Annual: The Films of 2018 - Part III

NOW we got stuff to debate about!

EVERYTHING I'VE SEEN IN 2018

#67 - 51

#50 - 41
#40 - 31

** Further evidence Willem Dafoe is one of the best actors of all time: 

#40. At Eternity's Gate

The Bottom Line: Like watching paint dry.
Gorgeous, stunning paint.

(Also, Willem Dafoe! Hey! Look at him go!)
 

At Eternity’s Gate, like a Van Gogh painting itself, is beautiful in its divisive artistry. The cinematography is the stuff of gorgeous imagery, mostly of landscapes during the magic hour of sunsets over stunning mountains and meadows. This only accents Van Gogh’s obsession with nature, making for a more poetic connection he has with the troubled world he lives in. There’s so much to grasp here, mostly Dafoe’s range which leaps from estranged madness to shattered sorrow, and the man never once lets up anything less than a straight-up moving performance. This is some of the actor’s best work to date, further cementing him as one of the greatest actors living today. He’s absolutely incredible. Being sad yet sweet, the film is admirable but also contradicting itself. Julian Schnabel’s biopic of the tormented artist is often gorgeous to look at, but run down by a little too shaky of the cam; exuberant to listen to in its elegant classical soundtrack, and yet a little too redundant with its repetitive dialogue. Gate is a delicate and sincere masterwork that somehow feels like it would have cut much deeper had it been a silent film, or even a short film. 

But come on guys, it’s Willem f**king Dafoe. He saves this entire movie. He’s the f**king Catalina Wine Mixer of actors.

POW POW

HERE'S THE WHOLE STARRY NIGHT

*25 points to magic hour

*50 points to Dafoe  

Grade: B-

** Most entertainingly frustrating: 

#39. Widows

The Bottom Line: Viola Davis out here weeping Oscars from her pores and I can’t even make enough money to eat baked beans.

*(x) strong females + (y) critically acclaimed director ÷ 1 Tela Novela twist x 1 fluffy white pooch = 🍅 91%

Ah, another day successfully using math as an adult!

                                

  As a nearly remarkable crime film Widows breaks new ground for director Steve McQueen, as both an entertaining response to his usual soul-crushers (not exactly an easy feat bouncing back from 12 Years A Slave) as well as a complete antithesis to the stereotypical heist movie. Even with a strong female-centric cast Widows accomplishes so much more than just being "a heist movie," and YET, it almost entirely lacks the emotional human drama; the punch of pretty much literally any other McQueen movie.

  It's difficult to complain when you've got the three-punch writer-director-cast with talent that's THIS superb, but the beefs must be squashed... This is a film that deserves to be overall cherished and yet, as it is so overly stuffed with A-list stars (many of whom are throwaway); with absurd plots plummeting from every direction; as the ridiculous twists turn, there is only so much worthwhile crammed down to the very frame and with that, Widows is TRULY a convoluted conglomerate of cinematic admiration at it's FINEST. Not since Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy has a film dared to stir this much excitement behind a near flat-line tone of boldly complex but incredibly muddled plot-lines. Don't get me wrong this shit might get stupid, but it's hella fun to watch. 

READ ABOUT THE WHOLE HEIST HERE

-5 points for disrespect to Jon Bernthal
-15 points for ludicrous plot twists
+50 points to McQueen
+100 points to all the ladies

Grade: C+

** Best proof that Spielberg at his worst is still one of the best: 

#38. Ready Player One

The Bottom Line: A Cliched Circle-Jerk Of Nostalgia

(Which Kinda Gets Away With Being A Cliched Circle-Jerk Of Nostalgia)

*This movie inspired me to read the novel it was based on. The two pieces are VERY different. I debate them HERE.

