By Isaac Handelman

I am not qualified to speak about the “best” films of 2018, because I have seen only a tiny handful of the myriad, wonderful films that released this year. I wish this were not the case. I wish I could say I’d seen every worthy film, from Shoplifters to Eighth Grade , Sorry to Bother You to Leave No Trace . But the truth is, I haven’t. I am a student and a freelance writer, and I do not have the time nor the disposable income that would allow me have a comprehensive knowledge of 2018 in film; the films I have seen are disproportionately American. But I still would like to share my favorite films of the year, however incomplete my filmic experience has been, and however much my feelings might change as I continue to absorb 2018’s cinema in the new year. So, here is my woefully incomplete portrait of a year that, for all its political toxicity and global violence, at least offered up some great movies. I’ll be doing my best to add one new entry on each of the last five days of this...

This article contains relatively major spoilers for all seasons of 'Channel Zero'. Nick Acosta’s Channel Zero is a show with so much to offer. At its highest points, it's the scariest thing on television, probably by a long shot. It can be so adept at its get-under-your-skin-and-make-it-crawl approach so as to rival the most unsettling sequences in popular horror media. But then it goes off the rails. Off the deep end. It takes things too far, and instead of going lovably bonkers, it just gets boring. This is not an isolated occurrence — I'd argue that it's happened, to an extent, in every season of this underappreciated SyFy anthology series, each incarnation of which adapts a different creepypasta story from the dark corners of the web. In the first season, Candle Cove , a blood-curdling opening scene gives way to a genuinely chilling mystery surrounding a shady children's TV show and a creepy, clicky, child-snatching tooth monster... and then the toot...

One cannot separate the art from the artist; they are deeply intertwined. To understand why, consider this scenario: We choose to study the films of Roman Polanski in-depth, without considering the fact that, while in his forties, the director raped a thirteen year old girl. On the surface, the argument is simple: we wish only to consider the art, the form of the films, the narrative content and the thematic subtext. We do not wish to get caught up in the personal life of the artist, however egregious his actions might have been, because such a line of inquiry is not relevant to a survey of the art itself. But then, we should surely be able to teach a similar class on the visual art of Adolf Hitler, who was famously rejected from an art school years before overseeing the mass murder of more than 11 million innocent people. Of course, that would be impossible. With the weight that the name "Hitler" carries, how could one possibly teach a class on his art without address...

The point is that you can never ever run out of things to write about. Just let your hand go, and it will write something. If you put no blocker on it, no filter, and you have no criteria, and just write whatever is flying through your brain down on a piece of paper, or a wall, or a table, or whatever it is you’re writing on, you can’t possibly run out of things to write because your brain is always firing, there’s always something shooting through it, every fleeting moment from its formation until your death — your brain-death, that is. If your heart is beating but your brain is blank, you aren’t really alive, because you can’t write anymore. At that point, you have truly run out of ideas.

Is anyone still thinking about Harry Potter? For the better part of the seven elapsed years since the release of the eighth and final installment in the film franchise centered on The Boy Who Lived, I have not been. But obviously, the franchise still has plenty of ardent followers — the ones who are lining up for the midnight premiere of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, who have propelled Harry Potter and the Cursed Child to dizzyingly successful heights in London and on Broadway, and who continue to fuel J.K. Rowling’s seemingly endless world construction on part-fan-site-part-universe-expansion Pottermore. I, however, have fallen out of the loop. In 2011, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 entranced me. When it released, I was fourteen, about to begin high school, and nearing the tail end of a childhood that transpired very much in the midst of the Harry Potter phenomenon. To say that I was anything less than engulfed by the franchise for a majority of my youth...

If someone could create a pen that would never run out, I think I could entertain myself forever. When I run out of paper, I can write on walls and floors and ceilings. I can draw on them, too. Once I run out of those, I will start writing on the ground and the rocks and such. And before I run out of those, I will die. But the pen will not run out.

Hereditary , at its best moments, is chilling. It makes you feel cold inside, and it’s worthy of a ticket purchase for that horrifically unpleasant sensation alone. It’s imperfect. Sometimes, it gets stuck awkwardly between self-aware camp and progressive art-shock. It’s scary. Comparisons to the greats of the genre are inevitable. Hereditary welcomes them, and at its lower points embrace them a tad overzealously. But when the film is at its best, it’s shocking on its own terms. First time writer-director Avi Aster has a demented vision that results in what might be the most shocking, sustained, ten-plus-minute-stretch of sheer, cold-blooded horror that I’ve ever seen in a film. It comes early, though, and the holistic product isn’t as shocking, nor as innovative, nor as frightening, nor as capable of leaving a lasting impression, as those utterly bone-chilling ten-ish-minutes. But the surrounding film is so handily constructed - superbly acted, visually entrancing, and well-paced ...

