What was ashamed to miss in 2018

The best films, books, TV shows, games and albums. Choosing "Medusa"

"Black Panther"

Director Ryan Kugler

Revolutionary film comic from Marvel studio. Director Kugler is not only a native of independent cinema (his debut defeated Sandens), but also a black one: earlier, African Americans did not dare to trust the production of films with a comparable budget. The bet was justified - the picture with lightning speed entered the training leaders, having broken many records, at the same time receiving excellent estimates from critics and nominations for serious prizes. The Black Panther has incredible costumes and scenery, high-class action scenes, a smart script, the soundtrack of Kendrick Lamara and the absolute minimum of white characters in the history of Hollywood blockbusters.

"Cold War"

Director Pavel Pavlikovsky

Compact and concise, while global in their artistic tasks of Kinoproman; The next Polish film of the creator of Ida after a hurricane success of the previous picture. Unlike Ida, there is a wide coverage of time (about twenty post -war years) and the place (Warsaw, Berlin, Bucharest, Paris, Berlin) of action. In the center is the love story of a musician-intellect and singer from the people, inspired by the history of the director's parents. A prize for directing Cannes and five awards of the European Film Academy, including for the best film of the year.

"Summer"

Director Kirill Serebrennikov

The most successful and integral picture of the world famous theater director, which is currently under house arrest, was paradoxically completed after his detention. A piercing and complicated film about the nature of creativity and envy, about the victory over the system and its own nature, about secondaryness and originality. The “summer” has a unique atmosphere, amazing acting and wonderful music. Despite the grunts of old rockers, the audience and critics accepted the film warmly.

"Rome"

Director Alfonso Koaron

The best picture of the creator of Harry Potter and Prisoner of Azkaban and the glorified “gravity”. And also the third consecutive black and white tape in this small list. Director Kuaron returned to his own childhood-Mexico City of the early 1970s-in order to tell partly the truthful, partly invented story of the life of his own nanny. Virtuoso and deeply personal work - immersion into the past, which instantly responds in the present.

"The house that Jack built"

Director Lars von Trier

The crisis, but the interesting film of the Danish genius is a monumental study of the nature of violence and creativity. Matt Dillon (his best role) plays a serial killer, devoid of any emotions, except for pride; He sincerely considers his crimes to be works of art. With this provocative picture, Trier, after a seven -year break, returned to the Cannes Festival, where he again called the scandal - about a hundred people left the premiere show, outraged by what he saw on the screen. What did not prevent the others from arranging a standing ovation in the final.

"Round". Anna Nemzer

The novel of the journalist Anna Nemzer is the best evidence that Russian literature is gradually selected from under the cotton blanket of Soviet injury and addresses the topics more fresh and relevant. Transgens, polyiamoria, Russian rap, verbatim as a stylistic basis and a scandal with oppression of gays in Chechnya as the basis of the plot-Nemzer seems to draw inspiration in the news feed, at the same time convincingly showing that this material is so good for creating a truly large, deep intellectual prose no worse (in fact-much better) than the infinite) Reflection about our common recent past.

"Offers inside." Ksenia Buke

The stories of the Petersburgers Ksenia Bustshi are grouped around one geographical dominant-the trajectory of the 306th minibus, which the characters are waiting for, on which they drive or which they simply look from the windows. Having appeared in one story in a brief episode, in the future the heroes arise again - already as protagonists, or simply flash on the periphery of reader vision, creating the effect of a large, coherent, inhabited world. Formally, all the texts of the collection somehow turn to the topics of gloomy and dramatic - orphans, madness, death. However, the nature of the writer's talent is such that any “chernukha” in its performance becomes the foundation for prose simultaneously painfully realistic and comfortingly optimistic. In a word, if in Russian prose someone can claim the title of “Russian Alice Manro”, then this is definitely Ksenia Buke.

"Brisben." Evgeny Vodolazkin

The new book of Yevgeny Vodolazkin reveals to us a new line of his talent - musical, verbal, almost sound: the whole Brisben is, in fact, not a novel, but a real two -voice fugue. The chapters telling about the Kiev childhood and the St. Petersburg youth of the hero, the guitarist Gleb Yanovsky, are intertwined with the chapters of his maturity and world success, creating a striking polyphonic effect. Two stories, two voices merge into a single melody, the leitmotif of which, as in notes, is driven out by key concepts: love, music, death, faith, immortality. However, in addition to the amazing gravity of Brisben, this is also the most personal and emotional novel of Vodolazkin, for the first time in his entire writer's career, which allows you to see behind the prosaic lines of a living, real, warm person.