  In the hands of just about anyone but Steven Spielberg, Ready Player One would have probably been insufferable. Spielberg keeps anything afloat in RPO because it’s essentially a gigantic collection of Spielberg tropes, and since Spielberg is troping... well, himself, he references not just his films but his themes (bear with me, here). Most of the film takes place in a virtual-reality video game; the fictitious CGI world of the The Oasis, and in the movie The Oasis is filled with all kinds of self indulgent nerdy references mashed together; King Kong swings past the T-Rex from Jurassic Park as the DeLorean zips by (which will no doubt result in either smiles or eye rolls). But beyond all the literal Easter eggs, it’s Spielberg’s throwback to old school Hollywood which the film encapsulates in a meta way. By the film’s end, everything becomes so utterly predictable just because of how cliched it all is, but because Spielberg is paying homage to himself, the film has a very weird way of getting away with being tropey. Good can defeat evil, and the poor, small town kid can win the game, get the girl, and form a resistance of unlikely heroes to take down a big corporation (and you’ll feel like you’ve seen this kinda movie a hundred times). 

Because Spielberg is a wizard, he makes even the most predictable Hollywood fluff feel special.

*5 points to Stevey

*10 points to the Iron Giant who can never catch a break. MF's always getting blasted, shot; always falling down, catching fire, come on this dude ain’t hurting nobody

Grade: B-/C+

#37. Green Book

The Bottom Line: The sweetest movie about a non-homosexual relationship between two interracial men during Christmas time since Die Hard (*checks notes*). Wait, were John McClane and Carl Winslow gay together? I know nothing.

All I know is, Viggo spent years getting in shape for this movie, folding entire pizza pies in half before eating them so that he could look like a Stromboli. Also, Mahershala Ali is so goddamn charming he’s IMPOSSIBLE to dismiss. For everything else, of course the film (based on the true story of two real-life friends HOW PRECIOUS) is poignant in its racial morals; its depiction of friendship, and its hard-hitting themes of diversity in a bygone era of movies about chauffeur drivers, which probably would have rewarded it Best Picture in 1990. Sure there’s white guilt, actual conversation about fried chicken being black people’s food, and obviously Viggo pretty much spends the film shouting, “AY, I’M DRIVIN HEEUH” (all these points up for debate of course), but director Peter Farrelly is also responsible for Movie 43, so to call Green Book progressive would be a double entendre, and that’s something to celebrate.

P.S. Mahershala is a real banger on that piano! Pun intended?

*awkwardly shuffles away*

Goodnight, everybody!

*5 points to Viggo
*5 points to Mahershala  

Grade: C+

#36. Ghost Stories (2018 US Release)

The Bottom Line: A Superbly Well Crafted, Legitimately Spooky Movie

(Which Also Feels Like A Glossy TV Special)

As a horror fanatic I was surprised that Ghost Stories was as clever, cheeky or intelligent as it was; I was also thrilled that the film wasn’t afraid to be as ballsy and well crafted with its scares. All hard work aside, the film also exhausts itself with repetition and a divisively familiar ending. To clear things up, this is a British anthology film that follows three different cases. When it comes to the craft, Ghost Stories is superb. It's incredibly well shot (the cinematography and locations are lush and haunting); the acting is top dog (Alex Lawther [End of the F**king World] is gonna nab some kind of award one of these days); and the scenarios are legitimately terrifying (jump scares aside, it’s got some frightening imagery). But with all that, the film has a polarizing ending stringing together all three anthology stories in a formula which is at once very rewarding but also lazily familiar. It aims for a modern, British-horror retelling of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, if not a more glamorous episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? 

But hey, Martin Freeman is in it, and Martin Freeman is the man.

*10 points to Freeman*
*5 points to Lawther* 

Grade: B-

** Best use of Skrillex: 
** Second Best use of Josh Brolin: 

#35. Deadpool 2

The Bottom Line: Deadpool 22 Jump Street

Not as charming as the first 
(still better than most of the MCU)

The best factor of Deadpool 2 is that it’s bigger which in this case is sometimes better. Considering how low budget and limited the first DP was, seeing the cast expand, the comedy dial up, and the action to double down, DP creating a larger world just works. The problem with DP2 is that as a sequel, let alone a movie in general, it suffers from lots of formula, underwhelming aspects, and being far too meta. For one, most of the cast is shortchanged. Josh Brolin’s Cable is an excellent addition (his chemistry with Reynolds is erotic) but his presence doesn’t impact the film; He’s simply here for plot device. As for Colossus and Warhead, they take the back seat to make room for new characters, while TJ Miller and Blind Al are basically reduced to cameos. That said, Atlanta’s Zazie Beetz is a total babe as the flat-out best new character Domino, who deserves a spinoff of her own as of like, yesterday.