It's back! That wonderful, freeing feeling That terrifying aimlessness The flip-flop, flowing river Can't help but breathe it in For the time being, it feels good And the moment matters The freedom to draw a cube on a piece of paper and to feel good about it; to think it's beautiful I am ignoring him now I don't care about what he's saying So I'm choosing to be free of it Regret is senseless, and I do my best to avoid it To breathe it out when it starts to creep back in Instead, I focus on the moment, And on what matters On shading the cube It matters to me

It’s easy to get caught up in the game, the game that chews you up and gurgles you and spits you out if you’re lucky. Realizing this, the piece did its best to avoid the big hand, the hand that rolled and craved, more than anything, for a landing on Boardwalk. An intense fear gripped the piece whenever this hand reached for it. It knew others endured the same frenzied flights away from the hand’s grasp. Some got swept up by it, and others hopped out of the way, but they were all afraid of it. It came as a relief, a tremendous blessing and a breath of calmness, to encounter another piece that shared the strong desire to get off the board altogether, to hop onto the floor and roll somewhere safe, down a vent or under a couch. Even being eaten by a dog or taken as cheese by a mouse might be preferable to the alternative. Annihilated by an overwhelming sense of dread, bursting with an energy inside it, the piece began to grow, and stubs sprouted from it, stubs that grew to limbs, lim...

The Mutterer sits muttering to himself, and biting his fingernails. He is a mangy beast, and his claws have grown jagged. He resides in a cave, in a hillside, and he mutters to himself all day. He mutters things like, “I want to leave this cave,” but the steep hillside always stops him before he can get far. So instead, he does things like listening to his heartbeat, and examining the patterns of stone formations on the walls and ceilings of his dwelling place. He breathes and sits and mutters. Speaking in full sentences, to others who listen for him to say something, is too hard, so instead he mutters. Muttering is, for him, freedom. A total lack of expectation. He says nothing, is content. Muttering to himself binds him and it frees him. It keeps him in his cave and it ensures his continuing comfort. He finds not much to complain about. He finds no desire to talk to anyone except himself. That is why muttering is enough for him. No one else would be as good at listening to what he m...

Chemicals drag us around. You can feel them coursing through you, when you stop and let it in. It’s a fibrous liquid, and it pulls at every part of you at all times. Stop trying, because it ends up dragging you everywhere. It is fate and physical control. Mock its power and it comes back to jerk you away. It’s a hell of a beast. Stop trying to do something different because it always does the same. It’s not bad, it shouldn’t make you feel bad. Stop trying, you’re trying too hard again. The right stimulus is impossible to find, so stop trying to find it and just go and let the movements occur. Light in all your fingertips and heavy in the chest. Gulping. Stare at the space between the point formed by your thumbs, and think about shapes for a minute or two, or ten or twenty. Start counting. Try to find calm. It’s a storm, and the ground is rocking. Crashing and thrusting its contents all about, dislodging that which it holds up. This is called perfection. Perfection is this. What you cre...

Writing with my thumbs, not sure that I should be writing right now. Might be making myself do it. Something beautiful. Remembered it tonight. A good time. Recall. Smiling. Anxiety in the chest, like tightness. Breath. Singing to myself. In another place. Doing what feels good. Trying to. Many things vie for attention and allegiance. Silence again. How? Sleep. May I? Write in the dark. Could be darker. Time is a thing. Bad. What is the threshold? Meaningless. Useless? Worthless? Not worthless. Simple. What you need. Enjoy it and don't stop. Try. Bad. Cycles can be vicious. No insights. Just fleeting thoughts.

“He hadn’t the slightest idea what to write, or if he should be writing in the first place. In sixth grade the asphalt was new. The yellow painted lines were brilliant and they let us play our game. Four-square, it was. We had a pact. It was bullshit, we were little shits, but we had a truce. The four of us would stay in there forever, it seemed, bouncing the ball back and forth to one another until The Great Betrayal (which was actually a number of betrayals). I was never The Betrayer, I was always The Betrayed. I don’t think that makes me any better than them, I was a willing participant in our practice of social stratification on the blacktop. So, Jane would slide the ball with all the strength of a sixth-grader into the corner of my square, and out it would fly, and with it my hopes and dreams of eternal neutrality, undying friendship, unwavering trust. And to the back of the line I’d go, until my next turn. These flashes came to him sometimes, flashbulbs burning for a moment. ...