"One story." Julian Barnes

“Most of us have only one story ready,” Barnes writes at the beginning of his novel. - Do not understand the Blind - I do not at all claim that only one event happens in the life of everyone. Countless events are taking place, they can be folded about them as many stories. But one single; Ultimately, only it is worth telling her. ” Such a story that determines the whole future life, for the 19-year-old sex, a native of a boring bourgeois suburbs, becomes a long-term, at first piercing-sustaining, but the further, the more a painful romance with a 48-year-old Susan. Balancing on the verge of artistic prose and essaysties, intentionally removing all secondary details from his story, Barnes turns the ordinary story of one not very happy love into a universal and, for all its chamber, is a powerful existential drama.

"Beauty is grief." Eka Kournian

Without exaggeration, the most unexpected book of the year, which actually grown from scratch, without a nutritious cultural substrate, a large -scale, crowded and exciting Indonesian family saga, combining a genuine story with a dizzying phantasmagoria. The unusual and diverse biography of the prostitute is the Devi Ayu, the half-Hollanders-Poluyanka, and her three daughters (two beauties and one ugly) becomes for Kourniana the acting model of the entire Indonesian life of the last hundred years, which allows us to talk about colonial injury, about the Japanese occupation, and about the post-war growth of communist influence, and about it about it. Change of post -colonial dictatorship, and about the bizarre Javanese mythology.

"Sympathetic." Viet Than Nguyen

The hero of the novel Viet Than Nguen, an American of Vietnamese origin and the Laureate of the Pulitzer Prize in literature, offers a paradoxical, unpleasant-stereoscopic and highly relevant (including Russia) view of the history of the Vietnam War. The hero of the "sympathetic" is an extremely successful Viet Kong agent in the troops of the pro -American south. The duality of his position (as well as the habit of looking at things that organically inherent in any intellectual) does not allow him to unconditionally accept the rightness of any of the parties, turning his soul into the arena of a full -scale ancient tragedy that entails fatal consequences for both the hero himself and for those who surround him.

"Killing Eve"

The most witty series of the year is a spy thriller that can be truly funny and looks in a gulp. It is even difficult to reconcile that he was nominated for the Golden Globe as a drama, and not as a comedy. The heroines - the killer and the detective - are perfectly dispensed with without men; The viewer does not know which of these two women to wish for good luck, and playing cats in the UK, then in France, then in Russia.

"Maniac"

The most strange series of this year is with mechanical dogs, abduction of lemurov, an invasion of aliens, hunting for elves, a gangster masquerade and a computer who fell in love with a person. Behind a series of science fiction attractions, a fragile story is hidden about how two loneliness met. The visibility with which the series analyzes the psychological injuries of the heroes, and the audience inspires to figure it out. Given that the number of people with mental disorders in the United States is approximately equal to the HBO and Netflix subscriber bases, there is something in this. And yes, the “maniac” was made by a dream team: directed by Carey Fukunaga, actress and producer Emma Stone, actor John Hill and Showranner Patrick Somervil, known for the series “left”.

"Sharp objects"

The exact opposite of the “maniac”: a study of depression that does not entertain, but suppresses. The series will be remembered not only by the selfless act of Amy Adams, Sofia Lillis and Patrish Clarkson, but also by the incredibly complex design of each frame. “Sharp objects” now and then you need to pause-otherwise you can miss a brilliant and cunning game that the director Jean-Mark Valle, the scriptwriter and writer Gillian Flynn and Showranner Marty Knox (one of the authors of Buffy) started with the audience consciousness.

"Call DiCaprio!"

The skillfully written and shot series about all the most important: about love as an epidemic, ambitions, fidelity, betrayal and money, which one brother scatter along the street with contempt, and the second then, burning with shame, collects. Unlike “bitter” - another modern classics from the director Zhora Kryzhovnikov - in “Call DiCaprio!” The audience cannot be saved by alienation from the heroes. Here, from the first scenes, a painful effect of presence is created. It is not by chance that the series asks the viewer the direct question "What will remain after you?" -Still, this is a very accurate essay on the morals of modern citizens.

