January 1, 2019 • Page 8 shop online at www.missourivalleyshopper.com Year In Review Netflix Named The Associated Press’ Entertainer Of The Year BY MARK KENNEDY AP Entertainment Writer NEW YORK — After a year like this, Netflix shows no signs of chilling. The dominant online video streamer started 2018 with almost 118 million subscribers, went on to win its first feature-film Oscar, briefly surpassed Disney as the most valuable U.S. media company, lured the likes of superstar show runners Shonda Rhimes, Kenya Barris and Ryan Murphy — not to mention Barack and Michelle Obama — and is expected to end the year with 146 million subscribers and a likely best picture Oscar nominee in “Roma.” In a sign of how influential the giant streamer has become, it also got what every celebrity gets — a gentle mocking on “Saturday Night Live.” The sketch comedy show’s season-ending episode this month aired a fake ad highlighting Netflix’s enormous effort to produce as much content as possible. “Our goal is the endless scroll. By the time you reach the bottom of our menu, there’s new shows at the top,” explained the voice over. For a dominating 12 months, Netflix has been named The Associated Press Entertainer of the Year, voted by members of the news cooperative. “There’s been so much amazing entertainment this year, and we’re proud of the part we’ve played and humbled by this recognition from the AP,” Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s chief content officer, said Thursday after being told of the honor. “We are thrilled to be working with the best creators who have helped us to entertain the world with shows, films and specials from Hollywood, Mumbai, Madrid, Seoul, Berlin and everywhere in between.” Netflix topped other candidates including Donald Glover, Ariana Grande, Bradley Cooper and Michelle Obama, among others. Previous AP Entertainer of the Year winners have included LinManuel Miranda, Adele, Taylor Swift, Jennifer Lawrence, Lady Gaga, Tina Fey and Betty White. Though Netflix doesn’t release ratings, 2018 was a year when it seemed to really flex its digital muscles, showing off its deep reservoir of titles, from original unscripted shows to those produced in other countries, to even becoming a home for shows canceled elsewhere. The company that once concentrated on sending DVDs through the mail in little red envelopes scored its first feature-film Oscar in March, with a best documentary trophy going to “Icarus,” Bryan Fogel’s investigation into doping in sports. (Netflix won its first ever Oscar last year with the short doc “The White Helmets.”) Netflix movies, specials and shows were all over popular culture this year, including “The Kissing Booth,” ‘’Nanette,” ‘’To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before,” ‘’The Kominsky Method,” ‘’The Haunting of Hill House,” ‘’GLOW,” ‘’Lost in Space,” ‘’The Great British Baking Show,” ‘’Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat” and “Queer Eye.” ‘’House of Cards” — Netflix’s first original series — debuted just six years ago. It has backed such Oscar bait as “Roma” and “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” and TV fans await more episodes from “Stranger Things,” ‘’The Crown” ‘’Orange Is The New Black” and “Ozark.” The company has even seen the phrase “Netflix and chill” part of the mainstream vocabulary. In May, Netflix’s market capitalization — or the total value of its stock — shot higher than the capitalization for mighty Disney, previously the most valuable media company in the world. The Champagne-popping moment didn’t last very long but it was a sign of how a maverick company could disrupt the order. Netflix then knocked HBO off its longtime perch — 18 years — as the most nominated Emmy Award platform, eventually earning 112 nods. The streaming behemoth would go on to tie the premium cable network with 23 wins at the Emmy Awards. Netflix also dominated the television categories at the Screen Actors Guild Awards with 15 total nods, nearly double any other network. Top filmmaking talent like Martin Scorsese, the Coen brothers and Michael Bay are working for Netflix, and the streaming giant convinced Charlie Brooker to bring his “Black Mirror” to its platform. It hired Channing Dungey from ABC Entertainment and Kira Goldberg from 21st Century Fox. It has promised to spend more than $8 billion on content this year alone. In 2019, Netflix will likely face stiffer challenges from the likes of Amazon, Hulu, Apple, WarnerMedia and Disney, as well as needing to