If I told you to wait a second, it would mean the same thing as “wait a moment.” Second = moment. Of course, that isn’t entirely true. A second is a quantitative, measured, precise unit of time, albeit a totally arbitrary one that someone somewhere decided meant something. But now it means something real, something specific. But a moment is a little bit more abstract. It’s like a second but looser. It’s got the same stuff in the middle but it might extend out on either side, or it might recede inward, it might be shorter than a second, infinitesimally small until no one nowhere at no time has invented a quantitative unit small enough to express the idea of the moment anymore. But for us, a second is basically a moment, because of the way we structure our lives and think about time. I’m not sure if that’s a bad thing or not. I don’t really care about the strict, formal distinction between the two. I only care about it for the purpose of understanding the commonly-espoused life motto “li...

Fuck it, if it happens it happens. You can go, just go. You gotta just let it go how it goes. You gotta close your eyes and say goodbye to that shit. Only let the other stuff get in. That’s all that’s worth it. You’re thinking it as you’re walking, I know you’ve been there. Of course I do, I am God! I made you, so of course I know. I’m lying, of course. Did I get you for a second? I am not God. I’m just waiting for pizza. I have to be in front of the building by 10:36. I am supposed to be home by now, but I’m not. That’s how it is. We’re here. 10:36. Only a few minutes left. Stop trying to make the time pass. It’ll pass whether or not you try. Stop putting energy into it! 10:36 is closing in. Gotta get home soon. What’ll happen if I don’t? Don’t care to find out. The walls are taller than me and the darkness makes the buildings look even taller. Oh boy, I might have messed up. No going backwards, ever. No use trying! Go forward, move ahead. This is not plagiarism. This is just the nat...

Sometimes, you get stuck. In mud. It’s a thick mud, and it weighs you down. Not in a soul-crushing, demoralizing way. Just in a way that slows you down and makes it hard to move. You can look around. You can still move your head and your eyes and you can breathe fine. The mud isn’t poisonous, luckily, and it feels fine enough on your skin. It’s just gunky. Gets in your joints, stops the gears from moving, and keeps you from wanting to get the gears moving again. Feeling stuck, he takes a deep breath and plunges into the mud. He opens his eyes and, lo and behold, he can see! It’s a clear sort of mud. It’s an ocean of mud. Like coffee. But thicker. He comes up for air and he is somewhere else. He thinks he is somewhere else, although the mud seems to have gotten in his ears, toyed with his brain a little bit. It might be making him forget. He closes his eyes and lets himself sink back down into the mud and be enveloped by it. He tries to allow the mud to do whatever it wants to him...

Things I hate: Corporations, but not enough to do anything about them.  Aimlessness, but not enough to do anything about it.  Perhaps I don’t exactly hate aimlessness, but it’s something that I feel I might be better off without. It’s something that can be crushing, and that can make me feel like I’m wasting something. Time, I guess, or youth, or life. Another part of me leans in a different direction. In a “fuck it, I’ll do whatever the fuck I want to do whenever the fuck I want to do it” kind of direction. It seems, though, like human nature, or some kind of fucky, unseeable force, won’t let me fully embrace such a worldview. A balance seems in order. I’m not good at balancing. I have friends who are. I have friends who seem able to walk along near-tightropes with confidence. They might be struggling more than I can tell, but...I can’t tell. So, you want to bring down a corporation or two, but you don’t want to leave the coffee shop. You’re privileged as fuck. Y...

By the time he realized what happened, it had already been another lifetime. The day he awoke arrived without a jolt. Through the foggy indistinctness of half-sleep, he opened his eyes and the dream ended. Not all at once. The alarm — he could have sworn there was a fire alarm going off. And then, the sound on the table beside him, his eyes, blurry shapes, colors, the world… again. It took him a few moments to come to any sort of terms with this new world, this second place that seemed to exist. Things had been just fine back there. The grass, freshly mowed, dumped into the bin on the side of the road. He was standing there, squinting down the street in the late afternoon sunlight, wondering where the electrician was — and then it was all gone, and he was here. Soon, things weren’t blurry anymore, and he realized that he was in bed. An odd revelation, to be sure, as it wasn’t his bed. Or… no, it was his bed. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t the bed he’d had the night before, but it was t...

It occurred to me that the thoughts in my mind are too complicated for me to comprehend, or at least too intricate to grasp completely, holistically, at any given moment. What that seems to suggest is pretty damn fascinating. Consider an analogy: a story written down on a piece of paper by an author. The story exists, but it cannot comprehend itself. The analogy may be somewhat faulty since the paper is actually inanimate and cannot “comprehend” anything, but I think it’s still telling. No one would ever claim that the paper itself, the story itself, represents the whole picture. It’s the story in context, the fact that the story emerged from the author’s thoughts, that makes it a joy to read. Words on paper are meaningless and orderless and cold. The words cannot fathom the act of writing, of creation. That’s the author’s job. The author is, in the case of consciousness or awareness, I suppose, natural selection, but that isn’t really my point. I’m more interested in the sticking poin...