive working stiff, and we can’t help but root for her, despite her deep flaws.

If Beale Street Could Talk

Much like the writings of James Baldwin, Barry Jenkins’ adaptation is not to much a plot with a clear story progression as a series of episodes in the life of a family. An innocent black man has been imprisoned by the racist testimony of a white cop, with his pregnant wife struggling to free him, but that is mere detail. What makes the movie stand out is the way it is shot, weaving not only between past and present but between perspectives. Two fathers discuss their fears over drinks. A hopeful couple, denied other housing, moves imaginary belongings into an under-construction loft. Two men look at each over beers and years and try to figure out if black men have a place in 1970’s New York. Two families meet to announce the pregnancy and it ends in a war with no winner. This is all supported by a moving score and cinematography that evokes the fall of the year. Jenkins is unafraid to start things that have no catharsis, and ultimately to suggest that maybe life is just a series of events with no satisfying conclusions.

Damsel

Damsel is a black comedy feminist adventure western, but once you’ve got that many keywords in one paragraph, isn’t the very idea of genre being stretched? Yes, and to viciously brutal effect. Directed by David and Nathan Zellner and featuring a acidic performance from the underrated Mia Wasikowska, it appears to be a traditional damsel-in-distress story, until it turns out the heroic rescuer has deluded himself, the priest accompanying him is a cowardly fraud, and the women being rescued doesn’t actually need rescued. What follows is a journey through the wild west frontiers as darkly comic as it can get without ever tipping over into satire. The men are cowardly and useless, the woman must fend for herself, and what results is the sort of takedown of a genre that, sadly, doesn’t reach very many viewers. You can say it’s a political film, but for me, it seems like the Zellners were simply enjoying flipping every western trope ever made on its head and into a ravine.

As I said, the list is 14 movies long because I simply could not bring myself to cut any more films from it. However, I loved a lot of films this year, perhaps more than any other year in recent memory, and I want to mention many of the “runners-up” here: Beast, Isle of Dogs, Eighth Grade, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, Cold War, The Insult, A Quiet Place, Alpha, You Were Never Really Here, Puzzle, The Rider, On Chesil Beach, The Old Man and the Gun, Love After Love, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, Hearts Beat Loud, Leave No Trace, The Death of Stalin, Shoplifters, Dark River. Every one of these was as worthy and memorable as any on the main list; it’s just a matter of space, really. There are also many incredibly acclaimed films I simply was not able to get my hands on in time for this list.