handle its longterm debt. But Netflix is looking for more subscribers in India and South America and the company’s market value is over $100 billion. “At Netflix, we’re always working to give our members great choice and a better entertainment experience, and we’re excited about what’s in store for 2019,” Sarandos said. Year In Review Screening: ‘Burning,’ ‘Cold War’ Top AP’s List Of Best Films Of 2018 but Spike Lee made it even better in “BlacKkKlansman, an explosive and essential treatise on racism Associated Press Film Writers in America with a rallying score, a Jake Coyle and Lindsey Bahr name surprising amount of humor, and their choices for the best films of some unforgettable performances 2018. (from John David Washington and JAKE COYLE Adam Driver). 1. “Burning”: It was, for sure, an 6. “A Star Is Born”: Bradley extraordinary movie year. Little to Cooper’s achievement with “A Star nothing separates my favorite 10 Is Born” is hard to quantify. As an films, or, for that matter, my top 20 actor, he’s never been better as or 30. Many of the year’s best were the self-destructive rock star Jackfound overseas, and none haunted son Maine, who has one gesture me more than Lee Chang-dong’s of love left in his pill and alcohol smoldering slow-burn thriller. An addled body — to help Lady adaptation of a Haruki Murakami Gaga’s Ally reach the heights she short story, “Burning” is about a deserves. And as a director? This triangle of young Koreans (Yoo and Emma Stone set a torch to the is just the beginning, I’d imagine. Ah-in, Jeon Jong-seo, Steven traditional historical drama in Yor7. “Private Life”: Tamara JenYeun — all astonishing) divided gos Lanthimos’ wild and caustic kins found something novel, and by class but united in heartache period romp. wonderfully feminine, to say about and rage. At sunset, with Miles 10. “Zama”: Argentine filmmakmiddle-class New York intellectuDavis playing, it reaches an aching er Lucrecia Martel’s elliptical tale als in this impeccably written and crescendo. of a Spanish magistrate in remote acted story about marriage, fertil2. “Private Life”: Tamara Jen18th century Argentina, adapted ity and hope in middle age, that is kins’ comic and compassionate from Antonio di Benedetto’s novel, humorous, precise and true, and fertility drama is like “Waiting for casts a deliriously hypnotic spell. a great spotlight for the equally Godot” with two of the best actors The vivid, formalist imagery unexcellent Kathryn Hahn and Paul around: Kathryn Hahn and Paul ravels the pathetic absurdities of Giamatti. Giamatti. In a movie year where a colonist whose stature, tenuous 8. “The Favourite”: This movie love that lasts was hard to find, from the start, is disappearing about power struggles in the the searching couple in “Private before his eyes. court of Queen Anne is deliciously Life” made for an affectionate and Honorable mentions: “You deranged, and wickedly cynical, indelible portrait of middle-aged Were Never Really Here,” ‘’The but somehow more accessible and marriage. Hate U Give,” ‘’Eighth Grade,” lighthearted than what we’ve typi3. “First Reformed”: Chiseled ‘’Black Panther,” ‘’Minding the cally come to expect from Yorgos out of a lifetime of doubt, Paul Gap,” ‘’Sorry to Bother You,” Lanthimos. With fiercely fun and Schrader’s late-in-life masterpiece ‘’Roma,” ‘’Free Solo,” “Support the piercing performances from Olivia throbs with an existential despair Girls,” ‘’Let the Sunshine In.” Colman, Emma Stone, Rachel that has hardened into a taut and Weisz and Nicholas Hoult, it’s a tormented religious drama. It’s a LINDSEY BAHR fully engrossing experience that culmination for Schrader— an an1. “Cold War”: Romantic, will leave you looking for some guished bookend to “Taxi Driver,” passionate, tragic and perfectly pearls to clutch (and then smash which he wrote — about a priest unsentimental, filmmaker Pawel on the ground in devious glee). (a never-better Ethan Hawke) in Pawlikowski’s “Cold War” is 9. “Juliet, Naked”: I won’t desperate search for grace. an intoxicating portrait of an pretend like “Juliet, Naked” has 4. “Shoplifters”: The films impossible, cruel and undeniable the gravitas or prestige of most of of Hirokazu Kore-eda unfold so love between a musician, Wiktor the other films on this list, and yet nimbly and breezily that their (Tomasz Kot) and a singer with it is quietly, unassumingly one of profundity (and your tears) can an “it factor,” Zula (Joanna Kulig). the more poignant, and straightcome as a surprise. In this, a highShot in