"Ordinary woman"

The series of Boris Khlebnikov, who neglects the many rules of television and the following to the next main one: the unraveling of secrets should elude the viewer. And there was no more exciting intrigue this year on our television. How did the ordinary woman become the mistress of the brothel? What broke her husband? Who killed a prostitute? Will a gloomy detective find a corpse - or will he sniff halfway? Will the heroine’s daughter fall on the network that her own mother placed? And why do we generally empathize with all these people? In the pursuit of answers, you can not notice that half the season is the series (and with him the audience) circles in the same places.

Red Dead Redemption 2

Platforms: PS4, Xbox One

The New York Times called Red Dead Redemption 2 a real art - and at the same time the main blockbuster of the season. The game puts the history of colonial America in six capacious chapters and two small but sonorous epilogue - 40 hours of the tragic interactive theater come out in total, which, despite the presence of cowboys and “Pinkertons”, will very accurately rhyme with modernity.

The main characters Red Dead Redemption 2 are tired bandits who dream of sailing to Tahiti, where, it seems to them, freedom will come again. True, nothing will succeed in the thugs - and they themselves know about it.

God of War (2018)

Platform: PS4

At The Game Awards 2018 God of War was called the main game of the year. This is a piercing story about the Father-half-nin, who sincerely does not understand how to approach his mortal son Atreus-he, in turn, does not know how to justify the hopes of an almost omnipotent (and very demanding) father. Their inability to show feelings is clearly visible in some scenes: for example, Kratos at the moment of fleeting pride behind Atreus pulls his hand, afraid to pat his son on the shoulder.

Everything else is the author’s row-muy, smashing Greek and Scandinavian myths. Here you can, for example, look at the global snake, encircling the lake of nine, take a walk around the world of the elves, the alvheim, and grab the frightening god Baldrum.

Marvelʼs Spider-Man

Platform: PS4

Marvelʼs Spider-Man is a bright and carefree superhero, which is possible that everything that was dreamed of when viewing the adaptations of Sam Reimi, Mark Webb and John Watts: to intercept the control of a spider-man and start to perform acrobatic jumping with a web from a skyscraper to a skyscraper.

The unambiguous triumph is the most glorious and spectacular finds of the Marvel cinema and the main video games of recent years, which finally thought of marrying in one project. And even the best New York, the best Peter Parker, the best Mary Jane and the definitely best embodiment of the villains who have ever appeared in video games about Spider-Man. And do not miss the scene after the credits!

Gris

Platforms: PC, Mac, Nintendo Switch

GRIS talks about depression and internal fears. What is characteristic, without words, only through color and watercolor drawings. At the very beginning, the main character loses her voice, but with each level she discovers in herself more and more abilities, and also the strength to move forward and win her fears. The whole game is a continuous metaphor for overcoming anxieties and mental disorders. It turns out beautifully - and useful.

Return of the Obra Dinn

Platforms: PC, Mac

A monochrome fantastic detective about the tragedy on a ghost ship from Lucas Pope, author Papers, Please-the legendary indie game about the hard work of border control. Monumental work, the creation of which took four years. The protagonist Return of the Obra Dinn is an insurance appraiser arriving at a merchant ship, where out of 60 crews of the crew for some reason there were not a single one.

With the help of an artifact, which helps to restore the circumstances of the death, the player does not so much unravel the riddle of the ship, but spy on the dead passengers. Return of the Obra DINN looks like a comic book in which every scene can be seen from all sides, as if climbing inside the frame. This is one of the most stylish and visually rich games in 2018 - despite the fact that it can be easily taken on old computers and even “macbooks”.

Monetka - "Coloring for adults"

As far as there were no unambiguous favorites in the Anglo-American pop music, everything was so obvious in Russia. It's nice when your predictions come true; It is even more pleasant when reality surpasses all expectations. Two weeks after the release of the album “Coloring for Adults” from the song “Each time” it was just right to hide in shelter; Six months later, it is obvious that this is not a one -time outbreak: a coin - for a long time (confirmation - at least the latest essay “ I don’t want to know anything ”). The 20-year-old native of Yekaterinburg Elizaveta Girdimov, who began with funny song-memes, updated the language of the Russian pop, making it, as they say, again the great: simultaneously touching and ulcerative, simple and elegant, smart and understandable. Separately, it is worth noting the sound that Victor “BCH” Isaev made here: it would be right if he became the new producer-demiurge-Igor Matvienko and Maxim Fadeev clearly sat in these positions.