  One of Deadpool’s most charming aspects is that he breaks the fourth wall, allowing the audience to bake in the absurdity, but DP2 is almost TOO self gagging for its own good, crossing into 22 Jump Street territory in terms of withstanding the confidence to function as its own movie without having to make fun of itself. Make no mistake, this is also Deadpool we’re talking about. It exists in a realm that can get away with feeling tiresome because DP can always retreat back to literally reminding the audience of its own nitpickings. It’s like having Reynolds sitting with you in the theater to help mock the movie's flaws. DP2 is a silly movie and it knows it. It can’t keep getting away with this schtick in being overabundantly meta before drilling itself into the ground, but for now it has enough charm to be safe.

And hey, if the comedy won't suffice, at least some of the movie's action sequences and fight scenes are breathtaking.

READ ABOUT THE WHOLE X-FORCE HERE

+5 points to Brolin
+10 points to Beetz
+10 points to the parachute scene
+100 points to the baby legs

Grade: B/B-

** Most pleasant surprise: 

#34. A Simple Favor

The Bottom Line: Paul Feig Dark = Gone Girl Lite 

(Also. Blake Lively is a total babe)

Yes, Paul Feig, master and commander behind Bridesmaids and Lady Ghostbusters of all things, has crafted a crime-detective noir starring Blake Lively but mostly Anna Kendrick, and I’m here to report that in its own self contained experiment for Feig, the film is shockingly remarkable. While Feig truly can’t escape his tropes; mostly with self aware characters poking fun at their awkward situations via silly humor, he clearly wanted to expand his genre potential and with Favor’s ever-shifting plot with legitimate twists, he nails it, even if a means to only make satire of the crime-detective noir genre.

  By using elements that date all the way back to The Maltese Falcon, Feig has clearly done his detective homework, leaving no possible twist unmentioned or un-winked at. The film rests on a basis of classic murder/mystery thriller tropes but always with a keen eye that’s almost entirely self aware, which is completely sold by the film’s charming leads. While Feig exploits Blake Lively’s sexuality to an advantage, portraying her as both femme fetale and villain, he gives the entire film to Anna Kendrick in what is arguably her best comedic leading performance to date. The strength to Favor is that it starts as a simple mystery and like any good noir, it unravels into something else entirely. Feig is not afraid to get dark and push the film’s boundaries, even if much of this experience will often feel like drinking  ‘Gone Girl Light.’ 

READ ABOUT THE WHOLE MOMMY VLOG HERE

  

+100 points to all the ladies
+10 points to Feige for (kinda) branching out
-10 points for all the lack of boobies
+5 points for proper use of “brother f**ker”

Grade: B

** Best use of Josh Brolin: 

#33. Avengers: Infinity War

The Bottom Line: Steve Rogers and the Deathly Stones: Part 1

AKA: Sensory Overload - Overstuffed characters, Little Payoff but Enormous Emotions

Welp. Here it is. The cinematic event of 2018 for nerds everywhere. It's finally happened. The beginning of the end is near. It’s no secret that I’ve spent the last couple years badmouthing Marvel, if only for its formulaic nature and seeming inability to live up to any form of finale that was billed to include 60+ characters. And in many ways, the end result doesn’t quite live up to the hype. Yes, Marvel's magnum Thanos opus impressively ties nearly twenty films together in a coherent fashion (which is by far the biggest accomplishment), but on its own two feet it doesn't work nearly as well as a standalone film so much as a series of random events strung together by references from the last decade. Fanboys deserve a good finale after countless hours of sitting in their underpants piecing all these movies together, and for Thanos to be as hyped as he's been, it's a damn-fine thing that Josh Brolin effectively delivered a quality protagonist (this IS Thanos' movie after all), even if his motivation (while understandable) still feels formulaic.