stunningly crisp black and forwardly enjoyable movies of point for Kore-eda and the winner white, Pawlikowski’s film is a trithe year about mid-life second chances, for those who have General Contractor and Specialist never made any mistakes (Rose Byrne’s small-town in Steel Building Construction character Annie), and those • Pre-engineered, all steel construction who’ve made all of them (Ethan Hawke’s elusive, cult • All sizes of buildings available rock star Tucker Crowe). • Material and workmanship warranty 10. “The Ballad of Buster th th Scruggs”: The Coen brothers Specializing in: show off their best tricks in Agriculture this deliriously entertaining Stop and take advantage of prepay discounts for your 2019 Hay Storage Western anthology. It’s the crop inputs including seed, fertilizer, chemicals, and fuels. 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Grid Sampling - Fertilizer - Chemicals - Seed - Fuel Northeast Honorable Mentions: Tabor • 605-463-2565 Tabor Petro • 605-463-2251 Nebraska “First Reformed,” ‘’Burning,” Call for your FREE estimate: Lesterville • 605-364-7522 ‘’Leave No Trace,” ‘’If Beale Northwest Iowa 605-689-7321 Street Could Talk,” ‘’A Simple “Your local leader in agricultural service and supply since 1958” 3608 E Hwy 50 • Yankton, SD • www.jamessteelinc.com Favor,” ‘’Minding the Gap.” BY JAKE COYLE AND LINDSEY BAHR AP Film Writers of Cannes’ Palme d’Or, the Japanese master depicts the ragtag life of a makeshift, impoverished family that slowly, heartbreaking gnaws at the question: What makes a family? The answer is more than DNA. 5. “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.” Take the Coen brothers for granted at your peril. In this, an anthology of six Western tales of death and storytelling, life is a Poker game where everyone’s holding — like the two pair of black aces and eights that Scruggs (Tim Blake Nelson) refuses to play in the film’s first chapter — a dead man’s hand. 6. “Cold War” A stone-cold stunner, the second straight from Pawel Pawlikowski (“Ida”), about a romance torn between exile and home (and based on the director’s parents). Pawlikowski’s command is absolute. His smoky, shimmering images — dense with atmosphere, luminous with mystery — are what celluloid was made for. 7. “The Rider”: Chloe Zhao’s second feature, starring real-life rider Brady Jandreau as an injured South Dakota cowboy forced to give up the only life he knows, is so richly filled with the beauty and struggle of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation where it’s set. Blending fiction with real life, Zhao achieves something spiritual. 8. “Paddington 2”: In an endlessly dispiriting year, Paul King’s charm overload was the go-to antidote, a salve of confectionary delight: marmalade for your maladies. 9. “The Favourite”: It’s just such an irresistible acting spectacle. Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz PrePay Days at Tabor and Lesterville Coop December 26 to January 11 Tabor Lumber Coop umph in an 85-minute package. 2. “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”: Lee Israel is not your typical leading lady, and that’s what makes her so great. You can imagine one version of this movie, about a washed up biographer who starts a side hustle forging personal letters of some of wittiest literary minds of all time, relishing in and exploiting her unglamorous life. But director Marielle Heller and star Melissa McCarthy just let Lee Israel be: Sharp, unpleasant, infuriating, compelling, terrible and heroic. Heller’s early ‘90s New York feels like the real thing too. 3. “Roma”: Alfonso Cuaron’s deeply personal ode to women who raised him, “Roma” is a film going experience like few others — tranquil but urgent, meditative but exciting, and told with pure love and humanity. Like “Cold War,” ‘’Roma” is also shot in black and white, but it rarely feels like it. His images are so vivid and full of life you can almost feel the prism of colors peeking through. 4. “Wildlife”: This adaptation of Richard Ford’s novel about a family in 1960s Montana feels like it was made by someone much older and much more experienced than 30-something, first-time director Paul Dano. And yet he’s made one of the most elegant and heart wrenching examinations of a nuclear American family (Carey Mulligan, Jake Gyllenhaal and Ed Oxenbould) that’s dissolving under capitalist systems and gender essentialism. 5. “BlacKkKlansman”: Ron Stallworth’s story of infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan is a good one,