Komsomolsk and new songs in Russian

2018 is the first year in a long time, when the songs in Russian got rid of the dictatorship of the recitative. No, with hip-hop in Russia, everything is still good, just with the rest also became better-and not a single coin. There is a wonderful group Komsomolsk , which can turn memes from Twitter into graceful songs about youth in a big city. There is buckwheat , which proved digital chronicles of digital, that in Russian guitar music there are still undeveloped female role and tonality. There is a heart orchestra “ Red Banner Division of my grandmother ”, which recorded his most tragic, topical and simply the best album. There is an amazing Murmansk group “Wooden Whales” , which combined Shugaiz with the romantic of the Soviet stage. There are SBPCh , which once again overwhelmed themselves and composed two hits for eternal storage. There are ShortParis that successfully expand the notions of what kind of songs and concerts are. And from somewhere on the side, outlandish songs of groups with wild names like “Hadn Dadn”, “Ritual Services”, “The constellation” and “Lemniscat Petrikor” are heard from somewhere on the side. Also very good.

Ic3peak - "There is no more death"

The visual symbol of the fall of 2018 is the time when the state unexpectedly reached new music. The ubiquitous cancellations and disruptions of concerts have already received in the recent history the heading “Bans of rappers” - although only Husky and Elja were seriously injured from rappers. "Fredson" and IC3PEAK - completely different. What it was was not clear to the end; It seems that the most logical explanation is a series of coincidences due to the onset of an updated Puritan morality (it is also sometimes called "traditional values"). One way or another, IC3PEAK is a special case: a group that began with a merciless rave switched into Russian, looked around and made a song and a clip that proved that music in Russia can still be dangerous. At least from the point of view of security forces.

Rosalia and Triumph women in music

Lists of the best albums compiled by world musical publications clearly confirm that we live in the #Metoo era: upstairs are almost exclusively women who sing about their rights, about their problems, about their desires and their forms. Выбор широкий: Митски и ее умный сложносочиненный рок, Жанель Монэ и ее активистский Rʼn'B, Карди Би и ее гиперсексуальный рэп, Софи и ее футуристическая поп-музыка, Noname и ее экспериментальный соул, Tirzah и ее аскетическая исповедальная электроника — и так далее. Из всех этих замечательных женщин мы вынесли в заголовок испанку Розалию Тобеллу, которая тонко и драматично переносит свое родное фламенко в пространство современной поп-музыки.

Against All Logic — «2012 — 2017»

Сюрприз года: 70 минут неотразимой музыки для неторопливой вечеринки, которую, как выяснилось, последние пять лет в свободное от другой работы время сочинял чилиец Николас Жаар, один из самых интересно мыслящих электронных музыкантов мира. «2012 — 2017» — обаятельная и уютная запись, которая в каком-то смысле показательна для электроники 2018 года: кажется, обошлось без эпохальных прорывов, зато было много безусловных жанровых удач. Из самых очевидных — DJ Koze с его одомашненным техно, Yves Tumor с его причудливыми шумовыми песнями, Oneohtrix Point Never с его тревожно-лирическим эмбиентом или ветераны Mouse on Mars с их джазовым умствованием.

Childish Gambino - "This is America"

Американская поп-культура в 2018 году главным образом пыталась разобраться, что случилось с ее страной, — и не могла. Клип актера и музыканта Дональда Гловера — образцовый манифест этих поисков: визуальный ребус , отсылающий одновременно к Библии, печальной расовой истории США и не менее печальной современности; разобранный на мемы театр жестокости, ставящий вопросы, на которые нет ответа; произведение, в котором посыл важнее, чем оболочка (сама песня, откровенно говоря, просто посредственная).

Александр Горбачев, Антон Долин, Максим Иванов, Егор Москвитин, Галина Юзефович

Фото в анонсе: Кирилл Кухмарь / ТАСС / Vida Press