  No, the film doesn't have much character development but of course it's rewarding for the die-hard nerds. At the end of the day, the half-finale is overstuffed, crammed with countless characters and endless action beats and yet, the Russo bros. STILL manage to pull off a Part 1 as well as Harry Potter did with their finale. It's by no means franchise-best but for all the hype, Infinity War delivers even minimally, on a character scale, an action scale and a scale with a gut-wrenching ending, leaving an inevitably mouth-drooling desire to see what happens next, in this spring's Endgame (Although the obvious plot reset button will make things underwhelming no doubt). Can the Russos pull off the ultimate, grand finale and stick the landing? Who knows, but for now this might be where the franchise peaks, at least in terms of darkness. Hell, it's what inspired my entirely irrelevant ranking of the MCU. At the very least, Infinity War makes the last ten years and near-twenty films of effort feel like they're finally starting to pay off. Me personally, I sorta wish this was the actual end because damn, that’d be a dark kick to the nuts that would stand the test of time.

HERE'S THE WHOLE SNAP

*1,000 points to the ‘Blue Man’ Tobias statue Easter egg in the background of the Collector’s lair

Grade: B/B-

#32. A Prayer Before Dawn (2018 US Release)

The Bottom Line: 

• Do you enjoy Bangkok, boxing, prison and A24 Films?
• Are you dying for A24 to put out a prison-boxing movie set in Bangkok?
• Do you dream of Conor McGregor: The Thailand Years?

Well my friend, have I got the movie for you.

A Prayer Before Dawn is one of the most raw, brutally realistic and uncomfortable depictions of prison or boxing I’ve ever seen depicted on film before. And the fact that it’s based on one man’s memoir of an unbelievable true story only makes the film that much more earnest and heavy to absorb. The fact that real life English boxer Billy Moore not only suffered in a Thai prison but lived to tell the tale makes his journey a harrowing one and incomparable to most. APBD is not Rocky; it’s not a feel-good boxing movie about someone who was wronged and we root for the whole time. This is a broken story about a relatable human man against raw culture and barbaric nature; a depiction of a small criminal being thrown in a wild animal cage. Much of the film is quiet and intimate just as much as it’s loud and chaotic. It’s a testament to spirit and determination and what values of life we hold dear, especially on the brink of death. 

HERE'S THE WHOLE CAGE FIGHT

*5 points to Joe Cole
*10 points to to Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire
*15 points to Thai prison tattoos
Thai prison tattoos are dope af

Grade: B+

** Best depiction of the 90s, maybe ever:

#31. Mid90s

The Bottom Line: A heart wrenching, coming of age tale about a lonely kid who strangles himself with a Super Nintendo controller cable

 AKA:

Good natured kids who perform debauchery?

Cleverly nicknamed after their hobbies and traits?

In a coming of age tale about unlikely friendships?

This is a prequel to Holes.

“That’s why we ride a piece of wood like, what that does to somebody’s spirit”

This movie speaks to the soul, and not with all the pop culture references of Mid90s (mostly in its hip-hop soundtrack branching from The Wu-Tang Clan). The film doesn’t actually crutch the nostalgia as a gimmick, rather than bake it into the background while being a genuine coming of age tale, and for Superbad alum Jonah Hill of all people to direct a debut as small and intimate, but as emotionally poignant as Mid90s shows that the man’s talents have fluctuated almost as much as his weight. While Hill is to praise for being able to accurately capture that awkward middle phase of adolescence, young Sunny Suljic is the beating heart of the film as 13-year-old Steve. As he takes the hardest hits physically and emotionally, there’s a genuine earnestness to Steve’s character that’s admirable due to that middle ground he’s in, where he’s not an adult but still not quite a child. His innocence peaks through the world of debauchery he desires to embrace, be it his childlike excitement when he performs his first skateboard trick by himself, or whether he’s having an older woman awaken him sexually, even minimally. Steve represents the awkward kid in all of his who just wants to fit in, even if it means pulling stupid-ass skateboard stunts in life threatening situations in order to have the cool kids give you a nickname. And for Jonah to tap into that kind of accurate awkwardness makes his debut something to get nostalgic about.

READ ABOUT THE WHOLE DECADE HERE

*10 points to Suljic

*20 points to Jonah

Grade: B+

- #30-21 -